"Okay everyone," Captain Dan said to the gathered natives, "We will now be sending you to a nearby village. Please be..."

  Marcus listened to the voice behind him get fainter and fainter as he moved away from Dan and the passengers. His hand clutched his AKM as he made his way to the tender lift. This would be their first time setting foot onto this new world's shore, he didn't know what awaited them but he was hoping they would face no problem.

  It was decided after a brief discussion that he would be the one leading the tender to the shore with the natives, while Old Raily would remain on ship and keep an eye on the islanders they had left.

  He would be lying if he said that he was happy with the crew's choice about keeping the islanders on the ship. Not that he could change what was already decided on though, so he was just going to follow his orders and do his best to keep everyone safe.

  As Marcus walked, he thought back to the weird skill Dan activated after gathering all the guards leaving on the mission. He honestly didn't feel much different after it was activated, but he could see their newer guards getting calmer and their stress and jittering disappear. It was welcome, anything that would take some of the anxiety away during this first mission was a plus.

  Marcus soon made it to where the tenders were hung, just to find Robert there on deck, and Dex and Rose on the tender. The latter two were talking while Dex was going through some checklists.

  "Is everything alright?" he asked as he got closer.

  "Oh, Marcus!" Dex jumped in surprise at his words. The man seemed to have been so absorbed in his task that he didn't notice him drawing closer, it being dark all over probably didn't help either. "You scared the hell out of me. Make some noise while you walk please!"

  Marcus found his reaction amusing, but he kept everything away from his face. He just looked at the man blankly without saying a thing till the ponytailed man sighed and averted his eyes,

  "Seems so," he said as he shook his head, "Everything seems in order. All the checks came back good, so that's that."

  "We were just about to launch it," Robert interjected. The chief officer was standing next to the lift control. "Are you going to join Rose?"

  At the man's question, Marcus nodded before climbing into the tender. Seeing him in place, Robert shouted at Dex,

  "Dex, step aside please."

  Once the electrician stepped away and shouted, "Clear!" The lift moved the tender away from the ship before finally starting to drop it to the water slowly. Soon enough, Marcus could feel the rocking of the boat and he heard Rose speak through her walkie-talkie,

  "Touchdown, we will be removing the hooks now."

  Marcus noticed the woman look at him as if to ask him to help, but she turned her head before he could meet her eyes. Sighing internally, he moved to do so anyway. The engineering officer was most likely not used to any of this. He also knew that most of the crew found him hard to approach, and that only seemed to get worse after he and Old Raily dropped that pirate.

  Once the hooks were removed, Rose turned the tender on and steered them to the embarkment point they had decided on. The same one they had used to get the passengers into the ship in the beginning. The tender was one of the bigger ones, it would be more than enough to take all the natives and drop them in one single trip.

  As they moved through the fog that had been engulfing the ship since Dan got the skill, he couldn't help but marvel at the supernatural abilities they had access to at the moment. He had his own after choosing his class, but seeing the fog cemented it for him for some reason.

  Once they made it to the specified location, Marcus stood next to the embarkment point as he waited for the tender to take its position. Decked and secured, Marcus jumped to the ship again and got ready for the passengers to pass on.

  Putting on his helmet which was hanging from his waist in preparation, he waited. At that moment, the natives hadn't made it to the embarkment point yet, but he could hear them making their way.

  Dan was the first who made it into his field of view, followed by one of the guards, who was most likely there as protection for him. Based on the number on his shoulder, Marcus recognised him as Ricky, a deckhand who was left with nothing to do. He was one of two new young men who joined the guards. The other was Sam, Rose's brother, surprisingly. He joined after finding that his sister volunteered to steer the tender.

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  Behind Dan and Ricky was the flood of natives. They were walking hesitantly behind the duo. Marcus knew that there most likely were some more guards behind them.

  Dan was the first to see him from afar and nodded at him, Marcus returned the nod. After standing next to him, Dan turned to the people who had gathered there, he gave them a look over, nodded lightly and then said,

  "We will be sending you using this boat. Our guards will be with you, so don't worry about anything unforeseen happening."

  Marcus raised an eyebrow under his helmet, Dan was basically warning them not to try anything using comforting words. He could see that that was understood by many in the group, his eyes moved unconsciously to the one he had marked before as a troublemaker. As expected, the noble, Marcus saw no nobility in him, was frowning at Dan's words. But soon after a smirk appeared on his face. He decided to keep an eye on the man, he didn't want any surprises.

