A/N – Sorry for the long delay and the mangled first edition. A helpful reader named Parselmaster pointed this out and I corrected immediately, but still...the damage was done. (Nevertheless, thanks again, Parselmaster!) I found myself actually avoiding writing this part; what comes next was harder than I expected, especially considering it is all specific to _this_ version of the Mass Effect arc. In about three more chapters [EDIT: oops, make that nine chapters,] we'll get back 2183, but the next few chapters are wholly non-canon flashback. I had hoped to fit all of this Shepard's back story into a single chapter (for purists who might prefer to skip it, and so it wouldn't take as long to write) but there was so much to tell that cramming it all into one chapter reduced it to yawnworthy exposition. So at least now it'll be easier to understand some of why he does what he does. This chapter is rated NC-17 for graphic violence, and a suicide. Younger readers are advised to skip this chapter.
References: wiki/Cerberus_Daily_News_-_July_2010 (conflicting canon has it orbiting the star, or one of its planets, I have it encircling the unnamed rocky planet.)
wiki/Cerberus_Daily_News_-_July_2010 (canon put it in 2176, I moved it to January 2175.)
wiki/Torfan (canon put it in 2178, I moved it to mid-2175.)
*** After Elysium ***
August 2174
Sitting at the small desk a console that protruded from the starboard bulkhead of Tokyo's bridge, Commander David Anderson read the email forwarded to him by First Lieutenant Stephen Shepard.
"God, you're serious." Anderson looked up from his display, tilted his head and squinted at the younger officer. It was obvious to Anderson that Shepard was struggling to remain emotionally stable, but he looked like he had not slept in the two days since the suicide. "They're blaming you for this? That's crazy."
Shepard said nothing. His family had a notable military history, so he had few illusions about what the Alliance could or would do under the circumstances. He knew there were times when rules were bent, but he was not going to ask officially. He simply resorted to the "eyes ahead" stance of a ready soldier. "Yes, sir."
Anderson prodded, "Have they always been like this?"
"No, sir."
Another glance at the display. "Do they know you're deployed?"
"Yes, sir."
Another look at the display, hoping Shepard would volunteer something. He sighed heavily. "You said she killed herself. Do they know that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Talk to me, Leftenant. I don't want to be pulling teeth here. How can I help you with this?"
Brow furrowed, Shepard looked around the bridge as if in search of an answer. "Uh…I don't know, sir. But that's why I've been…uh…distracted."
Anderson touched controls, looked at displays. "This says they're having the funeral at ten on the sixteenth, in Vienna."
"Yes, sir."
Without having to look directly at him, Shepard could see that Anderson was becoming annoyed at the terse answers he was getting.
Anderson worked his console for a moment. "Okay, how about this: The weekly fast packet flight heads to the nearest relay-host colony at, uh… 1420. I can delay it…oh, how about an hour, and give you time to pack. From the colony, you can catch a regular civilian flight through the relays, be in Vienna by tomorrow morning. You can catch a train from there, but it's close enough that you can stay at the barracks. Personnel usually allows a week for bereavement, but if you need more, contact me directly."
Shepard saluted. "Thank you, sir. That would be…uh…I don't want you to have to do anything exceptional, sir."
Anderson found himself remembering the time he went to the Shepards' to tell them that Dane had been killed; the utterly devastated look on Stephen's face hadn't changed in all these years. He wanted to make it better, to be the father that had been taken from him, but once again had to settle for simply making it easier to get through.
"Not at all, Leftenant." He stood and returned the salute. "Please convey my deepest regrets to your family."
# # #
So it was merely an accident that Combat Engineer 1LT Shepard had been on Elysium when two privateer cruisers with kinetic weapons, six light frigates, forty-three gunships, and hundreds of mercenary troops had laid siege to the colony.
He found strength, and distraction, in there being people to help; someone he could save, and his emotional state led him to take considerable risks in the process. But his gambles paid off, and he had a lot of help from the right civilians.
After four days of combat to beat the privateers to a standstill, and five more days of active hunting and sabotage, he was tired, hungry, wounded, mentally and emotionally drained. The ad hoc militia kept the colony defended while he showered, ate, and finally slept.
By the time the Alliance arrived three days after that, his forensic analysis of the battlefield had made plain the collateral damage of slavers at work. Mangled bodies, some with agonizer tech still installed, had littered three of the five batarian camps. But for Shepard's presence and actions, it would have been Mindoir all over again.
Even after the Alliance finally showed up in force, many colonists remained unaccounted for, almost certainly taken as slaves to the batarian homeworld of Khar'Shan. How had they suddenly gathered such a technologically superior force, and how did they isolate the colony from comm buoy access so completely? It was a mystery to Colonial Affairs, and even to the Alliance.
Shepard's report was the only official record of what had happened on the ground, but local cameras and sensors had corroborated, and even provided more detail. After submitting his report, he had read Trident's analysis; and it made him angry and depressed he had been unable to stop it.
He found himself wanting something more, anything else, any distraction to focus on.
But because of his involvement in the Siege of Elysium, his wife's family now held Shepard responsible, not only for her death, but for being a glory hound rather than showing the proper respect in their time of need. An email from Shepard's Commanding Officer, offering to pay for a post facto memorial service, was met with disdain. Hadn't the Alliance caused enough damage? Personnel Division had arranged for a memorial service for "family members who had been unable to attend," and paid out a death benefit to the parents anyway.
