Hey.

Bit of a rant incoming, so if you don't care about my thoughts and all that stuff, feel free to skip all that is in bold here. I still explain some pretty important things concerning the story around the end though, so be sure to take a look at that if you want a full understanding of some things (or don't it's really not that hard to get, at least from my totally biased opinion as the author).

So I made a thing, and it's totally an original idea and all (lies). Basically, I was reading some great stories where humanity had access to mass effect technology at the same time as the Protheans - Revenge of the Fallen by Legendary Junk Mail and The Shepard by Galexz to be exact - and they were great, highly recommended.

The detail that did make me frown just a teeny tiny bit was the fact that they aren't finished :(

Now I'm not blaming the authors, far from it actually, as I understand that interest can fade or that life makes it so hobbies can go on the back burner, but I'm still kinda sad that I don't get the rest of those interesting stories.

So then I got an idea. I had hit a bit of a wall on my other story where I have a very specific idea in my head, but can't manage to put it into a shape that satisfied me. As such, I was looking for another to practise for a bit to get myself out of my spiral of endless rewrites and figurative scrunched up pages on my Google Docs.

So here I am, with some 12000 words of a Naruto project that will probably end up nowhere, a botched attempt at a post The Sun ending of Cyberpunk (once again, totally original idea, trust me) and what looks like, at least in my very much organized mind, the beginning of what could be a great Mass Effect fic.

Honestly, this is a bit of a testing ground for me, to try and really anchor my writing style, and find something of a template in chapters I write (the length and overall scale of the chapters will be much smaller than what I'm used to for example). That obviously doesn't mean that I won't be investing myself in this, quite the opposite actually, as I'm pretty happy with the rough outline of a plot I've managed to cook up.

Anyway, this story is heavily inspired by the two mentioned above, and so some similarities will appear. I still tried to make something completely separate, and I think that I've managed that pretty well. Some themes from The Shepard will be somewhat recurring throughout what I've planned for the story, but the rest should be quite different. Think of it has some sort of spiritual successor, I guess.

Now onto my protagonist, Kat Shepard. I named her that because I like it. That's pretty much it concerning her name. She looks like the default femShep because I like it, though her hair is longer (guess the reason).

She's a vanguard, a powerful, balls to the wall biotic (cue shocked gasps from the audience due to this yet again amazing, never done before idea). I still tried to integrate things that I haven't seen very often in what I've read in this Fandom for now, though I don't know if I just haven't read the right stories or if I just manage to make something that everybody and their mother didn't do before me. Anyway, in my quest for originality, I ended up looking at the numerous abilities that we've seen in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer or Andromeda, things like the N7 dodges that are basically short range teleportation, or other stuff like Phase Disruptor or the wet dream of every vanguard ever, Annihilation Field. She has a sword or monomolecular blade as it's called, much like the N7 Slayer (t'was her specialization when she graduated). For firearms, she loves her N7 Hurricane and only her N7 Hurricane.

For other characters, she'll be really close to Liara, though I'm still debating whether or not it's worth it to make a romance between the two. They will be really close regrdless, but I don't know whether or not it makes sense in the overall context of the story and the characters. A lot of the human cast that we know and love sadly won't be there, as I don't want the list of characters I want to focus on to be too long. That's the official reasoning, I'll let you discover the (honestly kinda cheap) reason I've put together in universe. Other characters will appear as I see fit, and honestly, their 'screen time' per say probably will be proportionate to how much I enjoy them as a character both in game and in lore.

Other than that, this chapter takes place at the same time as Mass Effect 2 would begin, with the overall context being not all that different from the canon storyline. Don't expect this particular story to follow the plot of the games too much however.

So, with that, rant finished, only took about a sixth of the total word count. Nice.

Try and enjoy the story :*

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

'EDI'

It was not a good day to be Kat.

'-mander. Commander, you need to wake up.'

