"All right you maggots, listen up!"

The assembled trainees were lined up in six rows of sixteen, a total of ninety-six men and women listening to the drill sergeant yelling at them.

Or, rather, at us. I was there. It was the start of the fifth week of training. After the first four weeks, which consisted of the meatgrinder first week (with an astonishing dropout rate of twenty percent that year), more physical conditioning, drilling us with the regs, weapons maintenance, and the "confidence course" (which didn't really do much for my confidence, I have to admit), we were coming to the second part of our training.

Weapons training. About damn time. Supposedly the first period had been there to make us into a team, and learn to work together. It didn't quite work like that for me. Between Mindoir, all the people who had dropped out while on my teams, and the unusually high rate of injuries, I had earned a new nickname. I wasn't Mindoir anymore. Just Jinx. That should tell you everything you need to know about how my first four weeks went.

I heard a lot about how nobody wanted to be next to me during live ammo training.

Which was fine with me. Another thing I had learned about being in the army is that it's a lot harder to become invisible. Years of practice had made me an adept at that, dropping out in plain view, deflecting conversations away when things looked like they were about to go south for me.

I was still aces at seeing when things were turning ugly. And that tingle when my pulse speeds up, that was still perfectly accurate. But whenever the freaking drill sergeant put the beams on me, there wasn't a single fucking thing I could do. Back straight, eyes up, and make damn sure my voice came loud and clear. Which, being 6'2", made me stand way too fucking much for my liking.

Meanwhile, he was still going on.

"This!" the sergeant continued, raising an assault rifle over his head with one hand. "Is the Avenger assault rifle. And it is the deadliest damn weapon in the galaxy!"

There were some chuckles around, although they were very short lived. The sour look on the sergeant's face could do wonders like that, even without a single word being said.

"The reason! This is the deadliest weapon in the galaxy. It's because it's the weapon of the MARINES!" he shouted. "And none of you maggots will leave my range until you learned how to be unstoppable with it! Do I make myself clear?"

"SIR YES SIR!" we all shouted.

And so, our weapons training started in earnest. Assault rifle, shotgun, pistol, sniper rifle. No SMG in sight (I found out later that SMGs weren't too popular due to the way heat built up with mass effect weapons, too small to have good heatsinks). As marines, we were expected to be proficient with all four of them, and if we wanted to specialize later on, then it'd depend on whatever other skill training we decided to pick up. But that would come later. First off, it was four weeks of nothing but physical, range, and hearing how worthless we were from the drill sergeant.

Good times.

As it turned out, by the end of the first week I was actually decent. Not great, not near the top, but decent. Shotgun, I was familiar enough with. The Alliance shotgun of choice for the new recruits was the Storm, and what a piece of crap it was. I couldn't say much about the others (Kessler pistol, Avenger sniper and assault rifles) because I hadn't used one of those in my life. Well, except the pistol, but that was like, three or four times, with a simple revolver at a range. But I had used shotguns, and not only during Mindoir. And back in the 21st Century the freaking shotguns I had used were more accurate than the piece of crap the Alliance had given me.

I suppose the spread is good if you can't aim for shit. Or you intend to take out a full room with a single shot.

Worse still was the sniper rifle. I just didn't have the patience for it. Everyone just laid down on the ground, propped themselves carefully, and fired a shot once every blue moon when the stars aligned and the target was just right for them to take the shot.

I couldn't be arsed.

"Jinx! What the hell do you think you're doing?" the sergeant called. Or yelled. I had gotten used to his outdoors voice by now, so it all sounded so mild and normal.

"Sir, shooting the targets sir!"

"What the hell do you expect to snipe standing up at this range?"

"Sir, I think it's close enough sir!"

"Really? HEY! ATTENTION!" he shouted, and immediately everyone stopped shooting. Weapons were raised, folded, and put away. "Recruit Jinx is going to show us how to snipe!"

The sergeant went to the terminal, and flicked a couple of menus. He looked at me and slammed the activation button.

"You have twelve mobile targets, Jinx! Take them down, and take them fast!"

"Sir yes sir!"

