N7: Hard Choices
Mass Effect In which Anderson meets Shepard for the first time. Follow-up to this story, and tangential to this one.
Only an N7 could make a formal recommendation to induct trainees to the Interplantary Combatives Training program.
That rule was established early on to keep the prestigious but difficult program lean. And, as one of the more prominent of the ICT’s alumni, Anderson was used to having favors called in to evaluate promising candidates.
Most potential candidates were more than happy to talk to him, eager to impress for that letter of recommendation that could earn them the respect of their peers. Most left disappointed, though. It took more than bravado in a scrap or two to make it into ICT, let alone all the way to N7, as he damn well knew. It took something else, something more, and most of the candidates he interviewed just didn’t have it.
Few, though, were as hard to read as the stone wall that was Lieutenant Shepard.
She stood across from him on the other side of his borrowed desk, tall and stiff with her shoulders locked up tight. Rough looking, as could be expected for someone who’d survived a meat grinder like Akuze. White bandages peeked out from under her uniform up the side of her neck, hiding the acid-ravaged skin beneath. Her left leg was locked in by a sturdy brace that seemed to be all that kept it attached to her body for all the attention she paid to it. The medical report he’d skimmed had been pretty clear on how close she’d come to losing it. But beneath the bandages, beneath the uniform was something that had caught General Ivanova’s notice. Something worth the time to come out to Arcturus to talk to her.
Fifty-one marines had landed on Akuze. Only one made it out. That alone was probably enough for Ivanova. Hell, it might even have been enough for him. But there was something more to it that he hadn't quite put his finger on.
“Your leg. I understand it was a result of friendly fire?” He asked, taking a shot at another target to see what he could hit, to see what was beneath the stone wall. None of his attempts so far had been successful. Neither the small talk nor the rundown of the incident on Akuze had gotten much out of her.
“Yes, sir,” she replied rotely. God, but she was young. Twenty-three years old, according to her file, but the eyes that looked past him, off to the side, anywhere but right at him looked so much older.
“Tell me how that happened.” He pressed his fingers together and sat back in his chair, listening to her give the same explanation he’d read in the formal report, the same story he’d heard in the inquiry board’s recordings with the exact same clinical tone of voice. Corporal Fern Kinley had panicked and fired her weapon wildly, hitting just about everything except the thresher maw and including three of her fellow marines. He held up his hand to stop her halfway through the recitation.
“Corporal Kinley was not field certified with assault rifles. How did she get her hands on one?” Again, knowing the answer but wanting to gauge her reaction. And again, met with the same detached indifference.
“Captain Nakamura was already dead. I made the call to open the weapon locker. I didn’t know Kinley wasn’t certified, sir. I take responsibility for what happened.”
Anderson held up his hand again. “I’m not here to assign blame, Lieutenant. The inquiry board already closed the matter, in any case, and concluded that Kinley shouldn’t have taken a weapon she wasn’t qualified for.”
“Then why am I here, sir?” She asked. Again, she kept looking past him and avoiding his eye. Like she expected some sort of punishment. Instinct whispered to him that it had little to do with Corporal Kinley, either. Not when the board had already ruled on the subject.
“Tell me about Sergeant Luo,” he said, changing the subject and keeping his tone casual but a sharp eye on her face. There might have been a small hesitation, maybe a little wince, but it was too subtle to really tease out.
“Luo and I were the only ones to make it out of the camp, but she was too injured to make it to the landing zone,” she said in that same flat affect.
“I’m sorry. I understand the two of you were close.” When her eyes flicked up in surprise, the first real reaction he'd gotten out of her, he added, “You were listed as her next of kin in her file.”
“She…we met at basic. I thought she was joking when she said…when she put me as her next of kin. She didn’t really have a family, though, so I guess….” Shepard trailed off, and there was just the slightest quaver in her voice, the smallest crack. So he pressed.
“The official report on Akuze states she was found halfway to the LZ. Looked like she’d been dragged most of the way there. God knows with her injuries she couldn’t have walked that far on her own,” he said.
"No, sir."
“The thresher maw might’ve killed her, but that wasn’t how she died.” It wasn't a question, but neither was it anything he’d read in any of the reports on Akuze.
“Sir,” was all Shepard said. And those eyes that had seemed so cold, so lifeless before now shone with all the truths she’d held back from the board. Her shoulders fell and for the first time she looked him in the eye.
A quiet understanding passed between them.
And there it was. The missing piece he’d been looking for.
“That was a hard choice you made, child,” he said softly. “I won’t tell you it was the wrong one. I wasn’t there." He pulled a datapad from the desk and slid it across to her. "But there’s a place in the Alliance for people who can make those kinds of hard choices.”
Shepard’s eyes now followed the datapad and narrowed at the red-and-black emblem displayed on it.
“What are you saying, sir?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper. The understanding they'd shared had drained the stiffness from her, and now it seemed like the leg brace was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Times like these make or break an officer, Shepard. What I’m offering you isn’t easy, but it might well make you. If, that is, you’re up to the challenge,” he said, getting up from his chair and straightening his uniform. “I understand you’re still on medical leave, Lieutenant. Rest up while you can, get that leg better. And when you’re fit for active duty again…come see me.”
He left her there, staring down at the datapad in silence, and wondered if he’d hear from her again.
He sure as hell hoped he would.
