AN:- Getting there, slowly but surely.

Chapter Six: The Lair of the Shadow Broker

Shepard dropped back into the cover of a heavy metal beam set in the side of the wall. Bullets pinged around them as they all found cover. Liara was across the corridor from her, drawing her gun.

"More of them?" She grumbled as she returned fire. "How many guards does the Shadow Broker have?"

"Told you," Tali said as she shot an asari through the chest.

Shepard put a pistol bullet through the knee of a guy in cover, then took his head off at the neck. "This is ridiculous." She looked back. "Grunt?"

"Yes?"

"Smash."

He grinned and racked his assault rifle, drawing the shotgun in his other hand. With a bellow that succeeded in activating Shepard's ear filters he broke cover and sprinted forwards; his shield taking several major hits before the enemy realised that he wasn't stopping. She heard a panicked fall back order, followed by shotgun blasts and the thuds of bodies hitting the floor.

Liara was watching it all unfold. "He's not as a disciplined as Wrex, but he has his uses."

"Well he saved my life a few weeks ago, so I've grown quite fond of him."

"You will have to share your adventures someday."

The gunfire had stopped and Grunt was panting happily. Shepard stepped out and followed him further down the winding corridor. Tali was at her shoulder, omni-tool out and scanning.

"I've downloaded the ship's layout. We're heading for the prison block."

"And Feron," Liara said grimly.

They ran through the corridor, encountering no further resistance. For a moment Shepard allowed herself to believe that there wouldn't be any more agents left. But around the corner there were two more men in armour outside what was quite obviously a cell of some kind. Shepard shot one of them through the head while Grunt shotgunned the second in the chest. Both men dropped before they had even had a chance to grab their guns.

Tali got to work on opening the cell door immediately as the others spread out to clear the area. Shepard grabbed Garrus before he could limp out and shoved him against the desk.

"You need to see Chakwas when you get back," she said.

"I'm fine."

"You can barely walk. You need to take it easy."

"You know a good time to tell someone to take it easy?" He pushed off from the desk and limped over to the cell door. "Sometime when he's not in the middle of a life or death situation."

Shepard was still rolling her eyes when Tali opened the door. Liara ran straight past them and into the cell, skidding to a halt before a giant blacked out window.

"Feron?"

The glass lightened until it was fully transparent, revealing a drell strapped into some sort of torture chair. Shepard saw abrasions beneath the shackles on his wrists which suggested he had been bound for a very long time, and there was some sort of device strapped to his head, burn marks beneath conductive pads. He raised his head slowly, breathing with some difficulty as his eyes struggled to focus on the window.

"Liara?" His voice was soft and hoarse.

Liara punched the window. It didn't even rattle in the frame. "Hold on, we're getting you out of here!"

He jerked against the bonds. "No!" The machine behind him hummed to life and he convulsed, screaming as electricity sparked from beneath the pads on his head. Liara hammered on the glass again.

"Feron!"

Shepard resisted the urge to pull her away. The shocks died down and she spoke directly to him. "What the hell is the Broker trying to do to you?"

"The equipment is sensitive to tampering." Now he was calmer his voice was very similar to Thane's. "This chair plugs into the Broker's info network. You have to shut off the power. Pull me out now, and my brain cooks."

Liara was back in control of herself again. "Do you know where we can cut the power?"

"It won't be easy. You'll have to go to Central Operations."

Shepard forced a grin. "Well we were heading there anyway, might as well make it a round trip."

"Good. Central operations is down the hall." He forced himself to sit further up and met Liara's eyes. "You know the Shadow Broker's waiting for you right?"

She nodded, grim determination settling into her face. "I'm counting on it." She marched back out of the prison cell.

"We'll be back for you Feron."

He sank back into the chair with a wheeze. "I'll try not to go anywhere."

Gunshots from further in grabbed her attention and she ran out of the cell, finding the rest of the squad also springing to action. They sprinted down the hall where the gunfire had come from to find half a dozen bodies laid out, each with a bullet right in between their eyes.

"Keelah."

Garrus nodded agreement. "Yep."

At the end of the corridor she could see Liara standing in front of a locked door, her omni-tool already opened. She swept it over the lock, then raised her pistol and emptied it into the control panel. The door sparked and opened to reveal a darkened room beyond.

"Liara!"

She didn't wait, marching in alone, her pistol held before her. Shepard put on a burst of speed and made it through just as the door slammed closed. She stumbled to a stop, still somehow managing to check the corners and sweep the room. Her eyes lit on a massive figure hunched behind a desk in the very centre of the room. The only light came from a globe above his head that glowed with some sort of phosphorescent liquid that filled the room with a soft white light.

"Here for the drell?" His voice was deep and rich. It echoed in the space, revealing that the room was much larger than it had first appeared. "Reckless, even for you Commander."

