She just unpacked all her stuff and thought of making a list of things she forgot to take with her in the rush, but she just laid on the bed and decided to get some rest before they reach their destination. Many thoughts were running repeatedly through her head, but just fast enough so she could just accept them but not really think about them. Basicly they were all connected to the same thing. This was not Normandy.
Newest Dreadnought of Systems Alliance was supposed to be pride of Humanity, but it disgusted Shepard. SSV Ramstein was first of it's kind - ship build out of Reaper remains, which Earth had more than enough. Just the thought that the entire hull of the vessel was once millions of living beings was making her sick. She couldn't sleep inside that thing. Should she worry about indoctrination? Is that even still a thing now that the Reapers are "gone"? One way or the other, Liara would freak out if she found out about it, so she mustn't know.
The crew was all new to her, but every single person on board did their part in war against the Reapers and it could be easily seen on them. Most of them visibly scarred, missing fingers or whole limbs, which were replaced but prosthetics usually made during the war. They functioned the same way as natural limb would, but due to lack of materials and time for cosmetics during the war they were just metallic skeletons mostly. These were the people who were in the front lines the entire time and they didn't give a damn about their appearance anymore. They were just glad they survived and they got used to their "body modifications" as they called it. Now when they weren't facing annihilation, they thought they looked badass and wouldn't change their iron fists or even missing eyes even for biotics.
During her way on the ship and briefing, Shepard found out that she will be given the most powerful ship in the Alliance Navy, with the most skilled crew, everyone was in the army prior to the war, everyone had special forces experience, medals and their own heroic and tragic story from marines to cooks. There was no Garrus, no Wrex, no Tali, no Joker anyone she knew. But her soldiers knew her just as she knew them - by reputation. Shepard was the embodiment of badassness for everyone of them. They all heard about Shepard surviving thresher maw as the only one of her unit and actually killing that beast all by herself, single-handedly defeating armies of mercenaries, headbutting a krogan and so on. But the most famous was her 1v1 duels with reapers on Tuchanka, Rannoch and her face of with harbinger himself in London. They called her Grim reaper, because the only thing that could go one on one with Reaper and come out on top can't be anything else than the death itself. It was actually fitting since the rest of the Alliance called her crew The Walking Dead, since they've all been through hell.
"Commander, you have incoming transmission from Admiral Weber" suddenly sounded from the intercom.
"Thanks Jo-... Stitches" there was no need to apologise, the boy was actually kinda like Joker, but he could run. He understands.
Shepard went to the terminal, positioned herself on the platform and answered. A hologram of Admiral Weber appeared before her. He was about the same height as her, with short dark hair and he always had that stupid smirk on his face, like he wanted her to know that he is actually above her and he knows that she, that great Commander Shepard, has to take orders from him. He also had a irritating habit of licking his lips a little after everything he said. She didn't have any proof, but she could swear that he did that only when talking to her and it was driving her crazy, because he was almost decade younger than Shepard and he should be sitting on backseat where he belongs, but because of some bizarre circumstances he was already an admiral after academy and bringing coffee to some actual admiral during the war, while she was still commander after… well everything.
"Admiral" Shepard started the conversation.
"Commander, you're looking good" the admiral started casually.
It was unbelievable that she managed to keep her good looks during her military career, but somehow she did and she was well aware of it. But what is it to him? He's not Hackett or Anderson, whom he replaced, to chat with her like that. He hasn't done anything wrong actually, so why does she want to punch him so hard?
"I believe you have settled in nicely?" he continued.
"Thank you, sir, I have. Although I'm not expecting to stay for long."
"Well, don't be so sure about that. You have a lot of work to do."
"I know, it will be done."
"That's why I'm calling you, Commander. There has been an involvement in your mission. A ship launched from the rebel colony of Ambrosia, where you are heading. They are heading to this cluster mass relay. We believe they are pirates, who might have sold weapons to the colonists and are now trying to get away. Your new orders are to destroy that ship, and perform a show of force on Ambrosia." the admiral said and smiled a little with the edges of his mouth.
"Do we have confirmation on the pirates, sir?" Shepard asked.
His smile disappeared. "That's not your concern, commander. You have your orders."
"There could be colonists on board as refugees or prisoners. I think we should investigate the possibility, Admiral"
"You'll do as you are told, Commander. You have your orders and you will follow them to the letter, or there will be consequences. I would like to remind you, that you are married to an alien and asari especially. So it's not wise for someone in your position to be disobeying orders. After all, you can't afford to lose benefits of high ranking Alliance officer in today's world…" the man had to catch his breath after he was done, before he licked his lips.
Shepard stared straight in his eyes and subconsciously her hands formed into fists.
