You think the strangest things when you’re on the verge of death. Telling you this may cause you to question my sanity, but I’ve been close to the endless dark more times than I’d like, even before I found myself in the middle of a galactic war. There’s no bright light like the movies visualize it, no inviting music to welcome you, no feeling of sweet relief as your body lies there a breath away from the end.

There’s just black.

You can stare at it, and you can try to wish it away, but it just stares back at you like a broken mirror. No matter what you put in front of it, the image always greets you in an incoherent fashion that numbs your mind if you look at it too long. In that space, the only things that exist are your thoughts and that empty vacuum sucking them all up without an iota of reciprocity.

The first time I was dying, I was actually mad. Not mad because I had so much to live for or because the blame rested on someone else’s shoulders; rather it was because I’d expected so much from the afterlife and all I got was an unending wall of darkness in every direction. Really, we spend all our years dealing with the shit we have to deal with and our only escape from it is to be trapped in a paradoxical state of nonexistence with only our thoughts to keep us company? Fuck that.

The second time I’d been dying was in Vancouver, when Daniels patched up the gash in my abdomen. The black wasn’t so bad then. It barely lasted a few seconds (at least in my frame of mind) and afterwards I was up on my feet shooting Reapers like it had never happened.

The third time was the real kicker. I knew it was coming, so it really wasn’t as much of a shock when I suddenly found myself looking down at a starless sky. It’s disorienting the first time, maybe even the second. Kind of like going underwater for a long period of time and swimming toward the surface, only to find that your idea of the surface actually led you further into the depths. Panic sets in and your lungs constrict, increasing your heart rate which automatically releases adrenaline, and before you know it you’re flailing in every direction in a frantic effort to get out of the water.

Only difference is, in this case there was no getting out of the water. Either you learn to hold your breath indefinitely, or accept that you’re destined to metaphorically drowning. Unless the situation demands that I swim or I have some incredible motivation, I’ve always been more of a drowner.

So if all that has meant the most to me isn’t present after my last breath, count me with the fallen sheep and send me to the depths.

Of course, there I was in my edge-of-death state pumping out BAAO lyrics. It would only be fitting if I’d stayed there for the rest of eternity mentally reciting lyrics, poetry, entire episodes of RvB from memory or the script of Napoleon Dynamite. To this day I can speak all the lines of that movie verbatim, minus maybe a quote or two. Regardless, I had kicked the unlucky bucket for good this time. No medic to save me, no fuck-ups on my part to hinder a process I’d put to action, as had been the case with my first near-death experience. This was it.

I expected hell, to be honest, although different people have very different ideas of what hell is. Could be an actual fiery dungeon of agony and tormented souls, or it could be this insanity-inducing isolation. I didn’t care either way really, because for all intents and purposes this was hell, whether literally or not we can leave to the philosophers and religious folks. At the very least give me a Gameboy and Pokemon Yellow to pass the time.

I wondered if Troy and Adison were dead or dying as well. There wasn’t much to remember aside from the Reaper’s ridiculous yet somehow plausible explanation for their existence and a flash of red light just after telling us we were going to die. Asshole.

No matter how many rationalizations I came up with to explain the Reaper’s actions, I couldn’t find anything to satisfy my curiosity. Nothing could explain why it had wanted us to see its point of view before being disintegrated. Was it just fate being cruel by explaining that nothing was as we thought in this universe and then robbing us of the ability to go searching for the truth? Seemed possible. Life hates me, so why should it do me any favors now?

It would’ve been easy for me to get lost in there. Every now and again I thought I heard something from the outside world, but that could have very well been my imagination. Was I dead yet, or just at the tip of the end zone? Just hurry up and get it over with. I can’t take the boredom anymore!

Shepard crossed my mind, as well as her crew and Hackett. Garrus. How would they fare now that I knew this was a different reality than I’d seen in the games? How would they stop the Reapers and, more importantly if the evil machines were being truthful, the end of the universe? Any time Liara crushed someone with her mind she was taking us one step closer to the edge.

And I’m about to break!

More lyrics, this time from one of the favorite songs of my childhood. I wondered if Linkin’ Park or Being As An Ocean even existed in this reality. I wondered if I existed in this reality prior to being thrown into it from another one. When you think about it, the possibilities of there being duplicates of someone in an alternate reality are pretty slim. I mean you’ve got thousands of years of branching choices to screw up, and even one screw-up results in you not being born years down the line. Hell, for all I knew I could exist as an alien here. A bit of a stretch, that, but you see my point.

More noises from beyond the veil. Just shut up and let me go already! It’s pretty damn obvious I can’t do any good here.

