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    By the time the ship entered the airspace over the comms relay, Allan had made sure to come up with a quick plan with the others. It essentially consisted of: they would secure the base, then, pending whatever was inside, Lucy would come in and begin repairs. Allan honestly wasn't sure what they would find there. Under normal circumstances, they would have made a call to the outpost at this point. But the lack of comms made that impossible.
    Every colonized planet had a worldwide communications network that was largely maintained by a series of satellites in orbit and ground-based relays. The level of importance of the world depended on how thick and powerful that network was. For a backwater planet like Lindholm, and for most isolated mining planets, the network was fairly thin. One downed relay, one damaged satellite could knock out a hundred mile radius, leaving anyone caught in that area in total communications blackout. Thus necessitating such missions as this.
    In lieu of a chat over the radio, Allan instead had the jump ship run a scan of the area while he visually hunted for anything out of place, standing in the cockpit now and staring out the front windshield. The place was an absolute desolate wasteland. There appeared to be nothing but cracked, packed dirt for miles and miles. No trees, no mountains, no bodies of water. Just a desert. A pretty shit place to have to live.
    The relay was laid out before him, exactly resembling the holographic image he'd been studying on the way out. He could see no pillars of smoke rising into the sky, no gunfire, no real signs of anything wrong. Unfortunately, he could see no activity either. Hell, for all he knew, the whole of the staff could be having a nap or watching a game.
    “Anything?” Allan asked as he heard a soft chime, indicating that the scan was complete.
    “Well...” the pilot seemed uncertain, “I'm not sure. Something's interfering with the scans. I can't pick up any life signs, but that includes this ship, so...yeah. Not really sure what to make of it.” He glanced up uncertainly at Allan.
    He sighed heavily. “Okay, set us down about ten meters away from the perimeter. Keep an open comm link with us,” Allan said. The jump ship came with its own mini booster, just enough to maintain a radio link between the team and the ship itself.
    “Got it,” the pilot replied.
    Allan returned to the bay in the back and sat down. The ship began its descent.
    “Well?” Mitchell asked.
    “Something's interfering with the scans. Be ready for anything. Weapons free,” Allan replied.
    There was a very slight hesitation, but as the jump ship landed and the crew stood up, they loosed their various weapons and deactivated the safeties. As the engines died, the back ramp began lowering. Allan was first, feeling the familiar dose of adrenaline entering his system as he brought his rifle into play. Only this time it had a bit of a manic edge to it. He could clearly see his team getting gunned down, blood on the air...
    “Move out,” he said. “Banks, stay with the ship.”
    Lucy put up no argument. Allan led the squad down the ramp and onto the baked earth. For a long moment, there was nothing but the raw, skin-crawling apprehension of exposure. He couldn't stop thinking about snipers and armor-piercing bullets. Nothing moved beyond the chainlink fence that creaked ominously in the winds that washed across the desert landscape. Allan let out a small sigh of relief as they reached the gate without incident.
    For a few seconds, he stood there and simply stared at the buildings beyond the fence. There were just over half a dozen of them. Now that he was closer, he could see signs of conflict: a window was broken out, a doorway was half-open and sparking, there looked like there was some kind of structural damage to one of the buildings.
    “Okay, get ready, something obviously happened here,” he said.
    Allan pushed the gate open. The squeak it made