We either engage or we try and sneak our way back to recognizable civilization (which given our extremely diverse histories, I'm not sure we'll find...).

I'd say let's investigate the chatter.

"Well, fuel's done. I assume that covers our vitals like life support and food, too. Time to make sense of all this!

"I say we take this chatter head on!" Slams palm to head, like a headbutt. "Yeah! Let's do this! ... Wait, how strong are our shields and weapons?"

Well since our notional enemies warp space and time, depopulate systems, reprogram entire space stations, have kidnapped us and cast us a drift a thousand years from where we belong I don't think it matters.  

Twirls monkey knife.  

Sunward!

When the screen shows the crumbled mega-statue's face on screen... /turns to the side and *spits*

"Statue of a scum sucker. Would rather wait 'n die to draw a good bribe than fight to live, for themselves let alone others."

/turns back to the screen, starts methodically cleaning my rifle. "Eloi face. World cleansed of their cowardice, no doubt. Maybe by bugs, maybe by something else. Good."

"We can go down, but I have no patience with their type." Looks at the rest of the crew. "I'm down for killing more bugs, if they're there. Or helping civilization rebuild, what's left topside." Returns to rifle cleaning, "Yet if we see any of those poncy skags who once tried to sell out my race to extinction, I'm wasting 'em before they can do more damage."

/looks up at fellow crew
"Clear?"

Right, for now I'm thinking any human is a good human.  But hey if you want to refight the second battle of earth its not like I can stop you.

"Now that we're closer where exactly is that chatter coming from?"

From the Comm:

"Odoga, Five by five. Confirmed Pad Three, Pad Five. Fire Team Sigma to Floride station three. You are cleared for lift off. Balshmir, the Stars Welcome you and carry you home in time. All Skies clear for The Emininent Princess out of Doti IV."


There is no break in the chatter for replies, and often emphasis is on strange words or syllables, as if the speaker wasn't entirely certain how the words or phrases should sound.

(Just to confirm everything in orbit is wrecked, including the moon.  Are there any salvageable explorable objects not down the gravity well?)

So we'll take the Jenny to low port station then?  Whats our objective?  I have a feeling we are hunting ghosts not bug Fimion.  Is this a raid? An invasion? Reconosince in force? I don't think its a trade or diplomatic mission, I don't think there's anyone down there.  

My priorities.  
Answers.
Sophants.
Fresh fruit. - tosses out the last 5 orange fruits in the universe.  I ate one on my own time.
New computer and if it happens to have a ship wrapped around it thats good too.
Salvage and scrap.
Shineys and fancies.

Anyone staying with the ship?  

Anyone have other priorities?

"I'll go planet-side. Sorta been my thing for years." Fimion repeats Alijandro's priorities list a few times to memorize it, while picking out a travel medkit. "Alright, I am read to take point again. Which of you are quiet and lethal enough to take down there?"

"I was actully planning to ask questions first, shoot later, I know its not traditional but... As for quiet."

Points down at his stylish very comfortable and whisper soft slippers.  Then raises an eyebrow at Fimions clunky armor and I'm assuming heavy combat boots, though its never been said.

Fimion's boots are indeed big and clunky. They even have powerful electromagnets in the soles so he can retain his footing in zero-gee.

Ramirez is game to go down (he's urban recon trained - Streetwise and Recon).

"You'll be surprised how sensible these boots are in wartorn debris fields." "And I've been known to get around unnoticed okay."

Twirls knife.

"Ok, but if you want some curly toed shoes you just let me know. I think I have an extra pair in my trunk."

Winks.

The four of you pile into the cramped cabin of The Jenny, launching from The Frozen Elegy as it orbits the green world below.  Cooper pilots you towards the surface, taking a long, looping route over the planet as you use your eyes and sensors to gauge the conditions on the surface as you approach, and allowing you the opportunity to triangulate the source of the radio broadcast you've been monitoring since you arrived in system over a week ago.

As you approach within a mile of the surface you are able to see signs of habitation, what appear to be small villages, agriculture and so forth. The world itself seems swampy and wet, even from the climate controlled cockpit of the The Jenny you imagine you can feel hot wet air pressing against you, biting bugs tormenting you...

A pass over the anomalous desert allows you to determine that the greyish sand is some sort of carbon crystal that appears to originate in the slowly dissolving statue itself, and the shifting sands and shattered crystal appear to conceal hidden ruins, discernible only as regular geometric patterns in the grey dunes.  

At last you approach the twin Low-Port stations, one filled with molten, shattered hulks of starships, lots of radioactive signal and presumably toxic wastes, the other now revealed to be a strangely primative mockery of a Low-Port, made of local materials that only appear to loosely define the shape of a Starport.  The radio signal appears to originate in the blasted wastes, from an intact antenna near the fringes close to the primitive mock-up, but the only signs of life you see come from the mock-up itself. As you approach you realize that the 'reinforced concrete landing pads' are nothing more than bare earth painted with some crude natural pigments in the correct shades and shapes... if bizzarely laid out... of an actual landing pad.

You can land here or you can fly on to someplace less... occupied.