It felt like days passed while I stared at the infinite darkness. You know how when you wake up it’s almost as if no time has passed whatsoever? Completely opposite effect here, I’m sure. But then, when you’re dead, what’s the point in keeping track of time? Like the Reaper said, time isn’t exactly an object, it’s simply a fictitious scale we’ve developed to measure change and explain why our bodies decay. In all consideration there likely is no such thing as time. Just the forces of evolution and decay.

Years passed. Not literally, because I’d already established that time wasn’t real, but nothing was developing and nothing was decaying aside from my patience and sanity. Technically when something refuses to change it is by definition dead, so maybe I’d spend the rest of my nonexistence like this. God the universe is a cruel place.

I’d almost given up all hope of retaining what little sanity I had left when the spread of noises I’d been hearing for so long finally condensed into an intelligible form. At first I thought it was just a stray thought from my dying mind, but I was still coherent enough to realize that the voice in my head doesn’t usually sound like the tortured moan of a garbage compactor.

“The end has not come for you yet . . . ”

If I hadn’t been completely numb to emotion from the endless boredom, I probably would have felt a tinge of uneasiness, but as things stood I was completely free of that burden. The only things that plagued me were the facts.

Fact #1: I was dying from being shot to death by Reaper fire, likely incinerated beyond all hope of recovery.

Fact #2: The dying process was taking far too long.

Fact #3: The aforementioned insanity-inducing length of my death was causing me to associate fantasy with reality, specifically the last thing I remembered before entering the dark. That strange chat with the Reaper was so impressed upon my mind that I was creating a different version of it as I lay dying.

So, all things considered, I had the freedom to do whatever the hell I wanted.

“You here to mock me?” I rang out. Even without a corporeal form, my voice echoed so strongly in my head I was sure I was probably speaking in the real world. “Well go ahead and do it! Get it over with! As if I don’t know I’m fucking useless!”

“Shadows cloud your mind like breath in a mirror,” the voice replied in a harsh tone. “You seek to achieve the impossible, all the while knowing it is unattainable. Why?”

“Trying to understand me now?” I asked, making a mockery of what actually seemed like a sincere question. “What happened? I became interesting just because I’m not afraid to die? Is that why you really do all this, to glean some satisfaction from the terror you produce in destroying the galaxy?”

“Long before your existence was even conceivable, we labored to prevent its extinction. We have witnessed events so insignificant it could be said they did not even occur, yet the course of the universe shifted because of them. The galaxy should hold no mysteries from us, yet you stand in contradiction to this idea. Never before have we been presented with such a unique opportunity.”

Was this thing actually complimenting me? It spoke with the same ceaseless arrogance as Sovereign and Harbinger, but it wasn’t demanding my obedience or droning on about its supremacy. Instead it saw me as a tool to be used.

I’d completely lost sight of whether this was a figment of my imagination or the same Reaper I’d spoken to in Jerusalem. I suppose that’s only natural when you’re dying, but the thought that I was actually somewhat lucid and still having a conversation with the damn thing took my attitude to a far less carefree place. It could only be talking to me for one reason: there was some purpose to be served in letting me live. Maybe even an alternative to galactic genocide.

Well, that or it wanted to indoctrinate me and turn me into a spy. Either way, I wasn’t exactly pressed for time, and I couldn’t physically walk away from the conversation. Fuck it.

“What do you want from me?” I asked after considering my options.

“Cooperation. We have sought a solution to the coming destruction since the dawn of our existence, yet we have only ever considered one possibility. For longer than you can fathom, we have conquered the species of this galaxy in an effort to save those who came after them. Our attention has been singularly devoted, setting aside all other courses of action. The day has come for us to explore new possibilities.”

“You want to try something other than your original plan?” I asked for clarification. “I thought converting us to Reaper form and hoping it would create a biotic Reaper was the only way?”

“Perhaps. But the end is fast approaching. Our method has shown not a sign of progress since its inception. It is far better to exhaust all options. In the event that we are unsuccessful, we can rest peacefully with the knowledge that despite our greatest efforts, the destruction of the universe was simply out of our control.”

I don’t know if I was physically incapable of connecting the dots right away or not, but it took me several long moments to understand and then question what the little shit was telling me.

It actually wanted to save the universe? Too good and completely fucked up to be true. That’s how it always is with villains, right? They all say they’re working for the greater good when in reality they don’t even believe that. It’s just a line they use to confuse the lesser-minded individuals opposed to their ideal. And then you have the even worse form: a villain who legitimately believes he’s doing good by fucking everyone else over. The Reapers didn’t strike me as being quite stupid enough to qualify as the latter, though.

