2286
Chapter 10
The body of Commander Shepard was floating in the fluids of the tank that stood before Rex and Niki. Still in complete shock, Commander Williams went down the next five tanks, dropping their shells, revealing they all had a Shepard within them. Watching the commander going back and forth frantically to each tank in the rows, the doctor held a hand over her mouth, not having any words.
Suddenly stopping in her tracks, realizing what they had just discovered, Rex shouted, "This is a fucking insult! A disgrace! How could they do this?!" Angered, the soldier smashed her fist into an already broken console. After a moment, Rex was able to calm herself and she looked over to Niki. "We have to destroy this. All of it."
The doctor wringed her hand nervously, looking at the ground. "What if one of them is-."
"No. They're obviously only clones. None of them is the real Shepard," Rex cut her off.
Niki nodded reluctantly. "Well, this information says this isn't their only cloning facility. There will be more."
Rex walked back to her and looked at the first tank they revealed. "Then that's our mission. Seek and destroy them. If the public finds out about this…"
"It could trigger war," Niki finished her sentence.
"Right. People would demand action to be taken. The Alliance wouldn't hold back from sending fleets into the Terminus to find Cerberus. Get all the information available on that console. We need to find Kota and blow this place."
"Yes, ma'am," the doc replied as she turned back to the console.
"Well, well, what do we have here," was heard from the end of the aisle between the rows of tanks.
Rex quickly grabbed her pistol, spinning to the side pointing at the source of the voice. "Who's there," she shouted.
A woman stepped out from behind a tank, also pointing a pistol. She oddly looked like Shepard in the face, but instead she had longer blonde hair pulled back in a short pony tail, samurai style. Shepard's hair was short, light brown, and buzzed. Her eyes were also evergreen and Shepard's had been a grayish blue. "Dr. Vang," she spoke with an English accent, "It's a nice surprise to see you here."
The doctor had known that voice from anywhere and she suddenly stopped her work, pulling her own gun. "Kacie," she said with a scowl, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"You know each other," Rex stated the obvious.
Niki glanced at Rex through the corner of her eyes. "Bounty hunter. She's been after me for years now."
"Aw, I'm hurt Vang," Kacie said sarcastically, "I thought you would have noticed I haven't been chasing you anymore."
"Then why are you here," Niki asked again.
Kacie put away her gun, boldly walking towards them. She usually knew whether or not she would actually be shot. "Personal matter," she replied, "Besides, there's money in finding information about Cerberus activities."
"Stay back," Rex shouted, taking a step further.
The bounty hunter gave an ignorant smirk. "If you were going to shoot me, you already would have. Besides, we're here for the same thing. We want to bring Cerberus down."
Niki and Rex huffed, slowly lowering their weapons. "Why are you after them," the Spectre questioned.
Kacie walked to the console Niki was working on, looking at the information. At a closer glance, the hunter had snake bite piercings and one small hoop earring in her right ear. A purple fleur de lis tattoo was slightly visibly under the collar of her black leather vest. The blonde was either really cocky or stupid as she didn't have one piece of armor on her body. Under her vest was just a black tight fitting t-shirt, and she was wearing a pair of black jeans. Her jeans' legs were tucked into her boots that had many metal buckles. "Christ, it isn't obvious," she said turning her head to give them a better look at her face. A long scar ran across her left cheek. "They created me, and when I didn't live up to their expectations, they tried to kill me."
"You mean," Rex started as she looked at Kacie's face and then Shepard's.
"I was the first one to be brought to life from what you see here. And you're right. None of these are the real Shepard. The real one is dead."
"What is Cerberus hoping to gain by this," Niki asked.
"Who knows. An army of the best soldiers maybe? Or maybe they're trying to bring the true Shepard back again? But we all know that's impossible," Kacie replied, "I don't care. I just want to find their leader and kill him. Oh, by the way, one of these creations I accidentally released earlier when I got here. Damn thing acts normal one minute, then the next it's crazy. You might want to go find your other friend."
Rex's eyes widened slightly as she looked at Niki. "Kota," she gasped before taking off towards the ladder they had previously come down, the doctor hot on her tail.
The asari Spectre was still searching around in the darkness of the ship's upper decks. Kota was starting to get frustrated because she hadn't come across anything yet that pointed what Cerberus' plans were for the Reaper weapon. All she kept finding were crates with various basic supplied used by colonists. She decided it would be a good time for a break and sat down on a crate beginning to collect her thoughts. She was still upset with Rex's defense of the Reapers, but she knew it wasn't the time nor place for the two of them to be having such disagreements. Kota didn't like it, but she would have to work with Rex in order to find out what Cerberus was up to. Suddenly a crate fell over a few feet ahead of her. The sound disrupted the asari's thoughts and she quickly rose to her feet, lifting her SMG. She got up against a stack of crates so she didn't have to duck down.
