Post by him on May 9, 2022 11:47:40 GMT
"Are we there yet?"
Such a question had burned itself into the brain of a mr. Th'akoa H'yal over 5 times by now, as his rather impatient coworker P'kah V'pao'la stared out of a shuttle window towards their destination on the planet below. He'd forgotten the name, only that it was owned by the 'Novakians' and that it was supposedly a neat place to visit.
"Just a few more minutes, P'kah..."
He'd found a listing on their recently-connected branch of AncNet for some hefty strikes, and after some thought and rumination on how boring day-to-day life was at home decided to bite the bullet. P'kah had also decided to tag along, though her reasoning was that she just needed some time away from her boss.
"It's been a few more minutes."
"Well, what else am I supposed to say?"
"...I dunno..."
"Look, we're probably landing soon anyways. Just wait a minute or two."
He wasn't sure if that was a lie or not, since he couldn't see too much out of the window except flashes of colors and shapes. She didn't react beyond a simple 'mm', so he assumed they were probably a few minutes away. Probably.
He laid back in his seat, fiddling with a blocky neck mounted translator as he waited. Why did they make these things so uncomfortable, anyway?
The planet they had arrived to was more or less an earth-sized tropical planet with it's surface covered in mostly island chains of various sizes with very few large landmasses in between, there was also the apparent large coral reefs surrounding some of its islands. Its climate was fairly hot, most probably due to it's closer proximity towards its parent star, despite this it was given a name. 'Hibistar' as the Novakians called it with the star system it is located in having the same name as the planet itself.
The star system in which the planet orbits had many space stations, shipyards and defense stations all around its many planets, moons and its 2 asteroid fields, Tycan Joviar and Epsilon station being one of them.
Nonetheless as the Zetyan shuttle craft closed distance towards the planet a hail from a nearby space station can be detected. Soon enough given sometime comms was established between the station and the vessel
"Attention visitor, this is Station Elysium orbiting the planet Hibistar, please identify and state your intentions moving towards the tropical planet. Or we will have a someone chase you out of this system."
The voice accompanied from the transmission was friendly enough that it wouldn't seem threatening from the outside, Most probably due to the Novakians being friendly towards all outsiders.
Ding dong.
The telltale activation boops of the shuttle intercomm caught some chunks of attention from the two passengers, ensuring there would be at least some bits of the announcement that came through.
"[Alright, we should be heading planetside within a few minutes. Just have to get past their customs, and you'll be standing under Hibistar's skies.]"
'Hibistar, what an odd name.' Th'akoa thought, as he looked around the shuttle's interior. There wasn't really anyone else on the ship, save for another guy a few seats up reading on a tablet. Probably something boring, like business deals or one of them older books in circulation.
"Are some parts... supposed to be green?" P'kah decided to surprise him with a question, as she peered inquisitively out towards the planet's surface.
"...What, like, the ocean?"
"No, no, there's some bits on the islands..."
"You mean the forests?"
"Those are forests?"
"...yes? Have you never...?"
"No, just... I never thought they could be so bright."
Without much reply, Th'akoa returned to the great waiting game. He had to wonder just how verdant it was, for her to audibly question if it even was forests down there...
Meanwhile, in vacuum, the station received the shuttle's reply soon after.
"This is Pondjumper 23910-A of T'hja Intersystems, we have some tourists onboard on a booked flight. Requesting permission to land planetside or dock, over."
"This is the Station Elysium orbiting Hibistar, i welcome you towards our tropical planet, to get down you will have to go through our customs first. please head towards the vicinity of this station so that we may be able to scan you for anything that might be illegal within this planet." The station would soon respond, a minute later coordinates towards the station can be seen from the Zetyan shuttles navigation systems
On below the Zetyans can see many island chains, some large land masses in between, it was indeed that the forest vegetation was brighter than expected, whether it be because of the atmosphere conditions of the planet or the bright Star that's causing it. Nonetheless it would've been nice to view on its various life and relics that so happened to be located on this planets, almost as if the Advertisement on the Ancnet was true.
On the ground of one of the space ports can be seen 2 personnel, both tour guides and standing beside a landing pad where alot of civilian shuttle land and take off every day. This time however, they would be talking about something else
"So they want me and you to be the tour guide for a yet another unknown alien tourist?"
"Well, it ain't like they have a choice. We are the only one's that are experienced enough for the task, while the others are still trying to get some so that they can get on the same level as us"
"Yeah, let's hope we dont end up like the ones before us. Say well do our best at anything possible"
"I agree, aslong as we don't end up like the one who used to have our job"
"H&A, proceeding to coordinates." came their reply 30 seconds later, and the small shuttle soon roared over to the designated area, ceasing movement once it reached it's destination.
Ding dong. Again.
"[They'll be scanning us in a few moments. If you feel weird, it'll probably pass. If not, there's r'oopak bottles in the seat pockets. Pop a few.]"
The couple didn't register the announcement much, as Th'akoa was busy on his holophone and P'kah was still staring out the window at, well, whatever she was staring at.
Th'akoa's focus was upon the Novakian AncPedia page, reading up on various things like history, government, whatever worked as visual white noise for him. He also made sure to read up on any unusual customs, just in case they had to deal with anything when they were planetside. It was practically habit at this point; backwater worlds were strange places with stranger traditions, and he often had to go to said worlds on business trips.
P'kah, meanwhile, merely stared ahead, shaking the glaze off her eyes whenever she saw something strange. Given this was unfamiliar territory, with some of the strangest looking architecture she'd seen so far, they moved quite often. Her hand semi-autonomously reached for the seat pocket and preemptively fiddled around for the r'oopak bottle-scans back home always made her nauseous one way or another.
When the scan hit, it didn't detect much of note; 3 passengers, their luggage below them in a designated cargo area, what seemed to be a concerningly large pest rooking around in said cargo area, and a few bits and bobs like weapon magazines or spare parts left behind. Overall, rather boring-surprising, considering where the shuttle came from.
As the scan completed, the crew of Elysium station found that no illegal items were present at the small shuttle, thus it was granted a pass towards to enter the atmosphere of this planet.
"This is Elysium toward the shuttle, scan completed. Permission granted to enter Hibistar's atmosphere. Seeing as you are not from the Novakian Federation itself I recommend you land at runway 38B of Trenet Spaceport. Here's the coordinates to the location specified." And soon enough, the coordinates towards the Spaceport was transmitted towards the Zetyan Shuttle's navigation computer systems. Along with some instructions on what to do after landing.
As Th'akoa reads the Novakian AncPedia Page, it found much History within the Federation spanning several centuries, from its birth to its arrival in Ancerious, from its arrival towards its First wars within, from its wars to its Nomadic period and so on and so forth. 'Hibistar' while a backwater world as it seems was home to one of the major Events that had occurred within the Novakian Federation, mainly it being at the epicenter of a bloody 15 year long civil war spanning countless land and space engagements, with several sides wanting control over this entire star system. But there's was little information regarding such historic events but atleast it was long enough to keep him satisfied for sometime.
On the ground the 2 Novakian Tour guides were now preparing to meet the new tourist as they receive conformation that they were given a pass to enter the atmosphere and land at the spaceport.
"Recieved, going planetside." was the shuttle's final response, it's engines jolting to life as it turned towards its new destination. The tiny thing soon entered atmosphere, now seeming little more than a fireball leaving behind a trail of reddish smoke.
'This is one of their backwater worlds? They didn't say that on the advertisement...' Th'akoa pondered, as the shuttle rocked and jolted in an attempt to do it's level best at stopping him from clearly viewing some of the pictures. The place, from what he could see of it through the motion blur, was kinda pretty, a bit flashy. P'kah wasn't kidding, though-those were some really, really vibrant plants. He supposed those civil wars must've been pretty neat to see with all the jungles and whatever.
P'kah was...
...eh, she was still staring out the window. Probably really tuned out. He turned his holophone off, as the voice of the pilot informed them they would land in 3 minutes.
--
The two tour guides now saw the shuttle as it made it's approach towards the spaceport, a shape surrounded by bright red light that soon turned to a shape with two small pricks of red light behind it. It followed the instructions given by the space station, coming in for a rather swift landing at their designated runway as it trailed smoke from it's engines.
It was a small, very angular craft, colored shit-brown with a strange cockpit covered with interconnected bright red dots. Two unmoving VTOL engines on the wings helped turn it on the ground it as any local air control gave it's pilots instructions on where to go, while a disconcertingly large bulbous engine on the back slowly cooled down.
An airlock on the side cycled and opened a few times as the shuttle moved into it's final position. Inside, the passengers prepared to disembark, awaiting the go-ahead from the captain.
As the shuttle enters the atmosphere of Hibistar they can now get a better look of the native Greenery on the various islands of the planet. As they reached the spaceport they can now see a large bustling city nearby on one of the largest landmasses of this tropical planet.
As the small zetyan shuttle lands at the spaceport they could find that they had landed on one smaller sections of the spaceport. Mostly probably an older one now relegated to serve small light-shuttles that occasionally lands here. Regardless The Air traffic control on this side of the spaceport would have the shuttle to move to its designated position near where the 2 Novakian tour guides were standing, there Novakian Spaceport personnel would unload the small shuttle of any cargo and/or luggage that might be present while the other personnel would perform a maintenance check on it and repair it if necessary or if they can.
