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Liara was silent as they picked their way through the rubble. When they paused to get their bearings and make certain of their next navpoint, Shepard looked over at her and saw tears flowing steadily down her friend's face. She reached out and touched Liara on the shoulder.
"I'll be all right," the asari said, swiping at the tears with the back of one gloved hand. "It's just … to see the city burning like this is …"
"I understand." She didn't, really—the soldiers who had taken her off Mindoir had kept her face averted from the damage as much as they could, and she'd never spent enough time on Earth for its fate to touch her heart in a personal way—but she had seen Garrus on Palaven, and Anderson and Vega on Earth, and she could imagine what it must be like to have to pick your way through the destruction of a place you considered home. "Are you—can you keep going?"
"Can I? If I had the time, I would pick off every one of those banshees, those perversions of my people, personally," Liara said savagely.
Shepard nodded. "Let's keep going, then. The sooner we get there, the sooner this is over." As so often happened, she sounded more confident than she felt. But it was what Liara needed to hear, so she let it stand.
"It's a hell of a mind game the Reapers play, turning species against themselves," Kaidan mused as they continued.
"They've had countless cycles, millennia, to get it right." Liara picked off a spore pod, nodding in satisfaction as it burst.
They were climbing the rubble now, making their way to the high point where they were supposed to find reinforcements. Shepard looked around as she made it to the top, seeing only a single asari, who was nearly too weary to lift her weapon. "We're looking for Outpost Tykis."
"You're looking at it," the asari told her. The events of the day had drained her of grief, and her voice was a monotone.
"The rest of your squad—" Shepard stopped. It was obvious what had happened to the rest.
"We tried punching through to the scientists, but …" The asari shook her head. "I don't think there's anything left there to find, Commander."
An icy chill stabbed through Shepard. Had they come all this way to be beaten to the temple by the Reapers? A few hours sooner … Damn the asari councilor, anyway, she thought. Why had it been necessary to go all the way to the Citadel to be told to meet the team of scientists? If she'd only been able to come straight to Thessia. If they'd only told her about this days, weeks, months ago—
A hand closed on her arm. "Kick the councilor's ass later," Kaidan whispered. "Let's get there now and see what's left to find."
Shepard nodded, grateful for his good sense. "No reinforcements are coming to support you?" she asked the asari, who shook her head slowly and doggedly.
With an effort, the asari managed to break through her exhaustion and the horrors of the day to think clearly. "We had gunships flying support, but things got too hot with that Reaper. They can't chance it."
Surveying the ground ahead, Shepard considered leaving things as they were and going it alone, but there were too many Reaper troops for them to handle by themselves. "I know it's rough," she told the asari, "but I don't see another way in without their help."
The asari sighed as she activated her comm. "Have I told you how much I hate this war?" Into the comm, she said, "Talon Swarm, this is Outpost Tykis. Is anybody left on this frequency?" She listened closely, while Shepard watched her face and waited. "Commander Shepard is here. We are in need of immediate air support." With some surprise, she looked up at Shepard. "They're coming, Commander."
"Tell them I thank them—and so does the rest of the galaxy."
Shepard and her team moved out, to take as much advantage of the gunship coverage as possible, leaving the last remnant of Outpost Tykis to hold the ground as long as she could, and then get the hell out of there. Someone had to make it through today, Shepard thought.
Above their heads and in front of them came bursts of fire from the gunships, and screams from incoming Harvesters. Shepard and her team took out as many of the troops on the ground as they could, hoping to let the ships focus on the air assault. But the goal was the temple, which Shepard could finally see in front of them, and they couldn't stop to win the battle, not if they didn't want to lose the war in the process.
One by one, the gunships fell from the sky in screaming squeals of tearing metal, and landed in fireballs that lit the surrounding buildings in an orange glow.
"It looks like sunset," Liara said softly to herself. "The sun setting on the asari empire."
"Don't think that way," Kaidan told her. "You're still here. And we're going to end this."
Liara nodded, but she didn't look convinced. Shepard wasn't, either—all the more reason why they needed to get into the temple.
At last they made it to the apron of concrete surrounding the entrance. Liara hurried to the control panel and began entering the code they had been given by the asari councilor, as Kaidan and Shepard covered the entrance to keep the Reaper forces at bay.
The temple's force field fell just long enough for the three of them to tumble inside, and then rose again.
The interior of the temple was quiet. Too quiet. Centuries of silence lay on it, and the sounds of the war outside didn't penetrate. It was as though the temple existed outside of space and time, its own oasis in the midst of the ongoing history of the galaxy.
Shepard shook her head impatiently to clear it of those strange fancies. "Let's get moving," she said sharply. "There's no time to waste."