"Pilot, there is an incoming vessel rapidly closing in on our position. Advise taking defensive positions."

"Copy that BT, ready shields" My hands blur over controls as I reroute power to the needed systems, then a low roaring begins to make itself known. I look up, a sleek ship swoops in overhead before coming to a stop over head. The wind kicks up dust and ash as I can barely make out the shape of a ramp lowering, then a white APC drops. It lands hard spraying dirt around, impressive sure, but nothing like a titan. The cockpit hatch opens, and I step out holding my rifle close. Another man steps out, human this time, dark skin bald, but wearing a uniform. Obviously someone of rank, so now it comes down to who goes first, he obliges.

"Now just who are you?"

—--

Kaiden POV

"Now just who are you?"

Anderson opens up talks with the unknown, I shift unsteadily gripping my avenger a bit tighter. The figure itself isn't imposing, the same however cannot be said about his mech. My eyes trace the lines of the behemoth. It's not an artwork for sure, practicality is built into it, the lines are optimized for additional armoring while avoiding hampering movement. Most certainly a creation built for combat and not later converted into a war machine. The gun it's carrying is a mystery itself, it looks like those old designs for chain guns back in the twenty first. Just… bigger, and that's a theme with this mech. I can't think of a piece on this that couldn't be replicated by alliance or citadel tech. We've got everything to make a mimicry of the machine. But nobody ever thought a mech suit would be worth the RnD, or the resources. But I'll be damned if it isn't scaring the shit out of me now. I'm yanked from my thoughts as Anderson's voice resounds across the way.

"Now I need answers son, cause a highly trained unknown running around with a walking house is cause for concern. It would be nice to have those concerns put to rest."

It was a threat, a thinly veiled one too. Anderson made it clear he didn't have time for fanciful bullshit. He wasn't the only one, a few marines behind me shifted uneasily, nerves tensioned by the looming shadow.

"Jack Cooper; free lance, I'm on eden prime due to a failed FTL jump. Resulted in me and my titan being dropped from high orbit." Plausible the day has been crazier after all.

"Well Mr Cooper looking at your work here I would say you should be a household name! Mind telling me how I've never heard of you?"

"Laid low, skimmed by on small bounties while collecting parts to build my titan."

"You an engineer then son?"

"You could say that."

"Why would a bounty hunter fight tooth and nail against an invasion force such as this one? There isn't any money in it for you?"

"Well sir," He shifts, "we're all human, can't just sit by and watch innocents die. It's why I fight, taking out the scum of the stars." Anderson hums to that, but he can see it too. This cooper is way too noncommittal, he isn't giving us full answers. Half truths at best, but he's not lying about doing it because he wants to. Nobody is paying him to fight geth, but he's obviously trying to direct our attention away from something. The only question is, what?

--

Cooper POV

Shit, shit, SHIT! Why is lying so goddamn hard! I wasn't trained for this?!? Phew, easy cooper take it slow, you've still got BT. Speaking of which, "BT?"

"Yes Pilot?"

"How do we shake these guys off of our story, because if you can't be found out as an AI, and they've already picked apart my BS about being a mercenary. So, do you have any more ideas?"

"It is an unnecessary pilot, I calculate a high probability that while they know something is wrong with our story it's likely that they won't care."

"What?? Why the hell not? I'd sure as hell be concerned if a strange 8 meter robot and a soldier dropped from orbit on my planet!"

"They are desperate Cooper. Cross referencing the enemies you encountered with their codex labeled them as a synthetic race called the geth. They have remained the boogie men of the galaxy for the last three hundred years. Humanity has only had space flight for a century."

"So you're saying that they are going to ignore my dubious nature to recruit me?"

"Correct Pilot"

"Well that puts me at ease, thanks BT"

"You are welcome Cooper."

After that short conversation my shoulders relax, releasing tension that I didn't even know was there. I look over back to the officer, he's clearly mulling something over. The troopers behind him shift awkwardly, one is slightly in the lead just right behind his superior. He's a bit uncomfortable though his gaze shifts between me and BT.

"Alright son, I'm going to be frank with you. The Alliance? We have no idea what happened here, the geth came and went just as fast. We have no clue if this is going to spread or not." He tapers of, he's giving me a chance to slot myself in,

"I'm guessing that's why we're talking?"

"Good, you picked up on that. Yes in short we need all the manpower we've got to fight the geth. Now you may not be a mercenary, but you're not lying about wanting to do the right thing." He pauses, "For now, that's good enough."

"I'm going to need some things to update myself and my titan." He mulls it over for a few seconds,

"Are you in any position to negotiate?" My gaze narrows behind graphene plates,

"Are you?"

A pause; my nerves tense, did I just fuck this? He laughs, a deep true laugh, I see the soldiers behind him relax with every shake of his shoulders.

"Good point son. Alright you'll have your gear, but you'll have to fight for it."

"I wasn't already?"

--

Time Skip

Shepard POV

Noises, the sounds of frantic shouting, trays? Trays, a scattering of metal and more noise. It hurts, my head … I hear more, red bleeds into every crevice, a cacophony of mind rending color and noise. It hurts, my arms twitch, I curl into myself… IT HURTS, the voice booms words unknowable permeate my mind flashes of death, blood. Steel against flesh, mind against machine. The edges of my mind slip, then silene, then … darkness.

Time seems inconsequential when you're floating, drowning in a warm pool of inky black. Yet I can feel … more now, as if my mind is reaching out to reconnect with my limbs. The soothing black being slowly replaced with the faint light of a medbay and a searing headache. I sit up my muscles aching every inch of the way, then I groan, "Guhhhhhh." As I begin gathering my bearings a voice sounds out besides me.

"Very eloquent of you shepard" I blink trying to clear the spots from my eyes, as I do so a hand grabs the side of my face. Instinctively I tense, "Now shepard I'm going to shine a light into your eyes soon." My muscles relax, it's just Chakwas it's good im safe. I continue blinking the spots out of my eyes, as a I do my head turns. There stands chakwas looking quite upset at my current situation.

"Well shepard? Not going to respond?" I stare blankly for a moment,

"Anymore silence like that and I'll strap you down and shove you into the MRI kicking and screaming. " I shake my head and chuckle, Chakwas always break through. I shift swinging my legs over the side of the bed as I begin to talk.

"I know better than to doubt you on that one Chakwas." She smiled no doubt recalling the numerous times I'd been under her purview.

"Best it stays that way Shepard, I prefer to rule my medbay with fear." Her british stained accent meshed well with her sardonic humor. It brought a grin to my face even as my mind swirled with remnants of visions. "But I will say Shepard, you were thrashing about when we took you in so I ran some scans. You had elevated responses from your hippocampus far beyond even some of most extreme measures."

"Yeah, I had dreams almost but thats not the right way to describe them. It was more … visions, they were almost guided showing me scene by scene horrors of a civilization burning." I grimace, recalling the visions strain me. Countless ideas clutter my mind, but it's different somehow, I feel .. expanded on. As if the limits of what was were pushed and molded by the beacon to accept what ever happened to me. Even as my psyche rattles I can feel the pounding subside slowly. She steps closer to me concerned no doubt about how I cradled my head in my hands. I recover and wave her off,

"Ahhh don't worry about me, just a headache from the visions."

"Do you think the beacon implanted them into you?"

"Most Likely, but why would the protheans go out of their way to bury something like this? A message or warning perhaps, but of what?"