Cenotaph I: The Morrow

by Rob Sears

Roahn'Shepard was always doomed to an abnormal life. As the daughter of John and Tali, she would always be overshadowed by her parents' heroics, but at home... her father is no hero. He is distant. Withdrawn. But when a new threat arises, she and her father are forced to confront their differences and Roahn will soon discover what it means to be the daughter of Commander Shepard.

5. Chapter 5: Actions Open, Slides Up

"The apparent inability Chimera has had in being unable to distinguish friend from foe in nearly every one of their deployment sites is also somewhat disconcerting. The evidence is clear—every time Chimera sets up shop, headlines follow. Without fail. I mean, barely a year ago your corporation had six of its contractors kill eight unarmed civilians over in La Paz. Eight civilians were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and some trigger-happy morons opened fire on them. The resulting trial, if I recall, was quite swift in levelling its judgment, was it not?"
Sen. Karras – European Union (Greece)

"I do recall that the end result was just and fair, yes."
Erich Koenig, CEO – Chimera

"Yet these six contractors went through the exact same training programs at your Bakersfield camp that each and every employee of Chimera undergoes, correct? Before we go any further, would it not be unreasonable for us to conjecture that the training camp might be where the root of the problem is located? Or… could it merely be a symptom of the actual cause?"
Sen. Karras – European Union (Greece)

"I'm not sure. I'll have to consult my notes on the subject."
Erich Koenig, CEO – Chimera

"Your less than confident response does not have me assuaged as to what you either know or might be hiding, Mr. Koenig."
Sen. Karras – European Union (Greece)

---

Rannoch

As he woke, Shepard realized that something was wrong. Quite wrong.

Shepard was not particularly alarmed, though. Nothing in his brain was running rampant, screaming danger. He was still exhibiting the kind of nonchalance that usually accompanies a person in the first few minutes after rising from sleep. The only trouble was that right now, Shepard had an unusual pain in the back of his neck, almost like someone was sticking a needle into his spine and was going to town by twisting it this way and that. The pain was sharp and focused, agonizing but at the same time, not completely debilitating.

Damned if it didn't hurt, though.

Shepard feebly swallowed before he took a breath. Cold air poured into his lungs and, on instinct, he sat up from the chair in an instant. The pain miraculously evaporated now that the pressure from sleeping in a weird position on his back had been removed.

He immediately grimaced as he rubbed at the sore spot on his neck. Shepard dug his fingers into the muscle there, trying to iron out the kinks he had earned from sleeping upright in his chair. Damn it all, if only he had not been so lazy to actually walk a few yards over to his bed instead of slouching in his chair in the office for the entire night, he would not have to contend with these annoyances at first light.

Aches and pains. All part of getting older. But these pains were slowly getting worse every year. All stemming from the same cause. Aging was not going as gracefully as he would have hoped. Shepard knew that he was not in as good shape as he used to be and he sighed as he leaned forward, rubbing at his eyes to clear the milky myopia of wavy tendrils from his sight.

"Argh…" Shepard muttered as something in his neck cracked. "Son of a…"

It would not be a complete morning for Shepard without something in his body going awry, after all.

It was still early in the day, though. Early enough for Shepard to tend to all of his usual activities at his normal schedule. He scratched at his snow-white beard as he slowly stood up from the chair, emitting a series of additional creaks and snaps from his knees as his legs took his weight. Shepard bent backward a bit, crackling his spine to the tune of dry crunches, before embarking upon some stretches to give himself the most flexibility his limbs could offer before he tackled the day anew.

Shepard made a beeline for the coffee machine the very instant he entered the kitchen and soon the room was filled with the grinding noise of beans being pulverized into powder. Five minutes later and Shepard was gratefully nursing a steaming cup, willing for the caffeine to reach his brain quickly so that he could wake up all the more faster.

Ah, caffeine. The gateway drug to suppressing a good night's rest.

After draining about a quarter of his mug's contents, Shepard automatically reached down to one of the kitchen's cabinets, close to where the sink was—a force of habit. He pulled the cabinet out, revealing the clear plastic injectors that carried his necessary serum, a nice array of them all meticulously lined in their boxes, ready to be utilized at a moment's notice.

But another object was inhabiting the cabinet with them.

Shepard could only stare at the Predator pistol sharing the space, nestled all the way in the back, draped in shadow. The very same pistol he had pulled out from his daughter's hands just yesterday.

Killing power. One that had been nestled in the hands of a child. What kind of a galaxy had he woken up to?

Shepard's brow furrowed as he leaned against the counter, feeling unreasonably heavy, his eyes boring right into the frame of the pistol. A pistol. In this house. Were he a more unreasonable man he would have chucked the thing into the ocean the very first second it had crossed the boundary of his land. But no, Shepard had kept it, unable to think of a good reason as to why he might dispose of it right off the bat. Thus, it was currently being kept in the kitchen, in a place that Roahn would not think to look first. Tucked away in some unassuming kitchen cabinet, amongst the very objects that prolonged Shepard's life. Shepard did not miss the irony that was present in his decision.

Regardless, Shepard mused, a cabinet was no place to keep a gun. He needed a safe or some place he could lock it away and not have to worry about it afterward. Without any other options, though, Shepard was stuck having to poorly hide the gun in his house. He had assumed that, for the rest of his life, he would never have had to introduce a gun to his family for as long as he lived.

Showed what he knew. It had taken twelve years, but one had finally found its way back into his hands anyway. Through his own daughter. What a miserable joke. Such an easy promise and he could not even keep that.

A pistol would bring the family nothing but trouble, Shepard knew. If only he could get rid of it. Thinking of its destruction was the easy part, and it would certainly feel so good just to take that damned pistol and smash it on the counter, cracking its polymer housing in to pieces to let the metallic and sensitive innards spill forth in a blinding clatter—

"What if you actually humored her?"

Shepard regretfully shut his eyes as he bent his head forward, as if in prayer, letting Garrus' words ring throughout his head. "If only things could be so simple," he sighed to himself before he opened his eyes again.

But what if it actually was that simple?

Frowning as a little voice teased inside his head, Shepard resorted to staring out the window mournfully. First Garrus, now his subconscious. Just how alone was he in trying to keep a tight hold on his own perceptions?

"I don't know if it's the right thing to do," he whispered. "Give an inch, take a mile."

Give nothing, lose everything. Flip side of the coin, eh?

"Or…" Shepard realized, a brightness flickering in his eyes, "give understanding. Teach humility through experience. I… that way… I can humor her. Hell, Garrus, you were probably on the right track after all."

See? Now you're catching on.

After polishing off his coffee, Shepard set the empty mug down in the sink and then walked over to Roahn's room, passing through the spacious and sparsely furnished living area to reach the hallway where her door was located. The dim hallway was lit only from the morning sun and soon Shepard was walking into darkness as he approached the foreboding entrance.

Smartly, Shepard rapped upon the door with his knuckles. "Roahn, are you awake?"

No answer, but Shepard had expected this sort of response. Rather than wait for his daughter to finally pipe up, Shepard pressed his hand against the door face, causing it to open a crack.

Roahn was still lying on her bed, curled up in a fetal position. The glow from beyond her blue visor was an indication that she was indeed awake, but the twin motes of her eyes were focused in an accusatory glare. As expected, she was still mad at him for yesterday. Not that he could blame her—they had not exactly parted on good terms before the day's end.

Shepard did not bristle under the withering gaze. He had been exposed to worse things than a moody glare from his own daughter to get him to make a reaction. Instead, he stepped into Roahn's room and cleared his throat.

"Fix yourself something to eat, Roahn," Shepard said, not quite ordering her, but his tone was not all that warm either. "Then get yourself ready. I want us to leave in less than an hour."

Roahn used an arm to prop herself up, eyes still lowered in suspicion. "I have to do chores?" she asked, trying to guess her father's intent.

Shepard just shook his head, ignoring Roahn's initial annoyance. "I took some time to think things over the other day and… and I believe that you did have a point back then." Shepard noted that Roahn was now sitting up – for good reason as Shepard had barely taken Roahn's side in an argument before.

Still intent on continuing, Shepard swallowed, allowing a rare moment of shyness to be revealed in his wary expression. "I think we both said some things in the heat of the moment the other day that we probably didn't mean, and I apologize if you think I stepped out of line. I do care about you, Roahn, and I just want to make sure that you grow up safe from harm. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Roahn answered as she placed her hands limply upon her knees as her legs dangled off the edge of the bed. This kind of self-reflection from her father was practically unheard of and Roahn was pretty much shocked at this emotional display. "I'm sorry for what I said to you too, dad."

