Chapter 1:
She had developed an excellent rapport with the wall, that was something at least. It was impossible to stay completely sane when confined to a 6x8 cell intended for livestock, but at least the voice wasn't compelling her to kill - or worse - yet.
"Elkoss rifles are crap, everybody knows that." She shouted, staring at her own warped reflection in the greasy, polished metal that passed for a mirror.
The wall responded, it was her own voice, but lower, and it echoed inside her head, while seemingly emanating from the wall itself as well. "A skilled operator can make them sing, there are mercenary snipers with impressive kill counts who swear by the XQ-T5, you should know that, Tara."
"I'll grant you that point, but quality has declined markedly since they moved their manufacturing facilities to the Traverse, and the snipers you-I-mention racked up those counts before the change over." She replied, with resigned anger.
Her voice softened and she looked intently at her reflection, passing a hand through her short, matted, blonde hair."I'm done with you - for now, Wall, but I assure you this isn't over."
She was still sane enough to make the voice go away when she wanted to, and, if anything, her daily arguments with the Wall, kept her reasoning and speech skill intact - though every time the wall replied she knew it was a sign of her loosening grip on reality. She'd cut their conversation short because something in the mirror had caught her attention; her cheeks were getting fairly gaunt, faster than she had expected and her eyes had taken on a tired look that she had seen many times on the faces of shellshocked mercs and sick civvies. She'd been eating and sleeping periodically, though not well in either case, still, she was disturbed by the amount of decay. She was still glowing though, her irises and pupils had a faint blue shine behind them, it changed intensity and shifted position slightly, as the colony of nanomachines within them circulated in their dormant state. This made her happy, the glow reminded her of her power. She rolled up one sleeve on her dirty, ill fitting jumpsuit and traced with her finger a pair of centimeter thick, slightly raised, glowing blue lines that ran from her shoulder down to her wrist, both belling out at the end into a 5-centimeter in diameter glowing blue circle. She had an identical set of lines (nanomachine conduits, to utilize official jargon) on the other arm, and a network of numerous thinner lines tracing every major pathway in her body - the spine, other limbs, etc.
Letting her sleeve unroll itself back into place, Tara paced about the tiny cell before settling onto the edge of her bunk, uncomfortable to say the least, the bunk was also smelly and stained, it served as the only seating, however, so she had little choice. Tara held her head in her hands, staring at the floor of the cell, she tried to relax. Some days she could will her mind into blanking out for a short time, and let it wander to somewhere - anywhere - else, today was not one of those days. Giving up after a few moments of concentration, she laid back on the bunk, turned so that she was facing the wall, closed her eyes and murmured quiet, comforting phrases to herself, hoping to drift off to sleep, unwilling to be silent, knowing she would hear the ravings of the other prisoners if she was.
"Shhhh, this is good, Tara…"
"Sleep now, Tara…"
"You're safe because you are alone, Tara…"
"All units: Shepard is loose, use lethal force if need be." This last voice was, of course, not her own, it could not be more different from her plaintive whispers, it was Warden Kuril's. Familiar to Tara, it prompted pangs of anger and fear.
Tara would have assumed she was hearing things, if the sound of gunfire and explosions, all too real, and all too familiar, had not soon followed. Her cell, one of thousands in block Q, shuddered and Tara picked up the faint aroma of acrid smoke and seared flesh. She practically jumped out of her bunk. This was very exciting. Was it a rival gang? Had the Suns finally locked up the wrong high value "guest" and attracted Council attention? No, Shepard, she remembered the name, Shepard was Alliance, but the Alliance had no reason to raid Purgatory, in fact, clandestinely, they were a client. Shepard was also dead, so it couldn't be the same Shepard, could it? It didn't matter. Tara's hearing, substantially enhanced, soon picked up the tell tale sound of structural fatigue, bordering on failure, from the Purgatory's lateral support members. If she didn't want to end up spaced, she'd have to book it.
