Mass Effect: Andromeda is owned by BioWare Montreal/Electronic Arts. Credit goes to "SpaceCowboy" for the concept.
Unknown Location, Voeld, Nol System, Heleus Cluster, M31 Andromeda, June 24, 2819 CE/Day 532 Nexus Arrival
Author's Notes: This idea comes from a thread forum by FF's own "SpaceCowboy" who had a completely different concept other than the idea of a disconnect/survival story. I still give credit as I've never done a survival story, gave him a few ideas concerning the Terra Nova/South Pole Expedition, and liked the concept that he had. I just went and made my own (and practically the polar opposite to his own). Consent was asked for and given (and he says our ideas were too different to be a knock-off of one another's) but I don't think I would have thought of this if it hadn't been for him.
This chapter is dedicated to Lieutenant Lawrence "Titus" Oates of the Terra Nova Expedition, British Cavalryman and recipient of the Victorian Cross.
ARC I: Pathfinder Down
Commander Sara Elaine Ryder (Andromeda Initiative Navy, Commanding Officer Tempest, Hyperion Pathfinder) woke up in a startled gasp for breath that quickly evolved to a coughing fit. The twenty-two year old Human woman didn't have her bearings as the coughing fit occupied her thoughts and senses for several moments, the cough feeling moist and warm. She automatically wiped her mouth with the back of her gauntleted hand when she felt something dribble past her lips and down her chin, and the charcoal gray alumnisteel-and-ceramic plate of her fathers' Hahne-Keder Onyx Medium Ballistic Armor with its signature blood-red bordered with silver stripe going down the left pauldron and arm and marked with the symbol 'N7' over the breast where the heart laid came back bloody. She stared at the streaks of red that covered the back of her armored hand, a little bewildered to see blood, tasting the wet coppery flavor in her mouth. A quick check with her tongue indicated that she hadn't bitten her tongue or the inside of her mouth to indicate any injury, and though her jaw ached, all her teeth seemed to be there, too. She blinked, trying to reorient herself as she looked into the dark cabin of the Angaran-repurposed Kett Personnel Shuttle to see that significant damage had been done, supplies and cargo strewn about haphazardly, and a portion of the bulkhead pierced and exposing the outside to the interior.
Thinking was a little difficult, but it finally came back to Sara what had happened.
We were attacked. We crashed. Finally…
I'm still alive.
There had been no warning or indication when the shuttle had been absolutely rocked with an explosion, feeling as if it had gone off directly under their feet. Sara, along with her Quartermaster Vetra Nyx, and two Angaran Heskaarl Rangers San de Kjol and Irvam de Sjon, had been on the mission to take out a Kett Communication Relay Facility, going through the two dozen Kett defenders and destroying the receiver/transmitter antenna for the win. Khay De Qjanar and Jaal Ama Darav had gone to town exploiting the Kett Network Servers situated in the Communications Facility, downloading past and present messages as well as orders, correspondences, and actionable intel that the Resistance could use in their war against Kett had been hitting bases left-and-right in a series of random attacks on the principles of guerrilla warfare, striking swiftly and leaving behind nothing but Kett bodies and failure for their Command to chew on. They had plundered supplies, purloined weapons, stole vehicles, rescued the captured, eliminated their forces, and depopulated their bases while leaving them presents and surprises in the form of anti-personnel mines and booby traps.
When Ryder and TEAM PATHFINDER had rescued Moshae Indira Sjefa, pulled out dozens of captured Angara, killed the Disciple known as the Cardinal, and then delivered an improvised kinetic strike upon the facility to damage it to the point where repairs would likely take months or longer before it would be up and running again, she had won the fierce respect and loyalty of the Angaran Special Forces, known as the Heskaarl. Fresh from their victory over the Exaltation Temple, Commander Anjik Do Xeel, Commander Khay De Qjanar, and herself planned a series of randomly organized raids that would cripple the Kett's effectiveness over broad areas of Voeld, giving Resistance Fighters and normal civilians room to breath and time to prepare for whatever needed to be done. They struck out at military targets that were certain hamper Angaran efforts if they stood and hamper Kett efforts if they fell, and randomized the so-called 'hit list' to locations that decorated the area around the Kett Tactical Operations Command, as well as locations further away s as to spread out he damage and keep the Kett guess as to their next strike. Each strike was a victory for the Angara and TEAM PATHFINDER, eliminating hostile forces while plundering to their hearts' content whatever they could pry off, hack into, cart away, or chuck into the shuttles and fly off leaving behind a broken base filled with explosive candy. Munitions, supplies, resources, vehicles, prisoners, intel, maps, weapons… all had been liberated from the Kett and fed directly to the Resistance, the Angara now more well-supplied than they had ever been. The tide was turning in their favor, and the strike on the Communications Facility was to be but a prelude to the true strike; the assault of the K-TOC itself.
