to fall short of success or achievement in something expected, attempted, desired, or approved:
The experiment failed because of poor planning.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/fail
As I promised myself while staring into the Great Annihilator, I returned to ATHAIP PK-B B47-14. It’s a small system with three stars and a handful of planetary bodies, four of them being atmospheric, some with biologicals.
Just shy of arriving in orbit around AB 2 I fired off three mapping probes into the body and patiently awaited the results. The holographic canopy overlay lit up the planet below in a blue hue, darker patches indicating denser quantities of biologicals. Four different varieties of life were found, cycling through the various biological signals, I picked out a rough location that should intersect all the bio types.
Picking out landmarks on the surface, I flicked the cockpit display to combat mode, only to clear the mapping overlay and get a better look at the atmospheric show and tell. The planet’s ammonia atmosphere was atmospheric to say the least, a blood red fading into dusty orange, then a light blue green as it seeped into the black of space.
As The Hiraeth cut through the atmosphere, my chosen landing site came into view. It was bathed in a demonic crimson, the air too thick for the light from its binary stars to give any meaningful illumination.
The landing site was a no go, a massive boulder field consumed the area for miles around. My only option was to drop on to the surface at the edge of the field and use the SRV to traverse the hellish landscape and head towards the shafts of light, edging out between the peaks of the mountains beyond.
The SRV bobbed and bounded over the boulder field, finally reaching the shrouded mountain range. I headed for closest pass made visible by the streaming light.
From a hollow near the top of the pass, I took some time to gaze at the galaxy core, the rocks around me silhouetted. Even with an overly eerie feeling, there was a pleasant calm about the place. Something caught my eye, in a shallow recess, slowly swaying in the mountain air current, Frutexa Metallicum. Excited, I darted over and started scanning the genetic make up, two more samples and that is biological one of four in the bag.
Full of a new found energy and jollity, I leapt back into the SRV and raced towards the pass. Once at the summit I stopped again to survey the surroundings, it was just beautiful the way the demon light from the binary stars struggled through the dense atmosphere and licked the mountain edges with every shade of red imaginable.
The mountain sides swathed in light were abundant with Frutexa Metallicum, I set to scanning all I could find and soon had the gene sample catalogued.
After an arduous hour of rock hopping and scaling ridiculous elevations, I drew the conclusion that there were no other viable biologicals in the area. I would have to recall the ship and try further afield. But first I needed to find a suitable landing zone.
From the air I spotted a small valley, which radiated biological signals on the scanner. I set down a short distance away, deployed the SRV and progressed through a narrow gap in mountains. The valley looked shallower from the ground, so I increased the throttle to try and make up some ground and get to the head of the valley where the biological scans were strongest.
The ground began to fall away sharply in front of me. “Oh no, where has the ground gone?” I questioned my self. Not sure if my mind was just being slow in the moment or in blatant denial that this was in fact a cliff edge. Thankfully, some part of me applied the handbrake.
After the SRV stopped rolling, I gathered myself and looked over my right shoulder out of the window. Yup, that’s a long way down and it was dark down there. I don’t think the bottom of that crevasse had seen any form of light, ever.
Taking my health and safety and off-world survival lessons seriously, I thought it prudent to perhaps try an alternate location. Maybe one with less variance in elevation.
Opting for a large flat open area surrounded by mountain ranges and rather large crater, finding suitable landing was a bitch, but I got down. From the cockpit of The Hiraeth I could see Stratum Tectonicas. I don’t think my feet touched the ground before I was upon one.
An energy burst erupted in front of me, the stratum started to glow with a purple haze rippling through it. I had fired off a round from my pistol instead of the genetic sampler in my haste. Thankfully this, lets call it an error in judgement, had little to no consequences, thankfully. Unlike that time I accidently drew on a commander, before I could say “Sorry, I meant to grab my Genetic Sampler”, he had sent me packing with the Rescue Rangers.
After several hours of bounding about in the SRV turning up no signs of other biologicals, I called it: this venture was a bust. I got out of the SRV and took one final moment in this confusingly calm but evil looking place. Grateful I had not fallen into that chasm, nor been eaten by horrific nightmare creatures, I watched the binary stars locked in their courtship, dance across the sky.
The Javi Times 