Author's Note: So here we are again, another chapter. More progress for first contact! Slower going than some fanfics involving Mass Effect but there is a reason I'm doing it mostly from Cmdr Marcus' point of view. I do have a plan! Or that's what I tell myself. I've written before but this is the first time I'm doing it with some semblance of a plan. I've got notes, an out line, timeline and all that nifty stuff.
Anyway, hope it's entertaining!
*FWIP*
"155 Meters of Falcon/Delacey excellence drops out of supercruise and banks left to move alongside a severely damaged alien spaceship with all the grace my years of experience have given me." Marcus looks out the canopy at an obviously aged and now even-more-obviously damaged ship. Mumbling to himself in an attempt to make light of the fact that he had only recently hunted and killed a ship full of aliens on first contact only because they themselves had hunted and were killing a ship full of aliens. That part had started to get to him.
So now in his best try-not-to-stay-crazy tradition, he was narrating his actions, "He lines Lucy's cargo hatch up with what appears a damaged external airlock because beyond what seems to be running lights, there are no longer any emissions from this ship."
"Marcus does hope that there are survivors, what about you Lucy?" Marcus pats the armrest, pausing a moment with his hand up about to pat it one last time. A moment passes where the absurdity of what he was doing dawns on him and he clears his throat and goes over his modules menu, shutting down the non-essentials so Lucy runs cold while he's out.
'Alright, so talking out loud isn't working so well. Let's just try just getting on with it then eh?'
With a resigned sigh he sends the command that uncouples him from his chair, pushing off lightly to float away from the console in zero-g before moving towards the back door on the bridge, lightly pushing off the hand-holds to get there. Pushing his feet to the floor, the magnetic field on the soles of his suit engage and with a small fump, attract to the metal plating.
Walking carefully the distance through his ship he makes it to the entrance of the cargo area, grabbing the vacuum-rated kit and suiting it up, his helmet last. The tinted, smoothly curved faceplate goes opaque for a moment before it finishes syncing up with his mindcom and lightens to his preferred transparency. He checks his connection with Lucy and the ship status pops up in his field of vision.
With his Remlock suit sealed for vacuum, he goes through the airlock which pulses a flash of intense UV light to sterilize. Without missing a step he passes through the small airlock, the 'external' door leading into the unpressurized cargo hold opens half a second before he would have walked into it. Having set the internal sensors to do so on one of his trips out in the galaxy. He had found that he could set the sensors and bulkhead speeds to move as fast as he could move in zero-g without missing a magnetic seal on his foot. Boredom can do things to you out there. It's the little things that make it better.
'Besides, it's my ship and that's how I wanted it.' he mused, trying again to distract himself.
With a thought, the command for the cargo hatch is sent and it extends, the sound of the hydraulics distant as it can only travel to his ears through his feet at this point. He steps to the end of it and looks at the alien airlock some ten meters distant and feels apprehension shiver down his spine. He's been in hard vacuum outside his ship before. Eventually nearly any explorer ends up just floating out a bit and with the telepresence features on ship it's trivial to keep close to your ship. Or rather keep your ship close to you in most cases.
No, the apprehension is for what he worries he'll find on the other ship.
'It looks nearly familiar from the outside and those aliens I killed looked similar enough to me that I don't expect tunnels and living walls or something….I really hope.'
Another second and deep breath and he pushed off towards the hatch to drift sedately towards it. Soon after the sudden realization that he didn't know if the alien hull was magnetic or not hit him and he realized he might just bounce off. Luckily as he drifted closer, he saw that there would be a handle that he would be able to grab if that wasn't the case.
A few seconds later and with a soft clank, not only was he able to grab the handle but where his left foot touched at least was magnetic. He brought his right foot in and soon he was in a squatting position next to the door, looking with every bit of concentration at the small panel at around the height it would be for a human door.
'Alright Marcus, you found the door, and these are the controls. Now, maybe if I stare at this damn thing and really hope, I'll be gifted with the ability to read this gibberish.'
At a glance the writing seemed almost like something he'd see somewhere in the bubble but once you started really trying to make sense of what the writing said, it seemed to become more and more alien. With a frown he realized he didn't even know if he was trying to read it in the right direction or if it was right-side up. Realizing that was going nowhere fairly quickly he decided on the next best thing.
'Well, I am looking for survivors and I can't figure out this control…..' With a shrug, he knocked on the door three times, each time harder. With his suit's knuckles still against the airlock door he paused for a bit and started feeling more and more silly stuck on the outside of an alien ship, knocking.
With a sigh he pulled his hand away and held onto the handle, stretching out a bit to relieve the tension in his body he hadn't realized he had held and glanced behind him at Lucy. He felt a twinge of embarrassment.