Unfortunately for them, they had been struck on their way back from their success. Three times, actually.
Yalsi Avria, the shuttles' pilot, had done what she could, but Sara knew when they were hit right in the starboard thruster, the fuel cell ruptured and the starboard side engine disintegrating as it tried to run while heavily damaged, that crashing was likely going to be their next destination. The female Angara had done her best to keep them aloft in a dying shuttle when the second rocket or missile struck them right in the belly, knocking them further off-course and practically making the deck of the shuttle touch the ceiling from the rents and bends in the armored floor. The storm that raged outside that was suppose to give them concealment battered the ailing vessel as everyone held on for dear life when the third missile struck to the bow, a bloom of metal fragmenting up through the deck floor and right out the roof of the shuttle… right where the cockpit was. Ryder had watched in horror as Yalsi Avria, whose mother TEAM PATHFINDER had pulled from the Exaltation Facility, earning the joy and loyalty of the female pilot, was turned into so much pulp in an instant as the cockpit was shredded beyond repair or recovery.
The shuttle had plummeted out of the sky with all of the grace of a falling rock. Her last conscious thought while screaming the rest of her life away before they crashed was Scottie, I'm so sorr-
She woke up coughing blood.
Sara leaned back in her crash chair, panting hard as it hurt to breath, a stab of pain in her lower left side every time she drew breath. The painful sensation of cold hit her exposed face as her breath waifed from her mouth with each exhalation. That shocked her at first, remembering that she had her helmet on during the flight and certainly during the plummet, and it came to her that the front faceplate of her father's helmet had shattered. Gotta stop meeting like this, she slowly thought to herself as she lifted an arm up, wincing at the lance of pain going through her arm as her trembling hand touched the alumniglas shield of her faceplate and found it to be unrepairable; it was completely broken, most of it having shattered and fallen off, leaving enough room for her armored hand to fit inside. Sara grunted as she lowered her arm onto the crash seats' armrest, her elbow joint protesting every move she made as pain radiated throughout her body. Sara closed her eyes, tried imagining breathing slow and steady as she focused her mind on where the pain was located; personal survival came first before she could help others, after all. It seemed that every joint and every limb hurt just shy of excruciating, but she was able to wiggle her fingers and toes. That was a good sign. She lifted her hand again and untwisted the clasp of the five-point suspension harness of her crash seat, the clasp centered over her breastplate as the buckles came loose and three of the straps fell away completely while the ones over her shoulders dangled freely. There was no doubt that the harness had saved her life, considering the condition the shuttle seemed to be in. Sara opened her eyes, the cold stinging them fiercely enough that tears formed in the corners and got caught in her lashes, turning bitter cold in the sub-freezing temperatures of Voelds' environment, looking at the personnel /cargo compartment of the Utility Shuttle.
Disaster was the best-fit word.
It seemed that everything had been broke upon impact; no real surprises, there. All the gear and equipment had been shifted from their original locations, the straps or toggles meant to prevent a shift while in transit failing during a high-speed impact. Boxes of equipment were strewn about the cabin, cluttering the confining area with debris. Some of the containers were broken completely, spilling out their contents while some survived, scuffed but whole. The shuttles' deck was pierced open, the edges peeled open upward from the second missile strike, and a portion of the starboard side hull had been sheared or ripped open, a massive crack that extended from deck to roof that was thick enough in the middle for her to shove her arm through, letting in the bitter bitter cold. The Pathfinder let off a shivering breath as she went to get up, and hothothot pain shot right through her back, making her cry out in agony as she slumped back, pain radiating up and down her spine, pins and needles and painful sand moving through her limbs as bitter tears of pain leaked from her eyes. Sara did her best to bite back a sob but failed, the pain taking too long to lessen, going from absolute agony to merely utterly excruciating. Oh God… my… my back! Crash seats in Human vessels were designed with physical shock absorbers and hydraulics to lessen the impact of an uncontrolled decent and landing (ie, a crash), but she had no idea if the Kett had anything like that or if the Angara knew of such things when they repurposed it for their own use. The radiating pain was like a rod of molten fire driven into her spine, somewhere in her lower back as Sara sobbed from the agony and fear. No, I moved my toes, my back isn't broken, she thought to herself as she forced her wet frosty eyes open and looked down to her armored legs. You… you can do this, Sara. Biting her lower lip in preparation for the pain, she tested out her theory.
