Chapter 106 - Post Thessian Stress Disorder
Councilor Tevos appears to have recovered since their last talk, the asari matron looking refreshed and hopeful as Shepard greets her on the QEC connection. "Commander, a pleasure to see you alive and well," the councilor smiles. "I trust it means your mission was successful."
Shepard's heart sinks immediately. "I... I'm afraid not." Tevos' eyes widen at her statement, the asari staggering visibly from disbelief that the mighty and omnipotent Shepard is not immune to failure. "Aria was right about Cerberus. We had to battle massive Reaper forces every step of the way to reach the temple, and when we finally broke through, we... I forgot all about Cerberus and let my guard down. They took us by surprise."
"So... is this the end, then? Our people are doomed, without any hope?" Tevos looks around fearfully, wringing her hands.
"Not necessarily," Morgan says, managing a hopeful smile. "They stole the Catalyst from under our noses, but I plan to recover it. And I have a plan on how to track Cerberus down... but I'm going to need your help. It will take several hours for us to reach the Citadel and every moment is of importance now."
"I will do everything it takes, Shepard, anything that is within my power is yours," Tevos says solemnly.
"Councilor, you will shortly receive a brief message from me, with instructions how to send it using a safe channel from the Spectre terminal on the Citadel. I need to get in touch with someone who can get me closer to Cerberus, and they are our only hope. Can you do this yourself or get one of the Spectres to do it?"
"I'll take care of it myself, Shepard, as soon as I get your message," the asari nods.
"Excellent, that will help a great deal, Councilor," Shepard says. "There's one more thing that I need to ask of you." Tevos again nods without a doubt in her eyes. "I traveled to Thessia against the direct orders of my superior officer, Fleet Admiral Hackett. He will be very displeased about my insubordination, and he might demand that I drop my attempts to recover the Catalyst and instead focus on the task he had put before me."
"What is this task?" Tevos asks.
"You might remember the entire Leviathan of Dis controversy with the batarians," Shepard starts to explain, receiving a quick nod in reply. "Turns out, not only were the batarians studying a dead Reaper, but this Reaper had been killed by his own kin gone rogue, the 'real' Leviathan. Admiral Hackett is obsessed with the idea of finding this rogue Reaper and enlisting its aid against its brothers."
"That sounds like..." Councilor Tevos blinks rapidly several times, not sure what to say. "I'm sorry, I don't quite know what to think of it all. It seems highly dangerous to trust this rogue Reaper."
"Well, exactly, Councilor," Shepard smiles. "That's why I need your help. I'm sure you will agree that it is in all our interests that I continue to pursue the Catalyst, instead of spending my time trying to find this Leviathan." Tevos nods yet again. "So... this is what I need you to do..."
Not even a few minutes have passed, and Shepard has only just managed to leave the War Room, when her comms buzz and she hears EDI's voice. "Commander, Admiral Hackett wants to speak with you on the QEC. And allow me to add, he does not sound happy."
"Is ignoring him an option, do you think, EDI?" Shepard wonders briefly.
"I would express strong doubts in that regard," EDI replies predictably. "Commander, it might interest you that during your absence he tried to reach you four times. He also inquired about the whereabouts of Dr. Ann Bryson."
"Well... I guess you told him that we have her. I wouldn't want anyone to lie on my behalf and get into trouble."
"I informed him that she is onboard of the ship. They have since spoken twice," EDI informs her emotionlessly.
"Fuck... okay, I see," Shepard grumbles, turning around and walking back towards the comm room, feeling her shoulders slumping at the expected tongue lashing. "Sir, you wanted to speak with me?" she asks, having activated the QEC and watching the admiral's face appearing before her, lips knit tightly.
"Shepard, I demand an explanation! You were supposed to deliver Dr. Bryson to the Citadel, not take her to a scenic tour of Thessia," Hackett berates her. "What are you even doing there?"
Better not tell him that we were chasing the Catalyst, he'll start asking how come the asari had it, and we can't deal with the fallout from that now, can't afford to, Shepard decides. "Thessia has fallen to the Reapers, Admiral. I needed to help the last few asari commandos escape. Liara's father was amongst them."
"I... see. Well..." Hackett hesitates, some of his annoyance fading. "I suppose I can sympathize with that. Did you reach Dr. T'Soni's father in time, is he alive?"
"She, sir," Morgan chuckles. "Her father is another asari. And yes, we got her out in time."
"Good. I assume you are free to finally return to the Citadel and deliver Dr. Bryson to us," Hackett speaks, Shepard quickly nodding. It is true, I am coming back to the Citadel, just not for the reasons you think, Admiral. "While you were on Thessia, we have already been formulating the next steps of our plan."
