1:3:1 Rexel (Part 1)

Space. Their short stint on Illia had felt like longer but Destiny’s chronometers confirmed that only just over two days had passed. The Rexel system was ahead of them. Orbiting the Rexian sun, further out than any of the other planets, a ring of space stations protected the system. Lore brought The Destiny to a stop as one of the stations crossed their path. A scanning beam fired from the station and crossed The Destiny’s hull. Without a word exchanged, the station attached a magnetic lasso to the ship’s hull and dragged them across the station’s orbit path. As The Destiny crossed the threshold, a flash of light flickered across the viewport nearly triggering their defensive systems. The lasso detached; Lore took that as their cue to continue to their destination. They rechecked their star charts and reset their course for the fifth planet in the system. The tablet updated as they crossed the orbital path of the seventh planet; there was only one goal this time: Find Them. Lore was already unsure of how they felt about their alternate selves but this continuing vagueness intended as humour was beginning to annoy them. They assumed that their task would become clearer once they reached Rexel Five but a little more detail would have been appreciated. Lore moved away from the helm and retook their commanders chair. Char entered the bridge.
“Nearly there then?” She came over and leant against Lore’s chair.
“Almost. Haven’t a clue what we’re doing when we get there but we are nearly there. Hopefully we can find somewhere to refill on C-Sixty. Silus bled the drive core virtually dry.” Lore rested their hand on Char.
“Good thing we’re nearly at Rexel. One of the largest C-Sixty mines and refineries. How much have we got?”
“Enough to land but if we want to leave then we’ll have to get out and push. That should be enough to get the K.A.D.S. working?” They brought up The Destiny’s various fuel and essential fluid gauges.
Char chuckled “Probably. Hopefully we won’t need to leave in a hurry again but.” She shrugged. “Hang on. Why didn’t we just use the K.A.D.S. to get here?”
Lore turned in their chair to face Char. “You told me that using the Breacher would alert The Protectorate. The K.A.D.S. uses my Breacher so logically cannot be used without alerting them.”
Char gave an earnest sigh. “Space to space is different. In the vacuum, the radiation just reads like a Tempora star. They wouldn’t see it.”
“Well then, in the future, we’ll have to use it more often then.” Lore held their head in their hands. “Too late now, we’re almost there.”
“Next time then.” Char placed a gentle kiss on the top of their head before taking her seat.

Rexel Five showed what the planets of the Rexel system looked like in the middle of their lifecycles; its atmosphere was very much like Rexels One through Four with a singular, planetwide, black cloud shrouding the surface but, like Rexels Six and Seven, some of the surface was still visible. Char gave the planet a quick scan to determine the best place to land. The planet had one inhabited settlement which seemed to span the majority of its surface however, most of the planet’s population appeared to be concentrated in a space the size of a small town with the remaining life signs being scattered in small hamlets elsewhere. Char scanned for the point where the population was its densest and found a landing bay near enough to the assumed town centre but was devoid of the tell-tale signs of a docked ship. Lore began lowering The Destiny through the sooty soup of Rexel Five’s atmosphere and onto the landing grounds on the surface. There was a gentle thud as they made planetfall. Lore took that as their cue to leave the bridge and gather their crew. Destiny was mysteriously unresponsive to their requests so they took about it the old fashioned way. They began by searching the canteen. The room was nearly exactly as they had left it before Illia apart from the mess of food trays that had accumulated on two of the tables and the passed out clone sat beside a stack of bottles. Lore recognised the markings on his helmet.
“Magpie… Magpie…” They started soft but increased their volume with each repetition. “Magpie!”
His whole body jumped. A howl like a grand primate burst from his diaphragm. His helmet had obviously not been properly secured as the sudden jolt knocked it askew. “I’m awake! I’m awake!” He frantically scrambled to hide the bottles.
“What have you got there?” Lore could guess that they weren’t water bottles and hoped they weren’t alcoholic.
“They’re juice bottles. Each one has an interesting fact about The Protectorate. I was doing research…” He sounded as though this wasn’t the first time he had been in this situation.
“Okay…” Lore narrowed their eyes.
The door behind them slid apart. “What’s going on? Is everyone ok?” Ace sprinted in. Then they saw the origin of the sound. “Oh.” They looked to Lore then back to their sibling. “Tolan doesn’t normally let Mags drink those. Magpie gets too excited and then tries to find as many facts as he can.” Ace had seemingly perfected the tone of the condescending older sibling despite the lack of age gap.
“No I do not.” Magpie swept a few more bottles onto the floor behind him in a vain attempt to avoid Ace seeing them.
“There are, what, seven bottles next to you and a half finished one in your lap. No one needs eight bottles of juice in less than ten hours. There are two portions in each one.” Ace sighed.
“I didn’t know I was doing my Maths tests again…” Magpie joked.
“Right that’s you and Ace found so where’s Midpoint and Curve?” Lore tried to bring the situation back to normality.
“Curve went off with Destiny.” Magpie removed his helmet to wink. “And I thought Midpoint went with you?” He nodded to Ace.
“Midpoint’s next door in bed. I think. He came down to the locker rooms with me, we serviced our weapons together then he went off to bed. I joined him for a bit but those mattresses are dreadful.” Ace finished confused as to why Magpie was smirking.
“I’ve not really had time to use mine.” Lore tried to think back to sleeping in their own bed but came up blank. “But I’ll see what I can do.” Lore turned back to Magpie. “Did Curve or Destiny tell you how long they would be?”
“Nope. It was getting weird when I left so I didn’t stop to ask for a schedule.” He dry heaved.
“Ace, could you go wake up Midpoint and meet us down in the cargo bay.” Lore turned to leave. “Oh and Magpie, before you leave, you best clean up your mess. You can keep the bottlecaps with the facts on them if you want but I want the rest of it back in the fabricators.” Magpie smiled.

