Mass Effect is owned by Bioware, of course. But, since I'm not making any money off of this, well, tough for them. Fair Use, gotta love it, neh?

Bit of director's commentary before the story starts: Of the three backstories, I enjoyed the Sole Survivor one the best. Partly because I love the tortured hero motif, partly because of the side-quest interaction it brings, but also because, well, War Hero seems so 'Light Side' and Ruthless seems so 'Dark Side', and there seems like so much more room for development with Sole Survivor.

So, since Mass Effect never really says what happens at Akuze, I figured that it'd be good grounds for a one-shot. Enjoy!

Oh: and to the fans of Orson Scott Card: I'm sorry, I like his books too, but it's not a baseless flame.

Oh, and the first person to get the nickname joke gets a cookie. I hope it's obscure enough...

--

"It's a dark and stormy night, neh?" joked Corporal Simon Jenkins.

Operations Chief Robert Shepard sighed. To be fair to Jenkins, it was. Shepard had heard that Akuze was a perfect planet for colonization, that it only needed the barest of terraforming in order to support long-term human settlement, that the only nagging problem was a slight overabundance of rainstorms over the main continent.

Somehow, 'slight' translated into constant sheets of rains, unending since touchdown with no sign of letting up within the month. Even with his armor covering everything but his face, he still felt drenched. The fact that they were camped out on a bit of featureless, barren terrain with no sort of protection from the elements wasn't helping matters, either.

"So, you know what that means, right?" Jenkins continued. "It's a dark and stormy night, a unit of marines are camped out, and an enlisted man named Jenkins is on guard." He grinned into the darkness. "All I need is a red uniform and we'd all be doomed."

Shepard shook his head. From afar, he looked no different than any other member of the Systems Alliance military out on patrol. A touch under two meters, including the boost the armor gave him, blue eyes, and a good, strong build, and, when his helmet was down, hair about as blonde as existed these days, more of a straight brown than a dusty blonde.

Of course, if you saw him without the armor that covered everything above his nose and below his chin, and with a minimum of decent clothing, he was not what you'd expect from a Marine. This was not a man who could take the weight of the world on his shoulders. This was not the man who win at tug-of-war with an elephant, although his powered armor did give him an edge.

That said, this was the man who could repair a comm. unit, has been trained on all manner of weapons and could do field service on a tank, all while being shot at. And, like anyone interested in modern tech, he loved that old Science Fiction.

"Shut it. You don't even know where half of that comes from, Corporal. Oh, and that reminds me, the LT wanted me to tell you your armor mod request was denied."

Jenkins barked a laugh. "He doesn't want a member of his unit wearing red? Damn shame."

"Again, don't make the joke if you don't know where it comes from."

"Star Trek, Chief, everyone knows that one. I don't think anyone remembers where the rest of it comes from. Think I should keep a pet albatross? You know, channel all the bad luck on myself?"

"Albatrosses are good luck, Jenkins."

"You sure?"

"They're only bad luck if you kill one."

"What's that from, anyway?"

"Some ancient book."

"Huh. You know-"

"No. Come on, we're supposed to be patrolling." I must've pissed the lieutenant off. Why else put his second in command on night patrol with Jenkins? Again? mused Shepard, stepping softly and sticking to what shadows there were, for all the good it did with the torrential downpour around him and near-zero visibility.

"Not very chatty tonight." Jenkins almost sounded hurt, at least as best Shepard could tell.

"You're chatty enough for both of us, Corporal. Just letting you talk yourself to death." He winced as he heard Jenkins' boot crunching on a dying piece of brush. "And you're on patrol, so stick to your training!" he called out perhaps a bit too harshly.

"Yes sir," said Jenkins, far too crisply and much too curt.

They walked in silence for some time, as Shepard silently cursed himself for snapping at Jenkins. He was a good soldier, maybe a little too chatty, but every unit had one like that. He certainly didn't deserve scolding for not being a master of stealth in an environment where you couldn't hear a wailing child and there were no shadows to stick to anyway.

It took two laps around the camp for Shepard to notice what was wrong. Jenkins wasn't talking. Only two things ever shut him up: When he was really worried about something, or when he was eating. And, even then, the latter rarely worked. The only thing worse than going on patrol with the man was sitting across from him at dinner.

"Something on your mind, Corporal?" he called out. "You were more chatty when you got shot in the gut on Elysium."

Jenkins sighed wistfully. "Ah, fun times. Permission to speak freely, Chief?"

"Don't you always?" Shepard joked.

