They were packing up when his attention was caught by something in the dunes. Perhaps it was because of the dry brush swaying softly in the breeze and beside it, an odd-looking branch. Scott squinted at it. Sometimes the planet liked to play tricks on them with its mirages. He stood there, squinting for a while longer, when he realized that what he was seeing was not a mirage; there really was a foot buried in the sand.
He went to the spot and squatted over the thing. A dark, desiccated foot was poking out from the ground. He looked at the bowed shins and the hoof-like foot with two cloven toes and said, "Guys, I found a dead salarian here."
Cora and Marcus stopped tending to the injured work crew and went over to see what he found. "One of ours?" Cora asked, peering down at the foot.
Scott shrugged. "Let's find out."
They dug out the sand until they uncovered the body completely. It was intact, without animal or insect bites, but mummified. It was wearing a soiled, thin silver body suit of the Initiative. Scott opened his scanner and scanned the corpse, which told him that the body was male, middle-aged and dead by gunshots.
They called Jennings over who was dejectedly packing up his things. When he was near enough, he asked, "This one of yours?", nodding at the body.
Jennings walked closer to the body and peered down at it. After a few minutes, he shook his head. "I don't know all the salarians back at the colony but I'm sure they never wore that uniform there," he said, pointing at the corpse's thin silvery suit with the Initiative's logo at the breast. "Besides, the face's all black and…" he made a motion of his wrist where the skin on the corpse's face were drawn taut, showing the points of hardened cartilage and the lips pulled back, revealing snarling teeth.
"Analysis complete," SAM interrupted. "From the scans of his teeth, I can say with 90% certainty that this is Judern Silben, Initiative Founder."
They all gaped at each other then at the body in front of them.
"Well, shit," Scott said, speaking for them all.
They brought the body to the Nexus which had more advanced facilities than the colony and turned it over to Sloane. She had gone with it to the medical bay while they were told to wait in her office.
Her office was just at the opposite of Kesh's office at the operations deck, below the platform where Addison was coordinating the daily tasks of the station. The last time they entered it, it was merely a room with stacked crates at the back. Now, there was a second level, with a reception desk beside the door at the ground floor and a coffee table on an elevated platform beside it, then a conference room with a round table at the landing before it twisted again and led to Sloane's enclosed office. They were directed by the receptionist to that room and were asked to sit on the chairs and provided refreshments as they waited for her.
Their mugs were empty and the biscuits were long gone before the door opened again and finally, Sloane arrived. "At last. We're getting somewhere," she announced when the door closed behind her.
"What did you find?" Scott asked as Sloane walked around them to sit behind her desk. She sank into the soft cushion with a sigh.
"They can't tell when exactly Silbern died but based on their disappearance, about a year ago. Two shots from the front, one to the head then chest. Through and through, so no bullets. No signs of burns around the wounds either, so not lasers. Mass accelerated rounds, semi-large so a pistol or a rifle. He was also wearing armor based on the debris embedded around the wound. Did you find his things with him down there?"
"No. We just found him with the bodysuit. We didn't find his armor anywhere. But we're not sure if anything else is buried since we didn't sift the sand around the body," Scott said.
Sloane put a hand at the back of her neck and rubbed it. "That's all for now. I guess I'll be going down at Eos to investigate, then. Did you follow procedure?"
"I had the site cordoned off and a watch set over it," Scott said evenly, careful not to let his resentment at being treated like a child bleed over his tone. He hasn't forgotten yet what she said during the party after the activation of the vault.
She just nodded, not showing any awareness over her tone. Or maybe she did intended to treat him like an idiot. "Any sign of Tempest One?"
"Tempest what?"
"Tempest One," she repeated. "It's the first Tempest. Yours is the second until we ran out of materials to build the others. The Tempest series was supposed to serve as the pathfinder's ships but the founders borrowed it when they set out since the arks were delayed."
