//------------------------------//
// Crash 
// Story: Sins 
// by Killbles 
//------------------------------//

Sins
Chapter 2: Crash

Sergeant Lansky took a deep breath as he pounded down the ramp of the lander onto the soft ground. The air here was different, fresher, than the recycled air aboard upon the ‘Ultimus.’ It lacked the faint metallic tang that he was used to after several months of travelling. He adjusted the strap of his rifle, and marched down the ramp behind a small group of robots. Even though the landers had only touched down a few minutes ago, the largest one was already crawling with civilians who were expanding the massive into a hub of prefabricated buildings.
As he thought about it, the word 'building' was probably an understatement. The lander was at least fifty meters high and at least twice that in length. The ‘Ultimus’ could carry sixteen such vessels in its massive hangers.
The feeling he got when the sense of scale clicked in never got old.
“Hey Lansky, pay attention.” His CO, Lieutenant McGrath, snapped as he gathered up his NCOs for a quick briefing.
“Sir.” He said, unwillingly tearing his gaze away from the monolithic structure being erected.
“Take Piers and conduct a perimeter sweep. Apparently this place is inhabited so be aware you could make contact with some natives. Try not to piss ‘em off, we’re stuck out on a limb here and we don’t need to add a bunch of angry earthies to the mix.”
“Yes sir.” He motioned to the Piers, the young trooper falling in behind him.
The duo marched to the edge of the rapidly expanding base where another pair of troopers was scanning the lush green countryside with a set of amplivisors.  The faint glow of the planet’s sole moon bathed the countryside in cool, white light that lit their way easily. An light all-terrain buggy roared past them and out into the night, headlights bouncing around erratically as it crossed the fields surrounding their new base.
He nodded to the troopers as he past and then motioned to a large hill about half a kilometre from the base.
“We’ll go up there first and get out bearings”
Piers nodded and unslung his rifle, holding it at ease.
The climb was short but exhausting, the hill being much steeper than it had looked from afar. The view however, was well worth it. Fields of green grass covered the ground, marked by an occasional tree. Snow-capped mountains rose up a in the distance and a dark green outline at the base of the hill marked the start of an impenetrable looking forest.
“I feel sorry for the suckers who’ve gotta go through that. I've read enough slates about forests to know they’re about as fun as they look.” Piers muttered, pointing towards the forest.
“Probably full of bugs.” Lansky muttered sourly. “I hate bugs.”
Behind them, the base was rapidly growing, the prefabricated modules coming out of the lander and being assembled with a speed that came only with experience. A boom came from the construction as another piece slid out and locked itself against the ground.
“Hey, what’s that?” Piers murmured, handing Lansky her amplivisor. He motioned towards a valley set between two large mountain ranges through the forest. “Kind of looks like a bunch of lights.”
Lansky readjusted the amplivisor and nodded in confirmation. “Looks like a settlement of some kind. He pressed a button on the side of the device, sending the image to the orbiting ‘Ultimus’. He waited for a few silent moments as his superiors undoubtedly decided on some course of action that hopefully wouldn’t get him killed before the commbead in his ear crackled into life
“Lansky, get over there and collect some intel.” The rough voice of McGrath whispered in his ear. ‘Ultimus’ is getting some good thermal signatures there but the visual feed is being blocked by low cloud cover.”
“Transport?”
“All assets are currently assigned, looks like you’re walking.”
 “Copy that.” He said bitterly before cutting the link and turning to his companion. “We’re moving out. Objective, reconnaissance of native settlement. Keep quiet and try not to be too jumpy, we don’t want to start shooting each other if things get exciting, do we?”
Piers shook his silently silently.
“Good, move out.”
 

***

 
Lieutenant Fischer ran a gloved hand through his short cropped hair. He looked around the confines of his bridge, a few warning lights pulsing feebly. Unlike the mighty Kol which floated past lazily, the bridge of the Cobalt that Fischer was in command of, the Invincible II, was a small, cramped affair.
“Engine status?” He asked nervously. It had been several hours since their arrival and the engines were still not running.
“Fluctuating, I can barely keep the reactor stable.” The terse voice of his engineering officer said.
Fischer swore quietly. His small ship had taken a hit to the reactor during their escape and it seemed the repair drones hadn’t quite fixed the problem.
“Can we restart them?” Fischer asked.
“We can try…”
“Do it, I don’t want to be stuck out here alone.”
“Yes sir.” The audio link snapped off and a few moments later the engines rumbled into life.
“Good, move us into a high orbit.” Fischer let out a quiet sigh of relief.
The nimble frigate drew ahead of the ponderous Kol which had remained away from the planet and accelerated smoothly in system. The agile ship slipped past one of the other Cobalts, on a direct course for the planet. A tense minute passed.
“Okay, now that problem is out of the wa-.”
A klaxon blared loudly. Fischer didn’t know what it meant, but it couldn’t be good.
The audio from engineering snapped back on. “Sir, the reactor’s flaring, I can’t control it! We’ve probably got a minute at best till this bucket becomes a fireball!”
“Fischer’s eyes widened and he grabbed the ship wide intercom. “All hands, abandon ship! Get the hell out now!” He yelled, leading by example and racing to the escape pod at the back of the bridge. Within seconds the rest of his command crew joined him and he punched the release switch, blasting the small pod away from the hull violently. He watched the Cobalt grow smaller and smaller through the back view port.
A second passed.
 

