Chapter Text
“Shepard.”
Shepard forced herself to keep her breathing even as the turian stared her down, some unconscious part of her brain telling her she needed more oxygen. His voice seemed to ripple threateningly over her name. His gaze was impassive as he took her measure, calmly sweeping once down the full length of her body and back up to meet her eyes. His white clan markings nearly covered the dark brown of his faceplates, giving her the eerie impression that his green eyes were looking at her through a ghostly mask.
It didn’t matter that humanity had been a part of galactic civilization for almost her entire life; there was still some instinctive part of her subconscious screaming at her that he was an alien predator. She wanted to shiver under his piercing gaze, but she’d asked for this kind of assessment.
“You are going to put your best efforts forward over the next twelve weeks. Isn’t that correct, Cadet Shepard?”
The turian commander’s voice was as measured and cool as his eyes, but he obviously expected problems from her if he was even asking that question. Shepard nodded sharply; he’d soon see what Cadet Shepard was capable of. “Sir, yes, sir,” she snapped out.
“At ease, Cadet. We aren’t the Alliance Marines here.” He casually scooped a datapad off the desk in front of him and tapped it, perusing its contents. She dopped into a crisp parade rest, her hands precisely interlocked behind her back with elbows out at matching angles.
He shook his head as he read, then spoke aloud. “Born on Earth and spent time at a private academy in space before enlisting at 18. Do you come from money, Shepard? You’ll get no preferential treatment here, if that’s how you’ve advanced through the Alliance ranks so quickly.”
She stiffened at the implied insult to her hard work. “No, sir,” she said through bared teeth. “I never knew my parents; I was a ward of the state. Charity sent me to Grissom Academy, although it wasn’t in space yet. They only moved to the station this year.”
“Hmm,” he said noncommittally, tapping a few things on the datapad. “High marks in mobile marksmanship, hand-to-hand, and urban combat during basic training. ‘A gifted natural leader, negotiator, and problem-solver with unparalleled biotic ability; as such, she will seize the lead when leadership over her is weak,’ was your drill instructor’s assessment. Also, she highly recommended you for a commissioning track as early as possible.”
Shepard felt her eyes widen in surprise; she hadn’t ever seen that in her personnel files. But, then again, she supposed her own personnel assessments wouldn’t be readily available to her. She’d always thought that all of her DIs had hated her. She knew exactly which one had to have written that, and Gunnery Chief Kimani had made it abundantly clear that she loathed Shepard’s mere existence during basic. The tiny woman hailed from somewhere on the continent of Africa and had enjoyed making Shepard turn off her translator so she could cuss Shepard out in her native language while smoking the absolute dog shit out of her. Proving her wrong had been Shepard’s driving force for not quitting at some of her lowest points.
“I quote, ‘Demand the best and she will produce it every time. Keeping her enlisted would be a disservice to the Corps. If we can keep her from dying in a blaze of glory, she’ll be a general to reckon with one day.’” The turian raised his eyes from the datapad to look her in the eyes. “Well, future general or not, Cadet, you have been temporarily placed under my command. I am Captain Kryik, and I expect you to follow my orders the same as any turian officer candidate. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, not relaxing her posture, even though she felt shaken to her core. They thought that well of her? They thought she’d make general? She was a street rat that had clawed her way out of the dirty underbelly of Vancouver; generals didn’t come from places like that.
“I see that you have received the non-standard genetic enhancement to withstand the radiation on our planet. That must have cost the Alliance quite a few credits Good. I don’t have time to coddle you through radiation sickness, and I doubt you’d want to stay in your armor for twelve weeks straight.”
“No, sir,” she said automatically. She hadn’t realized the anti-rad treatment was such an expensive one. She hadn’t even known it was possible until she’d been accepted into this program.
She’d lost a precious weekend of studying to be escorted by a no-nonsense staff lieutenant from Tokyo to London. She hadn’t even gotten to see the city, just a nondescript building that held rooms of medical equipment. That included a gene therapy booth that she went into willingly enough. It had been much fancier than the one in which she’d received her basic Marine enhancements. At least the staff lieutenant had been willing to drill her on math equations while she sweated out her hours in the booth.
