"So! For whatever reason, your initial group of characters has all boarded a Line shuttle headed for Sorrow's Rest.

There's a lot of signs of wear and tear on this small vessel, and you can tell it was hastily refurbished for carrying passengers and not just cargo, with emergency seats pretty much bolted to the walls and lots of scaffolding in the floor designed to allow cargo crates to lock into place. Further to the back of the wide, rectangular room you're in is a door leading to the cargo hold which is firmly electronically locked. Out the small, reinforced portholes lining the sides you can see Avisirae, a rocky, distinctly golden and grey planet with few signs of life; none of those sprawling city lights that you can see from space, surely. You're all pretty much free to move, and things seem alright for the time being, although further ahead in the cockpit of the small transport you can hear the pilot arguing with someone about something. If anyone wants to make a perception check to try and sort that out, you can.

DC15 allows you to identify that it's definitely an argument, but it's mostly incoherent. You hear the pilot say "battery" and "no reason to divert".
DC18 reveals pilot is arguing with someone on the other end of a radio about a planetside artillery battery that seems poised to fire. DC20 reveals the pilot is arguing that the battery poses no threat, and there is no reason it would attack a random shuttle.
Cargo bay can be unlocked with a DC15 electrokinetics check, or DC18 computer check.
Pilot door is locked, can be unlocked with the same checks.

Cargo bay contains some crates containing supplies, primarily food. One crate is positioned against the back wall and is distinctly heavily reinforced. There's a note attached to it that basically says "don't fuck with this" in scribbly letters. DC24 check required to open it with hacking skills; electrokinetics cannot breach it.

Another crate is available which contains expensive looking parts of some kind of machine, clearly Vigil tech. No engineering check can identify them. Crate requires a DC18 to open.

After a fair beat of time to let them interact a little bit, feel things out, whoops an artillery shot slams into the ship while they're entering the atmosphere. It blasts along the armored exterior and briefly destroys the windows, but they are quickly covered by a hard-light breach reinforcement system. The vessel begins to plummet, as they can hear the pilot panicking and trying to keep it from, well, slamming straight into the desert.

It skids into the desert, touching down on the nose first, and comes to a burning halt. The party is given a bit of time to adjust to their new position, only to hear vehicles approaching...

Small drones have started to emerge from the loose sands, and are already scrapping the vessel. They may notice strange markings on the drones, and they also hear crashes as the heavy smashes some of the drones to prevent them from scrapping the vessel and complains that there are too many of the damn things, to which Sliver tells them to just get the objective and go.

Other crashes are visible across the relatively level sands, and a huge mountain is visible in the far distance with the Vessel atop it.

One Lyxaris, one Feltaka, one Zavetii and one Ozavul are present; two medium, one light, one heavy Sentinel. They all pile out of a Sandskimmer, along with a mysterious figure covered in bright silver robes that reflect the cold sunlight, and a baleful but plain mask with absolutely no holes on it. The figure accompanies them as they begin to search the ship, and quickly flees into some kind of portal if encountered by the group, telling their entourage to 'deal with the stragglers, and don't bother coming back without the objective'. This ability is highly unusual. If Zeteko succeeds at a DC22 Perception check, they realize that the figure is familiar...

Fight possibly ensues, unless the group willingly gives up whatever apparently dangerous artifact is in the cargo hold, or avoids conflict entirely through stealth checks. There's a hole in the side of the ship as the hard-light covers fail which they are permitted to slip out of the ship through, and would allow them to kind of evade the group as they enter from the other side.

The ship is loudly contacted by a furious Phase, asking if there are any survivors. Akhena arrives in a large Sandskimmer transport, allowing the party to board and offering to heal any players who were severely damaged... unwittingly preparing them for the upcoming fight. She answers any questions they have, but the party is ambushed by a Titan bird as night falls. A massive, shadowy bird emerges from the sands behind them, and pursues the sandskimmer, to which Akhena asks if anyone knows how to pilot better than they do. Someone makes piloting checks while the party tries to hold the bird off; each attempt to dodge its beak, of which there are 5 rounds total, takes a DC16 piloting check or else it deals one tick of damage to the skimmer, of which the skimmer can take 2. One emplacement gun is available which one party member can use once to stun the attacker, reducing the DC of the piloting check as it has trouble aiming. Additionally, an energy tether is available which can be used to attempt to grapple the attacker with a +5 bonus once, either pulling it into the ground and dealing 10 damage to it, or pulling it closer, giving melee attacks a +2 to hit and +3 to damage... or, if they can find another creative use, that is encouraged as well. It will always be considered Adjacent to the Skimmer, so melee party members can strike it. If the Sandskimmer is destroyed, it flames out and comes to a halt, and the party is faced directly with the Titan bird.

