5

The Artifact

As the Geth decreased in numbers, they became less efficient in combat. One of few things Nihlus knew about geth was that they were stronger in larger numbers, as they seemed to have the ability to unify with each other into a central intelligence, creating a stronger force. They had been a challenge for him, but eventually the last fell with an electronic dying sound. They seemed to be cleared out.

The general knowledge of their nature was small as they were complex and hard to observe, therefore the council had decided to isolate them instead. Nihlus cursed the council, for their ignorance over such a threat. The geth had shown signs that they preferred to remain isolated with no interaction with organic life since they overthrew the quarians 300 years ago, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. He was going to share his opinion regarding the geth once more with the council. Perhaps this attack would open their ignorant eyes.

Fools…

They were there for the same reason as he, the artifact. He arrived to the excavation site when they were taking it. They were in a huge number so he was unable to intervene. They had dispatched smaller groups when they transported it away from there to slow his progress. He had never fought geth before, but they shared the same basics like any other foe: if you shot them, they died. Difference was that they had drones to flank one's position and had stronger shields. One thing was out of his experience however: the humanoid creatures that somehow had been modified from humans. The disfigured creatures had come to life from their impaled position and attacked him with their bare limbs as clubs. The geth had turned the humans to some mindless husk that killed the unaffected ones. The spikes seemed to be part of a completely alien technology – a great reason for the council to react to the geth.

He moved from cover to cover swiftly, despite that there were no visible enemies, but he had not come this far to be taken down by a hidden foe. During his twenty years as a Spectre he had learned much more than he would have if he stayed in the military. In the military one was taught to fight in a unit, but in the Spectre force he had to rely on himself. He had been taught to fight as one unit, excluding the weaknesses of one fighting alone. He could never rely on anyone but him having his back.

He was at a station for a Maglev-track where creates were stacked around the place. Some creates contained living animals, making noises that were unfamiliar to Nihlus. Some contained two-legged birds – looked to fat two fly; and others contained four legged beings with no fur or plates, just naked skin. This colony served as a food producer and this were most likely supplies to other parts of humanity. From what he had heard, the humans had ruined their home world, Earth that was far from opulent for vegetation and other animals.

He looked around the corner past some crates with the naked animals that gave away an absurd symphony of gnarling and screeching sounds.

He saw someone! He pulled back his head.

Where the corridor ended with the platform to the tracks a figure stood, but it was not a geth, nor human. Judging by the back-positioned shins and the crown on its head it was a turian, a male. What was he doing here and why did he not belong to the others that had fallen to the geth? He had his back pointed at him, seemingly unaware of his presence. He was standing there, casually, as if the geth attack did not seem to bother him, and had no visible weapons except for a holstered side arm.

He turned out of cover, and approached the man slowly with his shotgun raised against him. Who were he and what was he doing here? He did not seem to be threatening, but after what Nihlus had seen he could not take any chances. He was even prepared to shoot the man just to avoid any surprises. There was something strange with the turian he approached: he seemed thicker than other of his kind in a gray armor with no helmet; but more particular was the left arm that was not the usually small arm of a turian, but a thick long arm that was bigger than the other one. It did not look natural but artificial, like the body of the geth with an unknown gray tissue. The neck of him showed some explants leading down the collar. The skin of the neck looked gray and pale.

Who was this turian? Nihlus instincts tingled, as if alarming him for danger. He ceased the approach, preparing to fire or duck into cover, just five meter from the turian. Surely he should have noticed Nihlus by now?

He was about to call out to him, when he turned toward Nihlus. He lowered the gun and dropped the jaw in pure disbelief. Explants that looked like tubes weaved around the torso, and the face had pale gray face plates. The eyes were pale blue, but with no sclera.

But none of this was the reason for his surprise, for except for the slightly disfigured appearance of a turian, Nihlus recognized him.

"Saren?" he let out.

He looked back at Nihlus with the blue eyes, still in a relaxed position.

"Hello, Nihlus."

oOo

"What the hell was that?!" Ashley burst out.

The scene was once again calm the way it was when they arrived. The – whatever they were – were dead, at least not moving.

Shepard and Alenko had seen the grotesque spikes before they saved chief Willems, and the corpses that were impaled were still fresh, but when they made attempts to get them down from there, they would simply not get loose, like the spike was holding on to it. They could not tip over the spike either so they decided to simply let them be for the moment. But the scenery had been a bizarrely more different after they passed the excavation site.

