Chapter 1

Eden Prime, 2183 CE

When humans had first gone through the Charon Relay all those years ago, they were venturing into the unknown, not knowing if they would ever return. Many believed it would be a harsh existence filled with pain and struggle as they tried to scratch a living on some rock out in the black. Others were even more pessimistic. They expected the relay to send them to the middle of nowhere, dooming the passengers of that first expedition to slow starvation and death. Still others thought they might find the ones who had left the ruins on Mars, the Protheans, and either looked forward to making contact or dreaded it. Few expected what they did find: a small number of garden worlds, inhabitable in mostly small areas near the equator, and one planet nearly identical to Earth, that is, Earth as it had been some 1,000 years ago. The first colonists of this planet were private citizens, often described as "hippies" by the corporations who had sponsored colonization of Terra Nova and Demeter, and these first colonists quickly established policies attempting to prevent the manner of resource use that had nearly doomed Earth before the proliferation of clean energy in the mid-2000s. This earned the star system the name Utopia and the planet Eden Prime. While intended as a derogatory term mocking the failed utopian communes of the early 20th century United States, the colonists embraced the name. When the colony outstripped the corporate colonies of Terra Nova and Demeter in population growth and production, so did the rest of humanity.

That was thirty years ago. Now, the colony consisted primarily of one major city of 3 million and several nearby settlements. Surrounding the city, which was named Vida after the first colonial leader, were massive farms that supplied vast amounts of produce primarily to the Systems Alliance and Asari Republics. Among the farms were several VI control stations that housed equipment and the virtual intelligences that ran the farms. Most of the people in Vida did not actually work on the farms, but programmed, developed, and maintained the VIs that ran them. The city skyline consisted of towering stacks of prefabricated housing and office units. A tram system connected the control stations to both the city and the spaceport, which was located on the western outskirts of Vida. The surrounding terrain was mostly plains to the south and west, hills with orchards and vineyards to the north, and rocky hills perfect for growing olive trees to the east. Further east laid a mountain range rising out of a jungle, and it is there, on a cliff outcropping, that a certain figure sat in a meditative pose.

She wasn't human; that much was clear. However, she looked closer to human than some of the species in the Milky Way. Like a human, she walked upright on two legs and had two arms ending in hands with five digits. She also had two eyes, though they were somewhat larger than a human's, a nose, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. The two most striking differences between her and a human, however, were her orange skin and the organ on her head. She had two horns that stretched vertically about the length of her head above her head slightly curving towards the center then flaring outwards at the very top. These hollow appendages acted as ears. The horns, or montrals, formed one part of the organ which covered her whole head in a tough yet flexible hide and stretched down below her head in three loosely hanging tentacles, or lekku, that reached halfway down her torso. The whole organ was colored in blue and white diagonal stripes. In addition, she had several white tattoos on her forehead, cheeks, and eyebrows that framed her orange-skinned face and served to make her bright blue eyes stand out. She wore a sleeveless top made of a breathable mesh and athletic shorts. Attached to her shorts were two metal cylinders, her constant companions.

She sat on her haunches, eyes closed, listening and feeling Eden Prime awake from its long night*. A young human male climbed up beside her. He wore a tan tunic with a similar metal cylinder attached to the belt at his waist.

"Mind if I join you, Ahsoka?" He asked as he knelt beside her.

"Please do, Ga'alen," Ahsoka replied.

They both meditated in silence as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Several minutes or several hours later, neither of them kept track of the time, the young man Ga'alen said in a quiet, somber voice, "The anniversary's approaching. It'll be 16 years in a week."

Ahsoka's head dropped. "I know," she whispered. After a few minutes she asked, "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we'd stayed?" Ga'alen looked at her, questioning, as she opened her eyes and looked forward. "Could we have made a difference?"

Ga'alen sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "We made a difference. Ahsoka, please, look at me. Why do you think all of us, both the refugees and Jedi, look up to you? Because you found a way to make the right call when there was no right call to be made. You saved us and ensured that Palpatine failed to wipe out the Jedi."

"I don't know, it's just…" Ahsoka trailed off. "I wish I could have stayed and fought. And, yes, I know, we would have died fighting the Empire. It just feels wrong that others are fighting and dying while I ran. Not always, but near the anniversary of Order 66, it makes me feel," she paused, afraid of the word, "cowardly."

