The space between... It was an astounding sight, though you likely had very little attention span to spend on 'looking' at the space outside your ships, given that it seemed to be trying to tear them apart every moment you spent in it, all while careening towards what appeared to be a rocky planetoid that would spell eventual doom... Still it was a surreal display, It wasn't like normal space, where it was just black with starry dots allover.
The Between Space looked as though it was flooded with nebulae, colors every which way you could look, though there 'was' black, and definitely the presence of stars, it was a rarity amidst all the colors, more so than the presence of strange phenomena that made no sense, like a massive flower visible in the distance, growing out of one of the nebulae, or another that produced a mountain the size of a planet, supposedly. There were even strange little gear-forged objects floating around producing light, though it may not even be clear to those in a panick.
One point of interest though, It wasn't unbreathable, though those in ships may not have the focus to notice this amidst the panic, those drifting through on their own may notice... though it also brought with it a sensation of being watched, far too closely, too deeply... though it was at least more merciful on those drifting along... or perhaps not, depending on one's perspective.
It didn't last long though, it was barely a minute before it ceased, though 'how' it ceased may have spurred more panic as well, as a wave of fire was emanated from the approaching planetoid, or more accurately, from the small sun orbiting it, washing over those being drawn towards it, though the sense of impending fiery doom was another anomaly that did not pan out as expected, as it harmlessly washed over hull and flesh alike, bringing with it a sense of protectiveness, along with an absence of whatever had been threatening the ships... though it didn't slow the descent towards the planet, those who'd been drifting free seemed to suddenly find themselves on the surface, as if swept up by some force that sought to save them.
The Arrival
Those remaining would find themselves plummeting towards what 'looked' like a solid wall of stone... and yet, once more expectations were dashed as the ship barreled right through it, revealing it to be an illusion, and continuing to fall straight a short distance through more familiar airless 'Space' and into an atmosphere, one that seemed to, remarkably, resist their fall to a degree... Alas, while this did slow their descent, it did not prevent terminal velocity and resulted in far greater friction pulling at the hull, until it finally touched down... heh, 'touched'
More like cratered and trenched, sending up dirt, rocks, and tree that would scatter for miles from the untold tonnages impacting the land-scape, half burying the ships in question and likely creating whole new land-marks from the scale of destruction. Those involved in the crashed certainly would not bear witness to the panic their arrival had spread around the nation they had landed in, but it would not be long before a reaction was inevitable.
[edited in!]Granted, it was also smack in the middle of the night, A reaction wasn't likely to come until there was enough light to even 'try' to see inside the forest... right?
Captain Cloak's Clunker
I didn't make a CS for it, because's pretty much going to be a slag heap xD
The timing was honestly astounding... To think, several parties subjected to Inter-dimensional anomalies at the same time as a battle in the Zea in the vicinity of the World in question, the context for it was zero, the only relevent detail to those falling would be that one of the ships from it's midst was sent down in a flaming heap in the same direction as those who'd been brought here...
Alas, even though this ship seemed safe from the destructive effects visited on the others, it was in considerably worse condition, given that it was vomiting fire from several places and missing whole chunks of the ship...
That said, when it finally crashed it formed an unmistakable landmark near the middle of the forest, a great spire of metal jabbing up out of the ground, with fires spewing out of it and into the nearby forest, and a plume of smoke rising up into the sky.
Sergeant Michael Carver looked out the windows on the bridge, taking in the sight of the icy planet before him. It was one of the most inhospitable worlds in the Koprulu Sector, sixty percent covered by ice sheets, and with winds that could reach up to 150 miles per hour. It was also, at one point, the staging grounds for the UED's invasion of the sector. It was there that he, along with his comrades, were conscripted into the UED. At that point, they didn't know who the UED were, only that they were enemies of the Dominion, and that was good enough for them. After the Dominion were forced off the planet, Braxis was turned into a major military stronghold for the UED. After the UED was defeated, the planet was taken over by the Zerg, "purified" by the Protoss, then abandoned-or so it seemed.
"You sure this isn't a trap, Captain?" He said, looking over to Captain Ramirez. The old Mexican officer stared into the distance, almost as if he was studying the planet before him.
"The signal we detected is a UED distress call. Either someone's still down there..." He paused for a moment. "...or we could have walked into a trap. We'll know soon enough."
Before Michael could say anything else, the ship shook as a shot deflected off the shields. The Captain turned around, looking for the source of the attack. "What the hell was that?"
One of the bridge crew turned to face him, a panicked look on his face. "Sir, a Dominion battlecruiser just exited FTL. They're right on top of us." As soon as he spoke, another shot hit the ship. "We're picking up a large power surge- they're probably charging up their Yamato Cannon."
Of course it was a trap, thought Michael as the Captain ran back to the front of the bridge. He stopped next to the helmsman's chair. "Helmsman, get us out of here! Do a blind jump if you have to, we need to move, NOW!" Even before he saw anything, Michael could feel that something had gone wrong.
As he looked around him, the first thing he noticed that the usual "tunnel" effect of warp travel was gone. Instead, he saw, at first, what looked like nebulas and starts. Then, he saw the strange things- mountains emerging from nowhere, a giant flower growing from a nebula. As he looked away from the windows, he could feel the ship itself rattling, as if something was crushing it. He looked to the Captain, but he was looking out the windows, seemingly just as confused.
When Michael looked out the window again, he saw what looked like a planet-but was that a sun? As he looked, he could swear he saw a small sun orbiting the planet. Everyone was still as the fire from the sun engulfed the ship. Surprisingly, he didn't feel panic as the fire washed over the ship. It made him feel safer, oddly enough. However, as he looked towards the planet, he was aware of the fact that they were free-falling towards a planet, and they weren't showing any signs of slowing down.
After hitting what looked like a stone wall, he saw the ship head into an atmosphere, and watched as it headed down lower and lower. As they headed towards what looked like a small mountainous area, Michael looked towards the Captain, who seemed oddly calm. He looked Michael in the eyes, and saluted. "It's been an honor serving with you, Sergeant."
Before he could say anything else, he was launched forwards as the ship crashed, and everything turned to black.
The nebulae! Such bright colors she had no name for! Oh yes, there was the standard fares of reds, blues, and greens, but so many others! Ah, it almost hurt her eyes! The presence of black, the vast expanse of space and the tiny twinkling of stars beyond were there as well. Ah, it reminded her of that time she had accidentally almost got sucked into the Twilight Void when she was a child, messing around with things better left to myth.
But those weren't the things that drew the Ebon's attention. No, it was everything else. Such odd impossible phenomena! A flower with a mountain the size of a planet! Gears, chugging and floating, producing the Sel'Chroma's light! Ah, no, the light wasn't there's but someone else's. No matter, it was of no concern to the Ebon then.
And then...there was something else. The persistent feeling of being watched.
"Captain!"
"Ah, such a voyeur! Ah, such a passionate gaze! If you want to see my darkest pits, all you must do is ask, little watcher!" Shael giggled brightly, blatantly ignoring the tension in the air as their ship careened through this space that she had not a name for. A cursory examination of the instruments proved futile. They could read nothing. Not their position in the galaxy, and their comms could not reach any communication relays.
"Jester Sallatha! We've lost near complete control of the ship! Life support offline, power and shields failing-"
"A-ah, little Ebon." She interrupted. "Stating the obvious is no good. Remaining power to shields! Tell the Magisters to pool their energy and strengthen it!"
"Affirmative!" The crew in the bridge began quickly rerouting all power they could to the shielding systems, a quick and sharp order in their own ethereal native tongue was barked over the intercoms.
"Hmmhmmhmhmm~" She began humming a jaunty little tune to herself as she gracefully moved across the floor, moving out of the bridge and down the hallways of the smaller 'corvette' class ship, sprinting quickly with long, swift steps. The people were expendable. What she needed to do was ensure the protection of the food stuffs and science equipment. As long as they had that, they could survive practically anywhere. It was fine, they were going to have casualties no matter what. Less mouths to feed...or so she told herself. A captain didn't have the luxury of saving everyone.
