Colonization: Ch.2: DESCENT [Mature, IC]

[Inumo]

At every third sensor post, Marianne stuck Steve into the dirt and ran a sample while the others set up the sensor post. Noting the readings in her datapad, she used her knowledge to get a general idea of possible mineral deposits or arable land.

[Azlan]

As they traveled and placed sensor posts, Rebecca noticed a few basic details.  During one of Marianne's tests, she followed and added a remark, "something seems a bit odd.  Discounting the disquieting feeling, this general combination of features and soils seem strange.  I'm not a geologist, but I know a bit.  This red soil is typically found in humid and tropical regions, it has very poor nutrients.  It is likely red from high amount of iron oxide and is probably rather acidic with very low pH.  However, these tower structures are typically located in hot, arid regions prone to seasonal flooding.  It could be ancient remnants and this area was once more tropical and now is arid."

While they moved on to the next post she took a few notes on her wrist computer, "it is going to take a bit of time to make this land arable."

[SquirrelWizard]

Marcus kept an eye out for two things. Signs of indigenous wildlife, and signs of whoever shot the missiles at them. Primarily to make sure they didn't end up on the menu, or blindly walk into another trap. Keeping his gun handy, he silently went about his task of assisting with the sensors.

[Inumo]

Marianne looked at Rebecca as she waited for the test to finish. "Thanks for your input! I noticed it too. However, while Terran stand'rds seem to apply pretty often, it never hurts to double check those assumptions, consid'rin' this's a new planet and all."

[ShadesFox]

Wolfe did not like the rock towers in the slightest.  Normally there would be satellites in the sky so they would just be a minor nuisance.  But this was a land based network.  And rock formations had a nasty tendency to be made of rocks.

After thinking for a moment while near one of the formations Wolfe asks to the crowd in general, "Think someone can get up there?  I bet if we set up something up there it would work out really well."

[Malakin]

Those pillars sure would provide a damn good view from the top, and a camera up there would have a decent advantage over those lower down, but Alix shakes his head at the suggestion.

"Although its a great idea, we don't have any proper climbing equipment, and are any of us even experienced rockclimbers ? It would be rather embarrassing to come back from such a simple task with some one injured or even dead...
I'm sure we can come back later to flesh out the sensor grid with some proper climbing equipment, I for one would love to give climbing those a go."

[Arcalane]

Placing the sensors is easy enough, although getting good coverage requires going back and adjusting things a few times.

Interestingly, you cannot seem to raise base camp on radio, though the line to the sensor post works fine. Regardless of the issue, you head back. The sun is fairly low in the sky by the time you arrive, and the colonists have made good progress on setting up basic facilities. Sandra greets the team on arrival.

"Ah good, you're back. A little later than I expected but that's not a problem. We managed to get some decent barracks and a mess hall set up, so you can relax, rest and prepare yourself for whatever tomorrow is going to throw our way. Assemble at the entry to the vehicle bay at... around nine AM local? I'll brief you when you're all good and ready."

With that, you have some time to socialize and relax. Make the most of it.

[techmaster-glitch]

   Throughout the trip, Jaks drove the van he was controlling with the cable coming out of his cybernetic arm a little...excessively. He took it faster over the rough ground than necessary, and sheared off corners, but all the while if anyone looked at him, he seemed entirely unconcerned as if this was normal driving. Thus, the entire trip -was- shortened a bit from what it could have been otherwise. While Jaks didn't talk much, he helped with setting up sensor posts wherever he could, but internally, he was doing a lot. His augmented reality cybernetic eye was taking info on everyone as he watched them work and talk, noting quirks and idiosyncrasies.
   When they finally got back, Jaks plugged into the ships intercom/intertranscievers, and to his delight, found that his workshop bots were still active. He sent a command for them to converge on his location, then unplugged from the wall and walked back over to the others.
   "So! I don't have much to do until one of the robots breaks, so what's everyone else going to do tonight?" The cyborg asks cheerfully, the electronic eye swiveling around and randomly focusing and zooming in on people.

[Inumo]

"Compiling analysis, more 'n likely," Marianne replied to Jaks. "Those dirt tests ah took oughta be worth somethin', even for a pioneerin' sort o' colony. If y'd like, I could teach ya a thing or two 'bout it."

