AN:- God this book is going to be long.

Chapter Twenty: Return

They had barely pulled out of the dock before Traynor buzzed her communicator.

"We've got an odd one Captain."

She started the march down to the CIC. "Give it to me Traynor."

"Cerberus are attacking Eden Prime."

Shepard stumbled, almost fell, but kept her feet. She stayed rooted in place on the gangway, staring at nothing. "What?"

"Reports are garbled, but Cerberus seems to be attempting some sort of occupation or invasion."

Of course, Traynor had no particular connection to Eden Prime. It was just another mission for her. Shepard forced herself to start walking again. "Why would they attack Eden Prime? It's not particularly strategically well placed and the Prothean beacon doesn't have anything more to reveal." I hope.

She had reached the CIC, and stepped round to examine Traynor's screen for the incoming mission reports. "Something got out before Cerberus cut ties," Traynor was saying. "I think the Eden Prime colonists might have uncovered something Prothean."

"And that would definitely give Cerberus a reason to attack them." She keyed the comm line at Traynor's station. "Joker. All power to Eden Prime. Get us there as fast as you can."

"Aye aye Captain."

/|\

Eden Prime was a straight shot from the Citadel, which didn't give them a lot of prep time. Shepard would have liked to spend it doing anything other than checking over her new equipment and the updated crew rosters, but unfortunately both kept her fairly busy. Cortez was turning out to be a talented requisitions officer, and had succeeded in procuring her an almost entirely new set of armour. While she was grateful, it did almost mean a lot of stress testing.

They had finally reached their full crew capacity as well, with the final few transfer orders coming in from Alliance command. It felt a little strange to have a crew fully staffed by Alliance personnel for the first time. She had grown so used to relying on skeleton crew she was a little surprised the Alliance thought they needed the full complement.

EDI had requested to join them on the Eden Prime mission, and Shepard had approved the order. She had to get a feel for her potential resources, and Edi was a potentially game changing one. She was also bringing Vega and Garrus. Liara had of course insisted she join the team the moment she had heard the phrase 'Prothean artefact' being bandied about. Looks like we've got the whole gang for this one.

As they suited up in the cargo bay Shepard tied to avoid the distressing sense of déjà vu. So many things that had happened to her all those years ago seemed to now be repeating themselves. The last panicked message she had first seen from Eden Prime, now repeated in London. The first time she had ever seen husks, not knowing what they were, now they seemed to haunt her wherever she went. So much had come from that one mission.

They loaded onto the shuttle and Cortez took them down. Joker had got them in close to the atmosphere with the cloaking device activated, so they didn't have a long distance to travel. Thankfully their landing zone was nowhere near the original dig site. She didn't know if she could have handled walking over the exact same ground again.

As they came down through the atmosphere Liara was staring out through the viewscreen. Shepard went to stand next to her, nudging her slightly. She started and looked over.

"Deep thoughts?" Shepard asked with a grin.

Liara smiled and shook her head. "This is where it all began. Where the Prothean beacon gave you the vision that warned us of the Reapers."

"And where Saren launched his first major attack with the geth," Garrus said.

"Yes." Liara stepped away from the window and they rejoined the other huddled around the middle of the shuttle. "And now with Cerberus here. Eden Prime's colonists are under attack again."

Shepard nodded. "Seems like more than just three years ago."

"How bad?" Vega asked.

"Lot of dead civilians. Lost one of my men, Jenkins, to a geth drone."

"Reports said Saren had bombs set up to wipe out the whole colony."

She had almost forgotten that part of it. With everything else that had happened that day defusing the bombs was almost an afterthought. "Not on my watch."

"Damn straight Lola."

"Does returning to the colony cause unpleasant memories?"

Oh Edi. Shepard shrugged, careful to keep her voice level. "I'm fine. Jenkins was a good soldier. He'd be proud of what we're doing here."

"I remember the reports," Garrus said, still hunched over his rifle. "I was busting my ass trying to find evidence against Saren. Hearing he'd attacked a colony while I sat mired in bureaucracy… that was a bad day."

"You always did prefer a straight up fight."

"And you're always good at helping me find them."

