Miranda growled with frustration as she surveyed the corpses lying in the hallway. At first, the mission had gone smoothly. Dr. Eva had successfully sabotaged the facility's outer defenses, Cerberus' forces had landed on Mars without incident, and the incompetent soldiers defending the archives had folded quickly enough. They were hardly the best and brightest; this far inside their own space, the Alliance had thought they could get away with stationing second rate troops and the Reaper invasion had let Miranda catch them with their pants down.
Since then, though, things had taken a turn for the worst. She'd lost contact with the troopers guarding the entrance to the base, that damn asari was still on the loose, and if Miranda didn't get her and escape from here soon, the Reapers would close off access to the Sol Relay. Now she was looking down at the bodies of three Cerberus troopers, and her already limited patience was running out. "Check every door!", she snapped. "These imbeciles were only killed three minutes ago. That asari can't have gotten far."
Indeed she had not, Liara thought from inside the comm room as she heard Miranda's orders echo down the hallway. She knew when she went to make the call to Hackett that there was a good chance she'd get herself caught in the process, but she had no choice given the stakes.
Not that she had any intention of letting Cerberus get her easily. When the door to the communications room slid open, she was waiting. A blast of biotic energy rippled out from her hand, slamming in the chest of the first soldier through the entranceway. His armor crumpled under the energy blast and as he fell to the ground, a second trooper followed behind him. Liara emptied her pistol into his armor as he staggered over the body of his comrade, and when he tumbled over, she raced past the two fallen soldiers.
As she entered the hallway, she saw another two troopers about thirty feet away, but she sprinted in the opposite direction. She couldn't win a pitched battle against all the Cerberus forces here; she had to gamble that their orders to take her alive would give her a chance to escape instead.
"Stop!", one of them yelled, but she ignored the command and though bullets impacted around her, they were warning shots, meant to stop, not kill the asari. She half-turned, firing a few blind shots from her pistol to discourage pursuit. Shooting wildly, she wheeled around the corner…
…Only to be close lined across the chest by a waiting forearm. She flipped over and dropped to the floor with a painful crash. Her pistol skidded down the corridor and she found herself looking up at a brown-skinned human leveling a shotgun that looked too big for her slim frame.
"I'd stay down if I were you, Doctor T'Soni" The human's voice was a mocking purr. "I may have orders to bring you in alive, but after all the trouble you've given us, I just might enjoy the choice to hurt you a little bit first."
Deciding to take that risk, Liara hurled a biotic pulse at the woman. It caught her across the chest and she staggered backwards, but even as the asari was pulling herself off the floor, the slim human recovered enough to swing the butt of her shotgun at Liara. It cracked into her barriers, and the Shadow Broker felt them buckle under the strain. Lunging forward, she grabbed the woman by the shoulders, trying to get her arms pinned, but the human was too nimble for her. She wriggled loose and rolled backwards down the hall, trying to find a clear position to shoot from.
Reaching deep within herself, Liara focused her power and hurled a singularity at the woman. Though her shields prevented her from being totally immobilized, the human was still left straining against its pull and the Shadow Broker thought that maybe she could use the distraction to get past her.
She hoped in vain. Liara didn't make it two more steps before her back exploded in a crashing wave of pain that sent her tumbling to the ground. She rolled over, but before she could rise, her field of vision was filled with the sight of Miranda Lawson's glowing fist descending into her face.
Shepard jammed her omni-blade into the Cerberus trooper hurling himself at her, the glowing edge piercing through his armor and straight into his heart. He dropped to the floor dead and even as she shoved his corpse away from her, she saw Vega unload his shotgun into what looked like a Cerberus officer.
Taking a breath, she surveyed the field. "We clear, Ash?", she yelled to the lieutenant when she didn't see any more Cerberus troopers left standing against them.
"Looking good, skipper," Ashley called down from the walkway, shouldering her sniper rifle. In spite of their differences, it's been good to fight alongside Ashley again but Shepard couldn't take any pleasure in that right then. All that they'd found on Mars were Cerberus troopers and dead Alliance soldiers. There was no sign of Liara and the fear that Shepard had felt ever since they landed had been getting harder to fight down.
