Chapter One – The End And The Beginning
Her throat strained against the emptiness, gasping for breath. It reached and reached, but found nothing. It gave up. She slept.
A dark haired blur told her to rest. Soothing or demanding, the soup of her brain couldn't figure out which.
Life started to return. The warmth of blood flow greeted her like an old friend. She heard an explosion, the blast pounded through her ears but she barely felt the tremors. Her nervous system had not fully healed itself. She would be grateful of that later, when the soreness started to bite.
"Shepard, I don't have time to explain. There's a pistol and some thermal clips on the locker to your left. Grab them and get out of there!"
It was the same voice from the dream. Definitely demanding.
Shepard eased herself off the steel table. There was a drain where her feet were. This was a gurney for corpses. Had she been that close to death when they brought her here? She remembered her throat screaming, bleeding with effort. Then nothing else until the voice in her dreams.
Her head felt like it had had an argument with the business end of a sledgehammer as she took the gun and loaded the thermal clip. Muscle memory. Three Loki mechs swarmed into the room. Three shots later their heads lay in pieces, sparks crackling from their metallic shoulders like the legs of wounded spiders begging for death.
Shepard stepped over them and continued through the unfamiliar lab. Another razorblade of noise sliced through her skull as a gas pipe burst, spraying out flames.
"Shepard, you're going to have to run," the voice told her again.
"Thanks."
She spoke with a dryness her lips were used to. Whatever they had done to her, her mind was still her own.
"Just get out of there!"
Shepard pushed her red hair back behind her ear and ran forward. The fire clawed at her face for a moment, then she was past.
"You mind telling me who are and what's happening here?" Shepard said.
She looked around, unsure of how the voice could see and hear her.
"We're under attack and you need to get out there. That's all you need to know."
"I want to know more."
"We don't have time!" the voice said, panic taking over its previously calm tone.
"Make time."
Shepard could be demanding back.
"My name is Miranda Lawson. I'm on your side and I promise I can explain everything later. But right now you need…"
Static boomed over the voice, droning like a hoard of flies.
"Miranda?"
The headache was getting worse. Shepard looked up and saw a speaker box on the ceiling. She pumped two bullets into it and the static died away. The doors in front of her opened, and she continued cautiously, finger still on her trigger.
A bolt of biotics slammed a Loki mech into the wall. The man responsible ducked down behind his cover and turned to see Shepard. He looked at her with an unnerving familiarity.
"Shepard? Didn't expect to see up and around. Guess Miranda needs all the help she can get," he said with a smile.
Shepard didn't hear him. All she saw has the sharp orange logo stitched into his black uniform.
"You work for Cerberus?"
Shepard pointed her gun at him. He kept his holstered.
"So do you. Officially speaking."
"You better start making sense fast."
"I don't know how much you remember, but the Normandy was attacked and you got blasted into space. We found you and patched you up.
"Why? Why would Cerberus help me?"
"Because we think you can help us. The first human Spectre has a lot of influence. And I'm Jacob, since you didn't ask."
"I'm still getting my head around all this, but I can do that while we're not getting shot at."
"Agreed. You still know how to use your biotics?"
Shepard's hand tingled blue. The electricity tickled like small kisses as she held the power between her fingertips. She stood and fired a warp field, destroying the Loki mechs in a fireball of blue and black.
Jacob stood and offered his hand for Shepard to shake.
"I know Cerberus has a chequered past, but trust me, we're the good guys now."
"Now? How long was I out?"
"Two years, more or less."
"Two years?"
It was a kick to the stomach, losing two years of her life. Lying stiff on a slab like Disney On Ice.
"Must be a lot to take in. But I must say, the stories I've heard about your combat skills are no exaggeration."
Jacob fell to the floor with a gasp. Shepard ducked down, looking around. She was not used to confusion during a firefight, and she was in the wrong line of work to be rusty.
Shepard turned and saw one of the Loki mechs was still active. Both its legs had gone, and one of its arms. But not the arm with the gun. Not the most important part. As Jacob groaned in pain, Shepard shot at hit it between the lights of its eyes. Its neck sagged backwards and its arm fell limp.
Shepard knelt as Jacob lay bleeding.
"Medigel…" he said. It was a desperate beg of a whisper.
Shepard frantically searched him, her hands making exasperated grabs.
"There's none."
He nodded. Maybe he knew, maybe he was at peace. Maybe Shepard only imagined the nod, a hope sprouting from the lurking fear that she too would meet her end like this. Undignified and alone on the battlefield, killed by the bullet of a stranger's gun.
The blood was soaking into the orange threads of the Cerberus badge, turning them red as is dripped onto the floor. She pressed her fingers into his neck and felt the last trickle of his pulse lap at her fingertips softly before it disappeared. She rolled his eyelids shut and continued into the next room.
There was a safety about this room, a contrast to the chaos that had come before. A man stood leaning against the wall, his unstyled stubble fighting against his baldness to give him a youthful look. It appeared to be losing.
"Why aren't you fighting?" Shepard said. Her hand gripped the handle of her pistol, ready to draw quickly.
"My knee's acting up. I borrowed some medigel from Jacob but it's no use."
