NationStates Jolt Archive

Terratha Corporate Space Colony
Geosynchronous Earth Orbit

"Attention, Control. We're bringing the primary computer online."
"Control, this is the engineering team. We're unable to get that energy variation in the magnetic coils to vanish."
"Roger, engineering. Energy variation is within safety protocols."
"Bridge, this is Control. We're not uplinked with your computer. What's going on?"
"Control, this is the Bridge. Faulty fuse in the uplink. It was caught before it caused any problems and is being replaced. Uplink will be established shortly."
"Control, this is Ship Supply. All supplies accounted for. I'm noting an excess on key components beyond mission requirements. Please extend my personal thanks and that of engineering to whoever arranged it."
"Ship Medical, this is control. We're noting a power spike in your section. Please explain."
"Acknowledged, Ship Supply. And you're welcome."
"Control, this is Ship Medical. One of the engineers is running a stress test of the electrical systems in here to double-check."
"Ship Medical, this is Control. Tell the engineer that if he doesn't think it'll pass to please let us know immediately. The Board of Directors would rather you leave late than not arrive at all."

Private Timothy Johnson did not know why he was asked to report to Control, but he had been ignored since arriving. The entire room, which was normally busy with the operations of the orbital platform that served both as a space station and as corporate headquarters for the Terratha Corporation, was currently in the middle of something related to an experimental ship launch. The ship itself was undergoing final checks by the crew who built it before the crew who would command it would end up boarding. And it seemed that they were putting in extra effort on this one.

"Ah, yes, Private Johnson," said Station Commander Aya Forelli, finally turning towards him from the console she had been reading. Like everyone else on the station, she had chosen to wear a special jumpsuit over her normal clothes, with it being the normal blue. Unlike everyone else, she chose to have gold trim added to have it match with her blond hair and blue eyes. "Sorry about the delay, but the ship is of extreme importance. I understand you're a new arrival from our offices on Earth? Good! I've already read over your background, and I'm sufficiently pleased with your choice of career."

Timothy had, before joining the Terratha Corporation, been in the military of his homeland. He had originally joined in order to go to college, but found himself reenlisting after his first tour of duty was over. It was at the end of his second that a representative from the company had convinced him to give private sector security a try. He never expected that, three weeks later, he would find himself in orbit.

"Frankly, I want someone with actual combat experience on that ship, just in case. I can't spare any of our experienced security officers, but I can spare you. Congrats, Private. You get the honor of your first assignment being on the experimental ship we're going to launch," Aya said. "Try not to let it go to your head. If all goes well, this will just be a trip out to the edge of the solar system and back again. Unless something goes wrong, you're going to be very bored on this assignment, so you should have plenty of time to peruse the instruction videos on the PDA we've assigned you. I'll upload one about the ship as well, so that you know what details are important. Keep in mind some of it is classified. So, any questions?"

"When do I report, ma'am?" Timothy asked.

Aya smiled, reaching down to push a few buttons on the console before her before saying, "Now. I just updated your security clearance. Like all security personel, I want you to be at least familiar with the ship's general layout before the main crew boards. Sergeant Spalding should have some work for you to do. I suggest reporting immediately. Consider yourself dismissed."

And with that, Aya went back to ignoring Timothy, moving back to a console to watch the screen. Despite feeling that she honestly didn't care, he made it a point to salute her anyway before leaving. The oddest part was the feeling he had pleased her with his question.

Like all ships that connected to the space station, boarding this one consisted of crossing through a door. Unlike most of them, this one had a very compelling reason to obey normal boarding protocol: The two heavily-armored guards carrying assault rifles standing outside the door. It was with a minor bit of relief that he was given no trouble about boarding the ship so soon after arriving on station.

Sergeant Spalding turned out to be a woman of Hispanic descent, with a perpetually amused look on her face and melodic way of speaking. Like all soldiers, she wore the standard combat armor over her jumpsuit... and, while it looked like it was basically a modified piece of football shoulder wear, he had been assured it was made of special composites that actually made it more useful than it looked. Privately, he suspected it was mainly chosen because it was cheaper than the real thing.

"I see the Station Commander decided to do a trial by fire with you. Don't worry. She never apologizes and never praises, but if you do a good job, you'll notice she shows appreciation with accounting errors in your favor," the Sergeant said. "Welcome to the Heimlin. Our first manned ship to attempt to exceed the light barrier. Oh, don't give me that look! It's true. Something about magnetic fields and tunneling through space or some such. Engineers assure me it's perfectly safe. They're more worried the surge protectors and fuses will make it fail to work at all! Anyway, you're assignment: You get to help the engineers put things away around the ship. If you get lost, look at the colored bands on the walls. Yellow means port, blue means starboard, red means engineering, orange means command, black means crew quarters, and purple means environmental. Now, good luck."

The next four hours consisted mostly of entering codes, moving boxes, and helping pick up tools. During that time, Timothy learned that the ship itself followed a very unusual design. The bridge was near the front, as expected, but the engineering section was actually at the center of the ship, with the back end mostly empty due to it being the section from which the magnetic rails would extend prior to entering FTL flight. The crew quarters were near the outer edge, separated from it by one layer of storage rooms, with the storage rooms hold inexpensive spare parts. He also learned that, while the ship had no external weapons, internally it had a series of ceiling-mounted miniguns, each one positioned so as to protect a vital area from intrusion.

What surprised Timothy was when the Sergeant chose for him to be among the security personel who were there to greet the ship's captain. It was no surprise to find it was Gerald Forin who was the captain, with him being the most experienced member of the corporation's group of test pilots. What was a surprise was when he gave the security personel a sneer as they saluted and then ignored them, continuing to badger the small man beside him who seemed to be the unfortunate scientist stuck briefing him.

"We're talking about creating a damned hole in space! How could that be safe?" Gerald asked.

"With the surge protectors, fuses, and computer control protocols, it should be perfectly safe. If something goes wrong, we simply end up sitting in space," was the answer.

"Fine, fine. I'll fly your damned machine. Just keep the armored baboons off the bridge. We launch as soon as I get to the bridge," Gerald replied.

"Armored baboons?" Timothy asked as Gerald walked out of earshot.

"If you're going to kill that stuck-up bastard, give me fair warning. I want to practice my testimony for your insanity defense," the Sergeant said. "Come. I've got a good place to view Pluto from."

From this point on, Timothy's memories were a blank until he woke up on the planet, his head having been hit when the ship suddenly started rocking mere seconds later.

Distress Communication from the Heimlin

A man appears on the screen. The room he's in looks like it's an engineering room, yet half of the consoles have exploded and what looks like the central engine has tendrils of energy arching from it.

"I... I don't know what happened. We were supposed to open a hole in space to Pluto. We're somewhere in space, in orbit around a planet we don't know. The hole in space... we can't close it or turn our engines off. There's some kind of feedback loop. It's drawing power from some outside outside source. It shouldn't have happened... the safety precautions should have stopped it..."

The man stops, gulps, and then continues.

"I am Richard Brannigan, chief engineer of the Heimlin. If you are receiving this, please send help. The magnetic field we used to open the hole is unstable due to the energy feedback. It's disabled our ship and caused the automated internal defenses to activate. I'm trapped in engineering and can't get out. I also can't get the engine under control. Our surviving crew has evacuated to the planet. Please send..."

His speech is cut off as energy arcs through him, striking the camera and ending the communication.

An Explorer, along with its two cruisar bodyguards, sped along in real space. Where they were going, no one kne; but for an Explorer to be traveling with warships meant they were probably on a high-risk diplomatic mission. PSR would normally be used to get from place to place instantly, but in this case, the Greywatchers had decided to go without. It was then that a message played on the bridges of all three craft. The ships slowed themselves, discussed it with each other, sent a message to Prime, discussed it with people there, and after about fifteen minutes new orders had been issued. Thw rift opened in front of the crafts, and the entire group slipped through. A moment later, they would appear a few hundred kilometers away from the planet that the distress call had been traced to. The group began a slow push forward, the situation didn't sound too pretty and it would be best to tread very lightly.

<Unidentified craft, is there anyone still aboard?>

The captain of the Greywatch Explorer played the message back again. "He said survivors went to the surface, we might now get anyone off that ship..." Tactical looked up, "Orders, ma'am?" The captain sighed, "See if we can get someon on board to fix whatever the hell is wrong, if all else fails, we could leave it here or destroy it. Contact the cruisars, we're sending people down to the surface to look for survivors."

The Explorer began scans of the planet to make sure snayone sent down could survive. Within twenty minutes, four dropships and two shuttles were on their way to the surface. On board, everyone wore bio-suits or battle armor. Soldiers made sure to bring weapons with a stun setting and a few Drones had come along in case they needed extra defense, hopefully it wouldn't come to that. The shuttles and dropships broke off in groups of two. They all landed with a few miles of one another to make finding survivors easier. Out of the craft cam the white suits, metallic suits of explorers and soldiers.

Group 1:

"Alright people, fan out!" Said the commander unit, watching as squads began to move out.

Group 2:

"Explorers, wait here while we look around a little."

Group 3:

Alright, Explorers, stay near a soldier and don't get seperated."

The Klikiss were forever monitoring the vastness of space, watching it's comings and goings and adjusting their galactic simulations to keep up with reality. To this end scouts were dispersed across the galaxy in an attempt to catalogue as much as possible, it was a vain attempt, as the Klikiss knwe all to well, but their voracious curiosity didn't stop them.

Of course times had changed, the Klikess were no longer merely watchers for another alien race, each had their own hive to thin of now, and as such, Klikiss scouters were not only searching for new things, but more importantly, worlds to harvest.

As a Klikiss research station, a crude metal plated asteroid a rough kilometer in diameter and covered in antenna and other equiptment, hurtled through the 6th diemension of "their" universe, believed to possess a normality level of 1:1, it monitored the various waves which filtered through like bad lighting from the alternate plains of existence. In this particular case a rather striking message was picked up and assessed.

Responding timely the Klikiss Sphere dropped back into the "real" universe with a twist of the cosmic fabric and hung like a shiny ball bearing for a few moments a significant way from a habitable planet. Taking note of the systems planetary configuration and other bodies, including several nearby vessels, it kept quiet for now, clearly obvious to anyone monitoring the system, but simply silent, and with that it moved closer towards the world; for now only scanning.

OOC: Sorry for the delay. I've been having net issues today.

IC:

Terratha Corporate Space Colony

Aya was currently not in a pleasant situation. The rift the ship had opened had not closed, and now that ten minutes had passed, she was sure there was something very, very wrong. And right now, she had every scientist, engineer, computer expert, maintenance guy, science intern, hobbyist, and janitor who could possibly have idea what went wrong and fix it assigned to the problem. Despite that, the Board of Directors had called her anyway, their shadowed faces seeming displayed on her screen.

"Tell us once again how your little science project works, Station Commander," the board Chairman said, his light Russian accent tinged with sarcasm at her title.

"The ship uses a central a central power station for the primary power systems. That central core regulates power flow as well as monitoring the magnetic field the projectos put off. When ready to open a rift in space, the specialized magnetic coils extend outwards from the back of the ship while their capacitors charge. Then, once a safe distance, the magnetic coils begin to create a magnetic field that warps space, essentially creating a tunnel through it. We're not sure of the properties of the tunnel, but think it crosses other dimensions of the universe... Anyway, as far as we can tell, they're not at their destination," Aya answered.

"Is it possible the ship is maintaining this?" the Chairman sneered.

"The power systems are the same as our space shuttles. The entire ship's power would have been exhausted after fifteen minutes. However, the magnetic coils are not designed to withstand this kind of stress and would have melted after five. Considering the rift has been open two hours, our best guess is that there's some outside source of power that is maintaining it," Aya said.

The Chairman was quiet for a few moments before finally speaking again. "Is that why you haven't sent anything through it to see what's on the other side?"

"Yes. For all we know, the other side is in the center of a black hole."

"Proceed as you are, then. But, if this anomaly is still around tomorrow, we will expect a plan for closing it within forty-eight hours. Do not fail us, Station Commander."

Onboard the Heimlin

Sergeant Melina Spalding was many things: Brave, compassionate, caring, capable of handling herself in a fight, well-trained, and a compentent commander. Right now, there was one thing she wasn't that she really wish she could change: On the planet. The bullet holes in the wall attested to why she wasn't.

