Breaking the rules was often necessary for the good of science, but as Liara stood outside the cargo bay, watching a team prepare a bomb to blast open the doors, she couldn't help but miss the days when she studied prothethian ruins. Sure, there was always the risk of getting suspended in a force field, but there was absolutely zero chance of running into a living prothetian who got you into scores of trouble.
Humans on the other hand.
"Oh Goddess." She whispered to herself, ducking behind the wall and trying to think of a plan. She'd been too slow to get here, and was now trapped with the crew in between her friends, and their escape. She was certain there must be other means into the cargo bay, but Liara had absolutely no idea where they would be – why couldn't they have covered that during all the planning? – Turian ships were nothing like Asari cruisers, and she was quickly running out of time.
No choice about it then.
She peered back around the corner. The team were nearly ready to bomb their own ship, with Saren at the back of the group barking at them to hurry up. The spectre's presence did little to soothe her nerves, especially seeing him so furious. Spittle flew from the turian's mouth as he screamed orders, one hand curled into a tight fights, the other gripping onto a mean looking pistol.
She'd beaten him once though. Surely she could do it a second time?
Liara steeled her nerves and continued to watch as the turians jumped back for cover. In contrast, Saren stood perfectly still while his cronies ducked behind a pile of discarded storage boxes, eyes narrowing into determined slits as the doors were blown open with a large bang.
She waited until the smoke had settled, counted to three while the crew got into formation behind Saren, guns at the ready. Once they were grouped together Liara finally stepped out and held up her arm; one asari against six turians. Her eyes glowed blue, power tingled the tips of her fingers, and – ignoring the potential consequences – she pushed the energy out of her palm like a blast, and fired a singularity at the group.
The element of surprise was a huge help, and no one expected the dark energy sphere to appear amongst them. A few yelped as they were all pulled forward, feet leaving the air, a few even dropped their guns, and Liara took the opportunity to start running. She bolted towards the doors, having to get into touching distance of the turians in order to rush past them and into the cargo bay. Her feet slid precariously on the floor when she got just that little too close to her own singularity, and Liara felt her heart thudding with fear as she pulled the gutsy move and rushed past them all.
Someone shouted for her to stop, she moved faster. But her luck was doomed to run out, and Saren still had a firm grip of his gun. He fired three quick shots at her feet, struggling as the gravitational pull turned him sideways.
"Traitor!" He snarled, twisting his spine to shoot at her again. Liara barely glanced behind her, waving her arm back to send out a shockwave. The wall of biotic energy thudded against the group, destroying her singularity but forcing them all to the ground with another cry.
Her legs were burning, but she ran quicker, she could see the ship now, its engines already running.
"Wait! Wait for me!" Liara cried desperately, panting with exertion. The room was huge and the ship was parked as close to the blast doors as possible. She spotted Garrus and Shepard run onto the walkway. Shepard pointed behind her, shouting something. "What?!" She asked.
Liara cried out as a bullet wizzed into the back of her shoulder and out at the front. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground with a thud. Saren was clearly using shredder ammo, as the bullet had pierced through her shield and sheared into multiple parts, leaving her with a large, bloody gash instead of one little hole. It hurt and she whimpered, rolling over onto her back to stare at the ceiling, purple blood soaking her clothes.
Bullets wizzed up above. Shepard and Garrus had opened fire, and it turned into a race to see who could reach Liara first without getting shot. She prayed to the Goddess that her friends would win. But her prayers went unanswered, and after a few moments of desperate fighting Saren's face loomed above her, mandibles spread into a toothy grin.
"Say goodbye, Dr T'Soni." He cooed, pistol pointing at her head.
Saren let fire, and Liara's whole world turned dark.
"Okay, round 3." Joker cracked his fingers and winced at how bad an idea that was. Pain bit at his knuckles instantly, but he ignored it seem as Scrapper – as he'd taken to calling her - was sat in the co-pilot seat.
She blinked at him behind her purple helmet. The alien had been extremely helpful since falling through their ceiling. She'd fixed the air recycling system, the radar, most of their guns, and – most importantly he thought – their engine. Scrapper seemed more than happy to lend a hand, just as long as none of them came in touching distance, and that everyone pretended not to notice if some less important parts went 'missing.'
Joker wasn't too keen that she was clearly taking parts of the ship for herself, but it was hard to say 'stop doing that, please' when she had absolutely no idea what they were saying. Scrapper could understand the ship well enough, and he'd caught her talking to the engine in those rolling purrs more than once, but she did not want to even attempt conversation with them. Even now, while they tried to get the ship flying, she declined to say anything, instead sitting quietly and monitoring the engine's temperature on her screen.
"Hows it going?" Ashley stepped onto the bridge, giving Scrapper a hard glare and as much space as possible. She'd learnt the hard way not to get too close. Ashley had tried to prod her gun into the alien's side – just to hurry her up, she'd insisted later. In a matter of seconds Scrapper had typed in some buttons on the tool that covered her arm, Ashley gun had imploded within, becoming a smoking useless piece of junk, and a rounded robot had morphed by Scrapper's feet, shocking the soilder's feet and forcing her backwards with a cry.
They'd all left the alien alone after that.
"On a scale of one to ten? I'd say we're at a steady two." Joker admitted, leaning back in his chair and running a hand over his face.
"I thought Bucket-head had fixed everything." She grumbled. 'Bucket-head' was the alien's second nickname, and had been adopted by those who liked her least – namely, Ashley, Jack, and Kevin. Joker, James, and Dr Chawkas all preferred Scrapper. Though it didn't entirely matter, the alien ignored them either way.
"She has. I don't understand why we're not moving." He whined, "come on, baby, lets get going." He pressed a few buttons, and the engines grumbled beneath their feet for a few moments before dying into a dooming silence once more.
"Doesn't sound like shes' fixed it." Ashley said, sounding exasperated.
"She has!" Joker almost snapped, defensive whenever the Normandy was involved.
"Are you sure you haven't left the hand break on or something?"
"Ships don't have hand breaks." He guffawed, feathers thoroughly ruffled and intelligence successfully insulted.
"The wrong button then?"
"You think I don't know which buttons to press?!"
"That's not what I – "
"Oh by all means, Ash, show me what to do, CLEARLY, I have no idea! It's not like I'm the best – "
"I only meant –"
"The BEST pilot in the galaxy!" He spoke over her. "I can't even walk straight, let alone fly a –"
A timid cough silenced him, and Joker was so surprised by the interruption that he swivelled towards Scrapper with wide eyes. She pointed at a lever by his thigh, no words needed.
Immediately Joker's face burned red.
"Whats that?" Ashley asked, peering behind him.
"Nothing." He flicked the little lever as discreetly as possible and pressed the same button sequence again. This time the Normandy roared to life without any trouble. Lights flashed on across the control panel and continued down the corridor ceiling. The entire ship came to life, and his eyes welled with tears, stroking his chair arms fondly. "Good to have you back, ol' girl." He muttered under his breath, heart swelling, both for his ship and the alien who'd saved it.
"So you had left the hand break on." Ashley broke him out of his trance, smirking.
"There is no hand break! Its just the um… safety lock." He admitted, ignoring her laughing as the Normandy slowly rose up into the air under his expert instruction.
Scrapper looked excited – or he guessed she did, it was hard with the mask – cooing a happy sounding sentence and pointing at the engine chart, clearly proud of her handiwork.
Ashley grinned, clapping Joker on his shoulder. "Ready to save the Commander?"
"Definitely." He agreed, and with that they were off, shooting into space and out of the planet's atmosphere. Ready for a fight.