LAZARUS SHUNNED
ACT ONE:
Chapter 1: And On The Third Day…
EMERGENCY ALERT MESSAGE
FROM: ALLIANCE SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND, PRIORITY CHANNEL NOVEMBER ACTUAL
CONFIRMATION OF SSV NORMANDY DISTRESS SIGNAL, 08:00 GALACTIC STANDARD TIME
LOCATION: ALCHERA, AMADA SYSTEM, OMEGA NEBULA
LAST KNOWN COMMUNICATION: SIGHTING OF UNKNOWN DREADNAUGHT-CLASS SHIP - GENERAL QUARTERS ANNOUNCEMENT - CESSATION OF INTERNAL SENSORS
PER OPNAVIST 5510.100E ALL SOC PERSONNEL ARE RESTRICTED FROM COMMUNICATIONS IDENTIFYING [REDACTED] AS POTENTIAL AGGRESSOR
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: LT. CMDR JANE SHEPARD PRESUMED KIA
1. COMMAND OF FORWARD-DEPLOYED STRIKE GROUPS TRANSFERRED TO FIRST AND FIFTH FLEETS.
2. FIRST FLEET EVACUTE DEFENSE COMMAND AUTHORITY FROM ARCTURUS STATION.
3. FIFTH FLEET MASS AT BATARIAN-ALLIANCE RELAY NEXUS,
4. SET DEFCON 2.
5. AUTHENTICATION: BEECATA
Two years later...
1.
The Shadow Broker wanted Commander Jane Shepard to stay dead, so that's what Wilson was gonna do: make sure the late-Commander Jane Shepard stayed dead. You'd think that keeping someone dead would be the easiest job in the world but, nope, Wilson lived in a stupid universe, and this stupid universe apparently had technology in it that could restore someone's brain even after it'd been deep-fried on atmospheric re-entry. Thanks to "Project Lazarus" and Miranda Lawson, damn her, keeping someone dead was actually a real fucking challenge.
The truth was that Wilson had no idea why the Shadow Broker wanted the Commander to stay dead, but this was the Shadow Broker we were talking about here. Asking questions was for the Broker's salarian contacts since it wasn't like they were gonna live that long anyways. There were times where Wilson was curious, sure, and he'd come up with one or two pet theories (his leading candidate was that the Commander used to work for the Broker and that was why she'd always managed to be right where she needed to be while Saren was out doing…whatever the hell he was doing; opening the Seventh Seal or something), but was he gonna share those theories with anyone? He was not. Why risk stepping on the Boss's toes when you could just shut up the hell up and do your job?
Besides, just shutting the hell up and doing his job was a lot more difficult than he'd expected anyways.
Wilson didn't have anything negative to say about Shepard either, even if, yeah, she was indirectly responsible for a couple of his Cerberus projects being shit-canned. That wasn't her fault though—she was dead, it wasn't like she was out there begging to suck up precious Cerberus funds. No, Wilson had a lot of negative things to say about Miranda, though—that stuck-up ice-cold high-and-mighty genetically-perfect bitch that apparently was the Illusive Man's favorite person in the whole wide universe—because she was busy going around and sucking up precious Cerberus funds. And she was just being an absolute…bitch while doing it too, that really, really couldn't be emphasized enough here. On top of all that, she had eyes and ears and friggin pressure-plate sensors everywhere on this stupid station ("Lazarus Station" wow yeah what a really original and totally not inconspicuous name, you jerks), so not only did Wilson have to look for funding outside Cerberus to get any of his projects off the ground, she was also making it borderline impossible for him to pull the plug on Shepard's corpse. Or near-corpse. Corpse with delusions of life, whatever, this project made no sense.
You just wanted to stick a gun in your mouth some days.
There was a pistol in Shepard's equipment locker—a big black tube off in the corner of Wilson's medical lab—and if he thought he'd get away with it, man, it'd be so easy to just walk over there, grab the gun, and put a slug in Shepard's sleeping head. Hopefully he'd scramble enough stuff up there that Shepard would finally be written off as "irretrievable" and everyone could go back to doing normal things like not trying to raise the fucking dead.