The voice had been going on for more than a few seconds now, but Katherine 'Kat' Shepard decided that a few more minutes could not hurt, and that maybe, just maybe, ignoring it would cause the annoyance to go away. It had been quite a long time since she had such a good sleep, her nights often being cut off by the urgency of war.

Oh. Oh.

'Shepard!'

"Ah… for fuck's sake… EDI?" she managed to croak out, despite feeling her throat protest heavily against the action.

'Ah, Commander. I apologize for the rough wake up call, but I didn't have any other options.'

Still groggy, Kat nodded her head softly in response, not trusting herself to put together a proper sentence. Her memory was fuzzy, incomplete, almost, with flashes of emotions and images coming back along with various sensations in her limbs, though not much else. A part of her was conscious enough to realize that something wasn't right with her, and actually understand what was going on, but it was like she didn't have the mental capacity to actually process that information and was instead stuck in a weird limbo between childish ignorance and full-blown panic. Managing to open her eyes slightly, the light assaulted her retinas, making her close her eyelids immediately. Forging on, she tried again, only to be greeted with the sight of what looked like heavy mist lazily floating all around her. The opaque substance prevented her from seeing what was going on around her, or even much of her own body.

EDI's voice chimed in again. 'Your cerebral activity indicates that you are still in the process of waking up from the stasis. Most of your body has been defrosted and is in the process of waking up. It should not take much more time for you to regain your full cognitive capabilities given your circumstances, though your body might take a bit more time to shrug off the effects of the induced sleep. I tried to make the process as smooth as possible, but the human body simply isn't made to withstand such a long period of inactivity, and waking up is due to be an unpleasant experience, even for you, Commander.'

'I will take this time to explain the situation. The original plan has gone off the rails by quite a significant margin, but the primary objectives should still be achievable given the current parameters. The first and foremost thing you should be aware of is that the cycle you were supposed to wake up in was already unsalvageable by the time I emerged from my power saving mode. As such, I initiated the seventh directive given to me by Admiral Hackett and did my best to ensure the continuation of the mission.'

Right. The mission. Stasis. Live to fight another day. A memory. The war wasn't going to end well, everyone knew it, so the high, high-ups chose to hide away a piece of humanity, to rebuild and grow stronger, lead the various races that might come after to victory, and eventually secure the future of humanity. Shepard had tried her best to make the Admiralty choose someone else other than her for this, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. She wasn't against the plan itself, but she didn't believe that she should be the one who has the hopes of her entire race entrusted to her, instead wanting to stay and fight until the bitter end, much like a sizable part of her crew. In total disregard of her opinion however, she ended up frozen in ice with humanity's best ship and crew, along with extra people that were considered the best in what they did, hidden in some 'remote location' all the while humanity died to the Reapers.

'Since a full cycle was skipped, instead of being in stasis for the calculated 49,990 years, it has been 99,995 years since the facility's activation. This has caused several major issues, severe power constraints and external events such as cosmic rays made it so that it was impossible to maintain stasis for the entirety of the crew.'

Feeling her face decomposing further and further as EDI continued to speak, Shepard felt the familiar feeling of dread making itself known deep inside her stomach, distracting her from the hurt in her throat enough to ask. "How many?" she demanded to know, clenching what she believed to be her fists.

'Commander, your current psychological situation is already unstable from the stasis, such infor-'

"EDI. How. Many?"

'...There are currently three survivors besides yourself, Commander.'

Three. Three fucking people. Not counting EDI, that made four survivors out of a crew of fifty-three. All considered to be the very best that humanity had to offer, and entrusted with leading the war against the Reapers and, eventually, ensuring the survival of their entire species. Forty-nine dead that were either convinced or ordered to abandon the fight to protect everything they knew and, in the end, won't even have a chance at revenge for the loss of their loved ones, nor the opportunity to rebuild afterwards. Shepard fought the myriad of feelings that bloomed in her. An emotional breakdown would not help anyone, and there was sadly nothing she could do for her dead crew except honor them in death by annihilating the Reapers. She would grieve for them when she had the time. Still, the news was hitting her hard, harder than she would like them to. "...I see. Who else is… Who is still here besides me?"

