Greetings!
After having read many stories, some of them good, some of them not (I won't be pointing fingers), I've decided to try and write one, too. The idea just kept nagging in my head, so I gave it a lot of thought. Be aware that this is not a crossover, though.
Also, this story is AU. Just to let you know.
This very story was inspired by Citadel DLC, watching Star Wars Episode III one time too many (does one ever get over being a fan of Star Wars?) and irritation that we could not save the clone. What's the point of trying, then? To earn a few more Paragon points?
I deliberately introduced Internet memes here to make the story humorous. Hopefuly, I succeeded.
Warning: this story is rated M for a good amount of swearing, some crude humour and mild (at least I believe so) suggestive themes.
Compulsory disclaimers: Mass Effect belongs to BioWare and Electronic Arts. Star Wars, which are mentioned here, belong to George Lucas and Disney.
Commander Jane Shepard was lounging lazily in her (previously Anderson's) flat. She and her crew were ordered by Admiral Hackett to have some R&R during the shore leave specifically set for them, while the Normandy was repaired and retrofitted. Initially, Shepard was not amused; they had to assault the Cronos Station, take the Illusive Man and Cerberus out for good, and get the information on the Catalyst, and as far as Shepard was concerned, there was no time to lose. But Hackett was proved to be right: the crew was on the verge of collapse, and the ship itself was showing some wear and tear. Shepard didn't remember all the details, but she recalled Adams talking about increased stress on the ship systems, Garrus swearing more and more under his mouth while calibrating dual Thanix cannons, Tali noticing the increasing fluctuations of she-never-did-understand-what in the drive core, and Donnelly complaining about T6-FBA couplings not being able to stop the need for constant calibrations… long story short, the ship was under the risk of having some catastrophic failure at the worst possible moment, which was not what Shepard needed or what they all needed.
Unfortunately, the first human Spectre must have done something very bad in her previous life, because fate saw it fit to screw even with her shore leave; scarcely was she able to relax somewhat and try and enjoy the sushi at the obscenely expensive restaurant Joker dragged her into, when some Staff Analyst from Alliance Intelligence interrupted her dinner with the news of someone else besides Reapers and Cerberus targeting Shepard (as if those two factions was not enough to deal with!) and then those very yet-unknown-assassin-wannabes tried to kill her, almost succeeding. Shepard could not even say that she was surprised. She did make a good number of enemies even before the mess with Saren Arterius, and she knew first-hand that many sentients could hold a grudge for a surprisingly (or not so) long time.
Hell, Zaeed was gunning for Vido Santiago for freaking twenty years, and I sacrificed all those workers at Eldfell-Ashland complex just to eliminate the Blue Suns' co-founder.
The decision was cold and even cruel, but Commander was no stranger to making choices like that. Back in 2178, she was deployed to Torfan and given a mission – to eradicate the pirates and slavers in their own stronghold. The battle proved a well-known maxim: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." The mission went awry almost from the start, and Shepard had no choice but to launch a full frontal assault at a fortified bunker, losing many soldiers, and then push further inside, losing even more men to CQB. In total, she lost 75% of her unit, but she ensured that no batarian slaver made it off Torfan alive. This earned her a moniker "Butcher of Torfan", a good degree of infamy, and attention from Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel. Five years later, she was chosen as a candidate for the position of the first human Spectre.
If only she knew what was in store for her.
Shepard smiled fondly, remembering the days before she encountered the horrible truth about the Reapers. Back then, she and her "merry band of misfits", as Joker described her crew once, only had to worry about the traitorous ex-Spectre Saren. Sure, he and the Geth under his (in reality, Sovereign's) control were a huge pain in the ass, but there were also benefits – the camaraderie, good and bad jokes, grief over Shepard's Mako driving style (in her own opinion, misplaced) – and the encounter with Dr. Liara T'Soni, asari archaeologist. The encounter that lead to attraction between the two and, ultimately, love.
Even now, both of them could not understand how exactly did they hit it off (Shepard smiled, remembering Liara's bashful facial expression when the shy scientist embarrassed herself with ignorance of human idioms), since the human never felt any romantic attraction towards women (granted, asari are monogendered, but there were few differences between them and human females in terms of appearance, plus asari personalities still leaned towards femininity), yet the Butcher of Torfan and the unrecognized asari archaeologist formed a bond between them very quickly. This bond survived despite harsh challenges both of them encountered, Shepard's death and the hunt for the Shadow Broker being the hardest of them – before the Reaper invasion, of course.
Now, Shepard was currently basking in some resemblance of comfort, which she oh so deserved – because, seriously, can't she have some peace and quiet on her own goddamn shore leave, without CAT6 mercenaries, ex-Cerberus (but still xenophobic) operative and her own fucking clone trying to kill her?
The Commander shivered; she still found the idea disturbing. The words "I'm going to take everything you have; everything you are" haunted her; the concept of being replaced by her almost perfect copy, who would promote "humanity first" agenda and still be believed to be the real Shepard was sickening. Despite putting on the brave face, she was shaking inside; of course, Liara saw through her charade and spent a good amount of time trying to heal yet another wound on Shepard's soul.
Shepard charged her clone, which caused both of them to come dangerously close to Normandy's ramp; the hangar bay doors were open and falling off guaranteed a fatal outcome.
Both of them were relentless; neither was willing to secede victory to another. This was the battle for their existence on a far deeper level than mere physical presence; they were fighting for their own souls.
They were exchanging punches, kicks, biotic attacks, omni-blade slashes, Shepard even headbutted her clone on several occasions when she felt particularly frustrated, to the boorish approval of Wrex and the deepening concern of Liara. Despite asari being quarter-krogan, the concept was very alien to the blue-skinned beauty.
