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Terra
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An hour later, Terra looked as Dalila, Jessie, and Vivian looked over Dalila’s tablet. Everyone had been brought to the ground and the null gravity field had been turned off. Everyone was trying to
“No change even with that approach? Weird. Most ships have the same navigation data structure. I mean, everything I know says that should have worked!” Jessie said softly, shock in his voice.
“Yeah, I mean what is this? I mean really! I’ve seen some captured wrecks from the last War, and the Ancients weren’t as strange!” Dalila declared softly.
Terra blinked, a little shocked at the declaration. She had heard a lot of stories about that War, and the ships of the Ancients were killers. To hear that they were easier to understand than this thing? Well, it made her even more scared.
“We’ve tried everything, we can’t even figure out the date. That narrows down what this thing is right?” Vivian asked as she sat down against the hole’s wall.
“That doesn’t mean anything! I mean it could be a custom job, right? A made-up programming language?” Jessie looked around.
Terra felt her fear slowly become terror as she realized that Jessie was feeling terror.
“We can’t keep hiding from this. I mean there’s only one answer here that makes sense. We’re all thinking about it, right? But really, what else could it be? I mean anything else?” Vivian asked as she at the other two.
Terra watched as all three of them looked at each other and then they all nodded. For some reason, she was getting the feeling that she wouldn’t like this. And that meant that this was going to be a lot harder than she thought.
“How bad is it?” She asked them.
The three of them looked between each other and then the two girls looked at Jessie. He sighed and nodded.
“Fine. This is a First contact salvage. Or the code is completely custom. But we can’t figure out how to get into it,” Jessie said, looking down.
Terra looked at them and then she face palmed. This was beyond her worst fears. First Contacts were always hard affairs, and savage missions were only partly better. The things that people were able to learn from wrecks were varied. But that meant that they had to clear ground fast. But how?
She blinked and then she looked up at the generator and then grinned. That would make it work faster. “Fine, okay. That’s what we’re going to do. EVERYONE LISTEN! We need to move a lot of dirt fast! To make it easier, we’re using the generator! Everyone grab a shovel and get ready to move dirt in zero gravity!”
As the deckhands around them went to work. Dalila and Jessie both looked at Terra in shock.
“The generator might be able to handle it, but it might not. I had to change it a lot from what I thought it would need!” Jessie said.
“And I might be able to get into this, I just need more time!” Dalila said, an edge in her voice.
Terra nodded. “Yeah, I understand. So that’s why you’ll watch the generator, Jessie. If it starts to bother you, I want you to tell us. And keep working on it Dalila. If you can learn anything from that thing, let me know. We need to get in there.”
“Do we?” Vivian asked as she stepped back, looking at Terra. “I mean, don’t we need to make sure that the capsule isn’t on an engine? So why not see what we’re actually on first?”
Terra looked at her and then down at the ground, a thousand thoughts going through her mind. There was a way that they could do just that, and the generator was the key. The more she thought about it, the more that she thought it was possible. The only thing that they would lose from this, was time. And until Jinn’s team came back, time was all they had.
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Terra looked at the deckhands gathering and did a quick head count. They had enough people here to do that, and they had a bit of help that would make the job easier. There were no downsides here. “Smart. Vivian, you’re in charge of that. I’ll give you five other people, find out what we’re on. Jessie, Dalila, do what I said to do. I’ll walk the perimeter and keep an eye on our prisoner and what’s out there.”
Jessie looked at Terra, and nodded, before reaching out with his right hand. Terra looked at him and then at Dalila and Vivian as both girls gasped softly.
“Wait, she knows what you are!?” Dalila whispered screamed.
Terra looked at them and then grasped Jessie’s hand. As words flashed over her augmented reality, she stiffened. Slowly, she looked at the two women, the words, ‘Both of them are hunters’, still flashing.
“Oh my. This changes a lot of things. I think we’ll need to talk about this later, alone,” Terra said with a cold voice.
She looked at Jessie, a strange feeling going through her mind. She had no idea how he found out or when, but it was today at most. That was the only thing that she would accept, and that was what she would believe. All she knew, was that she now had two more assets that she could use to keep the civilians safe. And that was enough for every bit of stress this would give her.
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Vivian
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As she watched Terra walk away, she almost looked at Jessie. But she didn’t, she let the anger she was feeling disappear after a few moments. The way that Terra had spoken before, the two of them were old friends.
“Listen up! New plan! Vivian is in charge of the digging, and I only need five of you for that. Everyone else rest a bit, but stay up here. I want to know what’s closest to the capsule!” Terra called out as everyone gathered around them. “You, You, You, you and Jones? Listen to her! I want no problems from any of you!”
