I wanted to join the corps long before I even got my implants. Both my parents were in the navy, so some were a bit surprised when I wanted to be a ground pounder instead of joining the fleet. Me, I'd spent so much of my childhood aboard ships and stations that I was kind of getting sick of all the sterile lights and gray corridors. When I first set foot on solid ground, it felt so natural. The way that my weight was balanced, the way the sunlight warmed my face, it felt like paradise. That's when I knew I wanted to do something that'd let me walk on solid ground like that as much as I could. I wasn't going to join the army of course, I have some standards. So the corps was the natural choice. Course, John had a mild panic attack with all that fresh air and open space. Looking back, I thought he was a big chicken and teased him mercilessly about it. Now? Kinda wish we could go back to those days when things seemed so much simpler. When we could dream about the future without worrying about consequences. When he was still alive.
-Evangeline Shepard, Mandatory Counseling Log 004
Chapter 4
Nec metu
The Council Chamber aboard the Citadel was a multi-tiered room, with stairs leading up to each level. The trees and plants that decorated the place helped provide the impression of a large open space. While that appearance might impress upon any would be supplicants of the Council's own grandeur, there was also a certain utilitarian reasoning to the design. In the off-chance that a hostile force was actually able to fight their way to the Council Chambers, the room itself was set up to allow its defenders an open kill box with which to rain fire upon the attackers. To storm the chamber successfully required prodigious usage of heavy weapons as well as a significant numerical edge, both of which the geth invaders had possessed in ample measure. The effort had still bled them dry, one reason why Saren had been by his lonesome by the time Shepard and her squad caught up with him. Now, as the colonel set foot within these chambers once more, so was she.
The skeletal frame at the top of the stairs made a flying leap the moment Shepard was through the door. The colonel responded by unloading a full clip at the monstrosity, but even so its shields remained visibly intact. The massive surge of electricity that Shepard unleashed did the trick however, the crackling sound a combination of the overload and the kinetic barrier shattering. Even so, the colonel did not have the time or space to take advantage of her opponent's vulnerability as the husk barreled right through the space she occupied mere moments before.
Shepard barely registered the hiss that sounded as she popped her thermal clip, but in the time she took to pop in a new one a blue sheen washed over the husk, marking the regeneration of its shield. That happened rather more quickly than she recalled from the actual fight against Saren, but she wouldn't put it past the simulation's developers to amp up the difficulty to push her harder. The immediate consequence of this much faster shield regeneration however meant her assault rifle was effectively useless for this fight. She needed a weapon that would let her bring down the husk's shield and still allow her to continue dealing damage once the shield was down. Fortunately the colonel had just the thing. In one smooth motion, the rifle was folded onto her back and out came her trusty Carnifex pistol and huntress sword.
The husk was now attempting to skewer Shepard with its sharp talons, but the colonel was keeping one step out of reach. The shots that slammed into the creature's shields were hitting hard enough to even throw off its movements. Not enough to slow it down much, but certainly enough to divert its trajectory every time it tried to charge Shepard head-on. As the husk leapt aside to try to flank Shepard, the colonel reached out to do more than just screw with its momentum. The biotic field warped the flow of gravity just enough to send the husk flailing, and the surge of electricity that followed detonated the field of energy with catastrophic effect. Not only was the husk's shield collapsed again, it also came crashing down onto the ground. This time it was Shepard's turn to make a leaping charge, sword at the ready to impale the thing.
Again however the husk proved to be no easy prey, rolling aside to just barely avoid being skewered. It also immediately went on the counterattack, swiping at Shepard the moment she landed. The colonel's shields were able to absorb the blow, but they dropped immediately into the red from the effort. The time they bought however let Shepard empty the rest of her pistol's clip into the husk, each shot pummeling its armor. With every dent they added, she was one step closer to putting the husk down for good.
A wave of gravitic energy suddenly threw Shepard back but the colonel landed deftly on her feet, a new clip slapped into her pistol. She resumed firing immediately, trying to keep the husk from getting any opportunity to regenerate its shield. From the flickers of blue light that kept fizzling out, it was working, for now. It just needed to keep working long enough for her to-Shepard disappeared, and when she reappeared the colonel was standing behind the husk instead of in front of it, her sword gleaming blue. The husk began to turn around, and then one of its arms fell off.
"Tch."