Damn. Damn! There’s no other way to express how confused and sympathetic I felt in that moment. On one hand, these were the fucking Reapers! The evil, soulless machines that annihilated organics every fifty thousand years because of a bad programming error. And on the other hand, I didn’t get the feeling that it was lying to me. It actually seemed to have a genuine desire to save the universe, and I was willing to get behind any plan that didn’t involve wiping out all the fictional characters I’d come to know and love.

Of course, that was all assuming this was real and not just my mind converting everything to my liking. Even then, if my mind had made all this up, why debate it? And if it was all real, wouldn’t it be better to take a chance on the existence of an alternative? No Catalyst, no Crucible, no other conceivable way of saving the galaxy. This might be our one shot.

Fuck my life, I actually agreed with the damn thing.

“Okay,” I conceded, mentally kicking myself a dozen times. “What’s the other solution?”

“That is for you to determine.”

Then the black turned blindingly white.

I was alive after all. Three down, six to go.

A cigarette would’ve been nice. It had been at least a full day since I’d had one and I was long overdue according to my normal schedule. Add to that the amount of stress I was under and the complete lack of any enjoyable activities to make up for it, and it all came down to an overwhelming urge to smoke and grab a beer. Normally I don’t get urges, but I suppose the circumstances warranted it. Given the amount of pain and stress currently ravaging my body and mind, I probably could’ve used a bit of the good stuff to mellow me out too.

It’s weird to me that sometimes when I regain consciousness my mind can be at full readiness despite not knowing what the fuck is going on, while other times I can barely find the energy to string together a single thought. Maybe I hadn’t even been asleep. Maybe everything had actually happened and I just remembered it as a dream because all other sensory input just faded into the background while a Reaper decided to have a conversation with me. That’s weird too, isn’t it? We’ve lived our entire lives understanding existence strictly with what we see and hear, making it’s easy to overlook what happens beyond what we’re capable of perceiving. For example, how does a blind person know when they’re asleep or awake? How does a deaf person know when something’s happening beyond their field of vision if they can’t hear it?

How do you make sense of reality when everything you perceive could be only an illusion?

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

I guess you just have to make the best of it and hope that whatever situation presents itself should be acted upon. So with that said, I had to get off my ass and figure out what the hell I needed to do.

A burning itch gnawed at the inside of my throat and I relieved it momentarily with a heaving cough. Okay, nicotine would have to wait. I’d just been shot at by a goddamn Reaper. First thing on the list was to make sure Troy and Adison were okay and get the fuck out of Jerusalem in whatever way possible. If Garrus and any of the Marines were still in action, they’d probably be doing the same thing, mission be damned.

I wasn’t wounded, at least not as much as I expected to be. The half dozen or so bullet holes were still there patched uneasily by medi-gel, but my armor was mostly intact and unsinged by Reaper cannon fire. That was a plus. Still, the thing loomed ominously overhead and I didn’t want to go another round with that lazer.

Invidium lay on the ground next to me covered in rubble, so I snatched it up and yelled my cousins’ names at the top of my lungs. Something along the lines of instinct was driving my actions more than any intelligent decision, so there was no use questioning why my motivation was so singularly clear. It just was.

Get Troy, get Adison, get the fuck out.

Every bone in my body ached, every muscle was on fire, and every inch of my skin itched and irritated me with every motion. Odd considering the fact that I was in full body armor and didn’t seem to have suffered any massive injuries, aside from the aforementioned gunshots. Those, thankfully enough, I can say were more or less numbed completely by the stimulants coursing through my veins. Another advantage of futuristic armor.

Though I knew exactly where I was, it seemed as if I was lost. I spun in every direction looking for an exit, for the stairwell that would lead me to Troy at the top and Adison at the bottom, but it didn’t exist anymore. Dust and rubble littered the battleground in such a vast amount that I wondered if the Reapers hadn’t torn down the entire city, leaving nothing but the three of us intact. At least, I hoped Troy and Adison were okay. Or they were experiencing whatever condition this was that made me feel okay despite the massive physical trauma I’d just undergone.

Or had I? The bullets were certainly very real and the fight I remembered quite clearly, but what the hell happened afterward? The Reaper had us dead to rights, literally. Why hadn’t it pulled the trigger?

Fuck it. No thought, just get out.

“ADISON!” I screamed. “TROY!” It sounded muted in my ears, but when I become oblivious to my own voice it can pack quite a punch, so I knew they would be able to hear me even if they were as deafened as I was. My plan (or lack thereof) was dependent on the fact that they would be slightly more lucid than me and could put together a better course of action than “get the fuck out of here.”