"Cerberus hit Eden Prime hard." Liara had data flowing in from every source she could direct at Eden Prime. "Whatever they found here was worth a major offensive. There are survivors elsewhere on the colony, but they killed everyone near the dig site."

They deserve better. Shepard closed her eyes and remembered the scattered corpses of the research team the first time she had come to this planet.

"The Alliance did what it could to evacuate colonists , but Cerberus came in so quickly."

"If we find survivors we'll do what we can." It was an order she barely needed to give. Garrus and Liara knew her well enough by now to know what she would ask. "What about this artefact? Is it part of the Prothean device we found on Mars?"

Liara shook her head. "The Alliance didn't get any specifics about what Cerberus had uncovered. But whatever it is it's better off with us than with Cerberus."

Agreed.

Cortez spoke up from the pilot seat. "I'm bringing you in as close to the dig site as I can. No way we'll avoid detection but you should have a few minutes."

"Understood."

"With luck we can get to the dig site before Cerberus knows we're here."

They were barely half a mile from the dig site when Cortez set them down. They jumped out of the shuttle and Cortez pulled straight away, barely waiting until their boots had touched the ground.

Garrus and Vega raced forward to sweep the path ahead, checking in between the pre-fab shelters to make sure no one was hiding out. Liara stepped up next to Shepard, looking over the buildings. Shepard noted the signs of fire damage and bullet holes.

"I've only seen it in archive footage. This was a beautiful colony once."

"It survived Saren," Garrus said from ahead. "It can survive this."

"They rebuilt Mindoir." Shepard hadn't ever gone back. But she had been sent information packages about it. They had wanted her to go and be the public face of the new colony. "It wasn't the same."

"It never is."

Vega took point, with Garrus close in a flanking position. Shepard was still unsure how to deploy Edi, putting her in the middle of the formation. In theory she would be protected from most avenues of assault if it turned out she wasn't able to aid in combat, and if she was then she ought to be able to do some damage. As was usual Shepard brought up the rear with Liara, her sniper rifle out and Liara's biotics flickering in and out of use.

"Look at that," Vega said as they came out from the cluster of prefabs and were able to see out across to the Horizon. "Bits of Prothean tech sticking out of the ground like an old bone."

"You ever see Prothean tech like this Vega?"

"There was something on Fehl Prime. Never had much chance to see it, and nothing this big."

Shepard had to admit that the artefacts on Eden Prime did seem to dwarf most of the other technology. With the exception of Ilos most of the Prothean tech she had ever heard of was confined to single, small items, such as the beacons. Yet Eden Prime seemed to have entire ruined city's worth.

"So Liara," Garrus started speaking as they moved again. "Ever dug up… what do humans call it… a dinosaur?"

Shepard had to cover her mouth as Liara frowned at Garrus' back. She recognised Garrus' joking tone, even if Liara didn't.

"No, dinosaurs and other fossils would be palaeontology. I'm an archaeologist. I study artefacts left by sapient species. The two fields are completely different, and…" she trailed off and Shepard saw a blush spread onto her cheeks. "Oh, you were joking."

"A bit, but at least you're catching on these days."

They had reached the elevator that led down to the dig site. Liara hurried to the controls while Vega and Garrus started searching the surrounding pre-fab shelters, calling out the all clear as they moved from structure to structure. Shepard set up next to Liara, Edi hanging back a little way from the elevator with her submachine gun out.

"Goddess," Liara said after a moment at the controls. "That doesn't seem possible." Shepard had hardly ever heard her sound so shaken. "It's not a Prothean artefact it's… a Prothean."

Shepard frowned and came over to look at the screen as well. "Like the Collectors? Or those bodies we found back on Ilos?"

"Like the bodies we found back on Ilos, but this one's alive."

"Chances of a Prothean surviving 50,000 years seem unlikely," Edi said.

"There were Prothean stasis chambers in the archives on Ilos. The only reason those failed was a lack of power. Cerberus found this in an underground bunker. It still has power." Liara looked past the terminal and into the excavation area. At the bottom Shepard could see the elevator, a single coffin shaped capsule sitting on it. "He's been in stasis for the past 50,000 years. Waiting for us. Think of what we could learn."