I unfolded the rifle again, and raised it to my shoulder. The range for the exercise was marked two to two hundred and fifty metres, and the targets were all holographic. So there was no telling where they were going to pop out, or how they were going to move. The rest of the recruits had lined up behind the sergeant, and for what I saw before I turned to the targets, they were looking at me with a general air of amusement.

No fucking pressure.

The three lights at the back of the range flashed. Red. Red. Green.

First target on the left. One bullet. Second tarted on the right. Another. Up. Up again. I can't remember everything, I was going on autopilot, both eyes open with one on the scope, and just picking targets as soon as I saw them. Counting to two between shots so that the rifle wouldn't overheat.

By the time the twelve targets were done, I was feeling like the rifle was just going to fall off my hands. Not because I was tired, but because of the pressure. I didn't really think about it, but I was sure the drill sergeant was going to chew me up real good once I failed the exercise. I fired the last bullet, lowered the rifle and, as I had been instructed to do while at the range, folded it right away.

I turned to the sergeant, and saw he was scowling. The look of amusement on the rest of the squad hadn't gone away, but it looked a little different. Like it wasn't actually all directed at me.

When I craned my neck to look, a few of the other recruits stepped aside to let me see the holoscreen. It had three scores. Accuracy rating of 71% (which was rated as a mere pass); time of 19.8 seconds. Then the rank, which was a combination of those two scores. 4.81%. As in top 4.81%.

It was probably my fault. I'm pretty sure I lost my struggle against the smug smile that made its way to my face. But I had pretty much lost it after we were done with the five mile run back to the barracks. Mostly because the squad was running on a straight line, and I was running around the squad while holding my sniper rifle above my head. Minus the ammo block, which was a good thing since the freaking blocks are pretty damn heavy.

Not because I had shown off during that exercise, or because I had smirked like an idiot. But because the subsequent long range sniping exercise had been a disaster. It turned out that the first exercise was supposed to be "combat sniping", where one's supposed to take one knee and aim that way, and I had managed to get through with a pretty good score while standing up. The second exercise was proper sniping, with targets all the way back to nine hundred metres.

Yeah, that one didn't work so well for me. My arms felt like they weighted a million pounds by the time we had arrived.

"Nice job Jinx," Chyse said, grinning at me as I dragged myself towards my bunk. She was a tall woman, buzz cut black hair, same as most of us had, with narrow brown eyes, a perky nose, and full lips on a rounded face. She was kinda cute, but she rubbed me the wrong way. She always sounded like she was trying way too hard to be just cool.

"Yeah," I deadpanned, dropping on my bed right next to my guns. The rest of the squad were already cleaning and polishing theirs, but I just didn't have the energy yet.

"I think his sarcasm detector is broken," Ramsey said. He was the one on the bunk above mine, a guy about a couple of inches shorter than me, blonde with blue eyes, a narrow and gaunt appearance, and a pretty ugly scar across his lower jaw on the left side.

He was a bit of an ass. Unlike Chyse, who sounded like she was trying too hard, he always came across as being a natural at being a jerk.

I was finally part of a stable six person unit (a whole week without anyone dropping out!). There was Elisa, a Hispanic woman with short brown hair, light tanned skin, dark eyes, thick eyebrows, and a full, oval face. She wasn't a little thing, let me tell you that. She was about five ten, and thick. In the sense that she looked like she could kick ass and take names with one arm tied to her back. Which she could, by the way. She was a goddamn Amazon.

Brod; black guy, about six feet eight inches of muscle, and very, very quiet. Not broody (see what I did there?), just... quiet. He'd drop one liners when we least expected them, but he was solid. I got along with him just fine, I could be quiet with the best of them.

Then there was Kim. She was half Chinese, though it was impossible to tell what the other half was – and she wasn't saying. Narrow slanted eyes, a pointy chin and somewhat flat nose, she too was built to kick ass. Unlike Elisa, who looked the part, her brand of asskickery was more subtle. If Elisa was a lion, Kim was a panther. She was a sight to see on the sparring mats.

Oh yeah, the sparring mats. That was something else. I was still getting my ass kicked on a regular basis by everyone in my unit, and most everyone in the others. The thing is, when it came to fighting – aside from Mindoir – the extent of my experiences was getting beat up by my siblings, both of them at first, then mostly my bigger (and fatter) brother as I got older. So I wasn't doing great there.

