Liara
"Well, that could have gone better."
"It might have gone worse as well," Samara replied mildly. "A small victory is a victory still."
"They do say that a good compromise leaves everyone at least a little bit unhappy," Palla added, though she didn't sound any more enthusiastic about it than Liara felt.
"Then this must have been a compromise to end all compromises," Liara said, allowing some of her frustration to enter her voice. "But perhaps you're right."
"Heh, maybe," Grunt rumbled. "But I still think you should have let me kick a few heads in. That'd get their attention. Would've been a hell of a lot more fun too."
"Please: do not tempt me."
Asari of all ages stopped and turned to stare as the group left the skybox and begin to make their way down through the arena, towards the exit and the dropship. Children watched, wide-eyed, clutching at toys or dolls or the legs of adults. Adolescents and maidens nudged one another and bent over to whisper in each other's ears. Matrons pointed the group out to their daughters, some hoisting them up onto shoulders for a better view. Cameras winked and omnitools flared. Some called out to them with questions, others with thanks. Some even cheered.
All told, the experience was a surreal one, and more than slightly uncomfortable.
Liara tried to convince herself, even as the crowd lining the lower terraces started to swell from the hundreds and into the thousands, that the interest they'd managed to attract stemmed entirely from the sheer novelty of the sight they presented - no more, no less. After all, mixed in with the four commandos and three more commonplace asari were a Justicar and five battle-scarred, heavily-armed krogan. She had to admit that they made a highly unusual, even impressive company. That had been the whole point, to 'flaunt her powerbase', such as it was. The one rather irritated Doctor Liara T'Soni, archaeologist, information broker and disfigured daughter of a disgraced politician could not possibly be the one they were all pointing at, let alone cheering for. That was clearly some other Liara, the shouts of 'Normandy! Normandy!' aimed at Samara and Grunt. Never mind that their parts in the war had largely been played elsewhere.
Her moment of blessed self-delusion, however, lasted only until one heavily-pregnant matron dared to actually approach their group, seeking audience. When Liara indicated to her guards to let her through, the other asari grabbed Liara's good hand between her two own - tightly, so tightly, as if clinging for dear life - and tearfully thanked her for saving her bondmate, one of a group that Liara had apparently evacuated from some planet she couldn't even remember having read about. The couple, the matron said, were going to name their daughter after her.
Jacob Taylor's daughter was going to be named after Shepard, she remembered. Wrex, likewise, had bestowed the name upon his first-born, and Liara had heard similar rumblings back amongst alliance staff on and above Earth, and even in their camp in Armali. And now an asari Liara had never laid eyes upon before was going to name her firstborn daughter not after Shepard, but after her? Was that how it was going to be, going forward? A thousand new Shepards a year each year, until the memory finally faded? A hundred new Liaras? Would there be a Garrus in every dozen turian children? A score of Tali'Zorahs, Wrexes, Ashleys and Jameses? Perhaps even a Javik or two? What of the Edis and Jeffs and Karins and Samanthas?
She should be proud, she supposed, or even flattered that complete strangers thought well enough of her to give their child her name. There were far, far worse legacies to leave the galaxy after all. Wasn't that what Shepard had said, when remarking on the child of Jacob Taylor and Doctor Cole? But Shepard's humour about the whole naming issue back then had been bittersweet, laced with a sadness Liara hadn't understood until this very moment. Shepard's life, even her very name belonged to other people more than it belonged to her, and there was no way to take it back.
She had never wanted to be a public figure.
At a near complete loss for what to say or do in response to the matron's announcement, Liara managed little more than a bemused 'I'm honoured' before Aurelia gently prised her hands free and ushered the other asari away. The words, at least, seemed to suffice, judging by the matron's teary smile, and Liara thought that she'd managed to keep the heartbeat of abject discomfort and indecision from showing on her face, but it was a near thing.
She was simply not cut out to be a politician. That was the long and short of it. She was not a people person, for one. Oh, it wasn't that she didn't like people. Broadly speaking. And within moderation. It was just that she wasn't really very good at them.
