Chapter Text
Jeff had almost reached work.
The landing platform hadn’t fully woken up yet. Morning fog spread over the fields of Eden Prime like a thin veil, the colony lights blinking peacefully, as if this day were no different from hundreds before it. Workers trudged sleepily toward their posts. Somewhere in the distance generators hummed, automated conveyors crawled slowly along their markings, delivering cargo to the warehouses.
Moreau walked unhurriedly, leaning on his crutches, the way he did every morning. He was used to the road, to the uneven slabs, to the faint ache in his legs that never truly went away. His thoughts were a little scattered. He hadn’t slept well that night because of the pills he had to take due to his condition.
Today, as always, the same routine awaited him.
Another flight, another tour.
His omni-tool gave a short beep.
Jeff stopped, frowning, and raised his hand. A message from Mark.
“Don’t faint. I got here earlier than you today. Already on the Horizon.”
Moreau smirked at the corner of his mouth. That was a first. Mark always showed up at the last moment, eternally disheveled. Despite his lack of discipline, he was an excellent pilot. Though how much skill did you really need flying a sightseeing transport?
Jeff could already see his shuttle. The Horizon stood at the edge of the platform, bathed in soft white light. The kinetic barrier was lowered, the ramp extended. Someone was moving inside the cockpit.
Mark, most likely, had decided to run diagnostics.
Jeff took a few more steps.
And in the next instant, the world exploded.
The flash was blinding. The shockwave knocked him off his feet, driving the air from his lungs. His ears rang as if someone had slammed a metal hammer against them. He didn’t even have time to understand what had happened — he just saw the shuttle vanish in fire, shattering into pieces, turning into a cloud of burning debris.
Heat slammed into his face. Something heavy flew past him and crashed into the platform with a thunderous clang. Jeff tried to dodge the next fragment, but stumbled awkwardly over his own crutches.
He fell.
The landing went wrong. Pain flared in his leg instantly — sharp, blinding, so intense that for a second his mind went blank.
He screamed. He didn’t hear it — only felt his throat tighten.
Sirens howled one after another, merging into a single wail. Somewhere another explosion went off, then another. Black smoke rose over the platform, the air filled with the stench of burnt metal and fuel.
Jeff tried to push himself up, but his body wouldn’t obey. He saw platform workers running, saw them fall, saw someone dragging the wounded behind them. Strange figures flickered at the edge of his vision.
Synthetics.
They were different from the usual service drones. They moved with terrifying coordination, raising weapons and firing at people, at structures — at anything that moved.
“Wha-” Jeff’s thought broke off.
Something collapsed from above — chunks of framework, metal and plastic. It buried him, pinned him to the platform. The air was punched from his lungs again, and the world went dark.
Consciousness returned in jerks.
First — sound. Rhythmic, mechanical. Then — pain. It was everywhere, but worst of all in his left leg. Jeff groaned, coming to.
He was lying under debris. A warped panel hung over him, only by some miracle not crushing him. Burnt pieces of the shuttle hull lay scattered nearby. Somewhere close, synthetics were moving — he could hear their footsteps.
Jeff carefully shifted. His leg answered with a sharp stab of pain. Broken. No doubt about it. He clenched his teeth, trying not to groan again.
The thought was simple to form and insanely hard to execute: he had to get out of here.
He remembered how he’d come here by taxi. He never liked the cramped service transport. The upside was that the taxi could be driven manually.
If the aerocar was still there… if the explosion hadn’t torn it apart… if he could reach it…
One chance in a million.
The synthetics were busy — they were dragging barely alive people somewhere. Jeff slowly, barely breathing, pulled himself out from under the rubble. Every inch came with effort. He braced on his hands, dragging his leg behind him, leaving a dark trail on the slabs. No sign of his crutches anywhere.
When he saw the aerocar still in its place, his heart skipped a beat. The vehicle stood a little aside, miraculously intact. The hull was scarred by shrapnel, but looked whole.
Jeff crawled to the aerocar and tumbled inside. The display greeted him with a soothing blue glow. He hit the engine start panel — and only then realized how loud it was.
They noticed him.