***

 
“What the hell was that?!” Chezknov barked as one of his Cobalts exploded in a flash of light. The back of the Cobalt erupted into fire and vanished, instantly turned to slag. The front half of the ship spiralled out of control and tumbled lazily into the atmosphere of the planet below. The remainder broke into pieces, multiple streaks of fire punching through the sky, some dying out as the heat of heat re-entry melted them to nothing and others being lost beneath a high cloud cover.
“Appeared to be a critical reactor failure. Possibly breached the antimatter reserves on board…” The ops officer said, her voice laced with shock.
“Survivors?” He asked numbly.
Ralloz punched a few dials and shook his head. “Only a few escape pods got out. Maybe forty crew at most.”
Chezknov glared at the screen harshly and reached for the intercom. “Rinzler, get us in position to pick up survivors.”  He flicked the intercom on. “General quarters: Hands to rescue stations .”
 

***

 
For the second time that night, a second sun rose over Ponyville. Barely hours after the trio of stars shot overhead, another one fell from the heavens.
Unlike the other ones though, this one was larger and moved without purpose. As Twilight watched, the star split apart. While see couldn’t tell it was, she estimated the largest piece must have been in excess of a hundred meters long.
“Twilight.” Spike said as he looked out the window next to her. “What if that thing hits us?”
“Too interesting…” She mumbled. Unlike many other of the town’s residents who milled around in panic, Twilight watched the falling star in rapture.
“Twilight!” Spike yelled, jabbing an elbow into her ribs.
“What!” She yelped. She glared at him for moment. “What is it, Spike?”
“What if it hits us?” Spike asked again nervously.
She looked at the falling star for a moment, rudimentary calculations running through her head. “I’m sure it won’t hit us, I’d say it’ll hit maybe a few kilometres to the west.
Spike sighed in relief, letting out a breath he had realised he’d been holding. Twilight muttered a few more calculations under her breath and nodded in satisfied manner.
“We should go.”
“Go? Go where?” Spike asked, his trepidation returning as quickly as it had left.
“To the crash site of course, there’s no way I could pass up examining this sort of event up close!”
“But… but…” Spike sighed in exasperation; it seemed a perilous scientific expedition was now all but guaranteed.
“I’ll go pack some things.” He muttered dourly.
 

***

Lansky held his fist up as a massive fireball screamed out of the clouds and hurtled towards the ground. His eyes widened as he noticed the faint silhouette of the front half or a Cobalt beneath the flames.
“Is that what I think it is…?” Piers breathed.
“Command, this is recon team Viper. What the hell just happened? Why is there half a Cobalt planet-side?
“Stand by Viper team.” A chippered voice said back. “That information is unavailable at this time.”
“Damn it.” Lansky fumed, command was telling him to shut up and sit in the corner.
“Boss?” Piers asked, scanning the surrounding tree line. The pair had moved down from the hill, crossed a large grass plain and was now skirting the edge of the large forest they had seen before.
“Have a break. We’ll be moving again-.”
A massive boom interrupted him. The ground shuddered beneath them for a moment and few more loud thuds announced the hulk had crashed into the surface of the planet. Another shudder followed as the largest piece of wreckage presumably pancaked into the ground and came to a stop.
“That sounded like fun.” Piers muttered, he straightened a thin pair of glasses and flopped to the ground. Unlike Lansky, Piers was lanky and un-muscled. He would have looked more at home in the data storage centres aboard the Ultimus than ground pounding.
“Yeah, just a little.  Give me a club and a few shots of amnsec any day though.”
Piers pulled a disgusted looking face and turned his gaze towards the distant crash site. A faint orange glow had appeared on the horizon marking the death place of the once intact frigate.
A loud roar came from the depths of the forest behind them making Piers scramble to his feet, rifle at the ready.
“What the hell was that?” He asked nervously, his fingers twitching nervously.
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Lansky said, eyeing the trees cautiously. “Settle down trooper, you’re jumpier than a frog in a blender.”
Piers laughed nervously. “Better to be careful than be dead.” He scanned the trees more carefully, before turning around, apparently satisfied that whatever had sent him scrambling to his feet before wasn’t lurking in the shadows.
Lansky’s earpiece crackled back into life, a little fuzzy from the atmospheric disturbance. “Viper team, new orders. Continue on to the point designated on your HUD; I’m laying a marker now.” The voice said, an icon appearing on Lansky’s heads-up display, unsurprisingly in the general direction that the frigate had crashed in.
“Copy that, Viper team moving to target now.” Lansky said, giving Piers a friendly slap on the shoulder. The young trooper jumped from the unexpected contact, making Lansky laugh.
“Come on kid, we’re moving again.”
 
