Personal Log - 005 - Sara Ryder, Andromeda Galaxy / Date: 2819 (CE, 0 1:11:55, AA - After Arrival) Continued.: The Vault.

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Interestingly the massive door, shaped like the ones we'd seen back on H7, could be opened using my Omni-Tool. SAM was able to analyze and hack their locking mechanism and we entered into gloomy silence. After a short corridor we came to a room, like a small cavern but obviously technological in nature. Peebee was disappointed, and I too have to admit that I'd expected something a bit more spectacular. We all stood around, looking sheepishly at each other.
Peebee asked me to “do my Pathfinder thing”.

I was just about to rebuke her, when for some reason none of us saw, a kind of aperture opened in the floor. Everyone took a surprised step back as we looked down a deep shaft of some kind. It was glowing with artificial light and a slight hum filled the room. Peebee immediately started to speculate what it might be and came to the conclusion that this must be the main entrance to whatever facilities lay beneath the lake.
Liam asked how deep that shaft might go down into the planet and I kicked a small rock over the edge to find out it in the time honored way.
The rock just fell a a short way before coming to a sudden halt, a slight glow surrounding it, then it gently floated further down. Peebee got into full Geek-Mode over what might cause this phenomenon.
I wish Scott could've seen this. He'd get along well with Peebee.
They are of like minds.
Our blue, geeky raccoon finally concluded that it must be some kind of gravitational manipulation that guided the fall.
Following an impulse I jumped into the hole. Above me I heard Peebee shout that this wasn't fair and then I too started to gently but with surprising speed, float down the shafts length. The others followed suit.

It was an amazing feeling, nothing at all like Zero G. I still felt the gentle pull of gravity, but rather like when you jump on earth's moons surface. There still was a sense of up and down and not the disorientation you experience when free falling without gravity.

A great hall opened up beneath us, artificially lit but a bit gloomy nonetheless. It almost looked like the facility was in some kind of low power mode.
Peebee postulated a systems lock-down that had come into effect hundreds of years ago. Maybe she was right?
The gravitational effect stopped just a short way above the bottom of the shaft and we dropped down on our feet. In the middle of the hall some kind of plasma flakes or energized particles were floating about in a frayed, spiraling pattern, giving off a soft, fiery orange glow.

Looking around the chamber and scanning every surface we found some unknown machinery and some sort of holographic data displays. Though SAM said that much of the stored data seemed corroded by time and low energy levels, he was able to decipher some of it. Though nothing gave away the purpose of this weird place. After fiddling with another console on a raised platform at the back of the chamber, we discovered an energy conduit beneath the floor, that lead out of the room and followed it through a motion activated gate that acted much like the bridge at the lake, only vertically. This nano-tech stuff was extremely cool. Behind it stood another, bigger though inactive console.
Didn't do anything as I tried to activate it. No power again and I didn't see any means to get juice to it, so we followed the wide tunnel beyond and came to another great hall.

A towering structure of glowing panels that were in constant motion loomed above us. SAM thought it might be some sort of data hard drive or server. Peebee said that it would contain hundreds of Zeta-Bytes of Data. Humans reached the so called Zeta Byte Age in the early 21^st century, when the collective data stored on earth first reached that point. Nowadays we might be at two? I don't know.

One Zeta Byte contains 10 to the 21^th Bytes of Data. Hundreds of these are an unimaginable high number and amount of Data. Like Peebee said, most known civilizations don't even use one Zeta Byte. What an incredible thought. Before it on the floor sat an object of about the size of a pineapple.
Yes SAM, I know that's not scientifically accurate, but I have no other frame of reference for this kind of thing.

(The "Pineaple Object")

Peebee picked it up and thought it might be some sort of Key, an Idol or Symbol Of Power. Sure, …
Then she took off on her own, down a tunnel on the left side of the hall. She was unperturbed. Despite my insistence of not splitting the party, like in some old Horror Vid. Liam at least got the reference and quipped that 10 Bucks said she'd end up in a pit full of spears, as we watched the gate to the tunnel close behind her.

We continued to follow the conduit beneath the surface and came to a smallish cavern. Here again these strangely beautiful motes of light floated in the middle of the room, forming some kind of random, spiral pattern. Even SAM had no idea what they might be. The floor of the cavern floor was covered with some sort of greenish, silvery liquid gel, that gave off a slight electrical hum. As I accidentally stepped into it, my shields immediately shorted out and my Suit started to overheat. It burned like hell on my skin. SAM confirmed that this liquid carried a high amount of electrical current. Great!
So we had to play hopscotch from one raised part of the room to the next.

