Being pinned to the ground with a gun to the back of my head was a new experience for me. The only thing that really kept me from panicking was the fact that I was too stunned by the previous fight to really put together what was happening. Shepard had to be in that lot, and she wouldn't just shoot me in the back.

Would she?

Please don't be a Renegade, please don't be a Renegade...

"Chief?" a female voice called.

"Commander, he's wearing one of our suits, but he's not in the 212," Ash's reply came. "Where did you get it? Who did you kill for it, huh? Are you working with the geth?"

"What? No!" I replied. "I just took this off a locker! In an empty building! I- Ack!" I yelped when she yanked my left arm behind my back, and twisted it around. I heard a series of beeps, and then she let me go.

"It's one of the spares," Ashley finally said.

I ventured a look over my shoulder, and saw that Ash had taken a step back, and was no longer pointing her gun at me.

Great start. Let's take a look at my experience so far:

What? What? What? What? Run! Lucky! Ow! OW! Ow!

Yeah. I was so lost I was probably going to be eaten by a grue. And if you got that reference, you're awesome.

"Are you okay?"

I stopped my trip down memory lane recounting my last string of disasters and looked up. N7 armor, helmet removed. Yep, that was Shepard. Female, blonde, short curly hair, somewhat gaunt appearance with high cheekbones and slightly sunken cheeks, clear eyes I couldn't quite decide the colour of, somewhere between blue, gray, or green, and a very prominent scar making a crescent on the side and under her right eye.

"I've been better," I replied, and suppressed a groan when I turned and tried to stand up. Shepard offered me a hand, and pulled me up to my feet so quick she had to hold me back so I wouldn't tumble over and onto my face again.

Once I was stable, she gave me a slap on the shoulder and let go of me.

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Shepard," she said. "The charming lady is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams," she pointed at Ash, who was still giving me the stink eye, "and the handsome devil is Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko," she pointed, and Alenko rolled his eyes before going back to working on Nihlus.

Right, Nihlus. He was alive, and there was quite a bit of blue blood under him, but Alenko didn't seem too worried.

"You know, it's polite to introduce oneself after someone does the same," Shepard said.

"Oh! Sorry commander. Roy Morgan."

"Uh-huh. Rank, soldier?"

"No, no, I'm not..."

"Then cut the commander crap. It's Shepard." She had been smiling until then, but her smile faded when she came to the next question. "So what are you doing here?"

Crap.

I had been so focused on the whole "chase after the turian" thing, that I hadn't stopped to think about what story I was going to give Shepard & Co. I looked at her, at Ash (who seemed to take my hesitation as a chance to give me an even more evil glare), at Nihlus, and tried to come up with something on the spot.

Which probably wouldn't work. I'm a terrible liar.

"Uh, well, there's geth all over the place, and then came this turian armed to the teeth and blowing flashlight heads left and right," I said, pointing at Nihlus. "I figured staying close was the best way to stay alive."

"Uh-huh," Shepard replied, sounding pretty dubious about it.

The only distraction I could think of was Nihlus. "How is he?"

"Fine," Nihlus replied.

"Couple of holes," Kaidan said, wiping his hands clean of the blue blood. "He's in no danger. We should signal the Normandy for pickup."

For an answer, Nihlus sat up, "I'm fine," he snapped – almost literally, since he was a turian.

Like she had done with me, Shepard offered him a hand, while smirking mischievously. "I never thought I'd see a toaster getting the best out of a Spectre. Makes me have second thoughts about joining your little club."

"It wasn't the geth," he rumbled. At the time I didn't realize, but that growl he gave was a very clear signal not to mess with him. Kaidan and Ash both seemed to take the hint, and put a couple of steps between them and the turian.

Shepard wasn't fazed.

"No, no, they're definitely geth. See, the flashlight head is a dead giveaway."

"Commander..." Kaidan whispered.

"It was Saren!" Nihlus shouted, turning to face Shepard and getting on her face. Quite literally, he was less than an inch from her.

She didn't budge, move, or even blink. She kept her smile on, and all she did was quirk an eyebrow up. After a few seconds, Nihlus backed off, but didn't break eye contact.

"So, Saren?"

"Another Spectre," Nihlus grumbled. As if he had just remembered, he turned to me, which made me twitch in place. "Thanks, by the way," he grumbled.

"No problem," I said.

"Well, we have a beacon to find," Shepard replied. "We can talk about this later. Roy," she turned to me, "you better stay here, we've got this covered. The geth are retreating, you should be safe."

