Prey

[Vexen]

Concept: http://starwarsrp.net/topic/62240-new-story-prey/

Several layers thick, the heavy bandage engulfed her vision and left her in a world of complete darkness. Far from being a disconcerting experience, the defel pup found this remarkably calming. Even the artificial lighting of the ship, quite dull to the humans as it was, seemed an abhorrent nuisance to Vexen. This was the only real way she could settle down and get some rest. Letting out a long, slow sigh, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.



An indistinct shape hovered before her vision. She didn't truly understand it, but knew it to be a benevolent presence. She felt a gentle touch down the side of her cheek. Turning her head, she drew a long breath through her nose. Familiar smells elicited emotions that did not come easily to vexen. She felt calm, safe, loved.

The peace was interrupted by a high pitched whine. Despite trying to cling to them desperately, those emotions faded away. Confusion and fear crept up on her in their place and she mewled pathetically. There was a commotion of noise and light. Flashes burned spots into her vision. There was a low growling sound, then another flash, and the noise was silenced. That familiar shape loomed before her again and she reached for it. Something else appeared, a long silver streak, with a hoop at the end of it. There was a throaty gurgle and the shape vanished. Something dark descended upon her.

All faded to white. The benevolent figure appeared before her again. Whilst still indistinct, as if she was peering through a bottle, it's voice was clear and crisp this time.

"Vex. You need to wake up." The voice was distinctly female. The words were spoken in a language she didn't know, and yet she was aware of their meaning. "There's nothing you can do for me now, but you're not safe. Your friends are going to need you. Be brave. I... I'm... "



Vexen's eyes snapped open as she was jolted awake. The ship was making noises, its motion turbulent. She instantly knew those noises were not ordinary. Having grown up on an ithorian herdship, living deep in its bowels, she found the usual engine noises calming, reassuring even. There was a low pitched, reverberating whir. It kept rising in pitch and then a high pitched whine would cut across it briefly and then the cycle would start again. Then it was drowned out by the screech of tortured metal.

Vexen's claws scrabbled around her as she felt herself slide out if her bed. Her left found purchase, but that claw had been broken long ago and never reset properly. She felt the slide continue, until she slammed hard into something. There was a quiet crunch. A cold burning spread out from inside her shoulder. Something told her she was hurt quite badly, but there were more pressing concerns.

Grasping the makeshift blindfold, she yanked it free. Squinting her eyes tight, she made out her surroundings. She was wedged on the far side of the room, her simple nest of sheets wrapped awkwardly around her legs. Using her twisted left claw only, she managed to right herself, but only to stumble and trip again. She wretched, acid bile burning the back of her throat. Something was wrong, the ship was off-kilter, the floor no longer being down. Vexen paused, squatting down and keeping her balance as the ship jolted again. The lights flickered and went out, leaving the room bathed in a dull, red glow. Much better.

Her mind finally managed to accept the new orientation, and she awkwardly scrambled for the cockpit. All was chaos. Micah was there, and several others she knew. Thoran was there, the slightly older boy with big arms. Always wearing red shirts without sleeves. The girls back at camp always paid him a great deal of attention. Vexen was aware that Micah actively disliked him, for some reason.

They were shouting at each other at the top of their voices, using words she did not understand.

"Nothing from thrusters!"

"We're caught in its gravity well! Can't slingshot."

"I've got emergency power for interial dampers."

"Enough for repulsors?"

"Barely!"

"Can we scan for a landing??"

"No response!"

Vexen stayed nearby, clinging to the edge of a doorway with all her strength. The words from her dream were oddly clear in her mind: "Be brave." She didn't know what memory had influenced that dream, or why the lucid vision stuck with her so.

But she wasn't brave. She didn't have courage like the others. Half-blind, confused and disorientated, and with no comprehension of what was happening, she tried to call out quietly.

"Mic-ah!" it came out as a yelp. The change in pitch betraying her outright terror.

 

[Kaili Talith]

The girl coughed as her vision became ever so slightly less of a blur. All around her alarms were ringing, people were running as panic was being muted. Not that the attempts would prove anything short of futile. Even if they managed it Kaili didn’t exactly have to see the people on board to feel it all. It didn’t speak well for their impending fates. The ship shook and for every shake Kaili struggled to keep her balance.

