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The Systems Alliance frigate S.S.V. Normandy glided effortless through the emptiness of space. She was the fastest, stealthiest, and most advanced ship in the Alliance fleet, and had one of the finest crews a captain could ask for. All in all, the Normandy was not to be trifled with.

Commander Gabriel Shepard stood leaning on the rail of the command platform overlooking the holographic galactic map in the CIC. He reached up to his face to scratch an itch beneath the small scar on his right cheek and ran his hand back through his thick, black hair. His piercing blue eyes darted around the CIC as he observed his crew going about their business. One crewman he paid particularly close attention to, being one Master Chief Ashley Williams-Shepard. She noticed him looking her way and subtly winked in return.

A lot had happened in the year since the Sovereign Incident. To start with, Gabriel had married the woman of his dreams. Most would be swinging a regs book at them and shouting about the rules of fraternization between officers, but there was a particular loophole there that Gabe shamelessly exploited. The regulation specifically forbade fraternization between commissioned officers. Ashley, however, was an NCO, so that rule could be tossed out the airlock in half a heartbeat. That, and Shepard's status as a Spectre meant he could bend the rules, which he had no qualms about doing in this case. It meant that Ashley would never be able to receive an officer's commission while Gabe was still an officer, but they both thought that was a small price to pay in return.

In addition to changes in Gabe's own personal life, a lot had changed in the galactic situation. As far as the Reapers were concerned, they were a non-issue. Shortly after cleaning up the little bits and pieces of Sovereign scattered all over the place, the Council gathered what would be known as the largest multi-species fleet in recorded history and jumped it through the Citadel Relay to attack the Reapers in dark space. The fleet was so big it took a solid three days for all of them to cycle through. When they arrived at the opposite relay in dark space, everyone found out that the fleet was massive overkill. Having never received Sovereign's activation signal, the hundreds of thousands of Reapers simply sat dormant, waiting for a call that never came. The fleet spent the next several days destroying each and every Reaper until no more were left. By the time they headed back into galactic space, no one was afraid of the return of the Reapers, because they had been destroyed as carefully and thoroughly as the Reapers themselves had destroyed all life in the galaxy numerous times over. A smile tickled the corner of Shepard's mouth as he thought about the irony of it.

In regards to politics, the human's acceptance onto the Council had changed a lot about them. Humans were no longer looked at as an inexorable wave of colonization, spreading across the galaxy like a virus. Instead, some races now looked at them as equals, others as superiors. Knowing that humanity had sacrificed many men and women to not only destroy Sovereign but rescue the Citadel Council on the Destiny Ascension from the geth had changed how many races saw them.

Shepard scanned the CIC again and caught a familiar face. Garrus Vakarian was looking over Pressley's shoulder again. Garrus knew that Pressley wasn't particularly fond of turians, and used this knowledge to incessantly pester the XO. He saw Shepard looking at him and acknowledged him with a respectful nod.

The commander nodded in return, "Shouldn't you be checking on the Mako, Garrus?"

Garrus' shoulders shifted backward in a turian approximation of a shrug, "The Mako's in good condition. I see no reason to repair something that isn't broken."

Shepard gestured to the galactic map, "We may be using it soon. I want it in pristine condition when we do."

The turian nodded understandingly, "Last I checked, everything was fine, but I'll give it a once-over just to be sure."

Watching Garrus leave the CIC caused Shepard to reflect for a moment. Of the six people who helped him chase down Saren and Sovereign, only he, Ashley, and Garrus remained. Liara had left the team to take a research lead position at the newly formed Ilos research base. She said that she regretted leaving, but couldn't pass up an opportunity to get a look at ruins in as good condition as those on Ilos, as well as the opportunity to put Vigil's knowledge to the test with a liturgy of questions. Ashley and Tali took her leaving particularly hard, since the three girls had formed something of a triad of friends during their travels.

Speaking of Tali'Zorrah nar Rayya, whose name had subsequently changed to Tali'Zorrah vas Conrayk upon the completion of her Pilgrimage, she made good on her promise to return to the Migrant Fleet. The data on the geth they'd collected while pushing back an incursion into the Armstrong Cluster had proven most valuable to the quarians. Tali stayed in regular contact with Ash and Liara, maintaining their friendship triangle. Last Shepard had heard, Tali was now the XO of her ship and was dating a fine young quarian man, an admiral's son, interestingly enough.