During the chaos immediately after arrival, Melina had managed to get Private Johnson to one of the escape pods. It had taken her ten precious minutes to find an engineer and find out what was going on. Somehow, the engine had malfunctioned and the safety precautions had proven useless. Something was feeding enough energy back into the system through the magnetic coils that the core would simply not shut down. And with the magnetic field unstable, things had a nasty habit of exploding at random or going haywire in other ways. One of those other ways was a malfunction in the internal automated defenses, causing them to activate. Some still had connections to the computer's personel database, and thus did not bother ship personel. The one near the port engineering escape pods did not, and it had proven itself quite a lethal surprise. From what she saw of the distress call, engineering had the same problem.

"Hey, how dangerous is this magnetic field?" Melina asked her companion, the engineer she had run into earlier.

"It could fry your brain in your skull in seconds," the engineer replied, looking over a panel she had opened. "Assuming it just doesn't rip all of the iron out of your body and kill you that way."

Well, that was a pleasant thought while it lasted.

"But we shouldn't have to worry. I'm putting that turret into a diagnostic mode and then trapping it in a feedback loop. That should allow us to walk past it without getting shot. I don't know who designed this system this way, but I owe him a night he'll never forget," the engineer said. "Okay, that should do it."

To test, Melina waved her hand in the hallway, only to smile. The past three times she'd done it, the turret had fired. Nearly got her hand the last time. She then stood, moving out into the hallway and carefully approaching the door panel. When it didn't open in response to her presense and refused to open to her security authorization, Melina growled.

"Let me check it," the engineer said, shouldering past the Sergeant and pressing buttons. "Shit... This can't be... Shit! There's no atmosphere on the other side. One of the escape pods must have launched while the door was open. I thought there were safety precautions against that."

"The same safety precautions that prevented the turret from shooting at us?" Melina asked.

"Point. There's another way off the ship. Just in case, there's a two-person lander rear of engineering. Heat shielded in case it ever needed to land on a planet. We can take it, but we'll have to brave the engineering turret," the engineer said.

"Let's go," was Melina's answer to the unspoken question.

On the planet

Timothy awoke, moaning, only to suddenly find a hand over his mouth. Having a human hand placed over one's mouth immediately after waking up was a surprise when one didn't expect to be unconcious, but not as unpleasant as the throbbing headache. At least he was still alive.

"Stay quiet. They're too close, and I think they're here for you," came a woman's whispered voice... which oddly had a duality to it, with his ears hearing it both in a language he didn't recognize and in English. "If you're wondering how you understand me, check your ear."

Unable to resist, he did just that, finding an earring in place that definitely hadn't been there before. He also hadn't had his ears pierced before this, but obviously did now. It didn't take long to determine that both ears had one and it was the source of the translation.

"Mix of soldiers and nonsoldiers, it looks like. They've already begun a search grid... looks like they've done this a few times before. We'll need to quickly get back to my village and warn them. I don't think they spotted it from orbit yet, otherwise they'd have headed straight for it," the woman said. "Damn. They'll get to that woman and the others before we will. It can't be helped. Here's hoping they're friendly."

Timothy slowly opened his eyes... and saw that he was laying in a field, with tall grasses surrounding him. No signs of a vehicle that he could see within what little area the grasses didn't obscure from his sight, so he assumed that he had been moved from whatever brought him to this planet. He also could see his companion.

The woman herself had a bronze skin, though her face looked to be a mix of European and Asian that actually looked well on her, to him. She was wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, yet was crouched low with her eyes watching those she was looking at. Her brown hair only added to the appearance. When she turned to look at him he could see her brown eyes, which lacked the hardness of a soldier.

"Get to your feet quietly. We have to move quickly before they realize we're here," the woman said, reaching down to pick up a woven basket he hadn't seen previously, which had several berries in it.

As Timothy and the woman snuck off, the people who had landed on the planet and began to search would quickly find survivors. Most of the escape pods had landed in two areas, and this one still had most of the people either in them or lying near them. In this case, there was a woman lying near the one closest to where Timothy and the woman had been.

The woman opened her eyes, groaning, and asked, "Rescuers? Thank God... Where's Private Johnshon and that woman who grabbed him? Did they send you?"

Somewhere else on the planet

Private Lane Bridges groaned as she sat up. The mooing of cows around here revealed her location: Somewhere on that mysterious planet they had ended up around. She blinked as she looked at the cows, thinking she had somehow ended up back on Earth, though the second moon in the daylight sky quickly disabused her of that notion.

It took Lane a few moments to remember how she got here. She had been assigned to the Heimlin as a security officer for the bridge, mainly because of the fact that she had proven she could keep her mouth shut. That she could be trusted to keep the corporation's best interests in mind was why she always got assignments like that. This one, however, had turned out different.

Lane was on the bridge when the ship opened the rift and went through. The normal sensation of just shifting that had happened in laboratory tests of it was still present, but this one came with something else: Explosions. Despite advances in surge protectors and other technologies, one of the consoles had exploded as soon as they were through the rift, killing three people near it. Lane had gotten off lucky, with a piece of shrapnel imbedded in her armor. It was then that the captain had called down to engineering to find out what was going on and, three minutes later, ordered the ship evacuated.

Luckily for Lane, she had been slowed down by helping a wounded crewmember, having chosen to potentially sacrifice her own life. Just as the first pods were being opened, the computer malfunctioned and launched them. Lane got to watch through the closing door as the captain and the entire bridge crew was sucked out into space. It was then that she chose to open a weapon locker, taking a pistol and as much ammunition as she could carry from it before heading to the next-nearest set of pods.

Luckily, Lane was able to get herself and the crewman inside the pod and seal it before the computer malfunctioned and launched that set. She ignored the bodies and other items that followed the pods, aiming her own as best as she could as the device entered atmosphere. Unfortunately, a pod near her's hit turbulance during the drop, the device tumbling in mid air and crashing into her own. How Lane survived she did not know, but she counted herself lucky to have been awaked, half-soaked, by the cow that had been washing her face.

Lane groaned and stumbled through the cattle. She remembered hearing voices from the direction she was going. In addition, these cows were tame and well-groomed, which suggested to her that someone was taking care of them. Someone meant people, and people meant help. She was quite happy when, minutes later, she emerged from the herd and found herself facing a farm, where two people were busy harvesting some kind of red fruit, though she almost swore it was tomatoes.

"Help... me..." Lane managed to let out before tripping.

Lane's last memory before passing out was the two people dropping the fruit and rushing towards her, one turning back to the house and yelling something she couldn't understand.

Surface:

The first group came upon the pods almost immediately after landing. The woman who spoke was approached quickly by a Leanorian. The seven foot, anthro-lioness creature might have seemed odd to her but it was a common sight among many Greywatch exploration and military teams. The Leanorian kneeled and looked at the woman through gentle blue, “No, I don’t know who you’re talking about. We’re from Greywatch, we picked up your distress call.” The Leanorian looked to some other squads, “Get some other medics over here! And crack those pods that are still closed.” Other Greywatchers, humans, Leanorians, Drones, and droids rushed over.

A Drone in the second squad heard the two in the bushes but gave no sign of noticing them. Looking at a Drone was similar to looking at some sort of demon; it dressed all in black and radiated a strange aura. Its teeth, sharp as daggers, were solid black, as were its eyes, lips, hair, and nails. The Drones also didn’t carry any weapons besides swords at their sides, but the looked stronger than everyone else, in an unnatural way. As soon as Tim and the woman were on their way, it made a signal to its squad. A human quickly said something over his radio, “Troop Transport 2, this is Squad 4. We have possible contact, over.” A Leanorian looked into the tall grass and began wrapping an odd cloth around his left eye. He nodded to the human and the Drone before moving forward, spear in hand. The human continued, “Contact confirmed. Engaging in stealth protocol.” The man’s white suit made it impossible for anyone else to hear, and voice came back after he was done transmitting, “Roger 4 of 2, move carefully. Let them know we’re not hostile.” With that order, the human signaled the others in his squad and they moved forward.

The third landing party didn’t find anything at first and began to slowly fan out. A buzzing could be heard from inside one of the landers. A man in armor, but wearing no helmet, stepped out as the rest of the squads began searching. He had short black hair and piercing violet eyes. He looked around the area before looking into the ladner, “Alright ya buggers, go on and do yur thing.” The buzzing became louder as large insects, each one about four feet in height, flew out at high speed and took to the air in threes. The spread out and began searching for survivors from the air.

Orbit:

A cruiser broke off from the Greywatch group, headed towards the Klikiss research station, and put out a message:

<Alien vessel, please identify yourself.>

The cruiser had shields at max and weapons at 50%. No shame in being careful, the cruiser waited for a response, conducting scans all the while.

Greywatch cruiser, Tornado, hanger:

“Move people, MOVE! Captain said to get on that ship and find out what’s going on, ASAP. Leanorians, you’re on medic duty. Drones, muscle as usual.” A man barked orders to dozens of scrambling people as they secured equipment and began settling into the boarding craft. Chances were the alien ship had no controls, which meant some boarding craft would have to cut some holes into the ship and some people would have to be dropped in by force. Blink was far too dangerous for something like this. The alien ship was thoroughly scanned to make sure the best boarding area was chosen, also, scanners looked for life signs.

Orbit:

The research station continued to drift gradually towards the planet, and the alien vessel which had now taken notice of it:

<Alien vessel, please identify yourself.>

The Breedex who controlled this Hive had received the same information that others had over time, and new all to well now that scans had been carried out that this was a Greywatch vessel; a message was composed as the research station spun forever closer to the world:

"I am the Klikiss, and you, if not just your ship, are of Greywatch origin correct? I am to assume that you were brought here in response to a distress message sent out also?"

The research station had no real offensive weaponry, just a comprehensive and fully effective defense system. Is pushed however the Klikiss would use their space manipulating capabilities to do what they could.

Inside the Heimlin

Melina paused, looking around the corner. They were near engineering at this time, but she thought... nah. It couldn't have been. There's no way... There it is again!

Melina frowned, having spotted something moving. She had tried several weapons lockers, but the controls for them were nonfunctional. As well as the controls for most of the doors, effectively trapping the pair in this section. Unless they found a way to force a door open.

"Do you see anything?" the engineer asked.

"Bit of movement. It looks like there may be something moving. Maybe another crew member," Melina said.

And then it came at her. It looked like some kind of demon, with massive claws that dripped an acidic blood and teeth made out of pure razors. The image faded away as it neared Melina, who had jumped back and taken a fighting stance as it approached.

"What is it?" the engineer said.

"Just... a hallucination. Must be stress," Melina said.

"Didn't you read the training manual? Magnetic fields can cause that," the engineer paused for a bit. "I've been getting them too, the closer we get. The magnetic field must be extremely unstable if it's causing this inside the ship. It's best we head away from it. There might be another way off the ship near the bridge."

And then, the ship shuddered a bit, one of the nearby weapon lockers having sparks fly from the control panel that kept it locked before opening. The inside was missing all but one pistol and two spare magazines. Melina grabbed the pistol anyway.

"Just in case..." Melina said, unaware of the boarding party on its way.

Timothy on the planet

They had only travelled for five minutes before, sure they were out of earshot, they began to run at full speed. Even though his head ached and he wanted to just collapse and sleep, Timothy kept following the woman, intent on making it to her village. It was when they neared, when they got to the first farm, that the woman began to slow down.

"Flowers of the Sun Village. My home. And..." the woman began.

"Who are you?" Timothy asked, finally beginning to catch his breath.

"Saranithia. You're Timothy, right?" she asked. "Don't look shocked. This things also translate text and your name is on your clothes. You get used to it."

Timothy blinked, then looked around. This appeared to be a farming community, primarily. The farms they passed were all busy, and as they neared on the town, he could see very few buildings that looked to be houses. Several people greeted the two with nods as they passed, all the while giving him little more than a curious look. He found it odd that they did not seem more interested.

"We should be safe from persuit here," Saranithia said, not aware they had been followed.

