ANTIHEROINE

CHAPTER ONE
Revelations

Kara Shepard watched the Normandy's pilot as he sat at the ship's helm. His eyes scanned the displays, and his fingers danced over the controls. The small viewports at the front of the ship were closed, a defense against the radiation encountered during FTL travel. Their velocity would have distorted the starscape beyond the human ability to correct, and even processed navigational data was limited. According to the specifications, the ship was capable of covering just over twenty light-years per day, above average even for a military ship, and the estimates were always on the low side.

"… what do you think is going on, Commander?" The pilot finished, turning his head to check that she still stood there. His name was Jeffrey Moreau, Lieutenant, a competent pilot if the casual skill he projected confirmed the notes of praise attached to his service record.

Kara realized belatedly that he was addressing her. Beside him Kaidan Alenko, a marine lieutenant just a few years older than her, also watched her curiously. She sighed inwardly. The Normandy was fresh out of the shipyard, its crew still strangers to the ship and each other. They would be curious about her even if she were not a declared and decorated heroine, savior of Elysium. The only faces she recognized were amongst the marines. "A shakedown cruise," she answered, keeping her voice flat. The oddities could all be explained away, though collectively they suggested something more important than a test flight. After all, testing a prototype stealth frigate required that someone be looking for them.

"See, Joker. If something were going on, the commander would know about it," Alenko replied.

Not likely. Keeping people in the dark was a time-honored military tradition, one that annoyed her more the higher her rank climbed. Her transfer to the Normandy had come without much warning, and against the subdued protests of Captain Sadashiv of the SSV Anqing, on which she had served as first officer. She knew he had put her in for the promotion to full commander, a small piece of cover that didn't dull her suspicions in the slightest.

"She wouldn't be able to talk about it," Moreau noted. He seemed about to continue when the captain interrupted over the internal comm system.

"Joker, send Commander Shepard to the briefing room."

Captain David Anderson's presence was another clue. One of the most decorated officers in the fleet, a shipload of admirals made more sense for an otherwise diplomatic mission, and many of them would have fought for the privilege.

"You got that, Commander?" Moreau asked, but Kara had already turned away, walking quickly down the length of the command deck. The forward stations were dedicated to ship operations and engineering status, lining the walls before the deck opened out into a turian-style CIC, dominated by the central captain's station, which overlooked the holographic tactical display, as well as navigation and weapons stations, and the first officer's post. The door to the briefing room exited aft, near the short stairway to the crew deck. If this were more than a shakedown cruise, it was time they explained just what they expected of her.

The Normandy's briefing room was small, like everything else aboard ship, which was even more cramped than the last frigate she'd served on. Most of interior space was taken up by the new stealth systems, and an oversized element zero—also known as 'eezo'—core. Eezo cores made FTL travel possible, but the Normandy's 'Tantalus' core was also capable of generating gravity wells, which the ship could fall into, providing low-emissions propulsion. A circle of chairs filled most of the room, and a large holographic display dominated the far wall, currently showing the blue-green sphere that was their destination, the colony world of Eden Prime. The most curious aspect of the mission, and probably the key to deciphering the whole affair, sat in one of the far chairs, studying a data pad. A male turian, Nihlus Kryik's semi-metallic skin reflected the dim light in a distinctly non-human manner, and without looking up he spoke. "Commander Shepard. I was hoping to speak with you alone." His voice had the typically resonant quality of his species and gender, but lacked the mechanical inflections of VI translation. His words were in English, accented but clear. Nihlus' presence was superficially explainable as a representative of the Turian Hierarchy, which had cooperated with the human Systems Alliance in designing and building the Normandy. They would certainly wish to observe it in flight, particularly the effectiveness of its stealth systems. She had seen him on the bridge many times, but he never stopped to talk her with, beyond politely trading formalities.

In their place, the Systems Alliance would have sent an admiral, with an aide or two. The turians had sent an elite agent, a Spectre, who answered not to the Hierarchy, but to the multi-species Citadel Council. That suggested a wider interest than a simple field assessment of a prototype; something that involved the Council itself, at the very least.

