Far away upon a lonely little moon, deep within the Hoplos system, a ship hovered above the tiny desolate satellite of Kopis.  A long gazing shadow from the ship stretched out over the pale grey dunes, untouched by the absence of wind upon its smooth surface.  Were there an atmosphere upon this planet, one would hear the sound of a hangar door slowly rolling its way upwards, grinding its gears to open the underside of the birdlike vessel.  A darkened rectangular mouth, beneath the low-hanging point of the silver ship, soon lit up from within.
Jet thrusters activated as a large mass propelled itself sluggishly through the opening hangar, before landing hard upon the moon's surface.  A cloud of pale dust blasted from underneath it, hanging in the air with only the slightest of gravity able to bring it back down to the ground from whence it came.
In the midst of it all, was a large tank coloured red like the dust of Mars, with gunmetal black across the top of its carriage.  A heavy cannon sat upon it on a swivel, accompanied with a machine gun underneath the main barrel length, with six large tires underneath the main body big enough, each one half the height of a human being.  Inside the rather cramped interior, was a quarian, a krogan and a raptor awaiting orders from above as the ship flew off from above, heading back out into space.  Areh'Narohl sat in the front seat, piloting a large panel full of input commands.
	"Environmental sealing is good, swivel coaxial mount is not sticking that's good...hmmm...you guys feel warm back there?!"
	"No," said both raptor and krogan in full-body armour.
	"Good!  So we're not going to die."
	"Awwww!" mocked Jax.  "I just wrote my last will and everything!"
	"You'd never write anything Jax, you hate reading."
	"I read stuff, totally!"
	"Porn doesn't count dude."
	"Hahaha, smartass."
	"Varan to Eagle, do you read me?"
	"Loud and clear," said Lirem over comms.  "How's the mako holding up?"
	"Good!  Didn't fall apart on landing so that's phase one complete.  Now we just gotta give it a test drive before we check out that base."
	"Alright, we'll keep in orbit just in case but if any problems happen, stay where you are and send the call alright?"
	"No prob, Varan out."
The quarian turned off communications as he readied his engine, checking everything by the sound of it all running smoothly as James asked:
	"I thought this thing was called a mako, why you call it a varren?"
	"Not varren, Varan!  The Unbelieveable?  ...I thought you came from Earth, don't you know anything about kaiju movies?!"
	"Kai-jew?  What?"
	"Monster movies," said Jax thankfully, "big ol' monsters stompin' around blowin' up cities an' shit!"
	"OHHHH like Godzilla, riiiiight I gotcha...man that shit is ancient to me, no I never watched them sorry...I think MAYBE I saw one but it was like years ago."
	"No worries," said Areh, "lemme show you why I call THIS baby the unbelieveable.  Hold on tight!"

As he revved up the engine, the mako tore across the open moonscape, leaving behind a trail of dust and deep-imprinted tracks that would remain untouched by space.  The six monstrous wheels easily cut a line across the land, the natural mountain ranges to their left with a far more open plain to their right, shining with the pure white of the sun from far away.  In that moment, James truly realised it was the first time a sun of another world had almost blinded him by its brilliance.
Soon the mako began to swerve back and forth, a serpentine motion caused by Areh as he tested the mobility of the tank.  The winding tracks skidding across the surface of the moon told a rather strange story, dual treads grinding left and right over and over again before suddenly spinning hard in a violent U-turn.  James felt his stomach lurch and grabbed onto Jax by instinct, the krogan cackling at his passenger's discomfort.
	"Alright," said Areh, "mobility test A-OK.  Now, time for the torque test!"
	"What are we doing now?!" asked James whiningly.
	"We're just...gonna get a little altitude."
	"Awww yeah," said Jax excitably, "I love this part, go ahead Areh, punch it into high gear!"
