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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy" data-source="post: 9265401" data-attributes="member: 1412">Day 3We stayed another night on Walston - at the Fish’s Legs - and jumped on a train to Salbarii. We managed to make a good start, I think they re-arranged the train to run to Salbarii first. From there it is a good twenty kilometres to the mountain, but Greener had called ahead so a car was waiting for us. There are only three air/rafts on the planet and one is the president’s personal transport while the others ore emergency vehicles. So a wheeled car as far as an off-roader can go and we were on our own. We managed to buy some warm jackets, sleeping bags and rope with a handful of pitons (and a hammer, of course). The is no such thing as a climbing shop in Salbarii, but the hardware store turned up a few things even he was surprised at. By lunch time we were looking forlornly at the disappearing car and steeling ourselves for the assent. We all have good breathers and warm clothing. We doubted we could make it by nightfall but we intended to try!Gravity is only about 2/3 of a G and the planet has a cycle of about ten standard hours so we only have a few hours of day light, but out packs didn’t weight too much. We found that we couldn’t make a direct assent. Scree and rock outcrops, boulders and shirt sharp cliffs made that impossible. We made as good progress as we could with V out in the lead, myself trying to keep up and P and H tending to lag. After about 3 hours we hit our first challenge. With just an hour or so of light left we were faced with either climbing a sheer 10m section or adding several hours to our trip. We opted for the climb. None of us are experienced climbers but V and I were the most keen, so we gave it a shot. It was getting dark by the time we had muddled our way to the top, hammered in some pitons and encouraged the others to use the rope. As we looked for a section flat enough to sleep on we came upon a disconcerting sight: the remains of two humans. Just bones and a few rusty pieces of ironwork - pitons and the like. One had an obvious break, the other no clear reason for its death. Not by torch light anyway. We moved off a little way and pulled out our waterproof sleeping bags and made the best of it. We set a watch, just incase.Day 4In the morning as we wondered why we were doing such bloody stupid task and chewing on a protein bar I had a closer look at the skeletons. Yep, one died from a serious break which was probably open. The other had no obvious cause of death but both, on very close inspection, appeared to have been picked clean. Possibly by some kind of insect. It wasn’t a reassuring thought, but we had little option at this point, we were closer to the top than the bottom and we had a job to do. We didn’t want to fail our first assignment as a team. It was clear to me with my medical training that we needed to pace ourselves and take breaks, even with our breathers being fully functional. It had been uncomfortable wearing them while we tried to sleep and it probably would have been problematic if our sleeping bags weren’t sealable. Off we set, over 1,000 metres above sea level on a thin-atmosphere world. We hadn’t thought this through properly and I for one was feeling a bit shaky.Our route took us anti-clockwise round the mountain and after about an hour of sullen trekking we spotted figures lower down the mountain than us but evidently attempting the same thing as we were. As we hadn’t brought any binoculars I cast my mind towards the strangers and saw that they were two humans and two Vargr but otherwise nondescript. One of the humans appeared female, the rest were male. As I was doing this P yelped. A bug had nipped him. It turned out to be about the size and shape of a locust. I remembered the “picked clean bones” which we had found. I must confess I was getting uneasy at this point. A few dozen metres up and the air was thick with the little monsters, nipping and biting any exposed area of skin they could fine. P had the wisdom to light a flare and they retreated from fire quickly enough. We guessed that they would not be able to thrive at higher altitude as the air was already pretty thin by now so we increased our speed, regardless of my misgivings, and pushed on rapidly. We had lost sight of our competitors, if such they were, but managed to flee the locusts by the time our flares burned out.As time passed the climb became steeper and steeper. We stopped for lunch - more protein bars hastily pushed under our breathers which tasted disgusting. Not long after we were resorting to using our hands the terrain was so steep. I slipped at one point and badly twisted my ankle. Once again I thanked my training in awareness and my colleagues didn’t know how bad it had been.There wasn’t much daylight left when we came to the base of the lip of the crater. Fortunately, the ground here was solid with little or no scree. Our party suddenly came on the locals who had been climbing from the other side of the mountain. They were unfriendly, to say the least. They demanded to know what off-worlders were doing on their mountain and told us to leave. We explained that we were on official imperial business and were working for the government of Walston and all we wanted was to get the IISS scout ship and do a survey and be away. They flatly refused to believe we were acting on behalf of their government and told us that the ship was salvage and, as off-worlders, we had no salvage rights. We pointed out that that would be piracy. Things became heated and one drew a knife. I think even he knew he had gone too far but couldn’t see a way to back down without loosing face. He lunged at me but I was ready for him and he ended up squirming with his arm in a painful lock. Vasquez stepped forward and the others read something in her movements which put them off. I let the one I was holding go with a gentle shove. Helena gave them what they needed when she suggested they help up carry the three cases of gear we had with us the rest if the way and we would give them 50cd each. V wasn’t too pleased but I didn’t mind. These weren’t even barroom brawlers, more local kids who were frustrated by our arrival, so I didn’t want to hurt them. I was also glad to hand over the heavy boxes!The crater was about 2km across and after an initial steep area on the inner side of the lip sloped gently down to a small lake of about 500m diameter. I was doubly pleased that we had hired the kids when it became apparent that the ship was on a small island in the middle of the lake, maybe 200m from the shore. Stunted shrubs littered the whole bowl of the crater and there were caves here and there. Between the eight of us we lugged the crates to the water’s edge. The eight of us tried to work out how to get out kit across without getting it or ourselves wet. In the end we admitted defeat and waded, three to a crate, coffin style. We all noticed the warmth of the water. It wasn’t hot, by any stretch, but it wasn’t icy cold, which it should have