Discovering the Reapers

First time I ever saw the Reapers? I took the SSV Normandy out for its first mission. Officially it was just a shakedown run to put the new ship and crew though their paces. Just another routine mission but as I've heard Sheppard say they always start off as routine.

Everyone on the ship knew something important was going on even before we first launched. None of them had been briefed on the true nature of our mission but I knew the rumor mill would already be working overtime. The Alliance, like most governments I've seen, would give the average ten year old a run for his pocket money when it comes to denying the obvious. Putting me on the ship was an obvious enough hint in itself but the Turian Spectre was pushing it even for them. Not that it was all that surprising that a Turian representative was joining us on our first voyage. This was the first ship the Alliance had co-designed with the Turian Hierarchy and they doubtless wanted to inspect the results of the joint venture. But sending a Spectre with us? They couldn't have made it more obvious there was more to this mission if they'd put a sign up in bright neon letters explaining the whole plan.

"Sir, what's this mission really about?" Asked Lieutenant Alenko just after we boarded.

"What do you mean?" I asked feigning ignorance.

"With all due respect sir if it's classified just let me know and I'll drop the subject. But please don't insult my intelligence. You're one of the most highly decorated captains in the Alliance fleet. Not the sort of person you assign to a shakedown run. And then there's the Spectre they've sent on board, I mean who are they trying to kid?"

"Do you have a problem with Spectres Lieutenant?"

"Well no, not specifically sir, I can certainly see the purpose they serve, it's just..." he trailed off.

"Just what?"

"Spectres are above the law, literally. There's pretty much nothing they could do that would get them arrested. I can't speak about Spectres, Nihlus is actually the first one I've ever met, but I've had experience with someone who was given free reign before."

"Bad experiences I take it?"

"It was back during my biotic training, there was this drill sergeant and-" he paused for a moment.

"Actually sir I'd rather not go into the details right now. The point is if you let a man do anything he wants sooner or later you'll wind up creating a monster."

"And you think the Spectres qualify?"

"Couldn't say for sure, like I said never met one in person before today."

I considered what he had said, particularly given I knew that my current XO was going to be pushed to become the next member. I brushed the thought aside, Alenko had a point but there was little to be gained by trying to confront the Council on it. I just had to hope that Sheppard would be able to walk that line.

"You're right that there is a classified element to our mission. And it's going to stay classified, so if anyone asks about it your orders are to assure them that everything's normal."

"Shouldn't people be prepared if there's danger coming, sir?"

"This mission isn't going to be dangerous, just secret, you have my word on that. And speaking of keeping things under wraps, go to the cockpit and keep an eye on our new pilot, Joker. If there's rumors going around you can bet he's the source."

"Yes sir."

As he left I thought to myself, if only he knew. Our actual mission was to recover a Prothean Beacon that was recently unearthed on Eden Prime, a human colony. The Prothean's were an advanced spacefairing race that existed 50,000 years ago before mysteriously disappearing. Their Beacon's were often found to contain information about their history, culture and technology which was still far in advance of our own. They were incredibly rare (this would be only the second ever found by humanity and the other races hadn't turned up many more either) and unsurprisingly incredibly valuable. Our orders were to pick up the artifact from the human colony and transport it to the Citadel for analysis.

In theory a straightforward mission although the possibility of pirates had to be considered. Eden Prime sat in an area of the galaxy referred to as the Attican Traverse. A border strip between the official Council territory and the region known as the Terminus Systems. The Terminus was filled with pirates, slavers and worse and raids into the Traverse were not unheard of.

That's why the Normandy had been selected for the mission. Not only was it a state of the art warship, one of the fastest in the fleet, but it also had the prototype stealth systems installed. This particular feature was unique to the Normandy, its secret weapon. Far as I understood it the idea was to store the ships emissions in internal heat sinks to allow us to move unnoticed. I'd been warned that under heavy assault pushing her too hard might cause her to burn up. Not a ship for the inexperienced then but I liked her all the more for it. I was sure that in the right hands she'd prove deadly.

In fact despite all my expectations I was pleased about the mission overall. The Normandy was an amazing ship by any standards and this mission made her mine, I was hardly going to complain about that. More than that I had a fantastic crew with me, drawn from some of the best the Alliance had to offer. It was a shame that we would soon be losing Sheppard but there was still plenty of talent here. If the mission went well I was thinking of recommending the Normandy be deployed in the Traverse long term. With her unique stealth capabilities at our disposal we could really do some good work in helping to stabilize the region.

Of course for that to work I would have to find someone to replace Sheppard as my XO, most likely Navigator Presley. The only other option was Lieutenant Alenko who I'd just spoken to. He was on board as a combat and biotics specialist but even after one conversation it was clear he could have leadership potential given time.

Presley was the most obvious candidate as he was the next in line. The only issue there was his attitude toward aliens might prove an issue if he walked in more elevated circles. But I'll say this for the man, he was never in any way hostile to other races but he also struggled to trust them due to his family's connection to the First Contact War. His issues with other species were deeply ingrained but he fought against them admirably and never allowed them to affect his work. I hoped one day he would win that fight but worried that I would have to promote Alenko instead.

