Magellanic Cloud

[Poludnica]

Love was crippling. No one knew it better than Natalia whose relationship were toxic, suffocating. Long time ago she had arrived to a conclusion someone as broken as her wouldn't build anything lasting and healthy. From what Nat gathered, neither was Lennox. "I bet you've been trying extra hard for Lennox." She smirked as the remark recklessly rolled from her tongue. That was often her problem, just like Scratch, Natalia couldn't bite her tongue when necessary. "And that's just unfair." She hopped off the bed, already feeling more sober, if a bit ashamed over her lack of restrain. "PTSD?" The woman snorted. "Please, PTSD isn't his biggest problem." That was interesting in how Reed, a man of uncanny emotional stability, chose the most disturbed crew member. Granted, Natalia herself wasn't the paragon of mental health, but she managed to stay functional in social roles. Her expression grew serious, somber even. "Anything can happen down there. If everything goes to Hell, what will you save first? Ship or Lennox?" That was a merciless question and a cruel one, but Natalia could be blunt when she needed to.

Their situation created an interesting conundrum. Reed knew that Nat knew, but didn't know if Scratch would know as Nat had no idea if Lennox would hear about it. Everything happened behind Roy's back, but the anthropologist had a feeling the decommissioned soldier was smarter than he let on. A small part of her enjoyed that game, as perverted as it was. All those personal squabbles would be pushed away soon, when they discover the wonders of alien intelligence. For now the crew had been eaten alive by boredom, at least Nat had had."See, the problem is, you may need to hold him together while the ship is burning." The woman stated coldly and walked toward the doors. They opened with a delicate swoosh. She carefully watched Reed's face who refused to acknowledge his debt. His pride suffered, but if the captain couldn't get his act together, this whole mission would go down in flames. It meant no glory back home, only sad 'missing in action', symbolic gravestone. "Scratch will sniff it out by herself eventually." Nat commented offhandedly. "What Scratch knows, everyone knows, don't expect for your secret to last very long." Her eyes were narrowed, as if the light still caused her prickly headache. She shook her head and light laughter escaped her lips.

"I can't wait to see Roy's face." That was it, nothing more to say. Reed, from a sensible officer ,turned out to be as much of a misfit as everyone else on this God forsaken ship. She could just blame it all on Citadel personnel being unprofessional assholes, but it would be unfair. Not a single person in this place had a closet free of skeletons, the true skill was to keep it tightly shut. Shame for Reed, his had just fallen out all at once.

"I don't need you smart Scratch, just good at killing things." Roy snorted. He spent his entire life in active duty. Military wasn't a place to grow brain cells, but hone predatory instincts, pack mentality and cunningness. The important lesson was - everyone grew dumb when facing death. Roy left higher intellectual pursuits for others, although no one could deny him good tactical thinking. He was best at thinking quick on his feet and didn't even try to compare himself to a genius prodigy like Lennox. "Don't overthinking it." He commented when noticed a detached frown forming between Scratch's eyebrows. "And try to get off your lazy ass next time, unless you count on aliens being fat and slow." There was scolding menace in his voice, an amused mockery at the worst. He didn't show Scratch if her rejection pained him. Roy shrugged indifferently before leaving the gym. The augmented veteran wouldn't be surprised, if Claudia fell asleep on a treadmill.

 

[CaptainObvious]

"Anything can happen down there. If everything goes to Hell, what will you save first? Ship or Lennox?" That was a merciless question and a cruel one, but Natalia could be blunt when she needed to.

It was a good thing Reed knew how to wear a solid poker face when he needed to. He wouldn't give Nat the satistfaction of knowing that that particular question had shaken him somewhat. When he thought of it ... he hated to admit he'd save Lennox and let everyone perish but ... Would he? He'd break if he lost Lennox, and then what would happen to his crew? He'd lose Len and the crew ...
"Don't make me answer that Menshikov" Reed replied seriously, she was already treading dangerous ground, besides, it wasn't that simple, it was unlikely he'd have to make such a specific, divisive choice. "I won't let it come to that. " it was easier said than done, a captain tries to protect all of their crew, but ... when they can't protect everyone, hows a captain supposed to decide who to save and who to sacrifice?

"See, the problem is, you may need to hold him together while the ship is burning."

"If thats what it takes then I will." he sounded resolute, and indeed, he was, he'd held Lennox together during everything else they'd been through, he didn't see why he wouldn't be able to keep it up. The thing is, you don't choose who you fall for, or when, or how deeply. The thought of Roy finding out was an unsettling thing ... Roy was a force to be reckoned with, and Reed could tell that he wouldnt' be pleased by a secret affair going on right under his nose. Still, he wouldn't entertain Nat with a response, she'd gotten enough satisfaction from catching him off guard already ...

Finally after her parting warning, she was gone and Reed let out a long exhausted sigh. He waited a few minutes ot ensure she'd well and truly gone before he decided to make his way up to his cabin to sleep. Lennox was already in bed, he assumed he was asleep and quietly shrugged off his shirt, when suddenly he heard a voice.
"Thought you'd forgot about me." Lennox said sleepily.
"Never." Reed assured, sliding into the bed beside him and curling his arms around his waist.
"I know", Reed could tell from the tone of his voice that Lennox was smiling as he'd said it. He buried his head agaisnt the curve of his neck and breathed in the smell of his hair, his skin, his warmth.
"I love you, I love you so much." he whispered softly, holding Lennox tighter.
"I love you too, always"
It was reassuring to hear, Reed already knew it, yet ... he couldn't fully dispell the sinking feeling in his stomach ... Nat's warning had been stark. The mission was suddenly a lot riskier.



"I could shoot the hair off a flies ass" Scratch scoffed, of course that was impossible without blasting the whole damn fly, but really, that was a waste of talent, as long as she could shoot badguys, that was all that was needed.

She got up, with surprising swiftness for someone who was still somewhat drunk, and puffed up her chest at him in her anger, "I bet I can shoot more aliens dead than you can. When I kick your arse you owe me a beer." she growled. Protocol or not, she was up for a "friendly" competition with Roy ... it wouldn't be quite so friendly for her though.

((Agh sorry its not great my heads aching >S<))

 

[Poludnica]

The captain's face remained impassive, which told Nat plenty. Reed was expressive, pleasant and warm person - she had rarely seen him distant and cold, like now. "Why? Because I won't like the answer?" Nat tilted her head. They were travestying dangerous ground - if it was any other mission. A typical supply run, a simple transport things would be different. No one would bat an eye at their union. People get together in various places, working on ships helped with getting closer. The Conqueror's mission had nothing to do with simple. So many things could go wrong, so many things would go wrong. A mysterious distress call, an alien planet in another Galaxy. It was a game changer for entire human race and they were the trailblazers but their captain focused more on his lover's mental issues than their task. There was nothing left to say, the time would tell what choices all of them would have to face.

Still sleepy, Nat dragged herself to the private quarters. She passed few crew members, tensed and excited. The atmosphere on the ship slowly shifted from bored to nervous, expectant. Soon they would reach the alien planet and she would have something to focus on, rather than finding enjoyment in pushing Reed's buttons. Her thoughts briefly trailed to Scratch, where was that boozer?

"Claudia, you don't have a proper dick to enter a pissing contest." Roy snorted. "If you kill more aliens than me, I will buy you a crate." He added.Years ago, when he had just joined the force, such competitions were a pleasant pass time. Now Roy felt too old for that, his body had been augmented to give him unfair advantage and he had nothing more to prove. Scratch was in a different place, as a small framed woman she measured to naturally stronger men. Roy didn't care about his soldiers gender, though, he cared about skill and no one could deny Scratch that.

x.x.x

The next few days went by in quiet tension. Everyone was busy with checking equipment, gathering supplies, preparing the drop. When the planet finally came to full view, the crew gasped in awe. It was a desert world with only few patches of water peppering its globe. This didn't stop the fauna and flora from flourishing. The surface, depending on equator was covered in fantastic shapes of what looked like dried twigs, large fungi, thickened moss, fantastic cactus like trees. In one place the planet had been scarred by something - a long, uneven canyon stretched through the right hemisphere.

In the middle of it rested a magnificent ship, the size of Central Park and even time hadn't eroded its surface. It was covered with local fauna, animals could have made home in parts of it, but from look of it, whatever could be seen above the ground remained whole. Its surface was sleek and black, without anything that could be called windows. The design was both: familiar and alien. Certainly confusing for a human being. It didn't emit any signal anymore. No cities or sentient life loitered on the planet, at least not one that they could recognise.

The automatic helpers already established a base planet side. They prodded and moved around the area, seeking for potential dangers but all alien life fled from them. There were no animals larger than human foot - probably hot, arid climate didn't allow for them to grow bigger. The evolution seemed to stall on this ancient world - as the initial analysis showed it to be much older than Earth, settled around an ageing, dying star which would soon turn into a red giant. Swallowing this planet along with the ship and exotic life.

"It's…spectacular." Natalia whispered, her verdant gaze fixed on the planet below. Maybe once during its impossibly long existence this world was a home to sentient life. Giving nothing like the ship could be found around the planet, whoever came there was a guest. Just like the Conqueror. Roy stared at the screen, his expression blank. Around them people gathered to watch the first shuttle to go down. The main ship was too large to land, it would cost too much fuel and would end in utter tragedy. Instead the human crew landed in small shuttles attached to the bulky frame of the mother ship. Just like finding this planet and the ancient ship, the planet's atmosphere was something akin to miracle. The oxygen levels were just above the safe levels for humans to breathe. Only fourteen percents which would cause wariness, headaches and altitude sickness due to lower pressure. But it wouldn't kill them. The microorganisms were safe for them as well, they had nothing in common with humans to become pathogens. The ship's two biologists already had their hands full with dissecting few local specimens. The anatomy matched nothing known on Earth. On cellular level the alien wildlife even lacked DNA as humans knew it. Nat felt it could have been just a dream. Crazy, exciting dream.

 

[CaptainObvious]

"Don't cream yourself" Claudia snorted as Nat stared, totally mesmerised by the alien planet that was finally pretty much within reach.
"You asked the captain when we'll be ready to dock yet?" she asked. Her eyes moved through the sea of crew-members who were abuzz with nervous excitement. Everyone was trying to get all their jobs finished and their things in order as the mission entered its next, critical stage. She spotted Roy easily of course, he always seemed to stick out like a lemon in a pile of oranges. He was extraordinarily out of place, even in such a bizarre mismatched crew. She gave him a smouldering stare then licked her lips, a taunt.
"Well, you did make that comment about knowing how to use my mouth" she thought, "I fuckin' showed him I did!" she recalled grinning wolfishly.

She'd shut him up and proved him wrong on that front, now she was excited to find some aliens to blow up so she could school him in that too. As small as she was, she wasn't easily intimidated and all men were very much the same once they had their trousers down and a lass between their legs. Despite his augmentations, it appeared Roy wasn't immune to feminine wiles, at least not entirely anyhow.

She drew her attention back to Nat, leaning lazily on the railings that ran along the wall. "How much longer till we hit the dirt ourselves?" she asked, her excited anticipation creeping in.


The copilot held the helm, Reed was tying up loose ends and sorting out directing the crew, they were operating on an extremely tight schedule and rota to ensure every station was manned and readied for all potential outcomes. Sleeping cycles were arranged to ensure everyone got enough sleep, with a sparse crew in some sections it was tough, but the balance was made. Now he was finishing up those briefings when one of the infantrymen showed up, gasping for breath as if he'd run the length of the ship.
"What is it Rivers?" he asked, handing a datapad back to a scientist after he'd finished examining it.
"The doctor" the infantryman panted for breath, Reed siezed him up by the shoulders, straightening his posture to allow him to catch fuller breaths and talk quicker. "He's locked up the med ... med bay ..." he panted for breath, "Ashton was there ... *wheeze* ... said the doctor took a sudden panic attack or something ... couldn't figure it out"
Reed let the soldier go and made a bee-line to the medbay, perhaps his concern was too visible, too obvious, but he didn't care and it was too-fucking-late for anyone to report him for whatever they suspected.

