AN: Hey guys, welcome to Chap 2. This took us a while to write, had to rewrite this a few times. Work and stuff came up as usual; doesn't help those recent events at home came up as well. Anyways, thanks for all the PM's and reviews. I appreciate it. And so does the Co-an.
Please leave a review, we appreciate it.
Co-An: At least I do.
BloodLordShade: A little more grounded, I think? Not really sure. It tends to bounce around a bit from what I can think of.
"Equipment check!" came the order from the Sargent.
At his behest, the twenty quarians immediately combed each other for any abnormalities in their loadouts and suits. Upon completion each man and woman of the boarding party sounded off, their voices echoed around the cramped interior of the shuttle.
"Good! Now check it again!"
"Yes, Sergeant!" They spoke.
R'Lee looked down at them from his position and gave a small smile, though if anyone was able to see past his visor, it would've seemed to be a slight sneer or a thin line. He just wasn't good at physically emoting positivity. But that didn't impede him at doing his job of the ship's Master at Arms
One didn't need to be nice to someone trying to kill them after all. One simply needed to kill enemies and scare discipline into the trainees.
And he was very good at doing both, whether he liked it or not. It was reflex to him now. A muscle that twitched unknowingly.
A notification appeared on his omni-tool, priority call, from the captain. He hit accept, "This is R'Lee, go ahead."
"Sergeant, from what we can tell, this may be a first contact situation if you find any survivors. Therefore, do not open fire unless fired upon. I repeat, do not fire unless fired upon. Don't you dare fuck this up." R'Lee rolled his eyes at the tone used. Accidentally shoot at an elcor child obscured in thick fog, believing it was a krogan, and everyone won't let you live it down… "You have a two-hour window to search the derelict for anything useful, by then either we get the engines back in order or the Reela will get back here with some assistance from the fleet. R'Lee, I don't like sending you in there blind, but I'm sure you understand the implications as well as I do. For the good of the fleet."
Or the good of yourself, R'Lee thought.
It was known unofficially that most salvage, depending on utility and value, would belong or be gifted to the fleet once found— or recovered, in some cases. A situation that clearly highlighted the continuing troubles that plagued them. The finder would be rewarded of course, either monetarily or with clout. Such "incentives" seemed to be a growing trend among his people from what he could tell, actively promoted by those in power. Not that he could argue with the benefits of such an approach.
One would have little to imagine if the find was a ship, especially a warship, that it would be of immense value for the whole fleet. Perhaps they might find themselves as the captain of it if they so wish and it was serviceable.
What Chu'Van found here would certainly merit a very large reward with a lot of clout, possibly immortalizing his name in the quarian history even if the ship turned out to be a scrap pile. Processed metal was processed metal, and the derelict was many times the mass of even a liveship.
R'Lee went to the cockpit and looked out past the screens at the looming vessel, his eyes examining every inch and detail he could see. It was a monstrous thing, now that they were making their way towards it. He couldn't imagine the species that built this: The imposing shape, the length from bow to stern, the almost-glamorous nature of its design and the giant over-sized prow, it's gold figurehead an avian creature spreading its wings wide proudly.
All that gold, even if it was just gilded, would certainly prove of use to the fleet.
Though another thing made him very wary of meeting them. For past the glamour and gold, besides the splendour of the unknown and mysterious, lay an iron fist. He did not need magnification to see the weapons emplacement even at such long range, it was painfully visible to the naked eye. The barrel of a single one of those could fit this shuttle inside and still have room for another… three or more widthwise. They were gargantuan, leviathan to the point of absurdity, entire rows of them aimed outwards, and he did not want to see them being used. Nor did his eye miss the many, much smaller variations scattered about or hidden within narrow or short crevasses.
And he especially did not want to see what had laid waste to it. Numerous hull breaches could be seen along the length of the ship. Some were minute-like pockmarks but others were much grander in scale, with one leaving a permanent cavity wide enough to see the dark void on the other side.