In the distance, to our left, we could see and hear remnant bots going about their business. As we reached the far end of the cavern, we found another door and cautiously opened it. The room beyond contained a few inactive Assembler bots and nothing more. Maybe a storage unit of some kind?

As we proceeded on our way we had to fight off the active remnant bots which was luckily not that hard. Though the -expletive deleted- were clever and tried to flank us a few times. One kept shooting projectiles above our heads from which Breachers assembled and attacked from behind. Nasty little fellows.

After crossing a system of channels carrying that weird liquid and dispatching some more robots and drones, we came upon a truly breathtaking sight. Its hard to describe. I was in complete and utter awe and Liam and Cora fared no better. SAM took a few pictures by our Omni-Tools, he'll attach them to the file.

It was an enormous cavern in which gigantic pyramids rose from the ground and hung from the ceiling, like artificial stalactites and stalagmites. Here and there smaller columns rose from the mist that covered the ground. It all vanished in the distance, seeming to stretch on to infinity. We were able to make out that the whole bottom of the titanic cavern was covered in that unknown conductive liquid, with some platforms raised just above the stuff. Seemingly random flashes of discharge, like lightning bolts or northern lights crackled trough it and gave it an eerie feel. Like it was alive somehow.

None of us had ever seen anything like it. Though I was reminded of a computer circuit board.
A planet sized circuit board? Why build this? And how? What purpose does it all serve? And why even invest the time to build something like this? Wow, I hope we'll find out more in the future. This is so awesome!

As we walked along the ledge, talking about these questions Peebee appeared on another aqueduct opposite of the one we were following along. Her rout had obviously taken a mirroring course to ours. Se called out to us and then vanished inside another set of huge doors, still more than enthusiastic about this whole endeavor. She either didn't have to fight remnant bots or was far better at sneaking around them than us. Impressive.

On our side a similar set of “hangar doors” opened up and lead us into another hall with another “gravity well”. - Yes, SAM I know that is not the correct term for this phenomenon, but “gravitational elevator” doesn't quite roll of the tongue, y' know?

Anyway, down we went again, into the planets crust. Liam suspected it would go even further down. I had to agree. Though I too had no idea how the builders kept the air fresh and cool in these caverns so far down. The exit from this wells entrance/exit room proved a slight problem. As the console at its bottom-station had sprung a leak, so to say. It was broken and that weird, charged liquid dripped from one end like wax from a burning candle and collected in a congealed heap at its foot. As we examined it Peebee stepped into the room, on a balcony above us. She'd found out that the so called Observers interacted with the fluid and the machinery by some kind of specific laser frequency. She send me the data and we gave it a try.

It worked, the liquid hardened over the leak, forming a thin crust and the console came to life. It was a sloppy patch but it worked. We exited the room into another long, gloomy tunnel. Peebee laughed at our inept fumbling, even though it gave her the means to reach another set of doors above us through which she vanished again.
She gave a gleeful “First one gets the glory.” - Ha, Ha. Well, we saw how this turned out.

We followed another short tunnel and stepped into a place that had some big, actual plants growing in it. 

They grew on pedestals rising from the electrical sludge flowing at its bottom. SAM's scan told us that these were surface plants, but there seemed no way for them to be adapted to underground conditions and no obvious way for them to receive nutrition. Yet they grew in abundance. How is this possible? The orange energy motes floated around them and settled onto their trunks and leaves. Maybe they had to do something with the plants survival.
To my untrained eye these arrangements seemed a bit like potted plants in an office that had grown wild over time. Placed there hundreds of years ago, to “lighten the mood”. An obvious fail, at least in human terms.

Again, after a bit of fiddling with consoles that had columns rise up from the ground in different places, we made our way across the rifts on dry feet. Who thinks this is a good way for workers or even robots to get to their workplace? Or for technicians to enter a facility if something breaks down? Alright, obviously something had broken down and no one had come to fix it, but still.
Who builds an obstacle course leading to a server room or a power plant?! Even as a deterrent against intruders that's just ridiculous. Overkill.

We found another creepy storage room and Cora almost jumped out of her suit as one of the inactive Assemblers toppled over. Probably disturbed by our clumsy tromping around. I talked her down and on we went. I hadn't noticed how tense she's been the whole time. With Kosta cracking jokes and commenting on everything we saw I didn't pay much attention to her being silent. I chalked it up to her default “stoic soldier” mode.
I really gotta talk to her later on.

The next cavern we entered was the main thing, as SAM informed us.

