An Explosive Reunion
I had the Normandy on a course for Illium where we would deliver the data Cerberus had on the Shadow Broker to Liara and see if she needed our help. I shot upright in my bed as nightmares flooded my mind, everything that I had ever had a nightmare about seemed to have entwined into a single, constant horror show that replayed itself every time I tried to sleep. There were the flashbacks of my squad-members being killed on Elysium, the dark visions that I had been given from the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime, Kaidan dying on Virmire. Faint memories from when I had regained consciousness while Miranda had been rebuilding me drifted through my mind. The horrific fights on Horizon and on the Collector Base replayed in my head as if I was actually there all over again. Now, to top it all off, I had dreamt that I had been imprisoned in Project Overlord and that it was my mind that had been shattered by the power of the Geth neural network.
As I sat up in my bed and looked around my cabin, telling myself that none of what I had seen was real, I felt myself shaking and the sweat run down my back. A gentle hand ran its way up my back and Tali sat up next to me,
"You alright?" she said sleepily. I rubbed her hand and stood up to look out the window at the galaxy beyond,
"I… I just wonder sometimes how I get myself mixed up in all these things. The things I've seen, the things I've experienced in my life…" I watched the millions of stars twinkle away innocently and could not help but wonder what dark secrets each of them could be hiding. Reapers, Collectors, Cerberus, VI-Human hybrids and so much else. For all its beauty, the galaxy was a treacherous place. However, I did not want Tali to worry and I turned back to her, admiring her lovely suit as she peered out at me from behind her mask,
"But it's not all bad," I smiled at her.
Tali got out of our bed and came over next to me, resting her head on my shoulder while we looked out the window. I took a hold of her hand while we spoke,
"You ever think about how your life would be if you hadn't joined the Alliance?" she asked me.
"Hmm… I have no idea," I laughed at the thought, "I would probably have not left Earth yet."
"Really?" Tali seemed surprised.
"Probably. I wasn't the most adventurous soul before I joined up. I was pretty content to stay in my home town. Joining the Alliance gave me something to focus on though, made me feel like I was part of something bigger and more important."
"And now you're their greatest hero," Tali said.
"Well… that could be up for debate at the moment."
"Do you think it would have been an easier life?"
I nodded,
"Yeah, but… a boring one too. I didn't leave school with the best grades so the best I could do would be some crappy minimum wage job."
"Do you think you would have a girlfriend?" Tali asked with a little giggle. I put my arm around her,
"Maybe. But Human women just don't do it for me any more."
"Good for me," she said. I kissed the top of her hood and lay back on the bed with Tali cuddling into me,
"I haven't seen Earth since… it must have been a few months before the Normandy SR1's first trial run to Eden Prime. That was over three years ago."
"Do you miss it? Your hometown?"
"Not really, it's a nice wee place and all, but nothing really happens. But I guess with the pace that my life's going at the moment, it would be nice to have some of that now."
"What about your family?" Tali looked up at me, "have you contacted them since we destroyed the Collector base?"
"I sent a message to Sophie saying that we won, but I've still not contacted mum and dad. I'm not sure that I should."
"You should," Tali told me, but I was not convinced.
"Half the galaxy still believes I'm dead, and the half that believe that I'm alive think that I'm Cerberus. I'm not sure how my parents will react, I'm actually afraid of what it could do to them."
Tali was quiet for a while, holding me tightly to her,
"I would give anything for one more day with my mother and father," she said softly to me, "if I were you, I would call them."
"I can't," I said, mostly to myself, "not yet. The data we're giving to Liara will hopefully help her in her personal mission against the Shadow Broker. If she finds him, I want to help her. The Shadow Broker's a dangerous enemy, so I still might not even make it back to my family even with the Collectors gone. But…" I looked at her, "I'll contact them and talk to them about it all once everything's taken care of. I promise."
Tali seemed placated enough to hear that, and I suppose I should have realised why it was so important to her that I kept in touch with my family. Quarian society was very close and every member of the Migrant Fleet considered their race to be one, grand family.
"How about you?" I asked my young Quarian love, "have you told your Aunt Shala that we beat the Collectors?"
