"...flowers?" Erka mused beneath his helmet. "I'm not a yellow stinger wasp, elf." He replied, though didn't seem too upset with the gesture. Ah, such naive things elves were. They didn't know they were basically the butt of every Myrkith joke back home these days with how they've shown themselves. Honestly? Erka had a soft spot for them, but he wasn't going to say anything about that. "But thanks...though I don't have anywhere to put them on the ship. Perhaps I'll plant them in the garden later." About that time, Harisa and Malia arrived. The moth seemed content to stay near the door, keeping a good distance between him and the other humans in the room. He gave a friendly wave to Erka, but for the most part seemed to keep to himself - until Jess and the Captain entered.

"Ah...human..." For a few seconds, he stared back at Jess as she gave him a harsh look. Oh no. Ohhhh no."Gah! No you-stop!" For the third time that day, he found himself being harassed. "W-what is with you humans!?" He shouted, struggling a bit against Jess' hug, making more angry moth noises in the process. "Lemme go you brute!"

Erka simply smirked under his helmet, sitting the flowers on the table near them. He sure wasn't going to hold onto them. Kiri simply watched impassively, walking around to the back of the room while they greeted each other briefly for the first time. She'd let them get a little...acquainted before she got down to business. Soon, Harisa came to Malia's rescue, and Jess finally released him.

"Gah! You humans! Keep your filthy hands off my fluff you brutes!" He shouted, pointing angrily at Jess and Harisa, before quickly flitting over to the captains side.

"Well, if you're quite done." Kiri said, taking a seat at the end of the table in what was obviously the 'captains chair'. "Then we can get to business. First of all, I am Scarath Kirimik Drakat. Captain Drakat, Scarath, or simply 'Kiri' will do just fine. Since while this is a military vessel, we do have a few people with more civilian backgrounds here...so I'm not going to be too strict with the standard rank and file." It'd be far too annoying to have the elves attempt that and mess up anyways. "With that said...lets get started."



"I assume you all have a basic understanding of why we're here." Kiri continued, opening a few folders on the desk. Mission statements, documents, and other things she'd already memorized. "Explore the galaxy, and find new life. I'm sure that's what they told you." Malia took a seat on the other side of the captain, eager to finally be out of the clutches of those humans.

"Simple enough mission statement, not so much in execution. Finding life - and making contact is going to be quite the difficult challenge. If the Myrkith's own history is anything to go by, it will likely never be an entirely simple thing to solve." Her eyes glanced over to each of the gathered individuals, folding her hands in front of her and resting her elbows on the desk. "Which is why I've asked each of you to come. I consider most of you," Her eyes lingered slightly longer on the elves. "To be some of the best in your fields, so with a little luck we can avoid starting a war or otherwise bad relations with another race should we find one." She paused a moment, but not long enough for an interruption.

"However - we are also out here to discover colonizable planets for the confederacy. As well as any planet that looks like it might have some history or ruins of some ancient civilization on it for study and documentation." she paused, giving them a moment to ask questions or interrupt should they wish.

Dazzlefalls seemed a little saddened by the exchange with the elf - though perked up when the ant-man mentioned planting them in the garden later. What a wonderful gesture! The clumsy elven biologist smiled just slightly before walking away. That had been a positive interaction, right? No need to risk anything!

As the captain entered though - and completely ignored the flowers placed on the podium - the elves began to look slightly more nervous. Well, all the elves except for the eternally cheerful Dr. Heartcheer. But he was strange. The fey creatures relaxed slightly as it was explained that this vessel wasn't meant to be highly military and some of the sillier procedures would be ignored.

As the captain continued though, the elves looked among each other. Questions? Nope, each one of them had pretty much been told that was what was going to happen.

"Oh! Yes, yes! Question, question." Jessica asked, raising her hand and hardly giving the captain a moment to answer. "Do we have a first place to check out yet? Or do we need to search for ourselves? How much danger are we expecting? Do you think we're going to have to worry about some weird alien parasite latching onto our brains and taking control of our bodies?"[ Some of her questions were more serious than the others.

Harisa sighed at the dumb questions but asked her own. "How long is it scheduled before we return to Terra for our first full scale report? Supposing everything goes according to schedule of course." She was much more respectful about asking. Cherche meanwhile, stayed silent near Erka.

