Chapter 9: Until the end

Yaesephir again, sorry for the delay, but I think I can't keep up the daily-update pace, because of reasons.

Someone asked via PN why I didn't make Joker part of the ESA, as it's most likely that they will be the ones to build the Normandy or at least help to develop it, and I find it hard to understand that the answer isn't obvious: Joker has no qualification whatsoever to be part of the ESA. He plays flight simulators and is good at it, but that's not enough to get into a space agency or to become a pilot, if he applied with only that it would most likely be remembered as the worst application they have ever received in this particular company.

Anyway, let's get back to the story, shall we?


/ Prof. Adrian Zeissner's point of view | eight days after the crash /

"I don't know, maybe you should check if their computer-systems are even based on binary. Maybe we are missing the message because we throw away a large percentage of the message by assuming that it's only coded in on-off-states? I mean they have six fingers, maybe they based their computers around that number."

Zeissner's colleague nodded.

"That's possible, I never thought about that. I'll try it, I just hope that we get some more people for the cryptography-department soon, this is way tougher than we thought, we still haven't decrypted a single byte of it."

After looking at his watch he turned around and walked out of Zeissner's office. Immediately the professor relaxed. He was lucky that he had found an idea that fast, if his colleague had stayed any longer he might have noticed what he was doing:

The department for cryptography had been working on the transmissions for several days now and still had no idea whatsoever on what exactly the aliens tried to tell them. They took way too long, and if he hadn't come up with the artificial digestive-system for his patients then they would most likely be starving already. But he couldn't afford any more delays, he had to know what this message contained, and that's why he had decided to take matters into his own hands.

That was when he decided to leak the transmissions to the public.

It was risky, there were only a few people in this facility that had access to the transmission-recordings, and with all the security-measures in place it was most likely that they would find out who released the information sooner or later, but he wouldn't allow his patients to die, just because some politicians were too incompetent to give them enough resources to decrypt the messages in time. And in the end they wouldn't be able to keep the transmissions secret forever anyway, so this way he could at least utilize the ingenuity of people around the world to speed things up a bit. He had collected all the necessary recordings and encrypted them, now he only had to pass the information along to newspapers all around the world and sites like Wikileaks.

He was uploading the files to an external FTP-server when a colleague had entered his office, complaining about how incapable his superiors were, and had almost caught him red-handed. Now that he was alone again, Zeissner quickly checked the upload and was pleased to find it already finished. He copied the address to the server and opened the websites for many large newspapers. A few moments later he had the email-addresses he needed and copied the link together with the explanation on what the files contained he had written earlier into the email. His finger hovered over the mouse when he moved the cursor over the submit-button. Now was his last chance to turn back, to keep it a secret. It would only take a small move of his hand to prevent himself ending up like most of the other whistleblowers before him, safe him from a life in prison or on the run from his own government, away from family and friends.

The professor hesitated for a bit. Then he clicked the left mouse-button and sent the email on it's way, sealing his own fate. If he had to end up in prison to safe the first aliens on earth from certain death, then that was a price he was willing to pay.

/ Shepard's point of view /

"You need to calm down, you are not patient enough, you have all the time in the world to make that shot, so steady your breath, then try again."

Johanna took a glance upwards to her instructor before turning her attention back to the scope of her gun. After she had arrived in the KSK training-camp the training had started almost immediately, and she quickly learned what was expected from people who applied to the special forces. Physical exercise harsh enough to make every single muscle fibre in her body tremble was followed by tasks that demanded extremely high precision, short breaks that even got interrupted from time to time to train them always to stay alert. Her training-plans were more or less preparations for worst-case scenarios, and nothing but worst case scenarios. Tasks included rigorous training like running 20 kilometers with 40 kilograms of baggage, just to arrive at a training-site where she had to disarm bombs within a short time limit. Shooting at the shooting range in standing position for several hours on increasingly distant targets without breaks or being allowed to sit down, climbing a mountain while carrying a wounded colleague, sneaking through corridors with extremely loud obstacles (glass on the floor, rusty doors, etc.), not a single thing she did on a daily basis was ordinary training, everything had to teach her several things at once, since they didn't have the luxury of time.

Today hadn't been any different. It had started at 5 am in the morning, they had blindfolded her and her companions, then taken her to an unknown location and dropped them off via helicopter. After they had found a way back to the camp they had to swim one and a half kilometers through a freezing cold river against the water current, just to arrive at their current objective: sharpshooting over a large distance.

