They soon left Aya and Scott found that Vetra had sent him an email, apparently Sid had sent a decrypted transmission and it sounded urgent.
"Hey, Ryder," said Vetra as he entered her workshop. "Got an encrypted message from Sid. She has news, and wanted to talk to us both." She then accessed her omni-tool. "Connecting the call now…"
"Finally! I've been waiting for hours," said Sid's voice.
"So you wanna talk to us what this is all about?" Vetra asked.
"I was listening to an outpost update on caught a message about settlers going missing."
"That doesn't sound good," said Scott.
"Yeah, 'cause it's not. They were kidnapped. I dug around and I think I know where they've been taken. A cave on a moon in the Remav System. Originally an angaran mine, I think, but they abandoned it."
"I don't believe the planet you're talking about is a moon," said SAM.
"Whatever."
Vetra looked slightly frustrated. "What did I tell you about getting involved?"
"I couldn't just do nothing."
"How do we know that you're intel's even reliable?"
"It's reliable!" said Sid sounding insulted.
Scott had to admit that it wasn't much to go on, but if there was even a chance that settlers were being kidnapped they had to check it out. Plus they were going to make their way into that system to check up on the rumours that Peebee had heard.
"I trust your sister—and there's no sense in wasting time," said Scott.
"See? That's a Pathfinder," said Sid sounding triumphant.
"Sid… just give us everything you have on this," said Vetra.
"Already done! Could I come along? I wanna help."
Vetra sighed, apparently they've had this conversation a dozen times. "You know the answer to that."
"Right. Of course. Stay away from bad people. Guns. Bombs. Krogan beer."
"You did good," said Vetra gently. "I just want you to be safe, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah."
With that Vetra deactivated her omni-tool and shrugged at Scott.
When Scott made his way onto the bridge they first made their way to the Solminae System.
"With all this travel, we're building up a big pitch of the Scourge," said Suvi as they into the system. "I wonder if it's just local to Heleus—or if all Andromeda's like this."
Scott really hope that wasn't the case, they had a hard enough time navigating Heleus let alone the rest of the galaxy. They began scanning the planet Avelosa and they found that the satellite was orbiting the planet which apparently had been stolen by the Collective. Next they made their way to the planet Suuricoo and they found the wreckage of a Roekaar shuttle.
The next jump took them all the way to the Vaalon System.
"Looks like we're coming up to a blue giant," said Suvi looking at the sensors.
"From Aya, it's often the brightest star. The first to rise," Jaal explained.
The first planet they scanned was called Ra Moorondi and they managed to locate a massive iron deposit in one of the asteroids within its rings. Sadly there wasn't anything worth scanning on the other planets so they moved on.
They soon entered the Hefena System which was completely ravaged by the Scourge.
"This might have been a larger system once, before the Scourge," said Suvi gravely.
"As if we need a better reason to document everything," Kallo muttered.
One of the first things they managed to pick up on sensors was a comet and they found a vanadium deposit. They then headed straight towards the planet Kamiiro No and found that the asteroid rings surrounding the planet had once been a moon housing a small angara colony, no doubt it got smashed to bits by the Scourge.
They then finally made their way to the Remav System.
"Look at these readings," said Kallo as he looked at his monitors in wonder. "This system is… beautiful."
"I'll say," Suvi agreed. "That's a stellar nursery. Stars are born out here."
They made their way to the planet Nuundri and studied a particularly powerful volcanic eruption that gave them clues to the planets geology. Next they made their way to the planet Ameayii and found an ancient impact crater finding trace amounts of radioactive materials, including element zero which was not native to the planet.
Finally they headed to H-047c, which had supposed to be the turian golden world. It had been a small planet, but it had been battered by the Scourge almost constantly and was now just a large radioactive asteroid.
They began heading straight towards what remained of the planet, preferably near the mining facilities.
"Wow… look at all this," said Kallo stunned as they flew into the asteroid field. "The Scourge did a number here, didn't it? Do think this was supposed to be the turian home. Now the exiles have taken over."