He crossed the large ship in record time to reach the medbay and thumped on the door.
"Lennox, its me, the Captain. It's Reed." he said calmly and steadily through the door, he ushered the crew who lingered about to clear off and busy themselves elsewhere.
"I need you to open the door, you can get through this remember, let me in." he said, waiting anxiously for Lennox to open the door. He looked around and the hallway had cleared, luckily. Lennox opened the door and Reed wrapped him in a tight hug, closing the door behind him as he stepped inside.
"Shh. Its okay, I'm here now, you're okay, you're safe."

The day had started off rather regularly, surprisingly normal infact, but it was the anniversary of the accident. He'd thought that perhaps the flashbacks had gone ... Lennox appeared normal ... then came the warning from Rivers and Reed knew the flashbacks were as stubbornly present as ever.
Lennox shook, terror gripping him as if he was back in that car again. Watching the headlights zoom towards him, the flipping and rolling of the car, being trapped in the carnage and watching the life drain out of his sisters eyes beside him.
He needed to get Lennox through the other side of his flashbacks quick, they were going down planetside ridiculously soon and he needed his doctor to be ... capable of doing his job. He also needed to get back to the bridge to relieve the copilot for a spell.

"Len- Len look at me, listen, look at me" he cupped Lennox's face, Len's gaze was wild and distant, pupils dilated as he relived horrors over and over in his head.
"Come back to me." he pleaded, gradually the haunted gaze seemed to peel away, Len swayed slightly on his feet and leaned into Reed.

 

[Poludnica]

As always, Claudia had a special, iconoclastic comment which killed some of Nat's enthusiasm. The taller woman glanced at her friend with disdain. "Really? We are about to prove humans aren't alone in the universe and all you can think about is sex?" She snorted before following Scratch's gaze. There he was - Roy, impassive and bored as ever. Natalia never figured out what made him tick. The man could be the best buddy during the poker game; throwing crude, military jokes just to show his other face soon later. Cold, unapproachable, predatory. She knew of course, what occurred between the two, Claudia couldn't keep her mouth shut for long. Natalia had troubles deciding whether to be envious or creeped out. Scratch didn't leave out any detail, so now Nat knew things about Roy she never wanted to learn. With amusement Nat watched Claudia provoking the augmented veteran. "We are going to park on the orbit in ten minutes." Nat sighed absentmindedly, her thoughts already drifting toward the planet.

Another shuttle appeared on the screen, this time carrying medical equipment and everything Lennox needed to keep them alive. Oxygen masks, for people who wouldn't handle well its low levels. There was already food stored in the bases below along with clothes and to many people's dismay - weapons. The ship seemed dead, probably with its crew. Fauna was small, diminished - adequate to the planet's age. This world was dying, it had gone through countless cycles of evolution. In billion years Earth would look like this. Humanity was so brief and small in comparison, like dust in the summer rain.

Roy looked at two friends, behaving like siamese twins joined at the hip. He smiled at Claudia's goofing and moved closer to the girls. He had to push through quite a crowd, but people had no problems with giving him room. Natalia decided Claudia had some balls to sleep with that. "What's up Roy? Why the long face?" The anthropologist prodded, seeing his serious expression. Roy looked first at Claudia, then Nat. "Where is Reed? We are parking soon and he is pulling off Houdini." Nat shrugged, but curiously looked around. Indeed the captain wasn't present.

This worried him. The most crucial part of the mission and the captain disappeared. He found Scratch's gaze and grinned wolfishly. "Don't go anywhere." With this, Roy pushed toward the bridge's exit. "Me or her?!" Nat called after him, her voice dripping with sarcasm. From flirty to sociopathic, Roy wore so many masks, like kabuki dancer dressed in noh. Maybe that was what unsettled people, not really the upgrades.

Before leaving, Roy leaned to speak with the co-pilot. They whispered for a moment, Roy was getting more and more pissed with every word. To the point Nat could hear what he was saying, at least few words.Reed…Where? What the fuck. What happened to Lennox? "Oh, for fuck's sake." Roy cursed and rushed through the doors. Nat poked Claudia and gestured at the closing doors. "I have a feeling shit is going down." She commented, not even realising how true this statement would become in just few moments.

Roy angrily stalked through hallways, finally reaching the med bay. He didn't know what had happened there exactly, but the concise information from co-pilot was enough. Lennox was falling apart - in a middle of orbit parking. Of course, when else? Roy stopped before the med bay, the doors were locked. "Reed!" The soldier called out, barely holding back fury. Anyone could feed the good doctor damn tranquillisers, didn't have to be the captain. "We are entering the orbit, if you don't come out of there, I swear to God, I am making this a military operation and deem you unfit for duty." Roy hovered his hand over the haptic panel, but it still shone red. It didn't make any sense, anyone could take care of Lennox's unfortunate breakdown - especially since Reed wasn't a medical specialist. Something wasn't right about it and Roy hated to be out of the loop.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Claudia rolled her eyes, "Of course all I think about is sex, its far more entertaining than some alien weeds, yknow since its not the kind I can smoke" she grumbled. This trip had sounded a great deal more exciting when they thought there would be some strange species on the planet, as they got closer though, they found no life signs aside from ... well tiny critters and weeds. Claudia's dream of giant alien battles was quickly squashed by what appeared to be a long-dead shipwreck and a planet that was more terrarium than titan-battle ground.
Still, there was a giddiness in her. Exploring an uncharted land where no man went before, it did give a slight buzz, though her too-cool-to-care persona refused to admit just how excited she was.

"Good" she replied at the 10-minute till landing confirmation, she looked back toward Roy and added, "I'm parched and I could use that drink you're gonna owe me when I shoot more space-lizards than you can count cowboy". Already assuming she'd won their bet, since there was no giant space snakes, she'd settle for tiny foot-sized lizards. A nice cool beer afterwards would be great, especially if it came from Roy's wounded pride, she was nothing if not utterly cocky.

She shrugged when the question of Reed's whereabouts came up. "I dunno, maybe he's giving everyone a bear hug before we land." she teased, Reed was incredibly friendly to all his crew afterall, maybe that was how "team building" worked or whatever. She didn't know just how close to the truth she was, Reed was giving bear hugs, just ... not to the entire crew.

Claudia watched Roy walk off and then sighed, "I can't wait to kick his augmented ass once we land.", everything was a competition to her, giving Roy a blow job was just another one of her power-games. She was ready to blow something else ... some goddamn steam on those space lizards.
She perked an eyebrow when Nat revealed she thought shit was about to go down, overhearing snippets of Roy's conversation. "Why's that? I thought Roy was on okay terms with the Captain, not drinking buddies but ... yknow I thought they were okay" she shrugged. She flinched when suddenly Roy's shouting echoed down the hall as he pounded on the door.

Reed squeezed Lennox tighter as he flinched at the banging against the door, flashbacks of collisions exploding in his head. "Make it stop make it stop" Lennox pleaded, Reed covered Lennox's ears with his palms, cursing under his breath at Roy's less than opportune arrival.

Reed tried to reign in his thoughts but they exploded around his head, he couldn't have Roy going military on them, this operation was still relatively peaceful.

"Len, baby, listen to me" Reed cupped Lennox's cheeks and locked their eye contact, steady, sure. "I need to go up to the bridge, just for a second, I swear to you, it's going to be alright, you're safe, I'm not going far, I'm coming back for you right away. I need you to be strong for me, just like we've talked about. Can you do this?" Reed inched away, slowly, testing the waters. Lennox's face was haunted, paled in fear but he nodded slowly, he had to hold it together for Reed, had to.
"Don't lock the door okay, I'll make sure no one comes in for you, but keep the door unlocked." he added, he couldn't have Lennox going too far into his breakdown that he rendered himself unable to unlock the door. Overriding the lock would take too long and it would be too late.
"Don't leave me here." Lennox pleaded, his gaze distant and bewildered but he hesitantly let Reed go, Reed knew what he meant ... He had to promise he'd come back for him, he wasn't leaving for long.
"I'd never do that, I'm always coming back for you."

He got up and turned to the door, pressing the panel to open it and giving Roy the sternest glance he could muster, it was hard to do a good job at glaring when his heart was breaking on Lennox's behalf. He'd seen his fair share of PTSD in war vets, but Lennox's horrors were something else entirely. He hadn't been in a warzone, but he'd seen some shit. Perhaps that was why it was worse. When you went into a warzone you expected to leave with scars, maybe not the mental type, but soldiers always knew they'd never walk away entirely unscathed. Lennox had been going to a dance recital of his sisters, he'd been in a family friends car. His safe place, his safe companions, they'd been torn apart in a horrible way and he'd crawled away bearing all the scars.
"I'm not the kind to make threats colonel" Reed hissed, the door hissed shut behind him but without the "click" of the lock system, "But don't you dare try pull rank on me again you understand" he brushed past the colonel, on his way to the bridge to finish the landing procedures when things began to go horribly wrong.

The command console began to flash, an unexpected change in the planets atmosphere, enough to upset the ships balance and send the copilot into a blind panic. Her gaze darted from one alert to another, sweaty palms hovering over the command panel the command operations began to blur as sweat dripped into her eyes and her fingers slipped. One figure out of place was all it took to utterly devastate the flight course of a massive space ship. Now they were massively off course and too close to the planet to save themselves from a heavy fall.
"Oh god whats happening" she screamed, she ship gave a groan, a slow shivering lurch followed.

 

[Poludnica]

More than often Clair's convoluted mind eluded Natalia. Her thoughts were like a labyrinth that changes its layout faster than she could learn it. "Maybe you can sex up an alien and smoke space weed with him." Natalia sighed, disappointed. "Wouldn't it be something?" She began to sway on her tiptoes from growing anxiety. The view changed, this time to pictures from the planet's surface. Taken by drones sent down only few hours ago. They circled the derelict ship which remained still and indifferent. A dead husk trapped in alien vines. It struck Natalia the local flora wasn't green, but brown and dry looking. Probably because the native star had changed and grown old over the past million of years. Grass didn't exist, only patches of reddish moss. Whoever piloted the ship must have been a guest, just like them. The rest of the planet bore no signs of ruins.

When Ray showed up, Natalia could tell off the bat, the relationship between him and Scratch had changed somehow. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Scratch, first you have to lift the rifle." He smiled with surprising warmth. Maybe there was some humanity left in this cybernetic body of his. "From what I've heard, Claudia is very good at lifting things." Natalia smirked enigmatically, but Roy pretended he didn't hear her. It was so typical, men only heard what they liked to hear.

When Roy stalked away, Natalia gave Claudia a wary look. Reed could have been giving out hugs left and right, but when mission was going into a critical phase. "Roy is hard to read." Natalia concluded as her brows furrowed. Now they looked like platinum blonde caterpillars kissing. "Thinking about it. So is Reed." Natalia felt something bad was about to happen, Roy was never nervous without a reason. He was a cold blooded killer, a fact many people had forgotten about. The training those soldiers undergo leaves many traumatised or dead. She couldn't think of a reason Roy felt so anxious. "Yeah, maybe you can distract him and catch with his pants down." Natalia smiled, trying to hide the worry that crept under her skin.

Reed emerged from the medway. Furious and ready to start a pissing contest. Roy measured him with cold, steady gaze. "Bold words for a guy who can get a heart attack at any moment." The soldier sneered. "I will pull rank on you whenever I see you are neglecting your duties, captain. Since when I've last checked, colonel was above your rank." Roy hissed after Reed, but the man vanished in one of many doors that led toward centre of the ship. He need to satisfy his inner control freak, Roy entered the med bay only to find Lennox having a mental meltdown. This stopped him in his track and for moment the veteran didn't know what to do, but swiftly the military honed instinct resurfaced. He walked toward cowering doctor, anger flashing in his brown eyes. Suddenly Roy's fist slammed at the desk. "Lennox, for fuck's sake, get a grip. It's not a time to be a wuss!" He shouted out, just like he did toward his shellshocked men. Roy never tolerated weakness, it was something the soldier loathed and now Lennox was embodiment of one.

"Jesus Christ." Roy just commented, noting Lennox barely registered where he was. The augmented man knew this reaction, he had seen it many times in soldiers that couldn't have taken the pressure. It didn't mean Roy had to tolerate it. "Someone get him fucking tranquillisers." He called out to the nearest infirmary nurse that entered the med bay, alarmed by the ruckus. Just as Roy left the med bay, a long, whaling sound tore through the hallway. The ship's interior flashed red. He cursed under his breath and rushed to the bridge.

