Choking black smoke filled the air, even as the massive, black squid-like starship floated overhead. A coughing figure appeared, dashing towards a transport station. Her blue-green eyes studied the containers that were used for shipping, offices and even living quarters. Of course, at this point, there were also strange, robotic figures that seemed to be killing everyone. The young girl almost snarled silently as she pulled an embossed silver pistol from her empty waistband.
Derek Vanderbunt, one of the few remaining colonists of Eden Prime, scrambled back as the robot with the strange, tubular heads took a shot at him, kicking up dirt near his head. "God, no! Please, I'm no one! Don't hurt me!" He had just seen one of his friends impaled on a strange spike, kicking and screaming.
The geth staggered as bullets started to slam into his shield from behind. The 10mm bullets were striking far harder than any chemical slug-thrower had any right to, but really was only as effective as a mid-grade, modern Mass Effect pistol, discounting ammunition differences. The shooter's accuracy was very, very high, as the geth's head was turned to junk and it collapsed onto its front.
"Are you alright?" the young blonde asked as she ran up. She was a lithe, young woman, though tall for her age and wearing terribly archaic clothing; jeans, a baby blue T-shirt and running shoes.
"I'm fine now, but I'm going to hide in those crates-" The balding worker suddenly scrambled to hide behind a boulder as two more Geth tromped over quickly.
The girl followed him and started crawling quickly. "So night of the killer robots, huh?"
"Damn aliens! Where's the System Alliance fleet? We're supposed to be protected here," the man sobbed.
The Geth was just turning the corner when someone let off with a assault rifle in tight, controlled bursts. Its shields flared, then fell as the young girl started firing her pistol as she edged around the corner. The crack of her archaic pistol resounded up and down the rail platform, and surprised the trio of armor wearing marines.
"Survivors, sir!" Kaiden Alenko called out.
"Derek! Good to see you alive," a woman in colony standard light armor, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, called out.
"They almost got me. I think I was seconds away from being impaled on one of those spikes like the rest of my crew," the colonist said, pointing down towards the train depot where grotesque dead bodies were impaled on technospikes.
"What are these guys? Vlad the Impaler wannabes?" the young teen asked.
That was when the spikes retracted downwards, releasing the bodies. Glowing circuits could be seen within the bodies as they rose like macabre techno-zombies. Derek ran for cover even as the four armed humans opened fire on the dessicated husks that used to be humans. In very short order, they were blasted apart or exploded all over the landscape.
The woman in the middle of the armored group, wearing a customized scarlet and white special forces armor (labeled N7) glared at the dead monsters. "This will not be allowed to continue," She said, before turning to the two others, "I'm Commander Shepard. Are you two going to be all right now?"
"Yeah, I can hide for a bit until reinforcements arrive," Derek said as he came back out and shook the officer's hand. "You going to pull another miracle here?"
"Sheila Henderson. I'm good to go," the young heroine said.
"How many shells do you have for that archaic thing?" Toni Shepard asked.
"Ever-full clip. I'm not running out anytime soon," the overly tall 11 year old explained.
"No armor. You should stay here. You'll just get someone killed. Likely yourself," the special forces commander said, her green eyes narrowed in frustration.
"Low profile ballistic armor. I'm volunteering and it's my choice," the girl said in frustration. "I've been in my share of firefights."
"I hate to say this, but she killed more of those husks than I did with that pistol of hers. If she's got ammo, we can use her," Ashley said with a shrug, "She can at least warn us and watch our backs."
"It's against my better judgement, but you're right, Gunny. Let's move out," Toni called out.
"Right, Shepard!" Kaidan called out.
The N7 special forces led the way downhill to the maglev light cargo rail area.
There they found a dead Turian, face down.
"Shot in the back of his head," Cpl. Alenko said.
"Really close range. There is no vantage point around here in that direction. The crates would block a sniper," Sheila noted, pointing towards the stacked metal crates.
"Wait, there someone still here," Commander Shepard called out.
"Don't shoot! I'm still human!" a man's voice called out. The human technician Dillon stepped out from behind the crates.
