II - Rebirth
They were nearly finished, Miranda could tell.
Chief Officer Lawson had overseen her personal endeavor with imperious duty and dogged temerity. If anyone appeared to have zero doubts with the success of what the wider known galaxy would have said was impossible, it was her. Not that she ever confided her personal feelings to any of the staff and specialists; not even head of security for the Lazarus Facility, Jacob Taylor, knew just how prone to failure their process of resuscitating the greatest hero of human hisyory had been.
Starting with the ground up, she had a lot of work cut out for her team. Given the sheer destruction to the flesh and skeleton, they had to do major overhaul to better replicate the original icon. Special implants were implanted across the more major areas of destruction to the human musculature, revitalizing the nervous system and allowing blood to flow naturally throughout.
Once the most intact part of Shepard's body - ie, her brain - was given the proper stimuli from the implants, they detected a positive brain scan. Life was beginning to stir, ever so slightly, within the formerly ravaged cadaver. Still it was a far cry from completion, but after nearly ten months of constant cleaning, repair and maintenance of equipment after removal of shrapnel and other foreign objects from time of death did they begin work on her overall muscular physiology.
Cybernetics were the bread and butter of reconfiguring the bones, flesh, cartilage and tendons back together. Without them, the time needed would not only be longer but also more aid than necessary for cloning spare parts. She knew that it was better to have state of the art tech in place than a potential deformity that would make Shepard less like her. It was imperative that she remains who she is, as the Illusive Man had stated from the beginning.
Now nearly ten months later and the overall reconstruction of Shepard's physical shell was complete. Her hair was starting to grow back, silvery and near translucent in sheen. More than at one point her eyes were examined to ensure they functioned as intended despite her comatose state; they too had a stunning pair of wispy platinum rings around her pupils. The only real glaring sign of her premature demise at the hands of the Collectors was the patchwork orangish scars enamoring her skin. From her face above the brows down to her jaw and splotchy sites around her shoulders, back and chest, only her limbs seemed to have the least signs of her body still healing.
Doing battery of tests for consciousness was more necessary than ever; something that made her Medical Chief, Wilson, audibly irritated.
"I'm telling you, the likelihood of her waking now is highly unlikely," He stated for the third time, his graveled voice more rough due to the hovering presence of his immediate employer. "Positive brain activity doesn't mean she's going to have enlightened, waking conversations about hair products or Sun Tzu's Art of War…"
"Just because it isn't likely to happen doesn't mean we should start growing careless," She rebuked with her standard iciness all of the staff had come to know her for. The blue eyed woman glanced at the equipment, hearing the crescendo of beeps and whirs as the pale skinned individual lied prostrate on the table she was home to for the past two years. "If anything, because we've come this far, I'm willing to bet anything unlikely to happen will transpire."
Wilson sighed as he rolled his eyes and walked over to the medical bay window he had been confined in for the better part of near two years of his life. Even after all he had done, it was obvious he wanted more than Lawson was willing to give.
True, the man was a genius at the miraculous science of bio-reconstruction, one of only a handful that the Illusive Man had considered before picking him ultimately because of him having no allegiances to tie him down for the unforeseen future. Lawson respected his record, but his candor and how often he was concerned about petty issues like comfort, money and the like, she didn't care to talk to him anymore than she had to.
Which as she had learned for the past twenty months, was more than she care for in a lifetime.
"If you listened to me once beyond status reports, you'd know that hanging around me like a hawk isn't going to improve my performance," He growled out, turning back to the monitoring equipment. "Everything's on the green. So if you don't mind I'll-"
The sudden pronounced beep for the heart monitor caught his sentence before he finished. Eyes pinched before widening at the number of feedbacks his instruments were giving him.
"Brain activity is spiking, heart rate is climbing...my god Miranda," He gawked, his eyes looking to her face stricken with alarm as she walked over to Shepard's side. "She's waking up!"
Indeed, her eyes began to flutter. The monitors continued chirp and blink in rapid conjunction to the panic filling the soldier; instincts drudging up the last fleeting instants before death now making its way pass a relative mountain of drugs flooding her system.
As Miranda walked over to the Commander's side, her eyes locked onto Celes's. A far off dazed look crossed her silvery eyes, making the dull yet clearly panicked expression something the Cerberus operative had seen before. Breaking the tentative visual contact, her raven locks brushed her shoulders as she raised her voice at the second masculine face of the bio-doctor entering the Commander's field of vision.
"Dammit, Wilson! She's not ready; inject a sedative stat!" She barked out, breaking the man's awed expression long enough for him to rush back to the equipment. As he did so, she turned to see Celes raise a hand, weakly reaching not to her but at the glaring light overhead. Gently, she gave a soft grasp to the Commander's wrist and pushed it back down as she placated the woman on the table.
"Shepard, please remain calm," She almost whispered to her patient.
"I-I gave her a dose, but it's doing nothing!" Wilson cried out, sounding helpless as he was quickly joined by his side by his boss. "Heart rate is beginning to peak! I've never seen anything like this-"
"Another dose, now," Miranda firmly spoke, returning to the Commander's table to observe with a semblance of uncertainty in her gaze.
