Semper Vigilo

by CunkToad

Due to a drive core malfunction, a human vessel arrives just in time to save the Council Envoy from the yahg. What happens when humanity enters the galactic stage not as the race that got attacked by the turians for breaking a law they weren't aware of, but as the race that saved a turian platoon from certain death? M for wartime violence, pre ME1 - ME3, no OP humanity.

115. Dust And Echoes

Chapter 115. Dust And Echoes

---

Meanwhile, 2. May 2417 AD, 21:42 Ship Time, HSASV Normandy, CO Quarters

The auburn-haired N7 had just finished typing up their weekly status report when someone used the doorbell of her quarters to make their presence in the very top section of the Normandy known. Since she'd gotten caught up in work for most of the day, the first question on Shepard's mind was a fairly simple one: "EDI, did I miss an appointment?"

"Not one that I was made aware of, Commander," the ship's AI responded before extending an offer. "Would you like me to accept the cameras of the corridor outside your quarters to identify who is requesting your presence?"

"I've got legs. Why would I need you to do that?" Shepard responded with a brief chuckle.

"Personal safety concerns," EDI responded, her tone as serious as always.

Shepard paused in her step ever so briefly and thought about the recent situation with Leng and the accusations of there being a mole on their ship still lingering in the air. Someone on the Normandy was working for the enemy so maybe EDI's caution wasn't all that misplaced? She was after all their intended target and whoever was doing this was influential enough to reach the Migrant Fleet and Illium.

She felt a brief flush of paranoia roll through her mind but then decided that she was perfectly safe as long as Kai was in charge of handing out firearms.

"No, no, I've got it," she replied before pulling an onyx-black hoodie with a stylized N7 insignia over the top she'd been wearing and strategically placing a chair near the door – just in case. Then she opened the door, coming face to face with the person Callius had replaced as the Normandy's XO.

First Lieutenant Nagato, the Normandy's chief CIC officer (or in grunt terms, the guy who was in charge of making sure they hit what they were aiming for and didn't get hit in return) was a thirty-something man of East-Asian complexion. He had short-cropped black hair, a perma-stubble beard and sharp facial features and light brown eyes that seemed to always look directly into your own. He radiated military-bearing and was also the type of officer who always wore their uniform, even when they were off-duty. Additionally, he was one of the couple of sailors who'd been recruited to fill the shoes of the members of the Normandy's original crew that hadn't survived the attack. Shepard hadn't known the Normandy I's Chief CIC-O but she assumed that Nagato had big shoes to fill.

She doubted that he'd have any problems with that though.

In his right hand, Nagato held a tablet and on his left wrist was an actual analogue wristwatch made off silver metal – exactly like the one you got when you were the top of your class at the LNWS, the HSA's naval warfare school hanging in orbit around Luna.

Only the best of the best for the Normandy-II, eh?

As soon as the door had opened, Nagato had straightened himself. He'd clearly expected to salute her, only to realise that she – unlike him - didn't make a habit out of wearing a uniform in her free-time. "Commander Shepard, I'm sorry to interrupt you at such a late hour and off-duty nonetheless," he began. The N7 was glad that he didn't sound panicked because that probably meant that whatever he needed wasn't all too urgent or life-threatening (in which case EDI would've probably known already anyway).

"It's alright. How can I help you, Lieutenant?" Shepard replied, deciding that Nagato was the kind of guy with whom she couldn't just 'drop rank' like she did with her ground-team. He was too formal for that and might spontaneously combust if she told him to call her Shepard. For crying out loud… one look at his boots showed that he shined them every morning even though he was walking around in a spaceship that had an army of cleaning robots that ensured dirty floors didn't exist.

"Something administrative has come up that needs your all-clear," Nagato responded," it's a technicality really but since I'm no longer an XO, I can't take care of it anymore without yours or Lieutenant Callius' approval," did she just detect a bit of resentment from the man's tone?

"What do you need?"

"A signature," Nagato said before turning the tablet around and showing Shepard a requestion formular with a long, convoluted name that stretched for two paragraphs. If one wanted to try and be funny, they'd say that it was a perfect example of HSAN bureaucracy – right down to the overly large eagle-centric coat of arms placed in the top right corner. He handed Shepard the tablet and the N7 skimmed over the contents.

"Okay. And what am I signing for?" she mumbled, looking up from the tablet ever so briefly and clearly catching Nagato in the process of trying to look past her and into the CO quarters.

'Curious about your future posting, huh?' she thought. Considering his previous posting as the Normandy II's XO, it was probably safe to say that Nagato was only a few years (and her and Callius' absence) away from being in charge of one of the HSA's state-of-the-art stealth ships.

"A scheduled update to our CIC software that I was just notified of. We haven't been in an HSAN port since Cronos Station and since I don't see us returning to one anytime before we hit the Collectors, I need you to grant me access to the CO's secured QEC channel to start the remote-update procedure. That way we'll get the patch straight to our servers, no dry-dock needed, and as a plus, we probably won't get shot down as easily as last time when we finally take the Collectors for round two," ever since the latest abductions, Shepard had noticed that there was a rumor spreading around the Normandy that they were in the final stages of their operations… which wasn't entirely accurate. While Harper had said that he was 'working on a solution to the Omega-4 Relay problem', and she'd told the officers in charge of the Normandy's various departments that much, he hadn't specified when that solution would be ready to be deployed. The only thing he had mentioned – or rather implied - was that he had found some lunatics inside Cerberus' Strike Teams who had been crazy enough to volunteer to board a disabled Collector Cruiser, steal its IFF and then subsequently blow the thing to kingdom come. When she'd asked why he hadn't approached her for the mission, his only answer had been that she was only scheduled for one suicide mission and could hardly partake in that one if she died before ever making it there.

… as unsatisfactory as that answer had been, she couldn't argue with its logic…

"Alright then," Shepard said before scribbling her signature under the requisition, "make sure you have EDI help you with the installation," she added before offering a friendly smile that Nagato ever so briefly seemed to consider returning. The angle of his mouth twitched but then he probably remembered that he was a model-HSA-officer who was on-duty even when he wasn't and that even the idea of a friendly smile could ultimately lead to uncalled for fraternization and as such he only offered a crisp nod. (She wasn't sure if that was his exact line of thought, but it wouldn't surprise her)

"Naturally, Ma'am," the Asian man said before taking the tablet off her hands again. "And again, I'd like to apologize for the interruption. I just didn't want to delay this until tomorrow."

"Don't worry about it, Lieutenant. I get it. CIC updates aren't exactly something you want to sleep on in the hopes of not needing them until your CO wakes up," she shrugged, to which Nagato again nodded crisply and then stood there… clearly waiting for her to dismiss him.

"If that'll be all, Lieutenant, you can consider yourself dismissed," she said casually.

"Thank you, Ma'am. Enjoy your evening," Nagato nodded before taking two steps back and turning on his heel like he was marching in formation.

Shepard herself took two steps back and let the door close.

And she had considered Kaidan to be too by-the-book. Compared to Nagato, he'd been a real renegade.

She cracked a smile at the memory of the BAR lieutenant (or rather BAR Captain / Spectre now) and went to turn off her terminal before deciding that she'd try and get some sleep before her alarm buzzed at 05:00. With the memory of her XO resurfaced, her attempt wasn't very successful. After getting into bed, Shepard felt like she'd been staring at the ceiling for a small eternity all the while doing nothing but wondering where Kaidan and Liara were right now. Even though it had been weeks since their visit to the Normandy, the mind meld and the feeling it had brought with it were still fresh in her memory. Sort of like a recurring daydream you just couldn't shake. And while she had vowed to focus solely on the Collectors right now, Shepard had to admit that even in spite of how many they were killing it was hard not to remember that they were just a distraction before the real thing.

While the Collectors were attacking HSA colonies, the Reapers were out there and getting closer with every passing day.

The Crucible, the Catalyst and the Kaleidoscope… those were the objects the vision had named as the key to stopping them.

They'd better find out just what those things were before the Reapers turned up. Otherwise…

… well…

Otherwise they wouldn't have much longer to worry about anything…

---

Five Hours Later, 3. May 2417 AD, Eden Prime, Forty Kilometers Outside Of Constant

"The signal has been there for a day, and you only think to mention that now?" Sergeant Veltax snarled while Kaidan and Liara were observing from the entrance of the prefab-building. While General Arterius and the other member of his honor-guard had already headed out to the ruin, the sergeant, Liara and Kaidan had stayed behind to link up with the HSA forces on-site. They had arrived on the Parnack only a couple of hours ago (which was still a record-time in regard to a Palaven - Eden Prime trip) and as such, this was all still unknown territory to them.

"It's just white noise coming form inside the bunker, Sergeant. Nothing to get worked up over," the Cerberus scientists, Doctor Chandana, countered before shutting down the hologram.

He'd just explained to them that the bunker they had found had started to emit a signal roughly a day ago. It was nothing that they could make sense of and if not for the fact that it was definitely coming from the structure, which they were sure was prothean based on the limited intel gathered by a few Vanguard-based recon runs, they would've chalked it up to the swamp messing with their instruments.