"Well," Kiri sighed at Jess' obvious...over eagerness. Such absurd questions. How were they supposed to know how dangerous it was supposed to be? It was an entire galaxy full of unknown places. Danger was to be expected. "The long-range sensors from the humans and the Elves clairvoyance magic have given us a few leads, but we can visit them at our leisure. For the most part however, we will be finding planets on our own. It likely won't be easy or exciting work, but it'll be necessary for our mission. I can't say for certain how dangerous it will be...but we should always be expecting hostilities. Especially involving any already space-faring civilization we come across." Pausing for a moment, she reached for a few papers and folders on the desk in front of her. "Especially on any planets we visit. We'll need to be wary of foreign pathogens and other extraterrestrial sicknesses...including possible parasites." She shot a glance to Jess.

It was mostly something to perhaps make Jess a bit scared, or at least mess with her a bit. The effectiveness would have varied a bit, but for the most part it wasn't too much to assume that perhaps they could come across something like that.

"As for our first scheduled return to Terra," She turned to Harisa. "In approximately four Terra months are we to return to Terra and give a full report. Once we do, it will be decided what the next goals of our missions will be. If all goes well, we can expect the mission of the ECS Stellaria to continue as it were."

"Ah, uhm, Captain Drakat!" Malia chimed in, waving a hand. "What about other aliens? How exactly are we supposed to go about making contact with them? Would we be allowed to bring them aboard?" He was mostly curious for fashion purposes, of course.

"That will depend on whether they appear hostile or not." Kiri replied. "The Stellaria has been designed to allow for up to around 30 crew as well as additional amenities to be added at our discretion should I so desire. If an alien species is friendly, shows no signs of hostility and otherwise desires to join us, then I have been given permission to add them to our crew - and I will take full responsibility of their actions on our space." Pausing for a moment, but sensing the elves had no input, Kiri stood, gathering those papers.

"Pilot Tearch and Kendrik! I wanted this ship in the air an hour ago!" She barked, walking to the front of the room. Erka was already moving as well, motioning for Cherche to follow. It shouldn't be too difficult to get the ship in the air as fast as possible, but it wouldn't be a good idea to make the captain wait.

"Helmheim! Yamada! Get to engineering and make sure there aren't any problems! Show Russil the basics of how this ship works! Doctor Heartcheer, familiarize yourself with the medical facilities on the ship. I don't care how good you think your magic is. Dazzlefalls and Sprinklestar..." She paused, trying to think of something to keep those two busy with that wouldn't involve messing around with anything. "...go make sure the plants are watered and taken care of."

With that, she left the room for the map room of the ship that overlooked the pilots seat.

The three elves left the room quickly, a little confused about how the ship was supposed to in the air an hour ago. Weren't they heading into a vacuum? After a brief conversation among themselves about this, they decided to let the subject drop. The ant didn't seem to mind this thought.

Sprinklestar and Dazzlefalls seemed to be content with watering the plants. The two of them discussed the first imrpessions of the captain, and worried about how the captain *completely ignored* the flowers that they handed out. Was the calamity still to fresh on her mind to be making friends? The two of them agreed that perhaps the flowers weren't pretty enough - or maybe there was something else they needed to give.

They agreed that before the first mission they would decorate the ships interiors

---

Sir Heartcheer - the elf did like the sound of that, but then again one annoyed human doctor had called him a 'hippie motherfucker' and he didn't seem to mind that either. The human doctor tried to explain the strengths of his own inferior medicine. Grabbing an example of this, the elfenkind lifted up a saw and observed it - the blades were very sharp and automated in order to permit a clean amputation. To Heartcheer, the very *idea* of an amputation seemed awfully rude, and at least a little painful. The humans lauded their cybernetic capabilities, but such things seemed ugly and unnatural to the elf.

One of the tables had a straps to hold down and prevent an injured patient from injuring themselves further. The 'doctor' found his thoughts going back and forth on the subject, but decided in a case with multiple critical patients it could be useful.

What the humans completely lacked was an understanding about the use of natural cures and herbal remedies, the true path to healing. Sure, magic was useful. But it could be tiring. Modern medicine from the humans always had side effects, although it could be strong. But herbal remedies were the *true* way for a patient to recover - using natural cures to whatever their ailments are.

