A/N: Right, this chapter is going to lead-up to, and give the opening part of, the Eden Prime mission (which is going to be altered, with different events and few extra things as I'm setting up a few things for later). Due to having to set extra things up here it might take longer to get through than expected, since I do have a few extra characters in the mix.

All relevant things owned by their respective companies!

Chapter 2

The Normandy was a beautiful ship, Mia thought to herself as she walked around the walkways by the vessel, very smooth lines and an almost predatory shape to it. She smiled to herself, hearing the conversations of the marines and crew below her.

The hybrid had been told to stay out the way for the initial loading sequence – mostly ship-to-ship or ship-to-surface missiles and the like – as other than the crew and a few others none were meant to know of her still. At least for now anyway, she knew that plans had been put in motion for her reveal to the wider galaxy.

Which could cause isssues…

Issues that she would deal with later, right now though, she was waiting for leave to board the Normandy for the first time – and to try and find a way of not ending up alone with Major Henning. The human had taken quite a dislike of her (of which had become very mutual, very quickly), declaring her to be "inhuman scum who had no place in any society".

Fucking retarded… she stopped her chain of thought quickly, he was an asshole yes, but he was her commanding officer for this mission. Mia was a good marine (she hoped), so would suck up his racist comments.

His asinine outbursts, which had made the Asari that would be travelling with them, a Spectre named T'Sai, roll her eyes and mutter things under her breath too low for her to hear, he'd apparently earned some of her ire already. Not that many people seemed surprised by this, in the two days leading up to the departure later today, several people had made mention of his record of disliking aliens. Some had even apparently made some complaints about him, to what end she didn't know and guess there was a chance of it being simply ship talk.

And the fact that he was drinking heavily every time he was off duty, and possibly when on duty, hadn't gone unnoticed either. The hybrid expected them do something soon, because his behaviour would hardly gain them any favour from the Council if the Spectre reported it.

So just an asshole then, or ass-hat, as Joker had called him (well out of earshot of the major, it must be said).

As for Joker, well, she liked him. She'd been – and failing – to understand the rapport she had built up with him.

Their first meeting should have gone badly. Very badly.

He had greeted her by making a joke about her hair. Karin had expected her to fume, at the very least walk away without saying anything.

She couldn't recall exactly what he said, she was too shocked at first really, and she should have been insulted when she thought about it. However she found it surprisingly… amusing. No one had dared – whether because of fear or not wanting to offend – to greet her like that.

Mia had burst out laughing; shocking everyone – her included.

Joker had, in fact, limped into her quarters after their shifts were over and they sat and simply talked. She was learning a lot about the variety of human humour from him and, in turn, Joker was learning how different – yet similar – she was to him. Though she had yet to pass judgement on him completely, they had only known each other for just over 48 hours after all.

Though his realisation that she'd been in the shuttle and allowed him to go to the toilet… well, that had been highly amusing for Karin to hear the story of. Even if she didn't quite see why it was so funny herself, must be a human thing…

She would even consider some of them to be friends in the future, if they allowed it.

Some of them anyway; some… not so much… Jenkins was too fawning over her. He was young – about her age she guessed – but seemed to have no control over his emotions. It was like he saw himself as her protector; even if she could break him in two without breaking a sweat. A few of the crew didn't seem to like her but she was unsure as to why.

The navigator Pressly though, openly despised her.

She couldn't figure out why. Unable to work up the nerve to ask Pressly himself, fearing the response might include her zerg heritage, she had asked Anderson about it. It wasn't a surprise to her to find out why Pressly didn't like her. His reasons were simple and understandable; it was partly due to the First Contact War and partly due his father being killed by a roving band of zerg. Being mostly zerg herself, she couldn't really blame him. Mia would have to work hard to gain his trust.

They would be leaving within a few hours, all that was left for her to do now was move her gear into the Normandy and find out her bunk rotation.

Thinking about it, many of the first meetings could've gone very badly, Anderson thought to himself as he watched the Normandy preparations near completion, and thankfully Mia seemed to have figured out that openness was the way to go. She'd not gotten along with some of the crew but, all things considered, she was doing better than he expected; it was probably the time the hybrid spent away on missions in tight-knit groups.

That would've given her valuable time to learn and pick up social cues.

Though this mission also grated with him, he was in charge of The Normandy itself (even though Major Henning outranked him) as he was to take charge of the vessel itself when this mission was over. When the current mission was over, the aforementioned Henning would be assigned to the asari Spectre T'Sai for his assessment, and the potential bonus that came if he was approved.

Not that this had stopped the hung-over Major interfering with his command, seemingly just because of the rank difference.

