Spectres 4

| Five Years Ago | Epyrus |

It was always twilight on Epyrus.

The turian colony world orbited a dying red star, barely warm enough to sustain life. To the turian colonists, the world was exotic and romantic - a freezing cold winter resort compared to the heat of Palaven. To the volus, safely wrapped up in their high-pressure ammonia suits, indifferent to and shielded from their local surroundings, the world was no different from any other oxygen-based world. But to a human, it was a miserable place, dark and grey. An industrial manufacturing world, the colony had little to offer in terms of culture, works of art or scenic views. There was little for visitors to do on Epyrus, little for them to see And for species who relied on levo-amino acids there was little to eat as well.

No wonder people had tried to talk Shepard out of taking shore leave here. Her current ship, the Havincaw, had passed by Epyrus en route to resupplying at a station further into the system. But Shepard hadn't let herself be dissuaded by her crew mates. There were anniversaries to be marked, preferably as far away as possible from anybody she'd ever have to speak to again.

And barren though it was, Epyrus had two things Shepard was looking for, and had them in large quantities: alcohol and dark places to drink it in. Sometimes you want to go where nobody knows your name.

"You're sure you can drink this stuff, human?" the bartender asked dubiously.

The bright green liquid he was pouring into her glass contained enough alcohol to put a nathak to sleep and enough dextrorotatory amino acids to ensure she'd be very sick the next morning. It was perfect.

"Just watch me," she said, as confidently as she could.

"Hey," he shrugged, "It's your funeral, kid."

No, she thought, It's my birthday.

Turians didn't particularly care about birthdays. They marked the anniversaries of a person's accomplishments: promotions, famous victories, honourable deaths. Most turians didn't think of the act of being born as an achievement worth commenting upon, much less celebrating. And as her sixth birthday had been the last time she'd seen most of her relatives alive, Shepard had always been conflicted about marking the occasion herself. She wasn't ever sure if she should be celebrating or mourning..

But this time was different. She was twenty-one now: by law, a full adult in the eyes of the Systems Alliance. Old enough to vote for elections to the Systems Parliament, old enough to stop going to those ridiculous counselling sessions every year, and old enough to get incredibly and yet legally drunk. And she was well on her way to doing just that.

Looking around the bar, she saw most of the patrons had the same idea. But something else was happening behind her. A turian and a quarian looked to be arguing in the corner. The turian seemed to be doing most of the speaking, while the quarian's body language suggested she was growing increasingly uncomfortable. There's always some asshole around who has to start pestering the quarian about the geth, she thought. Or accusing them of theft, or vagrancy. Not that she was particularly sympathetic to the quarians themselves, at times - she didn't understand why they hadn't accepted the loss of Rannoch and moved on with their lives, in the way that humanity had done with Earth. Or most of humanity, anyway. But that was no excuse for harassment.

She pushed herself away from the bar and headed towards them. I can't just watch this and do nothing, she thought.

"Hey," she called out, "Leave her alone. It's not the quarians' fault that an army of killer robots they built took over their whole planet."

She stopped, noticing that the turian and the quarian were both glaring at her.

"Well," she said, less confidently now. "I guess it is, isn't it? Only not this particular quarian's fault. Unless she's really old. Um."

The quarian started giggling. Shepard couldn't help but feel that this wasn't going as well as she'd planned.

"I wasn't bothering her," the turian said defensively. "I was offering to buy her a drink."

"You offered," the quarian trilled, her voice buzzing distinctively through her suit's speaker. "Now I'm considering. In the meantime, why don't you let me talk to the nice human? I've never spoken to one before."

The turian stalked off, muttering under his breath.

"So, uh." Alone in the company of the quarian, Shepard felt suddenly awkward. Why had she come over here? "You get hit on by turians a lot, then?"

"All the time," sighed the quarian. "Drunk ones, mainly. It gets really irritating."

Shepard realised suddenly that the quarian had been drinking too. Though how she'd managed to get anything past that face plate she wore was a mystery she'd rather not get into.