Ga'alen opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again, "Ahsoka-." BWAAHHM! He was cut off as a massive presence made itself known in an unholy noise. Worse for the two Force-sensitives, their minds were assaulted by a terrible sense of pain and anguish. Both had lived through the Clone Wars, Order 66, and some of the Empire's atrocities, all of which had rippled grief and pain through the galaxy and yet neither had sensed anything like this before. The pain quickly caused Ga'alen to black out. As Ahsoka followed him into unconsciousness, she glimpsed a massive ship descending into Eden Prime's atmosphere.

"Master Tano! Master Tano!" Ahsoka slowly regained consciousness to the sound of someone shouting her name over her comlink. Feeling the presence and pain still there, she quickly put up her mental shields. This blunted the pain enough for her to function.

"This is Tano," she responded. "Knight Tek is down. This Force disturbance knocked both of us out. Is everyone alright up there?"

"Master Tano, this is Tiberius. Everyone who was meditating when the disturbance hit is down. What's happening?"

"Not sure yet, but given the giant ship that just touched down in the city, I'd guess some sort of invasion," Ahsoka said as she helped Ga'alen to his feet. "Have everyone suit up and get to a shuttle. We'll do what we can to protect the civilians. Can you raise the planetary garrison?"

"Negative, ma'am. We lost contact shortly after the disturbance hit."

A short time later Ahsoka and Ga'alen arrived at their home. Although the Jedi often referred to it as a Temple, it was little more than a couple prefab units with enough space for everyone to sleep. Waiting for them was Jedi Master Mohlabani Sebete, a large and imposing yet calm human who had come with them. "Ahsoka, we're in contact with some of the garrison on the east side of Vida. They're under attack by some sort of robots." He said as Ahsoka quickly donned a set of light armor and grabbed a pistol. She walked out to where their two shuttles were parked and the rest of the Jedi were assembled.

Ahsoka addressed them, easily slipping back into Commander Tano mode. "Okay, that ship touched down at the spaceport. These robots must have come from there, so we'll break into two groups. Knight Tek, take the padawans and set up a perimeter five kilometers away from the spaceport. Evacuate any civilians that you can and keep the enemy contained." Ga'alen nodded. "Master Sebete, Master Rizhou, and I will push towards the spaceport and try to draw their attention. Questions? Then let's move, and may the Force be with us."

"Ahsoka, for the record, this is a terrible idea," said Jedi Master Amalek Rizhou as their shuttle sped towards the city center. Amalek was a Dathomiran. She had pale skin, a long angular face, and a bald head, but aside from that, she looked very human. "It's completely reckless and probably going to get us killed. We have no idea what we're facing and I can still feel that presence and pain pounding away in my head." She shook her head and sighed. "It's not hard to believe you were Skywalker's student."

Ahsoka turned away and winced. Goodbye, Snips. A second later, though, she turned back smirking. "And yet here you are," Ahsoka said.

"And yet here I am," Amalek said with a smile.

"We're approaching the first drop point now," said Mohlabani. "If you lovebirds are done, it's time to get a move on, Amalek."

The plan was for the three of them to approach the spaceport along three separate paths, thereby drawing more attention separately than they would together. After dropping off Amalek on the north side of the city, Mohlabani dropped off Ahsoka near the center and then dropped himself off near the south.

Ahsoka didn't have to go far before she found a group of robots rounding a bend in a row of prefabs. There were three, two fully black and one white, carrying what looked like assault rifles. About the height of an average human, they appeared to have a similar design to the battle droids she faced in the Clone Wars if those droids had the armor and bulk of the super battle droids. Ahsoka noticed all this in the span of about a second as the droids, which had to that point been patrolling as one unit, turned towards her, emitted an electronic growl, and began to fire.

Unfortunately for Ahsoka, she was caught out in the open with no cover. Unfortunately for the droids, Ahsoka Tano was a Jedi. Before the droids had even started to fire, Ahsoka had gathered the Force to her and jumped while simultaneously drawing one of her lightsabers and her pistol. As she flew towards the droids she fired as quickly as she could, attempting to bring down their shields. Gravity had just begun to seize control of her again when the Force screamed out a warning. The white droid fired a small rocket at her. Ahsoka was able to quickly twist her body out of the way as she fell, landing next to one of the black droids. She bisected it with her lightsaber then gasped in pain as a round from one of the other droids pierced her shield and hit her in the arm. She ducked behind a crate the droid she just bisected had been near and used the Force to start the healing process and ignore the pain.

