There were children on the Citadel who played in ducts. Where adults couldn't reach them. No matter the game, they all were supposed to be fun.
Which part of this was fun again? I was tempted to destroy the entire air vent with my biotics, but when being chased by soldiers from Cerberus, it was better to avoid the bullets then be frustrated with the surroundings.
I scampered as fast as I could. Thankfully, my armor was light enough to move with me, and the commandos chasing me were getting held up in their clunky armor.
I found a way out that looked clear. Kicking as fast as I could, I jumped into what I discovered to be a shuttle bay.
Empty, from what it looked like, but it wouldn't be for long: I was still being chased. I launched a singularity right below the exit to the airvent. They wouldn't until it was too late.
I ran for some cover and pulled out my pistol. Before three years ago, I rarely ever used it. There was the occasional problem at a dig site: Mercenaries, looters. Never really had to use it, but I knew what to do with it in case.
Then Therum, and John, and everything changed. I took to guns and combat biotics like a huntress, and the entire world changed. Dig sites turned to information, and intrigue. Then Feron, the Shadow Broker. It was like Athame herself unraveled the entire galaxy and randomly placed me in a life I never had. I couldn't complain. It brought me John, Feron, a world I never knew.
The two soldiers tried to jump out of the air vent, and dangled helplessly when my singularity refused to allow them to land. Before I could take the shot, a low rumble, followed by an explosion of energy, as my singularity detonated, sending one of the troopers back into the vent, with enough force to punch through the other side. The other slammed into the ground, and I heard the sickening crack of human bones smashing into pieces.
I didn't do that: When two biotic fields interfered with each other, it caused a tremendous explosion of gravity and force, so another biotic did it for me. I turned around, ready to lay down another singularity, and there were three humans walking towards me. Breath masks weren't necessary in this pressurized environment, so they wore no helmets. I saw their faces, and two of them, I remembered.
"John!" I was so utterly relieved to see him again. I could take care of myself around Cerberus, but that didn't mean his marksmanship and battle skill were unwelcome.
By his side was Kaidan Alenko, the one responsible for detonating my singularity. It had been two years since I'd seen him, but from the tints of white I could see in his hair, it seemed a lot longer for him. I couldn't blame him: It wasn't a long amount of time, but I'd felt like I entered the matron stage, and Kaidan didn't have the experience I did in the two years between their meeting: The contact with Cerberus, knowing he could come back. It could only have been worse.
I didn't recognize the last one, but he was with John, an ally. A formal introduction could be done once we were safe.
"Liara!" John's relief was palpable. I wanted to talk forever with him, but I knew we couldn't. I was on a mission too. We did catch up briefly, I told him about the request from Admiral Hackett, about the Prothean information, the blueprints, hidden in the Archives here, and he told me about Earth.
The stress on John's face was even more visible than it was when we took down the Shadow Broker. I wanted to hold him. John wasn't from Earth, but his species started there. And to have your home fall...it wasn't a feeling I'd care to know. But John was too focused now on the Archives, getting his mission completed. He always got like that.
"We need to get to the ruins, and find the Archives." I didn't exactly know what the Protheans were planning to do with the data I'd uncovered, but what other choices were there.
John asked the third man, a Lieutenant James Vega, to return to the shuttle, to be ready for a quick evacuation. If the Reapers were on Earth, then they'd probably get to Mars soon enough. I would go with John and Kaidan. Even though I knew it wasn't the time for nostalgia, I couldn't help but feel like two years ago, the naïve girl swept along on a mission to save the galaxy from the Spectre traitor. Such a wild, eye-opening time.
But it was no longer simple geth, but life-harvesting Reapers, who'd destroyed and consumed the Protheans and countless others for several eras. And I was no longer that simple girl. Did the galaxy unravel at the seams for John and Kaidan, too? They were glummer, but they had lost their home. Could that be all it was? John's jocular nature was certainly didn't rear it's head. And Kaidan? Every time I looked at him, I saw his glare bore a hole through John's skull.
Seeing Kaidan in action again was a lot different than before. John was much the same when we took down the Shadow Broker: Quick, precise shooting, command of a battlefield. It was brutal, but delicate, more art or dance than visceral combat. While Major Alenko was never incompetent, he moved almost as brilliantly as John did, detonating biotic fields at small chokepoints, forcing the soldiers out from their cover behind boxes. His skill was the equal of my mother's, and Benezia had over half a millenia to hone hers. And the support mechs stood no chance to his omni-tool.
