Angel

By: 7hrill72

Samantha Shepard - Adept - Paragon with a little renegade - Colonist - Sole survivor - redhead with green eyes, long hair - no romance during ME1

Starting after the end of ME1. PS3 owner, so I don't have enough ME1 background to include it in the story. Some AU changes because I like to manipulate the dialog a bit. No intended plot changes, though I might change stuff at the end of ME3, assuming I get that far. Rated M for language and eventual Miranda/Shepard(F) femslash.

Bioware owns the rights to all characters within.

Chapter 1

Samantha leaned back against Liara, clearing her mind. They were in Liara's area near medical. Saren had killed himself and they had just destroyed Sovereign. She was proud of her team's accomplishments, but still couldn't keep away the memories. All those she failed to save. Her family; taken by slavers. Her squad in Akuze; completely destroyed. Dear, dear Ashley; sacrificed herself for Kaiden. Nightmares of the incidents woke her up almost every night, unless someone else was with her. If she was allowed time to dwell, memories and images assaulted her during the day.

Liara rubbed her shoulders, attempting to soothe her troubled commander. Sam's shoulder length hair brushed against her hands. Through her mind meld Liara had felt the spirits that hounded Samantha, and she tried to help the best she could. Liara could see the momentary tightening of Samantha's jaw when something distressing flashed across her mind. During a mission Samantha was decisive, focused, and invincible. Down time was trouble. Physical closeness calmed Sam when awake, and seemed almost mandatory to keep the nightmares away during sleep.

Liara enjoyed these moments. The asari weren't nearly as prude about physical contact as humans, and Liara was happy Samantha didn't consider it inherently sexual, like most of her race. Liara was sure there were rumors flying about the two of them among the crew. Though it was none of their business, Shepard and Liara didn't love each other. Shepard's inclination was towards stronger women. Shepard had a crush on Ashley at one time, but that didn't matter anymore.

"Arriving at target in ten minutes, Commander" Joker announced.

"Urggg" Samantha groaned while getting up. "Time to search another empty system."

"You'll find something soon." Liara said.

"I hope so, all this nothing is driving me crazy." Sam said dejectedly.

Liara helped straighten her uniform and sent her out.

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"Brace for evasive maneuvers!" Joker announced over the P.A.

Liara jerked up and ran towards her suit, hoping Shepard could find hers in the chaos.

She found Shepard putting on the last of her armor.

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Garrus, with his military training, recognized the alert first. Shepard, Liara, and Kaiden could handle themselves. Garrus headed towards Engineering. Sliding down the nearest maintenance ladder he headed towards Tali's station.

Tali was sorting through an engine calibration program with a drive sensor conflict. She ignored the alerts, sure it was some type of drill. She shifted the sensor array to get a better angle.

"Tali!" Garrus interrupted her. He knew she would be wrapped up in her work. "We need to go! The Normandy is under attack!". Garrus grabbed Tali's arm and pulled her away from her console.

"Wha..." Tali stammered, then recognized the desperation in his eyes.

Just then a huge blast rocked the Normandy, knocking them to the ground. Then they heard the call to abandon ship.

"We're going!" Garrus dragged her to the nearest escape pod and shoved her in, sliding in after her. The rest of the engineering staff followed suit.

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Up on the crew level, fires were everywhere, and there were several hull sections missing.

"Joker's still in the cockpit. He won't abandon ship, and I'm not leaving either." Liara told Shepard.

"I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles. I'll take care of Joker."

"Commander..." Liara pleaded.

"Liara. Go. Now.". Shepard commanded.

"Aye, Aye" Liara took off to the nearest escape pod.

Sam ran back upstairs towards the cockpit. The Normandy was in bad shape. The entire upper fuselage was missing, forcing her to take it slow. When she got to the cockpit, Joker was still furiously trying to steer the doomed vessel, though she didn't think his commands were reaching the engines any more.

"Come on Joker, we have to get out of here."

"No, I won't abandon the Normandy. I can still save her".

"The Normandy is going down, with or without you. Nothing you do will change that". Shepard started to physically pull him out of the seat. Suddenly a blast tore apart the Normandy.

Shepard tossed Joker into the evac shuttle. Another blast and she's hurled away from the hatch. She does manage to hit the shuttle release for Joker before drifting out into space. Too bad she bounced off a bulkhead on the way out and breached her suit...

