Title: We Are the Storm

Author: Lucky Gun

Description: John and Jane Shepard are twins, soldiers, N7 operatives, and co-commanders on the SSV Normandy. When a milk run gives them a dead Spectre, it will take all their training to bring the galaxy through to the other side of the Reaper invasion. Slight AU. FemShep/Alenko, MaleShep/misc, mixed Paragon/Renegade.

A/N: This bunny's been hopping around my thoughts for awhile. While there will be some changes to the story, this will largely not be an AU. I mostly use the second Shepard as a vehicle to explain certain concepts throughout the game series. This is a definite work in progress and just a little thing I'm doing for fun. We drop right into this like you know the characters – if you're here reading, it's assumed you do. Military parlance translations at the end of each chapter.

The Devil whispered in my ear,

"You are not strong enough to withstand the storm."

Today I whispered back,

"I am the storm."

It had all gone sideways.

He should have expected it. Even now, glaring at the bright lights of the Geth trooper as it raised its rifle, his own overheated and useless in his hands, Kaidan knew he should have anticipated this. Nothing had gone right, not a single damn thing. The second that Spectre had stepped onto the Normandy and Joker had made his little comment about being paranoid, everything had started downhill and kept going like a freight train. On the tail end of the emergency signal from Eden Prime, battle stations had been scrambled and Kaidan and Jenkins had disembarked with two orders: find the precious cargo at the dig site, and stay alive.

Jenkins had failed the second order less than a minute before.

His body was laying a few meters away, armor cratered with the blasts of a half-dozen explosive impacts, eyes up and sightless towards the blackened sky. The hailstorm of firepower that had gunned him down had taxed Kaidan's amp into meltdown, his blue barriers barely keeping him alive. Bad as that was, the only survivor they'd managed to find on the battlefield was getting ready to meet the same end. She was pressed against the rocks beside the biotic, her weapons fried, her gasping breaths carrying both over the comms and through the air. Her ridiculously white and pink armor was eyesore-bright in the sunlight, and the headlight of the Geth seemed to intensify the colors. Even the main of the suit, sooty and grass-stained, appeared clean as snow in the bluish spotlight. The Gunnery Chief was as angry as he was, her expression dark and shuttered, and, as the synthetic's form shifted, Kaidan grit his teeth and forced himself to remain still. This was not the end he expected, but he would meet it stoically nonetheless.

Then his executioner's head exploded into a thousand pieces of shrapnel.

The echo of a sniper rifle came a good two seconds later, long enough that the floating drones and the three other troopers had shifted their aim and started firing almost randomly into the hills from where Kaidan and Jenkins had come. The shots came steadily after that, spaced out and timed carefully, each one dropping a synthetic to the ground. The troopers fell first, their bodies crashing all around the two humans, who equally scrambled for cover from the falling machines as well as from the sniper fire. They darted around the rock, dodging the scraps of imploding drones, the pieces ricocheting off of their depleted shields, and they slid into a slight ditch behind the rockfall.

"Keep your head down!" Kaidan shouted needlessly – the Chief's rapid nod told him she hadn't even considered stepping back into the middle of the shooting gallery.

The sounds of synthetics falling apart were overshadowed by the staccato beat of Geth turrets and the distant booms of sniper shots. It didn't last long, maybe half a minute, and the last of the floating drones finally crashed to the ground with an electronic squeal. Kaidan exhaled sharply and glanced at the chief, his medic HUD overlaying her vitals on the visual. She was tachycardic and her temperature was elevated, her blood pressure was skyrocketing, and the dilation of her eyes and the beads of sweat dotting her skin made him pause. This emergency temporarily overwhelmed the only slightly more distant question of figuring out exactly who the hell had taken out the patrol.

Reaching for her, he placed a calming hand on her shoulder and said, "Chief, I know you've been fighting for hours, and I know you've seen a lot of shit, but I need you to take a really deep breath for me, and a lot of them."

She nodded too rapidly to make him worry less, so he shifted closer and shoved his visor up, locking his eyes on her.

"I'm serious, Chief. You need to take it down a notch. Look, I'm Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, with the SSV Normandy out of Arcturus Station. We were sent down here to secure precious cargo found at the dig site. Do you know where that is?" he questioned slowly, forcing her to focus on him.

His tactic worked like experience had taught him, and the woman nodded carefully, her breathing calming slightly.

"Yeah...yeah, I do. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the two-one-two. Are you the one in charge, sir?" she demanded breathlessly, but Kaidan was relieved to see the sweat drying on her forehead and a bit of color coming back to her skin.

"Negative, Chief; that would be Captain Anderson, who is back on the Normandy. Myself and Jenkins were supposed to meet up with a Council Spectre once we hit the ground, but we were routed by a support flank. We've had no radio contact with him. But he should be north of us somewhere, and those shots came from the south. I'm really wanting you to tell me you recognized the weaponry," Kaidan hoped as he stood, frowning down at her as he offered her a hand up. "Because I sure as hell didn't."

Standing and putting her back to the rock, Ashley shook her head, tapping her helmet against their cover. "No, it wasn't anything I know. I'm a rifles and shotguns kind of girl, but that thing had some power behind it. Shells were hitting harder than a Krogan in a bar fight. With the lag in report, it could be miles away. But add in the echo in these hills...I don't know, LT."

He nodded mindlessly, inhaling deeply and holding a breath as he quickly tipped his head around the edge of the rock, glancing out at the wreckage and sizing it up in a second before pulling back.

"Well, my amp is toast, my shield batteries are fried, my rifle and pistol were both scrap before we ducked back here, and it looks like the Geth weaponry is electrically keyed. So, unless you know the location of a weapons cache within about two meters of here, we're relatively screwed."

His overview was dim but realistic, and Ashley growled, "Closest one is a few klicks away, near the dig site. This is an archaeology expedition, not a military operation. I've got a Ka-Bar in my right boot – like that's a lot of help. Shield and weapons are the same as yours. So...what's next? Do we have exfil? Or at least backup on the way?"

Sighing, Kaidan shook his head as he flexed his right arm, working out a cramp. "There's no backup. Jenkins and I were supposed to go in heavy and head straight to the dig site, try to meet up with a Turian Spectre that dropped in ahead of us. Have you seen him?"

Shock was giving way to confusion, and she shook her head in the negative. "There aren't any Turians on Eden Prime, none that I've ever met. Not sure I'd be able to tell if one was a Spectre anyway."

Dryly, Kaidan responded, "If you saw this guy, you'd know. Carries enough firepower to wipe out a whole platoon. Luckily, he's on our side."

Sighing, he glanced around again before continuing, "Well, either way, our plan went to hell when that support line came in from nowhere and forced us on this roundabout trek. Helping survivors was a secondary priority, and extraction is conditional upon retrieving the package. This wasn't supposed to be an end run, but we had no time to plan and we were the only ship within operational distance when the mayday was received. It's just...bad luck."

Staring at him, something clicked in her head, and Ashley took a step closer and snapped, "Wait a second – three soldiers is 'heavy'? Are you kidding me? You saw the video, right? The mayday? Why did they only send three of you?"

Cocking his head, there was a fair amount of confusion on the biotic's face as he replied, "No...no, there was no video. We received audio only, and half of it was distorted. We could hear gunfire – lots and lots of gunfire – and some explosions. Heard someone say that there was an attack and there were casualties. There was something about an evac, and then a high-pitched signal destroyed the rest of the file. We had no way of knowing how bad the situation was. And the Normandy is...unique. Our ship's complement is less than sixty, and the majority of the crew is technicians and engineers. We don't have a lot of manpower to devote to this kind of sortie."

There was a sort of angry flush crawling up the gunny's cheeks, and she shoved a finger into Kaidan's armor as she looked well and ready to tear into him.

"Alliance combatants in the clearing at bearing zero-three-zero, copy traffic."

Blinking, Ashley froze, her mouth hanging open for a long second, and Kaidan whirled quickly, waving a quieting hand at the woman. Geth were software operating in mobile hardware platforms; it wasn't against all concepts that they'd managed to imitate human speech cadences. So the two soldiers stayed behind the rock, the echo of the radio noise ringing into silence. It lasted ten seconds before the guttural voice came again.

"Repeat, Alliance combatants at zero-three-zero, copy traffic."

Chewing his lip, Kaidan glanced at Ashley, hesitating. She seemed to fight with herself for a moment before she gave him a helpless shrug. They were weaponless, defenseless, and hopeless. They didn't have much to lose.

"Alliance combatants, this is a friendly, moving in on foot from one-seven-five. ETA is four minutes. Your immediate area is clear of hostiles at the moment. Stay bunkered up and I'll keep them off you during my approach. But I'd appreciate some sign of life."

Grimacing, Kaidan waited a few seconds before reaching up and tapping his mic twice in quick succession.

"Acknowledged. Inbound from one-seven-five. Will advise of any delay en route. Going silent."

The background static of the open radio link faded into nothingness, and Alenko hung his head for a minute before tossing the other soldier a wry grin and offered, "Maybe I was wrong about backup, Chief."

But she shook her head, immediately disagreeing, "I'm not going to trust a voice without a face to go with it. Could be a Geth that learned a new trick. Hell, it could be a mercenary that picked up our distress signal and decided to come down here and make a little easy profit in the confusion. No offense, Lieutenant, but I'm not relaxing until I see an Alliance logo on some badass firepower held in in hands with five fingers."

Tilting his chin in her direction, Kaidan wordlessly agreed as he poked at his omni-tool, pulling up the time and marking it. "Well, I guess we wait and see what shows up."

Crossing her arms, Ashley muttered, "I hate waiting."

And there was nothing else to do. Tense and just knowing the other shoe was eventually going to drop, the two soldiers kept to the rock and continued to keep their heads on a swivel. Three minutes after their last radio contact, there was an abrupt click of the channel opening back up.

"Alliance combatants, I've got contacts, thirty meters past your position, bearing three-four-seven. Relocate to the southern side of your cover. I'll pick them off as they move in. Copy traffic."

This time, it was Kaidan that took a darker view of the situation. Following those directions would put them straight into the line of sight for the sniper, and it was only on this stranger's word that they were in imminent danger. Catching his doubt, Williams threw up a hand, frustrated with her own powerlessness even as they both turned that direction and strained to catch a view of sunlight on metal.