Surprisingly, Kim was happy to help me with that. Said the biggest problem was my mentality, but didn't really put much pressure on me. The sergeant did enough of that.

"I don't think he has one," Elisa retorted.

"Har, har," I said. I was about to lay down on the bunk when my omni-tool went off. "Crap, I gotta go."

"Calling the girlfriend again?" Elisa said, grinning widely. Chyse and Ramsey laughed at the joke, but I ignored them.

I wasn't calling any girlfriend. I was calling Shepard. Groaning inwardly, I made my way towards the comms centre. I had five minutes to make the call, so I didn't want to miss my place in line.

Bootcamp was meant to be a rather isolated training process. We were only allowed omni-tool messaging for about half an hour every day, and extranet access was pretty limited. Face to face FTL comms, however, were even worse. Once a week, we were allowed one time slot. For those with families, it was half an hour. For those of us single with no dependants, five minutes. And it meant exactly five minutes.

So every Sunday I called Shepard. Sure, we messaged pretty much every day (and by that, I mean I did; she still kept pretty quiet, although she did answer from time to time), but once a week we had a bit of a chat. I didn't think she was doing particularly well. Whenever I asked her about the family, she'd be evasive, talk about how she was still trying to adjust, and to not worry about her. That did worry me. I couldn't figure out what she was holding back.

And last week she had been specially sullen. I was reminded of her first few days after arriving in Arcturus. Quiet, evasive, but every so often she'd look at me like she wanted to say something. Yet she didn't.

I was going through all this in my head while I waited for the connection. It was taking a long time, which made me wonder whether they were at home or not. According to my omni-tool it was about ten in the morning at the other end, Eden Prime. And they knew I always called on Sunday morning.

The call was cut after several rings. I tried again. Nothing.

Crap, I'm running out of time here. Five fucking minutes, seriously!

On the third, I finally got a response. It wasn't Shepard. Instead, it was a man with curly dark brown hair, sunken eyes, and a sizeable moustache. He looked serious.

"Edgar, good morning."

"Roy," he replied. His flat voice immediately put me on edge. I couldn't quite tell why, but my gut is usually right.

"Is something wrong? Where's Lana?"

"Ah, she..." he looked away, looking uncomfortable.

I barely restrained myself from jumping. "What the hell happened?"

"She's missing. She-"

"WHAT?"

Edgar raised his hands, palms forward as if to keep me away. "She ran away. We think."

"When?" I was standing up now, leaning forward and looking down at the camera.

"Friday. She went to school, and didn't come back. Some of the kids saw her running after class, and thought she was coming home. She runs home often, so we didn't think much of it. When she didn't show up we-."

"Friday?!" I spat, interrupting him. "It's Sunday! You didn't think to tell me?"

"We-"

The call cut right in the middle of his explanation. The empty holoscreen had a 0:00 on the corner, telling me my time was up.

"SHIT!"

I bolted out of the comm room so fast I nearly ran over the guy who was waiting after me for his turn. All I could think of was that I had to get to Eden Prime as soon as possible.

In my haste, I took off in random directions twice, until I calmed down enough to figure out what to do next. I was in the middle of freaking bootcamp, so it wasn't like I could just walk off.

Well, I could. And in fact, that was exactly what I was going to do if I didn't have another choice.

Before it came to that though, I made straight for the Lieutenant's office. I was pretty sure that wasn't in the books though, but I really wasn't thinking straight. The way I knocked on the door probably made it quite clear to the Lieutenant too.

"Yes?" the Lieutenant called, his voice firm. I probably shouldn't have banged on his office's door like that.

"Lieutenant," I said, walking in and saluting.

"At ease. Is there a problem private?"

"Sir, I have an emergency. My... Shit. Shepard, she's gone missing."

"Shepard being..."

"She's one of the kids from Mindoir. I called to talk with her today, and her adoptive father told me she ran away on Friday. And... Sir," I straightened up when I realized I was rambling. The Lieutenant was giving me the eye, so I tried not to squirm and stand as upright as I could.

"Jinx, right? You're the one from Mindoir."

"Yes sir," I replied, trying not to flinch.

