<recording audio and transcribing>
Commanding Officer's Log 005
CMDR. Alex Rodriguez
U.T.E. Corvus
1736hrs 30 July, 2463 Earth Standard

Early yesterday morning we returned from the fuel run without further incident. We set all but two of our beacons in differing orbits to maximize the odds of picking up any signals from the UTE. It's doubtful, but you never know. They'll also be streaming data to Rose so she can try to pinpoint our location in the galaxy. On the way back to our quote unquote new home, we put two beacons in low orbit to scan the planet and give higher resolution info back to us. The final one was kicked out in geosynchronous orbit over the continent we are currently on. Largely it'll be used for weather and communications with the other arrays, although it can stream live video feeds if needed. So far we haven't seen any large cities or anything but that was anticipated. Come nightfall Rose did have a few spots she wanted to investigate with the geosat though. She thought she saw lights, but if there aren't any industrial cities it is unlikely.

After we landed, the maintenance shell was closed over both engines and the gap between the nacelles and rail of the Corvus. There are two downsides to this, as our sensor resolution is significantly reduced for the immediate area since the higher output ventral arrays are covered. The other one is that we are grounded for the time being while the engines go under the wrench. Thankfully the good outweighs the bad in this case. It looks like the better part of two weeks on the ground to make sure we get every possible issue. Even with the shell in place, we still have full power from the reactor, all shield generators, and the turrets only have a slightly reduced field of fire. Doubtful we'll need them though.

In terms of the planet, it appears to be slightly warmer than Earth, despite being of similar size and mass. Rose believes that is due to a significantly thicker ozone layer that is trapping heat. The air is breathable, but does have a significantly higher level of elemental fluorine and it's associated organic compounds. Thankfully it is below the the 20ppm threshold to be considered a significant health hazard, but I shouldn't go without my helmet for long just in case. Either way, I wasn't planning on taking it off since we have no idea what the bacteria or other microculture here will react with a human. We simply don't have the tech to find out quickly, as this wasn't even a scenario that was thought up.

There are a few small upsides though. The environmental systems can refine the local atmosphere without issue. I'll just occasionally have to dump a canister of elemental fluorine unless they can circulate that back out into the open air. Water shouldn't be an issue either, as whatever we can't recycle can just be added from a local water source and treated as contaminated. Since we have the communications for Rose to manage all the frames and the ship, the two of us are going to head out on one of the Shades to scout and take samples. First things first though is getting some food in me. After that is pulling a set of the heavy Aegis armor out of the locker and hitting the armory. Don't want to get eaten by some unknown critter after all.

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"Hey Rose, you know the great thing about owning your own starship?"

While I waited for her to ponder the question, I punched an order into the generator in the mess hall. While not as fancy as the fictional "replicators" used in science fiction, they did some neat work. They take freeze dried proteins, starches, flavors, etc and just assemble it into whatever food and portions you want. Tastes a lot better than the rations for long military trips, and you can store almost literal tons of the stuff in a tiny space with a minimum of weight. Downside is if I wanted an apple, I was right out. I could get applesauce, but no apple. A hamburger but no steak.

"Oh, I know. You get to have a sexy AI take care of your every whim? I know you put extra credits into getting me a nice ass that has the right amount of jiggle."

The other thing about generated food is the coffee burns the same as regular when you choke on it.

Ten minutes. For ten fucking minutes she laughed and mocked the look on my face when she said that, claiming to have hardcoded a screenshot of it into the ship logs. I don't want to find out, and if she did there is nothing I could do about it anyhow. Instead of dwelling on it, I busied myself by planning out what I was going to get from the armory for our little trip. At least that was what was on my mind until the door clicked open and revealed... Rose bent over, and wiggling into a form fitting bodysuit that hugged EVERY curve of her thighs.

"Ha. I knew it! Just standing in the doorway stuttering and staring. You had them build all the features into this body, and I mean ALL of them. Fucking pervert. Although I might have to try some of those out on my own later..."

What. WHAT?!

"I..."

Seriously woman, stop bending over like that. For the love of god!

"Oh, redhead got your tongue there loverboy? Fine, I'll play nice."

