Hannah rubbed the small of her back to try and relieve some of the pain back there.

She had no idea what she had done to her back and she wanted to put it down to age but she was only 53 and having served in the alliance since she was 20 she was physically fit, so age affecting her was something she coudn't make sense of. Regardless, she grumbled as she slowly stood up and put on her uniform. She decided that if it wasn't better by the end of the next solar day, she would go see the doctor on board the Orizaba, but until then she swallowed some pain killers and made her way out of her quarters.

The mess hall was pretty much devoid of life, except for Greyson, the chef, which made sense as it was late morning and he had to start preparing food for lunch.

"what are we eating today?" Hannah looked at the cooking bowl that contained something that looked as though the reapers left it behind. Usually Greyson was talented with whatever he was provided with, whether it be alliance reg food or the marine's own food items, but today, the concoction didn't look like it would ever evolve past the point of being gross.

"Left over meat and vegetable curry. This stuff is virtually expired so we might as well put it to use." Greyson had served aboard the Orizaba for over a year, so him and Hannah got on well, and when they weren't in the presense of others,m she often let him off when he didn't call her ma'am.

"I'm certain that there's laxatives in the medbay if you fell that all is not well down there" The captain smiled at the mess sergeant, proud of her own joke, but her pride quickly vanished when Greyson all but ignored her comment. She didn't realise that he had been working his ass off to make good food with what was left, as all food was on ration (except dextro food because only quarians and turians required it to not starve). If food was close to its expiry date, it was actually between 1 and 5 days past the date, but at this current moment in time, beggers cannot be choosers so the potential risk of food poisoning was always going to be there.

Hannah eventually left the mess sergeant to his own devices, hoping that the food will look more edible when it can be served in an hour, and went to her duties on the bridge.

Standing at the bridge was not fun, basically standing up at the command center looking out at the surprisingly exhausted crew going about their monotonous duties.

Going through her messages on her private terminal passed some time, but only one caught her eye.

From: ShepardH

To: CptHShep

Hello. I thought I should let you know that I started physiotherapy and I can walk for a few steps before needing to sit down. You have a lot of explaining to do, but might as well start trying to build bridges, I guess.

Hannah instantly deleted the message. She did not want to hear from her daughter, and certainly didn't want to build bridges that shouldn't have existed in the first place. She felt disgusted knowing that her child could be so messed up as to actually like aliens, and she wished that she just dated normal boys and not some blue creature from god knows where.

Hannah wished she had decided to keep her 28 years ago, because then she would have kept a tight leash on her and made sure she never came into contact with aliens until she was old enough to understand their evil ulterior motives. She also would have emphasized the importance of liking things you can procreate naturally with via sexual reproduction. Even if homosexuals were as accepted as every other human for the most part, Hannah found the idea of same sex couples horrific, ergo she did not approve of her daughters decision.

However, she was pregnant at the time, and didn't want to have any more responsibility than she was about to get.

By the time it was late evening, the back pain hadn't relieved and Hannah dragged herself to the medbay.

"Well, I'd say you just pulled something. Rest it and it should be okay in a couple days, ma'am" The doctor said, after staring at her lower back for a good ten minutes, "Just try and take it easy from now on".

Try and take it easy? I command this zoo of a ship Hannah thought, masking her sudden mental outburst with ease. In reality, the Orizaba's crew were like any alliance crew; let them have time off and some fun, and they will be some of the nicest, most focused marine's you could ask for; restrict relaxation time and they will slowly become more and more of a nuance to deal with. Captain Shepard couldn't stand any of her crew goofing off most of the time, and she restricted shore leave to 2 crew per docking, so a lot of the time, the crew was uptight and the slightest bit of excitement would cause all hell to break loose.

Obviously, this lead to her crew having massive issues, with the number of said issues increasing when she started giving Tom special treatment simply because he was her son. His reputation wasn't wonderful, but then again neither was Hannah's.

Hannah was the youngest person to become a Commander, and held the record for being promoted to the rank in the shortest space of time, having been aged 24 when she was promoted, meaning she had only served in the Alliance for 4 years. She was often seen as aggressive and demanding. Do what she says, you'll be okay, don't and you should probably move to another galaxy. The only person who had come close to beating her record was her own daughter, who had become a Commander at age 27, after 9 years of service.

She was well aware that her attitude often put her on the 'chopping block', to the point even she wondered how she hadn't been discharged, but the results she got, both groundside and on board an Alliance Vessel, had kept her firmly planted in the Systems Alliance Navy, even if they stopped allowing her promotion after promotion. If it hadn't been for that, then she would never have been allowed to treat her crew the way she does, but she wasn't about to stop for the sake of most of her crew hating her.