When the Melody II landed next to the Hubble, it was getting dark already. Robin and Patience had made a quick stop at the museum on their way back and gave Hutton a short visit. Now that they arrived, it was only half an hour before the appointed time of departure.

While Robin and Patience got off the ship, the Hubble lowered its elevator and Niu shot out.

“Patience! Heyyyyyy” She yelled half across the spaceport.

“Happy, little girl. How are you doing?” Patience grinned and gave the bundle of energy a hearty hug.

Robin felt a satisfying feeling wash over him. This is how things should be! He grabbed Patience’s luggage as well as a package from Hutton and brought everything to the platform. Just as he was about to ask his pilot to open the shutter for the Melody, a PTV flew over and landed next to him.

“Captain!” The stern looking man that stepped out of the vehicle gave him a salute.

“Mr. Walzor, good to see you. It’s great that we could win you for this expedition! Please call me Robin.”

“Okay, Robin” The man shook his hands, “Landom it is!”

“How are your injuries? Any lingering problems?”

“Nope, nothing. The doc said you patched me up pretty well. But let’s leave that talk for later. I brought… a guest?”

“Huh? I wasn’t expecting anyone else…” Robin looked confused at the PTV, just in time to see another man climbing out. He had short blonde hair which was pretty disheveled right now, had black rings under his eyes and wore a white coat of a scientist. Also - his hands were cuffed.

“Timothy? Man, great to see you here… well, you look like shit and as if Landom tried to apprehend some random person again, but it’s nice we meet in person at last!”

“I don’t run around and arrest random people!” Landom exclaimed in defense.

“Hey Rob! Can you please get these things off?” Timothy said and raised his cuffed hands.

Robin threw Landom a questioning gaze and received a shrug in response.

“The UAS took him to Rucasur with the last transport so we don’t have to make an extra stop on Ruca II. However, he tried to flee and hid on another transport that was about to go back to the Drel outpost. Since he has an official assignment, I had to take tougher measures…”

“Really? What are you? Some badass secret agent?” Robin chuckled and gave Landom a nod.

After Timothy was free again, he rubbed his sore wrists.

“At least I can now claim that I was arrested once! Damn, Rob! Take me back to my outpost!”

“Timothy, do you really think I would just mess with you? Keep calm, we will do this one job together and if you don’t like it, you can go back to Ruca II. Believe me, this will be good for you.” Robin explained, while Landom and the women were already on their way to the Hubble.

“Happy, please open the shutter for the Melody II, will ya?” He shouted over his shoulder before concentrating back on his friend.

“Aye Aye Captain!”

“You can do that? Secure me another slot in the Drel-research-team?” Timothy asked with a skeptical face.

“Mate, that was part of the deal. While you need a bit of a push sometimes, it’s not my decision what you do with your life. Give this expedition a chance and if it sucks, I promise, I’ll deliver you to Guard’s old door personally!”

“Guard? That’s what the AI was called, right? I have so many questions! How do…”

Robin laughed and raised his hand to stop his friend.

“Let’s do that later, okay? We have many long and boring days of traveling ahead of us. Follow the others and get into the Hubble. I’ll store the Melody and then we can finally take off.”

***

“Alena, your brother is aboard? It would be quite embarrassing if we forgot one of us the first time we took off…”

The red haired woman gave him a look and Robin wasn’t sure if it was just another kind of glare or if she tried to suppress a giggle.

“He is in the fitness room, preparing.” She said.

“Preparing? For what?”

“For the meeting with your friend, the other brute.”

“Ah, right. I… yeah, whatever.”

“Niu please get us out of here and set course to Trov S!”

“Aye Aye Captain!” She cheered from the pilot seat.

“Really?” Robin asked after hearing that again.

“At least for a few more days!”

“Fine…”

Alena took the remaining seat and moments later, the Hubble left Rucasur’s atmosphere. With this, Robin’s adventure really began. He had his crew, a mission, some side quests and a proper ship to call home for the time being.

He took a deep breath and enjoyed the moment a bit, before he opened the ship’s internal comm.

*Ding* - Ship’s comm opened

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Hey folks - we are finally complete and on our way!

Since we collected our last crew member on Rucasur already, we’ll skip the visit to Ruca II and head directly for Trov S, one of Gaunus’ moons.

Get yourself comfortable and make your cabin a home. We will live on the Hubble for a few weeks at least.

In one hour, at 1900, we will meet up in the conference room on the upper deck for an introduction round and the mission briefing.

Destination: Trov S, ETA: t -5 days.

Robin out.”

*Ding* - Ship’s comm closed

Robin took another deep breath and grinned… finally!

“No ‘This is the captain speaking’? I’m a bit disappointed…”

“Next time, Niu. Next time.”

One hour later, the whole crew was sitting at the huge conference table in the meeting room.

“Let’s make one round of introductions and after that, I’ll dive into the mission briefing, alright?” Robin, who sat at the table’s head, said and looked at Keran, who was to his right, to begin.

“Sure. I’m Keran Bex and will be in charge of the team of researchers we will meet later. I also will be taking up the role as field-medic, as my mutation is a Class B - Rapid Regeneration.”