All the times they had talked about the Protheans Liara had only spoken of their technology and their potential advances. "What can you tell me about the Protheans? The people, not the technology."

Liara shrugged and started the elevator up. "Given your experience with the Prothean cipher, you probably know as much about them as I do. The Prothean empire spanned the known galaxy, they uplifted countless other species to help them join the galactic community."

"You think they had something like a Council?"

"Yes, exactly. Their cultural and artistic expression are actually quite close to those of the ancient asari. And given their similar interests in helping other species, it's clear that they believed in interspecies cooperation."

Shepard knew enough about anthro- and xeno- pology to know bias when she heard it. "The way you describe them they sound a lot like the asari."

"I'm certain I'm colouring their culture with my own perceptions. Whatever the Protheans were, finding one alive represents an incredible opportunity."

"Good thing we brought our Prothean expert."

The elevator had reached them, the pod sitting silent and still. Liara trotted over to it, running her omni-tool over the surface. "I hope I can help. If this single Prothean was sent into stasis, he could be the foremost scientist of his time, or, perhaps the wisest counsellor." She was starting to babble in the way she always did when she was excited. "Hmm. Cerberus damaged the lifepod when they excavated it. The life signs are unstable."

"Then let's get him out of there."

"No, breaking open the pod would kill him. We have to find the command signal that ends the stasis mode. We also need to figure out how to physically open the pod without doing more damage." Garrus and Vega were coming back from their sweep. Liara looked the way they had come. "Cerberus took over the labs nearby to research what they found at the dig-site. That's likely our best bet."

Edi cocked her head to the side and her eyes unfocused. "I am detecting an incoming shuttle."

"Let's pick it up people, find me something."

"I might have found something while we were doing the sweep," Vega said. "Follow me."

They double timed it through the pre-fab shelters, Shepard close on Vega's flank. There a half dozen bodies in one of the shelters, all gunned down as they were sitting, playing cards from what she could tell. They didn't even have a chance. An old fire was coming back to her gut, one she hadn't felt in years. She remembered the first time she had ever encountered Cerberus, remembered Toombes, broken and defeated by years of torture. So much pain, and she still hadn't found a way to stop it.

Vega brought her to a locked door, and Edi got to work, cracking the lock in a matter of seconds. "The Cerberus shuttle will be here shortly," she reported as they stepped into a cramped research lab, where two Prothean artefacts had been hooked up to some sort of interface terminal. She recognised the design as similar to the Mars setup, with viewscreens for whatever data they could parse out.

Edi stepped up to the terminal. "Accessing files."

The viewscreens came to life, at first a whirl of colours, but then the coalesced into shapes and sounds that Shepard could understand. She felt a pressure building at the bridge of her nose, like someone was pressing a brick into her face.

On the screen she saw Reapers descend onto a battered planet. It was barren of vegetation, and fires raged everywhere. Somehow she knew that it was Eden Prime though, and she was seeing it 50,000 years in the past. This must have been the final stand of the Protheans, for all the good it had done them.

The image shifted and was watching a single Prothean now, gunning down Collectors with a particle beam. She hadn't quite realised before they the Protheans and the Collectors really were the same species, she had always thought of them separately in her mind. But now she saw that the Collectors were only husks of the Protheans. She could hardly imagine fighting so many. A thousand thousand Collectors swarmed all around as the final few Protheans tried desperately to hold them back, retreating to some sort of bunker.

More and more of the Prothean troops were cut down, until only one remained, falling back into the bunker and calling out. "Victory, seal the bulkheads!"

A green model of a Prothean sprang to life, and she recognised it as a VI. "Acknowledged."

The great doors slammed shut, but not before a dozen explosions rippled through the bunker, jarring one of the pods loose and crashing it to the floor. The prothean she watched crouched down over it, setting his rifle down.

"How many have we lost?"

"Reaper forces have destroyed approximately 300,000 lifepods."

She watched as the prothean entered a series of commands and the lifepod opened to reveal a blackened corpse. "A third of our people." There was such defeat in his voice.

"Alert, north side bulkhead cannot be sealed, hostiles detected."