The clone received more than a few hits and was sporting a broken nose and lips, but Shepard fared only a little better, having been given a black eye and a gash on her forehead. It was likely that they would battle until both of them were powerless to even lift a fist against each other (Shepard couldn't help but think of all legends describing the eternal battle between the forces of good and evil), but fate incarnated in the form of the idiotic merc acting as Normandy's pilot decided to accelerate the Armageddon, Ragnarok or whatever.
The frigate lurched, sending both combatants over the edge, and now both of them had to hold on for their lives, their fight momentarily forgotten.
'Look at you!' the clone snarled. Shepard was surprised at the tone of her nemesis, despite the fact that she has already heard it for umpteenth time. The way the anti-Shepard (as Garrus named the clone) said it was so like and still unlike her, that the Spectre zoned out for a bit, snapping into reality only once she heard next words – 'What makes you so damn special? Why you and not me?'
The question was quickly answered when Liara and Wrex both rushed to help Shepard, endangering themselves in the process. Yet when the clone looked up at Brooks, hoping for assistance, Brooks merely disappointedly glanced at her and turned away.
Shepard saw the invisible communication between her "mirror" and ex-Cerberus operative, and once she saw Brooks' resentment, she felt something stirring within her, which quickly transformed into (much to her surprise) anger on the clone's behalf. She suspected it long ago, and what she saw just confirmed her suspicions that Brooks was no better than the Illusive Bastard himself, even before his indoctrination. The illogical anger quickly turned into steel-melting hatred directed towards the lying, cheating traitor, who "helped" her by compiling the dossiers for the supposed suicide mission…
Just thinking about it made the Commander want to convince Liara to follow the threat once uttered by the current Shadow Broker: to flay Brooks alive with her mind. But once she was safe, she turned around to look at her clone. The expression she saw practically shook her to the very depths of her soul.
The clone looked as if there was a fire within her, and then it was suddenly snuffed out. Her posture, once confident (even overconfident), determined and arrogant, was gone, now she looked like she had been fatally wounded. The face held a dejected expression that Shepard somehow could describe only as the one a child had if someone took a sweet away from him. (In retrospect, the clone actually was a child, barely more than a year, even if the body was mature.) This dejection alone was shocking enough, but once Shepard dared to look into the eyes of her enemy… (or was her clone actually a victim?)
God, the eyes.
They held… nothing. Nothing at all.
The Butcher of Torfan was prepared for anything – anger, sadness, betrayal, resentment, surprise, desire for revenge – but not the empty void that one could see in the eyes of the perfect copy of Shepard. The original couldn't help but recall the words of Aria T'Loak:
'Nothing leaves the body as… empty… as Ardat-Yakshi.'
The one who replaced her biometric markers with her own, who planned to steal her ship and her identity, who caused her and her crew a lot of grief, who had the gall to insult her friends and spout xenophobia (no doubt instilled into her by Brooks), now looked as if she unwittingly melded with an Ardat-Yakshi, somehow regaining the life in her body, but not in her soul.
Despite Shepard's promise and determination to throw the clone's head out of the airlock (along with Brooks'), she couldn't help but to be moved by that. She was not totally without pity, after all.
Shepard made a decision.
'Grab my hand!' she shouted to her clone, extending the said limb in her direction.
'And then what?' came the reply, as hollow as an Ardat-Yakshi victim's eyes, holding no spark, no determination, no will within it.
'You'll live!' Shepard raised her voice, as desperate to provide her ex-nemesis with a reason to go on and not give up as a doctor is when placing defibrillation unit's pads against clinically dead patient's chest.
'For what?' Mission failed. Resuscitation was not successful.
The clone let go of Normandy's ramp, falling down to the Citadel, with the same hollow void in her eyes. Shepard did not break eye contact until the body was not there to see.
She was sure that these eyes, her eyes, would haunt her to the end of her days.
After that, Shepard could not really remember anything but all-encompassing, blazing fury at the smug Maya Brooks who changed her name once a week, gloated into Commander's face and sneered at her words. The Spectre was ready to send all Alliance and Citadel regulations regarding POWs to hell and simply slaughter Brooks where she stood omni-cuffed, when the said POW simplified the choice when she decided to try and escape. Shepard did not even hesitate to send a bullet from M-358 Talon into the traitor's back. She appreciated the irony of Cerberus-manufactured heavy pistol snuffing the life out of his creators and users, but in this case, she did not even feel the satisfaction.
It came only when she decided to follow her own threat and cut Brooks' head off with her omni-blade, much to the horror of the maintenance crew called into the shuttle bay by Joker, and then throwing the head out of her (and nobody else's) ship's airlock.
Now, Shepard was trying to find something to busy herself with while waiting for Liara to come. She loved reading books, but this time, she simply could not feel any satisfaction from drawing the images in her own head. Slowly but surely getting frustrated with herself, she decided to peruse Anderson's film collection, which had a good number of classical movies from the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Shepard was absent-mindedly reading through the titles when one caught her eye.
Star Wars.
She vividly recalled the day when she saw one of the episodes. Even despite being old as the hills, the movie completely ensnared her, 14-years-old kid trying to survive in the underworld of arcologies and running with Tenth Street Reds. Of course, she was very naïve back then, believing in good triumphing over evil and dreaming of the better future. But hell, why can't she pretend at least for one day that she is the same kid again?
So Shepard chose the box and pondered over which OSD to choose. Deciding that "Attack of the Clones" was too close to the latest shore leave fiasco, and feeling the need for something darker, she settled on "Revenge of the Sith", slidding the disk into the drive. She was about to turn on the film when she felt somebody's presence in the house. Upon going in her "combat-ready mode", she stealthily went towards the balcony overlooking the entrance, relaxing immediately as she spotted Liara T'Soni coming in. The asari, in turn, also spotted her human lover upstairs.
'Shepard.' she greeted with a smile.
'Liara! Come in!' Shepard exclaimed jovially, going downstairs. Liara waited till the Commander came down, and they exchanged an embrace and a kiss.
