Prolog – First Contact
"Ark Hyperion, this is Shuttle One.", the voice of the Pathfinder was heard via the Com of the shuttle, while it started its engines, "Switching to manual guidance."
"Shuttle Two, taking your lead.", Fisher sitting in the cockpit informed, while Scott started to feel the light pull when his shuttle left the Hangar.
"Good Luck, Pathfinder Team.", Captain Dunn replied in the Com, right before the shuttles passed through the barrier and entered the dark space.
But the first thing Scott saw wasn't space, but this dark, ominous-looking cloud surrounding the Hyperion and…it was moving. What the hell is that…?, he asked himself not for the first time, while listening to the radio chatter in the background: "Turning to vector one-three-five.", Kirkland, their co-pilot, informed the other shuttle.
"Copy that.", the Pathfinder's answer followed, "We're on point."
"Wow, will you look at that?", the other member of Ryder's shuttle crew – the guy with the Rastas wearing his helmet now, like everyone else – commented with excitement in his voice.
"Whatever it is, it stopped the Hyperion in its tracks.", Scott replied, casting a short glance towards the other man.
"It appears to be an unstable mass of Dark Energy.", SAM joined the conversation, sounding like being part of the radio chatter.
"If you say so.", the other guy commented this analysis with a certain skepticism in his voice.
"Steer clear of it.", Scott's father ordered in the radio, while the shuttles started to move passed the cloud. Scott could see the moon of New Earth from the window of his shuttle, still hidden lightly behind the remaining shreds of the cloud. The shuttles changed their course to fly right beside it, probably aiming for the planet close-by.
"Getting some chop here.", Fisher commented in the Com, when a little bit shaking started to be felt throughout the shuttle.
"Gravity anomalies detected.", SAM reported.
"I'll see if I can even it out.", Kirkland replied, while the other shuttle appeared right in the middle of the window, approaching the planet parallel to Scott's one.
"My stomach would appreciate that.", Greer added into the radio, right at the moment, where the other shuttle increased its speed and passed Scott's shuttle. Few moments later Ryder saw the acceleration of his own shuttle thanks to the window.
"We're clear.", Kirkland added, while passing the moon, "Accelerating to cruising speed."
"Ryder, we didn't have a chance to meet back in the Milky Way.", the other guy onboard said towards Scott, "Name's Liam Kosta, security and response specialist."
"Good to meet you, Liam.", Scott replied politely, while course corrections of the shuttle were seen in the window.
"Hard to believe we're finally doing this.", Liam continued, still sounding astonished.
Scott grinned behind his helmet, before replying: "Sure beats reading the brochures."
"Beginning our deceleration.", Fisher informed in the Com, while the remaining parts of the cloud vanished from the window and the shuttle was changing course, obviously directed upwards, "Planet's dead ahead.", right before it flew downwards this and the first orange flares of the entering atmosphere were see in the window. Scott had done this countless times during his time in the Systems Alliance, but still felt excited about entering a completely new planet, untouched by any human.
The shuttle started to shake again. "Hang on, initiating atmospheric entry.", Kirkland reported in the radio.
"Here we go…", Liam commented that and probably was grinning, while saying this.
"Flight guidance is scrambled!", Fisher reported in the radio, sounding a little bit anxious.
"It'll pass.", Kirkland assured him.
"The controls are fighting me.", Fisher replied, while the flares became so strong, so that they glowed almost as bright as the sun. Scott and Liam needed to lift their hands to protect their eyes.
"Adjust approach vector three degrees to starboard.", SAM reported. Few moments later the flares died down and the view became clearer. Clouds – planetary clouds – were seen, as well like the other shuttle flying a little bit lower than Scott's. And in the back Ryder could see something, which resembled rocks – really big rocks, probably something like mountains.
"Holy…", Liam exclaimed after seeing a mountainous landscape appearing slowly in front of him. More and more rocky mountains, some flat, some peaked appeared, but nothing which would resemble life. It looks like a barren world…Ryder thought seeing that.
"Shuttle Two, are you seeing this?", Cora asked in the radio.
"Copy that.", Scott replied, "Doesn't look like a golden world from here."
"Ionization levels are rising.", Kirkland reported from the cockpit.
