"Named for Johannes Kepler, the Space Mission's purpose was the discovery of Earth-sized planets located within the habitable, or "Goldilocks" zone. That, for those of you who slept through last lecture, is the region around a star in which a planet can support liquid water. Now, what were they really looking for? Possible sites for colonization, sure, but what else?

"Aliens! They were looking for life! Granted, water is only one of the ingredients required for life as we know it, but it's kind of a biggie. Original findings suggested there may be as many as eleven billion Earth-sized planets orbiting Sol-like stars. Pretty optimistic, right? The zone's not that big, most stars the size of ours can probably only fit one, maybe two planets. By that logic, almost three percent of the estimated four hundred billion stars are potentially fostering planets with liquid water. Of course, we now know that estimate to be a bit on the high side. Does anyone know the current figure?

"Point zero-one-seven, that's correct. Point zero-one-seven percent of the stars in our galaxy are estimated to have planets located in the region that can support liquid water. Doesn't sound like much, does it? Any math majors in here? How many planets is that?

"Sixty-eight million! Wow. Sixty-eight million planets that might have water. Sixty-eight million planets that might have one of the basic building blocks for carbon-based life. Sixty-eight million potential ecosystems of extra terrestrial life. Now that's a hell of a lot of aliens."

- partial transcript of Professor Sanderson's lecture theFundamentals of Astrobiology, part 2

The sudden crackle of static over the comm startled the commander out of her focused state. She swerved to avoid a make-shift barrier behind which her quarry had taken refuge, clipping the side and sending it flying back into its former occupants. They scattered like marbles, leaving themselves vulnerable to the lumbering Mako's cannons. She veered again, catching a lone survivor under her treads and dragging the vehicle over the top of it. The ATV lurched nauseatingly as they moved onwards, their acceleration marked by a slight fishtail. She was never going get a handle on these damn controls.

"What's with the comms, Alenko?" The skyway's edge wandered uncomfortably close and she nudged the ungainly vehicle back away from the drop.

He frowned into his omni-tool. "Not sure. We seem to be picking up some garbled cross-chatter."

"From the camp? If they had a radio this whole time why the hell didn't they answer our hail?"

Another burst of noise drowned out whatever response the lieutenant had intended. A few words could be made out from amongst the junk signal. "bzzt— could still – in there – bzzzt —my daughter, asshole—."

"Try to clean it up," Shepard said. "I think I heard the 'g' word in there some—aw, fuck." She broke off as she rode over the fallen body of a geth trooper, the unyielding form spinning the Mako headlong into another barrier.

"'G' word?" murmured Vakarian to the lieutenant.

"Geth."

"Oh. Why didn't she just say that?"

Alenko shrugged.

"- 'nother vehicle—coming-."

"I don't think it's from Zhu's Hope, Commander. The signal's getting stronger."

"Well, whoever they are they know we're here."

"Fuck it, we're walking the rest of the way."

She brought the Mako to a lurching stop. Ahead of them loomed the remains of a soaring skyscraper, the side of which had been sheared away by time or ancient attack. A shallow ramp led deep under the rubble, the muffled sound of voices echoing upwards.

"Well, they're obviously not geth," Vakarian muttered as they made their ways slowly into the ruin's interior.

A small group of humans had made camp amongst the rubble, the worn symbol of the ExoGeni company emblazoned on what remained of their uniforms. From the looks of things they had been camped for as long as Zhu's Hope had been under siege. Their arrival caused a stir amongst the survivors.

"Relax Jeong, they're obviously not geth," an authoritative woman reassured the man beside her.

"That doesn't mean they're not with them." He rounded on them. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Alliance Military. We're investigating the report of geth in this area."

"You see?" said the woman. "You worry too much."

"And you trust too easily."

"Please excuse my associate." The woman extended a hand. "I'm Juliana Baynham. I thought we were the only humans left on this planet."

Shepard took the hand and raised an eyebrow. "Zhu's Hope is in bad shape, but they're still holding on."

The woman's eyes went wide. "You said they were all dead."

She glared at Jeong accusingly and he put up his hands to ward her off. "I said they were 'probably' all dead."