"Oh?" Shepard raises an intrigued eyebrow.
"Dr. Bryson has been filling me in about these Leviathan artifacts like the one we have in her father's lab," Hackett explains. "She has formulated a theory that the Leviathan's indoctrination is done via these artifacts. While it is using an active artifact to control someone, there is a quasi-QEC connection that can be traced back to the Leviathan's location."
"I see, but if this were true... you'd need the artifact to be indoctrinating someone, and who would willingly subject their mind getting ravaged by this Leviathan..."
"Dr. Bryson has volunteered," Hackett interrupts her swiftly. "Once you return her to the Citadel, I want you to preside over the procedure and once you have the location, I want the Normandy there, investigating."
"What? I can't believe this! She... she just lost her father, she's in shock, she doesn't know what she's saying, agreeing to something like this! How can you even consider letting herself go through this, I... I..." Shepard fumes in anger.
"Are you quite done, Commander?" Hackett snaps. "I do not enjoy it either, but there is no other way, this is too important and Dr. Bryson insists."
"I'm not going to do this, sir, I won't be a part of it," Shepard shakes her head defiantly. "We shouldn't be getting our own people indoctrinated, we should be out there looking for the Catalyst!"
"Shepard, I trust you still recognize an order when it is given?" Hackett is starting to become truly angry now.
"Very well... I didn't want to use this, but you've left me with no choice..." Morgan mutters quietly, staring at her feet before facing Hackett's eyes again. "As a Council Spectre, my loyalties technically lay first and foremost with them, and only then with the Systems Alliance. It has been our mutual convenience to ignore this part of the chain of command, but your orders have left me with no other option than to turn to the Council. Thus, I hereby inform you that the Council has assigned me to the task of recovering the Catalyst, making it my top priority above everything else. Councilor Tevos will be happy to confirm this."
"Don't do this, Shepard," Hackett shakes his head, suddenly deflated and saddened. "Please, you're making a mistake, Commander."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I have to. You used to trust me, claiming that you firmly believed in what I was doing to stop this war, but suddenly it seems that has changed. Well, the QEC will still be here so you can check in to apologize after I deliver the Catalyst," Morgan says bitterly, before adding the last strike. "Oh, and when you do call, don't address me as Commander Shepard. It's Spectre Shepard for you..."
Everything's gone to hell, and I wish I could insist that I am not to blame. Sure, not all of what happened on Thessia is my fault, but some if it was, and it hurts. We were blindsided by this Cerberus clown, because I was so focused on the Reapers that I did not take Leng seriously enough, discounted him as a threat, and we all paid for my arrogance. Let's just hope that there is still time to undo this horrible mistake...
"Commander... Shepard, are you listening?" Morgan shakes herself back to attention at Specialist Traynor's voice, her mind drifting to morbid thoughts as she is leaning against the terminals surrounding the galaxy map in the CIC.
"Sorry, Sam, I was light years away," she confesses, looking apologetically at the young Specialist. "What were you saying?"
"I have my own ideas on how to track down the location of the Cerberus base, ma'am," Traynor repeats. "We managed to track Kai Leng's shuttle through the relay, and I believe that I should be able to extrapolate its destination with reasonable accuracy."
"That sounds very promising, Sam," Shepard smiles. "Please, get to it, that's your top priority. Hopefully I can acquire some more data to help us on the Citadel... at least, that is the plan." Traynor smiles and nods in return. "Damn, I should check up on Liara... have you seen her?"
"I'm afraid not, Commander, but let's ask EDI," Traynor flips on the comms and quickly receives the answer. "She has gone to visit Javik in his quarters, Commander."
"Oh, right... wait," Shepard jumps suddenly. "I better get down there fast," she exclaims, dashing for the elevator and quickly selecting the engineering deck.
There are loud voices coming from the cargo bay as Shepard leaves the elevator, and she is certain of seeing the blue glow of Liara's biotics behind the doors of Javik's quarters. "I have a name. It's Liara T'Soni. And I'd appreciate you using it from now on!" she can hear Liara shouting, her words followed by a sudden biotic detonation that stops Morgan in her tracks.
"Shit!" she exclaims, running up to the cargo bay doors and knocking them wide open. Liara is slowly getting back up to her feet, nursing her elbow and wincing in pain, the biotic explosion having thrown her hard against the wall. "Liara, you okay?" Shepard immediately jumps to her side, concerned.
"Don't... just don't," the asari hisses, brushing past her and leaving, dragging her left leg a little awkwardly as she walks. "...not now."
"Liara, damn it! Fuck... let me guess, you baited her some more..." she turns around to admonish Javik, only to see the unmoving Prothean floating face downwards in one of his water tanks. Shepard jumps from fright, her first thought that Liara has just murdered the last of the Protheans, but then she regains her senses and quickly hurries to pull Javik out of the water and lower him on the floor in the cargo bay.