"That's all right," Shepard smiled thinly. "But it stands to reason that you and I… I want us to be on the same page. You're my daughter and you deserve to have the one remaining parent in your life do right by you. So, what I have decided is that I… I will teach you how to handle a gun, if… if that is what you would like."

It probably took ten seconds for that to fully register in Roahn's brain. Had she seriously just heard what she thought she heard?

"Are you serious?" Roahn squeaked, hardly daring to believe her luck.

"If this is going to be a skill that you're dead-set on learning, then I'm going to make sure that you learn it the right way," Shepard emphasized sternly. "Two things first: you will not be taking hints or dispensing my lessons on shooting to or from your feather-brained friends, nor will you be allowed to carry this gun out of the house without my supervision. You are going to treat this weapon with the utmost respect and that means that you will have to earn my trust on that. If you can abide by my rules, then… I will teach you what I know."

If Shepard had the ability to see past Roahn's visor, he would have had a clear view of the girl's open jaw as she sat dumbstruck on the bed. Shepard nearly cracked a wider smile at his daughter's reaction, but the conversation that they had shared yesterday was still way too fresh in Shepard's mind for him to find humor in the situation just yet.

"Well?" Shepard indicated slyly as he turned to leave, cocking his head over toward the kitchen. "This is what you wanted, right? You up for this?"

Roahn's mind fizzled blankly as she tried to process this capitulation from her father. Initially, she had thought there had to have been some ulterior motive for Shepard to seemingly let Roahn finally use a gun. Was this part of some crafty new punishment that he had concocted? A psychological tactic designed to humiliate her? But the more she thought about it, it seemed like her father was actually being sincere. And, to her shame, Roahn realized that her father would never in a million years go out of his way to shame her to the point of breaking. That was just not his forte.

But this… was a fresh start. A new privilege for her to earn. This was better than she could imagine! A clear way to prove her maturity to her dad!

"Of course I'm up for this!" Roahn said as she hopped off the bed so that she could rush to scarf her breakfast down, and she nearly bowled Shepard over as she raced through the house to the kitchen.

It was hard for her to tamper down her enthusiasm, but damned if she could try to have this big smile wiped off her face. Never in a long while had Roahn been looking forward to spending a little time with her dad.

---

Holy shit, was all Roahn could think.

A very human expletive, but she had heard it used enough around the house to understand what it meant. Roahn's father had trouble watching his language sometimes.

Holy shit.

Holy shit!

Her dad was actually taking her shooting!

Roahn had gotten herself fed and ready in record time, speeding to the front door where Shepard had been patiently waiting by for her. He was still trying to stifle a smile of his own at seeing her excitement, but could not help himself knowing that his daughter was enthusiastic about something. It was a lightness in his chest that spoke to him – his little girl was actually happy. Chemicals in the brain—endorphins—saturated his emotions with pleasurable feelings at witnessing his family start to come together.

Was this part of that normality that he had been searching for?

The Rannoch morning greeted Shepard and Roahn with patchy clouds partially canvassing an orange and purple sky. A backdrop of stars were still twinkling overhead—the result of a nonexistent smog layer—and both father and daughter could see a band of star clusters and noble gases over near the horizon as part of a faraway cloud of light-colored smoke: the Milky Way. Rannoch's sun had already burned away most of the fog, but the temperature was still chilly enough for Shepard to put on a jacket. The wind from the sea tore at them, threatening to carry them up toward the mountains a few miles away.

Locking the door behind them, the two of them hooked an immediate right as they set out from the house, headed toward the cliff that overlooked the sea. Shepard had a knapsack thrown over his shoulder and he had the Predator pistol held in one hand, with his fingers well away from the trigger. Roahn trailed close behind, her eyes looking up in awe at her dad, as if she was suddenly seeing him in a new light.

Shepard and Roahn took the trail down the cliff to the beach below, where the cold sea winds still tugged at them. The beach was sectioned by terrain: one part was coated with deep, soft sand, another was layered with a spread of rough pebbles that could tear into the underside of an unprotected foot, and near the cliffs, was a rocky section where gigantic boulders twice Shepard's size loomed, pounded by the waves for eons until they had turned completely smooth. It was over by the boulders that Shepard walked, unslinging his knapsack as he went.

"I thought we were going to head into the mountains," Roahn said as she watched her father take a blanket from the pack and lay it out upon the ground.

Shepard arranged the pistol and five empty beer bottles in a meticulous row in front of him. "Not much sense to travel all that distance for something like this. Besides, there's no one around for miles. We can shoot safely here, as long as we're pointing towards the sea. That way, there's no chance we'll hit anything."

He did have a point, Roahn conceded, and Shepard soon gestured for her to take a seat beside him as he utilized a particularly wide boulder as a bench.

"So, Roahn," Shepard said as he pointed to the pistol lying innocently in front of them. "How would you like to start this?"

Not prepared for having so much responsibility thrust at her all at once, Roahn shrugged.

"I… don't know where to begin," she admitted.

"Okay," Shepard nodded. "Then let's break this down a bit. How much do you know about firing a gun?"

"How much? Just… just point and shoot, right?"

Right away, Roahn knew that was not the correct answer, but it had tumbled out of her mouth before she had even thought about what she had said.

Shepard politely chuckled as he rubbed his hands together. This was going to be a bit more extensive than he had originally thought. Then again, the right way was not always the simplest way.

"It's a little more technical than that," Shepard said as he leaned forward and picked up the gun. He slid the slide back and locked it open so that Roahn could see down into the barrel. "Look into that. You notice that there's no thermal clips, yeah? No gray-looking cylinders in the slot? So, the first thing you do about picking up any weapon at all is to make sure that it's safe. You do that by checking to see if the gun's loaded with clips and if the safety's at all engaged—which you can see right here that it is."

There was a tiny black button on the back of the gun that Shepard now indicated with his thumb. Shepard depressed the button once, causing a very tactile clacking noise to emit. The button then turned red as it sunk into the frame a couple of millimeters. Giving Roahn time to study the safety, Shepard hit the button once more, turning it black again.

"Red for off, then?" Roahn looked at her father for confirmation.

"That's how it is for all weapons. Black for safe. Red for un-safe."

Shepard then reached down into his pack and withdrew a cylindrical object, a little more than half as tall as a soda can, that was etched with metallic red lines upon its face. He lifted it up so that a few rays of the sun could glint off of it, and Shepard wrinkled his nose as a fresh slew of brine scent reached him from the ocean.

"Do you know how many thermal clips a Predator pistol can hold?" he asked his daughter.

"Six," Roahn answered confidentially.

"That's correct. Know how many shots per clip?"

"Fifteen."

A dry smile reached Shepard's face and he then held out his arms, offering both the pistol and the clip for Roahn to take. Tentatively, Roahn lifted the objects away from her father and placed them into her lap, her gaze hopelessly locked onto them, deep in thought. From the last time she had held onto this gun, it had inexplicably seemed to have increased in weight now. There was a strong vibration in her fingers from where she touched the mechanism, finding that there was a dark pulse reverberating within the back of her mind.

"Try slotting in a thermal clip. If you want help—"

"I think I have it," Roahn said, trying so very hard not to sound impatient or that she was snapping at her dad.

Roahn took the thermal clip and inserted it into the Predator in the correct fashion. Roahn had to use her thumb to jam the clip in fully, but it soon clicked snugly in place within the gun. Satisfied at herself, Roahn looked to Shepard for further instructions.

Shepard pointed to a little tab on the side of the gun. "Flip that right there."

Roahn did and the slide clicked closed with an immediate snap.

"That's it," Shepard proclaimed. "You're locked and loaded right there."

Roahn hefted the gun, a tiny fragment in the corner of her eyes now lidded with a fearful respect. Shepard, meanwhile, just clasped his hands together and stared out toward the horizon, squinting his eyes as to not be blinded by the millions of tiny reflections the sun beamed at him from the water.

