Page 49 of Claimed By the War Brute
We stay like that for a long moment, listening to the ship’s metallic heartbeat and the slow spin of dying stars outside. The blanket slips off my shoulder as I press my head to his chest, his steady breathing like a balm.
“Promise me something,” I say after a stretch of silence.
He tucks me closer. “Anything.”
“We keep choosing this.” I lift my head, eyes wet but certain. “You, me, this life we’re building. No ghosts.”
Garrus brushes a thumb across my cheek. Electricity zings. “No ghosts,” he echoes.
I sigh, comforted. “I love you.”
He pauses—like tasting flavors he’s never had. Then answers, low and gentle: “I love you too, Syd.”
We drift back into each other, instinctive and soft. There’s no battle plan in our voices, no maps to future fights. Just warmth, connection, the promise of everything to come. The Vigil’s Endmight be a weapon, but here—right here—it winds down into something far more human.
The stars outside swirl on, indifferent yet witnessing. In the hush, with him, space feels less like a void and more like a horizon waiting to be shaped—together.
I open my eyes to the bleak aftermath of hyperspace—stars roaring past like shards of ice, the Vigil’s End shuddering under my hands. I take a breath, then another. The mission’s simple: find Solus Vell’s blacksite in Bracka Field and pulverize it. No problem. But the system ID reads Horus Echo Station, and those words scrape against my bones like acid.
Syd, at my side, senses it too. “Garrus, that station…”
“Echo Station,” I growl, fingers tightening on the throttle. My throat feels dry, memories flooding in: the first missile strike, friends screaming in unison, the sickening tremor of the hull giving way. I force it down. My growl shakes the console. “We go in.”
She rolls her shoulders as we drop from FTL. “Right behind you,” she whispers.
The station drifts before us—an iron carcass torn open, cables hanging like entrails. We slip through the gash, debris thumping against the hull, sensors wailing. I guide us deeper, dodging broken antenna spines, crumbling catwalks.
Inside, it's a maze of smashed corridors bathed in strobing red emergency lights and black coolant drips. The air tastes of rust and burnt circuitry.
I lock eyes with Syd. “Entry point in three. Ready?”
“On your six,” she answers, tone steady as grave markers.
I claw my way through a burst hatch, grenades armed and ready. Behind me, Syd hits the deck, her sleek frame a ghost in black armor. We burst through kinetic traps—a riot of sparks and sizzling laser.
“Sniper,” Syd hisses. A crimson bolt sizzles past my ear. I stamp my foot and toss a flashbang, the cramped hallway erupting in cephalic thunder.
“These walls talk,” I grit out, diving into the side corridor. I shoot a stub-hull bot, shotgun thunder fracturing metal plates off its chest, sparks showering like deadly rain.
Syd’s explosions ring out—remote charges detonate in twisted transformers, plunging sections of the station into darkness.
“Silent now,” she murmurs as alarms scramble back to life.
We cross into the old lab area, half-buried in debris. Vell’s prototype AIs stand dormant, wires snaking like zombified spiders. I almost gag from the stench of old carbon and neuro-compound. My pulse slams.
“Here,” Syd says. She’s wired charges onto coolant lines—one press, lines rupture, flooding the deck with ice-cold fluid that steams in the hot alarms.
I feel freeze creep into my boots. “Nice work.” I snarl, but woods haven’t tamed her sense of humor.
We lurch forward, eyes scanning for signs of containment pods. The station groans, metal whines under the stress.
We reach the core chamber: a cathedral-scale dome with power coils suspended like defiled icons. Sparks flicker, wires hiss. Standing there, lit from beneath by electrical arcs, is Vell’s holo—lean, cocky, naked arrogance.
“Vakutan war hero,” he purrs. “Taking nostalgia tours?”
I squeeze the grenade with claws white. Syd swivels, reloading her pistol.
“ner words,” I say, stepping forward. “Just the end.”
