Chapter 27: Confessional

Nelanax Catonis lay on her little couch, the scars still fresh along her skin. She hadn't slept, barely ate or left her room at all since they had left Khar'shan. They had fixed her up, practically bathing her in medi-gel to speed up the process. She still felt terrible though and she knew why. Hell, the medical officer aboard probably knew why too. They had scanned her, tested her, and prodded every inch of her. If Liara hadn't figured it out from finding her injector then she definitely knew now. And since she knew, Nel wasn't about to fool herself wondering what was going to happen next.

She sat in her room, waiting for the inevitable. She watched her vids while she did, trying to take her mind off everything. Her body still ached, but the knot in her stomach was the worst pain of all. After what seemed like forever, Liara finally stormed into the room. The first words out of her mouth were exactly what she feared.

"Where is it?" She asked coldly.

"Where's what?" Nel asked, not even looking at the asari.

"You damn well know what I mean," Liara answered back.

She didn't bother to ask a second time. The asari began rummaging through the assorted junk scattered throughout the room. She knocked over bottles, threw snack bags out of her way, tossed magazines on both datapads and in print form aside and rummaged through the selves. Nel hoped she wouldn't find it, that she'd just forget it and go away. But she knew that was pointless to hope for, especially so when Liara approached the couch.

"Get up," she ordered.

Nel fiddled in her seat. Liara didn't ask again this time either. She forced her way beneath the cushions and grabbed at something beneath them. Nel's eyes went wide, revealing just how bloodshot and tired they were, as Liara pulled out her stash box. The turian made a grab for it, finally moving from her seat. She took hold of the box herself and tried to get Liara to drop it.

"Let go!" Liara ordered.

"It's mine! You can't have it! They're mine!" Nel screeched. "I need it! I need it!"

"I said let go!"

Liara let a biotic throw knock Nel away. It wasn't strong enough to hurt of course, but it was strong enough to loosen her grip. Liara quickly backed away and opened the box as Nel whimpered back on the couch. The asari pulled out two vials of red liquid, sneering all the while.

"Of all the things I thought you were, Nel, a junkie never crossed my mind," she snarled disapprovingly at the turian. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I honestly thought you were better than that."

"Please give them back," Nel asked pleadingly. "You don't understand. I need them to fight. I can't fight without them."

"And let you go off on more drug fuelled rampages during missions?" Liara aggressively questioned her. "Let you shoot up and put us all at risk? I should've realised something was odd, but I just convinced myself you were some reckless blood-thirsty soldier. Now I know the truth. You didn't get kicked out because you were a loose cannon. This is what got you discharged, isn't it?"

Liara held the box up as she stared accusingly at Nel, who could only fidget in response to the indictment.

"Isn't it?" Liara asked again, even more assertively.

"No!" Nel denied. "Not the way you think! I got discharged to cover it up!"

Liara didn't look like she believed the turian, but she did look intrigued. At the very least she wanted to hear what she had to say.

"A year into my service, I got picked for a special program," Nel started to explain while she nervously scratched at her neck. "The top brass were getting concerned about all these new biotic enhancing drugs on the market, like Red Sand and the like. They were afraid it would give biotics among the Seppies an edge so they were trying to think ahead. They figured why not give the regular soldiers a fighting chance? So they came up with a synthetic drug to increase our combat capabilities."

"Why use drugs when there are other alternatives?" Liara asked her, not sounding at all convinced. "The adrenaline implants for soldiers, fortification armour, they all improve combat performance easily and counteract biotic abilities."

"The military wanted something better," Nel explained, her body starting to shake. "They wanted something that could make any turian as strong as a krogan. Heightened visual and sensory capability, increased reaction time, reduced pain from enemy fire, twice the adrenaline of regular implants, increased muscle dexterity, everything a soldier needs to be better, stronger, faster than any Separatist, biotic or otherwise, out there."

Liara looked at the vial of red liquid with a curious eye, almost as if she was questioning that it could do all that. Nel continued, hoping maybe she'd understand if she knew the full story.

"The lab geeks called it 'ARSF2-1', dumb name I know," she admitted as she started scratching the underside of her arm excessively. "Everyone else just called it 'War Spirit Blood.' I preferred just calling it 'Juice' because everything else was a mouthful. I was one of two squads that they had introduced it to in a trial run."

"You can't just make something like this without consequences," Liara noted sceptically. "Drugs aren't exactly body friendly, even if they are synthetic in origin."

"They had had design implements built in to limit potential risks, but they limited dosage to one vial a day," she explained reluctantly. "The more you take the more stress it puts on your body to keep pushing to that sustained peak level. They said the animals they tested it on suffered muscle atrophy in some cases. That and increased adrenaline levels predictably came with, uh... anger management issues."

That Liara could believe, as the look on her face said it all. It was one of recognition and condescension, boring into the turian with impunity.

"I guess you didn't listen to their advice," the asari stated bluntly. "It would explain your... outbursts of rage."

"Hey, the quarian has way more anger issues than me," Nel tried to argue. "I didn't try to kill a fucking Emperor."

"No, you just acted like an insane bloodthirsty maniac every time you took these drugs," Liara noted frankly. "I can't even be sure when you were sober and when you weren't. As far as I know, your instability is a direct result of your prolonged use of your 'juice' playing havoc with your body."

Nel said nothing in response. She knew there was nothing she could say. She just grimaced heavily at the asari, her bloodshot eyes staring back into Liara's furious ones. Eventually, after a brief silence, she continued.

"It was working fine," Nel informed her irritably. "We were doing what I've been doing for you since I joined up with this crew. We kicked ass, took names, and broke in a ton of skulls. Separatists never knew what hit them. Sure, not every soldier was able to cut it, ended up in the infirmary, and there was that whole issue with withdrawal that cropped up."

"Withdrawal?" Liara asked, probing for more details.

"Yeah, like every drug your system gets dependent on it," Nel admitted. "Double edged sword really, you take too much too often it wrecked your body. You didn't take enough you went through withdrawal, which sucks! Your brain feels like it's gonna split out of your head, your plates start to peel, you throw up every hour or so. It's a balancing act, but I managed it just fine."

Liara crossed her arms at the declaration and that questioning look returned once more.

"And then what happened?" She asked, almost as if she knew the answer.

The fact was she didn't, she didn't know. She probably thought it was her fault. That she took much like on Khar'shan. Well, Nel wasn't about to let her think that. She wanted the truth, fine, she'd get it.

"I got a bad batch, okay?" Nel sighed heavily. "Some asshole at the lab got sloppy and it had some major fucking consequences."

"What kind of consequences?" Liara pressed harshly.

"Bad ones, okay?" Nel replied, taking a breath before continuing. "It was a mission, routing out some sleeper cell we had located. Seppies on a small colony world, they were stockpiling guns and shit for some big plan of theirs. Somehow they got wind we were there and they tried to bolt to the spaceport. Colony turned into a damn warzone in seconds. I got pinned down by some heavy fire and took my juice. But like I said, my daily dose was a bad batch. Something got screwed up and I... I went a little haywire."

Nel hesitantly stopped herself from continuing. She didn't like remembering that day. It wasn't her fault that day. It was some corner cutting jackass. Everything would've been fine if it wasn't because of him. She was the hero. She didn't do the kind of shit that went down there. She did good things, why remember this one bad thing, this one fuck up that wasn't hers anyway? But Liara wanted to hear it, so she had to.

"The docs said the bad juice gave the aggression centers of my brain an overcharge," she admitted unenthusiastically. "I practically saw red as I chased after my targets, ran into a bunch of civies taking shelter somewhere and I..."

Nel clasped her hands over her mouth, her eyes bulging as she did. She held back a whimper and sob, as well as the image of the aftermath of that day. Blood and bullet holes everywhere, fellow turians lying dead on the floor, her hands covered in gore from one of them. But she beat it back into her mind, she didn't own that. It wasn't her. She didn't do that. They weren't on her hands.

"I wasn't thinking straight," she tried to explain, her face distant and voice suddenly monotone. "It wasn't my fault. It was a bad batch and they just... they just got in the way. I couldn't stop it. I didn't even know it happened until I woke up again."

"How many?" Liara asked the turian, her voice slightly less harsh than before.

"Five," Nel responded immediately. "There were four civilians and then one of my own guys when he tried to stop me. Apparently my omni-blade tore open his gut."

Liara shook her head sadly at the story, but Nel didn't give her chance to say anything in response.

"It wasn't my fault," she readily declared. "I know you're thinking it was, but it wasn't. I didn't kill those people! That dose did. That wasn't me in that house, alright? I'm the good guy. Good guys don't do that shit! It was the drug!"

"The drug you're still using," Liara coldly reminded her. "It doesn't matter if it was a bad batch or not. Everything you're describing about it suggests this 'War Spirit's Blood' is highly unstable and unpredictable. Why didn't you quit when you witnessed that first hand?"

"Because I couldn't," Nel shouted standing up defiantly. "I couldn't just let it all be for nothing! There was one damn screw up, one! And it wasn't even my damn fault! I still needed the Juice! I was a good soldier before, but the juice made me something else! It gave me the one thing I always wanted, it made me a hero! It made me one of them!"

Nel pointed at the holoscreen, drawing Liara's own eyes to it. Before the two were the images of another action vid, knee deep in another combat sequence. An outpost full of krogan mercenaries was being besieged by a lone turian, another of Slyvestrix Stalaxian's characters. Liara could only shake her head at it.

"That isn't real, Nel," she told the turian sternly.

"It was when I took the juice," Nel argued back defiantly. "I became those action heroes! I became the unstoppable force that could kill anything in my way! I felt no pain, pulled off every shot, beat down anyone who got close to me. You've seen the results for yourself! I did a lot of good while on that stuff, whether you like it or not. I helped a lot people and I helped you while on that juice. If that makes me a junkie, fine, but don't you fucking tell me I didn't prove myself. I was the soldier you needed because of those drugs."

