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

Def'leor listened to the sounds and a sense of dread ran through her. "We need to kill that thing now. It is trying to break through the wall. It does that it can detonate that crystal and its all Game Over." She darted from her cover forward and to the left to get to a point where she could see the creature. She started firing as she moved in attempt to distract it and buy time."

As deplorable as it was, Ross admitted that he was wrong about the alien's level of life in the form of discharging a big gun. He didn't bother firing in bursts, there was too much crap in the way for any accurate fire on his part. But hopefully, he could at least suppress the enemy so that whoever was shooting at the hostile could move up and get a better shot on it. The Youth soldier didn't bother being careful about overheating, this firefight seemed like it was about to be wrapped up to him... Maybe someone would pay for that conclusion. Hopefully it was the enemy.

The weapons fire didn't seem to generate any response, in fact, all it was meet with was continued silence - with the groans having completely ceased. But a new sound began to appear in the area, and it wasone that the away team hadn't heard of before, even upon landing on the surface: the sound of animal life. Overhead, flocks of winged creatures flew high in the sky and on the ground, small critters began to come out of burrows and other holes in the ground and trees and begin to forage around the area.

Trying to keep up with where things were, Ye'gor seemed to be a little far away for the grunting. The sounds of animal life suddenly appearing, however, nearly bothered him more than the silence. Seeing the animals come out then prompted him to start looking for the aliens. A theory was soon coming to his mind and he wanted to test it.

Def'leor stopped by a tree keeping it between her and the 'creature'. She noticed the change in the atmosphere. The wild life was emerging and behaving in a normal fashion. She made her way back to the tank keeping her hand on her weapon, but maintaining a relaxed stature. "Let's see if we can find that creature. I'm sure that the Ship Mistress is going to want us to get samples for the Scientists to analyze." she said moving in the direction the last sounds came from.

Vik'tor leaped off the tank at the mention of searching for the alien, landing on his two boots with an eager spring in his step. Even though the scenery around him was calm and eased, it put Vik at an opposite state of mind. "It's always calm before the storm. Always" he spoke aloud as the thought crossed his mind. Then he remembered the Daur who mentioned searching for the alien in the first place. "So... ma'am, are there any details I should know? I mean other than it has... Weird... laser-spitting tentacles." Vik'tor asked as he maintained about two meter spread from Def'leor on her right.

"Pretty much sums it up. We did not see much of it and its companions. Until they started shooting. They seemed organic at first, but the transformation aspect would indicate some sort of advanced technology. And to be careful, there is a lunebaren crystal huge enough to destroy everything in probably several miles around in that structure." Def'leor replied.

Dropship

The pilot cursed due to the high canopy and inability to really see what was going on. "C'bar Ross, deploy to the ground and give the away team assistance.. there isn't much you can do up here I'm afraid, too many damned trees...."

Away Team

With fauna beginning to appear all around them, and the sounds of the creature completely dying away - disappearing into the background, it was now possible to hear other things happening. A creature, very tall, nothing like what the team had fought - appeared from the far off cave. It was a stocky one, almost twelve feet tall with three legs - one in front and two in the rear - its elongated head swivelled about as it looked through the area; its eyes either not noticing the away team or just not caring. Behind it were several smaller versions of this creature, babies perhaps, that haphazardly hurried behind the much taller one; the tall creature took one look at the ruins before it moved off to the side and disappeared amongst the trees.

Some of the much smaller animals, however, found their way into the ruins rather quickly - but one thing was very noticable: None of the creatures got anywhere near where the one floating creature had been - which collasped onto the ground after sustaining too much fire, and also stayed away from the one that hid behind cover - the one that was now deathly silent.

Dropship

"Finally, I'll be able to use something I'm proficient with." Ross sighed in relief. "Acknowledged." He replied before jumping out of the dropship.