"Are we clear, Commander?!" he said as loud as he could for it not to be considered yelling.
"Yes, sir." Shepard answered without showing any emotions.
"New colonies are rebelling everyday. Go there and set an example for them! That's all." and hologram disappeared as lights in the Shepard's room went back on.
"What a fucking ass…" Shepard said with a little sign of disbelieve in her voice, while leaving her quarters.
"Do we have any contacts?" Shepard asked as she entered the CIC.
A soldier stand up from his monitor and answered "Only one, sir."
"Direction?"
"It's heading to the mass relay fast."
"Target the contact a prepare to fire."
"Target locked, sir." another soldier announced.
"Commander?" officer came up to Shepard.
"Admiral's orders, colonel." Shepard said without looking at him.
¨Understood" the officer said and took a step back from commander.
Shepard turned her head to look at him. That was odd, she thought. She expected him to try to reason with her, give her the same arguments, that she gave to admiral a moment ago. He was just standing there, with hands behind his back watching the monitor with moving contact on it. It was her executive officer. The crew called him "Parrot". He had a prosthetic right leg, missing right eye covered with a patch, right half of his face burned a little. He was supposedly close to some explosion back on Earth during the war. He resembled pirate in every way, except he was missing a parrot, hence the name.
"Take it down." Shepard ordered, while turning her head back to the monitor.
"Beam weapon fired." a moment of silence "Direct hit, target destroyed."
"Good work, now proceed to Ambrosia, let me know when we reach the orbit." Shepard gave orders and left back to her quarters.
Back at her room she sat down by her terminal to make a call. She needed to talk to Liara to hear her voice, ask about their child's progress. Maybe even make sure whether it's worth it to follow the orders she's been given. But Liara is not answering. Normally it would just mean that she isn't at home, but recent anti-alien protests are giving Shepard reason to worry. There's nothing much she can do about it now anyway, so she decides to use the spare time to try to take a nap.
Suddenly a sound of incoming call from the bridge wakes her up. She dreamt about sitting on terrace of big house, drinking beer and watching two little assari playing in the garden, while listening to some kind of sport match playing in tv in the background. She had no idea what it was, it was just the fans cheering really loudly that made her notice it, but it wasn't her focus of her attention. When suddenly a pair of blue hands hugged her from behind and she woke up.
She answered the call. "We have reached Ambrosia ma'am."
"Thanks, get every marine on duty, CAG and XO to the briefing room. I'll be right there."
"I'm on it commander."
She got out of the bed, washed her face and checked the terminal in case Liara left her any messages while she was sleeping. There were some new mails, all marked as important, but none of them was from Liara, so they could wait until she comes back from the mission. She left her room and went straight to the briefing room so the soldiers wouldn't have to wait. She walked just a few steps outside while she was thinking what to say on the briefing, when she noticed the stares of the crew in the hall. Great, she kinda forgot to put on some pants, she was wearing only a long t-shirt, she was sleeping in. "Happens to the best of us…" she thought and calmly went back to her quarters to fix that.
When she got to the briefing room, everyone was already there, standing up as she entered.
"At ease." and everyone sat down.
"We have orders to perform a show of force on Ambrosia." Shepard went straight to the point, there was no reason not to. "Four squads of four soldiers will make a landing on the planet right here (she pointed on the map on the wall behind her) in front of the main entrance to the town. One air wing will sweep the area before we enter the atmosphere to make sure there really aren't any anti-aircraft defenses as stated in the intel we got. Second air wing will cover the descent of the landing party and then join the patrol over the colony and standby in case we'll need air support. Standard rules of engagement apply for this mission."
"Dude that sucks" said one of the soldiers. It was was a human krogan, more than a one head higher than Shepard, bold and full of muscles, and somehow he started every sentence with dude if he was talking to someone he didn't know or like and bro when he was talking to friends, which earned him nickname the dude. "It says right here, that they just got a shipment of weapons from some pirates, friendlies don't tend to do that dude…"
"That's not confirmed. And even if that was the case, I don't think some colonist who just bought some old guns would be a fair match for a squad of professional soldiers. Do you?"
"Dude, no way, we got this." the dude replied.
"So everyone get geared up, we meet in hangar in 30 minutes, when the first air group launches. Parrot has the command until we get back. That's all, let's get this over with and maybe we'll be home for christmas."
Xxx
When the landing party got boots on the ground, it was so quiet. The fighters reported some small movement on the ground around the buildings at the edge of the city and that was it.
"No one fires unless fired upon are we clear?" Shepard reminded to her soldiers.
"Understood" said everyone and they went towards the city.
There was movement behind every building, some people were trying to sneak/run deeper into the town.
"Dude, you see that?" the dude asked Shepard.
