[GARRUS VAKARIAN]
The captured officer was batarian. Mid-rank. The kind of career subordinate who knew enough to be useful and not enough to be trusted with anything important.
Garrus sat across from him in the detention cell. The officer's armor had been stripped, wounds treated, wrists bound. His four eyes tracked Garrus with the particular attention of a species that processed two visual fields simultaneously — upper pair on Garrus's face, lower pair on his hands. Watching for weapons, tells, or both.
Webb stood behind him. Leaning against the wall in a posture that had become habitual — the lean of a man who was thinking faster than he was showing. There was blood on his jacket sleeve. He hadn't changed. Garrus noted it, catalogued it, and said nothing.
"Your name," Garrus said.
"Tor'kan. Lieutenant, Free Terminus Fleet."
"Your commander is Khet'sarn. Who's his second?"
"Vortix. Turian. Commands the cruiser Pale Claw."
"Tell me about Vortix."
Tor'kan's upper eyes narrowed. The lower pair stayed fixed on Garrus's hands.
"Vortix was supposed to run this operation. Haven's Point was his target — he scouted it, planned the approach, staffed the warehouse. When the scouts died, Razor pulled rank. Took personal command. Vortix..." The lower eyes shifted. A batarian tell for resentment by proxy. "Vortix wasn't happy."
Webb straightened off the wall.
"Not happy how?"
"Not happy like a man who's been passed over for his own work. Vortix built this operation and Razor stole it. There's been friction. The crews know. The officers know. Everyone pretends not to."
Garrus's mandibles pressed flat. He could see where this was going. He didn't like where it was going.
Webb pulled him into the corridor after.
"Don't," Garrus said.
"You know what I'm thinking."
"I know. And it's wrong."
"Wrong or distasteful?"
"Both. Vortix is a slaver. He runs weapons, traffics people, and commands a cruiser-class warship crewed by mercenaries and criminals. Making deals with him is—"
"Survival."
The word landed between them. Garrus's jaw locked. His mandibles pressed so tight the scarred one ached.
"We have a hundred and seventeen militia. Razor has two hundred troops and fleet support. A second assault breaks through. A third assault kills everyone in that bunker. Those are the numbers." Webb's voice was low. Not angry — weighted. The voice of a man doing math he wished he didn't have to do. "I don't like it either. But dying isn't better."
"And after? When Vortix controls the fleet and decides he wants Haven's Point too?"
"Then we deal with that. But we deal with it alive."
The corridor was empty. The colony hummed around them — generators, recyclers, the quiet sounds of two thousand people trying to sleep while a fleet hung overhead. Garrus stood in the dim light and felt the ground he'd built his career on shifting under his feet.
C-Sec had taught him that right and wrong were categories. Clean lines. You followed the law, you upheld justice, you didn't make deals with criminals because deals with criminals made you a criminal. That framework had carried him for years.
Then C-Sec itself turned out to be criminal. And now he was standing in a Terminus colony, asked to choose between moral clarity and survival. Again.
"If we do this," he said, "I want you to know I think it's wrong."
"Noted."
"And I want you to know I'll do it anyway. Because those people in the bunker matter more than my principles."
Webb nodded. The gesture carried something Garrus couldn't name — not gratitude, exactly. Recognition.
"I need the captured comms equipment from the warehouse team. Their encrypted channel should still be active — Vortix will be monitoring."
---
The call went out at 0200. A narrow-beam transmission on the captured frequency, routed through the colony's comm array with enough encryption to deter casual interception.
Webb composed the message with the precision of someone writing a contract. No emotion. No appeals. Pure transactional language that a turian military officer would respect.
Commander Vortix. This is the colony of Haven's Point. Commander Khet'sarn's assault has failed. Forty-seven of his ground forces are dead. His fleet cohesion is compromised. We propose terms: withdraw your cruiser from combat operations during the next assault. In exchange, we guarantee non-interference with your assumption of fleet command after Khet'sarn's removal. Your position. His fleet. Our colony left alone. Reply on this frequency.
