Personal Log - 010 - Sara Ryder, Andromeda Galaxy / Date: 2819 (CE, 0 2:09:10, AA - After Arrival) Continued: Voeld

(Aya from above)

As I arrived in the meeting room most everyone had arranged themselves around the round, central table, only Dr. T‘Perro and Gill Brodie were absent. Peebee stood a bit apart from the rest of the Crew to the left and Jaal sat on one of the couches circling the table to the right, looking very sceptical. Or annoyed, or hostile it wasn’t easy to read new, alien expressions. Though they seemed pretty similar to ours.

As I stepped up to my place at the table Cora gave me an ironic compliment on how well that first contact went, relative to the previous one. Which Liam immediately countered with, „Yeah, but only slightly.“ Thanks, …

Peebee chimed in and asked why she wasn’t allowed to have a poke around the vault. Wrex boomed over her, pointing out that we now had another mouth to feed, consummate cook that he is. Jaal did not rise to the bait and after an awkward moment of silence Vetra asked if the translators didn’t work. „They work.“ came the reply, dry as bone. I wasn’t going to let suspicions and prejudice  get the best of us, so I asked everyone to focus on the task at hand. Jaal has offered to do what he can to give us access to the vault on Aya. Vetra gave a fair point by asking how we could do that if we were leaving the planet. Cora couldn’t suppress a groan of disbelief over my blunder as I asked Jaal for further information. Liam agreed with me and hit the table with his hand for emphasis.

Jaal got up slowly and deliberately moved to stand beside me. He told us that about 80 years ago the Archon, as the Angara called him, and his Kett troops arrived in the Heleus Cluster. They started abducting Angara and the Angara responded in kind. Since then it has been an open war for survival. 

The others were all for fighting the Kett but did not see anything significant for us in this information. Jaal elaborated that if we supported his mission, given to him by Evfra before he came aboard, we would prove ourselves worthy of Evfras and the Angaras trust. Then they would grant us entry into the vault. Cora wasn’t too happy with this arrangement but it was my call. Jaal proceeded to show us holos of two planets, Voeld and Havarl. The former has in the past been the center of Angran culture and technology, their most populated world. It was never a particularly warm place but since the Scourge hit it though it has fallen into a new ice age with temperatures far below the freezing point and is now the center of the Angaras ground war against the Kett.

Havarl is the original homeworld of the Angara species. Today mostly populated by scientists and archeologists the government on Aya recently lost contact with. 

I thought for a minute and decided to go to Voeld first. Supporting the war against the Kett seemed to be the right signal to Evfra, to me at last.

Walking down the ramp from the meeting room to the research center I overheard an exchange between Dr. T Perro and Drack. She‘s fascinated by Jaal, a member of the first new species she could lay her hands on.

Nearly bumped into Liam, who asked me to help him boost morale on the ship, by enacting a movie night. Good idea! I’ll be on the lookout for a register of the Nexus Video-Library once we’re back there.

I asked Doc. T‘Perro about these weird memories Dad had encoded and how they influenced me. She wasn’t worried, just assured me that maybe this was Dad's last effort of sharing important moments with me. Better late than never, I guess.

 

-pause detected-

Phew, … I miss him and Scott. Meeting the Angara would have been so much better with these two by my side. I think …

Anyway, I noticed that, due to the lack of a bunk, Jaal was unpacking his stuff in our tech-lab. So I stepped in to talk to him in private.

He pointed out that he needed time to get used to us and our alien ways. I assured him that I would not allow any prejudice from anyone in this ship towards him and asked the same of him to which he agreed a little sheepishly. In answer to my slightly amused reaction he explained that the Angara are very emotional people, their feelings run deep and powerful. They’ve got a harder time hiding their feelings than expressing them. He claimed to have a deep relationship with the „Moshae“, that elder scientist who was kidnapped by the Kett recently. Not like a Lover, but more than to a Mentor. He either quit her tutoring or she threw him out, he said with a smirk. Depends on who you ask I guess. Interesting.

I asked him again about his reasons for accompanying us but he didn’t want to elaborate on this yet. That’s alright as long as he’s gonna tell me some day. 

On a workbench, beside his bag, lay the long rifle I had noticed at the Resistance headquarters. Jaal told me it was a Kett weapon that he himself had modified. He seemed very proud of his technical aptitude and to lighten the mood a little I jokingly asked him to promise not to take the ship apart. He chuckled and promised. 