"Comman- Shepard. I'm coming with you."

Everyone, and I mean everyone, turned to look at me. For a moment I thought the dead geth had turned their flashlight heads at me, hidden colonists had come out of hiding just to catch a glimpse of my stupid face, and Sovereign's own evil eye had turned on its giant tentacled head to me.

Say something, say something!

"Look, there's geth everywhere. I'd rather be close to the scary people with all the guns."

"We don't have time to babysit you," Ash said. Jeez, when did she become such a bitch?

"Okay, then don't," I said, and shrugged.

"Can you actually use that?" Shepard said, pointing at the folded pistol on my tight.

"Commander!" Ashley protested, but she clammed up when Shepard raised one hand without even turning to her.

"Yeah, but I'm better with a shotgun. Used them for hunting."

"Hunting with shotguns?" Ash said.

"Well, yeah, not these though. You know, bird shot, gunpowder... Well, that's not right. They don't technically use gunpowder really, but you know what I mean. And... I'm babbling..." I finished lamely.

Because yeah, they were giving me the looks again. Shepard just shook her head, and took the shotgun that was hanging on the small of her back. With some reluctance she handed it to me.

"You used propellant guns for hunting?" Alenko asked.

"Uh, yeah," I replied. I wasn't sure how much of a gaffe I had made, but the way they were looking at me was odd.

"Let's go, we have to get to the beacon," Shepard said, quickly ending the awkward moment. "Chief, you're point. Kaidan, with me. Roy, bring in the rear, and keep your head down. Nihlus?"

"I'm going on ahead," he replied. "I'm faster-"

"Not this time," Shepard interrupted. Nihlus growled at her, but she held firm. "We're sticking together."

"I'm going after Saren, Shepard. Don't get in my way."

"We're going after the beacon," Shepard said. She made a show of looking at Nihlus straight in the eye. "That is the mission."

"Don't tell me what the mission is! This is no longer about the beacon!"

"This is all about the beacon," Shepard said. She didn't yell like Nihlus was doing, but somehow her voice seemed to carry stronger than the turian's. "We have a geth invasion and heavens know how many dead because of the beacon. So yes, I'll tell you what the mission is."

Nihlus growled, and leaned towards Shepard, but the commander didn't even blink. Maybe I was being too sensitive, but the last thing I wanted was for those two to come to blows.

"Excuse me," I said, and again I felt that tingle of fear as everyone turned to look at me. "If the beacon is that important, and this Saren is here for it, well... Shouldn't we go there and kill two birds with one stone?" When noone answered, I continued awkwardly. "We've got to get to the spaceport anyway, so there's no point trying to split here."

More silence. Never thought I would be, but I was glad for the sudden appearance of several geth breaking the very awkward scene. Everyone but me fell into cover almost instantly with perfect discipline, and I did so once a bullet hit my shields and pretty much knocked me down. I rolled behind a crate, realized I had dropped the shotgun, and pulled the pistol out with shaky hands.

By the time I had gathered my wits and leaned out of cover to find something to shoot at, the fight was done.

"Perimeter clear," Ash called.

"Let's get going," Shepard said, getting out of cover. "Nihlus, you've got point with Williams. Let's find that beacon, then we can think about your boyfriend."

Nihlus snarled, which I later figured out was him saying something in Turian – and since I didn't have a translator, I missed it completely – but he complied nonetheless. In fact, he pulled ahead quite quickly, making Ash have to haul ass to catch up to him. I saw that Alenko gave Shepard a look before taking off, and the commander waved him on.

Shit. She's waiting for me.

I hung the pistol back on its place, and took the shotgun from the ground. When I was about to go on, Shepard put her hand on my chest to stop me. She was smirking.

"I appreciate the thought, Roy, but I'm quite capable of handling one hotheaded turian."

Despite her smile, her eyes were looking at me in a way that invited no argument.

"Okay," I said, as non-committally as I could.

"How did you know about the beacon?" she then said, losing her smile in the blink of an eye. The sudden change caught me completely off-guard, and it didn't occur to me at the time that it was exactly what she intended.

"Uh, well, it's..." I gestured around. "It's a small place, commander. You can't keep a secret like that in this tiny colony."

She narrowed her eyes, which made me clench my butt uncomfortably. Yeah, the glare was that bad.

"And how do you know where it is now?"

"Uh, there's... These two up there, a woman and some crazy dude..." the fighting started again out in the distance. The others were already making towards the tram. "Shouldn't we go?"