Jess laughed a bit, "Geez, 'Captain' a little please wouldn't hurt here and there." Jess said as she snaked over to Malia and throw her arms around his. "Now then! How much do you know about our engineering? What's that? Not much?" Jess said, barely giving the moth time to reply. She cleared her throat and began to sing a bit. "Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of human engineering. Take a look, and you'll see, into our imagination!" She sung, rather in tune at least, as she pulled the moth along. Harisa sighed, gave the captain a salute, and walked after the two.

Cherche watched as Erka walked off himself, giving a small glance back as Jessica started singing and walking off with the Myrkith engineer. She felt... Worried, about this trip. Either way, this was the crew. Shaking her head, she chased after Erka, following him to the cockpit.

---

When the Engineers entered the Engineering Bay, Jessica let go of Malia's arm and patted him on the head before checking the stations and bringing up a computer, looking at the status of the ship. "Alright then, unsurprisingly, engine is in tip top shape. Weapons are fine, we should do a few test fires at some debris once we hit some in the vacuum. Shields are working and stealth seems to be working. No real experience with that though. Do you, 'Yamada'?" Jess asked her other human engineer.

"I was present for a few of the tests, but it seemed to work then. I did help install it too so I have an idea on that. It should work." Harisa said, examining their work stations. She double checked to make sure they had all the tools necessary. Power tools, plasma cutter, electric screwdriver and drill... "Well, we have all of our tools. So, I think we're good to go. 'Helmheim' can you go check the lab and workstation? You're the one that's going to use it the most."

"Yea, sure." Jess said, nodding and walking through one of the doors in the back of the room. There were two. One that went to the engine core, and the other that led to the lab and workstations. One to examine and experiment on things they found out in their travels, and the other to work on projects. The lab was as expected, fully stocked with essentials to see the properties of materials and all. The workshop.... Well, that was as to be expected too, but not in a good way. It actually seemed a bit worse than the one at home, though that might just be because this was smaller.

After her look over, Jess clicked on her wrist-mounted computer that luckily had a comms function installed. "Alright, Kiri. Everything looks good down here. Ready when you are." She reported. She cancelled the comm function and looked to Malia. "Alright, shall we explain some of our devices here to you before departure?"

"W-wah!" Malia found himself accosted once again. Jess threw her arms around him. "Come oooon, stoooop iiiit." He whined, struggling lightly against Jess' pulling. "I am quite uncurious about seeing human imagination! I can walk thank you! Faster than you!" Ah, sometimes he wished he was strong as a Belethus. Then he could easily thwart these manhandling attempts by these annoying humans! He was helpless as he was dragged off, however, and could only grumble along quietly as he was pulled back to Engineering.

"Urf..." When he was finally let go, he gave an uncomfortable buzz, straightening his hair after Jess had patted him. "Look, seriously! Can you please stop with the moth-handling!" he pouted, following after Jess, not caring if they didn't spare a moment to answer him through their system checks. He vaguely understood what they were speaking about, but for the most part was focused on making sure his personal space wasn't repeatedly violated without his permission as he followed Jess around, complaining loudly.

"Only if you stop with the touching-without-permission thing!" He complained finally in return to Jess' question. "Otherwise I'm gonna get Captain to...too....I dunno but she'll eat you or something!"

---

Erka quickly followed Kiri out, giving her a friendly salute as he made his way quickly to the cockpit. He sat quickly, easily adjusting to the seat and flipping on the holographic screens that displayed a variety of the ships data. Everything looked normal from what he saw on the screens.

"Hows it look on your end, Cherche?" He asked. "Main systems look nominal. Everything is functioning optimally." He used one of his smaller hands to reach for a few buttons on the side panels of the seat without having to even glance at them. "Thrusters...check, engines...seem fine." As he listed off a list of a few more flight related jargon with Cherche, Kiri watched from her slightly elevated perch, leaning over the railing and watching quietly, smirking lightly when she was given the all systems green from Jess.

"Alright Tearch! In the air yesterday I said people!"

That was the only signal the bug needed. Finagling the controls and taking a hold of them in a firm grip, Erkia turned to Cherche.