"Sir?"

He eyed her curiously, as though he expected her to say more. She met his gaze, firmly but silently. "I'm sure you've guessed that I'm not here solely to observe the Normandy in action. I've been following your career with interest since that bloody slaughter on Elysium. Your acceptance speech for the Star of Terra was a highlight of the affair."

That was a surprise. At the time, she had expected it to get her discharged, only to find that the Alliance had quietly distributed a bland and unexceptional replacement, read by a conventionally attractive actress, who looked nothing like the officer she portrayed. "Thank you. How did you come across the original?"

"There are benefits to being a Spectre," the turian said. "Benefits I think you're ready to share."

Her? She almost laughed. The Alliance had frantically been pushing for more power, more authority in galactic affairs since the end of the First Contact War. What they needed was patience, for humanity to have a chance to integrate. Constant pressure would only result in resentment and mistrust.

Aside from that, she had no desire for the kind of life the role would entail. After ten years with the Alliance, she still did not think of herself as a soldier. She liked to immerse herself in alien cultures, played the violin, and wrote on occasion. She did not have as much time for those things as she might have wished, but they were her, not the instruments of death she more frequently wielded, or her uniform and the occasional medals.

"No offense, but Spectres are dangerous, with too much power and not enough oversight. I don't want the job, and I don't want to be the means by which humanity forces itself on the galaxy."

Nihlus' expression was one more of amusement than surprise. If he had studied her as closely as he implied, it made sense that he could guess her reaction. "Take some time to think about it, Commander. We have a mission-"

The door slid open, cutting him off. In walked Anderson, a stern, thick bodied former marine, no longer as fit as used to be since trading in his combat armor for a captain's bars. A stern, commanding expression covered her square, brown face. "Shepard. Has Spectre Kryik briefed you yet?"

"No, sir."

"We've been discussing the Spectres," Nihlus said, when she failed to volunteer more information. If the turian was there to recruit her, then surely he had already informed the Captain.

Anderson nodded, walking past them as he stared at the main display. "We're approaching Eden Prime," he said, turning back to them, "so that'll have to wait. Commander, as you may have heard, our archeologists uncovered prothean ruins near the colony, but they never turned up anything of value. Until now."

That Eden Prime's rich soil concealed ruins of the extinct civilization was not a secret; Kara had learned about their early finds in an Alliance classroom, nearly fifteen years ago. The protheans were not a topic she had studied much since, but she was well aware that Council law required that all artifacts be turned over to the multi-species Institute for Prothean Studies.

"A week ago," the captain continued, "a team dug up a prothean beacon. They say it's functional. Our mission is to retrieve it."

Kara did not know what the beacon's function was, but the discovery had certainly been classified, and the details had almost certainly been leaked. There were any number of groups that might attempt the violent recovery of the device, for sale or study. "I'll assemble my team," she sighed.

Kara sighed. She knew, as any experienced officer did, that it was possible to make no mistakes and still lose people. Like any good officer, that didn't make it hurt any less, as she stared down at the body of Corporal Adam Jenkins. His life had been her responsibility, and she'd failed him, mistake or no. What gave her the right to order anyone to their deaths? What had he been thinking, to accept her authority without question? They were questions she'd struggled with since Elysium, and she hadn't found a proper answer. She was in command, and that had to suffice.

"Jenkins was from here. He said it was dull."

Kara ignored Kaidan. As a model colony, on the edge of Alliance space, mainly agrarian and still small, dull was likely an apt description of Eden Prime. Except, not today. She wondered if Jenkins still had family still lived there, and if they were still alive. A part of her hoped not; she didn't want to see any more parents crying over the body of their child. She looked up, meeting Kaidan's dark eyes. "I need you focused, Lieutenant." Or was it her, who needed focus? From what Anderson had told her, they'd come upon a world under attack by unknown forces, and any delay would cost the lives of more colonists. The older officer frowned, expecting more, some ongoing respect for the dead. It was just a body to her, with no departed spirit looking down to judge how she treated it. "We can come back for him later."

