PB2

Bridge of State of the Art

An alarm sounds on the bridge. Weapon sensors locked on the ship.

many scan artifacts here. It must have been heavily reconstructed
Markharovm

"Liz, we need you at sensors five minutes ago."

Runs towards bridge

Chakrabarti-Makkonen
sitting in pinnace

time jump, length unknown

"Guys...I'm planning on seeing if I can hack in to the pyramid. Perry I suggest that you prep several probes to accompany us, if and when we get below. I'm ah...in the Pinnace.....Ship? Can you start powering up the pinnace engines please. Might need to...ah...leave in ...ah...Hurry."
Vasquez
at probe controls "You have probe A2 running down towards the pyramid, Alex. Not much of a decoy but it will have to do."

Telemetry and ships log reconstruction
Sensors detect energy discharge. A blue-white of focused bolt of lightning reaches from the planet, missing by 1000 meters.

Scan reveals weapon is a particle accelerator of very high output. Ship is being scanned by meson array. Power reading from the pyramid #type mismatch#.

Chakrabarti-Makkonen asks for a signal to probe for data access below, and gets one. After a minute he detects something. It's alien working off of vigesimal (base-20) system. Its queries begin to adapt, bandwidth allocated has maxed out.

Lady Harding
at comms station

"Wha... is that thing firing at us!? Oh, screw that, I can make some noise too..." Telemetry and ships log reconstruction
Safety protocols overridden on communications for high energy output to break the weapon lock.

Another particle beam shoots forth from the atmosphere and rakes against the hull.

Damage to comms section, life support reads that Lady Harding received 90 rems of radiation.

Power source below has shut down.

Vasquez
lab section corridor
"I'm very curious now. Ancient weapons tech on top of whatever material that pyramid is constructed from. No matter what we've struck scientific and financial paydirt here."

Chakrabarti-Makkonen
exiting pinnace

"Helloooo credits!" "And perhaps a footnote in our employer's published research."

Analysis of Probe A1’s log
Scan of logs reveals that Probe A1 survived due to a near miss. Communications were interrupted due to a heavy radiation backlash. The particle beam from the pyramid apex is wildly inaccurate within 500m, and probably not too much more accurate out to 5km. The apex of the pyramid is some sort of crystalline structure, it is currently glowing a deep yellow.

The atmosphere is filled with complex fluorine strings, perhaps reminiscent of bacteria.

time jump

Markharovm
head of conference table

"With the ship over the horizon, we'll be out of line-of -sight radio contact. Someone will need to figure out the correct frequency of shortwave radio that'll reflect of the atmosphere in the way we want. It's not really my specialty."

Lady Harding

conference table "Oh, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, but we'll see. I'm finishing up some solutions now. Of course, we'll want to test it to make sure it does actually work though."

Ship’s log

State of the Art moves over the horizon after depositing drone A3 as a communication relay. Once in position the pinnace is launched.

Pinnace log

In the lower atmosphere a precipitation of sorts is encountered, but the increase in hull degradation doesn't stray the parameters. A substance begins to accrete on the surface on the pinnace.

Markharovm

addressing others in pinnace

"Right, first off, the things everyone knows: samples of everything. The atmosphere, those fluorine strings, I'd love a sample of the local wildlife but we shouldn't go out of the way for it because our time is limited. The material the pyramid is made of is the main thing. I don't know how we can store any of that without the container eroding but that's why Perry's the chemist and not me. Record everything, minor observations, irrelevant details, whatever; following Vishnu's example is actually a good idea for once."

time jump
landing site

"Yes good to be planet side. You'll be fine Liz. Keep close to P19 and if we run in to anything nasty keep him or the gun drone between you and it."

Heavy scan artifacts

Chakrabarti-Makkonen to Markharovm private channel

"Remember what we discussed. You have a gun don't you? Pretty sure there's shotguns in the equipment crate PI9's carrying."

Time jump of one hour, light artifact scans

Survival habitat ruins: Log of weapon probe Engel

A half-dozen slugs are crawling around the area, their long tendrils waving in the air or feeling before them. They grow still as the party approaches, and then slowly move together, except for one which quests forward.
The remains of the vacc suit can be seen in the ruins, where a slug is examining the helmet.
Markharovm

"Slug-like creatures. Fluorine-based, presumably, since you probably can't live in this atmosphere if you're not. I don't like how they're moving together, though. They might be some sort of grex."

"Vishnu's terrible taste in movies may have made me paranoid, but I'll keep an eye on these things, and see if we can get a sample. Can you guys check on the remains?"

Markharovm watches the spot where the slugs are gathering, weapon within easy reach.

Various drone logs

The helmet's face plate has been opened a sliver, and the slug there has stuck its tendril inside.

Drone A2 pings an alert. It has found an anomaly at the pyramid. One section is blackened from the crystal to the base. This path continues along the ground as far as the probe can view. The section is at its narrowest at the crystal, perhaps 50cm wide and widens to about 3m at the base. One third of the way up from the base in the scar is an opening 2.2m high and 1.4m wide. Bright ultraviolet light is pouring from it, at something is casting a shadow from within, a shadow that looks bipedal.

Continue to PB3 Y/N