At the crashsite with survivors

The forces of Greywatch would have found an ultimately depressing scene. Of the pods that hit the surface, fully half were open, their insides scorched a pure black by the plasma that affected them as they fell into atmosphere. It was also obvious, from the debris for miles around, that quite a few had burned up during entry. Of the ones that were not open, most were either empty or had people who had died in them. Only five more were to be found, with none of them being bridge crew. And of the six survivors currently in Greywatch custody, fully half were in comas.

The woman who was there, Private Lilia Thompson, had mostly been quiet. Once her eyes had focused, she could see she wasn't dealing with humans. After that, and knowing a distress call had successfully gotten out, she couldn't help but be relaxed. She also had suffered damage to the spine, nearly severing it near the tailbone.

"I'm glad to be rescued... If you get a chance to look around, there's a woman. Bronze skin. Dressed... civilian. Timothy is with her. She's friendly," Lilia said.

Lilia didn't say what bugged her. The planet was obviously not Earth, due to the two moons. If she wasn't on Earth, then what was someone obviously human doing here? The leonen she was talking to was more believable as being what she expected to encounter, yet obviously his people weren't native either. And the woman couldn't have been from Earth... could she?

"There's something odd about this planet," Lilia said.

A Crash-site a perfect opportunity to some, a perfect waste for others. Luckily for The Garbage Men Corporation they had all sorts. This was the one where a crash-site was a perfect opportunity, and not for the reasons might think.

A freighter, with medium armament entered the system, it broadcast a message to everyone. Greywatch, Klikiss and those from the Terratha Corporation.

This is TGMS Logistics 2627, Goods Transporter operated by The Garbage Men Corporation. Our sensors have detected a recent crash in the system. And wish to offer the services of the Corporation, as we are able, to any survivors of the crash, and any approprate recovery operations which might be needed.

Space:

The cruiser shot back a response:

<You’re assumptions are correct on both accounts. It’s good to see we have at least one familiar face here.>

Without anything more, the cruiser headed back to its group, quickly and quietly.


At the same time, the other cruiser released the boarding craft which quickly headed towards the damaged alien vessel. Scans had shown weak areas where the vessel’s hull could be punctured and forces could board. There would be a loud clank inside the ship as the boarding craft attached to the hull. Immediately afterwards, the boarding craft would begin cutting through the hull to allow Greywatchers inside. Most of the boarding forces were actually Drones, scans showed that the inside of the ship was very dangerous at this particular time and the best option would be to send in the unnatural beings first. “Okay people,” said a soldier, “This rig is dangerous, Drones out first. Everyone wait until they confirm safety levels. Be sure to keep your suits secure, we don’t need no one getting kill because they were bein’ foolish. Got that people? Alright.” After the man finished his speech, everyone, including the Drones, were sure to check their suits and make sure everything was sealed. The boarding craft finished their job of cutting through, the doors opened; the Drones kicked the cut through hull sections in, and began the operation.

Surface:

The first group desperately looked for survivors, but they found very few. “That’s the last one.” Said a soldier, “How many we got.” A Drone looked up, “Six in all.” The soldier sighed, “Dammit, that’s all. Get some medics to them ASAP.” Leanorians moved from one wounded person to the other. “This one’s unconscious too. We need a medical transport…” said a Leanorian, a sad look on her face, a human moved to her, “Called one in just now. Stay with them, do whatever you can.” The Lenaorian nodded and went to work. The Leanorian with Lilia began looking over the human’s body, “There’s something odd about all planets… Hold still, please.” The Leanorian placed her hand on Lilia’s chest and began to concentrate. Lilia would begin experiencing an odd sensation as Encryptic energies from the Leanorian’s hand began moving throughout Lilia’s body, repairing the damage done during the pod crash. “You should be fine in a few moments.” The Leanorian said, she then put out a message using her communicator, letting other squads know that there were friendlies on the surface.

The second group hadn’t found much else, with the exception of the fourth squad. The squad moved quickly but silently through the tall grass, the Leanorians loved this kind of environment, it was great for stalking prey. To some extent, that’s exactly what the Greywatch squad was doing right now, except they didn’t mean any harm. Still, being led to wherever they were being led to would hopefully answer some questions. After some time, the Greywatchers found themselves near what appeared to be a farm, the squad leader looked back, “Okay guys. Let’s not scare ‘em, keep your weapons down and make no aggressive movements.” With a nod from all members, the squad pushed slowly onward, through the crop fields.

The third group continued to fan out, looking for anything worth looking at. The Kiixori conducted a thorough search from the air. A few minutes later, some escape pods were found though there was no telling if they were empty or not. A brief communication between air and ground forces had two squads from the third group on their way over while the Kiioxri landed to get a closer look.

Explorer, Bridge:

The captain was uncomfortable with the greeting given by the new contact. She doubted they were really there to help the survivors, mainly because this was a ship sent by a corporation, not an actual nation. Also, just the name sounded a little odd, like they were probably more interested in the ship than the people. But they weren’t hostile, at least not yet.

<If you wish to help, we will not stop you. However, please note that we already have several groups on the surface and boarding parties are entering the alien ship now. As long as you do not get in the way of our operations, we will not have a problem with your presence.>

Space:

The Klikiss research vessel watched as the Greywatchers seemed to undergoing a form of boarding action on the wrecked vessel. The research vessel approached the planet, near the Greywatch group, but not close enough to cause them concern, for now they ignored the annoying corporate vessel, such things were annoyancies for the communal Klikiss.

As the research vessel settled into orbit a hanger door opened up, allowing Klikiss transports to emerge, three pentagon shaped craft emerged and headed down to the planet.

Surface:

The research station itself was scanning the entire planet, picking out a few settlements here and there. The pentagon shaped transports descended over the area where the Greywatch forces were investigating the escape pods. One of the transports touched down a short way away from the site, dropping in a screaming wail of engines and hitting the ground hard it dropped it's ramp, allowing a group of various Klikiss types to head towards the Greywatch team and the escape pods.

The two other transports headed out towards a nearby settlement that they had detected, screaming over the collection of dwellings they assessed the area.

Terratha Corporate Space Colony

They had already worked on a way to shut down the rift: The magnetic field was probably too dangerous in the engine room, so they'd have to destroy the ship itself. Already they had begun preparing to modify a space shuttle for opening a second rift, yet they had not started due to questions of what caused the problems with the first. The interns were already trying the scenarios everyone thought wouldn't happen.

"Commander, we've got a communication coming through thr rift. Sound only," one of the technicians said.

Aya leaned forward, her want to listen to it obvious enough that the technician went ahead and played it.

This is TGMS *static* Transporter operated by *static* sors have detect *static*. And wish to offer *static* we are able, to any *static* crash, and any *communication degrades into static*

"Can you clear it up?" Aya asked.

"No, sir," the technician said.

"Try to send one through the rift as a reply. Have it repeat constantly. Hopefully, they'll be able to piece it together," Aya ordered.

To any ships receiving this... We are having trouble receiving any communications sent our way. Please put your last message on repeat so we can attempt to piece it together. This message is repeating so we can attempt to get it through.

Inside the Heimlin

"Did you hear that?" Melina said, looking forward as the clank issued through the ship.

"Yes," the engineer confirmed.

Ever since the hallucinations had started, the two had been relying on each other, relaying anything they suspected of being a hallucination to the other. That, and at one point Melina had hallucinated that one door was open, so she didn't want to embarass herself like that again. Luckily, that door had been easily opened by ripping the control panel off and attaching wires to each other until it responded.

Unfortunately, just as they started to each forward, Melina noticed one of the windows had a crack in it, which was only growing.

"Do you see this on the window?" Melina asked.

The engineer looked, turned pale, and nodded. The two didn't need to say a word, starting to run immediately. Just as they got to the door, the glass broke, the air beginning to vent from the hallway as the door began to close behind them. The two leaned against it, panting.

"Is there any part of this ship that's safe?" Melina grumbled.

"Hey, do you see that?" the engineer asked, pointing towards the suited Greywatch drone that was ahead of them, looking to have come in through a hold in the hull.

"Yeah. Maybe the magnetic field's affecting us both the same way now?" Melina asked.

"It must be destabilizing faster than I thought. We seriously have to get off this ship before it starts tearing the ship apart," the engineer said, acting as though the Greywatch drone were not even there.

Of course, Melina and the engineer did not appear to be in their right minds. Their clothes were dishevelled, their faces a little paler than normal, and both had wide, haunted eyes from the hallucinations that had been plaguing them as they tried to get to safety. The fact the shipm was slowly coming apart also didn't help them any, adding additional stress to their mindsets.

Timothy on the planet

Just as he was starting to relax, and getting the idea that these people may be a lot more advanced than they looked, he saw them stop. And then he heard it: The distinctive roaring of something entering atmosphere, already moving on its way to set down near the village. What surprised him was what Saranithia said, as he had never heard a phrase so foul uttered before.

"More of those following us?" Timothy asked.

"No. These ships are a different design. It looks like our world is going to be quite overrun shortly," Saranithia said before turning to him. "Does your ship have any hand-held weapons? All we have are farming tools."

"Yes, but... Wait! You have a way to get us to my ship?" Timothy asked.

"Maybe. We need to get to the Goddess Spring, though. There may be a device there that can do it," she answered.

"Do you even know how to use a gun?" came the private's next question.

"Depends. Do you use balistic, low-energy, or high-energy weapons? I also hope you have some missile launchers. I'd advise against using mines near this village, as too many people could stumble on them," came her question.

Timothy just stared at her, dumbfounded, before asking, "Just who are you people?"

Before Saranithia could ask, one of the men from the farm they had passed came running up, huffing and saying, "Wait! We got... We've got aliens at the farm. Friendlies. Think they followed you."

Saranithia did not look happy. "We have to go talk to them, it seems."

Timothy, on the other hand, began to wonder exactly why it was these people did not actually seem surprised at the idea of aliens landing. Who were they? He intended to find out as quickly as he could.

Lilia on the planet

Lilia nodded, feeling the strange sensation come through her as the alien creature worked on healing her broken body. Soon enough she got the strange sensation of tingling as feeling returned to her lower body; she'd been so out of it from the general pain of her condition that she hadn't noticed. Now she was glad she hadn't.

"Something went wrong. The escape pods launched too early. Most people didn't make it," Lilia said. "Need to get back to the ship... Automated defenses activated for some reason and we couldn't turn them off. They don't recognize friendlies. People died because of them."

She almost wanted to sit up, but couldn't bring herself to do it just yet. Finally, she started to attempt sitting up, almost intent on standing so that she could try to somehow get back on that ship. She was pretty sure the engineering team was dead, and she was sure she was the only security member who knew the shutdown codes.

The Third Greywatch Search Party

When they arrived, it would look like a disaster zone. Like the other, most of the pods had been open when launched, with only half of the pods surviving entry. Most of the rest were empty.

One pod, however, was unusual in that it was farther away from the rest. It was also quite crumpled, as though it had collided with something in mid-air, and there were several indentations in the ground that suggested it had bounced on impact, skipping across the ground before coming to this resting place.

The other oddity was that half of the pods which had been intact were open, with signs they had been opened after landing. Several bodies were lined up, with a human-sized hole in the ground already started, as though someone had started to bury the people here. A make-shift shovel, made from a tree branch and a piece of debris, was lying beside the hole.

"So, I guess you're reponsible for the girl by the lake going missing," a man said as he emerged from behind one pod. "If you're hostile, let me finish burying them first. You can kill me afterwards."

The man was, by human standards, obviously elderly. His hair was a stark white, with his face covered with wrinkles and signs of a long life of hard work. He was also limping a bit as he walked, though he didn't seem to pay it any attention. And as he grabbed the makeshift shovel, he obviously intended to ignore the newcomers until he was done with his work.

"Geeze. 'One more mission' they said. I should have retired last year. Got better things to do than be bossed around by a bunch of young whippersnappers and end up on some dag-gum planet surrounded by a bunch of aliens that look like they come from a cheesy science fiction movie," the man grumbled, continuing to work, before looking back to those here. "If you're not here to kill me, could you at least help? These people aren't exactly burying themselves."

