Starborn: Origin of the Stars

“Can you keep up?” Robin asked when he heard Landom’s heavy breathing.

“I’ll manage, don’t worry about me.”

“No offense, Landom, but you look like shit and sound like an old steam-machine. That’s a lot of blood dripping down your face…”

“As if you would know!” The man forced a hollow laugh, “It’s dark as hell in here and even if not, you wouldn’t be able to see its color, would you? Maybe it’s just sweat!”

Robin’s steps came to a short halt, before he continued through the hallway. It always has been just a matter of time before the others would find out. Landom was an investigator and, to be honest, it would be more concerning if he hadn’t noticed by now.

“You better make sure Alena doesn’t hear that. If she knows that you are indirectly complaining about her weight, you are in for a beating!” Robin scoffed without commenting on the topic. He carefully corrected Happy’s position on his back and continued walking.

“Ow…ow…ow…” Niu whimpered when she woke up.

“Hey, how are you?” Robin asked with care in his voice.

“Uhh… my head…” She stammered, still a bit woozy, “Scrappy? Are you kidnapping me right now?”

“No, I wouldn’t dare, little princess!” He laughed and put on an overly dramatic expression, but when he looked over his shoulder, he noticed that she was already dozing off again.

“What… a… shame…” She quietly muttered, before her eyes closed once more.

“What was that?” Robin asked, puzzled, but received no answer.

When they reached the hangar at the end of the Hubble a few minutes later, he quickly scanned the room and breathed a sigh of relief. In the dim glow of the emergency lights he could see that everyone else was here already, no one was missing.

Timothy just looked a bit disheveled, Patience and Savastian seemed to be completely fine and Ang’Tue sat in a corner, eyes closed, and meditated.

“They are just unconscious, Happy got knocked out of her seat and hit her head, Alena had a sensory overload due to her mutation and blacked out shortly after the crash.” Robin explained when Patience rushed over with a concerned expression, “Please find them a place to recuperate.”

After she easily lifted up both women and took them to the bench at the wall and Landom also sat down to rest, Robin looked at Timothy, “Can you give everyone a check-up? I don’t wanna have any complications later on just because we missed some internal injuries.”

“I could only bring a basic scanner but it should be enough for a rudimental check.” The researcher said and took a tablet out of his backpack.

Robin then walked to the Eltaran who sat in the spot the furthest away from the others. When he stopped a few meters in front of him and thought about waking him up or not, Ang’Tue opened his third eye and a smile formed on his face.

“I’m still me, thanks for caring. My injuries are minimal but I’m not yet in a position to use my mutation - not that my particular set of skills would be of any help to us right now…”

“Good to know, stay here and rest. We may need you later, I’m counting on you!”

“Ha, as if you youngsters will need the help of this ancient relic!” He laughed and closed his eye again.

When he returned to the others, Robin saw that Savastian was talking with Timothy and took notes on his tablet. His hand moved a bit rigid but he obviously tried his best to get used to his condition.

“You are taking stock of our situation? That’s great, please give me an update when you are done.” Robin said and gave him an encouraging smile, “Ah right, you can skip the old man. Just leave him be for now, okay?”

“Sure thing, Captain. Give me just a few more minutes!” The bulky man said and for a moment he tried to flail his arms as he always did but quickly stopped and twisted his face painfully, “Fuck, that hurts…”

Robin sat down next to the still unconscious Alena and took a few big gulps from the bottle of water someone had organized. Now that he had a moment to rest himself, Robin noticed how bad his own condition was. While he wasn’t hurt anywhere, except some bruises here and there, his head was throbbing without end. The constant pressure from the overload of his passive sense by the still high ambient energy level began to take a toll on him.

“Ugh.. just how did we end up here so fast? One moment we were discussing if staying or leaving would be better and the next moment we were stranded on Terulos in the middle of a freaking storm.” He muttered, “I need the report from Sevastian, we need to know our situation. I really hope this wasn’t the last flight of the Hubble…”

Slowly, all the tension and pressure overwhelmed him and forced his mind to sink into a slumber.

***

“Captain! Hey, Captain!” Someone called and shook his shoulder to wake him up.

“Sevastian?” Robin asked drowsily, before his mind cleared and he jolted awake, “Shit, how long have I been out?”

“Just an hour. After I got a better idea of our situation and how much time we have left, we decided to give you some rest.” Sebastian said and handed him another bottle of water and something like a cereal bar, “Here, you have to eat.”

“Thanks!” Robin said and began to munch on the sticky bar, “What do you mean with ‘how much time we have left’? Please, give me an update!”

“The enemy won’t be able to follow us for now. But first things first, we have some slight injuries, nothing serious. Happy, Alena and Ang’Tue are out for today, they need more time to rest and should be back in shape in about 8 hours. Everyone else is mostly fine.” Sevastian began his report.

“That’s good. The medical support we can provide is limited… something we definitely have to fix. How is the ship?”

“Fucked… according to Happy’s and Timothy’s first analysis it’s not much more than a flying piece of scrap right now.”

“Flying? So we aren’t stuck here?” Robin interjected excitedly.

“No, unfortunately we are.” Sevastian shook his head, “At least for now we are completely stranded. We’ve lost two VTOL thrusters, front left and rear right. With them the landing gear is also gone. Two legs are left, but since the ship came to rest on the stump of one of the trees we’ve mowed down, we have maintained our balance, at least for the moment. Shields are gone due the power outages and the strong atmospheric disturbances. That’s also what killed them in the first place; we completely underestimated the negative effects of the storm. When the storm dies out however, we should be able to bring them back online - which is a necessity if we want to fly anywhere.”

“So we are stuck here as long as the storm is raging?” Robin asked when he slowly got a better picture of their situation.

