Chapter 4 - The First Arrival

A/N - Screech garble hack! Sorry, I don't speak Tyranid. :P

Edit (26 Oct 2017): fixed a number of typos, grammar and formatting errors. Also corrected a lore conflict with later chapters,

Eden Prime, Primary Alliance Base, Sensor Station, Earth date February 12, 2183, local time 39:41

Another day, another boring monitoring duty, thought Specialist Hernandez, wishing his shift was over. Seven and a half hours into his shift, and not a god-be-damned thing had happened. Which was to be expected, they were on the pride and joy of the System Alliance, Eden Prime, deep in the heart of Alliance space. He realized that they were directly connected to Batarian space thanks to the local relays, but even the batarians weren't crazy enough to openly assault a Systems Alliance planet, not after the Skyllian Blitz, Torfan and the Shepard twin's actions there.

He took a nice long stretch, and allowed himself to relax, only keeping a tiny bit of his attention on the sensor screen. He was supposed to watching a quadrant of the local system, but no one was crazy enough to come here and start something.

So, he was as surprised as the rest of the sensor crew when his station suddenly started blaring at him. Quickly picking himself off the floor fast enough that no one else saw, he glared at the screen, and spotted a contact on it. In spite of his training, it still took him almost a second to realize it was not one of his fellow marines screwing with him, and he frantically began working the computer. Trying to get a read on whatever it was the sensors had picked up, and sending automated messages to the contact to get it to respond to local system control. "Staff Commander Francis, reporting unknown sensor contact, sector four, vector two niner seven, bearing zero four eight, don't have enough for heading yet, speed… zero seven two point one percent of light speed. Contact is not matching any profiles on record, nor responding to hails. Not on any accepted trade routes or relay vectors."

Arlas woke up to an extremely annoying beeping noise and a pounding headache. He reached out to swat at whatever it was, before his hand slapped the heavy star cannon, lying almost on top of him. The impact and pain quickly woke him up, and he remembered what had happened. Realizing that the beeping was the suit alarm for being almost out of breathable air, he quickly activated his warp pack, and jumped into the Raider, before yanking his helm off. The alarm quickly faded as the suit began pulling air into the internal air pack, but he quickly pulled the small air pack off his armor and replaced it with the backup.

The eldar pathfinder reached out to the bridge psychically, even as he did the mental exercise to deaden pain. *Status report.*

One of the crew spirits answered, and began a litany of damage. *Main engines, offline. Secondary propulsion, erratic and fluctuating. Lower starboard and port solar sails, lost. Main weapon system, offline, significant damage, inoperable. Weapon batteries one through three, damaged, online. Point defenses, sporadic, online. Communications, offline. Main power, offline. Backup power, offline. Emergency power, sporadic, online. Sensors, damaged, sporadic, online. Outer hull armor sections two, three, nine, eleven, thirteen and fifteen, lost.*

Arlas suddenly staggered as the ship suddenly shuddered. *Alert, top side solar sail, lost. We are currently drifting. Alert, stellar object detected, on vector zero zero zero. Unable to divert. Contact with atmosphere in… three point five minutes. Orders, acting captain?*

As Commander Francis came over, Specialist Hernandez suddenly swore. "Second sensor ghost, same vector, bearing, heading is... variable. Speed is… zero seven one point nine five. Sir, ghost may be breaking up."

Arlas staggered as the ship shuddered yet again. *Alert, hull section twelve, lost.*

He slammed the extra air pack into his mesh armor, and slotted the old one into the holder to ensure it was secure. He then reattached his helm, and warp jumped back into the hangar to collect weapons and spirit stones, as the ship shuddered again. *Alert, hull section fourteen, lost. Alert, all lower external hull armor, lost.*

He staggered again, and then dodged a flying shuriken cannon as gravity failed. *Alert, engine pulse detected, ship now tumbling. Local anti-gravity controls, sporadic and failing. Advising immediate evacuation of all crew.*

Today was no longer a good day for Specialist Hernandez; he could only guess at how many reports and forms he was going to have to fill out after this, especially as the Officer on Duty leaned over his shoulder to watch his screen. "Sir, two more contacts, same vector and bearing, heading is… indeterminate, speed… zero seven one point seven one. Sensor contact is definitely breaking apart, all objects are on collision course with planet Nirvana."

