Chapter 28
"Log seventy-nine. Time reference – first year anniversary since the birth of the children. A lot has happened in the past year, and the team is pushing through trial and tribulation. I will make one last note that this is the third log where recordings have been intentionally spread out over one month or more to reduce the amount of clutter in this collection of logs. Now that the children are getting into advanced stages of physical development, data worth noting will gradually slow until they can begin any manifestations of biotic power. We are confident at this stage that each will grow as naturally as they have been over the past months.
"The entire project staff has been speculating over how soon we will see biotic manifestations and how powerful they might be. Many are taking a neutral, somewhat realistic stance and simply waiting to see. Some are encouraging pessimism, saying that getting our hopes up will only lead to disappointment. Others still are anxious, excited. They nearly froth at the mouths at the thought of seeing serious biotic potential before puberty. I must confess to being a part of the latter group myself."
McRoilie laughed. A first thus far in these logs. The laughter faded as if the fervent researcher had remembered an unpleasant memory, and was eventually followed by a calm sigh.
"It has been officially decided that Day Omega will be ninety days after their biotic potential has manifested, and that the children are to be given amnesiac drugs and shipped off to an educational facility designed to handle rare cases and biotics. Our involvement after that will be satellite observation only – we are not to have any further contact with the subjects for any reason.
"On the upside, our project lead seems quite pleased with our current rate of progress. As a token of his appreciation for being where we are, he's sending an extra shipment of luxury wines, entertainment and other assorted pleasantries. He also promised to take care of the pirating problem so that we actually get our shipments this time. Hopefully he'll remember to send replacement parts for all the sensitive equipment failing around the children's playroom. McRoilie out."
First birthday, Kevin typed up in the description field. Odd note about equipment failing in close proximity to grouped subjects. First log denoting Day Omega. . . Not decided at start of project? After a short hesitation, Kevin made one addendum. Creepy happy laughter.
A quick glance at the clock next to his terminal showed that he had time for one more log before they were scheduled to drop from FTL just outside the very edge of a mysterious and solitary star system. As he selected the next file in the directory, he paused. The file had no description like the others, but did not have a number. It was simply titled '? wat ?'. He figured he must have had a bit too much to drink the last time he'd gotten to this portion of the files. Shrugging it off, he opened the audio.
"Log eighty. Time reference – Well, something around six months since last entry. Forgive the directness with the timing, it's simply been a long time. The children are progressing at a nominal rate. Aside from frequent electronic failures around the observation room, things couldn't be going smoother. My reason for creating this log is not about the continued success of the growth of the subjects, however. Within the last week, there have been several unconfirmed reports of biotic usage. Local sensors seem to be picking up weak mass effect fields here and there in the children's rooms, but nothing significant.
"That's not all. Just yesterday, two observers witnessed one of the children batting around a plush bear. The thing is, the bear was hardly being affected by the artificial gravity wells of the station, and the sensors confirmed that a weak mass effect distortion field was in the observation room at the time of the event. This means that we are seeing active biotic manifestation in the children at an age completely unprecedented even by asari standards. The significance of these findings is incredible!
"Unfortunately, this causes more problems than it solves. All at once, each of the children are at serious risk of tearing each other and themselves apart without understanding what's going on. We will need to keep each of the children under very strict observation regimens from this point on. Additionally, that would also mean that their brains are working in extra overtime to complete such feats, which could potentially be extremely detrimental to their health in more aspects than one. Lastly, this would also mean that we are only to keep the children for ninety more days before they are taken off this station. Th-they are not in any state to be leaving! The facility they would be heading to is not prepared to accept these special students, not at this age! I know I'm going to get reamed out beyond belief for this, but we have all decided to send a false report to the project lead, leaving him to believe nothing of note has happened. Tomorrow, we'll do this and discuss what course of action we'll take. For whoever reviews these logs, please tell him we apologize, and we hope he can see it's for the best!"
There was a pause as another muffled voice in the distance interrupted the researcher.
"No Allison, not right now! I'm finishing this log and my stress is through the bloody roof!"
A door opened in the background.
"Liam! Liam, come on!" A girl's voice. Kevin deduced this was Allison.
"No, stay out! Wait one more minute, I'm not finished!"
"Come here, Mick Roller. . . Rick Moller. . . Rick Roller. . . Haha. . . How do you name your say again?"
"Oh dear Lord in heaven. . . You're drunk! Get out! Get. . . Cover yourself up, the camera's still- Oh God."
