The mission went to complete utter fucking hell the moment Soraya T'Loak's combat boots hit the deck of the Cerberus station. Half her troops were dead, half the living were injured, half of the uninjured were hitting the point of extreme battle fatiuge. She needed to order a full retreat to get her people out of there before all of them were dead instead of just most of them. Soraya was more than certain she could finish the mission on her own from here. She was crouching behind a hip high crate with her second command at her side, both of them breathing hard and sweating. There were still at least a dozen enemy troops pinning them down, but in all actuality, Cerberus stood no chance.
"Bray, I'm going to say something you're not going to like all that much," She drawled as she leaned out of their low cover and lobbed a Stasis. She then shot three of her ensnared Cerberus operatives square in the head.
"Three in a row, huh? We're at that part of the plan already?" Bray grumbled miserably, ejecting the thermal clip from his assault rifle and slapping another one in it's place. Not missing a beat, the batarian leaned out and emptied the clip, dropping four men.
"I know you want to keep playing, Bray, but you heard my mother," Soraya replied, lobbing a lift grenade as hard as she could to make it hit the wall at the end of the corridor and ricochet to the sidehall the Cerberus operatives were staging their attacks from. A quick sweep of the IFF from her heavily modified Kuwashii visor told Soraya no one was left standing.
"When did you become the obedient child?" Bray questioned with a whole hearted laugh. He stood upright, and reached a hand down to pull the human woman up. She accepted his offer, and was hauled up right.
Shouldering her rifle, she pulled her pistol from it's holster on her thigh, Soraya looked Bray straight in his main eyes. "It's time to get those who can go off the fucking station, Bray." The words were said in the nearly monotonous tone her mother used when making clear that the line between friendly and commanding had been crossed. With a shake of his head, he handed her an extra grenade, and turned and jogged off, ordering a full retreat back to the ships to those that were able to hear him.
Soraya watched him for a moment before turning back to finish what she was sent to do. She felt a slight weight press further down on her shoulders as soon as Bray left her side. He didn't know she was hiding things from him.
Clearing three more levels, Soraya came to a slight opening where a man was crouching behind a balcony rail. She'd hacked the entire stations mechs to turn on their owners about three minutes after she pushed on by herself, and they had him pinned down. Skittering to a stop, Soraya practically jumped into the small amount of cover offered by the side of the doors. Heart hammering in her chest, she leaned into the corner, catching her breath with practiced and controlled ease.
"Miranda, this is Jacob," the dark skinned man yelled, presumably into a comm. "Someone hacked our security mechs and they have me pinned down not far from Shepard! They're trying to get to her!"
Soraya's ears perked to this. She must be getting close to her objective. Very close.
She checked her pistol and whirled out of her cover, aiming her biotic focus at Jacob as he was starting to register she was there and that she wasn't a friendly. With a thundering clap, the air that was once around her collapsed and crashed in on itself behind her as she biotically charged the officer at untrackable speeds. Pinning his back to the wall, she held her pistol right between his eyes.
"Tell me where the fucking abomination is, asshole," She sneered, her stare never wavering.
"I'll die before I tell you whe-"
Soraya pulled the trigger of her pistol mid-word, spraying the wall and her face with chunks of Jacob's face and brain. She wiped her face with the softer underside of her gauntlets as the headless body's knees buckled and it fell to the floor with a soggy tump. "As you wish," Soraya said softly, and continued to the Resurrection Labs.
Her mother had dropped quite the bomb on her during the mission briefing. She'd always known that she wasn't actually Aria's daughter, as an asari couldn't have given birth to her. She'd never actually asked where she'd come from, nor did she actually ever care. Aria had kept Soraya safe, healthy, educated, trained, and in Aria's own way; loved and cherished. However, being told during a mission briefing that you are the twin sister of the Hero of the Citadel was more than a little shocking. The shock value only went up when being informed that the famous Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, had been killed two years ago and was in the process of being put back together in some freak science experiment. Bonus points: She was to make sure it didn't happen.
