Tank Bred
- May, 2186
"Freeze!" Ashley had cornered her target to an empty apartment on Ilium. It had taken her well over the entire week and the target had proved difficult. But now that was at an end. "Hands where I can see them, Cerberus."
The target dropped her side arms and knelt to the floor, hands behind the back of her head. Ashley cautiously stepped towards her captive, kicking the gun away to the side, before advancing and locking thw wrists together with an omni-tool.
"Miranda Lawson, under the directive of Alliance Naval Intelligence, I place you under my custody for urgent and immediate questioning."
"You're slower than I expected." The woman quipped as Ashley pulled her up from the floor.
"Nobody's perfect, honey."
- Two Weeks Ago
The Shadow Broker never convened Council of any form. Nor maintained a permanent base.
Shadow was the mandate of its operations. Once in a while a Shadow Broker during succession would break from the mold, to collect an abode, tired from drifting between the darkness of the stars, and the void would close in to replace it with another. One was never free of the reaches of the Shadow. Some speculated that it was because of the Shadow Broker's omnipotent presence throughout all forms of society. Those who experienced first hand the dealing with the Shadow knew that the enticement of hidden information was too great, like opium, that those who had once tasted the cursed nectar could never be free.
Deep within the vast forests of crumbling buildings, Urdnot Wrex stood before the dark flickering screen.
"My scouts scoured the remains of the Weyrlock camp and found nothing." Wrex sounded tired. His camp had been able to gather enough females to produce a significant number of offspring. But that was boon came with a high price tag. Tensions were high as Wrex had to direct forces to police within the camps as well as against outer attachs for the females, numbering in merely a few thousand. In return, the few thousand females had shown dubious fertility. They had been able to produce a dozen children during the past two years. Ends simply did not meet. They required more females.
"However, the absence was telling." he continued. "We found remains of cells where females had been herded. Some were unaccounted for. Shepard believed that there must have been some females who survive."
"I have yet to hear a request, Urdnot." rumbled the Shadow Broker.
"We need any fertile female we can get."
"Your goal is misguided." The Shadow Broker stated. Which was odd, since as long as Wrex had dealing with the Shadow Broker merely maintained information as business. The connotations of an agenda troubled him.
"Huh?" Wrex was too perplexed to continue. He had figured that he would start bargaining with the Shadow Broker to attain the whereabouts of the females. It would have been the usual process. But something was different.
"You require the aid of the Salarian Mordin Solus." The Shadow Broker continued.
"This Mordin Solus... "Wrex scratched his head. "was a member of Shepard's Krannt. You wish to broker a trade between us?"
"Mordin Solus only wishes for redemption. I will direct him to you."
'Ah, so you wish to sell something I don't need.' Wrex determined.
"And why would I wish to accept this Salarian?" There was something fishy, somewhere. Out of the corner of his eye, he directed Darg to check if the signal was secure. Darg pounded the satellite dish desperately and returned a shrug. Wrex rolled his eyes. Darg will be beaten later.
"The Salarian can generate a cure based on Shepard's data. It is what you ultimately want, isn't it?"
Both of Wrex's hearts skipped beats at the same time.
"A cure? For what?" He tried to keep his trembling in check. But the Shadow Broker did not play to his patronizing question, remained silent.
"What do you want in return?" Wrex's stomachs turned knots.
"Aralakh Company."
Hannah's office was one of many small offices that lined the Alliance embassies on the Presidium. Due to the limited space of the Citadel, they had to cram as much space as possible together. Thankfully, the resident keeper expert on the Citadel, a Salarian named Chorban, was able to make arrangements to direct the keepers into ignoring the open balcony the engineers had installed. The open balconies were usually only a facet of the offices allotted to the upper echelon of the Admiralty, but the Salarian had insisted that he could engineer the keepers to keep away from modifying the structure.
"Usually they would randomly come and wreck the place, ma'am." Chorban explained excitedly. "But I've been able to block some of their signals. Commander Shepard helped me out a lot when I first jumped into investigating them, ma'am. It's such an honor to meet you."
