Fandom Alone Together

[foolish gold]

InkedFox and foolish gold​

 

[foolish gold]

Lana's eyes slowly squinted open, blinking repeatedly as her vision swam, blurred, then slowly clarified. She lifted her head to look around and gasped as pain throbbed through her arm. The ship was dark, little red lights blinking on some of the consoles to signal that something was wrong. Yeah, I noticed she thought blearily, trying to make sense of what had happened.

She was in the mess hall, along with several other members of the research team. They were strewn about the room as if picked up and tossed, some looking worse for wear than others. Acting on reflex, she reached up to brush her hair back out of her eyes and felt something sticky. Withdrawing her hand, she stared at the smear of dark red along her palm, her lips parting slightly as she struggled to grasp the fact that she appeared to be injured. Lana blinked hard a few times, taking slow, deep breaths as she tried to think back. An alarm...there'd been a loud, blaring alarm, red lights flashing everywhere to signal an emergency. There were escape pods and seats built into some of the walls with harnesses and oxygen masks. Everyone had been in various states between shock, confusion and comprehension, the latter already bolting for those all important safety measures, but it had all happened too fast.

Lana remembered, vaguely, the world wrenching sharply and suddenly to the right and then turning upside down and then nothing. That must have been when she hit her head. She licked her lips and swallowed, parched from lying unconscious with her mouth open, and crawled gingerly over to the nearest person. One of the soldiers, a Major. Major...something that started with D. Why was thinking so hard right now? "Major," she rasped, shaking the taciturn woman's shoulder. "Major...Major Delarue!" Yes, that was it. She was pretty sure, at least. "Major, please wake up. Something has happened. I..." Think. She had to think. Gather the pieces up, put them together, work out the bigger picture. They were all on the floor rather than floating, so one way or another they had gravity. She could neither feel nor hear the low, droning hum of the ship around her, but listening more closely she could in fact hear...wind. "I believe we may have crashed..." Lana's voice barely carried above a whisper and her hand on the marine's shoulder stilled as she attempted to consider the implications of her line of reasoning.

Unfortunately that effort was in vain; her head hurt far too much and she couldn't concentrate. "Medigel...where's...?" Her gaze darted around, bouncing between the four red-striped white dispensers, one on each wall. The nearest was next to the sink in the kitchenette, which was a mess. "We need to examine everyone's injuries and see who needs the most immediate care. Then we should try to check the navigation system and find out where we are. And then...and then..." Strange. The young professor's mind was running a mile a minute, taking stock of the situation and what ought to be done about it, but her body didn't seem to be responding to her thoughts. She couldn't move.

Hands finding their way back to the body in front of her, she failed to notice the note of panic creeping into her own voice as she asked "Major Delarue, are you awake?" Naturally she had known of the risks of space travel before embarking on this expedition - had in fact read numerous books on the subject since the offer first found its way to her - but it was one thing to know something was true intellectually, and quite another to experience the facts firsthand. As such, she was beginning to worry a little bit that they might be completely screwed.

What if there were thresher maws on this planet? Oh, dear...

 

[InkedFox]

Deafening silence rang in her ears as she awoke. Her body was being lightly jostled, stirring her from the depths of unconsciousness. Fractured memories whirled through her throbbing head, and she struggled to pry her eyes open. Her vision was blurred, and the sound of her breath flooded her ears. She could feel the cold steel of the floor pressed to her back, as flashing red lights assaulted her vision. Something had gone awfully wrong--

"Major Delarue!" She could hear some one calling her name, allowing the loud buzzing of sirens and creaking of shredded metal in the room to invade her senses. Her emerald eyes trailed over to the familiar face of the ship's linguist. "O--officer Deschamps?" The old vet murmured; still shaking off the daze. Luckily her senses came flooding back all at once and she could suddenly remember the sensors going crazy as something had crossed into their trajectory and collided with the craft. It was a scramble after that. Now she could hear the scientist frantically listing off essential tasks. Delarue could tell the woman was shaken by the urgency in her tone, and this spurred the Major into action.

