The sleek, silver ship, "The Marauder" sliced through the atmosphere of planet Aton-X, leaving a trail of ionized gas in its wake. On board, the seven space Raiders sat tightly to their seat as the ship cut into the space.
The group of seven consisted of Logan Jace, Ivy Brown; Logan's ex and the only escaping colt among the group with a fairly strong ice ability. The third person, Jax, a huge guy with short dyed white hair. Of everyone, he had chosen a huge sword as his weapon. Lila, the only long range fighter of the group. Great with the spear and bow.
Mira was more of the most technically gifted one in the group. She had a pair of shot guns as weapons to support her team in battle. The sixth of the group was Zain, a rather gentle one, clearly a lover of guns and laser beam shooters because his body was filled with their power packs.
The final man was Lan, the group leader and the oldest of the group. He looked more like a family man because yes, he once had a family but lost them to the first invasion.
His wife faced a fate of getting squashed by a Zorth, his two children, two year old twins got hypnotised by a hypnotic Zorth. They all became Zorits and rampaged immediately.
His life wasn't the best and through the past twenty years, he's lived his life in loneliness until he met Jax of course. Jax was a surviving member of a group that had gotten wiped out during a travel in the space by a Zorth ship.
Lan saved him and they became friends until he was convinced to become a Raider too. His career as a space raider until now had successfully reached a count of twelve years, and for Jax, it was sixteen.
" That was really a close call Logan! We escaped but our base is gone. We are literally saying our final goodbyes to Aton-X."
" At least, it's better than saying goodbye to your freedom." Logan fired back. " If I had known it was them from the beginning, I wouldn't have attacked them."
" Yeah, good point but you should have called us. We would have handled it faster and better. Look, we don't hate what you did, but you could've done better by calling us, those guys wouldn't have called those Vanguard idiots. Now the base is gone."
" Great, great. Given a test and then asking for help, cheating? I handled it, it costed us all together not me alone. Guys, let's rest with this, you all knew I was pursued before you took me in, you should expect at least this much." Logan scoffed.
" Just admitting you are wrong, is it that hard for you? I really find it hard to believe you didn't change over the past year" Ivy glared at him.
" Well, good thing I didn't change, admitting also doesn't mean things will change now. We should just hope we find a habitable planet soon and take Aton-X off our minds." Logan said with a shrug and went to a room in the ship to sleep.
About thirty minutes earlier, they had almost lost their lives to the Vanguards. Whoever was on the other side of the call had noticed the one replying was fake. They came immediately, luckily, the group were already about to take off, but being space Raiders.
The Vanguards went all out, destroying the base and almost getting the ship. They escaped but barely.
Now, the heated tension slowly cooled down as the rest of the members either went to find their seats or sleep.
The rest of the day, according to the ship's simulated day and night. The group weren't active, only keeping things to themselves and taking in the reality that they were homeless.
A week later in space, they had formed a strong bond, had a strong family spirit with Logan finally accepting his mistakes. The one week did a good job of bringing Logan and his ex, Ivy back to friendly terms.
Their quarrels and hostility reduced drastically. Mira who seemingly had a crush on Logan was left out of the page as Logan didn't show interest although, he had politely sent her off.
Jolly, friendly mood went on until a meteor came crashing against their ship after two weeks in the space. It had somehow escaped their sight and redar and would have been very dangerous.
Luckily, the damage was minimal but they had to land the ship as soon as possible. To add further to their luck, there was a nearby planet, however there was a little issue. The earth's moon was at least thirty percent bigger than the planet.
They knew for sure, they should be expecting a lot of anomalies such as dangerously low degrees, low gravity and so on. Since there was no better option, the had no choice but to land the ship on the planet and hope they can survive until the ship is repaired.
" Repaired? Do we have equipments or possibly needed parts of the ship?" Logan asked ignorantly.
" Sure, the gift of foresight isn't for everyone. Thanks to Lan, we almost never get stranded." Mira answered him with a smile.
" Everyone, sit tight and brace yourself. This planet looks unexplored and we have no idea how this planet is on the inside. Thankfully, the ship can help us spot a spot good for landing yet it doesn't mean you shouldn't brace yourself for a rough landing." Lan warned the group.
