In Case of Emergency... (Open, FT/All, Read First Post!)

[Sunset]

Scyllan Syndicate...

Captain Tamperi stood at the gap in the torn section of outer hull that played current shelter to him and his impromptu boarding team and watched through sensor-enhanced eyes as the distant shapes of the small, swift fighters and larger forms of the scavenger shuttles moved to envelop the distant escape pod. For the moment that settled in his mind the question of whether they were friend or foe but whether or not they would be friendly was still uncertain. The presence of the larger whale-like craft was more uncomfortable - the chance that they would next turn to the debris field and scoop it and his men up and send them into the bowels of a molecular disassembler or more simply an industrial compactor was one that weighed heavily in his equations.

"They went for the escape pod first, Captain."

That was Ensign Derhalli, and like the Captain he was not a Marine that would have been assigned to the regular boarding party but rather an Engineering Technician who had a personal interest - and qualification - in powered armor combat. It wasn't the same specialized training and experience that the Marines would have but against pirates and their ilk Tamperi had judged both himself and the Ensign suitable to the job. That had left both of them, as well as a handful of other qualified crew, stuck in deep space along with a sweeping section of the outer hull when the pirate ship had jumped out. That this ship - visible in the distance - was not that ship was something of a relief but that it wasn't and that there was no Shamal nearby was disquieting, to say the least.

"That doesn't mean they're friendly, Ensign, though I hope so. The pod was transmitting a distress signal - if I were pirates or scavengers, I'd hit that first so no one else comes after my prize. And if I were me..."

Another concern was that the escape pod wasn't exactly bait or a test, either. There was someone in there - it hadn't launched by itself - but there was no answer as to who. He couldn't exactly open it up and find out and it was possible that, given where the pod had been launched from, that the occupants could being either civilian passengers or pirates.

"I'd make sure to rescue those asking to be rescued. A bunch of space junk can wait. But we're not space junk..." And if he didn't say something, they might end up drifting out here for a long, long time. Whoever was inside the pod would have chemical hibernation available to sleep out the days, months, or even years, but there was no such option for his crew. With the off-chance that they might be swallowed up to end up as tin cans somewhere looming, his next action was reasonable clear. "I'm going to try to contact them. Everyone is to stay under cover, dispersed through the wreckage. If they're friendly, well, we were just gathering our resources. If they are not..."

He fervently hoped that they were.

Taking a moment to compose his thoughts, he queued up and recorded a message to be sent out on the limited set of frequencies that his suit was capable of. Since the new arrivals had homed in on the escape pod, he started by matching the standard set of frequencies and methods that it used first; "Emergency; This is Captain Tamperi. I am trapped in the wreckage of the SS Star's Charter along with civilians and crew. Location unknown. Rescue required. Emergency..."

It wasn't his finest work but he had never been one to leave a good voice mail either. Setting it to repeat every minute, he returned to his watch and waited...

[Scyllan Syndicate]

The Scyllan Syndicate
United in Defiance, Divided in Solidarity

The two Whales moved towards their intended target. Their first mission was to scan the pod, and several crew aboard the vessel moved towards the bow and manually untethered a large shielding unit across the front. As it drifted off and exposed the large bay of the shuttle, another team prepared the two mechanical arms along the sides. The operators near the back started the vessel's auxiliary engines, which started the flashing of lights around the shuttles' rusted shells. The speed-fighters kept their distance, their pilots watched their screens and the area around them.

Roden, who had returned to his perch, now stood eyeing the situation the best he could. He pulled at the cobwebs around one of the screen's sides and smacked it a few times as the image jittered to life. They had their communications open with the teams operating in the area, and with the Harg starting its radar sweeps, a signal would be found eventually. Roden grimaced, however, staring at the debris field on the radar - or what he thought was the debris field - it was just a static blob.

"Everything alright, Captain?" Feena asked, resting against the railing as she peered up at him. She gave the room a cursory glance, and sighed as she eyed the flickering screens before returning to Roden. He gave the screen a few more good smacks, provoking a chuckle from the Quartermaster as she leaned over to see for herself.

"It's nothing," he gazed at her. She raised a brow at him in return, and then crawled up the railing before coming over it to look at the screen more directly. She pointed at the blob, and glanced to the Captain. He'd taken a few steps back and nodded, "It's the debris field, but there's so much, we can't get a good signal from it with the scans," he gestured at the screen.

She nodded, "Well, it is a piece of junk," she jabbed with a grin. Roden glared, and then shook his head as he stepped over and typed a few things out on the metallic keys. This brought up a greater focus of the craft around the pod, and its signal strength. They both stared for a moment before the screen fluttered, "What's wrong with it?"

Roden gave the screen another hard hit, which did nothing like before. "I don't know, it's not the screen," he said, looking out over the bridge. "R'tag, are we getting any interference?" the Captain asked, causing a rather grotesque looking creature to swivel in its chair. The gelatinous thing gave the Captain a shrug, before looking at its screens. There was a momentary pause, before it swivelled back to the Captain and Feena.

"Ids nod de sensoors," it gassed out with a hum. "Seems do be a signa' on a c'ose frequency," it added before moving back into its station. R'tag typed some things out, messing with the frequency aboard the Harg. This interfered with the image more, filling the screens with static. Suddenly there was a high pitched ring that made several members of the crew wince before it quieted to a low buzz and the broken message came through.

"E-mer-ency; This is *** Tam. I *** trapped in the w-eck-ge of *** Charter along *** civilians *** unknown. Rescue ***quired Emerge"

Roden leaned in trying to listen to it, before Feena gave him a nudge. "R'tag! Keep trying to pinpoint it! It's a distress signal I think," she piped up, sliding over the railing as she hit the metal floor below with a thud. She hurried over to his station while Roden remained on the perch. His grey eyes watched the screens, wincing again as another high pitched sound filled the room and cut the air like a knife.

"Emergency; This is Captain Tamperi. I am trapped in the wreckage of the SS Star's Charter along with civilians and crew. Location unknown. Rescue required. Emergency..."

The message was much clearer now as both the Captain and Quartermaster met their gazes across the room. He quickly hit the button on one of the panels, and leaned in towards the cut-out slits. "Grab that pod, and pull back. We're not alone, I repeat, grab that pod and return to the Harg. We've company," he urged, looking back to Feena. "Navvy, flip us on the broadside towards that debris field, I want every damn gun trained there," he ordered, and refocused the screens to the field.

"Hey! Hey! New orders!" a muffled voice called around one of the Whales. Several of the engineers were quickly shuffling about while in EVA, many with plasma cutters and welders who were going to remove the beacon from the pod if possible. "Cap just called it, we gotta move!" And with that, everyone was hurrying about. The flashing lights turned orange aboard the one shuttle, as the operator on the back patted the metal hull and thrusted it forward. The rest cleared the way.

The speed-fighters were also now aware, and were zipping around the shuttles much more closely. The Whale heading for the pod slowed down with its reverse-thrusters, and the large mechanical arms started to shift outward. At the same time, stacks of pistons along the sides began to expand opening the bay further to accommodate the pod's size. When the 'ok' was given by one of the Engineers, the Operator nodded and pushed on the stick again, scraping rust into a cloud around him. The vessel jutted forwards before the dampeners stabilised its speed, and with the bay wide open, would try to swallow the pod.

[Sunset]

The Imperial Frost Federation...

"We..." He looked down for a long moment and then back up at the Captain, fixing him firmly in the eye with his own steel blue and with something like renewed vigor. His voice grew more confident by the moment as he answered, "We were pirates, Captain. Kainshin and I were pirates, along with that... Arenja?" He supplied the name for the two-headed caninoid's species, though not his individual identity. Given the firmness of his statements perhaps he simply didn't know, "Or rather, she was. I was a kid when all this started, living on the streets of Bonaventu. My parents kicked me out - they both drunk, a lot, and it was easier to buy booze than take care of a kid. So I lived on the streets since I was;" And he held up a hand with all five fingers wide.

"No, I can't read - just count on my fingers. Ten is as high as I can go," he laughed, a bitter note in his young voice. Then he looked past Captain Cardinal to the wall behind, "I did what I had to do to survive and one time I tried to find out what was in this woman's pocket but Kainshin caught me. Told me I was her's now. She took me back to her ship - not her ship though, Captain Der'Long's ship - and made me her cabin boy."