"If we're involved, it's never nothing, Doctor," Veltax retorted before contacting General Arterius. "Sir, our human contact just told me that the bunker's emitting a signal. He says it's just white noise but with us… yes. That's what I told him too," he turned away from Chandana with some disdain and faced Kaidan. "The General agrees with me. He wants us on-site now. He says that we need to go in before we find out what the signal's really for."

Kaidan, who wasn't tapped into the turian communications right now, nodded.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about the object, Doctor Chandana?"

"Other than that we've got an entire mechanized battalion on-site that's wondering why General Arterius insists on going in alone and that I strongly advice against any of you setting foot inside it until we have verified that it won't fall on your heads? No. I can't think of anything," the Cerberus scientist retorted. "It took us a long time to figure out how to open the bunker to begin with, so we only saw little of it until you arrived. But if that's anything to go by, this bunker seems to be just another prothean underground structure, like all the others Doctor T'Soni has seen in her life," Chandana said with a shrug. "Well, except for the massive damage caused to its exterior by Sovereign which may or may not have impacted structural integrity to a dangerous point. Oh and then there's of course its unknown extend which could make it very easy for you to get lost. Or buried alive somewhere we can't find you," the Cerberus scientist stressed again.

"I understand your caution, Doctor, but I'm no stranger to heavily damaged prothean ruins," Liara answered politely while looking at the unfinished holographic schematic of the compound projected inside the prefab they were in. "As a matter of fact, this ruin seems to be remarkably intact, at least when you look past the massive superficial damages. It looks secure, much more so than Therum." At the mention of the place where all of them had met, Kaidan and Veltax exchanged a look.

"Well, at least it's not a volcano this time," the grey-plated turian said with a shrug. "That's a step forward, right?"

"And no geth or krogan clone soldiers either," Kaidan responded. "So yes. Definitely a step forward."

Chandana audibly exhaled.

"You seem awfully calm considering that I just told you all of you could get buried underneath several metric tons of prothean nanosteel and swamp water."

"All a matter of perspective, Doc," Kaidan said before grabbing his helmet off the table. "To the dig site then?"

"After you," the turian responded with a nod.

---

2158 CE, Eden Prime, Prothean Ruin outside Constant

"So, what do you think's down there? Just some dusted up prothean crap or something actually useful?" Galviat said informally, ignoring ranks and citizenship tiers the same way he usually did when no one else was around to observe them. The two turians were standing on a small hill overlooking the dried-up swamp where a shard of blackened metal stuck out of the surface like a broken bone. There was no one else around them and Desolas had spent the last ten minutes studying the surroundings through a pair of human binoculars. They felt awkward on his asymmetrical, scarred face but they did their job well enough.

"The latter, actually," Desolas responded before lowering the green binoculars and looking at the mud-brown landscape below them and the perimeter set by the human army. "Sovereign considered this place important enough to try and destroy it. That has to mean something."

"Unless he was acting on bad intel," the sniper murmured. "Fifty thousand years are a long time for anything to stay intact. Chances are we won't find anything inside that bunker that isn't just dust and echoes of the protheans. Or maybe he just fired at it for the hell of it. You know, like any good genocidal sentient spaceship would."

"When did you become our resident pessimist, Galviat?" Desolas responded before scratching his left, damaged mandible. Something about Eden Prime was making his scared plates itch. Maybe it was something in the air clashing with layers of turian skin that weren't meant to be exposed to them… or maybe it was the fact that dozens of his comrades had died on this very planet two years ago, some of them at hands of his own brother … their brother(-in-arms). But either way. Whatever it was … he didn't like it.

"Well, someone needs to fill in for Callius now that she's Shepard's permanent XO and hitching along for a one-way trip through the Omega-4 Relay, no?" the black-plated turian shrugged.

Desolas threw a sideward glance at his fellow soldier and showed him the hint of a reassuring grin, despite knowing full and well that the odds of Lieutenant Callius and the rest of the Normandy being disintegrated upon making transit were not something you could easily dismiss. "Don't worry Galviat. The lieutenant be back before you know it. You know Callius. It'll take more than a simple suicide mission to take her out of the equation."

"It's not her I'm doubting, Deso-" Galviat began, about to voice Desolas' concerns out loud. Then the sniper realized they had company, "-General, Sir," he quickly corrected before nodding at Alenko, Doctor T'Soni and Veltax. Turian society was rather strict on the fact that formal appearances had to be kept up around outsides and Carthaan, the colony Galviat was from, put an even more special value on social standing.

"General," T'Soni greeted formally before her eyes were inevitably drawn to the metal structure in the distance. She took a step forward, past Galviat and snatched the binoculars out of Desolas' hands without asking. "Goddess. This is amazing," she muttered before taking a brief look and then turning to Captain Alenko. "This has been here allt he time?"

"Apparently," the human Spectre replied. "I don't wanna read into anything, Liara … but you sound weirdly excited. Something we should know already?"

"What? Oh. No. I just haven't had the pleasure of exploring a ruin like this for quite some time now," the asari replied. "Call it nostalgia if you will," she added before giving the binoculars back to Desolas. T'Soni threw a sideward glance at him while he grabbed them. "You're worried about the signal, are you not?" she observed. Had he gotten that bad at hiding his demeanor? Or was being back on Eden Prime just messing with him that badly?

"Chandana might say its just white-noise, but I think both of us know that the odds of this being a coincidence are rather… low," Desolas said in return. "Prothean ruins wouldn't happen to have a habit of emitting low-frequency background noise, would they?"

"No, I'm afraid just radiation," the asari retorted before glancing down the path marked by the human engineers with a trail of helpful, blue chem-trails. Since the swamp was treacherous and turians in heavy armor were especially prone to spontaneous cases of sinking into soft underground, they'd have to stick to the terrain already known to be stable enough to walk on. "Whenever you're ready, General," she added.

He didn't like this.

But given the latest developments they weren't in any position to turn down a chance like this.

He still disagreed with Harper in the regard that they couldn't beat the Reapers without some sort of miracle or a keener understanding of their nature… but even so he knew that they needed to figure out what the Crucible, the Catalyst and the Kaleidoscope were. After all, only a fool would turn down a weapon before stepping into the dueling arena.

Desolas raised his arm and planted his fist at the side of his helmet, marking himself as the pointman. Since Alenko and T'Soni presumably didn't speak turian sign language, he verbalized his intent with a quick 'on me' too. While it was true that it was indeed foolish for a general to lead the way into an unknown prothean ruin emitting a weird signal, he couldn't expect anyone else step into the unknown if he wasn't willing to be the first one to face it. As such he carefully followed the narrow path through the half-burned swamp, eyes set on the jagged metal shape up ahead. As he went, he ignored the uneasy thoughts creeping through his mind, once more blaming their untimely appearance on his presence on Edne Prime.

After all, why else would he suddenly wonder if this was what Saren had felt like before stepping into Sovereign's trap…?

"General, this is Chandana. I can see you're about to enter the structure," the disembodied voice of the Cerberus researcher announced, prompting Desolas to turn back to where they'd come from. It was more of a hunch really, but sure enough, he could see the human scientist standing on the small hill – flanked by two of the HSA's newest weapons; Vanguard mechs – Hahne Kedar's poor mechanical imitations of human soldiers. "Since I'd hate to repeat some of Cerberus' … past communication mishaps when it comes to the exploration of ancient ruins, I'll be sending the mechs in behind you. They'll be carrying comm-packs to reinforce your signal. And serve as a life-line in case you get lost. There'll be a QRF on stand-by too. Just in case you need it."

"Understood, Doctor," Desolas responded before his first foot touched the burnt metal exterior of the prothean ruin.

"How nice of him. You think he actually cares?" Galviat chuckled.

"About us or the ruin?" Veltax responded.

"Either," the sniper replied.

"He's a Cerberus scientist. So no, probably not," the Hastatim figured before both turned silent.

The three Blackwatch operatives, Captain Alenko and Doctor T'Soni came to a halt in front of the entrance of the structure. Since it was covered by an extended, triangular roof, the door and floor around it wasn't as badly burned as the rest of the visible ruin. And since the HSA had already sent their mechs in prior to their arrival, the door was opened and a dozen or so chemlights were still visible from within.

"So, Doctor," Alenko began as they walked into the ruin, "you looked over the reports on this place, right?"

"I did," T'Soni responded, right as the trail of chemlights ended at the first ramp. Chandana really hadn't gotten far, had he? Just how long had they been stuck on that door?

"Any idea what we're gonna find here?" the human biotic wondered out loud while he, alongside Desolas and company, walked down into a hexagonal tunnel of greyish-white steel. It reminded him of the inside of the Therum ruin, only that the scale was much larger. Whereas Therum had only been spacious in the parts where the ruin had bled into the volcanic caves, this place was artificially large. They probably could've driven in here with a Jiris and still have had room to maneuver.

"Since the reconnaissance missions of Cerberus was only focused on mapping the ruin and they didn't get very far before we arrived, I'm afraid I can only speculate," the asari said before joining Desolas at the end of the tunnel and staring at a large, open room.