"You nearly got your head shot off. How did you escape detection?" Toni asked, her green eyes hard as she studied the slovenly man.
"I was, uh, napping out when the attack. Are you looking for the other Turian?" Dillon asked.
"Other-?" Toni asked.
"A second Turian. That crazy scientist mentioned that there was Turian here already, a prophet," Alenko noted.
"Yeah, I think the one who was shot called him Saren. Then this Saren just shot your friend in the back," the dock worker said.
"This is bad. Nihlus was a Spectre. We had better get that Prothean Beacon secured for extraction," Toni ordered as she led them onto a train. "Controls must be at the other end."
They had to fight their way to the end of the mag-train and then activate the controls. The four Geth drones weren't very tough though.
"They are setting up four foot long devices that are emitting low level radiation and might be setting timers," Sheila said as she looked down the line towards the spaceport as the open air conveyance started moving.
"What? You got some cybernetic mods?" Ashley asked, clearly startled.
"Better than average Mark I eyeballs," the teen replied glibly.
The train zipped towards the spaceport as the massive ship started to float off.
"It's leaving?" the Normandy's lowest rank soldier asked.
"They left some of those geth standing guard over those devices," the scion called out, pointing at one of the nuclear bombs.
"Demolition nukes. We need to disarm those fast. Go go go!" Toni Shepard shouted as she charged around a corner to the stairs that led up the platform. The geth she gunned down barely had time to make a digital squeal as it died. Toni switched her weapon kit for a sniper rifle. She had taken out one when the second geth to the side and across the platforms started taking gunfire from behind. One more shot finished it off.
"How did she get over there?" the Biotic marine asked in confusion. "This looks like the only bridge across here."
"Worry about it later. These might have been left here to suicide with the nukes," Shepard shouted as she thundered across the catwalk and ducked behind cover. She blinked as the young girl dashed past her faster than the geth could lead with their guns and ducked behind her own cover.
Ashley had her own rifle out and was hosing down several geth that had poor cover from her location, even as Kaidan hit one with a biotic push.
"Woo, neat!" Sheila called out. She wished her powers of healing (and their reversing effect) worked on robots.
In just three minutes, they had cleared out all the geth that were left. Now it was just a race to disable the bombs. Toni Shepard was working on the third one when Sheila finished dragging the fourth over to her.
The colony marine looked over to where she had just come from over a hundred feet away. "These things are twelve hundred pounds, easy." That would require some fairly invasive cybernetics or a set of armor with good strength enhancements installed.
"Less talking, more disarming of nuclear bombs, please," the young teen sniped back in a snide voice.
"Got a point. I've got this," Kaidan called out as his Omnitool glowed while he manipulated the nanites to disable the device. "And that's it. All four bombs are disabled. All that's left is the Prothean Beacon."
All four of them walked back to the strange spire that was on the edge of the platform overlooking the blasted remains of the colony that had been razed to the ground.
"Wow, that thing is giving off very, very strange energies," Sheila said, her blue-green eyes nearly glowing as she studied the pitted and decayed device.
The curious Kaidan nodded as he walked up past them to the device. "Yeah, this is the Prothean artifact all right."
It started to hum louder and louder.
"Kaidan!" Toni Shepard shouted even as she and Sheila dashed up to him. Both of them grabbed a shoulder and then tossed him back to slide across the metal floor with a few sparks of metal on metal.
The young scion had continued to move, her other hand spinning around to push Toni away when the spire erupted with strange energies. Both of them were speared and floated up into the air as alien information was slammed into their nervous system.
Darkness claimed them both just before the beacon self-destructed, shearing the top off the device.
"Are you all right?" a friendly voice called out as bright white light filled her gummy eyes. "I'm Doctor Chakwas of the Normandy."
"I've been better. What did that giant hit me with?" the young girl asked inanely. "Oh, wait. That spire thingie blew up after dumping a whole bunch of weird stuff into my head. Actually, I think our heads." She sat up slowly, feeling very woozy.
"I'm impressed you woke up much earlier than Commander Shepard did. I figure she should wake up in about eight more hours," the older woman said. "We are a bit worried, you seem to be missing your official records chip."
