Bet this comes as a bit of a surprise!

So yeah, a fair few of my readers have been hyped for a Helldiver version of Andromeda. I WAS determined to finish Alpha Origins first, but having ultiamtely realized how logn its taken and possibly due to lack of motivation as well, I decided I'd put it on hold FOR NOW.

Make no mistake, one way or another I WILL finish Origins. I don't beleive in leaving a story unfinished.

Anyway, my dear friend Mastermind4892 suggested that I write the first few chapters of Andromeda and see how I feel after that, then deicde for certain if I want to continue or finish Origins first.

So for now, Origins is on hold and I'm going to be doing the first few chapters of this for a while. In some ways, a long break and a fresh start may be what I need.

Those who are familiar with my past works, you can expect a lot of familair things to happen in this. I've got a fair few interesting changes planned (some of which you'll see in this chapter alone)

On a final note, as with my previous works this story will contain violence, language and explicit sex scenes.

Enjoy! :)

Mass Effect: The Helldiver Saga

Andromeda

Prologue:

My name is Sir Major Austin Shepard of Helldiver Squad Alpha. I am recording this message July 25th 2227. By the time this message is seen, 600 years will have passed, and you will have completed a long journey unlike any other. You all know where you are and why you came here, so I'll spare you the details. I guess all that is left for me to say is good luck to you all.

Chapter 1

Awakening

Scott Ryder finished viewing the message for the third time now. A part of him was still in disbelief that they had made it. 600 years in cryo sleep during a journey across dark space all the way to a new galaxy. People dreamed of moments like this for so long, yet when it came they didn't know what to say.

His train of thought though was interrupted by the appearance of a figure stepping in front of him.

"How many times have you watched that now?" asked Lexi T'Perro.

"Third and final time now. I think it's sunk in." Scott replied.

They were in the med bay of the Vadazar, one of the many arks in the Andromeda initiative.

Scott had just recently been awoken from an almost 600 yearlong sleep in a cryo pod, with the ark having finally arrived at its destination, the Andromeda galaxy. Hailing from the Milky Way, the Andromeda Initiative had been a massive undertaking, an exhibition to explore and perhaps even colonize the Andromeda galaxy. The idea for the Initiative had first been put forward by the Arkanes, an insect like race best for their creation of the multi species super soldier program called the Helldivers. With the finest training, technology, weapons, and massive advanced suits of armour, the Helldiver were considered the finest soldiers in the galaxy, or the Milky Way at least.

Scott was one of these soldiers. He and his sister, Sara Ryder had joined their ranks a few years before the Initiative had been proposed.

All around the med bay various scientists and doctors, all of different races were tending to the others being awoken from cryo. They too with a various different species.

Unlike the other races in the Initiative that had made the journey in their own arks, the Helldivers shared theirs with the Arkanes. From the very beginning, the Vadazar (named after the first unofficial Helldiver, Vadazar Zartrack) had been intended as the Arkane ark. At the time there had still been debate over whether the Helldivers should be sorted into arks by species due to them being from various races.

In the end however, the decision had instead been made for the Helldivers to all make the journey in the same ark, regardless of species. After all, the Helldivers were a symbol of unity.

This was a primary reason why the Vadazar was twice the size of any other ark. Not only did it have to carry 20,000 Arkanes, but it also carried 20,000 Helldivers and its own factory for building more.

"So many people think it gets easy from here." Said Lexi, returning Scott's thoughts to the task at hand.

"Even if it doesn't, we'll be ready." he said calmly.

"I hope so."

"You don't sound so sure."

"Word came down, the Pathfinder wants you mission ready within the hour."

"Why? What's going on?"

"He didn't say."

Pathfinders were tasking with the job of locating a suitable planet for their race. In a way, they essentially served as leaders until they were no longer needed.

The Pathfinder for the Vadazar was both an Arkane and a Helldiver. Veelak Kharasall, not only a respected Helldiver soldier, but also the mentor of both Scott and Sara. And even before that he had also mentored their father, Alec Ryder.

