Told you it would be very irregular. Sorry.


"One small step for mankind… one giant leap for Arthur Shappey!"

Martin gritted his teeth. He'd heard the variations of that line numerous times, said by many rookies on their first visit to another planet, but that was probably the most painful one so far, made only worse by the whole situation being certainly not one for such light-hearted remarks. Judging by Kaidan's sigh, his opinion was probably similar.

But they had a more pressing problems to take care of at the moment. Like getting to the beacon as fast as possible and not ending up dead in the process. Judging by the sounds of the still ongoing mayhem, the invaders—whoever they were—were quite nearby, although they were probably busy shooting other people at the moment. Hopefully some of them were also busy dying after getting shot by Nihlus, who was dropped off the Normandy slightly at an earlier point and went ahead of Martin's squad as a one-man scouting party.

"Right then…" Martin tore his eyes away from the tall towers looming over the landscape beyond the edge of the cliff he was standing on and turned around to face the hilly, rocky landscape. Their destination—an archaeological camp—was only a short walk away down the nearest path, although the hills obscured it completely. Martin removed his assault rifle from the weapon holder strapped to his back and unfolded it. "Grab your weapons and let's move on, soldiers, we don't have time to linger on—"

"Wow!" Arthur exclaimed, pointing at something on his left. "What is that thing?"

"It's a gas bag," Martin said, barely glancing at the appropriately-named bulbous creature, floating lazily with its long, stringy legs barely touching the ground and appearing to be absolutely not bothered by the ongoing invasion. Standard behaviour, as far as Martin remembered from his classes. "Not mind them. Won't harm us."

"Oh my, there's more of them over there! Can I take a picture, Commander?"

"No," Martin huffed, "you can take your gun."

"I don't want to shoot them!"

"And you don't have to. Do you remember why we're here?"

"Why we're—ah! Right!" He reached for his pistol. "Lead on, Commander!"

I hope his combat skills are better than his attention span, Arthur thought as he led his team forwards down the path. They went quickly but carefully, watching their surroundings as if anything could just jump out of a rock—which was actually quite possible. The few charred corpses they passed on their way only served as an additional warning. But as they pressed on, they saw no one else, be it friendlies or hostiles. The only living things they passed were just some more idle gas bags.

"But if we're done with what we're here now," Arthur started somewhat shyly, "can I take a picture of a gas bag then, Commander?"

Martin groaned quietly. "Private, I'd like you to ignore the gas bags for now, and focus on our mission."

"I'm trying! But what if after we get to that Prothean bacon—"

"It's called a beacon—"

"Okay, but what if after we get there we just go back to the ship? What if I never get to see those gas bags again?"

"Listen, Private…" Martin stopped in his tracks and turned to Arthur. "I don't know if you get to take your photos later, but I can tell you that you most likely will never see the gas bag again if you keep getting distracted by them, thus allowing an enemy to shoot you dead while you're not alert enough to—"

"Watch out!"

Martin heard Kaidan's warning not much sooner than he heard a blast behind his back—and didn't waste his time to look around, jumping to the side at once and barely avoiding getting hit with something that looked like a bolt of plasma. When he turned to see the adversaries, instead of something at last vaguely humanoid, he saw three flying machines—drones probably. He swiftly pointed his weapon at one of them, ready to shoot—

And then they all exploded in a burst of bright blue light and fell to the ground hard, as if the planet itself all of the sudden decided to increase its gravity in that exact spot. The impact shattered them into pieces.

The event was so sudden it took Martin a moment to stop string at the drones' remains and register it had coincided with a quite high-pitched shriek that sounded very much like something Arthur might've produced.

Expecting to see a gory scene he wasn't going to like, Martin turned back to the private, only to see that he appeared to be completely unharmed. The only unusual thing about him was the fact that his pistol was on the ground, while his hands were up in the air, still aglow with fading blue wisps. He also looked somewhat shocked and he was staring at the remains of the drones. Then he glanced at Martin and Kaidan—who by that time were staring at him with their expressions more or less matching his—and lowered his hands.

"Uh—I—I panicked," he mumbled. "I'm… sorry. Won't happen again. I think. I hope."

"That was you?" Kaidan choked out. "You slammed those things to the ground? With your biotics?"

