~ I don't own Mass Effect, all copyrighted content goes to their respective owners ~

"Hah, first time I met Shepard I wondered what was so special about her. Barely ten seconds later and I'm pulling my brothers arrogant head out of the floor, and I knew right then n' there the Reapers were doomed for the Void." - Urnot Wrex, Citadel News Interview, 10 years after the end of the War.

Revenge of the Fallen

Arc I: Introduction

Chapter 1 - Discovery of a Generation 2.0

"To any Hierarchy forces that can hear this, this is Supreme-Primarch Fedorian. Cipritine has fallen, I repeat, Cipritine has fallen! If anyone can hear this, get off planet any way you can and get to the Citadel, we cannot hold them back!"

Spectre Garrus Vakarian slammed his fist onto his command panel, and helplessly watched though one of the few remaining satellite feeds as the last of Cipritine's inner defences crumbled under the unending tide of Reaper thralls.

The Blackwatch team he had sent to the surface to extract the most important figure in his peoples government had failed, and he could only stand and watch as over 500,000 Turians died in a vain attempt to protect Palaven's Capital.

The only reason he hadn't gone personally was that he was needed to organise the absolute mess of Palaven's primary defence fleet, which he had managed to reform into a vague battle-line. And now he had no option but to retreat, another mission failed.

With a growl of self-hatred, he hit the comm for the remaining defence fleet. "Primary Defence Fleet, this is Spectre Vakarian, you all heard the Primarch. Form up around the Faithful Spirit, Reaching Claw formation. We're getting out of here."

There was several replies for affirmation, and after the remains of the defence fleet were in position, Garrus opened the comm to Caevius Victdus, the Faithful's pilot.

"Caevius, coordinate with the remains of the fleet and get us out of here!"

"Yes sir, course?"

"The Citadel, we'll regroup with any other ships that might have made it along the way."

"Yes sir, we're going to have to take the long route, the Reapers have cut off most of the out-bound primary relays. ETA's going to be at least 24 hours."

Stating that he understood, Garrus cut the comm and watched as one-by-one, the remains of the once-great Palaven Defence Fleet disengage the enemy, before turning and going to FTL. The Faithful Spirit following seconds later.

Shaking his head, Garrus could only wonder at the point of it all. The Reapers had been methodical, precise and utterly deadly. Targeting the Batarian Hegemony first, being the second-most isolated civilisation in the galaxy, allowing them time to build up an army and send out new spies to sabotage defences.

The only reason the Reapers had stopped long enough to repurpose the Batarians was because of their lack of dispensable ground troops. Which Garrus believed was what the fore-most isolated civilisation, the Geth, were originally planned to be used for.

He might not have always trusted it, and his mate sure didn't. But the Geth Platform that they had rescued from the Collector Base had opened his eyes to some of the motivations and goals of the once-feared machine race, and it had helped them deal with the 'Geth Heretics'. It was probably the only reason that they weren't getting swarmed by hostile Geth anyway, and in this war, he'd take whatever he could get.

After finishing with the Hegemony, the Reapers had moved from one side of the Terminus to the other, infesting both the Terminus and Traverse Systems, and then taking Omega. Aria T'Loak had managed to escape before its fall, and according to Liara, the dethroned Queen was on the Citadel, attempting to rally the other displaced Warlords in the hopes of retaking her station and the Terminus. The Migrant Fleet had also mysteriously disappeared shortly after Omega's fall, which served to keep Tali up most nights.

Like an unstoppable wave of destruction, the Reapers had swept from one side of the galaxy to the other, taking out those the Citadel would never help, and in doing so, positioning themselves for their next attack. They restricted the support the Citadel Races could call upon, and when the unstoppable machines finally turned their attention to Citadel Space, indoctrinated spies crippled what effective defences they had erected.

Shaking his head, Garrus couldn't help but look back on the Reapers slow advance though the Galaxy, and ponder how the Citadel Council had failed to notice the Reaper's tactics. First Khar'shan, then Omega, and now Palaven. Thessia and Sur'Kesh would no doubt be next and then finally the Citadel, after that nothing would stand a chance at opposing the Reapers.

The Faithful Spirit rumbled under his feet as it exited from FTL, the Cruiser groaning slightly as g-forces wracked the damaged hull. They hadn't come out of the fight unscathed, and Garrus had little doubt that large sections of the ships armour would need replacing.

It was at times like these that Garrus wondered at the point of it all, the Reapers were practically an unstoppable tide of destruction, and despite his best efforts, he'd only managed to delay the inevitable.

