Author's Note: It's been a long haul, but here's the finale (finally!). There may be an ME3-era epilogue coming yet, but this is the natural end of the story I set out to tell.
The Collector Base sent chills down Miranda's spine.
She was not about to let it affect her demeanor, however. She swallowed, squared her shoulders, kept her body poised and her gun ready. Krios appeared as unflappable as ever, but Shepard, Miranda thought, might be feeling it too. Shepard and Vakarian had exchanged crisp nods as the team divided, with no more than a few brief words exchanged between them. Afterward, Miranda saw Shepard's jaw tighten. Her throat worked once, and her expression settled into grim intensity, sharp eyes seeming to take everything in.
And everything was... unsettling. The atmosphere inside the Collector Base was hot, and damp, a sickly tropical sort of heat that was making Miranda sweat in spite of the cooling functions of her armor. As they moved through the Base, the surface underfoot changed. Sometimes it gave underfoot, a slight yield that made her think, unpleasantly, of walking on flesh. At other times, they walked on something hard and shiny, made slippery with the moisture that seemed everywhere, a cloying film that condensed on the surface of Shepard's armor and stuck to the soles of all their boots. Besides that, there was... a smell: a peculiar, fetid odor, not enough to overwhelm the senses, but enough to cling to the inside of the mouth and nostrils.
From the moment they stepped off the Normandy, there was a constant droning in the background, the distant buzz of the Collectors and their seekers. When it rose in pitch and volume, Shepard said, "Get ready," and within moments the fight was on them.
Their path through the base started to seem dreamlike: minutes of walking in this alien environment, making their way into a massive hive, punctuated by brief bursts of combat. Miranda had not had to fight the Collectors directly before, since she'd stayed shipside at Horizon and the Collector ship. Still, they could be fought, just as any enemy could, and the three of them fought well together. Their combined biotics cut down most of their opponents with minimal need for weapons fire, and Krios' long-range shooting took down many of the Collector drones before they even landed. It was hot, hard fighting, though, and Shepard was pushing them fast once she realized they needed to clear the vents for Tali's passage. The quarian sounded increasingly worn and alarmed as she checked in. Vakarian seemed calm enough in his reports, though Miranda could hear the rattle of gunfire over the comm, and occasionally a scream from Jack or a roar from Grunt. Furious, not pained; the other team was holding its own.
They made it through, their team coming back together in a blaze of gunfire and explosions at the great doors that divided one sector of the base from the next. Once the doors had slammed shut, Miranda stood for a moment, breathing hard. No one appeared seriously injured. Medi-gel, water, and energy bars were passed around, as Shepard briefly stopped by each team member.
"Nice work," she said as she approached Miranda.
Miranda swallowed the last bite of her energy bar. "We both know that was only the first part, Shepard. There's no telling how much further we have to go."
Shepard put on a tight smile, looking over Miranda's shoulder at the rest of the group. "We'll be all right. EDI thinks if we go through one more section, we'll reach some kind of central hub. Should be able to find transport there, she thinks. Let's take a few minutes to regroup."
Miranda nodded.
The space they had emerged into was large and ill-lit. It was even wetter than the way they'd come; Miranda could hear something dripping, somewhere, echoing in the peculiar acoustics of the space. She dutifully ate an energy bar and paced across the slightly slick flooring, trying to ignore how it squelched under her boots, looking upwards. The upper reaches of the chamber were crisscrossed with conduits, ranging in size from narrow cables to tubes big enough to fit a krogan through. For what purpose, Miranda wondered. They knew next to nothing of the Collectors' goals, or even what they required for survival. Knowing that the Collectors had once been Protheans, and that they had been subjected to millennia of engineering, left a great number of questions that even Mordin hadn't been able to answer.
Her wandering feet had taken her away from the rest of the group. Miranda turned back to find that the others had drifted toward an installation of upright cylinders. They looked almost like the sleeping pods used for hot-bunking on ships with tight quarters, like the original Normandy. They were occupied, Miranda saw as she approached, each tank holding a human body. Her steps quickened as her lips pressed together, thinking of the missing crew, the thousands of abducted colonists. Perhaps here they'd find answers, at last.
