Shepard opened her eyes the instant her alarm rang, striking the off button with lightning speed. She bolted upright immediately, alert and sharp, then jumped out of bed and onto her feet. Surprised by her energy, she initiated a series of stretches and warm-ups to ready herself for the day and, while doing so, discovered that her head and neck felt fine. The bruising and cuts she had received the day before were either heavily faded or gone completely.
"Morning, EDI. Liara's message from yesterday; pull it up for me, please."
The last time they had met up, Shepard had been helping the asari researcher in hacking terminals around Illium, chasing the Shadow Broker's agents through small messages and hints - seemingly in an endless loop of playing detective. She hoped that her friend had found something more concrete this time around. The message was brought up to her terminal, and Shepard ran through it quickly. Liara had requested a meeting, but nothing more was revealed.
"EDI, please message Liara and tell her I'm en route. Tell Joker to plot a course for Illium. Let Garrus and Arius know that they're to suit up when we arrive."
"Understood," EDI's hologram responded.
Getting herself ready, Shepard hopped into the bathroom to freshen up and headed down the mess, completely famished. She scarfed down a helping of breakfast, then went back for more, her stomach unsated. Afterwards, she returned to her room to kill time before they arrived, but she found that she could not sit still and was almost jittery with spirit. She changed into her activewear and then bounded down to the cargo bay, hoping to squeeze in a workout to burn off excess energy before they touched Illium.
.
Arius and Garrus were standing opposite a raised table in the cargo bay. Garrus was diligently cleaning his water-logged rifle, and Arius was fiddling with a replacement part. Grunt was in the opposite corner in the middle of a weight lifting routine.
"-Off a cliff, eh? How did you manage to hold onto it the whole time?" the turian asked Arius, drying a part of the weapon assembly with a dry cloth.
"Had brought the sling with me, just in case, and thank goodness I did; Rebuilding it would have been a pain."
Garrus nodded in agreement, turning the frame over in his talons. "The quads on them, though, to attempt a coup like that with civilians in the mix. Did anyone get hurt?"
"Surprisingly, I don't think so. Shepard managed to get them out pretty quickly. When the attackers saw that the coup wasn't going to plan, they tried taking a couple of hostages. Unluckily for them, one of them happened to be Shepard. They didn't get very far."
The turian marksman gave the equivalent of a chuckle. "That sounds about right."
The elevator doors opened, and Garrus looked up from his task to see who had come down. "Speak of the devil," he said, looking up toward the elevator. The Commander had come down and walked past them as she headed for the exercise equipment.
"Morning, boys."
They acknowledged her in unison. "Commander."
In the opposite corner, Shepard shouted to the krogan, "Grunt! Wanna spar?"
"You said earlier that she got hit by something," Garrus raised to Arius. "She looks fine to me. Oh… did you treat her the same way you've treated Thane? He told me you've been helping him manage his Kepral Syndrome with some unconventional methods."
"You can call it that, yes, though I can't discount her natural abilities. She heals faster than any human I've known. You've known her for a while… has she always healed from injury this quickly?"
"Hmm." Garrus hummed as he scratched a mandible with a talon. "Definitely a change after Cerberus brought her back. Probably gave her a few upgrades so they wouldn't have to bring her back a second time."
The two of them heard a crash and looked up. Grunt had dropped his weights to the floor and was trying to fend off Shepard, who had climbed onto his shoulder hump to place him in a chokehold. Grunt managed to grab ahold of her limbs and threw her to the mat on the ground. It sounded like a hard hit, but she quickly recovered and darted left and right, playfully using speed to fake out the much larger krogan trying to catch her.
"So what's this I hear about teaching Grunt about food? He already eats his weight. I don't want him cleaning us out like the last time. He even ate my dextro food."
Arius chuckled. "I suppose having tertiary organ systems does that. I questioned him about what sort of imprints Okeer left him in his tank about food. Turns out, basically nothing. That doesn't really surprise me; krogan can eat just about anything, but I am curious if I can find out if he has any tastes." He reattached the part he was working on to the assembly Garrus finished cleaning, and it slid home with a satisfying click. "I was reading a bit further into krogan the other day. They're the first species I've seen where they've reached nuclear age, obliterated themselves, and then come back from the brink. They had at one point a vibrant culture, but it's mostly been lost to their ruined cities, and krogan cultural anthropologists, as we know, are not common. That said, Grunt curiously seems to have taken a liking to human curries from the Indian subcontinent, so I'm going to explore that a bit."