Just as Wilson applied another use of military grade tranquilizer, the worst had passed. Celes's eyes began to close and the symphony of bleeps began to slow to a comforting rhythm.
"Heart rate is slowing...pulse normalizing," Wilson spoke as Miranda's soft gaze turned hard as he said the obvious. "That was close, we almost lost her."
"I told you to take precautions!" She snapped, her face facing him with an icy glare that belied her hot anger she was repressing currently. "She's not ready for consciousness. Her circulatory system can't handle the shock yet! If you had listened to me-"
"Ice Queen Bitch…" Was all that Wilson thought as he endured yet another wave of criticisms despite his accomplishments. Even as his prized patient began to resume a drugged filled bliss as her body was slowly healed and improved, this slip up was likely going to stick in some report sent to her superior.
From the moment the project started, he withstood a near constant uphill battle to do the impossible. Not even a near unending supply of assistance and resources could make up with the thankless toil he underwent. Had this been a sanctioned effort by the Alliance - Hell, even the Council - he knew he would be recognized by the galaxy ten times over; he would be set for life, not to mention likely to get some kind of medal for doing the unthinkable.
Well, Wilson knew there was likely going to be a payout and he was starting to see no matter how much his incognito employer was spending it just wasn't enough anymore. He just had to bide his time, wait for the right moment and then get his dues.
As Miranda left the sanitized room, Wilson Bloom smiled to himself.
Celes Shepard knew something was wrong. The sudden pain from opening her eyes and being assailed by klaxons and explosions rocking her bed wrested her from a deeply troubled sleep. Since her previous half waking moment she couldn't tell how much time had passed between her fiery embrace amidst the dying Normandy and now. The only thing she could fathom was that she was alone, in a room that smelled and looked like a hospital ward unit.
"Shepard! You need to get up!" A familiar, feminine voice cried out over the room's PA system. "The facility has been compromised, your life is in danger!"
What a nice way to wake up; out of the frying pan and in the fire...
Shepard's thoughts angrily formed as she moved to open her mouth, only to feel sharp lashes of pain lance from her jaw up to her brows. Gaping, she grasped at her face and felt rigid scarring on her flesh. In fact, she felt similar marring on her body across the back of her hand and seeming to crawl up her exposed arm.
"Shepard, I know your scars haven't healed yet but you need to get up."
Celes frowned, wincing as she did, realizing someone can see her. Rising upright, she grit her teeth as her waist up felt like hot daggers were coursing into and through her body. Grasping her middle, she scanned the room, seeing she was alone and the windows beyond had what looked like fire and score marks from an ongoing battle; explosions rocking the bed and shaking the items laid meticulously on tables around her.
"Who are you? What's going on?" She asked, eyes latching onto a security camera in the upper right corner of the medical chamber.
"Your armor is in the footlocker next to your bed. Get dressed and moving, on the double!"
"Okay, just ignore me why don't you?" She found herself grumbling, sliding her bare feet on the cold floor tiles below. Despite the pain creasing her nerves, she soon began to push past it as the sound of gunfire and detonations spurred her on. Removing her hospital gown with only small form fitting undergarments on her unmentionables, she withdrew N-7 Colossus armor - surprising her yet again how close it resembled her old modded gear.
So my mystery woman has me healed up a d gave me my old gear back. Is it the Geth that are after me, or someone else?
She pondered as she quickly outfitted herself in the brand new protection provided to her. Sliding the helmet on, she felt as if it was only yesterday since she wore her gear. Smiling despite herself, she stood up with a groan and adjusted her greaves and braces; only to realize she was unarmed.
"Mystery voice; where's the rest of my gear?" Celes asked, looking around to see if she missed another footlocker labeled 'guns for Shepard' on it.
"There's no time for that for now-oh shit!"
"What now?"
"The door's hydraulics are jammed. I'm going to have to blast the door remotely so you can get out…"
Celes didn't need to be told twice. She immediately took cover by a crate of unopened supplies, hunkering down and awaiting the inevitable boom. The sudden shudder and familiar wave of proximate heat and shrapnel as the barrier was breached signaled for her to get up and get moving.
As she exited, Shepard was guided by the mystery woman's voice through an ongoing slaughter of the station's personnel. Mechanized units were shredding and obliterating unarmored people, all wearing various fatigues of yellow trimmed white-black uniforms. All human, and no familiar decorum she saw told her this was an official site.
Then she saw it, a pistol beside a handful of scrapped machinery and red clips of some kind. She looked at the model, not recognizing the make but being simular to her previous assortment of arms. Bending down she grasped it, feeling as light to the feel as her new armor was; yet something was off.
"Uh, Mystery Woman, my gun doesn't have ammo; how is that possible?" Shepard asked aloud.
"Technology has advanced while you were away. The ammunition is more powerful but in exchange the thermal output has drastically increased. Take the red clips you have and slot one into the chamber; once it cools down you can reuse a spent clip but I wouldn't advise waiting that long."
"Right...weapon is better, lighter as is the armor but of course we had to reinvent an ammo limit!" The Commander growled aloud, scooping up the unspent cartridges and shoveling them into her ammo pouches.