"Yes, sir," Kaidan said, turning his gaze from the corpse to the scorched vista, visible from their position on sheltered hillside. "He's an Anglican, I think. He'd want to be buried here."

"Later, Kaidan," Kara repeated. Burning farmland had been a gratuitous act, unnecessary for a mere raid. There was some deeper hostility behind it that hinted at the batarians—their smoldering conflict with the Alliance had made them the obvious culprits, but the scout drones that had killed Jenkins were not of their make. Would the benefits of capturing the beacon outweigh the costs of starting a war? She needed more information. "We've got to secure that beacon. We'll try to get some idea whats happening here, along the way, so give me some space, and keep your eyes open."

Kara reactivated her HUD, and moved out in the direction of the marker. She had uploaded topographical maps of the region onto her omnitool before leaving the Normandy, along with the last known position of the beacon. It was about half a kilometer ahead, and a hundred meters down into the valley.

She followed a dry gully further up the hill, towards the ridge line, into a copse of trees, their thick canopies turning the dust-choked day into gloomy twilight. The whine of an exhaust fan, loud in the silence of the glade, forced her off the path and into the dense undergrowth, just in time to see another drone float past, and another. Running long-practiced exercises through her mind, like the memorized steps of a dance, she generated a gravity well in front of the machines, whipping the first off course, its new trajectory leading it straight into a tree.

Taking advantage of its distraction, Kaidan helpfully began to fire on the second, using his biotics to penetrate its barriers and open a path for his bullets. That she didn't recognize them as batarian wasn't proof of anything, but they weren't a design of any species she was familiar with. Either a new actor had taken to the field, or they were a deliberate attempt at concealment. Both possibilities reenforced her desire for more information.

"Commander, do you hear shouting?"

Raising her gaze from the broken drones to her squad mate, Kara held her breath and listened. Yes, she did, and though the sound was too faint to make out any words, its desperation was more obvious. A witness? Gesturing that Kaidan should follow her more closely, she moved out as rapidly as she dared, continuing to follow the gully until it cleared the trees.

Out in the open again, the terrain leveled out, with greenish-brown native grasses, knee high, covering the ground. The ridge line, on their left, peaked some fifty meters above. The voice had fallen silent, but a possible source, a female marine, tumbled out from behind a spur of rock. She scrambled desperately for cover as bullet-shards impacted the bare rock beneath her, sendings splinters of stone flying.

Kara dropped down into the grass, knowing Kaidan would do the same. The marine had been to distracted to notice her, and had found shelter from her attackers behind a boulder.

A moment later, another figure appeared from behind the spur. It was too slim to be either a batarian or human in armor, and its 'face' was a single glowing light. Some sort of unknown combat platform, perhaps an experimental line, like the drones? There would be time for a closer look after it was disable, she decided, focusing her biotics into a disruption field that opened a small hole in its barriers. Taking careful aim, she fired, her shots slipping through the hole and impacting its armor.

As the first robot collapsed with a sputtering mechanical wail, a second came into view, followed closely by a third. The soldier rose, firing on them with an incoherent, angry shout. Kaidan knocked one off its feet with a biotic pulse, and they all focused their fire on the other. Its barriers were strong enough to resist for about eight seconds, better than any batarian tech she was aware of, before finally collapsing. They finished off the remaining target in the same manner.

The soldier, free of enemies at last, scrambled to her feet, throwing a relived salute. Her rank stripes on her armored arms indicated a petty officer, a gunnery chief, which would have put her in charge of a squad of four. "Thanks for the assist, sir."

"Kara Shepard," Kara said, as she approached. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

The marine shook her head, her expression worn and haunted. "We were finishing up our patrol when they hit us, sir. We didn't have any warning, and they cut through my squad like we were raw recruits. Siyavash said they're geth, but…"

That was unlikely, and troubling if true. The geth hadn't been seen beyond the Perseus Veil, on the far side of the galaxy, since they rebelled against their quarian creators almost three hundred years ago, and had aggressively defended their corner of space, since then. Not strictly robots, they were actually segments of networked code, capable of interacting in a way that had gradually increased their intelligence as their mobile platforms became more common, until they finally achieved sentience.