It is at this time that the both Novakian tour guides can catch a glimpse of the zetyan shuttle and the state that it is in.
"It seems strange isn't it?, I thought it'd be a little more sleek that it is"
"It does look a little like an old rust bucket that hasn't been used in quite awhile, you know what that means don't you?"
"Yes I know, and it's not the time to bring that up. Now this is where our job begins. Let's hope all goes well and hopefully we'd get some more next time"
Both said to each other as they would start walk towards the Zetyan shuttle seemingly ready to meet their new batch of tourists as they probably began to disembarked from the shuttle
The bright blue skies met the passengers with great fervor, their surroundings a kaleidoscope of bright colors and pleasant smells weaving and intertwining together to create a vibrant landscape custom tailored to be as pleasing to all five senses as possible to any who walked upon it. The other passenger, some dude in business attire, didn't seem too phased by his surroundings, but for the two tourists, it was almost sensory overload-they couldn't help but try and look all around them with wide eyes and somewhat dropped jaws.
Their cargo also had a unique passenger; a runt slowly teetered out of the cargo bay when it was opened, dragging an angular luggage bag behind it while chewing on a piece of jerky it had fetched out of another bag's outside pocket. A quick bonk on the head by the businesszet caused it's quick release and retrieval from the errant child, before dragging him along in kind.
P'kah and Th'akoa, meanwhile, kept on trying to intone every little thing from sight to smell as they retrieved their luggage; all they had really known was smog and drab brown and half-dead plants, and this place was, for all intents and purposes, the most alien thing they had ever seen.
"Shit, you weren't kidding when you said the forests were green..." he said, as he unlatched the straps on his luggage bag and began putting it on like some sort of pack.
"Those aren't even forests, they're like... agh, I don't even have words..." she responded.
"I think you mean, like... jungles? Yeah, jungles."
"J-jungles?"
"Like forests, but... wetter... and more plant-y?
"Oh. Never really heard of that word..."
"I wonder why."
After a short chuckle, their attention soon shifted to the approaching tour guides, while Th'akoa tried to find where his jerky stick went.
"Well it would've been a shame if the description wasn't accurate enough or else we might've get sued for false advertisement. Now that said shall we move on? We still have alot of things to do before you can realistically get anywhere in the planet."
"That said, welcome to Hibistar. Enjoy your time there"
Both Novakian tour guides would respond to Th'akoa as the Both Zetyan tourist looked at their surroundings. If they looked behind they can see a larger more bustling terminal with various large shuttles either docked to the terminal itself, or was being taxied on and off the runway. If they looked beside the terminal they can see 2 large islands, one is a large island with what can be described as a large city on it with another being a smaller island but it seems to be uninhabited with no major settlements insight.
"It seems that this is your first time seeing a jungle is it? Well don't worry, as soon as we are able to check you in we might aswell bring you to go hiking on one of Hibistars islands just so you can get to feel what it's like over there" One of the Tour guides said looking at the Zetyan tourist who were seemingly surprised at the scenery of the planet.
The 2 Tour Guides would then walk towards each other facing away from the zetyans for now.
"Don't you think they'd be surprised that we'd bring them to our jungles? It seems that they have never seen one before"
"Might aswell make it as enjoyable for them as possible at the least. We don't want to disappoint our newest tourist, heck they may be able to bring more in if we're good enough to be honest."
"Yeah, that's the least we could do. We might aswell try to impress them....if that's possible anyways"
"That sounds nice."
"Ooh, yeah, hiking sounds good."
The two tourists perked up at the idea proposed by the guides, as they moved to follow the two in kind. Their attention soon shifted to the vehicles, their gazes gravitating towards anything that wasn't already seen and making observations. The odd ones out also followed, though out of the two the bag-carrier runt was certainly the more attentive.
As they followed along, they too made small talk. They seemed to not have much concept for an inside voice, as the two tour guides could make out what they said-or maybe they did, and just didn't care.
"What do you think we'd see in there?" he asked, as he stared at the uninhabited island.
"Something cool-looking, I hope. All the animals and plants in the zoos back home are boring." she replied.
"We have zoos? I thought those died out-"
"No, we still have some. It's all in the core, though, costs like a bitch and it's all just clones of tiny birds and rat thingies if you don't fork up more."
"Oh."
"...well, there was one kinda cool one. Looked like a red dart, zipped around everywhere. 'pparently it hunted by impaling stuff."
"Hm. Neat."
"You bring your camera?"
"Camera? I have my holophone, dumbass."
Sharing a chuckle and some light hits, they continued walking, as Th'akoa pulled out his holophone and took a selfie. The other two merely plodded along, as the runt tried to unsuccessfully trail the two-to steal more jerky sticks, of course.
"It seems like they wanted to hike eh?"
"By the looks of it they seem rather happy about"
"Right, I'll give a call to the guys over there and see if we can make any reservations there. Should take a minute or two depending if they even wanted to pick up the phone or not"
In sometime, the 2 Novakian tour guides managed to reserve a room at a location in the supposed uninhabited island for the tourists to stay. This was perhaps a good news for the 2 as they were now able to quickly get the Zetyans transported to the location without difficulties provided that they had managed to get their language checked and pass border security which at this point, As they exit the spaceport terminal they can see a medium sized cab waiting for them just outside.
"That's our ride, Get your stuff into the vehicle and enter it" Said one of the Tour guides as he gestured for the Zetyans to load their language and enter the vehicle they too would enter it. They would also help them fit their languages into the trunk of the vehicle should any difficulties arrise, and when the group had boarded the vehicle they would be transported to their destination.
An hour or so passed with the vehicle passing through the various roads of the city before finally moving onto a bridge where the seemingly uninhabited island can be seen. Upon closer inspection there could be seen a few roads leading up ahead, probably connecting to some other parts of the island, but that didn't matter as the vehicle would make their way onto one of the roads. Now getting closer to the location, while still far away the Zetyans can see the beautiful wildlife of the supposedly uninhabited island, Half an hour later they would finally reach their destination which seemed to be a large resort made to look like large wooden cottages.
-------------------
One thing led to another and by the time the Zetyans and the Tour guides had settled in onto their rooms they would set out onto a hiking path just nearby the cottages. Safe enough that anyone can cross it without issue while also being able to look at the forest scenery at close distances.
"This place looks good, it's been a long time since I've visited this island."
"Well the last time we've been here its wasn't for shits and giggles despite the scenery. I wish I could've forget whatever happened here anyways"
"Well, atleast you wouldn't have to relive that experience ever again eh?"
"So long as it never happened again"
The Novakian Tour Guides said as they were chatting with each other again.
The two did as told with some pep in their step, the excitement of something truly new beyond just brown buildings, heavy smog and watching a dude eat shit to some spiffy new hypercar every so often driving them forward as nothing had before.
As they went from spaceport to taxi to hotel, though, the tourist's charges would soon find their first complication: they had a very annoying knack for commenting on everything they saw, especially without much of an indoors voice. One couldn't really blame them, what with tourism not being a particularly popular avenue of Zetyan consumer culture, but at a certain point it would be all to easy to wish for a roll of tape.
By the time they reached the hotel, the guides would likely have had over 40 various ways you could say dick and balls burned into their brains, along with learning how many crass adjectives you could use to describe a animal in one sentence.
Atleast, if nothing else, it provided some breakup for the monotony of an hour's drive.
---
Once on the trail, after some unpacking and other assorted business, they soon took to hiking with fervor, taking in their surroundings and pointing out things that looked neat, dispensing mature and thoughtful takes such as 'that pink flower thingy looks like a vag', 'the trees kinda look like Evil Demon products but spikier' and 'oh hey that bird thingy looks like an assplug', among others inbetween holophone pictures. At least, they were having some fun starting out.
As P'kah leaned down to pick a vibrant flower she found particularly interesting, Th'akoa decided to take in the sounds for a moment. As he did so, he slowly tuned in to the conversation the guides were having-something happened? What happened? What?
As he dried to deduce what they were talking about, P'kah stood back up, stem in mouth.
"Hahy, thish don't tashte too bahd."
"...did.. you eat a flower?
"Mmyeah."
"...uh..."
"What? I've had worse." She seemed to accentuate this by swallowing the stem.
"..mmalright." He said with a shrug, his black orbs that he knew as eyes turning to look at the guides as he leaned over, whispering to her. "Can i ask them something real quick, or...?"
"Uh, sure. Go for it. Oooh, another one!"
As she rushed to another pink flower-50/50 chance of being a different species entirely-Th'akoa slowed down a little, moving to get next to the guides.
"Uh, I heard something happened?"
One of the Novakian Tour Guides turned to Th'akoa as he asked the question
"Well, That something happened years ago. There's probably no need to stress about it"He said before turning back to the other Tour Guide
"So shall we tell him about what happened?" He replied back
"Maybe, you can tell them what happened and i will fill in the details for if you got some of them wrong. I still have those memories from the civil war, while i have moved on from them i still could not forget that one operation" he added
"That means you can tell them what happened"
"Alright then"
At this point the 2 Tour guides would turn towards the Zetyan Tourist before telling them what happened
"Whatever happened has already passed, but it is still its fresh in our minds. To begin, this very place you see here is something of a small hiking trail, the place where you go have some fun and watch the scenery while you go snap some photos and post them on the internet. But 20 years ago on this very spot was one of the most deadliest battles ever fought during a conflict most call the Hibistar Civil War."