The colonel had been aiming for a clean cut through the spine, but she was still working out how to perform this phasic strike with the huntress sword. Still, it was good to know that the blade could indeed cut through the reinforced armoring of the husk. She just needed to work on her aim a bit.
The husk actually took a moment to examine its severed limb, as if recalculating what its tactical options were now that it was so damaged. That moment passed quickly as both Shepard and the husk leapt forth to attack each other once more. Shepard's pistol barked with every shot, while the husk simply charged through the barrage to close the distance. It was arguably not the best of ideas to draw into melee range of Shepard after she had demonstrated the sharpness of her blade, but it was equally unwise to underestimate the construct and the intelligence driving it. As Shepard prepared to perform another phasic strike, she suddenly felt the tug of gravity holding her back. The husk had cast a small singularity, one strong enough to interfere with Shepard's own biotics but not much of an impediment to regular motion.
The colonel grunted, and instead of continuing her charge skipped backward. The husk of course showed no such restraint and lunged at Shepard, only to run into her parting gift as the grenade exploded in its face. The blast might have buckled some of its armor and blunted its momentum, but the husk was a damn though monster and landed without much fuss. When it tried to charge again however, the husk suddenly found its body weighed down by a very intense gravitic field. As biotic energy flooded out its form as it tried to nullify Shepard's power, the colonel held up her hand, and unleashed a torrent of electricity. The surge rippled all about the husk, colliding with the gravitic energy in a catastrophic mixture. The detonation this time did more than buckle armor, it wracked it enough to tear large chunks off the husk's form.
A second blast of biotic energy hit the husk, slamming it into the ground. Having expended its own reserves, and then getting the resultant energy turned back against it, the husk could only scream in frustration as its limbs tried to resist the gravitic pull the old-fashioned way. It was nowhere to getting back up when Shepard came flying down. Her own weight was amplified by not just the armor she wore and the distance of the drop, but also by the colonel increasing her relative mass via her biotics. That much weight landing on the husk shattered not only its body, but saw Shepard slam right through the floor. The severed head was sent flying, denting the wall where it struck before bouncing to a final stop along the edges of the smoldering hole Shepard stood at the epicenter of. A few other stray scraps could be seen strewn about. The rest of the husk had been crushed flat by Shepard's landing, and would likely take some effort to separate from the shattered flooring.
"Simulation complete," a voice sounded. "Recovery team to the simulation chamber."
As host to one of the navy's largest R&D facilities, Ganymede Station had dedicated space in which replicas of various locales could be set up to perform simulations and tests. Recreating the Council Chamber had actually not been that terribly difficult, the Empire like any competent government having done some degree of contingency planning on the off-chance it ever found itself engaged in open conflict with the Council races to the point of needing to storm the Citadel. Indeed parts of those same plans were what imperial forces had drawn upon when they ended up participating in not the invasion of the Citadel, but its liberation from occupying geth forces. Back then, there had been a lot of fires too.
Techs hurried into the chamber, spraying fire suppressant to contain the blaze. Others were quick to Shepard's side, in case the colonel needed any assistance. The calm manner of Shepard's gaunt seemed to indicate such concern was unnecessary, at least this time.
"Nicely done, Colonel," Miranda said over the radio. "I'd say that serves as a rather conclusive final test of your new implants."
"Not until we've finished the follow-up examination," Chakwas disagreed. "This is the first time Colonel Shepard has exercised the implants to such a degree, and we need to see how her physiology is coping with the strain."
"Feels alright so far, doc," Shepard responded.
"And if this involved your older implants, I would be more willing to take your word for it," Chakwas said. "As it is, you are still acclimating to your new implants, still learning their limits. Until we have more data to validate the actual boundaries that you can safely operate within, we need to be careful."
"Fair enough, doc," Shepard said. "Let me get out of this monkey suit before you start poking at me, though."
A short while later, which included a nice hot shower in the mix, Shepard was laid back on the examination bed staring blankly ahead.
"Are we done yet?"
"Oh don't you even start with that," Chakwas chided. "EDI, current noise threshold?"
"12.3%, Doctor. The colonel's adrenaline levels are still slightly elevated. Should I attempt to manually adjust them down?"
"Not yet, give it another hour or so for them settle on their own," Chakwas responded. "Shepard's always run slightly hotter than the baseline average."
"Understood."
Arguably EDI already knew this, but the AI was asking such questions as much for Chakwas' medical judgment as she was gathering additional data points to grow her own decision matrix.