"And then we got to Khar'shan and you started becoming a liability," Liara reminded her harshly. "One that almost got us killed several times. Considering what your medical scans detected, I have a pretty good idea what caused that. They detected high toxic chemical concentrations in your blood, along with other foreign substances similar to steroids in nature. Personally, I'd like to hear it from you."

Nel irritably groaned at Liara, clutching her head as she began trying to explain once more.

"I broke the rules, okay," she admitted. "I got hurt at that lab we hit before Khar'shan. The drugs were wearing off and the buzz was going down. It was really bad and I didn't want it to happen again. So I figured I'd give myself booster shots. And that felt really good so I started shooting up more and more. But then it burned through my system faster because of that, so I had to use even more to keep the buzz up..."

"Which increased your aggressive and compulsive tendencies even more than normal," Liara concluded rather bluntly. "Just like when you injected that bad batch, you lost control of yourself. And when your body couldn't handle all the stress you were forcibly putting on it and it gave up on you in the middle of a firefight."

"It was a mistake," Nel insisted. "It won't happen again! I won't overdose!"

"I find that hard to believe, Nel," Liara responded viciously. "You should've realised what you were doing when you killed those colonists because of this drug! When this juice got you discharged from the military!"

"I didn't kill them!" Nel violently declared, her voice brimming with wrath. "And I didn't get discharged because of them! I got discharged so they could cover up THEIR fucking screw up!"

Nel walked over to a nearby window in her room and placed her forehead and arm against it. As she stared out into the void, she angrily recalled the real reason she had been thrown out.

"Even with all the crazy shit I did, the orders I didn't follow, the times I went off alone, the military let me stay," she explained, practically spitting venom as she talked. "Until that one time the fuck up was on their heads. They couldn't allow the program to be exposed, didn't want the political blowback that they had given drugs to soldiers get out into the public. They said the politicians would demand an inquiry! That they could all be charged and arrested!"

Nel turned away from the darkness of space and back to Liara, her anger growing as she continued to speak.

"So they terminated the whole damn experiment and me along with it!" She ranted on, pounding her chest as she spoke. "They used my record and all the things I did either on or off the juice against me! Cited my 'loose cannon' shit as the reason for the whole thing! Said I snapped in combat and killed civies because I was mentally unfit for duty! They stripped me of rank, took away my Havoc Soldier armour and threw me out of the Legionnaires on my ass! Then they sealed my file so no one could look into exactly why I got thrown out! I was their fucking sacrifice so they wouldn't have to own up to the fact it was their fucking fault!"

"You still took the drugs, Nel," Liara unsympathetically reminded her. "You saw what they were doing, how dangerous they were and you still kept taking them. And why? Because they made you feel like an action vid star?"

"I was the best fucking soldier in the Hierarchy because of the juice," Nel furiously reiterated once again. "Every moment of my childhood I dreamed of the day my military service would come up. I dreamed of fighting bad guys and saving people. I wanted to be the heroes I saw on the vids and read about in stories. The juice gave me the chance to be all that and more! It was worth the risk. But when some shitheads fucked up and they all realised they were taking too many short cuts, they punished me! They punished me and took away my dream!"

Nel kicked over a small table where several of her cans and bottles were resting. The glass shattered on the ground as the cans tumbled and rolled across the floor. Liara didn't even blink, she just kept staring the turian down.

"So what then?" Liara asked, still livid herself. "You stole it back? That's how you got this huge stash isn't it? How'd you even manage to pull that off and not get caught?"

Nel's angry expression finally softened a little, her head turning downward to the floor. She eventually answered in a low, saddened tone.

"Because the person who created 'War Spirit's Blood' was my father," she admitted. "Colonel Tiveriux Hygilius Catonis, he's got a doctorate in medical and chemical sciences. He was one of the best qualified to lead the project when they started it up."

"And did he bring you into the testing phase in kind?" Liara asked incredulously.

Nel responded to the suggestion with a huff.

"He wanted me to quit the military altogether," she corrected the asari. "He was embarrassed of me. He actually tried to get them to kick me out of the program when it started, bar my participation. But our unit and squads had been selected at random, they weren't about to go back on it. I think he didn't even bother to help me during the court martial because he finally got what he wanted, me out of his beloved military and out of his life."

"And to get back at him you stole his recipe," Liara surmised.

"And what was left of the juice," Nel abruptly added.

"And he didn't call the Hierarchy down on your head after he found out?" The asari questioned. "Why?"

Nel could only shrug in exasperation.

"I don't know," she admitted angrily. "Maybe he didn't want to get reprimanded for letting it get stolen! Or he was too embarrassed that I, of all people, had outsmarted him for once. Who the fuck cares?"

Liara was silent for a moment, but her stare said everything. It was that sceptical look that Nel had quickly grown tired of. She hastily continued her story, as she suspected Liara still wanted more.

"Took me forever to figure out how to cook the stuff right," the turian explained out of frustration. "I went into withdrawal, hurt like fucking hell. Eventually, I managed to make a steady supply. Problem is the chemicals and the process to make the drug is fucking expensive. The stash you got there cost me thousands of credits, it practically broke me. I had to take on the job of a freelancer mercenary, worked a lot of high paying gigs in the Terminus just so I wouldn't starve."

"And feed your addiction as well as your stomach," Liara was quick to abrasively add.

"Yeah, fine, but I never took on any lowlife work to feed it either," Nel hurriedly countered. "I made it clear, no civies, no slave jobs. I ran down bounties, I took out pirate gangs, I fried Red Sand dealers and I iced Eezo smugglers. I did good as a soldier and I kept doing good even after those fuckers took my dream away! And it was because of that juice I was able to do so much good in the first place!"

But Nel's steadfast resolve and unmovable conviction only earned more ire-filled looks from Liara. The asari shook her head as Nel glared back at her.

"This juice makes you a hazard to yourself and everyone around you," she unfalteringly stated. "It doesn't make you a hero. It makes you a liability to this team and our mission. The fact you kept it a secret from us shows you already know this."

"No, I just knew you wouldn't get it," Nel defiantly replied. "And it looks like I was right."

"I have no time to argue with you," Liara groaned with a sigh. "I won't have you putting this team at anymore risk because of your damn addiction. I'm dumping this garbage out the airlock and you're going to get clean."

Nel leapt from her couch and made a grab for the box of drugs. Liara pulled it away before she could get too close.

"No, please," Nel pleaded desperately, the anger suddenly exorcised and replaced with a look of dread. "Don't do that! You can't! I need it! It's the only way I'm going to be good enough! It's only way I can be a soldier again!"

"You're not a soldier, you're an addict!" Liara decried, viciously glaring at her. "Whatever good you think this stuff does for you is just an excuse you've made up! That's all you ever do, make excuses as to why it isn't your fault! The people who gave you this juice and hooked you on it, they share a portion of the blame, most certainly. But you clearly need to learn to accept your own culpability for what happened. As well as accept your responsibility for your own choices and actions. You chose to steal this, you chose to keep taking it, and you chose to endanger yourself and this team on Khar'shan by overdosing!"

Nel lunged toward the box again, her mind completely transfixed on it. Liara held up her arm, the blue aura surrounding it glowing vibrantly. Nel backed off slightly.

"Please, I can't go through withdrawal again," she begged pitifully, tears welling up in her eyes. "I need it! It's pure hell, Liara! You can't do that to me!"

"It's called consequences, Nelanax," Liara informed her. "Something you and the 'heroes' in your vids continually avoid. We have special treatments. We can minimize the pain and help you kick this habit faster. But I will not allow you to keep doing this to yourself. I won't have that on my conscience."

Liara began to walk out of the room. Nel tried to follow, but kept at a distance. Liara's her arm remained ready to fire off a biotic attack at the turian if she tried anything.

"If you truly want to be a hero, Nel, you'll stop making excuses to yourself and others," the asari informed her harshly. "Take a good long look at yourself and then ask, would any of Slyvestrix Stalaxian's characters agree with you?"

Nel couldn't answer the asari. She could only mouth the word please as tears ran down her face.

"I'm going to have someone stop by and remove anything breakable from your room," Liara told her. "You can watch your vids on your omni-tool from now on and you only get water and food under supervision. Until you're better, you're confined to quarters. I'll send the medical officer as soon as I fill him in on what he's dealing with here. Good bye, Nelanax."

And with that, Liara exited the room, box in hand. The door locked the instantly it closed and Nel was left alone once again. Nel retreated back to the couch, sobbing as she sat down once more. The only thing she could hear over her own tears was the sound of her vid.

"I'm afraid the Colonel Zerdius and his krogan mercenaries are too powerful," the overly beautiful female turian scientist claimed. "Their genetic enhancements make them far stronger than you could ever hope to be. But if I give you this injection, it will give you the same strength and power they have. You'll be able to beat them in a fair fight."

"Sorry, Doc," Slyvestrix's character gruffly apologised. "I can't do that. I made a promise to a very special lady."

"Oh, your wife?" The turian scientist asked, sounding slightly hurt.

"No," Slyvestrix replied. "To the Hierarchy. Victors... never take drugs."

Nel didn't even realise she had mouthed the words to the scene. She had seen this vid a hundred times, heard that line just as many. Once, she had thought it was just a cool badass thing to say. Now, it seemed to mock her. Liara had been right. In a fit of sorrowful rage, Nel picked up bag of junk food and tossed it at the holoscreen. She cried out a terrible scream and curled up into a ball.

"It's not my fault," she sobbed heavily as she beat on her head. "It's not my fault. I'm not a fuck-up! I'm not a fuck-up!"


Liara's analysis of Nel's juice confirmed her story. It did carry the markings of a synthetically engineered drug. By the scans calculations, a single drop could forcibly increase a person's production of adrenal and testosterone levels by ten times the regular amount. The vials Nel had were tiny, but given the size of them Liara's computer estimated each dose could do the same job times fifty. The old Shadow Broker would've probably seen this information as a gold mine for the black market.

Liara just saw something that had turned a starry-eyed soldier into a blood-crazed junkie. This juice had jeopardized their mission too many times to be allowed on the Lucen any longer. So after her tests were completed she did as she claimed she would do, she dumped every last drop into an airlock and ejected it out into space. Good riddance as far as she was concerned.

