Disclaimer: Bioware owns Mass Effect and its characters. All I own is the OC's and changes in the plot.

POV Shepard

Ashley was the last to enter the briefing room, yawning and holding an energy bar as she took the last seat. I crossed my arms and gave her a stern look. Her response was a simple shrug. It took ten whole minutes for her to respond to my summons, and even then she took another ten to get here. I'll never understand her.

The rest of the group wasn't paying attention. Kaidan and Liara were having a conversation, as were Garrus and Tali. Wrex was simply staring at various points in the room with his usual dark gaze. I hadn't bothered summoning Garvil. He wasn't coming along, and he was sleeping anyway.

I coughed to get everyone's attention, then activated the terminal. The surface of Feros lit up on the screen above my head, and I turned back around.

"This is Feros, one of the biggest prothean cities before their extinction. We're touching down in one of the docking bays nearby. If we're lucky, we're not too late to help whoever's left. All seven of us are going to the colony, and we'll figure out what to do when we're down there. Any questions?"

"Yes, Commander," Kaidan responded. "Do we have any idea why the geth are here?"

I shook my head. "We'll figure that out when we're down there. Any other questions?" I waited several seconds. "All right, grab your arms and armor. We move out in five."

I stepped out of the Normandy's airlock and saw a rugged man who looked like he'd seen better times run up to me. "Are you here to help us with the geth?" He sounded frantic, eyes wide and sweating profusely.

I nodded back to him and motioned the rest of the squad to lower their weapons. He continued, talking so fast I could barely understand what he was saying. "Zhu's hope is across the path here. W-we don't have anywhere to go, nothing to-" He stopped suddenly. His mouth gave an 'o' of surprise, then he collaped over. A geth trooper was standing behind him, talking in its robotic garbled mess. I grabbed my shotgun and shot it in the head, causing it to fly backwards with strangled machinery noises.

The other geth accompanying the first were no match for the seven of us. We moved through a short corridor with winding stairs and came across a clearing. I saw guns pointed at us, but one of the colonists ordered the others to stand down and let us enter. I saw just how badly off the colonists were. Their food and water were mostly cut off, and their power grid was offline. I passed through the camp to the other edge, where an older man was talking with what looked like a young woman. The woman saw us first, raising her gun for a second. She only lowered it when she saw we didn't raise ours in response.

The man stepped up without fear. "Thank god you're here. We've been fighting off geth for weeks. I'm not sure how much more we can take. Oh, my name's Fai Dan. I'm, I guess you could say, the leader of this colony." He laughed grimly. "This center of glory. This here is Ms. Martinez. She leads the militia defending this settlement."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you have any idea why the geth are here?"

The man opened his mouth and flinched at the same time. After a few seconds, he responded with, "I have no idea. I'm not sure why anyone would want to attack a colony this far out of the way of anything. Nothing valuable's here."

Martinez held her hand up and looked around the box she was behind towards the second entrance. "I heard something." She continued watching, frozen. A few seconds later, she moved towards the edge and faced us. "There's geth in the tower!"

Fai Dan grabbed an assault rifle from his back. "Protect the heart of the colony!" He yelled before following Martinez' lead.

I looked towards my squad. "Liara, Ashley, you're with me. The rest of you, stay here and help defend the colony in case any get past us. Everyone nodded, and I turned back towards the geth-filled doorway. I dived behind the stone rocks opposite the box Fai Dan and Martinez were behind, then looked out and shot down a trooper. I saw a shock trooper collapse behind it, and turned around to see Tali manipulating her omni-tool.

It took only a few moments to clear out the remaining geth. There weren't many, since the entrance behind was fairly small. I stepped into the winding staircase room, Liara and Ashley close behind. I started walking up the various stairs, stopping to take care of any stragglers I found. We walked up a few flights until we reached the top. Ahead was a large room, somewhat circular in shape, although the circle was nowhere near complete. Geth began to stream in from the ceiling as we entered, causing the three of us to dive behind cover. I felt a rocket jam the rock I hid behind, showering me in rock dust. I spit out the nasty taste and looked over the rock to find geth destroyers slowly walking towards us, troopers close behind.