My thoughts were interrupted when Nihlus walked in, evidently knocking is only a human custom.

"We should be reaching your colony world shortly. It's time we briefed Commander Sheppard on the true nature of this mission."

I nodded and dialed up the bridge on our internal comms system.

"Joker, Status report."

Jeff Moreau or 'Joker' as he still likes to be called was the pilot I had selected for this mission (well sort of anyway, I think he would've stolen the Normandy if I hadn't hired him).

"Just cleared the Mass Relay Captain, stealth systems engaged, everything looks solid."

"Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."

"Aye, aye Captain. Better brace yourself I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"He's already here, Lieutenant," I replied while glancing back at the Turian standing just behind me, his cold eyes staring off into the distance. The fact that he acted as if he hadn't noticed the comment did nothing to alleviate the awkwardness of the moment.

"Tell Commander Sheppard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing." I said ending the call. I glanced back again at Nihlus who still remained silent.

"I apologize for my helmsmen, he has a habit of making bad jokes. Go on ahead, I just want to finish writing this report before I join you."

I spent some time working on it, well maybe more than I needed to. If Nihlus was willing to burst into my personal quarters just to deliver a message he could stand to learn a little patience. Still he seemed practical and professional enough from what I'd seen, working with him didn't seem as impossible as when I'd first been informed he'd be joining us.

When I finally did arrive we brought Sheppard up to speed on everything he needed to know about the Beacon. We also explained that he'd been nominated to join the Spectres and that Nihlus was on this mission as part of a final evaluation process. If he was successful it would be a huge achievement for both the Alliance and Humanity. As we discussed it I couldn't help thinking back to my own evaluation process with Saren and how badly it had gone wrong. Suddenly we were interrupted by an emergency transmission from the surface. When we saw the footage, the tranquil Eden I had once visited was already gone. At first it was all confused, we saw gunfire, explosions but no sign of an enemy. An officer showed his face and begged for evacuation. Then the footage panned round to look at the aggressors ship.

I felt fear from the first moment I saw it. The ship was gigantic, bigger than any I'd ever seen. Pitch black with tendrils that hung down from the main body but in the video they looked more like the fingers of some enormous hand. A black claw reaching down towards the paradise below. I didn't need to be told that our little frigate was no match for that monster. Our best bet was to grab what it was after (the Beacon obviously) and run with it, hoping it would give up on the colony once its objective was lost to it. That was my first encounter with a Reaper and my instinct had been to flee.

On arrival we quickly learned that on the colony was swarming with Geth units. Presumably brought there by the ship we'd seen but it was a shock to see them at all. The Geth are a machine race with a violent yet tragic history. Originally created by a race called the Quarians, they had been designed to act as servants and been given no more intelligence than they needed to perform their assigned tasks. They were no more slaves than one might describe a computer as a slave it was argued.

But they had the ability to share processing power and become smarter by doing so. As more and more Geth were constructed they grew ever smarter but the extent of this effect wasn't realized until one day a Geth asked its Quarian overseer 'Does this unit have a soul?'. The Quarians, fearing a Geth uprising, decided to act preemptively and the rest as they say is history. The resulting war ultimately drove the Quarians off their homeworld and beyond the Perseus Veil, behind which the Geth remained in hiding until that day on Eden Prime.

I sent Sheppard, Nihlus, Alenko and a young officer named Jenkins down to the surface to recover the Beacon. As they fought their way through the madness below we were forced to sit above, powerless. All of our attention was on the enemy ship, our scans had confirmed what I had known from the moment I saw it. If this thing saw through our stealth systems we'd be dead before we even realized it. I was on the bridge while all of this happened, taking command, keeping everyone's fears in check.

In the privacy of my own head I tried to rationalize my fears. I remembered being terrified of the Turians when I saw them for the first time, fighting in the First Contact War. The first aliens anyone had ever seen and they looked like spiky monsters. I tried to tell myself that fearing this new unknown enemy was no different but everything we'd seen about this enemy so far suggested that this threat was on a whole new level.

And what happened on the ground didn't do anything to help alleviate my concerns. That mission is unlikely to go down in history as one of the Alliance's great success stories though I must say that was no fault of those that undertook it. Nonetheless half the team we sent down there was killed (Nihlus and Jenkins), the Prothean Beacon was destroyed and Sheppard rendered unconscious.

Jenkins had been killed by the Geth but Nihlus on the other hand was killed by one of his own, another Turian Spectre by the name of Saren Arterius. The same man that had cost me my chance at becoming a Spectre and who hated all of humanity. Evidently that hatred had festered greatly to make him mad enough to attack a human colony (there was never any doubt that he was the one calling the shots there. Well, not until after we learned more about the Reapers and indoctrination in any case).

The Commander was knocked out when the Beacon was accidentally triggered and he interfaced with it. Before he'd even woken up some were suggesting the Beacon had tried to communicate with him in some fashion. And then the first thing he talked about when he woke up were visions of death and destruction, of organic lifeforms being slaughtered by machines. He tried to brush it off as a dream but I could tell he knew there was more to it then that.

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to explain that last part in my report but Sheppard wasn't the only one. I had some very bad premonitions about what was coming too.