Disclaimer: Bioware own all characters, etc. May include spoilers and mixed nuts, read at your own risk.

MASS EFFECT

The Stories We Tell Our Kids.

by

Raymond Cooper

The old man by the fire looked as ancient as ancient could be, his face a flickering mass of valleys and crags in the firelight. Around him sat a group of children, facing him with interest.

"This is story night. Who wants to hear a story?" the old man asked. A dozen hands went up. "Now, what should we have a story about?"

"Princesses!"

"Unicorns!"

"Turians!"

"Don't be daft," another kid said, "Turians don't exist."

"Turians do too! My dad knew a Turian once."

The old man quietened the children down. "Shh, shh now. Everyone be nice." He brightened momentarily. "I know! We shall have a story about The Shepard. Everyone gather around."

A long time ago, here on the planet Earth, a man was born to the family Shepard. He was very much loved by his parents, and when he was 37 he was strapped to the top of an ancient missile and fired into space –

"Not that Shepard, we want a story about The Shepard!" one little boy insisted.

"Okay, okay," the old man waved down the criticism. "You want a story about The Shepard, not That Shepard. Okay, okay." He leaned in a little closer to the children. "It all started a long time ago. Maybe thirty years ago, maybe a hundred years ago. Maybe Shepard was a man, or maybe he was a woman."

"He was a she?" asked one kid.

"She was a pretty red-headed princess," said a little girl.

"Don't be daft, redheads don't exist."

"Redheads do too exist!" the little girl replied indignantly.

"Maybe redheaded women do exist," the old man cut across the top of the discussion, and attention returned to him. "But this Shepard was a man. He was a manly man, with a shaved head and stubble."

"What's stubble?" asked the little girl.

"It's what you get when small buildings fall down," the daft kid answered.

"It was a time of conflict and being able to travel far across the stars using a series of ancient relays. A time when humans walked the skies and made love to smoking hot blue alien women."

"What does -" the little girl began, but one of the older girls clapped her hand over the little one's mouth.

"You mean Asari, right?" one of the boys asked. He went unanswered.

The cramped cockpit of the Mako was made even more cramped with a crew of six filling the tiny space. John Shepard, space hero of the Alliance, pushed a foot out of his ribs. The Mako lurched dramatically in response, but this was relatively peaceful in comparison to the bouncing and rolling the armoured transport tank had been doing.

"Oh my gods, Shepard, you drive worse than an Asari Matriarch!"

"Shut up, Garrus, I don't drive that bad."

"Yes you do!" Liara yelled from the back. "No, wait, my mother doesn't drive this bad!"

"Will everyone stop griping? We're coming up on that transponder beacon."

"About time," Wrex grumbled. As cramped as the cockpit was, no one was game to go near the massive Krogan. Well, except for Tali, who was seated neatly in his lap.

Something huge exploded outside and the Mako tilted dramatically.

"Are we driving upside down?" Liara called from the back, her voice bubbling as something that sounded breakfast-y threatened to erupt from her throat.

"No," Tali lied badly, excitement in her voice.

"It's a thresher maw!" Garrus called out from where he lay, able to see out of the cabin's transparent front and floor.

"Oh great, another alien to add to your collection," Ashley grumbled from her place above Garrus.

"Will everyone stop complaining and let me do my thing?" Shepard shouted, twisting the control column dramatically to bring the turret cannon around to face the giant sandworm. The alien growled back at the tank as Shepard fired. The cannon boomed in the confined space, and the shell ricocheted off the beast's armoured carapace and smacked into the sand half a kilometre away. The thresher maw leaped for them.

Shepard planted his foot on the accelerator and the tank jumped forward with a cry of joyous abandon from the Quarian beside him, a grunt of boredom from the Krogan, and shouts and retching from the back of the cabin. "Will someone get her a bag?" he yelled as fruit and grains splashed past him and into the cockpit's canopy. The thresher maw was gaining on them, so Shepard threw the vehicle into a tight corner. "I'll try spinning; that's a good trick." The alien sandworm continued on in a straight line before pulling up, giving Shepard enough time to line up a shot and fire. This time the tank round punctured the worm's brain, and it fell dead, flat on the sandy surface.

