Cold Reception

[Cisco]

Planet Yuma, High Orbit.​

Down under the cranking of gears the soft smell of coffee permeated the room as the small black machine whirred about. With each moment a constant stream of rich black liquid dripped from its spout, pooling into a pyrex class container below it, a soft pale white haze of steam emanating from that as it went about its work. Soon though, the pot filled, and the dripping stopped, and with a clink the pot was removed, lifted, and its contents poured into a cylindrical insulated stainless steel container, or thermos if you didn't feel like being all fancy about it. With another clink, the pot was slid off to the side and plopped into the sink, and the Thermos was brought to his lips, letting the liquid seep into his system like gas into a tank.

Before much could be taken though he closed it, clipping it to his side with a slight sigh all the while running a set of fingers through his own hair. His eyes wandered across the interior of the ship he was in, the engineering deck of his ship, or the ship of the company he worked for. It wasn't a very large ship either, the engineering deck consisted of a sole catwalk running from the back to the front of the ship, lined with gauges and valves; one of which seemed to spit out a perpetual stream of steam to little ill effect, in addition to whatever random tanks seemed to sit below the catwalk just above the hull of the ship, and the occasional terminal displaying a simple command line interface. Occasionally this catwalk branches out straight left and right, leading to a ladder that lead up to the top level of the ship, the cargo hold where their 'Guests' were waiting.

While he seemed to drift off looking around though, Someone called out, a gruff voice echoing from bow to stern with a single word, "Kerris!"

The young man's head seemed to jerk to the side, focusing down the line of industrial bits towards a sole, aging, white horseshoe haired black man sat upon a wheeled chair down the way wearing nothing more than a tattered white shirt, shorts, and a pair of flip-flops. An old fashioned bit of metal piping with an L-Joint soldered on that served as a cane stood on the floor, leant resting against his chest. The Navigator, Allan Presley. The crippled old man ran the ship, though they may as well of been partners in all this.

"Watchu Doin', boy. Wee's in Orbit, Get your ass up there and take care of your reptilian bastard friends." Pressley seemed to rattle off like the crazy coot he was, beginning a slow but noisy roll down the catwalk towards him propelled by his good leg. But he was right, as much as Kerris may have wanted to say otherwise, the company thought they were on vacation, in reality they were doing some off the books work for some guy who for some reason wanted to go to the ass end of the galaxy to what was effectively one of the most dangerous planets in the Galaxy, and not even because of what lived there either.

Giving a soft sigh Kerris turned about, walking away from and easily outpacing the crazy old man who was now trying to harass him over work that Pressly himself had forced him to accept. From a rack he pulled down one of his helmets, sliding the tight piece of gear over the head and letting it lock itself into place and seal against his CBRN suit, a myriad of lights and electronic projectors beginning to slowly come alive within his helmet automatically all the while. "Yeah, yeah, I'll deal with them. Just do your part of the job." He commented as he moved further, quickly finding himself climbing up a ladder to the level above.

With a soft expelling of air, the hatch above released its locks, and with a push was thrown open. For a brief moment light from the cargo hold flooded into the engineering deck, only to be cut off moments later as Kerris emerged from the hole, closing the hatch behind him, the man standing to his feet soon after. Turning about he found himself in the Cargo Hold, a spartan place of bolted metal walls and floors with only a few cheaper looking couches strewn in with some other basic furniture effective turning a small corner of the cargo hold into a makeshift living space. The two folks who would be accompanying him, A man named Amellous and another person, seemed to be present.

"Good Evening, gentlemen." He spoke with a slight nod, addressing the two. "It seems we're in position above the planet."

 

[RollingThunder]

Hannibal rocked himself out of the sofa that had served as his bed for the past few days, exhaling a lungful of smoke as his did so. He was tired of being confined to the cargo hold, and as such he entertained himself with a combination of drinking, chain smoking, and playing sabacc against himself. It didn't help that Amellous didn't talk much.

He dropped his cigarette butt to the floor and stomped it out with the front of his boot. He looked over the man in front of him, admiring his armor. It didn't look military grade, but it was the most streamlined envirosuit he'd ever seen. It'll probably come in handy.

He game the man a nod.

"So what's the plan?"

 

[Cisco]

From inside his helmet Kerris' eyes darted around, going from between Amellous to Hannibal a couple times after the latter had finished speaking. It didn't seem that this Amellous fellow was too into talking for the moment, given the reasons he had to come here, apparently to find a decent cave, it was probably for the best if he wasn't too prying about that sort of thing. He turned his attention to Hannibal instead, admittedly he would have preferred it if he get drunk and smoke the ship out, but it seemed he was the Man to talk to, even if he wasn't the boss.

