At First Sight
The Normandy's Tantalus drive rumbled through the corridors of the ship as it caused the ship to gracefully manoeuvre out of the dock. Her thrusters flared to life, making the ship sour out of Earth's atmosphere, finally becoming airborne.
If any of the crew chose to look out of the windows half an hour later, they would have seen the Normandy passing through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, as they headed to the fringes of the Sol System where the Charon Mass Relay was located.
Another three hours later the PA system filled with the all too familiar voice of her pilot.
"The Arcturus Prime Relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence."
Any minute now the crew of the Normandy would find themselves in an entirely separate part of the galaxy, which known to humanity for the past thirty-one years.
"We are connected…Calculating transit mass and destination."
The blue glow of the Charon Relay was now becoming magnified as the SR-1 flew directly towards it, zooming in closer and closer on its target.
"Relay is hot…Acquiring approach vector…All stations, secure for transit...Board is green…Approach run has begun."
Joker skilfully swerved the Normandy around on its correct trajectory aiming to just skim the blue orb in the Relay's centre.
"Hitting the relay in 3…2…1."
The Normandy was flying parallel with the Relay's core, which was shooting beams of blue energy at the vessel. At that moment the subtle hum of the drive core turned into a dulled fizzing roar as the ship was propelled thousands of light years across the galaxy from the Sol system.
A mere few seconds had passed and the Normandy was now in the Utopia system of the Exodus cluster, where the human colonized world of Eden Prime was located.
Derek couldn't help but feel slightly giddy whenever he had the privilege of being on board a ship that passed through a Mass Relay; especially since lately it had been a novelty for him.
He had been asleep during the Normandy's journey up until the point Joker's voice had come on the PA system. They were roughly two hours away from Eden Prime now, so Derek decided it would be appropriate to find out more about his squad mates, given that they were about to work together for the first time.
He walked over from his sleeper pod towards the monitor where Kaidan had been working, although he was not there. Derek decided to head up to the command deck to try and find him.
The CIC was still packed with people. Derek began to scan the room and saw Doctor Chakwas and Jenkins standing at the back wall. He walked over to them.
"Sir," Jenkins said with a quick salute.
Derek gave him a small nod in response. "How are you holding up Jenkins?"
"Oh, I can't wait to hit groundside Sir. I'm itching for some real action."
"I sincerely hope you're kidding Corporal. You're idea of 'real action' usually involves me patching up crew members in the infirmary." Said Chakwas with deep concern in her voice
"You need to relax Jenkins. Don't try acting out any unnecessary heroics because if you get it wrong it can come back and bite you in the ass." Derek said in a calm voice.
"Sorry Sir. I'm just impatient. Especially given that there's a Spectre on board."
"I wouldn't get too worked up about it. Treat it like any other assignment and you will do just fine."
"That's easy for you to say Sir; you probably do this type of thing the whole time."
"Actually I haven't, for a long time. Take my word for it corporal, you don't want to shoulder a responsibility you aren't prepared to carry." Derek said in a more stern voice and boy did he mean what he said.
"Sorry Sir. Don't worry I won't screw this up." Jenkins said sounding far less enthusiastic than he had a few seconds ago.
"Thank you leutenant." said Chakwas with relief. "Would you come with me to the infirmary, I need to put you on the ships medical database and give you a check-up before you deploy."
"Sure thing doctor."
Once they were in the med-bay the doctor began scanning Derek with her Omni-tool.
"Ah, another biotic." she said after a few seconds had passed.
"Another?" Derek said with slight confusion.
"Yes, Lieutenant Alenko is a biotic as well."
"Really? That's good news. I was hoping I wouldn't be the only one on board."
"Well, you are the only person on board with L3 implants by the looks of things." She said looking down at her Omni-tool.
"Oh. Kaidan must be an L2 then." Derek said, saddened by the thought. He knew L2 implants were infamous for causing their users to suffer from severe medical conditions, luckily for him L3 implants didn't have the same effect.
"Yes Kaidan suffers from migraines regularly. Although I have heard he is exceptionally powerful for a human biotic."
"Interesting." He was surprised to hear that an L2 Biotic was capable of serving in the military.
Derek had never fully relied on his biotic abilities as he found them challenging to master. So naturally he relied on close quarter combat and weaponry to maximise his efficiency on the battlefield. He had never bothered to learn any of the fancy tricks some soldiers were able to perform with their Omni-tools. He hadn't the patience for it.
"Alright, I've got you logged in the database. You're free to go now" said Chakwas.
