Sector 4, Planet -UNCHARTERED-

The ZRS Batruka and a single frigate hyperdrives some distance away, and activates its sublight thrusters. It accelerates forward and gradually adjusts itself into a distant orbit.

Four short alarms sound off in the ship, and a monotone female voice says over the intercom,"Unidentified ships detected. " Captain Zygboyum glances upward at the intercom, then down to the planet. She speaks to her Lieutenant,"Triangulate those energy readings and ready the investigations team. I want them in their dropship and ready to land in 10. Hail those unidentified ships as well. Galaxy's so large yet you're bound to bump into some pedestrians. Funny how that works." The Lieutenant nods curtly and turns away, relaying the orders to the crew.

The ZRS Batruka hails the fleet, a young crewman's voice dictating from a script,"Eto eskadrastiy Resputblika Zeleniy. Identiroya sebka."

Tokugawa turns to his comscreen, raising a brow, recieving the hail, he sends a hail back to the Batruka,

"Uh, please speak scientific common, our translators do not have a good run down on your language, I suppose you asked us to identify ourselves?

I am Captain Tokugawa of the Cruiser class Taihou's sermon of the Nichi Empire. We came down here from orders of the Divine Emperor to investigate these odd energy readings we got from a star scanner we sent here. I suppose your people are investigating as well?"

(Post at 11:52pm at night, won't be posting for like 12hours or so, got school and will try to post in c++ class.)

A crewman looks up from his console, taking his headset off,"Kaptionniy, language is identified as human but not logged anywhere. The only human language we have is English." The Captain looks over, then looks to the screens. "How quaint, a family reunion. Don't bother too much with them, just send encrypted code and monitor their ships. How are we on the triangulation?" The Captain walks to another part of the bridge, looking over a woman's shoulder,"We are getting close, ma'am."

A mysterious subspace rift opens up many thousands of kilometers away from the planet. The rift is quite small, nigh undetectable, and nothing seems to come out of it. The only hint anything is there are visual gaps in the starfield.

After several minutes, the rift closes. The extremely long, jet-black tendril that has emerged from it writhes about, coiling itself into a spherical shape as it drifts towards the planet's surface.

Tokugawa turns to his officers, "Continue scanning the planet and see where those energy readings are coming from."

He turns to his comboard, annoyed that the Zeleniy ships haven't responded to his question.

A small blip comes up on long range scanners, "Sir uh, er nevermind, must be a calibration error. I'll get that checked out."

"Kaptionniy, signal has been triangulated. Investigations team is ready." The Captain nods,"Send the dropship to the coordinates."

A Dadni class dropship launches from the hangar bay and slowly descends into the thick atmosphere. As it breaks through the atmosphere it flies towards a large atoll. It soars over it, looking for a viable landing area. The only option seems to be on the beach, as the island is covered in thick swampland and tropical forest. The Dadni lowers itself a few feet above the beach, and the ramp in the back opens. Two squads of 8 men in dark green and brown patterned uniforms drop out. The uniforms cut off at their fore arms, showing their grey skin. They step out into a semi circle, as a team of 5 civilians in similar attire jump out.

As the dropship flies off, the CO of the group turns to the civilians,"Doctor, we're 3 hours on the clock for our air reserves. We need to move fast to this location near the center of this little island. And stick close, don't know what kind of animals there might be here." The aging doctor, in a civillian half-face gasmask nods,"Very well, Lieutenant. My colleagues and I will stay out of your way for your part of the operation. Lead the way, good sir." They make their way past the beach into the thick brush.

The sphere, 10 feet in diameter, begins hurtling towards the planet at an increasing velocity, flames forming around it as it penetrates the uppermost layers of the atmosphere. It crashes into the tropical island like a meteor, leaving a sizable crater and destroying the vegetation around it.

After several minutes of dormancy, the sphere's hard outer shell cracks like an egg, and softer black tendrils reach towards the foliage. It takes only a few more minutes for the plants to become discolored, and begin to die. An invisible mist of spores is flung into the air, spreading to the other plants and animals of the ecosystem. Soon, these too will begin to die off.

Tokugawa checks his scan logs and the viewport logs.
He sends a hail out to the Zeleny ships.

