Chapter One: The Arrival (Un-revised. May 13th 2012)
Chapter One: The Arrival
"Ugh...I..Is...everyone all...ow...right?" Geios asked in agony, while he tried to pull himself off the floor. The sounds of people screaming in pain filled the air around him. Flaming pieces of debris dropped in front of his eyes, and as he watched a metal support crushed a crewman. Geios slowly slipped back out of consciousness and fell back upon the floor..
“How is he, Doc?” came a faint voice.
“He’s pretty beat up, but he’ll be fine after some rest.” replied an equally as faint voice.
“Doctor! I believe he’s waking up!” announced the doctor’s assistant.
Geios slowly raised his head to get a look at his surroundings. “Ugh...W-What happened?” he asked, stuttering.
“We crashed on an as of yet, unknown planet and the force of the crash knocked you out cold. You don’t appear to have any major injuries, so I believe you will be fine. Wish I could say the same for the rest of the crew.”
“Ow...What...What about the Commander?”
The doctor sighed, “He’s not doing so well. When we crashed, a shard of metal impaled into him. He’s losing a lot of blood and I’m not sure he’ll be able to make it.”
Geios almost shot up after hearing this information. “Where is he now?”
“He’s in the medical tent to the far east of the crash site. Redius is tending to him at the moment, but I don’t think there is much he can do even with his advanced knowledge in medicine.”
Geios hopped out of the bed he had been lying on and limped towards the tent exit. “Thanks doc!” he said, as he walked out into the bright light of the outside.
The site before him was not a pretty one. The once proud prototype Basilisk, was now a smoking wreck. The engines, the ones that hadn’t exploded, were heavily damaged and would take months to fix. The bridge, which he had been in just a few hours ago, was ablaze. “The boys back on Palaven are gonna be pissed to find out about this.” Geios said to himself. He began looking around the makeshift camp that had sprung up around the crash site. He was quite pleased with how quick the crew was able to set this up. The bulk of the tents seemed to be medical ones, but there were a few barracks for the uninjured to rest at. He also noticed that one of the tents had been turned into an armory and several crew members were loading it with weapons they had recovered from the ship’s armory.
As Geios made his way through the camp, he noticed an even more grim sight. Several black bags, each over 6 feet tall and as wide as a Turian, were placed in neat rows near one of the larger medical tents. One of the medical personnel was zipping up the newest of these bags. The contents of this bag were burned to a crisp. The smell emitting from this bag made the Turian close to it, cringe and vomit off to the side. Geios nearly lost it too, but kept his composure and continued to make his way to where Joram was being helped by Redius. I hope he’s not in as bad a shape as that doc said... Geios thought.
Geios, once again, looked back at the ship he had spent such a short time serving on. The weapons seemed to be mostly intact, but the engines and the bridge had obviously taken the most damage. It was a miracle Geios had survived. The bridge appeared to have been engulfed in flames and only now were they dying down.
Geios finally found himself at the entrance to the medical tent that housed the commander. He walked inside...
“Someone get me the medi-gel! We’re losing him!” came the voice of a very on edge Redius.
“Right away sir!” responded one of his assistants, as they rummaged through the containers of medical supplies, before finding the medi-gel and handing it to the busy doctor.
“Thanks. Now lets give this to him.” Redius began to apply the medi-gel to Joram, as Geios walked up to the scene.
Laying on the bed was Joram, but not as he was before. There was a large metallic object jutting out of his chest and blood was pouring out onto the ground. His face was also very burnt and his left mandible was torn completely off. Geios knew that Joram was hanging on by a thread.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” came Geios' voice from behind Redius.
Redius turned around to face his squad leader. “Oh Geios! You’re all right! That’s great! And help, you say? Well, as you can see, I’ve got my hands full with Joram and I’m unable to go collect the remaining medi-gel from the ship’s medical bay. Could you take some of the crew and go retrieve it?”
“Of course. Do you know where Thas and Zod are?”
