Author's Note: In my haste to get my story posted, I accidentally posted my unedited version to the website. I didn't manage to notice this until I was reading back through the first chapter looking for continuity errors. I have now edited the chapter and posted it again. I hope you all enjoy my take on EA's and Bioware's IP. All credit goes to them for giving us such a wonderful universe to play around in.
...
Liara stared slack jawed at the extranet terminal in front of her, the display showing all related information to the topic which had dominated her mind since her timely rescue on Therum. Commander Elizabeth Shepard. Hero of Elysium, first human Spectre, and rescuer of archeologists surrounded by geth. Data continued to scroll past as bright blue eyes struggled to keep up. All the information before her was quickly cementing what she already had thought, this Shepard was something special. Thinking back to her recent escape from an active volcano, Liara struggled to accept all that had happened in the last 3 hours.
…
Shepard, Wrex, and Garrus all leapt down from the remains of the broken elevator onto the catwalks some 10 feet below them. A desperate voice calling from a level below, "Hello? Is anyone there? I could really use some help!" Shepard looked at her two squadmates and made a quick hand motion to follow. Several quick steps had them arriving in front of a blue tinted force field protecting a suspended asari a few feet away from them, a look of relief plastered on her face. "Thank the Goddess. Please, you must help me. I am trapped in this bubble and cannot get out."
Wrex and Garrus took up flanking positions while the Commander stepped forward to converse with the asari in front of her. Crossing her arms and cocking her right leg back, she quickly gleaned a couple things. Though clearly relieved to see them, the asari was not in good shape. Her outfit was stained with sweat, among other less pleasant things, and it was quite obvious to Shepard that she had been there for several hours if not days. Additionally, it was clear that the asari suspended before her was no enemy combatant. A brief introduction brought even more relief to the asari. "Commander Shepard, Council Spectre. I am looking for a Liara T'Soni. You her?"
The asari nodded her head weakly before replying. "I am. I don't suppose you are here to save me? There are several machines commanded by a krogan chasing me. As I fled I encountered this terminal next to me. In my haste to bring up this barrier curtain, I must have hit something by mistake, as the next thing I knew, I was suspended in this security bubble. It is only a matter of time before they find a way to get to me… please help me."
Shepard unfolded her arms and made a stopping gesture. While it was clear that Liara was in dire need of assistance, Shepard could not proceed without more information. "A few questions first, doctor. I am tasked with chasing down a rogue Spectre by the name of Saren. I have evidence that proves your mother, Matriarch Benezia, is allied with him. Do you know anything about your mother's whereabouts?"
Liara's face changed from relieved to pained as the question was asked. "I have not spoken to my mother in many years. Our relationship is… strained. She does not approve of my occupation. Get me out of this trap and I will tell you everything I know about her… please."
Shepard stared at Liara for several seconds before nodding her head in acceptance of her answer. "Alright, the rest of my questions can wait. We'll figure out a way to get to you, just sit tight." Turning to address the turian in the group, "Garrus, see what you can find to get past this barrier. There appears to be a central shaft running down behind Doctor T'Soni, that's our way in. Wrex, with me, we are going to see about clearing the rest of these machines and see if we can't find this krogan the doctor is so worried about."
After several minutes of gunfire, and not a small amount of biotic detonations later, a large explosion rocked the cavern. A few more minutes of silence brought Shepard directly behind Liara as she approached the ancient terminal to the asari's right. A few quick keystrokes and… Liara fell to the ground in a boneless heap, the time spent suspended clearly doing her body no favors. Shepard rushed to her side and handed her a canteen docked on her hardsuit. "Drink this, doctor. It should be enough to get you on your feet for a few minutes."
Liara took the offered drink carefully. While not distrusting of the commando before her, she was still trying to figure out her objective. Her mind raced to catch up with events in an effort to find a way to keep herself alive if at all possible. Taking the cap off of the canteen and pouring a bit of the blue liquid into her mouth caused her eyes to widen and tear up a bit. The bitter drink was clearly not water, but some form of eezo infused energy drink for biotics. Coughing a bit of the liquid up brought Shepard to her side once more, a calming hand on her back.
"Careful with that, it has been a while since you have had anything to drink, you need to take it slowly. We are not in any…" Just as Shepard was finishing her sentence, the whole volcano seemed to rumble. Joker's voice piped into her helmet, "Looks like whatever you did down there woke up that volcano Shepard, time to go!" Shepard hung her head, laughing. "Shit. So much for that. We have to move doctor. Can you stand?" Without waiting for an answer, Shepard grabbed Liara's right hand and elbow and heaved her up from the ground, not letting go until it appeared she had once again found her footing.