"I'm serious, sir." He certainly sounded it.

"Go ahead."

"We're here looking for some missing colonists after they sent out a unintelligible distress signal. Fine, okay, it happens. That translates into spending what will probably be a week scouring the entire area in the Bradley's," said Jenkins, referring to the three armored and armed troop transports that made landfall with them, that would always be called 'Bradley's' regardless of what the designers named them, "looking for a needle in a haystack, but without any magnets.

"Some sort of 'signal analysis'," he added, clearly wanting to do air-quotes but unable to given the assault rifle cradled in his hands, "points to them being in this area, but the Morokweng's sensors only got 'anomalous' readings, whatever that means. I dunno, this seems a bit... strange. I don't know what's going on here, but something's not adding up."

Shepard hesitated before answering. He had the same concerns, and voiced them quite loudly at the briefing, but he didn't want to share his concerns with someone who would share them with the rest of the enlisted men. A Corporal being concerned was par for the course, but when someone who's giving orders expresses doubt...

"If you didn't want to work with poor intel, then why'd you join up in the first place?"

Jenkins rolled his eyes at his superior officer. "Not funny, Chief."

"Look, you're a soldier. We seldom go into battle knowing every detail about the situation, so you need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. If you're not confident about the intelligence, then stay 'up and open'," the unit's shorthand for 'ears up, eyes open', "and gather some for yourself."

"Yeah, well, easy for you to s-" Jenkins paused. "Did you feel that?"

There was a faint rumble, barely noticeable, just a tiny shifting in the ground. Shepard nodded, saying, "Felt like the Einstein did when it choked a bit on the eezo."

"Heh, spacer born and bred, neh? Felt more like a bit of a tremor to me."

He laughed. "You grew up in San Francisco, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Felt like a three pointer, maybe. Was there a seismic alert for this area?"

He closed his eyes, trying to call up what intel there was. "Don't think so, but prospectors don't really bother with notifying people of tremors that small. Don't worry abou-" Shepard stopped, feeling another small tremor in the dirt. "Aftershock, maybe?"

"Either that or a massive war machine walking towards us. Any intel on massive war machines in the area?"

"Only the Geth use walkers, Corporal, and they're not big enough to do this. We're a long way from the Veil in any case." Nevertheless, a bit of nervousness crept into his voice.

"Yeah, I guess." The rumbling, what little there was, stopped. "Just a weird earthquake, I guess, Bob," Jenkins said, snickering.

Shepard sighed. That damn nickname... "It's Operations Chief Shepard to you, Corporal."

"Oh, come on!"

"No."

"How can you not go by Bob?"

"Easily. You see what I'm doing here, Jenkins?"

"What?"

"Going by 'Operations Chief Shepard'. Try and remember it."

"You're no fun at all, Chief."

"Sorta my job, Corporal."

Mercifully, Jenkins stayed quiet for a while longer. It wasn't like they were on the lookout for anything. Of course, had anything sprung up from the scattered bit of brush, it would find itself having at least two rifles pointed right at it, and the moment it so much as twitched it would probably share space with a metric ton of lead. Nevertheless, there was no cover for miles. No way something could sneak up on them unless it could burrow.

Burrow... Shepard began to muse, before Jenkins spoke up again.

"Did you ever read Speaker for the Dead, Chief?"

Shepard paused. The name sounded familiar... "Wasn't that an old sci-fi book by some ancient bigot?"

"No!" Jenkins paused. "Well, sorta. Definitely not ancient. Only a couple centuries ago, I think. Anyway, there was this thing in the book about different types of aliens."

"The sort we can kill and the sort we can't?"

"N-," he sighed. "Well, yes, technically, but it's more complicated than that. There's aliens we can communicate with, he called them Ramen."

"What, like the noodles?"

"Now you're just heckling, sir. And, no, you're not supposed to kill them. The point is since you can talk with them, you can negotiate and be all diplomatic. Then there's aliens we can't talk to, called Varelse."

"And, since we can't talk to them, we have to kill them."

"You could probably ease up a bit on the cynicism, sir."

"No fun in that, Corporal. What's your point?"

"Well, now that we've actually met aliens, whaddya think?"

Shepard sighed. "You got scales on your skin, Jenkins? A hump for storing water? Does wheat kill you? You sleep for more than two hours a night?"

Jenkins looked perplexed. "Sir?"

"It's one thing to be able to talk to another species, and another to actually understand them, what it means for them to be them. And that's assuming that they want to talk. The krogan fought the entire galaxy for over three hundred years, and I can get along just fine with a dog that I know can't understand a word I say. Don't put too much faith in words, Corporal. Takes two to talk, but only one to fight."