Redius thought for a moment, “Zod is helping some of the soldiers to retrieve the weapons from the ship’s armory and I haven’t seen Thas since before the crash. He could be trapped on the ship for all we know. He wouldn't be the only one...”
“Wait, what?!” Geios interrupted, “There’s still people trapped on the Basilisk?” Geios, barely stopping himself from screaming, said to Redius.
Redius sighed. “Yes. A few of the hallways in the lower decks collapsed and several crew members are trapped within.”
“Well, has anyone gone in to try and get them?”
“Not yet. With the large number of wounded and the fact that Joram is in no position to organize a rescue operation, no one has gone in to get them out.”
“I’ll try to get them out and get the rest of the medi-gel out as well.” Geios turned and began walking towards the exit of the tent, before a very faint, but recognizable voice made him stop in his tracks.
“G-Geios...”
It was Joram. Geios rushed back to his badly damaged commander.
“Sir!” Geios managed to say, “You’re gonna be alright Commander! I’ll go gather the rest of the medi-gel and we’ll have you fixed up in no time!” Geios knew deep in his heart that there was nothing that could be done to stop the inevitable, but he refused to accept it.
“D-Don’t flatter m-m-m-me Geios...” Joram replied as he tried to fight the waves of pain he was feeling as well as the large amount of blood that filled his mouth. “...I know I’m not long for this universe. I-I mean, look at me.” he did his best to point at the large object jutting out of his chest. “There’s n..no way I’m walking a-away from this. So I..I have one thing to ask of you G-Geios.” Joram grabbed Geios’ hand.
“What is it, sir?”
Joram pulled Geios closer. “Get these men home...” Joram’s body suddenly went limp, as a large buzzing noise began filling the room.
“He’s flat-lined! Quick! Increase the dose of medi-gel! By the Spirits, don’t you dare die on me commander! Don’t you die!” Redius began charging a nearby defibrillator. “Clear!” He yelled as he sent a shock through Joram’s chilling body. “Nothing. Increase the voltage! Clear!” Once again, he sent another shock through Joram’s corpse, but it was no use.
“DAMMIT!” Redius screamed in anger, as he threw the defibrillator against the side of the tent.
Geios just stood there, staring at the now lifeless Commander Joram. He was now in charge and was now the one responsible for the well being of the rest of the crew. It was now his duty to make sure everyone else got back home alive. “I won’t let you down, sir.” Geios finally spoke as he let go of Joram’s lifeless hand. “I’ll make sure we all get back home...”
Geios turned and began to walk out of the tent before stopping and turning back to Joram. He then took his eyes off of his dead commander and turned to face Redius, “The rest of the injured could really use your help Red.”
“Of course sir.” Redius turned to his assistants, “Come on boys, let’s go help the others.” It was obvious from Redius’s voice that he was not happy about his failure to save Joram, but he wasn't about to let any others die.
Geios walked out of the tent and back into the humid outdoors. He took this time to get a baring of his surroundings. They were in a large, open plain, surrounded by a thick tree line. He began to worry. Something could easily be watching them and they wouldn't even notice. What if the Geth from that ship are still out there? he thought.I mean, if we were able to survive, you can bet that a bunch of Synthetics would have no trouble surviving that crash. His thoughts were interrupted, as Redius and his assistants rushed out of the tent and began to assist the rest of the wounded. Geios looked over to the armory tent, where he noticed Zod carrying a large crate of ammunition. He also had a few assault rifles and a sniper rifle on his back. Geios began to approach the bulky Turian.
“Zod, I need you to come with me. We’re going to go rescue the trapped crew members in the lower halls of the ship.”
“Aye Aye, sir!” Zod said, as he placed the large crate on the ground in front of the armory tent and placed the rifles he was carrying onto a nearby weapons rack.
“Ok. We’ll also need some extra hands. Where are the engineers held up? We’re gonna need their tools to cut through the wreckage if we want to reach those who are trapped.”
“Umm, I think they’re set up over there. They did their best to salvage some of the terminals from the bridge and are attempting to set up a comms array. Hope they get it to work. It’s too damn hot for me out here. And have you seen this forest? It gives me the creeps, man. I can’t even see 10 feet into there, it’s so dense. Man, if I get a hold of the flamethrower, I swear I’m gonna...”