"Is someone there," she asked out into the darkness. There was no reply. The Spectre peered out from the box slightly, just enough to scan the immediate area. Just then she saw a figure's shadow go across the floor. She looked up to see the silhouette of someone trying to sneak by. She jumped out with her gun aimed. "Hold it right there!"
It was a woman in heavy black armor that didn't carry any sort of insignias as to where she might hail from. She froze up, her back to the Spectre, holding her hands up. "Sorry," she said in a familiar voice, "I didn't mean to alarm you. I was just trying to find my way out."
"Are you a survivor from the crash," Kota asked. 'Goddess, her voice sounds like…no it can't be.'
"Crash? Uh, yeah, I guess."
"You guess," the asari said suspiciously, "Turn around. Very slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them. Do you work for Cerberus?"
"Cerberus," the woman said turning around, "Maybe."
Once the armored human female faced her, Kota's entire body froze. It felt like her heart suddenly stopped and blood went cold. As much as she wanted say something, her brain could not form words for her mouth. What she was seeing at the moment was incomprehensible. She didn't know it, but her breathing had sped up. All she knew was that Commander Shepard, who was supposed to be dead, was standing before her at this very moment. Kota spoke the only thing she could possibly think of with a ghost standing in front her. "F-father," she whispered.
As soon as the word slipped from the asari's mouth, Shepard's eyes went completely white with a faint bluish glow to them. Her face scrunched up into an ugly scowled as she began charging the young asari with her arms reaching towards her and a hideous roar coming from her mouth. Kota couldn't think straight at the moment. Her gun was still aimed at Shepard, but being still frozen over shock, she couldn't pull the trigger. A bullet went straight through the side of Shepard's skull not a moment too soon, dropping her to the ground immediately just a foot shy of Kota.
The gunshot snapped Kota out of her shock and she screamed loudly, "NO!" as Shepard hit the ground. She turned to her left to see Rex with her pistol raised. "What have you done," she shouted angrily at the human, "You just killed Shepard!"
"Not the real Shepard, I'm afraid," Kacie said as she stepped out from behind Rex, making her way to the dead body, going to one knee to inspect it, "Just a clone."
"Wh-what," Kota said in disbelief, "Who are you?"
Kacie looked up at the asari, "Kacie Hawk. It's a pleasure-."
"You have her face," Kota interrupted.
Rex walked over to them both. "Cerberus is making thousands of clones of the late commander. We found a secret facility at the bottom of the ship. Apparently, this 'Kacie' is one them turned against Cerberus."
"I-I see," Kota replied, still trembling a bit.
Just then, Ivy came over Rex's earpiece, "Commander, whatever you're doing down there, you might wanna wrap it up! There's a whole fleet of Cerberus ships closing in our position! We have to go! Now!"
"Damn, looks like they came to save their experiment," Niki said.
"Shit, we need to destroy this ship," Rex yelled.
"We don't have time," Kota replied.
"No need to worry. I already planted a number of bombs on this science lab," Kacie said as she got up, looking down at her omnitool, "Oh, look at that, we only have a minute left til they detonate."
"Why didn't you say anything," the commander shouted, "Everyone, let's go!"
The four of them began running down stairs, deck by deck to get to where they had entered. One bomb decided to go off early, jolting the entire ship. Rex and Kota both lost their balance and went falling down the rest of the stairs, the asari landing on top of the human. "Oof! Christ," Rex let out before Kota rolled off and helped her. The group finally made it to where they came in from, running out and as far away from the ship as they could get before the whole thing exploded.
Kota stopped a few feet short of their shuttle panting. "Cerberus has to pay for what they've done," she said, "Cloning a hero like that is an insult not just to the humans, but to all races."
Rex nodded her head in agreement. "Why didn't you take the shot in there," she asked, "You completely froze."
"Because I…she is," Kota was lost with her words. Telling Rex the truth would mean giving up a lot of secrets that she was not yet ready to expose. "I thought it was really Shepard. That's all."
"Hey, you two love birds, as nice as it is to stand around here and chat, we really should think about getting the bloody hell out of here," Kacie said, "And if you don't mind, I'd like to request your assistance in getting me out of here."
"Um, right," Rex nodded, "Follow our shuttle to the Normandy. We have extra space for another shuttle."
"Wait, you're gonna let her on the ship," Niki interrupted, "There's a bounty on my head that she's after!"
"Don't worry your pretty arse, sweetheart," Kacie said with a smirk, "There are more important things in this world than you. Still as big an ego as ever, eh Vang?" Receiving a glare from the doctor, Kacie winked to her and jumped into her shuttle to take off. Rex, Kota, and Niki got into their shuttle as well, taking the lead towards the Normandy.