Delarue rocked fourth and reclaimed her feet; pulling herself up. The soldier was used to being shell shocked from many of her past missions and she knew the importance of swiftness and decisiveness in times like these.

"On your feet soldier!" The major ordered, and hastily helped the scientist to her feet. She took note of the stream of blood flowing from the woman's scalp. "You got a pretty bad gash there yourself, Deschamps. Move out-- grab what supplies you can, or don't; if your condition is too bad. I'll round up what remains of my platoon and check the wreckage.... We have definitely crashed..." Delarue was a tough woman and despite the violent tumble from space, she was barely bruised and ready to go. She could already see trails of sand and dust drifting in to what was supposed to be an air tight corridor.

"RED SQUAD SOUND OFF!" The veteran shouted over the alarms and sounds of short circuits surging through broken wires that hung from shifted lose ceiling panels.

"Cruz!"

"Thompson!"

"West!"

One by one her men called back-- Major Delarue's platoon was scattered after the crash, but most reported in and flocked to the woman's voice. A few came limping out from parts of the ship that had gone dark after losing power. "Help the wounded. Gather the supplies-- We need to survey the area and make sure its safe. If we've landed on hostile territory, most likely they would have seen us falling out of the sky."

"I think the air is breathable ma'am." Cruz reported as she saluted the major.

"At ease--" The major nodded in her direction, allowing the soldier to relax. "It better be, or we're in deep shit."

"Move out!" Major Delarue ordered and returned her attention to the injured linguist. "Come on-- My men will see to the injured. You and I are going to have a look at what's left of navigation." Her eyes drifted over the stain of red slowly dripping down the brunette's temple. "--and I'll get you some medigel for that wound."

 

[foolish gold]

It was kind of difficult not to notice a large object entering the atmosphere and crashing into the planet's surface several miles away. Several of them had seen it streaking across the sky and watched its descent warily through vision-enhancing visors. It was definitely a ship, and not one they recognized. Even the make of it was unfamiliar - at least to those who had never seen a Human vessel before. Xamet, on the other hand, realized what it was fairly quickly, and wondered how in the hell they were going to deal with the complications the newcomers would bring to this situation if he was right. Currently there was a ceasefire between the odd little pink and brown Asari lookalikes and his own people, with proper peace talks in progress, but tensions were still running extremely high. On top of that, he was fairly certain given how new galactic travel was to them that there was not a human ship in Council space that wasn't armed and stuffed full of soldiers "just in case." And to be fair, exploring such vast and diverse unexplored territory was dangerous enough to warrant it, but still. That would make this...sticky, at best.

He turned and marched up to his commanding officer, then said bluntly, "Sir, our new neighbors are humans. I recognize the make of the vessel."

Lt. Colonel Arthros took one look at him and let out a sigh, shaking his head. "Of all the rotten goddamn luck...Well we can't just ignore them, and if this turns into a fight it's going to stir up one hell of a shitstorm. We have to handle this with delicacy. I realize that's not exactly our forte here, but we've got no other choice. Karos, you've at least laid eyes on Humans before, so take Verition with you and scout them out. Verition, try and keep him from doing anything stupid." After a moment his mandibles flicked once in faint, wry amusement. "Just...try and think like an Asari, yeah? The rest of you, tighten up defenses around the camp. Just in case."

Yeah, so maybe these Humans weren't quite so different from Turians as both would like to think. Hopefully that would work to everyone's favor today.

Xamet glanced over at Larso and jerked his head once in the direction of the alien craft, then turned and got moving. They'd been lucky; there was a stretch of the kind of flat, solid terrain that spelled trouble on unfamiliar planets near where they'd crashed, but not near enough to draw unwanted attention from anything that might lurk below, nor put them at urgent risk of disturbing such a creature. They had plenty of room to skirt around the unsettling basin, and as such had mostly seen fit to use their craft itself as their base. They'd stretched heavy duty tarps over the bits that had been scraped open, set up some tents and called it good.

