Chapter 10
Liara closed her eyes as she waited for Joker to bring the ship into position. She suddenly opened them again when she heard the garbled distress call of the Destiny Ascension, the Council's flagship.
"…we have the Council aboard. Repeat, this is the Destiny Ascension requesting immediate assistance. We have taken heavy damage. We have the Council aboard."
"Cutthat off," Pressly ordered. "We have enough to contend with here without having to listen to that."
Joker looked briefly over his shoulder. "That may not be your call, sir," he said, pointing to the hazy readouts on the HUD screen.
Liara felt a wave of relief wash over her when she saw the readouts. Shepard was alive and she was on the station. She felt something loosen inside of her, as if a heavy object had been lifted from her chest. Shepard was alive!
Joker keyed his comm and patched in to his Commander.
"Commander, is that you?" he asked, biting his bottom lip as he waited for the reply.
Several seconds passed in tense silence.
"Why, were you expecting someone else?" she asked tartly.
Liara laughed with the joy of hearing the Commander's voice.
"No, ma'am," Joker replied happily. "We have the Destiny Ascension sending out a distress signal. It's taken heavy damage. I'm here at the Arcturus relay with the entire Fifth Fleet. Orders, ma'am?" he asked respectfully, looking back at Pressly.
A few seconds passed. Liara could imagine Shepard weighing up her options.
Please, Liara silently begged. Save the Ascension please! She knew that it would mean risking Alliance ships and human lives, but it was the right thing to do. The loss of the Council would be a devastating blow to Citadel space, one which she doubted they would be able to recover from. The loss of the Council would bring discord among the various citadel species as they clamoured to fill the power vacuum.
"Joker," the Commander's voice came through over the comm. "Save the Ascension at all costs. Once that is completed, focus all fire on Sovereign. Let's end this."
With that, the line went dead and Liara was once again left alone. She looked up at the HUD and took solace from the strong readouts she was seeing.
"Aye aye, ma'am!" Joker responded to the dead line.
He then sent the Commander's orders to the fleet, and as one entity they exited out of the relay into Citadel space.
"Destiny Ascension," he responded, using the same frequency on which the Ascension had hailed them. "This is the SSV Normandy of the Systems Alliance Fifth Fleet. Reinforcements are on their way. Stand by."
He turned to Liara and smiled. "Sometimes," he said as he piloted the ship, "I just love this job."
He angled the Normandy towards the large asari dreadnought. The ship sailed through the clouds of the Serpent Nebula, the Widow still a far off point in the darkness. All around them other Alliance vessels engaged the geth ships, destroying and being destroyed in turn.
Liara could feel the repercussions of exploding ships rebound through the hull of the Normandy as Joker flew them skillfully through the aerial battle. He was very quiet, thinking of the souls who were lost which each destroyed vessel, all good loyal soldiers.
Eventually the Destiny Ascension pulled clear of the fighting and the number of geth ships was drastically reduced. The order was given to attack Sovereign.
Joker smiled. "I'm coming to get you, you son of a bitch," he said hollowly.
He flew the Normandy in an arching pattern, first over one of the larger Alliance ships and then under another. He was determined to be the one to bring down Sovereign.
He heard a commander of another ship say that the firefight was too intense, that the Citadel arms were closing and that they should pull back.
Like hell, he thought. We only get one shot at this.
Apparently, Alliance brass agreed with him and he grinned when he heard the order to concentrate all firepower on the Reaper.
Liara was gripping the edge of her seat as Joker expertly manoeuvred the Normandy through the space battle, firing on the oncoming geth fighters. He banked the ship hard to the right and brought the frigate up almost on top of the Reaper, then keyed the ship's cannons and blasted the hell out of Sovereign.
Obviously weakened, the sentient ship began to come apart. Pieces of it broke off and hurled through space. Joker shouted for joy as the Reaper finally disengaged itself from the Citadel, irreparably damaged.
