"Who is she?" Cass whispered, inching on to her toes to lean over Liara's shoulder.
"Um, Dr. Eva Core. She arrived a few days ago. Why do you ask?" Liara responded, her finger's dancing across a console.
"She seems a little off to me." Cass frowned, shuffling around the Asari and leaning the mainframe of the machine, puling one of her heavy pistols from it's sheath.
"Hmm. She's just another scientist, I wouldn't think anything of her- Cass! Don't have that out here!" Liara exclaimed.
Rolling her eyes, Cass continued to balance the heavy pistol in her hands.
"Cass! Put that away! It's dangerous-"
"It's a gun, Liara. Of course it's dangerous and the safety's on, so stop freaking out."
"I know, Sorry. I guess I'm not so used to the idea of you having one-"
"One?" Cass laughed darkly. "I have more than one."
Liara frowned. "Well, you shouldn't have them out here."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I thought there would be something for me to do here-"
"You've only been here a couple of days. When I find work for you, I'll let you know."
"When is that going to be? Never."
"Cass, I'm sorry. I invited you here because I thought you needed somewhere to stay; I know you want to help, but I'm not sure what you can do."
"Yeah, fine, whatever." Cass frowned, folding her arms over her chest, doing her best to appear indifferent; even though this feeling of uselessness was tearing at her. Hadn't she come here to do some good? Maybe shooting is what she's made for, the muscle behind, or rather, in front of the brains.
"Have you spoken to your mother?" Liara asked tentatively, clearing away the silence.
Making a face, Cass rolled her eyes. "No. Have you? No? Oh, right, she's locked away from the world." Cass' words dripping with sarcasm. "So no, I haven't spoken to her, nor do I intend to."
"She's your mom, doesn't she deserve some sort of explanation?" Liara frowned.
"No shit, Sherlock. And no, I feel no need to give her an explanation and if she needs one, well, she's a lot denser than I would've thought."
"Don't you get tired?" Liara sighed.
"I- what?" Cass lips turned downward. "Tired?"
"Of being so defensive all the time."
Cass frowned further. "I'm not-"
"You are. You are incredibly defensive and every time I have tried to speak to you about your mom, you're unbelievably hostile."
Cass scowled, clearly not wanting to even touch this subject Liara was pushing. "I have better things to do than sit here and get the third degree-"
"And now you're evasive." Liara interrupted, almost cheerfully, like she was getting somewhere by pushing the girl's buttons.
"Wouldn't you be? Have you looked at your family tree? Matriarch Benezia, Saren's most loyal follower! Let's destroy the world!"
"That's not fair! You know she was-"
"Under the influence of the Reapers, yeah, blah blah blah. Clearly this isn't something you want to talk about. So I won't talk to you about your mother, if you leave mine out too."
"Cass-" Liara started to speak but stopped as a loud crash resounded around the room; screams could be heard from the hall as gunshots vibrated the building.
"What the fuck?" Cass' brows knitted together, drawing her weapon the teen held her breath listening to the terror that was happening just down the hall.
Cass held her breath; her pulse running rapidly, blood pounding in her ears. She was covered in sweat and blood, none of it hers, thankfully. Slipping through the body strewn hallway, the teen listened could hear the sound of popping in this distance, gunshots. They had time.
Stepping over one of the many dead Cerberus officers, Cass entered the door to Liara's office.
"Any luck?" The teen breathed heavily, her hand still curled tightly around her gun.
"No! Everything is jammed, I'm not getting any signals from the archives; something is intercepting it. it's like the entire online system has stopped functioning." Liara explained frantically.
"What about the Alliance? Have you tried contacting anyone off planet?"
"Cass… I- Earth's been hit. The reapers are already here."
The teen's eyes widened. Already? How could it be happening now? Her mother was on Earth, she couldn't be dead… could she? Damn it, she hadn't even said goodbye! If her mother was gone…
"Cass." The Asari's palm landed on the teen's shoulder, "Cass, I know this is bad, but I need you to focus." Liara spoke gently, shaking the girl from her reverie.
"I- okay. What about your broker connections?" Cass swallowed.
