Infinite Effect

Story Time

(In this One-Shot Ashley and Kaiden are alive)

Everyone was in the Mess Hall having dinner, taking time before they had to go out and fight more Reaper forces, when Wrex suggested they should tell war stories. He was particularly interested on why humans in the military repeated the phrase 'Peace to the Fallen' to each other.

After a few stories from others Wrex turned to Shepard. "Why do humans repeat the phrase, Peace to the fallen?"

"I want to know the same thing. I have been curious since the second time hearing it during the fight with Saren." Garrus imputed.

"Well..." Shepard looked to her human companions, everyone knowing the story and everyone looked down in respect for the dead. "A little over a century ago humans developed spaceflight... But only within our own solar system. We placed colonies on the other planets in our system to find resources that we were quickly running out of. Those who were meant to protect the colonies rebelled and decided the only way to break from Earthborn hold was to destroy everyone living there. They took over colonies, attacked ships, and killed thousands. For every person killed we placed their name on a wall in the capital. To respect those that died protecting Earth we coined the phrase Peace to the fallen." As the final words left Shepards' mouth the other humans in the group repeated them back to her.

"What happened?" Grunt and Garrus asked at the same time. Grunt with frustration and Garrus in curiosity.

"We lost several ships in a surprise attack on Earth during Fleet Week, a week where every ship we owned flew across the sky in a parade. They took out our planetary defense cannons and tore our ships to shreds. Only two dreadnoughts remained. A Lieutenant was promoted upon the death of the Captain and XO."

Kaiden took over quickly. "The crazy part was at the time we had mechs, which we called droids, but the Lieutenant was given a special one which was named Ethan. He was a fully functioning AI. Eventionally saved the whole damn planet too."

"Getting ahead of yourself Major." Ashely said.

"Right right. Sorry." Kaiden said. "Please Continue Ma'am."

"They went on several missions to cripple the enemy or stop them all together. Even stole a prototype fighter. Ethan at one point took critical systems damage against orders to keep the Lieutenant warm a few seconds longer until a rescue could come. It all came down to the enemy's home base where the Lieutenant had to remote pilot Ethan to walk into the core to bring the shields down." Shepard said.

"Why? Why couldn't he shoot it or something else?" Garrus asked.

"It needed an electromagnetic pulse as well as a heated blast." Kaiden answered.

"The Lieutenant ended up dieing. He had his team fire upon his location to blow the place up. He ended up having the glass of his helmet break off...he died in space." Ashley said.

There was silence then collectively the humans in the room looked down and whispered, "Peace to the Fallen."

Instantly the non human crew followed suit.