N7
Guns finally, finally make sense.
.
She's never met another soldier who came from Earth the same way she did. Sure, there were plenty of other Earthborns at Macapá, but from listening to conversations in the mess, she knows none of them had taught themselves to read. All of them seemed irrationally fond of the planet, and proud to be part of the Alliance. None of them had ever seen another kid killed for scrounging food out of the wrong dumpster, either.
Something about the way she grew up must have wired Shepard wrong. Even after all her training, she can't quite manage to do anything but pretend that she knows how to think like a soldier. Instead of firing guns or lobbing grenades, she always reaches for knives. Not because she likes getting blood all over herself, or because it's easier to remember that the carotid artery is a weak spot everyone has than to memorize where all the chinks are in medium-weight Colossus armor, but because knives have kept her alive. Knives mean that a small person can wedge herself into a hiding spot and let her enemies to come to her. If she knows where to cut, she can lie in wait at ankle height, and bullies will still die before they even have a chance to realize that they've found her.
The Alliance military doesn't fight like street kids in the megalopolises on Earth though. None of her tactics classes ever talked about hiding. The lessons were all about circling around, flanking, attrition, setting ambushes. All soldiers are supposed think about is rushing towards gunfire and danger. Shepard can guarantee that she will never think like that.
Akuze didn't count.
.
Guns left a bad taste in her past. Part of Shepard knows that her reluctance to use the loud weapons can be traced back to the Reds, to Hyper, the gang's last leader who'd ever thought about turning the Reds into something more than a wolf pack bent on survival. Hyper had been obsessed with running guns. He'd been desperate for credits, and Shepard had had to kill him slowly to make sure that no one in the Reds would ever think about betraying their gang again.
Hyper's death had put Shepard at the top of the Reds, but it hadn't brought all of the littles back. Her one, disastrous attempt to lead the Reds had consisted of executing an elaborate breakout of the littles Hyper had sold to the Relocation Society. At the end of it all, they only rescued five littles, and an especially brutal cop had sliced Shepard's cheek all the way open and yanked her cap off of her head.
Just like that, her life with the Reds had been over. There were plenty of street kids with darkish skin, indeterminately colored eyes, and scars, but no one else had blond hair. Coppers, retaliating for the Reds' unthinkable boldness, had taken to the streets in force. What had once been simple harassment, a delicate balance between oafish seekers and nimble hiders, had turned into a ruthless extermination conducted by hunters bent on extermination. The Reds had booted Shepard, and she couldn't blame them. By attacking the Relocation Society, the gang had challenged the status quo. The adults didn't like it, and Shepard, with her bright, shiny hair was an easy target. Albeit a moving target.
She'd run on her own for a year or so. It was hard to be exactly sure. Sometimes, she'd swung by Tenth Street and checked on the Reds, partly to make sure that they weren't too jammed up, and partly to make sure that none of the new leaders were getting ideas about turning on the littles.
She never stayed in one place long, except for the couple months she'd spent hiding at the university, pretending to be a student. She'd had to trade herself to one of the black market dealers for a clean datapad, but with the tech, she had been able to set up a fake ID solid enough to slip through the university's shoddy digital security. The science classes had been interesting, but being small and scrawny, and only having occasional access to a shower meant that before long people began to suspect that she didn't really belong at the school.
The time on her own, with no gang to rely on, had forced Shepard to be tougher. By the time she'd been snagged by a copper who recognized her, there had been no question that she could slice him up to protect herself, regardless of how big he was. Still, she'd known after that that she would have to leave the city. The police could take anyone's blood that they wanted, but you couldn't take theirs. Not if you wanted to stay alive.
Which was how she'd ended up running away to join the Alliance. Since being smart was apparently a rare thing for a soldier, so Shepard had been given a chance to earn a commission. Of course she'd made the grade. Which was how she'd ended up on Akuze. Of course she'd survived the maw. Which was how she'd ended up in N7 training.
