Alan sat at his well lit work bench and made adjustments to the recently manufactured laser rifle. It was a standard issue rifle for the 27th Specter Marines. Or at least it was several years ago. Alan imagined they may have moved on to some latest and greatest weapons by now. Or maybe they are still using it. The rifle had proved itself to be fairly tough and reliable.

It was true of the laser pistol that was standard issue as well. Same company made both. Alan had already reproduced the pistol for himself. He was quite happy to recycle that piece of crap pistol that was standard issue in the escape pod. The shotgun had already been recycled as well. The laser pistol and rifle were familiar to him, ingrained in him through training and experience in the field so many years ago.

A distant thundering made him stop and look up at the wall of the cavern. “That was not a dino.”

Alan heard the aerial tether uncoil and whip against the launch tube as Sara launched a sky-cam. Alan got up and listened carefully.

“Um, Alan... you might want to see this.”

“Yeah, give me audio with it. Put it on the holoprojector,” he said as he walked over to one of the walls of the cavern where he had the projector tables and control stations setup.

The rendering was a little choppy with the limits of the camera, but he got the gist of what was happening. The trees hid what was happening on the forest floor, mostly. The flashes of light, explosions, fires flaring up instantly, dirt flying, trees falling over, and wildlife scattering in fear. Instantly he knew what he was seeing. Hell, he had been involved in a countless number of such scenes, he thought to himself.

The battle was taking place too far away to see who might be engaged. Within a matter of minutes, the engagement was over. Alan kept watching. A few more flashes of light here and there. The winning party was taking the time to mop up the field of battle.

Questions flooded his mind.

“You look like your thinking very hard. What does your experience tell you about this?”

“One, we are obviously not alone out here. Two, there is at least two parties besides us on this planet that are at odds with each other. One side could be the missing Paragon Prefab team, but I doubt it. Both sides were using heavy weapons, which I’m sure Paragon didn’t send out here.

“Three, we haven’t seen any sentient life on this planet, but I wouldn’t rule that out, especially if they are in some state of war. The other side could be the hostile forces of this region, or it could be an opposing sentient life or faction.” Alan considered the consequences of this. “Another possibility is the hostile forces of this region have split into factions and are fighting themselves. No matter how this sorts out, this whole thing just got a lot more complicated.”

Alan went to back to his bench and worked on putting his laser rifle back together. “Where are we at with daylight? Also, reel in your camera. Best not advertise we are here anymore than we may already have.”

“There are ten hours and 12 minutes remaining.” Alan could hear the tether drum reel in the cable. “Are you considering going to the battle site?”

“No! With that much firepower on display, that would be a suicidal move.” The reality of him being a one-man crew with an AI weighed on him. “I need to get to the crash site of our ship. There are certain components I really need out of that wreck if they survived the crash. If nothing else, I need to at least recon the area to come up with a salvage plan. Now that I know there are forces on the ground, I hope I’m not too late.”

Alan picked up the weapon and moved to his test fire spot. He lay prone and took careful aim at the back wall. He squeezed off several rounds. The adjustments were good. He redid the calibration of the scope for the new settings.

Alan changed out the magazine of the rifle for a fresh one and grabbed spares for the rifle and the pistol. He went to his weapons locker and added the pistol holster to his environmental suit and holstered the pistol. He decided he would need to wear it all the time from now on. He plugged in his suit to the locker control system and pulled up the menu for his suit controls. He changed the color and appearance to be a camouflage to match the forest. “I probably should have done that earlier. Sara remind me to have the rover painted up in camouflage when I get back.”

“I will. May I also suggest building some drones so I can assist in a more direct way, sooner than later.”

“Yes, I’m already regretting not having done that earlier.”

Alan stowed supplies in the rover's cockpit along with the rifle. He climbed into the mostly glass bubble of a cockpit and fired it up. He checked to make sure cargo boxes were empty, everything was fully charged and fueled, sensors all online, and ammo for the rotary cannon was fully stocked. All was good. Alan hit a button to open the vehicle door and out he went. The vehicle door automatically sealed behind him.

He looked down at his map display. The map was being continually updated the more he got out to explore. He had been sticking relatively close to home for now, just for safety sake. The new cavern base was located in the opposite direction of Aurora’s Outpost and only somewhat closer to the Neri’s Opportunity crash site.

Odds were good he couldn’t make the trip in a single day time. If he had to hunker down for the night, the current vehicle would at least make it possible, unlike the escape pod. He didn’t like the thought of running around in the dark.

He put in a waypoint on the map where the ship should have crash landed. The computer plotted the fastest route that would keep him on relatively flat ground. Alan accepted the plotted course and drove as quickly as he dared to get there.

