How she had feared for him then! He… had been the only one to survive out of several dozen special forces operators.
Those worms… thresher maws… Dayna knew little about what had happened there, only what Earth news agencies provided. Different broadcasts described John's participation in different ways.
And Shepard himself… he never "loaded" her down with stories about Akuze. He hid it. He apparently didn't want to worry her. She was grateful for that, though she understood: it had been very hard for John there.
And now it was hard for him too. This incomprehensible order. This incomprehensible format. Combat orders? Everything around was peaceful; humanity wasn't fighting any war outside the Solar System. And suddenly this.
Of course, John was special. N7, special forces. Maybe for them orders like this were normal. But for her, it was worry. And sharp anxiety. It seemed to her now, constantly, literally every second, that the next time she'd see John… would be very, very far off.
Getting out of the aircar at the passenger terminal of the departure zone, Dayna looked around. Not much had changed.
Of course, it was a military spaceport. So no particular liberties were allowed. But as she had assumed, there were no inexplicable restrictions for those seeing someone off.
Shepard adjusted his uniform and, with a few taps on sensors on his officer's wrist omni-tool, dismissed the vehicle. He took up his emergency case and the bag of provisions, then looked at the tense girl.
"Dee?" he asked quietly, seeing how she kept looking around.
Shepard knew she was curious and saw nothing wrong with it, considering it a normal personality trait.
"I… I'm coming, John," she kept looking around. There was plenty to see here: from this point there was a magnificent view of the launch pads.
Shuttles and transports lifted off, landed, hovered. People arrived, departed, worked in zones marked as safe within the landing and launch fields.
"Very few changes. Very few," Dayna shook her head, and her loose hair fell over her shoulders in a solid black wave. "Let's go," she said decisively, picking up her purse.
At the registration counter, Shepard presented his orders to a brisk-looking Alliance Navy chief. The NCO ran an instant identification and nodded. He returned the order form and issued a boarding directive, a small sheet of dense grayish plastipaper.
From over Shepard's shoulder, Dayna read the number and code of the boarding terminal. She looked around, picked out the correct one, but didn't hurry away from the counter.
Shepard understood her reluctance to rush and headed for the rows of seats in the waiting area.
"John." Dayna looked up at her companion softly, but insistently. "I don't feel right. Please… remember I'm waiting for you… Everything else doesn't matter. I'll accept you however you are. Just come back. Please!" She didn't try to force him to hug her, to press her to him.
That was how she always was: independent and, at the same time, vulnerable. For John. For others, she was steady and whole.
Few people knew Dayna the way John knew her.
Shepard hesitated. Then, slowly, very slowly, so she would remember it, he nodded. He understood: she would take that nod the right way. Without words. Words in their communication, in their relationship, had long since stopped playing the main role. Dayna understood him without words; he understood Dayna without words.
For several minutes they stood facing each other beside "ribbons" of empty semi-soft chairs. Used to farewell scenes, spaceport personnel passed by. Not stopping, not looking at the young man and the girl.
A short melodic signal sounded. A pleasant synthesized female voice clearly announced the arrival at the indicated gate of Captain Shepard's passenger shuttle.
A courier transport had arrived in Earth orbit: a small military passenger spacecraft running regular routes from Arcturus Station to Earth orbit.
"It's here," Dayna exhaled, not hurrying to pick up her bag.
Shepard lifted his case and bag from the floor, turned slowly, and went to the correct entry terminal.
Past that point, those seeing people off were not allowed. And he, after presenting documents and orders to the second lieutenant on terminal duty, turned to Dayna.
The lieutenant lowered his gaze to his console screen. He understood the officer needed to say goodbye to his companion here, because for her the way ahead was closed.
"Dayna… thank you." John hugged the girl. She clung to him, hiding her desire to cry. "I… I'll come back. You write… I'll write to you, I promise! As soon as there's a chance… I'll write, for sure!" He pressed her gently to him. She hugged him tighter.
Strong. Physically and spiritually strong, whole. A real companion for him, for a warrior and an officer. Not someone who melted down over trifles. Someone who knew, from rich personal experience, what discipline and order were. And at the same time capable of opening to him, of being tender and vulnerable. Trusting him with all of herself, again and again.
"Johnny…" Dayna called Shepard the way she called only him. With the same intonation, the same timbre as the first time… "Come back. I… I'm waiting for you! And I… I love you! Come back!" She looked up at him, let him wipe away the tears at the corners of her eyes with his fingers. She stepped back, understanding there was no time left. "Come back, please…" Her fingers nervously worried the handle of her purse.
"I love you, Dayna," Shepard said, picking up his case and bag, turning toward the doors of the boarding entry, and stepping across the threshold.
He didn't know how to say goodbye very well, especially to Dayna.
In the shuttle cabin, he greeted the other officers and NCOs with a nod. Protocol and ritual. No getting away from it.
Civilian life, and now also peaceful life, was beyond the arch of the boarding entry for Shepard. There, where Dayna remained, seeing him off with her eyes until he stepped onto the moving walkway carrying him down to the shuttle tunnels.
He felt her gaze. Tense, loving, tender, calling.