In front of her stood an engineer shouting out orders. His voice shrill and panicked with only the slightest of echoing after effect to it. Kaili shook her head and rubbed her eyes. She had to snap out of it, last time she felt like this she had ended up missing most of her memories and she wasn’t about to let that happen a second time. With a determined push she wobbled herself away from the pillar on which she had leaned.

“The dampeners are failing, reroute power from the-.” The engineer was cut short by the sound of yet another system slowly fading away. “Force save us. Someone take care of that!”

This wasn’t good. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one, but it had to be stated. Kaili pushed her way out of engineering. The look on the people passing her by spoke of the same thing. They weren’t just deep in the dirt; they were already buried. The ship shook once more and Kaili nearly tripped over her own feet.

There was no time to waste. Looking at the pendant around her neck she set off for the bridge. She was no experienced pilot but she still had the basics down and for all she knew they were about to need all the help they could get. Besides, she got accepted to the LAA despite her curse and that must have said something, right? Doubtful, but she needed the faint glimmer of hope to keep herself from panicking like the rest of them.

The doors hissed and she stepped into the control room only to be met with the one sight she didn't want to see. It was nearly abandoned. A few people had remained. Some out of fear and others out of duty. There was no indication as to where the captain himself was, but one could only hope he was...

On second inspection his unconscious body laid out right there next to the pilot’s seat. Kaili’s eyes darted around the room. A second tap at the necklace by her chest had her doubting her next move. If there ever was a time to test the pendant, now was the time.

Even if they were going to crash no matter what.

Rushing off into the seat Kaili turned on the shipwide intercom.

“This is Kaili Talith speaking on the bridge.” The fourteen year old’s voice called out wherever the systems were still working. “Promise not to hate me for what happens next. Over.”

And with that she began to plot a crash course. First step: picking the landing spot that meant they’d be least likely to die. Which was easier said than done.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

"Kriffin hell," Micah would utter under his breath, stumbling to gain purchase as he darted from his sleeping quarters. His arms would brace against the bulkhead, knuckle white grip on the overhead railings. The ship gave another savage shudder, throwing him to the right. Pain went lancing down his right shoulder, a rather sickening thud as he hit.

Yeaaaah, that's gonna leave a bruise, he mused with a grimace. Alarm klaxons would wail, emergency lights joining them. With a grunt, the Talith shoved himself from the wall. Bright orange eyes would flare in the Force, hearing the faint whimper of Vex the next door down.

"Just a leaf in the wind Vex!" He called out, making a joke as he swung himself the last couple of meters forward, using the Force to take him farther.

He caught sight of the Defel, beckoning her over to him. "Come on, I'm sure it's not--" another jolt went tearing through the vessel. That was the same time Kai's high pitched voice poured through the overhead comm.

His expression said it all.

Oh feth...

 

[Liliane]

In the distance somewhere, a girl could be seen running around the savaging ship, trying to make her way to somewhere she could get medical help. Before the madness began, she had been sitting on a seat, trying to read an interesting piece of literature, so naturally when the ship started moving in strange patterns, she fell on the ground head first. Well, technically nose first.

She'd taken a tissue, but she was sure there was a need to take some medication, especially considering she might have broken her bones. Which was not a very good thing, considering she couldn't just stand still while others did something useful.

So she burst into the room where she'd heard they held medicine and grabbed for whatever she could find -- painkillers, something to close the wound, whatever. She just dropped a bunch of nearly random (yet familiar) medicine into her mouth and put something on her nose.

"What's going on?" she asked after proceeding to the hallway from the first person who hurried through the corridor.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Kaia didn’t like not being on the bridge. She was one of the people who were helping out with this route. The alt-Jedi-girl was one of those instinctive astrogators, after all. Besides, her last name was Starchaser, what other powers could she have? She really didn’t know, relying on Khaleel to help teach her a bit, but even with him, she was always bouncing between worlds, running supplies and people around the galaxy.

