The GA Rapid Response Scientific Unit landed planetside at 0800 hours Earth time. They were at least ten miles away from the nearest anomaly: what the scientific nerd people had deemed those strange alien settlements before they had learned that they were settlements at all. Admiral Vir –piloting the craft as was his want – felt the smooth metal of the landing struts ease against the unbroken metallic surface that was the ground. The ship roared and likely echoed like a thunderclap outside as he eased the ship down into position and then cut the engine listening to the soft pop and whirr as the hot metal began to cool. Inside his helmet, he could hear his own breath sharp and focused inside the enclosed space.

Behind him in the craft, the scientists were unbuckling themselves from their seats and stewing gear on the uniforms, the small Tesraki looking like children when compared to their much taller human counterparts. Outside the window a thick red mist had settled over them, momentarily blown away by the power of the engine, only to come descending slowly down from above to settle back over them with the most insidious slowness.The first wave of scientists moved towards the airlock, and he let them go ahead with a group of marines, waiting for the last person to exit before finally following after.

The door cracked open before him with a sharp hiss, as red mist spilled into the room and he stepped outside his footsteps echoing loudly on the smooth metal of the planet's surface.

The scientists had already gotten to work hauling the cargo from the storage units on the side of the ships, and dragging long crates onto hoering trollies. The sound they made in the immense space was deafening, a ruckus clattering that echoed up all around them.

It put his teeth on edge to hear that sort of noise in such a space,.

It felt, wrong somehow, and he wasn't even really sure why.

Like screaming in a cathedral during service. Granted, some people might have found that sot of thin funny, but he sure didn't, to him it seemed as if they were befowling some sort of sacred space by simply being there, and the least they coil do after that was to at least be quiet. The Tesraki, and the Vrul didn't seem to notice the strange atmosphere around tem, but by looking at the other humans, he could tell he wasn't the only one who could feel it.

He watched them shift nervously on their feet as great wafts of red cloud billowed in around them.

So it wasn't just him?

Or maybe it was everything that had happened the night before.

Either way he felt as if their alien counterparts weren't exercising nearly enough caution. He paused a moment at that thought thinking how odd it was for him, as a human of all things, to be thinking that. Usually it was the other way around, but somehow, now, based on a lack of that inherent sense of pending doom, the Aliens were moving without due caution.

Soon enough the screeching of their metal tools and boxes being dragged over the ground was just too much for him to handle, and he stepped forward, "I think it might be best if we kept the noise to a minimum." His voice was tinny over the comms, and even through the visors of the suits he could see the aliens staring at him in confusion.

"What do you mean, Admiral."

He sighed searching for words to define a meaning he couldn't quite understand evanescent like smoke, it seemed to fade every time he tried to grasp at it.

He turned to look at Krill, who had paused to watch him, shrewdly through the visor of his helmet. He wasn't much of a traditional scientist, but he had insisted on coming along as the crew medic in case something happened.

He switched his comm over so only Krll could hear

"I don't know krill, Something just feels off here, like we are being watched, and I get the feeling that the noise.... Well the noise is only attracting attention."

Krill paused for a long moment, And Adam stared at him pleadingly through his visor, though he knew the little alien couldn't see his face, all around him the other aliens were looking on in concern not sure what was happening. He would have explained it to them, but knew –unlike Krill– they weren' likely to understand."

Krill nodded and turned to the others, "Keep as quiet as you can."

They nodded in confusion, but the noise from then on was greatly reduced, though every slight scrape put his teeth on edge.

He spent most of his time halfway in between the marines and the Scientific crew, making himself useful wherever he could find use, either carrying things or anxiously watching out into the mist with his rifle cradled in both arms. Not for the first time, or even the hundredth time, he wished that Sunny was there to watch his back. He felt horribly exposed in the mist, and knew that if she had been here he would have felt more confident.

Despite being surrounded by marines, he would have traded them for Sunny any day of the week.

Well, he would have preferred having all of them all at once, but rarely does one get what tey want.

With the scientific tools placed on the hovercart, Adam, lifted the ground Radar he had pilfered from one of the boxes, turning it on and pointing it in the direction of tier final destination. The Radar made a light clicking noise almost like a geiger counter, but he could tell from its alerts that they weren't yet close to anything substantial.

He set the frequency of his actual geiger counter to a different sort of clicking noise

There was some radiation here, and while the suit protected him from cosmic rays on a regular basis, he would till rather know what kind of environment he was getting himself into. He adjusted the machine, and maverick watched him from some interest, where she stood to the side of the group, the smallest human, but still taller than all of the Tesraki there.

"Since when did you know how to work all the sciency shit."

"Since I took the time to learn."

"I thought you were a flight jock, not a science nerd."

"Why not be both." he muttered, kicking on the anti grav fields around his boots, and skating around to the other side of the hover car. He liked moving like this, it was nearing complete silence. Clearly Ramirez enjoyed it as well, considering the man couldn't help from doing little spins and pirouettes like he was back on ice again.

As long as he was quiet about it, Adam could hardly complain, and took his position near the front side of the hovercade rifle still cradled in a sling before his chest, hand resting lightly on the grip. His finger stroked the trigger guard but never the trigger, and he kept his eyes out on the red mist before tem.

From there they began to move, about twenty strong, most of the aliens riding on the hover cart, while the humans scared along beside reaching speeds that seemed to make the aliens nervous. Krill held onto the back of Adam's suit floating around behind him like some sort of demented baloon. Adam would have laughed if he wasn't so on edge, especially with the way the other vrul looked at him with such concern and confusion.

