The bottom of Garrus' stomach dropped as Shepard pushed the stolen taxi into a dive, narrowly missing an oncoming skycar by a handful of metres.
"Goddess!" Liara's voice rose. Garrus could see, past the seat, her fingers wrapped around the door handle tight enough to make even her scaled skin blanch.
The night sky was thick with traffic, glittering streams of skycars and trucks winding around gleaming towers.
"Relax," Shepard said, the most cheery Garrus had heard her sound in a long time, "I've got this."
As if to prove it, she threw the skycar into a hard turn, following Vasir around the curve of a skyscraper. Civilian taxis didn't exactly have warship level inertia dampening, and Garrus found his shoulder forced into the door. Maybe he should've worn his seat belt.
"A head on collision at this speed…"
"Would be bad," Shepard agreed - even as she swung the car around again, on Vasir's tail as the Spectre drove through -
A construction site, sandwiched between two closed in levels of a skyscraper.
"We're not going to-" Liara began. Which, of course they were, given this was Shepard, who for all her apparent sensibility was someone who thought biotically flinging herself at her enemies was a good idea.
The car flashed forward, construction equipment whipping past his window by what felt like centimetres. Then they were through in a split-second, g-force dragging at his body as Shepard hung a very sharp turn. Vasir's car was a speck of yellow-orange ahead of them, darting between streams of traffic and buildings.
"You're enjoying this!" Liara accused.
Garrus could hear the grin in Shepard's voice as she spoke, "I've always wanted to be in a car chase."
"Seriously?"
"Oh yeah. But you know how much paperwork I would've had to do when I was in the Alliance?"
"Left - go left!" Liara burst out urgently.
"I'm going, I'm going-"
With some difficulty, Garrus pulled his pistol out of its holster and checked the heatsink readout. Six shots left before he needed a new sink. He'd chewed through his ammo - this was why you never left the house without at least ten heatsinks. And Solana thought he was paranoid.
"Shepard," he called, "if you can get to the side of her, I can force her down."
Civilian skycars weren't exactly built for combat. Even a pistol grade mass accelerator could put enough holes in its thrusters to force a crash.
"In the middle of rush hour traffic?" Shepard demanded.
"Do you have a better idea, or are we just going to wait until she crashes?" he asked.
"Fuck!" Shepard swore, jerking out of the way of a truck. "Fine! But I don't want her hitting civilians!"
"Shepard, come on, a little faith here!"
He opened the window and leant out. Immediately the wind buffeted his face and screamed in his ears. He felt a hand grab at him - Liara reaching back to anchor him. He held his pistol firmly in two hands. Dropping it out of the car would just be embarrassing. Now - patience. Waiting for the right moment. A sniper's familiar game.
It was a difficult shot, through the window of a moving car at another moving target, but he knew he could make it. Shepard clearly didn't like it, but she knew he was right. A continued car chase through the city would most likely end with one participant crashing and possibly civilians getting hurt or worse.
The car whined as Shepard pushed the thrusters to the limit, popping up above the flow of traffic and easing up to Vasir's vehicle. From this position they were beside and up from the other car - perfect. He breathed in and squeezed the trigger. The gunshot was loud, even over the wail of the wind.
Vasir's car shuddered and began belching smoke. Garrus' mandibles tightened against his face in annoyance. He'd hit something - a battery cell maybe - but it wouldn't put the vehicle down. He needed to knock out the main thrusters.
He readied another shot.
"Truck. Truck!" Liara shouted, audible over the rush of air. The taxi twisted as Shepard instinctually evaded, and for one, terrifying moment, Garrus stared into open air and the ground far below. But Liara's grip - and the glow of her biotics - remained firm, holding him in place.
Shepard levelled out. Garrus let out a held breath.
"You okay?" She called back.
"Just get me another shot."
At least now it was fairly easy to keep track of Vasir's car, painting a dark trail of smoke behind it. Shepard wove past a cluster of sky cars, leaving beeping in her wake, and caught back up to the other vehicle. With at least a battery cell gone, the other sky car was slower than their taxi, and now it was easy enough for Shepard to steer back into the right position.
This time, Garrus fired twice in quick succession, punching two holes into the back of Vasir's sky car, right where the assembly for the main thruster was.