The prothean stepped up at once, grabbing his rifle and moving with renewed vigour. "Then all forces to the North!"

The image broke apart, and the pressure released from her skull. She took a deep breath in and blinked hard, coming back to herself in the room.

"I think I can duplicate that to open the lifepod," she said.

"Wait." Liara stared at her. "You understood that?"

"You didn't?"

"No. All we saw was static. Cerberus was trying to make sense of it. Without success." Her expression cleared. "The Prothean cipher you received on Feros. It lets you see the images as a Prothean would, and understand their language."

"Whatever it does I saw the video, and how they sealed the lifepods."

"Perfect, then we just need the signal they use to activate stasis mode."

They stepped back out of the lab and Shepard's shield immediately pinged as a long range rifle bullet came at her. She dropped on instinct and rolled into cover behind the door frame, pulling her rifle off her back and unfolding it. The Cerberus troops were quite far away, but they were closing fast.

She didn't even have to question Garrus, she knew he would have his sniper rifle up and ready. She leaned out from cover and set the rifle to her eye, easily tuning out the thrum of Vega's assault rifle as he put down covering fire.

Another patented three-man fire team, heading over the rooftops of the shelters. One coming up the middle, one to the left and one to the right. She sighted on the one on the left, let out a half breath, then fired. It was almost too easy a shot for her, and the high velocity bullet cut clean through the shield, folding her man in half at the waist. Almost simultaneously Garrus' rifle barked and the man on the right flank dropped out of sight as well.

The man in the centre fell prone and she hissed in frustration as she worked another heat sink into her rifle. She didn't have any sort of angle on him. But she didn't need to worry. A biotic field opened up over his position and slowly dragged him into view, where he fell easy prey to her rifle.

"Edi?"

"Another shuttle is en route, but it seems they are unable to commit many more forces at this time."

"Let's get moving then people. We still need the signal to get him out of cryo."

"There is another room of similar dimensions and power drain in the next shelter over."

"Makes sense they would keep the labs close by."

"Let's move!"

There was another locked door in the next shelter, but it provided no more challenge to Edi, who had it open in a second. They filed in again and Edi set to opening the next file. This time, prepared for the sensation, Shepard recognised the familiar uncomfortable vertigo she associated with her memories of the Prothean beacon.

It was a similar picture as before. Reapers descended on the planet, a dozen at least that she could see. It seemed to be a little earlier though, and she saw what she knew instinctively to be the same Prothean as before, this time flanked by two others. The two others were conversing.

"I never thought our Empire would fall."

The prothean she had seen before spoke. "It won't." She realised that his deep voice was unusual even for the Protheans. Though they had a similar timbre, his was far lower. "We will sleep here until the Reapers return to dark space. Then we will rise, a million strong."

The two others nodded. "For the Empire."

"For the Empire. Get to your stasis pod." As the two walked way, the leader spoke to thin air. "Victory, broadcast the stasis readiness signal to all lifepods."

The VI flickered into life beside him. "And the refugees who have yet to reach the bunker?"

"Their sacrifice will be honoured in the coming Empire."

And with that the vision was gone, leaving her only the faint after impressions of the damage that had been yet to come. She shook her head to clear it and saw Liara looking at her in concern.

"You understood that one too?"

"Yeah, I've got the signal the Protheans used to activate stasis mode."

"Then let us hurry, the second shuttle will be here soon."

They ran back out towards the dig site as the shuttle swooped overhead, the door open to allow the troops inside to pepper them with fire. Shepard's shields sparked and dimmed but none of her warning indicators came on. They ran for the elevator, skidding to a halt when they saw the bridge had been retracted.

"Damnit."

Shepard looked over the edge. She hadn't quite realised before just how dramatic a drop it had been.

"We have to get across!" Garrus yelled. "That shuttle will tear us to shreds."

It was coming back again, and as it swooped down for another attack run a crazy idea came into Shepard's head.

"Bunker down!" She called, sprinting for the edge of the chasm.

"Shepard no!"

She was already in flight, pushing off with every bit of power her artificially induced muscles could produce she launched herself into the air, just as the shuttle passed by at its lowest altitude. It wasn't quite low enough for her to land on the roof, but she caught the lip of the open shuttle door and dangled there, the Cerberus troops inside staring down at her in what she could only hope was shock. Before they could recover their senses she drew her pistol and put down all three of them with a shot to the faceplate.

