CHAPTER 1
She had done it. That hairy upstart alien from Earth, transformed into a galactic heroine. The Reapers were dead.
They were, for the most part, physically intact, but their processing cores had disintegrated at the molecular level, leaving only the enervated carcases of what had been the doom of civilisations beyond counting. What the Protheans could not do, or the peoples who came before them, this one soldier had done. And united the galaxy in doing so, to boot. What a woman. Courageous. Noble. Sacrificing...
Liara picked up the photo frame on her desk and held it to her body; rocking slowly back and forth, she struggled once again to summon the philosophical attitude to bereavement she knew a sophisticated, long-lived asari was expected to adopt. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. Every sensible platitude she had once accepted without question now proved echoingly empty. Her lover was gone. Her lover had been on the Citadel and had lit the touchpaper. The Citadel had exploded. Shepard was gone. Shepard, her soldier, who had said she was everything to her. Who had offered her however many years she had. She had kept that promise, but it was a hollow gift, for Shepard had no years to give. Liara's one, bright, shining comfort amid the nightmare of the war had been ripped away in its ending, and now she must endure the peace alone.
She looked out of the window, at the sun rising through the shattered buildings of London. Four days. Four and a half, really. Perhaps she would be able to sleep soon.
The picture was recent. Liara had taken it herself, in the Praesidium Commons, when she had realised she had no photographs of Shepard, like the one of her she had seen in Shepard's quarters on board the Normandy. In it she was wearing not armour, but the cloth fatigues human soldiers wore onboard their ships. It was the same morning Therese had cajoled her into facing her father. That had been... good, actually. Awkward, and she had inwardly scolded Shepard for much of the day, but amid all the loss of the past months, it was one thing she didn't have to regret foregoing.
Maybe she should call her father. She was back on Thessia now, rebuilding. Maybe she knew how long Liara would have to feel like this...
Her console beeped- the VI alerting her to a high priority message. Matriarch Tevos, the asari Councillor, had asked Liara be involved in the project to dismantle and re-purpose the remains of the Crucible- a technically and politically sensitive task since, thanks to Shepard's surprising talent for battlefield diplomacy, every major organic civilisation had been involved in the building of the device, and so, now the danger had abated, all seemed determined to bicker over how to carve it up most equitably. Liara had accepted, partly, perhaps, from a sense of duty, but mostly simply because she could not think of a reason not to. She supposed keeping busy was the sensible thing to do, and, amid the optimistic chaos of a new galactic order, her Shadow Broker contacts were busy establishing new lines of espionage and investigation. There would be much work for her there, but not yet. She could make no decisions without data.
She activated the screen- it might be the Councillor, or a dignitary with a grievance, but it might just as likely be a message of sympathy or concern from one of her friends. Or, should she say Shepard's friends? So many of them she had met through the Commander, and now she lacked the confidence to claim them. Small wonder she had spent most of her life alone. Solitude had never bothered her then, yet now, as it beckoned, she found it frightened her.
The message was from Dr Chakwas. That was somewhat of a surprise- they had not spoken very often, and the doctor was tied up in relief efforts. Liara seemed to recall that engineers had restored power to the Citadel's hospital, and evacuated patients and staff were being returned- hardly her area. She scanned the following message:
Come directly to the Huerta Memorial Hospital. Do not delay. And prepare yourself.
For what? Had someone been injured? Someone she knew personally? Why not name them? She tried to reach Chakwas' office to ask via video link, but was greeted with an out-of-office message delivered by a VI in the form of a talking med pack. Liara rubbed her eyes. The good doctor's eccentricity seemed to go beyond a lack of communication skills.
Nothing for it but to obey the summons, whatever it proved to mean.