"Hiiiiii!" Kevin winced as 'Allison' screamed into the recording.
"You drank this? Allison, you're supposed to dilute it first! They don't- They ship this concentrated!"
"It tastes fiiiiine to meeeee!" There was a slew of sloshed giggles that followed, which resulted in some rustling.
"Oh God. Oh God, no! Don't vomit on my bloody. . . Coat. Allison! Son-of-a. . . Uh, McRoilie out!"
There were clicks and smacks which Kevin interpreted as 'Liam' trying to stop the recording. After several failed attempts, the crazed researcher was finally able to shut it down. A smile grew on Kevin's face as he began renaming the file and adding the description. '80' First signs of biotic potential. Also first signs of disagreement with project lead. Also first signs of wild parties. Contains hilarity between 'Liam' McRoilie and 'Allison'.
Kevin sat back shaking his head. He couldn't decide on whether or not it was a good thing that the video was corrupted. After one final shake of the head, Kevin cleared his terminal and shut it down. He wasn't going to be the last one called to the bridge this time. No sir.
Kevin joined Tosh in the hallway on his way up to the bridge. Up front, the only person already there was the only person constantly expected to be there – Kar'Welkas. He had up in front of him a render of an alien star system, continually updating as new data filed in from the scanners. Outside the viewports was a distant star, extremely easy to spot against the foreboding blackness behind it. As Tosh and Kevin stepped into the bridge, Kar jumped at the unexpected observers.
"Oh! Kevin, Tosh! I was going to call you all up the moment I got some more complete data here. It's. . . Incomplete right now, but I can't seem to isolate why it's incomplete."
"Well, call Arla and Tyr up here first, then tell us what you found," Kevin suggested. "Once the situation is explained, we'll take a look at the problem."
Kar did so, and the two called were up in a matter of minutes.
Tyr stepped in asking for information like he tended to do. "What are we looking at, Welkas?"
"I'll start from the center and work out. What we have is an F-class star system with five planets and its own resident asteroid belt."
One generic description in and Ralik steps onto the bridge with disbelief. "Did you say F-class? Way out here? Impossible. That defies everything we know about the galaxy. That star should be dead."
Tosh was more than happy to join in. "Indeed. There are no star birthing nebulae anywhere near here. To say that this star simply drifted way out here with it's planets. . ."
"Ralik, Tosh, please." Tyr could only take so much of the scientific duo's interruptive theorizing and discussion.
Without being prompted, Kar continued. "The innermost two planets are different degrees of pressure cookers. They orbit too close to the star to provide any interest. The third resides in the calculated habitation circle. I can't get any decent readings from here, but it might hold something interesting. Beyond that is the asteroid belt. Again, I can't get solid scans from this distance, but as you know, asteroid belts usually mean lucrative mining opportunities. Next up is a gas giant with a very fast and acute elliptical orbit. My speculation on this is limited by extremely finite data, but I'd have to guess that it passes through the asteroid belt four times before one orbit is complete. Anyways, the final planet seems to be a featureless frozen mass. Its orbit is almost four times the distance of the fourth planet's estimated peak elliptical distance from the star."
Tosh and Ralik looked as though they wanted to add their expert opinions, but Tyr gave them a preemptive point and they kept quiet. "Welkas, take us in for a closer look. We need to find out everything we can about this enigmatic system."
"Yes, sir."
As the Kellius resumed its approach to the system, Kevin folded his arms tight against his body and pulled Tyr off to the side. "I don't know if you noticed, but. . . We've still got a problem." He spoke low enough to keep others from hearing.
"Yeah," Tyr responded, also folding his arms. "Still no return relay, even in the star system. This does not bode well for us. If there isn't one here, then. . ."
The sense of dread that Kevin felt the first time he discovered the possibility of never being able to go back only deepened. He had high hopes that the strange nebula veil would have been hiding a relay of some sort. Instead, all they found was a seemingly typical F-class star system. Kevin grit his teeth and he peeked over his shoulder to see the others in the bridge quietly but enthusiastically mulling over the possibilities held within that solitary system.
He looked back to Tyr who was looking to the floor and tapping his fingers against his arm. Kevin realized that Tyr had the duty of telling his commanding officer the news, who would then tell the others on the team. He could easily tell Tyr was heavily conflicted about it. On one hand, not telling anyone would hopefully keep morale high enough to do the research they came to do. On the other, he was keeping the truth from his squadmates as well as his ranking officer. If he did what he was supposed to, he was essentially informing them of their own doom. Kevin did not envy Tyr's current position.