On her way back from the airlock, however, she ran into Wrex. He was leaning against a wall, almost as if he were expecting her.

"I was watching your monitors a little. Reports from Khar'shan coming over your new connection to their upper echelons popped up," he began simply. "They're claiming the attack on Rakavekyon Tower was launched by insurgent abolitionists. The government has declared a State of Emergency and a day of mourning for all the brave construction workers they claim we killed who tried to save the tower."

"Is that all?" Liara asked.

"Not really, all the major news outlets have been told to say humans sponsored the attack," Wrex answered aloofly. "They're of course blocking information from getting out about the tower's destruction to the galactic press. Usual stuff."

Liara knew better, however. The Hegemony wasn't stupid enough to believe their own propaganda about what happened. They destroyed the evidence, but not every key witness.

"What do they really think happen?" Liara asked.

"Balak suspects you, but he has no evidence," Wrex admitted. "Narvkel wants to give him more people, but after we killed a few of their high ranking military officers, their replacements are reluctant to help out the Swords. They feel he should've had something in place to stop this from happening, given his own expertise in Black Ops, and he did call that meeting in the first place."

Good, they had done some real damage to Balak's support back home then.

"Not all good news though," Wrex admitted. "They're suspicious of your involvement regardless, so Balak is requesting beefed up security at every Base of Operations the Swords have. Narvkel's also trying to push some extra ships for him to use out of dry dock."

"I expected as much," Liara admitted. "They were going to respond to any action we took. I bet they'll try to boost security at the Communications Array, but with any luck they'll just end up spreading their forces thin trying to protect everywhere at once. Doesn't matter now, we need to get to the Codemaster first before we hit it anyway."

Liara started to walk on by, but Wrex was quick to stop her by speaking up again.

"You can't just make her quit," he told her bluntly.

Liara turned back slowly to Wrex, her attention regained.

"It's Rehab 101, you can't make someone quit if they don't want to," he elaborated to her. "Yelling and shouting at her isn't going to make her give it up."

"We have treatments," Liara informed him firmly. "We can speed up the process. Get her body to exorcise the addiction through other methods. The faster her metabolism speeds up for example, the faster it will burn up what's left in her system."

"That's a little extreme don't you think?" He asked sounding somewhat concerned. "I've heard what those treatments do and the side effects. They make things faster, but not easier. It might be more than she can handle"

"We don't have a choice," Liara informed him. "As angry as I am with her, we may still need her. If she can't clean up her act, she's off the team. But I don't have time to look for an extra pair of guns with her experience and we're going to need all the help we can get retrieving the Codemaster. Besides, we have medical staff on stand-by, she's in good hands."

Wrex pulled himself off the wall, lumbering over to the asari with a stern look.

"I'm just saying, Liara," he explained. "You going off on her, while more than likely deserved, isn't going to make this easier for her."

"I don't particularly care if it's easy for her at this point, Wrex," Liara admitted rather bluntly. "My patience is at an end here. She's been trouble from day one and I have a hard time justifying keeping her on board as it is. If she hates me for this, fine. At least she won't flirt with me anymore. That's a plus in my book."

Wrex sighed and shook his head.

"Liara, she's not the only person I'm concerned about on this ship," he worriedly explained. "I know Rakavekyon was tough, it was hard on all of us, but you have better judgement than this. You don't have to act like a hard ass to get your point across, that's not you."

"Or maybe I'm just finally tossing that shell of mine away and being proactive for once," she argued. "Wrex, I get you're worried about what being in charge is doing to me, but I can handle it."

"I know you can," Wrex assured her. "But you're letting it eat at you in ways I don't like. You're letting being the leader of these people control you, not the other way around."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Liara asked him, her look one of his frustration and puzzlement at the krogan's words.

Wrex pulled a datapad from off his person and handed it to Liara.

"For starters, and getting back to Nel not being the only problem on this tub," he informed her with a sigh. "You need to worry about Vik."

"Why?" Liara asked, somewhat bewildered. "I know what he did was pretty reckless and stupid, but-"

"Look, he's probably not a bad guy, but let's be honest here," said Wrex earnestly. "We know very little about him at all. Tali was a chatterbox at times, he keeps dodging questions about everything. Like how he knows so much about the Hegemony and explosives and why he left the Flotilla. Check the datapad."

Liara activated the little device and saw it was downloaded electronic book. Scanning it carefully, title and content alike, she realised what it was exactly. It was the book, "The Firebrand Arises: A Guide to Tearing it Down", an infamous book that circulated on the extranet and in printed form. It detailed, in explicit instructions, how to build cheap bombs of any kind, from explosive to incendiary. It told you how to set them, what propellants to use, what kind of detonators to attach them too, everything. Many well known terrorists the galaxy over had been arrested with the book on their person.

"Where did you find this?" Liara gravely asked, already suspecting the answer.

"I may have pinched it from Vik's shuttle when he was away," the krogan answered. "And before you give me that look, remember what you do for a living."

"That's not the same, Wrex," Liara informed him incredulously. "We don't spy on our friends."

"Yeah, we shouldn't," Wrex agreed. "But he's also a member of the crew you're leading. It's hard to be friends with someone who doesn't share anything with us. It's impossible to work with a squadmember who does the same. If he doesn't trust us with who he is, how can we trust him?"

Liara gave the datapad another look, eyeing the contents from top to bottom. She even spotted a diagram similar to that of the little grenade bomb Vik had created on the day they met him on Omega. It was compelling, scary, but Liara wasn't about to throw accusations about.

"This doesn't mean anything," she tried to dispute. "Vik has clear anti-government beliefs, he's never denied that. Obviously he was attracted to this sort of material. It helped us, didn't it?"

"But why is he interested in making bombs?" Wrex insistently asked. "That doesn't bode well, Liara. He didn't learn this for us. He's clearly been studying it for awhile now."

Despite his point, Liara shook her head vigorously at the idea.

"He has problems, but he's not the enemy," Liara insisted. "He's mentally unhinged, remember? The Galaxy hasn't been kind to him and he's been through something traumatic."

"Of course he has, and I'm sorry that he has," Wrex replied as kindly as possible. "But people do crazy things in that kind of situation. I know from personal experience. Whatever scars he has, we need to be sure they don't come back to bite us. If you want to lead this team, you need to understand everything about the kind of people you're leading."

As much as Liara hated to admit it, Wrex had a point. Vik may not have put them at risk as much as Nel had, but she couldn't deny that he had problem. She had come to rely on the quarian though and she wasn't about to berate him based on suspicions. In any case, she needed to talk to him about Rakavekyon, and return his e-book obviously.


Liara slowly walked up to Vik's shuttle, Truth. The door was open, but no one was inside. Usually the quarian could be found within, working on whatever was on his board. Not feeling up to scouring the ship to find him, Liara intended to just wait. She went to place the data pad with anarchist text down somewhere, but her eyes were then drawn back to Vik's board. She wondered if it had changed much since her first visit.

She found it had, drastically. Replacing the nonsense patterning of before, the news printouts from online, the foggy photos of monsters and corporate logos was something else. There were pictures of faces with names attached to the bottoms. There were turian officers, asari business women, owners of PMCs, a few government agency members, all with strings attaching them to one another. Beside some of these pictures were articles about colony attacks, slave rings, terrorist groups, small regional wars, bombing attacks, military coups on smaller colony worlds and even a few fatal accidents for prominent public figures.

What was more disturbing was the red ink covering some of the pictures and articles. Words and fragment sentences saying, "No Accident", "Murderer", "Liars!" or "Oppressor" scrawled across everything. Looking closer at the ink, Liara realised that it was still a bit wet. Vik had probably only just constructed this board recently. This board also seemed more concise and ordered than the previous scattered one. Despite the scrawling of anger, it seemed to have some kind of logic to it. Liara just couldn't figure out what logic it was.

At the top of the board, where all the threads connected to each other, there was a single picture. A Batarian Liara did not readily recognize. His skin was more of a light brown with hints of grey and dark patches along the sides of his head. His four eyes seemed dead set and direct, a powerful gaze indeed. She read the name on the bottom of his picture, Sarok Mutoff. Inked read on another piece of paper was a messily written message that said "Bosh'tet! Monster! Killed them! Took her! Must Suffer!"

Liara took a step back to fully absorb the board properly. She shook her head at it all.

"What is all this?" She asked herself in a hushed whisper. "What did these people do to you, Vik? What are you hiding?"

Overcome with curiosity, Liara searched around the shuttle for more clues. All she found was the door leading to Vik's bedroom in. As before, it was open but only by a crack. It went against her better nature, peering into the privacy of friends. But Wrex was right, he wasn't just a friend he was a part of the crew. She needed to know the truth.

Carefully moving to the door, Liara pushed it aside. Unsurprisingly, the reason the door was never fully shut was because the locking mechanism was broken. Vik had never gotten around to fixing it, couldn't afford to fix it, or didn't care because it wasn't essential to keep the shuttle flying. Given what Liara saw inside the room though, perhaps he should've considered fixing it.

Beside the untidy bed was a large cylindrical object. It looked pieced together from various odds and ends of tech. Wires intertwined with one another all over it and there looked to be a small monitor and keypad. Liara didn't readily recognize it, but she had a hunch what it was.

She looked at the datapad again and scrolled through the pages of the anarchist material. Eventually she found a similar match, the directions for the casing for a bomb, a decently sized one in fact. It was a near perfect match to the one standing before her.

Liara quickly scanned the cylinder with her omni-tool. She found no trace of an explosive. Looking at the blueprint on the datapad once more she realised it wasn't entirely complete. Components like the top of the casing weren't sealed or some of the wires weren't connected. The bomb was still under construction and had been for some time.

"It's not what it looks like," a voice came from behind.

Liara turned and saw Vik standing behind her, his eyes a mixture of sullen shame and anxiety. The asari wasted no time in leaving the little bedroom and lightly pushing Vik back towards the center of the shuttle. She wanted him nowhere near the bomb right now, even if it was incomplete.