Actually, since she had the idea in her head, she could see the quarian influence on the robot's design in their distinct leg structure, and the curve of their heads. She had refused to pass judgement on the geth for their rebellion, but if they were intent on a new anti-organic campaign, she might have to reconsider. In support of that troubling thought, logistical realities demanded that their forces had been closer than the Veil, to have arrived on Eden Prime so soon after the beacon was uncovered.

None of it changed the mission, though. Shaking her head, Kara turned her attention to the chief. "The rest of your squad?"

"Dead, sir. The Geth put them up on these weird spikes. I didn't know what to do, I just ran."

"What's your name?"

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, sir." Angry brown eyes stared out from beneath her combat helmet.

"You stayed alive, Ash. That's important. You aren't much good to anyone dead," she smiled encouragingly, knowing it was small consolation. She'd seen friends die around her, and held her ground, and still felt like she hadn't done enough. "You'd better come with us."

Williams nodded. "Yes, sir." Another stranger willing to die at her command.

"We're here to recover a prothean artifact," Kara said, "but we'll help the colony if we can. Kaidan, you'll take up the rear."

"The artifact was here, Commander," Ashley said, gesturing towards a corner of the dig site. The archeological team had uncovered a portion of some sort of structure, most of it still buried beneath fifty thousand years of dirt. "We were told they had plans to move it, but I don't know where."

"We need to find out," Kara said. If it was them, and not the geth. "Is there a shelter, or somewhere else the team might have gone when the attack started?"

"They were expecting retrieval, weren't they? Then they would have moved the artifact closer to the spaceport," Alenko suggested.

"True," Kara said, looking around. The area was quite sheltered, and her map did not indicate any nearby landing site for a craft of the Normandy's size. The decision to move the beacon was sound, but she wondered why news of it had not reached the Alliance. A simple communications breakdown? "Any other suggestions, Ash?"

The marine shook her head. "Major Yon didn't tell us anything. Sorry, sir."

"Very well," Kara decided. "We head for the spaceport. You know your way around, Ash, so you'll take point."

"Sir," Ashley saluted; Kara nodded in response. "This way."

They made their way up a wide dirt path that snaked lazily up the ridge, passing several bodies as they wound upward, both civilians and soldiers. She assumed that the geth had dropped units as near to the dig site as possible, only making their way towards the spaceport when they found the beacon missing.

Ashley paused when they reached the top, gasping in horror. "Sir," she said, raising her arm.

Kara followed the gesture, her eyes landing on three of the spikes Ashley had described earlier, concealed from below in a small hollow. The figures which hung from them, pierced through the stomach, were no longer human, but altered by some sort of technology, for an uncertain purpose. One, at least, had bits of Alliance armor half-absorbed into its grey skin.

"Hey, look at that," Alenko shouted, distracting her from her contemplation. A dark mass lingered over the colony, beginning to accelerate rapidly upwards. A ship? It seemed about cruiser size, with an unfamiliar configuration. It could only be Geth.

"Uh, Commander? Those bodies are moving," Williams said, her voice weak with fear and horror. Twitching, as the spikes slowly withdrew into their round bases.

How many cheap horror films were there, where, through experimental nanotech, disease, or just because, the protagonists had to fight their way through hordes of undead, sometimes wearing the familiar faces of former comrades. She hated the genre. They mimicked the senselessness and horror of real violence, and normalized it, and demeaned it. If that was not enough reason for her dislike, they were often lacking much of a story, had weak plots, and nothing at all worth saying. The corpses climbed awkwardly to their feet, their faces, twisted into unpleasant caricatures of human features, were, perhaps, still recognizable. They screamed, an attempted at intimidation she guessed, and charged.