Grunt shouted and fell to the ground in the corner, having just been biotically slapped down by Shepard. He scrambled to his feet and lunged, catching her before she could evade him. His impressive bulk brought the two of them down to the mat hard, and Shepard seemed immobile under his grasp. "I win," the tank-bred krogan said, but it had been a feint. Grunt received an elbow to his face for his efforts, and Shepard used a grapple to reverse her position and trap the krogan in a lock.
"Good luck with that," the turian wished him, reassembling the last parts onto the rifle. "There we are. Good as new. Now, it just needs some calibration…"
.
"Spoke with Liara - we're meeting at her place in case there are some eavesdroppers," Shepard informed Arius and Garrus as they took off in the cab toward the Ilium skyline. "She should hopefully have the beginning of some plan by then. Arius, I may have filled you in before about this - but she's the reason my body ended up in Cerberus' hands instead of the Shadow Broker's. I still don't know why the Shadow Broker wanted me, but Liara mentioned they were in cahoots with the Collectors. Any thoughts on that?"
"The knowledge you've gathered on the Collectors far exceeds anything I was ever able to find," Arius answered. "From the data that EDI assembled, I would surmise that the Collectors function as the Reaper's main arm while they're away in dark space. They can pass as organics and thus do business with them, collect genetic samples from organic races, then begin building a new Reaper once they identify their pick for the cycle. The Collectors harvested the Protheans last cycle, but their Prothean Reaper failed for reasons unknown, so they repurposed the captured Protheans into more Collectors. This may seem obvious by now, but altogether this information, combined with what you've told me, leads me to believe that the Reapers have had your name, Shepard, from the moment you became a threat. They sent the Collectors after the Normandy to take you out specifically, then hired the Shadow Broker to retrieve your remains for them. Remind me to thank Dr. T'soni later; your friend's loyalty is a significant reason why we're all sitting here now."
"Why would they want my body? To prevent me from coming back? Could they have known that Cerberus had the means of revival?"
Arius was silent for a moment as he thought and didn't respond right away. Outside, there came a brief flash of light from the darkened sky, then drops of water began spotting the cab's windows. A storm had brewed.
"It is possible, but it seems unlikely," He finally answered them, and Shepard noticed that his voice had taken on a perceptible chilling undertone. "Miranda told me that Cerberus' Lazarus cell only formed after your death had been confirmed. I can only guess what the Reaper's plans were, but I do know that, at the very least, they would have re-animated you as a thrall and sent you to murder your closest allies."
Shepard and Garrus, sitting at the front of the cab, exchanged a worried glance.
Arius continued, remembering a slice of the horrors from the previous harvest. "Indoctrination may be the most insidious weapon in their arsenal, but it is just the tip of that iceberg. Given your status as an exceptionally high-value target to the Reapers, I recommend prompt burning of physical remains if any in your team were to fall to Reaper forces. They will exploit your clemency and will not hesitate to pit our corrupted forms against you. I have seen the strong unwilling to stop their loved ones from murdering them," he admitted. "This may sound heinous, but prepare to follow through when the time comes."
Garrus cleared his throat, unsettled by the conversation's direction. "We are in for a world of pain, aren't we?"
"Let's worry about one thing at a time," Shepard interjected, not quite ready to seriously consider killing her hypothetically undead crew. The cab left the high-speed stream of transports running through the skyway of Iliumand settled down in front of the apartment building. "Firstly, let's focus on finding out why the Shadow Broker…" she began saying, opening the door of the cab, when she noticed the many police squad cars parked by the apartment building entrance, flashing their emergency lights. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
"I think your thanks are going to have to wait, Arius," the turian remarked, getting out of the cab. "Looks like we're not the only ones looking for Liara."
Arius secured his helmet before exiting the cab.
.