"That Battle, or whatever it was brutal, perhaps something your nation wouldn't want to experience. I don't know but this is the first time i ever shared this story, it may get a little iffy but yea, imagine that your a Novakian Soldier and you are now in the jungle at night with little to no visibility. And now you have found yourself in the heat of a battle. On one side your friend are firing their machine guns and throwing grenade almost hopelessly as they try to fight off dozens of rebel soldiers all either holding grenade launchers and flamethrowers. Just then a bomb or 2 would come up and blow them all to bits. as you look up you'd be treated to a view of hundreds of fighters duelling out in the airspace above, one half trying to destroy a massive aerial vehicle while the other side is desperately trying to defend it."
One of the tour guide said before the both looked at each other a bit nervously. still they would continue to walk down the path as they tell the story of one of them being in an unfortunate place at an unfortunate time.
"Oh, wow." he said, as he visualized the scene in his mind. He found himself stifling the urge to say 'that's pretty fuckin' cool' in followup, instead settling for a "Must've been pretty bad back then. What was-... oop."
His attention shifted to further up the trail, as P'kah seemed to dart back and forth through the bushes, hot on the tail of some small creature as she cackled like a hyena. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in slight confusion as he found himself going over to where she was at-not out of wondering why she was doing it, mind you, but rather wondering why she was doing it in such a roundabout way. Why not wait to ambush the little prick instead?
As he got closer, he could make out what she was chasing, just as it darted into the underbrush again and left behind an exhausted P'kah cursing at it. Some tiny mouselike thing. He scowled at the thought, reminded of the rockrats back at home. Pesky little shits, they were.
"God.. damnit, aaagh! Get back here and... face me you... you... uh, faggot rat ass shitfuck!" she said, inbetween pants.
"Eh, leave it. Probably tastes like ass anyways."
"You.. sure?"
"Yeah. 'sides, there's bigger things up ahead."
"...really?"
"Yes." He found it rather easy to lie, as he pulled up an AncNet website for Hibistar's wildlife to speed-verify his own claim.
"sigh Cool."
Having been given the bait, she returned to finding cool looking flowers to chew on, slowing in speed and allowing the guides to catch up. Meanwhile, he lagged behind, returning to the guides at a leisurely pace while trying to remember what he was going to ask them. Having found no purchase with his memory, he settled on something else on-topic, seemingly oblivious or uncaring of his partner's antics.
"So, how'd that Civil War thingy happen, anyways?"
"Yeah, It was pretty bad alright, Imagine having to fight your way out of a hell hole while the skies above were most likely 'Lit on fire' or as both the rebels and our allies put it is. But i was one of the very few that made it through the whole thing and came back with some injuries of course"
The Novakian Tour guide said as he then watches as P'Kah shifts his attention further up the trail, perhaps chasing a creature, realising what it was he chuckled a bit as he watched him dart around to try to catch a rather speedy creature.
Meanwhile the tour guide was a behind the pack, casually watching over the 2 zetyans and his partner go about. He also chucked a little as Th'koa goes around chewing flowers, Albeit he was watching out for if she had the unfortunate luck of stumbling upon a bright blue flowing that was beautiful but has the reputation of being very hard to hold onto due to its thorns and also it releasing some venomous gas to those who tried to go pluck it as some kind of defence mechanism
-------------
The Tour guide after hearing the question would answer as he had always like he has told it to other tourists visiting this island before the zetyans did
"Well, as to how it began, in short there was this one grouped who called themselves the Neustar Rebels, which began to terrorise much of the planet after a failed military coup which lead to its eventual formation. The Hibistar Government not wanting to let it grow further began mobilising troops to deal with the rebels, while this was a partial success this also had the ripple effect of the rebels starting to engage the Hibistar Military. This then escalated over the course of several months which it all came down when the rebels captured one pf the major cities on Hibistar which was 'San Emancipancion'. And that's where most historians agree when the civil war truly started" He replied
Th'akoa seemed attentive as he listened to the guide's recounting, envisioning in his head what the fights might've looked like back when it happened. He made an internal note to look up some military footage on whatever galactic version of TapedDrain they had when they got back, figuring it'd probably be a neat watch and give some background these guys might've missed.
Meanwhile, P'kah started to tire of the 'normal' flowers; sure, they tasted great. But she had skipped over all the really pretty ones so far, and they probably tasted way better. She began to become almost pickier with what flowers she picked, and started with a bright one with neat patterns. It tasted like rind steak, if a bit dried out and maybe with sugar put on it. Another one tasted like rosemary with some spices put on it. Yet another tasted...
...
Eugh. She spit it out, the taste of rotten meat lingering on the tongue. Perhaps it was to be expected; one doesn't simply start munching on every flower they see and expect a pleasant buffet.
Another one soon caught her eye. A pleasant cerulean blue, glistening in the sunlight like it was drenched in the morning dew, patterned like a butterfly of yore. Soon, her hand neared the stem, ready to pick it...
...and then she drew it back. Nothing particularly stood out to her, mind; she merely noted that flowers were just starting to get kinda boring in general. Only so many colors of the rainbow she could sample before she'd had them all.
Her tastes slightly more refined, she decided to draw back to the other three, nudging Th'akoa on the shoulder as she did so.
"They say what's up ahead yet? I wanna try something new." she asked.
He shrugged in response, and turned to the guides with a slight chuckle. "Suppose she needs something bigger to chew on."
"What's up ahead? well its somewhat of a relic from the civil war though its at the other side of this trail so theres still alot to go judging from where we are. Not many who visited this trail knew about it, less so with those who weren't veterans from the civil war. If i still can remember where the relic is somewhere at the end of this trail which is at the end of this trail." A Tour Guide replied to P'kah
In other words we'd be travelling over the top of that mountain to the otherside of this island if we want to see the relic. while there are many resting spots dotted across this path it could take days for us to reach the relic. if you want somewhere closerr there is a patch of large flowers nearby. Just that we'd have to take a small detour should we want to get there" He added
"Better be careful with them you know, those flowers are not as safe to chew on like the rest you'd see, its best if you take a look at it rather than chew on it and burn the inside of your mouth in the process." The Other Tour guide said as he looked at P'Kah. After all, by this time he knew she likes to chew on flowers here, so it was best for him to warn her about the flowers beforehand else he'd be receiving a lawsuit from them both.
"Ah, cool, that sounds interesting." he said, pondering what was ahead while P'kah finished nibbling on some bright red flower. "But, a few days? It doesn't look that far, shouldn't take that long to get to... I think." Th'akoa wasn't exactly the best navigator, though, and it certainly showed, as he began mumbling incorrect estimates to himself.
P'kah, meanwhile, merely wondered what next to eat. Absentmindedly, her mind wandered to wondering where she left those runt jerky sticks at. Confirming they weren't in her pocket, and that she did have her holophone, she cursed herself for not having better foresight for these kinds of things. The comment about the flower field did perk her interest, if only because it implied there'd be bigger things to eat beyond the flowers.
With that in mind, she saw fit to ask "There anything bigger to eat over there? Burgers or rats or something? Flowers kinda lost their charm on me." as she began considering what else she could start eating around here. Maybe those big bulbs, or weird plants...
Nah, they probably tasted like shit. Literally, even.
Th'akoa also asked "What's the relic thing exactly, anyways? Big destroyed weapon or something?" as he began speedsearching for 'tourist destination hibistar war relic cool' on the AncNet.
"Honestly, You'll have to find out and see it for yourself" One of the Tour Guides said to Th'akoa. As he searched the AncNet for a Hibistar war tourist destination they would find many of such, but the 2 most interesting was a wreck of a crashed airship near the island and the ruins of an anti-orbital laser weapon, one of which they could be encountering at the end of the trail.
"In all honesty there is, but either it isn't much to look at or that they are in some cases poisonous and are deadly to humans, but i don't know about zetyan biology so things can work out much differently." The other tour guide replied to P'kah. Hoping that she'd not chew on more flowers this time.
-----
After a few days the group would eventually reach to the end of the trail. Trekking through a beautiful forest as they went to see the war relic mentioned in the AncNet.
As they reached the end of the trail they would now be on the side of a cliff with a medium sized viewing platform for whoever that manged to come all the way here, there the group would see the remnants of a Massive Airship. Viewing from the platform they would notice that it is a massive wing shaped object with one haft of it sticking out like a sore thumb compared to its surroundings while the other haft was behind it, in a different orientation. other than that a massive trail can be seen behind it, perhaps left by the Airship as it crashed into waters as it tries its best not to disintegrate in mid air. Nonetheless much of the wreck site was already reclaimed by nature, as seen with the various trees starting to grow around the crash site and the vines starting to grow and hang from the structure itself.
"What are we looking as is the remnants of a rebel airship. Take whatever pictures you'd like, only a few that had managed to get out this far had seen this old relic" On of the Tour Guide said as he looked at the relic from the viewing platform.
"...uh, okay." He replied, eyeing the results on his holophone. A muted grunt of approval was made at the sight of the AO emplacement; like many others of his kind, he couldn't help but marvel at guns of stupendous sizes, almost a primal instinct of some sort in it's own right. Shame it would take a few days, but he paid for a week's vacation-might as well take his time.
