The First and the Last
Seven: Cherubim
Tazzik's personal shuttle – 30 minutes later
It took Liara's heartbeat more than an hour to calm its racing pulse, her adrenaline still rushing as she guided Tazzik's shuttle away from Alingon. She'd set the fastest course away from the Broker's base that she could, checking constantly for pursuit by any of his mercenaries as she fled the system and disabling every piece of tracking software she could find. The ship was even more cramped than the Plain Dealer – a single corridor running from the cockpit to the airlock and the cargo pod that carried Shepard's sarcophagus.
Setting the shuttle to autopilot, she leaned back in the cockpit's seat and stole a glance towards the cargo pod. Her ears filled only with the roar of the ship's engine, her heart no longer racing, it finally hit her.
I have him. W-, I did it.
The "we" caught in her mind as she thought it, her thoughts immediately straying back to what had happened on Alingon. Feron had played everyone – her, the Broker, Jondum, possibly even Cerberus, but he'd ultimately sacrificed his life to ensure that she could escape with Shepard's body. Jondum had played his part too – he'd fought to buy her time, to ensure she wouldn't be overrun by that….thing that had attacked her. He'd likely perished as well, not knowing whether his mission to destroy Shepard's body, to keep it out of the hands of either the Collectors or Cerberus, had succeeded.
But she had succeeded; Shepard's body was hers. She could feel how close she was to it – the proximity almost creating an electricity in the ship's narrow corridor. Yet even as she contemplated her victory, reveled in the knowledge that Shepard's body was safe from the Collectors and whatever foul ends they had planned to use it for, a question hovered, unbidden, in her mind.
Now what?
What if Jondum had been right? Cerberus wanted Shepard's body – that much was plain, yet for what exact purpose she didn't know. Did they plan to resurrect him? Surely not - the technology to do so didn't exist. Clone him? Possibly. Shepard was an extraordinary soldier, yet so much of what made him that was down to things that no genetic copy could capture – his dedication, his zeal, his loyalty and the care and attention he devoted to those under his command. For all the aid they had offered, Liara had seen what Cerberus was capable of before, and their reputation as a Human supremacist organization preceded them. She couldn't bring herself to let Shepard go, yet she wondered if giving him permanent, irrevocable rest was the best thing to do.
Sighing, she paced down the ship's corridor to its small, even more claustrophobic shower pod, pausing in front of the mirror to examine herself after a half week in the Terminus systems. Her face was covered in dirt and soot – some of it still from the industrial fires that raged in the inner core of Omega, her eyes bloodshot and haggard-looking; she hadn't slept properly since she'd left the Citadel. She was suddenly aware of all the aches, pains, and bruises that dotted her limbs and body, and she slumped against the wall of the chamber as exhaustion suddenly hit her. She realized she'd been burning fumes for weeks, every fibre of her energy consumed in the conflagration of the Normandy and the search for Shepard.
After what seemed like an eternity, she managed to drag herself from the pod and back towards the cockpit, finally coming to rest in the pilot's chair. Unbuckling her armour, she retrieved a maintenance kit from one of her pouches and methodically began to clean the pieces, from shoulders to ankles. After days of fighting and fleeing and pursuing, it was covered in even more grime than her face, and the blast marks from deflected bullets left scars across the chestplate and shoulders. It took more than hour to fully scrape and restore it to its pristine condition, and her mind endlessly wandered over the question of what to do with the sarcophagus that contained Shepard's body. Give it to Cerberus? Destroy it? Keep it for herself as a memory of Shepard? Give it to someone else –Alliance? Council? There seemed no good answer, and she lapsed into a further melancholy as she pondered the choice.
What would she do once she decided? She couldn't return to her old life in archaeology – not now; not after what she'd witnessed and seen. The only path that seemed at all clear was vengeance: to fight back against the Shadow Broker for what he'd done to her, to Shepard and to Feron and to Jondum. But revenge seemed extraordinarily hard: apart from the OSD in her pocket, which she had promised to Cerberus, she wouldn't even know where to begin. She knew of a handful of information brokers who were part of his network –Barla Von on the Citadel was rumoured to be one such contact, but even he was only likely to have access to a small piece of a much wider puzzle that would need to be solved.
She couldn't put it off any longer.