Liara capped the canteen and handed it back to Shepard, quietly thanking her. Wrex and Garrus were already back to the central shaft they had just used and were working on getting the elevator working again. As Liara and Shepard stepped on, the elevator started a slow pace up the shaft as another quake rocked the volcano.
Upon reaching the uppermost platform, they were met by a krogan battlemaster along with a mixed assortment of 6 geth platforms. Of the most concern was the towering geth prime, capable of dishing out and taking massive amounts of damage thanks to its much larger platform housing redundant shield generators and multiple armaments. The enemy krogan stepped forward and addressed the commander in a gravelly voice laced with contempt. "Surrender the girl. Or don't… That would be more fun."
Shepard let out a bark of a laugh before turning to her own krogan battlemaster. "What do ya say Wrex? Should we give up the girl?" Liara perks up and the question and quickly shakes her head to answer the commander, her eyes wide in fright, as she offers a meek no on her own behalf. Wrex leads with a chuckle before blasting at the opposing krogan with his shotgun, the krogan's shielding flaring is it deflects the incoming shots.
Hell breaks loose immediately following Wrex's first shot. Garrus pulls out his favored sniper rifle and lets loose with it as fast as the heat sink will cycle out rounds. The first two shots take out the two geth rocket troopers flanking the opposing battlemaster. Another geth armed with a sniper rifle takes aim at the commander and barks off it's own shot before being felled by the sharp sighted turian.
Shepard takes the shot in stride as her biotic barrier knocks the incoming round out of the sky as she launches an impressive warp at the hulking geth prime. This is immediately followed by several shotgun blasts to it's chest plate before the geth's shields finally wink out. Flipping the switch on her shotgun to change her ammo to incendiary she repeatedly blasts at the geth platform to whittle away at it's thick armor plating.
Not designed to stand idly by as it is blasted into oblivion, the prime platform is not taking the hammering laying down. As it's shields wink out of existence it primes and fires it's large pulse cannon from it's shoulder, nailing the commander in the chest. Once. Twice. Three times it fires it's cannon as it stomps closer to the commander.
Her own barriers failing as the geth prime hammers her with it's cannon, she summons as much dark energy as she can command and launches another warp at the towering platform. Blue white warpfire melting away at its armor plating as it grabs the commander by the neck and rips her from the ground.
Dangling several feet over the elevator platform, Shepard is struggling to weaken the prime's grip around her throat as the edges of her vision swim in inky blackness, her hands gripping at the wrist of the prime platform cloaked in more of the blue white warpfire as she attempts to burn her way through the offending limb. After several seconds of concentrated exposure to her burning hands, the commander is no closer to freedom than when she began. In a last concentrated effort before she passed out from lack of oxygen and blood to her brain, she once again pulled as much dark energy into existence as she could and delivered a biotically enhanced kick directly to the burned and warped armor plating at the prime's chest.
Liara watched in fright, unable to conjure up any of her own biotic power exhausted as she was, as the commander was yanked from the ground and strangled by the hulking geth prime. After several seconds of seeming inaction on the commander's part, her entire right leg began to glow and whipped out in a desperate attempt to kick herself free. Liara gaped in awe as she watched the commando saw through the main armor plating of the prime with her leg, nearly kicking the prime platform in half as she did.
Wrex finished off his fight with the opposing krogan with an unceremonious blast to the face with his shotgun before turning to see what other opponents he could snuff out in his blood rage. The old lizard didn't take long to catch his next target in his sights, a hulking geth platform with it's back turned to him. As the krogan let out a bellowing roar of challenge, he was shocked to see the platform collapse to the ground, a massive chunk of it's armor cleaved away by the armored foot of the small human he had sworn a battle oath to.
The compound was eerily quiet as the prime platform fell to the ground, all hostiles having been taken out by members of the ground team. As the prime's bulk slowly tipped over, Shepard was dropped none too gently to the ground and collapsed in a heap, her right leg bent at several terrible angles beneath her.
The tired asari doctor crawled over to the commander as her other teammates gathered around. The turian put one of his three talons to the side of his head and began to call for a medical evac. Liara bent over the broken form of the commando and pulled of her helmet, and let out a choking gasp as a freckled human face stared back at her with piercing green eyes. Liara had heard her introduce herself but had not made the connection of her name being human. She had been operating under the assumption that her rescuer was asari. Liara brushed locks of sweat soaked red hair out of Shepard's eyes and told her that evac was on the way. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Wrex stomping over to the pair.