[ShadesFox]

"My old, pre-epic-fail plan was to assess what areas needed the most attention to hash out radio coverage.  Now I'm not even sure.  Probably figure out the most recent base camp radio problem.  However,  I'm also interested in what anyone has learned about the missiles that hit us.  I'm sure the captain has not been idle on that front."

[Arcalane]

Things at Night
It doesn't take long to figure out that the sensor array is being hit with some pretty low-powered, wide-frequency jamming. It's enough to mess with the vans, and the signal is hard to trace. Radios work fine within the camp and the sensor posts are reporting in A-OK.

Not much has been learnt about the missile strikes, although there's nothing particularly out of the ordinary. They appear to be slightly out of date short-range orbital defense missiles designed to be launched from satellites at smaller vessels, perhaps explaining why the Antygias fared fairly well despite not having military-grade shields yet didn't see them coming until it was too late.

*ConFed Shields are split into different types depending on what they protect against. Plus there's ECM, point defenses, and a few other systems. Most military ships tend to field several defensive systems for redundancy.

Moving on...
Once everyone is rested, washed and fed, Sandra gathers you all in the hangar again. It's pretty early in the morning, but everyone is up and working already. A couple of new faces have joined the crowd, thawed from cells restored to working order.

"Alright, good work on the posts and the soil data. Now we need you to check on that river to the east. We already have a water purification system set up and we're working on drilling a groundwater well, but we didn't want to keep everyone up all night. Just a quick check on the water quality, gather some samples so we can run some tests, and then you can head back. By the time you're done Isaac should have the dorsal bay doors working... or open at least, and you can head out a little further afield. There's actually a couple of potential sites out there, but there's only the one dropship for the time being so you'll have to choose which one to check out first. I'll brief you on those when the time comes."

"Any questions? If not, get in the vans and head out. There's another ramp on the east side of the plateau... it's a little narrow but I think you can handle it."

[ShadesFox]

"One quick thing!  Can I talk with you for a second?  I found a few interesting things I wanted to share with you!"

[Azlan]

Becky had spent a bit of her down time performing microbe tests on the soil of the camp and immediate areas.  These type of tests would take a day or two to produce results.  Other than that she spends her time reading and is cleaned up, fresh and ready for the next day's excursion.

She had brought her full kit with her for this mission and was actually eager to get a look at the ecology, if any.  This would be one of the more likely locations for any type of life.

Stowing her equipment, Rebecca waited in the van for things to get underway after the briefing.

[Malakin]

After an early night Alix was up with plenty of time to spare and made use of it doing odd jobs for anyone willing to let him.

With the briefing over, he slung his stuff in the back of the van and hopped in eager to get going. One more milk run and then a chance to do some real work, sooner this task was done with the better.

[techmaster-glitch]

   Jaks got himself a good night's rest, and reported in the command center when the call went out. However, when he arrived in the room, there was something very different; he seemed to be wearing some kind of armor. Except...it didn't seem practical to be armor. It consisted of two large bulky units attached to both his back and chest, plus one small shoulder unit, not really offering much protection. Waldos extended from both sides down his arms and legs, making it some kind of exoskeleton.
   He approached the rest of the group, and waved to them. "Good morning again, folks!" He went over to sit down in a chair, but doing so surely couldn't work or be comfortable with what he was wearing!
   Except, just as he began to sit down, the 'exoskeleton' seemed to...fall apart. No, it jumped off of him, in two parts. Both bulky units were really the chassis to some kind of insectile, skittering robots. The waldos were really their legs and other appendages. Several small flaps opened up, and sensor stalks poked out. The two robots chittered and beeped as the little eyes scanned around the room, parking themselves on either side of Jaks in his chair. The bit that had been on his shoulder was yet another robot, much smaller than the other two, and also spiderlike. It remained perched on his mechanical shoulder.
   "So, we're checking out the river, and after that, we can finally start scouting for basecamps? Excellent, can't wait to get started!"

[Arcalane]

Offroad Trip!

"This is basecamp, Mr. Karriten. We are running at perhaps ten percent of our full specialist crew due to the damage from the EMP missiles, and the other members of the bridge crew are still in medical. We can hardly afford to go haring off to set up new camps with next to no support... no, there's something else you'll be doing. I'll explain when you get back. There's a box of watertight to each van, now go on."

Sandra just gives Wolfe a look that says 'Trust me, I know' and sends the lot of you packing. Or, er, water-sample-collecting. The ride downslope is as rough and narrow as she thought it'd be, but the vans have good suspension so it's not too bad.

