Chapter 2: Chapter Two

Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 152 of 365. Sol standard year]

Days after of Crash landing/ 0

Unknown Planet

Crater Above Escape Capsule 0980

Galactic Standard Time / 1720

“Now the first thing we need to do is see what supplies are in the pod, we can plan our next move after we know what we have to work with,” Jinn said as he looked around.

“Good idea!” The same voice of command from before came from down the hill, and Jinn felt a surge of relief, he knew that voice! They all turned and saw an older man, maybe around fifty years. He had pale skin and balding white hair. The man was in a black jumpsuit and being supported by a woman with blue eyes and short red hair in an orange jumpsuit.

“Security Chief Mac Felan, didn’t notice you, sir!” Jinn said as the deckhands all went to attention.

Security Chief Duncan Mac Felan was the ship's security chief and third in command. His arrival caused Jinn to grin. Under the chain of command, Duncan was in charge, so Jinn was free of that burden. But then he noticed the way Duncan was limping, well that caused Jinn to worry a little.

“As the man said, we’re in a crisis! But we’ve trained to protect you all! Follow our directives and we will make it through this! Just work with us and we will all live!” Duncan called out and was met with cheers. Looking around he started to bark orders. “Good, you three go and see if you can find anything around here that we can check with the computers to see if we can eat! You three go and check the capsule’s condition, then check the supplies on the upper level! The rest of you get these passengers back inside and make a headcount! Mister Jinn, stay with me and Cadet Racha!”

Jinn watched the passengers and his fellow deckhands leave, a strange feeling went through him. Al shot a look over his shoulder at Jinn as he left, wondering if his friend was going to be ranked over the coals for how he took charge. Jinn only looked at Duncan as the woman, Racha helped him sit down on a large rock.

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Duncan sat down and winced at the pain in his leg. He could only look at the capsule as he gathered his thoughts and listened to the wind. It was a good thirty feet tall and colored a deep blue, the ‘top’ of it was flat and it was a circle with a circumfuse of maybe a good fifty feet A jolt of pain in his leg was ignored as Duncan let his mind work on the problems as he saw them. Duncan just looked at the capsule for a few moments, Racha and Jinn both remained silent as the older man gathered his thought.

“Hell of a mess we’re in Cadets, hells of a mess. Most of them have to only have civilian-level nanos. And most of our comrades only security grade, if at all!” Duncan said and Jinn away. He knew his were a lot better, but then how he was addressed hit him and he looked at the security chief.

“Sir I’m not a…… oh,” Jinn blinked and looked at Duncan who grinned as Jinn realized he had just been promoted.

“You are now. Damn good job of getting morale back, and you knew about the capsule's limitations! All in all, the rank increase is just to give you a little pull with the civilians. We'll need that before this is through,” Duncan said and Jinn looked at his commanding officer with a little guilt in his eyes, something that Duncan caught. “Something wrong with the rank?”

“I’m a ‘travel decker’ sir, I never planned on staying once the ship made it to a central planet,” Jinn bit out and Duncan looked at him as Racha looked taken aback.

“Traveling then? Or were you getting away from a punishment?” Duncan asked as his hand slowly went to his side where he normally had a stun pistol. The movies might have romanticized traveling as a member of a ship’s crew, but it was still the best way for someone running from the law to do so. He had seen it happen in real life, and they were monsters. He thought Jinn was a better person than that, but he had a few scars from when his feelings had been betrayed in the past. Jinn just shook his head, not making a move in reaction to Duncan’s actions.

“No sir. Just had to get away from something others wanted me to do, something to do with the local religion. It was lawful there but it was not something I was comfortable doing. And that’s all I’m saying,” Jinn interrupted and Duncan ahhed as he nodded.

“Well, that’s nothing boyo. Happened to me a few times over the years…… your data truthful at least?” Duncan asked looking at Jinn as he moved his hand away from his side. Jinn forced himself to relax and nodded, and for a moment he thought he felt something within him. Duncan only grinned at this and looked at the mountain in the distance and sighed “Good, then I was right you’re perfect for this mission. That mountain, you get the idea?”

“Yes sir, thank you, sir,” Jinn said as he turned and looked at the mountain, deep in thought.

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Jinn just let his mind go over the problem. He could see how the mountain was the best choice they had to find out where they were, and a scouting party was the best idea.

