Chapter 1: We need him back.
A/N: Inspired heavily by a long unfinished story from 2012 called 'The Last Chance' by eriskbo. I fell in love with that story back when it was still updating and then it stopped but I always held hope that it would update out of the blue and would make my month all the brighter. Unfortunately it was not to be it seems. But now, I choose to write a similarly veined story and hope that I can carry on the spirit of the story even if it itself has been lost to time. Onwards and upwards my dear readers.
"Ma'am, Collective Entity 37 is approaching docking position and asking permission to send down their representative."
"37? What does Harbinger want in this sector?"
"I'm not sure, Matriarch, but it has been quite insistent."
Liara swiveles in her large, cushy chair, turning away from her massive array of screen and looking towards her Salarian assistant. "It must be something severe for it to seek me out." The aged Asari rolls the thought back forth before deciding, "Alright, allow the representative access but double counter-intrusion protocols and prepare electronic lockdown suite."
"Aye ma'am, though if I may say, this seems rather extreme."
She narrows her eyes at the Salarian. "Old grudges die hard, especially when you're a long lived race like I am. Now go, I'm sure Harbinger is practically knocking at our door."
"Of course Matriarch." The assistant bows lightly and scurries off to let the Reaper's conduit into her sanctum, the lair of the Shadow Broker.
"This had better be good..."
Roughly 20 minutes later, the door opens once again and her assistant clears his throat loudly, "Ma'am, I have returned."
With a wave, the screens all go black and her chair spins around.
Standing behind the small Salarian is a tall avian, easily over 2 meters high even with its bent, digi-grade knees, covered in jet black feathers with a tinge of baby blue along their edge, his raptor like eyes focused squarely upon her, his wings wrapped around his arms and torso, and the long talons that make up its feet clicking loudly on the hard metal floor.
"A Raloi... I'm not surprised."
"Greetings, Liara T'Soni. I am Ta'Kirask, representative of Collective Entit-"
"Why are you here Harbinger?"
The feathers atop his head ruffle a little but settle rather quickly as his eyes take on a dark tint. "T'Soni, must you still carry old grudges? We have not gone by that name since The Synthesis."
Her eyes narrow at the towering avian, "What you intended to do is not so easily forgotten or forgiven."
The Raloi representative sighs, a very human motion and a continuing leftover from the day long ago where Shepard sacrificed himself in the Crucible to end the Reaper War. "We have tread this ground too many times and for far too long. We did not come here to rehash the past again. We came with a reason. There is a new issue that is arising." The Raloi shakes his head, his eyes clearing as a polite smile crosses his thin beak. "I shall handle this, Collective. I believe a more organic touch is necessary."
The Raloi, now back in control of his senses, refocuses his attention on the scowling Asari. "T'Soni, the Collective Entities have brought forward a worrying incident on the horizon. One they unfortunately have known about for quite some time."
"Then why wasn't it brought up earlier."
"They had... forgotten, no, that's the wrong term. They had simply stopped thinking of it as it always occurred after they were through with the cycle and had returned to dark space."
Liara pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing, "Continue," her other hand flickering with the blue haze of biotics in frustration.
"They do not have a name but the simplest way to describe them would be a... cleanup crew. A cleanup crew designed to come through and wipe out most traces of the previous cycle."
"What?!"
"The Prothean empire spanned countless thousands of worlds, the Inu'sanon before them tens of thousands, and yet ruins could only be found on a few choice worlds that were likely to be colonized or investigated. They come through scouring some worlds, decimating others, leaving only just enough for the next cycle to follow the track that was laid out for them."
"Well can't you call them off?!"
The representative shakes his pointed head, "No. They are an autonomous secondary system established at the beginning of the search for the solution."
"When are they arriving?" Liara could feel the blood vessels in her head throbbing now, a migraine quickly forming.
"Current calculations put them at approximately 17 standard Earth years."