And, for two, she no longer had the patience to simply sit and argue endlessly around in circles. Five hours of talking today and for what? A minor concession that she practically had to wrest out at knifepoint, a flat rejection of her other ideas and an invitation to be condescended to again in a few days' time. Little enough, as her mother would say. Little enough, when she- when their people needed decisive action, and to reach out a hand to the rest of the galaxy to take and give whatever help could be found.
Liara had known, going into the meeting, that Vibianna was a staunch insularist - Benezia had said as much, confirming what Liara's own light dossier had to say about the matriarch. Unfortunately, the war had done little to change her fundamental outlook, and she had been strongly against the idea of turning to the other races for assistance. "The asari cannot afford to be seen as weak", she'd said, "especially now", and the others in the little 'council' had followed the lead of the eldest in their company.
It was idiocy, as far as Liara was concerned, pure and simple. Everyone with half a brain already knew what dire straits the Republics were in, or could guess. But try convincing Vibianna of that. It would seem that even a war to end wars could not cure their people's leaders of their wilful blindness to the realities of the now.
Liara's entourage - and there really was no avoiding the term now - folded back in around her, sealing her safely away from the growing mob, and they resumed their march for the exit. It was a move that did not help at all in the surrealism stakes. While Liara might been part of such groups, dozens, even hundreds of times before, many of them larger than this, she'd never been the focal point before. She'd always been a little detail in Benezia's retinue, a child holding her mother's hand and peering out at the world through a sea of legs, or a youth trailing a step or two behind her, surreptitiously trying to play a game or read a book on her omni-tool and occasionally crashing into people's backs through inattention. Indeed, any guards assigned to her from her mother's company were invariably known, with some amusement, as 'the Little Detail'.
She had never thought it particularly witty.
And now here she was, the big detail rather than the little one, in her mother's place, her mother's role, exactly where she'd more than once promised herself she'd never be. And it slowly dawned on Liara, too, that she was trying to do things, here, now, as her mother would have done them, once upon a time. The whole meeting idea had 'Benezia' written all over it.
"Liara! Liara! Nor-man-dy!" It was becoming a chant now, a thousand voices coming together as one, the noise of it vibrating up her legs and into her chest. "Nor-man-dy!"
She was not Benezia.
Perhaps, then, she was going about this in entirely the wrong way. She had come back to Thessia because the system was broken. Could she truly try to fix it whilst working within its confines? And even if she could, could she do it quickly enough?
What would Shepard do in her situation? Knowing her, she'd probably employ that oh-so very human idiom of seeking forgiveness and not permission. As philosophies went, it was pretty much the antithesis to traditional asari customs. It had also proved, Liara had to admit, hugely effective on more than one occasion. Weren't the areas surrounding Armali now relatively clear of Reaper forces because she'd had the nerve to invite a full company of krogan to Thessia? In violation of a centuries-old treaty?
She had the contacts already - better contacts than anyone else could currently claim. Why couldn't she just do, and force the issue?
"Liara! Liara, please!"
A trio of maidens leaned dangerously over the railing of the tier they were descending past, one frantically waving a datapad and stylus. An autograph. She could do that and did, awkward and crabbed, while Palla held the pad for her, and flashed a smile.
And, perhaps, if she was going about creating change in the wrong way, perhaps she was looking in for support in all the wrong places too. It had always been, in asari society, that change was driven from the top down. The matriarchs were the ones who had the time and the inclination to consider new ideas, debate new policies, research history, analyse precedent and conduct detailed studies into the implications of the most subtle changes to law. While matrons and maidens of at least a hundred years could and occasionally did put forward new proposals, the wise ones ensured that they had the backing of at least one matriarch before they did so. To do otherwise to was openly court failure, for all support would melt away if just one, single matriarch said 'no' and went unopposed by any of her sisters. Asari were taught from the breast to trust and rely upon the wisdom and judgement of their elders, and it was so ingrained deeply within their collective psyche that to do otherwise was almost unthinkable.
