Shepard had never been to Eden Prime but she'd seen pictures and vids of it. This was nothing like she had expected. This was no paradise; the sky was a sickly red color, the color mirroring that of clotted blood, the sun blotted out by clouds. The diffused light cast no shadows, making the world around her seem as flat as a painting, as patchy as a poorly rendered digital game. The whole world was surreal, coiling the bundle of nerves and energy in her stomach tighter and tighter.
As her squad moved from the drop point towards where they were to meet Nihlus and the beacon, they came across some bodies that had been charred to less than skeletons. She hadn't been expecting a welcoming committee after watching the com, but she still hadn't been prepared for the utter destruction of that lay before her, nothing could have prepared her for this. She didn't see anything that resembled the mammoth ship that had descended out of the sky. As they rounded a bend in the path, Jenkins taking point. As if from the void itself, drones popped out and he was taken down in a flurry of bullets.
She'd just gotten to know this young corporal, and in a matter of seconds at her command he was gone. Yet another life to lay at her feet. But she couldn't think about that right now, right now they were being shot at by the same drones. She and Alenko took cover among the boulders that were strewn about the path to take down the drones. She noted where Jenkins's body lay but they had to move on. She pushed down her grief and would potentially deal with it later.
As they crested the rise a soldier darted out, shooting the direction she had run from. What followed behind her was almost unbelievable. Geth, or at least what Shepard was pretty certain were geth, were shooting after the soldier. Other geth were impaling people on spikes across the way. But what came off the spikes weren't, they were burned out husks. But still, Shephard moved with all haste towards them.
Finding a boulder to crouch behind, Shepard sighted down her rifle towards the geth. Alenko and the soldier seemed to be capable of handling the husks but the geth had huddled behind kinetic shields. She took a slow breath in and lined up the crosshairs on a geth, with one slow, steady exhale, her finger squeezed the trigger. The geth disengaging where it fell. Without a thought, she found the next and dispatched it just as quickly. And before she knew it, the fire-fight was done. Shepard extended a hand to the soldier that had run out, introducing herself and Alenko. [same sentence just changed the order]
Shepard grew to like the woman almost immediately. She was resourceful and quick witted, with a certain fire in her lungs. Qualities that left Shepard glad that Williams wanted to come along with them. They made their way down to the spaceport that Nihlus had com'd them about.
As they came to the top of the hill Shepard finally saw what she'd seen in the com. A giant squid-like ship was lifting off the surface, leaving nothing but a suffocating silence in its wake, a silence threatened to overwhelm them until a single, solitary gunshot rang through. Unable to see where the shot came from, Shepard led them onward to the burning port.
It was there they found Nihlus's body surrounded by a thick, viscous pool of blue blood. In the shock of the moment, Shepard almost shot the dock worker that had been hiding behind some boxes. It was from this lazy, no-good worker that they found out what had happened. According to him, another turian had spoken with Nihlus before shooting him point blank in the back.
None of this made any sense to Shepard. Where did this other turian come from? Who was he? Why would he assassinate Nihlus? These questions would have to be dealt with later. They had to keep pressing on.
More geth stood between them and where the beacon was being held. A different, larger geth had joined the fight. Shepard crouched behind another crate, prepared to sight down her rifle when this geth charged her. She only had enough time to drop her rifle, part of her brain hoping she didn't damage the sight, and pull out her pistol. This geth was easily twice her petite height, a colossal structure by far in comparison. She didn't have time to aim with her pistol, panic eating away her control and discipline as she pulled the trigger over and over until burned red in her hands and she was certain that her shields couldn't withstand another hit. She was thankful that Williams and Alenko were there. Alenko's impressive biotics pulled it away from her and Williams finished it off with her assault rifle.
"Thanks for that." She stooped down and checked her rifle. Barring a small scuff that would buff out easily enough on the stock, it was undamaged, The same going for her squad as they took the tram off towards the port.
Bombs. Why would they leave bombs and geth behind? Were they willing to sacrifice geth to stop them? She carefully disarmed the bombs as Alenko and Williams covered her back and took out the remaining geth. A breath she hadn't realized that she was holding flew from her lips as the last bomb stopped counting down.
Finally, they found the beacon. It was such a small thing to have such great importance. As she was calling the Normandy to come pick it up, Alenko was suddenly pulled towards the beacon, as if he were caught in a tractor beam. She pulled him away but in her haste to get him out, she was captured by it. Visions full of death and blood and violent suffering filled her mind before she blacked out.
Visions of synthetics killing organics, some species she didn't recognize. Maybe it was Protheans. She just knew that whatever she was seeing wasn't good, if the lingering sense of impending doom was anything to go by. The sense that the same was coming for them. When she finally broke through the haze, tears threatened in the corners of her eyes. She was in the med bay, the smell of antiseptic a faint burn in the back of her throat. She could hear voices murmuring in the background, loud but garbled. She began to sit up, to face the dressing down she was certain to get from Anderson and whomever stood with him behind the medbay doors.