Mon-El could hear an alarm going off... somewhere. It sounded both far away and yet directly in his ears, which was most likely the result of the fogginess scattering his thoughts. He must've taken a pretty significant blow to the head if he felt this awful... and it was so cold too, had he been injured? Sometimes severely damaged patients had to be put under stasis before they could be operated on, but he couldn't quite remember. Maybe there had been a garotta game recently, he had sworn to Worm he wouldn't play anymore after last time, but it was so much fun that neither of them had believed that promise for a second.
Except no, that couldn't be it, he wouldn't be able to see the sky from a medical facility. He was probably hallucinating, this was almost definitely because of zakkarian ale. It was the only explanation for the awkward colors above him. Since when was the sky blue? The sun was yellow and tiny, and oh, and the clouds were white and fluffy. "Oh Worm, my head- what happened?" His voice was sluggish, and he was pretty sure he wasn't speaking the right language- no, that was definitely Xudarian coming out of his mouth, which was weird considering it was his worst language.
”Finally! Mon-El, I fear we are in danger; there are no optics machines in range of my scanners, and I am intercepting a large amount of primitive radio-waves coming from very close by. Your health is flagging, a confrontation is ill-advised; I must recommend immediate escape from the area!"” Worm had a sort of tinny voice, normally it was just blatantly robotic and computerized, but now it sounded strangely high-pitched and ringing. Like the alarms.
Slowly, Mon-El turned his eyes away from the sky to focus on his surroundings; these 'primitive radio-waves' sounded concerning, what could they mean?
Glass shards littered the interior of a pod- interplanetary, mass-modular variant, chariot class - and pieces of it were floating in the air as if bobbing in water, a clear sign the engines were faulty, they always released odd magnetic fields when damaged due to the alloys that powered them. All the lights and controls were dark, but the cryo probes were still extended, their ends frozen over. Cold-sleeping in an escape shuttle, and not an inkling of how he got there.
He sat up carefully, "Worm, whats the last thing you remember?" Whew, and that came out in the proper Daxamite dialect this time! And he hadn't slurred drunkenly either! Small favors at least.
Worm took a moment to respond, which was a sign of something going wrong in and of itself. ”I am unsure, I recall a rendezvous with White Moral, but after... I am unsure.” White Moral, his contact among the palace guards. She was... doing something for him, looking for something. He couldn't remember what.
He groaned and shielded his eyes from the sun, for such a tiny thing it was awfully bright. He wanted to curse, being in the pod meant he wasn't hallucinating, and he was really on a planet with a blue sky and a yellow sun. What a bizarre world. "Any idea where we are?" he asked, standing in the pod to get a better look around. Green plants, a pale sand beach, the smell of salt in the air, an ocean at his back.
”Maybe you didn't hear me, my prince: there are no active optics nearby. I am blind.” Yikes, hello passive aggressive.
Mon-El rolled his eyes and started checking the various pockets inside the ship for any functioning equipment he could activate. Unfortunately, with his senses still semi-warped as they struggled to adjust to the new planets gravity, light levels, atmospheric density, and a dozen other minor things.
He found a med-kit. Mon-El had just enough time to grin cheerfully at his good fortune before he cracked the seal and it exploded in his face.
Vision whited out, the force of the blast threw him from the ship, over the side, and sent him skidding in the sand. Choking on the bits of metal that had tried to shoot down his throat, Mon-El vaguely realized that whatever had scrambled Worm's memory had likely scrambled everything else's programming as well. An imploding nanite controller though, that was a new one.
”What's happening?!” Worm demanded worriedly- then cut itself off with a new update of their rapidly deteriorating situation. ”Incoming signals, I've found an active optics device-” The AI was interrupted by a sharp breathy hiss of pain from Mon-El, his fingers touching his ears delicately and coming away stained with blood.
"Worm, I think I inhaled some faulty nanites. They're- they're doing something..." His breathing quickly began picking up, and his vision started blurring worse than before. Next time he saw the girls in R&D he was going to make sure this couldn't happen again, because who knew what the damned things could do running rampant in his body? The cold-sleep hadn't helped no doubt, he couldn't fight them off this way, but maybe they would have a little more trouble moving through his veins than usual.
Then, Worm made a choice. A new set of signals also entered sensor range; the first group was armed, uniformed, and traveling in large ground-based vehicles, the second group was a duo not of the same species as the first group, or as each other, and traveled on foot through a wooded area, guided by a glowing tablet-shaped machine towards the crashed ship. After a quick risk assessment, Worm messaged the mismatched aliens and killed the armed groups' technology.
REQUESTING ASSISTANCE. EMERGENCY POD CRASHED. PASSENGER INJURED. The alien's device flashed the message once across the screen, in the only Durlan dialect Worm knew, and then displayed a map towards their location. Unfortunately the message had the opposite effect as intended; the aliens halted to discuss their options, and though Worm took the opportunity to gather intel on the language to try and translate it, it was still preferred that they came to the rescue instead of doing nothing. ”Mon-El? Can you hear me? I've contacted help. I think.”
"Good. Sounds good. My fingers are blue. What does that mean?" He asked, still breathing a little too quickly and unable to sit upright.
Then between one blink and the next an alien with orange skin and antenna appeared in his vision. In the next blink it was replaced by another alien, this one more akin to his own looks, but with sharp ears and teeth, and more wild looking. It- he - was speaking, presumably to the orange alien he'd glimpsed earlier, but it wasn't a language he was familiar with.
Blearily he tried to ask who they were; \ "tenahn rraop? tevokai khahp?" \ They exchanged a bemused glance, and then the wild one lifted him up with apparent ease, one hand under his knees and the other under his shoulders. The orange one leaned over, some kind of sticky gel on his hand, and placed it over his mouth. He was confused by the gently made action, even more so when his lips began to feel tingly. Until he recognized the feeling for what it was; Tamaranean balm. Well, that solved the language barrier issue.
Mon-El passed out before the orange one had even removed their hand.
"Fear not my prince, I will watch them while you sleep." As far as parting words of comfort went, those were pretty good ones.
Emma
Skai