A/N: The Mass Effect universe is … compelling, to say the least. As someone who grew up reading the classics of science fiction – with emphasis on the science – I found the internal consistency of the games refreshing, intriguing, engrossing. It felt like the kind of world that Heinlein or Niven would have created, populated with deep characters and consistent details.
That changed with the ending to Mass Effect 3. In moments, the game went from internally consistent rules-based science futurism story to a kind of hand-waving space magic fantasy. Naturally, I rebelled. This work is, unapologetically, an attempt to resolve the ending for myself – a kind of urgent NEED to reach conclusion about the story that so immersed me. This is entirely my own head-cannon, and I admit as much; I have begun with what my interpretation of Shepard's early career might be like. I played as Colonist / Ruthless (and renegade), and thought it might be interesting to look at the foundational moment in her career that (for me) defined the rest of her actions through all three games.
Ch1 is set before the events of the games. Ch2 is set during ME1, CH3 is set during ME2. CH4 is set during ME2's DLC, up through Arrival. CH5 is set during the opening to ME3. CH6 and CH7 are set during ME3, and CH8 is set after.
I won't summarize the events of the gameplay itself. I assume that if you're here, reading this, you're probably as intimately familiar with the names and places as I am. Throughout this work, I have based my descriptions of Tali on this image: (( i99 . mindmix . ru / masseffect - universe _ph / 31 / 485777565 . jpg )) and my own views about Quarian physiology and anatomy. These views are based on the information in the Mass Effect Wikia, which I highly recommend, but are of course my own headcannon.
This is my first work of fiction; all reviews are appreciated.
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8 July 2178
Arcturus Naval Station – Arcturus Stream Mass Relay Hub
"This Board of Inquiry is convened for the evaluation of the field report of Lieutenant Shepard, 1st Naval Marines, on detached duty to SSV Lyons. This board will come to order."
The whispering in the gallery continued through the pounding of the gavel. The Board sat in their dress blues behind wooden faces and wooden railings; the gallery looked down from above. It could have been a painting in a chapel back on Earth, if all the angels had been military brass. This was supposed to be a closed hearing, but the news had gotten out too fast to be kept quiet. Some of the eyes looking down were curious, some were angry. Every now and then a more emphatic word would slip out – "Butcher" they whispered; "Murderer" they said.
"Lieutenant Shepard, you have submitted a field report detailing your ICT N6 Field Operations Deployment to Torfan. This board requires you to elaborate on your statements so that …."
Flashback: 18 June 2178
She always got the shakes.
ICT had mostly beaten it out of her, of course, but she still got them. It was the open secret of the Marines – everybody gets the shakes. The Alliance Marines were, arguably, the finest fighting force ever produced by humanity; she believed it. The Kodiak drop-shuttle she was strapped into was the most robust, durable, grunt-approved dropship the navy had ever fielded; she believed that too. The Batarian state-sponsored pirates operating out of this base could in no way have the equipment to detect the approach of the dozen dropships coming around the night side of this little moon; she wasn't sure she believed that. And at the root of every case of the shakes was one simple, nagging realization: no matter how good a soldier you are when the boots hit the ground, you're just so much ablative armor while you're in your dropship. The smarter soldiers always had the worst shakes, she'd found, but she hadn't shared this observation with anyone. The Lieutenants bars on her collar were too shiny to start mouthing off like that.
The rattling of the Kodiak was getting worse. Atmospheric turbulence was starting to be felt through the intertial compensators, which meant they were close to landing. She looked left to her CO, Major Kyle. He looked calm. He wasn't shaking. She filed that away for future reference.
The shuttles touched down minutes away from the terminator line, the pirate base reflecting the harsh sunlight clearly even from dozens of klicks away. As the troops stormed out of their shuttles to take up their first positions, the thin atmosphere seemed smudge-stained by the dust kicked up from their landing. It was like looking through an ancient piece of plate-glass, and she hated it instinctively
"Tehops and Mica, quit fucking around and get moving up this ridge! I want LOPpers up and going in 15 minutes. On the bounce!" Her voice crackled across the comm sets of the unit. The words were angry, but the voice held no menace – only a professional dispassion. Her men moved off with brisk acknowledgements, their packs heavy with Listening and Observation Post quick-deploy arrays. It didn't look like the Batarians even knew the marines had landed, but she wasn't going to take chances. Major Kyle was only now strolling out of the shuttle, looking around with an open and curious face, seemingly oblivious to the marines moving around him. The first of the shuttles was already starting to lift off again - Kodiak's were less than useless on the ground, and her team was supposed to be providing on the ground scouting and recon for the Lyons. The last shuttle dusted off as soon as the Major had cleared the field perimeter. She filed that away for later, too.