The krogans booming voice was laced with an odd touch of concern as he pushed his way beyond the asari and picked up the now passed out form of Commander Shepard. "Let's go, evac shuttle is on it's way but can't reach us in here." Slinging the Commander over his shoulder, he walked off towards the entrance of the compound buried in the volcano, leaving Garrus to help the young asari to her feet to follow in Wrex's footsteps.
Liara could barely move, and while being dragged rather urgently from a very active volcano, could not take her eyes off of the ground upon which she walked. A trail of bright red blood was rather easy to follow to it's source. The human draped over the krogan's back. Liara had never seen human blood before, and was shocked by how vivid it was. Her fear was back now, but this time, it was not for herself. She was scared for her savior. She was scared for this Shepard.
The run back to the evac shuttle did not take long, but in Liara's mind it took hours. Every moment that ticked by was another pool of blood that she walked by on the ground. Upon reaching the shuttle, the ship's doctor, Karin Chakwas, immediately began stripping the commander of her armor to gain access to the wounded leg. The old doctor was quick in her work and soon had the broken limb free of armor. Her hands worked with practiced ease as she scanned it over once with her omnitool and diagnosed her with a small tear in the Femoral Artery and several complete breaks in the tibia and fibula.
Shepard's armor had done it's job. Upon detection of the injury, the suit had flooded her body with medigel, a multipurpose gel substance that rapidly went to work to seal the breach in the artery. Unfortunately, the tear was too jagged and irregular, and while it had slowed the bleed considerably, it could not stop it all together. Not only had the suit pumped her full of medigel, the software suite contained within detected the bleed and compressed the inner layers of her suit around her thigh in an attempt to cut off circulation to her tattered leg.
What remained of Shepard's leg after kicking the metal giant was better described as fragments and ribbons. Chakwas called ahead to the Normandy as the shuttle took off. "Prep the surgical suite and all available units of universal blood. Joker, get us to the Citadel with all possible speed, along with emergency transport to Huerta Memorial." More to herself she murmured, "I don't think I can save this leg."
Just as the shuttle cleared the landing bay door, the hatch clasped shut and the Normandy's powerful engines blasted off from the surface of the planet, heading straight for the relay that would bring them back to the Widow system, home of the Citadel.
As the commander was whisked away into the medbay and away from prying eyes, Liara was led to the women's bathroom to get cleaned up. Having stripped herself of her soiled garments, she was quick to jump into the sonic scrubbers. As she cleaned herself off, her mind was still glued to the human that had saved her life. Her emerald green eyes still haunting her vision. 'Who is this human that commands respect from so many? How does she have an old krogan battlemaster and a turian operative following her orders? What does she expect from me?' These questions among others raced through her tired mind.
…
Leaning back from the terminal in front of her, Liara felt she had learned enough to answer her first two questions. Commander Shepard was one of the best humanity had to offer, if the extranet was to be believed. Shepard was chosen to be the first human Spectre for a reason, and now Liara knew what that reason was. Shepard was an indomitable spirit, dedicated to her own cause with a strict sense of moral direction. Not only this, but even from her brief experience with the woman, she had witnessed an inner fire that made you want to follow her. Liara couldn't help but wonder if her rescue had just cost this person their life.
While the flight to the Citadel had been quick, it had not been uneventful. Shepard had crashed twice, both times requiring resuscitation. She had lost a catastrophic amount of blood, and if the CMO was to be believed, she might lose her leg. The ship's entire store of universal O- blood had been depleted before the bleeding could be stopped. As soon as the ship docked with the Citadel, Shepard was rushed to Huerta Memorial, the premier hospital in the galaxy to receive treatment. As Liara sat in the back room of the medbay, she wondered if she would ever get the chance to thank her hero. That thought weighed heavily on her mind until she passed out from exhaustion in her chair, the information on Shepard still scrolling it's way down the screen to it's unconscious audience.
…
Several days had passed since the hero of Elysium had risked her life to save a young asari archaeologist on Therum. After numerous surgeries, overseen by surgeons of several different species, Shepard awoke to the familiar white walls of a hospital room. Upon waking, doctor Chakwas had come in rather hurriedly and gave the commander the rundown on her recovery time. "Two weeks at least before you will see combat again, Commander." Karin Chakwas frowned at Shepard for what felt like the thousandth time in her career. "Just what were you thinking, Elizabeth? I've seen you do stupid things but this one takes the cake. What possessed you to kick that giant metal monstrosity, with biotics, no less?
Shepard let out a heavy sigh as her "Aunt" Karin scolded her yet again after one of her rather risky decisions on the battlefield. Being an Alliance Vanguard was innately risky. The crash and blast combat style favored bold biotic attacks followed by close range combat. They were considered "high risk - high reward" fighters, and Shepard was one of the best humanity had to offer. That didn't mean she always came out unscathed though. She couldn't even claim that this latest stunt had been her most severe injury. Remembering a rather impressive feat of her combat profile, she ran a light touch over a jagged scar that spread across her sternum. A daily reminder that just because you feel invincible, doesn't mean you can take a shotgun blast to the chest and walk away.