Hannah found that she had never fully appreciated how much Messalina had affected the Galactic community. Having been bound up in the walls of the Orizaba for too long, she felt she had missed the general gist and atmosphere. Hannah shook Chorban's hand warmly and bid him farewell, as she enjoyed her open balcony.
Her office was still small, though. Milque's desk and hers faced each other with empty walls lining the rest. She imagined that the two of them could play table tennis the entire length of her so-called 'deployment', to which she had no illusions that it was nothing other than exile.
Chorban was replaced by Milque as the young man began setting up a series of encryption devices.
"Any trouble?" Hannah asked.
"The Shepard name is gold around here, Admiral." Milque chuckled. "I haven't had so many people stumbling over themselves to lend a hand. This baby here is from Sardonis Applications. You won't believe what I've heard when I went there: 'I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite shop on the Citadel'. Hah! The owner, Marlab, practically gave this for free."
"Don't over do it, Milque. I don't want to attract any unnecessary attention." Hannah smiled, despite her concern. The other day, a couple had come over to shake her hand when she was identified by an automated advertisement booth. Whatever the Alliance had against her daughter, she wished they could come to the Citadel and smell the breeze.
Her asari 'daughter-in-law' had told her that she had some data she wished to show her. With nothing else to do, Hannah was anxious to run through whatever Liara had dug up on Mars.
"It's ... technical." Liara had informed her, frustrated. "I can leaf through some technical problems, due to my background in researching Prothean civilization, but this was too complex. I was wondering if you could take a look at it."
"Don't worry, honey." Hannah had assured her. "I started my career with Prothean technology when humanity was trying to figure things out."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"Call me, 'mom'. If it's okay with you, dear."
"Thank you... Mom." Liara had blushed sweetly. It was nice to see a 'daughter' who actually acted like a girl, for once.
Messalina had never been a 'sweet' girl, though she did like her lemon drops. Of course, Messalina had told her that Liara was older than Messalina and Hannah combined. But in Hannah's eyes, a life-partner of her daughter was still a kid.
Besides the complexity of the data, and the compression of its format, the decryption also had to avoid detection from the roving eyes of the Fleet. When she first tried to open the data on her omni tool, its compression had emitted screeching gibberish. Liara had commented that, on a psychological level, that was what Messalina's mind had to go through when she first encountered the Prothean Beacon. The imagery of the burnt up omni tool remained charred in Hannah's memory since then.
"Okay, ma'am." Milque intruded her thoughts. "Set up is a go. Want me to leave?"
"No, Milque. You can stay. You've seen the Collectors at work. Maybe you can help shed some light." Hannah offered as they sat down before the projected holo interface. Hannah transferred Liara's data with the deftness of a savant, yet muttered, "I'm getting rusty."
The image finally crystallized before them, spinning slowly. It was an elongated cylindrical object. Its simplicity in design would have mistaken the uninitialized into thinking it was smaller, like a hand held device. But Hannah noticed the dimensions, and silently cursed to herself.
"It's huge." Hannah indicated the scale for Milque. Milque crumpled his brow, trying to grasp at the size.
"Is that in... meters?"
"Kilometers." corrected Hannah.
"Oh." Milque was silenced.
"We'll have our hand full going through these." Hannah grinned, excitement rushing over.
"Just you know, ma'am." Milque said weakly, "school work was never my forte."
Anto and his lieutenant Bray shoved their way through the underbelly of Omega, between the crowded streets and rotting Vorcha. Trailing behind them were three burly Krogans wearing the armor of the Blood Pack, hoisting modified Claymores with long serrated iron bayonets. Anto smelled something dirty when Ahz had dropped the three Krogan off rather than digging them up from the lower levels where the Blood Pack usually prowled.