When they entered the small area of decimated houses they were in by now, around six of the spikes had been arranged around the place. The place had been completely dead with only the large spikes remaining intact. The group was not sure what to believe when they were greeted by the sight of the entities impaled on top of the spikes. They saw humanoid beings up there, but they did not look human, not directly. The beings were dark gray skinned with a small meagre body in seemingly over-sized clothes, as if they had shrink with them on. They hanged with their backs bent back-wards with the feet and hands seeking the ground with the edge of the spike pointing out of the stomach. Their faces send chills sending down Shepard's entire body when he saw their faces. They were as dark as the rest of the skin, but they had no facial features of a normal human, except for empty eyes that were as clear as crystals and a hanging mouth, just as empty with no teeth or tongue – just a dark hole. No other feature: no nose; no ears; no hair. They looked exactly the same with only sloppy clothes that differed.

The only real Shepard was able to relate the sight was the one he had saw when HCP had publicly impaled rebels on Terra Nova to intimidate disobedient colonists. But what he saw here did not even look human…

Shepard looked at one of them. It looked dead, but somehow he had the feeling that it was looking at him with its empty eyes. Suddenly it had been starting to move in its impaled position! They had all reacted to the sudden change, but soon it let out a hoarse gargling and the slow moves changed to jerking with its limbs. The others had starting to do so to and then they started to roar and scream with hoarse noises. Shepard was unable to believe what he saw, but it got worse. A grinding metallic screech occurred from the spikes and they were unfolding down with the beings coming down. The spike left the body and the fighting bodies fell to the ground, still fighting and screaming. They soon got up and locked their attention toward the group and rushed at them with arms raised. Shepard was still not reacting: the scenery was nightmare-like – such that only occurred in movies. The six of them rushed at Alenko, bringing him to the ground under them. They gathered around him, hammering at him with their arms. Shepard and Willems reacted simultaneously and fired at the beings with their rifles – single fire to not hit the lieutenant. They did not go down at first and when the bullets hit them, they did not seem to care, but after moments of fire their bodies yielded and keeled around Kaiden.

Silence – with exception for bangs in the distance – fell again.

Shepard and Ashley rushed to help Kaiden. He was alright but the things had cracked his visor.

"Shit! Were those things human?"

Kaiden shook his head. "I don't know, maybe. Were they… altered, or something – anything to do with the spikes?"

Shepard shook his head to. "I've never seen anything like this."

Kaiden stretched his body, but he ceased the move with a groan as pain occurred in his chest.

"You okay, LT?" Ashley asked.

He nodded. "I'm fine. Just a cracked rib maybe – nothing to really worry about." He turned to Shepard. "Commander, we are bumping on to something completely out of the normal around every corner. We-"

"We have come too far to return now. The artifact is our main objective and perhaps the main reason of this attack. We can't let it go."

Kaiden understood Shepard, besides, they were stranded. He nodded.

Shepard noted that there were more of these human-like creatures lying on the ground over the ones they had killed. It could mean that Nihlus or anybody else had been there, following the artifact like they did. Before taking the lead further ahead, Shepard gave a last look at the creatures.

What had happened to them?

o.O.o

"You… you died…" Nihlus had never been an uncertain person; he could not. As a Spectre one did not afford to be uncertain. One moment of uncertainty would only benefit your opponent, which one did not afford considering the limited resources at hand.

But this could simply not be true…

"I did" he casually answered, as if it did not bother him. As if the fact that he disappeared in geth territory, for five years, did not seem abnormal at all. He looked sick, unnatural, but Nihlus could not mistake on that face, not that tone of voice, not the way he spoke like he always had things under control. He recognized the man he had as a partner, a friend, the man who had his back more than anyone else, for nearly fifteen years.

"Then why are you here, after all this time. Why are you alive?"

He made a snort, to indicate slight amusement. "Tell me, Nihlus. Why are you still with the Spectres? –serving as errand boy for a corrupt council?"

Nihlus shook his head. Was he dreaming? No, this could not be a dream: he felt the smell of burning in his nostrils; far too real to be unreal. But seeing Saren, in the way he looked, it could not be real either. "If you died, why are you alive?" he repeated his previous question.