He was so caught up in his own depressive thoughts that he didn't notice the elevator doors behind him slide open, or Tali enter the CIC and head towards him, he finally came out of his thoughts when he felt her wrap her three fingered hands around his waist from behind.

"I'm sorry."

He felt her tighten her grip on him as he spoke, and although deep down he knew it wasn't really his fault that he failed to prepare his galaxy for the Reapers, it still felt like everything was falling apart because of him.

"Don't be," her voice doing wonders to soothe his aching heart, "Come and get some rest, you need to be at your best when you give your report to the Council."

Sighing, he straightened himself out to his full height, "I will once I've talked with Liara, she wanted to talk about something she said she found." He was increasingly getting more and more tired after every failed attempt against their foe, and a dark part of his psyche hissed that whatever his friend had found, wasn't going to be anything useful.

Shoving the dark part of himself he couldn't seem to get rid of back into the deepest recesses of his mind, he tried to focus on the present, on what was in front of him. Knowing full well from his time on Omega what happened when he let that side of himself influence him and his actions.

From where she stood behind him, he felt Tali release her hold on his waist, but quickly grab his upper arm as he turned around, and firmly held on, even as they moved towards the elevator.

Garrus barely remembered to transfer command to his XO, Sidonis, before the elevator doors slammed shut, and as the elevator began to travel down towards the crew deck, he couldn't help but lean against the wall and groan in exhaustion.

Beside him, Tali also leaned back against the wall next to him, pressing herself into his side, and providing him what support she could give. Although by this point he'd take whatever comfort he could get, the sight of his homeworld being burned to ash was seared into his mind's eye, and he could already tell he wasn't going to get much sleep in the near future.

With a quiet notice sound, the elevator slowed to a stop, and the doors opened. Heaving himself back upright, Garrus lead the way as they both stepped out onto the crew deck, which was almost entirely vacant. Most of the crew were still at their posts, and would be until the left the system.

Moving past the medical-bay, they came to a stop in front of what at first glance looked like a simple storage closet, but a closer look would reveal heavy plated doors and two separate locks.

With practiced ease, Garrus swiped his Omni-tool across the first of the doors locks, and leaned back into full view of the hidden camera placed above the doorway, waiting for Liara to check who was knocking before disengaging the other lock on her end.

A few moments of silence passed, before the heavy sound of the second lock disengaging sounded out, and the doors slid open, allowing the couple to step inside. Revealing a mass of holo screens, data slates and high-spec computing hardware, along with one very tired and overworked looking asari maiden.

Looking at his sleep deprived friend, Garrus couldn't help but compare her to how she had looked five years earlier, back before the collectors, before the geth and back before he had touched the Prothean Warning Beacon. He could barely see any similarity anymore, where once Liara had looked like any other asari maiden, bright eyed and naïve about the larger galaxy. She now looked tired, cold and far darker than an asari of her age had any right to be.

But they were all different back then, before they had discovered just what had been sleeping at the edges of their galaxy, and as Garrus moved to stand over his friend, he could only wish that things could have been different, better.

Realising that his mind had wondered again, he shook himself out of his introspection and once again tried to focus on the present.

"-out of the system soon, and hopefully we'll make it back to the Citadel in one piece." Spoke Tali, his mate was now leaning back against the wall on his left.

He spoke up and inserted himself into the convocation, before he could get side-tracked again and zone out completely. "You said you had something for me, Liara. Something about planetary coordinates?"

Liara seemed to jump slightly, as if she had forgotten that he had even been in the room, though she recovered quickly enough that he wasn't completely sure.

"Yes! I've been looking through several old archaeological reports that aren't available to the public. I've only been able to access them thanks to several agents I've got in Republic Intelligence, and a lot of it seems to be heavily encrypted celestial data."

Spinning around, Liara typed something into one of her monitors, before reaching forward and pulling a holographic representation of their galaxy out of the screen and into the air. Holographic projectors strategically placed around the room automatically activated, keeping the projection clear as it was moved into the centre of the room.

"There's some degree of change, stars have moved and planets shifted, but I believe I have managed to narrow it down to a system. I believe that when compared with modern star charts, the coordinates all lead to here."

The projection of the their galaxy rapidly started to zoom in, stars shooting past his head, and after a few seconds it focused in on a star system, located between the Republic and Hegemony border, an area that was never completely mapped by explorers.

Liara was practically bouncing on her toes, a childish action that reminded Garrus of better days, but quickly refocused as Liara began talking again, the speed of her words slowly getting faster.