"And hey, look, great positioning," Shepard said, pointing out the canopy. "Here's the beacon."

"Best ride ever!" Tali crowed as she climbed out of the Mako. "I wanna go again!"

"You can, urgh, go with him next time," Liara muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Shepard moved to the beacon, and the crashed ship beside it. The titanium armour plating showed huge teeth marks, and the human crew, all Alliance Marines, were dead and scattered about. A small toothy wormlike creature stuck its head up from the stomach of one of the corpses, blood smeared around its mouth.

"Oh, it looks so cute, can I keep it?" Tali asked hopefully. Shepard took a closer look at the baby thresher maw and shook his head.

"That's not coming back on my ship."

"Aww but it looks so cute, and I could train it to attack people on command, and it could help me in my pilgrimage and and and-"

Wrex put his foot down on the corpse, crushing the baby worm and ending all discussion. "It's all so cute until it tries to kill you and make your race barren."

Garrus pinched the bridge of his nasal cavity and shook his head. "You're just not going to let that go, are you?"

"Nope," Wrex growled back.

Liara's breakfast was joined by her dinner from the night before. Bent down to the ground, she noticed something. "Oh Shepard, look, I've found something." She handed him a datapad. Shepard looked at it distastefully and carefully wiped it on one of the Mako's wheels before checking it.

"Datapad isn't Marine," he said, flicking through a couple of pages. "Isn't Alliance either, kind of."

"Isn't kind-of Alliance?" Ashley asked, poking her face over Shepard's elbow to sneak a look. "How does that work?"

"I mean, it's a human design, but it's not from an Alliance member." Shepard flicked through several other pages. "It says here, property of Cerberus Group and to return to," he flicked the page, "Doesn't say. Oh, how helpful. How do we return it?"

"Did they leave a com number?" Liara wondered.

"No, just... damn. I thought there'd be something to kill."

Tali looked up from another corpse, where she was snuggling another baby thresher maw up against her faceplate. "Killing their mummy wasn't enough?"

Shepard shook his head. "It's just, you know. Alliance Marines! Alien world! Mystery! There should have been an army here we saved them from or something."

Wrex put his hand on Shepard's shoulder. "It's all right, Shepard. Not everything ends in death and destruction."

"Not everything?"

"Only the best things," the Krogan rumbled in his gravel voice. "And how can you have best things in life if you don't also have average or bad things?"

"I guess that's true," Shepard agreed before directing everyone back into the Mako. He stopped Tali at the door to the transport tank. "I know your Migrant fleet is in danger, but you'll have to leave that engine core behind."

"Why? I can make it fully functional again easily enough," the Quarian replied.

"Maybe so, but the core is leaking and I don't want to have to try getting element zero out of the seat fabric."

"Spoil sport." Something rubbed up against Tali's faceplate.

"Oooh, before we leave, can we drive off a cliff?" Tali asked from Wrex's lap again.

"That's not like the stories of The Shepard my dad has on his comp," one of the younger boys complained.

"Well, what does your dad have?" the old man asked.

"They generally start with –"

Garrus walked along the corridor to Shepard's quarters on the Normandy. It wasn't a long walk, but to the Turian it felt like an age to cross the short distance from the lift. Reaching the door, he could hear muffled noise from within. He shook his head and opened the door.

Inside, blue tentacles extended from Shepard's bed to the walls and ceiling, and a quivering purple mass of mandibles and weirdly-jointed limbs covered Shepard's naked body. While Garrus had gotten used to nude Asari and Quarians, humans were something he hadn't yet gotten used to. Hopefully, he never would. "Shepard, it's the Council."

The human waved a hand in the air above what passed for Tali's shoulder. "Pipe it through down here."

"I'd rather not."