But the matriarchs had been the ones who'd led them astray. The ones who'd sat and dithered while the other worlds burned until it was too late to save their own. Who'd lied and lied and lied to them about their history and the basis for their accomplishments for untold generations, and kept lying until it was almost too late.
The noise grew exponentially as they reached the lowest tier, until it had a physical presence it felt like they all had to fight against with every step. The crowd began to press around them in earnest, too, and her guards began to push back.
"This is too much!" Aurelia shouted as one of the krogan - Murn, she thought - gave another group of autograph seekers a particularly hard shove as the crowd surged forward. Push for the exit!"
Her voice was all but lost in the din, but the flare of her biotic barrier was not, and the formation shifted around Liara, and someone put a hand on her head, forcing it down, and the other in the small of her back, directing her steps.
She probably should have been afraid.
Vibianna was more than eight hundred years her senior, and had really only agreed to see her to see if she could use her. If she could control her. If the meeting was any indication as to how the other surviving matriarchs would react – and it seemed consistent with the way Cyone was ignoring her – she didn't and may well never have their support save, perhaps, for the ones already outside of or marginalised by the establishment. Those like her father.
But then she didn't necessarily need their support, did she? She was Liara T'Soni, war veteran, Normandy crew member, architect of the Crucible, evacuation coordinator, relief organiser and the improbable hero of a hundred vids. If Garrus Vakarian was Palaven's favourite son, then she was certainly Thessia's favourite daughter. She had the goodwill of the masses – the crowds today a testament to that fact, dangerous over-enthusiasm aside. And, while the matriarchs had always been the ones who'd made the proposals, equally, it had always been the matrons and maidens who'd had to be won over to carry the vote. The same matrons and maidens that were shouting her name.
The question was: how could she harness that goodwill and turn it into something tangible? And do it without alienating everyone holding power?
The question stayed with her as they finally passed through the barricade, then under the archway and into the passage beneath the arena, and she was allowed to stand upright again. The shouts and cheers of the crowd echoed off the brightly coloured mosaics of the corridor until they were swallowed up by the sheer weight of concrete and steel, and then left behind entirely as they passed through another barricade and stepped clear, onto the grand, swooping walkway leading down to the central park. It was there that she directed they pause for a few seconds, to catch their breath, taken in the view.
Cianna had been one of the smallest of the city-states before the war, really only notable for its successful skyball team, and had apparently been a lower priority target for the Reapers' bombardment as a result. It was easy to forget what green looked like, living in Armali, easy to forget the sight of any colours, really, other than grey and brown and blue, but there were still parks here, trees and flowers and birds and other living things, tents and shelters arranged in neat, colourful rows. Perhaps none of the great skyscrapers still stood, but many of the smaller buildings had survived. They had power, intermittently, and water enough for the almost one million calling the city home. Even the arena, a designated emergency shelter for forty thousand and now crammed full with over fifty, had come through almost intact.
That wasn't to say that there weren't problems. Liara knew that the million asari in residence in the city were almost entirely dependent upon aid from the surviving colony worlds, a situation that had led to strict rationing, and with that had to come: looting, theft, extortion and black market. Sanitation, like in their own camp, remained another issue they could see and smell, even here, and Vibianna admitted that they'd started to see the emergence and spread of disease.
And yet Vibianna and the rest refused to seek help from outside of the Republics. She'd even seemed reluctant to barter what they had left to offer the greater community within it. Perhaps they had little in the way of physical resources, but they had people who could be put to work if they could be moved off the planet. But no, Vibianna's city – her position – came first.
Liara shook her in resigned frustration, and gestured for their little company to move out again. They made their way briskly down the walkway and through the park and the rows of its camp. The press of people was considerably lighter, most residents only catching a glimpse of them as they strode past, but they still attracted stares and shouts. And there, having a heated argument with the two krogan left behind to guard the shuttle-
Reporters.
