Chapter 42: Race Against Time

Sometimes, the ease of brutality disturbed Liara. From battlefield to battlefield, the onslaught never ended. She watched as Lucy tore into the geth units as viciously as she did efficiently, having apparently fixated on perfecting the art of tearing out left arms ever since they'd witnessed Saren's new technology and... Transformation.

"Commander!" Chief Williams yelled out, "I think there's a path we can take, 9 o'clock!"

"Don't stop moving!" Lucy ordered as she'd lunged over an obstacle, disappearing over it.

Liara sprinted to see where on Thessia that insane soldier had gone, a lump permanently lodged in her throat as she witnessed how far down Lucy sailed through the air in order to grab a geth unit's headlight, using momentum to smash it into the ground as the brunt of her cybernetic leg absorbed the shock of her own landing.

"She's reckless. She's never fought recklessly. She's desperate."

Hands tapped her shoulder as marines passed by her, and she soon deigned it was some form of unit tactics. She followed after Addison and Helen as they pressed forth with Chief Williams, the unit electing to take a much safer route down to where the Commander leapt to. Another look over the edge, and Liara gritted her teeth as she began to climb over debris, ignoring Lowe's shouts at her as she jumped. She manipulated her own weight with her biotics and imagined herself to be as light as a feather, her own recklessness thrumming hard with the adrenaline of hare-brained tactics concocted on the fly. Her heart thundered in her chest the entire time she'd floated down, and as soon as her feet touched grass, she took off running after Lucy.

"If she's like this, she doesn't think the outcome is good," Liara worried, "She doesn't think we'll catch up to Saren in time, does she?"

How she ever thought she could keep up with a Spectre, a soldier who had practically lived her life on a battlefield, was beyond her - but by the Goddess, she would give it her all to try.

Tali's voice joined Garrus' in hollering out to her, but she couldn't afford to fall behind with the others. It wasn't a mystery where to go when she'd followed the trail of disabled geth units, and there was a lurking suspicion that whispered the possibility that perhaps Lucy was fighting the way she was just so that she could lone wolf her way through this blasted tangled complex.

How cruel of her to not allow Liara even a single second to just appreciate the fact they stood among Prothean ruins, of which that were largely intact. Just thinking of how many things she could find out here, in just half a day of study and debate, was enough to set her blood boiling with eagerness.

The others already snapped at her for being caught daydreaming about it, though.

Gunfire alarmed her and she focused on collecting her biotics, manifesting a kinetic barrier as she readied her finger on the trigger. She raced around the corner and watched as Lucy had stormed forward to barrel into a geth, shoulder-checking it to the ground before she'd kicked her cybernetic leg and planted her foot on the headlight, engaging the thrusters to shatter the glass and melt the wires.

"Lucy, at least wait for me!" Liara called out, and for a brief second, she swore she witnessed the beginnings of a smirk curling the corner of the soldier's lips - who'd done the exact opposite.

"You'll have to work harder to even hope to keep up with me," Lucy taunted as she'd leapt over another barrier, and the asari wasted no time as she pummelled forth to do the same. These heights were getting more and more insane, and she swore she was going to pass out from sheer shock and regret over her brash decision when she'd been at the mercy of air. The soldier landed on the ground and twisted to look up, her eyes nearly bulging with admonished worry as she raced to the spot Liara would land at, casting her rifle aside to stretch her arms wide.

It was Liara's turn to smirk, then, as she employed her newfound biotic technique. She was extra proud to have retained enough biotic control to maintain a calm descent and take aim, squeezing her trigger over and over and over again until at least one of her damn shots had nailed a geth's head poking out the corner.

Somehow, laughter bubbled in her chest and she doubled over from the rush of adrenaline leaving her body when she'd touched ground again. Hasty hands cupped her jaw to force her to look up, concern bright in Lucy's sublime eyes.

"I'm fine," she beamed a smile. She expected to be brutally scolded, still, and was prepared for it.

She wasn't at all prepared for Shepard's sudden bloody departure again.

"Hey!" Liara yelled, "What is the meaning of this?! Don't you have anything to say?"

"Yes," Lucy shouted over her shoulder, persistent to stay far ahead. "That was very impressive."

"That's it?!"

"Do you honestly think I'm going to fall for your succubus tactics?"

