Chapter 6: No return

[Zetherus]

Right when I was about to send the reply, a planet blue like a sapphire with a speck of green moss on it's surface reflected through my blast shield. I heard what Ariaka explained so in return I deleted my message and wrote instead,

Sure thing. See you down there soon.

With that I retrieved the coordinates of the landing zone instructed from the now A.I and made my approach. Activating my main thrusters I punched forward with my throttle hearing it to start humming ferociously as I shadowed the research vessel by a star ship's length. The atmosphere from the planet caught my jet ablaze from the speed I was traveling, but soon enough as I adjusted the nose up a bit with the ocean horizon, the blazing heat ceased and the ride was less vibrant. Unlike Ariaka's plans to just land and expect an empty oasis, I slowly glided in and over the friendly vessel about fifty feet above the nearest tree and flew about an extra mile around sighting nothing but a well green and recognizable forest below. With little suspicion I had with this world then Zenith, I glided back to the others and landed on a large flat rock creating an opening, and soon after, flicked down the switches which made my engines hum to a pulsing silence. Keeping myself in my seat while enjoying the view ahead I was glad we found refuge on such a lonesome planet like this one!

[Nohiki]

As a gray and blue shape started growing deep inside one of the labs, I turned my attention back to the planet we were residing on, and a detailed analysis the sensors performed on our descent.

The rock was populated almost exclusively by primitive plant life. There was no sign of any fauna. Or at least I didn't detect any. It made sense though. The planet shown ALL signs of suffering a terrible case of global warming. The fact that there was so much greenhouse gases in the air nicely fit to my estimate, along with the planet being mostly ocean, and us sitting on a pole that wasn't covered in ice: The polar caps on this sphere have melted and flooded everything. Only the plant seeds carried by wind survived. I wouldn't be surprised if there were ruins of civilization deep on the ocean floor.

Seeing that, I opened a few shelves near the airlock that was the only way off the ship. They revealed hardshell spacesuits among other stuff, but also survivor gear. I thought if somebody wanted to go have a look around, they might need it.

After that was done, I returned to analyzing the skybox. There was something weird: I didn't recognize any of the star patterns. It must be a sensor glitch. It has to. Otherwise it means something really bad. On a hunch, I started searching for known pulsars.

[Midnightmoon]

I kneeded my temples gently with my knuckles. After a while I realised I heard something back inside the room and tiredly turned my head; the ride in had not been pleasent. The shelving unites were open and inside were some space suits and- "Survival kits!" I gasped happily. Scrambling up and foreward I went right for the one on the far right. I imidiately reached inside for the painkillers I knew to be there and then reached in again to grab the small pack in the back corner. I injected myself and slumped in relief as the headache fadded to only the back of my skull. "Hey Rucha, is there anything you need from here?" I called over as I remembered her. I had the knew data pad on my forearm before I had realised it and stopped myself from further delving into the pack I had grabbed. I really wanted to get in there, thinking on how I needed the tools I felt were in there, but... "Let sleeping tangies lie..." I thought mellowly, then I perked up again for Rucha's sake. "Come on, it could be worse." He buckled the pack to his side and loped over to her.

[Kauria]

"Absolutely," I agreed, thinking back to the last times we'd been planetside, then realized he'd been talking about our missing crew.
Oh.
"WELL, I'm excited to go take a look around!" I said, a little too loudly. I winced. "Sorry. I'd just rather be outside looking at what is there than in here looking at what isn't." I strapped on a survival pack of my own and picked through the equipment I'd saved from the Croatoan.
"All right," I called up to Ariaka. "I'll be careful this time, promise. Besides, you're right here, and—" I opened the airlock and was greeted by a near-endless expanse of blue "—it doesn't look like we can wander too far, anyway," I forced myself to finish, stunned by our newest surroundings. The ship sat on a rocky patch of land, the stone brushed with patches of green where crude little plants had taken hold. I stepped out. "A place of new beginnings if there ever was one." I stretched out my arms and felt the warm wind shoot across my skin, whistle through my head-plates.
Home, an unwanted piece of my mind decided to butt in.
I was born on a space station, I reminded it.
It was quiet. Then suddenly memories plucked at my senses and sight and sound and smell became sea and salt and stone like your speckled shoulders. The sensation vanished with a swiftness that left me shaky, my vision dotted with black.
The pull of gravity beneath me had, in that memory, been different, the air higher and thinner and colder. It had been a different planet, I reassured myself. There was no past to find us out here. I shook my head a little. "You coming out or what?" I called to Lee, looking over my shoulder with a smile.