Liara sighed as the trio turned and spotted them, and sent their cameras whirring over. The sigh turned into a barely-suppressed groan when she spied the trendy white spiralling tattoos over bright blue markings that could only mean Cearra Ce'Molla, perhaps the closest thing she'd ever encountered to an asari Khalisah al-Jilani. The other two were not people she recognised, but their cameras bore prominent and well-known logos, so it was unlikely that they've give her much of a better time.
Aurelia glanced back towards her for guidance, and, for a moment, Liara considered having her entourage bull straight past the tiny press corps and into the shuttle without so much as a word.
She hated dealing with the media even more than Shepard did (an achievement in and of itself), and her infrequent appearances before Emily Wong's cameras aboard the Normandy had been the patient result of Wong and Shepard's combined pleading, coaxing, coaching, arguing, and, on one notable occasion, flagrant bribery. They'd all had to do their turn, the Normandy crew, even Javik, once his very existence had been declassified.
The extensive outtakes from that particular interview had kept the entire crew amused for over a week. Even now, all one had to do was mention the word 'airlock' with the right inflection to provoke Liara to an inappropriate fit of giggles. Shepard had laughed, face-down in a pillow, until she'd cried. And then cried and cried into Liara's shoulder because there hadn't really been anything funny about it at all, when you got right down to it, just a man out of time and out of place with nothing left to live for but death.
Ce'Molla, however, was no affable Emily Wong, and this most certainly was not the controlled environment of the Normandy, with Shepard standing by to soothe her nerves away. There would be no ability to vet the footage before its release, to control the context of how what she said was presented. There was no one in her company that she could put before the cameras but herself. She was on her own. Utterly.
But there was an opportunity here, if only she could seize it. What Shepard had said, when talking about why she'd allowed Wong on board her ship in the first place, was that the press was like a fire: you could either tame it and make it work for you, or you could ignore it and risk it burning your house down - and you with it. Her mother had said something similar once, also noting that matriarchs since the dawn of time had bemoaned the intrusiveness and obtuseness of the press in one breath and, in the very next, complained that nobody really cared to listen to what was being said in the first place.
Liara shook her head, ever so slightly; Aurelia shrugged and rolled her eyes, but gestured for the column to slow, then halt. The moment the group came within range, the trio of reporters began to call out, all talking at once, jostling to be heard and seen first.
"Cearra Ce'Molla, Republics Galactic Journal! Doctor, can I have a minute of your time?"
"Doctor T'Soni! Tekla Maris, Citadel News Network. Can you answer some questions for us?"
"Lasira T'Brola from the Parnitha Tribune! Doctor T'Soni, a few questions, if I may-"
It is never wise to allow a reporter to dictate the terms of discourse, her mother had remarked once. Benezia had a knack for gracefully deflecting ambushes such as this and, as a general rule, required reporters to make an appointment to see her in any case. An appointment was obviously not particularly workable in the current situation, but the underlying idea was a sound one.
She drew herself up, fixed an amiable expression on her face and stepped forward, out from her entourage. She had to turn slightly to the side to keep them all in her field of vision, and did not miss the looks of surprise that flickered across their faces at the sight of her injuries, or Tekla's sudden, sharp inhalation of breath. That was good, in a way, she told herself. They were slightly off balance.
"I would be happy to answer a few questions," she said as pleasantly as she could manage, "in, say, five minutes? I would like to get my people settled first."
Ce'Molla, unsurprisingly, was the first to recover and protest.
"Doctor T'Soni-" she began, but Liara quickly and firmly cut her off.
"Five minutes. Thank you."
Her little entourage folded back in around her as if they'd rehearsed the manoeuvre a hundred times before, and she was quickly whisked into the relative safety of the dropship. There was a general relaxing of muscles and lowering of weapons as the hatch swung down and shut, sealing them safely away. Liara let out a breath she hadn't even known she was holding, aware that her mouth had gone dry and she had the strange, slightly light-headed feeling of an unneeded adrenaline surge. She braced her hands on the interior wall to steady herself and took deep, calming breath.