The tank nearest her held a stranger, a young woman with short dark hair. Her eyes were closed as if sleeping—or dead—but Miranda thought she could detect a slight motion of the chest within. She looked up at the machinery on top of the tank, her eye trying to follow the twists of cabling that seemed to link the tank to the network of conduits overhead. This vast ship, those tubes, the kidnapped colonists—why? The team had been almost afraid to speculate. Here, now, she could see that this woman was alive, still, but how was she being held, and for what?
Her reverie was broken by a scream.
Miranda turned, startled, in the direction of the sound, and saw one of the other imprisoned colonists come to life, eyes wide and hands flailing within the clear liquid that filled her tank. The woman's skin seemed to dissolve into streaks of red and black as she shrieked—conscious and aware enough to suffer.
"Get them out of there!" Shepard shouted. Miranda turned back to the young woman she'd been observing, only to find that she, too, was dissolving—more quietly than the other, apparently still unconscious, but her body was nonetheless disappearing as the fluid in the tank turned cloudy, flesh and bone alike stripping away. Miranda hesitated for a moment, horrified, but there was, she thought, no help for this woman now.
She turned and ran to the next cylinder, recognizing the white and black of a Cerberus uniform before she could identify the face. She gathered a fistful of dark energy and hurled it at the tank, warping and cracking the transparent surface. Fluid gushed out onto the floor. Miranda reached out to catch the crewman's limp body as he tumbled out, eyes suddenly flying open and gasping for breath. She had to brace herself against his dead weight. She glanced around quickly to see the rest of the combat team breaking open the cylinders any way they could, the rescued crew stumbling or falling into their midst.
Hadley, she thought. The crewman she was supporting was Hadley. His legs were unsteady; Miranda lowered him to the ground as gently as she could and dashed to another cylinder, where Jacob was yanking open the catches that held it closed. Miranda grabbed the last one and between the two of them, they eased the shuddering woman—Goldstein—out and onto the floor. Miranda turned, but there seemed to be no one else in need of rescue. All the cylinders she could see were open, or broken, or—a few—filled with darkened, cloudy liquid, and nothing else. It had all happened in a matter of minutes.
Breathing carefully, Miranda scanned the crowd of Normandy crew members and did a quick head count. The numbers appeared to match the crew complement, and she recognized the faces. Some of them managed to keep themselves upright, staggering or leaning against the cylinders that had once held them; others had sunk to the floor, shivering or coughing. Miranda looked up once more at the conduits above them. They still didn't know understand the whole picture, but they knew the captured humans were somehow being... processed, reduced to some kind of fluid and piped elsewhere within the vast facility. For what? That, they still didn't know.
She had never truly expected to recover the colonists alive, and could now be certain that would not happen. Miranda caught a glimpse of Shepard's face, tight and set, as she listened to Dr. Chakwas. Even the usually composed doctor was shaken, her explanation halting. Miranda tried to regain her calm, slowing her breath and heartbeat. She could not keep her eyes from the vastness of the chamber above, though. This place was an obscenity. There was nothing more they could do for those lost—except make sure this would never happen again.
#
Miranda wasn't surprised when Shepard selected Vakarian to accompany on her on the last leg of the mission, into the core of the station. That was precisely what she had assumed that Shepard would do.
She was surprised, however, when Shepard called her name. She tried not to show it, but she was too fatigued to control her face entirely. Fighting through the conduits, freeing the crew, fighting again through the clouds of seeker swarms: it had all taken its toll. Despite what she had said earlier, Miranda knew she would not have been able to sustain the biotic shield that had protected Shepard's team as long as they had needed; she had to admit to a grudging admiration for Jack's raw strength and determination.
The crew was safe, at least. And now they had one last fight left, if all went well.
After she stepped onto the platform that would carry them into the depths of the Collector Base, Miranda paid only half an ear to Shepard's last words to the team, instead looking over their faces herself. Everyone looked resolved, even tired and sweaty as they were; every one of them, even cynical Massani, watched Shepard as she spoke. "Well said," Miranda said once Shepard had finished.
"This was unexpected," Miranda added quietly as their platform rose into the air. The dislocation of force was very slight, forcing only a small adjustment of balance. Vakarian was staring upward at the network of conduits that still threaded their way through the vast base; Shepard faced the direction the platform was moving with her arms crossed and her chin raised.
Shepard flicked a glance Miranda's way in response to her remark. "What was?"
