Disclaimer: Anything that looks like it belongs to Bioware, belongs to Bioware. Otherwise, it's mine.
When there was life
In a time before war, there was life, and white sand
The Perth coast, Western Australia, Earth.
The year was 2157, the sky was a rich early morning blue, and the wind blowing in from the ocean was cool, but loud in the ears of the youngest of the three Shepards walking the beach. She, the little one, was barely three. White sand, fine as sugar, clung to her toes as she grasped her father's fingers. Two of them filled her entire hand.
"Look at me Ami!" her mother coaxed from a few feet ahead, smiling at her from behind a small camera. It was so rare that the family Shepard were all in one place at one time these days that the moment begged to be captured. To be remembered.
"Look at me love.." Hannah coaxed again, smiling into her husband's eyes and playfully rolling her own when their little girl edged behind his legs and made a show of hiding.
"I think she's trying to tell me something Abe" she said, watching as her tall and burly soldier scooped their soon happily giggling child into his arms.
"Since when was my girl shy of attention?" he asked as he was gleefully clutched at the ribs by little knees. He shared a loving glance with Hannah before slowly turning in place, careful to give her their best side for the photo.
"Since when, huh?" he asked again, turning his full attention to his daughter and lowering his voice as though he was asking to be told a great secret. Instead of speaking back to him like he knew she could, she giggled sweetly and smiled at him from not three inches away, looking right at him through the eyes he gave her. Every time she did that, held his gaze and really studied him, it made his heart clench because he didn't know what she was seeing. For the first year and a half of her life his postings had left him half way across the galaxy from her, and the effect the distance had had on their relationship was heartbreaking to him. Over time though, with persistence and a lot of Hannah-mediated-father-daughter-time, she'd learnt him, and he'd learnt her. Now, when she looked at him like this, he could see that she recognised him. That she knew who he was, and that he loved her.
Slowly then, as if to prove it to him, she tipped towards him, her eyes blinking closed as her brow found his. One of her hands clutched his collar while the other, a tiny fist, bumped gently under his jaw. And as the wind came in off the ocean again, clattering against the coast, there they stayed, unmoving but for father Shepard's gentle sway. The daughter, thoroughly in love with her hero. The father, entranced in an unpracticable way by his girl. And the mother looking on, her heart aching with empathy; a beatific smile, just like her daughter's, on her lips.
After edging a couple of steps to the right so that her family was back-dropped by the ocean, she took the holo, the last of just over a hundred she had taken during their two week stay. Though none of them knew it then, this trip would be the last they would get to make back home together. Conflicting postings and painfully limited shore leave meant that the family Shepard was again forced apart for extended periods. Two or three week-long reprieves were the limit of their time together through 2158.
In early 2159 Hannah was promoted into the officers' ranks, and they managed to scrounge a few lucky days to spend as a family over their daughter's 5th birthday. Sequestered away safe and secure within the garrison watching over the completion of Arcturus Station, the fact that they couldn't make it back to Earth like they'd promised paled into insignificance. There was music and laughter and gifts and holos and stories and a rousing chorus of 'Happy Birthday to you' that thoroughly embarrassed the birthday girl.
By the time evening came on the fourth day, fifty more holos were ready to be added to those in the box Hannah kept in the back of her wardrobe, all of them reflections of the enjoyment the celebrations had brought. As she and her husband lay in bed that night, their snoozing daughter cuddled between them, it felt as if things were once again turning right.
In the coming months though their luck, and their time, well and truly ran out. Trouble in the Attican Traverse pulled the Shepards apart again. Hannah remained in the Local Cluster with their little one while her husband, Lieutenant Able Shepard, was deployed along with his unit to do what all marines swear to when they take up arms in the Alliance.
It was to be a routine arrive, assess and protect mission. Get there, establish an Alliance presence, protect the good guys, pack up and go on home. Just like they'd done so many times before. Despite the proximity to the Terminus Systems, no greater threat than that usually anticipated for groundside naval operations was projected. No additional men or gear was assigned or thought necessary.
The mission began on May 1st 2159.