"Looks like you exerted yourself hard enough to tap into your nutrient supplements," Chakwas continued. "That's a lot of calories you burned there."
"Biotics tend to do that," Shepard said.
"This was more than just biotics," Chakwas said as she continued reviewing the data. "Lactate levels were significantly elevated once you engaged the husk."
Shepard tilted her head. "Really? The secondary glucose conversion nodes weren't able to pick up the slack?"
The production of excess lactate was generally a product of the human body not being able to keep up with intense physical exertion, like when one was sprinting. Put another way, Shepard had been pushing herself hard enough that she had effectively been sprinting for the several minutes the simulated battle took. Such sustained exertion was nigh impossible for baseline humans and it was only thanks to the colonel's numerous augmentations that she could keep going for as long as she did. Even then however, as Chakwas' diagnosis and Shepard's own remark indicated, those implants had come up somewhat short in keeping the colonel's body fully fueled. That was perhaps inevitable, there were hard physical limits after all to how much glucose and oxygen could be supplied to her muscles in any given span of time by her bloodstream. Even the pseudo-liver implants that helped recycle the waste products produced by her muscles needed said products to reach them first before they could work their magic.
"For now make sure you have a large meal before retiring for the day," Chakwas finally wrapped up the examination. "I'll want to take another look at your blood works tomorrow to make sure your sugar levels haven't crashed."
"I'm pretty sure you've set up an automated alert," Shepard said as she hopped off the bed, "if something like that was happening."
Chakwas chucked, but neither confirmed nor denied that point. "Do get some proper rest, Colonel. I expect we'll be quite busy for the foreseeable future."
"Colonel Shepard, it's an honor to meet you," a cheerful redhead greeted Shepard.
"Yeoman Chambers," Shepard greeted a bit more formally, extending a hand.
"Oh, just Kelly is fine, umm, if that's alright with you, Colonel," Kelly said, accepting the handshake with both her own.
Shepard kept her expression politely neutral. "Is the SR2 your first shipboard assignment?"
"I've worked as a purser on a few other prototype designs Cord-Hislop conducted trials on," Kelly answered. "This'll arguably be my first assignment that has such an open-ended timeframe."
"I see," Shepard said. "In that case, I'd suggest we keep things professional for the time being. Since we don't know how long we'll be serving together, it's best we try to avoid anything that would complicate our working relationship."
"I understand, Colonel," Kelly said, doing an admirable job of hiding any disappoint she might be feeling.
"So, Ms. Yeoman, I hope all of the necessary paperwork is in order for the ship's commissioning?" Shepard said, leaning against the console.
The two were actually aboard the SR2, the majority of the interior fitting having been done and the ship now being run through final system checks and simulations before its commissioning. Arguably Shepard and Kelly should have met sooner, but this was still better than Shepard being introduced to her primary administrative aide only after they had left dock.
"They are, Colonel," Kelly assured Shepard. "We should have the approvals for the main systems filed by next week, with secondary and tertiary systems the week after. I've also received requisition orders from Dr. Chakwas and Chief Daniels for the medical supplies and engineering spares they feel will be necessary for the initial leg of our cruise. Sergeant Gardner is still working on his requisition for food provisions and miscellaneous items, but he should be getting that to me by tomorrow as well."
Shepard nodded. Kelly was at least proving to be competent at her job, whatever her secondary objectives were.
"What about once we're underway?" Shepard asked. "We won't officially have access to the navy's network of support stations. How will further field requisitions and upkeep be handled?"
"An expense account has been set up to pay for topping up supplies as the need arises," Kelly said. "It has a pretty generous limit too, so while I wouldn't recommend us splurging, we shouldn't run into any problems acquiring anything we find ourselves missing, within reason of course. As for any routine maintenance, or god forbid repairs, that we might end up needing, Cord-Hislop actually runs quite a few of the repair depots as a contractor for the navy, and part of its contract grants the company the right to perform work on any of its own ships that might need it at such depots. The company also maintains its own network of trusted depots if we need to do work on especially sensitive systems like the stealth system, but otherwise we shouldn't have any problems seeing to the general upkeep of the ship."
"Does this network of depots extend beyond imperial space?" Shepard asked.
An entirely legitimate question seeing as Cord-Hislop was very much a terran company, and one in which the imperial government held a substantial stake in. In the highly likely situation where the SR2 needed to travel beyond imperial or even terran space in pursuit of the Collectors, they needed some assurance that support could still be forthcoming.
