The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]We are legal investigators... tracking a suspicious vessel to your installation. Please standby to receive us. Charlie said, then closed out the communications link, not waiting for a reply. He turned to Ryan. Let us prepare for landing. Then we must arm ourselves...

Ryan's mind went back to his sojourn on Pella'agre, when he was in dire need of a weapon. He remembered searching but could not locate any on the ship. We have small arms aboard...?

Indeed, but until now they have been inaccessible to you... I must take care with my new apprentices... Charlie threw on a sardonic grin, some of them have a penchant for violence.

Yes... Ryan smirked and rolled his eyes, I suppose they would. Now why would anyone rudely shang-haied from their home-world, with never so much as a 'by your leave', be prone to violence? He shook his head and looked back out the bridge window.

Saar'floe was closing on the moon, Hei'a 12. It was an ice-world, roughly two-thirds the size of Earth. The jagged peaks of crusty mountains thrust up through a spidery white fog that drifted aimlessly across the surface, effectively obscuring much of the detail at ground level. They could, however, easily make out the comm-tower of the archaeological installation and, accordingly, locked onto it. Now the swirling breath of the moon flew away on a gentle breeze and a low, single story rectangular building hove into view. Charlie relinquished command, motioned for Ryan to set her down, and promptly left the bridge.

Ryan took the helm and flew Saar'floe around the installation in a wide, lazy semi-circle, finding the landing pad easily, three other grounded ships giving away its location. (He noted one was the vessel they were after.) Flashing lights limned the circumference of the area wherein they were expected to land. He brought Saar'floe to a hover there and gently settled her onto the pad.

About that time, Charlie came back onto the bridge with a pair of the forearm weapons. Let me go over the operations of these before we disembark, he said. There may be need for you to know how they work.

Yeah... I agree... Ryan said, then focused on what his master was saying, subconsciously making a mental note to try and curtail his baser instincts to shoot too quickly...