Chapter One – Watchers

October 13th, 2583

Human Systems Alliance Space

The Skade Fringe, on the edge of the Winterfell sector.

Prologue

"We should be heading back". Gared was the one who spoke up from the helm of the SSV Kalmar-NW, but Will had been thinking it too. And, despite Captain Wymar's swagger and smirking to the contrary, he knew what protocol dictated. Orders were orders.

Still, for nine ship-side days, floating through the edges of Terminus space, they hadn't called in once. And that was to be expected. They were Night's Watch. Hence the letters N and W burnished black into the side of every ship their ramshackle little fleet had. They were the dregs and the scum and the worst of the worst. Little supervision, even less red tape – a former merc like Will could appreciate that. Rules and regulations didn't too well with him. Never had. Which, granted, was the reason he had found himself in a Cerwyn cellblock four years ago, with an Alliance folder shoved into his hand by some official looking military bloke who looked like he had long since stopped giving a fuck. About anything and everything.

Sometimes it felt like only yesterday he had joined the Night's Watch.

Sometimes it felt like a lifetime ago.

Normally he wouldn't have complained about being a no-show for command. But tonight – as much night as it was, the nebula beyond the viewing panes of the Kalmar's cockpit filled with starry light from distant suns and only the red timer on the console before him showing any temporal keeping – tonight was different.

Somehow, even though Space was as empty as always and the lights of the frigate bridge didn't, Will felt as if the universe had started to grow dark around him.

And, faintly, he thought he heard the howling of a winter wind.

"Yeah, that's how one of the CO2 scrubbers sound's when it's busted to shit" Gared remarked at the noise, and Will drew an internal sigh of relief. So there weren't any monsters out there to kill him and eat his brains. Thank God.

"Lieutenant, Sir, we should be heading back" Gared, all steel-haired and lanky and veiny all over, like the poster-boy for military career grunts who never got farther than Gunnery Chief despite him being one of the OG assholes of the NW corps, took no crap. A stone-cold killer, experienced, forty years served in the armed forces and the Blue Suns combined. He had lost three toes and a finger when his squad was hit by a pirate's grenade back on Tytos.

His ears, however, had been taken from him by Batarians. During the Skyllian Blitz, when the Bats came pouring out of the Terminus, sweeping over human space like a deluge sent by the wrath of God. Ever since Shanxi almost three hundred years ago the Night's Watch had kept patrol on the edge of Human space. It stood to reason that the NW's were the worst hit of all, being on the front and all. Many had been killed, executed, or eaten. Some unlucky few had been captured.

Gared had spent two years in Batarian prison colony on Aratoht. He had been tortured. They had sliced his ears off there. And that was just the best of what he had endured.

So when Gared was telling them that it was time to get the heck out of Dodge, Will took the hook, sinker and line like it was a lifeline. Which, if the crawlies down his back was to mean what they usually did, it might very well be just that.

"Relax, Sergeant Gared" Sir Wymar Royce rolled his eyes at the veteran and smiled, almost kindly. Will looked up at their commanding officer from the weapons' system console, glaring at him. Prick. Not only was Wymar better dressed than the rest of them – a uniform in sterling black, neatly pressed, with buttons out of silver and the chevrons on his shoulder denoting his rank as a Lieutenant – but he was a nobleman too. All high and mighty, born in some mansion on one of the mightiest Alliance worlds in one of the seven principal clusters. He even had a sword on one hip, opposite his standard-issue pistol. A military academy graduate and everything: which was why a kid like Royce, dark and lean and dangerous as he might have looked, had command of the Kalmar even when Gared, Will, and all the other five crewmen on board had more experience in the field than him. "There's nothing out there" Wymar added, but Will knew it was bullshit.

Wymar Royce had been well prepared for the Night's Watch, at least as far as his uniform went. That served nothing but to make him foppish, just like the rest of him. They laughed at him in the mess sometimes, when he was in his private cabin of the tiny scouting frigate.

It was hard respecting a man you laughed at in your cups. Or following his orders.

Still, Royce knew something. Which was why he had them spend the last nine days going up and down the quadrant, scanners on constant deep-space forays. Something was off. About all of it.

And the crawlies down his back, a shivering sensation that had been constant ever since they left Cellador and Castle Black, came to his head when the chime from on the console before him broke the silence.

"Uhm" he cleared his throat as he brought the scan's results up to the front tab, and he could feel both Gared's and Wymar's eyes fall on the back of his neck as he swivelled to it. "Lieutenant, Sir. There's something I think you might wanna see, like".

"Display" Royce commanded, and with a flick of Will's finger the results of the scan were flung up on the main screen of the small bridge, hanging just above the holographic table where the Galaxy Map hovered.

