Liara
"Liara, strap down!" Ashley Williams ordered.
We waited in the escape shuttle, until the last moment, hoping beyond the boundaries of that same emotion. Carrying it too far. Hoping that the woman who had pulled the galaxy from the edge of the destruction would once more emerge from the flames. I stood by the closed door, my finger poised over the controls, ready to open it for her when she arrived.
I know you will come, my heart whispered. I know you will not lose. You cannot lose.
"Everybody, sit the fuck down and strap the fuck in!" Ashley screamed at the remaining crew-members. Few…far too few for those the ship had housed.
I looked around at all of them, the faces I had grown to know as friends and comrades in the last month and a half. Renee', the medic, sank down in a chair, clutching the shrapnel embedded in her thigh. Doctor Karin Chakwas knelt to take a look. But the rest of the crew still stood, disobeying Ashley's orders. Many of them were officers, but they were lost, beyond comprehension, beyond understanding and coherence. We were all lost.
The Normandy's stealth systems were, bar none, the finest in the galaxy. It was impossible that any other race or species possessed the technology necessary to locate the vessel. And yet, through the tiny window of the closed door…we watched our world, our securities, our lives and mission…burn.
"Look!" Ashley's voice held a desperate edge, and the Normandy's survivors looked to her. "There is another shuttle, and we all know that the chances are damn good that the Skipper will be on it. But pretty soon that goddamn fire is going to fry the jettison systems, and we'll burn with her! So sit down, strap in, and we'll all meet on the other side! Am! I! Clear!?"
A weak chorus of "aye-ayes" greeted the gunnery chief…the take-charge warrior woman who had lost her entire unit on Eden Prime. Aside from Shepard and Chakwas, she was the only woman I had met who could control her entire self when the rest of the world was crumbling. I listened as the crew sat down, as Chakwas began to move, muttering a few placating words to Ashley as she began triage for the wounded on board.
I remained next to the door, hand still poised over the controls, waiting. I watched the flames devouring the ship that had become my home, and I thought of those still trapped within…those we did not have enough time to save. Those for whom space would be where they met their final end, and whatever waited beyond it.
"Serena, where are you?" I whispered, flinching as a hand rested on my shoulder.
I turned to see warm brown eyes staring back at me. Locked behind the forced calm lay sheer terror, held at bay by ferocious courage.
"Liara. Sit down." Ashley said, and I parted my lips, wanting to protest, wanting to forego my pride and beg.
Just a little more time…
"The Skipper will be fine." the gunnery chief promised, and I could see her belief in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and I capitulated.
I sat down, obedient, strapping myself in as the shuttle pilot prepared us for the jettison from the Normandy. The countdown ended and I felt us pushed away from the vessel. It grew smaller as we drifted into the black, above the cold wastes of Alchera.
I could not help but think the burning ship looked beautiful, in some twisted way. It appeared to be a fractured star reaching its end, an event horizon…a portal to a new and different world.
How is it that destruction possesses its own beauties? I wondered as my hands curled into fists. I ached to do something, to move, to be of some use, to occupy my mind with anything but the thoughts of what had happened to the woman I loved.
The silence in the shuttle became a living entity as seconds slogged through existing, becoming minutes fraught with worry and waiting. Everyone flinched as a static burst screamed over the shuttle's comm system. I looked up at the speakers, begging for a word, a hint, a shred of Serena's voice. I could see the second shuttle through the window, fleeing the wreckage.
My nails bit into the flesh of my palms and I had to remind myself to breathe. Static crackled once again, roaring before fading to patches of light white noise.
{Shuttle two to Shuttle one.} Joker's voice crackled over the speakers, and relief filled my heart.
She did it, triumph roared fierce through my veins. She saved him, and they escaped. Now all we must do is wait to be reuinted.
"I read you loud and clear, Joker." Ashley wore a small, hopeful smile. "Sit-rep?"
{I've got most of engineering on board.} he replied, and we breathed a collective sigh of relief. More of our comrades had survived. {Some injuries, nothing too bad. I think I broke my hand again.}
I winced at the humor, but I respected it for what it was. An attempt to diffuse a taut situation. But inside I screamed, begged, pleaded.
Where is Shepard!?
"Joker…who else?" Ashley asked, and the lines at the corners of her eyes deepened as her lips thinned.
