Welcome To The Unknown MISSION START

Posted on Wed Nov 10th, 2021 @ 5:22am by Captain Bethsabée Leroux & Major Samuel King & Commander William Gerhard & Ensign Elegy Nascimento

Mission: Mission 5 - Babel
Location: Unknown Planet
Timeline: 270 16:00
1946 words - 3.9 OF Standard Post Measure

The planet outside the window, whose name was still disputed between science officers, spun as the shuttle pod headed from Atlantis dow . It was the first bit of luck they had received in months and Beth was eager despite her demeanour to savour the wind. The planet was made up of one huge continent but it was fresh air and an opportunity to stretch legs despite its size.

“A single day lasts 36.66 hours and a year lasts 198 days. Feels like ship days.” Someone spoke up from the back to fill the silence of the pod that was full of nerves from the opportunity to be the first on the planet other than the scientists that had come down earlier in the day.

“Look at the forest.” Another voice piped up making Beth looked out. The plants from the first scans were almost all huge, towering trees, high above a layer of various shrubs, grasses and flowers. The trees most likely completely blocked out light in a lot of places from the vast forest that could be seen in the distance from where science and armoury had decided was the best place as there was only one structure from the scan. It almost reminded the Captain of North America for a moment before she return her attention else where.

William was seated next to the captain in the shuttle pod as they descended. He had been able to convince the captain in the previous months that he would accompany her whenever she left the ship. He had conceded that he would leave his plasma rifle behind and only carry a phase pistol to appease the captain's reservations. While still dealing with the issues that plagued him from the Caelestis, he felt that part of his penance would be to always accompany the captain and ensure her personal safety. He looked up and out the window as the pod exited the upper atmosphere. Since the discovery of this new planet, William and Major King had decided that a team of MACOs would accompany the science team and establish a base camp and provide ground security for the expedition. Also aboard the shuttle pod were a fresh team of MACOs that would relieve Major King and the first team that had been on the surface.

Beth looked at her PADD and the report she had made the science team create before anyone else ventured down. She wanted to know the ins and outs so there were no more hiccups and the crew could have a moment's reprieve from the stress that they had been bouncing between for months.

The conditions on the planet unfortunately had revealed so far only microorganisms which relieved Beth. While many did show great promise of evolving into higher species, it would still take thousands of years before anything took the very first baby steps of evolution into new species.

Beth was deep in thought as the shuttle pod lurched and landed on the first world that they had been on since the algae planet.

William felt the thud of the pod as it landed and he immediately sensed the slight difference in gravity from the planet. While close to Earth's gravity, he couldn't help but feel a bit lighter as he unbuckled his harness he was strapped in.

"Lighter," Beth commented as she stood from her chair as the door cycled and opened allowing a whoosh of fresh air into the shuttle pod. “Let’s go,” Beth said, approaching the door spotting the tent that was being used by the science team in doing what they had first joined the Atlantis to do - science and exploration.

William felt the fresh air as well as he stood and followed behind Beth as they exited the pod. He took a moment while outside and surveyed the surrounding area. The temperature was fairly moderate and the slight breeze felt quite comfortable as he turned to follow the captain towards the base camp.

The base camp tent fluttered in the breeze, and that sound was punctuated by a singular thwap. Ensign Elegy Nascimento foisted aside one of the storm flaps, motivated out of the tent when he heard the shuttlepod's landing. Clad in the same blue jumpsuit as the rest of his crewmates, the Science Chief bounded out of the tent with a trans-spectral imager strapped to his shoulder and a ball cap on his head. After all these months on a starship, the initial day of the planetary survey had left Elegy with a sunburn evident across his face. "Captain, Major, Lieutenant," Elegy declared as they approached, spreading his arms wide; "Welcome to New Sydney park."

Beth stopped dead as she finally stepped down on the earth of the first world she had stepped on since the algae planet. She almost wanted to full to her knees and cry at having earth under her boots but just looked up closing her eyes against the sunlight that was hitting her face. “Looks like you have caught the sun their Ensign?” Beth greeted sliding her sunshades over her eyes not having realised how dark the ship was till you got natural light. Maybe she would need to discuss the crew getting more vitamin d for crew.

Despite the discomfort of the sunburn, Elegy could only nod and shrug at Beth's assessment. "A little bit, Captain," Elegy remarked sheepishly. "The ultraviolet radiation levels on this part of the continent are moderately higher than what I was used to on Vega Colony," Elegy said, given this was one of very few alien worlds he'd set foot on himself. Hooking a thumb back over his shoulder, Elegy indicated the base camp when he said, "It's one of the factors we're studying in our meteorological scan."

