Monica Grey awoke to the sound of an alarm. She glanced at her clock, just to make sure that in her groggy state she wasn't mistaking the blaring of her morning alarm for the ship's danger alert. That wasn't the case, as the red light still read 3:00 AM. It was three in the morning. By earth time, anyway. In deep space, time was almost irrelevant. But on Monica's ship, the Phoenix, the crew used earth-time to know when their shift was over. Monica worked all day, for nearly thirteen hours. She was the captain, after all. For the short time she was asleep, her first mate, a man by the name of Timothy O’Malley took over the control of all operations onboard the ship.

The Phoenix was a huge ship. The finest, largest battleship the United International Assembly had ever created. The ship had seen action, and Monica had been there for most of it. The woman had joined the military at the age of eighteen, and had spent her years climbing the ranks. She had fought on Mars when the colonies there rebelled against the UIA. She fought the first group of hostile aliens humanity had ever come into contact with, simply called “Xenos” by the solders. She was sure they had had some fancy, scientific name before, but it died when they did. Monica had always felt some remorse for wiping out a civilization that they didn’t know anything about at all. Sure, the Xenos had staged attacks on cities like New York, Hong Kong, and Paris, but she wasn’t sure if such attacks were cause for a full out war out in the Pegasus constellation. The place had hundreds if not thousands of inhabitable planets, but the Xenos no longer habited any of them. The woman had served aboard the Phoenix for it’s entire time as a battleship, but now the thing had been recommissioned as an explorer, delving deep into the solar system and in the galaxies beyond the Milky Way. Monica, who had so loyally served during the ships early days was made the captain and general commander of all personnel onboard the ship.

The woman tied her hair chestnut hair back quickly, and walked out toward the main control bridge. She hadn’t had time to put on her armor, so she was left in the tight undersuit that all UIA soldiers wore beneath their uniform.

Immediately she was pulled to the main panel by O'Malley.

"What's going on, O'Malley?" The woman asked in a rather deep, smooth voice befitting of a woman in her early thirties accustomed to keeping calm for her troops even in the direst of situations.

"Captain, the ship's radars are malfunctioning. There's supposed to be some kind of planet here, but none of our navigators can find anything on the maps," it was as soon as he had finished speaking that a violent tremor shook the entire battleship. It wasn't easy to do, the ship was built to accommodate a crew of around fifteen thousand.

Monica immediately began ordering emergency protocols to become effective.

"This is you captain speaking. Everyone, evacuate to the air locked life-support chambers. Prepare for impact."

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It didn't take long for the entire crew to evacuate. The woman had instructed everyone to follow the directions in the security chamber. A suit of armor waited for each and every person; it was to protect them upon impact. Monica was beside an older man when they entered the pod. After several intense, physically jarring minutes everything went black for the captain. When she regained consciousness, the ship was grounded. Beside her, the man who had once been there was reduced to a pile of ashes in his suit. She pulled his armor apart, looking for the cause of the breech. His armor had a gaping hole. The heat from the impact had fried him from the inside out.

Monica did her best to swallow down the nausea that was growing within her; she stepped out, suit still intact, onto a planet covered in strange colors of trees and dirt, with strange creatures flying through the air. There were two suns in the sky, Monica noted. How the hell did that happen, physically?

The woman quickly accessed the com system in her helmet. It linked the whole crew together.

“Anyone who’s still alive, I’m sending you my coordinates. Regroup here."

“Anyone who’s still alive, I’m sending you my coordinates. Regroup here."

Neris snapped back into consciousness just in time to hear the voice of her Captain come through her helmet. She grimaced, pulling herself out of the remains of her pod and assessing the situation around her... where? She could determine one thing immediately, and that was the fact that her surroundings--flora, and otherwise--were all completely unfamiliar. She strode across the clearing, stretching out her limbs and assessing herself for damage. She was whole, as far as she could tell with the armor on, but she wouldn't risk removing it in an unfamiliar environment. Two suns? Peculiar. And the Phoenix? Who could tell, it seemed her pod had landed isolated from any other surviving remnants.

She had been awake when the alarm had started blaring, despite having set herself against her instinctual nocturnal nature through diligent and harsh sleeping schedules, she simply couldn't bring herself to "sleep in" past a certain hour. Regardless, she had been on her feet and moving as soon as it started, suiting up to the best of her ability before making her way to the evacuation pods.