"Why wouldn't I be? I died and the man you saw before, the man that made you the one you are now, are no longer. I am new, living for another purpose, one greater then helping corrupt politicians ensuring their continued mandate, which you now follow blindly."

Nihlus stared at Saren's left arm. It was geth, but why was it on Saren? He felt the urge to shoot the turian who gave him away to be his friend, but he could not understand it, like an instinct that told you to do things beyond his understanding. "How… What are you talking about? Why the in the hells are there geth here of all places in the damn galaxy?" His own disability to understand the scene annoyed him.

Saren walked toward him. Nihlus's urge to draw his gun and drop a magazine on the approaching turian increased. A part of him was… feared, for unexplained reasons.

"I told you; I taught you from the very moment when you were put under my evaluation, that the slightest moment of doubt will kill you and fail your very purpose." He put his 'normal' hand on Nihlus's shoulder as he reached his side. He did not look at him as he stood on Nihlus's side but forward. Nihlus noticed the eyes of his former partner. They were completely pale blue, like glass and lacked the other features of a turian eye, just, blue.

"What… Who are you? What purpose?"

Saren pated his shoulder and walked behind him. Nihlus did not turn around to him.

"A purpose that has always been obvious for this galaxy we live in." Saren stopped. "A purpose we do not know of but that forms our very existence." He unholstered the gun and raised it against Nihlus. His eyes were not pale blue, but had a strong blue light coming from them. Nihlus every inner instinct alarmed him about his lethal situation.

But it was too late…

"A purpose that will not have you to prevent it."

o.O.o

A shot was heard. It was louder as if being closer by and sounded like it was from a high-caliber rail-gun. Shepard believed that it came from the maglev-station down below the path that went downward from their position. Willems and Alenko noticed as well and stopped, preparing for enemies rushing toward them. They did not come though. Shepard saw no movement down there and the fire, which differed from the geth's plasma weapons in sound, was not followed and nothing seemed to happen.

They cautiously descended toward the station.

They walked through the passages of crates and boxes containing mostly animals – dead or living. They contained pigs and hens, species brought from Earth to less inhabitable locations that were used to feed people elsewhere that could not eat the local animals. No other signs of life were visable in the whole station. A few dead geth were there, but no living or dead humans. It was

"Commander!" Alenko shouted. They found a corpse of a turian – all other corpses had been human or scrap from geth. Alex cursed as he recognized the corpse to be Nihlus! He and Alenko rushed toward him where the corridor ended to the platform of the tracks. Willems remained confused over the turian.

He lay on his stomach, revealing a gaping wound in his neck bellow his crown. He showed no signs of being alive while lying in his own pool of blue blood that the men stood on their knees in. Shepard noticed that the body was straight, not in combat position, as if had standing straight still. None of them were medically skilled, especially not in turian biology, but understood well that a wound of that nature surely would kill one regardless of specie.

"Is that Nihlus?" Willems asked. Alenko had told her about their mission and about Nihlus.

"Yeah" Shepard replied. He covered his mouth with his unbloodied gauntlet. "Fuck…" He had hoped that finding Nihlus would give them clarity over the situation and fix the problems that they stood knee-deep in, but all of that faded away with the dead turian. He let out a heavy sigh.

A moment of silence followed. Then Ashley heard a sound: a low sound of something moving against something rough. "Commander" she called. Shepard looked up with an expression that indicated that he was annoyed, with a look that wondered what she was going to bother him with. She pointed at where the noise came from, a large crate that where covered with a tarpaulin. Shepard noticed the sound too amongst the grunting from the swine. There also came a low bam from there. He rose from the small puddle with his rifle. He walked to Willems and indicated to approach the crate. He nodded to Willems to uncover the tarpaulin while he and Alenko stood by, ready to shoot. With a rap she pulled away the tissue.

"Don't kill me!" a voice cried. Inside the crate were bags and boxes containing meat and on top of them was a man lying, with his arms and legs in a position of someone terrified expecting someone to hit him.

"What the…" Ashley was actually surprised to see a human being or something not trying to kill her. "Get out of there" she commanded and pointed down her gun.

The man opened his eyes and looked at her, as if to confirm that she was of no danger, and put down his arms. "Okay… okay…"

He rose up and looked at the people to ensure that they were safe. He held up his hands.