"Why don't you have one of those face tattoos all the other humans have?" the quarian asked, peering at her face curiously. "Are you … not cool?"

"First, they're not tattoos, they're just paint," said Shepard. "Second, they're not cool, they're stupid. Saren said…"

She paused. She'd met Saren several times in the years after he'd first rescued her. He'd visited the town she was staying in during the early reconstruction work, then been a guest several times at the training camp she'd moved into. They never spoke for long, but he seemed to remember her, calling her by name - though never by her first name, thank the spirits - and asking how her training was going. She liked to think that he was checking in on her.

The fourth time she'd met him, when she was fifteen, she'd worked up the courage to ask him why he didn't mark his face the way that the other turians she knew did.

He'd taken the question seriously, kneeling down so that she could look him in the eyes without straining her neck.

"Well, Shepard," he'd said. "Many of my people would say that it's a sign I can't be trusted, that I'm ashamed of my background or trying to hide it." She'd bitten her lip, nodded slightly. She'd already known that though - that was why she'd asked.

"We - the turians - started marking our faces in honour of our home colonies shortly before a terrible war that we fought amongst ourselves more than two thousand years ago." he'd said. She'd known about this, too; they'd covered the Unification War in history classes.

"Most turians," Saren had continued, "Would say that if you're not proud to wear the markings of your home colony, you must think there's something wrong with your colony, something you're ashamed about. Or that there's something wrong with you, something you're trying to hide."

He'd paused, looked away, thoughtful. She'd wanted to ask him more about his home colony - he'd never told her where it was - but something had made her pause. They had both stayed silent for a moment, before the turian continued.

"Most turians accept this without thinking. It's something we've done for a long time. But in doing so we're making a mistake. Holding on to ancient divisions when we should be united as one people. Dwelling on the past, clinging on to centuries-dead conflicts and rivalries, and for what? So we can look down on people who look and think like us but happen to have been born on the wrong world? The salarians don't do that, and look at what they've achieved, despite their short lives. The asari don't do that, and they practically run the galaxy."

He'd shaken his head then, looked her in the eyes again.

"I choose not to wear the markings of my home world, not because I'm not proud of it, but because I'm prouder still to be a turian, to be a member of the Hierarchy."

She'd nodded again then, more definitively. That did make sense. For humans, too.

Back in the present, the quarian interrupted her with a question.

"Hang on, you know Saren Arterius?" she asked. "The Spectre? Isn't he kind of a big deal?"

Shepard couldn't see the quarian's face, but she had the strong impression that she was frowning.

"Are you secretly somebody important?" the quarian asked accusingly. "Like, human royalty or something?"

"No," said Shepard. "I'm nobody special."

Shepard stayed in the bar for another five hours before she decided to call it a night. She'd stayed long enough to learn the names of most of the serious drinkers, long enough to try demonstrating her biotics to the crowd by throwing and catching empty bottles - or mostly empty bottles, as it turned out - and long enough to allow the quarian to persuade her to turn her translator off and try to learn how to speak some actual quarian.

("I can already speak human without a translator," the quarian had said dismissively when Shepard had first offered to return the favour. "You know, it's not a hard language to learn." She'd been intrigued by Shepard's claim that there were multiple human languages; intrigued, but deeply sceptical. She'd kept asking Shepard to explain why she needed so many.)

Most importantly, she'd stayed long enough that the bartender was now flatly refusing to sell her anything more. So it was probably time to go home. Home, on Epyrus, was a small room in a fancy hotel that Shepard couldn't really afford. Not on a Corporal's salary. But it was just for a couple of nights. The Havincaw would be making its return journey then, and Shepard would be safely back on board when it departed. And expensive though it was, this hotel was one of the few places on Epyrus that actually served edible levo-based food..

"Keelah se'lai!" Shepard called out across the bar as she headed for the exit.

"Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji urodzin!" the quarian sang back. Shepard paused. She didn't even remember teaching her that. The quarian turned her attention back to the two turians she was talking to and, shrugging to herself, Shepard stepped outside.

