Not so green are you…

A/N: Here we go, proper story number two. This first bit is more of a prologue chapter, just so that I can get the ball rolling and see where things go from there. Be warned – this story is going to be rated M for a reason. There's going to be a lot of torture (please feel free to skip if you so wish to), murder (same as before), institutionalised rape (possibly not directly, as in I'll only mention it, but the same applies altogether), a lot of foul language and violence, and a number of major character deaths. In fact, a lot of major character deaths – at the start of the story, Shepard's basically up for the death penalty, while one of the two main asari in the story has already been killed by the Alliance. Yeah, you can stop reading if you have any extreme attachments to certain archaeologists, but in a way everyone in this story who is one of the good guys will end up dying. And with the way things are set out in the style of writing, they'll all have a whole lot more screen time down the line. Yeah, we're doing flashbacks...

I'm not certain about how well this story will go down, if it goes down well at all. It's quite a shocking story to even write, and I often have to try and take breaks to not get too affected by some of the shit that I'm dealing with on this one. It's not nice stuff, and it's taking me well out of my comfort zone, but I hope that it's a good read once it's finished and I hope you enjoy it too. The main pairing is between FemShep and Shiala, but I've got in there a lot of other characters, mainly Alliance characters alongside a select few aliens. Readers of my Shadows series will be pleased thoroughly disheartened to hear that Naylor will not be in the story. I may have a little cameo role for him further down the line, but my aim is to keep it mostly within the established characters from Mass Effect, even if their personalities have been changed to better suit the storyline and the roles they play in it.

So, without further ado, I present: Not So Green Are You

The kick that sent Jane face first into the metal floor was expected. The placement of the blow was predictable as well, but that still didn't make it any better for her. The floor was also very welcoming, taking two more teeth and a good quantity of blood as a tithe for letting her keep her consciousness. She noted that that left less than half the teeth in her mouth. And of those that hadn't fallen out, most were just jagged remnants of what they had been a few days before. As she was hauled up by the pair beside her, she sent a welter of blood and phlegm rocketing to the floor, joining the rest of the red mess that now resided on the ground beneath her feet.

The pair of marines on either side of her deposited her in the cold metal seat that she had been thrown into on regular occasions for every day for the past week or so. She hated the thing – a well-placed punch from one of the pair had very nearly broken her spine on one of the first occasions she had visited this particular room. She knew who the helmeted marine was. Everybody in the Alliance knew who he was. Her bastard of an older brother, John.

The man on her right, opposite her brother, was another figure she knew, and knew well. Kaidan Alenko, one of the brightest officers the Alliance had, and a very old friend of hers from their days in the Alliance's gruelling training camps. The title of friend had been stripped as soon as she knew that the Canadian valued his rank and status within the Alliance far over his oldest friend. If she had the chance to get free, Kaidan would not be one she would extend mercy to. Very few people within the Alliance retained that privilege anymore. Most of those that did were either dead or rotting in the cells alongside the little box that Shepard called home in the depths of the Alliance's HQ in Vancouver. Jane got the 'special' treatment.

Kaidan and John retreated to the sides of the reinforced doors that led into the interrogation room, the latter almost slipping on the blood that now adorned the floor. Jane grimaced – it was almost a victory, almost. To see her brother fall from his high horse and smash face first into the ground would have made her day. Instead, when the door opened, she was ruing the fact that she wasn't bleeding enough. How times change, she thought, as the interrogator entered for what would be another brutal yet unsuccessful session. To think that I loved and respected these people and the organisation with to the point where I'd die for them just two weeks ago. Now I can count my friends within the ranks on a single hand.

The interrogator sat down calmly in the seat opposite her, noting down the few aspects of protocol that he still had to follow in his job – her hands were tied to the table via a pair of extremely strong and very heavy manacles, while the table itself had been cleared of the blood that she had shed during the last session. He didn't want to die from some infection that she had picked up and had never been seen by a human. Once he was satisfied with the checks, he began. Two hours later, he would be further from finishing than he had been at the start, and Jane was pleased with her efforts thus far – this time the interrogator was even getting angry. Now was a chance for her to really get in his face.

The latest offer to elongate her suffering came after a particularly brutal shock from a stun baton, the device causing Jane to scream out in pain for a good few seconds before she collapsed down, shivering as the last of the shocks left her system. She felt like someone had set every nerve on fire – completely unlike the last time that had even happened, and in the complete opposite of a situation from the tender, intimate nature of that occasion. She suddenly found herself searching inwards, trying to hold onto the pleasant memories of that time, and it was then that the interrogator pounced, tearing her back into the present. "You know the deal - tell us where the alien is and we'll reduce your sentence just like that. We're trying to be reasonable here."

