Chapter 1: Never Lucky

October 28th, 2185

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

Damn. I hate waking up. Why do I even bother? Can't I just sleep all day?

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

"I hear you!"

I slam the snooze on the alarm, silencing the annoyance. Mornings always sucked, especially the ones where I spent the previous night drinking. Lately I have been using the liquor to help me sleep and it's becoming a little too… frequent. It would be great if I knew why I wasn't sleeping but I'm just not that lucky.

My eyes took a moment to adjust to the glowing numbers on the clock. 4:50am. Well that was the time on the Citadel. I have no idea what time it is out here… wherever I am today. I thought about changing the clock to match my current location but since we are constantly drifting, it would be constantly adjusting.

The floor in my quarters was freezing cold and felt comforting against my aching feet. My thirtieth birthday was barely two months away and already I wasn't aging gracefully. I blame the Blitz. I barely made it out alive but at what cost? Every single day I'm reminded of my battle on Torfan. The stress from that one showdown must have cut my lifespan. Now I'm left with the haunting flashbacks and robotic bits in my arm. Even the tattoos couldn't hide the scars from its reconstruction. I will always be damaged.

When I stumbled into the bathroom, I began my morning ritual. Freshening up and getting ready for another busy day. Freelancing is hard work but it can be rewarding, you just really have to work at it. It started off slow but once people saw my record of working at the INA and fighting in the Blitz, they immediately found me perfect for whatever job they had. Most days we transport a package from point A to B or investigate the whereabouts of a spouse. But there have been jobs where we were hired as bail enforcement agents, aka bounty hunters, to retrieve fugitives who skipped bail. I've lost count on how many criminals we had to chase across multiple solar systems.

As soon as I was ready, I headed towards the bridge. The lights on the Dolus Bia were still dimmed from the nocturnal mode being in effect. The only other person awake at this time would be Joselynn. She is always in her chair at least an hour before I even start stirring in my bed. Even though CAIT covered all of the controls during our rest, Josie felt honored by her duty. I say she's just young, give her a few years then she'll start having difficulties waking up.

"She's alive!" Josie joked when she saw me creeping up.

I plopped into my seat, leaning deep into the cushioned recliner. The chair in the middle of the bridge was declared MY chair and everyone on board knew it. Since I spent nearly as much time as my pilot up here, I figured I would spoil myself with one of the most luxurious commanding recliners.

"Not yet, I'm in zombie mode," I replied.

"That's because you haven't had your coffee yet," a raspy voice from behind me mentioned. I felt a hand on my shoulder so I looked up at my tall turian friend. Lyrik handed me my mug of coffee and sat down in the chair next to mine.

I took a sip of the concoction and sighed, "I guess I won't be having brains today."

"What is it with you and zombies?" he shook his head is disgust.

"What can I say? I find them… amusing."

"Maybe I should find a way to reincarnate the dead and then we'll see if you still find them amusing."

I cocked my head to the side and gave him a smirk, my infamous "did you really just say that" look. "You're lucky it's too early for me to function."

"Does that mean I can take advantage of you?"

"Don't push your luck."

"You ARE feisty this morning… I know what you need," shuffling through his pockets. He pulled out two packs of cigarettes, one pack was his regular cigarettes and the other was my flavored ones. He took one of mine, started the cherry on it, and handed it to me.

"Thank you." I took a deep drag and let the nicotine do its work.

"Any time," he said lighting his cigarette.

"Where would I be without you, Lyrik?"

"You'd be either really cranky and on a homicidal rampage or finding a way to make your own coffee and cursing at the machine."

"I'm not that bad! Plus, you're the one who started this whole coffee thing."

"I know. I just enjoy poking at the sleeping varren."

Josie's eyes were following us, curiously waiting for a break in our conversation. When the moment appeared, she held out her mug, "Talking about coffee, can I have a refill?"

Lyrik snatched the cup from her, "I guess I have to."

Josie waited until he was out of her sight to gleefully say, "I swear you two are a couple."

"What? No! He's a turian."

"So?"

"Absolutely not!"

Cross species relationships is weird to me. How in the hell would a relationship with a turian work? Their plates remind me too much of a krogans' and would seem really… uncomfortable. Or even a quarian? You would be constantly worrying how you could kill them just by breathing. Asaris seem to be the only species humans could have a relationship with but even then I still found it… weird. Doing that crazy melding of the minds was too extreme for me. Not only that but they are biotics… and I hate biotics… Great, now I have that on my mind… I need a distraction… "CAIT… can I have a status report?"

"Yes, Captain. Ship status: All systems are currently operating correctly. Hull defenses are at full functionality. Nocturnal sequence is engaged and will be adjusting in 27 minutes and 11 seconds. Squad status: Captain Patrone, Helmsman Madeen, Quartermaster Castius, and Technician Jurgar are currently logged as active."

