Mako moved cautiously forward through the alien forest. Surprisingly, it still had ferns and conifers and wildlife that looked very similar to Earth. Although, this had the feel of a rainforest more than a temperate forest. There were a lot of vines and undergrowth. The colors were a little different but not drastically so. The bark on the trees had a pattern that resembled the skin of a giraffe. At least some of them did. Others had almost a hairy exterior. One might expect them to be rough and splintery to the touch, but instead they were soft and downy.
Arkana trimmed some of the bark from one of the hairy trees and set it on a nearby by rock. “I suspect these are similar to the fibers you would find on a redwood tree on Earth. I wonder if they are also fire resistant.” She pulled out a torch.
“Try not to burn down the forest on our first time out on the planet.” Jhakaas spoke in a deadpan voice as his head kept swiveling. “We don’t want the neighbors to think poorly of us.”
“Ha ha.” she replied mirthlessly in an accent that betrayed her Grand Ozarks Magnamont origin. “That only happened once.”
She lit the torch and applied the flame to the fibers in the rock. They blackened, smoked and glowed, but never caught fire. They quickly shriveled under the onslaught of the torch flame and turned to ash.
She stood and put the torch away. “I’d call that a successful proof of the hypothesis. I should gather some more samples for a better analysis back at the ship.”
Mako just mumbled an affirmative as he looked around. She was just doing her job like all the other scientists looking for samples to analyze. Still, he was a bit disgruntled with how much it resembled any forest on Earth. Of course, he’d never actually been in any forest on earth. There were a few parks with trees in Oceania. None of the trees he ever saw were actual trees though. And now he stood amid more than he could count. They extended on in every direction. Almost seeming like they were intentionally planted a certain distance apart. They weren’t in neat rows and columns, but they were a very similar distance apart. This is a scrum, but none of the previous scrums had trees or forests like this. He wondered if the similarity to the trees was because this was a simulation using Earth based assets or if the forest on the planet they were going to actually looked like this.
He decided to ask, “RETA, is this a realistic representation of the forest on Argyra? Or did you substitute graphic assets from Earth?”
RETA responded quickly, “While these are not scrum assets designed and programmed on Earth, I cannot verify the accuracy of the representation. These are reflective of the information provided by the planetside source. The assets you see are all Earth assets modified to a specification given by the source.”
Mako nodded and looked at Arkana. She had her helmet visor clear enough that he could see her lips thin as she pressed them together in thought.
“Still not telling who the source is or how it got there?” She asked with a touch of hostility.
RETA replied without acknowledging the tone. “I do not know with any certainty as to the source on the planet. If I did, I would be required to inform the colony leadership. Since I have no knowledge of who or what the source is, or even the nature of the source, I certainly have no knowledge of its origins.”
Mako had heard this repeatedly. He didn’t know why Arkana insisted on doing this every time the subject was brought up. There is no bullying her way past what was already programmed in. RETA could only follow directives she’d been commanded to follow.
He looked around and checked on the others guarding the other biologists taking samples and taking notes. This had been going on for a few hours already. And there seemed to be no limit of samples to gather. Yet there was a quest they had received, and he felt they should work on completing that sooner than later. He mentally cued his new menu to come up.
A black screen with a gold border popped up in his vision blocking his head ups display and it populated with yellow characters.
P.H.E.N.O. System - Quest Log - - Attributes - - P.H.E.N.O.type - - Skills - - Abilities -
P.H.E.N.O.type, Skills, and Abilities were greyed out and had no current function. Mentally selecting Quest Log, just as he might with any cybernetic interface, showed another list.
- Quest Log -
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Planet Quests
Meet the Neighbors - Discover the nature of the alien ruins. (3% Complete)
- Reconnoiter the alien ruins
- Make a visual inspection of the alien ruins located 15 kilometers northwest of the colony ship landing site.
Survey Says - Determine the suitability of Argyra for Human colonization. (6% Complete)
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
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Colony Quests
Circle The Wagons - Secure perimeter. (Completion 34%)
- Explore 500 meters in all directions from the colony ship. Confirm and mitigate any threats. This can be shared among multiple individuals and/or parties.
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Party Quests
Survey Says – Part 1 - Retrieve common wildlife specimens for scientific survey.
-Gather 10 specimens for the Biology team to study.
Total number must consist of at least 4 different species. (9/10) Repeatable
Survey Says – Part 2 - Retrieve common plant specimens for scientific survey.
-Gather 20 plant specimens for the Botany team to study.
Must be 20 unique species. (18/20) Repeatable
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Personal Quests
Release The Kraken - Acquire sufficient experience to surpass the threshold to fully engage the PHENO system. (4% Complete)
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Mako examined their completion rates so far as they the science team they had prepared another case for a drone to pick up. It had surprisingly gone rather quickly so far even with the multiples they had gathered in the process. Apparently, all 12 teams in the field counted toward the duplication. In total, they had already sent back close to 50 samples. Some of those included soil samples, but still a dozen of the 50 included a variety of reptiles, birds, bugs, and larvae. They also sent back a nasty and vicious dark green weasel that jumped out of a tree and landed on Jhakaas trying to bite him on the throat. His armor had held it at bay. Jhakaas named it Spunky.