The quarian did so gladly, firing up the mako engine as he turned hard towards the mountains, glinting on the dark side of the moon before them.  Pale clouds gathered behind the tank as it sped off to the mountains, glistening forever grey against the white of the sun.  It did not take long for them to start hitting the bottom of the range, as the mako's wheels lifted themselves up onto a diagonal slope.  They felt the bump from inside but surprisingly they did not feel themselves completely unbalanced, the raptor asking:
	"W-woah!  Wha-are we-what's happening?!"
	"We're climbing up!" said the quarian.  "Allll the way up the mountain."
	"How the hell are we...I don't feel like we're on a mountain!"
	"That's the inertia dampening field, keeps us feeling okay without worrying about flipping upside down and getting sick all over the place."
	"...somehow that doesn't make me feel better."
But Areh cared not as he pushed forwards upon the mako, grinding wheels against the harsh slope which rose higher and higher above, the incline turning steeper with each few hundred yards.  But the mako would not give in, never did it falter, never did it stop in its ongoing ascent to the heavens.  Even when the incline became steep enough that a normal being would find it impossible to walk without falling, even within the almost-weightless atmosphere of Kopis, the mako stubbornly pushed onwards and upwards.

Only once did it ever grind its wheels hard against a particularly sketchy part of rock, screaming hard as Areh pushed it to the limit with a gleam in his eye.  For a minute or two they were trapped in one spot, the mako rolling its wheels uselessly underneath as bit by invisible bit did it manage to just about crawl upwards.  But Areh's insistence to push onwards kept the tank going onwards too, as he finally screeched past the rocky undersurface and up onto the very top, sitting the tank upon a firmer plateau between the peaks.
	"Welp," said the driver, "that's the torque test cleared, and the mako does not disappoint."
	"Good to hear," said FG.  "Are we gonna do this mission yet?!"
	"Not just yet!  ...last test.  Gravitational resistance."
	"...wait, wait, gravitational, that means gravity, what the hell you planning-"
	"HANG ON TIGHT, MOTHRA BOOST!"
With a sudden pump of the thruster jets, the mako blasted off from the mountaincliff and went hurtling down towards the surface, the raptor panicking from inside while Jax laughed uproariously beside him.  The thrusters could only last a few seconds or so, boosting in the air now and again before trying to land softly upon the hillside.  However the sudden landing upon a steep incline caused the mako to roll, tumbling its way down fast and awkward like a crashed car before Areh cried:
	"ANGUIRUS ROLL!"
Pressing a few more buttons, he activated a ball-shaped field around the tank, forcing it to roll through some antimaterial force that slowed down its descent.  Eventually it stopped rolling, lazily turning over one last time before landing bluntly upon the bottom of the hill.  A cloud of dust welcomed them upon arrival, the quarian sighing with absolute bliss as he turned to the back of the vehicle.
	"Hooo...awww this is awesome to feel again.  Any survivors?"
	"Barely," said Jax.  "But he'll be fine."
Nodding his head over towards James who sat shaking beside Jax, the krogan laughed and pulled him close boisterously as Areh cackled.
	"Hahahaha, alright then this test is over!  NOW, who wants to go find some missing scientists?!"
	"YES FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES!" roared James panickedly.  "H-how did we not like, f-fucking fly off into space like that?!"
	"Micro-thrusters and a small element zero core inside the mako, which increases mass and provides greater traction on these low-gravity planetoids."
	"...oh GOD, it's like I'm with fucking Tails again!"
	"What?!"
	"Never mind, just...are you done with all your tests?!"
	"Now I am, shall we check out this base?"
	"Hell yeah," said Jax, "lessee who spilt coffee all over the monitor station huh?"

The Kopis Lunar Research Station was, for the most part, absurdly tiny for one.  Even a research station based on a small moon would have a scope of being bigger than someone's house at the very least.  Rolling up towards the lonely-looking outpost, the mako soon stopped outside the main gate, a circular airlock up a small metal ramp.  The rest of the base was slightly sprawling from behind it, an off-white colour with the odd rectangular window tinted black on the outside against the sun.