Alec Ryder though was not with them. He was not even on the Vadazar at all. Whilst Alec had indeed been a Helldiver, he wasn't anymore. Many years back, had dabbled an AI research, something the Arkanes were not that fond of. The Helldivers themselves did not use AI in their suits. At the very most, they only had really advanced suit computers. The sole function of these computers were to help manage and monitor the suits of armour of a Helldiver in order to make things easier for its user.

What's more, Alec's AI research concerned advanced AI, ones that weren't bound by restrictions. This, the Arkanes were completely against. Not because they did not shy away from the ever growing evolution of technology, but because they knew AI's were dangerous. The ideas also that Alec seemed to propose only further made them wish to discharge him from the Helldivers, his research as proof.

Finally though they had no choice when it was found that Alec had tampered with his suit. Though Helldivers were permitted to modify their armour, the changes they were allowed to make were only cosmetic ones such as appearance personalization. Attempting to modify the suit's internal systems, especially deep layer ones, however was completely illegal.

Alec had been immediately dishonourably discharged as a result and had been forced to surrender his armour.

When the Arkanes proposed the Initiative however, they did come to the decision to make Alec the human Pathfinder, as they could not think of anyone else better suited for the role. They had made it clear from the beginning however it was not reinstatement.

Lexi finished her final evaluation of Scott and walked up to a nearby console.

"Right, your vitals look good. Just one more thing to check before I clear you. Let's make sure your AI comm channel is working." She said.

There was a temporary pause.

"EDI, are you receiving?"

Another pause followed before a blue hologram appeared in front of Lexi. The hologram was humanoid in appearance, and female. Thought it seemed time it was clearly not human, but more like a robot with a very realistic human like face.

"Loud and clear, Dr T'Perro." The AI said. "Comm channel to Scott Ryder is online."

Lexi turned to Scott who had also turned to face the Asari. He seemed somewhat surprised at the appearance of this AI.

"Scott, this is EDI, the Helldiver and Vadazar AI."

"Hello, Scott Ryder." Said EDI.

"I thought all the arks had that SAM AI." Said Scott.

It was true, all the other arks had a different AI known as SAM. But not the Vadazar. As it had been said before, the Arkanes did not trust AIs. When the SAM AI had bene proposed, the Arkanes had outright refused to allow it due to how advanced it was, how much freedom it had and the fact that it required a direct implant in the body for connection. What's more, Alec had been part of the AI's creation.

The Arkanes had ultimately allowed the other ark species to use it, but had continued down their own path. Instead, they had used EDI as their AI.

EDI was first created by an organization called Cerberus, an enemy of the Helldivers. An intervention from Shepard however had led to EDI switching sides and had joined the Helldivers cause. Being able to keep an eye on the AI directly, the Arkanes had eventually grown to trust EDI, especially after she had helped Shepard take down a race known only as the Collectors.

Unlike SAM, EDI had safeguards to keep her in check and even her connection to the Helldivers was only through comm channels. She had never any direct link to a Helldiver or their suit. Not that having that in the first place would do her much good anyway. The Helldivers had enough defences, firewalls and system blocks to prevent hacking of any kind that attempting to access the suit would've essentially been suicide for her.

Lexi finished the exact same explanation to Scott.

"Anyway, now that your comm channel is online, you should be good to go." She said.

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Though you may wish to hang around. Your sister's just coming out of cryo now."

She indicated over to a nearby pod that was in the process of being defrosted and opened.

"Always helps to see a familiar face." Scott shrugged.

Within five minutes, the pod was open. Sara Ryder stirred as she slowly awoke. As her vision cleared he could make out the shape of heads looking down on her. She then heard a voice that she recognized quite easily.

"Welcome to the future, miss." Scott said in jokingly deep and sarcastic tone.

"Hey, Scott. Glad to see 600 years hasn't taken away your sense of humour." Sara smiled as she hugged her bother.

"How you feeling?" Lexi asked, beginning her scan.

"Still cold, but nothing serious." Sara simply shrugged.

"That's what all you Helldivers say."

"We're super soldiers, what do you expect?" Scott chuckled.

Two minutes passed as Lexi evaluated Sara. Finally, she cleared her as well.

"Alright, you're both clear for duty." She finished.