"Yes, just keep an eye on them and keep moving." she replied.
They came to a barricade when suddenly a shot hit the ground right in front of Shepard. The dude immediately returned the fire but Shepard pulled his rifle up, so he missed. There was a little boy lying on the ground with an old rifle in his hands looking terrified at the Shepard's squad.
"Hey there little man" Shepard said while smiling and lowering down to the boy "are you alright?" The boy was shaking, and haven't made a sound. "It's ok, we won't hurt you." The boy looked at her and seemed rather surprised and she helped him get up.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I tripped over and it just went on…" the boy started.
"It's alright, nobody got hurt, but I would just take the gun from you if you don't mind" Shepard said and reached for the gun in the boy's hands.
"Okay." the boy agreed and handed over the rifle.
"Thank you, what's your name?" Shepard passed the gun over to another squad member.
"Ramius" the boy answered.
"Ok Ramius, could you take us to whoever is in charge here?" Shepard asked.
Xxx
"Not a one step closer! Let the boy go or we'll shoot!" an older man on the barricade shouted.
"He's not a hostage" Shepared said back "but he's no soldier either" she took boys gun from one of his man and threw it on the ground in front of the barricade. "You are arming your kids? What the hell is going on here?"
"We know who you are and we have heard the news! We are not going to let you slaughter our people. Maybe you won't get the children this time at least if they have a chance to defend themselves!" The man replied.
"What the hell are you talking about? Do I look like someone who is killing children?"
"They were saying it in the news, whole colonies wiped out by commander Shepard and his soldiers."
"I have no idea what are you talking about" Shepard said confused "this is my first mission since the Battle for Earth. And the only colony I have ever wiped out was batarian and it wasn't because I take pleasure in it. Anyway it would be old news…"
"Wait dude, did you say his soldiers?" Dude asked "Either you are just as stupid as you look, or Shepard isn't telling us something, dude."
"I told you it must have been someone else they were talking about" another man on the barricade said, lowered his weapon and stand up.
"What are you doing?" the first man yelled "they're gonna kill you!"
"If they wanted us dead, they would simply nuke us from orbit or storm the town with whole army or something, they wouldn't bring Ramius back and they would not be concerned about him running around with loaded weapon for sure."
"Why didn't we talk to the smart guy first?" Shepard laughed "he's right, we mean you no harm."
People started to get out of hiding all over the place scared, confused and curious. Someone asked: "What you doing here then?"
"We've been told you are refusing to supply Earth, so we have orders to exercise a show of force on your colony and restore supply chain to Earth." Shepard explained.
"So you are gonna kill just some of us for your show of force, is that right? I told you all-" the first man said but was cut out by Shepard.
"You haven't seen all the planes flying around? They could bomb you to the stone age if we wanted, but then we could not restore the supply chain and I never leave jobs half finished…" Shepard said "I thought it was show of force enough, but if you want more, look at the big dude next to me…"
"I guess we expected this would be our end…" the man said.
"Well now that we have that sorted out, let us get to business." Shepard said "is there some place I could talk with the leaders of the colony?"
"You want to talk?" the man asked.
"Where did the smart one go? Of course I need to talk to you. We need to negotiate what will it cost us to get the supplies we need."
It took quite some time for Shepard to get what she came for, but she always got what she came for one way or the other, she was just glad she didn't have to fire a gun this time to achieve her goal. Once the colonists understood that people on some big colonies and even in some parts of Earth are starving, they saw their duty to help.
Shepard remained on the planet with enough soldiers to get first few shipment go out as fast a possible. After few days it was time to leave. The colonists decided to throw a party to say goodbye to their unexpected friends from the Alliance Navy. During the celebration the smart one approached Shepard. It was a handsome man in his twenties.
"You are different than I imagined you. I haven't expected you to go out first in your squad and get your hand dirty" he said.
"Yeah, I've read on the extranet how do people imagine me… and no, those videos, that isn't me…" Shepard replied with annoyed tone.
"Oh, I didn't mean that" he answered awkwardly "I thought you are sitting in your ship, you know, giving orders and plan battles and then you send out Garrus or Wrex to, you know, do your will."
"You think Garrus and Wrex did all the hard work?"
"Well they are turian and krogan, I imagine it's more likely one of them was facing reaper, or headbutted some krogans…" he started to stutter when he saw Shepards' look.
"Well I can do my own heavy lifting, thank you very much for your concern. Maybe I would rather be imagined naked after all…" Shepard said disappointed.
"I'm sorry. Anyway is that true you and that asari scientist are together?"
"We are married actually."
"Oh, that's… cool, I guess" the man seemed disappointed.
"It is, isn't it?" Shepard laughed as she saw right through the young man.
