Snorts of laughter nearly choked Liara to death - a death she wished to have, upon seeing the way the Commander's head turned to her, brow risen in confusion.
This secret must be taken to the grave.
Within seconds, Liara nonchalantly turned off her omni-tool, the source of both her delight and soon her doom, if she didn't think or talk fast out of this hazardous situation. Her hand cut the air in a curt dismissive wave and she pulled one of her books into her folded lap.
"I read a good Prothean joke."
Silence. Tentatively, she snuck a glance to see if her horrible lie was bought. There was actually a small measure of disappointment when it didn't seem as though the human was interested in reacting at all, with how Shepard's attention went back to her own omni-tool. Their joint research effort has come to a standstill, to see if any additional information could be regurgitated that the meld and memory exploration could not already yield.
Archives were unlocked to the Commander as soon as Liara shared her University of Serrice account and password, honestly praying that such access would not be abused, so as not to permanently ban her from such a rich source of a variety of information. Ever since then, however, Shepard hasn't talked - not as much as she normally did, anyhow, and her penchant for mischief had all but died.
Was there something wrong? Hopefully not. Hopefully whatever she was scanning on her omni-tool was intriguing, and soon, it brooked curiosity in the asari. She drew her knees up on the couch as she adjusted her blanket by lifting her feet, tucking the blanket underneath. She leaned back into the pillow sandwiched into the corner of the couch and rested her head back on the arm rest, staring up at the ceiling. She had to think this question through very carefully, in case if it reminded a certain someone of their certain rule.
It couldn't be asked like a question.
"Easy enough," Liara thought sarcastically, trying not to smile.
There was an undulating temptation to delve back into her messages and read again what Tali sent her, even more tempted to show the Commander and tease her - but this atmosphere was offsetting. Marines came and went in this rec room, some a brief visit just to exchange books from the humble little library corner, others, a quick and strange human game that apparently was called 'pool', even though there was no water.
Observation typically harvested the most critical informational bits - especially with humans, whom Liara had found tended to guard themselves both on a physical level, and a social one. It was both refreshing and stressful to navigate their culture, but it was most confounding to do so with the Commander.
Centuries felt as though they crawled by and Liara was finding it more and more difficult to remind herself to at least look busy, if she wasn't going to actually research on her omni-tool. She couldn't very well stare at this human all day. Oh, but there were still so many questions she wanted to ask, now pertaining to everything she'd learned during the meld. All she explored were the Prothean visions. What she hadn't explored was how this human felt about them, or felt about the ability to even see the images, comprehend them, apparently even live through them with the sensations that had reciprocated to Liara through their connection.
"It's so exciting, yet..."
In the two melds thus far, she had felt the pulses of bitterness echo through instead. During her stay on the Normandy and the few missions she's accompanied the Commander, it was difficult to even imagine her as bitter or vindictive, with how often she was the opposite.
"Why would she spurn such a wonderful gift? Oh, what I would do for the chance to interact with an actual working Prothean beacon...!"
Perhaps the information overload was negatively impacting the human's health and mental state. This meld certainly wasn't as bad as the first, where even she had gotten winded and felt throbs of pain worming through her skull.
"Aye," Shepard suddenly sighed, her omni-tool dying swiftly. "This is doin' my head in. I'm not gettin' a single word I'm readin' here, may as well be in an alien language." She bounced off the couch and, just as quickly, left with but a rush of words. "Planetfall in 4 hours, see you then T'Soni."
Sliding doors announced her departure and when Liara could at least start to orientate with what traversed in the span of a minute. She wondered if her ogling was caught at all, misconstrued for something else, or perhaps made the Commander uncomfortable. The archaeologist fizzled out and dug into the couch as she re-ignited her omni-tool to distract herself before she went into overdrive overthinking mode. She brought up the message thread with Tali, her smile striking back at full force as she chuckled over the quarian's teasing.
[Tali'Zorah nar Rayya: Hey, I found a memorial photo of the Commander's first driving test.]
It was a car stuck in a tree.
[Tali'Zorah nar Rayya: Screw the bosh'tet that gave Shepard her license.]
"Cliff!" Liara squeaked pathetically, her hands shooting up to clutch the belts strapping her in her chair. Her stomach launched up to her throat. She was not enthused about her growing ability to contain her vomit.
Uproarious laughter filled the mako, courtesy of an insane krogan. It drowned out the groans that discipline could not temper into silence from the other poor human dragged along on this mission, Kaidan. What was worse that with every subsequent cliff the Commander thought imperative to launch off of, Wrex had become their own worst enemy within as the mako begun to sport a ghastly smell.
