Relic Hunter
03 May 2018LandroverKeith
The Air was far to clean and neutral smelling in the bar I Sola Prospect in the Brestla System was as Far as Commander LRK had made it since he left LHS 20.
Acting upon some information he had picked up in a random communication from the Guardians of Aesir, he had arranged to meet a guy who knew a guy who had heard from a guy about a location for a Guardian Relic site.
Looking around the Bar as he sipped his Bourbon, he thought back to the old classic film "starwars" and started humming the cantina theme as his gaze settled upon the "Numpty" sat out on the edge of the port and noticed the huge scratch down the port side....
His Contact made him suddenly snap back into reality when he asked "Commander LRK?? good day I am Joe"
and followed with "that's a nasty mark howd ya do it?" pointing at the Chieftan on the pad
Commander LRK Shook his head and grunted "hmppphh 3 days old and I fly it into a station doorway, don't ask"
as Joe pulls up a chair he motions the barman to top up the drinks and the two men start to talk under whispered voices about the site.
Several Hours Later Commander LRK heads back to the "Numpty"
"Numpty Plot course for the Synuefe cluster"
the Nav computer quickly ran through the routes with Keiths preferences of max jump range but only on fuel stars.... "plotting complete 32 jumps to destination commander"
From the First jump right through to the end jump the trip went completely to plan, so far out from the bubble Keith Could count on one hand the amount of other ships he saw as he scooped at every other star "I hate this small fuel tank" he thought to himself.
Dropping out on the Sun at the final destination Commander LRK couldn't believe his luck as one of the first contacts on the computers radar was listed as a Guardian Site and it was on a Planet less than 500ls away, after a couple of orbits of the sun to brim "numptys" tanks Keith steered the ship to the target on nav lock.
Coming in on the Dark Side of the plain barren planet it looked like it had been dead for centuries and was nothing but dusty looking dark sand and dirt.
dropping the ship into orbital cruise and spinning the ship 45 degrees he watched the distance quickly drop and started his decent to begin the glide in on top of his prize.
After a long shallow glide Finally the retro thrusters fired and the speed dropped from 2500ls to 150 in a short sharp smooth blast.
Keith smiled as he saw the site for the first time it was much bigger than he thought it would be, so after a quick circle around to make sure there was nothing about that could catch him unawares he started the process of landing, this turned out to be harder than he thought as the land all around was mostly unsuitable but finally he found a spot almost right on top of the pyramid structure.
Jumping into the seat of his old and battered srv Commander LRK activated the Hatch Dropping the srv with a bump to the planets surface, "ok lets turn on some lights and see what we can see here" Keith chatted to himself while randomly flicking switches and turning the srv to face the relic site.
Driving in was so eerie everything seem like it had been untouched for eons keith looked around via his moniters as he swung the turret through 360 degrees carefully picking his route around various chunks of building and god knows what else.
after about 5 minutes keith had worked his way towards the end of the complex where the the pyramid stood proud looking around suddenly the ground started to shake and 2 pillars rose from the floor one either side of the structure emitting a odd blue glow in the center, with his prior information keith immediately targeted the core and opened fire on it until the pillar suddenly powered up and set a beacon into the sky.
After about 10 minutes he had found another 5 pillars and quickly went through the same process, suddenly without warning the computer screamed
"under attack"
"what the hell is that"
Keith frantically gunned the srv throttle and quickly swang the turret around to find a big metallic Skimmer looking device but it was on steroids.
The weapons it was firing were rocking the srv with every hit so much it almost turned the vehicle over.. as quickly as it started the firing stopped and Commander LRK let a volley of shots directly into the Guardian Drone as the computer had designated it but it seemed to be building up a overload of power and before he could kill it, suddenly it fired several missiles into the air!
alarm klaxions sounded, and the second the missiles came down this time it did flip and roll the srv through 360 degrees and by pure luck the srv rolled back onto it wheels with its cannon facing the drone and quickly Keith fired again blowing the thing to bits as it fell from the sky..
Patting himself down and checking he was still intake Keith gave a little nervous laugh "ha that wasn't bad" something caught his eye.
the main pyramid now had some form of spinning rotating sphere shooting out sparks of lightning or electricity but more interesting the nav computer was able to scan and download data from it...
the info he had bought from that man in the bar was correct...
he had just downloaded a Guardian tech schematic for a weapon of some considerable firepower.
suddenly the radar went ballistic it was picking up contacts from almost every direction and they were closing in on his position fast.
no time to be carefull Keith swang the SRV around 90 degrees to head back to the ship hoping he could make it without destroying him self ramming into structures and losing control he knew he was in trouble as the first volley of shots came in then he noticed the over charged sequence before those awful missiles fired.
Sheilds Down
those words no one wants to hear particular when theres a monster alien death hunter shooting blue stuff at ya...
shots hitting the ground all around him keith yanked the handbrake up under the Numpty and activated the grav lift panel "come on come on" Keith was getting anxious he wanted out b4 the started shooting at the ship.
finally back in the commanders chair he started the sequence to fire up the engines just in time to see some shots land on the port rear engine nacelle...
pulling back hard on the stick and pulling the nose upto 90 degrees and full throttle climb leaving the site behind.
"ok numpty set course for LHS 20" he had every intention of getting these weapons into action..
"course plotted" Numpty announced in his annoyingly cheery voice
34 jumps... keith thought well I guess I can watch that old series of red dwarf on the way home.
"Frame shift Charging in 4... 3... 2... 1..."