(Next chapter! Keeping up the momentum before returning to a more paced release schedule.

Enjoy!)

Unexpected Developments

The Normandy hummed as its FTL drive propelled the ship onward, leaving the mass relay behind and hurtling through the solar system. With the trip from Pluto to Earth being relatively short, it wasn't long before the intercom flared to life again, although Joker was not directly addressing the crew. An opened channel was instead being broadcasted shipwide as Joker made contact with the Citadel through the repaired comm buoys of the Sol system. "Citadel Control, this is Helmsman Jeff Moreau of the SSV Normandy. Requesting an open docking bay on the Zakera Ward for our arrival, and an Alliance representative to speak with."

The response was quick in coming. "Normandy, this is Citadel Control, we copy you. Dock 13C is cleared and will be held for your arrival. Alliance Captain Louis Simmons is on station here, connecting him now. Welcome back." In the background of the call, shouting voices and even a few cheers were audible for a few brief moments before the line was closed and another opened in its place.

"Normandy, Captain Simmons speaking, it's good to hear from you. Sorry that there isn't anyone higher up available, I'll pass the word up the line that you're back. Is your situation stable at this time? We can have a response team ready if there's an emergency."

"No emergencies, Captain Simmons," Joker replied. "We just need information. Commander Janna Shepard is MIA on our end, we were forced to leave Earth without confirming her status. We need to know what happened, Captain. Did the Alliance find her?"

Garrus' breath caught as he gripped Liara's hand tighter. He was staring straight ahead at nothing, clearly following every single word like his life depended on it. Liara gave his hand a squeeze in return, her pulse pounding in her ears as she waited for the reply. There was silence on the intercom for a few moments that felt like an eternity.

When Captain Simmons finally answered, the puzzlement and apprehension in his voice was apparent. "Normandy, please repeat your last. What did you say about Commander Shepard's status?"

"What- she was on the Citadel last we knew. I can see from here that the place didn't completely fall to pieces. Was she found on board or not?!"

"...Helmsman Moreau, I've got a note here that says you go by Joker. Look, Joker, the Alliance announced that Commander Shepard was presumed stranded with the Normandy. There was supposed to be an effort underway to find you all and bring you back home. Are you saying she's not on board with you?"

Joker didn't respond at first, probably feeling the exact same confusion and frustration building up that Liara herself was. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"This can't be real…" Garrus murmured through clenched mandibles. He was staring at the intercom speakers like a starving man staring at a table full of rotten food. "No way this is real…"

"Simmons, Shepard was left behind on the Citadel." Joker sounded livid on the intercom as he started talking again. "You are not telling me that she wasn't found, alive or dead! She can't actually be missing!"

"Moreau, I don't know what to tell you. Everyone here thought she was rescued by the Normandy just before the Citadel ruptured. Let's, uh… let's get you docked and offloaded. This situation will have to be handled by the Admiralty."

There was a bang as something impacted near the intercom. "You've got to be fu-" The shipwide broadcast cut off before Joker finished his sentence, leaving Liara and Garrus sitting as still as stone. Liara felt Garrus' hand leave hers, and she looked to see him leaning against the table, gripping the edge so hard she thought it might break. His eyes were closed and his arms trembled, and each heavy breath sounded like it was forced.

"Garrus," she whispered, "we have no idea what this means, don't…"

"How?" the turian growled, shaking with rage. "They've had three months, three months! How in the hell can they not know?!"

"We'll find out everything, Garrus, I promise you that. We've waited long enough for answers."

"Damn right we have." Garrus jumped to his feet, full of energy that he'd seemed to lack just moments ago. "Admiral Hackett. He was Shepard's biggest supporter in the Alliance Admiralty aside from Anderson. We need to go find him, now."

"Agreed." As much her stomach was twisted by the revelation that the Alliance apparently had no idea what had happened to Shepard, Liara felt a sense of relief that Garrus looked ready for a fight instead of despairing. He was already grabbing his Typhoon and Widow from where they lay on the nearby desk, holstering them on his back and tapping his visor to bring the device to life. While Liara hoped that weapons wouldn't be necessary, her friend was at least up and moving again, a touch of his old fire returned to him.

Liara stood as well, activating her omni-tool and connecting to Glyph in her room below. Rapidly typed instructions set the info drone to searching local networks even as the Normandy came into range of them, scouring what information was available on the extranet for the barest hint of Shepard, or barring that, the locations of individuals most likely to know something. She watched the updates roll through her omni-tool screen even as Garrus stormed over to the cabin door with her on his heels.