"Thanks Doc." He said, heading for the Med-bay door.
…
Derek had been acquainting himself with other members of the crew for roughly an hour until he had been told by Shepard to head down to the cargo bay to suit up for deployment.
He took the elevator down with her and saw Alenko and Jenkins suiting up themselves, with Captain Anderson and the Turian Spectre, Nihlus standing by. They were no more than ten minutes out from the planet's surface.
While he suited up he listened in to the conversation Anderson, Shepard and Nihlus were having.
"Shepard, you're team need locate the Beacon and secure it for transport ASAP." Anderson began.
"Uh, did I miss something?" Derek said quietly to Kaidan.
Kaidan sighed as he went into a long explanation. "Our original mission was to retrieve a Prothean beacon and bring it back to the Citadel but we just received footage of the colony being attacked."
Derek was astonished; he would never have envisaged something that should have been a simple 'shakedown run' to turn into such a covert operation.
"Prothean? Like the archives they found back on Mars?"
"Yeah."
"So why is the turian here?"
"He's representing the Council's involvement in this assignment." Kaidan then lowered his voice "I think he's also here to evaluate Shepard."
"Evaluate her? Why?" Derek said, matching Kaidan's volume.
"Spectre candidacy." Kaidan's voice a mere whisper now.
Derek's eyes widened and he gulped silently. "So this is a pretty big deal then." Instantly regretting the criticism he had given Jenkins earlier on.
"Yeah. That's one way of putting it." Kaidan chuckled nervously.
Derek didn't say anything more and continued putting his gear on. After tightening the final straps on the greaves of his Onyx armour set, he secured his helmet in place, wiping its visor clean of a thin layer of dust that had settled over it and then walked over to stand at attention by Shepard's side with Kaidan and Jenkins.
Seconds later the Cargo bay door opened revealing the blood red sky which was blotted by thick, black clouds of smoke from the burning colony below. Everyone was dead silent as the sight before them sunk in. The cargo hold began to fill with the smell of bitter smoke accompanied by the subtle soundtrack of roaring fire, which could barley be heard over the now deafening roar of the ships engine outside.
"Dear God." Anderson said, so quietly that Derek wasn't sure whether he'd heard the Captain say anything.
"Approaching drop point one." Joker's voice could be heard over the PA system.
Nihlus began moving over towards the opened cargo bay door.
"Nihlus are you coming with us?!" asked Jenkins who sounded anxious for the first time that day, the sight of the burning colony clearly getting to him.
"I move faster on my own!" raising his voice to compete with the noise of the engine. And with that he ran and jumped out onto the planets surface.
"Nihlus will scout out ahead. He'll feed you status reports throughout the mission!" said Anderson, who'd now regained his voice.
"We've got his back Captain!" said Shepard with admirable confidence.
"The mission's yours now, Shepard. Good luck!"
"Approaching drop point two."
The squad of soldiers jumped out of the cargo hold onto the planets surface. They began moving at a quick pace down a wide dirt path, which was had large rocks scattered along it.
The effects of the attack became more vivid the further they progressed as the sight of burning buildings in the distance became revealed to them.
"Hold up." Shepard whispered abruptly, raising her hand to a 'halt' signal. "I hear something up ahead. Shaw, Jenkins…" She extended her arm and pointed ahead giving an 'advance' signal to the two soldiers.
They each gave her a silent nod of acknowledgment and moved very slowly watching their step as to not make a noise and alert any hostile threat that might be ahead.
Then out of nowhere two flying 'drones', for lack of a better word, zoomed around the corner where the path turned off and opened fire on the two soldiers.
"Get down!" Derek yelled to Jenkins as he dived off his feet behind a large rock where he took cover, narrowly avoiding the shots fired by the drones as they hit the area where he had been standing a split second later.
However, Jenkins stood there dumbfounded and took aim with his assault rifle. He opened fire but to no effect. He was hammered violently by shots fired from both drones. He screamed in agony and fell to the ground, where he lay dead seconds later.
"Shit!" yelled Derek and quickly peered out from behind the rock he was using for cover. He instantly blasted one of the drones with his shotgun, taking it out just as easily as one might destroy a clay pigeon.
He switched targets and taking aim at the second one but refrained from pulling the trigger as it spontaneously blew up thanks to Kaidan's use of an overload blast from his Omni-tool.
The three remaining soldiers moved over to their now deceased comrade.
Kaidan examined the body "Those shots ripped right through his shields. He never had a chance." He said sadly, turning to face Shepard.
