"Uh, Liara, you should probably forget what I said before."
After over an hour spent battling their way to the heart of the gigantic ship orbiting Hagalaz, Liara had to agree with Jack: whatever the creature that called itself the Shadow Broker really was, "Pasty-faced loser," hadn't even come close. Indeed, as she looked at him, Liara realized there was something oddly familiar about the Broker, but the asari couldn't quite put her finger on what it was.
"You travel with fascinating companions, doctor," the massive alien sitting behind the desk rumbled, the gravelly base of its voice echoing through the cavernous office. "Though I suspect you would find the recent actions of Subject Zero particularly interesting. Did you know that the commander has been copulating with her for the past 37 days?"
"That's not true," the asari protested automatically. "Shepard, tell him it's not true…" Liara turned for reassurance to the human who had once been her lover, but she found none. Instead, all she saw was a blush spreading across the commander's face, and a woman unable to meet her gaze.
"Liara," Shepard stammered, "I… It's more complicated then that… I mean, I didn't plan on…"
"How could you?", Liara spat. The asari could feel her heart falling straight into her stomach. After the two years she had spent first battling to save Shepard from the Broker's clutches and then holding onto the desperate dream of a reunion, to have her hopes crushed like this was nearly too much to bear.
"Hey, fuck you, blue" Jack snarled. "Shepard doesn't belong to you."
"Stay out of this," Liara replied, her voice filled with swelling hatred. "I think you've done quite enough already."
"Leave her alone, Liara," Shepard protested, "This isn't her fault."
"Pitiful," the Broker rumbled. "I know your every secret while you fumble in the dark, unable to resolve even your own pathetic, petty issues."
Liara's eyes whipped back around to their real enemy, momentarily forgotten in the turmoil. Her heart might have been breaking but her mind still worked, and as she looked at the monstrous form of the Shadow Broker, suddenly she realized why he seemed so familiar. She looked past the setting and the clothes, and saw what he really was.
Her voice was clear and hard, no sign of her anguish apparent as she spoke. "Is that right?", she told the Broker. "You're a yagh," The frills on the side of the creature's face twitched as she continued, "A pre-spaceflight species quarantined to your home world for massacring the Council's first contact teams. This base is older than your planet's discovery, which probably means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago, then took over. I'm guessing you were taken from your world by a trophy hunter who wanted a slave… or a pet. How am I doing?"
With every word Liara spoke, Shepard could see the Broker growing angrier and angrier, while the commander could only stare in amazement. In spite of everything that had just passed between them, there was something intensely magnetic about the brilliant asari in that moment, a strength that Shepard couldn't help but be drawn to. Unfortunately, Jack seemed to notice her distraction. She turned towards Shepard, her brown eyes narrowing, and while the commander stared at Liara and Jack stared at her, the yagh struck.
With a roar, he rose to his full height, smashing his desk in half with a single, powerful blow and hurling half of it at Jack. The biotic noticed in time to start raising her barrier, but not fast enough. Though her nascent shield prevented her small body from being broken entirely, the force of the impact still sent her hurling across the room and left her lying unmoving on the floor.
"Bastard!" The attack snapped Shepard out of her distracted state, her finely honed reflexes kicking in as she opened fire on the yagh with her assault rifle. The burst caught him in the chest, but the creature seemed as hard to bring down as a krogan, flinching but not falling from the impact.
Beside her, a biotic glow enveloped Liara and the asari lashed out with a warp blast, knocking the Shadow Broker backwards before he could find his footing. Shepard jammed a fresh heat sink into her rifle, and fired again as well, but this time, her enemy was ready. A shimmering shield enveloped the yagh, her bullets only doing minimal damage to the energy field.
"The best tech money can buy," she grumbled to herself as the Broker raised up a rifle of his own, a heavy gun that the massive creature was still able to wield one-handed. A hail of bullets flew in her direction, and the Spectre dove for cover behind one of the terminals that dotted the Broker's office, letting her shields and armor deal with the few strays that managed to clip her.
Annoyed at the failure of his first salvo, the yagh opted for a more direct approach, letting out a bellow and charging at Shepard, his momentum only slightly hindered by the pistol shots Liara directed at his shields. The computer equipment smashed under the force of the impact, and the Spectre rolled away from it, scampering towards fresh cover as the Broker followed her.
He didn't get far. Two steps into his pursuit, the yagh ran into the little surprise she'd left behind and just as his foot made contact with the grenade, it exploded, staggering him backwards. Shepard took rapid advantage of the opening she'd created, turning around and driving her armored fists into the creature's midsection. His anti-ballistic force-field provided little protection against that kind of assault, and with his head still spinning from the explosion, Shepard was able to rain a series of strikes down on him with little trouble.
Recovering slightly, the yagh lashed out with a beefy fist, but Shepard ducked under it before delivering another powerful blow underneath his chin. The flesh recoiled from her fist, and as she kept pounding away at her enemy, she felt a wild kind of joy filling her. With her personal life exploding all around her, there was something oddly relieving about the simple violence of combat.
Sadly, her satisfaction was short-lived. Even as the commander struck again, a glowing orange shield sprang into being around the Shadow Broker's forearm, her blow bouncing harmlessly off of it. The yagh pushed back, his strength enough to fling her from her feet and send her tumbling back across the floor of his office.
"Shepard!" Unable to restrain her instinctive concern for the commander, Liara lashed out with her biotics, sending a powerful wave of energy crashing into the Broker that prevented him from following after Shepard, yanking his attention around to the asari instead. The yagh turned, charging at Liara, and though she launched another warp blast at him, this time he was properly prepared for her attack. His shield took the brunt of the impact and while he was slowed, he wasn't stopped.