"Yeah. I told her what we did, what you accomplished. And I also sent some data that I scanned on the Collector base to the Admiralty Board. Shala asked if I was coming back…"
"And?" I asked. Tali saw the concerned expression on my face and laughed a little,
"Don't worry, I told her that I hadn't seen enough danger or been in enough life-threatening situations yet so I was going to stay with you a bit longer."
"Oh… Good!" I smiled, "I am good at what I do."
"Well you have to be good at something," Tali said playfully and I rolled on top of her.
"I see how it is," I said happily. I loved Tali so much, she could make me forget all the terrible things that I had seen or knew were coming without even trying. For the rest of the night, I showed her just how much she meant to me, not to mention showing her something else I was good at.
Stepping off of the Normandy into Nos Astra back on Illium, the lights of its high towers and thriving atmosphere all around us, was a pleasant experience. It was the first place with any feeling of civilisation that we had been since defeating the Collectors. Omega did not count as a civilised place in my book. I looked over the balcony at my ship. Seeing the scars and burns on the hull from our battle at the Collector base made me wonder how much longer the sturdy Frigate could last. We may have already been pushing its endurance to the extreme and I suspected that without EDI, the Normandy would have suffered a catastrophic failure by now. My ship would need some attention, and soon.
The thought struck me that the Normandy was almost a mirror image of myself, running on fumes by this point. I had been thinking about what I would do after we had finished with the Heretic Station, the diabolical Project Overlord and helping Liara. We were now nearing that precipice and my decision to turn myself over to the Alliance had been made. For now, I would not tell anyone, it would hurt to see everyone go their separate ways when the time came, but it was for the greater good.
Once in Alliance custody, I could hopefully use my status as a Spectre, Hero of Elysium and my good relations with Councillor Anderson and Admiral Hackett to plead to Humanity to prepare for the Reapers. However, my past experience with politicians and the Citadel Council did not give me reason to be optimistic, my life had been an ever-steeper uphill battle since that fateful day back on Eden Prime. A Turian hand suddenly slapped me on the shoulder and Garrus led me away from the ship,
"Come on Scott, dwelling's bad for you," he laughed, "let's go see Liara."
While the rest of the team stayed in the general proximity of Liara's office, Tali, Garrus and I went on inside to see our friend. Before the door had even closed, Liara was out of her seat and greeting us,
"It is so good to see all of you!" she said, her ocean blue eyes sparkling as she looked at us, "when I received your e-mail I was so relieved. The things you must have seen…"
"The Collectors got what was coming to them," I told her with satisfaction, "hopefully we won't be seeing anything like that again."
Liara asked her assistant to hold all of her calls and the four of us sat together, Tali, Garrus and I describing to Liara what we went through at the centre of the galaxy. She sat dumbstruck as she listened to the details of our vicious battles, the rescue of our crew, the Proto-Reaper and the truth behind the Illusive Man's intentions towards the Collectors.
"I should have seen that one coming," I said at the end.
"You should not blame yourself, Scott," Liara said, "what is important is that you stayed true to your own beliefs. I am glad that giving you to Cerberus did not change you."
"Yeah, he's still the same adrenaline junky that he was back in the Saren days," Garrus laughed.
"I'm glad it was not me who found Scott's body," Tali said, "I would never have given him to Cerberus, and where would we be now?"
"I am happy that all of you are here… alive. But I have to ask, what brings you all here?" Liara asked us.
I brought out the OSD which contained all of Cerberus' information on the Shadow Broker and gave it to Liara,
"Before we dumped Cerberus, they sent me this to give to you, as a thanks to you for retrieving my body. It contains some Intel on the Shadow Broker, in case you were interested."
"On the Shadow Broker?" Liara gasped, plugging the OSD straight into her terminal and loading the information onto her personal computer.
"What have you got?" Tali asked her, drawn in by her own curiosity. I remembered how she had once sought the Shadow Broker's help in exchange for the data that helped us prove Saren was a traitor to the Council, and now her own personal interest was taking hold. Liara scanned through the data on her screen, her eyes flitting back and forth furiously as she obsessed over it,
"Some conversations between Broker operatives… some hints to a location of his headquarters and… by the Goddess!" Liara's hands froze in place on the holographic keyboard and she sat transfixed on the information in front of her.
