My name is Duya'Hermas nar Shandal, and I am on my Pilgrimage. The Lifeships in the center of the Migrant Fleet provide the food that keep all of us alive from day to day, but they aren't perfect (is anything in the Fleet ever perfect?). The irrigation is inefficient, the fertilization is jerry-rigged, not to mention that the ships themselves were never meant to sustain so much plant life – it's a wonder they manage to feed us at all. So I made that the focus of my journey; I left Shandal in search of better farming technologies. The turians share our dextro-protein biology and our diet but they're not exactly the sedentary type, and our political situation with them has grown a little precarious since the geth started getting antsy again. The asari are too busy Managing the Galaxy to help a lone quarian who wants her belly filled a little more often, and the salarians have better things to do with their forty years than farm. Hanar, krogan, volus – forget them, they're all too busy with their own problems.
That left me with the up-and-coming star of the galaxy, the race shoving their way into the spotlight, the race whose most peaceful and well-managed colony, devoted to farming, was often described as Paradise – the humans. I've always felt a kinship with them, seeing as how they're marginalized, discriminated against, shoved to the side for little reason that I can see other than that they sometimes seem a little pushy – they're like us, but unlike us they don't make do with their life on the sidelines, and I admire that. Not only was Eden Prime everything I was looking for in my Pilgrimage, but the humans were using it to advance their galactic goals – that is, to prove that they can interact with the rest of the galaxy in a peaceful manner. All races are welcome on Eden Prime. Even quarians.
It was easy, though time-consuming, to get there in the first place. I took only the poorest-quality berths, brought enough food and water to last the trip. My arrival on the lush garden world brings us to the present, as I disembark from the supply freighter that carried me the last leg of the journey. I wobble as my feet touch the ground, and I'm struck by a sense of falling – I've never been on an actual planet before, and the sheer sense of space is so dizzying I almost fall over. The crewmember leaning against the docking ramp to finish filling out his cargo manifest puts his hand out just in time to keep me from faceplanting, and we share a brief nod before I scurry away in a desperate attempt to rid myself of embarrassment. The spaceport attaches to a railway, and I go towards it, remembering that the huge rails that cut across the planet like the trajectory of a mass relay jump carry trains that have fields on them, real live fields that grow things, and I can't think of a better place to start. There's not a train in station at the moment, so I approach the main building and enter.
Once I'm back in, I feel a little more comfortable, and the sky stops reeling above me. I take a minute to rest as I look around – it's still not as cramped as the interior of a flotilla ship, and there's some empty space and a little garden with a stumpy tree in the center of the open area. The large windows open on one side to the rail and platform, and on the other side to the port where I had just landed, where a few ships of various sizes are visible. Behind the desk inside the building sat a few human workers, most of them looking bored where one or two worked furiously at their terminals. I slowly approach, the prospect of actually interacting with people to find out the information I need making me feel a bit sick inside. The man who glances up at me looks briefly disgusted, and the pit of my stomach sinks even more. Luckily he remembers that Eden Prime is supposed to be multicultural, or he realizes that he looks like he's about to vomit all over his desk, because his expression mutates into one of forced pleasure. It looks like someone's put hooks into the sides of his mouth and pulled them apart.
"Hello, madame," he says, folding his hands on the desk in what I think might be an imitation of the hotel concierges I've seen in some human vids. "How… uh… how may I help you?" I take a deep breath before I speak, and I'm sure he can hear it rattling nervously through my suit's air filter. I shift from foot to foot for a moment.
"I was, I was hoping that you, um, could provide me some information," I begin. Something out the window catches my eye, but I don't look over for fear that he'll think I'm planning something suspicious. He clearly doesn't have any special love for quarians and I'm not about to push my luck now that I'm finally here. "You see, I'm here on my Pilgri – uh, I'm on a special mission from the Migrant Fleet to obtain, uh, new technologies that'll allow us to –"
My stammering explanation is cut off by the loudest noise I've ever heard in my life. It sounds like someone set off a bomb inside my head, and the fuzz clears from my brain just in time for me to feel a shockwave that shakes the whole building, even breaking one of the windows. I grab on to the desk to keep myself up; the workers surge to their feet with gasps of surprise. Once I'm upright again I whirl to the direction of the noise, and suddenly I realize I should have looked over when I sensed that something in my peripheral vision – now there's a huge black shape jutting from the horizon, fatter at the bottom and tapering to a wicked point at the top. I can't tell how far away the thing is, but at least it's close enough for the smoke rising around it to be visible.