"It's just a black spot, Will" Gared spoke up from the helm, clearly in derision. "In Terminus space. Space! It's probably nothing. We should be heading back to-"

"What am I looking at, Corporal?" Royce shut the older man up, and from the corner of his eyes Will saw Gared all but snarl, his hand twitching by the M-77 Paladin pistol holstered at his hip. For a second Will thought that Royce was about to get a hole through the skull, but Gared seemed to think better of it. Thank God. Lord Commander Mormont wouldn't have looked too kindly on them murdering a superior officer – even one who was as much of a ponce as Wymar Royce.

"It's just an object in Space, Sir" Will turned back to the readings before him. "Just something, like. I can't make sense of the readings, Sir. There's a constant low-frequency radiation output, though. Like a signal, almost. A hum" he added, and he heard Gared scoff. "There's a lot of Eezo involved in it, Sir. Whatever it is".

Royce nodded, a smile coming to his lips that was as tense and knowing as it was resolute. "Plot a course for it. Helmsman, take us there".

Gared glowered but lowered his head and swivelled back to the helm. "Aye aye, Sir".

And so the engines down below their feet hummed as the ship turned about and speared out into space. Out into the blackness, where no human had ever gone before.

"There should be nothing out here". By the time they reached the object the rest of the crew had crowded into the bridge. Staff Sergeant Kai, Wymar's second in command, who had a savage scar running down one of her cheeks to the corner of her lip, making her face twist into a constant sneer. Sergeant Damon, communication's officer, an ornery old bastard from Earth who had spent the first years of his life trafficking drugs and hookers to all over the Seven Sectors. Dax and Jem, two brutes who had to be half Krogan given how readily they took to their shotguns. And finally Linda. Linda, sweet Linda. She was frowning as she watched the Object through the panes of the cockpit, her hand on the shoulder of Will's chair. "This's empty space. Shouldn't be anything here".

"And yet there is something". Wymar seemed to ignore her gesture for once. Which was odd. He was often always one to berate and lecture on the Night's Watch's strict policy on fraternisation. Better than Commander Marsh, though. Marsh would have followed the rules to the letter and have them both shot. "Can you tell if it's active? I mean, is it emitting any surges of energy?"

"Active?" Will wondered at the word. As did the rest of them. Royce knew something. Still, orders were orders, and he was a commanding officer. Four years in the Night's Watch had taught Will to follow well enough. "Nah, I don't think so. It's not doing much, besides just sitting there. Besides humming. But these readings" he looked up at the Object, craggy like and asteroid perhaps almost eleven miles long, metal formations jutting from the inert construction. "It's got to be made from Eezo. Tons of it. Thing's got to be volatile as shit. One good hit at it and someone might just create a singularity".

"Better that than what would happen otherwise". Royce nodded to himself, as if making up his mind, before he began barking orders again. "Gunnery officer Linda, calculate optimal firing range should the thing implode on us. Helmsman, bring us there. Corporal, make sure to track-" he had time to say nothing else before the console in front of Will began chiming as the readings changed. But that wasn't the worst of it.

The Object began to come awake.

"Bow thrusters, on max!" Royce barked as the light filled the bridge, blue and cold and bereft of all things living. "Get us out of here, helmsman! Helmsman!"

But Gared didn't move. Fifty-seven years alive, forty-two years fighting and killing all over the Seven Sectors, years spent under the blades of the Bats – none of it had prepared him for what he saw then before him.

The Object's stony shell began to break away, bit by bit, cracking and crumbling to reveal a surface of slick, dark metal showing beneath, the same sort of alien superstructure that made up the Citadel and the Castle Black communicators. The same slick, thrumming, ancient design.

The same as an inert Mass Relay coming to life.

Coming to life because something was coming down the far side of it.

"Gared!" Royce barked, and by the anger in his voice they wanted to turn towards him and ask for orders, but could not. By the haunting light, the aeonian flames burning in the centre of the Relay's eezo core, they were transfixed. Terrified, in awe, Will thought he could feel the warmth of that power upon his cheeks. Feel the radiation burn through him. God, it's amazing.

All that turned to sheer terror when the ships accessing the Relay came through on their side.

"Goddammit!" Royce cursed as both Will and Gared bolted from their chairs. Suddenly there were things around them, shining chrome and translucent metal as cold as absolute zero filling the empty Space around the Kalmar. "Shit! Well, if this is how it's got to be" he bared his teeth and stepped away from the centre of the bridge, shoving Linda and Will aside to grasp for the gunnery controls. "Where the hell do I put in the firing solutions now again-?"

"Don't!" Linda begged, jumping to her feet, fright in her hazel eyes as she looked to the console. "You're targeting the Relay core! If it blows while active the rest of the sector goes with it! Us too!"

