----- Chapter 3 : Mother Earth of Dishonesty -----
The big day came and with just a few hours before Pioneer Two reached orbit, Rico had decided to make one final effort to get something. She set off through the transporter, her destination, one of the remote animal observation posts to the south of the colony. After many hours of fruitless search for something suitable she was about to call it a day when an electric hum followed by a low thunder-like rumble echoed through the skies overhead.
She had looked up to see a faintly coloured beam of light pierce through the clouds from above and the beam was moving northwards towards the colony... Pioneer Two was here already! She began to run towards the transporter, the communications beam still visible above the trees in front. Reaching the clearing of the outpost, she had hastily input the co-ordinates to return, all the while casting furtive glances north, hoping not to miss any more of the impressive light show taking place in the distance.
What had followed had initially puzzled her, of course with what she knew now it all made sense, but at the time....
All Rico remembered was seeing the beam of Pioneer One cut out just before the two beams could lock and an ever expanding ball of blue-ish white energy engulf the location of the colony before filling her vision with blinding light.
When she had awoken, she could not determine how long she had been out for. The transporter failed to work and it had taken all her skill to find a work-around, namely set the co-ordinates manually and boost the power enough to make a one-way jump. She had blinded gone through, not caring what horrors she might find on the other side, only wishing to get there as soon as possible.
She had set the destination conservatively, well outside the boundaries of the settlement, she had reasoned that the blast would cause extensive damage and she did not want to appear potentially in the middle of a blast crater. But what she found exceeded her wildest expectations. There was no sign of damage anywhere! The trees, ground and walls showed no mark that anything nearly as cataclysmic as what she had witnessed had even taken placed.
This was a mystery that would require examination and so she had made some notes on message disks that she dropped as she made her way towards the Central Dome. Rico remembered glancing heavenward towards the invisible form of where Pioneer Two might lie in orbit around the planet. She knew that a rescue party might not be forthcoming for hours or even days. They would have no way of knowing what the result of the explosion was. She would have to initiate contact with them.
Apart from the influx of forest animals there had been no indication of any survivors and initial relief had turned into frustration when she had discovered that the computer terminals she encountered were either offline or non-functional.
With the Central Dome within sight, the gentle hum of energy directed her attention to a sealed off alcove. Bypassing the security doors was simple and she had found herself in front of the Pioneer commemorative pillar. Allegedly built as a tribute to their landing on Ragol it had been sealed off around the time of the big quake, official sources said it had been damaged and was under renovation. Once out of sight it had quickly faded from the minds of people. She had never really paid it much attention before but now it glowed with a faint aura and the characters on its surfaced seemed illuminated as if a light were contained inside. She was not sure why she had done it at the time, but she recorded the image of the characters with the P-Sys device mounted on her forearm.