Private Strange Terrain

[Cyprian Ichar]

Then

Mineral surveying was soul sucking. The remote variety, specifically. At least when done in person, Shogar had the pleasure of exploring alien worlds with his own two feet (and dealing with the occasional danger that entailed). However, these days it was all about probes. Maximizing the company search results, while minimizing his potential raises. Such was the life of a modern sensor operator.

Every day at promptly 0800 local time, the Duros turned in to pour over readouts from dozens of different probes and determine if there was anything worth giving another look. However, that usually just meant yet another series of probes sent to the surface. Berl had a probe for everything.

Most days there was nothing, and so the probes were deployed to the next system or sector. Today however, there was indeed something waiting for Shogar at the top of the stack. He raised an eyebrow as the report - the motherlode of crystal deposits, Kyber, the kind that made planets go boom in the right (wrong) hands. That's not what had really grabbed his attention. In a rare instance, photos had been provided. Not the rendered variety from muxed sensor data, but the real deal from EO. In each one there were clusters of monuments and other structures that clearly denoted civilization. Except no life forms had been detected in the vicinity. No life forms had been detected anywhere on the planet.

A real grave world.

Spoiler

The Berl Mining Group has recently detected a previously unexplored alien world they have currently designated Senth 052, located deep within Wild Space. Jurisdiction over survey efforts has been transferred from the Survey Division to the Special Research Branch for further examination. Following additional scans that have confirmed negative for any lifeforms, a live team has been dispatched, made up of BMG employees and contractors like Asori Soto . Estimated travel time between Gydine and Senth 052 is 18 standard days.

 

[Asori Soto]

---
Location: Wild Space, Senth 052
Wearing: xxx
Tag: Cyprian Ichar
---

One foot down the shuttle's boarding ramp was all Asori needed to realize she had properly dressed for the occasion. She had assumed for the photos she had seen of Senth 052 that the planet's primary terrain had been tundra from the white color they portrayed. But now, here, a chilled breeze whispered in her ear a secret: what she thought was firn was, in fact, firn. Permafrost crunched as it formed about her boot treads.

Everyone got to work but her - fixing the camp, that was. It seemed to be a wordless agreement on the shuttle during the landing procedure that carried on after. No one had let her touch any of the bags or crates needing offloading. Perhaps her academic reputation of being something of a clutz proceeded her. Just as well. She could be useful in other ways, brainy rather than brawny. Her current employer had hired her for the formal anyway. That academic reputation definitely proceeded her.

She wandered further out into the landscape. A few of the strange monoliths could been seen rising from the snow dunes on the horizon. "Look at those mushroom ventifacts," Asori mused to no one in particular, though parts of her were hopeful the at least a few BMG scientists - scavengers more like - working around her acknowledged it. Some, like Berl, would say monuments, but she saw geologic structures, although maybe some that had been anthropogenically augmented at some juncture. That had yet to be seen. "...though, uh, not very mushroomy." At least not in a traditional sense, with a cap tapering wide atop the stem. No, in this case, an oversized oval suspended over an impossibly thin neck extending from an erratic cairn.

"And rather out of place."

Soon, a camp sprung up around the BMG vessel. The whole situation looked cheap and worse for wear, like it had been in the desert weathering for ages not mere minutes. One of the portable tents housed a field testing center. It was small and rather crude, but functional, and that was really everything a science-minded woman could ask for. Especially when she had all the fixings necessary to make caf in the pursuit of science. That was how she liked her caffeine, not steeped in sugar or cream but empirical evidence. She had filled a high-sided petri dish straight out of the box with Senth soil she had painstakingly churned from the ground with here holohammer. She made some notes - clumpy and heavy with frost - and began heating in over a Bunsen burner set to medium. In fact, she made notes throughout the whole process:

When did it reach what temperature? Melted in 15 minutes. Reached 70°C after removing water, cooling to room temp, and reheating particles alone.

What was her following process? Fill a long-handled dipper with 250mL of water. Float two (2) tsb caf ground on water. Nestle dipper into sand, carefully mounding grain around the sides.

As she picked her scientific cezve out of the now unconsolidated soil, a few rebellious grains clung to the durasteel. Asori switched off the burner. She poured her shot into the upturned cap of her thermos, waiting on the counter. The mantra she had heard for years at UoS, the one that had just made sense, fell away as she brought the makeshift cap to her lips and blew.

No eating or drinking in the lab.

But what if was part of the scientific process? One had to experiment into order to identify a thing.

