Pain, blinding pain was what Maarena woke up to. She found herself sprawled on the floor of the ship as she opened her eyes. Everything was bathed in the red light of the emergency power of the ship which was accompanied by the constant buzzing of broken electronics and alarms.
She found it hard to breathe, her sides hurting as she tried to move, as well as see as her left eye was swollen shut. It hurts too much to move too much. Were her ribs broken? She tried reaching out for ribs before wincing as she was introduced to the giant bruise that was her side. At least she couldn't feel anything wet as bleeding all over her more expensive suit would have been a cherry to top this already shitty scenario.
Slowly, she tried righting herself. She tried to push herself towards the nearby wall. The process was slow but soon enough she was propped herself up against the metal wall.
Where was she? Where was Scipio? She asked herself as she tried to find her partner. Struggling to turn her head to her side, she found the Turian passed out beside her. For a second she thought he wasn't breathing any longer before she heard his pained groan.
“Scipio... Scipio” She gasped, trying to breathe evenly even as she felt something poking against her lungs. She definitely had a broken rib. Where was her omnitool? She needed it to apply the some medigel so she can at least function and focus enough to used her biotics.
A flash of orange in the corner of her eyes alerted her where her omnitool was and she could sigh in relief as it wasn’t broken from the crash. Reaching out for it, she struggled for a bit before she was able to use her biotic to move it towards her. Grabbing it as soon as it got close enough, she shakily applied the medigel to herself
She sighed in relief as the pain recede enough to think properly as well as move. Getting up, she got crawled towards Scipio to check on him. “Scipio” she prodded before Scipio coughed as he woke up.
He looked relatively well as he rolled to his back and looked up to her. “Did you get the license of the transport that hit us?”
“No you silly Turian” Maarena smiled as she pulled him in a tight hug. For a few minutes, they held each other before Scipio pulled away.
“Ok… so, we survive. Help me up so we can check if the ships still in one piece”
“This is why I ask you to exercise. If I’m not here you’re going to be stuck there like a spiked palavan testudo” Maarena replied as she struggled to pull him upright, groaning as her partners weight.
“Yeah yeah, No more midnight snacks” Scipio replied as he got up, checking his feet if anything was broken before he was satisfied
“And snacks in general. You have snacks in between meals”
“Says the woman who drinks caffeinated drinks like people drink water” This comment earned Scipio a playful punch on the shoulders.
Walking up to the console, they finally got a proper look of this alien planet. They… were in a swap or a glade from how the glowing water flows on the ground while trees and plants reminiscent of Thessia’s marshlands filled the landscape illuminating the area while unnerving dark blue clouds roiled across the sky occasionally flashing with forks of lightning and echoing with roars of thunder.
Here, their ship was stuck in a giant tree bare of leaves. The tree’s dark gnarled branches wrapped around the ship as it seems to take on the ships considerable weight without much problem aside from the occasional creaks and groans.
Everything had an almost eerie glow not quite unlike the Eezo filled plants of the planet. The glow though was brighter with all sorts. So far there wasn’t any animal to be seen but that may change once they got outside.
While Scipio checked on the status of the ship via diagnostics accessed in the still somewhat intact console, Maarena sat down and tended to her injuries. She applied more Medigel on the bruising, silently praising the humans for ignoring the rules when they developed this wonder material, before she asked “I’m not the only one that saw that the planet we are in have a mouth right?”
The sky was illuminated briefly by a large flash of lightning before the roar reverberated across their partially ruined craft.
“It was fucking creepy alright… What the hell happened anyways? At first we were just stuck there before all of the sudden we go pulled in here before we pass out from hitting our heads on the wall of our ship… Why does is it that this starting to sound likes that cult classic attack of the zombie planets…”
“I don’t know… the planet didn’t look diseased since we are in its surface… It looks peaceful anyways... plus where’s the lava? Didn’t we see volcanoes?” As if by chance, a black mountain far in the horizon suddenly erupted with columns of the red lava spewing on to the surface while plumes of black smoke rose up to fill the skies in the horizon with a hellish red glow.
“Well… at least we’re lucky to not land there.” He replied as he stared at the mountains erupting with the anger of the ancient gods before adding “Good news and bad news… good news is aside from the eezo core, everything’s operational. Bad news is, Eezo core’s breached and we probably violated several citadel environmental laws with all the eezo our shipped dump in the area.