"Somewhat, though as you already suspect the extent of the Cord-Hislop network significantly diminishes outside of imperial space," Kelly confirmed. "There are certainly assets and resources that could be tapped if the need was severe enough, but the quality and reliability of those assets would be more suspect."
"About what I figured," Shepard shrugged. "We'll just have to be careful about which fights we pick then."
"That would be preferred, Colonel," Kelly said.
"So does our general supply situation also extend to munitions?" Shepard asked.
"To a certain extent, Colonel," Kelly answered. "Requisitioning conventional munitions for the SR2's guns and KEWs for fire support shouldn't be a problem, but if we need to replenish anything more exotic, like tactical nuclear warheads, well, that'll be trickier. If we actually do end up using the ones we're allocated now, we'd need to head to one of Cord-Hislop's secured depots to get more. Our clearance wouldn't let us requisition any from any of the naval depots."
"Fair enough," Shepard said.
Arguably Shepard would be even more worried if the navy really was willing to hand out nukes to what was officially a corporate account, even ignoring the veiled hand behind that account.
"Most things seem to be in order for our departure date, then," Shepard continued. "Except the current question mark over our ground support vehicle."
"Yes, and it's starting to look like it'll be faster for us to go pick up the Hammerhead than to wait for it to be shipped over to us, ma'am," Kelly said with an apologetic tone. "According to the latest reports, they're still working on calibrating the X-44's hoverjets. Even if they manage to hit their latest estimated timeline, it'd be too late for them to then freight the Hammerhead to us before our own scheduled departure from Ganymede."
Shepard gave an annoyed sigh. "I'm not sure I'm happy relying on such an un-proofed vehicle for ground deployments like that."
"I understand, Colonel," Kelly said, "but unfortunately the SR2's vehicle bay was designed with the assumption that it would house and deploy the Hammerhead, so it's not rated for the heavier Mako."
"I really need to have words with whoever laid down the SR2's basic specifications," Shepard said, then gave another sigh. "Alright, it is what it is. Do you expect the Hammerhead to actually be ready when we do go pick it up?"
Kelly grimaced slightly. "I wouldn't have it first on our itinerary at least, Colonel."
"Hrmm. Have your previous shakedown cruises also started this smoothly, Yeoman?"
The other woman cracked a wry smile. "If only, Colonel. I'd say the SR2's preparations have seen the fewest hiccups by far."
"Somehow, I find that depressingly easy to believe," Shepard said, cracking a slight smile of her own.
Though space was always something of a premium aboard space stations, Ganymede Station was large enough to host dedicated dining facilities that served freshly cooked food from raw ingredients instead of just reheating preprocessed nutrient concentrate. One of those restaurants was even highly regarded enough to routinely host dinner services for flag officers, which actually explained Shepard's presence within this particular establishment. The lieutenant-colonel herself was obviously not a flag officer, but the one whom invited her for dinner this particular evening was. And while Shepard was usually not one to turn down free food, there had been a certain degree of reluctance in her accepting this invitation.
"Well aren't you the early bird," Hannah Shepard greeted her daughter.
Shepard gave her mother a slight smile as she rose, but made no move to embrace her. "You offered a pretty big worm to hook me after all, Mom."
Similarly Hannah did not extend her arms to try to hug her daughter. The unspoken agreement between the two, that Shepard was the one that would initiate any such contact, remained in effect, even now.
"Have you had anything here before?" Hannah asked as the two sat down.
Shepard shook her head. "First time I've dropped in. I've never actually been stationed at Ganymede, never even transited through the place for that matter."
A glass of water was promptly placed in front of Hannah by a server. Shepard's half-full glass was also refilled in the process.
"The navy does tend to try to keep transit traffic to a minimum here," Hannah said. "I've only been here a few times myself."
"So what brought you to Ganymede this time, assuming you can tell me?" Shepard asked. "The official list has you as in-between commands."
"I could ask you the same thing," Hannah said. "Color me surprised that a beached officer is going in and out one of the navy's most secure stations."
Shepard snorted. "And you really think me being beached would slow me down any?"
"It certainly wouldn't stop you," Hannah said, glancing down at the menu. "Have you already picked something?"
"Yep."
Another indication of the relative quality of the restaurant, one needed to actually verbally provide their order to a server instead of just punching it into a terminal. Only after the server retreated once more did the conversation between the two women continued. As discreet as the restaurant's employees were, some topics were sensitive for reasons beyond official classification.