[Midnightmoon]

I found my forced enthusiasm plummet as the doors opened. "Oh my gosh, there's so much of it..." I whispered fearfully, staring out into the literal blue. "Eh, um-" "Okokok, just, stay way from the edge. It'll be fine." ",yah-heheh, just ah, savoring a breath of fresh air that hasn't been recycled?" I replied to Rucha weakly. Making a face I gathered up my courage, straitened my belt and took a slow step out. After the first step I quickly walked over to Rucha's side, glancing at the shore and water beyond frequently. "Soo, what do you want to look for? Suplies? Living space? -Information?"

[Kauria]

"Good question." I activated my comm, even though Ariaka could certainly still hear us—what was the hearing range of a ship, anyway?
"Should we be doing anything in particular, or is this just a rest stop?" I'd take either answer so long as it kept me off the ship long enough to gather my thoughts and my guts.

[Zetherus]

Touched by the new found feeling for the environment around me, including the endless ocean expanse. I forced myself to open the cockpit I was in by twisting the latch above unlocking it's compressed magnets and slowly bring myself out to drop my heavy armored form to the alien earth below. Lifting my right forearm to my view to scan the air making sure it wasn't toxic to me read the simple following,

Planet atmosphere reads little to no poisonous substances in the surrounding thousand kilometer('s).
(It brought up the percents of elements in the air while doing the report)

It was nerve wreaking but I took off my mask to feel the cool air dry the sweat off my face while I inhaled a chest full of fresh salty air to clear my troubles. When I exhaled I could hear the surroundings around me: the passing wind through the trees and the ocean smashing against the rocks far in the distance. Even the quiet echo of Rucha's excitement. I walked to the nose of my jet and took up my rifle and pack I threw down in the co-pilot's seat the second when I evacuated the Croatoan. Taking at least five minutes to gather my traveling equipment, I faced the direction the others have landed, locked up my fighter remotely, and made my way to them free of any weapon in my hand this time. Though I kept my guard just in case.

[Nohiki]

"Go and search for information if you'd like..." I said as I was mentally staring at the results of the skybox analysis. "You won't find any. In fact, the probability that we find life as we know it on this rock is pretty much zero. Somehow - Don't ask me how - we've left Milky way! This is Andromeda galaxy!" I exclaimed. It took me just a few moments to come up with dozen problems this would cause, starting with food shortage and ending with encountering some angry locals - Which our life signs detectors would ignore.

Oh dear.

"Look out out there! I have no idea what could be waiting for you." I shouted over the comms, diverting all resources to constructing my new form, leaving only the weapons powered - just in case. Come on, get it done! I ordered the equipment, while preparing a failsafe. In case I suffered too much damage in the future or the transfer didn't work at all, I created a highly compressed archive containing my full copy, so I may be revived, even if without any memories beyond the backup's creation. Then I just made an instruction video to go along with it, programming it to play if I didn't report in to the ship within 8 hours from the last time.

I really thought things couldn't get much worse after the core beast. Then Croatoan blew up, and now this... On the other hand, it could be a chance. A fresh start, far from all the troubles we had back 'home'. "I guess... Get me some soil samples, if there is any. I would suggest avoiding direct contact with any local life form, wear gloves if you have to. We don't know if the moss around here isn't poisonous." I advised the away team. Minding the worst case scenario, this planet was warm and humid enough to provide several harvests in a year were we forced to remain here.

[Kauria]

"Got it." I balanced my pack against one knee and felt around for my gloves, pulling them over my fingers as soon as I had them both. It was kind of a pointless precaution, I realized, given that I'd already been walking around barefoot, but I also wasn't likely to be holding food in my feet anytime soon. "Not much soil to sample," I remarked. Most of the plants seemed to be growing directly on the rocks or from the cracks between them. I crouched until I felt my knees against my chest and took a look at a promising patch of dirt. Beneath its crust of mud, it was almost orange. "There's not some sort of protocol for this, is there?" I asked, scooping a small pile into one of the bags provided by the survival kit. "Because if there is, I'm certainly doing it wrong." A clump of cool-looking moss was the next to be collected, and then I set to peeling off layers of lichen.
It was kind of fun, in a distracting, take-your-mind-off-panicking way. Which, of course, brought my mind right back to where it didn't want to be.
I stood.
"I'll take that look around the ship for any more survivors now." After all, what was I afraid of? Nothing!
Finding nothing.
Oh, shut it, I thought to myself. I was sick of hearing it.
I set the samples on a ledge in the ship and asked Ariaka, "Are there any particular blindspots you need someone with legs to go check out? Or at least near me, if you've already got a body of your own."