Her left leg went up, and molten lava went down into her spine. She screamed through clenched teeth and bitten lip.
"Pathfinder. Do not move."
The pain subsided as Sara opened her eyes to see Irvam de Sjon standing before her, kneeling in front of her as he activated his wrist-mounted scanner and proceeded to run what she assumed might be a medical diagnostics program. Likely, it was meant for Angara physiology, but it would at least detect broken bones or internal bleeding. The light purple-skinned male Angara scanned her from head-to-toe, and then did a return sweep upward for several seconds as Ryder sat there, the agony in her back barely subsiding as she remained still.
"San de Kjol? Yalsi Avria?" The Pathfinder asked, her voice tinged in pain as she looked into Irvam's cat-like light blue eyes as he consulted his wrist-mounted computer to look at his scans. His eyes flickered up to her, his strange lips pursing together at her question. She was the leader of TEAM PATHFINDER, not the Heskaarl, but she was also the nominal leader of Shuttle Two. If there were losses or injuries, she would need to know.
"San has a few minor injuries. In this he is lucky." The Assault Ranger replied. "I am without any major injury myself. Yalsi… did not survive." Sara snapped her eyes shut at that blow, remembering seeing the third missile strike that struck right under the cockpit, the explosion of metal shrapnel spraying upward from the deck where the pilot sat. Likely, the Angara female never knew what hit her, and died instantly trying to keep them alive.
"Then may her soul be granted a favorable new life." The Angara believed in reincarnation, something that Sara herself didn't actually believe in, but didn't need to. It was the Angara's belief, and she respected it and acknowledged it, knowing that there were Earth religions that taught of reincarnation, though as a Neo-Christian, didn't subscribe to that sort of thing. Well, she didn't come to the Andromeda Galaxy to become a missionary, but to explore. This was merely a part of it. "She was true to the Resistance, her crew, and herself. May your Gods judge her fair and well." The agony in her back had dulled somewhat, though it still felt as if there was a blinding white-hot spot of pain centered in her lower back, threatening to overcome her at any moment. "Vetra?"
"Vetra… is injured. As are you." The Angara Heskaarl replied, softly, sounds of movement having Sara see San de Kjol moving in the cargo area, shifting some of the crates and boxes, probably scavenging for supplies and anything salvageable. "You have a chipped bone disk in your central support column," ah, her spinal column, "as well as two bulging cushion disks above and below it." Two herniated or bulging disks. That explained the intense pain. Thankfully, her spinal cord was still intact, but the inflamed disks were likely pressing against it as well, meaning any kind of movement she did would either cause her blinding pain or injure herself further. "Two of your torso bone that make up your chest are broken as well. You also have a series of small cuts and abrasions upon your face when your helmets' protective face cover shattered. Some are still embedded in your flesh."
"Fuck." That one word summed it up pretty good, sadly. She was fucked; unable to be move under her own power, and likely unable to be transported unless she was stabilized on a spineboard, which the shuttle did contain one. But that meant she would be immobilized in the name of medical necessity, and she would have to be carried to the nearest extraction point. In other words, she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. "Vetra?"
"She…" The Angara paused, her face drawn. Bad news, then. "A spar of metal has pierced her lower flank, and is currently embedded into the shuttle's wall. We cannot remove it without further injuring her or causing her to bleed profusely." Sara translated that through the pain and news of her own injuries.
Vetra Nyx was stapled to a wall, and they didn't have the means to extract her.