Wilson took a couple of steps away from his desk and it's blinking orange monitors and stood next to Shepard. She was still mostly tubes and raw-looking flesh, with the occasional bit of cybernetics poking out. It'd still be a few months before the average person could stand to look at her again, let alone reach a point where those precious neural connections remembered what symbols they were supposed to manipulate, but it was coming—and it was coming fast. The timetable had been accelerated four times already and each month it seemed like they'd blown past the expected date for each stage of the procedure by larger and larger gaps. He was running out of time and…well there was so little that Wilson knew about the Shadow Broker, but nothing about this guy or gal or collective or whatever screamed "forgiving," so Wilson strongly suspected his bank account wasn't the only thing at risk right now. Just like how Wilson "strongly suspected" that it'd hurt to get your arm caught in a ship's drive core.
Yeah, some instructions would've been nice. It's almost like the Broker enjoys watching their agents fail or something…
There was one idea Wilson had stored away in the back of his brain, and it was stored all the way back there because Wilson sort of figured that he'd missed his window of opportunity. See, what he could do is just "wake" the Commander's body up and let the system trauma completely overwhelm her; so long as nobody got to his lab in time to "help" him "settle" her, the Commander would basically cook her brain alive in her own skull as the cybernetics overloaded and her immune system went haywire. The problem is that the Commander was showing some rudimentary signs of consciousness which meant that, well, she'd feel the procedure. It'd be painful as hell and there was a very real chance that she'd actually be awake. Wilson didn't have anything against the Commander—it was just stupid, stupid business, nothing personal—and so subjecting the Saviour of the Citadel and the Alliance's Greatest Modern Day Hero and on and on to all that just…well he was still technically a doctor, right? Quick and painless would be preferable.
Wilson sighed. Quick and painless…yeah, two words that didn't describe how the Broker dealt with people. And there he was, wondering if the Broker got a sick kick out of watching their agents fail because they got to have some fun afterwards. That wasn't any way to run an intelligence network, sure, but you if it was a collective then maybe they left the punishing to some sadist with too much time on their hands and not enough puppies to torture. And he'd heard stories, that was the thing—it wasn't like Wilson was being paranoid. He'd heard stories from people and so yeah, not wanting the Commander to suffer was all fun and games but…
…fuck it. Dog eat dog world. Besides, maybe the Commander wouldn't wake up fully and it'd just be unpleasant for a bit before the end. Maybe, possibly…
Sure, why not?
It was pretty simple to pump stimulants into the Commander's body; even easier to adjust the dosage so that the life-support couldn't keep up with the adrenaline flowing through Shepard's endocrine system. And as Wilson looked over his shoulder at the big orange monitor that showed Shepard's heart rate and brainwave activity, he could see tell-tale signs that Shepard was on the path to waking up. Pretty soon alarms would start blaring and—
Crap he'd have to warn Miranda. Otherwise it'd be pretty obvious (to her, at least) that he'd done this on purpose.
"Okay, five…four…three…two…one…go." Wilson thought about how close he was to either getting out of the Broker's shadow or getting shot by Cerberus for mutiny in order to psyche himself up and then furiously swiped away at his omni-tool. "Miranda!" he said. "Uh…hey something's…I dunno, I think something's off with Shepard's life-support system. Might be a good idea if you came down here and had a look at it for yourself."
No answer.
"Uh, Miranda? Hello? Am I on the right frequency or…?"
Still no answer.
Okay, knowing where her office was, it'd take her at least five minutes to get to the lab. Send out another panicked message to her a minute after it's already too late and then we should be—
The doors to the lab opened and even though they were automatic doors, it still seemed like Miranda had pushed them open. Wilson almost choked out some obviously suspicious crap like "How'd you get down here so quickly?" and just managed to bite his tongue. Besides, she was glowing purple; he knew how she managed to get to the lab so quickly.
"What the hell are you doing?" Miranda said. She crossed the space between the entrance to the lab and Wilson's workstation like she was ice skating.
"Hey hey, I just called you down here to make sure everything's fine," Wilson said. "I haven't touched anything."
Miranda looked at the monitor behind Wilson and squinted. "None of those numbers should be where they are."
"That's why I called you! Look, I dunno where Cerberus got this stuff from, but half the time I feel like I'm working with geth tech here and—"
Miranda was still looking at the monitor…and she had a deeply worried look on her face. "There—on the monitor," she said, pointing at Shepard's brainwaves. "Something's wrong."