"I am convinced he does this and laughs to cover it up because he is actually scared of Shepard's driving as well, and no one can convince me otherwise."
It just seemed far too convenient that that's when he'd happen to lose control of his bowels and begin to pass gas, anyways.
Thoughts were slowly slipping away no matter how hard Liara tried to stay sharp with them, her only means of distraction as there was absolutely no way she could fall into any kind of meditative state to shut herself off to this cruel universe. She focused on breathing through her mouth and gagged when she begun to taste the awful smell, immediately making a mental note to discuss with the requisitions officer if there were any other models of helmets that featured several more layers of filters - perhaps designed with deadly krogan chemical warfare in mind.
This should not be possible otherwise.
"Commander, we're approaching the homing beacon," Kaidan reported as professionally as he could, taking several forced breaks in between with coughs.
"Homing beacon? The Commander told me we were just investigating why there were rations sent out here for months."
"We're here," Shepard announced. "Pulling up to the mine now. Weapons ready."
Liara's brow knitted in confusion. She thanked the stars when the mako came to a jerky halt, and she contended with Kaidan as to who could unbuckle and get the hatch going the fastest. Shepard's chuckles were the next to immediately warrant questioning of her sanity. She playfully wafted the air with her hand as she glanced over at Wrex.
"Jesus, aye, what the hell you been eatin', Wrex? This is worse than last time."
"Probably because he's certain he's going to die this time," Liara grumbled inwardly.
All Wrex had to say for himself was laughter and a hearty smack on the back, propelling the human forward and out the mako when the hatch was open. Liara hopped off and reluctantly followed suite when the others brandished their weapons, hesitant with her question.
"Commander, if I may, aren't we just investigating the nature of the rations being sent here?" Her gaze panned around to inspect their surroundings, before falling on the mine shaft before them. Her brow knit in confusion. "Are... We suspecting there may have been miners that were attacked and turned into husks...?"
"No, rest easy," Shepard stated firmly. Her shotgun rested on her shoulder as she twisted to face the asari, and her emerald eyes seemed to be waging a war of some sort. "Initially, yes, those were the reports. But I've received an update from the Alliance when we entered the system. It's sensitive information on a need-to-know basis, as requested by the Admiral himself, so Lieutenant Alenko and I are the only ones who know." She glanced over her shoulder at the mine shaft. "But once we head in there, you'll find out anyways. We're being sent in to disable an espionage probe the Alliance sent a long time ago. It's carrying a nuclear payload, so... You can understand the gravity of the situation."
Okay. Yes. This right here? This was why Liara preferred her peaceful missions, where she got to soak in beautiful sights, chase pyjaks, and collect flowers. This contended with perhaps some of the more disturbing missions she was on, witnessing the walking nightmares that were husks. Her stomach kicked viciously and her throat tightened, anxiety brewing and buzzing in her aurals. She barely heard the Commander order for them to roll out and keep moving, her gaze falling on Wrex.
"As always, he's not disturbed, he doesn't even care. Has fun with this, like the Commander. Are they insane?"
Reluctantly, Liara followed, steeling herself the courage and finding sparks of it in the ways Kaidan would look over to check in on her. He'd give a thumbs up every time, and she managed a meek smile - despite not being seen by the helmet - and reciprocate the strange gesture. As they entered the mine, a new question surfaced upon looking down the long dark shaft.
"How are these probes typically delivered? I would imagine something of magnitude, if it's carrying a nuclear payload."
Ahead, Shepard slowed somewhat, but hadn't stopped. Her voice echoed and surrounded them as she continued her descent down the shaft. "They aren't delivered in places like this, I can tell you that much. If the signal's coming from inside here then the probe didn't crash. That's why we've got our weapons out. Keep your guard up, and everybody ready your biotics."
Was this why she assembled a team of biotics? Surely she didn't expect for them to disable a nuclear bomb with them?
"Perhaps she doesn't mean to disable, but contain it, if the worst comes to worst."
Shudders rolled down Liara's spine at the thought, and her stomach coiled in on itself like barbed wire. Her mouth ran dry and there was an ominous feeling banging all around inside her, demanding it to be listened to, when they entered the heart of the mine. It looked abandoned, though there were crates and equipment everywhere. The archaeologist's eye fell on inspecting each piece, her observation shaky as she came up behind the Commander, who was investigating a crate herself.
"This equipment's been moved here recently. There's little accumulation of dirt and dust."
"Yeah..." Shepard opened the lid of another crate, hanging over to peer and reach inside. Her mood shifted and she whistled when she pulled out a pistol. "Nice bonnie-lookin' gun!"
