10570/Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment
Date of Scene:	29 December 2019
Location:	The polluted planet of Angtu
Synopsis:	Invisible Kid and Polar Boy investigate a heavily polluted planet, discover native fauna, and attempt to perform science accordingly.
Cast of Characters:	Polar Boy, Invisible Kid

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Polar Boy has posed:
The small, two-person Legion shuttle slowly lands on the surface of a planet whose air is thick and hazy, obscuring the surroundings beyond the plain where the craft sets down.

"Okay, Lyle," Polar Boy says, "there's got to be /some/ sort of clue we can learn here that might help the people of Earth--or elsewhere--about how to avoid the situation that this planet is in a thousand years from now ... at least, until Mano sets his mind to obliterate it."

He steps down from the shuttle ramp onto the ground, near a set of small craters from which leak noxious fumes.

Invisible Kid has posed:
    "How much of this is the planets own geochemistry, and how much is envirocide by the locals?" Lyle asks, looking around and trying to make a few educated guesses about the atmosphere from the color and scent.  "Or are there even any sentients here?"
    He shrugs, and follows along.  After the recent mess with COMPUTO, any mission is going to feel more like a vacation than a job.  "You know," he muses, "the hardest part about being stuck in this time is not allowing myself to fix things ahead of schedule, so to speak.  There's so much we could fix easily, but the downstream effects timewise are too unpredictable.  Brainy says the time fractal is self-healing, but fractals are also known for two adjacent paths ending in wildly different destinations."

Polar Boy has posed:
"Oh, yeah, for sure," Brek responds, nodding enthusiastically even as his wide eyes suggest he's barely following Lyle's train of thought.

"Let's see what the sensors tell us..." He waves a handheld sensor about, examining its AR data display.

"Hm." Polar Boy pauses. "I wish I'd studied a bit more of my miscellaneous planetary histories. I can't remember offhand when Angtu was supposed to have been inhabited."

As if in response, there's a dull roar that causes everything in the vicinity to shudder, the sound reverberating into the murky distance.

Invisible Kid has posed:
    "Not my department either," Lyle remarks with a shrug.  "The only interest I had in planetary histories was their chemical makeup, not their sociologi--"
    He breaks off at the roar and looks around for the source.  "I'm not going to ask if you heard that too."

Polar Boy has posed:
With a slow nod, Polar Boy extends an arm and cools the air in the vicinity. "Let's see if this atmosphere responds at all to a thermal shift..."

Nothing seems to happen.

Then, there's another dull roar. It sounds louder--and closer.

"So," Brek says, "not to change the subject away from what we skipped study-wise, but ... I mean, if /I/ could turn invisible, I'd sure as heck do so."

He clears his throat and adds, "Of course, that assumes this ... whatever ... doesn't have a great sense of smell. But in this environment? How could it?"

Invisible Kid has posed:
    "Because it would be just our luck for it to be able to," Lyle replies, but with a smirk and a chuckle.  "I'll go high and see if I can spot anything... and trust anything that makes a noise like that is too big to fly."
    Just before flicking out of sight, he adds, "And if it can fly, I blame you for bringing us here."  Grin.  And a tiny swirl of dust is all that marks the spot where Invisible Kid -- now invisible -- leaves the ground.

Polar Boy has posed:
"Got it," Polar Boy responds, creating for himself an ice shield to hold before him.

Looming shadows become barely visible in the distance, lumbering closer. And closer. And closer.

From above, a similar visual phenomenon occurs. A pack of roaring predators approaches the shuttle--and Brek.

As the creatures grow near, though, their forms become apparent:

Possum-sized creatures, covered in scales, move sloth-like over the gaseous plains. Their tales, long and curved behind them, cast light like anglerfish, making the creatures' sizes, when refracted through the haze, seem enormous.

Brek smiles and reaches down to the nearest one with his ice-arm. "No /way/," he says breathlessly.

The creature reacts by unhinging its jaw and biting off Brek's ice hand with razor-sharp teeth.

"/Sprock/ this!" Polar Boy shouts, scrambling backwards.

The pack closes in on him.

Invisible Kid has posed:
    "Get up here, Brek!  That's not something you fight off, that's something you get away from!"  Right now, Lyle definitely regrets not having a ranged weapon of some sort
    Instead, he does what he can to get the pack's attention off his teammate to allow a hasty retreat: swoops down invisibly and grabs the tails of one of the beasts. He has no expectation of dragging it away unless it's a lot lighter than it looks -- he'll do with attracting it's attention and confusing the pack.