Many people would have found such a relationship strange and unacceptable. Many. Shepard knew that far from always did those who became someone's first love later cross the line of platonic relationships and step onto the path that led to creating a family, to the birth of shared, wanted children. But for him and Dayna, orphanage kids, everything was different. They built their relationship over several years. And later, when they left the orphanage for independent life and got their first apartments, they didn't drift away from each other.
Shepard never pressured Dayna. Never limited her freedom to live her own life. And she… she decided to keep her relationship with him. Not only to keep it, but to develop it.
She had seen him off to the military when he flew out to boot camp from this same military spaceport departure terminal. She wrote him letters. She answered his letters.
Yes, rarely, but she wrote. Her life was demanding too: still in the orphanage she had made the hard decision to go into professional sports. And since then, the string of training sessions, camps, trips, competitions, championships, Olympics, had become normal for her.
Dayna achieved significant success quickly. She became convinced that this life suited her, that it was acceptable for her. Behind every medal, behind every diploma, was her enormous labor.
That was why Dayna so precisely, deeply, and fully understood Shepard when he decided to try to become a professional special forces operator.
Yes, they met very rarely. For very short times. And Dayna could fill those minutes of meetings to the brim. With meaning. With content. With value.
John mattered to her.
They hadn't been thinking about a child yet, or a wedding. They met. They loved each other. Dayna knew a great deal about John's work and service. He knew a great deal about her sports career.
And again and again during their meetings they spoke not only about that. They spoke about much else.
They went to museums, exhibitions, concerts, new films. They were free in their choices. And they matched each other surprisingly well.
Shepard didn't hurry Dayna. He didn't talk about weddings, about children. Though, of course, he implied all of it. But he didn't hurry her. He didn't insist it had to happen very quickly. And in the very near future.
Dayna received the news that her John had become a student at the N7 Academy with delight and satisfaction. And then… then she sincerely congratulated her John on receiving the highest qualification category. It mattered greatly to her. She never doubted John's ability to reach the heights.
Watching his shrinking figure, Dayna understood ever more sharply that now… now something very important and very big had changed. Not in their relationship, no. Everything there remained as before. And that was why she didn't focus on it.
Here, in the spaceport departure hall, she felt something black rising before John. Something that would no longer allow him to write to her as often, to fly to her as often.
And that black thing could swallow not only John, but many other warriors.
Her soul grew very uneasy. She couldn't explain it in words, but… she was wary, anxious, and afraid.
Now John was leaving not simply for service. He was leaving… for war.
Only she, perhaps, knew what it cost her to say "war," to say it internally, silently.
She hadn't been this afraid for John even when he wrote her that he'd received orders to fly out to Akuze.
And then… then she learned of the deaths of fifty special forces operators who had been caught under a thresher maw attack.
Of course, the Extranet news said much… in very vague terms. But she had felt it. Felt it with her heart, with her soul, always open to John, everywhere.
She felt John had avoided death by a miracle. Felt he had flown to Akuze for that very operation. The one the planetwide "news" spoke of so little. So blurred, so indistinct.
And she felt that men like John only went on operations like that, the hardest and most difficult…
What had he once called it? "Engagements." Fifty of his colleagues had fallen then, because of those worm-things.
She hadn't immediately learned he had survived. She hadn't been sure. She feared, cried. And she still had to prepare for another competition, participate in training camps…
Straight from the camp she flew to the hospital where John had been transferred. She saw him… spent several hours beside his bed. And understood that only he mattered to her. No one else.
Yes, she had many friends, acquaintances, people she knew. But only with John could she allow herself to be herself fully. He accepted her as she truly was when she wasn't trying to "seem."
And now she sensed that John had flown off to war. A war that had not begun yet, but was already edging closer to the Solar System, to Earth.
He had flown off so that this war would not touch very many people. He had flown off because he had always been a warrior.
Who, if not she, his companion, would know that? She had seen him off to the army. He wrote her letters from the training division. He flew to her in rare leaves and vacations. Who else, if not she?…
How she returned to John's empty personal apartment, Dayna herself did not remember.
Yes, she knew John had secured her the right to live here permanently. His status allowed it. A special forces operator, N7, an officer, a captain.
That was why she didn't pack her things into bags, didn't book a ticket back to her own apartment in the little town in southern Britain.
She decided to stay here, because John was here everywhere. Traces of his presence were everywhere.
Let it be so. For now. Until he sent a few letters, a few messages from Arcturus. And if possible, then also from wherever he would fly after Arcturus.
Long ago Arcturus Station had ceased, for her, to be only governmental. It was also very large, one of the Systems Alliance Navy's most important military stations.
Humanity had been present in the wider galaxy for thirty years. Thirty years. Much had changed, much had happened in those years of all kinds.
Arcturus Station had been commissioned only two years after John was born. It had opened in 2156, and John was born on April 11, 2154. Dayna knew that date not only with her mind, but with her heart. She always remembered it.
Yes, for her, as a woman, dates had special significance. Especially dates like that. She never forgot to congratulate John on his birthday. There had not been a single day she forgot to do it on time. Day for day.
