Chapter 2

"James, you just lost a friend, and your home." Dr Liara T'soni tried to comfort Vega, but she was still shaken from the crash. "No one else heard anything. You just need some
rest; we all do. I'm sorry, but it is the only explanation I see."

"She is right. Anything living here is harmless. There are no buildings, no prints. This world is primitive." Javik was arrogant, but he was also smart. As a Prothean, he was
knowledgeable about alien civilizations. If Javik felt certain that nothing lived here, then it was likely that nothing did.

"Alright, and what if we landed right in the garden? What then, Buggy? If they are alive, and pissed?" Though his point was valid, James' voice had an edge of panic.
"Then we kill them and take shelter in the Normandy." Javik let the nickname slide off.

"No, we don't," Garrus stepped in. "Last time we were in there, sections were still on fire. I'm running in now to get the dextro-amino food supplies, maybe pull out some mattresses from the crew quarters. Then we set up camp away
from the Normandy while we send in our engineers to start repairs."

Everybody stopped arguing at that. Garrus had been Shepard's friend through it all. Garrus betrayed protocol to get information on Saren, and Garrus was there to take him down on the Citadel. Then, Garrus came again to join Cerberus, who were widely thought to be human supremacists, because Shepard needed him. Garrus rushed into death for Shepard multiple times. It only felt right for him to take charge. James was though, able to convince the crew to set up a nightwatch. Garrus and Javik would take the first patrol with James and Ashley on second.

Throughout the discussion, Joker sat alone on a rock, staring into the waterfall. She was gone. Over the course of the war, Shepard had convinced Joker that falling for his co-pilot was not out of line Even if she was an AI, she was self aware, sapient. EDI. She might as well have been human with all the inter-species couples in the galaxy. Joker groaned in pain and laid his hands over his eyes, indifferent to his brittle bones and broken ribs. Dr. Karin Chakwas approached him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Jeff. Let's get you checked out." She feigned a smile at him.

Tali made her way to the Normandy with a small team; chief engineer Lieutenant Gregory Adams as well as engineers and
not-so-secret lovers Gabriella Daniels and Kenneth Donnally. They examined all of the Normandy's systems. All of the weapons were disabled and even Shepard's
automatic fish feeder stopped feeding the fish. Elevators were inoperable; they used ladders instead. Turian technology that powered the ship, all gone. And the team would be
forced to repair it with nothing to work with. The one that hurt most, though, was the loss of EDI. Even if they "fixed" her, it would just be bringing back AIs, the reason
behind the war. And she wouldn't be the same. The old EDI had already been erased. Tali sighed heavily. "First, I want to try to fix the weapons, just in case. Then we will try
for the radio to call out for help. If it ever comes, they can help us fix the power supply."

When night approached, Joker managed to fall asleep on a mattress that Garrus pulled out of the Normandy, and as he drifted off he muttered "I am not a charity case, Garrus. I can pull my own weight you know that." Either nobody heard or everybody shrugged him off. The rest of the team found pulled out some mattresses, and slept as well, with the exceptions of Garrus
and Javik.

"Turian, you remind me of the Commander now. You were able to take control of the situation smoothly. I may be beginning to respect you." Javik almost smiled at Garrus.

"Why so impersonal, 'Prothean?' Garrus Vakarian, in case you forgot. More importantly, you almost respect me. How many others in this cycle have earned a Prothean's respect?"
Garrus prodded at his uneasy ally.

"None but the Commander."

"Yeah."

Moments of a sickening silence fell upon the two. Before Javik decided to break character, maybe in honor of Shepard, Javik was trying to get close to his friends.
"I have fought alongside the soldiers," Javik continued. "They managed to unite regardless of species. What are their stories?"

"The Quarian, my personal favorite, is Tali. She's an Admiral, and an engineer, and a damn fine one. Then there's Ashley, the female human. Shepard, uh... tested her flexibility ha," Garrus laughed a little "Shepard expected me to keep that secret. Anyway, Liara is the Asari scientist. She made sure you knew her." Garrus tried to summarize his old friends.

"That is the one. I made a promise to write a book with her, to write about my people as the once brave warriors. The ones who lost." Javik held his memory shard in his hand and
mourned his lost friends, whom he was forced to kill hundreds of years ago, when the great Prothean empire was destroyed by Reapers.

"Sure, Javik. Your people lost, they saved us. Thessia was so far ahead of the other planets using of one of your beacons. Shepard was able to stop the Reapers because of the
warnings from the beacons. You got your revenge." Garrus looked Javik in the eye and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Javik nodded and gripped his shard. Garrus winked at
Javik, who was in turn looking at a sleeping Liara.

"I think our shift's about up," Garrus pointed out. Javik woke James and Ashley as Garrus laid down near a rock outcropping, buffering him from the ocean. He had been thinking
about Shepard and everything he'd taught him. Commander Johnathan Shepard... the man saved the world (galaxy?) as well as Garrus personally. Shepard found Garrus as a frustrated Citadel-Security agent and helped him abandon the stuffy regulations and become a vigilante. Shepard's influence helped promote him from vigilante to a top ranking Turian adviser when the war began. Garrus drifted to sleep while he thought about how quickly the last three years have gone by,
then he dreamed of his vigilante self, Archangel.

James and Ashley nodded to Javik, who took his turn at rest. The two rose and started walking circles around the group. James was on high alert due to his paranoia from the
noises he had previously heard. Ashley, on the other hand, was still skeptical, but she did not let her disbelief stop her from staying protective of the group.

"Hey, Ash. How do you think the engineers are doing back in the Normandy?" James struggled to break the silence.

"They have their hands full, that's a guarantee. Especially since all of the weapons systems somehow shut down- it must have been the crash- and there are only four of them on
duty right now. Tali is one of them, though, and she never lets me down-" Ashley kept rambling on to keep herself awake as well as distracted from the cold.

"Ash, 5 o'clock," James whispered and nudged her. A figure passed by collecting fruits and making quiet
noises similar to a gorilla's grunt. The build was slightly over twice his size, with similar muscle mass to his own impressive frame. The creature's forearms narrowed to about
the size of an average human female's. The same thing happened with its lower legs, below the knee, and its neck, which was noticeably longer than a human's. Its hands and feet
were similarly over-sized, as well as its round head. The jaw curved like a "C," leaving almost no room for its nostrils and mouth.

"James, stay still and don't make any noise. We can't fight right now. If more come, we wake up the group." Ashley remained level-headed, but the
revelation that James was right was far from good news. "Tomorrow we can talk to Liara about it. Maybe she can study them, see if it's a friendly species."

The two remained on a high guard until morning when they revealed the information to the group. Garrus, Liara, and Javik set out to find the beasts and study them in stealth as
James and Ashley continued to protect the crew.