Who said the start was dull?
Mindoir, a small farming colony not too far out of the Alliance's reach in the Attican Traverse. Nothing unusual ever happened here, maybe an odd occurrence once in a blue moon perhaps, but quite simply and wonderfully normal. The Shepard's had first moved to the small farming community before their eldest children were born, shortly after their marriage in 2143. The joined the league of parents shortly before Delilah's 37th birthday. To say they were overjoyed when they discovered Delilah was pregnant was an understatement, and all throughout her pregnancy Delilah was, some would say, overcautious. She refused to do anything that could prevent healthy development including not doing much physical or manual labour and preferring to sit out in the courtyard linking all the fabrication units together rather than help her husband Eric, nearing 40, farm the land. Needless to say both Delilah and Eric were devastated when they heard about the freighter, filled with element zero that had exploded just above the small planet. Both parents were uncertain as to what they should do; little was known about the true effects of element zero exposure could have on an unborn child let alone two, apart from most children developing brain tumours and haemorrhages, from which they subsequently died from. The couple had been trying to have a child for a terribly long time and couldn't imagine losing both of the children Delilah was carrying.
However when Baby Boy and Baby Girl Shepard were born on 11th April 2154, Earth calendar, the two parents were thrilled when there was no immediate signs of harm or damage caused by the eezo exposure. Skylar, a name commonly reserved for girls was to be the boy's name and Astrid for the girl. Delilah had protested against naming their boy Skylar but Eric had persisted for reasons even he didn't know and eventually his wife gave in to Eric's persistence. Skylar Yuri Shepard and Astrid Luna Shepard were quite unfortunately named after things related to space exploration, something Eric had a keen interest in, owning numerous vids from the 20th century all related to the great space race. Skylar and Astrid quickly became each other's best friends, spending hours upon hours climbing the trees behind the family's farm, swimming and fishing in the nearby river, and most commonly getting into all sorts of trouble. The Shepard's farm was not big, and not very profitable, so whenever Skylar grew out of his clothes, Astrid would receive them. Not that the children complained, they were too busy having fun to worry about clothes, or the state of them, as on more than one occasion Delilah would be seen in the courtyard sewing patches onto the children's trousers or onto the elbows of shirts. Not before long the two young children became fascinated with the sciences, Astrid more so, and soon both were enraptured by the night sky, dreaming of perhaps one day flying amongst them as their parents had so long ago.
The children were smart, Skylar being just above average and Astrid excelling in most of her lessons. Even at such a young age Astrid had become familiarised with technology and could dismantle any interface and reassemble it, all the while seamlessly upgrading the software at only the tender age of 14. Skylar on the other hand was completely the opposite, he admired technology for its uses, not how it worked, and he felt most comfortable in the hands of books and tales, which had travelled across the stars from Earth. Everything seemed just fine for the Shepard's and it would remain so, for a few years at least.
It is unusual for a woman to have two sets of twins; however Delilah's family had a long history of twins and Delilah herself was no exception with a sister Melanie back on Earth. Eight years after the birth of her first children, Delilah gave birth to another boy and girl. Skylar and Astrid took it upon themselves to name the babes and decided on some rather peculiar names. The girl was called Nova Bellatrix Shepard, and the boy Apollo Neil Shepard. The tradition of space faring names was definitely going to be upheld by the older set of twins who had long suffered from their father's obsession. For a long time the Shepard's went about their everyday lives of farming and school. That all changed the day the sky burned red.
