Eighteen Years Ago

Sixteen year old Shepard was an orphan living on the streets of Earth. With no family or friends and no place to call home, he roamed from place to place picking up odd jobs and studying to earn his high school diploma via the extranet. Despite the harsh circumstances, he knew he would not be living life the way he was for much longer. In two years he would be old enough to enlist into the military and then he could get off the streets for good. Until then, he had to do his best to avoid the various street gangs that constantly tried to recruit him.

While travelling through one of Earth's major cities, Shepard unintentionally wandered into an area that was controlled by a gang known as the Tenth Street Reds. The gang took an interest in Shepard as a potential recruit. They brought him to see Finch, who at the time was a twenty-year old lieutenant of the Reds. Finch tried to convince Shepard to give the gang a chance saying that that the Reds served as an unofficial police force for the city. By joining the Reds, Shepard would be able to help keep the people safe. Finch's pitch appealed to Shepard in a few ways but there was a part of him that couldn't help but feel there was something shady about the group's intentions. He respectfully declined but Finch told him the offer would remain open if he ever changed his mind.

A few months after his encounter with the Reds, on a cold, snowy winter day, Shepard was walking into a neighborhood grocery store. He wasn't planning on buying anything. Rather he just needed to temporarily escape the cold. The little cold weather gear he could afford did its job for the most part but long exposure to the cold seemed to nullify its effects. The grocery store's automatic doors barely opened when a skycar crashed a few yards behind Shepard. He turned around to see the skycar's doors open and a person with blue colored skin and tentacle like hair stumbling out of it. Over the course of his studies, Shepard had memorized the names of all the known alien life that humans had made contact with. So even though he hadn't been off Earth before, he could tell the one he was looking at was an asari. Seeing an asari was a strange sight for Shepard because aliens were not a common sight on Earth. Who was this asari and what was she doing on Earth?

Shepard didn't have enough time to think the question through as three more skycars came down and parked near the asari's crashed skycar. With military speed and tactic, two pairs of men hopped out of two of the skycars. One pair was armed with assault rifles and started firing shots into the air in an attempt to scare off any passerby's that might come to offer assistance. The other pair ran towards the asari and began putting restraints on her arms. The asari put up a fight but eventually the attackers had cuffed her arms behind her back. The attackers than hauled her towards the third skycar. The pair with the assault rifles covered them as they moved.

As the whole sequence of events took place, Shepard pondered what he should do. He was unarmed and he couldn't see anyway to attack the guards before they could shoot him. Still he had to do something. Despite growing up alone, he never hesitated to help someone who was in need, no matter the danger. He couldn't explain it. Maybe it was a trait he inherited from his parents. There was no way of knowing for sure though as he had grown up never knowing who his parents were or what happened to them. Finally deciding that he couldn't stand by and do nothing, Shepard charged towards the attackers.

During his approach, Shepard quickly gathered up clumps of snow and started packing them into snowballs. A primitive weapon for sure but it was the only one Shepard had access to. The gunmen were just starting to notice Shepard coming when he began throwing the snowballs. Each snowball he threw hit one of the gunmen squarely on the forehead. Fortunately for Shepard none of the gunmen were wearing helmets or any kind of face cover. The snow got into the gunmen's eyes and temporarily blinded them. In their confused state, Shepard was easily able to grab the rifles out of their hands and eject the clips. He then gave each one of them a strong knockout punch to ensure they stayed down. Growing up on the streets forced Shepard to learn various fighting styles to defend himself from the gangs. It seemed that they were paying off.

Convinced the gunmen had been taken care of, Shepard gathered some more snowballs and turned to attack the men dragging the asari to the third skycar. He barely took a few steps when he saw that one of the men had a pistol pointed at the asari's head. The other man had his pistol pointed at Shepard. It was a brave effort but Shepard now found the situation hopeless. Any move he made would result in either him or the asari getting killed. He dropped the snowballs and slowly raised his hands and put them behind his head. The guy with his gun pointed at Shepard began to pull the trigger when a voice called out from the skycar they were loading the asari into.

"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" the voice called. "Cuff him and bring him with us."

Initially confused, the attacker holstered his weapon and put handcuffs on Shepard. He then shoved Shepard towards the skycar and threw him inside right behind the asari. Shepard got up in attempt to fight his way out but the skycar doors had already closed. The voice Shepard heard earlier spoke to him from the front passenger seat.