She let the silence hang a little longer before nodding, releasing me from her imaginary grip. "We'll talk later." She then tapped my chest. "Stay back and keep your head down."

"Yes ma'am."

She shook her head and took off, running fast enough that I had trouble following despite being almost a head taller than her. Long legs aren't a match for N7 training, apparently.

As I had been instructed, I stayed at the back while the rest of the team fought the geth on the tram platform. There were a lot of them, far more than I usually found in the game I think. And unlike the games, the flimsy cover of the random metal barriers and crates was not bulletproof.

Needless to say, the I'm so out of my depth I'm going to need a buoy and an oxygen tank feeling didn't diminish at all. I really couldn't shoot anything from the rear, given that I had no idea what the spread of the shotgun was, and there were a lot of friendlies between me and the geth. So I stuck to the back, and hoped nothing came from behind us.

About an eternity later (which turned out to be less than a minute, but minutes have a way of stretching when under geth fire), I heard a hum coming from behind us under the platform, and almost immediately a geth drone popped out of cover and started firing at us.

"Behind us!" I shouted. I brought the shotgun up and fired, and to my delight, the gun was actually good enough to put a healthy amount of ordinance through the drone even at the range I was. A second shot later, it exploded in midair. It was followed by a second drone, and then a third. "Drones!"

I heard Shepard call Alenko, but didn't get the details because I was in the middle of a full adrenalin rush. I'm not sure if it was a physical response, or just my brain, but I literally stopped hearing and noticing anything other than the drones in front of me. They were weak enough that my shotgun was working well through them, and after the fourth I took down it started feeling like I was just shooting clay pigeons again. Only they were bigger, and instead of flying away they floated right in front of me.

Oh, and they shot bullets too. But I was taking them fast enough that they were not getting past my shields.

So yeah, I was feeling cocky. So much so, that when the next drone showed up, I couldn't help myself.

"Pull!" I shouted with a grin. A moment later the drone was surrounded by a blue glow, and without any warning, shot straight forwards. Towards me.

I jumped out of the way as it crashed right where I had been a moment before, got into cover on the opposite side of the platform, and shot the drone four times. Three too many as it turned out; it had been reduced to scrap already after the crash and the first shot.

When I turned, I saw that Alenko was looking at me, probably as surprised as I was.

"What the hell was that?" I said. Or yelled. It was quite loud out there.

"You said to pull!" he replied.

"That..." My confusion boiled over when another drone popped out and started shooting. I turned to shoot at it, but it was knocked out of the sky with a well placed sniper shot.

Courtesy of Shepard, of course.

"That's the last one on the scanner," she called. "Move it!"

The squad moved out following her orders, and I had to haul ass to catch up, all the while muttering imprecations under my breath. Didn't these people ever get tired? For an answer, they started shooting the geth again. Yeah, they didn't. The second lot of synthetics were even more numerous, and there were two destroyers in the lot, spitting shotgun rounds with careless abandon.

But hey, I had been told to stay in the back, so in the back I stayed.

"ROY!" Shepard shouted. I poked my head out of cover for a moment to look at her. "Pay attention! And get to the front!"

Yeah, I went rather close to needing a new pair of underwear when I heard that. It was one thing to be in the fight, but to be at the front was something else. Specially when it was so unexpected.

"What?"

"There's nothing behind us and you've got my shotgun, so get to the front! Move it!"

"You're the one who wanted to come!" I heard Ash shouting.

I got back in cover, took several deep breaths, and checked my legs. Tired, but they should get me there. Without any more ado, I jumped out of cover, tripped, regained my footing, and rushed down between the barriers we were using for cover. Several rounds hit my shields, and I jumped into cover just as a round hit my leg through the kinetic barrier.

And so, my dive into cover wasn't exactly graceful. Neither was the way I bumped on Ashley and nearly knocked her down.

"Watch it!" she complained, bumping her shoulder hard on me as I fell.

I grunted something unintelligible, but which was supposed to be an amazingly smart and sassy reply. And if you believe that, I have some excellent real estate in Eden Prime I'd like to sell you.

"Anything broken?" I heard Shepard shout.

"No," I said, looking at my leg. There was a noticeable dent on the ceramic plate, but the shot hadn't gone through. "No holes, but damn that smarts."

"Chop chop then, more shooting and less talking!" Shepard said.

With another witty riposte consisting of an annoyed grunt, I popped out of cover next to Ashley and went at it. It was what is usually referred to as a target-rich environment. More flashlights than a watchmen convention sponsored by Duracell, let me tell you.