But Shepard would never see his wife again.
# # #
Now that he was on his way back to Earth, it ate at him that he hadn't seen the slavetaking directly, let alone been able to stop it. If he had, he'd have put an end to it, or died trying…though in hindsight, that might have been his personal demons talking. It would have been easier to die trying, and thereby vindicate himself. To not have to continue to re-live the incident, not have to face the family who blamed him for it.
This disaster had started months ago.
Several, even most officers who had partners at home used the full-immersion PVR time for "conjugal visits." The Shepards were no exception; they had been doing so for years. At first, it was like his getting back home from a deployment; they always met in an extended embrace.
But then they had started arguing, even over full-immersion PVR (their "real" time together when he was deployed.) He had assumed it was the next stage in her processing whatever it was that had been eating at her for years. When he tried to get her to talk about it, she would only say she was afraid, but wouldn't say exactly what it was she was afraid of. When their next "visit" came around a month later, she started off angry, but still wouldn't talk about it other than to say what she expected him to do: Quit the Alliance.
Rather than address the issues he raised, she would even cut the PVR connection, running down the time they had. To him, it seemed a spiteful power play. This is not the girl I fell in love with.
Today, they were sitting on opposite sides of their living room, him in a PVR "Encounter room," wondering why they were wasting the high-bandwidth time arguing, and her in their actual living room on Earth, arms folded, looking as distant and angry as she felt. "I'm done trying to convince you. Come home before it's too late." The fury was gone, a strange resolution or resignation had set in. The ice was easier for him to handle, but also more disturbing.
Has she already made up her mind about something?
Though he knew intellectually that he was sitting on a "placeholder" chair aboard ship, he could feel the give of the cushions in their living room as he shifted his legs; it was easy to forget they were separated by light-years. They'd spent extra on a simulation of that location so she didn't have to go to the base…and because it was familiar. He made the most of his neural implant to enhance the sensory data, make it more immersive and all-consuming. It also made for great sex…back when that was still happening.
He sighed. "You've never tried to convince me, you just make demands. No alternatives, no discussion, just your way or the highway. That's not egality, it's autocracy. Is that what you'd want?"
Arms folded, she stared levelly across the room at him. "Call it whatever you want. But I'm giving you the choice, and today, you choose. Choose me, or choose this…insanity of yours."
"Choose to simply do what you demand, without addressing the underlying reasons? I can't imagine anything more arbitrary. That's not the way adults treat each other."
"I want you to get out. That's simple enough, isn't it? Why are you having such trouble with this?"
"My being in the Alliance isn't something new. I can't just stop being what I am, I can't," he pleaded. "Don't you get it? It's not like I work for some private company and can just come home at the end of the day and arbitrarily choose not go back!"
"Yes you can. If I meant more to you than some job, you would choose me. I wouldn't even have to ask twice." She glanced down at the controller next to her. "It would be like this." She reached for the control with one hand, raised the other, waving it. "Imagine I'm you. 'Goodbye, Alliance.'"
As she was waving at him the connection went dark, taking the universe with it.
"That's going AWOL," he growled into the darkness. "And you know it. But you don't want to hear it, so you cut me off."
The new PVR BMI had a built-in variable delay - time to slow down the transition to black – but the locational and vestibular zeroing was very disorienting until virtualized controls appeared where Shepard could reach them.
It wasn't as jarring as it could have been. When she had first started doing it, the broken connection felt like a shovel to the face.
She knew this. And he knew that she knew.
The notifier continued to count down, REMAINING PRIVATE BANDWIDTH: 0:00:39:31
CONNECTION ACTIVE, PLEASE WAIT.
Dammit, this is just manipulation, he thought. And she knows there's nothing I can do about it.
He shook his head, wondering how long she would stay offline. He had to go back on duty in a few hours, and hadn't slept so they could meet at a time that fit her schedule. She hadn't even led with crying or anger this time.
I will be here for her. I will get her past this. Someday, she will realize what she's done.
Another notifier appeared, INCOMING ENVIRONMENT SHARE, RECONNECTING.
In the virtualized world, he reached for the ACCEPT tile floating before him.
With the scenario still in local usage, the connection opened quickly, the room resolving into place.
# # #
There were root causes at work.
She had been adorable as a child, too; even to the point of being called "the pretty one" by her siblings. She learned while growing up, had been taught by experience how to "steer" people with a look, a pout, or a giggle. With time, it made her aware that others probably did the same when they could, but that being beautiful gave her an advantage at it. It brought her more friends, let her join groups, or make them offer more if she expressed an intent to leave.
Combined with her intelligence, she was pushed to leadership positions within organizations that wanted to use her as a draw to potential members. Cheerleading squad, Honor Society, Theatre; she enjoyed them, and made the most of them. It was fun, and she understood the additional opportunities that each brought.
Except when it didn't. She'd been both molested and beaten by male relatives on multiple occasions. It taught her to be a fighter; at the first opportunity, she had taken Brazilian Ju Jitsu from a small dojo near her home, using lunch money to pay for it.