"Is she awake?" Sara asked softly, her heart thudding hard in her chest as she thought of the sisters Nyx, Vetra and Sidera. God, Sid was just a kid.
"Yes." The Special Forces warrior replied. "She is in some pain, but much less than she should be feeling."
"Shock." Fuck, that wasn't a good sign. "There is a small black box with red Human writing on it in here, along with a couple of yellow warning signs." The Angara knew enough Milky Way writing to recognize warning signs if not the language. "That is our Communication Transmitter/Receiver, what keeps me connected with my ship and crew."
"Yes, we found it." The Heskaarl said. "It was shattered by one of the blasts, and looks to be beyond repair at this time with what we have."
That wasn't good; that was the QEC Communication Relay, what kept her connected to SAM and vice versa. Yes, she had a SAM Implant, but she wasn't a radio antenna by any stretch of the imagination. The QEC Relay provided the necessary power to let her stay connected to SAM for upwards of five kilometers, letting her send and receive data instantly to the Artificial Intelligence stationed on ARK Hyperion. It would explain why SAM wasn't talking to her, describing her injuries, or telling her that relief forces were on their way.
It meant that they were lost.
Sara knew what needed to happen, had talked it over with Commander Khay de Qjanar in case this happened. It was a lesson learned on Habitat Seven, when both shuttles had crashed upon that poisoned planet with no means of communication. Sara had taken that lesson to heart, and had devised a protocol on what to do if or when a member of TEAM PATHFINDER went dark, herself included.
"Irvam, there is a small red box with a white symbol that looks like a crosshair somewhere in here. That's a levo-chilary medical first aid kit. There will be a small blue box with a green symbol that looks like a twisting ladder. That's a dextro-chilary medical first aid kit. Secure those for us first before you head out."
The Angara looked at her for a moment silently. Regarding her.
"Irvam, how many hours of daylight are left? And about how far from Techiix are we?" Ryder asked.
"There are seven hours of daylight left." San de Kjol answered instead. "And gaging by the flight time, I estimate that we are perhaps thirty leagues away from Techiix." Thirty leagues was about thirty kilometers. That distance in seven hours over snowy landscape in a small blizzard was… expecting a lot. And those were rough estimates.
"Can you make it? No bullshit, can you make the trek to Techiix and get a medical evacuation for myself and Vetra, marking this location with however you can?" Sara asked, looking at the two male Angara, knowing what she was asking for, just as they knew. To stay here, stranded and lost, they would likely all perish. If she sent them out, there was a great chance they might not make it, but these were Angara Heskaarl; the best of the best amongst the Resistance. If anyone could make it, it would be them.
"Yes, we can make that journey." San finally answered, Irvam nodding in agreement. "But you are asking us to leave you here." That was asking a hard thing. The responsibility of leadership was making those hard decisions no one wanted, understanding the consequences, and then making them anyhow. This time, it involved her.
"You can't drag us there, and we're mostly protected in this shuttle." Sara replied. "I'm asking you to go to Techiix so you can get transportation so you can get us out of here. I wouldn't leave Vetra here if I were healthy, and I'm not sending a singular person out into the snow in case something happens. Me and Vetra will look out for each other, and you two look out for each other. Go to Techiix and reach it before nightfall, and scare up whatever you can to return here to pull us out with whatever is medically available. Commander Do Xeel will know what to do when you reach her." The Techiix Commander had the protocol that Sara had written up in case something happened to her so the Angara female would know what to do. Likewise, Sara had gotten something in return to notify her what to do if Techiix came under attack. Anjik Do Xeel was a damn fine leader and strategist, and someone that Ryder trusted. "The Med Kits, and anything you need to keep yourselves going.
"We're wasting daylight, gentlemen." She reminded them of the scenario. There were worse things on Voeld than Kett, after all.
Irvram closed his eyes, sighed, and nodded.
"We will do this. We shall return." The Heskaarl warrior promised, their eyes both looking at each other, knowing the promise was figurative. She knew he would do his damnedest to keep that promise, but some things were just out of a sapients' hands. San de Kjol came back with the requested Med Kits, as well as setting several smaller supply boxes near Ryder. "We will put you next to Vetra so you can care for her, construct a small heating unit, and supplies as near as we can." Sara nodded, knowing what Irvam was alluding to, giving her the means to survive more than seven hours, hopefully.