In the end, he couldn't care less about Chu'Van's machinations. He was never one for fleet politics, those were bloodier and more chaotic than the worst battles he'd been in. He liked simple things. Point. Shoot. Drink.
Either way, whether Chu'Van managed to get what he wanted, the fleet would still benefit greatly from this discovery. Although, it didn't mean he had to like him.
Only thing he could do was to keep his people alive.
"For the good of the fleet," R'Lee repeated. "I will report our progress in fifteen-minute intervals, and transmit a signature every sixty seconds. If you stop receiving, you know the contingency plan." He finished.
"I do. Keelah se'lai." And with that, the transmission ended.
"Keelah se'lai," R'Lee muttered back.
"All teams, maintain a loose diamond formation, comms man in the middle. We have an hour to explore, report anything of note and be prepared for a first contact scenario, potentially hostile. And do not touch anything. I'm looking at you, Reling. Squad one is to remain at and to guard the shuttle, squads two through four will move out and search; I expect frequent updates on your status. I want constant contact."
"Yes, Sargent!" They all intoned into the comms. They all climbed out into the void of space, their boots magnetizing themselves to the uneven metal flooring. Their training and experience kicked in as they eyed the emptiness around them, weapons raised and ready.
The shuttle had entered into a ruined hanger, built into the lower-middle portion of the wreck, and it was large, almost like a cavern. Though, they did not see what one would've expected to see in such a thing: There was no crew to welcome (or to shoot) them, no signs of usage or appropriate machinery. It was a ghost of a room, understandable, the place looked as if it had melted, what were once hard angles were now cooled globs of slag.
The only sign of what it had previously been used for, from what he could assume, was because it simply fit what a hangar would look like, besides the bare, melted remnants of what could be overhead cranes and gantries or fused mounds of steel and burnt glass.
It did not take a salarian to realize that something hot had been detonated in here and whatever wasn't bolted down became welded down or spaced.
R'Lee looked around. He could see no exit, but he could make out barely-vague outlines of strange forms burned into the walls.
"I think I found a way in." One of the squad leaders spoke up, gesturing towards what seemed to be a misshapen, protruding slab of melted steel. "We have to cut a hole," he suggested.
It certainly looked like a bulkhead to R'Lee, or at least what was left of one.
"Then get to it," he ordered. All three groups moved with haste, tools out and ready. And soon blue sparks danced as super-heated plasma torches came to life.
It took some time, the metal proving to be incredibly resistant to their torches, however, a hole was soon carved in the thinner areas as they squeezed into the trapdoor sized hole. The squads found themselves standing inside of a long corridor, one that was reminiscent of what one on any ship would look like. Except it was unlit, with halls wide enough to fit all of them with ease, and strange iconography of asaroid skulls and double-headed birds and elegant, flowing lines on almost every surface.
The place was also a complete mess. Can't forget to mention that.
As the group proceeded down what they assumed to be a main corridor of sorts, they were greeted to all sorts of strange sights. Flashlights parted the darkness to illuminate titanic statues and frescos of towering asaroid figures, in metal, gold, brass, and even stone of all things. Some bore thick, almost impossibly sized armours. Others wore simple robes. Strange mechanical contraptions, multiple limbs or jewelled eyes, stuck out from a few. And even a few lay in mortal combat against stranger creatures— with the asaroids being on top or as victors of course.
It was an other-worldly parade of the bizarre opulence, a menagerie of sculptures from an unknown alien culture. Each one being more different and bizarre than the last, their stories or origin unknown. What tales or deeds did these beings do to deserve so many.
However, it was the ones where the faces could clearly be seen that surprised the group.
Quite a few of the aliens bore a clear resemblance to Asari, from a certain point of view. Disregarding the strange patches on the top of the skull and some hideous or intrusive augmentations, the facial structure was remarkably similar, if sharper and bigger and more varied. It almost looked like an Asari fantasy of what their males would look like. If they were in fact related, they certainly had a kindred sense for luxury.