She made her way up the steps leading out of the bar carefully, navigated deliberately to the side of the street and, bending down carefully, delicately threw up most of the contents of her stomach. Dextro-allergies are such a pain, she thought groggily.

She rode back to the hotel in an automated cab, her only company the cab's malfunctioning radio. The hiss of white noise was actually rather soothing, though sadly the ambience was interrupted from time to time by disjointed fragments of news bulletins or local performances of 'Die For The Cause'.

"...Palaven now, where the young new Primarch has been visiting..."

Shepard remembered the last time she'd seen Saren, two years earlier. He'd been present during her debriefing after the disaster on Akuze, though he'd remained silent. Something in his eyes had made her decide against trying to speak to him afterwards. She'd worried it was disappointment.

"...Din Korlack, the volus ambassador, condemned..."

Still, she'd rather face a disappointed Saren than put up with the inane questions of Dr Blake, her officially appointed human counsellor. One advantage of turning twenty-one was that, as a full legal adult in the eyes of the Systems Alliance, she'd never have to speak to that idiot again.

"...and Omega. Agents of the Blood Pack are currently being held in custody on the Citadel, awaiting trial for wire fraud, copyright infringement and conspiracy to manufacture and disseminate weapons of mass destruction…"

Dr Blake had even tried to persuade her not to sign up for a five year tour of duty after she'd finished her first last year. The doctor had told her that she didn't need to keep proving herself, that there was more in the galaxy to see than a war zone or the inside of a turian cruiser. Not for the first time, she'd realised that the doctor didn't understand anything.

Shepard wasn't doing this because she felt she owed the Hierarchy a debt. She was doing it because it was the right thing to do. Making the galaxy safer for children like she'd been once. What could be more important than that?

"...Systems Alliance President Williams welcomed the new policy, confirming that his own granddaughter will soon become one of the first non-biotic humans to take up the opportunity…"

Shepard's head was beginning to hurt. Perhaps the green drink had been a mistake.

"...a spokesman for the batarian Hegemony declined to comment."

After stumbling out of the cab, Shepard made her way slowly through the plaza in front of her hotel. Even at this late hour, the building was lit up brightly. It looked like there was a party of some kind being held on the penthouse floor.

The front door to the hotel was locked. The side doors were locked too. This was unfortunate.

Shepard needed to get back inside. There had to be some other way of acces- ah. She'd spotted it. A low wall, to the side of the hotel building, obscuring a service entrance from the delicate eyes of the hotel's well-to-do guests. The wall was meant to keep people from accidentally wandering in, but it wasn't any serious obstacle to somebody who was determined to cross it. She didn't even need her biotics - just a small run up was enough.

Shepard pulled herself up and over the wall, and dropped down into an alleyway behind the hotel. As she'd suspected, there was a door here too - an entrance to the kitchen, for staff use only. She wasn't too surprised to discover that it was also locked. More promising was the fire escape on the back of the building; a series of metal staircases and balconies, open to the air and passing all the way up the building.

The lower ladder had been left in a raised position; accessible by anybody leaving the building but out of reach of any would-be intruders. Or out of reach of most, anyway. Biotics were rare among turians, and whoever was in charge of the hotel's security evidently hadn't considered them.

She tapped out a pattern in the air with her fingers, pulling at the end of ladder above her with her biotics. The ladder swung down, and she was able to jump up and grab hold of it, pulling herself upwards with her arms alone until she was able to get a foothold.

That got her up onto the fire escape. She tried the window of her room - at least, she thought it was her room. But it was locked tight as well. The other windows she tried were all locked as well. Eventually she found herself up on the roof. She was looking around and considering her next step when she heard raised voices from the penthouse suite below her. Batarian voices.