"You're lucky, you know," he whispered. Roahn's head immediately shot over in his direction, a little confused. "When I was starting out in the marines," Shepard explained, "all the guns we had used a different technology. We had to wait for our heat sinks to cool down rather than just ejecting them from the gun itself. We could shoot more bullets at a time, but it took probably five times longer for us to be able to shoot again if we overheated those weapons." Shepard then chuckled as he got to his feet, groaning as his knees buckled slightly, overwhelmed in age. "I'll never forget how confused I was when I grabbed one of those new pistols for the first time. I didn't know what I was doing when I kept trying to fire it. Must have spent a long time uselessly trying to figure out why the hell someone would make a gun without any clips in it. Thought it might have been a manufacturing error at first. Eventually I understood how to work it, though it wasn't my finest moment, let me tell you."

Shepard then crossed his arms, taking in the scenery before looking back to his daughter, who was still staring up at him, implicitly waiting to hear more.

"Ah, but enough about me," Shepard said, not noticing Roahn's amazement from the brief little window he had allotted her into his past. "Stand up. Let's see your stance."

Snapping back to her senses, Roahn got up from the rock and, after some hesitation, nervously shuffled into what she thought was the correct position: feet spread apart, slightly leaning forward, and holding the pistol outward with her right hand with her left hand cupping the bottom of the grip.

Shepard took a few seconds to examine his daughter's routine before he shook his head with a tiny sigh. "Nope. All right, stand back up straight, Roahn. Let me show you what you're doing wrong."

Roahn did so, blinking furiously as she was wracking her brain to figure out what part of what she had been doing was incorrect. Shepard then held his hand out, a silent request to have the pistol back to demonstrate, and Roahn granted him that as she delicately deposited the gun in his waiting palm.

"For starters," Shepard held the Predator up, pointing the barrel to the sky, "you never, ever, ever put your finger on the trigger… unless you are one hundred percent certain that you are ready to fire." He wiggled his index finger for emphasis. "Put your finger on the side of the gun, above the trigger, until you reach that point, but do not touch that trigger until you are already aiming it downrange."

"Okay, dad," Roahn nodded, filing that tidbit away in her memory.

"Second of all, we need to talk about your grip. Why do you think I'm asking you about that? Do you remember what kind of grip you were using before?"

Roahn looked down at her hands before appraising her father. "I… I had my right hand around the handgrip… and my left… was cupping underneath the grip."

Shepard smiled as he made a small gesture in his daughter's direction. "And what do you think was wrong with that?" When Roahn couldn't give an answer, he continued. "Having your left hand cupping the handgrip does absolutely nothing. Really, it doesn't do anything. You've probably seen too many vids that show people holding guns like that for style or something. But vids are not like real life. Gunfighting on a screen is fake. Out here, it's real. This isn't some like something on a sanitized set. In the real world, you feel the pressure in your ears as each gunshot whizzes by your head. You're constantly slipping in blood as you make your way from objective to objective. And you're never going to escape the screams of men and women as they beg for their mothers while—"

Shepard abruptly cut himself off with a series of quick blinks, like he had just woken up from a dream. Realizing that he had been inappropriately rambling, he sheepishly dipped his head towards Roahn, who had been staying silent the whole time.

"Sorry, Roahn," Shepard murmured. "Where… where we were?"

"Uh…" Roahn said before she too came to her senses, clearly unnerved from the vivid descriptions her father had just laid out for her. "I think we were talking about grip?"

"Oh, grip! Right. So, yeah, the cup method isn't going to work for any sort of gun. Instead, what you want to do is use a two-handed grip. Watch here—you take your left hand and wrap your fingers around the fingers of your right hand." Shepard acted out what he was doing so that Roahn could get a better view, making sure to watch each word he was saying lest he slip off into a tangent again. "Also, you see that my right thumb is wrapped around the left side of the pistol? Okay, so now, you take your left thumb and position it directly underneath your right thumb so that it acts as a firm point to rest against."

Unwrapping his hands from the pistol, Shepard then gave it back to Roahn so that she could mimic the actions herself. She screwed up her eyes in concentration as she delicately and methodically followed each and every one of Shepard's instructions, and before long she was using the sort of stance that Shepard had just described in half a minute.

"Like this?" Roahn asked when she felt that she had it down.

Leaning back and forth, Shepard took a good hard look at what Roahn was doing before nodding to his satisfaction.

"You've got it," Shepard said, impressed that Roahn was a quick study. "Now, instead of you only having one arm to take all the recoil, you now have two. That extra support will make things much easier for you in the long run. You will fatigue less quickly and you will be able to focus in on your next shot a whole lot quicker. Okay, set the gun down for a second while I help set you up."

Roahn watched as Shepard took one of the empty beer bottles before walking out towards the sea, particularly toward a cluster of boulders that erupted from the sand like desert serpents. Not knowing what to think at this moment, she just watched as her father set the empty bottle upright on one of the boulders a couple dozen yards away before heading back, retracing over his footprints in the soft sand as he went along the beach.

So far, this day was playing out very weirdly, Roahn figured. She was talking to her dad very… casually. As if nothing was out of the ordinary. How strange this was, to spend her time like this.

Maybe this was just the universe telling her to enjoy this moment while it lasted.

Roahn leaned forward upon the rock, her thoughts clashing with each other like waves in a storm. She did not want to admit it just yet, but she was feeling glad about all this. This… bonding. It felt like she had not breathed this easy in years. The barest hint of that piece she had been missing was just starting to rear its head right about now and Roahn so desperately wanted it to finally be revealed to her.

She still kept her hopes down, though. Never know when disappointment might be around the corner.

Shepard pointed behind him towards the bottle as he approached Roahn, the back of his jacket flapping in the wind. "Got your target all set up for you over there. Pick up the gun when you're ready."

Heart now racing, Roahn bent down and plucked the loaded Predator up from where she had placed it on the blanket. She walked over until she was perpendicular to her target, her boots sinking into the sand, the ocean acting as the backdrop. Roahn remembered to keep her finger well away from the trigger as she slowly began to lift the gun up, taking the time to press the safety off as she lined up her shot.

"It's a three dot sight," Shepard knelt down behind Roahn. "You want to line the middle notch up so that it's the same height as the other two notches. But the middle notch will have to cover your target in order for you to land a hit." Seeing Roahn's eyes narrow in concentration, Shepard hesitated a bit before giving her a comforting pat on the back. "All right. It's all yours, Roahn. Fire when you're ready."

That droning noise in Roahn's ear was returning—the same sound that had graced her when she was holding this very same weapon up to bear just yesterday. A soft, subtle vibration in her ears but powerful enough to dampen the howl of the wind, the roar of the waves, the brushing of the sand. She could feel the palpitations of her heart all the more clearly as it thumped against her chest, minutely shaking her arms, which were beginning to tremble from the pressure of holding death in her palms.

Roahn closed her left eye as she lined the sights up with her right. Carefully, she moved her arms very slowly as she gradually obscured the beer bottle upon the boulder with the blocky, rectangular gun notch. The outside world blurred as she focused upon the back of the gun first, but soon even the gun disappeared in a dark-colored blob as she forced herself to look beyond what she was holding, finding that every single miniscule detail of the beach was presented so vividly, so crystal-clear to her.

Soapy bubbles of sea foam dripping from waves.

Individual shimmering specks of sand glinting like gold.

A hint of movement from a crab scuttling along the dirt.

The wrinkles and imperfections in the rock, scratches and scars worn away from time.

The tactile feel of the trigger in her hand.

KRA-KOW!

The gun bucked backwards in Roahn's grip, but her arms had been tensed so tight that they were practically locked up. The recoil traveled up her wrists and died near her forearms—the girl found that she had been able to take the brunt of the force quite nicely. A brief plume of flame had existed for less than a micro-second, but the remnants of the flash were still seared in her eyes, and Roahn blinked dumbly, like she had been temporarily blinded.

The column of dirt and sand that had erupted a foot from the rock upon which the bottle sat finally finished falling to earth in a brown-ish outline. A fresh hole marred the smooth beach, with chunks of wet sand clumps lying around the new entrance.

A miss, but Roahn could not care at all. She was still feeling the effects from the brief spike of adrenaline that her system had given her.

What a rush! Feeling that gun just explode in her hands only for her to catch the brunt and bring the bucking pistol under control! The trigger had been easy to pull too, with a very clean break. It was almost if Roahn could have brushed a feather against it. She slowly let out a low, whistling breath of awe, fighting the urge to jump in place, her entire mind now brimming with limitless and uncontrollable energy.

"A good start," Roahn heard her father say behind her. "You've still got fourteen more shots in that clip. Want to keep shooting?"

