About half an hour after the Mongrel ship docked alongside Hyperion, the umbilical cord connecting them was severed and left to float in space like a listless tentacle. The larger black spaceship powered away and it’s rear guns open fired, blowing the Mongrel to smithereens. The rest of the Dead Planet’s rag tag armada soon followed suit or fled out of the system. Next Hyperion bombed the rock colonies, eradicating anything approaching a workable space craft. They would need some time to investigate the planet without being harassed from orbit. Satisfied that there was nothing else threatening them besides the small arms fire shooting at them from the various ranches, Ganka turned his attention to the Dead Planet itself.
 
As a child he had always imagined what it would be like to return to the birthplace of the Tindrel. Truth be told the reality was less than amazing. The planet’s surface was barren, he was sure nothing could survive down there; Hyperion’s sensors agreed with him. He would take all the crew down there with him save a couple of essential staff, just in case. Their equipment included radiation kits, breathing apparatus, drills and guns. Helping them out was renegade Mind ‘Schixr’, rated a long time ago as a three point four on Humanity’s Artificial Intelligence Function Index. She had mounted herself into a standard humanoid droid casing; the main modifications were attached to the upper half of her body. Most prominent was the large backpack-like thing attached to her metallic back. It glowed softly from its own power source and made the droid look decidedly hunchbacked as it’s legs compensated for a seemingly dead weight. Less noticeable was the almost invisible crown mounted on her head. With seven points, the wire mesh that made it up appeared translucent but pulsed with the same mysterious iridescence.

Ganka marched over to her as the landing party assembled in Hyperion’s main loading bay. “So you know what you’re doing?” He asked, holding his Changde VII Laser Rifle to his chest till his environment suit’s magnetic holster took hold. “Of course, Captain. Do you ever think i’d enter a combat situation unaware of what my role was?” Schixr snapped, turning on the Tindrel who raised his hands defensively. 

“Sorry, i didn’t mean it like that.” 

“Neither did i.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I’m just nervous, that’s all.”

“Why are you nervous, there’s nothing to be afraid here.”

“Well you realize that fifty gunmen seems rather...extreme for a simple archaeological dig.”

Ganka scratched his chin, looking around quickly. None of his men seemed to be taking a particular interest in their conversation.
“Just relax, we’re taking a full complement to scout out the ruins. When that’s done they’ll all return to the ship and it’ll just be a few of us and some more heavy duty mining gear. Besides, life signs scans came up negative.”

“The ‘Dead Planet’ has a high level of lead under the surface, that scan would go down no more than thirty metres and you know it.”

“Well let’s just hope we don’t need to go down that far to find what we need.”

They were interrupted by the helmsman speaking through the communicators in everybody’s ear/Mind. “Touchdown in two minutes.” Everything was still in the loading bay, Ganka wasn't even aware they had passed through the atmosphere yet, let alone cruising a couple of hundred meters off the planet’s surface to reach their destination. Pushing his way to a raised gantry at the back of the bay, Ganka looked out at his crew. “We’re blessed with a smooth and relatively bloodless (there was a chorus of lewd cheering) journey to our civilization’s birthplace. Let’s try and keep stuff the way it was before we arrived.” There was a stunned silence. “I’m kidding, let’s fuck shit up.” There was a more characteristic cacophony of childish chanting as the bay doors began opening and Captain Sciarker activated his breathing apparatus.