A Krogan misplaced: Chapter 1
Crash site of the "Turning Wheel" - Former Bicentennial Park - Sydney
As Urdnot Wrex heaved the elcor's corpse onto the pile of dead sapients, the titanic being appearing serene even in death, he ran his mind through what he had recovered. It had been the work of almost a full Tuchankan day to systematically search through the one hundred and seventeen corpses. After depriving them of what few goods they'd possessed in life, he had divided them into two piles.
The majority of the unfortunate passengers and crew the Turning Wheel had aboard when she went down were going to be left to the side of the cargo pod. Once he ran out of food the corpses would suffice for a time, he could even eat the turians if it became necessary, though privately he dreaded the gastric troubles that would come afterwards, it was still better than dying.
The exception to that were the children. Four young asari, one barely old enough to have begun walking. Fifteen turians, most barely out of the egg. The quarian, who was just slightly too short to be an adult. And a single salarian, it's horns just starting to emerge from it's skull, the wide eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
The children he would bury, it wouldn't be in the custom of their races, indeed he suspected not one of the passengers would appreciate being buried in krogan style, with gifts to satiate and pass by Kalros the everliving. He would sing what little of the great loresong he knew, the chants that would go on for a day and a night, with the bodies only being completely buried after that was done. He would ask the ancestors of Urdnot to guide their shadows into the next realm, and perhaps they would answer him.
Wrex knew none of that could happen until he'd dealt with the natives. And that was where his "gifts" would come in.
The complete tally of everything he'd gathered was less than he had hoped. But reentry would destroy most equipment so it wasn't exactly a surprise. Fourteen omni-tools, of which only three were unsecured and thus accessible, six sets of turian armour, of which seven were incomplete and three had spare parts. Twenty seven phaestons, because turians apparently felt paranoid even on a transport ship. Which Wrex personally approved of, but there were such things as limits. In any case, truthfully it was more like six phaestons, as twenty one would be apart of his gifts to the children.
There were however, several items he wished to keep for himself. A talon dagger, something he could actually use his biotics with. A disciple shotgun, hand made by the steelshape clans of Thessia, and more powerful even than his Graal, more useful as well, given that it would never run out of ammo.
But his greatest find by far had been on the elcor. The mercenary had been carrying all his belongings on his person, and while clothing and scorched weaponry were useless to Wrex, the elcor had something of infinitely greater value.
A complete omni-forge. A small version to be sure, not capable of crafting tanks or complex blueware, but still his single most important find. With the omni-forge at his disposal he could make nearly anything he could remember. Numerous weapons, advanced technologies the natives wouldn't have access to for generations. It would be something that, provided he could actually talk to them and wasn't killed on sight, would keep him useful in the long term.
The only problem...was that much of what it could create required eezo for components. Wrex didnt know how much eezo was on the planet, but it probably wasn't a great amount. He only required minuscule amounts to actually make components, after all he could melt just about anything into omnigell with the forge. But the eezo problem remained. After mining the damn stuff, the only large amounts in nature tended to be in... tended to be in the bodies of biotics.
Wrex looked at the pile of asari corpses.
The pile of corpses remained still.
Wrex looked to the omni-forge, and then back to the pile of asari bodies.
Wrex nodded.
32 Earth Hours Later
The natives sat around the table wrex had assembled from the elcor's armour. They were curious creatures, curious because they were near identical to the asari. The shape of the face, the overall body structure, ancestors even the smell, all were uncannily similar to the asari. Wrex was personally glad that they seemed to have a similar temperament, though perhaps slightly more violent, considering they'd brought weapons to a meeting. That was almost krogan actually. The only unusual thing about them was the copious and styled fur on their heads. The fur was styled in different patterns as before, and it probably meant something to the strange aliens but the subtle cultural differences were lost on Wrex.
Four of the natives sat directly in front of him. Each of them had pointed to themselves before speaking a word or two in their strange language. Wrex was lucky he'd been correct about that particular assumption when the female "Ruth" had introduced herself.
Unusually, it was the female who seemed to be the greatest soldier amongst them, possibly she was a battlemaster of some fashion given that what he assumed were the males had been taking orders from her. The other three humans in front were either scientists or their equivalent of shamen. Wrex thought the bald one with the darker skin was the most likely candidate for being a shaman, considering that he was the one which had made the most progress in breaching their language gap.
His omni-tool had been surprisingly useful for that purpose, the auto-translator it possessed had analysed the native language as best it could. Superficially it was most similar in structure to the Axxiostch dialect of T'volian volus. Which considering Wrex actually spoke common T'Volian was quite useful. The natives had been quite helpful after they grasped what he was doing, setting up a primitive screen, not a haptic one though so the quality was awful, which played their language, sometimes the language was followed by picture of the natives undertaking various actions, sometimes by objects. It'd been nearly half an hour, but he felt confident to actually attempt to speak something in their tongue. If the translator program messed up though, he'd strangle the ancestor cursed salarian which had designed it. Once he got off planet of course.