Shit. Shit shit shit shit this was happening too fast. Wilson looked behind him and felt his stomach collapse into a black hole. No use denying it, he'd just have to try and roll with it and hope he didn't get shot.
In as nervous a voice as he could manage (and that wasn't very hard to pull off), Wilson said: "She's reacting to outside stimuli…showing an awareness of her surroundings!"
Something stirred on the table. God, there's no way Shepard should've been moving that fast. She looked way too undercooked to come back into consciousness as quickly as she had…
In a tone that was far more genuine than he anticipated, Wilson said: "Oh my god, Miranda…I think she's waking up."
Miranda was at Shepard's side almost immediately, just as the lab became filled with various beeps and warning lights. "Dammit Wilson," she said, "she's not ready yet—give her the sedative!"
Shepard moved again and Miranda immediately grabbed her arm. "Shepard—don't try to move. Just lie still—try to stay calm."
Miranda was putting on her calmest authority voice, but Wilson could see the cybernetics. They were starting to heat up and the look on Shepard's face…if he wasn't so worried about his own skin he'd have thanked his medical training for giving him a strong stomach.
"Heart rate's still climbing," Wilson said, "Brain activity's off the charts…" He punched a few commands into the nearest control panel and prayed that Shepard was past the point of help. "Stats're pushing into the red zone—Christ it's not working Miranda!"
The resurrection…sorry Shepard, I really don't think this is the way you should've gone out but—
Wilson's thoughts fled the scene the moment Miranda grabbed onto his shoulder, but instead of hurling him into a wall or planting a gun at his temple, she just pushed him away and started punching commands into the holographic keyboard. The beeping and flashing lights were getting more frantic—time was very much running out.
"Another dose—now," Miranda said.
"Goddammit I don't—"
"We lose her and our entire species is—"
"I'm going I'm going just—there! Two doses! If that doesn't work..."
A pneumatic whooshing noise signaled that a small pond's worth of sedatives were being pumped into Shepard. It took only a second for the beeping to subside and the warning's that dotted every monitor in the lab to disappear, but it was the longest second of Wilson's life. Drawing on whatever aptitude he had for acting, Wilson said: "Heart rate dropping, stat's falling back into normal range…goddammit Miranda, that was too close. We almost lost her."
Yeah, goddammit all right.
Miranda was, again, right next to Wilson in less than a blink of the eye. "I told you your numbers were off," she said, that icy exterior breaking down ever-so-slightly. Wilson braced for an extended chewing out, maybe even some threats, but Miranda's attention immediately turned to Shepard. The Commander was still twitching slightly but was otherwise beginning to settle. It was…weird, seeing Miranda show concern. Though the longer Wilson looked, the less it looked like Miranda was concerned for Shepard. It looked more like Miranda's shuttle had broken down in the middle of interstellar space or something, and if Wilson wasn't so frazzled he might give that lingering feeling of being way over his head (the entire species? Shadow Broker's involved? What the hell's going on here?) a bit more of his attention.
But personal survival came first.
"Is there any damage?" Miranda said, turning away from Shepard. Wilson stole a peak and, yeah, on the outside there was definitely damage. But that wasn't what Miranda was asking, obviously.
"I'll need to poke around a bit," he said. "I think we caught it in time, but…"
And now Miranda had closed the distance between them.
"If we were as close to a disaster as I suspect, understand that there will be personnel changes on this project." She leaned in closer. "Wilson—am I clear on that?"
"Y-yes ma'am," Wilson said.
Miranda spun on her heel and started towards the lab's exit. Halfway between Shepard's resting body and the doors, Miranda turned around and pointed back at Wilson. "Do not take your eyes off her, understand? When Jacob arrives, you'll debrief him on everything you've learned and then, we'll decide what your future with this project is."
"I-I…Miranda c'mon I—"
Miranda was already through to the hallway, though, and once those doors closed, Wilson nearly collapsed where he stood. Nothing—literally nothing—could have been worse than what just happened. Shepard might or might not be dead but at this point, it didn't matter in the slightest: Wilson sure as hell was.