All the while coming to save the day during a crisis for some inadequate or ambushed spacer. She wanted to be flying, she was a pilot. Add in her sniper skills, and really, the girl was specialized to an nth degree. A product of the training offered by the Dawn Treader. When the first shutter rocked the ship, she awoke. She was trained that way, to sleep light. Sleep until the sounds of the engines changed, or the sounds of battle opened her eyes.

Looking around in the dark, she shook her head. What was going on? Half dressed and with her mass of black hair all matted to the side of the face, she head the announcement over the intercom. Kaili… was on the bridge? Had to be fething kidding!

She acted on instinct. Toss her jacket over her tanktop and pulling on some pants, she grabbed her rifle and made her way into the hallway. She found a shipwide computer. She was not going to make it to the bridge. And she didn’t know what else to do but panic. And try to tell Kaili what to do. The dark-haired Starchaser reached out to the Force, she wanted to know what was going on, but she got terror.

“Kaili… don’t try to fly… just glide.” That was all she could say over the intercom. It was all she knew to say. Why did they even let cursed people on the bridge? Why did they put her so far away from the bridge?

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]
[member="Micah Talith"]
[member="Kaili Talith"]
[member="Vexen"]

 

[Vexen]

Vexen looked up. There he was it. It would all be alright. Even if he didn’t look that sure of himself, she knew he would know what to do. She took a couple of steps forward, one arm reached forwards. She intended to grasp his shirt like the terrified child she was.

As she took one more step, her back leg hit nothing but air. She flailed her arms, expecting to fall. Instead one claw barely scratched the elephant-tread deck with a loud clang. She was floating.

“Argh!” she called, waving her limbs around frantically.

The calm, female voice of the automated warning systems sounded: “Warning: artificial gravity failure. Emergency life support failure. Shields failing. Inertial Dampers at fifty percent and failing.”

She knew the word “failing”, at least. Her breathing became short and shallow. Nausea crept up both from raw terror and the sudden sensation of freefall. Without artificial gravity, only firing thrusters would give them the illusion of being in a gravitational field. However, that meant turning down the inertial dampers, which in turn would leave them susceptible to any external shocks.

Speaking of which…Vexen was suddenly thrown to the ceiling as an external impulse hit them. It wasn’t hard, but the sudden change caused her to let out of terrified yelp.


[member="Kaia Starchaser"]
[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]
[member="Micah Talith"]
[member="Kaili Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

@Vexen @Kaia Starchaser [member="Lilin Imperieuse"]

​

​

Glide. Glide they did. How it happened, what came in between then and after was a rush of adrenaline pumping oblivion. All Micah knew is that he barely had enough time to round the trio down and secure each snugly onto their seats. In the process he cracked his head against the bulkhead, a trickle of blood now coagulating over his brow. Inertia with the amount of force was doing a number on his body, and he could feel the bile of fear in his throat rise up.

Where was Kai? Aela? It was a flashback to another crash years ago. One they barely made it through. Figures that this would happen again.

Micah didn't have a chance to ponder it further, the freighter gave another sudden shudder, it's hull burning bright red at atmospheric reentry. That was their cargo being jettison; the weight would have been a death sentence. Seconds later, everything went black as the ship went skipping across the ground as it made landfall, breaking off the rear half of the ship as a fiery trail would carve the landscape for several kilometers.

Until finally, it slammed against a sand dune in a ball of fire and black pillars of smoke...

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Emergency re-entry wasn't ever fun. And it was less fun when you weren't sure what was going to happen. Maybe Kaia was a bit of a control freak. That was for sure, she wanted to be flying, but with Kaili flying? She felt nervous. She couldn't see what was happening, she didn't know what each shudder of the vessel was for, she didn't know what she was feeling in the Force. The change in gravity? Feth no!

She grabbed her rifle tightly. That and her lightsaber were the things that helped her get through the day when she was separated from her own ship. Or any ship. That was what was going on now. She made her way to where people were, using the Force.

And that was when Micah helped her strap into her seat, making sure she was tight. She knew how to prepare for emergency landing, but for all Kaia spent aboard ships? This was the first actual emergency. She could feel herself toss against the crash webbing as the ship skipped over sand. Her rifle went flying, her lightsaber was on her belt, but her gun!