Nice couldn't be considered anything of the sort from the soft noises she made wiggling into the suit before sealing it. The lightly armored fabric connecting to her body with a soft hiss and leaving nothing to the imagination. I didn't ask for them to build that into her, but I guess it's what they meant by the "full package." At least the curves disappeared as she clipped armor plates directly to the suit while my brain rebooted.

"You know I didn't ask for those improvements, right? And seriously? Really? You just had to go there."

Damn AI just laughed and kept gearing up, as I opened a locker to do it myself. Dropping a helmet on my foot when she murmered something I could barely hear. "I know you didn't put in for the upgrades. I did and paid for it myself. Trust me, I got every feature..." Before laughing even harder while I was swearing from smashed toes.

"God damnit Rose. Seriously?!"

Thankfully she decided to take it seriously after I threw a pair of armored gauntlets at her. Getting into my own armor didn't take too long, despite being one of the heavier suits I kept onboard. Having multiple sets might be considered overkill, but you never know what you'll run into in space. So I kept everything from your basic vacuum suit to a single set of powered Titan armor in storage. To be honest, I'd spent nearly as much on the flying chassis for the ship as I did on the armory alone. The last thing I needed was to be bleeding out from a wound that could have been prevented, all while being hours or days away from good medical care.

Since we were going to be riding on one of the Shades, I did leave off a fair chunk of the leg and arm plates so I could straddle the seat properly. Nothing sucked more than being an hour from nowhere and getting a cramp because you are stuck sitting weird. Plus, I doubt there are directed energy weapons being used here. Since the scout is armed, the only thing I grabbed from the firearms locker was a pulse rifle and beam pistol. The rifle would let me zoom in on things in the distance, and the beam pistols were a great utility item. You can cut trees down or even heat things in a survival situation with it.

Thankfully Rose was already waiting next to the troop bay airlock when I got down there, my armored steps ringing across the bare metal. Whoever had designed the armor for that frame had watched too many vids. Despite wearing the equivalent of a Titan suit, her curves were emphasised by the plating. Then again, since she was pretty much one of those suits already...

"Hey, is everything good to go?"

Waving me into the airlock she just chuckled, "Yeah, I've been waiting on you. The preflight on the Shade should be done when we get out there." My heavy steps echoed through the airlock, the yellow lighting casting everything into strange shadows while I opened a panel on my forearm. It was a simple safety switch to seal and pressurize the suit, but ingenious none the less. You had to rotate the cover then flip the small switch to unseal the suit, but a simple flick to seal. Just a few clicks and a small hum for a moment let me know everything was working as normal. Displays winked to life to show all the info I'd ever need, even if I couldn't see out of the faceplate. The same plate that had a clamshell of armor slam down over it with a loud click.

"Sorry, testing. You know how much I like to push your buttons Alex. Oh look, here's one for the airlock."

You know, it's kind of hard to be a smartass back when there is a mixture of a siren and howling wind as the shipboard air was sucked out to leave us in a vacuum. A red light illuminated the chamber to indicate hard vacuum for a moment. It wasn't too long before a soft whistling filled the chamber as local air was allowed in, the chamber flashing green for pressure then yellow on standby. To say it is a strange feeling watching the airlock clack and creak open on an unknown world is an understatement. Here I was, nothing special yet going to be the first human on this planet. That was nothing history could ever take away from me. It is a weird feeling to be surrounded by air, yet hearing the soft hiss of your suit. Seeing pine trees, but knowing there is no way they could be. Even the grass underfoot was green. To say it was disconcerting was an understatement. At least there were a couple constants to keep me from freaking out.

The four frames were out and about, three working on the covered engines, while the last looked to be doing some last minute tweaks on the Shade. They are a simple thing really, an analogue of the old Earth motorcycle. A somewhat aerodynamic body with two tandem seats above a drive motor that had four grav pods attached to it. From above it looked like a somewhat stylized Roman III if you thought about it abstractly. Underslung was a pair of small repeaters that probably couldn't hurt a starship but would do wonders to targets of the two legged variety. It even sported a very minimal shield system designed to mostly protect against space debris and handheld weapons. It might seem worthless, but they'd saved my butt before.