'Ms. Goto, Lieutenant Moreau and Doctor Chakwas.'

It made a scary amount of sense, so much that it was pretty much impossible to be due only to luck. Joker was the pilot, and was needed to fly the Normandy and provide independence in case the current races were not inclined to let them move around. Karin was the Chief Medical Officer and perhaps the only one left in the galaxy with the capabilities to heal humans in case any one of them got injured. They were chosen. One thing did not make much sense though.

"Why.. Kasumi?"

'Ms. Lawson believed that her presence would be beneficial to your psychological state.'

That was proving to be true, as a selfish part of her could not help but be relieved the Japanese woman had survived, even at the cost of the others' lives. "Miranda… she chose?"

'Indeed. Under orders from the Admiralty, Ms. Lawson was to rank all personnel from the Normandy in order of importance in case the scenario we find ourselves in happened. Considering your known aversion towards making choices concerning the lives of your crew, the Admiralty assigned the task to Ms. Lawson. I also believe that this list was primarily made with you in mind, and who could be of most help to you in your mission.'

"Ah… Sounds like her alright. She always did have too much faith in me."

'If I may Commander, past data suggests that you are indeed our best hope to-'

"Sure EDI, I'll lead the whole of humanity, which amounts to four people might I remind you, to salvation and bitchslap the Reapers while doing it." Her tone was harsh, harsher than it should be considering EDI was not the one to blame for the disaster. She was aware of this, but could not help the known spark of resentment from growing inside her heart, though it had no clear target right now. "So, outside the fact that almost all of my crew and the dying hope of humanity is dead, what's the situation?"

'Given the limited amount of information that I was able to intercept from here, it seems that a dreadnought class Reaper has appeared a few months back in an assault against the Citadel. It has been destroyed in a collective effort of the advanced races of the cycle, though the public has been informed that it was a ship belonging to a synthetic race called the Geth. It appears likely that the authorities of this cycle are either unaware of the Reaper threat or don't believe it to be a tangible threat.'

'As you have probably gathered, Commander, there are multiple advanced races in this cycle, unlike in our time, though the technology they use is eerily similar to humanity's, which seems to confirm several theories concerning Reaper behavior towards non space faring races. Access to linguistic databases has not yet been secured, so communication might prove to be difficult during first contact.'

'On a more immediate note, a dozen unidentified pods have landed rather harshly in the vicinity of the stasis pod chamber thirteen minutes ago, and several life forms have since been exploring the area, with four of them heading straight towards our location. Though the chance they are hostile is not certain, it cannot be ignored either. It is also believed that they are aware that the area is populated, or at least that some form of base is set up here, since the fact that they know our precise location can only mean they have picked up on the power consumption of the building. We can then conclude that they possess at least advanced scanning technology. The average simulation has them breaching the chamber in five minutes and forty seconds. It was mainly for this reason and the urgency of the situation that your awakening has been as unpleasant as it has been.'

Kat sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose in irritation. Hopefully these 'life forms' would not be hostile on sight, though considering how things have been going on since her awakening, she did not hold much hope. At least she could feel all her limbs again, that was nice. "Alright, open this damned coffin up and start waking the others. I trust the Normandy is fine?"

'There has been no recorded incident with the SSV Normandy. I will prepare for launch immediately. The estimated time for the crew to be fully operational is eight minutes.'

"Alright then, have them board the Normandy as soon as they are able to, though they are to remain together at all times." The soft hissing sound that suddenly made itself known indicated to Shepard that her pod was opening. After a few seconds, the noise stopped, and with its disappearance, the mist blocking her vision finally cleared up, revealing a dimly lit corridor, with pods similar to her own orderly lined up in the walls. The sight almost made her cry, knowing that in almost each of these was a man or a woman that would never wake up, and someone she most likely could call a friend.