"It is so good to see you again Shepard."

Shepard quickly looked towards the front of the skycar and saw the face the voice belonged to. The sight nearly caused him to groan.

"Finch" he sighed.

"Glad to see you remember who I am," said Finch, "looks like I might have another chance to recruit you into the Reds after all."

Shepard laughed, "yeah right. I always thought there was something shady about your group but I never would have guessed you guys were kidnappers. And you call yourselves an unofficial police force. Sorry but I don't think your group is for me."

Finch let out a fake gasp, "kidnappers, us? You just don't know the whole story Shepard. Do you have any idea what this thing is and how much of a threat it is?"

Shepard noticed that Finch was pointing to the asari sitting next to him. He turned to face her and could see that she was terrified by her current situation. It was hard for him to see how she could possibly be a threat to anyone. Then Shepard realized that he had heard Finch call her a "thing" and "it". He had a feeling that he knew where this was going and it was about something more than a simple kidnapping. Quickly he started forming his escape plan. In the meantime he needed to keep Finch talking.

"SHE!" Shepard said accenting the personalized pronoun "doesn't look like she could be a threat to anyone."

"Oh you are wrong about that Shepard," Finch replied, "this thing is the daughter of an alien politician that is here on a 'mission to improve relations with humanity.' What that really means is the aliens are trying to stick their noses into humanity's affairs. Well we're going to show them that we don't need them. To do that, we're going to execute this alien on live broadcast and tell all the aliens that if they don't want this to happen to them, they need to leave Earth and never try to interfere with us again."

Finch's speech had now started to make Shepard sick with disgust. He now realized that what the Reds really were was an anti-alien organization. All his life he had noticed some people talking about the other races like they were not real people and that they either had to be repelled from Earth or wiped out entirely. Shepard figured it had to do with the fact that when humans first made contact with aliens it led to a short but brutal war. Despite all the hostility, Shepard had grown to believe that even though they weren't the same species, humanity shared enough similar traits with the other races that they should be considered equal. Whatever traits they didn't share were what Shepard felt was done so that they could balance each other out. Shepard knew he had to stop the execution if there was to be any chance of the fragile relationship between humans and the other races staying intact.

This brought him back to working on his escape plan. Fortunately he now had one figured out. Along with fighting styles, the years of living on the streets had given Shepard the opportunity to learn a few tricks. One such trick being how to hack handcuffs with a special device he wore under his gloves. It was going to take a few seconds for the hack to work but when it did his hands would be free. He still needed to keep Finch talking so there would be little chance of him noticing the hacking attempt. Fortunately Finch was unknowingly obliging.

"You know I just had a brilliant idea," he said, "you should be the one to pull the trigger. It could be your initiation into the Reds. Come on Shepard. Think about it, the chance to join a group who will help save humanity from alien influence. We'll be heroes. What do you say?"

As Finch finished speaking, Shepard had just gotten his handcuffs off. It was time to spring into action.

"I say," Shepard said, "no."

Before Finch could react, Shepard reached up to the front seats and grabbed Finch and the driver and smacked their heads together. The two were knocked unconscious. With no one at the controls, the skycar swerved erratically before plummeting into a dive. The car's high speed made it difficult for Shepard to get up from his seat and crawl up to the front. The car put up a fight but Shepard managed to pull the car out of the dive just before it could make contact with the ground. He kept the car hovering above the ground as he opened the skycar's doors and threw Finch and the driver out. He then put the car in gear and flew away.

Shepard didn't get far when a series of gunshots started striking the skycar's roof. The skycar that held the two Reds who had thrown Shepard and the asari into their car was now following them. To further complicate things, another Reds skycar had appeared and joined the chase. Shepard shifted the skycar into the fastest gear possible and started to pull away. The Red's followed suit in an attempt to close the gap. Despite being in high gear, the oncoming traffic was making it difficult for Shepard to keep up his speed. He constantly had to change where his eyes were focused between his rear-view mirror and the traffic in front of him.