He didn't even pause in his work as he heard the roaring of a ship entering atmosphere, instead saying, "Dagnabit! Aliens and their choice of landing areas. Why, back in my day, you didn't pick a landing zone! The craft picked it for you, and you were happy to land at all! And you always had to walk fifteen miles through driving snow from it to get to the rescue party! And the aliens were always robots, not fancy-schmancy catmen!"

Explorer Bridge:

“Captain,” started the comms officer, “We got a message. It looks like it’s coming from the rift. It’s repeating… I think whoever is on the other side wants to communicate.” The captain nodded, “Send a message to Prime, and let them know what’s happening. Then, open a channel.” The comms officer nodded, “Done and done. Opening your channel now.”

<This is Greywatch Explorer 572. Repeat, this is Greywatch Explorer 572. Can you tell us what is going on? I repeat, can you tell us what is going on?>


Inside Heimlin:

The two would notice that one Drone soon became four as the lone Drone signaled others to come forward. The group was in constant communication, the Drones relayed information to those back on the boarding craft. The first Drone they had seen began moving towards them, “You there. Can I assume you are the owners of this ship?” The two seemed completely out of it, acting if the Drone was not even there. Something had to be wrong, whatever it was, the Drone was far from being affected. Other Drones stayed back and began looking over other parts of the ship.

Squad 4 of 2:

The group kept pushing forward through the farm, scans showed plenty of life. The aliens here didn’t seem hostile… nor did they seem advanced. Without word the group continued moving forward to the village they saw, weapons down but ready. It was time to meet whoever lived here.

Group 1:

The Leanorian listened carefully, a Drone had also overheard. The Drone looked down at Lilia, “If you know how to shut it down, tell me now. I can communicate that information to my brothers on your ship via hive-mind.” The Leanorian was more concerned with Lilia, “Are you okay now?”

Group 3:

A Leanorian rolled his eyes, “We got ‘robots,’ but we call ‘em droids. And I’m called a Leanorian, thank you very much. Now then, more importantly, why do you think I’m here to kill you?” The Leanorian looked to the corpses and then to a Drone, “Do it. Maybe he’ll talk more if he’s got nothing better to do.” A Drone moved forward and began opening human sized holes in the ground, dropping bodies in, and then moving the earth back over the bodies. The Drone looked to the man but said nothing, continuing with its work. Then came the all too familiar roar of ships entering the atmosphere, “We got contract!” Said a human soldier. Everyone immediately began taking up defensive positions.

The communications from the Explorer, we're accepted and acknowledged though little attention was paid to it's contents. They're wasn't any attempt at opening a dialog and so it was dismissed though the distrustful undertone was certainly picked up.

While the message from the surface reached them full of static. It took about 3 repeats of the message to get it to a state where the contents were understandible.

"Alright, go for it... though add, 'Repeat' on the end." The captain calmly replied... "oh, and Is that ground crew ready?"

"What ground crew, sir?"

"The one that I Implied was going to happen, get some engineer's down there, security, oh and some Sales Reps."

...

The ground crew took about 10 minutes to assemble and headed down in a shuttle to the planet of the surface. Those Greywatchers weren't going to dictate what they do, if anyone had the right to say that their involvement wasn't welcome it was their prospective customers... and they didn't even had the opportunity yet to say no.

Lane on the planet

"Ninteska gloribis. Kjergana?"

Lane woke up, hearing the strange language of whoever was speaking. She groaned as she opened her eyes, then blinked as she noticed she was in a bedroom. It took her a couple moments of moving to discover that she had been redressed while she was out of it, though she didn't know by who. She also could feel bandages on one arm, though she didn't know why.

The bedroom itself proved highly ornate. The entire room was wood, with the standard dresser, bed, and a smaller dresser with a mirror on it. Yet, except for the rug-covered floor, everything was ornate. The walls and other furniture was all carved with what looked like scenes from mythology, depicting things going from what almost looked like an alien craft landing on the planet to people working the land and building towns. A female figure repeated often throughout the images, though Lane was unsure of her importance.

Lane looked up as the door opened, spotting the woman coming in. Deep tanned skin, brown eyes, and brown hair were her physical features, though the woman also had the physical shape of someone who tended towards either working out or working hard. The woman had chosen blue jean shorts and a button-up shirt that was open and tied just under her bust. She also was wearing her hair tied in a ponytail behind her head and seemed to be carrying something in one hand. The something turned out to be a pair of earrings, which were immediately handed to Lane.

"Put these on. They'll allow you to understand us," the woman said, her voice still in that foreign language but the earrings providing an English translation.

Lane nodded, reaching up to place the earrings where they belonged. She normally wore earrings anyway, but didn't on this job because of regulations. Well, that and giant magnetic fields had a habit of ripping earrings out of the ear.

"I have a few things to tell you about what planet you're on and who my people are..." the woman began.

Pod Crash Site:

One of the Klikiss transports touched down a short distance away from the third Greywatch party and dropped down their ramps. A group of about twenty five chittering Klikiss emerged, they were an assortmen of different types, the large bulky warrior forms, smaller drones, the more spindly and delicate engineer/scientist types with their assortment of large eyes, Klikiss flyers, a "medic" of sorts, similar to the scientist/engineers only slightly more bulbous and squat and most interestingly a Klikiss robot, similar to an actual Klikiss drone, only as large as a warrior form, and more angular. Seven of the warriors spread out across the ship to examine their surroundings whilst another five began lumbering off in different directions. The four Klikiss flyers took off in the direction of the nearby village whilst six of the drones began to bring blocky items of equiptment out of their ship. The other seven, one warrior, three drones, three engineer types, one of the "medics" and the Klikiss robot then began to lumber their way towards the Greywatch group. Relativly sure that their were no hostiles around the single warrior would be merely a precaution. As they neared the Greywatchers and the debris they took note of the old man and the drone digging a hole for some utterly incomprehensible reason. They Klikiss began chittering together, the robot produced a flat and rattling translation, boosting it's audio output so it would easily be heard:

"Greetings Greywatchers, we come here with no hostile intent. Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us on the situation before we draw our own conclusions?"

Outside The Village:

The two Klikiss transports touched down on the edge of the village, not particuarly paying attention as to if they may be landing in an important field, nonetheless wherever they landed they flattened a significant area of it. The two ramps banged down and suprisingly only twelve warriors emerged to surround the vessels, a drone carrying a small item in it's grasp accompanied by another Klikiss robot set out towards the village, they spotted what they thought was the other Greywatch party and turned towards them.

Group 3:

The Greywatchers looked back at the Klikiss, many of them not saying anything. The Drone took a few seconds but finally spoke, "Graves. I assume insects know nothing of them." The Drone turned to face the Klikiss, "It's a human thing. When someone dies, you bury them. No one apparently made it out of this group alive. If they did, then they've moved to another location. Other teams are fanning out now to find them."

Squad 4 of 2:

The squad noticed the Klikiss landing but paid no real heed. They did however take into account that their job was probably going to become much harder. The locals probably wouldn't trust the armored forms of the Greywatchers... now they were goign to have to deal with the armored forms of the Greywatchers and the massive Klikiss.

Group 1:

"Alright, begin looking over the pods. These things failed, I kinda want to know why." Said a human explorer. A Drone nodded, "It would be best... my masters are also interested in learning whatever they can... perhaps we should take some back to the cruisar?" The human gave an odd look to the Drone from behind her visor, "Can you lift those things?" The Drone nodded, "Drones are strong. Probably two per pod? Never know until we try." While some pods were looked over by some soldiers and explorers, others were literally dragged onto the troop transports by the Drones. The Drones knew the Xarniosi would love them for bring back so many souvineers. The Leanorian looked away from Lilia, "While you're at it, get these wounded up to the Explorer, ASAP. Got it?" The human nodded, "Yes ma'am. People! Let's move!" Other Greywatchers began the group effort of gently moving the survivors of the pod crashes to the transports. The transports actually had a few beds in case wounded soldiers ever needed to be transporeted, they were very useful in this particular situation. "We good?" Said a Dragon-kin, another Lenaorian gave a thumbs up, "Nearly loaded here. Drones only got a few more pods." The Dragon-kin nodded, "Right. Gotcha."

(OOC: May as well use your "locations" Greywatch)

Group 3 Vicinity:

The Klikiss made a few rasping and clicking sounds, the droid stood impassivly, taking in the Greywatchers there, if anything it seemed rather bored. Finally the Klikiss resumed their chittering, giving the droid something to translate, "When bodies in our hive die we extrat nutrients from them, that way they are not a waste. Your cultural behaviour seems odd to us, but nonetheless all are equal." The Klikiss's conversation seemed to have a detached air to it, as if they were not able to focus on the situation fully, or as it was the Breedex was unable to focus on the situation.

The Klikiss scientists scuttled up to one of the escape pods, tapping it with with their claws and running other arm like appendages over it's surface, one of them used it's claws to try and peel off the outer metal covering. Another clambered inside to discern it's workings one of them simply picked up a piece of metal laying on the floor and examined it with it's immense eyes. As the scientists seemed to preoccupy themselves with this technological oppertunity, they drones began to chitter once more, the drd didn't move an inch in response to this, simply blaring out a translation, "Perhaps you would like some help digging the grave?"


Village:

As the Klikiss reached the edge of the dwellings, occasionally spotting one of the native's and paying attention to the Greywatch forces who seemed to not have noticed them, the Klikiss droid raised it's audio output to maximum, the equivilant of a loud speaker, and essentially began blaring out it's words in the hope a villager would approach them:

"Greetings from the Klikiss Hive, we come in neutrality and curioisty to learn and meet with and from new races."

They stood for a moment or two, when nothing happened the Klikiss chittered and the droid once more blared out the translation:

"We bring a gift for your hive."

As if to make a point the Klikiss held up a small mettalic box and waved it around slightly, to onlookers this attempted first contact may have been laughable but it was how Klikiss had interacted with other Hives for millenia; and seeing that the Klikiss spent most millenia pounding the existence out of each other this was often the safest way.

Terratha Corporate Space Colony

It took several moments for the two communications to be pieced together, with several attempts having to be made due to confusion over what went with each piece. Then, finally, once the communications were together, Aya sat back, thinking of how to handle this.

"Commander, communications are only getting worse. We're not going to be able to communicate like this for very long," a technician said.

"We have a few science probes in storage for scanning passing comets. Those can also be used to act as signal relays. Remember that they were designed for that in case of distant comets? Put one on this side of the rift and one on the other side. We can use them as signal boosters for now," Aya ordered, sitting back in her chair and waiting as the technician relayed the orders to other departments, only to be surprised as the lead scientist investigating the drive entered Control.

"Yes?" Aya asked, turning to face the woman.

"We know what caused the problem. We were so worried about overloads that we forgot to take into account how much energy we're using," the scientist began. "One of the interns got an idea to test it using the mock one in the science labs. The fuses blew and surge protectors melted and the energy simply lept around them. The energy ended up coming in such a different form that the drive's computer was unable to control it. We had to pull power for the entire lab to shut it down. When we altered the mock drive to not include those, the drive's computer was able to shut down the power."

Aya frowned, then said, "Can you modify the second drive to not have those?"

"Yes. It would only take a few minutes. But..."

"If you had access to as many people as you can get ahold of, how fast could you modify a shuttle to use the drive?"

"Three or four hours at most. Two if we didn't attempt to put covers over the wires. But the shuttle would be useless for entering atmosphere."

"Do it. You have authorization to use everyone in this facility. Put covers over the wires only if you need to."

"Commander, the probe is going through the rift. It... Odd, but the rift's size is fluctuating. Nevermind, it seems stable now. Orders?" the technician asked.

To TGMS Logistics 2627: I am Station Commander Aya Forelli of the Terratha Corporation. The ship and people you are talking about are property and employees of our company. We would appreciate it if they were retrieved and brought back to us.

To Greywatch Explorer 572: We made a miscalculation while attempting an FTL drive. We are not currently aware of what is happening on your side of the rift. Please update us on the condition of our ship and its crew.

On the Heimlin

The drone speaking caught both Melina and the engineer off-guard. Up until this moment, the hallucinations hadn't spoke. And when they realized that they both were experiencing the exact same thing, the two gave each other worried looks. This, obviously, wasn't a hallucination.

"Holy hell... you're real!" Melina exclaimed. "Are you part of a rescue party?" Well, it obviously wasn't hostile.