"I got it from here, monkey." He grinned beneath his helmet. "but you might want to hold on to something."

Before Cherche could exactly ask what that meant, the Stellaria lurched off the ground, hovering a few feet off of the ship bay floor. A split second of calibrating the engines and thrusters, the Antathlon grabbed the controls again, Slamming them forward as far as they could possibly go - and making the ship practically leap forward as fast as it could possibly go. The captain merely stood stalwart, whereas the others in the ship would likely find themselves being yanked off their feet from the sudden action.

The ship swiftly climbed, breaking the atmosphere in a matter of moments before Kiri's gave her second command.

"Wormhole Drive, Tearch!"

Finding the controls again, Erka used one of his spare arms to find the holo screen for the setting, starting up the wormhole drive, and in the next instant the ship was tunneling through to their first destination.

"I'll 'moth-handle' when I need to." Jess said. As the ship lurched forward, she felt her weight going back. Instinctively, she grabbed onto a small pole for just such an occassion. Her other arm grabbed the Myrkith engineer and held tight. Well, Jess should have expected this much with a Myrkith captain and pilot. She took a look back at Harisa... Well, she prepared Mag-Boots for when they needed to go to the exterior of the ship to repair. "How smart of you." Jess stated to the woman as the ship went into warp and stabilized. She released her hold on the moth and patted him on the head. "Hope you didn't mind a little 'moth-handling' there."

---

In the cockpit, Cherche was just glad she was sitting down. Her entire body was tense from the sudden take-off. Had she been prepared she'd be fine but... Actually, was Engineering fine? The Med-bay? She was about to turn to question the captain when she heard a voice come over comms. "WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL!?" The voice exclaimed, angry or irritated. That was definitely Miss Yamada. "Make sure you warn us next time you decide to stress the ship like that!" She continued. Yea, that was definitely angry. "You're damn lucky all the tools were mag-locked down cause it'd b-- Hey!" The voice seemed to be faint... Until another picked up.

"Hey! Yea... Please give us a warning down here next time. Or, you know, take it easy? Inertia is still a hazard even with artificial gravity. We have dangerous tools down here. Fragile ones even. Will be up on deck when warp ends." That was Jess, trying to ease Yamada it seemed. She didn't give the captain time to respond either... Well, there was a bit of time before warp ended.

---

Warp travel shortens the amount of time traveled significantly, and the time to their first destination was only about four hours, compared to the many hundreds of years on thrusters. Cherche had stepped away for a bit. There was little to do as far as pilots go during warp, so that much should be fine. The engineering bay had gotten their things back in order, though that was mostly their not feeling like jelly. She returned to her seat and looked at the estimated arrival time... Five minutes. She tapped on the comms unit set into the dash that called to the whole ship. "Ladies and Gentlemen. We are about to come out of warp, if you'd like to witness this first step in our exploration then please come to the front of the ship."

Whoever showed up on time was lucky to witness the first planet in the ECS Stellaria's history. What came into view was a lush world of green. Eyeballing the one side, it looked like 50% of the world was forest of some kind and the other was water. The planet definitely seemed habitable. There were a couple of massive mountain ranges though. Without a thorough reading yet, Harisa estimated they were likely the size of Mt. Everest back on Terra. In orbit, there were actually two moons circling the planet, one seemed similar to Luna back on Terra and the other looked highly metallic. Like a giant ball of iron got trapped in the planets gravity. There were two points on the planet one might call the north and south poles, though there was a very, very small amount of snow at the very tip tops. The planet seemed a bit hot over all.

"What a beautiful first planet to encounter. I'm excited to get down there and see what's there." Jess said, hopping up and down on her heels.

"I'll just stay and watch the ship." Harisa wanted to make sure she wasn't expected to leave.

"I wouldn't have even been flung if you weren't holding me!" Malia harrumphed, flapping his wing and fluttering in the air. "Ugh, just...stop please!" He whined, landing a few feet away. These humans really weren't making a good impression on him. "N-not that I don't appreciate the sentiment of course," He quickly corrected, brushing his hair again. "But ugh, you humans have such terrible oils on your skin. It's gonna make my fluff all oily." He grumbled. At least, that was going to be his justification for not wanting to moth handled.