At first the place appeared to be locked, but Areh'Narohl easily hacked open the door as it began to unveil before them.  James was now standing on the surface of a moon for the first time in his life, wearing the full suit of his body armour complete with breather helmet and all.  The helmet, while shaped like his head, had a grey metal covering over the mouth region of his snout where lied a microprocessing unit to feed oxygen inside him, keeping his lungs comfortably breathing in any atmosphere while his eyes glinted green behind the glass.
Jax had his own helmet which resembled some sort of monstrous steel covering, with yellow eyes blankly staring always, whilst Areh only had his natural quarian suit which dealt with all atmospheres.  Once Areh was done hacking, he informed his two allies over local communications within their helmets, adding:
	"There we go...now let's head on in."
	"How come you know how to open this door?" asked James.
	"Basic Alliance coding, once you figure that out it's all easy for me."
	"What isn't easy for you?"
	"A lot of things, but that's not important right now."
Heading inside, they found a small clearance station with a sealed office to their left through a window, the airlock closing automatically behind them before opening another door in front of them.  Oxygen began to filter in through the ventilation above, as gravity began to sink in through the base's own atmosphere.  The first room of the station was a visitor's reception, a few seats and some tables to welcome newcomers to the small station with some pokey little corners hiding plants in sunlit tanks.  A monitor showing company-sponsored logos and advertisements played mutely in the corner.
	"Feels like a doctor's office," said James.
	"Yeah," said Areh.  "Except no magazines."
	"Good, they have the most boring shit to read."
	"What's the most boring thing you ever read?"
	"Uhhh...it's been like years since I was in a real doctor's office, last time was...no wait, about a year ago, but they saw me pretty quickly so I didn't have time to read."
	"Right...so where do we even start?"
	"Find the head's office?" asked Jax cautiously.  "Might wanna pull our guns out just in case."
	"But there's no signs of gunfire," replied Areh, "or blood, or anything around here."
	"Doesn't mean it's safe," said FG.  "They might have all been dealt with in the back rooms, nice and quiet.  Is there like a...visitor's log maybe we can check up?"
	"Hey that's a good idea, research stations like this have a check-in register for all their staff so let's go find it."

With an objective now in mind they headed further within the facility.  A door lead them around to the inside of the guard station, moving to the other side of its window before Areh began hacking open the computer.  All it needed was one password decrypt and he had the check-in register before him.
	"Alright lessee...I got a buncha names here, human and asari like all the staff were here...the last visitor here was about seven days ago."
	"A week?" said FG.  "And people just notice now?"
	"Sometimes research takes a while to report, not like something new pops up every single day."
	"I guess...can we take these helmets off in here, I think the oxygen's still going."
	"Best keep them on, there might be something else in the air and we've got no idea what happened to these guys."
	"Alright then...who was the last person here?"
	"One of the researchers apparently, a human called Dr. Marianne Jones...wait a minute."
	"What?"
	"This doctor Jones, she has a HUGE gap between arrival times of coming and going from here."
	"So?" asked Krungut Jax.  "People come an' go all the time."
	"Yeah but this doctor is the chief medic on here, she lives here basically.  But yet there's this huge gap of...three weeks where she was gone from the base.  That's an awful long time for a chief medic to be gone for."
	"They give a reason for that?  Maybe she wuz headin' home to visit family."
	"Or maybe she was on maternity leave," added FG.
	"Lemme access further."
The quarian continued his search within the guard's database, finding nothing but the odd security report or misdemeanour to be cautioned.  Various files were also noted on each of the staff members, all 30 of them.  Dr. Marianne Jones was a swarthy-looking woman, husky and plain but clearly a long-serving member as chief medic on board the station.  Nothing however was noted on absence of leave.
	"Nothing on here," said Areh.  "There has to be a security room somewhere, or at least her office, I'm kinda curious about this female now."
	"You gonna call it?" asked Jax.  "Come on, let's bet, whut you think happened?"
	"Jax, we literally know nothing of what's happened here, come on."
	"Awwwww come oooon, take a guess."