They had to wait a few minutes for the ship's elevator to reach the top deck; no doubt the entire crew was cramming into the combat information center even now, competing for the elevator's use. In the time it took for the elevator to finally arrive and carry the two of them down one deck, Liara had confirmed Captain Simmons's words. The only official statements from the Alliance on Shepard had been claims that she was believed to be stranded with the Normandy. Rumors and speculation were abundant on the extranet, but no actual information on Shepard's fate could be found.

The two of them stepped out into the CIC and into chaos; most of the crew was indeed present, crowding around the entrance to the bridge and watching the Citadel loom in front of them through the ship's viewports. Liara could see Vega and Cortez in the cockpit on either side of Joker's seat, but it was impossible to hear what they were saying when the crowd between them had about half a dozen conversations ongoing regarding what they'd all just heard. There was an undercurrent of anger and frustration to the multitude of voices, and Liara couldn't blame them, not when it felt unjust that their long wait hadn't ended with news of Shepard.

Garrus looked like he wanted to force his way past everyone, but Liara grabbed his arm and shook her head. "Look," she murmured, holding up her omni-tool so he could see the projected screen above it. Glyph's findings were still constantly uploading, and one of his reports stood out- there was a series of frantic messages, poorly encrypted and easily accessed, going back and forth between Citadel Control and Captain Simmons, and the office of one Admiral Constantine. Those messages were getting forwarded with addendums to other Alliance command personnel, and all of them pertained to the Normandy's arrival and Shepard being MIA.

"Does that name mean anything to you?" Garrus quietly asked. As impatient as he clearly was, he still folded his arms and studied what she was showing him.

"No, I don't recall any Alliance admiral of particular note of that name. Perhaps a promotion to replace someone lost in the war. What I do find odd is what they're saying here, that the Admiralty was to be notified when Normandy was confirmed to be en route to Earth. It seems that, despite us being on the other side of the Charon Relay for two days, our arrival here has caught them completely off guard."

Garrus frowned at that, crossing his arms as he postulated, "Other ships went through before us. At least one Alliance vessel that we contacted was among them. You'd think the entire Citadel would know we were coming by now."

"That's what's truly strange. I am seeing calls and messages regarding us from recent arrivals; it seems that word of our coming has been spreading already. It's specifically the upper echelons of the Alliance command structure that appear to be in the dark, although that won't last now that they've been informed by Simmons" She looked up at the turian, her own frown deepening as her mind ran through possibilities and likelihoods. "Garrus, there's more going on here than some form of miscommunication. There's no possible-"

Before she could finish vocalizing her theory, the elevator doors opened behind them again, and out stepped Tali and Kaiden, the latter already fitted in his Spectre armor. Garrus' posture became more rigid upon seeing Kaiden, although his face did not betray the tension between himself and the Spectre. Tali was too busy typing away at her own omni-tool to notice Garrus and Liara at first, and she nearly walked into them before Liara put a hand out to catch her shoulder and stop her.

"Keelah!" she exclaimed. "Sorry… Liara…" Tali gazed up at the pale and scarred turian next to them, her shoulder hunching in what Liara knew to be a mix of embarrassment and concern. "I didn't know if you'd… are you ok, Garrus?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Garrus grumbled. A moment later, his mandibles dipped and his sub-vocals became more pronounced as he shook his head and continued. "Actually no, I'm not. I'm feeling really pissed off right now."

Tali's hunched posture became one of rigid anger, and she nodded fiercely in agreement even as Kaidan muttered, "You can say that again." His arms were crossed and his foot tapped out a rapid beat on the deck, an expression of barely restrained fury on his face.

"How can these Alliance bosh'tets not know what happened to Shepard, after all this time?" Tali exclaimed with venom in her tone. "It's ridiculous! Even if she were-" The quarian cut herself off with a glance at Garrus, starting over awkwardly. "Even if she's… gone… there had to be signs of her on the Citadel, something! This kind of incompetence was unheard of on the Migrant Fleet!"

"I don't think it's incompetence, Tali," Liara cut in. She gestured with the arm her omni-tool was on, drawing Kaidan and Tali's attention to it. "Our imminent arrival to the Sol Cluster appears to have been deliberately concealed from the Alliance command structure. Every official report I've been able to pull up in the last few minutes says the same thing- they expected Shepard to be with us and were going to prepare an official response when they got word that we were returning. Instead, someone clearly went to great effort to keep them uninformed and disrupt those plans. This whole matter was intentional."

They all stared at her for a moment, then Tali sheepishly deactivated her own omni-tool. "Right. Shadow Broker. So… any idea why someone would be doing this?"

