Authors Note: sorry about the length, i just wanted to get the first mission done in one chunk.

A unexpected Friend

"You ready Shepard?" Anderson asked.

"Get in, get the beacon, bring it to the ship, and get out with no one knowing. Just give the word, Captain." Shepard reiterated.

"I move faster on my own," was all he said before he jumped off and onto the ground below. The ground than began to speed up again as Nihlus went out of sight.

"Nihlus will scout out ahead," Anderson said. "He'll relay information if anything comes up. Until then, I want radio silence."

"Ready and able, Sir," Shepard said.

"The mission's yours now, Shepard. Good luck," Anderson said.

"Approaching Drop Point Two," Joker said. The ship slowed down and lowered to the ground. Shepard looked down and cracked her neck as she rolled her head around her shoulders. After that, she cracked his knuckles. Then she jumped off while taking her assault rifle out.

She landed on the ground softly into a crouch and quickly looked around with her rifle scope. She heard two soft thuds as Kaidan and Jenkins landed beside her, Kaidan with his pistol and Jenkins with his rifle.

The wind ruffled through the grass and the Normandy sped off. The setting sun glinted off the group's armor. Shepard waited for silence. It was quickly broken by gunfire, followed by the screams of Jenkins.

"Fuck!" Shepard cursed, reaching back and grabbed her M-96, quickly eliminating the first drone.

Her stinger missiles took out one of the drones, and Kaidan warped the last one.

"Sometimes marines die, you have to gather the strength to push their death out of your head or else you will never be a competent soldier," she muttered. She looked at Kaidan.

"Aye, Ma'am," Kaidan responded sharply. Shepard nodded and went up the hill with Kaidan following her closely. There was no emotion on Shepard's face. But her eyes were too terrifying to look at.

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams ran up the hill, absolute terror on her face. Sykes stumbled and hit the ground, where he was quickly picked up by a pair of humanoid robots.

Ashley quickly picked up her gun and aimed again. She wasn't going to just stand here and let those things-

A pair of booms echoed across the plains, the two humanoid robots fell to the ground; the soldier lying on the tripod got up, checked his armor for damage, and walked toward Chief Willliams.

"Thanks chief, if you hadn't..."

"If I hadn't what? I didn't shoot those...things." replied Ashley.

"Well if you didn't who did?" asked Lieutenant Sykes.

"I did," came a female voice from behind them.

Ashley, and Michael quickly spun in place, only to be face to face with Commander Shepard.

"Shepard, its good to see you," Sykes said while shaking her hand.

"Who is your friend Lieutenant?" asked Shepard, motioning to Ashley.

"Oh, that is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams." replied the Lieutenant.

"Wait, you know the Commander?" asked a stunned Ashley.

"Yeah, we fought together on Elysium, and then Torfan, and now apparently Eden Prime." commented Lieutenant Sykes.

"We're short one man," Shepard said. "We could use your help. That is, unless you've got other things to do." It took her a while to realize that she was joking.

"We're ready, Ma'am," the pair said in unison.

"Well," she said. "Shall we?" Ashley, and Michael nodded and followed.

"This is the dig site," Shepard started for her, gesturing at the site around him. Ashley looked around quickly.

"The beacon was right here. It must have been moved," she finished.

"By who? Our side or the geth?" Kaidan asked.

"Hard to say," Ashley shrugged. "Maybe we'll find out more if we investigate the camps. It's close, just up the ridge." Shepard looked up the ridge.

"Think anyone got out alive?" Shepard dared to question.

"It's possible," Ashley didn't sound hopeful.

"Well let's find out," Shepard started forward when a voice prickled into his ear. It was Nihlus.

"Change of plans, Shepard," he chimed in. "There's a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there."

With that, he was gone. Shepard sighed. Unexpected changes to a plan was never a good idea, unless absolutely necessary. But Nihlus should be fine.

"Who was that?" Ashley asked him.

"Friend of ours," Kaidan told her. "He's scouting up ahead. You'll meet him soon enough." Ashley nodded.