	"Uhhhh fiiiiine...maybe the doctor brought something back and caused all the people to leave, maybe until this place got quarantined properly."
	"I'm thinking zombies."
	"Um...there's no blood at all, or flesh."
	"...space zombies, covered up by a company who came in an' cleaned out the whole place."
	"I'm going with Areh's guess," said FG, "something was brought in, made them all go out."
	"You can't take someone else's guess, pick yer own!"
	"Alright fine, um...they all went out for a picnic gone horribly wrong."
	"HAH, seriously?!  That's stupid!"
	"Shut up, you picked zombies for god's sake."
	"You sayin' they ain't real?!  Don't you tell me they're not real!"
	"Oh god are they real, please don't tell me they're real in this galaxy."
	"Whaddaya mean THIS galaxy?!"
	"Guys hello?!" butted in Areh.  "Got a mission to do here?  Come on, we'll see what it is once we find the security room."

Not more than five minutes later did they find the main security room itself, a further ways back from the entrance itself as a rather small room with nothing but the main console and several locked cabinets.  Jax scanned through the cabinets with his omni-tool to find a small set of guns had still been left upon the station, whilst Areh began hacking into the main console itself.
	"Are you like some kind of master hacker?" asked FG.
	"Nah," said Areh, "I just pick up pieces here and there and sorta know what stuff people use to program their things.  Once I figure that out I can bring the whole thing down, if it's not TOO complex...okay, I found the last recording here, let's see what we can find."
The security footage played on the last known date of Dr. Marianne Jones, showing the front area of the research station from a cornerview as Dr. Jones walked back in through the airlock.  She moved rather sluggishly, drained of all energy as she turned towards the security guard at reception.
	"Hey there Marianne...man you look like hell, what's wrong?"
	"...the numbers."
	"Huh?"
	"The numbers...they come pouring through my veins and they...they hurt me."
	"...uh...Marianne you don't sound too good, lemme just-hold on a sec."
The guard slowly got up and moved out of the reception office to stand in front of Marianne, trying to examine her unresisting movements.
	"Have you been anywhere other than Makhaira?  Haven't heard anything from them lately."
	"The shining star is almost complete...the pain can finally stop."
	"What do you mean, what kinda pain are we talkin' here-UGHH!"
Suddenly the guard fell to his knees while clutching his face, shuddering with deep spasms all throughout his body before curling up into a foetal position at Dr. Jones' feet.  She simply walked around him, dragging her feet as she neared towards the camera which suddenly became static, flickering on and off before twisting briefly into a field of pure scrambled signal.  The three looked at each other with uncertainty, before Jax broke the silence again saying:
	"Yeaaaah I totally think you guessed it right Areh."
	"Good thing you didn't bet huh?" said Areh.  "That's the last recording we have on that day too, the rest of them just go off before they even get anything."
	"But she didn't even DO anything," added James.  "What the hell caused them to go off, not like she had some grenades on her or something."
	"I don't know, it's totally not a coincidence so let's go check the crew quarters.  Maybe one of them left some sort of clue."

After a few minutes of aimless wandering through the pristine empty hallways, they managed to find the crew quarters as being a rather cozy-looking area of several rows of bunk beds and table settings.  The last remnants of those who worked here could still be found, lived-in beds and whiskey glasses still standing on tables, the odd cardgame being folded out while in media res.  They looked through every bed, checking cabinets that they could open while conversing amongst themselves.
	"They left right in the middle of stuff," said Jax.  "Everything's still all laid out an' shit."
	"Meaning they didn't struggle," said FG, "or had no time to...man these are some nice bunk beds, they got a pretty good living going on here."
	"Totally, I mean I could take any of these on top an' sleep real good."
	"I always take the bottom...I was always bottom last time I was in a bunk bed."
	"Yeah, when?"
	"Uhhhh...some other ship I was on, not very long though but was just like, basic crew member really."
	"Guess so...hey Areh, what would you take, top or bottom?"