Once the awful noise is over, the lack of it is eerie. I can hear myself breathing heavily, and the last few pieces of plasglass in the broken frame tinkle to the ground. It's a good few minutes before one of the desk workers speaks up again.
"What… the fuck… was that?" he breathes, his voice shaking. There are a few startled murmurs from the rest, but no one moves to investigate – and despite the terror that makes me glad my exosuit's waste systems are in full working order, I'm curious. The men stare as I walk over to the empty window frame and peer out. Nothing in particular is visible, except that spire sticking from the ground and the smoke now wreathing it like a veil. I look back, then forward, then back again, then I roll my shoulders, shuffle my feet, and step onward.
---
It's not long before I come across more signs of what's going on – namely, a colonist fleeing from something, screaming at the top of his lungs. I try to catch him, or at least slow him down a little to ask what's happened, but he takes one look at me and runs faster. I'm left standing in confusion until I hear a buzzing, clicking noise that chills my blood. I duck behind one of the cargo boxes dominating the station platform as I hear the stomping footsteps that haunt the dreams of my people. Next appears the tracking light, followed rapidly by the smooth white casing of a geth trooper. It whirs constantly as it scans the platform, pointing its rifle along with its line of sight. I creep further behind the box so it doesn't see me, and in a moment or two it moves on, leaving me to catch my breath. Geth! Beyond the Veil! If they're out in any force, it could mean the end of the quarians if they find the Fleet! Something coherent in the back of my screaming brain says this is excellent information for your Pilgrimage and absent of any other sane thought, I move on; at least if I die horribly the rest of the galaxy will follow shortly after.
There don't seem to be any more active geth on my path. I see quite a few inactive ones, with holes blown in them, and as I go on I spot a few human bodies as well – some civilians, but also ones in armor emblazoned with the Alliance insignia. I hear gunfire in the distance, and since I'm fairly certain the geth wouldn't shoot at each other, I go towards the sounds of conflict. The number of civilian corpses decreases, and soon I come across what looks to be a hastily-assembled base made out of whatever was lying around, doing little more than providing cover. Geth are swarming the stacked boxes, and they're being steadily blown away by a human in white Alliance armor that pops up from cover every so often. She grits her teeth and favors one arm slightly, obviously injured, but her skill is such that soon the charging geth have all fallen.
I approach, stepping over bodies – one of the geth isn't quite dead and grabs at my leg, pulling me to the ground. My foot kicks out reflexively and knocks it in the 'jaw;' the neck tears and coolant bubbles out as its hand goes limp. The Alliance marine's alerted to my presence by the noise, and she starts to fire again as I pull myself to my feet. Rifle shots whiz by my head, one clips my shoulder, I throw myself down again and clap my hand over the suit breach. "STOP!" I holler, hoping the marine can hear me over the steady chugging of her gun. Sure enough the firing stops, and she responds to my shout.
"Damn quarian! Get out here so I can kill you!" Her voice is pained from her injury, but the slight thickness that lends is overpowered by the sheer venomous hatred in her tone. Before I open my mouth again and risk another flurry of bullets, I crawl over the fallen and press my back against the opposite side of the barrier. There's a discarded pistol near me, and I grab it – I'm no sharpshooter by any means, but I've done some target practice just in case, and it's worth having a little protection against a possibly-crazed, heavily-armed woman.
"I'm not with them," I say, realizing too late that now she can shoot me even more easily and trying to make my voice sound like I'm still lying in my previous spot. She doesn't fall for it, and I hear her leaning over the barrier just before I feel the thunk of the muzzle of her rifle against my helmet. I squeeze my eyes shut in anticipation of having my brains splattered all over my visor, but she doesn't pull the trigger. Instead, I hear her voice again.
"You got one chance. Explain yourself."
"I'm, I'm," I squeak. "I'm here on m-my Pilgrimage and there w-was this noise and – and I d-don't have anything to do with t-the geth, I swear, I swear, please don't kill me!"
The marine seems placated – enough to take the gun away, at least. She reaches over the barrier and unceremoniously yanks me over, with a sound of metal on metal as my suit scrapes the crates. The next thing I know I'm sitting on the other side, staring at a pile of Alliance corpses. The marine speaks, and I can hear, behind the pain, a distinct edge of sadness. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the Systems Alliance. The geth killed the rest of my squad."
