**Updated**

I don't own Mass Effect or any of the characters.

Chapter 2: Fall of Eden Prime Part 2

The attack on Eden Prime has been well documented since it's occurrence 17 years ago. At first glance, the sad truth is this was just another attack on a human colony on the edges of the Terminus Systems. Something that, while not common place at the time, was hardly unheard of. So, what makes Eden Prime so special? The presence of the Geth, the first time they had been seen outside the Perseus Veil since driving the Quarians from their home world 200 years prior, as well as the Prothean Beacon unearthed there is what makes this attack so well-known and studied over the years.

However, Eden Prime also served as a prelude to something even greater. A threat the likes of which we could not have predicted in our wildest dreams. Eden Prime was the first strike in a war that would hit the very heart of Citadel Space. It also served as the prelude to an even greater war on the horizon.

"The Signs Unseen; A Prelude to War", by Johnathan Hawking, 2201.

-Line Break-

Nihlus raced through the ruins of what used to be the human colony of Eden Prime. He had been battling his way through enemies from the minute his legs had touched the ground. While his battles had not been especially dangerous or life threatening they had proven to be time consuming.

'Who could have predicted the Geth would travel outside the Veil to attack a human colony?' He thought to himself. 'How did they even hear about the beacon out there?'

He had just arrived at what appeared to be a loading dock at the outskirts of the colony. He had just minutes ago taken out another group of Geth that seemed to be patrolling the area. Stopping for a moment he fiddled with his Omni-tool, once again trying to break through this communication jamming and contact Shepard.

'I really hope he's closer to the Beacon than I am.' He thought.

Hearing a slight sound he spun around with his pistol already trained on the figure standing behind him.

"Saren, what the spirits are you doing here? This isn't your mission." He asked suspiciously.

"Council thought you could use some help on this one." He said back with the Turian equivalent of a smirk. "The plan was to hang back and observe you and the human, more of an insurance policy than anything else. However recent developments have made it necessary for me to step in."

Nihlus considered for a moment before nodding his head. Saren was the Council's top Spectre, it only made sense that for a mission of this importance they send him along as back-up.

"I guess it's good you're here. Who could have predicted Geth outside the Veil for the first time in hundreds of years?" He said. "The situation here is worse than I could have ever imagined."

At some point Saren had ended up behind him however he did not pay it any mind. He was busy surveying the area for any approaching Geth.

"Yes, the situation is quite dire, but don't worry." Even distracted as he was he could still hear the sound of a pistol being drawn behind him.

"I've got it all under control."

'Son of a…'

-Line Break-

Shepard and his team had left Jenkin's old home and continued on their search. So far they had encountered another two groups of those weird flying machines. Thankfully they were aware of them now and had handled it with very little to no problems.

They were just getting to the edge of another clearing when Shepard gave the signal to stop. These machines seemed to only attack in open spaces like this. This clearing was slightly different than the previous ones. It appeared to have once been an Alliance military base. There were tents lying collapsed on the ground and crates full of supplies that had obviously been used as cover in combat. Dead bodies littered the ground, eyes still open and staring unseeing at the sky.

Shepard turned to look at the faces of his teammates. Kaiden was experienced so while his eyes did betray his sadness it was more resigned than anything else. Clearly he was used to seeing his fellow officers killed. Jenkins was another story. His eyes showed shock, sorrow, and rage. Fresh out of the Academy this was probably the first time he seen death like this. The more Shepard looked at the battlefield the more he understood, this wasn't a battlefield. It was a massacre.

Just as Shepard was about to give the order to move forward he picked up the sound of gunfire coming from the other side of the camp. He didn't have to wait long before the source of the noise showed itself. A young female Alliance soldier came running into view with two more of those flying drones following close behind. Skidding to a stop she took cover behind one the crates and pulled out one of her guns.

-Line Break-

Ashley Williams had been having a nice day until the sky fell. She had woken up for morning exercises, gone and had breakfast before reporting to her station. As a gunnery chief it was her job to check on the weapons set up to guard the camp. They had recently changed locations to guard some kind of scientific discovery, what that was they were not told. As such the defenses were not ready yet so it was up to her and her team to get the defenses up and running. Unfortunately that would never happen, they were too late.

