Julie Bronn- Senior Engineer
The wind howls as the surface of a very remote planet comes into view, as the sun rises on this place it does get brighter, now you can see the shadows lift, the abundance of surface to cover is pretty immense. This planet is Sirus 4, just outside of the solar system close to Earth is the year 3255, the resources have been drained on Earth, but interstellar travel has given the citizens an opportunity to replenish resources needed to maintain Earth or to build new livable places on these remote planets. Most planets are set up with outposts, housing a crew to explore the surface where they hope to find precious resources needed to support Gallant Industries, a corporation who has developed the technology for travel and is in serious debt trying to recover. Gaea outpost is a large base that houses a small group of colonists, a team of people are assigned to explore and gather resources to improve as well as gain wealth for Gallant, they are company people now but had other careers before joining the space corps. As the day starts the crew prepare for thew journey today, many are fidgeting about the hall pacing and a little nervous.
Dr Maxwell Trent associate scientist and co leader of the group sets his pack down, he is 40 years old however very premature gray with a beard and mustache, he looks over at his brother, Dr. Josiah Trent, “ Well it looks like long range scanners have picked up a vessel that crashed north of us some time ago which could have some materials or resources we need.” Josiah nods, “Yea I think we should get the crew ready for the trek.” Josiah is 5 years younger than Maxwell, he is balding but still has his dark hair color with a mustache, like his brother they are physically fit, both doctors however Josiah is more in the biology field, Maxwell in Bio/Cyber mechanics. The rest of the crew gather to make the first journey, Myra, android, pilot for the group, young with platinum blonde hair and very barbie like in appearance however extremely durable, reliable. Julie Bronn, 35, blonde, slim with a long pony tail, senior engineer that is well versed in technologies whether it is earth based or alien. Sally Foster, 35, Dark Brown hair with glasses, built very strong physically she is a scientist in geology but has also commanded groups before in her career. William Watson, 25, dark black hair, fit and slim, he is a scientist specializing in xenobiology but fairly new to a planet side hop. Maxwell greets the group as they gather near the mess head table, “Morning, we have a scan that shows a vessel which has been partially submerged in the north lakes area, we hope to scavenge some resources today.” A slight grumble between most of the crew but all seem settled in what they will play a part in, Myra smiles and says “I’ll get the lunar buggies all ready to go, they should offer the most efficient travel north.” William smiles, he is fond of the synthetic form and how well done the latest models are, his interest in alien life has been a passion however a close second are the androids. Everyone packs the gear to move out in the next 30 minutes, the crew travel light, they are no space marines, they don’t have extensive combat or weapon training however they are fit and confident in what they can accomplish.
The lunar buggies power up and the gritty surface sprays behind the spinning wheels as it scoots across the surface, in the distance after a short while you can see a spiky shape sticking out of a lake area but a shallow one, just before it there is a campsite of sorts. They stop and examine the site, it seems someone had been staying here, not much left of evidence to ascertain what or who was here, provisions seem gone and a crude shelter to shield against the winds. Moving forward they come across the front section of ship which is on dry land at least, “Any idea whose ship that is William?” Maxwell inquires, “Not sure, seems to have some of the Skift shape if I had to guess.” William responds, “Maybe be extra careful in case there are Skift here, Skift are an alien race that is advanced technologically, they are tall and slim creatures with hard scaly skin with spiky appendages. Not really something you want to tangle with so the crew is very cautious with investigating this vessel, they carefully pull up next to the nose and look for entrance paths. The bridge is located in this first area inside the nose planted on some rocky ledge, they manage to open the outer doors and realize there is still some power in this wreckage, maybe it is not old or the residual energies are active for centuries, they can not tell unless they look closer. In the upper level of the bridge the crew notice some lights and a compartment that is locked, Julie looks at this spot, she notices it is an advanced AI lock system. “They commonly use these to lock away important or dangerous items, we should check this out carefully.” Once Julie looks this over she realized it is heavily computer based, not as simple as a mechanical lock, she nods over to Maxwell, “This might be your area of expertise.” Maxwell examines the panel, seems to be a multi provisional coding system that changes frequently, he frantically starts typing as if racing the screen to the next prompt and after a couple minutes they hear a click sound! Maxwell smiles, “That was tough, but I got it!” He opens the panel and inside is a weapon, it is not alien in nature, in fact it’s an RPG launcher, however it does not seem functional. Julie looks at it, she determines it could be fixed and there are 4 rockets inside as well, they have been here a while as they are a little dusty. The team proceeds across the large bridge area that connects to a smaller compartment, this room is a 10’ x 10’ room that the door is smashed partially open, Josiah moves forward, he opens the door the rest of the way and inside this room seems to be very disjointed. Almost as if the scenery changes in a flash this room is blinking, almost breathing with pulse energy, “This seems to be possibly broken tech or maybe out of whack from the crash?” Julie turns to Josiah, “Let me check this panel out next to the door and see what’s going on here?” Julie examines the panel, the language is alien for sure, William ganders past her shoulder, “I might be able to read it.” William looks over the blinking text, he can not seem to figure it out, “Wow, maybe this is ancient technology or advanced stuff, looks similar to Skift for sure.” Julie continues to check the panel out to see what she can do to manipulate this room, she does manage to shut down half this room and there are a few containers there. She manages to open them with a little coaxing, there are several synthesized food sources, these can be helpful when other life forms travel as they might need different sustenance’s along their journeys. Julie explains to the other that this can be helpful for the colony and picks the containers up with Josiah, the rest of the room is too complex but could have more resources for later.
