"That's… a long list."

"It is."

"And the cost…"

"It's covered."

Steve Cortez scratched his head. "But, why? There are enough provisions listed here to keep a krogan colony fed."

"This may be one of our last opportunities while supply lines remain intact. Markets are tightening; this could be the last window we'll have."

"Well, alright, I guess." The Alliance pilot and part-time requisitions officer scrolled down the list. "This is also way outside our usual meal plan. Who's going to be preparing all of this? Ansel?"

"I am, primarily. Ansel has graciously agreed to assist me in preparation to save time."

"You must be one hell of a cook."

"I've just been doing it for a while, that's all."

Steve looked up at Arius strangely before remembering who he was. "Oh… right," he said quietly. "I forget that you're not one of us. Errr, I'll start looking now. I'll let you know when we have a timeline."

"Thank you, Steve. Send me the invoice once you get it."

"Sure thing. Uh, before you go, have you… told James yet? I know you asked to keep this under wraps until you spoke to everyone, but it's grown to become a pretty big shared secret by this point."

"Ah, no, not yet. I've got only Traynor and Vega left. I'll catch them over the next day or two. Appreciate your discretion."

"No problem." The pilot nodded. "Arius."

Finished with his task, Arius picked up the entanglement module from the desk in the hangar bay, tucked it under his arm and called for the elevator. Once it arrived, he selected the CIC. He had booked time with Specialist Traynor to assist him in setting up the Caduceus Array feed into the war room.

The elevator stopped on the third floor instead, having been called by someone else. When the doors opened, he was mildly bemused to see the Traynor waiting to go back up. She had just popped down to the mess, she told him, and a steaming mug of hot coffee in her hand was evident. The elevator continued upwards.

"How did your tournament go? You take home gold?" he asked her.

"I took home bugger all," she grumbled, "I was matched nearly the first round with that insufferable T'Suzsa, and she caught me in a classic Bay-Lucien Gambit. I was so miffed for having fallen for such a rookie maneuver." Traynor took a sip from her hot mug. "I'll have to–" she began to say before halting and looking down into the dark liquid with confusion.

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes. Someone's tampered with our coffee. It's outstanding."

He chuckled. "Ah, I'm glad you think so. There's a plantation in the valley of São Sebastião da Grama on Earth. Been tended to by about twelve generations of growers. I thought to stockpile the Normandy; The standard issue grounds are lacking."

"Look at you, so cultured. Well, it's good that you did; Lord knows we'll need it."

The elevator stopped at the CIC, and they both stepped out. "I don't believe I asked you: Have you played Kepesh-Yakshi before?" Traynor asked him, setting down her mug and datapad on the console next to the galaxy map.

Kepesh-Yakshi was a game that translated into "blade of the night winds" in asari language. Like chess, the game required strategic and incisive thinking to win, with its own systems of moves, tactics, diversions and gambits. Although the modern variant was played digitally on the extranet or at a gaming table, its origins were ancient. War amongst the asari had always been a rare historical occurrence, but their love of strategy games was fierce.

"Yes, I played for a time, though its version was… older," he said, semi-straining the truth. "I'm afraid I wouldn't be very much competition nowadays."

"Oh, I'm sure you can pick it up again, lickety-split. Do you remember any exceptional plays from your day?"

"That was a long time ago…. perhaps I can impart to you a strategy I often employed? I'm ignorant of the modern nomenclature, but sometimes it pays to play your smallest pieces under the shadows of the rest. Newer players forget that although your larger pieces have the firepower, they all crumble once your homeworld is struck. Bid your time till the end game, then sneak in under defences while they're on the offensive."

"Sounds like sensible advice." Traynor took the module out from under his arm. "Right. You said you needed help setting up a feed?"

"Yes. We currently have a network of guided probes scattered around the galaxy tracking Reaper movements. The frigates backing them are quantum entangled to a central source, and this module is entangled with that. It may be useful information to have aboard."

"Certainly. Let's see here… hmm. I'm afraid this is incompatible with Alliance standards…."

As much as he appreciated industry standards, most grew out of fashion after a time, and in Arius' long life, they seemed to blur by. He left it to the experts to figure out.

"...But, fear not," Traynor added, "It wouldn't be the first time I've had to jury-rig some equipment together. I need to get my optic cable splicer and dig through our spare cuttings. Also, we'll need to do some crawling."

Arius raised an eyebrow. "Crawling?"