Sara assisted by playing tones through the loudspeakers to drive them off. Alan had suggested several days before of recording some of the larger, more aggressive predators roaring and stomping around. Sara had done so and played some of those sounds as well. If the tones didn’t work, the sound of the aggressive predators usually did the trick. It worked at the cavern base quite effectively.

After several hours of driving, he slowed down as he came across a swath of fallen trees and a massive gash in the ground. Alan got out cautiously with his laser rifle at the ready. The torn path was about a good fifteen meters wide. The trench that started shallow and ended two meters deep with a mound of dirt shoved above the ground nearly two meters high lay like an empty grave before him.

Alan’s heart sank. He saw a lot of large animal tracks all over the place. Many of them overlapping each other. He didn’t see any evidence of actual vehicles or something that might pass as a drag trailer. Just very large dino foot prints. Surely the dinos had no reason to dig out the ship parts and haul them off. As Alan looked he realized there were no metal bits, or manufactured parts of any kind that he could see.

Alan turned and got back in his cockpit. Perhaps other parts of the ship were still around. He maneuvered the vehicle around the trench and continued his search. He found other smaller impact sites. The scene was the same at each of them. Nothing remained. He came to a clearing that had caught fire, burning the trees to mere jagged stumps. The trench here ended in a crater that was much larger than any of the others.

He got out again and walked down into the boulder riddled crater. Not even a single stray wire remained.

“So what exactly does this mean for us?”

Alan was quiet for a moment. He put a hand on one of the massive boulders right in front of him and leaned into it. He closed his eyes and let his head rest against the back of his hand. He could smell the dirt that barely clung to the surface of the bolder.

“It means we can’t leave this system unless I can find another way to get my hands on advanced flight programming modules. Without them, we can’t even use a jump drive, utilize weapon systems, do anything other than primitive flight maneuvers. I have the skill to build the ship. I don’t have the skill to program all the modules needed to make a ship fly and function. So until another ship comes and we can either duplicate its modules or just catch a ride, we are stuck here.”

“What about one of the hostile native ships to this region? Can we take one down and strip flight modules from them?”

“My understanding was they don’t have jump capability. Their ships are junk, but they seem to have a lot of them and can reproduce them at a frightening rate. It’s why no one has been able to successfully invade the Chaos Outlands. The cost versus benefit of doing it is just too high.”

“I’m sorry, Alan. This must be hard for you. On the bright side, Paragon Fabrications has supposedly sent a ship with a new crew to man Aurora Outpost. It should arrive in about a year.”

“Assuming they aren’t shot down like we were when they arrive.”

“You have a point. Perhaps we can be in a position to salvage first.”

“Perhaps,” Alan turned to walk back to the rover. “How much daylig-”

“Incoming!”

Alan heard the creature rip through the forest. By the time he could turn around, the creature had crested the mound on the opposite side of his rover. Alan ducked down and took cover behind the boulder he had just left. He peered over the top of the boulder to see what had arrived.

Alan’s eyes got wide with disbelief. The thing was probably about 8 meters tall and about 4 meters wide at the shoulders. It was a creature built similar to an ape with a tentacled head. Its feet were like wide hooves. Its hands had nine fingers in a full circle around its palm. Muscle mass bulged everywhere on its body like some steroid junky.

The tentacles flailed out, revealing a circular toothed mouth. The roar was deafening. The most odd thing about this creature was it looked to be entirely composed of metal.

A large tube slid up from the creature's back and snapped into place at the shoulder.

“Sara! Move the rover! Return fire!”

A blue light began to glow in the depths of the creature’s tube, accompanied by a very loud growing hum. The rover fired up its engine and turned to skirt the edge of the crater. The rotary cannon turret whipped its barrels around and started the high pitched zipping sound as the barrels got up to speed.

The laser cannon on the creature thundered with its release of blue energy. The cargo containers midsection and back were torn to shreds with the heat and explosive force. The back of the rover slid from the force. The cannon spewed a 200 slug burst which ripped open the creature's left thigh and hip. Alan took several shots at the creature’s shoulder weapon. He was concerned not only of surviving the encounter but keeping his ride intact enough to get home.

The creature seemed to be startled by the red laser blasts coming from inside the crater. It looked down at Alan with surprise. Alan had depleted the current magazine. He quickly swapped in a fresh one. Sara did another burst, which missed. She drove into the cover of trees to avoid another hit.

The creature jumped down into the crater. Alan nearly pissed himself. The laser cannon on the creature’s shoulder was getting bright blue again. Alan kept firing at the weapon. The blue glow turned into a red flame that spewed out the barrel. The back side of the weapon exploded in some sort of backfire. The thing roared again and seemed to try and find cover among the boulders. It was too big.

Sara charged back in with the rover and rained down fire on the creature. She tried to focus on its head. Hundreds of rounds rained down on the creature as Sara opened up fully. Alan took cover behind another boulder, seeking safety from any strays from the rover.