Arkana stood up from the case and triggered her ship comm. “Alright, Skeet. Beacon is on and we are moving on.”
“Acknowledged, Arkana. I’ll have it in a few minutes.”
Mako jumped in. “Hey Skeet? Any luck on the recon drone at the ruins?”
Skeet replied. “Well, I sent the drone. I have been visually scanning the ruins, but I have not gone inside or anything. In fact, I haven’t seen a door or way in yet. There are more than a few small holes in the cliff alongside the structure. I might send another drone with a rover and see if it can navigate one of those holes.”
“None of this is counting toward the quest completion, eh?”
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
Mako nodded. “That’s fine. We need to see it ourselves anyway. Alright keep us fed.”
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Mako took point moving forward with Jhakaas about 5 meters to his right and RiffRaff about the same distance to his left. The three moving forward had CarboMatrix machetes that easily sliced through anything in front of them. They were making good time and were nearing the end of their search pattern.
“Hold up!” RiffRaff held up a fist as he spoke over the comm.
Mako backed up and headed over to him with Arkana in tow. “What’s up?” Riff typically didn’t even speak unless he had to and so Mako assumed this was no idle chat.
“We’ve been wandering around all day, and we’ve seen a lot of new things, but I haven’t seen that.” He pointed to what was a little outside of their search area between some trees. Mako’s eyes spotted a brilliant splash of color. Pinks, purples, blues, and vibrant greens were mixed together seemingly creating a vertical wall.
“Ooh. Nice catch, Riff.” Arkana smiled and started wandering toward the wall.
“Easy, now.” Mako put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. “Let us check it out first.”
Arkana sighed and nodded. The three men started moving cautiously toward the colorful display. Arcana and the rest of the science stayed back with the rear guard.
“Scans aren’t showing anything unusual ahead.” Harpy, their team drone scanner confirmed. “There is something like a power source about 20 meters northeast of us.”
“Power source?” Mako and Arkana looked at Harpy.
“Well...I can’t say it’s a power source, but it’s giving me interference like a power source would...although the signal is not electromagnetic in nature. I don’t think it is anyway. No significant animal life noted. If anything, even smaller animal life seems to be avoiding this area. Nothing else of note in the area. Arkana, look at this.”
Arkana moved over and looked over Harpy’s shoulder. “Huh. Try and isolate a frequency?”
Harpy shook her head. “It’s not working. I'll keep trying. I think it's because it isn't an EM signal, but it is interfering with EM readings. Maybe RETA can do something with it.”
They kept moving forward.
Moving out from the forest area into a meadow they could see that the wall was not a wall but a rather huge tree that was about 6 meters in diameter and perhaps 100 meters tall. It was surrounded with a colorful ivy at the ground level and the vines wound up the tree with bright flowers spaced around it. The tree was positioned on the far edge of the meadow next to the forest canopy.
The flowers grew larger the higher they were positioned on the tree. The flowers had rather large petals that Mako would associate with a tropical plant, with some being almost a meter wide. Some of the flowers were closed and had the appearance of a tulip bulb. There were even some fruits in front of Mako that had the size and color of dragonfruit if not a bit more intense in color and were smoother. The canopy of the tree didn’t start for a good 50 meters up.
“Jhakaas, circle around that way to move more directly toward that source, but don’t try to engage if anything happens. Move cautiously and stay back from it. Riff move a little further out that way.” Mako directed them both a little further away from him to give them different firing angles and move Jhakaas more toward the mysterious power source.
“Wow, this is...stunning,” Arkana admired the colors of the tree.
Mako moved a bit closer to the flowery wall and stumbled. He caught himself but the ground cover which was usually no more than ankle high was now nearly knee high. The closed flowers opened slowly.
“Oh drek!” Harpy said under her breath. “I forgot to tell you the forest floor around this thing where you see the ivy is lower. It’s roughly a circle 15 meters in diameter. In fact, it’s almost perfectly a circle. Weird.”
Mako nodded as he looked at her, keeping his sigh to himself and spoke curtly, “Any other pertinent information?”
“Nope...Don’t think so.” She replied in the bubbly tone that was her normal tone. Arkana turned and gave her a look. Harpy’s smile faded as her face flushed, “No, Mako. Nothing else. Sorry, I got distracted by that power source.”
Mako turned and moved forward a bit. He shrugged it off. Arkana was overreacting a little. Certainly, the colony had been doing these types of expeditions for years now, but these were all civilians. Well, mostly. Mako didn’t feel right and didn’t want to start holding everyone to a military style accountability. He’d had enough of that in his life.
RiffRaff and Jhakaas stepped down into the depression to take a closer look at the flowers. Mako followed the vines up with his eyes. There are some other flowers higher up the tree between 10 and twenty meters. These ones were dark red and possibly 2 to 3 meters wide.
“Ok, anything of note, Riff? Jhakaas?” Mako kept scanning the tree and its vines. Both replied in the negative.
“Move on in, Arkana.”
“Hey something moved here.” Jhakaas shouted.
“Harpy, I thought you said there were no animals?” Mako looked back. Trying to mask his exasperation.
“I did.” Harpy was stammering. “I check...I checked every...there’s nothing.”
“Well, it’s not...”Jhakaas started and then screamed.