Where did one shoot an animated corpse? She lowered her aim, firing several rounds into the lead creature's leg. It toppled forward, tried to stand, collapsed back into the dirt, and began to crawl towards her. She opened fire again, stopping only when it ceased twitching, her pistol just short of overheating.

Alenko had trapped a second corpse in a biotic field, from which it struggled to escaped.

"Alenko," she said, just to get his attention. Controlling complex biotics was like performing a dance, learned over many hours of practice, but the abilities themselves were like having arms; they were either there, and one used them, or they were not. She generated a counter-force, and between them they tore the creature in half; it wailed angrily, waving its arms at them as though sheer effort might bridge the gap between them, and went limp. Thankfully, it lacked any real viscera to spill, no longer any more human than the Geth themselves.

Williams' weapon-Kara had been aware of its firing-hissed, and bleeped in rebellion. Kara turned to check on her-the rifle's status light was blinking red, and she could feel the heat radiating from its exposed coils. The last corpse-creature was shattered, nearly torn apart by the number of shards that had pierced it.

"You okay, Ash?" Kara asked, placing her hand on the woman's armored shoulder.

The soldier straightened, letting the rifle fall to her side. "Yes, sir."

Kara knew it was a lie. The creature had been Williams' friends and colleagues, or at least might have been, as they were transformed beyond recognition. They were not just dead, but desecrated.

"Let's go, sir," Williams said, her voice, like her expression, carefully controlled. Professional. She pulled the overheated thermal clip from her rifle, replacing it with a fresh one. Kara noted that it was her last.

"Lead on,," Kara told her.

Smoke rose in plumes from the colony below, thick and dark, until it found the wind and dispersed.

The journey down to the colony passed without further resistance from the geth, though they fended off two more groups of animated corpses. Kaidan called them husks, a name which she found fitting. They covered ground quickly, and attacked with clumsy swings of their arms, their fingers transformed into sharp-edged claws, but ultimately posed little threat to an alert squad, at least in limited numbers. Had the geth transformed more of the numerous dead soldiers they passed on their way, they might have needed an army to clear the colony.

They approached the colony center through a tram station, the area stacked with crates of what Ashley identified as supplies for the outlying farms. She claimed that they tram would take them to the spaceport. Kara allowed her to continue to lead them, until, rounding a crate, she paused in shock. "What's a dead, uh… turian doing here?"

"A turian?" Kaidan asked. "Nihlus?"

True, he hadn't broken comm silence since they parted ways at the drop site, but Kara suspected he could handle himself. She was well aware that no level of skill was proof against death, and she worried that the biotic marine might be right. She already feared that the geth had departed with the beacon, marking the mission as a failure; a dead Spectre would turn it into a disaster.

Unfortunately, he was right, Kara discovered. Nilhus lay face-down in a pool of dark blue blood. She checked him over briefly. "He was shot in the back of the head. I think the weapon was a pistol," she sighed.

Kaidan muttered a curse under his breath. "That doesn't sound like a combat wound, and the geth don't use pistols. At least, not that I've seen."

"Who is this, anyway?" Ashley asked, her attention focused on the lower platform of the station, where a freight tram waited.

"Nihlus," Kaidan said. "A Council Spectre."

From behind one of the nearby crates, Kara heard a sharp intake of breath. "Whoever you are," she said, "you can come out. We're not going to hurt you."

A balding head appeared over of the stacks, followed by wide, frightened eyes. "You sure?"

Kara holstered her pistol. "Did you see who did this?"

The heavyset man, dressed in dirty coveralls walked out into the open, rubbing his head. "Yeah. It was the other turian. They seemed to know each other. This one called him Saren."

"And?"

"He let down his guard. Saren shot him, and left. Back to the spaceport, I think."

The name was unfamiliar, but Nihlus had clearly accepted Saren's presence. Someone in a position to know about the beacon, and who could move about freely despite the geth presence. The evidence seemed to hint at another spectre, but their names and numbers were classified, so that only the Council could confirm her suspicions. A rogue spectre, considering what he'd done.