Shepard still trembled, they hadn't given any of them anything to dry themselves, instead they had put them directly in front of their sniper-rifle and pointed towards the aim in the distance. Johanna had already missed her first two shots, so now she tried to calm down like her superior had instructed her. She looked through the scope and aimed directly at the silhouette of the mannequin, thankful that the rifles had been adjusted in advance, so that she didn't have to worry about the bullet-drop and instead simply had to stop her hands from shaking. She cross-hair wandered over the head of the figure and she started slowing down her breath, so that the amount of time between taking a breath and releasing it increased further and further. She fully concentrated, checked the position of the cross-hair a last time and exhaled. Then she pulled back her finger slowly, making sure that she wouldn't change the position of the gun by pressing the trigger too quickly. The blow-back was immense, but she was prepared, and a great feeling of satisfaction rushed through her whole body when the head of the mannequin exploded.

She slowly stood up and looked to her instructor, who simply nodded one time.

"Okay everyone, we are done here, let's head back to the camp, rest while you are in the trucks, training will continue when we arrive."

Shepard stumbled towards the trucks and entered it, confused when she didn't find any towels. Some of the other soldiers also looked a bit confused, but no-one said a word, their instructor would surely tell them what was going on in a minute. Johanna started rubbing her arms to warm herself up a bit, with moderate success.

They were already driving for five minutes when the instructor finally contacted them via radio.

"Some of you might wonder why there are no towels on your truck to dry yourself up, the answer is simple: Today we're going to train together with the frogmen, but we won't be doing any combat diving, instead this will be for building up trust between everyone here. Normally we train you guys so hard for months and forbid any contact to your families, that you have no other choice than to start building friendships, but we might not have time for that, so my superiors decided it would be best to take the quick route."

A few confused looks were exchanged inside the truck, how was training together with the combat divers supposed to help them in trusting each other? They didn't get to think too deeply about it as the instructor continued to explain:

"You remember how we train you guys to trust your guns? That in whatever situation you will always be able to rely on the gun in your hands to get you out of the situation? We'll do something similar today. All of you belong to the best of the best, you exceeded in any form of training in the army and that's why you were recommended to the KSK, or you had the guts to walk up to one of our instructors and demand to be taken into this training, or you somehow qualified to this group on a different way. But this superiority of yours will get you guys in trouble one day if you don't realize that every person around you now is just as competent – you are no longer surrounded by fat and lazy idiots who can't get shit done themselves, you're now surrounded by the elite. And that's why you have to trust these people around you with your lives. If any of you get's asked by any of those around you to immediately jump I want you guys to jump and then ask how high, anything less will eventually lead to not only your own, but the deaths of your whole group. If any of your fellow comrades asks you to look inside his gun's barrel then you will do it and trust him with your life that he has secured his gun. And if you are in trouble you will acknowledge that those around you would also put their lives on the line just to do whatever you tell them. And exactly this trust we will train today."

No-one in the truck spoke a word, but it was obvious that none of them liked the idea of trusting the other that much – they had known each other for a week now, a few exceptions longer because they served in the army together before.

Their journey continued for a while, but about twenty minutes later they had finally arrived back at the camp, where they were immediately directed towards the pool, where the combat divers were already waiting. They all lined about on one side of the pool, still shivering from the cold, and waited for the instructor to arrive and explain their next training. After a few minutes he finally entered the site. He stopped and took a look at the group.

"What are you waiting for, enter the pool already."

A few nervous glances were exchanged, most of them had seen enough water for today already, and they were still in their full uniform, but it was only a single moment of hesitation before they all entered the water, which, to everyone's surprise, was even colder than the water in the river from before. The cold immediately started entering their bodies and their nerves scream from pain, it almost felt like they had been lit on fire. The instructor nodded towards one of the frogmen and then turned back to his group.

"This will be your last training for today: swim until you no longer can."

The eyes of most of the soldiers widened, the rest looked rather confused.

"What... what d-d-do you m... mmmean by no longer c-can?" one of the soldiers asked, his teeth already chattering.

The instructor sighed as if he had been asked a really stupid question by a small child.