"I say again, relocate to the south. Multiple hostiles approaching, now at twenty meters and entering your LOS. Do you copy?"

It was a sort of fear that Alenko hadn't felt before, but he likened it to a mouse having to choose between the cat and the trap. Certain death hinged on a left or a right, but there was no way to know which had the greatest chance of life. So he froze, muscles locked, Ashley beside him and stiff as a board. They simply watched as nothingness turned into shadows and a silhouette became clear, the first of five Geth troopers stepping out of the tree line. Its spotlight was turning slowly, crossing the valley, and it would find them in a heartbeat.

Then, like a sickening déjà vu, its head exploded, and there was an electronic screech of alarm from the forest behind it.

"Repeat, relocate to the south! Dinger will cover you. Move, people!"

There was an edge of command that entered the nondescript voice at the last, a bit of steel that cut straight through their concern and made the military in them stand up straight. They didn't pause as they quickly scrambled around to the far side of the granite, the previously distant barks of the sniper rifle now much louder, the shots closer together. Kaidan ducked reflexively as the increasingly familiar fire of Geth pounded over their heads, chunks of rock flaking off the sides of their cover. But it was over in moments. Five enemies, five sniper rounds, and everything fell silent.

Standing from his crouch, Alenko glanced at Ashley and gave her a look, but she waved him down; she was unharmed. Poking back around the crumbling rock, the two of them were greeted by the sight of several smoking hunks of metal. The furthest one had been dropped first, the other four moving closer as they were taken out. The last of the troopers was within a few feet of them. Shivering slightly, Ashley gripped her Ka-Bar tightly and immediately turned around, looking back towards the south.

"Area secure. Moving in."

There was little emotion in the characterless voice, not even the snap of fire from before, and Kaidan felt inexplicably guilty. He raised his arm and rubbed the back of his neck, frowning, and he felt more than saw Williams slip into place beside them, her small knife a pathetic defense against the weaponry coming their way. But there was defiance in her stance that matched his, and he nodded once to her. She returned the gesture, and he turned his attention back towards the way they'd come and counted seconds.

It took thirty five for him to see movement, and forty two to hear footsteps.

The soldier was jogging towards them along the side of the main road, clad in black armor covered with grey digitized camouflage patterns, a massive duffel bag bouncing with the motion. There was a flash of red at the bottom of the full helmet, right along the collar, and it tickled something in the back of Kaidan's memory. That feeling grew as he took in the white and crimson striping down her right arm, something equally familiar yet unknown. So he stared as the soldier came up to them, trying to place it, even as he should have been on alert. Ashley tensed and pulled back a little, raising her knife, and the helmet-to-helmet comms activated again.

"Easy, soldier, easy."

The cut of the chest piece gave away the woman's gender even if the monotone didn't. But it shook him out of his lethargy as he snapped to attention and gave a crisp salute, the logo on the armor coming into clarity the same moment the ranking bar on her pauldron did.

"Commander," he stated simply, hanging up on the follow through as he realized he had nothing more to go on than that, the N7 logo lending a bit more respect to the title than normal.

But she didn't seem put off, just shook her head and then remained where she was, standing before them with her sniper rifle laying over her shoulders and her arms hanging from her wrists at the stock and barrel. There was an ease in her posture that was unwarranted, Kaidan thought dimly; they were in the middle of an active battlefield behind enemy lines, and the Commander's position had her weapon unavailable and her hands out of position for any sort of shield activation.

But he had spent years watching people from the sidelines, and so he used that sight to look. And as he did, that gentle respect grew greater. The woman's arms were up on her rifle, sure, but the weapon itself was primed, the safety was off, and there was a round chambered. There was a soft glow at her left wrist, proving her omni-tool's blade was activated and ready on a hair trigger. A faint shimmer of light over the deep darkness of her armor showed her shields were already amped and geared for projectile defense. The very slight movement of her head revealed she was constantly watching the surround, and there was a light clicking noise over the helmet-to-helmet comms that revealed her radar's active pinging. There was a massive amount of extensive training in this soldier, and it was quickly becoming evident.

Blinking, Kaidan shifted backward a few inches and let his shoulder touch the Chief's, giving her a silent signal. This woman was obviously the sniper, and she could have killed them at any point. If she wanted them dead, she didn't need to be this close to make it happen. Recognizing this, Ashley still waited for a few beats, but finally knelt and sheathed her blade before standing and saluting as well.

"Ma'am," she nodded, and the other woman finally relaxed a little bit.

"At ease, both of you. Are you injured?"

The two responded in the negative, and Kaidan laconically added, "Maybe our pride, though. We've got no weapons, except for her knife, and my amp blew on that last ambush."

There was a marked stiffness in the N7's movements as she fully turned to the body of the fallen soldier. The question was obvious.

"Corporal Richard Jenkins. The drones...they ripped right through his shields. He never had a chance," the biotic quietly supplied, and the tightness in the soldier's stance increased.

She carefully dropped her pack to the ground and cradled her rifle in one arm as she stepped forward. There were a few moments of silence in the clearing as she knelt and closed the dead man's eyes with a painfully practiced move, and she took a few extra seconds to survey the state of his armor.

"We'll see that he receives a proper service once the mission is complete." She stood and turned back to them, her dark visor showing nothing of her face. "But I need the two of you to stay focused."

Their affirmations rolled easily, accustomed as they were to following orders, and she came back to stand before them. Her head moved from one soldier to the other, slowly, like she was evaluating them, and finally she nodded once and shoved her weapon onto the magnetic catches on her back. Then she reached up and carefully worked off her helmet. The seal broke with a hiss and it cleared her head in a smooth motion.

She wasn't unpleasant to look at, Kaidan decided immediately. Her hair was layered and medium in length, dropping just an inch or two below the top of her doublet's collar, and it was a rich auburn that gleamed red in the sunlight. Her green eyes were bright and hard, and they were offset by the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and the dimness of the fatigue clearly ringing her gaze. There was a thin scar running across her face from one temple to the opposite ear, though it was faded with age. Aside from that, there was dirt, grease, a whole mess of abrasions along one side of her jaw, and a few bruises around her split lip.

Frowning, Alenko couldn't deny the medic in him as he took a step forward in concern, already tracking the scuffs and damage to her armor. Like her facial wounds, it was all recent, but not Eden Prime-recent.

"You look like hell, Commander," he observed bluntly, but he froze at the very unexpected smirk that crossed her lips when she turned abruptly humored eyes to him.

There was something about that look that immediately sucked the air from his lungs and made it impossible to breathe.

Goddamn...where did that come from?

"Yeah, it's been a long few weeks, Lieutenant. But thanks for that vote of confidence."

Her voice, unmodulated by the comms system, was feminine and lilting, though with that same hardness that was present in her gaze where it was locked on him. It was only when she looked at the second soldier that he felt like his heart started beating again.

She's an N7 and a Staff Commander; it's infantile hero worship, he told himself firmly.

He wondered, ever so briefly, if this was going to be a problem. Then he figured that he would ever see her again after this mission. After all, N7 Commanders didn't often mix company with Staff Lieutenants and faulty implants.

"I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, ma'am. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, of the two-one-two. I apologize for the greeting, and thanks for the help." The way Ashley nudged him with her elbow reminded him he probably needed to follow suit. "Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, of the SSV Normandy, ma'am. And your assistance was well-timed."

She nodded at each of them in turn, her eyes resting on Kaidan for half a heartbeat longer than he really thought was warranted, before kneeling and setting her helmet aside to pry open the duffel.

"Well-timed, nothing. I've been fighting through that support flank for the better part of four hours. I didn't think it would take that long to break their lines, but they're smarter than I expected. Tougher, too. Could've been faster if I'd had more time to plan ahead," she muttered, her eyes darting briefly to the fallen soldier nearby.

Before Kaidan could say anything to that, she abruptly stood and shoved a small box into his palm while waving at the bag with her other hand.

"Here, an amp for you. It's a Savant V – that should work well enough with your implant. I figured you could use the cooldown bonus over the power increase. There are rifles, pistols, and shotguns, a few dozen heat sinks, and several body mods. Twenty thermal clips, though my variety is...limited. There are extra emitter batteries, too. Help yourselves."

Ashley stared unabashedly before practically diving into the duffel. Kaidan openly grinned at the amp and reached up to pop the burned one out of his implant, wincing slightly as his system smarted at the rapid switch. The Commander frowned and cocked her head, but he waved it away; non-biotics wouldn't understand. But she took the busted amp from him wordlessly and examined it briefly before tucking it away in a side pocket on the duffel.

"Holy...you've got everything except a tank in here!" Williams exclaimed from her inspection, and she rapidly began passing Alenko weapon after weapon.

There was a small piece of relative quiet as the two of them geared up, readying their equipment, and the Commander stood watch, her arms crossed, her eyes up and out as she endlessly scanned the perimeter.

"Um, ma'am? Don't you want some of this gear? I mean, you've only got your sniper rifle and your Carnifex hand cannon, which honestly looks like it's seen better days."

Kaidan hesitated to ask, halfway because it felt damn good to be so armed, but also because he felt like he was a kid asking mom for a favor. But whatever answer he was expecting, he didn't get it.

Because Ashley abruptly gave an alarmed shout and a warning, her voice clipped and high-pitched as she cried, "Geth patrol, two o'clock!"

His amp still winding up, Williams kneeling and twisted awkwardly in place, Kaidan wondered if they were going to be gunned down, now of all times, fully equipped and newly dangerous. But the Commander moved like he had never seen before, cutting through a bubble of space-time in a flash of cobalt fire, and appeared in front of the three troopers like a mirage becoming solid. Her back was to the two human soldiers, and as her body flared with power, her hair lifted just enough that they could both clearly see the silver circle and blue ring of light at the junction of her neck and skull.

The explosion of biotic energy that followed overshadowed Ashley's harsh cuss of surprise as well as his own shocked shout. Even as he shielded his eyes from the blast, he shuddered at the echo of her wavelengths surging over his skin, the prickling effect beyond disorienting. But he bit back his physical reaction and needlessly aimed his newly acquired rifle up the hill. The mass effect distortions shimmered out of existence, and the Commander was kneeling in front of a couple of piles of fresh ash. The rippling blue smoke wove through the seams in her armor and rose like fog in the sun, and she stood slowly.