Suddenly Shepard noticed they were about to go between two skyscrapers that were connected by a bridge. The traffic ahead of him was pulling up to fly over it. This gave Shepard an idea for how he could lose one or both of the skycars. He had the accelerator as far as it would go and kept his focus on the bridge. The Red's skycars were now getting within a skycar length of Shepard. The bridge was getting closer but he didn't make any move to fly over it. He heard the asari scream from the backseat as she braced for a collision. Just before Shepard reached the bridge, he put the skycar into a dive and went under it. One of the Red's skycars managed to avoid the bridge too but the other was not so fortunate. It crashed into the bridge at full speed and exploded on impact.

Shepard could hear the explosion behind him and checked his rear-view mirror to see he still had one Reds skycar following him. There was also someone sticking out of the window with a machine gun in their hands. He started taking some evasive maneuvers just as he heard the gunfire begin. The gunfire persisted until Shepard heard a second explosion and felt the skycar shake. A display on the skycar's dashboard began flashing and Shepard saw that it was telling him that one of the thrusters was damaged. This was confirmed when he saw that his speed was decreasing.

The drop in speed was all the Reds skycar needed to pull up next to Shepard and began trying to ram him into the nearby skyscrapers. With no way to speed up, Shepard started moving the skycar up and down to avoid a collision. As Shepard continued dodging, he noticed that even though the Reds weren't hitting him, they were forcing his skycar closer to the skyscrapers. The next time the Reds tried to ram him, Shepard was going to either have to take the impact or dodge it and end up scrapping along the skyscraper.

Another burst of gunfire hit the skycar. To Shepard's surprise however, the gunshots came from above and the Red's skycar was right next to him. At least it was until it swerved away and disappeared from sight. The sound of sirens allowed Shepard to figure out what was going on. They were being pursued by a two police skycars and it spooked the Reds into fleeing. One of the police skycars flew after the Reds while the other one continued to pursue Shepard. Unfortunately they were still firing at them as well. Shepard couldn't understand why until he noticed where they currently were.

During the chase Shepard had ended up piloting the skycar onto the grounds of the hotel where politicians stayed when they visited Earth. To ensure there would be no threats against the politicians from the air, no air traffic was allowed above the grounds unless it was at a minimum height requirement. Shepard knew that they were nowhere near the minimum height and now the police thought his skycar was a threat. The fact the skycar had Reds insignias probably didn't help. Worse still, a quick check of his dashboard showed that the skycar would not be able to take any more damage from the police before it lost power completely. He had to convince them they weren't a threat and fast.

Turning to face behind him, he saw that the asari was still shaking in fear from the gunfire. Unfortunately Shepard knew that he needed her to tell the police who she was to get them to stop shooting. He quickly grabbed the radio speaker and held it out to her. When she didn't even glance at him, Shepard tried talking to her to calm her down.

"Hey," he said, "it's ok. I know you're scared but we can get them to stop firing on us if you tell them who you are over the radio. I would tell them myself but they won't believe me unless they hear your voice."

Before Shepard could continue, a new alarm started beeping on the dashboard. He turned to see that another police skycar had flown in front of them and they were about to crash into it. Shepard barely managed to grab the controls and pull the skycar up and over the police. Unfortunately the police skycar that was behind him wasn't so lucky. The two police skycars collided head-on and began spinning out of control. Shepard could only watch in horror as the skycars seemed to fall to the ground in slow motion and crashed. He was about to curse to himself when he noticed figures stumbling out from the wrecks. He breathed a sigh of relief as it appeared that there were no casualties. The relief was short lived when suddenly four more police skycars appeared and began pursuing Shepard. With four to one odds, Shepard knew it would only be a short time before he was shot down.

"Listen," he said to the asari without turning back to face her, "what's your name?"

After doing nothing but shaking in the back, the asari finally looked towards Shepard.

"Tatyana," she said.

Even though he knew she couldn't see him doing it, Shepard smiled.

"It's nice to meet you Tatyana. My name's Shepard and I promise you that we will get out of this alive. All you have to do is talk into the radio and tell the police you're in here. That will get them to stop shooting."

Tatyana was still hesitant about speaking but changed her mind when another shot hit the skycar. She leaned forward and spoke into the speaker Shepard held to her.

"Hello? This is Tatyana. My mother is Ambassador Shala of the Asari Republics. I'm in the skycar that you are shooting at. A group of armed men tried to abduct me but I've been rescued by the man that is in the skycar with me. Hold off your attack."