P'kah merely scoffed somewhat at the tour guide's notion. "Bah, anything's better than the rats and birds back home."
"And the ones over here are any different?"
"Pretty colors and cool noises."
"Fair."
Ending their exchange, they resumed their trek as they followed the tour guides, off to who knows where.
-
Three days later, and a plethora of rest stops, pissing stops and other such activities in tandem, the group had soon arrived near their destination. P'kah, inbetween long bouts of boring hiking, had managed to scrape together some small critters as trail snacks, and even Th'akoa had joined in on catching food, both undoubtedly disappointing their great-times-ten-thousand ancestors with their lack of skill and finesse.
The airship, though, was certainly a spectacle. The combination of metal and foliage, each seeming to weave around the other in equilibrium, and the remnants of the craft's unique shape could probably give an Iqzinan some bemusement. Indeed, Th'akoa was soon pulling out his holophone, ready to take a few pictures of the fallen airshi-
His phone had some notifications. Very concerning notifications.
"...shit, our flight's been delayed."
"Hm? Why?" P'kah perked up, concerned. She didn't quite have much fondness for home, but she wasn't quite ready to be an expatriate either.
"Flight costs, it says. Pushed back by several days minimum. But shuttles... they don't use much Ancerium, right?"
"Well, maybe the one they had broke down or something."
"No, it would say if-" He looked up the news, to see what could possibly have caused it to happen...
"...oh no."
"What?"
"N-nothing." He quickly put the phone away before she could see. "Just, just something happened, is all." He couldn't hide his sudden bout of nervousness.
"W-It's not nothing. You don't just say 'oh no' like that, spill the beans."
"I will when we get back to the hotel."
"No, you'll forget 'cause you're a dumbass. Did they jack the prices or something?"
"If I tell you now, you'll go apeshit."
"...why would-"
"Just look at the wreck thingy, okay?! Eat a rat or something!"
"Woah, jeez, okay. Calm your tits." She soon began taking pictures of the wreck on her own holophone, though now she was giving side-eye to her suddenly very out-of-character coworker.
The view of the Airship from the platform gave much impression towards the Tourguides aswell, But seeing as they have visited the site many times and has gone as far as to actually gone inside of the wreck it was more or less a regular Tuesday for them atleast.
Whilst Admiring the view they both got a few Notifications on their phones.
One would pick it us to see what it is while the other would continue to watch over the Zetyan tourist, seeing as they can be quite unpredictable at time.
"Seems like their Shuttles flight has been delayed by quite a few days at the very least," The tour guide said towards the other as he hurried his was onto his partner.
"Have you got the reason yet?"
"Flight Costs, I wonder how did the flight costs managed to get this high, even for a small shuttle" He said wondering about it for a while afterwards
"Could be anything of the sorts, equipment break down, Damaged FTL Drive or maybe the Shuttle doesn't meet up with the safety requirements" The other Guide replied
-----
The First Tour guide would then use his phone to contact the tourist agency along with the spaceport to figure out what might've happened. A few minutes gone by with without any sort of communication between them before the first Tour Guide would finish the call and put the phone into his pocket.
"Let's say, its not pretty. as it turns out, the price for ancerium got Jacked up severely and the government had restricted the use of civilian ships to conserve the substance, right now the agency is contacting the Federal government, doing some negotiating work in hopes of getting the last of the tourist traffic to leave and return to where they departed from."
"The small shuttles don't use that much Ancerium does it?"
"Probably not considering its size, but i wouldn't be surprised if they do. Most likely were going to have it docked to an FTL bus and have it take the shuttle back to where its from"
"so what should be do now?"
"Bring the tourists back to the hotel, and explain the situation. Hopefully they'd understand the situation and not flip out like some godforsaken karen in a large supermarket" The Tourist guide said towards his partner.
"I'll call up a Jeep, they should get us back in no time." The tourist guide said.
The other tour guide, now knowing what to do would walk up towards the Zetyan Tourists, possible interrupting their conversation in the process.
"Hey, sorry to cut the visit short and to but I suppose its time that we head back towards the hotel. I've called up a jeep so that we don't have to spend days going back towards the Hotel." He said Whilst the other would wait for the vehicle to arrive.
P'kah had just finished started to take out her phone when the guides gave their interruption, increasing her suspicions by roughly 10x more than what they had been before as Th'akoa conceded in confused acceptance. First her coworker suddenly starts shitting himself over something on his phone, and now the guides were suddenly having them get a drive back to their flat out of nowhere? Something was up that nobody was telling her.
"Ok, what the hell's going on? Spill it." She decided to interrogate her coworker initially; he was the first to know, he would be the first to tell.
"Something bad happened, okay? They-we-I-mm. You'll get your answers when we get back home, yeah?"
"No, I atleast ought to know why you're shitting yourself right now and you two are suddenly cutting things off. We just had a spat over this, Th'akoa! Cut the shit!"
"I-... Alright, fine, here, look. Just don't freak out." A trade commenced between the two as he handed her his phone; to her came the desired information, and to him came the shift of blame for however she reacted.
Her eyes now scanned the page open on his phone. Various news articles, each with what almost looked like clickbaity headlines.
MASSACRE AT ZARATHUSTRA! LONG-DEAD ECLIPSE LORD KILLS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
ANCERIUM PRICES REVERSE, SKYROCKET-ECONOMY IN SHAMBLES
MASS CGSS WITHDRAWAL CAUSES TURMOIL, DISRUPTION
AEDLESHAVEN CORRIDOR BLOCKED, HYPERFUEL PRICES JACKED
"...what the fuck." She spoke, after a moment of boring holes into the screen protector. "Wh-I-. Ugh, Koa DAMNIT!"
A resounding thunk was heard as she threw a phone at a nearby tree-surprisingly, not Th'akoa's holophone, which she instead held in a death grip for a few moments before returning to him.
"Fuck, we paid so much for this shit and now-!, aghhh I KNOW they're charging us extra for this!"
"Look, I have the money for it if they do that, we'll be fine."
"They charge for everything, though! Even fuel! They did that last time I went interstellar for some maintenance bullshit and it nearly drained all my funds, who knows how much they'll fuck you! Ugh..."
"Well, uh, at least we can stay here for a week, instead of home."
"...hrm." As she went to retrieve whatever she threw, mood considerably worsened, she turned to the tour guides. "Ok, how long's the ride, what's the plan? I gotta call my boss, he probably does too."
"Alright, so the plan is that we get you on the Jeep, get you back towards the hotel, we pack our stuff and then we get you and your shuttle off the planet and back where you came from. At this point when there's a large even like this happening all the tourist would rush to get home so they do not get stuck on whatever planet their on. I'm pretty sure there would be atleast a few days before the prices in this nation would jack up to insane levels but right now we gotta get you back as soon as possible." The tour Guide replied to the zetyan tourist as the jeep arrives.
"C'mon, get on. the Hotel would be just an hour or two away if we use the jeep." The tour guide said as he gestured towards the Zetyan tourist to get on.
---
Back at the Spaceport there was chaos as many tourist rushed to shuttles as they prepared to bring them back where they came from before the Price of ancerium made the trips too expensive. As the many shuttles started leaving Hibistar on the ground many maintenance workers began maintenance on some of the smaller shuttles as they prep them for space flight should their owners needed to get off planet quickly.
"Yeah. Alright, okay, sounds good, c'mon get in the fuckin' thing let's go. c'mon. C'MON." P'kah's focus translated cleanly from the guides to her companion as they moved to enter the jeep, shaking him a little and practically dragging him along. He seemed engrossed in a call; likely to his boss, or perhaps the travel agency he came in on.
---
Packing was fast, the trip was faster. P'kah would've chalked it down to not having much stuff, Th'akoa would've figured it was dumb luck. Perhaps it was both, or something else entirely, but in any case the four were now rushing through the spaceport like children running to a candy shop. Granted, 'rushing' was a little overstatement, but compared to the crowd congestion that filled the spaceport and given this was a tourist world, they were practically sailing by the various families and honeymooners-who likely paid way more than they ever did.
Such a question had burned itself into the brain of a mr. Th'akoa H'yal over 5 times by now, as his rather impatient coworker P'kah V'pao'la stared out of a shuttle window towards their destination on the planet below. He'd forgotten the name, only that it was owned by the 'Novakians' and that it was supposedly a neat place to visit.
"Just a few more minutes, P'kah..."
He'd found a listing on their recently-connected branch of AncNet for some hefty strikes, and after some thought and rumination on how boring day-to-day life was at home decided to bite the bullet. P'kah had also decided to tag along, though her reasoning was that she just needed some time away from her boss.
"It's been a few more minutes."
"Well, what else am I supposed to say?"
"...I dunno..."
"Look, we're probably landing soon anyways. Just wait a minute or two."
He wasn't sure if that was a lie or not, since he couldn't see too much out of the window except flashes of colors and shapes. She didn't react beyond a simple 'mm', so he assumed they were probably a few minutes away. Probably.
He laid back in his seat, fiddling with a blocky neck mounted translator as he waited. Why did they make these things so uncomfortable, anyway?