Of course, it didn't stop the other Ebon's from running around like the sun was falling on them. Bad when that happened, indeed, the escape vessels were all jammed and busted. As the ship careened to that rocky planetoid, it was either going to be their grave or new home. She intended to make sure if it was the latter, it wouldn't turn into the former.
The ship rocked as a wave of fire crashed into the ship, causing her to stumble only briefly as she acrobatically rolled with the rocking motions, making her way to the science portion. An odd sense of protection seemed to invade her mind. Something trying to save them? Oho, well, she couldn't let this good will go to waste, no! She wasn't such a skilled arts user like the President was - there was no way she could envelop the entire ship, but she could at least protect this small part of it as best she could.
The ship crashed through a solid stone wall - causing most of the crew trying to keep the ship under control a shout of surprise as it proved to be an illusion. Glancing through a window as the ship careened, and completely unfazed by the chance of death - this wouldn't be her first dance with it, after all.
She had only a little time - ah, she wondered if she was going to make it?
Leaping through the doors, scaring the living twilight out of one of the Ebon, she clapped her hands together - and the small portion of the science bay became wreathed in the soft embrace of the twilight, before slamming into the planet below.
Birds flew away from the loud and disturbing stomps of the monster, the once tranquil land now was filled with the thunderous and abrupt clopping of the giant foal. The scene went from tranquil and serene to chaotic as the gigantic foal stomped out of the forest and into the opening. The titanic pony known only as Grief had traversed through the forest all the while knocking trees over or out of the way of his massive head, occasionally failing to do so and having them annoyingly brush into his gigantic face like dense foliage. Still, the young monster foal had emerged from the forest and now was stomping and clopping around much to the distress of everyone and anything around him.
"Man, i'm so bored. There's not anything to chase or smash around here! Just some stupid forest with stupid trees and stupid grass."
The giant foal stomped into the clearing of the forest and then scanned around, every so often turning his massive body and hooves to the direction he would look as he scanned around. Still, the giant didn't find anything of interest as he continued to look around. However, he himself would be an bizarre and astonishing sight in and of himself. His height was unbelievable as his face was as high up as the husk of the trees and his own hooves were slightly bigger and wider than the tree trunks himself. This giant of a horse was an unnatural entity within the once pleasant realm of Equstria. Yet even he only sought something of interest in this land.
It was finally time for Sparky to go out into space. He was given his own small one-man spacecraft that he would be using to venture out to space with. It wasn’t long before Sparky was off and up in space. He would fly through space, exploring it like he was designed to do. That’s when something unfortunate happened. He had been caught in a sudden out-of-nowhere asteroid field.
Sparky tried maneuvering his ship to avoid the asteroids but he was ultimately unable to. Before his ship could get hit, he tried jumping into hyperspace when something seemed… off. What should of been hyperspace changed into nebula and stars. Flowers growing out of said nebulas and floating gears, Sparky had no clue what was going on. He saw what looked like a stone wall that he was rapidly approaching and he was prepared to hit it when it disappeared before he hit it. He noticed his small ship had entered into an atmosphere and prepared for an actual collision this time. Before he knew it everything went dark.
Sparky rebooted himself and managed to stand. He turned and looked at his crash site. He seemed to crash on the edge of a river and looking at his ship, he knew he wasn’t going to repair it anytime soon. Sparky observed his surroundings and saw that there was a forest in front of him. After some thought, Sparky reluctantly decided to enter the forest. Hopefully he could find someone to help him.
As far as they were concerned, it had just been another day in the 'wonderful' land of Equestria, with their ship cloaked over the air-space of the Ever-free where almost no-pony would ever go, especially with the unruly weather that they couldn't control and the ambient critters that populated the forest floor. It was the perfect temporary base of operations they could use to skim off the ambient emotions of the local town without them actually knowing.
Of course, they kept eyes on the giant colt stomping around off in the distance... They weren't particularly keen on his presence, he tended to taint the emotional pool with fear, worry, and sometimes... other emotions. Whether he did things that would sic the princesses on him or not, he was a nuisance to their harvesting quality. Of course, this was less of a problem at the moment, being that most pony's were asleep around this time, and they had retired to their ship to minimize risks for the night as well...
That didn't last long though, as something happened they were certain would wake every pony all the way to the capital!
Great masses of fear, Panick, and metal fell from the sky, shaking the landscape harder than the giant brat ever could, filling the night air with waves of dust and detritus, creating explosions and crashes the likes of which the nation hadn't seen since... The last time someone blew up Twilight's Library.
The fact they didn't 'need' to breath didn't make it any more pleasant for the air to be filled with dust, dirt, and flakes of wood... in-fact, it was terribly unpleasant, but lucky for them, they could simply raise the ship to a higher point to get above the cloud and take in the sight... The Ever-free had gained several new land-marks, they were quite distant, but they were quickly becoming more visible as the upper layer of dust drifted lower, most of them were in-fact much larger than the giant they'd been annoyed by, and though it undoubtedly woke everyone for miles, they counted themselves lucky they were near ponyville when this happened... Heavens, with how often that town was attacked by 'something', it should be no surprise they weren't drowning in blind panic... yet.
The Responders
The room was already in a fuss when it was graced with one of Equestria's darker beauties, come to make the call official, it appeared that someone had beat her to it... or perhaps.
"Princess! It was hard to miss what happened, even at this distance." None of them had stopped to waste time saluting or bowing, but the one that spoke was among the larger, and already nearly done suiting up. "We started preparations just short of Sixty Seconds ago, I assume you're here to send us out 'officially'?"
Her sister may not have liked the idea of a more 'war-ready' partition of their forces when they were technically at peace for centuries, even though she somehow doesn't count the repeated instances of invasion or evils raising tartarus on their land before being quelled, but 'she' was always proud of their efficiency and success at proving their worth... and certainly 'not' just because it gave her 'I was right' ammo with her sister, certainly not! "You are correct, Standard procedure as usual... though it does seem this event could be more demanding than your past endeavors."
"Azure mentioned something big fell from the sky... although, he worded it a bit more like 'The star-babies have come'." Mad giggling came from somewhere amidst the bundle of activity. "Are we thinking 'worst case'?"
"Close, but not quite, All accounts thus far sound like crashing instead of landing. I am going to wake my sister shortly, now that reactions are organized, Once you have recon'ed the site, we will know if we must step in or not."
"Alpha Leader! All prepared and accounted for." Almost as one the activity ceased, and the crew had lined up to await orders, with a smooth sharpness that always reminded her of militaries of old.
"Welp! No time to waste then! See you soon princess!" And like that they were filing out the window... It was an excessively casual fare-well, but the meaning was always clear and remarkably simple, a promise to return successfully, he never started a mission sounding like he expected death or injury, only return and success.
In the middle of the night no-one could really see the smokey trails of a team of fliers making off with the kind of speed that would disrupt weather patterns and create those trails.
The day, thus far, had been quite uneventful. Los Hermanos De Las Rochas had been called over to the abode of their university friends... Who were still trying to come up with a name for their group. They're a work in progress.
What was in progress was the latest invention of this trio's brains, Ned Vincent.
"I call it, the Tesla Gate!" The bespectacled, long braided, Chinese-American announced. "By entering an algorithm into this interface, it will program the gate to generate a temporal distortion therein. Afterwards, the gate's gyroscopic stabilizes will tune the distortion into the proper frequency, which would then quantum tunnel a wormhole between our universe, and that vibrating at the frequency mapped by the algorithm! With this, inter-dimensional travel has become possible!"
Ned's excitement deflated at the blank stares.
Fred Hill, a tall, stocky, ginger raised his hand. "Ned?"
Ned sighed, already knowing this question would be a stupid one. "Yes, Fred?"
"What's a Tesla?"
"So, what does thing do, Ned?" Demanded Redemoinho Sampson. He was noticeably shorter than the rest of crew, just barely Escotto's height. His mocha complexion, gelled back black hair and penchant for fine clothes marked him as Brazillian.
"Redemoinho, I just explained the function of the Tesla Gate!" Ned grumbled.
"Yeah, but how about explaining it in English!" Rede shot back.
"I am speaking English!"
