Chapter Text
Audio recording retrieved from the human colony of Elysium, Skyllian Verge; date stamped 2176.
“We’ve got reports coming in from the forward base, sir. There’s another group of batarians coming down the flank. We’ll try to draw their fire while you finish the civilian evac.”
“Negative, Shepard! Get your team back to base, now. That’s an order, Lieutenant.”
“Sorry, Sir. Can’t do that while I can save people here. We leave this position there’s fifty odd civillians that won’t make it past the blast doors.”
“If you don’t leave your position now, Shepard, there’s no guarantee you’ll make it back in time.”
“Guess that makes me a hero, then, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t need a hero, Kid, I need you and your men to come back alive.”
“Can’t come back, Sir. There’s kids in the group coming through. We’re going to draw the flank’s fire, see if we can’t get ‘em away from the big group, buy you some time to get those defence turrets working again. There’s only the five of us left anyway now, not that much of a big deal.”
“Shepard.”
“Sorry Sir, but we have to do this. All of us here, we don’t have families to come back to. Better us than the civvies.”
“…We’ll keep the blast doors open as long as possible.”
“Appreciate that, Sir, but we’re too far away from base to get back in time. Make sure they all get through, okay?”
“God speed, Soldier.”
“Yeah, Sir. Thanks. We’ll take as many of the bastards with us as we can.”
---
Apartment of Captain Anderson, Human System’s Alliance Navy – Zakera ward, Citadel. Date Stamp, 2176.
David Anderson stood at his apartment’s small window, looking out at the sky cars that went zipping past, taking strangers to places unknown. On the coffee table, his half-eaten dinner cooled and congealed in its small, white container, an asari eating utensil stuck out of it at an odd angle, greasy napkin crumpled into a ball resting gently against its side. The television chattered noisily to no-one, the feminine reporter’s fake smile and high-pitched voice somehow not quite enough to dispel the feeling of gloom in the darkened room.
On the window sill, and shining glaring neon reflections from Zakera, sat a tumbler of pale amber liquid. It sat ignored or forgotten by the naval captain as he found himself caught up in the sort of introspection to which he was rarely prone.
The root cause of Anderson’s morose thoughts was surprising, though not entirely unexpected, and one which Anderson had brought about onto himself some years earlier, when he had insisted upon the help of the gangly, black haired street urchin who had come to be one of the Alliance’s fastest rising stars. Lieutennant Shepard, who was these days of the Alliance Navy rather than the feral band of children that called themselves ‘the Reds’. Shepard, the girl who had been training and working her way quickly through the eschelons of the military. Who had, within a couple of years (and with barely any decent literacy skills to speak of – second grade reading average; brilliant numeracy but only when money was involved; shockingly high but unorthodox intelligence; spoke fluent, somewhat… crude… asari common) shot her way up the ranks, and had now been recommended for and accepted into the N7 program.
To say that Anderson wasn’t proud of the girl’s achievements would be a lie, but he also approached them with hesitancy. He knew Shepard a lot better than his supervisors – he knew what drove her, what made her tick. He knew the desperate lengths the girl had gone to during her time on the street, to protect both herself and that feral band of children that did her bidding. He knew that while the military training had mellowed her somewhat, Shepard was still Shepard underneath it all – prone to rash actions and overt (often violent) expressions of emotion. And while he couldn’t blame her for it, she had an instinctual mistrust of authority that even the Alliance couldn’t fully temper. Add to that her nature – a good leader, highly charismatic, but at the same time sneaky, rude and cynical, and one had a combination that would more likely than not lead to disaster.
And they wanted to make his own personal time bomb a member of the most highly skilled, elite task force that the Alliance had to offer.
Hell, he thought, tossing the data pad down on the table next to the abandoned take-away, Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe the N7 is just what the girl needs to get her head in the game for once.
Maybe if I look out my window, I’ll see a volus fly past.
He let out a derisive snort at his own cynicism, remembered his drink and took a sip of it, the burn of the liquor down his throat a reassurance that he didn’t really feel. There wasn’t much he could do about the situation as it was, anyway. Shepard would need his support and guidance, if she was ever to become the hero that he knew was in there somewhere.
Very deep down.
The sudden loud knock at his door snapped him out of his reverie, at the same time his personal terminal alerted him to an incoming message. He frowned and turned towards the machine, placing his drink back down on the window ledge. The light in the corner of the monitor was flashing green – not a high priority then, as they were always red. The knock at his door sounded again, this time with a little more urgency than before.