It was around midday when the sky turned dark. They had no warning, one minute the sun was shining and everything was as good as it could be, the next the sky had turned dark and everyone was fighting for their lives. The majority of them lost. She had helped one of her squad mates to send out a distress message shortly after the attack started. Unfortunately said squad mate did not make it two minutes after they had sent the message before he was gunned down by a Geth trooper. The remainder of her squad had not lasted much longer and suddenly Ashley was on her own. She had been on the run ever since.

She rounded a corner with a pair of Geth troopers following seconds behind her. Sliding to the ground she scrambled behind one of the crates that was lying in the field and brought her gun back up and prepared to fire. She could hear the Geth troopers coming her way but before she could duck out of her cover she heard several shots coming from the edge of the clearing. Moving her gaze she was able to pick out a squad of Alliance soldiers, three if she had to guess, firing down onto the Geth, making quick work of them. Taking a couple seconds to catch her breath she allowed her rifle to drop to the ground for the first time in an hour. Once she thought she was ready she rose to her feet and faced her rescuer. She could tell by his uniform that he was high up in the chain of command, a Commander if she didn't miss her bet.

"Thanks for the help sir. I've been running around shooting at anything that moved for the last hour. I would have taken care of them myself but my rifle overheated so I had to start running and there was never a time to get turned around." She said still breathing hard.

"Not a problem", he responded. "Wanna tell me who you are now?"

"Oh, sorry sir. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. My unit was stationed here to guard some kind of scientific discovery until it could be extracted, am I right to assume that's you?"

"It is." He responded. Reaching up to his head he removed his helmet so he could see her without the screen and so she could see him. He was well aware of two things that he was constantly using to his advantage. The first that he had an intimidating physique, he was tall at 6' 3" and his body had been fully developed from years of fighting. However intimidation wasn't his only option because while he may be intimidating he knew he was also good looking. More girls than he could remember had made that fact quite clear to him. One look at Williams was all it took for him to confirm that she was no exception, after all you don't have to like someone to be attracted to them.

"But that assignment was supposed to be top secret. I doubt you are supposed to be mentioning it to anyone you come across." He continued.

Ashley was indeed taken in by his looks. There was something about him that both attracted her and made her shy away. He was handsome enough and she could clearly see that he had a body that went beyond that of normal soldiers. She had also noticed the N7 he had plastered to his chest, meaning he was very good at what he does. Yet his eyes were definitely off-putting. There was a cold demeanor to them that almost made her want to hide or say sorry, for what she didn't know.

"Sorry sir but I had to assume. We were told you would be getting here today and considering the entire colony is on fire I doubt looters or thieves would take on the Geth to get some scientific discovery that we didn't even get any information on." Ashley said with a slightly embarrassed face. He was right, she shouldn't have mentioned it without first being sure. However something she said registered with the man to the Commander's right.

"Wait a minute, did you say Geth" he asked in a disbelieving tone. "They haven't been seen outside the Veil in centuries why do you think they are here now."

"My guess would be they heard about the discovery and somehow got more information about it than we did. They either intercepted a transmission or someone leaked them the info. Besides, these things can't be anything besides Geth. They're way too advanced to be simple mechs what else could they be?"

Shepard considered her reasoning. It was true that these things were far too advanced to be mechs and it was true the thought had crossed his mind before but he been reluctant to settle on it being the answer and he been too preoccupied to give the question any real thought until now. In fact the more he thought about it the more likely it seemed.

"If they really are Geth speed becomes even more important. Williams, I need you to take me to the scientist's camp. We need to extract that discovery." Shepard said.

"Of course sir. But may I ask who you three are?" Ashely asked.

"I'm Commander Shepard, N7 and leader of this mission. To my right is Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and to my left is Corporal Richard Jenkins of the SSV Normandy. Now if we're done with introductions can we get moving? We've wasted enough time already."

"Yes sir." Williams replied quickly before setting off in the direction of the scientist's camp.