Once he saw it he thought the best thing for them to do was get someone up there, if only to get a look at the land. They needed to try and figure out where to go or even where exactly they were in relation to any settlement on this planet. And if they could learn if there were other capsules from the Spirit nearby, maybe even part of the ship itself. And if it wasn’t then if they could contract other survivors in other escape pods, they could have that much of a better chance of surviving until they were found by anyone.

But that was only if any of the other capsules' decent system rockets let them land and not impact. In the model of escape capsules the Spirit had, they were only able to move over land and hover about a foot off the ground, but only if it was level. With their pod stuck in a crater, they needed something to help them move it out. They would need earth-moving vehicles, robots, or exo-frames to modify the slop to let the capsule out, if they tried to do it by hand it would take a month. The only other option was if something could

Jinn looked at the mountain and called up his nanotech, one of the groups of ‘bots in his eyes were rangefinders, and he winced as he saw how far away it was. “It’ll take a few days to make it that far sir. And that means I’ll need some help and a mobile bioscanner to make sure we can eat what we find or kill. The only other option would be to take supplies from what we’ve got.”

Duncan looked at him and nodded, a strange look in his eyes.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jinn hoped that the old man didn’t know anything about his past. He hadn’t heard anything about his family, the people who raised him before he left the world he was raised on. But with what he knew about them if they had been raided and it was kept quiet, he wouldn’t be too surprised.

“Quite right Mr. Jinn, quite right. So you’ll be sent off tomorrow once we know who is here, you have to move fast so three people only, counting you of course. If we have more than one scanner you’ll take one. But beyond that, we’ll just have to see. For now, go help the kids I sent to gather possible food and take this,” Duncan said as he look at Jinn as he handed over a blaster pistol that he removed from the side of his body that was facing away from Jinn.

Jinn nodded as he took the pistol, saluting as Duncan turned away. He took a deep breath as he looked at the gun, he had trained with something a lot more high-tech in his youth, and he knew how to field strip this model. He took a breath and took a step on the purple grass and looked towards where the three deckhands had gone to the trees to try and find anything they could eat.

“One last thing, do either of you know why we got into the capsule in the first place?” Duncan asked and Jinn and Racha both looked at each other before they shook their heads. Duncan cursed and looked away, fear flowing through him. “Me either.”

Jinn watched as Duncan was helped down to the capsule by Racha. Jinn frowned as he looked at her, he had thought she was part of the cadets who were on the fast track for command, but she seemed to know enough about medicine to set a leg. He might not be the only one who was hiding his skills, and if she was showing more then should he?

He shook his head and scowled. Let the others show everything they were first, for now, he would try and stay alive. He didn’t know anything about the Federation, all he had been taught was wrong. He had run for maybe three months before he found out about ‘travel-decking’ and after he dealt with one of his former brothers, it was the best thing for him.

He needed to find a place to hide and learn everything he could, only then would he choose what to do with what he knew. He knew so little about the truth of space, and they who had raised him wanted that way so they could use him. He didn’t want to hurt some of them, they had been used like him. But could he stay silent with what he knew? He had to learn more, so he could make an informed choice, that was the only thing he could do.

The sounds of buzzing caused Jinn to turn. He looked at the bugs, trying to get a good look around the clearing. So far only those were around, so what level of the food chain were they? Back home there were a few large bugs like them, and they were predators but then weren’t the worms' prey?

As Jinn looked at the small worms like flyers and frowned. He counted them all, finding out that there were only five of them and they were all flying together. As they were moving in slow orbits toward the gatherers he watched them closely. For a moment he thought nothing of it before he remembered something in his past, an old lesson about introducing animals from other planets, and then he remembered hunting tactics he had studied in his training.

As the realization hit him, he saw one of them suddenly dart upwards. He understood exactly what it was trying to do and he started to move. He had to stop it, he had to save them! Jinn cursed in his head for being stupid as he brought the pistol to bear on the worm, it paused moments before it shot down faster than it climbed. He moved his aim ahead of it and fired a single bolt, hoping that he would hit it before it reached its target!

The gather’s heard Jinn firing and turned around, seeing him aim at one of the worms that had been flying around. The worm that was diving right at them with its bottom pointed at them!

“Back to the capsule, now!” Jinn barked as the bolt hit the diving worm and destroyed the front of its body. The other worms all flew upwards as they reacted to the death. The gatherers could only stare at the dead worm’s remains as it drops to the ground. Their eyes remained locked onto a long stinger as the corpse hit the ground.

The other worms flew at him all of them angled their ends toward him as they released their stingers.