"We can't help him now." Shepard sighed, slowly shaking her head "The missions the priority, let's move it."
The soldiers headed up the path towards where the drones had come from, encountering more on the way. The three of them made quick work of them however and neither of them was injured.
They continued along the path until they came to an opening. Seconds later they saw what appeared to be a female soldier wearing pink and white armour running from two more drones. She dived onto her back and fired at one of her pursuers with a pistol, destroying it immediately. She got back to her feet and ran to a large boulder for cover drawing her assault rifle from its holster.
As the three soldiers ran towards her to help they saw two synthetic humanoid figures turn away from a human male, whom they had just impaled on a grotesquely large mechanical spike, approaching from the same direction she had come from.
As quick as a flash Derek fired a biotic projectile at one of her pursuers, knocking it clean off its feet, the soldier wearing pink and white then finished it off with her assault rifle. Kaidan fried the remaining drone with an overload and helped Shepard finish off the other humanoid synthetic she had been firing at with a clean shot to its flashlight-like head from his pistol.
A brief moment of silence passed as the squad allowed the woman wearing pink and white armour to catch her breath. Finally she spoke up.
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here ma'am?" She said facing Shepard.
"I'm Commander Shepard. These are Lieutenants Alenko and Shaw." She gestured to each of the men respectively. "Can you tell me what happened here Williams?"
"Oh man." She began to anxiously pace up and down. "We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call but they cut off all our communications. I've been fighting for my live ever since." She said panting, sadness laced in her voice. She was still trying to catch her breath both from the fighting and the shock of all that had happened.
Derek couldn't help but feel an immense amount of sympathy for her.
"Do you have any idea who or what those things were?" Shepard asked gently.
"I'm not sure but I think I heard one of my squad mates call them geth."
"Geth? Why would they be here? They haven't been outside the veil in nearly two-hundred years?" Kaidan said, speculating.
"They might be here for the Beacon." Derek suggested, shrugging his shoulders.
"Can you take us to it?" Shepard turned to ask Williams.
"Yeah, the dig site is just over the rise." She pointed to where she meant.
The squad of four hurried to the dig site and found it empty. Williams suggested they head towards the research camp nearby to see if it had been moved there.
Upon arriving at the camp the squad discovered more impaled bodies on the large mechanical spikes this time with synthetic looking figures on them. However, they were different to the previous two they had encounter as they looked disturbingly more human.
"Keep your guard up." Shepard cautioned.
Then almost deliberately the spikes lowered and the figures, which had appeared dead, rose up off of them and ran towards the squad.
"Oh God, they're still alive!" Kaidan exclaimed in horror.
There were four in total. When the closest one reached them Derek let off a powerful bioticly charged punch straight into its face, giving off a distinct crunching sound as it made impact; it fell and did not get back up. Kaidan was able to lift the remaining three with his own biotics, allowing the two female soldiers to cut through the suspended figures with their assault rifles.
They decided to investigate the research camp, which turned out to be empty, bar the grazes on the wall from gunfire and few streaks of blood they found smeared against the walls inside the buildings. They didn't need to question what had happened to the bodies.
Ashley suggested that they move over to the spaceport, as the beacon might have been moved their instead.
A second before they turned the corner they heard the loud crack of a gunshot, ring through the air. The four soldiers prepared themselves for combat.
They turned the corner and were at the top of a hill overlooking the large spaceport. It was at that moment an indescribable fear passed through the minds of all of them - the type of fear one gets when they realise they are alone and they are incapable of crying out for help, because they know help won't be the thing that answers – such was there fear, when they saw a ship that was as black as night and more terrifying than any demon from any depth of hell imaginable ascend slowly from the ground into the blood red sky. It cracked out bright red flashes of what looked like electricity and emitted a mechanical roar, which the four soldiers felt more than heard, tear through their skulls into their minds. Each clenched their heads and covered their ears in agony. Eventually it vanished into the blackened clouds above.
"What the hell was that!?" Derek said in a voice comprised of total fear.
"I don't think I want to know." Ashley replied in a weak voice.
"Come on!" Shepard said, apparently less affected by it than the others.
They ran down the hill and met heavy resistance upon arriving at the spaceport, encountering more of the Geth soldiers and human-synthetic hybrids. Nevertheless the team were clearly adapting to their unfamiliar enemy as they bested them, with only a few scrapes and burns between them.
They moved along the spaceport and came to the fresh corpse of a Turian, Nihlus. There was a pool of blue blood pouring from the back of his head, where he had clearly been shot.
