Eden, infested

The Solar Ascent dropped out of the weave in their target system three days later. The intervening jumps hadn’t been anything of note - they’d flagged some of the worlds for later investigation by other science craft, but given the lack of any sign of Fractal activity or sentient life, the crew had left them un-investigated despite Dustin’s personal curiosity about a world inhabited by giant reptiles that remind him a lot of old Earth dinosaurs.

As the weave drive spun down, the senior crew were on high alert. Yril’k stood tense at her station as Meli and Naera’s eyes processed the information coming in from the long range sensors. “No signs of any Fractal ships, Dustin.” Meli said at last, before pulling a map of the system up on the main screen. “Looks like it’s more or less exactly what we were expecting. One major inhabited world, pre-industrial tech. Preliminary scans indicate they’ve not got any way of tracking us in orbit as long as we stay far enough out; their best technology would be primitive telescopes that can barely establish details on the planet’s three orbiting moons.”

Dustin nodded, before asking the obvious question. “Any sign of Fractal bases anywhere?” Defia had given them a few suggestions on things to look out for, and he knew Meli had set the scanners up to highlight any potential investigation targets they found. The Velca woman gave a shrug as she replied. “There’s a lot of hits, but nothing confirmed yet. Most of them are just geological features - Sola’s in the process of discounting the ones that can be attributed to natural causes - although there’s a handful on the planet itself that look promising.”

The assembled crew relaxed slightly at that. If there were no hostile ships and the enemy facilities weren’t obvious, it increased the likelihood that the system would be safe enough for the time being; while they were still expecting to have to go toe-to-toe with monsters like the thing from the monastery or the spider-like entity Dustin had encountered in the communications outpost, they’d at least have a little time to prepare.

Dustin gestured to the gently glowing planet Meli had highlighted on the display. “Alright. If there’s sentients there, we’ve got uplift procedures to follow along with our quest. But before we get involved in bringing new friends into the galactic community I want to make sure we’re not walking into a trap. Take us in - carefully - and scan that planet while we try and identify the Fractal base or bases. If we need to deprogram a bunch of Fractal worshipping pre-industrial folk, then I want to know about it before we kick the hornet’s nest by attacking their gods, not after.”

As Sola drifted closer to the planet, more reports came in. Nothing major on the moons to worry about, and confirmation that the species they were approaching were definitely in what would roughly match up with the late middle ages or possibly renaissance on Earth. Castles in a few places, limited use of gunpowder for fireworks, science barely developed away from alchemy. No significant weapons technology - and as a result, nothing to worry about from the locals except for what the sensors could now pick up as clear indication of ritualistic practice.

Dustin had Defia join them to review their findings; the red eyed woman stared blankly at the images of tall pyramid-like structures occupied by the winged natives of the world beneath them. “Statement. The biologicals appear to have built structures corresponding to Fractal ship templates out of stone. This is a highly inefficient use of construction material.” She said, glancing at the others as if seeking their thoughts.

Meli nodded. “Quite. It does correspond quite well with my expectations of what we would find if we encountered ritualistic worship; my guess is they saw Fractal ships arriving in the distant past and tales of it stuck around to get added to any modern myths they gained from contact with the drones you mentioned previously.” The Velca tapped her tablet, and the view changed, showing a series of long angular mounds in the landscape. “They appear to consider these areas as sacred; no construction nearby, and asides from ritual processions nobody visits them based on scans of the vegetation. Given there’s also a large metal deposit a short way underground that is blocking deeper passive scans, I believe these to be the facilities we are looking for.”

At her words, Dustin frowned. “Will they have detected us? I’d rather they didn’t summon a fleet or flee before we can get Defia close enough to get the data we need from their communicators.” His concern was mirrored by most of the senior crew; Defia detected elevated stress levels from everyone present - although given the ship’s medic was not reacting opted not to mention the fact.

“Statement. It is unlikely.” She said, eyes glancing down the sensor data. “The outpost appears to be consistent with the ones deployed before my exile; if that is the case then they do not maintain system-scanning capability as it was shown to have a significant negative impact on past missions. Statement. Biologicals located monitoring stations previously, leading to significant delays to harvesting projects. Since then external sensor arrays deemed an operational risk and removed. Unless we actively scan they are unlikely to detect us.”

With their resident Fractal putting them at ease, the crew turned their attention to Rye and Emely who were deep in discussion. “Well?” Dustin asked at last, wanting the input from his comms and engineering officers regarding their next steps. “What should we do first? Try and break into the base even though it’s a religious site, or make first contact with the locals? Or is there another option I’m not seeing here?”

The Rabyth and Feliax women turned and glared at one another for a moment before Emely spoke. “Rye thinks she can get us to the site undetected. I think we’d be better off doing standard pre-industrial first contact; the risk is that it warns the Fractals that we’re here. Either way, we can use her…” and at this the fox girl pointed at Defia “…to smooth over any issues with the locals. She’s essentially a walking god to them at the moment; it’ll take a while for them to be deprogrammed I think. Of course, that depends on their ritual practice which we’re still scanning to try and identify. If it’s just standard harvest blessing stuff then we can go softly. If it’s full on sentient sacrifice to the gods, then there’s a pretty good chance there’s an underclass primed to overthrow their leaders anyway.”

Dustin drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair then nodded. “Rye, how do you plan on getting us down there without them noticing? I’m thinking we do both. Bleu, you can adjust your form right? Could you mimic Defia - at least enough to fool the locals?” The doctor blinked at him, then turned to stare at the Fractal. “I’d need about… six litres of food dye to pull it off. Can’t adjust my pigment to make it that dark, but I could do a surface layer; as long as they’re not the ‘stab your gods’ type of crazy then that should work. Assuming Defia doesn’t mind shifting into a more Fractal form to give me a reference to work from.”

Trea’k leaned forward at that point. “Would you both be alright with this plan? It is important for both of you that you don’t just allow others to use your shape-shifting for their benefit.” Bleu waved it away with a cursory snort, replying “I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t alright with it, you know I don’t bow to orders Treacle.” Defia meanwhile looked from one to the other with a confused expression. “Statement. The prime unit has given an order; why do you ask if I would question it, unit Trea’k?”

The Vex’ess envoy sighed. “I should have expected those responses from the pair of you. Alright - I agree with the plan in principle my mate, although I would like to see what Rye’s idea is for getting Defia and whoever is going with her to the outpost safely before I give it my full approval.” Dustin nodded to her, then turned back to the bunny girl. “Well, Rye? What’s the plan?” he asked.

Rye shrugged. “We drop in at night, use one of the Rabyth shuttles, do a slow drop through the upper atmo then crash-burn down to get below visible range quickly. Sammie can handle it - I’ve seen her flight sim practice - or I can if you’d rather. No noise unless you’re right on top of the mound when we land, no bright lights in the sky, and if you’re coming in to a populated area nearby with Bleu in her fake god persona at the same time then that’ll draw all the attention.”

“Okay. That might actually work.” Dustin said, nodding to himself. “We’ll reach the closest point I dare bring the ship in about another three hours - Emely, could you prepare another briefing on first contact protocols for this kind of civilization and make a plan for Bleu? Meli, get what data you can safely about the locals from the scanners and bring that along, we’ll go over what we expect to find on the peaceful side of things first. Then Defia - I want you to work with Rye and Yril’k on a plan to crack open this Fractal mound and get the information we need. All clear?” A round of nods and thumbs up from everyone indicated that they were all in agreement, and Dustin smiled as the crew split into huddles to work out the fine details of their plan.