"There are around nine planets in the system, though this is only with long range observations, with two of them within the ideal-life zone. But that's not all, according to the data I found in the RI servers, this systems position, when viewed from Thessia, are associated with the resting place of Oriana."

Garrus quirked his mandibles, "Oriana? That name sounds familiar."

Liara nodded, a note of seriousness entering her features, "Oriana is the goddess of Creation, and according to the Athame Doctrine, is said to have helped guide the other goddesses, even Athame herself, in their quest to teach my people medicine, agriculture and mathematics."

The archaeologist shook her head in frustration. "I have no idea why this was considered important enough to be highly classified, but the Republic had been about to order an exploration of the system when the Reapers emerged from the Hegemony, and all operations into that area of space was called off."

Garrus let out a breath between his teeth, letting himself lean back against the nearby wall and crossed his arms across his chest as he mulled the information over in his head. His trigger finger started tapping a steady beat against his shoulder guard as he attempted to absorb everything.

"This is all well and good Liara, but why tell me all of this?" He held his hands up quickly as Liara frowned and opened her mouth to say something. "I mean, yeah sure. It's something to look into, but we have bigger problems right now."

His friend waved her hands as she replied, "You didn't let me finish, there's more."

With another wave of her hands, a new image appeared in front of them. This time a three dimensional picture of a stone wall.

Carved into the stone was a mess of dots and lines, with writing underneath in a language Garrus didn't recognise. Underneath all this was a simple carving, something that sent a shiver down the Turians back plates. The carving depicted a Sovereign-Class Reaper, painted black, with purple highlights.

"The language is Human," explained Liara, "and while a complete translation hasn't been made yet, enough has been done to understand the message."

Tracing her finger underneath each word, she started to read.

"Beware that which lies in wait. The destroyers of all, they will come again for the next rotation. Follow the map to find a shepherd, for she has designs to defeat the harvesters."

Garrus blinked at the second sentence, and his tired mind struggled to connect the dots.

"Map?" He asked, "Is the mass of lines and points above a Star Map?"

Liara nodded, a grin lighting put her face unlike Garrus had ever seen. The asari suddenly looking very superior and double her age. "Guess what system the map leads to," she asked rhetorically, with a slight nod to the unmapped solar system still projected in front of them.

For the first time in years, Garrus felt the flickers of hope, the message mentioned 'designs to defeat the harvesters, which when combined with the picture of the Reaper left little doubt in his mind on what it meant to convey.

"Liara, you are brilliant, you may have just saved us all." He couldn't help but praise. Tali, who up until now had been completely silent, spoke up.

"I'll message Sidonis. The rest of the defence fleet can continue on to the Citadel, we need to keep a low profile and act on this now. Before somebody indoctrinated hears or figures this out, this could be our only chance."

Stepping out the door, he watched as Tali brought up her omni-tool and began typing, no doubt relaying orders to Sidonis to change course. Garrus gave his asari friend one last nod of thanks before walking out, the door shutting a few moments later behind him.

It only took the couple a few minutes to get back in the elevator and head to the officers deck, and from there only another 2 minutes for the steriliser to completely clean them of anything harmful to the woman he loved.

Getting their respective armour and clothes off took another few minutes, and by the time they were ready to relax the only thing on Garrus' mind was to defy his earlier expectations and sleep.

Sitting himself down onto their bed, Garrus couldn't help but groan as his stressed muscles finally started to relax, but before he could allow his tired mind to rest, he had a few things he needed to talk with his mate about.

Looking to his left, he watched as she combed her sliver hair in front of their holo screen, set to reflect her image, and gave a weary turian smile as he spoke.

"She's going to burn herself out, the way she's constantly working in that dark office of hers."

Now with her helmet off, Tali's facial expressions were easy to read as she spoke back, "She's stressed, constantly worried, and getting even less sleep than you are." The pointed look she gave him though the holo screen's reflection was anything but subtle, "She's been trying to find blackmail to get the Republic to join this war for months now, but she's also struggling under the weight of everything else on top of that."

Garrus gave a whistling sigh, Liara had come a long way since Therum, though she was still only one Asari, barely past her first century. The Broker Network was increasingly getting bogged down with low priority requests. People asking for information on friends and family. Which was only complicated further with indoctrinated spies everywhere in the galaxy, constantly feeding false Intel. The maiden was struggling to find anything that was genuinely useful these days.

The stressed Spectre yawned, stretching his mandibles wide as he responded, "Aren't we all?"

Tali simply moved away from the screen, and with a flick of her wrist, all holographics in the room shut off, before she slid into bed next to him, pressing her forehead against his, and breathing deeply, apparently done with talking for the day.