…
For something that the Alliance talks up so much, the early ranks of Interplanetary Combatives Training are probably the least interesting thing that's ever happened to her. Everything before N4 consists of seeing whether candidates are capable of surviving various combat scenarios. For all the challenge it presents, they might as well have refused to let her sign up on Earth all those years ago. The only difference between training and childhood is that in training, everyone uses guns loaded with kinetic slugs; you couldn't die if you tried.
Getting her N1 certification should be a joke. It is a joke, with the requirements to keep moving all day, and 'only' being able to eat the food that you can carry. She can't keep from laughing at the other candidates at the end of their first week, when most of them bond by complaining about how they're hungry. Since all she's done so far is keep to herself and follow the orders of their designated team leader, no one is quite sure what to make of her laughter at first. After the shock wears off though, they decide that they're offended, and the expressions on their fat, soft faces would make her laugh even harder if they didn't need to keep quiet and hidden.
"Weak," she says to herself, loud enough for everyone to overhear. This does not calm anyone down.
"You're a bitch, aren't you, Shepard?" Karl Janz will probably wash out before he earns his N7. Shepard has been watching him, and she's realized that he is missing something. He's never had to struggle for anything, not really, and he doesn't like deprivation. At first, she couldn't guess how he ended up in ICT, but he has family connections in the military. One of his uncles is something high-ranking. A rear admiral, maybe. Scuttlebutt says he's earned a few commendations for his bravery in defending colonial outposts from batarian attacks. On top of that, wavy dark hair and bright blue eyes have made him good-looking. All in all, Shepard can't stand him.
The knowledge that her antagonist doesn't have what it takes can't help her now. Right now, Janz is a bully off of the stretch of block he knows best, and he's focused on Shepard as a target for venting his uncertainty.
When she was a little, Shepard had three ways to handle bullies.
Bribery. Give a bigger kid food, and even if he beats on you a little, he'll move on, because you might have more food for him later. She considers this option. Although the food they've been given is packaged into set serving sizes, she usually doesn't eat a whole meal equivalent; it's more than she needs. But if she shows weakness now, Janz will be back, just like any other bully, looking for a chance to wring more out of her.
Escape. Always be faster than the bully chasing you. That won't work here, clearly. She's supposed to be part of this team. Even if she wasn't, there are six other combat teams out there, and an enemy gang can kill you more easily than one bully can.
Kill him. The best way to get rid of a threat is to cut its throat, or beat it over the head with a rock until it stops moving.
The arbitrary lines drawn by the Alliance say that Janz is a part of her gang though, and Shepard knows better than any of these others that you don't turn on your own gang. Even if you hate everyone else in the gang, you never try to kill each other. You only fight to see who's stronger, who should be higher up. It will have to do.
The combat team has stopped for a couple hours of rest and sleep. Now is as good a time as any to fight him and prove she doesn't have to take his shit. She slides her pack off of her shoulders, sizing Janz up. Nearly everyone Shepard knows is bigger than her hundred sixty centimeters, fifty kilos. (She's tiny and fragile-looking, but at least she's made of nice round numbers). Janz looks to be almost two meters tall, and he's got to weigh at least ninety kilos. Still, Shepard knows that she can tolerate more pain than he can. She can beat him.
She's opening her mouth to challenge the bully when someone else speaks up.
"Maybe Shepard's a bitch, Janz, but at least she's not a whiny bitch like you. Everyone's hungry, and hearing you complain about it only makes me cranky."
"Everyone knows biotics have weird appetites, but are you really that desperate for a lay, Pallikareas?" Janz sneers. "Hang on until we get back to civilization. You don't need to try and get into Shep—"
He doesn't get a chance to finish what he was going to say, because Pallikareas slugs him in the jaw.
"Enough!" Out of the six candidates on their combat team, Diana Upton is the only woman besides Shepard. She's also been appointed leader on their first mission, but so far Shepard hasn't been impressed by her abilities. She smiles too much to be a real soldier.