"S-succubus... Tactics?" Liara's brow scrunched in confusion. Her throat was burning, raw, gulping and gasping for air as she struggled to cycle between all this arduous physical labour and mental efforts to continuously call on her biotics - whilst trying to maintain the insanity of this 'conversation' with a woman who didn't show the slightest hint of tiring out.

And then it slapped her, as she'd unwillingly witnessed Lucy launch herself off another pinnacle of debris.

"Is she like this because she doesn't want to lose our bet?"

Her suspicion was confirmed with a resounding yes over what she'd heard shouted ahead.

"We're going fishing, dammit! Fuck museums, there's no way I'm going to listen about preservation for two fucking weeks! I refuse to go even for one day!"

Something wicked pulled Liara's lips in a smile long before she'd felt the devilish temptation to entertain - one she happily obliged. "She appears to be very passionate about this. It seems I've inflicted quite a bit more trauma than I was initially aware of, on Thessia." It was thrilling just to know that she'd effectively turned the Commander into her beloved grenades, now knowing where to pull the pin and have more than enough time to walk off for the bomb to tick before explosion.

There was a most amusing roar up ahead, emphasizing the soldier's apparent primal need to curse her feelings over museums out of her system. Liara fought harder more so to be able to witness and commit every moment to memory, but she didn't lose her own competitive spirit. She elected to reserve her energy, however, putting all her bets that not even the Commander had an infinite pool of it. She would slow down at some point - and then Liara will swoop in for the win.

Others yelled behind them, and she'd poke her head around corners to wave and show where they'd gone, before jogging to catch up with Shepard. The scattered pieces of geth remains gradually became less of a disarray, supporting the archaeologist's hypothesis about energy. She couldn't stop the foolish grin aching her cheeks when she'd caught up to the lone figure, fingers splayed on a majestic door, her head resting against it.

"Mm hm. I think she's beginning to realize she has limits, and she's going to need to be more strategic." Liara swivelled up beside the soldier and tilted her head somewhat cheekily, honest-to-Goddess surprised she was imbued with all this confidence and lightheartedness even in the face of dire circumstances. She slid a hand between the soldier's shoulder blades.

Lucy sighed dejectedly. "Go ahead and laugh."

"I have nothing to laugh at," Liara reassured - but more like: "Tell me so I can." She stepped back and took a look at the door, observing its intricacies... And trying not to get too enamoured with this wealth of detail just handing it all on a platter to her. She took a peek inside the sliver of the cracked doorway, deducing that it appeared to house an elevator inside. She referenced the geographical scans the Normandy had sent them with their radar.

This path was a dead end, if they didn't gain access to that elevator.

Footsteps beat up behind them, and she could almost feel the awkwardness taint the air as the others tried to make sense of what was happening to the poor Commander. Liara renewed cheek biting efforts to stave her smile and resisted the playful urge to poke and gloat that she was needed for them to advance.

"Spare my honour," Lucy mumbled, "I need some scrap of self-respect after this."

"That she has such faith that even I can figure this out is endearing." Liara didn't dare confess honest doubts aloud, though, having siphoned a little bit of all the things she'd witnessed as to what being a leader meant. She needed to appear as a source of strength, even if she didn't truly feel it inside. If morale plummeted, their efficacy as a unit would as well. "I think I'm becoming too much like her. Perhaps the melding has blended and assimilated more than I hypothesized."

"Anything?" Lucy whispered, reluctantly lifting her head from the wall as she glanced over. "Is there a mechanism I can overload and force these doors open?"

"I'm studying."

"Study faster."

T'Soni shot a look and huffed. "You can't rush this."

"We'll take a field trip after - regardless of who wins, we can come back here for our date. We'll be alone so you can be the first researcher too. I can pull all the strings to make it happen."

Oh, stab an archaeologist in the heart! Liara beamed a smile and was tempted to take her helmet off just to plant a kiss on this obliviously sweet woman's visor.

But still.

"You can't rush this," she parroted with a lilt. "Go mingle with the others and-"

"I'd rather go to a museum then." Her eyes narrowed in the visor of her helmet, then she shuddered with disgust. "If I must."

"You have to learn how to work with a team at some point in your career before you retire, Commander."

"...Ugh. Do I have to?"