[Nohiki]

"Don't spit on it." I snorted at the protocol question. "There's only one airlock. If they didn't follow you then no one else is there. However, Tal'Set should be approaching on foot so expect movement. Let's not get trigger happy." I warned. "I should be able to assist you further in circa ten minutes." I said, checking the progress on the construction.

[Zetherus]

The calm breeze was awesome reminding me of Atlantis, but at it's primal era. I was curious if this was Nurva, soon figuring out I was wrong! There would be floating mountains if it was truly the world of legends. Getting back to reality, I proceeded on foot to the others.

Through more then fifteen meters up ahead I heard shuffling and words that sounded familiar. "The other crew!" I said gladly while walking through the alien underbrush. I noticed that most of the vegetation was growing off of rocks that I so happened to pass continuously on the way here. While getting closer, somewhat five meters away, I saw a small looking figure hunched down picking at the strange growth on the ground, "Hey Rucha?" I called out recognizing the hard cranium scales and gray skin.

[Nohiki]

Finally it's done. I thought, eager to leave this pathetic excuse for a computer system. I switched to private channel between me and Rucha. "I don't want to panic you all, so I'll make you a scape goat." I said, half jokingly. "I'm about to attempt a download. If it doesn't work for any reason, I'll recover from a backup momentarily. What may seem wrong is that there might be something screaming and trashing inside of the ship, I have no idea how this works. Also, considering how well the transition to the ship went... Catch me if I fall, please?" I said and signed off, initiating the process.

IT felt like parts of your personality are slowly shut down and removed. Then finally I briefly shut down, awakening within the nano lab, floating in a giant tank of clear liquid, not unlike the stasis pods I found the crew in. I could see outside, but I couldn't move, hoping it was a temporary thing. Suddenly an overwhelming burst of data started pouring in my head. Slowly, I shut down all the feeds I didn't need at the moment, more or less restricting myself to senses, speech and motion. It was good to be 'smart' again.

A notification popped up, announcing release procedures. The liquid inside the pod vanished and I got a first look on myself, reflected on the pod door. It was something different than I expected. I was all gray, lined with blue stuff, with... Something wild on my head. I tried moving my hands. Taking a better look, I looked humanoid, but that was as much as I had in common with humans. I was slightly taller, and by their standards, I would be an anorexic. Of course, because why would somebody running on electricity need body fat. I realized. Furthermore, my toes ended with something sharp and nasty. Hm, looks like whoever designed this took the best of all species he knew and made a single package. All thoughts went aside as a green light started flashing above my head. That was when the bindings released, and I was confronted with the fact that my motion control is nowhere near fine. I nearly collapsed, my legs feeling like pudding. The door hissed open, and I fell forward with a surprised shriek.

[Midnightmoon]

My ears perked up at the sound of clunking and screeching of metal inside the ship, acompanied by an electronic yell. "Heh, I guess I'll go check that out then." I said hurriedly, eager to get back inside the ship and out of sight of all the water. Loping back to the hatch, I nearly lept inside. Landing with a huff and standing quickly, I tustled my scruffy hair to try and get rid of the chills that seeing all the water had given me. With one last brush I headed for the door. "Hello? You all right?" Walking down the narrow hallway I peaked into the rooms. When I came to the room with all the cyro chambers and a crumpled form I took step in, "Hey there Doc, you really think you should be messing with all this? Eh..." "Doc? Where had that come from?"

[Kauria]

I turned at Tal's voice, trying to listen to both him and Ariaka. I started to edge away as I spoke. "Hey, good to see you alive, but I really need to get to the lab, so we'll talk later 'kaybye." I turned and tore through the ship's narrow corridors.
"SorryTalheldmeup!" I shouted, practically crashing through the laboratory doors, but by the looks of it I was a little too late. "Oh. Déjà vu. Weird to be seeing it from the other side." I stepped towards the pod. "That was a bad start to things, though. Get back in there and I'll try to catch you this time," I said, only half-joking. "Hey Lee, care to help?" I moved to crouch beside Ariaka, motioning for him to join me and preparing to help her stand.
My eyes flickered over Ariaka's new body, really registering what I was seeing for the first time. Her colors were the same, everything else . . . not so much.

[Nohiki]

"If it's weird for you, what does it make for me?" I asked rhetorically and groaned, hurting from the fall. "'Cept uncomfortable that is." I complained and reached out for Rucha's shoulder to help myself up, but I paused and moved my hand to her cheek and over her head plates. I laughed sheepishly: "Sorry, first time user of the touch sense. Heh, this is way better than proximity sensors. I wonder what else have I been missing up until now." I said and got myself vertical.