#stelliferous

“Hey, Captain?” The voice filtered through the comm device in her ear, gruff and raspy.

Captain Red Shepard help up a hand, signally a pause to her sparring partner and first mate. “What is it, Riggs?” she asked her helmsman.

“There’s something…well, just get up here.”

He sounded well and truly rattled, and she frowned. Her helmsman was a curmudgeon, certainly, but he was a highly competent curmudgeon. It took a lot to shake him.

“I’ll be right up,” she said.

He grunted his acknowledgment and closed the link.

“Sorry, Ash,” she said, picking up a towel to dry the sheen of barely-formed sweat from her face. “Duty calls.”

“Trouble?” Ashley asked, picking up on her tension.

“Not sure. Whatever it is, it’s got Riggs in a tizzy.”

Ashley laughed. “That alone is worth checking it out. Should I suit up and meet you at the helm?”

“Please,” Red said, and the younger woman nodded smartly before walking away.

A few minutes later Red was pacing down the bridge, the Singularity purring beneath her feet. Her boots beat out the staccato rhythm of her stride, signaling her approach to her helmsman and mate.

“Took you long enough,” Riggs groused without turning around. Data flashed across the monitors in front of him. They were in the Exodus system, just one relay jump away from Sol, where they had just completed a very lucrative smuggling operation.

“I grabbed my coat,” she explained distantly, focused on the information displayed on-screen. Blinking letters informed her that Riggs had intercepted a signal from Eden Prime, the second planet in the Utopia cluster. She knew the name: it was one of the first planets to be colonized when humanity left Earth.

Riggs rolled his eyes. He often griped about her tendency toward theatrics. The elaborate red coat was designed like something an ancient Earth pirate captain would wear, and Red always wore it when she wanted to make an impression. In fact, most of her cramped quarters were taken up by a myriad of clothes, so that she could always look the part.

But then, she was a pirate. She was supposed to have some vices.

“So, what am I looking at?” she prompted. “Distress signal?”

He tapped at the screen, pulling up a video feed. “Watch.”

Sound filled the cabin. It was chaos, all smoke and gunfire and the screams of dying and injured people. She frowned, trying to make out details. Behind the camera, someone spoke, but their words were garbled and choppy.

“—heavy fire—reinfo—questing evac—”

Abruptly the voice stopped, and the view lurched as the camera fell to the ground. They could see bloody grass and more smoke before the feed cut out altogether.

“Back up to that last frame,” Red said tensely, and Riggs swiftly complied.

There, descending to the horizon line, obscured by the smoke. It was like an enormous segmented hand reaching down from the sky, fingers grasping at the soldiers still fighting beyond the camera’s view. Whatever it was, it was huge.

“What the hell is that?” Ashley asked after a moment of horrified silence.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Red said.

“I’d say leave it to the Alliance to sort out, but there are no readings of any of their ships in the vicinity,” Riggs said. “What do you want to do?”

