Decius stares into the Vodyani's flickering helm. The entire being is seemingly outstreched within the shell; a beta fish if full color, flowing fins waving in rippling patterns of gold and yellow starlight. The commander stands before him, a flag fluttering defiantly in the wind, both beautiful and deadly in the same instant. The Craver cannot help but thirst for battle, however stunning the figure may have appeared to him, oh how he longed to see it in battle. He feels his sword behind him singing for the blood of a warrior, and his two brothers melting in their sheaths below him. A rhythm pumps within him. The beat of fury. Four arms relax into their proper space, finally at home.

Decius leans in close to the captain's head, completely alive. in a voice so quiet, so low that only the captain can hear, he whispers. His voice is devoid of fear, filled with control, and so strong that one could almost claim it contained malice. This was not submission. This was confirmation.

"Crystal."

After Dhanyl was ready for the expedition, after his suit was prepared for the cold and after he packed his equipment, he made his way to the shuttle bay, where he occupied his mind with Qout'dha, the sophon version of Chess.

That, of course, was an understatement, it was more like a Human Grand-strategy game with the little difference that every Citizen, Soldier and every Strategic building could be controlled in the way of an RTS... Dhanyl's favourite Strategy to win was to convince the Leaders of the World, in a massive Argument, that there was no logical sense in War and that he, Dhanyl, was the only one capable of leading the Sophon Race... Every member of the Conference was of course randomly generated and fully simulated...

“Bah, not a big fan of disclosing information eh?” Laudmas eyed cynically at the little droid. “Still, I’ll be the better person and not get too nosy.”  

The robot motioned a information droid to get closer to it. It hovered slowly towards Laudmas and when it reached him, Laudmas gripped it’s two handle (one at the top and one at the bottom) and opened it up like a scroll. Within the space, a holoscreen materialised. Technology indeed was very advanced and with a free select presses, Laudmas got all the information he needed.

“Unfortunately there’s no specialised tool to assist a creature such as you. I can strap on a device to you but that would be immoral and I doubt you could carry it.” 

The robot pondered for a second, regardless of what he said there was actually a device that could possibly help the Sower to detect and unravel radiowaves. However Laudmas still had no idea whether the Sower was there for malicious or positive intents. He figured that he should notify the Captain about this before helping out the Sower.

“I’ll check on that part later with the rest of the crew. For the data you requested, here you go.”

Laudmas pushed the information droid to the Sower. He didn’t mentioned that it was only locked to reveal data about the planet.

Suddenly, there was a beep. It was a message from Ylona. Laudmas grinned. He hoped that she would be at least amused by his sense of humour. As the robot opened the message, he was disappointed to find that it was directed to the science crew. Laudmas surely hoped that he haven’t annoyed the Vaulter. 

The robot stretched and calibrated his body as he finished reading what he said. The intercom was then accessed and Laudmas stated to the science crew:

“Alright, you seen what the nice aviatrix wrote to us. Liam, keep on working on that med-bot. Don’t scurry away. Dhanyl and the rest, let’s translate the data from the probes into something that would not misinterpreted as a Sophon doodle. I’ll handle Probe TNY_FAF_101. Dhanyl, you take care of TNY_SBT_101. For the rest, I’ll leave you all TNY_RNS_101. Have fun everybody.”

After that, Laudmas moved to a free panel and worked on the data received from the probes.

(( Naming of the probes is explained in the recruitment page. ))

"Lots of wind in the upper layers", she summarized the probe readout, "To be expected, really. It's going to be a bit bumpy on the way down, but that's about the worst of that. But check the exterior cam feed", Ylona suggested while pulling up the stream on her console, "Not sure if it's snow or fog or if it matters. Can't see very far beneath the clouds. I'll have to set you down close to an entrance, and when if you want to get out, I'll have to rely on radio."

She didn't mention her concerns about flying through a snowstorm, and possibly having to land on fresh, dry snow. It was not the kind of in-atmosphere flying she'd done before, but apparently she was the best one for the job, so to persevere she had. Besides, she'd checked out the shuttle after launch, and it was pretty much a sturdy all-weather thing, probably designed after Vaulter specs. It would take more than a snowstorm to make that misbehave.

As Ylona watched the first probe's feed at the moment, she only peripherally took note of the other touching down without incident and starting to transmit a very rich data feed. Hopefully, Science was actually listening and disseminating that feed for more useful information. She was more concerned about that first probe missing its target completely. It was set to pierce through the surface, but if it didn't hit a cavity, most of its sensor feeds would be useless. Thirty seconds before impact, she switched off the camera on the probe to protect it from being damaged by the imminent shock.