They continued up the hill and began to see the burned out buildings of what remained of the camps. Shepard raised a fist and everyone crouched in ready. She looked around quickly and took out her assault rifle. Everyone else took out their weapons, Ashley with her assault rifle and Kaidan his pistol. Shepard moved forward and saw what she expected. Three more spikes with corpses on them, but this time, they were different. They had a glowing mechanical blue thing and were shooting out pulses of electricity. As she neared the front of a building, she heard a mechanical hum, and tensed up. One spike lowered the husk towards the ground. Everyone tensed, expecting more of those troopers. The husk began to move. He twitched and squirmed off the point. There it stood, arms by its side, head down. Ashley's eyes widened. The husk looked up at them.

"My god!" Kaidan whispered. "They're still alive!"

It screamed inhumanly, a high pitched mechanical screech.

"What did the geth do to them?" Ashley's voice had a hint of a miniature wail.

The husk began to run towards them, mouth opened in a never-ending scream. Behind it, the other two spikes began to lower their burden down to the ground.

"Whatever they are," Shepard shouted. "They aren't human anymore. Take 'em down."

They opened fire. The sound of their screams was silenced by the sound of gunfire. A short while later, three husks lay on the ground in front of the small squad. They all lowered their guns and stared at their work. They all knew that they had been humans once.

"Williams, take us to the spaceport."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Ashley nodded. They moved out, ready for anything.

Shepard thought she heard a gunshot echo through the air. Stopping in her tracks and stayed there listening intently. She heard it again. It was the sound of a bullet streaking through the air. "Damn" Shepard muttered under her breath as she ran up the hill, Ashley and Kaidan following closely behind. When she reached the top of the hill, however, what she saw nearly took her breath away. She recognized it immediately, of course. It was in the transmission from Eden Prime; the one she had watched on the Normandy. What she saw was something resembling claws. However, she realized that it didn't even come close to describing what she saw now. This thing was taller than the CN tower back in Canada. It was more than half the size of the Arcturus Station. There were no words to describe how massive this was. And it was moving upwards, towards the sky.

"What the hell is that?" Kaidan breathed.

"It's a ship! Look at the size of it!" Ashley exclaimed.

They watched as it rose up above them and off beyond the clouds. Then they heard a familiar sound, a familiar screech. Shepard looked down and noticed the three spikes lowering the husks down to the ground at the bottom of the hill. He also noticed two geth troopers shooting at them. And a body.

"We've got company!" Shepard growled and instantly dropped to her knee and took out her M-86, unsuppressed of course. Ashley went wide to the left and got behind a boulder while Kaidan slid down the slope to the left and into a crate, using it for cover. Shepard peered through the scope and saw the two troopers making their way from the cargo area and down the steps. Ashley got out from cover and saw a husk coming towards her. Ashley gritted her teeth and fired at it. It's not human, she told herself. It helped a little. Kaidan used his biotics to lift the husk coming at him. It swirled around in the air, flailing his limbs trying to get down from its perch. It continued to scream. Kaidan fired once in its head, grimly. After blowing the husk to bits, she noticed that one husk had somehow gotten past Ashley and Kaidan and was coming straight for her. Shepard placed the rifle back on her back.

The husk was a meter away.

Shepard reached for her tanto.

The husk jumped, flying through the air towards her.

The husk was so blinded by whatever was controlling it, that it didn't feel the blade of her knife enter its throat.

Shepard twisted the blade - completely decapitating the husk and sidestepped, allowing the dead thing fall onto the ground beside her. She considered the husk for a moment, and then looked up at her squad "That was pretty damn close, wasn't it?" she said with a snicker. The other two chuckled as well. Shepard walked towards them, a grin on her face.

The body lay on the ground, a pool of gray blood slowly drying around it. How he died was also fairly obvious. Two bullet holes had penetrated his skull. As she approached the body, Shepard knew that it was Nihlus.

Kaidan knelt down and examined the body as Ashley and Shepard watched over him.

"A turian?" Ashley asked. "You know him?" Her voice almost sounded incredulous, almost bewildered.

Shepard nodded.

"He was a Spectre," Kaidan said. "He was onboard the Normandy when we received your distress call."

