Epilogue
A Fateful Decision

Udina’s Office, Human Embassy, Citadel
January 15th, 2183 CE

Donnel Udina sat behind his desk, slumped in his chair. He glared at the massive amount of datapads spread out in front of him. It felt like he had spent a lifetime already going over the choices and he had long since passed his threshold for the day, falling back into his grumpy old ways. Whatever they chose today would influence the course of humanity forever. He couldn’t help but think that he had earned the right to be crabby, even if just for the day, and in this particular meeting.

He grabbed his cooling cup of coffee and drained it, grimacing as he sucked down the dregs. He picked up another one of the datapads, reading it with tired eyes. It had all become a blur to him, and he barely even saw the text anymore. He knew them all by heart anyway, he’d read through them so many times.

Glancing up, he looked at the other occupants of his office. Seated on the other side of the table, Admiral Steven Hackett was in much the same position as Udina, slumped down in his chair. A grizzled veteran, he bore scars from fighting at Shanxi, his hair turning grey. Admiral Hackett was the Commander of the Navies, and he was by far one of the best tacticians humanity had ever produced.

Opposite Hackett, Captain David Anderson was leaning forward against the table, somehow having managed to stay more focused on the task at hand. He was one of the deadliest humans in the galaxy, one of the first to ever achieve the N7 designation in the special forces and responsible for countless successful missions.

“Well, what about Shepard? A colonist... but no record of her family.” Udina glanced down at the datapad on Shepard. He knew some of her story, and he vaguely remembered hearing her name in the news, but she was mostly an unknown to him.

Anderson picked up the relevant datapad, speed-reading through it. “The records were lost during the raid. She was raised in Equestria. Learned to look after herself.”

He didn’t need to actually read any of it, but Anderson didn’t let the others know. He had carefully kept his relation to Shepard as quiet as possible after she had enlisted with the marines herself.

“She saw her whole unit die on Akuze. She could have some serious scars.” Hackett glanced at Anderson. The relationship between Shepard and the Captain was known in certain circles. Hackett just so happened to run in quite a few of them. He imagined that he probably knew more of the story than most in the galaxy.

Anderson stared right back at Hackett, not giving an inch, his expression telling the Admiral that he should know better. Hackett didn’t back down, not intimidated by Anderson in the slightest. That in itself was impressive. There weren’t very many people who wanted to mess with the most decorated special forces operator to ever have enlisted with the Alliance.

“Every soldier has scars. Shepard’s a survivor.” Anderson finally spoke.

“Is that the kind of woman that we want protecting the galaxy?” Udina said, having missed the interaction between Hackett and Anderson.
“That’s the only kind of woman who can protect the galaxy,” Anderson said.

Udina nodded, scanning the datapad for a moment longer. It was important that he was completely sure. This decision could affect the course of human history, after all.

“I’ll make the call.”

Author's Note

The sequel to this story can be found here: Mass Effect: Gathering Storm

Have an End Credits Song!

Edited January 19, 2015

Also... before there is any confusion, this is a FemShep series. Despite the youtube video above (couldn't find one with FemShep), Shepard is definitely female. She checked just this morning and confirmed it to me.