Liara let loose a biotic throw, knocking over one of the destroyers directly on one of the troopers. The resulting crash was satisfying to hear. Ashley was mowing down the geth on the lower level of the room, so I did the same with the higher level. I activated my assault rifle's alternate fire, causing the shots to be far more acccurate and take up much less heat. The only drawback was that it only lasted several seconds and needed a long time to cool down the excess heat. The time I had was more than enough to completely take down another destroyer, and suddenly there were only shock troopers left. Liara had used her biotics cleverly to use the destroyer's weight against them.

Only another minute was needed to clean up the rest of the geth forces. Ashley walked up and leaned over one of the destroyer's wrecked remains. She gave a disgusted look and stomped what remained of the head into the ground. With that finished, we returned to Fai Dan.

"Thank you for your help," he said to us gratefully. "We probably would not have survived that attack without your help."

Martinez continued before any of us could respond. "They come back, they always come back. Always stronger than before." She sounded half insane, as if trying to plead with us to stop them. I raised my hand to stop her.

"We'll find out why they're here."

She nodded and turned back to Fai Dan. He looked around shiftily, then spoke one last thing to us. "The geth's main base is in Exo-Geni's main headquarters. It's directly across the skyway. You might be able to find clues there."

I nodded and smiled at him in thanks. He ignored me and turned back to Martinez. I turned back to my squad, who had all rallied up behind me.

"Ashley and Liara will come with me to Exo-Geni headquarters. Garrus, we'll need someone at the Normandy in case the geth find some way to attack it. I don't trust the way they got there as soon as we landed." The turian nodded reluctantly. "The rest of you, see what you can do for the colony. There's probably a few things they could use help with. Any objections?" I was expecting at least Garrus to have some, but surprisingly no one had any. I nodded and walked back towards the elevator I had ignored the first time we had gone through this area.

The elevator opened a minute later to reveal a wide open room. Two colonists were hiding from various geth on the low ground. I smiled and walked forward, shooting down geth as I moved. There were only troopers, and they fell without a problem. After dispatching the synthetics, I turned my attention toward the vehicle parked in front of the door. I turned and smiled mischevoudly towards my crewmates. The colonists were in control of a Mako class tank, nearly identical to the one we had on the Normandy. I climbed in and took the driver's seat. Ashley immediately jumped for the turret, which I fully expected. Liara was perfectly content to stay in one of the waiting seats.

The skyway was filled with geth armatures and rocket troopers. My driving skills were put to the test as we dodged rocket after rocket. Ashley screamed with victory after the last armature in sight fell, which caused Liara to flinch and put her hands over her ears. I laughed at Ashley's enthusiasm, and continued along the path. As we entered the section connecting to the next bridge, we heard radio chatter.

"...might still be alive...she's my daughter..."

I tried my best to hail the source, but the transmission was far too damaged to pinpoint the source accurately. I gave up the idea and fought across the bridge again. A couple more random transmissions went through, but they made just as little sense as the first. We didn't get an answer to the location question until we fought our way to the end of the second bridge.

"Hold on, we're getting an unknown vehicle signature. It's not the geth."

There was a ramp leading down sticking out of the floor. The three of us disembarked and walked down, unsure of what we'd find.

There were a bunch of people that appeared to be in a similar situation as Zhu's Hope. A bunch of marines were fortified against the only entrance, with several civilians divided into several groups sitting or standing throughout the large room. There were two people directly in the center; a woman who looked very distraught and a middle aged man who looked like his scowl was permanent.

We approached them carefully, trying not to appear threatening enough to cause the militia here to turn on us. I noticed a woman sitting on a box leaning against a wall near the door, smoking a cigarette and studying me intensely. She smirked when she noticed I had seen her. I ignored her and approached the duo in the center of the room.

The woman began speaking first. "Oh, I'm glad to see someone else survived. I thought we were the only ones left."

"Zhu's Hope is still functioning," I responded. "Er, barely."

She looked hopeful at that news. "There's other people alive? This is great news. I told you we wouldn't be the only ones left, Jeong." She spat out the man's name with venom in her voice. I couldn't stop a chill from going down my spine.

