Out of bounds

[Sombs]

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Day 50 - Location unknown III

The cooling chamber was opened. Icy steam rushed through the gap in the door and the lights turned on automatically, gifting Leon with the beautiful view of many, many sealed boxed of various foods "Oh god, this feels like heaven," the surferboy sounded as his face was touched by the lack of heat in the air. "Come here, Annie. This is like an orgasm."

"Makes me wonder what kind of fetishes you have to make that comparison," Annie sounded as she entered the cooling chamber, instantly moaning when the cold air caressed her facial skin. She watched Leon move deeper into this secret sanctuary of the ship. The Apahanta had heated up because of this new system, the intense sun and the burning gases. It was not dangerously hot aboard, yet there was a noticable difference as putting more energy to the cooling systems would mean they would use up more energy.

There was a plopping noise coming halling slightly as Leon opened a box, retrieving two wrapped popsicles, throwing one blindly in Annie's direction.

"Ouch."

Leon turned around instantly, just to realize Ezrael stood there where he expected Annie to be. The wrapped popsicle fell to the floor, having hit Ezrael's belly. "Oh, uhm..."

"Pilfering our food rations, Leon?"

The Chief Engineer gulped, knowing they were currently living in desperate times. Having the crew accessing the cooling chamber without permission was actually something Ezrael did not like at all. "Look, it's horribly hot in the engine room, and we need a cool head down there, so I thought I pilfer just two, and-"

"Make it three, the heat is unbearable," Ezrael sounded, picking up the popsicle from the ground.

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A few minutes later, the seven non-frozen people of the crew sat in the canteen, fondling popsicles with their tongues. It was a funny and adorable sight, Ezrael found, watching them all sitting at the table with him, slurping icy food. There was no better time to present the results of what he did for the last few hours. "I used the Handsome Rover to map the system. It is unique, to say the least, as we are entirely encircled by a red hot cloud. There are multiple suns in this giant pocket, but only one in proximity, a tiny proto-sun, a few hours away from us with cruise speed. Apahanta, please put the footage from the Handsome Rover to the canteen monitors."

And the ship did as told. The monitors at the walls were showing random bits of the Rover's exploration tour.

Displays

"Apahanta is currently processing all the data we got from this exploration, but as you see I found some things. This system contains multiple two bigger planets and a bunch of moons, all of them barren worlds, none of them useful for us in any way. Interesting to us are only two things, one of them being the alien gate I found behind the big planet closest to the sun, there," Ezrael explained, pointing with his finger at the recording showing the gate. It was small, there were no power nodes connected to it. And it was soaked in red, which was incredibly creepy, even with the sun-filter applied to it already.

"I heard we picked up some signals?" Leon sounded, quickly after it continuing to suck on his popsicle.

Ezrael lifted his index finger, shaking it once in Leon's direction. "That is the other interesting thing I found. The deeper the Rover went into the system, the more we were able to pick up. Sherry was absolutely correct, this was a signal from a human ship. A distress signal. This means we are not too far away from returning home." Smirking, he pointed at the final recording.

"That is a kusarian gunboat," Sherry commented, standing up to get closer to the wall monitor, suckling slightly at the tip of her popsicle. "Ships of that size can't use jump drives. It either means it was jumped here by something else or it ended up here finding a subspace connection. The gate, I guess?"

"Likely. This is a big system, and there are many giant clouds and gas pockets out there. We could use the gate or scout around with the Handsome Rover, however there is a kusarian gunboat all alone out there and I think we can make use of it. Scrapping it, keeping it, but most importantly, checking the black box and search the little ship for fuel. It probably won't have much, but it might help us for a few extra minutes, hours or days," the Captain explained, smirking. Leon knew this smirk all too well.

"So we bring the Apahanta into that fiery gas cloud and capture the gunboat? We could attach it to the hull and carry it with us, but entering it would require one of us to leave the Apahanta in an EVA-suit. And it is pretty heated out there," Sherry said, staring at the footage.

"I'll do it myself. It's your job to ensure I stay alive, Sherry," Ezrael told her, his expression changing weirdly for a moment as he looked at her. The Commander however merely exhaled, being fully aware it was a jab into her side.

"I understand. I'll prepare everything,"

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Uncharted System Stories: 18 | 32 | 34 | 37 | 38 | 85

Templates: Character | Transmissions

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