"Haha." Erka replied over the comms. "Need to see how well she handles in case of you know, quick escapes and 'tactical retreats' as you humans say."

---

The Captain spent most of her time during travel making a few final clerical adjustments to some papers and finalizing some details with the Confederacy before they got too far out of range. After that? Sitting in the captain quarters and finishing that Soda. Ah, human stuff was simply the best. Made sure to check in and make a few rounds to make sure the elves weren't touching anything. Erka of course, made sure to keep the ship flying in the right direction, chatting with Cherche along the way. Malia mostly kept to himself, being extra jumpy from all the touching he had gotten from the humans until they finally got to their destination.

Kiri quickly made her way down from her quarters at Cherche's announcement, finding her way back onto the bridge and the elevated platform that was designed to give orders and directions from. As the planet came into view, she crowded around the Stellaria's viewing window. Erka pressed a button, metal guard plates withdrawing from the glass window and giving everyone a better view of the planet.

The world was green, lush and temperate from the looks of it. Looked to be 50% water and 50% forest, much unlike their own home which primarily compromised of a single large, tropical land and Terra. It seemed habitable, and with a larger landmass than earth it was likely to have air enough for the Myrkith to breath easily enough. And the mountains - easily the larges she's ever seen. Myrkith had its own large ones certainly, but they weren't sharp and craggy. All covered in vegetation and sloped gently until they reached their points. Two beautiful moons orbited the planet.

"Kendrik, Tearch," Kiri wasted no time getting to business as she walked back to the holographic observation display of the planet. "What's the planets readings?" She asked, not immediately answering Harisa's question. They'd need a ground team, and she was going herself for their first exploration...but who else?

Malia had elected to stay in engineering.

The elves let out a collective scream - Heartcheer in his natural excitement that seemed to replace all other emotions as the saw left his hand and hit the examination table. Was it broken? He hoped so. A nearly maniacal laugh hit his lungs as his light form was flung across the room.

Sprinkledust and Dazzlefalls were far more concerned - as the two small elves were flung across the garden the pots flew from their hands - shattering on the ground. The two elves screamed in emergency as they looked at eachother before rushing over to heal their comrades.

"No! Not like this!?" Why had the ship lunged forward so suddenly? What had caused this madness? Sprinklestar felt a few tears run down her eyes as the green eyed biologist grabbed one of the plants and began to plant it, extending her hands and chanting healing words to help the plant take a firm room. Sprinklestar ran over with her own pot, joining her fellow elf in the chanting. The plant glowed slightly, then paused and stopped as it was fully healed.

The pair turned to look at the other plants that had been so disregarded and had fallen out of the cart. The two elves began the dutiful work of saving their comrades.

---

The pair of them spent the next two hours collecting the other plants and tending to them, making sure to separate them elegantly but efficiently into various subgroups, being sure to use barriers to keep plants from the three planets separate. The insects had initially been concerned about bringing a couple of their larger plants aboard, but a small glass enclosure and periodic discussion with them was all that was needed to calm them down.

Finally the pair sat down and relaxed, only heading up to the bridge as they were told to. Having just woken up from a nap, both Dazzlefalls and Sprinklestar found themselves exhausted. Heartcheer strangely did not arrive.

The two elves yawned as they looked down at the planet, making similar observations to the others. The planet had to be hot, though based only the foresty biology it seemed similar to home. Dazzlefalls observed the surface, taking complicated notes while Sprinklestar simply stared on with wonder - a tired wonder, but wonder nonetheless. "Oh I can't wait to see it up close! I'll tell you all about it, Dazzles!"

Dazzlefalls let out a wide grin, glad to let the younger and more energetic of the group take on the elven responsibility.

"Readings." Cherche muttered to herself, trying to remember where exactly those scanning options were. There! "Hmmm. Sent the drone out already. It's reading an atmosphere similar to Terra... Well, rather, it seems like the amount of oxygen on the planet is similar to the Myrkith homeworld. Humans and Elves that go down will probably want to take a bit to prepare for the difference in levels. Nitrogen is in safe levels, similar in the amount as Terra." Cherche continued. Well, the atmosphere seemed livable at least. No real problems so far. "With the jungle and high heat on the planet, it's a bit difficult to get a reading of life signs of course... Well, to specify, high heat in the equatorial area. Humidity is also fairly high." Cherche noted, recalling the atmospheric drone. That was as much as that thing could read. With the giant jungle, I think it's safe to say there was likely life beneath the jungle canopy.

