Chapter 2

Present Day

The explosion blew Shepard clear of the escape pod, slamming him against a bulkhead and knocking the air out of his lungs. Looking for some sort of handhold, he spotted an exposed bit of wiring and swiped at it, only to miss it completely and propel himself further from safety. A voice was calling out to him and he realized it was Joker. The helmsman's hand was only a few feet away but it might as well have been a mile.

"Commander!"

Shepard shook his head. Twisting his body, he slammed his fist against the flashing emergency release for the escape pod and watched the cylindrical door slam shut. Another shockwave struck Shepard, sending him flying off into space. As he saw the wreckage of the Normandy finally disintegrate, panic began to set in.

Focus, Marine! His hardsuit was designed to shield its wearer from exposure to vacuum as well as enemy fire. If he stayed calm and relied on his training, he might have a chance. Environmental seals? Check. Emergency air supply? Check. Emergency transponder activated? Check. Where the hell are the bad guys? Panic momentarily returned and he frantically swivelled his head for signs of the Normandy's attacker but it was gone.

It had been so sudden. The Normandy was not designed for a straight fight, lacking the amour and shielding to last very long in a protracted duel, but he had never expected its defences to buckle so quickly. With its sensors knocked out immediately, all he had been able to see was the blinding intensity of the enemy ship's beam weapon slicing through the Normandy's hull like it was made of paper.

Leave that for the debrief. Focus on the present! Survival now, recollection later. His mind automatically went back to his fourth day of Hostile Environment Assault Training on Titan, when Gunny Ellison had run the recruits through basic equipment orientation.

"Pay attention, Marines! This lil' piece o'equipment here is the Onyx Mk. VI hardened exoskeleton. It is rated for vacuum and extreme temperatures between minus eighty and one hundred'an twenty degrees Celsius – do you have somewhere more important to be, Mr. Thomas? Keep listenin' – this lecture might just save your life someday! In the event you find yourself operating in an airless environment, this sumbitch has an air supply that'll keep you alive for up to seventy-two hours..."

Seventy-two hours. Shepard did the math. Where are we? The nearest friendly outpost would be the Turian colony of Minerva where the Normandy had restocked on provisions two days ago. Closer to two and a half. Sixty hours, give or take. He closed his eyes and focused on keeping relaxed, taking long, deep breaths. Chances of survival? Slim, but not nonexistent...

A red light began flashing in his helmet display and his hardsuit's VI sounded a warning.

"Alert. Suit integrity has been compromised. Oxygen levels falling. Alert. Suit integrity..."

Frantically, Shepard checked for hardsuit punctures but couldn't find any. Reaching his hands behind his head, his blood ran cold.

Please don't let it be - oh shit... The seals connecting his helmet to the rest of the hardsuit had broken, leaking precious oxygen into space.

"... In the event your environmental seals break, it is of the utmost importance that you get them fixed BEFORE you deploy or y'all had better learn to hold your breath. That seventy-two hours I told you about before is gonna turn into just enough time to say a few prayers and kiss your dumb ass goodbye..."

Shepard desperately grabbed at the leaking air line connected to the back of his helmet. The airflow indicator displayed on the visor of his helmet continued to drop. His hand struck the main line, tearing it completely free. End of the line, John.

Resigning himself to his fate, he relaxed and a strange sense of calm and relief began to wash over him. No more missions. Another seal broke and the bright smiles of young men and women he'd commanded played through his mind like a slideshow. No more dead Marines. An audio alarm began blaring and the memory of a holopic of a newborn baby girl appeared, fresh as the day Corporal Wilson had excitedly shown it to him before the mission on New Liberty. No more condolence letters for next of kin. He could no longer feel his fingers. I wonder how they'll remember me? A serene smile crept across his face. Heroes and villains are for the living... why do you give a fuck?

The suit's VI continued to drone on, "Alert. Oxygen levels critical. Alert. Oxygen levels critical..."

The Council, the Alliance... the Reapers... somebody else's problem now.

Shepard took a final breath, taking in the last of the air. Closing his eyes for the final time, he let it flow gently out of his lungs and numbness set into his limbs. His heart rate slowly dropped to zero on the lifesign monitor and his hardsuit's emergency transponder began issuing a new signal.

"Commander John Shepard. Citadel Council Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch Operative ID: 4586-72A. Systems Alliance Marine Corps, Serial Number: N7-11285-M2172. Status: KIA."