Everything was a blur. No logic or sensibility to it whatsoever. I guess when you go through a devastating event like that some trauma-induced stress is to be expected, but I couldn’t come to grips with any of it. It’s like when someone’s trying to explain advanced trigonometry to you before you’ve even begun basic algebra. You think all that exists to math is numbers and simple equations, then you’re greeted with letters and symbols that look as if they belong on an alien spaceship. Which, in all honesty, that applied here as well, but you get my point. My mind was racing, trying to imagine everything as I had known it rather than how it was. I was still expecting to find Troy up in his sniper’s nest when clearly the entire building was dust, and my mind couldn’t reconcile the two. Was the entire city like this?

Oddly enough, physically I was beginning to feel fine. In fact, I felt like I could lift a car, and probably scoured through several tons of debris in my brain’s feeble attempt to feel useful. The medi-gel and stimulants were certainly doing their job.

It dawned on me then that I might still be in danger. We’d been fighting the Reaper before . . .well, before whatever the hell just happened, and seeing as it possibly tried to kill us, it may have also powered the drones back on for clean-up duty. I held Invidium up firmly against my shoulder, one finger down the trigger, one eye down the scope and the other peering in the distance for activity, turning in a clockwise motion to survey my surroundings like I’d been taught. The HUD on my visor didn’t show any nearby hostiles, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of playing video games, it’s that sensors can be easily tricked. My eyes were still the best form of surveillance.

Still, they showed me nothing aside from the heaps of sand and mortar strewn with steel and glass that used to be a city. The destruction spread for miles in every direction.

No danger aside from the kilometers-tall death machines looming above us. If they knew I was alive, they didn’t seem to care.

“Donz?”

I spun quickly with Invidium, only to realize a split-second later that it was Adison. Instinct works faster than rational thought when you’ve got so much adrenaline pumping through your body.

“Adison,” I said, lowering the weapon. “You’re alive. What the hell just happened?”

He stood in his armor, as broken and mangled as mine no doubt looked, two of his weapons missing. The blast did a number on him as well.

“You tell me. You’re supposed to know all this stuff, right?”

“Pretty much everything I know about Mass Effect is pointless now that we just got shot by a fucking Reaper. We need to find Troy.”

“Right. That’s probably his gun I hear.”

“Gun?” I strained my ears to listen, but all I heard was a mechanical whoosh and that high-pitched ringing that usually follows an intensely loud concert.

“You don’t hear that?”

“Sorry man, ears are kinda fucked right now. I’m following you.”

“No need. Sounds like he’s coming to us.”

With that Adison raised his rifle and pointed it to my right, the same direction the Reapers appeared to be moving off to. I really didn’t see the point in trying to anticipate something I literally couldn’t see—or hear—coming, but seeing as we were in the middle of a warzone, I lifted my gun and sighted it downrange as if I was actually ready to shoot something.

Is it just me, or are you really nonchalant about this whole being-at-war situation?

I had almost answered myself when the world before me turned to chaos. I still couldn’t hear very well, but when an explosion takes place ten feet in front of you it’s kind of hard to miss. My body forced me back as heat and shrapnel rushed me, and before I had time to make sense of anything, it all came to me in full force.

I heard gunshots. I felt smoke burning my lungs. My eyes stung with dirt and dust.

Dammit, this is the last thing I need.

My feet held their ground even while the rest of my body ran around in complete pandemonium, and as my fading senses found their way back to me I felt a surge of energy. My hearing kicked in and my eyes snapped wide—thank God for adrenal stimulants and armor-integrated medical assistance—and in less than two seconds I was ready for action.

The debris from the explosion settled and I ran forward, ignoring Adison’s yells for me to be cautious.

Have you ever seen 300? The first one, not the shitty sequel. There’s a scene in the movie where the Spartans are holding out against the Persians and you can see this completely endless army of ancient soldiers spread out for miles. Granted this was no Persian army of a million men, but that’s what it felt like when I stepped through the smoke and saw the Reaper drones that dotted every inch of space in my field of vision. Well, every inch but one.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” Troy yelled as he climbed up the rubble to the position Adison and I held. The shots of Reaper drones followed after him and I tackled both of us to the ground, scurrying for any protection we could find. A small mound of what used to be building looked good enough, so we went flat on our backs using the rubble as a headrest. I’ve had more uncomfortable pillows, believe it or not.

“Well, least we know you’re okay,” I breathed.

“Yeah, fuckin’ peachy,” Troy replied, popping the heat sink in Veritas. “What the hell happened to you two? After the Reaper blew us to shit I figured we’d all be dead.”

“You were alive enough to think, yet you thought we’d be dead,” Adison jokingly mocked. “Nice logic there, T.”

“Dude you know what I mean. We look like we just survived a ground zero nuclear explosion.”