Her first thought was that hotel security must have found her. I must have made more noise getting up here than I thought. But something didn't add up. Batarians weren't completely unknown on Hierarchy worlds, especially on the outer fringes like this, but a hotel of this calibre would be very unlikely to hire batarian security guards. She tried to think of another reason that batarians might be wandering around the halls of a turian hotel at night. Nothing good came to mind.

She peered down through a skylight, crouching awkwardly to keep herself hidden from anybody below. There were several batarians, she saw - perhaps as many as twenty. They were all armed, all dressed in the same quasi-military uniform, and all being screamed at by a tall batarian she guessed had to be their leader.

"Who cares how he found me?" the batarian leader shouted. "He's a Spectre! They find things out, that's their job!"

No, I don't think he's with hotel security, thought Shepard.

"Now make sure all the animals are safely caged in their rooms, and make sure those rooms are locked from the outside," the batarian continued. "I'm going to need some bargaining chips when the turian arrives."

Wait, a turian Spectre, she thought. Could it be…? Saren had become a Spectre within a year of her first meeting with him on Mindoir. One of the youngest turians ever accepted into the organisation, or so it was said.

Spectres were the Council's elite agents, the best of the best. If a Spectre was coming here, Shepard was sure that everything would be resolved soon.

Still, she couldn't just watch and do nothing and wait for Saren - or whoever else, she reminded herself - to save the day..

The cooling vents that let hot air escape from the roof were too small for a turian to enter, but not too small for her. The building was old enough that whoever designed it had probably never heard of humans, let alone expected one to try breaking into their new hotel.

The vent got her down from the roof and into the penthouse floor. She dropped out of the vent as silently as should could. She tried the closest door. It was locked, fastened shut by a strange looking device. Tentatively, she pressed the only visible button, and the locking device fell apart, the door opening.

The volus who stood behind the now open door seemed worried.

" … ah, g-greetings, Earth-clan," he said. "I'm not … er, who ... what's going on?"

Shepard squatted on her heels in front of the volus so that their eyes were level. "Vol-clan," she said quietly, "My name is Corporal Shepard, I'm with the Hierarchy auxiliaries."

"Batarians with guns told us all to stay in our rooms," the volus interrupted anxiously. "Then they … locked the doors. But I don't..."

"I'm going to have ask you to evacuate the building, sir," Shepard said carefully. "There's a dangerous fugitive on the loose, and there's a risk he's done something to sabotage this building. There's a fire escape by the far window. Do you think you can get to it?"

"I … I think so." The volus took several deep breaths. "Thank you, Earth-clan."

She'd rescued perhaps a dozen more of the hotel guests in the same way when things started to go wrong. She was breaking the lock to another door when she heard a group of batarians coming up the stairs, voices raised.

"I'm telling you, Char, I saw it with my own eyes - a volus climbing down the fire escape."

"Well, did you shoot him?"

Shepard held her breath, a sick feeling in her stomach. Did I just send that volus to his death? she wondered.

"No, I didn't shoot him," the first speaker grumbled. "Elaum said he wanted everybody kept alive."

Elaum, she thought, That has to be the name of their leader.

"Alive and trapped inside here, you idiot," the second speaker replied. "They're no good to us outside."

The two batarians were making a lot of noise - they clearly weren't trying to be stealthy. No doubt they didn't think they needed to be.

When Char and his companion reached this level, they would see the open doors and realise the hotel guests they thought were trapped had been released. They would raise the alarm, and she wouldn't be able to rescue the other guests. And Shepard had surrendered her pistol to the local authorities when she'd first arrived on the planet. She was unarmed.

She could feel her heart starting to beat faster, fight-or-flight instincts kicking in. I am my thoughts,she recited to herself. It was important not to panic. When I think clearly, I act on the world. When my thoughts are unclear… She didn't have a weapon, but she did have her biotics. The batarians had the advantage of numbers, and she expected they were both armed, but she had the advantage of surprise. She had to hit them before they realised what was happening.

