Shepard stared at the helmet.
Empty and lifeless as it was, it stared right back. The darkness inside bored into her skull. Its ceramic shell was pitted and charred. What was left, anyway: half was no more than a crater the size of her fist. The breathing apparatus was a molten lump. The visor was little more than a few blackened shards of military grade, bulletproof polymer clinging to the corners. Inside were the mostly charred remains of kinetic padding.
Flecks of dull red reflected the harsh light above, remnants of an absurdly bright stripe Shepard had painted herself in a swell of stupid pride.
It once marked her proudest day, of being named the first human Spectre. Later, someone told her it looked ridiculous. Alenko? Ash? She couldn't remember. Shepard found there were too many things she couldn't recall when she wanted them. Holes appeared in her childhood, her academy days. Her mother's face on a vid screen provoked recognition but no emotion.
Sometimes the past flashed unbidden through her mind, out of sequence and out of context until she lost track of the present. Sometimes Pressley was still on the bridge. Sometimes Garrus had no scar. Shepard dreaded the darkness of the shuttle bay, where she could feel Ashley's eyes on her back.
They were in her head but she knew in her gut those memories belonged to someone else.
Alliance Commander Elizabeth Dana Shepard died inside this helmet.
So who, then, was she?
Over the sounds of gunfire and screeching mechs, she heard her squad calling to her. She popped the heat sink, reloaded in a flash and two Blue Suns hit the ground long before her discarded clip. The squad advanced. She grinned despite herself, and beneath the deep red sun, in the stench of that alien atmosphere ripe with death and smoke she decided.
Shepard. Just Shepard. That was all she needed to be.
