Galdate 6-8-5625

The jump to 224-694 prime was uneventful. While the planet had a normal gravity, the atmosphere was toxic. Despite this the tundra surface was a thick carpet of lichen and riddled with frigid oceans teeming with wildlife. However, terrestrial wildlife was sparse. The fauna had tremendous potential for plant research to improve agricultural yields and terraforming efforts. However, due to aggressive fauna, a platoon of Federation soldiers were present among the research staff of approximately 40 individuals. Enroute to the system, the crew read the situation report summarizing that several weeks ago a scheduled data feed beam to an orbiting scout ship was silent, and hails to the outpost were non-responsive. So the scout ship went to the nearest Federation base in another system to report.

The Orion’s Money Belt broke into the atmosphere and found a similar response. Complete radio silence. The facility was split into two sections, one being the army base while the other was a larger facility of labs and habitat structures spanning outward from a central hub. The base and research facility were connected by a long pressurized tunnel. Landing first at the army base, the crew observed heavy structural damage. On closer inspection, nearly half the base appeared to be melted or dissolved.

Once on foot, the group observed the damage looked like the molecular structure of the base was altered, being either fused together in odd shapes, or large portions missing. Pressing further the crew saw signs of a firefight with some casualties, damage from weapons, or horrible physical trauma to bodies. Closer to the research hub, the facility had makeshift barricades and blood trails, running only on emergency power. At this point a chameleon-like creature sprung from the ceiling. The group quickly dispatched the beast and Nexus 7 identified it as a natural predator of the planet, commonly one that hunted in packs.

A squawk came from an intercom, and Lieutenant Nico Slayton identified himself. He and other staff were holed up in a barrier pen. The group made their way to the area and found them in a research lab, securely behind a barrier shield. Lt. Slayton relayed the past events. They had met with research supervisors to discuss incidents of supply theft. The army had discovered for nearly two weeks, supplies (mostly food, some medicine, and basic ship maintenance items) had been pilfered off from the army base warehouse. More distressingly, it appeared a researcher, Dr. Neomi Faulknen, was responsible. Additionally, travel logs indicated off use of a land rover to a remote research outpost. 

The army lieutenant initiated a discussion with supervisory research staff, at which point it appeared (through security footage that could be recovered) Dr. Faulknen released a pack of predators from secured animal pens. The escaped animals quickly killed much of the personnel, and outgunned, the few soldiers and staff locked themselves in an animal holding area.  Contact was made with the rest of the army platoon and Lt. Slayton ordered them to secure the lab. However shortly after, there were explosions that rocked the facility, power was cut, and aside from some brief audio indicating a firefight, there was absolute silence from the platoon. After three days of no communication, the group of survivors were able to get out of the pen and get to a more secure area in the research outpost to wait it out. They had no idea what happened to the rest of the soldiers or to the research staff. 

Coordinating with the remaining research staff, and getting the handful of soldiers to a well equipped armory, the crew was able to bring power online to the research facility and secure sections to contain any remaining animals. With the base under relative safety, the crew got into a land rover and followed the trail of Dr. Faulknen.

They found a small research hut and two figures, a civilian and a soldier, slumped over looking out to the nearby ocean. Both of their helmets appeared open, exposing the occupants to the toxic atmosphere and lethal asphyxiation. The nearby hut was empty of any supplies. The crew noticed a small wildlife observation blind almost 70 meters from the outpost. Investigating further, they discovered it held a self-contained camera system which had recorded the surrounding area for several weeks.

The crew watched the feed with the remaining survivors discovering many interesting events. It appeared a small civilian craft landed a shallow depression in the far outskirts of the research outpost. Dr. Faulknen was in the laboratory and did not seem to notice the craft landing. Some time later, there appeared to be a small glitch in the camera feed, and after a time, Dr. Faulknen exited the hut, and drove off in a rover. This was followed by several days where she returned, with some supplies. One of these trips she was accompanied by a soldier that followed her into the research hut, and afterwards, more supplies appeared to be shuttled to the outpost by both of them. 

The day of the incident, they drove to the outpost and made several trips driving off towards the direction of the ship, apparently ferrying supplies to that location. Once done, they entered the research hut, after several minutes they exited, sat down overlooking the ocean, and opened their helmets. The only notable event was the craft launching into orbit shortly after, but it was preceded minutes earlier with an anomaly in the camera feed. It was only a microsecond but the camera feed appeared to skip, as if from a power surge. It was such a brief time it would likely never be detected, but Nexus 7 had observed something similar in the Aldeirook system. 

Back at the base, the survivors were able to piece together some security footage. It appeared that three aliens in power armor, adapted with multiple appendages and legs attacked the interior. This was after several unusual power surges and ordinance hits. Caught between the attackers and escaped creatures, the platoon were unable to survive the engagement. Seemingly the escaped native creatures impeded any further advancement from the aliens and they retreated, followed shortly by another unusual power surge. The 8 researchers and 3 soldiers along with Lt. Slayton implored the crew to get them off planet and to the nearest federation system. The group agreed and with the remaining survivors of 224-694 prime, jumped out of the system.

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