Chapter Text
Kathleen Shepard nibbled on the tip of her thumb as Joker navigated the Normandy towards the mass relay. She already had her doubts about this mission that much was true. What she was unsettled about was the fact that a council Spectre, a turian named Nihlus Kryik, just had to poke his nose into this mission. ‘Does a turian really have a nose?’ she thought to herself as she snuck a glance over at him.
He looked almost too calm as he stared out ahead past the humans at the computer readout in front of the pilot. She frowned slightly at his calm demeanor but the frown didn’t last for too long because the next thing that she knew Joker was coming Captain Anderson to inform them that they were approaching the mass relay. She braced herself despite the fact that she knew Joker would safely take them through the relay. It was an old habit that she had picked up on from when she was younger. She was used to flying through mass relays with her mother every time that they had to uproot from their home when her mother got reassigned to a new place.
She snapped back to reality a second time as the Normandy made it through the relay. She breathed a small breath of relief. She always worried that something might happen to them every time the ship went through a mass relay. The turian Spectre nodded his head slightly. “Good job. I am sure Captain Anderson will be pleased,” he said before he turned around and exited the cockpit.
Joker waited until the turian was out of earshot before he rolled his eyes at the comment the Spectre had made. “I hate that guy,” he muttered under his breath.
“He gave you a compliment and yet you hate him?” Kaidan asked the pilot from the copilot seat.
“Yeah, is that so hard to believe? Turians cannot be trusted especially since they invaded Earth thirty years ago. Besides, I don’t trust Spectres either. They are trouble, like to break the rules most of the time, and they have a bit of a biased on who joins the so-called club.” Joker shook his head and winced slightly as the comm chimed at him. “Yes, sir?” he asked as he activated the comm in the cockpit.
“Report, Joker,” rang Captain Anderson’s voice a few moments later. Shepard couldn’t help but think that the Captain was all seriousness whenever he was on the comm. She knew that she had to work on that but at least the crew respected her.
“We’ve just cleared the relay and are now heading towards our destination,” Joker relayed to Anderson. “Oh, and just a heads up, sir, I think Nihlus is on his way to you.”
“He’s already here,” Anderson replied back with a bit of disappointment in his voice. “Connect to a comm buoy as soon as we are in range. I want to send the mission report to Alliance brass as soon as Shepard’s team is off of Eden Prime.” There was a few seconds of silence before Anderson’s voice came back onto the comm. “Tell Shepard I require her presence in the comm room for the mission debriefing.”
Joker looked over at Kathleen and she rolled her eyes at him. “You worry too much. Don’t worry, Joker. I won’t let the scary turian eat me alive.” She swiftly turned around to avoid any more conversation with the paranoid pilot and she heard a snicker that sounded like it belonged to Kaidan. She rubbed her hands on her pants and tried not to bit on her thumb nail. ‘We already went over the mission brief before we left Earth. That was where we met up with Nihlus. I wonder what the Captain wants with me,’ she thought nervously to herself.
She noticed that Jenkins and Doctor Chakwas were talking just outside of the comm room. She briefly listened to what they were talking about and realized they were discussing the turian and the mission on Eden Prime. It sounded like Jenkins was suspicious of the mission and he was taking his paranoia out on the poor doctor. She wanted to chime in her two cents but decided to ignore them. She didn’t have time to get side-tracked away from her task at hand. Maybe after they were done with this mission she would talk to Jenkins about what he was talking to Chakwas so passionately. She carefully side-stepped them and walked into the comm room to find that Nihlus was the only one inside of the room.
She wanted to back out of the room but she didn’t want to appear to be a xenophobe so she continued to walk deeper into the room. “I thought Captain Anderson wanted to talk to me,” she said as she came to a stop in front of the turian.
“I was hoping I would talk to you first,” Nihlus said, his two-toned voice devoid of emotion. Kathleen raised an eyebrow at his comment but didn’t say anything. The turian saw her silence as a chance to continue talking. “I’ve noticed that Eden Prime is a beautiful planet. I am interested to hear your opinion on it, Commander.”
Kathleen hesitated for a few moments to carefully think of a reply that wouldn’t offend the turian. She shrugged slightly before responding. “I don’t know, sir. I’ve never been there. That was one place in many that my mother wasn’t stationed at before I joined the Alliance military.”
