Author's Note: So here as promised is my second Mass Effect fanfiction novel. For those of you not aware this new one runs on a timeline concurrent with that of my first novel, "Home Front by Admiral David Anderson". The two novels can be read in either order or just singularly though you may come across references to one or two characters that are not properly introduced as they make more of an appearance in the other novel. Please enjoy and leave a review if you can!

Miranda's Story

- 13 years old -

Even twenty feet off the ground I could still see Matron Surla frowning at me as I made slow progress across the balancing beam.

"Concentrate girl, you can go much faster than that."

The aged lines of her face were drawn into a severe scowl as she made her displeasure known. Not that I had ever really seen her looked pleased, least of all about anything I ever did. Since the day she had first arrived in the house, she had always carried an expression of fossilized disapproval wherever she went. Looking at her now, huddled in her ancient cardigan it was hard to imagine she had ever been happy or young.

"Sorry matron, I'm just not used to keeping my balance this high up," I called down, hoping it sounded like a reasonable excuse.

We were in the gymnasium for my morning training session, focusing on balance and poise for today. It was always the day of training I looked forward to least in the week. Not just because of this stupid balancing beam exercise (the beam had been slowly been raised to terrifying heights) but because the slow, precise exercises made it impossible to get warm in the frigid room. Not that even the more energetic activities were ever truly enough to achieve a comfortable temperature. There was something about that vast, sterile room that seemed to draw all the warmth out of the air. It was a quality that seemed to be shared by too many of the rooms in the many houses we had across the galaxy.

"Nonsense child, we've only moved it up another half meter. Now for goodness sake get a move on and get changed out of your gym clothes before your father arrives."

I wobbled on the beam, almost falling off, as she made that unexpected announcement. As usual, my mistake didn't go unnoticed by the matron.

"Oh so that's why you're not focusing properly today, is it? Yes, he told me had a very serious matter to discuss with you. Wouldn't tell me what it was mind, but that's just his way. Now look he really won't be long now, so if you can't get across in the next five minutes you'll just have to jump down with your biotics. And don't give me that look, young lady. It's a useful skill and you'll have to master it sooner or later."

'Preferably later,' I thought to myself and began focusing on getting to the end of the beam and back down the ladder to solid ground. Better that than having to jump and pray my biotics saved me from a broken neck.

I got changed as requested and nervously waited in the parlor for my father to return home. In the cold silence of the room, I couldn't keep my mind off the things I had learned about him only a few days earlier. What if he'd found out that I knew somehow? I was sure that at least some of the staff were spying on me for him, but I hadn't seen any of them near his office that night.

As the temperature climbed I knew he was nearly here (the rooms were never left cold for his arrival). Sure enough, the door opened a few minutes later, and quickly I tried my hardest to banish the memory from my mind. Father always seemed to know what I was thinking and when I was lying to him. If I allowed myself to dwell on this while he was here I was sure he'd spot something was wrong and get the truth out of me.

He walked in and stood over me, just as imposing he ever was, but from his face, I could already tell that this time he was really cross.

"Is there something you want to tell me, Miranda?"

I couldn't answer, I was too scared of him at that moment. He wasn't often violent with me but I had broken one of the most important rules he had laid down as part of my living in this house. My imagination was filled with terrifying thoughts about the possible punishments he might dish out.

"I'm waiting," he said, the irritation clearly evident in his voice.

Waiting for what? What could I possibly say that would make this alright again? I couldn't understand why he didn't just accuse me outright and start yelling. As bad as that would have been, it would have been better than this awful waiting. The minutes ticked by and it seemed like we would be standing there forever, though some small part of me could sense that the longer it took, the angrier he would be. Faced with no other options I finally plucked up the courage to speak.

"I- uh I went into your private office daddy."

He nodded slowly.

"I know you did. You were seen on the backup security camera."

I cursed my stupidity. Of course, there would have been a backup camera; there was probably even a backup for that one in case I'd spotted and hacked it as well. Still, he wasn't shouting yet so I asked the question that had been troubling me ever since that late-night excursion.

"Are the things I read about myself in there really true Daddy?"