"We are not going to hurt you." Shepard said. He and Alenko lowered their guns.

The man with a knit hat nodded and climbed out of the crate and slowly lowered his hands. "You are soldiers then?"

"We are: I'm Alex Shepard, commander in the alliance fleet." He touched his chest with his hand. "Who are you and what were you doing in that crate?"

"I'm Pavel." His voice was slightly shaky. "I work here at the station, managing cargo and things – you know. And then those – mechs, I think? – came, all over the place. So I hid in here."

"Are there any others around here?" Alenko asked.

Pavel shrugged. "I don't know – maybe? When things started to explode, things got crazy: people ran around like they were head less chickens or tried to run away from here. I didn't see anything from where I was. I don't know how long I hid – hours at least. I was about to get out here when I heard aliens – turians I believe."

"Wait, there were more than one?"

Pavel nodded. "It was that one over there" he pointed at the corpse of Nihlus. "He talked to another turian – Saren, I believe he called him. They seemed to know each other."

"No one else?"

"Just them. They had talked strange and I did not understand what they talked about, but it all ended when the 'Saren' guy shot 'Nihlus' – his name was?"

"He shot him?"

Pavel pointed at his own head with a finger. "Straight in the head when he was not looking. He then disappeared."

Shepard glared back at Nihlus. The whole situation had been fucked up as it was, but Nihlus being shot, by another turian, made the set. The situation had escalated to his neck and questions arrived at large while no questions had yet been solved.

"You saw where he went?"

"I stayed here until you guys showed up, but it sounded like he took the train" he pointed. "To the B-station, I believe."

Shepard nodded. He thought of the whole situation as being completely bizarre: a test run had turned into a grab and run mission which in its own turn changed to a goose chase, and with Nihlus gone he had now full responsibility for the fuck-ups. Great! This Saren, who was he and why did he shoot Nihlus? Or more relevant: did he have anything to do with this attack and the artifact?

"Our best bet is to follow him then." They went to the tracks with Pavel following behind. Shepard let out another sigh as he saw no train on the track, just clean track in both directions. Of course the turian would not let them follow him so easily.

"How long are there to the B-station?"

"I don't know, ten kilometers or something?"

"Great…"

"But we do have a trolley in the station house. You could take that one, I guess?"

o.O.o

The geth were setting the charges over the station, enough to eradicate everything within a radius of 30 kilometers. Every human, machine, plant, everything would die. They could not leave signs of their presence. They also had to destroy the beacon, the artifact the primitive humans had been unable to comprehend and been so reckless with. They would not have been able to see the value of it if it had been shown to their faces. They only needed it once, after that all would be in the right order; every wrong corrected. But they had to act cautiously if they were to achieve their goals. They did not afford to fail.

The geth worked industriously, loyal to the true masters of the galaxy, the ones responsible for their very existence. Sovereign had chosen its allies well. The foolish quarians had created a force more powerful than any of the organic species of the galaxy. They would earn their place under the reapers. Nihlus did not. The man, that once had been a friend under a different time, was tainted by lies and ignorance that Saren had been cleansed of. The voices had been cleared and now one voice remained; the true one.

The prothean beacon was enlightened, something the primitives would not have been able to do. The structure, tall like two turians standing on each other's shoulders, illuminated a sea green light that weaved around its shape like glowing veins. A spotlight was pointed upwards as it tried to find others of its kind and establish to a long gone communications network. However, the essential information was already inside the beacon's database, hidden from the world since the fall of its creators.

He approached it. It lightened up by his presence and picked him up – jerked him off the ground in the air. The information was shared.

The information that would set everything right again.

o.O.o

"What…" Commander Shepard let out with a jaw that slacked at the sight of the sky up ahead. They all were astonished from their position in the small trolley that had been given by Pavel that kept hiding where they found him. In the distance ahead, a black craft elevated up in the sky. It was a ship of some kind, but nothing any of them had ever seen. It was far away, but they could make out certain details out of it: its body was in black metal and consisted of a long body that led down where it ended with tentacle looking limbs. I remained Ashley of the under-water beings on Earth her sister Beatrix had told her about – octopus was it?

It jumped upward though, imminently disappearing out of their sight.

"That was the thing I saw" she said. The thing – was it a demon? If such things existed, this was the closest thing she would relate it to.