It was somewhat oval and covered with ancient debris. The ground was lined with craters that were now puddles of swamp-water. If he were to guess, the water had found its way down here through the various holes Sovereign had blown into the bunker's ceiling during his attempt to collapse it. He looked up and could see wet spots form on the ceiling. Water droplets were dripping down ever so often and given the size of the puddles, they had for the last two years.

Impressive to think this place was still standing after what Sovereign had done to large portions of Eden Prime's major settlements or the military bases surrounding them.

The state of the ruin was desolate but even in face of fifty thousand years of wear and tear, Desolas recognized what he was looking at. A wide-open area littered with devastation, facing a wall that had more battle scars on it than Oma Ker after the krogan's attempt at invading it.

"A battle happened here," the general murmured before pointing at the devastated open space. "And this was the defender's kill zone," he took a cautious step forward, suddenly weary of ancient traps that might've survived the prothean's war with the Reapers. If their beacons were still working, their mines might be too. He used the magnify-function on his helmet to spot what he assumed used to be blown out gun-emplacements build into the wall. A suspicion was creeping up on him, one that could explain both why Sovereign hadn't been able to destroy this place and why the humans had never found it to begin with. "Tell me, Doctor, how many prothean military bases have you surveyed in your time?"

"None that I'm aware of, General. We never found any prothean ruins that served a purely militaristic function," T'Soni replied. "Back before I met you, I always assumed that the lack of military installations created by them was owed to the protheans being devoted pacifists without any military whatsoever… but that hypothesis changed when you showed me that they fought a war for survival against a foe like the Reapers. I now believe that none of their military installations survived the war in a state that allowed us to recognize them for what they were…"

"So this is a first then," Desolas figured before looking at the blazed walls on either of his sides. Sovereign had annihilated entire city blocks with a single beam of its weapon during the battle on the human colony. To think that the prothean fortess was still standing after two attempts of the Reapers to bring it down… that said something about the engineers who'd designed this place.

"Indeed," the asari responded before bringing up her omni-tool and beginning her descent towards the wall with the gun-emplacements.

"Wait! You should be careful, Doc, there could be traps," Alenko called, to which T'Soni only pointed at her omni.

"That's what the scanner's for, Kaidan," the archeologist replied. "I appreciate your worry. But this isn't my first possibly booby-trapped dig site."

Desolas couldn't argue with that, hence he rephrased his earlier orders.

"Alright everyone. Since the mechs clearly didn't get this far, this is all uncharted territory now. So just follow Doctor T'Soni's lead and watch your step," the general instructed before a shard of metal hit his armored shoulder with a ping. It was just a small shard, so it didn't hurt him… but it still gave him reason to pause. He glanced up at the ceiling and saw some minor cracks in the greyish-white material. A small but steady stream of water was now streaming through it. Chandana hadn't been kidding. The place really was messed up badly and opening it probably hadn't helped either. "And let's keep the number of explosions and other sudden movements to a minimum. I don't want to get buried alive with Galviat again. Thrice is enough for one life."

The tall sniper snorted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That you start acting really strange once the oxygen-deprivation starts kicking in," Veltax replied dryly and in Desolas' place.

"Like you're any better. You get very quiet when the air starts running low. More so than usual. It's extremely creepy."

"Maybe. But it also leaves me with enough oxygen to wait out the rescue crews. And to drag your butt out of the rubble after you wasted all of yours going on about how the asari are supposedly shapeshifting psychics looking to mindcontrol all of us."

"We aren't," T'Soni injected.

"Mhm," Galviat murmured in return, not sounding entirely convinced. "For the record, that was just one time. And you have to admit. It's weird that everyone finds them attractive-"

"You guys have been buried alive three times already?" Alenko interrupted as they circled around the first crater.

"Yes. But the sappers got us out way before we suffered any permanent nerve damage all three times," Galviat said.

"Three times," Alenko repeated.

"Yes," Galviat repeated.

"Most people don't get buried alive once in their entire life."

"Boring lives then," Veltax figured.

"Three times the ceiling's fallen on top of you. And you don't think that's concerning?"

"Well that one time it wasn't exactly a ceiling. More of a ship deck really," Galviat shrugged. "But yes, now that you say it, I guess we are sort of unlucky when it comes to things falling on top of us."

"And you couldn't mention that before I went into an underground cave with you?"

"Hey, we survived every time," the sniper of Desolas' squad pointed out. "So if anything we are the exact kind of people you want to get buried alive with," he paused in his step, keeping his foot in the air as if to avoid stepping on something. "Huh. General?" the sniper said.

"Yes?" Desolas responded, turning his head over so slightly.

"You might want to see that," the sniper said before pointing down at a small black shard lying in the ground. Desolas turned back around and (knowing that it was most likely not an explosive) gently brushed off the dirt that had collected on top of the shard. The fact that Galviat had seen it at all while trash-talking with Veltax and Alenko was amazing in itself. It didn't look much larger than the palm of his hand and was covered in dirt. Then again, Galviat had always been the most observant and situationally aware member of his honorguard – even if it was hard to notice in between his joking nature and at times … exhaustingly silly antics.

Desolas carefully grabbed the shard between two fingers and pulled it out of the ground. It was black and fine, teal lines were running over its surface, sort of like a beacon. Nearly all of it was still covered in dirt, so Desolas – ever curious, decided to grab it with his other hand two and brush off the rest of the dirt and mud to get a better look at it.

When he did, the teal lines glowed bright green for a second and then… nothing happened.

He inspected the shard for another moment and then passed it on to Alenko.

That turned out to be a mistake.

"Captain, can you hold on to that for a second?"

"Sure."

As soon as Alenko made contact with the shard, the human biotic fell backwards.

---

Meanwhile, 3. May 2417 AD, Eden Prime, Interior of the Prothean Ruin

As soon as Kaidan's hand touched the shard, an electric shock went through his entire body.

In one moment, he was standing in the broken-down prothean ruin on Eden Prime… and in the next, images of a large ground battle flashed past his eyes.

Explosions, screams of death, blood, gunfire…

He'd seen some action during the Blitz…

But nothing quite like this.

The experience was jarring enough to make him gasp for air. When he did, his breath ended when a horde of creatures closely resembling Collectors came charging straight at him. Some carried guns, others blades or had outright claws… and they all stopped and dropped dead when the strange gun now held in his hands fired off a green energy beam.

Kaidan watched himself give off several short bursts – or rather beams of light – and then his head turned against his own will, allowing him to see an alien with a triangular, blue head, four yellow eyes and a red suit of armor get hit in the chest by an unseen assailant. Red blood spurted from the wound and Kaidan – or rather the alien who's actions he was currently witnessing – suddenly lashed out with green-coloured biotics. With ease, he lifted two of the Collectors and smacked them against the wall hard enough to turn them into smears. Then he blasted away a whole swarm of the creatures with an even more powerful burst that disintegrated the first alien it hit. The sensation of it was strange, far more powerful than anything Kaidan had ever felt or witnessed. When the deed was done, he turned on his heal, sprinted towards his fallen comrade, grabbed him by his arm and started dragging him towards the wall with the gun-emplacements. Or rather, the still open gate that had appeared in itsmiddle.

"Victory! Seal the bunker!" he heard himself yell in a voice and language that definitely wasn't his own before dropping his comrade in the safety of the bunker and once more firing at the huskified civilians charging at them.

… wait. Why was he calling them -

"Acknowledged-" an equally alien, albeit artificial voice responded before materializing in front of him. Victory manifested as a green hologram and he was a virtual copy of the conscience of one of the soldiers who'd fought the Reapers in the last generation. He was the guardian of this facility, the last remaining imprint of the avatar who'd commanded the armies of this world and maybe even the last remaining imprint of any avatar in the entirety of the empire…

Before he could think about how he knew that information, the gates in front of Kaidan's eyes closed, right before the prothean husks reached him.

"How many have we lost?" the stranger's voice coming out of Kaidan's mouth wondered out loud. Again the artificial voice replied.

"Reaper forces have destroyed approximately 300,000 lifepods," Victory responded.

He knelt down next to one of the charred pods and opened it, finding the burned corpse of a prothean inside. By the looks of it, the occupant had tried to claw her way out the burning coffin… unsuccessfully.

"A third of our people," the stranger occupying his body remarked sadly, feeling anger and sadness wash over him. These pods were the last hope of his people, the last remnant of the empire… and they had been reduced by a third in a single attack of the traitor forces… how could they possibly hope to succeed now-

"Alert, north-side bulkhead cannot be sealed. Hostiles detected," Victory declared.

And just like that, every chance to grief and contemplate on the future of his people was gone.

Kaidan watched himself grab the strange weapon. It was a particle rifle crafted by the last resistance stronghold on the world. The forge that had made it had long since gone up in a blaze alongside the rest of this cursed planet that would end up as their cold, lonely grave… He checked the energy source of his rifle. It was depleted and would need recharging soon, otherwise the next battle would be his last. He didn't have the luxury of choice though… With a sigh, he gave his orders to the few troops still alive.