Her face falls to a neutral frown with a long exhale, hundreds of years of data flow and processing forcing her to shut away her emotions until the situation is handled. "That is not much time at all. With your statement, we may be able to convince the council to muster all of our forces. They shouldn't make the same mistake they did last time." She pulls up her omnitool, tapping at it. "What is the force's size, it must be at least your fleet's size given its job."
"The fleet's numbers at creation were 14,537, but they were left with a self replication capability should it be deemed necessary by the central controller entity. Each ship was approximately the size of the 'Soveriegn class' Collective Entities."
Liara stops her typing, her eyes wide as she looks up. "Over fourteen thousand dreadnoughts... the Reaper fleet was only a few hundred..." she collapses further into her chair. "I don't think we can do this, even with Reaper assistance and the standing fleets... it's... it's just not possible."
"The one called Shepard was capable of things that were deemed impossible. His assistance might help."
"Yes, he was." Her emphasis falls harshly on the word. "Up until he died fighting all of you... again." Her words drip with bitterness and long suppressed anger.
"Yes. But the Collective Entities have a plan and need your help and resources for it."
She sighs again, screwing her emotions down, back under control. "Speak."
"The Shepard was decompiled and dispersed with the Crucible's power, integrated into all sapient beings in the galaxy, allowing for the development of the harmonious understanding that now exists between organics and synthetics. The plan is simple," Ta'Kirask unfurls his wings exposing the 2 pairs of arms folded across his chest, something akin to a smile crossing his beak, "We recompile The Shepard."
"That's... not possible... but they said that the first time around too." She sits up a little straighter. "Even if we could, we'd need not only Geth Consensus level processing speed, for I can only guess how long, along with the necessary facilities to grow a new body, incredibly heavily regulated in council space I might add, add onto that, most if not all the 'bytes of Shepard', so to speak, have been corrupted as successive generations have bred and changed. We would need several billion fresh, unchanged bytes to even attempt this."
The smile on the beaked face only grows. "You have the Collective Entities, Ms. T'soni, they have not been idle since realizing this coming threat. They themselves are billions upon billions of beings each, while some bits have been damaged, enough have been saved and replicated that they can recompile the Shepard. As to the cloned body, that was why we needed you. While their organic growth capabilities are fully able for the task, it is not precise enough to maintain The Shepard's original mind as well as his body. Alongside that, they do not wish to get in trouble with the Council, but it is well known that The Shadow Broker regularly deals in the not quite legal."
Liara tries to answer but honestly, they are right, for once. Tapping a small button on her console, she speaks, "Keraka, prepare me a fast, mobile hub ship and a pot of Eyat tea. I will be leaving soon."
"Of course Matriarch. 20 minutes." The intercom clicks off without further talk, an efficiency long trained into her assistants.
"Leave. I have calls to make."
"Of course, Matriarch T'Soni." The avian being bows lightly before her, his feathers flaring out, glinting in the low light before folding back around him as he turns on his taloned heels and clicking out of the room and back to the docked Reaper.
A few seconds tick by before the same Salarian trots in holding a steaming porcelain pot with a matching cup. "Your tea, Matriarch."
"Thank you Keraka. Please put plan Alpha-Sekran 6 into place for the duration of my journey. And get conversions Norma 3 underway."
"Of course Matriarch."
"You are dismissed."
The Salarian scurries off as Liara turns back to her massive array, pulling up a once much longer list now reduced to only a few names, labeled 'Surviving Crew'. "Begin message..."
The sterile white walls shone with the reflected lights both inlaid in the floor and ceiling, the myriad of wall-mounted machines humming, clicking, and beeping away as they begun to spool up for their long task. Music poured from speakers around the room, filling it with long, harmonious melodies, like water over smooth stone.
Dr. Liara T'soni and her companion, Edi Moreau, looked upon the large room, machines along each walls, tubes, wires and lights all safely hidden from view, leaving only the long silver bullet like tube raised from the floor, already full of a translucent pink substance with a small lump, no bigger than a golf ball floating amidst it, drifting to some unseen forces within.
