Prolog – New Earth
"Kal sarhos!", a voice yelled on the other side of the hill, found in between mountain walls.
"Hear that?", Cora asked unsure. Sara nodded, before crouching down and moving on, while further voices were started to be heard: "Tolerad!", sounding quite unfriendly.
The two women passed the hill and in front of them a giant structure appeared, out of dark material, looking metallic. It looked like a church rising along the mountains walls, which surrounded it. At the bottom of it, right in the middle, blue-white lights were shining, letting this part of the structure look awfully close to a hexagonal, closed gate.
"Duheth!" , another of the unfriendly voices shouted, directing Sara's attention towards the hollow below the alien structure.
"Gosad!", some of the tree white aliens shouted, wearing a dark battle dress and rifles.
"Is that Kirkland?", Cora asked, reaching Ryder and pointing at another person among the three aliens, obviously being one male human in Initiative-armor.
"Shurid hesh!", one of the aliens yelled at him, "Lutod nyro!"
"Please!", the man replied, sounding afraid, "I surrender!"
"Lutod nyro!", the alien repeated himself, while the two women reached some smaller structures, trapezoid looking and ideal for cover.
"Our translators don't seem to work.", Cora realized, while Kirkland repeated himself as well, but this time louder and more determined: "I said I surrender!"
Those were his last words: both women could hear a shooting noise and see an orange light leaving the rifle, hitting the man, who fell down instantly.
"They shot him!", Cora replied, shocked by what she saw, but a little bit too loud – the aliens noticed them and turned around, rifles risen.
"Cover!", Sara yelled, hiding behind the closest of the trapezoid structures, while pulling out her pistol. Cora did the same, while the aliens seemed to retreat moving backwards, still shooting the whole way – they looked around for cover as well, but there was none. The two women reacted quickly: still hiding most of their bodies behind the structures, they aimed and fired at the aliens. Their shields stopped most of the hostile energy-based fire, while two of them went down, being hit. The third one was able to reach a structure further backwards for cover, in time.
"I count one left to go!", Cora shouted, while moving from one structure to another to get closer to his cover. Sara started doing the same, encircling the enemy effectively in this way. While the alien focused on Cora, Sara used her advantage: she jumped with her jump-jet on the back above the structures, seeing her enemy clear as day and firing – he didn't even stand a chance.
After that she hid behind another structure, realizing that she breathed harder than before, while Cora looked around with her weapon at the ready. "I can't believe we're doing this.", Sara said into the radio, right before Cora informed her: "That was the last of them."
Both women left their cover, but still looked around, ready for more. They reached the body of Kirkland and Sara kneeled down to him, using the Omni-tool to scan the body. "Did he made it?", Cora asked worried.
The results were definite. "No vital signs.", Sara informed her partner, "Just shot him in cold blood."
"He was trying to surrender.", Cora replied, shaking her helmed head, "Why kill him?"
Sara's mien became grim, when the obvious answer hit her. "Would we treat them any different if they showed up on Earth, armed to teeth?", she asked turning her head towards the corpse.
Cora's answer sounded frustrated, realizing the truth: "Probably not."
Sara nodded and got up. "Peace isn't going to be an option here.", she realized with a sad voice, "We'll come back for his body once we find the others."
That was the first one, they found and sadly dead. Their shuttle was shaken down by the storm and lightning as bad as the other one, but theirs wasn't hit by one of them. Sara has seen how his shuttle went down, burning to the crisp, while some figures looking awfully like humans fell down from it. She had screamed his name during that, but they weren't able to do anything.
Their shuttle needed to land not far from here as well to assess the damage. Her father has staid calm during all that, has given orders to repair the shuttle, while taking Cora and Sara with him. He would scout the structures, trying to find out what they had to do with what was happening to the planet, while she and Cora were tasked with finding survivors of both shuttles. Until now she had hope that they would find everyone alive and unharmed – these hostile aliens weren't improving their situation at all.
"Let's scan these guys.", Cora suggested and pointed at one of the alien corpses, "Your dad and SAM will want to have the data later on for sure.", before leaving her behind a little bit to contact the shuttle crew, warning them about the hostile alien presence on this planet.
