Chapter Thirty-Six
In Which Our Hero Makes an Unpleasant Choice
The drive to the main compound was utterly silent. Liara struggled to settle her stomach, to rid her ears of the sound of the batarian's screams. The commander's erratic driving was no help. In the front seat of the Mako, Tali pressed herself into the wall, trying to put more space between Shepard and herself without attracting his attention. Poor thing. I should have exchanged places with her.
Although she couldn't believe she was taking notice of something so frivolous, Liara had to admit that the main facility was not an unattractive prefabricated building. The main chamber was open and full of light. There were trees, flowering trees, that had dropped petals all over the immaculate white floor. It was really quite—
A rocket drone shot a missile at her, and Liara barely raised a biotic barrier in time. She jerked her attention back to the battle. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of tech experts among the batarians, and all of them seemed to delight in causing her gun to overheat. Thankfully, her reserves of biotic energy were as strong as they had ever been. Liara lost count of how many terrorists she threw, slammed or crushed to death. She left the drones up to Tali, wishing their roles were reversed. Death—Liara had never been responsible for so much death. Even though she told herself over and over that these batarians would have happily destroyed an entire planet, her guilt didn't abate.
Commander Shepard had no such qualms. He tore apart every opponent who faced him. More than once, Liara heard the screams of a batarian being shredded at just above the molecular level. She wondered how long he could continue to use his abilities at this intensity. Not very long, she hoped. She didn't like being able to feel the things he was doing.
Finally, Liara realized she was hearing the unnatural silence of a battle completed. The commander removed his helmet and wiped sweat off of his face. At least he's not smiling. Liara didn't think that Shepard was a monster, but if he had been smiling….
"You humans. You're more trouble than you're worth." Liara recognized that voice. The one from the comm. Shepard dropped his helmet and pulled out his sidearm in a single motion, training the weapon on the tall batarian standing not ten meters away.
"How sad for you," the commander commiserated. "Allow me to put you out of your misery."
"Predictable," the batarian scoffed. "I don't have time for your posturing. This is over. I'm leaving this asteroid."
"You don't get to leave. Not after what you did here!"
"I think I do. You see, if you try to stop me," he held up a remote control, "I'll detonate these charges and your little helper and her friends will all die."
"I—my—" Shepard stuttered and turned to gaze where the terrorist was pointing. A group of frantic humans clustered around an ominous-looking device.
"Shepard!" Tali said quietly. "He said—Kate Bowman must still be alive!"
The commander shook his head, unwilling to be dissuaded from the course of action he'd obviously already decided on. "No. We heard—"
"Humans have done far worse to batarians," the batarian raged. "We've been forced into exile. Forced to survive on…." He ranted about various injustices perpetrated by humanity against the batarian people, raising Shepard's hackles and Liara's worries both. As the commander and the batarian shouted at each other, Liara prayed to Athame that the goddess would help Shepard not be blinded by his desire to see the batarians suffer.
"Sometimes you need to get someone's attention before they'll listen!" the terrorist yelled. "That's why we attacked you at Elysium. That's why I'm doing this now. You humans forced our hand!"
"Liar!" Shepard roared. "You attacked us first. You attack us over and over, and when the Alliance finally stepped up and did something about it, you went whining to the Council, like pathetic little bitches! If you want to blame someone, blame yourself!" Though his voice shook, the hand keeping his pistol trained on the batarian was steady.
"Enough! I don't even know why I bother. I'm done wasting my breath on you, human. If you want your friends to live, step aside."
For a horrible moment, Liara thought Shepard was going to shoot the batarian. Then, without warning, he holstered his gun. "This isn't over!"
"Maybe not. You won't follow me today though. Those bombs are still on a timer." The terrorist nodded to his associates and walked away.
"God fucking damn it!" the commander yelled. Then he turned to Tali and Liara. "Tali, you can dismantle the bombs, right?" He sounded defeated.
"Aye-aye, Commander." Tali ran off to stop the explosives. Almost before she started to move, a swarm of defense drones attacked the ground team. A last gift from the terrorists, Liara supposed.
"Keep going!" Shepard shouted at Tali. "We'll handle these. At least I can kill something."
When the final drone had been dealt with, and Tali had returned to assure the commander that all the bombs had been deactivated, Shepard began to make his way towards the room where the hostages were being kept. Before he could release them, Simon Atwell appeared. "You—He left? Is… you won't get in trouble for that, will you?"
"I told you to hide," Shepard said wearily.
The engineer shrugged. "I thought maybe I could help," he said sheepishly.
"Civilians," Tali muttered, sounding far too old for her age.
"Is anyone alive in here?" Simon asked. "Is my team all right?"
"If they're not all right, that batarin is going to have a very short, very unhappy life," the commander said darkly.
"You let Balak go to save them? Won't you get in trouble? Couldn't he just do the same thing somewhere else?"
"Balak," Shepard repeated, as though tasting the name. "What? You think I should have just let your friends die? Have their deaths on my head because Balak might attack others later? I don't operate that way. I don't let civilians die. And if that bastard ever raises his head in human territory again, I'll be there to remove it for him. Slowly."
"Ease down, boy!" Simon barked in a tone that made Liara believe his claim to have children and grandchildren on Terra Nova. "If anyone asks me, you did the right thing. I—Thank you, Shepard. For my grandchildren's lives. Listen. As lead engineer, I get some quality items. Take your pick, you've earned it."
"No; thank you," the commander said, gruffly. "If you want to thank anyone, thank Tali. My tech expert. Without her, we couldn't have shut down the torches or the bombs." He stepped aside to let Simon shake the quarian's hand enthusiastically.
"Miss Tali! Please, why don't you take a look at what I've got. I recently acquired some quarian armor, actually, but if you're interested in technology…" the two of them moved away, leaving Liara to trail after Shepard when he released the hostages. When the door slid open, it revealed frightened and grateful technicians and one woman with dark blonde hair whose eyes immediately fixed on the commander.
"I can't believe you let Balak go to save us," Kate Bowman told him. "I half expected you to just let us die. Sacrifice the few for the many."
"There won't be a many," Shepard replied. "I know who Balak is now. It's just a matter of time before I catch him."
She gave a weak smile. "You sound like my brother. He always—He was always so stubborn. Always willing to do the right thing, no matter what."
"Your brother… Balak shot him because you wouldn't tell him about me?"
Kate Bowman's eyes were fixed on the ground as she sniffled and nodded, but Liara saw the guilt spread across Shepard's face.
"Aaron said working here would be an adventure." Kate started to cry. Shepard shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable. At last, he seemed unable to endure the sight of the crying woman any longer and put an arm around Kate. She leaned into the commander, pressing her face into his armor for a little while as she sobbed.
"I'm sorry," she said once she'd regained some self-control. "I—I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I should go—see about Aaron."
"Of course. I can't imagine what today has been like for you. I'll get out of your way." For a moment, Shepard sounded the way he always did.
"Thank you again," Kate sniffed. "Thank you so much—ah, what was your name?"
"Shepard. K.S. Shepard, with the—with the Alliance."
"Well, thank you Shepard. You're not what I expected, but you—just—thank you."
"So long, Kate."
When the three of them stepped out of the decontamination chamber and back aboard the Normandy, Shepard pressed the comm button on the wall. "Please just get me the fuck to Pinnacle, Joker. Please."