Holstering the gun she hauled herself up into the cabin, drawing the gun again and sighting it on the pilot, who was just turning to see what was happening. She fired the second his head was in view and it disappeared into paste. Darting forwards she leaned over to take the controls, setting the shuttle into a gentle descent to land safely on the other side, next to the elevator.

She stepped out to see her team on the other side, staring at her in disbelief. She grinned and gave them a wave, then activated the bridge controls. They crossed, still open mouthed. Vega was the first to speak.

"And you give me crap for pulling stupid stunts with shuttles?"

"I just don't like to be outdone Vega. Rule number one of crewing with Shepard."

"Cerberus reinforcements incoming," Edi said, cutting off anything else. "Heavy armour with them."

"Alright people let's get into position. Liara, transmit that signal now and start the wake-up process. We don't want to hang around once he's up."

"On it."

She could see the shuttle on the horizon, and could clearly make out the ATLAS dangling underneath it. "Garrus, get into the shelters, sniping position. Vega, by the pod, but don't get too close, it'll be a target. Edi and Liara, find cover where you can."

Suiting actions to words she headed back to where she had parked the shuttle, programming in a new course and stepping out as it rose slowly from the ground. Most shuttles had some sort of autodrive capability, and as she suspected all of the Cerberus shuttles had been slaved together to allow for central command. She had activated the 'linkup with nearest friendly' program, but without a human to shut it down when the shuttle got close the VI wasn't smart enough to judge the distances right.

The incoming shuttle banked heavily as her battering ram came close, disengaging the mech far from the dig site instead of dropping it on the heads. The shuttle swooped low, pursued by the drone, and she saw the door open and eject a handful of troops before the two shuttles collided. There was no spectacular ball of flame, but with a wrenching sound they spun out of sight below the cliff edge and were gone.

The two fireteams moved quickly towards them, the mech behind. They were using the cover well, and keeping her people pinned, but they were at a disadvantage, forced to move up while her people could stay in cover. Shepard focused her fire on the mech, knowing Garrus would pick off the agents. Her first shot dropped its shields, her second putting a crack in the front screen. Her third and final shot penetrated the glass, shattering it to pieces even as her shot buried itself into the driver's chest. The mech went limp, then toppled over into the dirt.

As she reloaded she made a quick check on her squad. Liara and Edi were keeping well to cover, keeping up the suppressing fire while Vega and Garrus took advantage of their flanking positions to pick off the agents behind cover. Shepard didn't bother to intervene or issue any further orders, letting them work as the unit she knew they could be.

Even as the final trooper fell Liara was checking her omni-tool, standing up and looking across to the pod. "It's ready."

AN:-Kinda funny that Liara mentions the Prothean cipher in this chapter, because in my ME1 novelisation at 70,000 words in Shepard was just about to receive it, because I was practically at the end of the game.

This is the first time I'm doing the old 'Shepard brings everyone on mission' thing. Usually to get this I have to play the game myself to get one set of dialogue, then watch playthroughs by other people to get alternate dialogue to mix and match. I always seem to have characters I'm just not sure with, and unfortunately here that's an even bigger issue with the squad size being so small. But Edi and Vega both I'm just comfortable or confident with. Ah well, we do what we can.

Funnily enough I have a note from right back when I was writing ME1 to have Shepard tease Liara about being a paleontologist vs an archaeologist. I wish I'd written it in now, then I could claim copyright infringement. (thought to be fair, it's a pretty common misconception and I'm not the first to use that for humorous purposes either so eh)

Anthropology is explicitly the study of human and human culture, so therefore the study of non human cultures cannot be anthropology. I figured xenopology would probably be the term used.

Biggest change is obviously Shepard's little stunt with the shuttle. The game was just so disappointing and pointless to me at that point. It's clearly just a way to get you to take lightly longer getting back to the pod, therefore feeling like you're getting a bit more DLC for your money. I considered just having the bridge stay up, then decided Shepard could be a badass instead.

Javik is coming!