"Hang on, hang on!" Escotto cut in. "It means, this thing's a knock-off of a Stargate!"
Finally, the others' eyes lit up.
Fred practically bounced on his toes, clapping. "Ooh! Ooh! That means we get to go to Atlantis!"
"How come you follow all this Science jargon?" Rede asked Escotto.
Smirking, Escotto clapped Rede's shoulder and explained, "It's 'cause I have something called an -follow along now- "Ed-U-Ca-Tion"!"
Which set Rede to rolling his eyes, grumbling something about having learned on the streets. Afterwards, a bored silence fell over the group as Ned fiddled with the gate's controls. Eventually, the giant rings of the gate's gyroscope whirled to life, crackling with power as their spinning blurred into a brightening sphere.
CRASH!
There was little time for anyone to contemplate what the noise was: A piece of the ceiling chipped off and hit a switch on the gate's controls. As Ned rushed to get control of it again, the energy sparking from the gyroscope began to branch out, zapping anything and everything. Including Ned. If only the nerd spent as much time developing his physique as he did his brain, he could have held on to that console. Instead, the increasing gravity dragged him towards the orb.
Behind the crew, the lab door burst open and figures poured into the room, trying to take Antonio and the others, who fought them back. Escotto managed to punch out one of these attackers before Ned's yelping drew his attention.
Escotto knew what he had to do. But the question was: Did he have the cajones and lack of sense to risk his life to save his friend?
"The hell kinda question is that?! OF COURSE I DO! Yújiā Yánshēn!" With that, Escotto's arm stretched across the lab, where he snatched Ned, but couldn't seem to pull him back. A quick decision led to Escotto grabbing the outer rim of the gate and yanking himself over. He managed to get between Ned and the gyroscope and kick the hapless nerd away from the gyroscope and into big Fred's arms.
"ESCOTTO!" he heard someone scream, and then a flash.
Then darkness.
Somewhere in Equestria.
When Escotto came to, he was cold and wet. Maybe he did end up in Atlantis after all? No, wait this looks like a river. He managed to reach out and grab a rock before dragging himself to dry land. He felt sick. The kind of sick that came after one of his drunken rampages. But, he was pretty sure alcohol was not in the equation of bullshit that brought him here.
Taking deep breaths, the Mexicano forced himself to stand, and keep his lunch where it belonged. His surroundings were green with forest life, until he looked north (don't ask how he knows) with what appeared the be a burning spire breaking the skyline. Further in the distance to another direction, Escotto could hear the thumping of something big, and most likely not friendly.
"Well, whatever that is, I hope it's ass is ready to meet my foot!" Pulling his trusty board, Ramona from... Somewhere, Escotto skated off north.
Carver's vision was blurry as he woke up. His ears were ringing, and he could feel something pressing down on his side. He could hear footsteps and several voices, coming closer. As the voices approached him, he felt the weight lift off his sides, followed by a loud clank as a piece of debris hit the floor. A gloved hand reached out to him, and started to pull him up. As Michael stood up, his vision cleared, and he saw the face of a familiar young Korean man looking at him. "Specialist Lee. You're alive."
Lee gave him a slight smile. "And, by some miracle, you are alive as well. Mostly unscathed, too, I might add. Others were not so lucky." At that, Michael looked around the room. The bridge was in disarray, with many of the consoles damaged, and piles of debris littering the floor. Several of the bridge crew were nursing various wounds, while others were crumpled up, dead. He saw the Captain lying on the floor a few feet next to him, blood staining his formerly pristine uniform. Lee was looking at him, a frown on his face. "Unfortunately, the good Captain didn't make it. Neither did a good deal of the crew."
Carver had known Captain Ramirez for a long time, and his death was sure to lower the morale of the crew. And with the Captain dead... he turned to face Lee. "This means I'm in charge, doesn't it?"
"Given you were his second in command, yes, this means you are in charge, now. So, Captain, what are your orders?" Lee asked, trying not to smirk.
"Well, first off, don't call me Captain. Second off, I'm making you my second in command. If I die, you're next in line. Third off, get me a damage report." He looked around the bridge. "And...get some body bags if we have them. I'd like to give the dead a proper funeral, if we can." As it turned out, they had body bags. The surviving crew had all been accounted for, and the bodies of those killed in the crash were put in body bags and moved out of the way. In total, twenty-eight crew members had been killed in the crash. A few were heavily wounded, but in stable condition, and there was a slew of minor injuries. Their equipment hadn't faired much better, a good portion of it being destroyed. Half the Goliaths were wrecked, but the surviving two were in good shape. The dropship was somewhat damaged, but could be repaired in a short while. One of the siege tanks was destroyed, and the other had moderate damage, which would leave it out of action for a while. They only lost a few SCV's, and Carver was ecstatic to learn that his personal Marine suit had survived. While they had lost a great deal, it could have been much, much worse.
Watching over the bridge, Carver and the surviving bridge crew waited as the engineers attempted to get the power core back online. The fusion reactor powering the ship had a large store of fuel left, and would last them for a long time. He pressed on his radio headset. "Any progress?"
"We're almost done, Sergeant. Almost...there!" There was a pause, then a large amount of noise as the computers on the bridge all booted up at the same time. The lights turned on soon after, and the Adjutant's mainframe began to boot up as well. Across the ship, the crew paused to clap and cheer, and Carver couldn't help but smile. Well, that's that. With the power back on, they could use the ship's systems to their advantage. Michael walked over to the Adjutant, as the machine finished booting up. He always found the humanoid "body" of the machine a little creepy, but he couldn't deny its usefulness.
As he walked into view, the machine's head stared down at him. "Greetings, Sergeant. Where is Captain Ramirez?"
He cringed. "Captain Ramirez is dead. I'm in charge now."
It kept staring at him. "Understood. Activating succession protocols." It beeped, then continued, in its synthetic female voice. "I have been able to gather a variety of useful information on the planet we have crashed upon, Sergeant."
"Well, tell me."
"Of course." Beep. "This planet matches no known systems in the Koprulu Sector. We may have stumbled upon a previously unknown system." Beep. "We appear to have landed in a mountainous region, near the edge of a large forest. The planet is surprisingly Earth-like, and is capable of supporting human life." Beep. "Our sensors have detected a large amount of smoke emanating from deeper within the forest. It is likely that we are not the only ones to have crashed here."
"Not the only ones, huh? This might complicate things..." He paused for a moment. "I'm going to get my suit and head down to the vehicle bay. Tell everyone to meet down there. I'll brief them on the situation."
"Understood, Sergeant."
And with that, he was off. Let's see what we're dealing with here.
What started as a normal day for Elijah and his little band of mercenaries quickly turned to hell. They were contracted out by some Quarian at the edge of the galaxy to raid a nearby slaver base that had captured her friend. It seemed like a simple snatch and grab mission which the White Company was used too. Upon landing in the supposed slaver system, Elijah directed his ship to perform a quick scan of the system.
"Hey Captain, I'm picking up some odd signals coming from this system. Also seeing a lot of ship debris, looks like the slavers got into a massive fight." His pilot a female Turian by the name of Tuana Bellrinus shouted from the pilots chair. Elijah made his way from the CIC towards the pilot. "Whats going Tuana? Something bad?" He asked. "Something like that. It looks like the planet is being invaded by what the inhabitants are saying geth. Hold one, bringing up a image of one of the ships." The Turian said.
On one of the screens towards the side of the pilot a image of the ship appeared, Elijah stared at the screen in shock. "That looks like the ship that attacked the Citadel a couple years ago. I thought the Council said that; that ship was a Geth prototype. There's no way that it's a prototype, I mean fuck how many of those ships are on the planet now?" Elijah said turning to the pilot. "From what my sensors are picking up and what little radio chatter there is. I'm guessing at least twenty to forty." Tuana turned her head to look at Elijah. "Whats the plan, Elijah? Elijah was still staring at the screen trying to put the ship to memory. " Get us out of system, I'm not gonna order our crew to go down while they are being invaded. Take us back to safer space." Elijah said. Turning around he started to make his way back to the CIC. Aye, Captain." The pilot said while activating the ships controls. "Shit, one of the Geth ships noticed us. Taking evasive maneuvers."
