Liara
"Miranda, your right!" Shepard shouted as the corridor flooded with more of the Shadow Broker's guards.
How does he have so many personnel on board and keep his identity such a secret? I wondered as I swerved, looking at the three guards aiming at Miranda Lawson.
Shepard was pinned down, ramming her fist against the helmet of a turian who had her by the throat. Garrus ducked behind cover, dodging SMG fire. Biotic energy spooled from my hands as I threw it at Miranda's aggressors, wreathing them in blue, holding them firm, and latching onto their limbs. My hands flew down towards the ground and the sound of screams echoed through the ship as their arms were pulled from their sockets.
Miranda followed the attack with a biotic slam, sending them to the ground, breaking noses and cracking skulls. I swerved to my left, aiming at the turian and firing my pistol. The armor piercing ammunition shredded through his helmet and he fell. Shepard's body sprawled on top of him and she rolled to the side, grabbing the turian's wrist and yanking his hand away from her throat. Garrus rose from behind cover and with two expert shots, the Broker's guards fell to the ground, silent.
It felt like muscle memory, raw, imperative instinct as I ran to Shepard and helped her to her feet. Behind the shield of her helmet, I could see her lips lifted in a smile, her eyes shining. I knew that battle held a certain exhilaration for her, and once it had frightened me. Now, however, I could understand. The joy in it was not from the killing, not from the death of the enemy, but the simple, pure ecstasy of doing what she excelled at.
"Are you all right?" I asked, looking in her eyes, at her body language, for any sign of pain or injury.
"Just fucking ducky." Shepard said with a quick grin upwards.
"We've cleared the corridors." Miranda walked over to us, her brow pinched in concern as her eyes raked over Shepard, holding an expression similar to the one stamped on my own countenance.
{Shepard,} a low, growling voice spoke over the comms, belonging to Thane, the drell assassin, {the interference is blocking all of our scanners and programs. I am not able to provide any information regarding the layout of the ship, or where the Shadow Broker might be.}
"Works for me." Shepard nodded, an automatic response, even though the one she spoke to could not see her.
"It doesn't work for me." Miranda hissed. "We need to know what we're up against, how many we're facing, what sort of equipment they have…"
"Well, we've invaded the lair of the one individual who has no information known about him. He's got a shit-fuck ton of guards with lots of fucking guns." Shepard removed her helmet and wiped sweat from her brow. "That a good enough sit-rep?"
Miranda frowned. "Your insouciance is going to get us all killed." she muttered.
Shepard's eyes darkened to a dangerous thunderstorm, her face went a shade paler, and I noticed the slightest quivering at the corner of her lips. I wanted to strike Miranda for her insouciance. Shepard had lost her entire squad at Akuze. She had lost the woman she loved, the woman she had pledged her heart and her forever to. Miranda must have had that information and still she said such…
…such things. My own thoughts accused me. She hurts Shepard, and perhaps, giving her the benefit of the doubt, does not mean to. Which makes her kinder than I have been. I have intended to cause Serena pain. I have spoken willingly of all that I may…well-aware that I know more of her tortured, tormented soul than any other living person in this galaxy.
"My insouciance is what's keeping me sane." Shepard muttered, stalking towards a closed door, the sole entrance that looked as though it might lead deeper into the ship.
She ripped off the protective cover of the door control, flinging it to the ground with an angry gesture. The glow of her omni tool sparked in the dim lighting and she began to run a hack on the locks.
A disgusted noise left Miranda's lips. "Fuck." she whispered the epithet, as though ashamed of saying it. "That's not what I meant."
"She won't hit you." Garrus said, his tone teasing. "Just say what you mean."
Miranda's eyes blazed and, for the smallest, oddest of moments, I felt a kindred spirit with her. I had been so tongue-tied around Shepard, so worried that what I said might be taken amiss. I had ended up enduring many of her teasing smiles, only to realize, later, that deep affection lay behind them.
"It's not that simple, Garrus." Miranda whispered, making a great show of running an armor and weapons diagnostic.
"It never is." I assented under my breath as the door opened.
Neither Miranda nor Garrus heard me, for which I was grateful. I did not need this, in this moment. I had at last arrived at the place I had sought for over a year. Feron was here somewhere, and I owed him my life. I could not be tangled in the myriad labyrinths of my heart. I could not be remembering the times that had been, looking at the silver eyes that had been my dream and then my nightmare. I could not indulge the new, blackening jealousy when I saw Miranda's sky-blue eyes look at Serena with nothing but concern; could not bear to think of the emotions in her heart that made her curse her ill-chosen words.
For me, this has nothing to do with love. I instructed myself. This is a business transaction. Shepard has a mission, and when this is done, she will fly far from me, and go to…to wherever it is that her mission takes her. I am not a part of her life any longer. I should hold nothing against Miranda…why should she not take what I have declined…declined? Or destroyed? Oh goddess, help me now.
I examined the room we entered, and began running. We were on an observation deck, and behind bulletproof, kinetic-barriered glass, was Feron. The drell had been locked into a chair, unable to move. Blinking monitors hovered over him, relaying information, pulse, respiration rate, brain scans, and myriad other things. An interface stood in front of me and blood drained from my face as I looked at the commands that could be entered.
