Chapter 35: Take My Hand, Take My Whole Life Too
"For I can't help falling in love with you."
Warning: a couple grotesque descriptions in this chapter.
Alarms wouldn't stop blaring, and the CiC was frozen. Joker absent-mindedly approved a comm request, and a screen showed up of a holographic interface of the Reaper, just like how Shepard communicated with Sovereign back on Virmire.
≤I am the Vanguard of your Des-≥
Shepard shut down the comms. She pulled away from Joker's seat as she commanded him. "Get us out of here Lieutenant Moreau. Whatever it takes. They want something from us, and we're not going to let them have it."
Navigator Pressly came jogging up into the cockpit, frantic and worried. "Commander, there are multiple geth dropships that have surrounded us. The Normandy isn't fitted with weapons..."
"If they board us, then we'll fight." Shepard changed her mind and went back to Joker, leaning over to engage the Normandy's comms. "All civilian crew take cover, but arm yourselves. Everybody suit up if possible, or retrieve the nearest provided oxygen mask. Chief Williams, work with Vakarian - I need both of you to organize squadrons in the hangar bay to ensure the safety of our engineers as they work to get our mass effect core back online. Everybody else, prepare yourself in the event we will be boarded by-"
"Geth!" Pressly shouted, rushing over to the internals radar. "They've breached the hull in sector 19!"
"Stay here and keep feeding me the information, Pressly. I'll head down there." Shepard went over to grab one of the emergency oxygen masks, tossing each one to Pressly and to Moreau. "Joker? Can you do it, or do I need to listen to more of that garbage before we're forced to surrender?"
"I can do it," the Lieutenant's shoulders squared with confidence. He looked over his seat with a smug smirk. "Drinks are on me for makin' you listen to that, Commander."
"I'll hold you to it," Shepard forced a smile.
She had to force herself to, to keep up the morale of the crew of which she'd seen fear etched in all of their faces. And they had every reason to.
They were screwed, there was no doubt about it: but she wasn't going to go down with a fight.
"Why here, though? Why have they been chasing us? Do they view us as a threat to preemptively strike down, before we foil their plans?" Shepard took off sprinting down the corridor, issuing an order for somebody to disable the blaring alarms. They needed to be able to see the geth headlights without obscurity. She rushed down to her quarters and pried open her personal weapons locker, arming herself as quickly as she could afford. She'd tested the strength of her new arm by grabbing and ripping out one of the vent shaft entrances, communicating with Pressly as to where she was and which direction she needed to go to make it to sector 19 as quickly as possible.
"Dr. Chakwas said we might have something they need - she implied Benezia. Is Benezia critical to their plan, or does she have information that they need too?"
Harsh screeching and gunfire alerted her, with panicked yells from her marines sounding out below. She punched several holes through the shaft until she was able to peer through, providing fire to the geth units that stalked down the hallway. She wasted no time as she aimed for their headlights, then continued crawling in her race to seal the breach.
The entire time, she couldn't stop thinking about Liara, praying that stubborn asari was barricading herself and electing defensive strategies instead of heroic foolishness.
Upon reaching sector 19, she erected her biotics to cloak herself in a barrier, observing the situation as she calculated how many geth were by the breach to ensure they had a steady supply of reinforcements. She gritted her teeth when she'd realized they had even established an airlock ramp.
"Efficient. Problematic for me. I'll have to infiltrate their ship to dislodge the ramp. I can't afford to be disconnected from Normandy. Explosives will cause too much instability and we need our engineers focused on the core."
Yells alarmed her, and she'd punched a hole in the shaft to see what was going on below. She didn't hesitate when she saw a small squad of marines brazenly walking into the battalion of geth, ripping the hole open until she was able to drop down. She'd twisted with a hand stretched out to show she wasn't a threat when the marines responded appropriately, raising their guns at her.
"Stand down," Shepard ordered. Her gaze narrowed on the rash leader responsible for attempting foolish heroics. "Sergeant Lowe, what do you think you're doing?"
"Stopping their reinforcements, ma'am," Helen nervously glanced over the soldier's shoulder, her rifle still at the ready. "We heard Pressly on the radio. We came to help."
