Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or the various X-COM games. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not written for profit. I make no money from it. It is not for sale or rent.

Chapter 3: Retaliation

=SF=

Part 1: The reward for a job well done

14:55, 24 August 2176

XSV "Rhine"

In transit

En route to Ophelia

Exodus Cluster

"LT, sir, what exactly did I do to piss you off?" I asked Anderson after we reached his quarters and the door sealed behind us."Or did you simply annoy the brass?"

"My bet is on the brass being peeved off with us for one reason or another. Then again, I can simply blame this situation on your new found celebrity status. Shepard can take some of the blame too."

"Anderson, you were the one pulling strings to get us here as you cheerfully informed me in the hospital."

"Yeah. In hindsight, that might have not been one of my best decisions."

"You think?"

"At least most of the platoon are good people."

"And how are we supposed to run it with me as the only NCO? You know that my only experience with the job was during my training course and this is my first posting in space. While I did a lot of progress in familiarizing myself with this bright future of ours, I'm sure that there are still things that you're all taking for granted that won't really cross my mind. Things that might get people killed if overlooked. There is a reason why I was slotted for a garrison tour after my R&R on Elysium."

"The thought crossed my mind. I've seen your evaluations."

"Me too. I should be able to handle the job if there's an experienced NCO to show me the ropes or something like that."

"We were supposed to be stationed on a cruiser, augmenting a company of marines. One of their sergeants was supposed to make sure you know what you're doing." Anderson sighed. "On the bright side, I used to be NCO not too long ago, so I'll be showing you the ropes and what to do on a ship so you won't accidentally space yourself." He smirked.

"Gee, sir. Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"You're welcome. Lesson time. As you might have figured it out, today both XCOM and the other branches of Alliance military run on paperwork. At least everything is in electronic format these days..."

Well, this was going to suck. At least the troops should have some fun squaring their gear under the supervision of the corporals running the fire-teams of the platoon. Luckily for me, at least the latter were all experienced, at least on their second tour.

=SF=

The next few days were rather "interesting". Fortunately for me, Anderson really knew what the hell he was doing and showed me a lot of little tricks that they didn't teach me during training, yet made my life much easier. And yes, there were indeed some things that you really shouldn't do on a ship unless you wanted to get a lot of people killed.

On a related note, Anderson confirmed that the Alliance and XCOM vessels ran on Elerium and paperwork, with the latter apparently being more important for the smooth running of any vessel or so the brass insisted.

With the boring, but apparently vital part of my duties explained and more or less handled, that left the more "interesting" aspect of my job as an NCO – dealing with the platoon of XCOM killers on board.

Fortunately, Anderson was right about them. They were professionals with a reasonable amount of experience for a peace time soldiers, which was good. Because, while I actually had a trick or two to show them, things that we used during the war, but for one reason or another weren't SOP nowadays, I had a lot to learn too.

Then there was Shepard. While her marine training and psionics made her rather formidable in a scrap, she really wasn't up to XCOM level even before you got into her issues. That's why she's been stuck in VR training with her new fireteam for the most of the time since arriving on board.

Corporal Franks had a lot of good to say about her rate of advance… if there weren't simulated Batarians on the opposing team. Then she tended to lose it as often as not and do something rather dumb and suicidal.

When an XCOM trooper describes someone's behavior as such, you simply need to take a notice.

That's why once I made sure that the platoon was squared, I was stuck in my small office reviewing the VR records of Shepard's training. Skimming through her performance in the scenarios containing four eyed bastards was enough to make a few of my old war buddies seem saneish.

Well, I should have known better. Getting my first tour as a sergeant and ending in an exemplary platoon without problem children? Heh, that was wishful thinking at best, though the behavior of the troopers under my charge made that actually believable. We were already five days out of base, approaching our first target and they all were surprisingly behaving. Then again, that might have had something to do with the fact we didn't let the boys and girls get bored. There were the standard things – equipment maintenance, keeping in shape, though all the gene mods and cyber implants made the latter much easier and faster than in any army not augmenting their personnel in such a way. A lot of VR and Psi training for those with the gift.