"This module can't be added to the existing block since it won't fit. During the retrofit, it was decided that any new entanglement cabling needed to be run under the floor."

.

Arius was standing in the war room in front of one of the comm consoles. Under his feet, he could hear Traynor tinker with equipment.

"Alright, I've spliced the cable in. Run the fault tester on your end, please," exclaimed Traynor's muffled voice.

He hit the mechanical switch. The test recorded that the line had faulted. The connection wasn't good.

"That's a negative, Samantha," he yelled back.

"Ah, blast it; I'll need to redo the splice."

While he waited, he heard her curse to herself. "No joy with the splice?" he called back down.

"It's not that; I seemed to have nicked myself on some equipment," she remarked. "It smarts. I'm coming back up."

By the time she crawled back the way she had entered, he was already waiting with a disinfectant and light gauze. A thin stream of blood ran down her hand. "May I?" he asked her.

"That's hardly necessary."

"I insist, won't take a moment."

She acquiesced, and he quickly sprayed the cut, wrapped it in the gauze, and put some light pressure on the shallow wound.

"Think they'll give me a purple heart for this?" the specialist joked.

He chuckled, then suggested he go under for the second attempt, with her providing instructions for the connection. She gave him the quick rundown, and he took the long crawl space back under.

While Traynor was waiting in front of the testing console, Shepard bounded into the war room, looking around for someone. "Traynor, have you seen Arius? EDI just told me he was in here with you."

The specialist pointed downwards with an embarrassed smile, and Shepard's gaze followed her direction until she saw a body crawling under the floor through the thin metal holes in the grating.

"Ah. Never mind, then. EDI?" she exclaimed openly. "Wanna try out your new body in a real combat situation?"

"My body is ready, Shepard," EDI's voice instantly responded.

Shepard and Traynor looked at each other and laughed. Shepard scratched her head and sighed. "That's going to take getting used to."

.

"Eden Prime. This is where it all began." Liara turned from the screen in the shuttle to join Shepard and EDI, who was standing in the shuttle as it zoomed toward the fateful planet. "Where the Prothean beacon gave you the vision that warned us about the Reapers."

"Eden Prime also marked Saren's first major attack with the geth," EDI chirped, memory banks searching through data on the previous mission there.

"Yes," Liara affirmed. "And now with Cerberus here, Eden Prime's colonists are under attack again."

Shepard shook her head. It felt like forever since then. "Seems like more than just three years ago."

"Records indicate that you lost a squad mate on Eden Prime."

The first casualty. After almost immediately stepping foot on the surface, he had been gunned down by some mobile geth turrets. Kaiden had been with her at the time. Ashley, they had run into right after, running for her life from Saren's geth. "Yeah. Corporal Jenkins."

"Does returning to the colony cause unpleasant memories?" the AI inquisitively asked her, reading the emotional response.

"It's okay, EDI. Jenkins was a good soldier. He'd be proud of what we're doing here."

"I hope the motivation is effective."

Liara turned back to the two, having finished reading the brief. "Cerberus hit Eden Prime hard. Whatever they found here was worth a major offensive. There are survivors elsewhere on the colony, but they killed everyone near the dig site."

"They deserve better."

"I know the Alliance did what it could to evacuate colonists, but Cerberus came in so quickly…"

Shepard waved away the lamentations. "If we find survivors, we'll do what we can. What about this artifact? Is it part of the Prothean device we found on Mars?"

The Alliance didn't get any specifics about what Cerberus had uncovered. But, whatever it is, it's better off with us than with Cerberus."

"I'm bringing you in as close to the dig site as I can," Steve yelled from the shuttle's cockpit. "No way we'll avoid detection, but you should have a few minutes."

"Understood. All right, everyone. Get ready to move. With luck, we can get to the dig site before Cerberus knows we're here."

.

"So, technically, you're permanently installed on the ship in the AI core but can simultaneously occupy your body planet side on Eden Prime?"

"That is correct," EDI confirmed.

"That is marvellous. Is the experience of being on the ground completely new to you? Going from starship to mobile platform is quite the jump in perspective."

"It has given me a new understanding of the limits of organic reach. My integration within the Normandy gives me nearly omnipercipient powers within its hull and sensor range. Being restricted to an autonomous mobile unit greatly limits my perception to single sources; I have found that the constraints have fostered increased experiential curiosity at the micro and macro level."