“You guys would know better than me,” I said. “I think I just woke up.”

“Woke up? What were you taking a fucking nap? We’re in some pretty deep shit here!”

“Yeah and speaking of that,” Adison added, firing blind shots over his cover, “we might wanna focus on not dying right now, guys.”

I peeked up over cover for a split second to try to get a read on our situation, but a few dozen bullets alerted me to the fact that drones had already made it to our position.

“Yeah not gonna get a shot off in this heat.”

“I got it,” Adison replied as he tossed a canister over his head. A few seconds later a concussion rocked the debris pile and hissed like a snake preparing to strike. “We’ve got cover, take ‘em!”

In all honesty I was surprised my instincts were working so well to my advantage. I flipped over onto my stomach and levelled Invidium across my cover, firing blindly into the cloud of smoke that emanated from Adison’s grenade. As far as I knew, none of our helmets had thermal optics so we were spraying and praying into the mess, but when you’ve got three guys shooting in one direction you’re bound to hit something. A few drones stumbled out of the disorientation and were gunned down within seconds.

“Guys, I got something on radar,” Troy informed us.

“Friendlies?” Adison asked. “Where?”

“Um . . . above us?”

I nearly laughed in joy when I looked up and saw flames in the sky. Shuttles maybe—hopefully—dropping down from the atmosphere. Then my joy was subverted by shock and fear when a beam of red light began methodically dropping them out of the sky.

“Dammit!” I yelled. “Can’t we catch a fucking break?!”

I think that was the first time I was pleasantly surprised by what happened next. Another beam pierced the sky, headed for another one of our descending reinforcements, but in mid-shot the laser veered off and missed its target by a huge margin. How in the hell had a Reaper missed?

The answer was simple: it was attacked.

The explanation for that answer was not so simple. I looked back towards the battlefield and saw one Reaper firing at the other, presumably the one that had been shooting down our allies. This in turn caused a wave of confusion amongst the drones, and in just a few seconds they too had begun attacking each other.

I blinked several times just to make sure I was seeing it right.

What the fuck is happening?!

We didn’t even have to fire a shot. Once the reality hit us that the Reapers were at full-on war with each other, we stood there on our mound of rubble watching the scene with dropped jaws. Banshees, Cannibals and Marauders turned the battlefield into a haze of carnage right before our eyes while the two Reapers exchanged blasts of red energy. And as if shooting each other wasn’t enough, one of them launched itself into the air and came crashing down on top of the other, clawing and getting off point-blank shots with its cannons. I’d never seen a Reaper fight so savagely.

The ground shook from the impact of the Reaper’s jump attack, and we barely had time to let it settle before sand and wind whipped at us from all sides. Funny, to them it must have seemed like kicking over an ant mound.

And then I realized that the tremors weren’t caused solely by the Reapers, although that was probably a huge part of it. I swiped at my visor to try to get a clear view again, and lifted my gun in anticipation when a hulking, shadowy form made its way towards us through the sandstorm.

“Heh, so someone survived after all,” a low, gravelly voice emanated from the figure.

Urdnot Grunt stepped forward.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Troy breathed. I think it was more a statement of elation rather than dismay, but at that point none of us had the constitution to show any kind of positive emotion.

“Come on, humans,” Grunt commanded, easily standing nine feet tall in his shiny silver armor. “Alliance isn’t done with you yet.”

“Wait, this is a rescue mission?” Adison asked. “What about the rest of the unit? There were thirty other guys with us, they can’t all be—”

“We don’t have time to stand around here chatting, meatbag,” Grunt interrupted, waving his enormous shotgun carelessly. “The turian and anyone else that survived are already on a shuttle. We better do the same if we want to get out of this pit.”

Adison, Troy and I exchanged a look, each of us wondering what the hell was happening but also knowing we didn’t have any other choice. Reapers had lured us into the city, attacked us seemingly for no reason, had a conversation with me—possibly. I was still iffy on all that—and then turned on each other, threatening to take us out via collateral damage. If Grunt and a handful of krogan wanted to drop out of the sky and rescue us, it was far from the craziest thing that had happened.

“You guys know what I’m thinking,” I told my cousins. “We stay here, we’re dead. We can ask questions later, for now I say fuck it, let’s get out of here.”

“What about our mission?” Adison asked. “Hackett sent us here for a reason.”

“And Garrus was the only one who knew what the reason was,” Troy added. “And he’s already on a shuttle. So if there’s any logical course of action here, it’s to regroup and try to figure out what the FUCK is happening.”

Grunt scoffed and quickly pointed his shotgun to my left, taking out a stray Husk that had made its way to us. “Glad we’re all agreed,” he stated sarcastically. “Now follow me, evac’s on the other side of the city.”