Of course, her question was followed by the ship rocking violently, lights across the entire vessel exploding and massive groans of the internal structure being stressed. In this particular hallway, a wall exploded at the other end, the little fire quickly put out before it could even start by broken water pipes that were leaking. Melina herself, who had been knocked to the ground, could only stare at this and wonder what else was going to happen.

"I think it's time we got off this ship. Now," the engineer said. "The magnetic field must be deteriorating rapidly."

Neither Melina nor the engineer knew that the ship's violent rocking had coincided with the probe emerging from the rift. Nor did they know that one of the magnetic coils had exploded and was now merrily burning. They also were unaware that, for the moment, the magnetic field had properly stabilized, removing the danger from engineering.

Squad 4 of 2

Farmers began to gather near the armored soldiers, eying them nervously. These people were very obviously from another world, and the farmers themselves were not entirely trusting of someone so obviously armored. Especially since they were also so obviously not human.

Timothy, on the other hand, could only look at them. As far as he knew, any aliens this advanced would simply open fire or make demands. But, then, this was his first contact with aliens. For all he knew, they'd ask politely for people to surrender before wiping the village off the face of the map from orbit.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Saranithia asked, moving to the front of the crowd.

Timothy turned, looking at her, and realized for the first time how much the crowd seemed to treat her as more of a leader. And yet, she had been out gathering berries. He began to get the feeling that there was more going on than he was aware of.

"You were investigating the pods... why?" Timothy asked, moving to stand beside Saranithia. He felt his question would tell far more about them than her's would.

Village

Elsewhere, villagers had gathered for the ultimate spectacle: Giant insects that had come with some kind of metal box. The villagers whispered among each other, trying to decide what to do and if they should respond with peaceful intentions or fear. They'd never considered they would get visited like this before.

Of course, none of them had considered that children tended to take the more direct route. A little girl, barely more than seven years old, approached the Klikiss group, tilting her head curiously. They were completely outside her concept of the world, so she was naturally curious about them. She recognized the word "hive" and figured they probably thought like insects.

"You come with a gift?" she asked, drawing shocked looks from the adults who had been ignoring her. "You seem nice. I'm Emilininia. What's your name?"

One of the adults facepalmed. While they had been so busy trying to decide what to do, first contact had been established by a little girl. His facepalming only earned snickers from a couple of people, who had been advocating going ahead and talking to the newcomers and then deciding instead of wasting time discussing it.

Group 1

Lilia groaned as the Drone said that part about shutting it down. Oh yeah, she knew. She pointed to the pod she had been inside, knowing it would contain what was needed.

"My PDA contains the codes. You have to enter them into the engine itself. But, the magnetic field... It's very dangerous," Lilia said.

Lilia definitely didn't object to getting off the planet. She felt she could probably enjoy more medical care and a chance to relax, and she knew she wasn't goint to get either while lying out in the middle of a field near a crash site. Still, the presense of that human woman continued to bother her. Something about it just didn't seem right...

Group 3

The old man merely snorted to what they said, replying, "Okay, so you're advanced catmen from outer space."

Despite his overall contrariness, he did give them a brief look of gratitude at the offer, moving to hand one the shovel before limping off to grab another stick and piece of debris, obviously intent on fashioning another. Only to stop and look up as the Klikiss came in. He tensed until he realized the two groups knew each other, relaxing. To him, the now-junk that made up the escape pods didn't matter anymore, so he had no problem with them looking it over. It wasn't like they were going to find some grave military secret by learning about what was pretty much cheap metal with a heat shield and a couple of thrusters. The entire design was nearing his age anyway.

"I remember an old story my pappy told me. That we bury them so their bodies can give back to nature. Kinda a way of trying to give something back for all we've took. Hogwash if you ask me, but who am I to disagree?" the man stood. "Help's appreciated."

He then looked to the one who spoke of survivors. "There was a girl. Her pod landed in that lake over there. Took a massive effort to get her out. Left her in the shade while I came back to start digging here. Just came back from checking on her and she's gone. If you don't know where she is, then she wandered off."

He began to limp back to the bodies, having used a scarf to complete construction, saying, "I spotted a cow near there. Really tame animal. Must be a farm near here."

Village:

The Klikiss drone simply watched as the little girl aproached it, the Breedex, relativly taken aback by this, took a moment or two to repond as she gathered her thoughts appropriatly; a moment or two later the drone began to chitter and the droid translated.

"We are called Klikis, and yes i bring a gift... Emilininia."

The Klikiss held out the small black metal box it had been holding with two of it's spindly clawed arms, offering it towards the girl for her to take. The box was essentially a twelve inch wide box made of a burnished metal, on the top a pattern was engraved consisting of numerous circles and lines circulating around the center.

"This is a representation of your system, this is your sun" the Klikiss pointed to the largest circle in the center, "and this is your home planet." The Klikiss instead pointed at a circle further out with two smaller circles surrounding it, on inspection the lines going round it's top were the obits of the various bodies in system.

"It's a music" the Klikiss said, "music is special to us; look" the Klikiss obviously had different ideas about what music really was, as shown by it's bad grammer usage, but it pointed to the sun circle on the box and then tapped it.

The circle illuminated with a yellow glow, producing a synthesized note reminiscent of a pipe organ, a few moments later the other circles began to illuminate various colours producing different hums untill it had a tune of sorts going. As the circles glowed and dimmed as they produced music the top surface began to move as the circles began to move i na circular motion around the sun; it was essentially a large clockwork mesh which doubled as a music box. The tune came to a stop after a few minutes and the clockwork top came to a halt; the Klikiss offered it towards the girl once more.

"It plays a different tune each time, for you and your hive."

Group 3:

The scientists continued in their efforts to dismantle one of the escape pods, laying out the pieces in rows and neat orders, three of the drones moved to help with the digging, using their shovel shaped appendages to remove sizeable lumps of earth and pile it up.

"We have chaged our Klikis flyers course to investigate the possibilities of a farm."

The Klikiss chittered to themselves whilst the droid gazed around absentmindedly, occasionally staring at the Greywatch drone. As the old man began to limp back to the bodies the Klikiss noticed with one of the medical types taking a step forwad and chittering, pointing at the mans leg,

"Do you require some form of medical treatment? Or stimulants?"

Station Commander Aya Forelli

Glad to hear your communication difficulties have been worked out. We will enter into orbit around the planet and deploy our away team. At which point we will evaluate the situation and retrieve your personnel and equipment.


After the message their engines fired up and headed towards the planet where the crash-landed ship was waiting for them unsure what else was their waiting for them.

The Crew was ready and once a stable orbit around the planet was establshed the ground crew left in a shuttle heading down to the crash site.

OOC: Kicking this forward.

OOC: Damn, didn't notice the update... I'll get on this.

Explorer Bridge:

The captain had another channel opened and described everything that her team had found ever since they arrived, including what had happened on the surface, and what the current situation was yielding.

On the Heimlin:

The Drone nodded to Melina, “Correct on both accounts. I assume you are members of the crew.” The explosion and violent rocking hardly phased the Drone and the only challenge was keeping its balance. The other Drones exchanged looks and two of them moved forward, the other got back onto the boarding craft and updated the other teams on the situation. The Drone that had spoken to Melina helped the two up, “It is best if you two get off, I and two others will head to Engineering and try to shut down the ship. Do not argue, we are expendable, you are not; it is situations like these that I and my comrades are meant for. If you would please point the way.”

Squad 4 of 2:

The human who was leading the others moved forward. He pressed down on some buttons around his neck and the helmet dematerialized, revealing his face. He was a dark skinned man with brown eyes and short black hair. He looked to the woman who’d stepped forward, and then to the man. (OOC: She doesn’t speak English, correct?) He didn’t understand her so instead he answered Timothy, “My name is Gen. I’m here because we were responding to a distress call; I’m assuming it was made by your ship, Timothy. The reason for investigating the pods was because we’re trying to figure out exactly what happened. Chances are, they’ll be taken back to one of our ships in orbit to be examined.” He looked to the others gathered around his group and then looked to the other Greywatchers. The rest of his group, except for the Leanorian, put away their weapons.

Group 1:

The Drone nodded, “Not a problem.” It took the PDA and began looking over it as it headed to the dropship. The other pods had all been taken in, and most of the soldiers were now looking for anything else in the area. The Lenaorian picked up Lilia gingerly and took her back to the dropship, “We’ll be heading back in space in a few moments.” Everything was in place; wounded were secured, pods were loaded up, and soldiers that weren’t headed back to the Explorer got new orders. Within five minutes, both the dropship and shuttle had taken off and were headed back to their ships, leaving only a handful of explorers and soldiers in the area.

Group 3:

The Drone had nothing to say but the Leanorian sure did. It looked to its men, who began removing their helmets. “I’m Leanorian; those are humans, Drones, Dragon-kin, and Kiixori. You’ll notice, we don’t all have fur.” He looked to the rest of his group, “Well, I don’t think we’re needed here anymore. Old man, Is there some sort of village leader we can talk to? We’re here responding to a distress call. So far, we’ve only found a few survivors… and this girl you mentioned…” He looked to the Kiixori, “Take to the air.” The bugs nodded and took off, fanning out.

OOC: Sorry if this is a crap post, I’m in kinda a rush.

Terratha Corporate Space Colony

Aya's frown deepened as she looked over the information before her. She sighed, then shook her head. Given what data she had, it looked like most of the crew had not survived, and some of it was currently scattered among the people of some planet. A planet populated by humans. And, worse, the ship was apparently tearing itself apart.

Frowning more, Aya kne what she had to do. If they lost communication before the shuttle was ready, they would possibly not be able to tell if the attempt to send the second one would work.

To Greywatch Explorer 572: Please DO NOT shut down the drive just yet. We are preparing a second ship and need to be certain that the ship can both get there and get back. As such, we need the rift open to act as a form of communications, and right now the ship is necessary to keep it active.

Then she turned to the other communication, wondering that group's purpose.

On the Heimlin

"Yes, we are," Melina said, confirming that they were of the crew.

"We would have left with the others, but the magnetic field caused massive computer errors. Our computers are not shielded against magnetic fields," the engineer said, not even hesitating to head towards the alien transport.

"It's behind us. Just follow the hallways. But, the section we came through is pure vacuum, and those doors are not going to open until air's restored. You'll have to cut through them. The engineering room's also guarded by miniguns," Melina said.

"There's a section of wall near them that's around a corner. Panels near the floor contain a computer access. You can bypass the miniguns by putting them in a diagnostic mode and then trapping them in a loop," the engineer said. "Just be warned. If the magnetic field is unstable enough, the panels won't work. If it's torn the doors open, the area's going to be heavily ionized. Assuming the computer still works for the drive, you'll need the access codes as well. And you'll need someone familiar with it to go with you..."

"Hey, if you're going, we're both going," Melina said.

"Then we're both going. We'll need suits..."

Melina smiled, walking over to tap a door. "Storage room. All we need is to get the door open. The panel doesn't appear to be working."

"Who said we needed that panel?" the engineer asked, grinning, already moving toward the wall. "You know we might both die, right?"

"We'll deal with that when we get there."

Village

Emilininia smiled wide as she heard the device start up with music. She had been curious about the device, but now it was truly wonderful. She bowed quickly to the Klikiss, accepting the device and looking to the adults. They began to approach, curious and seeing that no harm was actually meant.

"Thank you!" Emilininia said to the Klikiss. "It is truly wonderful."

One of the women bent to look at it, stopping and blinking. She pursed her lips for a moment, counting the lines, then turned and gave a worried nod to one man. He then nodded back, turning to hurry off.

"You are in no danger," the woman said. "But... you encountered no ships? There were no buoys on the edge of our system?"

The woman was obviously worried as she asked. And, from the look in her eyes, she already knew the answer, but didn't want to say it. Finally, without waiting for an answer, she sighed.

"Welcome to Arathin. Please feel free to stay as our guests. I am Benjina, one of the three leaders of this colony... well, leaders of my people now," she said, offering a hand.

Benjina was pretty typical for her people, except her eyes were blue and her hair had streaks of blond within it. She also was a bit taller than most, her body on the leaner side for her height. And she was wearing a blue sundress and wide-brimmed straw hat.