Urdnot Wrex had left the group to head to Virmire on his own self appointed quest. His hope was to find some of the remaining krogan that Saren had cured of the genophage. If he could find some, he would hire a scientist to examine blood samples and try to replicate the cure.

Remembering Saren's Virmire facility reminded Shepard about Kaiden. Lt. Kaiden Alenko had nobly given his life during the salarian assault on that base. Unfortunately, in the year following, a proper BDA had never been conducted, so Shepard didn't even know if there was a body left to bury.

Shepard pried his thoughts from his reverie and hit the intercom button on the rail he was leaning on, "Status report, Joker."

"Still twenty minutes out from the Dracos Colony, commander. All systems running solid."

The commander nodded, "Engage stealth systems when we get closer and keep an ear open for comm traffic."

"Will do, sir."

He closed the comm and looked at the galactic map. In spite of so much good going on in the galaxy, peace was the last thing that was settling in. A number of pirate and mercenary groups had taken full advantage of the chaos of the Sovereign incident and had expanded their operations. Several shipping lanes near the Terminus Systems now required a full military escort just to get from one relay to the next. One planet in the Terminus had even openly declared their status as a "free" pirate world. Everyone knew it wouldn't last long, though. The armed forces of the Council races were already taking steps to make the pirates' lives as miserable as possible.

Pirates and mercenaries wasn't what was on Shepard's mind right now. His present assignment was his concern. The Dracos Colony, a human/turian joint colony that was a lot closer to the Traverse than most cared for, had dropped out of contact very suddenly almost two days ago, although their last communiqué was telling enough. A brief distress call followed by static; a good indicator that they were in trouble. There was a lot more to it than that, though. Something was wrong with this, Shepard could feel it. Something wasn't right here. It was the same feeling he'd gotten on Akuze shortly before the thresher maws attacked. The Council must have had the same bad feeling about it all, too, otherwise they wouldn't have sent a Spectre for such a routine investigation.

The intercom came to life again, "Four minutes out, commander. Dracos dead ahead."

Shepard nodded, "Any comm traffic?"

"I've been listening for a while now, but there hasn't been so much as a burp on any channel. Either the colony's comm systems are down, or worse."

The commander nodded again, "Let's just hope it's not worse. Drop us in the Mako about a click outside the colony." He looked around the CIC at the people he needed, "Ashley, Garrus, you're with me. We're going down there to see what's going on."

The shore party suited up and waited in the Mako while Joker brought them in for the drop. The hold door in front of them opened, revealing the lime green skies of Dracos. Once the door was down, Shepard floored the pedal, stirring up smoke from the tires as they lost grip for a moment before shooting them out the open door. They dropped in freefall for several long seconds before he hit the boosters, slowing their drop to something far less lethal. Shepard had done so many Mako drops in his career that he could sleep through them by now. They hit the ground with a hard thud and skidded around backward before coming to a stop. Shepard craned his neck to look out at the ground. The planet's gravelly surface didn't much lend itself to grip. He'd have to drive a little more carefully. He jammed the pedal down again, kicking up probably several kilos of loose sand and gravel before the tires found purchase and started them on their way. Garrus marked the colony's location on the nav system and Shepard put them on course for it.

After several minutes of driving covering a kilometer's distance, the colony came into view on the horizon. At least, what was left of the colony came into view. Enormous pillars of black smoke billowed into the air from several places along the low cityscape. That spelled "trouble" with a capital "T".

Garrus lowered a pair of binoculars he was looking through, "There are no flames, explosions, or signs of conflict across the colony. Whatever hit them is gone by now."

Ashley scoffed from behind him, "Looks like BDA and burial detail then."

They pulled up to the colony's perimeter wall and slowed in front of a gate that opened automatically. The party drove through the gate and Shepard pulled the Mako to a stop. He slipped his helmet on before climbing out of the vehicle, setting foot onto the gritty terrain and looking around. Whoever came through here had been thorough, if not messy. Bodies of the colonists lay scattered all over the place; thrown in the streets, strewn on sidewalks, laying across burning vehicles; it was a mess. Not a soul left alive.