Eden Prime. It had been three years since Ella had been there last. Back then, all she’d gotten to see was a paradise burning and the revelation of a monstrosity. She’d lost Jenkins and Nihlus, not to mention the countless farmers and settlers who fell to the geth; or worse, been turned into perversions of humanity.

It was where she’d met Ash. Terrified at first, but after steeling her resolve, nothing got in her way. They’d fought through a battalion of Saren’s soldiers and shut down four explosive payloads before finally reaching the beacon that served as the galaxy’s only warning against the Reapers. A warning that went unheard even after Sovereign attacked the Citadel in full force.

Yet through all of it, Ash and the rest of the crew had always been by Ella’s side. They’d probably seen more action that year than they had in all of their careers combined. The friendships forged under that kind of duress are often the strongest a person will ever have the pleasure of experiencing.

Eden Prime was where they’d had Ash’s ceremony. One of them, at least. Seeing as there were no remains to bury after she sacrificed herself on Virmire, Ash’s family had hosted a private service back on earth. The Alliance had officially recognized her valor here on Eden Prime, where she first showed her outstanding courage and resilience. Ella had been the one to pass the Purple Heart to Ash’s family. Twenty-one gun salute, parade into the city. The way a Marine should go.

Speeches were given by Alliance Brass, including Hackett and Anderson. They’d wanted Ella to give one as well, but she couldn’t. Not in front of all those people. None of them knew what Ash had really given her life for, nor were they willing to accept the reality of what had killed her. Even after so much tragedy, the galaxy couldn’t be bothered to strain their ears for a moment. To Ella, Eden Prime served as a reminder of what could have been, had someone listened.

It was beautiful, there was no debating that. Lush trees swayed with the lightly blowing wind, laying down dancing shadows among the golden grass. Clear blue sky with a tinge of red from the setting sun. They called it a paradise for a reason. No skyscrapers to block out the sun, no pollution from production facilities or artificial ecosystems. Just a tranquil, lazy day, going about its business without a care in the world. If only it would last forever.

“Shepard,” Liara called, jarring Ella from her sorrowful remembrance. “I think we’ve found it.”

Ella reached for the rifle attached to her back and felt the familiar unfolding of weaponry in her hands. The brothers had told her to expect the unexpected and, though it had been a cakewalk so far, Ella was rarely caught off-guard. This wouldn’t be any exception.

Though Eden Prime was by all rights a farming community, the Protheans had evidently built a metropolis in their time. Ancient relics dotted the horizon of the archeological site, some coming no further than waist height while others towered several dozen meters high. The Alliance had made its mark as well, setting up housing and research facilities for the ongoing dig. Liara and Kaidan stood hesitantly by a platform recently erected by the archeologists. Knowing Liara, she was having a field day marveling at what lay just beneath the planet’s surface.

“This is it?” Shepard asked as she approached the structure. Standard in every way imaginable aside from one notable fact; the dark, almost coffin-like pod Ella recognized as a prothean stasis chamber. She’d seen dozens if not hundreds of them on Ilos.

“Can’t imagine anything else would be in there,” Kaidan replied.

“Liara, can you get a reading on this thing?”

Liara stooped over the pod searching for some sort of control panel with her omni-tool. “Yes. Vital signs are fluctuating, but it would appear he is alive for the time being.”

“Good, let’s get him out of there.”

Liara nodded dutifully, reaching to access the release switch. Smoke and frigid air emanated from the pod, accompanied by the sound of compressed gas finally being let out after fifty thousand years. The black coffin cracked open along the sides and slid apart, revealing what it had worked so hard to protect.

It wasn’t quite what Ella had been expecting. She knew, of course, that the Collectors had once been prothean and would therefore bear a striking resemblance, but after hearing so many tales of the protheans’ greatness, she’d thought they would appear more regal. Standard red body armor similar to what Ella herself was wearing adorned his person, with no protective helmet or unnecessarily gaudy armor improvements. He was just a common soldier from the looks of it.

“It could be sometime before he wakes up,” Liara stated. “He has been in stasis for far too long.”

Every single time Liara opened her mouth in situations like these, the unexpected happened.

The prothean’s four eyes snapped to life as he regained consciousness, struggling to make sense of what he was witnessing. He darted about frantically in the pod despite not having full control of his motor functions, and if Ella had been in a less serious mood she would have thought he looked like a flipped turtle fighting to get back on its feet.

Of course, her mocking thought was met with force, like the prothean knew what she thought of him and wasn’t too pleased. Ella toppled backwards into the platform’s handrail, almost instinctively reaching for her pistol.

