I do not own the rights to Mass Effect. This is a edited post of the original chapter.
Pain.
Pain is the first thing she is aware of.
It swamps her senses and she instinctively takes a ragged searching gasp. Pain, pain scorches along her ribs and suddenly she remembers...
Movement, whirling black, and red, and super novaing colours swirling nightmarishly around her. She struggles, grasping weakly at damaged armour. She flails helplessly, her body no longer under her control. Gasping, thrashing, she reaches again and finally feels it. Severed tubing and links and the gushing that tells her what she already knows. She's running out of oxygen. Her lungs begin to seize and dots appear in front of her eyes. She can't breathe...
No, that's not right. She takes another breath. The pain is still there, but it is centred along her ribs, not her lungs. She frowns.
Pain. Like fire dripping along her face. Instinctively she reaches up and touches it, fingers running across jagged, ripped areas of flesh. They are tender and seem to sizzle at her touch. Scarring. Open scarring. She'd been falling hadn't she? Falling through space. Being pulled in to gravity. Did this cause the scarring? Surely, she could not have survived.
A memory flashes of a man, built with aspects of machine. A wound. Healing. A long line of fire red scarring, the effect of healing biotics and flesh. Biotics. Is she biotic? That doesn't seem right...
"Shepard."
Shepard?
Shepard. That's right. Shepard. Alliance. Spectre. The Normandy. Faces swarm to her from the dark, turian, krogan, human, asari, quarian. Friends. Comrades. But something is wrong.
She tries to open her eyes.
Light seers down at her, firing through her synapsis and burning all the way.
Light like ribbons. Metal tearing. Screams, pain, death.
What was that? She tries to move but her limbs are languid, heavy. A hypo spray presses into her neck and she manages to smile as she feels its effects sweeping through her body. Good 'old doc. An image of silver hair, a stern look, with a knowing smile hiding in its corners. She always knows what is needed.
"Shepard, you need to get up."
That's not the Doc.
Where is she?
She tries again to open her eyes. Stifles a groan as the light invades her senses. Not as strong as before but still... painful. Reaches up and touches her scarring again.
"Good, you're awake." The voice speaks again.
Has she heard it before? She doesn't know it, she's sure, and yet still... it is familiar. She looks around. It's a medical facility, analytical, white, and clean. It's nowhere she has been before and yet... like the voice, it sparks something in her. Like a dream. A dream she barely remembers.
She tries to sit up and winces, grabbing at her ribs. Ahh yes, she can feel it now. This pain is known, broken but healing ribs if she is any judge, an injury she has suffered many times before.
"Shepard, we are under attack."
Alarms peal mere moments before the attack hits. She's thrown into a side wall as the enemy weapon rips through the Normandy like it's butter. The damage is incredible and, in that moment, she knows the Normandy is done for.
"Commander!" a voice yells as someone runs through the wreckage towards her.
"Evacuate" she orders.
"The Normandy." she says, ignoring pain as she swings to her feet. "Where am I?"
"We don't have time for that right now." The voice says and, now that the daze is wearing off, she can hear the unmistakable urgency in the tone. "This facility is under attack. To your left is a locker. Your armour is inside. There should be a pistol located in the weapon rack directly to the side of it."
She slides it open and checks the pistol in the rack. Undocking it, she automatically taps the barrel, feeling the slight surge in her fingertips as she alters the pistol to fire specialised rounds. Clicking the safety off, she slides the clip back, the familiar movements helping to stabilize her sense of perspective.
"Clips empty." She tells the voice.
Nothing is said in return.
She shrugs and pulls out the armour. It's... different. Similar to her old N7 armour but updated, carrying additional weapon clips and boosts for stamina, accuracy, health. She recognizes the designs but in a way that is only vague. Weren't these only in initial design stages? She's pretty sure she saw the drafts in the Spectre's classified armour schematics.
She begins fitting the armour on. It fits, better even than her old gear, and some part of her can't help but note the subtle tell tales of personal design. It's a dark matt black, with edgings of N7 red and white, her preferred design, and she can't help but wonder who had informed the makers of this.
They never gave her armour like this in the Alliance.
Something twinges in her memory but she shoves it away, focused on the current mission, a habit too old for her to break. Hanging from the locker is a visor and she straps it on, a band that clips from the back of her head to her brow, one long strip of lcd panel hanging over her left eye. It activates and she notes with interest that the read-out, although clear to her eye, does not interfere with vision.
A scan is taking place and, as she clips the empty gun to her side, a wave of data appears. In that instant she knows something is deeply wrong.
The scan was of her body.
She is filled with cybernetics.
With a sense of horror she notes the extensive bioware that runs through her body. Her right shoulder is more machine then flesh, her left arm boosted with bionetics that run through her omni-tool. Patchwork is shown throughout her skeleton, and she has to wonder in that moment how badly injured she was.
She was falling, gasping, the planet looming before her dying eyes.
She fell? Through space? How could anyone have gotten to her in time…
"Shepard! The doors are going to blast! Get to cover!"
The instinct of battle takes over and she sprints to a machine, sliding in so that her back is to it and covering her ears. The blast as the doors give is deafening none-the-less and, as the concussive wave hits her, she is momentarily blinded by the image that swims before her eyes.
Joker stares at her, his eyes despairing, reaching with his unbroken hand, mouth moving in words she cannot hear. Her fingers slip, sheer metal pertaining no grip, armour unable to hold on. More of the bright light flashes between them and she knows it is over. Her fingers loosen more. and as a concussive blast flings her into space, she reaches out with everything she can muster and punches towards the escape pod button.
Gods let her have activated the release.
Joker! He'd been up there with her. The only one not off the Normandy when it exploded. Had she managed to push the button? Or had she failed and left him to die up there with her?
Her vision clears and she shakes her head. No. She remembers the hatch closing. She remembers the look in his eyes when he realised what she was doing. The look when he knew she wasn't going to make it.
The voice is speaking to her again, and following it's instructions, she dives through the doors, scooping up the ammo clip just outside the room.
"What's going on?" She growls as she slides the clip in, hearing the reassuring purr of ammo sliding in and activating the weapon.
"This facility is under attack. Someone has hacked into the security system. The mechs are no longer under our control."
Mecs.
As if she was reading the screen of her omni-tool, information flashes to the front of her brain.
Mecs. Vulnerable to synthetic ammunition. Best area of attack: headshot. Result: Explosion, damaging surrounding adversaries.
She alters her weapon accordingly and asks the next question. "Who are you, and where am I?"
"My name is Miranda. This facility is called Lazarus. There isn't time for anything else. You need to go. Now."
And she does.
She was a soldier. She's fought in more wars than she has spent in peace. She knows how to follow the instructions barked out at her. But she is also a Spectre. And alone. She hacks her way through databases and safes alike as she moves through the building. She needs to know what is going on.
Where is her crew?
What is Lazarus?
What has been done to her?
Her name is Shepard. Commander. Spectre.
She will get answers.