"That's the point" Wymar said, a cold smirk touching his face ever so briefly as his hands flew over the console, fingers drumming at racing speed. "Nothing out here. Nothing out here but that, us, and" he glanced up through the cockpit as a great hulk of a vessel, a spaceship, drifted past them almost lazily. "Them. That's the gateway into the Perseus Veil. The only unwatched Mass Relay leading there. If we don't destroy it and hold the line here-"

He had no more time to say anything. Or to tap in more commands into the console to finalise the firing solution. Through the hull, even through the reinforced and padded metals and insulation, they heard it. Thumps. Almost like someone, a hungry giant with a titanic fist, was knocking at their door. Seconds after the booms echoed through the ship the lights went out. All of them. Even the consoles. Suddenly the darkness had come for real, and as Will shuddered, huddling on the floor, in the darkness and the cold They came for them.

A metal screech was heard as somewhere, in the ship, the hull was pried open into a space with a pressurised atmosphere. Then silence. Nothing more. Not even the wheeze of the CO2 scrubber that had gone on the fritz. No power. They must have hit us with one mother of an EMP.

"All of you" Royce said from somewhere in the darkness, the silence broken by the ringing of steel as he drew the ceremonial sword from his hip "get behind me. Circle formation. Backs to each other-" a thump was heard in front of Will, who had the wall of the cockpit behind him. Somewhere, in the ship, something had landed. But he couldn't see what. The darkness was absolute, but the thumping came again, closer, nearer. But he couldn't see. The darkness was everywhere. It was everything.

He scrambled for the pistol at his hip, the handle slipping through his sweaty fingers. Four years, and the worst he had suffered in the Night's Watch was a pirate raid every now and then. Nothing worse than that.

This was much worse than that.

"Guns out, all of you" Wymar, in defiance of fear, held his ground before them, he knew that much by the voice alone. But the thumping was coming closer. Footsteps, Will realised. The footsteps of something big.

And the cockpit was filled with a cold blue light, blinding all of them. Scurrying back and away Will blinked through his hands, scampering for the far corner. Perhaps he wouldn't be seen there.

And what he saw was death itself.

Giant, tall, impossibly big, its shoulders streaked the ceiling of the bridge as it walked through the doorway. Even the top of it. The doorway bended and was torn apart by its dead strength with the sound of metal screaming in protest, without as much as breaking its stride. Its body was encased in heavy armour – no, it was armour, metal through and through, nominally bipedal even though everything about it was wrong, inhuman, impossibly wrong. And its head, its face – there was nothing there. Only that cold, shining light. A blue, icy light.

In it was nothing but hatred for all life.

But Royce wasn't scared. Somehow he wasn't. God, that man must be mad. "Let's dance, motherfucker!" Royce grinned like a madman as he pulled the pistol into his off-hand, his sword in the other, and levelled the gun at the machine as he charged it. Gared came after him, Dax and Jem after him in turn, Kai and Linda giving Will not as much as a look as they brought up the rear. From beyond the doorway more lights shone, watching in silence their lone machine brother as he was attacked. Standing by, doing nothing. Like spectators. Watchers, merely.

Watchers to the slaughter.

Will held back a scream, both hands before his mouth, as he watched Linda's head explode before him, taken in one clear shot from the Machine's arm and the muzzle of the blaster firearm thereon. As the crewmen began to fire the machine's shield soaked up all shots, shimmering about in an energy barrier impossibly thick.

And as the screams filled his ears Will watched Linda's body crumble to the grated floor of the bridge, headless, faceless. Gone. Her body was left, but he hadn't loved her for her body.

I love you. He had never gotten to say that.

Wymar lasted the longest against the Machine. Even after Kai's entire gut had been blown away by the force of one of its shots, even after Dex bled out from his leg being blown away, even when Gared's head was ripped off his shoulders with such force that some of the vertabrae's of his spine dangled off the profusely bleeding stump that was his neck, Wymar kept on fighting. He moved like a viper with sword in hand, as lean and fierce and sharp as a dagger, grey eyes flashing, the very he himself a double-edged sword. The gun in his other hand flashed fiercely as he danced away and aside from the Machine's shots and blows, the bridge going up in flames around him as he did so.

A shot fired from the Machine scorched by him too close. And he could not dodge in time. Above the stench of blood and death the smell of sizzling flesh arose in the bridge as Royce stumbled back, his off-hand with the pistol held to the bleeding scorch mark of a glancing hit, blood spilling out over his fingers. The sanguine drops steamed as they hit the rapidly cooling deck beneath his feat.

Sir Royce was an asshole and a twit. That much Will thought he had known from the very start. But there, then, staring death in the cold blue eye, he found his fury. "For Robert!" he shouted and ran towards it machine, gun lifted as he fired on it until it overheated with a hiss.

In the end he broke through the Machine's shields, the sword lancing towards the metal of its breastplate – only to get stuck there. He tried to tear it loose from the crack in which it had been lodged, but to no avail. The Machine had him now.

Will shuddered in his fear. The EMP had knocked the life supports off-line, too. And even though some parts of the ship began to steam and cook when the heat sinks failed, the bridge was going cold.

By the neck the machine lifted Wymar into the air while its other hand reached for the sword lodged in its breastplate and shattered it into shards with nothing more than a twist. Wymar twisted and coiled, kicking and fighting and snarling into the last, but he never cried out once.