"Oh, there are terms now? Please, remind me." Jane knew that her goading would do more harm than good, but she sure as hell enjoyed it – she was going to die anyway, the secret of the location of the person the interrogator wanted to find staying locked away with her until she met her grave. The goading, however, had worked.

The interrogator snapped, slamming his fist on the table and shouting in rage as his face turned from a pale pink into a burning red. "Just tell me where it is!"

"She."

"Tell me!"

"She's a she, not an it, you pommie bastard!" Jane leant over the table, getting as close as she could to the clean cut interrogator as she shouted back at him, blood and spit flying towards his face. "And you'll never find her. It would take you longer than the years you had to live." She got the desired reaction, the suit flinching back and hurriedly wiping away the blood that had found its mark. He nodded to one side, and Kaidan walked forward to grab the back of her head and slam it into the table. She lost another tooth in the process, but not that she could feel it – Alenko had knocked her out cold.

The next thing she woke up to was nothing like the first. Instead of Alenko and her brother, two fresh faces guarded the sides of the door, both female. From their tags, Shepard knew both – Ashley Williams, a Gunnery Chief who had been slightly at odds with Jane throughout the entire situation, though still friendly, and Lieutenant Lee Riley, one of Jane's comrades and a very close friend from basic training. The latter was surprising – she was mostly a training instructor, but Jane realised why she was there as soon as she saw the man sitting in front of her. Riley was the aide-de-camp for one of the Alliance's most well-known and well-loved figures.

"You look like hell, Shepard."

"Why thank you, Admiral Anderson." The old admiral, lovingly called the old war horse by those that had served alongside him, sat in front of him, clean cut in his dress blue uniform and looking pretty angelic compared to the bleeding and broken woman he was sitting opposite – Jane Shepard, a former Commander in the Alliance, now disgraced because of her compassion. If Shepard was to count her friends, he would be number one. He had been her mentor throughout her life as a member of the supranational organisation that was the Alliance, and she was sure that some of his British ways had rubbed off on the Australian. Even her hatred of the English cricket team had subsided as a result. But his presence in a locked cell could only really mean one thing, and she had an idea as to what it was. "So why are you here then?"

"Shepard, they passed sentence. Tomorrow morning, you'll be executed for treason by firing squad."

"What?"

"They got special permission for the 'gravity of the charges laid against you'. We're appealing against it, but there isn't much hope."

"Why? Why now?"

"The light blue one you were captured with – I can't remember her name – was killed this morning. They locked her away in a chamber and pumped all sorts through the ventilation system. Airborne viruses, poison gas, you name it. The body they removed barely looked like it had been alive. Shepard, the Alliance has gone mad over this. One bit of information about this and the whole organisation could come down like a house of cards."

"That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. And I plan on getting that to happen."

"Really?"

"I'll be tendering my resignation an hour after my time's up in here. Which means I have three hours to ask you one question."

"And that is?"

"What happened?"

Shepard was taken aback – was Anderson really genuinely inquiring about what had happened, wanting to know about why she had done what she had done, or was it another Alliance method to try and get her to talk. She feared the latter, but every instinct told her that he was genuine. So she went with it. "I honestly don't know. It's a complicated story."

Anderson waved Riley forward, the Lieutenant unlocking the manacles around Shepard's wrists and allowing them to fall freely against the table. She gave them a short few movements, bringing back life to them, before suddenly finding themselves drawn to the plate in front of Anderson. The admiral nodded, Shepard taking a bite of the sandwich, being the kind of solid food that she craved. "Then please, do tell."

Gulping down the last of the sandwich that she had taken, Shepard took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Sit comfortably, David. This may take a while."

A/N: I kind of want to stress just how this story's very much a work in progress. I feel like I've rushed this little starting chapter out quite quickly, considering how I've barely written three chapters of the story (and I like to keep a gap of six chapters from what I'm writing to what I'm posting), but please tell me what you think. I want to know, because how much of my writing time I devote to this really depends on how good I feel about it.

Also, some other good news - I now have a beta (not that she's on ...) - she's a member of my university's Creative Writing Society (CreWSoc), and she volunteered to give a bit of a helping hand when I mentioned at a meeting that I did some writing for the Mass Effect fandom, given how she's been a long term fan of the series. She's been doing some good work on Shadows, and it's been really nice to be able to talk stuff through with another writer who wants nothing more than to improve your own writing skills and make the story a better thing in general. So, beta, if you ever end up reading this: cheers Procter!