"It could be. I'm not sure about what these geth, but yeah – could be." Ashley had only been with the commander for a few hours, but she could see that he, just like anyone else, had uncertain moments where little made sense or moments when world was a bitch, but he seemed to recover quickly from such moments like a dog that shook away water from its fur and kept going.

"But that's irrelevant. This artifact may still be at the coming station and you should make ready."

Just like that!

The trolley started to slow down, indicating that they were reaching their destination. They picked up their rifles and checked the ammunition. The station appeared in the distance.

The journey came to an end abruptly and almost made the team fall over in the trolley.

This station was bigger and had two second levels over the one they arrived to with a bridge connecting the levels above. They saw geth on the platform that looked at them for a moment, as almost surprised to see them, but before they could react, Ashley and the other two shot them down. They jumped off the trolley whose gas driven engine almost tenderized Ashley's but on the shaky ride. They quickly overviewed the rest of the platform, but saw no more geth.

Ashley went over to the four geth they had killed and saw that they surrounded a big cylinder with strange details of wires and tubes weaving over them. She could only imagine what it was: a gas container, some mechanical stuff, a bomb- wait… a bomb! It was a fucking BOMB!

"Guys!" she screamed. The two men came to her, wondering what was going on, until they saw the potential bomb. The lieutenant scanned it and confirmed that it held physical activity in form of neutrons. He explained that the ratings told that it would be able to decimate an entire town, but if it would be connected to others of the same kind, the effect could be exponentially increased to a devastating effect.

"The whole colony here would be annihilated, including all survivors, right?" Shepard asked.

Alenko nodded.

"Shit…" he mumbled. She saw as he seemed to lose himself in his thoughts, eyes closed. He returned moment later though. "Can you disable them?"

The bombs were geth technology – alien to Alenko – but there seemed to be another component attached to the bomb. It was a timer most likely and if they disconnected them from the bombs, they would be paused until they could be dealt with later.

Shepard agreed to this and ordered him to attempt to disable the timer.

Ashley turned away and peered over the station. It was bigger than the C-station with two floors and it was connected to the surface space station small distance from there where all refined products would go after the mill or slaughterhouse to be sent out to trade. She would often pass by it as she visited her home once a few months.

Gosh, the day kept getting more fucked up as it progressed. They were attacked by unknown robots with obscured technology, special ops marines had turned up as well as a Citadel SPECTRE, and now this? – blowing up the colony on top of it all? A memory passed up in mind: more than once she and the rest of the garrison in C6 had dreamt of some… action – just something that differed from the day before and the other day before that and so on. Well… look around! Here was the great adventure that they had dreamt about! Wasn't it exciting? Your friends lay dead after being picked off like flies, but you got what you wanted didn't ya? No… She had to focus. She did not have to blame anyone for anything, not now, not when things were getting dire.

They had to save the Eden Prime, whatever was left of it, it had to be saved. She couldn't let down the officers, not now.

Her eyes caught movement on the upper platform on the other side. There were geth gathering at the edge! They held up guns and a sharp red shine blinded her eyes. She turned instantly and rushed to the officers. The lieutenant worked on the bomb, but the commander met her with a wondering look, before his face indicated that he saw what Ashley had seen.

"Get down!" she screamed and waved with her hand, but suddenly the officers disappeared from her sight as well as everything else.

A moment of darkness followed, but when she saw light again, she found herself lying on the cement floor of the platform on the stomach. Sounds of shots being fired surrounded her and when she looked up while supporting herself on her elbows, she saw the men behind cover, responding fire that punched hole in the crates with crashing and shattering sounds that sent dust flying. The commander seemed to notice her and said something to the lieutenant.

What happened?

The commander supported his elbows on the crate which he had as cover and sprayed a series of shots at the geth while the lieutenant leaped out of cover and ducked as he was running toward her. He put his arms around her chest, forced her on her back and quickly dragged her in behind cover of the nearest crate. He started examining her with the onmi tool on his hand over Ashley's body. She did not understand what had happened and supported her body on her elbows as she pushed herself up from the ground. It felt a bit heavy, but she got up so she stood on her knees. Sounds of fire were still heard. As she got up, the lieutenant's thick black eye brows raised in surprise to her.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You were hit by a sniper and were sent to the ground" he replied. "They use heavy rounds, but you seem to have survived, somehow…" he started examining her with his dark brown eyes over her, as to verify that she actually was alive. "Look at this…" He pointed at her left side where a tear was visible in her armor, revealing a slightly torn fabric padding inside.

