CHAPTER 1: Aram's Ravine

The sensor buoy continues to transmit data to the Riyad for another few hours until the feed is suddenly cut. The last bits of data you receive show Al-Lamiya stop to study the buoy... and then nothing.

The remainder of the trip to Jina passes uneventfully. You make a slight course correction to avoid a micro-meteor shower, but otherwise the journey is blissfully quiet. As is typical of the ship's operations, the crew keeps busy with ship duties or personal tasks, and Riya rotates shifts with some of the bridge crew to ensure that everyone gets a chance to eat and sleep before arrival. A few other vessels occasionally appear for a moment on your sensors but most seem to be heading rimward toward Coriolis, which isn't surprising on such a high-traffic spacelane.

Without the usual signifiers of time's passage, such as the day-night cycle of living planetside, traveling through space can often feel strangely bereft of a beginning or end. Hours bleed together, but shift rotations and crew duties help to cement a feeling of regimentation and regularity. Sleeplessness resulting from disruption of the circadian rhythm is also a common problem in outer space, though the Riyad is equipped with special wavelength artificial lighting to help combat this issue. Ultimately, you are all relatively used to the physical and psychological rigors of space travel, so a short intra-system trip like this one is nothing.

By second watch of the following day (mid-afternoon in Coriolis time), Jina and its moon are close enough to see on the Riyad's viewscreen. The planet hangs in the darkness of the void like a pale olive-colored marble. It's smaller than Kua, and although both worlds are distinctly green in color, the shades are very different. Kua is a vibrant kind of emerald green that one would expect to see from a lush jungle planet teeming with biodiversity and plant life. Jina, on the other hand, has a sickly yellowish-green hue that reminds you of vomit. Even at just a glance, the place looks… unhealthy. Its skies are thick like pea soup; the world is shrouded in an opaque acidic miasma of sulfur dioxide that prevents a clear view of the surface. In a few regions of the planet, swirling cloud formations are visible in the upper atmosphere, indicating the presence of powerful meteorological events - most likely hurricane-sized acid storms. Automated weather advisories from Aram's Ravine urge caution when going planetside, and you get the sense that this kind of weather is commonplace for the planet.

Roughly 230,000 miles away from the acid planet is Cala Duriha, Jina's one and only moon. Although gray and forlorn-looking, you know that the moon is the site of several luxury lunar settlements and resorts. The Riyad's sensors detect a myriad of vessels parked in the moon's orbit - several freighters, as well as a number of high-end barges and solar yachts. In contrast to a no-man's land like Jina, Cala Duriha is a popular playground for tourists, especially the wealthy elite of the Consortium and the Hegemony. What few supplies make it to Jina are usually scraps leftover from shipments that couldn't be fully offloaded at Cala Duriha.

You begin the descent to Aram's Ravine.

The Riyad enters Jina's exosphere: its topmost atmospheric layer. This high up, the skies remain relatively clear as there isn't enough moisture to form clouds. The next layer is also fairly clear. It's not till you reach the mesophere that you hit the sulfur dioxide miasma. Visibility through all of the ports and viewscreens rapidly becomes impeded by a sickly yellow-green fog that gets thicker the lower you go. It becomes impossible to see more than thirty feet in any direction using the naked eye, necessitating a reliance on the ship sensors. Tarek and Sani coordinate navigation for the remainder of the descent.

Though Jina's atmosphere has areas of high tumult, the region around Aram's Ravine isn't currently experiencing any adverse weather conditions, so at least that much isn't a problem. The only turbulence that the Riyad encounters is some soft shaking as the ship drops from one thermal layer to the next. Riya, who is displaying her face on several of the bridge monitors, is grimacing profusely as though she's in a state of discomfort. She periodically shoots death-glares at members of the bridge crew.

You descend toward the Lamka Plateau - a major topographic feature in this region of the planet. This massive stretch of highland spans hundred of miles/kilometers and sits adjacent to a sea of salt, rivers of acid, and deserts housing bauxide mines. And situated on the eastern edge of the plateau is the settlement known as Aram's Ravine. The Icon-forsaken community initially becomes visible on the ship's viewscreen as pinpricks of light shining in the distance through the mist. As you descend closer, the lights give way to rectangular bulks in the greenish gloom. More and more buildings start to take shape below you. Not surprisingly, the airspace over Aram's Ravine is free of any aircraft or other space vessels. Almost no one visits the settlement, so air traffic is non-existent. Attempts to contact a flight controller prove to be unsuccessful. Instead, you receive automated messages from the settlement, telling you where and how to land.

The Riyad approaches what appears to be the largest structure in Aram's Ravine: an oval landing platform covered in a patina of cosmetic acid damage. The platform is designed to accommodate ships of Class I to Class III, so the Riyad is in luck. Were the ship any larger, it'd need to remain in orbit and the crew would have to shuttle down to the surface.

Landing struts extended, the Riyad gently touches down on the platform with a soft thud. All around the ship, the reaction control thrusters are roiling the surrounding acid mists. To your dismay, the platform doesn't appear to be automated. Riya informs everyone that someone must put on environmental protection and leave the confines of the ship. There is a control panel on the platform from which the Riyad may be manually lowered into a hangar bay.

Riya shakes her head. "The facilities in this place are atrocious. The systems on this platform seem to be completely outdated, maybe by forty years or more."