The man's response was gruff and annoyed. "We can't help them, Juliana. You know we can't."

I stopped this conversation abruptly. I wasn't liking where this was going. "I need to get to Exo-Geni headquarters."

"It's just up the ramp and across the skyway," Juliana responded with barely contained hope. "You should be careful though, both the headquarters and the highway are filled with geth."

I nodded and turned. I took only one step when Juliana stopped me again. "Wait! One other thing. Lizbeth, my daughter. She's still in there. If you can look for her..?" She looked like she could burst into tears at any moment.

"Don't worry, Juliana," I told her with my most reassuring voice. "If she's there, I'll find her."

She nodded and I saw her eyes turn glassy. I turned back towards the entrance. The same woman I noticed before was still smirking, cigarette still between her fingers. I saw a glint in her eye that nearly gave me pause before she disappeared from view.

We climbed into the Mako and continued our path.

POV Garvil

I stepped out of the sleeping pod slowly, still blinking away the sleep. I took a second to regain my balance, then began walking towards the mess hall. Garrus was sitting at the table, alone, with a drink in his hand. I stopped for a second, surprised that anyone was still on the ship. Everyone was scheduled to be on Feros right now.

Garrus noticed me and waved me over. I could have sworn he was sitting there just waiting for me, but why would he be on the ship right now anyway?

"Let me tell you a story real quick, Garvil. It's one of the things that's quite common in C-Sec." Garrus was much more serious, much different from his usual half-sarcastic manner when talking to me. "Roughly three years ago, a human woman stumbled up to me in tears. Not simply tears, severe trauma tears. It wasn't uncommon to see people distrought on the Citadel, but the reason was much more gut wrenching than the usual. It took me at least ten minutes to get her to calm down enough to get her to even talk legibly through her tears."

Garrus sighed and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. Obviously it wasn't a story he liked remembering. "She told me that she saw a turian's body in an alleyway nearby. I asked her to show me, and she adamantly refused. Whatever was in that alleyway, she was not willing to see it again."

I nodded. Anyone that distrought over seeing something would probably be seeing it regardless for years.

"I followed her directions and found the turian she was talking about. I saw immediately why the woman was having trouble describing it. You could say that it was worse than if you shot a rocket into a volus' suit." I shuddered. Volus had their suits for two reasons: to breathe and to simulate their homeworld's pressure. The pressure on their homeworld is several times more harsh than any other currently inhabited planet. The suit keeps their skin from essentially expanding too rapidly to maintain its shape. Basically, an explosion.

Garrus continued his story. "Despite the blood, his body and uniform were fairly intact. I'm not going to tell you what I found when I inspected him closer, but know that it's burned into my head forever."

I leaned back and exhaled. "Why are you telling me this, Garrus?"

"Simple, Marcus," he responded. He was looking directly into my eyes, his own staring with a deadly serious gaze. "That turian was a man who was investigating a lead in that section. He was helping to investigate a series of brutal murders. Marcus, I was the one who approved that mission. I lived with the guilt of sending a man to an incredibly painful death. I took a week off just to recover from that. Afterwards, I pushed it aside and went back to work as usual."

He suddenly stood up, the chair sliding loudly behind him. The act made me jump, which was apparantly what he was hoping would happen. "Shit happens. We get it. No one on this ship's stupid, Marcus. Everyone's moved on from Therum, and now it's your turn. When you're ready to move on and do something on this ship, see me in the armory. Your weapons are getting outdated."

Garrus started walking away, leaving his drink beind. I suddenly got an idea. "Hey Garrus!" He turned around, his mandibles twitching. Smiling, I activated my biotics and threw he drink to him. The effort made my nerves throb, but the pain was bearable. Somehow, it felt good as well. I stood up and hugged him. He returned it warmly.

"Thanks Garrus."

"Any time. After all, who else is there to talk to but Wrex?"

I laughed and followed him up the stairs to the elevator. I had almost forgotten the feeling, and a warmth spread through my body. The depression had lifted.