"As for myself, I was brought in to start preparing for my new command," Hannah said, giving her daughter a meaningful look. "I've been tapped as the prospective commanding officer for 2nd battle squadron, Eighth Fleet."
Shepard cocked her head aside. "Oh? The admiralty is going to reconstitute 2nd squadron so quickly?"
One major consequence of the Battle of the Citadel was the rather severe winnowing of the Citadel Fleet. The heavy damage to the Destiny Ascension, the loss of all four dreadnaughts in the turian battle squadron, plus the countless other frigates and cruisers destroyed, had severely reduced the fleet's standing strength. The high number of losses also meant the Council races could not quickly make them up by shifting fleet assets from other places. Those units they could peel off needed time to work up, and the number that could be so transferred was also limited lest they leave other parts of Council space vulnerable.
The Fifth Fleet battle squadron that arrived to reinforce the Citadel Fleet during the attack by Sovereign could also not remain in the Serpent Nebula forever, seeing as the Empire itself needed those ships to defend Arcturus. The time it did spend there however suggested to certain parties that even if Fifth Fleet could not remain indefinitely, the Empire was a potential source for naval assets powerful enough to help defend the Citadel. The resulting discussions and negotiations eventually saw the establishment of the Imperial Tenth Fleet, formed by peeling off Eighth Fleet's 2nd battle squadron and reinforcing it with a couple of additional cruiser squadrons, and assigning the new fleet as the Terran Empire's contribution to the Citadel's defense. Exactly why the numeration of the new fleet skipped a number from eight to ten was something of a mystery to the navy's rank and file.
There had been some hemming and hawing over accepting such a contribution from a polity that was still not willing to subordinate itself to Council authority, but there was also a growing recognition that as much as the Empire needed to change to integrate with galactic society, the Council too needed to adapt to accommodate the needs of those states nominally under its care. In addition to serving as a concrete demonstration of the Empire's willingness to carry its weight as part of the wider galactic community, its willingness to also downsize Eighth Fleet, widely known to be the Empire's strategic offensive fleet, served to assuage other polities of humanity's militaristic ambitions. In the long term however, the Empire still intended to maintain Eighth Fleet as a ready striking force. Arguably awareness of the Reaper threat only added further impetus to restoring Eighth Fleet's full combat power as quickly as possible.
"Quick might be an overstatement," Hannah said, "since the new squadron will need to be constituted from all-new construction."
"Ah," Shepard nodded. "Then I suppose congratulations are in order, Admiral Shepard."
The rank hierarchy for flag officers within the Imperial Terran Navy started with rear-admirals as its lowest permanent rank, equivalent to a major-general in the army and marine forces. The one star equivalent of commodore was a brevet position assigned to senior captains of frigate flotillas attached to larger squadrons or other ad-hoc squadrons that might be pulled together in times of need. Rear-admirals served as commanding officers for larger assault squadrons, composed of both frigates and cruisers. One step up was the rank of vice-admiral, whom usually served in either staff roles or as divisional commanders for the Empire's battle squadrons. Until recently, Hannah had been the divisional commander for Third Fleet's singular carrier division. Full admirals commanded the main battle squadrons that served as the core of the Empire's numbered fleets, much as Hannah would soon do for Eight Fleet's 2nd battle squadron. The only ones that stood above such officers, at least at the operational level, was the fleet admiral that commanded the entirety of one of the Empire's numbered fleets.
Hannah smiled slightly. "I suppose I could say the same to you, Lieutenant-Colonel Shepard." The smile thinned even further. "After all, you're here at Ganymede to await your new command as well, no?"
"A command is something the navy hands you," Shepard responded. "What I'm here for now is more of a consultant gig."
From the way Hannah regarded her daughter, the elder Shepard did not entirely believe the younger. But Shepard did not consider it her responsibility to satisfy her mother's curiosity, and so Hannah was left to her own speculations.
"How long do you expect this, consultancy, to last?" Hannah inquired.
"However long it needs to."
The admiral's lips thinned again, but still Hannah did not press too hard. Instead the woman shifted the topic back to herself, which uncharacteristically Shepard might be more willing to discuss than the colonel's own activities.
"The admiralty's been working very hard to make sure there's never another Eden Prime," Hannah began. "What happened to the dreadnaught division there was a wakeup call. We always thought the fleet could stand up to any of the other great powers, but then we ended up coming short at just the moment we were needed."