Everyone's eyes turned to the shocked pilot. A normally composed, cool headed woman was clearly scared. The navigator blanched. "Something is pulling us down!" He called out to her, when through the main channel Roy communicated: "Non essential personal off the bridge. Security, gather everyone near the escape pods." That rippled fear through the crowd, but there was no panic. They were trained men and women, ready for the worst case scenario. Worst case scenario that was happening right about then. Natalia looked at Scratch, fear in her eyes. Something was pulling them down. Maybe the aliens weren't as dead as they supposed to be. "It's the downed ship! It emits a focused, narrow gravitational field." The navigator added, his breathing coming in frantic pace.

"Oh my God." Natalia commented quietly.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Claudia raised an eyebrow at the thought of getting high as fuck with a space alien. Wouldn't that be something? Fuck it would redefine the definition of something! She smirked a slanted silent-laugh smirk and nodded her head. "Something to write home about thats for sure, now I sure hope we find some smokable space grass down there"

She allowed herself to scan the drone footage, alien dirt, alien grass, alien waste, alien crash site. Sure as heck wasn't anything they'd see back on Earth or even one of their terraformed colony planets. Those planets had been alien once.

Once.

Now they were bustling human settlements, remodelled to resemble humanities homeworld of Earth. There were subtle differences, a colony world always had its own quirks and at best it was always a rudimentary earth clone. Not everything could be earth-ified so colonies always had little patches of their own flora mingling with earth plants and some unusual climate oddities. It was comfortable though, even with its bizarre faults, the colonies were always somehow familiar and homely. This alien world was utterly untouched, there wasn't a hint of earth or colony-world energy about it. It was both exciting and unsettling.

She scoffed at Nat and Roy's exchange about her "weight lifting" abilities, smirking with self-satisfaction. It felt good to one up the guys on the ship, Roy liked to think he was the toughest tough shit up here but Scratch new it was her, no one ever suspected the short chick to run rings around them, but she would. Come to think of it, sometimes she thought Nat was actually the most dangerous on the ship. Any gobshite could figure out how to fire a gun, and with a little luck and some practice they could learn to hit a target, but Nat could study people and read them in a way that wasn't just luck and practice. It was a terrifying talent and Scratch was glad they were friends because she knew Nat would be able to tear her apart if she wished simply with her wit. It was a blessing that not only did they consider eachother friends, but GOOD friends at that. The best part was, it was genuine, Scratch knew Nat would see right through her if she tried to fake it or trick her into being friends. Easy to read alright ... thats me I guess.

Reed on the other hand ... Claudia's eyebrow perked up. "Reed? He strikes me as the type of guy who doesn't want power, he just has it ... He has good intentions but ... Pretty sure he doesn't want to be here, he's not half as excited about it as the scientists, even the engineers who don't know fuck about space biology are happy to be here. " Wasn't the most reassuring trait for a Captain to have, but Claudia trusted him all the same at this point. Reed wanted to get the home again, he probably should have been more interested in the mission before the coming home part, but at the very least he wanted everyone to return to a heroes welcome back on their home planet or station. "He seems uncharacteristically stressed lately too ... Wonder what has him so nervous ..." everyone else seemed excited to land, not Reed, he was somewhere else in his head.

Reed elected to ignore Roy's comment, but he was right, Lennox was here for a reason, Reed had a condition and probably should have had a desk job rather than this current job. Responding would only make it worse though, it would mean he acknowledged he wasn't cut out for this, plus, he didn't have time for exchanging barbs with Roy, something was going on at the bridge and he needed to fix it.

He couldn't.


Shouting didn't help Lennox at all, if anything it only brought him further back to that dark place in his childhood that had left him permanently scarred. The terrifying sound of carnage as the car warped around him, there was groaning, banging and screeching as parts of the car crumpled like tissue around him. THe bang of Roy's hands on the desk only reminded him of the very thing Reed had tried to diffuse moments ago.
"Reed please-" Lennox cowered, searching for the only thing that could ground him, shield him from this car crash. "I need you."

The nurse was older than Lennox, but reluctant all the same, what sort of nurse tranquilized their superiors? Even if their superior was ten years their junior and having a massive PTSD attack... It seemed like the sort of thing someone could get fired for, but the situation was far from ordinary.
Then came the announcement over the comm channel, they needed to evacuate.
"Doctor, please, get up we need to move" the nurse urged, since he wasn't a military man or particularly well travelled compared to other crew members, he was scared.
The nurse stuck his head out into the hallway to search for some help, concerned that Lennox, who was usually placid and pacifistic, could perhaps turn violent. PTSD could do strange things to its victims. "Natalia, Claudia, help" he gasped.

Scratch glanced to Nat, to see her response, given that they were supposed to be evacuating, but her inner soldier kicked in, she wasn't going to leave someone behind when they needed help.
"What is it?" she said walking over.
"Roy told me to give him tranquilizers-"
"Then do it why do you need me?"
"He's the doctor, I'm a nurse, what do you think would happen if you pulled rank of Reed?" the nurse argued putting a hand on his hip.
"I don't think hes a doctor right now, looks like PTSD ... man what did they do to you in med school?" Claudia asked, glancing back to Natalia, if they tranquillised him, how would they get him to the escape pod, he could pass out entirely, then again, he was in too much of a shellshocked state to move now so that was hardly helpful either.
"We need to leave" Claudia said, attempting to inch closer and help him to his feet.
"No, no no no, we can't go" Lennox replied in a brief moment of lucidity amidst the panic, "I can't leave. Reed- I need Reed"

Reed tried to do some damage control but it was too late. THey weren't falling down, they were being ripped out of the sky, this close to the surface of the alien world, the atmosphere was too strong to pull against. At the very best they'd have to make an emergency crash landing and hope everything wasn't utterly devastated on impact.

"Set our trajectory to 34.8" he ordered the navigator as he eased the copilot out of the drivers seat. "Get to the escape pods now and make sure everyone gets out" he said quietly, ushering her away. Once the navigator had mapped out the best course, Reed would have no choice but to try and reduce their speed so they didn't disintegrate on impact.
"We're going to crash!" the navigator replied as he mapped out the course and realised the angle and position of their descent.
"That we are, and hopefully the crash won't kill us. Are you done? Get yourself to the escape pods quickly, pick up any crew you find on the way"
"Y-yes captain"
It was hard for Reed to stay focused ... who was going to pick up Lennox? Lennox couldn't stay on the ship and yet ... Reed also didn't want to part with him but knew he couldn't abandon his post. Maybe there would be time ... maybe the crash wouldn't be too bad and there would be no need to actually launch the escape pods. It could be a slow, low impact crash, if the alien ship didn't pull any crazy tricks.

 

[Poludnica]

The best case scenario was that whatever is down there is either human like and non hostile, or completely alien and aggressive, but dead. Else, they were screwed. The ship below was vast, giant. Nothing humans had created so far could match this powerful craftsmanship. So far humans had terraformed Mars to the point it was liveable, or at least not deadly for an hour. Other planets had orbiting space stations, as their surface was either non existent or too hot. Pluto was their tiny mining outpost, but it was not even a planet. "Finding a space grass would be a better option than finding aliens that would view humans as a burger meat." She mused, noting how suddenly all things that divided the group seemed to evaporate - they weren't now assemble of various loyalties and backgrounds, but simply human. At the grandeur of the universe such squabbles were petty. Natalia turned to face Scratch, but didn't see nothing more than a smug, confident smile. By now she knew it was just a mask behind which many insecurities were stored - why else to protect oneself with so much arrogance. Even Roy didn't have this big ego. He was a sociopath but rather humble one when it came to showing off.

Natalia watched Roy and Scratch, sensing strange tension - palpable. Maybe under different circumstances there could even date. In a weird, twisted and toxic way. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Scratch." Natalia looked back at the screen when Roy walked away. He was pissed. Roy was terrifying when pissed.The blonde woman could really put together why Reed was so anxious, his little romance with the doc could crawl out of woodwork. That would be a catastrophe, mostly because Roy would go livid and probably implode the entire ship. "His…health issues stress him." Natalia snickered .

Roy had no time nor inclinations to put Lennox back into pieces. He left the pathetically whimpering doctor and rushed toward the bridge. Reed already tried to salvage whatever was left from their chances to escape. Roy handled the evacuation. "Foster, deal with the living quarters, Scratch clear out the lab." The soldier issues, before opening the shared comm channel. "This is Roy, this is not a drill, situation is critical, everyone get to the designated pods." He began to gather people from the bridge who weren't needed: the navigator, comm specialist. Only co-pilot, Reed and him stayed in the rapidly descending ship.

xxx

On the planet below something had woken. It crawled from cold void, turning on ancient machinery, checking all the systems. Engines? Damaged. Comms? Active, sending a distress call. Offensive systems? Damaged. Defensive systems? On-line. Short range scanners? On-line. Personnel? Estimated losses : 98%. There was an intruder hanging above, at the edge of the planet. It emanated heat signature typical for simple drives, but he ancient ship found no match in its broken data base. There was only one algorithm, created thousand of years ago when the Galaxy had been consumed by war - termination. The offensive systems were beyond repair, but defensive matrix pulled the little dot from the sky, sent an impulse that fried everything conducting significant electricity. The ship alerted other systems, brought everything to life, but there wasn't much energy left. The generators were targeted as first, the main cause of the ship's doom.

xxx

It could't have been simple mistake that pulled the Conqueror down. Not with this experienced pilots, skilled navigators who underwent harrowing tests and psyche evaluation. "It's this fucking ship! It pulls us down." The co-pilot said, her voice detached and trembling. Roy blinked. "Well then." He breathed, still hovering over the map that showed little, red dots vanishing in the pods. First group had left the falling ship, three more left. "That means we are fucked." The moment Roy voiced his concern, the console exploded, sending shrapnels of hot metal all around the bridge. The soldier ducked, led by pure instinct - the co-pilot was too close and her face as well as chest were ripped apart. Blood sprayed the nearest objects, even Roy got some on in his hair, despite swift dodging. So much for friendly aliens…"We need to go Reed!" He shouted toward the captain. Now the only pilot left. Another explosion shook the bridge as the metal around began to bend and shriek when crushed by invisible force. "The ship is lost, we need to save the shuttle at least." Roy demanded. The only thing they would have left, capable to fly around the planet was their supply shuttle. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to gather anyone from the crew, scattered all over the place - on a hostile world with deadly aliens that could blow a giant ship out of the sky, like it was swatting a fly.

"Jesus Christ." Natalia cursed when saw the state Lennox was in. Nurse and Scratch discussed the ranks, the woman wasted no time. She moved closer to mumbling doctor. "Get up, Lennox, you want to kill us all?" The woman tried to shake him, but Lennox was far gone now. Claudia tried to pick the doctor up, who completely lost it. "Forget it." She hissed and quickly grabbed the automatic syringe the nurse was holding. The man stood there, baffled. "Go to the pod." Natalia rushed him and he didn't protest. Scratch was a military personnel that handled the evacuation after all. It was now her problem to drag Lennox into a pod. "Hold him." Natalia said, her breathing erratic. She was scared, scared as hell. Something in her head screamed: you will die, you will die, you will die. Staying focused on simple tasks kept everyone around sane.

She tried to stab Lennox in the neck, to administrate good old diazepam - a strong tranquilliser. It would knock the doc out cold, but it was better than to just drag him kicking and screaming into the pod. Natalia hoped to God Lennox wouldn't struggle too much or Scratch suddenly decide she preferred him lucid.

 

[CaptainObvious]

"Go to the shuttle then" Reed shot back, "We may not have time to get everyone to escape pods if thats the case I'm crashing this ship as gently as I can" he surprised himself with his own calmness, perhaps he'd accepted the inevitable. "Get yourself to an escape pod, you-" he tapped the copilot on the shoulder to make an exit too, "Get out of here-" before he could save the co pilot, part of the bridge exploded before them and by then their fate was well and truly sealed. Even now, it was too late to slow their fall, to adjust their course enough to make the impact remotely "survivable". "Fucking hell!" Reed snapped, the calmness quickly draining out of him. Parts of his copilot had splattered onto him and the command consoles, he could barely smear the blood off the panels to see what sort of damage they sustained. He'd only narrowly dodged the shrapnel himself, the shockwaves of the blast had thrown him aside just far enough to exit the path of debris where the copilot had been right in its path, a shred of metal tore open his cheek but it was a cosmetic wound, not something to cause him immediate concern though it would need to be stitched up later.