"Damn…" she quietly expressed as she viewed her left. She had ben millimeters gone from being lost…

"Are you feeling alright?" Alenko asked, trying to over-voice the gun fire.

She nodded – she could not feel any pain, so she was intact. She was nothing but a little shocked by the sudden event. She glanced over to the commander that fought the mechs, or the 'geths', by himself – looking out of cover and firing with his rifle before the respond fire forced him to duck down again as the fire penetrated his seemingly powerful kinetic barriers.

"You think you can fight?" he asked.

She could, but her rifle remained where the lieutenant had dragged her from. He solved it by raising his hand and blue aura seemed to surround it and the rifle started to vibrate, before starting to slowly glide across the gap between them. Ashley widened her eyes in wonder while spectating. She knew of biotics, beings with ability to control dark matter with their nervous system, but she had not seen any with her own eyes. Biotic implants were a rare sight in her social class as it was expensive and time consuming to alter the nervous system at a human and were mostly used in higher military divisions. She nodded as thanks when the rifle reached her and she picked it up.

They nodded in agreement at each other before popping out of cover to assist the commander.

o.O.o

Shepard hunkered and let out a long and heavy sigh as Alenko confirmed that the last bomb had its timer removed – the colony was safe, for the moment until the bombs had been neutralized. Disable the devices had been everything but easy as the bombs were alien and the lieutenant had needed time to figure out how to not blow them off in forehand. This meanwhile the geth had a hold of the station. Their numbers were not great, but they had snipers and some other kind of robot that seemed to deploy barriers and bolster the shields of the snipers. They had the upper hand in a range-combat, but they had been outmatched as the group had made it to their position and forced to close-range-combat. They had disabled around five bombs and there appeared to be no more, and with no more geth they could finally breath out.

"I must say, Chief" the commander expressed with his sky-blue eyes looking at her with a friendly and appealing smile. "That you handled yourself good there."

"Thanks…" she said, not figuring out something else to say. During her career she had always had higher demands on her than others, partially for her sex and partially for her surname. During runs in the obstacle course in recruit camp, her instructor Ngo had always wanted to see her fail. He had discouraged her at every possibility, hating to have a woman under his command. He had mocked her alongside the other meat-heads in that company and never given her credit for the success from her way, but never hesitated to punish her for failures. Her mother had hated Ashley for not fulfilling "a woman's duties" and regarded her as a failure amongst her daughters and they had not spoken in ages. She was admittedly skilled in combat as she had always needed to prestige harder than others to be given the slightest hint of approval.

This commander on the other hand, was different.

"You're not the regular kind of garrison fighter I've seen. You've got some potential that don't belong in a place such as this." His voice mirrored her thoughts. For long she had been pushed around by people that wanted to keep her down, and she hated them for it, so fucking much.

She could not think of an answer to him. She could just thank him for the compliments, but what if he reacted negatively? She rarely had problems speaking her mind, but this commander was different in an unexplainable way. What if he was Ngo with a mask, waiting for her to screw up?

"What about the artifact?" Alenko interrupted, disrupting the small moment of success. Even if they had saved the survivors of Eden Prime – while the colony itself would hardly recover – but the main objective was the artifact and that was what the authority would judge them for.

Shepard raised his hand to his face and released air between his fingers. "I don't know, LT. Probably gone from this planet, given the time the robots took from us here and then it's probably out of our reach." So they had failed? Ashley would probably be transferred to another shithole in the galaxy, perhaps with a smaller promotion given that she had accomplished her principal objective to protect the colony, but the officer's objective was gone. The lieutenant seemed to acknowledge this and sat down heavy on a wagon and sighed. The commander on the other hand seemed surprisingly content given the circumstances.

"But we did save a whole lot of people today and I'd say that matter. You did good here today, both of you."

Alenko nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're right, but what will happen now?"

He folded out his hands with his rifle lying on the floor. "I don't know… Waiting? Alliance aid should arrive eventually, until then we can find a way to the main colony and see-"

"Wait" the lieutenant interrupted with a raised hand after he raised his head as if he saw something behind Ashley and the commander. "Look there." He pointed to where the wall of the station building had an opening around 100 meter behind Ashley. She and Shepard turned their heads to see it and saw that the outside was beyond that opening, but it displayed a strange light in form of a spotlight leading vertically right outside in a sea-green light.

