'Firefly meets Battlestar Galactica'.
A merchant's daughter is captured and sold into slavery.
A genetically modified survivor of an alien attack scours the galaxy for her taken brother before he is 'disassembled'.
An alien scientist u...
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The boiling atmosphere of Mal'th swirled around her, a cloud of acrid smoke so thick she could taste the hot ash through her thermal suit's filtration mask. She stood on a large island, big enough to land the Ark ship, the black rock smooth beneath her feet. Rivers of magma surrounded them. Without the protection of the suit her skin would crack and sizzle, cook her in minutes. Nothing could survive out here.
Cole sighed. Coming to this miserable planet was her idea, spouting some stupid rhetoric about finding answers. Answers? This planet was a sweltering hell pit. Its atmosphere choked out the Per Pacem's failing systems, forcing them to land in the shadow of one of the less active volcanoes. They needed to assess the damage they sustained in their firefight with the Nisseri Salvager, make the necessary repairs and get airborne again.
The atmosphere would scramble most of the Nisseri scan systems but the Barlok merc ships were equipped with the best tech, the benefit of their ruthless profession. They would be able to adapt to the haywire atmospheric conditions with little effort, pinging a signal off the surface, leaving the Per Pacem wide open for discovery. Cole had no doubt they had mercs on their trail. Her people wanted her dead, the reward high enough to make every merc in the system nibble. Daisu did his best to disguise their engine signature, but the Per Pacem was old technology, there was only so much he could do to confuse the signal. All he could do was buy them time.
Her friend was doing his part to keep them alive. Cole could not say the same. She had no plan, maybe for the first time in thousands of years. She never imagined her life's work would come to mean nothing, the lost treasures she'd discovered meaningless when her government threw her away without a word of warning. What secret had she stumbled upon? What did her people bury so deep they would kill over it?
Cole caught sight of a hull breach, pushing the mire of her thoughts away. She needed to concentrate on her task. She made Daisu stay in the ship for two reasons. First, she needed time to think, he could get them up and running internally without her help. If anyone could re-calibrate the Ark's antique scanning system to pick up readings through this burning sky, he could. Why he'd become a soldier and not an engineer boggled her mind.
Her other reason she kept to herself for the sake of his pride. She was sure her friend would pass out in his thermal suit before making any adjustments. Considering how uncomfortable she was, it was a good call.
Carefully picking her way through the curling rivets of dried magma, she stood before the burnt out section of the hull. The hole was massive, part of its ragged edges suggested this bit of the ship had torn away. What was missing? She recalled the ship's schematics, her breath catching in her throat as realization struck. This was where the ship's shielding and propulsion drive were supposed to be. The console told her they were damaged by the Nisseri canons, but they were just gone. The section must have ripped away between the shock wave and their insane descent into Mal'th's atmosphere. Daisu got them here by impulse power and momentum alone.