It looked as though the humans hadn't been quite so lucky; they had landed right up against the edge of that flat expanse, just barely settled onto the large dunes surrounding it. Sand wasn't as reliable a buffer as rock, either, though it was also harder for thresher maws to move in than their preferred habitat of soil. It was difficult to say exactly how much danger they were in, and the Turians' proximity meant the answer would likely have an impact on them as well. All the more reason to make some kind of effort to work together, if the Humans were game. "Guess we'll want to observe for a while before approaching, and seeing as they've only just landed I doubt we'll see any movement for a while. So this is going to be boring as hell until something happens." He wasn't usually one to complain about tedious work - all their work was tedious when it didn't involve shooting something - but they'd been out in this heat for nearly a week and everyone was pretty sick of it by now. The presence of the Humans was problematic, certainly, but at least it was exciting.

So the two friends picked their way over to a good vantage point and settled in to watch and wait.

 

[InkedFox]

This whole operation had gone to hell in a hand basket. They had been en-route for a simple scouting mission. All they had to do was set up an outpost and be out of there, but it was just their luck, to have a close call that would maroon them until another scout came along to tow them back. The damn heat didn't help the situation either, and most of the time Larso found himself reminding his squad to cool down. The climate on this side of the planet was nothing to sneeze at and made survival hard when some of their life support systems had gone up in smoke; thanks to parts of the hull being scrapped through. --and now, this happened.

An alien ship came falling out of the sky. Careening only a few miles away from their own crash site. It was like the gods were playing a cruel joke on them, or there was something malevolent in the atmosphere that was swatting ships out of the sky. It was speculation at best, but Larson couldn't help but sigh and stare dully at the falling debris left in the wake of the breached craft.

Arthros was promptly informed of the situation, and of course, it was the recon specialist's job to check things out and assess the situation. Arthros jokingly commented on keeping Karos in line, but Larso just shrugged his shoulders at him as if he were going to do his best despite the staggering odds of success. Xamet was an old veteran compared to Larso, and he had much more experience in the field. Though Larso often did his best to play the voice of reason, he was seldom ever heeded by the older soldier.

Wordlessly, Verition followed after Xamet as he gestured onward. His recon scanner flickered to life, sending an arc of orange light over his mottled copper-colored eyes. The basin provided good cover; hopefully they could approach without being noticed and observe long enough to tell if these beings were hostile. They found a vantage point that had the plume of smoke from the crash in plain view, and they were safely out of range of any tunneling doom worms.

"Guess we'll want to observe for a while before approaching, and seeing as they've only just landed I doubt we'll see any movement for a while. So this is going to be boring as hell until something happens." Karos chimed in, sounding some what disappointed at the lack of action in their current role.

"Oh don't worry... If everything continues on the track this mission has-- you'll have plenty to keep you busy." Larso murmured as he knelt down to get a stable view and then adjusted the view finder on his omni-glass. The screen before his eyes measured the distance away the craft was, and enhanced his view, allowing him to survey the area of the craft much closer; as if he was only standing a few meters away. Just like his cohort had said. There was no movement at first, and the thought crossed his mind; maybe no one survived. Just as he was about to pose that dilemma, a few of the creatures could be seen staggering from the wreck. Some of them were better prepared then others; giving the air of military. Highly possible the ship had soldiers on board. They appeared to be helping other, less equipped, beings from the cracked hull.

"Looks like they're doing damage control. --A couple of them are real hurt." The recon specialist briefed in a hollow tone. Though he felt for the survivors of the crash; his turian loyalties kept him outwardly cold. "Shall we approach? --and please. Keep the 'Shoot first, --ask questions later' approach for when after they fire on us... I don't need HQ up my carapace about treaties."