Liara glanced down again at her omni-tool's screen to read more reports Glyph was compiling for her, furrowing her brow as she continued. "I believe this unknown party knows for certain that Shepard isn't with us, and took these steps to buy time before the Alliance finds that out as well. Why someone would do this, I still don't know, but the only way for them to be certain-"

"Is if they knew Shepard's fate already," Garrus finished for her. His three-fingered hands tightened their grip on his forearms as he growled, "They better have a damn good reason for this, whoever they are."

"One more thing to find out, then," Kaidan stated. "Let's work out a plan with the hotshots at the front." The human Spectre stepped past the rest of them and raised his voice to yell over the crowd of crewmates hogging the bridge. "Hey! HEY! We're not getting anything done standing around yammering, people! Can the panic and get back to stations, there are procedures to see through when Normandy comes into port!"

Many crew members looked back frantically and stepped aside, some returning to their stations on the deck, while a few looked angry and even argumentative. Kaiden clearly was able to read the mood of those few, and he stood up straighter, speaking with the authority of a Spectre that seemed to have come naturally for him. "Come on, people, what would the Commander think if she saw everyone acting like this? We've still got jobs to do and a ship to take care of, let's hop to it."

Invoking Shepard seemed to do the trick; the crew dispersed, clearing the way to the cockpit. Adams still looked as if he might argue with Kaiden, but Donnelly and Daniels both grabbed him as Donnelly murmured, "Not now, mate. Let them deal with this." The trio of engineers were the last to move out of the way, returning to the elevator to head back to their stations as Kaiden walked to the front of the ship. Liara followed close behind, Garrus and Tali filing in after her.

Vega was watching them approach with a grin on his face, and when Kaiden reached the doorway of the cockpit he addressed the Spectre. "Not bad, Alenko. I figure your crew won't ever screw with you when you get assigned your own ship."

"Yeah, yeah, real captain material right there. He might even get a ship half as awesome as this one," Joker snarked without looking back at them all. His hands flew across the controls of the ship as he prepared Normandy's docking route. "I can't believe this bullshit. I thought the Alliance would have their act together by this point after all the shaping up they did in the war."

"I'm not sure it's the Alliance's fault, Joker," Liara replied. "Not completely. I need you to slow the ship down, as much as possible. We need to buy time before arriving on the Citadel."

Joker swiveled in his seat to face Liara, looking very confused, and Cortez and Vega turned to her as well. She gave them the condensed version of her discoveries, as well as her theory on the situation. Vega's face turned inscrutable as he listened, while Joker cursed and turned back to the controls, pulling back power from the ships' thrusters and slowing the Normandy's approach to a crawl.

"Best that can give us is fifteen minutes before we dock. Not sure how long we can stall whoever comes to see us afterward." Joker looked back at them all with a hint of concern in his expression. "We are stalling, right? Like, do we have an actual plan here? What do we tell people?"

"We first thought of locating Admiral Hackett if feasible. He was a close ally of Shepard and could prove helpful, but all signs point to the Alliance leadership as a whole being affected by this ploy. We may instead have to start searching instead for whoever set these events in motion, or for signs of Shepard herself, or..." Liara trailed off, mind racing as she gazed at the Citadel. Gleaning the motives of an unknown party making strange decisions was a difficult prospect, but Liara thrived on these challenges as the Shadow Broker. Working the problem in her mind, a conversation that had come up while discussing strategy with her partner, Feron, sprang from memory.

When matching wits with another, view the issue-and yourself- from their perspective, the drell had told her over drinks. This is how I've outdone competitors in the past. I decipher their goals and how they wish to achieve those. I theorize how my opponent expects me to act, as well as what they believe I desire. Get inside their mind and you will always be a step ahead of them.

Except this didn't feel like the actions of an opponent. Whoever was manipulating events had targeted the Alliance, not the Normandy, ensuring that Shepard's crew found out that their commander's status was unknown right as the Alliance did. What was more, Liara realized, was that this series of events could have been allowed to play out once the Normandy reached the Arcturus Stream relay. Instead, the crew had been set up to make the discovery only upon reaching the Citadel.

They were expected to immediately contend with the Alliance in a fact-finding mission on board the Citadel... which was Shepard's last known location.

"She's here," Liara exhaled sharply. Everyone else on the bridge looked at her, most of them wide-eyed, while Garrus's expression was close to desperation.

The turian addressed her with the slightest tremble of anticipation in his sub-harmonics. "What are you saying, Liara? What did you figure out?"

She shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't declare it like that. It's just…" Liara turned to face her squadmates, noting how they now all clung on her every word and praying she wasn't giving them false hope. "It's an instinct. A leap of logic in some ways. But the manner in which this situation has been set up, it seems likely that this third party knows us, thoroughly and personally, and is depending on us to immediately scour the Citadel for any hint of Shepard. If we are supposed to find her first, and they already know her status, then by far the most sensible move on their part would be to keep her close by and wait for us to begin our search, contacting us through secure means at that point."

"Well… that's the good news we needed, then! I mean, obviously there's no way someone would go through all of this unless she was alive! They wouldn't be keeping a corpse on hand, right?" Tali exclaimed, enthusiastically nudging their turian squadmate. "Hear that, Garrus? She's waiting for us!" Her masked face turned to Liara, clearly expecting support for her claims.

They want to hide her death and need to meet us to ensure our silence. They want people to see us standing behind her memory as they turn her into a martyr. They believe we have the right to know that she's gone before anyone else. They- Liara cut off the flow of terrible possibilities that unwillingly sprang to mind, and she forced a smile and nodded. "I agree, Tali. It's a good sign."

Garrus didn't relax his rigid stance, and the brief smile he allowed was obviously forced, but there was gratitude in his eyes when he looked at Liara. She might have been happy at that, yet at that moment she simply hoped that she wasn't leading them all on and that her instincts were accurate.

If waiting to learn about Shepard's fate had been bad, getting everyone's hopes up only to have them crushed would be far, far worse.


The next few minutes were spent in quiet discussion as the Normandy slowly coasted towards the CItadel, everyone voicing ideas about who was behind these strange events and how best to handle the situation. Naturally, Vega was one of the most talkative.

"How do we go about finding these folks or letting them reach out to us, then?" the large Marine queried. He stood up straight from where he'd been leaning on Joker's seat and rolled his neck and shoulders. "The instant we land, we're gonna get swarmed by everyone onboard that station. No chance for us to escape and start looking around the place."

"Then we split into teams, as we have before," Kaiden stated. He shrugged as everyone turned to him and continued, "I don't know why someone wants us to find Shepard first, but I won't guess at anything when we've been out of the game all this time. I'll stay onboard with the rest of the Alliance crew and field the Admiralty's questions when we land. Maybe we can ask a few of our own and find out how this mess came about. We'll keep everyone focused on us as long as possible."

He turned to Liara, Garrus, and Tali, jerking his head upward to indicate them even as he clapped Cortez on the shoulder. "Steve takes the shuttle and gets everyone else onboard the Citadel, subtly, and you guys do what you have to."

"I can get that done," Cortez affirmed. "Depends on where we're heading on the station and if traffic control even exists again, but I'm sure that I can get us in there without drawing much attention."

Kaiden nodded, then looked around them all a moment later, checking the rear of the bridge. Confusion spread across his face as he asked, "Wait, where's Javik?"

"Oh, he's staying below," Tali muttered. She crossed her arms and huffed in exasperation as she clarified, "He said something about it being foolish that people will celebrate our return and survival. According to him, it 'would've been more proper if Shepard's warriors had fallen alongside her'."

The faintest growl slipped out of Garrus even as Vega shook his head, muttering, "Buggy is a damn ice cube, forget him for now. You guys go with Esteban. We'll deal with things here."

"I'll start by reaching out to that Admiral Constantine. Might find out who he is and why Captain Simmons went to him first," Kaiden stated, stepping back and turning to exit the bridge. "I'll be in the comm room, Joker. Let me know when I'm needed out here again."

Garrus whirled around and stalked out behind Kaiden, heading for the elevator with Tali following after him. Cortez was next to leave the bridge, but when Liara turned to go as well she felt a hand on her wrist. She looked to find Joker gently gripping her arm; the pilot had bags under his eyes and his beard was scruffy and unkempt, but there was light in his gaze that had vanished when EDI shut down. "Find her, alright? Whatever it takes," he murmured. "Bring her home, one way or another."

Liara reached over and took his hand in both of hers for a moment, nodding solemnly. "We will, Jeff. I promise."

The ghost of a smile flickered over Joker's lips but was gone in the next instant as he went back to working the ship's controls, easing Normandy towards the Citadel as he had done countless times before. Vega patted his shoulder and gave Liara a knowing look before he turned to continue watching their approach to the station. Liara turned away as well and walked quickly to catch up to the others; Tali and Cortez were calling the elevator up and Garrus was talking to Traynor at her station, their voices too quiet to catch the words being spoken.

By the time Liara reached the other side of the galaxy map, Traynor had gone back to manning her console and the elevator had reached their deck. Liara turned to Garrus as the four of them stepped into the elevator, asking, "Did Traynor learn anything of note?"