"Cosmic radiation is off the charts," said Suvi and she looked at Scott. "Ryder. You'll need to stay in the Nomad."
Scott couldn't believe this, this was the second time they were being threatened by large amount of radiation. "What good are these fancy suits if they don't block radiation?"
"In normal situations, they do. But this planet's magnetic field was disturbed when it cracked open. No protection from a cosmic ray tearing you apart at the molecular level."
"So, stick to the Nomad."
"Descent engines engaged," said Kallo has they began to land, he then watched as Scott made his way down to the cargo bay. "Good luck, Ryder."
They began making their way to the nearest mining facility, Scott wanted to know why there were so many exiles here.
"Ever disobeyed an order, Cora?" Liam asked looking at Cora.
Cora looked at him. "In my soldier days? No. That's kind of the point."
Liam scoffed. "It's that mechanical? You never thought about it?"
Cora rolled her eyes. "Military discipline isn't there to give you something cool to rebel against. In combat, people depend on you being in the place they expect, doing what you're meant to do, or they die."
"That doesn't mean you're doing the right thing."
Cora nodded. "I know."
The drive to the nearest mining facility was a bit different compared to the others. Due to the planet's lack of an atmosphere it meant that the gravity was much less, one simple jumbo me ended up covering a full mile. Sadly Scott had very little experience when it came to driving in low gravity planets, but thankfully he was a quick study it in take into long to adjust.
Once they reached the mine facility, which was basically a large dome force field they made their way into the airlock. No sooner had they entered the facility that they were immediately attacked by outlaws.
Scott quickly pulled out his sniper rifle and immediately ended canister and seconds later there was a huge explosion taking out a few raiders. An adai try to pounds at Liam, who quickly activated his jump jet avoiding it and then he dived down plunging his omni-blades into its back.
Unfortunately there wasn't many of them so it in take them long to clear out the entire facility. Though Scott was a bit confused on why exiles would be holed up in a rundown mining facility, the angara no doubt abandoned them because the drains area of resources and the system was too far way for many trade routes.
"Kallo was right," said Scott looking at the others. "Exiles everywhere. What would they want with this place?"
The others merely shrugged, indicating they had no idea either.
"Pathfinder. I detect a data pad nearby. It may provide answers," said SAM.
Scott managed to locate the datapad and it mentioned a huge pile of Helium-3 in the soil at the site. It also mentioned about a man name Krex and his stash and was also a fragment of a password.
"They're mining… Helium-3?" Scott frowned.
"The main component in shuttle fuel, Pathfinder. It could also be used to make highly effective explosives," said SAM.
"Just what we need—exiles with explosives. Let's get into that base."
"The attached passcode is only a fragment," said SAM regretfully. "Data here indicates other mining domes. I've added the locations to your map."
With that they made their way outside and began making their way to the next mining dome. As they were driving Cora gave Vetra a suspicious look.
"You seemed at home on Kadara," Cora noted. "Very at home."
Vetra merely shrugged. "I should. I lived that kind of life for years. You don't look okay with that."
Cora gave a small smile. "I am! Just don't like the idea of losing you to someone like Sloane or Reyes. Too many good people have gone off the grid."
"That data pad we found mentioned a guy named Krex," said Scott looking at the others as he drove. "Any idea who that is?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Peebee shrugged. "Whoever he is, sounds like he's up to something."
Scott agreed he had a feeling that whatever he was up to wasn't going to be good for them or the Nexus.
They soon came inside the next mining dome and just like before they made their way to the airlock. Scott began to wonder how can the airlock had very minimal security, though he wasn't really complaining about the outlaws incompetence with security.
Unsurprisingly the moment they enter the dome they were immediately attacked by outlaws, though it appeared they had been taken completely offguard. Clearly they had been lazy, thinking that no one in their right mind would visit this planet.
Cora performed a biotic charge and then combined it with a powerful nova, Scott had seen her use this tactic a good number of times and it was very difficult to defend against. Vetra then quickly moved in tossing several grenades while the outlaws were still trying to get onto their feet.
Just like before they easily took down the outlaws.