They waited. Two hours. The operations center was dark except for the comm console and the territorial overlay's ambient glow. Webb sat motionless, staring at the console. Garrus stood by the window, watching the Crimson Maw's running lights track across the sky.
The reply came at 0417.
Terms received. Additional condition: Khet'sarn does not survive. I will not fight a deposed commander for succession. Confirm, and my cruiser goes silent when his shuttle launches.
Webb looked at Garrus. The question was in his eyes but he didn't ask it aloud.
"Confirm it," Garrus said. His voice was steady. Everything else wasn't.
Webb typed three words and sent them.
Confirmed. Proceed.
He deleted the comm logs manually. Every record, every timestamp, every frequency marker. His fingers moved across the console with methodical precision, erasing the evidence of a deal that would save two thousand lives at a cost measured in something harder than credits.
Garrus watched from the window. The Pale Claw — Vortix's cruiser — hung in orbit beside the Crimson Maw. Two ships that had arrived as a unified fleet and would leave as something else.
---
The second call was easier. Or at least, more familiar.
Talon Company operated in the sector — mercenaries with a reputation for reliability and a price tag to match. Webb reached their regional coordinator through a public commerce frequency, the kind of channel where legitimate business and criminal enterprise coexisted with practiced mutual blindness.
"Commander Vex." The voice was female, clipped, professional. "Talon Company, regional operations. Identify."
"Marcus Webb. Security Advisor, Haven's Point Colony. I have a business proposition."
"Haven's Point is currently under siege by Razor Khet'sarn's fleet. That's not a business proposition, that's a distress call."
"It's both. Khet'sarn's fleet is about to fragment. His second-in-command is turning coat. When the dust settles, there'll be salvage, prisoners, and a power vacuum in the sector. I want Talon Company positioned to capitalize."
Silence. The particular silence of a mercenary calculating profit margins.
"What do you need?"
"Nothing immediate. I need your company in the area when the siege breaks. To discourage any third parties from taking advantage of the chaos. Your presence, not your guns."
"Presence costs money."
"I'll owe you. Future consideration. Favors to be specified later."
Another silence. Longer.
"Unspecified favors from a colony advisor nobody's heard of. That's thin collateral."
"Then call it an investment. Haven's Point has platinum deposits, infrastructure, and a population. After today, it'll also have a reputation. The colony that fought Razor and won. That reputation has value. I'm offering you first-position access to it."
Commander Vex processed this for eight seconds.
"Talon Company will be in the area. If the situation develops as you describe, we'll ensure stability. If it doesn't, we'll ensure our own interests." A pause. "The debt is recorded, Webb. We collect."
"Understood."
The line cut. Webb sat back in his chair. The operations center's dim lighting made his face look older than it was — the shadows carving lines that hadn't been there a month ago.
Vasquez stood in the doorway. She'd come up from the bunker. Her face was drawn, sleepless, carrying the weight of two thousand civilian lives in the circles under her eyes. She'd heard enough.
"You made a deal with Razor's second-in-command."
"Yes."
"And you made a deal with mercenaries."
"Yes."
"And you're planning to kill Razor."
"Razor won't survive the next assault. One way or another."
She looked at him. The assessment had evolved since their first meeting in the operations center — no longer what are you, but what are you becoming. The distinction mattered, and she knew it.
"The colony council will want answers. After."
"They'll get them."
"Will I?"
"Vasquez, you've kept this colony alive for six years through worse odds than this. You don't need answers from me. You need results."
She held his gaze for three seconds. Then she turned and walked back to the bunker.
The comm console sat silent. The deleted logs left no trace. The deals were made, the pieces positioned, the trap set with the lives of two thousand people as the bait.
Garrus stood at the window. His reflection in the glass was translucent, ghostly — a turian shape superimposed on the stars. He hadn't moved since the first transmission.
"Vortix confirmed. When Razor lands, his cruiser won't provide support fire."
"I heard."
"Garrus."
"Yeah."
"This is the part where it gets ugly."
The turian's reflection shifted. The mandibles moved into an expression that wasn't a smile and wasn't a grimace. Something between. Something that belonged to a man who'd crossed a line and was still walking.
"It was already ugly, Webb. Now it's just honest."
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