Not even when a spike of poisonous blackness extended from the Machine's arm and was imbedded in the back of his head with a sickening crunch.

And so it was over.

The Machine let go off him, and Wymar slumped to the floor just like Linda had, just like all the others had. Like a discarded puppet, a marionette with all its strings cut. Will had seen it happen before. He had been a member of the Watch for four years, and a merc long before that. He had seen it before.

So why was it so much scarier this time?

But the Machine, and its identical brethren, didn't move any more than that. They too seemed to slump, their shoulders lowering and their, their, their- their lights tipping forwards to dim and almost fade. Still there, but yet elsewhere. Asleep. Not dead though. He could see how their lights shifted and shimmered. He saw the back of the spike, surrounded by blood, imbedded deep in Wymar's skull. It emitted the only sound. A soft, soft, impossible whirring. It drilled into his head almost like it had to Wymar's.

I have to get out of here. He looked up, swallowed, let out an involuntary gasp, but the machines still did not move. Motionless, like statues. Like statues of the angel of death over a graveyard. Shaking and trembling all over he reached for his pistol, holding it fast in his hand as he headed for the far broken doorway. The rest of them were dead –

Linda, forgive me

– But he was still alive. The escape pod could hold him. He just had to get to it. He had to get to it. Maybe he could even manage to send a message to Callador and Castle Black. Yes, that he could. The escape pod's systems were shielded, weren't they? He could use it to get out of there. Lord Commander Mormont needed to know this. Something had come out of that hidden Relay, something that could destroy them all-

He stumbled over something, winching as it clattered before his foot. He looked down to see the hilt of Wymar's sword laying there, the blade in tatters, jagged and broken, but what stump of a blade there was left was still sharp. He didn't rightly know why he bent down to pick it up. Perhaps it was a weapon, as little and useless of one as it was. Perhaps it was a memento of someone who he had realised was much braver and nobler than-

When he straightened back up he came face-to-face with Wymar Royce.

Or, at least, the ghost of him.

His fine uniform was in tatters, his body bruised and broken. His face was a ruin.

But his eyes were open, burning cold. Burning blue. And they saw.

And as demons from the darkest of the galactic legends poured forth from the inky blackness to surrounded them Will ran for the escape pod.

Screaming.

October 17th, 2583

Human Systems Alliance Space

Eden Prime

The Redwyne Verge, the Reach.

Jenkins

"Yikes!" he shouted and pulled his hand back from the front of the locker before him. Beside him, farther down the line of lockers in the Normandy Cargo hold, Alenko gave him a level look. He breathed out to calm himself before he turned and, with some trepidation, leant his arm against the locker, assuming a cocky stance and a grin. "Static, man. Caught me off guard".

"Yeah" Alenko shook his head and chuckled, visibly rolling his eyes. "Side-effect of the Tantalus Drive Core. Builds up static electricity like nobody's business in basically everything". He opened his locker and rolled his shoulders before he began to reach for his armour. "I've had worse. This ship I served on, back in 79? The wiring was off in the lights in the barracks, so they just kept flickering. All the time. Wasn't even that noticeable after a few months, but it still drove everyone nuts. Literally. The Normandy's a cakewalk in comparison".

"Honestly" he nodded as he too began to put on his armour – first the padded undersuit, slick against his skin, padded and feeling like he was being immersed in warm water when he put it on "it feels like overkill at times. The super-sized drive core, and the heat sinks in the hull? Why not just focus on making the ship either invisible or faster before trying to do both?"

"It doesn't make it faster, Jenkins" Alenko was good people. Most had a slight air of condescension about them when they talked to him, but not Kaidan Alenko. He was glad for it. "It allows it to go stealth – you know what I mean, right? – even when in FTL flight. It's only because of it that the heat sinks don't overcook in a second". He stopped and frowned for a bit before he shrugged. "Or so one of the guys in engineering told me. I dunno what the heck he was supposed to be going on about half of the time. Grenades, I get. Computers, I get. This crap? Not so much".

"Yeah, me too". He knew Kaidan's obliviousness was a little for his sake, more than it was earnest. He knew that he certainly wasn't the smartest tool in the box, but at least he knew about it. "Seriously" he went on, pulling on the plates to cover his legs and loins before he reached for his boots "this is way complicated, but you know what? It doesn't serve nobody none to navel-gaze. My mom used to tell me that".

"She's a clever woman then, your mom" Kaidan attached his breastplate, always before he did his britches. He was a little weird, that way, even considering that he was one heck of a powerful biotic. "So, you hear it on the news?" he wondered, seemingly a little careful. After he had secured his britches to his boots he looked up at Alenko and frowned. "I guess not. Well" he tensed his lips together before he explained "Jack Arryn's dead".