The planet they had arrived to was more or less an earth-sized tropical planet with it's surface covered in mostly island chains of various sizes with very few large landmasses in between, there was also the apparent large coral reefs surrounding some of its islands. Its climate was fairly hot, most probably due to it's closer proximity towards its parent star, despite this it was given a name. 'Hibistar' as the Novakians called it with the star system it is located in having the same name as the planet itself.
The star system in which the planet orbits had many space stations, shipyards and defense stations all around its many planets, moons and its 2 asteroid fields, Tycan Joviar and Epsilon station being one of them.
Nonetheless as the Zetyan shuttle craft closed distance towards the planet a hail from a nearby space station can be detected. Soon enough given sometime comms was established between the station and the vessel
"Attention visitor, this is Station Elysium orbiting the planet Hibistar, please identify and state your intentions moving towards the tropical planet. Or we will have a someone chase you out of this system."
The voice accompanied from the transmission was friendly enough that it wouldn't seem threatening from the outside, Most probably due to the Novakians being friendly towards all outsiders.
Ding dong.
The telltale activation boops of the shuttle intercomm caught some chunks of attention from the two passengers, ensuring there would be at least some bits of the announcement that came through.
"[Alright, we should be heading planetside within a few minutes. Just have to get past their customs, and you'll be standing under Hibistar's skies.]"
'Hibistar, what an odd name.' Th'akoa thought, as he looked around the shuttle's interior. There wasn't really anyone else on the ship, save for another guy a few seats up reading on a tablet. Probably something boring, like business deals or one of them older books in circulation.
"Are some parts... supposed to be green?" P'kah decided to surprise him with a question, as she peered inquisitively out towards the planet's surface.
"...What, like, the ocean?"
"No, no, there's some bits on the islands..."
"You mean the forests?"
"Those are forests?"
"...yes? Have you never...?"
"No, just... I never thought they could be so bright."
Without much reply, Th'akoa returned to the great waiting game. He had to wonder just how verdant it was, for her to audibly question if it even was forests down there...
Meanwhile, in vacuum, the station received the shuttle's reply soon after.
"This is Pondjumper 23910-A of T'hja Intersystems, we have some tourists onboard on a booked flight. Requesting permission to land planetside or dock, over."
"This is the Station Elysium orbiting Hibistar, i welcome you towards our tropical planet, to get down you will have to go through our customs first. please head towards the vicinity of this station so that we may be able to scan you for anything that might be illegal within this planet." The station would soon respond, a minute later coordinates towards the station can be seen from the Zetyan shuttles navigation systems
On below the Zetyans can see many island chains, some large land masses in between, it was indeed that the forest vegetation was brighter than expected, whether it be because of the atmosphere conditions of the planet or the bright Star that's causing it. Nonetheless it would've been nice to view on its various life and relics that so happened to be located on this planets, almost as if the Advertisement on the Ancnet was true.
On the ground of one of the space ports can be seen 2 personnel, both tour guides and standing beside a landing pad where alot of civilian shuttle land and take off every day. This time however, they would be talking about something else
"So they want me and you to be the tour guide for a yet another unknown alien tourist?"
"Well, it ain't like they have a choice. We are the only one's that are experienced enough for the task, while the others are still trying to get some so that they can get on the same level as us"
"Yeah, let's hope we dont end up like the ones before us. Say well do our best at anything possible"
"I agree, aslong as we don't end up like the one who used to have our job"
"H&A, proceeding to coordinates." came their reply 30 seconds later, and the small shuttle soon roared over to the designated area, ceasing movement once it reached it's destination.
Ding dong. Again.
"[They'll be scanning us in a few moments. If you feel weird, it'll probably pass. If not, there's r'oopak bottles in the seat pockets. Pop a few.]"
The couple didn't register the announcement much, as Th'akoa was busy on his holophone and P'kah was still staring out the window at, well, whatever she was staring at.
Th'akoa's focus was upon the Novakian AncPedia page, reading up on various things like history, government, whatever worked as visual white noise for him. He also made sure to read up on any unusual customs, just in case they had to deal with anything when they were planetside. It was practically habit at this point; backwater worlds were strange places with stranger traditions, and he often had to go to said worlds on business trips.
P'kah, meanwhile, merely stared ahead, shaking the glaze off her eyes whenever she saw something strange. Given this was unfamiliar territory, with some of the strangest looking architecture she'd seen so far, they moved quite often. Her hand semi-autonomously reached for the seat pocket and preemptively fiddled around for the r'oopak bottle-scans back home always made her nauseous one way or another.
When the scan hit, it didn't detect much of note; 3 passengers, their luggage below them in a designated cargo area, what seemed to be a concerningly large pest rooking around in said cargo area, and a few bits and bobs like weapon magazines or spare parts left behind. Overall, rather boring-surprising, considering where the shuttle came from.
As the scan completed, the crew of Elysium station found that no illegal items were present at the small shuttle, thus it was granted a pass towards to enter the atmosphere of this planet.
"This is Elysium toward the shuttle, scan completed. Permission granted to enter Hibistar's atmosphere. Seeing as you are not from the Novakian Federation itself I recommend you land at runway 38B of Trenet Spaceport. Here's the coordinates to the location specified." And soon enough, the coordinates towards the Spaceport was transmitted towards the Zetyan Shuttle's navigation computer systems. Along with some instructions on what to do after landing.
As Th'akoa reads the Novakian AncPedia Page, it found much History within the Federation spanning several centuries, from its birth to its arrival in Ancerious, from its arrival towards its First wars within, from its wars to its Nomadic period and so on and so forth. 'Hibistar' while a backwater world as it seems was home to one of the major Events that had occurred within the Novakian Federation, mainly it being at the epicenter of a bloody 15 year long civil war spanning countless land and space engagements, with several sides wanting control over this entire star system. But there's was little information regarding such historic events but atleast it was long enough to keep him satisfied for sometime.
On the ground the 2 Novakian Tour guides were now preparing to meet the new tourist as they receive conformation that they were given a pass to enter the atmosphere and land at the spaceport.
"Recieved, going planetside." was the shuttle's final response, it's engines jolting to life as it turned towards its new destination. The tiny thing soon entered atmosphere, now seeming little more than a fireball leaving behind a trail of reddish smoke.
'This is one of their backwater worlds? They didn't say that on the advertisement...' Th'akoa pondered, as the shuttle rocked and jolted in an attempt to do it's level best at stopping him from clearly viewing some of the pictures. The place, from what he could see of it through the motion blur, was kinda pretty, a bit flashy. P'kah wasn't kidding, though-those were some really, really vibrant plants. He supposed those civil wars must've been pretty neat to see with all the jungles and whatever.
P'kah was...
...eh, she was still staring out the window. Probably really tuned out. He turned his holophone off, as the voice of the pilot informed them they would land in 3 minutes.
--
The two tour guides now saw the shuttle as it made it's approach towards the spaceport, a shape surrounded by bright red light that soon turned to a shape with two small pricks of red light behind it. It followed the instructions given by the space station, coming in for a rather swift landing at their designated runway as it trailed smoke from it's engines.
It was a small, very angular craft, colored shit-brown with a strange cockpit covered with interconnected bright red dots. Two unmoving VTOL engines on the wings helped turn it on the ground it as any local air control gave it's pilots instructions on where to go, while a disconcertingly large bulbous engine on the back slowly cooled down.
An airlock on the side cycled and opened a few times as the shuttle moved into it's final position. Inside, the passengers prepared to disembark, awaiting the go-ahead from the captain.
As the shuttle enters the atmosphere of Hibistar they can now get a better look of the native Greenery on the various islands of the planet. As they reached the spaceport they can now see a large bustling city nearby on one of the largest landmasses of this tropical planet.
As the small zetyan shuttle lands at the spaceport they could find that they had landed on one smaller sections of the spaceport. Mostly probably an older one now relegated to serve small light-shuttles that occasionally lands here. Regardless The Air traffic control on this side of the spaceport would have the shuttle to move to its designated position near where the 2 Novakian tour guides were standing, there Novakian Spaceport personnel would unload the small shuttle of any cargo and/or luggage that might be present while the other personnel would perform a maintenance check on it and repair it if necessary or if they can.
It is at this time that the both Novakian tour guides can catch a glimpse of the zetyan shuttle and the state that it is in.
"It seems strange isn't it?, I thought it'd be a little more sleek that it is"
"It does look a little like an old rust bucket that hasn't been used in quite awhile, you know what that means don't you?"
"Yes I know, and it's not the time to bring that up. Now this is where our job begins. Let's hope all goes well and hopefully we'd get some more next time"
Both said to each other as they would start walk towards the Zetyan shuttle seemingly ready to meet their new batch of tourists as they probably began to disembarked from the shuttle
The bright blue skies met the passengers with great fervor, their surroundings a kaleidoscope of bright colors and pleasant smells weaving and intertwining together to create a vibrant landscape custom tailored to be as pleasing to all five senses as possible to any who walked upon it. The other passenger, some dude in business attire, didn't seem too phased by his surroundings, but for the two tourists, it was almost sensory overload-they couldn't help but try and look all around them with wide eyes and somewhat dropped jaws.
Their cargo also had a unique passenger; a runt slowly teetered out of the cargo bay when it was opened, dragging an angular luggage bag behind it while chewing on a piece of jerky it had fetched out of another bag's outside pocket. A quick bonk on the head by the businesszet caused it's quick release and retrieval from the errant child, before dragging him along in kind.