She steadied herself, waited, and then - as the first of the pair reached the top of the staircase - she acted. Focusing all her biotic energy, she kicked hard. The leading batarian was thrown backwards, head tilted backwards at an unnatural angle. If he - it, she told herself, it - if it survived the initial attack, it didn't survive the landing. The batarian's body crashed into the floor below, skull-first, and lay still.

Fingers flexed, and with the last remnant of her strength she pushed at a power switch on the far side of the hallway, and the lights flickered out across the corridor. Suddenly the only illumination was the pale red light of Epyrus's dying sun. The remaining batarian froze, unsure of what to do, and Shepard leapt for him.

Shepard had never scored well in unarmed combat drills. She was too small, her instructors had sighed, too frail. Too human. She knew she had little chance against the batarian in a fair fight. But she didn't intend it to be fair.

She landed on the batarian's back before he realised what was happening. They struggled briefly at the top of the stairs, and then both went crashing down. Shepard stayed on top as best she could, screaming wordlessly and hitting her opponent as hard and fast as possible. They slid awkwardly down the stairs, the batarian taking the worst of the fall. When the batarian's head hit the stone stairs it rebounded with a satisfying crack.

By the time they skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stari well, Shepard had managed to get the batarian in a choke hold, one arm tight against the batarian's throat and squeezing as hard as she could. The batarian struggled for air, twisting back and forth violently. She held her arm tight against its neck and didn't let go. The batarian tried to pull away, to push up from the floor and break free. She kept her arm held tight against its neck. The batarian bucked and struggled, kicking out and writhing. She didn't let go.

Finally the batarian's body sagged, went limp, legs kicking feebly then falling still. She didn't dare let go at first, worried that the monster was only play-acting. After a few seconds, she jabbed the fingers of her free hand into the batarian's upper set of eyes, as hard as she could. No reaction. It's done, she thought.

She lay on the floor for a minute, breathing raggedly, heart beating furiously. The two batarians lying next to her wasn't moving. She climbed to her feet, unsteadily, and smiled grimly when she saw what the first of them had dropped. Now she had a machine gun.

She had a chance to use it only a few minutes later.

She'd let a handful more of the trapped hotel guests out of their rooms, directing them up the stairs to the fire escape she'd spotted earlier. She was heading through the central shaft of the hotel to look for more guests in the building's other wing when she heard the sound of lift doors opening behind her.

She ducked behind a corner just in time. The lift door, when it opened, was full of batarians. At least a dozen, by her quick reckoning. They were all armed, and all grim faced. I guess Char and his friend were supposed to check in by now, she thought. If the batarians got out here, they'd find their dead compatriots and realise that the hotel wasn't secure. She couldn't let that happen.

Without thinking much further, she brought up her stolen machine gun and opened fire. The weapon was heavier than anything she was used to, custom-built for a batarian and not for a human. And most of the batarians were shielded; kinetic barriers powered by portable suit generators worn at their belts. So she did less damage than she'd have hoped, but she still saw three or four batarians fall to the ground before her stolen weapon overheated, heat sinks popping out onto the hotel floor.

She ducked back behind the corner, dropping the now useless machine gun and trying to muster as much biotic energy as she could. She'd have enough for a barrier, at the very least. Not much more though, not yet.

Shouting curses, the surviving batarians poured from the lift, pointing and gesturing to one another. They turned towards the side corridor she'd shot at them from, and began to advance. Whether she ran or tried to hide, it was only a matter of time before the rounded the corner and saw her.

Well, you've got their attention, she told herself. Now what?

She didn't have time to answer that question.

One instant the hallway behind the batarians was empty, the next it was not.

The turian appeared from nowhere, one taloned hand reaching out to grab a batarian by the back of its neck. A tactical cloak, Shepard realised. Experimental technology could bend and distort light, rendering the wearer effectively invisible to the naked eye. But the turian must have been incredibly light on his feet to have advanced so far towards the batarians without them hearing anything.

They knew he was here now. Still grasping his first target by the neck, the turian aimed his pistol and fired once, twice. Two batarian bodies fell to the floor. Shepard pushed herself back into the corner as the gunfire intensified, the batarians firing back wildly.