"The prime minister?" Kaidan nodded, and despite the hurry they were in Jenkins felt himself stop and deflate a bit. "From natural causes, right? I mean, he was pretty old in the years". Only twenty-five years ago they had been through a civil war that had all but destroyed the Seven Sectors of the human Systems' Alliance. Nobody wanted a repeat of the horrors of the Usurpation.

"They say it was a heart attack" Kaidan admitted slowly. "Though the word out there is that someone might have helped his heart along, you know? So Supreme Commander Robert is calling for another to take his place. And since it can only be a Lord Governor doing that" his scowl grew deeper as he pulled on his armoured sleeved and attached them to his pauldrons with a click and a hiss of pressurisation. "They said he's already nominated another for the position. Eddard Stark".

"Lord Ned?" Kaidan gave him a look as he put on his breastplate and the mechanical straps and winches secured it around him. "My dad was from Snowbourne. A little world in the Winterfell sector".

"Now, there's something that makes less sense than even advanced stellar engineering" Alenko commented as he secured his collar before he reached for his gauntlets. "There's seven sectors and the Iron Verge in the Alliance, right? Unless you count the Dornish principalities, which to be honest nobody does. The Sol cluster, Thespias, the Reach, the Poseidon Nebula, the Aurous Expanse, the Vale of Arryn and Winterfell. Out of all those, one of which is a smorgasbord of real paradise worlds and another which has a capital planet made up of at least five percent gold, they choose to live in the coldest gathering of white, blue and grey stars there is. It sounds just a little bit masochistic to me".

"Without the rain a man doesn't appreciate the roof over his head" Jenkins replied, just like dad would have done before he passed away. "And without the cold he can't feel the fire in his heart".

"Whoa" Kaidan blinked before he leant over and put a hand on his shoulder. "That's deep, man. It wasn't you who said that to begin with, was it?" Jenkins shook his head with a smile, and he got back a knowing nod. "Thought so".

"The Winterfell worlds was the first ever to be settled by humans, outside of the Sol star cluster" he paused, trying to remember his basics astragraphics. "Those, and those illegal colonies in the Valyrian Fringe. I mean, it's been almost five hundred years since Winterfell was settled. It's home to a lot of people. The Starks have ruled since day one of the landing there. Everyone's loyal to them there". Again, he frowned. "Except for the Phobos system, governed by the Boltons. But those guys are seriously weird. Anyway, what I mean is: the Supreme Commander couldn't ask for a better man to be his Hand. Lord Ned's honourable. Loyal".

"If you say so" Kaidan shrugged, and he nodded back empathically. "Right. I get that. Me, personally, I'd rather not get into politics. Gets you confused, and distracts from the mission".

"Hey" Jenkins exclaimed all of the sudden, remembering something. "Hasn't Shepard met the Supreme Commander? I heard something about that, once-"

"Supreme Commander Robert Baratheon?" a voice wondered at them from up the cargo hold, and both Jenkins and Alenko turned to see the war hero standing there, in the flesh.

Lieutenant Commander Yohn Shepard of Earth. The Shield of Elysium.

"Yeah, I saw him once" Shepard, nodded, running a hand down the upside of his head, his pate shaved bald to better fit inside his standard issue marine helmet. "He knighted me, after Shepard's Hill. During the Skyllian Blitz, on Elysium. Which is why I got this awesome surname" he shot them both a quick look before opening his locker. "Unlike you fancy sons of knights, lords and career military people".

"Hey, there ain't no lordlings around here, Commander" Jenkins defended their honour as Kaidan smirked and Shepard put his helmet on, already wearing his armour since before – red and black, in the colours of the N7 Guard, the elite of the special forces of the Alliance Military. "What was he like?" Past the visor of his old and battered helmet now put on Shepard arched a pale eyebrow, his eyes a piercing, fiery hue of violet. "The king. The Supreme Commander, I mean".

Shepard lingered on before he answered, trying to find the right words. "Fierce. Strong. Favoured a shotgun, just like me. Though he was fatter than on the Extra-net broadcasts". Jenkins blinked at the man as he stepped away from his locker and headed for the weapon racks on the far side of the cargo bay. "Now stop yapping. We make landfall in four minutes. Get your helmets on".

Kaidan shrugged and went about it, like a good little soldier. Like Jenkins normally would have done.

Instead Jenkins was looking at the back of his hero's head, thinking about how one's idols tend to betray you by being human.

And how much of a stab in the back that could seem to be, without really being anyone's fault.

He had served under Captain Anderson ever since he had passed basic and HEAT training, joining his command when he was just one of four Knight Commanders in residence on the SSV Tokyo, before he had ever been promoted to the Captain rank and gotten command of the Normandy project. Though under Anderson he had never seen any more action than a missed firefight when they took a rouge pirate stronghold on the edge of the Iron Verge, a band of seven systems and thirty-one colonised worlds that stood between the Aurous cluster and the fringes of Terminus space. Shepard hadn't joined them until much later, when Anderson was properly assigned to the maiden voyage of the Normandy.

