In all the years she'd been a soldier, Shepard had never gone into battle with a fleet like this. Humans, asari, turians, quarians and many more species had come, thousands of ships, all united in a single purpose. It still wasn't enough. Not to defeat the Reapers, not without the Crucible, but it was a hell of a sight to behold.
As she watched the fleet go by, she could hear Admiral Hackett finishing his speech. "Stand fast," he exhorted them. "Stand tall. Stand together. Hackett out."
It was a good speech, she thought, from a great man, but she wondered how many times across how many cycles others had said the same kinds of things, how many soldiers had gone into battle against the Reapers so inspired, only to vanish into the dust of history. Fastening her helmet, she put such thoughts aside. What those other races had or hadn't done didn't matter anymore. This was their chance, the last one they would ever get, and they had to make the most of it.
"Come on," she told the rest of her team. "We'd better get to the shuttle bay."
As the men and women she was counting on to help her save the galaxy started to file out of the cockpit, she turned back to Joker. "Just get us in safely," she told her pilot, "We'll do the rest."
"No problem, Commander," Jeff laughed as he guided the Normandy towards the mass relay, "When have I ever let you down?"
Liara said nothing but a part of her raged at those words. She had never entirely forgiven the pilot for the way that his insubordination had cost Shepard her life when the SR-1 was destroyed, but now was not the time to revisit old grievances. Next to her, Liara heard Javik, who did not know that story, say, "Then do not start now."
"I know he won't," Shepard told the prothean. She sounded confidant and Liara smiled at her words. Her commander was more forgiving than she was and a far better leader. Joker had doubtless had given himself enough grief over that day. He needed reassurance now, not her old resentments.
As they walked to the elevator, Garrus turned to Shepard. "So, two teams, right? What's the breakdown?"
Shepard took a deep breath. As hard as it had been to come to this decision, she knew what she had to do. "First of all, Javik and I have to be split up. We're the ones who can operate the Crucible and we can't risk being together in case something goes seriously wrong. Garrus, Ashley, and Miranda; you're with me. Javik, Liara, Tali, and James will make up the other group."
No one dissented but a few of the others stole glances at Liara, surprised that she wasn't going to be with Shepard. The asari, though, said nothing. She and Shepard had discussed it that morning and as hard as it was, she understood.
Laying in bed, her commander's cock laying against the curve of her ass, her strong arms pulled around the asari, it was hard for Liara to think about work. Her whole body was still tingling from the night before, her azure pleasantly sore, but she knew they had to discuss this.
"It's about the mission," the Spectre told her. "Usually, I love to fight side by side with you, but today, I have to be able to focus on getting the arms open and operating the Crucible. There's too much at stake to risk being distracted by anything else."
"You cannot leave me behind," Shadow Broker insisted. The time she had spent waiting for Shepard to come back from beyond the Omega 4 Relay had been agonizing. The thought of doing that again, with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance, was unbearable. "I realize I am pregnant but it is our future and our daughter's future, that we are fighting for, and I will not be left out of that."
"I know." Shepard turned Liara around in her arms, kissing her long and deep while her fingers stroked her bondmate's cheek. When it broke, her voice was soft as she reassured Liara, "I'm not trying to ground you. It's just that if you're there, I could lose my focus; maybe make a mistake trying to protect you. If you're in the other team with Javik, that won't happen."
The Shadow Broker sighed. "I would prefer to be with you, but I can understand that. It would be hard for me to react rationally if you were threatened either."
"Okay then," Shepard said, trying to put on her best reassuring smile. "I guess we'll meet up at the Council chambers then."
"See that we do," Liara insisted, running a possessive hand along the Spectre's curves, "Because I have no intention of losing you."
By the time the shuttle bay doors opened, the sky was already on fire. All across the space over Earth, Shepard could see the flashes of light as the allied ships engaged the Reaper fleet. The Normandy, however, was focused on only one target: the Citadel. The Destiny Ascension was leading a wedge of their strongest dreadnoughts towards the station but they were just a diversion. It was the Normandy, with its stealth systems, that had the task of delivering the assault teams.
The frigate moved into a hovering position just short of the station even as off to their port side, Shepard could see the massive shape of a Sovereign-class Reaper coming into view. Before it reached them though, it was stopped in its tracks as powerful beams of energy from two turian dreadnoughts impacted into the ship.