Perhaps not oddly though, T'Sai had voiced some disapproval with the major and his outspoken xenophobic comments. David had to admit to the asari that he didn't know much about Josef, only that one of his biggest sponsors was in fact his father; which had made T'Sai sigh deeply and comment that while he might be a good soldier, his lack of real combat was a telling sign that a parent might be promoting without merit.

Anderson had been caught unawares by this, which didn't go unnoticed, so his reply was simple and truthful – if he wasn't ready, he wasn't ready; he hadn't been involved in the candidate decision process beyond being asked to submit a few ideas.

To which the asari had nodded, thanked him for his honesty and then, to his surprise, asked about Mia and her suitability for the candidacy. To which he replied that, while he thought she was an amazing fighter – soldier – she was not entirely trusted by those who knew about her. Even if the possibility was there that they might've considered her, the brass wanted a human and not a hybrid in the Spectres – so she was out of the question from the start.

T'Sai had nodded in her calm way, and just supplied that this was a pity, leaving him to his own devices afterwards with nary a word.

That Spectre was truly an odd one that was certain.

Therum was a very dusty, surprisingly volcanic (which was quite frankly terrifying), very dull brown and grey world, Liara had decided; and if not for the Prothean ruins contained within solidified lava she would never have even thought to come here. Not only was it a world away from the luxury she was used to as a Matriarch's daughter, but with the volcano being active – though dormant currently – making this dig thoroughly a worrying prospect.

No wonder other, older, asari had passed on this expedition!

Still, she was going to make the most of it and, due to the nature of the site, she did have an extremely well qualified team behind her. Their efforts helped out by the human mining team that had been (begrudgingly) assigned to them to help clear out the rock – no one wanted to disturb the sleeping giant, so the going was going to be slow.

Thankfully, the ruins were discovered in an existing mine, so a quarter of the work had already been done.

Liara had also made a point to stay away from some of the human miners, they, both male and female, looked at her with either suspicion, lust or envy; or a mixture of all three. For her part the young asari didn't really know what to make of them, they looked at times so asari that it was unnerving. Yet all other times they looked, and sounded, so alien that it was actually a comfort to her when they'd left for the day – thankfully none of them slept onsite with her team, she didn't know how'd that'll go with several turians…

A dull boom caught her attention, fearing for a moment that the volcano had awoken with them partially inside the beast, she almost made to flee; only to hear voices of some of her team arguing about driving.

It seemed she had her first not archaeological problem to deal with…

Kaiden was checking the food stocks when it happened. The Major staggered into the mess hall, clearly out of it – the smell of drink reached out and slapped him from across the room.

His drunken shouting, which was unintelligible, echoed around the small ship.

Captain Anderson was in the Med-bay talking to Dr Chakwas about something, looked up through the window and scowled visibly.

The Major bumped into a chair, swore loudly and kicked it across the room with a loud crash; making the asari Spectre look up from her meal, also scowling her annoyance.

Deciding he had to do something, anything, to stop this from getting out of hand quickly, Alenko moved to meet Henning. "Major, you look a bit worse for the wear let me help you sit…" He touched the man on the shoulder gently, hoping to steer the man to seat.

Only to get a drunken punch to the face for his trouble.

The biotic staggered back, more out surprise than pain, since the sluggish blow hadn't had too much force behind it – the second blow was even more unexpected and harder; forcing him to back into a table.

"Major!" He heard the asari shout a warning as the fist moved to meet his face again.

Only to stop mere inches from his nose.

Kaiden expected the asari to be glowing with biotics, but she was still standing by her chair, looking the other way he saw Mia standing there and she was glowing. Her odd energy was holding the Major in place in a seeming parody of biotics.

Her voice had an inhuman tinge to it, "You may wish to move Lieutenant, just in case."

Not needing to be told twice he slipped around the table out of arms reach, as Mia moved forward, the wisps of energy swirling around her outstretched claws almost hypnotic; when she reached the man she took his arms and put him in an arm lock.

"Something to hold him would be good right now," She spoke not looking at him as the energy flickered out, the Major started to struggle futilely in Mia's clearly very strong grip and position.

Thankfully Dr Chakwas arrived and jabbed a needle into Josef's neck, "This should calm him down." And true to her word a few moments later the man slumped forward, snoring of all things.

"Put on the secure bed, I'll deal with him later." It was Captain Anderson, his voice thick with anger and annoyance; the hybrid lifted Henning over her shoulder with ease and followed the doctor into the Med-bay. "Are you okay Kaiden?"

He nodded, "Yes Sir, just bruised."

"Get checked out anyway. This shit-storm needs to be sorted out quickly." Anderson looked towards L'Sai, "I'm sorry you had to witness that."