Forward: Arcturus Naval Station
The gavel was banging again, struggling to be heard over the whispers. Insubordinate. Obstinate. Butcher. Murderer.
"Lieutenant Shepard, please detail for us your first contact with Batarian patrols. Your report states that you first made contact with the Batarian forces 16 hours after arriving at Torfan, is that correct?"
Her voice was bold, strong. It rang across the hearing chamber as though she knew she was being watched, weighed, judged, recorded, broadcast across the Systems. "Yessir, one of my squad was discovered by their patrol … "
Flashback
"Nichols, get down, get … !" her shout was cut off in her throat as the rocket caught Nichols full in the chest. It detonated on his armor, shredding his chest and fusing his armor to his skin. He was long dead before he crashed into the gravelly sand underfoot. She rolled to the side and fired, two short bursts that punched right through the Batarian's armor. She ran forward, kicked off his still gurgling corpse, dove over him and behind his squadmates. Two more bursts, and they were dead. It was the last of them here. It was the 20th of June.
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The two companies of marines under her command were primed and ready. The Alliance had accidentally stumbled onto a hell of a fight, and was rushing to fill the breach with bodies. Shepard had destroyed the above-ground base on day 4 by using one of her squads to detonate their powerplant while the other two created the convincing appearance of a full-frontal assault on the fortified above-ground hangar. It had worked – as soon as the power was down, the automated defense guns quit firing. The Batarians panicked. The survivors of the two squads at the front door held position until the demolition squad could hit from behind.
There were no Batarian survivors; she'd seen to that.
She remembered the looks on the faces of some of her men – Sergeant Mica was particularly unhappy. She had tried explaining to them that they didn't have the manpower to guard surrendering prisoners; she had tried reminding them of the Blitz, and the atrocities committed on Elysium. Ultimately, she had coldly announced that her squads were to set up camp in the hangar and work on breaking into the rest of the base. She drew her pistol.
Now, they had access to the rest of the base and all the other hangar facilities they discovered. The moon was honeycombed with them, thousands of Batarians and hundreds of raiders. Gunships, troop transports – some with the Batarian Hegemony's military markings still painted on – stood waiting in their hangars as the Batarian and Krogan troops fought needle-fang and claw for every blasted meter of corridor. The Alliance owned the local space, so the fight was already over – why couldn't the damn pirates just realize that?
A tap on her helmet made her turn. Mica had bought it taking down a gunship on the surface to cover the landing of another two dozen Kodiaks; her ragged platoon was tasked with holding the beachhead so the rest of the marines could join the party, and Mica got the job done. Her new Sergeant, Henkley, was still getting the hang of the job. He gestured, a complicated motion for any marine, and Shepard nodded. She clicked her mike twice and watched her squad tense up for action. It was the 25th of June.
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"Lieutenant, you can't possibly be suggesting this. This is suicide!" Major Kyle had survived the fighting thus far by leading from the rear and looking helpless. Shepard wondered if his ammo brick had even been shaved, but put the thought out of her mind as counterproductive.
"Sir, with all due respect, this is the only option. The pirates are fighting a war of attrition, and we can't afford to keep taking losses like a bleeding wound. We need to seal some of these tunnels, channelize their attacks into places where we have positional superiority. If we send two demo teams here and here …" but she was already being cut off. Kyle was shaking his head sharply.
"No, Lieutenant, I won't commit my men to something like this. Bottling the pirates up in the facilities below – who knows how long they'd last down there? And the collapsing tunnels could have repercussions for us, as well."
"Sir, we don't have a choice. We can't hold this position much longer without reinforcements, and Command has made it clear that their priority is getting to the data and communications center as quickly as possible. We're not going to get any more men, but we are going to be overrun if we don't do something here."
"I just won't do it, Lieutenant. We'll think of something else." She was stalking away before Kyle finished speaking, back stiff and head high. He turned and peered down at their operational map.
Does he think the answer is going to appear to him like a vision, the longer he stares? Shepard wasn't religious, so the idea of 'praying for an answer' seemed like defeatist fantasy. She rejoined the rest of her squad by the almost-natural tunnel they were supposed to be guarding; it was quiet now, but only until the next wave of pirates worked up the courage to come charging out of the darkness. Her face turned sour – if only it were just Batarians now, but those Krogan were nearly unstoppable. She was tired of losing men.
Henkley's voice was quiet as he met her coming back. "Any word, ma'am?"
"No, damn it all. That spineless milk-sucker giving the orders refuses to blow the tunnels; says it's too dangerous for us, and we'd just make more work for ourselves having to dig out the pirates. Dig them out!" her snort of disgust was matched by some of the more cynical under her command. They knew the situation as well as she did.