"Stay on course to the landing zone.", the Pathfinder ordered, sounding as calm as always.
"Oxygen levels are below minimum of human requirements.", SAM reported in the background of the shuttle.
"Is this the right planet?", Fisher asked with reasonable doubt, because except for rocky mountains and smoky clouds nothing else was seen till now, "I thought we had this all worked out…", right before a lighting was seen flashing from one of the clouds.
"Keep it tight, Shuttle Two.", Alec Ryder ordered.
Then something unexpected appeared. "Uh, the mountains are floating…", Liam said the obvious aloud, while they passed floating rocks. All of them had different shapes and sizes, but guessing from the distance they could be as big as mountains or at least hills.
Right behind, after the shuttle passed the floating rocks, a different shape was seen quite a distance away. It looked like two more grey mountains at the first glance, but after lights appeared at their base, Scott realized that their shapes looked too straight to be natural. "Look!", Fisher commented after seeing the pyramid-like buildings as well, "Port side!"
"That has to be advance engineering.", Sara commented, sounding astonished as well, while the lights became brighter and the shuttles came closer.
"Hyperion, this is the Pathfinder.", Alec Ryder started talking into the Com again, "We've got evidence of an alien civilization.", right before clouds started to hide the structures from the shuttles.
"Has anyone seen us?", Scott asked alarmed.
"What if they're not friendly?", Liam expressed the fear of everyone onboard.
"We stick to contact protocol:…", the Pathfinder replied, "…No use of deadly force unless hostile intent is clear.", while the other shuttle could be seen again, further below.
At the same time Scott's shuttle started to change course abruptly and one moment later the whole room was brightened by a close lightning. Oh, oh….Scott thought, when the shuttle's lights went out and its movement looked much more chaotic than before. "Shit!", Fisher yelled, "Ionization just spiked-", before the com was interrupted.
Scott couldn't hear the following words said from the cockpit, needing to cling to something, while the shuttle started to spin around with huge force. But few moments later it became even worse, when the door – the one right in front of Scott and Liam – was pulled out with such a force, that Liam was thrown out as well.
"Liam!", Scott yelled, while the other guy was able to grab a part of the wall of the shuttle in time. The pull of the air pressure tried to force Scott out as well, but still he stretched out his free hand to save Liam. "Hang on!", he yelled in the moment, when another lightning flash blinded him, still being able to see how Liam's other hand grabbed the shuttle wall as well and he tried to pull himself inside again.
"Ryder!", Liam yelled, when the other shuttle door flied through the open door, trying to reach Scott's hand.
And one moment later it didn't matter anymore: an explosion threw both of them out of the shuttle, right into the open sky. Scott screamed in his helmet, while his body spun around and the remaining parts of the shuttle flew in every direction, right before falling down to the ground, burning brightly.
"Acceleration increasing.", SAM reported, while Scott started to regain a little bit of control of his body's movement – only to see that some of the floating rocks were coming closer each second.
"No kidding!", Scott replied with a panicking voice, when he saw the blue flashes emitted from the rocks, while he passed the first ones.
"Your jump-jet is malfunctioning.", SAM reported another crisis, while Scott was able to pass more rocks with light movements of his body and at one point risked to push himself off from one of the rocks to get away from another one he needed to pass.
"Get it working!", he ordered SAM, while seeing a lightning flashing from one rock to another, "Get it working!"
"Approaching terminal velocity.", SAM continued with the bad news, while Scott's breathing became faster, after he started seeing the ground coming closer and closer very quickly. "SAM!", he yelled full with panic in his voice, seeing the mountain ground only few meters away.
He started picturing himself smashed already, when he felt something pushing him upwards instead of downwards. He got a glimpse look at the fire coming from his jump-jet on the back of his suit, right before his helmet crashed against the closest part of the mountain. "Urgh!", he groaned, feeling the pain, moments before he started to fall down again, sliding and rolling along the surface of the edged mountain wall and even passing some kind of blue-grey bushes along the way.
"OW!", he exclaimed when finally hitting something like a ground, hearing something else at the same moment. He needed a moment to pull himself together, when he realized what he heard: Was that glass? His body turned around on his back and he was right: the interior of the helmet started to flash in red lights and he could see a crack of the helmets glass in front of him, through which his oxygen left his suit and the planet's atmosphere entered it there for.