"There's a big difference between 'probably' and 'actually', Jeong!"

"They're surviving, but the geth really hit them hard," Vakarian said.

The woman rubbed her face tiredly. "We know what that's like. Those damn machines are relentless."

"They must have a base nearby, do you know where it is?" the commander asked.

"You're almost there. They're holed up in the ExoGeni headquarters, just a bit further down the skyway."

"Those headquarters are private property, soldier," Jeong interupted. "Remove the geth and nothing else."

Shepard fixed him with a stare she normally reserved for raw recruits misbehaving on shore leave. The man wilted under its weight. "Do I look like I have time to be concerned with your company's petty secrets?" She let some of her scorn seep into her voice. "I'll thank you not to interfere with a military operation."

The man cleared his throat and looked away.

"Commander, before you go... My daughter, Lizbeth. She's missing..." Juliana's tired face creased with concern.

"They shouldn't waist time poking around. We can do a proper accounting of our casualties after the geth are gone."

The woman rounded on him. "That's my daughter you're talking about! She's still alive. I know it."

"She's been trapped in there for days, Juliana. It's hopeless."

"That's what you said about Zhu's Hope –"

"Where is she?" Shepard cut in before the two could rehash what was clearly an old argument.

"She was working in the ExoGeni building when the attacks came."

"Oh, yeah! There are several places she could hide. For a short time." Jeong's tone was less than optimistic.

" If she's in there, I'll find her."

" Thank you, Commander. Thank you."

Don't thank me yet.

Eventually the skyway narrowed and they were forced to abandon the Mako. The glowing red trail betrayed the presence of one of the hopper type geth and the three took cover before it could get a bead on them.

They quickly fell into what had become an easy routine. Grouped closely in protective cover, the three took turns firing on the geth in a rotating wave until either weapons or shields gave out, while the other two sabotaged the machines' defenses or immobilized them with mass effect fields, depending on the individual's personal strengths.

When the last of the synthetics had been reduced to its component parts, the three of them spread out to investigate their new surroundings. They were in what looked to be the remains of an ancient entry way large enough to park a dozen Makos. Part of the ceiling had caved in and the far side of the chamber ended in a steep wall of rubble. A raised walkway lead up into the depths of the building. To the left was a doorway blocked by a field of shimmering blue light. Shepard approached the barrier with caution, the energy resonance making her skin crawl. When her presence failed to cause any reaction, she reached out and prodded the field with a finger. Solid. When she withdrew her hand, static arced softly along her glove and the amp at the nape of her neck gave small pop. Reflexively she clapped a hand over the armor protecting it.

"Dark energy?" her lieutenant asked.

"Yeah. Thoughts?"

"Nothing useful." He scanned it with his 'tool, keying in commands as the holograph swept across it. The door remained stubbornly shielded. "Looks like whatever's powering it is on the other side."

"Of course it is."

Beside them a partially collapsed hallway plunged deeper into the ruins. Shepard eyed it suspiciously, then shrugged and hopped down into the darkened passage.

Liquid sloshed softly around her booted feet as she waded across the remnant of the great room and she was glad for the environmental seals built to keep out more than just a little water. Ugh, she hoped that was water. The murky liquid covered the ground in several inches, concealing in its depth a treacherously uneven surface. Rubble shifted beneath her feet as they progressed and she stumbled more than a few times. As they neared the far wall a splash came from behind her, accompanied by a lengthy string of turian profanity that made her translator stutter. She turned to find Vakarian picking himself up off the ground, shoulders hunched.

She hid a smile, pretending to examine the chamber around them as the young turian scrambled to his feet. "Haven't heard that one before," she said in her best conversational tone. "What's it mean?"

"Er, I don't know the exact translation," he said sheepishly. "Something like, 'stupid son of a drooling whore and a pyjak'."

"Hah!" The loud bark of laughter startled her almost as much as her companions and Vakarian's mandibles flared wide. Behind him Alenko let out a low chuckle.

"I like it," she said as they resumed their march. "I'll have to use it on Udina sometime."

Her HUD registered the red blip of a solitary weapon a heartbeat before a shot went wide over the trio's heads.

"Damn it!"