Her sensei knew abuse when he saw it. He charged her less to help her out, taught her the self-defence practices that would help the most. The confidence she exuded after just a few weeks' training may have prevented such things from continuing, but the emotional scars only festered and metastasised with time. Though VI therapy had been an affordable option, she was too proud to admit she needed it. Even the standard-curriculum debiasing and Rationality Trainings she had gotten in school were no help in the face of early, emotionally-significant experiences.
Typical of her siblings, she had been given a blanket as a child that she carried continuously. As a way of loosing her of it before it became a liability at school, at one point her mother had hidden it. By screaming, hitting, and breaking things, she had worn down her single mother's resistance on the several times she tried it. It was a memorable lesson; unconsciously, she noticed that these things worked in extreme circumstances, and it worked even better against siblings and acquaintances.
But due to the trauma she had endured, if she reached a certain point of emotional distress, the anger became self-reinforcing; once she had lost control, rational thought was well and truly beyond reach. The brilliant, gorgeous, educated, award-winning woman that Stephen Shepard loved became a shrieking, violent nightmare.
And yet when she resorted to such tactics, she found that her husband did not respond with surrender, except to do what was necessary to let it pass, let her notice her own behavior. He took the physical abuse without retaliating, and in turn, was gratified to notice that she had begun to stop it on her own. He tried his best to let her work through her emotional issues, to bring her to an understanding that he would never, could never do such things to her; that he would always be a safe haven for her.
What neither of them realized was that he was out of his depth merely understanding how such things could be, let alone how to help her master them, or even get past them.
# # #
He had consulted an Alliance psychiatrist, who had agreed that such behavior was highly dysfunctional, but that every couple had issues, and it sounded like the 99% of their relationship was functional. Even exceptional.
He agreed. "But a bowl of ice cream that's only 0.1% botulimin is not the sort of dessert one offers or eats."
The psychiatrist had shrugged. "I can't do anything if she won't come in. And I can't make her come in if you have not reported any intervention-level behaviors." The woman tilted her head quizzically. "Or is there another, more specific behavior you would like to report?"
Shepard glared his response. "Do you know what that would do to her? To her career?"
"That depends on her. But I also see some of what it's doing to you, whether it's explicitly revealed or not. It doesn't sound like it's getting better, it just sounds like you're getting more diligent about hiding it." She tapped the datapad on her desk. "You're not going to make me order a Hazard Discovery on your communications, are you?"
The Lieutenant shook his head. "No, ma'am. Nothing to report."
# # #
So they lived in a sort of stalemate. He was patient enough to wait things out, but not to give up on what he believed in. She became increasingly frustrated at his unwillingness to abandon a career with an organization so clearly committed to violence against others (and to which her past had made her highly averse.)
She had not understood what it was to be a soldier. And for years, she thought she was unaffected by what he did while working. But the stories she heard from the news services made her fear and hate the aliens he spoke of.
Time to up the game, she thought. To show him what's really at stake. To make it personal, memorable.
When they had first been married, he had kept several weapons at home. Given half a chance, he would talk at length about them: How they worked, how types of weapons were different from each other, how to evaluate a situation before choosing which – if any – modifications to make or carry, how the introduction of mass effect (ME) technology had revolutionized firearms, even to the point of making the term "firearm" a misnomer (no combustion was involved in an ME railgun.)
He had hoped to teach her how to use them safely; she found the idea of such violence - even just the idea of weapons - to be repulsive.
She had hoped to find a logical inconsistency, a way to convince him on an intellectual level that this was fundamentally wrong. (Really, there were times when he just lost touch with reality.)
Instead, he would go on about how weapons are just a tool, and as with any tool, the rightness or wrongness of it arose from its use, which was in turn at the direction of the user. Engineers might be trained to use weapons, but they were not considered combat troops, and rarely saw real battle. He had taken sniper training to learn how to read an environment at range, stop a problem before it got close enough to be truly dangerous.
She wanted no part of it, and wanted him to have no part of it.
The lockable cabinet became a sore point. She demanded he leave it and its contents on base.
Until the day the front door to their tiny house had been violently kicked in while she was there, at which point she agreed to keep the Glock single-hand GHS-6 "Halter" shotgun-pistol, with a biometric trigger lock. Easy to use, maybe not even necessary to discharge; the gaping, two centimeter barrel opening was far too intimidating to the kind of miscreant who had attempted to loot their house. Though her shriek had scared the daylight burglar away, she was convinced he would try again.
She might not like guns, but she would not allow herself to be at someone else's mercy, and the GHS-6 would give her the upper hand against another such attack.
And now, it would make the perfect prop, but she would have to be sure the weapon was safe (she knew that much.)
Before their last PVR "call," she had lifted the slightly dusty weapon from its niche, clacked it open and removed the ammoblock. Dropping the thimble-sized block into the holster, she aimed the weapon across the room and snapped the trigger. The weapon loudly chirped its No Ammunition warning.
That will be a problem, she thought. I wonder if I can disable it?
She pulled the trigger again; no warning beep.
A third time, another beep.
Fourth time, no beep.
Good. I can work with that.