Here there was a pause and a crack as if something else had happened; From five to perhaps seventeen or eighteen left many possibilities to the imagination.

"So I'm not a pirate. She was. When the Captain decided on the latest target, he put her on the other side. That's his method, you see. He'll plant his own crew on the target then wait til its at the right point for him to fake a distress call. He likes cruise liners - lots of rich people on board. People worth money. He'll fake a distress call then when the two are together, his crew on the other ship will grab anyone who looks worth it and kidnap them. They won't dare stop him with hostages so..."

Piracy, at least as it had been on the high seas, was a hard thing. Most faster-than-light drives were point-to-point and when a freighter or liner was in planetary orbit it was under the protection of various defenses. Thus the pirate captain's plan was reasonable brilliant; Cruise liners occasionally visited uninhabited planets to show their passengers virgin natural beauty where there wouldn't be any defenses. By inserting his own crew onto the liner, he could both know the schedule and be assured that the ship would be unable to resist the kidnappers.

"...They grabbed whoever they could, then he'd jump out and start sending out ransom notices. A million here, ten million there - and he always turned them lose. No one will pay up if they know he's just going to kill them. But I'm not a pirate - I'm just another kid they took," he finished.

[Sunset]

Republic of Vectors...

"Well, Mr. Lawyer Man..." The young man was about to open his mouth but suddenly something stopped him, "Say, you're not my lawyer, are you? At least not yet. Here..."

Feeling around his clothing and his pockets and apparently not finding anything, he instead leaned back and opened his mouth wide, reaching into the back and then yanking on something until it emerged in a gob of blood and spit. "Here. Your retainer."

What it was was a tooth, and he dropped it on the table with the solid clunk of gold on laminate. It wasn't pretty to look at but he slid it across the table anyway and then wiped at the gore with his sleeve.

"Now you're my lawyer. Attorney-client privilege. So yeah - I was wrapped up in something a little... less-than-legal. Not my idea, you might say, but I got dragged along in it. But as you say, this sector doesn't care about something like piracy as long as it wasn't against this... Republic of Vectors. Not that we were," he held up his hands in mock objection. "Just that I knew some people who were. But you mentioned something about a reward? Cause... and this is purely hypothetical... I might know some people who might be wanted. Hypothetically. I was on this ship, see..."

And with that he launched into a yarn where - hypothetically - he was on a passenger liner that had been boarded by pirates under false pretenses. That his knowledge of the pirates methods and operation was highly specific was, of course, purely hypothetical...

----

Kaidasha was a Troll. She wasn't a Troll's Troll - there were no bridges in sight, nor any goats gruff, but she was a Troll. This meant she was - though not personally - the result of a long-ago project to create the mythical Super Soldier. Stronger, faster, and with a brutal cunning that would have made her a natural choice for any military in need of a shock trooper or assault commando. But it was as true then as it as true now that one's physiology does not automatically determine one's temperament and Kai was a lover, not a fighter. While her cabin might have been the home of an easel and a palette of paints, her size and apparent ferocity allowed her to fall into the role of ship's security guard with ease. This also allowed her to indulge her artistic hobby by painting landscapes of the most wide-open vistas in the galaxy.

It should also be noted that Trolls are possessed of extraordinary powers of regeneration. While tales of Trolls reattaching their own severed heads are purely scatological - horse shit - it would have come as no surprise to someone in the know when, only a few seconds after the patches were removed, that her heartbeat began to surge and her eyelids move as the pupils roamed underneath. Only a few more and they opened and she looked up at the two soldiers closest to the table, "You're not pirates."

Without waiting for much of a response, she went on, "And this isn't the escape pod I was locked in. So, who are you? Military, by the looks of you..." Her eyes went to the name tags on their chest while she waited their response.

[Siev]

If this is still going on... a bit curious.

As far as the Unitary Interstellar Empire of Siev was concerned, the Sievese were alone in the galaxy. Humans were the only sapient species in existence, and lived in greatest numbers on the thirty-five star systems that made up the Empire; any humans who claimed to be from elsewhere probably came from a few outlying worlds on the fringes of the Empire which (it was generally assumed) would eventually be subjugated and brought into line whenever their independence no longer suited the Empress's interests. As for extrasievical life, it consisted not of aliens but of human beings who had bio-hacked themselves in various ways, and who had been exiled from the Empire for violating the strict laws against genetic engineering. This accounted perfectly well for all the reported sightings of alien races, and as far as the ships they controlled, well, if they wanted to build ships out in whatever empty corner of the Galaxy they'd settled that was their business. They might no longer be Sievans, but the important thing was that they had originated from Siev, as all life had. (And let us not speak of the Orion Heresy and its ridiculous claims that humans originated from a planet called "Earth". Humans came from Qash. Everyone knew that.)

There were, of course, many people who knew better. Some of them served as Ministers in the Empress's cabinet, or as rakhutaan* or intelligence officers, and guarded their knowledge jealously. There was even a semi-secret government agency known as the Department of Extrasievical Affairs whose job consisted mainly of ensuring information about extrasievicals remained strictly censored. The others, those not fortunate to be of noble birth or a suitably manipulative temperament, were generally sent on very long missions on very small ships, very far away from Qash and Sievitsa and the core systems, where they would have no chance to spread their knowledge of the existence of extrasievicals—whilst also being able to put that knowledge to use in any encounters that might occur.

On one such small ship Junbi** Victory Kalesh was showering in recycled water. The water had to serve five people for six months and rarely if ever were there opportunities to replenish it; and whilst the filtration systems were highly advanced one couldn't escape the psychological sensation of using water that had been used before, many times, by many people, for many purposes. Also, there was a faint chemical smell, presumably some chlorine derivative used in sterilisation. Kalesh had thought she'd be used to it by now, but if anything the shower seemed to become more disgusting as time went on.

The shower was slightly larger than one person standing upright, which left very little room to hang her uniform; it was only thanks to very carefully directed water jets that it managed to stay dry. The only direction in which Kalesh had any space to speak of was upwards, and that in turn was only because, at 155 centimetres, she was the shortest person on the ship. It was, therefore, above her head that she had attached her personal computer ("Self"), to a magnetic plate just above the highest reach of the water jets. As the water ceased and in the brief interval before she was blasted with jets of heated air, she became conscious that Self was beeping, and had been doing so for some time.

"What is it, Self?" she asked. And over the deep roaring of the drying airjets: "Volume 80%."

"—report a fluctuation equivalent to nine hundred kilograms."

That was the mass sensors. Kalesh frowned. "We can't have reached the system's Oort cloud already. Have we?"

There was a brief pause as Self converted this oblique question into its own particular syntax. "The current coordinates of the Truth Unholstering Her Blaster are—" and it proceeded to rattle off a detailed series of coordinates which put them two hours out from the Oort cloud and, thus, their nearest source of water and quite possibly frozen oxygen. Kalesh was lost in thought for a moment.

"That's odd," she murmured. "That's damned odd. Is Sain on duty?"

"No, Sain-doh is currently on the sixth hour of his sleep cycle," replied Self. Its voice sounded extremely loud to Kalesh, until she registered that the airflow had stopped. "Volume 40%," she said abstractedly, and then, "Have sensors reported what the object is? Who is on sensors duty?"

"No. You are on sensors duty, Kalesh-jun," said Self with no trace of a reprimand. "Amahir-neh is the only officer on bridge. Would you like to put through a video call?"

"No!" Kalesh almost instinctively snatched her uniform from where it hung, and then immediately regretted her outburst. Self was only a computer, and wasn't to know. But the thought of Nehbi*** Justitia Amahir's eyes catching a glimpse of her unclothed body was... unsettling. Not only because the man was a prize asshole, but even more so because of his predatory behaviour towards the other woman on the ship, Crewman Aleia Leku—which had stopped in Kalesh's presence once she had threatened to have him thrown out an airlock, but which she suspected still happened during her sleep cycles. "Note to Self: It is against human custom to make video calls when one party is naked. Please do not do so even when ordered."

Self beeped quietly, indicating that the information had been added to its ever-growing store of knowledge. "I'll speak to Amahir in person, if I may," she added, more to herself than the computer.

Five minutes later, a dry and fully dressed Victory Kalesh emerged from the shower room into the narrow corridor that ran the length of the ship's upper level. Directly in front of her were the five bedrooms, two occupied and three empty, as typical. To her left was the toilet and the corridor dead-end, and to her right an access hatch leading to the lower level (home of the engine room, the galley and the supply store). And perhaps ten meters further to the right was the bridge. The ISSF Truth Unholstering Her Blaster could be described as "economical" in terms of space.