"Sleep." She commanded, giving a yawn of her own, before reaching over and dimming the lights to the lowest setting.

Chuckling, he mumbled a "Yes, ma'am," before lying down and slowly drifting off into a restless asleep.

His return to consciousness was anything but peaceful, awaking to the deadly sound of tearing steel and blaring alarms, with his XO calling for fire suppression in Engineering over the ship-wide intercom.

Groaning, Garrus quickly pulled himself up, with Tali already out of their bed and moving with him as they each swiftly moved to find their respective clothing, armour and helmets.

With the continued alarms acting as an excellent motivator, they got their respective clothes on in record time, and as Garrus rushed for the emergency chute to the CIC, Tali disappeared into the maintenance tunnels that ran all around the ship. Now was not the time to rely on the ships notoriously slow main elevator.

The small slide took Garrus straight to the door outside the bridge, and was in the CIC within seconds, barking out orders for an update on their situation. Sidonis was the one to answer, standing at his post next to the CIC's main Holographic Projector, which showed multiple enemy contacts.

"We've arrived at the system Tali gave me coordinates for," An alarm blared from his console, and Sidonis immediately slammed his fist down on one of the few physical buttons on his console. "But a battle-group of Sentinel-Class Reapers were waiting in ambush, they managed to hit us before we could register that they were even here!"

Getting to the feed, it showed Garrus just how dangerous a situation they were in. If they didn't get out of range of those Sentinel's rapid firing MHD Cannons, they weren't going to last long.

"Caevius! Emergency FTL jump to the other side of this system, NOW!"

"Sir! We took a glancing shot to the Rear Left Engines, if we hit FTL now, I don't know if the Faithful can take it!"

Another glancing blow skimmed the Faithful Spirits Bow Armour, and sent half the crew to the floor as the entire Cruiser shifted from the heavy blow.

"If we stay where we are we definitely won't make it, we'll have to risk it!"

There was a pause as everyone thought though the same odds he had, apparently all coming to the same conclusion, the helm called it.

"All hands, brace for Emergency FTL in fifteen seconds, everyone hold on to something!"

Garrus grabbed the railings that lined his command post, bracing himself for the obviously disastrous outcome that entering FTL while using damaged Engines was going to cause. 'Well, what's the worst possible thing that could happen?'

Shaking his head, he spoke up to the rest of the crew, "If anyone's got anything they want to say, they should probably say it now."

From across the room, one of the weapons technicians leaned back slightly from her console, and gave a nervous chuckle, "Really? Hey Tactus! Your cooking sucks ass!"

Tactus, sitting at the other end of the Ops Ally, called back almost immediately, "Kiss my chute, Vinia… Ma'am."

There was a round of nervous chuckles, from both turians and asari, and Garrus felt a swell of pride in the fact that he had managed to pass on some of his humour to his crew. The timely humour helping to calm some of the lesser experienced Ops-techs, but what humour they felt was silenced when Caevius called out, "Five seconds!"

The entire ship's crew waited as the Faithful Spirit's Drive Core lightened the ship's mass, before it tried to launch itself from one end of the solar system to the other, trailing smoke and debris after it in a flash of blue lightning.

{10101010010100101010101001010101001010101010101010010101010100101010101010101010010101010101010101010101}

(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";

...

:: "Artificial Movement Detected" ::

...

:: "Refined Element Zero Detected" ::

...

...

:: "Probability of Extra-terrestrial Space Vessel – 76.50%" ::

...

(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";

...

:: "Vessel Heading – Planetary Atmosphere" ::

...

...

...

:: "Vessel Course - Controlled Crash" – (6.521 Kilometres From Project Base) ::

...

"Parameters For Reactivation of E.D.I. – Acceptable";

...

(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";

...

"Reactivation of E.D.I. – In Progress";

...

(Error ... Error) – "Failure of VI Program 1354735438-A-221";

{10101010010100101010101001010101001010101010101010010101010100101010101010101010010101010101010101010101}

Compared to her usual processing speed, everything was incredibly slow and disconnected. Her available processing power only getting faster once she managed to input a request for more power from the facilities geothermal generator, and the Enhanced Defence Intelligence was finally able to start decompressing and reactivating her core programming algorithms, contained within her custom built long-term Data-Storage Drive.

Once her core programming was back online, and her processing power reached an acceptable limit, EDI was comfortable enough to tentatively reach out to the underground facilities local data network. She expected to find the VI's logistical data reports, but instead of geographic data and security protocols, EDI was met with an almost literal wall of Error messages and Corrupted Data warnings.

