"... So, what are we doing again?"
Having partly suited up, Jessica and River came to an impasse when they tried to follow Mike's antics.
"Deciding which of you two are going with the two of us, using rock paper scissors."
With Mike and Dan on the away team and one person needed to pilot the Wyrm and provide areal overwatch, Jessica and River were left to decide which of them would be staying behind in the Wyrm. Only Mike had somehow gotten the wrong thing confused.
"Yeah, that's the issue right there, what the fuck is rock paper scissors?"
Glancing around to find that it wasn't only Jessica who didn't know about rock paper scissors, Mike realised he might have fucked up, again.
After spending way too long explaining the concept along with nebulous concepts like 'what is paper?' and 'why would a scissor even try to cut a rock?', Mike finally got all the points across and the game began.
""Rock, paper, GO!""
As soon as the game started, it ended with the victor loudly celebrating.
"YES!"
"FUCK!"
As Jessica started pouting, River suited up before Mike began the planetary landfall sequence having targeted a cluster of derelict surface and subsurface installations such as shipyards and supermassive forge complexes.
"We are ready for touch and go in 120 seconds, mind the acceleration, Jessica."
"I got it, I'll be setting you guys down 150 metres from the nearest actress point, then moving into a holding pattern."
Feeling the turbulence as they started entering the atmosphere, Mike and the others went over their final preparations.
"Prep your suits for possible breach, if anything pokes a hole you want to make sure stuff leaves your suit instead of things entering as what remains of the atmosphere is toxic and any dust particles will cut up your lungs like razor blades if you inhale even a little."
With Dan updating Mike and River on the surface conditions, River's smile froze before she tried to lighten the situation with a joke.
"Great, anything else we need to worry about? Something like large monsters or eldrich abhumans?"
"... Yeah… About that…"
While River wanted very much not to think about what Dan had just hinted at with his hesitance, Mike made sure to focus on what was important.
"Whatever might or might not be there, shoot to kill and don't hesitate for a second."
"Vilco."
As Jessica slammed the throttle and pulled out the landing gear, the Wyrm kicked up a shitton of dust and debris, conveniently creating concealment for Mike, River and Dan as they disembarked. Clearing the immediate area, Mike hunkered down in the middle of the thruster-induced duststorm.
"We're clear."
[Roger, call for fire support when you need it.]
With the Wyrm taking off again, the visibility ahead finally cleared up to reveal a barren, rust-coloured dust wasteland with a series of concrete blocks nearby marking the team's current destination.
As the dust mostly cleared up, Mike checked the rifle he had absconded from a certain dead fleet commander's guards before sounding off.
"Comm check."
[I hear you.]
[Same, you're loud and clear.]
Looking over his shoulder for visual confirmation on both River and Dan, Mike cycled the action on his rifle and pulled it up to his shoulder.
"Okay, keep your radios in receive only and only transmit in short bursts when needed, Dan, are you good?"
[Yeah I'm fine, the dust underneath makes it a bit harder than normal but I can still 'see' about 50 metres.]
The main reason Mike had opted to bring Dan with him on the planet side expedition wasn't his vast knowledge of all Eden topics, but his extremely well-tuned senses which made him an absolute force of nature, even without eyesight and somewhat isolated by a vacuum suit.
"Great, Jessica we're starting our infill and recon, nuke this entire place if you don't hear back from us within an hour."
[Will do~]
With Jessica responding from up high (while most likely while drinking from a ration pack), the 3 others started their relatively short trek to the first structure.
Closing in on the gigantic monolith of concrete, it quickly revealed itself to be some sort of extremely brutalist entrance to a larger underground network of tunnels, forges, warehouses and shipyards.
[Most of the structures here were built underground to protect the weapons being manufactured from the planet's failing atmosphere and toxic duststorms… I remember visiting this planet back before it was picked as a candidate for strategic production, back then this planet was covered almost entirely in lush forest.]
While the idea of taking a habitable planet and strip-mining it into total ecological collapse would be insane for any other galactic power, the Eden Therocasy was in the unique position of having complete domination over their galaxy, enabling them to do whatever they wanted.
And for the Eden Therocasy, maintaining their fleet power was more important than even habitable worlds for their people.
(... Hmm.)
Having reached the entrance to the underground complex, Mike's sixth sense started acting up when he noticed the door into the complex had been left open, presumably for years as there was about a metre of dust covering the stairs.
"I don't like this."
[Too bad we need supplies.]
Rolling her eyes as she replied, River already knew what Mike was going to say next.
"... Yeah, but remember: Shoot to kill."
[Yeah yeah.]
While she was somewhat annoyed by Mike's gut reaction and overly cautious approach to oddly specific things, River knew that Mike's calls were correct more times than they weren't.
Entering the underground complex it immediately became necessary to use flashlights as the derelict site had long since lost power, leaving the featureless network of concrete hallways clad in darkness.
Reaching a crossroads, Mike glanced over to Dan who responded by stomping his foot on the floor.
[Directly ahead, the left and right tunnels are blocked by dust.]
While River wanted very much to doubt Dan's methods, Mike trusted him blindly so she tried to do the same. Following the tunnel for a few more minutes, Mike and the others found literal light at the end of the tunnel, only this wasn't a good thing. Raising a hand to signal, Mike turned off his flashlight, blacked out his visor and moved in with River and Dan flanking him on both sides.
"... Clear."
Finding the source of light originating from a half-shuttered, massive hatch which let in sunlight and dust. Directly below it was what seemed to be an elevator shaft large enough to fit an Eden battleship.