"So, who's going down? I'll go. I want to see what's down there!" Jess said, looking at the planet. There were some many materials possibly down there! Maybe ancient ruins of some unknown civilization! How amazing.

"Huh..." Cherche muttered, looking at her panel again. "It looks like we're getting a signal... It's really weak though. Give me a bit to look into it. Put that on the back burner for now, probably nothing." She added.

Jess nodded, "Come on, Captain, let's search the ground a bit! It could be great! Who's all going!?" She asked, looking around. Cherche seemed busy and Harisa didn't seem interested. Captain was going... Malia not so much... The ant pilot would need to stay on bored just in case. She then looked to the elves seeing what they were going to do.

Who indeed.

Kiri had half a mind to tell Jess to stay here just for giggles, but she wouldn't subject Malia to that. The planet had a breathable atmosphere, comparable to Kythphus. A good baseline for all of them, then, without suffering many ill effects on anyones side. High humidity and heat made it almost seem like home. Well then.

"Helmheim, Sprinklestar, prepare for extraterrestrial exploration." Kiri ordered, walking away from the holographic display of the planet. "Find us a suitable place to land and engage the stealth systems, Tearch. Kendrick I want you to focus on that signal - even if its nothing we should play it safe." She walked back to the platform, leaning over the edge of it as the ship began its slow descent. She'd give more instructions once they had safely landed.

Dazzlefalls remained where she was standing as the other elf nodded before heading over to her quarters - less than a day on the ship and they were already active! Sprinklestar headed towards the crew quarters, slipping W.I.N.G. technology on along with the rest of the technobaubles the other two species had provided her. Nervously she lifted the gun she had been supplied - something similar to an older human submachinegun (One of the last models produced). It still shot 'bullets' which they had since moved past, but with her possibly using magitech on the suit they couldn't afford to split the power supply between the two functions. Just for safekeeping, the elf also packed a small oxygen mask - it wouldn't be comfortable and was more of a temporary measure, but she didn't want some toxic volcano to poison her.

Sprinklestar walked to where they were waiting before they landed, looking towards the captian and Helmheim as they headed down. This would be fun!

"If I'm going to be paying attention to that signal... Tearch, I'll send you coordinates to land. I think I'm tracing the signal to the planet. I think there's a clearing we can land in. Try not to disturb the wildlife too much, right?" She teased a bit before giving the exact coordinates on the planet. As for exact... Well, it was a measure of degree north of what could be considered the equator of the planet. The latitude was easy enough, Longitude... Well, she just marked the general area and there would be some eyeballing involved. "Anyhow, it'll be north of the equator so it'll be cooler. It seems we're looking at some place near the ocean."

While the pilots sorted that out, Harisa and Jessica returned to the Engineering Bay. Jess requested a bit of assistance with setting up some first time equipment. "Alright, Harisa old girl, are you ready for the grand fusion of energy equipment and cybernetics?"

Harisa just sighed and pulled two bracelet like objects out of a metal container. "Just don't cut any of you fingers off, it'll be hard to replace those." The asian woman warned, setting one of the items on it's place... Jessica's arm. She made sure it was connected to Jessica's hook up node and it was suppose to be tight enough that it wouldn't slip... Though the node was great. "There's one." The second one was easy enough with the experience of the first. "Alright. Done."

"Wonderful!" Jessica said, checking the items herself. "I wonder if the captain will be amazed." She ignited her energy blade on her right arm (at a safe distance from anything.) A blade of light extended from the bracelet like device and extended for about a foot and a half. "Seems to be working. I'll check the ranged weapon later off the ship." She turned to leave, "Alright, Harisa do me a favor and teach Malia a bit about the systems sh-- He doesn't know about."

"I can do that." With the confirmation Jessica left to meet the captain. Meanwhile, the pilots collaborate on bringing the ship down to the ground level. After they break the atmopshere and reach a point where they wouldn't be burning the ship, Cherche switches the active shields to stealth mode.