"Alright Aunt Kay, what am I going to see if I lift the sheets? A nub of a leg?" Shepard had her ever present cocky smirk on her face as she asked the question. That disappeared when doctor Chakwas gave her a reply. "You jest, but you very well could have left with just that very thing. It was a close thing, Elizabeth. You had 4 surgeons working for several hours at a time to repair what was left of your shattered limb. As it was, the bones were crushed beyond the abilities of the bone-stitcher to repair. Several muscle groups were also unsalvageable. If not for a salarian cybernetic specialist that showed up during your first surgery, we may have had to declare the leg a total loss… most of your leg had to be replaced with cybernetics. That brings you up to eighteen percent of your body being hardware, Commander. You know the Alliance won't let you back in the field with over twenty-five percent if they find out. I hope she was worth it Commander, I really do."
Shepard let out an unsteady sigh as she nodded her head in understanding. Her classic smirk came back fairly quickly as a thought popped into her head. "But they never will find out, will they Aunt Kay? As a Spectre, all of my records were sealed. Including medical records… right?" Doctor Chakwas looked like she had sucked on a lemon as Shepard found yet another way to downplay her injuries. "That may be true, Elizabeth, but I'll not sit by and watch you destroy yourself to play hero. Eventually it will catch up to you. Now, let's have a look at your leg and see what kind of damage we have, shall we?"
As Karin lifted the sheet off of her right leg, Shepard was pleased to notice little if any evidence of her injury. "The dermal regenerator seems to have done an excellent job this time. I don't see any scar tissue on the outside. I will schedule you for physical therapy tomorrow and see about getting you back aboard the Normandy for light duty. In the meantime, you have several visitors. I will allow them in one at a time, for now. I have no doubt they have already decided on their own little order to visit you. I will see you tomorrow, Elizabeth."
As Karin walked out of her room, Wrex was quick to enter, the old lizard looking at the commander with what appeared to be a small bit of respect. "Never seen a kick like that, human. I'll let you get some rest, just wanted to stop by and tell you… that little asari we picked up, T'Soni, she's all worked up convinced this is her fault. Thought you would want to know, talk her out of condemning herself. Anyway, I got a shuttle to clean. Someone bled all over the damned thing." Wrex walked out with a guffaw at his own little attempt at humor, Shepard never having said a word the whole time he was in there visiting. Her mind was stuck on how she was going to get doctor T'Soni to see reason, when she herself was having a hard time doing so herself.
From the moment she had seen Liara, something clicked in her head. Never having been one to form attachments of any kind, the only people Shepard cared about was her mom, Captain Anderson, and her squad. Having glanced at Liara one time though, a switch was flipped. She realised at that time that she would do anything to protect her at the cost of anything else. Why though? What was so special about one person? And more importantly, what did this mean? Her thoughts were interrupted as Garrus walked into the room, his mandibles flaring out in a turian smile at the sight of his friend awake and alert.
"Hey, Shepard. Heard you kicked ass, didn't know you kicked everything else too." Chuckling softly at his own joke he pulled up a chair and sat down next to his commander. "How are you doing, the docs won't tell us anything other than you will live." Shepard gave him a lopsided grin and broke the news, "Yeah, I'll live. Might have to let you lead the ground squad for a bit, but they are going to see about getting us back in the air tomorrow. No doubt the Council is going to throw a fit for delaying my after action report for so long. I don't suppose anyone took care of that little bit of nonsense for me?"
Garrus laughed, shaking his head as his voice flanged low. "Not a chance, Shepard. Though they have called several times. Valern wants to know how long you are going to be 'laying around'. Sparatus wants to know when you will stop shirking your duty, and Tevos actually expressed genuine concern. I guess you earned some points with her for rescuing the daughter of an esteemed matriarch."
Shepard nodded gratefully for the update, and let her head fall back to her pillow, the pain-killers in her system dragging her eyelids low. "I think I am all done with visits for the day, Garrus. Can you let everyone know I appreciate them being here… I think I am going to conk out here in a minute." Garrus gave a quick nod. "I'll get it done, Shepard. We'll see you on board tomorrow."
As Garrus left the room to spread the word, Shepard thought back to Liara, frantically trying to figure out what was going on in her own head, as well as in the head of the young asari. Shepard fell into a peaceful sleep, the young asari's face planted firmly in her mind.