1 Arrival

The ship shakes violently as workers fiddle with their fingers silently, some staring out of the windows with an empty thousand-yard stare. The ship's monotony is filled in by its ominous hum with the subsequent breaths of air coming from their masks, the sound grated by the speakers built on the outsides of their masks. One of them leans forward, back arched, the creaking of their spinal supporter startling some of the men and women on board, the rest of their mask wrapped around their head and connected with it, a scarf wrapped around it, knit tightly together by haphazard leathers and threads.

His splitting headache makes the journey all the more tedious, making sure to keep the rest of his scarf below his neck as it attempts to float above his head, tensing his semi-robotic right arm, it's clacking, and popping clicking annoyingly in his ear.

A gulping sound comes from his side, the shuffling of clothes letting the man know that someone to his left is leaning in towards him. He turns his head, a woman with a thick cloth thrown around her shoulders, bolted to her right shoulder, her hair poking from the top of her mask, a visor showing her sharp crystal white eyes. "Why did you come to Sakyu?" Her voice cracks from the speakers sitting in front of her mask, her eyes showing her legitimate curiosity.

The man, previously tense, relaxes, hesitant to say anything due to his irritability because of the sharp painful headache sitting at the back of his head. "The job was said to be simple, plus, the pay is good."

"It seems that everyone is just here for the money."

"Is it unreasonable?"

"No! Not at all, I was just wondering about why no one was curious about how the company hiring us hasn't told us anything about this place yet."

"Well, they did say a few things if you read the logs."

"There are logs?"

"Yes," The man places his hand behind the breast of his shirt, taking our a detachable tablet, scratched and old. "Here," He hands her the tablet, already having the information needed on it. The man carefully looks at his surroundings afterward, noticing the degradation of the ship, the haphazard design choices littering across the inside of its chassis, rusted panels welded together without much precision at all, though this is only a porting ship, going from space station to the planet below. The ship they came in on that headed towards the space station was nicer on purpose but he guesses that the shield generators can make up for its haphazard design choices, though the thought is still worrying.

The woman next to him repeats what she sees, "Indigenous races, rare minerals, et cetera? Is that all?" She asks, handing the tablet back to the man beside her, inspecting the ship's interior closely, testing the armbars to keep you latched inside, for you to grab onto in case of an emergency, seeing if they were really effective at their jobs. Without looking he takes the tablet from her hands, placing it back into his shirt, an odd outfit sitting underneath it that magnetizes the tablet, forcing it to latch onto his chest. "What are you wearing underneath all of those clothes?"

"Military gear."

"Like, a Militia Shield Suit?"

"That's exactly what it is."

"What, you expect to go to war here?"

"No, I expect there to be crime though, it said that there were in fact bandits in the logs, including some unruly people. Though it seems like they found the planet recently, it only means recently to us, not to the people there."

"I get you. How much time do you think has passed?"

"New for us is twenty years nowadays, been like that ever since warp gates were conceived."

She notices the lining in his mask, leading towards the back of his spinal supporter, the darkness of the ship obscuring the design, especially since there were no hanging florescent lights in a ship such as this. A thick leather neck brace sits upon his shoulders, a vent-like mask sitting onto his face, behind the vent is a skull covering half of his face, a breath maker sitting below it, two lines showing the speakers he talks through on the mask. The iron vent is connected to leather, the same leather is tightly pulled by the spinal supporter, securely sealing it around his head.

"What?" He asks, looking at her.

"Your mask is interesting."

"I see..." He nods, grabbing the bottom of the vent sitting in front of his face, lifting it up, the glass in between each bar turning into a shaded black - revealing screens where the eyes of the skull are, lights flashing across it in the shape of a HUD. "It can also be used as a visor."

"So, is that real leather? I don't understand how that thing there can attach itself and detach itself like that."

"Modified leather, you probably understand what that means."

"Yeah, the same stuff used for the Military, yes?"

"Yes, the same stuff used for the Militia Shield Suit, also - this visor here," He points to the vent-like mask, "It's similar to a gladiators helmet, specifically the Deepeeka helmet, its grates separated by glass, unlike the real ones that gladiators use though." He points to two iron sheets attached to it to makes sure to create shade since without them the visor would not completely protect one from the sun while on a planet and would let some light come in causing minor blindings. "It can be used as a sun hat."

"Why not turn on those shades that appeared after pulling it up?"

"Disrupts vision."

The ship violently shakes once again before lightly crashing into the ground, finally landing on Sakyu. Its metal sheet doors slide open, the sound of grinding making those around the ship cringe in pain. The man from before puts back the grated mask, the glass turning back into its transparent shine.

Everyone in the ship gets up from their seats, some using the railing to pull themselves up so they could stand. All of them, step off the ship almost one by one, some two by two. Some are greeted by the people, some are not, both the man and the woman from before are not one of them. After taking a few steps away from the ship, the woman from before takes a step forward, spinning on the balls of her feet to look over at the man from before, "What's your name?"

"Burn, you?"

"Van." She nods before joyfully running away, her curiosity shown by her body language.

Burn sighs, examining the environment around him. Burn noticed that the ship was directly outside the facility that they would be appointed to, noticing an array of massive buildings littered across a large desert dune from afar, noticing the cracked ground below him... this wasn't a landing pad, this was just a patch of hard ground sitting slightly higher above the ground compared to the sand dunes wishing and washing below, sand being picked up by light winds.

Burn looks back at the facility - a large blackened building affected by degradation over time, rust, and scratches showing its age even more than its almost horrifically put together exterior. A large metal gate with intricate cogs and piping sits in front of him. Burn moves to the gate, going back into the group who had left beforehand. Burn overhears a few questions, "Why is the gate not open yet?" and a "Didn't you come out from here?" Asking those who had met them outside.

"It's best not to keep the doors open long, that's why." One of the others already there comments. The door's cogs shift, catching the bumps in the pipes, dragging them away from holes that had locked the doors shut. The door creaked open, that creaking slowly turning into a roar, sliding open slowly, the wind being let in dirtying the floors of the facility.

A slope leads upward, showing massive hunkering vehicles, people hanging from the side of them, some sliding from the bottom of them, fixing and or tinkering with those same vehicles. Men in Militia Shield Suits walk side by side with one another, some are even in groups, heading out to the outside and pushing their way through the crowd Burn was in.

Another group comes out from the deepest parts of the facility, greeting the group Burn was in, the leader of the said group carrying a heart-wrenching scowl, his black and white hair and beard glistening against the sun outside due to its grease, that same shine coming across his brow. "We'll be sending you to your rooms, then we'll be telling you what to do here. That's all, you choose what and you work, simple as that," His grave voice grinds their ears. "Come." He motions to the group so that they would follow. A dark-skinned woman standing next to him, half of her hair being silky and straight, transitioning into dreads that were tied into a ponytail.

She nods to the group Burn was in, "Welcome Barbidi Maratross."