After a few minutes, an eerie silence descended.

"You can come out now, human," the turian said. She hadn't realised that he'd seen her.

She got to her feet slowly and looked up at an unfamiliar face. Unfamiliar and decorated, white swirls over a dark brown face plate. You're not Saren. She didn't say it, but she certainly felt it. Of course, there had to be other turian Spectres. It had been stupid to hope. But she had done.

"Corporal Shepard of the Havincaw, sir," she said, saluting as smartly as she could. "Are you the Spectre?"

He nodded. "I'm Nihlus Kryik," he said. "You were expecting me?"

She realised he still had his weapon drawn. It was rare for a human to work with batarians, though sadly not completely unheard of. Slaves, cultists, or just very, very desperate - you could never be sure that a human you'd met wasn't one of them. She'd faced similar dilemmas from the other side when storming batarian slaver bases in the Traverse with the rest of her squad. So the Spectre's caution made sense, though it stung a little not to be trusted.

"Overhead the batarians talking about you, sir," she said carefully. "They seemed to know you were coming."

"Looks like one of the embassy stuff let something slip," said Nihlus, baring his teeth. "We've been after Elaum Ran'perah for months. He's a pirate, a slave-dealer, and who knows what else. The batarian Hegemony have been protecting him, claiming that as cultural attaché in their Citadel embassy he has diplomatic immunity. But the Council finally persuaded them to give that up last week. Now, he's mine."

Shepard hadn't seen any sign of the batarian leader since she'd overheard him berating his guards earlier. She told Nihlus that Ran'perah had been in the penthouse earlier, and that he'd left his soldiers with orders to keep the hotel guests locked up.

"He's bolting," said Nihlus, shaking his head. "We have to catch him before he gets away."

He turned to the lift, look back over his shoulder.

"Shepard, was it?" he asked. "If you're with the auxiliaries, you must be a biotic. I could use your help."

She thought about protesting - the hotel was still full of trapped guests, her biotic displays earlier had taken a lot out of her, she wasn't sure how much she could help - but this was a Spectre. The best of the best. She doubted she'd ever get the chance to work with one again. She didn't hesitate for long.

When the lift doors opened again a minute later they were in the hotel lobby. The lobby was filled with dead batarians. A lot of dead batarians. Shepard turned to look at Nihlus, who answered before she could form a question.

"They had hoped to ambush me," he said. "They were disappointed."

They caught up with Ran'perah and what was left of his bodyguards at the plaza in front of the hotel, near a line of parked shuttles. They were only just in time - he'd almost gotten away.

Shepard splayed her fingers, and the two heavies standing next to Ran'perah flew backwards, crashing into the parked shuttles. Nihlus's heavy pistol fired once, and the batarian leader went down clutching his leg.

"Elaum Ran'perah." said Nihlus. "You've been accused of multiple counts of piracy, slave trafficking, murder and terrorism. We take these things seriously in Citadel space. The Hegemony have waived all your diplomatic rights, and the Council have ordered me to bring you in. Dead or alive."

The batarian snarled. "You're not taking me back to the Citadel, Spectre."

"Dead it is then," the turian agreed, lifting his pistol up.

"Not so fast, Spectre." spat the batarian. "I'm wearing a dead man's switch. If I die, the bombs in the hotel go off. We left enough explosives in the basement to bring the whole building down."

Grimacing in pain, but with a triumphant look lighting up all four of his eyes, Ran'parah pushed himself back up to his feet.

"Now," he said, "I'm going to call a shuttle, and when it arrives I'm going to get on board and fly away. And you're going to stand there and watch me leave."

"How do I know you're not bluffing?" asked Nihlus, still holding his weapon aimed at the batarian's head.

"I don't think he is, sir," said Shepard nervously. "I overheard him earlier, telling his men to keep the hotel guests locked up in their rooms. He called them 'bargaining chips'."

