Research Station

As the shuttle launched towards the icy ball beneath them, Dustin glanced back at the figures occupying the passenger seats. Yril’k sat patiently, her blade arms hidden behind a suit covering - while the cold wouldn’t do much to the chitin weapons, it was easier to use the existing suit that covered them rather than modify it to only cover the fleshy parts of her equipment. Jaisyl was sat next to the Vex’ess warrior, clearly trying to keep her face neutral despite the harnesses and the jolting as Rye took them into the atmosphere.

Only Aricia looked excited by the trip, the Lieviran woman drumming her fingers on her tablet and leaning as far forward as she could in her seat to stare out of the pilot’s window as they descended. The possibilities of snow - even snow that she couldn’t do much more than stand and admire through a suit visor - had clearly got her hyped up.

Rye tilted the shuttle, banking hard around a mountain range; the research station was nestled between a number of the rocky outcrops, apparently a choice made as it was an area of somewhat stable geography. Personally, Dustin was surprised the facility was on the surface at all - given the information he’d read during the weave-jump to the system, he’d have thought an orbital facility and landing teams would have made more sense. Apparently, the scientists - a mixed group comprised of members of a number of minor species on a galactic scale - thought otherwise; the proximity to their subjects was worth the risk of the facility getting buried in a landslide or a glacial collapse, and in any case their seismic equipment should let them board their emergency shuttle well in advance of any significant natural disaster.

Putting any thoughts of tonnes of rock crashing down on them to the side for now, Dustin checked the console. “Landing pad tracking signal is holding. Good thing too, I can’t make anything out against all this rock and ice,” he said, adding “watch we don’t overshoot it. They mentioned the edge is right on a cliff-face on two sides, and I’d rather you didn’t have to do an emergency take-off.”

Rye shrugged and banked again, lining them up with the signal beacons. “Don’t ya worry, Dusty. I’ll get us down safely, then you and the others can deal with the locals while I look at this generator problem of theirs. I’ll let ya know once I’ve got an ETA for fixing the thing and then we can make plans to start offloading the supplies.”

That was the other issue. After the briefing, they’d received an emergency call from the planet they were headed to - apparently, in addition to the one that was already offline, another of the eight generators that powered the research facility had failed, with a further two showing wobbling output. The base could run on just four, but it would mean no emergency or backup power, and restrict some of the more intensive experiments. They had a replacement set on order with their resupply ship, but that wouldn’t be arriving until after the next delivery and so could be months away. In the meantime, they’d requested the help of Dustin’s chief engineer to see if the Rabyth woman could diagnose what was causing the problems before they spread to the remaining healthy reactors and caused a real emergency.

Ice and snow were blown off the side of the landing pad as the shuttle came to rest, the downdraft from the engines sweeping the thick slab clear. Almost the instant the engines died, a bright yellow warning light began to rotate above a heavy door set into the side of the mountain next to them, the door sliding slowly open in it’s harsh glow. Two figures waved from the far side - the welcome party, Dustin assumed as he popped open the hatch and winced. While he was warm enough with his visor closed, his suit’s HUD was flashing alarmingly as it informed him that with the wind chill it was pushing into the high negative thirties outside.

Boots crunched on the ground as Dustin led the party across to the door. As soon as the last of them crossed the threshold, the light began to flash again and the entrance slid shut with a dull thud and a last puff of snow, cutting them off from the outside. Dustin moved to retract his visor, but one of the heavily-shrouded figures gestured for him to wait, then pointed at a gauge mounted on the wall. Air hissed around them, steam pouring out of vents as the temperature rapidly rose above freezing, before the welcoming party pulled back their hoods and removed their own face-plates.

“Ambassador Dustin, welcome. And to your companions of course. Apologies for the sparseness of the greeting party, but most of the team are either working or wrestling with this damn generator issue. Base commander O’Zaxx, at your service.” The leader held a hand for Dustin to shake, before turning and beckoning them to follow him deeper into the facility.

“I swear, those generators are supposed to be rated for way more than we’re throwing at them and they still keep failing. I hope your engineer can figure out what’s going wrong, because mine is stumped. Some of the crew are starting to think the planet’s haunted, but I don’t put any stock in superstition personally,” O’Zaxx continued as they walked, gesturing vaguely at a map on the wall, “I trust you got the plans of the facility I sent over, but in any case there’s outline plans at every major intersection.”

The party continued, heading down a long corridor and through another blast door into a table-filled room lined with vending machines. “Main dispensary and galley.” O’Zaxx commented by way of explanation as he nodded to a figure sat at one of the tables. “Heran, would you mind escorting the ambassador’s engineer down to reactor seven? Probably the best if she starts her investigation there.”

Heran slowly shuffled off the seat onto four legs, thick fur spilling down beneath him as he rose and offered two hands for Rye to shake. “Junior engineer Heran, chief engineer. If you’ll follow me?” He turned, gesturing with his other two arms as he drifted past Dustin, already explaining how the base’s power supplies functioned.

With Rye and the junior engineer gone, Dustin turned back to O’Zaxx. “We’ve a shuttle full of supplies for you while Rye is working - what’s the plan for unloading, commander?”

The commander shrugged. “I’ll check with the head of science to make sure nothing has changed, but if everything remains as expected then we’ve some grav-sleds in the storage room. I’ll get those brought up, we’ll open the main door and bring everything in once this wind’s died down - should be about three hours according to the weather scanners, if it doesn’t pick up into a proper blizzard. In the meantime, you’re welcome to rest here or in the staff lounge, such as it is. Or, if you’d rather, I can give you the tour?”

Given they’d just spent hours sitting in transit on Sola, Dustin opted for the tour despite the way in which Jaisyl and Aricia were vibrating with annoyance - for two different reasons. The princess was irritated at the idea of traipsing through a dusty, dirty science facility, while the Lieviran clearly wanted nothing more than to go back outside and play in the snow, high speed winds and cliff edges be damned. Never the less, they both accepted his decision and followed as O’Zaxx started the tour.

They’d reached a midway point down the central core of the base, on a level with the biological research labs, when an alarm began to sound. The base commander paused, then sighed. “Ambassador, ladies, I’m afraid we’re going to have to pause in the secure room over there.” He gestured to a rather solid looking door in one corner of the main access shaft, one that had been mirrored on each level they’d come to so far. “The alarm is for geological activity - nothing strong enough to trigger an evacuation, but for safety we ask all staff to go into a survival room in case of low-grade structural issues during the quake.”

Dustin nodded, reaching out to take Jaisyl and Aricia’s hands as he led them through the door, Yril’k following behind with her blade arms twitching. “You’re sure it’s nothing serious?” he asked as he looked around the survival chamber’s padded sides, the three women taking a seat on the long bench that ran the length of the walls.

O’Zaxx nodded as he checked the door was securely shut behind them. “It’s perfectly fine - in the event the alarm upgrades, these pods will move to the surface automatically. We’ll get the all-clear in a few minutes.” Sure enough, a few minutes later the light above the door blinked green and O’Zaxx smiled. “There we go. All clear.” Turning back to Dustin, he chuckled and added “the only way an alarm of that kind would have been an issue is if we’d lost base power. And with eight reactors, there’s no chance of that.” Dustin winced - that had been tempting fate. And sure enough, a second or two later, all the lights went out.