"Datapad detected, Pathfinder," said SAM.
Scott made his way to the facility and located a status log it mentioned kett soldiers and ships had managed to trace signals coming from lockers from the salarian ark. Scott was wondering who is leaving all these lockers lying around, but he had to focus on his mission.
Scott found another datapad and once again it mentioned Helium-3 within the soil and a man named Krex. It also contained a fragment of the pass code they needed and Scott was starting to get concerned about all these potential explosives these outcasts were gathering.
"This Krex must be in charge of mining Helium-3," he said to the others as they made their way back to the nomad. "He's the one we need to stop."
"The passcode is still incomplete, Pathfinder," SAM reminded. "I require one more fragment."
They got their way back to the airlock and mounted the Nomad.
"SAM, I need info on the exile base," said Scott. "What you have for me?"
"The base is comprised of two mining domes. The second can only be accessed with a passcode. I also detect multiple frequencies originating from the area. They have communication is with Kadara."
Scott didn't like the sound of this, it was possible that Krex had managed to find a buyer for this Helium-3. It was entirely possible that he was selling to either the Outcasts or the Collective and he could only imagine the devastation that would be caused with their little war.
Liam looked at Vetra with an apologetic look as they drove. "Okay, I'm just going to say it. I was blaming you for how shit I feel."
Vetra didn't look at him. "I don't need your explanation."
"I figured any doubts I have must be worse for kids. Made me dislike the people who brought them."
Vetra turned on him angrily. "So I shouldn't feel bad about your judgment, because you figured out why you judged me? You understand why you're an asshole? Guess what, still an asshole."
Fortunately before this argument got heated up they reached the mining dome and thankfully they took out their frustration on the outlaws inside.
They had a rather easy time due to the higher grounds that was at the entrance of the dome. Scott really couldn't believe that their security was this bad, there should have been at least a guard or even one or two alarms at the airlock. Still he was not going to look at a gift horse in the mouth and began to gun down the outlaws.
Unfortunately this group of outlaws was a little bit more equipped because they had a Hydra mech, an early prototype of the Atlas and some turrets. Fortunately Scott had a few tricks up his sleeve, Peebee had managed to create the combat observer for him, which he nicknamed Zap. Zap's energy beam practically ripped through its armour in the pilot was more focused on it then he was on Scott's okay to no surprise that it eventually exploded. As for the turrets Vetra and Liam had managed to get behind enemy lines and tossed a few grenades creating a massive explosion that took them out.
"Another datapad nearby, Pathfinder," said SAM.
Scott quickly made his way to the facility and found another datapad. This was form a worker complaining to Krex that he was working as quickly as he could mining the Helium-3. There wasn't much more information to go on, but it had another piece of the fragment of the passcode which they needed.
"SAM, you get that fragment?" Scott asked.
"I've completed the passcode, Pathfinder," said SAM. "Marking the exile base in your system."
"Good. Let's put an end to whatever Krex is doing."
They made their way back to the Nomad and started to head towards the main exile base.
"Crazy to think this dust is packed with valuable resources," said Scott as they drove.
"An effective solar radiation. The radiation is also partly what makes this plan a dangerous," SAM explained.
Peebee looked at Vetra curiously. "You're not a turian citizen, are you? I just realised, you weren't on the Natanus, and you don't act like them."
"You're right. I'm not a citizen," Vetra nodded. "I was taken from Palaven real young. Didn't even get to boot camp. A real turian might look down at me. And so you know, I'm using my mother as the example of 'real turian.' I don't remember much about Palaven, but I remember her. She always looked like she was shitting a tank."
Peebee winced slightly. "Ew!"
Eventually they came into sight of the final mining dome, which was serving as the exiles base of operations. It certainly looked much more defensible and Scott was suspecting a far more heavily complement of outlaws inside.
Though strangely the airlock was still unguarded, clearly Krex wasn't much better when it came to security than his men. Though there was a lot more of them and Scott quickly pulled out his sniper rifle and began taking out the sniper is that had positioned themselves in some of the structures.