"You were going to charge in there and-" the soldier stopped herself with a shake of her head, sighing. She turned around and eyed the hatch door, adrenaline at the ready to open fire as soon as the door opened. "The situation is complicated. They've established an airlock."
"So let's get rid of the airlock?"
"We need to seal the breach they've created in the Normandy, then." Shepard looked back at the eclectic crew, her gaze falling on Talitha next. "Your dossier mentioned you've tinkered. How confident are you in ship repairs?"
"Something as big as an airlock..." Talitha frowned. "We'd need to weld an entire metal plate over that, for now. We'll need several engineers to pull that off."
"We can't afford to pull anyone off the core," Shepard stated. She engaged her omni-tool. "Tell me what frequencies to adjust my omni-tool to. We're all about to learn how to repair."
"What?" Helen breathed incredulously. "What if we-"
"There is no other option," the soldier ended with finality. "There is no room for 'what ifs' here, Sergeant Lowe. If we don't pull this off, not only are we dead here, but the entire Normandy crew."
"Right, no pressure," Addison laughed, her nerves clear on display along with the other marines.
Shepard didn't know what to do. She'd reached with her geth arm, then, drawing some of their attention as they'd all made confused looks at it. She minded her strength and focused on squeezing the Petty Officer's shoulder as gently as she could. "We'll do just fine, Chase. We've got this. You all came here to be heroes, didn't you? So let's be them." The soldier had to turn around to hide her face, the source of incorrect thoughts plaguing her with a silent retching gag over her verbal diarrhea. If it were up to her, she'd tell them to make sure their safeties were off and for them to go do their job already.
Somewhere, deep within, something wished Liara would have witnessed her alternative approach, though.
"Perhaps I can see if the Normandy has any cameras, and I can show her proof that I didn't call them maggots." Shepard took out her knife and held it upside down, along with the forearm grip of her rifle. "I'll take point. There are pipes you can take cover behind on the left - I will utilize the element of surprise and charge directly for them. Give me cover fire and eliminate any geth you see while I work on disengaging their ramp. Talitha, focus on what you can use for us to seal the breach afterwards."
"Aye aye, Commander!"
There was a serenity that cloaked her nerves, the calm before the storm - and she envisioned that she was the storm. She engaged the jet of her leg as soon as she opened the door to propel herself a few meters, rushing for the first geth in her path to aim the rifle right up against the lamp, firing and shattering glass. It was a riveting sight, almost, like light catching snowflakes as she'd continued with her momentum. She drove her knife into another headlamp, and abandoned her rifle to react to another geth that'd charged up to her. She tested her new arm's strength once more and smiled when she'd ripped the geth's head off with ease.
"Quarians are very talented engineers. This arm's specs far exceeds the Alliance's. I wish I'd done this sooner - I would've been able to take Saren down on Virmire and end these games. I'll make sure I end it here, if he dares to show his face now. No more risks to the crew or the galaxy anymore. I'll do whatever it takes to stop him."
When the ramp airlock opened, the other marines provided fire and coordinated amongst themselves to take down their own targets. Shepard was clear to advance safely and ran up to inspect how the ramp was locked onto the Normandy. She instead took a risk and entered the airlock, taking out all her grenades and sticking them all to the geth ship's door. She ran out and roughly barrelled over a pipe before she yelled out to the others.
"Take cover, I'm detonating their ramp!"
Explosions rocked the sector, and they'd all grabbed hold of what they could as the vacuum effect pulled harshly. Metal pieces dislodged and fell through, plates clattered and stacked over the ramp that remained locked to the Normandy. Shepard shouted at Talitha when the brazen marine had hopped over the pipe, getting sucked into the last vestiges of the vacuum. She slammed down on the metal plates and cried out.
There was a notable snap.
It didn't deter her, and she'd fell on her knees, crawling on them as she began to weld the metal plates that'd fallen over the ramp. Helen was the next to follow suite, and the rest of the marines broke out of their stupor as they rushed over like a tidal wave crashing down on their comrade. Shepard realized she was the last to thaw, scolding herself for just watching, and came to help them finish their shoddy engineering job. Addison and Helen each took one of Talitha's arms to help the injured marine walk, and the soldier eyed the part of the bone that had broken through flesh, sticking out the front of Talitha's leg.