"I am the greatest pilot ever!" he shouted in elation, punching one of his arms into the air in victory. His joy was short-lived, however, when he realised the ship's trajectory.
"Hell no," he swore, watching helplessly as the debris crashed through the outer arm of the Citadel into the upper part of the Council chambers.
"Shepard, move!" he yelled over the comm.
Liara watched, horrified, as the remains of the ship crashed into the Citadel.
"No!" she screamed to herself. "No," she said, more softly.
She looked at the HUD and saw only two readouts. Her insides went cold when she realised that the missing one was Shepard's. Liara stared dumbfoundly at the HUD readouts, unable to believe what she was seening, she felt numb as if her brain had shut down. She looked at Joker pleadingly.
"We're docked," he said to her.
Such was her shock that she hadn't even heard the order to dock the ship. She was up and out of the Normandy before this fact had even registered with her. She ran through the C-Sec Academy and onto the Presidium.
She looked around in disbelief. The entire Presidium was alight. Even the artificial lakes had flames on them. The heat and the smell of burning caught in her throat and caused her to cough violently. Avina flickered crazily on her terminal. People were beginning to come out of their hiding places. Some were injured and held makeshift bandages torn from their expensive clothing to their wounds. Those who were strong enough aided the more severely injured.
Liara spotted the Mako. It was over-turned on its side, destroyed beyond recognition.
For one crazy moment she thought about how annoyed Garrus was going to be at this. This thought caused her to laugh hysterically, she laughed so hard that she had to sit down, all the strength gone from her body. Her crazy laughing quickly turned to sobs as the enormity of what had happened hit her.
Several minutes later, Captain Anderson found her like that, leaning against the destroyed Mako, crying uncontrollably. He bent down to look at the young woman.
"Dr. T'Soni?" he asked her quietly. "Dr. Liara T'Soni?" he said more forcibly in an attempt to rouse the young woman from her hysteria.
Liara looked up at the man who was calling her name. She nodded at him in affirmation.
"Captain David Anderson," he introduced himself, holding out his hand to Liara. "I used to be Commander Shepard's commanding officer."
Liara looked at the hand for a second, her traumatised brain unable to process this information.
"I'm going to look for the ground crew," he told her, still leaving his hand extended. "Would you like to assist?"
Liara looked at the men behind him. They were C-Sec agents; each man had a handheld scanner and a first aid kit.
She looked back at Captain Anderson and shook her head. She then wiped her eyes with her hand, spreading a thin line of grime across her face. Noticing this, she hurriedly wiped her hand off her tunic before grasping the Captain's offered hand. Anderson closed his hand around hers and hauled Liara back onto her feet.
"Yes, I would," she replied in an unsteady voice.
Anderson nodded once as was his fashion, and handed Liara a scanner. "Then you'll be needing this." He smiled slightly at her and turned to the agents behind him, motioning them towards the Council chambers.
Gunnery Chief Williams slowly swam towards consciousness. It was dark, and for a second she wondered if she was blind before remembering her helmet visor. Gingerly, she moved her left hand up to raise it. It made little difference—it was still dark, but she could now make out dim shapes in the darkness.
Not completely blind anyway, she thought.
She remained very still as she attempted to catalogue how badly injured she was. A throbbing in her right shoulder told her she was wounded, and judging by the amount of pain she was now feeling, she was injured quite badly.
"God damn it," she swore quietly to herself. "Why couldn't I have stayed knocked out?"
Now I've gotta deal with this, she thought as she attempted to move her arm. White-hot pain shot up to her shoulder, causing her to gasp loudly and almost black out again.
"Chief," a thin voice called out. "Is that you?"
Williams tried to pinpoint the source of the voice. "Skipper?"
There was a moment's pause before the answer.
"No, it's me, Tali," came the reply. "Sorry," she added softly.
Of course it's Tali, she told herself crossly. She was angry at her mistake. The skipper must be trapped someplace else. Williams wasn't ready yet to deal with the alternative.