"Yea-Yeah…" Roahn breathily nodded, eyes now wide open in astonishment. Almost eagerly, Roahn lifted the Predator back up and tilted her head to bring the sights in alignment once more, spending a mere three seconds in lining up her next shot.

The trigger made a tiny scraping click as Roahn's finger found it.

The gun shoved itself upwards again as Roahn fired the gun, but the girl had expected this kind of ferocity from the recoil and she was able to better manage it this time around. More sand puffed near the ground from another miss, but that was immaterial to Roahn. Her breath slithered in and out of her lungs as she kept on lining her target up in her eyes, pulling the trigger each time she thought she had a decent shot.

Shepard did not say any words to Roahn as she proceeded to gradually empty the clip in front of him. He did not even wince as the pistol barked so close to him—a lifetime of handling such dangerous weapons had partially deafened him over time, not to mention that he was already used to the loud noises anyway from his participation in his warring days.

He simply watched and observed his daughter shoot.

When the Roahn fired the final shot her last clip had to offer, the pistol's barrel slide automatically slid open, causing the thermal clip to be ejected in a wide arc, well away from the user. The red-hot clip tumbled end over end to finally land in the wet sand, emitting a screen of steam as the moisture came into contact with the burning metal surface.

Wow, Roahn thought. I'm shaking all over.

"Make sure you put the safety on," Shepard reminded Roahn as the girl continued to stand in place, so overcome by adrenaline that all of her nerves were hopelessly addled. In a daze, Roahn finally broke from her paralysis and slowly handed the gun to Shepard, grip-first.

"So," Shepard began, chewing his lip, "what did you think?"

Roahn stared at the ground for a bit until she mustered the strength to meet her father's eyes. "It's… it's a bit different. More than… than I thought."

"Thought it would be easy, did you?"

"I guess," Roahn shrugged. "Honestly, I didn't expect it to be so… rough. So violent."

"No one ever does," Shepard nodded sympathetically. "Not for their first time." He then sat on the flat boulder again, motioning for his daughter to sit next to him. "Roahn, I hope you understand what we're doing here in the first place. I'm trying to help you realize that there's nothing glamorous about this at all. Firing a gun can be used for sport, yes, and also for fun, but beyond that, I want you to understand that this is a very dangerous item. Guns were not designed so that they could be easy for everyone to use—they were designed to kill, first and foremost."

"I… I understand," Roahn said, never breaking eye contact.

She then looked at her hands, finding that the muscle there was still tense from her having gripped the gun so tightly. The skin might even be bruised underneath. She clenched her fingers into fists to quell the shakes, almost as if she was trying to drive out the demons that had inhabited her hands.

Shepard watched his daughter before offering her the pistol back. "Did you want another go? See if you can hit the bottle?"

The pistol loomed in Roahn's vision as she sat, hunched over, finding the grip of the gun to seemingly be magnified in her eyes. With her fingers splayed out like talons, Roahn reached out and slowly took the gun back, having eliminated the trembling that had briefly possessed her body a few seconds ago.

Shepard passed Roahn another thermal clip for her to use and then gestured to the untouched beer bottle that was still sitting proudly yards away from them. "Before you go for your next round, do you want a few tips on how to improve your aim?"

"Sure," Roahn said as she walked back out to her original position to shoot. She was not so arrogant as to refuse assistance for this. After all, she still had not yet hit her target, despite the fifteen rounds she had already unleashed in its direction.

"I would suggest that you only need to use the tip of your finger to pull the trigger with. You don't need to wrap your entire finger around. That way, your finger will be more inclined to pull backward instead of to the side, which should prevent you from spoiling your shot. Also, I've noticed that most of your shots are coming in low and to the left. That tells me that you might be anticipating your shots before you fire, which means that you're sort of jerking forward right as you pull the trigger. Try to keep that under control and still your body completely. Your finger is the only part of your body that needs to move in that moment. Remember: only your finger."

Roahn shifted her heels into the sand, offering more grip. She stuck her tongue partially out of her mouth as she aimed her pistol, her mind now aching as she tried to comprehend each and every miniscule detail about her stance.

"Did you have to think about this a lot when you were in battle?" Roahn asked before she even knew what she was talking about. She clamped her mouth shut in embarrassment as she realized that she had just committed a faux pas with her father by asking him about the war.

But Shepard continued staring out into the horizon after taking a brief moment for introspection. "It was something that became second nature early on," he merely said. "It gets easy way too quickly."

Counting her lucky stars that she had gotten away with her question, Roahn held her breath as she started concentrating back onto the glass bottle, imagining it shattering into a million pieces from the spark of deadly metal she would send shooting its way in mere moments.

Roahn barely felt the first shot out of the clip as she only had to touch the trigger, just like her father said. The pistol rocked up a couple inches, but Roahn was able to bring it back under control very quickly, now that she was getting the hang of this. She couldn't see where her bullet had landed, but the fact that the sand had not popped in front of the target indicated that she was zeroing on the bulls-eye ever so slightly.

"A few inches on the left," Shepard called out, managing to see where the bullet had hit thanks to his practiced eye.

Frowning, Roahn shifted her arms a little and fired off the next round. Clumps of wet sand peppered the boulder. Smoke and steam from the barrel rose in wisps, caught by the morning light.

"You were aiming a little down," Shepard said.

Roahn's third shot rang out less than five seconds later. The bottle was still intact, though.

"High," Shepard reported. "Slow down. Relax. You have all the time you need. You don't have to rush."

Roahn obeyed and took an extra ten seconds to devote to mentally preparing for her next shot. Although she found it odd that she seemed to waver a whole lot more with her target while it was directly underneath her sights. Almost like her strength was slowly being sapped the more she aimed.

Her next series of shots all missed but came close to her target, with some bullets even snapping off shards of rock as they came torturously close to impacting upon the bottle.

"Nearly there," Shepard assured Roahn. "Just move your finger. Keep your body completely still. Remember, all that needs to move is your finger."

Sighing, Roahn dropped her stance for a few seconds to gather her remaining strength. All this shooting had left her feeling drained, exhausted from concentrating so hard. Micro-trembles still jittered throughout her as the adrenaline in her system began to subside. She was on edge, but not exactly nervous.

Roahn had an idea of what she had to do.

Both arms lifting the pistol up, Roahn let the middle notch of the sights gently cover up the silhouette of the bottle, her eyes peering through the blinding reflection the light made on the sea. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs, and shut an eye, hearing the blood pumping in her ears.

She then willed her finger, and only her finger, to clench just a millimeter towards her.

The gun popped and bucked—Roahn was able to catch the recoil quite handedly by now.

But now the boulder was unoccupied.

The only evidence that anything had remained on top of it were brilliant little shards of glass, twinkling as the lapping waves brushed them. What they had formed before no longer existed. They were now purposeless, broken beyond repair.

Roahn had not even heard the bottle explode, for she had shut almost all her senses out at the time.

"I…" she stammered as she lowered the pistol, her thumb automatically flicking the safety on. "I… did it."

"That you did," her father said behind her. She turned around to find his bearded face beaming back at her. "Very nice work."

A broad smile finally split Roahn's face and her eyes lidded upward in joy at the praise. Already she was giddy at having hit her mark on the first day out. The girl was nearly bouncing upon her toes, enthusiastic that she had smashed the goal she had set for herself.

Similarly, Shepard too was also quite excited for his daughter. She paid attention to instruction quite well, apparently. Less than thirty shots expended and already she had hit the mark. He knew that he should feel wrong for exhibiting pride for this kind of showing, but there was something within Roahn, a focused drive, that he knew all too well. She not only had skill within her, but the patience to utilize that skill effectively.

Then again, should he have expected anything less from his own daughter?

No… no, he reasoned. He was not going to push anything upon Roahn. A life of violence was not supposed to be the end result from Roahn's upbringing. If this was truly the sort of path that she wanted though, then how could he even hope to stop her? If she wanted this, then pushing back on her was merely an uphill battle.

Still, Shepard wished he could have held off this day just a little while longer.

She won't be a child forever, you know.

"Yes…" Shepard whispered so low that only he could hear his words. "But she'll always be my daughter."