He took a look at Shepard and where her skin and the red-hot cybernetics had met and…oh god something was probably fried up there. That's what he'd wanted but goddammit with Miranda around, with Miranda on his ass, with Jacob coming any second…
Wilson tried to get a grip. Miranda had no proof that he'd done anything questionable, and while he'd heard things about other Cerberus cells, the one that Miranda ran didn't seem to execute people for incompetence. So if he just played that angle…he could sell out the Shadow Broker. That'd be how he'd get back in Cerberus's good books. Say that he'd gone off and tried to redeem himself 'cuz he heard of this guy that liaisoned with the Broker, and so he'd pretended to join up to pass on what (little so goddamn little) he knew since, obviously, the Illusive Man wouldn't want a competitor like the Broker around or anything. That'd be the plan…
Oh god what if Miranda had cameras installed?
Wilson sprinted away from Shepard and started combing through the corners of the room. He pulled apart boxes and tables and crates and ran every program he could think of on his omni-tool to pinpoint any cameras or bugs or what-have-you. He wasn't finding anything—maybe it was a security risk to bug the lab, maybe, who knew—but he needed to make sure. He worked his way back towards his work-station and hell no room for pride, he got on his knees and started feeling at the floor, looking for anything that might say "hidden panel" or "inconspicuous bump" or what, just something. God he knew there was something there had to be something this was Miranda we were talking about it was that goddamn ice-cold bitch of a—
Something clicked near the back of the room—a metallic click, like things being slotted into place. And now that Wilson was done scratching at the floor he could hear the rustling of fabric and something else a lot more solid in that same direction too. He stood up. Shepard's table was empty, there wasn't anyone laying there…
The noise was coming from Shepard. She was standing next to the equipment locker, fully decked-out in her scarred N7 armour. A blue aura signaled that the kinetic shields were up. She was sliding her helmet over her face, that horrible horrible face…
Shepard turned around and stared at Wilson through a visor that was as soulless and empty as space itself.
"S-Shepard," Wilson said. "H-how…how the hell…?"
Shepard brought her pistol up and pointed it at Wilson's head. He had just enough time to wonder if there were any thermal clips in it before a sizable chunk of his skull splattered against the lab's bright orange monitors.
2.
Word spread fast that Wilson had fucked up. A few Cerberus personnel—research scientists, mostly, who were happy to rub it in a colleague's face—were starting to make their way to Wilson's lab. Three of them turned the nearest corner to the lab just as Shepard walked through the doors. Two of them had pistol rounds pass through their heads before they could even register what they were seeing; the third tried to scream only to have his lungs and throat ripped apart by incoming fire.
Slowly, Shepard continued to walk.
The first group had been far enough away that nobody heard the shots. The second group of scientists that encountered Shepard were only a stone's throw from another lab, and so when their bodies dropped to the floor, more people came running to see what was happening. A biotic shockwave pulverized them and the door and a good chunk of the lab they were working in; all of a sudden there was fire and alarms and the first member of Security that went to investigate was welcomed with three rounds to her chest before she could finish her call for back-up.
Shepard kept walking.
There was a stash of weaponry near an atrium—some simple M-8 Avengers and an M-23 Katana shotgun—that was kept in an easy to access panel, in case there was a security threat. A contingent of Security personnel managed to track down Shepard just as she was tearing the panel away from the wall and slotting the Katana into the magnetic holster on her lower back. The Security contingent managed to drop Shepard's shields but she didn't seem to notice. She didn't seem to notice as rounds bounced off her armour either, until she turned around and overloaded everyone's shields and fried the skin of the one poor sap who hadn't got his kinetic barrier working in time. One hand on her assault rifle, Shepard filled the hallway with meat and blood, leaving her other hand free for her to snap-freeze a fleeing scientist that had taken the wrong turn down a corridor. Shepard walked forward, over at least seven bodies, and brushed the frozen scientists with her shoulder. The scientist shattered on the floor into gory chunks of ice; Shepard continued on as if she hadn't noticed.
And all throughout, Shepard didn't so much as increase her pace from a walk to a jog.
A message to Miranda—that Shepard was up and killing everyone and was probably heading towards the shuttle-bay—was finally sent. It took ten Cerberus soldiers with M-96 Mattock's to stall Shepard long enough for the eleventh to get the message off, which she did just as Shepard cracked her head open on a pane of reinforced glass.
