My third attempt at a Mass Effect story. Please bare with me, all reviews and opinions are very appreciated.
Prologue
A five year old girl sat impatiently in the waiting room of the station's hospital. Her short legs swung back and forth as her big round greenish-blue eyes watched the double doors. September 25th. Her mother went in the hospital because she's going to have a baby. That's what her dad said, but he couldn't be there because he was shipped out to a new job. Sitting by the young girl was a friend of the family, Gunnery Chief David Anderson.
A big hand rested on the small brunnette's shoulder. The girl looked up to look into the brown eyes of her Godfather. "Raiden, it's going to alright. Just you wait."
Raiden Shepard nodded before returning to watch the double doors. After hours of waiting, a Dr. Gordon walked through the double doors. Anderson stood with Raiden by his side.
"How is Mrs. Shepard?"
The blonde hair doctor rubbed his hands as he smiled at the dark skinned man. "Mrs. Shepard and the twins are fine. Is Mr. Shepard here?"
Anderson shook his head before looking at the girl was jumping from one foot to the other. "Can we go in?"
Dr. Gordon nodded before turning to face the receptionist, then back to the soldier. "That will be fine. Mrs. Shepard is in room 208."
Anderson nodded before grabbing Raiden's hand before heading through the double doors. They walked down the long hallway before passing a open room. Raiden looked in to see a dark red head boy around two years old with leg braces and a neck brace.
"Raiden, this way."
Before she turned away the boy look at her with wide dark green eyes. Raiden followed her godfather the rest of the way before entering room, 208. Lying in the hospital bed by the window was a tired but smiling woman with a messy black ponytail.
"How you doing Hannah?" Anderson questioned after giving his friend a small kiss on her head before looking at the jumpy five year old at the two bassinets near them. "Twins, huh?"
The raven haired woman smiled softly before moving her pale blue eyes towards her children. "A complete surprise. Matthew and I only knew about one and then...the doctors said twins." Hannah sighed deeply. "I wish that he was here."
David gave Hannah's hand a resurring squeeze. "I'm sure that he'll be fine."
Hannah looked up with tears in her eyes. "Are you sure?"
David looked away, towards the three children with a swollen look. No he wasn't sure, in the Alliance it was never certain that you'll live to see the next day or in his friend's case of his best friend never be able to see his family or new twins.
...
Hera Shepard was the Alliance favourite. She was a War Hero. Born into a naval family, she and her siblings spent their childhood on ships and stations. They moved from posting to posting as their parents were reassigned. Until she and her brother turned ten is when they got the news that their father Captain Matthew Shepard was killed in action. Hera and her fifteen minutes older twin enlisted in the Alliance military on the day they turned eighteen.
When Hera was nineteen she was on shore leave at Elysium when the first wave of the Skyllian Blitz struck. A massive coalition force of slavers, crime syndicates, and batarian warlords attacked the human colony, determined to wipe it out.
Hera rallied the civilian inhabitants, leading them in their desperate fight to hold off the invaders. When enemy troops broke through the colony's defenses, she single-handedly held them off and sealed the breach.
After hours of brutal fighting, reinforcements finally arrived and the enemy broke ranks and fled. Because of Hera's actions, Elysium was saved, and she are regarded throughout the Alliance as a true hero.
As for Hera's older siblings, they had a darker beginning in the Alliance.
One of their first missions was an expedition to investigate Akuze, a lush world on the outskirts of Alliance space that had suddenly dropped out of contact. At that time the oldest Shepard child, Lieutenant Raiden Shepard was twenty three and in charge. She requested her younger brother, Hal who was waiting for his first assignment. At this time their baby sister was stationed on Earth and it was a few months after the Skyllian Blitz.
Arriving on the surface, they patrolled and found the settlement intact, but there were no survivors.
At nightfall, the thresher maws struck - mindless abominations of teeth and tentacles that rose from beneath the earth. Constant gunfire couldn't drown out the shrieks of Raiden and Hal's fellow soldiers as they were dragged down to a gruesome death.
Fifty marines died on Akuze. The Shepards were the only one to make it back to the landing zone alive. A monument on the planet commemorates the massacre, a grim reminder of the price humanity must pay as they spread throughout the stars.
But it also left a deep mark on Raiden and Hal.