RP: SNV Gam'trosha [Chapter 3.3] Away Team - Cave Exploration

"Shh boss, seems we have contact." Shar said, checking her helmet screen again. It was just a short ping, but it was there. The black furred Neshatedn moved to better vantage point to notice what exactly was hiding behind the wall. Hopefully it would not be dangerous, but in the place like this, Shar would not bet on that.

Damaged Structure

"Safety?" the Laibe asked with a definite lean towards sarcasm, "We get as far away from it as we can until our instruments start working. Check that distance, and cordon off an area around the crystal with radius of that distance.

"Once that is done, we see if we can call home and order a casing large enough to fit this building in. It would need to be made out of reactor shielding material at triple the power station requirements for thickness. That would then be a good start for proper safety precautions."

Ye'gor then began rubbing the sides of his face and itching behind his ears in an attempt to push away the numbers he used to judge the safety precautions before giving a heavy sigh. "As for studying it," he continued, "Equipment might be usable outside the shield, with collection points within; but that is still a rough guess. Right now, if I could get a hold of some standard polarized glass, I could check lattice alignments and compare them to fuel grade data; but I'm not a crystallographer or gemologist, so that would still only allow me to make guesses at what it can do."

Damaged Structure

Def'leor smiled, "Good, then we are both of the same assessment. Our recon mission here is not equipped to investigate that crystal, and or any others which given that Lunaberan crystals just like any other crystal do not grow singly. So we should return to the move away to the minimum safe distance and report back to the Gam'trosha about this development.

I really have to wonder how stable this world is. If this planet has crystals like that protruding from the surface who knows what size crystal lie deeper in the planet." she replied and then started making her way off the upper area and out of the structure.

She stopped after hearing Shar, "What kind of contact?"

"Trying to find out just now. Just be on your toes, we might not be alone here." Shar replied, she held her rifle as she circled the building to get a look at the thing, that hid behind the wall.

Def'leor resisted the urge to let fly with a stream of invectives. It wasn't enough that they had found a Lunabern crystal dangerous enough to probably kill everyone in the group and take a good chunk of the real estate with them, but now there was an unknown in the area. "Proceed." she said softly to Shar.

Ye'gor wasn't too far behind, having no real desire to stay so close to something that unstable without enough protection between them. "So the crystal isn't our only problem?" he then asked, having overheard the Lexicon's side of the new conversation.

Def'leor turned to Ye'gor. "So it would seem. But then this would not be a mission for the Gam'trosha if we did not have more than one issue to try to contend with at the same time."

As Shar moved around the wall, her eyes would fall upon a rather oddly shaped floating creature. It was shaped like an oval with dozens if not hundreds of tendrils that came out from its body that looked to have very tiny mouths, small protrusions along its body located along the bottom pulsated in and outward and kept the thing aloft in the air; one of its tendrils slithered across the ruined wall. Its head was elongated with a long neck that was attached to the bottom of its body and angled upward and toward the front, it had four sets of eyes - two of which were now looking at Shar.

The creature arched its head to the side, curiously looking at Shar as if it had never seen it before. Two more of these creatures floated in from above, but kept their distance from the Daur.

Shar aimed her rifle at the thing, noticing the other two close by. She was sure as all hell, that she would not let the creat with all its tendrils and what not close by. What was important now, was to find out if these things were just the weirdest animals in the universe, or if they were weirdest aliens in the universe. "So Lexy, I got three live ones here. Some kind of blob creature. Can't say if it is clever or not, but it certainly noticed me." Shar reported to her boss.

"Defensive posture, take no aggressive action at this time." said in response to Shar. Def'leor looked at Ye'gor try to find a vantage point that you can observe from safely. She then moved cautiously to where she could see Shar and the creature(s).

Ye'gor was less than enthusiastic about a polyproblematic situation; however he did request this kind of assignment. He could still hear the jeers from his classmates as he felt his courage flagging, but regained some purpose when sent off to find a better view. Acknowledging the order, the engineer began to sneak off towards another building, that was hopefully less lit up, to check on for integrity as a perch.

Ye'gor

The closest building to Ye'gor did appear intact, looking through a window showed that there were a number of support pylons in place; shrouded mainly in the darkness, but there. A distant stairway could barely be made out in the debris, although what was 'above' it Ye'gor would have to check for himself.

Shar

One of the creatures turned toward Shar, the one that had been hiding behind the building; its head lowered itself toward the ground and gave off a slight clicking sound as he began to approach the soldier.