My own voice is still a little shaky, but I manage to respond. "…Duya'Hermas nar Shandal. I'm… sorry for your loss." She grunts softly, adjusting her seated position to accommodate her wound more easily – now that I'm closer, I can see it clearly; there's a chunk of the armor on her side gone, the skin underneath it charred in what looks like a painful-looking wound, with a hole of missing flesh in the center. I recognize it as an injury from one of the geth plasma rifles; the slug penetrates the body while the plasma itself cooks the flesh. I wince in sympathy and take a little medigel from one of my pockets, offering it to her. She looks surprised – from what little of her face I can see underneath her helmet, she looks pretty for a human, with dark hair and dark eyes, though her face is in a sort of dour grimace. She takes the gel and applies it to her wound with a hiss of pain as the cool substance contacts her skin. I look away, taking a bit of suit sealant from a different pocket and using it to simply and easily close the bullet hole. Luckily the skin underneath is only grazed; it shouldn't result in anything more than a low fever.
We sit in silence for a moment or two before the gunnery chief speaks up again. "…so."
"So?"
"So you're a quarian, on a human colony that's suddenly come under attack by geth. What the hell are you doing here?"
"I told you, I'm on my Pilgrimage!"
"How do I know that's not some kind of code for 'I'm here to kill all the humans'?" I make a small, frustrated sound.
"It's not code! It means – quarians go on a journey during our coming of age and we're supposed to bring something back to the flotilla as a gift!" The marine eyes me. "If I had wanted to kill you would I have, would I have given you medigel?!" My voice is getting a little high and panicky. I'm not used to this kind of thing. Williams seems like she believes me, though.
"…calm down, uh, Hermas." I wince. People always call me by my family name – would a little familiarity be too much to ask for? "Okay, you're not going to kill me, but that doesn't make this situation any better." She gestures to the pile of marines in front of us, and back to where the dead geth lay. My brow furrows.
"…this is a colony. Why are there military here?" The gunnery chief stares at me, and I'm pretty sure she mutters 'damn quarians' under her breath.
"I'm only tellin' you this because we're stuck here together and I don't know what else to do. Okay?" I nod. "My squad was here on a special mission. Before the geth got here. There's an excavation west a little, and they uncovered some kind of Prothean artifact we're supposed to be getting. A Spectre commandeered our ship, booted the captain off, and flew us out here to get the damn thing." A look of pride crosses her face – I notice that she's improved a little since the application of the medigel. "Best ship in the Alliance. It's got a Tantalus drive core, which means it's faster than any damn thing, and it can turn invisible."
"What? Invisible?" I'm impressed! If the humans can make ships that turn invisible, maybe there's some way we can negotiate for the technology.
"Well, not actually invisible." My face falls. "I'm not sure on the details, I'm not a tech, but it pushes all the heat inside the ship to make it so we can't be detected. Or something." She shrugs helplessly. "…anyway, we're here to find the beacon, I'm pretty sure me and one other guy are all the squad that's left, and we're missing our Spectre. So, quarian, what do we do?" I rub my visor. What do we do? As a sort of answer, I poke my head up above the barrier. No more geth have showed up yet, and whatever's on the horizon is still on the horizon. I duck down again.
"…you said there's another guy in your squad? Where is he?"
"On the ship. He's a biotic, and right before we touched down he got a migraine so bad he couldn't open his eyes. So he's there in the medbay." I half-expect her to claim he was faking the headache, but no such thing is forthcoming, and she just looks at me expectantly.
"Where's your ship?" She points off to the direction I came from. "…where's the, uh, Prothean thing you were talking about?" Just as I suspected, she points in the opposite direction, and I scowl. "Well, I guess… we should get you ba – "
Williams cuts me off. "Look, Hermas. I'm here on a mission, and it doesn't damn well matter if I'm the only one left, I'm going to finish it. I wasn't asking what to do, I was asking how to do it." She pats her gun and gives me a look like she's about to sock me in the jaw. "I don't know why I'm askin' you anyway! I can do this myself!" The marine surges to her feet and vaults the barrier, starting to jog off towards the artifact – and the giant black shape marring the heavens.
---
I don't catch up with Williams for a good while. She runs faster than I do, and I keep accidentally glancing at the yawning sky and nearly falling over. Still, she has to stop now and then to gun down oncoming geth (I take a few potshots at them with the salvaged pistol, but I'm not sure any of the bullets come anywhere near the synthetics), and eventually she has to pause to catch her breath. I teeter to a stop in front of her.
"Don't run off like that! I'm lost, and I need your help even if you don't need mine!" To my immense surprise she gets up and claps me on the shoulder with a grin. I nearly fall over.