 

[Cyprian Ichar]

Nathan Farley, Junior BMG Executive, Special Research Branch​

Nathan was one of the last to exit the shuttle. Actually the very dead last. Patiently waiting over a chromium thermos of steaming premium Galatena Tea (within his own personal osmotic barrier) as the security team made their sweep outside, and the shuttle made yet another bioscan for pathogens. His team found no signs of danger within a half a kilometer radius, and the surface scans read green, reporting a breathable atmosphere even less contaminated than the typical Core World. Just like had been reported by the main ship's sensors in orbit.

However, quite paranoid, the man exited the shuttle in a hermetically sealed hardsuit like security, though his model lacked the heavy armor and tactical features of their drab black military models.

Gingerly, he made his way across the hard snow packed ground, as if he could fall any second despite his specially textured soles that remolded themselves in real time. Meanwhile, all around him contractors and BMG employees (save for the security team) alike congregated among the strange monoliths. Indeed, they were quite something, inverted cononical structures based in a way that shouldn't support their mass. That alone would have been interesting, but even more so was the intricate patterns scrawled over the exterior. Evidence of intelligence, and possibly civilization.

Hopefully smoke led to fire.

His bonus depended on it.

Almost everyone seemed enthralled by the structures, save for one woman hunched over a tablet. She was one of the contractors. He could immediately tell because she didn't stiffen up like one of his underlings, not to mention her...casual attire in contrast to BMG uniforms.

What was her name...ah Ashoka Sano...no no Asami Sodo...Asori Soto! There we go!

"Hello Ms Soto? How are you finding things so far?"

He glanced over her setup, most of the equipment foreign to him. If it wasn't obvious by now he decidedly wasn't a scientist. He was there as the manager, to ensure that the job was done.

Asori Soto

 

[Asori Soto]

---
Location: Wild Space, Senth 052
Wearing: xxx
Tag: Cyprian Ichar
---

"Oh! U-um..." Asori stumbled over her words instead of her legs, and for that she was thankful. But she did stand up straighter and put down her makeshift cap. "Fine, just fine, thanks," she began. "Care for any caf? Testing the thermal conductivity of the soil once more won't hurt anything, after all."

Nathan's answer would dictate if she refilled the long-handed dipper or not.

"I have to hand it to BMG," she continued, sipping on caf again, "you all must have found one of the great, uncharted mysteries." She held up a finger and wagged it slightly. "Though soon to be thoroughly charted, if all goes well, eh?" She took some tongs out of a drawer after hovering her hand over their handles for a moment, deciding which one to pull. They clinked in the petri dish as she scooped up some soil and deposited of a sheet of weigh paper atop a holoscale. Its screen lit up with a number, which Asori turned to obscure. "Heat conductivity of the sample suggests a higher-than-average constitution of calcium carbonate. That's...not what I expected in the tundra." She rose a hand to touch her cheek thoughtfully. "But it makes some sense in context. Those ventifacts confuse me too - they don't fit."

They really didn't. The winds were reasonably strong here when zephyrs blew just so, and perhaps the area was best described as an arctic desert, but what could have eroded those pillars? Not this soil, encased in thick permafrost. If Asori had had enough trouble prying up a dish-worth, there was no way that the wind could kick up these grains.

 

[Cyprian Ichar]

Nathan Farley, Junior BMG Executive, Special Research Branch​

"Aha...I'd love some if I wasn't in this getup. How about a cuppa once we're back on board?"

There was no way he was breaching his hardsuit outside. He had seen the holovids. In fact, everyone walking without protection was due for a most thorough decontamination. A gauntlet of scrubbers, UV screen, and force fields he had erected personally (through one of his myriad of assistants).

Soto proceeded to get most sciency as she explained the results of her initial analysis. He didn't quite understand the details, but he got the gist of it. Little about this planet made sense, from the irregular compositions she detected, to the strange oblong structures all around them. Maybe he was here in his endless quest for promotions, but the thought of unraveling the secrets of a weird planet was actually interesting.

Of course, he'd lean on the scientists to do all the hard work and tell him exactly what was so interesting about Senth.

(News of valuables minerals would always top the list!)

"Hmm, excuse me if I'm way off base here, but are you suggesting this area had a completely different ah...climate...or environment at one point?"

Asori Soto

 

[Asori Soto]

"...Right." Asori bit her lip. He was in quite the getup. She didn't see the point, but to each his own. "Sorry. On board, then. Sure, sure."

Then he hit the nail on its head. She nodded. "All surface observations point to that, yessir. 052 was probably at some point a desert. Those ventifacts -" she uncrossed her arms to point generally towards them, past him and through the tent flaps "- are like climatic fingerprints."

She returned her arm to her chest and nestled it back in the other. Excitement sparked in her eyes. "I expect we will find prehistoric evaporite deposits, oil, perhaps copper," she continued. "Coaxium if we're insanely lucky. It'd be stable now at this new global temperature..." She trailed off, biting at her lip again. "No one's told me what it is we're looking for here, not exactly. If I knew, I could refine my search."

