Author's Note: This story came to be because of an idea I had of bringing my alien OC (the cover image is a portrait I drew of him) to the Mass Effect universe. I am sorry if there are any errors or inaccuracies. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I only own my alien OC. All other characters, items, ships, events and the universe this story is set in are the property of Bioware and EA Games.

Chapter I: The Discovery

The SSV Normandy was flying through the Hades Gamma cluster, having left the Artemis Tau cluster. On the second deck of the frigate, Commander Eilene Shepard had just left the medical bay after making sure that Dr. Liara T'Soni was alright. The asari researcher had assured the commander that she only needed rest but Shepard convinced her to have Dr. Karin Chakwas do a physical exam just to be sure.

"Commander, you may need to see this." Flight lieutenant Jeff "Joker" Moreau's voice called through the ship's communication line.

"I'm on my way, Joker." Eilene briskly walked to the stairwell. She climbed the stairs to the command deck and headed for the bridge. It did take her long to reach the flight lieutenant's leather chair. "What is it, Joker?"

Joker did not look up from shifting between the haptic interfaces in front of him. "Commander, the ship's scanner has picked up something. I can't tell what it is."

The commander turned her attention to the scanner. There was a small solitary blip a short distance away on the starboard side. With the speed they were moving, it would not be long before they would close the distance. "It doesn't look like it's going to crash into us. Keep us on course, Joker."

"Got it, commander." Joker's fingers were flying over the panels, switching between them when needed. Eilene kept her eye on the blip's location. It wasn't on a collision course for them nor would they hit it but she wondered what it was. She looked out at the starboard window at the dark expanse of space. Tunshagon could be seen in the distance.

As they approached the location of the blip, the commander could see a round object, too small to be a moon or an asteroid but too large to be floating debris. It looked metallic though. As they were about to pass the object, Shepard was shocked. The round object looked like a small ship, no, it was more like a pod. The star Farinata shed light on the metallic surface, which was damaged and burnt in the areas she could see. What was it doing all the way out here?

Her instincts kicked in at that moment, telling her she should investigate the pod. Her instincts had never failed her before. They had helped her during the Skyllian Blitz. She turned to the flight lieutenant. "Joker, can you move us closer to it?"

"…On it, commander." Joker had seen the pod but he had dismissed it as space debris. Within moments, the Normandy shifted towards the pod. Joker moved the ship as close as he could without hitting the pod. Shepard was thankful for the lieutenant's piloting skills.

Shepard headed for the cargo bay, already thinking of a potential plan to get the pod into the ship. As she exited the elevator, she went to check the cargo bay door. She could probably bring the pod inside through here. Despite its spherical shape, it wasn't very large. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to come face to face with her reliable turian squad member.

"Shepard, what's the matter?"

"There's an escape pod out there, Garrus. I need to go out there to investigate."

"An escape pod? What is it doing out here?" Garrus' astonishment was evident. He had voiced what she had thought just moments ago. It was too strange. "What do we do now?" His question told her he would follow her lead.

Shepard smiled. She could always rely on Garrus. "We need to bring it in."

Garrus was surprised. What the commander wanted to do was something that needed careful planning to execute. Just the thought of opening a ship's airlock in space, let alone the cargo bay…

"I know what you're thinking, Garrus. It's dangerous but something tells me this is no ordinary pod."

After the crew members involved had been briefed and concerns were voiced, particularly those from both chief navigator Pressly and Joker, it was decided that a team of three would exit through the airlock and push the pod towards the cargo bay door. They would only have a limited time frame to execute the plan before the ship would be compromised by decompression.

The M35 Mako was doubly secured and all loose cargo and equipment were temporarily moved to the second deck to avoid losing them when the cargo bay door opened. The squad members' lockers were also secured and double checked. The crew and squad members usually stationed in the cargo bay were ordered to stay in the upper decks for the time being. The engineering doors were sealed and locked with kinetic barriers.

Shepard stood beside the airlock along with Garrus and Wrex. All three of them were wearing their space suits. Liara had volunteered to join them but, with the limited time frame, it was decided that Wrex's strength would be the better choice. Since the pod was of unknown origin, none of them could confirm if a biotic throw could push it into the ship. After the three put on their helmets, they exited the airlock. Joker sealed it behind them and waited for Shepard's signal to open the bay door.

Floating in space reminded Shepard of the vids and movies she had seen and watched when she was younger. They usually involved satellite repairs and such. She had never imagined she would do something like this when she enlisted with the Systems Alliance military.

She swam towards the pod, remembering the very few childhood years she spent swimming in the sea on Terra before her mother had been reassigned to an Alliance ship. She looked back at her squad members. Wrex was using his legs to kick himself forward. Garrus was moving much like her but more fluidly. They soon reached the pod. Shepard's instincts had proved right. The pod was not like any she had seen before. Despite its spherical design, the metal and design were truly of unknown origin.