Liara's multi-story apartment was far too spacious for just one person, evident of her new lucrative occupation as an information broker. Two-story panes of glass wrapped on one side of the pad gave a stunning view of the now foggy towers in Ilium, while the interior was furnished tastefully but sparsely with plants, artwork, and an aquarium. It was a beehive of activity, and when they approached the police line, they could hear the chatter of investigators and technicians studying the scene.
"Seal off those trace samples and get them back to the lab."
"We got multiple shots fired. Yeah, techs are going over the place now."
"Central, we got an open carrier on this end. Switching to coded relay."
Eager to find out what happened, Shepard flagged down an asari cop standing near the line. "What's going on?" she asked.
The cop approached them, waving them back to keep them behind the police line. "This area is sealed off. Please step back, ma'am."
"Wait, sealed off? Why?"
"Someone tried to kill your friend, Commander Shepard." answered a second voice descending a flight of stairs from the upper floor of the apartment. It was another asari, and unlike the attire of the asari officer who had stopped them at the police line, this second asari's armour was not standard-issue: on her shoulder plates were the insignia of the council Spectres. "Thank you, officer," the unknown asari said, dismissing the investigative team. "Your people are dismissed."
The cop staggered, stunned by the brazenness of the order. "You– you can't do that!"
"Already done," the Spectre asserted, with a tone that made it clear that there would be no further words.
The other police personnel observing the interaction took the Spectre's dismissal as the cue to leave, and they immediately packed up their things and began filing out. Exasperated, the cop threw her hands up and stormed out.
The unknown asari turned to face Shepard. "Tela Vasir," she stated, introducing herself. "Special tactics and recon."
"A Spectre?" Shepard repeated, that she by any means stayed in her lane - Shepard was the first to admit that she readily jumped into situations that altogether did not call for her, but to have a Spectre here, now, seemed very coincidental.
"I heard your status was reinstated. Good. You're one of our most famous operatives. Might even get you to sign my chest plate."
The asari Spectre's words were friendly, but her tone was one of contempt and mockery. Shepard immediately disliked her but didn't remark on it and continued to play it cool. The asari had information about what had happened while they did not. It was of no benefit to them to rock the boat.
"So I assume you had business with your friend this evening, Commander?"
Shepard nodded. "Liara was following a lead on the Shadow Broker."
"The Shadow Broker? Dangerous enemy to have," she noted, walking past her.
"Seems so. What are the facts so far?"
Vasir motioned to the holes in the glass. "About twenty-five minutes ago, someone took a shot at T'Soni. Note the bullet holes. This was not made by a standard-issue rifle. Someone important wanted her dead. She stuck around for almost four minutes before leaving the building. Whatever she was doing was important."
"Did the police find anything when they arrived?"
"Just the mess and the bullet holes. I gave them a gold star for finding the bullet holes."
Quite the personality. She was incredibly arrogant. Nevertheless, Shepard continued her questioning. "If Liara isn't here, where is she?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be sifting through her crap. There's no blood, no body. It looks like T'soni got away. The sniper didn't plan on her kinetic barrier. Clever girl. Paranoid, but clever."
If the asari in front of her had even the slightest notion of what herself and the Normandy's crew had been subject to over the last few years, Shepard thought, kinetic barriers would have been the bare minimum. Liara would have left behind a message for her. Although she didn't trust the asari, she was sure her browsing would not go unnoticed or undisturbed, so they were stuck with her.
"Liara was expecting me. She would have left a message here - her office wasn't safe."
"I'm not surprised. Illium is just Omega with expensive shoes." Tela Vasir crossed her arms. "I haven't found anything useful for tracking her down yet. Where would she have hidden her backups?"
"Let me take a look around."
Vasir nodded but didn't wander far, probably to ensure she could keep tabs on her snooping. Since she was here anyways, Shepard took the rare opportunity to glimpse into her friend's life. The last two years had changed the asari; gone was the once shy and innocent researcher Eden had once welcomed aboard the Normandy SR-1. Since then, Liara's personality had become darker and more ruthless, willing to break the law and threaten people to get results. Last they met, Liara had confessed her change was attributed to her hatred of the Shadow Broker and her determination to end him for the grief the Broker put her through while retrieving her body. She had feared that Shepard would have hated her for delivering her remains to Cerberus, but truthfully, Shepard was thankful for the second chance.