“Captain Anderson?” Squeaked a slightly high pitched, but still definitely human voice, “Captain? Please, it’s urgent and I don’t know who else to talk to.”
He sighed and moved towards the door, keying in the combination to open it.
Whoever was on the other side, they weren’t Shepard, even though the girl had promised to visit him as soon as her vessel had docked and the troops had been cleared through customs. If the voice and the urgency it contained hadn’t been a giveaway, the fact that the knocker hadn’t simply hacked her way into his apartment was. (Shepard strongly believed that locks were something invented to keep people other than Shepard out, and knocking was apparently beneath her.)
The door slid open.
On the other side of the door stood a girl that Anderson was sure he knew, though it took him a moment to place her. She was depressingly nondescript – average height and build, muddy brown eyes, plain features and skin caught somewhere between dark and light – and was dressed in an ill-fitting alliance uniform that did nothing to make her even close to memorable. After a moment of desperately racking his brain, Anderson remembered the girl’s name.
“Jade?”
One of Shepard’s kids, His brain filled in, now that it had made the connection to who she was, Ensign Jade Trader, the sort of girl who would go through life always being overlooked for merely being who she was. Average, plain, utterly brilliant at being those things due to a life where she had trained herself to be overlooked. She had none of the draw of Shepard, eyes didn’t instantly dart in her direction because she walked in the room, and she’d never make herself the centre of attention easily, or for very long. Anderson also knew that all of these things were why Shepard also held the girl in the highest respect – Jade was the sort of person people were likely to overlook, and therefore was a very useful information gatherer in ways that Shepard (even with her natural talent and affinity for the details of espionage) could never hope to match. It was the one field in which Shepard’s charisma worked against her, and Anderson knew that to someone like Shepard, whose very existence had relied on not being seen, it was her greatest failing. Shepard stood out – it was how Anderson had found her in the first place.
“I’m sorry sir.” The girl now said to Anderson, her voice little more than a frightened squeak, “Only I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Calm down.” Anderson said softly, and held out his hands in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. “Speak slowly, and start from the beginning.”
He didn’t bother to ask why she was here, or how she had known his address – those details were as likely to come out in the tale as not, and asking her about them would put her at unease.
“It’s just sir, I… Well, Oh but you must have… “ She swallowed thickly and blinked a few times in rapid succession.
Anderson placed a hand on the small of her back and led her trembling form to his wingchair, gingerly sitting her down. She slumped as soon as she hit the cushioning, grateful despite herself.
“Wait here.” He ordered softly, and moved to the small kitchenette. Once there, he took a glass off the drying rack and filled it with water. Carrying this back to her, he noticed that she now had her arms wrapped around herself and was staring dully at the tabletop in front of her. He stepped across the room to her and placed his hand upon her shoulder, inwardly cursing when she jumped and shot him a look of wide-eyed panic.
Instantly, he stepped away, placing the glass down on the table and holding his hands up in yet another gesture of submission. The last thing he needed was for the near-hysterical girl to actually become hysterical.
“It’s just some water.” He said, gesturing to the glass on the table. She shot him a wary look and wrapped her hands around the glass, sipping at it’s contents with only one more slightly unnerved look in his direction. She didn’t thank him, he didn’t take it personally.
He took the seat on the far side of the room and placed his elbows on his knees, looking at the girl over the tops of his folded hands. “Now.” He said, “Tell me why you’re here.”
The girl blinked in surprised incomprehension, before something dawned across her features and she looked at him incredulously. “You mean you don’t know?” She demanded.
Anderson stared straight back at her over his hands. “What is it that I am supposed to be aware of, Ensign?”
The use of her title was a reprimand, but she ignored it, her expression still one of unguarded shock and raw emotion.
Jade met his eyes.
Anderson suddenly felt a vice grip around his heart and squeeze, and some instinct told him what the girl was going to say before she said it.
“Shepard’s dead.”
---
A Letter From the Desk of Rear Admiral Steven Hackett to Captain David Anderson, dated July 27th, 2176.
Captain,
We regret to inform you that one Lieutenant Shepard, Sophie (Enlistment number 2453GL81) has been listed as Missing in Action (M.I.A) following a skirmish with batarian raiders on the contested borders of the planet Elysium, located within the Skyllian Verge.
