Echoes of hope and despair traverse the emptiness of space as humanity lies on the brink of collapse. Human colonies stretching out from system-to-system are plucked one-by-one. Each glimmer of advancement hushed by the breeze of the mysterious Collectors. A war rages, but no side moves—except… Stationed merely a few miles from the orbital Omega station, the Normandy lies silently hovered. It's diverse crew of aliens, each with their own uniqueness in combat, preps for either the final blow to humanity or the greatest triumph history has ever known. Leading the pack, Commander Shepard: a powerful ally and leader who has pushed himself closer to his goals by taking great risks. With the Normandy now equipped with the IFF transponder taken from a derelict Reaper, the ship was finally able to use the Omega-4 Relay to get to the Collector base. The mission was simple: board the ship, find the colonists and kidnapped human crew members, discover the plot of the Collectors and the link to the Reapers, and destroy the station. Commander Shepard was to lead his crew across an area no other ship has ever managed to cross and return from. Essentially, it was a suicide mission. But the risk was understood and options dwindled with time. The Normandy had finally completed upgrades ranging from shields and plating, advanced weaponry systems, upgrades to medical accessories and replenishments of Medi-Gel, overstock on heavy weapon ammunition and light weapon ammo, and the armor of the crew had been smithed to perfection.
"This is it…" hunched at the navigational board in the central chamber of the ship, Shepard lazily smoothed his palm over his light hair and peered down at the hologram layout of the stars. "Time to head out?" Joker's raspy voice could be heard over the earpiece communicator Shepard wore over his ear. "We've made it this far already. It's time to go one step further." Shepard finally pulled back and stretched his shoulders while glancing around the room. Garrus, Miranda, Jack, Thane, Tali, Jacob, Kasumi, Grunt, Samara, Mordin Solus, and Legion had been busy attending to final preparations for departure. The onboard artificial intelligence unit; EDI, hummed silently having no opinion to share with Shepard or the rest of the crew. "Heading for the Omega-4 Relay." Joker turned the ship to head towards the gateway to the Collector's home. From the cockpit windows and overhead domes, the sight of the relay looked almost haunting with its green electric glow—an unusual hue for the normally blue mass effects.
The Normandy picked up speed while approaching the Omega-4 Relay. "Brace yourselves… There's no telling what'll be on the other side of this thing." Shepard shouted while gripping a cable pole curved against the wall of the ship. The force pulled him back along with the rest of the crew who struggled to stand still.
Suddenly, there was a bright flash and the emergency beacon blared. "Shepard, I have detected an issue in networking. It is possible the… effect… bzzt…" EDI tried to relay her message as best she could but was continuously interrupted for reasons unknown. Shepard slowly made his way over to the computers near the navigational board and attempted to debug the problem. But the ship rumbled too violently. Until…
Everything stopped. The Normandy had reached its destination but took serious damage in the process. EDI was unresponsive, the ship was barely running at minimum efficiency, and all communications were static. To make matters more bazaar, the view from the windows showed only a small Earth-like planet in range. "Is that… the Collector homeworld?" Tali whispered while peering out. "It can't be. With their advancements, it seems practically logical for them to have a station to move back and fourth with ease. Although, there isn't much known about them. I suppose it is possible for the Collectors to inhabit an Earth-like planet of their own." Miranda replied. The baffled look on her face made the rest of the crew uneasy considering Miranda's usual attitude towards being right 100% of the time. "It's not what we expected. But considering this was the only port through the Omega-4 Relay, this HAS to be the Collector's homeworld. I don't see any other planet around, no ships, no clusters, there is nothing more than this small planet." Shepard said while adjusting the collar of his N7 armor. "We don't have much of a choice but to land there anyway. Systems are failing left and right, EDI is offline, and we're close enough to the planet to be drawn into their atmosphere." Joker echoed from the front of the ship. The Normandy jolted forward and leaned down as it was pulled in. Shepard and his crew barely had any time to return to their seats and prepare for crash landing. "Well, it looks like we're off to a wonderful start…" Miranda glared Shepard down from across the room, mocking the mission and it's numerous anti-survival tendencies. "Look!" not phased by the descent; Tali stared fascinated by a grand city overlooking a desert and dry plains. As the ship neared closer to the ground, the city grew bigger and bigger. "There's something peaceful about that city. I feel unconvinced it's even remotely related to the Collectors. But… well… I guess we'll find out in 3… 2… 1…" Miranda clutched her head between her knees as the Normandy took another sharp jolt. The scraping sound of sand rubbing the belly of the ship could be heard and felt, though luckily slowed collision and minimized damage to the rest of the ship. Finally, it made a compete stop.
It took a minute or two, but Shepard was the first to get up. The rest of the crew soon followed and met up near the elevator door. "Well, we're here…"