Easier said than done, of course. Her cell was still locked down tight. She tentatively tapped the metal of the door, searching for weaknesses. A loud groan echoed throughout the cell block, Tara felt the floor shift, the rails and clamps holding her cell in cell in place had failed. Her cell slid downward, crashing to the floor of the central aisle that divided the seemingly endless ranks of cells, a highway for guards and new arrivals. The cell door was no longer connected to power, and had been knocked slightly out of locked position, Tara slid her hands into the gap, and applied as much pressure as possible, the metal cut into her palms, but finally gave way. With its fail-safe retaining pins warped or broken altogether, the door slid open easily but awkwardly and she stepped out of the cell.
Cell Block Q was swarming with other prisoners and guards, the entire population, it appeared, had been set loose. Sniper fire zipped past Tara, evidently directed at a prisoner who was attacking a squad of Suns with a stolen machine pistol. They hadn't noticed her. Tara found some cover in the form of large crate, and pressed herself up against it. The firefight with the prisoner was drawing to a close a few yards in front of her, another sniper shot, ill-aimed, glanced off the rear bulkhead of the cell block. "Whoever that shooter is, he is certainly horrible." Tara thought. If his marksmanship was any indication, he was a rookie, and a scared rookie at that. Easy pickings.
Tara slid out of the cover and looked for the sniper. The vapor trail from his last shot led right back to his position, which was hardly well concealed. The shooter was ducking behind cover of his own, on a raised guard platform about twenty meters behind her. He showed no cognizance of her, intently focused on helping his buddies defeat the horde of prisoners massing near the bulkhead. Tara flitted from cover to cover, using the chaos to her advantage, she was skilled, but not invisible, she would have been spotted long ago in a less frantic environment.
She reached the base of the guard tower as a primary structural member of the Purgatory gave way, dropping large chunks of debris into the cell block. Tara clambered up the ladder to the sniper's nest. Assuming a predatory stance, she approached the sniper. "The idiot has his barrel rested directly on the tower railing. You can't do that, ruins harmonics, that barrel is free-floated for a reason, you have a hand-guard, use it. No wonder you can't hit anything…" Tara observed the amateur sniper, slowly creeping towards him. What happened next was a combination of instinct, imprints, and experience. Tara grabbed the sniper, putting him into a headlock, she kicked his legs out from under him and secured his rifle. Still in control she edged towards the side of the tower and threw him off, he hit the floor with a dull thud followed by a sharp crack. The sniper moaned as Tara slid down the ladder after him, she strode over to him, placed her booted foot on his throat, pushed down and turned, snapping his neck and spine.
Tara winced, she hadn't killed in eight months, it felt strange, vaguely wrong. She searched the merc sniper's body, found a few precious thermal clips, and, more importantly, a combat knife. More explosions rocked the ship. She needed to do this fast. Tara took cover behind the guard tower, she put the combat knife in-between her teeth and rolled up her left sleeve. She searched for, and soon found, a patch of scar tissue on the inward-facing side of her left arm, steeling herself, she dug the combat knife into her arm near the tissue, it hit metal, Tara levered out a small black implant. Disgusted and in serious pain, she weakly but triumphantly chucked the implant onto the floor and crushed it. Freedom.
Blood dripped from the wound, but slowly, her blood was not normal, few parts of her body were, it appeared whitish-red, almost pink, and flowed more like a sludge, a side effect of the swarm of nano-catalyzed artificial coagulants currently zipping towards the injury. She'd have to find medigel to take the edge off the pain, aside from that, the nano's had stopped the bleeding and were quickly forming a bulwark against infection. The control implant was gone, finally, she could now manipulate firearms and deploy combat tech, two skills she'd need if she wished to survive. "You no longer own me, Suns." She said, to no-one in particular.
Her omnitool flickered back to life for the first time in months, she felt like an old friend had returned. Scrambling through the interface she reached the "Combat Applications" tab, executed a series of commands, and basked as a familiar tingle coursed through her body. The nanomachine conduits glowed a faint red as Foucault current generators embedded along them powered up. Tara's entire epidermis now glowed with a honeycomb of sparking blue lines, any incoming projectile would now be captured and then repulsed by Foucault current induced electromagnetic field.