"Are you OK Liara? What's up?" I asked, wondering just for a moment if this had been a Cerberus trick.
"It's about Feron…" her voice was barely a whisper, "he's still alive."
"Feron? The one who helped you recover my body from the Shadow Broker?"
"Yes," Liara said, "I… can't believe this. All this time I've been plotting to avenge him, but now there's a chance to rescue him."
"Do you need our help?" Garrus asked her. Liara remained glued to the screen, but after Garrus spoke she seemed to come back to reality and slowly stood up, taking the OSD with her,
"I don't know. I… I need to work on the data, see if I can find any more connections between this Cerberus Intel and my own. I'm going home. If you want to help then why don't you come by my apartment in a few hours, I might have something by then."
"We'll be there," I told her, hoping that I could help Liara put an end to this issue which had no doubt haunted her for over two years.
"Thank you, Scott," Liara said. She gave us the address of her apartment and left her office with the OSD gripped in her fist.
"What do you think we'll end up doing to help Liara?" Garrus asked while we sat over a meal in the Eternity Lounge near Liara's office, just trying to pass time.
"If that data has the location of her friend Feron, then I suspect a rescue op is coming our way. Plus," I thought for a moment, "I owe Feron as well. He helped Liara to retrieve my corpse from the Shadow Broker so that she could hand it over to Cerberus. As dangerous as Cerberus is… they did bring me back thanks to Liara and Feron."
"Then I owe Feron too," Tali said, "for giving you back to me."
The three of us sat at our table and enjoyed our meals, loving the opportunity to actually be able to take some down time away from the Normandy. As much as the Normandy had become a home to me, it was still the workplace. Everyone needs to get away from work every now and then. I had told the rest of the team that a rescue operation may be around the corner but that I was still unsure how soon we would have to go. As long as they remained near enough the Normandy to get back quickly, I was happy for them all to let their hair down as well. A rested and focused team was a deadly and efficient team.
Not everything that Tali, Garrus and I discussed was business. We overheard an amusing conversation between a young Turian guy and a Quarian woman that he was trying to ask out. It turned out that the Quarian had just ended a relationship with a Human man and was thinking about taking a break from dating which had the desperate Turian nervous and panicking. He made Humans out to be the biggest scumbags in the galaxy in his bid to try and convince her to go out on a date with him. I looked at Tali with a raised eyebrow and she shook her head in disagreement,
"She obviously didn't find the right Human," she laughed. Garrus rolled his eyes and smirked,
"If you guys are going to get all cute, I'll just go to the bar for a few drinks."
Shortly before we were about to head to Liara's, there was the greatest crack of thunder I had ever heard and the rain started hammering down on the city. Outside the lounge, we saw the pedestrians running for cover and heard some admiring comments at the beautifully powerful bolts of lightning that streaked across the grey sky.
"I hope Liara's place isn't a long walk from where the taxi'll drop us," Garrus commented.
"I'll be fine," Tali chuckled from the protection of her envirosuit. We raced over to the taxi rank and we were soon on our way to Liara's apartment. Through the rain-streaked windows, I could tell that we were headed towards one of the nicest looking parts of Nos Astra. Luxurious apartments stocked with expensive furniture and lavish décor were quite prominent. The taxi driver banked over and dropped us off as closely as she could, for which we tipped her generously. In the front door of one of the apartment blocks and up the elevator to Liara's floor and we soon arrived at her home, only partially drenched.
When Liara answered the door, I noticed that she had changed into more casual yet still alluring attire,
"It is good to see you all. Welcome to my home, I hope you will like it."
I walked inside and looked around her home. Compared to the other apartments that I had eyeballed through their windows, Liara's was a little more humble. I did not doubt that she could afford more exquisite furnishings, but she was simply not that kind of person. Instead, her apartment was filled with items of more personal interest to my Asari friend. Prothean artefacts sat on stands protected by reinforced glass and on the wall, I spotted a painting of a Prothean looking city,
"Is that…" I began.