Amahir barely looked up as she entered. The bridge had room for five people, if two of them squeezed themselves against the walls. Otherwise it consisted mostly of instrument panels, computer banks, three uncomfortable chairs and a small viewing screen. "Chari-doh around?" she asked lightly, settling into the far right chair with the sensor controls.

"He's in the engine room, I think," said Amahir, distractedly. He was playing shahmat against his computer; he always seemed to win (probably, Kalesh thought, he'd programmed it to let him win). "You had some kind of alert while you were gone."

"I know. Self told me." She was examining readouts. "You didn't bother to look at the sensors? Well, nevermind. We've found something."

"Found something?" Amahir swiveled to face her. His eyes were very bright. "My instruments are showing we won't reach the Oort boundary for two hours. Is it ice?"

"No. It looks..." Kalesh frowned. "That can't be right. It looks man-made, but we're too far out from the system for that—and anyway long-range scans showed it had no inhabitable planets."

"There aren't any Sievans this far out, either," said Amahir. "Send me your scans, I'll take a look."

Kalesh bit the inside of her cheek. This wasn't a good time to pull rank, but she resented being ordered around by a mere nehbi. "There aren't just Sievans in the galaxy, Amahir-neh," she said, emphasising the honorific subtly. Amahir, unfortunately, was more or less impervious to subtlety. "Here are lightscans—the object can't be more than thirty kilometres away. It's being drawn into our gravity well, so it should soon be in range for sonar."

Amahir shrugged and examined the lightscans with no real interest. "I don't know why you four constantly insist on the existence of extrasievicals. I've never seen any convincing evidence."

Apparently the detailed eyewitness accounts of women and people from outside the core planets weren't convincing enough for Amahir. Kalesh wondered, not for the first time, why Amahir had been considered enough of a threat to the Department of Extrasievical Affairs's OPSEC to be sent on this mission. She had concluded that he must know something without realising its significance, but he'd never given any indication of what that might be.

It was not more than half an hour later that the object dropped into sonar range. Amahir had altered course just enough to bring them closer to it, and Dohbi**** Isandra Chari had come up from the engine room, rubbing his greasy hands on his uniform trousers and mumbling greetings to the other two, in order to watch. It was now orbiting close enough that, if the starship had had windows, one might have been able to catch glimpses of it, in a slow spiralling course that would eventually crash into Truth given enough time.

The lightscanners had painted a fairly realistic picture of the object, which the two men were following on the screen as it turned and careened through space. Kalesh, meanwhile, had pressed headphones to her ears, and was listening closely whilst keeping a sharp eye on the displays. There was a constant hum, perhaps machinery, and an additional sound coming from the object... slow, regular, and somehow familiar. Like the object was pulsing, or—

She stiffened. The sound was unmistakable, now that her brain had found the right words to register it.

She dragged the headphones from her ears and then, with a few keystrokes, allowed the sonar output to fill the bridge's speakers. Shakily but with unmistakable authority she said: "Chari-doh, wake the others, then suit up and head down to the airlock with Leku-crewman. Amahir-neh, get a magnetic beam on that object—I'd like to bring it in."

Amahir smirked. "It's a noisy little thing, isn't it?"

"That noise," said Kalesh, "is a heartbeat. There's a living thing in that piece of space junk."


* the highest military rank in Siev, equivalent roughly to General or Admiral
** equivalent to Major or Captain
*** equivalent to Lieutenant
**** an enlisted rank roughly equivalent to Technical Sergeant or similar

[Riysa]

Jabal Taif, Riysa

On the slopes of Jabal Taif lay a large observatory, its cooled telescope turned towards the sky, staffed as part of the Difaa' al-Samawi Near Earth Object tracking network. The clear, star-filled night skies beaconed to the astronomers atop the Riysian mountain, and so, they started their nightly search for any "rocks" threatening the planet. The nights on top of Jabal Taif were known for its celestial beauty, and tonight seemed no different.

What was different was the thermal "flare" picked up during the search. It didn't seem like any of the asteroids they had recorded before, and somehow it hadn't been noticed previously despite its visibility, but whatever it was, it was directly heading towards them. Within minutes of being detected, the observatory was abuzz like never before.

"What is that?!"
"Is it a satellite?"
"We need to warn other nations!"

Above the din of worried and confused researchers, the head scientist of the facility was already dealing with the issue. He had two calls to place, and one had just gone through...over an emergency line to a Mukhabarat office in Dumayr. The second one, to the headquarters of the NEO tracking project, would come right after.

Khalkallah Air Force Base, Khalkallah, Riysa

"Intibah! Intibah! Intibah! Qad tam iktishaf tayarah ghafi ala at-tariq ilal ard! Intaliq! Intaliq! Intaliq!

The base's intercom system went wild, blaring warnings and scramble orders to the RiyAAF squadron stationed there. The Black Falcons, one of the fighter squadrons stationed there, were tasked with interception, with a flight of four TaH-31 Shaheens to tail it, and attempt to destroy it if necessary.

In the time between the call being placed to the Idaraat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyah (Air Force Intelligence Directorate), and the alert being sounded to the Quwat al-Fadaai headquarters, the object's trajectory had been more clearly defined. If it kept on the same trajectory, the object would land near the sleepy village of Dania. Based on its determined velocity and mass, it seemed like it'd mostly burn up in the atmosphere, if it was a meteor. But, at this point, it seemed like it was anything but, and the Mukhabarat was treating it as an otherworldy craft.

Four TaH-31s roared as they took of into the night sky, led by flight leader Major Badraan. Flying in a loose "fluid four" formation, GCI vectored them into the path of the object. As they got closer, they could see above them what looked like a bright ball of flame, rapidly approaching the ground. Despite the radio silence, it was obvious what everyone was doing - looking upwards at the sky. And so, the four flew, vectoring into an intercept with the descending object.

After several more minutes of chasing, it became clear that its trajectory was taking it too close to Dania than what was acceptable. While there was still a large CEP for its landing site, if it didn't change course or stop in time, then drastic action would have to be taken.

"Muqaddam 1, Muqaddam 1, this is Tariq 1 Actual. Request fire clearance. Transmit." Major Badraan radioed.
"Tariq 1 Actual, this is Muqaddam 1. Affirmative. Proceed as planned. Intahal hadith." GCI replied.
"Don't destroy it." A voice cut in, obviously belonging to a Mukhabarat colonel.

With that taken care of, Major Badraan rolled his wings as a signal, causing the flight of four to take up their pre-determined positions. The other three aircraft, piloted by Captain Ramahi, Captain al-Basha, and Captain al-Khair, formed into an inverted chevron formation, breaking off from Major Badraan and adjusting their trajectory to intercept the object at a perfect perpendicular angle. Meanwhile, the major activated his plane's afterburners, and ascended upwards, intending to start the intercept and escort procedure. Normally it'd be used against an intruding bomber, or a misguided airliner, but never against something like...this. Badraan was anxious as to whether it'd have an effect, or whether he'd have to bite the bullet and try a shootdown.

And so, he accelerated upwards, taking in deep breaths and straining against the high Gs produced by accelerating at such a high angle of attack. The fireball disappeared under his nose as he soared, underbelly of the aircraft with attached missiles visible to it - if it was able to see, that is - while he clenched his teeth, hoping not to feel the shock of his aircraft colliding with the object. A couple minutes later, he brought the nose of his plane back down, breathing a sigh of relief. Now, it was time for the others to do their part.

As Badraan tried to alert the craft to their presence, the other three moved to try to guide it away from the village. Upon getting closer, the formation dissolved into a loose "L" -like formation, swooping on it from its right. Basha and Ramahi formed the fulcrum, flying by in a straight line, while Khair moved towards the front, trying to get it to tip to the left. No response. Two more attempts - and a whole lot of precious fuel - later, there was still no response. Badraan had settled way to the rear of this object, ready to shoot it down with a missile if necessary.

Then, a miracle happened. Whether because of intelligent intervention, local wind conditions, or a miracle from God, the object steered a very shallow left turn, bringing it off of a collision course with Dania and into the nearby woods. With their job done, they slowed down to conserve their fuel, and started orbiting around the village, waiting for further instructions. As for the object though, local forces could take care of the rest; already, they could see a radar contact - an Aerospatiale Gazelle, if the emergency briefing was to be believed - chasing after the descending object. If there was anyone still surviving, or anything worth recovering, after impact, they'd handle it.