"No. We didn't see any ship there," he answered softly because his mind was on something else. Seriously? They're building cutting edge ships only now? "I'm sorry. You're building ships now when we could have used it earlier?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly at him. "The Nexus and the arks didn't need to have a heavy escort since they can outrun and outlast anything we know of. So, they're just equipped with light armaments to reduce weight and consumption of our eezo supply. Besides, Jien Garson didn't want leaks of her inventions going out. If they were pre-built, there'd be a lot of people knowing about it. You'd be dead sure the whole galaxy would know about it before those ships are even completed."
"Fine," he said, dropping the point. The Tempest was a stealth ship and built for observation, not a straight up fight. It would do well for recon but just strapping some guns with its light armor won't turn it into the warship they need.
"It'd be difficult to pick up the trail since it happened so long ago," Sloane continued. "But I'll inform you as soon as I find anything else down there. So, any other questions?"
"Any word on the arks?"
She shook her head. "Nothing yet. Our QECs were damaged beyond repair. As for contacting the Milky Way, we tried to use the QEC at Hyperion but apparently, it wasn't working."
Scot went still. "How do you mean it isn't working?"
Sloane put up her hands. "We're not receiving any answers. Either no one is looking after it or the QEC there was destroyed."
Scott frowned. "Not answering? Do you think they forgot about us after all those years travelling through dark space?"
"Maybe. It's crazy what people can get up to after a few hundred years," she answered and shrugged. "We'll have to wait for the techs to solve that problem. But for now, we'll just have to act as if we're alone out here. Anything else?"
Scott looked at his companions who shook their head. "I guess that's all for now," he said, and they rose out of their seats.
"Inform me if you find something like this again during your travels," she said. Then her brow furrowed, and she pinched her lips hard while she gave a glare at her desk that can melt steel. Scott was about to turn away when she suddenly spat out, "You've done well finding Silben."
Scot's jaw nearly dropped. "Er…thank you?" he said in surprise. She said it stiffly, but still she said it.
She nodded, then went looking from extremely embarrassed to annoyed and shooed them away with a sharp wave of her hand. "Now get out of my sight," she said and turned sideways to face the wall.
When the door closed behind them and they started walking down the stairs, Marcus chuckled. "Did I hear that right? Did she just…compliment you?" he said, glancing back at the office.
"I know, right? The cranky bitch played nice today," Scott said, glancing back too.
"Careful now. At this rate, you just might end up as best friends," Marcus teased him.
Scott turned forward and shuddered. "Please don't. I'm gonna have nightmares about that."
They rode the Tempest back to Eos. Though they had the navigational data of the mysterious planet given by the vault, they saw that they could not pursue that lead, because Bradley requested their help. They needed to erect a listening tower at the cliffs overlooking the outpost and a watch station. Someone with a sniper rifle on that ridge and with a good aim can pick off the people below like fish in the barrel.
They had a long day, so Scott went for a shower and a rest in his cabin. Free of the grime from work with his muscles relaxed from the long, hot shower, he spread himself on his luxurious bed and, as the stars passed overhead in the fake ceiling, he reviewed the events that transpired today.
The discovery of the salarian founder made him remember about Ben. He loved his uncle dearly, but he wouldn't join him during mealtimes. Ben's taste was too weird for his liking. For example, he took afternoon tea. He would have joined him gladly, since he doesn't have the stomach for coffee, but it wasn't tea and crumpets. It's tea and squid. Or whatever monstrosity they could fish from the ocean. That was the problem. Ben loved his native food which was not to everyone's taste.
Unlike Western cuisine where ingredients are processed extensively with techniques such as braising and poaching, Japanese cuisine is all about natural taste and the fresher, the better. And sometimes it's so fresh because it's just off the limb.
He remembered the time when he was a dumb kid and they nearly had a falling out over it. On Ben's 50th birthday, they went to his favorite Japanese Restaurant of course. The place had a modern design but still has that characteristic minimalist aesthetic. Lots of free space but elegant despite the sparseness of decor. They were seated over a low table on cushions with the floor underlit beneath them. The chairs and tables were made of the expensive black wood that shine like it was lacquered. The walls were of soft orange with a texture of paper and yellow accents on the dividers and liquor display behind the bar and as illumination in the dim room.