Eventually his radar clicking began to speed up, and he looked down at the detector to find a small cluster of those monoliths appearing on the horizon. They were close, at least close enough that the curvature of the planet was no longer getting in their way. The red mist still obscured their vision mostly, but he kept them going, stopping only as the first hulking shadow came into sight, or not stopping but slowing down, knowing that the structure was large enough that it would probably be a while before they actually reached it.

They Stopped about 100 yards away close enough to notice a large pile of rubble at the center of the little cluster of monoliths. There were no floating monoliths here, and the strange metallic grating noise that had followed him on his first trip to this planet was now all but silent.

They unloaded the tools onto smaller hover wagens, one to every scientist.

Adam was handed a couple of tools they thought he could handle, mostly busy work to do the things that the scientists didn't want to do but still needed to do to cover all their bases. He didn't mind. He liked having something to do, and he supposed this was the best place to learn: the bottom.

He moved with them across the billowing landscape, which was marginally less foggy now, giving them a view of the entire monolith structure.

Something seemed.... Strangely familiar about it, though he couldn't have said what. It had nothing to do with his last visit, but something.... Deeper. At any moment he expected a voice to ring out through the echoing and billowing darkness, but none came.

Instead, a beam of light passed over them from the distant Sun, and a waft of blue fog rolled in from the left, darkening things as soon as they seemed to have lightened

The scientists fanned out to either side, and Adam made his way down the middle, towards the large pile of rubble. The marines fanned out with the scientists, one marine to every nerd. He was surprised to find he had his own marine, and looked back over his shoulder to find Ramirez's familiar space suit following him at a distance, nervously glancing around at the towering black structures that dominated the landscape.

Adam could hardly blame him. He felt the same way.

Together they walked forward to the pile of rubble. It was most just the same black material that happened to make up the rest of the structures, and, carefully, he stepped off the metal and into the rubble, using the instruments to examine the rock, running his machine over, and then under and then over. It whirred, but didn't make the noise he was looking for. He examined the rock closely, noticing the even grain of the broken pieces, and bagging one for a sample.

Perhaps he was biased, but it certainly didn't look natural.

Then again there were plenty of minerals that grew in ways that didn't seem natural, so maybe he was just kidding himself. Ramirez hovered at his back nervously shifting from foot to foot and staring around at the sky and rolling mist.

"I don't like this." he muttered

"That makes you and everyone human here." He responded, running the machine over the rock as he climbed a little further up, or maybe it was metal.... Or somewhere in between? He wasn't sure. Wasn't rock just like.... Fancy metal.

He sighed, some scientist he was, not even really sure what the difference was between rock and metal other than metal was.... Stronger or some shit, or rock was made up of a bunch of different metals and non metals while metal was..... Just what it was.

He made it to the top of the rock lost in his thoughts when there was a sudden whirring from the machine.

He looked down in shock and surprise only to find his machine resting right over something.... Something that certainly was not natural. He forze and stared.

Looked away and then looked back..... Back at the strange markings on the rock.

Strange markings that could be mistaken as nothing else, other than writing.

"Find something?" Ramirez radioed in, but Adam didn't answer staring at te strange script before him.

He rubbed his eyes, looked away, and then turned back, rubbing them again.

He felt.... Very strange, and the letters seemed to spin before him morphing and warping even as he looked.

His eyes ran along the line of text.

And so with knowledge they did pass away.

He blinked again staring at the letters that made.... No objective sense but, yet, every time he looked at them he read the same line, no.... It wasn't really reading though was it. Every time he looked at those words, he UNDERSTOD what they were saying.

He shook himself. No, he was just crazy, and hi mind was playing tricks on him.

"Ramirez, come here." he ordered.

He heard the slight rattling ehind him as Ramirez clambered up the rock andpaused over his shoulder.

"What the hell is that."

"Writing of some kind. What do you make of it."

He stared at Ramirez very intently for a few seconds as the other man took a look, "Gibberish to me, some kind of alien language?"

Adam cleared his throat, "Uh, yeah, I.... Guess." e turned to his comm to transm.

"I have something."

"What did you find."

"Some kind of.... Weird alien writing, I don't know. Better send someone over."

It wasn't long until one of the scientists jogged over followed by maverick. The two of them climbed up onto the pile of rock, and the alien knelt before it in surprise and great interest eyes scanning over the text, "I think you have found something, Admiral."

As he watched, Adam saw Maverick press a hand to the outside of her helmet.

He opened the cop to her.

"Mav?"

"Yeah boss?"

"Are you seeing...."

"And so with knowledge hey did pass away?"

"Shit."

"You see it too?"

"Yeh."

"And Ramirez."

"Just sees scribbles."

The two of them stood there staring at each other awkwardly. Green mist rolled in from the lef and it was very suddenly that Adam felt, a strange sensation rising up inside him, a sensation that maverick seemed to feel as well as she stood and the two of them turned towards the pile of rubble. The scientist and Ramirez called out in surprise as Adam and Maverick pushed past them, and began frantically digging through the rubble with their hands.

They flipped over large blocks of stone grabbing the pieces with strange writing and dragging them down from the rubble and onto the ground where they began to arrange them. The other scientists began running over as the commotion started.

A few of the marines tried to pull Maverick and Adam back, some of them pausing to stare at the strange alien letters only to suddenly turn and join their companions while others stood there in confusion unsure of what was going on.

By the end Adam knelt at the bottom of the rubble with maverick behind him and a few of the marines ranged around.

Together they read.

"And so with knowledge they did pass away

And pillars of stone were left by them

And light came before them

And the host surrounded them

Until they were brought up

And none were left save pillars of stone

Woah be unto those who find this stone and read"