As the ship speed off towards the relay a few stray shots from the 'Geth' ship passed them. Elijah breathed a sigh of relief it appeared that the enemy ship couldn't effectively target the small ship. As the Verrikan started the process of activating the Relay, the ship suddenly launched forward toward what the crew believed would be safety. Elijah made his way back to the pilots cabin. Looking through the pilots window, instead of the normal blue tunnel, he saw a spectacular assortment of colors some of which didn't even have names, passing nebula's, and even a few stars. "The fuck am I seeing? Is that a god damn flower growing in the void? Are those bloody gears? What the fuck is going on? Elijah asked his pilot, pointing out the items he named. "I don't know. I launched us toward our previous system since it had a primary relay in it. Something else is going on, Elijah and I don't like it." His pilot stated. Almost as soon as she finished her sentence the ship exited ftl though it didn't completely stop their ship instead the ship started gaining speed towards the nearby planet that appeared to have a sun orbiting it? "Tuana, whatever fuel we have left use it and get us landed as safely as you can manage." Elijah said buckling himself into the nearby co-pilot chair. "All hands this is not a drill! Brace for crash landing. I repeat. Brace for crash landing." Elijah said, deactivating his omni-tool.
As the ship entered the planets atmosphere, Tuana used what little fuel was left to slow the ship down as much as possible. From the co-pilots chair, Elijah pointed out a decent 'landing' spot at the edge of the forest near what looked like a gorge of some type. His pilot was able to slow the ship down enough by now that landing shouldn't kill them. With a rough bump, Elijah felt himself lurch forward, his head slamming into a nearby console, knocking him out for the remainder of the landing.
The ship slammed into the forest, clipping the spire of a tall, ancient castle on the way down, piercing through the exhausted shields but leaving the rest of the ship intact - only for it to quickly slam into the ground not seconds after. The ship hit the ground at an awkward angle right on its nose, sending everyone inside of it flying into the nearest wall and sending the ship flipping over, rending and tearing the soft metal of the ship nearly in half.
Soon however, the chaos came to an end. The ship lodged itself against a large tree, debris scattered in a wide area, the purple metal easily picked out among the foliage, along with a few unfortunates that didn't make it.
"Jester!"
A faint voice called out to her, cutting the fogginess of her mind like a knife. Familiar...president? No, she was back on the homeworld...Her head was swimming, a pulsing headache felt like it was threatening to tear her entire skull in half. Difficult to think...maybe if she just rested a little more...
"Sheistal! Don't you die on me you fool!"
The pain was replaced by a cold, pleasant sensation, clearing the fogginess in her head. Urf, her head injury seemed to have been healed, but the rest of her body hurt all over. Did she break something? No good, no good. She couldn't entertain or advise if she was injured.
"Hmm...ah, that's the voice of the ever so-serious research department head! Ah, saving me of all Ebon? And here I was worried you'd leave little ol' me to rot- gah." She laughed loudly, finally opening her eyes as her face was met with a firm smack from her subordinate. The other Ebon was dressed in a simple black and blue robe, long white hair tied in various ornamental fashions as per usual. He was applying pressure to a wound on her side, a small pool of water over his hand healing whatever wound she had to the best of his ability.
"Shuddap, you. You're not in good shape." He grunted, moving one of his hands over the rest of her body, the water following his touch. Shael groaned, the cool feeling spreading through the rest of her body as the comforting twilight filled her being, mending her wounds. She placed a hand over her stomach. Ah, she really wasn't in good shape, wasn't she?
"Ah, ah, but with you taking care of me I have naught to worry, hee hee - ack - oh that hurts...laughing hurts..." Her laugh faded off into a series of pained wheezes. "At least your gentle touch is comforting, hee!"
"You're lucky you didn't get anything vital hit." He continued in a much more serious tone, pulling his hands away from her body. "Can you stand, Jester?" Pulling her hand from her stomach, Shael slowly pulled her legs towards her and putting some weight on them. One of the downsides of being an Ebon was a constantly weak physical constitution. It was no secret that their bodies were weak - the weakest of the races on their homeworld even. Even a simple injury might be fatal should they be careless.
"Ah, I can stand. Legs are more wobbly than the presidents when people flirt with her, though, hehe!" She giggled before devolving into a series of coughs again. "Ah, it still hurts..." Shaking some dizziness out of her head, Shael moved her body in an odd fashion. Arms, extended upwards before twisting them around and putting them behind her. Legs lifted behind her head one at a time, before extending one fully outwards, twirling slowly and curving it until bringing it to a rest. And of course, lastly, turning her head completely around and turning it a full ninety degrees. Nothing seemed broken or wrong. "Hmhm, Many thanks, Jessiel!" She began walking, the science wing of the ship seemed relatively intact, and a few other Ebon were already salvaging things from the wreckage. A few of the deceased had been collected and laid in neat rows outside.
"Ah, so morbid." She mused, standing on a single foot as she observed the wreckage. "How many are left?"
"Out of the twenty five assigned to the Eventide, thirteen of us remain." Jessiel replied. "Of those that remain, we have made efforts to heal to the best of our ability. Some will need some bed rest, however."
"Well better for them to return to the Twilight than be trapped here." She mused brightly. Must remain positive! Positivity always made things go so much better. "The Eventide? Does it return to the Twilight, or will a new dawn rise?"
"The ship...does not look good." He replied, motioning for Shael to follow. "You somehow managed to save most of the science bay, though we lost the cryo chamber. We still have the fabricator and much of the science equipment. The engines are completely trashed, though the wormhole drive is still intact. We could likely have what techs remain fix it fairly soon, should we find some materials. We have enough food stuffs and ammo to last a few months, so that shall likely not be an issue." He glanced up towards the night sky of the planet. "Assuming this planet seems to have a breathable atmosphere, we could stay here for some time before needing to leave I imagine - and some of the men mentioned ruins or something not far from here." Ooh, what was that? Ruins? Breathable atmosphere - could it be? Another inhabited planet like their own? Oh glorious day, fabulous day! Perhaps this bad luck was turning into a fortuitous event indeed!
"Ah, ah, what wonders! Ruins you say? Perhaps this planet is inhabited!" Shael quickly walked away from the ships wreckage, not taking her injuries into account when she twirled around, addressing the crew at large. "Hey-o! Ebon, this is the so great and attractive jester speaking!" She waited for the assembled Ebon to quiet down. "Everyone that's able, set up a perimeter. Can't have anything unfriendly spooking us, no! Grab those rifles, but only use them if fired upon first! Jessiel, I'm leaving you in charge."
"W-wait your injuries!"
And with that, Shael sprinted away from the ship. She'd do some scouting herself - she was the one best suited for it, after all. None of the others had training in the magical arts. Well, they did...and they were likely better than she was. But she couldn't let them upstage her show, no! Ars IV and Ars XII were perfect for this situation. She could see as if the sun was setting, and she wasn't likely to be noticed except by those with significant arcane or scientific prowess. Where was she heading? That ruin Jessiel mentioned. Perhaps she could learn something from all of this! A cursory examination was needed, after all!
"...and she's gone." Jesseil sighed, rubbing the side of his head. "Didn't even get to tell her about the other probable crashed ships...Alright you all." Jesseil addressed the rest of the Ebon. "You heard Jester Sallatha. Form a defensive perimeter, but don't show any hostilities. I want nothing getting near us without us noticing!"
Sparky activated his built-in light to see better in the night. He could hear something big stomping around in the distance and decided to stay away from the big, scary noises. He continued making his way through the forest, his scanners faintly noticing what looked to be smoke trailing through the sky but he wasn’t quite sure. Sparky was just wandering around the forest at this point in hopes that he could find someone or something that would help him find someone.
This forest was not like anything Sparky had ever been told about, he had a feeling that this one was special in some way. After a while of walking, Sparky could see some sort of building that looked like it had been destroyed in the distance. Sparky decided to get closer, being careful as he did so. That loud stomping earlier had frightened him a fair bit and he didn’t know if there was any other sort of danger around. He hoped that wasn’t the case and instead there be someone to help him.
