Galactic Surveryor's Guild - Far Δ Expedition
AVG-II
We jump into a ship graveyard
A transponder ping shows up
Lucid traces it and establishes its a station distress call from orbit around
This is an Emergency Broadcast Meltis Station under attack... pirates with advanced weapons... system defence fleet destroyed... unable to respond... calling for assistance... This Message will repeat
We scan the surface of the main planet and find a domed city with roughly 20,000 people. It appears that there are several farming outposts, and ruined cities across the surface.
Also, Lucid finds that the space station is actually active.
The two groups seem adversarial and want us to dock exclusively with them.
The planet's atmosphere at one point was earth-like but has ceased to be
Estimation: the process of terraforming 500-1500 years ago, but it's reversed over time
On the Station
Hrim Station, Home of the Hrimfaxi/b]
A delegation of 1-3 malnourished humans wearing similar jumpsuits, indicating a vague military background
Looks like it was a much nicer system but it got smashed.
Held together with "duct tape and hope"
Chemical propulsion rockets on their ships in the hangar
Prelate Kroll is the one who introduces himself.
200 or so years since the people on the surface cut off contact
Offers to repair our landing struts, but their salvaged nuclear missiles aren't up to my ship's specs.
"The Black Hand" was a band of pirates that attacked roughly 150 years ago
They didn't know their distress call was still working.
Most of the planets are heavy-gravity worlds with extraordinarily high temps
Planets belts sustain their limited industrial capacity.
The planet below was inhabitable
According to records, the pirates reverted the atmosphere to a phosphorous one by hack(?)ing the terraforming system.
Scinfaxi/Hrimfaxi is the name of the system.
Recommend using the station as a refuelling depot. Planet-side natives are hostile though.
Prelate Kroll says they are all "citizens", conditional upon completion of service to military structure
Robot the Robot is tasked with helping out with repairs that the station's habitable sections.
Arkip sends us a message about "the planet being a bust".
At the same time, the station's alarm goes off
Beñat and I run to the ship and shoot out of the shuttle bay
After missing his first shot, I line up the ship a little better, and he takes out the missile the second time.
The shrapnel from the missile hits the air raft, however, and Arkip gets hit by debris and knocked out.
I get them on board, however, and return to Hrim Station.