"Ah shit…", he muttered, touching the damage first, before his training kicked in like an instinct and he activated his Omni-tool, activating a program on it. Few moments later he lifted the arm with the tool up and held it above the crack, which started to vanish within the hot fuse of melding.
He took a deep breath when this work was done and let his head fall down on the ground again. That was close…crossed his mind, while panting as if he had held his breath for minutes. He didn't know how long he kept on lying around like that, but it was the sound of thunder and lightning in the distance, which convinced him, that staying here wasn't the best idea.
He got up slowly, seeing the upper end of a plant, which looked like a yellow glowing curl. A quick look around affirmed him that there were many of this kind of plants, right beside the blue-grayish bushes. At least something can live here…he thought with a certain hope, although his experience with the planet's atmosphere wasn't so assuring about possible human life on this planet, whose horizon consisted only of more mountains and flying rocks with flashes.
He took one final deep breath, before he looked down at his activating Omni-tool. "This is Ryder.", he said a little bit too quick into the Com, "Come in."
No answer followed.
"Hyperion?", he continued, starting to breath faster again, "SAM? Anyone there?", while seeing a much closer rock passing his ledge, floating upwards.
"Save your breath, Ryder.", Liam's voice surprised him. He started to look in the direction it has came from: the other man was running right towards him, explaining: "SAM's offline. Com-Link's trashed.", right before he stopped beside Ryder, needing to catch a breath, "I'm surprised we aren't, too."
Scott looked at him for a moment, before looking out at the horizon once again. "Did we really do that, or are we dead and don't know it?", he asked not so sure of himself.
Liam got up again, replying: "Well, we found hell.", he didn't sound as excited as in the shuttle anymore, "I can tell you that much."
Ryder stepped a little bit closer to the abrupt end of the ledge. "Yeah.", he agreed, "No way this is home.", while another lightning flashed in the distance and another one much closer.
"Looks like we gotta find some high ground.", Liam suggested, attracting Scott's attention, "See if anyone else is alive.", before turning around and running ahead, along a ledge route found at the side of the mountain, "Come on."
The path was edged, filled with more of the already familiar plants and rocks, as well like some rock structures and green-yellow plants, which were smaller than the first two. Scott could even see some kind of moss on the stone structures. He followed Liam, while the other guy started asking: "Ryder, how's your survival training?", sounding more light-hearted than before, although it sounded more like an act than real.
"I've seen my share of troubles.", Ryder replied in the same way, "Nothing crazy, but…"
"Well, crazy just found us.", Liam added a little bit more grimmer sounding, "Those rocks out there are floating."
"Terra Incognita.", Scott agreed, while they reached some kind of tunnel, progressing along the edge of the mountain as well.
"Some of these plants look like tentacles.", Liam mentioned, while passing more of this curly yellow plants, before adding, "Is the water here even water?"
Scott stretched out his arm with the activated Omni-tool and scanned the plant, but the shown data was quite insufficient. Well, without SAM, it's hard to say exactly what this is, he thought checking the sketchy analysis, It's sort of a plant, and maybe dead, but maybe not.
They passed some debris and damaged containers looking a lot like their lost shuttle, while passing through the tunnel. They found even a Quantum Entanglement Communicator on the way. "There is our Com Device.", Liam pointed out, while Scott activated his tool once again to scan it. "Damaged in the crash.", he explained reading the data, "No fixing this."
"But it explains why we lost our SAM connection.", Liam suggested and Scott could only nod. They moved on and found a blue glowing mushroom colony growing out of the ground, whereby some of them became almost as tall as Ryder. He scanned them and they left the tunnel, although the path ahead was surrounded by the mountain wall on the left side, a cliff with many big, floating rocks on the right side. Scott saw also that some of the yellow glowing plants were growing further up at some ledges of the mountain, in the middle of stone without earth.
"The structures we saw on the way in…", Liam started another question, without stopping, "Who could survive in a place like this?"
Scott shrugged. "Not sure we want to find out.", he pointed out, while another flash was seen moving from one of the rocks to another.
"Storms here don't seem natural.", Liam mentioned, sounding a little bit frustrated with the circumstances.