Ahsoka's vision started to clear as the pain receded, just in time to see the white droid round the corner of the crate, its gun aimed at her. The problem with fighting droids as a Jedi was that they had no Force presence, forcing the Jedi to use their other senses and skills along with general warnings from the Force and their battle precognition. This, of course, did not mean that the Jedi were incompetent when fighting mechanical enemies, only that while a single Jedi Master could generally hope to take on five thousand organic enemies – unless those enemies were established as friends of the Jedi first or were unnaturally fast – they were only worth about one thousand battle droids. This otherworldly effectiveness, along with the long term monetary savings, was why the Jedi had been the Republic's primary peacekeeping force for the vast majority of its twenty five thousand year history despite never having more than ten thousand members at any given time. Very few wanted to tangle with an enemy that could cripple an act of aggression before it even began. This was also why the Trade Federation's droid army had been in high demand long before the beginning of the Clone Wars.

Therefore, even though Ahsoka didn't sense the white droid rounding the corner, she reacted quick enough to blast the rocket it sent at her up into the air harmlessly and dismember it with her lightsaber faster than its visual processors could process. She turned to see the final droid had abandoned its previous tactics and just charged her. She used the Force to send it into the wall of a prefab, denting it and crushing the droid in the process.

"Damn, I've gotten rusty," she muttered, flexing her injured arm. "Ga'alen, what's our status?" she commed.

"Perimeter's set up, but we're stretched pretty thin. We could really use one of you three back here if you can spare it," he replied.

"Sorry Ga'alen, we have what we have. We'll try and give them something to f-"

Ahsoka was cut off by the voice of one of the older Padawans, Tohar Fiu, saying in a strained voice, "Master Tano! The geth have broken through the perimeter near some sort of dig site in the south. The garrison unit I had linked up with is all but dead. I could really use some help here!"

"Damn it! Mo, break off and head to the dig site. Amalek and I will keep pushing to the spaceport." Ahsoka muttered to herself, "What I wouldn't give to have Hana or Katarina here now." Unfortunately, Master Hana Geller was acting in an ambassadorial role at the Citadel while Master Katarina Haart as well as all of the Knights except Ga'alen Tek were on assignments working with the Human Systems Alliance. Ahsoka thanked the Force that so many Masters were on Eden Prime on this day. Still, she only had 24 Jedi available, and most of them untested Padawans at best.

"So, these are the Geth?" she asked. "What are they doing out here?" she mused.

"Given the number of units they sent to that dig site, I wouldn't be surprised if they're here for whatever was dug up," Tohar responded.

Commander Alan Shepard led his surviving squad member, Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, through the southwestern outskirts of Vida. Joker had managed to get them about a kilometer away from the dig site without being spotted by the attackers. Unfortunately, things quickly went to hell. Shepard's other squad mate, Corporal Richard Jenkins, was killed by a small drone only a few kilometers from the hospital he was born in. Shortly afterwards, Shepard and Alenko began running into robots that Alenko was able to identify as geth.

The two soldiers moved through the farmland and scattered prefabs before coming upon an unexpected sight. Four dead geth lay scattered near an empty prefab unit. Two had been shot with a gun, one appeared to have been crushed and thrown against the prefab wall, and the fourth was bisected with cooled molten metal along the cut. "Lieutenant," Shepard motioned to the crushed robot, "any idea what could have caused this?"

"Biotics, maybe, if the user was powerful and experienced enough. No human biotic, though, it would likely be an asari commando or, if the rumors are true, one of the turian cabals. But I think we'd have been informed if either of those were here."

"Roger that. We're nearing the dig site. Nihlus, have you seen any geth crushed by advanced biotics or cut by something hot?"

"Yes, Commander. Keep your eyes open, we may have a third party."

"Roger that." Shepard and Alenko turned as they heard gunfire to see a soldier in pink armor fleeing two drones with two geth behind them. In an amazing display of agility, she jumped behind cover, turning around midair and shooting the drones while taking cover from the walking geth. Shepard and Alenko drew their weapons to give her support. However, before they could get a shot off, a blade of green light spun through the air and cut both geth in two before turning on its own and flying into the hands of a tall, dark-skinned human.