As Samantha listened to her air leaking out, struggling futilely until oxygen deprivation kicked in, she thought about her squad; her friends. Hopefully they made it out ok. Her thoughts drifted to Ashley and her parents when the darkness closed in.

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Joker dreaded his next move. Various calls were going out between the evac shuttles across their comm links, and he needed to give the bad news. Garrus was trying to get a personnel count. He and Tali were in a shuttle with the rest of the engineering group. Liara was in a shuttle with what was left of the crew level. Dr. Chakwas was in a shuttle with Wrex and Kaiden.

"Did Joker do something stupid like go down with the ship? And where the hell is Shepard?". Garrus was getting more insistent.

Aw hell. "Joker here. Shepard threw me in a pod and then...". Can't finish. Damnit, it's my fault. Have to finish. "...then hit the eject when she was thrown towards the other side of the ship. The ship broke up right after my evac shuttle released.". The line was silent for too long, then the faint sound of crying could be heard from several sources.

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"...aware of outside stimulae."

"God Miranda, I think she's waking up!" Some unknown person was talking.

"Damn it Wilson, give her the sedative. She's not ready". Some other person responded. They were talking about Shepard. She lifted her arm, but it didn't look right. The skin was a weird color.

Now I'm seriously weirded out. The last thing she remembered was floating through space.

"Shepard, don't try to move, and try to stay calm". A very pretty brunette came into view and pulled her arm back out of view.

Oh, she's a pretty one. If only I weren't dead. Wait, am I dead? Is this heaven? She does look like an angel. Though I was under the impression there would be more harps and halos.

Oops, what are they saying? Something about heart rate. Hard to pay attention. Getting really tired again. Must be sedative. Angel looks down at me again. Oh my... Everything went black again.

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"Shepard do you hear me? Get out of that bed now. This facility is under attack!".

They're talking to me. Hmmm. My face hurts. My head hurts.

An explosion rocks the room. Time to get up. Ouch. My side hurts. Shepard winces and rolls off the bed.

"Shepard, your scars aren't healed, but I need you to get moving. This facility is under attack." Pretty voice. Forceful. Seems familiar.

The faceless voice guides her to a gun, though it's pretty useless without a clip. There are a couple canisters by the entrance that are about to explode, so she hides behind a couple crates to wait for the bang. The voice mentions something about a clip nearby, but she's already moving. Shepard grabs the clip off the floor, loads the pistol, and takes out the mech in the next room. Easy after all she's been through. Not that she's not feeling pain, the scars are not pleasant. She proceeded forward grabbing ammo where available. The voice is attempting to give her directions, but Shepard knows what she's doing.

Another set of doors and out onto a landing. Oooh, grenade launcher. Shepard gives a little shiver in delight. One shot takes out a group of mechs, and apparently punches a hole in a nearby compressed gas canister. Bad job Sam, need to pay attention to your surroundings. You're better than that. She runs through the resulting 'wall o flame' and around a few corners.

"You're doing great Shepard, head to the...". Static cuts her off. Shepard guessed she's on her own now.

She finds an open room and takes a look around. Couple mechs are crawling across the floor for some unknown reason, and subsequently explode. She peruses a vid about the "Shepard" project, apparently code-named "Lazarus", with Angel in charge, whose name she now realizes is Miranda. It costs a lot to bring someone back from the dead.

Through another set of doors and Shepard finds another human, currently involved in a battle with more mechs. He seems very surprised to see her.

"What the hell?! I thought you were still a work in progress!" he exclaims. Evidently Shepard's not supposed to be up and about just yet.

"I just woke up, are you with Miranda?". After some quick questions, they realize they're not going to be able to talk until they get rid of the mechs. "Time to do what I do best."

Quick warp and some pistol shots, and they're in good shape.

His name is Jacob, and apparently it took them two years to bring her back.

"I've been gone for two years? Where's the rest of my crew?" Shepard was astonished.

Luckily most of the crew survived. Shepard wonders what they're up to. She'll miss Pressley, and makes a mental note to look up the rest.

"Check, check, anyone on this frequency? Anyone still alive out there? Hello?" That voice sounded familiar.

"Wilson. This is Jacob. Commander Shepard is here. We just took out a wave of mechs over in D wing."

"Shepard's alive? How the hell...never mind. You need to get her out of there. Head through the service tunnels to the network control center.". Wilson didn't seem too enthused about Shepard's current vertical status.