"Hard to prepare for something you don't know about," Shepard responded. "Then again, now that we've seen one superdreadnaught like that, it'd be pretty stupid of us to get blindsided again like that just because we thought there weren't more out there."
"Exactly," Hannah said. "Have you been following the technical analysis that's been disseminated about Sovereign?"
"At least what's available at my classification level," Shepard said.
Which arguably in some respects was even higher than Hannah's, while being lower in others.
"So you've read up on the main gun Sovereign mounted?"
A nod there. "The techs were calling it a magnetohydrodynamic cannon, which sounds like geek for fancy wave motion gun that uses a magnetic field."
"It is a bit wordy," Hannah said, allowing a slight smile to show, "but the name does capture the essence of what the weapon is."
The what being a molten alloy kept at such high temperatures by a high-pressure mass effect field, which could also accelerate the mixture to several fractions the speed of light. No known defense existed that could survive being hit by the molten beam, neither shields nor armor, and that included the very defenses that Sovereign itself mounted. But just because the MHD cannon mounted by Sovereign could punch through its own shields with ease, did not mean copies built by humanity or the other polities could match that same lethality.
"So is the navy actually going to get a gun big enough to do the same?" Shepard asked.
"Not quite," Hannah admitted. "We can't achieve the same degree of systems efficiency that that superdreadnaught's system could, even if we built something as big. And building out to two kilometers outright adds so much mass that we'd be pushing hard against the limits of our own inertial compensator technology. Instead the navy has opted to go for something a bit smaller, but which still packs a hell of a punch."
Shepard tilted her head. "The Kilimanjaro-class are just over a kilometer in length. This sounds like the navy's going with an entirely new design."
"They are," Hannah nodded. "And while the navy isn't quite ready to publicly talk about the Fisher-class yet, they actually laid down the hulls six months ago."
"Already?" Shepard said. That the colonel had not known, even with her elevated clearance.
"It'll be close to another year before they're ready for commissioning," Hannah continued, "but the Fisher-class promises to be some of the most powerful warships ever built. If the simulations are right, each would be more than a match for the Destiny Ascension, and two of them would have more than enough firepower to take down a Sovereign-type superdreadnaught."
Previous dreadnaught designs required at minimum an advantage of three-to-one, but to guarantee a kill generally saw the Empire deploy a full squadron of four capital ships. That made the decrease to only two dreadnaughts more impressive than it might appear at first glance.
"How many of the new Fisher-class have been laid down?" Shepard asked.
"Just a single squadron so far," Hannah said. "The new design is extremely expensive even for a dreadnaught, especially with all the bells and whistles that BuShips took the opportunity to throw in."
"I'm sure the prime minister had lots of fun getting that budget through parliament," Shepard said dryly.
Hannah chuckled. "Well, it's what majorities are for. And the way things are going, it's only going to get more expensive."
All too true that, if the galaxy was to marshal the necessary military assets to give them some kind of chance against the Reapers. Shepard regarded her mother, idly wondering just how much the older woman was read in on the actual threat. She may well have been, seeing as Hannah was being given command of what was more or less the first purpose built anti-Reaper fleet.
"Still, all this talk of MHD guns and whatnot sounds like we're still playing catchup," Shepard remarked. "We're not going to win if all we do is copy the other guy. We need a genuine edge of our own, something that's outright better than what they've got."
"You're not wrong there," Hannah said, taking another sip of her tea, another difference between her and her daughter.
Any tea placed in front of Shepard would see her dump copious amounts of sugar into, while anyone that dared dangle any cubes near her cup of coffee would be lucky to escape with just broken fingers. It was not however Hannah's tea that caused Shepard to narrow her eyes there. The way that Hannah avoided looking at her daughter when she made that last remark, along with a few other tells that augmented humans like Shepard could pick up, made pretty clear that her mother did know about efforts to develop such edges. Again, that would not be surprising if those weapons were intended for deployment with Eighth Fleet's new battle squadron. But whatever those other developments were, they were obviously not accessible by Shepard, and therefore Hannah would not be breathing a word about them.
"Still," it was Shepard's turn to guide the conversation along lines that the two could publicly discuss, "I would have thought the admiralty would have picked a more impressive mountain to name these new dreadnaughts after. I mean, sure there is a Mount Fisher, but it's not really one of the greats."
"You think they named the Fisher-class after a mountain?" Hannah said, the edge of her lips quirking upwards.