The mystery woman remained silent, waiting for her to move on. Arming the pistol, she aimed down its sights, test firing it with a few shots.
Near to no recoil, and the sound wasn't painfully loud - or was that the work of her helmet?
"Nice," She thought with a grin, rushing on ahead with her weapon now in hand.
As she weaved through the halls, she continued to see dead personnel and wrecked robotics. They looked somewhat familiar but it all looked too much in disrepair to identify.
A door up ahead looked to be on fire, blowing gas and sending out a jetstream of burning tongues into the entry.
"Run through the fire, hurry!"
Chocked up to adrenaline, she couldn't pay attention to the voice this time. Running forward her body practically blurred through the fire and dashed into the other turn-pass.
The pain of her awakening was receding as her artificial adrenal gland boosted her farther than she imagined. What was done to her?
Walking into a processing area, she saw a turning staircase - occupied by three LOKI Mechs.
"Take cover-!"
"Shit, I know! I know!"
Celes took cover by a crate, narrowly avoiding fire by the automatons. Gritting her teeth, she slung her arm around and peeked up just enough to see the ovular figure eight red lens faces turn towards her. Popping off a triage of shots, she watched one head blow up and another lose an arm before she dipped behind her shielding. As she waited to hear them pin her with covering fire, the brief silence of shots signaled her to return fire - downing the one armed mech and the last one with two headshots.
Getting up and moving up the stairs, she saw the same insignia that the facility staff had; an octagonal black with yellow inline, with scratches at the bottom that resembed stripes...or teeth.
She remembered LOKI Mechs being sent to colonies farther away from the Traverse, knowing that not many people could form competent militias without Alliance presence. The manufacturing of these armed machines sold them across the galaxy, profiting mostly in less than policed wards on the Citadel or away from Council regulated space; making mercs and private companies the biggest buyers of these toasters with guns.
"That narrows down this to being a human corporate entity, or some unnamed and highly likely illicit organization," She thought, processing what she saw as she moved through to the next area.
The next place was a balcony, overseeing the next processing chamber that contained an elevator. Looking down, she heard from the Mystery Woman that another squad of Lokis were heading for her and to use cover. Grinning, she hefted up an abandoned Missile Launcher and hoisted its lightweight shaft towards the door.
As soon as it opened, she pulled the trigger and with a minor kick launched a missile that impacted the mechs point blank. The resulting blast released a shockwave she felt in her boots, and had a satisfying explosion of shrapnel from the door and the machines. However, another trap of fire poured through mangled pipes around the gateway that was damaged.
"You're going to have to run again-"
"Better idea," Celes replied, her body tingling as she tapper into a familiar feeling. The biotics flared, a nostalgia washing over her as she tapped into the well of eezo within her form.
Then, in an instant, she propelled herself across space in a streak of bluish-violet light. Crashing on the other side, the flames whiffed out and the piped warped until they couldn't spew any longer. Stepping out of the dent she made in the floor, Celes tossed the spent missile launcher onto the floor and rolled her neck and shoulders with a satisfied smirk behind her visor.
"Still got it," She remarked.
"Alright-...doing fi-...keep goin-!"
"Mystery Lady?" She questioned, suddenly hearing the voice be omitted from the intercom and transfer to her helmet receiver. It was breaking up, bad, likely either due to jammin or some anomalous interference.
"Signal-...ing up! Kee-...ing for...ard-!"
"Hello? Hello?!" Celes cried out, tapping her helmet to try and shake its internal radio.
Nothing.
It was clear now that she had no stream of intel anymore.
"Guess I'm on my own," She huffed, rushing up ahead with weapon in a tight grip.
Distant gunfire alerted her to an upcoming slew of trouble she had to deal with. She saw a man in a darker fatigue of uniform in in the middle of a walkway. From what she could see, he was using a similar pistol to herself, swearing up a storm in between exchanges of fire back.
Seeing that it was an alcove with vast open space between herself and the mechs, she bent down and kept low to the railing, heading to her would-be ally. Noticing her approach, he did a visible jerk of the head and spoke aloud.
"Holy Hell, Shepard. What are you doing here?" He began to ask, the ricochet of mass propelled projectiles doing little to stop him giving her a once over her armored shape. "I thought you were a work-in-progress?"
"I gathered, given the rude awakening on an operating table," She remarked dryly, nodding to their current attackers. "And what is going on? A glitch in the system or are we under attack?"
"I'm wondering that myself," He began to say, his gun tightening in her grip. "Nobody should know we're here, barring the staff. This whole operation was supposed to be secretive; yet here we are."
"What operation? Was I hurt that bad?" She asked, despite having a nagging feeling she already knew the answer.
The man tensed, looking a bit more stoic as he took a breath before answering her.
"Commander, I'm sorry there is no way to sugar coat this. On your last mission your ship, and you, went down. The operation is called 'the Lazarus Project', having spent every resource in order to bringing you back for the past two years. Welcome back to your life."
As the man gave her the abridged tale, Shepard felt her heart skip a beat. The pain she felt was indeed an almost alien kind of agony, as if parts of her were being strained for the first time. Shaking her head, she felt her voice go hoarse for a moment.