Roahn had jogged out over to the boulder to inspect her handiwork, momentarily leaving Shepard alone. Pleased and over-the-moon that she had hit the bottle, she was practically skipping in place as she danced around the jagged glass fragments. She looked over at Shepard still kneeling in place—just in time for a thought to pop into her head. Running back over to the blanket, Roahn picked up three more empty bottles and hustled back to the boulder to place the bottles in a straight line. Shepard just watched his daughter run back and forth, wondering what she was doing until Roahn came over and grabbed the gun in an eager hand.

But she did not straighten up to fire at the new bottles this time around. Instead, she offered the grip to Shepard, eyes wide in anticipation.

"I want to watch you," Roahn said, noting Shepard's confusion.

Shepard then realized what she was talking about and politely laughed, shaking his head. "I haven't used a gun in years, Roahn."

"There's three shots left. I've already had my turn. I want you to try."

She certainly was persistent—yet another remnant of Tali.

"I've probably lost a step or two," Shepard said, yet he took the offered gun anyway.

Roahn didn't seem to care. "Please, dad?" she just asked.

He could have tossed the gun down at the blanket and called it a day. That was certainly within his right as Roahn's father. There were probably at least half a dozen different ways to break it to Roahn gently that was not interested in this sort of thing.

And yet that would have been a lie.

Shepard stood up and stretched out his neck before he walked over to where Roahn had previously been standing to shoot. His big boots stamped out the outline of Roahn's smaller, three-toed feet in the sand. Shepard did not even need to look at the gun to prepare himself. By feel alone, he confirmed that the slide was closed, a clip still in it, that the safety was not depressed, and that the trigger had an actual carry to it. The relaxed posture of Shepard, the father, disappeared in an instant—hard edges tore at the corners of his eyes, his mouth firmed up in a straight line, and tendons in his arms tensed in preparation to take the brunt of the gun's blowback.

Roahn now realized she was looking at Shepard, the commander. A hint of the man, the hero, she had heard about all her life.

Just then, without warning, Shepard's arms snapped up and three shots rang out in quick succession, less than a second apart. Boom! Boom! Boom! Roahn had to whip her head around just to catch the result of her father's shots. From where three bottles had been standing, they had all disappeared in three quick detonations, sending glass and dust spewing in the air in an explosion that was all too brief, all too sudden.

But to Roahn… it was calculated devastation.

The noises of the gun evaporated into the air, the lingering echoes swallowed up by the roar of the nearby waves. Nature consumed the violence, impartial to the paltry mechanisms.

Shepard's face only softened after he had made sure that the thermal clip had ejected itself from the barrel. He then holstered the pistol and began to wrap up the blanket—a silent declaration that their business here was concluded.

Roahn had to pick up her jaw as her father trundled over to her. Shepard had seemed so focused, so full of a determined drive, in that half-minute that he had been holding the gun. He had been different then, almost scary. The man who now approached her did not have the same disposition. He was meek, almost timid, and carried a remorseful expression on his face. Roahn then realized that she had just seen a side of her father that he had not wanted her to know about. To her, it looked like Shepard was ashamed for destroying part of the illusion that he had set up for his daughter—another imperfection to add onto an imperfect man.

Shepard laid a hand upon Roahn's shoulder, the gesture affectionate, sending soothing feelings hurtling through Roahn.

Not a trace of the hardened commander left within that touch.

"Let's head home," Shepard said to Roahn as he mustered his best smile.

A smile… that hid a lie.

Heart in her throat, breath stolen from her, Roahn complied with nary a complaint.

---

Left to her own devices once she was back in her room, Roahn was scarcely believing that her entire morning had actually happened. Even a couple of hours after she had returned home she was still thrown by awe at her experience. Not because she had a bad time out there… but because she thought it went fantastically.

This huge grin on her face would not be going away anytime soon.

She had finally shot a gun and had hit something! Wow! This was all she had thought about for months on end and now, just like that, she had finally gotten to do it!

And her father had let her do it without repercussions. Who would've thought?

Roahn was not sure how to deal with this new insight into her father. It actually felt like he had been… paying attention to her. Not just because he had finally caved into letting her try out a gun, but that he had been providing her with careful instruction, bringing guidance to her form to make her become a better shooter. But all this newfound consideration upon her person did not feel like her father had suddenly caved in to her wishes, Roahn knew. If anything, Shepard had been using this as the perfect opportunity to drive respect into her mind.

Respect the gun. Respect her father. Respect it all and she will live a prosperous life.

Don't be like me, was the implicit lesson in the matter.

Still, Roahn hoped to try shooting again very soon.

It gets easy way too quickly.

There had been a great deal of strained emotion in her father's voice when he had uttered that line to her. Roahn had seen a great many sides to her father, but nothing like this grave and introspected version of her father before. There must have been a time when he was bolder, a bit more carefree. Back when he had a ship, a crew to be around.

What really happened to him during the war?

Which side of her father was the real Shepard? The careful father, or the brave commander?

Curious, Roahn grabbed at a nearby datapad and began scrolling through her digital library for clues. She opened up her mother's official biography and began to rapidly scan through the chapters, seeing if there was any additional insight that she might have missed, despite having read the book five times over already.

Tali's biography, concisely named Tali'Zorah, had been published just six months before her passing. Tali, drawn to the idea of telling her story, had sought out a professional writer, a newspaper editor by the name of Avi Ben-Zvi, to give him the commission to put her life into words. The biography had been a massive hit when it had been released, with its first run selling over five million units on all digital storefronts. Reviews were considerably less glowing, though. Online reviewers generally praised the flowing prose of the writing overall but nearly all of them had made mention of the fact that the biography seemed to be deliberately skimping in detail in some areas—part of the reason why Roahn was only feeling frustration from not even being able to take her own mother's words as the truth.

Tali'Zorah, while being a best seller, would never escape the mediocre reception. People did enjoy reading about Tali's early life and how she eventually came to meet with Shepard and the crew of the Normandy, there was still a general mystery about certain subjects that Tali seemed to gloss over entirely, subjects that mostly had to do with Tali's involvement in nearly every military campaign, but most grievously, Tali seemed to have skimped on the development of her relationship between her and Shepard, an aspect that general audiences would have assumed that the book would have given a great deal of attention toward. Even Roahn could figure out that the biography was disastrously limited in that area—to the casual reader, it would seem to them that Tali, an impressionable but capable young woman, shared one or two intimate conversations with Shepard during trying moments of their lives, and… boom! Suddenly, they would be referred to throughout the book as being together. That would be all the audience would get to insinuate that a spark had flashed between the two. Tali would continue to speak of Shepard and herself as a couple until the end, using tried and tired platitudes that would serve to make many readers' eyes roll around in their heads. Useless, banal, and frustrating.

Were the reasons for this sparseness in the finished product the result of redactions on the manuscript that were imposed for privacy? Or were these deliberate omissions spurred from something beyond what Roahn could imagine?

As expected, Roahn blithely discarded her datapad after a few more minutes of fruitlessly combing through the chapters, proving her guess correct in that she could not find anything of note in her mother's own book. Not even Tali could tell Roahn just what had happened to make their family so strained.

"Mom," Roahn whispered as she blankly stared at the empty datapad that lay upon her bed. "Mom. I wanted more time."

But all that time was in the past, trapped in her memories.

"You want to go where?" Tali asked as she turned in her chair to face her daughter.

"To the mountains!" Roahn pointed out the window, gesturing frantically out the window of the living room, her finger indicating over to the winding path that led through the water-starved bushes up into the rocky canyons. "Can you come with me? Dad said I'm not supposed to leave the house without supervision. It'll be fun!"

Tali gave a hidden smile as she appraised the girl, momentarily tapping a three-fingered hand upon her desk. "Exploring, is that it? Well, how can I say no to that?" Tali stood from her chair as she placed her hands on her hips. To Roahn, her mother now looked like a superhero. "Anything to get me out of the house. Spending time with you, my Ro, I couldn't imagine anything better."

Despite having scant few opportunities in her life thus far to see her mother's face, Roahn thought Tali was the most beautiful person she had ever known. The meticulousness of how she kept her suit, every belt tightly clasped, every gracing piece of fabric drawn taut across her body, Tali had the uncanny ability to draw the gaze of everyone in the room, enviro-suit and all. Not only that, but Roahn thought the lush purple color of Tali's sehni and visor complimented her perfectly to create this powerful visage that encapsulated her mother.

Her confidence and pride. Her eagerness and selflessness. What more could she ask of a mother?

"Can dad come with us?" Roahn implored.

