Voyage Of The Independence: New Life

Act III: Pt.2: To the Stars

Black clouded skies dawned over the lightless grey valley of sand. For the presumed dead planet to show signs of moister in the atmosphere was a big deal. Adrien figured from the patterns within a few more centuries the Earth could be colonized again. It was just an empty thought as he and Fix waited out any potential patrols.

Just over the ridge and across the valley, perched next to a large boulder protruding from the ocean of dust sat the Independence. Unscathed and intact, surprising from their earlier endeavor with the persistent alien race.. It's sleek black surface turning the craft into a shadow of the night. Matte black was the perfect color to substitute for any kind of active camouflage or some other expensive hard-to-maintain stealth system. No reflections the ship becomes a sightless wall of nothing to anyone looking at it.

"I got nothing, you have a look." Fix adjusted her self-made extended range binoculars then passed them tone Adrien. Neither of them or the ocular device detected any kind of obtrusive potential scenarios. They did spot a few patrolling crafts in the sky on their way over, but nothing stood between the two and the Independence. It was straight shot to their only escape option.

The mercenary palmed the binoculars looking them over for a brief moment, a wave of nostalgia passed over him. It had been a quite literal millennia since he had seen a pair this simplistic, and it left him smiling.

"How outdated of you." Referring to the females craft in bringing him back to the Earthbound days.

"Outdated?" Fix was almost offended, "I work with what I got, dude. Not cool"

"Let me show you what I got." Adrien set the oculars down and reached behind his left ear. A swift double tap and his virtual glasses formed across his vision. From Fix's point of view, Adrien had just put on the coolest pair of glasses she had ever seen. So cool in fact, she found herself immediately reaching to snatch them from Adrien's face. Adrien pulled back from the gesture.

"Nope, these are mine." Adrien ignored the action. It was very obvious Fix needed to build a sense of personal space for herself and interacting with others. That was something she would have to learn on her own.

"Pshh, whatever." Clearly jealous, Fix grabbed her own device from the dirt and proceeded to use them again. Adrien turned to scout out the distance as well, using tech that could actually highlight and serious threats or obstacles.

His eyes drifted across the span between them and the craft once, twice, and then three times. Nothing. Not a single shift apart from winds tossing sands. Waiting till nightfall had most certainly been the right call.

"We really are alone." He nudged Fix, switching between modes and repeating the process. Lowlight, night optics, and then unassisted. Nothing still.

"You can never be too sure, they might be buried." Another strange idea but still a good suggestion. Adrien switched to thermal and seismic readings only to turn up nothing.

"Why do you think they would be underground?"

"This one disk, there were these massive monsters called Grabbers..." Another concept based on a movie Adrien completely forgot existed. She continued, "they like-swim through the ground, but only if it isn't super hard. Then they turned into doggers and assbirds. Those were neat but didn't have the Bacon man. Shit was crazy. Made me paranoid, so I built a seismograph just in case. You got one of those in your thing?"

"Yeah I actually do have a seismometer, it's saying we are clear." Adrien double checked after recalling some similar encounters he had on his travels. One could say he got to live an equivalent experience that could challenge that movie's plot. "Did you happen to pack those movies?"