He stiffened at that, almost surprised that I would dare to ask when we both knew I was about to be punished for my disobedience.

"What did you see in my study, Miranda?"

"Lots of pictures of me and my skeleton and insides and things like all medical stuff. In one of the files, it said I was a clone."

He gave me a curt nod as confirmation and my insides froze into ice. Ever since I had first read those words I had hoped it was all some kind of elaborate windup. In my mind, I had woven a dozen elaborate scenarios, each less plausible than the last to explain away this unsettling discovery. But my father didn't care how I felt about it, he just confirmed it was true; like it was nothing.

"Why, Daddy?" I asked. I think there were tears in my eyes at this point but I can't really remember.

"Why what, Miranda? Why did I make you? Are you not happy with the life that I have given you?"

I didn't reply, just kept looking up at him incomprehension spread across my face.

"One day Miranda, everything I have, my entire business empire will be passed down to you. I needed to know that I would have a worthy successor. So with all the resources, I had at my disposal I decided I would make certain of it."

He knelt down in front of me, his face drawing level with my own.

"I've given you something no other father could have, however much they might all want to. What I've provided for you is nothing less than every possible advantage a child coming into the world could have. You aren't just a clone, you were genetically engineered to make you into the perfect human and the perfect daughter."

I was fairly overwhelmed already but as he straightened up his next words are the ones that stayed with me for the rest of my life.

"You are my legacy, given everything in nature and nurture that money can buy. With the gifts you've received, you can do everything that set your mind to. And the only one capable of holding you back now is yourself."

He then walked away without another word to me. He paused only once on his way out of the door, to instruct his guards to have me beaten for breaking into his private office. A lesson, he claimed, to remind me that no matter what I meant to him, no one was irreplaceable.

- 4 years later-

Three drones flew overhead, armed with precision rocket launchers. On the ground twenty ODIN security mechs (an early precursor to the LOKI models used nowadays) all trained their weapons on me, while behind me the laser grid swept ever closer to ensure I couldn't turtle behind cover for too long. It wouldn't be an issue if I kept advancing, but if I didn't I'd get diced.

I grinned. Running forward I shot down three mechs from a distance of 80 meters and then dived into cover as they finally managed to line up their sights on me. Their shots missed by a considerable margin and I vaulted over the barricade I'd taken cover behind and started sniping out their legs from under them.

A rocket drone started to close on my position, charging in to unleash its payload. Rather than waste time ducking I fell back on my biotics, directing a biotic push not against the drone but the rocket itself. It spun off course at the impact and landed amidst the gathering mechs just as I intended. A few of them even managed to get out of the way in time, but most didn't.

Not the sort of move I would ever attempt these days. It's showy and dangerous. Some rockets are actually designed to go off the second they're enveloped by a mass effect field, while others are shielded so that biotics have no effect. But I was cocky back then and enjoying the chance to show off that day.

The rest of the group gave up on all semblance of tactics and strategy at that point and instead fell back on that age-old military favorite, the all-out assault. I moved fast on my feet with no armor to slow me down, dodging bullets and incoming rockets like it was nothing. Not that my accuracy suffered much for the increase in speed. I knew every weak point on an ODIN mech and exploited them all ruthlessly as I thinned out their remaining troops.

The only real issue I had were the rocket drones. Shielded as they were, I wasn't having much effect on them since they kept recovering each time I paused to quell the remaining mechs. Luckily I had recently developed a new app on my omnitool for overloading power systems within synthetic targets.

One burst from that and both drones fell out of the sky as they tried to swoop in for another attack. As they came down they landed on the remaining mechs in an explosion sufficient to wipe them out entirely. Unfortunately, as an unanticipated side effect, the surge was so powerful that it burnt out my Omni entirely. With the exercise now finished I started examining it to see if I could see why the dampeners I had put in place hadn't managed to suppress the effects on my own device. I was still engrossed with this when I heard a clapping sound behind me.

"Very impressive final demonstration Miss Lawson. I can certainly see how your unique abilities might become an asset to Cerberus."

