Virmire



Captain Kirrahe.

The Council contacts Shepard with a possible lead. A salarian espionage team on Virmire, investigating reports of Saren's activities, has sent a mission-critical transmission that was almost lost in static. Shepard heads to Virmire and meets the leader of the salarians, Captain Kirrahe. They have found a breeding facility for krogan that Saren is using to create an army.

Kirrahe, realising he's not getting the reinforcements he needs, asks for Shepard's help destroying it and they develop a plan. While the salarians distract Saren's geth, Shepard will take a team around the back and plant a nuclear device that will wipe out the facility. Kirrahe asks Shepard for a squad member to help him coordinate the attack—Shepard sends Ashley to help the salarians, but must also deal with Wrex, who is furious that Shepard is willing to destroy a cure for the genophage, a salarian bioweapon which makes Krogan breeding next to impossible. The disagreement becomes a Mexican standoff, ending when Ashley guns Wrex down from behind.

Wrex turns on Shepard.

Sovereign speaks.

Leading the strike team, Shepard, Liara, and Garrus reach the facility, but discovers its main purpose is not to breed krogan, but to study Sovereign's horrific indoctrination effect. In Saren's private lab, the team finds another Prothean Beacon that gives Shepard another vision, and they are confronted by a hologram of Sovereign itself, which is not a Reaper ship but an actual Reaper.



Explosion on Virmire.

Shepard manages to get the nuke set up across the facility only to get a call that the salarians are being attacked with heavy losses. The commander takes a group to help them but as they leave, the geth start attacking the nuke site and Shepard has to choose: both Kaidan and Ashley are in trouble and there's no time to save both. Shepard goes back to Kaiden, as he is in possession of Kirrahe's nuke, and then brings reinforcements in, only to be confronted by Saren. He tries to make the commander join his cause but Shepard refuses, fighting Saren off. Saren gets away and the team board the Normandy, escaping Virmire as the nuke destroys the facility, killing much of Kirrahe's team, including Ashley Williams.

Having lost two squad members to Saren's forces on Virmire, Shepard retreats into space to assess the situation. Captain Kirrahe and his surviving unit is also taken aboard the Normandy.