Kevin slapped Tyr's shoulder. "Come on, we've got a job to do. Let's get what we came for and figure it out as we go."
"Do you organize all your plans this way?"
"Like I've told people before: I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy," Kevin said with confidence and a hidden smile.
Tyr let out a sigh. "We're going to have to tell them sooner or later."
"Tell us what?" Arla asked, stepping up to Kevin and Tyr.
The two looked at each other for support and Kevin spoke up. "That. . . We should be documenting everything we find from here on out. We know it's not everyone's favorite job, so we were talking about how to break it to you guys."
"Is that all?" Arla replied enthusiastically. "No worries, then, since Ralik and Tosh have already started compiling data. Leave it to those two."
"I guess that makes thing a bit easier for us, then," Tyr said with a nod before heading back into the bridge.
At this point, the Kellius was nearly midway through the star system with every possible scanning technology working overtime. When they reached the asteroid belt, the ship came to a halt.
"Why are we stopping?" Riik asked as he stepped into the bridge with Bela.
"I'd like to get as much of this asteroid belt's makeup documented before moving on," Kar stated. Within moments of Kar's finished statement, one of the terminals blinked red repeatedly and chimed ominously with each flash. It depicted a ship within the asteroid belt with a signature far too similar to a geth mining vessel to be anything but.
"Stealth!" several people shouted in unison. Not more than a second later, Kar had the IES3 active.
"Keelah, not them again," Arla said with a shake of her head. "I thought we left them behind in the An'Ramini Expanse." Several others had similar reactions.
"Everyone calm down," Kevin said with arms out. "We speculated they'd be on this side too, but we had no evidence to support it. Now we do. Kar, can't we just go around?"
Kar nodded.
"Then let's do so. If we play our cards right, hopefully we will be able to avoid any further contact with the geth. We're not really in any position right now to go picking fights." Kevin's speech was only internally marred by a growing hatred for the geth. He wanted every opportunity to destroy all the infernal synthetics they came across, but common sense was keeping that in check. For now.
Meanwhile, Kevin turned his attention to the results of the scans they had obtained so far. They got good looks at the furthest planet as well as the gas giant, but as Kar pointed out earlier, they were incomplete. It seemed the only thing they could get any level of detail out of was the composition of the surface and perhaps a couple hundred meters below it. Even the gas giant came back as a mess of atmospheric interference. Ralik must have noticed too. He was stroking his chin and shaking his head.
"Curiouser and curiouser," the salarian muttered.
The asteroid belt, however, did yield a bit more data. Aside from the number of geth mining operations, each rock seemed to hold some sort of valuable metal or mineral, and some so exotic that they had no name or record of molecular composition. As much as several of the team members wanted to pause and perform sampling and research, their real target was the third planet from the star. They could always return to the belt later. After their cautious detour around the belt was complete, the Kellius took aim and headed straight for their main destination.
"All scans are focused on the third planet," Kar informed. Ralik and Tosh took up positions in the chairs on his sides to get a good look at the incoming data. After a couple minutes, the data was in and Kar shook his head in bewildered disappointment. The planet showed up blank below the crust like the others. "Not again. Terra, execute diagnostics on the scanning modules. Search for faults."
"Performing a diagnostic check. . ." Terra chimed once every second to indicate that the action was still running as requested. "Kar'Welkas, the operation you requested has completed. There are no faults within the scanning technology modules."
Kar threw his hands up. "I'm at a loss, everyone. I don't know why the planets are coming up hollow. It just doesn't make sense."
"It doesn't matter anyways," Ralik jovially noted. "There are more than enough reasons on the surface alone to inspect the planet personally." Everyone looked to Ralik, waiting for him to continue. Ralik in turn held onto his information just a bit longer to build dramatic suspense, relishing in everyone's sudden impatience. "It has an atmosphere. Not quite breathable, but it's close enough that a small terraforming project could make it so with very little impact on the ecosystem."
"Ecosystem?" Bela asked in surprise.
"Yes. Well, a strange one, but it's there. The planet could potentially be classified as a garden world, but there doesn't seem to be any wildlife at all. Somehow the vegetation here has adapted to thrive without a symbiotic relationship to any other life. At least, that's what it looks like from here. There's water, solid tectonics. . ."
