Project: Marsby DaWhirlhoofChaptersDiscovery (Update/Rewrite)Project: Mars (Outdated)Dilemma (Outdated)First Contact? (Outdated)Consequences (Outdated)Discovery (Update/Rewrite)Goddamn dust. Those were the only two words having a gladiator duel in Amanda's mind while she promised a thousand curses and tortures upon this stupid rover. Of all the problems she could've been having, it couldn't have been a simple issue like recalibrating the douser for the trillionth time, or something exciting like a hole in her helmet, leaving her to suffocate, in pain and despair. It would've been a pleasant relief from this. The blasted rover had, for reasons she could only assume were a concealed, malicious intellect and sapience, decided to inhale as much red sand as possible betwixt the axles and tires. She could roughly guess the rover's plan: bring her and Justin out here, break down, and leave them stranded to die of thirst or asphyxiation in the wastes. It was all coming together. The perfect murder plot, if not for the fact Amanda had done this dozens of time before, and knew how to most thoroughly abuse the rover until it behaved like a good girl. Speaking of Justin - the supposed "field mechanic" - he was being so unhelpful, that the helpful stats went into the negatives. He was currently taking photographs of the landscape, as if every bloody dune didn't look exactly the same on Mars. Oh sure, there might be the rare rocky outcrop, depressed cave, or sandstorm with a caffeine addiction, but things on Mars were more monotonous than... well, she couldn't think of a comparison, because it beat out everything. Point was, he was taking pictures of red sand. Because the base gallery needed more among the thousands, of course. Her dispatcher and base commander, Omega, had elected to send the duo to this random "field", because there were apparently ice traces and some unidentifiable metal reading. Amanda understood the former- obviously one would want a source of water closer than a hundred miles away, and not having to worry about the purifying plant spontaneously combusting or having a worker revolution. The latter, though, was the only reason Amanda wasn't on autopilot this entire time. Unidentified metal? Sure, it could just be zinc again, that for some reason the distance scanner couldn't pick out if it were nailed alone, stationary to a wall. But it might also be a metal that humanity genuinely hadn't discovered yet, which would actually make sense- different planet, of course there'd be things never seen on Earth. She had to actually fix the damn rover first, though. A few sweaty, angry dustings and pickings later, along with verbal abuse only she could hear, and the rover was once again able to have an athsma attack before taking them to this apparent anomaly. Technically speaking, her job title was "field analyst", a disgustingly vague term that gave her a headache. It could be used in so many ways by her dispatcher, from finding the tiniest of mineral sands, to searching for water traces in the driest places on the planet. Oh yes, Omega loved using Amanda as a not-really-glorified scavenger. She personally preferred the term "explorer", if only because it'd sound better and make the jobs slightly less agonizingly boring. If only for the fact she didn't keep finding everything, it might not be an issue. Both Omega and Amanda learned swiftly after her first days that she had a supernatural talent for finding the most absurd and hidden things. The first bacteria? No issue. Underground ice deposit the size of a small house? Easy peasy. Justin had once joked Amanda could discover a cave full of pristine gold and diamonds if she tried. Then she did. It would've been comical, if it weren't slightly unnerving. She knew the real reason Omega wanted her at this specific area: one of the other "field analysts", when not on one of his drugged up fantasy history lessons, had said he'd dug up a bucket in a cave around here. Obviously he hadn't brought it back because 'there wasn't room in the rover', but it had intrigued Omega nonetheless, so here she was. Looking for old, sand-eaten buckets. Or whatever old artifacts could potentially be here. Omega had been and still was a fervent believer of a previous civilization on Mars, and since she technically couldn't be proven wrong, here Amanda was. Looking for anything that might indicate life, especially intelligent life, had existed previously. One would think the bacteria corpses already proved that, but nobody cared about bacteria; they were the unloved middle child in the family of discoveries. Except for Doctor Steffan, anyway- his fascination with the buggers borderlined on creepy. Kicking the rover one more time, she clicked on her helm radio, to the only other living being in the area- though she'd rather there be none. "Hey ass, the car's back and running. You were a big help. Get in and start it up before I stab a hole into your suit." The response from the alleged 'human' was characteristically lazy, smug, and dripping with latent sarcasm. "Sure sweetheart. A pic beside the rover, though? Just for the memory?" "I will personally take that phone, shove it up your nose and pull it out your other hole. Get in." He mumbled something not directly aggravating, like 'sure sure', and made his way back to the vehicle- but not before snapping a photo in what he thought was a stealthy manner. She mentally promised to reset his phone to the factory defaults later. It was protocol to do an area survey before exiting; something the rulebook said about 'missed opportunities' or 'hidden obstacles'. She was 110% certain there were no sandworms about to rocket up the dunes and devour her - unfortunately - but she made a perimeter patrol anyway, scouring roughly fifty feet outward and around the rover. Bleep. "Not to rush you, but I think the ice caps are melting. Maybe step it up a little." Of course. Responding bleep. "By all means, take the rover back by yourself. I'm sure you'll last at least five minutes before it flips over a pebble and folds your spine in half. Seriously, how are you a 'mechanic' when you couldn't even name all the engine parts?" As Justin threw back something in his native dialect of 'asshole', Amanda was just about ready to speed back to the Bubble and take a well-deserved nap, until she noticed something actually interesting. A small hole in the ground. Actually, calling it a 'hole' did it a disservice- it was an entrance. It was perfectly round, and looked to be lined with some kind of metal. Metal. "Stop whatever stupid thing you were about to say, and look at this. There's a hole." Despite the inevitable lewd remark about 'her hole', Justin did in fact join her at the anomaly. "And then you'd- oh, that actually is a hole." "A hole with metal walls, perfectly smooth and round, and a very specific diameter. You know what that means? It's deliberate." She could feel the exploration blood beginning to boil. "You know what else it means? Call Omega, tell her about it, and have an actual dedicated team check it out. This isn't our job." "Now's when you're being cautious and smart?" "I just don't want to try to explain to Omega why her little prodigy of an analyst disappeared into the fucking Upside Down." "Firstly, that is an incredibly old reference. Secondly, fuck that." With that, Amanda clicked on her headlight, and took a closer look at the hole, leaning on her knees to peer into it. It was giant, for one. It could easily fit the entire rover in any orientation, solar panels included. It was at least a couple dozen feet across, and had absolutely zero dust, rust, or markings of any kind. It was pristine in every way, it was strange and unexplored, it could be dangerous, and she had to check it out. The headlight didn't reveal anything except more of the bizarrely perfect, greyish-purple metal. "The trademark Amanda luck. You found a weird metal hole. Great job. Can we leave now?" She turned, and stared at him. "There's a ladder on one side." She knew he could see her grin through the helmet glass. "I swear to God-" She began climbing down the ladder. "This is the first remotely exciting thing to happen in months. Besides, I'm doing exactly what Omega wanted. Checking out the weird metal. Not to mention the sand just outside of it was damp, so there's the water too." "I am not helping you if you fall down, or you discover Cthulhu or some shit." "Good, all the more fun for me. Have fun with your rover with a seething hatred for humans, I'll be down here checking out something cool." The ladder was, as to be expected, strange- aside from the fact there was a ladder at all, of course. That indicated someone, or something had to construct it. But it was also bizarre because it didn't seem designed for humans- the rungs were curved at an odd angle, and the entire ladder slanted slightly, like whatever was climbing needed extra leverage. Like they didn't have hands or fingers. Electing to just slide the rest of the way, she clamped down onto the bottom. Unlike the entrance, the place she currently found herself was a deep grey stone she couldn't identify. It looked a little like someone had thrown concrete and granite into a blender, then made it depressed. Scanning her light across the room, it was fairly tight, roughly the size of a decent living room. She noticed an indentation, and a doorway on one side, and began walking towards them. Crack. Until she felt something snap under her boot. Lifting it, she saw something... wooden? She picked up the apparent stick, and inspected it closer. Yep, definitely wood of a sort. Again, nothing she could recognize by name, but it had the definite visual texture. This was all the more odd- unless this bunker thing was constructed very recently, which she doubted, this wood should've been rotting and disintegrating by now. How was it so preserved, like the walls and ladder? Then she realized, it wasn't just a stick. Looking at the other end, it was a spear. That was absolutely a spearhead, there was no doubting the shape. It looked to be made of a dark rock, and was smaller than she would've expected of a human spear. For that matter, the entire spear didn't seem human- it was shorter, smaller, lighter, and had a slight curve to it, in a way that gripping it with hands would be uncomfortable at best. As she was just about to radio Justin and head back up the ladder, her light panned over something white. She picked it up. "Justin, you'll definitely want to call Omega. Tell her we've got something a lot more important than any bucket." Amanda couldn't contain the shock, excitement, and slight disbelief in her voice. For in her hand, was a skull. A horse skull, with a pointed horn out the forehead. Author's Note Whaddup, homies? I've finally gotten the time and motive to actually make something that hopefully isn't garbage, and will attempt to revive this fic in a more interesting, better written way. It's actually intended as a longer story now, rather than badly expanding a oneshot. So we'll see where it goes. Project: Mars (Outdated)"ToriGoat 343, this is Omega Station. Copy and respond." "Omega, this is 343, copy. No current peculiarities." Amanda Chorol, decked out in her white hazard space suit- or the 'Pufferfish' as some nauts affectionately referred to it -gave a good stretch. She'd been out in this seemingly random cave for days now, investigating for 'anything to indicate previous life'. Infuriatingly vague, but that was her job in a nutshell. Proto-colonist, researcher and explorer, charged with finding whatever may remain of life on Mars. Not that there was a shortage of those like her; she recalled the last headcount at four hundred or so. That was nothing compared to the seven hundred something thousand colonists, a pipe dream only a couple decades ago. Her mother told her all about the dreams of 2018 Earth, exploring the stars, meeting aliens and expanding into the Universe. It seemed 'exploring the stars' consisted of a lot of sifting through red sand to find bacteria corpses, but she loved it anyway. "Still can't believe you called yourself 'ToriGoat'. That game died way long ago. You're a 2015 hipster, Maymay," her fellow naut remarked. Justin could be charitably called 'laid-back', which made him annoying to work with in an environment where not having your helmet perfectly screwed on was death. Amanda grinned. "Says you, 'RadDood 420.' I don't even know how you passed that by Omega." She bent to one knee, checking out a patch of sand that read with higher moisture than the surrounding dunes. She pulled out a microanalyzer, sifting for any trace of water, a resource that Earth might take for granted, but nauts and colonists like herself held in higher value than any gold or gems. "I'm just that cool a guy, they couldn't pass me up. You know anybody else who could multiply fractions in their head?" Justin, or 'RadDood', decided putting his hands on his hips and striking a dramatic pose was more important than his actual job: she collected the sand, he looked at it real closely. "Many, actually." Amanda lifted up the analyzer, then blinked. 2.7 percent H2O. That was actually noteworthy. She collected more of the local sand, also finding trace methane and carbon- an excellent sign. This trip might not have been completely worthless. "Justin, take this pod; it's got more water than we have in our dorm fountains." He snickered. "Not much of an achievement." Regardless, he grabbed one of the specimen containers, and they both stood up, stretched, and headed back to the buggy. Amanda tapped on her helmet. "Omega, this is 343. Copy." The receiver in her suit flared to life, echoing the voice of her local supervisor. "343, this is Omega, copy. What have you found?" "Sand at Kin Cove, 2.7 percent H2O, trace methane, dubious carbon." She could practically hear the supervisor's eyes widen. "Copy 343, we'll get the scopes ready. Head back before sunset." "343 copies. Out." Amanda took a look around her before heading to the buggy. She was one of the 'lucky' ones assigned to a natural cave, as opposed to random dunes, mountains or dormant volcanos. Theoretically, life was more likely here, due to having more protection from solar winds and planetary storms. Theoretically. Life likelihood was very relative when the gravity was less than half Earth's, and there was literally no magnetic field. But whatever. Of course, that was more a problem for humans and Earth life in general; any previous life on Mars had probably adapted. Amanda hopped down from the crag she'd been investigating, looking further into the red cavern. One might think being able to jump higher and weigh less was a positive of low gravity, but the fact she had to exercise like an Olympian every week just to maintain baseline health dampened that. Mars gravity was like snow: cool in small amounts and for a short time, annoying or even lethal if you had to live in it. Her inner thoughts were suddenly blasted through the noggin when she clipped a rock that, to this day, she swears placed itself there on purpose. She flailed over the cave's mouth, bonking constantly into the walls and a couple stalactites- though the gravity she had just nagged was now weakening the impacts significantly. She finally came to a stop in the cove, on her hands and knees. She felt a tad sore, but nothing seemed to be broken or dislocated, far as she could tell. Justin came down far more gracefully, helping her stand. "That was a big tumble, sister. Suit torn, bubble cracked?" Amanda ran a gloved hand over her suit, seeing if there were any spots it could slip in. With that and the fact she wasn't currently suffocating on an ocean of CO2, she guessed the suit was holding up. "Suit intact, though my pride is now in tatters." Finally stood up, she looked around the cave roof for a moment. Typically stone spiky things. She shrugged, waved Justin along, and splashed back to the mouth. She checked the analyzer to make sure it hadn't busted. Nope, looks