"We need to get you to the med-bay and secure that location next, there will be many more injuries and Dr. Chakwas needs her supplies to operate." Shepard turned forward, ready to lead again. She'd listened to the footsteps that dutifully followed her, entrusted her, and her skin crawled.
Never before had she kept repeating Liara's words to try and make some kind of effort in this damn wolf pack thing.
Rosamund jogged up and there was another itch rubbing the soldier's nerves raw, where she had to suffocate the urge when a hand clasped her shoulder. Rosamund was just following standard unit tactics as they cleared corners and halls. She'd pat every time she was ready, and Shepard wanted to explode. She couldn't take it anymore after three halls and gently rolled her shoulder.
"Rosamund, return to your unit. Let me focus on clearing these sectors while you watch their flank."
"Understood, ma'am!"
Footsteps thankfully beat off, and Shepard let out a content sigh of relief. Her skin stopped buzzing. Clarity returned to her mind. She worked more efficiently, breezing through hallways and disabling any geth units that had stood by. She listened to the Normandy's communications, which sectors engaged with geth, most yielding favourable outcomes.
Not all, however. There were cries for help on the radio.
What made Shepard uneasy was that Dr. Chakwas never came on the radio. She always did to offer medical advice to help marines triage and treat their injuries as best as they could until they could get to her. Was the med-bay compromised? The closer they got, the more congested the halls were with geth. It was growing evidence to the speculation that retrieving Benezia was their mission priority.
News of the core coming back online was like music to her ears. They'd broken through the shafts and re-entered the mess hall. She grunted when she'd felt a searing heat graze her leg and fell back against the walls to take cover, blindly firing around the wall.
"Contact," she announced to the others. "Rosamund, Helen, get up here. I'll need suppressive fire."
"Roger that!"
Floors quaked, and a deafening thunder resounded somewhere. The alarms blared red again and the sprinklers engaged. She clenched her teeth as Pressly fed news of a fire breaking out by the sleeper pods.
"That's beside us!" Helen seethed, "Are they trying to blow us up?!"
Something clattered against the floor. Shepard watched as the other marine's eyes widened with fear, and shouted at them. "Move!"
Instead of doubling back, she'd leapt out into the mess hall and used the jet on her leg to propel her further. She'd scrambled for her quarters as soon as her hands scraped against the ground, thrown to the wall by the shockwave of the geth grenade.
"Do they not care what state Benezia is in?!"
High-pitched whines shrieked in her ears. She'd shut off her audio implants as soon as she reoriented herself to reality, rolling furiously to take cover behind the mess hall's wall to buy herself a few extra seconds. She came around the other side and threw herself at another geth unit, ripping it's headlight off as she stole it's rifle. She'd taken aim and gunned down three others. She didn't stop when the med-bay's door hissed open, falling into a rhythm as she'd engaged in close-quarters combat, utilizing the disabled unit as a shield to absorb gunfire for her until she'd methodically picked off the others inside the med-bay.
Tubes hung about, all systems, screens and machines announcing critical power failure. A new concern overtook her then, but she had to ensure Benezia stayed out of the enemy's hands.
No matter the cost.
When she approached the doors, however, they refused to open. She banged her fist on it as she issued her command, regardless if Benezia was lucid and ready to fight her or not. "Open this door!"
"Commander?!"
Shepard blinked incredulously. She twisted around and rested her back on the door, keeping the rifle trained on the med-bay entrance. There was no doubt more geth reinforcements would be on their way. "Dr. Chakwas, are you safe and unharmed? How is Benezia?"
"I'm fine, yes, so is Benezia and Liara."
She saw red for a different reason now and glared at the door, seething through clenched teeth. "Tell me she's only in there because you two have barricaded yourselves."
"She's... She's not, Commander."
Shepard was back to banging her fist on the door. "Open this door, now, or I swear to god I will rip my last arm off opening it myself."
"We need that information, Commander. That much is clear if the geth are attacking us for it."
"God dammit!"
They were interrupted when the doors behind her hissed, and she'd eliminated any geth that dared come as if it was a personal vendetta. She was left no choice now - she had to hold the med-bay.
No matter the cost.