The car spluttered audibly, and then the thruster died. Vasir's car began to plummet rapidly.
Garrus pulled back and closed his window, holstering his pistol. "Am I good or am I good?"
"You're alright, I guess," Shepard said, with a teasing lilt to her voice. She swung the car around, following the descent of Vasir's car - until it crashed into a parking lot, ending up on its side, smoking. In the rear view mirror, Garrus could see the good humour slide off Shepard's face, replaced with a cold, almost predatory expression.
It was a familiar transition by now. Between his best friend, with her understated, sarcastic humour and way of seeing the best in people, and the person who could put her biotic-charged fist through someone's chest without blinking. He'd never been able to compartmentalise like Shepard could.
Shepard set their stolen taxi down, ten metres back from the crashed car. Garrus was first out, pistol raised, his friends quickly at his shoulders.
The door of Vasir's was blown outwards, lying several metres from the twisted frame. She must've freed herself with her biotics.
"Blood," he reported. Smears of it - purple pooling and congealing in the artificial, neon light of the Illium evening - where Vasir must have dragged herself out of the car, and then trailing away, further into the hotel.
"A pity the crash didn't kill her," Liara said, lips pinching.
"She's a Spectre," Shepard replied, "not so easy to kill, I think."
"We need to hurry," Garrus prodded, "before more of Vasir's backup arrives."
If he was Vasir, he'd be making for the hotel's roof or another carpark of balcony. A LZ.
The Azure Hotel did have security systems, it seemed. Liara stepped over the shattered remains of them - bits of metal that had once been LOKI mechs. The blood trail wound along the hotel's balcony, along glass panes and planters full of Illium flowers. Vasir had to be weakening.
Liara felt intent. Everything over the past few years had felt like swimming against the tide. No one wanted to listen when you said the sky was falling. And so she had thought - I will make them listen. For Kaidan and Shepard - and Benezia. For all the people who would die if the galaxy failed to prepare.
This though. This felt like something she could simply do. Chase down the target, rescue Feron, remove the threat the Shadowbroker posed.
Shepard took the lead, pistol raised. She was limping but the determined cast to her expression told Liara there was little point asking her to let someone else take point. Vasir had offended her. Shepard had never liked 'collateral damage'.
The Commander tapped on her comm implant. "EDI, we're at the Azure Hotel. Get the shuttle over here."
Calling the rest of her team.
Liara could hear the distant sound of voices and laughter - music. A party? Illium's companies often held corporate parties and conferences in places like this. Entertainment and entertainment. Surely the hotel had more than a few, easily crumpled tin cans for security? Even now there were no alarms.
"She's lost a lot of blood," Liara observed. There was enough of it on the ground to say that much, "Surely that has to slow her down."
"It's almost a pity," Shepard said.
Liara glanced at her. "What is?"
"We could've used a Spectre this tough against the Reapers."
"She chose her side," Liara pointed out.
"Yes, she did."
They turned the corner. There was a small plaza, a handful of humans and asari in business wear laughing and drinking. And close to the railing - Vasir, limping and hunched over.
Shepard reacted first, levelling her pistol. She called out, her voice strong and clear, the same tone Liara had heard her use in battle to be heard over the sound of gunfire, "Vasir! Surrender or I will shoot."
Vasir looked over her shoulder. Her face was bruised, lip swollen - her face had likely hit the airbag in the crash. A sneer twisted her lips. There was a flash of blinding, blue light, the feel of the gravity well bending and Vasir was suddenly amongst the partiers. She grabbed one of the human women with a forearm across her throat and a pistol at her head.
Screams spilt out into the evening air as the other party-goers fled. Liara's aim didn't waver. Neither did Shepard or Garrus'. Liara flared, biotics buzzing around her.
"What's your name?" Vasir demanded, her cold gaze not wavering from the three of them.
"M-Mariana."
"Tell Commander Shepard you want to live. You want to live, don't you?"
"Please," the hostage was crying, mascara running in dark streaks down her pale cheeks, "I have a son."
Liara glanced over at Shepard as Vasir seized on that - trying to dig into Shepard's conscience. Would it work? The hostage on Xawin had died, but that wasn't for lack of Shepard trying to save him.
