//------------------------------//
// Consequences (Outdated) 
// Story: Project: Mars 
// by Whirl Hoof 
//------------------------------//

Omega rubbed aggressively at her temples, already feeling the migraine coming on from...

Well, this. Once she'd gotten past the initial shock and- she wasn't afraid to admit it, fear -of a living alien in her room, Chorol and Steffan had barged right after, the former stopping the alien from madly picking apart containers for whatever reason, the latter apologizing for the, as he put it, "inconvenience."

About five minutes later, everything had somewhat cooldown, and Omega was able to take stock of the situation, and get the stories from her explorer and biologist.

It was a damn nightmare.

The alien at the heart of this nonsense was currently sitting next to and slightly in front of Steffan, eyes downcast and ears flopped over- she still couldn't believe the first and only living ET ever discovered looked like an almost cartoonish purple horse. She could've sworn she'd seen it before.

"So let me get this straight," Omega snarled, switching from her temples to crossing her arms, glaring at everyone, but most of all her.

"You, in the middle of the night, without informing anybody, decided to take a rover unauthorized, drove out to God knows where, based entirely on a hunch."

"You then- somehow -found the first living alien humans have ever known, proceeded to take it BACK TO OUR DAMN BASE, again without alerting or informing anybody, and instead treat it like a friend visiting from out of town. Did I sum that up properly?"

Chorol (intelligently) said nothing, only folding her arms behind her and staring at the ground.

Omega took a deep breath, and sighed. "I can't tell whether you just pulled the luckiest, bravest, or stupidest stunt in history. LIkely all three."

She turned her head to the alien, but still addressed the explorer- from what she was told, the horse couldn't understand English. Rather expected.

"I won't say I'm not pissed, because I am very much so. But I also know your track record- finding groundbreaking discovery is apparently a children's game to you. But still- why didn't you wake me up when you arrived, or anybody else? Hell, why didn't you alert Night Command at any point? Why did you go alone? We don't have first contact protocols, sure, but we have protocols for literally everything else."

Chorol grumbled under her breath. "I was sent alone last time..."

The base leader narrowed her eyes, hissing in response. "That was under Henson, who, I'll remind you, is younger than you are, and has about a tenth my experience. That order would never have flown if I wasn't in sickbay."

Chorol returned to silence.

Omega sat down on her bead, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "I need to think on what to do about you. You did break more rules than I can count on my fingers, but you did also discover a living ET, and handled the situation resourcefully- if not intelligently."

She looked back up. She turned to Steffan, and pointing at the alien. "Wake up the entire Bio and Medic teams, and get every scan you can ASAP. I don't care if you inhale a third of our coffee rations, this is critical. Whether it intentionally pulled that... whatever it was, or not, it still was capable of putting two human adults into crippling mental pain in seconds with seemingly little effort. For that matter, wake up at least four Sec units, too."

Both Steffan and Chorol were about to protest, but she waved them off. "I'm not saying we're going to lock this thing in the brig or shoot it, but unlike someone, I'd prefer not to let an incredibly ancient psychic alien wander around my base without supervision and, if necessary, detainment."

"It's a she, ma'am," the explorer mumbled again.

"How do you know? Yeah, it uses the same symbol, which is absurdly unlikely, but it doesn't mean they indicate the same term. A decade ago, kids laughed at the letter 'E', and adults had no clue what the joke was. I'm calling the alien an 'it' if and until it can tell us itself."

"As for you," Omega barked, pointing to the shuffling explorer, "give me the rover keys and your card, then head to your room immediately. At the absolute minimum, you're under suspension from any missions and equipment for a week. Do I make myself clear?"

The explorer sighed but nodded, handing her superior the keys and her security card. She then walked out, drawing the alien's gaze as she left.

"Now- I need to let Home Command know about this, rouse the rest of the base afterward. Keep an eye on that," Omega said, nodding to the alien, who was still glancing around the room with a strange look of longing.

Steffan nodded, then guided the alien out of the room, presumably going to wake the listed teams.

For her part, before any NASA message, Omega grabbed a beer from her mini fridge and downed it in ten seconds flat. She really needed it after these space opera shenanigans. Setting the empty bottle down, she decided against another, and instead booted up the computer. The message wouldn't actually hit Earth for ten minutes, but that was fine- not like they could do much about the situation besides give advice, and she had a feeling they were just as lost as her.

Before alerting Home Command, Omega pulled out a drawer, and from it, one of the artifacts that a team besides Chorol had unearthed. The Arch personnel had already finished scanning and investigating it, so until it could be shipped to a museum or storage, she decided to hold onto it. She didn't know why, exactly, but she could swear she always heard a strange humming from it, an almost ethereal tune.

The artifact was a little crown made out of gold, with inset blue sapphires, and a rather large purple star crystal on top.