"I will request that the next shuttle brings down some suntan lotion or aloe vera for yourself," Beth said with a smile as she took out her own cap and put it on instead of just having her sunglasses on. "What else are you studying then? What have you found?"

Moving on methodically, Elegy pulled open the tent's storm flaps and tied them back. "The nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere is rich in nucleogenetic particles and smaller percentages of trace elements. This area of the continent is in a subtropical climate zone, and we’ll narrow down the variety once the meteorological scans are complete," Elegy reported, as he opened the entrance way widely for the away team. As he stepped into the tent, Elegy adjusted his glasses, as they had started to slip down the bridge of his nose.

Pointing out a crewmate, Elegy explained, "Another team unpacked the mark-three charting scanners to study the geomechanics of the ground we’re standing on." --He cast a quick glance at the Captain-- "The real fun begins when we can begin our biospectral analysis in the forest. Who knows what manner of floral oddities we’ll find?"

"Nice waterfall and pool would be nice instead." King said moving to greet the Captain and company. "My team has set up a perimeter around base camp, are doing patrols but so far as expected there have been no problems. Couple are complaining of the heat if you could believe that... like stifled ship air was preferred." He scoffed but mostly in jest. "We are secure, Captain.

William entered after the tent after the others after placing his own ballcap on his head. He was not used to the relative humidity of a subtropical climate, and he began to feel beads of sweat forming under his uniform. He made a note to bring out his lightweight field uniform the next time he returned to the base camp. He glanced around at all the scientific equipment that was in the tent, although he would defer to Elegy on interpreting the readings from the equipment. "I take it you haven't picked up any life signs? I'd hate for us to be surprised again," he said glancing over at Major King.

Shaking his head, Elegy replied, "Atlantis' scanners registered no lifesigns from orbit. No word of lifesigns from the MACO team expanding our base camp perimeter either." From his manner when he spoke, it was plain that Elegy was disappointing by this turn of events, he practically sounded glum. The spark of curiosity returned to his eyes, when he added, "The only sign of intelligent life is the singular structure on the continent. The tower. It had to have been manufactured by someone, somewhen."

"Still something I have had to restrain the science teams from dreaming about at the moment until we are sure nothing is hiding in the shadows here." King said. "The forest region is dense, so much so we will need night vision equipment to cross it due to limited visibility."

Beth glanced over at the scientist who looked there way a little guiltily for a moment before bustling off to do other stuff. “So where is this structure?” Beth wondered resisting the urge to want to go and look at the forest.

Index finger raised, Elegy drew Beth's attention to a tri-sided viewer that had been mounted on a tall table. He shifted the perspective of the map on the screen by tapping on the S/COMS computer interface. First, a blinking green dot indicated base camp, and then a newly blinking lavender dot displayed the location of the tower they'd found. "The tower is about twenty kilometres north of our base camp, Captain," Elegy reported.

"Should take a couple of hours, give or take dependant on how dense the forest is around it." Sam said looking over the scans once more. "As I said, without knowing the forest we don't know what to expect."

“It is not far.” The woman in the group commented on moving her focus from exploring the forest to exploring the structure. “We need to explore it for science.” Beth commented on thoughtfully as she thought about who would have created one building on a planet and then disappeared.

William looked at the screen that showed the distance the tower was. He glanced out the tent flap to see if he could catch a glimpse of the tower from their current position. He nodded at the captain, "I agree that we should investigate for potential signs of life, especially since we have a large enough security detachment to watch after the base camp." He then pointed at the screen and drew an imaginary circle inside the forested area around the tower, "Once we determine that the structure is secure, I think it would be prudent to re-establish the basecamp around the tower itself. The area around the structure can be more easily defended, and the tower itself would provide a refuge in case of inclement weather or any other scenario."

Sheepishly, Elegy looked around to the gathered away team and he tacked on a final point to William's argument. "Plus... we can't just ignore a mysterious old tower, right?" he insisted. "That would be tragic."

"Oh, sure!" Sam laughed. "Maybe there is a damsel in distress up there, right?" he asked rhetorically. "I mean as long as they aren't hiding a fire breathing dragon, or we have to cross a rickety old bridge over a volcano filled with a boiling lake of lava then we are great." Sam's droll accent highlighting his sarcasm.

“Shall we go then?” Beth wondered grinning that everyone was regaining their sense of adventure and wonder at the unknown.

"Carpe diem." Sam said as he loaded some equipment up on his person and threw the rifle over his shoulder.