"You're all out of line!" Upton hisses, reminding them with just the volume of her voice that they're supposed to treat this evaluation like real combat. "Shepard, keep your damn mouth shut next time. We're all burning on short fuses. Janz, Pallikareas, the two of you need to grow up. Janz, you're an ass. Pallikareas, Shepard is a big girl. She can handle herself."
That's right. Shepard doesn't need the team's biotic to protect her. She tries to glare at Pallikareas, but he just smiles at her. What an idiot.
.
After glancing up to make sure there's nothing and no one dangerous hiding up there, she sets up under a tree for the night. Intellectually, she knows that having her back to a tree doesn't actually make her safer; enemies can come from any direction when you're out in the open like this. Still, the illusion helps her sleep. She sits on top of her sleeping roll, pulls a knife out of her belt, and closes her eyes.
Someone approaches her spot from behind. In an instant, she's on her feet, knife ready.
"Wow." Pallikareas raises his hands in a gesture of peace. What kind of fool sneaks up on a person when she's trying to sleep? "You don't trust anyone, do you?" He drops his pack and takes a seat on her right side.
She sits back down, shuts her eyes again. He's not a threat, just an annoyance; if she ignores him, he'll go away.
"Thanks for handling Janz for me," the biotic says in what he obviously thinks is a feminine tone of voice. "I really appreciate it. It was so exciting, when you took him out with just one punch!"
She really can't imagine what could be wrong with this man. Everything she's read about biotics says that the ability to manipulate dark energy doesn't directly affect higher brain functions, but Pallikareas is the first biotic she's spoken to since boot camp, and he's clearly not all there.
"No worries, Shepard," he says in his normal voice. "I've been looking for an excuse to deck that fucker since we got to the villa. Defending your honor was an unexpected bonus. Don't think for a minute that it was an unwelcome bonus, though."
Defending her honor? What does that even mean? She thinks about it, thinks about the things Janz had said before Pallikareas punched him. One of the things she has noticed is that 'normal' people don't talk about sex much. When they do, they're either very loud, like it's something to brag about, or very quiet, like it's something to be ashamed of. Just another thing people do that doesn't make sense. Sometimes she misses how straightforward everything was on Earth. On Earth, sex was currency, something you could offer when you didn't have anything else to trade.
She gets money from the Alliance now, but she still has sex on occasion. It's not something she needs, the way she needs to eat, but she likes it, the way she likes to shower. Since joining the military, Shepard has learned that she prefers men to women, but that sex is easier with women. Shepard never had to break a woman's nose to get her to keep her parts to herself, at any rate.
Anyway. Other people are peculiar about sex. Pallikareas must have thought he was doing something noble (nobility, another idea that doesn't make sense), by attacking Janz.
"Did you hit Janz because he was talking about the two of us having sex?" she asks, opening her eyes. It's pathetic, the pride she always gets when a theory she's formulated proves correct.
The biotic's skin is that funny dark shade that people call olive, and his face is covered in the short bristle of a beard after a week in the woods, but his blush is very dark, and even reaches his ears. He must be one of the ones who talks about sex quietly.
When he responds, his voice is much less smooth. For some reason, that makes Shepard like him more. "I—uh. Maybe? That was probably part of it." He looks at Shepard. "Maybe I just don't like it when big guys pick on littler ones?"
She cocks her head to the side. "I never held with beating on littles," she agrees.
The red color fades from the biotic's face, and he smiles. "I knew there had to be more to you than silence and blond hair," he says, offering his hand.
A spark jolts through her when Shepard shakes his hand, like static. She pulls away and stares at him. "What was that?"
"You wouldn't believe animal magnetism, would you?" Pallikareas asks. "No?" His smile fades a little. "Biotics build up an electrical charge in our bodies if we haven't used our biotics in a while, so skin-to-skin contact gives non-biotics a static shock sometimes."