A sudden loud creaking noise echoed through the med bay, grabbing everyone's attention.

"What was that?" Scott asked cautiously.

The whole place suddenly shook violently causing everyone to lose their balance. Right before they could hit the ground however, they suddenly found themselves floating in mid-air.

"What's going on?"

"Gravity systems offline. Hold one moment." Said EDI.

A small shake followed and the gravity reset. Everyone fell back onto the floor along with anything else that hadn't been strapped down.

"You okay?" Scott asked.

Sara nodded as she helped Lexi up.

At that moment, a female came from the speakers.

"This is the Pathfinder, mission teams continue preparations. Ryders, report to the bridge."

"You'd better get moving. We can handle things here." Said Lexi.

The two Ryders simply nodded and made their way to the bridge.

The atmosphere on the bridge was just as tense with everyone busy at stations assessing what had happened.

The Arkanes were a race that definitely stood out compared to other sentient life forms in the Milky Way. They were only sentient race that came close to insects. In fact, their faces alone resembled an Earth Mantis. Unlike Mantises though, they had much smaller eyes, almost to the point of having more human like eyes. These eyes were also more to the front of their heads, unlike on a mantis were they were at the back.

Though some mistake them for being just as fragile as an insect, they were anything but. Though their skin did not look it, it was actually very tough. If someone tried to stab them with a knife for example, it'd take at least two hits and that would be just to draw blood.

They were a very physically strong race. Nowhere near as strong as Krogan, but stronger than the average human. And it certainly showed. Physique wise, they were quite well built. Broad shoulders, a definite v shape in their backs and arms that while not considered huge, were enough to look strong.

Even the females were just as well built. In fact, body wise, it was difficult to tell genders apart. The only features that differentiated the females was that they tended to be a few inches shorter and also had more smoother and slightly smaller heads, whereas the males usually had rougher and larger heads with a few ridges.

The Arkanes did not technically have feet. Instead they had another pair of hands as feet. Given also that they had two thumbs on their hands, this seemed to work well for them. It did also mean that Arkanes could potentially hang upside down from a ceiling if they had something to grab onto. Popular superstitions were that they could walk on walls, but that wasn't technically possible. They could if there railings or something to grab onto though, but smooth surfaces were impossible.

Stood in the centre of everything was the Vadazar's captain, Malak Draanok.

"Report."

"Damage sustained, but appears minor at best." One of the crew replied.

"Any casualties?" Malak asked.

"None to report. Minor injuries at very most. All cryo pods remain intact."

"That was too close."

At that moment, the doors opened again and in stepped the Pathfinder. Veelak Kharasall was just as the Ryder remembered her. Dark green skin, scar over her left eye, a mandible missing on the left of her face, and a birthmark on her neck which she sometimes covered with a scarf. At 400 years old she was definitely a veteran by the standards of any race.

"What's our situation, Captain?" she asked.

"Minimal damage at most. We got lucky." Malak replied.

"What's our position?"

"We're not sure yet. Sensors are still recalibrating…" a crew member replied. "There. We have telemetry."

There was a long pause. The crew member seemed shocked as he looked at his instruments.

"Captain… I don't know how to tell you this… but we're way off course."

"What do you mean?"

"We're not even in the right system."

"What?!"

"How the hell did this happen?!"

"I honestly don't know, captain. But somehow we've come out in the Eriksson system."

A long silence fell over the bridge. It was one for them to be off course to the point of not being lined with their destination, but to be so off course that they were in the wrong system altogether…

"Captain, we're picking up something on the sensors." One of the crew interrupted, breaking the silence. "It's a ship."

As their course altered around the cloud (or whatever it was) it revealed a very surprising sight.

"No, its… it's an ark. Captain… it's the Hyperion."

Sure enough, there was the human ark.

"My god."

"What happened to it?"

"Must have hit this dark energy cloud like we did. Only their ark isn't as tough."

"Certainly doesn't look in good shape."

"The ark's sustained heavy damage, multiple systems are offline, engines are damaged… It's practically stranded."

"Any life signs?"

"Unknown yet."

"Captain, we're getting signal from the Hyperion. They've got us on their sensors and are trying to contact us."