"Oh shit..."

There wasn't anything other than pure awe in his voice, that Kaidan would never deny, and he stared at the cooldown from the most impressive biotic maneuver he'd ever witnessed. The L3 didn't say anything as she finally spun on her heel and trooped down the hill towards them, leaving a dusty mess in her wake. The wind blew around her as she hiked the forty yards back, wafting away the last of the visible cooldown from her attack, and there was the burn of embarrassment on his face as he knew he was staring. But he couldn't look away from this biotic warrior, not after a display like that.

"Sorry about that," she apologized breezily as she came back to them, and she stopped short in front of them, cocking her head and shifting to the side. It appeared, for a moment, like she'd heard something that they couldn't, her eyes blue-shifting for a moment, but it faded quickly and she smoothly continued, "They came up on my radar at the last second. And to answer your earlier question, no, that gear was earmarked for you. David told me to find you when he sent me down here."

Finally, some of that shine was fading from his vision, and Kaidan probed carefully, "David?"

Nodding, the woman extended a hand and replied, "Late on the formalities, I know. Commander Jane Shepard, N7 operative under Captain David Anderson, co-executive officer of the Normandy. I've been on a mission for the past bit and missed her official christening and maiden launch. She's been a beautiful ship in dry dock, at least. How's Joker treating her on the relays?"

Blinking, Kaidan had the startling revelation of just how much out of his depth he was with this officer. Not a Commander, his Commander. His Captain's XO, co- or otherwise (and that was something he would figure out later). But her extra interest in him suddenly made sense. If she was his XO, then she had full access to his files. She knew he was an L2 and didn't treat him any differently, even brought him gear specifically chosen for his strengths and weaknesses. She knew about Jump Zero, about Vyrnnus, about every mission he'd ever been on. She knew about the few marks on his record for insubordination in the face of ass-backwards orders. And she looked him in the eye, treated him like he was human, not a flawed soldier with an unpredictable weapon embedded in his head.

By default, she had his respect. But now, she had his loyalty.

Breaking out of his trance, he shook her hand firmly, the sharp edges of his gauntlet clicking against the metal of hers, and he smiled briefly as he answered, "He's taking the corners a little hard, ma'am. Captain's been on him about it."

Ashley shook her hand as well with a respectful nod, though not nearly as impressed by the woman's rank and title as she was by the armory she'd brought with her. Despite the severity of the situation, though, Alenko was surprised to find himself biting at the bit to get to it. Maybe it was the new weaponry. Maybe it was the fresh amp. Or maybe it was the fact that something about this mission could still be salvaged, and Jenkins' death wasn't a waste.

"I'll have a talk with him about that when we get back on board," Jane promised, lips twitching slightly, but it quickly faded and her eyes grew hard, cold, and combat-ready. "Our objective hasn't changed since you disembarked: retrieve the precious cargo from the dig site and extract it to Alliance control," she stated firmly, attention moving between the two of them. They met her gaze equally, and she angled her head slightly as she added, "And we will succeed if we stay focused and work together. Understood?"

Kaidan noticed she said nothing about their own extraction if they failed, but he did nod before double checking his rifle and pistol as Ashley reveled in her own rifle and shotgun. The assault rifles were works of art, both of them Hahne-Kedar Lancer VI models. Kaidan had grabbed an Ariake Tech Raikou VII, whereas Ashley had snagged a Katana VI from the same company. Though they had chosen body mods at random, they had loaded every weapon with tungsten rounds. They replaced their burned out shield batteries, as well.

It was during Shepard's final check of her own sniper rifle with a cursory check of her pistol, he and Ashley back to back as front and rear guard, that Kaidan puzzled out a complication with a suddenness that made him physically startle.

Head snapping to the side in Jane's direction, he managed to keep anything questionable from his voice as he suddenly realized, "You said you had limited ammunition. You were right – you have one kind. Tungsten rounds, armor-piercing. Historically, they're most effective against synthetics."

He frowned and stared at her, observing the way her features didn't seem to become any less friendly, though she did come to a full and complete stop in her preparations.

"You knew there would be Geth here."

It wasn't an accusation but simply stated fact. His tone was cool enough, though, that Ashley jerked around in place. She didn't do much to hide her sudden suspicion, and her rifle even turned slightly in the other woman's direction. Shepard didn't move, simply met Kaidan's steady gaze with her own unreadable eyes, and she finally nodded slightly.

"Yes, I did," she conceded bluntly. "We've been tracking them for the last three weeks. We had received reports that a fleet of ships of unknown make and model had left the Perseus Veil and appeared to be looking for something. They hit four places before Eden Prime – a moon, two outposts, and a Batarian colony. But we didn't realize they were heading here until it was too late. We tried to send a warning but communications were already down and the Normandy was in stealth mode. All we could do was grab the fastest transport we could find and try to get here as quickly as possible to mitigate the damage. Given the circumstances and other concerns we were dealing with, it was the best we could do with what we had."

Her words were firm, an explanation though no apology in her voice, and she stood tall where she was. So Kaidan nodded – it made sense, after all – but he still hesitated for a moment before pressing her, "You know what we're after, then – what they're after."

Shepard paused and shifted in place slightly. "It came down from the top, that this mission's objective was on a need-to-know basis, Lieutenant." Here, Ashley huffed loudly but held her tongue, her opinion on that obvious. Tilting her head, the N7 acknowledged, "But this whole thing is FUBAR'd anyway, so I think we can ignore the 'need' part."

This time it was the man's turn to frown even as he moved forward a few paces, trusting the Chief to keep her eyes on their six.

As she pulled up a holographic display of a massive, vertical transmission tower on her omni-tool, Jane studied it and explained, "It's an information beacon of Prothean origin. There's an unknown amount and type of data loaded in it, and we don't know why they're are after it. What we do know is that we've done a metric shit-tonne of damage to the Geth as they've hunted for it, but they still keep coming. They've invested a lot in this, and that's got the Brass on edge. As it sits, they've got numbers, but we have stealth and training. We have a fair shot at completing our mission."

Growling lowly, Ashley stalked forward and demanded, "A fair shot? Commander, we're three soldiers and a missing Spectre against hundreds. We've got no exfil strategy without retrieving that beacon, which is on the other side of enemy lines. We're already dead – what's the goddamn point?!"

Cocking her head, Shepard stepped towards her, and there was an abrupt intensity in her frame that made Kaidan shift uncomfortably.

"Chief, you don't know me. And you don't trust me – I get that. But you need to trust my rank, and the training and experience I earned it with. If you can do that, even for just a few hours, then I promise you, I will do everything in my power to get you off this planet alive. If I have to build you a ship with my own two hands, I will get you through this." Everything in her visage went ice cold and her voice lowered as she added dangerously, "But you check that defeatist attitude at the door, Williams. If you're on my squad, you will fight to your last breath to defend yourself and your team. You will not give up, no matter what. Are we clear, soldier?"

There was an unusual amount of venom in her voice, something very dark and biting edging out of her words, and the look she pinned the Chief with had Ashley's eyes wide and her lungs refusing to cooperate. But her phrasing stirred something within her, fanned some fighting fire, though it still took her a moment to push through her reaction to respond.

"Understood, Commander: you lead, I'll follow. I don't know what else you have in that bag, but I hope you brought an army or something."

Shrugging, her ire easing immediately, Jane gave them that smirk again and allowed carefully, "Yeah, or something."

Then she replaced the duffel on her back and hefted her rifle up into position, the butt pressed loosely against her right shoulder as she tapped the side of the sniper scope. The lenses popped up into place and she gave them a cursory check before she shifted and nodded in the direction of the last incoming patrol.

"I'll take point. Alenko, I want you at my six. Williams, walk drag. Given the damage the recon drones did to Jenkins' armor, I want shields at maximum at all times, angled for high-speed energy deflection. Lieutenant, keep your barrier protocol readied – if we're not in cover, I want it active. If I see you in sunlight without blue on your skin, I'll shoot you myself. Chief, you've got a pretty decent combat exoskeleton built into your armor, and our enemy tends to use tech attacks against the rearguard. You're our tank in this hike. We're moving fast and quiet. Keep your helmets on and sealed and radio traffic limited. Any questions?"

Her voice was calm and tempered with years of experience, so Kaidan found himself nodding without even thinking. It was human instinct to trust this level of confidence, no matter how well he didn't know her, and he sensed Ashley falling in line behind him. Shepard didn't hesitate as she stooped and put her helmet while the others locked in their mouth guards on their own. It was only after Alenko gestured towards his own face that the N7 nudged a button on the side of her helmet and her visor cleared so they could see her easier.

"Ma'am, do you know where the dig site is?" the gunny asked, and Jane nodded.

"Not my first time to this operation, Chief. We're heading north for three klicks, then we'll wind around the edge of a cliff for another half klick. The beacon should be located there. Just up the hill from that should be the camp for the archaeologists, though judging from recently observed Geth activities, I doubt there are many survivors." There was a definite downturn in her tone at this point.

"What sort of Geth activities, Commander? Or is that a question I don't want the answer to?" Kaidan asked hesitantly as he stepped forward into place, the three of them heading out in a fast march.

In answer, she gestured broadly towards the strange spikes to their left, the corpses of a half-dozen civilians impaled on them. Those, he tried not to look at too closely.

"They're called dragon teeth, Lieutenant, and the effects on the human body aren't easy to explain. But if you see something that looks half dead and has glowing cybernetics laced through its skin, do yourself a favor and shoot first and ask nothing later. Fucking nightmares," she growled, her anger apparent, and her pace quickened.

Wisely keeping his mouth shut, Alenko gripped his rifle tighter and enjoyed the comforting weight of his pistol on his right thigh. Directly behind him, he could feel Ashley shift closer, her own agitation obvious. They hiked in silence for awhile, their path turning steeply upwards, and it was after the first kilometer that Kaidan began to notice Shepard's pace start to lag slightly. He watched her carefully for a few minutes, his diagnostic suite running silently on his visor, and he glared at the error message he received: No data found. So he hesitated before he moved up a few steps as he remembered the state of her armor and the injuries on her face, and he switched his comms to a private channel.