"Tell me what it looks like then?" Liara asked him, anger rising in her voice. "Because it looks like you're building a bomb on my ship."

"It's not armed," Vik feebly argued.

"That is beside the point," Liara said as she thrust the datapad back into the quarian's arms. "You're making a bomb under my nose and you have a handbook on how to do it in your library."

Vik stared at the datapad for a moment, before looking back up at Liara with a hurt expression.

"You've been looking through my stuff?" He asked, seemingly wounded by the revelation.

"Do not change the subject," Liara told him sternly. "And it was Wrex who found the book anyway, not me. It doesn't matter. You're building a bomb, Vik, under my watch in fact. I think that's something the captain of the ship should know, don't you? Were even going to tell me?"

"It has nothing to do with our mission," Vik sheepishly explained. "I swear. You don't need to get involved, it's my problem."

Liara now glared at the quarian disapprovingly.

"Well I'm involved now," Liara informed him firmly. "So either you start explaining or I start disassembling that thing before you accidentally blow us up!"

"I was just making the casing," Vik hurriedly replied. "I wasn't going to hook up the explosives unless I was in a safe place! I never would've put you guys in danger!"

"I want to know what it's for, Vik," Liara reiterated, her anger growing as Vik continued to dodge the issue. "What were you planning? Who were you going to blow up and why? What is this all about?"

Liara pointed to the board for her last question. The quarian stared at the board once and shook his head sadly. His head now hung low, his defeated posture apparent for all to see.

"I told you my pilgrimage went badly," he reminded her morosely. "But that was an understatement. It was a nightmare. I thought all those stories the adults told me, about how trying and difficult things were, that they were an exaggeration. I figured they were just a bunch of old guys over emphasizing all the bad things that happened to them. I thought maybe the galaxy had changed since their time. I was so naive."

With a dour melancholy look, Vik slumped over to small chair along the wall and took a seat.

"In less than a month, I found I couldn't get work," he began miserably. "I blew through pretty much all my credits, ended up living out of a shelter on welfare. And because I wanted to impress the captain of the ship I wanted to serve on, I didn't want to go home unless I had something special for my Pilgrimage gift. So I tried looking for a job, any job, to make back some credits. I thought I found one at this agency I went to on Illium, but... it wasn't what I thought."

Liara sighed, dejectedly shaking her head at the story. She had a pretty good idea where this was going now.

"You signed an Indentured Servitude contract, didn't you?" she quickly reasoned.

"They didn't call it that, they said it was a job contract," Vik admitted frantically. "I didn't bother to read it. They seemed so nice and I was so stupid!"

Vik began beating the side of his head, calling himself stupid over and over. Liara rushed over grabbed his hand, forcing him to stop.

"You weren't stupid," Liara told him earnestly. "They took advantage of you. What they did was highly illegal. They're the ones in the wrong, not you."

"It doesn't matter," Vik said despondently. "I should've realised it before I signed. I should've known better. I should've listened to my father and everyone else who told me to be wary of anyone outside the Fleet."

"You were young, you had faith in people," Liara told him, her own thoughts drifting slightly. "That... that doesn't make you stupid."

Liara let Vik's hand go. The quarian took a small breath before he continued his little story, his eyes looking up towards the board.

"They sold me off pretty quickly," he forlornly stated. "They stuck me in a cramped little dark ship and sent me to the first client they could find that wanted a quarian. That man, up there at the top, Sarok Mutoff."

Vik glared up at the picture, saying the name with venomous ire in his voice.

"He runs a Privatized Arms Manufacturer and Military Contract corporation," Vik continued bitterly. "It's called 'Pillars of Defence.' They make tanks, gunships, small and heavy arms, and they even have their own stable of mercenaries on call. They sell most of their merchandise off to the Terminus Systems' governments, but their biggest buyer is the Hegemony."

"That doesn't make sense," Liara said, puzzled by the explanation. "The Hegemony doesn't trust privately owned businesses. They get most of their weapons from the nationalized corporations they have direct control over, specifically Batarian State Arms."

"Sarok found a loophole," Vik stated gravely. "In exchange for remaining independent, his company provides funds, weapons and materials to Hegemony operations that are outside their space through his own network of agents and spies. The Hegemony remains content and they let him do whatever he wants in return. Like running guns, smuggling drugs, corporate espionage, and slavery, just to name a few of his crimes."

Now the board made sense, it was this network Vik was talking about. All the people connected to this Sarok character and all the things they helped orchestrate for him were represented on it. That still left a few questions though.

"You pieced this altogether while working for Sarok?" Liara asked.

"He was incredibly paranoid about someone discovering what he was doing with his company," Vik explained. "He needed someone with technical know how in order to secure his network. Since I was a quarian, he thought I could do the job. He forced me to create a systems mainframe for all his operations. He wanted his work secure, off the grid and away from any prying eyes. It made me sick to think I was helping hide all his lies for him."

Vik's tone suddenly became more desolate, his look turning back to Liara and away from the board.

"Not as sick as how he treated the other slaves in his compound compared to me though," he morosely admitted. "Most of them were batarians, but a few were people that had been kidnapped. He treated them all like dirt though. I made friends with some of them. I wanted to help them, to get them away from Sarok, but it all went wrong."

Vik's fist suddenly slammed down on the table in anger. Liara watched in silence as his eyes welled up as the memories returned.

"Sarok figured out I had been speaking to the others slaves," He frantically explained. "He figured out we were planning to escape somehow and was afraid I was intending to get away with his secrets. He couldn't risk that or his subordinates revolting, so he tricked me. He tricked me with false hope of escape and then... then he..."

Vik clutched the sides of his head as he began to break down.

"He started killing them, killing all of them right in front of me," he sobbed heavily. "I did everything to save them, showed I had no information on anything he had done, that I had just wanted to get myself and my friends out. But he just laughed! He just laughed and kept on killing them! Saying I had already tainted his slaves, that I planted the idea of freedom in their heads and they were no good to him anymore! I... I couldn't stop him! I couldn't stop him so I ran! I managed to break free and I just ran... and I left... I left them to die."

Vik sniffed through his nose as he continued to cry. Liara could do nothing but watch as the painful memories poured from the quarian's mouth.

"I just ran to a nearby hangar bay where he kept all his shuttles and stole one," he continued as he kept bawling. "I hacked my way out of the door and just flew off. I thought I had gotten away, but Sarok... he sent me a message over the shuttle's computer. He said he let me get away, that no one would believe me about him anyway. That he could be patient, that one day he'd just come and take me back. And if anyone got in his way he'd... he'd do to them what he just did to my friends."

Vik clasped his hands over his faceplate, whimpering as he did. Liara's anger had by now lessened substantially. It was now replaced mostly by pity than anything else.

"That's why you kept saying you had to leave the Flotilla," she reasoned. "You didn't want to put your family at risk."

Vik just nodded in response while Liara turned to oversized board. Her eyes darted to each individual represented on it one by one. The scope of this miniature network wasn't too far reaching, but it seemed substantial by all accounts. Sarok certainly had connections at the very least, perhaps even connected to Balak and his Swords in some fashion.

"I used to believe in the inherent good in people before my pilgrimage," he begrudgingly admitted. "I thought that you could trust people to tell you the truth, to not lie to your face or stab you in the back. Now, I can't believe in anything, because everywhere I look, I only see lies."

So all Vik believed in now were lies, Liara reasoned. Sarok had taken away his sense of security, replacing it with paranoia and fear. Vik had seen the corruption of the galaxy and it had overwhelmed him. The Conspiracies he followed were clearly the direct result of that. They were the only thing Vik could believe in now, the only truth he had left.

"That doesn't explain the bomb," said Liara, slightly impatient for an answer. "Or why you didn't tell us about any of this."

"Don't you get it?" Vik pleadingly asked through his sobs. "The only way my family will be safe, the only way I can ever go home, is if Sarok can't find me. The only way he won't find me is if his network is gone. That means taking it down. I'm tired of running, tired of living like this! But I don't have the credits to finish the bomb and I don't even know if I could even pull it off if I tried. I'm not even sure how to get the bomb into his compound or if it will even work. I've been trying to figure it out for over a year now and I'm still clueless."

The quarian slouched in his seat, his misery giving way to shame once more.

"I know I should've told you," He glumly admitted. "But I just... it hurt to talk about. A part of me hoped that I'd be doing something to help when I joined your crew. That I could honor my friends that way, by helping you stop the Covenant and the Swords. And when I joined I liked being part of a ship's crew again. I didn't want to put that at risk. I wanted to tell you everything, I really did, but I just couldn't bring myself to trust you enough. I didn't know how you'd react if you found out I've been building a bomb or if you'd even believe my story. I know that's not a good enough answer, but it's all I can give."

Liara felt for the quarian, she really did. Part of her even understood where he was coming from. She had been down this road before. She had only recently escaped it with the death of the Shadow Broker. She always knew Vik was damaged and now she understood why. That didn't change things though, they both knew that.

"Vik, we can't work together like a crew should if you're hiding things from us," she informed him as direct as possible. "I realise that this hurt you, but I needed to know all the same. You almost let what happened to you put us at greater risk when you tried to kill Narvkel. You can't let that anger control you."

"That's easier to say when you don't feel responsible for getting people you cared about killed," Vik gloomily stated, his head down on the table dejectedly.

"That doesn't mean you have to face this all alone," Liara assured him. "I understand you have trust issues, believe me, I've been where you are."

Vik raised his head at that, his attention garnered.

"Someone took a friend of mine," Liara explained solemnly. "I didn't even think he was alive for two years. I did find him, alive, eventually. But for two years I remained alone, cut off, always watching my back and wondering if things would catch up to me. I almost pushed a lot of people I cared about away in the process, thinking I was doing them a favor. I wasn't."

Vik seemed to be listening, but he didn't say anything. So Liara kept talking.