Miranda raised an eyebrow. "I should have thought you'd want a different teammate. Tali'Zorah, perhaps."
Shepard's shoulders rose and fell. "We're not sure what we'll be facing, and you have a versatile skill set." She glanced back over her shoulder. "I think they can hold. It's a defensible enough position."
"As good as any we've seen in this place," Vakarian added, turning to face them. "They've got a clear route to the Normandy's current position, if they need to retreat."
Shepard's expression turned grim again. "How much further, do you suppose?" she asked.
"I can't say I have a grasp of the principles of Collector construction," Vakarian said. "But it looks to me as though the tubes are starting to converge."
"They are leading to some kind of superstructure," EDI put in, as Miranda watched a vast space open up around them. Ahead, a great dark bulk loomed. EDI continued, "It is emitting both organic and non-organic energy signatures. Given these readings, it must be massive."
Massive, Miranda, thought, was an understatement.
#
This thing was ridiculous. Grotesque, and ridiculous.
Miranda ducked behind a partition and slammed a new heat sink into her pistol. Somewhere to her right, she could feel the shockwave Shepard discharged, knocking two of the Collectors right off the platform. This fight had gone on long enough. There was something absurd in the twisted, almost-human form the Reapers were constructing—until she considered that it was made, somehow, out of the essence of human beings, the very colonists they'd seen rendered down to suit the Reapers' needs. Then it became an abomination, nothing more than a charnel house. If this was the Reapers' warped form of reproduction, Miranda resented it all the more. Not new life so much as a grim parody, a sterile instrument of death.
"They're opening up again!" Shepard shouted, meaning the injection tubes that attached the construct to the superstructure of the ship. Her voice sounded strong, hoarse from the hours they'd spent fighting their way through this hideous place.
Miranda rose from behind her cover, taking aim. There were just two tubes left. In her peripheral vision, she could see Shepard swapping out her shotgun for her assault rifle. On Miranda's right, Vakarian was also readying his shot. "Left," she called.
"Right," Vakarian replied, acknowledging her call. Miranda took one last breath, steadied herself, and fired.
She heard Vakarian's rifle crack, and the two tubes shattered at once. Miranda allowed herself a smile of satisfaction. They had done it; metal groaned and squealed as the last of the supports gave way. The construct was collapsing, falling into the vast void at the heart of the ship, and no Collectors were approaching at the moment. The three of them moved, cautiously, to the edge of the platform, peering over the edge. Miranda caught the barest glimpse of the dark bulk plummeting downwards and stepped back, satisfied.
"Nicely done," said Shepard, stepping away from the edge herself. "Ground team, what's your status?"
For a moment there was only crackling over the comm. Then Krios' voice came in through the static. "— holding, but they keep coming. A quick exit would be preferable."
"Get back to the Normandy." Shepard bent over, locating the console built into one of the platforms they had been using for transport. "Joker, prep the engines. I'm about to overload this place and blow it sky high."
"Roger that, Commander." The pilot's voice sounded thin, distracted.
Shepard crouched down by the console, bringing up her omni-tool to access the instructions EDI had loaded there about starting a chain reaction. Vakarian joined her, leaning over her shoulder, pointing out something in the console's guts. Miranda glanced around, surveying the scene, but couldn't see any more Collectors incoming.
Joker's voice rattled out of the comm link again, pulling Miranda's attention back toward Shepard. "Ah, Commander? I've got an incoming signal from the Illusive Man. EDI's patching 'er through."
Shepard stilled, mid-action, and twisted around from her bent-over position. She looked up at Miranda, her eyebrows raised, and nodded. Miranda activated her omni-tool, frowning as she activated the projector, wondering what was so pressing that the Illusive Man needed to speak to them now, using all the resources it took to project a hologram into the base itself. Her chest tightened as her employer's image appeared, large as life, hands clasped behind his back. "Shepard," he said. "You've done the impossible."
Shepard straightened, slowly. Her face was almost neutral, but the slight tightening around her eyes suggested wariness to Miranda. "I didn't do it alone. I was part of a team. I wouldn't have gotten here without everyone's work and sacrifices."