Shepard fanned his arm across the area, "Spread out. Check for survivors." He started walking toward a cluster of bodies, looking at the results of this massacre. He squatted down to get a closer look at one, a turian. Deep burns covered the torso and legs, some holes burned big enough to fit a hand in. Shepard looked around at the mess and wondered to himself. Who would do this, and why? Dracos was a fairly small backwater colony with little importance to speak of. The colony was owned by a small enclave of businessmen, but the colony itself wasn't particularly wealthy. The thorium mines and the spaceport were the only real points of interest on Dracos. It couldn't have been slavers or pirates. They would want the populace alive, not slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child like this. Shepard frowned. They weren't even an hour into their investigation yet and it was already clear that there was more here than meets the eye.

His comm beeped and he held two fingers up to the side of his helmet, "Shepard."

"Commander, it's Garrus. I've found something that I think you should see."

He nodded, "I'm on my way." He stood and checked his suit sensors to get Garrus' location before heading over there. He found the turian agent in a street standing over the burned out hulk of a contragravity speeder, running a scanner beam from his omni-tool over it. Shepard walked up next to him and tapped his arm to get his attention.

Garrus glanced at Shepard briefly before looking back at the speeder, "I've been scanning this wreck for the last ten minutes, but I can't figure it out."

Shepard stepped closer and looked at Garrus' omni-tool, "What can't you figure out?"

The turian held his arm so both of them could see the tool's display, "The residual energy signatures on this wreckage are unlike anything I've ever seen. I've been trying to match it with something in the database, but so far I haven't come up with anything."

The human commander shrugged, "It may be our dear old friends, the geth. The Alliance found inconsistent energy signatures like this on some of the bodies from Eden Prime."

Garrus shook his head slowly, "I'm not so sure about that. This is definitely different."

Shepard was about to continue when his comm beeped again, "Commander, I think I've found something that can help us. I'm at the local marine barracks."

He nodded, "We'll be right there, Ash." He looked up at Garrus and jerked his head toward where they were going, "Get what you can from that thing and let's go. Maybe what Ashley turned up will help piece this together." Garrus killed his omni-tool and both set out for the barracks. When they arrived, they found Ashley sitting on a small supply crate, fiddling with something.

Shepard nodded to his wife as they approached, "What you got there, hon?"

She kept working with it, "Marine helmet. Its wearer was quite dead. The recorder looks like it's intact…" Her hand came out with a jerk and she cursed, "If I can ever get it out."

Garrus solved her problem by simply touching a button on the side of the helmet and catching the ejected memory module before it fell.

Ash looked at him and her eyes widened, "Oh. I thought they came out from the inside."

Shepard smiled and shook his head, "I would have figured you knew that, Ash."

She just shrugged, "Hey, I just break the armor. I don't fix it."

Garrus inserted the module into his omni-tool and pressed several buttons. He held his hand out toward the barracks and projected the image on the wall. It started out simply enough. It looked like just another day at work. People were walking around the colony, going about their daily business. The marine whose recording this was looked around. From what they could see, the marine was on guard somewhere nearby where they presently were. The marine looked around briefly before looking down at his hand, holding his wallet with a picture of a little girl in it, presumably a daughter.

Shepard sat down next to Ashley and put his hand on her shoulder, "I wonder if he knew he was being recorded."

"Doubtful." Ash shrugged and leaned against her husband a little, "Probably a practical joke by one of his squad mates."

Garrus continued to look at the recording, "Whatever it is, hopefully it'll lead to some answers about what happened here."

The marine put his wallet away and checked over his rifle once before going back to looking around. A couple other marines came over and started to talk to him, their conversation amounting to nothing more than idly bulling around and shooting the breeze.

What happened next had everyone intrigued. While the soldiers were chatting it up, suddenly the camera view jostled hard. The view looked around frantically before settling in on a patch of ground that was struck by several blue-white blasts of energy, each spot consequently exploding in a column of dirt. The view turned around and started following the rest of the troops toward the barracks. They made it to the front of the barracks when the view jostled hard again, flying backward through the air before going to static upon landing.

Garrus turned off the image and turned to look at the Shepards, "I'm sorry to say that that wasn't very useful. It only told us what we already know, that they were attacked."

Shepard sat on the crate thinking, drumming his fingers on Ashley's shoulder, "We might be able to get some readings on whatever weapon energy that was."