"This is a very terrifying mission with grave consequences if we fail, and still she is diving into crates at this hour?!"
There was a very real urge to facepalm when the pistol found a new home in the Commander's holster, the old one abandoned and dumped inside the crate for some other adventurer with skewed priorities to go digging. Liara indulged her urge when Shepard began opening up more crates, commanding her team to do the same to 'speed up' the 'search' for 'evidence'.
Keywords that the asari knew were selected precariously for the future of a report submitted to the Alliance.
Eventually, the Commander seemed to remember the dangerous reason they were here for, and they moved deeper into the mine. It was unsettling, this ghost town, and Liara waited for the ghosts to jump out at any time. She half expected people to be hiding inside the larger crates. The thrill of danger seemed only to be enjoyed by their leader and the krogan, whilst at the very least Alenko was the stout stalwart that Liara could count on for taking this seriously, responsibly.
They descended another shaft, and as the doors opened, Liara frowned at the sight of a tripod - one that did not have a cord and therefore no electricity feeding into it. It was another fact tacked onto her observation, apart from the way Shepard's shoulders hiked up a little more, her finger ready on her trigger as she aimed her shotgun and slowly cleared the sector. She approached some kind of pod at the other end of the small cavern, though Liara kept a safe distance as she and the team followed.
Regret soared at an all-time high when she heard the gentle hiss and lock of the hydraulic doors nip her heel as soon as she crossed. In seconds, the team reacted in their alert, and Shepard's shotgun swivelled to aim as debris shook free from the rock ceiling when a distant explosion resounded behind them, from the shaft they'd emerged from.
"That was a detonator," Wrex growled, "Someone just screwed us."
Amber lit up as a hologram flickered to life, a fuzzy image of what appeared to be a turian. His mandibles flickered and his tone was smug. "Shepard! At last."
Adrenaline thrummed strong, though Liara tried to stay as calm as her compatriots while they looked about, hopefully for a way out. The Commander approached the hologram, her shotgun lowering slightly as she shrugged. "You have me at a disadvantage."
Kaidan attempted to raise the Normandy in the corner, hiding around one of the crates so the hologram couldn't see him. Liara somewhat paid attention to the conversation, but her panic was beginning to overwhelm her the longer she heard static from his radio. She glanced around the cavern walls and approached him, lowering her voice. "The ores here must be laced with heavy metals, our radio won't be able to transmit out."
"There has to be some way we can warn them," Alenko urged, trying his radio again. "They need to rally their defences if they land to send a unit to investigate why we've lost signal."
"Defences? Not rescue?" Liara's heart plummeted with that, stealing a peek around the corner of the crate as she listened in on the conversation with the hologram. She gathered something about pirates, raiders, and her nerves were rattled. "Kaidan's already figured it out - they're going to want to try to seize the Normandy if it lands."
Wrex rallied a warcry when he ran at the other set of doors, throwing his shoulder against it as he charged himself biotically. He tried again and again, going so far as to headbutt them, but all he managed were dents. There was no overpowering the hydraulics. They were trapped. Liara steeled herself as she rounded the corner and came up behind the Commander, indulging the pirate in conversation.
"You assume I give a damn, that's cute," Shepard chuckled.
"What is wrong with her priorities?!" Liara wanted to scream. There was a very real bomb just a meter away from them, and still this maniac of a human found something to laugh about. Perhaps that was her own coping mechanism, the way Wrex had with passing gas. As the pirate prattled on, the Commander cut him short.
"It doesn't have to be like this, Haliat."
The turian's mandibles flickered again, a morbid chuckle as he shook his head. "Empty words from a dead woman."
The hologram shut off.
"What do we do now, Commander?" Liara urged worriedly. "Kaidan cannot get a hold of the Normandy and-"
A resounding beep echoed. Red lit up with life, painting numbers on a screen.
0:0:10.
Fear rooted her legs to the earth. "10 seconds?" Liara balked. She was frozen stiff, time slowing to a near halt as she watched those meagre seconds tick away.
Every second hailed expletives. Wrex became more rash in his actions, Alenko more frantic in his calls to the Normandy. Shepard sleuthed cusses left and right, many not able to be translated - or perhaps Liara unable to comprehend and process it at all. The vanguard charged for the probe and charged her fists with her biotics, punching a hole through the screen panel to expose wires. She knelt down and began separating the wires in her fingers before engaging her omni-blade to begin cutting them.
"What if she cuts the wrong one?! I hope she's been trained in demolitions before!"
"Alenko, get y'arse over here and start decrypting one of the hard points, this probe's got three of 'em!" A final cut of a wire. "Down one now!"