"Since Hal's awake, it just leaves the twins… go ahead and disable the nocturnal sequence."

"Adjusted. Captain, you also have sixteen unread messages at your terminal."

"Geez, can you give me a rundown of the most important ones?"

"You have a message from your brother, a message from Lieutenant Rimmer in the Department of Internal Naval Affairs, there are four messages containing requests for parcel courier services and two messages containing requests for investigatory law services."

"Thank you, CAIT, and how are you doing today?"

"The same as yesterday, Captain."

"That'll be all."

"Logging you out," she said and the intercom went silent.

I summoned the hologram tablet and began pulling up my messages from my chair. The first message I brought up was my brother's, nothing special. I took a quick glance at the job requests and one caught my attention. Someone was going to pay me 500k credits to deliver one package, 200k upon pickup and another 300k upon confirmation of delivery. The only issue is that it didn't give me any information on where I was taking the parcel to. Either way, it was a lot of money to turn it down.

The last message I pulled up was from Lieutenant Rimmer, who was one of my comrades when I was working at the INA. They all started the same… how are you… what have you been up to… but then he mentioned something that caught my attention. He discovered information regarding a recent sighting of my parent's murderer, about Her. I pulled up the attachment he sent and began skimming through every detail. The report stated an Alliance official noticed someone matching Her description on a convoy heading to Purgatory.

Purgatory… great, I hate that place. But if that's where She is, then I should head there. Hopefully She is a prisoner and not a Blue Suns guard. I highly doubt She would work on a prison starship, someone like that monster never changes. If She REALLY is a prisoner then I can use the files I have against Warden Kuril to bribe him to release Her into my custody. Although, this seems a little too easy…

"Anything special?" Lyrik asked sneaking up on me, making me jump. Thankfully I didn't spill any of my coffee. He leaned against the back of my chair, looking down at me. He could immediately sense something was different, "I know that look. What are you up to? What was in that message?"

"Someone from the INA just forwarded me information about Her."

"What? There hasn't been any record in years."

"I know. And here's the interesting part, She's at Purgatory."

"Well, that makes things too easy."

"That is exactly what I was thinking!"

Josie popped in, "Do you want me to set a course for Purgatory?"

"Yes, let's take a quick detour there. Who knows, maybe this report is invalid… or maybe it's just the break I've been waiting for. Either way, I need to find out."

"Setting a course to Osun in the Hourglass Nebula," she said plugging away at her monitors.

A few minutes after we arrived in Osun, I opened the communications and sent a request to Purgatory for our berth. No response. I tried again but the results were still the same. This had me concerned… were we about to stumble upon hostile territory? I directed Joselynn to approach the maximum security prison starship with extreme caution.

When we finally had Purgatory in our sights, no one on my crew was prepared for the current state it was in. We were all huddled in the bridge, staring in awe at the destruction before us. The ship was still recognizable but had severe hull damages. A few lights were still flickering, amazingly, and there was a faint glimmer of fires still burning inside the corridors. As for survivors… the ship appeared lifeless.

"Wow, what happened here?" Josie noted.

"How come no one heard about this? A prison starship being destroyed would make headlines," Lyrik added.

"Unless someone is trying to prevent it from being known," I faced our mechanic and asked, "Hal, can you hack into the security messages? Let's see if we can figure out what happened."

Hal started pressing nearly every button on his omni-tool. It wasn't long before an image appeared above the tool.

"I was able to retrieve three messages, twelve security camera images, and a list of prisoners that were aboard. Everything else seems too damaged to be salvaged."

"Good job. Now we can attempt to piece together what happened here. Let's hear the messages first."

"This one came from their automated security program."

"Warning, warning… sectors 7, 9, and 11 have lost life support, no survivors… warning, power plant damage has lead to overlook… the hull has been breached in sectors 12, 14, and 30, no survivors."

"That was useless. No information whatsoever. Play the next one, Hal."

"Here's another one from the VI."

"Current population: Unknown. Current condition: Unstable. Security Protocol: Overridden. ERROR…Warden Kuril: Deceased. ERROR… Dock-ERROR… ERROR-el: Nor-ERROR-dy. ERROR…."

"Kuril is dead? Is that why Purgatory went into chaos? Play the last message."

"This one was recorded via their security cameras, the footage is missing but the audio is still there," Hal queued up the message.

"You're valuab-ERROR… I co-ERROR… have sold you… ERROR-ike a king. But you…ERROR-rouble. At least I can recapture Jack."

"ERROR-u're a two-bi-ERROR-ve trader and I don-ERROR…time for it."

"I do t-ERROR-ings civil gover-ERROR… are unwilling to. This is for the good of…ERROR…."

I recognized the voices. One was definitely Kuril. I dealt with him a few times while working for the INA, the damned barefaced turian. But the other voice… I know I've heard it before. Now it was really going to bug me, who the hell was it?