She sat on the sofa, switched the wall display to Mirror mode, and practiced: With the weapon and holster on the indiglass coffee table, she imagined having a conversation with the weapon in view.
No, too overt. No surprise factor. Impact too early, lose the effect.
She jammed it between the sofa cushions next to her, barrel down. A few milligrams of C60 flaked off the ammoblock, some clinging to the barrel, others falling to the bottom of the holster.
She practiced for over an hour, refining what she would say, switching the display to Mirror mode and back so she could see how it would look.
Talk, draw, talk, click, holster.
Talk, draw, talk, beep, holster.
Again and again. Find the right angle to hold her elbow, the right place to hold the weapon, the right rotation to show clearly what was happening. It was important that she perform this act flawlessly, and she would rehearse until she had it exactly right.
Each draw and reholster scraped a few more molecules of ammo off the block, settling it to the bottom, or coating the barrel's muzzle. Once she had her "lines" ready, she experimented with where to keep the weapon during the first part of the call, ultimately secretting it in a kitchen drawer. Anywhere else in the room was too obvious while they were talking. Keeping it covered with a blanket was a giveaway, too.
It would require a moment's pause to let her retrieve it from the kitchen. How can I make that happen…?
More practice with where to have it after the pause, and then how to insert a pause, how to make that pause dramatically effective.
She drew the weapon again and again, experimenting to find a way to make the weapon seem to appear as if by magic in her hand.
Talk, draw, talk, click, holster.
Talk, draw, talk, beep, holster.
"Sometimes you can't control everything that happens," she practiced. "Sometimes you just have to make up your mind ahead of time about what's most valuable to you. Avoid problems before they become unfixable."
She drew the hand cannon out of its hiding place and tucked it under one side of her well-defined jaw. "It may not even be my choice. Someone might attack our house again, or the base itself might be destroyed like at Colorado Springs. And I'm not letting that happen. Think about that—"
*beep*
"-for a minute. Pow, just like that…I'd be gone. And it would be too late to do anything about it."
She looked down, pausing, then looked back up at where she imagined he would sit.
"Do you understand now what I mean? How important it is? Everything you care about can be taken away in an instant. Isn't it more important to focus on the things and people that you really love?"
She looked at the weapon, slid it into the holster. "Please come home. Walk away from this delusion of yours. Choose life."
Yes, she thought, That's it. If I can just get a promise to quit from him, we might even get to have some fun. It's sure been long enough.
She rehearsed a few more times before the call time. As she did, she noticed that wedging the pistol between two cushions made it easy to reach, but it was still sitting too high in the holster. Of course…the ammunition thing was at the bottom of the holster, keeping the barrel from sliding into that part of it.
The clock display on the wallscreen chimed; the countdown timer showed a minute remaining before the call time.
As she walked to the kitchen with the holster in hand, she pulled the hand cannon out and set it heavily on the counter. Lifting the ammoblock out with delicate fingers, she laid it carefully in the kitchen drawer.
As she stood there, just to be sure, she aimed the weapon into the dining room, snapped the trigger repeatedly.
*Click*
*Beep*
*Click*
*Beep*
Satisfied the weapon was safe, she closed the kitchen drawer with the ammoblock and slid the GHS-6 into its holster as she walked back into the living room.
Glock's design assumption was that if the RFID-tagged ammoblock was within a meter, the unloading was intentional, and it would not fire. But if the only ammo within detection range was residue from previous discharges, and if the user had satisfied biometric security requirements, it would fire the residue.
Each drawing of the pistol had scraped off a few flakes of the engineered material. Static electricity had been building up a grimy coating of the ammunition-grade carbon on and in the stubby barrel. And with the ammoblock now well and fully out of range, the automation switched to its emergency mode; a red QDM illuminated just behind the sight: EmergAmmo. The weapon modified its firing characteristics to make the most of what little ammunition it still detected in the barrel and on the muzzle. The total load was under a quarter of a gram. Clearly not a full two-gram load, but the scaled-down civilian-class weapon's mass effect field might be able to scrounge enough projectile material to save the life of a user in distress.
# # #
She resolved back into place - first as wireframe, then as polygons, then as voxels - still sitting on the sofa in their living room.
Lieutenant Shepard looked up as if at a petulant child. Clearly this wasn't going to be a visit that required full-immersion PVR to be fully enjoyed; he had resigned himself to that. However, she had come back in a matter of seconds this time, instead of letting their PVR time simply count down, wasting it out of spite.
Maybe she's growing out of that, too.
Though he hated the manipulation when it happened, he refused to acknowledge it. There was still hope; he pressed ahead. "Have you looked at the careers of…soldiers who take a 93(g)?" He wasn't going to use any of the Alliance slang terms for people who did, all were provocative or derogatory.
"Have you noticed what the casualty rate is among soldiers versus civilians? You're in danger all the time. And because you are," she pointed at herself, "I could end up as collateral damage."
"That's true almost anywhere offworld. Adventure is dangerous, but that never stopped you before. You went to Mars in high school. You went to the Volus homeworld Irune where you could have been crushed or asphyxiated by the atmosphere alone. We used to make plans for all the places we were going to visit."
"You can't control everything that happens. But you can prevent some things by the choices you make. Sometimes you just have to make up your mind about what's most valuable to you. Avoid problems before they become unfixable."