--

Caulk or Ford?

Reaching the river itself is a simple affair, and it's about the greenest place you're likely to see any time soon. Which is to say there are a few vaguely green shrubs, a handful of scraggly trees, and maybe a flower or three. All of the plantlife appears to be native to the planet, although there are some unsurprising similarities in their appearance to other Terran and non-Terran foliage, on account of foliage ultimately being foliage no matter how it becomes said foliage in the long run. The river itself is a good half a dozen meters wide and half that in depth, with fresh, clean water.

One thing a casual scan with a handheld device reveals is that the radiation and heavy metal levels in the water are a touch higher than expected. It's not enough to be a significant hazard unless you drank it all your life, although it's enough to make you wonder... and possibly consider not drinking it without a thorough purification first if you're paranoid.

The vans are parked a few meters away from the river, and the surrounding ground is mostly gravel. The river was probably larger at some point in the past, but it's hard to tell what happened exactly. There's a small waterfall a few dozen meters downstream, and the river splits into the tributary streams a couple hundred meters upstream amongst the rocks of the mountains. Across the river is, after a short strip of rough ground and some poor soil, the desert. A big desert.

Once again, it's very hard to shake that feeling that someone or something is watching you... quite closely even. Even so, there's nothing to be seen by the eyes of mortals or machines. No odd sounds, no hints of movement, nothing, but even Jak's' robots seem to be on edge. Whatever's going on, it seems that they too can feel that presence.

[Azlan]

Rebecca sighed as she completed a scan with her wrist unit and her MC rechecked and confirmed the initial results, "the heavy metal concentration is a bit high, and there are trace radioactives in the water.  Unless this river passes through some interesting mineral deposits, something is a little off.  Let's hope this is not systemic to the watertable, we'll find out once the wells are in."

Rebecca began the process of collecting the water samples and interspersed separate samples of the thin flora that was collected around the river area.  Part of her research would be to determine if the bioforms found on this planet held characteristics intrinsic to life found on Terra, the other pertained to the unusual heavy metals and radiation.

"It would seem we landed in an area very poor for any type of sustainable agriculture besides in our hydroponics facilities."  She paused and gazed around, shivering a bit, "is it just me or does it feel like we are... not exactly alone here?  I don't see anything, but I feel like we are being observed."

[ShadesFox]

Ford, constantly and always

During the trip Wolfe was obsessing with his display pad.  To the untrained observer, it all just looked like waves.  Wolfe seemed hard at work trying to sift through various interfering patterns and jamming patterns.

Every so often Wolfe looks up and checks around, sweeping his eyes across the horizon.  When Rebecca speaks up about being observed he nods, "I can't shake the, `we're watched` feeling.  It is quite unsettling." 

[SquirrelWizard]

Marcus's senses were on edge, he sniffed the air trying to see if he could pick up a scent. So far he couldn't pick up much more than his fellow crew members and their vehicles.

"I don't like the feeling of this. This is a water source, and part of any local hunting trails for predators. We shouldn't stray too far from the van. And if you do need to go somewhere, take someone with you." shifting his rifle to a more accessable position he started to head downwind of the vans and personelle, keeping a lookout for any signs of life other than their own.

[Inumo]

As the vans pulled up to the river, Marianne hopped out of the van and looked at the riverbed. "Did anyone think to bring a shovel?" She asked, doubting anyone did. With a sigh, she found a shallow spot and, after checking Steve's waterproofing, ran a test on the riverbed. As it ran, she checked around the base of the shrubs, digging an inch or two down near the base to see if any wet dirt was uncovered. After that, she took Steve upstream and performed another test up there.

At the mention of the "being watched" feeling, she replied, "I'unno. Ah've kinda gott'n used to it out in the wilds. There's always a critter 'r two watchin' you no matter what, why should it be any differ'nt heah?"

[Malakin]

Alix had been walking the perimeter of the group with his rifle loaded and slung under his arm, he did not like this place one bit.

When the conversation sparked up, he rejoined the group catching a bit of it as he walked over.

"You guys feeling it too ? Weird that we are all getting the same feeling..."

Alix wandered over behind Wolfe and peers over his shoulder "Whats that you're looking at there Wolfe?"

[AmberCross]

Before Rebecca had spoken up, Ari had been surreptitiously checking behind rocks, bushes, etc when he wasn't busy with something related to their project. After Rebecca spoke up and Wolfe confirmed the feeling, he started getting a bit more bold in looking around though he continued to find nothing. However after Marianne's input he stopped, torn between admitting she was probably right and letting himself be shown up by her in logical sense and composure.