Staff Commander Francis swore under his breath. "Hawkins! Scramble the alert fighter squadron, and get the rest of the pilots into their birds. We got something in system, and I will be damned if it sucker punches us. And wake the damned infantry officers! I want the ground grunts ready if this is just a diversion."

Hernandez wondered why the commander was so worried, but figured it was whatever had the officers and most of the sergeants worried. Something well above his paygrade, no doubt.

Another shudder, and Arlas would have wept for his little frigate if he had the time. He had gathered the spirit stones from the destroyed wraithguards, and slotted the star cannon back into its stand on the Raider, before returning with Ylo'Pvera's stone to commandeer a wraithguard from the ship's complement. One of the stones had been shattered, the spirit lost to Slaanesh and the Warp, but he returned the seer to the column, and had slotted Yol'Pvera's stone in one of the remaining six wraithguards. He then staggered over to the column, and looked at the seer's stone, the vibrations getting worse. *Do you want me to take any more with me?*

It took only a second for the seer to reply, but in psychic speak it took an agonizingly long time for them to reply. *... No, I need the ones I have left. Get back to your ship, blow the hangar doors, and get out of here. We will ensure the ship is not captured. Go, Pathfinder. For the Craftworld.*

Another shudder, even more violent than the previous ones coursed through the Raibh Karun, and he took a second to mourn his brave little ship's impending death, even as he dashed from the bridge.

Specialist Hernandez finished tapping away at his holo-board, and turned his head. "Sir, long range sensors have returned enough to give us an idea of what it looked like when it got in system, bringing it up on main now."

He tapped a few keys, and then brought up the same information in a subscreen of his own computer. The computer showed… something unique, different from anything he had seen before, from any race. The craft looked like a cone with small bulges arranged evenly along the hull, attached to several engines on its back, but most striking was a large sail protruding from the top, and a barrel of some kind sticking out the front, but clearly broken as one side had a single brace, but the opposite had three. More concerning was the fact the ship had two more broken spars on each lower side, and a couple sections of hull were clearly missing, even before it had started falling apart in system. Oh, and it was at least seven hundred meters long.

The various points did not go unnoticed by his fellow sensor station technicians. "Mary, mother of god, that thing was at LEAST seven hundred meters. And that was after the main gun got broke."

Another tech was muttering softly to the technician next to him. "More concerned about what did that damage. I doubt that whatever built it designed it with those holes, and lightspeed generally doesn't tear out sections of hull loose without also shredding a ship. Which means someone or thing was kicking the shit out of that ship when it went to FTL to escape."

Then someone else noticed something even more concerning. "If it even went to FTL. Sensor reads are reporting NO eezo. I say again, no eezo detected on board that ship."

The entire room went quiet, as they all turned to stare at the sensor tech that had dropped that little revelation. Staff Commander Francis was the first to get his voice back. "Alright everyone, triple check everything and make damned sure ground side gets a copy. Willykins, Alert Alliance Command we may have a first contact scenario. Even if it crashes, there might be survivors. We ain't the turians people, we let them fuck up first contacts. We humans do it right. But we need backup and diplomats at least.

And if nothing else, we can have some more security around here."

Hernandez was fairly certain he was the only one to hear the commander, but didn't say anything. He had no desire to scrub the toilets on this tin can of a sensor station. Again. A moment later, he spoke up. "Sir, all previous contacts just hit the atmo of Nirvana, but a new one just registered and is slingshotting on a path away from planet Nirvana."