By the end of the treatment, she was mostly inured to the level of radiation that Palaven’s weak magnetic field would let through. She wouldn’t be able to tolerate it the way a turian did, but it would be enough for her to last twelve weeks without radiation burns and a heightened risk of cancer. It would also last for her entire life, and she’d learned early to take anything that someone was willing to give her and sort out its value later.
“Hmm, you were also screened for dextro-amino acid intolerance and cleared. I doubt you’ll find our food to your palate – nor would you derive any nutrition from it – but that’s military rations for you. You’ll be provided with either levo-amino acid rations or a levo nutritional supplement for the duration of your stay. Still, that was a good precaution in the event of any accidental ingestion. It wouldn’t kill you, but if you have any level of intolerance, it wouldn’t be a pleasant day.”
Captain Kryik studied her silently for another moment before continuing. “Welcome to Reception, Cadet Shepard. Over the next twelve weeks, you will be assessed for your potential to serve as a turian officer. Yes, despite the fact that you are a human Alliance officer candidate, you will still be assessed by turian standards. We have a 40% attrition rate, and you will be forbidden from using your biotics, so I don’t expect you to go far. In my experience, biotics rely on their abilities far too much. Take them away on the battlefield, and they’re not worth even the price of their armor.”
Her nostrils flaring was her only response. We’ll see about that, she thought savagely. She hadn’t used her biotics until she was eighteen and she’d survived far rougher things than the turians could do to her.
“In the event you are disqualified without completing Reception, you will be returned to the Alliance Naval Academy early. In the highly unlikely event that you complete Reception, you will still be returned to the Alliance Naval Academy, though I will personally write a glowing commendation for you.” The ridges on his face above his eyes shifted upwards. It was so reminiscent of a human raising their eyebrow in skepticism that Shepard took it as such.
“All officer candidates are paired into teams for Reception phase. Your grades will be identical, though your written assessments of potential will differ. I will take you to meet your partner now. You must work together as partners; you will not be able to complete the majority of the training events without each other’s help.”
Captain Kryik moved from behind his desk and towards the door. Shepard automatically snapped to attention to fall out and positioned herself on his left. He stopped and looked at her. “Did you not prepare for this?”
“I’m sorry, sir?” Shepard asked, temporarily bewildered.
“Did you read none of our military regulations? It is military courtesy to follow behind your superior, not walk next to like an equal.”
“Oh,” Shepard said, internally cringing at her mistake. “No, nothing was provided to me. When I requested it from the library at the academy, they had nothing except very unhelpful analyses from the First Contact War. There was nothing available on the extranet either. I apologize, sir; in the Alliance, we walk to the senior person’s left.”
For a moment, she thought Captain Kryik looked upset with how hard his mandibles snapped against his jaw. Being a turian, he was a little hard for her to read. “You should have been provided at least a brief. I will see to it that some appropriate reading material is delivered to you.”
She didn’t make her mistake again as he exited the room, trailing behind him as was apparently proper. The training base was practically bustling with activity, and more than a few turians cast her a lingering glance. She decided to interpret those as curious and not hostile. Her spot in the officer training course had been an open invitation from the turian military, after all, though it hadn’t been that many years since humans and turians were fighting a war against each other.
The corridors Captain Kryik led her down were all sharp angles and straight lines. It was comfortably familiar and reminded her of an Alliance military building. Some things must be universal across militaries, no matter what their species. An underlying tang of cleaning products tickled at her nose as they passed a junior enlisted turian scrubbing the floor with sponges. Kryik stopped and chuckled, his flanging voice making the sound deeper.
“Enjoying the harvest of your prank, Corporal Hyrinnus?” he asked. The turian looked up from his labor and shot to his feet to stand at attention.
“Yes, sir!” he said. He was the most cheerful sounding turian Shepard had ever heard, and she studied him covertly. He had buff brown plates with tan skin, and his face was painted with nearly the same twinning white lines as Captain Kryik’s. There was something about his face plates that seemed more relaxed and open than most of the other turians she’d ever met.
“Get back to it, then,” Kryik said, gesturing back to his abandoned sponge.
“Yes, sir!” he repeated just as cheerfully as he dropped back down. Shepard followed him as he resumed their walk down the hallway, determined not to ask despite her surging curiosity. Fortunately, Kryik tossed an explanation to her over his shoulder as they walked.