By June the brass was hearing whispers of an increased Batarian presence in the Balor System of the Caleston Rift. Seeing them pass through was nothing new, but these ones were lingering. They seemed to be sweet on the moon Caleston, their ships hanging in orbit and scanning for who knows what on the little red bauble's surface.
A medium-sized force - Lieutenant Shepard and his team - was assigned ensure that whatever it was that was going on went on peaceably. The brass was wary of inciting reactionary violence from the territorial Batarians, and made it clear that they were only to be engaged if they posed an imminent threat to either the system or the marines themselves. For a week there was nigh on no change. The Batarians scanned and floated in the shadow cast by Cernunnos, the blueish-purple gas giant that Caleston orbits. The marines watched the Batarians. The brass watched the marines.
Another week passed with little change, and then...a distress call. A garbled message about failing life-support and the need for urgent help. The marines watched from the bridge as the once steadily floating Batarian ship lurched towards the moon it had been orbiting, as escape pods were jettisoned and its engines sputtered into nothingness. They were silent for a long moment before one Private Combs spoke up.
"It's a trap."
"I call bullshit on that. What kind of nut would down their own ship to lure us in?"
"I'm with Ricker. Our vessel's Alliance. They'll know we're f$%king soldiers and no pirate wants to bring that down on 'em."
"Thank you."
"Didn't ask for your opinion Norris."
"Well you're getting it anyway. I'm not just gonna sit here while there're people over there that need help."
"People?"
"Jesus f%king CHRIST Biggs, will you stop with the xenophobe crap"
"Beg pardon Preach, but I can never tell what're people and what're not out here. Listen, even if they ARE f$%kin' with us, how many squints-"
"Batarians"
"F$%k off Shepard. How many can a ship that size hold? Ten? There're nineteen of us here. Armed to the back teeth..."
A pervasive silence fell before Corporal Biggs spoke again, "M'just sayin' that it's probably best that we deal with the problem now, instead of letting it fester. Besides..." he chose his words carefully, his tone heading towards sarcastic, "there're people over there that need help."
It was decided, after a hurried counsel with the rest of the crew, that the struggling ship would be boarded, righted, and either sent on its way, its crew singing the Alliance's good graces, or, if there were no survivors present on board due to the lack of life support, jury-rigged and left for an Alliance cleanup team to deal with. It would be a routine arrive, assess and protect mission.
Only it wasn't.
The engine trouble and failing systems were a feint. The jettisoned escape pods were a feint. There were three times as many Batarians onboard as even the marines' most wild estimates predicted. In the end, no one knew what happened aboard the little ship suspended in the between Cernunnos and Caleston. The first and last the brass heard was that the ship crashed through the moon's atmosphere and ended up a smear in a boulder field. No survivors, Alliance or otherwise.
Though it wasn't known at the time, survey and salvage teams sent in after the fact would report finding an absolutely massive source of Element Zero planetside. It was surmised that the Batarians had got wind of the deposits and wanted them for themselves, hence all the scanning they'd been doing and the quietness they'd had about them. They didn't want disturbing. Didn't want to share.
Even with all the creds they were looking to land for their find though, avarice bred avarice much like it can in human circles. The Batarians had become greedy, thinking that the Alliance would pay through the nose for the safe return of kidnapped soldiers. Instead, nineteen families received the news they never wanted.
The Alliance's spindoctors called the mission a success despite the losses. They said a threat had been overcome and dealt with. That because of the courage of the marines that died ploughing into that moon, there was one less pirate-gang stealing resources from barren wastelands that rightfully belonged to the 'good people' of the galaxy.
To Hannah Shepard though, who spent the first six months after her husband's death getting her daughter through the pain that his loss brought on their little family, the rhetoric was as helpful as a cotton wool fire guard and went up in smoke just as quickly. No, the loss wasn't justified, excusable or for the greater good. And the 'mission' that killed her Abe? That left her raising their daughter alone? She never knew all the details, but pieced together enough to know one thing with absolute clarity. It had clusterfuck written all over it. Period.