***
 
It was slow going and by the time the pair came across the first piece of debris, the sun was already rising slowly over the horizon. Lansky let piers poke around the first piece of debris with some tools for a while before ushering the reluctant trooper along the ugly scar that the doomed ship had carved into the planet.
“You know how much I want to go poking around some wrecked ship, sarge? That thing will be full of radiation, fires and sink-holes.”
“That’s nice.” Lansky said coolly. “Now shut your trap or I’ll make you go through it… in your skivvies.”
“Shutting up now sarge.” Piers said quickly, picking up his pace slightly.
 They followed the trail for a short while before it vanished, presumably a spot where the ship had bounced. Before them lay the imposing forest they had been skirting for most of the night.
“Where now?” Lansky asked, poking a five meter long girder cautiously with his boot
Piers pulled a small sensor device off his belt and waving it around. It beeped loudly as he pointed it down the trail of destruction.
“Radiation spike" He confirmed. "Now if I were a genius, which I am, I would say the ship is that way.” He noted wryly.
“Smart men first.” Lansky said, gesturing with a gloved hand in the direction Piers had indicated.  The trooper muttered something under his breath but strode off, equipment held in one hand, his rifle held loosely in the other. After a few minutes the wreckage came into view and large chunks of metal ripped from the hull started piling around them.
A nearby crack made Piers spin around nervously. Unlike the pops and creaks which occasionally came from the cooling metal around them, it was the sound of wood cracking under something.
“Relax trooper, that’s an order.” Lansky said quietly. “Probably just a tree falling over.”
“Sorry, haven’t been planetside for a while.” Piers apologised, picking up the sensor from where he had dropped it. He tapped it a few times, a frown forming on his face.
“Problem?”
“I’m getting a small radiation reading, tiny in fact.” He swung it around and pointed to a piece of large piece of wreckage looming above them distance. “Over there, unknown type. The computer can’t nail down an isotope.”
“Should we check it out?” Lansky asked. He was a soldier first, not a scientist.
“Probably worth a look.” Piers said, tapping the display a few times. “Okay, I’m tracking it now.”
The two troopers had barely gone a few meters when the device beeped in confusion. “What now?” Lansky asked.
“It’s gone…” Piers said with confusion. He madly pressed a few buttons. “Wait, there it is again. It’s like someone’s flicking it on and off.”
“Survivor maybe?” Lansky asked.
“Unlikely, there'd be lingering radiation if that was the case; this just appears then vanishes again.” Piers said, “This way.”
The pair moved closer to the wreckage, the little device beeping occasionally when the radiation source they were tracking vanished.
“Hold on, it’s moving.” Piers muttered.
“Where?”
“This way. It’s about one hundred meters to our front.”
Lansky looked around and spotted a twisted access ladder; he pointed at it and climbed from the ground onto a buckled deck plate. With seconds Piers had joined him and they both advanced cautiously towards the source. They froze at the sound of a voice.
“I don’t get it, what is this thing?” a voice asked.
“Was, I think it crashed.” A feminine voice replied.
Lansky dropped to the deck and crawled forward a few meters where a piece of debris had ripped through the deck, making a hole as wide as a tank.
“I’ve got movement.” Piers muttered quietly.
“Where?”
“Twelve o’clock, below us. Two targets.”
Lansky looked down and could only see a wall of smoke. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“Thermal.” Piers replied.
“Isn’t everything hot in here?” Lansky shot back, pointing out the rather glaring flaw he saw with Pier’s solution.
“Exactly, the targets are showing up as cool spots rather than hot spots.”
“Clever…” Lansky muttered.
Piers grinned and crawled forward.
The deck under the trooper suddenly gave way with a shriek and Piers vanished with a startled yelp.
“Piers!” Lansky yelled, looking down the sink-hole “You okay?”
No response. The two voices he had heard before had gone quiet. They had undoubtedly heard him.
“Piers, respond!”
“I'm here.” Piers said shakily “Still in one piece.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Fell down a deck, rolled out the side… Hold on… I’ve got a visual on the targets... They don't look hostile.”
“Hold position, I’m on my way.”
“Boss, they’re coming closer. I think they saw me.” He said, his voice a little nervous.
“Piers, whatever you do; do not enga-.”
A loud roar split the early dawn air.
“Oh shi-.” The radio suddenly cut off and the unmistakable crack of gunfire came from below him. The following silence was deafening.
“PIERS!”” Lansky bellowed, lowering himself through the hole in the deck.
Silence.
 
