Here is the next chapter. I took a few liberties with this one too. I hope everyone is starting to see where this story is going, and if not, stay tuned. R&R please. Enjoy!
The team was spread through the facility with Wrex and Garrus securing the front door, Ashley and Liara searching the main room for intelligence, and Alenko and Tali trying to hack into the base's main frame to download all files. Claire, Luke, and Mallory stacked up on the last room's door that they needed to clear. Luke hit the panel and the door opened revealing a mercenary holding a gun on a scientist.
"Stay back! I don't want to hurt you. All I want is this bastard!" The mercenary yelled shaking his gun in the scientists face.
"Please he's a mad man! Mr. Tombs, you're insane you need help!" The doctor screamed.
"It's Corporal! Corporal Tombs! You don't get to lie not today!"
"Everyone calm down." Claire shouted putting her rifle away. Mallory covered the mercenary while Luke covered the doctor. He could feel Claire's eyes on him making sure that he stayed his trigger finger.
"I don't have a problem with you. All I want is this bastard." Tombs snapped looking over at Claire.
"What did the doctor do to you corporal?" Claire asked softly. Her voice reminded Luke of their mother when she would try to calm them down after a disagreement. Luke smiled. It was the first time he could think of his mother without a flashback to Mindoir. Maybe he was getting better.
"They let the thresher maws hit my unit on Akuze. They were studying them. After the attack, I woke up in a holding cell. The scientists were excited that I had survived 'cause now they had someone to run tests on." Luke wet his lips as he listened to Tombs talk. He recognized the struggle. If he had not escaped the batarian slavers, he would probably be the exact same way.
"Let me put the doctor on trial, I'll make sure the truth comes out." Claire said taking a small step toward Tombs.
"You can't believe Tombs, he doesn't have any proof. This is preposterous!" Tombs growled and looked back to the doctor. Luke suddenly realized who the doctor was.
Dr. Wayne? It can't be. What are the odds that he would be out here?
"Their part of some organization called Cerberus. They do human testing and black ops. They'll never let you put him on trial. For my team on Akuze, I have to end it here." Tombs said facing the doctor again.
"I can make sure that he answers for his crimes. I won't just put him in front of an Alliance court, I'll put him in front of the Council and use every resource I have to make sure he answers for what he has done to you." Claire replied opening her arms. Luke recognized the gesture. It was a showing of peace. Alliance marines, C-Sec agents, and most special forces soldiers were trained to show to get close to a hostile opponent.
"That's not enough!" Tombs screamed.
"Corporal! Stand down! How are we suppose to find this organization if you kill our only lead? You let us take him into custody and get you some help, I promise you we will burn this Cerberus organization to the ground." Luke said stepping forward quickly holding his aim on the doctor. Claire watched as her brother eyed Tombs while keeping a steady aim on the doctor.
"Swear it. Swear that you will take them down." Tombs said as his pistol started to shake.
"You have my word corporal, and as a show of good favor…" Luke suddenly slammed the grip of his pistol into the doctor's head knocking him unconscious. "I swear Tombs, I will destroy the operation that did this to you and your unit." Luke advanced and placed his hand on the corporal's pistol. Tombs started shaking and allowed Luke to take the weapon from him.
"Thank you…maybe the voices will stop now." Tombs' voice was shaky and weak. The man fell to his knees silently. Luke knelt in front of him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"It's alright corporal." Luke turned to Claire. "We are going to need a prison shuttle and a medical ship for Tombs."
"They are on their way." Claire said smiling at her brother. As much as she did not approve of his actions with Saleon, Luke was a good man and was trying to do what was right.
Claire and Mallory escorted Tombs out of the bunker leaving Luke alone with the doctor. Luke turned to the unconscious man and sat down on the floor next to him.
"Wake up sunshine!" Luke shouted kicking the scientist in the side. The man groaned and rolled on to his back. "Hey there doc. Listen, you don't remember me but I sure as hell remember you, so you are going to listen very carefully to what I say and you are going to do exactly what I tell you to do." Luke placed his knee on the center of the man's chest and started to press.
"What do you want?" The man wheezed.
"I know that you work for Cerberus and know about a few of the other projects you were involved in. Now, what you are going to do is tell the interrogators everything they want to know except for the nature of the work or the personnel involved in codename Lazarus, understood?" The doctor looked up at Luke and studied him for a moment.
"I remember you. You were that kid the commandos picked up when they were extracting us." Dr. Wayne wheezed. Luke pressed down with his knee again.
"I do believe that I told you that there will be nothing mentioned about Lazarus. If I hear that you have said anything that will lead back to that mission, the research, or anyone involved…well, use your imagination. I certainly learned quite a bit about pain before you and your team got a hold of me." The doctor's eyes went wide.
"You wouldn't. You can't. You had PTSD so bad you could hardly move. There is no way you could do that to someone else." Luke smirked and leaned down closer to his victim.