"Ilos?" Liara answered, "yes."
"And what about this?" Garrus asked as he stood next to one of the stands over by the large bay window which looked out over the city. I could not quite see what was on the stand, but as I walked over, I realised that it was simply a piece of armour that was bent, scorched and completely irreparable.
"That is part of Scott's old armour," Liara said to us, "the armour you wore when you defeated Saren and Sovereign, a piece of history. I kept it after I found his body."
"You can tell people had it in for me just by looking at this can't you," I joked. Tali and Garrus took turns teasing me, but Liara stayed quiet.
"So Liara," I turned to her, "did you find anything on the OSD that could help you?"
"I'm still ironing out the details," Liara said as she went over to her computer, "but I think I'm closing in on the location of the Shadow Broker's base of operations. Please make yourselves at home. I will continue to dig through what Cerberus gave me, but I am certain that Feron is still alive. I don't even want to think what he has been through the past two years."
"It's ok Liara, we'll get him back," I reassured her.
"You are a good friend, Scott. And Tali and Garrus too, I could not think of doing this without our old team. It is a shame that Ashley and Wrex could not be here."
Garrus laughed,
"Yeah, just like old times! That would be a hell of a reunion."
I was not so sure,
"I know Wrex would love to come along, but he has his hands full trying to organise and balance the entire Krogan race. And Ashley…"
In truth, I did not know whether or not Ashley would come with us. Even though I was no longer associated with Cerberus, it would be hard to get past the harsh words that were said on Horizon. Her loyalty to me was understandably shaken.
"It would take time," Tali said to me, knowing what I was thinking, "but once she saw that you were still the same man that she followed to Virmire and Ilos, she would come around."
"We believed in you, Commander," Garrus told me with certainty, "and we're the aliens that Cerberus claims to hate."
I laughed along with my Turian friend,
"They couldn't have destroyed the Collectors without you though, a Turian, Quarian, Asari, Salarian, Krogan, Drell and even a Geth… our crew totally disproves everything that Cerberus preaches if you think about it."
"Good to get one up on those Bosh'Tets," Tali laughed.
Tali, Garrus and I reminisced about the crazy things we had been through since we had all teamed up over two and a half years ago to take down Sovereign. All the high points and all the low, from our first proper mission together to rescue Liara from the Geth infested ruins on Therum all the way through to our incredible journey to the centre of the galaxy to wipe out the Collectors. Project Overlord only got a brief mention since it was still quite fresh in my mind, but our trip to the Heretic station was naturally of great interest to Tali and she went on about it in depth.
Liara would join in on the conversation now and again, but her eyes never left her computer screen as she followed every lead that she had ever acquired about the Shadow Broker and cross-referenced it with the new data Cerberus had given her. Finally, she stood up and came over to her living room and sat on the couch next to the window, the rain still battering the glass behind her. She had an excitable glint in her eye as she looked at me and said,
"I have it!"
Liara had tracked the Shadow Broker to a planet called Hagalaz, but that was as far as the information went. She could not tell us exactly where on the planet we were going, but she knew that the Shadow Broker was constantly on the move.
"Maybe a ship orbiting around the planet to keep people off his or her trail," Tali suggested.
"Yes," Liara thought out loud, "There is a constant storm on Hagalaz that follows the sunset where the hot and cold air collide. The oceans boil during the day then snap-freeze at night."
"The electrical interference of the storm would make it impossible to detect any ship following it," I said.
"Not to mention how dangerous it is for a ship to be constantly surrounded by an electrical storm," Garrus said, "it must be a very advanced design."
"Well so's the Normandy," I told Liara, "if any ship can find the Shadow Broker, ours can."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Liara said as she stood up.
In the next second everything went haywire. The glass behind Liara almost completely exploded as a high velocity round burst through the window and smashed into her. Tali, Garrus and I threw ourselves to the ground and I grabbed a hold of Liara's ankle and dragged her out of sight. I was amazed to see that she was ok, distraught and shocked, but ok.