A year later the First Contact War began. Humans entered armed conflict with the first alien species they encountered, the turians. That conflict was strange, and huge scientific teams were still working on understanding it even now.
Since then, humanity had stepped into the wider galaxy.
Dayna thanked every god she knew, and sometimes unknown ones, that John had been very small then. She understood that had he been older, he would surely have tried to take personal part in that war.
Yes, she was used to being afraid for John. Because… because she loved him. Loved him since the day she had felt her first love, choosing John as the closest person to her. And she was very glad and proud that John, too, had singled out her, Dayna, among the other girls in that small orphanage.
Singled her out and made her his main one. Even if only… platonically, he made her the main one.
She bathed in his feelings, in his emotions. He gave her the best he could during those growing-up years. She felt protected and happy, and tried to make John happy.
Yes, she knew that not all people cross the boundary of platonic relationships when first love starts to fade, yielding space to a great, real, main love.
Perhaps if John and Dayna had grown up in ordinary families, they would have calmly and freely gone their separate ways. But an orphanage is a special environment. Its children differ, if only slightly, from children raised even in single-parent families. And all the more they differ from those raised in families where there were both a mom and a dad.
It was good that Dayna, still in the orphanage, found something she could give herself to almost completely: big professional sport. She subordinated her whole life to sport. And she knew John had also made his choice: he wanted to become a special forces officer. And in the last years in the orphanage he began seriously preparing to realize that choice, just as she began preparing to enter the world of elite sport.
Leaving the orphanage walls, both already had clear bearings in their adult life. She had in hand the schedule of camps, trips, practices, and competitions. And he had a plan-program for training warriors for elite special forces units within the Systems Alliance Navy.
April 11, 2172, Dayna remembered for the rest of her life. That day became both John's birthday and the day he entered the Systems Alliance Armed Forces.
Yes, the two of them managed to celebrate Shepard's next birthday together. They sat in a café. Then they sat on the bank of the River Dee in Chester. Something drew Dayna to that little town. And Shepard, knowing it, didn't protest.
And in the evening she saw John off to the army.
She cried, of course. How could she not? Worried, nervous.
John also… was nervous. But he held himself back.
For Dayna it was important that he held back his worry. He always helped her, even with just his presence. And when he acted for her and because of her… she felt supremely happy. Often she felt exactly that happy.
And then, seeing off the military passenger transport lifting away and carrying the recruits to a training unit, she knew she was happy. Happy with a special happiness: John had achieved his goal. He had stepped onto the path he'd prepared for over years. Prepared consciously, deliberately.
Only five years passed, and the Akuze incident happened. In the hospital, John received his first medal. As the only surviving special forces operator.
Much about that incident was unclear to those not initiated into details. For Dayna, only one thing mattered: John survived and returned.
Yes, he was brought in a medical transport. In serious condition. But he survived. He stayed alive. And he returned.
She stroked with her fingers the enamel and metal of his medal pinned to his hospital pajamas. And he smiled, saying that now he had medals of Olympic level too. Almost like hers.
She laughed. She laughed because she saw, because she believed: he didn't just survive and return. He kept within himself everything she so loved.
He remained the same for her, though of course he changed. He grew harsher, less talkative. She took these changes as natural. John was a man. He did a man's work. He was a warrior, an officer. And she was beside him.
She was with him. Now both were independent adults. He respected her right to decide about children. She knew that firmly. She wanted children from him. She did. But John… never hurried her. Never insisted. Never pressured. And she was grateful to him for that.
The year 2183 came. Six years after Akuze. John recovered, and for a long time was in Systems Alliance command reserve. He bounced from range to range and among a variety of ground units, fortunately military units.
He served, worked, acted, improved himself. He didn't like inactivity. And she was calm and happy: even if rarely, he flew to her. And they spent, sometimes a few hours, sometimes a few days, together, close by.
Command and comrades knew that Dayna was practically the first candidate to become John Shepard's bride. But John himself never pressured Dayna and never hurried her into a final decision. Surprisingly, beside him she remained free and independent. She could calmly and freely talk with other young men. And he… he didn't get jealous. Because he trusted her.
He flew to Arcturus, and she saw him off. She watched the departing shuttle. And then she returned to his apartment and stayed there for several more days, until her own departure to Tokyo for the next training camp.
She didn't want to leave John's apartment earlier. Didn't want to and… couldn't. She feared, worried, was anxious that this, everything in this bachelor apartment, might remain the only material thing left after John… was gone. Gone beyond the Veil.
Something very black hovered above him. She felt it, but hid it from John, understanding and knowing that he too sensed something like that. He was like that.
On Arcturus, as she understood, John wouldn't linger long. That meant he would be assigned to a ship. And then… then there would be a difficult and dangerous flight. Very dangerous.
That blackness… was special. So heavy that Dayna herself, however she tried, could not find any analogy in her memory or being for this crushing sensation that the blackness hovering over John produced.
Even after Akuze, after Dayna sensed the deadly danger hanging over Shepard there, on that planet that turned out to be very inhospitable, she had not been so afraid, so wary, so anxious. Something was wrong with this new "assignment." Something was very wrong.