Cyprian Ichar

 

[Cyprian Ichar]

Nathan Farley, Junior BMG Executive, Special Research Branch​

He felt a little out of his depth here, but his suspicion proved correct. Initial analysis from orbit had revealed oddities about the planet, but no one could appreciate how odd until they were there in the flesh.

"Ah copper? That's quite valuable - erm I mean that would be---"

Before he could work himself out of a fruedian slip, there was a shriek in the distance. Then came a rumble through the ground, intense enough to make him wobble on his feet. A few personnel nearby did fall.

"What the hell?!"

One thing BMG had been sure to check for before landing was tectonic activity. There had been almost nothing, so it had to be more than a coincidence that tremors hit them right then and there.

Struggling to keep upright, he looked over to Asori as if she could use her sciencey abilities to stop it all.

"D-Doctor?!"

All around them, the ripples etched over the the supposedly inert spires began to glow.

Asori Soto

 

[Asori Soto]

Maybe she was the saviour Nathan sought - not for her scientific know-how specifically, but for her quick thinking.

"Out. Out, out, out!"

She grabbed his arm as she passed by, effectively pulling him out from under the tarp.

"Stay here," she bid next, letting go of him a handful of metres from her mobile lab. Instead of doing the same, or launching off to likewise bring other staffers into safety, she started off towards the nearest of the spires, stumbling all the way. She fell at one point too, but managed to right herself again. When she was close enough, she fumbled a hand scanner off her belt and held its pulsing light up to the glowing markings.

Cyprian Ichar

 

[Cyprian Ichar]

Nathan Farley, Junior BMG Executive, Special Research Branch
​

Stay here, she told him. At first, he was so shocked by the sudden tremors that he had little sense but to follow her words. However, when she disappeared, a new panic disappeared as he watched her instruments rattle and fall of the table. He couldn't stay here!

Back to the shuttle! It could fly and hover!

Nearly dropping to all fours, he crouched walked outside, eyes now on the shuttle. Meanwhile, cracks began to form all over the icy ground, all centered at the base of the spires. The cracks deepened until they grew into rifts in the ground, large enough to swallow a person whole.

He was about halfway to the shuttle, and from the looks of it, other people had the same idea, in various stages of lurching toward perhaps their sole salvation. Meanwhile, Asori was alone in moving toward the source of the tremors. He had heard of dedicated, but she was taking it to a whole other level!

"D-doctor Soto, please! Come to me! To the shuttle!"

Even among the other eggheads on the expedition, she appeared to knowledgeable. She was too important an asset to lose at this point. You know, coming in second after his own life.

Scientists usually made all the important breakthroughs and discoveries, but it was men like him who made them applicable - and profitable.

Asori Soto

 

[Asori Soto]

With every passing moment, she was inching herself closer to be base of the spire in order to keep a comfortable buffer zone between herself and the growing ruptures.

Well, now.

As comfortable as one could truly be amongst such chaos.

She was immediately and intensely remined of something she had told a retired Antarian Ranger on Rishi a few months ago now:

"Don't worry, I carry. I probably don't know my way around all the hardware that you do, but... Even if I couldn't handle a standard blaster pistol or rifle, I would still be out here. And anywhere dangerous, but not because it's dangerous. No, because there's things to be done in the danger that are well worth my life to advance.

"Scientists and soldiers aren't that much different, really."

"Go on, sir!" she yelled back at Mr. Farley. "I'll find a way to safety. Just another reading..."

What she already had, including simple observation of the landscape, suggested tension stresses, normal faulting, rocks stretching, falling footwalls, but she had to be 100% sure. And that meant running all the possible tests.

Cyprian Ichar

 

[Cyprian Ichar]

Nathan Farley, Junior BMG Executive, Special Research Branch​

Nathan was a coward.

Almost all his life, he had always played it safe, trying hard not to stick his neck out. That continued into his career, shrewdly minimizing risk while maximizing opportunities. That's how he had become an Executive at BMG in such a relatively little time.

However, he was also human. Seeing that silly scientist making all sorts of assurances was the floor was literally being ripped out from underneath them. Even he couldn't ignore the likely doom for her when it was staring him right in the face.

Against his better judgement, he squinted his eyes and ran.

Ran right for Asori.

"You silly scientists!" He cried as he lurched toward her to close the last few meters, looking to snatch her up by the waist. "Never seeing the big picture! The rocks will be here tomorrow! You won't be if you die today!"

Right as he tried to pull her away from the ship, the ground opened up right underneath them, threatening to swallow them whole.

So much for being decent.

Asori Soto