Away team

Ross landed on one of the closer ruins, timing his exit from the dropship for this specific area. He looked over the area from his vantage point to look for anymore hostile activity. "Now you don't have a fancy dropship to protect you." As true as that was, he had confidence in his abilities. The Youth Corps soldier headed down the damaged structure and emerged from the ground floor, sword drawn, scaring off a few of the local fauna. He jogged over to the other couple of marine infantry and kept to Def'leor's left at a two meter interval, like Vik'tor. "C'baruce C'ross Got'ti, reporting." He said in a low voice, eyes on the piece of cover the may-or-may-not-be dead hostile had been taking cover behind.

Def'leor continued to advance on where they saw the creature fall. "I want to confirm that the creature is dead. We do not need it coming back out and attacking someone else. Plus with the body we can possible determine how they are controlled and where it came from. Its a clear threat to the colonization of this world. She turned to Ye'gor. "See if you can raise the Gam'trosha. If you can get through, give them a description of these creatures. So they can relay it to the others."

Sky High

There was another thunderous roar as a drop-pod breached the sound barrier upon entering the planets atmosphere, the pod skyrocketed toward the surface - its speed hitting the max before it hit a predetermined alttitude, in which case a set of breaking thrusters deployed to slow the pod down sufficiently. Inside, the occupant would notice the ever decreasing alttitude meter, although a holographic display gave them an actual representation of how high in the sky they were as opposed to how low to the ground.

Passing through the upper cloud layer, additional breaks deployed to slow the pod down even further, by now the occupant would notice the forest coming toward them rather quickly.

Sky High

There was a slight rumbling as the pod got ready to be fired. Kil'nda checked his gear once last time as he took a deep breath. then he closed his eyes and prepared as he heard the voice.

"Drop pod is ready to go in 5...4...3..2...1...and Firing...

As the term "Firing was spoken the pod rumbled with force as it was shot form the ship. At first there wasn't much to give the indication that he was falling planet side. An inboard Holographic sure, but one could close their eyes if they so chose and other then a slight feeling in their stomach never know that there was anything going on outside.

That is till he began to feel the turbulence as the pod gently shook and he gripped at the straps. He watched the meters and gauges finding that he was slightly more off-course than they had planned but there was only so much the pods could calculate for against the winds of a new world. He saw the flashing lights warning him that landing was imminent and grilled the holsters he was strapped into tight.

There was a harsh clang and at the same time he shook as well as the pod came crashing down though trees and finally against the hard ground. He shook off the sick feeling that would soon pass and began to unstrap himself. He took his gear and then opened the door. He slid back the bolt to his Juvo'tron Sniper Rifle loading a round into the chamber.

Looking to the ruins just outside behind his drop pod it would seem if he had been slightly more off he'd have crashed though the ruins potentially killing the team he had been sent to cover. His helmets HUD flashes showing all systems seemed to be a go as he activated the communications systems built in to reach the crew inside the ruins.

"This is C'Baruce Limr'vaid Kil'nda. Ground team come in do you copy? I've been sent to provide assistance what is your location? Over."

Vik looked up to the familiar sounds of a drop pod and smirked as it made impact. There was a bit of curiousness that distracted the Laibe for a moment before he focused on the task at hand.

"No point drawing straws, I'll go breach first" Vik said to Ross and Def'leor as he ran ahead of the group before. As the first to reach the building, Vik checked over his weapon briefly as he waited for another comrade to stack up behind him. The marine felt fear creeping up on him as he prepared himself to breach the building the alien was in, close-quarters was his weakness and he was already regretting volunteering to go first.

Ye'gor was not far behind Vik, reloading as he went. Once they were at the building, however, he nodded back to Def'leaor and pulled up his communicator again as he positioned himself to cover the other kit.

"Gam'trosha, this is Tos'cana," the young Laibe began, "Message, over."

Def'leor watched the precipitous arrival on another drop pod. She growled softly. 'This situation is getting almost insane. If that drop pod hit that crystal there would be nothing left.' When she saw Vik go charging into the building.