“Zod... Will you please, shut the hell up?”
“Right, sorry there Captain. By the way, where is Joram? I haven’t seen him around yet.”
Geios held his head down for a brief moment before raising it and telling Zod the truth, “Joram’s...dead...”
Zod suddenly lost his “normal”, hyperactive and carefree attitude and had a face of pure anger. “Those fucking Geth! I swear if I ever see another one of those bastards again, I’ll rip their heads clear off their synthetic shoulders!”
“You can kill all the Geth you damn well please, but not right now. Right now, we have to rescue the rest of the crew, move to a more secured area, and set up the communications array. Then we can signal the nearest starship and get us a ride outta here.”
“Alright, sir. Let’s go get those guys out!”
“Yes, now where are those engineers?” Zod pointed off to the west of their position. In the distance, there was what appeared to be a large pile of metal objects and several terminals, most of which seemed inoperable. There also appeared to be a large antenna, coming from what Geios hoped was the array. The two began to make their way to the busy group of engineers.
“SPIKE!” Twilight screamed, as she burst through the door of the library. “Get your hide down here! I have an important message for Princess Celestia and there’s no time to waste!” Twilight was physically exhausted. She had ran all through the night, got lost, and wandered around for hours, before finally making her way back into Ponyville. She normally never gets lost, but after seeing that unknown object crash land in the Everfree Forest, she wasn't thinking straight and failed to notice when she took the wrong pathway and ended up on the outskirts of another town.
“Twilight! Where have you been? I was supposed to have eaten breakfast almost 2 hours ago!” responded the hungry baby dragon, as his stomach let out a loud gurgle.
“Breakfast can wait! I must alert the Princess! Something has crashed into the Everfree Forest and she must send someone to investigate! There’s no telling what it could be! It could become the greatest discovery in pony history!” Twilight said, with an obvious tone of excitement. Then she gasped as she realised something, “And I’ll get to be known as the first to discover it! Whatever it is.”
“Woah, woah, woah. Slow it down, Twilight. You say you saw something crash into the Everfree Forest?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes!”
“And you think that we should send a letter to Princess Celestia, telling her to send some ponies to help you discover what it is?”
Twilight nodded even harder. “YES!”
“And this can’t wait ‘till after breakfast, because?”
Twilight face hoofed. “How can you think about food at a time like this?! Who knows what secrets that thing could entail!”
Spike grumbled, “Fine. I guess I can help you send this letter. But promise me, that we’ll get some food after this?”
“I promise.” Twilight replied, in a relieved tone.
- - - Back at the Basilisk crash site... - - -
“How’s this array coming along boys?” Geios asked, as he and Zod approached the group of engineers.
“It’s not working out so well. We can’t seem to get this damn thing to work right.” replied one of the engineers, as he pounded on the array in a futile attempt to get it to work.
“Well, you’re not gonna get it to work that way.” Geios told the engineer.
“Yeah well, I’ve tried just about everything else I can think of. We need to get back onto the ship and retrieve the spare parts for these terminals. If we can get these things working, we can see just what the problem is with this array.”
“What a coincidence, I was just about to suggest the same thing.” Geios replied. “But first, we have more important matters to attend to. We have a number of our fellow crew members and soldiers trapped in the lower decks of the ship and they need someone to come and get them out.”
“We’d be glad to assist you, sir.” one of the engineers answered, as he grabbed some of the nearby tools and began putting them into a bag. He then proceeded to check his omni-tool. “I've got a map of the ship on this thing. We can use it to find the quickest route to the lower decks. even with all the damage from the crash.”
“Good. Now, let’s go get our boys out!” The group then made its way to the large hunk of metal, that was once their great ship. I wonder if there is any hope of repairing this thing? I mean, if we can’t get that array up and running, this hunk of metal could be our only hope of getting home. Where the hell are we anyway? Geios thought, as the group began to enter the Basilisk.