"Shit... how on earth do you do Prothean CPR anyway... how the hell would I pinch his nose, maybe I could use some duct tape?" she wonders, placing her hands over Javik's chest and beginning to push. Fortunately the Prothean has been under water only for a very brief time and he regains consciousness after the third compression, violently coughing up some of the water. "And that's as much as I'm willing to do for you, Javik," she says, having made sure that the Prothean will be alright. "If you need medical attention, you know where the medbay is."
"I'm fine..." he coughs, remaining to lay on the floor. "Commander. You can tell your asari... Liara T'Soni... that she has earned enough respect from me that I will begin to address her by using her name."
"Well, I'm sure that she will be overjoyed at being shown such honor," Shepard rolls her eyes as she leaves the cargo bay. "Somehow, I think that all the plans for that collaboration on a book just went down the drain. Can't say I'm really regretful of that, either," she mutters, stepping into the elevator and then wondering where Liara might have gone to. Considering that both her quarters and the medbay are on the crew deck, Shepard heads there, checking in with Dr. Michel first, and her instincts prove true, Morgan entering the medbay as the doctor is busy spraying something on the purple bruise just above Liara's elbow.
Garrus and Tali are also both still in the medbay, and as such Shepard is surprised that with the small room so crowded Dr. Michel still works in complete silence. She soon realizes that the thunderous expression on Liara's face is the reason why nobody dares to talk much, so Morgan chooses to simply stand next to Garrus' bed, pretending that she has come to see him and Tali, the quarian still out of it from the heavy dose of anesthetics.
"How are you holding up, Shepard?" Garrus finally asks, unable to bear the silence any longer. "I understand that things got really rough down there."
"Could say that, Garrus," she replies. "We got ambushed by Cerberus, but I'm sure you've been told the details by now."
"Yeah. I assume you've got a plan, Commander?"
Shepard nods slowly. "We find Cerberus, kick their asses and take the Catalyst intel back, nice and easy, eh? Course, we need to find them first... but I'm hoping that Miranda will be able to help."
"Miranda Lawson?" Garrus blinks in surprise. "Is she still connected with Cerberus somehow?"
"Nope, she's been trying to find them for her own reasons," Shepard explains. "We've been meeting and talking now and then back on the Citadel. We both agree that Tim is working on something big, something that would let him control the Reapers. Miranda was getting close in her search for their secret base, and since I have a hunch that the Catalyst fits into those plans somehow, considering how much Tim wanted to get that information... I think Lawson can give us leads to the Catalyst. We just need to get to the Citadel and seek her out."
Garrus perks up visibly at Morgan's explanation, taking hope from the plan. Before he can answer, though, Dr. Michel finishes her ministrations upon her asari patient and pulls away, allowing Liara to rise and swiftly leave in a more determined hobble. "Anything serious, Doc?" Morgan asks, once Liara has disappeared out of earshot. "Any fractures?"
"No fractures, only severe bruising," Michel shakes her head. "Commander, what happened? Liara did not have these injuries after coming aboard!"
"Did it have something to do with the explosion in the deck below us just now?" Garrus asks.
"Err... I think she just fell out of love with the Protheans in general," Morgan sighs, unwilling to elaborate.
"Commander, do you think it would be possible to keep Liara out of the ground team for the next missions?" Dr. Michel asks, surprising Morgan a little bit.
"I don't think I could keep her out even if I tried... and why would I want to? Is there something more seriously wrong with her that I should know?" Morgan stares piercingly at Dr. Michel, trying to sense whether the doctor is omitting something, but the Frenchwoman holds her gaze evenly, without flinching.
"No, Shepard, but I have noticed that you never rotate Liara out of the team, unlike the others," Michel finally explains. "And she is not physically at her best right now."
"I don't think any of us are, Doc, we're all a bit banged up here and there," Shepard smiles. "And truth be told, I need Liara and she knows it perfectly well. She is the only biotic on my team that I can really trust, and her presence has saved my life countless times. Without her, I wouldn't be standing here, and we both know that."
Having received a nod of acknowledgement from Michel, Morgan wishes a speedy recovery to Garrus and Tali, before walking out of the medbay, making a few steps over to the XO quarters and sighing deeply as she stares at the doors to Liara's office. Well, here goes nothing... let's just hope I don't suffer from ill-timed foot-in-mouth disease and she doesn't apply the Prothy Treatment to me. Finally gathering her courage, she enters the room, finding her bondmate collapsed on the bed, head buried in pillows. "Go away, please," Liara mutters, as she hears Morgan approaching. "I want to be alone."