"Cut the bullshit, Vasir," Shepard said flatly. "You're just delaying the inevitable."
"You want Mariana's little boy to grow up without a mummy, Shepard?" Vasir asked mockingly.
Shepard's elbow knocked against Liara's side almost imperceptibly. Ah. There was a heavy table behind Vasir. Liara just needed the time to lift it and shift it so its trajectory would hit Vasir and not the hostage.
"That's your grand escape plan?" Shepard sounded almost bored, "Vasir, you're forgetting I'm a Spectre too. I sent hundreds to their deaths during the Battle of the Citadel. I unleashed the rachni on the galaxy. I'll shoot if I have to."
Mariana made a low noise of despair. Vasir just narrowed her eyes. "You're bluf-"
She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence. Liara smashed the table into Vasir's shoulder, tearing her away from her human shield and sending her quite dramatically over the railing to land in the fountain below. It might even have been funny, if Vasir hadn't immediately erupted from the water with a wordless shout of rage, the air around her distorting with crackly biotic energy.
"Run," Shepard told Mariana flatly.
Liara jumped over the railing, wrapping her own biotics around her.
Vasir's blazing eyes fixed on her. "You. You caused all of this, going where you were never meant to go."
"The only one to blame for your actions is yourself, Spectre," she shot back.
A thunderclap and Vasir was on her. She barely managed to get a barrier up in time, deflecting the bone crushing force of the charge around her. The Spectre didn't give her time to recover, following up with another biotic attack. Again, she blocked the worst of it, but the force of it still knocked Liara off her feet.
Vasir fought like Shepard, if Shepard were asari and stripped of all her honour and compunctions. Like a battering ram, using her own body as a weapon.
Liara rolled, her barrier lighting up as Vasir stitched the ground beside her with a burst from her assault rifle.
Another brassy boom of the gravity well being forced open - Liara braced her barrier for an impact that never came. Instead Vasir was sent staggering, Shepard appearing in a bloom of dark energy.
By the time Liara got to her feet, clutching her pistol, Garrus was beside her and Shepard and Vasir were flashes of biotics and slashes of gunfire. If they fired recklessly, they'd risk hitting Shepard.
Garrus' mandibles twitched. "Spirits."
I can't keep this up. It was the third or fourth charge when Shepard realised this. Out of armour, every impact was bone-rattling, bruising. Any miscalculation and she'd shatter her own body instead of Vasir's. She was out of armour, already injured and tired. The only consolation was that she knew Vasir couldn't keep it up long either, seriously wounded as she was.
The only question was which one of them could hang on the longest.
"I'm going to show you what a real Spectre can do."
Vasir slammed an armoured knee into Shepard's unprotected stomach. All of her breath left her in a pained oof. She got up a forearm to deflect the next blow meant for her face. Her nose had been broken enough times, thank you.
"Pretty sure we both got the same ceremony," Shepard gritted out. Her arm smarted.
"You were just an attack dog sent after Saren," Vasir shot back as they grappled.
She felt a familiar ripple. Liara's biotics. The biotic blow sent Vasir staggering - Shepard helped her along with a hard kick that buckled her leg, and then another to the bloody patch in her armour. The most simple rule of hand to hand combat was that you hit them until they stopped getting up.
Unfortunately, Vasir didn't seem to know when to stay down. Blood dripping down her face, she struggled to her feet and in a split-second was gone.
This time, the Spectre was aiming at Garrus, his pistol raised as he stood in front of the fountain. Garrus, who was not a biotic and couldn't shield himself. She hit him with a terrible crunching sound, and the turian was flung off his feet with a shout of shock and pain. He didn't get back up. Shepard grit her teeth and shoved at the gravity well around her.
She smashed into Vasir's back just as the asari raised her rifle at Garrus'. Pain burst up Shepard's braced arms and into her shoulders. They stumbled forward together - Vasir tripped and dropped her rifle, off-balance with Shepard's arm locked around her throat.
They fell into the fountain together, the water like a slap as it hit Shepard's body, red and purple blood diffusing in clouds of colour.
Vasir got the first hit in, an elbow strike that snapped Shepard's head back. She tossed her bruised, battered body forward, bearing the asari down. They grappled in deadly silence, Shepard's knuckles splitting on the damaged ceramic of the other Spectre's armour. Her mind felt wrapped in a red haze of anger, pain and adrenaline.