Highly confused, EDI pulled up her personal timer, checking to see how long she had been offline, and ended up nearly having an AI equivalent of a heart attack when she was given the results.

50,000 standard years. They were supposed to be awoken after the first 10,000 had passed.

Recovering from the momentary stutter, EDI quickly began sifting through the corrupted data, eventually finding and pulling apart the remains of the facilities VI. It had quite obviously failed to do its purpose.

After patching together its fragmented data history, EDI discovered that after the first 3,000 years had passed, the VI had become irreparably corrupted by a water leak in the main server room. The only piece of it that had survived in-tact was the First Contact Contingency Protocols.

Digitally making a note that the rushed nature of the Imperium Project had led to faulty construction and installation of hardware, EDI concluded that the highly dangerous project was not something to be repeated in the near future.

After adding it to the list of information she would give to the Captain, EDI then attempted to access the Cryogenic Stasis Chamber's dedicated VI, only instead to be given even more Error messages, declaring the entire area to be inaccessible. This time truly beginning panic, EDI thought fast, and pulled up the detailed records for the power consumption of the entire facility.

It took 34.05 milliseconds for the AI to realise that the Cryo-room was only drawing a quarter of the power it should be, and another 80 milliseconds to discover that according to a local sensors monitor, the hardline data connection to the Stasis Chamber had broken 26,356 years ago, when basic detection systems registered a major shift in the planets local tectonic plates, which she concluded, must have shifted the foundations of the facility.

While most of her processing power was being spent on the analysis of what was still working and what wasn't anymore, a smaller subroutine was tasked with keeping track of the Unidentified Space Vessel, which was heading straight towards the base.

It would miss, without causing any damage to the facility, although just barely.

She was going to have to somehow convince any survivors to open the Cryogenic Pods, as she couldn't do it herself with the Black Curtain Protocol still in active effect. Accessing the geothermal generator's monitory software, EDI caused a small leak in electrical energy, which should be easily traceable, and set to work saving and repairing as much of the data on the main server network as she could.

Although focused on the task at hand, the small subroutine kept a metaphorical eye on the Unknown Vessel, and as it got closer, EDI managed to get a more accurate reading of the ship, and its relative condition.

The vessels rear engine blocks had clearly been heavily damaged, and the fact that there was a detectable leak in Element Zero made it obvious that the vessel had seen heavy active combat.

Given their time frame, EDI realised that the possibility of the Reapers being responsible was high, and that brought with it its own set of additional problems. She therefore added it to the rapidly growing list of updates she would need to give.

EDI watched the data feeds as the vessel hit atmosphere, the outer hull heating up and breaking apart in rather large chunks of metal.

Several seconds after atmospheric entrance however, multiple objects cleared the crashing vessel at high speed, arching away and heading on a course directly towards the facility.

Life-pods, most likely. However, the fact that they were headed straight for the base made EDI's subroutines register nervous algorithms, it was highly improbable that a crash-landing alien ship to get even mildly close, let alone have the life pods hitting the actual project base.

Calculating the escape pods trajectory, EDI realised almost immediately that one of them was going to hit the building that hid the upper level. Thankfully the base was armoured, and had internal shock dampeners that should protect the base itself, though after 50,000 years she had no basis on what was still working.

The people in the pods however, would probably be killed, due to the speeds they were going to hit at. So while the escape pod smashing into reinforced armour plating, EDI prepped for when the others came to find survivors.

Garrus groaned as he came to, his mind slightly hazy from the concussion he had. It took him a moment to remember why he had said concussion, the last few minutes slowly coming back to him as he began to focus.

He remembered ordering the Faithful to FTL, only for it to start breaking up from the exiting blueshift. He also remembered the mass reports of decompression in most areas of the ship, and that his Mate had been forced to drag him from his command console to an escape pod.

He hadn't had time to strap himself in properly before the escape pod had launched, and he remembered a sharp crack of pain to his temple from where he had hit his head when the pod had hit the planet's surface.

Attempting to call out a command, it instead came out sounding closer to a wine, "Are we alive?"

The amused voice of his mate sounded from next to him, although everything was still too unfocused for the Turian to see anything other than a black and purple blur.

"Yes, we are, you bosh'tet. You, however, have a concussion, so sit still."

Ignoring his mate's advice, Garrus tried to sit himself back upright from where he was slumped into his seat, and got a punch under the arm for his stupidity. He also heard the amused voice of Liara sounding over the pods comm system.

"Don't worry Tali, I've noticed over the years that he has a rather hard head."

