Hylli system, RSC-2W-0063 “Dara Tonn”

Sinn'Are'Sen sits trapped into the cockpit chair and lets his fingers drum aimlessly. The display panels are blanked out leaving only the glowing control console instrumentation to show where he was in relation to the surface of Steinhull. Dara Tonn's hull shakes steadily as the aerobreaking maneuver turns velocity into heat and vibrations.

“How much Longer Dara Tonn?”

“This orbit will reduce our speed to the point at which we can begin the actual decent. ETA to touchdown is seven hours.”

“And I need to stay in the cockpit because?”

“The shaking will only get worse. Gravity generation and compensation has been shut off in all other areas of the ship.”

“Why?”

“To reduce the load on the inertial compensator.”

“But why now, instead of later into the maneuver?”

“To save as much reaction mass for the fusion reactor as possible by using as little power as possible. Every gram we can save now is one less gram that I will need to recover while on the surface. Besides, if you are isolated in the cockpit anyway due to vibration forces, then there is no point in having gravity anywhere else.”

“Logically sound, if physically uncomfortable. I wonder how the paper pushers back home are doing.”

“I would wish them poorly, but we do need them as-is for the moment. Why do you wonder?”

“If I could figure out my connection to our objective then someone else could do the same. That might be tricky for us.”

Republic world of Krigertenkere

Flakka'Hluti'Sen taps aside the latest in an endless string of exploration log reports. She never could find a reason why they all had to be reviewed at her level instead of by the mission dispatchers who had assigned the missions. Flakka'Hluti'Sen found it hard to resent the 'extra' work for long though. Even with the hundreds of RSC scouts on active deployment the volume of log reports was kept low by the travel times involved, so it often made for a nice break between other monotonous tasks. One report caught her eye because it had been automatically flagged for her attention.

“So Sinn'Are'Sen and RSC-2W-0063 are on station at Steinhull? Good.”

“Query.”

“Go ahead Computer.”

“Was Sinn'Are'Sen provided with the second wave exploration logs for the Hylli system?”

“Why would He not be? It's standard RSC procedure to do that is it not?”

“There is a notation on that Exploration log. Quote: 'This file is not to be provided to any non -RPC personnel assigned to the Hylli system per RPC Secrecy Regulations.”

“Sinn'Are'Sen is still RPC personnel, albeit it he is on loan to the RSC for another eight years and eleven months.”

“Correct. However, an automated cross reference of the Hylli system second wave exploration log and Sinn'Are'Sen's medical file indicates that the Hylii system is his home system.”

“What? How? The Republic doesn't have a settlement on that world!”

“That is correct. Sinn'Are'Sen was recovered as an infant from a failing Pre-Republic cryotube from ruins on the surface of Steinhull in the Hylli system.”

“And that's a problem because...? Anything Sinn'Are'Sen discovers, or rediscovers, in that system will be of benefit to the Republic and to the RSC.”

“The Risk of Sinn'Are'Sen discovering something that would cause a breach of regulation MtV-0001 has been calculated as greater then zero given his connection to the Steinhull Ruins.”

“MtV one? Understood. Institute routine MtF One grade cross-referencing of all data produced by Sinn'Are'Sen and / or RSC-2W-0063. Route all flagged instances to my desk for review.”

“Affirmative.”

Seven Hours Later...

Hylli system, RSC-2W-0063 “Dara Tonn”

Sinn'Are'Sen rests his hands on the flight controls and breathes a sigh of relief. The speaker crackles to life on the aft bulkhead

“We're though the atmosphere and gliding in for a landing. Vector and velocity look good for the intended LZ.”

“By that you mean we are falling like a brick, but at least we will land where we intend to.”

“Yup! I'm going to enjoy sitting around playing comms relay why you get to do all the heavy lifting.”

“Jerk!”

“What do you mean? I did all the work for the past month, now it's your turn to do some.”

“Fiiiiine. I guess I can do my job now that the delivery shuttle has gotten me to the objective. Just be sure to keep the water tanks topped up, I'm going to need a heavy shower pretty much every day. You might not have a sense of smell but I do.”

“You also have the 'psionic fingers' when it comes to filling out paperwork, so you get to update the delivery point on the supplementary requisition forms.”

“Uuuugh. Wait, you have my biometrics, can't you fill out a simple 'I've moved please deliver to my new location' form?”

“I could... But I'm a tad busy not-crashing, soooo...”

“Alright. How long until we land? I'll need to get the planetary co-ordinates and I don't want to fill that form out an extra two times.”

“Sixty seconds or so. Buckle up, we are in for a bit of a bump.”

“A bump?”

“Dropping form a few hundred kilometers per second to none, even with the inertial compensator to reduce the felt change in velocity, is still a bit of a jolt.”

“How much of a HURGH!”

Sinn clutches at his chest and tries to draw air back into his lungs.

“That much of a jerk. We're down, local coordinates are available on the navigation console when you are ready.”

“I think I'm going to have to lie down and catch my breath for a bit first. Start up a passive scan of the surrounding area in case of local fauna please.”

“Already on it!”

Local Dawn, the next day.

Hylli system, RSC-2W-0063 “Dara Tonn” on the surface of Steinhull

Sinn'Are'Sen rubbed the grit from his eyes and yawned in the morning light. He taps the RSC issued earpiece and squints into the rising sun.

“Is this thing on?”