She drew the hand cannon out of its hiding place and tucked it just under her ear. "It may not even be my choice. Someone might attack me again, or the base itself might be destroyed like at Colorado Springs. I'm not letting that happen. Think about that-"
# # #
As his wife started another rant, Shepard sighed quietly with resignation; he was in a waiting mode. Letting her think out loud was important to her; sometimes she had bad ideas, but he didn't dare challenge her on them until she had finished the sequence of thoughts. Though waiting for her to finish often took several minutes, he used his implant to track the topics and even prioritise them as she went on.
Until she pulled the GHS-6, seemingly out of nowhere, and jammed it under her ear.
"It may not even be my choice…"
At first, Shepard couldn't believe what he was seeing. She was holding it so he could see the safety was off. Had she seriously put a gun to her own head?
"Someone might attack me again…"
That's our Glock shotgun…and the safety is off! His bloodstream flooded with adrenaline.
"…or the base might be destroyed…"
Its analysis complete, his implant automatically switched to the Alliance combat mode, dumping Crystazine and Imidofrine into his brain to boost cognitive efficiency, and invoking the highest speed available in 2173. The result cut Shepard's perception time almost by half, and engaging its independent neurotronic recording mode.
"…like at Colorado Springs…"
Everything seemed to slow down as his eyes widened. He put his hands on the armrests and started to push himself forward off the chair. The nature of immersive PVR would give him the ability to impart a vector remotely, possibly push it out of her hand before she could fire it. He had time to notice the muzzle of the GHS-6 was very dirty, as if it had been fired many times but put away without cleaning. An information light on the back of the weapon faintly illuminated a spot on her hand in red.
"I'm not letting that happen."
He inhaled as he started to leap across the room and stop her. He could see the muscles in her bare forearm began to contract. His hand appeared to be closing the last meter from hers as she said,
"Think about that—"
The weapon seemed to explode in her hand as it jumped down and away. Shepard didn't merely hear the gunshot, he felt the air shake as a spray of red erupted from the top right side of her head, spattering the ceiling. But it was happening in such slow motion that it almost seemed like he could have reached out and reassembled all the tiny pieces if he weren't so far away.
"STOP!"
As his hand swiped uselessly closer, all he could do was watch in slow motion: the explosion at the frontal plate of her skull had opened an enormous hole, hair blown back and away, the gun spinning slowly to one side, the almost-surprised look on her face as her mouth dropped open, her head jerking sideways and the pistol falling and spinning to the right, as it started to drop, still held loosely in her fingers.
He crashed into her, and then the virtualised couch; there was no time to panic.
Brushing the PVR helmet off, he leapt to his feet and ran to the right, where he knew the door to the accessway was, gesturing to the PVR interface to close the connection. Pounding the Alert control, he shouted into hard-wired intercom station 24 for the Comms officer on the bridge to contact Vienna Crisis Response and notify them of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Frühlingshafen 6, unit 327.
"What? Say again, two-four."
"My wife just shot herself! Get an emergency 911 channel to Vienna on Earth, and get a crisis team to Frühlingshafen 6, unit 327 right fucking now!"
Not knowing what else to do, he sprinted down the narrow corridor toward the bridge. Emotionally charged as the event was, and experienced in slow-motion, its memory enhanced itself via his hippocampus, was enhanced and preserved by his neurotronics. It played again in recall as he tried to get as much information about it out of the recording.
No no no no no...there must be something I missed. Was it just a simulation recording she's made to drive the point home? This can't be!
And every time he thought about it, the implant replayed the event in all its exquisite, flawless, slow-motion detail. The track of every droplet of blood, every fragment of skin, every particle of ammunition preserved with eidetic perfection.
# # #
The nearest Alliance base where he could have landed for free was 300 kilometers away from where the memorial service was being held, so instead of the elevator, he had taken a commercial flight down from Earth's equatorial orbital to their flat off-base, the closest his wife would get to the Alliance.
For the flight, he had left DisplaiD set to Do Not Disturb, and switched to full-immersion PVR, browsing the extranet. He found a few things interesting enough to temporarily distract him:
An underwater archaeology team had discovered a fossilized cetacean ancestor with both baleen and teeth in the Antarctic Ocean. Enough of its DNA was intact to permit construction of a high-fidelity simulation. At least four civilian DCE groups had offered to start work immediately. Dominionist Christians were calling the find a hoax; security measures were being installed to prevent vandalism or destruction of the site.
Sirta Corp had been transformed into a Title F3 not-for-profit Foundation by its Board of Directors, and the formula for Medi-Gel™ was to be released to the public domain. Sirta would still manufacture it, but now it would cost only materials and shipping to get it from them directly. The author noted that Sirta's years of experience making the stuff, and the company's prestige, would likely keep it at the top of the material's production market for a long time, and besides the explosion of its user base, the humanitarian PR that resulted would assure Sirta's future.
Construction had begun on the Susskind Orbital Collider, a fermitron. Originally a centuries-old asari venture now funded, renamed, and managed by humans, proponents were convinced that a fermitron hasn't been constructed since the time of the Protheans. When completed, the Susskind collider would be 13,508 kilometers in circumference and completely encircle an alnummed planet orbiting the star Trikalon. The "Susskind Hypercollider" would also become the largest artificial satellite ever to have human workers and would be the galaxy's largest construct in terms of volume.