For his sake alone, the synthetics abandoned the wounded colonists and set off in pursuit.
“Could’ve stayed focused,” Jeff muttered nervously, fingers tightening over the panel. “I’m not insisting on a chase…”
Plasma bolts ripped through the air beside him. One struck the tail section, another skidded across the glass right next to Jeff.
The aerocar jerked off like a living creature. Jeff didn’t let it climb high — instead, he hugged the surface, skimming just above the ground. The interface caught his calculations, correcting the trajectory, smoothing out the jolts. On instinct, he was already working out speed and angles, weaving between the small residential blocks of the colonists. His brain was moving faster than the pain.
He had never flown like this in his life. Only in simulators. Despite the terror and the pain, he felt a strange calm rising in his chest. His hands stopped shaking, his thoughts untangled.
He shot straight through the residential sector, heading for higher ground to get a better view.
And that was when he saw the ship. A massive black monstrosity, somehow resembling a beetle. Hard to imagine how it had even landed on the planet with those dimensions. Jeff had never seen anything like it, and he’d studied plenty of ships out of sheer obsession.
Hearing gunfire, he yanked the car into another sharp turn, changing the angle with a grace that surprised even him. Sure, this transport was more maneuverable than his Horizon, but it still wasn’t meant for this kind of extreme flying. The hull trembled in protest, stabilizers barely keeping up with the violent maneuvers.
The only way off the planet was the spaceport. Assuming it hadn’t been taken already. Either way, there was no choice, and Jeff slammed his hand against the control panel.
Crossing the hilly terrain, he reached the dig site without too much trouble. The car glided over torn-up ground, past wrecked machinery and shattered fortifications. Bodies lay everywhere — synthetics and what remained of humans. Blackened, twisted, they looked more like zombies than living beings. Some corpses were impaled on strange alien spikes.
Jeff’s stomach clenched painfully. Hard to tell whether from what he saw or from internal injuries. It was terrifying to imagine how many new lines would be added to his medical record once he ended up in a hospital.
If he made it that far…
Consciousness returned in jerks.
First — sound. Rhythmic, mechanical. Then — pain. It was everywhere, but worst of all in his left leg. Jeff groaned, coming to.
He was lying under debris. A warped panel hung over him, only by some miracle not crushing him. Burnt pieces of the shuttle hull lay scattered nearby. Somewhere close, synthetics were moving — he could hear their footsteps.
Jeff carefully shifted. His leg answered with a sharp stab of pain. Broken. No doubt about it. He clenched his teeth, trying not to groan again.
The thought was simple to form and insanely hard to execute: he had to get out of here.
He remembered how he’d come here by taxi. He never liked the cramped service transport. The upside was that the taxi could be driven manually.
If the aircar was still there… if the explosion hadn’t torn it apart… if he could reach it…
One chance in a million.
The synthetics were busy — they were dragging barely alive people somewhere. Jeff slowly, barely breathing, pulled himself out from under the rubble. Every inch came with effort. He braced on his hands, dragging his leg behind him, leaving a dark trail on the slabs. No sign of his crutches anywhere.
When he saw the aircar still in its place, his heart skipped a beat. The vehicle stood a little aside, miraculously intact. The hull was scarred by shrapnel, but looked whole.
Jeff crawled to the aircar and tumbled inside. The display greeted him with a soothing blue glow. He hit the engine start panel — and only then realized how loud it was.
They noticed him.
For his sake alone, the synthetics abandoned the wounded colonists and set off in pursuit.
“Could’ve stayed focused,” Jeff muttered nervously, fingers tightening over the panel. “I’m not insisting on a chase…”
Plasma bolts ripped through the air beside him. One struck the tail section, another skidded across the glass right next to Jeff.
The aircar jerked off like a living creature. Jeff didn’t let it climb high — instead, he hugged the surface, skimming just above the ground. The interface caught his calculations, correcting the trajectory, smoothing out the jolts. On instinct, he was already working out speed and angles, weaving between the small residential blocks of the colonists. His brain was moving faster than the pain.
He had never flown like this in his life. Only in simulators. Despite the terror and the pain, he felt a strange calm rising in his chest. His hands stopped shaking, his thoughts untangled.
