Pre-notes: So I'm making a wiki. That sounds really weird, but then again, I made a Facebook fan page for a fanfiction... I've almost started, but I have no idea where to start. I have so many questions but not a lot of people know the answers. I guess I have to study up. That should be fun. No joke. I spent a year writing and organizing notes on three different fanfictions. Routine Mission was one of them. I'm just weird like that I guess.
Sorry for the massive delay.Welcome, ShepardisaBOSS, Relvain Jenafuse, BeSkydreamer, amac1688, Infiltrat0rN7, Aliyah-Shalom-David34.A big thank-you for the YouTube show, Game Theory, for helping me come up with ideas!
The ride to Shepard's apartment had been a short one. It was about a twenty-five minute flight from the Presidium to the Alliance's Liberty precinct down towards the center of the Telsa ward. The young woman had quickly shuffled into her house and turned on the news. It was October 22 back on Earth. It was the 136th anniversary of DWS and the Alliance News Network was going to have a special on it.
A familiar tune played through her apartment. Shepard wiped a bittersweet liquid from the corners of her mouth and flushed the toilet. She quickly washed her hands and placed a few sticks of peppermint gum in her mouth. She rushed out of the bathroom in time to see the end of ANN's opening cinematic. She sat down on her sofa and turned the volume up. A woman with long, dark brown hair and big olive-colored eyes appeared. She was dressed in a white, short-sleeve jacket and a black, long-sleeve shirt underneath. Her black slacks were form-fitting and matched her black high-heels. A necklace with the Alliance's insignia was draped around her neck. She smiled brightly at the camera.
"Welcome to the Alliance News Network. My name is Diana Allers and I would like to thank you for tuning in on tonight's special. For those of you who don't know, Human or not, today is the 136th anniversary of the most controversial event in Earth's history of war- The Day the World Shook or DWS for short. More than a century ago, the tensions between the North Korea, Russia, Afghanistan and the United States of America were at a tipping point. With North Korea still threatening the United States and terror threats from the Middle East, it would only make sense that every country involved would be jumpy at best, but did that justify the DWS? In 2047, the president of the USA, Alex McCoy, issued an immediate attack on all three countries. The United States deployed kinetic bombardment onto all three of the countries, after which, he had nuked with multiple nuclear missiles.
I want to stop for a moment and talk about kinetic bombardment. Kinetic bombardment is the act of attacking a planet's surface with an inert projectile- where the destructive force comes from the kinetic energy of the projectile impacting at very high velocities. The projectiles came in the form of a metal rod that is about three meters wide and six meters long. They made the rod out of tungsten. Back then, it was one of the densest elements discovered. But why a rod? Wouldn't a giant metal ball work? Giant cube, maybe? You see, the rod, when falling into orbit, would meet less wind resistance. These metal rods of death could reach up to ten Machs by the time they hit. It might not mean anything to you, but you need to take into account that one single mach is equivalent to the speed of sound. When one of these babies hit the ground, a catastrophic quake would wreck miles and miles of terrain. Fissures would spew up; houses would be ripped in half, people swallowed by tons of rock. After the rods destroyed cities, towns and rural areas, president McCoy ordered atomic bombs to be detonated on what was left.
All three countries were leveled and their people dead or scattered. Nothing but blackened soil was left. Even to this day, no one really knows why president McCoy committed such brutal acts of genocide. Just five days later, the White House was raided and Alex and his political entourage were murdered by a crowd of disgruntled citizens. After months of civil unrest, a new president was placed in the White House. Jenny Spriggans was the first woman and Libertarian Constitutionalist candidate elected into presidency.
That is just a summary of tonight's special. When we come back, we will go into detail about McCoy's alleged psychological rumors, the history and blueprint of the space rods and the mystery surrounding the genocide. Stay strong."
The reporter gave a wink and several advertisements popped up on the holo-screen. Shepard leaned back and closed her eyes. It was that day that the United States began its reign of the planet. With their power demonstrated and their enemies obliterated, America showed the rest of Earth their full potential. After the genocide, the USA expanded into Canada and the entirety of Southern America. Mexico at that point was a wasteland in which they moved all of their industrial plants and factories to. The economy boomed and nearly the entirety of the country turned into a utopia of giant, state-sized cities with mere miles between them. Miles of grassy, residential areas for those who could afford them. With man's expansion, wildlife was mostly herded into one of the thirteen wildlife preservations. This took more than a hundred years of course, but just thinking about how an average country could grow so rapidly was enough to make her head spin. Under the Libertarian Constitutionalist president's term, all troops returned to the States and Spriggans promised the rest of the planet that America would never again attack unless provoked. No country rose to challenge her. America's daunting rule of Earth began when they took control of the United Nations, acting as a guard dog to their ideals. Tempers flared and alliances strained under the new system but all were eventually quelled. The foreign countries began to settle back to their own ways when the USA showed no inclination of trying to change them.