"You're limping a bit, Commander; are you okay?" he asked lowly, determined not to let his voice carry outside his helmet.

Not surprisingly, she continued walking, though he saw her look over her shoulder at him. Then her steps evened out and lengthened, returning to her original speed, and she changed her hold on her weapon slightly. Deflated, Kaidan backed off again, only to nearly stop short when he heard static in his ear.

"I'd appreciate it if you kept that observation to yourself, Lieutenant. I believe I mentioned that it has been a long few weeks."

She was slightly breathless as she spoke, though not overly so, and he pressured, "How bad?"

Jane physically shook her head a little bit as she answered crisply, "It's not enough to worry about. I'm not bleeding out and I'm not altered; the mission is a go."

Kaidan nodded to himself but didn't argue, knowing his place. He still filed away her reaction in his memory, because he had the feeling that it would come in handy sooner or later.

They walked in silence for several minutes, moving quickly through the hills, coming across no further troops. It surprised him that they were getting so close to the dig site without encountering any resistance, but the reasons for that were few and unfavorable for the outcome of their mission. He kept quiet on his speculations, though. Their path took them to the top of a small rise, directly in front of a massive alien Stonehenge, and Jane stopped behind a large rockfall, her clenched fist raised in a universal symbol. The radars in their helmets were beeping ominously.

"Williams, flank to the left behind that white boulder. Alenko, duck into that hole on the right. Once in place, wait a three count and then move forward. Stay low and quiet until you confirm enemy contact, and then you unleash hell; I'll cover you from here," Shepard ordered in a whisper as she snugged her sniper rifle against her shoulder.

The two soldiers gave soft affirmatives and then moved, slipping into cover and darting silently forward on each other's signals. Alenko was the one who stopped first, holding an arm out to Williams with his palm open, and he knelt beside a large rock. He peered around the corner for a moment then turned, making eye contact with both women. He raised a hand to his face and cupped one side of his visor, held up his hand with four fingers raised, then tapped the inside of his right wrist. Ashley nodded immediately and hunched over her rifle, and Jane lay the barrel of her gun against a divot in the rock. Kaidan paused long enough to rev his amp, and the moment the sheen of blue mass effect energy had folded over his skin, he stood and leaned out of his cover and squeezed the trigger on his rifle.

The resulting firefight was over in seconds.

The biotic's fire drew out the first two Geth troopers, one falling to him and the other to Ashley. The third dropped from a single shot to the headlamp, and as the fourth closed in on Kaidan's position, there was a ball of cobalt energy that flew over his cover and slammed into the synthetic. It went flying through the clearing and crashed into a rock, exploding in a small roil of flames. The area cleared, the three soldiers came back together and Kaidan nodded appreciatively at Shepard. She tilted her head in response as they walked towards the dig site, weapons up and backs to each other as they covered all angles of their approach.

The empty hole in the ground was hollowing, and Ashley growled angrily and kicked at the dirt as she snapped, "This is the dig site. The beacon was right here – it must have been moved!"

Kaidan glanced at her and asked, "By who? Our side, or the Geth?"

Cooling down as logic started to win over emotion, she allowed, "Hard to say. Maybe we'll know more after we check out the research camp."

Shepard said nothing for a moment, simply stood still and stared at the mounded earth before her, and she finally asked absently, "You think anyone got out of here alive?"

The question made the silence that followed it nearly deafening, and it took Williams a moment to find the courage to break it. "If they were lucky. Maybe they're hiding up in the camp? It's just at the top of this ridge, up the ramps."

Nodding, Jane lifted her gun to a ready position, and then their radios crackled to life with a new voice.

"I say again, does anyone copy?"

This time, it was the Commander that startled with the unexpected audio, and her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes enough to be seen through her visor.

"Nihlus? Jesus, you gave me a heart attack!" she exclaimed softly, and there was an answering chuckle on the other end of the line.

"Shepard!? What in the seven hells are you doing here?"

Turning in place, Jane continued keeping an eye on their surround as she explained, "The Council thought you could use some help on this one. We must have just gotten close enough for our networks to connect. Can you fill me in?"

Kaidan glanced at Ashley, eyebrows raised, and she stared back at him, wide-eyed. She stayed silent but mouthed, "The Council!?" He gave her a confused look and shrugged as he turned his attention back to Shepard, intrigued. The aliens representing the major races on the Council had never made an exceptional effort of hiding their mistrust and disdain for humanity. The fact that the N7 apparently registered on their radar was equal parts illuminating and intimidating.

There were a few long seconds before the Turian's voice came back over the comms.

"You know I move faster on my own, so I scouted ahead to feed status reports to the incoming ground crew. This place got hit hard, Commander. Hostiles are everywhere. I passed some burned out buildings awhile back – a lot of bodies. I stopped to clear it, intending to meet up with the team at the dig site, but I had a change of plans. I found a small spaceport up ahead, and I want to check it out. Do you want me to wait for you there?"

Throughout the Spectre's report, the three soldiers kept a visual patrol of the perimeter, and Shepard shot a look up the ridge at the last of the traffic, a column of smoke darkening the horizon.

"I copy, Nihlus. We just made the dig site, and the beacon isn't here. We're assuming it's been relocated, though we don't know who did it or where it went. We're moving towards a research camp nearby to scout for survivors. We're hoping someone will have an answer. Thoughts?"

The light buzz of radio static was as oppressive as the humidity they were fighting through, but it was nonetheless comforting.

"A beacon that size...it must have been the Geth. I can't see any humans taking the time during this attack to painstakingly dig up a two-ton metal tower, though they may have done it before the attack."

There were a few beats of silence in which Jane gestured for a wedge formation as they continued moving upwards, and Nihlus' voice finally came again.

"I'll move on to the spaceport – there may be some active transports in the area, or at least someone alive to tell us where our cargo disappeared to. There's a freight tram that services the port, if memory serves; I'll leave a cache of some extra equipment nearby. Good luck, Shepard. Don't forget, you owe me the next round for that stunt you pulled back on Canrum."

Still walking forwards, Shepard responded lightly, "That wasn't my fault and you know it, Nihlus, but I'll hold you to that drink either way. Be safe, and I'll see you on the other side."

There was no acknowledgment, just the cut of communications, and the quiet left them all suddenly uneasy. Gripping his gun tightly, Alenko stayed just behind and to the right of the N7, and Ashley walked further behind and to the left. As they crested the hill and a few burning pre-fabs came into sight, he glanced around and his spine stiffened. The high wall on one side boxed them against the edge of a cliff on the other, and with the fire was directly ahead...it was a crappy place for a fight.

"Looks like they hit the camp hard," Ashley murmured, and Kaidan felt goosebumps run up his arms as he looked sharply at her and replied, "It's a good place for an ambush – keep your guard up."

The ground leveled out and the left side opened up a bit, and there were three dragon teeth in place, all with something pinned through near their peaks. He didn't have long to stare at the grey skin and whitish-blue mechanical lighting tracing through the bodies, at the jaws and eye sockets wide open and unmoving. Because then the teeth dropped into themselves with a screech of metal on metal, bringing the things to the ground jarringly fast, and he felt his stomach turn as the creatures started moving in a way that was anything but real.

"Oh God...they're still alive!?"

It was a question and a fright all at once, and as the three lifeless husks began to pull themselves off the spires, Ashley's whispered tones came softly over the radio.

"What did the Geth do to them?"

He didn't have an answer. He didn't want to have an answer. He didn't want to see these things that could have been people he knew, people that Williams had to have known. Then, there was a mind-shattering roar that tore through the air and echoed dully against the outside of his helmet as the strange monsters charged for them. That, if nothing else, proved Shepard wasn't lying about tracking the Geth; had their helmets been unsealed, it's likely the deafening blast would have momentarily crippled them. As it was, it was terrifyingly uncomfortable, but not injurious.

Jane was the only one who didn't respond to the attack verbally, but her rifle fired almost immediately and took one out while a singularity rose into existence in front of the other two. As the husks spun in the air, still screaming, Alenko and Williams numbly gunned them down. The bodies dropped listlessly to the ground, and Kaidan couldn't help but stare at the twice-done corpses.

"I told you...shoot first, ask nothing later," Shepard reminded harshly as she spun towards them, her eyes flashing dangerously behind her visor.

Swallowing hard, the Lieutenant ripped his gaze from the husks and nodded dumbly as he repeated roughly, "Fucking nightmares."

She nodded tightly and her attention snapped to the other woman as she barked, "Williams, eyes on me. We're moving."

Startled out of her horrified trance, Ashley jerked to attention and panted a few times as she fought back her reaction. "Yes, ma'am."

Jane held them in place for just a moment longer, watching them closely, but then she nodded again and turned around, crouching ready over her rifle as she began to move forward. She passed the fire on her right, barely skirting the flames, and she made a beeline for the one pre-fab that was still standing firm with a red lock on the door. Putting her back to the wall next to the entry, she hummed approvingly as Ashley mimicked her on the opposite side.

"Alenko, hack the lock – we'll cover you."

He was already moving to the door with his tech suite spinning up madly on his omni-tool, and he didn't waste the breath to answer. Instead, he simply tapped at a few buttons, the sequencing rapid but simple enough, and he jerked his head in Shepard's direction as it beeped and the lock flashed green. The door stayed sealed for a moment longer, and as it hissed open, the three of them spilled into the doorway in perfect military formation. The second they cleared the door, Kaidan immediately lowered his gun, wincing as he realized he'd shoved a still-hot rifle into the face of an innocent female archaeologist.

"Humans! Thank the maker!"

It was a phrase that they heard often enough in their line of work, but, even after spending more than half his life in a post-contact society, it was still something he didn't think any human would ever really get used to. So he stepped back and cradled his rifle in a resting position, leaving his right shoulder against the open door, more of his attention outside the room than in it. He tuned out most of what was being said – he was acting rearguard at the moment, and he took that duty seriously. Still, even though he kept half an ear on the conversation taking place, he couldn't tear his eyes off the creatures that were still lying within sight of the pre-fab.