"I don't know," Tali said. "Have you asked him?"

Roahn hadn't, but she had been hoping that Tali would take care of that. However, it was quite obvious that Tali was leaving Roahn to her own devices on how to accomplish this, so Roahn took a breath and headed over to the office where she found her father hunched over a series of newscasts at his desk, various holograms of clustered stars and nebulas dancing around his head in a warm orange bath. She never understood what her father did for work, as it was all hopelessly esoteric to her. Not that her father ever tried to help her understand in the first place.

"Hey, dad…" Roahn nervously began.

Shepard turned around, his face briefly frowning in annoyance at being disturbed at his desk, but he quickly warmed at the sight of his daughter. "Roahn! What's going on with you?"

"Mom… mom and I are going to do some hiking in the hills. Did you… did you…" Roahn had to force herself to draw breath. "…did you want to come with us?"

The moment that Shepard's face fell gave Roahn her answer. She had to suppress herself from sighing out loud. Why did she even bother with him?

"I'm sorry, honey," Shepard replied uselessly, trying to provide comfort to a girl who had already sealed her emotions away. "I'm in the middle of something important right now. Maybe we can do the same thing tomorrow?"

Did he really just say tomorrow? That was not going to happen. No, NOT tomorrow! Tomorrow was not going to work at all—she would not have bothered to ask him to join her on a walk if it was going to be for tomorrow!

"Okay, dad," Roahn just said through a choked throat before she left out the door.

At the very last moment before she exited the room, she paused mid-stride, waiting to see if her father would exhibit a last-second change of heart. But that was all a cliché, Roahn figured, especially when her father failed to break from whatever routine he had set himself up doing at this very moment, having turned back to his monitor to lock himself into… whatever he had been doing before. Stinging with disgust, Roahn microscopically shook her head before meeting her mother in the foyer.

To her credit, Tali said nothing about the fact that Shepard was not joining the two of them for their little outing together. But Roahn also did not catch Tali's worried look in the direction of her husband before dissolving her concerned aura in lieu for a more upbeat one, purely to please her daughter.

It was a fifteen minute walk from the house to the foothills, so Tali and Roahn had a lot of time to mindlessly chat, purely to keep things lively and also to distract Roahn from any lingering disappointment. Roahn walked close to her mother, staying in her shadow, admiring her confident gait and composure. Mother and daughter travelled together, peering through each other's visors to stare directly through them, to implicitly understand their deepest feelings, a kind of bond no one else but family could realize.

When Roahn began to lag behind, Tali slowed her pace down to allow her daughter to catch up. Even from here, Tali could hear Roahn's breathing through her mask.

"Tired, dear?" Tali asked Roahn, amused at her daughter's drive.

Roahn shook her head and stubbornly strode past her mother. "No way."

"You sure? Because we can always take a break—"

"Not going to happen," Roahn said, but it was through a grin full of clenched teeth. "I'm going to walk until I've tired you out, mom!"

Tali laughed, lifting her chin to the sky. "We're going to be walking for quite a while, then. Before you were born, you know, I once was able to hike twenty miles on rocky terrain without even stopping for water. While running at full tilt. With a heavy load strapped to my back."

Roahn was certain she had heard incorrectly. "Twenty… miles?"

"Yep. Sometimes more. When I was working with your father, we had to be prepared for everything. He made sure that we were all getting in our calisthenics during our down time. Of course, everyone hated it, but it paid off in the end, I'd say."

"Keelah. How long did it take you to get used to that?" Roahn gaped. "I mean, how long did it take for you to be able twenty miles with no problems?"

Tali looked upward in thought. "Hard to say. I never was keeping any track of time for that. But I had plenty of motivation that helped me get to that goal."

"What kind of motivation?"

Her mother took a sly glance over her shoulder before nudging her head backwards. "The kind that's coming our way right now," Tali answered smugly.

Thoroughly baffled, it took a beat or two for Roahn to figure out what Tali was referring to exactly until she realized that her mother meant for it to be literal. Whirling in all directions until she spotted something approaching them upon the path they were on—more specifically, in the direction they had just come from. Roahn looked at the footprints she and Tali had made upon the cracked soil, through the rushes of dried and dying bushes, to the ever-growing humanoid form that was now breaking out into a run right for them. Roahn and Tali stood astride the path, Roahn looking on in confusion, not noticing that her mother was wearing a satisfied look within her eyes.

Soon Roahn's own eyes widened in understanding as Shepard slowed down to a fast walk when he got to ten meters away from them, barely even panting at the distance he had covered. Apologetically, he gave a nod in Tali's direction first before he wiped his brow and sheepishly grinned right at Roahn, giving the same piercing look that found her soul so easily, just like the ability her mother had.

"Sorry I'm late," he said remorsefully. "I just realized that I had more important things to do than just work. I just wish I had figured that out sooner."

Completely touched, Roahn smiled, but was saddened because she knew her father would probably never even know of this smile's existence.

The smile, though, stood to benefit the maker and not the receiver. A smile was not in vain if it had the required effect upon at least one person.

"I'm glad you could join us, dad," Roahn said.

---

At the same time, back in his office, Shepard was concentrating on multiple things simultaneously as he began to wind down from the events of the morning. He could not stop thinking about the image of seeing his daughter confidentially holding a gun in her hands as she lined up shot after shot on the beach. As much as he wanted to decry his own involvement for enabling that to happen, he was more concerned at the fact that he was not feeling that way at all, but merely one solitary emotion from all that.

Pride.

The kid had natural talent. She listened well, and even seemed to immediately take the more philosophical aspects of his instruction to heart. Not to mention, if Roahn kept up her rate of learning, she could become an ace shot in no time. Even hotshot marines that Shepard had served with had taken longer to hit a target as small as a bottle from such a distance, and with a greater average amount of shots expended, too.

Now we'll just have to see what direction Roahn will take this, Shepard thought. Will she exploit my leniency… or will she want to naturally progress in a mature fashion?

"I just want you to be safe, Roahn," Shepard said to himself, to quell his raging thoughts. "That's all."

Shepard eventually managed to progress his stream of consciousness onto another topic as it wormed its way into his brain, and soon he was tapping dutifully at the hardlight keyboard upon his worn mahogany desk, propping his head up with his hands as his fingers burrowed up near his temples, giving him a very maudlin look. His eyes were fixated solely upon the holographic monitor of his own console, focused very hard upon a video clip that he had opened, having done so in a spur of the moment decision that had given him a brief glimpse of inspiration.

For there were bigger issues at hand than dealing with a sometimes capricious daughter.

The deteriorating nature of politics, for example. Shepard was slowly getting himself more absorbed into the climate brewing on Earth, a prime environment that, according to the rumor mill, was intent on reopening old wounds. Now was a good of a time as any to get himself reacquainted with his challengers.

The clip that Shepard had just opened was a recording from a public service broadcasting station, one of many channels transmitted across the galaxy for free in order to provide awareness in current events to citizens all over the galaxy. What Shepard was watching right now was a brief passage from his deposition back on Earth twelve years ago, when he had been forcibly shoved into a room filled to the brim with men and woman all harboring stern looks in his direction. Politicians with agendas. Not one of the people on the high bench had a penchant for simply doing the right thing. All they were concerned about were their careers and seizing any opportunity to make a name for themselves.

In all his years, Shepard had probably disliked about 95% of the politicians he had ever met. Their smiles were too fake, their relatability unattainable, and their policies were all concentrated upon the whims of their biggest donors instead of their constituents. They were just empty suits to Shepard, people all wearing a price tag upon their front. Hell, the only people who had ever held a public office that Shepard liked were all people who had spent time in the service beforehand. David Anderson, Primarch Victus, and even Admiral Raan were just among the lucky few he did not hold any animosity towards. At least they understood the trials a soldier faced.

Not surprisingly, the man at the head of the bench in the clip, Raynor Larsen, had never so much had spent a single day of his life in the military. He probably could not even muster a proper salute, Shepard guessed as he continued to watch the deposition play out.

The time stamp and the bottom of the clip had indicated that Shepard's hearing had already gone over three hours. Three hours of being forced to listen to nothing but garbage from all these senators. From the camera angles, Shepard deduced that he had been putting on a good show: his face was blank in every scene, perfectly composed, while a bunch of the senators were visibly growing restless. Shepard knew that a small part of him had been secretly enjoying that moment back then, just watching his verbal opponents start to lose patience with Shepard's lack of reaction to their lines of questioning was quite pleasing to witness.