Leaving the cockpit, Liara was greeted by a wall of noise as she entered the cargo hold, the roar of the engines reaching an unbearable pitch around her. The hold was slightly larger than the ship itself, the sarcophagus sitting in the middle with three feet of space on either side of it, its austere black edges cutting through the dim lights to form an unmistakable outline that Liara's eyes were drawn to. Gulping, she ran her fingers along its edges, nervous at the cool feel of steel against her hand. She moved up the pod, her heartbeat racing again as she came to stand near the headpiece of the hermetically sealed coffin, and leaned forward towards the view port.
His face was barely recognizable, the hair burnt off and the skin blackened by exposure to the harsh vacuum of space. The bone around the eyes was sunken in, what little skin remained stretched taut over a seemingly hollow face. He scarcely looked human – a painful reminder of what had been and what she had lost. Liara had seen many bodies before – on archaeology digs, while fighting through the expanse of the Traverse, while trying to retrieve Shepard's body – yet she found herself totally unprepared for this. Sinking to her knees, she sobbed against the side of the sarcophagus, her tears flowing freely as she wept over the body of the man she had loved.
"Shepard," she whispered to herself through the sobs, "I'm so sorry." She calmed her breathing long enough to get out the words. "I'm so sorry. I should have found you sooner."
She stayed with her arms around the pod for nearly an hour, sitting in silence as tears intermittently flowed down her face. Finally, sighing to herself, she lifted herself from the floor of the cargo pod and returned to the cockpit. The shuttle had passed through several mass relays since she'd last gazed out on the open stars – now in patterns unfamiliar to her – and she was approaching her destination on Omega. Buckling her armour back into place, she settled down into her chair as the ship made the final approach to the system. She knew she would have to decide what to do with Shepard's body quickly – time was running out before the Shadow Broker no doubt regrouped and sent additional forces to reclaim Shepard's body from her.
Inspiration came to her in a flash. Her energy restored, she searched the shuttle for its weapon storage, finding that the compartments nearest the rear were stocked full of advanced weaponry and high explosives. Taking as many of the former as she could fit into her utility kits, she busied herself in patching the explosives to the interior walls of the shuttle and cargo hold. If the Broker's thugs managed to find her, she would not go gently or quietly.
The ship's VI informed her of their imminent approach to Omega, and she sprinted back to the cockpit and beheld the first view of the station's skeletal frame peering back at her. It still seemed a foreboding place, but with her resolve steeled, she patched into the docking network and sent her request.
"Endline Corporation, this is Shuttle TZSB 241 requesting landing coordinates."
"TZSB 241, this is Omega Dockyard 4, we have transferred landing coordinates to your shuttle. Please proceed."
Programming the shuttle with the coordinates, she sat back as she approached the Endline Corporation's sprawling dockyards. She hoped no one would recognize the shuttle from the mayhem that had been caused two days earlier – that chaos and violence moved fast enough on Omega to render those events far in the perceived past. Transferring full control of the landing functions to the ship's autopilot, Liara gathered the last of her things and made her way to the airlock. The ship's landing was remarkably smooth – far easier than that of the freighter she had first arrived at Omega on – and she barely noticed the ship touch down in the docking bay.
Liara holstered his pistol as she stepped through the airlock and into the burning heat of Omega. Her lungs afire at the first touch of the station's noxious, scorching air, she beheld a station seemingly unchanged from when she had been here several days before. Any signs of her and Jondum's confrontation with Tazzik had vanished, papered over by the ceaseless push of construction and reconstruction on this station's tattered hulk.
Her omnitool suddenly pinged, its identification heavily encrypted and hidden from her. Who could be contacting her on Omega? Cautiously, she answered.
"Welcome back, Liara." The voice of Miranda Lawson seemed a welcome relief after her flight from Alingon and the Shadow Broker. "Were you successful?"
"I was," Liara answered.
Miranda chuckled on the other end of the line. "We were right to put our faith in you, it seems. Shepard obviously made some very good friends. And Feron?"
"He didn't make it," she responded, bowing her head as she spoke.
"Unfortunate," Miranda said matter-of-factly. "No matter, we should proceed ahead regardless. Bring Shepard's body to the Gozu District. We'll find you when you get there." The feed cut out, leaving Liara alone again on Omega.
The Gozu District. She called the area up on her omnitool – a residential area in the lower reaches of Omega's artificial superstructure. It was only accessible by shuttle, so she would have to pay heavily for privacy and discretion in getting there. That would be difficult on Omega – the sarcophagus seemed to be relatively easy to transport, but it left her precious little maneuverability if she was tracked, attacked, or disrupted. Sighing to herself, she reluctantly keyed the door of the shuttle, releasing the cargo pod from its immediate trappings and allowing her access to it from the outside.
