Chapter 7: Castle of Glass

Nihlus blinked quite a few times at her before daring to speak. "I beg your pardon, Commander?" Was is Shepard's imagination, or did both of his voices just crack at different intervals of that question?

"I said 'no', Spectre Kriyk," she repeated clearly, crossing her arms and leaning back on her back leg to solidify her stance on the matter. "I do not wish to join the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel Council. I want nothing to do with your sponsorship."

"Commander," he pleaded, his voice was even, but a tiny mark of desperation entered his tone as he continued. "Commander, you must reconsider. The galaxy needs you – "

"And the only way I could make a difference would be becoming a council spectre?" She returned, her tone unbelieving and bordering on disgust. "I was paying attention your speech, sir. You think I'm amazing. That I'll change the face of humanity and the galaxy or some such nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense, Commander." This time his voice did crack. "And I don't think you were listening correctly –"

"My dream isn't to 'protect, serve, and insure justice and security'," she cut him off before he could get going again. "It that's what it was, I'd have never ended up on Akuze in the first place, but of course, you weren't able to figure that one out." She shook her head at the memory and sighed. At least that is still a secret, she couldn't help but think in relief. "Also." Her voice was gruff and deadpan now. "I don't care what you think you know of my mother. I may not have forgiven her yet – I may never forgive her – but I know why she is the way she is. Armed with the multiple factors of that ultimate truth, nothing anyone concludes about her is valid unless they have seen it through my eyes and since nobody seems to see it my way…" She shrugged, letting the turian connect the dots for himself.

She was sick of it all. Sick of the ridiculous expectations; sick of the absence of using fucking brains when it came to studying her personal life; sick of the glorifying image that came from that stupidity; but most of all, she was sick of being treated like there was only one choice every time there was a fork in the road.

She hadn't said anything when her mother had told her she should be in the Alliance. When her section commander on her basic combat course had said he'd be able to use her 'aggression' to good use and had made her into an N program candidate, she hadn't said anything. Thinking about it, she had never made a choice in her career so far that hadn't been to advance someone else's endeavours.

No more. She would not be a spectre. No more choices made out of someone else's desperation. No more half measures or decisions made with enough emotion to level a turian battlecruiser. No more crap. She was done with being the 'her' everyone gawked at or hoped for when nothing else was working out for them.

What about becoming something better than 'her'? nagged a voice in the back of her head. What if becoming a spectre does just that? You've always hated stagnation. Why not do something different –

Shut up! That ship has sailed. And there's no point in chasing when I can't even tread water properly.

Presently, Nihlus paced in front of her. His mandibles were taunt against his face and he looked like he was huffing as he walked.

He only stopped when he finally took a deep, long breath. He stared at her afterward and Shepard could see just a tiny, little glimpse of desperation in his eyes.

She hadn't moved and her expression had not changed. He had not expected this reaction: yet an other lesson of its kind in his line of work that never ceased to make itself known, though he was usually much better at coping with it.

"Are you sure about your answer, Commander?" he pleaded, wary of just how defensive she had become. He'd cornered her, he realized with regret, and she was now what most people never expected her to be: sacred. He hadn't done enough research, obviously, and had somehow unwittingly hit a particularly volatile cord with precision. He would retrace his steps and try again at a different time, of course, but maybe he could get a few more clues out of this conversation as to how to proceed the next time around.

She got out of her stance and rigidly fetched her water bottle and towel before leaving the mat. "Positive, Kriyk," she muttered, heading towards the turbo-lift without looking back at him. "Don't hold up for me to change my mind – I can almost feel you looking for a way to do just that, so stop it."

So much for clues, thought the spectre with a quiet huff, watching her leave with interest, but not stopping her.

Shepard made it to the lift without turning around. It was empty as she entered and she waited until the door closed before leaning against the cold metal wall in disdain. The lift ascended for what seemed like an eternity for only a few meters.

Tits, did she ever need a drink right now. Fortunately, she'd stowed away some whiskey in her personal effects just for such an occasion. She only hopped she had enough to deal with this shit.

Back in the cargo bay, Nihlus ignored the technician who went passed him looking at the turian as if he were insane. He had still not moved from where she had left him and he stared at the doors to the lift in her wake.


Serrica woke up to the feeling of a strong hand against her shoulder and nearly punched it's owner as a reflex. But then she registered where she was from the pictures of her friends on the underside of the bunk above her and tried to control herself.

She groaned. Mercy, curses, and damnation… Had she finished all the whiskey she had brought in her bag?

She leaned over and checked the inside of her duffle and found two previously full emergency bottles empty.