"You need to learn to trust again, Vik," Liara informed him. "You need to believe again that people can be good. If you keep this up, hiding things from those that can help you, burying all your problems deep inside, it won't end well. If you don't, then even if you get back to your family... you'll still be alone."

Liara got up from her seat while Vik followed her with his eyes.

"The casing needs to go in storage," she informed him. "I know you say it's not activated, but I can't have you work on it without supervision, not anymore. I will try to help you figure this thing with Sarok out, but you need to let me in on it. Along with anything else you're going through. There can't be any secrets on this ship, not anymore. I'm your friend, Vik, and no one on this ship is your enemy. If nothing else, you need to believe that."

Again, Vik said nothing. Liara just sighed quietly and turned slightly away. Her eyes went back up to the board though and looked toward Sarok's picture. She read the red ink beside the photo again, specifically two words. "Took Her!"

"Who was she, exactly?" Liara asked him. "Who did he take?"

For a moment, Liara thought Vik wouldn't answer again. But as she turned to leave the quarian finally spoke up.

"Tara," he called up, a lump forming in his throat. "Her name was Tara. She... she did for me what I couldn't do for her. She saved me."

Liara recognized the name as human in origin, but she didn't pry further. Vik would need to share everything one his own. Pushing him would only make it worse. Hopefully this was the start. Liara left the shuttle without saying another word. She'd send men to take the bomb casing away later. She had research to do.


Checking Vik's story was simple enough. The ShadowNet already had a file on Sarok Mutoff. He was indeed the Head CEO of "Pillars of Defence", as Vik had said. He had made quite the comfortable life for himself on Lorek, protected within a walled compound surrounding a hill where his little mansion resided at the top. Despite the fact he was so far away from the Hegemony proper, he never missed a chance to praise it and the values it celebrated. He did not admit to owning slaves of captured Colonists of course, but he did outwardly support slavery of lower caste batarians.

Vik was right to have concerns about his chances of getting inside the compound. Liara couldn't see much of a way inside from what photos she could gather. She'd need to put agents on it if she wanted to follow through on her promise to help Vik with this. They'd definitely need a more refined plan than planting a bomb. She hoped Vik sorted himself soon enough that he'd be able to help think of one.

For now though, Sarok wasn't a threat and they still had a Codemaster to acquire. Not to mention everything else they had learned about to deal with. Luckily, they had some time. Given what had happened, she doubted Balak would be able to move forward with his attacks so soon. Orukuri didn't sound like he was at all close to launching his insurrection either. The Hegemony would probably keep the Covenant from heading to Kahje for awhile, if only to keep their alliance a secret.

Even so, despite the fact they had time to react to everything they would still need help when the time came. She was hoping that some of that help would be from the STG. Which was one of the reasons she was on her way to see Saya now. The other reason was he was guarding Nel's quarters and she wanted a progress report on how things were going so far.

From the sound of the screams and pounding, it was going as expected. Saya didn't seem bothered by it. In fact he didn't even seem to be paying attention. His sword was off the side, leaning against a separate wall as he stared at the weapon.

"Saya," Liara spoke up as she approached. "How are things going with Nel?"

She already had an idea, but she wanted to know Saya's opinion. The fact he couldn't talk wasn't going to stop her from asking. The salarian, however, didn't bother to turn his head or look at the asari. He just kept staring straight ahead. He did answer though by giving her a datapad with some notes he had taken. Liara took the pad and read the small timeline the salarian had made.

Nel had been screaming for hours now. The medical officer was inside and had been for awhile, along with a number of aides keeping watch. He had been sending Saya reports as per Liara's instruction every half hour. She had been throwing up, complaining about chest pain and migraines, her pupils were dilated and she was prone to increased aggression, anxiety and mood swings, to name a few of her symptoms. Her advanced treatments were helping to lessen the pain, but they could only supply it every other hour. They didn't want to put too much of a strain on her body at this stage.

"At least she's in good hands," Liara said to Saya. "With any luck, she'll be better in time for the mission. But if not, we'll have to go on without her."

Saya didn't even bother to shrug at the comment. He just kept staring at his sword. Liara was a bit confused by the behaviour, but she tried to press on. There were other things she needed to discuss.

"I trust you informed Kirrahe about what we found on Khar'shan," she reasoned. "Can he offer us any support if we need it?"

Saya only nodded. Liara wanted to be relieved, but she expected more of an answer than just a nod. Saya did have other ways of talking after all. She pressed on regardless, trying not to remain on subject.

"I'm hoping to cash in our favour with Aria for the attack on the Communication Array, but Kirrahe should probably stay in the wings for now," she surmised. "We'll need him if any of these plans we uncovered suddenly go forward. I've already sent the relevant information to the turian and hanar governments, as well as the Alliance. They won't really be able to act on it without a precise target, but they won't be taken by surprise at least."

Again, Saya did not respond. He just stared straight ahead, directly at his sword. Liara gave in to her curiosity and looked at the sword herself. She realised that it was dirty, covered in orange blood, that of a krogan no doubt. It seemed so unlike Saya, so removed from his norm.

"I'm not an expert," Liara informed him cautiously. "But I'm sure swords are supposed to be kept clean, even if that sword has been modified to use electricity and explosive gel by STG."

Saya again didn't respond at first. Liara was about to give up and just ask what was wrong, but she didn't have to. Saya began signing out exactly what he was brooding over. His hand gestures revealed a rather grime sentence.

'Killed a kid.' Saya's hands said. 'Killed kid in tower.'

"There were no children in the tower," Liara responded, rather confused and wondering is she had read the hands wrong.

'Krogan kid,' Saya's hurried sign language quickly corrected her. "Not old. Crest hadn't formed fully. Still young. Didn't want to be there. Could tell. Killed him.'

Now clarified, Saya's despondence should've made sense. Liara, however, was still confused. As tragic as the event of a life being cut so short was to her, even the life of an enemy, she hadn't expected Saya to be taking it so hard. He hated krogan, he made that very clear.

"Forgive me if I sound... cruel," Liara pre-emptively and cautiously apologised. "I'm wondering why that seems to be bothering you. You never showed you cared much about krogan before."

Saya didn't jump up or try denying Liara's words. He only nodded and handed her another datapad. This one was different. It wasn't more notes on Nel's condition. It was an STG After action report. The immediate thing that stood out for Liara was the date.

"This is from a few weeks before that pirate encounter," she realised. "Before you lost your voice."

Saya only signed out the words 'read aloud' with his hands response.

Liara obliged, wondering where this was about to go and unsure if she would like it.

"STG Squad entered former Faktruk Province on Tuchanka, in search of leads to current whereabouts of Main Pirate HQ." She began to read. "Located objective, but discovered camp had been abandoned, no krogan to be seen. Indigenous wildlife had already moved in to reclaim area in search of food left behind by krogan pirates. Squad forced to engage with large pack of Varren and competing Klixen swarm in order to secure area."

So far, Liara didn't see much out of the ordinary. She searched to find Saya's name, expecting it to reveal what she was looking for. It did.

"Agent Saya Empa engaged one group of Varren," she read aloud, her voice growing more sullen and melancholy as she kept reading what followed next. "Saya then discovered remains of... krogan children in pile, only one survivor among dead. Further evidence, and child's testimony, suggests camp was for... recruitment purposes. Pirates had kidnapped children from nearby female camp of Faktruk Tribe. Pirates forced them to fight one another to determine who was strongest. They then executed the weakest, gathered the winners and broke camp. Have contacted CDEM and will deliver child to their custody for return to female camp."

Liara didn't continue with the report, she had read enough. She turned back to Saya, still staring at his sword. Now she understood everything.

"So... this is why you're upset then," she deduced.

Saya could only nod.

"How many children were... in the pit?" Liara cautiously asked, not sure if she wanted the answer.

'One was too many,' Saya signed out quickly.

Liara bent down beside the salarian, her head shaking from side to side.

"The loss of your voice isn't the reason you hate krogans," she frankly deduced. "That just made it personal. You hated them because of this."

Saya slowly typed something up on his omni-tool, slow by salarian standards anyway.

'They have so few children now, but they value life so little,' the message read.

"Not all of them," Liara insisted. "The cruel and desperate ones, those who have given up and don't care anymore. Not all Krogan, not Wrex. You can't blame them all for this anymore than you can for your voice."

Saya finally turned away from his sword, looking Liara directly in the eye. He held his omni-tool up between them as he typed the next message. The words formed right in front of Liara's eyes.

'You didn't see the faces of the kids they decided were garbage," the sentence read as it slowly formed.

"So it doesn't matter who is to blame then?" Liara asked, not convinced of the argument. "If this is how some krogan treat the young of their species, then it's enough to damn them all?"

'They don't care, why should I?' Saya wrote. "I realised they weren't worth it that day. They are animals.'

That how he coped, that's what he told himself. But the fact Saya was feeling guilty over a krogan right now said something else.

"If that's true," Liara began to ask. "Why are we talking about this?"

Saya turned away, unable to offer any kind of real answer. Liara got back up and moved over to grab the sword by the hilt. She brought over to its owner, holding it before in her hands.

"I know why we're talking," she informed him sternly. "You tried to forget they were people. You tried to think of them as just rabid animals to put down. But the second you cut into the krogan whose blood is now on this sword, you couldn't deny that anymore. You saw them as people again. And you can't rectify that. Not when you've done the same thing those pirates did. Tell me I'm wrong, Saya."

All the salarian could do was hang his head. That was all she needed to see. Liara bent down once more, offering the Shiakala to him proper.

"You can't keep trying to convince yourself to think like that anymore," Liara informed him. "It's not going to happen. Not now, not when you've been forced to kill one of them like this."

'I have to,' Saya signed out. 'I have to be detached."

"But you never were detached," Liara argued. "You were using your hatred to focus you. You thought you were better than them, plain and simple. That you, unlike the krogan, never killed children, but every soldier is someone's child. You can't ignore that anymore."

Saya seemed to contemplate the words for a brief, before he finally signed out a question.

'What do I do now?'

