HarperMadi
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- RP Date
- September YE40, immediately after Homecoming
- RP Location
- Sirris VI
Weightless. Hands not on the wheel. A flash of orange and then the black. A flash of warships fighting, coming into focus. Then black again. Blinding light of the sun and the screeching of an alarm, and brown hair swept aside by inertia as Rose lurched forward, orienting herself as she struggled to remember where she was and what she was doing.
Her lips were numb, her face tingling as her heart raced and her breathing started to slow, focusing. She could see the interior of her car, a Storm Rifle floating behind her in the mirror. Reaching over, she silenced the alarm, opening a diagnostic on the car's windshield glass.
Rate of tumble, speed, orbital insertion point, all there. With her flipping over five times in as many seconds, there was no way she could hit the atmosphere and survive, not inserting counter to the rotation of the planet, and certainly not with the shield at fifty percent. Her car hadn't been calibrated for the atmosphere yet, and reentry wasn't gonna be fun. But she remembered her instinct and skill as Thorn. Her hands found the controls of their own occord as she connected her Geist, using the gravitational motors to drag her spin to a stop, nose pointed prograde.
But hot reentries like this were never smooth. With a resounding bang and a string of curses from Rose, plasma flared across the nose and windshield, the hull vibrating as alarms screamed, and she fought the controls as the craft lost speed fast. Exterior mirrors shattered an blew away as the plasma closed in, the shield failing, and Rose pulled up, hard.
The angry blue of her HUD showed her horisontal stabilizer blinking, missing, and another bone shuddering crack resounded in the cabin, one of the canards snapping off in the strain. She had long ago lost the connection to the Anvil, but still she called out, praying the radio still worked. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Rose Ironhart of Section Six crash landing, Descent is supersonic, GPS in nonfunctional. I'm losing control fast!"
The plasma shied away as the remaining canard finally found bite, ripping her car counterclockwise in a wild spin that flipped her tail in the direction of travel, and Rose used this opportunity, feeling the nuclear fire bloom as she fired her car's main engines, until the casement blew out on the passenger side, the explosion throwing her car into a wild flat spin alongside the rotation she was already struggling to control.
"WARNING: 22000 FEET AND COUNTING" flashed across the windshield as Rose breathed, calmly pulling her car back under control.
"10000 FEET AIRSPEED 875" She gently pulled up, countering her working canard's drag with gentle pushes of the graviton motors
"5000 FEET AIRSPEED 700" Again, she pumped the brakes, trying to get the car to nose up as her fuel lines hemorrgaged hydrogen, her reactor starting to sputter.
"2000 FEET AIRSPEED 500" She nosed up harder, watching the ground come up frighteningly fast, her rate of descent not slowing. Trees became visible as the car switched remaining power into trying to use the gravity engines to slow her descent, and one ripped loose from its mooring, the car beginning to tumble, alarms still warning Rose to pull up. She aimed for a field, hoping the trees at the edge would slow her descent enough to not crush her body, reclined her seat, and hooked her hands in the five point safety harness.
The impact was tremendous. The car's nose bucked downwards as tree branches ripped the rear bumper off, slamming Rose up into the restraints. Instants later, the forces were wrenching her downwards as the body slammed against the foliage. Spinning sideways, it passed through and the front passenger corner hit the ground first, scraping an ugly gouge in carefully organized rows of grain. Again, the nose bucked up, trailing dirt and ruined plants, slamming down on the other side and sliding for a moment before the car rolled over and over again, windows shattering, pieces of metal and plastic throwing themselves from the vehicle before it hit a tree with an earth shuddering screech of metal and foliage. This stopped the car cold, ripping the lead from the batteries as fluids leaked and smoke billowed from the remains of the avionics computers.