Red gnawed on her lower lip, staring at the blurry image on the screen. “We go in,” she decided. “Quick and quiet, and be ready to retreat at the first sign of things going south. But I want to know what the hell’s going on.”

~~~

The shuttle dropped them some ways from the colony, then hurried back into orbit to wait for their call for extraction.

She’d brought Ash, and Wrex, her krogan battlemaster. He’d been with her since she was just a child, and there was no one on her crew she trusted more at her back. He surveyed the landscaping critically before turning to her.

“Yeah, I thought you were losing it, stopping for a distress call this far in to Alliance space,” he said, “but this is fucked.”

“Can’t believe you noticed,” Ash smirked at him. “Isn’t Tuchanka always covered in smoke like this?”

“Dust,” he corrected with a snort. “And even with the fires and death, it’s pretty nice here. There’s actually trees.”

“And whatever the fuck that is,” Red said, diving into cover as the thing from the vid rose above the treeline.

“Jesus, what the hell,” Ash whispered, voice high as she followed closely on Red’s heels. Wrex’s only response was an emphatic “fuck” as he too ducked behind a tree.

It was a ship, Red realized now that its entirety was in view, shaped like some sort of bug or maybe a squid, its grasping appendages looking uncannily like god-like fingers. It rose over the planet, hovering eerily for a moment before thrusters somewhere beneath its body engaged, sending it jetting into orbit. She hoped it didn’t notice the Singularity with her stealth systems online.

They watched the empty sky for several tense minutes.

Finally, she activated her comm link with the ship. “Riggs, you still there?”

“Yes, Captain,” he said immediately. “Whatever it was, it either didn’t notice us or didn’t think we were worth its time.”

“Good,” she said. “Stay on alert. We’re going to check out the colony.”

Even as they approached she could tell it was deserted. The modular buildings they passed on the outskirts were blackened and damaged, and dead Alliance soldiers were scattered everywhere. Several burned bodies wearing the remains of common worker’s clothes were impaled on metallic spikes.

“Whatever species was on that ship, they’re sadistic,” Ash said in a sick voice. “I haven’t seen any signs of survivors.”

“Neither have I,” Red said. “I’m not sure we’ll learn anything useful here now that ship is gone.”

A gunshot sounded somewhere ahead of them, sending them ducking for cover instinctively. The retort echoed between the buildings, and Red waited for it to die before she motioned her team forward. They stalked through the ruined town, finally coming to what looked to be some sort of shipping complex.

“Up ahead,” Wrex growled softly. “I think it’s a turian.”

The body was splayed out on the walkway leading between several warehouses, blood spattering their walls. Ash and Wrex took up watchful positions as she approached the dead turian.

His armor was nice, much nicer than she could ever (legally) afford, and distinctly out of place in this agrarian colony. His white face paint, a stark contrast from his dark carapace, was smeared red with his own blood.

“Looks like it was point blank,” she said, reaching out to find a pulse out of habit. Her eyes widened when she felt the faint flutter beneath her fingertips. “Holy shit, he’s alive! Radio the shuttle.”

“Tough bastard,” Wrex said, appearing beside her with his med kit already at the ready. As she and Wrex carefully maneuvered the turian so they could apply pressure to his wound while the medigel performed its magic, she could hear Ash speaking quietly into the comms. Soon enough, a low hum signaled the approach of her shuttle.

The three of them carefully lifted the turian as the shuttle touched down, trying to keep him as steady as they could, when suddenly his hand lashed out, latching on to Red’s wrist with an iron strength. Wrex swore.

The turian’s eyes opened, unfocused, and his breathing came in harsh, ragged gasps. “…beacon…” he whispered.

“Easy there,” Red said, trying to gently extract her arm from his grip. “You’re alright, we’re getting you to a doctor.”

His eyes found her face, though they were still unfocused. “You must recover the beacon,” he said, words steadier. “Other…platform…” His eyes glazed as he slipped back into unconsciousness, and Red finally withdrew her wrist from his grasp.

Wrex was already surveying the platform beyond the warehouses. “Looks like there’s supposed to be a train to the other one, but it’s not at the station. Shuttle can drop us off on its way back to the ship.”

“Sounds good,” Red said, and they carried the injured turian into the waiting shuttle.

Ash ducked into the cockpit to give directions to Qiana, the Singularity’s second mate. “Think he’ll make it?” she asked as she rejoined her captain.

“Dunno,” Red said, eyes focused outside the shuttle’s window as it followed the track to the secondary platform. “Olimpia will do her best.”

“What do you suppose this ‘beacon’ thing is?” Wrex asked.

“Only one way to find out.”

“Captain, scanners have picked up bombs placed around the station and the platform we’re approaching,” Qiana called out. “A few life signs on the train, and—damn!”

The shuttle swerved, sending Ash crashing into Wrex while Red lurched into the wall. The turian, prone on the floor, slid a few inches to the side.

“Hostiles firing at us!” Qiana called. “Mechs of some kind, they look like.”

Wrex disentangled himself from Ash and unholstered his gun. “Get us above them. I’ll take care of it.”

“We’ll cover you,” Red said as Qiana maneuvered the shuttle into position. The krogan nodded, then threw the hatch to the side, leaping out and down about twenty feet to land with a biotic burst amid the machines on the platform below. Red and Ash quickly took positions on either side of the door, offering cover fire as Wrex tore through the hostile force with brute strength.

In only a few moments the platform was free of gunfire, and Qiana moved the shuttle in close so both Red and Ashley could hop out to join Wrex.

“Okay, tell me if this is crazy,” Ash said, nudging one of the downed mechs with her foot, “but I think these are…”

“Geth,” Wrex finished for her, scowling. “I think so too.”

“The geth haven’t ventured outside the Perseus Veil for what, two centuries? Why would they have come this far from the Tikkun system?” Red asked.

“Beats me, but these match the description,” Wrex said. “Hey, you think that’s the beacon thing?”

Red followed his gaze to the edge of the platform. The term ‘beacon’ conjured images of a light source, some sort of signal fire or the blinking lights of a landing platform, while this…well, she wasn’t sure what she’d call it. It was a metallic spire, maybe three times her height—not as immense as she’d expect something called ‘the beacon’ to be. Grooves were etched into the sides of it, and she recognized Prothean artistry. And yet despite its appearance, something about it called to her, so maybe beacon was an appropriate term after all.

“Watch out, Captain!”

She hadn’t even realized she was walking toward it until Ash yelled, but then it was too late. She jerked back, but it held her close like a magnet, and she felt her feet lift from the ground as she was pulled toward the artifact.

Plain blossomed in her skull, searing and red-hot, and then…images? Sensations? She lost all sense of herself. Terror gripped her, and despair, Father’s head exploding as the bullet tears through, knowing there is nowhere left to run. Blood and fire, it’s her people out there, burning, screaming, she can do nothing but grieve even as she can’t escape the same fate.

And then the terror fades, and she is left with a message, imprinted urgently into her mind. A warning.

They will come again. It is inevitable.

And then, nothing.