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It was night, but the only way to tell was by looking at the color of the lights strung up behind their defensive barricades. Shepard was touching helmets with Henkley and Vala, crouched over a bare space of dirt. That they were talking was obvious – that they weren't using the radio was curious.
"… and set off the charges. Take a couple of men with you, each, to keep the pirates off your back. I don't care if it's your last act in this life, you close those tunnels. Am I understood?" Shepard looked up through her visor, locking eyes with the man and woman she was ordering to their deaths.
Henkley looked pale, like he was about to be sick in his helmet. Vala was much calmer about the whole thing; it had been her idea to go now, when the pirates would be massing for another push. "Hope we can catch some of those four eyed piranha in the cave-in, ma'am. Save some bullets." Vala had laughed softly at her own comment, and Shepard grinned wide. She liked Vala – a woman after her own heart.
"Okay. Take whoever volunteers, and go. Good luck." They stood, and clasped hands over their dusty battle-map on the ground. Henkley swallowed. "Ma'am, if we don't … well, it's been a real honor to serve with you. You're one tough bitch, if you'll forgive me saying so – we need more like you." Shepard returned his crisp salute and watched him trot off.
"Well, I don't know about an honor to serve, but it's been a pleasure." Vala's gauntlet came down hard on Shepard's shoulders, and the two women shared a quick look. "Hope to see you on the other side."
Shepard watched Vala stride off, and closed her eyes. It had to be done. There was no other choice.
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The explosion shook the lights loose around their tunnels and the marines clenched up on their rifles, not knowing what fresh hell was about to come pouring out. Thick plumes of dust rolled in, each one accompanied by a distant crash or rumble; the air in their cavern was so thick with dust that Shepard couldn't even see her men. She switched to thermal scanning just in time to watch the warm form of Major Kyle come bounding toward her.
"What have you done, Lieutenant!" he screamed at her, waving his hand at the tunnel entrances. "What have you done!?"
Something snapped, and she stepped up into Kyle's space. "I did what I goddamn had to do, SIR." She sneered the word through clenched teeth. "You weren't willing to do what needed to be done, so I did it for you. Put it in your goddamn log if you want to, but I did what needed to be done." It was the 30th of June.
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She was riding back in another Kodiak, alone with her thoughts. Not many people had wanted to be in the same shuttle with her, in case the dark cloud of impending court-martial came down on them, too. But it didn't matter – she was finally off that rock, and she was still breathing.
The explosions in the lower tunnels had taken out several key points of attack for the Batarian pirates. It wasn't known how many of them died in the rubble, or who died of water or air loss in the sealed chambers. What they did know was that after the collapse, the fighting was instantly different; the pirates fought with a resigned lethargy, easy prey for over-hyped marines. The comm room was breached, and the computers dumped. Some squads had taken prisoners, and these were methodically rounded up and taken for military trial. Shepard's squad had none to add to the line.
Major Kyle had almost shut down after the blasts. Shepard had been forced to assume command of all three squads, or what was left of them. She'd lost 78% of the troops under her command in all the fighting, but it was done. Done. It was the 3rd of July.
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9 July 2178 - Arcturus Naval Station
"This hearing will come to order. Lieutenant Shepard, please rise."
The banging of the gavel matched the pounding in her heart as she stood. She looked resolutely ahead, ignoring the loud whispering. How could whispers from the gallery be so loud in her ears?
"This Board has sat in recess, and we have reached a preliminary conclusion. Have you anything else to add before this Board renders its findings?"
"Yes sir, just one thing. I did what I had to do to get the job done, sir."
The admirals looked at each other, exchanging glances. "Very well. This board will now render its findings and judgment." The hearing room was finally silent – all whispering suspended as the gallery waited to hear the pronouncement.
"Lieutenant Shepard, you are found to have acted in the best interests of the Alliance, in accordance with stated military doctrine and toward the furtherance of our military goals in this theater of operations. Your report is accepted as-is, and this matter is closed. Furthermore, you will report to ICT Facility in Vila Militar for formal debriefing of your N6 field mission. Dismissed!"
The last half of the pronouncement would only be discovered by reading the transcripts later. At the announcement of her innocence, the gallery had exploded into shouts and Shepard had broken into a slow smile – her faith in the Alliance command restored. They understood what it would take for Humanity to secure its future in the Galaxy. She couldn't help but turn and look for Major Kyle, to see what his reaction to all this would be – but she missed him, catching just a glimpse of him as he turned away. No matter – she'd been exonerated. She'd catch up with him some other time.