By the Goddess, it was like talking to a pouting child, and Liara didn't suppress her laughter in time. She watched the valorous soldier slink away to her bewildered unit with her shoulders slumped in defeat. That she was this expressive, naturally for once, was a precious testament to the strength of her feelings. It was yet another moment feverishly engraved to memory - especially so that one day, whenever they next meld, she would get to look back on all of this fondly.

And decimate honour.

Static buzzed a constant current, but there were flickers and glimpses of words Liara could understand. That just couldn't be - it didn't make sense. Her gaze combed the others' expressions and watched them all exchange looks as if they were all baffled... Except Lucy. The soldier was attentive and autonomously settled in her military stance, listening with a thoughtful expression as if she was absorbing information. She was making sense of this.

"Is this due to the Cipher? Have our melds transferred some knowledge to me through the visions?"

Dread was harked when the programmed looped on repeat, understanding what the implications meant. This was a recording made by Protheans, made during a time the Reapers invaded.

"Can't... Be Stopped! They can't be stopped!"

Something rooted her feet to the earth, slowly encasing her in ice. She looked over at the Commander, who's eyes hardened - but instead of despair, she looked more determined than ever before. Liara didn't think she could ever be capable of emulating that aspect, that fearlessness and refusal to give up that seemed to be a brazen trait shared by most of the humans present - if not the species as a whole.

"They're foolish," taunted a darker logic, "Our technology has risen from the ashes of the Protheans. If the Protheans couldn't stop the Reapers, what chance do we have?"

"Guess it's broken," Chief Williams shrugged when the recording died out. "Too corrupted to make out any words."

"Yeah." Lucy's gaze suddenly snapped to the asari's, a silent question in her speculative eyes. She seemed to deign her answer and gave a subtle shake of her head, for some reason, before she pivoted and resumed the lead through the complex. "Nothing but jargon. Come on. We have to stop Saren and then we'll put an end to this, once and for all."

"Is it really that simple?" Liara fretted, her heart sinking to her stomach as she'd followed in the back of the stout unit. "I doubt an extinction cycle that's repeated - who knows how many times - was reliant upon a single manipulated agent to begin it. The Reapers surely have contingency plans. How would the very first cycle have begun, then? There has to be ways to influence and indoctrinate. How have they indoctrinated Saren in the first place? Was Sovereign once a derelict Reaper? Has Saren ushered in this cycle by activating one? But the timing is programmed, it's automated..."

Questions swarmed her mind, with no answers yielded. She began to drown when question after question assaulted her and decimated her confidence, the recording playing on loop inside her thoughts in the background. The Protheans couldn't stop the Reapers. They didn't just get wiped from existence without knowing it. They fought.

And they lost.

"That shit was all fiction," Lucy suddenly said, and Liara lifted her head as she watched the stout shoulders ahead. The others were thrown back into confusion. "You can't listen to it. You hold the power as long as you're driven. I ask you, again: are you just going to take that? Or will you fucking fight back?"

"Uh... Commander... Who are you talking to?" Garrus inquired hesitantly.

"It's not as simple as labelling it as fiction, Luce," Liara lamented. "I'm certain the Protheans did not just roll over and give up. I'm sure they were driven to survive. That's just life."

More looks were exchanged, some with worry, some with doubt as the Commander gave a curt wave of her hand, signalling the end of the conversation before it begun. Liara piped up quietly, to belay any concerns that perhaps all of this may be contributing to a breakdown of sorts.

"To me," she mumbled, "Just some things we were talking about, before the mission."

Eyes fell on her, weaning and gleaning what they could from her. She shrunk from the pressure of attention, and was ever so grateful when Helen rushed to the rescue to blow all the tension away. "Well, Saren's run out of time! Now that the gates are unlocked, we can catch up to him in the mako. Idiot is gonna get run over on foot."

At that, Lucy's head swivelled to Helen as if she'd been struck with a brilliant idea, and Liara groaned. The competition was renewed and the soldier took off running, having a clear vision of a clear victory now. Liara prayed she too would have just a fragment of that clarity again, but she'd lost that lighthearted feeling that carried her feet and made her heart soar with hope. She didn't think she could ever be the kind of leader that Lucy is, to be that bloody stubborn as if to be so foolish enough to defy a programmed fate.

All archaeological findings she'd ever stumbled on was just a pattern repeated over and over and over again. No species could thwart an extinction event, all life inevitably succumbed and perished to something. That would be like asking to stop a very meteor crashing into a planet. History could not be denied, and it would be repeated. The only thing they could do was release a recording of their own. Perhaps they should heed it and divert their focus into cherishing what time they had left, instead?