[Sunset]

Resdayn...

"Someplace to put down roots?" Allison looked up at Greer with a question painted across her face, "What do you... Oh, ha-ha. Very funny. Someplace to sleep would be nice though."

Something about the place felt timeless, as though the fog and shadows would never drift away into darkness, but now they were lengthening and coalescing together into an ominous whole that smelled of campfires and furtive glances into nothing where eyes glinted and waited for sleep. Whether or not the tree man was disturbed by this or not, there was a catch in her voice as she laughed and she paused to look deep into the shade. Something loomed there and it was a tree that she found as she stepped forward to place a hand on the gnarled trunk. Her eyes followed it up into the sky, "Alright."

A hand under her bottom and she moved smoothly from the open palm to the shoulder opposite the unconscious man as they moved swiftly higher. Kinship allowed Greer to grab the trunk with his wide fingers and toes and without much pause rise higher and higher until the branches of the trunk opened up and she found herself in a slight natural bowl between them. She slid down his arm and perched on a smaller split while he plucked the silent form from his other shoulder and laid him out on a bed of leaves and moss that had gathered naturally in the crux. Their package secure, the lanky brown monster curled himself out and latched fingers over branch and deep into bark and latched himself into place over the former so that the later - Allison - could use his narrow trunk as her own abode. Whether this was comfortable or not, she looked down to the ground and remarked, "It feels like the whole forest is watching us."

But even from her high perch she could not see anything, at least for fog and mist. Perhaps in the morning, but a small dark shape drifting behind a tree did not fully escape her attention, "More of those birds. Maybe they are the natives... Winged aliens? Sure, Greer, why not? We'll look in the morning. Goodnight..."

[Sunset]

Natuda...

If the escape pod had been brand new, if it had been water-tight and thus - by the virtue of the air inside - buoyant, the fate of both the craft and its inhabitants would have been far different. But escape pods are not submarines and the small holes that allowed water to seep into the interior spaces and then eventually the passenger compartment resulted in the eventual plunge deep into the black depths. In a more fanciful description those trapped inside would have struggled with duct tape and emergency sealant to plug the leaks as they failed to understand the gravity of their situation until the crushing weight of the water above them led to the natural result and squashed the pod into the rough shape of an under-done waffle. This was certainly not to be, however. What does not hold water does not hold air and what does not hold air does not prevent all of that air from rushing out as soon as the jettisoned escape pod cleared the side of the run-away pirate ship. Hasty as their attempts were, this resulted in two very stiff and very frozen pirate Popsicles.

Certainly the passage through the atmosphere warmed them and in fact more-so - the tiny holes allowed warm then hot then super-heated air to jet up inside the pod and cook those inside to first perfectly done and then to charcoal spears. Surviving the impact thanks to the drogue chute, the pod then flooded. And sank. And as the depth increased, the two carbonized husks compressed into slender graphite rods of a particularly baroque shape. The metal pod itself would survive mostly intact - equal pressure on the inside and outside - but the same is not true of the more delicate not-very-human body. Body cavities allowed the corpses to collapse and rupture and eventually find themselves more adjacent than they were used to. Uncomfortable, yes, but only for the living.

In fact, when all was said and done and the pod somehow hauled the nearly three kilometers back to the surface, it would be very hard to tell that anyone or anything living had occupied them at one - very short - interval.

----

Tracking:
Primordial Luxa
Renkovian Remenant
Excidium Planetis
Scyllan Syndicate
Siev
Riysa

[Sunset]

Primordial Luxa...

Willingly she followed, or at least without objection, though the mention of potential death did not seem to daunt her, "I come from a place where much is different. Their civilization is their own, though they have not heard of Aklo or the Druth'Haari. We study them, observe them, and somehow through the shifts in the undercurrents of the universe I have arrived here. Tell me - is this world a world from beyond the beginning? Or are you the Children of this Universe?"

Even with her questions, she was willing to follow here and there. Neither exertion or modesty would stop her but questions seemed to come easily.

----

Tracking:
Renkovian Remenant
Excidium Planetis
Scyllan Syndicate
Siev
Riysa

[Renkovian Remenant]

Inside the hanger of the RSS recusant, the LAAT had unloaded the recovered pod. Inside the hanger Admiral Yassen personally was there to see the results of the find. The pod was scanned, and with nothing harmful found, he nodded, and said ''open it, if there are survivors give them full quarter and treat them as though they were family''

They nodded and worked to open the hatch, unsure as to what they would find. Two clone soldiers armed with Blaster Carbines watched carefully, in case whatever was inside didnt want to play nice. Finally they got the hatch open, and a Clone went inside, unsure what would greet him. He said through his helmet ''hello?''

[Primordial Luxa]

Uni Luxa
August gave the woman a quizzical look as he trudged through the rank pools of blood in the metallic canal. The red skeletal bodies didn’t seem to disturb him even the ones which reached out and mewled in inhuman voices. It was obvious from the way these things moved and the sounds they made, that were definitely not of the same species of August. Their skin and bones looked much more degenerate and imperfect than the almost artistic features which the Luxan possessed.

“Luxa is Luxa,” He said as he motioned to an open hole at the far side of the canal, from which a slow trickle of blood was running. “I’m not sure I entirely understand your question…” August paused a moment and then looked back in the poorly lit tunnel and asked “I’m sorry I’m not sure I member what you said your name was?”

[-Resdayn-]

Resdayn...

"Someplace to put down roots?" Allison looked up at Greer with a question painted across her face, "What do you... Oh, ha-ha. Very funny. Someplace to sleep would be nice though."

Something about the place felt timeless, as though the fog and shadows would never drift away into darkness, but now they were lengthening and coalescing together into an ominous whole that smelled of campfires and furtive glances into nothing where eyes glinted and waited for sleep. Whether or not the tree man was disturbed by this or not, there was a catch in her voice as she laughed and she paused to look deep into the shade. Something loomed there and it was a tree that she found as she stepped forward to place a hand on the gnarled trunk. Her eyes followed it up into the sky, "Alright."

A hand under her bottom and she moved smoothly from the open palm to the shoulder opposite the unconscious man as they moved swiftly higher. Kinship allowed Greer to grab the trunk with his wide fingers and toes and without much pause rise higher and higher until the branches of the trunk opened up and she found herself in a slight natural bowl between them. She slid down his arm and perched on a smaller split while he plucked the silent form from his other shoulder and laid him out on a bed of leaves and moss that had gathered naturally in the crux. Their package secure, the lanky brown monster curled himself out and latched fingers over branch and deep into bark and latched himself into place over the former so that the later - Allison - could use his narrow trunk as her own abode. Whether this was comfortable or not, she looked down to the ground and remarked, "It feels like the whole forest is watching us."

But even from her high perch she could not see anything, at least for fog and mist. Perhaps in the morning, but a small dark shape drifting behind a tree did not fully escape her attention, "More of those birds. Maybe they are the natives... Winged aliens? Sure, Greer, why not? We'll look in the morning. Goodnight..."

For the most part along their trip to the tree nothing much seemed to happen until nightfall came. Sure there were sounds and the feeling of being watched by the creatures of the forest, expectations of something dangerous to jump out at them at any moment when they crossed between the boundary of happy fairy tale forest and the gloom of the fog. But nothing actually seemed to happen until the sun began to set and the creatures of the night came out.

It was then that the real bad stuff started happening. Creatures full of teeth and claws and eyes that can see in the night started coming out looking for prey. growling and snarling and making all sorts of evil noises that would send a chill up someone's spine and cause them to attempt to flee toward safety.

Things resembling wolves and bears and sharp taloned owls and other scary things and the like, all coming out for the evening for the night time prowl as the group headed deeper into the forest and evidently in a path toward the large tree.

Naturally, given the encroaching darkness of the night and the animals assumption that this wandering group probably could not see very well at night, would cause some issues, some ill situations on their way to the large tree.

Some creatures certainly would come up to them, whether out of hunger or out of some feral territorial dispute or what have you... either way, clearly wanting to harm the group and thinking themselves clever and sneaky in the dying light of the day.