Squad 4 of 2

OOC: Correct. She doesn't speak English. Timothy can understand her because of the earrings.

IC:

Saranithia blinked as she wasn't addressed, her eyes narrowing. She almost attempted to say something snappy, and then blinked again as she heard the language. Considering the language similarities, it didn't take her long to figure out why she wasn't addressed. She did relax as the weapons were lowered.

"Good, they managed to get out a distress call. How many survivors? I've not seen any since landing," Timothy said. "I'm eager to get back to the rest of my crew."

"While you're at it, tell him he's on Arathin, one of the farming colonies of the Coalith Confederation," Saranithia said, only to add one more comment in a low tone. "Possibly the only surviving colony."

"Farming colony?" Timothy asked her.

"You didn't honestly think that farmers would normally have access to language translators that could be worn as earrings, did you?" Saranithia countered.

Timothy quickly relayed the message to the man from Greywatch, before adding, "I need to get in contact with my homeworld and let them know what we've found."

Group 1

Lilia smiled, not entirely unhappy to be getting a chance to enjoy medical care. She smiled her thanks as she was loaded up, leaning her head back and sighing. She noted it was strange they would take such an interest in the escape pods, but that was her opinion. The pods themselves were no secret, but merely an old design given new purpose. At one time, they would have been the primary landing craft of lunar missions returning to Earth, though they were better designed for landing in water than solid ground.

Group 3

The old man shook his head to the offer of medicine, saying, "It's an old football injury. Got hit hard right on the goal line, but still managed to win the game. Haven't walked right in over sixty years because of it."

Then he turned, noting the men were taking off their helmets, and blinked at the question. "How would I know? I came in the pod that just got taken apart. Warrant Officer Donald Bush at your service. I remember back when the only time you fell down in space is when you got too close to Earth. Now they have fancy artificial gravity and people who live entirely in orbit. Bah! Still, does good for the arthritis. Joints haven't ached in ten years."

He paused. "The girl's one I've seen on a few missions like our's before. Young, good upstart, tough as hell. Name of Lane, I think. Knowing my luck, someday she'll be my boss. Might be some tracks from the lake for you to follow, but a cow was all over where I had left her. Want me to show you?"

Lane's location

"How many died?" Lane asked.

"Billions. We don't have exact figures but... the planet was devastated. The nuclear fallout from the orbital bombardment left it unable to support life. The military tried their best to stop the rebels, but it was too late. In a quest for vengeance, the military launched an attack on the rebel's homeworld. The bombardment managed to crack the planet's crust... I don't know exact details, but I do know both sides reported no survivors of that attack," the woman said. "But, the rebels continued anyway. Over the next ten years, we lost contact with colony after colony. And not just our side either. Four years ago, we lost contact with what was left of the military. Ever since, our world has been alone."

"Maybe we can help," Lane said.

"You're barely out in space yourselves," the woman replied.

"And you had to cannibalize most of your advanced technology. We're not that far behind where you are now. What could it hurt?" Lane asked.

Bridge of Explorer:

The captain nodded to the request and opened a channel:

<Very well. We will await your coming through before we do anything rash. I will tell the boarding parties to not keep hang tight.>

She got a hold of the away teams and other Greywatch ships, forwarding the necessary information to them.

On the Heimlin:

The Drone closed its eyes behind its visor. “If you are going to proceed you will need this.” The Drone held out its hand and two bracelets appeared in it. “These bracelets are for emergency situations like this one, they summon armor similar to the kind I am currently using. They will protect you from the elements… you will not have to worry about the vacuum of space, or the strong magnetic fields… but these do not come with shields so don’t step in front of those turrets you just mentioned. We have weapons, we will take care of the turrets.” The other teams knew this wasn’t going to be something for them to get involved in. Drones were build for these kinds of situations, they were not natural creatures. They were neither machine based nor flesh based, they simply were.

Squad 4 of 2:

Gen looked to a Drone standing behind him; the creature closed its eyes for a moment before opening them again. “Six survivors have been found at one crash site, they are on their way to a Greywatch cruiser to receive medical assistance. One survivor has been found in another group of pods burying the dead… He said something of a woman named Hale disappearing. If you’re wondering, I am hive-minded with many other Drones, everything they see, I see. That is how I’m receiving this knowledge.” The human knowledge, “Now then, you said this was a farm colony? My word… the last one… I need to contact my captain.” A colony, possibly the last colony of its kind, made by the ‘Coalith Confederation.’ Greywatch had no records of such a race, even though they appeared to be human. “What happened to the other colonies? How long have these people been here?” Were two of the questions the soldier had, “Ah, nevermind. We can cover that later, for the moment I’m more concerned about taking care of the wounded.”

Group 1:

The transport carrying the wounded entered and softly touched down inside the hanger of the Tornado. As soon as the AG clamps got the ship locked in, soldiers began carrying the wounded off to awaiting medical teams. Very quickly, all the survivors that had been found were taken to the medical bay, including Lilia. The inside of the hanger was clean and gray in color. Only a few crates could be seen here and there, a few fighters sat off to the side. After the medical teams had taken the wounded, two Xarniosi entered the hanger. “We heard about the pods…” One of them said. A Drone nodded, “They’re all yours. Study them, dissect them, whatever to your hearts content.” With that, everything went back to normal.

Group 3:

The Leanorian nodded, “Yes please, and thank you. Speaking of which, we have a transport a ways over yonder,” the Leanorian pointed in the direction the transport was in, “If you wish to go to one of our ships to receive medical support, food, anything, don’t hesitate to ask.” The rest of the group members began replacing their helmets.

Bridge of Explorer:

The captain listened to a report from Squad 4 of 2. Amazing that this was an old colony that hadn’t been touched for so long. She began making a report to send to Greywatch right away. It might be just a farming colony, but Greywatch would be interested in opening diplomatic relations with these people when all this was over.

Orbit:

The Klikiss research vessel's outer transportal thrummed suddenly, glowing before resolving into a window opening onto a hanger, from this a number of transports emerged, one for each stellar body in the system, they split up heading for the different worlds and the sun which were in the system, except none headed towards the habitable world, instead the spare one headed out into the orbital center of the system...

Village:

The drone buzzed in satisfaction as the Hive's Breedex immersed itself in satisfaction as to how well the contact had gone. Normally new races panicked and ran off, on many an occasion had her race been mistaken for demons by less advanced species; admittedly on most occasions they were first sighted in swarming droves holding weapons and consuming the biomass of entire continents but still... The Klikiss drone slowly and carefully extended one of it's many arms and gripped the humans hand with it's own three clawed hand; surprised that the human would be brave enough to do so. The Klikiss were after all large beetle shaped creatures with stubby legs, a multitude of arms and a black shiny exoskeleton. Of course, drones were only four foot in height and as such the Breedex had to look up at Benjina, but still, the drones body was about three foot wide and was six foot long; a shape which would normally send most beings running. The Breedex was however concerned at the agitated state of the female human, at this very moment the Breedex was mapping the entire system, admittedly she had not begun scanning the outer orbital planes but soon she would. The drone clicked and began chittering as the droid translated,

"There are ships, some belonging to my kind, some relating to another race who wishes to help and there is one which seems to have a consumerist objective. There is also a damaged ship in orbit undergoing some form of failure, accompanied by a rift in time and space, a portal of sorts. There are some survivors on the planet of which we are searching for to aid; have you encountered any?" The Klikiss tilted it's head slightly, "As for the buoys and other ship, why? Is there something we should be on the look out for? What concerns you?"

Klikiss Tranport:

A variety of blocky equiptment had been unloaded from the Klikiss transport, near to the ship a five foot wide square two foot deep had been excavated, the equiptment had been piles in an organised manner besides it. The largest piece of equiptment was a metal slab the same shape as the hole, for which it was destined, the Klikiss carefully, if it could be called that, dragged it over the hole and lowered it as best they could before dropping it. In the center of this metal square now laying flush to the ground was a series of seemingly random protuding rectangular shapes, on to these the Klikiss placed a square block two foot wide and two foot in height, it fitted perfectedly onto the top, humming suddenly as it made contact with the protuding blocks as a magnetic connection pulled the sections together. The Klikiss began to add the additional sections onto it, each interlocking with the other with a humming sound.

Klikiss Flyers:

The Flyers which had been diverted when the old man had indicated the direction of a caw, and therefore a farm, did notice some animals on their journey, but unfortunatly could not say if it was a cow since they didn't know what one was. On the other hand they spotted a cultivation site with a building or two located there. That they assumed was the farm. The five flyers touched down in a field close to the buildings, learning from the encounter at the village, and lacking both a gift and a form of translation, they lumbered forwards, making sure to stop and remain still if any humans appeared. The sight of five six foot tall immense beetle like creatures possessing an array of equiptment might cause them to panic after all.

Group 3:

The Klikiss scientists were well on their way to stripping the pod, outer sections had been peeled off, and it's interior was being rapidly disassembled, the components were carefully laid out in an orderly manner and subject to srutiny, if anything had been wrong with it they'd find it. The Klikiss watched as the Greywatch team seemed to prepare to move out, the Klikiss began chittering again when the man mentioned the farm once more, "Our flyers have encountered a farm in the direction you previously indicated, they are proceeding to venture onto the site at this moment in time. I will have to send the droid to translate." The Klikiss drone gestured towards the Greywatch group, "If you need assistance then contact the Asteroid Complex, as a hive mind we will be able to assist you down here." The Klikiss turned to the old man once more, "the rest of us will remain here but without the droid you will not be able to understand us. We can understand you however, we will help you if you choose to stay here. Also our scientists wish to continue analysing the pod."

With that the droid's outer carpace spilt open and two large film like wings made of a bright red material spread wide. They began beating furiously with an electronical hum causing dust to stir up from the ground, the droid rose up from the ground and turned mid-air towards the appropriate direction before heading off.

On the Heimlin

Melina nodded, accepting the bracelet and putting it on. She shuddered as the armor deployed, then sighed before looking to the engineer. She wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but was willing to try to learn rapidly. Despite that, the engineer continued to work on the panel, finally smiling as the door slid open. Then she put on her bracelet while Melina entered the room and grabbed a few tools.

"Now, how are we going to get this door open?" Melina asked, having not found anything that could cut through it.

Village

Benjina nodded at the Klikis, then sighed as she finally drew her hand back. "More like, something that should be there and isn't. It seems that we're the last of our people now."

She then sighed more, saying, "We've encountered no one, but I suggest you check by the farms. There are bound to be people there matching who you're looking for."

Squad 4 of 2

Timothy nodded to what he said, "Last one, apparently. We both seem to have something to learn about this planet."

Saranithia huffed once, crossing her arms, but otherwise kept quiet for now. She obviously didn't trust the Greywatch people, yet seemed to accept that she wouldn't necessarily have a say in them staying. She definitely was watching them, though.

"Only six survivors..." He sighed. "The company's not going to be happy about that. We lost some good people."

"How many did you lose?" Saranithia asked, her stance softening a bit.

"I don't know. I think the crew was supposed to be around one hundred. It was a large ship," Timothy answered.

Group 1

Lilia had, by that point, fallen asleep, completely unaware of what they were doing. Such blissful, blissful sleep.

Group 3

Donald nodded to the Klikis, then moved to lead the group. He nodded more as he heard what they said about a farm.

"She might be there," he said. "And, thank you. If I need help, I'll be back shortly."

Then he started to walk, limping towards the lake, just in case. He briefly wondered what purpose they had for the old pod. But, his mind quickly forgot about it as he got closer to the lake.

Outer edge of the system

If someone wasn't looking for it, they'd likely never find it. Hidden among the moons of a large gas planet on the outer edge of the system was the remains of a battle. No whole part of a ship could be identified, and any whole technology was either destroyed in the blast that created the debris field or already looted. One large section of a ship showed signs of life pods being launched, yet the only place they would be found by scanners is inside the gas planet, having been pulled in by the planet's gravity. The entire debris field was drifting towards it, doomed to eventually join the life pods in gravity-caused destruction.

If anyone were to look, it would appear the ships had been firing on each other, due to the direction the attacks had come from and the damage on all ships having the same signatures. They also appeared to be of the same design, though damage would make it hard to tell.