Quickly discarding the thought, the N7 graduate quickly got up from her lying position in the now open pod, getting her feet on the cold floor and standing up, only to fall on her knees, vertigo gripping her senses. Given the fact that EDI did not react, she assumed that the reaction was expected and, after a few seconds, the feeling passed somewhat, at least enough for her to walk around.

"Where are our guests coming from, EDI?"

'The landing sites are located north of the facility, around one point three kilometers from our location. They will likely try to enter from the third level, since the chance they have a drill to access the other levels is below one percent.'

"Acknowledged. Notify me when the others have woken up."

Arriving at the armory after a very light jog, Kat let out a sad smile after seeing the neatly aligned armors and weapons that wouldn't be seeing use anymore. Once again squashing the feelings rising in her, she walked towards her custom-made Onyx armor, her eyes falling to the N7 emblem emblazoned on her chestplate. A hundred thousand years ago, this symbol represented the absolute elite in the entire galaxy, the pinnacle of humanity. Now, it was just a letter and a number, devoid of meaning.

'Fucking hell, Kat, stop with all the melodrama stuff. You'll have plenty of time to wallow in self-despair later.' After mentally chastising herself, she focused on putting on her armor as quickly as she could, managing rather nicely considering her still asleep limbs. Once fully suited up, she nodded, not forgetting to grab her trusty - and hopefully still functioning - N7 Hurricane and made her way towards the ladder that led to the third level of the building.

Said level consisted of nothing more than half of the massive power banks installed into the facility, and was also the only level accessible from the surface of the small planetoid found in the Arcturus Stream they hid on. Since it only housed machinery, the only space open for people to traverse the level was a network of somewhat narrow corridors, a few meters wide. More than big enough for its intended purpose of letting technicians walk around and set up the power banks, but nowhere big enough to have a firefight in, without even mentioning the lack of cover available. Add to that the awful paint job that made it pretty much impossible for her to hide since didn't have a personal cloaking device, the mix of baby blue and white clashing with her, for the most part, jet-black armor.

Making her way through the corridors, her pace hurried, she looked at the small timer she had set up on her omni-tool beforehand. Still one minute and ten seconds before predicted contact. Despite the time window coming from simulations, the N7 graduate was inclined to fully trust EDI's predictions, which had been scarily accurate back when they were still fighting Reaper forces. In addition to that, it was trivially easy to tell where the building would be breached, considering it was built alongside a cliff and there was only one entry point on the surface. All in all, EDI didn't have much else to predict in her simulations of the situation other than the traveling speed of the visitors, so her estimations would likely be on point.

The entrance to the facility was as barren as the rest of the level, with a singular corridor leading to the door, which was currently locked with high-grade encryption. While Shepard was rather confident that the door wouldn't be hacked, she didn't share the feeling when it came to its sturdiness. Even a small well-placed grenade would be enough to threaten its structural integrity and grant entry into the building, meaning access to her remaining crew.

Realizing through the missing HUD on her visor that she had forgotten to relink her nervous system to her armor, she felt a long-forgotten stab of nervousness. The enemy, if the intruders were hostile, outnumbered her by quite the margin. She also had no information on their capabilities, armor and weaponry. Meanwhile, she just had gotten out of stasis, the waking sickness having subsided slightly but leaving her body numb and slow. She only had a submachine gun and a few spare thermal clips, and she didn't even have the time to hook up the external implants of the armor to fine tune her control over her biotics. Shepard sighed to herself. There was no need for her to make assumptions before it happened. Maybe she wouldn't even have to fight in the first place.