"My what? You use biometric chipping as the default information and identification procedure?"
"Yes, its an old, reliable technology so that you always have your medical transcripts and such," the gray haired woman said as she frowned. Generally this only happened because of illegal colonies or outright criminal removal to make it harder for the police to track you. But how had she gotten to Eden prime then?
"Oh, I probably pre-date that. I think I got shunted into a future or sidereal time stream-"
"Predate? You don't look that old." Doctor Chakwas looked perturbed at the direction this conversation was taking.
Sheila gave her a short flat stare to let the doctor know she did not like being interrupted. "I'm not even eighteen yet," she lied by omission poorly, "but I was born in the year 2000 AD."
"Some sort of stasis could allow for that, if such a technology existed back then." The doctor did not look convinced.
"Which it didn't. Let's just say the laws of physics got severely bent and appeared in a burning field with this huge, alien spaceship and killer robots." Sheila tried to look her most innocent and earnest.
"Well, Sergeant Williams and Corporeal Alenko both vouched that you were quite helpful and we were the closest facility that could treat you." The gray haired doctor smiled, willing to play along if nothing else, "Let me pull up your records from the year 2000. Where were you born?"
"Saint Mary's in Chicago, Illinois. The United States of America. It's still around, right?" Sheila asked suddenly.
"Yes, actually." That seemed to cause Doctor Chakwas to grin slightly. "Now that is odd. I do have a Sheila Henderson that matches your looks." Her eyes flicked over to Sheila and then back. "This is... impossible. She died over a hundred years ago, an admiral of the US Navy." They height looked accurate, but the face looked almost too perfect. The girl in the ancient picture was almost identical if not quite as symmetrical and the proportions were just subtly more pleasing to her eye. Even the eyes and hair (somehow) had a finer sheen and color.
Sheila was thinking as fast and furiously as possible even as she wished she could see the displayed information. "So either I'm an insane clone or I've been flung through space and time here before I am sent back... or I'm from an alternate reality." Probably an alternate reality. A regular navy career sounded a bit dull and conformist in her mind.
"Well, her genetic records are on file, but I'll have to request that from Earth. Your features are slightly more perfect than your university graduation pictures, so I'm thinking a clone. Even though I can't find any markers of genetic modification for flash growing you." Doctor Chakwas was now very intrigued. The girl looked very close to that picture. Wait a second. That said she graduated in 2011. "I wonder how accurate your memories are." What sort of child can graduate college at that kind young of age?
"I have a perfect, eidetic memory," the blonde-haired girl replied with a shrug.
The genius sort, it appears. Chakwas nodded her graying head.
The door chimed as it opened, admitting an older, craggy-faced male officer. Chakwas stood up quickly and saluted. "Captain Anderson!"
"At ease, doctor. I heard that our guest woke up." His dark brown eyes studied the girl. "You seem to be recovering well. Any aftereffects from the beacon?"
"Weird, surreal visions." Sheila closed her eyes and started to speak, "Beware the destroyers of the Second Great Civilization of the Galaxy. They await outside of the dark of the galaxy to destroy civilizations after they rise around the Citadel, their trap. We have disabled the Citadel, it will not accept the signal and can not summon its true masters to destroy you, the next great civilization to arise. Beware the Reapers." A warning of some sort?
Anderson and Chakwas looked at each other. The captain frowned. "What was that?"
"The message from the beacon, though it appeared to be a bit degraded and lost a lot of information. The people in it were talking about beings that destroyed the Second Great Civilization that are outside the galaxy and that they were going to return. The Citadel is a trap of some sort, which they have disabled so it can't signal them. Well, I'm paraphrasing the mimetic thought process of the beacon makers." It was actually giving her a bit of a headache to think it through as flashes of the vision appeared in her mind's eye.
"You speak Prothean?" Chakwas asked, thinking the girl had made a mistake.
"Prothean? I do? What's a Prothean?"
Captain Anderson felt a headache coming along. A very, very large headache.
"That's all I remember," Commander Toni Shepard explained to Captain Anderson from where she was sitting on the edge of one of the Normandy's medical beds sixteen hours later.