Shepard grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. There wasn't really a point to watch the special every year when she was nearly able to quote it. It had been a long day and she had to be back on the Normandy first thing in the morning. She stood, walked towards her bed and stopped. She quickly turned on her heel and ran into the bathroom.
Garrus always considered himself to be a patient turian. He was raised to be polite and was taught to ignore anything that bothered him. In C-sec, he worked as a sniper. He would wait at where officers believed a gang fight would go down; ready to intervene when the time called for it. However, it seemed that his upbringing and on-the-job experience with patience meant nothing when it came to being around that engineer the commander hired to fix their dent. She had spent the last few hours walking aimlessly around the cargo bay and playing old pop songs from a Gwen woman and some girl and the diamonds. Garrus was calibrating the Mako's gun during all of it, and frankly, he had enough.
"Boogie boogie hedgehog eatin' on a carrot! Got your head stuck in a toilet paper tube! Boogie boogie hedgehog, whachu gonna do?! Boogie!"
And now she was singing. A flick of his talon and the terminal Garrus was working on closed. He straightened his clothes and took a deep breath. He walked to where he last saw the engineer but he had no luck finding her.
"Goddamit"
Garrus looked up and saw Amber on a suspended repair swing. She was rocking it back and forth and tapping away on a small... Plastic thing. A gameboy... That's what humans called it. "What?" Garrus asked. The girl didn't even look at him.
"I found a shiny. It died."
"What?"
The girl looked him dead in the eye and said "I found a shiny, man, and now it's dead!"
Garrus shook his head. This human was out if her mind. "Have you fixed the dent?" he asked.
She closed her plastic toy and put it in her pocket. She jumped and landed next to him and shrugged. "Yeah, like, five hours ago." She pointed her thumb behind her and Garrus saw... nothing. The dent was gone. "I had nothing else to do today so I decided to hang here for a while."
There was a short silence between them. "How'd you fix it so quickly?" Garrus asked.
"Chami-gel. A lot of it." Amber smiled and brushed by him. She started walking for the elevator. Garrus felt an urge to follow her. He wasn't sure why. The engineer yawned and pressed the button. "I think it's time for me to go to bed now."
Garrus stepped by her. "Do you need a ride to your place?" The girl looked at him, her face twisted in weird amusement. "Uh... That's not what I meant. I meant... It's late and... Never mind. I'll just escort you to a taxi." He wanted to kick himself. This conversation had taken a turn for the worst. He thanked the Spirits when the elevator door opened. The both of them stepped inside.
"Taxi?" She asked, giving him a puzzled look.
Garrus's mandibles twitched. "So you can go home?"
She stared at him a few seconds longer and shook her head. "Ah. No. Thank you though." The ride was awkward- for Garrus. Amber was humming and playing with her hair. The doors opened and Garrus walked out and towards the stairs. He turned and saw Amber walking the other way, to the kitchens.
"The, uh, exit is this way." The engineer didn't acknowledge him. He followed her until she stopped at the door to the commander's room. She opened it and waved at him. "I don't think Shepard would be too happy about you spending the night in her room."
Amber stepped inside and smiled. "Nah, I don't think she'll mind." The door closed. The girl yelled something from behind it. "Goodnight, mothafucka!"
A light tug pulled at Shepard's foot and quickly disappeared. She stuck her leg out again and felt the gravity around her foot change. She pulled it back in and sighed, taking a long drink of her water bottle. It was five in the morning and she waited at the Normandy's dock, kicking her leg out between the bars of the side rails. The Citadel's artificial gravity had no presence in open space. It was a safety precaution that would, if a flight craft fell from its dock, let the ship gravitate out into space where it would be quickly recovered by engineering teams rather than falling down and smashing into other ships.
Shepard was waiting for the rest of her team to show up. They were late, as she expected them to be. Some would walk by her with a bounce in their steps and some would gingerly limp past her with their hands holding their skulls. Her seven squad mates were all on board and Officer Lynn had since left, noticeably more calm than the day before. She was now just waiting for Anderson to see her off.