But between the giant, essentially tree-like being and whatever defensive capabilities the lady had, they seemed efficient enough to fend off the various creatures that wanted them for dinner until they made it to the tree and camped out for the night, far away from the forest floor below and all those nasty mean night creatures roaming around. Whatever birds were still around when they settled into the tree seemed to not bother them too much aside from watch them with curiosity, and by the time morning came, the creepy black birds were gone.

Sadly their mild protection in the tree and the light covering of fog that still lingered high into the canopy throughout the night, did not last. Birds or otherwise.

When morning came and the sun had dissipated the lingering fog, at least that high up, all that could be heard for awhile, were the sounds of nature that one would expect high up in the tree tops. tweeting birds and chatty squirrels and things of that nature. Nature's wake up call.

The beautiful wake up call that would be interrupted nearly as soon as the group managed to stir. The sounds of small woodland creatures scurrying away through the leaves and birds squawking and flying away in droves would soon replace the once glorious sounds of nature waking up.

If the group managed to stay in the tree long enough, they would soon notice why.

[Natuda]

Natuda...

If the escape pod had been brand new, if it had been water-tight and thus - by the virtue of the air inside - buoyant, the fate of both the craft and its inhabitants would have been far different. But escape pods are not submarines and the small holes that allowed water to seep into the interior spaces and then eventually the passenger compartment resulted in the eventual plunge deep into the black depths. In a more fanciful description those trapped inside would have struggled with duct tape and emergency sealant to plug the leaks as they failed to understand the gravity of their situation until the crushing weight of the water above them led to the natural result and squashed the pod into the rough shape of an under-done waffle. This was certainly not to be, however. What does not hold water does not hold air and what does not hold air does not prevent all of that air from rushing out as soon as the jettisoned escape pod cleared the side of the run-away pirate ship. Hasty as their attempts were, this resulted in two very stiff and very frozen pirate Popsicles.

Certainly the passage through the atmosphere warmed them and in fact more-so - the tiny holes allowed warm then hot then super-heated air to jet up inside the pod and cook those inside to first perfectly done and then to charcoal spears. Surviving the impact thanks to the drogue chute, the pod then flooded. And sank. And as the depth increased, the two carbonized husks compressed into slender graphite rods of a particularly baroque shape. The metal pod itself would survive mostly intact - equal pressure on the inside and outside - but the same is not true of the more delicate not-very-human body. Body cavities allowed the corpses to collapse and rupture and eventually find themselves more adjacent than they were used to. Uncomfortable, yes, but only for the living.

In fact, when all was said and done and the pod somehow hauled the nearly three kilometers back to the surface, it would be very hard to tell that anyone or anything living had occupied them at one - very short - interval.

Over time people would come to the area where the pod had landed. What people that were able to make it up there anyways. News people in helicopters, hikers and nature documentarists and the like. Whatever type of people that would enjoy the up close and personal encounter of that sort of thing and were able to make it up the steep hilly inclines of the mountains in some way or another. But sadly by the time they found the area, the ship was gone. Even if it had managed to resurface over the next few days or weeks, from the depths of the deep lake, which was unlikely, and more likely it was still sunk down there like a rock, the lake was huge and surrounded by various natural formations of rocks and plants and things making for easy cover to conceal most things. As well as being surrounded by many other lakes that, to most people's theories, the thing could have landed in as well seeing as no one was around that particular area when it crashed down.
And thus it wasn't long before everyone that wasn't a conspiracy theorist to assume it as just an asteroid or something of the like that they came too late to find.

Thus, after a brief shine in the news worthy spotlight and a few different ideas as to what it could have been, the thing that crashed into one of the great lakes atop the elkhorn mountain range eventually faded into obscurity, seen as nothing more than some off shoot product of one beautiful stary night light show come down to the planet. And then like every other briefly fascinating phenomenon that happened on the planet, it was eventually forgotten about by the major news stations and other important informational centers people focus on and lost to the public mind aside from the occasional intrepid hiker or investigator of some sort that really wanted to find out what it was.

But given how deep most of the lakes were and how many existed, and how dense the surrounding landscape was, whether it was still down deep in the depths or parked up on a secluded beach shore, no evidence ever would surface indicating anyone credible ever managed to find the mysterious object that had shot down from space that one fateful night. Even though tabloid rumors and paranoid conspiracy theories and other crazy things normal people wouldn't pay attention to,
would still trickle in long after it's interest had been lost to the majority of society's consciousness.

-- end

[Sunset]

Renkovian Remenant...

There wasn't much room in the escape pod and neither was it needed; A short rounded rectangle, the crisp white ceramic exterior was nearly a match for the trooper's own except for the strip of gleaming chrome down the side that marked where top split open from both. A voice advised him to step back as the hatch was unsealed and rose in a manner almost grandiose to reveal an interior that had the appointment and appearance of a luxury personal vehicle. Three seats sat in a minor arc so that all three occupants - and there were three - would face the hatch. Thick armrests with trays divided them and these appeared to be covered with the dark leather from some exotic beast. Under his feet was thick wood polished and waxed to perfection while a soft cloth wrapped across most of the interior surfaces. In fact there was barely a hint of metal or plastic to be seen and the pale cream and neutral gray interior seemed to be untouched by stain or mess.

Of the three passengers there was not a movement; The first, sitting on the Trooper's left, was a woman of some middle age. Her garments spoke of wealth and power with the clean-lined suit jacket cut of traditional materials and layered over a light purple blouse that enhanced her natural gray-blue skin. Her eyes like those of the other two were closed and a jewel glistened oddly at her forehead and between her half-shaded breasts. For a moment these could be mistaken for jewelry, purple and shining, but realization that they were part of her body dawned as he noticed subtle ridges that flowed and followed in line from forehead to throat and between her cleavage and linked the pair together. Her long dark hair was carefully arranged behind her with a single wide braid crossing her shoulder and laying on her breast where it sparkled with a pendant clustered with true jewels.

To his center was another woman, this time of much younger look and with a fire in her features that was not present in the first. While the clothing of the older woman spoke of consideration and wealth, her clothing accented what could only be an individual of a more wanton nature. Simple but tightly fit, the blue dress looked as though it would slip up over her hips any moment or that her chest would tumble out if she were to bend over - and perhaps either was the point. Oddly shaped shoes with needlessly pointed heels would push her to nearly the same height as the first woman, though how anyone might walk on them was a mystery to the Trooper.

It was the last that caught the man's eye, however, and tightened his grip on his weapon. An insectoid monster, it sat laid out in the chair just as peacefully as the first two though there was a subtle buzz as it breathed. Golden chitin covered its body and where there was a flat surface this was decorated with an intricate creation of beads, glass, and what might be hair in colors of red and blue and silver. Two enormous compound eyes were shut, but a nest of mandibles below these were the source of the sound and even as it slept they moved slow and lethargic. Unlike the first two, it was essentially naked.

For the first pair, the reason for their sleep was evident; Each had a white triangular patch positioned on their neck with their face twisted away from it as though they had placed it themselves and then succumbed instantly. The third bore no such device and there was little to indicate why it slept other than that it did...

----

Tracking: (Next Post Goes To...)
Excidium Planetis
Scyllan Syndicate
Siev
Riysa
Primordial Luxa
Resdayn
Natuda?

[Ze Republic of Dictators]

Not enough nukes

[Senkaku]

Chaktul District
West Chongnam
Taihan-di
Feuille d'Or System

---

Arkady yawned and rolled over, brushing a strand of his short dirty-blonde hair out of his eyes and staring out the window under the dim glow of the string of soft yellow LEDs hanging over the alcove. Reed was soundly asleep next to him, his chest rising and falling peacefully, as Arkady looked out over the city. The sandstorm that had swept through earlier had left behind swirling clouds of dust, scraping against the ancient plastiglass of the window and sweeping in bitter streams across the battered streets hundreds of feet below. The dark towers were once again beginning to fill with the squatters who had fled into the sewers to wait the storm out, fires slowly beginning to glow amidst their shattered windows and shapes moving in their now sand-filled husks.
He shook Reed a little, sitting up. Nothing.
"Hey." Still nothing. He was out cold. With a sigh, Arkady climbed over him, pulling on some pants and throwing a heavy parka over his bare chest. The auto-zipper was broken, so he zipped it himself as he threw some shoes on, peeking into their little aquarium as he headed towards the apartment door.
He stepped out into the hallway, heading to the door at the end and shivering slightly as the blast of cold air hit him. Chongnam might be broiling during the day, but at night the city's weather was as erratic as its drivers. Some nights, the acres of concrete and steel would just keep pumping the day's heat out, keeping things nice and toasty until the sun rose again and really started baking them. Others- like tonight- the frigid, inky blackness of space would just seem to leach away every ounce of warmth from the surface, with frigid winds galloping in off of the Chandraksar Range. Arkady could see his breath as he wound down the outdoor staircase, which now had a fine coating of sand and grit. He could still feel some of the flying particles whizzing by in the air, hissing on the cold steel of the stairs and stinging his exposed face.