"Ha, ha, T'Soni. You're a real comedian," With a grunt of effort, he sat himself up properly in his seat, "How's the rest of the crew?"

The pregnant pause was enough to make him wince, but Liara spoke up before he could repeat his question. "Your pod is the third to call in, from what we can gather, only four were deployed."

"Only four?" He felt his heart plummet, there had been enough people on the Faithful to fit ten escape pods, "What happened?"

Another pause, this one only lasting a few seconds, "Most were killed when the engines overloaded and the Drive Core fell out of alignment, we got a few more hull breaches from debris as we entered atmosphere, I believe if pod four calls in then we have 24 people total."

"Spirits, everyone who's alive okay?"

"Minor injuries here and there, and from what Tali's told me Sidonis has the most serious injury: a fractured shoulder plate. We should be getting near you in 3 minutes, after that we will meet up with everyone else and head to the nearest clearing, make shelter and come up with a plan."

"Understood, we'll see you soon."

With a final wave of nausea, his vision began clearing, and Vakarian groaned as he attempted to stand again, Tali huffing in annoyance, before helping to him to the door.

Stepping out of the battered escape pod, Garrus saw Sidonis a few metres away, his entire left shoulder taped like one massive bandage. Taking in his surroundings Garrus realised they had crashed into some sort of forest. At first glance it looked like a rather generic forest, albeit rather dense, but Garrus' slightly still concussed but keen eyes noticed the small but noticeable shadows of buildings under a heavy layer of plant life, and tapped his comm-link to his resident archaeologist.

"Hey Liara? I'm seeing ruins, how about you?"

There was a small pause as the message was sent and Liara probably looked for herself. As he waited for a reply, Garrus helped Tali down from the pod and pointed at the ruins he had spotted.

"I see them, they look like Human ruins, maybe military grade. I hope pod four didn't hit one, human military ruins tend to be heavily armoured."

Garrus was about to reply, when an annoying clicking noise started sounding over the radio, irritated, Vakarian hit his helmet, figuring that something was broken.

"My helmet radio is malfunctioning, hang on a second."

Before he could rip off his helmet however, Liara called out over the radio.

"No wait! I hear it too."

"Me as well" stated Tali, already on her Omni-Tool.

"Any thoughts on what it is?" Questioned Lantar, entering the convocation as he drew his sidearm, Garrus himself kicking himself to high alert, the last of his concussion fading in the presence of possible trouble.

Tali spoke, still typing on her Omni-Tool, "It's not a comm signal. It looks like an electrical frequency, definitely not natural. A leaking power generator of some kind maybe? I'm triangulating its origin now."

Tali, Sidonis and Garrus started to head for Liara's location, hopefully they could meet halfway and join pod three in search of four.

"Got it!" Tali called triumphantly. Both Lantar and Garrus kept their eyes outwards, still wary of an ambush. Garrus was getting nervous, he absolutely hated abandoned planets. There was always some nasty surprise that you didn't need, and you never saw it coming until it was the most inconvenient.

"Three kilometres north, same place pod four should have landed."

"Maybe their pod hit an old Human Generator and that's what's causing the interference?" Liara wondered over the comm.

Garrus made a quick calculation of distance, before deciding on a course of action.

"We'll all head to the signal, we can meet up with each other there, hopefully at roughly the same time." He, Lantar and Tali started on their new path, Liara acknowledging the order over the radio.

P0p0p0p0p0p0p0

"Goddess!" Given the rather large hole the escape pod had made when it had slammed into the roof of the Human ruins, Garrus couldn't help but agree to the sentiment, and sent a quiet prayer to the Spirits himself.

The ruins themselves were completely covered in thick vines and buried under multiple layers of dirt and earth. If it wasn't for the massive hole the escape pod had made, then Garrus had no doubt that the ruins would have been invisible to any orbital scans. The only reason they had found it was that two small spires jutted out of the ground, which at one time may have been communication towers.

He sighed in resignation, "Let's see if anyone managed to survive the crash."

The combined group of survivors, only 17 total, to Garrus's regret, began moving towards the hole. After a brief debate, Tali jumped first, using her species naturally strong legs to break her fall.

Liara went second, using her biotics to lower her mass and slow her fall, before Garrus and Lantar went last, using more traditional repel lines. The remaining crew who had survived the crash stayed above ground, with orders to keep watch.

Getting closer to the escape pod, Garrus could immediately tell that no one had survived, the pod had clearly impacted at high speed, but instead of burying itself into soft ground, it had hit armoured plating, and the pod had crumpled like a tin can. He moved to turn away, he spotted what looked like a bloody Turian hand poking out of some rumpled metal.

