"Ready?""Yeah, I think."
"Then let"s go."
The request Dax had undertaken was the reason he had spent a few months at the sanctuary, and finally preparations had been completed. For the first time since Dax had arrived in this strange world the CAS-7A was fully fueled, ready for a long endurance trip. Solaris also looked the part, instead of her usual silk dress she wore a gray tank top and black shorts with all the gemstone she usually wore nowhere to be seen.
"Is it really impossible for me to bring some refined monster cores?"
"You can bring them in a bag that have to be stored in the depressurized cargo section."
"... Okay then."
Feeling there was no room for dispute on that point Solaris gave up without a struggle and boarded the CAS-7A with a pout.
"Then let"s launch before the optimal transfer window closes.."
Boarding himself Dax helped Solaris with her seating before he sat down next to her himself.
"Okay, I"ll do a final confirmation. From this point and until we land here again you are to follow my exact instructions and directives at all times, otherwise I can"t guarantee your survival. That means that if I deem it unsafe I will not complete your request, those were the conditions we settled on when I started preparing you for this trip."
"I understand, let"s do this."
Giving an instant and completely serious response it slowly started to dawn on Solaris what they were about to do, and how truly easily she could die if something happened.
"You finally have the right expression.. We"ll go for a direct transfer so it will be harder than the mock exam you went trough before."
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Launching form the 14th sanctuary the CAS-7A short range transport immediately left the atmosphere burning hard for a orbital insertion around the planets closest moon. The planet Dax and Lux had crashed on (Which he later named pandora) were a slightly low ma.s.s terran type with the slightly odd feature of 2 natural small satellites set to slowly escape from orbit doing the next 10 to 50 million years. Dax"s and Solaris" was destination was the dark side of the tidally locked closest moon, a ball of loosely packed blue gray regolith without atmosphere or magnetic field that one could find anywhere in the cosmos.
What was however extremely fascinating was a group of 10 kilometer wide completely circular mounts of regolith Dax had located near the north pole of the of the moon, or as Solaris called them: the lost sanctuary. According to Solaris the angels sanctuaries were all build in the matter of a single day when a global calamity struck, to act as bunkers until the planet turned habitable once more.
The more important and mostly forgotten part of that legend were that the angles themselves were not the ones that build the sanctuaries, but a long forgotten race that now only were referred to as the ancients. Even the archangel herself didn"t know much about the ancients, as the grand library of the 14th sanctuary contained almost no references of them, nor did any other allied sanctuaries records, as if it had been purposely left out. The only record that did confirm their existence was a single record detailing that they had a sanctuary for themselves that had been lost to the ages. But that had changed just 5 years ago when the gate formation at the center of every single sanctuary had remotely activated.
"That"s the thing I still don"t understand, what exactly is that "gate" thing?"
"Hm? The gate?"
"Yeah, could you explain what exactly they are in more detail?"
"Sure."
Putting her extremely important business of floating around in the cabin aside Solaris grabbed a handle to stabilize herself as she started explaining.
"The gates are gigantic magic formations there area at the center of every sanctuary, they allow for instant transportation between them and were apparently instrumental in surviving the calamity."
"Yeah I understand that, but what is it? Concretely."
"A gigantic and extremely complicated magic formation powered by an insane amount of mana infused metals and/or monster cores, how it works we don"t know, and we"re not about to take one apart to find out."
"If it isn"t broke, don"t fix it…"
One day a strange doc.u.ment had appeared out of the gates all over the world of magic. What was written on the doc.u.ment no one could understand even Dax"s ICI unit couldn"t decode the identical message, but that was not the important part. At the end of the encoded message was what Dax and Solaris both hypothesised to be some kind delivery address. It was a simple diagram with 2 circles, a small and a larger one. On the large one there were multiple smaller hollow circles, with each of the doc.u.ments having one and only one of the smaller circles filled, and it was a different one for every doc.u.ment. Solaris and the other angels quickly worked out that the large circle was their world, with the smaller hollow ones being sanctuaries and the filled one being the sanctuary it was sent to. The issue that conclusion had was the other smaller circle next to the large one also had a single small hollow circle, indicating there was a sanctuary on this other world, or the moon as Dax pointed out.
---
"Watch your step, the suit should be durable enough to not puncture if you step on something sharp but I don"t want to drag your suffocating a.s.s back to the CAS-7A for revival."
"U-understood."
As Solaris nervously stepped out onto the blue gray world she was struck with amazement. The desolate world infront of her was completely devoid of life with the only sound that existed being her own breathing and Dax"s instructions that sounded over the communication system in the modified s.p.a.ce suit she wore. Dax on the other hand saw this as simply another day at the office and rapidly deployed out in formation around the CAS-7A in formation and scanned the horizon.
"No visible contacts on scope, maintain alert."
Speaking out as he had done countless times before relaxing slightly Dax took a knee and laid down his rifle next to him as he took a look at the wrist display on his suit.
"Surface gravity is the expected 0.0097 G with temperature ranging from -173.15 in the shade and -43.15 celcius in the sun, normal temperature is around -123.15…. It"s a moon, just like all others. Solaris it will be easiest for you to walk by making small jumps forward, but just take it slow and be careful not to fall over."
Getting no response Dax stood up and turned around to see the angel was too focused on following his advice to respond. Showing a wry smile Dax chose to ignore Solaris and focused on the task at hand.
"Okay ICI deploy Reaper formation and give me a 5 click net around primary VIP and the specialist UGAV"s and stand by to scramble CAS-7A in case of a fast dustoff."
[DIRECTIVES CONFIRMED, ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG DEFENCIVE FORMATION.]
Slinging his rifle over the shoulder Dax started walking after Solaris that had somehow managed to pa.s.s him as he gave out orders to ICI he started a relaxed walk to the strange circular mounds about 2 kilometers away.