That’s a good start, I hope. I’d really like to sit down with him and tinker on something, just to learn a bit. 

Thinking of tinkering reminded me that I had to get my snow gear ready, so I headed for the armory, adjacent to the bridge. Packing my stuff and checking weapons I heard- Suvi talk about how fascinating Ayas biodiversity is. The ship's scanners had already picked up several thousand species around the city alone. Her voice took on a wistful tone as she spoke of the beautiful waterfalls that were visible in the caldera. I hope I can show her these some day. Kallo too sounded a bit homesick as he compared Aya to the Salarian homeworld Surkesh. 

Though from orbit it looked like a rocky, barren world.

Laying down the weapon I had been cleaning, I poked my head around the corner and called out to them to please lay in a course to Voeld. I caught Suvis' eye and she smiled at me. I left the weapons where they lay and walked over to her. We talked the whole trip to Voeld. Poor Kallo probably wanted to engage the autopilot and go hide in the engine room. 

When we arrived at the giant snowball that the Angara called Voeld, Suvi  informed us that when the Initiatives surveys had first spotted it it had been a viable planet for human life.

A bit cooler than earth but chosen as a possible Habitat, No. 6. Today it sported far below zero temperatures and it’s once liquid oceans had frozen over completely. Kallo took us down cautiously. Suvi reported gale force winds and sight was down to 100 meters, sometimes even worse.

Jaal had given Kallo the frequency of the local resistance HQs electronic beacon and its decoding key so we were able to find a safe landing zone not far from it. 

As the Tempest set down though, we got a good scare as with a loud crack and a sudden tilt the ice beneath one of our landing gears’ struts gave way and it sank into the ground.

The hydraulics kicked in and adjusted the ship's tilt, Kallo calling out: “We‘re good! We‘re good!“, probably more to reassure himself than us. I couldn’t help but pull his leg a bit and asked him if he wanted the crew to step out and push. His sour look almost made me feel sorry. 

As I strapped on my snow-suit, all white camouflage, insulated helmet, extra thick fabric and even a scarf, I asked Jaal and Vetra to accompany me. Jaal for obvious reasons, as is our liaison to these people and Vetra because I wanted to see how our quartermaster and „all around badass“ would perform. Will do this with Peebee and Drack later too. 

I went down to the ship's loading bay, Jaal already waiting at the door and Vetra just coming out of her office to the side. Suddenly I felt quite overdressed. Both had opted to use no helmet, despite the bitter cold out in the open. I guess both Turian and Angara didn’t mind low temperatures much. The Turians I could chalk up to their bio-metallic exoskeleton but I had no clue about the Angara. We performed one last check of our gear and lowered the ramp.

Immediately the temperature took a frightening plunge deep below zero. Ice formed on the walls and the ceiling and the ship’s superstructure groaned a bit under the sudden strain of differing temperatures. The internal heaters of my suit desperately tried to compensate but had a worryingly hard time keeping from flash freezing. Vetra took a surprised step back, shivered and started to descend the ramp. Jaal just blinked and walked casually after her. Now I felt like a wimp too. Thank you guys.

At the foot of the ramp we were barely able to make out a path that had been marked with glowing red lights, some already buried under small snow drifts. Following these through the storm, snow whipping about us I could hardly see Vetras slim form three meters away. Jaals bulk loomed like an abominable snowman behind me. Grinning inside my helmet I slogged through the snow, up a craggy path covered in ice and sharp rocks. Once we got into the lee of the mountain side the wind abated and the view cleared a bit. After a few minutes of walking, occasionally slipping and climbing upward we came to a spot where somebody had placed a heating unit beneath a small overhang. We huddled around the slim device that was about the same height as Jaal and basked in its warm glow for a few minutes. Even the Angara welcomed its presence. I glanced at him at just the right moment to see a small smile of relief cross his face before his stoic expression returned.

We pressed on and after another few minutes spotted another of these heaters ahead. The wind picked up again and drove snow into our faces. Two figures with guns stood next to the thing. From their relaxed stance I could guess that these guards were quite bored, guarding the secret back route to a secret hideout in this weather, well … I couldn’t blame them. 

Jaal spoke a word and both snapped to attention, then greeted him with friendly calls and told him to report to Commander Xeel at the base. 

