328 Contact 1

With a soft pop reverberating throughout the entire craft, the CAS-19 landing craft had detached from its docking port as Dax once more went over the details of their current mission.

"We're here to figure out what the hell is going on with that haze and hopefully neutralize and or capture it. If we can't do that we'll nuke the planet from orbit until the haze stops. Simple as that."

Dax's team for this mission was Solaris, Lux, Alice and Mu. Dax had gone through a fair bit of missions with each of them, so they were pretty used to the way he operated.

"Please don't nuke it, I would love to study it."

Perhaps exactly because Mu knew how Dax operated, she immediately wanted to make sure he didn't destroy her valuable research material.

"That's just the last resort, I would like to find out what's creating this strange haze too. But if it comes to it, I'll rather destroy it than let the Emergence or whatever other factions that are in play have it."

"... Well, I can't really disagree with that. I'll let you nuke it if it comes to that."

With Dax and Mu coming to an agreement, the CAS-19's autopilot lit up the craft's thrusters and altitude control systems as it started moving towards the strange blue haze which enveloped the otherwise unremarkable ball of dirt and ice.

As the CAS-19 approached and eventually entered the blue haze, nothing remarkable happened, the only real issue with being inside the haze hampered visual range, acting like a thick fog which only seemed to thicken as the CAS-19 started landing.

"Is this really okay? Can it really land like this?"

Understandably, not being able to see the surface they were currently moving very fast towards was starting to freak Alice out quite a bit, she knew enough about the current landing manoeuvre to realize that they were going to crash if the CAS-19 started its suicide burn only a second too late.

"It's fine, this craft can land without visual guidance, the onboard AI can approximate its current altitude based on the gravitational signature of the planet-"

[BRACE FOR BURN.]

"- See, just like clockwork. Ra's inventions are flawless."

Even before Mu could finish boasting of her older sisters skills, the CAS-19 landed so smoothly Alice hardly noticed it, even if it was a suicide burn.

"Deploy."

"""Deploying."""

As the rear ramp lowered the team's atmosphere changed completely as they rapidly exited the transport and spread out, but meanwhile, Dax still acted pretty nonchalantly as he walked down the ramp and did a few light jumps.

"... 0.6 G huh? That's way too light for high speed manoeuvres without reaction control thrusters, let's go with loadout delta, IMI?"

While Dax wasn't able to use elemental magic due to his lack of affinity, he and Mu had worked out several improvements, first of which was a new upgrade to his entire body which allowed him to not only generate mana within his body, but also cast none elemental magic without any external help like a mana interface, but most importantly the two of them had decided to double down on and enhance Dax existing strengths, like his extremely high aptitude for done control.

[LOADOUT DELTA ON FINAL APPROACH, TOUCHDOWN.]

As there was no atmosphere to carry sound, Dax and his crew only felt a series of dull thumps through their feet as a group of 12 large black canisters landed around them, in that moment Dax felt his vision shift slightly as he took a deep breath.

"Jack me in."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, 

As Dax entered mind melt for the first time in what felt like forever his aura also rapidly turned serious, as the landing capsules opened up like black roses blooming a series of state of the art drones deployed from them. These Lazarus drones were the first of their kind, each carrying their own miniaturized mana generator and mana interface, enabling them to cast non elemental magic without external assistance in addition to the suite of other weapons which were hidden under the featureless smooth and mat black exterior. 

[Move out, the estimated epicentre is 5.2 kilometres in that direction. Shoot everything that isn't us or our air support, then shoot it again just to make sure.]

With those encouraging words, Dax and his unit started their 'march' over the barren surface, that is if you could describe an 80 kilometres an hour sprint assisted by reaction control thrusters.

"It really is dead… Are most of the universe really like this?"

Spending the brief time they were moving to the objective, Solaris scanned the desolate, silent and featureless wasteland which spread out around her.

"Yeah, most planets look something like this, only a fraction even have anything you would recognize as an atmosphere and only a fraction of those are habitable, luckily the universe is ridiculously vast and still expanding so there's still a lot of life, but that life is more like the occasional oasis in a vast desert."

