Little fanfic here. Hope you enjoy.
“You wanted to see
us, sir?” came the voice of Navigator Presley as he entered Shepard’s
quarters, followed by Chief Williams. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you
about any concerns you may be having with bringing aliens aboard the
Normandy.” the Commander replied. “Both of you have bad blood with
aliens, particularly turians, and I’d just like to discuss a few
things.”
“We just feel that
humanity should handle this on our own,” Ashley said as she took a seat
besides Presley who finished her sentiment, “Saren attacked a human
colony, we can only count on ourselves to take this matter seriously.”
Sighing, John
leaned forward and decided to start talking. “I’m sure you’ve both heard
of what I did during the Blitz? How I almost single-handedly defended
an evacuation spaceport from slavers until the Alliance could put
reinforcements on the ground?” he asked. “Well, that’s not the whole
story. While it was true that a few marines and I did hold off a large
attack, it wasn’t the only offensive against the spaceport.”
“Are you saying
that a few other marines held out against those fronts?” the Chief
inquired. “No, most of the Elysium garrison had been taken out during
the initial orbital bombardment.” Shepard returned. “Those other areas
had to be held by any civilians I could find with some firearm
experience.” This caused Presley and Williams to give him a rather
puzzled and alarmed look.
“And unfortunately, as this was within
the major urban center of the colony, very few humans had any firearm
training.” Taking an opportunity Williams interrupted. “Then how in the
hell did those slavers not manage to take space port while you were
fighting?” Looking a bit annoyed, the Commander finished. “As I was
saying, very few humans had firearm training, but you forget that half
of Elysium’s population is non-human and that a significant percent of
those were turian.”
“On that day I realized the truth behind the saying that there is no
such thing as a turian civilian. I had roughly 300 turians evacuate to
that spaceport and any of them 16 or older and not badly wounded fought
for that spaceport.” He looked at the pair’s surprised faces before
continuing. “Roughly 75% of the turian civilians there stood and fought
that night while 75% of all the humans that arrived boarded evac
shuttles and ran. Those turians stood their ground and fought for the
lives of many people that hated them for something their grandfather
didn’t do to a person those humans never knew.”
“As my people fled
to let others die for them that day I realized that aliens are no
different from us. That 75% stayed and fought just as ferociously as
that 25% of humans, maybe even more so, just to prove themselves.”
Shepard looked at the two faces before him, twisted with thought, a
twinge of regret, and hopefully, just hopefully, a bit of understanding
before continuing. “Please, think about what I’ve said. We can’t go on
like this as a species holding grudges and bad blood. You might not want
to see it now but hopefully you will come to see this as I have in
time. Dismissed.”