"Put them through."

"Yes, sir."

An image of the Hyperion's bridge appeared on the screen in front. Close up to the screen was a human woman. Scott and Sara recognized her as Captain Dunn, captain of the Hyperion.

"This is Captain Draanok of the Vadazar, we're receiving your signal and have your ark in sight." Malak said.

"Thank god. We need immediate assist. Our ark's been damaged by this cloud and we're stranded until we can repair It." said Dunn.

"We can dock with your ark and help with repairs. Also get you away from this cloud." Said Malak.

"Thank you, Captain."

As the two arks docked, most the Hyperion's crew had been brought aboard to be treated for injuries and trade supplies.

Dunn then came aboard as well. Following behind her was none other than Alec and his second whom Scott remembered was Cora Harper, having met her just prior to the ark launch.

"I can't tell you how grateful we all are. If you hadn't shown up…" said Dunn.

"Why are you even here? As I recall, this wasn't the system your ark was meant to arrive in." Alec asked.

"Even we don't know. Somehow our ark ended up way off course." Sara replied.

"Well it's fortunate you did. You've probably saved a lot of lives today." Said Cora.

"Captain, the arks are clearing the cloud. We have a visual. You're gonna want to see this." A voice said over the speakers.

Returning to the bridge, everyone found themselves gazing upon an unwelcome sight. Ahead of them lay a planet, and the cloud looked worryingly as though it had infected it or something.

"My god." Dunn said in shock. "Is that… our golden world?"

"That's habitat 7. New earth, if we're lucky." Said Alec. "All our long range scanners told us it was in the green zone, perfect for human settlement."

"What happened to it?" Cora asked rhetorically.

"Are you sure about those scans?" Scott asked.

"It's a good question." Said Dunn.

"Things can change, it's been 600 years." Alec simply replied.

"EDI, what can you tell us?" Veelak asked.

"The energy from the phenomenon is dampening sensors. Current conditions are unknown." EDI replied.

There was a pause before Alec spoke.

"We're stranded for now until our ark's fixed. In the meantime, we need to know if this place is safe harbour."

"You're going down there?" Veelak asked in surprise.

"Like I said, we've nothing else to do until our arks repaired. Might as well make use of the time." Said Alec. "I'm not asking your own team to join us, Veelak. But we'd certainly benefit from your help."

"A fair point." Veelak sighed. "I'll have own my team ready in a few minutes."

"Harper, the rest of the team should be awake by now. Have them ready in five." Said Alec.

"Yes, sir."

With that, Alec and Cora both left.

"A stubborn one, isn't he." Said Dunn.

"Your guess is as good as ours. We may be related, but I still haven't figured him out." Said Scott.

"I understand your last meeting with him was... unpleasant."

"That's putting it mildly." Said Sara, a hint of bitterness in her voice.

"Anyway, we'll be joining them on the ground. Get suited up." Said Veelak.

"Roger that."

As Scott finished securing his helmet in place, he took a moment to move around to make sure there wasn't any stiffness anywhere while his suit finished diagnostics.

Scott hadn't don't too much in terms of customizing his armour. There were however several noticeable additions he'd made. Chief among them was the scarf he wore around his neck and the cape on his back. Other minor additions were a few extra ammo pouches, a knife sheathed on his chest, and an antenna used to better monitor outside atmosphere.

It was fair to say he had a definite explorer like look to him.

"Armour still functioning?" Sara asked, finishing her own diagnostics.

Sara meanwhile had a different look which better suited her class. Whilst Scott was a soldier class, Sara was an engineer. She worse various different pieces of equipment on her armour. Most noticeable were the deployable turrets on her back, a folded up drone strapped to her belt, various grenades on her belt, arms, shoulders and legs, small ammo chances which she could deploy in combat, and a flame thrower mounted internally into her right gauntlet.

Internally, as an Engineer Sara also had an enhanced shield capacitor, a slightly more sophisticated omni tool, and a factory overclocked suit computer, enabling her to work a bit faster.

"Like I only wore it yesterday." Scott replied.

"All primary systems online. Clear to proceed." Said the voice of the suit's computers.

