Prologue: The discovery
Han'Gerrel's P.O.V
The Flotilla had received reports about Cerberus labs based not too far from the fleet. My crew and I were tasked with investigating the lab in the neighboring system then destroying it. While Admiral Zaal'Koris was to investigate the ones closer to the Fleet and destroy those as well. As our shuttle landed I noticed that the vegetation had begun to grow over the walls attempting to reclaim the area the lab covers. It was unusual.
"Admiral, the lab looks abandoned." said his shuttle pilot.
I couldn't help but agree with him, however, we still needed to investigate the lab and destroy it.
"Everyone keep your guard up. Just because it looks abandoned doesn't mean it is." I told them.
We slowly made our way inside the lab. We checked logbooks as we went hoping to discover what they were doing here. Eventually we made it to a room full of tanks. Most of them looked empty, but the very last one contained a woman with purplish skin. She wasn't an Asari that much was obvious. I looked at the monitors for her tank and realized she was still alive.
"Search the room I want to know what they were doing to her." I ordered.
I approached the tank and observed the woman. Her hair was long and black. Tilting my head, I realized she was wearing a suit like a Quarians the only thing that was missing was the hood and mask. Looking around the room slowly I saw the mask sitting flat against a desk and the hood had never been attached to her suit and was lying next to the mask. I gathered them up and made my way back to the tank. Glancing over the monitors again I decided to release her. No one deserved to be trapped inside of a tank. Not even an experiment. I pressed the release switch and watched as the water drained from the tank. Stepping back as the glass lifted, I watched as the woman fell to her knees outside the tank and coughed up water. I crouched beside her and attached the hood to the clips on her suit and pulled it over her hair before attaching the mask. The woman looked up at me and I could see her eyes glowing through the mask as any Quarians would only hers were green.
"What is your name? And what were they doing to you?" I asked the woman.
She coughed and stood slowly looking around to get her bearings. Seeing the monitors, she went to them and began to power them up. Her fingers moved over the interface and I noticed she had five fingers instead of three. Upon noticing that I raised my pistol and leveled it at the back of her head. I did not want to kill her, but I would if I had no choice.
"My name is Jasmine Harper and…. They were trying to make me a Quarian Human Hybrid. I am the daughter of Cerberus' Illusive Man. Or I was. He had me brought to this facility for seeing things I wasn't supposed to. As a result, I've been summarily disowned and yet my twin brother Colton or as he calls himself Crypt is still under my fathers control." She finally said.
I felt my body go numb hearing that. Family was everything to Quarians if only because of how we've had to live not many families were close but as a people who lived on starships our entire lives you get used to closer quarters. She seemed to be telling the truth, so I slowly put my pistol back in its place on my hip. I moved closer to who I realize is a young woman on the cusp of age for her pilgrimage.
"You're welcome to return to the fleet with us and will be welcomed with open arms. The only thing is you're at the age where our young leave on their pilgrimage, so I'll teach you some things about the fleet before we get back and we'll see what the other admirals say." I told her.
Her body language screamed that she was skeptical, but she agreed to join my team on the return. My crew slowly filtered back into the room and the techs downloaded what information they could from the terminals. Before they left they planted the bombs. Once safely out of the blast range they watched the lab get destroyed.