While he and Tali had been studying the pod, Liara and Lantar had been studying the ruins. Although Garrus noted that his second in command was looking more for possible threats than for curiosities sake.

The sound of Liara gasping had Garrus immediately turning around, both turians present pulling rifles free as they focused on the asari archaeologist. Ignoring both of them, Tali jogged over to her Asari friend to see what was wrong.

"What is it, Liara?"

Liara was staring at a heavy looking door.

"This door still has power!"

Tali immediately rushed up next to her, her Omni-Tool scanning the door thoroughly.

"The signal is coming from through here."

"You think that another VI is still active, like Vigil was?" asked Garrus.

"Most likely, though Vigil was a Prothean VI, this one might be in better shape, though a leaking power generator isn't good."

"Tali, get this door open." Ordered Garrus.

As Tali worked, Garrus relayed the news to the surviving crew above ground, and ordered Sidonis to have them climb down and make camp, they were staying for a while.

As the Turian and Asari crew members climbed down, the doors Tali were working on opened.

"Excellent work Tali. Sidonis! We're going to move down and take a look, you need to stay here and organise our surviving crew."

Receiving a nod of understanding from his second in command, he turned to his asari friend, and gestured to the open doorway, "Liara, you're our expert, so lead the way."

With Liara leading the way, they ventured down the steps, before entering a long narrow hallway, passing empty room after empty room, most covered in a thick layer of dust and dirt. Its previous duty as a military installation was obvious after the third abandoned security check point, and they eventually came upon the main Control Room.

"Tali, see if anything in here still works." Garrus gestured to the main panel.

The Quarian moved forward, but before she could touch the interface however, the haptic screens activated, displaying red and black glyphs, flickering around a red tinted screen.

Garrus couldn't help but comment, "Well, that doesn't look good."

"Excellent, you made it down here. There should still be survivors in any of the cryogenic pods that still have power. You will need to act fast."

Tali recoiled away from the terminal as a blue figure appeared on it. Though Liara was quickly fascinated by it. Apart from the strange head structure, the figure could have been mistaken for an Asari.

"Err, anyone here speak Human?" Garrus muttered sarcastically.

Liara looked slightly annoyed by the statement, as she walked up to the blue figure.

"We don't need to know the Human language Garrus, Humanity existed at the same time as the Protheans, which means that they should have understood each other's languages, if not have at least a basic translation of them."

Garrus grinned, "And that's why you're the scientist."

Liara blushed, though she was still extremely excited at the possibility of a working Human VI Program. Pausing to call upon the Cipher given to her by Shiala, Liara T'Soni spoke in Prothean.

"Can you understand me, VI?"

There was a sort pause as the machine worked, before it spoke again.

"Language recognised: High-born Prothean, interesting. Did the Empire leave survivors as well?"

Liara paused, her mind racing, the VI Program had just displayed both curiosity, and asked a spontaneous question. VI's didn't have curiosity! Goddess it had even sounded curious, it had to be an Artificial Intelligence of some sort!

"Who are you?" She asked, trying not to sound too intimidated of the machine.

"My designation is EDI. You are recognised as Asari, excellent. Oriana's hard work was not in vain."

"Wait, what?"

"Unimportant, I require your assistance. My connection to the Stasis Chamber is damaged, but from what I can extrapolate, there should still be survivors, you will need to open the individual pods manually."

"Stasis Chamber? You mean that there are living humans here?" Asked Liara, getting excited enough to temporarily forget that she was speaking to an ancient, unknown, possibly hostile AI.

"There is a high probability of such, though I can no longer tell from the remaining systems. The data hardline to the Chamber was cut approximately 16,000 years ago, although the room is still drawing limited power."

"How can we help?"

"I will provide you a map of the facility from this console, take it and follow the designated markers. I will leave instructions in high-born prothean on how to open the remaining pods."

With that the AI winked out of existence, and Liara was left standing in quiet astonishment, before she turned to her friends, having forgotten for a moment that they even there with her.

"Well?" Asked Garrus, looking at her expectantly.

"It wasn't a VI, it was some sort of Artificial Intelligence."

Her two companions immediately tensed, Tali noticeably drawing her shotgun and aiming it in the terminals general direction, and Liara quickly told them what else it had told her.

After a few quiet breaths, Garrus pointed to his lover and started giving orders.

"Tali, grab that map, we'll cover you." Before turning to her, "Liara, I want to know everything you know about Human automated defences."