When we opened the doors to the tram ways, and a drone gun fired on us, it was Kaidan who lead the way. I worried that the noises and bright lights would affect his migraines, but he charged through and led the way safely for John and myself.
I voiced my opinion to John as soon as we were safe.
"He has. I don't know what he's been up to these past two years, but he's certainly become a better soldier for it. Too bad I was grounded and under house arrest, would have liked to see him in action before the Reapers came." Kaidan was searching for a communicator, to outwit the Cerberus soldiers who had locked down the tramway. A false all-clear signal would get a tram sent out for us to board.
When it was found, I continued to look at the data here. Cerberus, at least not this group, would never have an asari giving them an all-clear signal. I couldn't help the two men out there. But just as they were fiddling with the transmission, I heard a strained gasp.
"Is...is that what they did to you?" Something was clearly bothering Kaidan. The two men were looking at the corpse of a soldier, whose helmet had been removed for it's transmitter. Something about it bothered them, but I couldn't make it out from my position.
"I'm nothing like that. Kaidan, how can you even think that?"
"No? They went on Cerberus missions, didn't they. Just like you."
"Kaidan, that man is practically a husk!" A husk? I moved to get a better look at the body.
"Oh, goddess!" The man's glowing blue eyes, even in death, were one of the creepiest things I'd ever seen.
"Yeah, I'll admit, you don't look like him. But I watched men like that guy gun down an innocent person in the name of their insane cause. They've done it once, why wouldn't they do it again.".
"I'm the same man I've always been. And no one in the galaxy or beyond could change that." John looked Kaidan straight in the eyes. I wasn't sure what to say to the two of them: What details I knew that Kaidan didn't would not fill in the blanks: I had very little knowledge of what Cerberus did, both to Shepard and the husk-looking soldier lying before us now.
The tram was coming, and would assuredly have soldiers on it. Kaidan got into position near some crates while John took a sniper perch from the balcony. Once the soldiers arrived, Kaidan and I picked them off with biotic detonations, while John picked off the stragglers. It was clean, methodical. The two were at each others throats when it was quiet, but when it came to combat, they had each other's backs. If only it could always be that simple.
Dr. Eva Core...I thought she was dead when Lieutenant Vega crashed his shuttle into hers. I worried the data might have been destroyed, but data disks found ways to survive.
But that was before the flaming shuttle cracked open, and out stepped a silver figure wreathed in flame. Dr. Eva Core herself, if she was a monocolored silver color. Kaidan tried to empty a clip into her, but she quickly moved towards him, grabbed him by the neck, and knocked me away when I tried to assist. I could barely recognize that she was, truly, an AI, before I was on the ground, trying to catch my breath.
In horror, I watched her slam Kaidan against the side of the flaming car repeatedly, with enough force to dent the already ruined car. She threw him to the ground and charged like an insane krogan straight towards John.
I think I heard John call Kaidan's name, but it was drowned out by the firing of his pistol. I'd seen John shoot more impossible shots than there were mysteries to the Protheans, but I'd never seen him fire a gun that fast. An entire clip, straight into the AI's head. In a flash, Eva's mechanical body seemed to spasm, before falling to the ground as unceremoniously as she had dumped Kaidan.
"Kaidan!" The Major wasn't moving, and John ran towards him, moving almost as fast as Eva did when she was running away.
"Hang on, Kaidan. Please." He picked up Kaidan while Lieutenant Vega grabbed the now-defunct body of Eva. Equal parts fury and despair raged in John's voice when he told Joker for a pick up.
"EDI!" Shepard called for the AI as soon as we entered the med bay. I took Kaidan's helmet off, and the brutality of it stopped me in my tracks. Kaidan's face and eyes were swollen and beaten, blood pooled around his mouth.
I could do what I could: John had front line trauma care from his N7 training and I knew basic first aid. But that wouldn't be enough.
"I know!" When I told John that, he nearly jumped down my throat. There was a lot else that needed to be done: I needed to look over the blueprints, any data from Eva needed to be extracted. But in that moment, John could see nothing but Kaidan. The bruised, injured body lying on the med bay table. A wounded soldier on his command: An insult and attack that wounded John like none other. Despite the massive split between them, it still brought John to this.
John stood up a minute later. We gave our report to Admiral Hackett, we ensured we were en route to the Citadel.
I told John he needed to rest a moment. We'd be at the Citadel shortly, and there would be a lot to do there: Some sleep would do him some good.
He said he would, that it was a good idea. But when the Citadel was in sight, and John came to the CIC, I knew he had been lying.