He watched the rotary cannon shred the creature's right arm and slag its face. Its arms went limp, and it stumbled backwards, falling on it’s back.

“Hold your fire!”

Sara stopped.

“Don’t burn through all of our rounds. This might not be over yet.” Alan had already burned through all of his rifle rounds. He slung the weapon over his shoulder and drew his pistol.

Walking slowly, he approached the downed creature. Its body was sparking. Unknown fluids oozed out of some of the areas the cannon had ripped open. The laser cannon was still smoking. When Alan got near to the feet of the creature, the chest split down the middle and burst away as if ejected. The chest of the creature looked to be hollow.

Alan kept his pistol at the ready as he walked up to inspect whatever the chest might contain. He got on top of the creature to get an advantage in case he needed to shoot.

Inside were two small creatures about 40 centimeters tall. They looked like a cross between a mouse and an otter. Their short fur was pure white. They had a really short and flat, stubby tail. They had only four fingers to their hands and six toes. The creatures were also covered with cybernetic enhancements to the point that both of them were at least half machine themselves.

He could see the little chests of both drawing breaths. He kept his gun trained on them just to be sure. As he looked around inside the cavity, he noticed the tech seemed to be very advanced. The two pilots, if that was what they were, had been so plugged into their harnesses that they could have been a part of the creature they manned.

One of the creatures began to stir. Alan trained his pistol on it. He had no clue how this would all go down. The creature’s eyes fluttered open and immediately saw what it perceived as the alien pointing a gun at it. The creature freaked out and shook its head and flailed its arms wildly while shouting some language rapidly that Alan couldn’t possibly comprehend.

Alan slowly pulled his hands away, his left hand open, and the pistol pointed skyward. The creature calmed down.

“Do you speak my language by chance?” Alan asked.

The creature that had a moment ago been terrified looked at him with curiosity. It tried to say something and even gestured with its hands. Alan couldn’t figure out what it was trying to say.

As calmly as he could say it, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

The creature's partner groaned. The first creature chattered to it excitedly. When the second creature fully opened its eyes, it freaked out too and drew its small sidearm and pointed it at Alan. Alan responded by immediately pointing his own pistol at the weapon wielder.

The first creature spewed what seemed like a thousand syllables a minute to his partner. His partner’s chest was heaving heavily with panic. It didn’t pull the trigger though. Alan kept his focus on the one aiming a pistol at him. The first creature kept talking to him. Eventually the second holstered its pistol and put its hands up in surrender.

Alan gave a nod. He holstered his own pistol and put his hands back up to show no threat. The first creature laughed and slugged the second in the shoulder in what Alan would consider a “I told you so!” moment.

The first creature waved his hands to get Alan’s attention. He got it. The creature pointed at his buddy and himself and then gestured, pushing something with a finger and then used both hands to show something bursting out of its chest. It repeated the movements and Alan thought he might understand its intent. They were going to get out, he guessed. Alan gave a single nod and took a step back.

“What are you doing there, mister?”

“This ‘creature’ is apparently some sort of mech. There are two aliens inside and I think they are about to get out.”

The first creature nodded at Alan and gave him a thumbs up. He then chattered something to the second creature. The second creature didn’t share his buddy's enthusiasm and just watched Alan like a hawk. The first creature hit some mechanism and all the wiring that was attached to its body broke loose and recoiled into the harness. It then stood up and climbed out of the chest cavity and stood opposite Alan. It nodded approval and gave him a thumbs up again.

The second creature then hit his release button. It too climbed out. Unlike its partner, it took one last look at Alan and then turned and ran at a full sprint back the way they had come. The first creature watched his partner run away. He looked back at Alan. It shrugged its shoulders and then ran after the second creature.

“Awe... they’re cute.”

Alan didn’t say anything for a moment. He looked down at the now abandoned creature vehicle. He turned and walked away.

“Should we try and take the thing with us?”

“No. It needs to stay here. We need to get out of here RIGHT NOW. This thing was likely just a scout.”

“So why not take it with us and maybe learn something from it.”

“Because, they might be able to track us back home and send an aggressive welcoming party. The one creature seemed understanding enough, the second one though...”

Alan looked over the tracks of the rover as soon as he got close enough. There was some damage, but it would likely make it home. He got into the cockpit after stowing his rifle. Sunlight was already starting to fade. Alan activated the cockpit’s night vision. All the glass panes went to a green color, revealing things hidden in the dark surroundings.

“So those are what has this region claimed?”

“I don’t think so. The stories I’ve always heard is that the hostiles are an insect like cyborg creature. These things we encountered today seem like they can be reasoned with. That isn’t so with the hostiles from what I’ve heard.”

“Yet these are cyborgs in nature too.”

“Yeah, so question gets to be, did they crash land here too? Was this some sort of experiment Paragon was doing? Or are they natives to this world? And how many of them are out there, and what do they want?”