"Well, that's fairly simple enough. We're looking for some caves, preferably fairly large and spacious." He spoke taking a few strides off to the side, headed toward a row of lockers by a large pressurized door system that was normally for offloading and loading cargo onto the back end of the ship. "We haven't done a whole lot of scans yet, we'll be handling that en route." He answered further, glancing back to the pair, Amellous seeming to give a small silent nod. Turning back he punches a set of keys at one of the lockers, the lock giving off a soft beep before popping open, the door opening on its own as it had nothing to hold itself closed anymore. "All sorts of caves to work with though, natural ones are a bit rarer. Fairly industrious though so you could probably find a good few man made mines if you wanted something much deeper, orderly, and unlikely to collapse on your head."

With that said he turned back to the pair. "And I hope you're not afraid of heights."

Returning to the locker he reached in, pulling out a large fabric bag complete with all sorts of straps, one of many that sat stacked upon one another inside. A Parachute. With an evidently repeated routine he threw on the parachute, strapping across the chest, waist, and around the legs with the varying bits that there were to strap on. They had quite a ways to fall.

 

[RollingThunder]

Hannibal sighed. This just kept getting better. Took the parachute that was handed to him and looked to Kerris.

"What's our altitude? What if we get separated?"

He strapped the chute onto his back, making sure to interlock his blaster rifle between some of the straps. Last thing he wanted was a broken rifle upon landing. He loaded up the rest of his gear. Hannibal chose to pack light, replacing most unnecessary items with extra ammunition. He didn't know what to expect once he hit the ground; maybe he should bring the water condenser. He loaded his blaster pistol and strapped it to his thigh.

"This is a type one atmosphere, correct?"

 

[Cisco]

Crossing the cargo hold once more Kerris offered a slight nod towards Hannibal, finding himself quickly over near a sizeable crate, perhaps a whole two meters tall and just as wide. Just a small amount of stuff he had prepared to keep them alive for a few hours. With a solid kick the wheel locks that held the crate frome moving switched off, the calipers that held the wheels loosening. With that he began pushing it off to the side by the Hold's doors, evidently he planned on jumping out the back.

"Well," He spoke in answer. "Our current altitude and jump height is about....fifty-thousand meters?" He spoke as the crate rolled across the floor, giving a slight shrug all the while. With a smack, the end of the crate rammed into the door itself, capable of going no further. "As for getting lost, We'll find eachother easy enough, these parachutes contain custom GPS units we use in conjuction with some deployable satellites we use on the ship. The thing you should more worry about is not crashing into the ground.

Once more he found himself moving off to the side, this time by a large switch, he paused. "But yeah, it is a type one. Just....Don't try to breathe it." Reaching out he gripped the handle and gave it a yank down, liked a small light show the metal pins on it arced, throwing off a sea of sparks are it went from the top to the bottom, redirecting a powerline that normally powered some external equipment internally, The area by the door was soon engulfed with what was almost a chirping that grew exponentially louder as large arcs of electricity ran from side to side just mere inches in front of the cargo doors, which soon seemed to calm down, leaving a pale blue translucent field in its wake, something that would allow the doors to open without decompressing the compartment. "Now, I know that makes no sense, but It's cold down there, about a hundred degrees....Kelvin."

Off to the side he hit a small button, the rear doors groaning to life as they folded downards, forming what was effectively a railess balcony out the back side of the ship for people to stand on. "If you breathe it, your lungs will freeze solid. Your guns might have issues working properly or outright break if they aren't made of good quality materials. It's also exceedingly dark down there, you won't even see the planet as you fall towards it, there's no sunlight at all, lots of snow and ice too." He looked towards the jumping platform, it was now or never.

He turned his head back to Hannibal. "Well, You ready?"

 

[Nor'baal]

He stood silently, placing his chute on his back. Casting a simple nod to Hannibal Amelleous jumped.

Falling through the air, he pulled the chute, and started to float down. His armour adapted to the low temperature, warning signs flashed then vanished, and soon he touched down into the snow. He awaited the arrival of his fellow travellers, readying his Assault Rifle, and activating his sensor. He could not see more than a foot infront of him, but his inbuilt HUD informed his of the local surroundings, a flat snowy plain.

He waited.