In case they didn't make it.
"Do it now." Sara said, knowing what was going to happen next as the Angara male released her restraining harness for her, the Pathfinder taking several fast deep breaths and then holding it, looking to the two warriors in front of her and giving them a nod, doing her best to prepare herself for the move.
They lifted her from her crash seat as gently and properly as they could. She screamed out in agony as hot electrical fire bloomed from her back and filled her limbs and mind, the torturous agony in her spine a living, breathing thing as the Heskaarl moved her to the other side of the shuttle, in the crash seat next to Vetra Nyx. Sara scream, cried, and wailed as if felt like she were being stabbed with plasma and a high-voltage cord at the same time, every nerve crying out in agony as she was put into her seat, tears flowing down as she sobbed as she was secured to the crash seat to prevent her from falling over or accidentally injuring herself even worse. She hardly felt the three-taloned hand that slipped into her own as Sara looked to her left, seeing a pair of reptilian yellow-green eyes looking at her, the holographic band of her visor off for once. Sara did her best to bite of her screams and tears as the pain seeped into every part of her, reaching into every limb, every fiber, every cell. Vetra squeezed her armored hand, and Sara knew that the Turian was doing the only thing she could to be there for Sara. Despite the pain that fogged her mind and thoughts, Ryder was grateful.
"We will plug the holes as best we can, and then we will head for Techiix." San de Kjol said as Irvam was already doing just that, stuffing wreckage in the large crack that the wind and cold was seeping through. "There is a supply of your Milky Way Universal Power Cells next to you, Commander Ryder, as well as the connecting cord for the heating unit." There had been a small portable Angara heating unit brought on every mission in case they had rescued any captured Angara who were in danger of 'going dark'. Sara had never actually seen what that looked like, but took it in stride. Now she was grateful for the tiny little heating unit. The two Heskaarl warriors spent only a few minutes covering up the rend in the shuttle, knowing that their time was precious, but leaving a draft was a dire threat. Being in full exposure to the Voeldian elements would kill a Human in two hours even with an armors' environmentals and life support system; it would sap the systems power and then one would freeze to death in the negative forty plus degrees Celsius temperatures. For a Turian, that time was even less due to the fact that Palavenians hadn't evolved to be endothermic; they couldn't produce their own body heat, much like reptiles on Earth.
The two Angara Special Forces operatives were finished, and Sara could feel her heart breaking at the sight of them grabbing their respective weapons, preparing to leave. She was asking them to traverse thirty kilometers through a blizzard when they weren't really sure where they were, to save their lives. It could be only the Angara made it. It could be that they would perish. It could be that they would all perish from the cold. The courage and bravery that they had was one that Sara found endearing, to walk out into the cold in the effort to save lives.
"Stay strong and clear." Sara said to them as they went to the shuttle crafts' hatch, making both Irvam and San turn to her for a moment to nod their heads in acknowledgment. "Go forth and good luck, very gallant gentlemen." The Pathfinder said, knowing they likely wouldn't know the reference.
The hatch opened, letting in the bitter wind, and then it closed. They were now alone.
"So…" Vetra's flanged voice spoke up, tinged in pain as she looked to Sara.
"Did you bring any cards?"
Author's Notes: "A Very Gallant Gentleman" is etched upon the cross marking the spot where Captain Oates was thought to have laid by the search party led by Lieutenant Edward Atkinson in November of 1912, eight months after Scott's party perished. The diaries of Captain Robert Scott were preserved, and the last entries described the maladies that the Terra Nova Expedition suffered. Captain Oates, suffering scurvy, hypothermia, frostbite, and gangrene, had to be carried the last few days of his life, slowing the expedition to less than 3 miles a day. On 16 March, 1912, he purposefully walked out of the tents claiming to take a walk and that "it might be a while". Scott's last words of the soldier was that he was "a brave and true English Gentleman". The rest of the three members (Scott, Bowers, and Wilson) perished approximately on 31 March, 1912, frozen to death with no food or fuel, eleven miles from the next depot, kept from continuing on by blizzards until they grew too weak and sick to continue on. Scott's last journal entry was on 29 March, beseeching God to look after 'our' people.