Shepard lowered her weapon slowly as a woman stood up from behind a pile of fallen rubble. Her clothing was torn and dirty, but the familiar corporate logo of ExoGeni was still visible on her shoulder.

"I am so sorry. I thought you were geth, or one of those varren."

Behind her she heard the click of holstered weapons as she put her own away. "It's a damn good thing for you that there are killer robots literally roaming these halls, because otherwise I'd have some choice words for you about your gun etiquette. What are you doing down here?"

"I'm sorry. It's my own fault. Everyone else was running and I stayed behind to back up data. Next thing I knew, the geth ship latched on and the power went out. I was trapped. I tried to get out, but the way was blocked."

"A few geth won't stop us," Vakarian said.

The woman shook her head. "It's not the geth; it's the energy field they put up. They don't want anyone else getting access to the –" she cut herself off and winced.

Oh for fuck's sake. It was all the commander could do to keep her tone even. "Lady, please don't waste my time. I don't give a rat's ass about whatever secretive, proprietary and most likely illegal bullshit ExoGeni gets up to out here in the ass-end of the galaxy. I'm here for the killer robots. It's very important that I find out what they're after."

The woman at least had the good graces to look abashed. "I-I'm sorry. I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing they're here for the Thorian."

"What's a Thorian?" Vakarian asked.

"It's an indigenous life-form. ExoGeni was studying it."

"What makes you think the geth would be interested in it?" asked the commander.

"I don't know, it's just a plant, but it's the only thing of note that ExoGeni is currently studying here besides the ruins themselves. I don't even think they've found anything special about it."

"Then what makes you think the geth care?"

"Because the labs with the thorian research are the ones they hit first. As far as I know they're still in there, I didn't stick around to find out."

"What about the data you backed up, does it have anything about this plant thing?"

"It doesn't matter, I had to leave before the backup was complete. The disk is still in the terminal."

"Of course it is."

"I'll tell you what I know about the thorian, but not with those geth crawling around everywhere. Look, we need to get out of here, past that field."

"Alright, fine, how do we deactivate it?"

"I don't know, it's not a part of our facility. But I think the geth ship is powering it. I saw the geth laying power cables everywhere. You could follow those cables, but there's geth all over the place.

She sighed. "Stay here. I'll see what I can do."

The marines and the turian returned more quickly that she expected. The woman's face was sour and a nasty chuck was missing from the left shoulder-plate of her armor. Behind her the plates of her turian companion were singed black and the other human walked with a limp. The commander flung a data disc at Lizbeth's feet. "What did I say?" she demanded.

Lisbeth swallowed hard. "I-"

"I said I didn't care about your illegal-ass research. I said I needed to find what the geth were after. Most importantly, I said, 'Don t. Waste. My. Time.'" She punctuated the last few words with four menacing steps forward.

Lizbeth shrunk back from the angry marine. "I'm sorry! I-I was afraid. I wanted to stop the tests, but they threatened me. Told me I'd be next. When the geth attacked I stayed behind to send a message to colonial affairs. I tried to tell them where to find the thorian, but the power cut before I could send the message. I-I never meant for this to happen."

"Just tell us what you know," the lieutenant said gently.

"The thorian is underneath Zhu's Hope, but the entrance is blocked. The colonists covered it with the freighter just before the geth attacked."

"But why are the geth after it? What does Saren want with it?" Shepard asked.

"The thorian displays unique mind control capabilities. That's what ExoGeni was interested in."

"Mind control?" The commander shared a doubtful look with her companions. "How –" She stopped mid-sentence and cupped a hand over her ear.

"What-" Lizbeth began, but the commander waved her to silence.

"What is it Normandy?" Shepard paused, listening to an answer Lizbeth couldn't hear. The scientist shifted nervously and glanced through the now-open doorway. The corridor beyond was draped in shadows, but to her anxious eyes it seemed that every dark corned housed some lurking beast. Not for the first time that day did she wish that she were anywhere else in the galaxy but here.

"Thanks, Joker," the commander said, severing her connection with her ship. To the waiting group she said, "We've got geth incoming. Time to make like a tree and get the fuck out of here."