I dove down when the bullets started hitting, while Ash simply propped herself to a different position and kept firing. Once my shields were recharged, I joined her, only to have to dive down after just half a dozen shots.

"Dammit, the shields on this thing suck!" I yelled.

"No they don't," Ashley said, speaking between bursts of her assault rifle. Five shots, pause, five shots, you could direct an orchestra with the rhythm. "You're just such a nice target."

Given the way bullets were flying I must have imagined it, but I could swear I heard the others sniggering. When my shields finally recharged I popped out, trying really hard not to look like an appetizing, prominent target. I considered taking the helmet off to check if there was a target painted on it, but decided against when I saw the ridiculously large geth destroyer levelling its shotgun at me. I got there first, and fired so fast my gun overheated in three seconds flat.

Which worked wonders when the destroyer shot at me, and his very damaged, half-blown shotgun exploded in his hands. It sent him flying back in three pieces (yes, I counted them), and sent the rest of us scrambling for cover.

"Bloody fucking hell Roy!" Was that Alenko? I didn't know he could actually swear. I really do bring out the best in people. "Watch where you aim!"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"That's one way of putting it!" he shouted again. The geth had recovered quite well, but were down the two destroyers, so the remaining troopers were getting a very serious case of lead poisoning. Not much from me, since the shotgun, for all the fire it could spit was crap at long range, but the others were absolutely trashing them. "How I would put it isn't fit for polite company!"

"Jesus, is this guy for real?" I muttered. That had to be the most elaborate and polite put down I had even been subjected to.

"Look who's talking," Ashley replied. Seriously, what the hell?

I fired one last barrage with my shotgun and switched back to the pistol I had commandeered. I wasn't getting pelted by bullets anymore, and I had to aim carefully if I wanted to hit the ones far away. All in all I'm glad no one was scoring me for accuracy, because I sucked.

By the time the last geth went down, with its flashlight head exploding in a shower of mechanical goo and bits, and Shepard shouting a heartfelt "booyah!", I could hardly hold the pistol in my hands. Not only they were trembling something fierce, but my arms and legs were starting to feel like jello. I was tired, really, really thirsty, and breathing hard. After Ashley gave the all clear, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and put my pistol back in its proper place after a not insignificant amount of effort.

"You okay?" Shepard said. I looked up to see the blonde smirking at me again, and behind her, Ashley giving me a look of undisguised disgust.

When did Ash become such a bitch anyway? Did I ask that already?

"No holes, so I guess so," I replied. Shepard offered me a hand, and helped me get steady once I was up.

"Adrenalin is a hell of a drug," she said, and bumped my shoulder with her fist. "Come on, before Nihlus leaves us to take the next tram."

I followed as ordered, stopping to pick up a discarded geth rifle which, due to some miracle, still looked intact. I turned away from the rest of the group, secured it firmly against my shoulder, aimed at one of the low metal barriers, and gave it a tentative try. It started spitting rounds like crazy, but to my relief the recoil wasn't too bad. Still, it was easier to use if I just shot very short bursts.

"ROY!"

That was Shepard. And she sounded pissed. I lowered the gun and turned, only to see all four of them had their guns out and vaguely trained in my direction.

"What?" I said.

"What the hell are you doing? You scared the crap out of us! Don't just start shooting without warning!"

Yeah, it wasn't just her. They were all pretty pissed off. I gave a sheepish "sorry" as an answer, to the annoyed huffs of mostly Ashley. The rifle folded easily enough in my hands, and I managed to clip it in place behind my back. Free guns!

Once I made it to the tram, Nihlus smacked the controls and the platform took off at surprising speed towards the spaceport.

I wasn't planning on saying anything, but Shepard had other plans.

"Okay Roy, since you seem to have a bad case of the shiny, you better key into our radio frequency."

"The shiny?"

"Yeah, getting distracted by shiny things and ignoring my orders," she said. "So, frequency 739, code echo, echo, bravo, zulu."

My blank look was probably eloquent enough. After a very uncomfortable pause I brought up my omni-tool (on my third try only!) and started fumbling through the options. Without any warning, Ash grabbed my wrist, yanked my arm back at a weird angle, and ignored my surprised yelp of pain as she worked through the omni-tool. A burst of static later I was on the network with the others.

The OSD on my helmet's visor blinked on the corner to let me know I was online, and four status bars appeared on the left side.

"What the...?" Shepard said. "What's wrong with your armor? It's got warnings all over."

"I think I didn't put it on properly," I half-mumbled.

"Jeez, do you know how to wipe your own ass?" Ashley said.