"Yeah, but-"

"And a very interesting stance from a writer who wrote rather glowingly about war, usually between two groups that could talk to each other quite well."

"I thought you hadn't read his stuff?"

Shepard shrugged. "I did, a while ago, back in high school. Liked his stuff, up until I read some of his essays. Fun stuff," he said, voice thick with sarcasm.

"You went to high school? On the Einstein?" Jenkins asked, sounding very interested in changing the topic.

"Sorta. I took equivalent courses on the Winter, when my parents were stationed there."

"There's a ship called the Winter?"

"Sure, named after the Russian general."

"That's not-" Jenkins began, before another small tremor cut him off. "You sure there was no seismic alert for the area?"

Shepard nodded. "Time to wake the Lieutenant, I think."

"He'll be pissed if it's nothing, Chief."

"That's why you're going to do it." To the sound of Jenkins' groan, he added, "Double-time it, Corporal. I'm serious."

While Jenkins hurried off back into the camp, Shepard closed his eyes and focused on his feet and the intelligence. The tremor itself had died down, but he was still feeling... something moving below his feet.

It was a Spacer thing. Every ship he'd been on had its own heartbeat, from the Morokweng's slow, deep rhythm, to the Einstein's softer, more rapid pattering. The eezo engines have a lot of moving parts, and there was nothing outside the ship to dampen those vibrations. You'd never notice if you weren't looking for it, and even then it was a talent only spacers seemed to pick up, but with enough time Shepard could tell what ship he was on just by the vibrations coming from the engine.

It's why he hated going ashore. He always missed that heartbeat.

Except now he was feeling one, right beneath his feat. Erratic, with a bit of a beat frequency like you felt on space stations with multiple eezo plants. But an 'eezo heartbeat' all the same.

So, either there was something down below him, or he was imagining things...

And then there was the terraforming report. Rich soil, lots of rain, but no plants bigger than scrub grass. Something was preventing this place from being a rain forest, but the surveyors had marked it down to random chance that no trees had sprung up in this area yet.

Random chance, two words that sent shivers down the spine of any enlisted man.

"Chief," came Lieutenant Kipling's rough, exhausted voice over the comm., "mind telling me why the hell you had Jenkins wake me up?"

"Weird seismic activity, LT. Grounds moving and the intel said nothing about that."

Kipling growled his displeasure over the comm. "Don't tell me you woke me up from a dream with a lovely little blonde just because the ground's moving a bit! Hell, there's nothing around to fall on us! We could have a ten pointer here and we'd all walk away with bumps and bruises!"

Must've been some dream... "I... can't exactly explain it, sir. It feels like the grounds still moving, like a ship does. A bit of instinct, I guess."

"Damn spacers..." Kipling groaned. "You've got good instincts, Shepard, but you're being too paranoid. Keep up and open, but I'm not going to wake the entire unit for a little rumbling. Anything else?"

Shepard sighed. "No sir. Just don't dream about me, please. I like the lady-folk."

Kipling let off a tired little laugh. "No promises, Chief. Can't control my dreams," he said, and closed the channel.

Huzzah. More night patrols with Jenkins in my future... Even so, Shepard could still feel the movement beneath his feet. Their search for the missing colonists had turned up very little so far, but had discovered an odd number of strange depressions in the ground. Big ones, four meters across at times. And there was still movement beneath his feet...

"Still having bad feelings, Chief?" Jenkins asked, running back through the rain and breaking Shepard's train of thought.

"Dunno what it is, but something down there's moving."

"Could just be an underground river. C'mon, fifteen more minutes and we get some rack time."

Shepard nodded his way through the rest of the patrol. Sometimes, all you could do was nod, smile, and let Jenkins gossip about the rest of the unit, because no power in the galaxy could stop him. You just had to keep half an ear out, because every so often, he said something clever or welcome, like, "They're flanking us!" or, "Grenade!"

In this case, the magic words were, "Chief, the relief's here."

Indeed, two people had just climbed out of the nearby tent. Corporals Richards and Sato, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at least that was what Shepard officially saw, and he and Jenkins half ran back into the middle of camp to meet them, eager to get some rack time. "Richards, Sato, keep up and open."

"Are you being paranoid again, sir?" smirked Sato.