He shot straight through the residential sector, heading for higher ground to get a better view.
And that was when he saw the ship. A massive black monstrosity, somehow resembling a beetle. Hard to imagine how it had even landed on the planet with those dimensions. Jeff had never seen anything like it, and he’d studied plenty of ships out of sheer obsession.
Hearing gunfire, he yanked the car into another sharp turn, changing the angle with a grace that surprised even him. Sure, this transport was more maneuverable than his Horizon, but it still wasn’t meant for this kind of extreme flying. The hull trembled in protest, stabilizers barely keeping up with the violent maneuvers.
The only way off the planet was the spaceport. Assuming it hadn’t been taken already. Either way, there was no choice, and Jeff slammed his hand against the control panel.
Crossing the hilly terrain, he reached the dig site without too much trouble. The car glided over torn-up ground, past wrecked machinery and shattered fortifications. Bodies lay everywhere — synthetics and what remained of humans. Blackened, twisted, they looked more like zombies than living beings. Some corpses were impaled on strange alien spikes.
Jeff’s stomach clenched painfully. Hard to tell whether from what he saw or from internal injuries. It was terrifying to imagine how many new lines would be added to his medical record once he ended up in a hospital.
If he made it that far…
He spotted synthetics again, but they were busy fighting someone else. Jeff made out three armored silhouettes. If that was all that remained of the Alliance soldiers in the colony, things were beyond bad.
From above, he could see them being slowly encircled. Cover remained only on one side. There was nothing else to do. The main thing was that his own people didn’t start shooting at him.
Moreau darted toward them, swinging the transport around to shield their rear from the enemy.
The synthetics didn’t like that and shifted their fire to Jeff. But it backfired on them. The small human squad seized the distraction: one of the soldiers knocked several synthetics aside with a powerful biotic strike, the rest were finished off with rifle fire.
Jeff unlocked the aerocar doors, and they smoothly folded upward.
“Hurry, get in,” he said, sliding aside. The pain in his leg immediately reminded him of itself, and breathing became harder, as if his chest were being crushed from the inside.
The soldiers didn’t need to be told twice.
They piled into the transport almost at the same time. Two squeezed into the back, gripping the handholds, the third dropped into the seat beside Moreau, giving the cabin — and the pilot himself — a quick once-over.
“Thanks,” the biotic from the rear said, still breathing hard.
“We need the spaceport,” the woman sitting next to him cut in. She removed her protective helmet with pink markings and set it on her knees. Her face was pale, but her gaze was focused. “Urgently.”
Jeff turned back to the control panel, sliding his fingers over the interface. Diagnostics unfolded before his eyes in layers of warnings. The poor aerocar was slowly but surely turning into a pile of scrap metal. Stabilizers were damaged at the very least.
“Lucky for you, we’re heading the same way,” Moreau smirked crookedly, not taking his eyes off the display.
The engines roared louder, the aerocar jerked and shot forward, picking up speed.
“Though I doubt things are any better there,” he went on, struggling to suppress a stab of pain in his ribs. “We’re outnumbered, and this damn taxi’s barely holding together.”
“We have a mission,” the passenger beside him finally said. His voice was even, stripped of unnecessary emotion. “Recover the Beacon. If that means killing every geth in the colony — then that’s what we’ll do.”
Jeff shot him a quick glance.
“Geth?” he echoed in surprise. “The same synthetics that drove the quarians off their planet? Don’t they ever leave the Veil?”
“As you can see,” the man replied coldly, “they very much do.”
From the back came the voice of one of the soldiers:
“Commander, what about Saren? When one turian Spectre kills another — that’s strange, to put it mildly.”
For a second, tension hung in the cabin.
“If we can catch him — great,” the man answered after a short pause. “But the Prothean Beacon can’t fall into his hands. Or the geth’s.”
Protheans. Beacon. Jeff mentally tied it to the recent excavations. So all of this had started because of some ancient piece of tech? Just perfect.
Frankly, he didn’t care. About the geth. About some Saren. About the Prothean Beacon and its secrets.
But friendly soldiers with guns in the colony could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Literally.
So he intended to stick close to them.