"No. She checked inbound messages and comm traffic for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might be a disguised message from our mysterious third party. She didn't find anything, and I trust her to know what she's doing." Garrus' low tone of voice was familiar, indicative of the cold focus he fell into when in battle. He didn't look at any of them, simply staring at the elevator doors instead as if willing them to open sooner. When they did finally arrive at the shuttle bay, he headed straight for the Kodiak with Cortez on his heels, calling over his shoulder, "Any clue where we should go first?"

"I have a few notions. Some starting points may be more promising than others," Liara replied as she stepped over to the armory. Unlike Garrus, who'd maintained his guns in the captain's cabin and already had them on hand, she and Tali had left their weapons down here like most of the crew did. Her trusty Phalanx and some ammunition lay on a shelf alongside many other handguns, and Tali pulled her geth-based plasma shotgun from a locker, checking its charge. They both holstered their weapons and raced to the shuttle even as Cortez began warming up its engines.

Climbing inside the Kodiak and sealing the door behind them, Liara and Tali both sat down across from Garrus, who'd already taken his own seat. The turian glanced at Liara and continued his line of inquiry. "You were talking about how whoever we're dealing with seems to know us and has expectations about how we'll act. Is there anywhere on the Citadel that they would plan on us going to first?"

"I'm not entirely certain," Liara murmured as Cortez began his liftoff sequence and the shuttle bay doors opened, revealing the purple haze of the Serpent Nebula beyond. She opened her omni-tool back up to view any more messages or feeds that Glyph could provide, continuing, "The question lies in whether the third party believes us to be aware of what's really going on. I would assume they are; we are no crew of fools, the signs of subterfuge were there even without applying my resources. If that's the case, the best place for them to wait for us would be somewhere linked directly to Shepard, somewhere those closest to her are very familiar with. A private place that outsiders wouldn't expect us to check first, one that could facilitate a meeting away from the eyes of the Alliance. Perhaps…"

As lost in overthinking the situation and browsing her omni-tool as she was, Liara missed the obvious answer at first, even as Garrus and Tali's heads whipped towards each other. Garrus' expression of revelation was what caught Liara's eye as he turned, banging on the shuttle's wall and calling into the cockpit, "Cortez! Gun it to the Silversun Strip!"

Sudden realization swept over Liara at that moment. The apartment, she thought.

"Silversun?" Cortez replied, sounding confused. "What're we supposed to find- oh. Alright, yeah, launching now! I'll drop you all as close to her place as I can."

There was a familiar thunk as the Kodiak's docking mechanism disengaged, and the shuttle fell backwards out of the shuttle bay and drifted behind the Normandy as the larger ship pulled away. Cortez angled the shuttle's nose upward relative to the Citadel arm nearest to them, flying perpendicular to Normandy's own route. The Silversun Strip was located on one of the arms on the opposite side of the station, and even with Cortez pushing the Kodiak close to its top speed, it would still take several minutes to arrive.

Through the shuttle's viewports, they could see the Normandy flying over the visibly damaged arms of the Citadel on a straight bearing for Zakera Ward. Already, she was being tailed by a pair of smaller vessels, and more ships and shuttles appeared to be heading that way by the minute, evidence of the welcome that their famous frigate was about to receive. With luck, the rest of the crew could weather the crowds and questions for a while, buying time for their own mission.

Liara kept herself busy swiping at her screen in search of a new series of reports. Namely, any available damage reports pertaining to the famous entertainment district- and more importantly, Tiberius Towers, the major apartment complex located there. The first useful information she found was rather generalized, just overall reports on entire sub-sections of the Citadel's wards, but the answer lay within. Most of the damage suffered by the Citadel when the Crucible fired was concentrated on the parts of the wards nearest to the Presidium.

As fortune would have it, the Silversun Strip was located about as far away from there as possible. More reports outlined the damage done by the Reapers themselves when they seized the Citadel, but much of that had been focused on the main residential blocks and C-Sec defenses. Liara barely repressed a shudder at the thought of the carnage that had ensued in those areas. Wishing to give her friends some good news, she looked up and kept a brave face for their sake.

"Shepard's apartment should still be intact. Damage to that area of the Citadel is supposed to be relatively minimal," she stated. "Thank the Goddess. That's as good a place as any to start looking. Somewhere to celebrate our return and reunion is also in order, although perhaps with a less wild party this time."

Tali laughed, the first real laugh Liara had heard out of her in some time. "Keelah, my head felt like it'd been trampled last time. A quiet party sounds way better; I'm sure Shepard will agree."