Ashley sat up and scratched her neck, "They looked like geth armature blasts to me."

Garrus shook his head, "I don't think so. Geth armature blasts have a fairly slow airspeed. Those blasts were moving faster, and they looked different."

The commander stood up and looked around, "Well, whatever they were, they did a lot of damage." He pointed at Garrus' omni-tool, "Let's get that recording and your scan data back to the Normandy. We can go over it and maybe…"

"Yes!"

Shepard whipped around at hearing the voice behind him and had his pistol in hand and deployed before he saw that it was a civilian. He was filthy, covered head to toe in dirt, ash, and sand.

He staggered toward them and reached out as though to give them something, "Thank God! I've been stuck here for days. I thought I'd never see another living being again." He fell to his knees when he got to them and just sat there, trembling. Shepard stowed his weapon and motioned for the others to do the same as he knelt down in front of the survivor.

Shepard kept his tone even and consoling, "Are you all right?"

The survivor just hung his head, "If you'd seen what I've seen, you'd say 'no', too."

"What happened here?"

The man looked up at Shepard and shuddered before looking up and around, "They came out of nowhere, out of the sky, like angels of fire, raining death as they flew. They came to the ground from their ships and just…just started killing. Killing, killing everyone. I don't know how I survived." He stood up and staggered around, looking and motioning upward in a haze, "They flew…they flew large ships, with wings like a demon. The small ships, the fighters, came in endless waves, raining fire and death, destroying everything. Then…then the big ships came. They hovered over the city, and suddenly they just appeared. They appeared in the streets, in the park, on the buildings, they just appeared."

Shepard stood and grabbed the man's shoulder to steady him, "Hold on now. What do you mean they just 'appeared'?"

The man appeared to get angry at the question, "Just what I said! They just appeared. You don't believe me, then you should have been there. There was a bright flash and they appeared, out of nowhere. They just appeared!"

Shepard shook his head, "Who's 'they'?"

The man's eyes widened and the color drained from his face, "Death."

Something struck the man hard in the back. Shepard caught the body as it fell forward, the big, black burn in the middle of his back the likely culprit. He dropped the man's body as he pulled his assault rifle from his back to return fire. More blue-white pulses flew by, missing wide or high, with one striking his barriers. He dove and rolled behind the crate he was sitting on earlier, pulling it up on its side to present broader cover. Ashley dropped flat against the ground and rolled behind a bench while Garrus ducked for a low garden wall. A quick check of his displays showed that Shepard had lost fifteen percent of his KBs to enemy fire. He removed the safety on his rifle and leaned around his cover to see who the assailants were. A relatively humanoid form with a flashlight head; a squad of geth were advancing on their position, taking cover and firing to cover each other's movements. Shepard pulled a grenade from his belt and loaded it with an HE charge before flinging it toward the geth formation. It stuck in the ground in the middle of the group and Shepard hit the detonator. The Mk. VIII high explosive charge lifted a column of dirt into the air with the blast, killing two of the eight synthetics and scattering rest of the geth formation. Ashley and Garrus wheeled out of their cover and began laying down suppressive fire on the geth. Shepard jumped out from his cover and ran forward for several meters before dropping to one knee and opening up with a long burst of automatic fire, sweeping over the geth's cover and causing them to duck down. He pointed back at Garrus and jabbed two fingers forward toward the geth. Without hesitation, the turian activated his omni-tool and sent an overload charge into the middle of the geth group, dropping their KBs and forcing them down again.

Shepard laid down another arc of suppressive fire and signaled for Ashley to advance. She followed the order and stood from her cover, running up to a few meters off Shepard's left flank. Shepard swung his hand toward the geth, signaling an advance, before setting the overcharge on his rifle's cooling unit and kinetic stabilizer, activating what marines affectionately referred to as "Overkill". The overcharge wouldn't last long, so he needed to be quick. He stood and started moving on the geth position with Ashley off his flank, keeping the closest one's cover sighted. The synth stood from behind its cover to fire, but Shepard was ready for it. He squeezed the trigger, opening up a full-auto burst of tungsten VII rounds. The geth shuddered under the hail of bullet impacts before dropping dead on its back. Another stood to fire, but Ashley lit it up with full-auto burst fire. One geth peeked over the low stone wall it was using as cover only to have its head cored like an apple by a round from Garrus' sniper rifle. The remaining three geth all stood from their cover at once and started firing, trying to drive them back. Shepard snap-tossed another HE grenade toward them before diving for a rock one of the synths was hiding behind. The explosion made it rain sand for a moment before Shepard stood to assess what was left. Only two geth remained, and they were retreating as best they could. They couldn't run for very long before the combination of automatic fire and sniper fire ended their artificial existences. Shepard walked up to the last one, keeping it sighted, and kicked it to make sure it was dead before stowing his rifle. He set his assault rifle on his back and turned around to his wife. She was little more than winded, signaling she was okay with a smile and a thumbs-up. Garrus approached them carrying his sniper rifle on his shoulder.