P'kah and Th'akoa, meanwhile, kept on trying to intone every little thing from sight to smell as they retrieved their luggage; all they had really known was smog and drab brown and half-dead plants, and this place was, for all intents and purposes, the most alien thing they had ever seen.
"Shit, you weren't kidding when you said the forests were green..." he said, as he unlatched the straps on his luggage bag and began putting it on like some sort of pack.
"Those aren't even forests, they're like... agh, I don't even have words..." she responded.
"I think you mean, like... jungles? Yeah, jungles."
"J-jungles?"
"Like forests, but... wetter... and more plant-y?
"Oh. Never really heard of that word..."
"I wonder why."
After a short chuckle, their attention soon shifted to the approaching tour guides, while Th'akoa tried to find where his jerky stick went.
"Well it would've been a shame if the description wasn't accurate enough or else we might've get sued for false advertisement. Now that said shall we move on? We still have alot of things to do before you can realistically get anywhere in the planet."
"That said, welcome to Hibistar. Enjoy your time there"
Both Novakian tour guides would respond to Th'akoa as the Both Zetyan tourist looked at their surroundings. If they looked behind they can see a larger more bustling terminal with various large shuttles either docked to the terminal itself, or was being taxied on and off the runway. If they looked beside the terminal they can see 2 large islands, one is a large island with what can be described as a large city on it with another being a smaller island but it seems to be uninhabited with no major settlements insight.
"It seems that this is your first time seeing a jungle is it? Well don't worry, as soon as we are able to check you in we might aswell bring you to go hiking on one of Hibistars islands just so you can get to feel what it's like over there" One of the Tour guides said looking at the Zetyan tourist who were seemingly surprised at the scenery of the planet.
The 2 Tour Guides would then walk towards each other facing away from the zetyans for now.
"Don't you think they'd be surprised that we'd bring them to our jungles? It seems that they have never seen one before"
"Might aswell make it as enjoyable for them as possible at the least. We don't want to disappoint our newest tourist, heck they may be able to bring more in if we're good enough to be honest."
"Yeah, that's the least we could do. We might aswell try to impress them....if that's possible anyways"
"That sounds nice."
"Ooh, yeah, hiking sounds good."
The two tourists perked up at the idea proposed by the guides, as they moved to follow the two in kind. Their attention soon shifted to the vehicles, their gazes gravitating towards anything that wasn't already seen and making observations. The odd ones out also followed, though out of the two the bag-carrier runt was certainly the more attentive.
As they followed along, they too made small talk. They seemed to not have much concept for an inside voice, as the two tour guides could make out what they said-or maybe they did, and just didn't care.
"What do you think we'd see in there?" he asked, as he stared at the uninhabited island.
"Something cool-looking, I hope. All the animals and plants in the zoos back home are boring." she replied.
"We have zoos? I thought those died out-"
"No, we still have some. It's all in the core, though, costs like a bitch and it's all just clones of tiny birds and rat thingies if you don't fork up more."
"Oh."
"...well, there was one kinda cool one. Looked like a red dart, zipped around everywhere. 'pparently it hunted by impaling stuff."
"Hm. Neat."
"You bring your camera?"
"Camera? I have my holophone, dumbass."
Sharing a chuckle and some light hits, they continued walking, as Th'akoa pulled out his holophone and took a selfie. The other two merely plodded along, as the runt tried to unsuccessfully trail the two-to steal more jerky sticks, of course.
"It seems like they wanted to hike eh?"
"By the looks of it they seem rather happy about"
"Right, I'll give a call to the guys over there and see if we can make any reservations there. Should take a minute or two depending if they even wanted to pick up the phone or not"
In sometime, the 2 Novakian tour guides managed to reserve a room at a location in the supposed uninhabited island for the tourists to stay. This was perhaps a good news for the 2 as they were now able to quickly get the Zetyans transported to the location without difficulties provided that they had managed to get their language checked and pass border security which at this point, As they exit the spaceport terminal they can see a medium sized cab waiting for them just outside.
"That's our ride, Get your stuff into the vehicle and enter it" Said one of the Tour guides as he gestured for the Zetyans to load their language and enter the vehicle they too would enter it. They would also help them fit their languages into the trunk of the vehicle should any difficulties arrise, and when the group had boarded the vehicle they would be transported to their destination.
An hour or so passed with the vehicle passing through the various roads of the city before finally moving onto a bridge where the seemingly uninhabited island can be seen. Upon closer inspection there could be seen a few roads leading up ahead, probably connecting to some other parts of the island, but that didn't matter as the vehicle would make their way onto one of the roads. Now getting closer to the location, while still far away the Zetyans can see the beautiful wildlife of the supposedly uninhabited island, Half an hour later they would finally reach their destination which seemed to be a large resort made to look like large wooden cottages.
-------------------
One thing led to another and by the time the Zetyans and the Tour guides had settled in onto their rooms they would set out onto a hiking path just nearby the cottages. Safe enough that anyone can cross it without issue while also being able to look at the forest scenery at close distances.
"This place looks good, it's been a long time since I've visited this island."
"Well the last time we've been here its wasn't for shits and giggles despite the scenery. I wish I could've forget whatever happened here anyways"
"Well, atleast you wouldn't have to relive that experience ever again eh?"
"So long as it never happened again"
The Novakian Tour Guides said as they were chatting with each other again.
The two did as told with some pep in their step, the excitement of something truly new beyond just brown buildings, heavy smog and watching a dude eat shit to some spiffy new hypercar every so often driving them forward as nothing had before.
As they went from spaceport to taxi to hotel, though, the tourist's charges would soon find their first complication: they had a very annoying knack for commenting on everything they saw, especially without much of an indoors voice. One couldn't really blame them, what with tourism not being a particularly popular avenue of Zetyan consumer culture, but at a certain point it would be all to easy to wish for a roll of tape.
By the time they reached the hotel, the guides would likely have had over 40 various ways you could say dick and balls burned into their brains, along with learning how many crass adjectives you could use to describe a animal in one sentence.
Atleast, if nothing else, it provided some breakup for the monotony of an hour's drive.
---
Once on the trail, after some unpacking and other assorted business, they soon took to hiking with fervor, taking in their surroundings and pointing out things that looked neat, dispensing mature and thoughtful takes such as 'that pink flower thingy looks like a vag', 'the trees kinda look like Evil Demon products but spikier' and 'oh hey that bird thingy looks like an assplug', among others inbetween holophone pictures. At least, they were having some fun starting out.
As P'kah leaned down to pick a vibrant flower she found particularly interesting, Th'akoa decided to take in the sounds for a moment. As he did so, he slowly tuned in to the conversation the guides were having-something happened? What happened? What?
As he dried to deduce what they were talking about, P'kah stood back up, stem in mouth.
"Hahy, thish don't tashte too bahd."
"...did.. you eat a flower?
"Mmyeah."
"...uh..."
"What? I've had worse." She seemed to accentuate this by swallowing the stem.
"..mmalright." He said with a shrug, his black orbs that he knew as eyes turning to look at the guides as he leaned over, whispering to her. "Can i ask them something real quick, or...?"
"Uh, sure. Go for it. Oooh, another one!"
As she rushed to another pink flower-50/50 chance of being a different species entirely-Th'akoa slowed down a little, moving to get next to the guides.
"Uh, I heard something happened?"
One of the Novakian Tour Guides turned to Th'akoa as he asked the question
"Well, That something happened years ago. There's probably no need to stress about it"He said before turning back to the other Tour Guide
"So shall we tell him about what happened?" He replied back
"Maybe, you can tell them what happened and i will fill in the details for if you got some of them wrong. I still have those memories from the civil war, while i have moved on from them i still could not forget that one operation" he added
"That means you can tell them what happened"
"Alright then"
At this point the 2 Tour guides would turn towards the Zetyan Tourist before telling them what happened
"Whatever happened has already passed, but it is still its fresh in our minds. To begin, this very place you see here is something of a small hiking trail, the place where you go have some fun and watch the scenery while you go snap some photos and post them on the internet. But 20 years ago on this very spot was one of the most deadliest battles ever fought during a conflict most call the Hibistar Civil War."
"That Battle, or whatever it was brutal, perhaps something your nation wouldn't want to experience. I don't know but this is the first time i ever shared this story, it may get a little iffy but yea, imagine that your a Novakian Soldier and you are now in the jungle at night with little to no visibility. And now you have found yourself in the heat of a battle. On one side your friend are firing their machine guns and throwing grenade almost hopelessly as they try to fight off dozens of rebel soldiers all either holding grenade launchers and flamethrowers. Just then a bomb or 2 would come up and blow them all to bits. as you look up you'd be treated to a view of hundreds of fighters duelling out in the airspace above, one half trying to destroy a massive aerial vehicle while the other side is desperately trying to defend it."
One of the tour guide said before the both looked at each other a bit nervously. still they would continue to walk down the path as they tell the story of one of them being in an unfortunate place at an unfortunate time.
"Oh, wow." he said, as he visualized the scene in his mind. He found himself stifling the urge to say 'that's pretty fuckin' cool' in followup, instead settling for a "Must've been pretty bad back then. What was-... oop."