Sara nodded, but looked up first, to this church-like structure. It looked as alien as it could be: beside the dark color, green glowing lines were seen drawn along its surface. She thought she could find a pattern of them, but they were so weird and confusing, that she couldn't find any sense of it – still she scanned the structure. "I've seen Prothean artifacts in my time, but nothing quite like this.", she said, while checking the incoming data, "It's at least three or four centuries old."
"The Arks left 600 years ago, right?", Cora asked, curious as well.
"Yeah.", Sara nodded, while moving on, "Our long-range scans wouldn't have shown this.", and more considering, "These structures…that tower…maybe none of it was here when we left the Milky Way.", before adding in her mind, Hopefully SAM will be able to do more with this data..., before going to one of the corpses, lying down on its stomach. Her Omni-tool scanned it as well, while she murmured more to herself than everyone else: "Well, I don't have SAM here, but I can try to make sense of it.", checking the given data, "They're DNA-based. And their armor reads as some kind of bone, but the genetics are all over the map."
"Huh.", Cora replied surprised, "I guess life took a different turn here, hm?", while Sara scanned the other bodies as well to create a database for later on.
Afterwards they checked out the weaponry of the aliens, but they seemed to have been broken during the fight. So Sara took instead the M-8 Avenger-assault rifle of Kirkland to extend her own weaponry. She wasn't such a big front fighter like her brother – actually she preferred a sniper – but it would do for now, till they were able to get better equipment. They moved on, seeing the big alien structure with the storm at the horizon, while the ground stopped at their right side. One short glance down the cliff showed, that it lead very far down – Not an experience I want to have…Sara hoped in secret. Another mountain wall wasn't the only thing to their left, but also smaller scaled versions of the churchlike alien structure, with a bright light in their middle, working like a lamp in the shadowed parts of this terrain.
Suddenly they heard something. Was that a growl?, Sara asked herself with wide open eyes.
"You hear that?", Cora asked, sounding a little bit more hectic, while Sara immediately pulled out her rifle.
"I wish I didn't.", she replied trying to raise her weapon, when she saw it: it was a creature, running on four legs and looking awfully similar to a dog-version of the aliens before; but the worst part was, that part of its skin were not visible, as if it would hide behind a Tactical Cloak, making it invisible.
"What is this thing?!", Cora shouted, while starting to shoot, but the hound-like creature hid within its invisibility-cloak, before she could aim properly. Few seconds later it reappeared, jumping straight at Sara, who allowed her body to fall backwards after being surprised. This probably saved her life, because the creature jumped right over the human woman, who could see its jaws trying to catch her.
She landed on her back, but quickly turned around on her belly, looking upwards, where the creature landed close by. It turned around and charged at her again, but this time the fire of Cora hit the beast and Sara realized that her rifle was aiming at the creature as well. Without further thinking she fired as well and to her relief, the creature died on the spot.
Sara needed a while to get up, but did it finally. She moved closer to the creature's body, rifle still at the ready, aiming at it. Its yap was even bigger now that she was so close to it – big enough to devour a big junk of her with one bite. "I think it wanted to eat us.", she said still breathing hard.
"Okaaaay…", Cora replied, coming closer as well, "But now it is dead…or not?"
"Whatever 'it' was.", Sara answered simply, regaining her composure.
"How'd it cloak like that?", Cora asked now rather curious, while kicking the head lightly – yep, it was dead.
Sara put her rifle back, contracting it before it was reattached on her back. A moment later she opened her Omni-tool and scanned the creature. "It's organic.", she read the data aloud, "No sign of technology."
Cora's first reaction was: "Wow….", before her second one was a little bit less confident, "So the cloaking is…biological?"
"Yeah.", Sara could only agree, "Weird."
"Weird indeed.", Cora nodded, before turning away from the corpse, "Come on, let's move. Our mission isn't over yet."
They moved the cliff up, before its path lead downwards again. Sara looked across the cliff, right at the pit, seeing hexagonal pillars rising from the deep darkness of it. Their material looked like the one from the church and blue shining lines were found along their edges. Afterwards they reached a hexagonal platform, dug into the earth with most of its edge. It indeed looked alien, but not black, but rather green-yellow-grayish, as well like some of the containers found it – It resembles these Alien Guys…Sara thought scanning some of them.