"Sometimes the only way to deal with being tortured is learn to be the torturer." Luke looked up and over at the door. He could hear footsteps coming his way. "Remember what I told you, nothing about Lazarus." Luke then grabbed him by his lab coat and lifted him to his feet.
Mallory entered slowly watching her brother shove the scientist toward the door. "Lieutenant, I am an Alliance asset. I resent this treatment." The doctor snapped. Luke suddenly jabbed his pistol into the man's back.
"You are a murderer and a traitor. You'll get treated the way you treated your victims if I have anything to say about it." Luke snapped.
"Luke, he is a prisoner in not only a spectre's custody but the Alliance military. You can't kill him like you did the other one." Mallory whispered loud enough for the scientist to hear. She winked as Luke passed and he nodded back. Without knowing she was reinforcing the image of ruthlessness that he had already established in the doctor's mind. It would come in handy if the doctor was questioned about Lazarus.
"Yes ma'am." Luke said faking reluctance.
As they made their way through the facility, Luke watched the rest of the ground team. Tali was poking a dead krogan with the barrel of her shotgun while Kaiden fiddled with his omni-tool.
"I've never seen encryption like this before." Kaiden said. Luke slowed and listened for a moment.
"It is certainly human programming but very advanced. I did not know human technology had advanced so far." Tali exclaimed looking through some of the files.
"If you don't want someone learning of Lazarus, you should make sure that you are the one to go through those files." The doctor whispered.
"The encryption key?" Luke said opening his omni-tool. The doctor typed in a command and Luke saved it. "Make so much as a sound and I will knock you unconscious again." He moved over to Tali and Alenko keeping a firm hold on the doctor.
"That the bastard that killed all those marines?" Kaiden asked standing.
"Yeah, one of them. Tombs killed the rest I think." Luke replied. Luke glanced over at the doctor as he hung his head, too afraid of Luke to say anything.
"Tombs was a good man. We were in the same division. I had a lot of friends that died on Akuze." Kaiden snarled clenching his fists.
"Then let's make sure that none of this bastard's friends survive long enough to repeat the crime." Luke said extending his free hand. Kaiden smiled and shook it.
"I know you and I aren't all that close but you would have made one hell of a marine."
"Naw, too much chest pounding and rules. You know that I would be booted out before I made it through basic." Kaiden smiled and nodded slowly. "Hey, I heard you say that those files are encrypted. If you want to transfer them over, I'll take a look at them with Tali back on the Normandy to see if we can get through.
"Sounds good to me." Tali said opening her omni-tool. Luke opened his and accepted the transfer of files and stored them away.
"Alright, I'm gonna take the doc upstairs and wait for the transport. Let me know if there is anything else that you find." Luke said shoving the doctor toward the door.
"Why don't you just kill me?" The doctor whined.
"Because then they would want to dig into your history more to figure out everything. Instead, you are going to offer every ounce of information that will help us except for anything that would lead back to Lazarus. This way you don't have to die a slow and extremely painful death, and you get to feel all warm and fuzzy inside because you helped the good guys." Luke said opening the door to the outside.
"You really think you are the good guys. My work and that of the people I work for is to better humanity and solidify our place in the galaxy." Luke lashed out, slugging the man across the jaw and sending him to the ground.
"That is not what you do. You experiment on your fellow human beings trying to make them better, immortal, more powerful, but the truth is that we are perfect the way we are. Why should we be improved? What made God's design of man not enough for you?" Luke shouted. Claire looked over at her brother as the medical transport took off to take Tombs to the medical ship in orbit.
"Luke, calm down. He won't hurt anyone ever again." Claire said placing a hand on Luke's shoulder.
"Yeah, I know. I just wish that I could beat a confession out of him. Although, he is going to cooperate with the investigators, right?" Lauke said yanking the man back by his coat collar.
"Yes! Yes, of course I will." Luke looked over at Claire and smirked. Claire sighed and shook her head. She knew Luke had already scared the man into giving up all his secrets. What she was concerned about was how he had managed to do it.
Garrus and Wrex watched the siblings from the facility wall. "Nothing is ever boring with a Shepard, is it?" Wrex said looking over at Garrus.
"Never." The turian replied.
Luke left Dr. Wayne with Claire and made his way over behind the Mako and accessed the files. She did a hard search on several key words. Lazarus, Shepard, Luke, Mindoir, Dr. Brexler. The last name came up with a hit. The doctor had died several years earlier. Luke had even attended the funeral more out of remembrance than anything.
He remembered the needles descending on him as freezing cold liquid was injected into this bloodstream and a thick gel laid over his back. He recalled the feeling a surge of electricity that ripped through his body and the doctors called him Subject Alpha, or Lazarus.
Luke let out a slow breath. What was done to him could not ever be known. Even if it meant lying to his sisters again, even to Ashley and Garrus. No one could know his true secret.