"Liara?" I said, "You alright?"
"Y… Yes. We must get out of here," she stuttered. Again, to my amazement, Liara jumped to her feet and, despite the danger of the unknown shooter, raced over to her computer.
"What are you doing?" I yelled.
"Crashing my network," Liara responded, "the only thing that matters to me now is the data on the OSD."
"We have to go!" I told her as another shot shattered the glass and tore a chunk out of the corner section of wall behind which Liara was standing. She finished wiping every scrap of information on her computer's hard drive and went to her doctorate from the University of Serrice next.
A holographic interface appeared and she punched a code in, causing the doctorate to slide up and reveal a small arms locker behind it. I was about to argue, but I knew we would probably be better off with a few guns. It was my turn to jump up now and after Liara had grabbed one of the submachine guns, I grabbed similar weapons and threw them over to Garrus and Tali who were still in cover. Liara and I must have just been in sight of the sniper and another shot hammered into the wall not two centimetres from where my head had just been.
"This guy's good!" I said and headed straight for the door out of Liara's apartment, "let's go!"
"What about the sniper?" Tali shouted as she sprinted for the open door.
"It doesn't matter," I told her, "our priority is getting to the Normandy, once we're on board the sniper won't matter anymore."
My adrenaline was up and the rain lashed against my face as we ran through the streets looking for the nearest taxi rank. Liara did not know where it was since she had had her own car, which was probably booby-trapped if this would-be assassin had any sense. We found one and jumped in the first available taxi, the poor driver visibly unnerved by all the guns we were packing. However, Liara threw an exorbitant amount of credits at her and told her to drive, fast!
"Nos Astra Spaceport, dock seven," I told her before going on my comm, "Normandy crew listen up, we're on our way back and have been engaged by an unknown hostile. All hands report to your stations and prep the Normandy for immediate departure!"
When I heard nothing back, we all exchanged confused glances, but Tali worked on her Omni tool and said to me,
"Our signal is being actively blocked Scott."
"How? We must be miles from the sniper by now."
"The sniper might not be working alone," Garrus said as he pointed out the window behind us. I followed his finger and saw three heavily laden trucks pursuing us. They were all unmarked and gave us no reason to be suspicious of them, which is exactly what made me suspicious.
"The Shadow Broker has a private army of its own," Liara told me, "I can't tell you if they're well trained, but they will be extremely well equipped."
"We'll soon find out," I said. I could hear the Asari driving the taxi freaking out to herself and I put a hand on her shoulder,
"Hey, I know this isn't what you took this job for, but we need your help."
"My… my help? You're the ones with guns!" she said back in a panic.
"You're a taxi driver, you know every street and back alley around here like the back of your hand. Get us to our ship any way you can, and forget all the rules they teach you when you're learning to drive. I want you to drive like a maniac, do anything to lose these guys!"
Knowing a way to prevent her being killed seemed to motivate our poor cab driver and she dropped a gear and hit the accelerator hard, flinging the sky car hard around a bend. More than once, she nearly hit oncoming cars or a transport lorry, but she kept on going. Liara evidently was having a fit in the back of the car and I could hear her fervently muttering,
"Goddess save me, Goddess save me…"
Our taxi driver, on the other hand, actually seemed to be enjoying herself more and more, momentarily forgetting the threat of the Shadow Broker mercenaries that would no doubt kill her in an instant if they caught up with us. I did not remind her. The tall buildings of Nos Astra hurtled past as we tore through the air in our little taxi and I retried my radio several times, but to no avail.
Then, just as the Shadow Broker mercs seemed to disappear from sight another car came shooting out and smashed right into the side of us. Our taxi was sent spinning towards a nearby tower, our driver desperately trying to straighten her stricken car. After a lot of cursing, swearing and failed attempts the taxi levelled off, but it was too late to avoid impacting on the building. The driver managed to steer the car towards the car port and, despite her practically standing on the brakes, we went careening into a cluster of parked cars and we were all thrown every which way as our taxi bounced and rolled, wrecking the place as it went.
