Kaidan opened his messages and saw that there was a message from an unknown sender with the subject line simply saying: Elysium Shoreleave- 2176. That was the year that the Batarian's had instigated the Skyllian Blitz…and lost.

The year that Shepard had proven how much of hero she was and would become.

Without hesitating, he opened the message and realized that it was a chapter in a biography about Hope.

He couldn't resist.

She could count on one finger how many times in her four years with the Alliance when she'd been on shore leave for her birthday- and it was for her twenty-second birthday that she had been given that privilege. As it was, the location of the leave wasn't bad.

Elysium.

Shepard had seen the ads for the colony which assured that colonists lived a perfectly normal, happy life in Humanity's oldest colony. People flocked to the world every year.

While she couldn't ever see herself settling down on some colony planet out in the Skyllian Verge (or anywhere, honestly), she could appreciate it's beauty for her three days off.

"Lieutenant Shepard," a sharp voice called out.

Recognizing the voice as the captain, she snapped to attention and threw up a salute. "Sir!"

The man stepped in front of her and chuckled. "At ease, Shepard." After she lowered her salute, he handed her a pistol. At her confused expression, he explained, "Expect the unexpected- never go unarmed."

She took the pistol and examined it.

It was an Edge- manufactured by Elkoss Combine. It was light in her hands and a little more powerful than the standard pistol she kept in her arsenal- what with her preferring assault rifles and sniper rifles.

"Thank you, sir. I'll return it to you as soon as I return from leave," she assured him.

He shook his head. "Keep it- call it an early birthday present."

Shepard felt her jaw drop, but saluted the captain none-the-less and headed down to the shuttle bay with her bag and new pistol.

"What'd the captain want?" Lieutenant Jeremy Black- her boyfriend- asked.

Smirking, she hopped into the shuttle. "Told me to keep you boys under control- said he wouldn't bail any of you out of jail."

Jer chuckled and rested a hand on her hip. "You got everything?" he asked quietly in her ear.

She banged on the door to indicate they were ready to lift off. "Let's hit it! We're wasting time!"

Hope was dressed in a simple white dress that fell down past her ankles and white heels, drinking tea while the others got completely wasted at the best bar in Illyria. Jer had his arm firmly around her waist and she continuously found that his eyes kept drifting down to the cleavage that was peeking out thanks to the design of the dress.

"You wanna to count down?" Jer slurred, leaning in further.

"For what?"

He gestured to the clock and it showed that it was a minute to midnight. She shook her head. "Aw, c'mon, Hope," he murmured, the alcohol practically radiating from his breath. "We're gonna count down."

"Jer-"

"C'mon, ever'body! We're gonna sing to the beau'iful Hope Shepard!" At thirty seconds to midnight, he began. "Happy birthday to you!" he shouted out and the others joined him. It took every ounce of willpower not to blush and to not feel the urge to slink down in her chair. "Happy birthday, dear Ho-ope," the crowd all shouted. At midnight exactly, they all concluded, "Happy birthday to-"

The entire bar seemed to shake as the sky lit up outside. Without thinking, Shepard hopped off of her stool (leaving the heels behind) and ran outside. There was a ship unloading countless amounts of pirates- mostly Batarian.

She lifted her dress enough to pull her pistol from her thigh holster and then turned around to the bar. This was no longer leave- they were now on emergency call. "Lieutenants Black, Mikals, and Ridge!" she barked out. "Go building to building and get everyone to the Alliance bunker at the back of the city!" She turned her attention to the four corporals. "You four- go straight to the bunker, gathering everyone you see on the way, and contact Alliance Command. Tell them Code Red- Elysium is under attack from Batarian Pirates."

This was one of the times that she was really glad that she hadn't drank- despite it being her birthday. She was also pretty happy that the captain had given her a pistol and that she had thought to hide it under her dress.

With a sad look at the dress, she sighed and ripped it so that her legs were free. She ran to face the pirates head on. She had to give her team time to protect the civilians and she and she had to help what support she had.

