"This planet is as dead as the last. I've been able to match the ruins with an old map if there is a specific shattered hellscape you wish to visit."

Brent sighed both for Joxe's grief and the larger tragedy of the planetary slaughter.   "We'll land at Berna if you can identify that for me.  Joxe wants to make peace and after that we'll jump away if there is nothing else to be found.  Perhaps there might be libraries with information of value."

26/V/1402 0130hrs

Two hours later, Wanderer deorbits for approach to Berna, using the atmosphere to areobrake from orbital speed. Superheated plasma flows past the windows, and Naimh's comms are blanketed with noise during the reentry.

After a few minutes, the ship passes through the hypersonic range, and is down to Mach three at an altitude of twenty kilometers. The atmosphere here is very thin, but moderately turbulent, and Wanderer shakes slightly as her grav lifters work to even out the ride.

Then, the city's location comes into view from over the horizon - a group of six domes that seem to be intact, in sharp contrast to the shattered structures surveyed so far.

Brent brings the Wanderer around so they are approaching the city out of the sun.  It's a small thing but who knows...

When he sees the intact domes he calls.  "Joxe, take a look at this.  There are some intact structures."  He looks over across the bridge.  "Gareth, do you have any emissions from those domes?"

"I'm not picking anything up. We should land a safe distance away and investigate. Mayve we can actually learn something here."

Brent nodded in agreement.  "I'll bring Wanderer in along a spiral so we can scan carefully as we go.  Look out for a landing field or a flat area we can use to set down." He eased the ship out of orbit in a graceful re-entry that would avoid over flight of any formerly inhabited areas if possible.

Brent brings Wanderer around in a steady turn, reducing speed as they descend, and maintaining a distance of five or so kilometers from the domes.

"The dust seems to be low today," Joxe comments with a calm that fools no one. "The downport used to be located four kilometers southeast of town."

Sure enough, the network of ceramacrete landing pads and buildings soon appears on the visual display. The sky is definitely tinged with brown dust, and the ship rocks gently in the gusting winds.

"Maybe we can land closer to one of the domes?" Joxe asks.

Brent measures the distance from the landing pads to the domes and then nods.  "I'll set down in that intersection just beyond the farthest dome.  It's clear enough and within easy walking distance." He brings the ship around into the wind and comes in for a landing.

Using the nav system's manual controls, Brent sets the landing reticle on the intersection, and his pilot's display shows steering cues and a clear view of the landing area. The ship settles down as it takes the wind on her nose, descending on her grav lifters.

"One hundred meters," the computer calls, "Gear down and locked."

"Grav lifters nominal," Joxe intones.

"Emergency thrusters on standby," Veronica follows with her part of the landing checklist.

"Fifty meters," the computer speaks again. Brent notices the ship drifting to the right as the wind direction and speed changes as they come into the lee side of one of the town's domes... and then an alarm sounds very loudly.

(OOG: Giving Hoot and Naimh a chance to respond and get more clarification if they need it)
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:42, Sat 17 Mar 2018.

"Missle incoming! 10 o'clock! We need to take evasive action."

Gareth watches the readings with alarm and hopes the wanderer is able to evade in time.

Brent jerks his head up and looks a the holodisplay as the computer shows the threat zones.  He acts without thinking, smashes the emergency button, rolls the left and activates the emergency thrusters.  Brent uses the extra thrust from the thrusters to push the ship harder even as he boosts the main thrusters and grav plates into the red line.  He pushes the ship to get around into the shelter of the dome to either avoid the missile entirely or confuse the tracking sensors by the mass of the structure.

"All hands brace for impact!" he calls out.

The trader claws its way around a turn to the left, barely avoiding the ground as Brent dives into the lower threat zone. The grav units hold up under the strain of the demand placed on them.

Gareth catches the missile on his visual sensors as it slashes in to attack. It streaks by the ship's nose, and detonates a hundred meters off the starboard bow. A storm of shrapnel pings off Wanderer's  tough hide, raking her from her nose to the starboard fuel scoop.