Garrus remained silent, but his mandibles twitched upwards, a brief flash of amusement showing through his stoic demeanor.

Their good mood didn't last long, however. As they descended through the artificial atmosphere of the ward and began their approach to the Strip, leveling off at fifty meters above the surface, Liara got her first look at the current state of the once-proud space station. What she saw made her want to weep; she remembered the lush beauty of the Presidium, the wondrous lights and vibrant throngs of people in the wards, the continuous hum of thousands of skycars as they carried endless numbers of passengers over streets full of stores and theaters.

Now, the Citadel they flew over may as well have been a city of the dead.

Many of the skyscrapers in sight were at least moderately damaged, and most streets were choked with rubble and debris, devoid of the plethora of lights that once brightly lit them. Broad, scorched gashes were torn through whole rows of buildings, the telltale signs of Reaper weapons. Where once there would have been thousands of civilians crowding a single block at any time of the day, now there were barely a handful to be seen, and there were precious few skycars in the air as well. Most visible movement appeared to be teams of salvage and repair workers, alongside a few Keepers scattered about the area; after three months, the time for rescue operations was clearly long past.

Goddess, this is 'relatively minimal'?

"This…" Tali seemed unable to even formulate a full sentence, shaking her head slowly. "How many died here… how many on the entire Citadel?"

"Millions, easily." Garrus' voice was quiet, the fury he was feeling was all the more evident for it. He was watching through the shuttle's viewpoints as well, observing the ruins of the space station that had been his home for a time. "I hope Shepard found the Illusive Man and sent him straight to hell. Everything we did to keep this place safe for people, before and during the war… gone, just like that. Doesn't matter if they manage to rebuild everything. Doubt it'll ever really be the same again."

"I don't know. It may return to something resembling normal one day," Liara replied. "I doubt restoring the Citadel is a priority right now though. Most of the galaxy will be looking to rebuild on their homeworlds and colonies, re-establishing trade and commerce. Even the former Council races may not consider the Citadel's revitalization critical at this time."

Tali turned towards her upon hearing that, shoulders sagging. "I really hope that's not the case. This place meant so much to so many people. The first time I saw it…" she paused, helmet tilting to one side. "Well, the gunshot wound, the assassins, and meeting Shepard made it interesting, but even with all that I could still appreciate how incredible this station was. People deserve the chance to make this place a home again."

"Yes, they do." Liara looked out the viewport once again as she spoke, and at last she saw their destination ahead of them- Tiberius Towers lay at the end of the street they were flying over. From where they were flying, she could easily see a number of holes opened in the walls and the lack of glass in almost any window.

Even so, the place was still standing, and floor 37- the floor housing Shepard's place- appeared to be mostly unscathed.

"Finally," she murmured, even as Garrus stood from his seat and stepped forward to stand beside Cortez. Leaning down to see out the front of the shuttle, the turian went noticeably still as the Towers loomed larger and larger before them. Tali let out a loud breath, fidgeting with the belts of her suit, and Liara forced herself to halt what had become nervous tapping of her omni-tool's screen and little more. All of them were clearly feeling the same mix of desperate hope and anxious dread.

Cortez ended up being the one to speak first and cut the tension. "Looks like most of the landing pads are intact. I can drop you guys a few floors up and then head out until you call for me, although…" Their pilot went silent for a long moment, causing all three of them to turn in his direction.

"What is it, Cortez? Trouble?" Garrus asked.

"No, if anything it's like we got here completely unnoticed. Even with the Kodiak's stealth capabilities, I figured at least an Alliance patrol or something would make visual contact once we got close and I'd have to juke them for a second to offload you guys unseen, but… there's nothing. Radar's not reading anyone on an intercept trajectory, and I'm not picking up any scans pinging us." Cortez looked back at them all for a moment, and they could see concern on his face. "There is no way they could've missed us unless there's literally zero patrols or surveillance around the Citadel right now. Could be the case if there isn't much effort going into reconstruction here like you said, Dr. T'Soni."

Liara frowned at that. "Or we've received one more gift from our mysterious benefactor. If they can disrupt and mislead top-level Alliance communications, they could potentially prevent anyone from sounding the alarm about our shuttle."

A quiet grunt left Garrus, sounding his agreement. "Probably that one. If you're right about this, Liara, and someone's pulling a lot of strings to hide the truth about Shepard from everyone but us, they wouldn't stop at half-measures. They'll make sure every little thing is proceeding as planned, just like always."

Liara and Tali looked at each other, and the slight shrug of Tali's shoulders indicated the confusion she was also feeling. "'Just like always,' Garrus? What're you inferring?"

