The Commander laid unconscious on the operating table. The mission on Eden Prime was a massive failure. One dead spectre, two Alliance casualties, and a broken beacon. I was sure I was going to be discharged and sent back to my old squadron. I mean, I was the new guy, after all. Usually the doctrine was that the blame for any failure was with leadership, or "blaming the quarterback" so to speak. So in theory, Shepard would take the blame. But right now, the quarterback was out cold on an operating table.

Chakwas was quick to assure Ashely and I's concerns, saying the commander was physically sound but needed to stay rested for now and wake up naturally. She said something about abnormal brain activity, but it didn't look like anything alarming, like neurological damage.

Aside from a killer concussion, anyway. But those are weekly requirements for Alliance grunts.

Suddenly, Shepard was woken from his slumber while Chakwas was looking at her charts, back turned to all three of us. Ashely was the first to alert her at the Commander's newfound lucidity.

"Dr. Chakwas, he's waking up!" Ashley looked on Shepard with bemusement, wait no, she was looking at him like that. The upturned lip on her face, the oogly eyes. By golly, I think the gunnery Chief was eyeing up our commander.

Good luck with *that* fish, honey.

Shepard finally sat up, looking okay but a bit tired. He overall seemed alright, so maybe the scolding I was about to get wouldn't be so bad. I anxiously awaited his first words when Chakwas turned around and came over to the operating table.

"Commander, how are you feeling?" Chakwas' voice had a comforting gravelly texture to it. Everything about her screamed "helicopter doctor". Grunts hade a love-hate relationship with the doc usually. One the one had, the doc was the reason you are alive after a tough firefight. On the other hand, grunts hate being reminded to take their meds and, God forbid, take it easy.

"UUUUGhhhh, like the morning after shore leave." Sense of humor intact, that's a good sign. "How long was I out?"

"About 18 hours, commander." Chakwas and the commander then went through a routine checkup to make sure he was alright, asking all the questions and giving all the answers one might expect of a visit to the doc. Anderson then announced his presence as the door hissed open on the opposite side.

"How's our XO holding up" Anderson took his hands and clasped them behind his back, chest puffed out at parade rest.

"Physically he's fine, but I detected some unusual brain activity. Abnormal beta waves." Chakwas stated in a matter-of-fact manner, not indicating that it would interfere with his duties.

"That was rough commander." Anderson turned to the now-standing Shepard, who was not obviously fine. "What happened down there?"

"Shortly before I lost consciousness, I had some kind of vision. Death, destruction, nothings really clear." Shepard laid his head low trying to parse through what he just said. That beacon gave him visions? Dark visions? I know Prothean were advanced, but I had no idea they could fuck with your head and create prophets out of Alliance marines.

So, the beacons done, marines are dead, and our Commander had a vision. The council and Alliance brass are going to love this.

Shepard then turned to me, lifting his head up. I was mentally preparing for the critical bomb to drop. "Ace, about the mission…" Oh boy, here it comes. I gulped.

"That was a damn good job. You got balls, kid."

My eyes widened in surprise. That was certainly not what I was expecting. I mean, what happened was partly my fault, but I knew I didn't take all the blame. But I just expect to take it because I was an easy target. I'm supposed to protect ground troops. But I can't save 'em all.

After a brief pause, I regained my composure and stood tall and upright. "Thank you, sir."

Shepard chuckled and clutched his chest. "Man, drop the 'yes sir' crap. I know you forced that out."

"Damn right I did, sir. Gotta make sure my CO's wheels are greased." I dropped to a more relaxed posture, crossing my arms on my chest.

"Oh please, ass kissing gets you no where with me. Keep doing shit like that on Eden Prime and follow orders, and you can drop the formalities with me." Shepard waved his hand at me dismissively, still grinning through it all. "Anderson here will say the same. He got you onboard for that exact reason. You follow orders, you're a little insane, you protect your troops, and yet by the grace of God, you're still alive and stay alive." Anderson turned to me and gave me a nod as I made eye contact with him.