She trained her pistol about where his head would be. "That bombing on Ilium wasn't exactly subtle."

"Extreme, but necessary."

"No it wasn't." Liara was moving a slow circle closer to the desk. Shepard matched her on the other side. "Neither was caging Feron for two years."

"Dr T'soni your interference caused all this. Feron betrayed me when he handed you Shepard's body. The drell is simply paying the price."

Shepard spoke before Liara. She could see the rage in her friend's eyes. "Someone was bound to come after you for working with the Collectors."

"It was a mutually beneficial partnership. Fortunately the Normandy's IFF will allow me to salvage the remains of the Collector's base."

You are never getting your hands on that ship. "It'll be pretty hard to run a base this size with no crew."

"They're replaceable. Your arrival is barely an interruption. Enough talk. My operations are too crucial to be compromised by a traitor."

He was entirely too calm. Liara put words to her own concern. "You're quite confident for someone with nowhere else to hide."

"You travel with fascinating companions Doctor. Archangel, Okeer's project, Tali'Zorah vas Neema, or is it vas Normandy? And of course Miranda Lawson. Her death will cripple Cerberus. And the plunder in bounties and information will more than compensate me for this futile attempt."

"You're not putting a hand on anyone."

"It's pointless to challenge me asari." He was definitely getting angry. "I know your every secret, while you fumble in the dark."

Liara bristled, then suddenly relaxed. Even in the dim light Shepard saw her lip quirk. "Is that right?" She knew that tone. She had usually heard it when Liara suspected Shepard of lying about moving her files or playing on her computer. "You're a yahg, a pre-spaceflight species that was quarantined to their homeworld for massacring the Council's first contact teams. This base is older than your planet's discovery, which probably means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago, then took over. I'm guessing that you were taken from your homeworld by a trophy hunter who wanted a slave." Her smile widened. "Or a pet."

The Shadow Broker was shaking with rage. Shepard tightened her grip on her pistol, resting her finger on the trigger and preparing for the inevitable explosion. Liara pressed again, her tone that same insufferably adorable smugness, just like when she had figured out the Protheans were not the first species to inhabit Ilos. "How am I doing?""

In the gloom the massive figure hunched forwards and Shepard could see his shoulders were shaking. Now he had moved she could see his head with more clarity. Either he was wearing a helmet or he definitely wasn't human. Twin horns that reminded her of a salarian stretched up from his head, which was at least as big as a krogan's.

The Shadow Broker leapt to his feet with a roar that shook the room. He was illuminated for a moment in the dim light and Shepard couldn't hold back shock. He was enormous, eight feet tall at least. His arms were at least as thick as her torso, his chest a barrel that strained against the thick cloth of the suit he was wearing. He slammed his fists into the desk and it split in two, shards of metal splintering into the room.

Shepard realised a second too late what he was going to do. She tried to move but he threw the desk faster than she would have imagined. The heavy metal slammed into her shoulder and sent her flying back into the wall, where her entire back lit up in pain. Finally she crashed to the floor, her forearms registering the shock as she was jarred against the hard surface. She gave herself a second to let her vision settle, then sprang forwards, aiming for where the Shadow Broker had been before.

He had already moved, heading for Liara. She got a brief glimpse at his face, four eyes on either side of his head, a strange mouth, three pronged, extending from the centre of his face. His skin was a deep red, patterned with white markings that she didn't recognise. He covered the room in only a couple of bounds, wrapping his hand round Liara's throat and lifting her into the air.

Shepard changed direction, raising her pistol and putting two shots into the Broker's back. He snarled and tightened his grip, choking a gasp out of Liara. The sound went right to Shepard's heart, in one second bringing back all the feelings she had been trying to keep buried. In a moment she was beside the Broker, jamming her gun into the back of his knee. She emptied the remaining four shots and he dropped to one knee, releasing Liara, who rolled away.

She didn't give him a second to recover, driving her fist hard into his neck. The Broker roared at her, swinging his arm to try and beat her. Moving with practiced ease she ducked the blow and used the momentum to power an elbow strike to his shoulder joint. He reeled back, getting back to his feet. She brought her pistol up alongside his face and released the heat sink catch.

The heat sink hit him in the face and he recoiled, roaring again as steam rose from his cheek. Before the heat sink could drop she struck out with her palm, pushing the heat sink harder against his head. The heat burned her even through the glove, smoke seeping through her fingers as she grabbed hold of his lapel to keep herself steady. He screamed and beat at her with his gigantic fists but he had no leverage.

He reared backwards as something struck him from behind and they staggered back to the ruins of the desk. She kept her death grip on his jacket, the heat sink still in place. She saw a white blur out of the corner of her eye and let go, dropping to the floor and rolling for cover as Liara threw one of the desk halves at him. It didn't even reach him, breaking against a stasis field he had erected around himself.