{Jesus, Williams.} Joker's voice cracked.
"What happened?" I asked, unbuckling my harness and getting to my feet, walking towards Williams. "Is Shepard all right? Is she injured? Joker, what happened to her!?"
{She pulled me out of the cockpit.} Joker answered and my heart began racing in my chest. {Carried me to the shuttle. I…I had a grip on her hand…there was…fucking hell…there was an explosion and I tried to hold on, I swear to god I did but…}
The words stopped, but the static remained. A void took hold, a silent scratching in the back of every mind as we attempted to make sense of the words, as we processed the tone of regret in the pilot's voice.
{She's gone, Ash.}
"No." I shook my head, refusing to believe. "No! You're wrong. She wouldn't…couldn't…" I turned to Ashley. "We have to go back! Her suit…it will hold, but the oxygen will be depleted soon! We have to go back!"
{I saw…she…she got hit by debris…ripped the suit open.} I could hear the tears in the pilot's tone, so antonymic to his character. {I'm sorry. I'm…I'm so fucking…it's my fucking fault…goddam it.}
The link went dead and we stood in stunned silence. I could not process what I had just heard. I could not fathom it, could not even consider it as truth. Serena could not die. She had defeated death countless times, proven herself invincible. She loved me. Not an hour ago we had lain together naked. Our skin had touched, our lips had kissed…we had spoken. That. Could. Not. Be. Gone.
I shook my head and drove my eyes into Ashley's stricken countenance. "It isn't true." the sound emerging from my lips was ragged, raw, guttural. "He is imagining things. It is a mistake."
Ashley's lips parted, but no sound emerged. Instead, she shook her head, a miniscule moment.
I looked to the other members of the crew, daring them to believe Joker's lies. Daring them to believe that the woman who had brought down a Reaper could be killed in something as ignominious as a random attack from an unknown enemy. Shock had stamped itself on their faces, disbelief etched itself in their features and I felt comfort from that.
She is not dead. I willed myself to believe. I would know. I love her. And I would know if this were true.
I looked at Chakwas, who knelt before Renee', tending to her wound. Her hand had frozen in place on the piece of shrapnel. Her lips trembled, and she lowered her head, letting her grey hair obscure her features.
"Oh, my girl." she whispered, her elegant accent jagged and torn with grief. "My beautiful, brave commander." we stood silent, transfixed by the stalwart physician's grief. She turned her eyes to mine, and the pain stamped on her features was eloquent and devastating. A single tear spilled from each eye and traveled down her weathered cheeks. "I am sorry, Liara."
"No!" I shouted, clenching my hands into fists, unable to control the biotic energy that coruscated around them, a fire of fury, a flare of determination. I turned back to Ashley. "Go back!" I shouted.
"It's…it's too dangerous." Ashley said, and I knew her words held reason, held sense, but I could not see beyond the swarming fire in my eyes, the earthquake splintering my heart.
"She would do the same for you!" I shrieked, biotics swirling around me; I could not control it. "You have to go back!"
"We can't." Ashley's voice cracked, and I could not understand why they were grieving, why they were all accepting what could not be true.
I could feel the biotic energy swarming around me, coalescing into an attack, into a move of force to make them listen, to make them understand.
"We have to save her!" I screamed, lurching forward as a sharp pain hit my shoulder.
My eyelids fluttered of their own volition and I looked back into the kind, sorrowful eyes of Doctor Chakwas. She held an empty syringe in her hand and I stared at her in confusion as my knees gave out. I buckled and would have fallen, had not the human doctor wrapped her arms around me and borne me to the floor of the shuttle.
She cradled me in her lap as I fought the effects of the drug, to no avail.
"I'm sorry, child." she whispered, cradling me.
The world blurred at the edges and Chakwas' features fuzzed and morphed into a different, comforting face. The eyes I looked into were silver, the face bisected by an angry scar. Comfort infused my heart and I wafted a delirious hand in the air, attempting to rest it against her cheek. Everything would be all right now. It had been a dream. A terrible, evil dream. Warm, strong arms held me, a low, kind voice bade me rest.
"Serena." I whispered, smiling at her.
I could rest now. She had come back. Nothing but a nightmare. I would wake, and all would be well.