Arius had always believed that constraints were the real ushers of change and creativity. Survival was a series of problems, and conscious things needed to push the boundaries of what was given to survive. "I wonder what Legion would think about this."

"Legion would likely remark on my mobile unit's human design inefficiencies."

"Heh, sounds like Legion. I wonder where he ended up after Shepard had called to disband. I've been unable to contact him."

"I, too, have unsuccessfully attempted contact with Legion's platform on several occasions. Legion's extended online absence appears anomalous. I fear his platform may have been compromised in some way."

Arius ran a check against the geth's public gaming profiles. It was no secret that the collection of geth runtimes known as Legion had a fondness for video games. They had not been seen online since the disbanding. "Hmm. That's concerning." He exited the extranet browser and grabbed the water canteen he kept by his desk. "So, EDI, any developments down there?" he asked offhandedly, taking a gulp.

"We've discovered the artifact Cerberus sought to recover from the colony dig site: a functional Prothean stasis pod that still houses a living Prothean."

Arius spit his water out in marked surprise, spraying the space in front of him in a mist. He waited for EDI to acknowledge that she was messing with him, as she was wont to do, but she didn't.

"You jest. Truly?!" he exclaimed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Yes. The stasis pod requires a command signal to end the stasis mode before the Prothean housed within can be removed. Shepard and Liara are investigating a nearby lab to research how that can be accomplished. Ah—"

"What is it?"

"Cerberus troops have arrived."

There was a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, but its reason felt blurred. Was it excitement? Anticipation? Worry? Dread? He wasn't sure, but the combined effect made him feel nearly sick. Should he go and help? Should he stay put? The existence of a living Prothean seemed precious enough to risk running down to the cargo bay and throwing himself out the airlock to join them planetside.

"Keep me updated, EDI. I'm heading to the War Room. If you three require any assistance at all, let me know."

"Understood," the AI responded.

Arius hit the dial to contact the Main Battery. "Garrus, if you're not busy, you may want to join us in the war room. EDI's giving us a live commentary of what's happening planet-side. They found a living Prothean."

There was a slight pause on the other end. "They found a living what."

.

Shepard warped the lifted Cerberus soldier helplessly suspended in the air above the stairs to a lab, causing a satisfying chain of biotic explosions, rending the trapped body.

"There," Liara notified her. "That lab found footage of the Protheans. Cerberus is studying it to find the stasis deactivation signal."

Shepard stepped over the bodies of the recently deceased Cerberus troops and cautiously ascended the steps to the lab. Inside, a large viewing console had been installed and wired to some Prothean equipment recovered from the dig site. When she tapped at the interface to play some of the recovered footage onto the visual interface, the attached Prothean equipment warmed and flashed before stabilizing. The visual stream seemed to bore into her head as her eyes adjusted to the input like it was playing in her head.

The planet in the feed was unknown to her, but the sleek, functional architecture and high rises that dotted the landscape was instantly recognizable as Prothean. The sky was that of a yellow-brown hue typically found at dusk upon smoggy human worlds, but she innately understood that this was actually the natural and preferred lighting conditions of the hunter race of Protheans. Reaper capital ships were landing in the city, razing the Prothean defenders and trampling them outright under their towering, unstoppable forms. The view disorientingly cut to that of two Protheans close up, running along the wide bunkers of a city, similar to those she had seen on Ilos. It was the first time she had seen a living Prothean before, unlike those the Reapers had corrupted into Collectors. They had four eyes, two on each side of their head, each possessing two pupils. Their heads were topped with a thick, layered carapace. Their suits were reddish and ornate with flowing forms, occasionally seen in human, far eastern designs.

When she heard it speak, she wasn't expecting it.

"We will sleep here until the Reapers return to dark space. Then we will rise, a million strong." the first said.

"For the Empire," added the second.

"For the Empire. Get to your stasis pod."

As the second ran off, the first turned back. "Victory, broadcast the stasis readiness to all lifepods."

The Prothean VI materialized beside. "And the refugees who have yet to reach the bunker?" it asked.

"Their sacrifice will be honoured in the coming empire."

Suddenly an explosion rocked the bunker in the feed, and a horde of corrupted Protheans, who she recognized as early Collectors, began streaming through. The subject Prothean removed a weapon from its back and readied itself to fight. The recall skipped then, like a bad record, throwing a sequence of images at her: Reapers landing, some in forms she had not seen before. Protheans fighting, trying to assail a foe that could not be touched. Crafts taking off. Forces getting decimated. The sequence faded, and the feeling of the recall pulled away from her head. "I've got the signal."