'How are you, Jane?' the Shadow Broker asked, still not letting the human out of her embrace. She was very perceptive and understood well that the ordeal with the clone still plagued Shepard's mind, despite the assurances that everything was fine. Shepard knew that, and decided not to lie to the person that meant everything to her.
'Still can't get my mind from everything that happened. Found an old movie from Earth in Anderson's collection, named Star Wars, and decided to take a look.'
'I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with that title. How old is that movie and what is it about?'
'Well, the episode I decided to see was released in 2005, so it is 181 years old, actually. And its plot revolves around the good old fight between good and evil in different incarnations, but in this very episode, the evil actually wins.' Seeing the frown on her bondmate's face, Shepard hurried to reassure her, 'But not for long, in the end, in the very last episode, the good guys do win.'
'As glad as I am to hear that, are you sure that seeing something as pessimistic is the way to forget that?'
'Liara, it could have been worse, and I think I need a reminder of that,' Shepard pleaded.
Liara sighed. Her lover sometimes had the weirdest quirks. 'All right,' she said, 'but I want to see that movie with you. No excuses,' she added with a note of steel in her voice. She had realized long ago that using that particular tone of voice could easily bend Shepard to her will, and she used it when she did her best to save her lover from emotional self-destruction (or when they engaged in some, er, bedtime roleplaying, although Liara was not very often in dominating position).
'Of course,' a hint of smile grazed Shepard's lips. 'I've wanted to share some classics with you for a long time. I heard that asari go nuts for old Earth movies…'
And so they proceeded to the couch in front of big TV screen on the higher floor. Liara snuggled closer to Shepard, and the first human Spectre allowed herself to return to the past…
Having finished looking through the darkish Episode III (which Liara found very beautiful, but also very sad), they retreated to the kitchen, where Shepard shamelessly borrowed the remaining slices of Vega's double pepperoni pizza and warmed them up in the microwave oven, supplementing them with some orange juice (Liara's favourite aside from the miruno one, which was produced on Thessia). With their urges (not carnal ones, of course) sated, they positioned themselves on another couch and engaged in the discussion about the recently seen "Revenge of the Sith". Shepard felt that having hyperspace drives would have been a very great advantage over the Reapers, since with them the chances of galaxy being crippled as it was when the omnicidal machines hit Prothean Empire were nil. Liara agreed, but felt that any ship from the universe, even Venator-class Star Destroyers, would be very vulnerable against magneto-hydrodinamic cannons the Reapers possessed. On the other hand, the asari wished they could have some blaster pistols and rifles, saying that "having to deal with the shields made [her] want to punch the enemies till they met the Goddess", which in turn led to Shepard teasing Liara about her krogan heritage and advising to "headbutt instead of punching – it's super effective", and even providing some proof to her thesis. Liara, however, did not find it amusing and promised that she would hang Shepard upside down with her biotics, which apparently also was super effective, because her adorable-but-sometimes-extremely-annoying lover immediately dropped the subject, albeit reluctantly. Said reluctance manifested in the form of frowns and pouts, which were shamelessly used to coax several kisses out of Liara, not that the alien terribly minded herself.
'I'm worried that we'd have to resort to the same measures that the Galactic Republic used,' Liara admitted.
'You mean the clone army?' Shepard clarified.
'Yes. It is obvious that without the clones, the Republic would have folded before the CIS like a house made from poker cards, and the degree of the manipulation by Sidious was not known to anyone, so they turned to the army ready to be used,' the asari entered her analytic mode, theorizing on the similarities between the Star Wars universe and their galaxy, comparing, utilizing all the knowledge she had. This side of her served the asari well in her years as an information broker on Illium before taking over the Shadow Broker network, and she delved into it even more, with the galaxy hanging on a thread now.
Shepard couldn't help but admire her enchanting and intelligent (sometimes frighteningly intelligent) lover. It was during the moments like this when she could persuade herself that all will be alright. Together, they were virtually unstoppable. Yes, they could be defeated (as their mission on Thessia proved), but their defeats only spurred them on. Joker once said: "Woe betide anyone who dares to piss them off – if hell hath no fury like woman scorned, these two will reduce anyone into ashes." Had the yahg who killed the original Shadow Broker been alive right now, he would have attested to that.
'…and if the only thing one could do is to throw the numbers at Reapers, the military would be hard-pressed to replenish their armies, so the cloning could as well be the only option in worst-case scenarios,' Liara concluded, suddenly stopping herself and gushing: 'Oh, by the Goddess, how stupid I am, discussing the clones right after this whole disaster…' Before the asari descended into rambling, however, Shepard gave her a firm hug.
'Hey, don't worry. Yes, it was bad, but we can't dwell on that for too long. Speaking of clones, are there any news?'
Right after retaking the Normandy, Shepard asked Liara to do everything possible to find out whether the whole clone fiasco could be repeated. Liara was doubtful, since virtually all her contacts in Cerberus were gone or indoctrinated, but for her bondmate's sake she promised to look into it, and she tried to keep her promises whenever possible.
'Actually, yes,' the asari replied with a smile. 'Feron told me before I came to your apartment that they have uncovered the facility responsible for this mess. There were no personnel; actually, it was fully automated. But his report…' Liara's smile faltered. 'Apparently, Cerberus was very determined to rebuild you, no matter the cost. There are hundreds of your clones, all bred for spare parts, and according to the logs, a good number of them actually did serve this very purpose, only to be discarded and burned in the incinerator…' Shepard felt sick. She knew that a good number of her organs had to be replaced not once, but several times, as Miranda admitted, but she assumed that they only cloned the organs, not the whole bodies, and so did the Lazarus Project director when requesting spare parts.
'Anything else?' the Spectre asked.