A large glass case shrouded in shadow was not too far along a wall. A streak of lightning outside the large windows revealed the contents - parts of Shepard's old armour, the one she was wearing when she had gotten spaced. Shepard had wondered where the rest of her suit had ended up when she had recovered only her helmet from the crash site. Between the contents of this case and Legion's makeshift repair job on itself with the other half, she had found the complete set.
"Do you remember anything of it?" Arius suddenly asked her. She flinched, unaware that he had approached her while she was deep in thought.
"Every bit." An unpleasant feeling arose from the pit of her stomach as she recalled the memory, somehow still clear as day. "Maybe because of the suddenness of it… the Collector attack and the Normandy breaking up before my eyes - it wasn't like how people have described dying. It wasn't… peaceful. I wasn't ready." She turned away, distancing herself from the physical reminder. "Liara, though… I can't imagine what she went through to get me. To recover the freeze-dried mass of flesh that was once your close friend and then give it to an enemy who says that they can bring them back to life, all the while another is trying to kill you." She shook her head. "Least I can do is help her with this."
She moved on. A massive painting hung on the far side of the room, right by the entrance. The asari Spectre put her two cents in. "That's not the asari home world. I'm not sure what that planet is."
"It's Ilos," Shepard stated, having been recently there. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so she moved her search upstairs. She found a degree hanging on a wall, a doctorate from the University of Serrice, back on Thessia. She noted the city from which Chakwas' favourite alcoholic beverage was made. Nearby, next to Liara's bed on a nightstand, she found a holo of the Normandy SR-1. It seems like the asari doctor still held onto much from their time together. She picked up the frame. It blinked once, and the image changed before her eyes.
"The picture changed when you touched it. It must be keyed to your I.D," Vasir interrupted. "What is it?"
Shepard also knew this place well. "It's a Prothean dig site. Liara did leave a message. There are a few Prothean artifacts below us. I bet there's something there."
They went back down to the main level and to the various cases of Prothean artifacts on display. Arius and Garrus hovered over one in particular, and she caught snippets of Arius explaining the origin of a traditional Prothean narrative and how it differed from human ones.
"She was certainly into ugly," the asari remarked to them, and Shepard saw Arius raise his head from the artifacts and shake his head in silent disapproval. Ignoring her remarks, Shepard walked over the last relic. Upon contact with the glass case, a small tray opened from the stand. It was a backup disk.
"Vasir, I've got something here. Let's play it on her terminal," she said, picking up the circular disk and walking over to her terminal. As soon as she booted the disk, a video started playing on a screen. "Looks like a recorded call."
A Salarian appeared on the screen. "What have you got for me, Sekat?" asked a voice sounding like Liara's.
"It was tricky, but you paid for the best. I can narrow it down to a cluster, maybe even a system."
"How soon can you have it?"
"Shouldn't take long. Come to my office. Baria Frontiers, in the Dracon Trade Center. Gotta say, T'soni – you're making me a little nervous. How big is the trouble that could come out of this?"
"Relax, Sekat. I'll see you in a few hours."
The message closed. "This must be important. The Shadow Brokers people already tried to kill her once."
"I know where the Dracon Trade Center is. My car's outside."
Shepard wasted no time. "Let's go. Guys," she ordered her squad, "Dracon Trade Center. Take the shuttle and follow us."
.
The rain had stopped, and the sky had somewhat cleared by the time the two shuttles arrived at the front of the trade center, revealing the dark blue sky as night descended. Both groups exited their respective crafts.
"The Baria Frontier's offices are located on the third floor," The asari informed Shepard as they walked up the steps to the building. A variety of businesspeople were standing around and talking near the entrance. "I don't hear any police chatter; we must have missed the party."
Her words had scarcely left her mouth when explosions suddenly and unexpectedly ripped through the lower floors of the building, violently throwing Shepard and Tela back onto the ground. Broken glass and rubble loosened by the eruption pelted them, and thick, black plumes of smoke billowed out from the blown-out windows.
"Liara's in there!" Shepard yelled, the fire returning to her eyes. Not only was her friend possibly dead, corpses of the countless others that had been working the building now littered the ground. In an instant, the trade center had transformed into a graveyard.
"They just look out three floors to make sure she's dead! I'll grab the skycar and seal off the building from the top!"