-Line Break-

'Is there anything else that can go wrong during this fucking mission?' Shepard thought to himself.

They had found the dig site in minutes thanks to William's knowledge of the area. Unfortunately they were already too late, the beacon had been moved. For some reason Shepard didn't think Nihlus had gotten their first and extracted it. From what he could see there was no landing marks so it wasn't airlifted out. Instead it appeared to have been moved by ground. The tracks led up the hill behind the dig site, heading back towards the colony.

"Williams, what's in that direction?" He had asked.

"Well there's a tram that leads to the spaceport a little ways away from here." She had replied. "They must be trying to transfer it off world."

When they had gotten to the top of the hill they had been in for a nasty surprise. The colonists that the Geth had been impaling on spikes were not as dead as they had at first appeared to be. As they were moving past the spikes had collapsed back down, lowering the bodies down to the ground. Once they had dropped they had proceeded to start twitching and moving.

"Oh my god." Kaiden had yelled. "They're still alive."

That brought them to the position they were in now. Shepard had his shotgun out and was proceeding to blast any of the "husks" that got close while his team weakened the ones further away before they reached him. It was a good system, they had already picked off about half of the original dozen husks before they ran into some trouble. One of the husks managed to sneak through while Shepard was busy blasting another. In a burst of blue energy it knocked Shepard off his feet, the world blurring around him. Once it got him down it jumped onto him and raised its clawed hand and brought it down. Before he could be hit he raised his left arm to block the strike and reached his right to slip his knife out of the pocket on the side of his leg. Bringing his arm up he plunged the blade into the creature's neck.

Just as he shoved the thing off of him he was confronted with another husk baring down on him. Reaching to the side he grabbed his shotgun and brought it up to put a round through the things chest, knocking it several feet back and to the ground where it remained still. Getting back to his feet he called that familiar blue glow and tingling feeling back to himself and launched a charging husk twenty yards back where it was gunned down by his teammates.

Taking a deep breath he scanned the area for another few seconds before allowing himself to relax.

"Everyone alright?" He asked. Ashley and Kaiden were breathing hard while Jenkins had sat down of the grass.

"We're good sir" Ashley responded.

"Good, take a rest we move in five. Jenkins stand up. You're restricting your breathing sitting like that. I'm going to scout ahead, when you three are ready come follow me."

Switching his shotgun out for his assault rifle he left the three to catch their breaths and continued forward.

'I've already wasted enough time as is.' He thought.

As he reached the edge of the clearing and looked down he could finally catch a glimpse of the tram the Geth had most likely used to move the beacon. Unfortunately that was not all he saw. He counted at least a dozen Geth soldiers that stood between him and that tram. Thinking quickly he ducked into cover before any of them could catch a glimpse of him.

'Alright let's break it down. 12 maybe 15 soldiers stand between myself and my current objective. I could wait for the other three and improve my odds but I can't afford to wait any longer. That beacon could be getting loaded up on a ship right now. Smartest thing to do right now would be to go with my sniper rifle. I should be able to pick a couple off before they can get a lock on my location. After that it's a simple firefight.'

Placing his assault rifle on the ground he drew his sniper from his back and took aim at the Geth closest to him. Taking a deep breath in he pulled the trigger before letting his breath out and selecting another target and repeating the process. As he predicted he was able to take out four Geth soldiers before the rest could locate who was shooting at them. When he saw them moving towards him he dropped another with a perfect headshot and strapped his sniper rifle back onto his back and picked up the assault he had placed on the ground. Five seconds later he had brought down the sixth soldier, leaving only 9 remaining.

'Would have been awesome if I had someone that could pull off an Overload.' He thought to himself.

Calling on his biotics again he lifted one of the approaching Geth into the air and focused his fire on the second still on the ground. This one proved to be more difficult with some kind of a shield that protected it which meant he had to drain its shields before he could take it out. Thankfully it seemed these soldiers couldn't move very fast so he had just enough time to take it out before it could reach him. Right around that time the Geth he had lifted into the air came crashing to the ground just in front of where he was taking cover behind a rock. Leaping over the rock he activated the Omni-blade on his wrist and brought it down into the head of the Geth as it was trying to rise to its feet.