"Paranoid people are harder to kill, Corporal. Try not to fall asleep out here ag-"

Shepard's quip was cut off by yet another tremor. The others, though, were soft, deep ones. This one, however, was less an earthquake than an underground explosion. Sato and Richards, still rather groggy, fell to the ground. The Earth-native from the land of earthquakes and the spacer born and bred on warships merely stumbled, putting their knees to the ground to steady themselves.

"What the hell?" cried out Richards, struggling to his feet.

"There's been some tremors tonight," said Jenkins, "but nothing that big."

"Any id-" began Sato, but stopped as Shepard held up his hand. He couldn't be sure he wasn't being paranoid, and even if he was sure, there's no way he'd put good money on it, but when he closed his eyes and focused on the ground, he knew the beat was getting stronger.

Much stronger.

"You want to wake up the Lieutenant again," Jenkins said. The idea did not appeal to him, it seemed.

Shepard sighed. "If I do, I'll wake him myself."

"Good, 'cause there's no way-"

Not ten meters from where the four stood, the ground exploded, some huge, massive force throwing what must have been a half-ton of dirt into the air, showering the stunned soldiers. While all four were cowering, shielding their heads from the airborne debris, nonetheless all four had their rifles primed, and once they had come full to their senses, most of the mud having landed around them, they whirled on the source of the commotion-

And saw a giant worm sticking ten meters out of the ground.

Four meters wide, no limbs to speak of save for a pair of mandibles on either side of a wide, gaping mouth. And it was staring at them. Probably. As best as Shepard could tell anyway, being the total non-expert at discerning the actions of non-terrans that he was.

"What the hell is that?" asked Richards, rifle sighted at the beasts head, awaiting the 'weapons free' order.

"It reminds me a bit of a Sand Worm," said Jenkins. "You know, from that old book Dune?"

Shepard sighed. "There's no sand here, Corporal. Just mud."

"Whatever. Any intel on this thing?"

"I think I'd remember them mentioning giant worms."

"Requesting 'weapons free', Chief," said Sato, who was slowly backing away from the monster.

"It's not hostile, Corporal."

Richards shook his head. "Yet, Chief. Remember why we're here? 5 creds says this thing killed all the colonists."

Shepard had to stop himself from nodding. It did made some sense, but standing orders overrode baseless paranoia. "We're not Spectres, Corporal. We can't just shoot something because it gives us a dirty look. Sato, double-time it to the Lieutenant's bunk."

As Sato ran off, a fair bit too enthusiastically, Jenkins said, "So, think this is what was causing those tremors?"

"Good odds."

"Chief-" began Richards.

"This could just be a bit of the local fauna, Richards. I'm not saying don't be careful, but we're marines. Shooting everything that moves isn't what we do."

"Aye aye, chief, understood. What about shooting hundred-meter long monsters?"

"I do remember some order about how we can shoot targets that are exactly a hundred meters long. Got a tape measure on you?"

"Damn, left it in my pack. Can we just eyeball it?"

"Sir, what about the Bradley's?" asked Jenkins, breaking the joking mood. "I don't think our rifles are up to the task, if the sand worm goes hostile on us."

"Not a sand worm, Jenkins." Shepard sighed. "But, you're right. Fire Alpha Bradley up and get ready to provide support. Richards, wake Chief Nicholson, get him up to speed and tell him I want Bravo and Charlie up ASAP."

"On it," said Richards, and Jenkins said, "Aye aye, I'll be right back."

"Chief! What the hell is it now?" yelled a recently woken Kipling over the comm.

"Nothing, sir. Just thought you might want to know about a giant worm that's in the middle of the camp.

Silence over the channel, then, "Define 'giant'."

"Looks about four meters across. Can't tell how long it is, since part of it is underground, but the bit that's above must be ten meters up. Never seen its like before."

"Crap. What've you done?"

"I sent Jenkins to bring Alpha's Bradley online and Richards is off waking people to bring the other two around. Not quite the firepower I want, but it'll have to do."

"Chief Shepard, Corporal Jenkins," Jenkins bellowed out over the channel. "Alpha is hot, chain-gun ready for action. Requesting orders." One of the hard parts about having large numbers of people on a channel was that you couldn't always tell who was ordering whom. Eventually, the Alliance came up with a simplified method: Say who you're talking to, and your name. Simple, right up until bullets started flying. Having a decent Virtual Intelligence to parse the statements and route the messages only to those concerned did help matters, of course.

"Jenkins, Lieutenant Kipling. Weapons hold, keep your eye on it. The second it goes hostile, fill it with lead," Kipling ordered. "Shepard, Kipling. What's your location?"

"Maybe ten meters from the worm."

"Get out of there, Shepard!"