Shepard considers this information. She's never read anything that indicated that dark energy was similar to electricity. "Extra electrical charge?" she asks. "Could you use biotics to change the way you use your omni-tool then? Channel that extra energy into the omni-tool to augment the force you use when you're punching someone, for example?" She thinks back to the engineering texts she's read, trying to figure out how she could change the circuitry of an omni-tool to respond to biotically-generated electricity. "What kind of omni do you use?" she asks.
Pallikareas looks at her with confusion. "That's your question? Really? You're not freaked out by the quirky biotic?"
Why would she waste time on that? Genetic testing has proven that biotics are still humans. Humans with different abilities, but no more remarkable than her own ability to grow blond hair. Maybe a little flashier. She shakes her head at him.
"You're all right, aren't you, Shepard?" When he grins, the expression is crooked, but all Shepard notices is how soft it makes his large brown eyes. She brushes the realization away; it's a chemical reaction to all this thinking about sex.
…
For all the trouble she takes to blend in, to be inconspicuous and overlooked, there's something about Shepard that catches the eye. Ironically, it might be the fact that she tries so hard to hide that makes her noticeable. It's the way she freezes instead of just standing still, the way she instinctively stands in the darkest part of a room, the way her eyes take in everything, but her face never reveals what she's thinking.
That might be why making Shepard laugh has become his favorite game. He doesn't win the game often, but when he does, he gets the most genuine emotion he ever sees from her. Someday Pallikareas will figure out a way to predict when she will find something funny. Unfortunately, there's no knowing how her mind works. Maybe because she's the smartest person he has ever met, her mind seems to function within completely alien parameters.
Not that he'll ever say that to her; Shepard is also the most racist person he's ever met.
.
Between every level of ICT training, they get ten days of leave. After they completed N1, he'd dragged Shepard out of the Vila Militar, telling her that it was his first time on Earth, and he wasn't going to spend it going over old N2 training videos, and reading engineering journals.
"You don't have to," she'd said, with that quizzical tilt of her head that she always gave him.
"Maybe I'm not being clear. We're in Rio de Janeiro. It's sunny, and beautiful, and I'm not letting you stay cooped up in here until we're dropped into the hell of N2 next week."
"Do you think you can make me do anything I don't want to do?" The scary look in her eyes he'd recognized for the first time when Janz had gone after her had flickered to life.
He grinned. "You want to," he said. "I'll even buy you a beer."
"I don't drink."
"Why the hell not?"
She shrugged. "Drunks piss on littles."
"What?" he stared. "Look, you crazy koritsi, stop making excuses. We're going out."
Her face almost turned scary again, but at the last minute, she gave a half-smile. "What did you call me?"
"Tell you what," he picked her boots up off the floor and tossed them at her, "I'll tell you if you come out."
Despite numerous offers to pay, begging, and attempts at trickery, Shepard wouldn't drink. She tagged along with him to the beach, and let him teach her to swim. No matter what he tried, he couldn't get her to tour the city's big cathedral. (Her only explanation had been "Nuns"). When he took her to the national library, it had been so funny to see her excited over its size, and some of the rare texts they had, that he hadn't minded wasting an entire day inside the Academy of Letters.
.
He likes the way Shepard asks him things. For someone who knows so much, she has questions about the oddest things. Bathing suits, she asked about, the first time he took her to the beach. A few days before they got their N3 certification, she wanted to know everything about his implants. Even though he knows that she only asks questions about such odd things because her childhood was so messed up she didn't even know to make fun of the scrap of baby blanket she found in his duffel that one time, he likes her questions. When she asks him something, she focuses on Pallikareas so intently that sometimes he worries she'll stare the skin off of his face.
New information and food, she inhales both like she'll never have the chance again.
He likes the way Shepard has finally gotten to trust him. True, it took six months before she stopped jumping up with her knife every time he made the mistake of walking up behind her, but now, she trusts him enough that sometimes she falls asleep in front of him. Once, she actually drifted off with her head on his shoulder, and he ended up buying a half-dozen drinks he didn't want just so he could stay in the restaurant and not have to wake her up.