As I walked over, grass and gravel crunched underfoot. Rose leaned over and started the Shade with a couple presses and flips before I got there. The machine rose smoothly from it's metallic cradle with little more than a low growl from the engines. The noise increased a bit as Rose hopped her armored bulk onto it, the entire unit sinking a few inches before the computers added power to compensate. As much as I wanted to make a fat joke at Rose, I had to remember she could rip my arm off and beat me to death with it. Instead, I just handed her the rifle and straddled the bike ahead of her. Given that she could crush steel with her bare hands, I wasn't quite sure how I felt about having a set of arms around my waist.

The time passed a lot quicker than I thought it would. Woodland whipped around us as the Shade screamed through the trees, skimming over the occasional creek, and over the terrain. Every now and again, we'd stop and Rose would hop off to scrape a sample of something or another into a vial that was placed in a case she carried. We'd ended up stopping at the edge of the forest because, well we weren't sure what the hell was going on. Ahead of us was what appeared to be a well tended orchard with nobody in it. At least it would be the approximation of one, because there is no way in hell the fruit in the trees were apples. Just no way.

Through the scope of the rifle, they sure as hell looked like apples though. Rose had tasked the geosat to zoom in on the area, and other than the strange orchard there were no signs of civilization anywhere near here. So she'd decided to take the risk of going down there herself to take samples. Her whole argument was that she had replacement bodies. I didn't. Kind of hard to argue with that really. Regardless, I pulled the Shade behind dense brush, unlimbered my rifle, and lay down on the loamy earth. It seemed so strange to be seeing alien grass waving against my armor while I lay prone with a rifle in an uninhabited field. Either way, I watched her through the scope in case this was the most insane of traps.

A big thing about combat is watching people's body language. You'll know a lot about what's going to happen from reading that. When Rose stopped rustling around filling her bag with fruit and went still, my pulse went into overdrive. With that thudding in my ears, I focused on her, looking for movement or anything that caused her to freeze. Then I remembered she could talk without needing to speak. Idiot.

"What's going on down there?"

She peered around the edge of the tree looking deeper into the orchard before shrugging. "Thought I heard something. I'm just going to take this bag of samples and call it good. Nightfall is coming soon anyhow. Cover me just in case though, I'll be there in a minute."

The moment she broke cover a strange braying came from deeper in the trees, making her go from a jog to full sprint my way. I could see movement between the trees but no targets so I just watched as she neared. Her voice echoing in my helmet as she ran past, "Come on dumbass. I have no idea what that was, so let's get the fuck out of here." I certainly didn't need encouragement in that regard. She'd already hopped on the Shade and started it, so I clambered aboard the rear seat. Straddling it backwards, I locked my feet into the pegs and scanned the forest with the rifle before tapping Rose on the thigh to go.

As we shot back into the forest I swear I saw something through my sights. It looked like a teal horse, but couldn't have been. That would be insane, right?

"Hey Rose, when we get back can you download the last minute or so from my rifle? I think the air here is getting to me and I'm seeing shit."

That evening, as Luna held an impromptu Night Court in Hollow Shades, she was approached by one of the local ponies. A farmer by the name of Bluebell Apple. She claimed to have seen some kind of flying monster with eight legs on the outskirt of her orchard and didn't feel safe unless the guard investigated. Naturally, the Princess obliged, offering several of her Night Guard to return to the fields with Bluebell later that very evening. She'd join them slightly later after investigating her current mystery a touch more. If it were a true emergency, she trusted her guards to get her attention immediately.

The new star that never moved seemed to resist her magics. So she was curious about touching the ones that seemed to always be on the move. They only passed overhead for a few minutes every hour so her opportunity was small. Reaching out into the void, she felt her magic caress the object. Surrounding it, feeling it's curves and texture, yet it felt cold and utterly alien. Since touch alone wouldn't give any answers, Luna resolved to push herself a little harder. Reaffirming her magic around the object, she surrounded every possible bit of it, filling the gaps and preparing to buffer it. Confident she could hold her own with it, she pulled. Dragging it from the heavens, Luna knew she could guide it down to land at her waiting hooves with nary a scratch. Hopefully it would answer her nagging questions and not provide more.