"It's impossible, there are too many distress signals and I've lost so many connections, it might take time for me to get back online, but we don't have time right now." Liara' replied, her expression grim.
"Christ. What do we do now?" Cass whispered, her tone unbelieving.
"We need to form a team to get to the archives-"
"There's not anyone left." The teen stated, her finger's tightening around the hand gun.
"Then we need to do it ourselves. This could be our one chance against the Reapers and in the wrong hands…" Liara trailed off.
"Okay-" Cass gasped as the steady pound of footsteps could be heard rushing down the hall; both women moving to defensive positions. "There's got to be a bunch of them." The teen whispered.
"Quickly! In the vent!" Liara replied, shielding her face with her forearm, the Asari shot the bolts off of the air duct; the sound echoing throughout the room. Shoving the teen in ahead of her, both women began to crawl away from their assailants.
"Fuck fuck fuck! Ricochet!" Cass exclaimed, ducking her head as more bullets clattered past them in the duct, kicking open the vent, the teen fell to the ground, Liara, dropping to the floor next to her; throwing up a singularity field, the two armored men began to float helplessly, caught in the biotic whirl. Raising their guns, a seamless set of head shots followed as the men fell to the ground. "Well, that was fun." Cass smirked.
"Easy there, Lieutenant, they're with us." Shepard's voice came from behind, sending a shock through the teen.
"Shepard?! Thank the goddess you're alive." Liara sighed, rushing over to the woman, their hands intertwining. "I was so worried when the reports came in. I'm sorry about Earth."
"Yeah, it was difficult to leave," Ashley spoke quietly.
"Ashley, I'm sorry, but why'd you come here?" Liara responded, walking over to the glass looking out over the station.
"Hackett ordered us to come, said you would know what's going on." Shepard spoke easily, eyeing her daughter's turned back.
"I do, well, at least I hope so. I've discovered plans for a Prothean device…" Liara continued, offering an explanation to James and Ashely, while Shepard shuffled over to her daughter.
Cass couldn't bring herself to turn around. Her mother was alive, but she had just left her behind; and now here she was again, not like it wasn't to be expected; she knew that in going with Liara, it was likely they would come into contact again, she just hadn't expected it to happen this soon.
"Cass." Shepard sighed, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder.
Shrugging off the hand, the girl whipped around. "We can't do this now." Cass spoke harshly.
"We need to talk, I-" Shepard cut off sharply as noise came from the upper deck. "We've got company!"
"Bring it on!" James bellowed.
"Not this time, James." Shepard's voice clear. "Head back to the shuttle with Cass-"
"Hell no." Cass growled. They were not going to do this again. "I'm coming with."
"We don't have time to argue right now." Shepard voiced in a maternal tone.
"Then don't." Cass' retorted icily.
Shepard paused, staring passed her daughter's steely look. "Fine." The mother relented, "James, if Cerberus beats us to the archives I need you covering the exits."
James scowled and nodded, rushing over to the elevator, disappearing beneath the floor.
"Take cover." Shepard ordered.
"I guess we know how Cerberus got in." Cass remarked dryly, watching the security footage. "I knew there was something off about her."
"I should have realized it when I met her." Liara sighed, "I've just been so focused on finding a way to stop the Reapers."
"Stopping the Reapers is the only thing you need to be focused on." Shepard spoke reassuringly. "This isn't your fault."
"But what if we're wrong? What if there's no way to stop them? What if we spend the rest of our days scurrying around to solve a problem we can't fix?" Liara frowned, leaning forward into the security console, letting it support her now defeating posture.
"Liara." Shepard frowned stepping closer to her lover.
"I know. I shouldn't think that way." Liara relented, turning to face the woman. "I just don't know how you do it; how you stay focused in the worst situations."
"When there's so much as stake, I think of my friends and loved ones." Shepard paused to look to Cass who was currently scowling at her from across the security center, "and what I would lose if I failed."
"Me too." Liara perked up.
"We'll stop them, Liara, together." Shepard spoke, their hands intertwining once more. "All of us." Shepard added, eyeing her angry child once more.