Shepard found her pistol and reloaded as Liara ran next to her. "We need to break that field."

"He can't move while he's under it, let him stew."

"Yahg have an amazing reproductive system, comparable to krogan."

"Oh, right." Shepard snapped off a couple of shots but they simply glanced off.

"The shield's kinetically sensitive. Energy and projectiles will bounce off."

Kinetic barriers had one major failing. They were only effective against fast moving projectiles. Fists would be slow enough to get through them. Shepard cracked her knuckles, rolling her head. "I guess there's the hard way then."

She ran forwards, drawing her fist back and launching a punch which knocked the Broker down on his bad leg. He went for a punch that she was able to easily block, kicking him hard in the stomach. Gunshots sounded behind her and she turned to see Liara emptying her pistol. She turned to punch him again but he had brought up a hard light barrier.

Her fist slammed against the shield and he shoved her right off the floor and through the air to land hard several feet away. She struggled up again, seeing Liara strafing round the outside of the room with her submachine gun chattering. He used the shield to catch the bullets, but that left him open to Shepard's attack.

She gave up on the pistol, drawing her rifle and putting an armour piercing slug through his lower back. The bullet blasted clean through his torso and impacted against the shield from the inside. He staggered and fell to the floor, hacking blood onto his shirt. The kinetic barrier activated before she could make a follow up shot, but she had counted on that, already running forwards and shoving her rifle under his chin, yanking back hard.

The barrier broke and he gurgled as she heaved back as hard as she could. The metal dug into his neck and forced another hacking cough out of him, more blood dripping onto his chin. She braced herself and tightened her grip, slowly choking the Broker. Liara ran round the front of him and fired into his chest, the bullets tearing open his suit and spraying blood everywhere.

She expected him to weaken, she expected him to fall to the floor and die like a regular being. Instead he roared and somehow managed to find the strength to throw her off and across the room to crash into Liara. They tumbled to the floor, trying to get up and away before he came after them again. Thankfully his wounds were clearly taking their toll, and he wasn't able to charge them down. Shepard grabbed Liara and dragged her for cover behind one of the pillars.

Liara had a bruise spreading across her cheek, but she still had determination in her eyes. "If you can get him to bring up that shield again. I've got an idea."

Shepard slumped a little, feeling the aches and bruises already settling in. "Come on…"

"Just one more time I promise."

"Fine."

She looked out to see the Shadow Broker limping away, probably heading for an escape route. She sighed and stepped out of cover, raising her pistol and putting another half clip into his back. The Broker turned to face her, panting as he struggled to draw breath into punctured lungs.

"You're not going anywhere," she said.

"You owe me Commander. For Kahoku. For bringing the krogan to you. The galaxy cannot continue to function without me."

She shrugged. "Well you replaced the last Broker so it clearly functioned without him. And you did also try to sell my body to the Collectors. I'm kind of irritated about that." She fired again, hitting him in the burned portion of his face. "Plus you hurt Liara."

He was clearly gathering his strength, coming towards her on unsteady legs. "The asari brought this on herself."

"You don't understand." He was almost directly below the giant glowing ball now, right in the centre of the room. Shepard had the feeling Liara's plan would have something to do with it. She raised her pistol and centred it on his forehead. "No one hurts my girl."

He activated the barrier a second before she fired and both bullets deflected harmlessly. But before he could lower the field there was a sudden shear of gravity and a pulse of biotic blue impacted against the underside of the dome. The glass cracked and the liquid inside poured out, completely covering the Broker. Inside his barrier he was frozen as the liquid seeped into his wounds, covering his eyes and mouth. The pressure dropped him to his hands and knees as his skin began to glow with the infused liquid.

She had had more than enough experience with strange liquids that started glowing. Grabbing Liara again she ran for cover, getting to the doorframe just as the Shadow Broker exploded, showering the room with foul smelling goop that still glowed faintly as it ran to the corners of the room.

Liara peeked out from the doorway and wrinkled her nose at the sight. "That is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen."

Shepard couldn't help but think of Wasea exploding like a balloon. "Yeah, gross."

They stepped back into the room. "Can we get this door open?" Shepard asked as Liara found a desk computer. "The team's gotta be worried."

"I'll do what I can."

Multiple monitors activated all at once, flashing with messages for incoming calls.

"Shadow Broker, this is Operative Morat." She recognised a salarian voice. "We had a momentary connection failure. Can you confirm status?"

"Operative Shora requesting update. Are we still online?" And an asari.

"Shadow Broker, I've lost our feed. We are online and awaiting instructions." Possibly a turian.

The voices continued to pile up, filling the room with a dozen voices that echoed around them as Liara stood before the monitors, tracking her eyes across every screen. As Shepard watched in awe she leaned forwards and pressed a button in the centre of the keyboard.