"Someone working from the shadows, using misinformation as a weapon, seemingly at odds with the Alliance, and interfering with Shepard's life… or her death. Now where have we heard that story before?"

A chill went down Liara's spine. "You can't truly believe this involves Cerberus, Garrus. We broke them, scattered them to the wind. The Illusive Man-"

"No one on the Ares or the repair expeditions knew what happened to him. I'd like to believe Shepard got him somehow, but we don't know if he had contingencies set to keep his organization going even if she did. A guy like him probably would."

"The galaxy would not stand for their continued survival, Garrus. Not after the crimes they committed during the war."

"The galaxy clearly doesn't have its act back together yet, if it ever really did. We can't be certain of anything."

An uneasy silence fell in the shuttle as Cortez slowed to a hover above a landing pad on the Towers and then began to descend. Liara couldn't bring herself to believe that Garrus' suspicions were accurate; her time as an information broker had taught her to inspect and consider all possibilities, but they had simply done too much damage to Cerberus for her to accept that the extremist organization was still active and plotting.

The Kodiak made contact with the pad, jarring Liara from her worries as Garrus turned and hit the shuttle's door release. With a loud hiss, the door slid open and the turian stepped out, quickly followed by Tali. Before exiting as well, Liara turned and addressed Cortez. "It may still be best for you to stay out of sight for now. We should avoid attracting attention where possible until we learn more."

"Yes, ma'am," Cortez agreed. "I'll find a spot to park the shuttle out of sight for now. Contact me as soon as you need a pickup."

Liara nodded and stepped out onto the pad with her squadmates, the Kodiak's engines roaring back to life as Cortez took off behind them. The shuttle quickly dipped below the landing pad and out of sight, and the three of them turned to the doors at the far end of the pad leading into Tiberius Towers. Glowering, Garrus squared his shoulders and strode towards the entrance, one hand fiddling at the weapons on his back but not yet drawing them.

Tali slowed her pace a bit to allow Liara to catch up with her as they followed the turian into the Towers. "Do you think he'll be ok, taking the lead here?" she murmured, purposefully disabling her comm unit for a moment. "Being on edge is one thing, but it's like seeing a varren set to savage someone. I get that he's angry- I am too- but he might charge blindly into whatever's waiting for us, maybe even hurt someone we need."

"We'll step in if so, Tali. He'll listen to us. I don't think it will come to that, however, not if it risks compromising our search for Shepard. You know as well as I that that's the one and only thing on his mind right now."

The quarian looked back towards Garrus, who was entering the building well ahead of them at that moment. With a sigh, she nodded and turned her comms back on. "Alright then. Let's go find out what's waiting for us."

The two of them raced after Garrus, following their turian squadmate into the tower. Through the entrance from the landing pad lay a dark and gritty hallway, lights and doors devoid of power. Tiberius Towers may not have been destroyed, but it was certainly as abandoned as many of the buildings they'd flown over had been. Dust and plaster coated the floor whenever chunks of the ceiling had fallen, and the windows at the far end of the hallway were smashed inward, evidence of the blasts that had rocked even these distant parts of the Citadel.

Further down the hall, Garrus had wrenched apart a half-opened door with a sign above it indicating that stairs lay beyond. In the week of shore leave that the Normandy's crew had enjoyed before the war's end, Liara had only ever visited Shepard's apartment once or twice, predominantly to attend the great party that the Commander had thrown for them all. She'd only entered Tiberius Towers from the ground floor and taken an elevator up, thus she was unfamiliar with any route to Shepard's apartment from above. Garrus seemed to know exactly where he was going, however, and she simply followed his lead.

In all fairness, the turian had spent many more days- and nights- here compared to the rest of them. Liara wouldn't have been surprised in the least to learn that he and Shepard had returned here via skycar more than once, too intoxicated to walk all the way. It was with purpose instead of a sway that Garrus strode through the place now, however, and a descent down several flights of stairs saw the three of them arriving on floor 37.

They'd not heard a sound from anywhere else in the Towers thus far, nor had they seen any signs of habitation. The encompassing quiet and dark, gritty atmosphere of the damaged apartments had Liara keeping one hand near her sidearm. By all accounts, every one of the Reapers' creations had died with them, but she still remembered being ambushed in places like this by husks and the anxiety was difficult to shake. When Garrus came to a sudden halt in front of them, Liara tensed and nearly drew her weapon, but the turian was only staring closely at the floor.