Well, that sucks the big krogan quad, she thought to herself. Now I have nothing. This was going to be hell for everyone around her for the next day until they got to Eden Prime and she restocked her stash.

She threw her legs over her bunk to sit up, took her head in her hands, and rubbed her eyes while trying not to puke – if only to keep the floor clean for her roommate.

"Ma'am, we're hitting the Charon relay in about forty minutes. Captain Anderson wants you up at the bridge before that," the voice that brought her out of her daze was sympathetic and kinder than she expected and she jerked her head up in surprise.

"Pressly," she remembered, eyes squinting and head cocking to the side at him.

"Ma'am." The middle-aged navigator nodded like an officer does to his respected senior and not as if he had just shaken her out of a hangover coma. He was balding and there were visible bags under his eyes from fatigue or maybe age, but he had a dark-haired, neatly trimmed beard that curtained his chin. His face seemed to always looked like he was in a permanent frown and that didn't changed as he went to Shepard's locker, opened it, and looked for her work uniform. "We need to get you to the bridge."

She sighed. "HUA*, Pressly. I'm up." She got to her feet and went to their tiny, narrow toiletry room for a few moments to dig out her xelminal. "When was your shift over last night?" she asked from in front of the mirror. She winced at how terrible the bags under her eyes made her look and drew some water from the revolving sink to wake her up a little. Then she stopped, tilting her head and thinking back. "More importantly, when the hell was mine supposed to start?"

"Mine ended after you'd finished the first bottle, ma'am," he responded as if he were talking about the weather and brought her uniform to her bunk before attempting to look for her boots.

Shepard winced again and there was an awkward silence for a few moments.

"I implemented roll-call for you, as well as some review ship drill and SOPs – the notes are on the data-pad at the foot of your bed. I also, per your list of tasks as XO, inspected the drive-core – though I have to admit, I'm no engineer and my knowledge of the core is a little rusty so I had to rely on Engineer Chief Adams' word that all was going well. I did manage to use the checklist properly though, and got Adams to make some notes. That's on the other pad under the first. In-flight checks are complete too. The team you selected for ground missions had their inspection moved to the afternoon, so they'll be waiting for you after you report to the bridge." He found her boots and put them at the foot of her bed.

Shepard immerged from the toiletry room, the wince increasing as she started to change. "Sounds like you've been doing my job."

"As per your orders, ma'ma."

She froze for a moment, checking her memory. "Come again?" she asked after she couldn't remember what he was talking about.

Pressly stood up straight and placed his hand behind his back in military fashion. "Earlier this morning – so early, no one in the Mess saw you pass by into the medical bay – you went to Dr. Chakwas with a medical complaint regarding your biotic implant. She looked you over and found an inflammation not common to your L3 implant, repaired it, and then prescribed a few hours rest along with a few drugs to help you with the recovery process. I believe xelminal was among them. It's good that you're taking your prescription, ma'am – the doc will be pleased at that. You contacted me to fill in for your XO duties until you could fully recover and the doctor herself informed the captain of the change via commlink. He's expecting you on the bridge soon, though, ma'ma. This shakedown run is pretty much done, I'm just sorry we couldn't visit Earth on the ground." He nodded to their small window overlooking the human homeworld and sighed. "But duty calls and we need to see one more test of the drive-core's reaction to a mass relay before we head directly for Eden Prime via the Arcturus Relay."

Shepard looked at him, thunderstruck at just how well he'd managed to cover her drunken, passed-out, hungover ass.

There was another awkward silence until Pressly nodded, then moved towards the door. "Thirty-seven minutes until we hit the relay, ma'am."

"Hey, Pressly," she said, making him halt just before pressing their door's holographic panel with his omni-tool to open it.

He turned to her, his expression calm and expectant.

"Thanks." It was low, humble reply and she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"When you took command at Elysium, I was in the battle above while you saved my fiancée at the time on the surface," he said plainly. "This is the least I can do, Commander." He paused and looked back at her with a shrug. "Though, just so you know, Dr. Chakwas says she likes Serrice Ice Brandy, ma'am."

Shepard managed a small smile at him. "I'll keep that in mind." She continued to dress.

He nodded to her again and opened the door. "See you on the bridge, ma'am."

She watched him go, still surprised but appreciative, and brought her boots to the window so she could polish them. Not that they really needed to be polished, but it did let her enjoy the view for a few minutes until the xelminal kicked in fully.

And, it let her think.

She'd been lucky, she realized with a little disgust. Again. And it, unfortunately, probably wouldn't be the last time.

