Hello once again everyone. I am so, so sorry for all the delays and holdups with this thing. Writer's block, a really lousy home life and many a work prospect failing to pan out for me have led to numerous delays. Hopefully, I can get things back on track and get a regular update schedule going again. Wish me luck in that regard. I sincerely hope that this chapter is somewhat good, and I promise you guys that there will not be a multi-month long wait between this one and chapter three.

Hope you all enjoy it, and thank you so much for both your patience with my upheaving life and for taking the time to read this story.

Special thanks to Swordsman289 and Boondock Jake of for their help with this chapter, and to my good friends Lurker, Atlan, Orsai, and Spartan303 on for their help as well. Hats off to you, gentlemen, really appreciate the help.

Chapter Two: Discoveries

"How long ago did it start?" Angela asked as she hopped up into the skimmer next to Arden. She fastened her safety restraints as she finished adjusting her cloak.

"About five minutes before I came and got you. The sentries reported it just as soon as it started to happen," The older man said as he engaged the skimmer's drive systems, causing it to shoot off down the manmade alley.

"Any indication as to why they may have opened up now?" The Lombax asked.

"That's a negative. Team's moving into position, once security's ready to go, we're going in." He looked over at her, and even though the mask he swore, she swore she could practically see his orange skinned face splitting into a wide grin. "I wanted you to come in with us. You've put as much into this project as anyone else… only right you be there for what might be the big payoff."

"Thanks." Angela said with a nod. "Let's just hope it doesn't spit out some sort of extradimensional evil bent on conquest and-or food." She said.

"Yes, that would put a bit of a damper on things," Arden said, tapping a finger against the chin of his filtration mask. "Though I don't think we've seen any hieroglyphics or the like that attempt to universally say 'Eldritch Horrors Contained Within, Do Not Open.'"

Both of them broke out into a laugh at that. Angela felt her adrenaline pulsing through her system, dregs of fatigue being swept away like grains of sand before an ocean tide. It was all she could do not to rub her hands together in glee. Even if it turned out to be nothing, the sheer thrill of exploring something where no one had set foot in who knew how long was enough to make her forget the months of sweat, toil, and frustration that it had taken to get this far.

Arden piloted the skimmer out of the residential area of the camp, turning it down a hill and sending the hovercraft straight towards the object of the dig. The tomb… facility, whatever it truly was, was sticking up out of the sand, a stark black object that contrasted so heavily with the grayish sand and dust around it. There were some dunes around it; evidence of the massive excavation that had been necessary to bring it back up to the surface after a ship's long-range sensors had picked up something buried in the wastes of Argus IV. The door dominated the front of the structure, easily ten meters tall and a full two meters thick, the yawning portal now stood open, the angled archway that it was set into opened up like the mouth of some colossal beast. Angela frowned behind her mask, hoping against hope that that image wasn't prophetic.

And if it was, hopefully, what would be going into the ruin with them would be enough to deal with it. Captain Fidas nodded towards Arden as the team leader brought the skimmer up next to him, and disengaged the primary drive. Angela quickly undid her restraints and double-checked that her lancer pistol was in place, along with her datapads and scanners.

"Glad you two could join us," the security leader said. He was a Raxian, a bipedal amphibian race that was identifiable by their large, bulging eyes and long, muscular bodies. Standing just a hair over two meters tall, his form wrapped up in Megacorp issued duraplast armor, it was easy to see that he wasn't part of a research team. "Nothing's come out so far, but that doesn't mean that it could be the same inside." He gestured over towards the rest of his team, a collection of three dozen aliens of varying species, and a pair of large class IV combat drones.

"What do you think we might deal with as far as security measures? Assuming that some sort of defenses might have come online?" Angela asked as she snapped a digital holorecorder onto the side of her helmet.

"Not a clue," Fidas said with a shrug. "Sentry guns, hidden traps, stasis fields designed to trap intruders. Could be any number of things." He looked over at the class IVs. "We're going to be sending in the 'bots first. They can take more abuse than the rest of us. Easier to replace too."

"We need to be cautious even with that," Arden said as he grabbed up his own equipment. "There might be some defenses in there designed to only trigger in an organic presence."

Angela nodded. It wasn't unheard of for ancient ruins, built in the early days of technology, to have defenses specifically attuned to biological aspects. A robot could go in unharmed. A 'wet', though, would set the defense off.

Once the research team had what they needed, Arden gave the orders, and the group proceeded inside.