Def'leor drew her weapon and clicked off the safety. She moved cautiously across the damaged surface testing each step before putting her full weight. Twice she found a spot so deteriorated that her foot went through. Finally she got to a point where she could watch Shar, and the creatures. Silently she wished that she had something a bit more powerful than just a sidearm. 'What are those? Are the natives of this planet? Sentient? Is this a first contact with aliens? or are they animals? she wondered.

Shar frowned. She looked at the thing as it approached. Was it dangerous or just curious. Shar did not like taking any chances, but she disliked shooting something that did not deserve it even more. So she made a step or two back and raised her rifle. "I would not come much closer if I were you," She said, even though it was pretty clear that the thing would not undestand.

Def'leor surveyed the situation from her vantage point. Her instincts where screaming at her. 'Three creatures appear, and show no fear of Neshatens. Three creatures... three of us.. Since we got on this site there has not been so much as a hint of animals, not even an insect sound. They're not animals.. This is a trap...' she thought.

"Shar, back away from that thing. If my hunch is right that is not an animal. Its some sort of sophisticated weapon system. This area was devoid of anything but plant life. So where did these large things come from. Look at how they are positioned. One separate that moved towards you and two others close together like when Ye'gor and I were. We need to make our way from this location and see how they respond." she said loud enough to be heard by both her team mates.

Being less enthused about the darkness up the stairs, and the dozens of nasties that it could provide, Ye'gor made his way around the building. Cracks and holes from which debris fell all looked like possible places to climb up; however he still was unsure he wanted to trust the structure - especially with many of them seeming to be on the back side. The Laibe was almost ready to give up when he located a tree growing against the building with an okay vantage point to the action.

Sighing at his luck, he began sticking his claws into the rather small gap between the plant and structure. Grunting and straining it took some time to reach the lowest branch which hardly looked good enough to support him, so up he went. Nearing a major branching, however, the kit realized how the tree was growing out from the building and the gap was getting too wide to be helpful. He wrapped his legs around the trunk at that moment and began worming his way up with sliding hugs.

Finally at the large branch point, the engineer pulled himself up into the crotch, slowly positioning himself in some sort of stable way so that he could grip if the wind came up. Once suitably please with that, Ye'gor drew his pistol and began looking towards where the others were to see how bad things were getting. Not quite hearing what was going on, he began targeting the creature approaching Shar, keeping the safety on to avoid shooting too soon.

Or perhaps the creature approaching Shar did as it stopped for a brief moment and glanced at its two fellow companions, or perhaps it was just sizing her up; whatever was the case the answer as to whether or not they were hostile became obvious not a moment later, when the creature's left tentacle suddenly stopped moving in the air - stiffening up - and then its skin peeled away and deconstructed itself and reconstructed itself into what one could easily guess was a cannon, a rather small cannon considering; but a cannon none the less that quickly turned toward Shar and fired a series of rapid laser pulses.

In the air, the other two creatures took this as their cue - as their tentacles also changed shape and then began to fire down on Shar's position.

Finally seeing the others, Ye'gor began wondering if he ought to do something before things actually got worse. A debate began in his head with both the desire to wait and to shoot being argued as the right thing to do. On one hand, the aliens may just be setting up defensively in case the Neshaten were violent, while it could also be that they were setting up to attack.

'She's a Daur! She can be sacrificed if needed,' came a thought sounding oddly like the kit's grandfather. It distracted him just enough to not notice the transformation; but in his own rebellious feelings, he turned off the safety. It was that kind of thinking that left Laibe with so much less power than the others to begin with.

The first shot was all it took to bring the boy back; his aim refocused on the alien and began sending rounds at it. After three shots in hopes of that throwing the being off to give Shar a chance to find cover, he began aiming at on of the other two. This time, however, he began firing for more effect - to kill or force them to take cover.

"Drisa, I hate it when things go sideways." Def'leor swore and brought up her Vela'rius Swordrifle. She did not waste time wondering if Shar was okay, taking out the threat was the priority.

She aimed at one of the two creatures who were firing at Shar from above. She shifted her aim at the tentacle weapon. Weapons are normally easier to damage than kill the wielder. She let out her breath and calmly fired at the laser.

Not waiting for a second, Shar pulled the trugger blasting at the thing and quickle moving to the side. She let the rifle fall on a sling after firing and jumped, grabbing on the the wall with intention of vault over. "Sodding Drisa!" She shouted as she moved. Well whatever the thing was it seemed to not be peaceful. Probably a sentry of some sort. Hell maybe a guard biomechanoid. Shar did not care as she just tried to get out of line of fire and hoped to not get blasted and if she would for her armoured suit to hold up.