His skull sang, ringing thundering in his ears from the groaning ship, the pressure changes and metal warping. The ship was truly lost now, Roy said it but it was little consolation. They had only one hope, the shuttle. Reed wondered if Lennox was safe. Had he made it to an escape pod? Or was he in the shuttle? He was having a panic attack, Reed had promised to go back to him and he'd promised to wait. Without Reed, he'd not move, he was having a full on attack this time. "You get to the shuttle. I can't leave till everyone is off this ship" Reed wished his voice didn't shake, and couldn't tell if it did or not, his head was swimming, I need to get to the med bay, I need to make sure he's okay. "I need to check the med bay" he turned to Roy, a fuming giant, he wasn't going to tolerate any bull and Reed knew it but he didn't give a damn. This mission was dead before they'd even landed now. If Lennox didn't make it to the escape pod and safety, Reed didn't see much point in carrying on and surviving, the guilt and loneliness would kill him. If this was going to be his death, the only consolation would be that he'd die with Lennox. "I'm not leaving him there to die alone, I made a promise" had he gave the game away? Probably, if Nat hadn't already told him, Reed was relieved that she seemed to have kept quiet, no one had confronted him about it at least. But now he'd as good as admitted it to Roy, Roy wasn't a fool, he'd be able to put two and two together and make four. What did it matter anyway, they were dead, this was suicide, but he could make it to the shuttle if he went now.

The med bay was a long way off and consumed in its own crisis. Lennox struggled against Nat, in the blind panic of his PTSD attack, he was barely aware of the ship groaning and creaking around him, he was reliving his own car crash, the real and fake crashes blending horribly into one another. He had no seatbelt this time, and no sister to cling to, but he knew Reed was there somewhere and would come back to him. Reed was his safety belt, his anchor, the love of his life and he needed him.
"Nat we can't knock him out, he's the highest skilled doctor we have and there could be casualties." Scratch bargained, pulling Lennox up with ease, she was a hardened mercenary and Lennox was a young waif of a boy, though taller than her, he would hardly overwhelm her. "Grab whatever medical stuff you can carry, anything that looks important. We have to move" Regardless, Nat managed a stab at Lennox but it didn't knock him out cold, he resisted, adrenalin pumping through him, Claudia had seen PTSD too many times to count, yet the flicker of panic seemed to fade from his eyes a little and his struggle grew limp and she managed to get a better grip on him. Claudia was relieved that the shot wouldn't knock him out, it seemed Nat knew what she was doing when she took the shot anyway.

With the ship sinking no-, plummeting, everyone suddenly became a captain or a colonel or commander of anyone who was too flustered to direct themselves. Scratch was never a commander type, she was into her grunt-work, shooting a guy who needed to be shot, hitting a target that needed to be hit. She didn't make orders, she followed them while acting like she had a better plan herself though that was rarely the case. Now she found herself having to direct the doctor who, lets face it, was never cut out for military med work. If Nat had ever questioned why he was here before, Claudia was sure she was wondering whose bright idea it had been to bring Lennox along. He was far too soft for this kind of mission even if nothing had gone wrong.

"We need to find Reed" Lennox panicked, Claudia noticed he didn't refer to him as "the Captain" or even Carter but she had no time to investigate.
"He's meeting us, we have to move" Claudia lied, she knew it wasn't convincing but anything to occupy Lennox and reduce his struggling would benefit their escape.
"He told me to wait here, he said he'd come back he said-"
Claudia was already growing impatient, pulling the surprisingly resistent doctor toward the escape pods. Over half had already launched and those who were left trying to file in had itchy feet and needed to move. Several jettisoned off like flies leaping off a pile of dogshit as a massive boot came their way to squash them. She couldn't help but notice just how fucking small and useless they were out here but would dwell on it later. Now was no time to feel miserable.
By the time she was halfway down the halls Lennox couldn't resist anymore and slumped against her, she was surprised he'd lasted that long against the tranquilizer, he was tougher than she'd suspected, that or he had incredibly bad PTSD. On one hand, he was probably military grade if he could power on like that after a shot ... or he was far too broken to even make it through basic. He was incredibly strong, or utterly ravaged by PTSD, she hoped he was the former rather than the latter.
"We're gonna be okay Doc" Claudia managed to say, sounding unusually soft, she wondered if it was for Lennox's benefit or for her own. This wasn't the usual fuck-up during a mission that she could deal with. She was plummeting into- ... she didn't even know what and she didn't have soldiers around her, she had a panic-stricken doctor and an anthropologist. She only had her sidearm, a pistol, and nothing else, there was no time to arm herself. She cursed herself for procrastinating and not bothering to arm herself ahead of time.

The escape pod was cramped, it could fit about five but already most people had left anyway, other pods jettisoned, only a handful were still waiting to launch. Manouvering Lennox in was a challenge when he seemed to weak to cooperate, too tired to resist but awkward all the same. He looked at her bewildered and lost and she didn't know what to do with him, she hoped Nat would know, she studied anthropology, maybe there was something in that field that could work for calming a doctor down. All Claudia knew was how to aim and pull a trigger and that was not a skill she needed right now.
"Nat, jettison us" Claudia called, Lennox lurched forward in a last ditch effort to find Reed but Claudia easily yanked him down, not as gently as she'd have liked but she'd apologise for it later, if ever.
"Reed-"
"We need to leave Lennox, he'll be alright"
"I need him-"
"We need to get out of here. Nat, launch us"

 

[Poludnica]

Reed wasn't this fast, but still had admirable reflexes. The pilot managed to avoid the major damage aside a minor flesh wound. The ship was lost, there was no point in wiping the co-pilot's leftovers from the consoles to know this. "Motherfucker." Roy cursed and dug himself from under his hideout. There were parts of bone, flesh and brain matter sprayed all over the place. Sweetly stench of burned human tissue filled the cockpit. Roy knew this smell, knew it all too well. Years of duty had to pass before the veteran got half-used to it. At least now the disgusting sensation wasn't making him puke in an instance. Reed looked semi-concious, but the large man still strove to do his duty, up until something truly irrational got into his head. "The protocol states at least one pilot has to be escorted to the shuttle." Roy hissed, already furious with the captain's stupidity. No, Reed wasn't stupid – anything but stupid – so there was something behind this idiotic order. Now, though, Roy had no time to figure out what went on in Reed's shaken brain. Why the med bay of all places? "You will get your cheek stitched later." The soldier finally snapped, shattering the chain of command into pieces. Then it downed on him with Reed's next words. Of course...Roy, mostly blind to other people's feelings and intentions , hated to learn things last. Probably everyone had known by now.

The pilot's frame didn't scare Roy who took down as big and additionally armed opponents. "You incompetent fool." The augmented veteran offered coldly. "We encountered hostile forces, it's a military operation now." He quoted the proper regulation and reacted before Reed could move past him. For a brief moment pain shot up Roy's spine, a familiar burning sensation when the implants sent impulses through the already worn synapses. Muscles suddenly grew dense and stronger as polymer fibers wrapped around every strand. God, it hurt and it would only get worse with every passing year. They didn't have even a day now, not even ten minutes. Roy kicked the captain to the side of his knee. Light enough to keep delicate, cartilage construction from any harm, but strong enough to make the giant topple. There wasn't much height difference between them – Reed was heavier though, looked like a grizzly bear while Roy was slim and athletic. The soldier stepped forward, placing a well measured blow on the back of Reed's head – a cautious blow, aiming to only render him unconscious. Roy gracefully moved to the side, avoiding being crushed by the captain's sheer mass. The soldier looked down at his feet, realizing that could have been his last mistake. Now he had to drag this sack of muscles all the way to the shuttle.

No time to lose...

"If we don't knock him out, there will be no doctor to save anybody!" Nat shrieked, but kept herself from stabbing Lennox with more needles. She gave her friend a panicked look of a rabbit before becoming a roadkill. Blindly she began to sifted through supplies, gathering into a large plastic bag whatever got into her hands. There were medical crates planetside, but who could promise them their pod would land exactly there. Between thrashing Lennox and order issuing Scratch, Nat had little time to think. That was a good thing. They were too shocked and scattered, the security officers formed groups from the survivors. Whatever was happening didn't seem to be just a simple crash caused by a human mistake. Something turned and twisted the ship as if a hand of an angry god wrapped around it. Living quarters had been sealed off already, exposed to vacuum. Nice lie... Nat managed to notice, fishing out a really strange detail out of the reality that slowly desintergated above and beyond them. Literally.

Reed wasn't coming with them. Good thing the young doctor was still only semi conscious, he didn't seem bodies littering the ground. Five of them, caught in an explosion of suddenly released oxygen mixed with electric spark . How many of the crew they had left? No time to think...React, don't think. Nat had never seen military side to Claudia and maybe later would in awe recall Scratche's calculated and sober reactions. They were half way through the hallway, althought the trip seemed to stretched into infinity. Natalia stumbled all over the place, trying to avoid looking at charred, electrocuted corpses.

When she turned to see how Claudia was doing, her face blanched slightly. "Can't you just knock him out?" Nat insisted. It was better to have an unconscious doctor than no at all. The bad luck wanted for them to end up near the view port. Natalia looked up, noticing a frozen body lazily swimming right outside - it was Hardetsky. As the man drifted closer, she could see his mouth agape – not sure if to let out one last scream or take one last breath. The ship shook one more time and Hardestky's frozen corpse shot away from the viewport, pushed away by energies created by two colliding masses. Nat only then realized the haunting view made her to let go of the medical bag. She quickly grabbed it once more before following already moving Scratch. Lennox pathetically whimpered as his fingers gripped onto everything they could find.

Nat didn't even wait for an order to pull the red lever. Scratch dived and pulled Lennox away from the doors, or he would become a headless dummy. "Oh shit." She called out as the pod accelerated. All they could do now was to pray their pod wouldn't end up like the majority.

The ship was crumbling, he had no more than a minute. Roy would have been at the shuttle good three minutes ago, but Reed was as heavy as he looked. What did they feed you with? The soldier stated inwardly, still infuriated about Reed's reckless stupidity. Finally the shuttle's doors hissed open and Roy could finally drop the captain's body onto the floor. He couldn't say how long Reed would stay unconscious, so the soldier dashed toward the console and inserted proper codes. The clasps let them go, now they were on the previously programmed route. Toward the base placed approximately fifteen kilometers from the ancient ship.
​

 

[CaptainObvious]

At least while they were in the escape pod, Lennox's struggles would be utterly in vain. Scratch knew there was no getting out while they were floating through space ... or falling planet-side. They'd either waste away in here once life support ran out, or the pod would unlock itself once the outside sensors detected a safe enough environment for them to disembark. They'd gotten him in and that was a good thing, now they had a dizzying journey ahead. Scratch assumed Lennox would wear himself out, once the adrenalin wore off, he'd succumb to Nat's shot. Already, Scratch was beginning to feel him slacken against her until she could finally wrangle him in her arms. As small as she was, he was skinny and she could trap him in her arms once he finally lost the will to struggle away.

Scratch knew just how hopeless she was, now that Nat had pulled the release switch and shot them off the ship. They were on their own and couldn't even work out their next step until they landed somewhere. Instead of panicking, she accepted the finality of it and turned her focus to helping Lennox and Nat. They weren't soldiers, they didn't come out here expecting everything to go so horribly wrong, nor had she, but she knew missions went wrong all the time and when it did, you had to pull on your big-girl boots and survive.