Cora moved in towards the outlaws that were charging in towards them, she used a biotic charge are getting close and then fired them with her shotgun at point-blank range. Peebee offered additional support by using her biotics to push and pull the outlaws away.
Once all the exiles in the first were taken killed they made their way to the second dome and inputted the passcode at the airlock.
Then they came face-to-face with Krex and Scott suspected that he was a krogan and he was starting to regret not bringing Drack along. The standard policy when it came to battling krogan was to keep your distance from them and gun them down with everything you have added appear to work quite well on Krex.
Unfortunately he had other outlaws to back up, forcing them to divide their forces. Scott decided to team up with Cora and Peebee on Krex, their biotics would give them the advantage against him, this left Vetra and Liam to deal with the outlaws.
Cora and Peebee were slowing Krex down considerably with their biotics and Zap was cutting his way through his armour. Scott also provided an additional distraction with several grenades and it was clear that he was getting overpowered.
Eventually they were able to taken down and without their leader the outlaws were now in disarray. The three of them quickly helped Vetra and Liam with mopping up the remainders of the outlaws.
"And that takes care of Krex and his people," said Scott as the final outlaw fell to the ground. "But what were they up to?"
"I detect an audio log nearby, Pathfinder," said SAM. "It may give you the information you need."
They found the audio login what Scott assumed to be Krex's office and he played the recording.
"I don't want excuses, Krex," said an angry female voice. Scott recognised that voice as Elora, the asari he met on Kadara and who has a massive grudge against the Initiative. He remembered her saying that she had her own faction and Scott dismissed her threats, but clearly she hadn't been exaggerating. "The dust on the surface isn't enough. If I want to take these Initiative colonies out, we'll need a hell of a lot more Helium-3. I know that Remnant tiller in the conservatory will work. Get it running. Elora out."
"It's that asari from Kadara, she wants to attack the colonies…" said Scott shocked. "But it sounds like they couldn't activate some sort of Remnant tiller. SAM?"
"An active Remnant tiller would expose more soil to radiation, increasing Helium-3 production exponentially," said SAM. "If my calculations are correct, this planet could fuel the Nexus ships for an estimated 368 years."
"Our Milky Way supply will run out eventually," said Scott looking at the others. "Now we won't have to worry. We need to get that tiller up and running."
"I've marked the remnant tiller conservatory on your display."
Scott shook his head. "If Elora had mined enough Helium-3 to bomb the colonies…"
"I advise against hypotheticals, Pathfinder," SAM suggested. "I've alerted the Nexus to the situation. Patrols will be stationed around the planet to ensure the Helium-3 remains in your control."
"Still, when I see Elora again, we're having a chat."
With that they made their way back to the Nomad.
As Scott was driving towards the Remnant tiller Peebee looked at Liam with a slightly annoyed look.
"Okay, cut the crap. You got a problem with me, Kosta?" she said.
Liam merely shrugged. "I don't know. Are you actually here?"
Peebee raised an eye. "If I'm not, you're haunted."
Liam turned towards her. "I mean, here, here," he said pointing at the floor. "With the Initiative. With doing something important."
"And you don't trust me."
Liam turned his head away from her. "Like I said, depends on whether you're here."
Scott was starting to think that Liam was not gonna make many friends on the team, he was pretty judgemental. He didn't trust Peebee, because of her free spirit, he was judgemental of Vetra because of Sid and the fact that she did under the counter dealings and he was giving Cora a hard time due to her military training. Scott found it ironic that he was crisis response specialist and yet he failed to notice that he was creating one himself.
Eventually they reached the location of the Remnant tiller and thankfully it was in a mining dome. They made their way into the airlock and Scott was getting quite used to the fact that there wasn't any security protocols in place.
Once they made their way inside the access the gravity well and would lower deeper within the Remnant tiller.
"SAM, how do we get the tiller working?" Scott asked the moment they touched down.
"I detect a console deeper inside," he said.
Suddenly there were immediately attacked by Remnant Observers and without hesitation the immediately ducked for cover and began returning fire. They quickly took down the attacking Observers, but one appeared completely harmless.