Rule number one of a first contact scenario: assume hostility. Especially if the alien in question has just knocked you the hell out with biotics. Believe me, meeting the asari for the first time was not a pretty incident.

The words of her former drill sergeant ran through her head just like all her old CO’s did from time to time.

The thing about biotics is that they have to have line of sight to attack. So, worse comes to worse, gouge their fucking eyes out and enjoy the show.

Well, she wasn’t intending to do either of those considering this particular first contact was with a race previously thought to be extinct. She never understood the ‘assume hostility’ approach anyway. If the other party isn’t hostile and sees someone bearing down on them with weapons trained, nine times out of ten a fight is going to break out. And if they are hostile, that’s what kinetic barriers were designed for.

God, Ella suddenly felt sorry for the poor bastards who had to initiate first contact with the krogan.

Before she could snap herself out of her own mind, the prothean was up and moving, stumbling away from his cryogenic tomb. It must have been confusing to no end, waking up fifty thousand years after your species perished only to find new races ushering you back into the world. And from the glimpses of memories she’d witnessed, it couldn’t have been easy seeing Eden Prime go from a world on fire to a serene paradise.

“Be careful,” Liara warned them as she followed patiently behind the prothean. “Remember, it’s been fifty thousand years for us, but for him it’s only been a moment.”

The prothean stopped running at the end of Liara’s sentence and seemed to take in the view before him. It truly was breathtaking, and it must have been more so with the knowledge that he had stepped fifty millennia into the future. A bit of disorientation had to be expected.

Nevertheless, the galaxy wasn’t going to wait for him to adjust to his surroundings. Either he wanted to fight the Reapers again or he didn’t, and Ella was banking pretty hard on the former.

“Can you understand me?” she asked. It would only make sense that he could, seeing as Ella had been able to understand all of his memories. Maybe the Cipher had subconsciously taught her the prothean language. That was a scary thought.

What the hell else do I not know I know?

“Yes,” the prothean replied. His voice was low and reminded Ella a bit of a croaking frog, only reinforcing the ridiculous turtle image she’d had in her head earlier. “Now that I have read your physiology, your nervous system. Enough to understand your language.”

He turned away from the view of Eden Prime’s open plains and faced the team, all four eyes wandering from Liara to Kaidan and back to Liara.

“Asari,” he stated. Then, gesturing to Ella and Kaidan, “human. I am surrounded by primitives.”

“What’s he saying?” Kaidan asked.

“They have not received the Cipher?” the prothean interrupted. “Amusing. I am surprised that anyone did, considering what was left of my people before I went into stasis.”

“The Reapers hit you hard from the looks of it,” Ella replied. “We’re facing a similar situation all across the galaxy.”

He simply nodded. “They are the most formidable enemy the Prothean Empire ever faced. Even with the subjugated races fighting alongside us, we were merely insects to be swatted out of the way. If this cycle has come to fruition, I fear it is already too late for your species. You should have left me in the pod.”

Ella wasn’t sure if she felt anger at his cynicism or despair at the fact that he was probably right. Even if he had a way to defeat the Reapers that didn’t require the Crucible, it wasn’t likely anything could be done in the middle of the single worst war the galaxy had ever seen. She’d had her reservations about this mission for good reason.

“That might be,” Ella replied. “But we’re going to throw everything we have at the Reapers whether we win or lose. The only question is whether you want to stay in that pod for a few more millennia or get revenge at the bastards that killed your species.”

The prothean chuckled at that. Or Ella thought it was a chuckle. With aliens, she’d learned not to make assumptions about social expressions, especially hanar.

Oh God, what’s going to happen when the hanar realize there’s a living prothean?

“When I was born, the Reapers had already invaded my planet. I grew up fighting them, avoiding them, and attempting to free my people from their oppression. I was told that before the war, there were individuals selected among my people; avatars, who embodied and personified a single virtue. Just before the war ended and I was tossed into that pod, I was selected as an avatar by the few who remained.”

“And what did you embody?” Ella played along.

“Vengeance.”

Well, don’t really see how that’s a virtue, but if it helps you kill Reapers we can go with it.

“I assume that means you’ll want to help us?”

The prothean looked once more at Liara and Kaidan, studying them over. “Humans and asari are the dominant races in the galaxy?”

“No. The races of our time work together. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to go.”

“But which is the leader?”

“None. We appoint representatives of every race that makes notable galactic contributions to a Council, which governs us. None of that really matters though now that our seat of power has been destroyed. The Citadel is gone.”