As quickly as we had hit the parked cars, everything stopped. I opened my eyes to see fire and smoke rising above me and when I looked for our taxi, I saw it sitting precariously on the edge of the car port, dangling over a five hundred metre drop. I staggered to my feet and moved over to the car, pulling out Garrus first and then Liara. Tali had been thrown out as well but was on her feet, though I noticed a limp as she moved over to join us at the crash site. Garrus and I then helped our terrified driver out of the burning motor and applied medigel to calm her down.
"What the fuck is going on?" she screamed at us.
"You did a great job," I told her, "thank you. But you have to go now! If anyone asks what happened you just tell them that a Spectre ordered you to drive like that."
"A Spectre?" she looked at me, confusion, fury and frustration blazing in her eyes all at once.
"What's your name?" I asked her, trying to ease her state of mind.
"Nee'Ota," she said sharply.
"Nee'Ota," I said to her, "if your boss asks you, tell them the truth. A Spectre called Gardner ordered you to take his friends away from the site of an attempted assassination. Okay?"
"Commander Gardner's dead, and who the hell will believe that heap of crap anyway?"
"Do you have a choice?" Garrus added.
"Just get yourself out of here, we're still not safe here," I said to Nee'Ota.
"Why do you think that?" Liara asked me. I motioned towards a car that was coming towards us, followed by three trucks full of Shadow Broker mercenaries. The car had a bad looking dent on the front right section of it and I knew that it was the one that had rammed us.
"Everyone inside," I ordered and, together with a traumatised Nee'Ota, we retreated into the building.
We all moved together down through the building, hoping to put as much distance between us and our pursuers so we could slip away undetected again. Tali, Liara, Garrus and I were in no condition for a heavy fire fight with heavily armed and armed mercenaries. Only Garrus was wearing armour, as always, and both he and Tali would have had their kinetic barriers activated. Liara had her shield and biotics to protect her, but I had nothing. Only a standard issue submachine gun, a pistol and limited thermal clips were at my disposal and we would not hold out for long against a sustained assault by the enemy forces. Then a thought struck me,
"Liara, did you know that we were going to be attacked?"
"No," she answered.
"Then why did you have your shields on back at your apartment? That shot would have torn you in half."
"The information business can be… confrontational," She smiled grimly, "I always have my shields up. Call me paranoid."
"I'd sooner call you smart," Tali said quickly.
When we happened upon a floor plan of the building, we discovered that the building we were in was a hotel called Azure.
"A hotel means a fire escape," I said, "and that means a straight way down to the ground level and out of here. We can get lost among the crowds on the street and rendezvous at the Normandy."
"The enemy will have thought of the fire escape as well though," Garrus told me and I knew he was right.
"Ideas?" I asked.
"There's another car port a few levels down," the Turian said quickly, "if we get there, I could jack a car and fly it to the Normandy."
"You know how to hotwire skycars?" I asked.
"As Archangel I stole, well, re-acquired a few cars from the gangs for their rightful owners. I know what I'm doing."
"Good," I nodded and began to move when Tali suddenly warned us,
"I hear people coming."
I strained my ears and heard what Tali was talking about, hurried footsteps were coming closer down the stairs behind us.
"We've lingered here too long," I said, "Tali, can you hack the lock on one of the room doors and get us in?"
The technical genius was through in less than a second, and I humbly remembered who I was dealing with.
We crept into the room and closed the door quietly behind us, securing the lock behind us. I spread the team around the room to different points from where they could keep their weapons trained on the door in case the Shadow Broker's soldiers came through. That was when I suddenly heard noises coming from the room behind us and it did not take much to realise that they were of a sexual nature. The grunting and pleasured moaning made me feel strange given the circumstances that we were in.
On top of the two people shagging away in the bedroom I now also noticed the pictures on the wall and the vid playing on the big screen, naked Asari women dancing in a very provocative manner, touching each other and playing around a little with one another.
"What kind of place is this?" Garrus whispered to Liara.
"It's a hotel with an… exotic edge. "Azure" is slang for a part of the Asari body in some parts of Illium."
"Where?" Tali asked.
"In the lower reaches, near the bottom," Liara replied.