 

[foolish gold]

Major Delarue's commanding voice snapped Lana's attention into place and instantly made her feel more at ease. It was a reminder that there were far more capable people than herself on board trained to deal with exactly these kinds of situations, and provided a sense of security that had been missing just moments ago. Shakily, she got to her feet, nodding at the Major as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail, tying it up with the band she kept on her wrist.

She waited until the Major was finished giving orders, then offered her a wan smile as the woman addressed the head injury she had sustained and nodded. "Yes, that would be...appreciated. And I'll be glad to help, just let me know what you need me to do so I don't get in the way. And the other professors - those who are mostly unharmed - can help treat the injured. We all received mandatory training in basic field medicine before embarking." A sensible move, that, and she admired the forethought behind it even more now that it had actually come into play. "And since we'll probably want to ration medigel as much as possible, I believe it would be wise to take advantage of those skills to treat the less serious injuries." Granted, the Major had probably put that together on her own before Lana even opened her mouth, but. At least she was trying to contribute, right?

Once her head was taken care of, she and Delarue headed for the cockpit. Unsurprisingly both pilots had also been knocked unconscious from the impact, and with the angle the ship was tilted at their harnesses were the only things keeping them in their seats. Lana had kept the packet of leftover medigel that had been used on her head, and the first thing she did was check on both the pilots for wounds. Neither seemed to be bleeding anywhere, and the headrests were well enough cushioned that she doubted either had a concussion, but both were bound to have some nasty whiplash from being jerked around while held in place. Confirming that there was no danger in leaving them a moment longer she focused on helping Major Delarue get the navigation system back up. A few minutes of careful tinkering and it flickered to life, showing a map of the course they had been taking to their destination.

"Hm...according to the star maps we were given by the Council it seems this is...Berur, an uninhabited planet. It's owned by the...Volus? I can't remember which aliens those are. But they haven't done anything with it yet and it had already changed hands a few times before they bought it. So I guess it's basically neutral territory for the time being." Lana bit her lip, considering what that would mean for the crew. "That's...fine politically, but on the downside it means there isn't much information available about the environment or wildlife." She looked at the Major. "What next? Should we set up a distress signal or something?"

There was only so much they could have prepared for, really. The galaxy was a big place with a lot of nooks and crannies, filled with pirates and thresher maws and all manner of dangers. They needed shelter and help getting back into the air and on track, obviously, but the steps to getting there were a bit fuzzier for Lana than they were for a trained marine, especially one skilled and experienced enough to command others. So she waited attentively for direction...or she would have done so, except she spotted movement out of the corner of the front window and zeroed in on it. "What's...?" She squinted, then blinked, and then her eyes went wide. Pointing, she murmured "Uh, ma'am? I...Turians. There are Turians. Here." Two of them, walking toward the ship. Both were armored but empty-handed, and their pace was...brisk but not aggressive? Hopefully?

The only thing she was certain of was that their situation just got a lot more complicated.

 

[InkedFox]

The Major let the woman organize her thoughts aloud, and suggest the next course of action to take. She was still shaken and the Major handled her gingerly, taking note of the woman's words as they transversed the broken hull to the cockpit. Scarlett grab a few packets of gel and quickly applied it to the scientist's head. "Let's stop this bleeding first, and we'll worry about rationing after everyone is cleared and accounted for." After the injury had been seen to; the two reached the cockpit, and carefully climbed down around the seats.

They checked the pilots' condition and found that both were alive luckily, but unconscious and now hung limply in their harnesses. While Lana went to check the nav systems, Scarlett saw to the safe removal of the suspended pilots. As Lana listed off the information and out lined their current situation; the Major went about removing cutting the harnesses. The veteran easily hefted one unconscious man from his seat, and lifted him back up and out into the corridor which had a much more stable footing. She returned only moments later to retrieve the second pilot, hefting the man over her shoulder just as Lana inquired what their next steps should be.