She nodded once to Garrus who moved to the side opposite hers. Wrex moved to a spot between them on the side of the pod facing away from the ship. When they were all in position, the three of them pushed the pod. With their combined effort, the pod moved towards the ship.

It took a bit of time to move it towards the cargo bay door. They stopped a good enough distance from where the door would open. Shepard accessed her Omni-tool, pinging Joker on the control panel.

Joker wasted no time opening the bay door. The squad in space felt the strong rush of air, the effect of decompression, being vacuumed out as the door opened. The pod would have been thrown back had it not been that the three of them had moved behind it. They pushed with all their might against the strong air current. Ever so slowly, they were able to move the pod inside and Shepard took her hand off of the pod to ping Joker again.

The flight lieutenant shut the cargo bay door after them, causing the pod to hit the door and roll inside while the squad members crashed down onto the floor, their suits absorbing some, if not most, of the impact. The decontamination protocols took effect just then.

"Shepard, you okay? It was Garrus who asked as he stood up and took off his helmet.

Eilene shook off the slight dizziness from the crash before standing up herself and removing her helmet. "I'm okay. Wrex, how about you?"

The krogan grunted. "Shepard, you got quads. I give you that." A small smile tugged at the commander's lips at the krogan's compliment.

"Let's not do that again." This was one of the times Shepard had to agree with Garrus. It had been risky. They could have just as easily been blown away into space.

Shepard moved towards the pod just as Tali entered the room from engineering and Liara exited the elevator.

Liara's eyes widened at the sight of the pod. "This is…amazing." She walked around the pod, clearly fascinated.

"Is it Prothean?" Shepard put her helmet down on the floor beside her feet.

Liara shook her head at the question the commander posed. "In all my years of studying the Protheans, I have never come across anything like this." She touched the metallic surface.

Tali scanned the pod with her Omni-tool. The readings shocked her. "Shepard, there's something inside."

"Garrus, Wrex, arm your selves now." Eilene called before she started touching the pod's metallic surface. Where could it be?

"Shepard, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find a way to open this pod."

At those words, Garrus and Wrex ran to unlock their lockers and get their weapons.

"Shepard, are you sure about this?" It was Tali who asked.

"We went through all that trouble to get this pod into the ship. It's better to find out what's inside now than be ambushed by it later when we least expect it."

The squad saw the reason in the commander's words. Garrus and Wrex prepped their guns as Shepard moved to another side of the pod not far from where Liara was standing. Her hand touched a small notch. She pushed at the depression. She moved back just as the pod's doors opened out: one door barely missing her head, the other landing before her feet. White smoke spewed out.

Garrus and Wrex kept their assault rifles aimed at the opening. When nothing came out, Shepard and Liara moved closer to the opening. They peered inside. The interior of the cube was similar in design to the ones they had on the SSV Normandy except for…

"By the Goddess!" Liara exclaimed.

They were both looking at a bipedal, distinctly male alien. The alien was lying prone, his back leaning against the wall opposite the opening. His hand, tipped with sharp talons, was lying loosely over his chest. The suit he was wearing was slightly burnt in places but it did not look to be severely damaged. His light skin was covered in scales. The scales were a strange mixture of Terra brown, golden yellow, and grayish blue. He was very tall and his frame was lean but with defined muscles. A long tail was wrapped around equally long legs. His most distinct features were the two long scaly skin flaps starting from either side of his head and reaching down to well below his shoulders. Had they not seen him up close, they would have mistaken it for hair.

He seemed to be unconscious. Eilene took a tentative step inside the pod.

"Shepard, be careful." Liara cautioned.

Seeing that he had not moved, Shepard slowly moved even closer. She reached out her hand and touched the hand closest to her, careful of the talons. He was cold to the touch. His scales were rough.

Suddenly, she saw images in her mind. The images were moving too fast for her to make any sense of them...The commander reeled back, clutching her forehead. Liara caught her before she could fall over.

"Shepard, are you alright? What happened?"

"I don't know. Touching him was like the beacon on Eden Prime. I saw…things. A fire, an explosion…"

"I wonder…" Liara trailed off.

The other three non-Alliance members were now looking in at the alien.

"Keelah!"

"I've never seen anything like him." Garrus recalled his years in C-Sec. Not once had he encountered an alien like this one.

"Wherever he came from, his ship must have exploded." Tali hypothesized, touching the barely visible burn marks around the opening. She was careful not to touch anything else.

Eilene straightened herself, having recovered from the mental barrage. "I have to report this to the Citadel Council. They would want to know about this." The others nodded their heads in agreement.