'Eight down, seven to go.'

As he was making a dash to his left to take cover behind a strategically placed crate lying on its side he was greeted with a hail of weapons fire from the remaining troopers. His shields were able to take the brunt of the assault however they could not account for all of it. By the time he reached cover he had received three shots, two in his left arm and one in his left leg. Reaching for his Omni-tool he approved the use of Omni gel to treat his wounds. Ignoring the pain he rose out of cover and fired towards another Geth trooper and brought it down, two shots to the chest and one into its head, before ducking back down to avoid the return fire.

'That's nine.'

Just as he was wondering how he was going to take the remaining six Geth Troopers he picked up the sound of gunfire coming from behind him. Turning he caught sight of his team firing down towards the enemy and bringing down another two Geth before they too ducked into cover.

'About time they caught up. Only four left, time to move forward.'

Once again he rose out of cover and leapt over the falling crate. Running forwards towards another overturned crate he raised his rifle he brought down another Geth trooper and slid into cover before he could get hit. His movement also caused a distraction and allowed for Kaiden to activate his own biotics to lift one of the Troopers into the air while Jenkins and Ashley gunned it down.

'2 left.'

Peeking over the crate he saw the remaining Troopers were standing right next to each other giving him an idea how to end this fight.

'Well I've got five grenades for this mission, might as well use one.'

Detaching one from his waist he stood up and let it fly towards his targets. His aim true the grenade stuck the ground between his two targets and stuck there, letting out a quick beep before exploding. While it was not enough to take the both out it did do a good amount of damage and allowed Shepard to leave cover, get in close and gun them down in quick succession.

'And that's all of them.'

Overall he figured the entire thing took right around eight minutes. He allowed himself half a minute to catch his breath and wait for the other three to join him.

"Gotta say Commander that was really impressive", he heard Kaiden say.

"Yeah, you took them on by yourself and kicked their asses." Jenkins said with bright wide eyes that looked at him admirably. It was a look he was well acquainted with, though it still annoyed the hell out of him when he saw it. Ashley remained silent however he could tell she was impressed.

"Alright team, we're heading down to the tram and following that beacon. With any luck it hasn't been moved off world yet. With even more luck Nihlus is already there and working to secure it. Let's move." Shepard said.

As they were making their way down towards the station Shepard heard slight movement inside one of the storage sheds and paused. Maybe there were some colonists that had been able to hide and escape the slaughter.

"Whoever's in there come out now. If you don't I'm coming in." He said in what he called his 'Commander' voice. It was slightly louder than normal but carried a lot of power and authority.

"Alright we're coming out. Please just don't shoot." He heard a woman reply.

The door opened and out came a woman looking fearful but trying to stay strong. Behind her he was able to make out the form of man still cowering in the shed.

'Pansy' he thought.

As he opened his mouth to start asking questions he was interrupted by the excited and relieved voice of his greenest member.

"Mom", Jenkins yelled and moved forward to embrace the woman.

"Richard" she replied and wrapped him up in a hug as well. The display brought a smile to the faces of Ashley and Kaiden however Shepard just stood back and waited. After a few moments Jenkins seemed to remember what was going on and detached himself from his mother and turned back to Shepard with an embarrassed look on his face. Shepard just stared back with one eyebrow raised as if to say 'are you done?'

"Sorry Commander." He said sheepishly however remained by his mother's side.

"Just say goodbye, we've got to go." He said with an impatient tapping to his foot.

"The commander's right mom, we have to go. Did you happen to see a group of those synthetics come through here with a large object?" He asked.

"No, sorry. When the attack hit we locked ourselves in the shed and tried to stay as quiet as possible. The attack seems to have upset my assistant." She says while pointing to the man still inside the shed. "He's never been the most stable person to begin with and with everything that's happened I've had to do all I can to keep him under control. I gave him an extra dose of his medicine but I'm still waiting for it to kick in."

