Snippet #2816374

High above the skies of Xamoyos, there was a glimmer in the bright day sky. An entry craft had been dispatched from the Erikoure and was just now entering the atmosphere, the flickers of light coming from the entry-vehicle’s heat ablative paneling and armor that would protect the probe inside from the heat and friction of re-entry.

At a lower altitude, there was a dull boom that stretched across the expanse of Dracos valley when the entry-vehicle hit its final altitude marker and deployed a pair of retro-rockets to slow the descent. A streak of fire raced across the sky, until finally it disappeared below the horizon and came to touch down on a beach of Xamoyos’ Dracos valley with a thunder of exhaust. By the time it had landed, the entry vehicle had displaced a halo of dirt and rock nearly forty meters in diameter as the bus-sized entry vehicle landed.

Even with the deceleration, it still upturned sand and rock, churned dead wood in the landing zone into splinters and likely sent any nearby wildlife scattering from the sheer noise and commotion of landing. The entry vehicle sat quietly, slightly canted to one side as a landing strut found itself buried deep within the sand of the beach.


Next, there was a loud, rumbling hiss and pop as the burned shell of the entry vehicle was blown free, sending the large six-ton ‘doors’ of the entry-vehicle thudding onto the beach. As the shell broke free, the light was then cast down onto a platform where a large, alien vehicle sat nestled. This vehicle was the Primary Landing Probe-1 known affectionately as Puddles, a 3-ton, autonomous probe that had been dispatched to the beaches of Xamoyos. With a grumble, batteries began to whir and the large wheels slowly brought it off the platform and onto the soft sand.

With that, a radio antenna then sprouted out from the strange vehicle’s hull, stretching up into the sky as it sent its first successful message back to the Erikoure from the beach. Next, soft speakers seemed to crackle to life, before a tinny, short number began to play from them as the probe itself seemed to celebrate arriving on the strange planet.