"It's not really a surprise, given his attitude, but it that it got this far was," the asari shook her head, "How'd he get so drunk? I know about the moonshine set-up in engineering but…" She trailed off as Anderson shrugged.

"Not sure but I plan on finding out," He turned to go but not before adding, "And I'm going to find out who appointed him as the candidate and have some… strong words."

While Alenko didn't know what was meant by candidate, it clear that Anderson was the most furious he'd seen him ever – not that he really had much experience of the man.

Though it was clear the Major Henning had screwed up massively, perhaps even his entire career.

Whilst The Normandy might not have a gym, Mia mused as she jogged on the rolling floor installed for workouts, it did have nice loop from the cargo bay to engineering… if she could convince them to open up this route for her… maybe a question for another day.

Some of the questions she'd been asked had been quite, well, amusing – like "do you feet get cold on the floors?" Whereas others were… not…

It also seemed that Major Henning had gotten a hold of her service record – Anderson didn't know how, so most likely daddy – and had proceed to try to tear her actions apart. It had made her angry, not enough to rip the man apart, but it seemed that the flare of her eyes and subtle growls told him he'd hit a nerve. It took a fair bit of effort to sink her claws into his neck.

Oh how she wanted to! Even if he was strapped to a medical bed, the Normandy being so small she didn't have a real brig to put him in.

That bastard human had seemed disappointed that she hadn't lashed out, it was like he was baiting her, had made her even more angry leaving the Med-bay as quick as could. And Mia had overheard him vocalising his distrust of their Spectre guest to several people who got into earshot, before repeatedly demanding to be let out of the restraints with claims of "Don't you know who I am?" Until that is, Karin knocked him out again.

At least his drunkenness had caught up with him.

Somehow he'd snuck an entire crate of 12 whiskies on board, and 2 of the bottles had been drunk already – no wonder he'd been in such a state!

A beeping brought her out of her chain of thought; her time was up on the running machine. Slowing down quickly, after she stepped off she did a quick check to make sure her claws hadn't caused any damage; thankfully the machine had survived her. Flicking a command on her omni the rolling floor slid back under the floor of the cargo bay, a lid sliding back to cover it.

Stepping away, she scooped up her gym bag (which actually only contained her causal uniform) with the intention of putting on a larger top once she'd cooled down – via the heating vents on her shoulder blades.

Mia stopped short after noticing that a small group of the crew had stopped to watch, some openly, others trying to be discreet about it. It was then she realised that while they had all met her, they hadn't seen anything beyond her hair-tendrils, clawed hands and feet, plus her eyes.

Now her arms, part of her stomach and back, plus parts of her legs were on show – with the patches Zerg-style carapace armour that she'd been growing the past few years, very clearly on display. How should she react? Angry or amused, as she didn't really mind what they thought. Not anymore. Should she go with stupid or annoyed?

Fuck it.

"Everyone getting a nice look?" She did a twirl, complete with stupid grin, to the watchers. Some spluttered at being caught, turning away quickly and trying to pretend they were working, others just kept looking – only one person actually replied.

"What are those things on your back?" It was the chief engineer Lieutenant Adams, calling from behind her.

Turning to face him the grin turned to a simple smile. "They're heating vents." Seeing the look of confusion she explained. "I don't actually sweat like humans do; I cool down by venting excess heat from them."

The man nodded, most people had returned to work but some seemed interested and kept listening. "Right, that makes sense." There must've been something within her expression as he added, "I guess you've been asked that quite a few times?"

Chuckling she nodded, "Yep, lost count in fact."

"Ha! Well, I guess the other question that almost everyone here wants to ask is: what hell is the deal with the hair?"

Her laugh exploded from her before she could clamp down on it, making the engineer smile as she grinned. "One of the other so-called big questions I get asked!"

Waving her over, Adams replied quite cheerfully. "Well, as it happens some of us do have questions..."

The journey from Arcturus station to Eden Prime should've taken less than a day, a couple of hours at most in fact since both systems were linked via mass relay, but do to final checks on the stealth systems it took them over 4 hours.

Anderson really wanted this shakedown to go smoothly and not just because of his bad impression of most Spectres – Nihlus might be the only one he actually liked. Not that he really much experience with them as a whole, but he couldn't help it if he was honest. He simply wanted to resume his career and not play nursemaid to the brasses latest attempt at getting someone into the Spectres.

Not that, that would happen anytime soon thanks to Major Henning's idiotic behaviour.

At least they only had about 20 minutes travel time left, after it should smooth sailing.

He hoped.

Even though this was his ship he still waited a few minutes longer than needed to enter the comm. room, Mia was sitting on a nearby chair looking a bit lost.

"You seriously think I'd make a good Spectre?" She was saying to the Asari.