"Did...did you say two years? I've been gone that long?" She asked, her voice barely audible over the cascading bullets striking the balcony plates.
"Can't imagine what you're going through right now, but as of this moment, those mechs are keeping us from moving without being plugged full of holes," The dark skinned man proclaimed, daring to prove a point by peeking a glance over to see one Mech take aim and fire.
"Dammit!" He swore, bending down just in time to evade a triage of scorching mass propelled rounds. Quickly standing up, he downed the offensive Loki, its body sparking as its components received critical damage.
"Things must be bad if Miranda got you up and moving," He said with more volume and urgency in his voice. "Not that I'm complaining. I thought I was the only one left fighting these damn things!"
Without a word, Celes decided to rectify that. Activating her adrenal implant, the world slowed to a crawl as she began to line her shots and fired. Each pull of the trigger shot center mass, picking them off in a couple to several hits each. shooting the robots in the head with ease. A brief few shots struck her shields in the process, but at her current fighting speed and distance from the weapons she knew she was in no danger.
The cacophony of explosive destruction of the Loki Mechs' heads was like music to her ears. Even though it wasn't the dark therapeutic destruction of organic tissue and spray of red to alien colored mist in the air it was a start to her pent up frustration currently boiling over.
In a matter of seconds, the engagement was concluded, and the dark man couldn't help but show a bit of surprise at how quick she was to dispatch them. Then again, knowing her reputation, it was no wonder a squad of mechs posed no challenge to her.
Sighing, she collapsed her weapon and attached it to the magnetic plate on her hip. Turning to face the man as he done the same - albeit using a holster on his padded uniform - he spoke to her in a calm, neutral tone that belied his earlier countenance.
"Alright, Commander. You want to know anything, just ask; you've more than earned it," He said with a nod and gesture of the hand.
A million thoughts rushed all at once. The Normandy, burning up all around as it was torn apart and falling to a planet's surface below. Her crew, both the ground team and the ship's staff, being killed or led to evacuation in the midst of the chaos. And then, there was the testament from him about her demise and she had allegedly been resurrected by this seemingly.
She thought to start small, on the list of information she needed to know.
"Who are you and what is your job in this place?" She asked.
"Jacob Taylor, Head of Security," He explained with a bemusing expression. "Not saying a lot given the shitstorm we're in now, but, there you have it."
"Your stance and skill tells me you're more than a rent-a-cop detail," Celes gestured, a slight sardonic tone slipping from a partially seen smirk from her helmet. "Alliance, right?"
"Former," He said tersely, emphasizing the disdain without showing it on his face. "Biotic, as you could tell in the fight, so I'm more or less one of their exceptional soldiers; didn't stop them from making me resign."
"Gotcha, I won't pry, for now," The Commander replied with understanding. He obviously had a bitter resentment to the Alliance. She could attest they weren't perfect, especially the political bureaucracy aspect of it, but no other positive force best represented humanity. At least, none that she knew of could compare…
"The woman who I saw in the med bay, and who warned me of the attack," Celes continued, gesturing to the ceiling. "She in charge?"
"Yeah, that's Miranda. The Lazarus Project is her baby and you the successful outcome: being brought back from the dead," He answered with a mirthful tone and shrug. "I guess that will be relative if we don't find our way out of here first."
So, the director of this human facility then, Celes thought to herself. If she ran across her, she may have more answers thana the head of security would.
"Did you happen to hear what happened to her since you were last in touch?" He asked, curious though with a noticeable touch of concern.
"She was receiving interference, though that could mean anything," She shrugged, gesturing to him apologetically. "Sorry I don't got anything else to go on."
"I'm sure she's okay," He turned his head away, half convincingly and the other half just hoping as he finished. "We've been through tougher scraps than this, but, you can never know."
Gesturing to herself to help bridge into the next topic, she asked point blank. "So, dead for two years; am I more machine than man or am I a clone?"
"I'm no doctor but you were as dead as dead could be; nothing but meat and tubes in burnt armor," Jacob grimly stated, smiling a bit at her choice of her words. "Cybernetics were a necessity, and I'm sure a lot of synthetic grown tissue helped the healing process. I'm fairly positive you're not a clone...whole point of this project was to brung you back as you and no other. Duplicates and carbon copies were never an option as far as my employers were concerned."
Celes knew this explained the pain she had been coping with since awakening. Her body had not only been surgically reforged but also shoved a lot of foreign parts not normally found in a human being. It was a relief that she wasn't a clone; otherwise she would have been vat grown quick like the vids have shown instead of being repaired piece by piece for two years.
However, what she couldn't wrap her head around was who could afford this? Any mere corporation that got their hands on her body would've either sold it to the black market for who-knows-what reasons. Or, returned it to the Alliance or Council for a hefty reward. And the latter two groups would have seen too many immoral and problematic issues of trying to fix death regardless of her hero status.
She had a sneaking suspicion who may be behind this all, but she wanted to reserve her judgement till she saw proof. Hard as it might be, given her career of chasing visions and phantom race killers, but she didn't want to be rash; especially since they went through the multi-billion credit expense they likely incurred.
"How did the attack happen? I haven't seen any hostiles apart from those mechs?" She asked next, deciding to decipher the cause of the more immediate threat.