Sparky slowly reached his destination. The building he was walking towards, upon further inspection, looked to be a ruined castle of some sort. Sparky was confused by this, in his time there were never anything as ancient as castles. He wanted to know where he was and how he got here, so he did some searching around the ruins. Maybe he could find a clue of some kind.
The vehicle bay was a tall, large room, containing all the ship's vehicles, as well as the equipment needed to repair and maintain them. The entire crew of the ship had gathered there, some wearing Marine armor, while others wore the dark blue uniforms of the UED navy. Carver, back in his familiar suit, stood on top of a large metal crate, facing the crowd. There was an anxious mood among the crew. The loss of half their number, as well as the death of the Captain, had hit them hard, and the fact that they were stranded on an unknown world only made it worse. Carver had gathered them here for two reasons- to brief them on what the Adjutant had found, and to reassure their faith in him as their new leader. Something told him that would be easier said than done.
Clearing his throat, he began to speak, his voice carried by the ship's PA system. "Men and women of the Murphy. I have gathered you here to speak to you, as a fellow soldier."
"I don't need to brief you on what's happened so far. We've crashed on an unknown planet, and half our crew, including our Captain, lay dead. We've all lost friends and comrades today. But, we need to keep moving forward."
"I don't know how long we're going to be stuck here, but it's likely we'll be stuck here a while. We need to prepare ourselves, mentally and physically, for the challenges we are going to face. And, with the information recently uncovered, the situation here has gotten more complicated." He paused, as the crew chatted amongst themselves, wondering what he was referring to. "We have reason to believe that we are not the only ones here. At least one other ship has crash-landed here with us, and there may be more."
"I do not know who these others are, or what intentions they have. We can hope they are peaceful, but we must be prepared for the possibility of conflict. For this reason, I will be leading an expedition to explore the surrounding area, and to- hopefully- make peaceful contact with these people, whoever they may be."
"Whatever happens, we must stay strong. We must never forget our mission- to protect humanity. All other objectives are secondary to this. Together, we shall ensure that the deaths of our comrades were not in vain. Thank you." And, with that, he stepped down from the crate, to a cheer from the crew. Carver didn't think of himself as a good public speaker. He was mostly going off of what he remembered from the Captain's speeches and various propaganda broadcasts, but it seemed to work. He had selected four Marines to accompany him on his expedition. They had considered bringing along a Goliath, but had decided that it would be unnecessary. Standing in front of the vehicle bay doors, they watched as they opened with a hiss, and the forest outside became clear to them. Taking a few steps outside, they observed the ship. It was in one piece, but there were several large pieces broken off, scattered around the crash site. It would take a while to fix, that was certain.
Their inspection of the ship done, Carver and his squad turned around, looking at the column of smoke in the distance. Other than that, there were reports of a structure nearby. It was up to Carver to decide which site the squad would investigate first.
If any of those with a view of the sky were to look 'up' it wouldn't be difficult at all to see the glowing objects flying through the sky far too high to pick out details beyond the short trails of light behind them, and the moon-lit smoke trails left behind those, though it was organized in a pattern not unlike a wing of strike craft
The one in the lead spoke, somehow able to be heard by the others despite the ludicrous speed that would normally deafen them. <Alright boyos! I want the dust cleared so we can get a clear view, we need to see more than smoke and fire before we consider getting any closer.> A Chorus of 'aye's' answer the order before the wing formation spread out and suddenly dove...
For a moment there was a sound of distant thunder, the sort that was a clear indicator for the educated that the sound barrier had been broken, before the spread out dots of light turned back up and soared higher into the sky and out of view, but the collective shock-waves produced created a wall of wind broad enough to spread over much of the forest, harmless it might be beyond ruffling the leaves, but it did a wonderful job of carrying the dust rapidly off into the distance, and spreading whatever was left, creating a better view for those on the ground 'and' in the air.
The Changeling Crew
"Hoooo-wee! They sure got here fast!" The voice of his second snickered behind him.
"Of course they did, their whole job is to be as fast as you can imagine... Just be glad they're not here for 'us'." Of course the wind buffeted the ship as it blew the dust away, though the brunt of it was too low to really make it struggle. "They were even nice enough to give us a better view of our 'visitors'... It's fascinating isn't it?"
"Yeah, even at this distance there's just 'so much' emotion pouring off of them... unfortunately, it's kindof a sickening pool of negativity, but I have this horrible feeling you're going to suggest we butt into the middle of it all."
"Well of course I am! This is the 'perfect' opportunity for us to set the foundation! They don't even know what kind of trouble they're really in yet, we can swoop in and lend a hoof when they finally find out... The feather-heads won't go down for a while yet anyway."
"... I'll go make sure everyone's ready for a proper fight..."
Captain Cloak
Eventually the burning wreck in the middle of the forest jostled, Some plate near the engines behind forced out and allowing those within to claw their way out, the first one being the red clad mad-man who'd been in charge, which nimbly clambered his way up onto the edge of one of the silent engines, giving him a good view from above the trees. "Well isn't this just 'fascinating'!? I was sure we were gonna just flatten on the rocket and drift off into the Zea of Black!"
"Yer a fuckin loon Cap'n! A Great Glorious Fuckin Loon!" The next one to climb out was similarly nimble, and only 'slightly' less covered by their out-fit, revealing fur and a tail. "Though it'd a been a glorious way tuh go out! Teach those Randy as Pirate to try puttin 'us' in chains, Hahah! I still can't believe we pulled off stealin their flag-ship and makin 'them' blow it up for us!... Gods! my Blood is pumping SO HARD right now!"
"Be.glad.your.blood.is.still.yours..." The next voice to follow was slow, methodical, almost bland beyond reason, and the hulk of a thing that forced the hole larger to climb out was the most bland creature it could be... It looked like a bunch of dried mud in the shape of a human, a very tall, unrealistically muscular one, 'literally' chiseled from granite... or perhaps, Clay, would be a more accurate comparison. "My.Brothers.Finish.Remaining.Pirates...Still.Search.For.Bighat.
"Ah-hah! Claysy! I'm so glad you made it! And Nardy too! If we can just find Cogsy we'll be ready to go!" He clapped his hands once loudly and pranced up on the edge of the engine port, ignoring the fire and hear spewing from it's center. "I know you boy's haven't had a chance to catch on to it, clambering for life, but we've stumbled across a hidden world! It just looked like a rock from outside! a rock guarded by an angry sun, an anomaly nobody would risk approaching... but can't you feel it?! This place is RIPE with hours! There's so much here I can 'taste' it!"
The captain went on rambling in a similar manner for 'quite' a while... It was obviously a common thing, as the other two just turned away and started scouting out the other direction without him...
The Crashtle... I mean Castle, seemed to project a sense of forbodeing all on it's own, the closer one got the more intense the sensation it produced... though it may be questionable whether or not it would affect an artificial being such as Sparky.
Visually though, it did just look like a long abandoned castle, countless large weather worn bricks created an elaborate labyrinth both inside and out, though inside it was the layout, and outside the random debris that made things difficult... More importantly, it was surrounded by a chasm, on all sides, as if someone had elected to just blast a moat out of the ground around it too deep to cross, rather than just fill it with water. Though there were rickety old bridged to cross, and paths on either side that led down into the chasm and back up the other side, not to mention caves here and there on it's walls.
There were countless bits of the castle missing, obviously having crumbled over the centuries, yet some parts appeared as if someone had been 'trying' to fix it up, newer doors resided in the front arch, and through one of the ruined walls could be seen fresh tapestries depicting some form of winged quadruped's silhouette in odd colors...
Perhaps 'most' importantly, as the curious droid drew nearer to the castle, a voice called out, one that was quite exotic with a thick accent, and yet the sounds that came from the voice were unintelligible and were unlikely to match any language that was on record. Though unintelligible, the vocal tones that followed seemed almost musical in nature
"It must be a Tuesday for me to find such a strange Sight, While great machines fall in the middle of the Night. Pray tell, Strange one, what brings you here, with the sound of destruction oh so near?"
