John commed whole crew and announced shore leave being cut short. He was sure few were pissed but they'll get it back after this mess is sorted. Bringing Liara on board did pissed off Miranda but once she heard what this was about and most importantly, temporary, she didn't objected.
Liara gave coordinates of Broker's base as Hagalaz, Sowilo system in Hourglass Nebula. One relay jump from Illium so it'll take only few hours. John introduced whole crew to T'soni. Joker was specially happy seeing her but Liara's cold and drive made him uncomfortable a bit.
Liara was slightly shocked at new eclectic team that John gathered. First and foremost she was stunned by presence of madman named Max, who turned out to be John's brother.
"Max is your brother? You never mentioned..." Liara asked being slightly shocked how such insane and careless person could be related to John.
"Yeah...we're not the mentnioning types...aren't we Logan?" Max winked at John then dematerialized still holding Kasumi in his arms who almost chewed him up for going without her.
John felt stares of Liara and Tali piercing him. "Maybe we'll sit in mess huh? We have a few hours left to clear any questions..."
/.../
Liara and Tali took whole picture calmly and with understanding. They even agreed that this was inevitable and should be the way it is now. John was still nervous that Tali will grind him after this or Liara flay him alive...
He sighed and decided to jump on thin ice. "So...honestly, are we good?" he asked.
"I am Shepard. I'm actually happy, for both of you." Liara smiled faintly. "I do not regret what we had but you two are belong together."
"Thanks Liara." Tali spoke.
"Now I would like to ask about something else..."
/.../
Despite being all day on his feet, John felt adrenaline surging again in his veins. They were getting close to Shadow Broker.
Liara and John stood in the cockpit.
"Hagalaz...Oceans boil at daylight, then snap-freeze ten minutes after sundown..."
"Perfect tourist destination...how in the hell someone like Shadow Broker was dumb enough to build a base here?" Joker asked.
"Because it's not a base. It's a ship." Liara replied.
"Okay, now I'm dumb."
"He must be hiding in buffer zone, chasing thin line of tranquility between storms and radiation. Perfect hiding spot."
"Yeah...So big ass ship... Unless he throws a party and we have an invite, how do we get in?" John piped in.
"We deploy on the outside of the ship, and look for hatch." Liara replied with confidence he hadn't heard before.
"So...small team?"
"At least for this."
John decided to take Max and Jack with them. Rest will have to hope that they'll open a shuttle bay for them.
/.../
As they saw the massive ship that belonged to the Broker, Max and Jack let out a whistle. Enormous and unlike any ship they've seen.
"It's very old design. Shadow Broker must either be long living, or tasted in antics." Liara commented. "Once we'll get there, we'll have to move quick, constant storms are surely hitting the ship, it's shielded but we're not."
"Great, I'll get fried...Someday I'll get back at you Boy Scout." Jack shooked her head.
"Maybe you'll just get a tan...Or won't have to shave your head anymore." Max chuckled while Jack flipped him a bird.
"Calm down kids." John rolled his eyes.
"Fuck off!" he got in response from both Jack and Max.
/.../
Dealing with storms, lightning bolts hitting their path and maintenance/security drones was time consuming. Even more frustrating were two dozens of mercenaries, gunning for them along the way around the hull. And they were on the clock. Max was holding out his toys for Shadow Broker so mainly they used guns. Finally, reaching back end of the ship they've opened an airlock. Now they realized that mercs were patrolling the hull of the ship, not just been sent to deal with Shepard.
"They gotta love patrolling this place, not even a handrail with gale-force winds." John laughed.
"At least the view is nice." Liara retorted.
"We have a very different definition of nice view" Max commented trying to hack the airlock with code breaker from Liara. "Uh...We may have a problem here guys..."
"What?"
"Hold on! I got something...But we better dig in, this'll take a while." Max pulled another one of his mysterious devices and slapped it against the lock.
"What is this?"
"You'll see if we'll survive!" Max shot back and took cover, mercenaries would surely come for them.
They did after exactly four seconds.
/.../
"How much longer?!" John yelled at his brother.
"Few seconds...Now!" Max shouted and shot another guard. They finally managed to kill all of them. Team ran into the airlock.
"What was that?" Liara asked intrigued. Her program was top-notch and couldn't crack the lock.
"An experiment...More illegal than Joker's collection of...you know what." Max chuckled. "Basically an upgraded VI, designed to break the lock, then self destruct, so not really eficient. Used it twice before and that was last one I had. Each one of those cost a fortune."
"Interesting..."
"Yeah...Better concetrate on here. I'm dying either a winner or famous, not in this cesspool." Max laughed.
"Contact!" Liara fired a burst from SMG.
Team hugged the walls of corridor.
"How many guards Broker has?" Liara asked rethorically.
"Minus two." Jack deadpanned and send a shockwave that flattened two mercenaries.