Through the fog of her failing consciousness, that last Cerberus soldier saw two red dots burn through the emptiness of Shepard's visor.
Those red dots followed her until her brain finally died.
3.
"How's this even possible, Miranda?" Jacob Taylor said. He'd pulled together a squad of competent commandoes and some mechs and was waiting in the shuttle bay with Miranda. She'd told him to leave the heavy mechs in lockdown and while Jacob could understand wanting to protect your investment (some disgusting fucking language right there, let alone if you were slinging it against Commander Shepard, but Miranda seemed like she used shit like that all the time), this was as big a crisis as you were gonna get on a Cerberus station. In fact, if the reports were right then this was exactly like what happened on most Cerberus stations, except instead of rachni or those plant zombie things or, Jesus, a husk, it was Commander Shepard. You paid any attention to the news the last two years and you'd rather take your chances with the rachni.
"Miranda?" he said again. "You hearing me all right?"
"Quiet," she said. She was a few feet to his right, scanning the shuttle bay. "No distractions. When Shepard walks through those doors, we stun her and get her back to the lab."
Jacob turned to the nearest Cerberus commando who looked like he wanted to register strong objections to this plan. "Doesn't sound like the Commander's gonna give us that chance."
"This is non-negotiable, Jacob."
"Yeah? Well so's making sure we've still got people standing once this is over."
"They're not the priority."
"They and I have a different opinion on that."
"Irrelevant—they know what they signed up for."
"Fuck me…" a commando whispered from somewhere. Jacob tried to give them a sympathetic look; Miranda stayed staring ahead at the entrance to the shuttle-bay.
Automatic rifles could be heard on the other side of the bay's main doors. A few stragglers were trying to regroup by the shuttles, apparently, but they'd run into Shepard before they could get to safety. The commandoes next to Jacob tensed and one near the rear switched out her Mattock for an M-92 Mantis. Jacob shook his head at her, pointed at his shotgun, mouthed the words "close combat" so that Miranda couldn't hear.
"Get everyone into position," Miranda said, startling Jacob for just a second into thinking she'd somehow read his lips.
"Got it," he said. "Take positions people—half on the stairs, half up here." Jacob went to follow the group heading for the stairs, but Miranda beat him to it. She stood halfway down, surrounded by Cerberus commandoes. Jacob took up position on the balcony instead and flared purple with biotic energy, feeling a bit stupid after having made a big show about close-quarter combat.
The doors opened, and in came Commander Jane Shepard.
"Commander Shepard," Miranda said. "Holster your weapons and we'll do the same. We're here to help you—we're not your enemy."
Jacob watched everyone except Miranda and Shepard tense up. Miranda had her arms crossed and was giving off as many command vibes as she possibly could, but Shepard was…Jacob wasn't sure what was going on with Shepard. She was looking upwards at Miranda—he could tell that much just from the angle of her helmet—but she was holding her Avenger with just one hand despite looking rigid in every other aspect of her body posture. She wasn't moving, wasn't bobbing back and forth like most people did when they stood in one spot. She never had that look about her before…and as Jacob glanced at a LOKI mech just next to him, he started to understand just how unnatural she'd been moving. Something was definitely wrong here—something had absolutely happened to the Commander.
Shepard's head slowly moved away from Miranda—towards one of the shuttles—and then drifted back to Miranda. Wordlessly, Shepard started walking forward.
"Commander, wait," Miranda said. Everyone tightened their grip on their weapons.
"Keep steady everyone," Jacob said.
"Commander, I insist—please lay down your weapons—"
This wasn't working; Shepard was still walking forward. "She's not listening, Miranda."
"Jane Shepard," Miranda said. "Please—we mean you no harm and—"
"Goddammit!" One of the commandoes rocketed upwards and shoved his Mattock forward. Before he could pull the trigger—before Miranda could grab him or Jacob could tell him to stand down and, above all, before he could pull the trigger—Shepard's body turned purple and, a split second later, she was standing where that Cerberus solider once stood. There was a sickening crunch somewhere else in the bay as the commando's body connected with something solid, but even that sound was drowned out as Shepard grabbed another commando by the throat and slammed her head-first into the stairs.
Then Shepard had a shotgun in her left hand and an assault rifle in her right, two more commandos were down before the rest could scatter and retreat back up the steps to Jacob and the LOKI mechs.