A firm hand fell on her shoulder. She looked up, taken aback that Lucy seemed...

...Angry?

"I will not have you succumb to this. You were the one that taught me and gave me a reason to fight - to fight for tomorrow. I refuse to accept that all your words are coming to mean nothing just because of one stupid Prothean. The past can be a good place to visit, but not a good place to stay. Hop on my shoulders if your legs have lost strength."

"Stop," Liara wanted to plead, if only to save her further embarrassment from being singled out like this. Wasn't pointing this out bad for morale too? Lucy should be telling her to suck it up, just like any other marine. The others were surely annoyed by this - had to be, impatient with how little time they all had to stop Saren.

But Lucy didn't stop. She 'can't be stopped' either, it appeared, and there was a grim smile over the inner revelation.

"You're going to stretch your hand to the stars again, and I'm going to carry you all the way even if my back aches, and... And..." She groped for words, a new sense of desperation tumbling out in hasty blurts. "I will not have you turn into a sloth. You have behemoths to hug, and ruins to preserve, and to hound me into not blowing any of it up." Lucy's hand slid to cup the back of the asari's neck, pulling in and making her flinch from the rough impact of their helmets. "We're going to museums, dammit. Fuck fishing."

Silence. Liara couldn't think of anything to say, couldn't even find it in her to laugh. She was weighed down, a dark fog clouding her mind, and Lucy seemed to be losing heart because of it. A mischievous marine came in and injected herself quite audaciously, where her helmet clicked against theirs.

"If you lovebirds are done?" Helen teased. "Seems to me you should just throw Li over your shoulder and carry her ass, Commander. The mako'll light a fire under her."

Liara didn't even have time to usher a look of utter betrayal when Lucy wasted no time with what she apparently deemed another brilliant idea.

Light a fire under her, Helen said. What a brilliant idea, she thought.

Now everybody who was squeezed inside the mako was cursing the marine, and she was the only one laughing in this insanity of an insane driver. Liara lamented the loss of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of being able to actually talk to a real Prothean VI, cursing Saren over and over again. She prayed that Vigil would still be operational when her and Lucy would return here - and if not, well, she was already well on her way of brainstorming potential power supplies she could set up and hopefully program to feed specifically into the VI, before it attempted to divert it anywhere as part of its conditions.

"I'll have to ask Tali if she would be willing to come with me and maybe she can help me. Perhaps she can hack or set up firewalls for me so that that doesn't happen?"

There were many bumps along the way that threatened to evict her stomach contents just as well as clarity of thought. She held onto the dashboard for dear life and cursed Lucy, next, for this maddening idea of hers of actually catching up just so that she could barbarically run Saren over.

Another bump had Liara's head crashing into the back of her seat - and thank the Goddess for these helmets to absorb most of the blow, because it was still so painful.

More curses were collectively hailed at Helen.

Chief Williams and Garrus were the only ones left to retain their composure, and even then it seemed to be weaning for every time there was a scramble to hold onto something stable. The turian was the only one left without a seat, hanging onto the swinging handles for dear life - Liara swore he'd gotten air time every time the mako did.

Tali announced whatever dared be in their path through analyzing the radar, and the thundering of a mako cannon firing would resound after her, with cheers courtesy of Chief Williams finding her mark. Addison was in the back seats with Helen, doubled over and groaning about horrible driving, cursing the raven-haired marine who kept laughing along with glee.

Until the Commander put a stop to it.

"Keep it down, back there," Lucy ordered sternly. "We're running out of time. I need to focus."

Yes, that exactly, seemed to be the reason why Helen was audacious enough to still laugh to begin with, to blow this anxiety away that buzzed inside the cabin. Vigil's ominous warnings disturbed all of them, Liara noted, keeping a keen eye on the soldier's shoulders at the cockpit. For all Lucy's words before, even she too seemed to have lost that chip on her shoulders, her rebellious refusal to give in had sanded down by the harrowing evidence the VI presented as it detailed the last moments of Prothean demise.

"But Vigil gave us information to stop this cycle, and has given the most crucial fact that perhaps may finally herald the end of it. The secret of the Conduit. The prototype relay linking as the back door to the Citadel, and the means to alter the keepers' signals to ignore the Reapers."