Shepard knew he should be afraid. The... thing was clearly rather monstrous and considerably bigger than him. But it was just staring at him. Like it was surprised to see him there.

"Copy, LT. Jenkins, Shepard. I'm going to back away from it slowly, don't want to startle it. Be ready for it to lunge at me anyway."

"What, and spoil its meal?"

"Cut the chatter, Jenkins!" yelled Kipling.

Slowly, rifle still leveled at the worm's mouth, Shepard took a few steps backward. At first, the worm seemed rather interested, tilting what passed for its head a little and leaning forward slowly. It seemed almost... childlike, curious about the tiny moving things crawling around him, like a young boy might be curious about ants.

Shepard started to lower his rifle. Then he remembered what children sometimes do to those little ants, and quickly raised it again.

"Kipling, Shepard, Chief Nicholson. Richards and Sherman are starting up Charlie, me and Toombs are at Bravo. We're going to need to move them to get LOS on the worm."

"Copy that, Nicholson," said Kipling. "Nicholson, Richards, Kipling. Get into position ASAP. All units, Lieutenant Kipling. Alert yellow, possible hostile, get armed and armored in five!"

In the distance, Shepard heard the roar of the engines. And so did the worm. Shepard had chosen Alpha initially because he knew it was within line of sight of the worm, so all Jenkins had to do was turn on the power and get the main gun ready. But no one had so much as considered how the worm would react to two loud, angry noises close by. It twisted around, as though it was looking for the source of the noise.

Its reaction to the noise was nothing, though, compared to how it reacted when the Bradley's started to move. It began jerking around in agony, and Shepard forgot entirely about keeping it calm and legged it to a stack of crates fortuitously close by.

"Kipling, Jenkins! The damn thing's going crazy now!"

"Kipling, Shepard!" he called out, gasping for breath. "I think the Bradleys' moving is causing this!"

Shepard peeked over his cover, in time to see the worm staring at something out of his view, but probably Bravo Bradley given the position. Then it reared back and, while the mere sight of the action almost made Shepard burst out laughing, it clearly seemed to hoc a loogey at the vehicle.

Something clearly happened, though, because chaos quickly ensued. "It slagged Bravo!" yelled Jenkins. "Frack this, I'm going hot!" he finished, with accompanying sounds of a chain gun going full-auto.

Hearing that, Shepard raised his rifle and began firing at the worm. The worm seemed to ignore the weapons fire, however, and instead twisted around to Charlie's direction, spitting again. This time, something exploded, probably the Bradley's fuel tank. When Shepard tore his eyes away from the bright light of the explosion, cursing himself because he was trained better than to get distracted in the middle of a firefight, the worm was gone.

"Anyone, Kipling! Report!"

"Kipling, Shepard! I think the vehicles' movement was pissing it off!"

"Kipling, Jenkins! The worm spat something at Bravo and Charlie, some kind of acid! Bravo just melted, and Charlie exploded!"

"Bravo, Charlie, Kipling! Report!"

Silence.

Shepard closed his eyes, and prayed with all his might that someone would sound off. He didn't believe in any deity, but just in case one was listening, he prayed.

"Bravo, Charlie, Kipling! Report now!"

Still, more silence.

Then, the calm, flat, totally out-of-place tactical computer voice sounded off. "Alert. DMS Failure: Gunnery Chief Nicholson, Corporals Richards, Sherman, Toombs."

DMS Failure. That meant that the micro-transmitter that was with every member of the unit no longer was responding to the Dead-Man Switch system, which was supposed send and receive a signal every minute.

Since said micro-transmitters were on chips embedded into each soldier's upper back, next to the spine, DMS failures tended to mean death. Hearing that message was far too sober a way to update the list of the living. Shepard had long since started to hate hearing that soft, feminine voice.

Kipling, very softly, swore, and then said, "Shepard, Jenkins, Kipling. Where is that damn bug?" in a voice almost as calm as the computer.

"Kipling, Jenkins. It went underground after it destroyed Charlie."

"Shepard, Kipling. Analysis."

"I've got nothing. I don't think it's gone for good, though."

"Good," said Jenkins.

"Sir," continued Shepard, trying to temper the bloodlust, "its like we were throwing pebbles at it. I don't think it even noticed Alpha's fire."

"Then we'll throw stones, Shepard."

"Kipling, Chief Kozlov. My men are awake, I'll get them kitted out with anti-armor ordinance."

"Kozlov, Shepard. I think I'm hiding behind that stuff," Shepard said, finally taking a look at what the crates were.