Garrus helped me with my weapon mods. My shotgun had been equipped with a modified barrel to increase the velocity of the bullets, as well as an extra heat sink compartment. These upgrades allowed me to do more damage and fire more shots before it overheated. Garrus showed me a simple way to increase the effectiveness of the heat sink compartment without making the compartment bigger, while also changing the barrel to make the change possible. The compartment would absorb all the heat, but a simple switch would activate and transfer some of that heat to the sides of the gun in front of the block of metal present in every gun. Normally, this would cause the gun to overheat faster, since the barrel has a failsafe in place to not allow the gun to fire if the barrel gets too hot. If this happens, it takes over four times as long as normal to be able to use the gun again. The change to the barrel was a razor thin titanium plating between the barrel itself and the heat compartment, preventing only enough heat to prevent that failsafe from occuring.

It was an ingenius mod, allowing me to fire roughly three more shots before overheating. The extra heat would also cause the bullets to shred even more, causing more damage.

I smiled at my shotgun, impressed with the new modifications.

I pulled out my assault rifle and frowned at how dirty it was. I immediately began polishing it delicately, not wanting to get extra fingerprints on it. I sighed and smiled again. Turians have been given a bad rep in the Alliance. Garrus has proved them wrong in just the short amount of time I've known him.

Garrus was polishing his sniper rifle. I swear Garrus idolized that thing like he would his own child.

"So, Garrus. Sniper Rifle your favorite?"

He laughed and admired it. "Absolutely. I've had some good times with this thing. I can hit things 200 meters away given only a single second to aim, with a 95% hit rate."

I whistled. No one in the Alliance was THAT good with one. "I bet you don't use it much in C-Sec."

He sighed and placed his sniper rifle gently back inside his locker. "I practiced daily to keep my skills sharp. It comes in handy sometimes. Turians are the military branch of the council, Marcus. We're naturally good at anything that can put holes in people."

I put my assault rifle back in my own locker and closed it. "The Alliance seems to be headed down that path. Ever since the first contact war with your species, we've been increasing our military size substantially each year. It's almost unsettling."

He laughed and put his hand on my shoulder. "Humans will never be as extreme as us about it. Your strength is always in your adaptability. The only races I'd consider your rivals are the Krogan and the Quarians. Even then, the Krogan are one dimensional in their views, and the Quarians can't even leave their suits. If there's anything your race hasn't done yet, I doubt it will remain that way in ten years."

"The council doesn't trust us enough to do whatever those are yet."

Garrus sat down on a nearby stool, suddenly serious. "Shepard's changing that opinion, and changing it fast. There aren't many people with the same spark he does, Marcus. When I see him stand with authority, I feel like I could go directly into hell and he'd find a way to get me out alive." I nodded. I hadn't realized it, but Shepard's words to me in the hospital spoke of saying what I had needed to hear. I thought he had been simply lecturing me out of anger, but now I recognized it for what it was.

My thoughts were disturbed by Joker over the intercom. "Um, Garrus? Not to interrupt your chat or anything, but the colonists are scratching the paint. I might need you up here to stop them from spraying graffiti all over my nice clean walls if they get the idea."

I facepalmed at Joker's terrible jokes. He seemed to be full of them. I looked up to see Garrus grab his sniper rifle. I sincerely hoped he had no intentions of using it. He was looking down at me expectantly. I stood up and grabbed my assault rifle.

Garrus smiled widely, and we slapped our right hands. I entered the elevator after the turian, finally proud of my place on this ship.

POV Shepard

I stepped back towards the Mako. Liara, Ashley, and Lizbeth Baynahm were close behind. We had met Lizbeth, Juliana's daughter, shortly upon entering the facility. She was one of the scientists of Exo-Geni, and the one who gave us our first clue about the Thorian. It was a creature being studied by Exo-Geni for its mind control properties. It was beneath Zhu's Hope, and I had the feeling that it was the reason the geth were here. We had to detach the geth ship from the headquarters tower before we could leave, however, and we found some very interesting information on the way. We found its location in one of the working VI terminals. We also found heavily encrypted records from some of the data left by the geth. The communications were also cut off due to the barriers, but we found out that the I made a mental note to have Tali research into it later.