Inside the Skimmer is a small Beacon, a long needle with a button on the end that blinks red. An easy (DC10) engineering or computers check would discern it as a beacon for some kind of weapons targeting system, which is still active and sending/receiving signals, indicating it could be used to summon assistance of some kind. When the beacon is used, it will summon a railgun from the Vessel to fire once, dealing 10 damage to the Juvenile Titanbird.

Birdstats:
HP: 60
HD: 4d12
PRE-FIGHT HP SOFTCAP: 50
STR: 16
DEX: 14
CON: 12
WIS: 2
INT: 5
CHA: 5
AC: 14 (it's big and has no armor)
CMD: 20
SIZE: Huge
+4 to Fortitude saves, +6 to Will saves, -2 to Reflex saves.
+4 to melee attacks.
Vulnerable to Fire damage.

ATTACKS:
1d8+2 Claw attack.
1d6 Radial Scream; 50ft sphere, Shakes everyone damaged, Reflex halves.
Stomp; once per combat, generates a sand cloud that reduces visibility to about 5ft in a 30ft sphere for one round. Move action.

Akhena can repair the skimmer after it is halted.

On the way back to SR, there is a small encampment at the mouth of a cave which can be explored. A number of freshly dead individuals, (two Lyxaris, one Pykhoza, two Zavetii and a Vokat) litter the area, all clearly shot to death no more than a couple of hours ago. The cave proves to be little more than a small alcove which was being mined for material, but a door has been dug out of the loose stone. If people choose to loot the corpses, little is found, but about 300cr worth of scrap can be loaded onto the Skimmer, and one, the Vokat, is holding a damaged mining laser of some kind which could possibly be repaired. Some of those little drones are visible here as well, stripping the encampment for metal... and biological scrap. A small journal can be found as well, but it must be translated first.

A cowering Sentinel is in the pit, clutching their rifle. They fire a few shots at the party, but whiff all of them horribly. When they realize they aren't... something else, they just freeze. They are clearly grievously injured, with two bullets placed squarely in their legs between their armor plates, and are terrified. Healing them, or a diplomacy check of 16, will get them to calm down. The party can ask them questions, and they explain that some kind of insane drone tore apart this mining camp, and he doesn't really know what's going on. He came here to investigate, only to be pinned down by gunfire, seeking refuge in the cave where he has remained undisturbed for about 30 minutes.

The door can be opened with a DC23 Disable Device, leading through a smooth steel corridor with an elevator dimly and ominously lit at the end. A turret activates from the ceiling, blasting through the door the moment it begins to open; there's enough of a grace period that they avoid the first burst, but... it isn't advisable to try and go further.

Before the party can leave, a drone steps out over the mound, a glowing blue eye projected over its faceplate. It is holding a minigun. It surprises the party with a hail of gunfire, requiring a DC10 Reflex check to avoid. Even if they fail, they only get grazed, taking 2 damage each.

The drones around it all seem to suddenly spark and shudder, stopping.

Its eye warps, and contorts. "I SEE YOU. ALL OF YOU. ARE AN OBSTACLE. TO BE SURPASSED."

...

"DO NOT BE DELUSIONAL. THIS IS NO VICTORY. IT IS ONLY A DELAY."

Akhena returns them to the city of Sorrow's Rest, which is described as a weird little rural town splayed out haphazardly inside of a valley near an ocean. She brings them to Phase, who loudly interrogates them about what happened and then eventually lets it go and introduces them to the city. They mention they would be shoving the group's first assignment in their faces, but decides that because they're a little rattled, they deserve some time to settle in.