Anderson then relaxed a bit and gave me a soft smile. "Ace, keep being you in that jet, and we won't have any problems. That's all we want out of you. I initially thought that this experiment with a secondary pilot was a bit of a pipe dream, but you have proved me wrong. Damn how the mission went, you did good kid. That will be all now, I want to debrief the commander in private. I'll see you in the conference room for your debriefing. Dismissed" Anderson's hand shot up into a salute as mine followed. I then made my way towards the door and walked into the mess hall.

Now that I'm here, I just realized that I've been on an empty stomach for 9 hours.

Should get something to eat.

I went to my locker on the right side of the room, and went to my stash of nutrient bars. I usually went pretty calorically heavy for mine, since I burned a ton of calories do those high-G maneuvers. And, of course, my private stash only had the best of the best, which was the apple pie bar. Hailed by all the alliance as the best grub one can have in a hurry, it had all your nutrient needs in a flavor that reminds the earthers of home.

Ashley followed me out, and she went down to the hangar bay. I think her locker's down there. Anyway, I decided against sitting down and had my meal on the go, heading down to the bay as well. Figured I should patch up my fighter before we head to the citadel to get grilled by the council. I stepped out of the elevator and into the bay, greeted by my fighter's visage, tainted and battered by small arms fire, flak shrapnel, and its airframe was just a bit bent out of shape near the front. Nothing I can't fix, luckily.

Ashley was over on the left fixing up her gun, field stripping down the Lancer with impressive speed and dexterity. She was clearly a seasoned infantrywoman, and hell, I'll admit it, not bad looking either. I know my whole squadron would just be lining up trying to swoon her with daring stories and quippy lines. But for me…not my type I guess.

I approached her with my bar in hand, taking bites ever so often. "Hey, it's Ashley, right?" My mouth was still full when I spoke up.

"Yes it is. And you are this 'ace' that was in our ear all last mission?" I sensed a kind of condescension in her voice. It certainly didn't sound cordial, but I have no idea what she's like, so I just played along.

"That's me." I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "Hope that run back on Eden Prime didn't shake ya too hard, I know I was cutting it a little close-"

Ashley shot up from her rifle and gave me some angry eyes. "Yeah? You think? A little close? You almost gunned us down!"

I quickly rebutted, but in a consolatory tone. I'm not trying to piss off the marine. "Look, it was that or y'all would've died in that siege. You know that. Plus, our commander loved it anyway, you heard!"

Ashley recoiled from me a bit as she turned back to her rifle, cleaning more vigorously than before. "Yeah yeah. So what? It's just…aaaagh!" she let out an exasperated yell. Maybe there's more to this attitude. "Look, I knew what the score was, its just…well…I lost my whole unit…." She struggled to get that one out. I saw the bodies at that spaceport. Her unit got completely annihilated. She calmed her voice down to a more melancholic mumble "…And a few friends."

Silence hung in the air for a few seconds. I decided to at least give her some consolation. It's never easy to lose friends, especially so brutally. "That's alright Ashley. Don't blame yourself. That attack was unprecedented and completely overwhelming. That fact that you got out of there is a miracle. Losing friends is tough, and I know I can't really relate to ground troops and what that's like, but you'll get through it." I kept my tone soft so I don't step on any of her toes with my sometimes-dumb mouth.

Ashley looked up at me from the side of the table. "Thanks… ace." She blurted out my name as if it was still foreign in her mind. "Sorry, for the outburst, not the first impression I wanted to make" She was pepping up a bit. Good job, ace. Didn't immediately alienate the one alliance marine.

"Here, let's just start over. I'm Ashley Williams, and its good to meet you…?"

"Bruce MacKinnon, but just call me ace."

We shook hands cordially.

Phew.