Now the alien air cooled her face as she lay across the steering wheel, a gash in her forehead dripping on the carpet and fire licking from somewhere under the forward hood. The fire slowly flickered out as she came to her senses, shoulder throbbing head pounding. Moving her leg, she yelped in pain as she found it bent awkwardly. Rended metal across the passenger side marked where a large branch had caught the destroyed Zephyr about two feet off the ground. Trying to connect, she found the car had no power, and that the parachute had failed to deploy when it finally made a loud pop, shaking the car and flinging the fabric into the tree that had caught her.
Rose did her best to not cry out as the movement rocked her leg, checking over her other injuries before deciding her leg wasn't actually broken as she had feared. It seemed that she had dislocated her knee in the crash. So she sat back in her seat and thought for a moment. There was a good chance that her signal hadn't made it to the fleet, so she'd need some way of calling for an SOS. The car had no power, probably a damaged battery lead, which she could find under the seat. If nothing else, she still had the Storm Rifle and the cobbled together Centurion prototype which she could use to get some power through the comm uplink. She just needed to be able to move. No one had gotten to the point of making a wildlife sweep on the planet yet, and so she didn't know what, if anything, was down here. She also didn't know if the car was still leaking fuel. Fortunately, the breeze was fairly stiff at the moment, so any leaking fuel would be quickly blown away. The focus for her now was on survival.
Snapping her knee back into place did cause her to cry out, and her shoulder to start bleeding again. She knew she and Sarah often stashed tampons in the car should a feminine emergency come up, but she had trouble remembering where. Dangling bits of fabric caught her eye, one of the diaper bags that she kept in the back seat with the kids. She supposed that was as good a place to start looking as any.
Stay focused, Rose, you might have a concussion, and you're definitely hurt in a lot of ways. Just gotta get through this. Her constant reminders didn't keep her from biting her lip and giving a gutteral roar of pain as the tampon applicator was pressed into the bullet hole in her shoulder, and gently slid back, leaving the cotton behind to block the wound and ease the bleeding. A few deep breaths and Rose shakily sat up, reaching for the bottle of water she usually kept in a cup holder. One that had wound up on the dash board, nestled in broken glass. Another bit of movement let her sit on the center console, unbuckling the child seat riding shotgun as she struggled to push it out the windshield, before unhooking the straps keeping the passenger seat down and covering the battery access panel. Without power, the doors wouldn't open, and without power, even if her radio had miraculously survived, there was no way for her to get a signal out. There was still that annoying fuzziness at the corner of her vision, and she didn't want to black out again. Figuring taking a rest for a few moments would help, she kept considering her options.
A quick assessment of the situation later, Rose would be able to make inventory. What was and was not damaged, what was still salvagable and what was broken beyond repair. The crash was devastating. Due to the tumbling and smacking about, the warped metal and shattered glass severely damaged the seats. Whatever was in the trunk was long gone, as the top was ripped off and flew off somewhere in the forest. Her rifle and the prototype tumbled out of the broken windshield as the wreck finally came to a standstill.
Mjorlan sat eased back in his rocking chair. idly plucking at a banjo. His gaze moving over the orange foilage their world had. Slowly exhaling smoke from a large pipe, the elderly Gunja glanced to the sky. Long grey eyebrows raising as his eyes widened. That was no star nor meteor. It was none of the celestial bodies that usually passed. Noting a trail of smoke behind the object, the Gunja jumped to his feet, running inside. "Mirah, gem'me m'quadshot loaded please 'n thank ye," he barbled in the Gunja native language as he shoo'd one of the caravan guards away. "Get'm to my shack, if y'so kindly, then send'a crawler to his greatship to inform'im." The lanky ravenette nodded. Amber eyes looking at the slightly larger hunter as she stepped back. Before rushing in the living room, swiping a key from the stone furnace. Moving over to a locked display case.
Mjorlan in the meantime, had finally reached the aforementioned shack. A final glance to the still airborne object before he pulled the door open. Revealing a massive suit of primitively powered armour. Plated with chiseled bone and dressed with colourful scales. Though obviously worn by battle. Chipped and scraped, the entire suit was spick and span. The rumbling of an engine resounded, followed by a billow of smoke being pushed out of the spine of the armour. Sparks and rumbles audible from the volatile gasses escaping.