"This is the Shadow Broker." Her voice was calm. "The situation is under control. We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications momentarily. However, we are now back online." She took a breath and Shepard saw a new light entering her eyes, one she didn't recognise. "Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadow Broker out." She toggled the button again.

Behind them the door opened, and Shepard turned to see her squad racing in, weapons ready. Feron was with them, limping and favouring his ribs, but very much alive.

"Goddess of oceans," he said as they skidded into the room. "It's you, you… how?"

Liara was still staring at the screens. Shepard could see that her hands were shaking. "Well everyone who's ever seen him in person is dead, so…"

Miranda's eyes were wider than Shepard had ever seen. "You're the new Shadow Broker."

"Is taking over as the Shadow Broker really a good idea?" Tali had found the light, and the room was illuminated to show banks of computer monitors, dozens of files and OSDs ascattered everywhere.

"It was either that or lose everything." Shepard knew that tone. She stepped closer on instinct. "His contacts, his trading sources. Those will really help us." She turned to face them, tears streaming down her face. "With the Shadow Broker's information network I can give you, I can…" She fell back, bringing her hands up to cover her face.

Garrus saved the moment. "Let's make sure the ship is clear. Come on."

The door cycled closed as Shepard reached Liara, wrapping her into an embrace. They clung to each other, Liara sobbing into Shepard's shoulder, as though all the tension and stress was pouring out of her all at once.

"It's over," she said in between the sobs. "It's finally… For two years…"

They fell back slightly until they were resting on the edge of the computer desk, Shepard supporting Liara as her tears finally subsided.

"It's all right," she murmured, over and over again.

Liara pulled slightly away and Shepard met her eyes, arms still wrapped around each other's waists. She was surprising when Liara darted forwards and kissed her on the lips. It was brief, but Shepard could feel the emotions building behind it. She could only imagine the look of shock on her face as Liara pulled back again.

"It's been two years. I don't…" Liara shook her head, but she wasn't letting go. "We're different people. There's just so much to work through. Trust has to be built again on both sides. I have to know if you're even the same person you were. I know I'm not. Do we even fit in each other's lives?" She was pulling Shepard in closer. "It's a long and important process, and can we just skip it?" Her eyes were pleading. "Can you just be kissing me now?"

She didn't know who moved first but all of a sudden they were together again, lips pressed hard against each other as their arms moved, rediscovering the old familiar feel of each other's bodies. Her hands found Liara's hips and she lifted her right onto the computer desk. Liara's legs hooked round her back and pulled her in even closer. Liara's jacket came unbuttoned and she grabbed Shepard's hand, putting it against her chest.

Grinning against Liara's lips Shepard moved her hand lower, pulling Liara's shirt out. She couldn't really feel anything through her glove, but Liara was already working on that, taking her hand back and undoing the seals. Their lips hadn't broken apart since they started and breathing was becoming more of an issue.

Shepard ran her hand down Liara's spine, trying to take in the soft feel of the skin beneath her fingertips. There was a knock from somewhere deeper in the room and Shepard came back to her senses, stepping back a little and bringing her hand out from under Liara's jacket.

"Okay…" Liara took a deep, shuddering breath and let it out, brushing the last remaining tears from her eyes. "Okay."

Shepard grinned. "Okay?"

Liara nodded. "Okay." She unwrapped her legs and let Shepard go, pushing herself off the desk and straightening her jacket. "But, we should focus." She turned to the computer and brought up a central monitor. "Let's see what our options are." She flicked through several screens, filtering through the information faster than Shepard was able to track. "No safeguards or user restrictions. It's like he never anticipated anyone but himself being here. And it's all ours."

Shepard snapped her glove back into place. "What kind of information are we talking about?"

"I'm not sure. I'll need to go through his files. Come back later and I'll try to have something useful for you." She leaned against the desk. "All I wanted was to rescue Feron, but is it wrong that part of me wants this?" She turned back with a smile on her lips. "With the Shadow Broker's network I can help you. Maybe I can turn this operation into something… better?"

Shepard nodded, wishing they could just keep going with their earlier activities. But she recognised when the mood was over. "Don't be a stranger this time."

"Small chance of that." She reached out to brush Shepard's cheek. "Don't leave the system. I'll visit the Normandy soon."

AN:- Grunt smash is obviously from Marvel comics/movies Incredible Hulk.

Using the heat sink to deliberately burn someone was a trick I'd been wanting to write since the very beginning of the second novelisation. As always i increased the amount of punishment and tricks involved in the fight. No hiding behind cover and emptying various weapons for my novel! I also added some more dialogue specific to the Commander. Logic dictates that this is the same Shadow Broker who was kind of helpful in the first game. But of course no one hurts Liara and gets away with it.

I expanded the big damn kiss a little. Added some dialogue from Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it just seemed so completely appropriate to the situation.

So just one final chapter/epilogue, and then I'll get on with Overlord.