"Your people might not, but I and some of my fellow Spectres see the potential in you. And after all, you have said that you want to try and build a life; this would enable you to do so." He and Mia would understand the hidden meaning behind this – as a Spectre no one could touch her.

"What about you?" Mia looked at him approaching, her hearing on ships was astonishing at times, and the small corridors seemed to amplify her hearing.

The asari nodded at Anderson as he approached speaking to Mia again, "I'm a neutral party in all this, I know next to nothing about you beyond your records and what Nihlus told me. I was selected meant to observe you, but I'm taking, what is the human phrase – going on a gut feeling?" Mia nodded, "I plan on taking you on a series of missions to give my assessment due to this neutrality." She gestured at the holo-screen showing images of the dig site on Eden Prime. "What do you know about the world we're going to?"

"Umm, not a lot to be honest, I know it's one of the Alliances oldest and most well established colonies." Mia shrugged before standing.

"Some humans do call it a paradise, want to do you think?" To Anderson it was clear that this was also a test, she was gauging the hybrid for something; exactly what he didn't know.

Before anyone could speak, Joker interrupted them. "Captain, we've intercepted a message from Eden Prime! You'll want to see this!"

Knowing he didn't need to do anything for the pilot to hear him, he just replied, "On screen Joker!"

Within moments of the video starting, Captain David Anderson suddenly felt like his state of the art warship might not be up to snuff.

Word spread quickly throughout the small ship of an attack on there destination, it threw the whole crew into confusion for a long moment, Alenko included.

Then a calm voice called out over the hubbub of noise in the cargo bay as the marines armed and armoured up, it was the hybrid, "Listen up!" All eyes turned to her, and he gulped; looked like figure from either dreams or nightmares.

Her obviously custom armour covers her torso, waist and legs down to just above her ankles leaving her clawed, and armoured, feet bare, it also cover her upper arms and has small forearm pieces, leaving a natural spike free at her elbows and her claws hands also uncovered. The blue, silver and red custom N7 paint job bore scratches from previous fighting – she looked quite terrifying; her eyes glowing brightly, some goggles wrapped around her right wrist.

"Here are the facts; Eden Prime is under attack…" Jenkins swore loudly, "… by an unknown force, we're close enough to assist but we don't the firepower, nor manpower, to fight a drawn out engagement." She hefted a massive sniper rifle off the armoury bench, clamping it to her back. "Joker's sent a distress call but help will take hours to get here…" This cause murmurs of anger. "…so we're going to step in and help, the stealth capabilities of this vessel mean we can drop in under their noses. Our extra manpower should be enough to hold until the 5th fleet arrives." A pause as her clawed hand flexed, "Any questions?"

The silence hung for long moment until he had to ask, "Are you in charge Ma'am?"

Her eyes turned to him and she nodded, "For now yes, we've not had time to organise after the Major's… incident. I'll be leading squad one; Chief Jones, you've got squad two." She looked around, making sure all eyes were on her, "I'll lead our heavy hitters to where the fighting is thickest; Jones you get as many civilians out of harms way as possible. L'Sai will be on her own, she's the best scout we have and can kick the ass of anything short of frigate…"

"Thank you Commander." The mentioned asari stepped out of the elevator with the Captain; the hybrid nodded and seemed relived to relinquish the stage; though Anderson spoke next.

"Chief, take everyone but Alenko, Jenkins, and Harding. I have feeling the civilians will need all the help they can get." Alenko saw the Commander flinch slightly, even though he didn't know why.

"We're approaching drop-point one!" Came the monotone voice of the ships VI, at the same time the boarding ramp started to lower.

"I'll report when I've touched down." The asari flared with biotics as she leapt from the cargo bay – much to everyone's amazement.

The Captain turned to the Commander, "The squads are yours now Commander, good luck."

The hybrid nodded once turning to them, "Ready marines?"

It was comforting to shout back, even as gunfire could be heard through the open ramp.

It was strangely quiet as they moved from their drop-point, Mia watched the area carefully, being unsure as to who – or what – was actually doing the attacking, she had to be very careful. There were signs of fighting here and there, some ruined bodies, burnt beyond recognition littered the path. The trees swayed in the breeze, some strange animals Jenkins had called Gasbags floated nearby, but other than the fairly distant sounds of gunfire it was still.

Unnervingly so, she couldn't hear anything that struck her as ambush material but something was bothering her, something she couldn't place her claw on.

It didn't help that Jenkins was being frustrating already, eager to rush in and defend his home; this could get him killed she thought.