"Oh, and safety tip:…", Scott remembered after hearing that, "Don't breathe the air. Found that out the hard way."
"Got it.", Liam replied, sighing afterwards.
Few Minutes later another wall started to rise at the right side as well, but not without the obligatory empty spot for falling down the cliff from time to time. They also found further burning debris and boxes from their shuttle, letting their hope finding other survivors sink. "You think that energy cloud we saw could cause all this?", Liam asked, sounding rather curious than frustrated this time, but also probably tried only to distract himself from these findings.
Scott thought about the answer for a moment. "SAM said it's dark energy, but that's in space.", he replied finally.
"Yeah.", Liam agreed, before adding quite oblivious, "Hell of a cloud."
"A cloud that makes boulders float.", Scott commented, when seeing such a boulder float right in the front of them, at the end of their view range. They passed further blue mushrooms, while the wall to the right side disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
"Uh, what the hell is this?", Liam exclaimed, when suddenly lightning struck into the ground right ahead of them, forcing them to stop.
Ryder analyzed it and saw that there were breaks in between the flashes, but not very long ones. "Come on.", he said, "We gotta get through it!", before going ahead, sprinting.
"This is crazy!", Liam commented this suggestion, but still followed Scott.
"Welcome to Habitat 7.", Scott replied with a smile, while trying to avoid spots, where the lightning didn't hit yet, "Keep moving!" He barely noticed how the electricity spread on the ground and forced each lying stone to float.
"Shit, that was close!", Liam shouted from behind, when they finally reached another tunnel, but this time much bigger, as well like darker. The blue mushrooms, spread around in the whole tunnel, offered a light source for the two. "Is this for real?", Liam added, after they stopped for a moment inside the tunnel, "What the hell's going on with this place?"
"Planet's trying to murder us.", Scott replied gasping, but also smirking.
"It can try.", the other man answered, more determined than before. They moved on, going through the tunnel, which had one or two curves, but ultimately leading outside again. "How's your gun?", Liam asked suddenly, when they passed a puddle in between many of the blue mushrooms, "Might want to see if it's working.", he looked around for a moment, "Take a shot at the fuel cell.", he pointed at another debris of the shuttle close by, "It's busted anyway."
Scott stopped few meters away from it and drew his M-3 Predator-Pistol. He aimed at the cell, lying on a higher ground than he was and pulled the trigger without hesitation – the cell rolled away from the impact. "I'd say it's working.", he commented the result, before holstering his weapon again.
Soon after they left the tunnel, so that the view on the right side was free again. "Look.", Ryder said, when he saw something moving through the sky out there, "Something flying around in the sky." This time it didn't look like rock, but rather like…
"Dragons.", Liam commented the view, "Real live dragons, wow…Cora will love it."
They gazed at the flying creatures for few more moments, before turning around and moving on. The path became slimmer here, so that the edge was much closer than before. Scott tried to be more cautious about the spots he stepped on.
"There!", Liam shouted, when a cliff appeared at the end of their path at the horizon, "We get up that cliff, we can find high ground. Come on!", and one moment later he accelerated, passing Scott.
"Not sure, we want to be the tallest thing around here.", Ryder replied still being more cautious than the other guy, but still following him upwards along the angular path.
They passed another, bigger puddle than before, while Liam reported: "I think I can see a path up.", and when reaching a stone forcing them to climb higher, "We'll use the jump-jets if we have to."
"Into the breach…", Scott joked, following him.
"Think I'd rather fall than get hit by lightning.", Liam replied more serious.
Scott grinned again. "Give it a minute – we can probably do both.", while he saw a shadow being cast on the wall to his left, so that he looked right. He was able to see one of the dragons flying right through the planet's sun, before disappearing behind another rock wall to his right. "More glowing mushrooms.", Liam commented, when this tunnel led them deeper into the mountain than the earlier ones, while the mushrooms looked much bigger than the last ones – but not much taller.
"Are they making that noise?", Liam added, asking, because the two started to hear an odd noise, which remembered drilling.
"No.", Scott disagreed, sounding curious, while activating his Omni-tool and starting to scan the wall, "Coming from inside the mountain.", he didn't need long to find some kind of conduit within the rock, "Detecting a lot of energy. Can't make heads or tails of it, but it's powerful.", whereby his scanner showed also a 'DANGER!'-Logo.