These are various levels of shock, my throat began to tighten and my hand clenched into angry fists swirling with biotic energy.
"Feron!" I shouted, hoping that he could hear me.
I stared through the window, longing to put my hand against it, but unable, knowing that I would be thrown back against the opposite wall with enough force to break bones. Slow, his eyelids twitched, moved, and his eyes opened, that deep golden color in a sea of black. He looked tired, haunted…tortured.
For two years, my heart threatened to break. He has been tortured for two years.
"Feron!" I shouted his name as his eyelids began to flutter, ignoring the presence of Shepard near me.
"Liara?" his voice sounded different than it had before, roughened, tired, beaten down and almost broken. The rasp of my name carried the faintest, razor edge of hope and it sliced across me.
"We're going to get you out of here." I promised, looking down at the terminal, hopeful for any indication that a command existed that might free him.
"No." he spoke, but already I was entering commands, stopping only when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder and the dim echoing of screams stopped my movements.
I looked up, tears of rage beginning to flood my eyes as I saw my friend's body twitching, his mouth locked open in a scream, his eyes bulging as electricity coursed through his body. In a moment, it was over and Feron collapsed in the chair, breathing heavily, struggling to remain conscious.
"Feron." I whispered, my hands trembling beyond any use now, my rage needing an outlet and my wrath a victim.
"What is the Broker doing to you in here?" Shepard asked, calm, level-headed as ever, though she had no emotional investment in this…why should she suffer from seeing this as I did?
"Prolonged…" Feron wheezed, "…interrogation. The equipment is sensitive to tampering. You can't pull me out now."
"Why not?" I asked, on the edge of lashing out against whatever I could.
"This chair is plugged into the Broker's info network. He knows…everything that happens. If you pull me out now," Feron looked at me, his eyes imploring, "my brain will cook. You have to...cut the power."
"Where can we cut the power?" I asked, then turned to Shepard and spoke too low for Feron to hear. "We have to get him out of here. He does not deserve this and even if…even if it costs me everything…I have to…"
The hand that had never left my shoulder squeezed it, warm, strong, promising. "I know." Shepard whispered, and I believed her.
Feron coughed. "It's not going to be easy." he warned us. "You'll have to…find your way to…central operations."
"That we can do. What kind of shit does the Broker have you hooked up to?" Shepard asked. "I don't want to fuck up and get you killed."
"I don't really…" the crackle of electricity nearly blinded us and I heard Feron's screams echoing through everything, shattering my sanity, breaking my heart, destroying what little faith I had in myself.
I promised him, tears flooded down my cheeks, I promised him; I called him friend, and I left him to this.
"He's connected to a neural grounding rod." Miranda spoke as the screaming stopped and the flashing lights disappeared. "It monitors his vital signs and it's attached to a life support system to keep him from…early expiration."
"That's fucking sick." Shepard growled and I saw Miranda wince. I knew that Serena did not speak to Miranda with those words, that she did not decry the operative for knowing that information, but it appeared that Miranda did not possess that knowledge about her commanding officer.
"We have to stop this." Garrus growled. "Whoever this Broker is, he's seriously pissing me off."
"I'm with you there." Shepard nodded. She looked to Feron. "You don't know me," she spoke, and in her voice lay the calm solidarity that could quiet the angry and bolster the hopeless, "but, if what Liara tells me is true, I owe you my life. I swear to whatever gods you hold dear that I am going to get you out of here alive."
Feron looked at me, his eyes wide with the want to hope, with the need to believe. I nodded. My needless worries were done. Serena Shepard was not some Cerberus construct with the face and voice of the woman I once loved. It was her, the soldier, the woman, the warrior…all of her had been returned from death and though I did not know how, I could no longer deny the truth of that.
"Can you tell me anything else about the Broker?" Shepard's voice kept Feron awake, grounded, centered.
"Haven't gotten a good look." Feron's words slurred as his eyelids twitched and fluttered. "But…he's big. The guards are terrified of him."
"Is he a krogan?" I asked, hopeful, knowing that Shepard, Garrus, and I had taken battlemasters down with ease.
"Don't…know…" Feron's voice drifted away, his body went slack and his head slumped to the side.
Shepard's hands were clenched into fists, her silver eyes filled with the lightning and darkness of a coming storm.
"I'm going to meet this Shadow Broker." she whispered a promise, a promise to me, to Feron, to all who could hear her. "And I am going to send his ass straight to fucking hell." She rested her rifle on top of her shoulder. "And laugh my ass off while he burns."
I could hear the darkness in her voice, the darkness that could take a blade and rip out a throat, that could lift a gun and snuff out a life. That darkness lived in her, but, unlike some, who let it dominate them, she used it as a weapon to ensure victory for just causes. She ruled the darkness dwelling inside of her and fought for what she deemed worthy. She fought so that fewer children would be orphaned. She fought so that lovers could return to their loved ones, so that promises could be kept. Her word was her bond, was her law, was her passion, and I remembered why once I followed her into the darkest reaches of the galaxy and its secrets.
Because I knew she would bring me back. I knew I would always return…I knew that for myself…but never for her.