"Commander, there it is! The Conduit!" Tali announced, "Four Geth Colossi ahead!"

Liara held onto her seat as the mako revved back to life, full throttle, stealing views from the small windows as she'd gaped at the majestic view of the Conduit. The mako cannon roared, Ashley announcing her misses, and the crux of the outrageous tactic revealed itself when Lucy had just narrowly flitted by a colossus, zig-zagging in her race towards the Conduit.

"Are we going to jump into the relay in the mako?!" Liara yelled, and it was soon followed by a crescendo of curses from the marines in the back. She hastily threw her arm back towards Garrus and invoked her biotics, trapping him in a stasis field just before she'd felt lifted from her seat. Her stomach twisted viciously and lukewarm vomit shot up to her throat, where she'd closed her eyes and held on tighter to the edges of her seat as she tried to swallow it down.

"Brace for impact!" Was all Lucy said.

Screeches flooded Liara's aural and pain diffused across the entirety of her skull as her head kept hitting her seat. Her innards were torn in opposite directions and she'd felt like she was pulled everywhere, grunting over and over again as she'd felt like they were rolling. She put her faith in her seat belt as she held onto her head to absorb some of the impacts, yelping in fear when her station suddenly dented in. It signalled the end, whatever stopped their path for impaling them.

"Garrus, are you okay?" Tali was the first to recover, the sounds of her belt undone as her suit thudded and thunked in her crawl to the turian.

Liara felt as though she was lost in a fog, slovenly following suit with no mind to her actions. She'd fallen on her hands and knees when she clamoured out of her seat, as she followed the hues of purple leading over. Garrus' coughs brought a new wave of relief in the cabin when the stasis field was released, and the turian chuckled a little as his hand came up to his helmet. He pushed himself up into sitting and looked over at the archaeologist.

"Thank you, Liara. I didn't look forward to feeling all of that if I had to hold onto the bars."

T'Soni nodded, not possessing her voice to speak. She looked up at the cannon cockpit to check in on Ashley, who was groaning and muttering curses as she'd crawled to swing down, the mako seemingly having rolled onto it's side. All the pained grunts were proof of life. Helen and Addison came over, next, and then panic gripped the asari as she looked over at the driver's seat.

Lucy wasn't moving.

"Commander!" Liara mustered what little strength she had left in her shaky legs, traversing through the disaster of a wreckage in here. There was a low rumble, and then suddenly the cabin filled with pulsing red lights. A look over at the diagnostic radar showed that a fire started. Garrus went to go kick out the emergency hatch, while Ashey and Addison rushed to the driver's seat to help Liara free Lucy from her seat, dragging her out.

Gunfire resounded outside, along with the telltale sounds of geth weaponry. Tali, Garrus and Helen weren't in the cabin anymore. Liara braced herself with her biotics as Ashley had been the first to climb out the hatch, issuing orders to push the Commander through so that she'd drag the rest of the way, before she'd left to help the others fight geth.

Halfway along, the soldier's chest kicked in a gasp, and her head thunked harshly against the mako when she'd lifted to see Liara and Addison pushing her by her legs. She growled something, but Liara didn't quite pick up on it, melting with relief when Ashley came back into view to drag the soldier out by the shoulders.

Addison was the last to remain, and before Liara could tell her to go first, firm hands pushed her on her back as the petty officer shook her head.

"You're more important, get the hell out of here before we blow."

"More important?" Liara's brow furrowed, and a new urgency gripped as soon as she'd fallen outside the mako. She refused that banal explanation. She'd utilized her biotics to try to wrap the metal outwards more, kneeling down as she'd held out her hand and grabbed Addison by the forearm, tugging the marine out the rest of the way.

They all ran what hoped to be a safe distance from the mako, all of them somewhat stunned as they watched the vehicle soon erupt in flames - being swallowed by the fires that consumed the majority of the Citadel. Liara lost her will to glare over at Addison, tabling her disapproval for another time, as they'd turned to take stock of the Citadel's destruction.

Screams and shrieking sobs echoed from what sounded like it was coming everywhere on the station.

"By the Goddess..."

"Are we too late?" Helen mumbled with trepidation.

They'd looked for the Commander, who was no longer with them. Liara looked further down and spotted the soldier by an Avina terminal, alongside Chief Williams, and ran to catch up with them. The archaeologist's chest caved in on itself as her heart beat in her throat upon hearing Avina's damage report.