"Come on," she told her squad, "We've got to get to the archives before Cerberus steals whatever it is that Hackett sent us to find." And with any luck, Liara would be there she thought. Her beloved archeologist did love her research and she'd try to safeguard it from Cerberus.
"Wait," Ashley warned as they started towards the tram station that would lead them to the archives. "Over there. It's a drone."
Shepard raised her Indra in the direction of the intruder but an instant before she fired, the drone intoned, "Commander Shepard."
The commander raised an eyebrow. "Info-Drone?"
"You know this thing?", James asked, surprised.
"Doctor T'Soni has designated me as Glyph."
"Where is she?", she asked, trying to keep the worried edge out of her voice, "Where's Liara?"
"Doctor T'Soni was in danger of being captured by Cerberus forces. She has synched me to her omni-tool so that I can lead you to her location."
The drone sounded like it could be telling her the soup of the day, but a mixture of hope and panic ran through the commander at its words. "All right," she told her squadmates. "We'll split up. You two get to the archives. I'll go rescue Liara."
"Are you sure, skipper?", Ashley asked. "Will you be okay without us?"
"Hey, if I can stall a Reaper invasion on my own, I can handle a few Cerberus kidnappers." The two marines headed off towards the tram, but as she dashed after the drone, Shepard's mission to Bahak was still very much on her mind. In spite of her glib remark to Ashley, she hadn't exactly been happy with the outcome that day. She'd been too late to save the 300,000 batarians; she wasn't going to be too late for Liara as well.
Liara blinked as consciousness crept back in painfully, accompanied by a wave of dizziness. She was upside down she quickly realized, slung over the shoulder of a massive Cerberus lieutenant. Her hands were bound behind her back, and around her neck she could feel the cold metal of a slave's collar.
With them were two more Cerberus troopers, the dark-skinned woman she had encountered in the hallway, and Miranda Lawson. Bad odds; too bad for her to try anything herself, particularly if the collar did what she suspected it did. Such devices were generally designed to administer excruciating pain if the wearer tried to use their biotic abilities. No, she'd have to bide her time and hope Glyph could bring Shepard to her in time.
"You just had to interfere," Miranda groused as they walked. "When you gave me Shepard's body, I told you that was the end of your involvement."
"I…", Liara stammered, blinking back the lingering pain from the blow to her head, "I do not abandon those I care about." She briefly wondered if there was anyone that Miranda cared about anyone enough to stand by them in that way before concluding that it didn't much matter right now.
"Well, you just better hope she cares as much about you," the dark-skinned human laughed. "Miranda here is betting she'll do anything we want to save her little alien slut."
"She won't," Liara protested weakly, "She won't give in to you." She hoped it was true. The thought of her love for the commander being used to control her was unbearable to the Shadow Broker.
"We'll see," Miranda said coldly as they entered a large storage chamber. "I'll wait here at the rendezvous point," she snapped at Brooks, "You go check on the ship. We've already lost enough men today and I don't want any more surprises."
Brooks gave Miranda a mocking salute and climbed up a nearby ladder. "And if I'm very lucky," the operative thought to herself, "Somebody will be waiting there for you and they'll blow your bloody head off."
The trooper carrying Liara tossed her to the ground next to a pile of storage crates. She groaned softly at the impact, and for an instant Miranda felt a twinge of regret. "You may not believe it, Liara," she told the asari, "But I don't particularly enjoy doing any of this. You have simply left me no choice."
"You always have a choice," Liara insisted.
"You're awfully naïve for someone who thought she could be the Shadow Broker," Miranda commented, thinking with a silent shudder of what would be done to her sister if she failed here. "The salvation of the galaxy and the betterment of the human race demand sacrifices. My discomfort with the methods involved is irrelevant. We all do what we must, and soon enough, so will Shepard."
