Marooned on Giri Minor
The sight of that tall tower in the middle of the settlement convinces you that is where you need to go first. Commander Andrade concurs with your judgment, and immediately you set off down the hill into the wide valley.
Before Giri Minor's third moon exploded, this must have been a lush and verdant place, filled with trees and fertile meadows. Then the planet tilted slightly with the shift in gravity, and decades of dust storms stripped away much of the plant life, leaving this eerie and forgotten ghost town in the middle of what is now a desert.
Many of the buildings did survive the initial seismic shock of the planet's shift, thanks to their plascrete and polysteel construction, but many others did not. The tall tower makes it easy for you and the commander to zero in on the one building you're most interested in inspecting: the former communication station. However, the condition of some of the structures that you pass don't make you very optimistic that you'll find anything useful when you get there; the buildings may still stand, but the interiors are partly filled with wind-blown dust, and the ancient furnishings are tattered and ruined.
You find the old comm station near the middle of town. The structure looks intact, but you can't see inside because the polysteel door is rusted shut. You try kicking it open, but a pang in your rib reminds you that using the brute force of your body is not an option.
"Use that chunk of plascrete," the commander suggests, pointing to a large piece of debris lying in the dusty street. Although your bruised chest still protests, you lift the heavy chunk over your head and heave it against the door once, twice, three times. It finally gives, and you enter the dark building.
What you find is discouraging. Although the building was sealed against the elements, it looks as though it had been looted and ransacked before abandonment. Fibrous cables dangle from the control board, with corroded components smashed and strewn across the floor.
Nevertheless, Commander Andrade inspects the equipment to see what, if anything, can be salvaged. "There is a possibility," she says after scrutinizing the ancient machine. "All we need to do is transmit a basic signal into hyperspace, nothing fancy. It looks like enough of the transmitter remains that I might be able to cobble something together. But we don't even have a power cell, and the core processor is fried."
"We'll have to scour through these buildings to see if we can find substitutes, then," you say.
"Maybe," Andrade says. "Power cells were pretty common tech 200 years ago, and most homes had private comm units that linked to this one."
You feel pretty useless here in this antique comm station, so you volunteer to go look. "Take this plasgun," she says, pulling the weapon out of her rucksack.
You take the plasgun, but the colony is so deserted you have no idea why you'd need one.
You step back out into the street, looking at all of the derelict buildings around you, none more than three stories tall. Where to start? It is now very late in the afternoon, close to sunset. The long hike across the desert has made you very hungry, so you decide to splurge and eat your second (and last) NutriRation.
You poke your head into a couple of the nearest buildings, but many are filled halfway to the ceiling with dust that blew in during the storms of old. Maybe there are well-preserved comm units and power cells here, but it would require a full-blown excavation to find them.
As the sun sets and the air grows cool, you start to hear strange noises. At first you assume its some loose piece of roofing material flapping in the breeze, and you pay no attention to it. But as the sound continues--and starts coming from multiple locations--you realize that the air is calm. There is no breeze.
You stop to examine the sound more carefully. It seems to be coming from the upper floors of the taller buildings, where the windows have long since been blown out to expose the interiors to the open air. Then you recognize the sounds as screeches--animal screeches. In this particular street, you're surrounded by tall buildings, and the wildlife perched on these third-floor aeries must be waking up for the night. You carefully draw the plasgun, just in case.
One by one you start to see movement in those windowless upper floors, and with a flutter of large wings the creatures realize you are there and drop down to the street to investigate. There are a dozen of them, bird-like creatures with long legs and necks, and short probosces that seem to be reaching toward you from both sides of every toothy mouth. They stomp the ground with their two-toed feet and form a circle around your position.
You pivot with your gun now pointed forward, but there are simply too many targets. Before you can fire a single blast, the creatures close in and pounce.
Before Giri Minor's third moon exploded, this must have been a lush and verdant place, filled with trees and fertile meadows. Then the planet tilted slightly with the shift in gravity, and decades of dust storms stripped away much of the plant life, leaving this eerie and forgotten ghost town in the middle of what is now a desert.
Many of the buildings did survive the initial seismic shock of the planet's shift, thanks to their plascrete and polysteel construction, but many others did not. The tall tower makes it easy for you and the commander to zero in on the one building you're most interested in inspecting: the former communication station. However, the condition of some of the structures that you pass don't make you very optimistic that you'll find anything useful when you get there; the buildings may still stand, but the interiors are partly filled with wind-blown dust, and the ancient furnishings are tattered and ruined.
You find the old comm station near the middle of town. The structure looks intact, but you can't see inside because the polysteel door is rusted shut. You try kicking it open, but a pang in your rib reminds you that using the brute force of your body is not an option.
"Use that chunk of plascrete," the commander suggests, pointing to a large piece of debris lying in the dusty street. Although your bruised chest still protests, you lift the heavy chunk over your head and heave it against the door once, twice, three times. It finally gives, and you enter the dark building.
What you find is discouraging. Although the building was sealed against the elements, it looks as though it had been looted and ransacked before abandonment. Fibrous cables dangle from the control board, with corroded components smashed and strewn across the floor.
Nevertheless, Commander Andrade inspects the equipment to see what, if anything, can be salvaged. "There is a possibility," she says after scrutinizing the ancient machine. "All we need to do is transmit a basic signal into hyperspace, nothing fancy. It looks like enough of the transmitter remains that I might be able to cobble something together. But we don't even have a power cell, and the core processor is fried."
"We'll have to scour through these buildings to see if we can find substitutes, then," you say.
"Maybe," Andrade says. "Power cells were pretty common tech 200 years ago, and most homes had private comm units that linked to this one."
You feel pretty useless here in this antique comm station, so you volunteer to go look. "Take this plasgun," she says, pulling the weapon out of her rucksack.
You take the plasgun, but the colony is so deserted you have no idea why you'd need one.
You step back out into the street, looking at all of the derelict buildings around you, none more than three stories tall. Where to start? It is now very late in the afternoon, close to sunset. The long hike across the desert has made you very hungry, so you decide to splurge and eat your second (and last) NutriRation.
You poke your head into a couple of the nearest buildings, but many are filled halfway to the ceiling with dust that blew in during the storms of old. Maybe there are well-preserved comm units and power cells here, but it would require a full-blown excavation to find them.
As the sun sets and the air grows cool, you start to hear strange noises. At first you assume its some loose piece of roofing material flapping in the breeze, and you pay no attention to it. But as the sound continues--and starts coming from multiple locations--you realize that the air is calm. There is no breeze.
You stop to examine the sound more carefully. It seems to be coming from the upper floors of the taller buildings, where the windows have long since been blown out to expose the interiors to the open air. Then you recognize the sounds as screeches--animal screeches. In this particular street, you're surrounded by tall buildings, and the wildlife perched on these third-floor aeries must be waking up for the night. You carefully draw the plasgun, just in case.
One by one you start to see movement in those windowless upper floors, and with a flutter of large wings the creatures realize you are there and drop down to the street to investigate. There are a dozen of them, bird-like creatures with long legs and necks, and short probosces that seem to be reaching toward you from both sides of every toothy mouth. They stomp the ground with their two-toed feet and form a circle around your position.
You pivot with your gun now pointed forward, but there are simply too many targets. Before you can fire a single blast, the creatures close in and pounce.
THE END