Shepard looked at her, without turning her head. It would seem she was a bit of a xenophobe. How she disregarded the body, when before she was fretting over a dead human. Kaidan turned the body over onto its back and almost gasped at the sight. A large bullet wound was present where the right eye should have been. A second hole had a downward angle exiting through his jaw. Shepard regarded the body. Not that long ago, she had been talking to him, talking about knives and other things. Now, he was dead. Shepard continued to examine the body.

Shepard hand shot to her SMG and was aimed level, well before Ashley gave a shout.

"Something's moving, over behind those crates!" she shouted. From behind the crate, a terrified human emerged with hands up, head darting this way and that.

"Wait! Wait, don't shoot!" he shouted.

"I'm one of you, I'm human!" Shepard regarded him with a cold look that nearly caused the man to run away.

"What the hell are you babbling about?" Shepard snapped.

Why was she so angry? Ashley pondered to herself.

"Uh," Powell began. "I was behind the crates after the attack hit. I saw your friend approach the other turian. He called him Saren. I…I think they knew each other. Your friend seemed to relax. He let his guard down. Saren just killed him…shot him in the back of the head. Then he took off on the cargo train."

"We were told a Prothean beacon was moved here. What happened to it?" Shepard asked.

"We moved it to the spaceport this morning. That is where Saren went," Powell sighed, drained. "I knew that beacon was trouble. First that damn mother ship showed up, then the attack! They killed everyone…everyone! If I hadn't hidden behind the crates, I'd be dead too!"

"How come you're the only one still alive?" Shepard asked, but he had already guessed the answer. "Why didn't anyone else try to hide behind the crates?"

"They…didn't get a chance," Powell swallowed. "I was already…behind the crates when the attack hit…"

"Wait a minute," Kaidan said, perplexed. "You were hiding behind the crates before the attack?"

"Not now, Alenko," Shepard snapped.

"We have more important things to worry about. We need to get to that beacon." She regarded Powell for a second.

When they turned the corner, they found two geth troopers. The two groups looked at each other, in silence. Then the troopers uttered a series of beeps and opened fired.

Kaidan and Ashley took out their weapons and shot at the troopers. The geth didn't last long. Shepard quickly got up and proceeded down the ramp. She heard a snap and saw her shield flicker as a bullet collided with it. Shepard quickly activated her cloak, and ran down the rest of the ramp, followed by Kaidan and Ashley. Looking around Shepard identified an ideal snipers nest, a short climb away. She climbed up the ladder, and entered the prone position, she pulled her M-86 off her back, and attached its suppressor. One by one Shepard Shepard quickly eliminated each trooper. Shepard jumped down off the platform, and boarded the long cargo train.

The squad approached the controls. Suddenly a cloaked hunter fired a shotgun at Shepards back, her shields were decimated, and the plasma balls began burning through her ablative plates. Kaidan, with his light armor, was thrown to the floor. Ashley knelt down, and began to treat his wounds. Shepard grunted, spun around, and quickly pulled her pistol from her hip. Knowing that her armor couldn't take another hit, Shepard ran towards the now uncloaked hunter, and was prepared to end its brief existence.

The Hunter saw this human approaching, and swung its arm at the human sending it flying into a guard rail. It turned and grabbed the human by the neck.

During the struggle Shepard lost her pistol, and her combat knife her armor on the other hand decided to fight back, the internal emission heat-sink began venting out of the neck. this super-heated air easily melted the geths hand, releasing Shepard from the choke hold. the stinger then launched knocking the hunter back several feet. Shepard was able to grab her mattock and she opened fire on the stunned geth, her devastator rounds easily tearing through its armor, and skeleton. She continued to fire until the hunter fell away into two pieces.

"Sorry Shepard, I was eliminating targets at the next station. You know for being robots, these guys are really stupid. I projected my decoy, and one by one the geth walked towards it, firing constantly, and I took them all down, so now its clear for you. I'll make my way over, Sykes out," the Lieutenant said over comms.

Are you hurt?" Ashley asked.

"Well," Shepard said. "Let's see. I've been shot at by that geth thingy – oh, you're welcome for that, by the way, had several of my ribs broke by a dead geth, my throat grabbed, oh and my back took a pointblank shotgun blast. So yeah, I'm just peachy."