“But it has become something of a symbol for your people, Commander,” he retorted back at her. “It shows proof that your kind can stretch out from your home planet and colonize past your solar system. But is it really safe for your kind to go beyond the reach of your abilities?”
“What’s your point, Spectre Kryik? Are you trying to scare me into admitting something to you? If you have something to say, you might as well spit it out now. Sooner or later I am going to find out about what you are hiding,” she told him as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She didn’t like the tone in the turian’s voice.
“Are you sure your kind is ready for the horrors of the Terminus systems? Your kind could be safe in your own solar system yet you insist on traveling outside your comfort zone. Take for instance Eden Prime. Is it really as safe as your people say it is?”
Right then Captain Anderson entered the room and practically strolled down to the pair of them before addressing the turian. “I think we should let the Commander into what is really going on.”
The turian nodded his head in agreement at Anderson’s statement and looked back over at Kathleen. “This mission isn’t the one that we had discussed on earth. There is something else that is going on down on Eden Prime.”
“I figured it was obvious it wasn’t a simple mission on Eden Prime. Not with a council Spectre involved. What is really going on here, Captain?” she asked as she glanced over at Anderson with a weary look on her face. She didn’t really like that important information was probably being kept from her, especially if it was information about the mission.
“This is a covert pick-up mission, Shepard. It was supposed to be kept hush-hush until we were in range of the planet. That is why the Normandy is on this assignment instead of another ship. The Normandy has stealth tech that can get us on and off the planet with virtually no detection from anyone on the planet,” Anderson explained to Kathleen.
“But why the secrecy, Captain? I mean, there is a reason why you didn’t tell me until now.”
“We wanted to make sure this information didn’t fall into the wrong hands. It was on a strictly need-to-know basis.” Anderson paused for a few moments before continuing on. “The researchers on Eden Prime found something that hasn’t been discovered since our Mars discovery years ago. They’ve unearthed a Prothean device that looks like a beacon of some sort.”
“Are you serious? A real Prothean beacon? What is it doing on Eden Prime?” Kathleen’s interest in the mission went from ‘it is just an average in-and-out mission to a discovery-of-the-lifetime mission’ kind of interest. She knew that they had gotten some information about the Protheans from the Mars archives but this beacon could explain more about them that the archives had.”
“That is why we are heading to Eden Prime. The scientists down there don’t have the technology to analyze this sort of Prothean tech but the Citadel scientists do. We can take it to them to get it analyzed after we have secured it in our ship,” Anderson explained.
“Everything that we use is based off of the Prothean technology. And obviously this discovery affects not just your species but every species in Council space so it is imperative that we get it before someone else does,” Nihlus chimed in.
“So, what did we tell the Council about this fine? We could have kept it to ourselves? “Kathleen inquired.
“Humans don’t have much trust with the Council, much less with my own kind. We view your kind as selfish and too independent. You humans need the Council’s help in deciphering whatever is in the beacon,” Nihlus stated.
“Sharing this beacon with the Council will help our already strained relations with them. We also need their help in cracking the Prothean’s code with this tech. They’ve had more time to study Prothean tech than we have.” Anderson paused for a few moments before speaking again. “Also, he is also here to evaluate you, Commander.”
She raised an eyebrow at that statement before responding to that statement. “Why is he evaluating me?”
“The Alliance has been pushing for this for a while. We want someone that the Council can trust and I can’t think of a more qualified person than you, Commander. This is our chance to finally prove to the Council that we are ready to take a spot amongst them and you becoming a Spectre is one step in that direction,” Anderson explained to Kathleen.
“I was impressed with how you held off an enemy assault by yourself during the Blitz. You showed not only courage but incredible skill. That is the main reason why I put your name in to be a candidate for the Spectres,” Nihlus told Kathleen.
“You put my name forward without seeing me in actual combat? Also, you are turian. Not many humans like your kind after the First Contact War. Fortunately I am not one of those people but…” she let her sentence trail off for a few moments before she continued on. “To be honest, sir, you know nothing of me. Why put a stranger’s name, especially a human’s name, forward for Spectre candidacy?”
“There are some Turians that don’t resent humanity. Some do see potential within your species. It just takes a special kind of person to see that. And we, being me and others of my kind, see that you have potential to being an excellent Spectre down the road. You will do the galaxy and your own kind justice.” Nihlus paused to let that information soak into Kathleen’s mind before he continued on. “We Spectres are made up of an elite group. We only seek those with a special skill set that is rare in many individuals. I don’t care if you are a human, Shepard, just as long as you can do this job and do it correctly.”