A few hallways and they found Wilson sniveling with a hurt leg. Shepard applied a medi-gel out of pity, but her opinion of Wilson was not rising. She'd give him more slack if he was part of her crew, but she doubts he'd make it as part of her crew. Maybe he just had too much medical training, too little real life training.

Luckily he does have some skills, soon afterward he overloads some flammable crates to destroy a few mechs. A few more mechs down and they've reached the door to the shuttles.

Wilson opens the door. Only to find Angel waiting.

"Miranda? But you were...". Wilson looked a bit shocked.

"Dead?". She shots him right between the eyes.

"Whoa, Angel! Now you can't interrogate him". Slightly disturbing, but Shepard's impressed at her moxy.

"Shepard, I am Miranda. Wilson betrayed us". She wasn't impressed at her new nick-name. "We need to get you out of here."

"I've had enough of this station to last a lifetime.". Shepard is ready to go.

"Or in your case, two.". And throws Shepard a smile. Yep, still beautiful. Shepard thought to herself. Nice smile too. It's a shame she works for Cerberus.

On the shuttle ride to see the Illusive Man(TIM), Miranda quizzed Shepard about her past. A dangerous proposition at best. Really? Shepard thought. A question about the fifty soldiers I got killed?

"Acuze sucked. Thanks for reminding me. I watched my entire squad get wiped out.". She spits.

Now a question about Virmire, really picking the most painful points in my entire life. Shepard thinks.

"I had to make a choice, which I still question today. I didn't do it lightly, and I wish I could have Williams back." Another wonderful nightmare. "This discussion is over." Jacob seems fine with the analysis, but Miranda doesn't seem convinced.

"We'll have to hope our field test is sufficient for the Illusive Man."

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Miranda was concerned about working with Shepard. She seemed sufficiently restored to her former self, but also acted like a loose cannon, and very anti Cerberus. This might be more difficult than she thought. Time to review the psych reports she acquired from the Alliance.

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Shepard thought the meeting with TIM went about as well as could be expected. The guy is an asshole, and her history with Cerberus shows what atrocities he was willing to commit to further his cause. Sam wasn't going to trust him, and she'd have to keep an eye on Jacob and Miranda as well. Not that keeping an eye on Miranda would be unpleasant. Off to Freedom's Progress to assess the situation.

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They find the place crawling with hostile mechs, though they're not hard to kill. It's a little boring until they run into several quarians, who jump up and point their guns at them.

"Stop right there!". One of them yelled at the team.

"Prazza! You said you'd let me handle this!"

Holy shit! Shepard almost says out loud. It's Tali! She's tempted to run up and hug her, but there's too many guns pointed at her for her comfort. Tali's apparently involved in a power struggle with this Prazza fellow.

"I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives.". Prazza says, though Shepard wouldn't disagree under most circumstances. She'd prefer a chance to prove her non-Cerberus leanings without getting shot.

"Shepard, is that? You're alive?". Tali finally recognized her.

"Cerberus rebuilt me, Tali. In return, they asked me to investigate these attacks on human colonies.". Shepard switched to diplomacy mode, realizing Tali's position. She put her gun away, and motioned for the others to do the same. She could easily throw them all into a wall if needed.

"You'll forgive us for not taking you at your word, Cerberus.". Prazza was starting to annoy Shepard. Her team was obviously not shooting at them.

Miranda decided to chime in. "We're well within our rights to investigate an attack on a human colony. I'd like to know what the quarians are doing here."

"Weapons down, Prazza. Whatever's going on here. I don't think we need another fight.". Tali attempted to diffuse the situation. "One of our people was here on pilgrimage. His name is Veetor. We came to find him."

Veetor was nervous in crowds and likely suffering from an infection, so he programmed the mechs to kill on sight. The teams decided to split up and search for him together.

Shepard and her squad take down a few drones, then Tali puts out a desperate call: "Shepard! Prazza and his squad rushed on ahead. I told them to wait, but they wouldn't listen."

Great. Shepard thought. Nothing like a male with a dented ego to screw things up.

"We should have expected this". Miranda either berating herself for not anticipating the issue, or trying to give Shepard a hint. Shepard didn't know her well enough to be sure.

"We should be able to catch them". Jacob adds.

Shepard's team takes out a couple more mechs and Tali gives another update: "Hurry Shepard, we're inside the loading dock. Veetor reprogrammed a heavy mech! It's tearing Prazza's squad apart!"