"I doubt there is any other hostile force," Jacob grunted, turning to look past her as if he was reminiscing. "My job was a snooze for the past two years. Apart from some disagreements of opinion it was all smooth sailing. Then today, I heard a big bang!" He emphasized with a shout, turning to look at her and pointed around the currently quiet walkway they were within. "All the mechs went live and began firing - at us!" Shaking his head he rubbed his chin, looking back up at her with a glare. "Hunch tells me this was an inside job. Otherwise we'd be swarmed by mercs or something far worse."
"Geth could be at work," Shepard said, playing the Devil's Advocate.
"I thought that too, but I haven't seen a single one of those tin cans around. And we are protected from AI infiltration," He shook his head as his lips pursed. "All networks are grounded here. It's manual which means we have-"
"Checking this channel, can anyone read me?!" A voice spoke aloud on Jacob's Omni-Tool, the digital interface aglow with orange over his black-grey sleeve as the audio was set to speaker.
"We hear you, Wilson. The Commander is with me, safe and sound, for the moment," He mentioned, his eyes focusing on the tool's audio while Celes furrowed her brows with recognition.
"The Commander? How in the Hell-? Forget that, this place is crawling with mechs. We need to get her out of here stat, before whoever did this finds out where you two are at," Wilson's voice broke out, clearly in a panic as info beeped into Jacob's interface with a mapped route of the facility. "Let's regroup this way. I'll guide you two till we find a good place to meet."
"Copy that, Wilson. Taylor out," He finished, routing the info to the Commander once he cut the call.
"I remember a Wilson. He was in the med bay when I first woke up," Celes spoke up thoughtfully.
"Yeah, he was the muscle behind Miranda's brains, though he would be hard pressed on saying its the other way around," He spoke with a sigh, obviously not a fan of this man. "He did his job well and that's all that mattered. Let's see if we can get out of this facility together and piece what the Hell went wrong."
"After you," Celes spoke as she withdrew her weapon, following the man's lead.
Following the man, she had time to ask a few cursory questions about the current weapon modifications. The pistol they had was called the M-3 Predator, a semi-automatic pistol that fired slugs of mass accelerated blocks of metal with far more power and penetration than the copy/paste models of other competing brands made years ago. Its near non-existent recoil, quick trigger pull and fast discharge makes it a near universal choice of all races in the Milky Way.
Coming into another room, narrower in its walkway and packed with storage containers, the whirring of mechs unfolding into battle ready stances brought the pair into cover to exchange fire against the mechanical guards. Even with the element of surprise on the automatons' side, however, Celes easily avoided their bursts of gunfire and released more accurate shots on their heads. When the four metallic golems were downed, Jacob swore aloud at Wilson over his shared comms with Shepard.
"Dammit, Wilson! How about you trying sending us to a spot that isn't crawling with mechs?!"
"The whole base is crawling with mechs! I'm doing the best I can to send you through the less compromised areas," Wilson argued.
"Try not to get us killed, and maybe I won't have to kick your ass when I see your face," Celes piped up, making sure she was less than pleased about the given circumstances.
"Just get to the Control Room, and I'll do the best I-...oh god!" He abruptly cut off, the sound of whirring in the background followed by gunshots. "They found me! Help!"
"Dammit, hold on, Wilson! Where are you?!" Jacob hollered through his earpiece.
"Server Room B! Hurry!" Wilson shouted over the gun shots.
Shepard and Jacob began to double time there. Based on the mapped route, it took them through a few more turns and a ramped hall, each one populated by a handful of mechs. Downed before they could get as much as a shot out, the two heard a faint cry of Wilson being 'hit'. Bursting into the next room, the two were able to see a pair of mechs firing at Wilson who was in cover and clutching a wound on his leg with a Predator in the other.
Pulling a fist back, Jacob hurtled one mech against the wall with a sparking impact while Celes shot up the other's chest up to its optics. Both being downed, Jacob knelt down to administer some Medi-gel onto the wound; which to Celes' eyes, didn't look like a stray shot but with burns related to muzzle fire showed it was not an accident.
Wilson, despite the pitiful act of showing this to be his first time being shot, couldn't help but avert his gaze from the Commander's critical glare. Even without the visor he could tell something was off with how silent she was compared to Jacob who was already in conversation with him.
"Can you stand, Wilson?"
"Y-Yeah," He replied, gingerly using Jacob as support as he rose up and hunched up to smile grimly at the two of them. "Thanks for showing up when you did. I thought I was a gonner."
"Mechs looked pretty insistent on getting to you. Wasn't going to have that before we got some answers," Celes casually explained, her eyes looking towards the maintenance shaft from where the mechs hobbled from.
"Came here to try and stop the mechs the old fashioned way, but no go. The servers were fried remotely; completely irreversible," Wilson explained with a wave of his hand.
"You're not supposed to even have tech clearance, Wilson!" Jacob rebuked angrily. "Why were you even here in the first place?!"
"Weren't you listening?! I came here to try and fix this! Plus I got shot, how do you explain that as me being at fault for this?!"