She shot and killed five pirates before she found a few men hunkered down. They weren't Alliance- just standard colonial security. They gave her a strange look when she dove into cover with them.

"Sitrep," she barked out.

"Excuse me? What the hell do you think you're doing?" a guy- probably her age- demanded.

Oh.

Right.

The dress.

"Lieutenant Shepard, Alliance Navy," she informed them, leaning out of cover to take out an incoming pirate. "This wasn't quite how I planned to spend my shore leave, let me tell you." A shot pierced through her shields and grazed her shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she ducked back into cover. "So, I repeat: sitrep."

"Hell if we know! One minute we're sitting around playing cards, and the next…well…shit was on fire!" a slightly older guy explained.

Shepard thought about the situation. "Number of ships?"

"Two…that we've seen. Probably about a hundred fifty pirates so far."

"Amount of security available in Illyria?"

All four of the men that were there looked at each other. "All shifts…thirty."

Shepard tapped a few things into her omni-tool. "Okay, I need you to call them all here. We need every person who is trained to fire a gun here to help defend this point. What they're going to do is enter through there," she gestured to the place where they had all been coming through, "and try to make their way through the center of town and capture or kill anyone they see. This place is defensible if we have enough men."

As the men began to message all of the security, Shepard opened the comm to all Alliance channels. "Attention, this is Lieutenant Shepard with the SSV Agnora. I need every serviceman to report to my location- armed. Bring extra weapons and thermal clips as well as medi-gel. I want every damn thing that is in the bunker. Four officers need to stay with the civilians for their security and to keep them calm," she ordered, pulling out her best command voice. "If you see any civilians on your way to my position, direct them to the bunker. We do not need any civilians playing hero. Shepard out."

"ETA is ten minutes, Lieutenant," a voice came over the comm after a few minutes.

She gritted her teeth and took out another pirate. "Double time it!" she ordered into her comm as she narrowly missed a bullet.

She and the other men shot every pirate they could and were running low on clips when a huge group of people came into sight. She ran over to them and gestured for them to go into a side street, being handed an AR and a few clips.

"Snipers, I want posts on either side of that choke point." When they continued to stare at her, she snapped, "I want it five fucking minutes ago!"

As they scurried away, she took a deep breath. "I want biotics at every point on the field. I want you guys boosting shields for the ground soldiers and infusing biotics with ammo for the snipers. At least ten of you…I want you to create as strong of singularities as you can at that choke point.

"Techs…I need you guys anywhere you feel comfortable- overloading shields. You guys are the best at disabling defenses and we need that. I want the field to be covered in combat and defensive drones as well as turrets. Go!

"The rest of you, we are the barrier. I want you in any place you can find cover taking out every god damned pirate that you can." She opened up the comm signal again so that everyone on the colony could hear her. "We will hold this position until reinforcements arrive," she informed them. "We are what's standing between these bastards and the civilians. We will not let them push us back and we will not lose this colony. We stand together!"

She heard everyone let out a battle cry as she closed the comm. She had been surprised that she had said those things- that everyone had listened to her. Surely there had been someone higher ranking than her to take charge. Apparently it didn't matter.

She dove back into her spot and the four men gave her nods of approval. She unfolded her AR and sighted down on the choke point and was pleased to see the massive amount of singularities as well as more than a few turrets. It was a source of great pleasure when the pirates fell without anyone having to fire a shot.

The battle lasted for hours- the sun had risen and fallen by the time the pirate's began to dwindle in number. She didn't hesitate, she didn't stop…she couldn't.

She was ready to fall over from exhaustion, but she couldn't stop. She had civilians to protect and she had been the one to organize the soldiers and security (and, she was pretty sure, a few civilians).

Shepard had been forced to send her reinforcements back to the bunker- the Biotics were close to useless after using their powers for so long (and they had ran out of energy bars) and there was so little ammo left. She was determined to save everyone she could and she couldn't do that if they ran out of ammo.