	"Bottom," said the quarian, "I like darker areas to sleep in, not TOO dark but kind of corner-feeling areas.  That and I worry about rolling off the top bunk and landing on the floor."
	"Hah, yeah sure, yer so skinny you'd just flutter down like space dust...hey, I found something!"
Heading over towards the krogan, James and Areh found him holding some sort of PDA, a solid pencil-thin orange interface the size of a paperweight book.  A personal diary even of one of the crew members which they soon accessed, finding the last entry to be dated four days before the last arrival of Marianne Jones.

I'm a little worried about Marianne.  Ever since she went down to check on the Makhaira construction crew, she's come back looking rather funny.  Maybe the atmosphere down there's a bit too much for her.  I don't get this theodolite building they wanna put down there, why didn't we just build the research station there in the first place, how the hell are we gonna field-test lunar patterns while on the goddamn moon?!
I really gotta talk to her, maybe I'm just going crazy...but I swear something's wrong with her, I keep seeing her hunched up in her room cradling something.  Did she hurt her arm or something?  Maybe she got infected or something...

	"I love that this info is so direct," said FG, "makes all this so much easier to figure out and all."
	"Looks like we gotta go to the planet then," said Areh, "that way we might find out some clues on where to go after miss Jones."
	"He does raise a point though.  Like, why would you build a research station on top of the thing you're researching?"
	"...that's a good question, I mean it's not the only moon Makhaira has but...that seems weird."
	"Well whatever it is, we got a new area to go to so let's hope someone down there managed to stick around."
With nothing else of interest in the abandoned research station, they headed back out to contact the Centurion Eagle and ride off down to the planet of Makhaira.  It didn't take long for them to find the Theodolite Building that they mentioned on the base.  It almost felt like a salt lake, with rocky mountains that offered a worthy challenge to the Varan mako as it crawled its way up and down the protruding mountain range.
Having landed relatively close enough in the area of the building, they found it within minutes.  A well-constructed large domed observatory having been placed in the middle of the open white plains jutting unnaturally so from the rest of the landscape.  Its white smooth texture helped to blend in with the background, but not by much as they rode up towards it.  Several transport vehicles laid around the front area, including space shuttles and a research ship sitting docked upon the plains.
Areh and Jax headed out of the vehicle first, the raptor following up as they approached the main entrance.  Strangely it had been left unlocked without any security coding whatsoever, as if someone had forgotten to close it behind them.  They readied their guns and headed on in, the raptor and quarian wielding pistols while Jax gripped his shotgun steady.  The interior was to be expected for any science station, wide-spanning rooms of hi-tech calculations but more in the height of the ceiling rather than by the width of the room.
In truth the observatory rooms were a lot smaller than expected, a project not well-funded or even by non-profit organisation as they made their way through the various computer rooms dedicating themselves to astronomical observations.  The real feature was of course the theodolite itself, a tremendously large man-made beacon shining high within its own room that peeked out of a giant slit within the domed roof.  A telescope also wedged itself next to it, meticulously well-built as a long black length with its own computer for calculating trajectories opposite of several desks where reports laid scattered everywhere.
Yet no one was here, not a single soul could be found anywhere within the station, prompting even more concern from the three newcomers.
	"Whut the hell's going on here?" asked Jax slowly.
	"They have to be here," said Areh, "their ship's there and everything and there's no tracks leading out from this place, they've gotta be here!"
	"Did we check every room?" asked FG.  "Maybe there's someplace we're not seeing."
	"Has to be...the security was off too, that's really weird...maybe...they found something here, so it would have to be in the reports."

Looking over the various scientific reports in the observatory area, most of them were simply trajectory notes upon the moon of Kopis.  But three weeks ago was dated a more unusual find, of an unknown satellite that had been spotted circling Kopis before making its way down towards Makhaira.  From that point on there was no more to report, other than that the satellite had been retrieved and was being examined for study.
	"So something landed here and then they stop talking?" said James cautiously.  "Sounds pretty suspect right there, where the hell's the crash site?"