"Let's check it out" Shepard called and stood up and made it toward the light with Ashley and Alenko following.

They walked outside and came to a balcony with a stair that led down alongside the left wall down to a yard. Down there the team saw it, or at least thought they saw, the artifact. It was a two-man high object standing there with a green light that came from what looked like veins all over its skin. The same light seemed to be launched up toward the sky from it. The crew descended down to it.

They stood a few ten meters away from it.

"This would be it, I guess. Either that or some other strange thing the geth have."

Ashley had never been given access to the excavation site after they closed it off, but she had seen it in the very beginning when they found it. It did not light the way it did now and gave away to be another dusty old relic. But this thing had certain… awe to it as it stood there in solitude in the yard, overviewing the forests and hills that made out the landscape of Eden Prime.

"Commander, lieutenant, anyone? Dammit… Alex?" the radio on the officers sounded, revealing another man's voice. The commander reacted immediately by moving up his hand to his helmet to respond the call.

"Captain!" he greeted. The communication transmissions seemed to work again.

"Shepard, it's good to hear you. Are you and your team alright? We picked up unknown spacecraft passing through the atmosphere."

"We lost Jenkins and Nihlus…"

A moment of silence followed from the other end. "Fuck" Another silence came. "And the artifact?" The voice was not hopeful.

"We found it, sir and it's secured. The attackers tried to detonate bombs, destroying the artifact as well as the colony."

"What? Dammit, alright. Was the place secured?"

Shepard looked around. They had faced resistance on the station, but not enough to bring down a spacecraft. The geth had probably not expected the bombs to be disarmed. "It's all clear for extraction."

"Alright, we're coming to you shortly. Good work commander."

The transmission ended.

Ashley walked closer to the artifact as the two officers behind her consulted with each other. She looked at it while she drew closer. It was amongst the other things she had seen today something alien that looked like nothing she had seen before. At first look it was merely an old structure that shined for one reason or another, but when you looked closer the weaving veins of light somehow looked… living. The light stretched upwards endlessly and the beam it was generating was like pouring water in a sea-green tone. It was marvelous in an unexplainable way an Ashley felt drawn to it as she came closer.

But then, she could feel a light force, like… the artifact was literally drawing her to it!

The artifact gave away a pulse in the sea-green color in an energy wave and she could feel the light pull that drew her escalate to a yanking that forced her toward it. She helplessly resisted and flouted with her feet and waved with her arms, but she could not resist the force that kept pulling. So much happened in matters of seconds and she had no cohesive thoughts, only feeling of great fear and a desire to get loose from the captive situation.

Shepard now became aware when he saw Ashley being pulled by the mysterious force toward the now abnormally behaving artifact. All this happened so quickly and when he saw it over the shoulder of his companion, he wasted no time to come to the chief's rescue when he pushed his way around the lieutenant that had not reacted yet. He ran over to Ashley that struggled to be getting loose. He took a grip of her waist from behind, but despite him yanking to get her loose, she was still forced toward the artifact.

"Dammit!" she heard him shout it her ear, but it was muffled as she was losing hearing.

Suddenly she felt an even greater force, but from the opposite direction and she could feel herself falling to the ground on her side. She felt her senses slowly come back and the ringing in the eras and the white clouds in the eyes dispersed. She then saw the commander, in front of the artifact. He was lifted up in the air, a meter! His limbs looked paly pulled out from each direction from the body, leaving the owner helplessly stuck.

"Commander!" she yelled, starting to rise up. She had to help him! But before she could get up on her feet, she was grabbed from behind and prevented to leap to the artifact and the commander.

"Don't!" the lieutenant called and held her down. She tried to get loose with no success.

She watched painfully as the commander's stiff body shook and jerked and the fact that no crying of pain somehow made it even worse. She wanted to help him, despite the dangers. The few seconds seemed to last forever, but then the artifacts exuding light became more intense and the vein's light formed into one bon that was blinding.

The light forced Ashley to cover her eyes and then, with a hollow bang and such an intense force that put Ashley and the lieutenant on their backs-

The artifact exploded.

:::0:::

A/N

Fuck author's notes! Let's just get on with it!