All three Alliance personnel turned their guns towards the newcomer. The lightsword retracted into a metal hilt, which he hung on his belt before calmly turning to the soldiers, who had turned their guns towards him, and placing his hands up by his shoulders. "Sirs, ma'am."

Shepard's mind was struggling to process what he'd just seen happen. This human appeared to have used biotics with such fine control that he was able to direct the flight of an object before catching the only non-deadly part in his hand. No human had that kind of control of their biotics. "Who are you? How did you do that?" Shepard asked, keeping his gun raised.

"My name is Mohlabani Sebete," the newcomer responded in a deep, soothing voice. "And I'm afraid I can't answer that; it's classified."

"Sebete, Sebete," muttered the woman in pink. "Aren't you one of the leaders of the martial arts school on the outskirts? What was it, the Jee'dai?" At his nod, she holstered her pistol, turned to the Commander, and stood at attention. "Sir, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, 212th Planetary Garrison. This man's clear, sir."

Shepard's distrust still lingered, but he had a job to do and not much time to do it. He holstered his weapon and turned to Chief Williams. "I'm Commander Shepard and this is Lieutenant Alenko. We're on a mission to retrieve a Prothean beacon. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, sir. It's about half a click northwest. It has to be swarming with geth now, though. My unit was patrolling near there when they ambushed us." Her voice cracked as she said, "I think they're all dead."

"Want some payback?"

"Hell yeah! Sir," she added a second later.

"You're with us, then. Sebete?" He turned to the martial arts master.

He shook his head, "My students and I are evacuating the civilians. I should get back to it."

The commander nodded. "Alright then, let's move out!"

As Shepard and his squad left, Mohlabani contacted Ahsoka and Amalek. "I ran into some Alliance marines headed for the dig site. A Prothean beacon was found there, and it looks like the geth are after it. I'm continuing towards the spaceport. Be careful, there's a lot of geth near there." At their responses, he turned to head out but not before glancing down the path Commander Shepard had taken. The Force had swirled around him like no one he'd ever met before. I hope we meet again, Commander, he thought before moving off to kill more geth.

Alan knew he was missing something about Mohlabani Sebete. He was entirely too calm when three Alliance soldiers were pointing guns at him, as though it wasn't the first time he'd had a gun in his face. He also wore military grade light armor and carried a pistol that few private citizens could afford, let alone handle. Not to mention the lightsword and somehow calling it back to himself without visibly using his biotics. Focus, he chided himself, mission first, questions later.

Shepard led the makeshift squad around a corner and came upon an appalling sight. Two geth held down a struggling colonist over some sort of portable structure. Before any of the soldiers could get a shot off, a spike shot up from the structure, impaling the colonist through the chest. The field around them was filled with colonists who had already been impaled.

Shepard was filled with fury at the sight. All three quickly fired, bringing the two unsuspecting geth down in seconds.

"We are going to finish this mission," growled Shepard. Williams opened her mouth to protest, then shut it with a steely glint in her eye as Shepard finished, "-and then we are going to destroy every last fucking geth on this planet."

Both marines nodded and began to continue on. Just as they began to move past the first set of spikes, however, all of the spikes began to retract, bringing the colonists down. All three marines looked at each other, confusion in their eyes. Then, to their horror, the dead colonists stood up and looked at them. Their faces still held a semblance of the men, women, and children they had once been, but their eyes glowed with an electric blue light as did their mouths when they opened them to moan; most of their skin had desiccated or been replaced with electronics, and their fingers had lengthened and sharpened to wicked looking claws. They looked at the three marines, gave a moaned scream, and began to sprint at them.

For a long moment, all three soldiers could do nothing but stare at the charging horde. Finally, "Fire," said Shepard. When nobody moved for a second, he repeated louder "Fire!" and began to do so as fast as his assault rifle could manage. He was dimly aware of Kaiden and Ashley firing, Ashley screaming as she did so. Alan kept firing with his assault rifle until it began to overheat, then dropped it and pulled out his pistol and fired until it overheated. One got close and unleashed some sort of electric attack that shorted out his barriers. Alan pulled out his shotgun and blew its head off. He bashed another that had come up on his left with the butt of the gun, dropped below a swipe from one behind him and turned and put a shotgun blast through its chest. A small one that had to have been just a child tried to jump at him; he grabbed it in midair, threw it on the ground, and stomped through its skull. And still they kept coming.