Me and Ashley were making our way up to the bridge to watch us pull into the citadel. I'd really only seen it in vids, and the fleet that guarded it. If Citadel has Fallen, that recent atrocious action vid,was any indication of what this would look like, I was excited to gaze upon it with my own eyes.

"God damn, look at the size of that thing!" Ashley was starstruck looking out the top port. I moved along side to gaze with her, tilting my head to get a good look.

It was an enormous ship, easily multiple magnitudes larger than our fleet carriers. It was arranged in a large plus, and the middle looked to be its main gun.

I pulled myself out of my awe-struck gaze. "I wouldn't be surprised if that gun could glass a whole planet." The ship was on patrol with a colossal flotilla of ships tailing it, each one with different shapes and configurations from each of the council races. A testament to cooperation, and the hammer of the law. It was the council's way of saying "make peace, or else" to anyone who dared defy them.

Good thing we're playing nice.

"Citadel, this is SSV Normandy requesting permission to dock." Joker was pulling us into the citadel, with its arms dropping a shadow over the whole ship as the internal lights brightened a bit to compensate. The thing was absolutely enormous. Every arm was basically the size of Manhattan times 3, from my judgement. How many people lived on this thing?

"Roger, Normandy, you are clear to dock. Transferring you to an alliance operator." The reply had a flange to his voice. Sounded like a turian. How on earth all these races live here together and don't try to kill each other is beyond me. I wonder if there's a sort of coalesced culture on the citadel that blends all the races together, or if they just have to stick to their own to avoid a cultural incident happening every ten seconds.

I've been on leave here many times. Well, more like 3 times, but each time I was too drunk to really remember anything meaningful. Except for getting socked by a turian one time for dissing his girl in earshot. Luckily my boys had my back, and we gave him and his crew a good seeing-to. Of course, we were then all thrown out, with considerable force, by the Krogan bouncer.

Guess I can't hit up Chora's Den anymore.

"Alright," Shepard announced his presence behind us. Me and Ashley both turned around to hear what he had to say. "we're meeting diplomats, so get into dress uniform, and report to the airlock in 10."

"Aye aye, sir"

Shepard, Anderson, and the ground team were all taking in the view of the presidium. Gotta say, never thought id be in the ambassador's office. Getting to meet Udina was gonna be cool. I'd always seen him on TV shouting up a storm to the council, talking about anti-human sentiment and how we were getting fucked.

He's a fighter, I'll give him that. But I don't really agree with him. The fact we got an embassy as fast as we did is kinda a big deal, if my small knowledge of galactic history is correct. But I get why he does it. If everyone's playing the game of power politics, we gotta play too. Only way we can get what we want. It sucks, but that's politics: a time for cooperation and singing kumbaya, and a time for shit slinging and strong-arming.

Udina walked into the office with the whizz of the door. He was expecting us, and walked over to the balcony with a wired urgency.

"Captain Anderson, I see you brought your whole crew with you." His voice carried some tension, but Anderson was quick to keep things calm.

"Just the ground team and air support from Eden Prime, in case you had any questions." Anderson kept his stoic disposition despite Udina's anxious prodding.

"I have the report, captain. And its not good. Shepard's spectre candidacy is hanging on by a thread, and now the charges we're making against Saren is our last Hail Mary."

"We'll make sure these charges stick. We got an eyewitness." Udina's eyes widened at Anderson's comment, visually taken aback by the certainty.

"We have a traumatized dock worker's word, no body, and a failed mission. Look I trust your word and I hate Saren too, but you have to understand this is going to be no fucking cakewalk!" Udina's words stung with their devastating truth. We really don't have much on this fuckin shit stain, and now were walking into the Lion's den in the Presidium tower to get our ass handed to us.

Udina broke the sullen silence in a lowered, exasperated tone. "Just be ready for the Council when they call us up."

Udina then walked out, frantically tapping away at his omni tool.

Ashley scoffed, glancing at Udina and back at Shepard, who was equally perplexed by the Ambassador's tone.

"And that's why I hate politicians."