Shaking his hands momentarily, Mjorlan took a deep breath. "Come on on, my darlin', my sweet," he murmured to the machine. A soft sputter, before the suit sparked to life. Mjorlan let out a soft breath and pulled himself up on the chains that held his armour. Before loudly thudding on the floor. A soft tremble traveling throughout. And without more thought to it, he rushed out.
Mirah strapped the knives to her back, flicking up her own one-handed crossbow. Before moving a hand down to feel at the segregated pouch. Sorting explosive bolts from the regular. She heard an engine loudly rumbling, before picking up the odd-looking weapon from the table and rushing out. It looked like a primitive double-barreled shotgun, though the width of the barrels were far wider. And throughout the lengthy barrel sat a long ivory projectile, wich had been whittled to be pointy, a pattern carved around the sharp tip. Sliding her crossbow back into it's holster on her hip, she took a deep breath. "Oi-... Need some cavecrawler to 'ead to the kingdom, there's a strange object crashin' down planetside, go now!" Hearing a shout of affirmation, she turned on her feet again and rushed out.
Only to see Mjorlan having been able to gear up and in full sprint already. It was then that her jaw dropped as she saw the object coming extremely close to their lands. Moving, not due to forces of nature, a normal object wouldn't fall this way, but due to another force. Though she guessed the white-hot... Things on the bottom had something to do with it.
Finally catching up with the retired hunter, Mirah tossed the shotgun over. Mjorlan caught with a nod of gratitude, before cocking the thing and point it downwards as he ran with loud thumps. "Follow me," Mirah quipped as she took a deep snort. "I can smell'it from 'ere." The ex-hunter nodded and fell in behind the woman. Something he didn't mind at all, he estimated a long run. And the view wasn't too bad.
After thirty minutes, the two Gunja would finally show up to Rose's wreckage. A strange creature could be seen leaning up against the twisted metal, covered in one half of her face in red fluid like blood, and one hand cradled against her stomach as she took her weight off a braced knee, her supplies and salvage layed out. She hadn't started pulling parts from the crash that she would need tools for, though it seemed she was done gathering everything else.
Destroyed child seats could be used for supports, seatbelts for rope. The parachute could become her shelter if she could retrieve it. The knife from her glove box found its way to her hand through some power of flight, locking itself against her forearm as she leaned forward, limping to where some form of rifle had found its place in the dirt.
Picking it up, she brushed the dirt off, her eyes seeming to glow for a moment before she sighted it, checking something. Suddenly she spun and fired into the brush, one of the local predators being torn apart by the weapon as the rest of its pack turned tail. "Guess I have meat, now. Alright, first thing's first. Fire, then I get some kind of signal going."
Mjorlan glanced over at Mirah, who happened to do the same. With a soft nod from the female Gunja, she flicked out her crossbow. A soft click as she sauntered over to Rose's figure. Aiming for the throat. Her hand moved down to grasp at one of the knives, knuckles growing pale around the hilt. Her male counterpart had the shotgun trimmed at Rose the entire time as well.
Both surfaced from the orange shrubbery's cover. "Freeze dun'make a move," he shouted out loudly in the Gunja dialect. Meanwhile, Mirah had already bursted in a sprint. Having spotted what Rose most likely was going for. A loud blast resounded as Rose had managed to get her hands on the weaponry. Causing Mjorlan to stagger at the sound, though Mirah only picked up the pace. The cavedweller almost doubled her sprint in speed, jumping for Rose in a dropkick. Aimed for the Stormrifle, aiming to knock the weapon from her hands or at least get her out of the position of power she had with the exotic weapon. Trusting Mjorlan to take the shot when needed.