"Quite easily, but you people clearly are tight lipped about your organization so I don't trust what you two are saying right now," Celes spoke frankly, arms crossed and nodding their direction. "So I say stow this little feud till we're in a mech free area."
"She's right, we should regroup with Miranda-"
"Forget her," Wilson dismissed with a wave. "She was in D Wing, and last time I checked, its crawling with mechs. As far as we know, she's a corpse like the rest of the staff I've seen…"
"Mechs wouldn't drop Miranda, she's alive!" Jacob rebuked harshly, seeming to take Wilson's half glass empty reasoning with less than favortism.
"Then where is she?" He asked looking back to the Commander and the Chief of Security with what amounted to pained certainty in his words. "There are only two reasons why she isn't here. Either she's a traitor, or she's dead!"
"As little as I know of you people, she has been trying to keep me alive since this place went to Hell," Celes proffered her opinion, much to the visible relief of Jacob of hearing support either way. "Feels counterproductive to wake me up and guide me this far if she wanted me dead or worse."
"Okay, maybe she isn't a traitor, but we can't wait on her! We need to fend for ourselves!" He emphasized, turning to look down the maintenance shaft down the hall. "To get to the hangar, we just need to head down this-"
"Hostiles detected! Commence firing!"
Celes swore under her breath as she heard the door and synthesized voice of Lokis heading our way. Using the crate as cover to avoid stray bursts of fire, Celes peeked over and noticed a fuel tank lying next to the pipes. Pulling back, her spare hand glowed with biotic power before she hurtled it in an arcing bolt that surged towards the tank.
A crackling blast later tore apart the squad of mechs, sending their limbs cascading over the hall and silencing the area once more of imminent danger. Sighing with relief, the Commander stood up and began to move down the hallway with Jacob faltering in his steps.
"Hold a moment, Commander. This is getting tense," He began to say, bringing her attention back to him, his hand extending as he spoke. "Shepard, if I tell you who we work for, will you trust me?"
Celes felt herself pause, staring expectantly through her N7 visor. Her brow raised when the bald man behind the head of security staggered up behind him and spoke in a low tone.
"This really isn't the time," Wilson said impatiently, though this time with a bit more apprehension in his voice.
"We can't expect the Commander to trust us if she's expecting a shot in the back!" Jacob rebuked.
"Just know it's your ass if the boss gets pissed off, Jacob," He replied, limping a step back as he indignantly looked to the two of them.
I got a bad feeling I know where this is going…
"The Lazarus Project, the initiative to bring you back to life, is run by Cerberus," He confirmed her worst fears.
In a moment, Celes had her pistol aimed at the man who told her the news. Just seeing it caused Wilson to swear aloud and back up only to hear the Commander glare in his direction.
"Move, and it won't be a leg you're winging about!" She snarled, her armor emitting dark energy to show off she wasn't joking.
To Jacob's credit, he held his hands up - unarmed - and didn't move a step despite having a weapon pointed at him.
"You happy now, Jacob?!" Wilson cried out incredulously, lowering his own gun at the sight of a pissed off biotic and doing his best to stand still.
"Commander, I heard you had some bad interactions with us in the past-"
"That's putting it mildly."
"-but I can assure you, the Illusive Man wouldn't have spent all these years bringing you back if we were your enemy," Jacob calmly assured her, his eyes never wavering in the glare of red he saw Shepard's normally silver eyes.
The Commander had confidence in her ability to read people. It's what enabled her to trust people who wanted to become part of her team when she was just starting her journey of becoming and being a Spectre. Just a single enounter was enough for her to tell who she could or couldn't trust.
She hadn't been wrong...yet, but there was always time for a first.
"The Illusive Man your boss?" The Commander asked as she shifted her gaze to Wilson and back to Jacob for clarification. "Never heard of him."
"Heh, then he lives up to his name," Jacob chuckled dryly despite his situation. "Very few know he even exists, and rarely does anyone see him face to face. Whatever your past dealings with Cerberus are, he's certainly letting water roll off a duck's back; especially if you can help us."
"Kind of assuming alot, given our predicament," Wilson sardonically snorted out.
Sighing, Celes's aura of dark energy dissipated while lowering her gun to her side. Seeing tension release in both men, she stared at them a bit longer before turning to walk ahead.
"I'll want to talk to this Illusive Man at the very least," Celes spoke with a frost lilt in her voice as she referred to their employer. Hearing them fall in line behind her, she resumed her posture of readiness with her Predator in hand. "Seems the least I can do, given the expense he went into bringing me back."
"I'm sure the two of you have a lot to talk about, once we get out of here," Jacob affirmed with his tone crisping for the mission at hand.
"It's not much farther to the shuttle bay," Wilson answered, limping along to keep in step with his colleague.
The three moved on ahead with minimal chatter. Due to Wilson's injury, they couldn't move that quickly but just enough they wouldn't idle too long. Leading from the maintenance tunnels of red lights and tubes that powered the facility with all manner of utilities.
Exiting into a storage part of the facility, cargo was placed in segmented piles across runways and ramparts wherever it was convenient. The least tidy of the place, a slew of bodies were seen strewn over the floor, posing away from the location the three were headed.
No sooner than Shepard could move did she hear the telltale click-clack of mech footsteps.