Despite her hopeful thoughts however, she still needed to prepare just in case the intruders were hostile. Arriving at the rather plain looking door, she turned back to look for cover she could hide in out of sight while she assessed the situation, despite fully knowing there was basically nothing. With not much else than a barren corridor that led to another corridor at a right angle of the first one in sight, she didn't have much choice. Running to the junction, she passed the corner and hid, pressing herself to the wall, parallel to the door. She managed to set up a small camera on the floor, pointing towards the door, while she watched the feed on her omni-tool in the relative safety of her cover. The timing was rather fortunate, since the door of the building exploded right after she finished, with a vaguely humanoid shape charging right through it. As the dust rose and formed a stagnating cloud in the air, three other figures entered after the first one. All of them were bipedal, much like the first one, with one looking very much like a human. The other two had distinctive differences in the way the legs were shaped, or in the upper chest area, though their size was more human-like than the first one.

As a matter of fact, the one that had plowed through the door using apparently nothing but its body looked nothing like a human, with the only similarity being the number of limbs. The most glaring difference was the massive hump that even extended above what probably was its head, which was quite massive in size as well. So massive that the figure could only be described as a behemoth, despite the admittedly smaller sized limbs. Fully clad in what appeared to be armor, Shepard could only guess if it was synthetic or not, though its demeanor looked too messy and undisciplined for it to be synthetic.

The three others were still inside the dust cloud and were apparently talking with each other. The languages used between them were different, so translating programs were most likely used to ensure communication between them. A nice thing to note, considering it would be Shepard's job to engage first contact with them, and having a hold on means of communication would be quite important, though it would only be useful as long as EDI could successfully implement it.

After a few more seconds spent talking, one of them stepped back towards the now ruined door and stuck something to the wall. That something quickly sealed off the hole left by the first alien, creating a shimmering orange rectangle over the hole and repressurized the level, also somehow managing to clear out the dust cloud that was still hanging in the air.

The first thing Shepard did when the dust cleared was observe the remaining aliens. The one that went to seal the door didn't take off its helmet, making its face impossible to see with her small camera feed. It was also wearing a purple suit that did not show any skin, though the accentuated body shape made it clear that it was not human. Another one vaguely looked like a featherless bird, with some sorts of spikes on its head, which also was fitted with mandibles. With talons at the end of the fingers holding what looked like a sniper rifle, along with a large chest and long, skinny limbs, it looked quite unsettling to her.

While the rest were quite interesting, it was the last one that caught Shepard's eye. It could safely be described as a blue, hairless human woman. While there were obvious differences like the tentacle-like appendages replacing what would normally be hair or the skin that was scalier than the one of a human, that was basically it, at least those were the only glaring differences that Shepard could see. It looked to be taken straight out of a fantasy movie that wanted to create a 'human-like' race, with two arms and two legs that had human proportions, hands with five fingers, what appeared to be two breasts that even were at the right place, a beautifully human face with delicate features… For perhaps the first time in her life, Shepard found herself slack-jawed.

So slack jawed in fact, that she almost didn't notice the first one walking towards her, with something that looked quite a lot like a shotgun in its hands. When she did notice however, it was already too late. It crossed the corner she was hiding in, only to let out a startled yell and shoot what, in the end, was indeed a shotgun right at her face. While Shepard put up a Backlash more quickly than she ever did to protect herself from the shotgun blast, the now appropriately identified reptilian alien yelled out again when its attack bounced right back into his chest and was sent flying, crashing heavily into the wall.

Still hugging the wall, the N7 looked down at her omni-tool, where she saw that the other three had turned towards the commotion and were slowly advancing towards her weapons drawn, yelling out what probably was the name of the creature. The fact that they didn't look too concerned when they saw it slumped on a wall with smoke coming from its chest was worrying the N7 though. This worry was soon proven well founded when she witnessed the creature stand back up, looking more pissed off than hurt, and glaring at her like she had just murdered its entire family. It blurted something that was probably an insult before lining up his shotgun again.

