Welcome to Gaia! ::

Furon put away the cloth and oil and slung his br55 on his back. He looked around and thought to himself "Why are we making such a big deal about this dirthole?" He knew that a colony mysteriously vanished 50 years ago, but it's a dead world. He pulled out another cloth and hooked it over his mouth and nose so he wouldnt breathe in the sand and dust. It was so hot here. He knew it was mid-day, but it didn't even get this hot on Reach during the hottest summers. He pulled out a little handheld pinball machine out of his pocket, sat on a box of supplies and began to play it. He had a feeling in the back of his mind that something bad would happen here.

Deep under the human building, in the darkness, another pair of green eyes shines into being as another creature wakes.

-What woke us?-

-A GLORIOUS HUMAN!-

~~~

Rasa and Rose both head for the comms center, to find who had sent the distress call. When they get there, Rose jumps slightly, staring at the mangled body of what looked to be a human. Whatever it was, it's spine had been layed open, and had been feasted on from behind as it lay accross the comms panel. Upon closer inspection, he noted that the bones of the body had been chewed on, and had cracked under the heat of the planet.

The back of the skull was smashed in, leaving only the bare face to work with, and even that was mangled. If this thing was human, the amount of bones suggested it was, had experienced a very violent death.

"Captain Rasa to all insertion teams. All insertion teams converge on the coms station. We found something."

Rasa stood back from the skeleton to allow anyone else to have a good view of it when they came in. All he hoped, was that the poor soul died quickly.

"I do not know. When the others get here, have some of the specialists look at the bones then clear it off. We need this coms station ready for activation soon."

He turned to look at Rose. She had the stark bleached bones reflected in her eyes.

"Rose. Go back to the ship. We can take it from here."

"Oh hell no! I'm your second, and your stuck with me."

"How big?"

Rasa turned and went over, his hand slipping down unconciously to his holster to grip his pistol. He saw the arm bone, picked clean and the bone scoured for any meat by something sharp. Obviously, one of the teeth from whatever devoured the poor man was still lodged. It was tiny, about the size of his thumbnail, yet still sharp after all these years.

"How strange... Just wait for the rest to show up. They need to see what we could be dealing with here."

"Right. We should have them double up."

He nods, then checks his data link, linking up with his ship's AI.

"Mala. Get on the horn and tell everyone to double up. We may be having some company soon."

-Copy that captain. I'll tell them to latch onto someone.-

"Good."

"More than welcome to. We could use an extra set of eyes."

With that, as the other troops started ariving, Rasa and Rose left to give them room. He headed for the power plant area, wondering what kind of situation they would find there.