"Stop fighting because you want to hurt the krogan," Liara told him plainly. "Stop pretending that will make you feel better. Start fighting to stop others from stealing the futures of more children. Start fighting to defend those who can't defend themselves like you can. Fight because it's right, not because it feels good."

Saya's head finally rose up proper and he reached out to take the sword. Slowly, but surely, he grasped the hilt and brought it back to his side. As he stood up, he eyed the orange blood on the blade.

"You're going to have to clean that off," Liara told him. "I'll stay here until you get back."

Saya just nodded and walked away. Liara stood in his place, listening as Nel's cries started to soften. She wasn't sure how much of an effect her talk had on the salarian, only that she had managed to get him to think about some things. Now he just had to crawl back out of his dark place and fight again.


After everything that had happened today, Liara wanted some clarity, some downtime. Luckily, she had something easy on her plate that was coming up. Drothan had finally gotten off Khar'shan by coming with them when everything went down. He was happy to be out, but he knew what it meant. He had just burned his bridge as a contact on the Hegemony homeworld. Not that it mattered though. Thanks to his efforts the ShadowNet now had full access to pretty much every facet of the government now. It did mean, however, that he couldn't go back.

Liara was quick to try and remedy that. She informed him that the "Shadow Broker" had seen fit to set him up somewhere decent. She had purchased a nice apartment for him to stay at and arranged to see about assisting him in finding a job. She transferred some credits into his account, enough to get him started. Now one of the Lucen's shuttles was about to take him to a starport and then on to the Citadel proper. Everything was in order. All that was left was to see him off.

She found the batarian already waiting in the hangar bay with a fresh set of clothes for his new life. Kayap was nearby, sitting on a box not too far from Vik's shuttle. The quarian in question was hunched over in the Truth's cockpit, no doubt still thinking through everything Liara had said to him. The asari just kept her attention on Drothan, although she still hoped Vik was thinking hard about what she said.

"So, I'm off to the Citadel," Drothan greeted Liara as she approached. "I'll finally get to see the capital of Council debauchery and corruption, as the Hegemony claims. Heh, should be fun."

"I'm sure you'll love it," Liara answered him warmly. "You've been a great service to us. I think you've earned an upgrade to your standard of living."

"Sorry I can't stick around," the batarian apologised. "But I don't feel like stepping on Sajee's turf as techie genius. Plus you seem to be heading into more trouble anyway and I don't think I'm going to be much help in an actual fight."

"I understand," Liara assured him. "I think you'd be more assistance out in the field doing what you do best anyway. If you can, see if you can dig up more information on VykurCorp's dealings. They have a branch on the Citadel, try starting there."

Drothan just saluted politely with a slight smile. His four eyes then looked over to Vik, still slouching in his shuttle.

"Is he okay?" He asked. "He's acting a little weird since we got off Khar'shan. Half the time he's closed up inside, the rest of the time he's just wandering around, mumbling and ending up at the mess to eat eventually. That's what I hear anyway."

"He's... working through some issues," Liara tried to delicately explain. "It's rather personal. I've talked to him about it though. You needn't concern yourself."

Drothan only nodded knowingly at the remark.

"Well, I'm sure you got things well in hand," he told her. "He's a good guy, if a bit screwy. First quarian I ever met and I end up liking him. I'm a really bad Hegemony citizen it seems."

Drothan had a good laugh at that and Liara couldn't help but smile at the comment herself.

"Seriously though," the batarian quickly followed up. "It was nice meeting and working with all of you."

"Even Nel?" Liara asked, slightly bemused by the idea.

"I'll admit, she's not an easy person to be around," Drothan shrugged. "And she is a junkie, that's an obvious sticking point. Still, I think she really does want to do good. She just has a really warped way of going about it."

That was certainly putting it light, Liara thought.

"Hopefully once she's clean she'll straighten out that warped viewpoint," she replied, making her disgruntlement with the turian clear. "It probably won't be that simple though, she has her own baggage to deal with."

"Hey, don't we all," the batarian briefly stated.

The shuttle was then lowered into position from up top and the door opened.

"Well, that's my ride," Drothan said as he looked over his shoulder. "Good luck to you and your crew, Liara T'Soni. I'll be rooting for ya out there."

"Thanks, we'll probably need all the luck and well wishes we can get," Liara said pleasantly as the two shook hands.

"Hey, don't sell yourselves short," he cheerfully reassured her. "You blew up the biggest monument to the Hegemony's bullshit and got away with it. You're a damn fine crew. If anyone can pull this off, you guys can."

Liara acknowledged the show of confidence with a nod and Drothan walked into the shuttle proper. As it lifted from the ground slowly and headed to the hangar's exit doors, Kayap got up from his box and walked over. The shuttle passed through the mass effect field surrounding the ship and into the void beyond. Liara just watched it vanish, as Kayap came to stand by her side.

"He's right you know," he said. "We're doing pretty okay, all things considered."

"I'd like to think so, Kay," Liara answered him, sighing slightly. "It's just hard to sometimes. It seems even when things go right, something else goes wrong. Nel taking drugs, Vik building a bomb under my nose, Saya is having crisis of conscience he's trying to deny. I picked some crew alright."

"It's worked out so far," Kayap tried to insist.

Liara just laughed a little at that, but her tone quickly shifted back to one that was more solemn than anything.

"I suppose," she admitted softly. "By the skin of our teeth though. That doesn't change the fact that I've gathered up a makeshift squad of problem cases. I feel more like a psychiatrist today than an archaeologist. I definitely don't feel like much of a leader either."

"I think you're a great leader," Kayap was quick to compliment her.

"Because I don't beat you?" Liara asked, a slight smile springing up from her melancholy face.

"No, because you've somehow kept it all together," the unggoy tried to explain. "Anyone on the ship could've said no to going to the batarian homeworld, but we all stayed to help you. There has to be a reason behind that."

Liara nodded, but she wasn't in full agreement.

"I'm sure there is, Kay," she replied rather disenchanted. "But I'm not so sure I'm the reason for it."

"Well I know why I've stayed," the little alien readily answered back. "Because I wanted to help you. You've done a lot for me, more than anyone in a long time. I just hope I'm returning the favour. That I'm actually helping out enough."

Liara looked down at the methane breathing alien and smiled broadly.

"You're doing just fine, Kay," Liara kindly assured him. "Better in fact. You're a valuable member of this team. Never doubt that."

"Not all the time," he answered, sounding rather dissatisfied in himself. "I'm not much of a fighter, I know that. I'm not very sneaky. I'm not nearly as good with technology as Vik is."

"You have your own skills you bring to the table, Kayap," Liara tried to encourage him. "You have insight into the Covenant's tactics and strategies none of us have. You're also surprisingly adept with heavy weapons. Your actions at the tower make that clear enough."

Kayap fell silent, scratching the back of his head for a moment. He suddenly seemed jitterier than before, but Liara couldn't tell why.

"I haven't always been helpful," he admitted. "I spent most of my time before all this just trying to stay out of the fighting as much as possible. I tried being clever, figuring out ways to keep from getting killed, to avoid combat."

"Considering who you were fighting for, no one can really blame you," Liara readily stated to him. "The Covenant's cause isn't exactly a just crusade after all."

"No, but I didn't do enough to help my friends," he explained sadly. "I just focused on surviving more than anything else. I thought that was good enough for awhile. Maybe I should've been helping the others understand why that was important, maybe things would've been different."

Liara understood what he meant. Charlan had left an indelible mark on Kayap, he still hadn't gotten over it. However, she soon learned there was more to it. Kayap's face turned up towards her again, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

"You wanna know something?" He asked her, strangely poignant as he spoke. "That small squad I was with the day we met on your other ship? I wanted to be on that mission for once. That's not me, I tried to avoid stuff like that. Small little recon missions I mean."

"Why?" Liara asked, deeply interested in the potential revelation.

"Because most of the time everyone ends up dead," Kayap plainly stated. "I thought I was going to die that day. And for once, I don't think I cared. Just like my friends at Charlan, they didn't care."

Liara was taken aback by the confession, of all the things Kayap was, suicidal had never crossed her mind.

"Why would you want to die?" She cautiously asked.

"Maybe because I was tired of hurting," the unggoy admitted. "Or maybe because unlike my friends... I didn't really have anything to lose."

Kayap took a deep breath, his mask sucking in methane hard as he tried to compose himself.

"A month before we met, I got word from home, on Balaho," he hesitantly attempted to explain. "It had been a bad winter there and... my family had all caught the Blue Death. They all died... freezing."

Liara hung her own head, saddened by the information. She hadn't know, she hadn't thought to ask. The subject of family had never really come up after all and it wasn't a topic she enjoyed much either. It always hurt her to hear about lost parents and loved ones, no matter who it was.

"I'm sorry," Liara told him humbly.

"I know it wasn't my fault, it happens," the unggoy admitted. "But that was the thing, it happened. I did everything possible out of the hope I would survive and go back some day. It's kind of ironic. I've saved myself a dozen times over. I even got shot a few times and managed to stop myself from bleeding out. But I couldn't save them. I wasn't even there for them. It wouldn't have done any good if I was, but I should've at least been there. My parents, my little brother and sister... they were the only reason I even wanted to live and they were gone."

Kayap shook his head at the thought, his melancholy clear and present. But suddenly, he perked his head up, looking at Liara brightly.

"And then I ended up getting captured by you," he stated. "And before I even knew it, I had a shot at starting over again. You guys, you all gave me that chance. I just want to be worthy of it."

"Is that why you're telling me of all this now?" Liara carefully asked him.

The unggoy nodded incessantly.

"I know it's... strange," he stated sheepishly. "But you and the others... you're kinda like family now. I know, it sounds weird."

But Liara shook her head at the unggoy before slowly placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"No," she told him. "It doesn't sound weird at all."

Liara smiled warmly once more at the unggoy. Before she could react, Kayap was already hugging her around the waist slightly. Liara let him. She felt she needed it anyway. Slowly, Kayap pulled away.

"I'm hungry," he stated. "What is the mess serving?"

"We can find out," Liara told him. "I'm a bit hungry myself."