"Pipe it through here, my main man Garrus."

"You really should at least be dressed when addressing the Council –"

"It's okay, it's okay, everything's covered." Shepard's hand grabbed at Tali and moved her, eliciting a squeal of excitement. "Well, now it is. Put them through." When Garrus didn't move, like a deer caught in oncoming headlights, Shepard sighed and slapped the com panel on his wall. "Joker, put the Council through."

"Okay, Commander," came Joker's disembodied voice. The flat panel projected a holo with the three members of the Citadel Council. The Turian recoiled in shock, the Asari representative quirked a smile and the Salarian turned to study the room's ceiling.

"John Shepard," came the human's muffled voice.

"Shepard, we have tracked Saren to the Virmire system in the Sentry Omega sector."

"And you want me to go plant my flag there?"

"We, uh, want you to go to Virmire," the Turian representative said, joining the Salarian in looking anywhere but the bed, "and, uh, take care of Saren."

Shepard gave a lusty grin. "Oh, I'll take care of him, all right."

"Idon'twanttoknow," came the Turian's quick response.

Shepard pushed Tali from his body and stood at attention before the Council. "I will make it my life's work to pin Saren down and insert into him a sense of Great Justice for the galactic community, to bring him to his knees and make him cry my name softly, just once, before I finish him off once and for all." The Asari representative's smile grew wider. "And then maybe, just maybe, I may allow him the gratification of serving under me. And if I can't do this one thing, then maybe the Council picked wrong and I am not ready to be John Shepard, Space Pimp."

"That doesn't sound like a very good story," the little girl sniffed. The boy poked his tongue out back at her.

"At least it had a happy ending," he shot back. "Maybe two."

One of the older girls shook her head slowly. "What does your father watch?"

"Anyway," the old man harrumphed, "If there are no more interruptions!"

"My mummy tells me stories about The Shepard," the little girl continued. "She tells me nice stories."

"Oh, like they're any better than that," the boy threw back.

"Mummy tells me the truth! And this is what she tells me every night before I go to sleep:"

Space is cold and the distance between stars unimaginable. And yet, here Commander John Shepard of the Citadel Council Spectres managed to put on a big tea party for all his friends. Shepard got a big table and lots of chairs, and put them all out on the tropical beaches of Virmire. And here were Wrex, and Tali, and Ashley and Kaidan, and Liara and Garrus who was delicately sipping tea from a fine china cup with a floral pattern on it. Beside him, because they looked the same as each other, was Saren who was also sipping tea from a cup.

"More tea, Saren" Shepard called from his side of the table. "Maybe some scones."

"Oh, no thank you Shepard," Saren replied politely, dabbing at his beak with a napkin. "I couldn't possibly have anything more to drink else I might need to visit the space lavatory. And that would be a crime against humanity with tea this good."

"I Say," said Wrex from his chair, "Did You Know That Is Also My Name?"

"Do you mean to say your name is Good?" Ashley enquired politely. "What a spiffing coincidence! I had a pet rabbit named Good many years ago!"

"No," Wrex replied, shaking his head. "My First Name Is Tea. Tea Wrex."

Garrus chuckled politely. "I say, old chap, so dreadfully sorry about tangling your testes and causing your race to be unable to effectively breed."

Wrex waved off the apology. "It's Quite All Right, My Fellow. For Without The Jean Page My People Would Be Angry And Mean And We Couldn't Enjoy Tea Parties And Cakes Like This."

"Spiffing!" Garrus beamed.

"Indeed this is so," Saren spoke and checked his watch. "I am so sorry my friend should be so dreadfully late." The sky rumbled, and the clouds parted and a giant spaceship looking like a metallic squid dropped to the beach before delicately manoeuvring itself into a seat at the table.

"So frightfully sorry! Late apologies directed to The Shepard!"

Shepard nodded graciously. "Thank you for coming, Sovereign," Shepard said. "Tea?"

"That story's lies," one of the older boys said.