Staff Commander Francis turned back to him, and the specialist merely nodded to the question in his eyes. "Yes sir. On course for Eden Prime. Wait… Sir, sensor contact lost, say again, sensor contact lost with object on Eden Prime intercept course."

Arlas finished aligning his Raider with the only inhabitable planet in the system, and then touched Yol'Pvera's stone. *Do a sensor check for everything you can, and activate the holo-field. No sense advertising our presence. Hate to alert the locals or cause them any undue duress and distress. How long until we arrive?*

His co-pilot sent back a neutral feeling before she replied. *With the speed boost from the slingshot around the planet and the ship? Less than five hours.*

The captain in charge of the Systems Alliance marines in unit 212 was making his second sweep through the barracks, roaring at the slow marines. "Move it Pelowski, this ain't a drill. Harkon, get your ass in gear. Where the hell is Chief Williams?"

A voice behind him cause him to turn, spotting a woman in white and pink armor at attention near the door. "Here sir. Fourth platoon is outside with the LT and ready for orders."

The captain grunted, dismissing her, and turned to harry the last of the stragglers outside. "Jerry, move it. Lebows, why are you always the last one out? I swear, if raiders ever hit this barracks, and we lose any marines in it, I am gonna place good money on one of them being you. NOW MOVE YOUR ASS!"

Once outside, he looked over the two hundred and some odd marines from his barracks, and nodded. "Damn right everyone is ready. Alright, listen the fuck up!"

He waited a moment for the last of the marines to quit making noises and jerking around, before nodding and beginning the brief. "An hour ago, sensor station four caught wind of something dropping into system. While most of it crashed onto Nirvana, it launched something in our direction. Our orders are to disperse into the town and surrounding area, and ensure if it is a raider, pirate, or slaver, they rue the day they decided to fuck with the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Am I right, or am I right, marines?"

The response from two hundred men and women was like a small bomb going off, and the captain enjoyed every decibel of it. "HOORAH!"

The captain grinned, nodded, and pulled out a cigar, which he stuck into his mouth without bothering to light. "Damn right I am! Split your platoons into squads, and stand by for orders and patrol routes. The other three companies will be out there as well, so play nice. That means there are more than nine hundred of the toughest, meanest bitches and sons of bitches to ever grace the human race are out there, so check your damn targets. Jerry, that includes you!

First platoon, you get our side the town. Second platoon, you get the spaceport and will be sharing it with a platoon from the other three units. Third platoon, that dig site is a priority protection detail, deploy there with heavy weapons, I want it to stay secure even hell itself shows up. Fourth platoon, you will be moving between all three areas on patrol. Makos will be deploying as soon as the armor corp wakes up, finishes their coffee, breakfast and massages, and deign to join us, but I expect us to out perform them, like we always do. Now move it marines, this colony may want to protect itself, but I will be damned if we don't show 'em how it is done."

In a communication room, several relays distant, a man with an admiral's insignia was talking to a hologram of a starship captain. "Anderson, I am pushing your deployment orders up half a day. You need to depart for Eden Prime. Now."

The hologram nodded, before frowning and typing away quickly on his omnitool. "Alright, I just sent the emergency recall orders. But Admiral Hackett, what is going on? Did the batarians get wind of our… find?"

Admiral Hackett shook his head. "No, but I have already dispatched a patrol group to assist in securing the system, they will be arriving in about three and a half hours. One of the sensor stations in the Utopia cluster picked up an unknown contact, which broke apart and crashed on Nirvana. While it simply appeared in system with none of the usual FTL signatures, we did get a good reading of it in the twenty minutes before it crashed."

He sent an image of the ship to the captain, who looked at the image with concern. "That isn't a Council ship. Have we alerted the Council? And what does this do to my orders?"

Admiral Hackett shook his head, but didn't show any emotion in his voice but stoic competence. "The Parliament, in their infinite 'wisdom,' wishes to… ascertain the situation before notifying the Council. As they rationalized it, the vessel doesn't use eezo, therefore we are not required to inform the Council of it."