Jinn threw himself to the side and rolled away, coming upright he ran towards the gathering, sending a command to his nanobots to target each of the four worms. When he reached the others he turned and shot at another worm as the pack came towards them. With a single shot, he killed the worm, this time destroying the bottom part of the creature. “Keep moving, don’t you dare stop!”

The gatherers all ran, only one girl carried a single plant pod that she had grabbed, the others dropping as Jinn ran along and fired another bolt, this time the three remaining worms all split apart in a triangle formation and shot at one of the gatherers who had tripped over a rock.

Jinn turned and fired three shots as he turned. The first two hit, and the top and bottom portions of two of the worms vaporized. But the last bolt missed as the worm at the back jerked under the dead. As the lone worm flew at the falling gatherer it almost hit only for its target to roll away at the last minute. As the worm hit the ground, it tried to fly back up only for Jinn to fire again, destroying the worm’s ‘top’ portion.

Doing a quick 350 spin he saw none of the worm flyers anywhere around the clearing. Reaching down he pulled the gatherer up just as Racha came over the rim of the crater. Looking around she saw the carnage that Jinn had created.

“What happened up here!?” Racha asked and Jinn reached down and picked up one of the worm corpses that still had a stinger and showed it to her. She recoiled, staring at it in shock and horror as Jinn gestured to the gatherers as they ran past her.

“The flyers were predators, let's gather the remains. Maybe we can eat them, if not let's see what we can learn about them,” Jinn said as he looked at Racha who walked over and grabbed two of the corpses, the ones that had the front segment. Doing one last circle with his eyes, Jinn followed her down the hill. At the capsule people were waiting for them at the gateway, all of them wondering what had happened.

Duncan waited just within, the others looking on as Jinn made it to the door and held up the stinger and body, most of the passengers recoiled and Duncan just looked at it before gesturing to the side, Jinn followed with the gatherers and entered a closed office. “Report Cadet!”

“Sir!” Jinn said as he came to attention. “After going on guard duty I noticed the worms acting like they were stalking the gatherers. When one of them flew upwards I knew something was up with them. They reminded me of a predator hunting new prey, and well……I shot them,” Jinn said and the three gatherers all exploded.

“Shot them, you smoked ‘em dead! Sir that was some of the best shooting I’ve seen in a while!” One of the gatherers said as Jinn walked towards a bio scanner and put the ‘tail’ onto it.

As the machine scanned the tail, Jinn he looked back at Duncan with a somber look. “Sir, those things were experienced either hunting alien prey or prey that can fire ammo. And that’s bad sir.”

Duncan nodded, his thoughts going a mile a minute as he listened to the report. This might be bad. There was a small chance that the worms might be high on the local food chain, but if not.…. Then if any alpha predator was out there, a dark part of his mind voiced what he didn’t want to. That they might hunt new prey, prey that might be the castaways.

“Your mission is even more important than I thought Cadet Jinn,” Duncan said as he shook his head. If the wildlife that was around the impact site was that dangerous, then who knew what might be drawn to them? They needed to know where they were, anything that could give them any knowledge to use to survive. “So far we’ve found ten laser riffles, twenty laser pistols plus twenty suits of armor. And we were lucky, three bio scanners and a few other emergency devices. Take what you want from it when you head out, just give me a list of who you want in an hour.”

Before Jinn could reply, a beeping caused them to turn to the screen. The ‘tail’ had finished being scanned. The results showed that the stinger would have penetrated even the jumpsuits the deckhands wore. And worse, it carried a poison that would have knocked out anyone who got a big enough dose of it into their systems, any unaugmented system that is.

They all stared at the screen while Jinn’s thoughts went strange places. He kept his face blank as he remembered a few ‘problems’ he dealt with during his training and a certain scum who loved poison.

Duncan merely looked at the readings and scowled. He just kept silent as he and then took deep breaths. “You leave in the morning, choose who you're taking with you. And did you three find anything we could safely eat?”

The female gatherer put the pod she had grabbed onto the scanner, and moments later a report showed that it was full of more than the average nutrients most humanoid species needed daily. And another report showed that as long as the tail as venom sack was removed, the worms were safe to eat.

“Well, the life on this planet is edible at least,” The gatherer who had tripped said brightly. As the others talked about hunting for something to eat, Jinn and Duncan stayed silent. They both realize that while the castaways could eat the animals on this planet, they could also be eaten by said animals.