Chapter10 into the gap
After some a series of probes, analysing and some tinkering Vlad is finally able to turn on and gain access to the alien computer, unfortunately much of the files are damaged and are lost.
Problem now is that it's encoded in an alien language with strings of alien symbols that looks like chicken scratches flashing across his terminal.
Vlad stares intently on the screen
.... months later
After a series a failed attempts of trying to translate the alien symbols, Vlad was very frustrated and was about to give up trying to translate the alien symbols when he finally made a breakthrough!
One of the challenges is figuring what is actual text and what is Not.
For example:(Capital)i(/Capital)magine(Space)reading(space)like(space)this 00101110
The binary part is encoded in ASCII, it's just a period.
Now that's just a simplified version image it's written in an alien language and some of it is a bunch of 1s and 0s (basic machine code) as some of the text are heavily corrupted.
So Vlad will have to piece them all together and separate what's text, what's a picture, what's some other function....
Fortunately Vlad is able to decode the video files, while he might understand the screeching noises these Rat people make but he could still watch the pictures.
So after going through the video files Vlad is able to learn a few things from the Rat people that once inhabited the planet.
First, is the the heavy radiation is not due to natural or comic forces at work, it's was due to the Rat people themselves blowing each other up with an inordinately large amount of nuclear weapons.
Second, is that there maybe survivors of this civilisation left as the last few videos shows footage of the aftermath of the devastating war and a large scale excavation was being carried out.
The very last video was... what seems to be a commercial for an underground Rat paradise, unfortunately the pictures doesn't show any meaning full markers to indicate where the entrance to their underground bunker is located at.
The screeching noises from the video might as well as have been telling him where the entrance is located at but unfortunately he can't understand them.
With nothing hard to go on Vlad began to carry out random large scale searches in hopes of locating the bunker.
Months passed
On a large irradiated desert
A transport carrying Vlad lands on a dig site designated as Dig Site Number 138.
The rear ramp of the transport hissed as the air inside escapes, the ramp lowers slowly before settling on the sandy floor.
From inside the transports Vlad steps outs and gazes at the excavated facility that was buried under meters of sand.
Now this facility itself is highly unlikely to be the bunker but it's just the decontamination , screening and waiting area leading to the actual bunker complex far below ground.
Looking at it's really quite large as it's the size of a stadium, perhaps indicating the even grander underground complex.
Without further ado Vlad walk up to the large sealed metal door.
Vlad examines it, touching the the large metal doors, feeling it for a bit.
It didn't take long for Vlad to snap out, he turns back walks away from the door as he was he's walking away drones rushes and began cutting open the door.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sparks fly as the drones busies themselves with cutting open half-meter thick blast door and Vlad watches with great anticipation.
It's didn't take long before the large metal door is cut open and a large metal slab falls revealing a dark interior.
Doooooonk
Seeing the opening Vlad signals the drones to go in and explore its interior.
The drones obediently did as its told and floats into the opening and began to explore the place.
As the drones did their thing Vlad began to sift through the streams of reports the starts to flood in.
After a while
Vlad finishes the last report and reviews the current state of the facility.
The facility is relatively well preserved with most of the system still functional.
The facility is equipped with labs, medbays, quarantine areas, armoury, mess halls, sleeping quarters....
Overall nothing of significant practical value is found.
Technology wise is while a bit interesting at the design choices but it's more of a novelty than any else.
In the mess hall Vlad found a few ruptured containers of decomposed biomatter.
'Most likely canned food' Vlad thought
Observer what what ever content they may once have would have long expired from now, Suffice to say Vlad orders a drones to secure some samples for studying.
....
After finally sorting out everything Vlad can finally proceed to the main course.
Vlad walks towards the elevator.
The old elevator is out of power and has long since been disused, naturally Vlad is very dubious if it would even work after so long.
So instead he orders the drones cut of open the hatch.