"Nevertheless," the Illusive Man said. Shepard's jaw clenched. The Illusive Man continued, "You did what you had to do, and you acquired the Collector Base. I'm looking at the schematics EDI uploaded. A timed radiation pulse would kill the remaining Collectors, but leave the machinery and technology intact." One of his hands lifted, closing into a fist. Miranda blinked at the boldness of it, and at how Shepard's eyes narrowed. She generally expected that the Illusive Man's every move was planned and calculated, but did he really understand how Shepard would react to the gesture?
He was still talking. "This is our chance, Shepard. They were building a Reaper. That knowledge, that framework, could save us."
It was a good pitch, Miranda had to admit that, but Shepard wasn't buying it. "They liquefied people, turned them into something horrible. We have to destroy the base." She turned back to the console.
"Don't be shortsighted." The Illusive Man's voice was warm, persuasive. "Our best chance against the Reapers is to turn their own resources against them."
"I'm not so sure," Miranda said, somewhat to her own surprise. She hadn't meant to intervene in this conversation, but she couldn't let it go. It was too easy to remember the faces of those who'd dissolved to create the thing that she, Shepard, and Vakarian had just destroyed. "Seeing it firsthand, using anything from this place seems like a betrayal."
The Illusive Man's response was swift. "If we ignore this opportunity, that will be a betrayal. They were working directly with the Collectors. Who knows what information is buried there? This base is a gift. We can't just destroy it."
Shepard glanced over her shoulder, her mouth curling in contempt. "You're completely ruthless. The next thing I know, you'll be wanting to grow your own Reaper."
Vakarian chuckled. Even Miranda smiled, slightly, though the Illusive Man pressed on. "My goal was to save humanity from the Reapers, at any cost. I've never hidden that from you. Imagine how many lives could be saved if we keep this base intact and use its knowledge to thwart the Reapers. Imagine the lives that will be lost if we don't."
Shepard spoke just as quickly, over Miranda's swift intake of breath. "No matter what kind of technology they left behind, it's not worth it."
There was an edge to the Illusive Man's voice now, as if he were desperate—or, more likely, angry. "Shepard, you died fighting for what you believed. I brought you back so you could keep fighting. Some would say what we did to you was going too far, but look what you've accomplished. I didn't discard you because I knew your value. Don't be so quick to discard this facility. Think of the potential."
"We'll fight and win without it. I won't let fear compromise who I am." Shepard didn't even spare the holographic image a glance over her shoulder, her hands busy at the console. That told Miranda more thoroughly than any words that the Illusive Man had lost. To tell the truth, he'd never had a chance of bending Shepard to his will.
"Miranda! Do not let Shepard destroy the base!"
Miranda stared down at the image. Even through the layers of connection, the hologram's cybernetic eyes glowed with his accustomed vigor. He fully expected her to obey. She glanced up; Vakarian was facing her, now, but Shepard hadn't moved. She left her back to Miranda, and even though Vakarian was there, it was an act of trust. Miranda looked back to the Illusive Man, thought back over all the lost colonists, Jack's scowl and David Archer's abused body. She remembered Oriana's smile, and all the bitterness she'd locked away for years came welling to the surface. "Or what?" she snapped. "You'll replace me next?" Was that all she ever was to these men, a tool to be thrown away if she faltered at her task?
The Illusive Man usually gave little away, but she could see it now, the slight widening of his eyes and the shift of his jaw. He was shocked; he hadn't expected this from her, perfect Miranda, who had accomplished every mission he'd ever set her, even the impossible ones. "I gave you an order, Miranda!"
"I noticed. Consider this my resignation," Miranda said. There was a snap to it, a sense of satisfaction, almost of victory.
She expected some kind of reaction, but the Illusive Man only turned away from her, back toward Shepard. "Shepard! Think about what's at stake, about everything Cerberus has done for you! You—"
Miranda cut the connection.
Her heart was beating faster. Had she really just done that? Had she really just... left Cerberus, turned her back on the Illusive Man and almost two decades of work? All the time and effort she had spent building up the organization, over. She almost felt lightheaded. She raised her chin as she looked at her companions, trying to ground herself. Shepard was still bent over the console, her brow furrowed in concentration. Vakarian, however, met Miranda's eyes and gave her a short nod, mandibles flicking. She nodded back, setting her jaw and squaring her shoulders.
