Chapter Two

The Distress Call

To enter the computer room, Benson had to perform a series of tasks involving identity verification. First, Benson held his thumb to the fingerprint scanner. Once his thumbprint was verified, he entered the passcode on a keypad next to the scanner. This unlocked a glass case containing a bulky key, which Benson slipped into a slot next to the computer room's door. The door slid open, and Benson now had entry to the computer room: a small, circular, white room which contained various small flashing lights and data banks. They were all hooked up to the Faunus' central computer, GAIA. The monitor read "COMMAND PRIORITY ONLY". By the monitor, a yellow light was flashing a steady yellow. Benson sat down and faced the monitor. The screen flashed to life in a highly intricate system of coding. Only those of high enough rank are able to decipher the code, and Benson (being captain of the Faunus) was one of those individuals. He selected the code to access the command prompt of GAIA. "READY FOR INQUIRY" flashed onscreen.

"WHAT'S THE STORY GAIA", typed Benson. He immediately got a readout of GAIA's message.

The bridge, like the rest of the ship was dark and metallic. The room is lined with viewscreens, all of them blank. Pops and Skips entered, and strapped themselves to high-backed chairs at their consoles.

"Plug us in," said Skips as they both threw switches above the console posts. The bridge slowly came to life as the monitors turned on, bathing the room in a dull, ghastly light.

"Let's see where we are," said Pops.

Pops pulled more switches, and more viewscreens activated, revealing the vast darkness of space, sprinkled with stars, as far as the eye could see.

"Shouldn't we be home by now?" Pops asked.

"We're now in our system," Skips glumly noted. "Scan the surrounding area."

Pops pressed a button on his keyboard, and the viewscreens shift, yet there is nothing empty space all around them. Pops looks at his various consoles, puzzled.

"I'll try to contact traffic control," Skips suggested, pressing a button to open the ship's communication channel.

"This is Park and Forestry Services vessel Faunus. Registration number 240203. Calling San Diego traffic control. Do you copy? Over."

Static.

"We seem to be in the middle of nowhere." Pops said with a hint of alarm in his voice.

"I'll expand the range. I repeat: this is Park Services vessel Faunus. Calling San Diego traffic control. Do you copy? Over."

More Static.

In the engine room, which was more dark than the rest of the ship, the gigantic reactor system purred smoothly, steadily gliding the Faunus through space. Nearby, Muscle Man and Fives were running a diagnostic on the engine. At Muscle Man's side of the engine, a green light flashed; that side of the engine was performing successfully.

"Yo Fives, how's your light?" Muscle Man asked.

"Green" replied High Five Ghost.

"WHOOOO! That's what I like to hear! We are SO on it!"

They gave each other high fives. With their work done, Muscle Man and Fives crack open a few cans of beer nearby. However, they barely time to relax as the intercom beeps.

"Jeez, can't we have a moment's peace!?" groaned Muscle Man.

"Everyone report to the kitchen, I have an important announcement." Benson's voice rang out from the loudspeaker.

"Man, this is so typical!" snapped an annoyed Muscle Man. "We always have to report when Benson calls, yet HE never comes down here! This is where then real work is!"

"I guess our time is his time, so he doesn't report on us, yet we have to report to him when called." Fives calmly explained.

"You know what I think, I think Benson doesn't come down here because of you, Fives. You have no personality."

"Yeah, that's me alright," Fives replied with a chuckle. "Boring-old-High-Five-Ghost."

Nevertheless, the two made it to the kitchen, where the rest of the crew was already present.

"What's the story, Benson?"

"Well, some of you may have figured out that we're not home yet. We're only halfway there."

At this announcement, the crew gasped in shock and panic, and began muttering among themselves.

"GAIA's intercepted the course. She can do that if certain conditions arise, and they have."

"Like what?" asked Benson.

"It seems she has intercepted a transmission of unknown origin. She got us up to check it out."

"A transmission? Out there?" asked Pops.

"Yep."

"What kind of transmission?" asked Skips.

"Acoustical beacon, that repeats at intervals of 12 seconds."

"An SOS?" Skips inquired.

"I don't know."

"Is it human?" asked Skips.

"I don't know that either, yet we are bound to investigate."

"What! Why is it our problem is some idiot does not know how to fly… OW!" Rigby yelped as Mordecai punched him in the arm.

"What Rigby's trying to say is that someone more qualified should rescue whoever sent out that signal. We're already halfway home anyway, so let's leave this behind."

"In Section B2 of your contract…" Skips tried to explain, before being interrupted by Muscle Man, who slammed his fists on the table.