"Then all forces to the north!" he ordered, knowing that unless a miracle happened, this would be his last battle. He started to jog alongside the few soldiers left alive… and then Kaidan fell backwards, the shard still in hand.

He was back in the broken-down bunker now, looking at a perplexed General Arterius.

"Captain, are you alright?"

"Yes, I," before he went on, Kaidan dropped the piece of metal like it was searing-hot. "Fuck… what is it with protheans and forcing their memories on you?!" he cursed, his usually self-controlled and restrained personality ever so briefly subdued by what he had just witnessed.

"What just happened?" Liara asked, already kneeling down to touch the shard out of curiosity.

"Don't!" Arterius yelled, grabbing her hand, maybe a bit too forcefully judging by the way she instantly pulled it back and shook it. "My apologizes," the turian said before looking at Kaidan. "Considering what just happened to you, I think its best you explain before anyone else goes through … whatever you just went through."

Kaidan shook his head. At least this time hadn't been as bad as the beacon…

"That thing just gave me a hell of a flashback to the protheans' war against the Reapers here on Eden Prime," he started while climbing to his feet, remembering the most crucial bit. "This place…there were stasis pods here. Nearly a million of them. The protheans were trying to hide from the Reapers and that thing-" he looked at the shard, feeling his head throb at the mere look of it "- that thing holds a recording of the battle that went down here. Like a beacon, only smaller," he shook his head in an attempt to clear it, still feeling the effects of what he had just witnessed. It was like a fog had settled in his brain and sadly enough, that was a familiar sensation by now. "General Arterius is right. I think it's best no one touches it. Let's just-" he started before summoning a miniscule mass effect field, levitating the shard into the air and pointing at the backpack Sergeant Galviat was carrying, "put it somewhere safe for now…"

The turian nodded, sat the pack down and let Alenko drop the shard inside.

"I don't get it. Why did it knock you out but not the General?" Galviat wondered while looking at the shard in his pack. "Was it the armor?"

"Don't even think about touching it, Galviat," Veltax warned.

"Didn't plan on it," Glaviat responded. "I'm already haunted by enough malevolent spirits as it is. I don't need prothean ones to join in on the fun every other night. Still, I wonder…"

"Kaidan has the cipher in his head," Liara figured, offering the explanation the turian craved so badly. "You don't," she added while looking at Arterius, who only gave her a brief nod. Then she continued on. "Now what was that about stasis pods you just said?"

"This place was a hiding spot," the biotic repeated. "The protheans were looking to wait out the Reapers. They had a million lifepods ready," then he took a look around the devastated bunker front he'd just fought in. "Needless to say, it didn't work out the way they planned."

"One million pods… that's an entire army trying to sleep out the war," the general muttered before looking at the door. He lifted his Phaeston ever so slightly and then said something Kaidan probably should've expected to hear from him. "What lousy excuse of a soldier do you have to be to go into hiding while your people are fighting and dying all over the galaxy?" the Blackwatch officer spat.

All of the sudden, Kaidan thought back to what Shepard had told him back on the Normandy two years ago. Or rather what Vakarian had told Shepard about Arterius' legion in confidence and what the Blackwatch soldiers had then subsequently put on display during Noveria…

"Guess there are cowards in every day and age, huh?" Galviat shrugged.

"If this is standard doctrine for the protheans, I guess that at least explains they lost the war," Veltax figured.

"Or maybe they just knew that the war was over," Kaidan countered, unsure why he felt a hint of offense at the statements of the two Blackwatch soldiers. "From what I got from that shard, this was a last-ditch effort. The war was already over, so they were just looking to live to fight another day, you know? Pick a battle on their terms," he reasoned before a dark line of thought crossed his mind. "Maybe we should take a page out of their book and prepare something like this… before the Reapers show up," it was something they all had considered, right? What would happen if they lost…

Arterius stayed quiet for a moment. Then he turned to face the biotic.

"Absolutely not," he said before taking a look around the bunker front. "Under different circumstances, I wouldn't hold it against them to look for a way out," Kaidan wasn't so sure about that… "But just take a look around," the turian went on. "This place proves that you can't wait out the Reapers. They're relentless, they don't forget and they are very, very thorough in their actions. Sovereign was trying to take this place out fifty-thousand years after they've already won… and if it weren't for our soldiers interfering with his plans, he would have too. So we might not want to use the protheans as an example on how to fight the Reapers or waste our resources by looking for a way out of an inevitable war," he walked towards the door and placed a hand on the greyish-white steel. "This is just more proof of what I've been saying all along," the general whispered. "The only way we can beat them is if every last one of us is ready to die for the cause. Survival can't be on our list of priorities. Our only goal needs to be stopping the Reapers once and for all, no matter the cost. Otherwise there's no point in fighting this war to begin with," yup. Exactly what Vakarian had warned them about… "Doctor T'Soni, do you think you can get us in through that door?"

"I might be," the asari archeologist replied before bringing up her omni-tool. All the while, Kaidan felt a strange pull towards a section in the middle of the wall. It was like that spot was calling out to him, telling him 'here'. "Although it could take some time. The locking mechanism is very old and very damaged and we'll need to be careful not to cause more damage to the bunker…" she went on. Meanwhile, Kaidan took a cautious step towards the segment of the wall, placed his palm inside a badly burned, circular shape and felt a vibration through his gauntlet. At first nothing happened… but then there was a metallic groan and the doors pulled apart slowly, causing more water to drip in through previously unseen cracks in the ceiling

"How did you know-" Liara began. "By the goddess. Of course. The shard. It's not just a recording of what happened here. It's also an instruction…"

"… on how to find the protheans," Kaidan said before taking the first step into the pitch-black bunker. Unlike the part of the structure, they'd been in up to now, power had clearly failed in here. His helmet reacted by activating its night-vision function and once it did, he could see a vast room expand before him. The height of the ceiling hadn't changed, but the depth of the facility had. Whereas they had been walking on solid ground before, they were now standing on a thin bridge expanding over a deep chasm. If he were to guess, they were one wrong step away from a fifty-meter death-drop.

He looked around the bridge and noticed that there were platforms attached to either of its sides. Judging by the rails, these things could move and judging by the dozens of flat, oval coffins placed on them, they'd been intended to help store the prothean sleepers. He recognized the room; it was the same that the shard had shown him. He walked towards the first of the coffins, turians and Liara following closely. Some of them were pried open and age hadn't been kind to what had been inside of them. The protheans had turned into nothing but dust. As he stood in front of one particular coffin he wondered if it was the very same one he'd seen in the shard's recollection of the battle…

"If this was supposed to be a refuge for protheans in stasis, I don't think it's a good thing that the power's out," Sergeant Veltax observed before General Arterius motioned for them to follow the bridge into the bunker. As they started their way into the bunker's inner sanctum, Kaidan looked at the walls above and below them. The reminded him of the descriptions of Ilos, only less spacious and less artisan. This place had clearly been built with nothing but efficiency in mind.

He hadn't been on Ilos or the Citadel and he'd always regretted that.

His fight with Saren had made sure that he was in no shape to go anywhere after Virmire and according to the medical staff that had been there when he had woken up, the only reason he'd been in any shape to go anywhere after Virmire was that he'd been lucky enough to be around a very competent combat medic at the time of his injury.

To make up for his absence, he had read the reports. And if the same thing that had happened to the protheans on Ilos had happened here… well…

They passed another stack of coffins laying unattended on a platform and their turian leader said exactly what Kaidan was thinking.

"I don't think there's anyone left alive down here," the Blackwatch general said, his voice echoing through the halls, bouncing off the stasis-chambers build into either side of the wall.

"Waking up in a tiny stasis pod only to realise that you've got no way out and no airflow. That's not a good way to go," the sniper of the honor guard added before snapping a chem-light in half and tossing it down the bridge. It produced a faint echo when it hit the smalls ea of water that had collected below the bridge and illuminated a pile of broken pods. "Spirits. If the power failed everywhere, then this place isn't a cryo-stasis chamber. It's a damn mausoleum. There's gotta be thousands of bodies in this room alone," he went on.

"No bodies. Just dust," Veltax corrected as they reached the final third of the bridge. Behind them, they heard faint, metallic footsteps. Kaidan wheeled around and as a glance confirmed, it was a lone Vanguard-bot following them on Chandana's orders.

"You said a million soldiers were supposed to be down there?" Liara asked, paying more attention to her omni-tool then to the fact that she was slowly veering left, towards the dead-drop. Kaidan pulled her to the side, away from the drop. Even if her biotic abilities most likely would've saved her from dying on impact, it'd take at least half an hour to get her back up to the bridge. He'd avoid that, if possible. As another look to the ceiling confirmed, Chandana was right. This place was instable.

"Roughly," it was an estimation based on what he'd learned in the vision. If 300,000 pods were a third of their people…

"If this facility was supposed to house that many stasis pods, it needs to be enormous. Not just for storage capacities, but also to keep the population alive after they woke up," Liara muttered before closing her omni-tool. "The protheans were gifted at subterranean engineering and unless the protheans spread themselves out across Eden Prime, I think this ruin might extend across a significant portion of the region. Maybe even the entire swamp."