Decryption. Liara had some meagre experience with that. Something untethered her, compelled her to try, and she rushed to the other end of the probe as she engaged her omni-tool. She glanced over when Kaidan ran to the centre of the probe, frozen stiff again as to how to connect her omni-tool to this strange Alliance technology. She was unceremoniously shoved aside when Shepard had gone through with her brute force method, punching into the probe to expose and cut wires again.
Nothing happened. No beeps, no sounds of winding down when they were done.
Time seemed to stand still and she swore it had to have been longer than 10 seconds, but with the screen gone, it was hard to tell. She counted it in her head, falling on her rump in disbelief when the two marines fell on their knees. Kaidan had actually gasped for air. Wrex came over, pulling on the lip of Shepard's suit and laughing when she'd fallen on her back like some kind of turtle.
"D-did you do it?" Liara asked hesitantly.
She watched the bomb warily, waiting dreadfully as a confounding chaos of emotions coursed through her. She was trying to accept her death, her fate, but every muscle spindle and fibre of her being was screaming that she didn't, and couldn't. She felt slovenly slow. Her wit was diminished to single-word thoughts, disjointed and incoherent, none bearing any relation to each other.
Finally, Wrex's laughter was joined. It started out breathy, wheezy, and then Shepard whistled before she descended into the madness of full out belly aching laughter.
"Whew! That's the closest I've ever cut it!" Shepard suddenly pushed herself up into sitting, the grin in her eyes the only thing seen through the thin sliver of her helmet visor. "Well, we haven't died yet, so I'd say we did it, doc. Sorry for shovin' ya there." Her tone bounced more cheekily. "Hard to remember m'manners when we're about to blow up to wee bits an' pieces."
"This woman... Her priorities..."
How on Thessia could she still laugh? Even Kaidan had, now. Humans were positively insane, strong contenders with that of the krogan.
And soon, Liara found herself laughing too, unsure of how or why, but the contagious sounds and utter immense relief ignited something deep inside of her. She hadn't known when or why she had, but she curled over on her knees and her head touched the earth. They were alive. They were alive. They were still trapped, but at least they weren't going to die a gruesome and fiery death in some unknown packet of soil, where it'd take years to dig them out if this cavern fully collapsed on them.
"I've no intention of sharing my fate with the Protheans, Commander," Liara blurted. She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up, where a hand was offered to help her rise.
"Well then, let's take a look around an' see what we can use to get ourselves outta here. There's a clatty lavvy head out there that needs flushin'."
Charming insults weren't as cheeky as this woman appeared to think with the way she could be so audacious in her demeanour and chuckles, thinking she was so clever - but nobody ever understood a single thing she was saying. Even with the aid of translators, Liara didn't find it promising to see the way Kaidan would look so confused.
"He needs - what's their language again? English to help him translate English," Liara inwardly smirked.
She followed the Commander's lead and the group pitched ideas, trying multiple things - and failing multiple times. In the end, Wrex brazenly resorted back to his earlier tactics of charging himself with his biotics and launched new dents in the doors... Along with his armour. His shoulder pads were ripped off in the end, and before he'd found himself doing the same to his own shoulders, Shepard patted him on the back and shared some knowing look. Liara cocked her head in confusion, up until both the human and the krogan biotically charged at the doors. She was flabbergasted by the insanity of it all, more so when Kaidan shrugged and joined in.
"I... Cannot believe... What I am witnessing..."
Incredulously, Liara balked when Shepard cheered and goaded for her to join. She'd watched three bodies slam against the doors over and over again, growing sluggish and weary over time. She'd noticed something upon seeing a piece of armour fly out to the side, and she chuckled as she followed the piece. Her foot nudged a cord. She followed it, toggling a switch hidden behind a crate - peculiarly enough a crate left untouched and unsearched now that the danger was over.
Hydraulics hissed as the doors creaked open. Three bodies yelped in their brief flying descent into a shaft, hisses and groans echoing when their armour screeched to a landing.
"For the record, I liked Wrex's idea way more than this!" Shepard yelled somewhere below.
Liara laughed - ignoring the questioning of her own sanity - as she hopped up on the door frame and watched the battered bodies crawl up into standing. She showed off her lack of injuries in her dainty steps, her smirk growing ever so larger as she had caught up with the group.
"How's your ankle? Is it my turn to carry you, Commander?"
"Har har," Shepard rolled her eyes. "Alright, weapons out, we know there are eejits waitin' for us. They'll figure it out soon enough that this place ain't fallin' on our heads."
"Aye aye, Commander," the group affirmed.