"Deftly done," Samara said, moving to stand beside her.
Liara shook her head without looking up.
"It could have been better. I am quite certain that they can spin that, and Kerst and Sharrn arguing with them, in any way that they please. And they will have more time to prepare for me now."
A hand touched her right arm. She turned and looked up into Aurelia's concerned eyes.
"We could just go now, if you want to," the commando suggested. "There's no way they could stop us."
"It would look very bad if I did. But, honestly, it is a tempting notion. I'd rather face a thresher maw than stand in front of a camera."
"Hah! You and me both," Grunt boomed in. "Reporters are hard. They don't shut up and you're not allowed to eat 'em. Thresher maws, though - dead easy. Did Shepard ever tell you about the time we killed one on foot?"
"Yes." She dropped her hands and turned to face him, fixing a smile on her face. "Though she said that it was primarily you that did the killing. All she did, she said, was hand you ammunition."
The young krogan broke into a face-splitting grin. Grunt was a strange one, of that there was no doubt. One moment, he was all krogan, an efficient, disciplined, relentless killer who delighted in battle and the shedding of blood. The next - and particularly any time he started talking about Shepard or their mutually shared hobby of model-building - he was all wide-eyed, bouncing enthusiasm. It was actually kind of... cute. And more than slightly disturbing.
"My Battlemaster's always been too modest. I couldn't have done it without her."
Samara gave a discreet little cough.
"I believe that Garrus was part of your krannt for your Rite as well, young Grunt," she said mildly. "He deserves some credit too."
Grunt waved an armoured hand almost apologetically.
"Well, I guess he didn't do too badly either. For a turian."
"Wait, you killed a thresher maw with Commander Shepard and the new turian Primarch?" Griete asked incredulously.
"Yeah, but that was just a little thing," Grunt said dismissively. "The real story's the Collector Base. Now that was a fight!"
"The most exhilarating and demanding day of my life," Samara agreed with a smile. "There was many a time when I thought we might perish, but the Commander somehow found a way to get us through."
Liara closed her eye and tuned them out as they began to recount the tale of the daring and decidedly suicidal raid. She'd heard the story before, of course, but was one whose retelling had never brought her pleasure. She hadn't been there for Shepard on that mission. She'd been too caught up in her pursuit of the Shadow Broker.
She pushed that thought from her mind too, and focused instead on the impending interview, trying to remember all of the advice she'd been given, by Shepard, by Wong, by her mother. Have a simple, clear message, and stick to it. She had an idea for the message now, she thought, but conveying it clearly would be the real test. Keep your answers short, don't say any more than you have to, don't speculate. That one was always problematic - she tended to ramble when she got nervous, and often arrived at a topic completely different to the one she had started on. Expect the questions you really don't want them to ask, or didn't think they even knew to ask about, and have answers prepared. Her mother's survival. Her status as the Shadow Broker. Her relationship with Shepard. Shepard's condition. How she was horrendously out of her depth and wished that she could stop time or turn it back somehow or simply just vanish into the night.
She took in and let out another deep breath, and opened her eye. Well, she was as ready as she'd ever be.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, nodding to the storytellers and their rapt audience of krogan and asari alike, "but it's time. Samara, Auerlia, Griete; with me please."
The reporters had gained a sizeable audience by the time they re-emerged, and one of the two she wasn't familiar with - Tekla, she thought - was busy grabbing sound bites from them. She stopped almost immediately, though, when Liara appeared, and re-joined her colleagues. There was another moment of jostling between the three for the best camera angles, and a third as they belatedly realised that they were all going to have to stand slightly to Liara's left if they wanted her to see them. Once they were settled, however, the introductions had been repeated and the basic pleasantries exchanged, the impromptu press conference kicked off.