They reached a rise and could see across a large part of the main colony. The rolling green, and slightly purple, hills looking inviting, giving the edges of the colony homely farmsteads feel; with the more built up inner rings being a combination of pre-fabricated buildings, with a few larger well-constructed buildings right in the centre. The colony itself didn't look good, thick smog hung in the air obscuring their view of large areas. Of the areas she could see it was clear that the bulk of the fighting had died down, a few areas still featured the flashes of small arms fire but the battle damaged buildings seemed concentrated near to the space port.

For some reason the smog seemed very odd, especially since Jenkins had mentioned that they were being extremely careful with development and pollution.

The reason became clear when the human spoke, "My god, they've flattened half the colony!"

It wasn't smog – it was dust.

Dust from buildings being destroyed.

They had to move now if they had any chance of saving this place.

Signalling for Corporal Harding to provide over watch with his heavy rifle, see brought up her customised pistol, pulling down her combat goggles to cover the glow of her eyes – which she thought made her look stupid, but it was better than being targeted because of the glow – and moving forward she signalled for Alenko to move out to the right of the small valley they had to cut through.

Unfortunately Jenkins took this as a signal to advance right into the middle of the valley, "Jenkins get…"

It was too late.

Three drones swept up from behind boulders, guns firing the instant they cleared them.

Jenkins had nowhere to go, and no time to react; his scream of pain made her snarl and charge forward, pistol firing rapidly as she generated a shield around herself. Her shots weren't entirely accurate but then they weren't intended to be – she just wanted the attention of the drones away from the Corporal.

It worked, as they turned their weapons to her; giving Harding ample time to line up a burst of heavy fire, shredding the nearest drone. Unsurprisingly the others didn't react they just kept firing at her shield, which flickered but she found the shots weren't that powerful. Alenko flared with his biotics and pushed one of the drones backwards, the tight valley meant when it tried to correct it slammed in the same boulder it had been behind. It went down and flopped on the floor – it's thrusters, or whatever, damaged.

The last one didn't stay up for long either; she sent her shield forward and grabbed it out of the air, slamming it into a tree and the floor several times. It whined but then shorted and its weapon fired into the bent barrel; making it explode due to the backfire from the barrel.

The sudden silence is disturbing, broken as it is by Jenkins' moans of pain and random whirs from the disabled drone, "Help Jenkins!" She almost screams as moves forward her energy flaring again as she spots three more silver disks approaching, "I'll deal with the drones!"

Trusting in the others to follow her orders, she gave an inhuman shriek as she swept forward charging her shield again and holstering her gun – she wanted both her hands free for this.

When she was certain that the drones were targeting her – the feel of their bullets on her shield confirmed this – she hurled a ball of energy at the advancing drones, the impact of which warped the target, buckling its armour in onto itself before she denoted the energy; this blast was big enough to knock one of the drones off course and crash into a rock in a small explosion.

The final drone was, as with the previous last drone, grabbed out of the air and brought heavily in nearby objects multiple times; it sparked and was no more.

Her anger went with it as she spun seeing a dark look on Alenko's face she ventured, "Jenkins?"

The human shook his head, "He hadn't charged his shields, and they failed right away." She couldn't help the expletive that came from her. "What's the plan?" Alenko seemed almost like he was going to falter.

"Mark him for pickup, we'll give him the proper respect after we save his home."

Harding nodded, and Alenko sighed, "Yes Ma'am."

"We'll come back from him Lieutenant."

As they moved of she stamped down hard on the disabled drone multiple times, crushing it beneath her foot, and making both humans wince at her strength.

She didn't like leaving Jenkins like that, during her training they'd ingrained in her not to leave a man behind, but they colony had thousands of people in it – they might still be able to save them.

The three of them descended into yet another small valley, though this time they could get a good look…

A white shape entered the valley at a run, several drones close of his or hers heels, wordlessly she signalled to the others and reached for her sniper rifle – its weight strangely comforting in her hands.

"Ashley Williams get of your ass and run!" She muttered to herself as she stumbled, sliding on the damp ground as her armoured boots failed to gain traction, scrambling on her hands and knees she ignored her dropped rifle – just wanting cover, somewhere to hide.

The whine of a drone made her look back and up – one was right there!

She closed her eyes, hoping the end was qui…

Phwip-boom!

Silence reigned, followed by another whipping noise and dull boom.

Opening her eyes she saw the final drone wasn't firing at her, it was moving past her; only to explode as a high calibre round tore it in two.

Help was here!

Unfortunately she then saw a sight that would stay with her for years.

A worker from the dig-site was being pushed on a strange platform by two of the odd looking robots that'd attacked her and her squad. Suddenly a massive spike extended out, ripping through muscle and bone with a sickening squelch, a spray of blood following and coating the surrounding ground.

