Shepard's rifle dug into her shoulder as she readied her shot.
The indoor field before her was a constantly moving mass of targets with sizes and shapes of different aliens flew past. Her eyes tracked the movement of a particularly large one about 500 meters out. A turian. Best way to take them out: disable their shields, antipersonnel round between the eyes.
Although the set-up on this abandoned asteroid wasn't particularly sophisticated, Rasa said they'd be getting a fighting simulator soon installed within the week. So, for now, Shepard would just have to deal with shooting at paper targets for training.
One of Rasa's many mantras began to repeat through her head. You only have one shot. That's the difference between life and death.
Her finger itched on the trigger as she stilled her breath thinking of Rasa's endless mantras. She tried not to remember the gasping-in of her first sharp breath of air. Of hands that grasped and yanked her from her tank. When her own thoughts were just noise, screaming at her to continue to breathe.
She tried not to think of greedily gulping for air that could be snatched away at any moment. Of the shaking of her hands. Of the need to crawl into a ball and sob.
Shepard soon learned the word for what she felt, as the neural implants were installed. It was fear.
Shepard yanked at the trigger, unfocused. The butt of the rifle hit her shoulder, sending a strike of prickling pain through her. The gun jerked out of her control, causing the bullet to barely graze one of the endless moving targets. Not even close to her intended one.
Shepard cursed under her breath. If she couldn't do this, that fear was going to be a lot worse. The Reapers would be here soon.
Implanted images of melting humans washed over her. They endured throughout her existence, no matter how hard she pushed them away. In the tank, their screaming noises crawled their way permanently into her memory.
Shepard needed to stand for something, belong to something for humanity. Another one of Rasa's mantras that was drilled into her head so much, Shepard thought the words were her own.
A discouraged tsst came from behind her. "Close, but Shepard would've made the shot," Rasa drawled.
"I am Shepard," she curtly spat back out as she adjusted for the next shot.
She took in a sharp breath, tired and annoyed of constantly hearing about what she didn't have or what she was not. Tired of watching of vids to emulate how the other Shepard spoke and held herself.
But the shooting, the running, the sparring? Those were the exercises she could work on and make her own. It was her arms, her legs, her heart that made those actions ha; no one could say otherwise. If she worked hard enough, the crawling images stopped, and she could finally be at peace, which Rasa was currently disturbing.
"Is there a reason you're creeping over me?"
"Distracted? You should get used to it; a battlefield is much worse than my lurking."
Rasa was really testing the little patience Shepard had for her at the moment.
"But, yes there was. I wanted to go over plans for the day. When you're done, I have dossiers on known family, friends, and old crew. We'll need to go over them," Rasa added, her voice crisp as she dangled the datapad over Shepard.
Shepard snatched the datapad from Rasa's hand, hoping to get the thing over with as soon as possible.
The first section involved known family. It included a father who was dead before she was two, a mother lost to drugs and a pair of siblings she didn't care to stay in contact with. They were both still alive.
Shepard pulled up siblings photographs. Alexander Young and Charlotte Walker the names said underneath.
She spotted the similarities she shared with them. She had the same bushy eyebrows as Alexander and sloped nose as Charlotte. Maybe once things were settled Shepard could try and reach out to them. Maybe even be the sister that the other one couldn't be.
Shepard knitted her eyebrows together in frustration. How could the other one not contact them? To have a family, and a connection and just throw it away? Shepard huffed away the anger, this wasn't time for that, and definitely not in front of Rasa.
She skipped to next section, known associates from the Reds. Useless information; Shepard had cut ties with them after they became more vocal as an Earth First movement.
Next came a laundry list of old crew, friends, and former lovers. People the other Shepard got to care about and life achievements passed over her as she continued to scroll.
A pit began to grow in her stomach, a longing to leave this damn asteroid she'd been stuck on since her entrance into existence. She wanted to know what Earth was like. To truly see the blue skies and oceans it offered rather than what she saw on a vid. Maybe even walk on the beaches just to feel the sand in her toes. Or just to talk to someone else other than Rasa. Even with Rasa's her constant talking, it had been so damn lonely.