"Get to cover!" She ordered, arming herself with a barrier as she began to lay covering fire at the elevated squad of Lokis. Firing off triage bursts, Shepard gritted her teeth as her biotic protection was harried, forcing her to leap to a smaller crate for cover. Her shields blared in her HUD, showing them dangerously low as the Lokis focused their attention on her.
"Up you go!" Jacob crowed, launching a bolt of mass lowering fields from his hand and forced the forward-most mech to flail helplessly in the air. Peppering it in the air till it was nothing but a limbless torso, he took cover the moment Wilson unleashed a Overload from his Omni-Tool.
With her shields over half recharged, Shepard leaped over her cover and began to enter melee with the stunned mechs. Sideswiping one hard enough to dislodge its head from its body, she followed up with biotic kick that propelled it into the other four hard enough to disperse them into sparking, exploding parts.
Not allowed a moment's respite, she saw a ln elevated catwalk visible from the ramp she stood on where nearly ten Lokis were seen standing alert from the sound of violence. Digging her heels back, she reared her arms back-
ZZZZZ-THUUUM!
-bolting forth in a blur of bluish-black energy, reappearing at the back of the machines' defensive line. The bracing fields released on impact threw back three of the eight in pieces, causing the five others to rear around and fire in her direction.
Flooded with adrenaline and Biotics, the Commander threw herself into the fray without regard to potential injury. Firing off her Predator at the head of the nearest Loki, she grasped it with Pull and used Throw to bowl two others off the catwalk to shatter to their eventual stop below.
As her barrier fell and shields began to peter from a barrage of submachine gunfire, she leaped forward with a shoulder tackle that pushed one off the edge; spinning around, she swiped a hand to disarm the nearest one and fired into the heads of both just as her shields failed.
Breathing quickly, she was surprised that she hardly felt strain from that ordeal. She had expected to be rusty for a dead woman, but instead she felt as good - no, even better than she was before. The biotics tingled as she eases off her eezo nodules, watching patiently as Jacob sped up on the other side of the catwalk which Wilson had to hobble behind him.
"Damn, Shepard! Didn't think you had to show off," Jacob jeered, smiling halfway as he admired her handiwork and stopped a respectable distance away. "I almost felt bad for the mechs with how you tore into them."
"You learn to act fast and hit hard when the enemy has the superior position," Shepard coolly responded, gesturing to the mech debris surrounding them. "Torfin taught me that caution and readiness can only get you so far; sometimes being reckless is more of an advantage than restraint."
"Fair enough," Jacob nodded, losing his cheer in exchange for a 'business' expression.
"Come on," Wilson hobbled hastily, breathing heavily from the pain and sweat of exerting himself to this point. He rushed up to the panel, reaching out to press the keys to unlock it. "We're almost-"
"Hold it!" Celes shouted to Wilson, holding her pistol towards him before he could open the door. "I'm going to ask once; who hired you to kill me?"
Wilson froze in place. While Jacob seemed to reach for his weapon, he cast a scrutinizing stare at the man who visibly sweated not just from pain and exertion; but fear.
"R-Really chose a bad time to start an interrogation, Shepard," He quivered in place, looking sideways at the woman who now held the gun squarely towards him. "Can we save this till after we're out of here?"
"I'm not taking one step more till I find out what you know, cause I could guess why you'd want me dead or alive. I have plenty of enemies, you just need to help me narrow the list," She said, walking towards him with the weapon still trained on his balding head. The Commander could practically smell his sweat as she pressed the barrel against his skull, watching his eyes dart to a glaring Jacob, and fearfully back to her reddening irises. "Who did you sell me out to? I'll let you leave this place to wherever you can hide from your boss; cause trust me, I'm your more pressing concern right now."
Wilson breathed heavily, looking to be on the verge of panicking if he wasn't already. Eyes darting to and fro, his hand hovering over the keys retracted shakily and back up with his hands in the air; throwing the pistol away in his hand as a sign of surrender.
"There," He graveled out, nervously said as he kept his eyes solely on Shepard. "I'll tell you in exchange for getting the Hell off this damned station."
"Go on," She urged with her gun still poised to his head.
"No one hired me," He said, shrugging with a grim smirk on his sweatied face. "Well, not in particular. Before I took this assignment from the Illusive Man, I looked up info about other people interested in locating your remains. The Alliance, Council and other parties; the one that I thought would pay the best was the Shadow Broker."
"You son-of-a-bitch!" Jacob snarled out, taking out his own Predator to aim at Wilson from his own angle behind Shepard. "You know how many people died today?! What was this for, huh?! Give me a reason!"
"Money, of course," Wilson admitted, not looking the least intimidated at Jacob's brand of righteous anger. "That and the potential recognition for accomplishing the unthinkable. Not cloning, but real feasible resurrection. Think how valuable that knowledge would be to the highest bidder?"
"You're lucky Miranda isn't here to vent that ego out of your head," The Cerberus agent seethed angrily as he lowered his gun, but didn't holster it either.
"That bitch is dead. And if she's not," He addes with a shrug as he looked back at the door. "I'm not sticking around long enough to to be proven wrong."