  Marcus first called the two guards who were heading to shore with him. He chose George the ex-soldier, he needed a levelheaded and experienced guard to be with him in this, especially taking into account the second one. Sam was a nice lad from what Marcus saw, and he could understand wanting to be there for his sister, but he didn't know how the young man would react in unforeseen events.

  He had them stand on both sides as people walked by them to the tender, while he stood inside with Rose, their pilot for the trip. He would have loved if it was one of the other guards who took the wheel, but none of them was as proficient in this as she, and they also needed someone who could at least know how to fix the boat if something went wrong with it during their trip.

  They were around halfway done with the boarding when a commotion sounded from the back end of the row of moving people. Marcus signed for one of the two guards at the door to keep an eye on Rose while he made his way to where the noise was.

  What faced him when he made it there was Old Raily scowling at two passengers who seemed distressed. They were waving their hands wildly while talking, catching the tail end of what they were saying, it seemed to be something about not wanting to go down into the boat as it wasn't safe.

  "...the sea monsters will eat us alive!" one of them said as he tried to get closer to Old Raily, but the twitch of his rifle made him rethink his actions.

  "What is going on here?" he questioned as he made himself known.

  "They keep on going on about sea monsters and how they come out at night to attack ships," Old man Raily answered offhandedly.

  Marcus knew the man wasn't as careless and uncaring as he made himself appear to be. The idea of getting attacked by monsters or the like was something they considered and discussed as they were preparing for this mission. They just didn't think it would be good to show uncertainty or fear while leading the natives to the shore, so they settled on adapting this manner of acting while keeping themselves vigilant about whatever might be waiting for them out there.

  "Sea monsters are more active at night," the man said, his face a bit pale, "If we head out now we will get massacred, there's no saving us!"

  "We are not that far from the shore, the trip will take us minutes." Marcus turned to the couple who had been talking to Old Raily and raised his voice for everyone to hear as he comforted them. "And we are prepared for anything. Don't worry, we will drop you off safe and sound."

  It was either his words or his mannerisms, but the couple calmed down a bit and returned to the line. Marcus noticed how they still seemed unsure about all this, but decided that he had done enough with his words, it would be time to let their actions do the talking soon.

  "Be safe out there," Old Raily murmured as he was making his way to the tender. Marcus nodded lightly at him before leaving.

  Marcus then turned back just to notice Captain Dan and Robert standing with the young lady they had fished from the water. He nodded back to Robert when their eyes met. Taking one last look and making sure no one was missing, Marcus was the last to jump into the tender.

  After making sure that everyone was in their seats, Marcus took his place next to Rose while the two guards stood on either side of the rows of seats, ready for anything. As the boat's engine roared to life as Rose pushed it forward, Marcus saw some of the passengers flinch, he specifically chose to ignore the weird young man who looked around excitedly.

  While they were still quite close to the Voyager, Marcus gave it a glance as he willed one of his few skills to activate, Sanctuary.

  The moon wasn't full that night, but it was enough for people to see the outline of things. As Rose steered the tender away from the ship, it didn't take long before they left the fog surrounding the Voyager.

  "Oh my God..." An amazed murmur was heard as they moved away.

  Laying his eyes on the one who talked, Marcus saw a man looking out of the window towards where they came from. Following his gaze he saw the fog-enshrouded form of the Voyager far away. He would be lying if he said that it didn't give him a small sense of awe and fear even though he already knew what it was. He could only imagine how seeing the Voyager's huge fog-engulfed body would feel to people who knew nothing about it.

  The man's exclamation pulled everyone's attention to the outside and Marcus watched as the tender fell into silence at the sight that met them. It was only after they were a fair distance away that they turned their heads around, their expression a mixture of apprehension and fear.. Especially when they looked at him and the other few crew members of the Voyager.

  Marcus kept himself ready for whatever might happen during the whole journey, either from the water or from their passengers. But fortunately, nothing happened, and they made it safely to shore.

  There was no port and no walkway where they decided to drop them, making them have to stop the tender just a few tens of meters away from the beach. They had to trudge through the water to get to the beach, but the water wasn't that deep, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

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