The first thing we saw as we rounded the next bend were some shuttles and other ships that hovered low in the mountains shadow, tethered to the ground, ready to take off at any moment. Some unfamiliar ships looked like transporters to me. Interspersed with them were heaters, some Angara were mingling around. Two guys were doing a workout routine to keep warm it seemed and were talking about a missing soldier. Most of the soldiers ignored us, some called a greeting to Jaal, very few eyed us with suspicion. One guy from a group we walked by barked at us to keep walking and mind our own business. Shaking my head I walked on, approaching the entrance to the base.

Apparently it had been built into a natural cave system in the mountain. Impressive. Beyond its threshold heaters placed at regular intervals made the temperature quite a bit less life threatening. Near one of the things in a recessed corner a couple was hugging each other tightly and exchanging furtive kisses.

I was astonished that nobody seemed to mind fraternization between soldiers. But then this was more of a militia than a true military organization and Jaal had said that the Angara were very passionate creatures.

On the opposite side of the big cave a few Angara were busy working on some big vehicles. One of them called out to us. He gave a friendly greeting and whipping his oily hands on a not much less oily rag curiously asked about where we came from, the Tempest and other Tech we had brought with us. Amicably chatting away he offered us blueprints for a vehicle shield emitter that he had developed, as a welcome gift. As I told him that our mechanic, Brodie, would probably be very excited about these he laughed and called him his long lost brother from another galaxy. I liked this guy. 

As we walked deeper into the tunnel that lead down into the mountain itself the lights grew sparse and further in between. Probably to conserve energy.  Along the way we heard other soldiers talking about the missing woman, there was talk of an explosion and some wanted to go out and look for her, others believed her to be killed by the blast. 

The electric blue glow of displays lit our way into a huge cavern, filled with electronic equipment and busy with Angara. A huge, blue holographic depiction of Voeld slowly turned above a raised platform, right in the middle of it all. On it what looked to me like strategic information was displayed. Impressive.

Jaal walked up to three Angara standing at a console, gave a short greeting and then looked at me. The Angara turned sharply, the woman in the middle giving me a withering look.

She was obviously used to giving orders and having them obeyed. With a slightly raspy voice she introduced herself as Commander Xeel of the Resistance. She didn’t like that Evfra had Jaal take us here and she would do “things that will make the sky wheep and the stars turn dark” to me, if she found out I’d somehow betrayed the Angara. Talk about trust issues. 

I promised to behave and help as best as we could. She dismissed us with a court gesture and that was that. 

Apparently we were free to move around the cave, so I climbed some stairs, up to the cool display of the planet. On it several blinking and static lights marked certain points with minuscule writing beside them. I guessed those stats could be called up and read with a click or something like that. Some points moved, some slower, some faster. An Angara sat at a console before the display busily typing on a touchscreen, another man stood beside him talking into a Headset, apparently relaying orders.

I waited for him to acknowledge me. I didn't want to be responsible for garbled orders or distracting him from his duty. Jaal wandered about talking to soldiers in a low voice. Vetra too looked at the huge display in fascination. After a while the Angara turned and nodded to me, taking off his Headset. 

Intelligence Officer Kaas was surprisingly open with information about this piece of technology and about their war effort on Voeld. Though I’m pretty sure he only gave me Info that was generally known.

This cool display was continuously updated in real time, by reports and signals from soldiers, scouts and spies all around the planet. So they always knew where the enemy and their troops were at any given moment. The main Kett Base was located on the other side of the big valley the mountain we were in faced on one side. Heavily fortified it sure would be a tough nut to crack.

We chatted for a bit about the planet's history, while he fiddled with a round holo-display on his wrist, he explained some terms he’d used to me, like “Daar”, literally meaning “rock foundation”, settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city, occupied mostly by soldiers. I guess humans would call it a war camp?

The heaviest fighting at the moment, he explained, was taking place around the capital city of Estraaja. A former cultural center of the Angara, now in ruins, but of great symbolic value to their people. I thanked him for his insights and left.

While snooping around Vetra had noticed some messages that seemed to indicate that the base had some supply troubles. Jaal pointed out the Requisitions Officer named Olisk, who after scirting around the issue a bit admitted that supply drops from Aya and Havarl had gone missing in the last few days and the base was nearing the end of its stocks. He couldn't let news of this get out because it might lower morale severely. I offered to look for the missing crates and we headded out of the cave into bright sunlight.

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