"Nat, I'm gonna keep the doc here restrained till he comes back down, I need you to do a stock take, check what supplies and tools we have here in the pod and take note of everything you snatched from the med bay, any labels or medical things you can't identify, we'll just ask Lennox about" she spoke calmly and for a moment even sounded bloody responsible rather than being the joker and kidder she usually was. She was no expert, but she assumed keeping Nat occupied with taking stock of their supplies might keep her calm and level headed, Scratch didn't want to be trapped in a pod with two utter loonies and she was the only one with advanced survival training. They'd need to keep their wits about them, taking stock would keep Nat's eyes from wandering to the viewing pod and seeing the devastation outside, she'd already noticed the anthropologist staring at Hardetsky through the viewport. Lennox had seen plenty of death and chaos and military and disaster casualties, but this time was different, he was in the middle of it, not in his sanctuary of a medbay or hospital ward dealing with patients as they came in ... Scratch thought it was fortunate the young doctor didn't seem to see anything going on around him. Something else had shaken him before the alarm had been raised anyway.

Trying to piece together what she could, Scratch noticed Lennox was still panicking about Reed, maybe it was his heart condition? Though that didn't quite seem right either, there were other people with issues on the ship but it was only Reed he was talking about, was it the fact he was the captain? "Lennox, we're going to get Reed soon, is it his heart condition you are worried about? Can you tell me about it, I need to know so we can help. What's his disease, how does it work?" she asked, maintaining her composure the entire time. Lennox was barely moving at all now but she could tell he was stressed, his body stiff against hers where she wanted him to relax.
"Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome"
"You're the doctor, explain it to me" she continued gently, she'd keep him talking, keep him lucid, then perhaps the sedatives would knock him out properly or at the very least relax him enough for her to trust he'd be okay on his own.
"I-its ... the electrics in the heart, with WPW the cells in the heart depolarise prematurely"
"Good, good, you're doing good, keep talking to me" Claudia said steadily, loosening her grip slightly, testing the waters.
"Keep going, what happens when the heart depolarises" she didnt have the foggiest idea what any of it meant but it didn't matter.
"The cells in the heart depolarise" Lennox corrected, but Scratch didn't care, she hadn't even been paying attention properly, "Arrhythmia, irregular heartbeat" he answered.
"I need to help him" he jerked up a little but it was uncoordinated and lazy and he sank back down again, Scratch seemed relieved enough that he hadn't the strength to fight her off and instead she propped him up against one of the cold metal walls of their escape pod.
"We will Lennox, soon, right now, I need you to stay there, you understand? Are you feeling alright, you look pale"
"I'm so tired, why am I so tired?" the wild distance in his eyes seemed to have diminished.
Claudia shrugged off her jacket and draped it over the young doctor and told him to rest for a moment, the sedatives wouldn't keep him down for that long but any relief was a godsend, if gods even existed anymore. "Just rest for a minute, you'll be fine"
She turned her attention back to Nat. "What have we got?" she asked, time to do damage control. She waited till the doctor seemed to have lapsed out of consciousness before talking again, "I couldn't knock him out Nat, you already shot him full of sedatives ... thought I'd let him come down gently" she shrugged and hoped Nat wouldn't tease her for being a softie all of a sudden.
"How the hell are we gonna explain to him that the captain's probably dead?" she'd not seen someone so attached to their commander, but Lennox was young, it came as little surprise he'd put so much confidence in someone as put-together as Reed.
"I know they've worked together for a while but ... didn't know they were all that close" hell she certainly didn't know they'd slept together.




It was too late for Roy to argue with him, though when they were cooped up together in close quarters with no one left to mediate, they'd have all the time in the world to tear chunks out of each other. Of course Roy decided to start their confinement with Reed out cold. Despite his size and muscle, Reed wasn't cut from the same cloth as Roy, not to mention Roy was augmented, so in a fist-fight, Roy would floor him pretty much every time. Reed had a dodgy heart and took longer than a standard soldier to complete basic training, after that he was pretty much a pilot and nothing else, and pilots didn't need to run through battlefields, they got to sit down and fly choppers or space vessels. He couldn't match Roy's physicality and the precise strike rendered him unconscious after a few seconds of clumsily trying to pull himself back up. Roy could hate him for his incompetence till a rescue mission came out to find them (if that ever happened at all), but surely he'd have a begrudging respect for Reed's determination, a regular guy would have gone straight down after that blow to the head but Reed had fought it for a moment before succumbing to stars.

They were flying for ... he wasn't sure how long, but it couldnt have been that long because he awoke before Roy could land them 15 klicks away from the wreckage. He groaned first and his head pounded before he struggled to find his limbs and manage a coordinated response. For a few moments he stared up at the silver coloured metal paneling above him, this wasn't his quarters and he was on the floor not his bed. He noticed immediately that Lennox wasn't there, he usually woke up next to Len- The crash.

It suddenly hit him so quickly it physically hurt to recollect the carnage as fast as it had happened. It was like being trapped in the bridge explosion all over again. The ache in his torn cheek returned but it was trivial compared to his pounding head and his knee which fortunately wasn't dislocated but hurt as if it was. He managed to pull himself to sit upright after two failed attempts. He fought to find a handhold against the smooth wall and managed to get enough purchase to pull himself up.
"Fucking hell" he groaned. He didn't even want to think about all the damage control he needed to do now ... not that he could anyway, Roy had assumed control of the shredded remains of the mission anyway, and he'd not listen to Reed of all people. Reed didn't care about the mission anymore, about the escape or landing safely, he looked through the viewport and saw the charred and crumbled remains of the once-great ship he'd piloted. It was falling down like a dying star and soon it would be well and truly implanted into the planets surface. Escape pods flickered like fireflies all across the sky but some were vacant, some were incorrectly launched and wound up carrying corpses rather than survivors or just exploding immediately, others headed in the wrong direction and a handful actually tilted toward landing on the planet, hopefully those ones weren't vacant but it was impossible to tell.




((I'll edit this if its crap haha I just flew through it))

 

[Poludnica]

The pod was claustrophobic. Nat refused to think what would happen if it lost the decelerating engines. Gravity had always been a merciless mistress. The three of them would end up as a charred stain on the alien world. Natalia quickly checked what they all had been trained for – pressure, altitude, amount of oxygen. All stats were green, but the pod would start shaking violently the moment they would leave the low orbit and hit the atmosphere. For Natalia time slowed down. She watched everything through a glass wall. Her movements were automatic, led by instinct more than anything else as her features remained blank and lifeless. She nodded, for a moment watching dumbfounded how Scratch manhandled so much taller Lennox. For a brief moment Claudia grew in her eyes into a powerful Wonder Woman. "I am not sure in his state, Lennox can tell a difference between a hammer and a syringe." Natalia snapped finally, anger took over fear. Flight became fight and the young woman began to violently sift through the supplies. Antibiotics, bandages, healing gel, antiseptics...STD tests...Natalia gazed at this surprising find as Scratch tries to talk the doctor down. It was a standard issued test for any ship, especially those moving between ports, but in this situation this seemed just surreal. As everyone on the Conqueror was thoroughly checked, what Huston thought they would do with the potential aliens. "The fuck..." Natalia mumbled, but Scratch's sharp order pried her thoughts away from rather disturbing images.

Two small caliber pistols, three combat knives...a crowd control concussion grenade. Who stocked those things? Plenty of water and a bit less lyophilised food, but still for five people and not three. When the aliens will kill them, at least they would die stuffed. "We have...things!" Natalia finally announced, not really sure how to label their stock. A pathetic yelp left her lips as the pod shook violently. They were descending into the stratosphere. That was it – in a span of twenty minutes they would either be dead or safely planet-side. Near them two pods lost their track and crashed into one another, creating a silent, deadly spectacle. Ozone ionized the explosion, creating beautiful, yet terrifying rainbow around it. They were losing people left and right. Literally. Near by a shuttle wheezed by and Natalia sighed – some of the bridge managed to evacuate. Maybe they even had a pilot left...although no ship. Aside from the dead thing below. A scary thought invaded her mind, nestled there like a hungry parasite; what if the ancient vessel wasn't as dead as they initially believed.

"Oh please, it's not Reed's heart he is worried about." Nat told Claudia. Her back were turned on the other woman as she still tried to dig out anything useful. "I am not going to tell him anything. I don't know if Reed is dead or not. At least let him have some irrational hope." Natalia finally turned to face Claudia. The inside of the pod grew unbearably hot as the particles in the atmosphere hit the rapidly descending pod. Natalia was getting sick as the dinner danced hectic tango in her stomach. "I am going to hurl." She proclaimed in completely unladylike manner, something many people didn't see often. The blonde woman cared little for appearances now as they were evac landing on an alien planet. "ETA five minutes." The pod's artificial voice filled the small space. "Fasten your seat belts." It announced. Oh shit. Natalia quickly pressed herself into the uncomfortable seat. "My God Scratch, you are fucking clueless. Don't you have other things to worry about than Lennox's sex life?!" Natalia started to sniffle as tears swelled in her eyes. "I don't want to die." She whispered, gripping tightly the seat belt's buckle, till her knuckled turned white.

Roy had to give Reed a credit: the pilot was a tough son of a bitch. He would make a good soldier if not for a bad ticker. Cool headed, collected unless his lover's life was threatened. Roy was pissed on Reed for being a love struck idiot but it wasn't the reason for the ship to explode. Thankfully or he would rip the captain apart. "Fuck." The soldier cussed when another violent tremble ran through the shuttle. The virtual intelligence could land this thing unless something unexpected was happening. Being dragged down by an alien ship was as unexpected as it got. Roy tried to put in simple landing commands, but it wasn't enough. He angrily slammed the console, but it didn't help. He had no control over the shuttle and Roy hated this state of helplessness. A tired, painful groan could be heard behind his back and the soldier whipped around. It was Reed regaining his senses...that was quick. "Reed!" He shouted out. "For the fucking love of God or whatever you think is important, land this shuttle!" Roy demanded seeing Reed's eyes glued to the viewing port.

Roy moved to give giant pilot some space. He silently counted pods they lost – how many people they had left? Ten, maybe less. Maybe they would be the only people alive down there. Spending years alone with the only crew member he disliked wasn't an enticing future to look out for. The shuttle was slowly losing ability to maneuver when the invisible forces tilted it to the side. Roy grabbed the nearest wall to maintain balance. The mission went to Hell, even before they touched the ground which meant the second mission that would be dispatched in two years could meet similar fate. They had to warn them, that was the priority now. The Conqueror's crew is not going back, that's for sure, but the least they can do is to make sure no one comes close to this hellhole.

***
The ancient ship scanned the sky. The offensive vessel that dared to invade its space was disintegrating. Around it flickered signs of life, some rapidly diminishing. Deeming the alien vessel to be incapacitated and the crew shattered, it went back into endless slumber, conserving what whatever energy it had left.
​

 

[CaptainObvious]

It wasn't scratchs first crash, it was her first crash from the upper atmosphere, but not her first crash ever. She kept her dinner down a little better than Nat. A crash was a crash to her, the difference being this was her longest ever crash but at least she had time to prepare for impact at a near-leisurely pace.

Nat mood was noticeably foul, sniping at ever remark but Scratch was relieved she wasnt having a manic episode, she had a feeling it would be far harder to restrain Nat than it was to restrain Lennox. Speaking of which ... she hauled the unconscience doctor up and fastened him into a seat, but cradled his head in an awkward protective hold so he wouldn't mash his skull into the wall when they hit the dirt. With her short stature compared to his longer height, she looked awkward but didn't care, safety didn't care if it looked stupid neither would she. Whether Nat liked him or not ... and it appeared she didn't or perhaps that was just her mood talking, Claudia resolved that she had to keep him alive no matter what because now he was part of the team and no o e got left behind on her watch.

"His WHAT?" she exclaimed, she assumed Lennox was a virgin since he was about as fresh faced and innocent as they came ... but with Reed? Reed was ten years his senior and a great big bear of a man, she'd never assumed they of all people would ever hook up ... the pod whined and groaned, tiny fragments of rock and debris clanged off the metal shell with pinging noises and it grew hotter and hotter and hotter.
Scratch gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. In a few seconds they'd be crushed or she'd be able to keep her team alive a little longer so they could continue their struggle.



Roy was trying to estimate how many survivors they had ... if the pods that had made it in the right direction managed to land without combusting or exploding on impact. Reed was only thinking about one survivor at that moment. If they were all going to perish here .... Lennox didn't deserve to do that alone. This was the worst possible way for him to die, a crash ... just like his sister. Like some cruel prank.