	"I dunno," said Areh.  "But it has to still be here, it can't have just left on its own could it?"
	"Hey, look over here."
James pulled out a tiny PDA that had been peeking out of the mound of science reports, flickering quite weakly with something simple showing on its screen as they tried to decipher it.

The Sandman's coming in his train of cars
With moonbeam windows and with wheels of stars
So hush you little ones and have no fear
The man-in-the-moon he is the engineer

	"...man in the moon?" asked Jax.  "Someone's gone off the deep end."
	"I dunno what the heck this is," replied Areh, "but it's different from everything else so maybe some kinda clue?  Cuz the wheels part is highlighted."
	"Oooh a mystery, awesome...ya think maybe it's something to do with the observatory thingy?"
	"...the...telescope?"
	"Yeah!  Like, maybe if you put in some kinda command on it, then it might open something!"
	"...you know what, everything else about this is weird so why not, let's try it.  What do we got?"
	"Train of cars, moonbeam windows, wheels of stars highlighted-"
	"Wait...wheels...I remember there's a constellation to do with wheels..."
Areh looked through the codex database on his omni-tool, scanning for anything relating to wheels.  A few minutes later something popped up.
	"Auriga!"
	"Huh?"
	"Auriga, the charioteer north of the celestial equator!"
	"Wait," said FG, "isn't that what humans call that?  Why are you using the human name for it?"
	"...I'm...not?  You DO realise you have a translator don't you, and it just translated what I said from my own language?"
	"OHHHH ohhh right, god sorry I forgot, was all confused."
	"It's okay...anyways, we need to position the telescope like this and hope something might happen."
The quarian slowly began to input commands onto the telescope, using the data from his omni-tool on where exactly laid Auriga.  After what felt like an eternity of just twelve minutes realigning the telescope, they found their answer.  The console suddenly sparked into life with an unsteady beeping, as the sound of a door slowly began to grind open from behind them.  The wall within the domed room next to the research desks revealed a hidden passage, one that headed further down into the unknown darkness.
	"...I can't believe that worked," said Areh'Narohl.
	"HAH, nailed it!" said Jax.  "That makes us even Areh!"
	"Whaaaatever, let's go see where this damn thing leads."
With caution they entered the dark passageway, turning on their lights from their omni-tools as they found a staircase carved out of natural stone, weirdly at odds with the metallic structure itself as they descended further in.  The stairwell had not been well-sculpted, the stone beneath the observatory having been carved out rather haphazardly, with no sense of guidance or full purpose to it.  Sharp jagged walls jutted out from all around them, threatening to scar their faces should one take a bad step as they softly walked downwards, deeper into the abyss.

Said abyss was actually rather well-lit once they passed the stairwell and found themselves deep beneath the observatory, a long cutting passageway with some clumsily-rigged lighting showing the way forwards.  The change in atmosphere was felt by them all as they held up their weapons and walked further in, Jax standing out in front to act like a meat shield in front of Areh, whilst James stepped alongside him out and ready.
After a good ten minutes of walking through the carved hallway, which slowly began to slope downwards further into the planet's crust, they found the very end to be a large circular room.  A hollowed-out area where 34 people sat waiting on their knees, staring towards one single person bathed within a sharp white light, blindingly strong to the point of silhouetting her against the wall.  Even then they recognised Dr. Marianne Jones standing before her audience, holding aloft something in her hands as they all stared upon her.
All of them were shirtless, men and women of both human and asari, backs of white, purple, black and blue glistening towards the newcomers.  An incessant humming noise could be heard from the chamber, which they soon realised were from the people themselves.  Dr. Jones herself was murmuring something to herself, her own chest naked and scarred with a carved number 5 beneath her breasts.  The moment they stepped closer, the people turned all at once, as the doctor sighed with relief.
	"AH...ohhh thank GOD you are here, we've been waiting for you for so long in this place!"
	"The fuck is going on here?" said Jax quietly.
	"We're here to help," said Areh calmly, "my name is Areh'Narohl and we're with a rescue team that was sent out to find you."