"Great, ass inspections next."

"You wish," she said, her voice somewhere between annoyed and amused.

I just rolled my eyes and took my shotgun. I could see we were rapidly approaching the spaceport, and the tram was slowing down. Nihlus was bouncing on his feet, a ball of spiky, plated nervousness. Shepard had her sniper rifle up, looking ahead through the scope.

"I don't see any geth, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Same as before people, Williams up front with Nihlus, Alenko with me, Roy at the back. And keep your head down this time."

The tram hadn't even stopped when Nihlus jumped out. And he didn't even take the normal exit, he jumped the railing on the left, which was no small feat given the height of the barrier.

"Nihlus!" Shepard shouted. "Of all the hotheaded turians... Move it people!"

Ashley charged ahead, Shepard and Alenko following close. And all three of them ignored the enormous bomb at the end of the platform.

"Shepard, I think there's a bomb here," I said.

Atop the stairs, the firefight had already begun. If the geth were hoping to catch Shepard by surprise, the only things they were catching were small and moving at quasi-relativistic speeds.

"Can you disarm it?" her response came over the radio.

"Uh..."

"Yeah, stupid question." Man, they really never let a chance pass by without sniping at it. Kinda fitting really. "Alenko, get down there. Roy, come make yourself useful."

I legged it up, and slapped Alenko on the shoulder as we passed each other. If I recalled correctly, the in-game way to disarm a bomb is to click on it and wait. I hoped Alenko would be up to the challenge.

Sadly, I wasn't.

"Get on point with Williams, and don't walk in front of me when I'm aiming," Shepard said as I passed her, raising her sniper rifle to clear my way.

"Got it."

There was actually very light resistance. We took four geth in the time it took Alenko to disarm the bomb, and a fifth one when he came up to tell us there were more of them on the scanners. With Ash at the front, Alenko and Shepard in the middle, and me bringing in the rear, we made through another three groups of two – simple troopers with assault rifles that posed little to no challenge.

I was starting to think it was too easy, but I knew better than to say anything about it. I've seen way too many films and played way too many games to know you don't tempt fate.

The last bomb came about without having heard a peep from Nihlus.

"Last one before I go put my boot up a certain Turian's ass," Shepard said, motioning for Alenko to get to the bomb.

There wasn't anything behind us at all, we were standing at the end of a raised platform with several heavy crates blocking most of the view, and a very large drop at the end. Ashley and Shepard took positions behind the crates, Alenko went for the bomb, and I stayed at the back. There was nothing much going on, so I kept my attention on the fight. The two women were doing a fantastic job of reducing the clankers to scrap, it really was a wonder to behold.

Then, out of apparently nowhere, I saw this beam of light landing on Ashley's head. It kept getting brighter, so I turned to see where it was coming from, and my heart made a very noticeable bump when I realized it was a geth. It was perched atop the tall wall of the spaceport, and aiming the beam at Ashley.

"SNIPER!" I shouted, getting out of cover and pumping the shotgun at the geth's position as fast as I could. It was way too far for the pellets to have a noticeable effect, but not so far that the geth's sniper rifle couldn't switch targets quickly to aim at me.

I tried to dodge out of the way, but instead I felt like a sledgehammer had hit me on the shoulder. There was this crunch I didn't just hear, but felt as well, and I was thrown back and slammed on one of the metallic crates.

For a moment I was too stunned to really think about anything. It was all very dull and distant. Then, the pain came. Let me tell you, I've broken my arm and several ribs before, but that was nothing like it. It hurt so much that I couldn't even shout, it hurt too much to just try and press with my ribs to make any noise. I became vaguely aware of the continuing gunfire, and being dragged away by my feet. Then Alenko's worried face peeked at the edge of my field of vision.

"How is he?" Shepard shouted over the fire.

"Alive!"

I felt him digging through my shoulder, which at this point was not just hurting, but burning like the T-1000 had just stabbed through me after coming out of its molten steel bath, and then my whole side filled with a sudden cooling sensation.

Which didn't help at all, because now the pain felt like a throbbing, and like bones were splintering on every throb. The good thing was that I could speak again.

"Argh! Son o... My... Godd... Fu..."

Well, I could babble again.

"He'll be fine, commander," Alenko said. Whoop-dee-doo, thanks for the vote of confidence.

"Bomb's defused?"

"Yes."

"Good, stay were with him, We'll go-"

A sudden, not too distant explosion interrupted Shepard. It didn't sound particularly loud, not like Shepard throwing grenades anyway. More of a kind of "Bomf!" sound. But it was close and, for a moment, a bright green flash seemed to fill the spaceport.