Ashley sighed. She knew she was joking, of course. She was trying to make her feel better, maybe.

Shepard sat up slowly, a cracking sound emanated from her legs, but Shepard didn't react to it. She felt it, but she's felt worse things before. A few cracked bones were nothing.

Kaidan walked up to them. Shepard nodded and looked at the controls for the train. "We've got to get to the beacon." She didn't mention Saren. She didn't need to. Kaidan activated the controls while Ashley helped Shepard to her feet. Shepard pushed Ashley away and walked on her own two feet. The Medi-Gel would help, but it would only be a temporary fix, Shepard knew. They still had a job to do and a few cracked ribs weren't going to stop her.

"Weapons ready," Shepard ordered; taking out her assault rifle, Kaidan and Ashley took out their respective weapons. The train slowed to a stop and was welcomed by the noise of a repetitive beeping nearby. Shepard looked over her right and noticed what made it.

"Demolition charges!" Kaidan shouted. "The geth must have planted them!"

"Ya think?" Shepard muttered. She moved towards the bomb, making sure she was well below cover. Examining it, she activated her Omni-Tool and proceeded to disarm it.

"Hurry!" Ashley shouted. "We need to find them all and shut them down!"

"Please," Shepard muttered under her breath. "Please continue to shout into my ear, as I attempt to disarm a bomb. It apparently requires no concentration to disarm a 10 kiloton nuclear device."

Shepard calmly walked over to the next bomb, and began to disarm it, noting to herself, that Sykes was a relly good shot, he might even rival me, nah shepard thought.

"Move up!" Shepard shouted and the group expertly moved forward. There where only geth parts scattered about, thanks to Sykes' advanced work.

"Good job," Shepard said curtly. Ashley and Kaidan both nodded. Shepard turned and began to walk down the ramp. She stopped as she noticed three spikes and the husks impaled on them. She noted that they were near to being full husks of what they once were.

Ashley looked over and her eyes saddened. Kaidan sighed. Shepard looked at them both and saw the understanding in their eyes. Shepard threw a grenade and the spikes exploded. Without stopping she saw her prize and nearly sighed in exaltation. At last, the beacon stood in clear sight. They had come through many hardships, lost a good man and suffered many wounds. This "beacon" better be worth it. The group reached the area in front of it.

"SSV Normandy," she contacted the ship through her headset. "This is Commander Shepard. The beacon is secure…" While she talked, Ashley and Kaidan stared at the awe-inspiring sight.

"Incredible," Kaidan whispered, too amazed for words. "Actual working Prothean technology. Unbelievable!"

"It wasn't doing anything like this when they dug it up," Ashley said curiously. It was true. It wasn't glowing with a sickly green light that shot a beam into the sky.

"Someone must have activated it," she noted. Ashley shrugged and turned, walking back towards Commander Shepard.

"Roger, Normandy. Standing by," Shepard turned off her comm. and turned to acknowledge Ashley. Behind her, Shepard noted Kaidan and the glowing beacon.

Kaidan examined the beacon closely. He took a step forward. Something began to suck him in with an intense force that nearly swept him off his feet. Shepard ran, bumping into Ashley on the way. She jumped and collided with Lieutenant. He was holding his head, barely aware of the Commander.

Shepard used all her strength and tossed Kaidan back towards Ashley.

He saw Shepard get pulled into the green field. Shepard struggled to pull back but she couldn't. She was helplessly lifted into the air.

"Shepard!" Kaidan yelled. He reached toward her.

"No! Don't touch her! It's too dangerous!" Ashley held him back.

Pain erupted in Shepard's brain. Her eyes were shut tight, trying to fight the pain back.

Shepard's shields were overloaded, when the beacon exploded. Shrapnel was thrown everywhere.

Some pieces imbedded themselves into Shepard's chest plate.

She fell hard onto her back.

Kaidan and Ashley ran forward to their commander.

The beacon was destroyed.

Kaidan was checking Shepard's vitals.

Commander Calista Shepard, the war hero who was awarded the Star of Terra, the ruthless eradicator of the slavers on Torfan…

…was down.

~end of chapter six~