Anderson scowled, something he did well, before shaking his head. "That is foolish. We have a Council Spectre on board, going to Eden Prime already, to observe OUR Spectre candidates. Everyone is going to be talking about it, he can't possibly miss it. And that is assuming the STG don't already know about it."

Hackett shook his head again. "Which only makes the next order that much more baffling. If we do find a new species, and since you are heading to the Citadel already-"

Anderson was staring at him, though his eyes were begging for Admiral Hackett to not give the order that he knew was coming. Hackett kept talking anyway, though his expression shifted to one of sympathy. "You are to take them there to meet the Council. Assuming you can communicate with them and they are peaceful. If you are unable to communicate, but they remain peaceful, then you can decide on whether to bring them with you, or if they can wait for the Council to send in their own diplomat. If not peaceful, disengage as well as you can, they won't push far from a crashed ship, but keep your people alive, and then minimize the unknown's casualties."

Anderson's mouth worked for a moment, before he simply shook his head once at the absurdity of the situation, and then nodded and gave the only reply he could. "Yes sir. We will depart as soon as the last necessary crew member arrives. We will be there within three hours."

In an uninhabited system on the edge of the Systems Alliance space, a small fleet loitered. Most of them were three to four hundred meters long, insectile shaped, and oozed maliciousness just by existing. However, compared to the flagship of the fleet, a massive, two kilometer long cuttlefish shaped colossus, they were as cute, cuddly, and harmless as a puppy. The flagship was pitch black, flickers of red energy lancing up the sides of the vessel.

Deep inside the largest ship, a pair of figures were watching a display, a news report on Eden Prime and learning that something had riled up the Systems Alliance presence on the planet. All the local marines were deploying, reservists were being activated, militia armed, additional ships called in, and civilians were encouraged to ensure they had supplies and shelter nearby, in case the military called for all personnel to immediately begin sheltering. Noticeably, no one was saying WHY all these steps were being taken, which was only increasing the colony's unrest.

The larger of the two growled, their cybernetic left arm clenching and unclenching unconsciously, while the smaller, black clad female beside him simply observed impassionately. After a moment, the second figure's head turned slightly. "What are you orders, Saren? The geth have their attack plans and orders. If we delay now, the beacon may be lost to us."

The first figure turned enough to glare at the second, who simply met his hateful gaze with an impartial, neutral one. "Order all ships forward. We are attacking now."

The room didn't move, but after a moment, the first figure spoke. "Two hours and counting. Then we begin to bring the humans to their knees."

At the staging area for the SSV Normandy SR-1, Captain Anderson waited with barely disguised impatience. He wanted to leave immediately, if not sooner, but leaving without the Spectre candidates would defeat the entire point of going. And the twins were running late, pulled over by an overzealous patrol officer that didn't know what the Alliance emergency response signal meant and allowed. Thankfully, the Systems Alliance Intelligence Agency had already taken over nailing that poor sod to the wall, so he wouldn't have to, as honorary uncle of those two. He had been a friend of their father before he got killed on Mindoir, and still remained a friend to their mother.

He glanced to one side, and spotted the last nonessential replacement crewman dashing up a secondary passage. "Welcome aboard, Corporal Jenkins. Get onboard, stow your stuff, and report to Lt Alenko."

He watched the young marine snap off a salute, which Anderson quick dismissed, and rolled his eyes as Corporal Jenkins ran on board. It was difficult, waiting, when he and ship should be moving, but without the Shepard twins, leaving would be useless at best, counterproductive at worst. The captain was mildly thankful for his training, otherwise he likely would have been pacing in frustration and nervous energy. A veteran officer could never show when they were nervous, morale would tank if they did.

He did allow himself to roll his eyes as his omni-tool gave a specific vibration, forcing himself to relax, and speak with a respectful tone. "Spectre Nihlus, what do you need?"