"So let me get this straight, Jinx. Some girl ran off from home back on Earth."

"Eden Prime, sir," I interrupted, and snapped my mouth shut when I saw the look he was given me.

"She ran away from home," he repeated, speaking in a drier voice. "You just found out. And now you're here for... what, exactly?" he paused, but he didn't look like he was waiting for an answer. "You're in the middle of bootcamp, recruit! You think you can just come and go as you please?" I felt my jaw working, but kept my mouth shut. This time I didn't feel like flinching. After a few seconds, he just shook his head. "Out of my office private, I have to make a call."

"Sir?"

He gave me a cross look, so I just snapped another salute and walked off, making sure I didn't slam the door on my way out, no matter how much I wanted to.

Goddammit!

I only realized I walking back to the barracks when I was already inside. I paced for a while, and settled for sitting down on my bed. I needed a shower, to clean my guns, and to stow away my gear, but I couldn't think straight. My right leg was bouncing on the balls of my foot, which was really uncomfortable because I had my elbows on my knees, and my hands under my chin.

"Problems in paradise, lover boy?" Chyse said.

She was in the middle of putting her sniper rifle back together, and smirking at me with obvious amusement. I didn't say anything, just looked away from her.

"Uuh, that's bad," she added.

"Shepard's run from home," I deadpanned, not looking at her.

"Damn! You really scared her off, didn't you?"

In an instant, my leg stopped bouncing, and I just fixed my eyes on her. For a moment I felt like the rest of the world had dimmed, and all I could see was her dumb face, giggling stupidly. I wondered idly whether she'd still be giggling if I bashed her face in with her own damn sniper rifle.

Some of this must have shown on my face, because she at least stopped laughing.

"Jinx!"

I was on my feet before my mind processed the conscious thought. A very special skill our beloved sergeant had, all he had to do was yell an order, and it was followed even before it had finished echoing.

"Sir!" I said. I wasn't the only one, my entire unit had jumped to their feet.

He stopped in front of me, and stared me down for a couple of seconds.

"You have new orders," he said, and handed me an OSD. "Pack your shit, your shuttle leaves within the hour."

With that, he stormed off. Everyone gave him a salute except me, I was too stunned. I stuck the OSD in my omni-tool, and dutifully, it read the data, then ate it and turned it into omni-gel. It was a transfer order indeed, I was to report to the SSV Einstein until further notice. There was a note from the Lieutenant, which read along the lines of getting out of his bootcamp until I was ready to take it seriously. No swearwords, but it read like he was giving me a hell of a dressing down. Again.

I was confused. The SSV Einstein sounded familiar as hell, but I couldn't place it at first. Then it clicked.

Without another word, I rushed to the showers, and was out and clean in less than five minutes. I went through my gear in another five – faster than regulation, mostly because I knew there was no grime to get rid of – and bolted out of the dorm with my bag over my shoulder, heading straight for the spaceport. I was only vaguely aware of the rest of my squad asking questions, but I didn't have time to answer them.

Maybe I was seeing too much into it, but sending me so suddenly to the same ship that headed out to reinforce the alliance troops during the Mindoir raid seemed a little out of place, unless they were going to help.

It wasn't until I was already in the shuttle that I stopped to think and be grateful that the Lieutenant had done this. Mostly, because it had saved me the trouble of quitting and finding my way to Eden Prime by myself. Which I was absolutely going to do.

I reviewed my orders. SSV Einstein, under the command of Aino Kishi. Huh, that made some sort of sense, I only remembered the SSV Einstein had Shepard's mother as the Captain, but only with the spacer background. I opened my omni-tool notes on Mass Effect, and checked whether I was forgetting something. Nope, I really didn't know much about the ship.

Aino Kishi. Sounds Japanese, or Korean. I wonder what he's like.

The trip was a lot shorter than I thought it'd be. The shuttle made a single jump to Arcturus, and we didn't even get to dock. It flew straight to one of the larger ships hanging around the station – a carrier.

"Well, I'll be damned. It's a carrier."

"Next stop the Einstein. Get your ass in gear, I've got a schedule," the pilot called.