It wouldn't be hard to find the source, there was a strange, roughly 4 foot zebra-like thing nearby, less spindly than other horses that may have been seen, with a greater range of motion on display as she approached, adorned in an assortment of golden rings and armed with saddle-bags full of various planty materials, a greater range of expression also demonstrated a healthy suspicion of the strange metal being that had inspired her approach.
She obviously had no idea that they didn't speak a similar language yet...
How lucky that the ship had landed in a way that at least left it unlikely to go sliding down into the gorge, though it was dangerously close to the edge.
Having been among the later crashes, the forest had been thoroughly awakened by the time Verrikan had touched down, and though it might noy be visible yet, with another massive disturbance, things were beginning to get riled up both in and out of the forest It couldn't be seen yet, but things were most certainly paying attention to the ship
It was impressive that the ship had held together while crashing into a mountain, surely a testament to Directorate Engineering, It seemed to have found a stable enough place to land, appearing to have crushed part of a cave to make it even... and eschewing larger vehicles may have been a good idea as well, the terrain might be a bit too unstable, or cluttered in the case of the forest, for them to be effective.
Given the thickness of the forest, it was already highly likely that the marine suits would already have some difficulty traversing them without shoving a lot of obstacles out of the way, or stomping them under-foot, but they could at least traverse it with out threat of getting stuck.
A bit more importantly though...
The adjutant's voice sounded off once more to it's new commanding officer *beepity-beep* "Sergeant, Sensors have been diminished and delayed detection, the cause has been determined to be this planet's air containing a high concentration of an unknown energy signature." *Beep* "It does not appear to be harmful, but it's volume within the forest has diminished sensor integrity considerably. It will reduce range of precision information and limit communication range until adaptive calibrations have been completed." *Beep* "Sensor's have detected distant sources of a similar energy source in much larger concentrations, Eight similar signatures are moving rapidly at high altitudes, and there is a larger source, both are in air-space above the forest." *Beep* "Mundane sensors have also detected minor seismic activity underground, as well as sonic disturbances resembling buzzing insects."
"...Finally." the Crystal Unicorn muttered with a huff of his breath. He finally had some alone time for the first time since he arrived in Ponyville earlier that morning. All day long it was just touring Ponyville, then touring the Princess's castle, followed by a tour of her school. And that was only the start of it. There were still the lectures themselves. Some of them went smoothly, others... didn't. For the ones that didn't, Astral was bombarded with question after question, sometimes he could swear they had nothing at all to do with the lesson. And if that weren't enough, the pink one insisted on throwing him a welcoming party at the end of the day. Sweet Celestia if he had to hear anymore of Pinkie Pie's annoying ramblings, or of Rarity's boutiques, or worst of all Spike's continued reminders of who it was that saved the Crystal Empire and the Equestria Games, then Astral Gleam would go absolutely insane. That's it! That had to be why Sunburst put him up to this! He knew this would turn into Astral Gleam's personal Hell and wanted to watch him squirm!
"Thank Luna today is finally over with..." he said with an exasperated sigh. Of course, this was only day one. He was stuck here for the rest of the week and something told him it was all going to start over again in the morning, "...well at least I still have the stars." he used his magic to open his balcony window, the window itself briefly gaining a sky blue aura magic that matched the Unicorn's eye color and Cutie Mark color. It opened and Astral Gleam's hooves clicked on the marble floor of the balcony as he stepped outside. He was using his magic to carry a handheld telescope behind him and then proceeded to use it to admire the night sky. The view felt... different somehow. Logically speaking the change of location shouldn't have that strongly of an effect one's view of the stars, unless of course they moved half way around the planet. But Ponyville was no where that great a distance away from the Crystal Empire, so the night sky should by all accounts look relatively the same. Perhaps there actually was some kind of magic behind it? Ponies in his field were still debating whether the stars were a result of magic or a more natural phenomenon. And for the record, Astral Gleam was in the latter camp. In his rather astute opinion, if there were any magic behind the stars then surely the Princesses would have known about it and told them by now.
For a moment he looked down at the small town surrounding the castle. Princess Twilight had insisted that Astral stay there as her guest. Sure, the Castle was glittery enough, but in his mind nothing would ever top the sheer beauty of the Crystal Empire. Some ponies could swear that the crystal structures could sometimes practically glow under the moonlight. Not that Astral was biased, of course... even though he totally was. Still, that gaze was only momentary, as the unicorn's true interest was in the night sky. Or rather, in what lay beyond it. He may have been visiting Ponyville to give history lectures, but Astral Gleam's true field was astronomy. Watching the night sky, studying it for endless hours in the hopes of figuring out exactly what makes it all tick. But for this Unicorn, it went beyond that. He was convinced there was even more out there, beyond what any naked eye or Telescope could see. The biggest mystery of all... the ultimate puzzle just waiting for a brilliant mind like Astral's to solve it.
"What the devil is that?" Astral exclaimed aloud when he spotted multiple objects literally falling out of the sky in what could honestly be described as a blaze of glory. Almost all them impacted in the Everfree Forest, and when they did the sheer explosive boom could practically be felt all the way back in Ponyville. Any pony who was asleep was almost certainly awake now. But Astral didn't have time to waste. He grabbed a couple of notebooks with his magic, also still levitating telescope with them, "No time, I've got to get to the nearest crash site before somepony messes it all up!" he was practically in a full gallop by the time he was outside the castle and on his way in the direction of the nearest impact site. Briefly, however, he stopped and looked up at the sky again with his telescope.
"Of course... they would be showing up wouldn't they?" the Shadowbolts. Some would call them the "real" elite flying team of Equestria. Sure, the Wonderbolts had flair and style. But the Shadowbolts were easily more efficient, prioritizing functionality over entertainment. Of course, an incident like this occurring at night would naturally warrant their attention. Well, that just meant Astral had to hurry even faster. He had to try and get to at least one of the sites before the Shadowbolts could start throwing around red tape all over the place. And even if they did, well, it was a good thing Astral Gleam always carried his credentials. A flash of those was always enough to prove his certification in his field and allow him access to the objects for study. It wasn't long before the Shadowbolts almost instantly cleared the skies around the forest. There would be no moving about them spotting the Unicorn, especially considering his more crystallized coat.
"Ha!" Astral almost laughed to himself as he resumed his gallop into the Everfree Forest, "Sorry Sunburst, but it looks like the joke is officially on you now!" since he was already here so close to the sites, chances were very good that he would get to be among the first to really study objects up close. Meanwhile everypony else would running in a desperate attempt to catch up. But alas, Astral's head start all but assured his success. Of course, then Astral almost swore under his breath when he realized something, "Oh great, I just realized I'm going have to actually thank the bastard for this opportunity! Always a catch to these things... always."
As the group looked over the crashed ship, they were interrupted by what Carver immediately recognized as a sonic boom. Looking up, he could see the dust from the crash get carried off, and he saw what looked like aircraft contrails, organized in a tight formation, quickly flying out of view. It looked almost like...
"Fighter craft." Carver said, as the rest of the group stared up at the apparent aircraft. Turning around, he began to run towards the ship. "Get inside, quick!" The other Marines needed no instruction, following Carver. Running up to the doors of the vehicle bay, Carver send a command over the radio, and the doors began to open. Stepping inside, they closed after the last member of the group made it through. As the Marines took off their visors, the engineers in the vehicle bay stopped to look at them, wondering what had caused them to run inside so quickly. Carver was about to address them, but was interrupted as the Adjutant patched in.
He stayed silent as the Adjutant relayed the information to him. The information about the unknown energy in the air concerned him, but at least it didn't seem harmful to humans. He was more interested in the information about the two sources in the air, as well as the seismic activity underground. He didn't know what the energy was, or why the apparent aircraft were giving it off, but he assumed it must have been something that had to do with the planet. What scared him was that the Adjutant had detected seismic activity, as well as sonic disturbances. Seismic activity was usually an indicator that there were burrowed Zerg nearby, and the fact that the sonic disturbances were similar to insects buzzing didn't help dispel his fears. Slowly, he connected to the PA system, and began to speak to the crew.