They moved on, climbing across further rocks and one point even a short wall ahead of them. "How'd my dad find you?", Scott asked, trying to distract himself from the effort of climbing.
"I was a cop.", Liam answered from below, "Then crisis response."
"Yeah?", Scott sounded surprised.
"Tell you over a beer sometime.", Liam finished this topic, wanting to focus on climbing rather than on talking. One of the walls was even so high, that they needed to use their jump-jets – much easier than climbing, Scott thought satisfied about the speed of getting up in this way, Still need to look out for fuel – not sure, when we'll be able to fill it up again. Still when they reached a spot, where their path was broken away, leaving a big gap in the middle, they were forced to use their jets to jump across it, before climbing another cliff up. The remaining path ended up being a collection of lower and higher ground, too high and dangerous for simple climbing, so they used their jets to go up and down.
"Think I see the top.", Scott replied breathing harder than before. He jumped up with his jet to grab the ledge of the last cliff, before pulling himself up. He got on his feet and looked ahead, but before he could see something for real, Liam poked from below: "Mind making some room?"
Scott bowed down, grabbed the other guys arm and pulled him up, before he thanked him for that. Then both of them turned around and Liam was the first one to speak again: "What…the hell is that?"
In the far horizon they could see a structure, looking like a metal parallelepiped rising up higher than the surrounding mountains. But the more frightening thing was a storm, coming out of the top of this thing. It looked like a whirlwind, in various degrees of blue and black, spreading at the sky to all directions, while emitting impulses from time to time, which were felt even so far away from it.
"Don't know.", Scott answered the question looking at this with determined eyes, "But it's our job to figure it out."
"That sounds like your old man talking.", Liam realized, sounding a little bit amused, before bumping his fist lightly into Ryder's chest.
"He was right.", Scott jumped on it, "Something went wrong here. We have to find out what."
"Woh.", Liam replied, sounding surprised, "One thing at a time.", before going on and reaching the end of their elevated position. "Ryder…", he still said, but both of them saw what was there: within some kind of hollow the remaining part of their shuttle's cockpit was seen, burning here and there. But much more important was what lied in front of it, behind some boxes. "It's Fisher.", Liam recognized the suit and already went forward.
Scott saw more. "Wait…", he hissed and pushed Liam down, while crouching down as well and pointing with his finger forward, "Look!"
A creature pulled a box away. It was bipedal, wearing a black leather – or at least it looked like leather – garment, which left some spots on hips and arms free. Beneath it was found a white, armored looking skin, which covered also major parts of the head, giving it an edged outlook. Only the face was dark grey, almost black like the sclera of its eyes, while the iris was green. Worse was that within its gloved hands was obviously something like a rifle, although it looked quite alien for the two humans.
Another creature appeared one moment later, kicking another box away, while the two realized, that Fisher was hiding behind the boxes. Although these two didn't look very friendly, Liam turned towards Ryder, asking: "What was first contact protocol again?", whispering the question.
"No deadly force unless fired upon.", Scott reminded him, casting a short glance back to Fisher – he still was hiding successfully.
"Yeah, said no one in the field ever.", Liam replied sarcastically, while shaking his head, "How do we handle it?"
Scott thought about the answer. "Take it easy.", he replied assuring, "We only get one shot at 'hello' with these guys."
"Yeah, and Fisher gets shot in the head if we're wrong.", Liam reminded him, leaving a bad aftertaste in his mouth.
Scott nodded, but still wanted to pull it through. He stood up, saying: "Nice and easy – we only go hot, if we have to.", while moving forward slowly.
"Don't think they've spotted us yet.", Liam looked back forward, before added more anxious, "Shit – they see Fisher!"
The two hear that these creatures say something, but have no idea what – their translators didn't work obviously. "I, I, I don't understand.", Fisher replied with panic in his voice, obviously having the same problem.
They continued to talk to him, while Liam asked: "Well, what's the play?", and adding after hearing Fisher beg and cough and the creature screaming, "Ryder, we need to get down there."
The other alien yelled: "Niad shurid!", after spotting them and coming closer, looking tensed up.