"I'll start down here and work my way up," Shepard yelled after her.
"Just leave some for me," the asari yelled back before jumping into her car and rising to the roof.
The three of them advanced into the burning trade center. Bodies littered the floors, having been flattened by the explosions. Elevators were out, and building security was down.
"Listen. No alarms," Garrus noted. "Very professional."
"I've alerted authorities," Arius chimed in, "They're on their way."
On the second floor, they passed more bodies, some of which had not yet but were soon-to-be expired. "Mercs… came from the smoke… set the bombs… killing everyone," a dying employee said before slumping over and ceasing movement. Shepard rushed over to quickly assess how far gone the human was but detected no heartbeat. She noticed that the explosion had not killed him; The body had bullet wounds and not from any commercial-grade hardware.
On the third floor, they spotted some military-grade explosive device. It was unarmed. When the group entered the Baria Frontiers office, they checked the logbook and saw that Liara had signed in just a few minutes ago.
"Vasir, I'm at the Baria Frontiers office. Liara signed in just a few minutes ago."
"Understood, Commander."
Shepard and company entered the slick and wet offices; the fire suppression systems were still combating the blazes. Shepard heard a metallic tumble of an object in front of them and averted her eyes too late. A flash of light and a loud bang disorientated her.
"Flashbang!"
The trio scattered, evading a second that had been dropped near them. Mercs, who had been waiting for them at the other end of the hall, opened fire.
"Vasir! I'm pinned down! Mercs – and they're well-armed!"
"Say hello to the Shadow Broker's private army, Commander!" came the asari's reply.
A burp of submachine gun fire hailed whatever she had meant to respond with and instead signalled for Garrus to continue drawing fire down the long hall where he had the advantage while she and Arius advanced from the left set of offices.
The first wave of approaching agents were not wearing armour, and with each satisfying crack of his rifle, Garrus bored holes through their ranks with ease. Shepard had equipped her submachine gun with inferno rounds and closed in from the left while their quarry was distracted by Garrus' onslaught. She sent a biotic shockwave down the narrower room, which hurled the hiding bodies out of cover, leaving them open to fire from their weapons.
The loud, blaring sounds of a shotgun roared in her ears, and the cubicle next to Shepard exploded. She darted to the next set of cover, glancing at the source of the fire. The assailant shimmered as they advanced toward her, evident of a biotic barrier in place. "Arius! Biotic Vanguard!" Shepard yelled.
"On it!" came her reply, and she watched a dark blur bound effortlessly over the room divider, through the debris strewn about and straight at the target for the kill. The vanguard turned to fire a blast at the advancing form, but they moved far too slow to intercept. Arius was within arm's length of the agent and, in a blink, had plunged a monomolecular blade straight past their barrier and through their neck.
"Move up," Shepard called to Garrus, and the trio advanced on.
.
The three burst into the last office just in time to see a mercs body slump to the floor while Vasir stood behind, pistol drawn.
"Dammit. If I'd been a few seconds faster, I could've stopped him," the asari said, holstering her smoking weapon.
A familiar-looking salarian corpse had been splattered against the wall to Shepard's immediate left. It was Sekat. She inspected the wounds; the bullet wounds were still oozing blood. The blood on the wall behind him still bubbled and streaked downward. He had died literally seconds ago. She cursed quietly. "No sign of that data Liara talked about. Looks like a dead end."
"Speaking of which, did you find your friend's body?" the Spectre asked. She had spoken as if she was expecting an answer.
"You mean this body?" exclaimed a new voice, stepping from the shadows with a submachine gun in hand. It was Liara, looking very much alive.
"What the hell? Liara?! Wait, this is Vasir; she's a Spectre."
Liara did not avert her gaze as she approached them, gun drawn. "This is the woman who tried to kill me." The barrel of her gun was steady.
Tela Vasir nervously took a few steps backward. "You've had a rough day, so I'll let that slide," she insisted. "Why don't you put that gun down?"
"I saw you! I doubled back after I left. I watched you break into my apartment!"
Everything clicked together in Shepard's head; her instinct had been correct. Her gun was already in her hand. "You didn't know where Liara went because she hid the message. You needed me to find it for you."