"Nuh-uh! My mummy told it to me and said her mummy told it to her."

"But your mummy was a brain zombie from the Reapers." At the mention of the Reapers, all of the children fell silent for a few moments.

"But that's not how Virmire happened," one of the other children said. "What happened to Ashley or Kaidan?"

"One of them had to stay behind and clean the table," the girl said confidently. The other child said a rude word. "Then you tell us what happened at Virmire!"

The Salarian Captain Kirrahe pointed at Wrex, stomping away from the discussion. "Is he going to be a problem, Commander?"

Shepard turned to watch his faithful Krogan companion trudge away angrily up the beach. He needed Wrex focussed now more than ever. "I'll speak to him," he promised.

Wrex noticed Shepard following him before the human reached him – perhaps he picked up Shepard's scent, the human wondered as the armoured Krogan turned. "Don't try and stop me, Shepard," Wrex growled.

"These aren't your people," Shepard reminded the Krogan. "Saren's just using them. They've got no brains, they're under the control of the Reapers."

"They're still my people," Wrex replied. "Don't ask me to kill them. This could be a cure for the genophage, Shepard!"

"But they're not your people. They're mind-controlled zombie clones! What do you want me to do, Wrex?"

"Do you have any idea how hard it is being a Krogan male, when so few Krogan females can have children? Do you have any idea how frustrating that becomes? All our pent-up aggression comes from this, Shepard! All our anger and our hatred because we can't... get... off!"

Shepard stopped and looked Wrex in the eyes, recognising something he hadn't seen since he was a pimply-faced scrawny thirteen year old looking in a mirror. "Wait, Wrex, do you mean you don't... you do know, you can have sex just for fun, right? It's not just used to have kids."

Wrex stopped in mid-ire. Confusion clouded his red eyes, then they opened wide. "Oh. Oh man. You mean... you mean we can still do it?"

"Sure, and if you're worried about the bad physical and psychological effects from failed pregnancies," Shepard reached into his armour and pulled out a foil square out of sight from Ashley and Kaidan behind them, "let me introduce you to some advanced human technology that might nip that problem in the bud, too."

Wrex cried tears of happiness as Shepard rejoined the others. "He's going to be fine."

"THIS IS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" Wrex shouted at the sky from behind them.

"Well," the old man said dubiously, "that could have happened, I guess. I wasn't on the beaches with them so I can't really say. But, Virmire. Where everything changed and The Shepard had to make his first major choice."

"We're pinned down, Commander, we're stuck in this AA tower."

"We're coming to get you, Kaidan. Just hang on." Shepard clicked the com off and turned to Ashley, who was rigging the Salarian drive core to explode. "You just get that bomb ready to go, Chief."

"Aye, sir," Ashley replied, distracted and bent over the core. Shepard tore his eyes away from the sight and signalled to Tali and Liara to follow him to one of the side gates. He nodded, and Tali slapped the gate control. With a shriek of tortured metal, the gate lifted into the wall just long enough for the strike team to rush through. It dropped behind them, the ground shaking slightly as it closed.

A red blast shot between Tali and Shepard, who brought their guns up and began targeting the Geth and Korgans at the other end of the coolant pool. Liara grabbed two of the Geth using her biotic abilities, and created an artificial gravity field to hold them in place while peppering them with indiscriminate fire from her assault rifle. Tali pinged shots off the Geth carapaces with her pistol, while Shepard's assault rifle fire was more precise, and his aimed shots shattered the heads of the Krogan troops.

With the Geth and Krogans no longer a threat, Shepard's team ran through the shallow coolant pool and into the service lift the Geth had been protecting. At the top of the lift, the group ran onto a gantry overlooking the area, just in time to see a Geth dropship swing past heading back towards where Ashley was setting up the drive core in the facility's primary geothermal tap.

"It appears the Geth have sent reinforcements," Liara muttered as the insectoid carrier settled over the courtyard behind them.

Kaidan's voice came over the com. "Chief! We've spotted a troopship inbound for your location!"

