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Into the Unknown	By : Spiritwolf71 Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 6761 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I own none of this universe the concept all belongs to Bioware, and Mass Effect I am in no way making a profit from this.

Chapter List
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Laius had lived through two wars and liked neither of them. Like most of the soldiers he had been with over the years he had stepped down from the military after the Reaper war. He had really been too old to be in the Reaper war, but when facing annihilation it really did not matter what your age was. Not that the Reaper was a good thing, but it was a good war. It was something worth fighting for. Not like the “First Contact” war.
Laius had only been a pilot when they had discovered the Humans; he had only been 22, by Human standards then. He had been in the military for just over four years. The Turian had been young and impetuous as most, but even then, he had not agreed with how the Turians had fired upon the Human. There had been no warning; no attempts at talks, the humans did not even have a chance to explain themselves. This had never sat well with the Laius.
He had always believed it had been like a parent beating a child for playing with fire, when the child had no concept of the danger. The humans had no idea where relay 314 led to. They had never experiences the Rachni; they had not been around for the war that had seen millions killed.
He had not been privy to the decisions made, nor was he one to disobey orders. He knew deep down the Humans were simply being curious about what the Galaxy had to offer. Every race that had found the mass relays had been the same, including the Turians. He would never understand why those that held the power at the time chose to just open fire. They were really not an unreasonable people. He had always wondered how things would have went had they approached the Humans and explained to them the dangers of opening the Rachni relay.
He often blamed his own kind for the behaviours of the Humans since the war. He wondered if they would have been so arrogant and superior had there not been a war. He wondered if they would have been completely different had there contact with other races not started with hostilities.
He had often thought that each race had their roles in galactic society. Turians were the law enforcers, while Krogan seemed to be the soldiers, Asari were the counsellor, Salarians the scientist, Quarians the engineers. Even those that were not part of the council had their uses, the Volus were the business people and the Hanar the religious ones, he had still not figured out where he would put the Elcor or the Vorcha, but he was sure they had uses as well.
Humans seemed to have the traits of all the others combined, as if they were the glue. Given what happened in the Reaper war, Laius had realized what their role was; they were the heart. They were the glue that held everyone else together. That was largely in part because of their Captain Shepard, she had been the one to bring everyone together, and she had been the one that had made them strong.
Humans were far from perfect, they were still petulant and demanding and they still thought that the universe revolved around them, but Shepard had shown the rest of the Galaxy just what the Human could be, and probably one day, would be.
Laius was more than certain that the First Contact war was responsible for birthing Cerberus. He, like everyone else, hated that organization but he had never been able to not feel responsible for their existence. Had the Galactic community been more welcoming to the Humans perhaps they would not have thought they needed an organization such as that. Perhaps they already had one, but no one would ever know.
Laius looked down to the satellite that sat on the beach. He had decided to wander down and see what the commotion was about. Keith had hijacked the black box within and Dharti had told him about the markings. She had also told him of how Keith had pushed her away from it when they had found the markings as if they worried him.
Laius had no trust in Keith. This particular human thought of no one but himself and had secrets, deep secrets that worried the old Turian. Everything Keith had done since they crashed had been for himself. Although, the particular act of burying the Asari he had been sitting with was surprising. He wondered what had made her so special. It was obvious from the event of this particular day that the Human was deeply prejudice and had little regards for the Asari.
He looked back to the group. The Krogan and Dharti had gone out exploring leaving Elysia with Varra. The Native seemed to have clung on to the young Asari like a life raft and Elysia did not seem to mind, as a matter of fact it seemed to give her some sort of purpose. It might even keep her out of trouble.
Not that she was trouble; she was just young, for an Asari. He had to watch when he said that since she was older than he was, a hundred and four she said, which would make her a teenager by human standards and a young adult by Turian. Oh some Asari were mature at that age, but Elysia was certainly not one of them. He liked her though, she had a spark about her and one day he could see, she would be a fine warrior.
He was slightly concerned about Varra as well. She could be exactly what she made out to be, but Keith was right, she could also be a trap. They did not know her people or what they were capable of. She seemed sincere, but if he was in her place he would have been trying anything to get back to his people. He wondered though, with the bruises, that maybe she just did not want to return, maybe her people were abusive towards her because she was alone, and maybe she did fight when they chose her. It could be that she simply never got attention like the attention Elysia was giving her. He would keep an eye on her.
He reached the satellite and immediately knew what the problem was. He had seen that symbol before, he was not sure where but he had seen it. It was not simply a left over artifact like the pilots had originally believed; it was something from the Milky Way. That would be a reason for its explosion, whomever it belonged to, did not want it found, which also meant they needed to move. They were too close to the satellite and if someone came looking for it they would find them and Laius did not figure they would be too friendly; the council had set out very strict laws about the new galaxies.
He ran his claws over the symbol and then tapped the metal as he looked out into the large body of water they had named an ocean. They would have to find a fertile place where he could plant some of the seeds he brought. He had been planning on starting a farm on Earth. His parent had both been farmers; well mostly his mother, he and his sister had helped her until he was old enough to join the military. He knew what he was doing; he just needed the proper land.
The fruits he would grow would help supplement the protein bars and hopefully give him and his son another year. Hopefully in that year he could get the figtine and whev to grow so he could make his own paste for them to survive on. The only problem was it usually took two or three years for them to catch on and grow to their potential. He knew they didn’t have that time. He could only hope that the heavier humidity would help promote production. He would save some seeds as he went but because of the situation they were now facing he would use the crop cutting method of cultivation over the seed. It was much faster. He just needed to get things started and the sooner the better.
