A/N My first attempt at a story, hope it turns out well. This is supposed to be a "teaser" of sorts for a larger project, sadly that means that this is a somewhat rushed work and I excuse myself for any spelling/grammatical errors, English is not my native tongue.

I do not own or make any claims to own anything related to either Mass Effect or Battlestar Galactica, all rights belong to Bioware (Mass effect) and Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (Battlestar Galactica). Please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not entirely sure on this (BSG that is).

2172-06-27, BSG-13 Bismarck

"We're now matching target velocity and will jump in five minutes, everyone report to your stations," boomed a voice over the speakers in the flight deck, "Departing personnel must report to their assigned Raptor within five minutes, all other personnel will begin shore leave after we've finished docking procedures at Jupiter station, XO Shepard out."

The sound of an active flight deck picked up in intensity as soon as the sound cut out and everyone returned to their duties. Chatter could be heard from knuckle draggers discussing what they would do during this much needed leave, some would see Earth and families, other would hit the clubs on the Galilean moons. In the middle of the organised chaos that was the flight deck of a battlestar sat three young adults on the wing a heavy Raptor. Each of them with a large duffel bag on the floor in front of them, that contained what few possessions they owned other than the heavy overalls they wore. They were spacers, born and raised on battlestars or other large installations in space, two boys and one girl. The first boy was tall and powerfully built, the overall seemed to be one or two sizes too small for him, his hair was cut down to a stub barely protruding from his scalp.
The girl was small, maybe reaching one meter and sixty centimetres with thick soles on her shoes, but well built, compact like a Viper pilot. Short red flaming hair seemed to burst into life from her head.
The second boy was between the two other in height and leanly built, an athlete prioritizing technique above raw strength, short thick brown hair flowed over his head in waves. His eyes was distant and dreaming whereas the others were focused on the surrounding activity.

"Hey, Shepard! Wake up!" shouted the girl in a friendly tone, "You can't sit on the wing all the way to Earth you know," she added in a lower voice.
"It would make a funny sight though," added the boy.
"Yea, yea. I'm here," Shepard answered, and pulled of the patch covering his left wrist, "Just saying my goodbyes to mum."
He folded up the wire connecting the patch to a small box and stuffed the package into a pocket. Then rose and stretched his legs and arms.
It was finally happening, they were travelling to Earth. He, Robert and Julia, three kids who had grown up together for the last six years on this battlestar. He looked around at the flight deck, there were some other Raptors which would carry other personnel who had been reassigned or was leaving service for good. But this Raptor would carry them to the military academy where they had been accepted. Not that they hadn't already been in service of the Alliance while on the battlestar, but this was more official, not to mention a better job than scrubbing air ducts.

"Well hello nebs," called a rough but friendly voice from behind them, "ready to fly one last time with old Cluster?"
They turned around as one and looked at the aged pilot approaching them. He was tall and wide, probably a few kilos over recommendations for pilots, with a short but extremely thick black beard making up for his lack of hair on his head. Charles, "Cluster", Jones was the pilot that would provide their passage to Earth, probably because the command staff knew he was like a grandfather to them.
"Aren't we a little old to still be called nebs?" replied Robert, "I mean, we're on our own now."
"Nope, until I see some sort of rank pin on your collar you will still be a nebula," he said with a laugh and patted his own collar, displaying a Raptor wing and a Staff Lieutenant's pin. Then he leaned in close to them and continued, "But as soon as you have; make sure to drop me as message so that I can call star."
"Will do Cluster, will do," said Julia with a smile.

A faint vibration shock the ship and Shepard felt the familiar falling sensation that accompanied a jump. Now they were in the Solar System. He picked up his bag and threw it over his shoulder while Cluster opened the hatch into the Raptor. Julia and Robert picked up their bags as well.
"Hmm, it was something that I was supposed to do..." they heard Cluster mutter inside the Raptor, "Oh! Now I remember, one, two and three, all accounted for."
Shepard stepped up into the Raptor and set down his bag in front of a seat and fastened himself, quickly followed by the others. He could see Cluster preparing the Raptor for flight and waving frenetically to the flight personnel that he was ready for launch. The hatch closed and the Raptor soon started to move.

A rustle could be heard from the cockpit then a piece of paper was tossed towards the passenger compartment, followed by Cluster's rough voice.
"First one to get me a good set of coordinates to Earth's jumping zone gets to sit in co-pilot's seat."
On the paper their current velocity in relation to the Sun was written and Earth, along with the Raptor's directional settings. A short frenzy to be the first one to see what actually was written occurred before each of them leaned back and started calculating. Shepard had always had a knack for mathematics and physics and started on the standard calculations. Jump coordinate calculation was something that was essential to every spacer, it was what they lived for, and with the help of Cylon projection it could be done fairly easily in ones head. Range was easy, but direction not as much, just little bit more and he would have it...
"Done!" Julia suddenly exclaimed, "Zero, zero, sixty-eight, oh-two, forty-five, four three three."
Shepard heard Cluster laugh from the cockpit where he unfastened the co-pilot's seat belts while the elevator to brought the Raptor up to the landing strip.
"Good girl, come here and enjoy your view." he said and patted the seat.