So was Saren in charge of the geth, or just taking advantage of the chaos? How had he enlisted their support? It seemed as though all she had was more questions. She knelt by the eturi's corpse and checked his omnitool, hoping for some useful information.

"Just what were you doing back there, anyway?" Ashley demanded, scowling at their informant.

"I was, ah, takin' a break when those robots attacked. Didn't fancy my chances against them."

"Sleeping, you mean," Ash grunted. "Lazy bastard."

"Lay off, chief," Kaidan said swiftly. "Hiding is the only thing that kept him alive."

And without him, all they'd have was a dead spectre and no answers. Kara sighed, standing. Not that they had answers. "Nihlus' suit recordings were erased. Not by you?" she added, turning her attention to the laborer.

"No!" he asserted quickly. Too quickly, she decided, as his gaze flitted anxiously between them. He should have relaxed a little by now, unless something else was putting him on edge. Something he was hiding. "Saren did something to his armor. I didn't know what."

Without actual evidence, they had nothing on Saren but the testimony of one scared dockworker, even if he had no reason to lie. That would count towards nothing more than reasonable suspicion. "We'll send a team to retrieve the body, once we've secured the colony. Don't touch it."

"No, ma'am," the dockworker said.

"You know anything about the prothean beacon they found in the ruins?" Kaidan asked the man. "Like where they might have transferred it?"

"Nah. I bet they stashed it in a warehouse up at the port, but they don't tell us nothing 'bout that. Rumor says it classified. Big find and all that… wait, you think that's what the torch-heads are after?"

Kara sighed. If the geth were having as much difficulty finding out locating the beacon as she was, then she saw a slim chance that she could still beat them to it. "Let's get moving."

Kara had to supplement her suit's built-in kinetic barriers with her biotics, as the tram closed in on its platform. It was a significant expense of energy, but the car provided no shelter, and the tracks were surrounded by four prefab storage buildings, which the geth used as vantage points from which to shoot. With Kaidan's help, she was able to hold them off, but they were simply too distant to counterattack.

As soon as they could disembark, Kara leapt onto the platform, pausing to drag Kaidan after her. Long-familiar pain shadowed his face, a side effect of the Alliance's L2-class biotic implant imbedded in his brain. Others with the same device had suffered debilitating migraines, and even brain damage, which made him one of the lucky ones. "Take point," she told him, gesturing off towards a warehouse on the edge of the colony. According to her HUD, the colonial garrison used it to store supplies and equipment, making it the logical place to search for the beacon. "Towards that building."

Kaiden acknowledged the order with a short nod, and moved off. Kara signed that Ashley should follow him, and took up the rear herself. She forced herself to focus as she ran, summoning a biotic field to pull a nearby geth from its perch, as soon as they were close enough. She doubted that the fall had damaged it, but at least it no longer had line of sight, allowing them make use of cover along the way.

The effort also left her feeling light-headed, a sure sign that they needed to take a moment to regroup, and hopefully come up with a plan. Finding the beacon would either require a witness or computer records. She did hope for survivors, and there were no bodies in sight, which… maybe wasn't a hopeful sign, considering that their enemy seemed to have the ability to convert corpses into soldiers, but it was another fact that made her doubt that the geth alone were behind the attack. The shambling cyber-zombies were probably not effective as shock troops, or even against civilians. As weapons of terror, though, they were a work of genius. Could an AI understand the emotion well enough to craft such a horror?

Coming up on the warehouse, Kaidan took cover behind a parked antigrav-lift, while Kara approached the small side door. In theory, her command codes would allow her access to any non-sensitive Alliance facility, but she was hardly surprised when the small display flashed 'access denied' in bold red letters. The system wasn't exactly sophisticated, appropriate to a simple warehouse, and changing the protocols was easy enough for any expert.

They were still under fire, though, if only from a single geth, and it was too distant to be a real threat. The others were probably regrouping, though she couldn't say why they hadn't left enough units behind to guard the warehouse as well; maybe they were all inside it, or maybe there was nothing of value for them to guard, though they had taken the time to corrupt the door controls.