Shepard aimed her shotgun at Miranda; Jacob readied a biotic blast but was beaten to the punch by Miranda herself, who managed to knock Shepard down the stairs but not much else. "Dammit," she said, retreating back towards Jacob. "Send the mechs down so we can flank her and disarm her."
"Long past that Miranda!" Jacob said as he pulled her down behind a crate. Two LOKI mechs exploded as assault rifle fire destroyed their heads. The remain mechs slowly advanced downwards, covered by fire from the Cerberus troops, but soon the sound of scrap metal tumbling down the steps was all anyone could hear from the LOKI mechs. A Cerberus commando caught a round in the shoulder and, before Jacob could pull him back, he was lifted into the air by Shepard's biotics and detonated by another of her biotic blasts.
"Orders sir!" one of the commandoes screamed.
"Retreat to the shuttles!" Jacob answered.
"We're not leaving!" Miranda readied a biotic blast of her own, only to duck when a shotgun round trimmed the top of her cover off right in front of her face. Unfazed, she said, "Preserving Shepard is our only priority!"
"The project's fucked! We're already in the middle of a goddamn bloodbath!"
"If everyone keeps their nerve we can—"
Shepard appeared on the other side of Miranda's cover, shotgun pointed directly at her forehead. Miranda kicked out and knocked Shepard's arm away as Jacob and the remaining commandoes scattered. Miranda was able to dodge a backhand swipe from Shepard but couldn't block the shotgun as the barrel collided with her jaw. This time Jacob was able to hit Shepard with a biotic blast, but not before Shepard managed to warp the armour of another solider and turn his head into red mist with a burst of Avenger fire.
Miranda was back on her feet and, stubbornly, trying to stand in between Shepard and the remaining commandoes. Jacob fired off another biotic blast but Shepard rolled out of the way and destroyed the knee-caps of a Cerberus mook that couldn't slide into cover in time. Jacob was pretty sure there were only five people still alive on this station—him and Miranda included—so if she wasn't going to see the writing on the wall then he'd—"
"Trooper stand down!" Miranda said as the commando that had originally switched to her Mantis pulled out the sniper yet again. Jacob fired off another biotic blast which Shepard dodged yet again, but as the Commander came out of her roll she ended up perfectly cited by the Mantis's scope. Shepard caught the round directly in her chest and, for the first time in the entire firefight, the Commander was knocked off her feet.
Miranda snatched the sniper out of the commando's hands. "Idiot!"
"This is completely FUBAR," Jacob said. "If we don't either get off this station or put the Commander down—"
"You have no idea what's at stake."
"A whole lot of good fucking luck this plan's had so far," Jacob said. "We're not gonna be any help to the universe if we're all fucking de—"
"Look out!"
The now sniperless commando got out her warning just as Shepard's fist smashed into her nose and a kick to her legs broke her knee. A vicious elbow nearly knocked Jacob over the railing and the two remaining Cerberus commandoes received a kick and a punch each that sent them onto the ground in a heap. That left Shepard and Miranda, and while Miranda was able to dodge a few attacks, Shepard clipped the side of her head with a precision strike, drove her fist into Miranda's face, grabbed Miranda by her arm, and flipped her head-over-heels onto Jacob. A pistol materialized in Shepard's hand and sent two rounds through the heads of Commando Two and Commando Three as they tried to untangle themselves from each other.
Jacob saw the pistol shift to his own head, and all he could do was...hell...
He grabbed Miranda's arm and activated her omni-tool and out arced a blast of electricity, but that wouldn't be enough. Shepard would just shrug that off and Jacob didn't even have a weapon to take her down anyways so he just closed his eyes and...
...nothing was happening.
He opened his eyes, quickly, and saw Shepard staring at her omni-tool. It was like they were in separate universes all of a sudden.
Something had popped up on there after Jacob fried Shepard's shields, and she was staring at it, now scrolling through it, red light leaking out of her visor (oh god what was going on under that helmet?). He couldn't tell exactly what she was seeing but...no, there it was, he recognized the planet. It was Freedom's Progress. That was one of the candidate colonies, one of the places Cerberus figured would get attacked. And...what the hell, did she just pull up a picture of a quarian? What the hell was a quarian doing on a human colony?