Awake, she's always making herself seem bigger than she actually is. Asleep, she curls into herself, looking tiny, fragile, and in need of protection.
He likes the way Shepard always explains things he has no interest in, in too much detail. It's a compliment, really, that she thinks he might be smart enough to understand some of the things she thinks about. She's surprisingly patient with him, too, considering that she's usually doesn't have patience with idiots. Although he'll never admit it, he's learned a lot just from listening to her odd little lectures. If his shuttle ever crash lands, he'll be able to forage for edible plants, and rig a signaling beacon out of parts salvaged from the wreckage and his omni-tool.
Talking isn't her favorite thing to do, so when she has something to say, he listens.
He likes the way Shepard has his back during training. These missions are getting more and more dangerous, real enough to shock him. He'd heard about how intense the Spec Ops program was, but he'd always thought the stories were exaggerated. During N5 training—three months of jetpacks, combat diving, and military free-fall—she'd watched him get more and more nervous about heights, and listened to him tell her how certain he was that he was going to fall to his death. She'd still partnered with him for the first parachuting exercise, a tandem jump. Of course, because he was with Shepard, everything had gone smoothly, and he'd felt like an idiot for being afraid. And because Shepard is always so weird, she'd been laughing the whole way down, and wanted to go again as soon as they landed.
Maybe she likes falling and training in zero-G environments because Earth always let her down so badly.
He tries to like the way Shepard tells him that he's the first real friend she's ever had (after he explained friendship to her a few times), but he can't.
…
There were thirty-six candidates in their class when they started N1 training together back at the villa. By the time they've reached the final certification tests for N7, they're down to twelve. Shepard is one of the remaining candidates, of course. So is Pallikareas, and Upton. So is Janz.
It's disappointing to be wrong when you make a prediction, but Shepard learned long ago that sometimes she makes mistakes.
They've been dropped onto a rock that doesn't deserve to be called a planet, told that batarians attacked a Alliance research outpost, and sent in to reclaim the territory. Everyone who survives this attack is getting their N7 when they're picked up.
For the first time, Shepard thinks that maybe she won't make the cut. Commander Jaff, the training officer who's been in charge of torturing them since they arrived at the villa, made her turn over all her knives before he let her get on to the shuttle with the others. Then, he'd checked Pallikareas for knives, because Jaff is smarter than Shepard likes to give him credit for being, and he knew that Pally would slip her a knife.
"Use your guns on this one, Shepard," Jaff ordered, handing her a sniper rifle.
She wanted to tell him that she'd never done more than basic training with a sniper rifle, and that was on Macapá, but she's tired of hearing Jaff yell at her, so she takes the gun.
Right before they're sent off, Jaff appoints Janz de facto commander of the mission. Shepard hates the way things are always terrible.
…
"The four-eyed bastards are dug in deep," Shepard tells the rest of the group after they've been tramping across this miserable excuse for a terraformed world for a week. Janz always sends her up ahead as a scout, probably so he'll be able to say she's too tired to be part of the first wave when they actually start breaching the place. Still, Shepard's good at it, good at sneaking around quickly, good at staying out of sight and figuring out what's going to try and kill her next.
It's irritating that Janz knows what he's doing.
She outlines the way the batarians have placed guards, snipers, and traps. The squad hasn't seen any action since they landed. There's a sense of eagerness; everyone pays close attention to her words. Shepard wishes that she knew how to draw. A picture would give the others a better sense of what she saw. Abruptly, she realizes that she cares whether they all live or die. She's not just concerned with herself. It's strange, and she's not sure that she likes it.
The plan Janz outlines conflicts with the orders they were given, and suddenly, Shepard likes him a little better. He's not interested in the base, just the research data. The team that's going into the building is going to retrieve that data, and blow the place to hell. When Pally speaks up and tries to remind Janz that they can't just deviate from the mission plan like that, Janz snaps that he's not going to let any of the batarians get away with killing the Alliance personnel that worked here.