'Yes. They discovered that all the clones have the same neural implants that the one… we fought… had. But there's no program inside them for some reason. There is, as my operatives can tell, some basic knowledge on how to walk, eat, talk and stuff like that, but no combat training or some enforced loyalty yet…'
Shepard pondered over what she just heard. To say that the information was disturbing would be an understatement of an asari lifetime, and she was sorely tempted to ask Liara to have the cloning facility blown to kingdom-fucking-come, but suddenly she recalled her lover's analysis on the situation. The Commander was no fool and she knew that the galaxy desperately needed soldiers, and that all the races had more and more trouble finding the replacements for those MIA or KIA. If there was a chance to throw a wrench into Reapers' plans, she had to use it, no matter what.
Suddenly, Liara noticed a shit-eating grin plastered on human's face.
'Shepard?' she asked worriedly. The first human Spectre had this particular grin only when she was cooking something insanely crazy in her head, like taking on a thresher maw on foot (she gave Shepard a lot of grief over that one) or ramming Mako into a Geth Colossus (which she was unlucky enough to witness from inside the Mako).
Her lover's green eyes met her azure ones, and then Shepard spoke:
'Just how far is this facility from the Citadel?'
'Okay, maybe coming here was definitely a mistake, but I still insist that I needed to see it,' Shepard said.
'And I still insist that seeing them so soon after the incident is detrimental for your psyche,' Liara practically growled.
Since the Normandy was still unavailable, Liara organized the transportation on one of Shadow Broker's ships, the asari frigate named Rythona. The facility turned out to be not so far from the Citadel – deep underground on Bekenstein, to be exact – and Shepard took Liara, Garrus and Wrex with herself. Her best turian friend was somewhat curious to see many Shepards at once (he held the torch for Shepard for a long time, and even tried to make a pass on her, but his jokes about "finding a Shepard" for himself were met with stares from both Shepard and Liara that promised pain for all eternity if he did not drop the subject, which he wisely did), and the Urdnot clan Chieftain was merely thankful for another chance to escape the amorous now-fertile krogan females.
'But Liaraaa…' Shepard moaned like a petulant child.
'Oh fine,' the asari snapped, 'but if you have another round of suffering from PTSD, don't come to me whining!'
'Fat chance of that happening, Liara,' quipped Garrus.
'Yeah, you shouldn't let her go like that, T'Soni, or she'll find myself in my position, or even worse,' Wrex added his two credits' worth. 'I'm pursued by krogan females everywhere, and Shepard will be pursued not only by krogan, but also by humans, asari, drell, damn, even turians (he pointedly ignored Garrus's indignant "What do you mean, 'even turians', you fat lump?") and someone of them will get lucky,' at that point, Liara started showing angry wisps of biotic energy around her body, which Wrex didn't see or pretended not to see, 'and will jump her bones and – AARGH!'
At this point, Liara had apparently had enough of Wrex's comments and expressed her very obvious displeasure by thrusting her head forward, her forehead meeting Wrex's left eye and interrupting his "advice".
Silence reigned for a few moments. Then:
'BA-HA-HA-HA-HAH! You have a quad, T'Soni! There is some krogan in you!' Wrex expressed his approval, although his eye didn't appreciate the sentiment.
'Remind me not to piss you off, Liara,' Garrus said, clearly awe-stricken.
The only one more awe-stricken than him was Shepard. She stood there, in danger of losing her jaw, and then pronounced:
'Hot damn, Liara…'
'Think we should make ourselves scarce before they peel each other from their uniforms?' Garrus whispered to Wrex.
'I HEARD THAT!' came the simultaneous cry followed by patented death glares, which answered the turian's question positively.
Once out from earshot, both of the males present looked at each other, communicating non-verbally for a few moments, then Wrex asked in hushed tones:
'Did you film that?'
'Yep,' Garrus answered, 'I did. That vid could gain millons of views on the extranet. Think of the possibilities…'
'Shut it,' Wrex grumbled. 'Much as I like T'Soni, my eye definitely hates her right now…'
Meanwhile, Shepard and Liara proceeded to the main cloning lab, where, according to the blueprints made by Feron, they could find the collection (so to speak) of Shepard's clones. Shepard was feeling really uneasy, reliving the trouble she and her friends went through, which did not go unnoticed by Liara, but the silent question of whether they should retreat was met with no less silent negative response, and the asari felt it better to just drop the subject, having no strength to fight Shepard's stubbornness.
Several minutes later, they finally arrived at their destination. On their first glimpse inside, Liara's half-awed, half-horrified "By the Goddess…" was immediately followed by Shepard's "Bugger me sideways", which earned her a well-deserved (but not in human's opinion) glare from her blue-skinned lover. Despite the differences in vulgarity levels, both phrases fit the situation very well.
There were indeed hundreds of clones. Cerberus must have been quite desperate to resurrect the Commander if they insisted on having such a reserve (if this word could be applied here). To think what could have been done with them, had they fallen to wrong hands! Fortunately, the higher powers smiled down on them in this case; Brooks was not aware of this facility and got the clone somewhere else, and the personnel from this base were relocated once the cloning process was fully automatized. The defenses were formidable, but not too formidable for elite Shadow Broker squads, and once every room was secured, they could wander there freely.
Having familiarized herself with all the data, Shepard proceeded to the master control terminal in the lab, reading the instructions on the correct usage of neural implants for augmentation and acceleration of learning process. On verifying that there was indeed no booby trap inside the implants that could be exploited by Cerberus (or Reapers, for that matter), the first human Spectre had the same shit-eating grin again.
'Liara?' she called. 'I have a cunning plan…'
The only response was the sound of a head meeting the wall in what could not be described as a krogan-worthy headbutt, but as exasperation.
With all the instructions, guidelines, moral fibers, regs, conditions and what-not safely installed within the clones' heads, Shepard was standing in front of a glass tank which looked a lot like the one that held Grunt long ago.
