Thoughts from Andromeda part 11
By ElementalsAdvocate
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Year 2819, Andromeda Galaxy, Heleus Cluster, Pytheus System, in orbit around Planet: Eos (Habitat 1), The Tempest, Pathfinder's Cabin (Night Cycle)
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{Scott comes through his cabin door, favoring his left leg slightly. He sits down at the desk chair, sighing as he puts his head in his hands and running his fingers through his hair in a manner indicating frustration and fatigue.}
SAM… begin recording.
Well, to recap, it's been a couple of days since we activated the Remnant planet scrubbers. Radiation levels across the planet are falling slowly but steadily. I'd like to wait a few more days before we try to set up another outpost, but Tann and Addison are… Oh, fuck it! What the hell am I going to do about Nilken Rensus?
Okay. Maybe if I back up a little and start from the beginning I might figure something out. Okay.
After we started the Remnant scrubbers, my team and I wanted to check out Fairwinds Basin as a viable site for a new outpost. Only Tann called me up and "suggested" that I take a look at Site 2 first to find out if we could salvage it instead of using up precious materials to build a new site elsewhere. So, Liam, Cora, and I loaded up into the Nomad and headed southwest from Promise.
According to Suvi, Site 2 was marketed as "The One We Get Right." Aaaand just like that my heart dropped down somewhere around my ankles. It was even named Resilience.
Funny thing is, the place looks like it was pulled straight from the western coast of old Mexico, or maybe the Caribbean; high rocky cliffs backed by sand, a large body of water in the northeastern end of the lake in the Golden Wastes, and the outpost sandwiched in between. It might have been an ideal place to start an outpost, if it weren't for the radiation… and the kett.
To make a long story short, Site 2 never had a chance to fail from the problems that broke Site 1. The kett began to assault the colony shortly after the basic set up was completed, attacking once, twice, even three times a day or more. Small patrols of kett killed or captured anyone who walked outside the protective eezo barriers around the colony, and even went so far as to raid inside the outpost defenses. All attempts at communication with the kett were met with stony silence and gun-fire. Two weeks after the attacks started, the mayor was killed by a kett sniper's bullet, and Site 2 Security Chief Martin Reynolds and his second in command Nilken Rensus took over. Reynolds was killed a week later during an abortive march on a kett outpost. Resilience was abandoned the next day; So much for "The One We Get Right."
When we got to the outpost, everything looked almost pristine, at least compared to Site 1. All the buildings were still standing upright, kinetic barriers were still humming away, all the equipment was still intact, hell, even the vehicles looked like they'd just come off the factory floor. If it weren't for the fact that nobody was there, you'd think nothing was wrong with the place. Right up until we found the bodies; three of them, two turians and an asari, left behind when the outpost was abandoned. Eh.
{Scott is silent for a short time, contemplating something, before continuing.}
We did a cursory walkthrough the outpost. Found some of the kett's mobile shield platforms set up inside the perimeter, probably set up during the final assault that drove the Initiative out of Site 2. Didn't find much of anything else; which is weird, because you'd expect someone who'd pick up the bodies of their own dead would pick up their equipment after a fight, wouldn't you?
Shit. Add it to the list of things we don't understand about the kett.
When we finally tried to access the main building, turns out someone had locked it from the outside, as if they were trying to keep something in. Soon as we went into the main building and turned off the lockdown, we found out what.
Soon as we broke the lockdown, we hear this roar come from inside the building, and then everything went to hell. Kett started coming in from every direction, Cora called Kallo for an extraction, Kallo was shouting back, and when we got outside, we saw what had been locked inside the hab-block.
Imagine a creature with the body-form and musculature of a silver-back gorilla, make it the size of a small adult elephant, and give it the carapace of a crab and teeth and tusks like a hippo. Then give it the temper of all those critters and a bull moose that had just had a live cattle-prod shoved up its ass on top of all that. Oh, and when it can't get at you physically, it vomits up globs of bile and spits it at you.
Yeah.
Turns out the mayor of Resilience had been working on a project to keep animals and the kett away from the colony using high-powered sound-waves. Special Project Sigma, according to records we found later. Only thing is, for testing the idiot somehow managed to lock a kett Fiend inside one of the habitation blocks connected to the main building.