A free-roaming AGI had been located on W. H. Smith's local DCE in Hong Kong. With the store reportedly at the end node of a trunk line, local cyberpolice in pursuit entered the store, demanding DCE access, which was given. An employee had first assumed the AGI was another person when it used a social app to ask whether she was in the back offices or at the kiosk desk. The unnamed employee was later released after questioning when the AGI was found to have somehow escaped from the network.
Shepard found he couldn't read any news without imagining his wife was part of it, so he opted to watch an episode of the animated vid series Eleventh Hour, about a University student accidentally caught up in an effort to topple the turian "empire" on the Citadel, but who hadn't quite decided whether this was a good idea or not. Though clearly wrong on several major points, it was the only exposure many humans had to turians or the Citadel, and it was fairly even-handed in its treatment of the aliens.
He accepted the meal that was offered, but left it closed, sliding it into his handcase and forgetting about it.
Elysium still weighed heavily on his mind. He realized it had likely been easy to sublimate the rage and grief into methodical violence during a firefight, certainly it had left him no time to replay the suicide. He had not realized it would be harder to live with when he wasn't fighting for his own life, or those of the Elysium colonists. Harder still to just take the animosity and misrepresentation - or just silent resentment - from his in-laws. He ignored the relentless trickle of venom on social media, circuitously laying the blame for her suicide at his feet.
Because it had happened on a PVR call, family who mentioned it talked as if he was responsible for provoking her to her death, even that he had committed abuses for which other family members were actually accountable. It had taken nearly all of their marriage for him to collect enough pieces of the various stories, but when confronted about it, his wife would defend her family, resorting to violence, the only tactic that had worked when she was younger. His attempts to deal directly with the damage to her had only resulted in more screaming, accusations, and misdirection; anything to get him to not talk about it.
Thinking at the time that he could return to that tactic later, he had stopped bringing it up. He assumed he could take anything she could dish out, see her through to healing.
He had been utterly wrong. She couldn't help it; her "thinking out loud" became self-feeding anger, became episodes of psychotic rage. There had been nothing to stop it. And too much baggage for his amateur care.
The STO vehicle dropped under the clouds, finally revealing the city under cover of night and rain. Had he been in the mood, it would have made for a beautiful sight.
Instead, he found himself wondering how it had all gone so spectacularly wrong.
# # #
Of course no one had come to pick him up at the spaceport; he had kept his arrival to himself. No point in giving them the chance to leave me stranded, or have to put up with that crap in person. Even Hannah Shepard had managed to virtually attend the original funeral by telepresence, but was now "dark," as the ship she was posted to was on a mission and out of touch.
Frühlingshafen ("Springhaven") had its own tram station, and he was let in by the gate VI. The lift took him quickly up to their floor. A short walk down the corridor put him at the door.
Two weeks had passed since the event; the police tape was gone, and nothing indicated that the place was actually a thoroughly examined crime scene.
At the door, he hesitated.
Walk straight through the living room, don't look at the desk.
Management had cleaned the room and replaced the ceiling panels, but the furniture was still arranged for a PVR interaction.
They wouldn't know.
He was aware that she wasn't there to greet him; he thought immediately about something else. He changed clothes as quickly as possible, used his omnitool to set his implant for sleep in three minutes, and to wake him 90 minutes before the memorial service.
# # #
As usual, it seemed like he had barely closed his eyes when he awoke. He showered and dressed in the guest room, noticing that nearly everything of his had been moved into it by the post-crisis team, and whichever member of her family had been there to collect personal things of hers that they needed immediately.
A guilty twitch reminded him that she wouldn't have had that if she had been offworld with him. Personnel would have handled it.
The funeral home was somber, clean, and staffed entirely by humans. A receptionist looked up as he stepped in.
Her HUD glasses informed her who he was, so she stood and introduced herself with an extended hand, "Hello, I'm Anja, and I understand you're…Stephen Shepard. I'm so sorry you were offworld, Lieutenant. Is there anything I can get you?"
Shepard had his ARO running at a minimal level; had he enabled the VI tasked with nuance cues, he would have seen her reaction called out as startled recognition. She knew who he was from the ongoing media coverage from Elysium, and until he walked in, she had at first assumed this attendee simply shared the name. He might even have been told she was showing considerable restraint not to call him out as a hero, and asking for his autograph. His thoughts about Elysium were almost nightmarish; he did not think of it as heroic, but as something to put behind him.
"No. Thank you. Am I the first one here?"
"Both parents are here, and two siblings. Your father-in-law said the service will start when enough people have arrived, so you might just go in. I can let him know you're here, if you want." She raised two fingers to an ear.
Shepard held a palm toward her. "Don't. I think they…they don't…need to know. It's okay."
As she lowered her arm, the woman looked down at her desk display, and then up at him with what looked like confusion, concern, or sorrow. "Are you sure I can't get you…something?" She lifted her earpiece away from her head for a moment. "I can get you some Blunting. If you need it." She touched a hand to her desk as if indicating where it was if he asked.