Apparently by mentioning him the man decided it was time to come out and start ranting at them.

"This is the end. Synthetics are rebelling against organics. They look to purge the galaxy of every living thing, until only machine is left. The end is coming, the end of everything we know. It's all over, it's all over, it's…"

The man's ranting was abruptly cut off as Shepard let loose a blast of biotic energy that knocked the man back into the shed and slammed him against the wall where he then tumbled to the ground and was still.

"What the hell?" came Jenkin's mother's response.

"I did you a favor. We're moving on to the spaceport which means you are going to be locking yourself back inside that shed and waiting for reinforcements from the Alliance to arrive. He'll be fine, just unconscious for a while which leaves you one less thing to worry about." Shepard said with no trace of an apology in his voice.

She sighed but acknowledged his point.

"You're probably right."

Turning around to head back into the shed she gave one last look at her son.

"Be careful Richard." She said with a sad smile.

"Stay safe mom" he responded. She gave him a small nod before going back into the shed and locking the door once again.

"Feel better Jenkin's?" Shepard asked.

"Yes sir, much." He responded with a small smile on his face.

"Good, now focus on what's ahead of us. I doubt we're done fighting so you'd better pay attention if you want to get back to your mom." He said in his commander voice.

"Yes sir." Came his enthusiastic response, snapping into a solute.

Shepard rolled his eyes at the display. There were many things he didn't like about being in the Alliance and that was one of them. Everyone was so serious and there were way too many regulations. That was one of the reasons he was pushing to be a SPECTRE. He could do whatever he wanted and no one would care as long as he got the job done.

Continuing their journey down to the tram they were greeted with another unwelcome surprise once they reached the loading zone. A Turian was lying face down on the ground with a bullet wound in the back of his head and two in his back.

"Shit", came Kaidan's voice. "It's Nihlus."

'Of course it is. God forbid something actually went right on the damn mission.' He thought.

"I'm guessing this is the Turian you were looking for." Ashley said.

"Yep. Meet Nihlus, the SPECTRE that we were 'working with' during this mission." Jenkins said with air quotes around 'working with'.

"Guess you're not faster on your own." Shepard said.

Ashley looked over at him quickly with a surprised look on her face. At first she thought he was mocking the Turian. Even if he was a Turian she still didn't believe in mocking the dead. However Shepard's face showed no sign of any emotions whatsoever. It was more like he was stating a fact.

Shepard's ears once again picked up the faint sound of movement and within a second had his pistol drawn and pointed at the source. He quickly relaxed his posture but didn't lower his weapon as he came face to face with what appeared to be a dock-worker.

"Whoa, whoa, don't shoot." The man said raising his hands up and ducking his head for whatever reason.

'Honestly, what does he think ducking will do? I'm like 5 yards away from him, does he really think ducking slightly is going to make miss.'

"What are you doing here, shouldn't you be hiding?" Shepard asked still not lowering his weapon.

"I was. I was hiding behind the crates when I saw you guys I figured I could come out now. Whatever those things are, they didn't find me. I had to watch as they gunned everyone down. I don't have a weapon, there was nothing I could do." He responded. His voice had the desperate tone that was almost begging them to understand his decision to hide.

"Hold on, you were hidden behind the crates. Why didn't anyone else think of that? I'm sure there were people that tried to hide, why did the Geth find them and not you?" Jenkins asked.

"Maybe it was because I was already behind the crates when the attack started." The worker responded.

"Wait a minute, you were already behind the crates when the attack happened? What were you doing back their?" Jenkins again asked.

"Look, I work ten hour days just to make enough to get by. Sometimes in order to make it through my shifts I'll duck behind the crates and take an hour to nap to get through my shift." He explained, embarrassed.

"So, you're not just a coward but you're lazy to." Came Kaiden's angry reply. Shepard merely snorted out a half laugh.

'Yea how dare this guy take a nap when he's got such an important job? I mean if he doesn't move those crates from here to wherever someone might not get their stuff for another hour.' He thought to himself.

"Hey, don't judge me man. What was I supposed to do run out there and die with them? I told you I don't have a gun or anything to protect myself or anyone else." The man responded indignantly.