Polar Boy has posed:
The creature whose tail is grabbed shrieks, its voice like glass being smashed, as it struggles ineffectively to reach its unseen attacker.

Brek activates his flight ring, flying straight backwards away from the pack of creatures. As he moves, he sprays out ice across the ground, and the closest of the creatures slips and slides about, losing its footing.

The beast that ate his hand belches a cloud of ammonia, and it snorts, licking its lips.

"Oh, no," Brek mutters. "I think it's got a taste ... a taste for water."

Invisible Kid has posed:
    Lyle gives the critter's tail one more tug before bolting skywards to safety, flicking back into visibility as he approaches Brek.  "Better not give it any, then," he says, glancing to see if the ship is accessible.  His chemist's nose already told him about the ammonia -- he can think of a few things to react that with, but none of them are in his belt, at least not in useful quantities.

Polar Boy has posed:
"Lyle," Brek says, "I have never agreed with you more strongly or enthusiastically than I am right now."

He rises into the air, looking for his partner even as Lyle does the same.

"Okay. I'm really hoping that I haven't introduced some sort of timeline-rupturing disaster by giving these creatures a thirst that can only be quenched with me being torn to ice cubes." Polar Boy swallows a lump in his throat. "Maybe it'd be best to either abort this mission or hope that these things aren't inhabiting the entirety of the planet's surface?"

Invisible Kid has posed:
    "Not enough data to say.  We should have done a survey from orbit first, but who knew there were going to be packs of angler-possum-saurs?"  Lyle peers into the murky atmosphere, trying to get a better idea of the local geology.  "There have to be surface bodies of liquid, and they can't be ammonia because we're breathing and not dead.  Therefore there's almost certainly free water on the surface, but there's probably not much and it's certainly fully saturated with the gunk that's in the atmosphere.  So you've done no worse than giving them a taste for /clean/ water.  Three cheers for rough analysis, but that doesn't resolve our immediate issue.  And frankly, I'm a little surprised something that big and active can live in this environment.  It implies a much more diverse biosphere than we're seeing... there have to be prey animals for there to be pack predators."  He glances back down at the ship.  "I need to get some analytical gear.  And some chemicals," he says, obviously weighing up his chances to get in and out safely.

Polar Boy has posed:
"I see," Brek says. "I think I have a plan."

He rubs the side of his face. "I'm going to build a snowman. Of sorts. Decoys," he adds. "Then maybe we can slip into the shuttle and do whatever we need to do from the safety of a room where I'm--/we're/ not going to get eaten."

Brek cracks his knuckles and descends, slowly, forming a soft snowy boulder on the ground. Before he can even begin the second layer, the pack of creatures is upon the snow, chomping through it hungrily.

"Ok, scratch that! Go, go, go!" Brek attempts to create another. "Go while they're occupied!"

Invisible Kid has posed:
    Lyle goes -- invisibly, and very quickly.  Hopefully the miasmic air doesn't swirl revealingly in his wake... but at the speed he's going, he's probably not going to have to worry about that.
    He touches down on the ramp and darts inside, emerging moments later with several large ampoules, and additional equipment clipped to his belt.  Assuming they're still distracted, he makes for the sky and Brek again.

Polar Boy has posed:
"Alley--OOPS!" Brek cries, cutting off the stream of cold generation to his snowman as the ravenous creatures not only devour it but attempt to leap up at him, their mouths in the 'firehose' of iciness.

Just then, Lyle navigates the shuttle toward him, and Polar Boy dives into the rear hatch, collapsing on the cabin floor with a heavy rush of air. "Wooooof," he sighs. "Thanks, man. I swear I'll never be under-prepared again."

Invisible Kid has posed:
    "Take these," Lyle says, setting the craft on auto-hover and handing several of the plastic spheres to Brek.  "We won't want to be around when these hit -- and if they exhale ammonia, they won't stick around either.  Should spook them away from this area for a long time."
    He leans out of the open hatch, tossing one of the globes in his hand, picking his target.  He aims for right in front of one of the beasts; the sphere drops, hits the ground, bursts... and a greenish gas puffs out.  "Chlorine," he explains, "which reacts in a way most unpleasant with ammonia.  Chloramides are more annoying than poisonous... but they're /very/ annoying.  Aim where they're breathing for maximal effect.  We'll have to wait an hour for the air to clear so we can finish our work, but I bet they'll wait a lot longer than that before they come back."

Polar Boy has posed:
"Lyle," Polar Boy says, a smile extending across his face, "I don't know if anyone's told you this recently, but: you're a genius."

He chuckles and watches the globes descend, bursting as they strike the ground. "Learn something new every day..."