"Uh thank you- sir?" I replied, not recognizing the man standing in front of me as any of the training instructors I had met so far. He was an older gentleman, mid-forties at a guess, but his sharp suit and carefully groomed appearance spoke to a level of style and sophistication greater than anyone I had met so far.

"Don't worry, no one really knows how to address me at first, but 'Illusive Man' will do just fine for now."

I froze in shock and anticipation. The leader of Cerberus himself had come to see me? If he noticed my reaction at all (which I'm sure he must have done, I wasn't all that subtle in those days) he didn't react to it.

"That said you've still got quite some way to go before you're fully ready to go out into the field. Don't get me wrong, you've done exceptionally well so far - better than any previous recruit and easily enough that we will definitely be willing to shelter you from your father. Unfortunately, while your skills are not in question, I still have some concerns regarding your temperament. I had built in a couple more surprises into the finale of this test that I was forced to deactivate when I realized you were no longer paying attention."

That managed to snap me out of my earlier shock quite effectively.

"I'm really sorry sir, I was just trying to make some repairs to this kind of weapon I built into my omnitool and-"

"Most ingenious," he said as his bright blue eyes (I found out later they glowed because of an implant that he refused to talk about) raked across my ruined omnitool. A warm smile played briefly across his lips as he made his evaluation. I nervously smiled back in response, unable to ignore his charm and charisma.

"But allowing yourself to become distracted by anything in the middle of a battlefield scenario can be a potentially fatal error."

I felt my cheeks burn. It sounded so obvious when he said it! Still, at least he could see how useful my enhancements were. They were something I'd be able to rely on as long as I didn't do anything stupid to screw this up for myself. I'd already put everything on the line with this demonstration. If Cerberus turned me away then I'd have nowhere left to go except back under the thumb of my father, willing or not. Even if I tried to go elsewhere, no other group would be able to protect me from him like they could.

'And,' a small part of my mind whispered to me. 'No one would be better at dragging you back to him either. After all, they had a good thing going with father until I ran away from him and joined them. Screw up and they'll hand you over just to claw back whatever they can get from the situation.'

"Don't let it worry you too much, Miss Lawson. It's far better that you learn that lesson here than in the middle of a live mission."

He moved in closer, looking around conspiratorially before continuing.

"Between you and me it's a lesson I myself didn't learn until I was on the battlefield, at Shanxi."

I was stunned but excited by the revelation. Of all the people in the galaxy I was probably one of the only ones that knew he had been in service during the First Contact War.

- 16 years later-

It wasn't a pretty sight. Bloodied meat and tubes, that was all that was left of our subject. A carcass laid out in ravaged N7 armor, starkly contrasting the pristine lab in which it sat.

"Lazarus Project, Medical Log One. Subject has been recovered, although injuries are more severe than first hoped."

"Yeah, like the fact that he's dead," Wilson interjected with considerable scorn.

Ignoring him, I continued with my preliminary examination. If this project was going to have any hope of success, we had to start with a complete rundown of Shepard's 'injuries'.

"Medical scans have revealed one hundred and three broken bones and at least twice that many partial fractures. Internal bleeding has ceased-"

"Because there's no blood left," groused Wilson.

"- but all ruptures will need to be located and sealed before we can attempt to restore the circulatory system to working order. Internal organs appear superficially undamaged, but given the level of exposure to hard vacuum I have agreed to Dr. Wilson's budget request for a separate division to be overseen by him to handle the cloning of replacement organs."

"With only two-thirds of the budget I asked for," he muttered.

"The subject's brain is the most intact organ, protected from the effects of the hostile environment by the Commander's helmet. This will-"

"As if it matters," Wilson said, interrupting me for the fourth time since I had started the log. "Look I know you're miss perfect and all, but medically speaking this just isn't possible. Shepard's brain might still be physically intact but after that long without oxygen, the organ is dead. There's just no way to undo that kind of damage."

"Our researches are looking into a new Asari technique for targeted neuron regeneration that shows promise in reversing that effect."

"To treat brain damage in subjects that have been without oxygen for several minutes, not days, and certainly not weeks!"

"I've already devised several ways of enhancing those techniques, but if you don't believe our objective is possible, why did you sign on for this project?"