What came next?

[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Vexen"] [member="Lilin Imperieuse"] [member="Kaili Talith"]

 

[Vexen]

[member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Micah Talith"] [member="Lilin Imperieuse"] OOC/ Sorry realised it was Lilin's turn, but had already written a post by then!



The first thing Vexen was aware of was the cold, wet sensation in her right shoulder. It was even worse now than when she slammed it into a bulkhead; the dull pain spreading further down her arm and across her chest. Starting to open her eyes, she yelped as the bright light seared a streak across her retinas. Her claws came up to try and shield her eyes, but it was no good. Bright sunlight streaked in from a great crack in the structure of the ship above them. At least she could breath. That was good. Apparently there were worlds where there was no air at all. She hadn’t believed Micah when he’d told her that, but he’d insisted it was true and that there was none in space either.

Her claws groped around her as she blindly tried to find the release to her straps. Tracing down the edge of the restraints, she eventually found the metal clasp. She couldn’t quite reach it with her right paw, so she had to try and manipulate the mechanism with her misshapen left. After a few moments of fumbling and she managed to undo the restraints and she gently slid out of the seat. Free at last, but the defel stayed stock still. The ship was on its side, torn open. There could be any number of hazards around her. Everything was quiet. She paused, ears turning back and forth. She heard breathing nearby, the others were still here.

“Hello?” she called meekly.

 

[Liliane]

Lilin had managed to make it to the rest of the people while the crash was happening and, his head aching and nose hurting, she barely understood what was going on. As she made it to the group, she was already being fastened on the seat to ensure she would be safe. Her brain failed her, everything around was all so fuzzy and she had this strange feeling of dizziness and unexplainable ease to her.

What the kark had she taken? Had she even looked at the drugs and pills she had put in her mouth?

The ship crashed and all she could see was darkness. She'd actually lost her consciousness before that had happened. So when she opened her eyes once again, she was rather confused and didn't quite grasp the concept of what had happened.

"What's going on?" she mumbled, her tongue barely able to form the shapes needed to make these sounds possible.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"] @Vexen @Kaia Starchaser

Consciousness came in degrees, along with a low groan. Micah's face would scrunch up in growing awareness as he would come to. There was a shaft of pain down his leg, and his temple held a distinct warm trickle of liquid. Everything appeared dark, and for a moment he panicked before he realized it was just the lack of light and not his actual eyes.

Blinking into the darkness, small sparks of electricity would start to register, along with the faint glow of emergency lights. A familiar voice would barely register at the edge of his hearing. Wait --

"Ugh..." came another painful groan, a half grimace etching his youthful features as he found himself hanging upside down upon his emergency seat.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Focus, Kaia. You were trained for military service, this was a starship crash. What happened? Where were they? That could all be figured out later. The dark haired girl shook her head and started at getting her crash webbing off, having to cut it. She fell to the ground for a second, reaching out to call the Force to her. She was learning a bit of skills from a variety of sources, the Levantines, the Academy, Khaleel and the more skilled members of the Covenant.

Crawling over to her rifle, she checked it. It was in one piece. That was a good sign. She all but hugged her gun before looking around. “Are we all okay?”

Kaili!

The girl had tried to fly. She looked towards the cockpit, she’d go there, unless someone here was bleeding out.

[member="Micah Talith"]
[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]
[member="Vexen"]
[member="Kaili Talith"]

 

[Kaili Talith]

Glide.

All she had to do was glide to ensure the others didn’t die. It wasn’t like the mere thought of having the fate of everyone weighed heavy on a kid. Actually, it weighed a lot. Kaili took to the Starchaser’s advice and tried to make the ship glide. For each shake and shift there was someone crying out in panic on the bridge or someone falling to their knees, or worse, dying. The crew was relying on a cursed young girl to direct the ship towards something that would ensure survival, yet all Kaili could say was that one thing.

“I am become death,” She said as she in her most panicked state kept the situation under control. “The destroyer of ships.”