Lear's scream ended as he slammed into a metal floor. Instinctively he rolled away and came up on a single knee, his electronic eyes scanning about as he tried to assess the situation. His scanners began transmitting microseconds later, showing him the layout of the area he was in. For a moment, he thought his hearing was malfunctioning. A split-second diagnostic indicated it was fine; the problem was that there was nothing to hear. Not even a general distress call over the comm. channels. The typical dull blue lighting of an Alkathar facility was displayed on the screen in front of him, and he growled as he moved his ASPR-27 around, shifting up into a squat. Room looked similar to the one that he'd been in originally, save that this one had a strange circular pattern that he was now standing on. He gave another quick looked around, and frowned as he realized there was no sign of the Guardian.

What had happened, he wondered to himself. The artifact had been damaged… that pulling sensation and then… and then nothing. The backs of his organic eyes were itching and he grunted a bit in discomfort. The nanobots in his body were already hard at work repairing the damage caused by the grav missile.

He moved forward to the only other familiar object that he could see: the body in front of him, the one that he'd slammed into as the artifact had malfunctioned. The heavier Type-25 Powered Assault Armor and the SLAG that was clutched in its grip confirmed what his IFF system was telling him: it was Mota. Lear shifted forward, his scanners focusing on the body. No pulse, no brainwave activity; and it was easy to see why. The heads-up-display was indicating a large number of shattered bones and hemorrhaged organs. Mota had been pulverized by the concussion waves of the anti-tank missile that had detonated among his squad. He rolled the smaller alien over onto his back, remembering for a moment how eager the young man had been when he'd learned that his squad was going to have the "privilege" of working alongside a Revenant. Or at least what he thought was a Revenant. Lear shook his head and placed a hand against the helmet covering the Mobian's head.

"Rest easy, soldier. You did your duty to Empress and Empire." The words echoed inside of his helmet and sounded hollow. Corporal Mota Thareed was just one more name on an endless list of casualties.

Lear's left electronic eye flicked up to his ammo counter. Five rounds left in his current mag. He ejected the pulse rifle's magazine, catching it and slipping it into a pocket of his combat harness, before drawing out another one and slamming it back into the bottom of his gun's buttstock. The counter shot up to sixty-one, and Lear nodded to himself. Then he looked over Mota's body one more time. He reached down and snatched the FST-47 particle pistol and its holster of the dead man's left hip, quickly strapping it on. There were also a few grenades that he could use, spare power cells, things like that. Lear was like a vulture as he stripped the Corporal's body of useful weapons, ammo, and external medical equipment, as well as his "Wasp-Nest," the tube of insect sized reconnaissance drones that were issued to squad leaders.

He took a moment to slip his pulse rifle over his back, before Lear checked his second "primary" weapon. The LRAM laser rifle snapped together easily. Its power capacitors seemed good and the optics were functional; it was still intact. He let out a breath he hadn't known that he'd been holding, and folded the stock back against the body, slipping it over his back before his eyes focused down on Mota one more time. The SLAG that he'd carried was far too bulky to fit into the magnetic harnesses and combat webbing that Lear wore over his power armor, but it wasn't completely useless to him. He reached out and slipped his hand into the carrying handle of the massive backpack that was clipped to the rear of Mota's jetpack. A glance down at the counter on the side revealed that it still had about sixty-two percent of its ammunition in it. The Squad Level Automatic Gun and his own pulse rifle both fired the same 7x55 millimeter kinetic kill vehicle. No sense leaving such a valuable item here.

Lear disconnected the ammo pack and held it easily in his left hand, but the sleeve that fed ammo into the weapon had taken a beating in the battle and refused to disconnect. Lear frowned and then simply tore what he could off of the gun and secured it to the pack. He drew his pulse rifle with his right hand and held it as easily as one might carry a pistol. His organic eyes were almost back up and running and his gaze focused on the door that led out of the chamber. Only one way to go it seemed. Advancing cautiously, he started forward.

Angela turned looked around as she entered the tunnel, her large eyes quickly adjusting to the change, while others around her were forced to switch on light amplification devices. In front of her, the two drones carefully advanced, muttering quietly among themselves, the large red optical lens on their 'heads' sweeping about. She looked down at the scanner that she was carrying. Air was breathable so far, and the temperature in this area was surprisingly mild, despite the heat from the desert just a few dozen meters away. Airborne particle count was low, and there seemed to be a very low power current running through the area. Evidence of an environmental control in effect?