"Ash," she said, drawing the marine's attention to a crate pushed up against the side of the building. Using her biotics to lower its mass to manageable levels, they were able to lift it on its side, and push it into position by the door, without much trouble.

Moving behind this cover, she pulled off her helmet, hooked it on her belt, and ran her gloved fingers through her sweat-dampened hair. Then she brought up the hacking suite on her omnitool, began attempting to access the lock. It was easy work, but not quick, and range limitations meant that moving would interrupt the process.

Taking advantage of the moment, she pulled an energy bar from her pocket, and tore open the wrapper. They were dry, and not very flavorful, but some sort of boost was necessary to power any extensive use of biotics, and she preferred the solid form to the saccharine-sweet 'biotic juice' supplied by the Alliance, and fortified with adrenal boosters and stimulants. She didn't need help focusing—in fact, it put her on edge and damaged her concentration, which a biotic could not afford. "How are you holding up, Kaidan?"

The older biotic had just capped his own canteen, and slipped it back into its sheath. Her glanced at her briefly, and returned his attention to the approach. "Just fine, sir."

Kara understood his dismissiveness, a product of military culture, and worse in some sense for biotics, who faced heightened expectations from command, and some suspicion from their fellow soldiers. "I was implanted with an L2," she said, softly.

Kaidan turned towards her again, this time surprised, noting the slight narrowing of her eyes, and her clenched jaw, evidence of pain that she didn't feel. He had assumed she was too young, but she wasn't quite, though she had been one of the last, receiving her implant while the L3 model was in testing. "It's nothing that'll affect my performance."

Shaking her head, Kara washed the last of her bar down with water from her canteen, and stuffed the empty wrapper back in her pocket. "That's not what I asked."

"I—" the lieutenant began, cutting himself off. "They're not bad, now—geth, sir!"

Kara frowned, and checked her omnitool. Some progress, but not enough. She executed a hasty command, then pulled her pistol, and prepared to assist her team.

With the geth disposed of, Kara was able to hack the lock without further interruption, and led the way through the open door. Inside was about what one expected, supplies of military rations, weaponry, and armor, all arranged for easy access in an emergency. The prothean artifact stood out amidst the clutter, a little over two a half meters in height. It's design aesthetic could easily have been human or asari, a spire made of two pillars that curved into one, with the main components wedged between them. A glowing control panel, placed ten centimeters too low for the average human, waited for input.

She found it fascinating, despite her persistent lack of interest in prothean studies. They were dead and gone, but there was potential here that damaged technology simply could not offer. Saren, the geth, whoever was behind the attack, they were not interested in the beacon itself, and therefor not the technology of it. It must have contained—and perhaps still did—valuable information. Knowledge of the protheans that did not have to be gathered up from the scraps of their civilization.

"Kaidan, take Ashley and check the rest of the warehouse," Kara said, not even listening to his response. She stepped closer to the beacon. There were plenty of people better qualified than herself for working with prothean technology, but the allure of curiosity was difficult to resist.

Pulling off her armored gloves, she tucked them under her belt, and ran her fingers across the surface of the device. It was cool and lightly textured, like a type of ceramic. The controls lit up, as though responding to her presence, and—

Images? Or memories, projected directly into her brain. They were somewhat incoherent, and painful. Terribly painful. She could smell smoke, and it burned her lungs. Bodies, everywhere, and some sort of mechanical scream. Something big, but not clearly defined. It was all a jumbled; no narrative, no coherence. Just fear, and pain.

Without warning, her head was empty again. Kaidan was talking to her, but she couldn't hear. Or move. The world slowly began to spin, fading to black as she fell. Yes, she realized; she was falling.

And then the blackness overtook her.

AN: So, I promised a revision. I'll leave the original up, and though there are significant changes to the level of detail and immersion, I'm happy enough with the plot. This will be more about foreshadowing things that need it, fixing inconsistencies, and other general improvements. I'll also be looking to give some characters more space.

Enjoy.