“Strap in, or on, whatever! This is going to get rough.”

The ship pierced the atmosphere and the windshields began to light up like a fire unlike any other that Kaili had seen. At least from this angle. It was mesmerizing, beautiful, terrifying. The hull integrity slowly began to break down as things got a lot more warmer until eventually they had broken through. The wind tossed the collapsing ship around and electrical equipment seemed to go ballistic as sparks crackled all around the bridge.

But the girl delivered. She trusted her instincts just like Mara had taught her. At least up until the point where the ship’s starboard side collided with a cliff and tore a hole in the bridge’s wall. That was the last anyone would ever see of Ensign Redmont and his friends as they violently got ripped out of the ship by the vacuum.

Eventually the ship settled down as the front dug deep into the ground below. Shards of glass strayed for the girl’s face and before long it had come to a complete end. Kaili took a careful look around her. There were survivors. Some unconscious and the rest shook up and thankful they weren’t Redmont.

With her role fulfilled the girl passed out from the stress. Blissfully unaware of the bruises and the cut running along her left cheek where the glass had left its marks. At least this time she hadn’t lost her memories. So that certainly beat the last crash by a lot.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"]
[member="Kaili Talith"]
[member="Kaia Starchaser"]
[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]

With light streaming in from outside the ship, Vexen still could not open her eyes to see what was going on around her. Even opening them the slightest crack merely left a painful streak of red across her vision. She heard muffled groans and noises around her. There were soft clinks as other buckles were undone.

“Are we all okay?”

“I can’t see!” Vexen called, hearing the clear voice somewhere off to her left. “Too bright!” If she was in bright daylight, she’d be easy enough to spot. A defel-shaped silhouette of complete and utter black stood out easily enough, it was when she was in shadow that she became essentially invisible. She felt a brief wave of panic, instinctively knowing it was Micah’s. The street urchin had never actively developed any abilities, but had always been able to make people forget seeing her back on her ithorian herdship, had they spotted her briefly. It seemed that from their time in close proximity, she had started to gain a rough sense of his emotions.

 

[Liliane]

Lilin tried to take off everything which bound her to the seat, but due to the dark, she could not see what she was doing, and her other senses were not that good. So she tried to rely on her sense of touch to untangle her, but it was a lot of work to do for her. Emergency light which appeared soon made it slightly easier to get rid of everything on her way, but the medicine she had taken made it a bit difficult.

Everything was still all that fuzzy around her.

As soon as she got out of the seat, she fell on the ground. What was going on there?

"I am OK. Mostly."

But her brain told her she was mostly not very OK. And she should have definitely not taken random drugs at all. Maybe there were some strange chemical reactions going on inside her, trying to kill her? Maybe she was just poisoning herself with whatever she had taken in? Probably both, but that was no time to worry.

She tried to stood up, but her limbs failed her, so she had to lean on the seat to even try to stay up.

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Kaia wasn’t sure what to do. She wasn’t a medic, but it was clear things had gone down. She was starting to feel sore, but that… she could work past it. Needed to work past it. People were reporting in, the ones here, at least. “Micah?” She called as she looked around. People were in one piece. That was a good sign. But the impromptu leader of the group, where was he? Was he fine?

She looked around. Vex was having light issues. Right. “Do you have… goggles?” She looked around. She pulled her jacket off. “Here, for now.” Right, problem solver?

As for Lilian? She didn’t know. “Just… uhh… I wanna check the cockpit. Are you ok?”

She might be able to find something useful there, while checking on Kaili. The actual pilot, not a cursed pilot, started making her way to the cockpit. Yeah, she figured the group in back could look to themselves. And her leg. That was hurting now. "Kaili?"

[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]
[member="Vexen"]
[member="Kaili Talith"]
[member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

"I'm --"

The sudden crashing sound of a body hitting the floor -- ceiling? -- resonated as Micah fell down after unsnapping his safety bindings. Flesh met metal and pain shot through his shoulder once more.

He swore again, giving another grimace. " -- fine." he muttered, head pounding and what bit of light hurting his eyes. Reality would hit him in growing alarm as he would recall what he knew last. He heard Vex... was that Kaia?