Metal groaned and screeched out to the side, and Liara engaged her biotics when she'd noticed the husks. Lucy's arm snapped out to the side, her focus on Avina never broken, as she'd marked three well-placed shots in the husks. Her brutality had a newfound calculus, and when she'd turned around, Liara's heart cried out upon seeing the stitched laceration had ripped back open inside Shepard's helmet, blood pouring steadily above her brow as she'd closed her eye to shield it.

Frankly, she looked pissed.

With a curt wave of her hand to rally the others closer, her glare settled on the Alliance marines. "Chief Williams, take Chase and Lowe to Chora's Den and find Dr. Chakwas in my apartment. Tali, you should go with them too in case if they need you to hack anything along the way, in case if any of the conventional routes are inaccessible. The Wards have a lot of back alleys and you're familiar with them, right?"

"Y-Yes, Commander."

"Good. I apologize, but I need you to ignore any casualties you come along the way. Do not stop for anybody, no matter what." Her gaze fell on Helen and Addison, next, and her eye somewhat softened upon sensing their possible distress with the decision. "Ensuring Dr. Chakwas' safety is your number one priority. I'm positive Lance Corporal Draven is putting up a good fight. After you've secured Dr. Chakwas, you can begin rescue operations of civilians. Find C-Sec to see where they're to be evacuated."

Dr. Chakwas. She was left behind on the Citadel with mother. There was a vicious barbed wire sinking into Liara's heart, as her mind concocted cruel imagery upon another look at the station in flames. Avina flickered, repeating her damage report. There were announcements of critical power failure echoing from the distance.

"If mother was in cryostasis, and the power is out..."

"Move out," Lucy commanded, and the unit ran off. Her eye settled on Garrus and Liara. "You two are with me. We'll take the elevator to get to the Council chambers and upload the data Vigil gave us."

Emergency warnings blared on top of the other emergencies, where Avina parroted a PA system announcing that the Citadel's arms were closing. The illusion of a peaceful sky was shattered, giving them a glimpse of what was out in space, where turian ships corralled protectively around the Destiny Ascension. Liara was broken out of her stupor as a firm hand pulled on her elbow, nudging her to follow as Lucy took off sprinting.

They manoeuvred through the wreckage of the Presidium, and Liara desperately tried not to hear for the calls of help tailing after them, followed by the sobs when they'd been abandoned. Her heart hardened and she poured all her focus in gluing her gaze to Lucy's back, to try to empty herself of these pains as soon as they struck.

How cruel, this all was, that they did not even have time to aid a single frightened person.

The Citadel Tower. The elevator Liara was last denied access to. The centre of awe, the place that would affect trillions of lives. How bitterly ironic this all was. There was a newfound anger boiling hot in her blood, her determination to stop the Reapers alight. They were armed with Prothean technology and the will of the Protheans themselves - for them to continue the fight, to survive, to stop this wretched cycle once and for all.

No more innocent civilians were going to die.

They'd taken the elevator, where Lucy fired off another shot as the two came in, a geth falling far down by the ambassador's embassy. Her accuracy wasn't diminished in the face of emotions - but rather emboldened. Liara felt the stuffy rage flood the elevator cabin, a new sense of impatience buzzing hard from the soldier.

"She's had enough of this," Liara noted grimly. "Good. Enough is enough. We're going to make sure of that."

As the elevator shot up, they were helpless witnesses. Sovereign had made it inside the Citadel's arms, despite the turian fleet's best efforts. The PA system was unlocked to all, where officers were asking Executor Pallin what to do next. Every tactic was demolished and diminished by the sounds of military's cries, followed by explosions. Liara looked away as Sovereign bulldozed through a cruiser, the ship fragments ripped apart and raining back down onto the Citadel like meteors.

More casualties.

The elevator suddenly shuddered to a stop. Lucy wasted no time as she aimed her rifle at the glass. "Check your gear. Activate your mag-boots and radios. We're going outside. Garrus." The soldier opened a compartment on her thigh, where many mod vials were slotted inside. She held out a vial to him. "Here, this should help. Sledgehammer rounds."

Garrus' chuckles reverberated lowly. "I like how you think, Commander." He took out his sniper rifle, his deft hands quick and steady to install the ammunition upgrade. "Mag-boots activated, switching to radio now. What frequency?"