Scott decided to use this Observer in order to gain access to the tiller and it was more than willing to cooperate activating the doors.
Once they entered inside they found that the tiller was completely different to the layout of the Vaults, but Scott wasn't really surprised. There was a huge chasm between them and what appeared to be the console to activate the tiller and many active Remnant bots.
The protocol was quite standard to that of the vaults, eliminate the hostiles Remnant and activate consoles that would lead them to their destination. However, the difference is assisting and this time was the Observer from the entrance.
However there also appear to be some sort of pattern between the consoles they managed to locate. Scott saw that there were Remnant lights appearing around each one of the hidden consoles and he noticed that there was there were different number of them to each console. Deciding that this was some sort of clue he activated the consoles within order.
Turned out that his hunch was correct, it was some sort of puzzle. Scott began to wonder what the Remnant builders were thinking when they designed these Remnant structures. It wasn't only a test of endurance but a test of intelligence, but neither were these tests complicated.
Eventually they reached the main chamber and it was guarded by a Destroyer and they quickly hid behind cover. Scott immediately sent in Zap in order to distract it, allowing Scott and the others to aim at its turrets. The big problem was the shield so they had to spread out in order to give it multiple targets giving them a better chance of taking down.
Scott had access his engineer profile in order to create an overload within its shields, with its shields disabled the quickly poured everything they had into destroying the thing. Then wanted power core was opened they quickly fired several concussive rounds causing it to explode.
When the entered inside the chamber they found many vents erupting around them, but Scott was more focused on accessing the interface console where she hoped would activate the tiller. Once he interface with it he had to solve the sudoku puzzle that it produced, but he successfully managed to solve it activating the tiller.
"That did it! Nice going," said Peebee tapping Scott on the shoulder.
"Multiple mechanisms activating," said SAM. "The Remnant tiller is online. Within years Helium-3 production will increase dramatically."
"Send Tann the good news. We have fuel," Scott ordered. He then looked at the others. "Let's get back to the surface."
Scott was relieved that the ones they did had to run like hell to the gravity well so they can enjoy a nice stroll back to the surface. Though to get the surface the at activate certain consoles in order to open doors that they closed behind them to access the tiller, but all in all it was quite an enjoyable stroll.
When they made their way back to the Nomad and they found that planet hadn't changed much, in fact not at all.
"Doesn't seem different up here," Scott frowned. "You sure we activated the tiller?"
"The mechanisms are deep underground, so the effects are not visible," SAM assured him. "Within months, you'll begin to see a dramatic increase in Helium-3 production."
Scott decided to take his word for it. "Not bad for planet we wrote off."
Back on the Nexus, Adam was just giving Tann Scott's report on H-047c.
"You're saying that Ryder managed to turn this worthless planet to a real provider?" said Tann looking at Adam.
"Yes, we should be able to produce a large amount of helium-3 for about 300 years according to SAM's calculations," said Adam. "Unfortunately, it looks like they were going to need to find a dextro planet for the turians and the quarians, when they get here."
"Hard to do when we only have one Pathfinder out in the field," Tann frowned.
"I'm sure the other arks will be located soon," said Adam positively.
"All things aside, we're going to need to make sure that this planet does not fall into the hands of certain people," he said looking up at Adam.
"We'll have a routine patrol around the planet, but as you know we only have a few cargo ships, shuttles and fighters. It's not exactly a powerful fleet," Adam pointed out.
Tann looked at him. "You wish us to discard building warships? That goes against everything that the Initiative stands for."
"Director, every organisation needs a military otherwise we wouldn't have so many skilled soldiers joining the Initiative," Adam pointed out. "However, with kett and according to recent reports there are more them in Andromeda were going to need a lot more teeth to deal with them."
"We do not have the resources to get the Nexus fully operational, let alone start creating a war fleet," Tann reminded.
"I'm suggesting that we start at least building one ship the moment things are stable," said Adam.
Tann just sat there and looked at him. "I'll give it some thought."
"Very well, Director," Adam sighed. "But I hope that you don't think on it for too long."