"Don't care," Morgan replies, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed first. "If our roles were reversed, you'd never leave me alone. You'd cling by my side like a lovable pest, insisting that you want to crawl into my head and share my burdens and I wouldn't be able to shake you off..."
Liara's only answer to that is a deep sigh. Well, she's not chasing me away anymore at least, so I must have said something right, Shepard tells herself. "Tell me what hurts the most. I imagine seeing your homeworld fall is the worst... if the Reapers weren't taking things slowly and harvesting all humans, Earth would have shared Thessia's fate long ago."
"I know that Thessia had fallen long before we got there, Morgan. There was nothing we could have done about it," Liara finally replies, her voice hoarse. "Still, to see my people dying in droves, our civilization in ruins, I... how can you truly prepare yourself for that?"
"You don't, really. I still remember all those people dying left and right in the streets of Vancouver... and it makes me dread the return to Earth and what we will find down there," Morgan says, lowering herself on the back in the bed, next to Liara, without brushing against the asari.
"And then Javik... the way he spoke to me. He looked into my eyes and saw that his words hurt and shocked me, yet he persisted, even taking great delight in my suffering," Liara's voice is trembling heavily as she speaks, the rising feeling of hurt making her chest tight, her breathing becoming ragged. "I... cannot comprehend taking delight in tormenting anyone like that, not even enemy, and we're supposed to be allies."
"He has all the empathy of a common slug, Liara. Or a goldfish," Shepard tells her quietly, falling silent for a moment, before daring to ask. "Would you have really left him there to die in his water tank?"
"No, of course not, though the temptation was strong," Liara confesses. "I knew you were there and would have pulled him out."
"You really shouldn't have attacked him, babe," Morgan remarks. "Dr. Michel tells me that you're a little banged up and I can't risk you getting injured now. You know I can't do this without you standing by my side, Liara... and I want everyone at their best... even Prothy, in case we need him. I understand why you wanted to retaliate, but I can't have a repeat of such incident."
"I know... I know. But the things he took such great delight in telling me..." Liara whispers, her body wracking with a powerful tremor. "Goddess, Shepard... why do your people claim that crying makes everything feel easier? I've tried and it just makes me more and more miserable."
Morgan rolls on her side, brushing up against Liara's back and wrapping her arms around the asari's waist, finding no resistance. "It doesn't do that, really. It's just an oft propagated myth, to be honest. I've tried that a few times, and it never worked, it just made me more sad, then I started to hate myself for being so pathetic, that got me crying even harder and... well, let's just say, no, crying does not take the pain away, not one bit."
"I thought so. You humans are strange," Liara whispers. "You heard what Javik said about my people. Everything about the asari is a lie, I did not want to believe it, but I must face the facts, and it is true. I... I am a product of lies myself, and... surely you cannot love someone like me."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Morgan returns softly, wrapping her legs around Liara's and pulling the asari tightly against her, almost trapping Liara into a safe, secure cage. "You still feel like the same Liara I loved yesterday before I found out some things that... oddly enough, don't really change my opinion of you or your people."
"You can't be serious..." Liara struggles against the embrace, weakly and almost reluctantly.
"Think of it this way," Morgan tries once more. "When Protheans began their uplifting process, they probably had countless pre-flight species to choose from across the whole galaxy, right? And yet, from all those, they did not choose the turians, the humans or the salarians, no, they chose the asari because they believed your people would have the best chance to lead the galaxy against the Reapers in the next cycle. There was something special about your people, and the Protheans recognized it."
Liara slowly relaxes in Shepard's embrace. "But they were wrong," she says a while later. "It's the humans leading the forces of the galaxy and the asari are just... scattered, helpless and fleeing in disarray..."
"And yet, it will take the strength, courage and intellect of only one very special asari to win this war, and I'm holding her in my arms right now," Shepard smiles, burying her face in her bondmate's shoulder. "Don't you understand, Liara? It is in your power to make the Protheans be right about your people. If you stop this war while standing by my side, everything they believed about your people will be proven true, and Javik would be in the wrong. Do you see what I mean?"
"I... I... damn it, Morgan... your words actually make sense..." Liara slowly admits, Shepard feeling the tension slowly bleeding from her body, the asari finally fully comfortable in her embrace.
"Hey, I have my moments, now and then," she chuckles, managing to draw a short chortle from Liara. "And your father got out safely, together with the last few commandos and Grunt... that does count for something, doesn't it?"
"It does. Thank you, Morgan," Liara says softly. "I... I think I will be alright, now... but if you could keep holding me for a while longer..."
"For as long as you need, my love," Shepard replies, hugging her bondmate tightly. "For as long as you need..."