Then they reached a dead end. The path didn't continue after that and the only way on, was into the pit – where some of these hexagonal pillars were gathered only few meters away. "What do you suppose is down there?", Sara asked, while an idea formed in her head.
"Eh…", Cora replied first, before adding a little bit joking, but also sounding confused, "New and painful ways to die?"
Sara looked at her. "Maybe we could jump-jet our way across.", she said and did it right away. Her jump-jet ignited and she jumped high into the air, before maneuvering her body across the pit right at the pillar assembly. Cora needed a moment to follow her, but in the end, she did. When she landed, both of them heard some kind of vibration. "Is that sound coming from below?", Cora asked confused, looking around.
"Um…", Sara replied first, not having a clue at all, "Alien gods of underworld maybe?", before turning around to the other side of the pillar assembly.
"Ha, ha…", Cora replied following her to the edge, "Very funny."
Sara jumped across the next gap, landing further below than earlier. Cora followed almost immediately, so she could tell her the assumption, which crossed her mind: "I think it's machinery. The vibration is similar at least."
Cora looked back. "The scale of this…", she murmured too loud, with a certain awe in her voice, "Who built it?"
"Alien gods…", Sara replied joking again, before moving on. They passed another of these greyer hexagonal platforms, before moving across a stone path again. They looked up, when they heard another impulse building up at the blue whirlwind, which looked closer now than earlier. After leaving the pit behind, they entered a small valley, within the mountain's shadow. The blue-grayish bushes they've seen the whole way became real trees here.
"Ryder.", Cora said warningly, "more of those aliens ahead.", before hiding beside a rock cover close by. The aliens had occupied the whole valley, having built even some kind of artificial cover in shape of greenish barriers, as well like left behind boxes. They seemed to talk, being occupied.
"Talking?", Sara asked, not believing that the answer would end up positive.
Cora shook her head. "Not as long they identify us as threat.", she explained, "Let's use the diversion for sneaking closer."
Both of them drew their rifles, lifting them for the fight. The plan was to sneak as close to the enemy as possible, encircling it during that and then shooting him down. This plan stopped working the first moment the two moved down into the valley and one of the creatures from earlier appeared from nowhere. It surprised Cora, who was moving ahead, and jumped at her, pushing her down, but Sara kept her composure and started firing. The beast fell quickly, but the result was: "They've seen us!", she shouted to Cora getting up.
This time there were four of the aliens, spreading out to hide behind their cover. Cora got on her feet quickly and started moving forward behind the next cover, while Sara did the same. Fire was seen and heard down from the valley, but either the shields held or the enemies missed. During one break of fire, Cora appeared behind her cover and threw a grenade at the enemy's position. They reacted as wished: they left their cover quickly, giving enough opportunity to shoot them down. Cora hit two, Sara one, but all of them fell after getting hit several times.
Sara discharged a thermal clip, because it has overheated and put another one inside quickly, while the remaining enemy ran further backwards, obviously looking for escape. "We can't let him go!", Cora shouted, while following him and firing to cut him off from his escape route, "Don't know how many of these guys are here, but I don't want them flooding this valley with us inside!"
Sara put the rifle on the rocky ground of her cover and aimed, closing her left eye. He ran, firing back here and there to stop Cora from advancing, but this didn't bother Ryder. Her breathing slowed down and right when he was running upwards, out of the valley, she fired a short barrage so the recoil wouldn't destroy her aim – she hit him right in the back. She fired again, and again, till the stumbling enemy fell on his stomach and didn't move anymore.
"That did it.", Cora reported via radio, while stopping and turning around to her, "You're pretty good at this, Ryder."
She started standing upright, while lowering her rifle and moving down into the valley. "I was with a team that dug up Prothean artifacts.", she informed the other woman, remembering this life at the edge of civilization pretty good. The two women met in the middle of the valley, surrounded by the artificial barriers, boxes and lamps, all in this yellowish green color like the platforms from earlier. "I wonder what these guys were doing here.", she asked aloud.
"Crash of some kind.", Cora replied, looking around and pointing at a crashed looking shuttle at the deepest part of the valley, "It's not one of our ships.", which was easy to guess: it's design reminded on all the other stuff lying around here, instead of Initiative shuttles.