They stalked down the shaft, more ready for danger to jump out at them rather than the one that was beeping away at them. Liara's fear had... Subdued, somewhat, after facing something apparently far more terrifying than gunfire whizzing by her head. She kept her biotics charged at the ready, employing a defensive barrier as she clicked off the safety on her pistol.
Paths diverged in the cavern and they'd been forced to reroute several times, hitting dead ends. Parts were blocked off, evidenced by the detonation earlier to trigger cave-ins, and they climbed shaft after shaft until finally one seemed heavily inclined to the surface. Liara had to stow her pistol briefly in order to grab onto smaller ledges and pipes to pull herself up the steep mountain of a shaft, her eyes narrowing when sharp light broke into the shaft as the hydraulic doors hissed open.
Dull auburn embraced them and Shepard let out a quiet cheer that they were back on the surface...
But they were on a mountain.
"I never thought I'd say this, but I wish we had the mako right now," Liara murmured upon shakily coming upon the cliff's edge. She'd been abruptly pulled back by Wrex and he'd pushed her back down to the rough earth, laying for cover that suddenly exploded with red dust.
"Contact!" Kaidan yelled, "The enemy encampment is below us!"
All looked over for the Commander to await and hear her orders, her strategy. They were left looking for a while. Liara's brow knitted in confusion, then her heart exploded with worry when the human was nowhere to be found. The gunfire never ceased, but it didn't sound like it was coming their way anymore. Her stomach knotted with dread when she heard a distant voice cursing at the top of her lungs.
"Nobody steals my fuckin' baby, you're all gonna pay!"
"Th-the Commander..." Kaidan started, cautiously crawling to the edge of the cliff to look over.
Curiosity compelled Liara and Wrex to do the same, where she grimaced at the pain of his booming laughter shattering her aurals.
"After all this shit, she's pissed somebody took the mako?" Wrex asked in disbelief, shaking his head as he rose up into standing. "I like her style. Just charges right in, heh... My turn!"
Yet another thing that Liara was fully disabled of comprehending and processing, what she was witnessing now. She watched as the krogan barrelled down the mountain, balling himself up to become a makeshift wrecking ball, consequently smashing into a pirate and sending him off flying as if he was a human bowling pin.
"Well, then..." Kaidan hesitantly rose, then offered his hand to her.
They both watched in shock as the two decimated the raider encampment, fuelled by rage and adrenaline. Liara wasn't quite sure what to do.
"Should we...?"
Alenko shook his head. "It's safer if we stay up here, or else we'll end up as casualties if we get in their way." A beat. "I've never seen the Commander upset before."
"Ah, so it is more so out of fear that he wishes to stay up here. I do not blame him."
With the advantage of seeing a broader spectrum of colours and rays, Liara could see when biotics were employed. Wrex always had a certain pungent smell to his, that thankfully she was a mountain away from him and her helmet only had to be concerned with filtering the carbon dioxide and krypton in the frigid atmospheric air. She watched as tendrils of biotics wrapped around the Commander whenever she had turned her own body into a bullet, propelling herself until she'd lobbed into a pirate to send them to the ground, granting a swift death with her shotgun.
In the end, when the field was barren of only two surviving lifeforms, Liara carefully traversed down the mountain with Kaidan. They'd helped each other along the way when they'd slip here and there, hands shooting out often to grab onto rocks and ledges. It was a baffling realization that Wrex and Shepard barrelled down here so brazenly.
In between her little moments of panic in her descent, she'd look down below often and watched as the Commander seemed to angrily march over to the mako that had been stolen and driven here. By the time Liara and Kaidan finally reached even plains and came over, Shepard had disappeared inside the vehicle.
Expletives were jeered, but more so out of vindictive righteousness.
"Yeah, serves you right y'prick!" A beat. The tone actually softened with sympathy. "Also, so sorry y'had to die this way."
Liara grimaced when a body was dragged out and unceremoniously dropped to the ground, but she didn't find any injuries or... Blood... And she looked up at the open hatch when the mako revved to life. Wrex came jogging over and nonchalantly hopped in, damaged armour pieces rattling precariously. Liara and Kaidan froze right where they were and were outwardly gracious to stay outside with what Shepard groaned.
"Get out so this airs out a wee bit more, Wrex. Y'boxed up gas poisoned th'poor wopper to death."
"Heh, heh..." Wrex's chuckles thrummed and rumbled like a quake, taking pride in the very most wrong thing. "I got a nuclear payload in my pants, Shepard."
"Careful there," the Commander playfully shot back, "I know how to snip."
Liara blushed. Kaidan sighed.