Max rolled one of his grenades. In tight spaces those shrapnels were like hailstorms of death.
Taking enemies down, squad pushed further. Liara opened one of the doors to reveal a room with nothing but interrogating chair. With drell strapped to it.
"Feron!" She shouted and ran to him. Drell opened his eyes faintly.
"Liara?" he asked in a way like he was sure she was just a hallucination.
"I'm gonna get you out!" Liara only touched console near the chair and jolts of electricity ran through Feron's body. He screamed sharply.
"You...Can't...I'm hooked to...a failsafe...touch it and I'll fry...Only...The Broker..." Feron was making pauses, barely breathing.
"Goddess..." Liara spoke with hurt voice at the same time having fire in her eyes.
"Let's shake this whole big guy...I bet he's vegan" Max shrugged.
"What vegans have to do with that?" John glanced at his brother.
"They're shady. And smell funny." Max shooked his head.
"Come on." John smirked.
/.../
Dark hallways and evil waiting for them...John felt mixed reminiscence of Omega and Collectors ship. Not pleasant.
"Through here! He must be there!" Liara spoke shaking in anger. Doors opened and squad entered spacious room filled with monitors and datafeeds.
They saw a gigantic creature, sitting behind huge desk. Shepard never saw something like this. And he saw alot...
"You're here for the drell..." Shadow Broker spoke in low vibrating voice, like mix of two toned voices of turian and drell. "Reckless...Even for you Commander Shepard."
John noticed that Broker had four eyes each in two close rows, and his mouth filled with spiky teeth opened trifold.
"Dr T'Soni...Your interference in my plans caused all this...Fights, death of a Spectre...even Feron's betrayal was your doing..."
"And so dealing Collectors was just what? Beneficial?" John snapped still aiming at Broker.
"Mutually. It's convenient you're here. Collectors will still pay for your body...Along with Subject Zero."
At this Jack gritted her teeth and flashed biotics.
"Hegemony will also be very grateful for delievery of man responsible for assassinating three high-admirals" Broker shifted his eyes on Max. John made quick note to ask Max about this later.
"You're finished!" Liara spat.
"I know every secret of any one of you. While you only fumble in the dark."
"You don't know shit..." Max muttered through clenched teeth.
"How about I'll try?" Liara made a devilish smirk "You're a yahg. A pre-spaceflight species quarantined to your homeworld for massacrating Council envoy. This base is older than discovery of your planet, which means you killed the original Shadow Broker sixty years ago...and took over. My guess is that you were taken from your homeworld...As a trophy or a...pet?" Liara finished smiling. "How am I doing?"
Broker twiched his split face and stood up. He was over 13 feet tall. And wore a tailored suit. Now that was new level of grotesque.
"That's one big, ugly motherfucker..." Jack commented. With deafening roar, Yahg smashed huge desk and pulled a Revenant MG from behind.
Whole team split in different directions seeking cover. Max rolled two grenades at him, more to distract than hit.
John started firing from his Mattock, others also opened fire.
"That fucker fires Revenant one handed!" Max yelled then he pulled his plasma grenades. Arming two of them he cooked the right time then threw so they exploded right next to Broker. Yahg let out another roar as mix of thermite, plasma and EMP device taken down his shields and badly burned his thick plated skin.
Monster charged at Shepard's cover. Seeing this, John dive out while others shot at yahg to get him off Commander's back.
Yahg roared again and deployed an omni-shield, big enough to cover him whole.
"I'm tired of this..." Max spat and reached for another ace in his sleeve. He prayed he calibrated it right, if not, nobody will survive this party. He disconnected two tubes uncovering third, containing some liquid that started boiling. Max threw it in the moment where Broker turned a bit, exposing partialy from behind his shield.
Tube crashed on yahg's arm. A snap-freezing liquid spread along his body ignoring barriers and shields, simply freezing tissue along with any technology that was in the vicinity.
Broker roared, but now not just anger but also pain was to be heard. Another bomb hit Yahg. Thermite. Temperature differential made half of his body burst and perish. Monster toppled to the ground. Max ran to him.
"My name is Max Shepard...Surprised?" He said and stuck piston explosive in yahg's burned chest. Two steps and push of a button later, Shadow Broker was no more. But everything and everyone was covered in stinking guts.
"Woah...So that's what happened on Tuchanka?" John wiped his face and walked up to panting Jester. He looked like after marathon and two wars.
"Yeah...guess he didn't knew that one detail about little Jester..." Max chuckled.
"By the Goddess...We did it..." Liara held a hand to her mouth. It was unbelieveable. So as the execution that Max did on yahg. He surely was very dangerous combatant.
Liara walked up to wall of monitors. Then one of the channels opened.
"Shadow Broker, this is operative Murat. We had a momentary connection failure. Confirm status?"