Shepard looked at Garrus and motioned to the geth bodies, "Will you believe me now when I say it's geth?"

The turian shrugged, "Give me a few minutes to get some scans of their weapons, and we'll see." He collapsed his rifle and put it away before bringing up his omni-tool and running it over a black score mark made by a geth pulse rifle. He did so with several blast marks before returning to where Shepard and Ashley were waiting.

Garrus shook his head as he looked at his omni-tool, "I hate to say it, Shepard, but I still don't believe you. I've found exact matches on all the samples I've collected of geth energy weapons, but I still don't have a match for those energy patterns I found earlier."

Ashley pulled her helmet off and ran a hand through her hair, "I think I have to go with Garrus on this one, honey. The geth fall from their dropships like bird crap, then start killing things. They don't just 'appear' like that man said. So far, whoever hit this place, the MO doesn't match anyone we know."

Shepard scratched his chin under his helmet as he thought. Unmatched energy signature. Unknown deployment method. He finally had to admit that who or whatever hit this place, they were a new player in the game. He nodded slowly as an indicator to the others that they'd convinced him.

Shepard held two fingers up to his helmet as he opened his comm, "Joker, status."

"Everything's quiet up here, commander, but we did detect some gunfire down on the surface. You guys alright down there?"

Shepard nodded, "We're all fine. Had to beat back a geth raiding party. Come to my position for evac."

"Roger that. Secure and aweigh. ETA: six minutes."

Shepard closed his comm and checked the scene again when he noticed Garrus fiddling with one of the geth's heads.

He raised an eyebrow, "Garrus, what are you doing?"

The turian finally pried the skull plate free, "Tali showed me how to extract data from a geth memory core before she left. I want to see if one of these guys knows what happened here." He carefully removed the fried memory core and looked it over, his mandibles opening and closing as he studied it.

The Normandy wasted no time in arriving and picked up the shore party before heading back into orbit. They set course for the nearest relay to get back into friendly space while they studied their findings. Shepard walked into the bridge to find Joker glued to his chair, as always, and Garrus working on one of the consoles. He walked over and leaned against the wall as he looked over the turian's shoulder.

He nodded to the console, "Did you get anything?"

Garrus' hands continued to work over the buttons, "Like Tali said, 'If you're quick, careful, and lucky'. I did manage to get some information out of the core. Unfortunately, I think it only thickens the plot."

"What do you mean?"

The turian shook his head, "I haven't determined it for sure, but I think this geth was under orders to investigate what happened to the colony. It looks like they're just as curious as we are." Garrus hit several buttons and something on the screen began to beep, "Ah, good. The cipher decryption's done." He opened the file and shook his head when he read it, "This confirms it, Shepard. The geth don't know any more about what happened at Dracos than we do."

Shepard furrowed his brow and slowly shook his head, "So if the geth don't know, and we don't know, than who does know what hit the colony?"

Garrus looked up over his shoulder at Shepard, "I think the only ones who can tell us are all dead."

Shepard sighed, "That's what I was afraid of." He looked over his shoulder at Joker, "Joker, shoot this report off to the Council. They need to know what's going on here."

Joker nodded as he sent off the report, "Oh yeah, they're going to love this one. An entire colony exterminated by an unknown enemy that just appears, kills everyone, and vanishes." He paused and sniffed through his nose several times, "Hey, commander. I think I smell another crap assignment coming your way."

"We need to figure out who or what did this before they hit again." Shepard turned to head back to the CIC. It would have been nice for a little bit of quiet time in the wake of the Sovereign Incident, but it looked like there truly was no rest for the wicked.