They moved closer to the crashing site, finding more and more boxes. Sara opened one of them and something colorful was found inside. "It's food…", she declared, not liking the look of it at all, before adding less confident, "I think…"
"Can't be local.", Cora replied, opening another of such boxes, "Not growing anything on this planet."
An idea crossed Sara's mind. "So maybe they're bringing it in from off-world?", she suggested not sure.
Cora looked at her and her voice didn't sound happy at all: "More of them in the cluster? Not loving that AT ALL."
Sara nodded to that, while the two started leaving the valley upwards. When they are importing food…are they from this planet?, she asked herself mentally, while scanning some of the technological looking stuff on the way. They met even some tech looking like tanks or pipelines, fabricatied in the same way like the rest of the green alien stuff. But when they moved further up, they found also another structure, looking like the pillars or the church – it seemed to be a bridge, built for a path above their heads and ending at the mountain's wall on the left. It was located at the path they moved along, right beside another big pit to their right, even bigger than the last one.
Luckily, they didn't have any further encounter with these hostile aliens. They moved on few minutes, undisturbed, when they saw something new at the horizon: in between two mountain walls was a structure, looking like the hostile alien stuff but much bigger than that. A big opening was found at the front, few meters upwards, looking awfully close to a window.
Suddenly several flashes hit the ground in front of it, in a regular matter, brightening the scenery full with boxes, edges, yellow and mushroom plants. "This place is taking a beating from the storms.", Sara realized, when some of the flashes hit the building as well.
"Along with everything else on the planet.", Cora replied in a matter-of-fact voice. They passed more technological gadgets of the hostile aliens and Sara scanned them. "Looks like it's a broken lightning rod.", she interpreted the data.
"Could explain why the building's damaged.", Cora added, "Storms hammered the place.", before moving on, closer to the window few meters above them. They reached a small ramp, seemingly leading up into the structure and followed it. The wall of the structure was not far away, additionally to a partially opened door, leading inside the darkness of the lightless interior of the structure. Both women activated the flashlights installed on the breast plate of their corresponding suits, before entering the ominous looking space.
"Well…", Cora began looking around, the rifle back in her hands, "Let's hope this is no one's home."
"Doesn't' look like a home at all.", Sara replied, putting her right hand on the grip of her pistol. She saw boxes lingering around everywhere, not comfortable looking seats, panel desks or panels at the wall for some kind of technology – although their power seemed to have been deactivated – and everywhere on the ground cables, crisscrossing without a system throughout the whole room, while here and there also huge pipelines were found on the ceiling or ground as well. All of it had the same alien design and color like the outlook of this building – Creepy…she thought.
They passed into the next room through a frame without door, looking around in this longish looking room. "No one's living her at least.", Cora commented looking around with her rifle at the ready.
"So what's it for then?", Sara asked curiously, looking around rather fascinated than cautious. They found themselves on the elevated part of the room, where a ramp led downwards.
"Doesn't look like the other structures we've seen.", Cora replied, "Different design.", looking at a closed double-door at the right side, "Perhaps there is a way to switch the lights on?"
They moved the ramp down, but this part of the room looked like a storage place, fuller with boxes than earlier rooms. Another ramp led upwards again, further to the right of the room and the two women followed it. First they found another of these desk panels, looking like for a receptionist, before Sara noticed something behind it, attached to the wall. It looked like a small pod of the same design like everything else here. She instantly activated her Omni-tool and scanned it. "Huh…", she said checking the incoming data, but not able to make head or tail out of it, "Who knows…Let's call it a 'weird alien machine'."
They entered another room to their left. It was filled with more technological looking stuff than the rooms earlier, which looked even creepier than before and at its left side a long window was found, so one could look into the storage part of the earlier room. "What's all this about?", Cora asked becoming curious now as well.
They reached another panel on which something like an alien pad was found. Sara used her Omni-tool to hack into it and it started an Audio Log: "Zev gosad! Surnahd zot."
She shook her head. Same language as those aliens…, she considered, Wonder what he's saying?, before checking further of the devices, but either they didn't react to her or they had no power at all, despite some of them having small lights at its exterior. Finally she stepped to the biggest part of equipment in the middle of the room, which also had few smaller cables attached to it. She activated her Omni-tool once again, typing herself through the confusing incoming data – and she did something: the odd looking device started to emit machine-like noises.