Needlessly, as it turned out. I was already at the door waiting for us to dock. The shuttle entered one of the bays, and set down with nary a jolt. As soon as the ramp was down I walked off, yelling my thanks to the pilot, and was greeted at the bottom of the ramp by a familiar face. Lt. Zabaleta.

I dropped the bag and snapped a salute. "Recruit Morgan reporting for duty, sir!"

"At ease," the Lieutenant replied, returning the salute. "Grab your gear and get a bunk, you've held us up long enough."

"Sir?" I said, grabbing my bag and following the Lieutenant down the hold. The bay was quite busy, and for what little I still knew about shipside operations, I thought they were making ready for a long jump.

"We're supposed to give the crew a week's leave," he said. "Eden Prime is as good a place as any for it really."

"Thank you sir," I said.

He turned and gave me a butt-clenching look. You know, the kind of look an officer gives the new recruit before he rips him up like a brand new chewing-toy. Well, you may not know it, but it's real. Trust me.

"And until new orders, your ass is mine, recruit. I have read your report, and your scores are pathetic. You will either leave this ship as the goddamn pride of this year's crop of marines, or you'll leave through the goddamn airlock. Is that clear?"

"Sir, yes sir!" I replied.

You think he was joking? You weren't there. The way he was looking at me, I'm pretty sure he had done the numbers, and figured out whether the paperwork to explain how I ended up on the wrong side of an airlock would be worth it or not. And he looked like was leaning towards thinking it would be worth it.

We got into the lift, and the damn thing was slower than frozen molasses moving uphill in the snow. It made for an extremely uncomfortable ride. When the doors opened, he pointed me at the crew quarters.

"Drop your gear, and up to the bridge. The Captain will want to speak with you."

"Yes sir," I said.

I saluted and scampered off, straight towards the quarters. The bunks were packed in extremely tight, much tighter than down at camp, and it looked like we were hot bunking as well, with half of them already occupied. I did find one with an empty footlocker, and after packing in my armor and weapons regulation-style, I headed off towards the bridge.

The bridge itself was surprisingly large, much more than I thought it'd be, given how cramped the rest of the ship appeared to be. There were two holographic bays, one of which was displaying the map of the Galaxy, and at least a dozen different consoles all around. It was because it was a carrier, the bridge had to not only take care of the ship, but also of the hundreds of fighters that it could deploy.

Captain Kishi turned out to be a woman – would have been obvious if I had had a clue about Japanese names – and yes, looked to be Japanese. Not that I could take the accent, a couple of centuries into the future and accents had drifted quite a bit, to the point that sometimes I had trouble understanding some people.

Once the Lieutenant saw me he gestured for me to approach, which I did.

"Jinx?" the captain said.

"Yes sir!" I said, saluting. It was always weird to call female officers sir, but that's what the regs said, so that's what I did. Sometimes I slipped and said ma'am, which got me weird looks but nothing else - as long as I corrected myself, that is.

"The Lieutenant tells me you know the best spot on Eden Prime," she said. "I figured a good search and rescue exercise in friendly space will be a good way for my crew to relax."

She brought up the map of Eden Prime, which didn't do me much good, given that all I knew was the address of where Shepard was living. It turned out to be one of the smaller settlements, one of the most posh parts of the colony. The school was kind of outside, nestled next to a native forest and not far from a river.

"I suggest we start by contacting the local authorities," Zabaleta said. "Last thing they want is to have a whole detail of marines coming down without warning."

"Yes. Find out if they have made any progress with the search in the last few hours," the captain replied. "Two whole days, I can't believe it," she muttered, then continued out loud. "After that, we'll divide into sectors and start a grid pattern search."

"Yes sir," Zabaleta replied, heading off to the comms.

"And you, Jinx, off to the range. I promised Lieutenant Gordon that I'd straighten you up, and I intend to do so."

"Yes sir, the Lieutenant already made it pretty clear," I replied. For a moment I hesitated, and the captain caught my hesitation easily.

"Yes?" she prompted. Damn, she sounded like finely sharpened steel. That question had an edge.

"Sir. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but why are you willing to go through all this trouble sir?"

Kishi shook her head and looked down at the map again.

"Mindoir," she said, and somehow she managed to compress a whole explanation in a single word. "Too few of you made it, Roy. Too few."