And they continued on in utter silence. They walked past rooms and halls filled with bolted crates bearing unknown devices, machinery and materials, stamped or dyed with the same repeating insignia of a double-headed bird and/or skull, and strange vehicles or engines of sorts. They saw what they could assume to be writing, a mess of flowery scribbles or meters-tall, blocky, utilitarian lines on walls at every intersection and door with straight arrows. More surprises hit them upon seeing that the corridor they were in had fed into a much larger hall, one lined with giant, hooded statues that looked down upon all who walked beneath; their faces hidden in deep cowls. The flooring changed from metal grates and flooring to chiselled and cut stone.
It had emitted an air of majesty to it but in the cold, dark, airless atmosphere, it was anything but anymore.
And it was also here that R'Lee decided to split the group. Each squad of five headed in a separate direction of their choosing with strict orders to keep in contact, with what time was left. The first two headed down what they guessed were side passages; hopefully branching into nearby sections.
R'Lee, however, decided to take his group down the hall, deeper into the ship and into the darkness.
"Did they evacuate?" R'Lee asked no one in particular, walking down yet another vast corridor. Whoever built this clearly enjoyed walking. It was a peaceful walk, nothing out of the ordinary, yet, it disturbed him. The entire place was silent despite its vastness. The place made him think of a tomb.
"Hard to tell. Maybe this deck doesn't see much traffic." his second-in-command, Feena, answered. A spritely young and cautious woman wielding a sniper rifle, she had potential in his eye. It didn't help that he didn't need to breath down her neck half the time either, that was another perk in his eye.
"Have the other squads found anything interesting as of yet?"
"Quite a bit. Reling of third squad thinks they found a cargo hold full of metal bars, looks to be some kind of new metal: Heavy, strong, and maybe worth something? He's carrying some samples back. Can't tell what it is, he says. We need a metallurgist to take a better look at it."
"Not going to be lacking when the fleet gets here, that's for sure. What about second squad?"
"They're returning to the shuttle, the path they chose ended up in a closed-off section. Also, our signal has been getting weaker the further we go. Should I relay any orders before we continue?"
"Tell the second squad to tail us and be a relay for comms traffic back to the ship— hopefully that helps. Can't say, the ship can barely scan through the outer layers, if at all. Naturally, be prepared to back our retreat if needed. In fact, keep the shuttle hot, who knows if we have to jump ship."
After nodding and giving the orders, squad one moved on. As they went along, R'Lee noticed that the clean and deserted became less common and growing piles of debris and battle began to sprout up: pockmarks and scratches lined the walls, broken pieces of gory, golden-painted armour and scraps of bloodied colourful fabrics, discarded and shattered weapons of large, never-before-seen make. Waves of spent cartridges — something that baffled R'Lee— and scrap formed a literal barrier. Given how much of them were in the air, it was useless to weave around them, almost needing to swim through the curtain of brass.
"I guess we figured out what happened to the owners." A member of his squad spoke up. The lead quarian gently pushed aside the floating metal barricade with his foot, shredded to near-ribbons, and as the blockage drifted away, it revealed a body beneath. Its head was gone, marks along the width of its neck resembling a vicious varren bite, and globules of crystalized vitae clung to it and the ruined spacesuit it wore— a heavy thing of metal and fabric and antiquated in design. It's stomach region, he assumed, was torn apart to reveal a cavity to show an empty cavity like that of a a fuzzy-fur lined purse. "They did not die quietly…" he gestured before him and deeper down to the macabre sight further ahead.
Someone in the back gagged at the sight.
R'Lee did not feel the desire to chide her, nor the will. What he saw, their reaction was understandable. The only thing that came close to this in his experience was not enough for a comparison and he'd been doing this for a long time. There was only one word for what he saw, one that fit quite well.
Slaughterhouse.
That was the only word to describe the removed limbs and hacked, floating figures. The long hallway was filled, every nook and cranny painted in crystallized blood and void-frosted cadavers, like a macabre snowscape or a gallery of dead.
