The hangar doors of the [i]Arcadian [/i]hangar bay groaned as they slid open, revealing the star-dusted expanse of the Polaris system and the universe beyond. On the flight deck, the twin engines of the Ranger-class shuttles began to whine and turn into a high-pitched hum.

"Rangers 1 and 2, you a cleared for departure," the flight controller's voice crackled. With a coordinated lurch, the craft drifted out of the bay before being propelled by their thrusters toward the distant alien ship.

Inside Ranger 2, Alistair Vance sat strapped into the command chair, right next to the shuttle's pilot. His helmet's HUD synced with the DRADIS feed. Tapping his gauntlet, Vance opened a three-way hololink between the shuttles and the bridge of the [i]Arcadian[/i].

"Shuttles away, sir," Vance said, his voice flat and professional. A hologram of the ship flickered to life in the center of both shuttles and the bridge. "Adjust approach vectors. Our sensors identified two structural apertures on the mid-section and aft of the hull. These appear to their equivalent of docking bays. They appear to be depressurized but still structurally sound. The aft section seems to be in the back third of the ship and closer to the unknown power source, but more heavily damaged. In addition, it does appear to have a more direct path to this power source. Perhaps their equivalent of an engine room or storage? Either way, whatever battle this ship has seen has left it in tatters."

Vance highlighted two points of interest in red on the hologram. "Major Sadek, you and your team will be landing in the aft section. Our resident astrophysicist, Dr. Schrier, is tasked with studying said power source and potentially bringing it aboard the Arcadian if it is safe enough. There will be secondary objectives, which I will leave up to you."

Vance then looked to the resident linguist. Siti Khouri was just as excited as Dr. Schrier. Despite being a linguist, the man could barely keep his words together at how excited he was to be there. He looked less like a pioneer and more like a kid on Christmas Day.

"Dr. Khouri," Vance said. "Best stay focused. We will be docking at the mid-section bay. The area appears to house the command center and secondary processing hubs. Our team's primary directive is data. That means symbols, logs, archives, anything that can be used to decipher their language and figure out who they were. This goes for both teams: safety is our top priority. [b][i]Everything[/i][/b] is to be inspected. We don't know if this is toxic to us or if there's some sort of dead-man's switch."

The shuttles moved ever closer to the massive ship, with the hull looming over them like a leviathan. The surface seemed to swallow or block out the light from Polaris. "While we will be viewed as heroes and pioneers, that won't excuse negligence. Don't let that get to your heads." With a series of precise bursts, the two Rangers peeled from each other. Ranger-1 dipped towards the rear third of the ship, while Ranger-2 banked towards the central mass and the docking bay.

Vance had his eyes closed as a metallic [i]thud[/i] vibrated throughout the floorboards of the shuttle. Its magnetic clamps engaged with the alien alloy. "Magnetic lock confirmed, Commander," the Ranger-2 pilot announced. "Seal is green across the board and we are down."

The XO nodded in approval. "Make a note that the alien alloy can be magnetized," he said as he stood. "Helmets sealed, weapons hot. Let's see what the void has to offer."