The fireteam leaders handled that job exemplary, with only a modicum of input from Anderson or myself. We really interfered only to show them a trick or two, or on the two occasions we ran platoon wide exercise in the hold.

The crew wasn't too thrilled about that.

All in all, it was a rather calm journey, giving me a chance to start growing into my new found duties.

There was only that fun command challenge of dealing with Shepard.

I sighed and shut down the VR recording. It was time to put my nasty sergeant pants and start acting as one.

=SF=

AN: This part was betaed by Mighty Bob on the Space Battle's forums. Thank you for the time and effort you put in cleaning it up!

Part 2: Welcome to X-COM, leave your sanity at the door

17:20, 29 August 2176

XSV "Rhine"

In transit

En route to Ophelia

Exodus Cluster

I stared at the red head on the other side of my plain, mass produced desk, examining her as she was some kind of rather rare and perplexing curiosity. Which she was from a certain point of view.

Shepard was calmly looking back at me, standing at parade rest. She was probably wondering why I called her for this little chat, something that only highlighted the problem. I was pretty sure that she didn't see anything particularly wrong with losing it at the sight of Batarians and going after them with extreme prejudice. Or if she did, she had no idea how to handle the issue.

While I did in fact agree with the general sentiment, having no love lost for the slaving bastards, usually going berserk at the sight of them wasn't something that even the good old X-COM could condone, much less the rather more level headed version of today, which incidentally happened to be our employer.

Not to mention the little fact that her stunts were a great way to get good people killed…

Now, how to deal with the problem? I knew that if I'd risen through the ranks in a more conventional manner, I might have the experience to already know how to approach the current issue. Considering that my situation was anything but normal, well yeah. This was going to be "fun". To make my life just a bit more interesting, Anderson was quite unhelpful in this instance too, because apparently he was interested in the way I was going to deal with this leadership challenge.

He had probably asked our resident AI to patch him into the cameras in my office so he could watch the show too. Joy.

At first I considered playing the role of your typical hardass NCO, that was supposed to work with green privates when they fucked up, though I suspected that it might not be the best way to approach my current problem. If my reading of her personality was even close to the mark, such an approach simply wouldn't work as far as the four-eyed freaks were concerned.

"Shepard, why did you join the marines in the first place?" I asked. "And don't give me the spiel that the average Alliance recruiter wants to hear."

That question caught her off guard. Shepard just looked at me, with a confused expression on her face. "I want to protect Humanity." She muttered after almost a minute of tense silence. "I don't want what happened to Mindoir to happen to anyone else."

Huh. That actually I could buy, though it surprised me that she mentioned her homeworld. I was well aware how touchy that topic had to be for her.

"You aren't doing a particularly good job of it. It was a pure luck that you didn't get yourself killed on Elysium with your reckless charges. The less said for your VR training the better."

Shepard flinched at that. Good.

"Batarians. What's your problem with them beyond the four eyes being a bunch of slaver bastards?"

Something dark passed through her eyes at the mention of the galaxy's least liked members after the Ethereals. For a split second her face twisted in a hateful grimace, before she could school it back into a blank mask.

Oh, boy. The girl had problems all right. I've seen that expression many times during the war. Some of them were when I looked myself at the mirror while thinking about the enemy.

I swallowed a sigh. With some more training and a little experience, Shepard would have fit into most XCOM units during the war. No one would have batted an eye at her stunts then, we all had our issues and sometimes we did dumb things to get at least a few more of the enemy.

That was the issue, really. Even if the Batarians were murderous bastards, which I hoped would be dealt with in due time, Shepard's current attitude was unacceptable. Don't get me wrong, I didn't care if she hated them or the rest of the Council races if she could remain professional despite that.

That was something X-COM and I could work with.

Shepard usually losing it when seeing a Batarian in VR, much less in the flesh, was something else.

"My problems with them?!" Shepard muttered after looking at me strangely for a few seconds. "You saw them on Elysium! You know what they do!"

