Chapter 1

Omega: 2 Years Later

"Commander?"

"What is it Joker?" Shepard asked as she reviewed the dossiers that had been given to her by the Illusive Man.

"We're coming up on Omega. ETA 30 minutes."

"Understood. Have Miranda and Za-eed meet me at the shuttle level in 20."

"Roger that Commander".

Shepard stood from her desk after taking one last glance through the dossier on her terminal screen. She went over to the encasement that held her armor and stripped down to her black boy shorts and mid-riff tank top. Alliance soldiers had their choice of underwear. She had chosen the boy shorts after going through her first mission with a wedgie. Ugh. Definitely never wearing bikini underwear on a mission again. Shepard turned to the red and gold Inferno Armor that Cerberus had given her. As she began to pull on the boots and greaves she marveled again at how light and yet strong body armor had become since she had died. Her breath caught in her throat and she paused in the middle of tightening the clasp on her left boot. It still hit her sometimes, like a shot to the chest. She had died.

Shepard sat up slowly and stared down at her hands as they lay on her knees. She flexed the fingers a bit and turned her hands, marveling at the knowledge that two years ago she had been killed after her ship the Normandy SR-1 had been turned into a cube of swiss cheese by an unknown enemy ship. She had been spaced and her oxygen supply had caught on fire in the planets' atmosphere as she fell to the surface. She had burned alive and was thought dead by any and all who knew her. She had no real memories of dying. She remembered the sensation of trying to breathe air so hot that it burned her throat and then nothing. Yet here she was, alive, gearing up to go against another unknown enemy with little to no support from her superiors. Again.

She looked up into the mirror on the inside of the encasement door and stared at a face that once she had known every inch of, every dimple, every scar, and yet now she didn't. Sometimes it was like a stranger that looked back at her. Shepard stood and moved to the mirror to look more closely. Blood red hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head. Pale blue-gray eyes that shimmered like crystals, or so one ex-boyfriend had told her before he became an ex. Her full pouty lips were a soft rose color that she had always considered one of her worst features. Having a superior officer who was giving her an ass-chewing suddenly stutter because he got caught staring at her lips was awkward to say the least. That had happened more than a handful of times. She hadn't been sure what was going on until she had walked past the officers mess hall and heard her sergeant complaining of being unable to "Properly scare the shit out Shepard because her damn lips keep ambushing him." The other sergeants had laughingly agreed and Shepard had continued past to her duty station trying to keep the blush off of her but thanks to being a red head, even with golden skin, the blush had shown. Her station partner, McKindrick had spent all night teasing her trying to worm why she was blushing out of Shepard.

She understood logically why she didn't see the face as hers. Since Cerberus had to rebuild her from scratch, the marks from her former life were gone. Like the scar from where as a toddler she had fallen and hit her head on the wood coffee table in her home on Mindoir. She used to stare at that little scar that had resided at her hairline above her left eyebrow whenever she had gotten homesick or the memories of their murders rose to the forefront. No more than an inch long and seen only in certain light or as an extra crease when she raised her eyebrows, but not anymore.

The scar across her left upper lip from the thresher maw attack on Acuze was gone also. That mark had been a reminder that she had lived when over 50 of her squad mates had died in that attack. That attack had been an experiment by Cerberus scientists to test the toxicity of the acid that the thresher maw spits to incapacitate its victims. She had learned several years ago that only one other member of her squad had lived. Corporal Toombs. He had been hit by the acid and studied and dissected by the scientists to test the acids effect on human physiology and biotics. Shepard had prevented Toombs from killing the last of the scientists and along with Admiral Hackett had managed to get Toombs into therapy and he had been recovering well, the last she had heard. Ironically, two plus years later, she was working with Cerberus scientists and the Illusive Man to try and stop the Collectors.