She focused the device on the walls, looking for any indication of hidden compartments or the like. None to be found so far, though the material seemed to be the same one that the doors had been composed of, so even if there had been some sort of hidden compartment, she wasn't certain how they would have managed to get into it. It wasn't like they could get the Earth-Cracker in here. She suppressed another growl. This was all the same as what the probes had told them. Angela frowned. What was the secret? What was this place?

The two Class IV drones stopped abruptly as they rounded a corner and Fidas held up a hand. "Report!" he hissed.

"Light source ahead. Seems to be set into the walls," the first one said, leveling its large arm-cannon. "No sign of activity beyond that. Motion sensors are clear."

"Move up, weapons on stun." The Captain's voice crackled over the radio, and his men hastily complied.

The large group slowly advanced, drones in the front, then Fidas and the first group of soldiers, scientists in the middle, and a half dozen in the rearguard. Angela kept her eyes shifting about, partially to look for clues, partially to remain on alert in case something nasty came her way. Eventually, she rounded the corner and got a good look at what the drones had described. There was a dull blue glow coming from the corners of the walls, floor, and ceiling. This was new, and she focused on it for a moment. The walls themselves seemed to be glowing, strangely enough. The subtle power current was also stronger here. Fascinating, she thought to herself. However, certainly whoever had built this place hadn't gone to such lengths to keep it shut up just to conceal some self-illuminating metal…

There was a roughly "Y" shaped area up ahead of them. The two outside branches curled down into the depths of the facility, while a third one, set in the center of the path, headed straight for what they'd tentatively dubbed the "main" chamber of the place. About two hundred meters around and maybe a third as tall, with perfectly smooth walls, its purpose remained as elusive as everything else about this place. The drones froze up again.

"Object detected ahead, origin unknown." The second one said, and Angela swore she heard a slight quaver to its voice. She shook her head, wondering who had programmed these things to feel fear.

Fidas looked back at Arden, and the research leader nodded. A few hand signals sent the group forward. In the sixty or so seconds that it took them to reach the chamber, Angela felt her heart start to flutter. She couldn't' see what it was, due to everyone being the way, but hopefully it would be something interesting. This place had been clean when they'd swept it with the probes. She suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and jerked her head around. The female Lombax narrowed her eyes, unable to shake the instinctive feeling that she was being watched by something. She cocked her head about, listening for something, moving the scanner around. Nothing. A sardonic part of her mind made a silent joke about ghosts, and she shook her head. Focus! She scolded herself. There was work to be done. She moved back up into position, aware that some members of the team were staring at her.

Then she was inside of the main chamber. The floor had the same strange blue glow as the corners of the corridors did, and there were a series of concentric circles in the exact center of the room that seemed to pulse and waiver. She barely noticed those, however. Instead, her eyes centered on what had to have been the "unknown object" the drones had mentioned. It looked like… could it be… a body?

For once forgetting caution and ignoring the looks that Fidas gave her, she strode forward, orienting her scanning device on the thing, double-checking to make certain that her holorecorder was still getting this. Scans weren't picking up life signs, but there was definitely something organic under that armor.

"It's organic… dead by the looks of it," she said, looking back up at the rest of the crew. A few of the security officers approached and took up position around the corpse, while a couple of them kept their weapons trained on it on the off chance that this was an elaborate game of opossum.

Arden approached as well, joining his colleague in looking over the body. "Unusual armor design," he muttered. "Not one of ours… or a member of the Argus IV planetary defense force…" he muttered quietly.

"Not like anything I've ever seen, either," Angela murmured as Arden stood up and activated a comm.

"Secondary team, we've got something. I need a grav stretcher, now. We've got a body to move," he said, excitement tingling in his voice. Then he turned to face the female Lombax. "Angela, once we manage to get the body out of that armor, I'm going to need you to have a look at it, see what you can get."

"Gotcha," she said quietly, continuing to look at the corpse in front of her. There had to be something she could use to identify it, right? Some form of distinguishing feature, something that she could use to try to figure who or what the individual was. There didn't seem to be much of anything. Plating seemed to be roughly the same color as the metal of the room, some round, black objects on the front of the helmet that she assumed were probably some sort of optics.

The only distinguishing mark on the armor seemed to be a small dragon, or a serpent… some type of reptile, on the left shoulder pauldron. It was obsidian in color and the creature seemed to be twisted around into a vertical infinity symbol. Rather curious; she wasn't aware of any pirate gangs or mercenary bands that used a sigil like that. She'd have to run a check, she thought, as she scanned the image into her datapad. She glanced over at the weapon that the body was clutching; something that was also like nothing she'd ever seen before. It was ugly, dark colored, seemingly armored, and about a meter long with a strange, broken feeder sleeve hanging off the right side.