"I meant where on the Asari body," Tali said quietly.
"So did I," Liara joked. All the while I was listening for the approaching danger and when I knew that they were right outside our door I signalled for everyone to shut up and four guns focused on the door. Poor Nee'Ota cowered behind the fridge in the kitchen on the side of the room farthest from the door. We had roped her into this and now it was our duty to get her out safely, and the two lovers in the bedroom were not to come to any harm either.
To my horror, I heard the footsteps of the enemy stop right outside our door, and before long I heard the heavy thud of combat-grade boots racing nearer to us from the other direction. I figured that they must have landed forces on the lower car park that Garrus had mention in an effort to cut us off. Even so, how could they know that we had come into this particular room? That was when the breaching charge went off and the door was eviscerated before my eyes, sending shrapnel shooting through the room. Nee'Ota screamed and I heard a voice from the mercs call out,
"Targets confirmed in this room!"
The first man appeared and I let loose with my submachine gun. What I would have given to have my Mattock with me right now as I sent half a clip into the merc before his shields failed and the bullets tore through him.
Liara had a simpler idea and simply threw up a singularity on the doorway, dragging all the mercs towards the same point. The four of us unleashed all of our limited firepower on them and Tali fired an incineration attack into the crowd of bodies, burning the troops that were unlucky enough to be caught. We had dealt with the first group, but I knew that there would be more forces coming within minutes. Drawing my pistol, I advanced on the exit and gunned down the last merc, grabbing his modified Avenger assault rifle and ammo as I went. Garrus and Tali salvaged more combat appropriate weapons as well, but Liara kept her personally customised Locust submachine gun. I told Nee'Ota to stay in the room hidden until she could hear no more gunfire and escape then, and only then.
We charged down the stairs and I tried to raise the Normandy again but got nothing on the link. I hated feeling severed from my ship. The car park was just ahead of us and we stacked up at the double doors that would allow us out. From my side I checked outside, the rain still beating down hard, but saw no one. Garrus signalled that his way was clear as well and as a unit we slipped out into the wet night cautiously and carefully. A scan of the car park revealed no enemies and Garrus set to work on breaking into a car, a sporty looking number which made me wonder if he had actually taken the time to choose a car that he liked rather than just the nearest one to hand.
Behind us the doors of the hotel were suddenly shattered and Shadow mercs began to file out into the rain and pour fire on our position. The sports car was riddled full of bullets and Garrus knew that the chances of getting it working were now completely gone. The Turian grabbed his rifle and started returning fire along with the rest of us, our chances of escaping looking slimmer and slimmer with each passing moment. The Shadow Broker's forces had us pinned down with nowhere left to run, and now the leader of the company engaging us finally revealed herself.
An Asari appeared from through the destroyed doors and joined the fight. She was not dressed in the same drab uniforms of the mercenaries, but in a blue suit of costly armour with some kind of symbol emblazoned upon one of the shoulder pads. She fired bursts from her assault rifle at us, but when she moved to reposition, I thought I caught a glimpse of a heavy weight sniper rifle folded up and holstered on her back. I knew who the sniper was now. One less mystery to solve.
The Shadow Broker's troops had the advantage, but we held our own and Tali began to carefully employ overload attacks with her Omni tool. The electricity would travel through the puddles on the ground and a single attack could electrocute several foes at once. When Garrus caught on and began doing the same, the open ground in front of our position became a lightning minefield for the mercs. I scoped down a merc as he popped out of cover and dropped him immediately, but with every soldier we killed I had no doubt there was another man or woman behind them to take their place. Then I heard the noise of another vehicle approaching our position and my heart sank like a boulder in the sea. The mercs arriving in this other vehicle could drop in behind us or even above us and render our position completely useless. I raised my rifle around towards the approaching vehicle and prepared to fire. I would not die without a fight.
