Landing on the mystery planet, the five guys hopped out of the Janus ship in full spacesuits. The landscape of the planet was bare, unbelievably bare. Orange sand stretched out for miles on end only for it to meet the crimson sky above. Buildings were very rare to see as the five of them wandered across the dry land. Only mountains surrounded them in the vast silence of the unknown planet.
"Yeah, brilliant idea, Ren." Marcus sarcastically said, rolling his eyes, "let's hop onto an empty planet and ask the non-existent people on here."
"Yeah, well," Ren quickly tried to think of something to retort back with, "it's better than just staying up in space in an area we don't know about!"
As the two continued to bicker, Chronos slowed his pace and waited for either Kennie or Luciel to appear next to him. As he did so, his eyes made their way towards the sky, the crimson sky that held two suns and three moons. It looked quite packed in Chronos' opinion, but that was mainly due to him only ever seeing a single sun and moon in the sky when they were on Earth.
A sudden sigh escaped Chronos' lips which caught the attention of Kennie, "what's got you sighing?"
Swiftly, he changed his exterior presence and expressed a small chuckle as he pointed towards Ren and Marcus, "do they always argue like this? I noticed it when I was watching from the vents."
Despite being a little puzzled by Chronos' sudden expression switch, Kennie chuckled along with him as he nodded, "all the time. Even back at the academy, they'd argue over anything. It became the main type of entertainment for everyone."
"No kidding." Luciel jumped in, "I remember when they once fought over who was gonna sit where at the lunch table. It caused such a disturbance that the Admiral had to get involved."
"No way, really?" Chronos exclaimed, "even something as insignificant as that?"
"It's a miracle that they even made it into the Janus crew with the number of problems they caused together." Kennie chuckled, reminiscing about it all, "though, I suppose they were good at what they did."
Chronos was going to ask another question about the two men when Ren suddenly leapt up and started shouting at the three to pick up the pace. It seemed like they had spotted a small town or city a little further ahead and were ecstatic about that fact. The three raced as steadily as they could across the fiery-orange sand.
Eventually, the five made it to the town and were all greeted with confused expressions by the inhabitants. The species surrounding them were all tall (7ft average) with two horns on either side of their head and two arms with three-fingered hands. Their skin appeared to be a pale blue colour that caused their rose eyes to pop out of their head. They wore the bare minimum, a piece of cloth strapped across their body that fell to their knees with one strapped sandal on either foot.
"Aren't they staring at us too intently?" Kennie whispered to Chronos as the group felt quite uncomfortable by all the rosy-red eyes that stared straight into them.
"Maybe we're the first humans to land on the planet?" Chronos shrugged, "I think we're quite far from the Solar System."
As the group made their way into the town, all eyes remained on them as small whispers echoed throughout the streets. Every being around them stopped what they were doing, regardless of how urgent it was, and kept their curious minds fixed to the new people on their planet.
"Excuse me!" Ren called out, "we need some help! Can anyone help us?"
He was only greeted with silence. All the inhabitants surrounding the five guys expressed confused faces as Ren continued to yell out to anyone around. Marcus simply sighed as he backed away from his argumentative partner and towards the quieter group behind him.
"Doesn't he realise how much of a fool he's making himself appear as..." Marcus sighed, causing Kennie to chuckled at his comment.
"He's confident enough to do this and still believe he's a super cool guy," Kennie said as he continued to chuckle, "but gotta give him some props for becoming the centre of attention and willingly make himself look stupid to help us."
Marcus reluctantly agreed, saying, "I suppose so..."
As the four guys continued to watch their friend make a fool of himself, one of the beings around them started to come closer. This caught Luciel's attention as he nudged Marcus and nodded towards the 7ft, pale blue-skinned being.
"Hey, can you understand us?" Luciel quietly said, not wanting to scare the being, "we're not here to start a fight, we just need some help."
The being nodded, seemingly being able to, at least, partially understand Luciel's words. Before the helpful and kind being proceeded to talk further, Kennie grabbed Ren's arm, ultimately silencing him, and dragged him towards everyone else.
"You not from here." The being quietly said, ushering the crew towards a back ally, "that dangerous."
"Why?" Marcus asked.
The being looked at either end of the ally, ensuring they were far enough from the other beings, "me is Ria, you on Astrea."
"Astrea? I've never heard of that planet," Chronos said, "we must be far from Earth."
Ria nodded, "every far. We in system Asatina. Far from system that Earth in."
"Ria, why is it dangerous for us to be on this planet?" Luciel asked, "Is there some sort of rule forbidding us from landing here?"
Ria nodded, "Emperor Optu not like humans. He not like anyone. It best you leave now."
Ren reassured Ria that they would leave soon, only once they find out where a space station is to gather equipment that they were missing. Ria nodded and directed them towards the closest space station within the Asatina System.
"It big space station, you find it all there," Ria said, pointed passed one of the moons in the sky, "it beside moon Jung. It very clear."
The crew thanked Ria and swiftly made their way out of the town and towards their ship. But just as they were about to exit the premises of the town, Ria called back to them.
"Careful! Emperor Optu guards could be at you ship." He called, earning an understanding nod from Ren and Marcus.
The five dashed towards the ship, faster and less careful than before. They didn't care about the tough sand nor the heat emitted from the two blaring suns from above, they were mostly concerned about Ria's warning about the Emperor. If they were not quick enough, they may lose their ship.
Racing through the fiery sand, climbing up the unsteady hills and eventually reaching their ship, they notice how empty the area became again once they were far enough from the town. Ren and Luciel began searching around, making sure that there weren't any Astrea beings nearby or any that were hauling things from their ship. Marcus and Kennie did the same as they searched for footsteps that weren't belonging to the five of them. After a couple of minutes, they ultimately decided that they were safe and it seemed like nothing could've been stolen.
"Shouldn't you check in the cargo bays?" Chronos asked as he and everyone else climbed aboard the ship.
"You're right," Ren exclaimed, directing everyone to the several cargo bays that lined up against the wall, "lets split up and check everything is still where it should be."
Luciel handed out the inventory list for each bay and the crew began searching through the first five bays, leaving the sixth one until last. Ren got assigned to the first bay with Marcus being next to him in the second bay. The two search through various things, mainly dealing with extra medical supplies and weaponry equipment in case they come into contact with species that act first and reason later. Luciel and Kennie got the third and fourth bays, dealing with food and repair equipment and things for the engines and just places around the ship. Chronos searched through the fifth bay, which appeared to only be used to stuff a bunch of random things that no one wanted to deal with, which made it much messier and harder to deal with than the other ones. After a few more minutes of ticking boxes off on the sheets and climbing about in the bay, Chronos eventually finished checking through cargo bay five and made it out to greet the four other crew members.
"Now for six," Ren said, reaching for the keypad to enter in the passcode.
The other cargo bays held nothing of much importance, in the crew's opinion, and left them without a hard-to-hack lock as the stuff in them were easily obtainable and not very valuable. In the sixth cargo bay, the crew stuffed everything that they believed to be important and valuable, anything that would be a lot of money for space pirates and thieves on the planet.
Just as Ren pressed the first number, the doors to the bay opened up. Shock ran through each crew member's veins as they witnessed the bay present itself - half empty.
"Oh no..." Ren muttered, "where...where's all the stuff?"