"Flap, flap, Little Wing. Try, try, before you die."
Liara screamed horrendously as inky hands clawed at her, holding her down as they peeled skin layer after layer. She chanted that this wasn't real, the pain wasn't real, the tendrils ripping her apart weren't real. She broke down into a sob when her arm was ripped out of the socket, and her leg had melted away. She couldn't see anything anymore with the inky blackness injected into her eyes.
Memories. Happy memories.
Come back, please.
"Lucy... Please..."
{I'm trying to think of what kind of hugger you are,} the soldier confessed. {Blanket. You're like a blanket.}
Rigid warmth wrapped around her with arms that always made her feel safe.
And at home.
{You're like a warm blanket over someone who's shaking, cold and wet. And you're uh... You're a very... Affectionate blanket. And very warm.} A brief pause. Those spelled doom in the name of Shepard. {Yes. Quite literally very, very warm.} She pulled away with concern. {Your temperature is very unusual, Dr. T'Soni. I firmly believe that Dr. Chakwas should-}
{I'm fine.} Liara felt like being cheeky, then, firing Lucy's favourite words back at her. {I assure you I am in peak condition and am assuredly fine.}
Light beat back behind her eyes, eyes that burned with familiar sensations of tears. No more searing poison burning her cheeks away, leaving nothing but bones in wake. She'd patted herself down immediately upon being returned to floating in this void, and willing a ground to stand firm upon. She stared at her hands, most notably the arm she'd lost - and tried to ignore the pulses of the Prothean visions intertwined with Lucy's memories of Akuze.
"It's learning about me, whatever that has gripped mother. It's attempting to torment me with them, isn't it? I must resist."
Once more, the perilous journey to find the small little shelter hadn't become any easier, even though she was confident she could just because she found it once. She was foolish and naive. Mother would have to be travelling, to move her shelter so that she wouldn't be so easily found by the darkness pervading and warping her mind.
Aural-piercing cries tried to trick her next. In the corner of her eye, a slideshow of sorts panned out. She melted with relief when it was another memory.
The batarian baby.
{I... Don't understand...}
Lucy smiled pathetically. {Help?}
{Luce.}
All Lucy did was smile on, pathetically. {Uh huh. I know. Help?}
{What on Thessia are you going to do? What are you planning with this baby?}
{...Yes.}
It was part of the growing collection of perhaps the happiest memories of them all, even when Lucy broke down in tears over her conflict. It was not only enlightening for Liara, but for the soldier as well, to finally begin a long overdue healing process - unbeknownst to her, perhaps, but that was fine. When tears soaked through the asari's suit, against her stomach, her heart cried out with Lucy, but so too did gratitude. She will never forget looking down at the little 'Behemoth' after the tiresome ordeal, thanking her over and over and over again.
Suddenly, the imagery changed, looped back.
{I need to kill this thing before it becomes a slaver.}
Aural-piercing cries tricked her next. Blood splattered on the med-bay's walls, a skull repeatedly crushed in, just like the table back at the cafeteria that was crushed into pieces by the cybernetic hand. She watched with horror, until she was the next one grabbed, with Lucy seething in her aurals for tricking her. "You'll pay for this, you pure-blooded bitch."
"Lucy would never say this." Liara squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as possible, ignoring the metal hand that ripped her suit. "She'd never do this."
Faith was stronger than any morbidity the tendrils would try to torment her with. The images were gone in seconds, and she opened her eyes with reaffirmation - and mildly annoyed that the thing was learning her so rapidly, to know how to try to wear down her mental defences. She swore she'd annoy it back and find mother, already.
Centuries passed by her again, and though her fingers may have physically shown that age, all she had to do was look within her mind to know they were not.
Thunder, rain, and snow all made their meagre attempts again. All failed. She held on fast to her faith, and her heart grew lighter upon noticing that faint dot in the distance. She took off running, trying to hold back the tears that she'd finally found mother again - and this time, they would get the chance to talk. She smiled as she came up to the windows of the shelter, putting her hands on them.
"Mother, I'm here, I've found you again." She peered into the windows, but there was naught but darkness inside. "Mother? Are you there?"