"Knew you'd come around," she says, and her voice is almost friendly. "I'll take you to the ship after we grab the artifact." As I boggle she turns back around and starts off again, a little slower, which I'm grateful for. The geth are thicker here and I actually manage to take a few down as we go. Before long she stops again, and I come up at her side, bent over to try and catch the wisps of air rasping through my filtrator. Too late I realize that the lungfuls of air I catch taste like smoke and ash, and I slowly raise my head.
We're standing on a ledge overlooking a field like it was made for the purpose; there's even a little railing preventing anyone from toppling over. On the edges of the field there are a few bits of greenery still clinging to life, some of them crackling with flames. Inward, in a huge circle, the ground has turned to glass with heat, and it reflects the shape looming above it. Thick metal tentacles grasp the ground as though they're sucking the life from the planet. The spiked top I could see all the way from the station spears obscenely up into the sky. The whole thing radiates dread, and as I stare, I see geth pouring from it – and I realize it's a ship, bigger than any I've ever seen or any I could imagine. Something is tugging at the edges of my consciousness, filling my thoughts with an insidious little buzz. "Go," I manage to grunt, shoving Williams with my elbows. "Go! Let's get out!"
The gunnery chief snaps out of her daze and makes a break for it. I manage to follow, and for what must be a good few minutes we just run, not looking back, barely even looking forward. When we finally stop we're well out of sight of the overlook to the field, and she and I slump onto the ground, shaking.
"What… I don't… that wasn't… I've never seen…" Williams mumbles, holding her face in her hands. I put a hand on her shoulder – what else can I do? – and squeeze. I'm not feeling too good myself, but if I lose her, then I'm gone, too. She trembles for a few more minutes while I sit and watch helplessly – the sense of overpowering dread fades quickly, but it leaves me with a sort of curious sense that I want to return to the field, to watching the massive ship, but the logical part of my brain screams that that's a very bad idea. I wonder if the human feels the same way. It isn't long before she gets up again and speaks, her voice still shaky. "We can… talk about it later. The mission needs to be finished."
We move on. More geth, more dead colonists. I'm starting to get desensitized to the violence, though I know it can't happen that soon – I'm sure that as soon as I go without seeing a dead person for an hour or two I'll feel right as radiation filtration again. After a while we come up on a small cranny in a structure. I peer in while Williams keeps watch; inside is some kind of pillar-looking thing with a heavy base. It sparks and crackles ominously, and I'm about to approach to investigate as the Alliance marine suddenly gives a shout. When I pull back to see what's happening, a shot of plasma sizzles by me, and I look down its trajectory to see the unmistakable shape of a geth armature. Oh, Keelah.
Williams starts doing her marine thing while I flounder about. I squeeze off a few shots with my pistol, and I'm surprised to see that some actually hit, chipping good chunks of metal off the armature. We don't have enough time for those tiny shots to wear down the machine, though, so as I duck behind nearby cover I search my mind for an option. I know geth are immune to being hacked for anything more than a few seconds, so that won't work. The proximity of the other nearby geth are making the thing dangerous, too – it's nimbly avoiding most of the shots Williams churns out with her rifle, and by the way it's selecting cover to eliminate as if it's taunting us, I decide that the shot that narrowly missed killing me outright was just it mocking us.
All at once I realize that's the solution. The geth network is advanced, but quarians are, too, and we've been trained on how to fight them. I bring up my omnitool and start to sever the armature's links to the other geth. It's slow going at first, but with every success I go faster, and soon I'm bringing them down faster than they can regain their connections. I look up, briefly – the armature is stumbling around, falling prey to more and more of Williams' shots, until she finally surges forward and delivers a final burst to the synthetic's optic sensor. It slumps to the ground, smoke billowing from the shattered glass of its eye. I stand up, wide-eyed, and the gunnery chief turns to me.
"Was that you?" she asks, looking rather surprised. I nod, and her face splits into a grin again. "Good work, Hermas."
"You're the one who brought it down, chief. I just helped." The rakish grin softens into a smile. "Now let's take a look at this thing and figure out how to get it back to your ship." I toddle my way back into the small, sheltered cranny and stand in front of the sparking thing, arms crossed. I have no idea what it is, how it works, what it's supposed to do, or any way the two of us could possibly even pick it up, much less carry it all the way to wherever her ship has landed. I take a step closer to the artifact, and
RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN GET OUT GO AWAY RUN NO NO THEY'RE COMING NO RUN THEY'LL KILL YOU THEY'LL RIP YOU TEAR YOU NO NO RUN RUN RUN RUN
everything goes black.