In the clip, Raynor Larsen leaned forward, his mouth furrowing into a fierce frown. "Would you mind if I cut straight to the point, Commander?" He then grinned, showing perfect white teeth. More fakeness. "That way, we can dispense with all the tiptoeing about that my colleagues have been doing today."

"You're the one asking the questions, not me," Shepard responded in the video. Even though his tone was neutral, Shepard could definitely tell that, even through this holo-screen, his voice was laced heavily with disdain.

Eventually, it would all be made clear as to what a farce this entire deposition was.

Larsen seemed to ignore the biting remark. "For three hours now, we've admittedly being lobbing softballs at you. Meaningless questions. The kind of stuff that we hoped would make you amenable to participating in what we're trying to accomplish here."

"So what are you trying to accomplish, Senator?" Shepard saw himself sneer.

"A disclosure, Commander. Full and complete. The galaxy deserves to know the truth, after all."

Shepard saw his eyes on the screen narrow suspiciously. "You and I have different opinions of what the truth entails, Senator. All I've been asked so far is to delve into specific recounts of the operations I carried out for the Alliance. Last I checked, that data is still classified. Unless I receive some sort of approval from my direct superiors, I cannot indicate to you any details of what I may or may not have done in these campaigns. Even you, Senator, have to have some respect for the very reason data is restricted in the first place."

"But not if such information is in the public's best interest."

"What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Larsen repeated, allowing his smile to curl even more upward before he swiped at his tablet on his desk. "I mean that there are certain scenarios that preclude the declassification of sensitive information if it can be proven that said information is vital for dispersion. Now, I'm looking through the mission reports that you yourself have drafted during the war, only I'm unable to access the majority of the reports because they have been redacted. Redaction, Commander? Really? Withholding information from what was perhaps the greatest war the universe has ever seen? Are you really going to dictate that none of us in this room should ever be privy to the exact nature of how this war came to be? Palaven, Sur'Kesh, Thessia, Rannoch—a whole bevy of locales that you were present upon and yet there's nothing in there we can access. We can't connect the dots with the paltry information that we have. The Intelligence Committee wants answers to the nature of your findings, Commander. We want to set the record straight. We want to know what you were doing on these planets, your Spectre status be damned."

Shepard saw himself on the screen make a gesture to the man sitting directly on his left, his advocate—the best in the business. The lawyer then stood, smoothing his suit before he spoke. "My client respectfully wishes to invoke his right to remain silent, Senator."

It was rather rewarding to watch the effect of this statement take its toll upon Larsen. The craggly-faced man rubbed at the bridge of his nose tiredly, before scratching at his meticulously groomed beard, obviously struggling not to explode out loud.

"Respectfully?" Larsen mocked dangerously. "If your client was at all respectful, he would have been complying with this committee from the very start instead of dancing around the issues that he knows he's here to reveal!"

Larsen then levelled a finger directly at Shepard in the video, his broad frame shaking with anger. "You've been invoking your right to remain silent on nearly every single question this committee has asked you, Commander. I won't have it! I warn you, if you carry this foolish charade out any further I will have no choice but to charge you with obstruction of justice. I could have you put in for contempt right now, if I wanted. All I want to do is to understand why. Why was it that Earth suffered the worst out of all the other Council races? Why was it that humanity's losses were exponentially larger than any of our allies? Why, despite your supposed best efforts, did it take six months for any help to arrive at Earth?"

The Shepard on the screen looked at his lawyer once again, who then stood and said, "My client respectfully—"

"Shut your mouth, counselor," Larsen seethed, knowing that he had breached protocol from his little outburst. Indignant to the point where his face was starting to turn red, Larsen leaned forward and growled through his teeth. "I know that there was a quid pro quo involved between you and the other foreign heads of state, Commander. I know that the other races would've been content to let Earth burn to save the skin of their own hides… unless you had no choice but to comply with their demands for assistance. You don't need to fall on your sword for them, Commander. They are the ones at fault, not you. If anything, you of all people should know that the Council failed us all. The Council, the one body designed to support the races upon it, turned tail on one of its members so that the other councilors could protect their own selfish interests. It means exactly what you think, Commander. Humanity's pursuit for a seat on the Council was all window-dressing. A sham! We got the seat, but not the voice to back up our will. It was a grand experiment that ended in a miserable failure. Help me—and humanity—bring justice to the ones who truly hurt us all. Help us—"

Shepard shut the video down midway through Larsen's rambling mix of a plea and a threat. Shepard knew what had happened afterward and did not feel like reliving it, for that had been the moment where he, in the best demonstration of exercising his right to remain silent, simply walked out of the hearing, leaving a sputtering Larsen behind him. Hours upon hours of such accusatory questioning had caused Shepard to finally snap—severing his capacity to care after realizing what these politicians were after.

Control. It was always about control for these charlatans. Exerting their will upon whatever gaps in society they could squirm their way into. It was both devious and painfully obvious all at once. Especially with Larsen.

Larsen. Now he was a piece of work. Even back then, Shepard could see that Larsen was disguising his "concern" for the fate of the human race as a clever mask for his own political ambitions. Look tough interrogating the Savior of the Galaxy while heralding a new era of control for humanity all at once.

Larsen's plan would have succeeded too, had Shepard not walked out of there when he did.

All those questions… all that anger. Shepard could at least understand Larsen's behavior, but he could not understand why the questions were timed in such a manner, so soon after the war had ended. It made no sense to try and dig up any links that could implicate the other Council races, their own allies, unless there was some underlying motive that Shepard was unaware of. It made him fearful right down to his core. Exposing humanity's allies, selling them out. What kind of sense did that make? Why was Larsen so dead-set on making new enemies right after they were in the process of recovering from the worst galactic holocaust anyone had ever seen before?

Justice. What a joke. Larsen's "justice" now had Shepard completely exiled from his home planet. He had made good on his threat to slap Shepard with the contempt charge, effectively barring him from entering Alliance space. Was Larsen hoping that Shepard would come crawling back, begging to be let back on Earth in exchange for his entire knowledge of the war effort? If that had truly been his end goal, then Larsen had seriously miscalculated because Shepard was ambivalent about settling down on Earth anytime soon. Besides, he had made other promises to more important people that he wished to attend to first.

A certain wife, for example.

On whim, Shepard typed up the name of a news site on the extranet and began pulling headlines regarding what Raynor Larsen was up to these days. Ever since Hackett had alerted him that Larsen was becoming something of a nuisance, Shepard was starting to get a little worried as to what his old enemy was getting at in particular.

There was no shortage of sensationalist headlines that were tied to Larsen, just based off of this first page of scouring the extranet.

"LONDON: PARTY LEADER'S BILL PASSES – TURIAN WORKERS TO BE EXPELLED"

"PM DOES NOT VETO – LIMITATION ON EARTH VISAS IS ACCEPTED; LARSEN PRAISES HOUSE DECISION"

"LARSEN: 'HUMANITY MAY NEED TO CONSIDER PULLING OUT OF CITADEL COUNCIL'"

A dangerous man, Shepard admitted. After twelve years, Larsen had not lost his streak of throwing a rail into the gears of progress. Apparently Larsen's policies were based on a more isolationist stance – a clear antithesis from the stance Shepard had always taken. Embolden humanity at the cost of the other races. Very naïve… but very dangerous.

The evidence to Larsen's disguised racism was remarkably clear from page one: kicking out turian construction workers in exchange for human firms taking the rebuilding jobs, deliberately limiting worker visas to prevent outside competition, and going so far to suggest pulling out of the Citadel Council were firm indicators that Larsen was either out of his mind for introducing such insane policies or that he was wrapped up in some more sinister scandal as an agent for someone else's agenda. It would not be the first time that the latter scenario had happened in Shepard's lifetime.

But what was odd about all this was that Larsen was actually polling well with his constituents. As in, he had enjoyed a steady approval rating all throughout his term as senator. Apparently people thought he did a good job as an attorney general and they thought he was doing an even better job as a senator, an aspect that thoroughly baffled Shepard. The most common form of praise that the citizens bestowed unto Larsen was that they believed he was doing the right thing by protecting jobs for humans instead of relying on aliens to accomplish work on Earth. To the constituents, Larsen was ensuring that there were jobs for humans on Earth by making them the first and only pool of workers to choose from. No wonder he was polling well—people were rebuilding their careers in the wake of the war and they could relax in the security of their job, not worrying that they would be outsourced at any second.