We survived. Barely. If we hadn't had jump jets to get us up on top of the building away from the fiend in a hurry, that might be a different story. Between the three of us, we took down over twenty of the kett Chosen, five of the Anointed, four Wraiths, and the Fiend on top of all that. Luckily for us, the Fiend was starving after being locked up for over two months and had just come out of an enforced hibernation, and the kett arrived in individual shuttles one at a time so we took them out piece-meal.
Still, the three of us had to spend last night in the med-bay under Doctor T'Perro's tender care. A Wraith got past Cora and managed to get a good grip on my leg before I shoved the barrel of my sniper rifle down its throat and pulled the trigger. Cora took a full burst from a kett mini-gun at long range. If it hadn't been for her barriers, she might have been cut in half, though she did have a very interesting pattern of bruises to show when she took her armor off back here at the Tempest.
Liam got the worst of it. After the shooting stopped, he went to check the Fiend, got too close, and got grabbed and slammed against a wall before Cora and I finished it with a combination of shot-gun rounds and Incineration tech to the head. Liam's still down in the med-bay with a busted leg, three cracked ribs, and a broken collar-bone. He's pretty cool about it though, strangely enough. Wonder where he gets his attitude?
Anyway Cora, Vetra, and I went back to Site 2 today to check things out. The kett had been back and picked up their dead. We downloaded the contents of the outpost servers for the egg-heads back on the Nexus to examine. Also got a scan of the prototype Sigma device the mayor was working on.
From the security office, SAM pieced together a recording of an argument that occured between Reynolds and Rensus that pretty much corroborates that the two security officers were on the outs. Reynolds intended to stay and hold the outpost, while Rensus wanted everyone to evacuate back to the Nexus and forget about Eos.
We piled back into the Nomad and headed along the eastern edge of the Big Lake, heading towards the nav-point I got from the witness. When we finally got there, all we found was sand and the desiccated remains of one of Reynolds legs. Kaerkyns had scavenged the body, and so we spent the rest of the day combing the nearby desert for pieces of the Security Chief.
Six hours, two kett patrols, and a small Remnant site later we finally found the last piece, an arm, located in a cave several miles to the south-east of where Reynolds was killed. We also found his omni-tool, and SAM downloaded a recording of Reynolds last minutes. This is where things get really hinky. SAM?
{Accessing data. The Chief was scanning at time of death. The scan picked up two shots. One: a standard Initiative rifle report, which missed. The other from behind, a kett pulse weapon. Accessing relevant audio file. }
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Security Chief Martin Reynolds: "NO!"
Security member Cassidy Shaw: "Where's Nilken?"
Deputy Security Chief Nilken Rensus: "Sorry, old friend – had to do it. I'm not dying on this rock."
Shots fired, Initiative weapons and kett pulse guns, un-intelligible shouting…
{End of audio log}
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Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
What the hell am I supposed to tell Tann? "Sorry director, we've got the wrong guy. Nilken didn't kill Chief Reynolds. He only intended to kill him. And missed."
Fuck…
Dammit Dad, why did you have to go and die? Why did you leave me to deal with this shit?
What would you do, Sara?
{Scott, if I may propose a course of action?}
Go ahead, SAM.
{While I cannot say what Alec might have done in his capacity as Pathfinder in this situation, as a scientist, Alec often encountered moral conundrums in the course of his research. His primary course of action in such situations was to retrace his steps, reexamine the results available, and reach out to other sources for more information that might shed light upon his difficulties.}
Gather more information, huh? Well, it's as good a choice as any, and I don't figure we're going to be leaving Eos any time soon. Okay.
SAM, access the Nexus and see what records they have on Nilken Rensus and Martin Reynolds. They were supposed to be friends. Maybe there's something in their past that might tell us why Rensus would consider murdering Reynolds beyond fear. Get the records of Nilken's wife too. Hell, may as well get the records of everyone who was at Site 2 while we're at it. I'm going to get some more coffee from the galley. This is going to be a long night.
Oh! SAM, end recording.