A hand fell upon her shoulder. She stiffened, then, unsure what to think this time when she'd noticed that the shelter door was open. Mother was right there, beside her, holding her shoulder. The smile... It was so familiar - but it couldn't be trusted. She backed away.
"It's me, Little Wing," her mother whispered, tears in her eyes. "But not for long. There is no time - they have found us. They are here, with us."
"They?"
"The geth and the Reaper known as Sovereign."
Fear viciously surged through Liara. For a moment, there were glimpses, like eyes fluttering. She could see something - see the... World, outside this meld? But through mother's eyes. They'd fluttered, and Liara's heart sank at the sight of pieces of geth scattered about the room bleeding in and out with red alarms. Dr. Chakwas was slumped unconsciously against a wall, blood leaking from her forehead. Another flutter. Words, distorted, tried to break through. Warped curses drew attention at a door, where a familiar soldier stood as she'd held her ground, firing away at something.
"They are here to take me," Benezia continued. "Your Commander is fighting to stop them, but she will perish if she continues to do this alone. You must wake up, Little Wing." She smiled with melancholy. "And let me go."
"What?" Liara breathed incredulously, shaking her head. "No, absolutely not! We can - I can help her fend them off, and together-"
"You know as well as I do that I am already gone, Little Wing. They will not stop until they get what they need from me." Benezia approached again, grabbing onto the archaeologist's hand. "They need the location of the Mu Relay, a relay lost four thousand years ago. They will have it - they already have it... But so shall you."
Benezia leaned forward and touched their foreheads, where hundreds of stars exploded within a breath. Systems and clusters zipped by at a dizzying speed. Liara was overcome by the rush of information shared and imprinted, embedded directly in her memories as if she'd known and grown up with this knowledge all her life.
"The fate of the galaxy now rests on your shoulders, Little Wing." Benezia cupped the archaeologist's jaw and pressed a kiss to her head, just like how she would embarrassingly so in front of class mates, before school. Liara wanted nothing more than to have all those moments again, to cry out in timidity over such menial matters such as that.
"It was so good to see you again like this, Little Wing. How proud I am of whom you've become... Now go. Stop the Reapers. I know you can - that you will."
Metal screeched and shrieked, a Goddess-awful sound blared right in Liara's skull. She yelled out in agony and clutched her head. The last thing she'd seen was the panicked look on mother's face, and the inky tentacles rushing from behind her. Before Liara could say or do anything to warn Benezia, she'd been shoved back, broke through a barrier, and crashed in water. She'd continued, adrift, reaching out and screaming underneath it as she watched the tendrils impale Benezia.
She'd never forget the smile her mother gave, blood pouring out her lips.
Alarms rhythmically bleated and she doubled over, vomit clawing up her throat to evict from her. She barely heard her name, and instincts kicked in to fight with her biotics when a metal hand clamped down on her arm. Though, when she'd looked at what she'd thrown, she stared with confusion upon realizing she'd thrown Lucy at the wall.
Lucy, who now had her cybernetic arm back. A... A geth arm?
The soldier wasted no time scrambling back up on her feet, distracted momentarily as she fired at the exposed corridor of the med-bay. "Liara, we need to get out of here, now! We're cut off from reinforcements, we'll have to jump down the shaft."
"I'm not leaving mother," Liara urged, rushing over to start releasing her mother from the chair's hydraulic cuffs. To her surprise, Shepard came to aid her and overrode the hydraulics by ripping them right off. She looked around to where she remembered seeing Dr. Chakwas in the visions, and saw instead that there was a vent ripped off in the room.
"Karin's gone ahead. We'll rendezvous with the marines down at the hangar bay and eliminate what's left of the geth's forces. Joker's nearly ready to jump us out of here." Lucy rushed to be in the asari's vision, placing her organic hand upon Liara's forehead. "You look ill. We'll get you looked after - your mother too. The worst is almost over, but we need to move. It won't be long before they force their way through my trap and flood this cell. Come on."
Lucy threw Benezia over her shoulder, then grabbed Liara's hand to drag her over to the shaft. She was overwhelmed, her heart racing in panic as if there was a rocket in her chest. Her mind was chaos, and she could scarcely think for herself.
Part of her wondered if this was another figment of her imagination, meant to torment her.