"And one heck of a magnetosphere," Tosh interjected. "It's strong. Absurdly so for a planet of its size, but I suppose that's how the planet's vegetation and water survive the peak of whatever solar cycle the F-class star has."
"But that's not the most interesting part of all this," Ralik stated matter-of-factually. Again he let silence build tension. A light kick from Bela ended his dramatic buildup prematurely. "If these results are correct, it appears that the plant life on the planet is mainly dextro-amino based."
Kevin looked up at his squadmates. He knew just what kind of bombshell Ralik had dropped on the quarian members of his team. Not surprisingly, they were all looking at each other with obvious overflowing hope in their perpetually shimmering eyes.
"I agree with Dolannus," Riik finally said. "This planet is definitely worthy of some closer inspection."
Kevin smiled to himself as they flew in close to the planet. The excitement in the air grew so fast it was almost palpable. He stole another look at the terminal nearest him and his smile vanished instantly. "Ah, crap. Company." He tapped on the screen to zoom in on a red-marked zone on the planet.
"More geth?" Bela cried in despair with an exaggerated slump.
"Keelah, these things are everywhere," Tyr said, hardly surprised.
"We just can't win," Riik mumbled with a shake of his head.
"Everyone calm down," Kar impatiently demanded. "They're not everywhere. As long as we follow a flight path that won't be noticed by the ground troops, we can stealth in and land. Once the ship is powered down, we don't have to stealth anymore."
Kevin stepped up. "Right. Then we can establish a base of operations and find some way to hide it. I have a feeling the geth have no awareness of our arrival, so let's try to keep it that way."
Everyone nodded in agreement and Kar started an orbital run to get a more detailed look at the terrain, bodies of water and geth placement. It seemed that there were small pockets of geth sparsely scattered about the surface and the majority they saw earlier was clustered in a valley amidst a sprawling array of thick mountain ranges. After doing all they could from orbit, Kar piloted the Kellius down to the surface low enough to stay out of the sight of any geth. The most ideal staging area and landing location they could find was a flat patch of green land with thick mountain ranges on three sides. Unfortunately, this was also just on the other side of the tall center range that separated them from the valley the geth settled in. Kevin made it a point to call it "Geth Valley" from now on, a name he coined from an old Earth location. The upside was that the mountain range that served as an ample divider was tall enough to mask the Kellius' approach from the geth and hazardous enough that they wouldn't likely be worried about ground-based approaches. Ah, the convenience of natural barriers.
As they came down on their target out of geth visual and audio range, Kar noticed something else about the area in which the geth had chosen to congregate. "Hey guys, get a look at this. There are some strange energies based in the area where the geth have taken root. We couldn't see it from orbit – the magnetic field of the planet blurred it out."
"Are the geth the source?" Tosh asked.
"I don't think so. The source is diffused and decentralized, but that could just be a side effect of the mountain ranges. It's entirely possible the mountains are the source, and the geth are drawn to them."
"Just what kind of energies are we talking about?" Arla inquired curiously.
"Unknown," replied Ralik as he stared into a screen. "These frequencies, electromagnetic make-up. . . They don't match any known profiles that I've seen, and I've seen a lot. But the vegetation and landscape seem unaffected by them, so they probably aren't directly harmful in any way to organic compounds."
Tyr shifted. "Welkas, is our prospective landing site in the effective range of the energy?"
"Maybe at the very outer edges of it, but otherwise, no."
"Then that's the least of our worries right now. Let's focus on getting ourselves situated before the geth try anything funny. At least we'll be able to keep an limited eye on them while we do our research."
Arla nodded. "Right. Kar, let's land this thing. We just might have found a place to stay."
"Yes ma'am," Kar said, barely holding back his anxiousness.
Within the minute, the Kellius had arrived at their designated landing site in the middle of a mostly flat field and touched down on the planet's surface. They powered the engines down, but waited cautiously for ten minutes to see if there were any welcoming committees that would greet them. When none showed, the collective team breathed a sigh of relief and headed down to the cargo bay to take their first steps on a completely unknown garden world. Weapons in hand, they lowered the loading bay door and stepped out onto the foreign planet.
Both fortunately and unfortunately to Kevin, his first steps on the new planet were, well, normal. The ground was firm and covered in a short, leafy vegetation that collapsed easily under his boots. There was a breeze in the air, as told by the subtle swaying of the green, and the bright F-class star forced him to bring a hand in front of his face to block it when he stepped out from under the shadow of the ship. It was a friendly feeling, walking out onto a planet like this. Friendly, but lonely. He knew there was not a single other soul other than his squadmates on this planet.