 

[RollingThunder]

Hannibal pulled his helmet down over his head, his eyes adjusting to the HUD as it blinked to life. His heart rate was a little quick due to the nicotine and idea of a fifty-thousand meter plunge, but other than that his vital signs seemed correct. He immediately linked his data-pad with all electronics that were on his person, and made sure his gravity and altitude meters were in working order. His HUD should alert him when he is at the correct height to engage his parachute.

He cranked down the rate of ventilation on his rifle. It would be better to contain heat then to release it at such low temperatures.

Before looking back up to Karris, he engaged his night vision; his helmet making a slight bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound.

"Yeah, lets get it over with."

He then jumped.

His clothing protected him from most of the cold, but a few gusts of air made their way through the seems of his jacket and it stung. No, it burned his skin. He felt weightless in the pitch dark, seemingly floating in an empty abyss. He couldn't make out any distinguishable features through his night vision as of yet.

BEEP!

Hannibal engaged his parachute and the straps cut into his arms as he was jerked to a more controlled descent. Before he knew it, he felt crashed into a large snow bank.

Hannibal immedaitely stood up, cutting the straps from his back.

"Amelleous! Kerris!"

 

[Cisco]

One by one the two passengers dropped quickly disappearing into the black void below, first the quiet and suspicious Amellous followed by his friend or perhaps acquaintance Hannibal. The two of them were in for a twelve minute drop if they decided to play it safe. Kerris not quite ready to jump, spent his time pushing the large wheeled crate they were to bring with them out onto the jumping platform. With a step off to the side he looked down over the edge, a simple darkness was below him, the only idication a planet was even there was the absence of stars and the occasional small light from something still running on the surface. His eyes looked to the corner of the helmet, into one of the priojectors within his helmet, the image projected onto his eyeball showing a simple temperature and altimeter. He looked down once more.

"Suit, display GPS Targets." He spoke within, mere moments followed by the appearance of a pair of green dots in his vision, one for each of them accompanies by altimeters and descent rates. "Suit, Radio transmission, Captain Allan Presely, Transmit, Allan, We're on schedule, Beginning departure, deploy additional GPS probes and maintain low repulsor powered geosyncronous orbit." He finished, the radio offering an audible click as the line closed automatically. With a simple push the crate tumbled off the edge, and with a jump, Kerris found himself too descending towards the great frozen wastes, the ship disappearing into the darkness behind him.

'It looks like those two are drifting apart.' He thought in his head as he watched the two green dots in his visor descend further towards the ground. 'I can barely hear myself think over this wind...', a glance up to his right revealing his current speed, 650kkm/h and climbing rapidly, 30,000 Meters to go. "Transmit: Stage one, complete. Initiating stage two preparations." He spoke as he looked around, a familiar red square entering his overview, the box. Merely extending an arm out his body sailed across the sky and towards the crate itself. Within a few seconds he had himself gripped onto it and climbing around it, thankfully though, properly distributed weights kept it from spinning. At the top he grabbed into the large hook and reached down, grabbing a rope fitted with a round ring on his waist to run the hook through it. From there he stood atop the crate, keeping the rope that attached him to it taught.

"Transmit: Stage two successful," He glanced up to the corner further. "4,500 Meters remaining to touch down, current airspeed 450 Km/h and dropping, initiating stage three in T-Minus fourty seconds." He added in, the line going silent with another click. With that he took a few moments, silently counting off the seconds in his head while looking about. It would have seemed though that the two didn't end up two far away in the end, both on the ground, though Hannibal was magnetically 2.5 Kilometers northwest of Amellous' position. With the seconds run out, Kerris reached to his side giving the ripcord a simple tug, with a loud 'fwop' the parachute had opened and slowly the crate and the man standing on it drifted to the ground, gently aimed between the two mens positions where it landed in what would appear to have been an abandoned farmstead at some point in time.

Without wasting time he tore off the chute, unhooked the crate, and jumped to the ground, rapidly scurrying around the box to the side where he tore upon one of its sliding panels all the while guided by the lights on his helmet. From inside he pulled out not something one would expect to pack in a survival situation, a relatively massive revolving grenade launcher. Shouldering the heft weapon he pulled out the chamber, each of its six slots filled by alternating between red and blue catridges with orange stripes to denote their use. Slamming that back in he pointed it to the sky, and offered two trigger pulls. Each flew into the air the first flaming brilliantly while the second emitted a strong infared light, visible for miles by anyone with appropriate nightvision gear.

"Transmit: Stage four completed, signal flare and IR light deployed."