Finally, there were no more. Shepard stood in the center of a pile of bodies, his guns on the ground, his armor scratched and torn. As he came back to his senses, he registered Ashley and Kaiden staring at him in awe. They had each struggled to put down less than half the husks Alan had taken down, and he had made it look easy.

"Move out," Shepard ordered. The three marines continued towards the loading docks.

Ahsoka blasted another geth out of the way with the Force then shot another with her pistol as she cartwheeled behind cover. Their numbers had been steadily increasing the closer she got to the spaceport. Now, instead of facing squads of three or four geth, she had to deal with squads of ten to fifteen. Even worse, the white geth with rockets weren't even close to the worst ones she had to face. She had increasingly faced geth with thicker armor, larger caliber bullets, and more powerful rockets. Worst of all, their tactics had changed. Whereas before, they had displayed limited tactics, such as flanking and taking cover, as their numbers increased they had begun to show more complex strategies. She was now half a klick away from the spaceport but facing her toughest challenge yet. A group of snipers was pinning her down behind a prefab unit while wave after wave of the simple black plated foot soldiers kept coming, trying to wear her down. She was unable to cross the street thanks to the snipers and the massive geth unit occupying half the street. The one time she had poked her head out from behind cover, it had almost been taken off by a blast from that monster's cannon. In fact, the blast had blown apart a concrete barrier Ahsoka had used as cover just a moment before. She also had to contend with normal and flash-formed drones that could easily bring her shields down if she wasn't careful.

Well, she thought, I've certainly got their attention. Now what? As she considered how to proceed, all of a sudden, the Force screamed a warning at her. Immediately, she jumped up and backwards, narrowly avoiding a rocket that had been fired from a yellow and black geth unit that had managed to sneak up behind her, cloaked. Immediately, another unit decloaked and fired. Ahsoka managed to turn her fall into a roll, moving close to the first geth unit which had also begun firing at her. Her lightsaber flashed out, cleaving off its gun arm before shearing it in half. She then grabbed the pieces with the Force and threw them into the second geth, throwing its aim off just as it fired a rocket. Ahsoka grabbed the rocket with the Force and sent it careening into yet another wave of foot soldiers that had just rounded the corner before slicing the cloaking-enabled geth in three pieces.

Alright, no more restraint. Staying behind cover, Ahsoka put away her pistol and pulled out her second lightsaber. The pistol would do no good against the monster anyways. She felt for the sniper units that had been pinning her down. Although droids did not have a Force presence, they did register in the Force in the same way as the dead metal of a rock, ship, or computer system. Ahsoka stretched her senses towards the general location of the snipers and, upon finding them, crushed their bodies using the Force. She then gathered Force energy in her hands, stepped out from behind cover, and unleased a wave down the street that picked up the next upcoming wave of geth and smashed their internal circuits into bits, blasted aside the cannon blast the monstrous white geth had fired, and staggered the monster. She then darted forward faster than its optical processors could detect until she was in lightsaber range. It tried to crush her under a massive metal arm, but Ahsoka's lightsaber was quicker, cutting off the arm and smoothly moving her second strike to cut off its antenna before picking it up with the Force and sending it barreling down the street, crushing several other foot soldiers in its path.

Ahsoka stood in the middle of the street, catching her breath. As she did so, she looked up towards the spaceport and the massive ship whose arrival had heralded the Geth invasion. It was truly massive – twice the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, it dominated the sky with its imposing presence. Never before in all her life had Ahsoka seen anything like it. It was enough to intimidate even her.

Her commlink chimed. "Masters," came Ga'alen's voice, "we've just picked up a radiation spike on the west side of the city near the spaceport. Its signature is consistent with a potential nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, I can't get a clear enough signal to give you an exact location."

Amalek spoke up, "The geth have begun pulling back from my area. They must be planning to destroy the city after they leave. But why?"

"They got what they came for," said Mohlabani. "The geth took the Prothean beacon back to their ship."

"Then our objective is clear," said Ahsoka. "Ga'alen, send the radiation signature to Amalek, Mo, and me then get yourself and the civilians as far away from the city as possible. We'll push towards the spaceport, find, and disable that nuke. Masters, no restraint. Do whatever you have to." Amalek and Mohlabani gave their acknowledgement. Ahsoka took a moment to center herself then took off west at a brisk jog, her face set with determination.