No sooner had Tatyana finished speaking that the police skycars stopped firing. No other sounds were heard for about a minute. Shepard figured it was because they were running voice recognition to ensure that it was indeed Tatyana's voice. Finally a voice came over the skycar's radio.

"Tatyana this is police skycar Adam-14, we have confirmed your identity. We'll escort you to the hotel entrance where your mother will be waiting for you. Advise the man who is with you that when you land he is to remain in his seat with his hands behind his head until an officer gives him an all clear."

Tatyana turned to Shepard who nodded that he understood.

"Understood," Tatyana replied, "Tatyana out."

With the help of the police escort, Shepard was able to pilot the skycar down to the hotel's entrance. Waiting there to greet them was the ambassador and several heavily armed policemen. When they had touched down, Shepard opened the skycar's doors and placed his hands on his head as the officer had instructed. He almost flinched when he saw the policemen raise their weapons at him. One of them called out for him to keep his hands where they were and sent two other officers to help Tatyana out of the skycar. One of the officers removed Tatyana's restraints and brought her back to the waiting arms of her mother. The other officer stayed and helped Shepard out. After giving him a quick pat down, the officer cleared him and sent him towards Tatyana and the ambassador. Shepard noticed that the ambassador seemed surprised when she saw him. He had a pretty good idea why.

"You're the man who saved my daughter?" she said. "You're just a child."

"Mother!" Tatyana exclaimed. "You can't just simply thank him?"

"It's okay Tatyana," said Shepard, "I can understand why your mother is surprised. Don't let my youth fool you Ambassador. The truth is that I grew up on the streets. It's a dangerous life with gangs like the group that tried to take your daughter running around trying to recruit me. Fortunately my time on the streets has allowed me to learn a few tricks that have kept me alive. I used most of them to save Tatyana."

The ambassador was amazed by what Shepard told him, "That's impressive. With a little more training you might even be able to rival some of my people's best commandos. But what do your parents think of this?"

Shepard frowned, "I don't have any parents. I'm an orphan."

Tatyana gasped, "That's awful."

"I'm sorry son," the ambassador said somberly, "I can't imagine what it's been like for you growing up alone. Still the fact that you've survived everything that you have on your own is a testament to your character."

"Thank you, Ambassador."

"No I should be thanking you. I do appreciate what you did for my daughter and I would like to repay you. Maybe Tatyana and I could help you find a home or you could even stay with us for a while."

Shepard looked to Tatyana who seemed happy with the idea. He had to admit that there was a part of him that appreciated the offer. He never had a family before and he liked the idea of having one. In this case he would have a mother and a sister. But there was another part of him that was telling him not to take it. Unfortunately it was the stronger of the two parts. All he could do was try and explain it as politely as he could.

"That's a very generous offer Ambassador," he said, "but respectfully I'm going to have to decline. I'm doing okay on the streets. Besides I won't be here much longer. In less than two years I'll be able to join the military. They will provide me with room and board and I will be out there helping people, which is exactly what I want to do with my life. Don't get me wrong I would love to be part of a family. I just don't know if I want to join one now when I'm on the verge of getting off the streets on my own."

The reply had caused Tatyana's smile to disappear. The ambassador on the other hand had a small smile and nodded approvingly.

"I guess I see your point," she said, "you want to make it through life on your own efforts. I respect that. Still, thanks again for saving my daughter. I don't know if you believe in such things, but may Goddess be with you and keep you safe."

Shepard thanked the ambassador for her wishes and shook her hand. He then reached his hand out to shake Tatyana's. To his surprise, instead of shaking his hand, Tatyana leaned forward and gave Shepard a kiss on the cheek. The ambassador giggled while Shepard's face began to turn red as he struggled to think of how to respond.

"Forgive me," she said as her own face seemed to be blushing, "I've understood that it was an Earth custom for a girl to kiss their rescuer."

Shepard chuckled and nodded in agreement. After saying one more goodbye, Shepard left Tatyana and the ambassador and followed the waiting police officers to be debriefed. He explained to them everything he knew about the Reds and where he last left their leader Finch and the three other Reds he subdued. Unfortunately by the time the police arrived, Finch and his men were gone and there was no evidence left as to where they went. Even though Shepard wished that Finch and his men had been caught, it ultimately didn't matter to him. As long as he never saw Finch or the Reds again, he would be a happy man.