Ben ordered some sort of special beef, among others, with a hefty price tag equivalent to the price of a Ruzaad shotgun, while the Ryders ordered barbecues and chicken teriyaki.
The food arrived and he looked over to what Ben had ordered to see the food that cost an arm and a limb.
It was slices of beef fanned on a slab of porcelain plate, with sauce poured artfully on one side.
His jaw fell in shock. Not only was it served plainly, it's also raw. It was just glistening there, shiny with the white fat marbling on the bright red flesh.
Then he remembered they ordered a barbecue so as his parents and Ben talked, he took the initiative to man the grill, happily adding Ben's pile to the sizzling meats. As soon as he was done, he transferred it back to the plate and presented it to his adopted Uncle.
"Happy Birthday, Ben," he said, presenting it with a flourish.
Ben broke away from their discussion to stare at what Scott had done to his food. He looked at it as if Scott had just served him his firstborn, a look mirrored by the waiter across from them, who turned to his fellow waiters until the chef came out and gaped at them. All of them looked about to eat their hats.
"Is there a problem?" Scott asked, divining that something was wrong.
Ben tore his eyes away from it to stare at Scott with those woeful eyes. He blinked several times before his face returned to being unreadable. This made Scott feel bad. But Ben picked up his chopsticks and sampled one of it. "It's quite good," he pronounced.
Scott beamed and he went back to manning the grill, not a little perturbed by the appearance of Ben's British accent.
Alex also picked one up and sampled it. "This is good," he pronounced. He smacked his slips. "It's fatty, though. I don't know why this cost so much. Next time, Hide, maybe you should choose a steakhouse that serves good meat," he said, calling his friend by his middle name, Hideaki, but shortened.
Ben inclined his head slightly. "I'll bear that in mind," he murmured, his accent stronger than ever.
"Now, let's just enjoy the meal, shall we?" Ellen said with the same British accent, her eyes twinkling with merriment. "They do care about you, Ben," she said, shooting Ben with a sympathetic glance for her well-meaning but not very perceptive men. "Too much, it seems."
Alec and Scott looked at her perplexed, but it was only later that Scott understood when Sara explained to him that he was not supposed to grill the meat.
"You're supposes to eat it sliced thin and raw," she hissed when they got home.
He looked at her with horror. "Raw?"
"It's Ben so.." she shrugged and left him there stewing in horror, both at what he'd just avoided eating and what he'd done to his uncle.
He did make up for it afterwards and Ben had told him not to mind it too much (in a neutral accent). And then the incident, instead of just being an embarrassing memory, became a secret joke between them. Whenever Scott had a fight with someone, he would refer to it as "having a beef" and Ben would crack up and they would start laughing.
"I can't stop thinking about what you did with the Advent. To be honest, that's kind of a dick move," Marcus commented as he, Scott and Cora were installing the seismic hammer in the plain beyond Podromos to solve the water problems of the outpost. The planet had finally cooled enough to tolerable levels but there's still no rain. There's a lot of shakes happening though. Small ones, not strong enough to damage their buildings but it did make the colonists reconsider about settling permanently, what with the aliens beyond the mountains still sitting pretty in their pretty little dome.
Then the colony found there's an aquifer deep in the soil. Whether they have the vault to thank for it, they didn't know but they were grateful. They were also fast to seize it while it's there.
