The Basin

Planet XI

It took the scientists in the HTV a good 15 minutes to navigate the safer, winding path through the rugged landscape. The terrain was slow-going, with snowy outcrops and jagged fissures forcing Niko to carefully maneuver the vehicle to avoid any potential hazards.

Finally, they crested a rise again and spotted Sestero in the distance, standing beside his UTV. He had his motion tracker in one hand, swiveling around slowly as he scanned the area, while his other hand held a large pair of binoculars, trained on something in the distance. The HTV rolled to a stop next to him, its engine rumbling softly as it idled.

Sestero lowered the binoculars as they approached, a look of focused curiosity on his face. Whatever he had been observing, it had clearly caught his attention.

“Might have some luck over there.” He pointed off to the southwest a little. “I had a blip on the tracker. Can’t say for sure if it was a sign of life though.”

He returned to his UTV and began to lead the others in the direction of the blip.

The terrain started to give way to snow and ice-covered rock. Ahead the terrain declined into a wide shallow basin of geothermal pockets with visible hot springs and steaming cracks.

The HTV rolled to a halt at the edge of a surreal, alien landscape. They were about .75 kilometers from the landing zone of the Nomad. Before them stretched a vast expanse of mostly frozen terrain, a patchwork of cracked, brittle ice and snow-covered ground. The ice formations, jagged and irregular, jutted out like ancient sculptures, their surfaces marred by deep crevices and steam rising from hidden geothermal vents below.

Near the heart of the area, patches of seafoam-colored lichen clung stubbornly to the icy surface, their tendrils spreading out like delicate webs. Among these were clusters of small, pink, succulent-like growths, that added a burst of color to the otherwise pale environment. The Nomad’s first sign of flora on this expedition.

The ice around them was interspersed with frosty blue pools of water, their surfaces foggy in the frigid air, with soft, ethereal mists swirling gently above.

If they could smell the cold wind, it would have carried the faint scent of minerals and sulfur from activity hidden just beneath the surface. In the distance, plumes of steam rose from larger fissures, creating a ghostly veil that hovered over the landscape beyond. The scene was otherworldly, both beautiful and forbidding, as the team disembarked to begin their work.