Liara looked over at her, confused. "You… understood that?"

"You didn't?" she asked back, just as perplexed.

"No. All I saw was static. Cerberus was trying to make sense of it without success. The Prothean Cipher you received on Feros… It let you see the images as a Prothean would… and understand their language."

"Whatever it does, I saw the video. And the signal they used."

"Perfect," the asari doctor said, tapping on her omni-tool. "Then we just need to figure out how to physically open the pod."

The second batch of Prothean equipment was located in another lab not far from the first. The Cerberus troops in the way were subject to the full force of her determined lance forward - the mission was quickly amounting to a critical one, and Shepard rushed to see the rest of the recall. She hit the play button.

Shepard was watching the Prothean again, a skip away in the future from the previous recall, and it was trying to hold off an attack of the corrupted Protheans from the bunker's entrance with several of its comrades. Fires were burning everywhere, and the air was filled with ash and embers. Green beams of directed energy from the weapon it was holding fried the attackers as they ran toward it, but there were too many, and the fellow soldier next to it got gunned down by kinetic weapons fire. With a snarl, the Prothean dropped his weapon to the ground and lifted its hands, shimmering with latent biotic potential. It lifted the advancing forms into the air with its powers, then slammed the lifted forms into the walls of the bunker with a crunch of bones. It then unleashed a shockwave that knocked the remaining thralls off their feet. Not waiting for the enemy to regain footing, the Prothean ran toward the bunkers' entrance, dragging the fallen comrade's body next to it.

"Victory, seal the bulkheads!"

"Acknowledged."

The towering, heavy doors of the bunker began closing, and the Prothean succeeded in dragging the body with him just before it closed. The corrupted, indoctrinated forms on the other side clamoured but could not breach the protective bulkhead. Safe for the moment, the Prothean doubled over, catching its breath. When he had and looked up again, it saw that the inside of the bunker had been already compromised; fires were raging, and debris from damaged stasis pods littered the ground. The Prothean looked on at the desolation before him, and although Shepard could not sense what it was feeling, the facial expression betrayed the dark, hopeless struggle it faced.

"How many have we lost?" It asked the VI.

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

The Prothean squatted down to open a damaged pod at its feet, entering in a command to unseal the pod. The top doors to the pod opened, and the sight of a charred, blackened Prothean body greeted it.

"A third of our people."

It placed a hand on the chest of the charred corpse and bowed its head. Suddenly the VI began blaring. "Alert, north-side bulkhead cannot be sealed. Hostile detected."

"Divert all forces to the north!" the Prothean ordered.

The record skip occurred again, and again, she found the recall disconnect. When she turned back to Liara, she again wore the confused expression.

"You understood that one too?" Liara asked.

"Yes."

"Excellent. Then we have everything we need to open the pod."

.

Arius was pacing back and forth, fingers twitching. Garrus, James, Traynor and some general personnel stood around the central display, waiting. Since EDI was in both places simultaneously, it was the first time anyone on board had a live play-by-play of a mission. They all huddled around EDI's voice, and in Arius' mind, it brought to mind the 20th century, when families and crowds would gather around the big radio to hear the news.

"Shepard has ascertained the stasis deactivation signal and pod opening sequence. We are heading back to the lifepod."

There were murmurs all around, each update causing those present to grow in anticipation.

.

"You can open the pod now."

Shepard tapped a command on her omni-tool to connect to the lifepod, and a section of the topside lifted to reveal the pod's administrative console. It was exactly like the recall from earlier, and she pushed the right sequence of buttons she had earlier observed. The command was accepted, and flaps on the pod opened, exposing the body it had sustained for the last 50,000 years.

"There. You've got it."

The Prothean from the recall lay within it, motionless as if it had just fallen asleep. They stood around the pod in awe, unable to believe their eyes and optic sensors.

"Goddess. It may take him some time to fully regain consciousness…"

Slowly, the slumbering form began to stir, first one set of eyes, then two, groggily blinking as if disturbed from a deep sleep. It blinked a few times, looked up straight again, then directly at them. Shepard recognized the Prothean's erratic actions too late; it sat straight up and, as it did so, hit them with a weak biotic shockwave. It was still forceful enough to throw them all on their backs; such was their surprise. The Prothean shakily rose from the lifepod, trying to steady itself as quickly as possible, but It was still weak from the stasis, and it fell to its knees as it threw itself out. It got to its feet and backed away, eying them with suspicion as a caged animal would.

