A few minutes later, the cell door opened again. Shepard, still damp from being cleaned, entered and sat down against the wall, her eyes cast down at the floor.
Liara watched her from across the cell, wanting so much to go over to her. Hold her and hope she could take some comfort in the fact that they were still alive, and still together.
But how could she do that? How could she, when the whole reason they were in this hellish situation was entirely because of her own foolishness? So instead, she simply sat on her side of the cell and watched Shepard, who continued staring at the floor as the hours ticked by agonizingly slowly.
She had no idea how much time had passed when the cell door slid open again. Liara saw Shepard flinch and shudder, before starting to rise to her feet as the floating info drone hovered into the bare cell.
But Shepard froze when the info drone spoke. "Miss Lawson," it said. "You are to accompany me to your first training session."
Miranda's eyes turned steely as she rose to her feet. Liara could see the determination there, the desire not to let their captor see her afraid. The dark-haired woman glanced at her two fellow captives before walking after the drone, managing to look confident and powerful despite being completely naked.
Liara wished she could summon that kind of strength. Right now, all she could feel was terror. Not at the thought of her own death, or whatever sick tortures the Broker had in mind for her, but at the idea of watching the woman she loved more than life itself be tortured, violated, and ultimately killed.
"It's going to end that way eventually," Liara thought bleakly to herself. "Eventually, the Broker will tire of us. And Goddess, I know he'll make me watch. He'll kill Miranda and Shep..."
Liara cursed herself for a weakling, even as she felt the tears start to come again. The sound of her sobbing finally brought Shepard's eyes up from the floor.
"Liara, come here," Shepard's voice was low, but still filled with the strength she remembered. It had been that voice she had heard hovering in a Prothean containment field years ago, and a voice that had soothed her in desperate times such as these.
She wanted to shake her head, wanted to tell Shepard that she didn't deserve to be close to her. But when Shepard beckoned her again, she finally moved over to Shepard's side.
Leaning in close, Shepard spoke low into her ear. "I don't want him to hear us. Don't want to give him the sick thrill of listening in." She paused, then took a shuddering breath. "Liara, I'm so sorry. If I'd fought a little harder..."
"No, Shepard," Liara whispered, raising a hand to stroke at her lover's freckled cheek. "You don't have to take responsibility here. I know that this is my fault. I just wish..."
"It's okay," Shepard's hand reached up to brush at her damp cheeks. "Don't give up hope yet. The Illusive Man was able to track down information on the Shadow Broker before. Maybe he'll be able to find him again."
Her words were filled with encouragement, but neither of them believed it. Shepard's last meeting with the Illusive Man was after she had blown up the Collector base he'd been eager to plunder for technology. Liara remembered laughing as Shepard had related the story: how she'd told the Illusive Man they were doing things her way from now on, whether he liked it or not. Seeing that confidence in her then, that power, Liara would have stripped Shepard's uniform off and melded with her right then if Joker hadn't come over the intercom to announce their arrival at Hagalaz.
Joker. The thought of the wisecracking pilot made her other friends come to mind. Friends she would likely never see again. Her grief was only interrupted by the sound of the video display in the cell clicking on.
Liara didn't want to look, but her morbid curiosity got the better of her. She turned, expecting to see the hideous yahg stripping out of his clothing again.
But the camera was showing a different room. Miranda stepped cautiously into a mostly bare room. The most notable feature was a bare metal table positioned in the center of the room.
"Your pathetic attempt at overthrowing me ended up being quite an annoyance, Dr. T'Soni," said the Broker's voice over the cell's intercom. "All of my most skilled associates were stationed on this ship, and you slaughtered them to a man. As I told you before your defeat, they were replaceable. But, in order to ensure their full loyalty to me, I had to offer certain... incentives for their service."
And as the door to the room Miranda was in slid open, Liara let out a moan of anguish. "Oh... Goddess, no..."
Into the room stepped eight scarred, dangerous looking individuals. Miranda stared at them, her courageous facade slipping just a little. Five grinning humans arranged themselves around Miranda, along with a batarian, a turian, and a dark-skinned asari.
"Miss Lawson, if you would," the Broker instructed Miranda over the intercom. "Please place your hands on the table, and remain in that position until my new associates have finished."
"Finished" with what, nobody had to ask.
For a brief moment, Miranda did nothing, standing and staring back at the eager mercenaries with cold eyes. Everything was still, and Liara wasn't sure if she wanted Miranda to comply... or to resist, just to free one of them from the torments that were sure to come.
She felt Shepard pull her close, pressing the side of her head against Liara's. She thought it a token of affection at first, but then Liara realized what Shepard was doing and felt a stab to the heart.
"He'll kill Shepard first," Liara thought to herself, "because he wants to keep me alive as long as possible. But if the two of us are close together when the collar detonates..."
Inhaling deeply, Liara pressed herself close to Shepard and prepared herself for whatever was to come.
"Miss Lawson, I have already explained the terms of your survival, and the survival of your comrades," the Broker spoke over the intercom after several tense seconds. "I will not ask again."
Still, there was one more second of hesitation. But just when Liara was sure that the Broker would inflict his punishment, Miranda turned her back to the mercenaries and bent over, pressing her palms against the table and spreading her legs apart.
