UNCLAIMED SPACE- EN ROUTE TO UNK521
As John walked onto the bridge he tried to stretch his muscles, he had woken early to go to the gym before starting his shift. In the next hour, they would arrive UNK521, hopefully, it would just be another boring survey of a new system. It was difficult to stretch while wearing the space suite but do to jumping into the unknown it was mandatory to wear the suite incase of unknown emergencies. He pulled up his stat page and ship status
Name: John Port
Path: Command
Primary Class: Explorer
Sub-Class: Starship Lover/Ship Master
Level: 2 (200/1500), 4 Stat points available
Constitution: 20
Strength: 25
Intelligence: 30
Dexterity: 25
Agility: 25
Health: 1000
Stamina: 550
Skills:
Mantle of Command (LVL 2)(Captain, +6%), Driven, Potential, Explorers Instincts, Small Arms (Lvl 1), Rifle Proficiency (Lvl 1)
Abilities:
Sure Shots, Crew Proficiency, Gut Shot
Ship Status- Riptide
Shields- Standby Mode
Engines- Standby Mode
Warp Engine- Active
Fore Missile Tubes- Unarmed/Loaded
Aft Missile Tubes- Unarmed/Loaded
Pulse Cannons- Standby Mode
Point Defense Cannons- 100% Manned/Standby Mode
Stealth Suite- Standby Mode
Fusion Generator- Online/Operating at 40%
The reports from the 2nd and 3rd shift were boring, the naval personnel were on schedule for arms training. The burst transmission they had picked up had put a sense of impending trouble for the ship, all the senior officers and NCOs were aware now of the potential trouble.
"Attention all hands we will be dropping out of warp in 30 seconds into UNK521, please secure all stations for transition," O'Hansen announced over the ship-wide. John started strapping into the command chair and brought up his tactical screen. Right now it was blank but 30 seconds after the transition it should fill with anything the sensors could find within 1 light minute. Any last-minute checks of the PDCs would be done, the missile tubes would be going hot, and he could see the pull from thee fusion generators would double as the ship's shields and stealth systems came on.
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UNCLAIMED SPACE- UNK521
As they transitioned to normal space, it felt like his eyeballs almost popped out, he would never get used to that feeling. "Report?" John called.
"Jump drive is spinning down and will be ready in one hour. We are moving into the system at three percent of the max speed clockwise of the sun." O'Hansen called out.
"Stealth systems are active, missile tubes are loaded and ready, PDCs are on standby." Tactical came back.
"Unless something is out there in stealth, we are clear for one light minute out. Visual sensors will be up in thirty seconds, an initial scan shows a yellow sun with eight planets and an asteroid field. Sensor drones will be launching in five minutes." the sensor officer called out.
"Lt. Johnson, I want your combat drones put on standby. PDCs are to be manned at no less than fifty-percent at all times, rotate the crews so they can stretch their legs but keep them near their guns. Are we picking up any signal traffic?" John called out.
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"No signals what-so-ever sir. I will let you know if that changes sir." the sensor/comm officer came back.
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Six hours later they had mapped five rogue asteroids, two dozen meteor storms, and the two outer planets. They had only covered about one-third of the outer system, and the two planets had plenty of Iron, Nickel, Plutonium, Cadmium, and some Titanium. Both were about two-thirds of the size of Earth, so big enough for gravity but not heavy gravity. Lieutenant Commander Stein walked onto the bridge with most of the second shift. While the first shift was running away to get some food, rack, or arms training, he updated the commander on what they had found so far. "So far this place would be great to develop as far as mining for natural resources, the two planets we surveyed will not be suitable for long term habitation. Satellite colonies would be possible if we got rid of all the meteor storms. Anyway, I got to go file my reports and logs for my shift and go to the firing range. Have a boring shift commander!!" Rebecca nodded and John headed off to grab some food and start his daily reports.
Three hours later, John got up and stretched his back and moved to go pick up his handgun and inspected it.
Name: Wolfs Legacy
Damage: 15-30 (Kinetic/Energy Damage)
Tier: Scalable
Fire Mode: Single shot or 3 round Burst
Properties: Increases Accuracy 5%
Properties: Increases Damage 5%
Properties: Increase Critical Hit Chance by 1%
Durability: 500/500
Description: This hand cannon was passed down from your previous life, in that life, it kept you alive more times then you can count and it will continue to do so. It will absorb 10% of your combat experience (Fleet Action does not count) and grow in strength as you do.
Got to love legacy perks, he didn't get his custom armor though. He started to strap it on to head down to the range when Kate flagged him 'Captain, the XO has requested your presence on the bridge' One day, that's all he wanted was one day where something didn't go wrong. It was supposed to be a boring tour, the gun went back into his safe and he headed to the bridge instead of the gun range. "Report Commander?"
Commander Stein responded immediately "We were scanning the asteroid belt and picked up a structure on one of them. Preliminary scans show no life or power and from what we can figure out it was a communication station. Based on the location and orientation of the communication equipment, this was a support facility for something on the fourth planet. We are currently en route and will be in orbit in thirty minutes. I will head to the secondary bridge, sir."