"A Turian? You know him?" Ashley asked her new squad mates.
"He's a Spectre he was with us on the Norm-." Kaidan was interrupted by the banging of crates.
The four soldiers lifted their firearms and aimed them at the direction the noise was coming from.
"Wait, don't shoot!" a frantic Dock-worker appeared from behind the crates.
"What are you doing sneaking around back there?" Shepard said sternly, clearly annoyed by the discovery of Nihlus' corpse.
"I'm sorry. I was hiding from those creatures." The dockworker began to stutter. "My name is Powell. I saw what happened to that Turian, the other one shot him."
This caused Shepard to exchange a confused glance with Kaidan and Derek. "Other one? What are you talking about?" Sounding even more irritated now.
"The other one was waiting here before your friend showed up. They seemed to know each other. I think your friend called him Saren. He let his guard down … and Saren killed him. Shot him right in the back." He trailed off for a split second, the previous scene still haunting him. "I'm just lucky he didn't see me behind the crates." He finished.
"We were told a Prothean beacon was brought to the spaceport. Did you see what happened to it?" Shepard asked, more calmly now.
"It's over by the other platform." Powell pointed to the far side of the spaceport where there was a tram station. "Probably where that guy Saren was headed. He hopped on the cargo train right before he killed your friend." He began to drift of again before continuing "I knew that beacon was trouble. Everything's gone to hell since we found it. They killed everyone. Everyone!" He sounded absolutely tormented. "Please, if you think you can stop this then do. This can't happen to another colony." He pleaded with the four soldiers in front of him.
"We'll do what we can." Shepard said gently. She then turned to speak to Derek, Ashley and Kaidan "We need to find that beacon before it's too late."
With that they hurried over to the train where they encountered even more resistance from a couple of even larger Geth units. This didn't stop them, as they managed to secure one of cargo trains and stay on Saren's tail.
During the train ride Ashley slumped to the ground at the corner of the cart, she rested her elbows on her knees and bowed her head staring at the floor through the space between her legs.
Derek saw this and took a seat next to her.
"You okay there Chief?" he said quietly.
"Yeah thanks." Ashley sighed.
"Really? I can't imagine I'd be if I were in your shoes."
She didn't say anything immediately "I just can't believe their all gone." She said in a quiet, breaking voice.
Derek sighed. He wasn't too sure what to say to that but gave it his best shot anyway "This isn't your fault, Williams." He said, "Just be thankful you're still standing, they didn't get all of you."
To Derek's surprise she looked up at him and gave a small smile. He could just make out that her brown eyes were slightly red and moist through the visor of her helmet but no tears had fallen.
"Thanks." She said with genuine gratitude.
Derek smiled back "No problem." He gave her closest shoulder a supportive pat and stood back up as the train pulled into its station.
The crew filled the next few minutes by running around the dock like mad-men. Saren had his Geth plant five bombs all over the station's platform. The four of them moved methodically from one bomb to another. Ashley, Derek and Shepard gave Kaidan covering fire as he diffused each of the bombs expertly.
Once the dock was clear of hostile targets they walked over to the beacon.
It appeared as a towering, silver-grey monolith emitting a green light from its centre.
"Normandy this is Shepard. The beacon is secured." Shepard said over her comms unit.
Ashley, Derek and Kaidan all stood mesmerised by the object.
"This is amazing, actually working Prothean technology. Unbelievable!" Kaidan exclaimed.
"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up." Ashley said in wonder.
"Something must have activated it." Kaidan said taking several more steps towards it.
"Hold up Kaidan." Derek said, cautioning him.
Kaidan didn't hear Derek, continuing towards it totally entranced. Then all of a sudden the beacon flashed and began dragging him in and lifting him off the ground. He started to struggle in an attempt to try and get out of its pull but it wasn't working.
Shepard saw what was happening and stormed passed Ashley and Derek, grabbing Kaidan and throwing him behind her ultimately tearing him out of the beacon's field. Then the beacon began to lift her off the ground instead.
"Shepard!" Derek yelled moving towards her before he felt Ashley grab his arm and pull him back.
"No don't touch her it's too dangerous!" she said.
Shepard began to spasm in the air for several seconds as the beacon began flashing, more rapidly and then fell to the ground, hitting it hard.
"Shit." Kaidan said.
Then a second later the beacon gave a loud bang and crumbled to the floor in pieces.
The three of them stood by Shepard's unconscious body waiting for the Normandy to pick them up.