She made a gesture for me to go with her hand, and I saluted and scampered off. On my way down the lift I had enough time to compose a message for her – and proof-read it, review it, and sing a song too; damn slow lifts. I attached the contact info of the other kids' adoptive families, together with a few pictures, and sent it to her as a non-official comm. She wouldn't see it until she was off-duty.

In the meantime, we had about twelve hours to kill, and I had a date with the range master. Seemed like my record had been the subject of much ship-wide discussion, because when I got to the range, I noticed how everyone cleared well away from me, and I was given a space in one of the cabins on the far right end. The range of the ship was laid a little different from the range back at the training camp. Because the ship wasn't that long, and they couldn't just have a range that took the entire length of the ship anyway, the whole thing was a holographic display, which interfaced with the armor's HUD.

So, it was a short range, but could work as a virtual range 1,500 yards long. It really was unnecessary for anyone to just steer clear of me anyway, the rounds were holographic too, but nonetheless the part of the range where I was assigned to cleared out in no time.

"Jinx, isn't it?" the range master said. I really should have gotten that printed on visitors' cards.

"Sir, yes sir," I replied, saluting.

"Very well. I've got your report here, and I am shocked. You can't snipe worth shit! Nevermind taking care of your gear. What the hell have you been doing since you enlisted? Jacking off in the showers?"

"Sir, no sir."

"So the instructors are shit, is that what you're saying?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"Get down! You're not leaving my range until you can snipe at six hundred yards!"

Let me tell you, ten hours on my belly, in full armor, constantly trying to keep up with stationary and mobile targets under the clock and under the constant supervision of a particularly irritable range master was not my idea of heaven. By the time the orders came to get ready for ground operations, I couldn't feel half my body.

"Leave that rifle here, recruit. You're a goddamn danger with it to everyone but the enemy," the range master ordered when I was packing up.

"Sir?"

"Are you deaf or just stupid? That sniper rifle stays in the range. If you want it back, you better pass the marksmanship test, understood?"

Well, damn.

He didn't look like he was kidding, so I really had no choice. Which made me wonder what it was going to be like going back to camp without it. I was supposed to make 21 out of 24 targets at 300, 500 and 600 yards, and I wasn't anywhere near it. I was good – and quite fast, if I say so myself – with the ones at 300, but the damn ones beyond that were too fucking small.

Regardless, I didn't think about it for long. We had arrived at Eden Prime – as it was a couple of jumps away from Arcturus – so it was time to get down to business and go look for Shepard. My thoughts kept going back over and over to the day when Jasmine killed herself, and the lost look on all the kids' faces when I arrived that day.

No, no way. Shepard's a survivor. Whatever happened, she's fine. She has to be.

I followed the herd and fell into formation as we got to the front bay. Two transports were already prepped, and Lieutenant Zabaleta was standing between them, waiting for us.

"All right everyone, listen up," he called, and immediately all noise ceased. I had to stand at the back, since the numbers didn't add up with one extra to form perfect rows. "We have a missing VIP in friendly territory, and our exercise for the day is to go and find her. You should all be receiving the info package as we speak." As if to confirm his words, a chorus of pings started shooting from everyone's omni-tools, including my own. "This here young lady is one of the survivors of the Mindoir raid," he added.

A chorus of murmurs started, and quite a few eyes turned my way. Apparently that little detail hadn't been common knowledge. Which made me wonder what, exactly, the scuttlebutt on me had been until then.

"She's been missing for two days. This is Eden Prime, it's unlikely that it's been an unknown outside force, kidnapping, or anything in between. Dead or alive, our job is to find her, and find her we will. You will all be assigned an area to search, and we will follow standard grid pattern search." He paused for effect. "Standard week of leave will start once we locate the target. Any questions?"

Someone raised a hand up front. "Chances of finding her alive, sir?"

"It's only been two days. The most dangerous things on Eden Prime are the fruit flies, so expect a live target."

I had no idea what the standard grid search was, but fortunately I didn't have to figure it out. We split into groups of six, except for me, as I was added to another group and we ended up as seven.