Roy barked an order at him ... fly the damn thing ... Reed wondered if he even knew how to pilot anymore. If Len had already died back there he didn't care anymore. What was the point anyway? If someone so kind and honest could die so horribly and at such a young age, why did he deserve to go on with all the shit he'd done over the years on his conscience?

Roy didn't give him much choice and he staggered over to the command console and it all came back to him, as easy as breathing, he could land with his eyes closed ... though the odds were working against him as the alien force tilted the entire vessel until it was flying half-sideways. Reed worked methodically as if entranced, first pulling up to buy some more time to correct their orientation and course. The vessel screamed against him as force pulled it downward threatening to tear it in two. "Cmon, cmon" Reed hissed through clenched teeth. If Lennox was out there he'd need him ... this ship had to land. With no clear runway, he scanned the horizon for a grassy spot and managed to find a perfect spot, though reaching it would take some manoeuvring.
The ship stopped whining, as if the invisible hand pulling it down had released it. The shuttle shot forward suddenly, with nothing holding it back it pushed on like a slingshot but Reed eased up and began to tilt the shuttle into a comfortable horizontal position.
Carefully he edged down toward the makeshift landing zone coming in at a slant from the side, ready to pull back up again if they got pulled down suddenly. Eventually they were so low down that they'd be obliterated if the invisible field pulled them down ... if not, they'd land unscathed.

Reed dedicated his left hand to running status checks on the escape pods. There were weak signals, a few had blinked out immediately, dead on launch or empty pods that were ejected. A few had an amber status, launched but not yet landed. Was Lennox in one if the dead pods? Was he on the ship which had torn to several pieces, half crashing into the planet and the other half floating in orbit like a satellite of death. Was he one of the amber lights? Would his light turn green or red? Would his pod survive or die on impact?

Finally the ground was so close ... too close, the landing would be rough but they'd make it in one piece which was more than some could say. They hit the ground with a reverberating thud and the whole shuttle shook before it slowed to a halt and Reed slumped down in exhaustion. His chest ached and he wondered if he was having a delayed heart attack now or if his ache for Lennox had become physical instead of just mental. He groaned and clutched his chest, struggling for a breath as if he'd been punched with a hammer in the chest.

"Survivors" he strained "we have to find the other survivors".
'Please' he thought, 'please let my baby be alive out there somewhere'.

 

[Poludnica]

There were many things Natalia had experienced in her life before the intergalactic journey. She took part in grand social events, climbed great canyon and circled Olympus mountain on Mars with her parents. Money granted interesting life, something Natalia took shameless advantage of. She had many dreams, but finding alien beings was the greatest of them all and buying her way onto the Conqueror made Natalia the happiest woman in Solar System. The young anthropologist would have thought twice, though, if she knew a part of this trip was falling on a deserted planet in a tiny pod. As a twenty eight year old woman, Natalia never pondered on dying and afterlife. She lived in a moment, pawing at life with both hand, taking what it had to offer and more. Being faced with a swift demise shatterd her world to pieces it would be hard to put together again.

Near by Scratch finished fumbling with Lennox who was already passed out or at the edge of consciousness. "Lucky bastard." She mumbled, but her words were swallowed by a computer's warning signal. Nat noticed Claudia holding Lennox' head protectively. The small soldier did her best to salvage whatever was left from the situation. "Sex life, Claudia! His sex life. Do you want to spend last moments of our lives talking about it?!"The moment she managed to utter the sentence, the pod slowed down and her stomach twirled like a ballerina. A violent shake spread through the metal and plymers that held together this space coffin. Natalia felt her body jumping upward but the steabelt kept her from harm, although it certainly left a large bruise.

The pressure inside of the pod rose and temperature would become dangerous if not for the computer's quick action - the doors flew away, letting in arid, alien air. Natalia screeched like a terrified banshee when the first rays of aged star weaseled into the opening. A hiss betrayed rapid cooling of the pod's systems. Their journey had ended, they were safe. Too shocked by the fact she survived and was now breathing alien air, Natalia finally did what any fragile, self-respected ladies had done throughout the ages: she passed out.

More than a hundred kilometers away another vessel haphazardly approached the surface. Reed got a grip quickly, which was a good sign. Maybe they had a small chance of living through this ordeal. Roy could do nothing more to help the situation - a fact that everything rest in Reed's hands was comforting though. Maybe the captain was an unprofessional, softhearted asshole but he could fly like a sparrow. To get his mind off the impending doom, Roy took a seat and began to silently count. It was an old trick, taught to him by a befriended orbital drop shock trooper. Don't think about how much left you have to hit the ground, don't think about the atmospheric pressure building around the shuttle. Ten...Eleven...He could hear Reed whispering soothing mantras as the ship danced left and right.

They were close, Roy could feel the shuttle slowing down as it touched the ground only to sit on it heavily. That...that wasn't half-bad. Roy's modified eyes opened - his built-in HUD quickly informed him Reed's heart rate went up and was now racing like a scared rabbit. His own was no lower. The soldier calmed his breathing and wiped away salty drops of sweat that moistened his forehead. "Goddamn, Reed. You're good." Roy laughed out in relief, but the pilot looked like an empty balloon, slumped over the console. The half-dead zombie state didn't stop the captain from impulsive need to go find the others. "I am aware of that fact, Reed." He confirmed when unfastened the seat belt. "Not before we make contact with them so they activate beacons in their pods. Unless you want to run around blindly in hopes of finding Lennox." Roy said and popped open a can of water he found in the supply bags. He walked toward the pilot and offered it to him. "You did good." The soldier commented and with unusual friendly familiarity he placed his palm on Reed's shoulder to pat the pilot.

"Stay here, I'll check the outside." Roy sighed and turned away to prepare weapons. As of now, they stopped being rivals and became team mates. This shift in Roy's perspective certainly helped in treating Reed more like a civilian in war zone. That what the captain was - a civvie stranded with possibly hostile aliens. Probably why Reed got himself into a stupid love affair. Roy was still pissed about it, but even more so on the mission control that gave him a damn freighter pilot rather than a warship commander.

The atmosphere outside was breathable and pods carried supplies which should accommodate five people for few days which gave them some time to pick up survivors. Roy switched on the general comm on the console. "This is colonel Roy Fermi to anyone who can hear me. Turn on the beacons and stay close, we will come for you." He let go of the button before another thought occurred to him. "And for the love of God, don't touch anything outside." Roy finished, hoping this rag tag group would listen. If there was anyone to listen aside from the giant, alien vessel.

 

[CaptainObvious]

Scratch surveyed her situation from the safety of her seat. Two. A grand total of two passed out pussies was all her survival team consisted of. "Just my fucking luck" she grumbled. Her stock take was pitiful, no soldiers, no survivalists, a limp-wristed doctor who was so riddled with PTSD-issues he probably couldn't even "doctor" while out here, and a spoiled civvie who had all the education money could buy but not an ounce of survival knowledge, at least, she assumed Nat and Lennox were both that useless. She'd be pleasantly surprised if they proved her otherwise. The issue of Lennox's sex life was obviously not up to debate, since they were both passed out, but she'd pretty much figured it out from Nat's screaming. Reed and Lennox slept together, she didnt know exactly how the arrangement worked, if they were serious, friends with benefits, or if it was just a one time thing and Lennox had attachment issues but it didn't matter.



"Fucking great" Reed snapped back, Roy may have softened, if it could be called that, for Reed's sake, but now it was Reeds moment to vent, his heart was strangling itself, at least it felt like that anyway, his ship had crashed his crew, or half of it at least was dead, he could still feel his copilots blood on his face and neck, mixing with the blood from his cheek, it was all dried up but still sticky. And on top of it all, he'd lost Lennox too. The one person he'd sworn to protect above all. He was supposed to hold Lennox together and take care of everything else too but he'd failed both tasks miserably and now, as if to rub it in, he was probably having a heart attack.

"What if theres nothing left to find? I told him I'd protect him but he could be splattered on the ground somewhere, or floating in the vacuum or anything. Tell me how any of this is a job well done? The ship is shredded to pieces half the crew dead, the other half could be dying- GAH!" he would have continued if the knife in his chest hadn't jabbed the words back down his throat. If Roy suspected Reed would take this well ... he'd clearly just been schooled.
"Find him Roy" Reed choked, "For the love of god find him" of course, Reed was looking for Lennox not because he desperately needed a doctor ... but because he loved him, the doctor aspect wouldn't exactly hurt either.

"This is colonel Roy Fermi to anyone who can hear me. Turn on the beacons and stay close, we will come for you. And for the love of God, don't touch anything outside."

Scratch got the signal and wasn't sure if she should be relieved or ... something else. Wasn't the captain supposed to issue that sort of order? Technically Roy was pretty much the go-to guy if anything happened to Reed who, even though he was outranked by Roy, was still in charge due to their assignments. If Roy was issuing the orders it probably meant one thing and it wasn't a good thing.
She didn't hesitate when it came to activating the beacon and flicked it on immediately, wondering just how far away help was, and how long she'd be sitting around waiting. Escape pods didn't stock things like cards or yahtzee so she was expected to just sit on her ass like Rapunzel until somebody found her. She hated sitting on her ass playing princess, especially when ther was no way for her to drink or gamble her way through the time. As annoying as her survival companions could be ... she kind of wished they would wake up so there would be some distraction, maybe even amusement to be found in their dinky little pod.

Lennox stirred first, probably because he'd passed out for most of their drop and Nat stuck around until after they landed to pass out. Scratch had to give Nat some respect for not pissing herself during the landing and for staying awake the whole time. First time Scratch had done a drop, and it was from a far smaller height, she'd damned near crapped her pants not that she'd admit to it.
"Ree-?" Lennox mumbled.

She was relieved Lennox didn't lash out, still groggy from the sedatives, pleasantly doped up, she suspected he'd drift off again soon, drugs were weird. Still, she didn't dare release his seatbelt, there was no telling if they'd need it later.
"Sit tight doc, they're coming for us."
"Who? Where are we?" he sounded distant and dreamy. Scratch wished she felt the same.
"Roy is looking for us, we landed but ... everyone was scattered." she wondered if he could recollect the crash at all.
"Lariene" he whined, he sounded pained and Scratch wondered who he was talking about, she didn't know anyone with that name and she'd met the whole crew over the course of their journey, no one had that name or even something similar or a nickname.
"Who?"
"Don't die- please don't leave me. Don't"
"I'm here, I'm not going anywhere you're going to be okay" Scratch said but she couldn't convince a 2 year old that the toothfairy was real, she doubted this would work.
Lennox dissolved into quiet sobbing but at least he wasn't violent, she knew he was utterly useless to her though and just left him where he was, unhooking him from his seat so at least he could curl up quietly. He was tall and thin, despite his height, he could make himself so tiny, she doubted there was anything she could do and hoped Nat might know once she woke up ... anthropologists studied people right? Well ... Nat was a civillian, maybe she'd have a little bit of softness that a military girl like Scratch lacked ... she hoped Nat had that right something because she was already at her wits end.

She dug around the pod looking for a radio, something with a decent range so she could at least try and contact someone else. Everything was strewn about everywhere, the pod had taken a bit of a whack on its way down, but eventually she found a short range radio and decided to make do. She decided to send out a general call every 15 minutes till she could get some sort of a reply.
She switch it on and clicked the button to activate it. "This is Lance Corporal Claudia Michaels, I have two civvies with me, if anyone can hear me, please respond. Over" she clicked off the comm radio and then she waited.

"Cmon Nat, wake up" she groaned. Lennox was mute, the radio stayed quiet and she was bored already. Roy's orders were not to touch anything, and Scratch didn't trust herself to leave Lennox alone unsupervised, since Nat was out cold ... she was stuck with both of them.