The first few questions from all three of them were easy enough to field and answer straight from the heart. She talked about discovering the plans for the Crucible, and how grateful she was that the galactic community had pulled together to build it in time – with a personal thanks to all of the asari who had lent their long-cultured skills to the project. She caught herself rambling a bit when they came to talking about the extinction cycles her earlier research had revealed, and also caught herself secretly (and rather uncharitably) hoping that some of her old professors would see the broadcast. The questions got harder to answer when the topic turned to the closing days of the war, not least because she found her throat closing up on some of the answers, but it was when they got into her more recent activities that she had to take a second or two to think carefully about each answer before she gave it.
"Were you aware that the presence of a full company of krogan on Thessia is a direct violation of the Treaty of Lusia?" Ce'Molla asked pointedly.
"I am aware of the Treaty, yes."
"And yet you invited this 'Aralakh Company' to Armali and allowed them to engage in military exercises upon Thessian soil?"
"The krogan are our allies," Liara replied, slightly surprised by how reasonable she managed to keep her voice, "and it would not have been possible to win the war without them. Aralakh Company is a proud and noble unit who represent the very best that the krogan military has to offer. They came to Armali at my express invitation to help our own forces with the ground cleanup. We owe them our thanks, not our suspicion."
"But doesn't the galaxy have the right to be suspicious?" Lasira interrupted. "With the genophage cured, don't we all run the risk of a new Krogan Rebellion?"
"I don't think that anyone wants to see a repeat of the Krogan Rebellions - least of all the krogan."
"The krogan have never been a people remarked upon for their foresight but are well known for their brutality and love of conflict. How can we possibly trust-"
The smooth, reasonable tone of Tekla's voice belied the overt racism of her question, and Liara was sure that if she still had her other eye, it would have started twitching. She had seen the ancient city of the maw, had been permitted to sit at the Urdnot Bakara and listen to her sing a fragment of the memory chant of the Clan Urdnot. Both were great works, made to last ages.
"I understand that clan leaders and shamans are meeting even now on Tuchanka to determine the best way forward for their people," she cut in forcefully. "Obviously I cannot speculate as to what the exact outcome of the discussion will be, but Warlord Urdnot Wrex has said, publicly, that it if the krogan don't take this chance to learn from the mistakes of their ancestors, then they cannot be surprised if the galaxy decides to teach them another, more permanent lesson. And Urdnot Bakara, who speaks for the female clans, has said that any krogan who now seeks retribution for the outcome of the Rebellions will be denied breeding rights indefinitely."
"Is that what your meeting with Matriarch Vibianna today was about?" Ce'Molla asked. When Liara didn't answer immediately, she pressed: "I understand that the Matriarch has been very displeased by your actions, not just in breaking the Treaty."
"Cearra," Liara said evenly, "I'm afraid the truth is that I've been very displeased by hers."
A pause from the assembled press and spectators met her reply, and Liara felt her heart start to race again. Maidens, even famous maidens, simply did not criticise prominent Matriarchs in public. But this was it, her one, golden opportunity to state her case, if only she could frame it properly. She needed to draw a distinction between the government and the people somehow. It wouldn't do - nor would it be accurate - to suggest that everyone was as culpable.
"Doctor T'Soni, are you saying that you disapprove of Matriarch Vibianna's handling of the recovery effort?" Cearra's expression of disbelief was almost theatrical.
"I am." She looked away from Cearra's incredulous face and directly into the hovering cameras. "You know that I advocated strongly and publicly for greater asari involvement in the war effort from the very outset. But I was only one voice among many, and a maiden at that, and, as asari, we are taught from a very young age to place our trust in the wisdom and guidance of our matriarchs. When they speak, we listen. When they tell us to act, we act. When they advise us to stay our hand, we wait. And when they are wrong, we suffer."
She glanced quickly around at the reporters, the crowd, seeing interest, confusion and suspicion there, but nothing to preclude her continuing.
"Our leaders were wrong," she said, "and now we are suffering. Not only were they wrong, but the broader matriarchy was wilfully blind to the realities of the situation until it was almost too late. As a people, we have a well-earned reputation as the diplomats and peacemakers of the galaxy, and yet, when the Reapers came, our first order of business was to look to our own and stay removed from the alliance Commander Shepard worked so hard to build. This, to me, represents no less than a catastrophic failure of judgement and leadership.