"And you didn't use them?"

"Was a bit busy to begin unpacking stuff, Kozlov. Send the men over, I'll kit them out-"

There was another explosion, and as Shepard spun around to it, he saw just what he was afraid of.

The worm had noticed Jenkins' fire.

The ground beneath the Bradley exploded, the vehicle rising up, clutched between the two massive mandibles on the front of the worm. It was a little creepy, reminiscent of a kid trying to eat a hot-dog the wrong way.

"Jenkins, bail out!" Shepard yelled out.

Jenkins called out, his voice heavy with panic. "Damn thing's trying to eat the Bradley! Bailing-"

Later, Shepard could never explain the sound, about how he heard it so clearly. His rifle, as well as those from the first half-dozen soldiers out of Bravo's barracks, was firing full-auto. Cross-chatter was abound, and grenades were going off as well, enterprising throws by the eternally optimistic reinforcements. Not to mention that Jenkins, the worm and the Bradley were at least fifty meters away, and the sound couldn't possibly have traveled so well.

And yet, when the mandibles on the worm closed, crushing the Bradley right where the gunnery position was, he heard the crunch of breaking steel and the squeal of grinding metal like it were happening right next to him.

Shepard didn't swear, didn't plead to a deity to just make it be a dream. There was no time to swear, and no deity he could call upon in any case. Instead, he threw down the useless rifle, palmed the lock on the weapons crate and started unpacking.

Some assembly required... he thought, his hands moving all on their own, reliving the training of how to put an ERCS anti-armor missile launcher together in the length of time it takes to say "Elanus Risk Control Services Stinger Anti-Armor Missile Launcher." IR and radar fire-and-forget modes, a laser-guided option for unusual situations, the only issue was how long the damn things took to put together when something's trying to kill you.

Halfway through the first launcher, he noticed an explosion, a little ways off. By the curses of the men around him, and the scattered reports on the comm., it sounded like the worm had thrown Alpha Bradley into one of the pre-fabricated barracks. The one that had not yet disgorged any soldiers. Charlie's, if Shepard's sense of direction could be trusted.

The amount of heat seemed much more like a large explosion than a small one, Shepard's mind supplied as he finished the first launcher, passing it off to the nearest soldier. Minimal chance of survival. A voice thanked him, very enthusiastically.

Someone nearby made a polite request to speed up assembly. One of the many privates, it sounded like. He got back to work, opening the next missile kit.

He only paused when the TacCom toned out that twelve were confirmed KIA, killed in action, and another four had DMS failures. Jenkins and all that was left of Charlie.

Shepard finished the launcher, passing it off again, looking up just in time to see the first missile go wide. The engineer in Shepard supplied the relevant information: ERCS Stingers wouldn't maneuver to a target until after about fifty meters of flight. A logical oversight, to assist in firing missiles from cover, and the infantry never engages armored targets any closer than a hundred yards away.

It wasn't like tanks ever burst out of the ground in the middle of encampments. It would be foolish to plan for such a possibility.

Shepard hollered out to treat the launchers like rocket-propelled grenades, unguided rockets, and was about to begin assembling the third launcher. Instead he was treated to the worm unleashing a long stream of acid at a second pre-fabbed barracks. Bravo's, this time.

Lieutenant Kipling was in Bravo. So was Gunnery Chief Kozlov.

Shepard knew it was useless to hope that the constant downpour was diluting the acid at all. If the acid could eat through a Bradley, it could eat through non-reinforced roofing.

"Kipling, Shepard! Report!" he called out, blinking away the tears.

Silence.

"Kipling, report!"

More silence.

"TacCom, ping Lieutenant Kipling!" he called out, telling the TacCom to send a signal to Kipling's micro-transmitter, to see if it was still responding.

To see if he was still alive.

The standard two second pause, during which another missile flew wide right, and then the evil little voice politely, gently, calmly informed, "Ping failure on Lieutenant Kipling. Attention, all hands. Operations Chief Shepard temporarily in command."

Soldiers began to spill from Alpha's barracks, assault rifles sounding off as soon as they saw the worm. One of the privates had already assembled a third launcher, pressing it into a squad-mate's arms and getting to work on a fourth.

"All units, spread out! Sanders, grab two and give support from Bravo's 'rax! Lee, same for Charlie's 'rax! Everyone else, find cover!" Shepard called out. There was a cooldown of sorts between each volley of acid, and the rifle fire did finally seem to be having a result, a few open wounds developing, likely because constant fire had finally destroyed some of its armor.