 

[Poludnica]

"I am awake. I am awake"

The loss of consciousness was brief, barely noticeable for Natalia, who groaned and sighed before finally slipping back into the real world. At first she hoped the crash and their landing were a mere dream, spurned by another difficult jump. No such luck. She licked the sweat off her dried lips, refusing to look at the opened hatch at first, but soon her gaze was drawn to the flickers of alien sunlight. Alien sunlight What just hours ago thrilled her now turned into a waking nightmare. It took the young woman few moments before realizing they were stuck thousand of light years away from home. No ship, possibly no pilots and an unconscious half-crazed doctor. When the reality finally sank in, Natalia had to hold back a sob. Focus, you are not alone. You are not alone. She saw Scratch fretting over Lennox who was blanched like a bleached parchement. "We are so screwed." Nat proclaimed with strangely detached, distant voice. Her world was falling apart and all she could do was to watch it.

Natalia jumped at the sound of a cracking radio. "Roy." She sighed, relieved. Now they had two soldiers around. That increased their odds, but a scary thought began to scratch at the back of her mind. If Roy was issuing orders...He was an acting commander now, seeing how they had been attacked, yet still. No word about Reed. "Claudia, tell me we have at least one pilot alive." Natalia pleaded when Scratch tried to communicate with Roy. Lennox finally came to it, still groggy from the drugs she stuffed him with. At least he was calm now. The doctor cluless looked around. "On an alien planet." Natalia stated flatly and pulled sweat soaked brown hair off her features. She eyes Lennox with suspicion, expecting him to go crazy any moment. Claudia was around, two of them could easily restrain a stoned guy, at least one so willowy and fragile.

"Oh great, he is having another meltdown." Natalia concluded and unfastened her belt. A relief that washed through her was slowly fading, replaced by the fear of the unknown. Her fair gaze once more travelled to the opening in the pod, as if she waited for a group of angry aliens to nab them. Her hands were trembling and it took the young woman a while to get up. Claudia tried to sooth Lennox who was still in his own world, reliving another nightmare.

"This is.... ...nce ....audia Michaels, I ha....vvies with me, if .... .. hear .... please respond...."

"Ah, fuck." Roy slammed hand against the console. The communication was spotty and Reed was slowly losing it. "Get a grip! You won't help anyone in this state." He snapped at the captain. It angered him how the first person Reed worried about was Lennox. "Even if Lennox is a floating corpsicle, you still have at least three people alove there." Roy knew those words were cruel and cold, but he needed Reed more than ever now and hatred was much better advisor in combat than grief. Better for the captain to be furious rather than helpless. "I don't give a shit what you promised to one crew member, you've sworn to protect them all." Roy went on whilst adjusting the comms. No one else responded - the communication could be obscured because the shuttle's antenna got busted or there was no one else to find, but Claudia and probably Nat as the two were inseparable. They had another civvie with them, that could be anyone.

"Reed, I need you to focus so stop being a whiny, little bi...." He added, but then the captain collapsed. With painful awareness Roy realized he could have gone too far. "Shit." The soldier breathed out and knelt next to Reed. "Don't leave me now." He said and desperately looked around for a simple first aid kit. The augmented soldier only knew basics of first aid, but if worse came to worst, he would use a defibrillator. "Some got out, maybe Lennox was among them." Roy said, deciding to try a different approach. One he wasn't used to. In military everything was done with shouting and insults. Riled up soldier was much more dangerous than mellow, sniveling one. Reed wasn't a spec ops, though, but a shaken lovesick pup. Unprofessional, reckless and down right stupid one considering the captain should be first to uphold fraternizing rules. Love clouded judgement putting everyone in danger. "Breathe, Reed. You are hyperventilating." He said and tried to inhale slowly, hoping to Reed would pick up this pace. "Inhale....Exhale. Come on, you can fight it. We will find whoever is alive" Roy wanted to add ' you selfish prick', but held the remark that would only make things worse. "There is a chance Claudia picked up Lennox along the way. She was on her way to med bay with Natalia." There was not much more for him to say. The doctor turned into a Schroedinger cat: he was both alive and dead, until they check every pod that made out.

Nat peered outside, leaving Claudia to talk down Lennox. Strangely, she was much better at this than the anthropologist. Natalia remained focused on herself, too scared to comfort another person who suffered from emotion regulation problem. She felt psychosomatic pains spreading from her spine to muscles. Natalia shivered, despite being sweaty and scared, the young woman could sense pangs of gnawing cold. It wasn't the weather or planet itself which was warm, dry. The low levels of oxygen immediately caused symptoms in a rather delicate woman who was prone to pressure induced migraines. Her heart began to pound in her chest and breathing increased to frantic pace. Natalia felt like a rabbit caught in a cage. "Claudia....CLAUDIA!" The chocolate hair woman called out as her eyes widened in sheer terror. Blue eyes were fixed on a large object towering over weedy trees? Mushrooms? It didn't matter now. What matter was that their pod landed only no more than hundred meters from the ancient ship.

Well...shit.

 

[CaptainObvious]

"I swore to protect them all" Reed echoed Roy's statement, he had, he said he'd bring them back home, Lennox always trusted him when he'd said that, and Lennox could have been the last one left on the ship. Left to die farther away from home than he'd ever been in his life, and worst of all, alone. "And I couldn't protect him"

Reed was realising just how big a catastrophic failure he was. He couldn't protect Lennox from his constant PTSD, he couldn't even cure that and he'd first met Lennox when he was only 19 ... granted they didn't spend any significant time together till Lennox was in his very early twenties yet still... Shouldn't he have gotten even a little bit better after three years of being together, like really together? He wondered if he was going to be any help at all to whoever else was out there, dead or alive, what could he do when he couldn't even help his partner get through PTSD he'd suffered for over 10 years? He'd failed as a soldier, taking longer than necessary to get through basic training because he had a dodgy heart, he'd failed as a lover, a captain, a pilot, possibly even a human being at this time. A heart attack almost seemed like mercy killing right now.

He wasn't having a heart attack though ... he wondered if he should take that as a sign, a small blessing. If his bad heart was going to give out, this was the optimal time for it to kick the bucket, but since it was still going, well he'd have to troop along ... He almost wanted to curse Lennox for being so good at surgery, if he'd done a mediocre job the heart implants would have failed by now and he'd have a totally normal heart attack. Fucking incredible genius ... Fuck him for fixing my damn heart and breaking it all the same.
He wanted to punch Roy in the face, despite the reassurances, he knew Roy didn't mean it, the cat (Schroedinger's cat or no), was well and truly out of the bag. Reed wouldn't claim to know Roy inside and out, but he knew Roy was the last person who'd be anyway sincere or sympathetic when he could bark about Reed screwing up and shirking his duties instead. He was half-man, half-machine, and machines weren't exactly famous for their apathy, even experimental VI's Reed had encountered pretended to be like humans, but were never quite genuine. He assumed Roy was treating him with the same feigned sympathy and knew better than to fall for it.
Fortunate for Roy, the strength had left Reed while his heart strategically tried to nuke itself. The most he'd be able to muster would be a weak, shaky slap and Reed wanted to retain some shred of dignity, he'd wait till he could lift his arm in a fist before clocking Roy in the face.

"I'm not having a panic attack you bloody- fuck. It's palpitations" Reed gritted his teeth. It felt like his chest was burning, searing hot, but he'd had these before, he'd had a mini-heart attack or two before, this wasn't a heart attack, he'd have known. "I'm not going to die" he winced. The burning subsiding a little, he decided to ignore Roy, who only stressed him out further, and think of Lennox. His shy smile, the way he got that distant look in his eye when a stray genius thought popped into his head and he had to write it down, the way he liked to sleep with his head against Reed's chest and said "Just making sure it's still working" sometimes. All the little things, his odd quirks that were calming and so utterly him that there was no possible way anyone else could recreate or replace him. The palpitations were subsiding and his shoulders, which were wracked with knots, began to slacken.

He was too tired to fight Roy now ... not to mention that would be his dumbest idea in history ... So instead, he had to think of the survivors ...maybe Roy was right ... maybe Claudia had got Lennox, she didn't appear to dislike him, and despite her shortness, she was tough. Lennox wouldn't leave the medbay without some kind of coercion, Claudia might have been just enough force.
"We need to start moving. Round up who we can and set up a camp" Reed didn't even know if he was captain anymore ... he had no ship and Roy outranked him anyway, who even gave a fuck about the chain of command out here anyway? Either way, they had to start taking action now, the longer they lingered, the more likely it was they'd find more bodies than survivors.
"We can set up a beacon, so if anyone's comms were jammed, they can find us by following it to the shuttle, as for a radio callout-" he coughed, his chest still felt tight, but it was like a tremor after an earthquake, unpleasant, but it wasn't half as devastating. "We can record an automated message and program it to send out the signal periodically. We'll find the crew, or they'll find their way here. I hope"

He hoped his legs could carry him without giving out. There were likely to be other injuries, he couldn't afford to go frail this early.

"If we can find someone who worked in tech or comms, we may even be able to manage to scrape together the parts and the means to send a message back home. Someone can come pick us up- We can warn them about the alien wreckage still being active and they'll keep a safe distance. We'll get the shuttle to just-about break the atmosphere and we'll get towed back out"
"Dammit Len, you have to be out here somewhere. I promised I'd bring us home ... we had plans, we had a future, this isn't where it all ends"

"The shuttle and pods have supplies, if we gather everyone we have up, we have a chance" he wondered if they'd be best splitting up, they'd round up twice as much crew in half the time but going alone had its risks too. Reed wondered if he'd even be able to get that far or had Roy decided he was more use watching the radio channels incase someone else called back. Part of him didn't want Roy to go fetch Len on his own ... fearing the super-soldier would only torment the fragile young medic, he needed Reed to find him and protect him, not Roy but could he even make it that far? "If Len is out there, promise me. Promise me, you will bring him back safe."



"I can't tell you that Nat because I don't know" Claudia said back, her tone was tense, she was trying not to yell out of sheer impatience, trying to compose herself ... What a dumb question I know as much as you do numbnuts. Roy didn't say shit about any pilots so how should I know?

She was broken out of her bad mood by Nat panicking, she knew Nat would be harder to subdue than Lennox, who, despite his violent PTSD flashbacks, seemed to resort to paralysis rather than aggression. She glanced back at Lennox one more time, he was definitely not moving unless she pulled him up, so she left him there and followed Nt toward the door of their tiny pod. Leaving the pod was a bad idea, Roy would come search for them that was the pla-

Suddenly the plan needed to change.
"We need to get out of here and get away from that thing" Claudia whispered, in case the dangerous vessle heard them ... she wasn't sure if it could but there was an uneasy fear in her gut all the same.
"See if we have some rope, we can tie the rope to the pod antenna and back away slowly. If Roy comes finding the pod, he can follow the trail back to us" she said. THey'd need Lennox to get his shit together if they were going to get away in good time and carry their supplies too. Of course, she could carry him too but as light as he was, it was cumbersome when they had other shit to do.

She jabbed at the comms radio again, maybe he hadn't heard their first message, why hadn't he replied?
"Colonel, its Scratch. We have a problem. We are mega close to the wreckage. Doctor isn't doing great and Nat is fuck all help as well" she said, fuck protocol, she didn't care much for the flowery radio language anyway. "Who is out there with you? Who survived? We're going to move away from the wreckage. Please come find us" she hated that word ... Please Roy, please come save us we're so helpless PLEEEEEEEAAASSSSEEEE. She felt like a whiny bitch but it was necessary.

 

[Poludnica]

There he was again - moaning about Lennox like a heartbroken widow. Roy wanted to beat some sense into Reed, but that could kill the already weakened captain. The soldier had troubles relating with people's mystery, but not entirely because of any inborn sociopathy. Roy knew loss: dead comrades, a wife walking out on him, an estranged daughter. He also knew how to get over it, as the best soldiers didn't make true attachments. Attachments held back, someone like him. After what military had spent on his body, Roy was literally owned by them. His eyes, his lungs, his adrenal and pituitary glands - all branded and paid for. Most of Roy's fellow augs had no personal life - what woman agreed to live with a half-machine? Amid all the loathing he felt for Reed, the chief's tiny part envied the captain this range of emotions. His own were dulled: fear, love, even anger. The wiring around amygdala and hippocampus efficiently inhibited strong responses. Reed stirred memories in Roy, an echo of a cheerful, a bit hyper young man who loved life and his daughter. "Then worry about every single one of them, not just your boyfriend." Roy snapped.