been. However, we didn’t give this a lot of thought as we were wanted to get the ship up and running so we could dry off and do what we needed to do.The ship was surrounded by trash. Empty food wrappers and dirty bed linen along with bundles of cabling and more than a few circuit boards. It wasn’t an encouraging sight and we weren’t sure enough of the ship was still inside to make it a ship. By now we had struck up a little rapport with the locals and one quipped “I’m glad I’m not you guys” and our earlier confrontation was forgotten as they settled into amused onlooker mode. Just as Peter picked up something form the debris a nervous Vargr called round from the other side of the ship “Er, guys, a little help” and we heard an accompanying growl. P had found a food bowl you might use to feed a cat or a dog. It had “Kimberley” written on the side. We hurried to see what was going on with the growl and found a Tensher’s Wolf, a dog like and sized animal which pushes its teeth forward when it, well, growls or is hostile. It was snarling at Rukie, one of the Vargr. Helena called out “No sudden movements” rather unnecessarily, I though, and when through her pockets for a protein bar. She peeled it and threw it down in front of Kimberly. Then another and another. Now we were over the shock we could see Kimberly was pretty emaciated. It snarled at Peter the first time he approached it, but after we had all thrown another bar each it let him stroke it. “Skin and bones!” We all found are selves disliking the former crew of Highndry. Before we had hardly though about them, but they had abandoned this animal to starve - a very nasty way to die - when they bugged out on an air/raft.We cleared the rubbish away from the Highndry and we set to work. There reactor was powered down and the batteries barely flickering, but it did accept the entry code over-ride, but we had to manually open the door. Our fears were confirmed. Everything of value was gone, every panel was open and everything was filthy or damaged. Utter slobs had been living here for a long time and they hadn’t known how to look after the ship at all. I know my way around a reactor reasonably well so, keeping my breather firmly on my face to protect myself from whatever the smell was, I made my way by torch light past the staterooms, workshop, air/raft bay (empty) and the drone storage (also empty) to the engine room. It looked like it hadn’t been touched for years. Vasquez came with me. She doesn’t know much about generators but she has some training as a mechanic and could be of help. The others start cleaning - the locals refused to help but soon agreed when they got another 50 bucks each. We go the best of that bargain! We heard Peter’s shout of dismay from the bridge. We needed power for everything else so I worked into the night. Even with the replacement parts which we had brought with us I had to be creative. I needed to chuck a lot of circuits and worn parts. The diagnostic unit earned my gratitude - the old crew hadn’t even left a working pair of PRIS goggles! Peter started stripping the lift support and by the time I finished getting power restored he didn’t have much to do to be able to clean the air in the ship and get the heating going. We slept in our sleeping bags again as the staterooms were minging - they had been in a need of cleaning when left that by now they were mouldy. We shared our rations with the locals. They had worked hard and we were pleased with their help. They in turn hadn’t been in a starship before and seemed to be enjoying the experience.Day 5The cleaning continued the next day and, as the power seemed to be stable, Helena and I moved on to purging the computers and uploading a new OS and software. This took a good few hours and it was lunch time by the time we were done. Peter had been working on the hardware in the bridge and V had been generally checking relays and electronics throughout. We thought there were some glitches in the software and re-installed it, but that might have been due to some faulty sensors. We found air filters lying outside and we had an off smell from the moment we installed them. V found the seismic charges somewhere and we got the sensors online. Scouts have military grade sensors and it was nice to see something working without too much effort. I started running some scans of the volcano from where we were. They weren’t going to give much useful information, but it would help to have some preliminary  data. V and I decided we would lay out some of the charges first light. We would set the charges together and then detonate them from the ship. I had studied Planetology at uni so I was confident I could crunch the numbers. We would then take off and see about getting some reading airborne, which might be a little easier. Things took a sinister turn as we came to set off the the charges.The sun was setting by the time we had planted the charges and made sure we were ready to make full use of the sensors on the ship. We were all feeling a little festive now that the ship was reasonably presentable and we congregated in small bridge. We all counted down and V set the charges off with her comm. Data started to flash in my screens and we all cheered. Then the first tremor hit. It seemed to go on for ever. Small items danced across surfaces and had to be prevented from falling. Those of us standing all had to grab tables or the backs of chairs. Eventually it was over. We huddled round the sensor suite and I tried to make sense of the findings. It looked like the volcano is a lot more active that thought, but an eruption, if it does erupt, is months away. Still, it was sobering to see that a deep plug had appeared to have shifted position and changes were likely. We went outside to see if there was any visible difference and at first were reassured. Then one of the locals pointed to the south west and we saw a thin plume of dust or smoke rising from somewhere down the mountain. We watched in silence until V added “Wasn’t the water higher when we got here?” and sure enough, the lake appeared to be draining off. I went back inside to start running some models. I had no proper software for this situation but scouts are required to be versatile so I set to. P started running through the preliminary check pre-flight checks which we had planned on starting in the morning. No further tremor followed during the next couple of hours and all the models I ran suggested that an eruption is likely but that it wasn’t likely that any harm would be done to the surrounding area when it did. The lake was obviously draining and some gasses where being released but that didn’t mean much. Peter finished the training simulators by midnight and was satisfied that the controls would work if we tried to fly. Some calibration was necessary, but Peter didn’t take long getting them sorted out. I set up some alerts on the sensor suite and we all nervously went to bed. Kimberly had settled back into her old home and curled up on one of the beds when not begging for food.</blockquote>

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