	"Rescue?  Rescue from what, we have simply been...sitting here waiting for you...for you...for our message."
	"A message?  What kind of message?"
	"A message that came to us a month ago, singing from the stars beyond to the other side of the far moon...a message that twisted and slithered through our minds like serpents across broken glass, bleeding its essence deep inside of our feelings, our thoughts...our souls."
	"Souls of many," said the people, "souls of tears we never shed."
	"And to think that we are finally free...FREE!  Oh...oh god..."
She went down on her knees holding the artifact in her hands, weeping suddenly before her crew as they slowly began to stand up.  Jax aimed his shotgun without warning, but Areh forced him to put it back down with a look of outrage towards him.  All of them had a single number or a letter carved onto their chests.  A 4 here, a 2 there, one had an A and another had an E.  None of them seemed to make sense, but for the sake of posterity Areh tapped his omni-tool to take a picture, making sure to capture each person in the frame.
	"Miss?  Doctor Marianne Jones?  Are you alright?"
	"I...y-yes...I'm fine.  I'm sorry...the sadness, i-it hits me so strong I...I cannot think, none of us could think when this thing, this bloody THING in my hands just won't stop singing to me!  IT JUST WON'T, STOP, SINGING!"
	"It's okay, don't worry!  None of you have to worry about anything you're all...clearly suffering from something that's happened here and we'll do all we can to help you.  What are you holding doctor?"
	"It...it's...our totem."
	"Huh?"
	"The totem...of sorrow...not OUR sorrow...others' sorrow...it...i-i-it landed here, somehow from outer space, we don't know...we don't know, we don't know we don't know where it is, two-four-one, gee-five-six, ee-four-three, one-one-six, just-STOP IT!  PLEASE STOP TALKING I'M NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM!  PLEASE, STOP IIIIIT!"

She cried once again, sobbing into a fit of tears as Areh walked closer.  The people did not seem to mean any harm, their faces streaked with tears and looking starved from hunger they did not know they even had.  The quarian walked as James followed behind him, keeping his distance while looking towards the item in Marianne's grasp.  They could not see what it was, other than that it was a shard made of amethyst of some sort, cradled against her cheek as she rocked back and forth.  James asked her softly:
	"Miss?  We're here now...it's alright.  We got the message, you can go home now."
	"H-h-have you?  Have you understood our message?"
	"Yes.  Now why don't we take that thing away from you and we can all go home alright-"
	"NO!"
She suddenly bolted upright before holding the shard up high staring at it with the most terrified look.
	"DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS!  PLEASE!  PLEASE NOOO!"
Before she drove it down straight into her face aiming right for her eye, James grabbed her just in time and violently forced her arm back, shoving her up against the wall and fighting against her grip.  It was powerfully tight, tighter than death as she seized up with great resistance, her muscles wound up so hard that they began to shake within danger of being ruptured from a seizure.  She wasn't letting go of the item, until James grabbed his pistol and slammed it into her upper arm, the doctor screaming as she dropped the crystal by pure involuntary spasm.
The disarming tactic he remembered from years back helping him as he forced his leg against the back of hers, dropping Marianne onto her back swiftly.  He shot the crystal without a moment's thought, watching it shatter into a dozen pieces of twinkling violet before them, holstering his gun before checking on the woman.  Areh was startled, and also rather furious but struggled to restrain himself for the sake of the lost crew around him, the raptor asking:
	"You alright ma'am?"
	"Wha...what...the song.  The song it...it's stopped."
	"Huh?"
	"You didn't hear it?  That song just...it just kept playing in our heads it...wouldn't stop playing."
	"I don't hear any song miss...I think you're safe now."
	"...hhhhhoh thank god...oh...ohhhh god what have I done, what have I done I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!  I-"
	"Hey, hey it's okay...we're alright now, everyone's here and we're all going to get you home...alright?"
	"A-alright...thank you...whoever you are."