Meanwhile, the three Alliance marines were riding the tram towards the spaceport. They had fought their way to the dig site, only to find that the geth had already taken the Prothean beacon. It only got worse from there. After destroying more geth and husks on their way to the spaceport, they arrived at the tram station where they found Spectre Nihlus's body. He'd been shot from behind at close range by a high caliber round. According to a dock worker who had somehow managed to survive and see it, Nihlus had met another turian he seemed to know, one he called "Saren." They had discussed the invasion for a moment when Nihlus apparently turned his back to Saren, who promptly shot and killed him. Saren had then directed several geth to load the beacon onto the tram that led to the spaceport. Shepard and his marines had taken over the tram which the geth had for some reason neglected to destroy, killing several geth in the process. Then, to make matters worse, Captain Anderson radioed in, saying that they had detected a nuclear bomb at the spaceport. It appeared that now that the geth had the beacon, they were pulling out of the city and planning to blow it up.

As they approached the spaceport, they could see several geth moving towards the eastern end that faced Vida's center. "Stay down until we dock with the spaceport, then get off the tram immediately," ordered Shepard in a low voice. "If the geth realize we're here before then, they'll do what they should have done in the first place and blow the tram." Alenko and Williams nodded their acknowledgement as they crouched behind cover. When the tram docked, all three rushed off and began firing into the geth, most of whom had their backs to them and were instead facing what appeared to be an orange woman with two blue and white striped horns wearing light armor and wielding a pistol and a white laser sword similar to Sebete's. While Alan fired, he took a moment to appreciate how skilled of a warrior this Jee'dai was. She moved with unnatural speed and grace, never staying still long enough for any geth to get a shot on her.

Caught as they were between an N7 Spectre candidate backed up by two skilled Alliance marines and a Jedi, the remaining geth went down quickly. "Alenko, Williams! Find that bomb!" Shepard ordered. He approached the Jee'dai. "That was pretty impressive fighting," he said. She smiled and nodded her thanks, catching her breath. "Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy," he introduced himself. "You must be one of the Jee'dai."

She nodded. "Ahsoka Tano," she introduced herself.

"We've received intel that a nuke is somewhere in this spaceport. We could use your help searching for it. Here, take this radiation detection package." He said, opening up his omni-tool. "It will beep more frequently the closer you are…" he trailed off as Tano held up her own omni-tool with the same radiation detection package displayed.

"This radiation detection package?" she asked with a smirk.

Shepard's suspicions were on high alert. That radiation package was only available to Alliance military although it was known that some black-market groups had managed to get their hands on it. Just who are these Jee'dai? he wondered. Outwardly, however, he restricted his response to a single raised eyebrow.

Ahsoka saw the suspicion in his eyes and felt it in his emotions; however, he shook it off after a moment. "In that case, patch into our comm frequency," he said, giving her the channel. "Let us know if you find the bomb."

They split up, staying within sight of each other but far enough apart that they covered a lot of ground. "Commander," Williams called out from the northeast side of the spaceport, uncomfortably close to the geth ship. "I think I've got something." Shepard broke into a run as Ashley came under attack by several dozen geth. "Alenko, Tano! Northeast quadrant, now!" he ordered as he ran.

A few tense seconds later, he slid into cover across from Williams. They were between the bomb and the geth, but the geth fire was too concentrated for either of them to get close enough to defuse it. As an N7, Shepard had received training on defusing bombs, but he wasn't as good as Alenko. Unfortunately, Alenko had been near the opposite end of the spaceport and wouldn't arrive for several more seconds. Seconds they may not have. "Gunny, take my assault rifle," Shepard ordered, sliding it across to her. "Lay down covering fire with yours until it overheats then switch to mine. Keep me covered!"

As Williams began laying down covering fire, Shepard moved next to the bomb and began the careful process of removing the covering protecting the vital components. As he worked, Tano arrived and, seeing what he was doing, moved into position near Williams laying down covering fire for them. Shepard had just finished removing the covering and was about to start defusing the bomb when he knew with absolute certainty that he needed to move. Not questioning his instinct, he rolled backwards as a purple laser sword ignited and came down right where he had been crouched down. As his new opponent ignited her lightsaber, her tactical cloak fell, allowing him to see that she was a woman, probably human, but wore a recon hood that covered her whole head. He could also see in that moment that she had a robotic arm and the few pieces of flesh he could see showed the glow of implants. Before he had even finished standing back up, she was attacking him again. Once more trusting his instincts, he stepped forward under her swing and grabbed her sword arm, trying to disarm her, only for her to put her other hand in front of his chest. The next thing Shepard knew, he was flying backwards and collided hard with a crate.