"Well if you would change your mind, you know where I live" he said, trying to look as cool as possible.
"Yeah, I'm flattered, but don't wait by the phone or something" Shepard placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled "I should go"
"That's like your line or something?" the man called after Shepard, who was already getting into the shuttle.
"Wait!" Shepard stopped the shuttle door from closing "The day we came, a ship left your planet and headed to the mass relay, who was on board?"
"That must have been the pirates who sold us the guns, the said that commander Shepard is coming and we are going to need them…"
"Thank you" Shepard said relieved.
Xxx
Back on the ship everyone went after their own business, no other orders came in, so they all looked forward to getting back to Earth. Shepard was just walking out of the hangar, wanted to check out if Liara hasn't called, when Dude approached her.
"Hey Shepard, I never thanked you for not letting me kill that boy…"
"You didn't wanted to kill him, you just reacted, just be more careful next time, that's why we have shields" Shepard said with calming voice.
"I guess I thought, you are going to be just some fancy war hero, looking for a quick promotion, but you're alright… man"
"I've been in the business for quite some time, and no matter what I do, I'm probably not getting past the commander" Shepard laughed.
They both went their separate ways, when Shepard stopped and called back at Dude
"Wait, did you said man?"
The Dude turned out and said "Yeah man, like I said, you're alright" and he continued walking.
Back at her quarters, Shepard checked the terminal. Still no calls from Liara. This is getting really strange, she thought. She wanted to call her wife, but a message from admiral Webber caught her attention. It was few days old and it just said.
Commander,
If you think you are going to look for your own interpretation of my orders, you are terribly mistaken. I warned you that your action will have consequences. Your should take example from your brother.
"What the- LIARA!" Shepard said with terrified voice. She immediately called home. This time she got automatic message from Liara saying that she reached home of Liara T'Soni and Jane Shepard but they aren't home at the moment. What is going on? She thought but then something from the news in the background caught her attention.
"It's been almost a week since the Systems Alliance announced that everyone who isn't human, krogan, turian, quarian or prothean must leave the Earth or face imprisonment. Thousands of asari and salarians are stuck in the space ports, since all the asari and salarian ships are banned from entering coalitions territory and no ships from the coalition are going to asari and salarian space."
"When did this happen?"
"In other news, commander Shepard…"
"What now?" Shepard yelled angrily on the tv.
"Pictures from another destroyed colony showing a child mourning over bodies of his parents in the rubble took the extranet by storm and got mixed reactions. While some say the Alliance is doing the right thing and taking care of its' starving people, others say they are going to far and the Alliance cutthroats must be stopped. Commander John Shepard, brother of the famous commander Jane Shepard, who is responsible for most of the so called massacres says: Don't turn your back on your starving brothers and sisters in the coalition and you have nothing to worry about."
Shepard couldn't take anymore of this kind of news and turned off the tv.
"He's finally gone mad… He was always crazy, but this?" Shepard stared at the black screen in disbelief. Poor people, but she can't help them now, she will have to deal with her brother later, right now, she must find Liara. When suddenly an incoming call makes her jump towards the console.
"Hey Shepard, I have some news for you."
"GARRUS! It's so good to hear your smooth voice!"
"Well thanks, it's nice to hear you too."
"I take only good news, Garrus…"
"Well, I think it's good, I didn't get enough information about it to be sure though…"
"Ok, shoot."
"You are a father, Shepard"
"What?"
"That means you have a child, Shepard…"
"I know what it means, but how do you know this?"
"Well because I'm looking here at Liara with small blue child in her hands and she says, that it's yours, so I believe congratulations are in order."
"Liara is there? Can I talk to her? Where exactly is there?"
"We are on Palaven, I had to get Liara from Earth, you know, with all the stuff happening."
"You did? Thank you! Thank you so much, Garrus! I don't know what to say…"
"Well, you don't have to say anything. I wouldn't be much of your best friend if I let your wife stuck on some port on Earth, when you wasn't around…"
"You will always be my best friend, no matter what, but you definitely just scored some bonus points right now."
"Yes, that's totally why I did it. That and reason for the gang to get drunk as never before. Anyway Liara is trying to pull my hand of, so I'll guess I let her talk to you, hope to see you soon."
"You bet, and thank you Garrus."
"Shepard?"
"Liara! Are you ok? I'm so sorry what happened to you on Earth…"
"Everything is fine now, forget about Earth. Have you thought of any names?"
I have actually took some of my old english textbooks, to revisit some grammar chapters, so I hope there is some improvement. I'm actually thinking of changing the ships' name, I couldn't come up with anything good and guess what I was listening to when I came up with it. However: Rammstein - band and Ramstein - air base in germany for any non-eurpeans.