"Yeah, I know, it was stup-" He was cut off as he felt movement through his grip on the handle, a distant hum of machinery. After a few seconds, it cut off and a light on the small control panel came on. A moment later the door soundlessly slid open, small bits of matter floated out. Dust, ice crystals, and what Marcus felt rather sure was an alien candy wrapper.
A nervous smirk found its way onto his face as he turned to the open airlock, "Well, I didn't come all this way just to ring the bell and run….
He pulled himself into the airlock and floated towards the interior door with some practiced grace. There were only a few dim lights running in strips in the top corners of the airlock that blinked on. Marcus tapped the wall lightly to turn himself around to look back out at Lucy.
A short glimpse was all he got before the exterior door slid shut and the white mist of atmosphere began to puff from nozzles around him. The lights brightened.
Then the floor slammed into him.
With all the sudden and unwelcome force of a visit from a Federation drop squad he hit the floor and crumpled as his mass decided at that moment that it would press itself against the alien floorboards. Not in anyway prepared, his legs buckled underneath him and the wind was knocked out of him for a moment as his helmet clanged against the floor.
Marcus gasped for air as he got his bearings, now lying in an awkward spread on the floor. Clarity returned in a rush as his instincts kicked in. The only thing he could think would make him slam into the floor and now stick to it like he seemed to be doing was constant acceleration.
Jumping to his feet, he sent a ping to Lucy, getting the reassuring all green auto-response before he frantically looked around the airlock, noticing the interior door was now open but dismissing it. If he was accelerating as fast as he felt like he was, he'd leave his own ship behind fairly quickly and he needed for that to not happen.
Seeing a small, holographic screen next to the exterior door, he darted over to it and tried to touch it. His fingers passed through the apparently holographic screen before he registered what he was seeing on it. It was a feed of just outside the airlock and he could see Lucy.
Confusion spread over him as he sent the command to turn the external lights on and off and the video feed on the small projection reflected that, albeit, tinted orange.
His hud popped in his field of vision and he checked the status of his ship, seeing that it seemed to be running as cold as he had set it to run and wasn't, in fact, moving at all.
A few more times of blinking Lucy's exterior lights and opening and closing the cargo hatch it slowly dawned on him. The ship wasn't accelerating, he was. At what felt like about 9.8 meters a second squared towards the floor.
The realization of what that meant broke through his concern and with a small giggle he raised his hand and relaxed it and it fell to his side.
"Well I'll be fucked, these damn aliens actually have artificial gravity!" with that sudden realization said out loud he remembered the open interior door and turned towards it, suddenly feeling a bit better about the situation.
'Well, if they still have all this on then I'd say my chances of survivors just went up. And the door opened so I'm…..welcome?' his previous apprehension came back a bit in the back of his mind as he took a stiff step forward and then looked down at his feet.
'Right, magnetic soles, don't suppose those are necessary here now that the aliens seem to know how to manipulate gravity.' Another thought and he was walking normally, the interior door of the airlock leading straight in for a few meters, lights turned on in front of him until he reached a cross-way leading in three different directions.
The walls of the ship hallways were a grey brown that were flat all the way from the ceiling to the floor and were made of panels a few meters long with tightly fitted seams joining them. No decoration although there were a few bits of writing he could see that seemed utilitarian to him. He absentmindedly wondered if they were notices or directions of some sort.
He stopped as he reached an intersection that the lights had stopped turning on at and looked down the other directions.
Straight from the airlock. Lights didn't turn on.
Back towards the airlock. The lights were staying on.
He turned left, lights didn't come on.
He turned right and the lights began coming on down the hallway that seemed to lead a door some twenty meters away. Figuring he might be being led he went that way anyway he started down that direction.
He noticed the hallway ended at at a door and he studied it for a moment, a dim holographic symbol was projected just over the surface of the door. It was a unthreatening, dim shade of green and when he poked at it, it spun and the door opened, sliding up.
What he saw just inside the door scattered any sort of positive hope he had about the ship. The lights in the newly accessible hallway came on and he was frozen by the sight of a line of what was apparently the aliens. He took slow steps in the hallway, staring woodenly at the line of bodies on the floor.
All down the hallway were roughly two dozen alien bodies toppled over against the wall and each other like dominos. None of the still had heads.
Stunned, Marcus could only stare for a minute.
"Shit"
A closer look at the bodies showed that every head seemed to have been blown off at the shoulders. The fact that all the bodies were so similar to human while at the same time different did nothing to help the panic welling up in him and did not quite make it to his conscious mind.