Shepard's head cleared enough just in time to see his assailant with the laser sword flying through the air towards him, sword poised to strike him down. However, her strike was intercepted by a pair of white laser swords wielded by Ahsoka Tano.

"Go!" Ahsoka shouted unnecessarily at the Commander, who had already moved back next to Williams. Alenko had arrived in the meantime and had busied himself disarming the nuke. Williams gave Shepard his gun back, and they continued to provide covering fire for Alenko and Tano.

Ahsoka, meanwhile, had been quickly forced on the defensive as she tried to gauge this new opponent's style. She was obviously a Force-user, and Ahsoka could sense her thoughts, so she was organic. However, only a Jedi should have or know how to make a lightsaber, and all the Jedi in the Milky Way were accounted for, weren't they? As she dodged a strike that singed her armor, she resolved to get to the bottom of this later and blasted her opponent with a Force push into several crates near the geth.

Shepard and Williams quickly moved to take advantage of this vulnerability, targeting their laser sword wielding opponent. All of a sudden, and for no discernible reason, Shepard felt a wave of panic come over him. Shaking it off, he saw Williams start to back away and turn around, looking like she was about to run. He also saw the normally unflappable Alenko pale and shaking in his boots as he continued to work on the device.

Shepard sprinted out of cover over to Williams, grabbed her arm, and threw her back against the crates she had been using as cover. "Get it together, Marine! We hold this line no matter what!"

"Sir, yes sir!" she replied as she pushed the panic to the back of her mind and military discipline reasserted itself.

"Alenko, how much more time do you need?" shouted Shepard.

"Twenty seconds, sir!" replied Alenko. Shepard looked back to see him back to his normal, stoic demeanor.

"Williams, get up to that platform and flank the big one," he said, pointing out a large red Geth that had just made itself known. "I'll cover you. Its shields are weakest over the antenna."

Ahsoka felt the dark side from this strange attacker, followed by the sudden fear of her allies. Clearly not a Jedi, Ahsoka thought, who are you? Ahsoka leapt at her opponent as the not-Jedi turned around and unleashed lightning from her fingertips at her. Ahsoka caught the lightning on one blade and began her attack with the other. Ahsoka was fluid and graceful, switching forms every few seconds. In contrast, her opponent was aggressive even in her defense but not careless enough in her aggression to make a mistake.

Ahsoka drew her strength from the Force; her opponent, however, was not yet skilled enough in the dark side to use it to its fullest potential and was forced to rely primarily on her fighting prowess. As a result, she began to tire. Seeing this, Ahsoka moved to end the fight. Thrust right, swing high left, low right, thrust left. Pause, show weakness, turn aside the thrust with left, up through the robotic wrist holding the lightsaber with right.

Ahsoka blasted her opponent against a nearby wall with the Force and held one lightsaber to the girl's throat. Her opponent thus subdued, she was able to take a closer look at her lightsaber. To her shock, she recognized the hilt. "Where did you get this lightsaber?" she demanded. When her captive was not forthcoming with an answer, Ahsoka moved to remove her mask. But, just as her hand touched the hood, BWAAHHM! The Presence from before made itself known again, forcing its way into Ahsoka's head and causing great pain. Stumbling backward, she was dimly aware of the not-Jedi girl grabbing her lightsaber and sprinting away as someone took potshots at her. Then, someone was shaking Ahsoka and shouting something at her.

"Tano! Tano, are you all right?" Williams asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Ahsoka as she recovered. Internally, however, she was very uneasy. Someone powerful enough to incapacitate a Jedi Master through the Force was very dangerous; for him or her to do so multiple times without the Jedi seeing or sensing them was worse than bad news.

"Good to hear. The ninja girl ran off to that giant ship just before it bugged out. Everyone check to see if the beacon is still here," said Shepard.