Larsen sure knew his audience, Shepard noted sourly.

"…my goal right now, Christine, is to continue assisting in rebuilding our infrastructure," an automated video of an interview with Larsen and a blonde-haired anchor suddenly began playing without warning. "But to do that, I'm working with several of the union leaders and reaching out to colleagues across the aisle to make sure that our citizens get all the necessary rights they, as humans, should rightly be afforded in this matter. Make no mistake, I'm putting all my efforts into make sure that humans, and only humans right now, get a firm footing on the future. After all, we don't want to get a repeat of what happened last time when we foolishly trusted aliens to—"

Shepard slammed a hand down on the keyboard, pausing the video and ridding Shepard of having to listen to Larsen's voice. The man had not appeared to have aged very much since Shepard had last seen him. Truthfully, Shepard had assumed he would never lay eyes on the man again. Larsen had that commanding presence, along with that maddening politician's smile, that Shepard deeply loathed and simultaneously feared. To Shepard, Larsen was just like any other politician—a faux representation of a man who was only pretending to exist.

Just then, an icon popped up in the right-hand corner of the screen. Someone was attempting to contact him, audio-only. The user's ID told Shepard that Admiral Hackett was calling again, but he was using a private ID instead of his public ID. Immediately, that made Shepard suspicious. In his old Alliance days, receiving a private call from a superior was usually a sign that Shepard was to receive orders behind someone's back. Now, it probably meant that Hackett was going to divulge information that would be otherwise sensitive using a public identifier.

Cracking his neck, Shepard took the call.

"Shepard," Hackett's voice uttered out of mid-air from his console. "I hope things are not too late over where you are, but I've just received some troubling news that I didn't think it could wait."

Add it to the pile, Shepard glumly thought. This is as good of a time as any.

"What sort of news are we talking about, Admiral?" Shepard asked.

"Nothing that bodes well, unfortunately. You remember me informing you a few days ago that the Judicial Intelligence Committee was pulling recently declassified documents that pertained to the operations you carried out during the war? Well, I've just been informed that the committee is ramping up its efforts for additional information."

"The committee, eh? You mean Larsen."

What a coincidence.

Larsen. That man really was becoming a thorn in his side. What was it going to take for Shepard to finally be rid of the man?

"There's no doubt that the access requests came directly from Larsen, but it's not just operational write-ups that Larsen's looking up. He's looking at your jacket. Your service record, commendations, and your disciplinary history. There's no reason why anyone should be doing an in-depth research check unless Larsen is going to bring your file into the public spotlight, maybe even charge you with another warrant as a last-ditch effort to get your disposition on record."

Hopelessly frustrated, Shepard leaned forward on the desk and rubbed at his eyes, positioning his mouth closer to the digital microphone.

"This is ridiculous. I won't give that bastard anything. I thought I made that clear the last time he had me on the stand. It's more of an annoyance for me and it's not helpful to Larsen at all. Hell, he can't touch me at all on Rannoch! We've already been over this!"

"True," Hackett's voice was grave, "but the very fact that Larsen is going to continue with this legal process is an indication that he has something up his sleeve. Why would he go to so much trouble for something he should know is futile?"

"You think… he might resort to more illegal methods?"

"At this point, it's very possible. I'm not unwilling to bet that Chimera might become involved in this, considering Larsen's shaky connection to the organization."

"Larsen wouldn't dare use a PMC to bring me in."

"Don't be so sure," Hackett said. "From the reports I've been reading, Chimera has been getting quite bold in their actions lately. Aside from practically escaping every single charge from their wanton and careless murder of civilians in conflict zones, the Salarian Union recently dispatched a communique to the top Alliance brass. So far, we've been keeping it from Larsen and his committee, but the report will leak to him sooner or later. Apparently one of their stealth cruisers went missing in the Horsehead Nebula. The salarians believe that Chimera was behind it."

Shepard bumped his eyebrows. A salarian stealth frigate getting either boarded or destroyed was a rarity. The salarians were so cautious that the very probability of seizing one of their vessels should have been an impossibility, all things considered.

"Do they have any proof that Chimera was behind such an attack?" Shepard asked.

Hackett paused for a moment as he consolidated his notes on the other end of the line. "Just bits and pieces are coming through the net right now. The salarians are assuring us that the frigate was not carrying anything particularly important, but they're obviously worried that, if it was Chimera, that this could spark an incident between our species."

"Great," Shepard groused.

"The salarians also gave mention of a certain Chimera operative in their brief transmissions as well—the one whom they think was directly responsible for the attack. Have you ever heard of the individual known as the Legionnaire?"

"I have, but I probably know just as much about the man as you do," Shepard admitted.

The Legionnaire was one of Chimera's many open secrets within and outside the organization. As Chimera was, in fact, a public company, they were required to keep a careful record of all their assets in order to remain open for trading in the stock market. Many of these assets made mention of an individual in the organization known as the Legionnaire—very few reports existed on the man, but it was rumored that the Legionnaire was a cybernetic individual who had been grievously wounded in battle and had his still-functioning organs put into a metallic shell. This shell served as a powerful combat chassis, at least two meters tall and as broad as a krogan, that came complete with several warfare capabilities which included enhanced strength, precision targeting, and the ability to extend weapons from hidden areas from behind thick armor plating. No pictures existed of the cyborg, but Chimera had never explicitly denied that they did not have a member known as the Legionnaire in their employ.

It was all black ops crap. The last time Shepard had fought enhanced cyborgs, they had been operating under Cerberus banners. The very fact that Chimera was experimenting with similar technology told him that they had learned nothing from the past and that these enhancements were only leading to a greater chance of disaster.

A heavy series of thumps at the front door abruptly dislodged Shepard from his train of thought with a sudden jump. Whirling around in his chair, Shepard inanely wondered who the hell would be knocking at his door right about now, his tired brain struggling to catch up.

"Something wrong?" Hackett asked over the call.

"No, it's just… just that someone's at the door. Probably Raan coming over to visit Roahn or something."

"I have to go as well, so I'll leave you to it. If I get anything definitive on whatever Larsen's doing, I'll be sure to call you immediately."

"Appreciate it, Admiral," Shepard said as he tapped a key to close the call between them.

Muttering to himself after throwing on his jacket, Shepard padded barefoot over to the door, his mind abuzz with activity, already a tumultuous storm and the day was not even half over yet. Roahn, Larsen, and now this Chimera business. All Shepard wanted was to be left alone. Was that sort of goal really that hard to obtain?

Regardless, Shepard did not know it yet but his day was about to get a whole lot worse.

Shepard was feeling rather light-headed at this point and already he was thinking about his medication dosage for the day instead of the person who had come calling to his house right now. He was not terribly concerned at the moment, but was entertaining the notion that he should prepare for his medicinal injections as soon as possible to rid himself of the aching side effects that were beginning to creep up on him.

More aches and pains. Aging and old injuries was not a good combination to have. Shepard was still mentally grousing to himself right at the moment that he pressed the control for the door to open, allowing him to see his guest.

As the door hissed open, Shepard blinked as one of the tallest people he had ever seen seemed to block out the doorway, the orange rays of the sun scything around the form of the monstrous figure. Tiny metallic scraping noises murmured through a broad and powerful metallic chassis, ten powerful fingers clenching hard enough in this person's hands to grind bone into powder.

Oh hell… Shepard could only think, paralyzed in the doorway.

"Hello Commander," the Legionnaire uttered, his red-orange eyes blazing in a dry amusement, light curving around the shiny plating of the cyborg's shoulders. "Apologies for my sudden arrival, but I must insist on a moment of your time."

---

A/N: Of course I didn't want to portray that the relationship Shepard has with Roahn is not all negative - things are not all black and white between them, sort of like a very convoluted love. In any case, a stranger has now come calling. The plot is moving forward, as planned. As always, you have my appreciation for all the support this story is receiving. You are definitely making this writer very happy!

Playlist:

Beach Shooting (Family Theme I): "Budgie" by Hans Zimmer, Jasha Klebe, Bryce Jacobs, Mel Wesson, and Martin Tillman from the film Rush.

A Hike (Family Theme II): "I Feel Responsible" by Hans Zimmer, Jasha Klebe, Bryce Jacobs, and Martin Tillman from the film Rush (the Complete Score)