like it- Wait, splashed? Amanda looked at her feet. Sure enough, just below her boots, there was a thin puddle of... Something. Could it be..? She entered 'science mode', kneeling down and filling the analyzer's tub with the liquid, tossing out whatever remained of the sand. That didn't matter. Waiting... Waiting... It was H2O. They'd just found liquid water on Mars. Filled with dirt, sand, and perchlorates, yes, but still water. She gave the loudest whoop she'd ever done, unfortunately muffled by the helmet. Justin gave her a look, until he took a look at the analyzer, and he too threw his hands up. He immediately tapped his bubble, activating the radio. "Omega, this is 420. You won't believe this..." While Justin contacted their local base, Amanda trudged through the cave a bit more. Finding actual water was already a massive boon, but who knew? There might be something else neat in here. Her interest was rewarded when, while walking, she tripped again. She caught herself this time, which resulted in her staring at the ground. Right at what looked like a shovel blade. She couldn't help what happened next, frantically digging away the red mud and dirt around the shovel, until she'd unearthed the entire thing. Definitely a shovel. But, who could've- She looked around, seeing more pieces of objects embedded in the ground. She dug them up too. An alarm clock, a ratty handkerchief, a crystal glass... What was all this doing here? She knew for a fact no nauts had been here before she and Justin... From Earth. Which meant- She felt a hand at her shoulder. "Maymay, you good? That fall knock a screw loose?" Her only response was to point at the collection of items- artifacts, if her guess was right. After Amanda and Justin had packed the dirty relics into the buggy and collected more muddy water from the cave, they'd drove straight back to Omega. The drive was silent- neither of the nauts had much to say, they'd been shocked as is from their discovery. Omega, after their initial paralyzed silence, had told them to bring the objects to R&D, and the water to Bio. Given a few days, the paleos had discovered that the shovel, rag, clock and such were, at a rough estimate, around four billion years old. The question of how the heck anything had survived this long was still in the air. Omega had said it wasn't "definitive proof of life on Mars before", because objects were not technically remains, but they all knew. Amanda flopped into an armchair, exhaling. Making two groundshattering discoveries in a single day- within minutes of each other -took a toll on one's energy, both physical and mental. She took a sip of her Fanta while thinking. There was something strange about the artifacts- well, besides the fact they were found on Mars, anyway. The shovel... Looked like it wasn't made for hands. None of her crew could comfortably hold it, so it was made for some other mechanism. That made sense enough, but what really lingered was, when they were scanned... Somehow, fingerprints had remained on the objects. Or, to better put it, hoofprints. That stuck in her mind. How was there something even remotely resembling a horse on Mars? Sure, they now knew life had existed on Mars at some point, but... A horse? -Two Weeks Later- Amanda found herself in yet another cave, assuredly different from the identical-looking one from her earlier mission. Because this one was a couple million years older or the like. Uh-huh. Regardless, she genuinely enjoyed toddling through the endless maroon wastes to find random junk. She couldn't picture doing anything else- she had the right mixture of resolve, intellect, and insanity to be a naut, and a colony explorer at that. Which, taken into account, still did not make trying to find more lost artifacts or ruins easier. She had been assigned without Justin this time- because after the last mission, she was obviously far more capable on her own -and so it took much longer to find anything of note. Weren't nauts always supposed to be in pairs at minimum, for safety reasons? Maybe Omega was just jealous of her. Mist kicking up behind her suited feet, Amanda held yet another analyzer, though this one coded specifically to look for rare metals one may use to build electronics. It hadn't worked, though Amanda didn't expect it to. Going from shovels to, say, computers was a massive leap. Even if this precursor society had simple tools (that somehow remained virtually mint for eons), that didn't immediately imply they were as advanced as humanity. She bounced along the internal organs of the cave, this one just as dry as the rest of Mars. Omega had been extremely insistent on looking for any signs of water- Amanda had bitten back her tongue on explaining why water did not instantly indicate life, and why the absence of such did not imply the opposite. She could still hear Omega's voice in her head: 343, you need to keep an eye out for water. There was H2O where you found the relics, so it stands to reason this society needed it. Correlation does not equal causation. But Omega liked listening to themselves talk, so, here she was. Unlike last time, she didn't fall bombastically over herself on a pebble. No, this time she fell bombastically over herself on nothing but thin air. Luckily, she managed to regain her stance without aid- frick you, Justin -and wobbled into a cove wall. Ah, the nice smooth feel of the wall to- Wait just a popcorn-popping minute. Smooth? The deja vu was not lost on her, but she didn't immediately call Omega. Both because she didn't want a false alarm, and because the 'I told you so' was too much to bear. Amanda followed along the cave wall, switching on her helm light. It revealed what was definitely not a natural rock- it was purple, and white, and gold? Where in the world did polished gold come- Nevermind, she knew. Yep, a bit 'I told you so' was target locked and aimed straight at her face. She was ecstatic for the incoming lecture. But that wasn't enough for Amanda Chorol, oh no. She had to be certain. So she tracked her gloved hands along the ruined surface, running the analyzer along it. Besides gold, iron, zinc, and a bit of platinum, it didn't find anything particularly strange, but she wasn't done. Amanda continued running her hands along the wall. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but she knew it would be cool. After a solid five minutes of this, her mouth increasingly turned downward. Still nothing, and now she was starting to feel like an idiot. Maybe it was time to- click Jackpot. Her fingers slipped into what seemed like an indent in the wall; a piece of the smooth metal and stone pressed inward. As she stepped back for a larger look, she could hear the sounds of rusty gears and machinery clacking and cranking against each other. The wall that was solid a moment ago was now- well, still solid, but it moved out of the way, revealing a gloomy black space. She stepped forth. After what she would say was hours of walking down a dusty, ancient-looking staircase, Amanda finally reached an edge. Not the bottom of the stairs, but a literal edge, being greedily gluttonously gorged on by the gloomy darkness. Checking that the rope and hook were still secured in her pack, Amanda decided to take a gamble, and leapt off the summit. She sailed through the gallons of black, through who knew how many feet, before slamming into a smooth metal floor. Now she was getting somewhere. With her helm light still activated, she swung her head around the cavern. The walls and ceiling were a cold, navy blue stone with virtually no imperfections, streams of silver and gold dancing erratically throughout. It was mesmerizing. She clomped through the spacious former building, trying to find any hint of a door, hatch- anything. Her wishes were answered when she came across a door made of purple stained wood, again lined with streaks of silver. It was locked tight into the doorway, but strangely, seemed to have no visible doorknob or opening mechanisms. Did the former society lift things with their minds? It seemed silly, but... Seeing as she did not have psychic powers, Amanda decided to use the tried and true method. She rammed the door with her shoulder. Amazingly, there were basically no marks on the door, not even the slightest of indents or cracks. She did it again. After a solid five minutes of this, and an exceptionally sore shoulder, the door finally gave up, swinging inwards. She checked her light's battery- enough for roughly another hour. Hopefully this building wasn't too giant. She again ran her hands along the walls, though not for any particular purpose. The make and color of the stone hadn't changed at all, which likely meant this was just another section of the same room, as opposed to another altogether. Or the former builders were just lazy. Her absent mind led her to bumping into a table. She gave it a look and- It wasn't a table. It was a coffin. The moral dilemma of disturbing a possibly billions year old alien corpse bothered Amanda for about three seconds, before she threw open the lid. A skeleton. Amanda circled the casket a few times, peering at the who-knew-how old corpse. She knew (or guessed) it was a skeleton, considering it was white, hard to the touch, and the pieces of it were all separate from each other. She could be wrong, but she wasn't an expert in alien skeleton biology. Alien horse skeleton, for that matter. It had all the marks- four legs, flat teeth (although a few canines put that in doubt), and- Her horse theory was suddenly adrift. For one, the thing didn't seem to have hooves- its legs just.., ended. For another, it had a horn sprouting out of its forehead. A literal unicorn on Mars. Amanda almost pinched herself to see if she was dreaming, but didn't for many reasons. One of which being her suit was already grumpy about the door-ramming thing; it likely wouldn't appreciate that. She wandered around the room, and saw more and more coffins. Seeing as she'd already done it once, she opened each one. Every single one was a unicorn. This was a crypt for unicorns. A unicrypt. If nothing else, this was solid, concrete, undeniable proof that something had lived on Mars at some point. It looked like both she and Omega would have something to be proud of. Speaking of, her radio beeped with a transmission. "ToriGoat 343, this is Omega Station. Where are you? You haven't answered our call in a half hour. Copy and respond." She tapped her helm. "Omega, this is 343. I investigated that cave, and... well, I think it's better you see for yourself," she said while glancing at another unicorn corpse. -Three Weeks Later- Hundreds of crypts, catacombs, tombs, whatever. Hundreds. Lying down on her cot, Amanda had to laugh, at herself and humanity. All this time they'd been looking for microscopic beings, when there were- if she recalled properly -at least thousands of previous beings on Mars. In what may have been a gold rather than red desert at some point, they found similar skeletons to the unicorns Amanda discovered, though these had no horn, and she could've sworn their bones were striped. Near a dormant volcano, remains of what she adamantly called 'dragons' were unearthed. How could she not? They were twice the size of a human, had claws, spiked spines and heads- they were definitely dragons. It made sense, considering she'd found unicorns- Mars had apparently been a fantasy land. Skeletons with a strange twin-pronged horn, what looked like grossly oversized dogs, and undoubtedly yak and buffalo cadavers- the search for life on Mars had gone from fruitless to overwhelming within a single day. She hadn't paid much attention to the reaction on Earth- she knew they were receiving a much larger influx of colonists and nauts, and some religion calling the Martian corpses 'dead gods' had formed, but that was about it. Trying to live on a dead planet left little room for that. She tossed and turned in her cot. Despite finally finding life (or remnants of it), despite having succeeded in her job, despite having enough money and fame at this point to live like a celebrity, she still wasn't satisfied. There was something gnawing, nagging, clawing at her mind. The tools. The lack of decay on the skeletons might be explained by an absence of bacteria, but how in the world did an alarm clock survive over a billion years? It made zero sense. They hadn't found anything strange with the materials- they were made much like analog alarm clocks on Earth, which was sort of creepy in itself. But how? Amanda felt, knew she was missing something. And it might be where she found the crypt. Rolling off her cot, Amanda decided to do something immensely stupid- exploration at night. It was dangerous, nobody would know where she was, and she'd have basically no aid if things went wrong- which they probably would. Regardless, she got dressed, had a quick 'breakfast', and suited up. She made sure to take a spare O2 tank and mask, just in case, along with the rope and hook from last time. She also packed a small blanket for... well, she didn't really know. Just felt like it. She stepped out, sat in the rover, and drove. The explorers after Amanda had never bothered to close the crypt door. Not that they really could- she'd only gotten in in the first place by smashing it. She ignored the empty coffins this time, focusing on the walls. Considering how she'd discovered the crypt initially, it stood to reason there could be more false bricks, leading to more abandoned structures. This would be tedious, but she was ready for it. Amanda began the exceptionally slow and boring task of running her hands over every single brick in the room, one by one. She was fully prepared for this to take minutes, even hours. She knew it was unl- click She shut her mental mouth. Once again, the wall next to the false brick split open, vibrating and grinding against the floor, throwing up veritable lakes of red dust. Taking a deep breath, Amanda headed down yet another creepy staircase. Down, down and down. Something struck her- the make of this staircase was much different to the crypt. While the tomb was vibrant and colorful with blues, purples, gold and silver even after so much aging... This place was grey. An unfeeling, immovable grey. She hit the bottom. Unlike the crypt, there was no entrance, no decoration, no nothing. Whatever this secret (or extra secret) room was built for, it was probably rushed and frantic. Much like an apocalypse bunker, it held nothing but pure function. Whatever that was. Amanda was more careful this time- she couldn't be so reckless, considering nobody even knew she was down here. If she tore a hole in her suit... Well, better not to think about it. If she could smell the air, she was certain it would be thick with dust and basically unbreathable. Her light didn't extend more than five feet, the dust was that thick. Even moving felt more straining. This place very well may have not been touched since it was built. Until now, anyway. Through the utter black and grime, she spotted a hint of light blue. Stepping over, she saw what could only be described as Matrix-like pods along the wall. There were about a dozen, and most were completely empty, containing only some strange mechanisms she had no reference for. There was a singular pod, containing... Well, it looked like one of the unicorns Amanda had discovered weeks ago. Except it had wings. And was purple. And was not a skeleton. The significance of this took several seconds to actually bulldoze into Amanda's brain. An intact one of the species! Or, something close to it. This upped the game on so many levels, she almost didn't notice a tiny green light flash on the pod. Then it opened. And the creature fell out. The purple pegasus/unicorn/horse thing slapped onto the rock floor, and promptly began gasping for air, along with shivering violently. This told Amanda three things: 1. It was alive. 