Scrapes burned new paths on her skin when her knees gave out on her, and she'd fallen harshly against metal grates. Her stomach was thrown about viciously upon looking into the shaft, and realizing it was a drop straight down. Benezia was situated to fall in. She squeezed Lucy's hand in protest and opened her mouth, but not even syllables croaked out of her throat. The soldier seemed to read her mind, thank the Goddess.
"Our crew is down there. They've set up an emergency mat to absorb the blow of the fall. We'll be fine. It'll be like sinking into water, water that doesn't like you and shoots you back up. It's like uh... Like a trampoline, if you've ever been on one of those." Lucy leaned over into the shaft and raised her voice to issue orders for the marines on the other side. "I'm dropping Benezia down, subdue her immediately and get Dr. Chakwas to ensure she stays knocked out!"
Annoyance reverberated strongly through Liara then, until she'd remembered that... That mother...
{I am already gone, Little Wing.}
Anxiety consumed her upon looking down the shaft. She'd panicked when a firm hand pushed on her shoulder blades and her arms flailed about as she'd fallen into the shaft, catching and clutching onto Lucy's hand for dear life. "Please don't drop me," she hissed, her heart just about ready to chisel out her chest. "I hate heights, and now mother is broken down there. I'll break too!"
"I'll be coming after you soon, I promise. You'll be just fine. You'll drop down, and before you know it, we'll be holding hands for more happy memories instead. I assure you we'll both be fine and in peak condition."
"Do you see this drop?! I'm not a fool, Lucy! I'm going to break. My. Legs."
"Shepard, please."
"Oh, for Goddess' sake!"
"You won't break your legs, Liara. I know I have to work to earn it all over again but just... Just trust me, at least for this moment, please. Trust that I'll always do everything within my capability to keep you safe. I promise what you are about to suffer from is me teasing you all about this after, and we'll get you that prescription of alprazolam once and for all."
Even in all this chaos, Lucy was still as calm and steady as ever. She was covered in wounds, her one eye closed to shield it from the blood that oozed out from a grotesque laceration splitting her eyebrow. Her organic arm was covered in gashes and her uniform was battle-tattered, with what smelled like burns from thermal weaponry. Even still, her smile behind the oxygen visor was reassuring and warm.
Then her eye narrowed, her gaze snapping to the side.
Liara would never forget how that calm and steadiness was so easily lost then, as Lucy cursed in panic. "Fuck!"
Brief blinding light paralyzed Liara, and suddenly, she was sliding down a shaft, her aurals deafened with a muted whine burrowed in her skull. She was disoriented, and instinct kicked in again when hands were all over her. She panicked, seeing inky tendrils for a second, before they'd dissipated and she was standing before some marines, her hand outstretched with her biotics buzzing fiercely through her.
Helen was the first she registered to approach her ever so slowly, her hands out in a display that she wasn't threatening, a smile forced on her face. "It's me, Li. You're alright now. You're safe."
Something was wrong. Something was wrong - Lucy wasn't here, but she promised she would be so she wouldn't be far. She always did everything in her power to uphold them, found them disrespectful not to, in fact. She wouldn't ever let herself live it down, and it'd be a point of contention for T'Soni to convince the soldier was still deserving of forgiveness and all the best in life. Liara frantically looked around, saw that she'd travelled a fair distance away from the mat, where she must've fallen on. Her legs were fine if she was still walking.
But she was walking alone.
"Where-" Liara whirled about, clutching tightly onto the hand. "Where is Lucy?"
Helen's arms wrapped around her, then, whispering sweet nothings in her aural to try to calm her down. It didn't work. T'Soni wasn't above using her biotics to push Helen off, storming back to the debris-covered mat as she demanded the other marines for answers. She was aggravated that they had just stood there, gaping uselessly at her. "Where is the Commander?! Answer me!"
"Li..." Helen interrupted again, and her ominous tone was all it took for Liara's heart to sink in despair.
Petrified, she glanced about for some good news - for that soldier to prove she was going to walk out of the maws of hell as she always did. Instead, Lucky came running and climbed up her.
Climbed up her hand.
"Her... Hand..."
Liara stared at the hand she held.
And screamed, dropping the amputated limb.