If Pressly hadn't come up with a brilliant plan to save her XO position last night – this morning? – she'd be on Earth right now and most likely not enjoying the view from her cell in Vancouver's Alliance Command Security Prison. There was no doubt in her mind that if she had been up and about this morning, she'd have been very, very quickly charged for shirking duties. She'd also have been incredibly vocal and creative about saying where they could stick their charges after they realized that she was either still drunk or massively hungover. Then, she'd probably be also charged with 'Deportment Unbecoming an Alliance Officer' and put to ground on Earth to high level MPs for safe-keeping. In fact, if they didn't do that after she'd swear and curse at Anderson and all the admirals enough to make their mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers blush, she'd just punch Anderson in the face to get her off and far away from this ship, the mission it was on, and, most of all, keep her from becoming a council spectre.

Spectre.

She felt an unnatural shiver at the mere thought of the word – she'd say 'unholy shiver' if she was actually was polytheistic, but that kind of faith in anything wasn't happening anytime soon. She still couldn't believe that anyone could possibly think she was ready for that kind of job. Council spectres were the first and last line of defence for the main body of civilized space and that was putting it simply. They were spies, soldiers, police officers, armies-of-one, and some of the most dangerous forms of sentient life in the galaxy. They answered to the three ambassadors of the Citadel Council from the three most powerful races – the turians, salarians and asari – and the chain of command stopped there. That meant ultimate authority in all branches of society and spectres like Kriyk was allowed to arrest or even kill anyone as long as it was a part of his missions for the council. In a way, she'd be serving alien values above human ones by accepting the offer and training with Kriyk.

She wasn't adverse to the idea. Nihlus had been right in saying that humans were newcomers to the galaxy and Shepard would have to say that she disliked almost eighty percent of non-military leadership of the Alliance simply because their entire public persona was a show. Integrity: it was a rare thing in all things. She suspected that having her in Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Tasks group could open a lot of doors for the Alliance political agendas for people like Ambassador Udina, the human representative on the Citadel, or Defence Minister Kaslov. But in the end, she'd be the one with the most amount of power in any room with human leadership in it and she wouldn't answer to any of them – just three politicians she didn't know.

Frowning, she put down her boot and activated her omni-tool. They weren't connected to a comm buoy, so the extranet was out, but the Alliance database on ships had permanent data files that could be accessed regardless of extranet uplink. She searched the names of the current councillors, their political views, and careers so far. Half-way through acquiring a little of that, she started downloading everything on the spectres the Alliance had, then made her way into reports on the councillors personal lives. She stopped about three-quarters of the way through the quickly growing collection, realizing that she was prepping.

Prepping like she did when she first got assigned to Elysium. Studying faces, dates, and names like she had done with her missions with Alliance Internal Affairs in the 6th Fleet. Researching her future chain of command like she'd done with Major Kyle before Torfan.

Serrica was instinctively prepping to be a spectre even though she had said 'no'.

She stopped all file downloads and hovered over the 'delete all' application for a moment.

Commander Shepard: N7 commando operative; saviour of the Elysium raid by batarian slavers; black-ops AIA operative; lone survivor of a disastrous mission Akuze, Butcher of batarian pirates on Torfan. What about first human spectre?

The scar at her cheek itched. She lifted her free hand rub along its smooth features.

Duty. Honour. Strength. Integrity. Self-discipline. None of it mattered unless you could be selfless in the face of adversity. But when was it going to be enough? When were any of the sacrifices she'd already made going to pay off?

"You will always be expected to give more of whatever is needed. Whenever it will be needed." Standing at attention on parade for her graduation from the N7 course, eyes fixed forward, Serrica hadn't been able to see the face of the rear admiral who had said that from the elevated podium. Nor had she really cared about what he was saying at the time because the seat reserved for Hannah Shepard – the seat that had been directly in her field of vision – had been empty and all she could do was resist the urge to scowl. She realized now, however, that opening statement had managed summed up her entire career so far.

She finished polishing her boots and slipped them onto her feet and sighed longingly as if her entire soul had come out with the damn overdramatic breath.

'More of whatever is needed. Whenever it will be needed'.

Always.

In everything.

It was like chasing a shadow of yourself you hadn't seen yet, but had to catch up to regardless of what you knew of it or how far it had gotten ahead of you.

Selfless in the face of adversity. Controlled rage in the presence of unbridled fear.

And wasn't this just another fear?

Would you sit and hear someone say you backed down from such a challenge? The voice in the back of her mind taunted.

She winced at the thought, but not because she would give into the taunting. Despite her doubts, there was something else that scared her more than becoming a something she didn't wish to be: the idea of asking someone else to do the job. That is to say, if she wasn't ready, then who was? And if she didn't accept, who would someone like Nihlus ask in her stead? Clearly, the Alliance was set on getting somebody – anybody – into the spectres. Who would be a better choice?