Aria believed full heartedly that what came out of that laboratory would be a walking, talking cerberus meat puppet if the project was a success. She wanted her gone, she wanted the space station holding the body gone, she wanted all information relating to the project gone. She wanted everything vaporized to the point of no return. Soraya was in just enough shock to not question her mother, and did as she was ordered.
Now, standing over the heavily scarred body of what she'd been told was once her twin, she felt a slight waver in her fortitude. She'd grown up feeling connected to something somewhere. Aria taught her that was Eternity she felt, and that made Soraya very special...
Shepard was connected to a ventilator, a feeding tube, a blood filter and what had to be a catheter. Machines monitored her heart rate, platelets, muscle density and brainwaves. Touching a discarded datapad, it's screen lit up with it's information. Soraya picked it up and scanned the notes, her gloved fingers hovering above her twin's name.
Megan Chase Shepard.
There was a small breeze carrying the smell of saltwater. Sun shone down through a canopy of green and gold. She was chasing something - no, someone - around the base of a giant hardwood tree. "No, Meggie! Give her back!" She cried, her little toddler voice full of outrage and anguish. Pale blonde hair kept running, her hands clutching a ragdoll.
Soraya nearly threw up in her mouth. She had no memory of her childhood before Aria. She shook her head vehemently, trying to shake what she seemed to have remembered off. Her mission was very simple; stop Shepard's Resurrection.
So why was it so hard?
Soraya disconnected the blood filter first, then the heart monitor, the feeding tube, making her way through all the wires connected to her sister. Sister...the word felt foreign to her. Foreign and beautiful. She felt tears begin to well up in her eyes as she reached to remove the breathing tubes in her nose. For reasons Soraya couldn't explain, she pulled her hand back, snatched the glove and gauntlet off of her right arm, then removed the tubes from her nose. She'd barely gotten her hand six inches from Shepard's face when her eyes flew open and she grabbed Soraya's wrist.
"We thought they killed you..." she croaked, her eyes wide in shock, still clutching her wrist. "You still have the scar on your chin," Shepard whispered, her face getting whiter by the second.
Soraya's brows were pulled down in confusion that bordered on anger. "I-I have n-no idea what you're t-talking about," she stammered completely unnerved, using her gloved hand to try to pry the other woman's hand off her own wrist.
"The Reapers are coming, Morgan...You have," Shepard was struggling to speak at this time. Her organs were shutting down, her heart barely beating.
"My name is not Morgan! Let me fucking go!" Soraya cried, tugging harder at the hand holding her captive. She was genuinely starting to become afraid. Her skin was prickled in goosebumps, the hair on the back of her neck was standing straight up.
"No, you have to understand! They're coming!" Shepard hissed, trying to sit up. Megan Shepard's pupils dilated and Soraya heard her twin whisper, "Embrace Eternity,".
Masses of meat in piles, a blue eyed turian with blue face paint, bodies on tall purple spikes, a giant red krogan, snow and giant bugs, wires and cogs fusing with flesh and bone, an asari caught in a giant stasis, screaming children, a purple quarian holding her bleeding arm, burning sky, red lasers in the sky, aliens being turned into abominations, planetary system, planet.
Soraya came out of the vision and immediately bent over and emptied the contents of her stomach right next to Commander Shepard's hospital bed. She looked at the woman still holding her wrist and realized Shepard was gone.
Panic beset Soraya so fast she could barely stop herself from convulsing. She tried to re hook her twin to the machines, tears running down her cheeks.
"Noooooo... no, no, nononono! Come back, Megan! I'm sorry! No!" She shreiked, finally getting the neural and heart monitors reconnected. The cardial monitor started screaming it's high pitched song of death, and the panic inside her soul tripled.
"No! Megan, don't go! No!" Soraya screamed, her tears uncontrolled as she began pounding on Shepard's chest with the side of her first. "We need you, dammit! I don't know what to do!"
