Icarus

Prologue

The pirate's ship had crashed. It was a wreckage. Nothing should have survived, yet Aria T'Loak found her boots toeing the still smouldering area. "I don't understand," she said, looking up to the turian merc leader annoyed. "Why the fuck am I here?" Her own personal guards wearily looked around. There was something unsettling in the air. Something that felt wrong.

It'd been barely six months since the reapers had left, Shepard dying in the process. The galaxy was celebrating and had finally taken. However, Omega was still in repairs and Aria had been downright busy before being pulled off-world to deal with this. Whatever this was.

The merc nodded to the crate, gesturing with his rifle. "We thought what was in that might interest you." Aria walked over to the metal crate. It'd be dragged away from the crash site, it's lid partially open. It was expensive and high tech. Whatever was in there seemed to need a lot of attention. "We've barely touched it since Cravis first looked inside. Only called in a doctor to scan over and make sure it was legitimate before we called you. It- she's still in a medical coma."

Raising a brow, she turned back to the crate and pushed the adjar lid off before looking inside. An immediate gasp came from her as she looked up at the mercs. "My my, you may have earned my favour this time Santious," she told them, impressed at their findings before being compelled to look back at contents of the crate.

A figure, stripped of clothing, appeared to be sleeping in a synthetic casing of her body. Needles ran over her spine, filled no doubt, with a concoction of medication that would wake her up.

Aria's eyes ran over the body. She was curled as though she were a child still in the womb, undisturbed and probably only mildly aware of what was happening. She was unmarked, her bare skin clean of any tattoos, scars or any markings. Her usual dark hair that Aria had been used to seeing pinned on top of her hair, curled around her, blanketing over her shoulders and most of her back.

"And you're sure she's not a clone?"

"As sure as we can be without further test. It's...strange. Data says she's not a clone, her genetic material is all organic and there's no usual markers of any cloning or genetic alterations."

"But?" Aria prodded, sounding impatient.

"But...everything states that she's only a few weeks old."

Her eyes flicked back to the body. "Wake her up."

"Are you-?"

"Just do it."

A salarian doctor walked over and immediately began fiddling with his omni-tool before swiping it over the crate. There was a hiss and the needles immediately released their contents into the spine. The figure gasped. Sitting up, she threw her head back and screamed eyes opening wide as pain convulsed through her.

Aria watched as the needles fell out, leaving little sign of being connected to the woman's spine.

"Commander Shepard," she said, moving to stand in front of the woman,

The woman fell limp back onto her knees. Breathing heavily, her hands clutched at her heart and stomach as she stared confused at Aria. She was terrified, that was easy to see, confused, in pain and...angry. Aria smirked, if it was a clone, it was a very good one.

"Do you understand me?" Aria asked, kneeling down in front of her.

The grey eyes, flickered unsteadily between Aria's curiously narrowed ones. Slowly, she licked her lips and tiredly dropped her arms to her lap as they began to shake. "Is that..." she asked softly, her voice hesitant, "my name?"