“What if I refuse?” Kathleen inquired. “I don’t like when people make decisions for me and for my future. I’ve already had too many decisions made for me when I was younger and when my mother would bounce me from planet to planet. “
“You need to look past that, Shepard. Do this for humanity’s sake…no, do this for me. We…I am counting on you to do what is right for your sake and for the sake of our species,” Anderson explained with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Kathleen winced at the tone of voice that he spoke in to her. Of course it was all about the sake of humanity but for once she wished that people didn’t make life-changing decisions for her.
“This will be the perfect opportunity for me to see you in action, Commander. Eden Prime is one of several missions in mind that we will work together,” Nihlus said confidently. Kathleen wasn’t too sure if she would work very well with someone as skilled as Nihlus but at least she would have a small chance to show him her skills during this mission.
“Back to the mission brief,” Anderson stated, clearly wanting this mission to be over with soon so that they could grab what they had come here to get and make their way to the Citadel before their stealth systems could overheat. “Shepard, I want you in charge of the ground team. You are to take Alenko and Jenkins with you along with a few more soldiers. Your job is to secure the beacon and get it back to the ship. Nihlus with accompany you to observe how you take charge in the field.”
Kathleen nodded her head. She was confident that Nihlus would step in if he saw that her team needed an extra hand, or talon in his case, in securing the beacon. “Yes, sir,” she said with a soldier’s tone of voice. She hoped this mission wouldn’t go FUBAR before they reached the planet.
“Umm…Captain, we may have a bit of a problem,” came Joker’s voice over the comm. Kathleen groaned softly to herself. ‘Just what I really didn’t want to hear from him,’ she thought to herself. At least he was wise to give a heads up to them before they reached Eden Prime.
“What’s wrong, Joker?” Anderson asked, his voice matching the look that Kathleen had on her face. He didn’t like the words that Joker had said, either.
“Transmission from Eden Prime, sir. You really need to see it,” Joker stated before he sent the vid link to the comm room for the trio to see. All they could see was firefight and a shaky cam before a female soldier came into view and ordered the other soldier whose cam they were viewing from to get down. For the new few seconds all they could see was the tops of trees and hear more fire fight in the background. Kathleen looked over at Anderson with a worried look on her face but he was concentrating on the vid rather than on anyone’s reactions.
Suddenly a soldier’s face appeared and informed the cam that they were under attack and taking heavy casualties. It was clear that they were losing the fight to whatever assailant was after them. The solder then went on and requested evac. The solder repeated what he had just said to the cam before he fell backwards and dead onto the ground. The cam then rotated around to the surviving team’s soldiers before it moved upward and onto a giant squid-looking ship landing on the planet. The cam then faced down at the ground as the soldier got down on the ground and then the vid went dark.
“That is the last of the vid, Captain. There has been no more communication from whoever sent that vid after that. I have a bad feeling about this, sir,’ Joker stated in a worried tone of voice.
Anderson looked hard at the black screen of the vid and requested for the vid to be reversed to 38.5. Joker complied and reversed the vid so that they could take a look at that strange ship again. Nihlus looked at it as he let his mandibles click on either side of his mouth in what seemed like a nervous tic. Kathleen proceeded to bit the end of her thumb. She didn’t like the look of that ship.
“What is the status in our approach, Joker,” Anderson ordered the pilot.
“We are at minimum seventeen minutes away from planet-side and there are no other Alliance ships in the area.”
“Alright, it is time to take us in but be fast and quiet. I don’t want that ship to even get a blip of our ship signature.” Anderson looked over at the other two. “This mission got a lot more complicated than what was originally planned. I hope you two are ready for what is down there on the surface.”
“I agree. A small team can go undetected for this mission,” Nihlus stated.
Anderson nodded his head and turned to Kathleen. “Get your gear and head to the cargo bay. Get Alenko and Jenkins on your way out before heading there.” Kathleen quickly saluted him before following Nihlus out of the comm room. She quickly told Jenkins, who was still chatting with Chakwas, before she headed to the cockpit to get Alenko. Together, the pair of them went down to the cargo bay to wait for them to get to Eden Prime.