Brent is busy trying to recover from the deliberate crash he initiated to avoid the missile. He succeeds in extending the gear and setting the ship down on just outside the dome with a very hard landing.

OOG: The ship's superdense main hull material is just over 7mm thick in total, which is equivalent to 50mm of hard steel armor plate. Anything smaller than 25mm won't even scratch it.

Brent is intensely busy for the next handful of seconds as he maneuvers the ship around by shear force of will.  The landing is rough, very rough but then any landing from which you can walk away is a good one...  He flips rapidly through the status readouts and then reaches over and with both hands presses down the two buttons to arm the laser turret.

He looked around the bridge and called out over the intercom.  "Is everyone ok?  We made it to the ground behind the nearest dome." Brent sets the laser turret to automatic mode despite the dangers.  "Gareth, did you pick up any tracking signal or other emissions and could you back track to the launch point?"

"Nothing so far, but I'll keep looking."


Still somewhat panicked Gareth will start by point the ships active scanners in the direction the missile came from and then clockwise from that point.

The active scanners, being designed for use in space, are nearly overwhelmed with all the close-in radar returns. After some judicious adjustments, Gareth gets a very accurate map of the surrounding buildings and the dome itself. Other than the structures, he doesn't see anything else around.

"Our starboard sensor arrays are missing a few segments," Veronica reports. "I don't see any pressurization problems, so I think the hull is solid."

"All systems are green here," Joxe responds next. "I'd like to look at the landing gear, just in case. You did pretty well for almost being shot down."

Brent takes a deep breath and stops shaking. "Ok, everyone hang tight.  Gareth, please check the visual sensors to see if you can back track the missile that way.  The cameras may have gotten something.  I'm going to look at the images of the area to see if there is a possible launch site showing up on our scans from orbit."

He stretches as he pulls up the scans. "Well, let's hope we're out of their field of fire.  We're a long way from anyplace that can repair us if we take any appreciable damage."  Brent also brings up the visual scanners to pan automatically around the ship to pick up any foot movement.  "Joxe, do you know anything about military emplacements around here?"

"If there was anyone outside, the actives would have cooked them by now," Joxe replies. "There were no military assets or facilities anywhere around here, except for the local police."

Gareth's passive sensors begin picking up the backscatter from a powerful but intermittent radar source somewhere on the other side of the dome. It powers up for a few seconds, and then stops, and then starts again. It's sweeping in an acquisition pattern, not a guidance pattern.

Brent shakes his head after looking at the images taken from orbit.  "I don't see any signs of military stations and Joxe said there were none here before."  He looked over at Gareth.  "What are you picking up outside on the sensors Gareth?"

Gareth relates everything he can about what the sensors have picked up.

"Perhaps we should approach by flying in close to the surface or after taking out thier radar somehow."

Brent frowned as he considered their options.  "They'll probably fire again and likely hit us if we pop up around the dome.  We don't know exactly where they are so hoping to shoot down a missile or two or take out the launcher with our lasers is too risky.  I'd say one or more of us disembark and head on foot through the dome to where we can try to spot the launch site visually.  The problem to be wary of is that the radar has to be quite close and is putting out enough energy to fry anyone out of cover."

"As long as we stay on this side of the dome, we should be safe from the radar," Vanessa says as she brings up the passive sensor readouts on her workstation.

"There was a small military post in that area," Joxe puts in. "It was never more than an administrative center. Apparently, it got an upgrade. Since I'm from here, I should go out."

Brent frowned, obviously not happy with Joxe's suggestion.  "Are there underground maintenance tunnels?  Perhaps we can get closer to the site of the transmission." He looked over at Veronica. "Can you get an idea of how far away the transmitter might be from their pulse modifications?"

He looked over at the comm panel. "We could try to communicate since they know we are here.  Does anyone have any objections?"

"It is likely they already know our position if this was not an automated system, so I would not oppose an attempt at communicating before we send a team out."

Brent nodded to Gareth and opened a channel.  He started with the standard pre-war distress frequency.  "Anyone out there this is the Wanderer a peaceful merchant vessel.  We mean no harm.  We are taking shelter behind a dome and seek to communicate rather than fight."