"What are you doing, Ryder?", Cora asked looking at it anxiously. The noise was becoming louder, as if it would boot or prepare itself to explode.
"Oh shit…", Sara muttered stepping backwards, but being not able to look away from the device.
"That can't be good.", Cora commented with stressed out sounding voice, while stepping backwards as well. The noise became louder and louder and when it reached its peak, Sara closed her eyes, awaiting the explosion.
But nothing happened.
At least nothing without looking at it first. Sara opened her eyes slowly and looked around, while the lights of the whole room started to be switched on. "Oh.", Cora exclaimed, much less worried.
"So the weird alien machine is a generator.", Sara concluded, stepping closer to it again. With the energy back online Sara tried the other devices in the room, but either they had odd reactions to her poking, or their currents overloaded, being damaged obviously.
"Let's go.", Cora said finally, "Nobody of our team is here and I don't think we'll find out more about these aliens right now.", before going ahead. Sara followed her, going the same way back across the ramps. They wanted to leave the building, when…
"Hey, that door opened.", Cora pointed out, looking at the second door of this room. Sara nodded and went ahead, while the other woman followed her, rifle at the ready. This room looked different than the earlier ones, like being built to fit another structure at the end of it: another of these gates, which they had seen at the church structure. Also many stones were lying around, like being dug out, as well like some boxes looking with the same design like the church's gate and having geometric shapes.
"Some kind of research lab?", Sara suggested, looking around. She found another pad on a strange looking table close by and activated the Audio Log of it with her Omni-tool: "Keng zhef. Rol no tod surhanad. Jhan lurok."
"Not exactly poetry, isn't it?", Cora joked, after listening to the log. They moved down the ramp leading to the gate and started to hear some kind of noise, "You hear that?", Cora added, listening to the vibration coming from the gate.
Sara was more interested in the devices found at the gate. "Looks like they were trying to tunnel in.", she guessed, when suddenly a figure rose right in front of them: it had two legs, a flattened body and some kind of antennas and didn't look like a living, breathing creature at all. It turned around to them and instantly started firing from its red shining eye-light in the middle of its body.
"Shit…", Sara exclaimed, being saved by her shield, while grabbing her pistol. Cora has started to fire back already, hitting the machine, which needed to stop firing thanks to this, but still tried to get behind a rock for cover. Sara joined her and together they brought the machine down – it collapsed literally, right in front of their eyes.
They needed a moment, looking at the destroyed machine. "So now killer robots, too?", Cora asked jokingly, "This planet becomes better and better."
Sara looked at her, grinning. "The Geth back home would love this place.", she said and both of them chuckled for a while. Then they moved closer to the gate, seeing further of the destroyed robots, but also something surprising: one of the aliens, dead as well. "They don't seem to be friends.", Cora commented on the fact that she found another corpse.
"Yeah seems so.", Sara agreed, looking to the gate, whose vibration has become quite loud so close, "These aliens seem to be interested in the technology found on this planet."
"They don't look like the archaeologist type for me.", Cora commented that, while they turned around and moved back.
"Only bloodthirsty archaeologist, if at all.", Sara agreed, while they left the room and the building now as well, "Weather's still crappy.", she added, when getting outside.
"SOS on frequency 1543.", they heard a weak noise in the radio suddenly, accompanied by static, "Anyone there?"
"Harper and Ryder here, we read you!", Cora replied, "What's going on?"
"We are getting surrounded!", the voice, which can be identified as Hayes, replied, "It's these alien guys you described."
"Shit…", Cora's first reaction was, "Stay put and show these bastards no mercy – they will not do it as well. We're on our way!", she stopped talking to the radio and turned to Sara, "Seems like looking for survivors has become less of a priority now. Sorry Sara."
"He is fine.", the other woman replied with a confident voice, "He is a fighter. This planet will not break him.", and she tried to believe it as well, "Let's go – they need our help."
Cora nodded and together they ran back to the location their shuttle has landed.
"Mass Effect Andromeda", all copyrights reserved for Bioware and Electronic Arts
But the changes are mine.
Author's comment:
So this was the second part of the New Earth-Storyline – only one chapter is missing, so stay tuned till that. ^^ But when you liked this chapter, you can review it still – I would appreciate it.