Vivian shared one last look with Dalila before she walked off. She looked at the four people Terra had said were under her command, and she tried to keep calm. She was a loner like so many of her guild mates, and this would be something she had rarely done.
“So why you?” Jones asked as he crossed his arms.
Vivian hid a wince and a scowl. She could tell that Jones was going to be a problem. She had sent her drones around and heard what Duncan thought of him. And she agreed with him. The chances were good that Jones had betrayed his team. And that meant that Jones couldn’t be trusted at all. But he was a body, and they needed all the bodies they could get. “Because I asked the right question. So here’s how I see this going. We dig down to the plates, then we move the floating dirt to a pile. Teams of two, one dig it out, the other catch it before it flies off.”
“And why are we digging?” Another of the deckhands asked.
“Simple. We’re checking if we’re really on thruster. I hope we’re not. But we need to know,” Vivian said with crossed arms as she looked around.
“Why, shouldn’t we know by now? Or was that girl with you doing her nails instead of hacking this thing?” Jones asked with a scowl.
Vivian sighed and took a deep breath. “This wreck is a First Contact Scavenge. The programming is completely alien. We can’t even tell what language it’s using.”
“Oh,” One of the deckhands whispered as even Jones stared at her in shocked horror. She understood, there were so many movies about this. Stories, where sleeping monsters woke up and killed everyone, were the rage a few decades ago. And those stories had become the basic starting plots for games three years later. And to think that they were living one of those stories?
“So we need to do what? Just dig right?” Jones said as he grabbed a shovel.
Vivian held a hand and looked at the null gravity generator. As Jessie went there and looked at them he raised a hand back at her. Vivian only grinned and chuckled a bit. “Yes, but wait a bit, and now!”
As the null gravity feeling washed over them, Vivian floated upwards a bit before she grabbed the ground. As the others all started to float, they all reacted crying out in fear. But then a rope was thrown to them from Terra as she moved closer. All of the deckhands that were floating grabbed the rope. As they all pulled themselves back down to the ground, Terra chuckled.
Terra grinned as she looked around. “Well people, that's the null field! And because of the trouble, I had Bob go get something that will help us all!”
Vivian only looked at Terra, a little confused. But before she could ask anything, Bob called out.
“Found three boss!”
They all turned and saw Bob coming towards them, a strange bundle over his shoulder. As he came closer, Vivian knew that this was going to be strange.
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Zevortro
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As he moved along the border of the shield, Zevortro sighed to himself. After one of the first shifts last night, a nice patrol was just what he needed. As he passed the place the Vine Beast attacked from. He thought of the destruction that that monster had done. There were four Pod Trees that the monster had destroyed. The few pods they had found were all they had left. But they still had enough other supplies to survive until Jinn’s party came back.
But as he looked up, he went still. The area where the uprooted trees had been was empty! The only thing that remained was a few leaves on the ground. For a second, he wondered just what had happened to them. If they had been eaten, then what had eaten them? And how had they been done without the watchers seeing it? And did whatever eat the trees also eat meat? With a swallow, he turned and dashed towards Terra. She had to know about this, they might be in more danger than they had ever thought!
As he reached the area of the null gravity field, he stopped. He looked at the ground, finding the edge of the field. Without stopping for more than a second, he ran, looking at the ground as he moved. After a few minutes, he smiled as he saw Terra. But then he stopped, shocked as he saw two people holding a blanket to catch dirt as it floated upwards.
Vivian and Terra stood off to the side, watching as people pushed the dirt upwards.
“Last bit! Stopping and moving!” One of the two holding the blanket called out as the work stopped.
“Smart idea Terra, I mean really. I wouldn’t have even thought about this!” Vivian said with a laugh.
Zevortro only looked at them and then took a deep breath. “Boss? We have a problem.”
The two girls looked toward his voice. As soon as she saw him, Terra winced a little.
“Okay, what’s wrong outside out the shield?” Terra asked with a blank face.
“Just follow me, I’ll show you!” Zevortro said, gesturing for her to follow him.
Five minutes later, Terra looked out of the shield at the remains of the torn trees. Zevortro looked at her, his arms crossed. He had stayed silent and only gestured at the shield once they had made it there.
“Yeah. Yeah. I can see how this might be a problem for us. But what could have done this?” Terra asked, worry in her voice.
“I don’t know, but we can’t open the shield. We have to stay locked down,” Zevortro said as he looked at the forest, his eyes scanning for anything that might be there.
Before, the forest was a place of possibilities. But now, it was a place of terror. They had already fought off monsters that they could see. How worse were those things out there that they couldn’t?
“No, we can’t. Get three others, all of you pair off and keep walking the shield. We need to have a warning if anything attacks us!” Terra declared as she looked back towards the crater.