The coffin proved to be more advanced than she'd thought – it possessed the ability to levitate itself, tethered by VI to her omnitool and programmed to follow her as she walked. She led the sarcophagus out of the docking bay, and primed the charges on Tazzik's shuttle as she left it for the final time. If the Shadow Broker's operatives found it, the force of the blast would incinerate anyone on the platform. The docks were far quieter than when she'd arrived on Omega – either through the natural patterns of shipping or because the mood on Omega had changed was unclear. She had little trouble leaving the Endline docks, and soon found herself in the open, cracked walkways of Omega, the coffin in tow behind her. She kept her sidearm holstered – no need to attract unwanted attention – but her eyes darted constantly to the dark alleyways at the sides of the roads, her nerves on edge as she made her way past the dockyards and into the busier hubs of Omega.
She eventually managed to find a shuttle service with a large enough compartment for the sarcophagus – a Batarian who eyed the coffin suspiciously yet said nothing and made no indication of objecting. He proved an adept haggler, and Liara soon found her account several hundred credits lighter than she'd hoped, yet the pilot ultimately took both her and her cargo in the hold of his Salarian-built shuttle and set off for the Gozu District. The pilot charted a course that dove straight through the centre of Omega's superstructure, bypassing the handful of spiraling mainlines that led ground traffic to the lower districts of Omega. The station sped past her, becoming a blur of rust and dimly-lit streets as she passed. She struggled to grasp with how anyone could live here – how anyone could find it a place that would do anything other than betray the dreams and hopes of its denizens.
The shuttle deposited her in the heart of the Gozu District, her driver barely muttering a word as she maneuvered the coffin out of the shuttle's hold before leaving. She took a moment to get her bearings about her before moving. This district seemed far newer and sleeker than the upper areas of Omega – a more recent addition to the station with seemingly wealthier inhabitants. Shops buzzed with activity here – predominantly Turian but with a sizeable number of Humans, Batarians, Salarians, and the odd Asari – and she could hear excited shouting coming from down one of the narrow alleys that branched off from this main plaza. There were Blue Suns mercs on nearly every corner, indicating to Liara that the district was firmly under their control. They seemed unbothered by her presence – either they didn't recognize her or the mercenary group had long since been passed over by the Broker in favour of other contracts.
She thought about getting food – she felt famished after several days of constant movement – but knew that she couldn't stop to rest; it made her too vulnerable to anyone that was following behind. Instead, she decided to wander the district, waiting for Cerberus to find her amidst the mass of activity and people in the district. She took care to make sure that the sarcophagus went with her, checking several times every minute to make sure it was still being tethered behind her. Some of the district's residents looked at her quizzically, but most seemed to stay out of her way. While this district didn't seem outwardly violent, the presence of the Blue Suns suggested that it was no stranger to odd and shady visitor.
After fifteen minutes of wandering, Liara decided to forego the busy thoroughfares of the district and try the less beaten path: Cerberus prided themselves on working in the shadows; they were unlikely to rendezvous with her in the middle of a crowded street. The coffin faithfully tracked after her, its bulky frame barely fitting through some of the more narrow entryways into the back alleys and forgotten plazas of the Gozu district. The sidestreets of Omega were even more derelict than its visible reaches – apartments had decayed even further away from the public gaze, and each apartment window had a clear line of soot and ash leading away from its oxygen-producing units. Away from the core of Omega, the burning heat of the air was lighter – still present, but not overpowering like it had been near Afterlife or in Eclipse territory – and Liara's lungs welcomed the feeling of a normal atmosphere.
"Don't move, Asari."
The voice behind her caught her off guard – it was too deep to be Miranda's, and she doubted that a Cerberus operative would address her so sternly. Pivoting on one foot, she spotted two white-armoured mercenaries – both Human – with assault rifles pointed directly at her. She could hear the booted feet of several more on the rooftops around her – she was surrounded.
"You have something that we want." The mercenary on the left gestured to the sarcophagus, "something that you took from our employer. Something he wants back."