Shepard's mind, which had previously only been half listening zeroed in on a particular detail.

"Wait, you said you've been back there this whole time?" He asked.

"Yea, why?" The man answered back uncertainly.

"Did you see what happened to this Turian?"

"Yea, the other one shot him. They seemed to know each other, I think he called him Saren or something like that. They started talking and this guy let his guard down. The other Turian shot him in the back of the head, then I guess to make sure he was dead put another two into his back." The dock worker replied.

'Saren…where have I heard that name before?' He thought to himself.

"Wait a minute, there was a second Turian?" Kaiden asked.

"Yea. After that a bunch of those machines came by with some kind of big object and they loaded it on the tram."

"The Turian was with them?" Shepard asked.

"Yea, if I heard things right it sounded like he was giving them orders."

Shepard's mind reeled. Geth had been reclusive for hundreds of years. Everything he heard said they attacked any organics they came across on sight yet this Turian, Saren, was managing to control them somehow.

'I'm missing something. Whoever Saren is he clearly doesn't want anyone to know what he's doing yet, which means I still have a chance to blind side him. But first things first, getting that beacon.'

"Thanks for the info. I'd suggest you get back behind the crates. We've cleared the area but more might show up and I have no idea how long it'll be before Alliance backup gets here." Shepard said.

"Yea alright." The dock worker said before turning around and heading back to his hiding place.

"You were too easy on the guy Commander." Kaiden said. "The guy was a coward and a lazy employee."

"Believe it or not Lieutenant not everyone likes there job. To be honest I really don't care, in terms of importance that guy doesn't even make the list." Shepard responded.

"Yes sir."

"Now let's go get that beacon. Sounds like I've got a Turian with a target on his back just waited for me."

-Line Break-

(Meanwhile)

A Turian stood in front of the beacon that had brought death and destruction to this colony. A strange energy flowed between him and the strange Prothean relic. As the energy stopped his eyes shot open and he staggered backwards from the force of the vision. Taking a moment to catch his recover he reflected on what he had just seen.

'Images from places I've never seen, creatures I don't recognize. Yet there are things missing, the beacon was only half the code.' He thought to himself. 'Whatever this is it clearly wasn't meant for my mind. If I'm going to fulfill my destiny I am going to need some way to translate what I have seen. Perhaps IT knows a way.'

Turning to the Geth gathered around him he gave his next instructions.

"I've retrieved the code from the beacon, we have no further use for it. Arm the charges and level this colony. By the time the Alliance gets here I don't want them to find anything but a smoking crater."

Having said this he headed for his own transportation that would take him off world and allow bring him to the rendezvous point.

'Humans are a blight on this galaxy, one that I will eliminate. The time has come for their return.'

-Line Break-

They had had to fight their way through another squadron of Geth Troopers just to get to the Tram. Once on they had gotten a few minutes to rest before being confronted again.

"We're in trouble Commander", came Ashley's voice. "There are way more here than what we've been dealing with and we're running out of time."

Ah yes. The next challenge they were currently dealing with. Getting off the tram they had spotted a ticking nuclear bomb synched up with 3 others and a timer that said they had just six minutes to disarm them. They had taken care of the first two without much trouble, Shepard had some experience with explosives, both arming and disarming. However that was when they were attacked. It looked like two squads of Geth, 20 or so total, came out of nowhere and started firing at them. At the moment they were pinned down on a bridge, rising up every once in a while and firing back at them before ducking back down when their shields had been drained.

'Son of a bitch, I can see the third bomb too. We're running out of time.'

Realizing what he had to do he summoned his biotic abilities and condensed them into what was commonly known throughout the galaxy as 'Barrier.'

"Cover me." Was the only warning he gave his teammates before he broke cover and sprinted towards the bomb, a stream of gunfire following his as he ran. The bomb itself lay in a sheltered part of the station providing him cover from the Geth Troopers.