"That's pretty much how it is yeah, Dax and I have to spend a lot of our military career on balls of dirt like these, most of the time they make for a natural fortress as long as you drill deep enough into them."

With both Mu and Lux giving their input to her open ended question, Solaris looked around at the landscape once again, this time there was a certain sadness in her eyes which only lasted for a split second.

(If that really is the case, then why do the people of this plane of existence seem to constantly fight? Don't they realize that they'll end up destroying what little they have?)

As the group neared the suspected epicentre of the anomaly, the ever present blue haze only seemed to intensify even further, eventually getting to a point where Dax considered calling off the investigation, until suddenly the area in front of them turned clear.

(A so called eye of the storm?... Now what do we have here?)

Scanning the approximately 5 square kilometre area ahead of him, nothing out of the ordinary was visible to the naked eye, luckily, Dax could see far more than any normal person ever could.

[Alice, scan the ground beneath us for any structures.]

"Okay, give me a few seconds…"

Focusing for a short moment, Alice moved mana trough her feet into the ground with a stomp, before she could even report back Dax already knew.

[How large?]

"... I have no idea, it extends further than my spell can reach, but at least 50 kilometres of tunnels and over 500 rooms of various sizes."

Hearing Alice's report, Lux's face turned grim as she listened to her gut feeling.

"This smells like an ambush…"

[Agreed, we���re nucking it.]

Instantly siding with Lux's assessment, Mu quickly turned to Dax with protests.

"But-"

[No buts Mu, I'm not risking this team to spring a trap like this.]

Clearly seeing through the intent of whatever constructed the vast complex he stood on top of, Dax was just about to reach out to IMI fire support when something which was supposed to be impossible happened.

[Very sharp instincts, as expected of a pure blood… Or is it simply a matter of experience?]

All of a sudden an unknown voice sounded out over the communication system, this immediately prompted Dax to switch over to laser communication as he went into high alert as a light panic spread out through his unit.

"Wha-"

"Shut up Alice, switch to laser communication."

Luckily Lux also acted calmly like Dax, stopping Alice from sharing intel with the enemy as she scanned her surroundings, finger on the trigger.

[Mu, how the hell was your system breached?]

Asking the foremost expert on the subject, Dax glanced over at Mu at the same time, only to see a very disturbed looking Mu.

"I have no idea, that's what is seriously scaring me."

Having switched to a more secure method of communication, Mu only barely managed to keep calm as she did a full system diagnostic, finding no immediate sign of intrusion she started calming down slightly, although that only lasted for a second.

[Oh, there's a bio processor here too? I was sure they went extinct a while back. What a pleasant surprise.]

As the unknown voice once more sounded out over the comms system, Dax realized it was no use attempting to keep them out of their systems and openly addressed the trespasser.

[So, what do you want with us?]

For a little while, there was no response, but just as Dax was about to ask again, a slight vibration in the ground made him turn towards the centre of the haze free zone where something started happening. Suddenly the ground split open, revealing what seemed to be an elevator which was in the progress of carrying some sort of humanoid creature to the surface. Whatever it was, the bipedal creature wore some sort of advanced vacuum suit which seemed to be alive, on occasion the surface of the suit would vibrate and readjust itself like the outermost layer was constructed out of some sort of ferrofluid, as the figure emerged fully from the ground it raised out both its hands like it was expecting a hug before the strange voice which had invaded Mu's system sounded out once more.

[What I want? I was simply intrigued by running into some old creations, I'll be taking the liberty of running a few experiments.]

[While that sounds like an enlightening time, I'm afraid we'll have to refuse.]

Stepping out in front of the others, the instincts Dax had honed over his long and conflict filled life told him to run away from the creature which stood before him as his conscious mind agreed whole hardily.

(It called Mu a bio processor and referred to the two of us as 'old creations'... I guess as a qiton I should be happier meeting one of my race's creators, but I can't really shake the feeling that it doesn't have our best intentions in mind.)

From the few words they had already exchanged, Dax could tell from the tone of the precursor's voice that it didn't really see himself or Mu as living creatures, more like bacteria in a petri dish waiting to be examined.

[Refuse? Why I can't have that, mare automatons don't have the right to refuse their masters.]