“He’s a yeoman for one of my company commanders. He rigged some very inappropriate audio to play while the lieutenant and I were having our monthly feedback session. Made it sound like Lieutenant Meritus was browsing Fornax while we were in his office. Cleaning floors was apparently worth the prank.”
Shepard almost stumbled in her stride at the utter normalcy of it. That could have been a prank pulled in any Alliance Marine unit. Maybe turians didn’t have such a stick up their asses as their reputation claimed.
“Hyrinnus was fortunate it was with me,” Kryik continued. “Most of my fellow officers take a dim view of those sorts of things. I found it humorous, otherwise Meritus would probably have found a way to boot him from the service. I know him from the small colony my mother moved us to after my father died, and his mother is an acquaintance of hers. She would be quite displeased with me if that happened.”
Oh, maybe they did deserve their reputation then.
“My situation growing up was quite atypical for a turian, however, and I don’t hold many conventional turian views. I should warn you: your assigned partner was born on Palaven and was raised by one of the strictest traditionalists I’ve ever met. Some of that rubbed off on him, though he’s very fair-minded. His mother’s influence, I’m sure. But part of the Reception phase is to see how you can get along with your partner, even if you don’t agree with them on things. I expect you’ll work it out.”
That didn’t sound good. Palaven was the turian homeworld, and they held extensive colonies in a sprawling empire. Galactic societies tended towards social conservatism towards their core. How would her partner feel about humans? What was Shepard walking herself into? Kryik’s honest openness was a little unnerving, given all the preparatory caution her liaison officer had instilled in her. Most of it boiled down to “keep your mouth shut unless they speak first, don’t get an attitude, and remember they value service and discipline above everything else.”
She wasn’t sure Kryik’s comment warranted opening her mouth, but she offered a simple, “Yes, sir,” still trailing behind him. He merely hummed briefly in response.
They continued down the corridors until they reached a large set of double doors that slid aside for them. He halted at their threshold and turned to gesture her up beside him, then held out his hand to her with his palm up.
“This is the demarcation line for the training grounds. Except for time spent in the field, you will train, eat, sleep, and exist within these confines for the next twelve weeks. Hand over your biotic amp, please.”
Shepard’s hand flew instinctively to protectively cover her L3 port at the base of her skull. She could feel how wide her eyes were at the suggestion. She expected Kryik to be upset, but he just chuckled a dual-toned laugh.
“You will receive it back in ten weeks for the Forge,” he reassured, as if that meant anything at all to her.
“What’s the Forge?” she asked suspiciously.
“The final two weeks is an extended field exercise. If you make it that far, you will be allowed to fully deploy your biotics then.”
She almost unconsciously caressed the familiar shape of her L3 port but made no move to eject her amp. She hadn’t gone without an amp in so long that it felt like a part of her. The Alliance had footed the bill for her implant when she was sixteen and shipping off to Grissom. She still wasn’t sure how the recruiting officer had pulled that one off, but he had. He had seemed like the resourceful type, so she wasn’t that surprised. He’d also procured the basic amp that kept her biotics in check until she was ready to learn how to use them. No longer causing things to randomly fly across the room had greatly improved her social life once she’d gotten to Grissom, not that Mercy had let her have much of one before.
She’d been issued the Solaris I amp on her first day at basic training and made it through both basic and Vanguard training with it. The level II amp had been issued upon graduation from Vanguard training and had quickly become one of her favorite battlefield tools. Her current level III amp had been issued to her on her first day at the Naval Academy, and she’d gotten used to its increased power over the last nine months. She was about to walk into the proverbial lion’s den, and she couldn’t imagine not having her biotics.
“Relax, Cadet,” Kryik ordered, “even officer candidates from our biotic Cabal units are required to give up their amps for this phase of officer assessment.”
“It’s proprietary Aldrin Labs technology,” Shepard said, desperately casting about for an excuse.
Kryik flexed his hand and his mandibles pressed against his jaw. “I vow it will not be examined by anyone. If you refuse to hand it over, you will be washed out immediately.”