As the ships lands, Cherche looks around from where she could in the cockpit. Looks like they were sitting on a cliff-like area that overlooked a beach. There was a giant jungle-like forest in from of them. The most important thing though... "Captain, we've landed. The area looks clear... Though... That signal is strong around here. I had us land here since I thought it was coming from around here. I think it's close by."

"I'll try and keep the wildlife in mind, ma'am." Erka mused, beginning the Stellaria's descent. As the ship began its descent, Kiri made her way back up to her quarters to prepare. No telling what they could find here, so they should go fully prepared. She wouldn't take her Scarath body armor - that'd be a little overkill and not exactly good for first impression should they run into some sentient beings. Checking her appearance one last time in the mirror as she still wasn't quite comfortable in the uniform, she grabbed the only thing she'd need - her blade and a small Hand Cannon as the humans would call it. Most humans would struggle to hold the thing with two hands, but its stopping power was almost completely assured if you hit your target. Could only fire two shots before needing reloading, but she was confident in her aim.

Everything else wasn't needed for the most part. With their comms linked up and Erka monitoring their progress on the planet, he should be able to provide support and warn them relatively soon of any environmental hazards they should happen upon.

Malia for the most part kept to himself, going over some of the schematics and blueprints Harisa and Jessica had given him, trying to make sense of the complicated energy related engineering equations. To say his moth brain was overwhelmed, was an understatement.

---

"How far is close by?" Kiri asked as she stepped off the elevator, catching the end of Cherche's assumption before turning swiftly to Erka after Cherche answered. "Stealth systems engaged?"

"Affirmative." The Ant replied. "If human tech does what it says, the ship should have a chameleon effect going so anything visual won't pick us up easily."

"Good." Kiri looked out of the cockpit at the landscape, leaning over Erkas chair, studying the forest's edge quietly. "Keep me update on that signal, Kendrick. We'll conduct a preliminary investigation of this planet. I estimate our away time to be anywhere between three hours to six - so if we haven't radioed in sometime after that, assume something has happened." She walked away, turning from the cockpit and heading towards the cargo bay. "Tearch, you have the Bridge. Stay Alert and don't let anything on the ship without my approval. Stay alert." Pressing the button on her comm unit, Kiri spoke.

"Helmheim, Sprinklestar, Cargo bay in five minutes!"

"Are we leaving that way?" Jessica asked. "Well. whatever. Guess you're the boss here." She added, shifting on her heels and wheeling over to the Cargo Bay. She made it there quickly since the Engineering Bay was close. Kiri arrived with the elf Sprinklestar right behind her. "Hey, so, we gonna get going then?" Jess asked, "How did you want to proc--."

The Engineer was cut off by Cherche coming up on Comms. "CAPTAIN! We.. Uhh, well. Two things. First of all, I've located the position of the signal. Three or so clicks northwest, through the jungle. More importantly though... Well, the terminal down there. I'm sending a video from the front camera of the ship." She sounded worried, so it was good for the three to walk to the terminal in the bay. Usually, it was for taking stock of items... But...

Once the video started, it showed the trees slightly rustling in the wind. Nothing seemed amiss for the moment... Until the trees started to shake unnaturally. A shadow became visible in the shade of the trees as some of the smaller ones were pushed aside or toppled completely. The shadow exited the jungle canopy and looked around. By human standards, it was approximately seven meters tall and at least 2 across. It looked frightening yet familiar. "The hell... Is that a giant toucan mixed with a dodo bird or something?" She asked to herself more than the others.

It did resemble some unholy cross between toucan and dodo. It's eyes had a similar look to a felines though in the position of a toucan's. It's beak and head shared definite similarities with a toucan for the most part, aside the spike on the tip of the beak and the apparent teeth that seemed to line the top of it's slightly open beak, but not the bottom. The brown colored lower body was fat like a dodo, with small stubby wings that in no way could allow it to fly. It looked around, as if knowing that something had been here. After a couple of seconds, it seemed to decided that there were nothing here and turned back to the forest, angrily smashing into a medium sized tree on it's way back. "A giant... Toucan Dodo. Can't say I expected a giant one of those things. Or... That it looked so ready to gore someone to death. Teeth means it eats meat after all."