There was no sound for a moment, but eventually someone sighed from behind, a strange, flanged voice that sounded like two people speaking at once. "One day, I will figure out how you manage to hear me coming every time. If I didn't know better, I would say you didn't appreciate being startled."

Captain Anderson kept his amusement well contained. He would be damned if he admitted that he had programmed his tool to alert him whenever the Spectre, the only turian on board, got within five meters of him. The turian seemed to take far too much pleasure in quietly stalking about the ship, scaring the daylights out of most of the crew when they turned around and a black and red armored turian was just standing there, looming above them. He had managed to do it to Captain Anderson once, though he had not reacted to the turian, before he had taken steps. Instead of responding to the implied accusation, he simply repeated his previous question. "Spectre Nihlus, what do you need?"

After a moment, the turian Spectre stepped up alongside the captain. "Information. What is going on captain?"

Anderson paused for a moment, waiting to see if the Shepard twins would show up and save him from having to 'exaggerate and imply' to an ally that would be sharing his ship for months, but fate was not that kind. So he simply gave the official answer. "Sensors picked up a contact en route to Eden Prime at the edge of the system, but we quickly lost contact. Since we don't know what it was, and considering what is on the planet…"

Nihlus nodded. "Good enough. Ah, I think the twins have arrived."

Anderson turned, and relaxed at the two red headed women running toward him. "Glad you made it, commander Shepard, commander Shepard. Gear up once on board. We leave immediately."

Both women stopped long enough to salute, and then kept going at a fast walk, realizing the urgency of the situation, but it gave him a moment to inspect both of them as he returned the salute. The two women could almost be mistaken for each a mirror of the other, as both had the same strikingly bright red hair, emerald eyes, even the same body build. In fact, the only reasonably certain way to tell each of them apart was that the vanguard Shepard had slightly more noticeable muscles, and the adept Shepard was distinctly more… curvaceous. As they moved past him, each carrying their personal effects in a duffel bag, it made him glad the two tended to share quarters. He could only imagine the incidents that might happen if someone made a comment to the two N7s.

Anderson and Nihlus entered the decontamination chamber just behind the two women. While the decontamination process was underway, he contacted the pilot, Joker. "Joker, get us moving, I want us there yesterday. Red line the engines, give the engineers something to do."

The pilot on the other end, usually driving him to the end of his tether, was actually going to do a lot to restore some of his patience today. "With pleasure sir. Already disconnecting from the docks, want me to push now, or wait until open space so we don't get bleated at by Space Control?"

Normally, Joker's irreverent questions got on his nerves, but this was actually a good one. A flick of his wrist, a quick type, and then he hit enter, and the Normandy's transponder picked up three extra letters, indicating it was on a priority Systems Alliance mission. And therefore exempt from the usual laws and regulations regarding ship speeds, listening Traffic Control, and such similar mundane concerns. "Punch it Joker."

The decontamination protocol finished, and the inner airlock opened, letting the four in. "Shepards, get your stuff settled in the XO office, then gear up. We will be arriving at Eden Prime to finish the shakedown cruise. Might not be as simple or quiet as we planned, but shouldn't be anything to worry about."

He turned, but Nihlus had already stepped past the twins, both the captain and turian missing the twin's slightly confused looks, and was striding down the vessel, inspecting each station as he silently stalked past. Anderson dismissed the Turian from his mind, and turned to the twins. "Meet me in the comm room for your briefing after we make the relay jump."

Gunnery Chief Williams Williams looked around at the forests. Her squad, Dog squad of the fourth platoon of the 212th, was out on long patrol yet again, and she had put herself in the rear guard position. Master Sergeant Donkey was in the middle, with Private Bates on point, Private Penny behind him, and Corporal Jenner and Private Rasputin were behind the sergeant. Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie squads were out on patrol between the three points the barracks had been assigned, with Gold squad back protecting the three Makos assigned to their sector, and Echo, Foxtrot, and Hotel squads were protecting the unit's armory and ready to redeploy if needed.

