Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, save the OCs you will encounter in this particular story. It will not merely be a re-telling of the ME story as we know it, so expect changes and (hopefully) surprising and enjoyable twists! This story is rated M for a reason and will contain future scenes of violence, gore, sex, and various other mature situations. There will also be copious amounts of wonderful, wonderful angst. Please consider yourself warned.

***Note: My Shepard has the default facial settings the game provides you with because, hell, why mess with perfection? This story picks up in the world of ME2 and is expected to continue in to ME3 and beyond.

This is just an transition chapter of sorts, folks. Next chapter things are really going to hit the fan for Eira!

Any and all reviews are appreciated! – Fallon.

Chapter Three

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth" – Vladimir Lenin

Eira hurried down the corridor, her bare feet treading softly on the cold metal floor. In the distance behind her, she could hear the sounds of gunfire dying down and voices rising. She knew what that meant, that likely the mercenaries had killed everyone, and she immediately feared for Corrine.

As hard as Corrine pushed her, the doctor and the life she'd led on the station was all Eira had ever known. Corrine was cold but constant, distant yet strangely reassuring. It didn't seem possible that she could be taken from her or that the life she had known could crumble away into something else; and yet Eira couldn't deny the feeling of impending change that was washing over her. The tide was coming in and would inevitably sweep away everything she'd ever known. The sense of its uneasy approach made her stomach churn and her heart race.

What life would be left for her without the station? Without Corrine and the seemingly endless tests and trials she put before her?

She slipped into a stairwell and paused, leaning against the wall as she caught her breath.

The answer was obvious enough and yet admitting it to herself was a monumental task. Her body trembled as every ounce of strength in her body threatened to leave her.

Whomever it was attacking the station, they clearly had no intentions of taking hostages. Eira had passed the bodies of dozens of Cerberus personnel since fleeing the docking bay. This was no simulation, people were dying and she had no reason to assume she would be spared a similar fate.

Before they had been separated, Corrine had seemed to believe that the mercs were after her, but Eira assumed that had to be a mistake. However unique she might be, surely she wasn't worth slaughtering dozens of people? Her life couldn't have been worth more than all of theirs, no amount of skill could justify loss of life at such a disgusting scale!

Eira continued down the stairs. She had never been in this part of the facility before and wasn't sure where she was headed but she knew she had to move. Staying still guaranteed the mercs would find her and while sprinting through the facility blind was a weak plan, it was something.

She inhaled sharply as fear sunk deeper into her bones, and forced one foot in front of the other.

Corrine had lost her colleagues early on. She hadn't mourned for them, not as they fell one by one around her. They were dead weight from the beginning, expendable. Unfortunately she had also lost 'Valkyrie' – the only thing of value on the entire station.

Pissed off and still in disbelief that this day had come so soon, she paused to collect herself. She crouched down low behind a stack of crates in the smaller secondary hanger and checked her supply of thermal clips.

"Fuck!" She hissed as she was faced with a mere single clip remaining, the others clanging together empty in her lab coat pocket.

She'd never had the chance to hear if her message to the Illusive Man had gotten through, but she wasn't going to wait around for help to arrive. There were half a dozen shuttles operational in the bay she was in now, all that remained was finding Valkyrie before the mercs did.

Over twenty years she had sunk into this project. She'd given up everything, staking her career and her life on the chance the kid would amount to what her superiors suspected she could be. Now that real progress was being had, now that Valkyrie was truly flourishing, everything Corrine had worked for was at risk of disintegrating.

Fuck the mercs, this is my project! My life's work!

Corrine peaked out from cover, the faint sounds of gunfire growing all the more distant, and saw a single man enter the hanger, his gaze fixed on her as if he had known she was there all along.

His gun wasn't raised but remained in his hand, held loose and relaxed at his side. She guessed he was in his late forties at most, as there was only a slight hint of grey in his well-kept brown hair and only a few thin lines around his eyes and mouth. He was clean shaved, a unique trait to see from a mercenary, and the closer he got the clearer his confident smirk became.

Corrine raised her gun.

"Not one step closer, you bastard." She warned as her finger tensed on the trigger. "You'll tell me why the fuck you're on my station and maybe I'll let you live. I'm sure the Illusive Man would love to hear first-hand how someone so small thought he had the balls to take on Cerberus."

The man chuckled, seemingly not threatened by her bluster.

"Just as full of shit as he said you'd be," he mused, "Dr. Corrine Knowles, the brilliant mind behind some of Cerberus's most disgusting 'experiments'." He gave an exaggerated bow, "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"So you know who I am, what of it?"

The man quirked an eyebrow, curious, "Don't you wish to know who I am?"

Corrine snorted, "What I 'wish' is for you to get the fuck off my station, but I don't get the feeling you'd oblige me."

"Oh, I have every intention of leaving," the man admitted, "once I have 'Valkyrie' of course."

Corrine shook her head, "Not going to happen, asshole."

"It's Doctor Marin," he said coolly, "and I'm here for a friend. You might not know him…but you should be familiar with his wife."

Corrine's eyes went wide and her firearm lowered ever so slightly.

"Kathryn Eklund?" Marin took a step forward, hate and disgust for her resonating from every pore of his body, "You tortured her for months to bring 'Valkyrie' into the world. I've seen the files, Knowles. I know what the eezo and radiation did to Eira."

"You know nothing," Corrine spat angrily, "Everything we did was to benefit humanity!"

"We?" He shouted, the veins in his neck bulging from his boiling anger, his voice echoing throughout the hanger, "You, Corrine, you gave the orders. I might be too late to help Kathryn, but I can do right by her by freeing her daughter from your control."

Marin glared, seeing the distant look in her eyes, and squeezed off a single shot that connected with Corrine's hand and sent her weapon flying off to the side. She screamed and fell to the ground, clutching her bloodied, mangled hand against her chest.

"Fuck, fuck!" Corrine hissed under her breath as she scrambled to back away from him as he approached.

Marin kept his weapon poised, his finger teasingly caressing the trigger. He made a promise to see this through, to break Eira out of the station, but he couldn't deny his intense desire to see the end of the woman before him for himself. Images replayed in his mind of the reports and files he'd managed to gather regarding Project Valkyrie. His friend emaciated and in pain on a gurney, chemicals being pumped into her body in order to manipulate the life growing within her. He wasn't certain those images could ever be washed from his mind.

"You couldn't have truly thought this day wouldn't come." Marin asked as he looked down the length of his gun at her, "It's time to pay for your crimes, Corrine." His body tensed as certainty settled in his bones, "Julian sends his regards."

He pulled the trigger and Corrine lurched backwards, dead before she hit the ground.

Eira stopped in her tracks, momentarily taken aback by the sudden single gunshot echoing down the corridor.

What the hell?

She took a tentative step forward before stopping herself. Running towards it or running away…what was the right thing to do?

The part of her that was terrified wanted to get as far away from it as possible, and that part was very large inside her heart. But the small, lingering chance that Corrine could be at the source of the gunshot, perhaps taking down an enemy, prompted her to continue in its direction.