Miranda Lawson was frustrated. The elite team of scientists and doctors the Illusive Man had assembled for the Lazarus Project had been making steady progress over the last two years but just as it seemed like this insane experiment might actually work, they had run into a dead end. Commander John Shepard had been a frozen corpse when Cerberus had finally secured his body. Although the cold vacuum of space had preserved his body from normal decomposition, the rupture in his hardsuit that had killed him had also done serious damage. By the time Cerberus was able to steal him away, it had already been several weeks. Had they acquired the body earlier, preferably within the first few days, it would have saved them a great deal of trouble.

Despite all the obstacles and setbacks however, the Lazarus Project had done more than anybody would have believed possible. Even the Illusive Man had been impressed. Their chance of success had always been limited, but then that had been why she had been put in charge of the project. Miranda allowed herself to feel some satisfaction at how much they had been able to do under her leadership. They had done things modern science and medicine had been preaching was impossible. The Commander was technically alive again.

Miranda frowned and corrected herself. His body is technically alive. His mind... not so much. Compared to restoring higher brain functions without doing irreversible damage to the personality wired underneath, rebuilding Shepard's body had been a simple affair – a high school biology project taken to its extreme. There was just so much that remained unknown about how the human mind worked. The science was simple enough, but the intricacies of how memories, skill sets, and personality were stored might as well have been magic. The Illusive Man had made it very clear however, that Shepard had to be brought back exactly the same as the day he'd died.

She chewed on the tip of her pen thoughtfully. It was a habit she'd had since childhood and one she'd never been able to kick. It annoyed her whenever she was aware she was doing it but she doubted she'd ever be able to stop. Perhaps bad habits were just one of those unexplainable personality traits that her team had been having so much trouble with while reconstructing Shepard's mind.

Miranda looked through the observation windows at the Commander's body, lying below her on an operating table where Wilson had his head hooked up to some diagnostic equipment. The Illusive Man's prohibition on altering the Commander unnecessarily in any way had prevented her from experimenting with physical augmentations. Not that he'd need them. The Alliance had already given him the modifications they gave many of their soldiers, like denser musculature and ocular enhancements. Like all government bureaucracies, the Alliance was not known for its largesse but when it came to its elite N7 personnel, no expense was spared. He was not overly muscular but rather lean and athletic, his muscles toned and well-defined. His was the body of a soldier. Not some average grunt manning an outpost on some backwater, but a trained killer.

Lying on that table, his body perfectly reconstructed, chest rising and falling with every breath and his eyes closed peacefully, Wilson had commented that it looked like he was asleep. Miranda had to disagree. To her trained eye, Shepard's motionless form seemed more like an inert weapon awaiting activation.

Which is exactly what he is. She'd read his file. Like her, Shepard was a problem solver. When the Alliance or the Citadel Council had had a problem no one else could solve, they sent Shepard. Unlike her, Shepard solved problems through the raw expression of violence, bludgeoning through obstacles without regard of collateral damage. Also unlike her, Shepard had become the face of humanity, a physical representation of their species' unrelenting will to survive. Or at least that's what the Council and the Alliance wanted the galaxy to believe.

Miranda still couldn't quite understand it and judging from what she had seen of his public appearances, neither had Shepard. He always looked uncomfortable in front of the cameras, out of his element, like a caged predator. Miranda herself had little use for "heroes", having had enough experience with them to realize they seldom lived up to their reputations. Nevertheless, heroic icons could be useful for their inherent credibility and the respect they inspired, two things Cerberus lacked despite its vast material resources and political connections. Seeing him from a distance, it had just seemed strange that a common foot soldier could be that heroic icon.

Lying here in front of her now though, she had to admit he was far from common and definitely no mere foot soldier. He was still just a soldier, lacking the sophistication and subtlety of someone like herself, but he had been an undeniably effective soldier, she grudgingly admitted to herself.

"Miranda? You might want to take a look at this..."

Miranda's eyes narrowed. She leaned over the intercom on the observation deck and jabbed the transmit button with her finger.

"What is it, Wilson?"

"His heart rate just spiked. Something's not right."

Miranda dropped her dataslate and ran down to the operating chamber. Swivelling the diagnostics cart around, her eyes widened. In addition to his increased heart rate, the line on the display showing Shepard's neurological activity was fluctuating wildly.

"There. On the monitor. Something's wrong."

Wilson gestured to Shepard's fluttering eyelids.

"He's reacting to outside stimuli. Showing an awareness of his surroundings."

As Miranda turned her head to look, Shepard's eyes flew open.