	"We're the-"
	"Rescue team," interrupted Areh.  "We're just doing our job doctor."
Areh shot James a filthy look as they began to round up the rest of the crew members, making sure that all of them were now okay and well-recovered from whatever brief fugue had taken them.  They headed up from the strange chamber, leaving the shards of crystal for the quarian to pick up and investigate for later, whilst Jax and James guided the 34 people up back to the observatory.

With the Eagle now reported to, they contacted the authorities on what had happened and asked them to come help their fellow staff members, the research institute in charge sending out a ship two days later.  The Sole Calibrators, a name not linked to their acitivies as mercenaries, received a profitable sum for their troubles, as well as managing to save all of the crew members that were involved.  They returned to their separate ships, as the research institute began to help their mentally-shaken staff. while also gathering the rest of their data.
Back on the ship, James lied back in his chair at the conference room with the rest of the group as well as Leiah, saying:
	"That was the weirdest fucking thing."
	"You think?" said Areh bitterly.  "I thought you'd see plenty of underground cults carving numbers and letter into them."
	"The hell's your problem?"
	"You pulled out your gun on her, what the fuck?!"
	"I wasn't gonna SHOOT her for fuck's sake, I was gonna disarm her!"
	"With a pistol?!"
	"She had a death grip man, I couldn't punch it out, see this upper arm here?!  You punch that shit hard enough and it drops anyone's grip, I was just making sure."
	"Well maybe I'd like to know next time because I don't like surprises."
	"Well, tough shit, because I can't plan everything that's gonna happen, and neither can you."
	"...whatever, job's done I'm going to my room."
	"You gonna figure out those numbers?" asked Norem.
	"Maybe, I don't know, fuck it."
The quarian left in a huff, stomping to his room leaving the rest of the crew rather awkward at each other.  James eventually shrugged asking:
	"What the fuck is his problem?"
	"He's just in a bad mood," said Jax, "just ignore it he'll be fine."
	"You sure?  Did I do something wrong because he wasn't like that until I tried to fight that woman."
	"Not...really."
	"What?"
	"No, just-never mind."
	"No, come on what?  What did I do wrong?"
	"Look, it's hard to explain alright, just let him be."
	"Seems easy enough to me, dude has a short-ass fuse!  Guy needs to learn to chill, and take it from me, I know, you've got to control that shit."
	"No you don't, now shut up!"
	"Guys guys!" said Lirem.  "Come on, let's not get all huffy after a good mission.  We got everyone out, they're all gonna be nice and recovering up in the hospital back at the institute, and we got paid good without needing to fight anybody.  And hey, for yer first mission, that was some pretty damn good work out there James."
	"Heh, thanks," said James, "just glad I could help her, that woman was really messed up.  It's like, she knew what she was doing was crazy, but at the same time she just struggled to fight against it.  ...I wonder what the hell that message was."
	"Who knows?" said Jax.  "Areh took some pictures and saved up those shards you smashed for later, maybe he can figure it out."
	"I hope so, that shit was crazy.  Is that normal in this galaxy?"
	"Yes," said all four aliens.
	"More than you think," said Leiah.  "I mean the hanar alone got some weiiiiird things about their enkindlers."
	"SHHH quiet!" said Jax nervously.  "Whut if the boss wuz listenin' just now?!"
	"Relax dude," said Lirem, "you'll know when he is, so let's just wait until our next mission okay?"
	"Alright...I'm gonna go chill for a bit, holler if you need me."
The krogan walked off to his room as James, Leiah and the Hallaher brothers sat talking to each other, before the raptor eventually went to get drinks to clear their parched throats.  He took the time behind bar to reflect on a few things of being in this galaxy, stirring drinks softly together as they slowly swirled into their own little galaxy, spiralling with his thoughts inside them.  An entire ocean of stars deeper than the sea, and all he needed was at least one person who had a great enough science that could send him home.
Surely, in a world as wide as this, it was impossible for there not to be someone who could.  He was certainly going to meet plenty other strange beings of a far different power than he wanted to.