She couldn't help but feel a pang of remorse, she had been with the ship for a while now. After years of schooling, Neris had enlisted fresh out of the academy on her home planet, having finished top of her class in piloting. She had a knack for the technique, as much of her kind did, and had taken to it quite quickly. It was not long after she found herself on the Phoenix, alongside a team of other pilots and her now Commander, Monica Grey.

Having finished her assessment she strode back to the pod, reaching for the other figure within. She dragged him out into the dirt, positioning herself above him and checking his vitals. He was alive, it appeared. Fortunate, but he had not yet regained consciousness. Unfortunate. It was not someone she recognized, perhaps he worked elsewhere on the ship. Nonetheless, he was her responsibility now. She hefted him up, draping his torso over her back and hooking his arms around her neck as she received the coordinates the Captain had transmitted. Thank the spirits she was still standing, no doubt she would have a plan ready.

Neris paused, determining her distance from the Captain. It was... not so bad, a little short of two miles. Normally should could make that in good time with a brisk pace-- but carrying a full grown man two miles across unknown lands? All she could do was hope there were no unforeseen complications ahead of her.

The silent, strangely iridescent, blueish creature watched through small eyes the scene that had unfolded in front of him. Kirel had first heard the crash not long after the small amount of light that managed to shine through the trees was obscured by something that had to be large. For a planet with two suns, Tar'ul got very little light due to the heavy tree cover. Because of this, every living thing on the planet gave off a slight glow, and the Tar'uk were no exception.

The crash had generated enough noise and a small tremor in his nearby village, and Kirel had been selected to lead a small team of warriors to the crash site.

"Kirel? Why are we just sitting here. Let's go down and shoot 'em Kirel, let's go down and shoot 'em!" A smaller Tar'uk, one with what could only be described as a fire in his eyes and a light orange glow to his faint blue skin to match, bothered the elder.

"Hush, Ali'el. Yetu doesn't want us to kill these creatures, you know that. They could be useful," the eldest of the two spoke his native language in a deep tone, with a slight resonance to it. "We will watch. They might be the ones we've been looking for."



Monica's frantic search for survivors was interrupted by the faint sound of static over her communications system. The readout in the left hand corner of her visor showed several numbers; coordinates, and then a small groan emerged over the monitor. Monica immediately felt the color flush from her face and a chill come over her body, even in the temperature-regulated suit. It was O'Malley's serial number.

Only a handful of soldiers had found their way to their captain, and Monica immediately ordered them to transmit the same message she had from the same coordinates while she began her hunt for Timothy.

Not long into her walk, Monica ran into another soldier, this time one who she knew by name. Neris. Oh, God, it was good to see that she was alive. Monica waved her down, and picked up her pace slightly to make her way over to the alien woman, and the man she was dragging on her back. It wasn't Timothy, but at least he was alive.

She wanted to greet her old companion with a hug, or at least some sort of informal exclamation of her delight to see her alive, but instead maintained professionalism and calm. "I'm glad you're alive, Pilot," she continued, "Have you noticed any more life-signs on your monitor? Lieutenant O'Malley sent me his coordinates, and a short message, but I've been unable to locate him."

Neris, despite the exertion, kept her breaths efficient and short, enough to push her on, but not enough to deplete her air source quickly. "Captain." Neris acknowledged, letting the man she was dragging slump to the ground below her. “It is good to see you are still standing, spirits willing we’ll be standing a little longer.”

She snapped into a respectful yet stiff salute for her superior. She then extended an imploring hand, a gesture communicating a reserved sort of affection among her people, for her friend. Regardless of whether or not the woman took it, she withdrew quickly and curtly.

“No life signs on the monitor, not sure how much of my communications gear is still intact after the fall. My pod took a pretty thorough beating entering the atmo.” As if for emphasis she directed her gaze upwards, scanning the sky for any sort of tell as to the nature of the planet. “Captain, have you seen any life? Besides us and the flora? Any indication that the planet might be habitable to at least some form of living and breathing animals?”

She paused a moment before speaking again, as if hesitant. “Do you have a plan, Captain? Are we searching for survivors?”