You decide that heading to the ship is a waste of time. The Holliday is a relatively small agile ship, and if it was hit hard enough for the computer to call for evacuation, it’s unlikely that there would be much left of use. As a result, you’re going to have to take down Typhus and/or steal his ship just to get off this planet. Given your slight handicap at the start (no tools, no weapons), you’re going to have react quickly, and get a little bit lucky.
You open the door of the pod, immediately letting in swamp water nearly to your waist. You take the small navigational wristband from the pod and place it on your wrist before stepping outside. You want nothing to do with the swamp, where it’s impossible to track anything, and the water is too murky to effectively detect possible threats. You make a bee line for the northeast edge of the swamp. You notice that the bottom of the swamp seems to be lined with strange roots, confirming the wisdom of your decision.
When you reach the edge of the swamp, your jumpsuit, which is designed to be highly breathable, has gotten a bit wet up to your waist. Once you’ve reached the edge of the swamp, you look around to take in your surroundings. Strangely, the edge of the swamp seems to be almost completely devoid of plant or animal life for about thirty feet. Not wanting to find out why, you move to the nearby tree line.
You’re somewhat surprised to find that the forestation in this area is much sparser than you expect on such a generally tropical planet. Continuing northeast a short distance, you see mountains rising up above the three lines. You figure that this section of jungle must be in the rain shadow of those mountains, making it much dryer and less hospitable to plant life than elsewhere. There are low shrubs on the ground, all with strangely yellow leaves. The trees look somewhat like the pine trees of your home planet, but instead of a dark green, they are several shades darker yellow than the leafy undergrowth. Also, the needles are much denser and more dispersed along the branches than on the pine trees you’re used to, and you imagine that they make excellent cover for any creature capable of climbing them.
That last fact is deeply chagrining, because Issyphian anatomy is well suited for tree climbing, their flexible snake-like legs providing a much better grip than jointed, human legs. That said, your legs will be much more effective at moving through the rocky terrain of the mountains up ahead, so you decide to head in that direction. As you walk, you keep a close eye out for any signs of a life; tracks, droppings, trampled brush, or marked tree bark.
After about an hour of moving towards the mountains, looking for signs of life, you eventually find what is unmistakably the track of a grav-repelling engine. There’s no reason to have a vehicle like that unless you’re moving a lot of stuff, and there is only one reason to have a lot of stuff on a uninhabited planet that official maps have marked as “too dangerous to inhabit.” There must be smugglers on planet.
That completely explains why you were shot at on your way in. If Typhus has contacts with the smugglers than this was going to be more complicated that you’d thought. On the other hand, you were massively relieved, because a smuggler base gave you a chance to steal weapons, and a ship when it’s time to go.
You need to decide how to proceed. If you just follow along the tracks, there is a good chance of being spotted by another truck using the same tracks. Being caught by smugglers at this point would be, well, a lingering unpleasant end to your bounty hunting career. On the other hand, you could find the smuggler base without getting caught, you might be able to stock up on weapons, tools, and food.
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