Shepard and Robert looked at each other as Julia walked over to the cockpit, then Robert whispered to Shepard, "You fell for the straight ahead trick too?"
"Yep, like a battlestar in atmosphere." he replied.
"Frakk, I hate that man sometimes," said Robert and leaned back in his seat.

Flying in atmosphere was not like flying in space concluded Shepard quickly, it wasn't smooth Newtonian physics, the Raptor shook and jerked violently. And Cluster's reassurance that it would be better when they got further down in the atmosphere was not having it's intended effect. The fact that Julia squealed like a little girl didn't help, she could see the spectacle, he and Robert just endured.
He closed his eyes in an effort to make the nausea go away, motion sickness you had to cope with as a spacer, but this was something else. Just a little while longer.

"Wake up nebs, we're landing in Vancouver," said Cluster as if any of them had gotten any sleep. Then he went back to communicating with the control center.
Shepard unfastened himself and leaned forward to pulled out his bag, Julia walked out of the cockpit and Robert followed his lead. Both looked a bit anxious, it would be the first time that any of them had solid ground under their feet and empty sky above their heads.
A faint thud signaled that they had landed and the Shepard threw his bag over his shoulder again, then he opened the hatch and stepped out onto the landing platform and almost dropped his bag again.
He was assaulted by new sensations from every direction, the familiar smell tylium fuel mixed with what his instincts told him was trees, the sound of traffic mixed with birds and the wind, not from passing vessels, rustled his clothes and hair and the powerful light of the Sun. It was a strange new world that he had entered.
"Well frakk me sideways..." came Robert's voice from behind. He had also stepped out of the Raptor now. And he was shortly followed by Julia who simply inhaled deeply with her nose.
"I could get used to this," she said after a short while and walked up beside Shepard.
"Me too," Shepard replied, "but let's find some roof over our heads for now."
"That got to rank among the best things you've ever said," came Robert's voice from behind them before the sound of his heavy boots told them that he was in motion.
Shepard looked back behind him to see Cluster wave them goodbye before taking off again, returning to Bismarck before he would have his shore leave.
Straight ahead of them was the main building of the military spaceport, large, imposing grey and eerily comforting, he felt safer in confined quarters than out in the open, that probably was true for every spacer. As they closed in on the entrance more and more people joined them on the marked path, a mixture of old experienced servicemen and officers as well as new recruits like themselves.
Inside the entrance hall everyone organized into lines leading up to the counters where they would be processed and cleared to exit into the main Systems Alliance facility in Vancouver. They progress was slow so they resorted to sit down on their duffel bags and chatting. It was the same old topics as always, Kilimanjaro could certainly take on both Rommel and Napoleon, the mark ten Viper was not better than the mark seven and so on. In the end enough time had passed for them to arrive at the counter for processing, Shepard went first.
"Name, interstellar identification number and either tags or fingerprint," said the male clerk behind the counter with an obviously bored tone.
"Shepard, John; two one five four zero four one one dash sigma one five foxtrot bravo," he replied then reached for his tag around his neck, he only had the rectangular one he had been given on birth, and gave it to the clerk.
"Good, everything appears to be in order," the clerk said after a short scan of the tag, "Please proceed to the gate and place you bag on the belt for scanning."
The clerk waved to the direction of the exit and began processing Julia after him.

A short while later all of them were through the checkpoint and stared at the transport hub beyond it. It was as large as a flight deck of a battlestar and equally active, which helped since the lack of roof made Shepard feel a bit overwhelmed again.
"There!" exclaimed Julia and pointed towards a train platform with a sign that read 'New Academy Arrivals'.
A quick walk took them to the platform just as a train arrived and opened it's doors to a new group of waiting people, mostly it was just a sea of various humans wielding duffel bags or suitcases but also a few quarians in enviro-suits. Shepard couldn't get a closer look at the quarians before the crowd flowed into the wagons and brought him with it.
"Did you see the quarians?" Robert exclaimed when they had entered the wagon and laid down their bags, "I knew that we had some of them in our service but not that any of them attended our academies!"
"Me neither," said Julia, "But we've been a bit starved on news, we've had what, one comm drop a month out in the rim the past two years?"
"Something like that, we might be a little behind on anything less than world-shaking events," Shepard injected.
"True," Robert said before squatting down on his bag, "But no more," he continued and pulled out a patch with a string which he attached to his wrist.
"Don't crash the earth networks while you're at it," Julia said sarcastically, and added with a smile, "And please don't get us any more explicit material in our drops."
"Hey! No fair! Just because my particular alignment and age was hard to come by on a battlestar in the middle of nowhere," he said with an overly hurt tone and put a hand over his heart before countering, "Besides, I still think that getting caught it the act on the frakking tylium injector is worse!"
Julia actually blushed at that, Shepard also felt the heat rise on his chins. Both because of the memory of the act and the aftermath, never had the access shafts to the point-defence system been cleaner.
"Touché," was everything Shepard said before pulling out his patch too, which was quickly followed by Julia.

A/N I Hope that it made for a good read. And I must add that Robert's preferences came before I had a name on the character, when I was done with this I realized that it might be canonical, I hope that someone gets it :)