"Careful going into the building. These things are extremely old and very unstable. No shooting without my order. There is a Lunebaren crystal in there large enough to probably power a planet. That is just a guess since we can only see part of it. So anyone shoots without orders and we're still alive; I will see to it you are assigned to clean the hull spaces by hand." she said loud enough to be heard.

Ross made sure to keep himself between the door and Def'leor, but was ready to move out of the way if she needed him to. Right now, it would be rather unfortunate if a projectile flew out of the death funnel and hit somebody important. Either way, it seemed smarter to let the swordmaster in first, but Vik just has to get himself into situations that bring great risk to himself. "He doesn't seem to realize that he could blow us up if he makes a mistake." He glanced at Def'leor, standing by to accompany her in whatever action she took. Swordmasters had the job description of body guarding after all.

Vik's arrival at the building hadn't gone entirely unannounced, although it wasn't enemies or wildlife that would greet him - rather - it was the sound of something crumbling, mixed in with the other decaying sounds of the ruins. Although what caused this new sound was the fact that Vik's armoured boot that only just lightly tapped aganist the door, but it was more than enough to set into motion several events; the first being a small crack that appeared on the opposite side of the door - a crack that spiderwebbed its way upward and toward the top of the door.

When it got to the top, the crack seemed to 'jump' from the door to the doorsframe, where it continued to spread out until one of the smaller cracks made contact with what was keeping the door in place: a very small metal rod no more than an inch long and half an inch wide, the rod didn't budge from its position - almost like it had a mind of its own and had decided that it didn't want to take the plunge to the bottom; but its fate had already been sealed as the cracks continued to spread out and soon the housing that kept the rod in place was opened up just enough for the rod to fall out.

As this rod fell toward the ground below, it got no more than a foot from where it had been for many hundreds if not thousands of years, before very door it had been keeping up finally crumbled into a pieces and dust - some of the larger pieces fell inward of the building but the rest fell outward, some of which landing on Vik's boot. Dust that hadn't been disturbed in many long years soon found itself thrown up into the air, blanketing the area for several seconds before being carried upon the wind.

From beyond the now broken door was the image of a living room, or rather, what was left of one; the far walls had long since crumbled to pieces - several objects that resembled what could've been furniture not lay various states of ruin; one of those pieces of furniture held the away teams quary - the creature that had attacked them was sprawled onto its back onto a table that had been broken in three piece, it wasn't moving, it wasn't making any sounds at all.

It was just Kil'nda's luck that the team was entering a not firearms zone. Until the order was given he would have to rely on short range for now. He was more than glad that his pod had not crashed into the ruins knowing there was an unstable power crystal in there. Readying himself he meet up outside with the rest as a Kit for the Legion seemed to be one of the first ones to enter. There was a heart pounding moment as the whole door imploded on it's self. They would need to be careful or they could bring everything down on their heads. As he peered into the room over the younger Laibe's head he glanced at the target, one of the ones he was sent to help neutralize. It wasn't anything he'd ever seen before but from the looks of things it had been neutralized. Still he readied himself for the commander's orders on how they should procced.

Vik froze himself in place when he witnessed the door crumble before him. "How is it the hostile has yet to even make this place creak?" He asked himself in a low tone. A moment before he peeked in through the doorway, he shook his head and sighed.

With the still creature in plain sight, Vik stood in the doorway for a moment with his weapon at the ready, though he wouldn't fire unless Leor said so. It almost seemed like a trap, the creature probably was indeed in critical condition, but a gut feeling told him to not get close. With Ye'gor on his left, Vik spoke clearly so his comrade would hear. "I think we need to take a few steps back, I feel like this thing is playing dead and I think you already know about the building condition."

Def'leor watched as the structure demonstrated just how dilapidated it was. She looked at Ye'gor. "Run a scan on that 'creature' let's find out if it is machine or flesh. As well as if it is dead or deactivated. These things have enough intelligence for tactics. It might just be playing dead to lure us in to attack or self-destruct to try and take us with it. " Turning forward. "Everyone hold your position. Let's see what C'Baruce Tos'cana can tell us before we proceed."