There's an emotion on Janz's face when he says that, and Shepard realizes that all his fights with batarians weren't the coincidence that his file paints it as. For some reason, the man goes picking fights with the alien scum. She can respect that. When she was a little, the stories on the news bursts were always about how the batarians were burning colonies to the ground and capturing humans to use as slaves. The more of them that die, the better.
She finds herself smiling a little at Janz when he glances at her, and his eyes widen in surprise. They look away from each other quickly. She turns back to face Pally and realizes he's scowling at her.
"What was that?" he whispers. "We hate him, remember?"
Shepard doesn't say anything. She doesn't see the point in talking now. Paying attention to the plan is more important, and Pally is being ridiculous. She never hated Janz. She just didn't think he was worth anything. She still doesn't think he's worth much. It's not too different.
As expected, Janz places her in a clump of bushes roughly seven hundred meters away from the enemy's main base. "Use that sniper rifle, cover our exit." Everyone knows that she's not really going to be able to do anything with the stupid gun, but she goes anyway.
Something changes, though, when she gets to that spot. It's not an abandoned building, or the crawlspace the overhang of a roof creates, but the way one of the bushes is growing, there's a hollow in the center. Normally, Shepard isn't one for nature—Pally is the one who likes trees and flowers—but this is the perfect hiding place. She crawls into it and instantly feels at home.
Sighting through the scope so she can relay real-time information about batarian defenses as the others make their way down the hill, Shepard realizes how easy it will be to pick off the batarian guards from a distance. The little in her relaxes in a way she never relaxed in real life. There's no more need to wait for the bullies to come to her. She can hide, be safe, and take them down from a distance.
So that's what she does.
Commander Jaff might be a genius. How none of her other COs ever thought to saddle Shepard with a sniper rifle and make her stick to it, is beyond her.
After a while, breathing along with each shot feels natural in a way she never would have expected. She doesn't remember how to see without the scope. The stupid sniper rifle isn't something strange and awkward anymore, it's a part of her. The gun understands how vital it is to stay hidden if you want to make yourself safe.
By the time the research base is glowing orange with the aftereffects of the squad's explosive, Shepard has lost count of the number of batarians she's taken down as they tried to flee. She feels warm inside.
…
On the shuttle back to the ship that's going to take the eleven of them who survived the op to the Villa, there's a lot of grinning and back-slapping. Pally kisses Shepard, she punches him, and they both laugh.
Even the candidates—no, not candidates, they're all N7s now—who she never got along with are smiling and shaking hands with her. They've been together for more than a year and a half; it doesn't cost so much to be friendly with each other right now.
Janz sits down next to her, and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "I saw all those kills you made. Nice job, Pavlichenko," he says.
She jerks out of his grasp; she doesn't like people touching her. "Pavlichenko?"
"First female sniper to rack up a real body count."
She glances down at the gun in her lap, runs her fingers along its disassembled barrel with an uncharacteristic fondness. "Guns finally make sense," she comments.
"They didn't before?" he asks. "You fooled me. I figured out during N1 that you were going to make it here. You just had that look in your eye. I knew you would do it."
"I never thought you would do it," she counters.
"You really are a bitch, aren't you, Shepard?"
"All this time, and you still don't have a better insult?"
"I know better than to insult a woman who can put a hole between my eyes at a thousand meters."
"So you think 'bitch' is an accurate assessment of my personality and abilities?"
"Well, you spend all your time with Pally." Janz's eyes run over Shepard's body with an expression she recognizes. "I never got a chance to assess you outside of training." He actually smiles at her. "When we get back to Earth, how about you give me a chance to form an independent opinion?"
Shepard doesn't smile at him, but she nods. "All right." She still doesn't like Janz much, but he really is handsome. She's an N7. Guns finally make sense. She deserves a treat.
Author's Note: So, for some reason, Janz is who I imagine KS Shepard would be if his mother had married someone her parents approved of, and he'd never been through Mindoir. I was as surprised as FemShep when he made it to N7.