And he was fine with that.
"Perimeter appears secure, ma'am," Riik stated as the team fanned out to surround the Kellius. Since they landed in the middle of a field, securing the perimeter wasn't exactly a longstanding task.
Arla took a look around. "Um, good. We should unload cargo critical to establishing a basecamp."
Kevin made a quick sweep around to take in their immediate surroundings and stepped up to Arla. "Alright. Then what?"
"Err. . ." Arla paused at her own lack of foresight. "Maybe we should put together a list of objectives."
"Good idea," Tyr agreed as he came around from his walk. "A bit of order going forward will help us stay focused."
After the team regrouped, they started to brainstorm several primary objectives for both the immediate future as well as the longterm. They had to trim the list to things that were critically important to their mission as given by the Admiralty Board. After they had finished organizing it chronologically, it looked something like this:
Establish a defensible basecamp capable of the research they need to perform
- Gather more detailed intel about the immediate area
- Use the Kellius' stealth to get a better idea of the geth's presence and movement in the system
- Form a ground team to investigate anomalous readings within and around the planet and to investigate the geth's interest in the planet
- Compile all the research and data to form a complete report about the planet and determine the planet's potential to house the quarian race
With direction established, the team set to work. Tyr assigned himself the job of tracking and pulling inventory from the cargo bay while everyone else was subsequently stuck with the labor of actually setting up the camp and physically removing the cargo to the surface via hovering clamp devices. No one seemed to be complaining, though. Everyone was content to be standing on solid ground again. Finally. . . Standing on a planet. One couldn't help but notice the positive energy in the air.
Items were removed from the crates in bulk, depending on what the items were. Most of it was equipment for observations, research and perimeter surveillance that Tarsil had procured for them on the Citadel. Ralik and Tosh worked carefully to transfer Ralik's lab to the surface one chunk at a time and then reassemble it in the middle of the conglomeration of partially unpacked gear. As crates were emptied, they were collapsed and stored off to the side to open up the bay.
About an hour into this offloading process, Tyr called out to Kevin over the comms. "Kevin, can you come into the bay for a minute? I've. . . got something to show you."
Kevin acknowledged and climbed the ramp to the cargo bay. He found Tyr standing by an open crate off to the side and he stepped on over. "What's up, Tyr?" Without waiting for a reply, he looked into the open mouth of the crate and, upon seeing a collection of shiny metal rods and blocks, turned back to Tyr. "What's this?"
"This. . . This is Food Storage Crate A C twenty-five."
"Food storage?" Kevin wondered aloud. Clearly metal bits were not edible. The markings on the crate indicated that this was one of the many crates that Tarsil had sent him. Knowing Tarsil, Kevin started a more detailed search of the crate. There was a very high chance that there was something more going on here. After a bit of rummaging, he found a datapad with a simple text document on it. As he turned it on, Tyr leaned in, curious to get a look.
[Dear Kevin: Sorry if this took you by surprise, old friend. Your dock was not authorized for this sort of cargo to be loaded on any ship, much less yours. I jumped through a few hoops to get the codes on the crate hard modified to reflect a standard ration bundle. You can thank me later. Embedded in this text file is a compressed collection of details that you'll need. Don't go hungry on me because of this, alright? See you two when you arrive home.]
[P.S. - Assembly required!]
Kevin shook his head with a huge grin. "Tarsil you wily son-of-a-gun."
"Assembly required?" Tyr asked in confusion. He and Kevin both accessed and downloaded the embedded details to their omni-tools for review. When they got a look at the main overview document, Tyr and Kevin both looked to each other and spoke in unison.
"The M-4 Skimmer?"
"Keelah, it's a compact scout hover vehicle!" Tyr realized.
Kevin let his head fall back. "And just when I was about to magically solve all our scouting problems. Tarsil, I'm going to throw salt in those big eyes of yours for showing me up again. Let me see here. . . Standard four-ex hover-pod mounted chassis, but smaller. No mass accelerators to speak of, but it seats up to five. Two in the front, two in the back and one facing backward sitting over the rear-mounted thrusters. Comes with a screen-only VI that runs mapping and landmarking software."
"Looks a bit drafty," Tyr commented, referring to the fact that the vehicle lacked a roof of any kind.