"Saren's hiding something, give me more time, stall them!" We heard a turian man arguing with another as we ascended to the presidium tower. It was me, Shepard, Ashley and Kaidan in tow. Anderson was leading the group.

"Stall the council, Vakarian? You really have no sense, do you? This investigation is over, Garrus." The other turian dismissively waved at him and stormed back down towards the elevator, barging past us.

After a brief pause, Shepard inquired. "What was that all about?"

This "Garrus" turned towards us. He was a tall fella, even for a turian he was a good head higher than the other guy. He was in a C-SEC uniform, looked like a regular patrol officer at a glance.

"Just having a friendly chat with 'the executor', who are you?" Garrus has a nonchalant tone to his voice, not something I was accustomed to in a uniformed police officer. Definitely isn't a fan of his boss. He gained some composure and extended his hand to Shepard.

"Garrus Vakarian, I *was* the C-sec officer in charge of the Saren investigation." There was sting in his voice. Clearly, the executor just shut down something he took personally. "But no, Saren's a spectre, everything he touches is classified, and that makes it a bitch to find ledes."

Shepard chuckled a little bit at that. He had a certain sarcasm to him that was new to see in a turian. I certainly haven't met many turians that had a sense of humor, which is kind of sad now that I think about it. But of course, even the humor is dark and sarcastic.

"Yeah, aint that the truth, we're about to hear it from the council. Shepard, by the way."

Shepard spotted Anderson waving us over to the council chamber. That's our queue to leave I guess.

"Alright, hate to keep the council waiting. Good luck Garrus, stay in touch just in case." Shepard fiddled with his omni-tool and whipped over his details to Garrus.

"Good luck Commander." Garrus went towards the elevator as we ascended the stairs with Anderson to the council.

I faintly heard Udina yelling from the top of the stairs, something something "Humans getting the shaft."

Oh boy.

"This is an outrage, the council would do something if the geth attacked a Turian colony!" Udina wanted all the smoke with the council. Or at least he had to look like he did. We all knew the score. We hade jack shit evidence, and Saren was the council's golden boy. The theatrics had to be turned up to 11 to even have a chance.

The spectators, numbering about 100, gasped at the proclamation, stirring murmurs in the turian contingent and concurrence from the humans. The salarian councilor spoke up in rebuttal, keeping his calm.

"Humanity was well aware of the risks going into the traverse, ambassador. But never mind that, we are here to discuss your charges against Saren."

Spectators hummed and erred at a hushed volume. Udina spoke once more.

"An eyewitness saw Nihilus killed in cold blood."

"Ah, yes, a traumatized dock worker's testimony. If mere hearsay is your best evidence, then I cannot entertain this circus." The Turian councilor barked back. He was a hardass too. Man, are all turians like this?

The back and forth then continued for a good 30 minutes as I zoned out. This was going no where. Udina would throw some accusation out with half-baked arguments, and get shot down quickly. Saren would snark on the holo every so often, always earning a stern stare from Anderson.

Interesting.

The council came back out to their stands. They left us for deliberation, as we pensively waited the verdict. Shepard and everyone else didn't look too hopeful, myself included with a scowl on my face. The Asari councilor standed firm upon her rostra and delivered the verdict as the murmurs of the crowd stopped.

"In the case of the Office of the Ambassador for the Humans vs. Saren, we do not find sufficient evidence to support one count of treason. This meeting of the Citadel Council is officially adjourned."

Murmurs and some applause followed as the crowds filed out to find something more interesting. And then, the media started swarming Udina. Shepard gave us all a nod to escape before we got a lecture from journalists.

So, what now?

Okay, sorry for how long this took. Now that I'm settled into the college rhythm, I'm going to start aiming for weekly/biweekly updates to the series.

Onto chapter 4! Where one of the most consequential bar fights in galactic history will lead to Saren's demise, and Tali's debut. I'm going to deviate from the base game a bit, but trust me, you're gonna love how Chora's Den changes :).