Liara

Feron coughed in the settling dust. He got to his feet and brushed down his jacket, eyes widening as he surveyed the room. Nothing that had been standing did so any longer. It had been warped, twisted, and brought low. Sparks flew from what had been the Shadow Broker's communications terminal. I rose to my feet and the drell came over beside me, holding the OSD he had pulled from the terminal as though it were fragile.

"So…that's a biotic wipeout?" he asked.

"I do not believe that what I have done here holds any particular name." I said, attempting to conceal my own shock from him.

I had never done anything this destructive…never done anything this raw. For so long every part of my life had been carefully structured, meticulously ordered, and known. Joining the Normandy had introduced chaos to that order. But this…what I stood amidst now, was something stronger and more manic than chaos. Something primal. Something powerful. Something old, before biotic techniques were honed and given names, a fluidity introduced to the energy that had its base as raw power.

Raw power that has this level of potential. A shiver ran down my spine. Not a shiver of fear, but almost of delight.

"Regardless," Feron surveyed the scene again, "I am impressed. Also," he held the OSD up for my perusal. "I downloaded a lot of information about the Broker's dealings. This is a closed system. What he had on Alignon stayed here, and with him not being able to give orders from this base until all of this is fixed…what's on this disk might mean our lives."

In any other situation, with any less knowledge, I would have been pleased to hear this news. But I did not care.

"It doesn't matter." the words felt hollow as they left my lips. "You heard the Broker as well as I, Feron. The deal is done. Shepard is with the Collectors…if it was them that attacked the Normandy, we will never get her back. We simply don't have the power, the technology, or the ability to do so. I failed her, Feron. I lost Shepard."

"The Brokerage runs off of lies, Liara." Feron rested a hand on my shoulder. "He was trying to stall for time by telling you that what you came to stop had already happened. Before you blitzed the building I found out where they were. They've just arrived at the north portal."

"Then we have to go!" I grabbed his arm and almost dragged him with me towards the door. "If at all possible, I still have to finish this!"

Properly. To take her to her home. To let her rest. Out of her innate honor and her consideration for my grief, she gave Benezia that gift. Perhaps it will assuage my heart to do the same for her. Because, deep within me, grief still lives. And, if I allow it, if I do not keep working, it might very well swallow me whole.

"We have time." Feron dragged his feet and I turned back, almost irate, until I saw the expression on the drell's face. "While we still have the chance…I need to tell you who I'm really working for."

I opened my mouth to protest, to shout…but I could not. We were pressed for time, and before I had spoken to the Broker and ripped apart his stronghold, I had realized that I trusted the drell. Not as much as I had trusted the Normandy crew, or Serena, but he had declared his intention. To help me. No matter this new revelation, I did not believe he would betray that word.

"Another confession, Feron?" I smiled and his worried expression eased. "I will listen, only if you confide whatever lurks in your black little heart while we head to the north portal…or whatever it is."

The drell offered a tremulous smile and we set off at a run, stopping short as we heard myriad voices and footsteps.

"What's going on?" a turian voice grumbled. I remembered the tones…one of the entry guards.

"I don't know," the other turian from the entry replied. "All I know is that the Broker's channel is solid static. Something big is going down, and I'm not going to take the hit for anything that goes wrong."

"Five, maybe six." Feron whispered, ascertaining the number of guards en-route to our own destination.

"One hand doesn't know what the other's doing." the first turian growled. "How do we know this isn't another goddamn drill?"

"We take them either now or later." I said, sheathing my hand in biotics.

I stepped into the corridor and slammed the turian to the ground before he knew what had happened. Feron dove out behind me and laid down suppressing fire as I drew my pistol and punched through the slim resistance of the bewildered guards. Multi-colored blood spattered the walls, cries from every species ripped from throats. I stood over the gasping wounded, planting two bullets in each skull, simply for good measure. I had muted the Shadow Broker on this base, but I did not wish to rest until all of Alignon was rendered silent, dead, and unknown.

"Take my word for it." I smiled down at the turian who still managed to suck in air though his throat had been ripped open. "This is no drill." One bullet between his eyes finished his rasping breaths.

I turned back to Feron, who stared at his pistol with a forlorn expression.

"You could have at least let me take half." he grumbled, and I laughed with the emotion of the truly deranged.

I wiped at the blood that had spattered my armor, thinking the smears rather pretty, remembering Serena walking through the puddles of blood shed by the dead varren on Feros. It had splashed her boots, and she had done nothing. Wearing the evidence of the dead. Wearing the evidence of her own identity. Shameless in it, as I was learning to be shameless. In our wide, bitter world, violence was a necessity. No matter how the asari tried to ignore this, working through infiltration and subterfuge, we could no longer, as a race, go blind to the manner in which the rest of the galaxy managed their affairs.

We could not foresee everything. We could not pre-empt every strike. And, on occasion, the righteous spilling of blood could feel…glorious.

"Were you deserving, I might have allowed it." I grinned. "Weren't you about to reveal to me another in your litanies of countless lies?"

His shoulders slumped. "As far as my lies go, this was fairly innocuous." he muttered.

"Spare me." I waved a dismissive hand in his direction. "How exactly did you manage to become a triple agent?"

"Let's keep moving," he looked back at the corpses and shuddered, "and I'll explain."