There were a few tan-grey bodies with red-orangish blood. Scaly blue bodies with grey-ish armored scales, one body seemed to have had a helmet on if the messy bits of hood still attached to the shoulders of the armor that body was wearing was any indication. A number of the bodies near the end all seemed to be the same light shades of blue.
Bending down to look closer at a body that was almost a sky blue with blue blood and organs too if the drying splattered meat near it was any indication, he saw bits of something shiny embedded in the alien's shoulder.
"Sorry whoever you were but I'm trying to figure out what….this….is…." His thoughts were interrupted when he realized the curved fragment looked a hell of a lot like a collar. Standing up suddenly and looking back over the line of bodies it clicked.
They had slave collars on and they all had been facing the door like they were lined up. Leading to the airlock. He had been shot at by something that looked like it was a shuttle.
"I interrupted a fucking slave raid!" The situation settled on his mind like a tangible weight with more impact than the gravity he hadn't expected..
"First contact with an alien race. It has to be a damn slave raid…" Standing in the hallway, staring up at one of the lights he could only take a deep breath and gather himself as his head spun and he swayed on his feet.
'I'd like to think there weren't any on that ship I destroyed but if that was a shuttle and the one I picked up….'
Shaking his head, he decides to move on to look for survivors before stopping, a realization freezing him in place. He had no idea if there were more of the slavers on the ship and he wasn't about to bet that alien slavers didn't have a way to shoot uncooperative crew.
'I have no weapon, I'm on an alien ship that was attacked by slavers and all the slaves are dead. Did they blow their heads when their big ship ran or was it something else? Crap, I need a gun if I'm going to do this, but….'
The thought of any survivors if the slavers hadn't stayed on the ship kept him from heading back immediately. The memory of the voice on the radio came to mind and he looked back over the bodies. There had only been two, one sounded female and desperate, the other young and terrified.
"Well, I do always like to help so-" He was interrupted by a sound, a wet, coughing sound from further down the hallway and a glance in that direction he could see the hallway lead to a door. Suddenly galvanized at the thought that he could help he moved quickly to the doorway.
Only to slip in something he'd rather not remember and smash his faceplate into the doorway. His sweaty face slammed into the interior of the faceplate smearing sweat, oils, and a small splatter of spit that flew out when he hit blurring his vision. Shaking it off and standing up he saw the alien that had made the sound. A blue shape that seemed to reach out to him and pleading in the same musical language came over the radio before. Now though, there was much less vigor to the voice. Now it was a whispered desperation that brought up all the worse memories for Marcus.
He has to help but he couldn't see much but blurred shapes and colors. Keying the helmet seal, he didn't even stop to think as he flung it off and gasped when he met the alien's widening eyes.
She was blue and there was nothing that would dissuade Marcus in that instant that the alien before him wasn't a she. The wide, azure eyes, high cheekbones, the mouth and chin all seemed to take after a human woman. A blue alien woman that was reaching out to him with one hand, trying to tell or ask him something with quiet desperation while her other hand seemed to be trying to hold her stomach together.
That's when he realized there was blue blood everywhere, he glanced around the room they were in. A console that seemed to have exploded that looked to have caused the woman's injuries and he was taken aback when he saw a large gorilla shape sitting still in the corner, slumped over in some sort of chair thing in front of a large console. Another glance around and the woman's musical speech brought his gaze back to her.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand! I don't even know what was happening but I did kill them." He gestured around to the other bodies.
"The ones who did this? I killed them." He tried his best to convey reassurance but felt he was failing miserably. He was reaching for anything to say now that might help but the woman was still reaching towards him and now seemed to be repeating something.
He knelt next to her, "I'm sorry, I-" He was stopped as he felt her hand touch his head, the skin was cold and her hand shaky but it pulled his eyes up to hers.
He only had a moment but the change in the alien's eyes almost startled him, they were entirely black as she said two words.
After everything that happened to Marcus, various people would ask him about what happened when he melded with the Asari on that Citadel merchant ship.
He would go on to always say the same thing, "There's plenty of things to find about the meld on the extranet and galnet sites and they could look it up themselves, I'm getting sick and tired of that question."
In reality, never once in his life did he ever want to think about what happened. Her mind slammed into his like a boosting Imperial cutter into a sidewinder. He felt like his mind was shattered and her pain, anguish, and terror was pushed into every piece like jagged glass.
In the best of situations in first contact, Asari melds have facilitated smooth contact. The graceful exchange of language and culture in a meld takes training and time. Something that Marcus did not get the benefit of as a five-century old scared and mortally wounded mother pushed every last bit of her life into her desperate attempt to make Marcus understand.
Pressure built to an almost unbearable level and then flooded beyond that, his thoughts lost in a wash of images, memories, and unintelligible words rushing through his mind in a jumbled rush.