Anderson? Maybe, but she suspected that ship had most likely already sailed. There was an uneasy wariness to the captain whenever Nihlus or spectres in general were mentioned. Serrica had suspected since day one that it had something to do with his personal life, but had never wished to confront him about it. The captain had been through enough – she could see with the way he held himself and the soberness of his gaze whenever he spoke with her about any kind of command decision. The problem with that was that other than the captain, no one else came close to competent.

Fuck my life.

Out of anyone she knew, both with and without the N program, she could not name a single person she'd trust with the powers of a spectre other than Anderson, and that assumption was more based on reputation than a true estimation of the man and all he had to offer.

Shit. That leaves just me.

Who would she rather be a spectre? She wouldn't like herself as a candidate, but who else could fill a little of her qualifications for the job?

She still didn't like the idea – not one bit – but she was starting to see that even aa ghost of what Nihlus had thought of her would be enough to be a good spectre in her books. Given time, she might convince him otherwise, but was he going to give that time? And, worse, what if he convinced her in that same time?

"This is ridiculous," she chastised herself, throwing the polish kit against the window with an unsatisfying clunk against the space-barrier window.

Serrica sighed again after the outburst. After a few moments to herself, she ran both hands up her face and into her short red hair. In her experience, soul-searching was never all it was cracked up to be and she doubted that if she sat here all week that she'd be able to weigh all her thoughts correctly.

She needed to make a decision or drive herself insane. She looked at the time on her omni-tool: six minutes to the Charon Replay.

She sighed again and messaged one of her temples. "Get up," she told herself firmly in the faint reflection she could see in the window she'd just attacked. "Get up and put your spine back in, Rica." Endure. Be more. Be what is needed even if you think you aren't worth it. She needed to be XO and she needed to talk to Kriyk in private, so she set her mind to the tasks. She tied her boots quickly and bloused her pants at the bottom before slamming her omni-tool against her door hologram to open it.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

*Heard, Understood and Acknowledged.

A.N:

First things first:

I LIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Surprising, considering my work schedule and the over-terrible depression my dog dying has had on me.

Yet! Here you see a new chapter after a ridiculous amount of time.

:S

Sorry for the delay…

Next!

Sorry to go all PTSD on everyone so suddenly, but let's just face it: there is no way it wasn't going to be addressed in a story like this. I'm actually a little surprised that it wasn't touched on more overtly in Shepard's character in the game than in small snippets considering it's content... meh, can't have everything.

OMG, did I just accidently write a Pressly POV? *checks* Oh, shit – I totally did. Then I took it out to make sure that it didn't clog the story. You'll see it sometime, I suppose. I actually really like it, but I'm also terribly afraid of it. :S And it has soooo many grammatical errors that I'll have to read it over and over and over again – it's not even funny.

And I still have to finish that one scene with Delssandro. AHHH! BEGIN PANIC MODE!

DELETE PANIC MODE!

CONTINUE THROUGH ADVERSITY! RAR!

Meanwhile, back on that track the writer of this shit set up:

Did anyone else play Mass Effect 2, see the living quarters for the crew and wonder: "Where the hell did everyone besides Shepard sleep in Mass Effect 1?" The most logical explanation would be that they have rooms all along the corridor around the mess-hall, but that could only hold so many people (best guess around 30ish if you squeeze in two/four troops per room depending on the size). I also think that the hangar bay has some rooms in it – mostly for the deck crew, but still there's room to be had elsewhere. Engineering bay seems to look like I can put a few rooms there too… Meh, might have to draw a map somewhere and sort it all out. *EDIT:... Yeah, just remembered the sleeper pods... Still like the idea of some crew staying in rooms though.

I think I finally made it to the initial scene in the game! WOO! Only took, what?, 7 chapters and nearly 37000 words? HA!

And I don't care what anyone says, there is no way that Shepard is somehow in full armour when everyone else is in DEUs and work-uniform or equivalent thereof when the Normandy gets that distress signal. It doesn't make sense! Why are she and Nihlus in FO (fighting order) when she should be just walking around the ship doing normal XO duties? Yes, I know it's to make it a cool entrance for our character at the beginning of the game… but still : It's weird, so I changed it.

Hope you liked the BS I pulled to explain relay drift, because I'm tiered of looking at that part and don't wish to rewrite it anymore… seriously...

Yeesh... 8000 words... I REALLY need to clean house on chapters like these soon.

Thank you random people are your followingnessness! And reviews are always welcome (even if you want to destroy my work with polonium rounds)!