"That's what happens when you die Shepard." Said the lips in the mirror as the corners tilted up into a mocking smile. The eyes became a flat empty wasteland as Shepard remembered waking in a Cerberus lab as enemies again tried to kill her. She had worked with Cerberus agents Jacob and Miranda to escape the space station and had met with the Illusive Man via 3D holographic display at a secure base in another sector of that system . Shepard had met with him because he had spent billions of credits resurrecting her and she wanted to know why. Anybody would be curious, she was sure. After all, she was just one soldier. Why spend billions on her when you could build your own army?

She didn't care for Cerberus. They were a humans first group that wasn't picky about how they got their results. The ends justified the means should be Cerberus motto. When the Illusive Man had proposed a union to fight an unknown enemy who was kidnapping human colonists and leaving no traces of their purpose or identification, Shepard had been tempted to tell him to fuck off. Cerberus had killed General Haroku 3 years ago after they had killed his special ops squad after luring them to a thresher maw nest. Shepard hadn't known Haroku long, but he was Alliance, and he had fought for his squad to his last breath. That had been enough to earn her support. Now here the Illusive Man was, asking for her help in fighting a war. If it had been anything else…Shepard gave her body an allover shake to rid itself of her thoughts and turned back to her armor. She needed to get ready to meet with her team.

Quickly she pulled on the rest of the light armor that would give her a little extra for her tech and weapon damage and give her a boost of speed for sprinting. She flexed and stretched in the armor to make sure it had settled into place correctly and then snapped her chosen weapons into place. The M-5 Phalanx heavy pistol, the Eviscerater shotgun, and the Tempest SMG went into their slots. These were all pretty good guns and as a vanguard class they worked best with her skillset and biotics. They were heading to Omega so weapons were a requirement not a suggestion.

The worst cesspool of lost souls in the galaxy, Omega was full of mercs, drugs, sex, black market goods, and enough firepower to start a war with the gods. Shepard turned to her terminal to take one last look at the dossier of the first applicant, although he didn't know he had applied yet, of the suicide squad she was leading.

Shepard walked out of her cabin and to the elevator and pushed the button for the shuttle bay. As the elevator dropped, she reviewed what she knew of Archangel, the dossier she was seeking here on Omega. The file had been damn thin. Archangel was a Turian with military grade sniper skills that appeared on the grid only a couple of months ago. He was a sniper that had formed his own team, who were apparently damn loyal to him, and had begun playing Kill a Merc with the local mercenary bands on Omega ever since. What his history was or reasons for going after the mercs were unknown. What little info she had on him was sketchy and filled with huge gaps, but Shepard had worked with less before and had gotten the job done. As she stepped out of the elevator on the bridge level and walked past personnel, she saw Miranda and Za-eed waiting for her at the airlock door.

Miranda Lawson was a Cerberus Lieutenant and groupie. She had been in charge of Project Lazarus whose sole purpose was putting Commander Shepard back together again. Two years of hard for work for Miranda and two years of laying on her back for Shepard and walla! She was a new and improved version of herself with synthetic implants and everything, yippee! Miranda was a genetically engineered, gorgeous piece of flesh, and she had no trouble telling people that (over and over again), but she could definitely handle herself in a firefight and was dedicated to the successful completion of their mission. She withheld her opinion of Shepards capabilities because she knew that Shepard couldn't be trusted to do what's best for Cerberus. Shepard didn't hold that against Miranda. She completely understood her position, but it just put Miranda on her watch list.

Za-eed Messini was a different kettle of hanar. He was a mercenary that the Illusive Man had spent a bundle on to get him on the team. Za-eed didn't like the Alliance or Cerberus which meant he and Shepard trusted each other just about as much as one of them could lift the Normandy single-handedly. He was capable, Shepard knew that. He was an older merc, but still moving well. The fact that he had survived as long as he had said something about his skills.

As Shepard moved into the airlock to go through depressurization and sterilization before stepping onto Omega, she muttered curses to herself. Here she fucking was, going onto fucking Omega, with fucking Cerberus and a mercenary at her back, that she didn't trust and didn't trust her, to get another fucking mercenary for another fucking suicide mission. As the doors opened and she stepped onto Omega, she sighed to herself. Sometimes it just didn't pay to come back from the dead. There were way too many headaches.