His barrier was able to block most of the shots until it failed and his shields began to take the hits. By the time he reached the bomb and cover his shields had failed and he had taken another three wound to his right side this time. Once again he fought through the pain and went for his Omni-tool to initialize the use Omni-gel once again. As the gel took affect he set to work deactivating the bomb as gunfire continued to rage around him. It only took him a few seconds to disarm the device and pick up his gun to continue to fire against the Geth.

Reaching down he unclipped a pair of grenades and let them fly into a group of Geth before ducking back into cover and listening to the pair of explosions that followed. The explosions had managed to take out the majority of the remaining Geth, only 4 remained standing between him and the remaining explosive. He figured there must only be about a minute left which meant they had to move fast. Leaping from his cover he dashed forward and unleashed another barrage of bullets from his assault rifle. Reaching his next point of cover, a large crate taller than he was, he ducked behind it and prepared to unleash his next attack. During his previous dash he had taken out another Geth while his team took out a second. That meant there were only two left.

Calling on his biotic ability once again he sent the energy surging forwards on the ground with a movement of his arm that greatly resembled a bowling motion. This was a very new technique, not yet well known throughout the galaxy. It was a technique the Asari had developed a few months ago and had taken to calling 'shockwave'.

Peeking out from his cover he saw that the shockwave had taken down one of the Geth and severely weakened the remaining. That Geth only lasted another second before a shot from one of his team members, Ashley if he had to guess, took it down. Racing forward he located the last remaining explosive and set to removing it, finally disarming it with a mere 13 seconds remaining.

'Not quite secret spy level but I'm almost there' he thought to himself. He had found several old vids from centuries past, movies they had been called. The graphics sucked but some of the plots had been decent. He had been somewhat fond of James Bond, though the plotlines felt a little ridiculous if you asked him.

He didn't bother to wait for his team and instead surged forward to continue searching for the beacon. As he got to the top of a flight of stair he saw it standing in an open area, completely unattended.

'I guess all the Geth left to guard it had come to take us out. But if it's just sitting there it was clearly meant to be destroyed in the explosion. That means that Turian must have downloaded the information and taken off.'

After making his way down he saw the rest of his team coming down the stairs he had just come down. He was just wondering how he was going to signal the Normandy for extraction when whatever had been jamming their signals was lifted.

"Shepard. Do you read me? Communications seem to be back on line. Where are you?"

Activating his comm he spoke gave his reply.

"We're at the loading bay on the port near the south of the colony. We have the beacon however Nihlus was killed during the mission."

"What? Shit, how the hell did that happen?" Came Anderson's reply.

Before Shepard could explain he heard a strange noise that made turn around. Ashely had approached the beacon and apparently activated it somehow. It was pulling her towards it, her struggling proving to be no use against its force.

Racing towards her Shepard shoved her out of the way before he was caught in the pull instead.

'Son of a bitch. This is why I don't help people.' He thought to himself before he was lifted into the air and the visions came.

Death

Destruction

A strange world

Machines

Darkness

The beacon exploded with a surge of energy, sending the commander sailing through the air before crashing to the ground and knocking the three team members off their feet. Not that Shepard knew any of this, he had been knocked out cold by that time. This left Ashley, Jenkins, and Kaiden to check on him and radio the Normandy for help.

A colony in flames. The beacon destroyed. A SPECTRE dead. The Commander dying one the ground. To the remaining colonists it seemed like the end, but for the rest of the galaxy it was only the beginning.

Author's Note:

Another chapter done. Thank you to everyone that came back. To those that are new welcome. As you can see there are several details that have changed from the game but the end result is the same. I will be following the storyline of the games however there will be many difference. Some small others not so much. I feel like if everything was the same, well, there would be no point in writing it.

As some of you may have guessed I will be following the Renegade path for the majority of it. Not to say he will be a complete Renegade but expect some brutal decision and plenty of destruction.

Thanks to all those who have read. Please Follow, Favorite, and Comment. Please comment. I got a good amount of follows and favorites from the first chapter but not many comments. Please give me some feedback. What did you like, what do I need to work on. Any suggestions. I may not always agree but if you ask me something I will respond. Remember the more interest you show, the faster I update.