"M21.70," Lucy replied calmly. She glanced over at Liara. "Sorry, I only have two of those mods and I'm going to put one in my pistol, and Garrus has... You know."

"The better gun," the turian supplied, but they'd all known what was actually meant. The better aim.

Liara waved it off, having taken no offence. It was fact. She was focused on something else in the moment.

"M21.70, her personal frequency. The attack on Mindoir in 2170. Every time she's been forced to use it, it's been during circumstances like this. What a lovely reminder... She'll never relax in cities, now, with even the Citadel ravaged." Liara solemnly tuned in, listening to the faint rhythm of the human's breaths feed through her radio, before Garrus' joined in the mix. The soldier glanced over at her again, and she'd nodded that she was ready. A swift reach and pat on the shoulder helped steel some fraying nerves.

Glass exploded, the shatter soon muted as the shards aimlessly floated forward. The only sounds to comfort her were their strenuous breathing as great strength was needed with mag-boots. She didn't know how she managed to convince her legs to keep going, apart from the wrath that thrummed strong inside of her. She was taken aback by the sheer size of Sovereign, up ahead, wrapped around the Citadel Tower like a snake. She couldn't help but feel that this was the beginning of the end, wondering if they were already too late.

Garrus and Lucy never stopped fighting, though. There was slight amusement to be had to witness geth helplessly floating off, as soon as the barrage of concussive rounds had knocked their magnetic connection to the station. Liara reserved her energy and had employed only the lightest of biotic throws, pleased that it was more than enough to send more flying away.

The real fight was just ahead. They were getting close, and that meant Saren was undoubtedly there, blind faith propelling him to actually heed this madness and begin their end.

Calm reports fed through their radio as Garrus tallied off enemies he spotted through his scope, soon confirming a shot and kill. Lucy moved forward, doing the same, and there was a small part of Liara smiling along the way as she'd noticed the soldier's stance become firmer in their presence. "She's learning how to fight alongside a team, finally. It's about time." The temptation to laugh bubbled in her chest. "I guess it requires the end of the universe to force her."

≤I see Citadel defence turrets, they appear to be malfunctioning though. Or disabled.≥ Lucy announced. ≤I'm going to move forward and see if I still have Spectre authority to access them. According to the map, after we exit this exhaust plain, we'll be entering the exterior defence grid. We'll be able to enter the Council chambers from there.≥

≤Roger that, Commander. I can take a look at the turret on the right.≥ Garrus supplied. ≤Tali's upgraded my omni-tool recently, I should be able to hack into them.≥

≤Understood. With me, T'Soni.≥

As they stalked forward, a geth dropship swung overhead. Liara launched a singularity as soon as she saw the hatch open, and she couldn't help but smirk upon hearing the turian's wicked laughter dancing on their frequency. All units floated away aimlessly, rendered powerless. She'd caught the way the soldier's head swivelled to her, and the green line illuminated amusement. She boasted an obnoxious pat on Lucy's rump as she teased. "Don't get distracted now, Commander."

It came out huskier than she meant it to, and she immediately flushed hot with regret upon the very swift reminder that Garrus could hear all of this, his laughter renewed.

She prayed with all her might that nobody saw the racy pat on the bum too.

"What's gotten into me? This isn't the time!"

≤I'm the fisher, not the fish biting the bait.≥ Lucy huffed, sounding sullen. Something about succubus tactics was just barely caught in her muttering grumbles. ≤Keep moving, we're almost there.≥

There were little hoops and hollers from Garrus, who'd fed the radio with nothing but encouragement for Liara every time she'd utilized her biotics to send the geth flying off, rendering even the most terrifying of unit models utterly helpless. She'd caught the subtlest of chuckles from Lucy's feed, before it was overshadowed by the turian. It threw her into a dilemma of sorts, almost, where she'd actually found all this adrenaline invigorating, that perhaps there held some actual fun merit on the battlefield.

That was put to the test when krogan warlords blocked their path from finally getting to the Council chambers. Her heart clawed up to beat in her aurals upon noticing a battlemaster, her mind brought back in time from the last one she'd fought - back on Therum, when Lucy had devised a plan to trick him and feign defection. That wouldn't work here! That krogan's biotics-

Served as karma, as she found herself helplessly floating into space.