His attention shifted to further up the trail, as P'kah seemed to dart back and forth through the bushes, hot on the tail of some small creature as she cackled like a hyena. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in slight confusion as he found himself going over to where she was at-not out of wondering why she was doing it, mind you, but rather wondering why she was doing it in such a roundabout way. Why not wait to ambush the little prick instead?
As he got closer, he could make out what she was chasing, just as it darted into the underbrush again and left behind an exhausted P'kah cursing at it. Some tiny mouselike thing. He scowled at the thought, reminded of the rockrats back at home. Pesky little shits, they were.
"God.. damnit, aaagh! Get back here and... face me you... you... uh, faggot rat ass shitfuck!" she said, inbetween pants.
"Eh, leave it. Probably tastes like ass anyways."
"You.. sure?"
"Yeah. 'sides, there's bigger things up ahead."
"...really?"
"Yes." He found it rather easy to lie, as he pulled up an AncNet website for Hibistar's wildlife to speed-verify his own claim.
"sigh Cool."
Having been given the bait, she returned to finding cool looking flowers to chew on, slowing in speed and allowing the guides to catch up. Meanwhile, he lagged behind, returning to the guides at a leisurely pace while trying to remember what he was going to ask them. Having found no purchase with his memory, he settled on something else on-topic, seemingly oblivious or uncaring of his partner's antics.
"So, how'd that Civil War thingy happen, anyways?"
"Yeah, It was pretty bad alright, Imagine having to fight your way out of a hell hole while the skies above were most likely 'Lit on fire' or as both the rebels and our allies put it is. But i was one of the very few that made it through the whole thing and came back with some injuries of course"
The Novakian Tour guide said as he then watches as P'Kah shifts his attention further up the trail, perhaps chasing a creature, realising what it was he chuckled a bit as he watched him dart around to try to catch a rather speedy creature.
Meanwhile the tour guide was a behind the pack, casually watching over the 2 zetyans and his partner go about. He also chucked a little as Th'koa goes around chewing flowers, Albeit he was watching out for if she had the unfortunate luck of stumbling upon a bright blue flowing that was beautiful but has the reputation of being very hard to hold onto due to its thorns and also it releasing some venomous gas to those who tried to go pluck it as some kind of defence mechanism
-------------
The Tour guide after hearing the question would answer as he had always like he has told it to other tourists visiting this island before the zetyans did
"Well, as to how it began, in short there was this one grouped who called themselves the Neustar Rebels, which began to terrorise much of the planet after a failed military coup which lead to its eventual formation. The Hibistar Government not wanting to let it grow further began mobilising troops to deal with the rebels, while this was a partial success this also had the ripple effect of the rebels starting to engage the Hibistar Military. This then escalated over the course of several months which it all came down when the rebels captured one pf the major cities on Hibistar which was 'San Emancipancion'. And that's where most historians agree when the civil war truly started" He replied
Th'akoa seemed attentive as he listened to the guide's recounting, envisioning in his head what the fights might've looked like back when it happened. He made an internal note to look up some military footage on whatever galactic version of TapedDrain they had when they got back, figuring it'd probably be a neat watch and give some background these guys might've missed.
Meanwhile, P'kah started to tire of the 'normal' flowers; sure, they tasted great. But she had skipped over all the really pretty ones so far, and they probably tasted way better. She began to become almost pickier with what flowers she picked, and started with a bright one with neat patterns. It tasted like rind steak, if a bit dried out and maybe with sugar put on it. Another one tasted like rosemary with some spices put on it. Yet another tasted...
...
Eugh. She spit it out, the taste of rotten meat lingering on the tongue. Perhaps it was to be expected; one doesn't simply start munching on every flower they see and expect a pleasant buffet.
Another one soon caught her eye. A pleasant cerulean blue, glistening in the sunlight like it was drenched in the morning dew, patterned like a butterfly of yore. Soon, her hand neared the stem, ready to pick it...
...and then she drew it back. Nothing particularly stood out to her, mind; she merely noted that flowers were just starting to get kinda boring in general. Only so many colors of the rainbow she could sample before she'd had them all.
Her tastes slightly more refined, she decided to draw back to the other three, nudging Th'akoa on the shoulder as she did so.
"They say what's up ahead yet? I wanna try something new." she asked.
He shrugged in response, and turned to the guides with a slight chuckle. "Suppose she needs something bigger to chew on."
"What's up ahead? well its somewhat of a relic from the civil war though its at the other side of this trail so theres still alot to go judging from where we are. Not many who visited this trail knew about it, less so with those who weren't veterans from the civil war. If i still can remember where the relic is somewhere at the end of this trail which is at the end of this trail." A Tour Guide replied to P'kah
In other words we'd be travelling over the top of that mountain to the otherside of this island if we want to see the relic. while there are many resting spots dotted across this path it could take days for us to reach the relic. if you want somewhere closerr there is a patch of large flowers nearby. Just that we'd have to take a small detour should we want to get there" He added
"Better be careful with them you know, those flowers are not as safe to chew on like the rest you'd see, its best if you take a look at it rather than chew on it and burn the inside of your mouth in the process." The Other Tour guide said as he looked at P'Kah. After all, by this time he knew she likes to chew on flowers here, so it was best for him to warn her about the flowers beforehand else he'd be receiving a lawsuit from them both.
"Ah, cool, that sounds interesting." he said, pondering what was ahead while P'kah finished nibbling on some bright red flower. "But, a few days? It doesn't look that far, shouldn't take that long to get to... I think." Th'akoa wasn't exactly the best navigator, though, and it certainly showed, as he began mumbling incorrect estimates to himself.
P'kah, meanwhile, merely wondered what next to eat. Absentmindedly, her mind wandered to wondering where she left those runt jerky sticks at. Confirming they weren't in her pocket, and that she did have her holophone, she cursed herself for not having better foresight for these kinds of things. The comment about the flower field did perk her interest, if only because it implied there'd be bigger things to eat beyond the flowers.
With that in mind, she saw fit to ask "There anything bigger to eat over there? Burgers or rats or something? Flowers kinda lost their charm on me." as she began considering what else she could start eating around here. Maybe those big bulbs, or weird plants...
Nah, they probably tasted like shit. Literally, even.
Th'akoa also asked "What's the relic thing exactly, anyways? Big destroyed weapon or something?" as he began speedsearching for 'tourist destination hibistar war relic cool' on the AncNet.
"Honestly, You'll have to find out and see it for yourself" One of the Tour Guides said to Th'akoa. As he searched the AncNet for a Hibistar war tourist destination they would find many of such, but the 2 most interesting was a wreck of a crashed airship near the island and the ruins of an anti-orbital laser weapon, one of which they could be encountering at the end of the trail.
"In all honesty there is, but either it isn't much to look at or that they are in some cases poisonous and are deadly to humans, but i don't know about zetyan biology so things can work out much differently." The other tour guide replied to P'kah. Hoping that she'd not chew on more flowers this time.
-----
After a few days the group would eventually reach to the end of the trail. Trekking through a beautiful forest as they went to see the war relic mentioned in the AncNet.
As they reached the end of the trail they would now be on the side of a cliff with a medium sized viewing platform for whoever that manged to come all the way here, there the group would see the remnants of a Massive Airship. Viewing from the platform they would notice that it is a massive wing shaped object with one haft of it sticking out like a sore thumb compared to its surroundings while the other haft was behind it, in a different orientation. other than that a massive trail can be seen behind it, perhaps left by the Airship as it crashed into waters as it tries its best not to disintegrate in mid air. Nonetheless much of the wreck site was already reclaimed by nature, as seen with the various trees starting to grow around the crash site and the vines starting to grow and hang from the structure itself.
"What are we looking as is the remnants of a rebel airship. Take whatever pictures you'd like, only a few that had managed to get out this far had seen this old relic" On of the Tour Guide said as he looked at the relic from the viewing platform.
"...uh, okay." He replied, eyeing the results on his holophone. A muted grunt of approval was made at the sight of the AO emplacement; like many others of his kind, he couldn't help but marvel at guns of stupendous sizes, almost a primal instinct of some sort in it's own right. Shame it would take a few days, but he paid for a week's vacation-might as well take his time.
P'kah merely scoffed somewhat at the tour guide's notion. "Bah, anything's better than the rats and birds back home."
"And the ones over here are any different?"
"Pretty colors and cool noises."
"Fair."
Ending their exchange, they resumed their trek as they followed the tour guides, off to who knows where.
-
Three days later, and a plethora of rest stops, pissing stops and other such activities in tandem, the group had soon arrived near their destination. P'kah, inbetween long bouts of boring hiking, had managed to scrape together some small critters as trail snacks, and even Th'akoa had joined in on catching food, both undoubtedly disappointing their great-times-ten-thousand ancestors with their lack of skill and finesse.
The airship, though, was certainly a spectacle. The combination of metal and foliage, each seeming to weave around the other in equilibrium, and the remnants of the craft's unique shape could probably give an Iqzinan some bemusement. Indeed, Th'akoa was soon pulling out his holophone, ready to take a few pictures of the fallen airshi-
His phone had some notifications. Very concerning notifications.
"...shit, our flight's been delayed."