Vasir had a snide grin etched across her face. "Thanks for the help."
Shepard saw Arius move forward slightly, possibly to strike, but she signalled him to stay put.
"Once she had my location, she signalled the Shadow Broker's forces. They bombarded the building to take me out. She found Sekat, took his data and killed him. I'm guessing she's still got the disk on her." Liara explained.
As cocky as ever, even with superior firepower against her, the asari Spectre crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "Good guess. Not that you'll ever see what's on it…" she said, "...you pureblood bitch." The glass behind her shattered, and the rouge Spectre biotically pulled a torrent of broken glass upon the group. Liara put up a large barrier just in time to block the deadly shards before they could reach them. As the shower of glass ceased, Shepard charged head-first through the barrier, tackling the Spectre out of the window. As they fell, Shepard had put two good punches in but got forced apart by the asari's powerful biotic field and fell hard to the ground. The air rushed out of her lungs.
Liara rushed down and forward, hot on the Spectre's heels, violently throwing mercs out of the way. The trio galloped behind the two asari, firing on any merc who crossed them. They were led to an exit, and outside, Tela Vasir jumped into her summoned skycar and sped out of the landing area.
'Damn it!" Liara exclaimed, echoing the words Shepard had ringing through her mind. She pulled open the nearest vehicle and jumped in. Shepard got in after her.
"We'll take a second one," Arius suggested, and Shepard lifted into the air and sped off behind the rogue Spectre. Arius and Garrus loaded into a second and took off.
.
Back in Shepard's craft, the two of them were hot on the trail of the rogue Spectre, who was weaving in and out of the bright buildings of Illium. It was busy; the city's skyline jutted up from the inhospitable ground like flags on ski slalom, some with colourful, neon-like advertisements like the modern city squares from Earth. Multiple, orderly streams of skycars zoomed to and fro, and Shepard was very quickly reminded that while she had changed, Liara was still very skittish in the face of such daring pursuits.
"There she is!" yelled Liara, "Hang a right! No, wait, left!"
"I'm on her." The Commander reassured her.
"She's around the corner– We're not going into the construction site are – oh, goddess. I'm not going to let her escape with that data!"
Shepard sighed. "Liara, relax. I got this."
"Traffic! Oncoming traffic!"
"Calm down! We'll be fine!" Shepard yelled.
.
Garrus had thought that setting the assisted navigation to follow Shepard's craft would have made it easier for them, but Shepard's driving was anything but easy to follow. Her driving had always seemed chaotic to him, but she was no amateur - Mako physics aside, he had seen her execute maneuvers he had thought impossible.
Arius pointed to an object out the front window, garnering Garrus' attention. "What are those? Drones?" he asked the turian.
"Proximity charges!" He swung the craft to the left, just narrowly missing the bomb.
The comm in both of their ears buzzed to life as Shepard and Liara's voices swam through the channel. "Vasir is dropping mines; stay sharp," she yelled before the sound of a small explosion was heard from her end. "Liara, what kind of guns does this thing have?"
"It's a taxi! It has a fare meter!"
"Wonderful! Guys, try to keep up; we're slowly closing in."
"Truck!" they heard the asari doctor warn.
"I know."
"Truck!"
"I KNOW!"
The comm closed.
Garrus and the Wanderer silently looked at each other. At any other time, they would have laughed, but the cab was no UT-47 Kodiak Drop Shuttle - it was not built to withstand gunshots and mines.
"These crafts have a speed-governor on them, don't they? Can you override it?" Arius asked.
"I can, but we would need to power-cycle the engine, and I can't also be driving while I work on it."
"I'll drive; let's swap places," Arius insisted, and they clumsily crawled over each other into their respective seats.
"Oh crap, the truck!"
Now driving, Arius swung harshly to the left, narrowly avoiding being squashed by a rolling semi that barreled through the tunnel. Garrus had popped open his omni-tool, plugged it into the dash of the craft and got to work. While Arius evaded trouble, Garrus' efforts resulted in alarms sounding and messages on the HUD. When a mine blew up a little too close, shrapnel broke through the canopy and nearly hit them.
"And… we're good. Ready when you are; we'll be without power for at least five seconds."