"Oh my God, Miranda... I think he's waking up!"

Several of the monitors on the diagnostics cart began beeping. What did you do, Wilson? Miranda's eyes fell on a syringe Wilson had left on the side of the operating table. Earlier that week, Wilson had suggested an experimental treatment he'd worked on as a civilian to awaken coma patients. The treatment involved altering variables like heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature in such a way as to "shock" the brain awake. Pointing out that two of Wilson's trial patients had died and another suffered serious brain damage, Miranda had refused to allow him to attempt it on Shepard. It seemed like Wilson had attempted it anyway and what she had feared was coming to pass.

"Damn it, Wilson! He's not ready yet. Give him the sedative!"

As Wilson punched in the dosage, Shepard raised his arm. It should have been impossible. Even in Wilson's most positive trial results, the patients had taken days before they even showed preliminary brain activity, yet Shepard was already awake and trying to get up. Shepard looked straight into her face, his sea grey eyes bewildered and confused. Recovering quickly from her shock, Miranda grabbed his arm and firmly pushed it down.

"Shepard – don't try to move," she said, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could, "Just lie still. Try to stay calm."

Wilson was anything but calm. He looked up from the monitor with a panicked expression on his face.

"Heart rate still climbing. Brain activity is off the charts! Stats pushing into the red zone. It's not working!"

Miranda released Shepard's arm and marched around to the monitor.

"Another dose. Now!"

Wilson tried again but shook his head. Fully conscious now, Shepard's intense military training and conditioning was triggering an automatic response, actively fighting the sedative by increasing his metabolism. The irony of the situation was absurd. Shepard is going to kill himself while trying to save himself from the people trying to save him. Miranda took Shepard's hand and gently squeezed it as she looked reassuringly into his eyes, trying to find a connection. His icy gaze locked with hers. For a moment it had no effect, but then she saw his eyes slowly close and his muscles visibly relax as he gave in to the sedative.

"Heart rate dropping. Stats falling back into normal range. That was too close. We almost lost him."

Miranda turned and directed a withering look at Wilson.

"I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again."

As Wilson left the operating theatre, Miranda realized she was still grasping Shepard's hand. Releasing it, she saw a visibly red outline where his hand had been. Even dosed with twice the sedative needed to knock out a full-grown man, he had grabbed her firmly enough to leave marks. Surprising as that was, it was the look in his eyes that both troubled and intrigued her the most. There had been a fire there that she had never seen before, a fire that betrayed a spirit that refused to surrender. What kind of man are we resurrecting? I hope the Illusive Man knows what he's doing.

"Commander, wake up!"

John Shepard slowly opened his eyes, finding himself staring into the bright iridescent lights of some sort of medical facility.

Déjà vu.

"Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now!"

Where have I heard that voice before? Twisting his head to try and find where the voice was coming from, he grabbed his jaw as he felt the familiar stiffness of anaesthetic still coursing through his system. As he tried to sit up, a sharp pain shot through his side and when he put his hand to his side, he felt the familiar damp sensation of blood.

"Shepard your scars aren't healed but I need you to get moving. This facility is under attack!"

Grimacing as he pulled himself up off the operating table he'd been lying on, he grabbed a towel off a cart and pressed it against his side. The flow of blood had already stopped as advanced coagulants in his blood, a souvenir of his service with the Alliance, had begun working.

"There's a pistol and a change of clothes in the locker on the other side of the room. Hurry!"

What kind of medical facility keeps firearms in their operating rooms? Opening a secured weapons locker, Shepard grabbed a pistol and a handful of thermal clips. He pulled a shirt over his head and buckled up some trousers, loading the pistol automatically despite the wooziness he still felt.

"Someone's hacking security trying to kill you and security mechs are closing in on your position - Take cover!"

Shepard heard the locking mechanism on the door being sliced and ducked behind a heavy, wheeled metal cart. If the mechs the voice was talking about had thermal imaging, he doubted the cart would provide much protection but he had something else in mind. As the security door opened and a LOKI mech stepped into the room, Shepard propelled the cart as hard as he could into the mech's midsection, sending it flying into the mechs behind it.

Although they had been relatively uncommon at the time, he'd encountered LOKI mechs before as both a Spectre and a marine. They were cheap, relentless and relatively effective in large numbers but were otherwise a poor substitute for real soldiers. Lightly built and usually unarmoured, their primitive VIs did not even allow for basic tactical programming like using cover to avoid enemy fire.