He pulled a cheap throwaway vape from a pack in his pocket, switching it on as he hurried down the stairs and taking a long inhale of THC-nicotine vapor. As Arkady neared the ground floor, he frowned. I bet ten to one he wakes up now that you're gone and starts getting worried. He tapped his bracelet.
"Kiyaad," he said clearly to his personal AI, "if Reed wakes up and asks where I am, tell him I just went for a walk. Nothing work-related. I tried to wake him up, but he was sleeping really soundly so I decided not to."
Kiyaad's chirpy voice hissed a little as the wind swept over her microphone. "Of course, sir!"

In the eastern sky, there was suddenly a visible streak of light. It faded quickly enough as it fell, but Arkady frowned. Must be something fairly good-sized re-entering.
The tip of the streak, however, was not fading. If anything, it was only growing brighter as it shot across the sky from east to west, and Arkady blinked in surprise as the white line abruptly terminated with a flash in the western foothills. That can't be more than fifteen miles out. Sure enough, there was a distant boom a moment later.
Arkady took another drag of the vape before its cheap little battery died. Disgusted, he flicked it into the curbside gutter, watching it fall among the sand. They cut more and more corners with the batteries these days.
He looked off to the western foothills.
"Kiyaad, actually, tell Reed I went for a quick drive."

---

Arkady's Matsushita Peony had seen its fair share of scrapes and accidents. The whole driver-side was scratched and missing paint, along with a rear-view mirror and the passenger-side handle, where some idiot had cut a little too far across the divider line and come millimeters away from a full head-on collision. The windshield was currently covered in sand, the engine choked in it- but that was nothing the old machine couldn't deal with, if it gave itself a minute. Dust vomited from the radiator grille as the fans inside it started up, but Arkady knew no matter what he did the air conditioners would always leave a slight gritty taste in the cabin and there would always be a fine layer of dust on the seats.
Regardless, it worked, better since Reed had forced him to buy a new graviton repulsor under the hover's (apparently still-good) warranty. He now shot across the dusty landscape of abandoned suburbs and scrubland, the Matsushita's left jet rattling like it always did.

Sure enough, as he came up on the area where he'd seen the flash, a wispy column of smoke was rising against the indigo sky into the brilliant moonlight, distant orange specks growing into fields of burning scrub.
I wonder what hit?
He began to decelerate, bringing the hover closer to the surface and pulling up next to the crater that object had left. The door wouldn't open for a moment until Arkady remembered he had forgotten to unlock it. He then went to open it again, but thought better of it and quickly pulled on the cheap disposable respirator sitting on the passenger seat.
As soon as he stepped out of the hover, he was glad he had. The smoke of the burning shrubs made his eyes water a little, and he unzipped his jacket as he walked up near the crater's edge and peered down.

Ohhhh shit. The Center is gonna want to hear about whatever the hell this is.

Senkaku...

If it had been an escape pod or life raft, the process that had involved its jettison from whatever ship had borne it had not gone entirely to plan. What was undoubtedly a system designed to smoothly eject the rounded capsule from the ship had somehow gone awry and the ensuing jam had resulted in a whole section of the ship's interior being torn away and wrapping itself around the central pod as it burned through the atmosphere of Taihan-di before crashing to the ground in a tangle of metal. Components designed to withstand the various rigors of space travel had 'merely' melted and now encased it like a a forkful of particularly poorly twirled spaghetti. Some of this had been torn free and pushed back by the force of the impact while others had similarly been burned away by the retro-rockets clustered on either side. These were useless now - not even a particularly clever mammal might get them to fire again - but that they had fired could serve as some positive indication that there was someone inside.

Possibly someone's; Even discounting the amount of hull required to keep those inside safe from the scorching heat of re-entry, some additional space for supplies, a compartment for a landing chute that had deployed and then ripped itself to shreds, and whatever mechanisms the former retro-rockets required, there would be room inside for three to five depending both on the size of the individual and the intimacy of their relationship. To do more would either require smaller individuals or a lot of red noses and large shoes. That the controls appeared similarly sized and shaped to Arkady's hand was a solid indicator that whoever was inside was similar in size. Whatever their number, they would not be opening the capsule very soon; Both the searing heat of the passage and the constraints of the melted structure conspired to keep those inside firmly in the capsule's grasp.

---

Chaktul Perimetr District
West Chongnam
Taihan-di
Feuille d'Or System

---

Arkady bit the inside of his cheek as he looked down into the crater. The pod was badly damaged- but its retros had fired, which meant someone might have survived at least part of the descent, assuming the things weren't automated. Regardless, the chances of survival for any occupants did not seem high, given the heat of their descent and the force of the impact.
Arkady walked back to his hover, opening the door, and pulled out his phone and his pistol. He strode back to the crater rim and snapped a photo, and then headed back to the hover, climbing inside and closing the door as he opened his messages.
Sometimes I need to learn to just roll over and go back to sleep, he reflected to himself.

Some sort of craft has crash landed in the Chaktul Perm. Some type of lander or escape pod? Potential item of interest. Currently onsite and monitoring.

He stuffed the phone in his front pocket and fidgeted so his dick was back in a more comfortable position in his pants before hopping back out, looking around with a slight grimace. The pod's landing had set the surrounding bush on fire, and one of the dusty, abandoned, half-ruined houses that stretched on for miles in this part of the city had also taken to burning merrily.
He heard a motor to his right, and turned to see a big, battered Kuroda hovertruck pull up. Someone shouted at him from the cab, a rough male voice with a faint drawl reminiscent of Lifen-di.
"Y'all should be movin' along now! This here is a salvage site. We'd hate for anybody to have to get hurt." He could hear a second motor coming, too.
I really need to learn to roll back over and go to sleep. Arkady muttered some curses to himself and nodded towards the Kuroda, walking slowly back towards his hover. As he climbed back in and started the jets, figures began hopping out of the Kuroda, and a second hover pulled up, a Matsushita Peony like his own. A few of the men and women were armed- light assault rifles and pistols, while the others had fire extinguishers and towing cables and the like to attach to the pod.
His phone buzzed.

This is of extreme interest. Ensure the site is secure and wait for support. Any occupants, dead or alive, and other content, should be brought to Safehouse Four as soon as they can be safely extracted.

Arkady's eyes flicked to the salvage crew. The armed ones were watching him closely as he backed up and turned, still keeping their guns lowered- after all, he was doing as they asked.

Unless "support" drives a Kuroda hovertruck and poses as a salvage crew, site is not secure. Currently retreating, since they have larger guns and more people.

He was immediately texted back. I suppose eleven tentacles lets you type very fast.

Negative. Secure the site immediately, or at least delay, regardless of numerical advantage or firepower imbalance. Help is on the way.

He stopped the Matsushita, looking at the screen in a mixture of amusement and disgust. The salvager guards immediately perked up as his hover glided to a stop, while their comrades were busily engulfing the pod and some of the little scrub fires around it in coolant and fire suppressant gas mixtures.
Arkady rolled down the window and started shooting at them. He dropped one of the guards and sent another staggering before the other three started shooting back, and then he had to gun the Matsushita's engine as bullets began slamming into the hover. At least none of them have pulse rifles. This is fucking retarded.
One of the back windows shattered, and he swore as another bullet punched a hole in the windshield. I better get reimbursed for this. Reed's going to kill me if the new repulsor gets hurt.
Despite the fact he'd managed to hit another guard and send the unarmed ones scattering, the remaining two guards were losing their surprise- which had been limited in the first place. The ever-rattling left jet sputtered and clanked as it was hit, and Arkady could see in his rear camera that it now flew a streamer of cheerful orange flame and inky smoke. He felt an intense sting in his right thigh, and looked down- a graze. It was a shallow wound, but painful and bleeding, and now there was a hole clean through the door.
Shit shit shit shitshitshit-
There was a sudden whooshing noise and a bright flash of light. Arkady swerved, and when he looked back suddenly the two remaining guards were nowhere to be seen against a roiling inferno. The Kuroda had lost its repulsor power and was laying on its side, burning, and a sleek white teardrop, floodlights as bright as tiny suns, had appeared out of the darkening sky.
The remaining salvagers tried to run, and a few of them tried to flee in their remaining hover. The teardrop responded with another firebomb, turning the other Peony into a floating barbecue which promptly exploded and plummeted to the ground. Those who ran on foot were consumed by the flames as well, some of them dancing like madmen before collapsing.

