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[Energized Dunes] Ep. 0: Terminal

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Legix

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Late YE 39

The Claw Nebula's unique shape was far from important to the mothership that cut deep into the territory, the purple, blue, and red gasses barely visible as they pushed deeper where the most stars within the cloud glimmered and brilliantly reflected light. To many, navigating deep into nebula was little more than a hopeful light show... but the Freespacers that were making their way through it were looking for something else. A planet that had been recovered in data-mining of old, pre-Genocide data logs.

The bubbling of water coolant that sustained crab-life aboard the vessel to feed its organic members was one of the few noises around the ship. The thumping of metal feet, clicking of pin-arms and legs, the rumble of track, and the soft sputter of aerial sustaining rocketry had the automata of the ship working full-swing. Because they had thought they had tracked down the so-called planet, where the Nebula shone so bright that the purple was evident like a hazy fog as they moved forward toward a dim star. Whatever color it was, they couldn't really tell thanks to the Nebulae... but they pushed ever onward toward a massive world that bordered on the too-large.

While others had been attempting to make new Motherships in recent times, using other large designs or finding and repairing ancient ones, this one was proof to the impossibility of matching the Freespacer dream. The support fleet still strode along it, unlike those who had either merged or combined their assets, with the lengthy and finned ship at the center. The others were heralded by one or two Type 4's and 5's, but not the big beast in the center. She was the collective power of their oldest and most essential members. And as they pushed ever onward, the rest of the fleet fanned out protectively as the ship realigned its belly toward the world and adjusted to try and establish an orbit.

The planet's atmosphere had thin pockets of visibility to the surface below, with thick clouds that rumbled across the surface with lightning packing their forms. There was water, or at least some sort of water-like liquid that ran rampant, but it was likely far from safe to drink due to the green hue of radiation of previous ventures by the Freespacers to this place. It was a haven of resources, just waiting to fuel and grant the daring a new chance.

Opening its cargo doors, various Junkers began to spill out from the Mothership with large panels attached to them. As one, they moved around the ship and braced down. A moment later, another Junker came and braced over them. The hive was using resources, armoring and preparing for the act that had gone largely unseen by the sector at large. Their shields were thinned as power focused on internal and outer gravity fields to ensure structural stability, the ship starting to draw closer and closer to the world as the orbit began to almost immediately fall apart.

They weren't going to sit in space above it, as their escorts began to descend in the thinnest pockets of the atmosphere alone... they were going to land.

Descending as they were, the shields endured the initial brunt of the atmospheric heat-up, the massive ship pushing through the electrically charged atmosphere like a hot knife in butter. Reports said that the crabs were squirming like mad in their tanks as the ship began to shake and the shields sputtered down to minimal and no power. On the surface of the ship, the Junkers buckled down and angled their shields to align to the entry angle, the heat rolling and glowing orange as the first layer began to take the brunt. The metal shields were used to the very end, melting over the Junkers before they too sacrificed their physical body to their mothership's success. And then the next layer... and the next.

As the ship thinned through its junkers, patches of the ship becoming visible as they broke through a building cloud collection with an eruption of lightning that embraced the ship like a blanket as it rolled closer and closer. An unfortunate spire of rock was obliterated and sent a collection of Junkers flying from the ship as it continued the crashing descent. The all-brace call was given, organic and automata alike all buckling down or grabbing hold of something within the ship as it boosted to slow itself as best it could for touching down...

YE 39
Terminal, Surface

Junkers, operational and damaged alike, were scuttling around the exterior of the now partially-buried ship. Many were carrying relays that allowed others to sync up and abandon their bodies for the moment as the recovery job was underway. The sun shone bright, thanks to their proximity... but thankfully they seemed to be in a sweet spot that kept the planet from being outside the human-friendly temperature range. That was good for the organic members... but they would all need suits as the initial scans went through. The radiation of the planet was too low to properly support them for now, the large wastes of red and orange sands and rock mixed with blankets of yellow and white sands. But the rainbow of ground colors wasn't the only shocking display.

In the reddish sky, with the backdrop of dark black clouds of storms forming and far away, they could see tendrils of purple that clung to everything. The Nebula ensured that they could see every twisting arm of the Claw's reach, snaring the heavens like some invasive ivy in a garden. Walls of sand from sandstorms could be seen not too far off, as well as the nearby source of green sea with such a high level of base that it could likely eat through anything given enough time... but none of that was important as what dotted and specked these myriad of colorful sections of earth. Specks of conductive metal, perpetually lining the world like one massive electrical circuit just waiting to be tapped.