"I mean it like I said it, and I said until you no longer can. That's why we're training with the combat divers together today: You'll swim until you all black out, and you will have to trust those around you that they are capable of doing their job to pull you out."

With this he turned around, missing the shocked looks on the faces of all soldiers in the pool, including the combat divers.

"I'll be back in an hour to check the progress."

/ Khin'Zaru vas Omony's point of view (exploration-vessel of the Quarians, several days after broadcast of the first-contact-package) /

The Quarian could feel the air around his suit dropping several degrees in temperature at the stare the Admiral was throwing towards him through the screen. He had just finished his daily report (which he had to give every few hours on request of the Admiral) and explained that he had still not received any answer from the planets surface that was clearly directed towards his ship. He had wanted to explain that the content of the package was simply too advanced for a race that hadn't achieved FTL travel yet, their computer-systems would most likely not be far developed enough to decrypt the messages, but one look at Rael'Zorah was enough to ensure that he wouldn't question his superior if he had any interest in return to the fleet within his lifetime.

"Answer me marine" Rael'Zorah whispered, the anger in his voice clearly audible, "did they not receive the message, or do they simply ignore us?".

Khin thought about how to explain it without endangering himself before he answered.

"Neither nor sir, my crew has noted increased air-traffic on every part of the planet that is reachable from our current position since we sent the package, it looks like they are preparing for an invasion. Most likely they weren't able to translate the contents of the package yet, or they are a species that is extremely paranoid and thinks that everything told in the package could be a lie. Or maybe the first ship accidentally killed some of their people and they misunderstood it as an intentional act of aggression."

The Admiral didn't answer, it didn't even look like he had heard a single word from what Khin had just said, his exhaustion clearly visible. It was obvious that admiral Zorah hadn't been sleeping for days.

"How low..."

Khin'Zaru jumped at the sudden movement of the Admiral, who had jerked his head like he had just remembered something very important.

"How low can you fly within their atmosphere without them shooting at you?"

"I... I don't know, we don't know what kind of weapon they are using, or how high their air-vehicles can fly. What are you planning sir?"

"If it's like you said and they don't have the hardware necessary to decrypt the messages, then we will simply have to bring the hardware to them. I want you to prepare a package, and this time a real package, not a data one, that includes rations, medicine and an omnitool with the instruction-video running on loop, and with the data-package installed. Make sure this whole thing is isolated and then drop it near the crash-site of my daughters ship."

"But sir, what if they think it's a bomb? They will attack us, or worse, will think that our race is hostile, in which case your daughter – if she is still alive – won't be secure anymore!"

"Then drop it somewhere where you can't accidentally hurt any of their people, maybe over a lake or sea. Yeah, a body of water should do it, it'll also keep the equipment from breaking – just make sure that you don't mess up on the isolation."

"But sir, that's..."

"I don't want to hear any excuses, and don't take me for some delusional idiot – I'm perfectly aware of how dangerous this could be, but it's not like we have many alternatives. If we wait for too long my daughter and her crew will die either from dehydration, infections or starvation, if they aren't killed by some of their scientists first in an experiment. But that's not all, if it's like you said then they still don't know that we have no intention of fighting a war with them. I'd rather meet a species that knows that they won't have to fight us than a species that lived for months in fear of being wiped out by our people."


Author's notes:

Yay, finally the Kampfschwimmer-chapter (Kampfschwimmer = combat divers / frogmen), it's one of those story-points I had planned in advance. This whole "swim till you almost drown"-thingy was inspired by a story a friend of mine told me, who actually applied to become part of the German Combat Divers, and it's actually a thing: You have to swim until you black out, but it's not so much a trust-building training (even though you have to trust the medics enough to rescue you of course) but more of an "in a real war you also can't take a break because you 'can't go on anymore', you have to keep on going until you reach land, or you drown" exercise. I have also heard similar stuff from some infantry-companies (again, friend of mine – I have surprisingly many friends in different parts of the army, not sure why) where they have to keep on running until they collapse. One more reason why I would never apply to the army, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

I also decided to listen to someone who wrote a review, in which he stated that I should keep up the "giving names to unimportant people"-thing of mine, but maybe think about making them minor characters when possible. It's a good idea, so I decided to use them from time to time (e.g. Khin'Zaru and Adrian Zeissner were disposable characters, but I think I will keep them around for a while longer).

Hope you enjoyed the chapter,

~Yaesephir