"I didn't," he replied, a touch of extra bitterness seeping into his voice. "I'm Cerberus' top neuroscientist and medical expert so the Illusive Man had me transferred to your command. When I tried to question it, he simply informed me that this was our new top priority. I don't understand why I'm the only one treating this like science fiction."

"If that's how you feel, maybe I should request your replacement right now."

"Don't even go there, princess. You need my expertise to stop this project from being anything more than a joke. Besides, as long as the boss keeps paying the bills I'll happily work on whatever he asks me to. Just don't expect me to be too optimistic about our odds of success."

Annoyingly he had a point, his skills would likely prove invaluable to our efforts. Even so, his attitude did make the idea of removing him tempting.

"Kind of makes me wonder why you volunteered for the project though Lawson. Aren't you supposed to be the one with the flawless record? The Illusive Man's prized pupil, I heard. Gunna be pretty difficult to maintain that reputation if you go around picking up impossible assignments."

"This project is too important to leave in the hands of a less experienced officer," I answered stiffly. "Commander Shepard is the only individual we know of who ever managed to kill a Reaper. We're going to need that kind of inspiration when the real threat returns."

"Yeah, yeah, Savior of the Citadel, Icon of humanity and all that. I know who we're talking about Lawson. That still doesn't change the fact that he's dead."

I paused, unsure if I should answer honestly, given what it would reveal about Cerberus' internal politics.

"If I hadn't volunteered the Illusive Man was going to place the project under the control of Dr. Serov," I admitted.

"Makes sense, he is our scientific lead afterall. No offense, but I'm surprised you were offered it ahead of him."

"I wasn't at first, but the proposal he submitted was just for some kind of enhanced clone. That wasn't what the Illusive Man was looking for. The whole point was to bring back Shepard exactly as he had been, so I took the initiative to offer a better alternative."

"You stole the project out from under his nose? Man, he must have been pissed. Not sure I'd want to cross that creep just curry some extra favor with the boss."

"My involvement with this project has nothing to do with currying favor. I just can't allow Serov to run a project this critical."

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"The doctor's work has always led Cerberus down the wrong path. The Illusive Man, Petrovsky, and myself have all worked hard to improve the organization's public image, ensuring humanity has confidence in our ability to support its interests. But that all goes out the airlock every time there's some new media story about our 'brutal' experiments. Experiments he's normally responsible for. Our mission is supposed to be about supporting humanity, but all he cares about is trying to find ways to perfect it."

'Just like my father,' I thought to myself, not for the first time.

"Petrovsky's improved our PR? Really?"

"He's brought in several reforms that have pushed our organizational structure closer to that of the Alliance," I replied, speaking in defense for the most useful, if not the closest of my Cerberus allies.

"It's important that we maintain a professional appearance so that we won't be mistaken for mindless terrorists."

"So you'll be firing Kai Leng too?" he quipped.

He was getting too familiar so I bushed him off with a curt reply, 'the Illusive Man finds him useful' and sent him away to work elsewhere. Privately though I had to agree, Leng was nothing more than a racist thug. A skilled thug perhaps, but it still bothered me that he had received so much support from the Illusive Man. Still, as I had explained to Wilson, the troubling direction Cerberus was taking was just one more reason we needed this project to succeed.

- Two years, six months later-

We gathered around the table in the communications room for what we knew would be the last time.

"Thank you all for coming, I'll do my best to keep brief," the Commander began by saying, but it wasn't necessary. After everything he'd got us through no one was about to try and rush him.

"First of all, I'd like to thank you all for your unwavering dedication to our mission. Despite the fact that Cerberus no longer seems to appreciate our efforts, we did the job they asked us to. By taking down the Collectors, we guaranteed the safety of all the remaining human colonies in the Terminus. I'm proud to think of every single one of you as a member of my crew."

I watched the group carefully as he mentioned Cerberus but no one even glanced at either myself or Jacob, not even Jack. I reminded myself again that as long as I was part of this crew, they would never judge me for having been part of that organization (at least not much). It was hard to put into words how much I appreciated that, but I pushed the thought aside as Shepard started speaking again.