With that, she left and he took over her station. "I dispatched one of the sensor drones toward the planet and it should be on station within 5 minutes." the sensor/communications officer stated. John nodded and brought up the tactical view of the system and zoomed in on the 4th planet.
The first thing the sensor drone showed was a visual of the planet. It was a mix of green, blue, black, and brown, so it was full of water, forests, and mountains two major continents and four smaller ones, plenty of plant life and small mammalian/reptiles but no sentients. No cities, no roads, so why have communication gear directed to this planet John thought...Maybe a satellite facility in orbit "Ok people, time to break the rules. Go active with sensors on the drone, I want to know what those mammals are eating and shitting."
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UNCLAIMED SPACE- UNK521
Orbit Around Planet IV
One hour later they found it. It was a facility on one of the smaller continents, most of it was located underground. Definitely military in origin, but like the comm gear on the asteroid in orbit, the facility had no life and no power. "Ok put us in geosynchronous orbit around the facility, Commander Stein I am going to be taking an expedition down to the facility and take a look around. Commander Smitt, I want two squads down in the launch bay A.S.A.P, Chief Letts I want some engineers to figure out what this place is. Lt O'Hansen report to the launch bay and prep one of the Assault Shuttles for launch."
Twenty minutes later thirteen marines, lead by Smitt himself, four engineers, and O'Hansen and John left the Riptide. The flight down was smooth and Smitt called out his orders "Ok people, we are going to an unknown alien facility. You all will stay on the ship until we secure the LZ, this goes for everyone Captain, including you. Once we are secure you will follow my directions or the directions of my NCOs. We are there to make sure you stay alive people. Keep the comm lines clear unless its an emergency." With that, the comm line went silent. John checked his weapon for the fifth time since they left the Riptide and he hoped that he had chosen the right path.
Ten minutes later O'Hansen sat the shuttle down near the facility. No fire was taken and the area was relatively clear of vegetation and plant life. Two of the marines stayed near the ramp while the rest spread out to sweep the surrounding area. Five minutes later they had an all-clear and John and the engineers headed to the unknown facility. O'Hansen and two marines stayed behind to secure the shuttle. 'Jeeves, get linked in with the marines tactical sensors and keep me updated for anything.' Based on the sensor data this place was small on the surface but three times the size underground. It definitely looked high tech, the fences had been electrified, turrets dotted the fence line incrementally. The buildings were made out of some metal not native to the planet. The central building was about five stories tall surrounded by several single-story buildings. Some were obviously meant to house personnel that guarded the facility, one was some sort of shield with an attached engineering building. Preliminary scans showed that the buildings were over seven hundred years old and no one had been around for at least six hundred years.
As they made their way into the central building the engineers kept scanning and analyzing things. They passed several skeletal remains, they looked humanoid. The marines had already bagged one and they would take it back to the Riptide and have one of the medical personnel look it over and determine species. As old as this place was, it was still just as advanced technology-wise as the Imperium, if not more so. As they proceeded into the central building they continued to find evidence of battle and bloodshed, corpses and scars to the building itself. Blast craters, burn and scorch marks, and corpses littered the building.
They finally found some intact databases and councils, the engineers got to work to try and figure out what this place had been and what they had been doing here. "Be careful people, remember this was a military facility, I don't want you guys to accidentally trip a self destruct. Commander can you detail me a couple of Marines, I want to explore the underground portion of the facility." Apparently, that warranted a whole squad, as they descended into the dark the creepy factor went up. So maybe he did need a squad, initial scans showed multiple levels underground and most of it was located under the nearby mountains. It was as if the surface facilities were built as an afterthought after the underground portion was finished.
As they made their way through the underground portion of the facility, they saw hundreds of data banks, a couple of labs, and several firing ranges. Whatever this place was, military operations came secondary to its primary mission, whatever that was. After 30 minutes of walking, they found another set of stairs leading up. They were under the mountain at this point so John was curious to see where they led. 10 minutes of walking up stairs led to an observation area with a couple of work stations. The stations were dead without any power "Sir, I think you need to see this." One of the marines called out.
The view showed trees and grass and nothing special..."Ok, what am I looking at?" John asked.
The marine smiled "Look at the ridgeline sir, the whole ridgeline. What do you see?"
John looked again and looked again...WHAT THE FUCK "Ok planets do not form ridgelines in perfect circles like that, what is this place..."
"Captain, this is engineer Franks. We got in the system and we know exactly what this place was and did." John whooped and pumped his fist.
"Ok, we are on the way Franks," John responded back. 40 minutes later they walked back into the office area they had left the engineers.
"Ok, sir, from what we can determine this facility used to be a Pre-Fall Imperial listening and sensor station. Once the Thrax rebelled they beefed up the garrison, eventually it was targeted either by the rebels or a local faction who used the war to their advantage to get rid of the local imperials. The facility is relatively intact but it would take A LOT of work to get operational. It could be very useful though because with this facility we could monitor 100 light-years of space." the Engineer reported.
John thought about everything the engineer had said before replying, "Ok, if you can access the facilities core do a data dump and then we will head back to the Riptide."
When he got back he was going to fill out a report about this and get some food and sleep. So much for a boring cruise...