"They certainly did not." He stared for a moment longer, swallowing his spit down, before continuing the trek. "Let's keep going. Call it in with the second squad: tell them that we've found its previous owners and that we're heading further in before we turn back."
"Shouldn't we turn back now… or at least get more people here?" a marine asked. Her nausea was audible.
Nobody blamed her.
"We could… but something tells me that something is down here. Something valuable. And I doubt anything is alive. Either way, chances are that we'll just be sent back here anyways— better to see as much as possible now."
R'Lee continued his walk, ignoring the messages being relayed by his second-in-command. There was something down here. It was more of a tinge feeling in his gut that guided him onwards, and he always trusted his gut.
He just hoped that it stayed inside unlike… He eyed one of the dead, its hands buried within its ripped stomach and with an asari-like face with empty eyes stuck underneath a shattered-globe helm wrapped in an eternal pose of grotesque pain.
Without much enthusiasm and with great caution the squad followed behind him. Gingerly they side-stepped the corpse and moved forwards into the icy abattoir.
"It ends here."
R'Lee stood in front of a giant door at the end of the hall they so carefully crossed, gazing at the strange symbol emblazoned on it: an alien skull split into two halves, one part covered in signs of obvious cybernetics and the other in clean bone, with a cog behind it.
Feena approached him, looking at the same thing he was staring at. "... Is it wrong to say that we should head back now. The corpses were enough of a warning, but this door?"
This was another strange thing, unlike everything else seen so far. One that stood incredibly out of place. This door had power. This part of the hall had power. A large, bulky terminal was at the right edge of the door, its screen smeared in what should be a bloody, five-fingered handprint. Strips of lights pulsed in maroon red from lights hidden within the high alcoves of the doors, shaped into grim eye holes or skull faces. It gave everything a reddish tone as if everything had been washed in blood, if it had not been already.
Overall, it was not a welcoming sight. Ominous, even.
R'Lee could only shrug at the woman's question. It was a fair one.
"Think we should try to open it, sir? These people… they were trying to keep something out and away from the looks of it."
"Hmm, you're right. Mark it as a Point-Of-Interest. These, they died to protect this door, means something important is behind it; I don't want us to open it," he ordered, "not without a lot of backup."
"I'll grab some samples. We'll at least give something for Chu to show off," a squaddie suggested.
"Be sure it's nothing organic or has blood on it. We don't want to bring any new diseases on board. Also, full decontamination for everyone, thing and item. No exceptions. No excuses."
"Aye aye, Sergeant!" the man happily saluted. "Hey, I think I found a sponge!"
"Bob, you're getting double decon. Drop it."
"Yeah yeah." The man released his hold, the item floated away, then he continued to fish through a corpse's pockets and belongings. The others spread out as well, examining the area or taking images with their 'tools.
All baring one.
Feena had turned back to the door, almost not of her own volition. There was something foreboding about it besides the iconography and evidence of battle leading to it. Like she and R'Lee said, the crew fought tooth and nail for this passageway to not be entered. Why was that? What was behind this door? As this was a new, never-before-seen ship with accompanying species, there was no holographic control panel on the door. In fact, the entire thing was alien to her, pun notwithstanding. The technology, of what she could guess, seemed primitive almost: guns with actual bullets; bulky, cumbersome-looking spacesuits; even the architecture screamed it. There was stone construction for almost half the journey. Who uses stone on a ship?
She looked at the terminal next to her. A single dot, blinking in an unceasing rhythm, hidden barely by the thin layer of frozen blood, shone at her.
It seemed so mesmerizing now.
She didn't realize that she was standing before the terminal until her hand was almost touching it. There she took a moment to examine the reddened print, how it turned the green pulsing light underneath it a dim orange. Her head to the door again, noticing the barely-seen split between the skull and the gear riding the length of it.
R'Lee noticed what was about to happen and moved to intercept "Feena, step away from the—"
She felt her hand press down unknowingly.