For what seemed like forever he felt he would be lost in the mess of memories being stabbed into his psyche before the flood abated. The images and memories slowed to a stop and confusion welled up, quickly supplanted by a feeling of weary realization. The pressured impact he had been enduring let up for a moment with the feeling of realization. A shifting sensation seemed to flutter in his mindscape.
Then the pressure slammed back into his mind as he began remembering the alien woman's language. Concepts, grammar, and grammar settled in his mind and the other memories began to coalesce. Some of the clips and phrases he saw rush past him in his mindscape now held bits of discernible speech.
A strange, hunched mottled grey thing told her in a monotone voice that pirates had been detected on an intercept course. -a feeling of worry.
An image of a smiling blue face holding a small child in a hospital bed. -love and longing.
A blue arm darts out to steady herself against the doorway as the ship bucks underneath her. The image moves forwards and pulls the small blue, confused girl from the bed and hugs her. -sudden spike of terror.
The little blue girl mutters "Momma, no, stay…" as her blue arms push the child into the small space and covers it with a damaged panel. -blind panic
Her hands work the flickering controls frantically, a voice repeats "Unknown ship, we are under attack by slavers, please help! My daughter…" a sobbing sound cuts the voice off and the image begins to swim. -dispair, helplessness
There is a flash and stabbing pain in his stomach and back. The image dims and swims for a moment before facing down, seeing two blue legs that try feebly to move. More pain, his blue hand comes into view covered in blood. The hand moves to cover the holes in his stomach and the image dims. -fear and failure
The image brightens, the pain constant and throbbing, a muffled thump is heard behind her. A shaky, pale blue hand comes into view and an orange projection pops up. A bloody blue hand comes up and selects the function. A mechanism whirs, the image dims. -...
A voice and a shape stumbles, falls into the image. The figure stands and fumbles with it's helmet before throwing it off. A new face, an alien. The image wavers for a moment as a voice starts to beg weakly to helm her daughter. The figure babbles and motions around. -save her
The figure kneels, she hears her voice desperately whispering, "Meld, we must meld. Save her" over and over. The blue hand touches the figure's head. A connection and they push the urgency of her daughter into the new person. -urgency, save her!
Sights, sounds, memories, nothing useful to help the newcomer save my daughter! Why?...new species, no language. *Thessian*, learn thessian. Save her… -SAVE HER! -SAve….her. -save…..
Blood drips from his nose as the Asari's hand goes limp and he falls back against the opposite wall. His mind writhes in pain and his limbs twitch weakly as tears fall down his face as everything the alien woman had stabbed into his mind tries to both bury him in an abyss of loss and fear while it urges him on. He sees her eyes, still open and completely black. The expression on her face one of pain and failure.
SAVE HER! Echos through his mind and without meaning to he jerks shakily to his feet, stumbling through the ship he's never seen before but now knows perfectly.
He rushes down the hallways and around corners. He passes more bodies, flashes of memories of them pass over his mind but he pays no attention. He must get to the child.
He has to SAVE HER.
The last door doesn't open, he bangs the control and yells his frustration as he strikes it again and again. The memory of the tears rolling down the daughter's face as she begged her to not leave forces him to hit harder. Something breaks in his hand. He stops banging on the control and slams his face against the viewport in the door.
Where her daughter should have been he can only see twisted metal, sparking wires, and stars. Nothingness fills his heart as he hears himself muttering "No, no, no…."
Her face fills his mind as he turns and slides against the door and an anguished, drawn-out scream erupts from him.
His daughter, her daughter…..little Mira. He couldn't save her.
The sounds of wrenching sobs echo through the dead ship.
Hot damn, now that's a pile of steaming First Contact I-tell-you-hwhat! For some reason this is how I kept seeing Cmdr Marcus' first contact going. Getting mixed up in a raid and an panicked and broken meld that just does fuck-all for his mental well being. Tentative diagnosis of double jeapordy PTSD. Anyone want to guess how that's going to affect him going forward? I just hope I can frame the rest of his story well enough now that I threw him in this particular fire.
I am going a bit slower with Marcus' first contact, chapter by chapter but it's hitting a pace I'm comfortable with. Hopefully it's working with all of you as well. I did write the first contact like the way I am because a.) a lot of them are Shanxi invasions shoehorned into the crossed-over world and that just doesn't make as much sense with the Elite world. and b.) The exploration in Elite feels like a more organic way of first contact happening to me. The slaver attack is really just to lend a large bit of emotional weight to it and it's just more interesting for me to write personally.
Ok, I do hope I'm keeping you entertained, now - onward and I'd appreciate reviews!