It was ugly, but attrition was their best bet. Prevent the worm from taking out more than a few at a time. Eventually one of the missiles had to-

"Hit!" cried out Private Basil, as her missile made contact and exploded on the worm. It reeled in clear pain, a tortured cry coming from the mouth. Shepard, and no doubt everyone else in the unit, braced themselves for the obviously oncoming shower of gore, which would no doubt come when a giant monster is hit by a weapon designed to kill tanks.

The unit's hoots and hollers of victory slowly faded, as that shower of gore did not come.

As best as Shepard could tell, the expert in xeno-zoology that he was, the worm looked injured. It certainly seemed to sway more, and there was a nasty burn where the missile impacted, but it wasn't down, and it certainly wasn't out. The worm let loose another acid spray, right at Private Basil, the others with the launchers, and the crates they came from.

It wasn't a big explosion this time. Only a few anti-tank missiles detonating, fail-safes failing, splashing onto almost no one that the acid hadn't already hit. But it was all that remained of the heavy weapons.

The explosion did knock him to the ground, dazed. A lance of pain erupted in Shepard's cheek. Blood began flooding his mouth, and his idly probing tongue felt a small piece of metal imbedded in his cheek. Too slow for his shields to register and intercept, fast enough to pierce the skin, too low to get blocked by the visor and too high for the chin-guard to stop.

His eyes opened into mud. His ears were still working. A few rifles were still firing, and the sound of the worm's acid loogey...

Somehow, that just didn't seem funny anymore...

Stay down, said a little voice in his head. Another volley of acid, and a few more rifles died out. Play possum. It won't kill you if it thinks you're already dead.

Shepard knew he should get up. Do his duty, don't betray his men, fight off the big bad thing and be the heroic champions. Fatted calves all around.

Except...

No heavy weapons left. Only a few tech grenades on him, damn near useless right now. The guns on the Bradleys were likely slag, and they were hardly effective even when they were firing.

No cavalry incoming. No air support en route. And, according to the TacCom, there were only four others still alive.

Find a hole to hide in and we might survive.

The rifles didn't stop firing, too much anger, too much adrenaline flowing. The rest of the unit didn't know what they could do to survive, or if they did they wouldn't run until they got an order to do so.

Stay down. Don't talk, the worm will hear you.

Shepard's mind was running like poorly written code, at least that's what it felt like later. He couldn't think, he tried to think, but there was nothing that was doing any thinking.

Stay down, that one little part of his mind kept saying.

One by one, the guns fell silent, accompanied by the sound of fired acid.

Stay down...

The TacCom sounded out the losses, one by one.

And he stayed down.

--

Six years later...

"Commander Shepard, please, take a seat."

"Thank you, sir."

The commander had changed over the last several years. Some of it was the usual aging, a few more wrinkles here and there. His hair was a bit shorter, his body a little bulkier. The scar was new, a couple centimeters long in his left cheek, his favorite souvenir from Akuze. He also hadn't shaven, although that was more likely connected to the exhaustion in his eyes, the yawn he was trying to stifle, and the fact that, as per tradition, all Alliance vessels kept time with Houston, while Citadel-controlled stations kept time with Citadel Station.

Ten hour 'relay-lag' could take its toll on even the most hardened of soldiers.

The captain gave Shepard a careful look. He couldn't tell yet, but not all the weariness in his eyes seemed to come from simple exhaustion. "Has anyone told you why you're here, Commander?"

"No sir. Just that you wanted to talk to me."

"I'm surprised you haven't said what an honor it is to meet me."

Shepard smirked, sort of. It didn't seem to reach his eyes, though. "I get enough of that myself. It looses its luster after a while."

The captain's face twitched, belying a humor he didn't want to show. "Your service for the Alliance has been impressive, of course. The Blitz, Torfan, Mira, Kethenica, and over a dozen other rapid-response missions."

This time the grin was genuine. "I think your record has me beat by a fair bit, sir. You missed one, of course."

He nodded. "Tell me about Akuze, Commander."

"There's a few hundred reports on that mission, sir. There's nothing I can tell you that you likely haven't read." His tone was firm, professional, although Shepard's face did seem to harden a bit.

"Indulge me, Commander. Give me your take on it."

Shepard sighed, breaking eye contact. "What's there to say? We were camped, an unknown xenomorph appeared and killed every other member of the unit. I only lived because I played possum. I laid there in the mud until everyone else had died, found the signal boosting gear and called for pickup."

"I'm aware of the basics of the encounter," the captain warned. "You know what I'm asking for."