The information they received from the doctor and her off-kilter assistant was invaluable, and they huddled together outside the building after locking the survivors back in with strict instructions to wait for rescue. Jane shrugged her pack higher and winced, waving away Alenko's concerned look, and she gripped her rifle tight.

"So we've got a second Turian here working for the Geth. We've got a beacon that's reportedly from a communications network that was moved to the spaceport this morning. The two-three-two unit guarding the site's been wiped out, and there are no other known survivors at this time. Did I miss anything?"

There were negatives all around, though Kaidan hesitated before commenting, "But you're sure they didn't mean Nihlus, right? I mean, yeah, that guy was confused, but I can't see the Geth working with organics."

The shake of her head was immediate, and Shepard countered, "I've known Nihlus Kryik for almost ten years, Lieutenant. It wasn't him."

There was a finality in her tone that he hadn't yet heard, and he nodded immediately, holding up a placating hand. "No offense intended, Commander. I'm just trying to figure this out. So the Geth are working with a Turian. Why? What could he possibly get them that they can't get themselves?"

Pulling her gun closer, Ashley nodded as Jane looked at her and replied, "Let's find out. Williams, take us to the spaceport."

Already moving into position, the Chief sunk into her stance and jerked her head in the direction they were heading and advised, "There's a choke point up here; the path narrows in about eight feet wide with a ten-foot rise on both sides. Before, it was a pain in the ass to move equipment through, but we never ran combat drills through the gorge. We never...this was never a contingency we planned for. And now the two-one-two, the two-three-two...all the other units..."

Taking a step forward, Shepard's tone grew frosty but sympathetic as she admonished, "Don't do that; it wasn't your fault. You couldn't have done anything to save them. This wasn't anything anyone could have considered happening. We're behind enemy lines on our own planet, in our own camp. It's been years since something like this has happened, and no one could have anticipated that an archaeology dig would be the trigger for such a violent response from any hostile, much less the Geth. They haven't been seen outside the Veil in nearly two hundred years. There was no chatter, no indications. Don't do that."

It took a few heartbeats, but Ashley nodded and loosened her grip on her weapon slightly as she shook herself off. "Aye aye, ma'am. It's time for payback."

Saying nothing to that, the Commander simply shifted her hold on her own weapon in answer. Kaidan caught her gaze as Williams started off and she tapped her right upper arm with three fingers. Taking the order, he stepped forward to take the middle position behind Ashley, and Shepard brought up the rearguard. They hiked uphill silently for several minutes, quiet in their movements, but still encountered no further troops. Growing increasingly cautious, they were nearing the top of the rise when the radio channel hissed back open.

The three of them dropped in place and froze, weapons tracking around, and Kaidan winced as his knee cracked loudly.

"Saren...?"

Nihlus' voice came over their headsets, a bit of confusion and surprise in his voice, and Shepard inhaled sharply enough that they could hear her over their secondary comms.

"This isn't your mission, Saren. What are you doing here?"

Abruptly standing and moving forward into the lead position, Jane breathed softly, "Nihlus, don't drop you guard. Vakarian has been investigating Arterius for the last three months. We're coming."

The soldiers double timed it through the area, hard on Shepard's heels, and she crested the hill quickly. Kaidan nearly crashed into Ashley as the two of them came to a halt behind her when the N7 fell suddenly enough that he feared, for a long second, that she'd been hit. But she slid into place over her rifle with a smoothness in her movements that proved it was purposeful.

"I wasn't expecting to find the Geth here."

Shoving his carbine onto his back, Kaidan dropped beside Jane while pulling his digital long range optics from his belt. He wasn't an expert sniper like the other Marine obviously was, but he had enough experience and training to be a passable spotter. Behind him, he heard Ashley reassure that she had their six, and he braced and peered through the glass as Shepard inhaled slowly and deeply.

"Two Turians in the open section in front of the main tower. See them?" she urged, and he hummed softly.

"Affirmative," he confirmed as he eyed the industrial courtyard over the distance, the smudges of movement blurry but becoming clear as the technology forced everything into focus. Shepard's hands were slight in her gauntlets as she messed with a few settings on her scope. Identifying Kryik from his previous conversations with him, he added, "Your buddy's in the black and red armor. What's your play?"

She was quiet for a moment as she pulled her arm back and clenched her hand into a fist a few times before touching her finger to the trigger.

"Saren might be a Spectre, but he's the worst of the worst. There's a file thicker than my head on him back at C-Sec on the Citadel. If he raises a hand to Nihlus, I'm taking him out."

Kaidan shifted uneasily but didn't change his view. Spectres were untouchable and above every aspect of law, something that simultaneously made some sort of sense and gave him a migraine. If pointing a gun at one could get him a death sentence, he didn't want to know what killing one would bring. Far away and below them, the two aliens were almost circling each other around the courtyard. Shepard mistook his silence for something else, though, and the volume of her voice in his ear seemed lower than normal.

"Drop your scope, Alenko. Williams, patrol south. I'm not going to order you to break galactic rules," Jane said firmly, and it took the man a second or two to put together the right way to respond to that.

"Eight hundred, one half left of crate marked seven twelve charlie," he finally said softly, the digital readings from her scope filtering into his optics.

To his right, Shepard turned her head towards him, the contrast screen of her visor shining like opal in the dim sunlight. She seemed to study him hard for a moment, unmoving, before she finally looked back through her sight.

"Crate seen," she replied stonily, and Kaidan forced himself not to take offense. "Direct. Twenty meters, ten o'clock. Target moving. One meter, eleven o'clock. Hold."

The barrel of her rifle shifted slightly, the change barely perceptible, but Kaidan saw the metrics from her scope line up with his own. He watched the Turians closely, aware that the blue one was talking too softly to be picked up on the comms.

"Nihlus, dinger on deck. Get your ass to one side or the other," Shepard whispered, and they both watched as the alien moved a bit in response.

"The situation's bad."

Exhaling slowly, Alenko checked the measurements on his optics and breathed, "Wind from the northeast, three knots."

There was a beep from his hard-suit as the biometric reader advised that the sniper had a warm body in sight. At the same time, he watched as Saren came close enough to Nihlus to be heard over the radio.

"Don't worry. I've got it under control."

The Turian turned and moved a few paces away behind Nihlus, stiff, and Shepard gave a Krogan curse under her breath as Saren reached towards his left leg, exactly where his pistol was located. Kaidan felt her tense for a heartbeat before she relaxed, heard her breathe out very carefully, and there was a creak as her finger flexed around the thin metal of the trigger.

Then, like something out of a bad dream, the clouds cleared from in front of the sun, a shaft of bright light fell on top of them, and the glare of her lens shone out like a spotlight. At the same time, half a dozen Geth troopers and husks appeared at the metal bridgework a hundred meters north of their position.

"Shit! Hostiles!" Kaidan shouted, and the ground around them exploded and showered them in dirt.

Ashley's rifle jumped to life in her hands, and Shepard gave an angry shout as she swung her barrel around to target the newest threats. The next minute was a hectic scramble for safety as they covered each other's retreat, the strange mechanical squelches echoing loudly in the area. They backtracked ten meters to a rockfall they'd passed and huddled there, gunning down their attackers steadily.

The distant sound of a single gunshot was lost in the firestorm.

Kaidan couldn't get enough moisture in his mouth, and his tongue was dry enough to make swallowing a painful affair. The weight of his rifle, previously comfortable and reassuring, now strained his arms to the point of discomfort. His new amp whined quietly in the back of his swirling thoughts. There was plenty on his mind; exfil, the package, the squad's health and welfare, and now this new twist in what was already a mission fucked all to hell. Ashley was patrolling, rather unwillingly. Alenko was staying close and quiet, knowing that it was the only thing he could really do.

A few feet away, Shepard was kneeling silently before the prone form of Nihlus Kryik.

She was still, only the slight shift in her armor proving she was still breathing. Her sniper rifle was lax across the tops of her knees, her forearms laying limply over the weapon, and her comm was filled with snow. Respectfully, Kaidan paced a slow circle around the scene, keeping his helmet turned away, and he marked the time. He would give her five minutes, then he would have to cut in.

"Lieutenant, do you have enough space on your omni-tool to copy the data from his?"

Her voice cut across his consciousness like a blade, and he stopped in his tracks and turned towards her quickly. She had inched closer to the dead Spectre but her head was uplifted, her eyes locked on him. Hesitating, not wanting to lie, Kaidan took the three seconds to pull up his display and he checked his system's status. At the same time, he moved towards her only a little, still trying to give her the room he thought she might need.

"Yeah, I can do that," he affirmed quietly, and he didn't miss the way the tightness in her shoulders loosened. "Good...good, that's something," Jane muttered, and he took his cue to kneel next to the alien's body.

Kaidan glanced at the Turian reflexively, a muscle in his jaw twitching when he once again saw the front of his face missing, the splatter on the ground around his crest like a devil's halo. The shot had clearly come from behind, a brutal bolt of energy practically exploding just below the ridge of his right eye. There was only the slightest hint of facepaint left, the rest hidden behind blood and thermal burns. Between the burgundy of his skin and the white of his markings, everything else was a muddy blue, and the medic forced himself to look away. But a few seconds after messing with the Spectre's omni-tool under Jane's distracted attention, Kaidan frowned and looked back up at her with a fair amount of hesitation.

"Ma'am...there's no real data here – echoes, maybe. It's been wiped clean," he reported carefully.

She surprised him by snorting a bit with dim amusement, the strain in her face easing a little bit for reasons he couldn't understand.

"I understand that, Lieutenant. Just...just copy what's there, will you?"

Staring at her for a moment, Kaidan finally nodded and did as she asked, his holographic cycling through a quick display before blinking green. Looking back up at her, his mouth already open to speak, he found the words caught in his throat for the second time since meeting her. Shepard had her head bowed close to Nihlus, and she'd pulled off her helmet. Her hair was sweaty and messy and fell over her face. Her lips were moving slightly, her words breathless and unable to be heard. Trying not to, Kaidan still found himself staring as she finished whatever quick prayer she had spoken as she pulled back. She made a movement over her chest with her right hand as she murmured, "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti."

