Birth of a Legend

Chapter 2

“Ugh! Ow…” she muttered, sitting up and rubbing the bump that was beginning to form on the back of her head.

“Finally,” a female voice from beside her remarked. It was Rachel Givens, a friend of hers that she met in the Alliance military. “You were freaking us out with those biotics of yours. Bad dream again?” she asked, already fully dressed in her uniform and raring to go. She would have asked if Ana wanted to talk about it, but she knew by now that Ana wasn’t one to talk about her problems. Rachel didn’t even know where she was from, just that she had been under the care of David Anderson for two years before she joined the Alliance military.

“Yeah…What time is it?” Ana asked groggily, resting her face in her hands.

“We have about a minute before we’re supposed to be down in the mess hall. Meet you down there!” she sang before dashing out of the room.

“Shit!”

It had been six years since the incident on Mindoir. Though she asked to join the Alliance straightaway, Anastasia was underage. David Anderson took her under his wing after the failure to find any surviving family members and rather than making the poor child grow up on the streets of Earth, he adopted her as his own. For two years she lived with him, though most of the time he was away on active duty for the Alliance, leaving her to fend for herself (not without setting up her own banking account with plenty of money, however). Those days were… difficult, to say the least. Every week a therapist would come to the house, but Ana never spoke about her past. Soon, she repressed those dark memories except for the few times that they would resurface as the most horrible of nightmares. On the rare occasion that Anderson was home, he would help her train physically and mentally for the challenges she would face in the Alliance. She learned quickly and showed the potential to be a powerful biotic. As a gift for her seventeenth birthday, Anderson paid for L3 implants. From then on her powers grew exponentially, rivaling even the Asaris’ biotic prowess.

Two years after she moved in with Anderson, Anastasia enlisted in the Alliance military. Now she was in her fourth year on active duty and planned to engage in a long career in the Alliance. There was something about it… Maybe it was the fact that it kept her busy all the time, no time to really think about anything so she wouldn’t have to revisit past memories. It was also a chance to redeem herself. She couldn’t protect her family, but when she had her own squadron under her control, she’d be able to take care of them. The past four years at Arcturus Station doing shakedown runs in the Terminus Systems taking care of pirates didn’t offer that chance yet, but maybe soon..

“That must be a new record,” Rachel called from across the mess hall as Anastasia came bounding in through the entrance. She reserved one of the smaller tables for her and their friend Richard Jenkins to sit, the handsome sandy brown-haired soldier leaning back in his chair with an empty bowl in front of him. Ana laughed and jogged over to the counter to grab the breakfast slop they were usually given before heading over to sit with her friends.

“You know me, I like being fashionably… early,” she replied, slurping her breakfast as quickly as possible before they were called out to the field for training. Her face turned sour much like the taste of the slop she had been given for breakfast. “Oh man, Hector’s just not on his game this week…”

Both Rachel and Richard burst out laughing, Richard nearly falling backwards out of his chair. “That’s why I just pour mine in the plant pots over there. It’s worked for me, but I think ol’ Giers is getting suspicious now that the plants are dying…”

“You’re so bad,” Ana chided, shaking her head though smiling nonetheless.

“Hell yeah, I’m a rebel,” he bellowed in reply, winking at her which made her cheeks flush a dark shade of red. They had been courting each other since they met, but never made a serious relationship out of it. It was just harmless flirtation, really.

“A rebel, huh? I’d say extra time on the obstacle course is needed to straighten you out, wouldn’t you?”

All three of the soldiers froze upon hearing that voice, a chill racing down their spines before they quickly scrambled up and saluted their commanding officer: Lieutenant Commander Giers. No smile ever formed on those scarred lips of his and many considered him a real asshole. They bit their tongue and dealt with it, though. He was of a higher rank than them. They were mere Corporals.

“Oh, and you too, Shepard, for your sloppiness in the barracks.”

Ana grimaced, mentally chastising herself for forgetting to make her bed. She gave a curt nod to her commanding officer. “Aye aye sir!”

He turned away from them then and addressed the rest of the soldiers in the mess hall. “Enough dilly-dallying, maggots! Get your asses to the fields! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

That mess hall was completely empty within seconds, all of the bowls stacked up near the dishwasher. Hector sighed. It was going to be a long day.

“Hit the track!” Giers ordered after he had made it outside. Ana would have joined her friends, but this was the time for training not chatting.

“You can move faster than that! Keep those legs moving! It’s double lavatory duty for /anyone/ who slows down! And Shepard, I better not see you using those fancy-schmancy biotics of yours again!!”

And thus, the day had begun. After half an hour of jogging around the track, they were sent through the normal drills and training: marches (flanking, forward, rear, etc.), pull-ups, push-ups,  sit-ups, other workouts for the core of the body, and the obstacle course. Everyone was finished by sun-down except for Shepard and Jenkins who still had to run through the obstacle course another twenty times. Oh punishment, how much they hated thee.

“The faster you move, the faster you get inside!” Giers barked, following them along the obstacle course from the sidelines. Ana was already three laps ahead of poor Jenkins who was just ready to give out by that point. She breathed heavily through her nose, darting across the rope bridge and to the top of the obstacle course where she would scale down the twenty foot wall. Halfway down, she noticed someone running from the main base towards Giers. When she touched the ground, he immediately approached her, grabbing both her and Jenkins and dragging them inside where the other soldiers were.

“Everyone to the SSV Pandora immediately!” he shouted, Ana and Jenkins stumbling towards the crowd. “I want everyone there in no more than five minutes! Get your belongings and get your asses to the docking port!”

“Aye aye!” all of the soldiers replied in unison, rushing off to the barracks to pack their bags. They didn’t know where they were going, but they knew that Alliance Command had called for more soldiers to be sent to the frontlines. It looked like they were going to see some real action after all.

Within ten minutes, Giers’s squadron was boarded onto the SSV Pandora, all of them gathered in the large debriefing room that could house nearly five-hundred soldiers. Their commanding officer stood at the front, waiting for everyone to take a seat before he would begin speaking. Ana took a seat next to Rachel and Jenkins, resting her arms on the curved table in front of them that stretched across the entire room. Everyone lurched forwards as the pilot activated the FTL drives and shot straight through one of the many mass relays surrounding the station.

“We received word from Alliance High Command. Admiral Hackett has requested more infantrymen on the frontlines. This is /not/ a drill or a normal shakedown run. We are at war with an overwhelming enemy force of pirates, mercenaries, slavers and warlords. We’ve lost hundreds of men and women already, so you better be ready. We have a few hours before we arrive at the rendezvous coordinates, so I suggest you get some rest before the assault. Any questions?”

“What species is the enemy, sir?” one of the soldiers asked from the bottom row.

“Batarians,” he replied simply. “They’ve attacked a colony in the Skyllian Verge: Elysium.”

Ana’s eyes widened as screams of horror filled her ears once more and the stench of dead flesh made her gag.

No……