"What do you think, Xora?" Lyrik stared at me waiting for my next command.

"Well, I know the first voice is Warden Kuril. I don't know who the second one is but it sounds so damn familiar. But… who is this Jack person they are talking about?"

Hal pulled up the list of prisoners he retrieved, "Jack… The information is coming up on here… Female human… It says she was a prisoner who was going to be released upon confirmation of payment."

"There isn't a last name?"

"No… it just says Jack."

"That doesn't do us any good. Let's start looking through all these images."

As we looked through the security camera images, a majority of them only revealed the chaos within Purgatory during its final hours - explosions, gunfire, and a significant volume of death. There were two of them showing some prisoners and guards escaping in the shuttles but they were too distorted to make out any faces. I was about to give up all hope but the very last image immediately caught my attention. It showed three highly armored individuals running on the loading dock. They weren't Blue Suns and they definitely weren't prisoners… possibly the ones who paid for Jack? The photograph was blurry but I could still distinguish the species of escapees. There was a salarian, a turian, and a human. The human looked oddly familiar.

"Hal, can you zoom in on them?"

"Give me one second," he said and expanded the image.

No, it can't be. What is she doing there?

"Commander Shepard?" I asked.

"Wait? That's Commander Shepard? THE Shepard?" Josie was shocked.

"How can you tell?" Lyrik asked squinting at the image.

"I met her once after the Blitz. From the looks of it, she hasn't changed much… See there? The N7? That's the elite special forces logo for the Alliance marines. Plus she's wearing her signature armor, the one with the red and white stripe down the side. It's the exact same armor I have seen in every photograph of her. But… she died two years ago."

Josie snapped her fingers, "That's right! I visited the memorial on Elysium."

"Maybe she faked her death? It's not unlikely, I've read about people pulling it off," Kero added.

"Just because they can do it in your comic books doesn't mean they can do it out here in the real world," Tren snarled, giving his brother a nudge on his shoulder.

Kero's eyes widened and nudged back. "Not everything I read comes from comic books!"

"Knock, knock, is Tren there? Tuchanka to Tren, come in Tren, reality is calling."

Oh no. Not now. I'm still repairing the damage from their last disagreement. Why do they always have to argue about every DAMN thing? Can I just ignore them and hope they stop?

"At least I don't waste my salary on that grotesque Fornax magazine."

"They have good articles!"

"Yeah… right," Kero scoffed, "I'm having a difficult time visualizing you reading. Especially words containing more than three syllables."

Whenever Tren received the impression that someone was deeming him an idiot… needless to say, it never ended well. He gave Kero a good shove in retaliation but his brother did one in return.

Nope. I'm never that lucky. Hopefully Lyrik will step in. Come on, turian, get angry. You're the only one who seems to shut those two up.

Right on cue, Lyrik had enough of the twins' aggression and barged himself between them. He forcefully separated the krogans away from each other, breaking up what would be another costly bicker.

Lyrik, you read my mind…

"Tren! Kero! Stop it!" The quartermaster hardly got upset but when he did… everyone knew he meant business. Even the slightest raise in his voice would make the crew silent, well everyone except for Xora. He took a deep breath, letting his blood cool down, and explained, "Kero is right, many people fake their death each year, mostly as a form of tax evasion. I saw it all the time at C-Sec."

Kero stuck his wide tongue out of his brother, he finally won an argument. His twin brother just crossed his arms and turned away, acting like he didn't see him. Lyrik gave the gloating krogan a look daring him to see what would happen the next time he stuck his tongue out.

Once the air settled, my quartermaster returned to my side and continued, "Since you met her, what do you think happened? Was her death some elaborate scheme?"

"I highly doubt it. I don't know anyone in the Alliance that could pull something like off. And I know Shepard would never fake her own death, she's got too much pride. But it still doesn't add up. Even excluding the fact she was announced deceased for two years, what was she doing on Purgatory?"

My mind flooded with a series of theories but none of them seemed to fit. Instead it was fueling my frustration to finally settle in.

Damn, damn, damn. Purgatory was a total bust. I still have no idea what happened to the prisoners, who escaped and who didn't. I cannot confirm or deny this report, it's worthless. I didn't find any information on my parent's killer. Instead I got nothing but this headache of Shepard's ghostly return. This was too good to be true…damn.

"Well, this doesn't help me. I'm back at step one… again," I said with a disappointed tone, "CAIT?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Please forward all the information we retrieved from Purgatory to my contacts in the Alliance and to Qwentin."

"Anything else, Captain?"

"No," I began walking away from the bridge when a thought occurred to me, "Actually, exclude the image with Shepard. Thank you."

"Understood, Captain. Logging you out."

Maybe I can profit from this… I need to find Shepard… She was there, she saw Purgatory in its final moments. Maybe she can shine some light on what happened to the prisoners. The only issue is no one knows where she is. For now, I have to dismiss everything and start back from square one.