"That's what all of the dreadnaughts have been named after," Shepard responded with a shrug.
"I suppose that's true enough," Hannah said. "For these ships however, the admiralty decided they wanted something a bit more, emphatic. It hasn't been publicized yet, since the ships are still quite some ways from commissioning, but the lead ship of the class will actually be called the John Fisher."
That saw Shepard blinking a few times. "Wait, really?"
Hannah nodded, openly smiling in amusement at her daughter's surprise. "Names have also been picked for the others. The Francis Drake, Horatio Nelson, and Matthew Perry."
Ever a student of history, Shepard easily recognized those names. Each was an admiral that served at a pivotal moment in the Empire's history, and in the case of Perry and Fisher also helped spearhead major advancements in the terrestrial navy's warfighting capabilities, Perry with the introduction of steamships and Fisher with his dreadnaughts and battlecruisers. Emphatic indeed was the meaning of choosing to make these dreadnaughts their namesakes.
"Well, I suppose the family should be proud that they picked Jacky's name for one of the ships," Shepard said.
"I'd like to think we are," Hannah Shepard nee Fisher said.
The relation was rather distant considering how many generations back it went, but Shepard and her mother were indeed descendants of the famed John Fisher. Shepard's own brother had even been named Jonathan in partial honor of that particular ancestor. Someone on the admiralty board was probably patting themselves on the back over the serendipitous connection that came from giving Hannah a ship that included the John Fisher.
"A shame you'll be flying your flag from a carrier though," Shepard said.
"And what makes you say that?"
Shepard's eyebrow arched upwards again. "Really?"
"The Fisher-class has several major enhancements over that of the Kilimanjaro," Hannah stated, "one of which is considerably more extensive command-and-control facilities. It's also not entirely clear if the carrier division that would be attached to the squadron will be ready at the same time as the dreadnaughts, so the admiralty decided to just simplify things and have me fly my flag from one of them instead."
There it was again, that flicker in Hannah's tone. There was a reason for why the carriers might not be ready in time, but it was not a reason she could share. Shepard kept her curiosity in check. It was not like her knowing sooner rather than later would have any impact. Indeed, considering what she was about to delve into, it was probably better she not know anything more about the Empire's weapons development program than she absolutely needed.
"Ah, looks like our dishes are ready," Hannah said.
The waiter approached their table, tray in hand and deftly set each plate down with practiced ease.
"Mm, smells good," Shepard remarked.
"I would certainly hope so, considering what they charge," Hannah said with a playful smile.
"Hey, you're a full admiral now," Shepard countered. "Affording something like this should be easy."
"Well, maybe for a regular portion," Hannah said, looking at the three plates of brisket set before her daughter.
Shepard flashed a playful smirk. "What can I say, I'm a growing girl."
Hannah snorted as she began cutting into her own steak. The food was at least worth the price, and the company was also fortuitously agreeable this evening. It was not always the case, there were plenty of dinners where the atmosphere ranged from prickly to frigid. Today though, Hannah was able to spend a quiet evening with her daughter. She prayed that there would be more to come.
"Colonel Shepard," Miranda's voice sounded, "we're ready."
Shepard turned away from the viewport she had been gazing out through and gave a nod to the other woman. Sitting still behind the colonel was the gleaming form of the SR2, fresh coat of paint and all. Stepping down from the observation deck, Shepard was greeted with the sight of two dozen or so men and women. Some were familiar faces, others had slowly become so over the past few months. All shared a steely determination, one mirrored on Shepard's own expression.
"Vengeance," Shepard began. "I'm not going to lie, but that's the reason I'm here. Vengeance, for the Normandy. Vengeance for Artemis, for Charles, for Jamin, Addison, Germeen, Rosamund, Silas, Amina, Carlton, Marcus, Talitha, Helen, Hector, Mandira, Monica, Alexei, Robert, Caroline, Orden, Harvey, Raymond, Abishek. For John."
With every name the colonel reeled off, several of the faces looking back at her grimaced or even winced. Others maintained a solemn, respectful stoicism.
"The day the Collectors thought they could take away so much from us," Shepard continued, "was the day that sealed their fate. Cause if there's one thing about us humans, we can be a petty, vindictive bunch. We don't turn the other cheek. We don't let others walk all over us. We can be the best, most loyal of friends, but we can also be implacable enemies. And that day, the Collectors made enemies out of us. Out of me."