"Understood." Arius waited for a straightaway and, when he had found one, gave the order. "Now!" he commanded.
"Hold onto your seat!" Garrus shouted, and he hit the control to power-cycle the engine.
The propulsion and the muted hum of the engine stopped, and they fell out of the sky. Slowly at first, but weightlessness was felt as they reached terminal falling velocity. Modern sky cars did not have aerofoils integrated into their design - they could not glide. So, gravity dropped almost straight down like the floor had gone out under them in a cartoon. The five seconds of freefall within the potential deathtrap felt like five hours, and the weightlessness lifted them out of their seats. While the ground reached up to meet them, the propulsion kicked in, and their bodies sank hard into the seat material as they raced upwards again.
"Ugh, let's not do that again," Garrus said as he clutched his head. His blood had rushed far too quickly to his feet.
"Agreed," Arius concurred, his voice also sounding strained. "My stomach just somersaulted."
The top speed was now higher, and they used it to catch up to Shepard in no time. Buzzing around her cab were reinforcement crafts, and Arius used dirty tricks to throw them off. Running faster and hotter than those they were contending with, he gently nudged them off course or cut them off, careening them into cranes, tunnel sides, and their own proximity mines. One especially stubborn craft evaded their efforts for some time - until Garrus suggested they execute a maneuver that he had once tried; they raced ahead of the pesky craft then slowed just enough to cause the mercenaries behind them to race toward their rear. They then slammed the accelerator down, trapping the rear vehicle in his craft's waste heat and plasma exhaust. They couldn't see just what sort of damage they had managed to inflict, but the outcome was a fireball that followed no longer.
Arius' heart was pounding, and he exhaled, relieved. "Neat trick. Where did you learn that?"
"Omega," the turian answered before relaying a notification he received on his omni-tool. "We're getting close; Shepard just sent us a beacon. They've landed on a rooftop in the entertainment district, Azure. Setting the waypoint."
As they approached the building, they saw below them on the roof the tiny, fleeting forms of Liara and Shepard running. Behind them, several reinforcements were getting flown in but had not yet landed.
"That roof over there looks like a good vantage point for a sharpshooter. We can mop the place up if you drop me off on the lower level. What do you say?"
Garrus instantly approved - the mercs would be sitting Pyjaks. "Sold."
Arius hovered over the level and jumped out, then Garrus moved back over and flew the craft one level up. He, too, jumped out and quickly oriented himself with the landing mercs down sight. "Ready when you are."
"Let's do it," came his reply.
Garrus opened fire on the mercenaries from his advantageous position with his assault rifle, attracting their attention, and hoping to divert them. They turned from the entrance to fire back toward him, not noticing that a second form was swiftly descending upon them on their level from a perpendicular direction. While Garrus switched back to his sniper to return fire and ground the crafts to prevent escape by their enemy, he watched Arius reach the group and quietly raze through their numbers. Through his scope, he watched the ancient alien jump from agent to cover, then back to agent with deceptive agility, stabbing and slashing through each adversary so quickly it was like he had run past them. Of the monomolecular blade he carried in his hand, Garrus couldn't even see it when it moved, only the motions of his arms. Once or twice did he see Arius actively enter a line of fire, but he was ready, and his steady shots ended any agents who tried. It was a bloodbath, and it was over in no time.
Garrus took the cab back down to the level with the entrance to meet up with Arius, and the two of them ran into the complex to catch up with Shepard and Liara. Judging from the trail of asari blood they followed from room to room, they gleaned that Tela Vasir had been seriously injured. When they followed the path to the rooftop patio, they saw that they had just missed the final fight. The rogue Spectre was dead - slumped against the ground with her blood smeared on the wall behind her. The patio had been completely destroyed in the fight; furniture had been thrown, while bullet holes and dark energy deteriorations pockmarked almost every surface. Liara looked shaken but not seriously harmed, and Shepard was panting but otherwise okay.
"Ooof, feeling a bit lightheaded," she told them, taking deep breaths. "I need to eat something. Used my biotics too many times… she was tough."
Then when she recovered a bit added, "I've radioed for a pickup but keep an eye out for any additional agents. Give me a minute; I need to talk with Liara about our next move."
If you've made it to chapter 20, thank you for reading!