She continued to skim through the passages. Next, the Normandy crew. Aliens, it was always aliens with Shepard. An asari, a krogan, a quarian, and a turian.
She skimmed that section quickly, just trying to get through reading for Rasa's sake until the words romantic involvement caught her eye. They were notes from Kelly Chambers, a former Cerberus operative.
Some of the compiled records from the Yeoman included musings such as:
Shepard is worried for our newest member on the Normandy. Chakwas kicked her out of the med bay from what I've heard. She left for Omega alone and hasn't been back in hours.
She's been spending a lot of time within Garrus in the main battery on the crew with him. Not all of that could just be talking, right? I suspected that Shepard and Garrus are together.
I tried asking her about it today, and she just blushed and stammered. Rather cute, being able to the see the woman underneath the uniform.
Shepard searched through the records of Vakarian. A turian C-Sec officer who threw his career away to play vigilante. What the hell did she see in him? All Shepard saw was just some burnt-out cop past his prime.
"She's with a turian?" Shepard asked, not holding back the disgust in her voice.
"Why do you ask? Should I be concerned that you'll be trying to cozy with a cuttlebone too?" Rasa teased.
Shepard gave her a scowl as an answer. Rasa gave a mocking laugh in return. "You know it's funny how that worked out to begin with. I guess that was my fault. At the time, Cerberus was desperate for faces she could trust."
How could anyone trust, or even look a face like that? Shepard kept that thought to herself.
"I wasn't entirely sure if it was him, but a C-Sec officer disappears off the face of the Citadel, and somehow Omega gains a vigilante criminal killer? Not that hard to put the pieces together when you have the right information."
Shepard scoffed. A pro-human group bringing in alien help. She almost had a laugh at the logic, but instead she tossed the datapad to the side and put her attention back on the field. "I'll go over the rest later."
She felt Rasa's stare on her back.
"What?" Shepard hissed as she adjusted her scope.
"You're lucky, you know that? All those people, those useless pile of names she had, made her lose focus."
"Then what was the point of me going over these? There's no way we could fool them that I'm her."
Rasa began to pace, her words pouring out louder with each step. She always had a flair for the dramatics, but it worked enough to keep Shepard listening, mostly anyway.
"To show that what we're doing here, that this isn't just for a handful of people. What we are doing here is something bigger than us all. For humanity's best interest, because she didn't."
Rasa paused in her steps but her voice to boomed in Shepard's ears. "The Reapers are coming, and humanity is going to need Commander Shepard if we want to see ourselves through this war."
As Rasa continued to rant, on thoughts of how the other Shepard sold out her own species, who'd proudly list of the names of ships of lost humans on the attack of the Citadel.
Shenyang. Emden. Jakarta. Cairo. Seoul. Cape Town. Warsaw. Madrid.
And for what? To save the lives of those who would deny any help to her own species. As if remembering somehow brought them back.
It was just more lost human life. The other Shepard had spent more time-saving aliens than humans, while she had to live with the images of melting skin and the sound of screaming playing over and over again in her head.
Rasa pointed at Shepard, snapping her out of her thoughts. "But you, a blank slate, you don't have all that pain and baggage. And with that drive, we can save humanity from what's to come and from themselves."
"I understood that the first time you gave me that speech. I don't constantly need a sermon. I agree with you." Shepard turned her attention back to the targets.
"Then what are you going to do about it?"
She felt Rasa's stare on her back again as she lined up her rifle. She tracked the movements, rested her breath, and she pushed the images and fear down until they finally became muted. Shepard tucked back a smile with confidences as she looked down her scope.
Within seconds, several holes were drilled between the eyes of four targets. An asari, a krogan, a quarian, and a turian.
"That's better." Rasa cheered.
Of course, it was, because she was Commander Shepard.