[techmaster-glitch]

   Jaks seemed surprised at the response from the commander, but shrugged and departed with the others.

   After they had arrived at the river, Jaks tried to help where he could, but it only took so many people to collect a water sample, and he wondered why they were all out here at once. However, everyone began acting funny, talking about being watched. Jaks furrowed his brow and looked around. Strange...could whoever have shot at them be here, right now?
   What really alerted him was a sudden change in the pitch and tone of his bots chittering. He built them and programmed them himself, had them partially wired into his own brain for several years. They had their quirks, and sometimes acted like pets, but now they seemed to be...on edge. Like something was bothering them, too.
   "...Okay, something's not right. My bots are acting funny. It's gotta be something showing up on their sensors. Hang on, I'm grabbing a data package from them. Phobos, come here." One of the two larger ones skittered over to Jaks, and he plugged his mechanical arm into it, and closed his normal eye. His cybernetic eye whirred as he downloaded the last minute of sensor information from the bot.

[ShadesFox]

Wolfe looks up at the creepy fellow peering over his shoulder, "I'm looking at an impossibility, and a mystery."

He was rather hoping that he could get more signals and get more details about the jamming and the nature of any other signals he picks up.

[Arcalane]

Fording Ahead
Nothing's out there. Not even a bird. Just the faint sound of wind.

There are shovels in the vans! Of course there are shovels in the vans. I mean, what if they got stuck and needed to be dug out?

All the bots have seen or heard that the rest might not have noticed are insects. Well, Ari might have found those too. But they're just insects, nothing odd about them at all.

Ari also finds a very badly damaged piece of metal not much more than a handspan across. It has ConFed markings and a mostly-readable serial that matches one of the satellites that got fragged. Nothing too unusual there.

Wolfe isn't getting any further signals out here, the jamming seems to be getting a little weaker as well.

[Inumo]

Returning to the vans, Marianne discovered that, yes, there were in fact shovels. Nabbing one, she waded into the river and scooped out some dirt from the center of the riverbed, then brought it back ashore and ran a test there as well.

[AmberCross]

Ari was quite elated by his find. Yeah it didn't mean anything and wasn't all that important, but it felt like finding another piece of home. (Assuming he can lift it...) He took it back to the van where a thought occurred to him. He knew or could look up the mass and trajectory of the satellite when it was hit, and he could estimate the the mass of this fragment and how far off course it was. Perhaps when he had the leisure he could run a few momentum equations and try to plug in missing data to figure out stuff about the missiles or where other satellite fragments might be. Perhaps there was something worth scavenging. He probably didn't have enough input data yet but he'd keep his eyes open and look for anything else that might show up.

[Azlan]

Rebecca captured a few little insects in small specimen containers as she worked.  Finished with her own, as well as the assigned sample collecting, she skipped a stone on the river's surface.

Maybe it was a bad idea to have volunteered for this mission.  An anonymous death on some distant rock orbiting an insignificant sun.  She sighed and skipped another stone as she spoke to herself, "not much to do about it now though."

[techmaster-glitch]

   After a few moments of having his arm plugged into 'Phobos', Jaks furrowed his brow. "Okay, that's weird...my bots aren't detecting anything unusual at all. But...they can't possibly act strange without a reason..." He unplugs his mechanical arm, and notices that the guy with 'WOLFE - comm specialist' hovering over his head in Jak's augmented realtity is looking about with some sort of handheld scanner.
   Jaks trots over and looks over his shoulder. "So, what are you looking for..." His cybernetic eye then zooms in on the readout on the handheld scanner. "...Jamming signals?" Jaks then steps back and smacks his forehead. "Oh! Of course! EM interference! That could mess with my bot's electronics without them detecting it if it's strong enough, they aren't shielded. Frankly, I'm amazed they survived the EMP attack on the way in..." Jaks starts heading back towards a van, with his three robots in tow. He calls back voer his shoulder. "Anyone needs me for anything, I'm in the van. I can't fun a full diagnostic until I'm back at the ship, but I can try a partial one now and see what that can turn up."