Aria, as usual, hadn't offered any explanation. She seemed to have been growing restless lately. Tazzik had come by to see her the other day. And Anto knew the overly huge Batarian had always led a series of unfortunate events in his wake. The Blood Pack trio soon followed, and as head of operations for Aria's dominion, Anto hated being in the dark. He was given a description of a person, and after shaking down the locals, were able to find the woman matching the description. The Krogan were here to take her away. Anto prayed to his god to forgive his soul. Maybe he didn't want to know, after all.
The Krogan were larger than the usual riff-raff that gravitated towards the bowels of Omega. That and Aria allowed Anto no choice. He prided himself that he was a strong but fair enforcer. But today's job just didn't seem right.
When they reached the apartment the Krogans pushed him aside, shot the lock and barged in. These acts of violence were common in Omega. And the resident and target tried to resist. Anto was grateful for one thing that the Krogan wanted the woman alive. Stunned and subdued, the woman was bagged and hoisted over the shoulder of one of the trio.
Krogan shrugged a thanks and disappeared.
"Miranda!" The woman gasped as she woke up, focusing on the woman before her.
"See," the Grunt jumped off from the table. "undamaged."
Miranda studied the captive woman. "Her hair ... is not right. I think my father got the hair wrong with this one."
Mordin stepped forward, pulling a strand of hair off the captive. He pointedly stopped before Miranda, thrusting out an open palm. Miranda sighed and carefully pulled out a strand of hair, cautious not to ruffle her thick wavy flow.
"Thank you." Mordin shuffled off to process the two strands.
"Bitch!" The woman spat at Miranda's feet.
"So, there's two of you, eh?" Grunt's lieutenant Nax stared at the clone.
"She's the older version... obviously." Miranda scrutinized her clone.
"How many of them are there?" Nax walked around the captive, scrutinizing her. "Looks just like you, Miranda."
"Thirteen, Nax." Miranda bit her thumbnail. "She's a defective clone; nothing like me."
"Fifteen." corrected her clone.
"I'm not counting Oriana and me, if that's what you're implying, clone." Miranda replied icily.
"I have a name, sister. It's Heather."
"And I don't care what you call yourself." snapped Miranda. "You serve a purpose. I'm not your sister."
"It doesn't change the fact. Fifteen of us were created after our brother. Three of us are still alive."
Mordin returned in a matter of minutes.
"Mismatch of three alleles." Mordin informed Miranda. "Possibly fatal. Floppy atrioventricular valve and conduction defect, resulting in five percent drop of ejection fraction." Mordin scanned the two women again, correcting himself, "three point eight percent. Risk of aneurysm increased twenty percent. Risk of sudden cardiac death ten percent. Detected risk of malignant cervical growth forty percent." he turned to the captive, lowering his voice, "Apologies."
"Thank you, Doctor Solus." Miranda nodded. Mordin, finding his work done and not wishing to observe the interrogation, walked off to the adjoining room to pack.
Grunt seemed entirely uninterested.
"Tank bred." Grunt shrugged. "Some live, some die. Nothing to cry about."
"It matters," Miranda huffed. "when one of us decides its in their best interest to alert our Father to the where about of our sister."
"What was I supposed to do?" Heather pleaded. "After our psychopathic brother decided to kill of the defective sisters one by one, I was all that was left. Father caught up with me and demanded to know where you hid Oriana. It was me or her."
"Then you should have chose her." Miranda glared.
"Why should I choose her?" Heather spun around glaring up at Miranda. "What did she ever do for me?"
Miranda struck her sister with an open palm, cracking out in the uneasy watch of the Krogan commandos. Grunt yawned.
"That's for your treachery! Oriana is the reason we were created. If she falls into Father's hands, all our purpose of existence and freedom is for naught. Don't you get it, you imperfect twat?"
"What do you want with me, Miranda?"
Miranda pulled up a stool and sat down, looking down on her image in the flesh.
"I'm going to offer you a safe haven. Considering the ease at how I uncovered you, I assure you it'll take Father far less to hunt you down and process you to create a new clone."