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“Well shit” Maarena replied… they were stuck here
“We can still send the more powerful distress signal since our electric generators still up and running with plenty of juice to last us the months ahead… it’ll probably take us a month or so before they notice we’re missing since we come back regularly for supplies which I forgot we are running out of… this is assuming the planet we are in doesn’t actually move on its on since that would be crazy”
“Well… everything about this whole situation is crazy so it doesn’t surprise me if we are somehow kidnapped by a planet of all things”
“Considering everything… we’re probably still lucky since I’m picking up some extranet signals and while we’re still picking them up I’m sending the distress call and hope it gets through” With a few clicks, their hope was now sent into the void and hopefully to the nearest comm buoy.
“Well... what now? I mean… we can stay all day here” Asked Maarena.
“I propose… we go out and explore. Maybe we’ll find something edible”
“Oh no no no… I’m not confident in going out now and our suits aren’t rated for handling NBC’s. For all we know there might be some hidden pathogens down there”
“Come on, the place looks… safe… safe-ish~?” He wasn’t sure himself.
“Didn’t you say that this might be a zombie planet?”
“Well… didn’t you say that the planet doesn’t look like its diseased?”
“Touché”
For a minute, they just sat there in silence while lightning continued flashing in the distance.
“Ok, let’s go out and if anything goes bad we go back her and hole up and try to wait up until we get rescued” Suggested Maarena
“Sounds reasonable but first, let’s get some weapons and provisions” The two nodded and suited up and armed themselves. Nothing too fancy, just your average civilian protection. Scipio had the better weapon since the rifle he used was used for hunting armored Palaven megafauna.
Entering the airlock, they then went to open the door on the rear of the ship. A 20 ft drop stared back at them.
“I’ll get the rope”
Attaching some rope to the ship, Scipio got down first as he wasn’t that injured plus he was better armed.
“This isn’t too bad… not seeing Eezo anywhere… weird. Even in the omnitool scan, nothing. Must have been swallowed by the earth already” He commented after scanning the surrounding with his omni tool. He then reached out for the tree. It felt… metallic, almost like a Palaven plant actually and looked at some of the eezo leftover which came from the leak above
"You know what's weird... scans saying that its earth life all over the place but it doesn't look anything like it. I mean just look at this tree we're stuck in." He said as he aimed at the scanner at it. "Says here it's an Earth oak tree... crossed with some mangroves and... reinforced by aluminum on its skin?"
"Airs fine as well if mildly radioactive though the radiation seems like we're higher up in the atmosphere. Nothing to worry about since we have suits"
Rappelling down, Maarena touched the ground and was surprised she didn’t sink too much. It was just ankle deep water which faintly glowed. She frowned as she aimed at the water. Nothing... just the usual load of microbes you'd find in the swamp near a human settlement... this is weird... its not like this place looked settled which reminds her they should probably check the air for radio signals just in case.
“Nothing biological that's dangerous lurking as well” Scipio added as he scanned the surrounding. Down on the ground, they could now here the multitude of insect sounds and along with the hoots and cries of the strange creature hidden by the foliage.
"I mean the waters glowing but the scanners saying its just mundane bioluminescence." he commented as he kicked the water which caused a shining splash.
Maarena was about to check the nearby brushes when she stepped on something smooth and slipped. She cried out before muck and glowing water splashed all over her.
Scipio turned and hurriedly got to her side. “Are you ok?” he asked as he reached down to give her a boost. It was slippery alright and he wouldn’t want her to slip back.
Maarena stared at ground for a moment before she reached up and pulled herself up. “I’m… actually fine… better even…” She said as she stood up. She jumped a bit on her leg, finding it healed. No pain, nothing.
"Umm Scipio... there's supposed to be a bruise on my cheeks right?" She asked as he used the front camera mode of her omnitool to check on her cheeks to find nothing... she didn't touch anything plus they were wearing space suits which are pretty sealed. She didn't skimp on paying for these since it's unnerving to wear something thin in vacuum.
“Yeah... what the heck..." Scipio replied as he held her helmet, having her turn to the side to see it all gone. "'Hey, what ever it was, it even removed that skin tag you had on your eyelid that you always wanted to remove"
He could only chuckle for a few second before he was pushed down by his irate girlfriend and pelted with mud. He fought back and soon the first mud wrestling in the planet commenced.
"You know our Xenobiology 101 teacher would kill us if he see us like this"