[Arcalane]

Home Again, Home Again...
The insects are, like all insects, uninclined towards captivity. That said it doesn't take too long to catch them. Notable specimens include some small aphid-like sap sucking types, something vaguely related to a ladybird that evidently preys on the aphid-things, a couple of small and slightly sad-looking butterfly-esque affairs that have seen better days, and some evidently associated caterpillars that also seem to devour the occasional aphid.

With plenty of samples collected, everyone packs up and heads back. The trip is about as exciting as watching paint peel, but hey, it beats being dead.

Sandra is waiting for the return team again. The camp setup is going well, and several automated turrets appear to have been set up to cover the routes up to the plateau, fitted with heavy machineguns by the looks of things, and a ConFed scout VTOL circles the campsite lazily. The turrets buzz momentarily at the sight of the jeeps, but the IFF works and they go back to scanning for unidentified targets.

Samples are hauled off to one of the field labs for research, and the away team is sent to get lunch. A fairly big lunch, apparently. Once everyone is fed and ready, the away team is reassembled, this time in the Antygias' vast dorsal hangar. Isaac has at least got the doors open, so taking off is possible. Four small bays - one of which is empty - are host to the scout VTOLs, and two larger bays can each hold a dropship. One of the dropships is already aligned for takeoff, and it seems that a few of the others have been up here loading it up.

~~

Officer On Deck!

Rough hangar/flight deck layout, note the runway extends much further. Purple blocks are corridors ofc.

Large flourescent light strips keep the hangar well-lit, and it's fairly clean apart from a few oily stains.

Sandra looks at the dropship, then turns to the away team. "Alright, listen up and listen well. As I'm sure one of you has noticed, something is wrong about this planet... but I'm not talking about that sensation of being watched if you leave the camp," she pulls up a holographic display of the camp from a top-down perspective and zooms out, "Everything looks fine so far, right? That's not what I'm worried about," Sandra zooms out again, then starts panning north, towards the equator. Faint red pulses start to appear as she closes on one of the larger, somewhat jungle-infested islands, zooming in on a red blip that represents the source, "This is what I'm worried about. I managed to decode it whilst you were out... I'll play it back."

Then she starts an audio file.

"Begin automated distress signal. This is Captain Edward G. Bernstein of the MarsCon Survey Vessel Pioneer reporting from an unknown location on Terran Year 2079. The Pioneer is... if I'm reading this right we're several hundred lightyears off course and I don't even know how we got here. The ship is too badly damaged to continue and we don't have enough fuel to return anyway. We're setting up camp and settling down... not much we can do except hold out 'til the end, I guess. Bernstein out. Message Ends."

Sandra waits for that to sink in.

"I'm a little fuzzy on my history, but MarsCon would be the Martian Confederation, one of the primary members of the current Terran Confederation, and basically set the standard for governing our spacefaring communities. Here's the catch - the Martians never had FTL, that was invented on Titan after the founding of the current Terran Confederation - the founding was around 2086, about 17 years after the Pioneer's arrival on this planet..." another pause, "...MarsCon Fleet had a number of recon records they never declassified, the Pioneer was likely one of those if it went MIA in suspicious circumstances. It's possible the MarsCon had an FTL system, but I severely doubt it... and without FTL, we would have arrived here sooner than they did."

Sandra pauses to catch her breath, then zooms a little on the source of the signal.

"I know I said there were multiple sites to investigate but distress signals are distress signals, dead men or no dead men. They might have a lot of information on their computers, and, if so, it could be very helpful to our work here. It's a long flight and you'll be out of contact with us again until you get back, of course..." she frowns, "I realize this could be a trap, but it's too important to ignore. Isaac will be going with you to assist with the Pioneer's systems- he already called shotgun and is probably up in the cockpit doing pre-flight checks. If any of you want out or have anything left to do here, now is the time to say so."

All said and done, Sandra looks at the assembled away team expectantly.

The dropship itself is hardly... easy on the eyes. The vaguely aerodynamic hull is the same rusty red colour as the Antygias', with a large rear ramp that doubles as an airlock door. Beyond is another large door, the other half of the airlock, and beyond that the small(ish) cargo bay, which has a number of crates and a six-wheeled ConFed armoured personnel carrier next to a four-wheel ConFed scout car, both fitted with machineguns on low profile remote-operated turrets. Both vehicles are a slightly more orange tone, but still fairly red. Behind all that is a smaller double door leading to the crew areas - a small mess hall, bathroom, bunks, common room, and finally the large cockpit at the very front. Four tilting engines provide most of the thrust... this thing is an intercontinental shuttle!