"Oh god…" Williams could not help the words – which made the figures look right at her with those… those flashlights.

Grabbing for her side-arm she rolled in the mud, colliding with a large rock and somehow ending up behind it; just as the nearest robot opened fire, its gunfire sending mud from where she just was into the air.

From experience she knew that these things had shields capable of absorbing quite a bit of punishment – she hoped that sniper could help her again, her pistol wasn't up to it.

She fired blindly anyway, pulling back as the return fire tore chunks out of the rock. Ashley could see two figures scrambling down from the hill, hoping that they could…

Phwip-clang!

She looked around and saw that the entire head, flashlight, thing… whatever part of one of the things was gone – that sniper was using a really powerful weapon!

It also appeared that the lost of its comrade had confused the other robot, for a moment (really only a second at most) it lowered its weapon partly before raising it – she was exposed!

Before she could duck back into cover, a withering hail of fire – plus a hideous sniper round – quite literally tore it to pieces.

She was safe.

Ashley leaned on the rock, trying to regain her breath as the figures approached; their Alliance insignia clearly visible – and one was a Lieutenant.

Automatically she straightened and saluted, "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams Sir, are you in charge here?"

The man smiled behind his clear face plate, "Lieutenant Alenko. At ease Chief, and no…" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, "…she is."

Ashley looked by the two men to the figure she believed was the sniper, if the rifle size was anything to go by, heading towards…

"Holy shit," It took all her effort not to reach for her sidearm, even though the armour had Alliance stripes, plus N7 stripes as well – the thing approaching wasn't human! It had long tentacles for hair and fucking claws for hands!

It also seemed her reaction hadn't gone unnoticed, "Easy there, I'm Commander Shepard," The figure did have an odd lilt to her voice; at least she thought it was a her, "I'm not here to hurt you, in fact, I'm here to rescue you."

Strangely the she couldn't take her eyes of the goggles the figure wore, "Well… okay…"

The alien grinned, perhaps used to her reaction, "Relax Chief, just tell us what happened here."

Something to focus on, right, "We were on a regular patrol when the attack hit, didn't hear anything at first… until the archology tower was blasted in half." Williams had to pause to collect her thoughts, "The humanoid synthetics hit soon after, caught us in crossfire when we tried to get back to the tram-station. Oh man, we didn't see them coming – even with those flashlight heads – they hit us hard, I think I might be the only one left."

A nod from the alien, "It's not your fault Chief, no one foresaw an attack of this scale or quickness; don't blame yourself."

"Y-yes Ma'am," She wasn't sure she believed it but the thing sounded like it was being honest. "Do you think they came for the beacon that squints dug up?"

Even with the goggles confusion was clear, "Squints?"

"Sorry, the scientists, they dug something they called a beacon up when they expanded the tramline."

"It's likely. We came to pick it up ourselves," This time it was the named man that spoke, "Do you know where they took it?"

The alien said nothing so she answered, "The workers took it to the tram-station this morning, and I guess it might still be there."

The alien Commander spoke, "Right, we'll head that way and stop these bastards from getting to any more civilians."

Ashley didn't know what to make of the alien yet, but she agreed with her words, "Yes Ma'am!"

Ashley knew that she was coming across as a bit of an ass, what with her curt (but respectful) replies to the strange alien but she just wanted this day to end. Or better yet, not have happened at all.

Commander Shepard had taken the lead, that huge rifle sweeping before her as she'd pushed the scope to one side a red-dot sight hologram had popped up – neat. It was large, and she knew it was custom but didn't know who'd made it; she'd try to work up the courage to ask if survived this.

The path opened out into the camp she'd being staying at on and off the past few weeks, it was in ruins with evidence of the fighting all around, small arms fire damage and heavy weapons damage was clear on a shattered prefab.

It wasn't this that caught Shepard's attention though; it was the three spikes with bodies on it, "Why would synthetics do this?" There wasn't horror in her voice but simply confusion.

"No idea Commander," It was the Lieutenant, "We might be able to find…"

A loud scraping noise interrupted him – the spikes were retracting!

Close to the ground the twisted remains of the unfortunate people started to move, "My god! They're still alive!"

The dry roar the things put out when the pulled themselves free in a shower of sparks and tattered clothing, told a different story.

"Take them down!" Commander Shepard punctuated this call with a sharp retort of her rifle – it blew one of the figures back several feet.

The others didn't stop.

She swore under her breath as she opened fire with her rifle, hoping that none of the mud had gotten into its workings and wishing she'd had the presence of mind to clean it.

Thankfully it fired, putting a burst of rounds into the chest of one of advancing… husks; which staggered but kept coming. Blasted off its feet by the Lieutenants biotics, as the last one was rippled by fire from the last marine – Harding was his name, he'd introduced himself as they'd moved off.