Part of the reason for that had been political, no doubt. Shepard was a war hero, a man with songs written about him and statues of him commemorating the victory that the Skyllian Blitz came to be. Even this far out into the Reach, even out here on Eden Prime. Jenkins had grown up here. He had swum in the warm lakes below the spires of the four arcologies of Constant, the capitol, along with the hundreds of other children that had been his friends. When Elysium, deep in the Reach but on the edge of contested Batarian space, in the very same sector as Eden Prime, had been attacked they had gathered and held hands and lit candles for the dead. Those religious amongst them went to one of the state sponsored septs dotted around the towering structures that served as their homes along with worksman's modules and pastures breaking against the ceaseless fields and meadows and forests.

Paradise. More than any other world in the Reach, perhaps, it was paradise.

He had been a boy when the Skyllian Blitz began. He too had seen, along with his friends, as Supreme Commander Robert and Prime Minister Arryn, along with First Matriarch Lucretzia of the Asari Conclave, had handed out some twenty-two medals to people who had distinguished themselves valiantly during the Blitz. Most of everyone who served with Shepard saw the vids of the ceremony, sooner or later. How Shepard, battered and bruised and bandaged all over, one arm in a sling, had been made to kneel before the Supreme Commander to be knighted. How the First Matriarch had fixed the Pallidium Star to his breast, just next to where the Supreme Commander had pinned the seven-pointed Star of Terra.

Of all the people who fought and gave their lives and protected others by their own in those dark days of the Blitz, none was awarded as many honours as Shepard. Lieutenant Shepard, by then. Not more than that. Now he was Lieutenant Commander, well on his way to promotion to the rank of Knight Commander. Beyond that, who could say? Captain? Knight Captain? Wing Admiral, Flight Admiral, or even, perhaps, Lord Commander of the Fleet? Nothing seemed impossible, at least from the outside perspective. He was a legend in the flesh, after all. A hero.

And that should have been an uncomplicated thing, right? But it wasn't. Jenkin's idea of Shepard matched reality poorly. Oh, he was as every bit as commanding a presence as the vids had made him out to be. And he was understanding, always, shrewd but kind, a paragon of military honour. He hadn't been able to see Shepard in action in the field just yet, but for now…

He was a man. He read, he walked, he talked, he ate. And he was normal. He was a man. He should have been a twenty-five feet tall giant spewing fireballs from his mouth, like the Titan of Braavos.

And sometimes, sometimes something dark came into his vividly violet eyes. Something dark.

He frowned too much. Don't go about your life frowning, Richey, mom had said once. It'll do naught but give you wrinkles. Maybe that was part of it. Or maybe he was just hurt over failed expectations.

And it didn't serve nobody none to navel-gaze.

Later, when their gear was assembled and they came in over Eden Prime, low in the atmosphere, the hangar doors before him the only thing keeping him from the place that had been his home, he stood at Kaidan's and Shepard's side when Captain Anderson gave them the sit-rep. "Your team's the muscle in this operation, Commander" his tone brokered no disobedience, that captain, as he stood before them with hands behind his back just like them. "Go in heavy and head straight for the dig site".

"Captain, sir!" Kaidan barked, and Jenkins glanced at the man, his brow furrowing into a scowl. "Permission to speak, sir?" Kaidan requested, and Anderson nodded. "What about survivors?"

Jenkins spotted something in the Captain's face – a fleeting look of pain and steely resolve – that was there one instant and gone the next. "Helping survivors is a secondary objective. The beacon's your top priority". The Beacon – some Prothean relic, supposedly. How could the Captain place the value of some hunk of alien space metal over the lives of human colonists? His family?

"Approaching drop point one" they all heard Joker's voice over the coms as the hangar bay doors cracked open just a hint, and in the roaring sound a figure emerged from down the engineering deck's doors, striding out with alien purpose. Six foot four, lanky and bony and avian within his heavily modified Havoc armour that fit the red-hued metallic carapace that was his skin, and on his face his markings were ornate and filled in perfect alabaster white. Every twist, every curve, every coiling of the marks was painstakingly made to perfection's notion.

Nihlus Kyrik, representative of the Turian Hierarchy, Trirchs and the Primarch, and Spectre of the Citadel Council, was not a Turian one wanted to mess with. Under any circumstance.

"Nihlus?" Jenkins called out over the roaring of the rushing wind in the cargo hold, the Turian Spectre giving them nothing of a glance as he walked on by them, checking his customised red and marron Phaeston assault rifle as he did so, the visor at the edge of his fringe sliding forward with a hiss to bring a screen of targeting data before his left eye. "You're coming with us?"

"I move faster on my own" the Turian replied, and even through the translator app integrated into the functionality of Jenkins's helmet he could clearly hear the distinctive Turian flanging of the voice on Nihlus's speech. With no other word that that the Turian set himself, readied for the drop, before he sprinted towards the cargo bay doors and threw himself out onto the open air.