"Certainly. And I hate them for it. Yet, you don't see me flying into rage when dealing with the wankers. That isn't something I could say about you. Hate, loathe the bastards to your hearts content. As you've probably noticed, a lot of the platoon shares that sentiment and even expands it to most aliens." I shrugged. Most of them wouldn't mind getting into an Asari's pants despite disliking or outright hating aliens on general principle. "That's not an issue for them. They could remain professional no matter what their personal feelings about our enemies." I paused for effect. "You can't and unless that's fixed one of these days you'll get good people killed just to get some personal satisfaction. That's unacceptable!" I roared the last words.

To my surprise, my words actually had some effect, though I was unaware if they achieved what I was aiming for. Shepard was busy looking at the deck and refused to meet my eyes.

"Talk to me. What's your problem with the Batarians? It's definitely more than the stunt they pulled on Elysium." My tone of voice brook no argument.

"I'm from Mindoir." Shepard glared at me.

While that meant a lot, primary thanks to Anderson filling me in on the bare-bones version, I decided to play dumb.

"You mentioned that before. Is it supposed to mean something to me?" I asked, playing dumb though there was more to it. I've seen the official reports of that debacle. If that wasn't the whole story and it had been in fact orders of magnitude worse, it still couldn't compare to what we saw and experienced during the war.

"It was my homeworld. It was raided by the Batarians."

"Continue."

"Shit. I don't want to talk about it." Shepard frantically shook her head.

"It was bad I take it. Probably one of the worst messes after the war ended, right?"

She gave me a sharp nod.

"You obviously survived it, once. Yet whatever happened is still haunting you. I can see you in your eyes. In the way you act when confronted with Batarians. Are you going to let them win after all this time?"

"What? Hell no! They won't get me again!"

"Shepard..." I sighed. "Do you think you're the only one haunted by the past? We have that much in common, we've walked through hell and come out on the other side. Yet, the scars are still there. The question is will you let what happened break you, to kill you or your buddies when you inevitably lose it in a firefight? It might very well happen on our current mission when we deploy in two days."

Frankly, the girl could use a shrink. Me to, probably, though I had a lot of mandatory visits during my training.

That begged the question how many strings Anderson had to pull in order to keep her in the marines and then transfer her to X-COM. Every psych evaluation from someone competent would have covered what happened on Mindoir. These weren't the desperate years of the Ethereal war. Both X-COM and the Alliance at large could afford to recruit reasonably sane personnel.

Then again… What would have happened to Shepard if she had been found lacking during her evaluation for joining the armed forces? There was more to this bloody mess than met the eye. Even if Anderson obviously had a soft spot for the girl, letting her join the army and now X-COM wasn't doing her any favors.

I would be having a pointed conversation with the LT when I wrapped up this mess.

"I wouldn't do that!" She exclaimed after spluttering at my accusation. At least riling her up was somewhat amusing, though this was neither the time nor the place for that. Besides, considering the topic of the conversation, it was rather inappropriate.

"When you're in your right mind, sure you won't, Shepard. However when you face a Batarian in the VR you go berserk and attack them with no consideration about anything else three out of four times. I just finished reviewing the records before calling you in here."

"I… But… God damn it!" Shepard exploded and started cursing good enough to make at least a few sailors blush. Most of her expletives included Batarians and various anatomically impossible things which Dr. Vahlen would have loved to try on them for shit and giggles.

"You've been made aware of the issue by Corporal Quin, I believe. Yet, you continue to lose it when facing Batarians."

"I can't help it damn it! Every time I see one of those freaks I remember what they did to my family! What they tried to do to me! Everything goes red and I simply need to tear them apart! Is this what you want to hear, Sergeant!? I can't help myself! I want them all dead!" Shepard shouted.

"Welcome to the club, Shepard. How do you think I feel about the Ethereals?" At least she finally stated her problem aloud. It would be a good first step to fixing the problem… if I was a bloody shrink.

Right now I felt like strangling Anderson, that prick.