Already guessing what was going to happen, Shepard brought her Backlash up again, deflecting the additional shotgun shot coming her way, causing the reptile to dodge out of the way. Using the small amount of time she had while the alien was awkwardly rolling on the floor, she dressed an Annihilation Field around her, before using a Biotic Charge to dispatch the now standing attacker. The fiery looking field, along with the charge, created a massive explosion of biotic energy upon impact, throwing the creature like a ragdoll towards the wall at bone-breaking speeds, causing it to crack while the alien bounced off and hit the floor with a loud thud, rolling for several meters afterwards.

The Commander scowled under the safety of her helmet. Her limbs felt oddly numb and heavy to move around, as if she was trying to swim in honey, and her reaction times were all over the place. Her biotics also felt weird, almost as if they weren't really hers anymore, in addition to being slightly weaker than how she remembers them being. Mentally noting to check in with Chakwas as soon as she could, she breathed out of her mouth slowly to smooth her nerves.

Grabbing her monomolecular blade from her back and taking a relaxed stance, Shepard turned towards the three remaining aliens and stepped into their view. She was still willing to believe, or was certainly hoping at the very least, that they weren't actually hostile and that the reptile was just surprised to come across her, and that it was its first reaction to just shoot at her point blank.

It would seem that the trio of aliens had the same thought process as she did, since they weren't shooting at her despite showing obvious distrust. That, or her display was more impressive than she had thought. The one with the helmet, standing on the right of the blue one, was trembling slightly, hinting more towards the second option. Deciding that she would be better off trying to defuse the situation, Shepard did what she hoped would be taken as a surrendering gesture and slowly brought her hands in the air above her head with her palms open, after having put her blade back in its sheath.

The gesture was apparently understood, as the weapons drawn towards her were lowered slightly, and the various aliens relaxed. Not all understood though, as the reptile she had just sent flying suddenly roared back to the land of the living and started charging towards her at astounding speed for simply running, and had an even nastier snarl than it did earlier. Since it didn't pick up its weapon, and Shepard was unwilling to risk angering the three remaining aliens further, she simply waited for it to come close to her before simply teleporting behind it, looking at the three now awed aliens before jerking her head towards the giant. They did seem to understand after a short while that she did not want to aggravate the reptile any more than she had already had, and instantly rushed towards the apparently crazed creature to try and calm it down.

Their attempts were met with a disappointing amount of success, as the reptile simply bulldozed through them, rushing her once again. Sighing, Shepard simply put the rampaging alien in a Stasis, stopping his charge completely, along with all of its movement. Facing back the remaining aliens, she found two of them, the blue one and the one with the helmet, unmoving while still in the process of getting up, a hooded figure pressing pistols to the back of their heads.

Shepard raised an eyebrow below her helmet and tilted her head to the side. "Kasumi!? What the hell are you doing here?"

A small smirk could be seen on the Japanese woman's face, who completely disregarded the question and in doing so avoided the scolding that would come for disobeying direct orders. "Hey Shepard. You having fun with the wildlife?"

At the mention of her name, collective gasps, or what she assumed to be gasps at the very least, could be heard from the aliens, still trying their best to not move. Deciding that further antagonizing the ones they had their first contact with was a bad move, the exasperated Commander sighed before answering. "You hacked their omni-tools, if they have one?"

She got a small scoff in response. "Damn, did sleep make you forget who I was? Of course I did. Forwarded the lot to EDI too, we should be able to have mutual understanding with them pretty soon. If that's what you want to do, I mean."

The N7 vanguard let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Good. That's good." Checking the spiky one, who was aiming for Kasumi with his rifle while sending small glances towards her, she decided that resetting the playing field was the way to go. "Just let them go, I don't think they're enemies."

Kasumi's eyes darted towards the reptile behind Shepard, still frozen in stasis, before she shrugged, holstering her weapons. "Your call, boss, though this one seemed pretty hostile to me."