"Nihlus will scout out ahead. He'll feed you status reports throughout the mission" Anderson didn't seem taken aback by the awesome that left Jenkins and Alenko completely out of breath. "Otherwise, I want radio silence. You copy?"

"Solid copy, sir" Shepard replied and hoisted his combat shotgun up onto his one shoulder, the pistol at his other hip hanging from a magnetic holster, the N7 logo on both his guns, his helmet and the breastplate of his armour. "We've got his back, Captain. You can count on us". Shepard had a hard cast to his face, though. Ever since he had heard that survivors weren't a priority.

"The mission's yours, Shepard" Anderson nodded before he marched out as Joker announced that they were approaching the second drop site. "Good luck".

They were dropped off on a small plateau jutting from the side of the craggy hills above the southern shore of lake Bacchus, two clicks out from the dig site that was their target. As soon as their boots touched the grass of the plateau, gasbags floating about in the distance around the crags of the hills, Shepard had him take point. That turned out to be a mistake. When they came around a bend in the hills the cause of the angry red colour of the sky was revealed.

And Jenkins stopped to watch and despair.

He remembered Eden Prime as it had been, its skies blue and vast and open, its seas quiet, its lakes warm and its far forests and mountains untouched, the spires on the horizon home to his friends and his people. Not like this. Never like this.

That blue, blue sky had turned red, the very atmosphere burning as a ship of truly gargantuan proportions, many hundreds of times larger than the largest of the Dragonship dreadnoughts that had assured human victory against each other and the Shanxi in the founding days of the alliance, hovered above it all. Smaller ships surrounded it, dreadnoughts in size for all Jenkins could tell by perspective, streaking past the ship as they battered down the planetary defence forces's AA-guns and gunships like they were nothing but flies.

Down it went, that giant, dark and titanous, as mighty as the storm as the beams it fired burned through all things and everything, as all-encompassing in the heavens like the hand of a raging vengeful god. From its tentacles shot beams of light, lasers, burning angry red and icy blue as they scorched the land, burned the fields and vaporized the flames of his youth, reaping the world with scythes of plasma fire. With every move it groaned, and its poisonous song filled the air along with the ichorous black smoke that rose from the destructing it wrought.

He stared at it. He couldn't help but stare at it. How could one possibly fight that? "Jenkins!" a stern voice barked. "Jenkins!" A firm hand grasped his arm and turned him about, violet eyes affixing him through the visors of their helmets. "Get your head screwed on straight, kid!"

"They're destroying everything!" he shouted back, anger burning in his breast as he slapped away Shepard's hand. "All of it! This is my home, Commander! They're-!"

"Doing what always happens during a lower orbital bombardment, kid" Shepard cut him off, as decisive and stern as the cliffs in the hills just north of their position. "You'll see a lot more of stuff like that in your career if you get your head back in the game. Focus. Don't, and you die". Nodding to him Shepard pushed past him and began the trek down the slope overlooking Lake Bacchus, proceeding towards the objective. Kaidan came up to Jenkins after him, though, laying a hand on his back in support, giving him a look of encouragement and understanding.

The two of them followed Shepard down the slope towards the path down below. Jenkins only had to look up to see the arcologies of Constant on the far side of Lake Bacchus. Those spires still stood, thankfully enough. Praised be the Seven. Even A-3, the one where his mother had her apartment. It was late in the evening. Surely his sisters had come home from high school now-?

In the sky the beams turned, and he stopped and stared in disbelieving horror as one of the raging white-blue beams burned through the air at impossible speed. It sliced through rock and hill and mountain and lake and- Gods, no! "No!" Jenkins shouted as the beam began to slice into the arcologies, cutting A-1 in half before moving on. "No! No!"

Beg and pray as he might have, he could only watch as the ship burned its weapon through all the arcology spires, only watch as the tall tower-cities burned and broke and fell to earth.

"No!" he shouted, hefting his assault rifle up as he made to run towards it, despite it being almost seven miles away. "Mom!" He skidded down the slope, past both Kaidan and Shepard, his heart hammering in his ears as he surveyed the banks of the lake as he looked for transports. There were fisheries, weren't there? Pleasure yachts or fishing boats, anything that could take him across to-

Busy as he was trying to find a ship along the empty shoreline, where there was nothing but sand and Edenic Crabs, he didn't spot the hovering combat drones until it was too late.

They came around the bend at the down of the slope, cold blue blazing from their mechanical eyes, a gathering of five of them scouring the countryside for survivors and fighters and intruders that could jeopardize their mission. Jenkins didn't know that or see that, though – all he saw was a glimpse of their cold chrome shells and the flashing of the muzzlefires by the bolts of the pulse weapons suspended beneath their gracefully hovering bulks.

And all he felt was the pain as the blasts ripped through him, and the thud against his helmet as he was thrown to the ground by the force of the shots.