R'Lee felt the ground shudder. And he knew that he wasn't the only one. His eyes told him that nothing was moving, yet, his body, his entire senses and the innate, honed feelings of living on a ship his entire life told him that something was shifting nearby. The floor vibrated with a steady hum, his bones shook as it went from his magnetized boots and upwards. Teeth shaking within his skull. The lights throbbed with renewed vigour, its intensity rising with every bob and ebb like a living heartbeat; like a living thing being awakened.
The door, almost two feet thick, trembled in utter silence as it opened. Great metal bolts grew from hidden crevasses or intricate iconography, unscrewing with ease before the central symbol rotated clockwise. Fog hissed out like a whisper of stars and dissipated into non-existence. A large figure could be seen in the gap, his back facing them, its body much, much larger than even an elcor.
"Cover! Now!" R'Lee ordered. Rather unnecessary as everyone else besides Feena—who was promptly tackled by R'Lee—jumped into motion before the first syllable had been uttered, ducking or floating behind rubble and strewn-wreckage for cover.
He readied himself for an attack. His squad readied for an attack. They all raised weapons at the lone figure… then saw what was in front of them.
Only the sound of his hissing breath left his teeth. At least, he thought it was him until he realized that it was also coming from the others as well. This was out of his depth. This was out of all their depths.
R'Lee weighed things in his mind, once again, things had changed. Changed beyond what he could comprehend. This place was one thing after another, and now?
Well, he could try and figure out what he was looking at, explaining it in a logical manner, befitting common sense and actual reality itself.
That would not work. Logic from the looks of it had gone down faster than a volus taking a shot of liquor.
Though they at least found the owners. Probably.
R'Lee could only look at what he believed was at a life-sized diorama of a warzone. The back of an impossibly large, asaroid being, its front obstructed from view due to the angle. It did little to hide what was in front of it.
In the distance, an asariod shape pointed a blade at their direction on top a barricade of scrap, and in turn, so was a three-rank firing line of armed figures in familiar suits, first rank kneeling. They formed a barrier of flesh against mobs of mind-numbing monstrosities.
The air was alight with beams of red light that glowed like bright lances, missiles that left trails of mist and flaming smoke, explosions of bursting stars and gleaming metal. Large bipedal and crab-like walkers and tracked vehicles of steel dueled with beast-like monsters of flesh and color. Metal-clad figures in purple robes and greyish-skinned or blue-skinned hues danced in mortal combat beneath them. Archaic blades and spears, claws and clubs in hand or as hands clashing with… He couldn't really describe them. Just the sight of them made his eyes burn and head throb, unable or mind unwilling to process even their shape.
They just were wrong.
But it was visible that they were all crowding beneath a machine of great size, made of alien metals and design, decorated with an almost staggering array of symbols, banners and parts that shone with translucent, light-blue light or the still tendrils of lightning. The chamber that housed it was gargantuan; the device spanned almost entirely to the distant ceiling, at least from what he could see, and surely reasoned that this was likely only a small fraction of this monolithic construct. More figures were tending to this, almost ant-like in scale and barely seen, with strange devices sparking or prodding in various sections or up high, as they seemingly ignored the ongoing— but now frozen— battle.
All this behind what seemed to be a shimmer of air that cut off exactly at where the door parted, like a wall of almost-translucent glass, it was hypnotic.
"W-what is that?... Are they dead?"
R'Lee hesitated for a moment, his mouth dry as sand. Was he always this thirsty? Then he narrowed down on Feena, "Feena! What did I say? I specifically told everyone to stay away from the fre'eging door."
Nothing left her lips as she stood there in stunned fashion, her faceplate glaring at her hand as if it was unfamiliar.
"I think we should get out. Now." One of the troopers strongly suggested, picking himself up, eyes almost unable to tear away from the scene. "We are not— we have to call this in."
Bob could only disagree, "I don't think we're in any danger right now."
"What makes you say that, Bob?" The trooper spat the name.