Even with that threat, she still hesitated. He heaved something very close to a sigh and dropped his hand to his pocket to pull out a small case. He popped it open with a surprisingly delicate flick of one large finger and held it out. “I anticipated this might be an issue, and I don’t want you to fail before you even have a chance to start. Biometric lockbox configured for humans. Place your amp inside and key it with your finger. It will register your fingerprint and DNA. No one but you will be able to open it without damaging its contents. If it is returned damaged, I will see to it that we pay for a new one.”
Shit. If she refused this, she’d be kicked out immediately. Then the turians could all have a good laugh about how humans couldn’t handle anything, and no one would ever get this opportunity again. For humanity, then, she thought bitterly.
She squeezed the amp release mechanism with her fingers and pulled the it out of her port. She sighed in dissatisfaction as the warm thrum of the biotic energy seeding her nervous system lost its focus. She hated taking her amp out. Kryik held out the lockbox to her and she took it gingerly, careful not to touch his fingers. That had been part of her limited brief from her liaison: touching hands was an intimate act between close friends and family, so make every effort not to even brush up against anyone, even when sparring. Personally, Shepard wasn’t sure how she’d avoid that last part, but she’d do her best.
She gently put her amp into the padded box and closed the lid, then pressed her finger on the sensor. She watched the light cycle from green to red and a small holographic display appeared over the lock. To her surprise, it projected her name in Earth Standard.
“There,” Kryik said with a nod as she handed the box to him. “If it will assuage your fears, I also vow to keep it with me until I hand it back to you.”
Shepard took a deep breath; that would hardly help quell her fear of wading into a platoon of turians without her biotics, but it was a nice gesture on his part if he was sincere. He tucked it away into one of the small pouches attached to the armor on his upper arm. “Thank you, sir.”
Kryik’s mandibles flared as he looked down at her. “While I don’t believe you’ll make it that far, I, for one, cannot wait to see what biotic surprises you have in store for everyone during the Forge.”
He seemed almost amused. That had to be a good thing, right?
Shepard was almost encouraged by Kryik’s friendliness until he led her to a small office. The door slid aside to reveal that it contained the standard office set-up – desk, chair, computer, shelves – and one skinny turian that immediately halted his pacing to brace at attention. The turian’s plates were a silvery gray that seemed to give off a faint sparkle in places from the light from the hallway. The color contrasted rather nicely with the pale brown of his skin.
The fringe was long up top, so this must be a male turian – sexual dimorphism characteristics had been something she’d been able to find on the extranet. That meant she’d probably be stuck proving herself as capable as any male soldier. She’d had to do that enough in her career so far; she could handle it here.
“Ah, Vakarian,” Kryik said with genuine warmth in his voice.
“Captain Kryik, sir,” he said. There was some quality in his voice that made Shepard want to shiver, but she suppressed the urge. No use giving into flight-or-fight instincts this early over a voice; she would conquer her automatic prey response.
“Normally we just call out partners at the first formation, but given the sensitive nature of this one, I wanted to introduce you privately.”
“Sir?” Vakarian asked uncertainly. He had sharp blue eyes – they almost matched the shade of his face markings, she noted – and they took in every inch of Shepard’s very human body. His left eye was masked by a sniper’s visor, and she briefly wondered at what it could read in body scans. By his look as he focused on her face again, he clearly found her lacking.
“Cadet Shepard, this is Officer Candidate Garrus Vakarian. Vakarian, this is Cadet Jane Shepard. She’s our first exchange officer candidate from the Systems Alliance Naval Academy. You will be partnered for Reception. She will return to the academy after that to finish her schooling while you remain here. If you both make it that far.”
Vakarian’s mandibles went slack and his eyes became slightly unfocused. His shock was obvious, even across their species’ non-verbal communication barrier. Shepard felt her mouth go dry and swallowed hard against the sensation. She could hear the faint buzz of the lighting overhead and fixed her attention on that. She could get through this. It was just twelve weeks. It didn’t matter what this turian thought of her.
Jane Shepard had survived the streets of Vancouver as a child. She had survived the Tenth Street Reds and Mercy Smith’s abuse. She’d survived being out of her academic depth at Grissom Academy, the physical and mental challenge of basic training, and the rigors of life as an Alliance Marine. She'd survived her first year at the Naval Academy with its academic and social minefields. Jane Shepard could survive anything.