"Just who were you?" she found herself whispering as she heard the echoing footsteps of the second team approaching. Hopefully, it would be a riddle that she would soon solve. For now, they had to press on, see if there was anything else that they could find in the depths of this place.

Lear grunted a bit as he curled upwards, hugging his body as close to the ceiling of this facility as he could. The position was awkward, uncomfortable, with the SLAG ammo pack hugged against his chest and his pulse rifle clutched on top of it, forcing him to 'crab walk' across the ceiling. Not that he had much of a choice. The corridor that he was in was maybe four meters tall and with the aliens constantly streaming in, if he didn't he stood a good chance of banging into one of the taller ones. That would be… awkward…

He growled again, wincing in pain as he struggled to control his mind. The minds of all the aliens were abuzz with activity, excitement. Foreign images and alien thought patterns assaulted his brain and it was a challenge to tune them out so he could hear himself think properly. At least his organic eyesight was beginning to return, though they still couldn't make out much more than colors and blurs. Still, if he kept going just a bit further, he might finally be able to teleport out of the facility. From there things would be relatively simple: recon and evaluate.

A second group of aliens rushed in, these ones bearing a gurney of sorts that hovered along the ground on some sort of antigravity repulsor lifts. He rounded a corner, and could at last see daylight. There were some aliens still bunched up around the entrance and he zoomed in on them. Varying species, it looked like. Hard to tell with those environmental suits on. Predominantly bipedal, multiple builds and heights. Active scans caused the suits to look as though they'd been peeled away, revealing their wearer's biological structures. They didn't match any species that he knew of, Imperial, or otherwise. The lack of comm. chatter over the battle-net hit him again right then, an eerie silence that seemed almost oppressive. The pulse rate of his flesh-and-blood heart started to elevate and he let out a short, quick breath as he decided to risk it. He needed answers and he needed them now.

There was a sharp crack of air filling a void, and for a moment, Lear was in another world; another plane. A myriad of sparkling crystals glittered and shined around him. Then there was a pop, and he was standing on top of a fine layer of silt and dirt. He blinked and looked around, pulse rifle held steady as he looked to see if anyone had heard his teleport. No alarms being raised, no one acting suspicious. He might well have lucked out. He resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief. He was not in the clear. He decided to risk it and opened up his scanners a little more, searching for signals and transmissions.

Alien words and phrases bombarded him once again, with nary a trace of a familiar language. The battle net signal remained as dead as ever as well, and there were no relay satellites that he could lock onto. He knew that Vindicator had deployed some of those to ease the burden on the shipboard communication AIs. Combined with the fact that his T-28(I) power suit carried enough onboard sensors and other equipment to virtually double as its own telecommunications network, if there was anything within the system, he should have been able to pick it up. Lear found himself chewing on his lips.

"Oh dear…"

Just where in the hell had that artifact dumped him? He lowered his head and shook it. Nothing to do now but continue to observe the locals. If he followed one of them around enough, he might be able to make heads or tails of enough of their thoughts that he could start to understand them. He could always try a direct mind scan… but that ran a greater risk of revealing his presence. To say nothing of the fact that most sapients didn't much care for someone rummaging about in their head without permission.

He looked around the area, trying to get a feel for this place. Local ambient temperature was a hellish fifty-two degrees centigrade; there was zero moisture in the air. Classic desert terrain. He glanced up the side of the hill, noting the large array of uniform buildings, prefabs, by the looks of them. It was also very hard to miss the massive structure that had been pointed down at the Alkathar facility. Probably an excavation tool of sorts. These locals had probably dug up the depression that the facility was sitting in. The dunes around it looked entirely too uniform to be natural. He set the SLAG ammo pack down in the sand and squatted down, picking some of the dust up. It had a fine, smooth texture to it, and his thumbs were easily able to spread it through the palm of his gauntlet. A good wind could probably pick this stuff up and throw it quite a ways.

He looked back at the piece of equipment, noting that there were people and robots swarming over it, removing components and the like. Were these people packing up and getting ready to leave? Odd. Still, all the more important that he carefully observe them and plan his next move quickly. He let the silt pour out of his hand and started to move back over towards the group that was by the facility entrance. He spent the next few minutes trying to observe them, see if he could figure out who was in charge. Even if he couldn't speak the local dialect, there were still clues that one could use to figure that out. One of the smaller ones did seem to be gesturing about, taking readings off some computer and communicating with someone. He zoomed in, noting that there was a camera feed of sorts, probably from one of the teams inside. Feed seemed to indicate that it was from the main chamber, and from the looks of things, they were loading up Mota's body.