Two Blue Suns were firing on a cluster of prisoners near the main airlock that led to the upper walkway network and the only viable way off the ship. Tara unholstered the rifle that she had taken off the merc she had killed a few minutes before, slipped into cover, and took aim. Her body recognized the sniper rifle as soon as the hand-guard contacted her palm, as she focused her aim, nanomachines coursed through her body, responding to her unique neurological signs of imminent long range combat. The nano's blocked alkaloids, lowered her heart rate, controlled her breathing and enhanced her vision 10-fold, all while filtering out stressful background noise. In this state of unnatural zen, Tara finished aligning a perfect shot, her hands as steady as any bipod or shooting rest. The trigger of the sniper rifle broke at a crisp 2.5 pounds, sending a 12.7mm fin stabilized tungsten round through the skull of the first merc and into the next one. Both dropped within milliseconds of the each other.
The rioting prisoners who had been pinned by the mercs dispersed, Tara gracefully picked her way to the ladder which lead to the enclosed catwalk, climbed it and entered the area normally reserved for guards and observers which overlooked the cell block. Shuttles would be docked near the secondary entrance, which was fairly well marked, with evacuation lights leading the way. The catwalks hugged the inner hull and had windows facing outward on one side and windows facing the cell blocks on the other, Tara peered out into the space for the first time in eight months, somewhere inside her she felt a strange mix of longing and fear. The Purgatory was now collapsing around her, whole sections of the catwalk gave way just as she crossed them, other hung on precariously, with fires raging below. Briefly pausing to get her bearings, Tara glanced out the window, in the corner of her eye she caught a small ship in yellow, black, and white livery fleeing the Purgatory, its heading suggested it had been docked on the other side of the ship. Cerberus. No surprise. She made a mental not to contact The Illusive Man and ask why they hadn't even bothered to try and evac her. Then again, maybe they couldn't actively support her, but were intentionally creating a distraction, allowing her to escapce. Unlikely, The Illusive Man had called her "broken" when she had last contacted his organization seeking contract work.
Finally, Tara reached the secondary entrance, as she had expected, there was only one shuttle left, three guards were squabbling in front of the hatch. Tara slipped into cover unnoticed, brought up her omni-tool, executed a single tagged command and took a quick, deep breath as her nanomachine conduits glowed violet, a few seconds later, she was invisible. Careful not to make any noise or sudden movements, Tara crept up behind one guard who was standing slightly apart from the others.
"But my stash!" The guard shouted at his compatriots. "We have to go back for it!"
One of the other two guards, the cool headed one of the bunch apparently, called back at the guard Tara was lurking behind.
"We'll get you more of that crap on Omega, now come on! I've lost enough friends today!"
"Sorry, sweetheart," Tara whispered as she silently summoned a forked blade of superheated plasma (suspended in a powerful mass effect field, allowing it to be a continuous object) from her omnitool, it was invisible as she was. In a single motion Tara decloaked and ran the guard through with her omniblade, it melted clean through his armor, leaving a massive smoldering gash in the middle of his gut. The other two guards stood stock still, completely stunned. One of them raised an assault rifle, Tara hit him with a crippling neural shock. Tara then relieved her first kill of his pistol, and shot the stunned guard in the head, the last guard bolted for the shuttle, an incineration blast stopped him - and melted him - dead in his tracks.
Tara holstered her new pistol and climbed into the shuttle, she looked around the shuttle's cabin, and confident she was alone, dropped the Foucault barriers, her nanomachine conduits faded back to a cool blue. Sliding into the pilot's chair, exhausted and drenched with sweat, she brought up the haptic nav interface. The dimwitted onboard VI buzzed to life:
"Emergency Scenario Confirmed, Security lockouts disengaged. State destination."
The Purgatory shuddered, now in its death throws. Time to go.
"Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik, Station ID: Omega." Tara replied.
"Destination confirmed. ETA: 36 hours. Omega Prime relay vectored and cleared."
The shuttle pulled away as the Purgatory finally broke apart.
Tara leaned back in the pilot's chair, wishing she had a change of clothes while simultaneously realizing, with a slight smirk, that a blood splattered prison jumpsuit wouldn't actually stand out on Omega. She passed a hand through her soaked hair, brushing away the many strands that were clinging to the back of her neck. Tara usually feared deep sleep - she hadn't known a night without nightmares since The Project was raided. For the first time since she became a guest on the Purgatory, however, she actually welcomed the warm embrace of drowsiness and drifted off without having to talk to herself. She didn't know what peace or comfort really felt like, but she imagined this was similar.