But, the final piece of the puzzle was one portion of a ship, which was labelled "Coalith Confederation Space Force."

OOC: Sorry if this is bad Long day. And, I didn't address the drones at the farm because they wouldn't be noticed by those in the house yet.

On the Heimlin:

The armor was sleek and white, yet obviously durable, just like the Drone's. The Drone watched as the pair sought to arm themselves with the tools neccesary to fix whatever problems there were in engineering. The Drone looked to the two, "We have weapons and explosives for situations like this one. Of course, we also have technicians back on the boarding craft who could try hacking, though I'm not sure how many ship systems are still functioning at this point." The Drne thought for a moment, "And if need be, I can always just use Cryption."

Squad 4 of 2:

"Well, the most of survivors from your crew are currently aboard one of my ships. We can take you there if you want, something tells me my captain would like to meet you." Gen said before looking to the Drone, "Can you do a more accurate count?" The Drone nodded, "Six were found by group 1. Group 3 has found another survivor who has spoken of another survivor who went missing, Group 3 is now going to help find this missing survivor. Two more have been found by a boarding team on your," the Drone pointed to Tim, "ship. The two still on the ship are currently working with other Drones to try and shut down the de-stabalized mag field." Gen nodded, "Thank you. So that makes...ten in total, I believe. That's including the one who Group 3 is currently looking for. Damn, that's a lot of casualties...."

Group 3:

"Okay then, let's move out people." They all prepared to follow the old man and then moved off where he pointed, the Leanorian giving a brief thank you as they did so. When they were out of earshot he made sure a Kiixori would keep an eye on the man in case he needed assistance later on. Now, to find that missing girl.

System Wide:

Some of the Klikiss transports which had left the Asteroid complex began to reach their destinations, the outer worlds would take a short while longer but the nearer worlds, especially the two moons orbiting the habitbale world, were reached quickly. In calm and tolerable environments, whether it be windelss or vacuum, obelisk like structures were carrired from the landing transports by Klikiss robots and set up; these obelisk like structures would scan the entire world and further out as their scanners could reach. They began mapping everything in their vicinity at the Quantum level and relaying the results back to the Klikiss's most powerful computer residing on Rhendic Co.

Half of the obelisks had been set up, above gas-like worlds they were set in orbit above them, from there as they came online one by one they began scanning, first the world, then the surrounding space...

Village:

The Breedex felt her interest stir, more of them? The Klikiss drone made a clicking sound before chittering once more, the drone translated as always, "There were more of you? On other worlds? With begun scanning the system now but have detected nothing as of yet. Did something happen here in the past?"

Klikiss Transport:

The Klikiss slotted the last pieces of the now obelisk resembling structure together, it stood six meters high and was topped with a pyramid block. It was made of a dull burnished metal, embellished with hundreds of symbols line and grooves as beffitting the Klikiss's nature, part instructions, part mathimatical description and part descriptive of it's purpose. The glyphs also seemed to be intwined with the circuitry since many of the lines glowed and thrummed with a dull orange colour. One of the drones tapped a circle glyph near the base, a shimmering blue field resolved around the structures, playing over it merely a centimeter away from the surface; it eventually cleared, a safety sheild had been set up. With that it began scanning the entire world.

Farm:

The Klikiss flyers had reached the farm itself, standing in a clearing of some sort, there appeared to be no humans around, the Breedex held them with the same certainty she always did but the individuality of the flyers crept throughsomewhat, occasionally they jerked their heads to look in various directions. They stood motionless for a few seconds, before hearing the distinctive hum of a Klikiss robot in flight, it touched down next to the flyers, folding away it's wings and shutting it's carpace it boosted it's audio to maximum and began speaking at what looked like the main human dwelling. "Hello? We come in peace, we are here to help any survivors from an emergency situation involving a vessel in orbit." The drd was loud and clear with it's monotone, but privatly it thought there was nothing less peacful looking then giant insects, although these humans had already shown a willingness to give them a chance, perhaps they would have similar success here before the Greywatch party arrived.

Group 3/Emergency Pods:

The pod had almost been completely dismantled, nearly every compnent had been catagorized, any dented and bent sections had been forcibly reshaped, the only part which still survived somewhat inteact was the computer, connected to it's powersource by the trail of wiring and circuitry the Klikiss had left alone; one of the scientists had been going through it's normal systems and coding systems to determine it's exact nature. The scientist in question chirped when it finished, with their hive mind, and by audibly echanging information through a flurry of hand signals and chittering they began to build up a complete mental picture of it.

(OOC: I would like to know two things, number 1, is there anything wrong with the pod? Malfunction, sabotage ect.And secondly, does it have a form of self propulsion? However limited.)

On the Heimlin

Melina nodded to what the drone said, then turned towards the door. She frowned as she approached it, reaching up to touch the door carefully before stepping back. The door itself was about an inch thick, designed to seal tight to prevent atmosphere losses.

"Might want to go ahead and start blasting," Melina said. "We'll need to be careful as we move, though. Who knows how badly things have changed."

Just to emphasize the situation may not be entirely stable, the ship gave a shudder. Outside, another of the magnetic coils could be observed burning, having ignited as well.

Village

Benjina sighed at the question, answering, "There used to be. This was actually a new colony. Lightly populated. The inner worlds were much more densely populated, with the inner two having billions. The inner two didn't always get along. Their last disagreement turned into a civil war. As far as we can tell, the civil war ended because there's no one left alive to fight it."

Benjina turned, beginning to walk towards the town. "We still have some star maps within the library, as well as a record of the war. The war record is incomplete... we lost contact with a number of worlds as time passed."

Squad 4 of 2

Timothy blinked, having heard the count. He turned pale as he considered just how lucky he was to have survived. He sighed, then considered. Then, he looked back to the Greywatch soldier.

"Two are still alive on the ship? What condition is it in?" Timothy figured he would have to return to it anyway. "Also, how are they shutting it down? If it's unstable, doesn't that mean engineering is filled with dangerous magnetics?"

"You seriously have no idea how magnetic fields work?" Saranithia asked.

"I'm security, not engineering," Timothy replied.

Saranithia rolled her eyes, saying, "Great. He's clueless." She then sighed. "I'm coming with. I at least assume your people have some way of protecting you from the fields? Some kind or armor?"

"Er..."

"You've got to be kidding me... What kind of idiots play around with magnetic fields and don't make a way to protect themselves?" Saranithia ranted. "What, did you happen to just find the drive one day and decide to plug it in and see what it does?"

"Well, not the drive itself..."

Saranitha threw her hands up in the air, giving the sky a "why me?" look. Then, she shook her head and looked to him, saying, "Well, ask the aliens if they have anything we can use. I'm not about to let someone who doesn't know the first thing of what he's doing go up there."

"Do you think it wise?" one of the other villagers asked while Timothy relayed the request.

"I used to be an engineer. I'll be fine," Saranitha said.

Group 3

Donald nodded as they took off, leaving him behind. He sighed, then continued on to the lake anyway. He actually planned to rest there while he was at it. After all, it was a nice lake.

The lake itself was unusually blue. In fact, it was the kind of blue he liked to see. He had seen a fish plop out of the water the last time he was here and, this time, he planned to see about making a fishing pole. Only, he found himself quite surprised when he arrived to find someone else already there.

She seemed to have chosen shorts and a light shirt that only had one button. The entire outfit was blue, while her head was topped by a blue straw hat. She also had two fishing poles, one of which was cast and being held by her.

"I wondered when you'd show up," she said.

"Huh?" Donald asked.

"Grab a fishing pole and relax. We have something to talk about."

Donald didn't argue, but merely lowered himself onto the grass and took the proffered pole. He blinked as he noticed it had already gotten the worm attached, and then shrugged. One cast later and he was waiting on a bite, teasing the line on occasion.

"So, who are you?" Donald asked.

The woman merely smiled, reeling in her hook as a fish got caught on it a few moments later.

Farm

Lane and the woman both jumped at the announcement from outside. The woman frowned as she stood, reaching to straighten her clothes before looking to Lane. She paused for a few moments, apparently thinking.

"Stay here," the woman said. "I'll go investigate. That didn't sound human."

"How do you know?" Lane asked.

"One of my degrees is in xenobiology. Given a bit of time to study a lifeform, I could probably tell you quite a bit about it. You, for example, are human. Yet, you come from a world that is three thousandths of a percentage point higher in gravity, yet you show signs of a long-term stay in artificial gravity. Your ancestors come from a land with harsh winters and which is at an angle away from your sun. Your skin also shows there's been a slow buildup of radiation exposure in recent generations, probably because of a declining ozone layer and increasing pollution," the woman said.

"I believe you," Lane said.

The woman smiled, then moved through the house, emerging from it quickly. She blinked in surprise as she saw the insectoids, then tilted her head. She'd never seen a life form like this before...

"I assume it's one of you who called out?" the woman asked. "You will please have to excuse me if I seem a little shocked. I've never seen insectoids your size before. I hope that term's not offensive..."

She paused, then said, "I have one inside right now, but she's currently recovering. That she doesn't have a concussion or major internal injuries is a miracle, given the bruises she has. And she was strangely wet when she arrived here, like she'd been in a lake."

She moved down, asking, "May I examine one of you? I've never had a chance to study a creature of significant size and intelligence, except for humans."

Group 3/Emergency Pods

The emergency pod itself had been relatively undamaged. The heat shield was a little charred, but one could expect that from it falling into atmosphere. The thrusters, which used jets of air for maneuvering, were obviously intended just to turn the device and give it nudges in the right direction. Otherwise, it seemed mostly designed to let gravity do the work.

Missing from the back was a panel, which is over an empty compartment. The compartment had strings coming from it, which look to have been recently attached to something. An internal manifest listed the compartment as being intended to hold parachutes to slow the pod's decent, with the parachutes having obviously been deployed. Strangely, the strings were burned, almost like the parachutes had ignited after being deployed.

The internal electronics, though, were useless. An examination would show that the motherboards had been electronically wiped, as though the pod had been exposed either to a large magnet or strong magnetic field. An examination of one computer screen would reveal an image burned into it, which turned out to be a warning message.

Warning! Warning! Unknown error code! Heimlin computer malfunction! Safety protocols bypassed! Computer override 1127 engaged, launching all escape pods! Abort code from Heimlin computer incomplete!

The electrical systems of the pod also prove damaged beyond repair, affected by the same magnetics as the computers.

System Wide

The system itself proves to be unusual. The system only has four planets, with a number of asteroid belts in place. Near the sun at the center is one asteroid belt, which shows signs of having once been a planet. Beyond that belt lies a small planet, about the size of a small moon, which orbits the start in an elliptical orbit that takes it from close to the star clear out to the outer edge of the system. Then comes Arathin, followed by another asteroid belt before a gas giant. Beyond that lies another asteroid belt, the final gas giant, and then three moon-sized planets that seem to be orbitting a single spot between them while they continue to orbit the star itself. Then comes the system's Oort Belt.

The other odd item is a comet in system, which makes course corrections as it plows through the system. Examination of it would prove it to be a normal comet modified into a communication buoy, with it programmed to follow a path that has it orbitting two stars and serving as a method of carrying mail between them. The computer systems are mostly not working, having not received proper maintenance in years, and it's been nearly a decade since any data was sent to it. The computer systems bear a similar, though less advanced, technology signature as that of the ship remains.

On the Heimlin:

The Drone nodded, “Very well.” It and several other Drones began moving forward. Four of them armed their energy cutters while the lead Drone stood aside. The four Drones lifted their weapons and fired, streams of brightly colored energy began to slice through the door. These weapons were made for getting through tough, unshielded material. The lead Drone looked to the two, “It will be open soon.” The other Drone proceeded to get the door open ASAP.