It is with great sympathy that we inform you of Shepard’s status and we wish to reassure you that every effort will be made to recover her person or body, wherever they may be. Her disappearance is believed to be a direct result of engaging enemy forces and we regret to inform you that the chances of recovering her alive are slim.
Due to outstanding displays of heroism and bravery in the face of fire, the United Systems Alliance has awarded Shepard with the Star of Terra Medallion, which (as you know) is an award only given to those who have proven themselves to be wholly dedicated to the lives of those they serve. Also in recognition of her commitment to duty in the face of fire, she is to be awarded with the rank of Staff Commander, a rank that will be issued to her on her confirmed return to duty, or upon confirmation of her death.
We hope that this will be of some comfort to you in this difficult time.
(Post script annendum;
Anderson,
I know you cared for the girl like a daughter. She went out a hero, you can be proud.
Hackett out.)
---
On the Edge of Batarian Space, in the Terminus Systems; Date Stamped 2182.
In a darkened room in the basement of an abandoned mining outpost sits a woman in chains.
She was lost to time an unknowable amount of years ago, when a human colony she can’t remember the name of was hit and pillaged and destroyed. She knew that the colony was important to her once, but can no longer remember why that would be the case, or why she should try to recall the reason. In the same vein as the knowledge that once she cared about the Outside, she knows that there were things in the Outside that mattered to her, things that have long since lost any semblance of meaning – nonsense names, phantom items. Even the people (she knows there were some, she knows she wasn’t as hopeless a creature as to have no-one); people that have no faces or names, only a sense that they were, and that who they were had mattered once to her.
Back when she fancied herself important, she had wondered if she still mattered to people somewhere Outside the room, in that mythical place that she knew existed but was as far away to her as their distant memories. If someone had, once upon a time, looked for her, cried for her, committed her face to a fading memory. Dust, she thinks, floating on a solar wind – if such a thing wasn’t merely one of her own made-up memories.
There were getting to be a disturbing number of those.
She used to keep track of what was real and what wasn’t. Of which things were possible and which weren’t. But the dark is a funny place, and the memory even stranger, and though she can’t remember the exact point she realised her mind was gone, she still knew with very much certainty that it was. Everything she knows is as blurred as she is, smudged and hidden under dirt and grime, colours all muted to a brownish grey she can’t see in the lightless room. Her eyes don’t bother to open, anymore, lashes sealed shut together with grease, her mind holds the unreal and fantastical in as high an esteem as the boundaries of her cell (seven feet by seven feet. Two and a half paces in either direction, walls made of brick and mortar, twelvehundredandsixtytwo bricks, one concrete slab, one broken light bulb, one cold steel door). Her clothes are torn to rags, held on only because she can’t bother to find the energy to strip them from herself, in the places where they’ve fused to her skin with dried blood. Her hands and feet are bare and gritty with dirt, scabs on her knuckles cracked and puffy and sticky to touch.
She hears a series of noises Outside. It breaks the monotony and makes her smile, wincing when her chafed lips crack, the taste of metal slipping into her gluey mouth. She doesn’t know what the noises mean, but she can half-identify what they are, screams and shouts and the occasional loud staccato of something.
(A word floats out of her memory, gunfire. She has no idea what the significance of that word is, or what it means for her, or if it’s even a real word. She dismisses it with a small frown.)
The noise dies out some moments or years later (time does funny things in the dark, she’s long stopped keeping track, but the bloodied grooves made with her nails are still there in the wall from when she wasn’t mad and when she hoped for rescue – maybe she was always mad, then?) and the sudden silence that descends seems somehow absolute. There’s a breath of a whisper at the back of her neck, some forgotten sense tells her something has changed, that this situation is different than any that sounds have heralded before.
Her door cracks open.
The sudden light is harsh even against her eyelids and she flinches back from it, chains clinking obnoxiously loud in her ears. The air smells wrong – sweet, somehow, like it hasn’t sat in the dark around her for years. She doesn’t like it, shifts her shoulders and backs herself subtly away from the invading light and noise and scents. This is wrong, this isn’t her world. This is Outside.
“Spirits.” Breathes a voice she doesn’t know. It’s low-pitched and thrums in the dark, making her wince away from its strangeness. The voice gets louder. “Someone’s still alive down here!”