“Do you know who they are?” this was from Keith, Laius turned to him, he had not even heard the human come down.
“I’ve seen the markings before, I’m not sure where, but it means we are not safe here. We are going to have to move on before the owner of this satellite comes looking for it,” the Turian replied. “What about you? Have you ever seen it?”
“No,” Keith lied, “I mean I thought it looked familiar as well but I can’t place it but with so many different industries out there all fighting to establish something in this galaxy who knows. Either way I don’t think any of them would chance civilian knowing about their operations.”
“Well, I agree with you there,” Laius said stroking his mandibles slightly. “I just wish I knew how much time we have.”
“I would say the sooner the better, it’s the safest. That area the kids found sounds nice but does not afford much flat land for this farm you keep talking about.”
“Not to mention giant Asari eating creatures,” Laius laughed. Keith smiled.
“Yeah, that could be a problem.”
“Oh, I would say there are a few problems,” Laius looked at him for a long moment. “So you just hate the Asari or does that spread out to all the other races?”
Keith seemed to weigh his answer before speaking “That, old man, spreads out to everyone, regardless the race, including Humans.”
“So you hate everyone?”
“Well most of the time,” Keith answered, “but what I feel is beside the point and I don’t care to have this discussion with you. We should get the others together and plan on heading out.”
“What about that black box you recovered?”
“Nothing so far, it’s protected by code that I can’t break and won’t be able to break without a proper computer.” He lied; he could open it if he wanted he just decided it was better if he did not. Not that he had any loyalty to Alpha Protocol, but it might be the one thing that would save his ass if they came looking for it. The less he knew the less likely there were to kill him. Hell he might even be able to make a deal to get himself off the planet. It was one of the reasons he had not spoken of the satellite he had hoped they would stay near it. Now that idea was all shot to hell.
Of all the people Keith worried about it was Laius. He was smart and he was a warrior and he had seen a little bit more than the others. According to Remes, Laius had been Commander before he retired and according to his youngest; Laius had also been in intelligence for a while. Obviously before Alpha Protocol aligned with Cerberus, or this conversation would have been taking a different route.
Laius looked at him for a long few moments. “Well you just keep working on it. We will need to start packing though. I think tomorrow morning would be a good time to start out.”
“Or it could be too late.”
Laius looked out over the water and slowly nodded. “You’re right, as soon as Dharti and Tanith return we’ll head out; maybe spend the night close to the river, not so close to that waterfall. Maybe Varra has an idea of where we could find a place.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Keith said. Laius smiled.
“I’ll talk to Elysia who can talk to her; I think it best of you steer clear of the women for a bit. I don’t think either of them is too keen on you at the moment.”
Keith simply laughed and turned and headed back up the hill towards the shuttle. Laius raised a brow and shook his head. Yes indeed, this human was going to be nothing but trouble.
***
With the red moon further away from the planet then the white moon a strange darkness settled over the planet at night, it was almost a purple hue and the usually white lights from the spotlight of the medium transport shuttle were turned red. The closer one got to the surface the more white the light became until it shone on the remainder of the doomed satellite.
Several armed men deployed from its body and moved around the fallen debris and faced out into the forested area. The natives usually just ran when they saw the shuttles, thinking they were some strange deadly bird, but occasionally curiosity got the better of them. The natives in this area might be small but they had strength in ways that humans simply could not compete with. It was part of the reason why Alpha Protocol was there now, studying them.
Bryson stepped out of the shuttle and stood beside his boss Carver Sysco. They were the two in charge of the program on Calinth. Bryson was the head of the military aspect of Alpha Protocol and Carver was the lead representative of the company. Technically he was Bryson’s boss but the two of them had a healthy understanding of the other. Carver made all the decisions except those that that involved the security of the operation, Carver stayed out of his business.
Carver had been extremely upset when the idiot pilot of the cruise shuttle had decided to go after their satellite. Most of the shuttles that went out now came back with artifacts, it was pretty much a known fact, and they created a large amount of revenue these days. However, the shuttle routes had not been allowed this far as of yet.
That was a fact he would make sure Pitne For industries were made aware when he had a chance. He would make that Volus run organization pay him back for anything they had lost.
Carver moved over to the debris and began to search. Bryson stepped out towards the hill. The shuttle had crashed there and they had no idea if there were survivors. He sent a five man team up to check it out. He turned and watched Carver.
“Well?”
“It’s gone,” Carver said obviously upset and angry.
“Maybe it fell elsewhere?” Bryson moved over to him. He was a military man and really, knew nothing about satellites. It all looked like bent metal to him.
“No, it’s gone, like it pried out of its housing gone,” Carver said and looked to him.
“Hmm,” was all the man said and raised a brow? He looked up the hill and began to make his way towards the shuttle. He was met half way there by one of his men.
“There were survivors,” The young man reported. Bryson nodded and rubbed his chin. That would at least make things interesting for a while. The natives were not so fun to torment when he was bored. They were easy to hunt, but they were not used to being hunted. Hopefully whoever took the box would be more of a challenge.
“Do we know how many or who, or anything?”
“We found the shuttles black box, it should tell us who was aboard, but we did find one lone grave and a mass grave, we have no idea of how many are buried, looks like they burned them first.”
“What about the buried one?”
“Scans indicate that it was Asari.”
Bryson scowled, he hated the Asari more so than any other race they had come across in the last 40 years. “Get the information and then scan the mass grave, find out who we have left.” If he was lucky perhaps one of the survivors was Asari. Then he could get rid of some of the built up frustrations her felt at being stuck on this backwards planet. “Then let’s find out where they went.”
- 6
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Into the Unknown