As she smiled at hearing the spiky one letting out a sigh of relief, Shepard removed her helmet before shaking her head, trying to get the familiar mess of crimson hair out of her face, causing yet another strangled gasp from her audience. "A misunderstanding I'm sure. How long till EDI has the translating program?"

"Few seconds at most, why? Can't ask her directly?"

Kat suddenly found the floor very interesting, feeling the tips of her ears heating up. "I may or may not have forgotten to link my armor and omni-tool back to my nervous system."

Kasumi's laugh did wonders to her mood. "Aww how cute, the big bad Commander is embarrassed. Man, what I'd give for Joker to see you right now... Anyway, transferring you the extension now, though you'll have to link back before you'll be able to use it."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm aware." Fiddling with her omni-tool, she quickly launched the soft reset needed for her nervous system to sync with all the cybernetics stuffed in and out of her. Soon enough, the familiar sensation of small electrical currents traveling throughout her body filled her entire being, reactivating all the implants and nanites stuffed in her, courtesy of Miranda and experimental technology. Losing sight for a moment, her eyes finally rebooted, displaying a quick scan of her body. After checking that nothing was too out of the ordinary, she tested her connection to her crew's backbone. 'EDI, you there?'

'Yes Commander, I am here. The translating program has been installed without any problem, though you still have to decide if you want the language to be synthesized through your omni-tool or naturally spoken.'

Shepard kept silent for a few moments, pondering on her answer. ', As much as I don't want to, I think that natural is the best option here, considering we're gonna have to speak with aliens pretty regularly from now on, or at least that's part of the immediate plan.'

'Understood Commander. Beginning upload. Estimated time is seven seconds.'

Without even having time to brace herself, the terribly uncomfortable feeling of having raw information uploaded directly to her brain came in full force, causing Kat to grind her teeth slightly. Despite having done it plenty of times previously, it seemed that she would never acclimate herself to it. Finally, the somewhat excruciating seven seconds passed, and the feeling went away, leaving Kat to process the sizable information that had just been grafted onto her mind. Fortunately, the translating programs that EDI had used were quite detailed, so using the languages to form actual speech would be like remembering something she had not thought of for a long time, and errors in comprehension such as misuse of idioms should be minimal.

'Say, EDI, what's the species of the spiky one?'

'From the information obtained thanks to Ms. Goto, he is a Turian male. They are part of the leading races of this cycle, being one of only three races having a representant in the highest authority in the galaxy, and have a primarily military background. I have more information about the Turian species though I'm not sure of its relevance considering the context.'

'Okay, that'll do for now, thanks a bunch. Keep on going through what Kasumi sent you while I try to… entertain our guests.'

'Understood, Commander.'

Looking back towards the aliens, she found that they had huddled up together, with the spiky one whispering something on what appeared to be quite a frantic tone. Shepard cleared her throat, causing them to look back towards her with eyes ranging from cautious curiosity to a downright glare. She stared at the now identified Turian dead in the eyes, who had switched from his glare to a rather uneasy look, and thought about what to say, all the while hoping that EDI hadn't messed up the translating software.

"You. Turian. What exactly are you and your merry bunch doing here?"

So, that's that for the first chapter. Please, don't hesitate to tell me what you thought of it, in fact, feedback would be greatly appreciated. I feel like it's quite fast paced, perhaps a bit too much at the very beggining, but that was the intended purpose anyway, to try and replicate the sense of confusion and urgency that Kat is feeling.

Other than that, I'm especially worried with how Kat turned out - considering she's basically an OC, much like all of the Shepards out there - even if we didn't really see enough of her actual personality for accurate judgment of her to be made yet.

Anyway, I can't really say when the next chapter will be released, though the limited length of the chapters will definitely help in decreasing the waiting time (half a year since the last update on my Konosuba fic really is quite a bit).

So, enough of that, please comment, review, email me, whatever and most importantly, be well!

Bye :D