Clearing his throat, he glanced at the Korogorish script, slow enunciating the spelled words.
"Greetings, can you understand me?"
Almost as one, the natives attention focussed on him again. The natives began babbling amongst themselves in their high pitched tongue. It wasn't as bad as a salarian or turian talking, and certainly more graceful than that of the elcor, but it was still vaguely off-putting. None of the clearness and tone differentiation of proper Korogorish.
After a minute of conversing, the one Wrex had thought likley to be a shaman spoke, his words were far slower than previous, perhaps to prevent any misunderstandings.
"Yes we can understand you. Your name is Wrex?"
Well that was a relief. Maybe when he got off planet Wrex wouldn't strangle the salarian. Ah who was he kidding, he'd strangle the liphar for selling such poor omni-tools anyway. Though now that he had a basic grasp of the natives language, it might be prudent to ask the strange furred asari some questions about themselves.
"My name Urdnot Wrex. What your...species name?"
This time it was "Ruth" who answered, her voice unlike most females, was actually of a higher pitch than the male. Or maybe he just had the genders mixed around and Ruth was a male of the species.
"Our species, human. What your species?"
Human. Wrex rolled the word about in his head for a moment. A interesting name, close enough to krogan. The language itself was easy enough, helped by the fact that it didn't have the number of intonations required for Korogorish. More importantly though...it was time to introduce the humans to their first contact. As Nahkmor Quarn had done with the salarians, Urdnot Wrex would do with the humans.
"I am krogan"
Intercepted Television Broadcast - 6th June 2041
The announcement would be taking place in front of the U.N building, the flags of over two hundred nations flapped in the breeze, a symbol of the unity of Earth. The gallery was filled to the brim, stretching even onto the streets and the floors of nearby buildings. Tens of thousands of people, reporters with their innumerable cameras pointing at the recently set up stage, ordinary citizens of New York and a thousand other metropoli, delegates from every single nation on the planet, including quite a few not recognised as such by others.
Gordon McDonald was but one such reporter. He'd been the American correspondent for his news network for almost five years now, reporting on the events in a timely manner, but hardly doing anything of actual importance. Now though? This might well be the most important recording of his life. He'd applied makeup, where normally he wouldn't, ensured his voice would be clear for when he spoke, gotten to the shooting sight within five minutes of its announcement so he could pick a prime spot. Anne was making the final adjustments on the camera, her Russian features crinkled in concentration. Normally she'd be making some remark about how people "texted" in her day, instead of all that "fancy schmancy" social media that news reports were often done on, but not today.
Around him, Gordon could see hundreds of others doing the same thing, adjusting their cameras, double checking their equipment. They all knew the importance as well. For the news industry, today would be their finest hour, weather be damned.
It took a few seconds for the crowd to realise the woman stepping onto the makeshift stage was the Secretary General of the United Nations. When they did however, the entire block went completely silent. You could have heard a mouse.
The short Uzbek lady reached the podium in good time, followed by a group of security, scientists and other U.N representatives. Upon reaching the podium, the Secretary General pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket, placing it upon the stand, she began to read, a hundreds of different translators on the ground making the speech available in all the languages of planet Earth.
"Four days ago, our world was changed forever, an age old question was kindly answered. We are not alone. An extraterrestrial craft crash landed upon our world. It saddens me, both as a representative of Humankind, and as a sapient being to report, that with a single exception, the entirety of the crew and passengers of that craft did not survive the crash. But thankfully, one passenger upon that craft did survive. Yesterday, a team of the finest diplomats and scientists our planet has to offer, made contact with this survivor."
At this audible murmurs of excitement began to appear from the crowd. The Secretary General raised her hands, and a single picture appeared on the massive screen behind her. A group of people stood outside what anyone who payed attention to the news would recognise as the crashed craft. But on their left, a massive lizardlike being stood in what looked to be a spacesuit of some kind. The alien was shaking hands with one of the people.
The Secretary General kept her arms raised, before yelling out to the world, a sentence which would change history.
"His name is Urdnot Wrex! And he comes in PEACE!" AUTHORS NOTE:
At around 6:42 today I realised that from three brief and relatively swiftly thought out chapters, I had managed to get three (And a bit) pages worth of reviews. I can't tell you guys how much it means that (At current count) 108 people thought chapter 3 alone was worth liking. As such, I am bestowing upon thee, as a gift of thanks, another chapter.