"And if that was not bad enough, I see this repeated again even now in the likes of those such as Matriarch Vibianna, who is far more interested in maintaining the illusion of control in one city than helping the Republics and the greater galaxy rebuild, someone who is still wilfully blind to the realities of what must be done now. It is utterly inexcusable. I would go so far as to call on her and those of her ilk to stand down."
She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart, thaw some of the ice of anger from her voice.
"But while our government may have failed to act appropriately during the war, our people did not. An asari discovered the Crucible and thousands of asari engineers and scientists worked on it from its very earliest days. Asari colonies housed, fed and clothed uncounted numbers of refugees of all species. Asari corporations and manufacturing worlds built and supplied ships and munitions and other supplies vital to the war effort. Asari commandos fought and died in the thousands to save civilians from other races on worlds light-years away from their own homes and families, not because they were told to by our government, but because they and their communities thought that it was right.
"That is the spirit that we need now, as we rebuild. And so, to my sister asari, I say: let our actions be our words once more. The need is urgent, and there will time enough for debate and analysis later. To the rest of the galaxy, I say: help us, and let us help you. We must all work together, now, to win the peace, even as we came together to win the war."
Liara became aware, as she stopped speaking, that almost the entire assemblage - reporters, swelling audience and two of her three-person guard - were staring at her as if she'd grown an extra head. The only one amongst them who appeared unmoved was Samara, who watched her with an impassive face and eyes like ice.
"Thank you," she concluded with a nod towards the cameras, "and that will be all for today,"
Too late, the reporters and then the audience recovered themselves, shouting questions, and then actually trying to follow her back onto the ship as she retreated. Aurelia and Griete held them back for a time, but it wasn't until Samara put up a biotic barrier that they themselves were able to make good their own escape.
"I see now why you wanted my Oath," Samara murmured as the hatch cycled shut behind them, and unreadable coolness of the Justicar's eyes made Liara very glad that she had it. "You walk a dangerous path, young one. We Justicars are forbidden from taking part in the political sphere, but that does not mean that I do not take an interest."
"Mother says that every action is political, especially the one to abstain from politics," Liara said distantly.
The post-adrenaline backwash was even worse this time. Now that she was safe she was starting to feel light-headed and decidedly shaky on her feet.
"A fair point," Samara conceded with a gracious nod of her head. "But I take an interest because I am sworn to uphold our laws and norms. What you said today would be sedition, viewed in one light."
"I know," Liara interrupted wearily. "But these are unusual times, Justicar, and our laws have always been what we made them. Today's sedition may be tomorrow's truth."
She spared a glance towards Aurelia and Greite, who regarded her with a mixture of concern and something she thought might be admiration, and then found the rest of her entourage, krogan and asari, still listening with rapt attention to Grunt as he wove his tales of adventure and glory and, she suspected, gore and overlarge explosions.
"And now, if you will excuse me, I need a moment to myself."
She didn't gibber, in the end, as she feared she might when she locked herself in the ship's head, but she did have to sit down and hug herself until the trembling had subsided and the tears had dried. Goddess! She could not have just essentially - and very publicly - declared war on the matriarchy, on her own government! Sedition, Samara had called it, and she wouldn't be wrong. Doing that would be insane. She was an archaeologist, for Athame's sake, not… whatever this was. She belonged out in the field, doing research, or perhaps in the backrooms of a quiet museum somewhere, cataloguing and cleaning and writing. She should really be anywhere but here, doing anything but this. She should be, most of all, with Shepard, making good on their mantra.
She managed to pull herself back together before they reached Armali, and none of the company made any mention of her absence for the flight home in any case. She thanked them all and dismissed them for dinner, then made her own way back through the pink and gold light of dusk to her unofficial office in the cargo hold of her freighter. It was with a heavy sigh that she dropped into her chair and powered up her terminals. It would be another late night tonight - of that she was certain. She had a very strong feeling that she would need to have the decks cleared as much as possible before, as Shepard would have said, the shit hit the fan tomorrow.