Liara and her companion flowed with her music, its gentler tones lost to the louder orchestra and yet each adding to the overall whole. Her fingers dance from keyboard to keyboard, as her friend did the same on the other side.
The last few grand notes of the song fade as the two return to the center, staring down at the tube. "Recompilation synthesis complete. His genomic data is re-established and implanted. Estimated time until finalized gestation and decanting: 7 years."
"Hmmm... that's longer than I'd hoped."
"While the Reapers did have much of his genome available, there is still a 0.004% aspect missing due to either corruption or loss. It will likely have a few undesirable effects on Shepard, what they are remain to be seen however. There is also a high likelihood of error during the regrowth."
"One of us would need to stay here and monitor him to correct them as they occur."
"I know of your duties Liara. Do not worry, I shall stay here. It's not like I have anything better to do with my life." A small, sad smile crosses her silvery face.
Liara visage contorts to a look of shocked horror. "N-no, I wouldn't ask you to d-" surprise takes its place, "600 years and you still get me..."
"I spent quite a lot of them learning humor."
"Paid off, it seems." Concern now resides on her round face. "Are you certain, EDI?"
"Quite, there is an extranet connection I can interact with from here. I do not think I will grow bored, and some time to think will be nice."
"Alright."
"Please rest, Liara, you have been up for 3 standard Earth days."
"Y-you're right." She stares down at the tank, the little blob of cells drifting about to predetermined currents. "If everything still checks out after this rest, I shall depart."
The synthetic woman nods, the small smile still on her face. "Of course Liara. Now, go rest."
The tired asari turns around, leaving the lab, the new home of Shepard and EDI for the next seven years...
Warm... calm... flowing... comfortable...
Like a womb, a womb of white, a void of rest.
Shepard's consciousness dimly returns for the briefest of moments to form those thoughts.
Thoughts, something that hasn't been there for some time, something that was rapidly gaining strength and coherence.
Thoughts that are getting more and more... cold, hard, and rigid.
A loud hiss escapes the long metal pod as sickly pink fluid escapes from its interior, flowing into drainage channels spread throughout it.
A deep gasp followed by a continuous wet cough brings Leon Shepard back to reality and the realm of the living. His body convulses as it expels the sweet tasting pink goo from both his stomach and lungs, followed by more wet coughs.
"Shit..." is all he can get out before flopping back into the tube, as he gulped down air, finally opening his eyes and taking a look around at the few beings staring at his nude form. "Crap... I just got brought back from the dead again, didn't I?" His tone dry despite the wetness in and on his body.
His vision clears up enough to make out the form of Liara, her blue skin drawing his eyes first. "Yes, unfortunately. Seems you aren't allowed your eternal rest with the Goddess yet, Shepard."
His head hits the back of the tube with a loud thunk. "Damn. Well... how long did it take me to come back this time? 2, 3 more years?"
As Liara shook her head, his vision focuses a bit more, clarity returning, more clarity than he was used to, revealing who was around him or at least who he thought they were, 2 Krogan and a curvaceous metal form, so Wrex, Grunt and EDI... odd combo, but then so was his whole crew.
A low rumbling laugh comes from the much worse for wear looking Wrex. "Not quite Shepard."
"What? So 5 years or so? That's not so bad." Another shake of the head.
"10 years?" Again; a shake. "20 years?" Worry started creeping into his tone.
"No Shepard."
"Well then how bloody long was I out?!"
EDI, still the one to answer a question pointedly, "You were dead for 624.9 years Shepard."
"WHAAAAATT!?"
A/N: Honestly, this story took a lot longer than anticipated to finally sit down and crank out this chapter, I blame Maxaro, my Beta, for constantly distracting me with talk of alien anatomical accuracy and dresses that would look sexy on a Hive Fleet Kraken Warrior. We spent waaay too long discussing that but I stick by my forest green with some dark blue trimming to make it pop against its carapace. May the night see you safe and dawn greet you kindly dear readers.
E/N: I disagree with Machina; sexy Tyranid talks can never go on for too long!