For now, she'd take the victory. She knew already that it couldn't last. No one just quit Cerberus. There was no severance package, no farewell party, no well-wishing for future employment, particularly not when one was as highly placed as Miranda was.
... had been, she corrected herself. But there would be time enough to sort out her separation from Cerberus, to take new steps to protect Oriana as well as herself, once they were off this godforsaken base.
"There," Shepard said, stepping back from the terminal she had been using. "Let's move. We've got ten minutes before the reactor overloads and blows this whole station apart."
Beneath them, the platform groaned. Shepard muttered, "What the—" as they all braced and drew their weapons.
Not done yet, Miranda thought, half giddy. She felt an urge to laugh out loud as the vast bulk of the human-Reaper construct thrust its head over the edge of the platform. Not done yet, not down yet—the stress must be getting to her.
"You have got to be kidding me!" Shepard shouted, setting off a burst of fire from her assault rifle.
"Shepard," Miranda called back, "you didn't think this was going to be easy, did you?"
Shepard was silent, but Vakarian let out a bark of laughter. "She's got you there, Shepard."
"Right—" Shepard rolled out of the path of the construct's beam weapon. "—because it's been so easy up til now."
"The eyes and chest appear to be weak points," Miranda noted as she ducked into cover herself.
"Gotta love aiming at the weapon while it's charging up," Vakarian said.
"Thought you were the one with perfect timing." Shepard popped out of cover to fire off a shot. Biotics weren't going to do them a lot of good here; the thing had too much mass to manipulate easily, and Miranda and Shepard were both tired from long biotics use. Miranda could feel the burn, a hot ache at the base of her skull, around her amp socket, but she could feel a slight tingling in her arms and legs as well, testament to the toll biotics use had taken on her nervous system.
Shepard wasn't quite done yet, though; she raised a hand, and Miranda could dimly feel the pull of her biotics. She couldn't tell if it had any effect on their adversary, though. The shot Vakarian landed a moment later, in contrast, caused a visible recoil on the construct's part.
It was grim work. Their enemy's beam weapon took a few seconds to charge, and made an audible humming sound as it did, so it could be avoided if they were careful—but the thing's constant movements made it difficult to hit the target points with any accuracy. Anything that hit its metallic chassis instead of one of the vulnerable points was a wasted shot. Their fatigue made it more difficult to concentrate. And all the while, Miranda ticked off the seconds in her head. Only so long to destroy this thing and escape the base. Only ten minutes, then nine, then eight...
At last the thing shuddered, while Shepard's last shots connected. It lost its fumbling grip on the platform and began to fall, plummeting back into the abyss it had hauled itself out of. Miranda sighed in relief, brushing her hair away from her sweaty face. She could feel the rush of heated air shooting up from below as the crash of the Reaper structure set off some kind of reaction in the depths of the ship. There was no time to linger, though; Miranda started toward their exit even as Shepard called, "Let's get moving, we need to go!"
At the same moment, the platform they stood on wobbled and began to shift. Miranda felt a sudden surge of alarm as her feet slipped against the smooth surface.
"Move!" Shepard shouted.
All three of them started to run, back the way they'd come, legs burning with the effort. The platform bucked, starting to slant. Somehow the ship's entire internal structure seemed to be falling apart. Vakarian braced himself to keep his footing, but Miranda was slipping again, her heels going out from under her as the platform pitched sharply. She grabbed at anything she could, but her hands slid with no purchase, her feet shot out into the void, she was falling—
She jerked to an abrupt halt, her whole body dangling over the edge as her shoulder protested the sudden stop. Miranda looked up to see that Shepard had an iron grip on her arm and her lip curved into a snarl. The moment froze; Miranda might have sworn that her heart stopped being as she and Shepard locked eyes.