"Footprints," Tali murmured, walking up beside Garrus. In the dust that covered the floors of the complex's halls, the imprints of shoes were visible in several parts of the hallway they now stood in. As if the sudden evidence of the presence of others weren't indicative enough, Liara could see even from the other end of the hall where most of them were concentrated- the doorway on the far end that opened into the foyer outside Shepard's apartment.

A doorway that, unlike every other in the place, was powered up and glowing green.

None of them moved for a long moment, and Liara wondered if her squadmates were feeling a sense of relief like she was; regardless of what they found next, at least they'd been right that this was the place to search. Garrus was the first to make his way towards the door, adjusting his visor as he did so. "One camera watching us from the corner. Not picking up any other recording or scanning devices. No traps either."

"Well, they know we're coming, whoever they are. Guns or no guns for this?" Tali asked.

"We'll know in a minute," Garrus replied in a curt tone. His voice grew quiet as he muttered, possibly to himself, "We'll know everything soon enough."

Liara shared one last glance with Tali, but neither of them had time to voice possible concerns; Garrus had reached the door and was inputting the 'open' command, and they could only follow behind the turian as he stepped into the foyer beyond. The windows that overlooked the Strip were shattered, the glass still scattered about, crunching underfoot as the three of them passed through the foyer. On the other side of the chamber was the door into Shepard's apartment, and it too was powered up and shining with green light, an open invitation to enter.

Scanning his visor left to right as he gazed at the door, Garrus frowned and muttered, "Not picking up anyone on the other side, no readings at all. We never hardened this place against scans, but whoever's here might've done so. I vote for guns."

Tali nodded and grabbed her shotgun from her back, unfolding it as Liara drew her Phalanx and Garrus brought his Typhoon to bear on the door. He nodded at Tali while maintaining his aim, and the quarian moved up beside the door and slowly input the code to open it. With a hiss, the doors slid open, and Garrus moved in with speed and precision, immediately ducking left as he entered the apartment and scanned the place with his rifle.

Going through the door right behind him, Liara checked right and saw no one waiting for them anywhere. In the illumination of a few overhead lights that were still powered and shining bright, all she saw was dust and broken glass and an all-too-barren apartment. "Clear," she stated, lowering her weapon as she did so.

"Clear," Garrus called out in turn. Liara saw his head turn a fraction, no doubt instinctively waiting for a corresponding 'clear' from Shepard, and her heart ached as she watched his eyes close for a moment before he stood up straight and lowered his rifle towards the floor. Janna had always charged right through the breach beside him; her absence, and their need to find her, felt all the more overwhelming at that moment.

Tali was right behind the two of them, and after a moment she lowered her weapon as well as she stepped into the middle of the main living room, looking around at the formerly beautiful apartment. The windows on the left were shattered inward, the walls and floors around them crushed and splintered by what had clearly been an impact of some kind. Scorch marks along various stretches of wall and floor provided proof of fire having broken out within the apartment as well. There were even bullet impacts and what looked like claw marks in some places.

What was far stranger was that all the furnishings and decorations that had given so much life to the apartment had vanished, leaving it an empty shell of itself. As far as Liara could see from where she stood, all furnishings had been removed, the shelves above the bar were devoid of glasses, and the piano was absent from the corner of the living room.

"What in the homeworld…?" Tali muttered. "Someone cleared this place out? Why?"

"Let's ask," Garrus growled in reply. Raising his voice till it rang through the apartment, he called out, "HEY! Who's in here?! Show yourselves now!"

"Garrus!" Liara hissed at him. "That might not be the best way to go about-"

"I'm in here, Vakarian, indoor voices will be sufficient. It's good to know that the Shadow Broker's knack for intelligence and guesswork has remained sharp."

The Typhoon in Garrus' hands twitched upwards once again, more out of instinct than anything, but the voice that had just called out to them was all too familiar. An Australian accent, Liara had learned it was called, crisp and cool as ice. It came from the secondary living room in the opposite corner of the apartment, and as Garrus rushed over to the entrance with both Tali and herself on his heels, Liara felt pieces of the puzzle coming together in her head as she realized who had set up this chain of events.

Within the small room, a few more lights lit the place up enough to see that the gambling table had been removed, but the desk in the back corner had not. A pair of large terminals had been set up on the desk in place of the small personal one that had once occupied it, and the light from the screens illuminated the pale face of a woman in a sleek white bodysuit, her dark hair as perfectly wavy as ever.

Tapping a few final inputs into the screens before her, Miranda Lawson stood up from her seat and stepped around the desk, the usual smirk appearing on her lips even as the light revealed dark circles and deep bags under her eyes. With a hand on one hip, she greeted them as casually as if they'd just returned from lunch.

"Welcome back, you three. It seems that we can finally get things moving along."