"It was Murphy, sir. It was bad intelligence. It was a new beast that none of us had ever seen before. We had minimal warning before combat began, and no one goes to sleep clutching their anti-armor kits. And it was idiots blindly obeying orders and not taking a few moments to think. And it was that the only survivor happened to be the one who stopped fighting."

Shepard sighed, and went on. "I know what you're going to say, that I wasn't thinking straight, that it wasn't my fault. That the explosion dazed me, gave me a pretty bad concussion and that I should be happy I walked off that planet without any brain damage. That doesn't change the fact that I hid in the mud while my soldiers fought and died. I've fought through worse than a little concussion."

"No one expected anything more than what you did there, Shepard. Believe it or not, but the Systems Alliance doesn't like it when soldiers try to be heroes in combat."

"Captain, didn't you once say that a real hero doesn't just do what's expected, but whatever it takes?"

He nodded. "Yes, but I don't recall calling you a hero for what you did on Akuze. You're a survivor, and that's nothing to be ashamed of."

The captain started as Shepard began laughing. "Sorry, sir, but you're starting to sound like my old shrink. I shook off the survivor's guilt a while ago."

"Good to know," the captain said, clearly not believing it. "I'm just trying to get a feel for you, Commander. Whenever someone mentions Akuze, you tend to react badly to it."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" The captain nodded. "Have you ever done the Foxtrot with Charlie, sir?" At his superior's blank look, he sighed. "Charlie Foxtrot. Cluster-fu-"

"I understand. I've had a few of those missions, why?"

Shepard closed his eyes, willing the bad memories to go away. "Imagine that you were part of the worst one you've ever heard of, spectacular in damage. And you survive, half from cowardice and half from being smart enough to know when victory is impossible, and people hail you as a hero for surviving a near impossible situation."

"Alright, fine. But then you move on." At the captain's knowing stare, he added, "Okay, after drinking yourself into a warm, fuzzy bliss for a month or two. I never said immediately, sir. Anyway, you eventually move on, and keep performing admirably. You, say, lead the infiltration team that disables the anti-air defenses on Torfan, allowing the rest of the marines to make touchdown in one piece. Rescue hostages from terrorists, destroy a few pirate bases, rescue a kitten from a tree. But all everyone ever seems to see-"

"Is Akuze."

"More or less."

"Here's what your file on Akuze tells me. You felt the thresher coming, you just didn't know what it was at the time. You figured out that heavy vehicles moving on the surface seems to provoke thresher maws into attacking. You identified a number of tell-tale signs of a nearby thresher. You adapt quickly to changing situations. Hell, half of the intel we have on thresher maws comes from you!"

Shepard gave a grim smile. "Well, that was my job. We were the blonde, big-breasted bimbo in the bad horror flick that dies to show everyone else how the monster works. The least I could do was to make sure that we got as much intel from that fu- fouled up mission as possible."

The captain nodded. "So that your men didn't die in vain."

"Partly, sir. Also so that no one else died because intelligence took the day off." He took a deep breath. "Sir, why did you want to speak with me?"

"I'm putting together a crew for a new ship, Shepard, state of the art. Faster than anything we've got, and her stealth systems are of an entirely new design. Outside of FTL, only way to detect her is with your eyes, and she's a small ship."

Shepard whistled his appreciation. "Shiny. I've been hearing rumors about a stealth ship, but I figured it was just, well, rumors." He shrugged. "I hear a lot of them. Techs love to chat with a soldier who knows how the engine works. How's she work?"

"I'll save the technical details for later. The point is, I need an XO, and you come highly recommended. I know," he added as Shepard opened his mouth to object, "you're a soldier, not navy, but I'm sure you'll manage. The crew can handle the ship, but I want someone who knows how to handle himself when weapons start firing, and when the unknown hits hard. "

A smirk flashed across Shepard's face. "It'd be an honor, Captain."

The captain stood and offered his hand. "Good to hear it. Welcome to the crew of the Normandy," he gave a smirk of his own, "Bob."

Robert Shepard stifled a laugh as he rose and shook his new CO's hand. "Captain Anderson, I did mean what I said about it being an honor. That said, if you persist in calling me 'Bob', rather than 'Robert', I will find a way to get the ship's computer to wake you, every morning, with the phrase 'Good morning, Dave', spoken in perfect monotone."

"I'm not sure why, that certainly sounds like a dire threat."

Shepard's smile faltered. "Sorry, sir. I'm a bit too used to serving with people who got all those old sci-fi jokes."