“Yep. That is also the same timeframe for our safety. For now the enemy won’t be able to find us here and even if they do, they can’t come down without risking a crash, too.”

Robin scratched his beard and loudly mused, “When the storm ends, we can take off and escape Terulos, but that is also the moment when the enemy will be able to find and approach us? So, what’s different from our first encounter when we left the planet? Won’t they just shoot us down again?”

“What’s different? Well, first of all they should have an even better idea of where we are. Secondly, taking off will be quite the hassle and Happy isn’t even sure if she will manage it at all. Running away won’t be an option as long as she is fighting to leave the atmosphere. Ah yes, and I still haven’t mentioned the broken generator. As long as you don’t fix that, the Hubble will remain a dead log.”

“Uf…” Robin sighed and looked around until his gaze settled on Timothy, who was tinkering with the Melody II.

“What is he up to?” He asked.

“Timothy tries to connect the Melody to the Hubble and bypass our broken generator to send some power to the scanners. We need more information about our surroundings.” Sevastian explained.

“Will they even work in this storm?” Robin wondered.

“Probably not, no…”

More information needed

What is our location?

How much time until the storm recedes?

Grade of damage to the generator?

What are the next steps?

When ROMAS popped up some questions in Robin’s vision, he relayed the first two to Sevastian.

“We are in Quadrant 36 and according to Timothy we have at least 6 hours from the moment we notice the first signs that the storm subsides. When this will be… we have no idea and too little information about this site of Terulos.”

“Okay, thanks for your work. I’ll stop by Timothy and see if he needs a hand and then check the damage of the generator. Let’s hope it’s not completely broken. Let the others rest for now. We’ll decide our next steps when I’m back.”

Soon after he helped Timothy with powering the scanners, Robin found himself standing in front of the generator. After checking all the fuses, fuel pipes and connectors, he read the error logs and tried a restart. For a moment the huge reactor gained some life and began to hum, before it died out again.

“Ugh, burn in plasma…” He groaned, “Please don’t let it be the ignition chamber…”

Hydrogen Fusion Reactors were still used these days mostly because of their ruggedness. A higher fuel consumption in exchange for reliability was a great deal for most people. However, sometimes there are cases where the ignition chamber can get cracks because of extreme shocks to the machine. There is no way he would be able to repair that with what little tools they had.

“That will hurt…” Robin muttered and activated his mutation’s skill to get a better idea of what was happening inside of the generator. Slowly his whole vision turned blue when the ambient energy flooded his senses.

“Damn!” He yelped and lost grip of the image. Soon his world was colored in a trist gray again. After rubbing his temples until the headache subsided somewhat, he tried again.

This time he gritted his teeth and soldiered through until he had enough control of the situation to focus his senses and filter out the extreme background noise. Only a few thin lines remained and showed him the backup battery support that powered the emergency system.

“Neat, it was worth the time learning this…” He muttered and booted the reactor once more.

Pain pierced his head when the generator tried to initiate a hydrogen fusion and huge amounts of energy shot through the machine. Nevertheless Robin stayed focused and observed the ignition chamber.

After a few long seconds the reactor died again and he finally stopped his skill.

“Fuck… fuuuuck…” He cursed and desperately hit his head, as if that would make the pain go away, “At least it isn’t broken. Seems to be the same problem that the shields have, too. The interferences caused by the storm are disrupting the fusion process. If it was still running, it would probably keep working but it won’t start under these conditions.

After packing his stuff, Robin slowly walked back to the hangar while ROMAS began to analyze their situation.

Summarizing report

...

As long as the storm is ongoing, we are stuck here

Generator should restart after the storm

Shields should come online after power is back and interferences are gone

Take-off is possible

Difficult conditions until reaching at least microgravity.

Defenseless if the enemy attacks again

Enemy will know where we are

Probability of another attack: 92%

Intention to kill: <20%

Location uncharted

We are in Quadrant 36

Not much information about flora and fauna

No information about geographical conditions

No information about weather conditions

Distance to special marker: 82 km

Unresolved questions

When will the storm recede?

Who is hunting us?

Why are they hunting us?

Just because of the Keeper’s data?

How did the enemy find us so quickly?

Who is sending the SOS?

“Puh… that doesn’t look too good, even though the Hubble hasn’t as many problems as we feared. What is the special marker? And what are our greatest risks at the moment?” Robin asked and stopped in front of the door that led into the hangar.

Special marker: Location of the SOS

Greatest risks with probability of occurrence:

Getting attacked while trying to leave the planet: 92%

Getting attacked on the ground after the storm: 81%

Ang’Tue going berserk: 47%

Failure to take-off: 29%

Food shortage: 16%

“What? We are so close to the SOS? Wow…” Robin exclaimed and then stumbled over one of the risks listed, “Are you kidding me? You really think the Eltaran is that unstable?”

If Ang’Tue snaps, there isn’t much you have to counter

Psychological analysis shows clear indications of a split personality

It’s advised to consult other Eltarans about his situation

“ROMAS, what would you suggest how we proceed? I can’t see how we can take-off without the enemy intercepting us…” Robin asked wearily, too much has happened in the last hours and he feared that they would be stuck here; a sitting duck waiting for the enemy to find them.

Launching a preemptive strike on the enemy

Use storm as cover to approach the special marker

Probability of SOS being a trap: 68%

If it is a trap, there should be another ship belonging to the enemy

Take over the ship and use that to escape

Recovery of the Hubble at a later time

“Holy… You are suggesting to attack an unknown enemy? Are you crazy?”

Because of the high probability of failure and possible loss of crew members, please take a look at your self-set reminder:

“Never give ROMAS the power to decide someone’s fate without asking any sentient being first!”