"Christ, I hate agreeing with these two dweebs, but they're right! We're a Park Service-licensed cargo ship, not a rescue ship. This is NOT in my contract."

"You better reread your contract," said Skips. "It clearly states that transmissions received in non-commercial lanes…"

"That only applied to intelligent life," Said an exasperated Mordecai. "How do we know the source is intelligent?"

"Maybe If we got our BONUSES, I would comply," said Rigby. "But since we have none, I just wanna go home and party!"

Benson shot a dark look at Mordecai and Rigby.

"We're going in, and that's final!" he snapped. "If we refuse, the Park and Forestry Services withholds our shares. No investigation, no money! Unless you two slackers don't want your bonuses, we are going in!"

With that grave ultimatum, Mordecai and Rigby stopped arguing.

"Fine, we're going in." sighed Mordecai.

With that settled, the Faunus flew towards the source of the transmission. It came from one of the three moons of a gas giant. It was night time in the area of the message, as the sun had not yet reached that side of the moon.

On the bridge, Pops and Skips were once again seated at their usual positions , while Benson sat in the front.

"Can we land on it?" Benson asked.

Skips pulled an electronic readout of the moon on his monitor.

"The other ship did."

"That's what I mean."

After carefully studying the readout, Skips turned to Benson.

"It's big enough. Can't see any reason why not."

The Faunus drifted closer to the planet.

"Will the greenhouse hold? We can't let anything happen to that cargo or Mr Maellard will kill me."

"It should hold in this atmosphere. It appears to be light enough."

"Roll 92 degrees, port yaw!" Benson ordered.

"Prime the port." Skips replied.

"I'm not getting anything." Said Pops. The ship seemed to have lost the signal as they neared the moon.

The Faunus began to dip into the moon's atmosphere. As they descended, the ship began violently vibrating.

"We appear to be encountering turbulence." Pops squealed, feeling queasy.

"Alright. Initial dampenings going off." Benson announced before turning on the intercom. "Hold on everyone, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Suddenly, an ugly groaning sound reverberated through the ship.

"What the hell was that!?" exclaimed Muscle Man. He and Fives were strapped to seats in the engine room.

"A sudden pressure drop, we must have lost a shield." Fives replied.

"We can go without one!" Benson said through the intercom.

"I'm still not getting anything!" Pops called.

As the Faunus continued it's descent, the crew began to look for a landing spot.

"Navigation lights on!" Benson called, flipping a switch on his console.

Through the viewscreens, the navigation lights barely illuminated the area around the ship. The night was pitch-black, yet small bits of debris (appearing to be either snow or dust) ferociously blew around the ship, as if a storm was raging around them. With what little light they had, they had no choice but to land where they were.

"We will be landing in 12…11…10…" Pops announced, beginning the countdown process.

"Kill drive engines!" Benson ordered as just before Pops finished counting.

The Faunus landed with a painful crunch. Several electrical fires erupted on the bridge. The three crewmembers reached for their fire extinguishers and tried to put out the fires as best as they could. Alarms blared throughout the ship.

"What the hell happened!?" Benson snapped once everything was relatively calm. "Somebody give me a straight answer!"

"Is the hull breached?" asked Skips.

"Not that I know. We still have pressure." Pops replied.

Soon afterwards, Benson got in contact with Muscle Man and High Five Ghost to get a report on the damage.

"The second load-sharing unit is out, and three or four cells are gone." Muscle Man reported through the intercom.

"Is that it." Benson asked in a mildly frustrated tone.

"We can't fix it out here anyway and we need to reroute a couple of the ducts…"

"Drydock time. Tell him to drydock." Fives said as he inspected the damage.

"…In order to do that, we need to drydock."

"Great!" sighed Benson to himself. "What else."

"Some of the compressor fragments caked up with dust. We need to completely clean it out and repressurize."

"How long before we're functional?" Benson asked curtly.

"Fives?"

"Should be 17 hours. Tell him."

"At least 25 hours." Muscle Man lied. Clearly, he was in no mood to be honest with Benson.

"Get started. I'll be down there soon. Over and out."

With that, Benson turned off the intercom.

"Ugh! Now what the hell's HE coming down here for?" asked an irritated Muscle Man.

"Can you blame him. If anyone needs to stay updated, it's Benson."

"Well he better stay the fuck out of MY way, I'll tell you that!"

So the Faunus had landed. Now the ship was in desperate need of repairs. On top of that, the crew still needed to track and investigate the distress call.