Rose's eyes went wide as the Storm Rifle was drop kicked out of her hands, and she spun, wildly slashing with her knife before her knee buckled and she fell, crying out. Still, she scrambled backwards. The knife detatched from her wrist, the ten inch blade ready to strike as it hovered menacingly around her before lashing out to cut the string of the crossbow and return to its mistress. She breathed heavily, closing one eye as blood welled from the gash in her forehead, her open eye glowing as she connected to the car behind her, setting off the alarm to try and drive these creatures off. Somewhere deep inside she knew that the flashing lights and loud squealing of a car alarm wasn't going to scare off a bipedal creature with a weapon aimed at her chest.
With her rifle in the dirt, she could only guide the knife to attack at range, and even that was a long shot.
Mjorlan raised his rifle, his finger squeezing the trigger ever so slightly. But he didn't fully commit, the thing was visibly spooked. Though as soon as Mirah would be at risk of getting actually hurt, he'd pull the trigger without hesitating.
Mirah rolled backwards to recover. Pulling up her crossbow and aiming it at Rose's chest. Though not before the string suddenly snapped. Flicking the knife around, she used it to slam down against the hovering thing as it was close. Aiming to knock it to the floor. Stomping her foot down on the flat of the blade if she could. Tossing her crossbow aside and flicking out a second blade.
A twitch traveled through the female. Though Mjorlan reacted a tad differently at the sound of the alarm. A loud explosion, possibly even louder than the storm rifle, errupted from his barrel as one of the ivory projectiles was shot from his weapon. Whizzing past Rose's and smacking into the car behind her. Clearing his throat, he adjusted his aim back to Rose. It wasn't too difficult to understand. They meant her no harm, but if she was dangerous, the next shot would be a hit. And judging from how deep the bullet had perforated into the vehicle, it seemed ill advised to be on the recieving end.
The explosion and crack of metal next to her forced Rose's mind back into rationality for a moment, and she looked up, her eye still glowing as she directed her blade to reattatch itself to her arm, slowly. She didn't retract it, nor did she make any other move to show she couldn't be a threat if they gave her reason to be one. But she had made it a lot harder for herself to strike back. She didn't know who these people were, and she would not be taken and be enslaved. However, she knew she needed medical care. Normally, in this situation, she would improvise and have a few scars to show for it, but she'd live long enough for her own people to rescue her. But the fact that there were people on this world forced her to change her plan, turn off the alarm, and pull the ring off her finger.
A careful eye was kept on the two creatures as she slowly pulled her laser pointer out of her pocket, shining it on one of the black dots on the ring's surface to activate the hologram. The other woman, of a similar species to her own, was family. A family she needed to get back to.
Holding her knives up, the lanky, feminine creature watched Rose carefully as the knife attached to her arm by some form of magic. Though it seemed that the paleskin seemed to relax at least somewhat. Causing Mirah to take a step back. Lowering her own knives as well. Glancing over to Mjorlan, the retired hunter spoke; "It be'll good," came the swift and harsh Gunja tongue, lowering his weapon in a disarming gesture. "She's hurtin' bad, 'elp'er." Mirah nodded, sheathing her knives fully and moving over to Rose. Hands raised, before she made a gesture, much as cradling a child. Before moving to scoop the woman up carefully, bridal style.
Meanwhile, Mjorlan swung the firearm over his shoulder with the strap, moving over to gather the massive projectile. A loud rumbling resounding as the primitive engine sputtered due to the exerted force. With a loud scraping and bending of metal, he managed to get it loose, muttering several profanities under his breath as the ammunition was damaged. The retired hunter, clad in the skeletal armour, then moved over to gather Rose's rifle.
"Freeze dun'make a move!" Rose echoed the harsh Gunja command, stiffening in Mirah's embrace, her arm rocking back to strike. "My... My people will come." Her voice wavered in the familiar Common, "They'll wonder where I went. She will come"
Nodding to the ring, Rose held her position, eyes glowing fiercely as her Geist searched for options, such as overloading her car's radio through the frame ground to send a massive radio burst visible from orbit.