"You side with those opportunistic free-loaders?" Scott scoffed. The Advent were a group of human exiles who one day decided to settle on the now viable Eos and compete with Podromos on the use of its resources. They also had the gall to declare independence from the Nexus, expressing their distaste at working with other aliens. They couldn't make them go back to the fold by force because well, they're the good guys. Besides, everyone's busy surviving that they don't have the time, money and effort to start a war on people doing the same thing while the aliens over the mountains loom over them all. Curiously, the aliens were not attacking when they could have wiped them out easily. They were hanging in the vicinity of the vault, hidden, but never entering the remnant structure. They only acted when one of them wandered into their territory so for now, they steered clear of the vault, despite their scientists wishing to get in it and study the outer chambers as the central chamber has sealed and refused to open even for SAM.
Though they thought that strange, they were grateful for it and also smart enough to realize not to start a fuss that can attract them.
"The way I see it, everyone wins," Scott grumbled as he fiddled with the third seismic hammer with his omni-tool. "We get the water, they get the gas. Besides, did they really expect that we would allow them to get the water so we can tap the gas for them to mine and trade it to us?"
"If you put it that way…"
Scott tapped on more buttons before continuing, "If I was a dick, that's because they were a dick. I just out-dicked them."
Marcus put up his hands. "Chill. I get you."
They stood back and watched as the seismic hammer did its job. It buzzed loudly as it dug into the hard-packed earth, sending dust around them rising into the air. The sun overhead beat hard on them, taxing their suit's environmental controls but they could do nothing but stand patiently, as the flora of the planet offered little protection for weary travelers. They can stop hoping for shade in Eos, as the trees either look like fan corals or else like blue broccoli with an uneven head. And that's just before they activated the vault and changed the planet irrevocably. Now, the trees looked like the faded and desiccated versions of themselves.
"Show's over, I think. Let's go home; it's been a long day," Scott said, his mind already on a cold shower back at the Tempest when the ground started shaking, every tremor growing powerful.
"What's happening?" Marcus said, as he fell on his knees and spread out his arms over the shaking ground.
"I don't know!" Scott answered, dropping also to his knees. "SAM, any ideas?"
It seems they didn't need SAM, as their answer burst out of the ground about fifty meters to their right. It kept going, going, going into the sky because it's a giant…..robot…worm.
Their mouths dropped open as they looked at it, the segmented arms running up, up, up into a humongous head with pincers, as dark as Remnant tech and its lights glowing brightly and angrily. It turned its head this way and that, showing them its fiery maw with sharp teeth whirring around, looking like a mouth of a serrated worm. Staring at it, they forgot the shaking ground and the infernal scream it's putting out. As it screamed again, they started moving.
"What the fuck did you do, Ryder?" Marcus hissed as they unstrapped their weapons and ran on jelly legs to a bunch of rocks for cover.
"What the fuck do you think, Zola? You were right there!" Scott hissed back as he dropped behind a rock.
"Damn it! Can you two stop playing around and focus on that thing right there!" Cora shouted as her biotics charged up her arms.
"Now what?" Marcus asked, training his sights on the creature.
They watched it wiggle from side to side, mud dripping from its head as the ground bubbled at its base. The fifty foot behemoth towered over the landscape, screeching as it turned its head around, mud plopping and splashing around it, as if searching for….something. Or someone. Some people. Some very dumb people.
"Nobody move," Scott whispered as they stared at it, his mouth dry as they realized what it was doing, hoping that the creature saw them merely as odd-looking rocks. Just part of the landscape...
It swung its great head around, sweeping over the land, its massive shadow falling over them once, until it seemed it did not find what it was looking for so it turned towards…Podromos.
The giant arc at the middle of the colony was peeking out of the cliff and gleaming in the mid-day sun, catching the worm's attention.
They turned towards the colony too and gaped when the worm started moving in that direction. "Shit! That stupid worm's decided for us! We need to stop it before it reaches the colony!" Scott yelled and they ran towards the Nomad, stumbling and tripping due to the ground being shaken by the worm's tread.
"Not as stupid as the human who woke it," Marcus fired back as he pulled himself onto the driver's seat while the others slid onto the Nomad.
"Rag on me later. If we live through this," Scott said at the back as Marcus stepped on the accelerator. The Nomad screeched and shot off across the plain, leaping over gullies, boulders and wildlife until it ran alongside the beast. Scott opened the door. "Cora, can I have the missile?"