Some amazed Uh’s and Oh’s could be heard. It’s not every day that you could meet someone with a Class B G-Anomaly. Robin had read this in Keran’s profile before and wondered as he only knew of self-healing abilities and had never heard of one that could be used to heal others. But when he asked the man about this, he only said ‘Pray that you never have to find out how that works!’ - which was kind of creepy so Robin dropped the topic and tried not to think about it.

After Keran, the others also introduced themselves one by one, before it was time for Robin to explain the key parts of their journey. He gave a rough roundup on the mission itself and let Keran explain the details as well as the hazardous conditions they will find in the Goya System and on Terulos.

“So, to summarize the mission: Go to the Goya System and find Terulos, there we will look for a big Keeper artifact and try to get something out of it with my mutation. After that - mission done and everyone can go home!”

“You forgot the ‘not dying to freakin’ solar flares and electromagnetic storms’ in the dead system!” Niu added, which was immediately followed by Sevastian.

“And the ‘avoid death due magma spraying out under your feet and icy winds converting you into a popsicle’-thing!”

“Yeah, right, let’s avoid that… anything else?” Robin asked with a sigh, but everyone just shook their heads.

“Great, so we won’t go directly to the Goya System. Our first stop will be at Trov S, there we will check out a location I’ve heard of. We’ll use that short trip as a test to get used to another out in the field.” He explained and continued after no one raised questions.

“After that, we will head over to Seavis. While it is also one of the five planets in the Mereus Cluster, most people don’t know much about it. We will look for another special location there, but that should be a bit more exciting, as we will head to one of the uncharted areas of the planet. Natural phenomena disturb any scans and long-range analytics of that region, so who knows what we’ll find.

From Seavis we move to an asteroid that drifts along the borders of the Mereus Cluster and fetch Keran’s team before we take on the long flight to the Goya System. Happy, how long?”

“Uhm… roughly 20 days, give or take.” Niu quickly answered.

“We will restock on Seavis when we are done with the side-mission and you will have some free time, after that we will be bound to the Hubble for some time. Prepare accordingly. Any questions?”

***

“How do you like your new laboratory?” Robin asked after he entered Timothy’s new playground.

“It’s okay, not too bad. All the relevant analyzers and scanners are there and the ship provides enough energy and processing power to get some serious research done…”

“But…?” Robin asked after he noticed Timothy’s hesitation.

“But I don’t know what I should do! We are on our way to a fully explored moon and I don’t think there will be anything to research for a long time… why am I here? I could be at the Drel outpost and help with really important things.” His friend complained with a sad face.

“Well, first of all you could try to socialize with the rest of the crew. Why are you so insistent on isolating yourself?”

“I don’t know them!”

“Yeah, that’s why you should talk to them. Damn, Timothy, science and research is a job, maybe also a hobby, but don’t let it dictate your life. I’m not that great with people either, but even I understand that staying alone day in and day out sucks.” Robin sighed when he saw Timothy still not convinced.

“Fine, just promise me to give them a chance, will ya? In turn, I may have something for you to study…”

That finally got the man excited.

“What are we talking about?”

“Two things to be precise. The first is this little package that I brought you as a gift.” Robin said and put the box he got from Hutton on a table. His friend immediately began to open it.

“It’s Keeper-tech. You can use it to learn about their technology and prepare for the monolith. You can also talk to Keran, he and his team have researched this technology for a long time already.”

Timothy took a small black pyramid out of the package and inspected it with gleaming eyes.

“Marvelous, do you know what it is?”

“Yeah, a bit. That’s what the second thing is about. Please keep that between us for now, okay?”

“You don’t want the UAS to know about this?”

“Not now, no. They already have some idea of what is going on, but don’t know the whole story. Let me tell you how I came to know about this little pyramid…”

Robin explained in detail what exactly did happen, when he did the job at the museum all these months before. How he heard voices in his head, how he found the map and what he learned about it so far.

After he finished his story, he grabbed a pen and began to write down a copy of his legend.

Δ - Mountain

✮ - Wuranger Site

✲ - Vanguard Facility

✳ - unknown

✸ - Drel Outpost

❂ - unknown

❉ - unknown

“I’m pretty sure that one of the last markers should be for the Eltaran and one is probably for Keeper Info-Stations, the last is unknown.”

“That is amazing! You know the locations of these alien sites? You need to uncover them all!” Timothy exclaimed in excitement.

“No, that is too much of a hassle. Most of the sites were already discovered by the UAS anyways. My idea is to complete the legend and look for any interesting locations that may still be unknown to the UAS. After that I’ll sell them the map. They already suspect that I have something like that in my hands, so it’s better to sell it before they decide to just take it.” Robin explained his plan. He had thought about it a lot over the last weeks and the move from Ramones really shook him awake. It’s impossible to hide the map much longer and it’s his best course of action to get rid of it and profit before it burns his hands.

Timothy thought about that and nodded.

“You may be right, let me check a few things and I’ll see how I can help you with that.”

“That’s fine mate, I would like your help in identifying the marker for Keeper, you once mentioned an Info-Station on Ruca II. The last two markers shall be uncovered as team exercise. When that is done, you could help me look for potentially undiscovered relic sites.”

“Yeah we can do it like that. Let me draw you a map from Ruca II, you should be able to match it quickly!”

“Thanks mate!”

Now, it was time to see how the rest of the crew was getting along!