Liara stared at it, then at the remnants of Broker. Her mind racing. All of links opened, dozens of agents were asking for instructions and confirmation of status.
Liara taken a deep breath then opened her mni-tool, syncing with all channels.
"This is the Shadow Broker. Situation is under control. We experienced minor power fluctuations during upgrade of equipment." Liara spoke using voice distorting filter. The same one as yahg used. "We are back online. Continue standard procedures. I want status report of all active operations withing one standard day." Liara closed the channels.
"Goddes of Oceans...Lia..." Feron limped towards Liara with shock on his face.
"Nobody seen him in person...We'll put this data to good use..." Liara realized who was talking to her. "Feron!" She ran up and pulled drell into tight hug. "Goddess, you're alive!"
"Lia..." Feron wanted to say something but Liara kissed him. Shepard raised his eyebrow. That was obvious. You plot revenge for two years after beloved person, not just friend. Still stinged a bit though...
"Pay up." Max voice rang. John glanced at Jester as pouting Jack slapped credit chit in his hand. Oh what the hell...
"Dear Jackie thought she knows you better and said you'd have a big pow-wow with Liara after this. She should know better, eh Logan?" Max laughed and John couldn't supress smirk.
"I owe you an explanation aren't I Shepard?" Liara finally realized what she done.
"I'll...go check the power systems..." Feron diplomatically started retreating. Max and Jack followed him.
"Shepard I..." Liara looked down. She partially felt terrible for this but...
"We're even right? You moved on with Feron, I'm with Tali...how about we keep what's good between us as friends and just don't bring up anything rough?" John shrugged and smiled. A reconciliation felt good.
"I'd like that Shepard...it's good that we can..." Liara looked up.
"Yeah...So what's now? I'll have to think about some story for Miranda so she won't feed any intel to Cerberus." John mused.
"We got in. Fought our way through. Defeated the Broker...But it turned out as a decoy. The real Shadow Broker is still somwhere out there. We got Feron out. I'll take over this ship just as an information broker. Perhaps they'd believe. I'll fabricate some intel indicating that Broker have another base somwhere else." Liara quickly said pacing a bit.
"Fine with me. I'll try suppressing Miranda with reports even without telling her the truth. Perhaps they'll bite it."
/.../
John ordered a trip back to Normandy pressing the duo of Max and Jack to keep their mouths shut to anybody. Garrus and the rest were really unhappy that they didn't get a shot at one of galaxy's biggest mystery. Miranda was very inquisitive but John sold her the story. Then ordered a ride back to Illium to resume shore leave. Definitive 48 hour shore leave with no alerts or mission. Everybody quickly dropped subject of Shadow Broker.
John was on his way to relax a bit when Illusive Stiff called. John supressed the groan and entered briefing room.
"Shepard. It came to my attention that you were taking on the Shadow Broker."
"Yeah. I did. But don't get your hopes up. He slipped out."
"Miranda told me you've found his base."
"Then you should spank Miranda for being bad girl and feeding bad intel." John smirked seeing Illusive's expression at such bold comment. "We got to a base. But not the real lair. It was a decoy, ran by second in command. He was mainly torturing Feron. Ring any bell?"
"I don't recall all Cerberus liasions."
Shepard didn't believed single word, but played along. "Well anyways, Liara T'Soni and I went there. We fought some mercs, killed this flunky, and freed Feron. But there was a failsafe. All data on the ship went bye-bye. Liara took over the ship and probably will hole up in there with Feron, playing 'Hide the prothean' ".
John almost laughed at himself. Max was bad influence. But sure as hell funny influence.
"So you're saying nothing came out of this trip?"
"Oh, came a lot. Just nothing you can put your hands on. I'll check with Liara if she found any intel and will give it to me. I'll share. Good enough?"
"I have my means of securing intel...But every source is welcome. Stay vigilant Shepard, I'm working on aquiring IFF for you." Illusive closed the link.
John walked out into CIC.
"Everything okay Commander?" Kelly walked up to Commander but then took a step back, he was still splattered with stinky guts of yahg.
"Yeah...Only find me a newspaper so I can spank Miranda like a puppy, for being a bad girl..." He spoke then realised he just partially signed his death warrant. To his surprise Kelly didn't laughed but only opened her mouth and stared at him.
"Nevermind...Must've been Max influence" He chuckled. Then he realized something. He was tired, but very in joking mood...
"Hey Kelly how 'bout you'll give me a hug? Wanna hug you commander?" John laughed as Kelly squeeled and ran away from his sticky armor covered in bile and blood.
"Now that was good. Specially the newspaper part." Max walked up to him, equally dirty.
"Yeah...I'm blaming you for this..."
"Wanna scare rest of the girls?" Max winked. John only smiled. Sometimes brothers do stupid things. Together.