"That just means a full compliment armed to the teeth could provide great highly mobile short to medium range support to a ground team," Kevin noted, showing a bit of his militaristic past. "I like it."
"It's a scouting vehicle, not an armored personal carrier," Tyr corrected.
"Pff. It could work."
"I'll assemble a team to get this, well, assembled."
Kevin quickly jumped at the chance. "I volunteer."
"No offense to you by any means, Kevin, but you're not the most. . . technologically adept."
"I've been learning! Bah, fine. I'll just go unload crap I guess."
"Good. Send Rolush, Dolannus and the Lieutenant in on your way out."
Grumbling, Kevin spun around and walked out of the loading bay. Outside the ship he called to the three he was asked to and pointed them inside without any real explanation. After that business was taken care of, he resumed unloading cargo with Bela, Riik and Kar. It wasn't much longer until all the proper cargo was moved to the site. After Kevin set the final crate down into the unorganized mess that was the basecamp site, he spied Bela opening one up.
"Looks like the Admiralty Board thought ahead for us," she said as she pulled out some of the materials.
"What is it?" Kevin asked on his way over.
"Looks like a temporary shelter to cover all our equipment with."
"That's good," Riik pointed out as he pulled up a huge collapsable pole. "We didn't even think of the potential weather patterns this planet might have before we started unloading everything."
"Let's get this up before something ruins our day!" Bela seemed glad to keep busy.
"What, you wouldn't rather help those guys assemble the Skimmer?" Kevin taunted.
"The what? Are there weapons involved?"
"Probably not."
"Then they can do it without me. I've already got a project to work on." She turned away to focus on emptying the crate. She seemed to be having trouble, as the opening for the crate was nearly as high as her head.
"Alright you two, let's get to work," Riik butted in. "We've got a tall order here."
"Right, setting up camp is no small task," Kar added.
"At least we're not short on enthusiasm," Kevin contributed.
Bela spun around, a grimace almost visible through her visor and a threatening grip on an extended support pole. "Hey! Hey hey! I hear height jokes!"
Kevin grinned at Riik and gave Kar a fist pound to commemorate their collaborative work. They decided to get to work before Bela lost it. As they got into the meat of the labor, Bela started to sing to herself. It was a surprisingly pleasant, if somber tune and it was completely alien to Kevin. His translator wasn't working on it for some reason. It must have been in some old or mostly unused quarian dialect. Kar and Riik didn't seem to mind the song either way. Kevin wasn't surprised, really. He had almost forgotten that Siri told him that Bela could sing and this simply confirmed her claims. What did surprise him, however, was that her beautiful song seemed to help him focus on his work. It had been quite a while since he had listened to music while working – an old habit of his. He decided he'd hit her up for a song next time he needed to concentrate on getting something done.
Nearing the end of the multi-hour project of setting up the large, thick, tent-like shelter, a loud hiss followed by the sound of starting engines blasted from the loading bay of the Kellius. Undeniably interrupted, Riik, Kar, Bela and Kevin all paused their finishing touches to look for the source of the disturbance. After perceiving a round of cheers barely audible above the lithe roar of the engines within the bay, a hovering vehicle elegantly crept its way down the loading ramp. It looked exactly as depicted in the files Tarsil left him – an open-top central body with five seats sporting four hoverpods mounted on vertically pivoting arms arranged in a wide X shape. Two elongated rectangular thrusters at the rear provided thrust. The body itself looked like it was made of a light metal to reduce weight, and the chassis seemed frail. The entire nose, however – from the tip down to the undercarriage and the full width of the vehicle – seemed to be covered in some very hardy ablative armor. This probably served both the purposes of handling incoming fire and protecting against forward impacts, say, when running enemies over.
The driver, Arla, brought the Skimmer down to the base of the ramp and shakily settled it in the small open area between the Kellius and the camp tent. She brought the engines down to a sort of rest mode and the height it hovered at slowly fell until it rested on the green of the ground. She held her chin high, proud at their collective accomplishment.
"Very nice! What is it?" Kar wondered aloud.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is the M-4 Skimmer," Tyr noted haughtily as he stepped down the ramp behind Arla. "It's a multi-terrain scout vehicle capable of impressive speed. It's cross-section and compact size are designed to minimize detection, and can sit up to five well armed soldiers. Unfortunately, it lacks armor except for the front and the hoverpods themselves and has no kinetic barriers or armaments to speak of. So no frontline drops."