Squad 4 of 2:

“You’re ship is falling apart, at least so it looks from the outside. But it seems to be holding. One of the people we found happens to be an engineer, we also have a PAD containing data of how to shut the engines down. The crew members we found are currently okay due to the suits we gave them, the magnetic fields will not hurt them in the least. We Drones are also immune to magnetic damage,” the Drone opened it clothing as it spoke, removing a blade from its pocket and plunging it into its chest before bringing the blade down to its stomach. The Drone then put the blade away and pulled open the wound, inside was grayish fluid, “We are not organic, nor are we machines. We are something different; due to this, we possess immunity to many things in nature.” The Drone pulled its ‘skin’ back together and the wound vanished. Gen gave a curious look to Saranithia before looking to Timothy, “Can you translate whatever she’s going on about? I can’t understand her at all…”

Group 3/Farm:

Most of the Group was quick to arrive after the Klikiss, it had been quite a run; however, the Kiixori had no problem matching the speed the Klikiss flew at. The Leanorian took off his helmet and bowed, “Greetings, we are from Greywatch… we mean no harm.” The rest of the group was busy catching its breath.

Village:

A war that decimated two whole colonies, a rather impressive, if somewhat useless, result by humanoids. The drone and Klikiss robot interpreted Benjina's actions as a sign to follow, as they they lumbered along behind her,

"Does this mean that this world os the last remmanent of your species?"

Farm:

The Breedex experienced the mental equivilant of a sigh of relief, the humanoid hadn't gone running and she was curious to their nature, also there seemed to be a surviror here as the old man had said.

"Yes you may... study us, if you wish."

The Klikiss were going to inquire as to the possibility of seeing the survivor when the Greywatch group arrived, seeming to have sprinted in their efforts to get there; the Breedex wondered why they would stretch themselves to follow her. On the other hand she was intrigued at the Leanorian and the Kiixori, one of the flyers produced a stream of rattling and chirping noises to see what effect it would have on them; evidently they wouldn't speak thesame language, but they might be able to learn it and use it more activly than other forms of speech.

The other flyers began chittering once more for a moment, then stopped as the Klikiss robot took a step forwards.

"Would it be possible to see the survivor, to assist her in any particular way?"

Emergency Pods:

The scientists made several chirping noises of satisfaction, the pod was fully functional, although somewhat useless to them; that would be resolved soon. The scientists took one look at the assorted components and then tried to think of how they could be used, they glanced at the other pods before suddenly kicking into action, some of them started to pick out parts from the dismatled pod whilst others went to the other pods and began pulling out components of interest.

Meanwhile the warrior and drone Klikiss stood around simply watching, at one point one of the drones turned its head in the direction of old man to check up on him, it took a moment to register but there was something else there, something.. blue, and it wasn't a refection from the lake. The drones hummed to themselves whilst the warrior clicked to itself before readying it's trumpet like weapon and began to lumber towards the lake.

System Wide:

The Klikiss Obelisks were fast and highly effective, withen miutes of all of them being set up the Klikiss were being supplied with an expanding map of the system as it's expanse was revealed to them, few planets and an asteroid belt, strangely located near the sun and an odd comet here and there, what drew their attention however was the abundance of drifting wreckage near one of the gas giants. Now this was a fine find indeed.

The Klikiss Hive was now aware that the system had been subject to a battle, and now they had found the battlefield, they would be able to study what they could and perhaps keep artifacts of interest or simply harvest it as resources.

The Asteroid Complex performed a quantum translocation, simply dissapearing in a sudden all-encompassing blast of micro slip-space ruptures and appearing at the edge of the system near the debris. The Complex utilised it's gravatic technology which covered it's ecternal structure and began focusing them on the larger sections first and then the smaller parts, as the gravity beams took hold the parts would be quickly drawn towards the Asteoid; meanwhile the various hangers and transportals opened up allowing a swarm of Klikiss engineering pods numbering in the hundreds to swarm towards the various sections, each pod seemed to resemble an ancient bathysphere. With that the Klikiss prepared to plunder this chest of knowledge.

On the Heimlin

Melina smiled, watching as the drones quickly took apart the door with their weaponry and other items. Of course, as soon as there was a gap, the suction started. Air quickly escaped as the door was taken down, the suction itself drawing the water that had been building up on the floor straight towards the hole. Melina herself was nearly knocked down as it flew past her.

"I think we forgot about something," the engineer said.

Village

Benjina smiled at the question. "Our species? Maybe. We've long suspected humans to be on other worlds, but don't have proof yet. Assuming no proof landed along with you, that is. As far as we know, we're the last."

The village itself seemed centered not around a church, which was actually set along an outer edge, but a large town square. The roads between the houses, which looked to be of European design in how the buildings and roofs were shaped, were made up of flagstone paths, which had a lot of the unevenness worn away through years of use. The roads were lined every ten feet with what looked like lampposts with gas lamps, though a close examination would reveal the posts to be electric and supplied by some kind of underground wire. Adding to it was the fact the houses themselves all features chimneys, yet each one had a tiny electrical meter that was barely noticeable.

The town square itself was paved with what looked like flagstone at first, but actually proved to be treated wood chips set into the ground. It was lined with the same lamps as the road with benches set along the outer edge, yet the lamps did not enter the square. The center of the square itself was slightly blackened, as though it had seen a fire lit on it. A few people were standing in it, chatting with each other.

"Maara, do you remember where the star charts were stored?" Benjina asked one woman.

"Yeah. Prupal's got them. He's having students make copies as part of their practice at making maps. He said Emilininia is getting quite proficient at making accurate copies," the woman answered.

"I knew she would," Benjina said, turning and beckoning for the Klikis to follow her.

Next, she turned, headed towards the church. The front of it was a mere stone path, leading through grass to the main building. The building itself was designed in the style of a small church, with the flat front topped with a steeply angled roof and the usual spiked belltower. Then Benjina paused, stopping to look back.

"Please understand that this place is considered holy ground. There are things we cannot explain which have influence on this world," Benjina said, sounding totally serious.

Squad 4 of 2

Timothy sighed, saying, "She says she's going with us... and doesn't think I'm competent. I never got a chance to go over the briefings before I was put in duty and the accident happened."

"Then your commanders are incompetent," Saranithia said. "I still don't understand what kind of society can travel through space, yet doesn't have translators."

"Well, do you know how these earrings function?" Timothy asked.

Saranitha paused, thinking, and then said, "You have a good point. They're a military design. All we do is copy. So, when do we leave?"

Timothy sighed, then looked to the Greywatch person. "She wants to know when we leave."

Group 3/Farm

Just as she was going to start, she looked up as the others arrived. She blinked at seing the second group. The woman sighed, then looked between them, considering.

"The woman is best left to rest. She's currently under my medical care, and moving her is not necessarily good for her health right now. Plus, the bedroom is certainly not big enough to fit all of you," the woman said.

In fact, she was unsure the insectoid people could fit inside at all without causing problems. She did not know if they could move well within a dwelling designed for humans. And she certainly didn't want to risk them accidentally breaking items just because it's too crowded for their bodies.

Emergency Pods

"You see, there is something you should know about this planet. The southern continent is, at current, considered off-limits. The reasoning, of course, is due to the fact it has several unique dangers from local animals. I would..."

And then she stopped, seeing the one moving towards them. She frowned, before looking back to Donald. She sighed, shaking her head, and looked back to her pole.

"It looks like we're about to be interrupted," the woman said, referring to the Klikis coming their way.

OOC: Please excuse the lateness of this. I got deep into an argument on NSG >.<

A Utopian, do you want more information on the debris?

On the Heimlin:

"Decompression won't be a problem as long as your suit is actiavted. Make sur eyou stay close to us, and activate you mag boots. You can activate them by thought." The Drone team began to cautiously move forward.

Squad 4 of 2:

"I see. So she;s essentially gogin to nag at us if we say 'no,' right. Well very well." The man looked to to one of the other soldiers who began sending a message to the Tornado. The other man looked up and move forward, "Hold on, blink scape activated. Blink in 3, 2, 1." The man, Tim, and Saranithia vanished in a flash. Gen and the others looked around, "Well, I guess that means our job is done here. I don't think anyone else is going to talk to us..." Gen and company began turning like they were going to leave, chances were if these people didn't warm up by now, they weren't ever going to. Gen waved his hand, a device appearing in it, "It would seem that while I can't understand you, some of you can still understand me. This is a communicator, if you need anything from me or my captain, please contact us using this." He held the device out for anyone,hopefully an adult, to take.

Tornado, Hanger:

The group of three appeared in the warship's hanger. Transports were behind them, as were some smaller boarding craft. Techinicians and soldiers moved around with definate purpose. One technician approached the two, he held out his hand revealing two bracelets and looked specifically at Timothy and Saranithia. "If you're going to help, put these on. Squeeze to activate. Then, get yourself to a boarding craft," the man pointed to one of the vessels, "We don't have any time to waste."

Group 3/Farm:

The Leanorians hald out his hand, which began to glow faint blue, "Does she have any serious injuries? I am a qualified healer and can take care of any wounds very quickly. If all she needs is rest then don't mind if my team and I simply mark this location for future reference." He waved his hand, a small device appearing in it, he walked over and handed it to the woman, "Take this, please. It is a communicator, you can use it to contact my captain if you need anything."

Group 3, Kiixori:

The Kiixori hovered high above the old man and the woman, just as they'd been commanded to. They were not to interfere in their business, just watch to make sure the old man didn't need any help.

Terratha Corporate Space Colony
Construction Bay

The ship chosen was a Chevuyet Class Space Shuttle, designed for reuse and not modified much in the thirty years it had been in service for the company. The corporation had bought the vessel when the original owners were retiring it. While it was far from having modern computer systems, the shuttle had repeatedly proven its durability and long-term endurace. Of course, it wasn't without its problems.

The shuttle, which was fondly nicknamed Gracie, had proven... temperamental. The airlocks had a tendency to stick and often required a hard kick to get them open, the main computer was prone to randomly switching switching between English and German during operation, one of the thrusters would start firing at intervals, and the controls were so incredibly touchy that most people ended up putting it into a spin when just trying to maneuver. The fact it hadn't crashed or lost a crew once was more a testament to the Terratha Corporation's stubbornness and the fact the crew was chosen for their unique ability to somehow get the vessel to work as intended.

And now, it was being modified to be able to generate a magnetic field and open rifts in space.

Engineer Talos Carliv was scratching his head. The magnetic engine itself utilized modern computer programming to operate. This system, though, was antiquated. Antiquated enough that he had to have one of the crew help him set it up. And now he couldn't figure out why the system wasn't accepting his password, despite the fact that four calls to Control had confirmed that it had been uploaded and the crew of the vessel agreed. And the security features of attempting to work around the password were so bizarre that he had no clue how to even attempt getting around them.

"Having trouble getting in?" said one crew member, a woman. "Want me to show you how?"

"Yes. This is... I've never seen programming like this before," Talos admitted.

He smiled as she approached... only to jump as she reached up and gave the computer a hard smack. The screen shifted a bit and then displayed comfirmation of his password before switching to the command list. He frowned as he turned towards it, ready to begin his work of integrating the two systems.

"Don't you know that will damage computers?" Talos asked.

"Damage? Kid, they built this sucker with the idea it might be slammed into by a micrometeor and still have to function. Shit, I could probably beat a grown man to death with that monitor and still have it work another twenty years," the woman replied, going to work with connecting wires for the added batteries.

"Then it's time for me to work. Say, before I do, how did you bypass the secondary relay? I know that would cause us problems with the newer shuttles," he asked.

"I didn't bypass anything," was her reply.

"Then how..." he began.

"Look, this ship is older than both of us put together. It's not even built using the same principles of engineering that we understand. They built this sucker sturdy, strong, and with the idea it will have to survive being beaten with a wrench. Hell, if it wasn't for weight issues, they would have made the hull from steel. Hell, this thing's sturdier than you are," the woman said.

"This is Control. How ready are you for launch?" came Aya's voice through the station's intercom.

"We'll be ready to launch as soon as it's programmed," Talos said. "Shouldn't take any longer than twenty minutes..."

"I'm not going to ask how you pulled this off," Aya said.

To the ships helping with our lost ship: Our vessel is nearing readiness for launch much sooner than we projected. It should be headed that way shortly.

<Understood, we will be awaiting your arrival and will be ready to pick you up once you're through.>
That was all that came from the Explorer, the captain was anxious. Hopefully, this would work without incident, though that was a lot to ask for.

OOC: I'll post on this tomorrow. Got too much going on RL side right now.

OOC: No problem, RL always take priority

OOC: Bumping this up a bit so it's not so far behind in pages.