A blast from inside the station knocked Soraya to the floor. Swearing, she pulled herself to her feet using the Shepard's bedrails. As she regained her feet, her eyes caught a sparkle around her twins throat. Another ordinance blast nearly took her off her feet, but she managed to keep her footing and snatch the necklace off her sister's neck.
She bolted for the door and stopped to take a last regretful look at her sister's body before she hauled ass for her ship. "I'll try," was the whispered promise she made as she turned away for the last time.
She reached the Gipsy just as the last mechs carried their looted crates aboard. Bray was waiting for her at the hatch, his assault rifle at the ready.
"I didn't think you were coming, Sora. You turned off your omnitool right after I left your side," the batarian growled, his voice full of accusation.
Her eyes were still red and puffy, as her nose, but Soraya could easily brush that off with tear gas. She glared at Bray and pointed to the inside of her ship with the hand that was gloved. "No questions, just go," she growled back, her eyes full of a look that said 'don't fuck with me'.
Bray huffed in clear agitation, but did as he was ordered. He turned on his heel and made way for the cockpit, Soraya right behind him.
"Let's go home. I've had enough of this place," she barked as she punched the hatch button.
They were a safe distance away when the real explosions went off. Soraya watched with narrowed eyes from the observation windows in the cockpit as Lazarus Station began to implode. The silent violence was beautiful and dramatic, each momentary burst of oxygen igniting and exploding seemed to dance for a brief moment before the void of space extinguished it's life. That's what I just did. She thought with bitter animosity. There was a nasty taste in her mouth, something metallic and acidic. It was absolutely vile and repulsive.
"You wanna tell me what the hell just happened back there, or do I have to play Twenty Questions with you? Again." Bray rumbled from the pilot's seat, all four of his eyes trained on the instrument panel in front of him.
Soraya felt herself clench her jaw and fists in response to his question. I just killed my twin sister on my adopted mother's command. She also may or may not be the only one that could have stopped the entire galaxy from being destroyed.
Her right hand stung like she cut it, and that's when she remembered Shepard's necklace. Unfolding her fist, she looked down at the winged star pendant that had apparently been her sister's. The urge to start screaming and never stop was almost overwhelming.
"I think I might have just completely fucked up, Bray," she said so seriously it sent a chill down the batarian's back. She fell into the co-pilot's seat and kicked her feet up, still looking at the bejeweled winged star.
"Hey, hey, hey! Get your fucking boots of my damned instrument panel, little girl!" Bray yelled at her, swatting her feet, but also grinning a little.
"It's my fucking ship, Asshat," she snapped back, shoving the necklace into a pocket on her hip before swinging her feet back to the deck.
"That your mother gave you," he shot right back, his tone mocking.
"Who happens to be your boss, so shut it and fly, Pretty Boy," she laughed, as she leaned back in her chair. Bray set their course for the mass effect relay, and Soraya starting contemplating what she was going to tell her mother...and what she was not.
"Oh, by the way...we captured the commanding officer of the station. Some real bossy bitch of a beauty queen named Miranda Something. Had to tranq her...She was still trying to tell me what to do when the sedatives started kicking in. I've got her in the brig. I also gave her enough sedatives to keep a krogan warlord on it's face for a week," Bray said with a very amused chuckle. He always did enjoy shooting people with tranquilizers. It seemed to be his happy place in life.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with some Cerberus bitch?" Soraya bemoaned, throwing her head back angainst the seat's headrest. "We don't take prisoners, dammit!"
"Oh, I think she'll be very very useful in getting into some of the shit we just hijacked back there," Bray said with a chuckle. Clearly he knew something she didn't.
"Ugh, whatever. Just get me home. I need a fucking shower," She said gruffly, still grinning at her companion.
"Hear, hear to that. You really fucking stink," He muttered with a sideways glance at Soraya as he accelerated the Gipsy into the mass effect relay that was going to sling shot them back to Omega.