"Unfortunately it's now time for our team to part ways. Alliance command has ordered me back to Earth to answer for my actions in the Bahak System. I plan on accepting full r esponsibility for what happened..."

"It wasn't your fault, Commander. There's no way you could have known Dr. Kenson was indoctrinated until it was too late," I say, the words out of my mouth before I even know I'm saying them. Even then they don't manage to do much to lift his spirits but he gives me a half-smile in acknowledgment.

"I'm willing to face whatever charges are brought against me, but the rest of you deserve better than being dragged through the courts. We've already dropped off Legion on a Geth ship a few days ago, so I'm sure the rest of you have been giving some thought to where you'd like to go next. I'm happy to give you all a lift to wherever you want to go before setting a course for Earth."

I smile for a moment, remembering Legion's final departure. EDI had waved him off (so to speak) and said that he'd be back. I'm not quite sure if Legion understood the reference but Joker seemed to find it amusing. As for where I was going next, I really wasn't sure about that so I remained quiet and let the others speak first.

"Well if you can get me to Illium, I think I can get a shuttle the rest of the way. Wouldn't want to get you into any more trouble by trying to sneak a Cerberus ship into Turian space."

"Uh me too. I mean it's as good a place as any to catch a ride to the Migrant fleet, and it'll be good to have some company," Tali announced shortly after Garrus. I glanced at the Quarian, her usual nervousness clear, even hidden under the suit. Hmm methinks there might be another reason there, but I kept quiet, seeing no reason to embarrass the girl further.

"Miss Goto and myself have also discussed getting off at that port. As has already been said, the links it provides into Council space are most convenient," declared the Justicar Samara before Kasumi Goto herself piped up.

"Hey, I still get that five-minute head start we talked about right? Last thing I need is a Justicar on my tail when I'm getting back into the swing of things."

"Despite your choice of career you have demonstrated yourself to be an honorable person Kasumi. As long as you do not openly commit misdeeds in my presence you may rest assured that I will always have more pressing matters to attend to."

Shepard simply nodded at this exchange and turned to face our youngest recruit, the "baby" Krogan, Grunt.

"Got a call from Wrex last night. He wants me to return to Clan Urdnot. Says I'm the right guy for a job he's got lined up."

"A job from Wrex? Just try and do your best to stay in one piece then. I'm still expecting a rematch of our last sparring session."

"Hur, hur, hur," the Krogan grated out in that strange laugh of his.

"OK then, who's next, Thane?"

"If you can manage it Shepard I need to go to the Citadel to be with my son Kolyat. Things still remain difficult between us but I believe he is looking forward to my visit. I believe Mr. Taylor and some of the others also suggested the Citadel for a 'night out'. Though I am not normally one for such celebrations the rest of you are most welcome to it."

"Y'know we're still thought of as wanted criminals at the moment so maybe we should postpone that until after we clear our names."

"Oh come-on Shepard, it's more fun this way," complained Jack.

"You heading that way too then?" Asked Shepard.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Might as well, good as anywhere I guess."

"And I'll be heading back to Omega. Found another contact about some arsehole who's hiding out there," commented Zaeed. Not sure why he's still taking bounty hunting contracts at his age, especially after how much he earned on this job. I guess no one ever dared suggest retirement to him.

"Expect some of the others will be headed that way too."

"Agreed. Need to visit clinic again, see how Daniels getting on without me. May have to remind local mercs groups that area is off-limits."

I think I'll miss Mordin most of all. His boundless enthusiasm is infectious but you'd be wrong to look at that hyperactiveness and think that was all there was to him. Push him to it and the man's meaner than a Krogan.

"Miranda? You haven't said where you're going yet."

"Apologizes Commander. I guess it will have to be..." I try to catch Jacob's eye for a moment but he's busy chatting quietly with some of the others in the background. I shake my head briefly, dismissing any thoughts of going with him. We might both be ex-Cerberus but he was nowhere near as senior. It's not fair to ask to go with him when I'm the only one the Illusive Man will really be hunting.

"Take me to Omega. I can find my own way from there," I decide.