She was mid-way through one of her agent's reports on suspected Cerberus activity in Artemis Tau when the Broker interface flicked over to her 'public' one, a few seconds before she heard approaching footsteps and a voice:
"I've brought you some dinner, my Lady."
Liara sighed, but there was a smile behind it as she looked up at the intruder, swinging her monitors aside.
"Please, Aurelia," she chided, "if you can't call me 'Doctor', then call me 'Liara'. At least in private."
"Yes, my La- I mean Doc- I mean, Liara."
The younger asari ducked her head slightly, abashed, and Liara wondered how someone who was so confident on the battlefield and amongst her comrades could be so ill at ease in her presence. Liara didn't think that she was particularly threatening except when she wanted to be.
"But, here: dinner," the commando continued. "You should eat something. You need to keep your strength up."
"You don't have to do this sort of thing, you know," she said, accepting the pack and checking the label. A number fifteen, which meant spiced kletik soup and unleavened bread, both meant to be eaten cold. Not what she would have chosen, given the option, but oh well. "I am quite capable of fetching my own meals."
"You seem to forget an awful lot. And, anyway, I'm your guard," Aurelia said, and there was an odd note of defiance in her voice. "It's my job to look out for you."
"And you do it very well too," Liara assured her with another smile. "Have you eaten?"
The commando nodded.
"I did, with the others in the dining hall, my La- I mean Doc- I mean" Aurelia's expression became pained, and she briefly covered her eyes with her hand. "Oh, Goddess! I'm just going to go right now."
"Okay..?"
"But, um, can we talk about your security arrangements tomorrow though, please? People now that you're here now, and after your, uh, speech I think we can probably expect more visitors, and some of them might not be friendly."
"I suppose," Liara conceded, not quite able to keep the frown from her face. She looked down at the ration pack again, and then back up at her guard. "Do you think I did the right thing, today?"
"It's not my place-"
"You have every right to have an opinion, Aurelia. Even if it is different to my own. What do you think?"
The young commando wet her lips in apparent nervousness.
"Well... honestly… I think that we could have done more during the war. The Republics, I mean. Matriarch Lidanya taught that it's sometimes necessary to throw the full weight of your body behind the point of your spear rather than hold back and feint at arm's length. Maybe things would have gone better if we'd committed our forces while they were still intact instead of waiting until they'd been damaged and scattered. And I think a lot of us in service were frustrated that we weren't doing more to help out. And I heard what the matriarchs were saying to you today in the meeting, about how we'd look bad if we don't do this on our own, which, really, is a complete load of varrenshit. People are dying still, and they don't want to look bad. Maybe that's the longer view, and maybe seeming weak now will come back to bite us on the ass in a few hundred years' time, but I doubt it. So, um, yes." Aurelia tugged at the high collar of her leathers. "I guess, I think you're right."
"Well, there's one person who believes in me, I guess," Liara replied, feeling oddly relieved. It was one thing to believe it, she supposed, and quite another to have someone agree with you. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Aurelia said, and smiled. She had quite a pretty smile, Liara noted, in a girlish kind of way, with dimples on her cheeks. "But, um, anyway, I'd better get going. We'll talk security tomorrow, yes?"
"Tomorrow," Liara agreed. "Sleep soundly, Aurelia."
"You too... Liara."
Liara watched her go, and then returned her attention to her monitors with a bemused smile and a slight shake of her head. Her smile, though, fell as soon she opened the first of the priority flagged messages that had come in through her non-Broker inboxes. She read it once, twice, three times, and then ran a trace on the sender, just to be sure. She couldn't be wrong - not about this. When that was done, she sat and stared at the screen for several minutes, considering her options, before loading the message onto handy datapad, closing her terminals and setting out into the cool dark of the night.
Unpleasant news, in her experience, was best dealt with sooner rather than later. And this, unfortunately, was exceedingly unpleasant.