She was silent for a few seconds longer, her breath held and her eyes closed tightly, and then, like a switch, everything fell away. She stood and replaced her helmet in one smooth motion, jarring Kaidan as he moved to follow. Her sniper rifle shifted with her, coming back home into her hands, and she looked over it critically. The deceased Spectre in the foreground of her check was a vivid and contrasting background.

"Commander, you okay?"

She nodded, though her eyes didn't quite meet his through their visors. But her tone and cadence were normally pitched as she replied, "I hope I didn't offend you, Lieutenant. Nihlus had adopted Roman Catholicism as a child – that couldn't wait. I'm sorry." Kaidan nodded once and shifted, mentally waving away the apology. He wasn't religious, but he was spiritual, so he understood the need. "Jenkins...I didn't remember him having indicated a religious persuasion on his personnel intake. Hopefully him being on his home planet will ease him somewhat," Jane added softly before turning away.

It took several seconds for him to reply. The soldier in front of him was unlike anyone he had ever met. The fact that an XO attempted to respect the individual religious inclinations of her crew was unheard of; the service didn't generally allow for such niceties, not normally. Everything he was learning about her was drawing and stunning. Then he remembered the fact that she was his Commander, and he her subordinate, and he mentally switched his stance.

"I'm sure it does, ma'am. What's our next move?"

She tilted her head to the side, that same strange movement from before as she listened to something he couldn't hear, but it was gone just as quickly as he could identify it.

"We'll head to the spaceport via the train; it's likely to be the most dangerous route, but it's also the most direct. We're running out of options on this. We can't let that beacon fall into enemy hands." She shifted and her tone hardened noticeably as she keyed up her radio. "Chief Williams, I need you to fall back to our location. We're moving on to the spaceport."

Ashley's radio traffic was brief, and Alenko moved to his quickly customary position behind and to the side of Shepard. She said nothing, just adjusted her stance naturally to accommodate him as they waited for the third of their squad, and when the Gunnery Chief came into sight, there was a noticeable tension in the air. Much as he wanted to, Kaidan couldn't easily ignore it, but he could certainly understand it. When they'd come across the dead Spectre, Jane had gone still, only a quietly whispered gasp of disbelief crossing the comms. The Lieutenant had felt a wash of concern and guilt as he came to a stop, but Ashley had been less diplomatic than could have been desired. Already hot under the collar from the admission of the four weapons smugglers they'd found, she hadn't filtered her own response too well.

"Huh. Well, I won't have to worry about accidentally grabbing a dextro ratio again."

The silence that had followed that statement had been very, very thick. Jane hadn't moved; to her credit, she hadn't even turned her head. Her voice had been even and clear as she had succinctly ordered the Chief on close patrol, and Ashley had been wise enough to not argue the point. Her face was dark as she wandered off, though, and her snappy salute was a little sarcastic. And when Kaidan had hesitantly attempted to apologize on the behalf of the other soldier, there hadn't been the kind of heated response he had expected.

"She's xenophobic, but a damn good shot. She's not paid for her politics, she's paid for her aim."

However true that was, it still couldn't hide the strain between the squad as they came back together. Ashley seemed to understand her error, though, because she kept her eyes down as she fell back into place.

"Commander...I'm sorry for what I said. He was a good...man."

Stumbling or not, it was a sincere enough acknowledgment, though Shepard's voice held that same original monotone of their first meeting.

"You've a right to your opinion, Williams, but don't make assumptions. You didn't know him, so don't pretend to. Understood?"

Frowning, Kaidan felt his emotions flare up his biotics a bit. There was nothing visible, not really, though he could see the bending mass effect fields wrap around him with his eezo-tainted vision. He wasn't really expecting Jane's own fields to abruptly rise up from her shoulders to meet his, however, the darkness of her L3 energy meeting his lighter blue L2 emanations. She turned slightly, just enough to catch him out of the corner of her eye, and she stared at him for a few moments. Standing perfectly still, Kaidan swallowed hard as he tried to reign in his treacherous implant as it projected a wave of disapproval.

"But..." Shepard sighed slowly as she turned back to face Ashley, something changing in the way she held herself. "If you had known him, you would probably have liked him. Thanks, Chief."

Exhaling silently as the N7 started moving forward, the Lieutenant tried to ignore Williams as she shot him a sideways look, confused. He just shrugged, unwilling to really address whatever the hell had happened there, and turned away, ready to press forward. That strange meeting of energies and the minds behind them was foreign, alien, and so much different than the haphazard training sessions he'd had with other L2's and the occasional, hesitant L3's. Before, it was strange azure smoke with a sickening nausea diving into his head and swimming in his sight.

This? This was a dark sapphire wave that lapped softly at the edges of his thoughts while the smell of cherry blossoms and pepper rolled over him.

That mental taste turned suddenly acrid with alarm as twin Geth troopers and three rocket drones abruptly blazed into sight. Everything dropped to muscle memory and squad movement that was rapidly becoming second nature. Working as one, the three soldiers quickly shifted into formation, covered each other, and gunned down the units without hesitation. The synthetics' shields offered no protection against Shepard's forceful biotic push, and Kaidan's barriers held off the explosive shells of the smaller units long enough for Williams to blast them apart with her shotgun. The quiet that surrounded them then allowed Alenko to hear a soft curse through the radio, and Jane's helmet did that odd little head-tilt thing for the umpteenth time.

Then they were moving again, faster than before, blazing through what would have been a stalwart defense otherwise. With Shepard running point, the three of them tore down the length of the cargo train like a natural disaster, leaving dead mechanisms in their wake. Reaching the control panel, they paused just long enough to catch their breath, hunched shoulder-to-shoulder on the forward platform. It should've been ten seconds or so, just enough to fill their lungs and check their armor seals, but the shuddering ground held their attention longer.

Jane was the first to stiffen sharply, her lack of words saying everything she didn't waste breath on. Kaidan and Ashley followed her upright immediately after, the faceplates of their helmets skyward. The clear visors reflected the massive, golden, spider-like ship that was rocketing upwards into the blood-red sky.

"What...in the name of God...?"

His question breathed so softly that his words didn't even fog his view, Alenko stared up at the ship as it climbed higher in the atmosphere. It was growing impossibly smaller by the second, a testament to the technology and design in its propulsion, and he almost missed the Chief's equally quiet response.

"Not His name, LT. Pretty sure you've got the wrong side of heaven on that one."

Beside them, one fist clenched tight and pressed hard against the train's railing, Shepard dropped her gaze from the rapturous sight long before the others did. Their attention diverted, her squad didn't notice the way she shook minutely, the multitude of servos in her armor whirring gently in place. Her own visor darkened in response to her heart rate and hormone levels, and she let it dim out the world. There was a smattering of VI warnings in her ears that murmured just loudly enough to escape the cocoon of her suit, but the other humans were riveted to the horror before them. From their vantage point, they could see the valley where the thing had landed, and all that remained was a vacant, fiery field.

"Commander, the spaceport is right at the edge of that...pit. Should we risk it?" Kaidan asked, still fixated, and Jane's response came after only a moment's pause. "We don't have a choice, Lieutenant, if that's where the beacon is, because that beacon is our ticket home. One train ride and this is all a nightmare in the rearview."

If her voice was a little harder than before, something trending out of diamond and into something tougher than that, Alenko was very careful not to comment. Instead, he turned purposefully towards her, forcing his attention from the behemoth that was heaving itself out of sight. He said nothing about the twilight tint over her eyes and tops of her cheeks, instead focusing on the way his own medical suite was chirping loudly in his ear in its stasis mode. Some words penetrated, leaving a dull, bruise-like imprint on him, but he held his tongue in check, if barely. If his short history with the woman had taught him anything, it was when to keep his mouth shut.

"Aye, ma'am. Orders?"

Dispensing with the need for words entirely, Shepard reached forward and triggered the drive mechanism of the train with a flip of her fingers, the metal snake beneath them surging onward as she tossed the weapons tote towards the other woman. Ashley startled slightly but quickly settled as the scenery flashed by them like a corrupted vid, the naturally cavernous walls breaking here and there to show more charred green land. As the slim path before them continued, Kaidan wisely took the time to prep his weapons, then cycled his amp through a cleansing cooldown and tested the medigel they'd picked up along the way; it came back contaminated, and he tossed it all with a frustrated groan.

"LT, Commander? Here are some extra clips," Ashley murmured while she handed out a few thermal cartridges that hadn't yet been expended, the empty duffel fluttering against the ground.

Alenko took his quickly, snagging Jane's to hand across to her. The other soldier didn't seem to notice the gesture, her focus straight ahead, her body ramrod straight. He tried again, even nudging her with the clips, and suppressed his annoyance at being blatantly ignored. It was only with the slightest hesitation that Kaidan relented and pushed the two clips into his own ammo belt, his eyes resting a little longer than necessary on her helmet. Tearing his gaze away, he steadfastly stared forward, counting down the digital hashmarks to their destination, and swore to himself with every second that he would eventually forget the smell of cherry blossoms.

"Gunny, Shepard – we're coming up on our stop. Be ready," he warned quietly as he hefted his rifle.

The soft hiss of the air brakes almost drowned out his words, but the trio quickly readied themselves around each other. If the gentle ticking of the meter wasn't enough, the incredible increase in temperature would have been more than adequate to alert them that they had arrived. As astounding as the sight had been from miles away, the multiple square kilometers of molten rock and metal made for an impressive, if not destructive, view up close. The moment the magnetic skid began slowing, the rising heat and loud alerts in their suits made it very clear that stepping off the train was going to be anything but pleasant.

It was a very simple but welcome blessing that the train's systems worked exactly as designed, even under the additional stressors, and it came to a slow and calm stop with only the slightest jarring. And, even though the rest of the squad was immediately and absolutely on edge with the new location, Jane Shepard stepped off the cargo unit calmly, her hands empty as she walked forward amongst the catwalks.

"Sudden death wish, Commander?" Ashley growled absently as she jammed her rifle hard into her pauldron, all of her senses on alert. Kaidan, inclined though he was to trust the more experienced operative, still huddled close to their lonely triumvirate as they pushed forward.

"Easy, Chief. Take a look around – our path's been cleared."