"They did want to get to Veetor first". Miranda says while heading to the side of the loading door.

Nice one Angel, though not very nice. Shepard gave her back a quick smile.

Tali let them through the big security door just in time to see Prazza and his squad obliterated. Time for action.

"Miranda! Overload the shield and I'll take care of the rest!" Shepard took command.

She circles a stack of crates to keep it confused between warps and pistol shots. She wished she had a shotgun. Miranda blasts it once more and it's all done.

"Get to cover!". Shepard warns before diving behind a crate. The mech blows up, rocking the area. Shepard does a quick check to make sure everyone is uninjured. All in all, not too difficult. Miranda and Jacob are quite competent. "Good job." Shepard is pleased with their abilities.

Tali is playing nurse to the leftovers of Prazza's crew, so they head to the back of the loading area to look for Veetor.

Shepard enters a cube to find a quarian at a bank of monitors. "Monsters are coming. Mechs will protect. Safe from swarms. Have to hide. No monsters. No swarms. No-no-no-no-no.". Veetor has gone around the bend. He's going through some kind of data. He should have noticed their team take out all of his mechs on the surveillance feed, but doesn't turn around to address them..

"Veetor?". Shepard tries to get his attention.

"No Veetor. Not here. Swarms can't find. Monsters coming. Have to hide".

Maybe I can get through to him. "Nobody's going to hurt you any more, Veetor."

"I don't think he can hear you, Commander.". Jacob adds.

Time to wake him up. Shepard hacks the video feed and blanks out all the monitors. Veetor finally notices the team. He is obviously confused and scared.

After some questions Veetor is cogent enough to show video footage of the attack. Some race called the collectors uses swarms of insects to immobilize the populace and then packs them into containers, which they load onto their ship. Looks like we found our enemy. No idea if they are connected to the reapers.

"We need to get this data to the Illusive Man. Grab the quarian and call the shuttle to come pick us up.". Miranda trying to take over the situation. Shepard turns to address her but gets interrupted.

Tali walked in at that moment. Not the best moment for Cerberus/alien relations...

"What! Veetor needs treatment, not an interrogation.". Tali was obviously not pleased with Shepard's current companions, and her by relation.

Jacob tries to smooth things over, but Tali is having none of it. Miranda pours salt on the wound by suggesting somehow that Cerberus has a lower rate of betrayal than the quarians. Not quite Angel. Shepard has to fix this.

"Veetor goes with Tali. He's traumatized, and needs medical attention. Tali will give us his omni-tool data and take him to the flotilla."

"Understood, Commander.". At least Miranda will follow orders, even when she doesn't necessarily agree.

"Thank you, Shepard. I'm glad to hear you're still the one giving the orders.". Tali gave her a nod. Shepard imagines a smile behind the mask.

Shepard tries to convince her to join the Normandy, but Tali doesn't want to abandon her current mission. Not to mention, she's still nervous about the whole Cerberus/brought back to life thing. Shepard will miss her, but doesn't really blame her. They head back to the base.

The Illusive man proves himself to be an asshole, again, but he's given Shepard free rein on this mission. She's sure he has some ulterior motive, but she'll deal with that later. Time to assemble the squad. Tali is busy. Liara is unknown. Garrus is unknown. Kaiden is unknown, though likely with the Alliance somewhere. Wrex is busy with the krogan clans.

Shepard decides to look over the profiles. TIM also mentioned a pilot...

"Hey commander. Just like old times, eh?". Joker!

"I can't believe it's you Joker.". Shepard gave him a smile.

"Look who's talking. I saw you get spaced.". A twinge of guilt crossed his face, but he quickly recovered to standard Joker.

Joker joined Cerberus because the Alliance took away the only thing he really loved, flying. They also swept the entire reaper threat under the rug. The Alliance would be impressive if they didn't constantly shoot themselves in the foot.

"The Alliance took away the only thing that mattered to me. Hell yea, I joined Cerberus.". Shepard wondered why the Alliance would ground a pilot with Joker's skill.

"Do you really trust the Illusive Man?". Shepard tries to gauge his loyalty.

"I don't trust anyone who makes more than I do, but they're not all bad. Saved your life. Let me fly... And there's this."

Shepard's spirit soars. A new ship! Looks just like the Normandy, except the tacky Cerberus paint job.

"I guess we'll need to give her a name." As if there was any question.