"As I feared, I missed the ruins", she announced seconds after the probe had settled into the rock and started giving deep sonar scans of the surroundings. "No wait", she interrupted herself, pointing at disturbances in the returning graph, "There's something. It's actually in a room, even if it's not very close to the center. These ruins must be huge. Obviously, no idea where the entrance is, but the path the probe made should be wide enough. It's quite hard rock, it should remain—"

"What happened to the other probe?", she asked, confused. It had touched down correctly, she'd noticed that, but now it had stopped transmitting for some reason. "Bridge to Science, what happened to ... the FAF probe?", she asked into the communicator, then her eyes widened as she heard the answer. Turning to Valorum, she announced deadpan: "Probe TNY_FAF_101 has been torn apart by wildlife, Captain. Laudmas has more details if needed." It was not a sentence she had been expected to say.

"Laudmas?" Dhanyl said after he lost contact with the Probe "Why wasn't the Probe Giant-Worm-proof? I mean, those things aren't that uncommon... although those are particularly huge. The one that swallowed the Probe must have been some one hundred meters long. Anyways, what I was able to gather from the data that was transmitted, other than the Worms there is not much on this Planet. Some small herbivores, a few Carnivores and an impressive amount of Insects in the Snow... The Flora is similarly unimpressive, small Bushes and a nasty looking Fungoid that looks to be around ten to fifteen meters high." 

He finished his call without saying by or waiting for a response...

Of course it was giant worms... it was always giant worms... Why?  Like it would be the perfect evolutionary form... 

"Note to me: investigate the evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of  Oligochaeta Gigantica"

Decius stares at Valorum's turned cape for several long  moments. The sudden disengagement was expected, although the Craver  could still tell the anger lingered within the Vodyani's shell. Decius'  pulsating eyes rotate slowly, monitoring the room, ready. The battle  still pulses through him and begs to be let in to his mind. Weapons and  movements to destroy everything begin to appear overlayed in crimson  about the room, the most efficient way of destroying everything in his  path immediately clear. He stops and forces himself to turn around,  facing the gunnery compartment. He searches the screen for several  seconds, and then stands again. His voice is almost robotic as he  speaks.

"Ylona, you have control of the remaining probe. I will go see to more serious matters."

Decius  storms out of the room without time for anyone to say a word, pushing  past the decloaking automaton. If one wants not to be seen, then do not  appear within line of sight of a walking talking sensors array.

Moving  through the ship, the Craver can already feel word of his disagreement  spreading among the crewmembers. He makes his way to the Cargo hold, and  enters his code. The doors slide open.

Valorum sighs and shakes his head. He doesn't spare Decius any glance as he leaves the bridge, instead pondering the deteriorating situation on the surface. Bad weather, bad wildlife...it was starting to look like they might as well bring the whole security detail down for the mission to even have a chance.

Well, that's why I'm personally going down there.

Activating the communicator on the central console, Valorum called the mechanical doctor, unable to mask a sliver of annoyance as he speaks:

"Brother Laudmas, it's Valorum. I just received word that we lost a probe to some hostile fauna. Can you affirm this?"

While laudmas was talking about the tools 7-4-1-N -7-3-D was wondering what the Sophon was doing and keept its main sensors on him . The sower was not able to see that Dhanyl was playing a game,  because it didnt knew about the concept of a game. 

<no tool ? Unfortunate but not very bad>

"Thanks for the information " it started to compute how it could hover most efficiently on the planet , as it heared about the worms it added 3 meters to altitude , just in case .

<The weather could become annoying >

After it finished its preparation for the mission and making sure that there was no work left , it hovered in a corner close to Dhanyls position and started to wait .

((Blackbird i think your ooc was cut of))

7-4-1-N-7-3-D was watching Dhanyl as he started to play his game again , the drone was on the outside completly calm but in his circuits a little duel was done , his old thinking against the infection , the rational against the poisoned gift , his subroutines and old though pattern against his dust driven new ideas
<I could ask him to explain me what he is doing ... looks interristing . No that is too strange , too unnormal , I don t even know what he is doing . It looks like he is enjoying it .. maybe i could ... there is no time for joy , the mission has first priority!> Cought in its own personal argument Dhanyl interrupted it , the sower wasn`t sure if it should be annoyed or happy about that.

"This Unit has been elected as part of the ground team , there is no work left in the hangar and going on patrol wouldn´t be recommended" the sower said , fully in his role.
"This Unit has noticed that you appearently still have important matters to do , can this Unit assist?"

"This Unit assumed that you were coordinating important tasks with the device of yours. This Units Specifications are fitting for the mission as it was made for new world operations and not maintaining, but maintenance is one of the tasks this Unit can perform well on the ship, you can check This Units specifications in the cargo manifest."

the Sower was now very interested into whatever  Dhanyl was doing.