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Welcome to the Future: Chapter 2

At first glance, NK386 was an unexceptional ball of ice and rock slightly larger than Earth's Moon, orbiting a white dwarf star at a distance of 4.6 astronomical units. But if one took the time to actually watch the small planet, to observe it as it travelled along its orbit, they would soon notice something strange.

Put simply, NK386 was moving too slowly. An object of its size, moving at its current velocity should not have been able to maintain a stable orbit around its sun. It should have spiralled inwards, eventually colliding with the star and being absorbed by it. Instead, it travelled onwards in an almost perfectly circular orbit, despite having only 78% of the velocity that an object of its size should have needed to avoid literally falling into the sun.

Where other organisations had simply noted the anomaly and offered speculation, Cerberus had sent a team to investigate. And what they had found made "a significant discovery" sound like the understatement of the century.

Discovering remnants from ancient alien civilisations on worlds that never supported life was uncommon, but not unheard of. Usually, such discoveries were the remains of small outposts, much like the Prothean ruins that had been discovered on Mars.

In contrast, the Cerberus team on NK386 had discovered hundreds of interconnected hollow structures buried just below the planet's surface, and one especially large structure which reached miles down towards the planet's core.

After sixteen months of exploring and investigating the largest structure, the team had reported making "an exciting and significant discovery."

And then they had gone silent.

Now, twenty-seven days after the team's last transmission, a UT-47 Kodiak "Drop-Shuttle" was descending towards the surface of NK386.

Miranda had volunteered to pilot the shuttle down to the surface while the Normandy stayed in orbit, leaving Shepard and the rest of the ground team to ride in the shuttle's twelve-man passenger compartment.

Jacob, Grunt, Kasumi and Garrus had elected to tag along, eager for an excuse to leave the confines of the ship. Mordin too had chosen to join the ground team, declaring it an "excellent opportunity to study unknown alien culture."

Only Jack had decided to stay on board the Normandy, having had no interest in "some lousy rescue mission to save a bunch of Cerberus **cks."

As they approached the structure that was the Cerberus team's last known location, Miranda activated the shuttle's intercom.

"Commander Shepard, we'll be reaching the structure in five minutes."

"Copy that, Miranda. Team, prep yourselves for landing. Miranda, any luck contacting the research team?"

"Negative, Commander. I've been scanning and broadcasting on the standard Cerberus frequencies, but I haven't detected any transmissions."

Shepard nodded, even though Miranda couldn't possibly have seen the gesture.

"Alright team, we're probably looking at a salvage and recovery mission, not a search and rescue. We don't know what's happened to the research team, so be prepared for a possible hostile presence. There's also a chance that the research team has just suffered a communications failure, so watch your fire if you see movement. Do not engage unless you have a clear target. And remember, this isn't a garden world. Keep your breathers on, and make sure your environmental controls are working, because it is going to be cold. Everybody got that?"

The Alliance Marines that she had once commanded would have responded with an unnecessarily loud "Yes Ma'am!"

Now, the only spoken response she got was from Kasumi, who had piped up with a less than formal "Got it, Shep."

The others just nodded their heads and continued with their equipment checks.

Minutes later, as the shuttle landed, Shepard was the first out the door. Looking around, she saw nothing but frozen rock stretching out to the horizon in all directions.

"Miranda, are you sure these are the right co-ordinates? I don't see anything that looks remotely like an opening to an underground structure."

"Commander, the entrance to the structure is on the other side of the shuttle."

"... Oh."

Garrus was unable to resist joining in the conversation.

"And this is what Cerberus spent four billion credits on? Maybe they should have coughed up a little bit more, made some improvements to your eyes."

Shepard rolled her eyes, though she did have to fight back a laugh before responding.

"You're one to talk, Archangel. At least I don't freeze like a deer in the headlights when I see a rocket headed for my face."

"Touché."

By then, the rest of the ground team had vacated the shuttle, and Shepard had gotten serious again.

"Alright, team. Let's get to work. We get in and out of that structure before nightfall. That gives us a seven hour window. I don't want to spend any more time on this rock than we absolutely have to. Move out."

As soon as she got to the corner of the shuttle, Shepard saw the entrance to the structure.

It was hard to miss.

A small tower jutted out of the icy rock, maybe 40 feet tall, around 8 feet wide.

No, not a tower. A spire.

The sides were segmented, as if the structure was designed to flex, and the top tapered off into a maw of giant buzzsaws. It reminded her of the flexible drilling machines used to carve out sewers on new colonies. At ground level, a five-foot wide gash in the side of the spire revealed that it was hollow. The interior glowed dimly with blood-red light.

Cautiously, Shepard leaned into the opening and looked downwards. The tunnel formed by the spire went down further than she could see, but she couldn't see far. The dim red glow was washed out just a few feet down by a bright, neon-blue glare that her helmet's filters couldn't quite compensate for. Still, her omni-tool wasn't detecting anything hazardous, be it radiological, chemical, biological or mechanical. The wall of the tunnel immediately below the opening had been lined with metal rungs to act as a ladder, presumably by the Cerberus team that had preceded her own.

Signalling to the rest of the ground team to follow, Shepard eased herself onto the ladder and began her descent.

Author's Note: Apologies that these chapters are somewhat short, but I'm trying to get a schedule going of posting one a week. My job doesn't leave me a lot of time to write. Hopefully the chapters will be easier to write and will get longer once I get back to established Mass Effect canon and actually have something to base settings/situations on. I also intend to narrate mostly from the First-Person once Alcatraz is introduced, so that should make writing easier. Third-person limited is hard.