2. It needed air (though what kind of gas, she had no clue), which the Martian atmosphere was not. 3. It was currently freezing to death. Her survival training kicked in her instincts- she scooped up the horse in one arm, grabbed the blanket out of her pack and wrapped the horse up, and frantically set up the O2 mask and tank. She obviously had no clue if any of the three things she'd guessed were true- it might not be alive, just jittering like frog legs might. It might not breathe O2, and she'd just killed it faster. It might not be cold, shivering could indicate so many other things. She was right the first time. The horse began breathing... not normally, because Amanda had no clue what that looked like, but it seemed to stabilize. It also slowed the shivering drastically. It opened its eyes, and looked up at Amanda. It was almost cute, if not for the fact its eyes were filled with terror and confusion. But apparently it was intelligent, because it took one look around the empty room, looked at the O2 mask and blanket, and decided not to freak out, which Amanda couldn't have been happier for. Now what to do? Well, getting it back to the station seemed like a good idea. Amanda had no way of knowing if that would work, but it was a plan, and plans were important in a survival situation. She almost tried to soothe the petrified alien, until realizing that it wouldn't be able to hear anything through Amanda's helmet. Saved until they got back to the station, then. She headed back to the rover, alien horse thing in her arm. Author's Note I think I may be abusing the "Mystery" tag. On another note, I originally intended this chapter to be the only one, but I'm also tempted to do one showing the slow decay of Equus, and another (in no particular order) showing Twilight meeting the Mars colonists and... well, I have no clue. Lemme know which you'd prefer! Dilemma (Outdated)Amanda's head was abuzz on the drive back. There were so many mysteries, so many questions, so many things that didn't make sense. Why did a creature on another planet breathe oxygen, for one? She wasn't an expert, but wasn't an oxygen majority on Earth a complete accident? The alien should breathe methane, or CO2, or not at all. Why oxygen? How had the pod holding the alien worked for potentially billions of years? Surely, even the most efficient and long-lived power sources were long dried up by now. Were there more of these pods around Mars, waiting within secrets of secrets to be found? Could there be hundreds of survivors, just itching to be returned to a dead homeworld? She had no clue. The purple horse alien in question was currently sleeping in the passenger seat, blanket and mask still attached. Amanda had kept the drive slow- Mars dunes were chaotic enough as is, she didn't need to send the alien flying on a Martian speed bump, seatbelt or otherwise. It hadn't been until now that the naut really looked at the alien. It was purple, with a deep blue and pink streaked mane and tail. Horn and wings. About chest height. She thought the wings were rather pointless, until she remembered Mars had less than half Earth's gravity, so the alien very well might be able to fly under its own power. The horn was pretty apparent- used for goring and defense. She had no clue why the eyes were the size of bowling balls. The alien horse had been awake for all of five minutes, jumping at every minute noise. But it must've had caffeine withdrawal worse than Omega, because it had passed out pretty quickly. She hadn't stopped glancing at it- how could she? A living specimen of some absurdly ancient Martian society. 'Prehistoric' was way too much of an understatement. She still had no idea if bringing the creature back to the station was smart. For all she knew, it was waiting to infiltrate their core structures before imploding. Yep, that sounded stupid. Unlikely. More immediately and concerning: would the station materials be toxic to it? It had been sitting in the rover 'naked' the entire drive, and displayed no outward negative effects that she could recognize. But what if it was like cancer, only showing up ages later for a depressing and painful death? That wasn't even considering alien microbes. Amanda's suit protected her, but the moment she brought the creature inside? She could keep her suit on, but everybody else was sleeping without one. History told what happened even between isolated humans and disease- she could scarcely imagine the devastation of ET diseases in either direction. Or how Omega and her naut crew would react to all this. They'd likely call her insane, mad, stupid, perhaps malicious. She would be fired without a doubt, possibly kicked from Mars missions permanently. Despite all this, Amanda Chorol continued driving. Now she was stuck. Not the rover, but choices confuzzled her. Where to take the alien? The infirmary would be her first choice, but putting a possibly anxious and paranoid alien in a room with dozens of chemicals, drugs and medical tools didn't seem like the optimal path. But where else, then? Her cot? The storage and bot bay? Bio? Actually, Bio didn't seem like the worst option. But if it was intelligent enough, it might recognize it at a lab and think it's being dissected or something. Amanda knew that wasn't the case, but the creature didn't. And she'd rather not have a hole dug in her intestine by that horn. She finished de-suiting, having set the sleeping(?) horse alien onto a nearby shelf. She couldn't stop glancing at it- how could she? The fact she'd found a living alien still hadn't fully processed, and even moreso that it was a unicorn-pegasus-horse thing. And was purple. She also noticed some kind of... she wanted to call it "tattoo" on the thing's rear, but it might very well be a physical thing. She wasn't about to start groping a horse alien's butt to find out. Despite her mind screaming at her that it was stupid, Amanda left the alien alone for the moment, while she investigated each room of the station, trying to find the most suitable place for the creature. At least the thing breathed oxygen and had a similar temperature limit to humans; she would've been a loss otherwise. Comms, dispatch and command were immediate no-go's. She highly doubted the kitchen, mess room or bathrooms were a good candidate either. She wasn't about to take it into any cot besides her own, and even then it seemed... not good. The storage bay was probably fine, but she also didn't want an alien freaking out in an area with lots of delicate electronics. So infirmary or Bio it was. She idly grabbed a donut from the pantry as she passed by (thank you Earth shipments), then leaned against a wall, focusing more. It was a tough decision, not least of which because both rooms had similar problems. Fragile equipment, the feeling of being a guinea pig, and the fact Amanda was neither a biologist nor a medical expert of any sort. She knew first aid, of course, but she doubted that would be enough. After a few minutes of thought, she decided. She headed back, picked up the horse, and headed for the infirmary. Technically she should've had some sort of mask in case of alien germs, but that wasn't her highest priority. Along the way, while carrying the alien, she noticed something strange: it felt like there was... some kind of invisible barrier between it and her. Like someone had stuck a really thin sheet of glass between the two. Time to check that out later, walking now. Pushing aside assorted medical instruments and containers, she set the horse down onto a counter. Mission accomplished. Now what? She scratched her head idly. She... actually had no idea. It was still sleeping, so she could analyze it more closely, but she really didn't want it waking up and thinking it was an experiment or such. Then, all of a sudden, she came up with a monumentally dumb plan. A dumb plan that might just be it. Dr. Steffan was not happy. Not only had he had an exceptionally aggravating dream about magical ponies or some other nonsense (he blamed the recent cadaver discoveries), but one of the explorers had woken him up. Talking about ponies. Or horse aliens. Tomato, tomato. He desperately wanted to ignore her and go back to sleep, tumultuous as it was, but unfortunately Miss Chorol had been the one to discover not only the buried artifacts, but also the first to find the Martian catacombs. So her word was perhaps slightly less full of nonsense. Putting on his glasses and grumbling, Steffan stood up and stretched, still in the half-awake state so common and eternal among the explorers. Miss Chorol had said something about 'I really need a biology expert, right now'. He couldn't fathom why; they'd already been analyzing the Martian remains from weeks ago. But she was frantic and looked on the verge of panicking, which he certainly didn't need. Stumbling and muttering under his breath, Dr. Steffan slowly made his way to the infirmary where Miss Chorol insisted her 'horse alien' was located. Before that, however, he made certain to grab a mug of americano. Or maybe a few. He was tired. Miss Chorol stood outside the infirmary entrance, arms crossed and tapping her foot. She kept glancing erratically between the approaching Steffan and into... something in the medbay. Rolling his eyes, Steffan stepped in and- He nearly dropped his mug. Sitting there, in plain view, was an alien. A purple pony-like alien, with a horn and cartoonishly large wings, some sort of marking on its rear, and was currently sleeping. Or it looked like it. He had to slap himself to be sure he wasn't still delirious. Nope, it was certainly still sitting there. Of all things, the first to strike his mind was: "You brought it into the station unsterilized?!" Miss Chorol attempted to shush him, nodding to the sleeping ET. "Look, what would you have done if you found a living specimen of an ancient alien species? Leave it there? It was suffocating, Steff." He dragged a hand over his face. There wasn't enough coffee on Earth for this. "So... it's alive. A member of one of those skeletons we found... is alive." He rubbed his chin. "The fact it has both horn and wings is strange. We've only seen one other instance- in a cadaver, of course -and it was twice the size. Is this one immature?" Miss Chorol shrugged. "That's what I woke you up for, I have no clue. I just found it underneath the crypt I found weeks ago. It was in what I think was a cryopod, but all the ones around it were empty." Steffan narrowed his gaze. "And why exactly were you by yourself, at night, wandering the crypts?" Before the explorer could argue, Steffan waved her off. "It's not my responsibility anyway. Let Omega lecture you about it." Miss Chorol folded her arms, staring at the ET. "So... what do we do?" Steffan wanted to make some remark, but he was just as lost. What should they do? In all the search for Mars life, they had definitely never expected to find a living specimen. Steffan looked to the explorer. "Tell me what you know of it." Miss Chorol put a fist to her chin. "Well, you can see clearly what it looks like. I know it breathes O2, because when it fell out of the pod, it began suffocating; I grabbed my spare mask and tank, and attached it to the alien. I also know it has a similar temperature comfort range to us, because... well, that's pretty apparent considering it isn't freezing or burning up." Steffan facepalmed. "You randomly gave it a gas that is truly an anomaly even on Earth?" "What else would I have done? Let it choke to death?" "No, but... urgh. Just... grab my bag from the cots. I'll need to analyze it." Steffan grabbed a sterilized pair of medical gloves from a drawer. The explorer shifted in place. "Is that... a good idea? If it wakes up, won't it think we're experimenting or... dissecting it?" Steffan rolled his eyes. "It is half our size, and I've seen you lift one end of a rover. Physical safety is hardly a concern." Chorol huffed. "Many things wrong with that. I was worried about it feeling safe, not whether I'd be attacked... mostly. And it's adapted to Martian gravity, I am not." Steffan waved her away. "Just grab the bag." She took one last glance at the alien before leaving, and froze. "Steffan." "Look, I said-" "Steffan, look at it." Grunting, he turned to the- It had woken up. And was staring at them. Author's Note Okay, so: this is definitely going to be my longest story so far. I don't know exactly, but I'm guessing it'll go above 10k. For now it'll focus on Twi "officially" meeting the colonists, and I'll likely have an epilogue/end chapter at some point showing Equestria's side of things. First Contact? (Outdated)Nobody moved. Steffan stared at Amanda, who in turn stared at the alien, who in turn- well, stared back at her. Looking at it, the explorer could see no trace of fear in the alien's eyes like expected- only curiosity and confusion, which were both understandable. She had no idea what to do, though- and apparently neither did the doctor, because he was also rooted to the spot, mouth catching flies. Then the alien did something nobody expected: it gave a little smile, and waved. Despite herself, Amanda giggled and waved back. She then tried a long shot. Foolish, perhaps, but worth a try at least. "Can you understand us?" The horse's vacant look, tilt of head, twitching of ear and lack of answer was deafening. Then it made a little 'o' with its mouth, and shook its head. At first Amanda thought they'd met the sassiest alien in history, but then realized: it was intelligent enough to recognize the intent of the words and question, even if it didn't comprehend them literally. That was both exciting and terrifying. Apparently the alien thought Amanda had the right idea, because it then spoke in what she could only assume was its own language. It tilted its head again, waiting for a response. Amanda shook her head, hoping it would get the message. It did. It made- was that a scrunchy face and raspberry? -and spoke a few more times, but each time sounding... different. It was trying different languages. Picking up on this, Amanda shook her head to each one- they all sounded like complete gibberish, not even close to any human language she'd heard of. She had the feeling even dead ones wouldn't be remotely relatable. She herself tried the multi-language approach: Porteguese, German, Mandarin, Japanese- none of them seemed to attract more than a blank look or shaking head from the horse. It scrunched its face again. Then a figurative lightbulb seemed to go off above its head, because it hopped off the countertop, and headed for a pen stuck in Steffan's pocket. The doctor recoiled slightly at its approach, but didn't do anything physical. The horse tapped the pen, then made little... writing motions with its hooves, then tilted its head at Steffan. He looked at Amanda and nodded. "Grab the whiteboard and marker pack." She mock saluted, and rushed out. While the explorer headed out for makeshift communication supplies, Steffan and the horse sat across from each other on the floor, each analyzing every inch of the other. Steffan honestly couldn't make out any aggression or even fear in the alien's body language- it didn't shiver, sat confidently and close (maybe too close), and didn't seem to search for any sort of weapon. It just... sat and looked at him. It almost had the shine of a hyperactive child in its eyes- Steffan had a hunch the only reason he wasn't being bombarded with questions was because they couldn't understand each other. Not yet, anyway. The horse also looked around the medbay, taking particular interest in the medical instruments it saw, like drills, scalpels and the stapler. It seemed almost familiar with them- like it had seen the objects before. Steffan supposed it might be possible. After all, many animals of different builds and biology on Earth could have common health issues. He also rethought the extraterrestrial microbes threat, and remembered that was false. Alien biology was so different from human, the chances of diseases carrying over were astronomical- literally. Of course, that was theoretical- it