His heavy assault rifle acted like a SAW – squad automatic weapon – cutting it in two.

Sudden heavy hands grabbed her from behind, a dry roar echoed through her helmet as realised that they'd been snuck up on.

Her rescue was swift however, the Commander dropped her rifle and pulled the husk off her; pushing it away. It was then she was glad of the vicious claws the woman had – did she count herself as one? – lashed out.

Those said claws tore chunks from her foe with a right slash, left, right, followed by a powerful kick the sent the husk away to bend backwards over a smashed barricade – literally bent over.

Shepard looked at her, "You okay?"

Ashley had to tear her eyes away from the woman's – clawed! – feet, "Yes Ma'am."

A slight tilt of the head that might've been amusement, "Good, already lost one man, I don't want to lose another." She seemed a little cold but the tone was honest.

"Yes Ma'am."

The scientists hiding in one of the prefab buildings were not much help, beyond telling them that the beacon had been transported to the space port this morning, in preparation for their arrival. Mia frowned as they relocked the door from the inside, the woman's reaction wasn't the best at first – she thought that the hybrid was there to kill them. It took a few words – and Ashley appearing – to calm her down.

As for the man, well, simply put he was a bit of madman. Unstable didn't seem to cover it. The only interesting tid-bit of information was the information a Turian had been spotted before the attack; this was likely the Spectre that she'd been told was here with the beacon but she couldn't be certain.

It was so strange for her though, she could feel something wrong in the air – though after mentioning this to the others, they didn't know what she was talking about. Mia had put it down to her Zerg DNA but it also was making her quite irritable – which was in turn making her a bit more blunt than usual. The humans hadn't known her long enough to notice this but she had; and it worried her.

She had only felt since landing on this planet and never before; something was wrong but what, something in the air?

Pushing that thought out of her mind as best she could, she turned to leadership, "Everyone check your weapons and shields, and I have feeling the worse is yet to come."

Moving back into the clearing she spotted something on the ground, bending down Shepard could only frown in confusion – it was an asari version of a dog tag. A slim, curved metal band with a name and what was likely a serial number in one of the asari dialects.

But what was it doing here?

It certainly wasn't L'Sai's, the shape of it was wrong.

"What's that Commander?" It was Ashley, sounding nervous and tired.

"It's an asari dog tag," She looked around, "Are there any asari on Eden Prime?"

Ashley nodded but frowned, "Yes, an engineer was here helping with the development stages for a raised pad to space port. Though as far as I know, I mean I never saw or met her, she wasn't military."

Mia also frowned but pocketed the tag, "A mystery for later then; after all we have a colony to save." She paused as she stood, "Feeling up to leading the way Chief?"

"Yes Ma'am," The human started to move forward but Mia spoke.

"Oh and stop calling me Ma'am, makes me feel old," She added a smirk to her words causing the Chief to actually chuckle.

"Okay then," She thought for a moment, "Skipper."

Mia blinked, "Well that's better!"

The young marine shook her head and took point, rifle (now cleaned of most of the mud) covering as many axis as she could; only to stop when a hundred yards had gone by.

What she saw when she turned the corner made the human pause, hell, it made her stop and stare.

It was a ship, the ship from the distress call.

But it was so massive that it towered over everything – it to be more than a kilometre long!

Down below them was a gaggle of those synthetics and husks, but they were moving into the tram-station itself, leaving none outside.

Then she heard it, a buzzing in her ear. A buzzing that grew into a howl as the vessel lifted off. The others could see her visible flinching but didn't seem to…

She couldn't help the gasp of pain as noise unlike anything she'd ever heard, a noise that seemed to be ripping through her skull and taking it to pieces and making her vision blur; she might've screamed, she wasn't sure, but she did drop her rifle and grasp at her hair-tendrils as the fire spread to them.

But then, as suddenly as it started, the noise and pain was gone.

As was the massive vessel…

Her breathing was heavy and her head throbbed, she had to look up at the concerned faces (and Ashley's slightly raised weapon) and she realised that she'd fallen to her knees.

Panting she forced words out, "I'm okay… I think that ship… it made a noise… I'm surprised you couldn't hear it."

Alenko frowned, kneeling down and removing her goggles – making Ashley gasp at her first glimpse of her glowing eyes – but he made an annoyed grunting sound, "I can't tell if your eyes are bloodshot or if your pupils are dilating with the glow…"

"You won't see anything, the glow never goes it just dims; hence those goggles."

"Right, I could scan you but I'm trained for humans and not… not…"

Mia interrupted him, "Hybrids?"