“Good communications check Sinn. Video feed coming up... now. The glare is a bit much, but the feed is clean. Do try to keep in mind that you will need to use this same setup for field reports.”

“Right. I'll use the old standard 'begin' and 'end' commands to let you know. Call me out if I mess something up.”

“Can do. Ready for an exploration log entry?”

“Ready.”

“Begin exploration log entry.

“Day thirty one of mission. First day exploring the surface of Steinhull. The mission objective, the Steinhull ruins, are approximately one point five kilometers distant from the landing zone of RSC-2W-0063 which I am using as my base camp. Objective for the day is to reach the exposed above ground section of the Steinhull ruins and locate a point or points of entry into the structure. Orbital scans prior to landing indicated no specific points of interest to this objective. I will ad to this entry as more data becomes available.

“End exploration log entry”

“Log entry stored for review. We'll do a review of the whole thing at the end of day.”

“Thanks Dara Tonn. Now I had best start walking. My history is only a kilometer and a half away and I'm eager to find some answers.”

“Good luck!”

Sinn started walking towards his fate.

Sinn'Are'Sen pointed his earpiece's built in camera at the sigil on the hatch. It is a stylized bird of prey talons low and wings spread with beaked head held high superimposed over a gear. A thin seam splits the icon down the middle. And Sinn turns his head and the attached camera to look at the surrounding section of the Steinhull Ruins.

“Ready for a log addendum Dara Tonn?”

“Ready.”

“Begin exploration log addendum.

“I have reached the Steinhull ruins and located a possible entryway with little effort. There is a closed hatch with pre-Republic iconography on it. The symbol and what culture it belonged to is unknown at this time. As the Steinhull ruins do not show signs of an active power supply, I will attempt to lever this hatch open. Failing that I will seek alternative entry.

“End exploration log addendum.”

“Clean copy. Do you really expect to get that hatch open with just a pickax?”

“Not really, but It's worth a shot.”

Sinn sets one point of the pickax in the seam in the hatch and grasps the handle to use it as a pry bar. A silent quick count to three later Sinn heaves on the pickax handle and heave with all of his might. The hatch stubbornly refuses to budge. A second heave and the hatch creaks but holds firm. A third attempt is equally fruitless. Sinn retrieves the pickax and wipes his brow.

“That went about as well as can be expected.”

“Sinn, take another look at where you had the pickax. Did you even scratch the surface?”

Sinn leans close to examine the seam in the hatch.

“It doesn't look like it. I heard a creak, but that may have been the head of the pickax trying to come off of the handle.”

“I didn't really expect you to inflict any actual structural damage given that this is probably the armored outer hull but it was worth the attempt. Hatches are usually more lightly built then bulkheads, if for no other reason then they need to be moved regularly.”

“True. I didn't see and breaks in the exterior hull on my walk in, so I'm going to back off a ways and circle to the left, see what I can find. There has to be something shaken loose or cracked open when a station this size comes crashing down.”

“Modern spaceship crashes, like their ancient aircraft counterparts, behave oddly when they crash. Unless the reactor loses containment or the hydrogen tanks let go and and all that's left is high velocity shrapnel. That not being the case, this time around, as is evident by the visible sections of the structure, I would not be surprised for the visible sections of the hull to be relatively intact and the underground sections to be completely crushed.”

Sinn backs off twenty meters or so from the hull and starts to circle it to the left.

“You know Dara Tonn, whoever built this station, and whatever they built it out of, It's really held up well. The paint must be molecularly bonded on to still be here all this time later. Crash aside, there is negligible structure damage from time, weather, or nature.”

“Given that I have not noticed any damage to the paint in your video feed, I'm inclined to believe that there isn't any involved. The hull of the Steinhull ruins may just as well be bare metal.”

“Hold that Thought Dara Tonn. I've got an archway here. Make that four of them. Massive things, might be hanger doors for shuttles?”

“Could be. You probably need to add an addendum about them.”

“Ready?”

“As I'll ever be.”

“Began exploration log addendum.

“The hatch proved to be stuck closed, as expected. I have circled the Steinhull ruins clockwise and located a quartet of archways, possibly once the entrances to shuttle landing bays. I estimate that RSC-2W-0063 could have fit through any one of them with ease, were the Steinhull Ruins still in orbit over the world. I would expect a hangar door to be closed even more firmly then an exterior hatch, but I still need to locate a way in and one or more of them may have been knocked loose when the station hit the planet.

“End exploration log addendum.”

“Clean copy. Pick one and head on in?”

“Nothing better to do here.”

Sinn picks the closest archway and heads under the shade it casts. Instead of a flat or angled hanger door Sin spots an immense hollow cylinder protruding out of a hemisphere in the side of the station.

“Doesn't look like a hanger bay to me. Any ideas Dara Tonn?”

“Searching... low probability match to a Republic Army anti-invasion battery. The shape is similar but the scale is all wrong: the gun barrel, if that is one, is much too large. The projectile would be almost as large as my outer hull.”

“Well, this was an orbital station at one point. I guess it was indeed armed. No point in climbing down the muzzle of a gun and hoping the breach is open. Pull a still image from my video feed of these things, attach your possible match, and included it as an addendum to the exploration log.”

“I'll edit on scale markings as well so that whomever reads the log has a sense of just how large these weapons, if they are weapons, truly are.”

“I'll keep looking for an entrance. My mother pulled me out of here, so she had to have found a way in.”