wasn't impossible that the horse and Steffan might transfer illnesses, however unlikely. The horse suddenly stood up, and stepped to the doctor's side, seeming to look over his- fingers? He held them up for it, and the horse grinned and clapped its hooves. It held proper research etiquette, however- it didn't touch him at all, only peering at his hand from a respectable distance. Deciding to be courteous, he removed a boot, allowing it to look at his bare foot. The sheer energy and interest of the horse alien was almost infectious- he could feel a smile forcing itself onto his face. He'd never expected an alien to be so... friendly. It was almost magical. Wondering if the alien would reciprocate, he decided to mime out his request best he could, pointing at himself, then his hand, then it, then finally its horn and wings. It seemed to understand, because it sat down again, extending both wings. Steffan stood up, examining its horn and wings, along with the mark on its rear. He of course respected its space, not touching- that would be rude and likely dangerous on many levels. The horn seemed real enough- he couldn't see any signs of it being some kind of accessory, though he admittedly wasn't an expert. Its use was likely for self-defense, though if that were the case, he expected it to have two or more, and for it to be larger. It also seemed... blunt, more like a spoon than anything evolved to stab. The wings also seemed real- he could see each individual feather. It seemed highly unlikely it could fly; he didn't know how much the horse weighed, but considering it was up to his neck when on all fours, it had to be approaching Earth equine weights, right? The wings may have been obsolete, but then why so big? Perhaps the Martian gravity allowed it to fly- he could see no other explanation for it. The mark seemed like a tattoo, but then he realized- it wasn't on the skin, otherwise the fur would've muddled it. It seemed to almost... hover over the rear, like a hologram. And when he neared it, he felt a strange tingling in his chest. He decided not to mess with it. Miss Chorol returned with the whiteboard. She had to adjust its height slightly, and set the opened marker box on the floor. In case the alien didn't know what markers were, she opened and capped it a couple times for reference. The horse nodded, and approached the box of writing utensils. A purple glow appeared around its h- Pain. Agony erupted in Steffan's skull, his brain, his mind. He collapsed onto the floor, not even able to scream through sheer suffering- merely whimpering. He clutched at his face and cranium, trying to claw whatever nightmare abomination had drilled into him. His eyes slammed shut, tears flooding. He was sure, convinced, certain he would- Then it stopped, as instantly as it had appeared. Steffan slowly opened his eyes. The pain had vanished utterly and without a trace. He turned to Miss Chorol- she was sitting up from the fetal position, telling him he wasn't the only victim. They slowly looked at the alien. It was in hysterics. Tears gushed from it, and it was definitely blubbering what Steffan assumed to be apologies in its language. It slammed its head onto the floor- begging for forgiveness? Steffan looked at Chorol, who rubbed the back of her head, staring at the mess of a horse alien. She thought. Then she nodded to the doctor, giving a thumbs up. He kneeled before the alien, tapping it on the shoulder(?). It looked up, face red and snotted up. He used soothing words- both because he believed the alien truly didn't intend whatever happened, and because he didn't want it to happen again. It eventually calmed down, still spewing forth presumed apologies and still sniffling, but it looked at the marker box again. This time, it elected to pop off a marker cap with a hoof- somehow -and grabbed one end in... its teeth. Steffan decided never to touch that marker again. It then scribbled a whole mess onto the whiteboard, at a pace The Flash would be jealous of. Amanda was shocked at how much the horse drew in so little time. Gazing over the board, she could see four main points of interest: a simple drawing of the horse itself and- was that a female gender sign? That was... slightly concerning, but at least they knew what it- she, was, at least presumably. The drawing also had a couple more bits under it- a half circle on top of a line, and stars scattered around a little 'kaboom' symbol. Amanda looked at it for a minute, thinking. Then she turned to Steffan. "Is that its name?" She pointed to the lower drawings. He put a fist to his chin. "Perhaps. I suppose it could be a descriptor of itself in some way, but if I were an alien introducing myself to those behind a language barrier, I wouldn't use terms or symbols for things only I had. That would be confusing." Amanda looked at the symbols again. "It looks like a sunset or sunrise, and... shining? A sparkle, or glimmer, or something?" Steffan shrugged. "Let's stick with 'Sunset Glimmer'. I don't have better ideas." Amanda gave a thumbs up. She then looked over the other three scribbles. One was a very rough sketch of Steffan and Amanda. Directly under them, there were two question marks. Right where the sunset and glimmer were for the alien. "It wants our names, or a descriptor, perhaps?" Steffan crossed his arms. "But how do we... do that? I mean, I'm almost certain that we did not interpret its name correctly, assuming it even was a name." "Hmm... we could use... fruit, for simplicity?" "What if the fruit don't exist- or didn't exist -when and where it came from?" "Good point. Well, we found those buried artifacts- an alarm clock and a shovel. Maybe those?" "Better than what I would've said." Amanda wiped off the question marks- using the proper eraser, of course -and put down the said markings; shovel for herself, alarm clock for Steffan. She thought it made more sense. Somehow. The horse, 'Sunset Glimmer', seemed to be perfectly fine with that, because it grinned and clapped its hooves. Another drawing was... a globe, an arrow pointing to it, and a question mark. "Is it- she asking where she is?" "I... would assume so, but we don't have a method of explaining that in drawing, I believe." Both Amanda and Steffan turned to Sunset, pointed at the globe, and shrugged. The horse made a scrunchy face. Lastly was a completely straight row of symbols. They were placed side by side, and looked almost... almost... Steffan's eyes widened. "Is that an alphabet?" Of course! Sunset must've been hoping that, if they couldn't speak with each other, perhaps they could somehow get across using writing. Unfortunately, Amanda didn't recognize anything in that alphabet, and she assumed Steffan didn't either. Seeing him frown from the corner of her eye, she was right. But she did have an idea. She put a hand out in front of Sunset, gesturing for the marker. The alien understood, dropping it into Amanda's hand. Steffan gagged, but she didn't care about Martian horse spit- that wasn't a concern right now. She quickly wrote out the letter alphabet in English, directly underneath Sunset's. She elected not to use punctuation or the like- that would be needless for now. She looked back to see if she was right. Judging by how Sunset was beaming, eyes twinkling, she guessed so. So... now what? It was still nighttime, they still couldn't really communicate... Sunset put a hoof to her chin, then looked at the doorway out the infirmary. She then looked at Amanda, pointing a foreleg at the doorway, and tilting her head. Amanda decided it couldn't go that badly, and waved the alien along, stepping out the door. Sunset followed along, with Steffan trailing, a look of both interest and annoyance on his face. Sunset seemed to take in information like a sponge; she very quickly learned how a water fountain worked, could open doors with a hoof with only a moment of practice, recognized light switches immediately, and overall seemed to pick up on new things insanely fast. Amanda had to admit, she was jealous- she could count the amount of people alive with that intellect on one hand. They'd stepped through the kitchen, where Sunset 'o'ed at the linoleum flooring; Bio, where Amanda immediately promised herself never to get between Sunset's manic smile and that room; the drone control, where the alien seemed to heavily restrain itself not to disassemble everything... Then the library. Amanda would never recover. As they passed by the entrance to the dorms, Amanda's head was in mist. It was so strange- Sunset seemed far more human than even possible, her mannerisms reminding the explorer more of an energetic brainchild than any superadvanced, sagelike ancient society. It was both comforting and confusing- the former because it meant Amanda (and humans in general) could relate to Sunset far more easily, but the latter because... she was an alien horse who acted and even sounded like a human. Amanda was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn't notice Sunset had gone through the door to the dorms. She jerked awake, and was about to chew out Steffan for not stopping her- The doctor was nowhere to be seen. Amanda facepalmed, and dashed as silently as she could into the dorm hall. She could only hope Sunset hadn't woken anybody up. Especially- "What the f- there's a damn xenomorph in my room!" Terrific. Omega was awake. Author's Note Can you guess I like Twilight? I'd like to think I've portrayed her well so far from a foreign perspective, but I could be wrong. Correction on the last A/N: This is still definitely going to be my longest story by far, but 10k was a drastic underestimation. It'll be closer to 50k, maybe more. That epilogue chapter is still planned, but it's certainly a ways off now. On a side note, I actually took the time to outline the entire fic! This marks the first time I actually planned a story, as opposed to just winging it. Hope it helps. Consequences (Outdated)Omega rubbed aggressively at her temples, already feeling the migraine coming on from... Well, this. Once she'd gotten past the initial shock and- she wasn't afraid to admit it, fear -of a living alien in her room, Chorol and Steffan had barged right after, the former stopping the alien from madly picking apart containers for whatever reason, the latter apologizing for the, as he put it, "inconvenience." About five minutes later, everything had somewhat cooldown, and Omega was able to take stock of the situation, and get the stories from her explorer and biologist. It was a damn nightmare. The alien at the heart of this nonsense was currently sitting next to and slightly in front of Steffan, eyes downcast and ears flopped over- she still couldn't believe the first and only living ET ever discovered looked like an almost cartoonish purple horse. She could've sworn she'd seen it before. "So let me get this straight," Omega snarled, switching from her temples to crossing her arms, glaring at everyone, but most of all her. "You, in the middle of the night, without informing anybody, decided to take a rover unauthorized, drove out to God knows where, based entirely on a hunch." "You then- somehow -found the first living alien humans have ever known, proceeded to take it BACK TO OUR DAMN BASE, again without alerting or informing anybody, and instead treat it like a friend visiting from out of town. Did I sum that up properly?" Chorol (intelligently) said nothing, only folding her arms behind her and staring at the ground. Omega took a deep breath, and sighed. "I can't tell whether you just pulled the luckiest, bravest, or stupidest stunt in history. LIkely all three." She turned her head to the alien, but still addressed the explorer- from what she was told, the horse couldn't understand English. Rather expected. "I won't say I'm not pissed, because I am very much so. But I also know your track record- finding groundbreaking discovery is apparently a children's game to you. But still- why didn't you wake me up when you arrived, or anybody else? Hell, why didn't you alert Night Command at any point? Why did you go alone? We don't have first contact protocols, sure, but we have protocols for literally everything else." Chorol grumbled under her breath. "I was sent alone last time..." The base leader narrowed her eyes, hissing in response. "That was under Henson, who, I'll remind you, is younger than you are, and has about a tenth my experience. That order would never have flown if I wasn't in sickbay." Chorol returned to silence. Omega sat down on her bead, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "I need to think on what to do about you. You did break more rules than I can count on my fingers, but you did also discover a living ET, and handled the situation resourcefully- if not intelligently." She looked back up. She turned to Steffan, and pointing at the alien. "Wake up the entire Bio and Medic teams, and get every scan you can ASAP. I don't care if you inhale a third of our coffee rations, this is critical. Whether it intentionally pulled that... whatever it was, or not, it still was capable of putting two human adults into crippling mental pain in seconds with seemingly little effort. For that matter, wake up at least four Sec units, too." Both Steffan and Chorol were about to protest, but she waved them off. "I'm not saying we're going to lock this thing in the brig or shoot it, but unlike someone, I'd prefer not to let an incredibly ancient psychic alien wander around my base without supervision and, if necessary, detainment." "It's a she, ma'am," the explorer mumbled again. "How do you know? Yeah, it uses the same symbol, which is absurdly unlikely, but it doesn't mean they indicate the same term. A decade ago, kids laughed at the letter 'E', and adults had no clue what the joke was. I'm calling the alien an 'it' if and until it can tell us itself." "As for you," Omega barked, pointing to the shuffling explorer, "give me the rover keys and your card, then head to your room immediately. At the absolute minimum, you're under suspension from any missions and equipment for a week. Do I make myself clear?" The explorer sighed but nodded, handing her superior the keys and her security card. She then walked out, drawing the alien's gaze as she left. "Now- I need to let Home Command know about this, rouse the rest of the base afterward. Keep an eye on that," Omega said, nodding to the alien, who was still glancing around the room with a strange look of longing. Steffan nodded, then guided the alien out of the room, presumably going to wake the listed teams. For her part, before any NASA message, Omega grabbed a beer from her mini fridge and downed it in ten seconds flat. She really needed it after these space opera shenanigans. Setting the empty bottle down, she decided against another, and instead booted up the computer. The message wouldn't actually hit Earth for ten minutes, but that was fine- not like they could do much about the situation besides give advice, and she had a feeling they were just as lost as her. Before alerting Home Command, Omega pulled out a drawer, and from it, one of the artifacts that a team besides Chorol had unearthed. The Arch personnel had already finished scanning and investigating it, so until it could be shipped to a museum or storage, she decided to hold onto it. She didn't know why, exactly, but she could swear she always heard a strange humming from it, an almost ethereal tune. The artifact was a little crown made out of gold, with inset blue sapphires, and a rather large purple star crystal on top. Author's Note Okay, so, long story short: the reason no updates have been coming is because my wifi was completely screwed for a couple weeks. My (now former) roommate thought, for whatever reason, there was a flea infestation in the router, and decided to fill it with powder. As you can imagine, I had to purchase a new router, and I am now living alone. Decided to whip this up ASAP to make up for the wait; the next chapter should be much longer and with more substance. Just didn't want to leave y'all hanging any longer!
