Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Isaac Black (Chief Armory Officer) in Main Sim - Wolf 359 Planet 2 - Pod 1 Survey Work

Posted by Ensign Elemirre Serinde (Engineering Officer) in Main Sim - Wolf 359 Planet 2 - Pod 1 Survey Work

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Isaac Black (Chief Armory Officer) in Main Sim - Wolf 359 Planet 2 - Pod 1 Survey Work
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
[snip]

Isaac walk over to the map “yes 2 of them one at point 6D and 8G. They are very deep and scans show copper and Iron ” he said marking the map. “As I was walking around I found a few tracks. I would like to leave some trail cameras down here if that will be possible tonight.” He said

Lt. Isaac Black (AC)

El mused over that. “Because the big cats come out from the caves then do you think?” El asked. They had no idea whether the ‘cats’ that were detected, while feline in some nature from scans, they didn’t necessarily follow the Earth norm. El had to think about that. This wasn’t their world. Well, maybe it was now, but the regular rules didn’t necessarily apply. A ten foot long cat is still potentially dangerous, nocturnal or not. They were not necessarily a ‘small rodent’ but then, to a cat standing almost as high as she was tall, well, she could just be a tall rodent. And they would be in their caves.

“How big are the caves?” she asked. “Yes they are extensive, but if the cats move around in them and use them as dens are they high enough for us to walk in?” She looked at the commander. “If these animals use them as dens and extended tunnels like gophers, is it right to invade them for the purpose of prospecting and mining?” All life was precious. As am I, so are these. As are these, so am I. Even distant from home that was so. They could yet learn much, provided they did not wind up as lunch.

A breeze stirred against her face, faint, but enough to feel it’s coolness and for her to see a faint rippling on the grasses. She felt the urge to kneel down and brush her fingers through the grass and feel the dirt, the dirt of another world. It looked like a nice world. Why didn’t anyone else want it before them? What was it that someone had said that she overheard in the pod bay, that it was too far out from their normal trade routes or something like that. New things were not to be despised. To approach something new was to have opportunity to learn, to expand oneself and one’s people. That seemed a .. shortfall on their part, but to Earth’s gain in the end. El looked up. Somewhere up there was the Sojourner, so small in the vastness of space, but it was her home and this world will be someone else’s home.

• El, Eng

Isaac looked at EL “ Most of the tracks I found do lead out of the cave systems and some by the lake. If I look around more i may be able to find a hunting trail for them” he marking the areas on the map he found tracks.

Lt. Isaac Black (AC)

Heather nodded. “Lieutenant Grey and Sub-Lieutenant T’Mera can set-up the monitors we do have to try and see where the cats go. Mark the map as best as possible Lieutenant so they know where to go.

“As for the caves, we’ll have to do our best to avoid just avoid the cats as much as possible. The teams back home is not really going to accept the idea that they have to avoid an area just because there is some wildlife in the area. Because that is going to be the way it is in a lot of areas. If we do want to rule out this area for possible mining, we are going to have to do a lot more extensive survey. That means going into the caves.

“Lieutenant Black, take Ensign Serinde and get closer to the caves. Find us as good of an entrance to the cave system as you can, and lets try to avoid the cats okay?”

Cmdr. Grace - XO/CSO

Looking over the survey and relayed scans from the Sojourner showed the closest entrance on the maps was about a mile or so away up a slight incline to their east. The entrance opened into what seemed a deep cave mouth and then from what scans showed would twist/split/descend into other tunnels going every which way. Life signs so far showed the big cats mentioned weren’t nearby the closest surface dwelling pack being a group of six or so about 4 miles off to their north and east.

GM CockRoach

Isaac got a rifle and went with ensign Serinde to do some recon. As they were walking to the cave entrance. “So have you ever been hunting before ?” He asked

Lt. Isaac Black (AC)

That would depend on what one was hunting, El thought to herself. She strode easily in a steady relaxed gait. Her muscles felt the gravity more now but she paced herself. She glanced over at Isaac. He was quite a bit taller than she was, and heavier, and she wondered if his leg was painful. Glancing down at her boots she noticed they were dusty and marked by the grasses leaving their mark on the dust. Boots were a recent thing for El; for much of her life she had worn sandals or left them bare given the southern climates she lived in. His question caused her to frown. In books she had read, there was occasional hunting and she thought it, in that context, dreamy. But for her and how she was raised …

“No, Lt, I’ve never hunted. In much of the world there is no need to hunt, to cause unnecessary pain to another living creature for sport.” In Manticore El knew that some hunted on the coastlands, or fished, and that for survival. Or worse things. She understood it. But she didn’t condone it. That was their path. She had hers. Her head turned to him, puzzled. “Fortunately there are no scans of these .. cats .. near where we are going. Were you thinking of ..” she searched for the term .. “bagging a big cat?”
- El, Eng

Isaac looked at her “ sometimes on earth there is hunting season. We’re parks open there doors to hunters they do this to do a population control of the animals. If they don’t get hunted they will breed out of control and eat up all there food and will die a long painful death of starvation…. Sometimes hunting is a necessary evil” he said as they got closer to the cave Isaac looked down at the ground and kneeled “ the tracks here are from the cats but what ever left them is much bigger then the other ones. I don’t see any returning tracks so it can be out hunting or getting water at the lake” he said looking around.

Lt. Isaac Black (AC)

El shook her head, her pony tail moving sluggishly in the extra gravity. “That is the easy way out, the lazy way, a justification. To kill something to prevent it starving is no different than snatching it from the jaws of a predator. The only difference is who kills. Do we not, as a people, have the ability to create balance in nature, where the natural course may run?” Her frown persisted for some paces. “What do you hunt then? Where is your home? Is it in such a place that that is deemed a necessity?” El knew of places where that was so but these days they were few and far between. She had read of some of the ‘first peoples’ as they called themselves who desired to live in a traditional way as hunter gatherers. More and more that was a rarity. Isaac didn’t look to be one of them, at least on the surface.

“There are none near on the scans,” El volunteered. She knelt as well, trying to discern what Isaac saw, but beyond tracks she noted little. Depressions. Paw prints. A hint of a claw. The cave mouth was good for her to negotiate; would it be sufficient in space for Isaac though? “I wonder what small creatures also make their homes here,” she said softly. At the same time her hand slid into her satchel to touch the thin cylinder she had there. But when it emerged from it she had a torch in hand.
- El, Eng