'And now for the big test,' she grinned, pressing the release button.
The nutrient liquid inside flowed out from the tank to wherever it was supposed to go, and the glass doors opened, letting a clone out. After several violent coughs, the clone was standing in front of Commander.
Liara could not help but shiver. Were the situation not as desperate, she would have not followed through with this crazy-as-hell idea of Shepard. But there were not many options left; they had already collected practically all the resources they could find: fleets, materials, weapons, soldiers, ships, armies, minerals, the support from every major galactic player, including even Aria T'Loak and her merry gang of outlaws. There wasn't really anything else to find, and they could not afford to waste such a resource, however… disturbing… it was.
The clone looked into Shepard's eyes, ready to receive her mission.
Shepard, in turn, said firmly and clearly:
'You are Clone Commander Shepard.'
'I am Clone Commander Shepard,' the clone, designated as CCS-001 and meant to be in command of the whole clone army, repeated obediently.
'Your mission is to defend the galaxy from the Reapers and Cerberus.'
'My mission is to defend the galaxy from the Reapers and Cerberus.'
Shepard smiled and put her hand on CCS-001's shoulder.
'Come on, then. Let's give you an army, so you can give them hell.'
And they went from the room, going to the armory which, surprisingly, was not emptied. Liara followed them, deep in thought.
'Goddess. If it was not for Shepard's scars and subtle differences unseen to anyone but me (as Shepard's bondmate), I would not have been able to distinguish them.'
The rest of the shore leave was spent rather pleasantly, with a lot of game playing, reunions with old friends, Armax Arsenal Arena competitions (one of which had nearly fatal consequences, which led to Liara threatening to tear the genitalia off from the managers and Shepard and Garrus quietly filming and desperately trying not to laugh at the enraged asari so as not to become the victims of said practice themselves), some drinking and busting Joker's pack of lies (OK, that was an overkill, but seriously, couldn't the guy buy himself a drink, being one of the most well-paid helmsmen?), plus some strenuous activities Shepard and Liara engaged themselves in out from everybody's eyes and which are not meant to be seen or heard or talked about (even if someone like Matriarch Aethyta would argue on the last point).
In the meantime, the secret facility had a simulator similar to Armax Arsenal Arena built in, where Shepard's clones were spending their time fighting the holographic enemies, sharpening their reflexes and techniques. When not fighting, they were replenishing their energy reserves and learning more about their enemies and those they were meant to protect from Shepard's Doctrine.
CCS-001 was overseeing her underlings, marveling inside at how smoothly the machine ran. In several days, all the clones were ready to obey her commands, were outfitted with armour and weapons (and not of stock quality, but of a lot better one) and close to full readiness.
The clone army was structured, of course. CCS-001 was the Clone Commander Shepard, the ranking officer and the one resembling the original Shepard most closely. Below her was CCS-002, her XO and second-in-command in case something went awry. They were trained by Shepard personally, mercilessly pushed to the brink and filled in on why all sentients, human or alien, mattered and why Cerberus and Reapers were bad. Standing lower were Clone Lieutenants, who commanded large portions of the army, well-trained and educated officers, inferior only to herself and CCS-002. Clone Sergeants were commanding the lower portions of the army, meant to be a link between lieutenants and Clone Privates, who were last, but not the least, in the food chain, meant to be not just mere grunts, but grunts of the finest quality, mirrored from the perfect human specimen – Commander Jane Shepard.
CCS-001 smiled. She could not wait to see her army (well, truthfully, it was Shepard's army, but she cared about her soldiers and thus referred to the army as her army) in action.
Suddenly, her omni-tool received the message on an encrypted channel reserved for the sole case of prepping the army for action. The message said:
'Protocol Doomsday activated. Confirmation: alpha, beta, omega, five, nine, seven, six, gamma, delta, epsilon, psi, zero, four, seven, five, three, mu, four, eight, two.'
The neural implant inside CCS-001's head incorporated the readings from the omni-tool into a form of pre-recorded orders, transferred instantly into appropriate places inside her brain by nerve impulses.
Immediately, Clone Commander Shepard typed a code into her omni-tool which activated a program within the facility.
'ATTENTION! ALL CLONES ARE TO IMMEDIATELY GEAR UP AND PROCEED TO THEIR TRANSPORTS. REPEAT, GEAR UP AND PROCEED TO YOUR TRANSPORTS!'
CCS-001 sent her XO to the main ship and proceeded to wipe every terminal in the facility.
It was time to act.
Earth was a grim sight.
Commander Shepard could not bring herself to say anything else.
She had seen the Reapers preying on humans when she leaved aboard the Normandy; saw the blazes on the surface of Palaven and observed the destruction of Thessia, but she could not describe those sights as grim.
It was as if the hybrids of organic matter and synthetic intelligence were mocking them. The very thought of their smug faces (even if the Reapers didn't have any) made her extremely angry.
At least she got to see Anderson again.
Now, Shepard stood there listening to the plan, which could be truthfully called a suicide mission: get through the thick of Reapers' troops, destroy the Destroyer (pun most definitely intended) guarding the transport beam, get to the beam and to the Citadel's master control unit. Open the Citadel, dock the Crucible, destroy the Reapers, win the war.
Piece of cake. Yeah, right, my ass.
Well, it would be, but she still didn't have any reports on the implementation of her cunning plan. As soon as Anderson finished, though, Shepard heard the chirping of her omni-tool.
A quick glance at the others, a quick glance at omni-tool, and she accepted the call:
'What is it?'
A hologram of a figure in a repainted Ajax armor replied;
'Your plan is going well. All the transports made it to the surface. We're waiting for your orders.'
All the military leaders present exchanged surprised looks. The voice from Shepard's omni-tool was… her own! Anderson recovered quicker than others and asked:
'Shepard? What the hell is going on and what plan does she mean?'