The colonel's eyes actually seemed to flash a fiery orange at that, and the seams of her scars similarly took on a subdued glow.
"I won't stop," Shepard declared. "Not until the Collector threat is ended, permanently. And if that means I need to personally put a bullet into the head of every Collector in existence, then that's exactly what I'll do."
The barest flicker of concern was starting to appear on some of the crew, even if the count was still well in the minority. Each person had signed on to this mission for their own reasons. Some did so because they shared in the colonel's desire for vengeance, while others joined because they felt it was the best way they could help protect their fellow terrans. So far the colonel was evoking greater resolve in the former than the latter. But Shepard being Shepard, inspiring everyone under her command was as natural as breathing.
"I won't stop," the colonel repeated, "because of my vendetta. But I won't fail because of all of you, my crew. You've placed your trust in my command, even though you have to know I'd be out for blood. That I might go to extremes to exact my vengeance. But you're still here, and that makes every single one of you worthy of not just my trust, but also my faith. Because you're my crew, and that by itself is all that's needed. We'll go the full length, every single one of us, of that I have no doubt."
Shepard shifted slightly so that she was glancing out the viewport.
"Just as I have no doubt that the next time the Collectors come face to face with the Normandy, they will rue ever crossing swords with us, and with humanity."
Across the length of the ship, in large letters clearly visible from the observation deck, was spelt out the name of the newly christened frigate. There was a solemn weight behind that name, an obligation that came with it. It was an obligation that none doubted would be met however, not with one Evangeline Shepard once more in command of the Normandy, even if the payment would be in blood.
End of Chapter 4
The last time Shepard fought the Saren husk, she had the backup of her squad and they only defeated it after Shepard nearly got herself killed overloading her augmentations. This time around, Shepard faced the simulated husk by herself, which had also been upgraded to be more durable than analysis of Saren's remains indicated it should be, and she pretty much handed it its ass. That should give all of you some idea the performance improvements from her new suite of implants.
It's rather interesting, the exact wording that is being used to make it so Shepard's mission isn't being conducted under the official auspices of the navy. Technically right now the Normandy is undergoing final trials before she is accepted into the navy as an active duty ship, so for the time being it's the SS Normandy, not HMS Normandy. For all practical purposes, it's a legal fiction, but it's one that was needed to allow for sufficient plausible deniability. That being said, depending on how long the hunt for the Collectors take, the new Normandy might set a new record for just how long it spent on 'trials' before being put on active duty.
There has been some considerable timeskip involved with the last couple of chapters, think on the order of months. By the end of this chapter almost a year has passed since the destruction of the Normandy, so a year shorter than the canonical timeskip. Even so, the events that have unfolded in the interim are much more extensive than what happened in canon, as hinted at in the previous chapter.
A while back I asked my French readers about Napoleonic era French generals. Originally the four superdreadnaughts were intended to be named after famous generals of that era from multiple nations, excluding Napoleon himself, cause like hell the Terran Empire was going to name a ship in honor of the political leader of one of their more annoying historical adversaries even if they are willing to honor some of the other French generals. Using the name of army generals may yet happen for future iterations of the Fisher-class, but in the short term I ultimately decided to use naval admirals instead of army generals.
This chapter actually went through at least two iterations, with the first draft having Shepard be introduced to the new ships by Anderson instead of her mother. I ultimately didn't use that version, because the intended timing for the scene as originally drafted wasn't even for this point in the story, and as I fleshed out more story points I ultimately ended up needing Anderson elsewhere. Incidentally that is not why it took so long to get this chapter out, work has just been very busy of late to the point that I haven't had much time to sit down and write. That isn't likely to change within the short term, so progress on all of my stories will likely remain slow.
Of all of the romance options, Traynor actually was one of those that clicked less for me. Part of it I think was due to the way that Shepard behaved when around Traynor, there was a slight dissonance compared to how Shepard generally carried herself that meant it felt like the Shepard that romanced Traynor and the Shepard that did basically everything else in the game were two separate people. While one could argue that we're ostensibly seeing another side of Shepard, the presentation didn't feel very smooth or cohesive.
Technically it'd be the Catalyst that Shepard would be shooting in the face. Not that my story would have the Catalyst, at least not in the form that appeared in the game.
Seeing as there will be a third part to the story, that implicitly means Shepard will not be joining the Andromeda Initiative and will instead remain within the Milky Way to fight the upcoming war against the Reapers.