Even as Liara opened her mouth to reply, something exploded a few feet away from her. The concussive shot left her auditory canals ringing but she could still see clearly enough when a brace of bullets ripped through the huge man who had carried her to the storage room. The other two troopers staggered in the direction of the shots but seconds later, Liara heard something explode in their midst and wet chunks of blood and bone spilled across the floor near her.
Shepard! Her lover had come for her. Liara started to rise but she felt a strong hand clamp down on her shoulder and the hard barrel of a gun press into her temple. "Oh, no you don't," Miranda's harsh voice warned from behind her. "Stop right there, Shepard," the operative yelled out. "Step out where I can see you or your bloody girlfriend will be short a head."
From out of the smoke, Shepard emerged, holding the rifle Liara had left for her aboard the Normandy. Her green eyes met Liara's blue ones and she tried to convey a silent reassurance to her lover. There was blood on the asari's pale blue forehead and the commander fought hard to keep her anger at Miranda under control. "Let Liara go," she snapped.
"I don't think so, Shepard." This situation had gone to hell in a hand basket, but the operative believed she could still salvage it. She'd planned to deliver this ultimatum from a safe distance but she could make do. "You better put down that gun and start behaving yourself."
"Behave myself?" Shepard didn't drop the gun. As frightened as she was for Liara, she couldn't disarm herself, for both of their sakes.
"Let me be clear," Miranda said icily. "You will turn command of the Normandy back over to Cerberus. You will go where we tell you to go. You will fight who we tell you to fight. And you will fuck who we bloody well tell you to fuck. And if you behave yourself, we'll let you see your alien lover once in a while."
"And if I don't? What'll you do? Kill her? How will you control me then?" Even saying the words terrified Shepard, but she had to stay strong. If Miranda knew how scarred she was of losing Liara, they'd both be doomed.
"Kill her, no. Not unless we have to," Miranda replied. "But there are so many other ways we have to make her pay for your defiance. So many experiments we could run…"
Behind her, Liara could feel Miranda's attention waver slightly as she locked eyes with Shepard and the asari made her move. Hurling herself backwards, she slammed the back of her crest into the operative's torso. Miranda was staggered, but her finger reflexively squeezed down on the trigger even as Liara raised her barriers.
A wave of pain unlike any she had ever experienced before ripped through her. It felt like her head had been dipped in oil and lit on fire, but though the impact of the pistol thundered against the shield protecting her skull, she was still alive.
When she heard Liara scream in pain, Shepard fired. The burst from her Indra caught Miranda in the shoulder and the operative dropped the archeologist. Ignoring the shredded remains of her left arm, she rolled away from Liara and scampered for cover, trying to lose herself in the stacks of crates.
Shepard didn't give chase. Instead, she raced to her lover's side, pulling the asari into her arms and releasing the binders holding her wrists. For months, she'd dreamed of little but holding Liara again, but not like this. The Shadow Broker was still twitching in pain, and Shepard's heart almost stopped as she checked over her body to see how badly she'd been hurt.
"Oh God," the commander choked out, "I'm so sorry. Are you… what did they do to you?"
Liara touched her fingers to the collar, her throat still raw from screaming. "This…"
"I'll get it off you," she promised. "You'll be okay."
"Find… find her," Liara panted through the receding pain. "I'll be all right."
Shepard picked back up her gun and scanned the room, listening for Miranda's footsteps. She hated the thought of leaving Liara's side, but she had to make sure they were safe before she could take care of her lover. The commander had let Miranda walk away once before and it had almost cost her everything.
Miranda scampered towards the ladder that led to the landing pad, blood flowing out of her ruined shoulder. She was no match for Shepard, not in her current state...
The hatch above her opened and she saw Maya starring down at her. "We're clear. You ready to leave yet, Lawson?"
"Brooks!", she blurted out, "Shepard's here and she has Liara. We have to…"
"I don't think so," Maya interrupted her. She had had quite enough of the woman's incompetence.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you've failed Cerberus for the last time. Don't worry," she sneered as she dropped the hatch behind her, "I'll send Oriana your regards."
Hope you enjoyed the big showdown. A few more twists to go, and then some reunion sex.