However, when the vehicle came to a hover behind us, I could have leapt for joy. I looked at the beautiful and welcome sight of the Normandy's shuttle. When the side door opened, I watched with elation as Jacob, Legion, Samara and Mordin hit the ground and came up to reinforce us. The shuttle then moved up to a balcony on a floor above and behind the mercs. I saw Thane and Zaeed drop out and unleash a hell-storm of bullets down on the Shadow Broker's mercs. Under the vastly increased weight of fire and with their position exposed to fire from high ground, the mercs took heavy losses and began to falter.
However, the Asari sniper was not finished. In an explosion of biotic energy, she charged right through us and slammed straight into Liara. My Asari friend was sent flying backwards towards the edge of the ledge and came to a stop only inches from the side. The Asari assassin dodged incoming fire by ducking behind a car before dashing back out to finish Liara with her own hands. I threw myself at the Asari and tackled her without any care for my own safety, and for a few seconds I found myself with my arms holding the Asari as we fell through the night air of Nos Astra. Nothing between us and the ground hundreds of metres below.
Then we were hovering. The Assassin used her biotics to stop her fall but now tried to kick me away to fall to a crushing death, ending up as a red mush on the road on the street. I clung to her for dear life as she screamed and punched me, I even managed to keep a firm grip when she kneed me in my unprotected groin.
There was a surge of biotic energy and both the assassin and I were heaved back up onto the ledge by the unbeatable biotic power of Samara. The Asari assassin just kept on fighting though and she tried to go for the injured Liara once more, but this time she did not make it more than a step towards my good friend. While the assassin's back was turned, I whipped out my pistol and shot the woman right through the back of the head and she crumpled in a heap before me, the blood seeping from her open head causing the rain water running by her to turn a dark purple colour. As soon as she was dead, the Shadow Broker forces broke off their attack and retreated, disappearing back into Azure.
I saw Thane leave his post on the balcony above and run inside by himself as he became little more than a shadow himself. The mercs were about to get a nasty surprise in the dark hallways of the hotel as Thane hunted them down, showing them how a true master of stealth assassinated a target. I knelt next to the body of the Asari assassin and drew in some much-needed air. I let the cooling rain water wash over me as Jacob came over next and joined me.
"Start checking the bodies for Intel," I said to him, "and thanks for the save, Jacob."
"Any time, Commander," my friend said as he dug inside the pockets of Liara's attacker.
"Where's the rest of the team?" I asked, "how did you know we were in trouble?"
"You have a peculiar tendency to get yourself into dangerous situations, Commander," Samara said to the agreement of the rest of my team.
"EDI picked up a police transmission about shots fired near where Liara's apartment was and called us all back to the Normandy. When EDI picked up the alert about the crash at Azure, we figured it had to be you and Miranda told me to take whoever was with me and come for you."
I thanked whatever higher power that may have been out there for my team and EDI,
"Remind me to thank EDI when we get back," I said to Jacob with a grin.
The dead mercenaries had nothing on them except their weapons, armour and copious amounts of ammunition. There were no personal details to be found on any of the bodies whatsoever. There were Humans, Turians, Salarians and Asari among the dead, but as far as we could tell they were ghosts, the galaxy did not know they existed. However, as Jacob searched the leader of the Shadow Broker's company, he turned up something very interesting and the rest of the team and a recovered Liara gathered around the Asari's body.
"I think you'll want to see this, Commander," Jacob said as he passed me an identity tag, "she's a Spectre."
"Tela Vasir," I read aloud, "what the hell is she doing working for the Shadow Broker?"
Liara spoke up,
"It would be understandable that she would have gone to the Shadow Broker for Intel throughout her career, and in return she would have offered her services when called for."
"I suppose that makes a kind of sense," I said, "doesn't seem right though, to be a Council Spectre but also a cold-hearted assassin at the same time."
"Not everyone's the ultimate paragon like you, Scott," Zaeed chuckled. "Some like to live a little."
Liara stood up after pulling a small data pad from a concealed compartment on the inside of Tela Vasir's breast-plate and played a message from a recorded conversation.
"Get the data and eliminate T'Soni," a disguised voice ordered, "civilian casualties not a concern."
"The sooner we deal with the Shadow Broker the better," Liara said to me.
"Agreed," I said, "everyone, let's get back to our ship. We're going to be paying the Shadow Broker a visit."