Both Gunja stopped in their tracks, Mirah glancing down at the woman, tilting her head momentarily. Mjorlan rested a hand on his belt and shook his head. Moving on with a huff. Leaving only Mirah to deal with the woman.
Taking a deep breath, Mirah let out a bitter sigh. Taking a step back from Rose. Folding her arms as she thought on how to communicate the issue at hand. She pointed at the woman's leg. Then brought a finger up to her throat, slowly sliding it across. Before folding her arms again. She turned on her feet, digging her heel in the dirt, slowly scraping a line, before ending it off with two juxtaposed lines, to form a crude arrow in the dirt, once again, those brilliant crimson eyes befell Rose.
Rose's eyes flashed as she recorded the last ten minutes of her memory on the car's flight computer, wincing as she stood, her knife making a sharp scraping sound as the blade pulled back into its housing, a pair of carbide sharpeners honing the edge as the safety plates slid over the razor edged blade. Her brain quickly processed what she'd already heard, similar words and meanings, body language giving cues to words. She was by no means a linguist, but she could at least make an attempt at communicating. "'Hurtin bad. 'Elp'er"
She took a quick step towards Mirah, placing her hand on her chest. "Rose." Gesturing towards Mirah, she gave a questioning look, as though asking for the other's name.
Mirah stood and waited there, her arms folded and obviously not at all pleased with the woman, whether it was due to the cut bowstring or the fact Rose was taking so long in what still was a hostile environment, remained a mystery. An eyebrow arched however as Rose spoke in their native tongue. Furrowing slightly as she stepped forward, though Mirah still had a heart, the Gunja was swift on the uptake and soon, pulling Rose up in her arms as she had originally planned. "Mirah," she growled under her breath. With a last glance at the wreck, she broke into a jog, crimson eyes looking all around for any potential ambushes from the local fauna. Though intend on taking the odd creature to the farm and treat-... Her? There.
Her lips were numb, her face tingling as her heart raced and her breathing started to slow, focusing. She could see the interior of her car, a Storm Rifle floating behind her in the mirror. Reaching over, she silenced the alarm, opening a diagnostic on the car's windshield glass.
Rate of tumble, speed, orbital insertion point, all there. With her flipping over five times in as many seconds, there was no way she could hit the atmosphere and survive, not inserting counter to the rotation of the planet, and certainly not with the shield at fifty percent. Her car hadn't been calibrated for the atmosphere yet, and reentry wasn't gonna be fun. But she remembered her instinct and skill as Thorn. Her hands found the controls of their own occord as she connected her Geist, using the gravitational motors to drag her spin to a stop, nose pointed prograde.
But hot reentries like this were never smooth. With a resounding bang and a string of curses from Rose, plasma flared across the nose and windshield, the hull vibrating as alarms screamed, and she fought the controls as the craft lost speed fast. Exterior mirrors shattered an blew away as the plasma closed in, the shield failing, and Rose pulled up, hard.
The angry blue of her HUD showed her horisontal stabilizer blinking, missing, and another bone shuddering crack resounded in the cabin, one of the canards snapping off in the strain. She had long ago lost the connection to the Anvil, but still she called out, praying the radio still worked. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Rose Ironhart of Section Six crash landing, Descent is supersonic, GPS in nonfunctional. I'm losing control fast!"
The plasma shied away as the remaining canard finally found bite, ripping her car counterclockwise in a wild spin that flipped her tail in the direction of travel, and Rose used this opportunity, feeling the nuclear fire bloom as she fired her car's main engines, until the casement blew out on the passenger side, the explosion throwing her car into a wild flat spin alongside the rotation she was already struggling to control.
"WARNING: 22000 FEET AND COUNTING" flashed across the windshield as Rose breathed, calmly pulling her car back under control.
"10000 FEET AIRSPEED 875" She gently pulled up, countering her working canard's drag with gentle pushes of the graviton motors
"5000 FEET AIRSPEED 700" Again, she pumped the brakes, trying to get the car to nose up as her fuel lines hemorrgaged hydrogen, her reactor starting to sputter.