"Kali." her name went ripping from his mouth, his brows furrowing as the Force went surging through his body, slamming out around him as his senses went a blaze. Where was his sister? The Force Tracker would comb that net of energy, following the glistaweb threads that would eventually lead him to the glowing aura of his youngest sister.

Relief hit him as he felt her. Okay, she was alive. Good. Now to get his bearings... and find everyone else. He would unwrap himself from the bruised tangled of his arms and legs, getting his balance and standing.

"Vex?.... Kaia?" his slightly bloody cheek would pan back and forth, trying to gauge -- was that Lilin? "Lil?"

 

[Kaili Talith]

First came the coughing and then the deep breaths as she was broken out of her temporary state of unconsciousness by [member="Kaia Starchaser"] calling her name. The pilot tried to unbuckl herself and waved her hand in the air. All attempts at speaking was nullified by the overwhelming dizziness and nausea, but other than that she felt perfectly fine. She had definitely seen worse before in situations such as these.

What was important was to stay awake and keep moving from here on out. She needed to have a doctor look her injuries over, but that wasn’t as important as making sure everyone else was fine. The young girl unbuckled her belt and tried to stand up by holding onto the chair but each muscle in her body seemed to hurt by even the slightest of movements. Things got brighter and just as she was about to speak up it all got worse.

“I’m... Here, Kaia.” The girl managed as things seemed to change from bright to darker. “Just... Need some help... Walking is all.”

The exhaustion caught up with her again as the stress from having been their only hope only a few moments ago blended with the physical exertion of having her entire being tossed around in a ship set for crashing violently into the ground.

Kaili collapsed fully to the ground. The cut on her left cheek had dug deeper than anticipated and burned up as she landed face first on the distorted metal ground of the bridge.

She wasn’t a great fan of crashing.

[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Kaia Starchaser"] [member="Lilin Imperieuse"] [member="Vexen"]

 

[Vexen]

Be brave

The fleeting memory from her dream danced across her mind for a moment. She tried to grasp it, to follow the thread, but the dream was just a shadow now. But one thing she recalled clearly, the sensation of being calm, content, loved.

Her head and ears swivelled back and forth as she listened to what was happening around her. The jacket blocked out the light, which was much better than scrunching her eyes closed against the painfully intruding light that lanced down from the crack in the hull.

Be brave

Vexen got to her feet, her knees only vaguely threatening to buckle. She was bruised and battered, scared and disorientated, stranded and lost. She'd been through worse.

Through her short lifespan she had endured things that had left her a broken, hollow little thing, feral and easily confused. However, she was still a survivor. That instinct that dragged you on through anything, no matter how hopeless and kept you alive, Vexen had plenty.

Lilin had whispered she was alright, even if it had sounded insincere. She instinctively knew that Micah was in a reasonable condition, just shaken. Even if she desperately wanted to go to him and let him reassure her, there were the others to think about.

Kaia had gone to the cockpit, where Vexen assumed there would be others. But they were near the front of the ship and there could be more survivors. Her claws scrabbled loudly across the elephant-tread deck as she almost slipped on the angled surface. Moving around in complete darkness was surprisingly easy, now that she'd stopped panicking about it. She easily found the manual release catch on the rear door to the compartment and slipped through.

With the door shut behind her, her senses told her the light had been left behind also. Risking a glance to confirm it, she then removed the jacket from over her head, only to be met with a grim visage.

Her expression was still frozen in shock. The misty glaze across her eyes, and the small trickle of blood from one corner of her mouth were the only signs on her face that something was wrong. Her eyes still looked down at the broken pipe that protruded from the centre of her chest. Vexen left Maisey strapped to her seat and headed further into the bowels of the ship. She idly wondered how much death the others had experienced in their lives; she could still vividly recall finding the emaciated corpse of one of the children in the Hidden Places for the first time. Maisey had been popular as well, friendly and naive, even for a sixteen year old girl.

Her ears picked up more noises ahead and she scrambled down the corridor to the next door. It seemed the slope was increasing, as if the hull of the ship had buckled and curved.