The final minutes of the battle was slowly beginning to come back to her. Shepard had thrown herself at the thing that had once been Saren and shot it to pieces. Just as she was making her way down the ramp, the sky had darkened and Ashley had looked up to see a huge chunk of a ship's hull come crashing down on top of them. She remembered hearing Shepard shouting at them to move, and the last thing she knew was feeling like she had been punched and flying through the air.
"Tali," she said, relief evident in her voice, "are you okay?"
There was no response for a minute and Ashley feared the worst.
"Yes, I am well," came the reply. "It would appear that my armour protected me quite sufficiently. You?"
"My armour didn't do such a great job," the Chief replied, trying her hardest not to move her shoulder even though the rest of her body was begging for her to move her weight. "I think I've broken my shoulder."
Again there was that moment of hesitation before Tali's reply. "I think I can make my way over to you. I have a little med-gel in my pack that may be of use to you."
The Chief became aware of movement to her left as Tali slowly crawled over to her. The engineer sat down in front of her and pushed up the Chief's visor entirely.
Ah, Williams thought. That would explain why I couldn't see so well.
"You are bleeding, Chief," Tali noted as she attempted to open the locks on the marine's upper body armour.
Ashley tried to assist, but she couldn't. Every time she attempted to move her left hand, she would move her entire arm, sending searing pain through her body.
Eventually, Tali got the locks open and applied the medi-gel. The effect was immediate—the area went numb and the pain subsided.
"Thanks," Ashley said to Tali.
Tali nodded to her. "No problem, Chief."
The two sat in silence for what felt like an eternity until Tali looked up suddenly. Williams looked in askance at her. She was just about to ask what she heard when a bright light assaulted her eyes. Flinching away from the sudden light, she heard a man say that he had found them and that they were all right.
Within minutes they were freed from the debris they were trapped under. Captain Anderson came and stood in front of the Chief.
Williams attempted to come to attention, but failed miserably.
"At ease, marine," Anderson said when he saw what the Chief was attempting to do.
Gratefully, Ashley slumped back against the wall.
"Where is the Commander?" he asked. "Where's Shepard?"
Ashley sagged further when she heard the Captain's question. How was she going to tell the Captain that his protégé was gone?
She didn't trust herself to speak, she looked at Anderson and then at the ground, shaking her head and pointing to the pile of debris behind them.
"She pushed us out of the way," she finally explained, her voice cracking with the pain of losing her friend.
Anderson looked at her in disbelief. "Commander Shepard is dead?" he asked quietly, thinking of his former executive officer. Like everyone, he believed that Shepard was invincible. She had beaten the odds so many times...
Williams just nodded, tears running down her face.
Liara was standing a ways off from the conversation between the two Alliance personnel, but her keen hearing heard Anderson ask about the Commander. She saw the Chief shake her head and point towards the pile of debris. She could now see the Chief openly crying. She saw Anderson place a comforting hand upon the young marine's uninjured arm and murmur words of consolation to her. Liara watched the two, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
No! her mind screamed. This isn't happening. She can't be gone.
The world began to spin around her and the smell of smoke caused her to gag. The heat was overwhelming and she felt as if she couldn't breathe. Suddenly, Liara's stomach lurched and she was violently ill.
Williams looked over in her direction just in time to see the young asari collapse to the ground.
Ashley closed her eyes for a second. Liara, she thought sadly.
She limped over to where Tali and the medics were helping the asari back onto her feet. One of them handed her a water canister and instructed her to drink from it. Liara just stared at it. When the Chief came to a stop in front of her, Liara raised her eyes to look at her.
"She's...dead?" Liara asked, flatly.
Again the Chief closed her eyes briefly, willing herself to say the words aloud.
"She's dead," Williams confirmed. She reached out to Liara, but the asari pulled away.
"She's dead." Liara repeated the words herself several times before she began to sob.