Aeia was hell from start to finish. The shuttle dropped them off just south of the Gernsback. They could see the hulking figure of the ship and the parts that broke off during impact. A few feet away from them stood a distress VI that repeatedly blinked on and off. As they walked up to it, they could see why the image was so scrambled.

"It looks like it broke in half and someone who knows little about tech tried to re-wire it." Tali said, examining the base of the beacon.

"Here's the question: Was it broken by accident, or did someone intentionally sabotage it?" Shepard said while examining the beacon herself.

Jacob walked a few steps ahead of them to get a closer look at the Gernsback. "I don't like how this looks Shepard."

"Neither do I."

"Jacob! Shepard! I think I got something here," said Tali. Both Shepard and Jacob came back to meet her. "I couldn't fix the audio output for the VI, so I just downloaded what information I could. Here."

Tali transferred the information she had downloaded to their omnitools.

"These look like captain's logs," said Shepard scanning through the information. "It looks like there was some type of explosion and the captain died leaving your dad as acting captain."

"I wonder what caused the explosion," Jacob asked.

"I guess we'll find out once we get to the crash site."

A few meters down from the beacon was the shell of the Gernsback. It looked mostly in tact, save for one massive hole on the starboard side of the ship.

"What the hell happened here?" Shepard asked

"That's odd," Tali said "the metal is turned inward, not blown out."

"What does that mean?" Jacob asked, turning to look at Tali.

"It means that the explosion happened outside of the ship, not inside."

"This wasn't an accident," Shepard said.

While searching the Gernsback, they found more captain's logs slowly explaining the situation. The ship's technical analysts and the captain had all died in the blast. The provisions they had were relatively untouched, so Ronald Taylor put the crew on emergency rations and went to find the distress beacon. That's when he discovered that the beacon had been broken. He had suspicions it had be sabotaged.

"Tali, what do you think?" Shepard asked. "Was the beacon damaged on purpose?"

"Definitely. The cut to the metal surrounding the wires was too clean to be an accident."

"Shit," Jacob said. "Now we have to figure out who did it and why?"

"Let's keep going."

Deeper inside the Gernsback, they found scientific logs detailing the planet's flora and fauna. The vegetation was deemed edible, but they didn't know the effect of it. That was, until they were running low on supplies and Ronald decided to try Aeia's vegetation. The scientists decided to keep an eye on him just to make sure it was safe. They studied him for a year and found nothing of concern. By year two, more people started eating it. Year three was when everything changed.

Slowly, Ronald and the others who started eating the vegetation when he did started developing signs of deterioration. Memory loss, loss of motor functions, and loss of eyesight. People became shells of themselves. They eventually died. In his last captain's log, Ronald detailed how he could no longer remember what his wife and son looked like and other memories were starting to fade. He gave the last of his ship rations to crew not infected in the hopes that help would come before they too succumbed to the poison.

"Fuck. He's dead."

"We don't know-" Shepard started, but was interrupted by Jacob..

"Yes we do! If he wasn't dead he'd still be writing these logs."

"Wait a moment," Tali said. "In this last one, he mentions a settlement a few meters north of here. Maybe your father is there."

"Come on Jacob," Shepard said, staring directly in his eyes. She could see the pain of a reopened wound there. One that wouldn't heal as easy this time.

As they walked along a pathway, they noticed a clearing on a hill with many small mounds. As they got closer, they could see planks of wood on top of the mounds.

"Please tell me that's not what I think it is." Tali said. Shepard took a step closer to one of the nearest mounds.

"Yes, it is. These are graves of the crew."

"Fuck." Jacob said, taking a step back.

"Come on," said Shepard. "Let's go to this settlement."

They walked on in near silence until, at last, they saw a few tents in the distance.

"That must be the settlement mentioned in the log." said Shepard.

"Let's go get some answers," said Jacob going off ahead of the two women.

There were only a few mechs guarding the settlement, but luckily they recognized Shepard, Tali, and Jacob as humanoid and didn't fire. The human they met there wasn't as welcoming. A human popped out of one of the tents and fired a stray shot that buzzed past Tali's arm.

"Who are you?! What are you doing here?!" Jacob and Tali immediately raised their guns, but Shepard raised her hands in a non-threatening way.

"We came in response to the distress beacon? Did you set it off?" said Shepard.

"Ye- Yes. I did." The man slowly lowered his weapon and the tension drained from him. Jacob and Tali also lowered their weapons but kept a close eye on him.

"Can you tell us who you are?" The man began to pace back and forth, never letting go of the gun.

"Charles. My name is Charles."

"Okay Charles, we know the distress beacon was intentionally compromised. Can you tell us who did it?" said Shepard taking a small step towards him. She quickly glanced over at Jacob to let him know that she was okay.

"It was- I mean, I-" Charles' pacing became more frantic and he scratched his head with the barrel of the gun.

"Did you do this?" Jacob said angrily. Shepard looked over and saw a thin blue barrier covering his skin. She knew then he was on a razor's edge. Charles' answer would tip him one way or the other.

"I didn't have a choice."

"BULLSHIT! WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE!" Jacob exclaimed, taking a few steps towards Charles.

"Wait!" Shepard said, going over to Jacob and pulling him back. "We don't even know what happened yet. Let the man speak and then we can figure out what to do with him, okay?"

"Yeah."Jacobs biotics were back under control, but the tension hadn't drained from his shoulders.

"What happened Charles? Give us the whole story."

"I work for Cerberus. They wanted to test the viability of this planet for human colonization. Alliance wouldn't do it. 'Too far out in the Terminus System' they said. So we did. They disabled the ship and had it crash land here. My job was to disable the beacon so we'd eventually have to eat the plant life." The whole time Charles paced back and forth, gun waving frantically in his gesticulating hands. Shepard moved her hand from Jacob's elbow to his hand, rubbing her thumb along the back of his hand.

"They weren't supposed to kill anyone! They were supposed to go for the engines, not the body of the ship! They told us it was safe! It was supposed to be safe!"

"Well they fucking lied and where does that leave you now?" Jacob said as he relaxed the clenched fist in Shepard's hand.

"I- I can't do it. I did this. I killed all these people. I killed my wife! I deserve to die." Charles brought the gun up to his head, finger on the trigger. Reacting faster that both Jacob and Tali, Shepard flared her biotics and put him in a stasis field before he could pull the trigger.

"What you've done is horrible; possibly unforgivable. However, I won't see you condemned to death for it. You need to be brought to justice." Shepard said as she walked over to Charles and removed the gun from his hand. "Joker, were you listening?"

"Yeah, I was." came the solemn reply from the pilot.

"Use the secure line to send the feed to Anderson. He'll have the closest Alliance ship come pick him up. Jacob, do you have cuffs on you?"

"Yes." Jacob replied. He gave the cuffs to Shepard and then set off towards the makeshift cemetery they saw earlier.

"Should we go get him?" Tali asked.

"No. Let him have some space."