"My hand, I can't free my hand!" someone shouted, the pain in his voice evident.

"Get the lights on!" a female voice cried in fear.

"I've found the switches, I'm trying but there's not even emergency power," that was a rodian voice, must have been Keedon.

Vexen pulled the manual catch on the door, but it stayed put. Finding some purchase, she pulled at it with all her meagre might. It squealed shuddered as it slowly gave way and slid back into the recess. Vexen perched on the edge of the doorframe, looking down into the next chamber. The floor was at nearly forty five degree angle.

"Who's there?" that female voice called out again. Vexen looked to the source of the voice. It was Shanere, another human girl, maybe a few years younger than Micah. Right in front of her was Janis, his hand trapped underneath a metal crate, blood pooling around it. He must have been around nineteen, one of the older youths in the covenant. He had long hair, a broad chest and large arms. He was exceedingly popular, but for some reason Micah really, really didn't like him. Vexen could never get him to explain why. Keedon was at the far end of the room, hands moving across the surface, searching for the release catch. They were all utterly blind down here.

"S, me," Vexen said quietly, heading straight for Janis. "I'll lift," she explained. Her left claw never had much strength since its bones were shattered, and her right shoulder burned in pain, but she pushed through, using both arms to try and lift the container. It moved just a fraction and Janis pulled out his left hand. Two of the fingers were little more than a bloody pulp.

"You can see in this?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

"How bad is it?" he asked meekly. "Actually, just get the medical kit from the far wall," he added. But before Vexen could move, her view vanished in a flash of white, and she scrunched her eyes shut again.

"The rest if the ship!" Keedon called in his strange rodian accent from beside the open door. "It's gone!"

"Creena was back there!"

"And Petra!"





DM mode activate.

The front half of the ship had come to rest at the base of a deep valley. The terrain around them was sandy and rocky, with small rocky hills protruding from the dunes. There was sparse vegetation, mostly thick trees with a surprisingly thick, almost chitinous bark. There were bright red birds of various sizes and small lizards that buried themselves deep in the dunes. Eight legged herbivores could be seen in small groups in the distance, there heavy jaws and wide flat teeth allowing them to crack the heavy skin of the vegetation.

The air is humid and burns the back of the throat, but is breathable. There are dark clouds looming, which makes the sparse flora and fauna a mystery.

The ship's reactor had gracefully shut down to avoid a dangerous meltdown, but was in an unrecoverable state. Backup power had been provided by power cells which had been in the read of the ship, which was now spread across several square kilometres.

The middle of the front section was on a rocky mound. This had buckled the remaining frame, leaving the rear section dangling, and a great tear in the hull, above the section where Lilin, Vexen and the PCs had strapped down.

The emergency transceiver had already activated, but the narrow valley meant it's signal wasn't hitting any buoys, merely transmitting into empty space. It would need to be carried to higher ground. It'll need more power cells to get the range it requires too. There's plenty of water in the remaining ship, and enough emergency rations for a week.

There are three more NPC survivors in the rear of the ship. These can be fleshed out, sacrificed along the way, or added to as you wish.

[member="Kaili Talith"]
[member="Kaia Starchaser"]
[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]

 

[Kaia Starchaser]

Right!

She could hear Kaili, which was important. She wanted to help everyone, but with the heroes all in the main part of the ship, she knew she needed to go help in the cockpit. And she was limping. That was not good. Kaili was… well, she tried to fly, and that was just a terrible idea. But right now it didn’t matter. The girl was okay, ish.

“Kaili! You know, you shouldn’t be anywhere near a pilot’s seat, right?” She smiled, or tried to smile, using the wall to balance herself, the leg acting up. The rest? She was fine. It wasn’t like she was having ear issues, at least not yet. The Starchaser kept making her way over to the other Astro Academy student. “They should offer a class in this…” She said. No segue, Kaia was the type who spoke what she thought when she thought it.

“Hold on!” She looked around, where was the first aid kit? There had to be bacta patches somewhere!

[member="Vexen"]
[member="Kaili Talith"]
[member="Micah Talith"]
[member="Lilin Imperieuse"]