The three of them stood frozen in the plaza for a minute. Nihlus seemed reluctant to lower his gun, but Ran'perah seemed to sense he'd gained the upper hand. Shepard reviewed her options. We could stun him, maybe, she thought. Unless him being unconscious sets the bombs off as well. If my biotics were better, if I were better rested, I could trap him in a stasis field, maybe. None of her ideas seemed promising. She hoped Nihlus had something in mind, or it looked like Ran'perah was going to walk.

"Well, turian?" asked Ran'perah, gloatingly. "What will you do? Save the hostages but let me escape, or shoot me and condemn them to death? Which of us is the real terrori-"

A single shot rang out in the darkness.

"You are," said Nihlus coldly, looking down at Ran'perah's body. The batarian's face - what was left of it - wore a shocked expression. "But you're dead."

Before Shepard could speak, she felt the ground rumbling. A flash of red light behind them, and the sound of sirens wailing. The batarian hadn't been bluffing.

She looked at the Spectre in disbelief. "You let them die. All those people," she stammered.. "You killed…"

"It was the only rational decision." Nihlus's voice was infuriatingly calm. "If we'd let him go, he could have set the bombs off anyway. Likely he would have done - he was a sadist, a monster. And who knows how many lives he would have ruined before we caught him again?"

He shook his head decisively.

"No, better it ended here. A hard decision, perhaps, but this is why the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance programme exists. Any other Spectre would have done the same."

"I don't believe this is what Saren would have done," she said flatly. "I can't..."

"Saren?" said Nihlus, thoughtfully. "No. Saren wouldn't have hesitated like I did."

Before the police and news crews arrived, Shepard had time to wander away and be violently sick again. This time she didn't blame the dextro-poisoning. Saren saved my life, she reminded herself. I don't care what that other Spectre says. He's a hero.

After being interviewed and processed like the other survivors, Shepard let herself be escorted to an emergency shelter. The room she'd been staying in, like the rest of the hotel, had been reduced to ashes and rubble. The guests she'd helped escape were all okay, if shaken by their narrow escape, but the death toll was still in the hundreds. She didn't speak to Nihlus again.

Hours later, as she lay down to sleep, she told herself everything would seem better in the morning. But it was twilight when she woke up next, her head pounding, her skin flushed with sweat and tears still drying on her cheeks.

It was always twilight on Epyrus.

CODEX: Personal History Summary, Shepard

Shepard was born on Mindoir, a human colony world, in 2154 CE (old-style human calendar), two years before the disappearance of the Charon mass relay. Little is known of her parents or their background, though it is most likely that they were farmers.

Her biotic abilities first manifested in 2160 CE, when batarian slavers attacked Mindoir during what was later called the First Blitz. Shepard's family were killed in the assault, but Shepard was saved by a young turian officer, Saren Arterius, who was part of the joint response force led by Hierarchy forces and humanity's General Williams (the future President Williams).

The orphaned Shepard grew up in a turian-run biotic training camp, sponsored by [REDACTED]. In 2169 CE, aged fifteen, Shepard was one of the first human biotics to join the Hierarchy military forces as an auxiliary. For six years, only biotics would be permitted to join the auxiliaries, though this restriction was relaxed in 2175. In 2173, Shepard received the first of several commendations, when her quick thinking and biotic talent allowed her unit to survive an attack by a thresher maw with only a single casualty. In 2175, Shepard's assistance was formally recognised by the turian Spectre Nihlus Kyrik, after [REDACTED]. In 2176, Shepard was honoured again for her role in the attack on batarian forces on Torfan, during the final battles of the Second Blitz.

In 2180 CE, Shepard was injured on Eden Prime, as part of a Council-led mission investigating [REDACTED]. Fortunately her injuries proved not to be life threatening. Shepard would go on to [REDACTED], playing a crucial role in the events that would later be [REDACTED].

[PUBLIC CODEX ENTRY ENDS / THE REMAINDER OF THIS ENTRY IS CLASSIFIED AND NOT FOR PUBLIC USE]