"Everyone, listen up. We've detected what appears to be aircraft of some sort nearby. In addition, we've gotten reports of seismic activity underground. Now, I know what you're thinking. I don't know if it's Zerg, but I don't want to take any risks just yet. We're gonna bunker up for a bit. I want those carbines handed out to as many people as possible, and I want our Goliath pilots to report to the vehicle bay, along with all our Marines. We need to be ready for anything. Carver out."
After that, he disconnected from the PA system, and sent Specialist Lee a call. He picked up almost instantly. "What do you need, Carver?"
"How's the status of the guns? They online?"
Lee paused, evidently looking through a terminal. "The four topside Gauss turrets are online. The other four are on the bottom of the ship, and the laser batteries wouldn't be able to hit anything in this case."
"Good enough. Keep them on, just in case. We might get into a fight, so I want to be ready. Tell the engineers to prioritize getting the Dropship online when they can. Also, tell the Adjutant to track these aircraft. I'd like to know what's up with them."
"Alright, can do. Let's hope they're peaceful, right?"
"Wake up Elijah" A voice said from somewhere, shaking him."Elijah wake up. If I have to throw a lift at you I will." The voice said more roughly this time. Shaking him harder. "God damn woman I'm up." Elijah said rubbing at his face. "Gods my head is killing me. How long was I out? And where's Tuana?" Elijah asked noticing that his pilot was missing. "Not long maybe fifteen minutes. I took Tuana to see our Doc. She managed to crack a mandible. Come on get up. We need to figure out were we are at." Linass T'kaana said. Elijah nodded his head.
Activating his omni-tool, "All hands meeting in the CIC. Ten minutes from now." Finishing his announcement, Elijah started to make his way to the captain quarters. Elijah's quarters were pretty spartan in comparison to some of the other ships he served on. The only extra items he added to his room was a small weapons locker, just in case they were ever boarded and he didn't have time to run to the armory, and a small workstation for some personal projects he occasionally works on. After grabbing one of his heavily modified pistols from his armory. Elijah made his way to his built in bathroom and found his medicine cabinet. Taking a couple painkillers from it, Elijah washed them down with water from his sink. 'Hopefully this will help with this gods damned headache.' He thought. Looking into the bathroom mirror, Elijah saw a small cut on his forehead. Didn't look all that bad honestly. Would likely leave a nice scar though.
Making his way back to the CIC, Elijah noticed that everyone had mostly gathered save the few that had been wounded. "Alright let's get to business. Fese how bad is the ship?" Elijah asked his Chief Engineer a Quarian by the name of Fese'Jaelan vas Vaca or Fese for short. "Good news first. Engine is completely fine same with the other systems. Bad news one thruster is damaged but repairable. No fuel currently. Though if we could get the shuttle onto the moon I believe we could get some more fuel. Hull isn't damaged much easy repairs. No breaches thankfully. Fese said her synthetic voice ringing out. Elijah nodded his head. "Estimate on repairs?" Fese was quiet for minute " Probably a month. I believe we have enough material to fabricate the parts. But it'll take time to get the fabricators setup." Nodding his head once more. " Get started on that once this meeting is over. Shama how many wounded?" Elijah said turning his attention to his ship's doctor. Three wounded, Elijah. Nothing major. Should be on full duty in a couple days." The Salarian named Shama Tuet fired off. " Thank the Gods for small favors. Linass since you've been up longer than I have what can you tell me about where we are at?" Elijah asked now looking at his XO. " It's a garden world thats for sure. From the readings I got airs breathable but I'd still recommend a hardsuit. Looks safe but we are in a forest. So if you venture out definitely go out armed. We are picking up some radio waves from the planet but that could be from the other crashed ships. As of right now it is unknown if this planet has intelligent life." The Asari said finishing her report.
Elijah nodded his head again. "Thats good at least. Alright so here's what we are going to do. Engineers start getting those fabricators set up so we can start repairs. Medical make sure everybody gets checked for injuries start with engineering and my ground team. Tuana I want you to head back to the the pilots cabin and activate our distress beacon. Linass, Jorgal and Ghalo get suited up and armed we are going to explore this area." Elijah said looking at his three companions. "Everyone that's not on my ground team, engineering, or medical. I want you to get suited up and armed. Secure the nearby area. Tuana, after you activate the distress beacon I want you to be on standby near the shuttle just in case we need a quick evac. Alright any questions, comments or concerns? No? Alright then everyone's dismissed." Finished with the meeting Elijah watched the group disperse. Leaving only him in room. Elijah ran a quick checklist through his head. 'Repairs are started, medical is checking everyone, distress beacon is activated, ground crew is going to explore the nearby region. Alright didn't miss anything.' Finishing his thought, Elijah started to make his way down to the armory to get suited and armed.
Ah, this forest was so...green! Not like the frozen ones on the dark side of Sal'Xantis, or the scraggly blasted ones on its sunlit side. Or even the dark, peaceful Gloam wood present in the Twilight Band of her homeworld. The humans mentioned this was how trees were on their homeworld. She had never seen them before but ah, it was so beautiful! Ah, ah, a thought for later. She couldn't let herself get off track, no no. Much to study and do! She'd need to document, log, and thoroughly examine everything about the life on this planet! Oh, she hoped Jessiel had the science equipment working by the time she got -
"Ah, that's a cliff." She audibly commented, almost stumbling over the edge of a chasm as she hadn't entirely been looking where she was going. Before she could take in the castle and its entirety, however, a loud boom was heard overhead. Casting her head to the sky, she frowned slightly under her mask. "...and that's a sonic boom. Breaking the sound barrier? Curious. So this place does have life...hmhm...Ooooh, I want to meet them!~" She giggled brightly. "We could share technology! Magic! Theories! Discover the mysteries of the universe, Tee-hee!" Ah, if only there was some way to get the attention of their aircraft that wouldn't make her seem hostile.
Flinging magic spears at people were not a good way to make first impressions, ehe! She learned that when she met the humans.
"Oh well, oh well! If they're here that means they're aware of us." Ever positive, Shael turned her attention back to the castle. "We're bound to run into each other very soon. Veeery veeery soon, eheh!" Leaping over to one of the rickety bridges, Shael took in the old, but very familiar structure.
It looked very similar to the structures they lived in back on Sal'Xantis. Far more ancient and with less advanced amenities...but there was definitely old magic here of some sort. Very old. Extremely old. The place just oozed with discoveries waiting to be made! She'd just need to find a way to navigate those amazing hallways. Tee-hee!
Countless stones were missing. Walls crumbled. Statues and bookcases rotten and in shambles...and yet, Shale couldn't help but to feel as though it was recently lived in. A breath of life was in the place, so to speak. Newer doors seemed to have been installed in the front of the castles main arch, and through another a freshly restored tapestry could be seen, depicting some sort of winged quadruped in colorful colors.
"Ahhh, such magnificent restoration!" She brightly replied before quickly silencing herself as her ears picked up something. Audible. Speaking? She couldn't make out the words, she was too far away! Oh, was there someone else here? She should go greet them, indeed! An Ebon must be an hospitable host, after all! Quickly sprinting in the direction of the voice, she quickly found its source. A...some sort of small quadruped! Richly decorated and wearing an assortment of golden rings, with bags full of plants and other important looking alchemical ingredients. Oh, and next to her was an adorable little droid of some sort! Ooh! Like that AI the humans had with them when they visiting! She was no good with technology herself, but how fascinating! Curious! So grandly curiously fascinating!
She just had to go say hi!
"Hellloooo!~" Shael arrived on the scene - quite likely in a very sudden and startling manner as they likely weren't to have seen her while the 13th art was activated. Before they could say much, she was already in front of the Zebra, giggling lightly and holding the side of her face. "Ah, such a pretty thing! So curious! Small but intelligent? And such a foreign biology! Ah ah, I almost want to dissect you!~" She giggled in a mildly morbid seeming matter before settling down slightly, turning to the robot, dancing around Sparky in a slow circl, observing him excitedly. "Ooh, and such a pretty robot! How do you work, I wonder? Are you intelligent? An AI?" Before she could answer though, she finished with a final question, directed back towards "Tell me little quadruped, I overherd you saying something about the nearest city? Am I better hoofing it there, or getting Jessiel to carry me?"