"Play back the recording," he ordered the doctor. Weird sibilant words came across the computer system. "Did that sound like something from the beacon?"
"Yes, it did, although the voice was very different," Toni said with wide, startled green eyes dominating her face. "I caught a couple of phrases that were the same."
"But you didn't understand it?" the captain asked. At the shake of her head, he continued. "That's Prothean. Supposedly a warning about a race that lives outside the galaxy that came and destroyed them."
"It could be, captain, but it's too confusing for me to be sure," the red-headed special-forces operative admitted. "All I get is a lot of weird, alien flashes and thoughts."
"Corporal Alenko reported that you believe Nihlus was killed by another Turian named Saren?"
"That's right, sir. A civilian had spotted them talking, before the second Turian killed Nihlus. Shot him in the back of the head."
"The Council is very worried about this accusation and has recalled us to speak in front of them."
Toni Shepard stood up. "Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to get cleaned up and moving."
"Shepard, that's no problem whatsoever. I'm just glad you made it back and that we only lost one marine. Jenkins will be sorely missed, though I did reassign Williams from Eden to the Normandy." Captain Anderson returned her salute and then headed out to his own office. "We should be close to docking, so check in with Joker and Pressley."
Toni spotted the Gunnery Sergeant talking to the skinny figure of the civilian as she explained different parts of the ship. "Commander!" Ashley called out, saluting. "Good to see you up and about."
"Good to be up and about. I'm just going to clean up and then get some grub. Meet you both in the mess in fifteen?"
Toni was as good as her word, looking slightly wet from her quick dash through the shower but in new clothing.
"Hard to believe we're racing to an ancient alien artifact to transfer across a fifth of the galaxy," Sheila said in excitement. She had been given a set of clothes from the ship stores, almost fitting in with the crew.
"It's been a pretty amazing time since we discovered the Charon Relay," Ashley said with a wan grin at the younger girl. "So you are from the Metro Chicago area?"
"It was rural Illinois when I was there, but yes. Gunney Williams says you are spacer born, commander?" Sheila asked the older woman.
The redhead nodded. "Born and raised. My mother is the XO of one of the System Alliance's dreadnaughts. So I guess space is in my blood. Did you want to see us dock in the Citadel?"
The young girl nodded her head eagerly.
A giant, black behemoth slipped through the dark of unknown space, far from any ship or station, like a Kraken of ancient horror that had decided to creep through the dark depths of space. Seated in a throne-like control chair, the Spectre Saren Arterius, brooded while massaging his forehead. Cybernetics could be seen under his mandibles and his eyes had been replaced with sensors; a hint that he was more machine than Turian now.
Saren felt a small pang of guilt momentarily at the thought of killing his old protege, but for the barest moment. It had to be done. The spectre was a threat and needed to be removed.
He was interrupted from his musings when the door behind him opened and a strikingly beautiful blue-skinned Asari walked towards him. He turned towards her, indicating that she could speak to him.
"We've identified the ship that touched down on Eden Prime. The Normandy. A Human System Alliance vessel built as a joint Turian-Human project. It was under the command of Captain Anderson and they managed to save the colony."
Saren frowned momentarily at the failure to destroy the Eden Prime space port; that only made his game harder to play and Anderson had always hated him after he spoiled his chance to become the first human spectre. That was of little concern though. It may have been hard for him, but it was damn near impossible for Anderson to play in galactic politics.
Saren was a spectre, the human was not. It was that simple. Besides, there was really only one thing gnawing in the mind of the increasingly agitated Turian. "…and the beacon?"
"One or more of the humans may have used it." The woman finished quietly, devoid of emotion, sensing danger from the Turian.
It could have been the pain from his cybernetics or the failure to destroy the Prothean Beacon immediately, but for at an instant, Saren lost control and howled in anger. He leapt from his seat, throwing tables and chairs aside in blind anger and frustration. How dare they… How dare the humans resist their betters?
Turning on the source of his anger, he took several steps towards the woman and grabbed her face with one of his claw-like hands. He held her face in a threatening manner for a long moment.
"These humans…" the spectre hissed out, "must be killed at all cost."