The Broker's men let out wicked laughs, and one of the men stepped forward and started undoing his pants. "No doubt they already worked out beforehand who would get the rape privileges first," Liara bitterly thought to herself. She wanted to look away from the screen, but part of her felt like she needed to witness this. She doubted the pain of watching what Miranda was about to go through would amount to even a fraction of what Miranda herself was about to experience, but she didn't want Shepard's comrade to suffer alone.
As the first man roughly penetrated her, Miranda gritted her teeth, her pained eyes locked on the far side of the room. Liara could see her try to will herself away from this situation, go somewhere deep in her mind and escape. But as the dirty human merc reached around to roughly grope at her breasts, Miranda let out an anguished moan, each violent thrust by the first of her many rapists bringing her back to reality.
Liara sighed in relief as the man behind Miranda let out a groan and pulled away after several minutes. But as the rest of the group mocked him for his lack of staying power, and a bald-headed human with an eyepatch moved to replace the first man, Liara knew that Miranda's tortures were far from over.
She had no way of knowing how long the second man fucked Miranda before letting out a triumphant shout and shooting his load inside her. But the third man, a younger-looking human with a dyed-green mohawk, wasted no time in grabbing Miranda's hips and slamming his full length into her with a grin.
Any trace of Miranda's former resolve to stay strong was gone, and with every thrust she let a pained cry. Her agony seemed to only amuse the crowd of cheering rapists even more, and they cheered as their comrade signaled his climax.
Liara felt her stomach roil in disgust when the third man pulled out. By now, Miranda's insides were filled with the cum of her abusers, and semen began to splatter onto the floor from between her legs. The fourth of the participants, the batarian, saw this as well and growled. "This bitch's cunt is getting too sloppy," he called out to the rest of the room. When Liara saw him spit into his hand and begin rubbing saliva along the length of his cock, she winced as she realized what was coming next.
As the batarian placed the tip of his cock against Miranda's asshole, Liara saw Miranda mouth "No." But her silent protests were in vain. As the batarian forced himself balls-deep inside Miranda's anal passage, the tortured human let out a shriek that Liara knew would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.
And it went on and on for hours after that. By the time the sixth participant, the turian, made his way to Miranda's backside, several of the men had regained their erections. The first man came around the table and, placing a hand on Miranda's back, roughly bent her down across the metal surface. Miranda gasped at the feeling of cold steel against her bare breasts, and soon found her open mouth filled by the first man's regained erection. While the turian forced his unlubricated cock into Miranda's ass, the human on the other side of the table grabbed the sides of Miranda's head and began roughly fucking her face.
Soon, each man had had at least two turns at Miranda, the only measure of time for Liara being the slowly-expanding pool of spent semen spilling down between Miranda's legs, and the streaks of cum shot across her face and dribbling out of her mouth down her chin.
The one mercenary who had not taken part in the gang rape was the asari. While everyone else had taken their turns on Miranda, she had simply stood in the back, her arms crossed as she smirked at the countless sexual assaults being perpetrated on the captive.
Finally, mercifully, the last man still in action grabbed Miranda by the ears and shoved his cock all the way down her throat, Miranda gasping for air as he shot his load down into her stomach and pulled out before she choked to death.
As the men cleaned themselves and zipped up their pants, the asari finally came forward. "You have fun, little human?" she mocked Miranda as she paced around the table, her eyes perusing every inch of the gasping, cum-soaked woman splayed out on the table. "Well, we decided to save the best for last. Mostly because... well, you won't be too much use to my men after I'm finished with you."
Reaching down, the asari gripped Miranda by the shoulder and raised her up off the table, until Miranda's arms were straightened out and propping up her quivering body again.
"I'm sure you Cerberus fucks have studied us inferior aliens a lot," the asari said as she glared into Miranda's eyes. "You ever heard of an Ardat-Yakshi before?"
This finally brought Miranda out of her dazed stupor, her eyes going wide. The asari leader reacted to this with mirthful laughter. "You have, I see. Oh, don't worry. I'm on the low end of the spectrum. So you'll survive this, I'm sure."
"Although," the asari said as she grabbed Miranda on both sides of the head. "You might wish you hadn't."
Her eyes went black, and Miranda let out a blood-curdling scream. The asari leader threw back her head and moaned in ecstasy, as the sensation of merging set off every nerve in her body at once. And Miranda kept screaming and screaming, Liara eventually clapping her hands over the sides of her head to block out the horrific sound of it.
Eventually, mercifully, the asari's eyes returned to normal. As soon as she released Miranda's head, Miranda fell forward onto the table before sliding backwards and hitting the floor.
The asari turned to the men in the room. "Get this bitch cleaned up and back to her cell," she ordered. "Do it fast, unless you want the big boss on your asses, got it?"
The men quickly complied, two of them grabbing Miranda under each arm and dragging her out of the room. A while later, the door to their cell opened, and the two men roughly tossed the still limp Miranda into the room.
As Liara stared down at the bruised and unconscious Miranda, it finally struck her: this was only the first day. Even if she was wrong about the hopelessness of their situation, and somebody did come to save them, how long would they have to endure these tortures until then? And the big question, the one that sent chills down her spine: If this is what the Shadow Broker has in store for Shepard and Miranda... what was he going to do to her?