~~~

The Council was not going to like this.

Anderson pinched the bridge of his nose as he braced himself over the comm console behind the CIC. Hackett wasn’t going to be pleased either, but he needed to be kept informed, especially regarding a fuck-up of this magnitude. Taking a deep breath, he stood upright, and hit the button to initiate the call.

“Captain?” Admiral Hackett’s grizzled face appeared in the holo projector. “I didn’t expect to hear from you until your return to the Citadel. What is it?”

“It’s about the mission on Eden Prime, sir,” Anderson said. “It…well, it failed.”

Hackett was silent for several long moments. “How so?”

Anderson inhaled. “To start with, someone beat us to it. The colony was under attack when we arrived. By the time we made it to the beacon, it had been destroyed. And…we lost Nihlus, plus a member of my team.”

“Nihlus, the Spectre?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well,” Hackett said, and the profanity he wasn’t saying echoed silently between them. “Who were the attackers?”

“We’re not positive,” Anderson said. “There was another ship in orbit; sensors put its arrival after ours though. Batarian. There was another ship, or something, too. And there were synthetics—I believe they were geth.”

“If the geth have decided to expand through the galaxy, surely we’d have heard about it before now,” Hackett mused. “How can we confirm this?”

“We brought the remains of two on-board, for a specialist to examine. We also have what’s left of the beacon, but…I don’t think it’ll be much use.”

“Better than nothing,” Hackett sighed. “Why would the geth attack a human colony? We’re missing something, that’s for sure.”

“There is…something else,” Anderson said, hesitating. “When we found Nihlus’ body, there was a witness. Said he’d been killed by another turian. Said Nihlus called him ‘Saren’.”

“Shit,” Hackett said, finally giving the swear life. “Did you see him?”

“No, sir. All we have is this man’s word for it. And he’s not exactly a stand-up witness: the only reason he missed the attack was because he was napping back in the warehouse during his shift.”

“That won’t go far with the Council,” Hackett said. “Is there any way to put a positive spin on this?”

Anderson shrugged. “Whomever was there before us—the geth, or Saren—set several bombs to detonate around the platform where the beacon was held for transport. We managed to disarm those in time. Unfortunately, there was another at the other transport platform, which we didn’t get to. That part of the colony—and Nihlus’ body—was destroyed.”

“That’s a very small silver lining, Captain.”

“I know, sir.”

“What was the status of the colony after the attack?”

“Bad. Seems most of the soldiers and civilians had been taken out in the early stages. That other ship I mentioned? It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ll have Joker forward you the video feed from our arrival, maybe someone can tell us something. We swept the area for survivors after the blast, but there were only a few, all civilians. I have all of them on the Normandy, and Chakwas is getting what intel she can while she treats them.”

“Good. Forward that information to me when you have it. For now, head back to the Citadel and make your report.”

“Understood.”

“Thanks for the heads up, old friend. I don’t think I need to tell you to brace yourself for the clap-back when Saren’s name comes up.”

Anderson grimaced. “No. It’s going to be bad enough telling them we failed to secure the beacon and lost Nihlus even without implicating Saren, but I can’t in good conscience withhold that information. Besides, it’s the only real lead we’ve got.”

“I’ll send another team out to Eden Prime, to re-secure the area and see if they can find anything else. I’ll be in touch. Hackett out.”

Anderson slumped, closing his eyes. Visions of Jenkins, body lurching as he was hit, and Nihlus, cold and still on the ground after an execution-style shot, swam in the darkness behind his lids. He thought of the revolting corpses-turned-mechanized-zombies that had been impaled on giant silver spikes, and the sight of the beacon, smoking and broken, as a shuttle, tiny in the distance, left atmo as the explosion from the one bomb his team missed sent reverberations through his body. He barely suppressed a groan.