"Well… Yes?" The tone of Arthur's voice made it very clear that he couldn't really understand why somebody was asking a question which had a very obvious answer.

"That was… really impressive!" Kaidan gave him a pat on the shoulder. "It's not easy to use this type of biotics on airborne mechanical objects, even unshielded ones—especially several of them at once."

Arthur straightened up and smiled at Kaidan's remark. "Thanks!"

Meanwhile, Martin finally remembered that he could in fact speak and decided o take advantage of that before his subordinates would either spontaneously burst into some biotic babble incomprehensible to him or get locked in a stream of compliments and gratitude. "Right. That was great. Not that I know much about biotics, I have to admit…but I still think that was great. Good job, Private."

Arthur's smile widened. "Thank you, Commander!"

"But please…" Martin picked up Arthur's pistol and gave it back to its owner. "Just don't panic that much next time, okay?"

Arthur saluted. "Yes, sir! I'll do my best!"

Martin nodded and told his team to move on. While he hoped for the best, his bad feeling about the chances of completing the task without any major problems kept increasing. Panicking overpowered biotics were the last thing this mission needed. Much potential, he thought, recalling Mrs. Knapp-Shappey's words. A bit too much, if you ask me.

No sooner he thought that when he sighted three more drones closing in.

"Incoming hostiles!" He shouted, hopping behind the nearest boulder. He managed to catch a glimpse of Kaidan and Arthur also ducking behind some conveniently placed rocks before he leaned out of the cover and shot one of the drones just as it fired; Martin heard it crash to the ground while he hid from the blast. The sound of gunfire and the other two machines falling followed shortly.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Martin left cover and was about to push forwards, when he heard Arthur say in an almost offended tone, "You almost shot the gas bag, Commander!"

"Gas—" Martin looked at Arthur in disbelief. "Gas bag?" He repeated. "What gas bag?"

"That one over there." Arthur pointed at a yet another unbelievably calm creature loitering about just several steps away from what was left of the drones. "It was a close call. You could have killed it!"

"Private, it's just a gas bag."

"Gas bags have feelings too! I think. It's the first time I see them."

Martin wished he could facepalm properly while wearing a helmet. "We have an invasion here. There are people dying. And we have to secure a Prothean beacon. Being careful about not shooting any wildlife that is too dumb to keep away from danger is the least of our priorities."

To Martin's further bewilderment, Arthur pouted.

"You can't be so uncaring about those poor animal… weird… things, Commander," he said.

"For pity's sake, it's not like I want to kill them—"

"Commander Crieff?" Nihlus' voice suddenly came up on the communicator, and Martin couldn't be thankful enough for having an excuse to cut the conversation on the gas bags short—but the message quickly dampened his spirits. "Commander, this is bad. Damaged buildings. Lots of dead bodies. I'm going to investigate. Meet you at the dig site."

"Roger that!" Crieff responded. "Lieutenant, Private, let's better hurry up."

They moved on a slightly faster pace now, stopping only to take cover behind rocks and trees when more drones would show up, an occurrence always accompanied by Arthur's warnings about not shooting the gas bags, which still remained annoyingly careless or had an apparent death wish. Soon Martin arrived at a point at which he wasn't sure what was getting on his nerves more: the drones, Eden Prime's wildlife, or Private Shappey.

Eventually, he noticed some sort of structure just round the nearest bend of the path and heard the sounds of a shootout. He didn't, however, manage to issue any command, or even come up with one, when a figure came running in their direction, followed by two others—being shot at by them, in fact. It didn't take him long to identify the first figure as a human soldier, while the others were… what, exactly? He didn't know and didn't have time to take wild guesses. For now the fact that they had brightly glowing faces, seemed just off in general, and were clearly trying to kill the soldier—who at this point ducked for cover behind a boulder—was enough.

"Friendly ahead! Protect them!" Martin ordered, taking aim.

"Which one?" he heard Arthur ask, but the two mysterious hostiles dropped dead before Martin even bothered to reply. "Ah. So that leaves the one who's still alive, I think?"

Martin ignored him and rushed to the soldier. "You there! Are you okay?"

The soldier nodded, getting to her feet. "Yes, thank you. They got my shields really low… I thought I wouldn't make it." She shuddered, but then straightened up. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, Unit 212."

