If I owned Mass Effect, I would have let Nihlus live.

Notes:

- AU. Definitely AU. There is a singular goal I have in mind for this fanfiction, and it definitely does not adhere to canon. Expect plot divergence.

- There will be influences of the Mass Effect: Homeworlds and Mass Effect: Redemption comics, and some elements are borrowed from there. Reading the comic is not a prerequisite to follow the fic.

- Romance... may or may not happen, but is not the focus of the fic and will not involve loveydovey gooeyness.

- Written for NaNoWriMo 2013, although its completion will most likely be after November 2013.

- The following is the prologue, which is why it's short. The actual chapters would be around 3500-5000 words apiece, maybe more.

Into Dusk

00. It Began With a Death

When Aria first conquered Omega, she intended to turn it into a constant. A solid particle composed of chaotic atoms, yet solid and stable macroscopically. The nucleus to the chaotic order—or non-order of the Terminus Systems. The last time anyone dared challenging her was the first few years after she put Patriarch in his place. Damn batarians thought an asari would be easier target than a krogan. Damn batarians could be so stupid sometimes. Many times. They were never a subtle race. But ever since she showed the batarians the reason why she was able to defeat Patriarch in the first place, everything was in order.

Until, of course, she heard news of geth movement outside the Perseus Veil.

It was a shift of balance that, though unsettling, was dismissed by everyone else. Except, that was, a human Commander called Shepard. When Commander Shepard was named Spectre, she was interviewed by a sensational media journalist. The human Commander clearly had not learned the art of speaking to journalists without revealing anything. It was rather funny and pitiful, actually. And even though Aria already knew of Shepard's mission from her contacts in Citadel, the interview gave light on what this freshly-minted Spectre's character was. Aria immediately flagged the human with a Level 3 surveillance. She would receive alerts as soon as Shepard entered the Omega system. Shepard never did. Aria supposed that was a good thing. A pity, though. She would have liked to meet her.

Then Shepard and her crew singlehandedly saved the Citadel from a nasty dreadnought, a geth army, and its rogue Spectre leader, and Aria decided the human deserved more merit and thus raised the surveillance level. Level 5, with her location traced at all times in the Terminus Systems. A good thing, since soon after she was sent to hunt ghosts of geth in the Terminus Systems. Now she did not need to send her own team.

One day, Bray came to her and said, in an uncaring tone, "Shepard's dead."

"You mean her ship's signal winked out," Aria said, not even looking up from the datapad she was reading. "Send a team to the last known location of her ship and see if it's true. I'd rather we not get hoodwinked by a child Spectre who thinks she's smart." And if she was truly dead, Aria would rather not have Alliance or Council people poking around too close to her castle.

It was three hours later that she received a comm from Alchera. "Ship's blown to bits. Whatever's got it must have been a monster, there's not even enough to be salvaged here. Scanners show four escape pods around the system. What do you want us to do about it?"

The Council was about to owe her a big favor. Aria sighed. "Shepard might be in one of those; tow the pods and bring them here. Omega wants to have a chat with them about this new monster in town. And I'm sure I don't have to tell you what to do with the debris field."

"I'll update the debris and asteroid chart personally. Is there anything else, Aria?"

"That's all."

"Yes, Aria," answered the squad leader obediently. She might not hold a title, but her men were loyal and whenever they said her name, it was with respect and reverence no title could compensate for. Nyreen was the exception, but then, Nyreen was always the exception to many things. Aria wondered where her old lover was.

The team's scouting ship and towed escape pods arrived mere hours later. It was quite a commotion in the docking bay—a rescue by Aria's men was not a common thing, especially a rescue of people who did not necessarily need to be rescued. The pods, had they been left alone, would have reached Omega's ports within less than a standard week. Towing them with a vessel equipped with FTL drive core was an effort not entirely essential to the survival of these people, however important.

Shepard was not among the surviving crew, and Aria was not surprised. She never met the Spectre in person, but it didn't take much to figure out that she would be the type to go down with her ship. The crippled pilot's sniveling got on her nerves, so she shoved the strongest levo drink Afterlife had in store to him and told him to talk. And talk he did, about Shepard's heroic and his stupidity—at which point she pushed another drink to him—and about the mysterious ship that flanked them without warning.

At least the pilot—Joker, was it—could hold his liquor, even though his scrawny appearance might not look like it. He downed his second shot in one go. "It looks organic. Slabs of rocks. Boulders. Like a combination of a Flintstone type of car and a starship. With a reaper beam."

She didn't get the reference—humans—but she knew only one faction with that kind of vessel, and even in the centuries she's lived she had never seen one up close.

"Finish your drink and get out," she told him. She curled her finger to beckon Grizz, and said, "Have transport arranged for them by tomorrow. Send the bill to Tevos."

Collectors attacking a human Spectre in an Alliance ship. And not two months ago, that very same Spectre was involved in a war against geth.

There was a connection there, somewhere, but she couldn't place it. Not yet. But that did not mean nothing could be done.

She commed the security office. "Bray," she said, "flag all of the Normandy's ground crew, Level 3. If they're in the system, I want to know. Inform everyone that there's a hostile ship loose under the radar, and they better get used to double-check visual around our system."

"Right away, Aria."

Aria laced her fingers and laid back in the sofa, letting Afterlife's heartbeat lull her as she thought about Shepard, the Reapers, the Collectors—and Omega, somehow caught in the tangled web.

She would find that connection, nip it in the bud, and make sure Omega stayed the constant she wanted it to be. It would take time, but she was patient. Omega was patient.

Aria waited.

Next Chapter: An Angel in Omega

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