A few minutes later, Ashley had told us everything she knew and Jane turned to me.

"Andrew, we both know that there are too many people to go unnoticed here."

I knew what she was going to say next and I shook my head.

"Jane, I am not going back to the ship."

"This is my mission Andrew, and I am not risking your wellbeing. Ashley and Kaidan are capable in battle and I'm not risking you. You will go back to the ship. Now."

Neither Jane's tone of voice nor her stone-cold glare left any room to argue with her, so I just turned on my heel and started walking back to where we had left Jenkins with the doctors.

Watching them on that damn screen.

It felt like I had just been watching them for months when it couldn't have been more than five minutes.

Spikes sticking up out of the ground started sinking down lower, stopping just a few feet above the floor.

"Wait, what are-" Kaidan started to say as this mission turned into a living nightmare.

What appeared to once have been humans started pulling themselves off of these spikes, but, whatever they were then was certainly not natural.

They had a dark grey, shiny skin with blue cracks all over their body with haunting blue eyes.

I had felt paralysed in my seat just watching them on a screen, so it didn't surprise me that no one down there had dared to move an inch for almost five seconds when Jane finally snapped them out of their daze.

Jane glowed a deep blue and threw one of these husk-looking creatures into another, causing them both to just... break apart.

"They're weak, hit their legs!" Jane shouted, drawing her pistol and firing at the legs of the creatures, causing them to shred and fall apart.

"What are those..?" Joker whispered in horror.

My blood froze. I had never once heard Joker sound so scared before.

"I don't.." I started to say as Jane finished off the last of them.

"Damn." I said plainly as I stood up.

"Andrew? What's wrong?" Joker asked as I started walking away.

"Gotta pee!" I called over my shoulder, making all crew in earshot laugh a little, it was well known that I had the weakest bladder on the ship and everyone, including myself, made several jokes about it on a regular basis.

After I had taken care of that business and returned to Joker, Jane was crouched over the body of Nihlus while a man behind some crates was backing away.

"Nihlus!" I half-shouted.

"I know." Joker said. "Some other Turian, Saren, shot him."

Confusion set in almost immediately.

"Does it have something to do with the real reason why we're here?" I asked, wondering if Joker had been informed.

"The device?" Joker whispered, confirming that he had. "Yeah, I think so," he carried on saying in his normal loud manner.

I shook my head and clenched my teeth slightly.

"This can't be good..." I muttered as I stood, turned on my heel and walked down through the Normandy, heading to the medbay.

"You can't come in here, Commander," said a relatively new doctor, one of the very few that wasn't working on Jenkins, as I tried walking into the medbay.

"And why would that be?" I growled, not in the mood to be stopped.

"Jenkins is in critical condition, a shock could-"

"Is he awake?" I asked, cutting in massively.

"No." The doctor said plainly. "So there is no point even coming in if you want to talk to him. He will be out for at least another few hours."
I shook my head and looked the young man over.

I wasn't sure what it was about him, but there was something I really didn't like, whether it was the way his dark brown eyes shifted slightly when he spoke or the weird way he styles his short blond hair but there was something just not right about him.

"Just... let me know when he wakes up please, I would like to see if he is alright as soon as possible," I said simply before turning and walking back up to the cockpit.

"Bastard," I whispered as I walked away.