"No…"

"Not surprised, as far as I know, I'm unique," She grabbed stood, forgetting her weapon for the moment, as her head swam, "The only Zerg/human hybrid in existence."

Ashley took a step back, "Z-zerg?"

Before she could speak Alenko waved her concern away, "We'll explain later but if Admiral Hackett and Captain Anderson…" These names Ashley clearly knew going by the widening of her eyes, "…vouch for her then we can trust her."

"Thanks Lieutenant," She smiled and then realised she'd left her sniper rifle on the floor.

Seeing her confusion Ashley bent to pick it up, 'oofing' at its weight, "Good god, this thing is heavy!"

Mia took her goggles from Alenko and fixed them in place quickly, "Thanks Chief," She took the rifle with a thanks, "I'm stronger than I look and this was designed for me based on what I could do, even though it is just a modified M-92 Mantis in practice. Though the stock, barrel and cooling system are bespoke, as is the ammo block delivery system; it's larger to fire higher calibre slugs."

"I noticed… it must kick like a bitch though," Ashley seemed to live up to the Gunnery part of her rank it seemed.

"It does, it not for my enhanced musculature and carapace on my shoulder, well, it wouldn't be enough to break bones but it would hurt."

"Who designed it?" This time it was Harding.

Mia had to think for a bit to recall the man's name, "I'm pretty sure his name was Raynor but I never met the guy."

"Raynor, as in James Raynor?" Ashley asked, sounding amazed.

"Yes! That was his name, I couldn't recall it," She sighed, "Wish I could thank the man, it's a great rifle."

"You sure you'll be alright Commander?" Alenko asked, "Whatever hit you, hit you pretty hard."

She nodded, "I should be, it appeared to be that ship that caused it and now it's gone…" She left the thought hanging, looking back down towards the tram-station, "Get down!"

They all reacted quickly, dropping to the floor as gunfire raked overhead – the Geth had noticed them. It was only Mia's quick reaction to their appearance meaning that meant their shields took glancing hits.

Rolling over next to her Harding brought his heavy assault rifle to bear, the whine of it drowning out the whiz of the fire from the Geth, the heavier slugs rippling the air.

Moments later the hybrid and the others joined the fight, the exchange was short and, perhaps unsurprisingly, not that difficult since they had the advance of high ground which rendered the cover points nearly useless to the Geth.

When silence came back to the valley exit Mia signalled for them to move down the slope – moving in stacked sections, with covering their initial descent with her sniper, the stacked up by the edge of the loading platform. Sweeping up in twos they expected to be met with a hail of gunfire…

But it was still.

A motor could be heard getting fainter and that was it.

Ashley broke the silence first, "One of the cargo trams is missing, likely the rest of the Geth have taken it."

Nodding Alenko agreed, "Most likely, there are still a few smaller hostile vessels hanging around so probably trying to get back to them."

Before Mia could reply her radio crackled to life, "Commander? It's Jones. We've helped secure the far side of the colony from you, the synthetics are pulling out. The Normandy cannot bring her guns to bear while outnumbered, so we've your backup – where d'you need us?"

Glancing at Ashley before responding Mia grimaced, "We need to get as many to safety as we can; we're about to head through the tram-station and hit the space port from behind. If, and only if, you spare some men to give us a distraction that'll be great; otherwise just stay back."

"Yes Ma'am, with the locals I spare a squad or to pick their nose, give'ya a chance to hit the fuckers where it hurts!"

"Roger that, hit hard Chief!"

Another crackle signalled the end of the conversation, as Mia turned to give orders see froze seeing something that seemed just wrong.

She could see L'sai, or rather, what was left of her.

"Holy shit…"

A/N1: Dramatic gasp! Minor cliff-hanger alert! I'm not entirely happy with this chapter and I know why. It features an OC appearing then getting kicked off the mission really quickly. But I have to some set up which is going to come back over the next couple of chapters so clear things up, so it had to be done. I'm trying to give reasons for what I plan to happen later, so unfortunately also means that I have to have a bunch of talking and setting stuff up and leaving it hanging. Thankfully the pace of the action should pick up next chapter, and the following couple of chapters will have some pace to them. After that I'm afraid there's going to be more talking.

As for this chapter…

Whose dog-tag was that? Where's Nihlus? Is Saren the only threat on Eden Prime? Is Harding going to die? Will I ever get a chapter finished when I plan to? Answers for that one on a post card please!

A/N2: Oh and I have no timescale whatsoever for the next chapter, since I'm working even longer hours (due to how stacked out we are), I'm kind of reduced to working on this maybe a day, or two if I'm very lucky, a week. Thankfully I know what I want to happen in the next chapter and most of the next, so it's just a case of getting it written and working.