Here, a gigantic mechanism moved in waves from the bottom to the top, a wide beam of energy or plasma flowing into an opening in the floor. We made a tour of the room to secure the perimeter and get what data we could. Liam remarked that there is no way to describe all this and people would have to see it for themselves to believe it. He's right. I don't think even 2D pictures do it justice. The walls were covered in panels at such odd angels that they made my head ache.
Here and there weird, stumpy, dry, tree-like plants grew, where the natural rock had collapsed into the room, spewing a fine mist of spores from coral-like buds on their gnarled branches. These were extremely creepy and I very much doubted that they were part of the original design. We stayed well clear of them. No need for an unknown biological contamination on the Tempest.

In other parts of the cave, roots had crept up on the walls, from cracks in the ground and covered some of the panels that surrounded a massive energy shield embedded into the wall. My scanner couldn't penetrate it so we had no idea what lay beyond it. So we left it for others to examine later. 

After we'd secured the perimeter I checked the large console next to the beam in the center. SAM told me that it would deactivate the shut down and get the facility running again.

-pause detected-

Well, I tried my luck, just like Dad.
I nearly got all of us killed just like Dad.
But, well … I guess it was worth it.

As I reset the console, the energy flow in the middle of the room changed from white to red for a few seconds and then broke off. Like it had been cut at the top. The lights in the walls turned red too. A huge booming sound echoed trough the facility. Then everything went silent. I picked up another of these “pineapple” devices that lay atop the console, for later examination. 

SAM informed us that the system lock-down had been disabled and the the “vault” as he called it, along with the atmosphere processor should return to normal function.

Just as he said that, Peebee cut in over Coms.
She had noticed that the whole place was coming alive again and that the power readings were “really, really off the chart”, as she put it. As I was about to reply, the energy shielding at the back of the cavern came down.
A massive, dark cloud erupted into the open space before us.
Just like on H7. -expletive deleted-
Where it touched the roots and trees in the back of the cave, they were disintegrated. Crumbling to dust within moments.
So, this definitely wasn't a good thing.
I had hoped that this wouldn't happen if we did everything right. So either we hadn't done everything right or it was a mandatory function. I didn't want to stay and find out.
Neither wanted the others, so we ran like hell.
Talk about "Overkill"!

Rotating emergency lights, like on a ship, came on along the floor and guided us. How considered by the builders.

Not so considered were the vents along the tunnel floor, that spewed forth purple, hot, noxious clouds of some sort.
As we skidded around them, we reached the raised platform above the sea of liquid death, we had crossed a while back. I punched the console standing at the ledge.
A bridge, like at the lake above, appeared from thin air again. Running at full tilt along it, we heard the cloud disintegrating the big plants behind us. A terrible sound, like dry leaves crackling.
Following the emergency lights up a few ledges and ramps, through another door, we came to a new gravity well. This one shot us up to the room with the massive, floating data storage. It hard turned dark though.
Beneath our feet the death-cloud came rushing up the shaft so we had no time to dawdle.
The gate to the final gravity well was closed. Peebee came skidding into the room from the left, running at full speed with an observer hot on her heels. She vaulted the big console in front of the gate and shot the thing in one fluid motion. In hindsight, a very impressive move.

Together we all struggled to get the gate open, but it wouldn't budge. Then I looked back and noticed that the big console was now active. On a desperate hunch I punched in the code sequence I'd used to activate the whole process and miraculously the cloud halted in its momentum forward and dispersed almost instantly.
That had been close!

The room still smelled like burnt wood and chemicals but I was glad to be breathing at all.

To our surprise a hologram activated and suddenly the air above the console was filled with glowing dots. Startled we watched as the dots quickly resolved into a map of the Heleus cluster with planets and lines traced from one to the other. In the center, glowing orange, was the black hole that formed the center of this star cluster. SAM and Peebee immediately got to speculating again and I had to agree. This seemed to be a network of some sort. Facilities like this one, distributed across several planets, linked to one another by a means unknown to us. Our Assari friend noticed something else new. A planet not included in the Initiative charts. That was very much worth investigating. SAM took all the Data he could get and we finally made or way out of this hellhole.

As we surfaced we were in for another surprise. This time a much more benevolent one though. The skies had cleared considerably. The toxic mists began to clear from the air and the temperature seemed cooler.

Wow. This Tech was a miracle. Our own terraforming efforts were playing in a sandpit against this. This was miraculous.

Yes. I have to admit, for the first time since waking up in Andromeda, I felt hope. Hope that we could actually make it here. That the Initiative, with all its diverse people and its terribly bad start that had crushed so many hopes and dreams, would be able to get a foothold in this new Galaxy. A chance for a better beginning.
Even if it all depended on getting some ancient, alien machines that we barely understood working again.

We could make it!

Oh, and Liam owes me 10 bucks.

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