Ryder stepped closer, while the distance was still quite big. "We don't understand you.", he explained, trying to sound diplomatically, while the begging of Fisher became louder and more scared, "We're not here to fight! That man's with us!"
"Niad shurid!", the alien repeated sounding stressed out, but also as if this was an order.
"Doesn't sound friendly…", Liam commented these words, sounding stressed out as well slowly.
Then they heard Fisher gasping and screaming. One look over there told everything: the other alien was hitting him with the butt of his rifle, not really restrained, but rather with force and anger – the impacts didn't sound promising.
Shit!, Scott thought, pulling his pistol out and running to the closest rock for cover, while ordering: "Weapons up!" He heard shots fired, before looking over the rock to aim. He shot at the one alien who hasn't found cover yet, hitting it in the back, before his friend could help him. Ryder quickly hid behind the rock again, when he started to fire at him, before hearing a beeping noise. He looked up and still saw when a grenade flew across the sky, right to the hostile alien – only to explode one moment later.
Scott saw how the alien went down in this way. "Okay…it's over.", he said into the radio, while standing up. Together they quickly ran towards the hurt crewmember, who held his helmet – luckily it wasn't broken like Ryder's was earlier.
"So much for making peace with the locals.", Fisher responded, while Liam kneeled down to him and Ryder looked around for more hostile aliens, "Thanks for jumping in."
Scott's face looked grim. "I wish I didn't have to.", he explained, "The first aliens we meet, and we try to kill each other? That wasn't the plan."
"Then we need a new one.", Liam stated simply, before adding: "At least we know what's what. The brochures were light on aliens who want to shoot your head off."
Ryder sighed, before Fisher added: "We still don't even know what they wanted." Scott kneeled down to him, while Liam stood up, and activated his Omni-tool to scan his hurt comrade.
"The way they treated you?", Liam responded, "Blood samples, I'd say. Lots of them.", sounding quite serious.
Scott looked up to him. "Who says we'd even understand?", he asked both of them, "Or they'd understand us? It's a new galaxy.", he stood up again, "I guess it's too much to expect they'll play by Milky Way rules."
Liam shouted, while shaking his head: "They broke the rules in any galaxy.", glaring fiercely at one of the corpses.
"But why go after us like that?", Fisher asked the legitimate question.
"Only thing I know for sure, their guns hit just as hard as ours.", Liam responded, before looking around for a moment and turning around to Fisher again, "Where are the others?"
"Gone.", he replied, "Kirkland and Greer went looking for help.",
Scott started to explain his analysis: "It's seems your leg is broken…", he took a breath, "Can you move?", and stood up and offered him a hand. Fisher grabbed it and Scott tried to pull him up, only resulting the other guy's screaming.
"You can't move", Ryder concluded, while his face said: 'Damn it'.
"Didn't even know it was broken.", Fisher replied, shaking his head, "You guys push ahead and look for the others."
"You sure?", Scott asked very unsure.
"Yeah. Just find us a ride out of here.", the sitting team member said, before adding, "And take a few more of them out while you're at it."
Scott nodded, but didn't leave him yet. He looked around some of the broken stuff from the shuttle and found what he was looking for. He handed Fisher the pistol, telling him: "Hope it will be enough for keeping you safe here."
"I hope so, too.", Fisher agreed, before adding, "Good luck you two."
Scott was unhappy with this decision, but he knew he couldn't go alone out there with hostile aliens around. He went forward, while Liam followed him. Few steps away from Fisher the following man said: "I hope the other team's okay."
"We'll find them.", Scott replied in an assuring way, while looking up from the hollow, "But we might want to scout around first."
"You're the Recon Specialist – point the way.", Liam replied, letting Scott sigh first. He looked up even further, looking right at the alien structure at the horizon. Hope we don't find something we don't want to find, he thought, before moving out.
"Mass Effect Andromeda", all copyrights reserved for Bioware and Electronic Arts
But the changes are mine.
Author's comment:
Well, that took some doing, but the first Ryder is on the planet. I think the most alien planet of the whole original game. But don't worry, I thought about adding some of my own to make the game a little bit more interesting than the usual desert, snow or a traditional highlands styled planets. Still you'll need to wait for them – the Prolog isn't done yet. ^^
I hope you liked this chapter and want to review it.