Discovery (Update/Rewrite)Goddamn dust. Those were the only two words having a gladiator duel in Amanda's mind while she promised a thousand curses and tortures upon this stupid rover. Of all the problems she could've been having, it couldn't have been a simple issue like recalibrating the douser for the trillionth time, or something exciting like a hole in her helmet, leaving her to suffocate, in pain and despair. It would've been a pleasant relief from this. The blasted rover had, for reasons she could only assume were a concealed, malicious intellect and sapience, decided to inhale as much red sand as possible betwixt the axles and tires. She could roughly guess the rover's plan: bring her and Justin out here, break down, and leave them stranded to die of thirst or asphyxiation in the wastes. It was all coming together. The perfect murder plot, if not for the fact Amanda had done this dozens of time before, and knew how to most thoroughly abuse the rover until it behaved like a good girl. Speaking of Justin - the supposed "field mechanic" - he was being so unhelpful, that the helpful stats went into the negatives. He was currently taking photographs of the landscape, as if every bloody dune didn't look exactly the same on Mars. Oh sure, there might be the rare rocky outcrop, depressed cave, or sandstorm with a caffeine addiction, but things on Mars were more monotonous than... well, she couldn't think of a comparison, because it beat out everything. Point was, he was taking pictures of red sand. Because the base gallery needed more among the thousands, of course. Her dispatcher and base commander, Omega, had elected to send the duo to this random "field", because there were apparently ice traces and some unidentifiable metal reading. Amanda understood the former- obviously one would want a source of water closer than a hundred miles away, and not having to worry about the purifying plant spontaneously combusting or having a worker revolution. The latter, though, was the only reason Amanda wasn't on autopilot this entire time. Unidentified metal? Sure, it could just be zinc again, that for some reason the distance scanner couldn't pick out if it were nailed alone, stationary to a wall. But it might also be a metal that humanity genuinely hadn't discovered yet, which would actually make sense- different planet, of course there'd be things never seen on Earth. She had to actually fix the damn rover first, though. A few sweaty, angry dustings and pickings later, along with verbal abuse only she could hear, and the rover was once again able to have an athsma attack before taking them to this apparent anomaly. Technically speaking, her job title was "field analyst", a disgustingly vague term that gave her a headache. It could be used in so many ways by her dispatcher, from finding the tiniest of mineral sands, to searching for water traces in the driest places on the planet. Oh yes, Omega loved using Amanda as a not-really-glorified scavenger. She personally preferred the term "explorer", if only because it'd sound better and make the jobs slightly less agonizingly boring. If only for the fact she didn't keep finding everything, it might not be an issue. Both Omega and Amanda learned swiftly after her first days that she had a supernatural talent for finding the most absurd and hidden things. The first bacteria? No issue. Underground ice deposit the size of a small house? Easy peasy. Justin had once joked Amanda could discover a cave full of pristine gold and diamonds if she tried. Then she did. It would've been comical, if it weren't slightly unnerving. She knew the real reason Omega wanted her at this specific area: one of the other "field analysts", when not on one of his drugged up fantasy history lessons, had said he'd dug up a bucket in a cave around here. Obviously he hadn't brought it back because 'there wasn't room in the rover', but it had intrigued Omega nonetheless, so here she was. Looking for old, sand-eaten buckets. Or whatever old artifacts could potentially be here. Omega had been and still was a fervent believer of a previous civilization on Mars, and since she technically couldn't be proven wrong, here Amanda was. Looking for anything that might indicate life, especially intelligent life, had existed previously. One would think the bacteria corpses already proved that, but nobody cared about bacteria; they were the unloved middle child in the family of discoveries. Except for Doctor Steffan, anyway- his fascination with the buggers borderlined on creepy. Kicking the rover one more time, she clicked on her helm radio, to the only other living being in the area- though she'd rather there be none. "Hey ass, the car's back and running. You were a big help. Get in and start it up before I stab a hole into your suit." The response from the alleged 'human' was characteristically lazy, smug, and dripping with latent sarcasm. "Sure sweetheart. A pic beside the rover, though? Just for the memory?" "I will personally take that phone, shove it up your nose and pull it out your other hole. Get in." He mumbled something not directly aggravating, like 'sure sure', and made his way back to the vehicle- but not before snapping a photo in what he thought was a stealthy manner. She mentally promised to reset his phone to the factory defaults later. It was protocol to do an area survey before exiting; something the rulebook said about 'missed opportunities' or 'hidden obstacles'. She was 110% certain there were no sandworms about to rocket up the dunes and devour her - unfortunately - but she made a perimeter patrol anyway, scouring roughly fifty feet outward and around the rover. Bleep. "Not to rush you, but I think the ice caps are melting. Maybe step it up a little." Of course. Responding bleep. "By all means, take the rover back by yourself. I'm sure you'll last at least five minutes before it flips over a pebble and folds your spine in half. Seriously, how are you a 'mechanic' when you couldn't even name all the engine parts?" As Justin threw back something in his native dialect of 'asshole', Amanda was just about ready to speed back to the Bubble and take a well-deserved nap, until she noticed something actually interesting. A small hole in the ground. Actually, calling it a 'hole' did it a disservice- it was an entrance. It was perfectly round, and looked to be lined with some kind of metal. Metal. "Stop whatever stupid thing you were about to say, and look at this. There's a hole." Despite the inevitable lewd remark about 'her hole', Justin did in fact join her at the anomaly. "And then you'd- oh, that actually is a hole." "A hole with metal walls, perfectly smooth and round, and a very specific diameter. You know what that means? It's deliberate." She could feel the exploration blood beginning to boil. "You know what else it means? Call Omega, tell her about it, and have an actual dedicated team check it out. This isn't our job." "Now's when you're being cautious and smart?" "I just don't want to try to explain to Omega why her little prodigy of an analyst disappeared into the fucking Upside Down." "Firstly, that is an incredibly old reference. Secondly, fuck that." With that, Amanda clicked on her headlight, and took a closer look at the hole, leaning on her knees to peer into it. It was giant, for one. It could easily fit the entire rover in any orientation, solar panels included. It was at least a couple dozen feet across, and had absolutely zero dust, rust, or markings of any kind. It was pristine in every way, it was strange and unexplored, it could be dangerous, and she had to check it out. The headlight didn't reveal anything except more of the bizarrely perfect, greyish-purple metal. "The trademark Amanda luck. You found a weird metal hole. Great job. Can we leave now?" She turned, and stared at him. "There's a ladder on one side." She knew he could see her grin through the helmet glass. "I swear to God-" She began climbing down the ladder. "This is the first remotely exciting thing to happen in months. Besides, I'm doing exactly what Omega wanted. Checking out the weird metal. Not to mention the sand just outside of it was damp, so there's the water too." "I am not helping you if you fall down, or you discover Cthulhu or some shit." "Good, all the more fun for me. Have fun with your rover with a seething hatred for humans, I'll be down here checking out something cool." The ladder was, as to be expected, strange- aside from the fact there was a ladder at all, of course. That indicated someone, or something had to construct it. But it was also bizarre because it didn't seem designed for humans- the rungs were curved at an odd angle, and the entire ladder slanted slightly, like whatever was climbing needed extra leverage. Like they didn't have hands or fingers. Electing to just slide the rest of the way, she clamped down onto the bottom. Unlike the entrance, the place she currently found herself was a deep grey stone she couldn't identify. It looked a little like someone had thrown concrete and granite into a blender, then made it depressed. Scanning her light across the room, it was fairly tight, roughly the size of a decent living room. She noticed an indentation, and a doorway on one side, and began walking towards them. Crack. Until she felt something snap under her boot. Lifting it, she saw something... wooden? She picked up the apparent stick, and inspected it closer. Yep, definitely wood of a sort. Again, nothing she could recognize by name, but it had the definite visual texture. This was all the more odd- unless this bunker thing was constructed very recently, which she doubted, this wood should've been rotting and disintegrating by now. How was it so preserved, like the walls and ladder? Then she realized, it wasn't just a stick. Looking at the other end, it was a spear. That was absolutely a spearhead, there was no doubting the shape. It looked to be made of a dark rock, and was smaller than she would've expected of a human spear. For that matter, the entire spear didn't seem human- it was shorter, smaller, lighter, and had a slight curve to it, in a way that gripping it with hands would be uncomfortable at best. As she was just about to radio Justin and head back up the ladder, her light panned over something white. She picked it up. "Justin, you'll definitely want to call Omega. Tell her we've got something a lot more important than any bucket." Amanda couldn't contain the shock, excitement, and slight disbelief in her voice. For in her hand, was a skull. A horse skull, with a pointed horn out the forehead. Author's Note Whaddup, homies? I've finally gotten the time and motive to actually make something that hopefully isn't garbage, and will attempt to revive this fic in a more interesting, better written way. It's actually intended as a longer story now, rather than badly expanding a oneshot. So we'll see where it goes.
Project: Mars (Outdated)"ToriGoat 343, this is Omega Station. Copy and respond." "Omega, this is 343, copy. No current peculiarities." Amanda Chorol, decked out in her white hazard space suit- or the 'Pufferfish' as some nauts affectionately referred to it -gave a good stretch. She'd been out in this seemingly random cave for days now, investigating for 'anything to indicate previous life'. Infuriatingly vague, but that was her job in a nutshell. Proto-colonist, researcher and explorer, charged with finding whatever may remain of life on Mars. Not that there was a shortage of those like her; she recalled the last headcount at four hundred or so. That was nothing compared to the seven hundred something thousand colonists, a pipe dream only a couple decades ago. Her mother told her all about the dreams of 2018 Earth, exploring the stars, meeting aliens and expanding into the Universe. It seemed 'exploring the stars' consisted of a lot of sifting through red sand to find bacteria corpses, but she loved it anyway. "Still can't believe you called yourself 'ToriGoat'. That game died way long ago. You're a 2015 hipster, Maymay," her fellow naut remarked. Justin could be charitably called 'laid-back', which made him annoying to work with in an environment where not having your helmet perfectly screwed on was death. Amanda grinned. "Says you, 'RadDood 420.' I don't even know how you passed that by Omega." She bent to one knee, checking out a patch of sand that read with higher moisture than the surrounding dunes. She pulled out a microanalyzer, sifting for any trace of water, a resource that Earth might take for granted, but nauts and colonists like herself held in higher value than any gold or gems. "I'm just that cool a guy, they couldn't pass me up. You know anybody else who could multiply fractions in their head?" Justin, or 'RadDood', decided putting his hands on his hips and striking a dramatic pose was more important than his actual job: she collected the sand, he looked at it real closely. "Many, actually." Amanda lifted up the analyzer, then blinked. 2.7 percent H2O. That was actually noteworthy. She collected more of the local sand, also finding trace methane and carbon- an excellent sign. This trip might not have been completely worthless. "Justin, take this pod; it's got more water than we have in our dorm fountains." He snickered. "Not much of an achievement." Regardless, he grabbed one of the specimen containers, and they both stood up, stretched, and headed back to the buggy. Amanda tapped on her helmet. "Omega, this is 343. Copy." The receiver in her suit flared to life, echoing the voice of her local supervisor. "343, this is Omega, copy. What have you found?" "Sand at Kin Cove, 2.7 percent H2O, trace methane, dubious carbon." She could practically hear the supervisor's eyes widen. "Copy 343, we'll get the scopes ready. Head back before sunset." "343 copies. Out." Amanda took a look around her before heading to the buggy. She was one of the 'lucky' ones assigned to a natural cave, as opposed to random dunes, mountains or dormant volcanos. Theoretically, life was more likely here, due to having more protection from solar winds and planetary storms. Theoretically. Life likelihood was very relative when the gravity was less than half Earth's, and there was literally no magnetic field. But whatever. Of course, that was more a problem for humans and Earth life in general; any previous life on Mars had probably adapted. Amanda hopped down from the crag she'd been investigating, looking further into the red cavern. One might think being able to jump higher and weigh less was a positive of low gravity, but the fact she had to exercise like an Olympian every week just to maintain baseline health dampened that. Mars gravity was like snow: cool in small amounts and for a short time, annoying or even lethal if you had to live in it. Her inner thoughts were suddenly blasted through the noggin when she clipped a rock that, to this day, she swears placed itself there on purpose. She flailed over the cave's mouth, bonking constantly into the walls and a couple stalactites- though the gravity she had just nagged was now weakening the impacts significantly. She finally came to a stop in the cove, on her hands and knees. She felt a tad sore, but nothing seemed to be broken or dislocated, far as she could tell. Justin came down far more gracefully, helping her stand. "That was a big tumble, sister. Suit torn, bubble cracked?" Amanda ran a gloved hand over her suit, seeing if there were any spots it could slip in. With that and the fact she wasn't currently suffocating on an ocean of CO2, she guessed the suit was holding up. "Suit intact, though my pride is now in tatters." Finally stood up, she looked around the cave roof for a moment. Typically stone spiky things. She shrugged, waved Justin along, and splashed back to the mouth. She checked the analyzer to make sure it hadn't busted. Nope, looks like it- Wait, splashed? Amanda looked at her feet. Sure enough, just