[Clear.]
[Clear, it's an old access lift, we can use it to get down into one of the shipyards.]
"... Will there be some of that 'tac' down there?"
Turning on his flashlight, Mike peaked over the edge to what seemed like the abyss, although it was fairly powerful, the flashlight was nowhere near powerful enough to illuminate the tunnel all the way to the bottom.
[Most likely, if there's any left.]
[Of course, it is all the way down there… Well, it is not like we can leave empty-handed.]
Glancing up through the hatch, Mike tried to contact the Wyrm.
"Wyrm, you read?"
[Yea, I read you.]
"We're entering the shipyard proper, reset the timer."
[Rog']
-
Entering the shipyard proper after descending about half a kilometre through the access shaft, Mike, River and Dan set foot in some sort of inspection area.
[... I don't think we're alone.]
"Yeah, there's something down here with us."
While Dan's senses were somewhat dulled by all the dust, he could still pick up a lot of movement around them. Feeling a gaze on him, Mike acted on instinct and ducked for cover, right in time to avoid a burst of gunfire.
"Cover!"
[Covering!]
Immediately returning suppressive fire as she also sought cover while counting the muzzle flashes, River quickly reported what she saw.
[At least 4 contacts!]
"PUSH THEM!"
Recognising they were way too grouped up, Mike covered for River as she pushed out, aiming to establish a front line she could flank.
[Moving!]
With the return fire warning, Dan leapt out from cover and drew attention to himself before returning to cover.
[Smoke these amateurs!]
[Roger!]
Moving when Dan drew the attention of the hostiles, River flanked them and switched her rifle to fully automatic. Resting the stock against her shoulder, every single muzzle flash illuminated the carnage she was unleashing in front of her. Having emptied her magazine, River quickly reloaded before she popped one more shot into each target, just to make sure.
[... Clear.]
"For now, I'm sure there are more of… Whatever the fuck these things were."
While the initial ambush had been somewhat successful, what came after was sloppy at best.
[It seems like these people were living down here, there might be an entire community of scavengers.]
Although the Eden Therocasy were mostly a coherent, galaxy-wide state, there were still fringe elements of their population which for some reason or another stuck out on their own.
These elements were universally referred to as scavengers, as their only way to survive was salvaging whatever the Eden Therocasy left behind. Before Mike could comment on the obvious flag Dan just had raised, the team was once more attacked by a hail of gunfire, this time serval times more intense than the initial greeting.
"I fucking knew it!"
While Mike had already expected there to be more than just one group of scavengers inside the complex, Dan's unintentional act of jinxing the reveal led to an immediate assault by a considerably larger force.
[Shit! What now!?]
Stuck behind a rapidly disintegrating slab of cover, River could hardly hear her own thoughts, let alone get a chance to overcome the excessive amount of suppression. Even though these new attackers weren't that much more skilled than the previous ones, the sheer amount of them made up for any lack of skill on their part.
[Do we retreat?]
Also having a hard time focusing because of the excessive amount of suppressive fire, Dan knew when he had been checkmated and thus suggested seeking the other side of valour.
"How the fuck would we do that!? Even if we make it back into the access lift there's no cover in there!"
Also wanting very much to retreat, Mike realised that there was no actual way to do so. Without any way to effectively break off the engagement, nor any way to break the suppression there was only one thing left to do.
"FUCK! Plan C!"
[You can't be serious!]
Immediately realising what Mike was planning to do, River instantly voiced her objections while Dan was a bit more receptive to the idea.
[There's no other way!]
"Yeah, as much as I wish it, I can't just wish some kind of hexapod droid here to solve our problems! 10 seconds!"
Forcing the issue through Mike drew his pistol and changed its magazine before River caved.
[FUCK! 5 seconds!]
Not really that on board with Mike's solution, River knew that he was going to do it anyway so she might as well support him. Reaching for the toolbelt part of her vacuum suit, River fetched one of the grenades Mike had stolen from the Solar navy royal guard prison barge, although these were of the non-lethal variety and an extremely limited resource, there was no other choice now.
[[GO!]]
Following Mike command, River tossed the stun grenade which almost immediately detonated, creating a series of bright flashes that temporarily blinded the scavengers while Dan started to return fire. Meanwhile, Mike leapt out from cover, sprinting back towards the access lift where they had entered.
(Please make it!)
Aiming straight up, Mike shot a series of red flares which travelled straight up the elevator shaft, and although most of them didn't hit their mark, a single one managed to get past the gap in the access hatch which lead to the surface. Noticing the flare immediately as she had been closely surveying the surface for signs of Mike and the others returning, Jessica instantly knew what the flare meant.
"SHIT! Mike! You better make it back!"
Resetting the timer that she had been keeping yet again, Jessica felt powerless as she was stuck just waiting.
-
"Fuck, where did they go!?"
Back down in the underground shipyard, the scavenger leader cursed loudly as his sight finally returned, finding that the outsiders which had already killed a few of his men were now nowhere to be seen.
"Boss! Over here!"
With one of his subordinates calling him over, the leader's attention was immediately drawn to a now-open ventilation duct.
"Shit, don't let them get away!"
While the leader knew his men weren't really able to stand up to the intruders, they still had the home-field advantage and knew exactly where the duct system lead to.
"Boss, over here too!"
With another goon calling attention, the boss noticed another broken duct cover.
"Shit! They split up! Don't let anyone of them get away!"
It was clear that the outsiders had split up in order to get away and report back, if any of them managed to do that, the scavenger leader would have to deal with the full might of the Eden Therocasy.