Chapter Text
Shepard raised a brow but then she noticed how silent the bustling people around had become. Lo and behold there was indeed this strange noise in the air. Distant, getting louder, closer with each passing second. Something whizzing through the air, burning, she could smell it from here. Looking around, she saw that others surrounding them had also heard it, eyes searching the sky for its source. She joined the search, spotting something crashing through the atmosphere, something big. Shepard pointed for her companion to see.
“Holy shit…” Others joined her gaze, some covering their mouth to shield their gasps.
Surrounded by a red haze, and getting brighter by the second, Shepard only had seconds to try and identify the object. It was like an elongated triangle in shape with edges that jut out harshly. That was something most ships in the Alliance had in common. Any paint that was on it was long burnt out by now, but she knew exactly what it was. Determining its size was the next step to identify, but that would never be done.
With eyes of seemingly the entire city glued to it, just faster than a second, it became a flash of light. With an explosion like that, whatever type of ship it was wouldn't matter any longer. Not a soul dared to utter a single sound, almost as if they all knew what was coming. Now they had five seconds.
One
Sirens began blaring from every direction, glowing red alerts appeared on every omnitool, datapad, and every hologram on the sides of the towering skyscrapers.
Two
Shepard spun around, eyes frantically taking in the surrounding people, noting how the crowd on the sidewalk persisted of primarily citizens, non-alliance personnel.
Three
“GET DOWN”
Shepard never knew she could yell that loud. If anything it was more of a scream.
Four
Most of them began to duck down, others still very frozen in place. Shepard dove down, taking two others with her. Facing away from the flash she covered her ears and closed her eyes.
Five
Through her closed eyes she saw flecks of ash flying through the air.
That's when it all came down.
The white hospital door swung wide open, and in came a tall man with dark skin. He was older, with a good amount of muscle in him that kept him looking as frail as his age might suggest. Shepard nearly thought it could’ve been someone’s grandpa, and not that it was impossible, but the man came in with his Alliance Blues. Numerous medals were proudly displayed just over his heart, some even Shepard had recognized. Matching face to medals, she almost felt embarrassed.
“Captain Anders-...” She tried to sit up as she acknowledged him, hand instinctively going up to salute, but even that slight action made her arm sting with pain, cutting off the small phrase.
“At ease, Lance Corporal, especially after what you’ve been through… Is this a bad time to be meeting you?” Shepard shook her head and relaxed back further into the hospital bed, “ How are you holding up?”
Shepard couldn’t help but just stare back down at her bandages and the casts on the left side of her body. Her mind wanders back to when she finally let herself be admitted into one of the pop-up field hospitals in the city after the alliance forces came in full. Barely able to stand, having to use her sniper rifle as a crutch, it was a wonder to the medics as to why she didn’t drop dead right then and there.
“Have you ever pumped so much medi-gel into you that you go colorblind Captain?”
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
“A blast threw me across a street, hit my armor in a weird way when I landed back on the ground.” By her wrist she weakly gestured to her torso then her legs. “Broke two ribs and something in my leg fractured bad, but it also broke the medi-gel dispensing unit… And my reserves injected all at once.”
There was a ringing in her ears as her body flung violently to the ground. The very second she hit the ground she thought it would all just end right then and there, but her vision remained bright and clear. A noise made it past the ringing, something cracked loud. Pain erupted from the left side of her torso and legs. Intensely enough that she couldn’t even scream. As she rolled to facedown, bits and pieces of her armor fell off and she started seeing red. Hot thick blood, starting to drip from where it broke open.
If she didn’t die on that impact she was sure she would die now, as color faded from her vision and her body went numb. Shepard couldn't even tell if she was breathing anymore. It was just barely now that she could hear the battle happening dozens meters ahead. It was muffled now as the ringing got louder and louder. But death didn't come, not yet.
She put her arms beneath herself and started to lift her body from the ground, surprised that her arms barely shook. The sniper rifle she’d been using was just an arms reach away. Perhaps there was still some fight left in her.
“My usual equipment doesn’t have a dispenser… And after that little stunt, I kept going, barely walking the line of an overdose for hours. So feel free to assume what you will because whatever you think of, it’ll most likely be more accurate than not.” For a moment she worried it sounded a little too sarcastic or cold. Embarrassment returned in waves, this man is a war hero-
The captain just stood and chuckled for a good moment. She nodded his way when he pointed to a nearby chair and asked if he could sit. He pulled it along closer to her and sat himself down, slouching a little bit just to make sure he was at eye level with her.
