Disclaimer: I do not own, nor have I ever claimed own the characters or storyline of mass effect 1 or 2. I'm just borrowing.

Authors Note: I've written fanfiction before but never for mass effect and never on this site, so this is all new to me. Hopefully, I've done the character justice and you'll enjoy reading this. I'd love feedback, good or bad (as long as it constructive) even indifferent.

Prologue

I was born into the emptiness of space, in the heat and chaos of battle; it seems only fitting that I left the same way.

The story of my birth is my mother's favourite anecdote. She had it all planned in her fastidious way, my Father was to be there, his leave arranged nearly a full Earth year earlier. It was to be under the glow of an Argon sun, in the cool of a temperature controlled Alliance medical unit reserved for the highest ranking officers. She was to have earth beneath her, if not the mother planet then at least rock and soil, dirt and mud; terra firma in other words. I was to, under no circumstance, with God and everyone else who would listen as her witness, be born aboard a star ship; of course no one thought to tell me.

Three weeks too early, two days from the nearest Alliance cruiser, while my mother shouted orders from the med bay and the port side air lock exploded under Batarian cannon fire the crew of the SSV Waterloo increased by one.

I think back to that day often, or to how I imagine it to have been as my memory of it, unsurprisingly, is lacking. I speculate how it felt to be my mother, to remain in control, to command, to still be able to make the hard calls knowing that you were risking the lives, not just of your crew but you're only child. Fifty crewmembers died in the horror of that day, when the Waterloo's port side ruptured. Twenty four children lost their parents; seventeen husbands lost their wives, families were left shattered and broken while my Father's remained whole. This did not escape the report my mother's XO compiled after the event, nor did the fact that the only survivors were those that made it through the crew deck airlock before my mother locked it down, but no one ever connected the two. Hanna Shepard never mentioned this part in her anecdote.

I have never asked my mother whether my suspicions are correct and I have never judged her because of them, after all I owe her my life. However there are times, once the heat of battle has faded and the adrenaline worn off that I think on my actions and wonder; was my decision rational or personal, did I choose this path knowing how it would end, did they die because of me?

I like to think myself better then my parents that faced with the choice between my personal gain and the greater good I would know which course to take; the truth being that I did, when it came to it I knew with out hesitation.

As I looked out onto the abyss, clutching at my suit in a futile attempt to keep just a few more precious breathes of air in my lungs I saw my path laid out behind me, each road, each junction and each turn I took that brought me here. And even in the glow cast from the uncharted world beneath me and the shadow of the Normandy above, while my body gave into the inevitable; I knew I would never change even a single footstep.

My name is Jaclyn Shepard.

Never Jackie, occasionally Jac, often Shepard and always, no matter what Commander.