The words were almost Gnostic in their inflection, but they were true enough. Even as they moved forward, unbelieving, Kaidan and Ashley were discomfited to find that they were, indeed, walking across and over the discarded corpses of a dozen Geth.

"What the hell happened here? Did another unit wipe them out?" Alenko hissed through his teeth, and they wandered across the metal bridging carefully, giving a handful of dead tactical warheads a very wide berth.

Her visual screens once again clear, Jane paused at the corner of a wall and glanced back at them, familiar and close sounds of gunfire creasing the air. Still, there was no alarm in her features as her head tilted once again, a strange shine coming over her eyes. But the moment passed quickly, and the three of them came around the barrier as one. The extreme heat hit them like a hammer, and Kaidan instantly threw up a barrier to diffuse some of it. Ashley grumbled wordlessly and shifted uncomfortably as they found themselves above a large platform at the edge of the fire field. The top walk they were on wrapped left and angled down into a ramp. The platform itself was haphazardly stacked with storage and shipping containers in no particular order, the mess studded fiendishly with dragon teeth. Everywhere, the odd white oil-blood of the synthetics and the blue goo of the husks marked the flooring. Some of the bodies still had wafts of smoke rising from their fatal wounds. At the far side of the platform, right at the railing that tucked up against the pit, was a familiar, green-lit beacon.

Between them and the beacon, just putting the last, finishing round into a Geth trooper's chest, was another Marine.

His helmet was missing, and, as he turned towards them with his assault rifle propped up against his shoulder, there was a flare of red at his collar that was blinding even with the flames at his back. The standard dark grey of his armor was broken by the crimson and white stripe running down his left arm, ending at his gauntlet. His hair was short, barely long enough to catch a set of clippers, a scar scratching up the left side of his hairline to extend the skin another inch into his scalp. A bit more than a five o'clock shadow ringed his mouth and stretched from his jaw up to his sideburns, and the whole of his face was covered with the usual combat spread of grease, dirt, blood, and bruises. A wicked cut across his cheek was still welling slowly, making the heavy bags under his eyes stand out. The cobalt glare that was abruptly piercing the group was sharp and unforgiving, and there was a bit of a feral quality in the smile he threw their way. From the ground up, he was the stereotypical bad-boy-gone-military, and it didn't look like all the rebel had been pounded out of him quite yet.

"Took your sweet fucking time."

The man's voice lacked a lot of the snap that his image created, and he almost sounded bored, but there was that ring of authority in the background of it that made Kaidan and Ashley draw up short. Jane didn't show any of the same discomfort, however. Instead, she seemed to relax for the first time since they'd met her, and when she pulled her helmet off, there was an exhausted yet relieved smile on her face. She moved closer, leading the group down the ramp without words, eyes tracking the immediate area and darting a few times to the beacon.

"Some of us had to take the back way, jackass," she responded mildly as she came up to him, and the soldier grinned. Only a few inches apart, Jane leaned against him, the red stripe on her right arm overlapping the matching one on his left, and she touched her cheek to his pauldron briefly. Then she was continuing on towards the beacon as he glanced back at the others, his gaze narrowing as he frowned, his apparent good humor falling away immediately.

"Your crew seems a bit light, Commander." The title was said in an almost mocking manner, and he added, "Did Nihlus decide to go ahead and raid the local battalion's hooch? He'd better save me some."

The ease that had entered the woman's posture disappeared almost immediately, and she stiffened without turning towards him. For his part, the Marine instantly identified the emotions ghosting over the squad, and the lightness in his stance evaporated. The snarl that drew across his face was full of denial and anger, but, even with his shift in mood, he held himself in check. Just.

"What the hell happened, Jane? No way he got taken down by these Geth bastards, not a goddamn chance! This should've been a cakewalk, dammit! What the fuck happened?!" he snapped as he turned hard on a heel.

It was only when his hand shot out and he grabbed her shoulder to spin her around that Kaidan abruptly spoke, concern and his own guilt driving him.

"Hey, easy, sir! It's been a rough couple of hours on all of us!" That glare, when it was aimed at him alone, was more cutting than he first realized. Still, he had earned his rank through his own shitty missions, and he let his demeanor reflect a bit of that as he took a step forward, his biotics flaring in the heat. "Nihlus ran into another Turian Spectre named Saren Arterius back at one of the cargo train loading zones. We lined up to give him support and almost got taken out by a Geth patrol instead. By the time we got to him, it was too late, sir. I'm sorry."

Again, the honorific was automatic, given the matching rankings on the two Marines' armor. That battle stripe down the opposing arms was unique to them, he was sure. Alenko had his own thoughts on that, but playing things close to the vest was rather his specialty. So he put those musings aside and tugged off his helmet, letting his own whiskey eyes meet the blue steel without hesitation. They both stayed that way for a long second, neither moving, and it was only the distraction of Ashley removing her head gear that caused them to finally break contact.

"Saren was gearing up to shoot him, but we don't have any proof of it. It's hard to even imagine Spectres gunning down each other, especially one their own species," Williams added on, more at ease than Kaidan was under the man's glare.

But her plainspoken words seemed to trip something in him, seemed to quench some of the anger, and he exhaled noisily while pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. It took a minute, a little less, before he appeared to shake off the shock with an efficiency that Kaidan privately envied. When he looked back up at them, he was more controlled, though there was a definite shadow in his gaze. He said nothing for the moment, content to wipe uselessly at his cheek with his hand, huffing in aggravation at the thick smear that came back over his glove. Given the blackness of the gore dried on it already, it was an oft-repeated movement.

"Probably a neg-LN shot, coated or fueled by some sort of anticoagulant or something. You're lucky it just nicked you, you know," the woman beside him commented as she checked him over with a glance, her gaze calculating. He refused to reciprocate her attention, though, steeping in his own sorrow, and she sighed. "We'll talk with the Council about Saren when we get back, but there's nothing we can do about it right now," Jane murmured to him, and he nodded once before casting an assessing look at the two other soldiers. "This is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, based here with the two-one-two; the rest of her unit's gone. And Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko of the Normandy. He's the L2 that David was telling us about."

Cocking his head at the last, the Marine finally introduced himself to them with only the slightest sniff in his tone, the ire in his eyes dimming slightly when he looked at the Chief. "Commander John Shepard, co-XO of the Normandy and N7 operative. Alenko, Williams, thanks to both of you for keeping my sister in her place. Woman's a damn slave driver."

Ashley grinned openly while Kaidan hid his lack of surprise.

"Sister? Let me guess, sir – twins?" The levity in Williams' tone was a welcome thing, and even Jane had a small smile at the old and worn frustration visible on her brother's face. "Fraternal, if you don't mind. Sharing genes with Lola is bad enough, but lending her my good looks would be downright criminal. Of course, I'm telling this to a whiskey-mike in the most chicked-out outfit I've ever seen. Raid a J-Pop's concert wardrobe or something, princess? And Lieutenant, dim the light show. I get that it's an instinctive barrier, but it's giving me a fucking headache."

Wisely turning his head and hiding a chuckle in a cough as he did so, Kaidan said nothing about John's nicknames for his sister and the rest of them. He tried to ignore the way Ashley didn't jump at the mix of compliments and insults, her lips turned up into a rueful grin as she quickly answered, "Lost a bet," like that explained everything about her garish appearance. And really, it did. Sirta's Phoenix armor wasn't the best in the showroom or on the books, and getting caught out in a battle with its low shielding and tech protection was downright insulting; it was pure luck that she hadn't been killed in the fighting.

Instead, his attention was caught by the beacon, and his stance shifted as he stared at it. Ashley did the same, the Commanders tossing an unreadable look between themselves. The slightly lightened mood that had crossed the four soldiers quickly faded into duty. Finally, John tapped his mic and spoke firmly into his comm.

"Normandy, the beacon is secure. Request immediate evac."

Even as he spoke, Jane's face was turned in the direction of the loading dock where they'd lost Nihlus. Kaidan and Ashley, pacing a wide circle behind the two N7's, kept their eyes on the strange alien computer. Their attention was very firmly fixed on it, awe obvious in their mannerisms.

"This is amazing!" Alenko said aloud, his eyes tracing the tower. "Actual working Prothean technology. Unbelievable."

Other than the Citadel and the relays, there were precious few Prothean artifacts. Despite their durability, fifty thousand years was hard on anything, even the most impressive of tech.

Ashley puzzled over the green light dancing from it and added, "It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up. Something must have activated it."

Thirty feet away, John and Jane were standing close to each other, eyes tracking the surround as they spoke with each other softly.

"The ship's maybe ten or fifteen minutes out, Loco. There's still time if you want to go retrieve him," Jane offered quietly, the old moniker slipping easily from her tongue. John's negative was almost immediate, though it was obvious to her that it was a bit hesitant. "No, the mission comes first. It always does – you know that. They'll send recovery teams, and they'll treat him better than I can right now. But...thanks, for the thought."

Shaking her head, Jane gave him a wane smile and retorted, "He was my friend, John. But he was your brother, if not in blood then arms. I'll stall the ship if you need me to. Hell, I'll launch Joker out of a torpedo tube, if it'll slow them down. Just give me the go ahead."

But John was adamant, even angry in his refusal, and he shook his head hard. "Shut up about it already. It's fine. I'm fine."

A little sad in her soft acknowledgment, she said nothing further, instead turning to the other soldiers in order to give her brother a moment to himself. She frowned when she saw how close they were to the beacon, common sense warring with her own curiosity, and she stepped towards them with a beckoning wave of her hand.

"Alenko, Williams, let's leave it alone, shall we? Captain Anderson won't be pleased if we break the galaxy's newest gizmo."

Shifting and looking backwards, Kaidan nodded once and headed towards her, Ashley hesitating behind him, still peering at the thing.

"Aye, Commander. The Normandy is en route?" His question was needless – he had heard the affirmation over the airwaves, same as the rest of them, but he was grasping for normalcy while a dead society's last gasp at immortality pulsed behind him.

Inclining her head slightly, Jane answered, "Should be here pretty soon. You holding up okay? You pushed your biotics pretty hard on the train, Lieutenant; any headaches?"

