"In the desert as the sun sets"
"Do you think we're almost there?" Marius asked. The three men trudged through the sands of the Starfall Desert, nothing but wind and clouds of dust around them. The sun beat down on them, though it was finally starting to retreat for the evening.
"Yes, the map is accurate. We're nearly there," Gustav responded. They began to climb a rocky hill that obscured what lay beyond. "Tons of people have been here over the years, so the route isn't exactly a secret."
"And that's what worries me," Toshiko growled. "This wreck has been here for centuries. How do we know it hasn't been picked clean already?"
"Come on, you know there'll be something in there. It was a starship, and a big one at that. Given how dangerous it is out here, there's bound to have been stuff left behind. Even just gear left by those that came here before us." Gustav grinned enthusiastically despite his exhaustion.
"I hope you're right. I still can't believe you convinced us to come out here," Marius said quietly. The three men drew silent as they crested the hill. They stopped as they caught sight of what lay before them in the heart of the Starfall Mountains.
A massive valley miles across stretched for miles to the east, the rock still barren and fused into glass from the heat of impact. At the western end of the valley, the skeletal remains of what was once the SAS Bastille, crashed on the surface of Terranis nearly a thousand years prior, and the cause of the Starfall Desert as its crash landing, and later the accidental detonation of its engines, turned everything for a hundred miles around into lifeless sand. All around the massive wreck, which was itself a mile long, hundreds of discarded pieces of debris lay half-buried. Many were pieces of the ship itself, too burned and ruined to be recovered for their tritanium, others were the burned-out hulks of smaller vehicles. The remnants of those who had tried to salvage the ship originally and caused it to explode. Elsewhere around the wreckage were the remnants of abandoned camps, tattered tents flapping in the wind.
"See, I told you there'd be something left," Gustav said proudly as they began to descend the valley wall.
An hour later they sat around a fire inside a recovered tent. The cold was coming in, and they were enjoying their first meal in half a day.
"We'll start looking in the morning. Get some sleep for now, we're gonna need it," Gustav said between bites. He paused mid-crunch as something howled within the wreckage of the ship. A faint answering call came on the winds.
"What was that?" Marius asked. He glanced towards the wreckage, and could swear he saw something moving.
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