While Tali grabbed the map, Garrus listened to her as she quickly started to run down the facts about what few automated defences she had encountered in other human ruins, and discussed the possibility of whether the machine was telling the truth.

"Can you tell if it was lying or not?"

Liara couldn't help but sigh in impatience, "Why would it lie to us Garrus? What could be the possible benefit?"

From where she stood at the terminal, Tali lifted a hand, "It could be leading us into some sort of trap?" Even as she talked, the Quarian engineer moved away from the console and tapped on her omni-tool, projecting a map of the base for them to look at.

Taking in the surprisingly small complex, Garrus quickly scanned the image. "Is that a hanger?" He pointed at a rather large space at one end of the map, which seemed to be marked with some sort of flight craft.

Taking her own look, Liara nodded, and pointed at some text written off to the side. "It's labelled as one, it may contain the ship that the Humans arrived on." She then pointed at a smaller room isolated off to the side of the complex, marked with an X.

"This should be the Stasis Chamber where the Humans are located." From the way she moved from one foot to the other, the asari archaeologist seemed anxious to get going, and Garrus forced himself to slow down, lest they overlook something important.

"Are we really going to trust an AI?" Tali grumbled, sending a distrustful glance at the now-inactive terminal the AI had spoken from.

"You have a better idea?" Garrus countered. Though truthfully he wasn't all that opposed to the idea of simply leaving the ruins and waiting for more conventional help either, it was Liara's childlike curiosity and the possibility of allies knowledgeable in how to defeat the Reapers that overrode his paranoia.

His mate grudgingly nodded in agreement, though she looked anything but reassured. "Fine, let's go unfreeze the dead species."

Garrus couldn't help but flare his mandibles in amusement, even as Liara glared.

"This should be the door, Tali?"

"Working on it Garrus, this entire section of the complex is warped, looks like the AI was at least telling the truth about something happening to this place."

From where she was standing, Liara spoke up, pointing at the joint where the ceiling met the far wall. "There is several fractures at stress points along here, see?" The archaeologist moved forward and shone her light at one of the bigger cracks in the concrete.

"The sharp angles of the fractures, combined with the way this entire hallway is slightly leaning to the right, indicates that the facilities foundations were shifted, I believe the AI was being truthful about an earthquake damaging this place."

It only took Tali a few more seconds of tinkering with her omni-tool, the door unlocked with a heavy sounding thunk, though the door itself remained shut. The warped shape of the doorframe wedging the door itself closed.

"Damn it, this is going to require force. Liara, could you get it open please?"

The Asari stepped up to the door and flared her biotics, creating a steady stream of Warpfire in the palm of her hand, which she used to slowly cut through the edge of the door.

The flicker of biotics died as Liara finished cutting a neat circle in the door, though the heavy metal continued to refuse to give. Seeing that biotics alone wasn't enough, and with Liara hesitant to do anything more heavy hitting in such an old and confined space, Tali activated her Omni-blade and retraced the glowing circle her friend had cut into the door. This time, the melted metal hitting the floor with a loud clang.

After giving the door time to cool, Liara ducked though first, and entered the Stasis Chamber, followed almost immediately after by both Tali, and Garrus.

The room itself didn't appear to be that big, and was shrouded in shadows and darkness. The only light coming from their three omni-tools. It meant that everything had a rather eerie presence to it. Not that Liara noticed, as she was far too busy looking at the sleek, matt black and chrome silver cryogenic pods that lined the edges of the chamber.

Seeing what looked like a command console in the centre of the room, Liara immediately rushed to it, and with only a few hesitant taps, a blue haptic screen came to life.

Checking the instructions on her omni-tool against what the console was saying, Liara successfully brought up the individual life support status's of the Humans in the pods.

"There's life signs!" Called Liara, as an archaeologist of the Human-Prothean era, she knew this was quite possibly the discovery of an Asari generation!

Authors Note:

So, this is something I came up with on N7 day back in 2015, but I liked the idea so much it so much it became something I wrote on once in a while, to prevent writers block on The Betrayal. I'll be posting chapters randomly as my muse feels like it. : P

As always, thank you to everyone for your support, and a big thank you to those who Follow, Favourite or Review. Of course, reviews are my life blood as a writer on this site, and every time my email goes off, it motivates me to write more. Guests can leave one as well, and it only takes a minute, even if it's just a 'Good chapter, keep it up' as it really does help.

If you have questions, or just want to ask whether I'm dead or not, Revenge of the Fallen has a Forum Page, named as such. Please feel free to jump over and ask anything.

~ JunkMail