The white flyer lowered a pair of thin silver tentacles, wrapping around the object it had just burned twenty men to death for, and lifted it up out of the crater and the inferno. Bluish gas hissed from an unseen opening on the flyer's underside, and whatever infernal substance had stuck to the escape craft was swiftly extinguished before it was set down in a less fiery spot a few hundred meters away.

Arkady's phone buzzed again.

If you hadn't noticed, support is here. The Center will pay to fix up the Peony- you are unhurt?

He gritted his teeth and tapped the hover's jets to ease it over towards the escape pod and the white flyer. A narrower jet of the same bluish gas suddenly shot out towards his left jet, extinguishing the flames coming from it.

They grazed me once.

He climbed out, wincing at the pain in his leg, and began walking over. A hatch in the flyer's side slid open, and out leaped a shiny metal sphere with four tentacles similar to the manipulators the flyer itself had extended.
"Arkady. We will see to your leg at a later time, if that is acceptable?"
"I'll just stand here and bleed," he responded dryly.
The uulchi made its exosuit bob up and down, probably to approximate a nod, and walked over to the pod.
"Any particular reason you endangered me and then burned twenty-odd salvagers to death for this thing?"
"Because it interests me," the uulchi said flatly. "Cover your eyes."
Arkady did not, but he looked a little bit away as flickering, brilliant pinpoint of plasma appeared at the end of one of the exosuit's tentacles. The uulchi flicked it in a circle along the pod's twisted, melted surface.

Inside, there would be a sudden cascade of sparks, and then a circular slab of metal fell away to reveal the interior of the pod to the frigid Taihani night and the light of the flames.

[Arieh-Nidal]

[Command Center of Broken Arrow bunker, Mt. Conifer in the Whitepeak mountain range, Carnegie region, nation Hallyi, planet Arieh-Nidal]

Sirens were going off, lights were flashing, alert notices were blinking on various screens as various systems alerted the crew manned at the consoles that there was something entering their atmosphere. Something that wasn't a simple rock to be burned up before it touched down.

Whatever it was, it was big and it wasn't breaking up, and with the speed it was hurtling towards the ground, it was bound to make some level of damage.

There was much panick and overlapping voices freaking out or trying to get the freaking out under control or somewhere inbetween as the people at the controls did their best to keep the situation at hand, in check. Then someone suddenly shouted
"Get general rothchild! He has to see this!"

That order seemed to briefly quell the panick and instead let loose visible shivers in many people and loud noises of displeasure and discomfort echoed through the halls before the person shouting urged them on, assuring the urgent need for one of the main head honchos of the bunker, then the freaking out started again and didn't stop until a tall, well built man that looked like he could have been a football player in his earlier years, came in dressed in a general's uniform came into the fray and calmed everyone down with a show of authority before going over to the machines showing what was going on outside their bunker and demanding to know what was happening.

Turned out whatever was coming down, was coming down more or less in one big piece and, at least for the moment, seemed to be going faster than a bullet train, though if it slowed down later on before it crashed remained to be seen. But it was right now hurtling towards the planet like a big rock out of a slingshot and coming down not only in what was left of their country, but also conveniently nearby.

"Where exactly will it be touching down? and what kind of damage can we expect?" asked the general, amongst other questions, sternly as he stared at the screen with a look of distaste.

After a bit of typing and flipping through screen images, he was given his response. "At it's current velocity and trajectory the object should touch down in what used to be the Carlisle harbor, and completely obliterate it as well as any buildings within 3 blocks. What it is, we quite frankly don't know sir. But it isn't a space rock. We had planetary defenses in place before the war to deal with things like that. It might just be a satellite falling out of orbit or whatever other junk we have floating up there. But whatever it is, its coming down and its coming down fast. Suggestions sir?"

The general thought about this, offering up a few ideas himself or listening to others, most being shot down as implausiable given the situation or just plain suicidal, doing his best to get as much information from the people at the monitors about what that thing was and what would be effected, as he could. In the end he settled on a response. "Well no one that still resembles human is left on the surface right? and the great cities of old are basically abandoned ruins anyhow. And we are far enough away to not get any residue backlash from it hitting. I say let it hit down. Then we will send out a rover to investigate whatever crashes. No need to waste valuable human lives on the unbareable surface if we don't have to."

So with that and a few bits of back and forth about whether it was a good idea and how they would go about it, it was decided.
They would just monitor the thing, whatever it was, till it landed, and then send out a little robot machine to check it out.

Little did they know what was in store for them, or the alien life aboard the space life raft know what they would be encountering upon arrival.
Hopefully they brought along a parachute to drastically slow their descent.

[ooc:Carisle = Boston]

[Renkovian Remenant]

The clone said aloud over the battlenet ''weve got three live ones, uncouncious but alive''
Two medics were in the pod in an instant, working to get them out onto floating stretchers, which worked by using the ships artificial gravity.

Admiral Yassen said ''Inform me when or if they wake up''
''aye sir''

The medics moved, quickly moving them to the medical center of the Recusant. The three were laid on comfortable beds covered in fabric unique to the Renkovian industry. Two clones, including the one who had opened the pod, stood guard in case they decided to try something funny. Meanwhile the medics were doing their best to wake the survivors up.

[Sunset]

Excidium Planetis...

Beans, beans, they're good for your heart
The more you eat, the more you fart
The more you fart, the better you feel
So let's eat beans with every meal!

Nonsensical but sensible, the old children's rhyme did a credible job of explaining the source of the pair's noxious emissions. Beans and other legumes were, of course, a staple of interstellar life just as much as humanity was. Easily grown in a hydroponic or aeroponic agricultural environment, they could supply many of the essential nutrients required for a healthy life, if not a healthy atmosphere. That too may have been interesting to the inquisitive as it would seem to indicate the not-distant chance that the pair only had access to an artificial growing environment though whether that was of any interest to the Commander, who currently suffered from a severe case of two naked people on his hangar deck, was another question.

"Uh... Shit," the man repeated, looking up at the military man as well as the cluster of armed Marines standing around them as he rolled over to give the Captain a good view of his sausage and eggs while the woman rolled onto her side with thighs pushed together and an arm across her breasts. This forced a repeat of the earlier question and after a moment he answered, "Lothef Welamas, human and..."

There was a distinct pause in his voice as he struggled with the next answer until the woman put in for him, "Alenad. We're colonists from Alenad. Ariran, Ariran Daen."

A pair of dirty blue coveralls, doubtless scavenged from the Ravenous Pack's maintenance crew, chose that moment to cross through Commander Traversi's vision space and land square in the man's lap. Following the obvious indication to put them on, he pushed himself up onto his knees in the pod and draped the second over his companion while he allowed everything to dangle about while he shrugged it on. The presence of so many blades among the pair's possible possessions was neatly explained by the terrain of cross-crossing scars across his body and this would have seemed to put paid to the notion that he was a colonist of any stripe. It was to the man's credit that, instead of digging himself a hole, he instead remained silent and waited for the officer's next question while she tried to dress however modestly.

----

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Scyllan Syndicate
Siev
Riysa
Primordial Luxa
Resdayn
Natuda?
Senkaku
Arieh-Nidal
Renkovian Remenant

[Republic of Vectors]

"Thank you Sir," the lawyer said while barely withholding his disgust as he pocketed the tooth. He left out the part that in the Republic, lawyers are generally free for the people, especially for events like this. And everyone watching knew that this was a careful game of poker, a wrong word could clam him up again and he would be useless. David Rissan closed the cloth flap that protected the pockets of modern suits behind the gold tooth, and brushed his hand against his suit to rid it of the foreign, almost certainly bio hazardous, mouth contents.