below her boots, there was a thin puddle of... Something. Could it be..? She entered 'science mode', kneeling down and filling the analyzer's tub with the liquid, tossing out whatever remained of the sand. That didn't matter. Waiting... Waiting... It was H2O. They'd just found liquid water on Mars. Filled with dirt, sand, and perchlorates, yes, but still water. She gave the loudest whoop she'd ever done, unfortunately muffled by the helmet. Justin gave her a look, until he took a look at the analyzer, and he too threw his hands up. He immediately tapped his bubble, activating the radio. "Omega, this is 420. You won't believe this..." While Justin contacted their local base, Amanda trudged through the cave a bit more. Finding actual water was already a massive boon, but who knew? There might be something else neat in here. Her interest was rewarded when, while walking, she tripped again. She caught herself this time, which resulted in her staring at the ground. Right at what looked like a shovel blade. She couldn't help what happened next, frantically digging away the red mud and dirt around the shovel, until she'd unearthed the entire thing. Definitely a shovel. But, who could've- She looked around, seeing more pieces of objects embedded in the ground. She dug them up too. An alarm clock, a ratty handkerchief, a crystal glass... What was all this doing here? She knew for a fact no nauts had been here before she and Justin... From Earth. Which meant- She felt a hand at her shoulder. "Maymay, you good? That fall knock a screw loose?" Her only response was to point at the collection of items- artifacts, if her guess was right. After Amanda and Justin had packed the dirty relics into the buggy and collected more muddy water from the cave, they'd drove straight back to Omega. The drive was silent- neither of the nauts had much to say, they'd been shocked as is from their discovery. Omega, after their initial paralyzed silence, had told them to bring the objects to R&D, and the water to Bio. Given a few days, the paleos had discovered that the shovel, rag, clock and such were, at a rough estimate, around four billion years old. The question of how the heck anything had survived this long was still in the air. Omega had said it wasn't "definitive proof of life on Mars before", because objects were not technically remains, but they all knew. Amanda flopped into an armchair, exhaling. Making two groundshattering discoveries in a single day- within minutes of each other -took a toll on one's energy, both physical and mental. She took a sip of her Fanta while thinking. There was something strange about the artifacts- well, besides the fact they were found on Mars, anyway. The shovel... Looked like it wasn't made for hands. None of her crew could comfortably hold it, so it was made for some other mechanism. That made sense enough, but what really lingered was, when they were scanned... Somehow, fingerprints had remained on the objects. Or, to better put it, hoofprints. That stuck in her mind. How was there something even remotely resembling a horse on Mars? Sure, they now knew life had existed on Mars at some point, but... A horse? -Two Weeks Later- Amanda found herself in yet another cave, assuredly different from the identical-looking one from her earlier mission. Because this one was a couple million years older or the like. Uh-huh. Regardless, she genuinely enjoyed toddling through the endless maroon wastes to find random junk. She couldn't picture doing anything else- she had the right mixture of resolve, intellect, and insanity to be a naut, and a colony explorer at that. Which, taken into account, still did not make trying to find more lost artifacts or ruins easier. She had been assigned without Justin this time- because after the last mission, she was obviously far more capable on her own -and so it took much longer to find anything of note. Weren't nauts always supposed to be in pairs at minimum, for safety reasons? Maybe Omega was just jealous of her. Mist kicking up behind her suited feet, Amanda held yet another analyzer, though this one coded specifically to look for rare metals one may use to build electronics. It hadn't worked, though Amanda didn't expect it to. Going from shovels to, say, computers was a massive leap. Even if this precursor society had simple tools (that somehow remained virtually mint for eons), that didn't immediately imply they were as advanced as humanity. She bounced along the internal organs of the cave, this one just as dry as the rest of Mars. Omega had been extremely insistent on looking for any signs of water- Amanda had bitten back her tongue on explaining why water did not instantly indicate life, and why the absence of such did not imply the opposite. She could still hear Omega's voice in her head: 343, you need to keep an eye out for water. There was H2O where you found the relics, so it stands to reason this society needed it. Correlation does not equal causation. But Omega liked listening to themselves talk, so, here she was. Unlike last time, she didn't fall bombastically over herself on a pebble. No, this time she fell bombastically over herself on nothing but thin air. Luckily, she managed to regain her stance without aid- frick you, Justin -and wobbled into a cove wall. Ah, the nice smooth feel of the wall to- Wait just a popcorn-popping minute. Smooth? The deja vu was not lost on her, but she didn't immediately call Omega. Both because she didn't want a false alarm, and because the 'I told you so' was too much to bear. Amanda followed along the cave wall, switching on her helm light. It revealed what was definitely not a natural rock- it was purple, and white, and gold? Where in the world did polished gold come- Nevermind, she knew. Yep, a bit 'I told you so' was target locked and aimed straight at her face. She was ecstatic for the incoming lecture. But that wasn't enough for Amanda Chorol, oh no. She had to be certain. So she tracked her gloved hands along the ruined surface, running the analyzer along it. Besides gold, iron, zinc, and a bit of platinum, it didn't find anything particularly strange, but she wasn't done. Amanda continued running her hands along the wall. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but she knew it would be cool. After a solid five minutes of this, her mouth increasingly turned downward. Still nothing, and now she was starting to feel like an idiot. Maybe it was time to- click Jackpot. Her fingers slipped into what seemed like an indent in the wall; a piece of the smooth metal and stone pressed inward. As she stepped back for a larger look, she could hear the sounds of rusty gears and machinery clacking and cranking against each other. The wall that was solid a moment ago was now- well, still solid, but it moved out of the way, revealing a gloomy black space. She stepped forth. After what she would say was hours of walking down a dusty, ancient-looking staircase, Amanda finally reached an edge. Not the bottom of the stairs, but a literal edge, being greedily gluttonously gorged on by the gloomy darkness. Checking that the rope and hook were still secured in her pack, Amanda decided to take a gamble, and leapt off the summit. She sailed through the gallons of black, through who knew how many feet, before slamming into a smooth metal floor. Now she was getting somewhere. With her helm light still activated, she swung her head around the cavern. The walls and ceiling were a cold, navy blue stone with virtually no imperfections, streams of silver and gold dancing erratically throughout. It was mesmerizing. She clomped through the spacious former building, trying to find any hint of a door, hatch- anything. Her wishes were answered when she came across a door made of purple stained wood, again lined with streaks of silver. It was locked tight into the doorway, but strangely, seemed to have no visible doorknob or opening mechanisms. Did the former society lift things with their minds? It seemed silly, but... Seeing as she did not have psychic powers, Amanda decided to use the tried and true method. She rammed the door with her shoulder. Amazingly, there were basically no marks on the door, not even the slightest of indents or cracks. She did it again. After a solid five minutes of this, and an exceptionally sore shoulder, the door finally gave up, swinging inwards. She checked her light's battery- enough for roughly another hour. Hopefully this building wasn't too giant. She again ran her hands along the walls, though not for any particular purpose. The make and color of the stone hadn't changed at all, which likely meant this was just another section of the same room, as opposed to another altogether. Or the former builders were just lazy. Her absent mind led her to bumping into a table. She gave it a look and- It wasn't a table. It was a coffin. The moral dilemma of disturbing a possibly billions year old alien corpse bothered Amanda for about three seconds, before she threw open the lid. A skeleton. Amanda circled the casket a few times, peering at the who-knew-how old corpse. She knew (or guessed) it was a skeleton, considering it was white, hard to the touch, and the pieces of it were all separate from each other. She could be wrong, but she wasn't an expert in alien skeleton biology. Alien horse skeleton, for that matter. It had all the marks- four legs, flat teeth (although a few canines put that in doubt), and- Her horse theory was suddenly adrift. For one, the thing didn't seem to have hooves- its legs just.., ended. For another, it had a horn sprouting out of its forehead. A literal unicorn on Mars. Amanda almost pinched herself to see if she was dreaming, but didn't for many reasons. One of which being her suit was already grumpy about the door-ramming thing; it likely wouldn't appreciate that. She wandered around the room, and saw more and more coffins. Seeing as she'd already done it once, she opened each one. Every single one was a unicorn. This was a crypt for unicorns. A unicrypt. If nothing else, this was solid, concrete, undeniable proof that something had lived on Mars at some point. It looked like both she and Omega would have something to be proud of. Speaking of, her radio beeped with a transmission. "ToriGoat 343, this is Omega Station. Where are you? You haven't answered our call in a half hour. Copy and respond." She tapped her helm. "Omega, this is 343. I investigated that cave, and... well, I think it's better you see for yourself," she said while glancing at another unicorn corpse. -Three Weeks Later- Hundreds of crypts, catacombs, tombs, whatever. Hundreds. Lying down on her cot, Amanda had to laugh, at herself and humanity. All this time they'd been looking for microscopic beings, when there were- if she recalled properly -at least thousands of previous beings on Mars. In what may have been a gold rather than red desert at some point, they found similar skeletons to the unicorns Amanda discovered, though these had no horn, and she could've sworn their bones were striped. Near a dormant volcano, remains of what she adamantly called 'dragons' were unearthed. How could she not? They were twice the size of a human, had claws, spiked spines and heads- they were definitely dragons. It made sense, considering she'd found unicorns- Mars had apparently been a fantasy land. Skeletons with a strange twin-pronged horn, what looked like grossly oversized dogs, and undoubtedly yak and buffalo cadavers- the search for life on Mars had gone from fruitless to overwhelming within a single day. She hadn't paid much attention to the reaction on Earth- she knew they were receiving a much larger influx of colonists and nauts, and some religion calling the Martian corpses 'dead gods' had formed, but that was about it. Trying to live on a dead planet left little room for that. She tossed and turned in her cot. Despite finally finding life (or remnants of it), despite having succeeded in her job, despite having enough money and fame at this point to live like a celebrity, she still wasn't satisfied. There was something gnawing, nagging, clawing at her mind. The tools. The lack of decay on the skeletons might be explained by an absence of bacteria, but how in the world did an alarm clock survive over a billion years? It made zero sense. They hadn't found anything strange with the materials- they were made much like analog alarm clocks on Earth, which was sort of creepy in itself. But how? Amanda felt, knew she was missing something. And it might be where she found the crypt. Rolling off her cot, Amanda decided to do something immensely stupid- exploration at night. It was dangerous, nobody would know where she was, and she'd have basically no aid if things went wrong- which they probably would. Regardless, she got dressed, had a quick 'breakfast', and suited up. She made sure to take a spare O2 tank and mask, just in case, along with the rope and hook from last time. She also packed a small blanket for... well, she didn't really know. Just felt like it. She stepped out, sat in the rover, and drove. The explorers after Amanda had never bothered to close the crypt door. Not that they really could- she'd only gotten in in the first place by smashing it. She ignored the empty coffins this time, focusing on the walls. Considering how she'd discovered the crypt initially, it stood to reason there could be more false bricks, leading to more abandoned structures. This would be tedious, but she was ready for it. Amanda began the exceptionally slow and boring task of running her hands over every single brick in the room, one by one. She was fully prepared for this to take minutes, even hours. She knew it was unl- click She shut her mental mouth. Once again, the wall next to the false brick split open, vibrating and grinding against the floor, throwing up veritable lakes of red dust. Taking a deep breath, Amanda headed down yet another creepy staircase. Down, down and down. Something struck her- the make of this staircase was much different to the crypt. While the tomb was vibrant and colorful with blues, purples, gold and silver even after so much aging... This place was grey. An unfeeling, immovable grey. She hit the bottom. Unlike the crypt, there was no entrance, no decoration, no nothing. Whatever this secret (or extra secret) room was built for, it was probably rushed and frantic. Much like an apocalypse bunker, it held nothing but pure function. Whatever that was. Amanda was more careful this time- she couldn't be so reckless, considering nobody even knew she was down here. If she tore a hole in her suit... Well, better not to think about it. If she could smell the air, she was certain it would be thick with dust and basically unbreathable. Her light didn't extend more than five feet, the dust was that thick. Even moving felt more straining. This place very well may have not been touched since it was built. Until now, anyway. Through the utter black and grime, she spotted a hint of light blue. Stepping over, she saw what could only be described as Matrix-like pods along the wall. There were about a dozen, and most were completely empty, containing only some strange mechanisms she had no reference for. There was a singular pod, containing... Well, it looked like one of the unicorns Amanda had discovered weeks ago. Except it had wings. And was purple. And was not a skeleton. The significance of this took several seconds to actually bulldoze into Amanda's brain. An intact one of the species! Or, something close to it. This upped the game on so many levels, she almost didn't notice a tiny green light flash on the pod. Then it opened. And the creature fell out. The purple pegasus/unicorn/horse thing slapped onto the rock floor, and promptly began gasping for air, along with shivering violently. This told Amanda three things: 1. It was alive. 2. It needed air (though what kind of gas, she had no clue), which the Martian atmosphere was not. 3. It was currently freezing to death. Her survival training kicked in her instincts- she scooped up the horse in one arm, grabbed the blanket out of her pack and wrapped the horse up, and frantically set up the O2 mask and tank. She obviously had no clue if any of the three things she'd guessed were true- it might not be alive, just jittering like frog legs might. It might not breathe O2, and she'd just killed it faster. It might not be cold, shivering could indicate so many other things. She was right the first time. The horse began breathing... not normally, because Amanda had no clue what that looked like, but it seemed to stabilize. It also slowed the shivering drastically. It opened its eyes, and looked up at Amanda. It was almost cute, if not for the fact its eyes were filled with terror and confusion. But apparently it was intelligent, because it took one look around the empty room, looked at the O2 mask and blanket, and decided not to freak out, which Amanda couldn't have been happier for. Now what to do? Well, getting it back to the station seemed like a good idea. Amanda had no way of knowing if that would work, but it was a plan, and plans were important in a survival situation. She almost tried to soothe the petrified alien, until realizing that it wouldn't be able to hear anything through Amanda's helmet. Saved until they got back to the station, then. She headed back to the rover, alien horse thing in her arm. Author's Note I think I may be abusing the "Mystery" tag. On another note, I originally intended this chapter to be the only one, but I'm also tempted to do one showing the slow decay of Equus, and another (in no particular order) showing Twilight meeting the Mars colonists and... well, I have no clue. Lemme know which you'd prefer!