"Be careful. He's confused!" Laira warned them.

The Prothean frantically turned each way, not knowing where he was or what had happened. It stumbled on its feet, then got itself back up again, blinking again, surviving the scene from where it stood, mouth agape in confusion, looking at the colony of Eden Prime where once a great Prothean city had stood and burned.

"Remember, it's been 50,000 years for us, but for him, it's only been…"

Shepard approached the Prothean from behind and reached out to steady and reassure it, and when she touched it… it finally happened. She wasn't sure how or why, but when she touched the Prothean, she finally experienced the sensation of reading him in the same way his kind could. It was a sense no human being had ever naturally perceived in the long history of their species, and the otherworldly feeling of pure experiential uptake stunned her mentally like a plunge into ice water. It was like interfacing with the beacons but felt far more natural - a manageable flow instead of jamming the experience into her skull against her will. It felt right and proper in the Prothean part of her head for the first time, and she almost didn't want it to stop.

"... a few minutes!" he yelled to the VI.

"No, the bunker is falling," the VI reported. "There is no other option."

"There are pods online! Those soldiers are still alive!" the Prothean pleaded.

The VI, a rudimentary computer program unable to process emotional cues, stated its programmed directive. "Their sacrifice will be honoured in the coming empire. Preparing neutron bombardment. Get to your lifepod now."

The Prothean scowled at the VI angrily, then ran to the waiting lifepod. As he settled into it, the doors of the lifepod closed around him, and it was with tightly closed eyes and clenched teeth that the bunker began rocking under the pod from the massive neutron bombardment. After a few seconds, the rumbling subsided.

"The bunker is secure, Commander Javik," the VI reported from inside the lifepod.

"What is left of it. A few hundred people. How am I to rebuild an empire from that?"

"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."

"No! Do not shut off more pods! I need the few that are left!"

"Power needs will be triaged appropriately."

It was futile to argue, and the Prothean ceased its resistance to accept its fate.

"You will be the voice of our people." was the last thing that the VI known as Victory said, as the world around Javik the Prothean began to recede from consciousness.

"I will be more than that…." he said, and then there was nothingness.

Shepard had always considered herself empathetic, and her psych evals confirmed this. She had ascribed this to be a defining human characteristic, a strength of her species, but the rudimentary empathetic systems of the mammalian brain had nothing on the literal experience transfer of the Protheans. It transferred more than just sensory experience; what came next reminded her that there was a dark side to every gift. No memory of sight, sound and smell was recalled alone - there were always feelings chained to them, borne from the deep places we seldom revealed to others. As she sucked the Prothean's memory up, she drew its emotions along and realized she had gone too far. The tide of them - those chaotic, sad and angry flavours - overcame her, and she finally let go, unable to cope with the waves of dark emotion that broke against the shores of her mind. At the point of disconnect, Shepard understood that the city had been where she stood on Eden Prime before its fall. Nothing was left of the once proud city except for the ghosts and this one pod.

The Prothean she had touched, overcome with the transfer in its weakened state, collapsed to his knees, and she had to take a second to clear her head.

"How many others?" the kneeling Prothean asked in her native tongue. They were the first words uttered by a natural Prothean since their extinction 50,000 years ago.

"Just you," she answered, then realized they mutually understood each other. "You can understand me?"

"Yes. Now that I have read your physiology, your nervous system. Enough to understand your language."

"So you were reading me while I was seeing…"

"Our last moments," it said, dejected. "Our failure."

Shepard walked around to stand beside him.

"Your people did everything they could. They never gave up. And I could use some of that commitment now."

Before the Prothean could answer, Cortez's voice buzzed in her ear. "Shepard, whatever you did got Cerberus interested."

While occupied with the pilots message, the Prothean turned to see Liara and EDI approach them slowly. It frowned. "Asari. Human. Synthetic. This is not a good beginning."

"It's not safe here," Shepard relayed. They needed to leave before Cerberus sent further reinforcements. "Will you join us?"

"You fight the Reapers?" it asked her.

"Yes."

"Then we will see."

Shepard offered her hand to welcome him, but Javik looked down at her offer, back up, then turned away.