"Jacob's dead. That medigel might've saved his life."
Shepard read the man's face, waiting for a reaction. He was a poker player, giving nothing unexpected away.
"Dead? What happened?"
"A mech shot him."
Shepard spotted his lip curl up slightly, but she couldn't be sure what it meant.
"We're not safe here. You have to help me out of here," he said.
The man hoisted his arm over her shoulder as they made their way to the next room. There was a stale, unpleasant smell to his breath, pushed out in heavy sighs as he struggled to move even with Shepard's help. Despite the man's pain, he sent out an overload blast to clear a barricade, though the effort would have knocked him off his feet without Shepard's support.
"Looks to me like you could've fought," she said.
"Mechs put up more of a fight than that."
Shepard dragging and the man hobbling, they made it to the door. Shepard pushed it open and saw a woman with a gun.
"Shepard. Wilson," the woman said.
The dark hair. This was the voice from the dream.
"Miranda?" Shepard said.
Miranda nodded and shot Wilson through the chest, holstering her gun calmly before explaining.
"He betrayed us. He started this attack," Miranda said.
"You didn't even give him a chance to answer."
"He didn't deserve one. Where's Jacob?"
"He's dead."
Miranda was no poker player. Her eyes started to well before her steely professionalism fought them back.
"What happened?"
"A mech killed him. He let his guard down. We both did."
Miranda's eyes squeezed tight.
"So much for the great Commander Shepard."
"Maybe I was a little sleepy. You had me out for two years,"
Shepard spoke forcefully, but without malice. She did not want to kick Miranda when she was so obviously down, but would not take being kicked either.
"I'm sorry. Jacob meant a lot to me."
"Were you together?"
"At one time. Now we're just good friends."
"We can honour him later. Let's get out of here while we still can."
Shepard and Miranda walked out onto the roof and climbed into an escape shuttle. Miranda powered it up while Shepard just stared out the window and thought about everything she might have missed in the past two years. What might have dispersed in her absence. Mainly she thought about Liara.
"Jacob said I was unconscious for two years," she said.
"That's one way to put it. You were dead when they dragged you in. I led Project Lazarus to bring you back to life. Of course, it took me two years. Only took Jesus a day to save Lazarus."
"Four," Shepard said.
"What?"
"Four days. It took Jesus four days to save Lazarus."
"I didn't realise you were religious, Shepard."
"I've read the Bible. Where are we going, anyway?"
"There's a man who'd like to see you."
Miranda started to ask Shepard questions about her previous missions to check her memory. Shepard continued to look out into space, every answer she gave prompting the same question in her mind, the question she was desperate to ask. Eventually she dared.
"Where's Liara?"
Miranda's face turned cold, lips pursed in mild irritation.
"I'm not at liberty to divulge information on Ms. T'Soni, nor any of your former crew. Perhaps the man you're about to meet will be more generous in this regard."
"Who is this man I'm about to meet?" Shepard said as their shuttled landed.
"He prefers to introduce himself," Miranda said.
Inside the building, Shepard walked Miranda down a corridor to a room with a com platform. Shepard stepped onto the platform and saw the hologram of a grey haired man smoking. He was facing away from her.
"Thank you, Miss. Lawson. That will be all."
Miranda backed out of the room with a nod.
The man in the chair stubbed out his cigarette and turned around.
"Commander Shepard. Welcome back to the land of the living."
"Am I to understand I have you to thank for that?"
"Thank away," he said with a smile.
"Why bring me back?"
"Humanity is at a quandary Shepard. You saved the Citadel, and the council members owe you their lives. But without you, people think humans are bumbling bullies, smashing their way through a world they don't understand."
"Because of Cerberus."
"Because I won't wait around like the elcor or the hanar, happy to be second class citizens in the galaxy while the asari, turians and salarians call the shots. I'll be blunt Shepard. Collectors are abducting human colonies, and I have a way to stop it. But I need the best of the best, and even then it might be a suicide mission."
"The best of the best is the squad of the Normandy."
"I'm afraid not, Shepard. No one's heard from Vakarian in the last two years. Tali Zorah and Urdnot Wrex are busy with duties on their respective homeworlds. And you'll probably recall Miss. Williams' strong anti-Cerberus feelings."
"What about Liara?"
She tried to hide the anxiety in her voice, worrying it displayed weakness.
The man enjoyed drawing his answer out. He was being deliberately illusive.
"Ah, yes. The lovely Miss. T'Soni. I'm aware you two had a… personal connection Shepard, but I'm afraid she can't be trusted. My sources indicate she may be working for the Shadow Broker."
"I trust her. That's good enough."
"I'm afraid it isn't anymore, Shepard. Who I trust is what's good enough. Miranda has dossiers on some suggested recruits."
The Illusive Man lit up another cigarette.
"Oh, one more thing, Shepard. Miranda tells me you're religious?"
"You read your reports quickly. All I said was I read the Bible."
"I see the whole universe from up here Shepard. Everything in existence. I've seen stars die, I've seen planets be born. I've never seen God."
"Maybe He's just good at hiding from people like you. Sir," Shepard said as she disconnected.
The final word was spat out with reluctance. She was not used to saying it to people she did not respect.