When Reed started wheezing like an old coot, Roy knew they were in trouble. Without a pilot, he would have to walk all the way to every pod. Fortunately for him, the captain had more life in him than Roy ever expected. He caught Reed's gaze: vengeful, angry. The soldier smiled in return, patting the captain on the back. "Good, use this anger to keep going." He offered, strangely pleased with Reed's reaction. Nothing pushed the man forward like hate - it brew determination. Roy knew it more than anyone else as the army turned every emotion into fury. It saved him more than once; before all the modification of course. Now Roy often didn't know what he felt - a downside to the frontal lobes changes.

"You finally grew a pair." The soldier smirked when Reed took charge. "I would like to remind you we already have a base." Roy added. The remote drones had already set up a crude camp with supplies, communication tower, a beacon, basic medical and archeologic equipment. There were also weapons, lyophilized food, some fresh clothes and water filtration systems. "Granted…It's only five hundred meters from the ship." He continued, wondering how safe such trip could be. Who had brought them down? An automatic system? Crew remnants? Angry AI? God only knew. "Maybe it's better to set up temporary camp here." It borderline a miracle they agreed on something, but it was a start. Reed was smart and could think on his feet, a trait Roy could admire. Maybe the captain could still redeem himself for being a selfish prick. If he decided to put Lennox's life above anyone else, Roy could still beat some sense into him.

The soldier gave Reed a surprised look, thinking the captain was still in shock. "You know that the radio signal from here will travel for the next one hundred fifty thousand years before reaching Earth, right?" Roy said cautiously. "The second missions is scheduled in twenty-four Earth months, we should wait for them and warn as they approach." He continued as a plan began to hatch in the back of his head….Could they? Maybe? If at least one engineer was alive. The chief decided to hold back the idea before he was sure it could be done. Raising false hopes never did anything good. "You record the message and set up a beacon, I will see if it's safe outside." Roy said and checked his weapons when a sudden thought struck him. He walked toward a small compartment and opened it. There were three breathing masks placed there. Roy fished one out and threw it at Reed. "Put this on, once I open those doors the local atmosphere will equalise the pressure. The oxygen levels are low and your heart has already problems with pumping blood. " The last thing he needed was to drag passed out Reed along.

"Huh?" Roy was almost at the button that would lower the ramp and open the doors when Reed decided to ask him a favour. He looked at the captain with an enigmatic look, his optics focusing on the captains tensed features. "I will do my best to bring anyone alive back safely." He stated as if Reed asked him if the Earth was round. "But I won't make promises I may not be able to keep." Roy added. A long time ago he had been taught a hard lesson of making such declaration to mothers and lovers of his team mates. It wasn't because of Lennox or Reed for that matter, but because it was simply impossible to tell. "I am willing to give life for every crew members out there, I was created to do just that. My main job from the very start with UN spec ops was to recover hostages, this is why they enlisted me with you, because of this imperative." Hoping it would calm Reed down, especially because it was the truth. He opened the doors and let the dry, warm air in. Immediately alien scents attacked his nostrils, something between turmeric and curry. An odd mixture. Roy hoped his body would quickly adapt to the oxygen levels, his lungs were improved to work on high altitudes, but still in Earth conditions. The soldier inhaled deeply, feeling dizzy for a moment when his muscles began to feel strangely heavy from the poor oxygenation. Shit, how he was supposed to fight fucking aliens when weak as a kitten.

Farther west, near the ancient vessel two women and one unfortunate stoned guy, were experiencing similar adaptation issues. At least Nat did. She slumped back on the seat, tired from the shouting. The young woman felt as if someone stole most air from her lungs. They made the simulation, it could take a day or two for them to adjust. That made running away much more difficult. "Fuck, I will pass out." Nat mumbled, having no strength to talk, yet she still felt the need to sneer at Claudia. "Fine, we can get away from this ship if you carry me too!" The anthropologist coughed before frantically gasping for air. She normally had very low blood pressure and had been warned low oxygen levels would hit her hard. Altitude sickness was a bitch. "Maybe we can find the main base." Nat wheezed, unhappy Scratch forced her to move and do something. With an anguished expression on her delicate features. Maybe the tests spoke the truth, she probably should have been on this mission, yet was headstrong enough for her father to buy the spot for his daughter. Boris Menshikov wasn't oppose the idea, feeling it would be a good PR to send Natalia into another Galaxy. Or just wanted to live with Vanya in peace, without her insulting his lover on every step.

After a bit of fumbling about, she dug out a thick, polymer rope that didn't seem to be very long. Natalia read the information engraved on it - 80 meters . "Oh great, we can run away entire 100 meters. " She snarked. "I bet aliens who built this thing aren't stupid, Claudia, they can follow the rope just like Roy." Natalia wasn't a soldier or a tactician but she certainly knew one thing: xenobiology and xenoanthropology, which took into account a variable like aliens. As silly as it sounded back on Earth. "Maybe we will leave crumbs behind, if aliens won't eat them, we can be like Hansel and Gretel. Do you think the ship is made out of gingerbread?" She sighed and pressed back into the back of her seat. Her head felt dizzy, focusing was getting difficult. Natalia wiped away sudden moist from her eyes. She began to regret lashing on Claudia, it wasn't her fault they were stuck next to the hostile ship. "Listen, I am sorry." The young woman said, apologies that rarely happened before to the arrogant, entitled heiress. "I can't stand we are so royally fucked." She added, holding back a pathetic sob. To survive a fall from orbit, just to die killed by some fossil aliens.

When Scratch pressed the comm button again,but this time, nothing answered by the annoying white noise that died soon after. Nat didn't really know what that meant, probably their antenna was busted, damaged during the fall. At least she wasn't the only person that whined like a little girl. She looked down at Lennox who probably shouldn't have been on this mission was well. Giving the fragile psyche. Who put together this team? A mad hatter? Oh wait, corporate executives. "Hey, Lennox, wake up." She said and gently poked the doctor, hoping he would wake up from the lethargy. Maybe the doc could figure out the way out of this mess, a genius he was.

 

[CaptainObvious]

"At least half of the crew is dead ... probably more" Reed shot back, the thought alone was sobering enough but to hear it out loud... his voice didn't sound like his own in his ears when paired with those words and his chest felt hollow. Saying it aloud only made it seem more real. "And Lennox is probably one of them" he added numbly, waiting for the unbearable pain of realisation to hit him. Any second now. Reed didn't care that he was a thirty two year old Citadel trained pilot with basic military training and a few years of captaining ships under his belt. He didn't care about his perfect mission record, he cared that he'd seriously screwed up this time. Looking back, he should have done things differently. Should have sent the copilot straight to the escape pods, he could have saved their life if he'd input the navigation codes himself instead of immediately adjusting their thrust. It would have only taken a second. That second was when the bridge exploded and blew the copilot to pieces. He could have saved Lennox too if he'd just swallowed his pride and dragged him with him, held onto him and never let him go. To hell with the consequences of outing himself to the whole crew, at least he'd have saved another two lives, probably more ...

His head ached, he liked to think it was because Roy had knocked him out, that certainly hadn't helped, but he felt certain the headache was guilt and stress. "Did you forget you knocked me in the fucking head?" Reed grumbled, he still felt a little disoriented, it was no surprise he was a little confused about the basics of their situation and just how far out they were. "We need to make sure the shuttle is protected from whatever pulled us down, it could be our only way out of this" Reed agreed. He and Roy would probably never see eye to eye on things, but at least they'd work together enough to survive. Reed knew Roy already thought poorly of him. Weak and heartsick, but for the time being he seemed content to just work around it. If they ever made it out of this alive though, he didn't expect Roy to be sympathetic and spare him. Reed suspected Roy would report every sordid detail and reed could look forward to an early retirement .. when his license was stripped from him and his lengthy flight record purged from the Citadel database. That was if they ever lived long enough to file a mission report at the end of this.

"So we sit and wait and hope to get rescued ... good plan" he said miserably, rubbing his throbbing temple. At least if half the crew had died, their rations would go a hell of a lot further, but that was hardly good news. Half the crew dead meant that half their manpower had been lost.
Instead of dwelling on it, he busied himself with adjusting the radio frequency to get a clearer sound. A pair of engineers responded to the call Roy had put out earlier. Reed was relieved, engineers would be very useful if they could salvage anything from the debris of their ship or of the shuttle needed work. Reed knew a lot about machines but the engineers were unparallelled experts.

Now with a second comm channel he readied an automated message for when the next human ship decided to fly within range. It would be 2 earth years till they left to reach this planet but just in case an FTL comm relay picked up the signal .. well it was wishful thinking but perhaps the message would make it back to earth before the second mission team took off.
"This is Captain Carter of the SS Conquerer. We have encountered hostiles and lost our ship, shuttle is intact and we await pick up. Do not break through atmosphere, I repeat do not break atmosphere. We were pulled down by unidentified hostiles. Please respond, over." He clicked the button to end the recording and blasted the signal skywards on the sub channel. If no one heard it for another 2 years ... well at least it was there for when someone came within range. Roys message was still going out to everyone within range on the planet, as long as their radios were intact.
So ... they had 2 engineers, a soldier (Claudia), and two mysterious civvies to pick up. At least there had been some survivors but Reed hoped that there would be more.

"Lets see how many people are alive out there" Reed sighed. Roys assurances were only mildly reassuring. Reed didn't think any volume of words would comfort him until he had Lennox in his arms again. A lovers embrace transcended all words. He tugged down his breathing mask, inhaling deeply, he felt like complete shit but at least he was able to breathe now. The alien air seemed to hit Roy pretty hard, it was subtle, but Reed noticed the slight wobble in his standing and how his arms slumped heavily for a moment. If Roy was having a tough time breathing alien air, Reed knew he'd have choked out there, at least right now he would, once his heart returned to its slightly more regular mode he'd have possibly managed.

Reed himself felt like his legs were made of jelly but after a few unsteady steps he managed to limber up. He'd be strong by the time they reached some survivors, he swore to himself.


"Save your breathe Nat" Claudia sighed, even her lungs felt utterly vacant as the alien environment leeched the air from her lungs. "I get that you're freaked out but right now you should just sit still and breathe deep"

The short rope was another shit thing to add to their list of shit that was going wrong. "Bloody great" she grumbled,wondering how to counter the short rope problem. She wracked her brain for survival tips she'd picked up after getting lost in hostile war zones. Leaving markings, picking out landmarks so she didn't lose her way ... think Scratch, think.

"He's not asleep Nat, he's in shock" She said, digging through their supplies as if hunting for survival clues.
Nat was right about how out of place she and Lennox were ... they weren't meant to be here at all. Lennox was only here because Reed was here ... the Citadel and Livco had recruited and entirely different medical team but Lennox refused to let Reed go ... so Reed refused to take the job unless Lennox came and Citadel agreed.
Nats wheezing seemed to distract Lennox somewhat from his terror, albeit only for a moment and he handed Nat a breathing mask to alleviate her dizziness.
Claudia sighed in relief that Lennox was coming around. EVen with his stress and the fact he only appeared half lucid at any given time, he was still more use to them awake than passed out.
"We need to get moving"Claudia declared.
"But Reed said-" Lennox started.
"Reed will find our dead bodies if we don't get away from that wreckage. We will leave a trail. Nat grab that rope and tie it to that railing" Claudia instructed. Her Swiss army knife would hate her at the end of this journey but she'd finally hatched a plan.
"Doctor, put on an oxygen mask, let's get moving, can you walk?" Claudia said shoving supplies into bags.
"I-i-I can't. I cant-" he panicked.
"Alright, alright. It's okay, don't worry about it" Claudia said, once they got moving hopefully he'd find his feet.
"Nat carry this pack, Lennox this is for you" she handed the two civvies the lighter packs and put the heaviest one on her back. She pulled Lennox up, awkwardly and through his arm over her shoulders. The height difference made it utterly awkward as she ambled out, but they were moving now at least.
"Nat, tie the other end of the rope to that tree thing" she pointed. Shuffling over to the tree and scratching an arrow into the bark with her army knife just above where the rope would lie.
"Arrow trail ... slightly more reliable than breadcrumbs right Menshikov?" Claudia sneered her head felt dizzy and her knees weak but she willed herself to keep going and hoped she'd adjust to alien air fast.