Lowering her gun, Shepard collapsed the weapon and placed it on her armor's magnetic latch by her hip. Placing a hand to give a pat on Wilson's shoulder, she smirked visibly through her helmet as she spoke. Biotics flared up, her grip on him became a vice and Wilson's eyes flashes in wordless terror at the flames of energy now manifesting around the Commander.
"Let me help you with that."
"B-But you said-!" Were the last words that came from his mouth.
Distortive fields encircling around her fist made impact on Wilson Bloom's face, shredding his skull apart and eviscerating it messily off his shoulders. Releasing hold of the headless corpse, she turned to address Jacob as he looked startled at her brutal execution of the man.
"Now that's out of the way," Shepard coolly intoned, gesturing to the door now behind her almost theatrically. "After you, Jacob Taylor."
"Not shedding tears but...guess I ought to not piss you off," He spoke as he warily stepped past Shepard, sneaking a glance back at the blood soaked cadaver and railing.
"The wrong people learn the hard way no one lives long when they cross me," She answered, smiling at his advancing frame. "Vindication is something I show to those who deserve it."
"I hear that," Jacob replied, entering his code into the door panel.
Seconds later, it opened to reveal a woman in an immaculate white bloused, black sleeved and legged uniform with the same insignia of Cerberus on her bosom's upper left side. Shoulder lengthed black hair, fair skin and striking blue eyes stared icily at Jacob and then softened at the sight of Shepard; before ending at the display of a particularly fresh corpse wearing Cerberus colors.
"Shit, Miranda!" Jacob swore as he nearly jumped at the sight of her on the other side. "Didn't expect you to be-"
"Waiting on you with the traitor in tow? I was counting on that," She replied, looking now at the arm-crossed Commander. "From the sound of it, I needn't bother; the Commander cleaned up this mess herself."
Celes couldn't tell if the compliment was genuine or not. The countenance from her was cold, her eyes almost devoid of the warmth she briefly displayed in a moment of faint consciousness. Still, she showed no open hostility, giving Celes no reason to be aggressive unnecessarily.
For now.
"Either your benefits suck ass or you choose your specialists poorly," Shepard sardonically implied with a nod at the headless body. "Guy was planning to sell me, likely dead based on the mechs, to the Shadow Broker and then sell what he knew to the highest bidder."
"Is that so?" She inquired with a raised brow.
"He was eager to spill his guts so he could live, thinking he had a chance so long as he didn't run into you," Shepard replied, shrugging with a barely concealed smirk. "Based on your appearance, I'm guessing he wouldn't have survived regardless."
"Not after he betrayed us all, and tried to have everyone killed including you," Miranda spoke with a hint of venom, mirthfully smirking at his headless state. "For such a smart man, he was always insufferable to deal with, driven purely by ego. I suspected him of many things but I didn't think he had the nerve to instigate this," She paused, sighing as she shook her head. "It doesn't matter anymore. C'mon, I'll escort you both the rest of the way."
"To the Illusive Man? I know you're all Cerberus," The Commander admitted with confidence.
Without even batting an eye, Miranda turned to glare expectantly at Jacob, her voice now condescending, "Ah, Jacob. I knew you'd let your conscience get the better of you."
"Lying won't get the Commander to join our cause," Jacob rebuked, turning to look back at Celes and prompting Miranda to do the same.
"Well, since that's out in the open, is there anything else you'd like to know?"
Sensing her annoyance, the Commander lowered her arms down to her sides and emphasized to the clear passage to the shuttles, "I'll ask on the way. If it's all the same to you, I've been in this place enough for a lifetime."
"Or two, in your case," Miranda chastely smirked at her turn of phrase. "Come on, I'll show you the way."
As the Commander followed her lead with Jacob, she only now began to ponder the reason for why Cerberus of all factions spent so much time and used so much manpower along with a sizable fortune to return her back from the dead. Gritting her teeth, there was only one foe that could warrant her attention alone.
The Reapers.
Mission Debriefing:
Lazarus Cell has been compromised. Base overrun by mechs and all auxiliary staff are terminated by Wilson Bloom; whom Commander Shepard had interrogated and killed upon learning of his intentions. Suggest a thorough sweep of the station before salvaging any research and technology for future use before purging the site.
Apart from checking all known affiliates of Wilson and the Lazarus Cell, the overall goal is a major success: Commander Shepard is back!
A/N: So I may be trying something different with this story. For the sake of keeping continuity with the previous chapter, Shepard will still have a history being a navy brat living on space stations; additionally I thought to fuse two backstories into one. Torfin will be brought up as much as Elysium will be.
Due to that, Celes will have a brutal duality where she thinks renegade actions are more efficient in battle and confrontation but has a bit of tact when required; her abilities will also have a combination of effects, with Vanguard being the main and some abilities in tech, infiltration and martial prowess. This will help round my Shep all around and make her feel less linear.
And yes, previous chapter I made a mistake of mixing up Thane's medical condition with Joker's. First chance I'll get (if I haven't done so before this chapter is uploaded) I'll ensure Kepral Syndrom is changed back to Vrolik Syndrom. Thanks for pointing out, I feel embarassed for mixing the two!
See ya all on the next chapter update!