Maya- Android Pilot
As they move deeper past the main hull the large area which could have been a shuttle bay is partially flooded, the parts that are not flooded seem to have an arrangement of boxes and or crates of various sizes set up like a camp, a sudden movement from a crate alerts the crew. As they cautiously approach a small female voice can be heard behind a large crate, “Don’t come closer or I will shoot!” Julie whispers to the crew, “ Sounds human, Let me chat with her.” “I am coming out I will not hurt you”, she replies. Julie slowly steps out, “I am unarmed, I am the senior engineer at the Gaea outpost.” As she moves forward a small woman who is peeking from a crate side with a pistol looks nervously at her. “I don’t want to hurt you; I know you have others there.” Julie responds, “Yes we are a science team, I promised we will stay put and we can chat, no one needs to be hurt.” “What’s your name?” The little voice takes a second but replies, “I’m Flora” “I’m Julie, nice to meet you Flora.” “Let’s sit and chat, I will be on the floor with hands up.” Flora waits a minute or so, then moves closer but with the pistol at the low ready. She talks with Julie now as she feels like things are OK, she explains how she crashed on this planet with 10 others and is the last survivor, she barricaded the door and other area as there are some weird creatures on the other side, the water is clear of anything but awfully cold so she avoids it. After about 10 minutes the rest of the crew sits with them, all is peaceful and Flora agrees she will go with them, she is low on food but does let the crew know that one crate had a data pad, but she is not skilled at using it. William and Julie examine with data pad, the same language but many technical terms on the front, it still seems very hard to figure out what it does or what it says so they take it with them. They decide to avoid the room that Flora barricaded off, she stated many little creatures that seemed either too curious or violent, William deducts it to be Feral creatures, primitive creatures that scavenge and have fangs that can be aggressive. Best they avoid that area for now and if the space marines make it in the next convoy they can clear it out, they move past this part of the cargo wreckage to another section that is partially submerged in water, the entrance opens up with a panel on the door that seems to have to be adjusted manually. As they enter this section they hear a noise, a click like a wire snapping, however no other noise but a further click, perhaps something was meant to happen but did not. Some further research shows there were older traps set a while ago which do not function however the sounds, they hear farther in are not the same, a whirring sound with footsteps. The crew stumble upon a droid that is working in the area, making it’s way back and forth to containers with the alien marking on it, this seems to be an advanced droid, a worker, William remembers seeing text of the Skift language that seems more recognizable in this room. “Skift worker droid, I can try communication but Julie you might want to power that translation pad up and see if we need it for Skift language.” She nods and prepares as William speaks to this droid in his best Skift voice, cl-icky and strong breathing pulses, it looks up and responds quickly but he is not able to keep up so they utilize the data pad, Success! They manage to figure out it was maintaining a few science materials labs here but has not had commands in quite some time, not sure how long as the droid does not sense time passing like we do. Julie manages to convince the droid that they can find the Skift and take the materials to them, he can stay or come with them, this type of droid is not as sophisticated in the sense of deception, more logical in nature so it agrees to move along with them and gathers the materials. Inside a few containers are several raw materials and some power cells, a big score for the crew for sure!
The crew decide it’s getting later in the day, and they have a good number of resources, they have scoped half this vessel but probably should get marines out here for the rest of this salvage point, they prepare to move back to the outpost, Kaya fires up the buggies, the travel in uneventful back to the outpost. As the corporate shuttle hovers over the outpost and lands in the bay the steam rolling from beneath the ship the crew awaits some opportunities to sell off the RPG’s as they don’t know how to properly use them anyway so they can use the credits later. The corporate shuttle makes it’s way off as they sell the goods they need and prepare for the next month to find and harness some new power sources for the outpost this way they can sustain better equipment and hopefully gain time to research advanced technology for the next venture, for now the crew enjoys the next month on Sirus 4 with no incidents or worries, for now.