"This is the SSV Agincourt," a man said from over the comm. "Who's in charge down there?"

Well…fuck it.

"This is Lieutenant Shepard with the SSV Agnora."

There was silence for a moment. "We're here to help. We've sent down ground troops and we'll be bombing the ships from orbit."

"You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, sir," she gasped as she was hit in the side. "Damn!" she cursed under her breath.

Her dress had long since lost any resemblance to the pretty white dress she had put on. Between dirt, gunpowder and oil, and blood…well…it could barely be called white anymore. Her hair had fallen from the up-do she had done and the former curls were plastered to her face and neck. Her feet were coated in the rich dirt of Elysium and she was running on fumes.

The only thing that she was truly thankful for was that she had had the pistol on her person.

If it wasn't against the rules, she might have kissed the captain…and she was still thinking pretty strongly about doing it anyway.

She turned her comm to reach the others under her command. "We have Alliance ships in orbit!" she informed them, trying not to sound like she was about to collapse.

"Do you want us to send backup to your position?" someone asked.

"Hold your positions!" she ordered over the comms. "Unless you found a magical hidden stash of ammo, stay where you are and use what ammo you have to protect the civilians. Those are your orders!"

She'd be damn if she lost a man at this point.

She worked to kill every single pirate in sight.

And, she accomplished her goal.

Shepard held her position for a good fifteen minutes after she had killed the last pirate when a group of Alliance soldiers exited a shuttle, an older gentleman in front with Hackett by his side. He surveyed the fallen pirates and looked around, trying to find those responsible.

"Lieutenant Shepard!" he barked out.

She forced herself onto her shaking legs (she had had nothing to eat- leaving what food they had for those with Biotics and the others) and stumbled forward. For the first time in as long as she could remember, her salute was not crisp and her shoulders were not straight and firm. She was never more grateful when everyone returned the salute and she was able to drop it.

"Where're your men, Hope?" Hackett asked quietly, looking around.

She wiped her hands on her tattered dress. "I sent them back to the bunker when we realized we were running low on ammo and the Biotics were flagging."

The man (who was obviously in charge) asked, "So…who helped you here?"

"No one, sir," she informed him. "I was either going to kill all of them or I was going to die trying."

"Steven," the man said after a moment, "escort the Lieutenant up to the Medbay of the Agincourt. See that she gets her wounds treated, fed, and-"

"No."

"Excuse me?"

Shepard squared her shoulders and pushed away every ounce of exhaustion and looked the Admiral (she had gathered her senses enough to realize that this was the Fleet Admiral) straight in the eye. "No. My duty is not done, sir. I need to go back to the bunker and check on the men that were under my command and assure that none of the civilians came to too much harm."

The Admiral stared at her hard for a long moment and then looked at Hackett. When Hackett gave a small, amused smile, he nodded his head.

"Then you will escort me to your charge, Lieutenant."

"Aye-aye, sir."

Hackett touched her arm gently and, without any preamble, simply said, "Happy birthday, Hope."

Shepard nodded her head once.

Well, at least is was a birthday to remember.

Kaidan stared at the end of the chapter and realized that he had a small smile on his lips.

Yeah.

She hadn't changed much.

"ETA to Eden Prime if five minutes," Joker announced ship-wide.

Kaidan nodded his head and closed the message. He was going to watch this mission- watch Hope- from the helm-vid.

Author Note: Okay, this is for Shepard's birthday today. In honor of that, instead of it magically being Hope's birthday all of a sudden, I added this about one of her past birthdays. It doesn't quite move the story forward, but…hey, that's okay.

Have no fear, a new chapter will be up tomorrow as is normal!

BTW: the dress that I used as inspiration for Shep's birthday dress can be found at pix/xiaobeili/conew_qm006-wt_.jpg if anyone is interested. I don't know if anyone will be...but...it makes me feel better to offer the choice!

:D