"You think it's that burger thing I keep hearing the human crewmembers talk about?" Kayap asked. "It sounds tasty. So does this burrito. You think they could put them together?"

"I'll see about asking the chef about it," Liara told him, mildly chuckling at the question.


It had been a trying day. Liara had always expected she'd be drawn into the personal lives of her crew. The same had been true of Shepard after all. She didn't expect it to hit her all at once like this though. Khar'shan had certainly brought a lot of bubbling issues to forefront. It was inevitable that they'd all have to confront it at some point, but they had more pressing matters for now. The Codemaster was waiting for them. They would all need to be in the best frame of mind to succeed in capturing whoever, or whatever, it was.

She had to admit, it didn't look good. Saya had at least cleaned his sword, although Liara wasn't sure how much progress that meant. Kayap was thankfully content to help, if still struggling with his sense of self-worth a little. Vik was still sulking from what she heard, hidden away in his shuttle. Nel was still the biggest concern though, considering her condition.

As the night passed, the turian's convulsing, screaming and vomiting lessened. She was now sleeping, at long last. Shivering as she slept of course, even with a blanket on and everything, but it was an improvement. The medical report said she had passed through the worst of it, but she would need medication to curb any potential craving flareups. That meant bringing her along on the mission carried a split-even risk. If she broke down, she could put herself and the entire mission in jeopardy.

Liara reasoned she'd have to take the risk. All she knew about this station was its location and little else. They had no idea what was waiting for them there. Nel's fighting skills would be of use, Liara just hoped she'd be confident enough in them without her juice to assist her.

At this point, Liara was hoping Wrex could make up for any shortcomings. They at least still had sometime before they got to the Codemaster. Perhaps Nel would improve further, but Liara wasn't going to place all her hopes on that.

As she sat in her room, staring at the monitors that showed her team about the ship, she wondered how good their chances were at this point. There were likely a number of Covenant Special Forces there. Last time they encountered those, it didn't go so well. Were they ready to face them again?

What other surprises could be in store for them there? There had to be a reason the Covenant didn't let the batarians go there after all. They were hiding something from their allies, which was never good. Today had been proof enough of that for her crew. She couldn't imagine what kind of secrets the Covenant were hoarding.

As she thought to herself, the door to her room opened wide. Wrex stepped in softly, positioning himself beside her.

"Just thought you should know my men are checking out the guns we stole from the batarians," he informed her. "They're a bit anxious to start using them in fact."

"They'll probably have plenty of opportunities to test them out," Liara informed him. "This station will likely be well-guarded."

"Every place we go is well-guarded, we'll manage," Wrex assured her.

He then eyed the monitors carefully, looking at all the crewmembers in their respective locations.

"How is everyone?" He asked.

"Vik has been closed up in his shuttle since I talked to him," Liara answered plainly. "The Shadow Ops recently introduced Kayap to Captain Cosmic and soda, so he's doing okay. Saya has been meditating for the past hour, not sure if he's back to normal though. And Nel is finally relaxed. Things could be worse I suppose, but that's pretty much where we all stand."

"That's not everyone," Wrex corrected Liara. "What about you?"

Liara eyed Wrex quizzically.

"What about me?" She asked begrudgingly.

"How are you holding up?" Wrex enquired once more. "With everything that's happening, it would be understandable if you were a little unwound."

"I'm fine, Wrex," she informed him stoically. "You don't need to worry about me."

But Wrex shook his head at that.

"See, that's where you're wrong," he corrected her again. "I do need to worry. You can try and hide it, but I know you better than you think. You've been absorbing everyone's crappy secrets all day. You can't say you haven't been affected by it all."

"Maybe I have, but it has no bearing on our current mission," Liara confidently assured him. "I can handle compartmentalization."

"Sometimes that's not the best course of action though," Wrex informed her.

Liara finally fully turned to Wrex, a disgruntled look on her face. They had this conversation before. She had her issues, she knew that. Was she hiding them? Of course she was. That didn't mean her position had suddenly changed just because she had played living confessional today.

"What do you want me to do, Wrex?" She asked him with a glare. "Pour my heart out? Relieve my supposed stress by unloading it on everyone else? Maybe I could do that once, but that's behind me. I'm running this ship and an entire network of spies and hackers. I'm not the lovesick girl sitting in the back of some med-bay by herself anymore, pouring over the personal life of some ridiculous crush."

"No, you're just the world's biggest information broker who locks herself up in her own room pouring over the lives of others," Wrex commented rather sarcastically.

"Cute, very cute," Liara said, rolling her eyes as she got up from her seat.

She walked away from Wrex, moving towards the back of the room. She could hear the krogan following, his footsteps plodding behind her.

"Liara, you have nothing to be ashamed of," He assured her proudly. "I know you think you have big shoes to fill, that you think need to prove yourself to Shepard and the rest of us. But you don't have anything to prove to anyone. I can see that, why can't you?"

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, Wrex," Liara replied rather abruptly. "But I've told you before what this is about."

"And I told you before you need to stop blaming yourself for everything," he informed her. "You know you're strong enough for this. I know you're strong enough. And I'm positive Shepard definitely knows you are strong enough as well, even if he isn't here to say it himself. Right now though, you're practically denying that you are. If you want to be the leader you think have to be, you need to be honest. Not just with me, but with yourself."

Liara turned back to the krogan and sighed slightly. She then walked to sit on her bed and held her head in her hand. Wrex just stood there, waiting for her to say something. He wanted honesty. Liara decided she might as well deliver it.

"I keep trying to hold this all together," she began, with an anxious tone slowly building. "The Network, the mission, this ship, the crew, it's all one big balancing act. When I'm on the ShadowNet, I ask myself how the Shadow Broker would act, how he would handle things. Partially to avoid doing it, partially to make sure I don't give away who I really am. And then when I'm working out in the open, on these missions with the team, my perspective changes. I ask myself what Shepard would do, what he would say."

Wrex just cross his arms thoughtfully as she kept going, slowly walking over to stand beside the bed.

"The fact is though that I'm not like either of them," Liara continued on. "I don't feel as ruthless or cunning as the Broker and I don't feel like the leader Shepard is. I'm just doing my best to put up an impression of both and it's hard to keep them straight with one another. It's like I'm constantly pretending, putting on a show. One I'm not even very good at either."

Wrex nodded and then took a seat beside her on the bed himself.

"What exactly makes you think you're not good at it?" He asked her.

"Maybe because it took me until now to figure out about someone building a bomb on my ship," she disgruntledly suggested. "Or that the turian mercenary we picked up is a junkie? Then there's the salarian, who I only think is following me out of a sense of professionalism half the time."

"As I recall," Wrex was quick to remind her. "It took everyone on the Normandy awhile to sort through their crap, even Garrus. A team doesn't form overnight."

"No, but it's harder to run a marathon when you have a broken leg," Liara elaborated rather exhaustively. "It's just as hard building a crew out of incredibly broken people. Rakavekyon just helped make it all the more clear. Vik having his own agenda and running off, Nel going on a drug-crazed suicide run, Saya breaking down mid-fight because he felt he had become what he hated. It was a mess."

Wrex chuckled slightly.

"You didn't mention me or our defector in there," he noted with a snort.

"Kayap has low self-esteem and you're trying to drag your people to a better future," Liara was quick to counter with a slight laugh. "His issues are manageable compared to the others. And I know you can handle yourself, you proved that when you tossed Wreav against a wall without even really trying."

Wrex once more chuckled warmly at the memory.

"Heh, I do love doing that," he grinned. "But to be honest, it ain't always as easy as that. That whole broken people makes a broken team thing? Sometimes I feel that's exactly what I'm dealing with on a planet-wide scale."

"I'm sorry," Liara quickly apologised. "I didn't mean to make it seem like I had it worse or anything, I just-"

"No, I know what you meant, just hear me out," Wrex politely interrupted her. "I do the same thing in that situation. I ask myself what Shepard would do."

Liara turned to Wrex, another enquiring look on her face.

"It's a good idea, taking inspiration from people like that," Wrex admitted plainly. "I wouldn't be where I am today if Shepard hadn't shown me the truth about things. But I realised that it's impossible to hold yourself to the standards of others. There was more to it than just following an example. It was what Shepard said that resonated with me. And what Shepard ultimately taught me, that day on Virmire, was very simple. If you go against who you are and what you believe, you'll never accomplish what you want."

"And that led you back to Tuchanka," Liara recalled. "So you could stop the krogan from killing themselves."

"Yeah, that was what Shepard would do in my position after all," he elaborated. "But in the end, Shepard isn't me. I can't be like him and I shouldn't try. If I did, I would be forgetting what makes me who I am."

He placed his oversized hand on Liara's shoulder just then, catching Liara off guard a little.

"That doesn't make it easier of course," he softly admitted. "If it did, then I'd have salarian doctors trying to cure the Genophage by now and the perception of us as big, dumb, violent savages would be gone. And yeah, some days I wonder if I'm really making any progress at all. But I'm doing things the way I feel they should be done, the way I think is right in the end. I may have to play up some things now and again, a little showmanship to keep the critics and doubters in line. In my gut though, I'm honest to myself and that's what matters."

"What are you trying to say?" Liara asked, thinking she knew but was not entirely sure.

"You said you wanted to be true to those feelings you had for Shepard," he gently reminded her. "That you wanted to make the words you said to Ben as he died truthful. You can, as long as you're truthful to yourself. You've already proven you can. Despite the odds, you took the war to the Hegemony's doorstep and got away with it. That wasn't Shepard who did that, that wasn't the Shadow Broker that pulled that off. That was you, Liara T'Soni. It was all you."

Wrex pointed his finger into Liara's chest, grinning as he did. Liara couldn't help but return the gesture.

"Stop blaming yourself for what goes wrong, I've told you that before," he continued adamantly. "But also remember what goes right because of what you did. You talked Vik down from killing Narvkel. You saved Nelanax from herself. You got that self-important salarian out of his stupor and back on his feet. No, you're not the Shadow Broker or Shepard. You're Liara T'Soni, and that's who we need right now. Stop asking what others would do. Stop asking period. Lead how you would, no one else."