“Are you aware that for a condition like the one you’re in now, you can wait to file your report until after you’ve recovered?” His voice felt like one of those old photos of log cabins back on earth.
“I am, I just-” for a moment she’s brought back to that night several days ago, the very first night she was actually transferred to a real hospital in Illyria. Unable to even get her fingers to stop shaking enough to type on the datapad provided by the hospital, she spoke each and every word of her report to be recorded. It took far too long, especially with the proofreading, by the time she was finished the blue sun was rising over the horizon. Turns out that the speech to text programs she relied on struggled deciphering the croaking and crying mess Shepard had become that night. But to rest felt wrong, almost disrespectful- “If I had waited to write it I was worried that I may have misremembered…” He eyed her for a moment before leaning forward.
“I read it, and from what we can tell as this all becomes a little clearer, there's a lot of people in Illyria who owe their lives to you.” The Captain nodded alongside his words, “I have to apologize for your shore leave getting cut so short.”
“Looks like I’ve got an extended vacation anyway, there’s no way I’ll step foot back on the Marathon anytime soon…”
Shepard pushed through a panicked crowd as she made her way back to the city’s central docking bay. Sounds of the ensuing battle piercing the air as blasts and beams of plasma could barely be seen high in the atmosphere. There were no orders, no alerts came through to her directly on her omnitool, perhaps it would be best if she were to follow the crowd. However, she was dead set on getting back, if there was even a chance she was called to the battle, she’d make sure she was ready.
She could finally see it coming into view as she got closer, and although she was still a good ways away there it was, the SSV Marathon sitting almost peacefully in the docking bay. Something, a man, crashed directly into her, finally stopping her in her pace. Just then a piece of red hot debris, something too big to be burnt away by the atmosphere, shot through the sky and right down to the docking bay. Landing directly to the rear starboard thrusters in a ball of fire.
Through every vertebrae of her spin she felt it, a stinging cold that knocked out all the wind from her lungs.
“She’s confined to the port indefinitely until the bay itself can be cleared and repaired, then they’ll get to work on her…” She looked right into the Captain’s stern eyes, piecing together that his gaze landed right back on her face, to her scar. “Sir, no offense, but I assume you’re not just here to say sorry and thanks on behalf of the Alliance to me.”
“You assume correctly, Shepard. I don’t know how much you’ve heard from outside, but for what it's worth you’ve been hailed as a hero across each and every corner of Alliance controlled space-” Hero , she almost laughed aloud. To think that it only took six years to get there, two of those years being spent in the pits of a ship's reactor core, and yet, laying in a hospital bed, hooked up to several machines, battered and broken, with everything she’d seen, it was hard to feel much like it. In truth, she felt just so small more than anything else. “With all this attention, Brass asked that I look into you.”
“And…?”
“I believe you’d be a perfect fit for the Interplanetary Combatives Training.”
The room hung silent for a moment. This was something people could only ever dream of, for an instant she imagined herself donned in the full getup. Sleek black armor with the white and red stripe, that N7 insignia displayed over her chestplate and with the adorning helmet, she looked impenetrable, intimidating. Even imagining the helmet off, what she saw of herself, with her scars and messy short hair, those vibes only heightened. The image faded from her mind as she became very suddenly aware of the pain pooling back into her body. The painkillers must’ve begun to wear. Her eyes became glued to her IV bag, face sagging into a grimace.
“Are you sure you aren’t reconsidering that after seeing the state I’m in?”
“We've had marines recover from much worse.” He attempted to come across reassuring but it was more matter of fact if anything. “Shepard, a recommendation for ICT doesn’t come lightly.”
“I’m aware sir…” She picked up her breathing, clenching her muscles and jaw, hoping it would help with the pain. “Forgive me, it’s just difficult to see how I could qualify so young. I spent two years of my military career in engineering-”
“When the chain of command fell apart on Elysium you single handedly led the defense. You could’ve hid with civilians or booked it out of Illyria in a skycar, and you didn’t. Instead what you did was prevent another goddamn
Mindoir
.” She finally turned to face him, being able to see his face had become a little softer as he continued. “I don’t say that lightly, especially not to you.” His eyes shot to the scar once again before he slowly began to get out of his seat. “The Alliance needs people like you at their very best, I think ICT will help bring you there. As always, the decision to follow through on this is yours, LC.” The Captain straightens himself out and salutes her, she doesn’t even try to return the gesture this time. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Shepard. My best wishes for your recovery.” And with that he turned and left.