"Commander Martin Crieff. Where are the others? What happened to your squad?"

Ashley shook her head. "Lost contact with them. We were ambushed. The rest of 212 probably got wiped out."

"Sorry to hear that—"

"Would you look at them!" Arthur's voice came from behind; Martin turned to see him leaning over one of the dead figures on the ground. "Never seen anything like that before! What are they?"

"Good question, actually." Martin came over to have a closer look at the unmoving figure. While it seemed vaguely humanoid, from up close it seemed not to even be a living organism. It was covered in metal from head to toe with cables and tubes sticking out of its body in places, and had something akin to a switched-off lamp instead of a face. Oddly enough, that rang a bell in Martin's head, but before he remembered the name, Ashley gave it to him.

"I think they're geth."

Martin turned around quickly, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Geth? But that's—" Impossible, he wanted to say, but apparently he had two proofs of the opposite at his feet. Not that he had ever seen a real geth before, but his training covered the topic during the segment on the dangers of AIs. He couldn't help that those bodies—if they could even be called so—looked disturbingly similar to the things he saw in the images and footage acquired from the quarians.

"Weird, I know," Ashley said. "200 years of silence and suddenly they venture outside the Perseus Veil… and attack us."

"200 years?!" Arthur asked, squeezing a surprisingly high amount of excitement in so few words. "But that's before the First Contact… Does it mean… does it mean we're the first humans to ever see those geth in person?"

"Well… in a sense, yes?"

"Wow!" Arthur's eyes were shining with glee. "That's brilliant!"

"Oh, for…" Martin sighed. "Maybe it would be brilliant if they weren't trying to kill us."

"Well, that would certainly be nicer," Arthur admitted, "but it's still brilliant as it is!"

"…I really don't feel like discussing that at the moment. Or ever." Martin glanced at the structure nearby. "Chief Williams, I guess this is the dig site?

"Correct," Ashley confirmed.

"We need to get there. Better come with us and—ah, by the way, have perhaps seen a turian nearby?"

"No," said Ashley. "Never seen any turian on Eden Prime, honestly."

"Right… We should get mov—what is that?!"

They were just a few steps away, and Martin wondered how he could have missed them so far. Maybe he was just too concerned about the geth and then too annoyed about Arthur being too happy about the wrong things. But that still seems to be a weak excuse for not having noticed a set of several tall metal spikes—with people impaled on them.

"Ugh. This is a bit extreme," Kaidan said through his teeth. "Did the geth do it?"

"Yeah. I actually saw them do this to one of them." Ashley looked at the spikes with disgust. "He seemed to have still been alive when they put him on one of these."

Martin almost wanted to ask Arthur if he geth still seemed so brilliant to him, but the private looked so repulsed by the sight he decided to let it slide this time.

"Ewww." Arthur shuddered. "Now this is… rather awful."

Deciding not to comment on that understatement of the century, Martin moved on, leading his squad towards the structure lying ahead of them—an odd circular formation accompanied by what seemed to be two tall concrete pillars. The thing looked ancient, especially surrounded by still working lamps and shiny metal fencing put around it, presumably by any scientists who had been researching it before invasion started.

And some of the lamps turned out not to be lamps at all.

"More geth incoming!"

There were only four of them, and Martin's party made a short work of them; the geth barely managed to shoot back before they dropped dead. Or broken. Or disabled. Martin never was really sure which word should be applied to an intelligent machine that was no longer alive—if "alive" itself was a proper word.

"The beacon should be here!" Ashley ran past the geth bodies and stopped in the middle of the structure. "It was—the last time I saw it, it was right here. In this very spot."

Martin frowned. "The geth must've taken it already."

"Or maybe not. Maybe the archaeological team managed to hide it before the geth got here. There's a research camp right over there, if there are any survivors left, we can ask them."

"Okay. Let's—"

Suddenly, Nihlus' voice came over the comm again. "Crieff, change of plans. I'm going to check a spaceport just ahead. I'll be waiting for you there."


Synthetic killer aliens. Exploding electric zombies. Doomsday weirdos. By the time they reached the spaceport, Martin had decided he absolutely hated Eden Prime.