***
 
“Lay it out to me Leo, how are we looking?” Chezknov asked, walking around the large holo-display aboard ‘Ultimus’. After the incident with the Cobalt had been resolved, Chezknov had taken a shuttle to the monolithic Akkan which was now hanging in high orbit above their new colony. After an enthusiastic greeting from Leo and the lead civilian, he had been lead through the luxurious ship to the briefing room, Chezknov slightly envious of the wide, open corridors and extra comforts the Akkan possessed.
“Not too bad actually, we’re sending down the third wave of supplies to the colony now.” He tapped the screen once and an image of a flight of laden cargo shuttles spilled out of the Akkan’s port hangers. “We should have full effectiveness within a day.”
“Okay, what about resources?”
The civilian tapped the display again and the image zoomed out to view the entire gravity well.
“Some of my geology teams have been tagging asteroids with usable materials all across this system, shouldn’t be too hard to get a few automated rigs set up once the colonists unpack a constructor or two.” She paused as an asteroid tumbled lazily across the hologram. "I've never seen a system so rich in natural resources before."
“The planet itself is incredibly rich in ores and crystal as well.” Leo paged through one of the numerous slates lying around the room. “We have some small scale operations already active.” Leo held up his hand for a moment as one of his subordinates talked with him over the com. “First constructor is in the black.” He said with a grin.
“Seems like you have that under control.” Chezknov said, pleasantly surprise by the speed everything was being set up. “What about natives?”
“We have recon teams sweeping now, no contact as of yet.”
“I’ll assign some aerospace assets to assist them.”
“That’d be appreciated.” Leo said, nodding his head slowly.
“Lastly, what about manufacturing? Will we be able to build anything in the near future, I’m talking about ships, ammo, defences. Any chance?”
“We’ve got the resources; we just need the manpower and the production facilities to keep it all running.” The civilian said. "I'll get the next available constructor to start work as soon as it breaks orbit."
“Manpower." Chezknov repeated.”Could take a while then."
“We could break out a batch from our clone banks…” Leo said, already knowing his friend’s response.
“No, they’re for emergencies only. If we get hostiles showing up we’ll warm them up. . How many colonists do we have?”
“I’ve got three thousand down there already and almost triple that still in the cooler.”
“That’ll have to do for now.”
“You’re expecting trouble, Captain?” The civilian asked.
“No, but it never hurts to be prepared. I’ve got our remaining frigates placing sensor nets which should give us some warning…”
“You really think those Vasari will follow us all the way out here?” She asked sceptically. “We’re years from any know Trader space, heck, we don’t even know where we are.”
“I’m a warrior miss. If I grow complacent about my enemy, I die. You don’t have that problem with your little toys.”
“I’ll have you know that-.” She shot back.
“Miss Schaffer, please. This is not the time for arguing.” Leo interrupted. “Captain Chezknov is right though, we should be prepared. Just in case.”
“What about the colony though? You’ll just abandon us when you get your phase drives working again.”
“Unlikely, this world is rich in mineral wealth and would be a valuable resource in the TEC’s war effort.” Chezknov said flatly. “My intentions are to enact repairs then inform fleet command of our find upon arrival back in TEC controlled space.”
“What about the natives, you can’t just expect they’ll be happy about that.” Miss Schaffer shot back.
“You’ve never seemed concerned about this before…” Leo said.
“That’s because we’re usually taking something from some Vasari monster or Advent… freak. These things are completely new.” Miss Schaffer said. The two officers exchanged glances; Miss Schaffer was a staunch loyalist and unlike some members of the crew believed that some aliens could be trusted. “I don’t think you’ll just persuade them to let us take their world.”
“I think we can be quite persuasive…” Chezknov said, referring to the nuclear payload his ship carried for surface bombardments.
“I’d rather not resort to that.” Leo said diplomatically. “They’re an unknown that we’ll just to deal with when we make contact. They might be happy to help us for all we know.” He finished. He frowned as another message came through his commbead. He listened intently for a moment, his eyes slightly widening as he did so.
“Problem?” Chezknov asked, not being privy to the ground operations on the planet.
“One of our recon teams made contact with the aliens.”
“And?”
Leo tapped the display a few times, a topographical display of the crashed Cobalt appearing. “We’ve got trouble.”