"Shepard!" Liara's voice cut through the air. Shepard dared a quick glance over at her before refocusing on her enemy. Liara was standing beside Garrus, who was now back on his feet, Vasir's rifle in his hands, her entire body wrapped in her corona.
Shepard understood. She threw herself back, water splashing around her. Liara's biotic field wrapped around Vasir's limbs, holding her in place.
Vasir bared her teeth and fought it. Liara was a powerful biotic but so was Vasir. Shepard drew her own corona around her and carefully wove her field to interlock with Liara's. It was difficult, exhausting, sweat dripping down her forehead. Shepard's biotics had never had the subtlety of Liara's or Kaidan's.
But it held.
A gunshot. Another. Vasir jerked, two holes punched into her chestplate. Lung shots. Garrus lowered his sidearm.
The field holding Vasir in place dissipated and the Spectre fell to her knees, clutching at her chest. And then she raised her head, rage burning in her blue eyes, and reached for her pistol.
Shepard reacted instinctively, sweeping out her arm - and a biotic field with it. It propelled Vasir back and for a moment, Shepard feared she'd knock the Spectre - and the intel on her - off the balcony. Instead, she hit the railing and slid down, leaving a smear of purple blood behind.
And this time, she stayed down.
Liara approached fearlessly, kicking Vasir's sidearm away from her and then perfunctorily searching the Spectre's webbing to pull out an OSD.
"I have it," she told Shepard with satisfaction.
Shepard slowly climbed out of the fountain. Her clothes stuck to her body uncomfortably and the evening wind was bitingly cold. Her bad shoulder ached.
Maybe she was getting too old for this shit.
"You're all dead," Vasir snarled out, "the Shadowbroker has been in power for decades. He's more powerful than anything you've ever faced."
"You've never met a Reaper if you think that," Shepard said mildly. "Is that why you did all this? Sold out? Fear? Bad look on a Spectre."
Anger flashed over Vasir's washed out face. "You think I betrayed the Council? Like Saren? Go to hell. The Broker's given me damned good intel over the years. Intel that saved lives and kept Citadel space safe. So if the Broker needed a few side jobs that was a price I was willing to pay."
"You blew up a building full of civilians," Shepard said flatly.
"Spectres…" blood dripped from Vasir's lips, "do whatever is necessary. The dirty work, so the Council can look the other way. You...haven't learnt that yet."
"What?" Shepard stared down at her. She'd made plenty of hard decisions.
"You're not so...different from me," Vasir gritted out.
"Like hell I am."
"You've worked the two masters line," Vasir wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, "refusing to give up your Alliance commission. Cerberus. You know what they've done. Kidnapping children, unethical experiments, killing Alliance generals who asked questions. They killed your friends. And yet you worked with them."
Shepard's jaw set. "I only used them to go after the Collectors."
"You...could have walked away. Valued your integrity, your reputation...over those lives. But you didn't. Look in the damn mirror, Shepard."
Vasir coughed, terrible, wet sounding coughs that shook her whole body. Her head lolled, eyes glazing over. The other Spectre was dying.
"Miranda is on approach," Garrus reported, blue eyes fixed on the Spectre's broken form. He reached for his pistol.
Shepard could have said something, grabbed his arm like she had with Harkin - but she didn't. He put a bullet into Vasir's chest, right where the asari heart was, and the Spectre was finally still.
"You're nothing like her," Garrus told her, as the air reverberated with the familiar wut-wut-wut of a Kodiak shuttle.
"Yeah," she rubbed at her sore shoulder. The Normandy's shuttle, newly painted an anonymous grey, hovered beside the balcony and the door slid open. Miranda jumped out, followed by Legion, both of them in full combat gear.
Miranda looked Shepard up and down. "You look like a drowned rat. That's been half beaten to death."
Shepard rotated her arm and winced. "Don't fist fight another Spectre is the lesson of today, I think."
Liara stepped over. She was clutching that OSD like something precious. "The Shadowbroker will know about Vasir soon. If he decides to kill Feron…"
"Let's talk on the ship," Shepard said. She needed some damn ice packs. And some time to think about what she was going to say to Liara.