Kira was standing on the dock's platform, waiting for her mother's ship to arrive. She was excited, so much that she had barely slept the previous night. She hadn't seen her mother for almost a year, though she has heard much about her. Of course she has, after all her mum was Commander Shepard.
Standing there, on the Citadel's docking bay, brought back many memories. When Kira first came here she was only 12 years old. Her mother had decided that spacer life wasn't good for a kid, and even less for a teenager so she enrolled her daughter at a multi-race school on the biggest and most important space station in the galaxy – the Citadel.
Since then Kira missed her mum, a lot. Before her move to the heart of known space, Kira and her mother were inseparable, except of course the time when the older Shepard went ashore for missions.
Other than that Kira was happy on the Citadel. She liked her peers no matter the race. Actually she got on with many aliens better that with most humans. Her friends were an interesting group. Actually, they weren't really a group. Kira hang out with each of them separately, as the rest wasn't fond of each other. Not surprising, considering they were salarian, asari, turian and krogan.
Her teachers were a totally different story. They really didn't like her. Not because she was a bad student, it was quite the opposite – she was the best in most classes and she knew it. Kira had a knack for learning languages and thus, she was the best in all the foreign language classed. She was already fluent asari, turian and salarian, could hold a conversation with a krogan and lately started to learn quarian.
She was the strongest human in biotics, only inferior to a few asari. She was good in hand to hand combat, of course the krogan were forbidden from participating alongside other races. Kira was first on the scoreboards in heavy pistols and in shotguns.
For the things she sucked at… she could hold a sniper rifle and that was about it. She was also crap at assault rifles. The little Shepard didn't take after her mom when it came to tech stuff. She used her omni-tool mostly for e-mail and extranet.
Kira was brought back to the present by the SSV Normandy slowing down to dock. It didn't take long until Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance, the first human Spectre came out of the decontamination chamber.
Walking behind her was a couple of people in standard Alliance armor. One was a man, dark-haired and brown-eyed. The other was a woman, also with dark hair and eyes, a bit Latino looking.
The Commander looked like she always did; both strong and beautiful, her fiery red hair matching the red N7 stripe on her armor and Kira's own hair. The Spectre's lips curled in a half smile as her green eyes focused on her 18 year old daughter.
Kira smiled sarcastically as she mock-saluted. She wasn't officially part of any military force, although one of her teachers suggested that C-Sec had their eyes on her.
„Commander Shepard" she said in a too-serious voice.
„At ease soldier" the older Shepard chuckled „Come here" she said as she opened her arms. Kira laughed and threw herself into her mother's hug. They stayed that way for a few minutes.
"I missed you, kid." Jane said when the two of them stopped hugging.
"Yea, right mum." Kira countered "I don't think you had time to miss anything lately, what with you becoming a hero of the human race. And may I remind you that you didn't even find time to visit after your Spectre Ceremony." All of that came out with more snark than she intended, but Kira couldn't help it, she was still annoyed at her mother.
"Kira… I'm sorry about that. It was a crazy couple of weeks. I barely had time to catch my breath, let alone call you." Jane said with a serious frown on her forehead. Kira just nodded, knowing anything that would have come out of her mouth would just hurt both of them equally. "Come on, I want you to come with me to Udina's office, we can talk more on the way."
"Why should I come? Isn't anything you're going to say highly classified?" The younger Shepard was confused. Her mother never offered to take her anywhere connected with her job.
"Actually, no. Plus, I have a surprise for you kiddo" Jane smiled warmly toward her daughter. She also dismissed the two members of her crew, telling them to "go get everything on the list done".
With that they started moving through the Wards, towards the Presidium. Kira summarized her latest education progress, while her mother was just beaming with pride. Jane knew that her daughter did great in school, but it always felt amazing to hear just how awesome she was.
When they reached the human embassy Kira asked again if she should just stay outside, but her mother just waved her attempt off and told her to 'get her ass inside'. And so Kira went in and met the lovely ambassador Udina and the slightly too formal, but not so annoying captain Anderson.
"What is she doing here, Shepard?" The ambassador sighed, mentioning his head toward Kira. He was obviously tired because of… probably talking with the marine, but what do I know? He looked at Jane with annoyance, a lot of it.
"Well, ambassador, it's nice to see you again too." The human Spectre said with a grin. If there was one thing she loved doing, it was grinding Udina's gears. He just rolled his eyes in response "Now, getting to business, I want to use the Alliance's 'practical boot-camp' program to get a new party member for the Normandy." Udina's eyes narrowed, while Kira's immediately focused on the back of her mother's head.
"Well, you need to fill out the application, available on the…" He didn't get very far in his explanation, before Jane jumped in and cut him off with a voice not much louder, but way more authorative than his.
"Cut it out, Udina. You very well know I came here only, and I repeat only, to keep you in the loop. Either you put it as part of the program, or I just say 'hey, I'm a Spectre, so I can do whatever the fuck I want'. It is up to you." As Jane finished her rant, Kira's jaw was in the process of hitting the floor of the office. She never heard her mum on the job, so she didn't know just how persuasive (or rather intimidating) she could be.
"Fine Shepard. Do what you want. You'll end up doing that no matter what I say." Udina sighed heavily, all the while rolling his eyes.
"Great! I see we have an understanding. Kira, come over here." Kira's mother gestured towards her, beaconing her to step forward. After she took a couple of steps, Jane started speaking again "Udina, you have any papers you need Kira to sign? Yes, alright. Come on kid, we have the galaxy to save."
After the documents were signed and files transferred they left the Ambassador's office, both Shepards smiling broadly, looking forward to working together.