He shook his head, his view at that moment letting him see the ribbon of his Distinguished Service Star, an award he had in common with his father. It reminded him that he couldn't let himself dishonor the uniform. "It's all right. Thanks. I'll just go in quietly."
Her expression still drawn, she raised a hand toward the doors to her right. "The entrance is over there." She tapped a key on her omniwatch, turned its face toward him with a visual code on it. "You can message me if you need anything. I'll be here."
The doors pushed open silently, letting him hear the voice from the lectern, and hear the pause as he stepped in.
He stopped just inside the doors, surveying the attendees, noticing they had arranged themselves by family, left and right. Normal, I suppose. When we're stressed, we want to be with people we know. He walked silently to the left, where there was more space available toward the front.
As a combat veteran, Shepard had killed people. Sometimes because they were trying to kill him, or because he was the first one to see the threat…even once because he just happened to be the one carrying the SMRL. But only now did he feel like a murderer and a victim all at once.
Parents, friends, and siblings mounted the dais, speaking obliquely of the tragedy caused by "unfortunate choices," of her intelligence and humor, generosity…and all the other things that had made them such a wonderful couple, made her such a good friend.
"If no one else wants to say anything, we have a brunch wake prepared in the hall…"
Shepard rose to his feet.
"Mm." His father-in-law took a step back to the lectern. "Alliance Lieutenant Stephen Shepard has decided to join us." He was clearly displeased. "It seems only fair that he also have the opportunity to express himself about the loss of our dear baby girl."
Shepard went to the lectern, his head pounding. He wanted to cry, to scream, to ask forgiveness, to demand an explanation.
A full-size color holo of his gorgeous wife stood on the opposite side of the dais. Keep it together, he thought. Anything I say will surely find its way to the Extranet. To expose them and their abuse might feel like the right thing to do, but he knew it would seem too much like blaming, or transferral. Best to say nothing outside of a court of law. Or until someone asked.
He stopped, turned to face the other bereaved, gripped the sides of the lectern as an idea detonated in his brain: My god, that's why they've never pressed charges. They know what they did, and both sides were using me as the scapegoat. I've been set up by both sides.
He stood there, looking out over the gathered family members and friends, and started to realize just how little overlap their "worlds" had actually had. No one else from the Alliance was here. No one from his family. He was alone.
Commander Anderson had advised him, If you can just get through today, that'll be enough. Hurting someone else won't make you feel better, it'll just make you feel worse later. You'll have to live with the memory, take responsibility for it. Don't make the same mistakes I did.
And as he stood there, contemplating losing her, he couldn't stop remembering the day he found out his father was dead. His mother holding him close, sobbing – we have to be strong for each other; we're all we have – kept looping in his mind. This time, there was no one holding him, reminding him to be strong. It amplified the trauma of seeing her in his mind's eye, blowing her brains out in flawless detail again and again and again.
And again.
Think about something else.
The violent maelstrom of emotions over her suicide left him unable to speak.
"I'm…sorry," he finally gasped, and stepped down. They would likely think he was simply so devastated by the loss of his wife, but no one who knew the circumstances could have made that mistake. He just wanted it to stop, and he didn't care who thought what.
He went directly back to the flat and cried, and talked to her ghost, and PVRed news, and slept, and dreamed he was having that final conversation again, but stopped her, and they talked about what this was really about, and then awoke to find he had sleepwalked into the living room, and with her not there, it all came rushing back and he cried and screamed some more.
# # #
He had been grateful to have his leave be over, to get back aboard Tokyo, to be kept busy with interviews and debriefings. It seemed everyone in his chain of command needed to talk to him about what had happened on Elysium, and were there technical forces on the other side, and had they brought equipment he'd never seen before? His days were filled with concalls and depositions; his reliance on tech meant that his recordings were redundant, his time fully accounted for, his story airtight.
The time he didn't spend in meetings or on calls was spent trying to get email caught up. In the two weeks since the Alliance picked him up from Elysium, it seemed he'd gotten thousands of emails, messages, and notices. Once the flood had been cleared through security, Trident had taken the requests for meetings or interviews and begun to coordinate press releases, the rest were sent on as a group.
One message from Chief of Fleet Relations was at the top of his list and stayed there: a notice to PVR in to a meeting where they would brief him on how to handle a meeting with the press, and an app that would prompt him with replies to sensitive questions. Thoughtfully, it was already configured to utilise his ARO.
He had his Mail VI sort out the messages from people he knew; the balance actually numbered over 2400, including no fewer than four offers of marriage, and an email from the asari embassy on Palaven.
...
Dear Lieutenant Shepard,
My name is Yashta T'Kassi. You do not know me, but I know you. I am sending this because my heart leads me this Way. Please forgive me if I do not translate well yet. If I am misunderstood, I wish for it to be my own doing.
I have seen the reports about what you did on Elysium. I know they exaggerate to make bigger news, but there's no way to overstate the importance of your actions, the lives you have saved, the peace you have preserved.
I know there are some who think you are just a common soldier, even some who think you were sent deliberately. But I know you were there only by chance. A chance you used to help others, and at great personal risk. I know no human words strong enough to describe how I feel about that, but I thank you for those who cannot, or will not.