Liara tried to hold back her emotions, although she was failing. She knew he was right, it was pretty much what she had been telling everyone else. She had forgotten it through all the stress and responsibility, but now she was reminded. She rubbed her eyes to keep herself from shedding tears at the bolster of self-confidence.

"You're... wise for a Krogan Clan Chief, Wrex," she told him as she composed herself. "Not to mention... a very good friend."

"I try," Wrex shrugged unassumingly. "Most of this stuff I just copy from the female clan leaders. I don't really have a choice but to listen to them and all their self-help advice. They'd chew my head off otherwise."

Liara stifled a laugh. At that moment she felt warmth in her chest, the releasing of her nerves no doubt. She knew now what she had to do. But something else, one small little thing took priority. If she was going to do things her way, damn the consequences whatever they be, then she had one thing she needed to do to start. She didn't know if it was smart, if it was a good idea or even if she should. But she wanted to do it.

She leaned over to Wrex, catching him a bit off guard and gave him a small kiss along the scarred side of his face. The krogan's eyes went wide in confusion, but all Liara did was hug him around his hump before he could react.

"Never let anyone tell you you're a big, dumb, violent savage, Wrex," he said to him. "You're anything but."

"Uh, sure," Wrex said, still a bit rattled. "Wouldn't let them anyway, heh."

Liara pulled away, and was happy to see Wrex was smiling at least. She didn't want this to get awkward so soon, so she quickly changed the subject.

"I need to do something," she explained to him. "But I need to prepare first. Just let Vik, Nel, Kay and Saya know to meet me in the briefing room in the morning."

"Why?" Wrex asked, his face returned to a state of confusion.

"I'm doing what you said, Wrex," she explained. "Leading how I want to."


In the middle of the morning, Nel found herself led to the briefing room by Wrex. She was still too shaken to ask what this was about. Even with the medication she felt cold, but at least she didn't have a migraine or felt like upchucking her breakfast. She figured Liara wanted to dress her down in private, tell her she decided to keep her benched. She didn't know, and she didn't care at this point. She was just tired, she wanted to go back to sleep and forget this was happening.

Upon entering the briefing room, she discovered that Liara was there, but she wasn't the only one. Saya, Vik and Kayap were all crowded around the table as well. Nel eyed them all carefully before she took her position at the table.

"Are we having the mission briefing already?" She asked, shaking as she did. "I thought we were still en route?"

"Beats me," Vik shrugged, not sounding like he cared much, his head looking down at the ground. "Liara called it. Ask her."

Nel looked to the asari, standing upright and tall. Her face was unflinching and resolute. Nel didn't feel like talking to her. She was the reason she felt like shit right now. Not that it mattered though. She had the sneaking suspicion that Liara would be doing all the talking.

"We've all been going through a lot," the asari started. "Khar'shan brought out a lot in us, both the best and worst. I'm sorry for what it put you through, even if I feel it was necessary. I cannot say the same for everything though."

Liara gave the room a wide look, making sure everyone was paying attention. She then continued.

"I brought you all together before I really knew any of you," she explained. "It was out of necessity and convenience, but also because I recognized your skills and abilities. Regardless, for one reason or another, I tried not to pry too deeply into your lives. The fact was though, as your leader, I should've tried better to understand who you were. Now I do, and despite what I've learned, I have no intention of breaking this squad up now."

Nel hadn't expected to hear that. Given everything she imagined she'd call them all out for one reason or another. Liara took a long breath before she continued on.

"We all have baggage we carry with us," she told them plainly. "We all have guilt or regrets. An addiction, a loss, a hate, a fear, but we can't let them define us. Our actions, how we conquer those regrets and shames, how we face them is what defines us. We all tried keeping them in, it backfired. Now that most of them out in the open, maybe we can move forward. And that leads me to why we're here."

Nel crossed her arms, about time they got to point. Saya and Vik also lifted their heads towards the asari, while Kayap stared attentively. She seemed nervous for a moment, but shook it off.

"I've asked all of you to share your pasts, to share what pain and sorrow you hold with me," she began astutely. "However, that was somewhat unfair of me, considering I have yet to share who I am. While most of you may know me as Liara T'Soni, the asari who served with Commander Wade Shepard on his ship and at the Battle of the Citadel, I have deeper secrets."

Nel raised a brow, her arms uncrossing and her shivering subsiding for the moment.

"I can't expect you to trust or follow me as long as I hide this truth," she admitted. "So here it is, but none of it can leave this room. I'm trusting all of you with this information. I am hoping you appreciate that. You see, I don't just work for the ShadowNet. I am the ShadowNet."

"What are you talking about?" Vik asked, heavily confused. "What do you mean you ARE the ShadowNet?"

"I run it," she elaborated. "I control it. I'm the head of it. A little more than a month ago, in fact, I took it all by force. I'm not just an Information Broker anymore... I'm the Shadow Broker."

Nel's mouth hung agape at the confession, while Vik's silver eyes went wide. Saya could only stare in disbelief while Kayap seemed more or less confused. Wrex didn't even flinch.

"What?" Was the first words spoken out of Vik's mouth.

"I'm the Shadow Broker," Liara reiterated. "The reason I know so much, why I have such ease at acquiring resources, why I'm so ready with any and all information is because it all goes through me. I'm the most powerful information broker in the galaxy, yet I've only been doing this job for little more than a month now."

Nel turned to look at Vik, still a bit astonished, but willing to rub it in.

"I told you the Broker was real," she stated proudly.

"This is unbelievable," Vik said, holding his head in shock. "You mean... all this time... you-"

"Again, only recently," Liara clarified once more before he went further. "I only acquired this position because I killed the previous Shadow Broker and he only had the position because he killed the one before him. He was the person who took my friend, Vik. I killed him and took his place. It was either that, or let the ShadowNet die with all the information on it. Information I could use to help people, which I have."

Vik eventually regained his composure, managing to keep himself standing.

"So, all this time, I've been working directly with the most powerful underworld figure in existence," he managed to reason out. "Bit of a pill to swallow."

"So why tell us all this now?" Nel asked, still a bit bewildered. "Because we told you our back-stories and you felt guilty over not sharing your own secret?"

"Partly," Liara admitted. "But I felt it was the only way I could prove to you all that I do trust you. I wouldn't reveal this information to anyone, not if I felt they hadn't earned it. And I don't think I deserve to lead you, demand things of you, if I'm holding back."

Liara next looked directly to Saya. She found the STG agent already staring back.

"I need to trust you," she informed them all as she looked at the salarian. "I have no choice but to trust you. If we can't rely on each other to be honest with ourselves and one another, then the Covenant and Balak have already won. Because we can't be a team if we keep secrets like this."

Saya didn't respond in any capacity for awhile. And then he signed out something with his hands that everyone immediately understood. He brought two pinched fingers up to his mouth and drew across his visor with them. His lips were sealed. Liara smiled lightly and turned next to Vik. He already had an answer.

"Like anyone would believe me anyway," he admitted with sigh. "Don't worry, Doctor T'Soni. This is one secret I think I'll keep between us and off the extranet."

"Yeah, me too," Nel added readily. "I guess it would be pretty shitty of me to rat you out, after... you know, me hiding my juice and shit. Still angry at you though."

"That's fine, Nel," Liara informed her plainly, but resolutely. "You can be angry, but you need get past it. The fact is, whether we like it or not, we're a team. We need each other. We have to depend on each other. Whatever issues or demons we carry, they no longer matter. What matters now is us seeing this through. It's been hard, no one will deny that, and it won't get easy soon. But we need to come together, because we have a job to do. You've all seen what Balak and his Covenant allies are planning. We're the only ones standing in his way. If we falter now, he wins. I'm not about to let that happen. Are you?"

Kayap suddenly jumped up, his fist held in the air.

"I'm with you, Liara," he declared. "I told you, I want to be here. I want to fight. For once in my life, scared as I am, I want to fight."

Liara expected as much, she looked next to Saya, who simply nodded. Then she looked to Vik.

"I've come this far," he relented. "I might as well keep going. No sense in running now."

Liara nodded gratefully at Vik and then turned to Nel. She had a steely gaze and was still obviously upset, but eventually she sighed.

"Okay, when you're right, you're fucking right," she confessed. "Besides, how many mercs can say they helped the Shadow Broker save the Galaxy? I mean, obviously I can't even say it, but it's still cool."

Liara lastly looked to Wrex, who was already beaming with pride. Liara returned the smile and then looked back to the table.

"Alright then," she stated, a glow of confidence resonating from her. "Let's go over some things before we break then, team. My drones are gathering information on our target now. We have a Codemaster to find and an inter-dimensional communication array to hijack. We're going to need a good plan, better teamwork and a lot of luck. But if we can blow up a damn tower in the middle of Hegemony space... then I think we can manage this."

The Codemaster awaited them. They were close to striking their first major blow to this little Conspiracy of Balak's. They weren't about to choke now.


AN: Well, I hope you weren't expecting an action heavy chapter today. After everything that went down on Khar'shan, I realised Liara can't go attacking anything until she gets her house in order. That means actually figuring out who the people she's recruited are. I hope this didn't feel like one big exposition dump, I wanted it to be a character building chapter more than anything.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you all a little something. HellFox38 has new videos pertaining to the last Halo-verse chapter. They're some of the best work he's done yet actually and I would feel remiss if I did not directly inform you about them. Just copy and past these at the end of the youtube home address and you should be fine.

Balak confronts Thel on his Bridge:

watch?v=GyuNELzKaMI

Zek decides to abandon the Covenant:

watch?v=fCPch9lshYA

Zek's Speech:

watch?v=MxkTrjk1Jcg

Again, if you love either of those scenes, check them out. I'm not the only person whose work you should be enjoying after all.

On that note, we will now continue the story proper and further improve upon what we saw here. For in the next chapter we go after the Codemaster and see if the Lucen crew can finally act as a team.