"Impressive speed, you say?" Kevin asked, his tone dripping with morbid curiosity.
"Yes. Why?"
Kevin felt a wry smile wrinkle its way onto his face. He calmly walked up to the Skimmer as if to inspect it thoroughly, but instead of scanning it or taking a closer look, he jumped in on the driver's side and ended up shoving Arla into the passenger side. It took him barely a second to settle into his stolen seat, and only about fifteen to look over the controls and realize how simplistic they were. Ignoring all manner of protests and warnings, Kevin turned off the rest mode, kicked on the engines and sent the Skimmer into full throttle. Nearly setting the tent he just helped put up alight, Kevin sped off, leaving the others helpless to stop him.
Kevin broke out into a laughing fit typical of extreme exhilaration and thrills. Arla, who was clinging to her seat for dear life, was not so amused. She actually screamed in terror as Kevin pushed the Skimmer harder and faster across the soon ending open field. By the time Kevin was about to hit a small cliff up to another short field, Arla had managed to spin around to sit properly in her seat. Her eyes went visibly wide as the cliff rapidly approached. Before they hit it, however, Kevin pulled back on the steering wheel and the Skimmer's hoverpods launched it up well enough over the cliff and came down in the field on the other side. This did nothing to soothe Arla's frightened state, though.
The speedometer on the Skimmer's sole screen in the console between the two front seats marked them traveling at over six hundred kilometers per hour. There was a head-high curved pane of sturdy transparent material built onto the front of the vehicle that acted as a windshield and kept them from getting pulled out of their seats by the air resistance. Kevin noted this as rather convenient for a barebones scout vehicle.
"Kevin! Keelah! Stop stop stop stop! STOP!"
"Are you kidding me? I'm having way more fun than anyone should be allowed to have on an M-4! Haha! See that gorge there? You'd better hold onto something, quick!" He was practically toying with her. Whether or not she realized this was quickly drowned out by her. . . obvious displeasure.
"No no no no no no! Eeyaaah!"
It wasn't until they reached the far end of the field – when Kevin turned wide to come parallel to the steep range of mountains – that Arla calmed down enough to see that Kevin was not driving in any psychotic manner as it first seemed. As she watched the landmarks whiz by at high speed, her demeanor even changed to that of one finally able to enjoy a thrill ride. A few more wild turns and some close call jumps later, Arla was laughing along with Kevin, albeit while white-knuckling a holding bar in front of her.
After about fifteen straight minutes of high-speed romping about the region, Kevin finally brought the vehicle back to the basecamp real calm like. There, he and Arla found the rest of the team staring at them from the loading ramp of the Kellius, many of them with arms crossed. Kevin brought the Skimmer to the base of the ramp and shut it down. After it touched down, Kevin and Arla – still having a few chuckles – hopped out and approached their comrades.
Before anyone could get a word in edgewise, Kevin made his intents clear. "The M-4 Skimmer has passed my stress test. It needs a few tweaks in the handling department, but otherwise it should be good to go on missions with."
Tosh shrugged. "I. . . Guess that's one less thing to do later."
"Was that the real reason for your raucous joy ride on our brand new equipment?" Tyr condescendingly asked.
Kevin crossed his arms and leaned against one of the hoverpods. "If the Skimmer couldn't handle a full on stress test in the field as-is, what good would it be to us should we come under geth assault during an expedition? It has no kinetic barriers and next to nothing for armor, so we'll have to rely entirely on speed, maneuverability and whatever rifles are held in it at the time. I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather utilize this asset sooner rather than later."
There was a pause in the conversation. "He does have a point, Tyr," Arla noted.
Tyr put his hands up and shook his head. "Yeah yeah yeah." He then stepped close next to Kevin and turned only his head to talk. "Try not to rough up all our mission critical gear, alright? It's my job to make sure it all lasts long enough to benefit the Migrant Fleet." Without a pause, he turned around to face the entire team once more. "Let's get this basecamp prepped already. We're running out of daylight."
True enough, the sun was in the process of setting. Everyone broke from their loose conversational circle and focused on finishing the task highest on the priority list. Getting the actual research and perimeter observation stations could wait until tomorrow. For now, they had to finish securing the site and making sure the tent housing wouldn't be dislodged by a stray gust of wind. Just as the last rays of sunlight were clearing the rolling valley, the team finished all they could do and decided to call it a night. The next thing on their immediate to-do list? Eat.