"I think that wasn't a meteor, our scans said it was biological of some sort, I'd advise you to take crew off planet, we've encountered a fully organic race of some sorts and it was extremely hostile and relentless to acquire resources."

The communications crewmen stare at their consoles, listening to their headsets. The head crewman turns the volume down on him, muttering to himself,"I don't think they got it through their head that we don't speak their dead language."

The CO of the investigations group holds up his hand,"What the fuck was that?" His comms beeps and through static a crewman speaks,"Lieutenant, freak meteor shower. Nothing to be worried about, just a coincidence." The Lieutenant kept on walking through the forests, his men holding out their rifles in front of them. The scientists stood behind them, holding out various instruments.

As they walked on, a low chittering echoed from all around them. The group stopped, formed a circle around the scientists, and scanned. The chittering was everywhere, it seemed. Suddenly, from the brush, a large insect animal with eviscerating arms bursts out, screeching. The men turn and fire on it. It raises its many arms and screeches, being torn apart by the fire. One of the men doubles back quickly as it collapses, landing where he was just standing.

The men fires onto the body, its legs twitching. The men reform the circle and look around. After a moment of silence with just the odd trees swaying in the wind, they advanced onward. "Let's go to this energy thing and get the fuck out. I don't like this."

Back on the ship, the Captain narrows her eyes at the image of the atoll on the observation screen. She speaks aloud to her Lieutenant,"Curious that a single asteroid would land in that spot." Her Lieutenant glances over, offering no answer.

The cracks in the sphere widen further, and more tendrils shoot out, grabbing nearby patches of earth and tree trunks. With a wet plop, a large, black blob is pulled from the sphere.

Meanwhile, nearby fauna is driven to aggression, likely attacking any foreign invaders. The disease spreads further out from the "meteor."

// PS: Nice metagame Cakebread

Tokugawa shrugs, seeing as this planet has a relentless hostile alien on it,
"Alright, activate the hyper drive, we'll head out, see if there is anything else to do before we inform the Emperor."

The Nichi fleet tunnel through hyperspace fissures.

The investigations team pauses, and the Lieutenant raises a device with a little built in radar. In front of them is a large green dot on the screen. He steps forward through the bush and comes upon a decrepit and rusting metal bunker. It is right in the middle of the swamp. He moves his men forward, leaving one squad outside, and one in through the doorway with the investigations team. They turn on their flash lights and make their way through the damp bunker. "Seems like it used to hold water.." The head scientist comments.


They continue to head into the bunker.

At the meteor crash site, the globule begins to engulf the diseased, dead plantlife, as well as animals that have become lethargic in their movements. It grows rapidly in size, and begins emitting a psychic signal. Said signal is imperceptible to races that have no psychic abilities. The infection continues to spread, though the Republic of Zeleniy troops would find their progress oddly unhindered, at least by the local wildlife and the disease itself.

The soldiers outside sweep their weapons around slowly, scanning the area. It's eerily quiet. Inside, the scientists come to a large doorway. They enter, and find a room with strange, otherwordly tech. All rusted away and useless. But the energy readings point to one such piece of tech. It is the main console of the room, and it seems to have a sealed compartment. However, it's been subject to the forces for nature for who knows how long. The Lieutenant walks up, and wraps his fingers around the edge of it. With a great heave, he rips it open. A long, thick, chrome-like surfaced rod falls from it. It is open on one side, and appears to be hollow. It doesn't seem to be affected by the forces of nature that transpired for so long in the bunker. The scientist picks it up,"This is it."

They walk out through the bunker door,"Batruka this is Lieutenant Baristov, we've located the tech and we're making point to the exfil, over."

At the Zeleniy landing site, a small alien sea crustacean scuttles up to the dropship, and attempts to sneak inside.

The tiny creature manages to get aboard, and immediately hides itself in the nearest alcove, where it slowly dies of infection. Its body is converted to Mass.

Meanwhile, the infection accelerates at an exponential rate, reaching noticeable levels. Plants and animals, on land and in the sea, would begin falling dead. The original landing site is a web of black tendrils extending into the ground and choking off the nearest reachable plants.