What kind of name was that, anyway, R'Lee thought. Wait, Bob?
Who was Bob?
"Is your visor fogged up? Look at them, they aren't moving. It's like they're in a giant stasis field," Bob continued.
"And who knows when it'll run out?" someone remarked.
Bob focused on the still figures, he shooed the speaker away with a wave of his hand, "... I don't think this is a normal stasis field; there's no blue glow."
"And what makes you say that?"
"My ex-girlfriend."
"... Still wondering what she saw in you."
"I'm unique."
R'Lee could feel the smugness from here, it shook him from his musing like a jolt of lightning. He didn't like it. "Don't you dare start gloating, Bob. I will have you scrub every inch of the Odir, every service tunnel, every nook and cranny. This is not a time to be screwing around."
"Look. I'm not gonna go up and poke it. I'm not that stupid—"
"Yes, you are."
"—But I will throw…" Bob grabbed a floating chunk of steel, once a pipe or a railing in its past life, "this. If I am right then it will bounce off with nothing happening; if not, then we at least have a small idea of what we are dealing with here. And none of us will be anywhere near it at all. It's perfectly safe," he reassured.
"Don't throw it!" R'Lee barked. He was not in a mood to deal with any more dissent. First, it was Feena, someone he knew would most likely never disobey a command. She was more rigid than steel. Yet, she seemed off, not like her, for just that one moment. He made to order everyone to drop everything, to make all haste back to the shuttle and as far from this… place as possible. Something was wrong here. This situation was wrong. His gut was screaming and churning. Then he saw it before the first syllable had even left his lips.
Bob, that bosh'tet fre'eg, threw it.
The rod flew in a straight line towards the big meaty figure's back, tapping the strange barrier and slowly drifted backwards. R'Lee would've had breathed a sigh of relief... if the shimmer hadn't shattered like thin glass.
It was like pressing play on a paused holo-film. Machinery sparked to life. Missiles blew. Bullets threw up a flurry of sparks as metal struck metal or fountains of brownish or red blood from horrendous wounds as they were blasted asunder. Unnatural fires of physically improbable hues immolated bodies down to liquified wax. Tendrils of lightning wrapped and incinerated mind-numbing forms to husks alongside beams of curving light.
Then, all of a sudden, like a snap, most of the monstrous figures soon squirmed with open mouths and silent voices, clawing or ripping themselves with tentacles and crab-like pincers and various malformed limbs in sheer agony, as they dissipated into greasy, coloured mist, then nothing besides a lingering taint on the mind.
The beast in front bent over forwards and started to silently roar, taking step after step in his uneven run towards the wall of opponents.
Then it was launched back by something powerful in a flash of fiery light.
The figure blew past them. It screamed. And in the silence of the void, R'Lee could hear its frustrations as he followed its shadow. Then it disappeared down the entirety of the hall and through the sea of cartridge casings that swallowed it from sight.
He looked back towards the door.
They were all aiming at him and his squad, the asariods, their attentions now wholly focused on them. He could've sworn they all narrowed eyes at once from behind either opaque-black or clear visors.
R'Lee decided to take the first step. Slowly and without hesitation he got up, leaving his weapon on the floor then raised both hands. He hoped they had some concept of surrender, if it even was a concept for them at all. "Lower your weapons," he hissed in his comms, "Or I'll kill you all myself. Someone relay squad two to leave. Now." He didn't need to turn to know they did it.
At least that was one thing going for him today.
With a sigh, he twitched a certain sequence of muscles to switch frequencies twice then back again, activating the hidden failsafe he'd provisioned for situations like this. A pre-recorded series of clicks began to be cyclically transmitted through the encrypted communication channel. It was virtually indistinguishable from white noise, doubly so to outside listeners without proper decryption keys trying to spoof it. The message was simplistic as possible. A contingency of his in the event of possible, or eventual death, and to serve as a warning.
Quarian. Compromised. Danger...
He hoped the others managed to receive this.
And that he could tell Chu'Van that he was right for once.