They had been on patrol for nearly two hours at this point, when she heard something. At first she thought it was just the wind, but then realized the noise also included a soft hum under the whistling of the wind. She turned toward the noise, but all she saw was trees. "Anyone else hear that? That humming?"

The rest of the squad paused, before Rasputin nodded. "Yeah, just under the whistle of the wind in the-"

Corporal Jenner cut him off. "What wind?"

Everyone suddenly had their rifles up as they realized that there was no wind, despite the noise. Chief Williams had the presence of mind to activate her omni-tool's recording device, before every head and weapon swung up and backwards to the direction they had come from. The noise reached a crescendo, and a massive shape swooped by above the squad, shimmering like a heat mirage, the speed and shimmer making it difficult to tell anything about the shape other than it had to be at least as long as it was wide.

Everyone opened fire with their assault rifles, but it was unclear, due to the object's speed and shimmer, if anyone hit. Sergeant Donkey started snapping out directions. "Williams, I saw that omni-tool. Tell me you were recording that."

"Sir, yes sir."

"Well done, chief. Get on the horn, inform the captain of the contact. Everyone, move up. I want to know where that damned raider landed. Last thing we need is it setting up a forward base inside our perimeter."

Arlas glanced at the readouts, and cursed under his breath. The holo-field had been damaged in either the fight with the daemons or during the transition from webspace to realspace, and had not been functioning properly since they had hit atmosphere. Sometimes the vessel was completely concealed, other times only parts, and sometimes it just turned off. The infantry below him had plinked the paint job when he had flown over them, but nothing serious or heavy enough to actually damaged the vessel was fired, though he had been seen. He shook his head, and located a nice, large clearing, before setting the raider down. He stood up, and looked at Yol'Pvera's stone. *See if you can repair that damned holo-field. Last thing we need is our ride getting shot up.*

His companion sent back an affirmative, and an image of the wraithguard with a questioning feeling. He considered it, before sending back. *No, I would rather have the vessel mobile instead of fully operational. You have no way of getting back into the Raider if I move you.*

Yol'Pvera sent back a feeling of agreement, before beginning to do what she could to repair his transport, and sole remaining method of moving about. The eldar pathfinder sighed, before heading to the armory. First and foremost, he had to decide his weapons. After arriving in the armory and taking a moment to consider things like weight, mobility, and encumbrance, he realized he could reasonably only take four weapons with him. That meant he could take his long rifle, his twin pistol, the witchblade, and one other weapon with him, in addition to the dozen grenades he carried. After a moment of considering, he selected the fusion gun, in case he ran into something… significant. Besides, the ability to vaporize a squad of charging infantry, melt through tank armor, or open a door was always useful. Maybe once he had more time with the armor and weapons, he could try carrying a fifth one, but that was a while off yet.

Done selecting his weapons, he grabbed his cameleoline cloak, and pulled it on, before yanking the hood up. He then attached his weapons to their holsters, and smiled as the weapons mimicked the active camouflage capabilities of his cloak, which meant that he was practically invisible unless someone spotted his outline. He then took a moment to perform the guidance psychic ceremony for himself. Fully trained Warlocks and Farseers needed a thought and a gesture, but it took him nearly a minute, and would only last a couple hours, as opposed to until he dismissed it, like most other psychic energy manipulators. Finished with his preparations, he then pulled the long rifle out, checked the scope on it, then the dark reaper rangefinder addon for his helm, and headed through the airlock. A moment later, he was in the transport bay, and jumped down, landing on yet another world infested with non-eldar, or mon-keigh in his people's language.

Arlas watched the Raider lift from the ground, stopping at about ten meters in the air, and then vanished as the holofield kicked in and fully activated. A quick nod to himself, and he quickly vacated the area, quickly climbing the nearest tree, and using the higher ground provided to avoid leaving tracks as he moved toward the settlement the ship's sensors had detected on the way down. Seemed like a good spot to check out the local lifeforms.