Rex stumbled as she sprinted to the cockpit with Cerberus ships already beginning to rain fire down on them. "What are you waiting for?! Get us the hell out of here, Ivy!"
"Just waiting on you, ma'am," the redhead replied, "You might wanna hold on. It's going to be one hell of a ride. I've got to go straight through them to get to the relay."
"You can't skirt them?"
"It would take too long and they would easily fire on the hull. Don't worry, Commander. This ship was built with me in mind."
"What you mean?"
"Relax and take notes." With that, two small holographic consoles appeared at the ends of Ivy's arm rests and she placed her hands on them. Her eyes lit up green and her entire body froze stiff as a board. Suddenly, the ship took off straight into the line of enemy ships. It was dodging cannon fire and other ships faster than any expert organic pilot could ever imagine to do. Within minutes they had broken through and escaped into the relay. Ivy's eyes went back to normal and she relaxed back into her seat. "That was a walk in the park."
"What the hell was that," Rex asked, the look of astonishment on her face.
"I told you. The ship was built with me in mind. I can physically connect with the ship and give us a tactical advantage," the pilot replied.
Rex gave Ivy a confused look, not exactly understanding how that was possible. "I've never heard of anyone being able to do that. Regardless of our, 'advancements' through the green light."
"That's because I'm the only one known who can. Our bodies may have been changed, but I'm the only person known to be 'born' from an actual synthetic."
"Can you connect with other things?"
"I believe it is possible, but I've never tried it."
"I see. Well, take us to the Citadel. We need to report our findings to the Council. They need to know that a Reaper didn't deliberately attack a civilian ship. It wasn't even civilian."
"What exactly did you find down there?"
"Clones of Commander Shepard…"
"You can't be serious," Ivy looked back at her commander with a shocked look. "That's bullshit!"
"I know…we'll stop them."
The bounty hunter came walking into the cockpit. "You must have a damn good pilot if we've already gone through the relay."
Ivy turned her seat around to see the new guest. "Who the hell are you? And what's with your face? Commander, please tell me you didn't steal one of those clones."
Kacie laughed and sat in the empty seat to the right of Ivy. "Hah, steal? Hardly. Impressive ship you have here…um, I don't believe I caught your name, soldier."
"Alex Williams, but you can call me Rex," she replied, crossing her arms, "We can drop you off at the Citadel."
"Hm, no, you see, we both have the same goals in mind. I'm coming with you." The blonde grinned back at the commander.
Rex shook her head taking a step towards the Shepard look-a-like. "I can't have a bounty hunter on this ship who is after one of my own crew members."
"Niki? Please, if I wanted her, I would have taken her already. Hm, perhaps I'll stick around there. Seeing her…how do you say it? Boosts my morale? Besides, I have invaluable information on Cerberus that you don't have."
Rex narrowed her eyes, "Like what?"
"Like the locations of the rest of their cloning facilities," Kacie replied, knowing this was her ticket to staying on the Normandy.
"Ugh, damnit, fine," Rex gave in, "But if you start causing trouble with Dr. Vang, you're out."
"Hm," Kacie sat, thinking for a moment, "Oh I can't promise that, but if there is any trouble, it won't be the bad kind, I can promise you that." She got up with a laugh, walking out of the cockpit.
Liara was sifting through various information on the broker network when her private terminal alerted her to a new message. She lifted her head and walked over to the terminal, opening her messages. The subject read, 'Cerberus' New Lazarus Project.' 'Lazarus? They can't be.' She immediately opened the message, reading it.
'Thought you might want to know what Cerberus' new objectives are. If there were any a time for you to come out from hiding, now would be it, Mother.'
Within the message were numerous attachments of information regarding the Shepard clones, including pictures that Rex Williams and her crew took of the cloning facility on the downed Cerberus freighter that was attacked by a Reaper. Liara gasped when she saw a picture of a clone of her one true love in a tank. There was also a photo of the new Normandy crew member, Kacie Hawk, who was the first of the clones. Dr. T'soni stood there silent for a few moments, her blood boiling. Her nose scrunched up and her lips pressed together before a biotically charged fist smashed through her console. "Those bastards!"
"Why am I finding out about one of our cloning facilities being destroyed," the man in the darkness said, "I thought you were going to take care of Commander Williams."
"The destruction of that facility was done by one of our own," the woman said stepping into some light. She was another Shepard clone. "She has also managed to board the Normandy under the story that she is fighting us."
"I see," he replied taking a drag of his cigarette, "Very well then. And the Reaper we've captured?"
"It is no longer fighting back, but it seems to be blocking us out in finding information on its weapons systems."
"It will, for now, but we will have the upper hand soon. We are getting close to capturing the Shadow Broker. The Reaper will open up then."