'Ah,' and here Shepard's face obtained the shit-eating grin which made everyone closely familiar with her to worry, 'you remember the story with my clone, right? Well, Cerberus had more of them, but they suffered an epic fail and did not get the chance to use them, so I cooked up a cunning plan and decided to make them good guys, er, sorry, gals,' she finished, her grin getting even wider.
'And on the other end of the line is..?'
'CCS-001, at your service, sir!' said Shepard's comm partner, taking off her helmet and saluting. Now everyone saw that CCS-001 was indeed another Shepard's clone.
'And just how many clones are there, Commander?' Anderson crossed his hands over his chest, staring at Shepard half-amused and half-definitely-not-amused. The first human Spectre actually fidgeted before answering:
'Er… I kinda upped their numbers to ten thousand…'
The resulting 'WHAT?!' from everyone nearly deafened her. Anderson stared at Liara, who in turn put on her best 'don't blame me for my bondmate's batshit crazy ideas' look. The aging Admiral rolled his eyes. He already had some suspicions on just what inspired his best student to invent this, as she herself dared to call it, cunning plan.
More like cocked-up, delusional and just batshit crazy plan.
'So… she said she's waiting for your order? Well, we're moving out, so order them into battle!' Anderson ordered. Shepard actually blushed before regaining what dignity she had and stating into her omni-tool as commandingly as she could:
'Clone Commander Shepard, the time has come. Execute Order 66!'
'It shall be done, Mistress,' CCS-001 replied, and terminated the connection.
Anderson stared at Shepard.
'Mistress?'
'Well, it's not like I want to be the Dark Lady of the Sith, even if Force Lightnings are cool, 'cause the Sith always get beaten in the end!' Shepard defended herself, blushing even more.
Liara murmured, 'Goddess,' and Anderson hanged his head, muttering, 'I never should have left that Star Wars: The Complete Saga collection in my flat!'
The Reaper Destroyer standing guard in front of the beam was patiently and methodically wiping out the fools that dared to try and harm him with their primitive mass effect-based weapons, when something came across his optical sensors. Not stopping at his task, he zoomed in on another fool about to be killed, when…
'Wait… WAT?'
Yes, with the letter 'h' left out, because what he saw just caused a glitch somewhere within his core.
'SHEPARD! But that should not be possible, Shepard is fighting beside these pitiful 'Thanix' missiles, and… WAT?!'
It should not have been possible. But it was.
Shepard was not alone. She had company. A very big company… of Shepards. The fact that their arch-enemy of this cycle was not alone, but somehow multiplied herself should not have been possible, and his attempts to calculate the chances of the event happening in front of him were causing glitches and bugs in his software. In desperation, he decided to reach their Shepard-expert:
'HARBINGER!'
'WHAT IS IT? I'M BUSY!' Apparently, Harbinger was not amused.
'THERE ARE MULTIPLE SHEPARDS INBOUND!'
'WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? IS SHEPARD ALREADY NEAR YOU?'
'YES, AND SHE'S NOT ALONE! SHE'S MULTIPLIED HERSELF!'
Harbinger was no stranger to the pitiful attempts at cloning desperately used in many previous cycles to bolster the meager defenses, but the possibility of encountering his multiplied arch-enemy was not predicted for some reason. Harbinger thought that once this was over, he needed to defragmentize his data storages.
'WHAT IS THE NUMBER OF SHEPARD'S CLONES?'
'It's… it's…' the Destroyer was on the verge of critical error due to having divided by zero too many times, which was suicidal even for a Reaper, and he barely managed to send his sensor's data, 'It's OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!' As he said it, red sparks flew rapidly and angrily all over his outer shell, and then he saw the words, 'CRITICAL ERROR!', and an explosion from inside followed. After that, he knew no more.
To put it as simply as possible: he died. From having seen too many Shepards. Stupid way to die, eh?
'IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE PROPERLY, BETTER DO IT YOURSELF,' mused Harbinger, breaking off and starting his descent towards the beam, calling for a few Reapers as reinforcements (after all, if you want to eliminate over nine thousand Shepards, better have a lot of firepower). 'IT'S TIME TO END THIS, ONCE AND FOR ALL!'
With the confusion caused by seeing many Shepards around having passed, the allied forces of the whole galaxy now were feeling a lot better. The clone army definitely copied Shepard's combat traits, and although the clones were not exclusively Vanguards (as the original), but Soldiers, Adepts, Infiltrators, Sentinels and Engineers as well, they packed quite a heavy punch, so heavy that the Reaper minions (meaning husks, cannibals, marauders, ravagers, banshees and harvesters) practically forgot all about Thanix missiles and their escorts, and focused on Shepard's clones exclusively, which was a bad thing to do, seeing that the galactic forces really did not want to lose their avatar. Not to mention that some elite operatives from Blackwatch and STG and even a couple of Spectres were laughing so hard at the unfortunate Destroyer's demise from seeing over nine thousand Shepards that they were at risk of asphyxiating to death themselves (or ripping their whatever-passed-for-human-equivalent-of-abs). One heavily-armed elcor even stated in a trademark monotone voice:
'Laughing my ass off: This Reaper did not offer so much of a resistance. Triumphantly: All hail Shepard, the Reapers' worst nightmare.'
If laughter could kill Reapers, Harbinger would not have survived the roar that followed elcor's witty remark.
Unfortunately, it couldn't, and Harbinger was not amused when he arrived with a cohort of Reapers.
While his, so to speak, comrades were obliterating the galactic forces who were attempting what Shepard described as a "zerg rush" (whatever that meant) towards the beam to the Citadel, Harbinger was doing his best to obliterate each and every Shepard he saw, trying to find the real one. Trying being the key word, because normally Shepard did not wear a helmet, and her scars would have been a dead giveaway. But this pesky human defied the calculations (which led to a series of very annoying divide by zero errors) and not only put on her helmet, but made her every clone do the same!