Liara braced her barriers against the inevitable collision, but when the Broker slammed into them, she still felt her defenses waver. She'd been using her powers at a high level almost continuously since arriving on the ship, and the effort was beginning to take a toll on the young asari. Rather than engage in a contest of raw force, she dropped to the ground, rolling away from the yagh while firing several more times at his shielded body with her pistol.
The commander was back to her feet by then, but even when she added her own rifle to the attack, the Broker wasn't dissuaded. Liara dove in an attempt to avoid his grasp, but she wasn't quite quick enough, a powerful hand seizing her by the throat and squeezing against her barriers. Her vision swam as she strained to maintain the shield that was all that stood between her and a broken neck , and as he chocked her the yagh growled, "Your interference is at an end, doctor. My plans are at much too crucial a stage for…"
Before he could continue, Liara saw a blur of motion out of the corner of her eye as Shepard crashed full-force against the Broker's back. Her armored weight impacted into the yagh's spine with a satisfying crack and his grip loosened enough for Liara to refocus. Raising her arms, she projected what was left of her shield outward, smashing the Broker in the face with a glowing wall of energy.
While their enemy staggered away from the asari, Shepard kept hitting him, delivering a series of strikes along his back that seemed to do further damage, at least if the grunts of pain coming from the yagh were any indication. Once again though, their advantage was short-lived, the Broker once more raising that orange shield as he spun around and knocked the commander off of him.
This time, Shepard was prepared, rolling with the blow and landing on her feet while Liara took advantage of the respite to move herself to a safer distance and catch her breath. The Broker meanwhile picked back up his huge rifle, but even while he was firing it at the nimble Spectre, Liara's attention was drawn to the massive skylight above them. Just beyond it, the seething electrical storm of Hagalaz crackled, and as Shepard made it to the relative safety of another bank of terminals, inspiration struck. Locking her blues onto the Spectre's green ones, Liara guided her fomer girlfriend's attention upwards.
Shepard nodded, seeming to take her intent at once. They always were good at playing off of each other in battle, and as the commander opened fire with her pistol, drawing the yagh closer to her, Liara reached deep within herself and summoned up what reserves of strength she had left. The Broker advanced and Shepard leapt out from behind her cover, engaging their enemy hand-to-hand once more. She always moved so well, Liara thought, fighting with a mixture of grace, ferocity, and power that the asari had never seen equaled, and there was something riveting in the way she fought the Broker.
It was hard to tear her eyes away from the sight, but it was necessary, and when the yagh once more manifested his shield, Liara was ready for it. Shepard let herself be thrown backwards again, tumbling across the floor of the office and landing in a crouch at its other side while Liara reached out with her biotics, blowing apart the sky-light that was now directly above the yagh. He looked up at the sound, realizing in that instant the trap he'd been led into, but there was no time for escape, nor for any last words beyond a below of rage. A surge of energy poured out of the hole, consuming the Shadow Broker in a tide of white light, completely obliterating his massive form in the few seconds it took for the ship's back-up fields to kick in and end the storm's in-flux into the office.
And just like that, it was over. As the light faded, the only sound in the room was the heavy breathing of the two women, and in that instant, Liara couldn't remember her anger at the commander anymore. After two long years, she had finally defeated the enemy who had become her obsession, and to have won like this, fighting alongside Shepard once more, was enough to blot out everything else.
At least until Jack woke up. From the floor, the tattooed biotic let out a groan and Shepard hurried to her side, bending down to check on her condition. Everything rushed back then: the Broker's accusations, Shepard's pathetic attempts at avoidance, Jack's defiance; and Liara felt her blood start to freeze.
The Spectre placed a hand under Jack's head, asking gently, "Hey, are you all right?", and Liara turned away from the couple, examining the room's terminals rather than continue watching them. Incredibly, all of the data in the Broker's system seemed to be unencrypted, as if he assumed that no one else would ever have access to it, but even as her mind began racing with the possibilities of what she could do with the information now at her disposal, she heard Shepard's voice.
"Liara," the Spectre asked tentatively, "Are you okay there? We won. Take a minute to breath."
"I do not require a minute," she replied in a clipped tone, "And there's too much to do right now in any event. This network is unprotected and if I act quickly, I should be able to convince the Shadow Broker's operatives that I am him and take command of them without anyone being the wiser."
"Is that what you want?", Shepard asked. "It's a hell of a life you're signing up for."
"And what are my alternatives?", she snapped. "You're not exactly in a position to offer me any, now are you?"
"Come on," Shepard pleaded, "At least let's talk about this first."
"I'm not certain what you think there is to say." Her voice was pure ice now, her hurt freezing out everything else she'd been feeling: longing, desire, and sympathy all pushed aside in favor of rage. "It's clear that you have made your choice, even if I do not understand it."
"You don't understand it? What the fuck does that mean?!", Jack hissed angrily, even as Shepard protested, "It's not like that Liara."
"Then what is it like, Shepard? For two years, I waited, hoping against logic that you would come back to me. Now you are with someone else. That is your right. Jack was correct; I don't own you, but do not expect me to like it or want to talk about it." The Spectre opened her mouth to reply, but Liara didn't give her the chance. "Once I have full control of the Broker's systems, I will send you what information I can to help your mission, but as for the rest, I think it would be better if you left before any more was said that both of us might regret."
Jack's lips started to form a comeback, but a sharp look from Shepard clearly caused her to think better of it. The biotic limited herself to an annoyed hiss, instead leading her new lover towards the exit of the massive room and leaving the new Shadow Broker alone with nothing but her thousand, thousand new secrets and the shattered pieces of her heart.