Dilemma (Outdated)Amanda's head was abuzz on the drive back. There were so many mysteries, so many questions, so many things that didn't make sense. Why did a creature on another planet breathe oxygen, for one? She wasn't an expert, but wasn't an oxygen majority on Earth a complete accident? The alien should breathe methane, or CO2, or not at all. Why oxygen? How had the pod holding the alien worked for potentially billions of years? Surely, even the most efficient and long-lived power sources were long dried up by now. Were there more of these pods around Mars, waiting within secrets of secrets to be found? Could there be hundreds of survivors, just itching to be returned to a dead homeworld? She had no clue. The purple horse alien in question was currently sleeping in the passenger seat, blanket and mask still attached. Amanda had kept the drive slow- Mars dunes were chaotic enough as is, she didn't need to send the alien flying on a Martian speed bump, seatbelt or otherwise. It hadn't been until now that the naut really looked at the alien. It was purple, with a deep blue and pink streaked mane and tail. Horn and wings. About chest height. She thought the wings were rather pointless, until she remembered Mars had less than half Earth's gravity, so the alien very well might be able to fly under its own power. The horn was pretty apparent- used for goring and defense. She had no clue why the eyes were the size of bowling balls. The alien horse had been awake for all of five minutes, jumping at every minute noise. But it must've had caffeine withdrawal worse than Omega, because it had passed out pretty quickly. She hadn't stopped glancing at it- how could she? A living specimen of some absurdly ancient Martian society. 'Prehistoric' was way too much of an understatement. She still had no idea if bringing the creature back to the station was smart. For all she knew, it was waiting to infiltrate their core structures before imploding. Yep, that sounded stupid. Unlikely. More immediately and concerning: would the station materials be toxic to it? It had been sitting in the rover 'naked' the entire drive, and displayed no outward negative effects that she could recognize. But what if it was like cancer, only showing up ages later for a depressing and painful death? That wasn't even considering alien microbes. Amanda's suit protected her, but the moment she brought the creature inside? She could keep her suit on, but everybody else was sleeping without one. History told what happened even between isolated humans and disease- she could scarcely imagine the devastation of ET diseases in either direction. Or how Omega and her naut crew would react to all this. They'd likely call her insane, mad, stupid, perhaps malicious. She would be fired without a doubt, possibly kicked from Mars missions permanently. Despite all this, Amanda Chorol continued driving. Now she was stuck. Not the rover, but choices confuzzled her. Where to take the alien? The infirmary would be her first choice, but putting a possibly anxious and paranoid alien in a room with dozens of chemicals, drugs and medical tools didn't seem like the optimal path. But where else, then? Her cot? The storage and bot bay? Bio? Actually, Bio didn't seem like the worst option. But if it was intelligent enough, it might recognize it at a lab and think it's being dissected or something. Amanda knew that wasn't the case, but the creature didn't. And she'd rather not have a hole dug in her intestine by that horn. She finished de-suiting, having set the sleeping(?) horse alien onto a nearby shelf. She couldn't stop glancing at it- how could she? The fact she'd found a living alien still hadn't fully processed, and even moreso that it was a unicorn-pegasus-horse thing. And was purple. She also noticed some kind of... she wanted to call it "tattoo" on the thing's rear, but it might very well be a physical thing. She wasn't about to start groping a horse alien's butt to find out. Despite her mind screaming at her that it was stupid, Amanda left the alien alone for the moment, while she investigated each room of the station, trying to find the most suitable place for the creature. At least the thing breathed oxygen and had a similar temperature limit to humans; she would've been a loss otherwise. Comms, dispatch and command were immediate no-go's. She highly doubted the kitchen, mess room or bathrooms were a good candidate either. She wasn't about to take it into any cot besides her own, and even then it seemed... not good. The storage bay was probably fine, but she also didn't want an alien freaking out in an area with lots of delicate electronics. So infirmary or Bio it was. She idly grabbed a donut from the pantry as she passed by (thank you Earth shipments), then leaned against a wall, focusing more. It was a tough decision, not least of which because both rooms had similar problems. Fragile equipment, the feeling of being a guinea pig, and the fact Amanda was neither a biologist nor a medical expert of any sort. She knew first aid, of course, but she doubted that would be enough. After a few minutes of thought, she decided. She headed back, picked up the horse, and headed for the infirmary. Technically she should've had some sort of mask in case of alien germs, but that wasn't her highest priority. Along the way, while carrying the alien, she noticed something strange: it felt like there was... some kind of invisible barrier between it and her. Like someone had stuck a really thin sheet of glass between the two. Time to check that out later, walking now. Pushing aside assorted medical instruments and containers, she set the horse down onto a counter. Mission accomplished. Now what? She scratched her head idly. She... actually had no idea. It was still sleeping, so she could analyze it more closely, but she really didn't want it waking up and thinking it was an experiment or such. Then, all of a sudden, she came up with a monumentally dumb plan. A dumb plan that might just be it. Dr. Steffan was not happy. Not only had he had an exceptionally aggravating dream about magical ponies or some other nonsense (he blamed the recent cadaver discoveries), but one of the explorers had woken him up. Talking about ponies. Or horse aliens. Tomato, tomato. He desperately wanted to ignore her and go back to sleep, tumultuous as it was, but unfortunately Miss Chorol had been the one to discover not only the buried artifacts, but also the first to find the Martian catacombs. So her word was perhaps slightly less full of nonsense. Putting on his glasses and grumbling, Steffan stood up and stretched, still in the half-awake state so common and eternal among the explorers. Miss Chorol had said something about 'I really need a biology expert, right now'. He couldn't fathom why; they'd already been analyzing the Martian remains from weeks ago. But she was frantic and looked on the verge of panicking, which he certainly didn't need. Stumbling and muttering under his breath, Dr. Steffan slowly made his way to the infirmary where Miss Chorol insisted her 'horse alien' was located. Before that, however, he made certain to grab a mug of americano. Or maybe a few. He was tired. Miss Chorol stood outside the infirmary entrance, arms crossed and tapping her foot. She kept glancing erratically between the approaching Steffan and into... something in the medbay. Rolling his eyes, Steffan stepped in and- He nearly dropped his mug. Sitting there, in plain view, was an alien. A purple pony-like alien, with a horn and cartoonishly large wings, some sort of marking on its rear, and was currently sleeping. Or it looked like it. He had to slap himself to be sure he wasn't still delirious. Nope, it was certainly still sitting there. Of all things, the first to strike his mind was: "You brought it into the station unsterilized?!" Miss Chorol attempted to shush him, nodding to the sleeping ET. "Look, what would you have done if you found a living specimen of an ancient alien species? Leave it there? It was suffocating, Steff." He dragged a hand over his face. There wasn't enough coffee on Earth for this. "So... it's alive. A member of one of those skeletons we found... is alive." He rubbed his chin. "The fact it has both horn and wings is strange. We've only seen one other instance- in a cadaver, of course -and it was twice the size. Is this one immature?" Miss Chorol shrugged. "That's what I woke you up for, I have no clue. I just found it underneath the crypt I found weeks ago. It was in what I think was a cryopod, but all the ones around it were empty." Steffan narrowed his gaze. "And why exactly were you by yourself, at night, wandering the crypts?" Before the explorer could argue, Steffan waved her off. "It's not my responsibility anyway. Let Omega lecture you about it." Miss Chorol folded her arms, staring at the ET. "So... what do we do?" Steffan wanted to make some remark, but he was just as lost. What should they do? In all the search for Mars life, they had definitely never expected to find a living specimen. Steffan looked to the explorer. "Tell me what you know of it." Miss Chorol put a fist to her chin. "Well, you can see clearly what it looks like. I know it breathes O2, because when it fell out of the pod, it began suffocating; I grabbed my spare mask and tank, and attached it to the alien. I also know it has a similar temperature comfort range to us, because... well, that's pretty apparent considering it isn't freezing or burning up." Steffan facepalmed. "You randomly gave it a gas that is truly an anomaly even on Earth?" "What else would I have done? Let it choke to death?" "No, but... urgh. Just... grab my bag from the cots. I'll need to analyze it." Steffan grabbed a sterilized pair of medical gloves from a drawer. The explorer shifted in place. "Is that... a good idea? If it wakes up, won't it think we're experimenting or... dissecting it?" Steffan rolled his eyes. "It is half our size, and I've seen you lift one end of a rover. Physical safety is hardly a concern." Chorol huffed. "Many things wrong with that. I was worried about it feeling safe, not whether I'd be attacked... mostly. And it's adapted to Martian gravity, I am not." Steffan waved her away. "Just grab the bag." She took one last glance at the alien before leaving, and froze. "Steffan." "Look, I said-" "Steffan, look at it." Grunting, he turned to the- It had woken up. And was staring at them. Author's Note Okay, so: this is definitely going to be my longest story so far. I don't know exactly, but I'm guessing it'll go above 10k. For now it'll focus on Twi "officially" meeting the colonists, and I'll likely have an epilogue/end chapter at some point showing Equestria's side of things.
First Contact? (Outdated)Nobody moved. Steffan stared at Amanda, who in turn stared at the alien, who in turn- well, stared back at her. Looking at it, the explorer could see no trace of fear in the alien's eyes like expected- only curiosity and confusion, which were both understandable. She had no idea what to do, though- and apparently neither did the doctor, because he was also rooted to the spot, mouth catching flies. Then the alien did something nobody expected: it gave a little smile, and waved. Despite herself, Amanda giggled and waved back. She then tried a long shot. Foolish, perhaps, but worth a try at least. "Can you understand us?" The horse's vacant look, tilt of head, twitching of ear and lack of answer was deafening. Then it made a little 'o' with its mouth, and shook its head. At first Amanda thought they'd met the sassiest alien in history, but then realized: it was intelligent enough to recognize the intent of the words and question, even if it didn't comprehend them literally. That was both exciting and terrifying. Apparently the alien thought Amanda had the right idea, because it then spoke in what she could only assume was its own language. It tilted its head again, waiting for a response. Amanda shook her head, hoping it would get the message. It did. It made- was that a scrunchy face and raspberry? -and spoke a few more times, but each time sounding... different. It was trying different languages. Picking up on this, Amanda shook her head to each one- they all sounded like complete gibberish, not even close to any human language she'd heard of. She had the feeling even dead ones wouldn't be remotely relatable. She herself tried the multi-language approach: Porteguese, German, Mandarin, Japanese- none of them seemed to attract more than a blank look or shaking head from the horse. It scrunched its face again. Then a figurative lightbulb seemed to go off above its head, because it hopped off the countertop, and headed for a pen stuck in Steffan's pocket. The doctor recoiled slightly at its approach, but didn't do anything physical. The horse tapped the pen, then made little... writing motions with its hooves, then tilted its head at Steffan. He looked at Amanda and nodded. "Grab the whiteboard and marker pack." She mock saluted, and rushed out. While the explorer headed out for makeshift communication supplies, Steffan and the horse sat across from each other on the floor, each analyzing every inch of the other. Steffan honestly couldn't make out any aggression or even fear in the alien's body language- it didn't shiver, sat confidently and close (maybe too close), and didn't seem to search for any sort of weapon. It just... sat and looked at him. It almost had the shine of a hyperactive child in its eyes- Steffan had a hunch the only reason he wasn't being bombarded with questions was because they couldn't understand each other. Not yet, anyway. The horse also looked around the medbay, taking particular interest in the medical instruments it saw, like drills, scalpels and the stapler. It seemed almost familiar with them- like it had seen the objects before. Steffan supposed it might be possible. After all, many animals of different builds and biology on Earth could have common health issues. He also rethought the extraterrestrial microbes threat, and remembered that was false. Alien biology was so different from human, the chances of diseases carrying over were astronomical- literally. Of course, that was theoretical- it wasn't impossible that the horse and Steffan might transfer illnesses, however