Not only that, but the primitive organics made good use of Thanix missiles. With every Reaper distracted by the advancing wave, the truck drivers actually managed to sneak behind the Reapers and launch their missiles, which destroyed several Destroyers (this time, pun not intended). But the banes of galactic existence were nothing if not resilient; virtually everyone was either eliminated or incapacitated, and Harbinger finally managed to get a hit on the real Shepard (with scars and blazing eyes) when she actually took off her helmet due to the faceplate receiving too much damage.
'YAY! I DID IT!' he almost cheered. Now, nothing was about to prevent them from harvesting this cycle.
Or so he thought.
The real Shepard was very much alive. And the one destroyed by Harbinger was a hoax; that was CCS-002, the XO of the whole clone army and the only clone who had the same scars Shepard herself had.
Unfortunately, more than 99% (but less than 100%) of the whole clone army has been obliterated. Only CCS-001, CLS-117, CSS-431, CPS-7567 and CPS-1138 remained alive.
Shepard knew that this was likely to come to that, but still she felt genuine grief when her clones were falling one by one in the field. It was as if the small part of her kept dying and dying. For that alone she wanted to see the Reapers annihilated, a sentiment shared by all her copies and her crew (the latter, including Liara, had to be evacuated back to the FOB before the failed "zerg rush"). And now, with all the Reapers gone from the place, Shepard and all her clones who were still in action rushed toward the beam.
They met resistance, of course, but what are a few stray husks and a lone Marauder Shields in front of several angry Shepards?
With the roar of defiance, six look-alikes charged into the beam and were immediately transported to the Citadel.
What followed was most definitely not as easy as the supposed rear guard of the conduit to the station which was the capital of various galactic governments from various cycles and their graveyard. The ol' Timmy bastard, ahem, the Illusive Man just had to try and use mind control on Shepards and Anderson, gloating while at it. But its masters, having long ago forsaken their organic roots (the paste inside did not count), completely forgot that the ever-chaotic organics could have a special bond between them that transcended everyone's understanding. And Shepard had this very bond with all of her remaining clones standing, so her anger at TIM's attempts to influence her was shared with them, and in turn, it grew exponentially.
Timmy bastard could not even comprehend what happened when Shepards unloaded their guns at him and took their time to savagely kick and stomp his body. CPS-1138 even, er, urinated on him. When everyone stared at her, she asked:
'What? Don't tell me you didn't consider the idea!'
All the clones shook their heads, but Shepard didn't – she actually rubbed the back of her neck, a clear sign of her embarrassment.
'You did?' Anderson asked, bewildered.
'Well, yeah, but I'm not showing my privates to anyone…'
'Except Liara,' CCS-001 giggled. Shepard frowned and glared at the offender. She most definitely did not giggle! (Which was, as Liara later attested, a big fat lie.) Her irritation was not helped by Anderson, who had a knowing smirk plastered on his face.
However, before everyone could have more fun at Shepard's expense, she was saved, relatively and very loosely speaking, by ol' Timmy rising from the dead, with the ever annoying:
'ASSUMING CONTROL.'
'FUCK!' all Shepards swore as one, with the original one adding, 'A déjà vu? You've got to be shitting me!'
The battle was tough, and hard. Shepard could not really recall anything for the rest of her life, except shooting, swearing up the storm, stabbing, dodging, rolling, more shooting, more swearing up the storm, receiving wounds, bleeding, releasing biotics and tech tricks followed by even more shooting and even more swearing up the storm.
They did not escape casualties. CPS-7567 was the first to go down, having been cornered during intensive CQB and receiving fatal stabs to her carotid artery. Before dying, though, she latched herself onto Harbinger's avatar and stuck all the grenades she had everywhere she could. When they exploded, harbinger was momentarily shocked, which gave everyone a precious few seconds to pump him full of bullets.
CLS-117 was next, having been shot one too many times by Timmy, who, after having been rendered into Reaper skeleton, like Saren, gained the ability to shoot lasers. Seeing this, CPS-1138 did the most stupid (but very Shepard-alike) thing one could do: having noticed that one of laser arms was close to falling off, she dashed ahead, cut the offending limb with her omni-blade, and, shouting "IMMA FIRING MAH LASER!", discharged the weapon at the Illusive Man-rendered-into-husk-who-just-did-not-have-the-tiniest-shred-of-the-most-basic-decency-to-bloody-DIE. It was SUPER EFFECTIVE, and did what Shepard later incoherently named "terribleterribledamage", but in retaliation, Harbinger hit CPS-1138 so hard that she fell down into abyss. Definitely bad way to go.
CSS-431 was the last to fall, saving Anderson from the shot which would have been fatal for him, allowing the aging Admiral who was stupid enough not to admit his feelings to Kahlee Sanders (seriously, who on Earth makes a poor girl, er, fine, woman wait for that for 20 years?) to discharge another severed laser arm at Harbinger, but without "IMMA FIRING MAH LASER!" added.
But the rest did not emerge unscratched; Anderson had a lot of cuts and burn marks on him, CCS-001 had too many bullet holes for medi-gel to compensate, and Shepard was stabbed, shot, burned and shot again so many times that it was a wonder she was alive. Yet she still hogged the part where a button needs to be pressed. Garrus would have (dis)approved.
Their victory had another side effect: Harbinger, on whom elimination of Shepard's clones and the possession of ol' Timmy's corpse took a very big toll, divided by zero. Again.
Which, in turn, prevented his final ditch at attempting to indoctrinate Shepard and did not activate a failsafe within the Citadel that would have prevented the DOOMSDAY DEVICE named "Crucible" from executing its initial program and FIRING HIS LASER at the Reapers and their forces without targeting the Geth and EDI.
So, the fates did the right thing for once and Crucible… no, not divided… multiplied all the Reapers by zero.