As David listened to the mans tale, he got more and more amazed at the situation he found himself in. An honour to some, a nightmare to others. Listening to someone from another part of the universe talk, albeit in crude terms and ill formed sentences, of luxurious space vessels and exotic beings, only found in fictional movies and comic books. After listening to his hypothetical speech, though David doubted the man was able to define the word 'hypothetical', David simply replied, "I believe you." While he registered and filed away the information he was told into his head, he backtracked to the topic that started this tale. Money.
"So you are wanting to sell this information you possess?" David asked the man. More of a statement then a question, but he had to urge the alien along. After listening to the brief confirmation followed by another long speech about the hypothetically of the situation, David Rissan offered,
"I can call someone on the police force here if you would like. That person will listen to all of the information you have, and I will be here with you through it all. When you have said everything, then I negotiate with the officer for a price, and from that price I take a small cut, and you can walk away rich. Everyone wins!" The lawyer beamed a million dollar smile, leaned back and awaited the response. David's eye twitched towards one of the micro small cameras watching the scene as he wondered who would play as the officer for the event.



In a room nearby, both of the military men staggered slightly backwards at the quick recovery from the deep sleep, they had been informed it would take much longer. Behind them, the armed guards twitched into their weapons as they expected the worst. But of all the things wrong about Kaidasha, it was her voice that unnerved the officers the most. Coming from such a unnatural creature, it seemed so, normal.
"I, uh, I am Captain Kilgras, and this, uh, is my, uh, partner Captain, uh, Cedinate." The military officer had lost his nerve, so Captain Cedinate cut in, his deeper voice quickly drawing attention. "As you see, you are being detained as an illegal person, under Section 12 of the Citizens ad Foreigners Act. We will release you from your confines shortly, after verifying you are not a threat to us here. We just have a few questions first." Captain Cedinate paused to catch his breath and let the information sink in. The Captain took the moment to look over the being on the table in front of him, not in a lustful way as many males nowadays would, but in a curious way. After a few short seconds passed, with Kaidasha visibly sorting the information out in her head, Captain Kilgras continued the conversation.
"Lets start with this. What is your name, and where do you come from."



While everything inside the rooms was going exactly to plan, outside the rooms a surprise was boiling. By boiling specifically, more like melting down. While that term is often used to describe something a a nuclear matter, this was luckily not nuclear. Instead, the power plant on the back of one of the first generation, powered exoskeletons. This particular power plant had sprung an internal leak, where hazardous chemicals were mixing and building up pressure. This exoskeleton was worm by a middle ranking officer of the Red Guard who was standing with his back against the wall of the middle room, dutifully guarding and being bored. Any minute now, that would change.

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[Sunset]

Scyllan Syndicate...

"They've swallowed the bait," Captain Tamperi noted, watching carefully as the escape pod disappeared into the maw of the Whale, alluding to the analogous nature of the capture operation rather than any kind of particular stratagem. What they would find on inspection was that the pod had likely been disgorged from the same ship as the debris had been separated from or from a very similar ship indeed; Like what segments of the hull remained, the pod was wrapped in a ceramic-white outer case with accents of chrome and glass. Shaped roughly like a particularly thick throat lozenge, it had a distinct seam down the half and as well as a plaque on the front with a well-lettered font (serif, of course) that read 'In Case of Emergency Only' and next to that a handle that would reasonably allow both ingress and egress for the presumed passengers. Smaller hatches worked cleverly into the rear and main hatch itself would store a parachute for planetary landings and there were a cluster of retro-rockets that would slow its descent. These would not be necessary now but they made for a whole that was both stylish and functional.

"But no response," and the message repeated again.

With a moment's thought, he began to record again. There was the possibility that they might simply assume his message to be an automatic distress call and that he was now in the escape pod and thus considered rescued. A change in wording should alert them to the fact that there was indeed someone in the wreckage. Meanwhile he remained essentially unaware of the weapons increasingly trained on his abode...

"Maybe if I make it bold..."

'Emergency; The is Captain Tamperi. We have observed your craft rescuing an escape pod from the Star's Charter. Please initiate rescue of remaining crew trapped in ship's debris. Please respond this frequency if able. Repeat, Emergency...'

----

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Republic of Vectors

[Sunset]

Siev...

Kilometers became hundreds of meters and the clear regular beat of a heart gained a syncopated rhythm while the shape of the craft became clear. Starting life as a particularly thick rectangle with rounded corners, it had gained a concave shoulder by means of a collision with an unknown object and this had caused the ceramic hull to crack and splinter into a spider web pattern that had spread across the curved planes though not apparently to inflict enough damage to breach whatever secondary protection lay underneath. Trimmed in a glossy white with just a touch of iridescence and a silvery metal that might have been chrome or that particular precious metal itself, it would have undoubtedly been a complementary craft to a larger vessel. There was no sign nor figure of drives though perhaps they were hidden under that formerly pristine hull. If they had been, they were like damaged or destroyed now.

Hundreds became simply meters and the funkadelic back-beat to the steady heartbeat was explained again; Not one but three, with something natural or not forcing them into a similar pace. The first and the strongest seemed to set the beat while the second played strange accompaniment while the potential of a health condition or an injury as a result of collision loomed large. Of secondary but useful interest was that, during the approach, no sign of additional vessels nor of transmissions made themselves known nor was there a particular trace of how the debris came to be there but time has a manner of erasing such things. Other markers had by now made themselves evident and these, if the potential for translation or simply a guess at function were there, would allow the object to be opened presuming it was still possible to do.

----

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[Natuda]

Trickling Creek wildlife preserve and nature reserve at the back end of the base of the Elkhorn mountain range, Iroquois region, Natuda

It was late at night, just a few minutes after 11 pm and one of the head caretakers of the reserve was standing on a lookout platform on the top of a large bill surveying the landscape with a high powered and likely very expensive telescope when something on the horizon caught their eye. At first it looked like it might be another meteor like the one that had landed in the nearby mountains a few years ago but as the colorful glint that would sign a firey comet hurtling towards the planet dissipated, it was quickly shrugged off for the moment.

At least untill the glint returned as a slight silverly glint as if the moonlight was bouncing off something metallic.
It was only when the object, which was clearly slowing its descent, started taking shape as some odd shaped object hanging from what appeared to something shaped like large flowers floating down to the planet.

Naturally, whatever it was, which was quickly starting to disappear behind the treeline as it descended, and according to various maps that would be looked at later, in the direction that lead towards a large lake near the center of the preserve, was not something the caretaker thought natural and clearly odd. Thus, as soon as a trip back to the nearest ranger station was completed, a couple calls were sent out and some equipment gathering was all out together and a meeting was held and whatever else that would be needed to organize an expedition out into the perserve to figure out what exactly had floated down into their protected land, they headed out to see what they could find.

[Mariposa Islands]

Isle of Coventry, Mariposa

It was a bright lazy summer day down by fishspawn creek, a small group of teenagers were hanging around on an elevated enbankement drinking beers, chatting about stuff,
throwing rocks into the stream as fish swam by... typical hanging out teenager stuff.

It seemed like this would go on till the sun set beyond the horizon, seeing as nothing else seemed to be going on interesting or important thing enough to drag them away from all this.

But that was not to be the case. Sure enough, not too long after they had been there for a couple hours, something interesting sure enough did happen. Several human shaped objects floated by. They looked similar to astronaut suits but way more advanced than anything their little commonwealth had.

It was interesting enough for the group of teenagers to poke and prod at them and ponder their reason for being here as a fallen log a yard or so downstream caused most of the bodies to wash ashore on the opposite side of the tiny river, only two staying amongst the water, lodged behind the log.

Naturally, whatever it was they were examining, human or otherwise, it was something peculiar and odd and something that frightened a great deal of the teens, enough so that a majority of the group, especially the ones outspoken about messing with what appeared to be bodies in really weird looking space suits in the first place and wanted to flee from the sight, the group eventually did just that, only a couple teenagers staying behind to make sure the suits didn't float away deeper down the creek as the others went to the nearby town of covenant for help and hopefully possibly answers to what they had just experienced.

[Ooc:if possible, bodies inside the suits being alive if a bit unconscious is prefered.
No fun dealing with dead aliens or whatever]

[Sunset]

NOTE:

Sunset is super-busy with work stuff. I'll be trying to post where I can, but it might be a week or so until I get things cleaned up. With a shovel, duct tape, and some shallow gra... holes. Yes. Holes. In the woods.