"Man down!" Kaidan shouted as the sound of returning fire from by humans manufactured firearms began to respond. Jenkins struggled to sit up, to lift his weapon, maybe even to lift his head to see, for once at least, Shepard in action, but couldn't. As soon as he moved the pain in his chest and gut seemed to writhe and explode. All he could do was to lay there and sob against the agony as the gunfire was punctuated by explosions, and then ended. All he could see when he looked up was the sky over Eden Prime, the heaven of his youth, burning.

"Hang in there, Richey!" As silence fell someone came to his side, crashing to his knees beside him – Kaidan, it had to be, no one else sounded so rough, like he was in the grips of a constant migraine –while something cradled his head. "Hold on! Medi-gel, Commander! Stat!"

"They ripped right through his shields, Kaidan" Shepard answered as a voice somewhere by his head. "His armour too. Like it was paper. He never stood a chance".

"They-" he coughed, and warm saliva – wait, spittle wasn't supposed to be hot and thick and taste like iron, was it? - filled his throat and mouth. Breathing was hard, he was beginning to discover. It was all getting so clear now, actually. Breathing was something you had to do. And, really, it was quite easy to stop doing it.

"What?" Shepard asked, still frowning when Jenkins opened his eyes to look up at him, his head cradled in the Commander's lap like he was a child. He should do that less. He'll get wrinkles. "Did they do something, Jenkins? Did you see anything?"

"They" it was all starting to make sense. All of it. Like someone had cleared away all the distraction. Still, one thing was bothering him. "They b-" he coughed up a stream of blood, splattering over the front of Shepard's fancy black and red armour. "They b-burned my world, Commander. D-destroyed it. W-" he couldn't quite get it out. Too much blood where it wasn't supposed to be. "W-why?"

"I don't know, kid" Shepard was shaking his head. He looked so grim. Was that the face of a hero? "I don't know why. I'm gonna find out, but it doesn't matter now. What matters" he grabbed at the shoulder of his armour. Armour? There wasn't any armour, was there? He was floating in the warm lakes beneath Constant. And Dad was there. Calling him. "What matters is that you get back on your feet. This is your world, Jenkins. Stand up and take it back".

No. It was all so clear now. He didn't really want to go see mom and dad, not with his fancy armour all dirty and filled with holes, but he had to. They were calling on him. To get out of the water. To go home. Home, where the house was whole and his sisters were still alive.

"Goddammit, Richey, stay with me!" Kaidan shouted at him, from so far away. He could hear him, but he couldn't see him. He was swimming in that warm lake again, and he was home. "You dumb asshole! Don't you dare die on me!"

"Kaidan-" he heard the beginning of Shepard's words of comfort, but not the rest.

Everything was going dark.

END

A/N: I was writing on my own original stories when this little idea here occurred to me, and it just wouldn't let me go until I had written it down. I won't update on this until I have finished my own personal works, but…

… it's one hell of an idea, wasn't it? I'll continue it once I have time to do so.

The settings mesh quite well, though a bit of contortion is required before things start to make sense. Namely:

The timeline of Mass Effect is stretched out, beginning in 2067 when the people who would come to be known as the Valyrians leave the Sol system on an experimental Mass Relay jump and wind up deep in Batarian space, ending in 2583 and the story's present day. In this contains two hundred years of rapid expansion, settlement and eventual chaos and anarchy before the Targaryens show up during the Shanxi war, followed by three hundred years of colonisation, wars and less-than-frequent civil strife.

As for the Seven Kingdoms, herein the Seven Sectors (not counting the Dornish systems and colonies), their names had to be changed a little to fit the Mass Effect sci-fi setting. The Westerlands became the Aurous Expanse, and the North was changed to the Winterfell Cluster, since, you know, there's no north in space. The Sol cluster is the Crownlands, Thespias is the Stormlands named after Theispas – an Uratian god of Storms – and the Poseidon Nebula is the Riverlands. The Iron Islands become the Iron Verge, and the Sunset Sea and the lands beyond the Wall becomes Terminus space while Essos becomes council space.

The Winterfell Sector is the furthest to the galactic north of all the sectors, though, so some still call them Northerners, and they themselves still go around calling basically everyone Southron.

As for the other cultures, roughly it goes thus: Asari = Lyssene, Turian = Volantis (not really, but kind of), Salarians = Braavosi, Krogans = Dothraki, Batarians = Ghiscari, and the Volus = Quartheen.

Lastly, a quick note on names: the smallfolk don't have surnames, normally. Only knights, lords and people promoted into the CO ranks of the Alliance Military has them. Military service thus often follow family or distinction. Kaidan's father, per example, was knighted, while Ashley's great-grandmother was a planetary Lord.

As for the story – we'll see where it goes, yeah? Send me PMs with House Words for our characters, ideas you have, or feedback about the setting. As far as I've know this cross-over has never been attempted before.

Fem!Shep makes an appearance in the next chapter. This was all about setting the mood - the next starts things off properly.

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter. The best is yet to come.

Ta.