"Hm? Why?" P'kah perked up, concerned. She didn't quite have much fondness for home, but she wasn't quite ready to be an expatriate either.
"Flight costs, it says. Pushed back by several days minimum. But shuttles... they don't use much Ancerium, right?"
"Well, maybe the one they had broke down or something."
"No, it would say if-" He looked up the news, to see what could possibly have caused it to happen...
"...oh no."
"What?"
"N-nothing." He quickly put the phone away before she could see. "Just, just something happened, is all." He couldn't hide his sudden bout of nervousness.
"W-It's not nothing. You don't just say 'oh no' like that, spill the beans."
"I will when we get back to the hotel."
"No, you'll forget 'cause you're a dumbass. Did they jack the prices or something?"
"If I tell you now, you'll go apeshit."
"...why would-"
"Just look at the wreck thingy, okay?! Eat a rat or something!"
"Woah, jeez, okay. Calm your tits." She soon began taking pictures of the wreck on her own holophone, though now she was giving side-eye to her suddenly very out-of-character coworker.
The view of the Airship from the platform gave much impression towards the Tourguides aswell, But seeing as they have visited the site many times and has gone as far as to actually gone inside of the wreck it was more or less a regular Tuesday for them atleast.
Whilst Admiring the view they both got a few Notifications on their phones.
One would pick it us to see what it is while the other would continue to watch over the Zetyan tourist, seeing as they can be quite unpredictable at time.
"Seems like their Shuttles flight has been delayed by quite a few days at the very least," The tour guide said towards the other as he hurried his was onto his partner.
"Have you got the reason yet?"
"Flight Costs, I wonder how did the flight costs managed to get this high, even for a small shuttle" He said wondering about it for a while afterwards
"Could be anything of the sorts, equipment break down, Damaged FTL Drive or maybe the Shuttle doesn't meet up with the safety requirements" The other Guide replied
-----
The First Tour guide would then use his phone to contact the tourist agency along with the spaceport to figure out what might've happened. A few minutes gone by with without any sort of communication between them before the first Tour Guide would finish the call and put the phone into his pocket.
"Let's say, its not pretty. as it turns out, the price for ancerium got Jacked up severely and the government had restricted the use of civilian ships to conserve the substance, right now the agency is contacting the Federal government, doing some negotiating work in hopes of getting the last of the tourist traffic to leave and return to where they departed from."
"The small shuttles don't use that much Ancerium does it?"
"Probably not considering its size, but i wouldn't be surprised if they do. Most likely were going to have it docked to an FTL bus and have it take the shuttle back to where its from"
"so what should be do now?"
"Bring the tourists back to the hotel, and explain the situation. Hopefully they'd understand the situation and not flip out like some godforsaken karen in a large supermarket" The Tourist guide said towards his partner.
"I'll call up a Jeep, they should get us back in no time." The tourist guide said.
The other tour guide, now knowing what to do would walk up towards the Zetyan Tourists, possible interrupting their conversation in the process.
"Hey, sorry to cut the visit short and to but I suppose its time that we head back towards the hotel. I've called up a jeep so that we don't have to spend days going back towards the Hotel." He said Whilst the other would wait for the vehicle to arrive.
P'kah had just finished started to take out her phone when the guides gave their interruption, increasing her suspicions by roughly 10x more than what they had been before as Th'akoa conceded in confused acceptance. First her coworker suddenly starts shitting himself over something on his phone, and now the guides were suddenly having them get a drive back to their flat out of nowhere? Something was up that nobody was telling her.
"Ok, what the hell's going on? Spill it." She decided to interrogate her coworker initially; he was the first to know, he would be the first to tell.
"Something bad happened, okay? They-we-I-mm. You'll get your answers when we get back home, yeah?"
"No, I atleast ought to know why you're shitting yourself right now and you two are suddenly cutting things off. We just had a spat over this, Th'akoa! Cut the shit!"
"I-... Alright, fine, here, look. Just don't freak out." A trade commenced between the two as he handed her his phone; to her came the desired information, and to him came the shift of blame for however she reacted.
Her eyes now scanned the page open on his phone. Various news articles, each with what almost looked like clickbaity headlines.
MASSACRE AT ZARATHUSTRA! LONG-DEAD ECLIPSE LORD KILLS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
ANCERIUM PRICES REVERSE, SKYROCKET-ECONOMY IN SHAMBLES
MASS CGSS WITHDRAWAL CAUSES TURMOIL, DISRUPTION
AEDLESHAVEN CORRIDOR BLOCKED, HYPERFUEL PRICES JACKED
"...what the fuck." She spoke, after a moment of boring holes into the screen protector. "Wh-I-. Ugh, Koa DAMNIT!"
A resounding thunk was heard as she threw a phone at a nearby tree-surprisingly, not Th'akoa's holophone, which she instead held in a death grip for a few moments before returning to him.
"Fuck, we paid so much for this shit and now-!, aghhh I KNOW they're charging us extra for this!"
"Look, I have the money for it if they do that, we'll be fine."
"They charge for everything, though! Even fuel! They did that last time I went interstellar for some maintenance bullshit and it nearly drained all my funds, who knows how much they'll fuck you! Ugh..."
"Well, uh, at least we can stay here for a week, instead of home."
"...hrm." As she went to retrieve whatever she threw, mood considerably worsened, she turned to the tour guides. "Ok, how long's the ride, what's the plan? I gotta call my boss, he probably does too."
"Alright, so the plan is that we get you on the Jeep, get you back towards the hotel, we pack our stuff and then we get you and your shuttle off the planet and back where you came from. At this point when there's a large even like this happening all the tourist would rush to get home so they do not get stuck on whatever planet their on. I'm pretty sure there would be atleast a few days before the prices in this nation would jack up to insane levels but right now we gotta get you back as soon as possible." The tour Guide replied to the zetyan tourist as the jeep arrives.
"C'mon, get on. the Hotel would be just an hour or two away if we use the jeep." The tour guide said as he gestured towards the Zetyan tourist to get on.
---
Back at the Spaceport there was chaos as many tourist rushed to shuttles as they prepared to bring them back where they came from before the Price of ancerium made the trips too expensive. As the many shuttles started leaving Hibistar on the ground many maintenance workers began maintenance on some of the smaller shuttles as they prep them for space flight should their owners needed to get off planet quickly.
"Yeah. Alright, okay, sounds good, c'mon get in the fuckin' thing let's go. c'mon. C'MON." P'kah's focus translated cleanly from the guides to her companion as they moved to enter the jeep, shaking him a little and practically dragging him along. He seemed engrossed in a call; likely to his boss, or perhaps the travel agency he came in on.
---
Packing was fast, the trip was faster. P'kah would've chalked it down to not having much stuff, Th'akoa would've figured it was dumb luck. Perhaps it was both, or something else entirely, but in any case the four were now rushing through the spaceport like children running to a candy shop. Granted, 'rushing' was a little overstatement, but compared to the crowd congestion that filled the spaceport and given this was a tourist world, they were practically sailing by the various families and honeymooners-who likely paid way more than they ever did.
The arrival and designation of their flight was heralded by a buzzing on Th'akoa's phone; in place of their homeland flight, a proxy shuttle would have to do-lest their Pondjumper fine them extra for the hurry.
TSA, hallways, gate, entrance. The proxy 'shuttle', in spite of it's classification, was some great Yamanakako-branded hulk, demonstrating how it was built for bulk through the countless vacuum tubes that ran from the spaceport to it's bulk, ferrying the rich, poor and spendworthy alike as they hurried to make their way into the great ship. Perhaps Th'akoa could gripe about how they could've atleast gotten something a little better for the asking price, or P'kah could make a scene of having to share a breathing space with other forms of life beyond their own, but to both chagrins the threat of being stranded was a far more pressing issue.
A moment's wait, perhaps more as the women and children settled in, and then they were off, off into the great beyond as the great hulk went to the nearest routing station...
---------
The hum of the spaceport was killing him.
Sure, he could use his headplugs, listen to some tunes o catch a $piTz $hiTz stream. Make small talk with P'kah as well if he wished, too, though he'd likely have trouble coming up with conversation topics beyond 'hey so the thing that destabilized the galaxy for decades and killed more people than there are grains of sand on a planet? yeah a part of it just woke up and assfucked the economy how cool is that?'. At bare minimum, he could tune into the TV, listen to the latest hot tv star throw around crocodile tears at some scandal only three people could be bothered to remember.
But if Th'akoa was being honest, none of those things felt particularly appealing. And his only solace would be that the shuttleflight was...
...49 minutes, 31 seconds to departure time, give or take any niggling details.
Sigh.
At least, he had some neat pictures. Cool wildlife, the big gun, fallen airship, the works. He even caught one of P'kah doing something far out of regulation for a hiking trip, though judging by appearances either she'd managed to somehow do it outside of the guide's notice or he didn't remember the trained and retired war veterans bringing out their inner drill instructor on her ass. He definitely hadn't gotten his money's worth-there were a few more things on the tourist offer they'd been wanting to see, most certainly a large zoo of many exotic species, and even rumours of some nice island chain somewhere else on the planet that was a hotspot for couples and travelers looking for a nice relaxation zone.
But, his job paid well enough. Give or take a year, they could probably afford something like this again, barring anything retarded happening within that timespan.
...
He hoped nothing would happen, at least.