Then the image closed, and Shepard turned, and Jacob flinched because this was it, wasn't it? This was the end, so long Jacob. But no, no Shepard didn't even see him anymore. She climbed into a shuttle and...and now what? What the hell was Jacob supposed to do now?
The shuttle took off and that was it, Jacob was still alive…and almost nobody else on Lazarus Station was.
Miranda was bleeding from a nasty gouge on her face, and it looked like the cartilage around her right eye was starting to swell. Her eyes were flickering too.
"Miranda? Hey hey, stay with me, all right?"
"S-Shepard…"
Miranda reached out towards the now empty space where Shepard's shuttle had once been parked and then fell into unconsciousness. Jacob checked for a pulse and it was still steady, but…goddammit, he was the only conscious person left on the station. Out of all the people there…Shepard just…it was hard to even find the words.
He radioed in for assistance and then let exhaustion take him.
4.
Shepard was a hero. Shepard was more than a hero—she was a symbol of the fundamental potential of humanity and of goodness in an otherwise shadowy galaxy. She'd survived a batarian slavery raid as a child while the rest of her family was tortured and burned, and she used that to swear that no other person would ever suffer the same fate. She held off wave after wave of pirates and mercs on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz and spent more time helping reconstruct the colony than worrying about what medal's she was supposed to receive. She'd broken up a major crime ring in the Verge and repelled a geth incursion into Council space and saved Terra Nova and pulled off the impossible feat of rescuing Kirrahe's STG taskforce, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, and Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko on Virmire. And she'd managed to stop Saren Arterius and his armada from taking over the Citadel, to the gratitude of a very-much alive Council that, for a brief amount of time, fully believed what she said about a much larger threat lurking behind the rogue Spectre.
Then she'd died over Alchera. Naturally, she had a state funeral that rivaled even the most powerful politicians on the Galactic stage—and that meant just about everybody knew she was dead.
So when a report crossed Admiral Steven Hackett's desk that Fifth Fleet scouts had seen someone in a set of heavily damaged N7 armour that hadn't been issued since the year Shepard died, and that this person matched all the biometrics that the Alliance had on Shepard, and that this person seemed to have no issue massacring a settlement on Freedom's Progress after kidnapping a quarian, there were a lot of things going through Hackett's mind.
How the hell could Shepard be alive?
What the hell did she want with a random quarian?
Why the hell had she killed everyone in the settlement where the quarian was staying?
And how the hell could he keep this under wraps until Anderson was informed?
Anderson might not be in any better position to answer these questions, but at least Hackett wouldn't feel fucking insane if someone he trusted, someone like David Anderson, got his eyes on these nightmare reports too.
5.
And elsewhere in the galaxy, near the supermassive black hole at its core, a multi-eyed abomination was being informed by its drones of nearly the same thing: they'd managed to capture most of the million or so people living on Freedom's Progress, but one settlement was filled only with corpses when they got there…
Hey folks, thanks for reading the first real chapter!.
I can't promise I'll update this story all that reliably (sort of depends on how interested people are in the idea), but we shall see. I don't plan anything in advance (it's more fun to have no idea what's gonna happen next), so there isn't some master plan-just about anything can change. But I got this idea when I was thinking about what could've happened if Miranda hadn't been around Wilson when he was trying to sabotage Shepard's miraculous recovery, and thus the prologue was born (I was originally gonna call it "Lazarus Shrugged" but that sounded way to close to, y'know, Rand).
Anyways, feel free to let me know what your thoughts are and how I'm doing so far.
EDIT (1/11/22) A review by Urthforce1 over at made me realize that - not to put too fine a point on it - there's literally no reason for Shepard to go to Freedom's Progress. Or, at least, there wasn't any reason for this Shepard to go there, since, in the canon game, Shepard only finds out about the funny stuff going on there after meeting with The Illusive Man. Which, y'know, doesn't happen in this universe.
So what I added to this chapter was a small scene, right before Shepard takes off. That uh...will hopefully at least give the story some internal logic that I overlooked, so thank you Urthforce1 for pointing that out!
(some stuff will be added to the next chapter as well to address some of their other criticisms - again, that damn vagueness reared it's ugly head - so feel free to check that stuff out too if you want to re-read it.)