"It umm, it's heading the way you're going to be going. I don't need to tell you all to be careful, right?" Cherche added, "Play it safe out there."

By the time Kiri had made it to the cargo bay, she was greeted by Jess. Easiest way out of the ship - the Airlock was built for docking with another ship or a shipyard. Inefficient and a security hazard to make multiple ways onto the ship. Some might also say it was a safety risk, but you couldn't have everything. Sprinklestar was right behind her as well.

But of course, things couldn't go so smoothly to start with.

"Look at the size of that thing." Kiri chuckled, folding her arms across her chest watching the video. "Hmph, if I wasn't on duty I'd take me home a hunting trophy." She chuckled, pulling the lever to open the cargo bay doors. "Don't worry about us, Kendrick. Focus on staying safe yourselves." She glanced over to Sprinklestar as the ramp leading up to the ship dropped.

"I want to be very clear - we run into anything seemingly intelligent, you let me do the talking. Understand? If not, you can go wait back on the ship and we'll talk about insubordination later." Her tone of voice was light, but there was definitely a serious and no nonsense inflection to it. "Lets move out then. Three clicks isn't too far, but we'll need to get to walking. We run into that bird, don't do anything reckless but we're not going to let it stop us either." Walking down the ramp, her feet were the first to hit the foreign soil

Sprinklestar frowned as Kiri mentioned taking it as a hunting trophy - it could be friendly, or have it's own brand of wisdom! The elf was curious and wanted to talk to it, truthfully. At least the human had a sense of humor. "Tucan Dodo" - The explorer couldn't help but let out a small giggle as she heard that.

The captain proceeded to say no one else would do the talking - the elf let out a small pout. Wasn't her title to be called friendmaker? Sprinklestar was about to protest, but went silent as she didn't want to risk causing another calamity. As the captain suggested making sure the bird didn't stop them the elf blinked a couple of times.

A second later a string of excited words left her mouth. "Do you want me to talk to it? I can talk to it! Maybe it can tell us what is around!" The elf then remembered she needed to be more 'repectful'. The elf's natural excitement died off. "Uhm ... Captian. B-But it seemed to be unintelligent so does that mean I should speak to it? I'd hate to see it hurt ..."

"No," Kiri sighed. She knew Elves had the ability to...communicate or something with animals on some level. That was something she observed happening, no scientific answers as to why. Something dealing with Elvish magic or something she guessed. "That toucan dodo as Jess so eloquently put, is obviously a predator." She continued. "Need I remind you the universe is far more dangerous than your softshelled home world is. It'd probably eat you before you had a chance." Kiri continued, walking away from the ship and towards the treeline. If it was a smaller animal, or at least one that looked much less dangerous Kiri might have given her the go ahead. But for something that size? She wasn't endangering the lives of anyone to 'experiment' with something.

"Who knows," She continued with a chuckle. "It might even taste good."

As the group left the cargo bay and peaked around... There was nothing but a southwesterly wind and the sound of the waves washing against the cliff they were situated on. There was a slope down to a beach one way, but that's not where they needed to go. Instead they headed towards the signal, through the jungle. The heat was high, though their proximity to the ocean helped on the humidity front. There were some signs of small animals. They seemed to be birds, though there was a possibility of reptiles as they could notice things rush up trees. Obviously, nothing wanted to entertain guests. If Sprinklestar tried moving close, they'd run away in an instant.

After about one click, they found something interesting. A wreck of some starship. A small fighter by the looks of it. Easily enough, this was not what they were looking for by distance. There was nothing growing on it, indicating that it was relatively recent. There was a small fire in the rear... Or at least, what appeared to be the rear. It was mangled up, so it was difficult to tell what the make was. "I don't think that's Myrkith, Human, or Elven. I'm not the most familiar with ships. Hmm, captain, did you have a camera or something? We can send a picture back and I think Harisa is fairly knowledge in that department. Did you guys want to take a look or move on?"

Meanwhile, a group of small mammal like creatures started to gather off behind them. They were cute lemur-like things that had a total of three eyes. They didn't look hostile, perhaps more curious. By count, there seemed to be five and all stood on their hind legs to get a look.