Scott couldn't help but notice the occasional glances Cora was giving them as she finished putting on her own gear.

"You know we can see you staring, right, Harper?" Sara said.

"Sorry. I've just… never seen a Helldiver in the flesh before." Cora apologised, slightly embarrassed at being caught.

"First time for everything." Scott joked, causing Sara to snigger slightly.

With the suit up complete, they now began equipping their weapons.

Scott being a soldier of course had no shortage of variety in his loadout.

A traditional M-76 Revenant assault rifle, ever so slightly modified by the Helldivers with two drum magazines, thus increasing the ammunition count to a very high number, an added scope for aiming, a laser pointer for extra aiming, certain materials swapped out for lighter ones, a grenade launcher attachment and a barrel attachment which could also function as a silencer if need be.

An M-13 Raptor sniper rifle with the same modifications, and an N7 Hurricane as his sidearm.

Sara meanwhile, who preferred to stay light due to the heavy equipment she needed to carry, stuck to X-5 Ghost, an M-12 Locust SMG and an M-5 Phalanx pistol.

Having a melee weapon was also required for all Helldivers. Even if they didn't use it that much, it was compulsory for them to carry at least some kind of physical melee weapon.

In Scott's case, he'd gone for a standard issue sword. Short in length for practical carrying and ideally designed for close quarter fighting.

Sara meanwhile had a silver tonfa baton. Whilst not lethal on its own, it did have a retractable blade inside should she ever have the need to do more than simply damage.

"Quite a lot firepower for a Pathfinder team." Said Cora observantly.

"Standard procedure for all Helldivers, explorers or no. We don't plan on using them." Said Sara.

"Then why bring that much?" Cora asked.

"Better to have something and not need it, then to need something and not have It." said Scott.

Cora couldn't' help but smile as she agreed with that.

"Truer words were never spoken."

As the Helldiver dropship left the Vadazar's docking bay, Scott and Sara finally got a glimpse of the two arks together. The Hyperion's damage looked even worse form out here. What's more, they got an even bigger look at the energy cloud both arks had hit.

"That cloud is huge." Said Sara

"Sensors appear to register it as an unstable mass of dark energy." Said EDI.

"Hold tight, we're getting some turbulence." The pilot said as the dropship started to shake a bit. Scott and Sara

"Gravity anomalies detected." Said EDI.

"We're clear, accelerating to cruising speed."

For a moment, the shuttle was bathed in an orange glow as it entered the planet's atmosphere. When it finally cleared though, they found themselves looking upon a planet that looked nothing like what they'd expected.

"Holy shit." Said Scott.

"Shuttle 2, are you seeing this?"

"Affirmative. Doesn't look liveable to me." Said Sara.

"Stay on course to the landing sight." Said Veelak.

A further surprise then greeted them as they floated past several rocks just hovering in mid-air.

"Errr, mountains are floating?" Sara asked, making sure she wasn't the only one seeing this.

Then they caught sight of something else. What looked like some kind of man made structure was visible in the distance.

"What's that?"

"That has to be advanced engineering." Said Sara.

"Hyperion, this is the Pathfinder, we've got evidence of an advanced civilization." Alec said over the comm.

"Has anyone seen us?" Scott asked cautiously.

"What if they're not friendly?" Sara asked with concern.

"Keep that talk to yourself." Said Veelak. "We stick to protocol. Do not fire unless fired upon."

The dropship suddenly shook so violently it caused Scott and Sara to nearly fall over.

"What the he…"

"Lightning strike!" the pilot yelled as the dropship shook again.

The door was then suddenly ripped off as the dropship began spinning out of control, the pulling force pulling Sara out.

"SARA!" Scott yelled as he managed to grab onto something.

As he tried to reach for her hand however, the dropship shook again causing both of them to fall right out. Scott lost sight of Sara as he tried to steady himself. He attempted to activate his jump jet, but it didn't respond.

"Jump jet malfunction."

"NOT NOW!"

Scott could only hope and pray in his head as the ground kept getting closer and closer…

To be continued...

Hope you liked the new take I've put on this. I'm just getting started. Until the next one!