Without waiting for the merc to make clear the implications, Liara flared her biotics and threw the one on the right directly into the wall of the apartment complex. She dove to the side to avoid the stream of gunfire coming from the other mercenaries around her, and caught the second merc in the chest with a shot from her pistol. Ducking behind a raised platform in the square, she strained to count the number of attackers remaining while avoiding coming into range: she spotted two on the far roof, another on the side, and she guessed that there were another two on the roof overhang that she stood under. Waiting for a lapse in the strafing fire raining down on her, she peered out from behind the barricade and snapped out a burst at the merc on the roof to her right. Catching him squarely in the chest, the Salarian toppled over and fell to the ground, his limp body crashing through the electrical wires that ran between apartments. When the gunfire returned, she ducked behind the barricade to wait out the storm again.
The familiar pattern was interrupted by the single shot of a sniper rifle, and Liara looked up to see the lifeless, headless body of another of the mercs fall to the ground from the roof overhang above her. The two mercenaries on the far roof seemed momentarily stunned, and she took advantage of the confusion to send three bullets into the shoulder of one of them. As far as she could tell, there were only two left, and one of them could be heard firing shots away from the central plaza. Liara sidestepped to get a better angle at the one on the far roof. She could hear gunfire all around her, but the bursts from the merc nearest here were suddenly replaced by a muffled roar, and she turned to see the merc tumble off the roof, locked in a melee with a Turian in blue and grey armour.
In the end, Garrus Vakarian had found her.
Shifting her attention to the merc on the far roof, Liara hugged the side-wall as she closed the distance between them. Holding her pistol steady with both hands, she fired two shots to disable the merc's shields, then summoned her biotics and pulled the merc off the roof and closer to her. She let the merc hang helpless for several seconds, and then used the force of her biotics to throw them into the ground; she heard the satisfying cracking of bones as she did so. She turned to see Garrus, helmet on, perched atop the final mercenary, his armoured fists repeatedly driving into the Human's bruised, bloody face. Walking towards him, Liara waited until Garrus finished, his incessant assault on the merc only ending when the Human's body went extremely still, his face a torn, bruised mass of blood and flesh. Standing, Garrus faced her.
"Figured you'd show up eventually," the Turian quipped as he tapped the switch on his armour that collapsed his helmet back into the chestplates. Garrus looked tired – his eyes bloodshot and twitchy in the dim light of Omega. "You weren't at the rendezvous when I got to this blasted rock."
"Yeah, well, there were…complications," Liara replied, her eyes going to the sarcophagus behind her.
Garrus motioned to the coffin as he moved to pick up his rifle. "Is that-," Liara cut him off with a nod of her head. "Shit. What happened?"
Shaking her head, Liara was silent as she collapsed into Garrus's embrace, holding him tightly as she revelled in the brief respite from the chaos and fury of the Terminus Systems. After days on the run in the company of Arbiters and information brokers, to finally see someone she trusted completely was a relief. Garrus hugged her back, the two friends clinging to each other amidst the blackened, blasted alleyways of Omega.
After a long moment of peace, Liara slipped back out, gesturing to the sarcophagus. "The Shadow Broker found his body," Liara said simply. "He planned to sell it to the Collectors."
Garrus exhaled sharply, "for what?"
"I don't know," she responded.
"And what about the Drell?" he asked. "There was a Drell with you the last time I saw you – outside of Afterlife."
"Feron, an information Broker." Liara perched herself against the cinderblock planter that was raised along the edge of the square. "He once worked for the Shadow Broker, and was turned by Cerberus."
"Wait, Cerberus? The Terra Firma extremists we encountered in the Traverse?!" Garrus was incredulous.
She nodded. "One of their lieutenants found Feron and I. I spoke with one of their leaders – they're also looking for Shepard's body. They think that they can bring him back."
"Is that even possible?"
"I don't know."
She told him everything – of Feron and their flight from Omega, of their rendezvous with the enigmatic Salarian Spectre, of the Shadow Broker's strange base on Alingon, and of her ultimate search for Cerberus. Garrus said nothing throughout, letting her speak as her thoughts came to her. It felt wonderfully cathartic – to simply pour out the tension and fear and mistrust and apprehension of the last four days with someone who would understand her.
"And Feron," she said at last, her voice choking. "I'm still not sure whose side the bastard was on," she smiled through her mirthless laughter. "But he bought me the time I needed to get Shepard's body out of the hands of the Broker. Even though it cost him his life."
"And the Salarian Spectre?"