I also know of your loss, and I am very sad with you. My father was Rola Fenden, a salarian. I know what it is to lose someone you cherish. That is enough.
At first I was not going to write, but my mother encouraged me to follow my heart. I know you must feel very small and alone and hurting, and it is unfair. You might think you are too young to truly know this with depth, but I have only sixty six years, and I have felt it. I admire what you have done, and attach an embassy invitation for you to come to Thessia when you are able.
I hope you will accept me.
Sincerely,
Yashta T'Kassi,
Velandrif Asha 117, Ulee, Thessia
...
Matriarch Verita is the asari ambassador to the Salarian Union, the Mail VI added. Her daughter, Yashta T'Kassi, lives with her aunt in Ulee on Thessia. Matriarch Verita summated three years ago, shortly before being elected to the position.
He re-read that email several times before moving on.
Though most were encouraging, grateful, or admiring, some were accusatory, and all of them reminded him of what he'd seen and knew. Some of them brought up things he knew were simply wrong, or that gave the Alliance too much credit.
Eventually he had to take a break from trying to read them.
"Find something to sink your teeth into," Anderson had said. "Something to take your mind off it."
So when the Hero of Elysium applied for the N-series trainings, endorsed by both Tokyo's XO and Captain, the Alliance approved it immediately. He was the first combat engineer to be approved for the programme.
When he and his footlocker arrived at Rio de Janeiro for the first class and exercise, he found he was able to focus on the team again.
How to protect them, empower them, make the most of their strengths. These were always complex problems, and there were always new technologies, new lesson briefings from other missions. Some were exemplary, others were cautionary.
It was something else to think about, something wholly consuming…which was just what he needed.
Failures reminded him that no one could know it all. He learned that he could eat almost anything when he was really hungry, that depression was never a reason to give up, that the "bad guys" often had the same weaknesses, and that they were as well defended because they knew this, too.
Members of the class dropped out with each advance in number; the N1 training graduated 87, N6 graduated only 31. Three of them didn't come back for N7.
After graduating, he knew the Alliance expected great things.
Well they'd better not expect them all this week, he thought.
Returning to Tokyo, his single-wide stateroom was upgraded to a one-and-a-half, and he got a pay increase. He was a celebrity when he wore the optional N7 patch or badge, but he also found he couldn't afford to screw up, or let any dust collect, or let any damage show, or go to the doctor, or be anything other than bulletproof and vidstar perfect…
# # #
Captain Miller happened to be on his way out of the Officer's Multi-use (currently the Officer's Mess, Aft) when 1LT Shepard entered. Returning the young man's salute, he asked, "Lieutenant Stephen Shepard?"
"Yes, sir."
The Captain lowered his hand from salute. "I had understood you were a graduate of the N7 program, Shepard."
"That's correct, sir."
"But you're not wearing the accessory?"
"No, sir."
Miller scowled. "That particular series of trainings cost the Alliance about 14 million credits and the lives of two attendees. May I ask why you are not?"
Shepard answered crisply, "Sir, although I now have the ability to turn water into wine, leap tall buildings in a single bound, walk through walls, and levitate, people who lack these abilities are continually asking for demonstrations. This is tiring, and wearing the accessory makes about as much sense as wearing rank in a forward position, to the extent that it prevents or hinders my work."
Shepard knew the Captain well enough to know the half-smile meant he was very amused. "Innovative. Please keep me advised, Lieutenant."
*** Glossary ***
alnummed: ALphaNUMeric designation; the term is almost always applied to otherwise unnamed planets
ARO: Augmented Reality Overlay
AWOL: Absent Without Leave; desertion
Blunting: An almost-legal neurochemical that temporarily clogs synapses in emotional parts of the brain
BMI: Brain-Machine Interface
concall: conference call
HUD: Heads-Up Display
indiglass: a bluish-purple engineered glass ["Indigo" + "glass"]
Multi-use: a room on a ship that has multiple functions, depending on need. When a part of the ship is depressurised for repairs or service, the functions normally provided by that part may be temporarily moved to the Multi-use. On very small ships, there may be only a few rooms with specific functions, such as engineering (which cannot be moved as easily,) and the multi-use may serve as mess and berths simultaneously.
PVR: Polyphase Virtual Reality; a total-immersion VR technology with between two and five channels of data that stimulates multiple regions of the brain, allowing for a nearly complete reproduction of environments or experiences. Because it is a demanding, high-bandwidth technology, it became a measure of network capability, particularly among users who depend upon it. PVR games can be very addictive, particularly to the young.
QDM: Quantum Dot Matrix, a low-power, nanometer-thick light emitter, used in on-surface displays, lighting, and optical computation
SMRL: Shoulder-mounted Rocket Launcher
STO: Surface to Orbit; though only half of a definition, STO craft transfer passengers and cargo from orbit to surface and back. Though more expensive than a space elevator, STOs run more frequently, offer greater flexibility in destination. And face it, some things are just too big to fit in an elevator, even an "Elevatorrrrr to Outerrrrr Spaaaace!"
Wearing rank in a forward position: Because enemy snipers can read rank insignia at range, killing the ranking officers is much easier when they are clearly marked. Thus the practice of not wearing rank markings or accessories under such conditions.