"Jinx?" the group leader said. He was a good two inches taller than me, buzz cut blonde hair and bushy eyebrows, a pair of dark blue eyes, straight nose and cleft chin with a strong, almost square jaw. I could see the rank mark of corporal on his uniform.

Wait, uniform. Somehow, I had been standing behind one hundred and ninety-two people, and hadn't noticed most of them were in uniform and not full armor. Go me.

"Sir," I replied, saluting.

"Corporal Hark," he said, returning the salute. "First thing first, go get changed. We're not going in full armor to Eden Prime," he added pointing at my chest. I saw a few other people making for the crew quarters, so at least I wasn't the only one that had shown up in full gear. "Kinetic barrier harness and sidearm only."

"Yes sir," I said.

"Second thing, you're going to tell us where to start the search."

That did take me by surprise. What the hell was I supposed to say?

"What?"

"You are the one who knows the target," he said. The rest of the squad – all men, as it turned out – were looking at me with quite serious faces. So yeah, it seemed like they meant it.

"Well..." I mumbled, as I opened my omni-tool. The map of the colony popped out, sitting unsympathetically on my wrist. All I knew was that Shepard had run from school, but that was a good two days ago. I could see several places where she could have gone. The forest was the obvious choice, but it left a lot of ground to cover.

Then I realized there was quite a bit of farmland on the northern edge of the forest. As good a place as any to start searching.

"We could start up here," I finally said, getting the attention of everyone around me. "I have no idea why she'd run, but I can imagine her going this way. Either the farms, or the forest there."

"Why there?"

"I... just have a feeling. That's pretty much where we ran when the batarians attacked Mindoir, the forest at the edge of her farm. I guess if she went for one of the farms someone may have spotted her, but eh, plenty of places to hide around."

"Any idea why she ran?" one of the soldiers said.

"Not a clue, no. She seemed to be having a bit of a hard time with her new adoptive family, but I didn't think it was this bad."

"So she didn't say anything?" a different soldier.

There were a lot of very interested faces around me, and it just clicked that the crew didn't actually know until now what we were up to in Eden Prime, not just that Shepard was from Mindoir. It did have the side effect of stopping the amused chuckles behind my back, except that they turned into murmurs and finger pointing involving Mindoir and all the jazz. I wasn't sure what was worse.

I wasn't actually from Mindoir to begin with, although I thought the identity was slowly starting to seep into my subconscious. Something to do with absolutely everyone treating me like I was from there, not like I had just been there.

"Not really... Or I may have missed it," I replied, thinking absently about the latest FTL calls with Shepard. I really couldn't tell if she had hinted at her wanting to run away. "Hope she hasn't snapped," I added, more to myself than anything else.

Author's Notes: And here it is, the part I ad planned to skip to before I wrote the last episode. I think the premise is a little bit of a stretch, but I wanted to stress the importance of the Mindoir raid. Of all the events we know of in-game, this is the first big one that shook the Alliance, since the first contact war that is. It was followed shorty (relatively) by the attack on Elysium, which culminated with Torfan, and the galacto-political changes between the Hegemony, the Council, and the Systems Alliance. For the people involved in the Mindoir incident, it was even worse.

On a different note, fun fact. Divergence seems to be about 33% more popular than Convergence, on most stats. It's also about 33% harder to write, because there's a lot more changes to keep track of. Yeah, they are coming. The dragons are coming! I mean, the changes are coming. And it'll take less time than the dragons took in Game of Thrones.

I spent all week in Queenstown (work-related, although it isn't a bad place to have a conference!), so I didn't have much time to write. Hence, I have skipped order again, and instead of updating 49,993, I've gone for my My Effect: buffer of writing. So here it is :)

FireyFoxPaws, Shepard's 16, and Roy's like 20 at this point.

Toothless is best, consider yourself the unofficial guest star then! :D

Guest, remember that Shepard's a badass, so she probably went through the ranks a lot faster than usual. Roy's rank, well, assuming he's still in the army by then, will probably not be as high.

But anyway, thanks everyone for all the encouraging reviews! Looking at how many people are following and reading is awesome by itself, seeing how many of you take a bit of extra time to go the extra mile is even awesomer. So many thanks!

In our next episode, things will take a definite turn. For better or worse, it is still not clear. Stay tuned!