"Okay, I believe, or maybe I believe that you believe and that's enough." Breaking apart, the Asari ran her hands over the control console. "Okay, the doors unlocked; now we can take the tram to the archives."
"Gooooood." Cass sighed exasperatedly, this was getting a little too mushy for her. "Let's get moving."
"They're already to the archives." Liara frowned, "I can't override it."
"Well, I'm sure they won't be sending a tram any time soon." Cass declared sarcastically, earning a glare from both Liara and her mother.
"We could try to find a short transmitter. Helmet to helmet; convince them that the alliance forces have been taken care and get them to send a tram over." Ashley reasoned. "It's likely our best bet."
"Good idea. See what you can find." Shepard ordered.
Cass walked away, shuffling over to some of the fallen Cerberus men, poking one of them with her foot, the teen knelt down opening the helmet casing. "Shit!" The teen yelped as she fell backwards in shock; the Cerberus man didn't appear to be a man at all, more like a husk.
"Cass? You okay?" Ashley rushed over, pulling the teen up off the ground by her underarms.
"Yeah, fine." The teen said, pushing away and brushing her self off. "I- it startled me. Look at it, it's not human."
"Shepard!" Ashley called, the commander and Liara joining them a moment later. "It's got a transmitter, He looks like a husk."
"Yeah," the mother frowned, leaning down further to inspect the Cerberus man, "Not exactly, but they've definitely done something to him."
"Engineered by Cerberus, they claim to stand for humanity and they do this to their own people." Ashley ranted. "That could have been you, Shepard. For all I knew, Cerberus could have done that to you."
"How can you compare that to me?!" Shepard stated incredulously.
"I don't know what you are; not since they got their hands on you." Ashley spoke quietly. "Would you even know it they're controlling you and what if they got their hooks into Cass, You-"
"You're being ridiculous." Cass scowled, inserting herself back into the conversation. "We've had this conversation before. Neither of us have any connection to Cerberus anymore. So get the fuck over it. God, you're like a broken record."
"Cassandra." Shepard warned.
"Yeah, whatever." Cass rolled her eyes, turning her back and sauntering back to Liara, "Let's just keep moving; I'm sure we can all agree on that."
"Ash, Cass, fan out." Shepard ordered as the doors glided open revealing the massive archive before them.
Nodding, the teen went left around the balcony like circle around the base of the Prothean device. Keeping her pistol raised, the girl scowled. How had it come to this so quickly? There was supposed to be time, or maybe they all just needed more time and gave into the illusion that they had it. And now, she was here with her mother; what would she say to her? What could she say to her? She had run away again, she was as much to blame as her mother in this. She was too angry to try and fix things, so she evaded, but she couldn't forgive her mother either. And they couldn't be selfish; the war is here-
Movement to her left pulled Cass out of her thoughts.
"Step away from the console." Cass growled raising her gun and moving closer to the Cerberus doctor. Crying out as a heavy foot connected with her right side and an elbow hit the side of her helmet, the teen crashed to the ground. "She's got the data!" yelled the teen as she scrambled to her feet and followed as her mother as the team took off after Core.
Cass sprinted after them, dodging badly aimed attacks from the fleeing doctor, catching up with her mother out on the roof of the station, the teen frowned as a Cerberus shuttle came swooping down at the other end of the dock.
"She's getting away!" Shepard bellowed into her com system. "James! Normandy! Anybody!"
Cass winced as the blue alliance shuttle came flying in from the left, colliding with the Cerberus vessel sending them crashing in flames straight toward them, diving out of the way, the girl groaned as she hit the floor.
As the teen rolled onto her back, sitting up slowly and moving to a standing position, she stumbled over to Ashley and Liara, the girl watching as the woman helped the Asari to her feet.
"You guys okay?" Cass coughed, blinking as the blue shuttle staggered to a landing.
"Yeah, we need to get the data-" Liara stopped as a bang came from the crashed Cerberus shuttle, the door flying off as the robotic doctor appeared in front of the flames.
"Oh shit."
AN: Another chapter! We're into the main story line of the game now! Hope you're all as excited as I am! Let me know what you guys think! Please review!