Then there was motion again, and Miranda felt grateful for every ounce of cybernetic strength they'd infused into Shepard's skeleton and muscles as she hauled Miranda up. One good pull and she could scramble up a little herself, her whole body shaking with adrenalin. The platform pitched under them, its tilt reversing, and they both rolled across the surface. Miranda tried to control her roll, pushing herself up onto hands and knees as soon as she could, but everything was shaking and the platform continued to shift, tossing first one direction and then another, until Miranda felt herself falling again amid the deafening roar and everything went black—
She came to with a sickening lurch, her head spinning before she recalled where she was and raised an arm to push away the loose rubble. Shepard appeared at her side, offering a hand. "Come on, we have to go!" Miranda took it, and Shepard yanked her upright once more, unceremoniously, her face set. Vakarian was there, too, upright, all of them battered but intact enough, and they started running even while Shepard called in to the Normandy over the comm line. Miranda checked her omni-tool display as they ran; they hadn't been out for more than a few seconds, fortunately, but they'd lost time, too much time—
EDI's calm voice over the comm system directed them to a new location; the Normandy was airborne, at least, had been able to move up to a closer pick-up point. Every muscle in Miranda's body ached, and her own breathing was harsh in her ears, but she was not going to slow down now. Not with the seeker swarms behind them and the countdown on. Her earlier giddiness had already faded, and there was a yawning, burning fatigue waiting to catch up to her. She twisted, blindly firing at their pursuers, until her pistol grew hot in her hand. No time to change the heat sink now; she put her head down and ran, digging deep into the last of her reserves at the Normandy loomed ahead of them.
She leaped into the hatch, her legs almost buckling under her as she landed in the confined space. Vakarian was only a few strides behind her. "Go on," he called, "I'll make sure of Shepard."
"We're not leaving without her," Miranda said flatly. It would be a colossal irony at this stage of the game, and she wasn't going to have it.
Vakarian nodded, slanting her a sharp-toothed turian smile. "On that we agree."
She made her way into the CIC, too proud to lean on the anything as she went. "EDI—"
"Damage report and crew's medical records have already been sent to your workstation, Operative Lawson," EDI said.
Miranda paused mid-stride and instantly regretted it when her muscles began to stiffen. Momentum was the key, now. If she stopped moving, it would be hard to get started again. "I'm afraid I'm no longer a Cerberus Operative."
"Executive Officer Lawson, then," EDI said. "The Normandy is able to traverse the mass relay and Jeff has our heading. May I suggest a medical evaluation for yourself?"
Miranda started to say that she would be all right—she healed quickly, another of her father's gifts, so food and rest would suffice—but a sharp pain shooting up from her right foot stopped her. "Perhaps you're right," she said instead.
"The well-being of all my crew is important to me," EDI said.
#
Two days later, Shepard shifted a little in her accustomed seat across from Miranda's desk. "Thanks for the backup, back at the base," she said. "I wasn't sure..." She trailed off, rubbing one hand over her face.
Miranda rather thought that Shepard wouldn't have let that slip if she weren't so exhausted. If she were in another mood, she might have bristled, but she was stretched too thin herself, still shaken with the horror of what they'd been through, and stunned with the reality that they'd survived. She couldn't blame Shepard for being uncertain of her loyalties. They had been divided long enough. And yet, Shepard had placed Miranda at her own back thoughout the mission, never showing any fear that Miranda might turn on her, or might be less than up to the task, no matter how little they had worked together in the field. So she said, enunciating carefully, "That place was an abomination. I won't rule out the possibility that studying the Collectors' tech could have had some benefits—" Shepard lifted her head at that, her eyes wary, but Miranda pressed on, "—but Cerberus was not the organization to do it." She stopped and swallowed. The beliefs of her entire adult lifetime pressed on her, but Miranda Lawson was a realist, and she would not ignore the evidence. "Every bit of it would have to be handled carefully to avoid indoctrination. Everything would need to be approached with the utmost care and the highest standards of ethics, given the number of lives lost there. It was not a job that the Illusive Man could be trusted to do." She stopped and took a breath.
Shepard stared at her a moment longer before smiling, a tired half-smile that nonetheless lit her eyes. "I'm glad we see eye to eye on that, Miranda."
Miranda nodded. "So am I. That said... he's your enemy now, Shepard." And Miranda's. The truth of it hung in the back of her mind: people didn't just resign from Cerberus.
Shepard's smile faded. "He always was. It's just open warfare now."
"He won't stay still forever," Miranda warned.
"I know," Shepard said. "We'll deal with him in time, as we need to. For now, we have a ship and crew to take care of."
Miranda nodded again. "We do."
"How are we doing on repairs?" Shepard asked.
There was something soothing about returning to their normal work routine—even if the work to be done was anything but normal. Miranda smiled and brought up the daily reports.