Feros was their next stop. It was reportedly overrun with Geth forces and a pale Turian was seen with them. It was undoubtedly Saren. Saren... Shepard sighed. She tried not to think too much about it, but she kept trying to figure out why Geth joined his cause. Saren promised the return of the 'Reapers', a long-forgotten race of aliens that wiped out the Protheans before disappearing themselves. There was no way any Reaper could have survived fifty-thousand years in hiding, but synthetics like the Geth wouldn't follow an organic if something he promised was impossible. Even then, why would they have even listened? Wouldn't they have killed him before he had a chance to speak? Something about it rubbed her the wrong way but she decided not to dwell on it. She would go in with her team, surround Saren and force him to surrender. He'd go through Citadel and Alliance courts before being executed or sent to prison. It was just another job and he was just another mercenary she had to fight, right? Of course... But why did she feel like this then?
"Commander," came a voice she knew well. Anderson stood beside her and leaned on the rail.
"Sir," she started.
"Formalities, kid, drop them." He laughed and shook her hand. "I just wanted to stop by and see that your head was on right. How are you?"
"Just fighting an army of synthetics," she said, "other than that, I'm fine."
"And the little one?"
Shepard placed her hand on her abdomen. "She kicks now. She stays still during gunfights- which, thank you for putting me on a mission during my maternity leave."
Anderson pulled at his collar and looked away. "Trust me, son, if I would've known the shakedown would have ended up with you chasing Saren across the galaxy..."
Shepard nodded and looked back at the Normandy. "Thank you, sir." Anderson sighed and joined her.
"Look out for him- Saren. He's a ruthless sonova bitch."
"You know him?"
"About... Uh.. Twenty years ago? Back when I was a Spectre candidate. I'll spare you the details, but an Alliance facility was attacked and a young woman escaped just before guns started shooting. I was assigned under Saren to find her. We did and it turned out that she was innocent. When we found out she was good, she was kidnapped by the Blue Suns. Saren and I went to their base and got her out. We escaped the base but Saren stayed behind and finished every last mercenary. After that, he blew up the factory and let hundreds of civilians die in the fire." Shepard turned and saw him. He seemed to be lost in thought.
"And the woman? What happened to her?"
Anderson was quiet for a moment. "She's the director at Grissom Academy." He met her stare and shook his head. "I'm telling you this because Saren might pull a stunt like this with you. Feros holds a few hundred human colonists and I want you to know what he'll do to get his way. You're a Spectre now and you're free to handle situations by yourself... I just hope you'll take the right path if something like that ever happens."
"I'll do what I can."
There was a moment of silence between them. It was broken when Anderson cleared his throat and pointed at the Commander's stomach. "I think you said 'she' earlier. You're having a girl?"
"Sorry to disappoint," she said with a dry laugh.
"Not disappointed, no. Do you know what to call her?"
"Hope." Shepard patted her stomach. Behind Anderson, she saw the last of her crewmates enter the ship. She waved for him to follow and walked to the boarding tunnel.
"Hope," Anderson mused. "I like it. I've taken too much of your time." He shook her hand again, "And Shepard?" The man didn't let go of her hand. "Stay safe out there and don't do anything stupid. For you and Hope. Can you give an old soldier a promise like that?" Shepard nodded. "Good." He let go of her hand and turned to leave. "I can't wait to spoil that kid. Good luck, Shepard."
That day, Benezia's eyes seemed more active, lively. Saren saw it when she entered. She had told him that her daughter, Liara T'soni, was now on the Normandy with Shepard and her little group. He should've been mad. He should've given the asari another beating, but he couldn't. They had lost the prothean expert, they had lost a sizable amount of geth and artillery, it was true, but he found himself more interested in the Matriarch's weird behavior. He had thought her mind was gone- nothing but a still, stiff husk. But there she was; eyes moving around the room, no rigid posture just... a look of fear. "And what do you feel knowing she's joined the enemy?" Saren asked. She didn't respond. "How do you feel knowing that one of our geth might put a bullet through her skull?" He heard a breath hitch in his disciple. "Does she deserve to die?"
"..Yes," she said.
"Do you want her dead?"
"No."
"You don't." He laid back in his chair. "Why is that? You let me give that thing one of your commandos. Why is your daughter more important to you? Answer me."
Benezia did not respond.
"Because you love her. Do you think the geth will avoid blowing her brains out on the battlefield because she's your daughter?"
"No."
Saren stood and grabbed the asari by the shoulders. "We could get your daughter off the Normandy. She doesn't have to die." He rubbed his thumbs over her shoulders. "Shepard needs to die. Then you will have your daughter, Benezia. A human's life for Liara's."
The Matriarch nodded weakly. "I will get an assassin. The Commander will die. There's a drell that-"
"No," he said, squeezing her shoulders, "Send one of your commandos." He let go and the asari strode out the door. In less than a second, she was gone. He sat back down and turned his omni-tool on. They still needed to find the Mu relay.