The Echo Saga || "Era Drakka" #11 || Revelations

[spoiler]Well hello there. I bet you didn't expect me to be back already, DID YA?[/spoiler] ERA DRAKKA [i]Echo[/i] The door to the ship's cargo bay opened, and Echo rushed outside, into the ruined Syndicate camp on Cape Orignal. The smoke had been visible for miles, and the crushed tents, still smoldering, confirmed Echo's fear. Ragged cloth, soaked with dark blood, was slowly waving in the wind. The old barricade was wrecked, its walls broken down by an unknown entity. Some parts of the radio equipment had caught fire, and the flames had spread to the tents, burning the encampment to the ground. On first glance, Echo saw at least three bodies, almost impossible to recognize, and for a split second, grief overtook him. Then, the Syndicate leader's professionalism made him turn around, facing the others, who were petrified by the wrecked encampment. "Look for the bodies. There was one squad and the pilots still here, so we need to find five bodies. Identify them, and then cremate them", he said with a monotone voice. "Chavam, Nguye and Reksis, get to work on the Vex samples you collected at that Sink" Echo knew they had to be fast, as this unkown enemy (clearly not the Vex or Fallen) apparently was strong enough to defeat an expertly trained Fireteam. As he walked past a wretched tent, he saw a brother's corpse, who he only knew as corporal O'Neill, thrown aside like a toy, his neck snapped. What kind of monstrosity was able to do such a thing? They needed to get moving, Echo decided before approaching McRouth. "What's the plan, commander?", the large Scot asked while putting an antenna back in place. "Simple. Research those samples as fast as possible and get the hell out of here once Fox gets back. Not only is it likely the beast will come back, the group's morale suffers from it as well. And while I know for sure that our brothers will stay, and Validus probably as well, those other Ashen guys could very well flee. And that's really not something we can use right now. Tell your men to rebuild the barricade, if possible, and patrol the camp surroundings. We've only found three bodies so far, the other two have to be somewhere" After giving his orders to McRouth, Echo walked  to the cliffside of Cape Orignal and looked at the horizon. The Exo stood there and didn't move for hours, only disturbed once by McRouth, when a corpse had been found in the surrounding jungle, almost impossible to identify and torn apart by giant claws. No trace of the last pilot had been found yet. Echo's artificial eyes were constantly fixed on the smoking horizon, where the Syndicate was hopefully distracting the Vex. If one could judge by the sound of the explosions, who were still hearable at Cape Orignal, the Syndicate army was doing well. It wasn't until three hours later that Echo suddenly turned around, startling an eating William, and headed for the research tent, or what was left of it. As he entered, he saw Reksis gently shocking a scorched Vex chassis, noting the different reactions of the alien thing. A bit further, standing under a bright spotlight, was Fal, dissecting (if you could call it that) a Vex photoreceptor. Dr. Nguye was staring at a small sample of Vex radiolaria, careful not to touch the possibly infectuous substance. Upon noticing Echo from the corner of his eye, Nguye immediately turned towards the Exo. The Syndicate leader asked him the obvious question. "What'd you find?" Nguye scratched his head. "To be honest, not much. Most of what we found are basic Vex codes which have been in the Syndicate database for decades. Furthermore, this is just a field laboratorium, so more often than not the database is more accurate than what we're finding. We'll need more time" "We don't have much time. What did you already look into?" Echo asked, a serious look on his metallic face. "We checked photoreceptor memory of the last six months, sudden changes in the radiolaric substance, new added directives, possible connection to a larger mind... Besides things we already knew, we barely found anything. Our next idea was to check recent Slap rifle activity, but that'll be hard. Maybe-" Echo interrupted the scientist. "What about recent data influx memory?" Instead of answering, Nguye immediately ran a simple test, quickly finding what he was looking for. "About nine months ago, an enormous amount of data was transferred across the Virgo Prohibition network. This is probably the data which they use to simulate Guardians" "Good. Can you trace it?" Nguye nodded and went back to work. After a good five minutes he turned to Echo again. "It's impossible to know where it came from. It has been rerouted over and over again and-" Once again Echo interrupted Nguye. "Is the Virgo Crater one of the possible rerout points?" "Possibly," the scientist said vaguely. Echo immediately left the tent, leaving behind a clueless Nguye. As he encountered McRouth, Echo told him: "We're leaving. Leave behind the heaviest equipment, it'll get picked up by our brothers later. I want to leave in ten minutes" "What about Lieutenant Burton?" McRouth protested. "We cannot afford to wait for his group. He's already on the way to the Crater anyways, we only have to pick him up. Tell him to wait at a rendez-vous point" And with those words, Echo swiftly walked away. Exactly nine minutes and thirty-two seconds later, the Hawkeye lifted off, leaving behind Cape Orignal and four small graves, stones covering the corpses of the brave fallen brothers. Various brothers, including Echo himself, were staring at the metal floor, thinking of their comrades, dead but not dishonored. Eventually, Echo stood up and walked towards an angry looking Validus. Contrary to what his look might have suggested, Validus sounded very calm when he started talking to Echo. "You could've talked to me about the fact that you were planning to leave. Or at least warn me" Echo was looking out of a window, seemingly at nothing. "My apologies, Val. I certainly didn't mean to offend you in any way. I just realized something, and it was absolutely imperative that we left before something happened" Now Validus was getting a bit pissed off. "Could you please stop being this vague, Echo? Why can't you just tell me?" The Exo sighed. "I fear that whatever attacked us, might come back. And I really don't want to be in the neighbourhood when it gets back" "It? IT? What do you mean by that. Are you assuming that some kind of monster took out your brothers, and that we, with all our numbers, won't be able to defeat that. There's only one creature on Venus that might be able to do that, and that's a-" "Batadactyl" Echo calmly completed the Titan's sentence. "Don't be silly, Echo. A batadactyl has never attacked a Guardian before. We're safe", Validus confidently told him. Echo smirked. "You forgot one thing: we're no Guardians" TO BE CONTINUED [spoiler]More stories will be added onto the main page, which I will link here. https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/226647634?sort=0[/spoiler]