"… Am Eliii Yiiiti."

Sheppard and the others stared, mouths open.

A freaking alien was talking to them.

"Who are you?"

"I am Elii, and I don't like to repeat myself. Now, let me handle this."

With that, the old alien took off into a heated argument with the larger alien, most of it far too fast for any of them to keep up with it.

The confused group only caught bits and pieces of the exchange.

"…why would you bring that, of all things up?…"

'…it all matters now…'

they don't know, they couldn't know about that… I brought them…

Suddenly, the large one reacted violently. It was so violent, that Sheppard thought that, if the larger one continued, that he would defend the male alien.

As the large female seemed to pause, as if taking a breath, the old male took his chance.

"Do you question my judgment?"

All movement just stopped. All of the aliens, which had been moving restlessly, froze. The female alien, which was the size of a Grey Hound Bus, regarded the old male, which was the size of a dump-truck, in terms of general height and length.

The silence stretched on, uncomfortably. Sheppard, Ashley, and Samara started to point their rifles in the direction of the big female.

The voice came through the mental link.

"I will… submit." The building tension in the air broke; everyone-aliens included- released a held breath.

The old males' voice was heard.

"You do not know, how relived it makes me feel, to hear that."

They followed the old male alien through the passageways of the alien ship.

Now that Sheppard got a chance to see the old male up close, he could see that it was much, much older than the original thousands of millennium that he had guessed at its age.

Its mind was incredibly old and vast, but it had a young spark to it.

"Sheppard, I have prepared something. Something for when this day would come. I have gone through pains and troubles that you cannot even have nightmares about, to obtain it."It said, leading them into a section of ship that had a much less amount of the alien growths on it.

Sheppard, seeing a potential place to add his two cents into it spoke up.

"Oh really? 'Things I could not have in my own nightmares? Elii, I've had some pretty bad dreams, so-"

"I know, I've seen them. They're nothing comparable to what I had to physically go through, so do not even think for a moment that you can compare yourself to me." The alien said tersely, daring Sheppard to keep on going.

Sheppard wisely choose to keep silent.

They arrived at a very large, open room.

"This, is the main hanger, though it is open to the void, it retains the air, by a device made, by me."

"…And, this is what I spent a large part of my earlier life looking for, restoring, and learning everything I could about."

Sheppard looked out, into the hanger. The darkness just seemed to stretch on forever. Sheppard could just barely make out the outline of a ship.

The ship was small, by the elite's standards. A bit shorter than the grizzly.

The outline was a long, twin-pronged bow, with a substantial body. The whole thing rested upon a large, boxy block; similar to the hangar that the Normandy had docked with.

The old xeno looked to the nearly blind group, and chuckled, a strange, huffing sound.

The world blurred and twisted, colors jumped out at them, while others were toned down.

Now, they could see the ship.

The grey color of the hull was dominant, with the dull-white diminished.

They could see the patchwork of many different hull pieces, all fused together, to form the hull.

The original hull though, they could see that some of it was replaced, but from another restoration.

The hull there was covered in cratered blast marks. The damages were fixed, but as Sheppard would expect for a species with no eyes, the darker, blast marks stood out.

'Whoa, what Tali would give to see this. These things are better at salvage and repair than the Quarians.' Thought Sheppard.

"This is the 'Forward unto Dawn', the frigate that the Master Chief vanished on, after the battle of the Ark. The same one that he crashed in, on requiem. The same that the precursors recovered, to learn how such a primitive species could hold out against them. The same, that master chief, and the rest of his group escaped on, to escape the NOVA nuke."

"The very same, that they crashed, again, and the same that I recovered, collected, found era correct parts for, and the same that you see before you right now." The old xeno finished.

Sheppard, Ashley, and samara, stood frozen. Frozen, at being in the presence of such a well worn, and above all, old ship.

Sheppard looked at the old alien. The alien had a kind of shimmer about him.

Suddenly, the alien… changed.

One second, it was itself, an old, scarred, alien, the length and height of a dump truck.

The very next second, it was the size of one of those man-sized aliens, twelve feet long, and eight feet tall.

The alien looked at them.

"How is this possible?" Samara asked in wonder.

"I am an ancient person. In my past lives, I fought, against the Reapers. Alongside, the ancestors of your kind, Samara. As well as, your kind, Ashley. "

"But, enough of this talk" the alien said, obviously changing the subject. "Let us not talk of things that happened in times that are best left unspoken. "

"Onward, to the Dawn."