Here’s a little story I’ve been working on, happening sometime later in the RC timeline. The way it goes is this: Soddyite, Thorite, Parisite, Uraninite and Hematite have managed to find an old ship in one of the many abandoned hangars on their home planet. They reactivated and piloted it into space. During an FTL jump, they were intercepted by a Gem warship and promptly shot down.
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“...they punched a hole in our primary engine, we’re dead in the water,” came the call from the engineering deck as Uraninite was frantically trying to keep the engine core from exploding. Soddy was piloting the ship, trying her best to use the secondary thrusters to avoid a second salvo from the warship.
“We’re falling into the local gravity well,” Thorite reported from the console on the right, glancing towards the captain’s chair where Parisite sat. Soddy grumbled, her control slipping as another blast rocked the ship.
“They’re not pursuing us... maybe they think we’ll crash,” Hematite said, sitting behind the console to the left of the pilot’s station. “Can we even... survive a crash...?”
“We’ll find out soon enough. Urani, re-route all available power into the integrity field. Soddy, see if you can glide the ship as much as possible,” Parisite ordered.
“I don’t know how much you think we have left of the ship, but we ain’t gliding this bucket of bolts,” Soddy growled, a feeling of dread falling over her as the viewscreen became wreathed in flame from the atmospheric entry.
The ship groaned as it plunged into the atmosphere of this mysteriously green planet. Paris ordered the crew to abandon their stations and gather around the captain’s chair, before activating a powerful forcefield around it. She hoped that would be enough; the fast-approaching ground would answer that.
On the ground, the night was peaceful, with calm waves of a blue-tinted ocean lapping gently at the golden sands of this planet’s coastline.
The tranquil night air was split by the fire ball hurtling towards the ground at catastrophic speeds.
The ship comes to an abrupt, cataclysmic stop as it touches down. Fires raged across its broken hull as it came apart, covering the area in metallic debris. The inside of the ship was filled with smoke, the crew scattered around the bridge haphazardly. They had survived the impact thanks to the protective barrier, but it didn’t stop them from being thrown about.
“...ow...” Paris groaned, finding herself draped over the pilot’s console. She pushes herself off, squinting through the acrid black smoke that poured out of the engineering deck below. “Is... is everyone in one piece...?”
“Just about,” Soddy called out, pushing a large slab of metal off Thorite. Uraninite had fallen down into the engineering deck, with Hematite clambering to her feet after being slammed against the front wall. A large chunk of the bridge’s roof had been torn away, exposing the glittering stars in the cool night sky beyond. “We must have fallen onto the night side of the planet... it’s so dark out there...”
“No time for speculation, we need to get out of here before the core blows,” Uraninite said as she climbed out of the hazardous lower deck. Paris nodded, noticing some movement above. Was something climbing on the roof of the ship?
“There’s something moving out there... are you sure this planet is devoid of life?”
“The records didn’t say anything about this place,” Thorite said, glancing towards the blocked corridor leading towards the nearest exit. “We need to get this stuff out of the way if we’re gonna get out of here.” Hematite ran over and together with Thorite began moving debris out of the way. Soddy turned to Paris.
“I can squeeze through, I think... I’m gonna see what’s going on outside... maybe we could find someone to help us.”
“Alright, just be careful,” Paris told her. Soddy nodded, clambering through a small gap in the wreckage. Soon enough, she found herself outside, flopping down onto the wall of the trench the ship carved in the landscape. The air out here was clear, much more than the atmosphere back home, despite all the fires. She could hear footsteps nearby, climbing up the side of the veritable crater to peek over the edge.
“Hello? Is there anyone-” Soddy found herself staring at three figures in the dark, only partially illuminated by the raging fires from the ship. “Oh my...”
To be continued (probably) :P