"In a minute!" she answered as she rummaged at the back. She finally drew out a Cobra missile and handed the disk missile off to Scott. Scott put it above his omnitool, where it programmed its trajectory. He aimed it and fired.
The beast screeched as the missile hit one of its legs. It was still going for the outpost, but it was slowing down, its arc becoming higher and higher. Then it dove through the ground, shaking it, rocks and dust plumes rising high into the air and it disappeared.
"Think we scared it off?" Scott asked the two as the Nomad circled around to the hole the creature made.
Then suddenly, the ground shook again and then the creature burst to where they were moments before. They screamed as the Nomad bounced from the heaving ground and Marcus pushed the Nomad hard as boulders flew around them.
"4 o'clock! 4 o'clock!" Scott yelled, looking at the screen where the camera at the back was recording their tail. The Nomad turned left and Scott ducked instinctively as a boulder bounced on their left.
The ground around them started cracking and rising, which made the Nomad bounce as it traveled over them.
Scoot looked back and watched in dismay as a spray of rocks was about to drop on them. He yelled but a biotic shield appeared overhead and the rocks bounced away.
"Thanks, Cora," Scott said, his voice shaking. "SAM, can you track it?"
"Yes. It seems it should appear about sixty meters ahead of you," SAM droned.
"Right!" Marcus said and swerved hard to the right. The creature burst from the ground a moment later.
"Pathfinder, I have scanned the creature and identified several structural weaknesses. Disabling them would separate the links of its body. Your missiles would be sufficient for the task," SAM said.
"Thanks, SAM. Marcus?"
"On it," Marcus said and drove closer to the creature, circling it. It watched them and tried to strike down with its maw but it was too slow going down and getting up. At least it did not hide back into the ground.
Scott unloaded several missiles along with Cora. With SAM's targeting, they blasted away the nodes keeping the creature intact as Marcus drove the Nomad and they wove in and out and around it. The creature screamed and with one final explosion, it fell apart.
As its parts fell around them, the Nomad raced away from it as fast as possible. An arm fell in front of them, draping across their way and corralling them, so the Nomad had to swerve and follow alongside it, dust obscuring their way, enveloping them. Then a shadow appeared on their way, its outline the same as the creatures' head and getting longer.
"We're not going to make it!" Marcus said. But Cora yelled, "Drive straight ahead and drop it when I told you to!" She stretched her hand out the Nomad quickly unleashed a singularity before them. She ducked her hand back in quickly and said, "Now!"
Marcus boosted the Nomad to jump, just in time to pass through the singularity. The Vehicle floated up, but Marcus boosted it again so it was flipping over and up the boulder and moving faster. It was just in time, as the head crashed behind them. It flipped in the air until the biotic field disappeared and Marcus timed it to crash down onto the ground, wheels down. The tires screeched as the Nomad drove off again, parts of the creature's arms falling behind round them and the massive head bouncing. The head then exploded which sent debris towards them.
With parts chasing them, Marcus accelerated.
The Nomad swerved from side to side, avoiding the burning metal flying behind them. Then a clump suddenly buried in front of them, prompting Marcus to turn the wheel-right? Unbelievably, it made the Nomad swirl left, tires screeching, its back almost clipping the blockage, until it faced it again and made a full stop. Inside, they stared at the metal inches from the Nomad's nose as the other parts tumbled on beyond them.
When it finally stopped, Scott opened the door and climbed down the Nomad. He wobbled for a few steps forward then collapsed drunkenly on the side of their car. Cora and Marcus climbed out and joined him at watching the smoking remains of the creature.
They stood looking at it for a few more minutes, then Marcus said, "From this day onward, I'm going to call the 'doing something simple and then out pops a giant creature' a 'seismic hammer'."
As they stood looking at the smoking remains, far away a light twinkled. A light, reflected from a monocle.