unlikely. The horse suddenly stood up, and stepped to the doctor's side, seeming to look over his- fingers? He held them up for it, and the horse grinned and clapped its hooves. It held proper research etiquette, however- it didn't touch him at all, only peering at his hand from a respectable distance. Deciding to be courteous, he removed a boot, allowing it to look at his bare foot. The sheer energy and interest of the horse alien was almost infectious- he could feel a smile forcing itself onto his face. He'd never expected an alien to be so... friendly. It was almost magical. Wondering if the alien would reciprocate, he decided to mime out his request best he could, pointing at himself, then his hand, then it, then finally its horn and wings. It seemed to understand, because it sat down again, extending both wings. Steffan stood up, examining its horn and wings, along with the mark on its rear. He of course respected its space, not touching- that would be rude and likely dangerous on many levels. The horn seemed real enough- he couldn't see any signs of it being some kind of accessory, though he admittedly wasn't an expert. Its use was likely for self-defense, though if that were the case, he expected it to have two or more, and for it to be larger. It also seemed... blunt, more like a spoon than anything evolved to stab. The wings also seemed real- he could see each individual feather. It seemed highly unlikely it could fly; he didn't know how much the horse weighed, but considering it was up to his neck when on all fours, it had to be approaching Earth equine weights, right? The wings may have been obsolete, but then why so big? Perhaps the Martian gravity allowed it to fly- he could see no other explanation for it. The mark seemed like a tattoo, but then he realized- it wasn't on the skin, otherwise the fur would've muddled it. It seemed to almost... hover over the rear, like a hologram. And when he neared it, he felt a strange tingling in his chest. He decided not to mess with it. Miss Chorol returned with the whiteboard. She had to adjust its height slightly, and set the opened marker box on the floor. In case the alien didn't know what markers were, she opened and capped it a couple times for reference. The horse nodded, and approached the box of writing utensils. A purple glow appeared around its h- Pain. Agony erupted in Steffan's skull, his brain, his mind. He collapsed onto the floor, not even able to scream through sheer suffering- merely whimpering. He clutched at his face and cranium, trying to claw whatever nightmare abomination had drilled into him. His eyes slammed shut, tears flooding. He was sure, convinced, certain he would- Then it stopped, as instantly as it had appeared. Steffan slowly opened his eyes. The pain had vanished utterly and without a trace. He turned to Miss Chorol- she was sitting up from the fetal position, telling him he wasn't the only victim. They slowly looked at the alien. It was in hysterics. Tears gushed from it, and it was definitely blubbering what Steffan assumed to be apologies in its language. It slammed its head onto the floor- begging for forgiveness? Steffan looked at Chorol, who rubbed the back of her head, staring at the mess of a horse alien. She thought. Then she nodded to the doctor, giving a thumbs up. He kneeled before the alien, tapping it on the shoulder(?). It looked up, face red and snotted up. He used soothing words- both because he believed the alien truly didn't intend whatever happened, and because he didn't want it to happen again. It eventually calmed down, still spewing forth presumed apologies and still sniffling, but it looked at the marker box again. This time, it elected to pop off a marker cap with a hoof- somehow -and grabbed one end in... its teeth. Steffan decided never to touch that marker again. It then scribbled a whole mess onto the whiteboard, at a pace The Flash would be jealous of. Amanda was shocked at how much the horse drew in so little time. Gazing over the board, she could see four main points of interest: a simple drawing of the horse itself and- was that a female gender sign? That was... slightly concerning, but at least they knew what it- she, was, at least presumably. The drawing also had a couple more bits under it- a half circle on top of a line, and stars scattered around a little 'kaboom' symbol. Amanda looked at it for a minute, thinking. Then she turned to Steffan. "Is that its name?" She pointed to the lower drawings. He put a fist to his chin. "Perhaps. I suppose it could be a descriptor of itself in some way, but if I were an alien introducing myself to those behind a language barrier, I wouldn't use terms or symbols for things only I had. That would be confusing." Amanda looked at the symbols again. "It looks like a sunset or sunrise, and... shining? A sparkle, or glimmer, or something?" Steffan shrugged. "Let's stick with 'Sunset Glimmer'. I don't have better ideas." Amanda gave a thumbs up. She then looked over the other three scribbles. One was a very rough sketch of Steffan and Amanda. Directly under them, there were two question marks. Right where the sunset and glimmer were for the alien. "It wants our names, or a descriptor, perhaps?" Steffan crossed his arms. "But how do we... do that? I mean, I'm almost certain that we did not interpret its name correctly, assuming it even was a name." "Hmm... we could use... fruit, for simplicity?" "What if the fruit don't exist- or didn't exist -when and where it came from?" "Good point. Well, we found those buried artifacts- an alarm clock and a shovel. Maybe those?" "Better than what I would've said." Amanda wiped off the question marks- using the proper eraser, of course -and put down the said markings; shovel for herself, alarm clock for Steffan. She thought it made more sense. Somehow. The horse, 'Sunset Glimmer', seemed to be perfectly fine with that, because it grinned and clapped its hooves. Another drawing was... a globe, an arrow pointing to it, and a question mark. "Is it- she asking where she is?" "I... would assume so, but we don't have a method of explaining that in drawing, I believe." Both Amanda and Steffan turned to Sunset, pointed at the globe, and shrugged. The horse made a scrunchy face. Lastly was a completely straight row of symbols. They were placed side by side, and looked almost... almost... Steffan's eyes widened. "Is that an alphabet?" Of course! Sunset must've been hoping that, if they couldn't speak with each other, perhaps they could somehow get across using writing. Unfortunately, Amanda didn't recognize anything in that alphabet, and she assumed Steffan didn't either. Seeing him frown from the corner of her eye, she was right. But she did have an idea. She put a hand out in front of Sunset, gesturing for the marker. The alien understood, dropping it into Amanda's hand. Steffan gagged, but she didn't care about Martian horse spit- that wasn't a concern right now. She quickly wrote out the letter alphabet in English, directly underneath Sunset's. She elected not to use punctuation or the like- that would be needless for now. She looked back to see if she was right. Judging by how Sunset was beaming, eyes twinkling, she guessed so. So... now what? It was still nighttime, they still couldn't really communicate... Sunset put a hoof to her chin, then looked at the doorway out the infirmary. She then looked at Amanda, pointing a foreleg at the doorway, and tilting her head. Amanda decided it couldn't go that badly, and waved the alien along, stepping out the door. Sunset followed along, with Steffan trailing, a look of both interest and annoyance on his face. Sunset seemed to take in information like a sponge; she very quickly learned how a water fountain worked, could open doors with a hoof with only a moment of practice, recognized light switches immediately, and overall seemed to pick up on new things insanely fast. Amanda had to admit, she was jealous- she could count the amount of people alive with that intellect on one hand. They'd stepped through the kitchen, where Sunset 'o'ed at the linoleum flooring; Bio, where Amanda immediately promised herself never to get between Sunset's manic smile and that room; the drone control, where the alien seemed to heavily restrain itself not to disassemble everything... Then the library. Amanda would never recover. As they passed by the entrance to the dorms, Amanda's head was in mist. It was so strange- Sunset seemed far more human than even possible, her mannerisms reminding the explorer more of an energetic brainchild than any superadvanced, sagelike ancient society. It was both comforting and confusing- the former because it meant Amanda (and humans in general) could relate to Sunset far more easily, but the latter because... she was an alien horse who acted and even sounded like a human. Amanda was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn't notice Sunset had gone through the door to the dorms. She jerked awake, and was about to chew out Steffan for not stopping her- The doctor was nowhere to be seen. Amanda facepalmed, and dashed as silently as she could into the dorm hall. She could only hope Sunset hadn't woken anybody up. Especially- "What the f- there's a damn xenomorph in my room!" Terrific. Omega was awake. Author's Note Can you guess I like Twilight? I'd like to think I've portrayed her well so far from a foreign perspective, but I could be wrong. Correction on the last A/N: This is still definitely going to be my longest story by far, but 10k was a drastic underestimation. It'll be closer to 50k, maybe more. That epilogue chapter is still planned, but it's certainly a ways off now. On a side note, I actually took the time to outline the entire fic! This marks the first time I actually planned a story, as opposed to just winging it. Hope it helps.
Consequences (Outdated)Omega rubbed aggressively at her temples, already feeling the migraine coming on from... Well, this. Once she'd gotten past the initial shock and- she wasn't afraid to admit it, fear -of a living alien in her room, Chorol and Steffan had barged right after, the former stopping the alien from madly picking apart containers for whatever reason, the latter apologizing for the, as he put it, "inconvenience." About five minutes later, everything had somewhat cooldown, and Omega was able to take stock of the situation, and get the stories from her explorer and biologist. It was a damn nightmare. The alien at the heart of this nonsense was currently sitting next to and slightly in front of Steffan, eyes downcast and ears flopped over- she still couldn't believe the first and only living ET ever discovered looked like an almost cartoonish purple horse. She could've sworn she'd seen it before. "So let me get this straight," Omega snarled, switching from her temples to crossing her arms, glaring at everyone, but most of all her. "You, in the middle of the night, without informing anybody, decided to take a rover unauthorized, drove out to God knows where, based entirely on a hunch." "You then- somehow -found the first living alien humans have ever known, proceeded to take it BACK TO OUR DAMN BASE, again without alerting or informing anybody, and instead treat it like a friend visiting from out of town. Did I sum that up properly?" Chorol (intelligently) said nothing, only folding her arms behind her and staring at the ground. Omega took a deep breath, and sighed. "I can't tell whether you just pulled the luckiest, bravest, or stupidest stunt in history. LIkely all three." She turned her head to the alien, but still addressed the explorer- from what she was told, the horse couldn't understand English. Rather expected. "I won't say I'm not pissed, because I am very much so. But I also know your track record- finding groundbreaking discovery is apparently a children's game to you. But still- why didn't you wake me up when you arrived, or anybody else? Hell, why didn't you alert Night Command at any point? Why did you go alone? We don't have first contact protocols, sure, but we have protocols for literally everything else." Chorol grumbled under her breath. "I was sent alone last time..." The base leader narrowed her eyes, hissing in response. "That was under Henson, who, I'll remind you, is younger than you are, and has about a tenth my experience. That order would never have flown if I wasn't in sickbay." Chorol returned to silence. Omega sat down on her bead, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "I need to think on what to do about you. You did break more rules than I can count on my fingers, but you did also discover a living ET, and handled the situation resourcefully- if not intelligently." She looked back up. She turned to Steffan, and pointing at the alien. "Wake up the entire Bio and Medic teams, and get every scan you can ASAP. I don't care if you inhale a third of our coffee rations, this is critical. Whether it intentionally pulled that... whatever it was, or not, it still was capable of putting two human adults into crippling mental pain in seconds with seemingly little effort. For that matter, wake up at least four Sec units, too." Both Steffan and Chorol were about to protest, but she waved them off. "I'm not saying we're going to lock this thing in the brig or shoot it, but unlike someone, I'd prefer not to let an incredibly ancient psychic alien wander around my base without supervision and, if necessary, detainment." "It's a she, ma'am," the explorer mumbled again. "How do you know? Yeah, it uses the same symbol, which is absurdly unlikely, but it doesn't mean they indicate the same term. A decade ago, kids laughed at the letter 'E', and adults had no clue what the joke was. I'm calling the alien an 'it' if and until it can tell us itself." "As for you," Omega barked, pointing to the shuffling explorer, "give me the rover keys and your card, then head to your room immediately. At the absolute minimum, you're under suspension from any missions and equipment for a week. Do I make myself clear?" The explorer sighed but nodded, handing her superior the keys and her security card. She then walked out, drawing the alien's gaze as she left. "Now- I need to let Home Command know about this, rouse the rest of the base afterward. Keep an eye on that," Omega said, nodding to the alien, who was still glancing around the room with a strange look of longing. Steffan nodded, then guided the alien out of the room, presumably going to wake the listed teams. For her part, before any NASA message, Omega grabbed a beer from her mini fridge and downed it in ten seconds flat. She really needed it after these space opera shenanigans. Setting the empty bottle down, she decided against another, and instead booted up the computer. The message wouldn't actually hit Earth for ten minutes, but that was fine- not like they could do much about the situation besides give advice, and she had a feeling they were just as lost as her. Before alerting Home Command, Omega pulled out a drawer, and from it, one of the artifacts that a team besides Chorol had unearthed. The Arch personnel had already finished scanning and investigating it, so until it could be shipped to a museum or storage, she decided to hold onto it. She didn't know why, exactly, but she could swear she always heard a strange humming from it, an almost ethereal tune. The artifact was a little crown made out of gold, with inset blue sapphires, and a rather large purple star crystal on top. Author's Note Okay, so, long story short: the reason no updates have been coming is because my wifi was completely screwed for a couple weeks. My (now former) roommate thought, for whatever reason, there was a flea infestation in the router, and decided to fill it with powder. As you can imagine, I had to purchase a new router, and I am now living alone. Decided to whip this up ASAP to make up for the wait; the next chapter should be much longer and with more substance. Just didn't want to leave y'all hanging any longer!