About five minutes later, most of the crew had gathered in the cargo bay. “Right then, we’ve got one goal and it’s a vague one. ‘Find them’. Before you ask, I don’t know who ‘they’ are or why we’ve got to find them but that’s the mission. Char and I are guessing that we’ll know them when we see them but it’s anyone’s guess.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Ace looked to their brothers.
“You three stay here for now. While I would feel safer with three fully armoured and trained soldiers at my side, we don’t know too much about Rexel Five or their views on humans with weapons. Just looking at your gear might be enough for them to kick us off the planet. We’re going to play this one safe and go in low profile. Char and I will do some quick recon then, once we know a little more about the locals, we’ll come back and get you.”
“Hopefully Destiny and Curve will be ready by then.” Char chimed in.
“We’ll be ready anyway.” Ace affirmed.
“Good. Make sure your medkits are ready for lung trauma. Our data says there are low concentrations of some rather nasty gasses in the atmosphere. Shouldn’t be an immediate problem but we’re going to try and minimise exposure. Would be nice if we were ready for anything.” Lore nodded to them as they lowered the docking ramp.

The pad they had landed on was ramshackle and well past the thirtieth anniversary of its official inspection date but it seemed to be holding. Lore was hesitant to leave The Destiny there but it was one of the better options they had. Unlike Illia, they didn’t have the element of ignorance to rely on. The smell of ozone hit them first as they disembarked. Their engines had created a clearing in the sea of smog that enveloped the rest of the docks giving them a few metres of clear vision before things got cloudy; while their vision was impaired, they could see that there assumptions were correct and that were no other ships in the other docking bays. Lore tapped at their glasses, toggling the map function allowing them a little bit of foresight concerning their surroundings. Confident that they wouldn’t soon be discovered, Lore and Char took their first steps into the mists. It was one step too many. The somewhat pleasant ozone was immediately replaced with the tang of metal and a scent similar to spent matches. The whole planet smelt as though it had been aflame. Lore took to breathing through their mouth, their nose clamped shut by their thumb and fore finger but that introduced them to a whole different world of pain; to compensate for the lost airway, they had subconsciously began taking deeper and deeper breaths. The docks were relatively flat compared to the area ahead of them. While it was home to nearly a quarter of a million people, the main settlement itself was barely bigger than Celreagaire. It had fewer buildings too, they were just much taller. A citadel of steel skyscrapers, the peaks of which were consumed by the smog, seemed to be their next destination. Not too far from the docks, a short walk through the steely jungle, the settlement’s main hub waited. It resembled a square donut with the gap in the middle being represented by a huge square shaft that seemed to have no bottom; smog gnawed metal railings did their best to prevent people from falling in but, despite the effort, failed in places. The other side of the square was obscured by the fog but looked to be a walkable distance from where they had entered. With the tall buildings and the soot stained sky and the lingering smog, Lore couldn’t help but feel claustrophobic. The local populous didn’t help with that feeling as human and Rexian alike went about their days. Lore noticed something immediately, they were woefully underdressed. While the Rexians seemed to be showing as much or as little skin as they felt like, the humans were quite the opposite. Their faces were almost completely obscured by out of date ventilation technology and shawls. Their hands were gloved and their trousers tucked into their boots. Their faces and bodies seemed to merge into one another giving them an almost alien look. Lore couldn’t tell if they were being paranoid but the locals seemed to be weirdly curious about them, staring as they walked past. The metallic tang of the smog remained but now it was being joined by another, more familiar taste of metal. They had been walking for perhaps half an hour before Lore fell and Char had begun running back to The Destiny’s collapsing bubble of ozone rich air.
Char threw Lore at the cargo bay floor before frantically ripping out any and every drawer in sight. “I need a lung trauma kit and a scalpel.” She screamed.