The geth menace was pretty much enough to lower any aesthetic or historical value of the place. The fact that they were weaponising their victims didn't help either. Really, Martin would be better off knowing that the spikes they'd been putting people on apparently changed the poor humans into some mindless husks, who, when released, tended to charge–in more ways than one—at every non-geth in sight. He had no idea how exactly the spikes worked and how long the conversion process must've lasted, but that didn't really matter. It was utterly disgusting and dangerous and that was all the information he needed on the subject. He hoped he'd never seen anything like that again, especially not with Arthur nearby. The husks scared the Private into producing a rather powerful biotic explosion which fortunately neutralised the threat, but almost managed to do so also with the party, which, however, didn't stop Kaidan from waxing lyrical about Arthur's powers again. At least Ashley seemed more concerned than impressed, and Martin was glad at least one other member of his party—apart from himself, naturally—demonstrated some sense of sanity.

The scientist they met afterwards in a locked shack was just icing on the cake. Not the sane one, no. That woman was alright, trying to stay rational and speak some sense into her colleague. Normally, Martin would probably pity the guy, but at that point he was getting rather annoyed. He needed concrete information, not ramblings of a madman. Something about prophets, beasts, and darkness. Oh, and extinction. How very useful. The only one who seemed to take him seriously was Arthur, and once they left the scientists in their shack, he kept asking how much time they had left and wondering what those "beasts" looked like.

On the other hand, the woman didn't have to get into all those tech details about the beacon. In retrospect, maybe Martin should've formulated his question better rather than just go with "Can you tell me anything about the bacon?"

But finally, finally they got to the spaceport. Which was filled with more geth and husks. And where they witnessed something else.

Martin would recognise that everywhere—not even because he remembered the visual that good, but because of the feelings it evoked it him. Dread. Hopelessness. The sense of smallness.

It was the ship he'd seen in the footage back on the deck of the Normandy, right here before his eyes, wreathed in the familiar red lightning, in all its terrible glory. It seemed like it was taking off, and Martin could not be grateful enough for that, although it didn't make it any less frightening.

Especially that it made that awful noise.

It sounded like a horn of some kind, only louder and deeper, its sound reverberating right down to Martin's very bones, only intensifying all the fear the sight itself had already inspired.

They stood there for a while, dumbfounded; Arthur even tried to cover his ears, despite the fact he was wearing a helmet. What snapped them out of that were the sounds of their shields and barriers being depleted by geth projectiles.

Thankfully, there were only a handful of enemies around, both geth and husks, and even though the spaceport was rather small, the area still offered lots of cover. Shooting from behind crates and ramps, Martin's party managed to dispatch them quickly, without even triggering another panic-fuelled biotic explosion courtesy of Arthur—probably mostly because he was still too busy staring at the black ship until it was too high in the sky to see.

"Right then… Where's Nihlus?" Martin muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, having made sure the last enemy in sight had been taken care of. "He said he'd be waiting here…"

"Don't see him," Kaidan said. "And I'm quite sure I didn't accidentally shoot a turian… You didn't get any new message on a private channel or anything?"

"No. I don't think we even have a private channel—"

"Okay, but did you see that ship?!" Arthur chimed in, and Martin recognized the kind of excitement in his voice. "I mean… Wow! I've never seen anything like that before!"

"Yeah, I think one time was already one too many for me."

"But… then that would be zero?"

"And that's precisely the point, Private. Back to the main subject. We got to find Nihlus."

"Maybe he's hiding somewhere nearby?" Ashley suggested.

"Why? He place wasn't exactly overrun. He's a Spectre. Knowing him, he could've handled them all by himself."

"And yet they were here, and it seems he's not." Martin looked at the main platform of the spaceport just ahead of them. "Let's go up there, maybe we'll find some clues…"

They found a clue to Nihlus' whereabouts as soon as they stepped up on the platform—and it was a painfully big clue.

"Uh… This… is not good," Kaidan commented sheepishly.

"Quite not good," Martin added, his desire to get off this planet and regret of ever coming here in the first place increasing rapidly as he looked down at Nihlus lying on the platform, dead, with a hole in his head.


Yes, I shortened things a bit; it alrady feel too much like a (badly written) novelization of the game, so some cuts had to be made. Also, skipped the guys hiding in the shack. I really felt I could do without them. They're mostly in the game for expospeak and free loot anyway.