"I don't know. He was still holding out when I took off the shuttle, but he can't have lasted much longer."
Garrus reclined to rest his elbows against the cinderblock top of their makeshift seat, casting his eyes towards the ceiling of the superstructure. "So now what? Will you deliver his body to Cerberus?"
"I don't know," she could feel her eyes welling up at the thought. "Jondum wanted me to destroy his body – felt it was too much of a risk not to."
Garrus paused for a long time before looking back at Liara. "I'm inclined to agree," he noted simply. "But you recovered his body – what do you think is the right thing to do?"
"I don't know. Destroying his body seems like the safest thing to do but…I just can't." She shrugged her shoulders and fixed her gaze on the ground, "if there's a chance that he can be brought back…part of me wants to take that chance."
"Can't say as I blame you. As much as Shepard meant to all of us, he meant even more to you. And then what?"
"Continue his fight, I guess. You and I both know that there's something out there still – that the fight didn't end with Sovereign's destruction," she glanced back at the sarcophagus, "or revenge. The Broker has hurt too many people to be allowed to get away with it."
"But where would you even start?" Garrus asked. "Finding criminals here is easy – I just point my gun and start shooting. But the Broker? Even if you find someone who works for him, you wouldn't find much. Everyone knows that Barla Von works for him on the Citadel, yet he'd still only be able to give you a tiny piece of the puzzle."
"I don't know. I have an OSD of data from Feron that he took from the Broker's network on Alingon. I'll go from there I guess." She looked up at Garrus, her eyes thoughtful as she studied him. "You should come with me."
Garrus sighed deeply, his eyes drooping as he shook his head. "I can't," he said simply. "It's…it's complicated. I've been here for five days and…it has this strange effect on you. There's a perpetual sickness here – a total absence of order, of goodness," Liara nodded in agreement. "Several hours after I encountered you, I saw a group of mercs attacking someone – don't know who, but I could hear the gunfire. I shot one of them." He glanced upward towards the ceiling, his breathing increasing sharply, "it felt -, I don't know, cathartic. Thirty minutes later, I killed another – he was trying to mug this young Batarian. It felt…right."
"But why?"
"Because I simply did what needed to be done," Garrus said simply. "There was no hierarchy, no procedure, no bureaucracy. I saw what needed to be done, and I did it." He was talking animatedly now, his eyes darting rapidly as he spoke. "Liara, I've chafed my entire career at not being able to stop people like that, and here…here I just can!"
"But why here specifically? That's true of the whole of the Terminus Systems! Why here and not Invictus or Illium?"
"I don't have a good answer for you, Liara," Garrus replied. "I don't even know how to explain it. I just feel drawn to this place – this wretched hive of scum and villainy. There is a binary here that is…refreshing. And there's important work to do – there's talk of something big happening on Omega, of some sort of ship that everyone seems to be after."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure yet –just rumours and whisperings that I've heard in the last few days. No one's really consistent on the details, but it seems worth looking at further." He looked at Liara, his eyes conveying all the sorrow and regret that he couldn't fit into his voice. "I'm sorry, Liara, but I think my place is here."
Liara hugged Garrus fiercely, clinging to her friend in the midst of Omega for a few final moments. "Be safe, Garrus. I've lost too much and too many already."
Releasing her from his embrace, Garrus walked towards one of the narrow alleyways that led away from the plaza. Turning to look back at Liara, he looked at Liara for a moment as the contours of his helmet refitted themselves around his head. "I will, Liara." With that, he turned his back to her and disappeared into the evening streets of Omega.
Liara continued to sit in the plaza, perched on the concrete planter next to Shepard's sarcophagus as she pondered what Garrus had said. The Turian seemed set on his course of action, and she only hoped that he wouldn't get himself killed in the pursuit of the impossible. Even from the handful of hours she'd spent on Omega, it was clear just how deep the rot had burrowed – even in the hot night air, she could hear stray gunshots and the breaking of glass in the ambience around her. Unlike Garrus, she wanted to be free from this place as quickly as she could.
She stared out into the night for a long time, mindful at last of the booted, heeled footsteps approaching behind her. Drawing her pistol, she turned slowly to see Miranda Lawson standing at the edge of the plaza, flanked by two Cerberus operatives in thin, lycra-like armour. Liara holstered her weapon at the site of them, and she saw Miranda's eyes glance approvingly to the coffin sitting beside her.
"Welcome back, Liara."