"The swamp's nearly a hundred square kilometers large," Kaidan pointed out.

"That's more than enough space for a city of one million people," Liara responded.

"And a deep swamp like this one is as good of a hiding place for a city like that as you can find," Arterius added. "It's defensive too. The terrain makes it hard to maneuver anything other than light infantry. Tracks, wheels and legs sink into the ground, repulsion engines cover themselves in mud and clog up and the rivers are too narrow and treacherous to send in large boats. Establishing supply lines gets tricky very fast in an environment like this and you can pretty much forget about outmaneuvering your enemy. Low morale or not, the protheans sure knew how to pick their battlefields," the turian observed before stopping in front of the door. "Captain?" his implication was obvious, so Kaidan put his hand on the door again. This time there was no vibration and no effect. He and Arterius shared a look.

"Hm," Kaidan mumbled, his hand still pressed against the wall. Then he looked at Liara. "If you're right about the shard, that should have worked."

"Maybe you only received the first key," Liara replied. "And the shard still holds the rest. It could be a sequential transfer. Maybe to avoid overstraining whoever finds it."

"What are you saying?" Arterius injected.

"That I need to touch the shard again," Kaidan retorted before looking at the turian carrying it in his backpack. He could see Galviat look to his general for advice and before Arterius could say 'no', Kaidan began to reason. "I know it's risky but this might be the best shot we get at figuring out this whole Crucible business. And like you said. We all need to take risks if we want to win this thing."

Arterius nodded. "You're right," he said before Galviat sat down the backpack and opened it to reveal the shard. "Be careful, Captain."

"Naturally," Kaidan responded before touching the shard. This time shock didn't surprise him as much. Even so, he once more got flashes of a terrific battle raging under a sky the same color as that of Eden Prime. There was a towering machine firing at him, not as big as Sovereign but still enormous compared to a foot soldier. Its red beam lit up, focused on him and then… then he was facing another one of the tealish-blue aliens; a real prothean.

"I never thought our empire would fall," the alien muttered. Like the soldier who's eyes he was seeing this through, he was wearing a red suit of armor that lacked a helmet or proper gauntlets.

"It won't," the stranger responded. "We will sleep here until the Reapers return to dark space. Then we will rise, a million strong," he said, explaining their last resort again.

"For the empire," the first prothean stated.

"For the empire," he echoed. "Get to your stasis pod," he went on. "Victory," the copy of the avatar's conscience one more appeared next to him. "Broadcast the stasis readiness signal to all lifepods," he instructed.

"And the refugees who have yet to reach the bunker?" the green hologram responded.

"Their sacrifice will be honored in the coming empire," he declared after a moment of deliberation before his attention was once more drawn in by a loud explosion and a swarm of prothean husks charging at him. There was no time to contemplate on the weight of the decision he had just made, the war left no room for it.

Then the vision ended and this time around, Kaidan hadn't been thrown off his feet. These were getting easier to deal with.

"And? What did you see this time?" Liara was the first to ask.

"How their plan of a second prothean empire crashed and burned," Kaidan mumbled before shaking his head clear of the echoes of the protheans and putting his hand on the door. This time around it worked. Liara was right. It was a sequence of keys. "The Reapers found them and this was where the protheans made their last stand," he told the group as more of the bunker became accessible. "There was no back-up plan, no where else to retreat to. This is where they lost the last battle of the war," he went on. They didn't immediately find another stasis chamber though. Instead their way led them down deeper underground. As they walked down the ramp, Alenko noticed that there was a stream of water flowing down next to them. The facility was being flooded on every layer and with every door they opened, they probably made it worse.

He stopped at the end of the ramp and noticed the gaping whole in the wall. A whole row of stasis chambers had exploded, by the looks of it from within.

'Suicide bombers hidden among the refugeens sent to disrupt our operation', a memory that wasn't quite his own told him.

He sighed and looked at the room.

Again there was a bridge, a large stasis-chamber and a small sea of swamp water. In it, destroyed pods and other debris was floating. As before, one of Chandana's mechs shadowed them to help them find their way out if necessary. Before they set out on the bridge Kaidan looked at it for a moment or two. At this distance, the HK-bot looked nearly identical to the average HSAMC rifleman. The deception was nearly perfect, except for the absolute stillness of its body and the lack of the telltale t-shaped visor of their hardsuits' helmets. Instead of having a mirrored visor, the robot had small red optics installed in its head. They scanned him and then one of the lights flashed green, identifying him as a friendly.

After looking at the bot, Kaidan decided to radio Chandana. He had an idea, one that needed some feedback.

"Doctor, this is Alenko. Is the signal still running?"

"Yes, but its getting weaker," the voice of the Cerberus scientist cracked through the radio. Their reception was evidently getting weaker too and if not for the line of Vanguards in their wake, they probably wouldn't be able to talk to anyone at this point. "Why are you asking? Have you discovered its source yet?"

"Negative," the biotic responded before closing the channel. "The vision said something about a stasis readiness signal being broadcasted," he told the group. "I think what Chandana picked up might be the consequence of the power failing. Some kind of distress signal," he went on.

"And you don't want to share that with him because?" Veltax asked.

Alenko exhaled.

Because he didn't trust Cerberus and had only ended up as one of their operatives because Harper had told him that the commander probably wasn't going to make it and that they'd need someone to step up when that happened.

He could hardly say that now though.

"Because its speculation at this point," he shrugged while they began crossing the bridge. "Liara, you were on Ilos. You studied these stasis pods before, right?"

"I did," the asari responded with a nod. She wasn't looking at him though. Her focus was solely on her surroundings.

"What do you figure the odds are of someone having survived in one of these for the last fifty-thousand years?"

The archeologist stopped for a second, looking at the floating pods. "Considering this is a dedicated stasis facility, rather high actually."

The answer surprised Kaidan.

"Seriously? I mean the ones on Ilos barely lasted a couple of centuries before failing didn't they?

"Yes. But Ilos wasn't a dedicated cryo-stasis facility and it wasn't the pods that failed either. It was the facility's main reactor," she responded before explaining further: "Before Vigil had to power down, it told us that the stasis chambers themselves can run nearly indefinitely once activated. As long as there's a reliable source of power, the person inside is kept alive by the system. There are several layers of security and environmental protection, hence the chances of you dying once you're inside are slim," the asari paused by one of the pods lying in the dark by the edge of the bridge. The lower sections had been blown apart, possibly in the attack Kaidan had witnessed, and there was no sight of an inhabitant. Maybe they'd fled and died elsewhere? "But the moment power becomes an issue… certain prioritizations have to be made by the custodian of the facility based on a previously established hierarchy."

"What the doctor means is that the VI starts euthanizing everyone that isn't deemed important enough," Arterius injected. "Vigil saved the head scientists at the cost of killing everyone else instead of just waking them up and giving them a chance to fight for their survival," the turian looked around the flooded chamber. "The way a people decide to value the lives of those living in the lowest tiers of their society tells you a lot about them," he said. "Leaders who throw away the lives of their subordinates for no reason other than to save themselves aren't leaders. They're tyrants," he idly touched one of the intact but deactivated pods with his feet. "For my people, the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few… For the protheans it was clearly the other way around."

"It's not that simple," Liara said with some hesitation. Arterius didn't reply. The asari looked around at the pitch-black room and deactivated stasis pods. "If you understood the vision correctly, then this facility was built as a refuge for a million people that were meant to outlast the centuries it'd take the Reapers to finish their harvest. Hence, it has to have a reactor powerful enough to keep that many stasis pods functioning for however long the Reapers would need," the asari sighed. "Since there isn't a thriving prothean civilization on Eden Prime, it's obvious that some vital component of the plan was damaged in the attack you described, most likely the parts of the facility responsible for waking-up the people," the archeologist figured before taking a deep breath. "This facility certainly ran into the same power-related issue as Ilos. And since there is no reason why this bunker wouldn't have a VI-custodian like Vigil…" the paused for a second, "I think that the VI would've established a similar hierarchy of needs protocol as well. And with enough power to carry a million people through a century long sleep… there's theoretically more than enough power to instead carry a few hundred or dozen individuals through thousands of years."

"Meaning we might actually find a living prothean down here," Kaidan figured.

"Which could help our efforts to discover the weapon that the beacon mentioned tremendously," Liara went on.

"Assuming he's willing to help us," General Arterius injected before they stopped in front of the next door. "From what I've seen here up to now, I'm not so sure that any prothean left would have an interest in supporting us."

"Why wouldn't they?" Liara wondered. "From what Captain Alenko describes, the whole plan of the protheans was to outlast the Reapers and emerge in our cycle to continue the fight, most likely by cooperating with us."

The turian turned his head.