" Mira, you have full command over the ship now. Just do whatever you can to make us survive this first." Lan ordered as he also went to take a sit and put on the seat belt.
The ship roared in the space and turned downwards, heading straight down into the planet.
[ Scanning for safe landing spot...]
[ Scanning Success.]
[ 5,060 miles to landing ]
" Wow, for a small planet, this is really a great distance." Mira thought.
[ 4,000 miles to landing ]
[ 3,000 miles to landing ]
[ 2,000 miles to landing ]
[ 1,000 miles to landing ]
By this time, they had entered the icy atmosphere of the planet. Unlike earth, the clouds was thick and made of insanely thick and cold fogs, making the ship have a bit of difficulty cutting through.
" I expected a rough landing but this rough? And we're still in the air." Jax grunted at the discomfort he was experiencing. The seat belt was barely holding his huge physique down.
[ 500 miles to landing ]
" Ohio, I don't have full control but we're getting there guys, the journey is 99% done" Mira giggled.
[ 5 miles to landing ]
[ 1,000 meters to landing. ]
" It's over " Mira smiled as she put her utmost focus on the control panel. She gained full control over the ship again.
Just a hundred meters above the ground, the ship was steadily hovering almost with zero difficulty.
As they descended onto the planet's surface, the ship's engines kicked up clouds of fine blue dust.
" We're here " Mira announced and went to pick up her gun and a control pad for an advanced drone.The rest of the team did the same, picking up their weapons, putting in oxygen tanks and then disembarked, gazing out at the blue desolate landscape.
" I don't know what to make of this planet, it feels like a desert but just overwhelming and beautiful. Looks like we're walking on a sea of sand." Mira noted.
" Looks like we have a light house tower on the sandy sea." Jax said out loud with a smile.
Right in front of them, about a kilometer away was a massive and ancient looking tower, its peak shrouded in a swirling vortex of grey mist.
" Welcome to Grey, folks," Lila announced, consulting her data pad. "This tower's been marked as dormant by the UVC. Should be an easy score."
" Seems like we aren't the first to be here then, I doubt there is anything worthwhile there." Jax pouted his lips.
" You sure, all I see is a tower calling upon us to come and check it out, a kilometer journey would be soo little if we end up getting unexpected techs."
Logan looked around nervously. " Uh, guys? You should send the drone to scout the tower out. Aside from that fog, It does looks... alive."
Jax chuckled. "Don't worry, kid. It's just the wind. Or the planet's way of telling us to bugger off."
" Well, a little bit of scouting will do right now. It'll take a couple of minutes, our drone is latest tech." Mira smiled and took a seat on one of the wings of the ship and got to work.
About seven minutes later, the drone was already in the vicinity of the tower. Under the control of Mira, it went downwards, looking out for a possible entrance to the tower.
" Looks like we have an entrance to the tower, a small door but I see something." Mira announced and the others went to watch the video footage being shared to another pad.
" Move closer " Lan ordered.
" Copy that!"
The drone moved closer to the walls of the tower. they noticed strange, glowing symbols etched into the walls. The air around them seemed to vibrate against the drone, as if to push it off.
"This place is seriously freaky and yep, maybe ancient," Jax said, eyes wide with excitement. "I love it."
" Does the word dangerous ever appear in your dictionary?" Ivy sneered at him.
The drone went further, capturing the surroundings of the tower, there was nothing noticeable other than the blue dusts and a couple of junks on the ground.
" I'll call this safe to explore." Lan said.
" Going now?" Jax asked.
" Based on the day and night stimulation on the ship, This should be the tenth hour of the morning. I guess it's not bad going there now, if the day system is the same here as on Aton-X, then we have about twelve hours before night time.
" Alright then, we take our spare bikes. We don't want to risk being chased by some hidden beast on foot." Lan ordered and went into the ship with the others.
A couple of minutes later, seven bikes zoomed out of the ship with Lan taking the lead.
" On my lead! " Lan shouted, looking at his group members in the eye.
" Three, two, one! Go!"
" Let's do this!" Jax yelled as the bikes simultaneously zoomed off into the distance leaving a cloud of blue dust on their trail.