We reentered the Mako and continued through the skyway back the way we came. Unsurprisingly, the bridges were filled with geth yet again. We fought methodically through the machines, and returned down the giant ramp to where we found the Exo-Geni outpost. We heard yells from Juliana and Jeong, even from our outside location. Lizbeth gasped sharply when she heard her mother's voice and yelled for me to stop the Mako. She didn't even wait for me to completely stop before climbing out and sprinting down the ramp. It was all we could do to follow as fast as we could.

Lizbeth was hiding behind a box next to the entrance. Jeong was arguing with Juliana. Both of them looked incredibly pissed off. I looked around and saw the woman leaning against the wall, still smoking a cigarette. She was looking at the two arguing scientists with a bored look.

Lizbeth lost it when Jeong suddenly pulled out a pistol, pointing it at Juliana's face. She screamed, "Get away from her!" and left her hiding space. She only got three steps before two of the militiamen grabbed her and kept her in place.

Jeong turned his pistol towards where we were hiding in fear. "C-Come out. All of you!"

I sighed inwardly and stood up, Liara and Ashley following my lead. I walked past the militia and directly towards Jeong.

"That's close enough. I knew it was too much to hope that the geth would kill you."

I rose an eyebrow. "What exactly is going on here?"

Jeong gave an exasperated sigh and lowered his pistol. "Communications are back up. Exo-Geni wants this place purged. I'm in an awkward position, Shepard."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "We'll deal with the Thorian. Afterwards, you can help bring this colony back online."

Jeong's eyes grew wide as he took a step back. "Exo-Geni would have my head! I can't allow that. I..." He stopped and raised his pistol, taking aim for my head. I instinctually grabbed my pistol as well and aimed. I heard my squadmates do the same. Jeong started shaking. "I can't allow any evidence of what happened here to leave the planet. I'm sorry, Shepard."

Before any of us could shoot, Jeong dropped his pistol and grabbed his side with his arm. He stood for a second, then collapsed roughly on the floor. Juliana and Lizbeth stared at his body, shocked. I turned towards the source and saw the woman take a drag from her cigarette, calmly looking at us with her pistol still outstretched in her hand. She finished her drag, blew out smoke, and smirked. The woman pushed herself off the box and walked towards us casually.

She stopped before us and glanced down at the body. "Never liked the son of a bitch. So, you're Shepard?" I nodded reluctantly. She laughed and took another drag. "Name's Jentha. Maria Jentha. I lead the alliance garrison sent to protect the colonists on this planet. Don't mean jack shit after the attacks."

I wasn't sure what to say. Jentha sure was blunt. I didn't get a chance to continue, as she continued almost immediately. "I've heard about you, first human spectre and all that. You look like you can get things done. I like that. When you're done here, I'm interested in tagging along, seeing what you're made of." She chuckled. I was speechless. I was definitely not expecting an offer like this from what looked like a mercenary. I was having enough trouble believing she was Alliance.

I shook my head. "I don't know, Jentha. You rub me the wrong way."

She smiled mischevously. "I get things done, Shepard. I know enough about spectres to know that they have among the most important and secret jobs in the galaxy. You need people like me to make sure you can finish whatever it is you're doing."

I turned around, facing away from Jentha. "I'm going to go see the thorian for myself."

"Wait!" Juliana was unwilling to let me go quite yet. "The colonists. They're under its control, yes?" She was whispering in sadness. I nodded. Joker had sent me a transmission after the geth ship fell about colonists... scratching the paint? "There might be a way to take care of them without killing them. When the thorian controls a subject, their nervous system is more sensitive. It was one of the few things we figured out before the geth attacked. Your grenades. If you added a minor nerve gas to them, it should cause the colonists to become paralyzed, long enough for you to deal with the thorian. It's not weapons grade, so it shouldn't affect anyone else."

I accepted the mod and quickly added it to my grenades. Juliana suddenly engulfed me in a hug which only lasted for a second. I was taken aback, but I nodded afterwards and left towards the Mako. In curiousity, I looked back towards Liara. Sure enough, she was staring back at Juliana with hostility. I broke out a grin at the sight. Liara was different than anyone else I had ever met, and I had a good feeling she felt the same way. This was just another hint to add to the pile.

Returning to the Mako, we continued across the skyway. It was time for us to find out what this thorian truly looked like.