"That last part is speculatie, Doctor," he pointed out. "The battle they were preparing for was thousands of years in the future. Yet they still buried an army down here. You don't do that unless you intend to wake up as conquerors," the turian general said harshly before inspecting his Phaeston. "I'd love for whoever we find down here to be benevolent and on our side, that is if we find someone a t all… but after what I've seen up to now, I don't want you to get your hopes up. If this bunker shows us what kind of people the protheans were, we need to be careful and you might want to rethink how you view them," he nudged his head to the left side, towards the gate. A gesture to make Kaidan open it, no doubt. When he stepped forward, he noticed how badly damaged the gate looked. Probalby not a good sign. "People who bury an army a million strong clearly and then has their own VI mercilessly kill their own soldiers in their sleep to save the few deemed valuable enough to live clearly aren't the benevolent pacifists the asari made them out to be."

"The hypothesis that the protheans were pacifists isn't an asari idea. It's universally accepted by the scientific community of the galaxy," Liara countered, sounding almost hurt.

"A community dominated by asari," Arterius responded.

"You disagree then."

"Obviously," the turian nodded. "Before we made contact with the Council and your people's version of history, the Hierarchy was weary of the protheans. Our scientists and our military theorized that they were still around and we assumed that their intentions for our people weren't going to be peaceful. We prepared accordingly. There were contingency plans ready for when we encountered the protheans. Contingency plans that were enacted when the korgan attacked Oma Ker and only abandoned after we were introduced to your version of history and understood that the krogan weren't the protheans looking to enforce some long-term plan for our species."

"Wait. You though the krogan were the protheans when you made first contact with them? Why'd you think that?" This was the first time Kaidan was hearing any of this.

"Because they were attacking us with mass-accelerator-based weaponry beyond anything we had ever encountered and because they were navigating the relay network with an accuracy we couldn't hope to match," the general responded. "Their naval tactics were idiotic and their ground troops were lead worse than a pack of varren commanded by a vorcha. But their technological edge couldn't be ignored. They were centuries ahead of us in everything related to Element-Zero based technology. So we assumed they were the protheans. Or at the very least a race subjugated by them with orders to vassalize us. We only learned that they were using technology based on salarian and asari designs after the Oma Ker humiliated them and taught them what it means to fight a ground war against a turian foe."

"If that was your theory, your scientist were sorely mistaking. Nothing we ever found suggests that the protheans subjugated anyone," Liara protested while Alenko put his hand on the door, feeling a vibration through the damage. "They were peaceful collectivists who uplifted other species to their community."

"True. At least according to the asari translations of some badly broken prothean records you found in your home system," Arterius countered. "Our scientists translated the data we found a bit differently from yours. What they came up with paints a less naive picture of the protheans. One that's more fitting for a species that dominated the galaxy before we rose to power."

"Which is understandable considering your people view everything, including language, through the lens of war. I don't want to be disrespectful, but your entire society is a martial hierarchy build around the idea of soldiery. Goddess, words that have peaceful meaning in other species' tongues are either authoritarian or martial in yours," Liara said in return. "I don't mean to offend you, General, but there is a certain bias with turians. One that's been scientifically proven."

"No turian worth their name would be insulted by you calling us a martial hierarchy build around the idea of soldiering, Doctor. It's a compliment, really," Arterius retorted. "Even so, the bias you speak of was only proven by your people. A people which I might add hasn't had what you'd call much experience with warmongers and tyrants seeking to enforce their will on you," Arterius retorted before stepping next to Alenko. "What about the HSA, Captain? Did humanity have any concerns regarding the protheans and their intentions before meeting the Council and their version of history?"

Alenko looked at the turian and the asari behind him. Then towards the silent members of the honor guard.

Liara wouldn't like his answer.

Hell, he himself didn't like his answer either. He was an optimist in almost every regard, especially when it came to aliens… but…

"The general's right. You don't bury an army if you have peaceful intentions," he sighed and remembered what Chandana had told him about the nukes being held on stand-by in case they found something hostile down here – Reaper-related or prothean. "And yes. We were more than a bit concerned when we found the ruins on Mars and realized that there were ancient astronauts out there who'd not just abducted our ancestors but also put several small warships on our neighbor planet," he'd omit the fact that the UN-JDI had dropped nearly a hundred thousand nuclear stealth mines around the Charon Relay prior to the first transit… a minefield that was still being maintained and upgraded to this day. The reaction seemed severe but if viewed through the lens of time it made sense. What else were his ancestors supposed to think when they found a covert alien outpost where some aliens had abducted and cut apart cavemen for the hell of it?

Hell… half the reason behind the HSA's (never used and not-applied-to-yahg) policy to not interfere with civilizations that had yet to become spacefaring was that they didn't want to do to someone else what the protheans had been doing to ancient humans.

"I know you don't like to hear it, Doctor, but not everyone is as optimistic about the protheans as the asari," Arterius finished, clearly reassured in his views.

Knowing Liara (which he did rather well after the mindmelds) she was probably pouting ever so slightly below her helmet right now. There were few things as dear to her as her image of the protheans and while she was clearly capable of accepting views that challenged her idea of what happened to them… Kaidan worried that she might not like what they'd find.

"My people's view on the protheans isn't naive," the archeologist replied before the started walking into the next stasis chamber. "Uncomplete maybe. But not naïve," she went on before gasping for air and calling: "Sergeant. Your backpack is glowing!"

The Blackwatch soldier reacted immediately and, in retrospective, in a far too dramatic manner. In a lighting fast motion, he stripped the pack off his shoulders and tossed it ahead of the group before throwing himself to the ground, likely in expectation of an explosion…

No such thing happened.

Instead of detonating, the pack just emitted a faint glow that slowly but surely ascended into the air, turning itself into a glitchy sphere. First there was a high-pitch whine, then the thing started to growl in a deep, baritone pitch and finally, Kaidan started to hear something that resembled the English language.

"Cri-Cri-Critical power failure imminent. Please follow-ow."

---

Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Eden Prime, Interior of the Prothean Ruin

"Is that what I think it is?" Veltax murmured to Desolas' left.

"Doctor T'Soni did say this facility would need a custodian," Desolas replied before looking at the asari, the previous conflict already forgotten by both of them. "What now, Doctor?"

"Kaidan," T'Soni started, looking at the human officer staring at the orb howling at them in a mixture of growls, clicks and hisses. "You understand it, don't you?"

The human Spectre turned his head.

"Yes. The cipher again?"

"Yes. But despite the mind meld I'm only getting bits and pieces…" T'Soni retorted. "It's strange. If the meld allowed the cipher to pass on to you, it should've also passed on to me," the asari contemplated before a larger chunk of the bridge they were standing on suddenly broke off and hit the water.

"We'll figure it out later," Desolas said firmly while looking at the thing messing up his night-vision filter. "What does the VI want?"

Alenko looked at the sphere again.

"It wants us to follow it," the biotic explained right before the ground below them started to glow, creating a line leading straight towards the end of the room. To confirm his suspicion, he switched of his night-vision and sure enough, the trail was a mixture of blue, green and gold light. He'd read about this in the report on Ilos. It had been Vigil's way to show Shepard where she needed to go. "You were right, Liara, there' still one pod's left," the human soldier added.

Desolas turned towards Galviat.

"Call it in and tell Chandana to prep for our all-clear. If the VI's right instead of broken, we'll need a much larger scientific team down here," he instructed.

"Yes, Sir."

"Veltax, keep your eyes on that thing as long as it's safe to. I want all of this recorded for later."

"Of course, General."

"Doctor," Desolas went on, prompting the asari to look at him. "Get ready to ask it some questions while we're walking. We don't know how much longer it has any power"

The archeologist nodded and Desolas moved on to their human companion.

"Captain, since you're the only person who can fully understand that thing, you'll be on translation duty. You tell us everything it says, word for word, you got it?"

"Roger."

"Good. Lead us in. Doctor. You can start whenever you're ready."

---

Meanwhile, 3. May 2417 AD, Eden Prime, Itnerior of the Prothean Ruin

".. .whenever you're ready," the turian general instructed. The group slowly started to follow the colorful lights in the floor.

"Very well," Liara responded before quickening her step to walk beside the floating orb. "You're the custodian of this facility, aren't you?"

No response.

"If it's the same VI as in the vision, its name's Victory," Kaidan injected. In response, the orb floated towards his face.

"Victory, we uncovered a beacon of your creators some time ago. One of your people left a message inside of it. They spoke of a weapon, one to be used against the Reapers," Liara started. The mention of the orb's designation seemed to have the desired effect. It floated towards Liara, stopping a half meter in front of her face. "There appear to be components to the weapon. The Crucible, the Catalyst and the Kaleidscope. Is there anything you can tell us about these objects?"

The orb rotated around the asari.

"Critical power failure im-im-imminent. Viable population for contin-tin-tinuation of species no longer pre-pre-present," the VI stuttered. "Awakening the last avatar needs to be our priority."

Kaidan sighed in response.

"It's not reacting to what you're saying. It only keeps warning us about the power failure and points out how there's no longer enough protheans left to continue their species," he summarized. "It wants us to wake up something called the last avatar."

"Did you ever hear that term while searching through all those prothean ruins, Doctor?" General Arterius inquired before the trail on the floor suddenly took a sharp bent left, towards the steep drop. The guidance only made sense when one of the platforms started to move towards them. Slowly and full of strain it lfited itself out of the water and arrived at their height.