"Now!", the commander barked into her headset, and while the Reaper was distracted, a spread of torpedoes flew out from the Normandy and impacted into the side of the station. A series of small holes appeared along the hull and the shuttles blasted off, aiming for the newly created openings. All around them, the fleet pressed its attack, throwing everything they had at the Reapers, paying in blood for the time her teams needed to land.
Cortez guided them down through the hails of fire, and a tense minute later, they hovered above one of the holes in the station. "Everybody out," the pilot told them, and as the shuttle's hatch opened, Shepard could see into the Citadel. It was dark inside, only a dim red light coming out of the opening, but in that darkness, husks were gathering, the creatures unaffected by the vacuum that was rapidly replacing the air inside.
Holding up a grenade and arming it, the commander turned to Miranda. "Send it in," she told the operative, and a biotic field enveloped the small explosive, moving it through the void. A flicker of flame erupted from inside the Citadel and Shepard launched herself out into space, loosely following the path of the grenade. She slammed into the hull, her magnetized boots locking on as soon as they made contact with the surface of the Citadel. Behind her, first Ashley and then Miranda quickly followed, but even as Garrus took off, the Spectre saw one of the Reapers bearing down on to their ship. Across the comm, she screamed "Look out!", to Cortez but it was too late. A red light flashed in the darkness and in a instant, the shuttle and its pilot disappeared in a burst of flame.
There was no time for her to grieve. The edge of the blast had caught the leaping Garrus and the turian was propelled into the hull of the Citadel, his shields collapsing and his body battered by the impact.
"Clear the room," Shepard barked and as Miranda and Ashley fired down at the remaining husks, the Spectre rushed over to her fallen comrade. Though the turian was clearly injured, mercifully his breathing apparatus didn't seem to have been damaged.
Reaching her friend, Shepard injected a dose of medi-gel into him and helped the turian back to his feet. There were cracks in his armor and the sooner she got him out of the vacuum, the better. Together, they hurried towards the breech as best their mag-boots would let them, but even as they ran, one of the Spectre's eyes was looking across the hull at the other shuttle. It was taking off, the team already departed from it, when the Reaper locked on. The first shot missed as the shuttle juked and before a second one could be fired, the Reaper was struck amid ship by the Normandy's Thanix canon. Even as her ship engaged the enemy though, Shepard forced herself to look away. She and Garrus had reached the hole and other team was safely on-board the station. That was all she could afford to think about for now.
Liara gritted her teeth, sweat running down her forehead as she strained to maintain the barrier wall she was holding in front of herself and Tali. "Hold on, Liara. I've got this," the quarian promised, touching a control on her omni-tool. Her drone floated up behind the Cannibals, firing an electric pulse that jolted two of the creatures. They turned their arm cannons on the floating pest, and when the pressure on her barriers eased, Liara was able to hurl a singularity into their midst. As the creatures floated helplessly in the air, Tali opened up on them with her shotgun, picking the beasts off one by one while the Shadow Broker joined in with her submachine gun.
Across the bloody ruins of what had once been a garden, Javik dove out of the way of a charging Brute, taking a savage slash across his calf as he did. From behind him Vega fired a burst from his Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle into the monster's small head, knocking it away from the prothean. Javik took advantage of the opening to throw a dark channel at the Brute and when Liara saw the tell-tale glow appear around its body, she added a warp. The biotic field exploded in a glittering detonation, blowing apart the two Husks advancing behind the beast, and when Tali added a plasma shotgun blast, it fell, crashing into the remains of a rose bush.
"Madre de dios," Vega gasped, wiping the blood away from a cut on his forehead that a Banshee in the last wave had left him with. "These things do not stop coming."
"Still no response from Shepard?", Liara asked as she applied medi-gel to the leg wound the Brute had left on Javik, suspecting she knew the answer.
"No, they can't get through," Tali answered. "The Reapers or something else is creating too much interference for the comms to work."
"You can't compensate?", Vega asked.
"I'm afraid not. But we're almost there." She pointed a long, suited finger into the darkness. "According to the schematics, there's an elevator behind that café that should be able to get us close to the Council chambers. Shepard should be waiting for us there."
Wiping her forehead, Liara did her best to believe the quarian. After all, their team had made it this far, and if they could fight through the Reapers forces, then she had faith that Shepard had done the same.