There
Puns always made a good first impression.
She stopped walking, completely unaware they didn't speak the same language. Or rather, she had completely overlooked that probability. Instead, all Zecora and Sparky would likely hear, were several melodic hums, chimes, and giggles.
Sparky was observing the ruined castle hoping to find something that could help him. As he was looking, a voice called out from behind him and he instinctively hid behind the nearest object, obviously a little frightened. The voice that had called out to him was unintelligible so he decided to peek out of his cover just a little to see who it was, noticing that there was some sort of creature with the appearance of a zebra approaching him. Sparky was hesitant to come out from behind his cover as he wasn’t sure if this thing was dangerous or not. The fact that he couldn’t understand what it was saying didn’t help.
Sparky slowly crawled out from behind his hiding place, obviously still a little frightened. Upon closer inspection, the zebra-thing seemed to be carrying bags of something he couldn’t quite see and had various golden rings on different parts of its body. Sparky tried scanning it but his systems still seemed a little rattled from his crash. ”H-hello? I don’t understand.” He said with a nervous tone, still slightly hesitant. It seemed that this zebra-thing wasn’t dangerous and wouldn’t hurt him, maybe it was friendly.
Just then, Sparky heard a noise to his side. Startled again, he flinched, stepping back as he noticed another weird creature. This one didn’t seem to be dangerous either and looked quite friendly as it danced around him. Sparky definitely liked how friendly this thing seemed. The creature was making noises and assumed that it was speaking some other alien language. Sparky waited and then tried to copy the creature’s language so he could communicate. It took him a little bit and he hadn’t got much of the language yet due to his systems still being a little iffy from the crash. ”Hello. I am Sparky.” He said, hopefully in the creature’s native tongue.
Sparky still wasn’t sure what he would do about his current situation. He was still stuck in a place he didn’t know and his ship was still too damaged to fly. He tried speaking to the zebra again, hoping it knew anything about this place. ”Can you understand Sparky? Do you know where Sparky is?”
"Alpha, I spotted a pony running into the forest." "Lovely, if 'one' avoided the Cordon it's possible there's more."
He shrugged is off like it meant nothing... Technically "Irrelevant. Our immediate objective is to recon the crash-sites, we'll worry about strays after we're sure of other potential threats, until then, that'll be the regular guards duty. What do the rest of you see."
"Sir, The big chunky one appears to have managed it's crash in the best condition... I think, They're all so foreign some parts I don't know if it's damage or aesthetics." "Either way, there's 'definitely' something alien coming out of it, nothing we've been educated on yet though." "It's hard to tell at this distance through the forest and haze, but they look big, and armored, several 'were' moving towards the forest, but I think our arrival frightened them back into the cover of their crash. Good thing we weren't here to 'sneak' around, heheh." "The lack of whole-sale evacuation tell me they've got the site under 'some' control though, i don't wager we're waiting for something to explode."
"Sir, the one in the middle of the forest looks like it's just scrap now, only a couple of survivors appear to have climbed out of it. Their clothing reminds me a bit of merchants... or pirates."
"This other crash on my side might be contending for decent condition, I don't see many missing chunks, but it's more plain compared to the other one, of course I can't see inside either." "Kindof like the other one there doesn't seem to be any hurry for survivors to bail out."
"This other one looks like it had a hell of a tumble when it hit though, I can see that the sister's old castle is missing one of it's towers now too, looks like it got clipped on the way down." "There 'are' some sort of creatures outside of the crash, but it's difficult to see them well even with out enhancement, I suspect that means they're darker than we're used to." "Think we can get some targeted moon-light?"
He'd been quietly processing each report as it was provided, but something that had been said snatched his attention "Wait! They clipped the tower?!"
"Yes, why?"
"... We may need to inform the Princesses of that. There's a reason that more orthodox crews haven't been around to refurbish or tear down parts of the castle. We need to be ready incase they triggered any ancient safe-guards."
He'd managed to have a fairly quiet period of travel, at first... granted, it wouldn't be very fast... a skateboard in the middle of a forest already wouldn't be an especially effective mode of travel, things were always so 'rough', nevermind doing so at 'night'... in the 'everfree' though? One would be lucky to find a patch out ground long enough to gain 'any' speed, nevermind enough make the effort any faster than just running on foot. One would need some pretty special skills, or a special board, to hope to traverse a forest of this magnitude with it...
Of course, that wasn't mentioning the attention that a strange creature making strange noises in the middle of a recently awoken forest would draw... That being the sudden presence of growling amidst the trees, and if he looked, there would be quite a collection of sickly green eyes glowing in the darkness of the under-brush... it seemed that so far what progress he made had prevented him from actually being surrounded, for now.
The adjutant was quick to respond to the command *Beep* "Tracking... Judging from the speed of Approach, Our diminished Sensor quality near this forest may lose Tracking on targets while in motion." *Beep* "While Broad-spectrum detection demonstrates a large energy signature, visual sensors are unable to register the targets properly." *Beep* "Concealment inconsistent with known cloaking technology. Visuals resemble intense heat distortion blurring targets beyond recognition..." *Beep* "Thermals confirm, Energy Sources producing high volume heat... Trails bear residual heat... Ambient Unknown Energy does not seem to be producing similar heat..." *Beep* "Secondary source also lacking heat production... Visual sensors still blank." *Beep* "Seismic activity approaching... slowly... Patterns inconsistent with Known Zerg patterns.
Zecora was thoroughly caught off guard by the newcomers sudden appearance, something she was not used to with the sense for danger she had developed in the forest, and she quite readily took a few steps back as it approached and she so suddenly found it 'touching her'... Well, it was very quickly revealed to not be aggressive, at least not overtly, and the sounds it produced were quite pleasant, if thoroughly unintelligible to her, though there was enough recognition to pick up on it actually being 'language' that was being spoken.
"Perhaps this is too much for me... I should retrieve someone of higher authority..." She'd already started to back-away when there was some rumble that went through the ground... it was pretty localized though, only around the castle itself, it was enough to make her stop and stared worriedly at the door...
"And it was at this point, Escotto realized he should'a gotten that off-road board after all!" Escotto narrated to himself, mostly. ""But, Escotto!" I hear you ask! "What if Ramona got pissed at Escotto for getting another board? She has needs, damnit!" That's because skateboards are inanimate objects, ya' damn fewl! They don't has feelings....! This still sucks, tough."
Between this, and that sudden sonic boom blasting a wall of dust into his face, it was time Escotto tried hoofing it. It was deep in this forest, meaning he didn't even have moonlight to guide him. "I knew I should've gotten that Sonar surgery!" he grumbled.
But, aside from that, something had been tailing him for a good while now. Only now did the young Mexican
"Mexicano! Get it right!"
Er, sorry. Mexicano, actually pause to observe his followers. From the corner of his eye, he made out several glowing green eyes.
"Sí, definitivamente algo de mierda de película de terror! ¡Mejor ir a lo seguro y pretender que no me doy cuenta!" He thought. Trotting along, Escotto stopped, pretending to look about lost... Even though, he kind of was. "Oh noes! I am just a lost little mexicano boyo on his way to grandma's house! I certainly hope no big scary beasties don't come to eat muh juicy lil' ass!" He cried, winking.... To something. Meanwhile, he had reached into his pocket and slipped one of his switchblades out, flicking it open.
He took two steps, whistling a little tune. Another two steps, still whistling. Another two steps...
"Aaaaand TURN!"
Wheeling around, Escotto flung the knife into one of the sets of glowing eyes, managing to take out the left one of them, then took off down the bend. He held Ramona close in one hand while fishing out the other switchblade with the other. It'd be better if Escotto got somewhere that didn't give these things home field advantage.
@RangingWolf Eventually he made it to a clearing where there awaited
"Holy fuck on a shit stick! It's a mothafuckin' spaceship!"
Escotto could have run into some allies, or straight into more targets. Well, whatever, he could still jack that shit if it were the latter.... Except, Escotto would have no idea how to fly that thi-
"Uh, uh, uh! One problem at a time!"
Making a mad dash for the ship, Escotto began to hoot of all things.