"--Clear the crash site, first!" The major grunted as she lifted the limp weight up and through the ajar doors. "--Gather supplies --retrieve the black box and the beacon. We need a base camp away from the crash site... no doubt something's going to come sniffing around..."

As if on cue, Lana chimed in with apprehension in her voice. Apparently there were turian life forms present. The Major's attention snapped over to the view port, and she could spot the tall, slender and oddly shaped figures approaching from the distance. The soldier jumped down to get an expedited view of the possible assailants. She had been briefed on how these creatures had opened fire upon them first during their initial contact, and this put the old war hound on edge.

"--Shit." She hissed, and then turned sharply to head out of the cockpit. "I think you're about to get a whole lot of hands on experience, Officer Deschamps... We need you on deck." She said as she hurried outside to stop her own infantry from opening fire on the strange new comers.

"Major!" Thompson called just as the Major came running from the interior. He pointed to the horizon and had his hand at his firearm. A look of alarm mirrored on her men's faces.

"I know-- stand down, but be ready. Do not open fire unless they fire first-- understand?" Delarue barked and stood before her men. She had her rifle already slung into her shoulder, but its muzzle pointed at the sandy ground

 

[foolish gold]

"Shall we approach? --and please. Keep the 'Shoot first, --ask questions later' approach for when after they fire on us... I don't need HQ up my carapace about treaties."

Xamet looked at Larso and then rolled his eyes. "Damn, and here I'd intended to just mow 'em all down remove them from the equation," he replied dryly. Then, more serious, "You don't have to worry about me. I for one am on board with the peace talks. I'd much rather be shooting Batarians or Vorcha." Some claimed the humans brought the Turian aggression on themselves during the Incident, but Xamet was of the opinion that true patriotism was critical rather than blind. He acknowledged that the Turians who had opened fire on the unwitting humans could have made a greater effort to understand why the strange alien vessel wasn't responding to its communiques before making such a decision.

Hotheaded though he may have been at times, he firmly believed that the role of Turians in the galactic community should be to preserve peace, and he wasn't too proud to admit that they still hadn't perfected the art. Which was why he felt a bit itchy about attempting diplomacy without help from an Asari, but they had to work with the options available. And so they began descending the dunes toward the gaggle of humans still wriggling out of the wreckage. The first to spot the two approaching was a soldier standing lookout, guarding the injured. Many of them appeared to be civilians, and as he raised a hand in greeting with fingers spread to make sure they didn't suspect he may be holding something he muttered to Larso.

"So who do you think the non-military personnel are? Can't all be diplomats, there's far too many of 'em." There was no such thing as a Turian expert on Humans at this point, but if he really had to hazard a guess Xamet would say that they were of widely varying ages, some getting on in years and some fresh-faced and young. "It's pretty early in the game for settlers to be out this far too," he added, studying them curiously. By now the soldier had certainly raised the alarm and more of them were exiting the wreckage, at the ready but not yet taking up combat positions. They were armed but not yet aiming, and Xamet chose to take that as a good sign.

The final soldier to emerge was pretty clearly in charge, talking rapidly and immediately drawing the attention of the others, who seemed to nod in response to...her words? It was a bit difficult to tell at this distance, but he thought the leader looked female. It was interesting to finally see humans so close - he'd been at a significantly greater distance than this even when fighting them, and now he got to see more of their fascinating diversity with his own eyes. It also struck him again how astounding it was that they were also so comparatively similar to the Asari; how in a universe with infinite potential for diversity two species had evolved on two different planets in two different star clusters that somehow had so many biological similarities.

He set those thoughts aside as they drew closer to the nervous aliens. This was definitely not the time to let his musings on the wonders of nature distract him. He glanced at Larso, uncertain of how they were going to make this work, then looked to the leader and raised a hand again. "Hello," he said, the magnitude of this attempt to communicate finally sinking in enough for him to begin feeling nervous as well.