There was also a clear distinction between camp security and the researchers. He shifted his gaze to one of those security troops. Nice to see that they had brought some troops along with them. That was smart. Armor wasn't a familiar design, and the aliens seemed to be holding some sort of long-arm weapon. The design was unlike anything he'd seen before, either. A number of bulbous protrusions and cables came off the guns, and the "barrels" were a quartet of fins that narrowed down to an arrow-like point. Lear grunted in frustration, his eyes narrowing. Where in the name of Sol was he?

The soldier grit his teeth and let out a sharp breath inside of his helmet. Nothing to be done about that now. He had to adapt and survive, and keep his eyes peeled for anyone else, friendly or hostile, that might have been dumped on this place as well.

His eyes refocused on the entrance to the facility, noting a spike of activity around it and noticing that he'd been lost in his thoughts for several minutes. He cursed under his breath. He knew better than to do that, it was dangerous. Several dozen people began to emerge from within, along with the hover-stretcher that was carrying Mota's body. His eyes focused on two people in particular that seemed to be giving the orders. Both were dressed in the "standard" attire of the noncombatants. The shorter one seemed to be in charge, and was barking out orders in a chaotic sounding tongue. The taller one, the one about Lear's height (a second in command, perhaps?) gave similar commands and began to escort the body up the dunes towards the base camp. Lear's eyes focused on the taller one and began to follow from a discrete distance.

Angela blinked as she suddenly stared out across the desert. That feeling that she was being watched had returned with a vengeance. Perhaps it was just a result of a lack of sleep and the fading adrenaline? Her eyes narrowed regardless and she couldn't stop her hand from drifting down to her pistol. Damn her nerves. The fact that the rest of the place had been more or less deserted aside from the body just made it all the more irksome. A step forward, but the secret of the facility still remained tauntingly out of reach for the young scientist.

Still, there were some logical conclusions that they could draw from this event. First: at least part of the facility likely functioned as a teleportation receptor. Second: there was a very, very good chance that this teleporter was extremely long range. Of course, she wouldn't complete that conclusion until she had a chance to run tests on the genetics and biology of the dead soldier they'd found, but for now the facts did seem to suggest that it might have been extra-galactic in origin.

Her eyelids felt heavy, and she stumbled, barely catching herself. She'd have to go pop some stimulants before she proceeded any further. She did not want to try running the necessary tests on this fellow while bumbling about, half-asleep. This was her chance to keep this project going, and she was not about to let her own clumsiness screw it up. Her forced her hands to stop trembling as she tromped up the dunes and broke away from the main group, heading for her prefab.

"Get what you need together, Angela," she heard Arden suddenly speak into her communicator. "I'll try and see if we can get the body out of the armor by the time you get into the main lab."

"Thanks, Mr. Arden," she said quietly, shaking her head abruptly to try and wake herself up again. "I'll be along shortly. Just to let you know though…"

"I know, I know, you're not a coroner," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "You are, however, the closest thing we've got to one. And, given that we've got a potentially unknown alien species on hand, I believe that your biology and genetics background makes you much more qualified than the rest of the group to try and find out what we can about the fellow."

"Understood, sir. I'll be along just as quick as I can." She said as she ducked into her home. She sealed the airlock shut behind her, and waiting for the hiss of the sterilization units. They kicked in a moment later and after about thirty seconds, the inner door unlocked and she was able to proceed into her living quarters.

The system wasn't perfect, she thought as she looked at the dusty footprints that she hadn't bothered to sweep up from yesterday. Nevertheless, it still kept most of the dust and debris out of her home. She made her way back over towards the counter and quickly pulled the bottle back out. She tapped out a single pill, pulled her helmet off, and gulped it down. Seconds later, she could feel her fatigue wash away and she pivoted back around and headed back out.

Her hands trembled a bit as she stepped back outside. The fatigue might have been gone, but that sense of nervous anticipation remained with her. She smiled as she made her way towards the center of the base camp. This could be it, her chance to shine, her chance to prove this project was worth keeping…

As she moved quickly down the dusty "street", Angela Cross remained blissfully unaware that she had attracted a most unusual follower, which jumped from building top to building top as it trailed her to her destination.

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Okay, thank you everyone, for reading the story, and as I said before, I promise to be more timely with these updates from now on. That being said, feedback of any sort, constructive criticism especially, is welcomed. Thank you all so much, and until next time, please be safe, and have a nice day.