"I've never heard that term before," the asari admitted. "Wait. Are we sure that's even stable anymore?" she went on while Alenko was in already on the platform with both of his feet and Arterius was placing his first foot on it as well.

"Would it stop you if it weren't?" the biotic replied before jumping into the air ever so lightly, halfway preparing himself to break the platform and tumble down in a poorly decelerated biotic descend. Only after he hit the ground again did he realise that he probably should've done that before the non-biotic general stepped on the platform. Unlike Kaiden, Arterius couldn't use biotics to avoid sinking to the ground.

"No, it would not," she said before both she and the remaining honorguard followed Kaidan and Arterius. When the platform started moving downward, towards the water, she tried her luck with Victory all over again. "Victory," the mention of its name made the hologram jump back to her, "what were your people doing here on Eden Pri- this world? Stop the Reapers?"

The glitchy VI interface spun towards the wall and small, thin threads of green light started to touch the broken stasis chambers.

"Not stop. Out-outlast," the avatar-copy stuttered before moving to face Alenko. "I detect the Cipher in y-y-you. How did it enter your procession? Did others survive the Harvest-est?"

Kaidan shook his head. "No. No other protheans survived. I got the Cipher off of one of your beacons," he explained, briefly and not entirely accurate. There was no time for details now though. He looked at the group to translate. "It just confirmed what the shard showed us already. This place was never meant to stop the Reapers. They knew the war was lost, so they were just trying to get out of it in one piece."

The answer was unsatisfying. But Liara clearly wasn't done trying.

"Victory, we'll awaken your avatar, but we really need to know if there's anything you know about the message the beacon gave us. It spoke of a world that fell and a vengeance that we should unearth. It said it would guide us to the echoes of those who came before. What does that mean?"

As the water got closer, Veltax wondered out loud. "Do you think this thing will stop before our feet get wet?" Meanwhile, Victory flew over to Liara again and suddenly the platform snapped to a stop, just as Kaidan's boots started to touch the water. One of the pods, the single pod that still had a bit of a glow left to it in the entire row, was ejected from the wall and splashed up water as it hit the platform with a thud.

"Who's this? The avatar?" Kaiden asked. Victory, who's light was quickly dimming down, turned towards him.

"The la-last voice of our people," the VI said towards Kaidan. "Powering dow-" and just like that, Victory disappeared into thin air.

"Well that wasn't very informative," Arterius remarked before the pod that had been injected suddenly hissed, prompting the Blackwatch officer and his comrades to turn their guns on it.

Slowly but surely, the coffin-like piece of tech opened to reveal one of the aliens he'd seen in the visions of the shard. As it started to blink ever so slowly, Liara audibly gasped. Then, and before any of them knew what was happening, the prothean's eyes shot open and a weak burst of green biotic energy erupted from him. The mixed team (and particularly the non-biotic turian soldiers) were thrown back. Sergeant Veltax went for a swim, Galviat hit the wall where the other stasis pods were located and scrambled for Veltax and Arterius stumbled over the coffin and rolled to the side, finger on the trigger.

Meanwhile, the prothean stumbled into the dark, stopping only when he realized that the platform was hanging halfway inside a pool of swamp water. He turned around, faced Kaidan and… stared at him and the turian general lining up his shot behind him, not caring that another piece of the ceiling had just hit the water behind him (and nearly smashed Veltax in the process).

"He's confused. And dangerous," Arterius observed while Kaidan carefully approached the prothean and Galviat pulled his heavy comrade out of the water via an ascension cable. The armor would've made sure that he didn't drown, but Kaidan still figured that the feeling of sinking in swamp water wasn't pleasant.

"Of course he's confused," Liara said while the biotic took another careful step towards the red-armored alien. "For us it might've been fifty thousand years… but for him it's only been-"

In an inhumanely fast motion, the prothean suddenly grabbed Kaidan by the arms and a flashback much worse than anything the shard had delivered hit him.

"- a few minutes!" the stranger roared towards Victory while explosions rocked the bunker.

"No. The bunker is falling. There is no other option," the now deactivated VI responded, ignoring the sound of distant particle-rifle fire and the demonic roaring of a Reaper landing somewhere in the colony above them.

"There are pods online! Those soldiers are still alive!" the stranger protested, furiously, grasping his weapon tighter.

"Their sacrifice will be honored in the coming empire," the VI retorted, mirroring his earlier words in an ironic echo, "preparing neutron bombardment. Get to your lifepod. Now," Victory insisted before disappearing into thin air. All of the sudden, Kaidan, or rather the prothean who's memories he was experiencing right now, started to sprint, climbing into the exact black pod he'd just been found in. The coffin moved into the protective layer of the bunker's wall and the instant the seals shut behind him, Victory announced that the neutron bombardment was now underway. Kaidan felt the alien grit his teeth and close his eyes as explosions rocked the bunker. An instant of neutron-inflicted death later, Victory reported back.

"The bunker is secure, Commander Javik," so that was his name.

"What is left of it," Javik replied in his own memory, "a few hundred people. How am I to rebuild an empire from that?" he added, remorsefully.

Victory was silent for a moment.

Then he reported back with terrible news.

"Further adjustments may be necessary. The neutron purge compromised the facility."

"Clarify."

"Sensors are damaged. Automated reactivation is not an option. You will remain in stasis until a new culture discovers this bunker. This may lead to a power shortage."

The implication of Victory's words was clear to Javik, hence it was also clear to Kaidan.

"Do not shut down off more pods! I need the few that are left!" he protested.

"Power needs will be triaged appropriately," just like Liara had said. "You will be the voice of our people," Victory went on while Javik (and Kaidan) felt the cold of the stasis start at his feet and quickly crawl up his spine.

"I will be more than that," Javik vowed before Kaidan opened his eyes and looked at the prothean standing in front of him. He slowly let go of the arms he had seized.

"What the-" Alenko started… "what did I just see?"

The prothean blinked with his four yellow eyes. The inner pair seemed to focus on Kaidan. The outer pair clearly on the turians.

"Our final hours. Our failure," the prothean – Javik – responded in a deeply accented voice. "You intend to fight the Reapers."

Kaidan nodded. Then realized the obvious.

"How come you speak our language?"

"The exchange works two ways, human. You witnessed my memories… and I witnessed yours. I know all there is to know about you now. Including your language."

"Exchange? What exchange?" Liara injected, prompting the prothean to focus all of his four eyes on her.

"An asari," then he looked Arterius. "And turians," he closed his eyes. "I'm surrounded by primitives," he muttered through narrow fangs. "Where is Victory? Are there other pods?"

"There were-" Liara started

"Complications. They're dead," Arterius said before stepping forward and cutting the asari off. He had clearly decided that he would now take charge of the situation, which given Liara's curiosity and the bunker's increased instability was probably a good thing. If Liara started to ask questions, they'd drown before they ever got out of here. "Your bunker was damaged and your VI shut itself off after showing you to us," the moment he'd said that, a piece of ceiling fell down next to him. "I know you have more questions. I would too. But this place isn't stable and since you're about the only shot we've got at figuring out what your beacon tried to tell us, I suggest we move."

The prothean blinked.

"You found a beacon?"

"Several, actually," the turian responded. "They helped us stop the Reapers' first attempt at invading two years ago and with any luck, they'll help us finish that weapon your people were building before they show up…"

"So the harvest hasn't started yet?"

"No. Not yet."

"Then there is still hope."

Another piece of the ceiling fell down, splashing all of them in swamp water.

"Not if we get buried alive," Arterius responded before gesturing to the platform they were standing on. "Do you know how to get this thing to move? I think your little biotic stunt gave this place the final push."

---

Two Hours Later, 3. May 2417 AD, Mirage of Halegeuse

Miranda had just gotten out of briefing with Director Harper where she'd been informed that T'Soni and Arterius had managed to secure a living prothean from a cryo-stasis facility on Eden Prime. After a lengthy conversation with T'Soni, one which was apparently still ongoing at least on the asari's part, this prothean, this 'Javik' had agreed to help their efforts of stopping the Reapers, even if he couldn't help them with the strange objects Arterius had T'Soni chase. In addition, 'Javik' had also become the newest addition to the growing array of secrets related to their attempts at stopping the Reapers.

While news of there being a living prothean would be tremendous to the galaxy and not making the knowledge public was a violation of one of the Council's most secret laws… the prothean was apparently the opposite of what everyone – and especially the asari archeologist – had been expecting. In Harper's words, he was 'the jaded and harsh remnant of a deeply imperialistic and social-darwinist culture traumatized the closing hours of a war no one can even begin to imagine' which was more likely than not a very colorful way of saying 'he's a cold, resentful bastard'.

As such all parties involved had agreed to keep Javik… close to heart for now. And since the prothean's only wish seemed to be to kill Reapers, he had no issue with that whatsoever.

Additionally to that information, Miranda had also been informed that Harper had somehow managed to smooth things over with Admiral Hackett, a feed that no doubt involved the director levering a lot of the good will he had collected over the years. And to make things even better, Cerberus had secured the Collector IFF, meaning that Shepard's way through the Omega-Four Relay was secured.