"It's already here," Ashley replied. "It's raining Geth all over the bomb site."

"Hold on Chief, I'm coming back to get you," Shepard added to the conversation.

"Negative!" Ashley's shout hurt Shepard's ears. "It's too late for us! There's just too many of them. I'm activating the nuke."

Shepard reacted in surprise. "What are you doing, Chief?"

"Making sure this bomb goes off, no matter what." She paused. "It's done, Commander. Go get the Lieutenant and get the hell out of here!"

"Belay that," Kaidan said. "We can handle ourselves. Go back and get Williams."

"Williams, radio Joker and tell him to meet us at the bomb site."

"Yes, Commander, I –"

"It's the right choice!" Kaidan said insistently. "And you know it!"

Shepard made his choice in an instant. "I'm sorry, Kaidan. I had to make a choice."

"I understand, Commander. I don't regret a thing. And a backside that fine, that shouldn't be allowed to be chewed up by the Geth."

"WHAT?" came Ashley's scandalised scream. Shepard didn't need the com to hear it from the compound.

"Just saying, is all," Kaidan added. "It's fine."

"No it's not!"

"Sorry, Ash, but Kaidan's got you here. It's a fine butt."

"I – you – you're both perverts!"

"At least I can die fulfilled, knowing I've saved a backside that will inspire a generation of men back home."

"You said it, soldier," Shepard added fervently.

"I can't believe you're saying this about me! I'm right here!"

"And with Kaidan's sacrifice, your butt always will be."

"Amen," added Liara.

"What I want to know," one of the older boys said, "was why if The Shepard had a full team of six specialists, and he had two with him and two off doing other things – why didn't he get the two others to go help Kaidan?"

Joker brought the Normandy around. "We're only going to get one attempt at this, guys, so make sure your aim is right." They passed over the AA tower where Kaidan and his Salarian team was holed up. "Go go go!"

There was silence from the ship's intercom, then Navigator Pressly started laughing from CIC behind Joker. "What? What's so funny?"

"The Turian threw the Krogan at the tower. The Krogan missed, and is imbedded up to his waist in cement. The Turian's trying to pull him out now."

Joker slapped his palm to his face. "Awww for crying out loud... Shepard'll have me for this. We're supposed to be meeting Williams at the bomb site." He shook his head. "Throw a rope out and pull them along with us."

"That doesn't sound as cool as Wrex and Garrus were," the boy grumped, arms folded.

"Not everything happens in life like you'd want, and the biggest heroes are often only cowards with a case of mistaken identity," the old man observed. "Now, it's getting late. You should all go to bed. Tomorrow will be another day, tomorrow night another time for stories. Go on, shoo, shoo." The old man flapped his hands and the children scatted back to their beds in other dorms.

Someone moved in behind him, dropping a hand on his shoulder. "You tell the best lies."

"Always did," the old man replied, wrapping his twig-like fingers around the other's hand and gently stroking it. "That was how I got to be a Spectre at least. Lied through my teeth. 'Course, I didn't know they wanted me to be a Spectre when I filled out that damned quiz. The question, 'Would you rather shoot a Krogran, a Turian or a Salarian first?' wasn't what I was expecting on an application for a canteen position."

"The kids are getting more imaginative."

"Kids always do. And kids make up the coolest things. Make people look better. Did you hear – John Shepard, Space Pimp?"

The other laughed. "Well, that was true enough."

"Well, yeah, but it's not in the official histories." The old man sighed, stood and dusted off the N7 insignia on his jacket. "It's time for bed. I feel up for a quickie. And not everything I told them was a lie."

"No," said Tali. "But all of it was close enough. What are you going to tell them tomorrow night?"

Shepard leaned back and looked up at the stars. "Tomorrow night... tomorrow night I'm going to tell them about the time we blew up all the mass relays, and that's why they can't go back to see their parents ever again."

"You realise they're going to cry."

"Would you love me anymore if they didn't?"

-END-