A little irritated at what he saw as her immediate jump towards his faulty implant, Kaidan forced himself to wait a two count before responding as evenly as he could, "No, ma'am, I'm fine."

Either something in his words gave him away, or, more likely, the sharp spike of blue around his form did. He cursed himself silently even as he wondered at his suddenly willful implant and how it refused to listen to him when she was in sight. Shepard paused a moment, her eyebrows lowering as her eyes narrowed slightly, and she studied him briefly before moving closer. The slight iridescent tint to her irises was familiar, something he'd seen on her a few times at this point, and he finally recognized it as eezo flooding her vision. That meant she wasn't just seeing the cerulean rising around him, but she was also seeing the hidden fields that were constantly in flux along his skin, the ones that bent and danced like wind in a field to his moods and emotions. His eyes dropping in something close to frustration, he didn't quite realize how close she had gotten until he finally glanced back up. Jane was less than an arm's length away, one hand halfway to him in an aborted but not forgotten gesture of comfort. Her voice was much quieter than before when she next spoke, her tones carrying to him alone.

"Easy, Kaidan. You've been doing this long enough to know your limitations, and I trust you on that. But I forced us here a lot faster than I should have. We're in a holding pattern now, we have the area secured, we have backup, and help is coming. If you need to crash, it's fine, and in fact, you deserve it. I just need to know how hard you're going to hit."

Blinking at the complete lack of censure she conveyed, Alenko waited to answer again, this time testing himself with a small push of the simple, low barrier that was still protecting him from the heat. The blurring waves expanded and overlapped each other, darkening a little as they did, and he felt the light twinge in his head as his implant bit at him.

Lowering his barrier, he scrubbed a self-conscious hand over the back of his neck and admitted quietly, "Okay, yeah, it's a little sore. Or a lot. But I'll be fine. Once I get back on board and get some meds and some chow, I'll be fine. And, uh...thanks, for asking. Without, you know, benching me first."

She said nothing to that, but made a simple gesture. She drew the back of one hand down the side of her cheek, then snapped the tips of her fingers closed against the point of her thumb. Kaidan blinked, surprised, and then truly smiled for the first time in hours. It was an old gesture, one developed by some of the first biotics, and adapted from old American Sign Language. It was a quick bastardization of the words 'no shame', a motto picked up and used as a symbol of camaraderie between those blessed and cursed with eezo exposure. It had also been years since he'd seen anyone but an L2 or less use it, so his response was far warmer than protocol allowed.

As respectful as it was, it also distracted both of them for about half a second too long.

Neither knew anything was wrong until, a dozen feet away, John's attention abruptly shifted behind them, a look of shock and distant realization crossing over his face like an eclipse. There was an instant alert that broadcast over the immediate area in the form of rough, immature mass effect fields. They were achingly bright and pulsating, a loose ball of warning hitting both the Vanguard Commander and the Sentinel Lieutenant directly in their taxed implants. At the same time, he started sprinting towards the beacon behind them, shouting, "Lola! Hello freakin' Kitty's in trouble!"

He continued running, the entirety of his focus on reaching the Chief who was being relentlessly pulled towards the tower, curls of near-invisible energy echoing through the air between her and it. Both Jane and Kaidan immediately turned, the woman wasting not a moment as she planted her rear foot and jammed her amp into fifth gear with a just a thought. Beside her, Alenko was pushed several inches away by her abrupt biotic charge, his boots scraping on the platform. He sensed more than saw the mass effect field she created, a flexing sphere of clear power forming instantaneously around Williams. When she pulled, the other soldier slowed drastically in her inexorable draw to the tech, but only slowed.

At the same time, John was suddenly there, his body in between the beacon and the staggering woman. Her hands were up, arms pinwheeling wildly as she tried to keep her balance against the nothingness pulling her, and she instinctively pushed against his chest. Looking down at her, a cocky grin on his face, he growled lowly, "This is your stop, sweetheart." There was a bit of animalistic and suicidal courage in his words, something that spoke so clearly of 'who gives a shit' that Jane gave a cuss and snapped his name in a way that was anything but a request. For her part, Ashley stared up at him, disoriented and panting, her chocolate eyes wide and hazy. Her confusion made him chuckle slightly, even in the situation they were in.

Then he shoved her ruthlessly back towards his sister; at the same time, guided by John's quick look, Jane yanked hard on that telekinetic chain she'd wrapped around her. Williams flew backwards, well out of danger, straight into Kaidan's waiting arms. He steadied her as she fell roughly to her knees, her head jerking up quickly, and she reached out.

"Shepard!" The Lieutenant immediately pulled her back, his voice harsh as he snapped, "No! Don't touch him!"

But Jane had already taken a step forward, her movements tight, as John was hauled bodily into the air by that same unknown force. Her body raged with blue fire as she watched her brother stare sightlessly forward, his eyes locked one some distant cloud, the normal sky-light within them a roiling jade hue instead. Even Kaidan and Ashley, who hadn't known him but a few minutes, could see the inherent wrongness in the lax and noncommittal set to his jaw. His form was taut and strained underneath his combat suit, his hands clenched into fists. He was grinding his teeth hard, and the muscles along his jaw stood out in sharp relief. He hovered there for moments, though it felt hours long. Then there was a harsh whine in the machine at his back, suddenly building in pitch, and Jane threw up a hasty barrier around the trio just before the beacon exploded in a small green fireball. The force of it threw the floating Marine forward and he hit the platform with a resounding thump, ragdolling as he tumbled limply across the decking. He rolled to a stop a few feet from them, slightly on his left side, his head lolling lifelessly as he finally came to a rest.

Even unseeing and half-lidded, his azure orbs were still frosty and intimidating, and the blood smeared across his face was foreboding and daunting. Even more so was a simple, easily observed fact: the gash in his cheek, before so freely bleeding, was no longer seeping.

Wasting no time, Jane darted forward, dropping to her knees and skidding the last few inches to his body. Her squad was right behind her, easily falling back into her command. She tore off her gauntlets, passed them to Alenko without looking, and felt for a pulse, only growing more frantic when she found one fading in force and rapidity. His chest plate was still and she pushed him hard and firmly onto his back, the clanking of his armor echoing loudly in the sudden silence of the platform.

"Shit! Goddamn it, John, not like this," she hissed under her breath as she pressed her palm flat over his breastbone, hand glowing deep sapphire.

If it had been the time, Kaidan would have commented on the strange, block-and-line tattoo etched in white ink on the top of her wrist. If it had been the place, Ashley may likewise have asked about a similar yet different tattoo visible from her angle on the underside of John's jaw, that same white ink barely noticeable but easily defined against his tan and paling skin. Both pieces of art seemed to alight from within in the twin colors of the flames from the pit and the biotic surge from Jane's implant.

Crawling veins of energy snaked away from her touch and across the metal of his armor, wrapping around his torso like faint spider webs, throbbing gently, and they crawled up the clammy skin of his neck as they edged away towards his extremities. Neither soldier was quite sure what she was doing; any sort of resuscitation measures and methods that humanity may have developed had long been lost to the formulation of medigel and emergency med-packs, none of which they had. There was no denying the slight jump and twitch to John's body as the biotics she poured into him marched to the tune of her own heart, and the slice in his face turned a little redder. But the tendrils continued their unceasing movement up and out. The moment they touched his temple, wrapping around his skull with a lover's caress, there was a familiar yet entirely unexpected burst of Prothean energy from his body, and Jane went stiff as a board.

The slight gasp that left her mouth was so like the noise she made when they found Nihlus that Kaidan had a strange moment of déjà vu. He was too concerned by the abruptly glassy and vacant look in her eyes, however, to think much of it. Where he was quickly coming to enjoy and rely on that warm, forest-green blaze of life in her gaze, there was instead the sickly and disturbing color of illness.

"Commander? Commander Shepard, ma'am!" he snapped, very quickly realizing that something above and beyond his pay grade was occurring two feet away. Without options, he reached forward and ripped Jane's hand from John's suit, severing whatever connection her biotics had created with the primeval and untrained eezo he had within him. Instantly, she toppled to the side, unconscious and unmoving, eyes shut without strain. Ashley and Kaidan glanced at each other as the effervescent glow died out, equally horrified and determined, and moved quickly to check the twins.

"Strong heartbeat here, visible respirations," Williams finally reported from John, and Alenko replied the same from the sister with obvious relief. Moving with only the slightest hesitation, Ashley shifted her charge into a standard recovery position, following Kaidan's lead, the medic having far more experience in the arts of healing than she. Then, within a small little bubble of silence and indecision, the two of them looked back at the beacon. The charred ruin, now a third its original height, was nothing more than a smoking, diminutive heap of metal and circuitry. It sparked in uneven intervals, bits of molten material dripping down the sides. The wreck almost seemed to be taunting them, and Kaidan felt an otherworldly sense of disappointment well within him, the face of Corporal Jenkins swimming unsteadily in his mind's eye.

The beacon was dead, two N7 Commanders possibly following along directly, another Normandy soldier already there, Eden Prime was, almost literally, wiped off the map – is this what they had to show for their efforts? He was still figuring the wording for his report when a mix of a hum and a whistle cut through his head. The very definitive sound of a Tantalus Drive Core echoed through the air at the same time the radio crackled to life.

"Shepard? Nihlus? Status report!"

There was slight but heavy hesitation in Kaidan's hand as he reached up to tap at his comm, wincing as he glanced around at the situation he was about to report on.

"Uh, Lieutenant Alenko, sir. Status is...charlie-foxtrot. In every way that matters."

End Chapter 1

Terms and Translations

LT: Lieutenant, shorthand

Exfil: Extraction strategy

LOS: Line of sight, shorthand

Dinger: Sniper

XO: Executive officer, shorthand

FUBAR: Fucked up beyond all recognition, shorthand

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, a catechism of the Catholic faith

Gunny: Gunnery (rank), in the manner of Gunnery Chief, civilian shorthand; military ranks should always be spoken in their entirety

Hooch: Liquor, especially inferior or illicit whiskey

LN: Lima-November, shorthand for Local Native

Whiskey-mike: Woman Marine, shorthand, often derogatory though not always

Charlie-foxtrot: Cluster fuck, shorthand