The dunes of the world itself were full of energy like a giant battery... and if they took the time, it could quite likely empower machinery in coordination with their nuclear power that could bring about the creation of more ships. It was a world that could grant the Freespacers a way to produce new motherships for those that reached a size that became unwieldy to support their AI.

It was a world worth taking... and all the more suspicious as to why such a world was simply stored in data logs. Why had it gone so long without another group coming to try and tame this world? Just how did all the material mix into the atmosphere to create the perfect storm of conductive material and electrical storms?
 
Terminal, Surface
Landing Site

The looming mothership was standing like a beacon near the coast, a lighthouse of many meanings within the powerful sandstorm that rode through the landing area. Shield emitters lined the exterior, smaller hab blocks rolled out as the Freespacers expanded beyond the massive home with hope of taming the sandy hellscape. Automata and suited Organic alike was talking and running tests, though many of them were simply obstacles for one figure moving along the rigid and rather shoddy-looking line of defensive measures against the storm. A strike of lightning against the barriers had a few others jump, but not the one making their way through the pesky sandy stone encirclement. Unlike many, they were one of the ones not scared at all.

A big, smiling face of yellow was painted on a fairly large and old, primitive world-inspired head block with two thick antenna likely ripped from a Partisan welded to the sides for decoration probably. Good ones didn't need eyes... not in the traditional sense, as its body was littered with small lenses glimmering from cracks in a slap-job body. Its legs and torso were nice and blocky, like that of the ancient Militant design. Its arms, on the other hand, were obviously too large for the machine with a perpetual smile, the limbs roughly as long as the bot was tall. They'd likely been taken off a crawler variant, the wheeled ends snapped to the shoulders so that they lacked any sort of hands to grasp and manipulate objects currently. It was a junky Freespacer, born from a ship that needed brave programs willing to do exactly what it dreamed of doing in the polysentience. As it moved through the shielding and out into the storm in such a manner that the sand smashed and smeared at its resistant-paint face, the bot finally cackled out on a high pitched laugh.

"It is a bot-i-filled mornying!"

The clunk-clank of the arms unfolding was completely inaudible as the bot moved one forward and one back, hefting themselves off the ground and wrapping those blocky legs around their front arm as they vroomed off akin to a motorcycle. A single servo arm whirred from behind the bot, three massive gripping pincers snapping menacingly at the iron-spotted sandstorm like it could grasp at the energized storm and catch a load of it for a very awful sandball to throw at another. But out in the hellscape, as they cycled through their visionary formats and finally settled into a whirring pace, all they could do was chunk it outward and clank-clack the hand in anticipation. Because as they pushed forward at a speed that would have likely torn a Neko to shreds, there wasn't anything but humming. The paint only flaked just a bit by the time the sand receded and the bot escaped the clutches of the odd storm. Legs unwrapping, the rear-wheel whirred closer to allow them to set down before the front wheel came up and both moved to snap into place once more. That third arm moved ahead again, the clicking of a lens audible from its palm as the bot looked out with its best camera. It had to know exactly what it was analyzing after all.

"This home will do a nicely~," it echoed back to the Mothership's team of Freespacers focused on exploring, "I do the liking more and more!"

Ahead of them, they could see the powerful ocean hissing and melting away at the highly durable coastline, an eternal battle of the basic compound trying to eat away but still failing to make a true impact beyond a quite ugly rainbow of colors. The bot, however, was more interested in what lay between them and that magnificent sea of killing fluid.

It was blinking the claw-eye at an ancient Freespacer ship of likely one of the long-failed attempts to land. And it was quite happy to let its big wheel arms out once more, the sides of the massive limbs opening up their tops as the bot pushed through the sands like some stationary, wheeled ape. Because out of those hatches and from the depths of their arm-wheelers came the antiquated but well-maintained high-power plasma lasers. Their box-head glowed as it opened wide to reveal an even larger laser that was more commonly used to slice up starships than fit a military bot.

"Junkmonger Niner-Niner, spotted old gooders. Don't do the worry, Mothership~," the high-pitched laugh picked up again as the face-laser spun up and they planted both legs firmly and locked their wheels, "Niner-Niner will find the good stuff!"

It was only one of many things they would need to find and collect... this world was full of treasures for Freespacers like them.

It was prime for the picking, this new homeworld.
 
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