Shepard put her hand around Anderson, who replied, with the warmest smile possible:
'You did good, child. You did good. I'm proud of you.'
'Thank you, sir. And Anderson? Do me a favour – don't make Kahlee wait for another 20 years before you propose to her!'
This earned the future Vanquisher of the Reapers (a title she would be given later, rather loudly and proudly and, what's worse, publicly by Wrex) a deep bellowing laugh.
CCS-001, while crying from happiness for her comrades-in-arms, also felt saddened, feeling that she had nothing to do anymore. However, Shepard put her other hand around the clone's shoulder, and loudly proclaimed with the trademark shit-eating grin:
'And you, my dear, are going to be my sis!'
If Shepard and Anderson hadn't seen that themselves, they would not have believed how wide CCS-001's eyes were. Fortunately, the-now-declared-sister knew better than to drop her jaw. That would have been bloody embarrassing.
[SEVERAL WEEKS LATER]
After dragging their asses off the Citadel, Shepard, Anderson and CCS-001 (who was later christened Jeanne) were dragged off to the nearest hospital possible to treat their numerous wounds. Normandy's crew was very much relieved to find out that their favourite Commander was still very much alive, and everyone from the allied galactic forces celebrated pretty wildly.
Liara was beside herself from happiness, which was understandable – who wouldn't be relieved to know that their soul mate has survived the worst thing this cruel galaxy could have dropped? She felt genuinely happy for Shepard's newly-found sister Jeanne as well, although she still felt a little uneasy, with the memories of what Brooks tried to do still fresh in her mind. Add the moral quandaries which always revolved about cloning even in 2186, the cruelty of breeding someone only to let them die, and the controversy of essentially "programming" someone to be "good" or "bad", with the definitions of these two words being very subjective, and one could easily give themselves a headache. Liara cured her own headache by having the cloning facility utterly annihilated with all the records and samples of Shepard's DNA and the stock of neural implants gone in the explosion. Shepard didn't begrudge her decisions, and neither, actually, did Jeanne. Both of them also had issues with the whole mess. Fortunately, the saying "history is written by the victors" was proven right in a good way: the majority of remaining galactic population and the higher-ups basically said "good thing we won before these morally ambiguous actions could become a bigger necessity; thank you, Shepard, for this cunning plan" and decided not to talk about this anymore.
When all wounds were finally cleaned and healed and Dr. Chakwas cleared Shepard for duty (with Aethyta making tawdry remarks about "being cleared for bondmate duty", which earned her a headbutt from Liara, much to the appreciation of Wrex, Grunt, Bakara, who gave Shepard a visit of politeness, and even Aethyta herself, the latter stating loudly, "That's my girl!"), the famous savior of the galaxy saw it fit to abduct Liara (not that the asari minded) and retreat into their private domain. The "abduction" was followed by a lot of kissing, necking, clothes flying everywhere with moderate to heavy damage done to them and even some tear-flowing (mostly on Liara's part, who constantly pinched herself to ensure that this was not a dream), but, unfortunately, just as the couple was about to engage into "I-can't-believe-we-survived-that"-lovemaking, Jeanne, Shepard's newly-christened twin sister and formerly named CCS-001 interrupted them. Apparently, someone saw it fit to mess a bit with the neural implants inside the clone's head (and Liara had a not-without-reason suspicion who did that), and she suggested, much to Jane's shock and disapproval, that they should share.
'Goddess, NO!' Liara exclaimed, shocked. Unlike more unrestrained asari (or extremely unrestrained, from human's POV), she did not find the idea interesting or arousing.
'See? The lady said no,' Shepard stated, clearly not amused.
'Aww,' Jeanne drawled, disappointed, 'but you are so happily in love with the asari! I want an asari, too!' At this point, she pouted like a kid (which she was not, but still behaved like one) and the two interrupted bondmates facepalmed mentally.
'So go get one!' Shepard said, firmly.
'But whom?' Seriously, Jeanne could be so annoying! Shepard now truly appreciated what Liara endured while being with her. Still, she had a sister to chase out of her bedroom, so she had to come with a suggestion quick, which her befuddled brain traitorously could not provide.
'Oh I don't know, there are a lot of beautiful asari for you to pick and fall in love with, how about…' Shepard slowed down, trying to find a candidate. For one moment, she considered Aria T'Loak, but then thought that would be too cruel, 'how about… Tevos!' she blurted out.
'Oh, her? Yep, she is most definitely beautiful. Thank you, sis!' here, Jeanne skipped to Jane, gave her a smooch on her cheek and hurried out of the room. Shepard turned to her bondmate, only to see a strange expression on her face. 'Liara?'
'Really, Jane? You sicced your clone sister on an asari councilor of all people?' Liara replied, shocked.
'Well, it's not like I could point her to Aria T'Loak, you know. Besides, I've checked and re-checked, she knows how to date an asari properly. I'm sure she'll succeed in seducing Tevos,' Shepard replied with her trademark shit-eating grin. 'But I recall that we're about to engage into strenuous activities, and there's a certain bet you lost…'
'Bet? What bet?' the asari couldn't remember.
'The one we made during our shore leave? Concerning Armax Arsenal Arena and me taking on a horde of holographic Collectors?'
'Oh… that bet,' Liara replied, suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable.
'Yep, that bet, and now we're going to fulfill the terms of that bet,' Shepard replied, turning to her bondmate, a pair of handcuffs dangling on her finger and her shit-eating grin getting even wider.
'Do you surrender yourself to my custody, Doctor T'Soni?'
Liara raised her hands in the air; it was going to be a long night…
No, I'm not writing lovemaking scene in my first fic. Especially where roleplaying is concerned.
I hope my sense of humour is good enough.
I will be grateful for your opinion :) but unreasonable flaming will be met with a fire extinguisher.
Thank you for reading!
Special thanks to Zizania who spurred me to write this first fic.