The Edge Of Space

Chapter 3 - lost on Soolva.

For the next hour, they scanned the landing sight within a 50-kilometer radius ensuring no hostile fauna or flora was present then scanned the atmosphere.

To their surprise, the atmosphere was breathable for those who needed to.

On Greylan's command, they all entered the hangar and the door slowly descended revealing the snow-covered landscape with various plants and flowers that looked like snowflakes.

"Woah" Greylan voiced admiring the flowers.
"How's the wind," he asked the onboard A. I of the alcrist.
"Pleasant, considering the usual speed of it. Set up a perimeter 20 meters outside of myself" it said in a feminine voice.

He waved to Grem and Ves who walked out with him. After a couple of minutes, he ordered everyone else to proceed.

They all spent the next hours setting up the perimeter, pitching tents with consoles and computers that kept eyes on the surroundings.
After that greylan went to Vontaine and Merca.

"Hey got a job for you," he started.

"Yeah what's up? Vontaine asked.

"Take this, go get some samples, anything you can find whether it's a tree or like, grass or something, just anything flora, we're running the first tests," he said, his face hidden by his helmet.

"Sounds good chief," Vontaine replied taking a container from Greylan.

For the next week, this was one of their jobs. Taking samples and studying them.
But soon their range had extended beyond the border. The alcrist ship had scout vehicles. Clean smooth pods that hovered above the surface. They speed across the snow with insane speed taking the crew to any specific landmark deemed a sight of interest.

On this particular mission Greylan, Grem, Vontaine, and merca were traveling to a chasm that seemed to permeate with some heat, however, upon getting closer to it, some type of rock or metal protruding out of the ground scraped against the hover panel that kept it off the ground.

The pod instantly fell to the snow scrapping the ground with its snout until it hit a snag and started rolling out of control towards the chasm and eventually fell into it.

Several hours later vontaine woke up to find Greylan outside scanning the walls. Merca and Grem were still unconscious.

He unclipped his seat belt and fell to the ceiling of the pod with a thud and groan.

"Shit... what happened?" He wheezed as blood dripped from his head.

"We crashed. Don't worry we're relatively safe from the cold down here" Greylan replied.

"OK. Is someone coming to rescue us? You've sent a message to base camp right?" He asked.

"I tried that but look up," Greylan said blankly.

He looked up and, didn't understand what he saw. It looked like ice and snow had covered the chasm's massive entrance like a ceiling, constantly in motion.

"What is that?" He said in confusion.

"That... is a blizzard. And it means that we're stuck here until it's over. I've tried sending a signal for hours now but it can't pierce through" Greylan explained.

"OK, what's about the pod's signal booster?" Vontaine thought.

"Already tried that, it got damaged in the crash, we're fortunate enough to be alive".

"Why does this always happen to us" vontaine sighed.

"Tough break huh" Greylan chuckled.

After a while Merca and Grem finally sturred awake and we're made aware of the situation. Several hours passed and the blizzard was ongoing showing no signs of relenting.