"What on Earth was that?" Ashley said.

"The... beacon..." I muttered. How in hell did my brain make the connection while I was lying on the ground and looking at the universe flashing my life before my eyes, I'll never know.

"What?" Shepard said, and peeked down at me too. "How do you know?"

"I just... Nihlus..." I stopped mumbling when Alenko gave me another shot of medigel, and the ugly snapping throbs started to recede. "Oooh, I'll have more of that bartender," I said, and got a surprised chuckle out of the lieutenant.

Shepard, in the meantime, had probably decided that a conversation with me, in my current condition, was likely going to be as interesting as asking questions to Mr. Potato, so she ordered Ashley to follow, and took off in the direction of the loading bays. I heard distant shooting again.

"Need help?" Alenko called over the radio.

"Negative," Shepard replied. "It's only- Shit!"

"Shepard?" Alenko insisted.

"Nihlus is down, and the beacon's been destroyed. Can you get here LT?"

Alenko looked at me, and I just nodded. I was feeling like crap, but I didn't feel like yelling for someone to shoot me and finish me off already anymore.

"On my way Commander," he replied. "Stay here and don't try to move," he added; he tapped me on the good shoulder, and then he was gone.

Damn, the sky of Eden Prime looked beautiful. The blue colour was slightly off, like someone had painted it with the wrong palette, but it was very nice nonetheless.

After a few minutes I heard Shepard's voice over the radio.

"Ground team to Normandy. We need extraction, two wounded. Area's clear of hostiles."

"Copy that, en route. ETA six minutes," the response came.

Was that Joker? Damn, it'd be nice to meet him. I had to tell Shepard I had to come with her. I tried to sit up, and realized that my sneaky shoulder had only been quietly letting me feel better so that it could ambush me, as soon as I tried to move, and stab me with a red hot poker right through. I yelped in pain and stopped trying.

Yelping helplessly at least summoned Shepard. She arrived after only a couple of seconds, fixing a worried look at me.

"Our ship is coming to pick us up," she said. Cautiously, she offered me a hand. "Think you can stand?"

I grabbed her hand with my good one, and tried to tough it out through the pain as she pulled me to my feet. Shepard's keen senses noticed my grimace, low hissing, and muttered imprecations, and she kept holding me up with my arm around her shoulders. She felt damn solid under it, despite the fact that I had quite a few inches and probably some bulk on her.

"I hope you have a doctor on board," I said, and stopped talking with a loud hiss.

Shepard chuckled at that. Slowly, we made our way towards the platform where the others were. Ashley was keeping a lookout, and Alenko was kneeling by the fallen Nihlus. I didn't see any extra turian blood – only dead geth and husks – so he was probably-

Damn, of course. The beacon.

I just gone fucked up canon but good. Go me.

Shepard must have noticed my sudden hesitation, because she stopped where she was going, and walked me over to a fallen beam instead. With surprising care, she helped me sit down. Guess she only plays it rough when we're not injured, good to know.

"Something wrong? You look like you've just stepped on a varren's s'kak," Shepard said.

"I... what?" I looked at the commander, and given the way she was looking at me I realized I probably wouldn't be able to hide what I was thinking. "Nihlus doesn't seem hurt, what happened?"

"Dunno, you tell me. When we got here he was down and there were pieces of beacon all over."

Shit. Me tell her? How am I going to explain the beacon? How am I going to justify that I know?

…

Well, that was a question all right. Why the hell not tell her? I was about to open my mouth when my vision went kind of... wavy, for lack of a better word. Like everything was spinning and getting distorted, even the colours of all that I was seeing. And just as abruptly as it had started, it stopped. And I was somewhere else.

I was standing in a ship. A ship I had seen before. I wasn't hurt, and I wasn't even wearing my armor, just some sort of nondescript white jumpsuit. And in front of me was that strange, white, quasi-glowing woman I had seen in my dream.

"You can't tell her anything," she said.

Author's notes: And so, even when I'm supposed to follow canon, I'm quite capable of screwing things up! And it's about time the mysterious glowing person that put me in the Mass Effect universe started to explain herself, don't you think?

Quite a bit of support for the fic right off the gate, thanks everyone! And Archer83, indeed, Williams is quite hot-blooded, you caught on immediately as to why she was pissed! :D

Shooting done, adventure over? Stay tuned to see what else our intrepid hero manages to screw up in this timeline!