As they reached the northeast edge of the spaceport, they heard the distinctive sound of a lightsaber cutting through metal. All four rushed up the nearby steps to see a pale humanoid cutting through a final group of geth near what could only be the Prothean beacon. Shepard and the other marines raised their guns, but Ahsoka forced it down with her hand. "Easy Commander, she's with me."

Shepard stared at her for a long moment, then motioned for everyone to stand down. "Joker," he radioed the Normandy, "We have the beacon. Awaiting pickup."

"Roger that, Commander," came the reply.

The new Jee'dai turned towards the newcomers, laser sword raised, then depowered it and hung it on her belt when she saw who they were. "Good to see you made it, Ahsoka," she said. "I was beginning to worry."

Ahsoka introduced Amalek to the marines as Mohlabani limped up. "You're late," said Amalek. "Is it bad?" she asked, indicating the injury.

Mohlabani just chuckled. "I'll live." He nodded to the marines. "Commander, Lieutenant, Gunnery Chief, it's good to see you all in one piece." He turned back to the Jedi and pulled them off to the side. "I just made contact with Ga'alen. They managed to evacuate nearly everyone in the eastern half of Vida, but we were too late for most people close to the spaceport. The only humans I saw were either dead or turned into those husk things."

Amalek shook her head in consternation. "The Force may have been with us today, but this is troubling. A sudden attack by the Geth of all things, on Eden Prime, backed up by a Force user that can mentally incapacitate us…" she trailed off. "This is bad."

"It gets worse," said Ahsoka. "I fought a woman who wielded a purple lightsaber and the Dark Side."

"What?" exclaimed Amalek. "Could the Empire have followed us here?"

"I don't know. But I intend to find out. The thing is, although I didn't recognize the fighting style, I did recognize the lightsaber. It belonged to Master Haart." Mohlabani's eyebrows rose in surprise as Amalek sucked in a breath. Katarina Haart had been a Jedi Master and good friend from back home who died six years prior.

"We need…" began Ahsoka before she was interrupted by Shepard shouting, "WILLIAMS!" The Jedi turned to see Chief Williams being pulled towards the Prothean beacon before Commander Shepard grabbed her and threw her to the side. Unfortunately, he was pulled up in front of it as the beacon activated. Alenko went to pull him down, but Ahsoka quickly yelled "No! You don't know what that will do to him."

The beacon pulsed in the Force as Shepard's mouth opened in a silent scream. Sebete saw it happen in the Force seconds before it did. "Get down!" yelled Mohlabani, just before the beacon exploded.

Alenko and Williams picked themselves up and rushed over to the Commander, who had been knocked unconscious by the blast. Kaiden radioed the Normandy to inform them of the change in status then swore, "Damn it! Completely FUBAR now."

None of the Jedi were paying attention to the Lieutenant. The Force now swirled around Shepard. Ahsoka had heard about such an event from the older Masters back home, in the old Order, but she had not been strong enough in the Force to sense it herself at the time. Still, she knew what it meant: this person was Important to events that were to come. "Where is your next destination?" she asked, interrupting Alenko's rant.

Alenko took a moment to calm himself then said, "The Citadel. We're on a mission from the Council."

That settled it. Ahsoka was already considering visiting the Citadel after her run-in with the not-quite-dark Jedi. She exchanged glances with Masters Sebete and Rizhou, who both nodded. They agreed. "Lieutenant, I would like to request permission to come to the Citadel with you."

"I'll check with the captain, but we're not a taxi service, you know. However, I am going to recommend that you be transferred to the Normandy's ground crew, Chief Williams," replied Alenko. Ashley smiled faintly beneath her helmet.

"Who is your captain?" asked Ahsoka.

"David Anderson."

Ahsoka grinned. "I don't think there will be any problem at all."

*According to the Mass Effect Codex, Eden Prime has a day/night cycle equal to 64.1 Earth hours.

Here we go, a new story. This one is going to be an epic, probably 2 part story. I am very busy at this point in my life, so updates will be few and far between; however, I do have this story planned out for 40+ chapters and 6 major arcs so far. I considered adding a prologue, but decided instead to start in medias res and have what would have been in the prologue go in subsequent chapters.

Oh, I almost forgot. I don't currently have a beta for this story. If anyone would like to beta future chapters, PM me, but please do keep in mind that I won't be writing often (on the order of a chapter every 3 months or longer).

And since I didn't include it up front, I do not own Star Wars or Mass Effect, nor am I making any money off this story.

Till next time!