So by all means, Miranda should be ecstatic – at least by her standards.

Yet she wasn't.

Ever since her failed attempt at extending an olive branch to Captain Haugen nearly a week ago, the words of the ASOC officer had stuck with her, cracking an ever so small fracture into the hard shell of superiority that she surrounded herself with.

Miranda hadn't questioned her own actions or abilities… in a very long time. Certainly not since Cerberus had taken her under its wing to protect her from her father. She hadn't felt insufficient once in her entire career, never had a doubt about her effectiveness, never stopped to think that her way wasn't the right way or that other people could proof her wrong…

… and then she'd put a gun into Captain Haugen's back; an action that had ended with him verbally demolishing her for all the world to see.

'Captain Tore Haugen really is everything the ideal HSA combat leader should be and everything about his life tells you what kind of man he is, what kind of cloth he's cut from.'

Those had been Harper's words and they had been echoing through her brain every waking minute of the last six days, mostly because no one had ever said anything like that about her whatsoever.

This operation wasn't the first time she'd commanded troops, but it was the first time that her success could literally determine the faith of the galaxy.

And she'd messed it up at every possible stage.

The only reason anyone had followed her to begin with was the fact that Haugen had respected the expertise she was supposed to bring into this operation. And with that (and most of the troops sent to her aid) gone … no one paid her any attention.

She'd reflected on where she'd gone wrong and now, outside of the heat of battle, the missteps were obvious.

As was what made Haugen so different from her; outside of the fact that he was a natural person and not a vat-grown gene experiment…

Captain Haugen had something you couldn't learn or be born with. The cloth Harper had spoken about… it was a special charisma, a unique and uncommon type of valor… a fire that made everyone around him so confident in his judgement that they would willingly and without hesitation follow him into hell itself. And he would lead them back out because of it.

Miranda looked at the terminal in front of her. According to her internal schedule for the day, she'd been supposed to finish this report three minutes ago ye there she was, yearning after something she knew she'd never have.

She wondered what it felt like, honestly. To have people at your back who trusted you so much that they wouldn't ask twice when you told them to risk your life.

And much more than that, she wondered how Haugen had become the way he was today.

After the conversation with the captains he'd been frustrated enough to use her Cerberus security clearance to pull Haugen's personal file – the unredacted version.

She'd looked at it a lot since then.

Tore Haugen was born on Terra Nova in 2376, the year the Fringe Wars had kicked off, and he was Terra-Novan through and through.

An Anaru-Academy graduate, Haugen been fast-tracked to ASOC as a promising officer cadet. He'd done his two years airborne, gotten through the pipeline at his first attempt, been assigned to ASOC's Third Battalion, finished officer school and then landed right in the fire at Mindoir. From there on out, he'd done exactly what Harper had told her; proven what kind of cloth he was cut from. Every battle that Tore Haugen had been involved in, every fight he'd fought… every decision he'd ever made in his life, they'd all made him the soldier the HSA needed him to be at this very moment.

Miranda rarely got jealous.

She was now.

'All you need to do is take a step back,' the captain's words had burned themselves into her memory just as much as Harper's had. 'You're scared…. You are letting fear rule your decision making. The Reapers are already in your head and just like I said, they're beating you without ever firing a shot.'

Miranda folded her hands and like every other day before today, sighed in recognition of the fact that Hauge was probably right to some degree… about her and about Cerberus…

She was about to get back to writing her report when something popped up on her terminal, an emergency notification sent by TNI and forwarded by Cerberus she had hoped not to see for quite some time… or maybe not at all.

'3. May 2417 AD, 16:16 Station Time (Cronos Station): Contact to fifteen turian deep space FTL probes has been lost. Last pings suggest a massive number of contacts approaching the Milky Way from beyond its galactic horizon. Current approach vector indicates a heading towards the Outer Arm, 1.3 degrees south of the Galactic Core. The currently estimated destination based on probe trajectory is the Viper Nebula – Alpha Relay. The ETA as calculated in relation to probe speed and relative speed of Object Sovereign is 23 Days, 17 Hours, 43 Minutes.'

Miranda was out of her office the second she read the last full stop.

This was bad.

Very.

Bad.

As she jogged down the corridors, she simply hoped that Arcturus hadn't destroyed a certain set of documents created a decade ago. They'd need that entry strategy. And soon too.

---

Codex: History of the Viper Nebula

Located at the southern-most portion of the Outer Arm, the Viper Nebula (in batarian: Bath'Jarsa Kath) is a batarian frontier territory first surveyed by Hegemony explorers in 317 CE.

Despite its position at the galactic southern expanse, the Viper Nebula is notable for two landmarks; the Alpha-Relay – which Hegemony scientists claim to be the oldest Mass Relay in known existence – and Arathot, a batarian mining colony serving as one of the few 'free ports' remaining in Hegemony space.

Made up mostly of stardust and asteroids caught in the gravity well of the Bahak-System, the Viper Nebula is home to an estimated 300,000 batarians and has had a mostly unremarkable history outside of serving as the battleground of a skirmish between a reinforced human scouting fleet and a (subsequently destroyed) batarian patrol flotilla during the closing days of the Skyllian Blitz.

While HSA authorities have denied that the incident occurred at all and further dismissed that it served as the first step in a theoretical military offensive targeting Khar'Shan due to its timing placing it firmly within the peace negotiations, batarian authorities have been insistent on the fact that HSA forces intended to use the Viper Nebula as a staging ground for a spearhead offensive into batarian heartland

According to the Batarian Hegemony 'War Plan Blue Solstice' (Editorial Remark; this name is drawn from batarian sources; according to human officials no such war plan has ever existed and as such the name is not recognized) was a contingency plan intended to be activated in the event that negotiations failed.

Its declared target, according to batarian authorities, would have been: 'to eliminate key leadership figures on Khar'shan, decapitate and demoralize Hegemony High Command through the application of precision nuclear (cobalt-based weaponry) strikes on critical batarian military infrastructure'. Additionally, Blue Solstice supposedly intended to 'support public unrest in the slave population on frontier worlds and render aid to armed slave militias through the deployment of mixed units consisting of HSA Special Forces, veteran Blue-Suns and mission specialists affiliated with the Turian Auxiliary Corps and Turian Naval Intelligence'.

Additionally, War Plan Blue Solstice – which the batarians claim to be the brainchild of both human and turian strategists – also intended to ensure 'the supply of outdated turian and human military equipment to rebel forces' and 'establish a pro-Council collaborationist government bordering Hegemony Space for future military operations targeting the Batarian Hegemony'. (Source: FormalsStatement of the Batarian Hegemony as issued during their withdrawal from the Citadel Council Members)

If these allegations – and in particular the deployment of cobalt-based nuclear weapons and instrumentalization of civilian populations for the purposes of warfare - would have been proven to be true, they would have provided grounds for removing the Human Systems Alliance from the Citadel Council Members altogether. Similarly, sanctions against the Turian Hierarchy – including their removal from the Citadel Council - would've become legally necessary.

Due to the batarian withdrawal from the Citadel Council, no further investigations into War Plan Blue Solstice ever occurred. Additionally to the denial of his turian counterpart, the ambassador of the Human Systems Alliance, Donnel Udina, issued the following statement:

'In addition to the HSA's respect and reverence for the Citadel Council Conventions and its role as a victim of batarian aggression in this war already disproving these ridiculous claims made by the batarian government, the HSA would kindly ask the Batarian Hegemony to prove our supposed connection to the Terminus-affiliated 'Blue Suns' group. Furthermore, we ask that they explain to us where we would get the outdated turian military equipment supposedly intended for this operation. If this is not possible, we demand that they admit that these claims are nothing but a smear-campaign meant to cover up their failed invasion and enslavement of human territories.'

---

A/N:

Here we are.

Chapter 115, AKA, Javik joins the squad and we officially got the Arrival on the clock. (did that rhyme? felt like it did.)

I don't have much to say about this chapter, other than that javik joining prematurely doesn't actually change a lot since - like in canon - doesn't have the hint of a clue what the Crucibleis.

What I do have to say however is that I am afraid that SV's update speed will continue to remain this slow (or slower) for the forseeable future. Some stuff at work is changing for me and it'll kill A LOT of my limited free time ... and while we are obviously making BIG steps towards the conclusion of ME 2... writing the chapters becomes more time sensetive now that the plot lines are starting to converge again. This involves a lot of re-reading to nail down all the details and as such... I don't KNOW if we'll see each other again until the end of march/start of april.

I'd love to deliver new content to you at a regular pace, especially now that we've got the Arrival and the Collector base both coming up simultaniously... but I just can't rush stuff out rn.

Another distracting factor that delayed this chapter was actually the Redford Anthology, which I wanted to have out last month ... and then turned into a gigantic piece of narrative currently resting at over 20k words without being anywhere near done...

So yeaaaah.

To summarize; 2022 isn't shaping up to be a year where you get a lot of SV. :/

... and that's all I've got to say, actually.

For the record we're at 853 reviews, 1377 favorites and 1468 follows.

See you around next time.