Putting a few rounds into the mechs to make sure they stayed down, Shepard tried to get his bearings. He had thought he was in some sort of hospital but it appeared he was wrong. He was standing in an observation area with expansive windows that looked out into a starry night sky. Based on the strange way the mechs had fallen, he guessed he was either in space or on an ultra low gravity moon. Picking up a piece of wreckage, he released it and watched it slam into a wall.

Simulated gravity. He was in space somewhere. Judging by the fact the stars weren't moving, he concluded the facility was on a space station. The smooth, metallic walls and clear glass guardrails would have given the facility a sleek, clean appearance were it not for the dead bodies and scorched impact marks adorning the walls.

Kneeling next to one of the bodies, Shepard rolled it over onto its back and examined it. The lifeless eyes of a young woman stared up at him. She was wearing a black uniform with orange and white highlights. Embroidered on the collar was an elongated diamond logo that he didn't recognize. Shepard checked the pocket for identification or anything that could give him a clue as to where he was but found nothing.

"Don't waste time - I can't keep the mechs distracted for long!"

Shepard suddenly remembered where he'd heard that voice before. It's the blue-eyed brunette... what was her name?

"Keep moving, we need to get you to the shuttles. Head down the hallway on your right and keep going until you reach the atrium. There will be three mechs in the office on the left side of the hallway."

Holding his pistol at the ready, Shepard followed the voice's directions. Strangely, he felt like he was back in N7 training on Arcturus, working his way through a killhouse as Admiral Cullen gave him instructions. Like riding a bike. Spotting the mechs, he took them down easily, instinctively putting two shots in the head of each target, just as they'd taught him when he'd first earned his N1 classification years ago.

Continuing down the hall and up a flight of stairs, he found more dead bodies but other than that, the station seemed deserted.

"You're doing great, Shepard. Head to the atrium and I'll try to meet you there..."

The voice was cut off by the sound of gunshots and then an explosion. Miranda. Her name was Miranda. Shepard closed his eyes momentarily and whispered a prayer for the blue-eyed brunette. He had never been a religious man, praying more out of habit than true belief. Still, as a Marine, he had discovered that sometimes it was comforting to think there was some greater power that existed in the universe, even if he had no idea what form it took.

Focussing once more on the task at hand, Shepard quickly moved up to a security door but stopped when he heard gunfire. Sounds like I'm not the only one still alive in here. Checking the thermal clip on his pistol, Shepard took a deep breath then burst through the security door into a wide, open area. This must be the atrium 'Miranda' was talking about.

A man dressed in a black field uniform bearing the elongated diamond emblem Shepard had seen earlier was exchanging fire with a number of mechs. Taking aim while the other man was still holding their attention, Shepard dropped each mech in turn with two quick shots each. As he slid into cover, the man turned to look at him, his dark brown eyes betraying his shock.

"Shepard? I thought you were still a work in progress!"

Shepard's eyes narrowed.

"Look pal, I don't know where I am or how I got here. Plus my head feels like an overripe melon ready to split open. How about you fill me in a little?"

"Damn... yeah, I forgot this is all new to you. Sorry about that," The man seemed taken aback, just as Shepard had intended.

"I'm Jacob Taylor. Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda's got you running around. I'll fill you in, but we better get you to the..."

A door opened on the other side of the room and several more mechs marched out, firing their weapons as they advanced.

"Damn it!" Jacob swore, firing a few shots back from behind cover. Shepard ducked his head as an incoming slug slammed into the wall behind his head.

"What is this place? Where am I?"

Jacob ignored him.

"We need to get you out of here, Shepard. I'll give you some covering fire while you get to that door across from us!"

Shepard risked a glance at the advancing mechs. As he'd expected, they had stopped advancing at a pre-programmed distance and were firing ineffectually, their shots flying wide and high. LOKI mechs were intended more as a deterrent than as true killing machines.

"Ever since I woke up, someone's been telling me where to go and what to do. I need answers!"

Jacob fired a few more shots over his shoulder, taking out one of the mechs with a solid hit to the torso.

"Now's really not a great place for questions, Shepard. Not with those mechs shooting at us!"

Shepard reloaded his pistol and waited for a moment. One of the peculiar quirks of LOKI mechs was that their programming always forced them to empty their weapons in a barrage of shots, then reload and repeat until the target was either dead or had vacated the area. As the volume of fire seemed to die down, Shepard took a deep breath and leaned out from cover, dropping a line of five mechs with a succession of shots. As the atrium went silent, he turned to Jacob.

"How about now?"