The look of fear replacing anger so quickly told many stories of that neither Heather nor Miranda wished to revisit.
"I heard that Father went nearly broke... that he doesn't have the resources..." Heather ventured hopefully.
"He's offered himself to Cerberus, recently." Miranda informed her. "I assure you, he has everything he could need for his twisted experiments. And Cerberus, I can tell with you confidence, is his perfect bed fellow."
Heather sank down again. She had been on the run from her father ever since Miranda had liberated Oriana. Father had sent assassins to collect their bodies to recreate more clones; he had little use for them alive. Few of the surviving sisters had died, and Heather, in desperation, had informed Niket to where Oriana might have fled.
She wasn't like Miranda, who would probably live to reach a bicentennial year. She had a weak heart deformity that caused her some shortness of breath. If Miranda barely escaped their Father, she well knew the chances she had.
"You promised me a safe haven." Heather asked cautiously.
"I'm offering you a safe haven," Miranda corrected, "in return for a service."
"What sort of service?"
"There is a war coming." Miranda replied with steel in her eyes. "It's a war that will end all wars. But not everyone is willing to prepare for it. My Leader is currently held in prison, but her agents are many. We work to make humanity... and everyone else, survives. I require a certain degree of freedom for that. I can't have that with Alliance dogs on my tail at every turn. You're going to impersonate me."
"You want me to act as bait? You want me exposed in the open?" Heather snorted in derision.
"Not for long. If my sources are correct, this Alliance agent will be upon you in a matter of days. We'll make sure she captures you. You'll be then taken into secure custody. Far from the reaches of Henry Lawson."
"I seem to have gotten the short end of it." Heather scowled.
"I'm offering you your life, secure and safe. I'm also offering you my forgiveness. I'd be grateful." Miranda nodded at the group of Krogan, reminding her sister that she could have killed her if she wished.
Nax, the brains of the unit, began briefing Heather as the other Krogan, Charr, set about releasing her Omni-restraints.
"Where are you off to next, Grunt?" Miranda pulled her former shipmate aside.
"Ninmah cluster." Grunt grinned widely. "Shadow Broker thinks Rachni are building up. Can't have them running around when the Reapers hit."
"Rachni," Miranda shuddered. "Didn't Shepard run into them on Noveria?"
"The reports were hostile." Grunt shrugged. "Maybe Wrex is just getting paranoid. The deal is that we check out the Rachni, and you drop off Mordin on ... " Grunt scratched his head.
"Sur'Kesh." Miranda supplied.
"Yeah." Grunt nodded gravely, as Miranda tried to suppress a smile. "You be careful. I read there are dinosaurs in those jungles. They eat Salarians, and humans, too, I think."
"No, Grunt." Miranda replied, dead pan. "There are no dinosaurs on Sur'Kesh."
Grunt seemed disappointed. A sudden epiphany hit him. "Hey, don't we know the Shadow Broker?"
Miranda squinted at Grunt. "Yes, Grunt. Some of us do."
"How come Wrex doesn't know who ... she, right?... How come Wrex doesn't know who she is."
"Well, I suppose no one's really told him, then." Miranda shrugged. "It's not something you go around broadcasting."
Grunt's smile widened. "Heh, heh, heh."
Miranda warily glossed over Grunt, placed a concerned hand on his thick arms as if asking a child difficult questions. "You know the importance of keeping things secret, right, Grunt?"
"Yeah, Secret." Grunt nodded gravely.
DEEr CLANn LeEder,
UrDot Nax and UrNot Charr aNd Me Have CapTURRed the fAKe mrIandA.
MiRAnda tOOK Mordin to ... SALAria.
I hoPe they doNt run INto TeRRAnoSAuRUses.
i BEt you DonT knoW who THe ShadoW BROKEr is.
Some BOSS you ARe! HaHAHA
sHEPPURD killeD the SHAdow BrokEr and Put HER feMAle in CHARge. iDIOt.
AraLaK kRANt
uRnOT GRUNT Owt!