“The Citadel?” The prothean frowned. “That is not possible, the Reapers need it. It is what ensures that each cycle develops along the same technological paths, which is why we are always so easily defeated. The Reapers would not allow it to be destroyed.”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting the disbelieving response a lot, but it happened. At this point we’re fighting the Reapers wherever they hit us and hoping we can find some way to stop them. We found the schematics for a device your people were working on called the Crucible, but it needed the Citadel in order to function. Do you know anything that can help us?”

The prothean’s frown deepened as he laced his hands behind his back and began pacing left and right. “I know nothing of this Crucible. I was a soldier, not a scientist, and as I said, the Reapers had invaded before I was even born. We had no communication with other continents, let alone other planets.”

Well. Shit.

Ella wasn’t sure why she was so disappointed. She’d expected the mission to end with no major positive effect on the war, but it still hit her all the same. The protheans hadn’t stood a chance against the Reapers, and even having a member of the species with them wasn’t going to make a difference. If only they’d stuck a scientist in that pod rather than a soldier.

Still, if he was as much of a bad-ass as he made himself out to be, he could be put to good use. He’d fought the Reapers literally his entire life and may know their tactics and strategies. It wouldn’t save the galaxy, but it might help with the smaller picture.

“Well, in any event, I’d still like to get your input on the Reapers,” Ella offered. “Maybe get you back in action when you get used to being thawed out again.”

“I highly doubt it will make any difference, but if it will give me the chance to avenge my people, I accept.”

Ella offered her hand. “Good to have you on the team. I’m Commander Shepard.”

The prothean looked at her outstretched hand, squinted, and huffed just barely. “You may call me Javik. I assume you have a starship nearby? I would like to leave this place before I am forced to watch it burn a second time.”

“Liara can show you the way.”

Without further encouragement, Liara stepped forward and ushered Javik in the direction of Normandy’s LZ. The prothean gave one last look at Eden Prime and followed without a word.

“Well, good thing he’s on our side,” Kaidan commented.

“Right. I just hope we don’t share the same fate as his people.”

“At the very least he might be able to give us some tactical intel we might’ve missed. A way to fight the Reapers on the ground rather than in the sky.”

“Here’s hoping. Come on, we’ll go see what Hackett has for us next.”

“He-hey, good timing, Commander,” Joker interrupted. Ella had never gotten used to the fact that he was constantly in her ear and eavesdropping on all field communications. Luckily the worst that ever resulted from it was a bad joke now and again.

“What’s going on, Joker?” Shepard asked.

“Just got a priority message from Admiral Hackett. Can’t get a stable vid link, what with him being in the center of an asteroid, but audio’s coming in loud and clear.”

“Thanks, Joker. Put him through.”

A beat passed, presumably Joker letting Hackett know he was getting through.

“Commander Shepard,” Hackett’s gravelly voice greeted. “All’s well on Eden Prime, I hope?”

Aside from the fact that we literally know nothing more than we did six hours ago.

“Affirmative, sir. We’ve recovered the prothean and convinced him to join us. Should we report back to Sentinel Outpost to drop off the package, or are we going to search for Leviathan?”

“I want you back at Sentinel, Shepard, but for more than one reason. Our strike team in Jerusalem just returned. The mission was a complete failure, but . . . something else has come up. With the majority of the Alliance’s leadership dead or MIA and Anderson refusing to leave earth, I need you to help me make sense of it. I’m sorry I can’t be more detailed than that, but I don’t want to risk anything on open comms. Suffice it to say this may be a game-changer.”

A game-changer? What could they have possibly found in the middle of a desert that would help destroy the Reapers? Granted, Hackett hadn’t disclosed why Garrus and the brothers were being sent there, but Ella had assumed it was simple recon duty. Find out why the Reapers are stumbling around Jerusalem when there were bigger fires to fight across the globe and the galaxy, for that matter.

Either way, if Hackett said he had something, it had to be substantial. He wasn’t a man to mince words or exaggerate the importance of something in a situation like this one.

“Understood, sir. We’ll hit the nearest relay and be back as soon as we can.”

“One last thing, Commander,” Hackett added. “Before you come back, I need you to pick up a few VIPs and bring them along, as well. Several frigates are inbound to the Exodus Cluster waiting for transfer. Get the passengers on board and get yourself safely back to Sentinel. We’ve got a plan brewing, and these people are going to be instrumental if it pans out.”

“Any security concerns I should be worried about?”

“You know most of them, Shepard, and the ones that would normally be a threat won’t be stupid enough to jeopardize what may be our only hope. Besides, it’s a short trip from your location back to the Sol system. I don’t like the idea of putting all our eggs in one basket, but we don’t have much choice in the matter at this point. We’ll talk more once you’re here. Until then, stay safe, Shepard.”

The comm line died.