"2000 FEET AIRSPEED 500" She nosed up harder, watching the ground come up frighteningly fast, her rate of descent not slowing. Trees became visible as the car switched remaining power into trying to use the gravity engines to slow her descent, and one ripped loose from its mooring, the car beginning to tumble, alarms still warning Rose to pull up. She aimed for a field, hoping the trees at the edge would slow her descent enough to not crush her body, reclined her seat, and hooked her hands in the five point safety harness.
The impact was tremendous. The car's nose bucked downwards as tree branches ripped the rear bumper off, slamming Rose up into the restraints. Instants later, the forces were wrenching her downwards as the body slammed against the foliage. Spinning sideways, it passed through and the front passenger corner hit the ground first, scraping an ugly gouge in carefully organized rows of grain. Again, the nose bucked up, trailing dirt and ruined plants, slamming down on the other side and sliding for a moment before the car rolled over and over again, windows shattering, pieces of metal and plastic throwing themselves from the vehicle before it hit a tree with an earth shuddering screech of metal and foliage. This stopped the car cold, ripping the lead from the batteries as fluids leaked and smoke billowed from the remains of the avionics computers.
Now the alien air cooled her face as she lay across the steering wheel, a gash in her forehead dripping on the carpet and fire licking from somewhere under the forward hood. The fire slowly flickered out as she came to her senses, shoulder throbbing head pounding. Moving her leg, she yelped in pain as she found it bent awkwardly. Rended metal across the passenger side marked where a large branch had caught the destroyed Zephyr about two feet off the ground. Trying to connect, she found the car had no power, and that the parachute had failed to deploy when it finally made a loud pop, shaking the car and flinging the fabric into the tree that had caught her.
Rose did her best to not cry out as the movement rocked her leg, checking over her other injuries before deciding her leg wasn't actually broken as she had feared. It seemed that she had dislocated her knee in the crash. So she sat back in her seat and thought for a moment. There was a good chance that her signal hadn't made it to the fleet, so she'd need some way of calling for an SOS. The car had no power, probably a damaged battery lead, which she could find under the seat. If nothing else, she still had the Storm Rifle and the cobbled together Centurion prototype which she could use to get some power through the comm uplink. She just needed to be able to move. No one had gotten to the point of making a wildlife sweep on the planet yet, and so she didn't know what, if anything, was down here. She also didn't know if the car was still leaking fuel. Fortunately, the breeze was fairly stiff at the moment, so any leaking fuel would be quickly blown away. The focus for her now was on survival.
Snapping her knee back into place did cause her to cry out, and her shoulder to start bleeding again. She knew she and Sarah often stashed tampons in the car should a feminine emergency come up, but she had trouble remembering where. Dangling bits of fabric caught her eye, one of the diaper bags that she kept in the back seat with the kids. She supposed that was as good a place to start looking as any.
Stay focused, Rose, you might have a concussion, and you're definitely hurt in a lot of ways. Just gotta get through this. Her constant reminders didn't keep her from biting her lip and giving a gutteral roar of pain as the tampon applicator was pressed into the bullet hole in her shoulder, and gently slid back, leaving the cotton behind to block the wound and ease the bleeding. A few deep breaths and Rose shakily sat up, reaching for the bottle of water she usually kept in a cup holder. One that had wound up on the dash board, nestled in broken glass. Another bit of movement let her sit on the center console, unbuckling the child seat riding shotgun as she struggled to push it out the windshield, before unhooking the straps keeping the passenger seat down and covering the battery access panel. Without power, the doors wouldn't open, and without power, even if her radio had miraculously survived, there was no way for her to get a signal out. There was still that annoying fuzziness at the corner of her vision, and she didn't want to black out again. Figuring taking a rest for a few moments would help, she kept considering her options.
A quick assessment of the situation later, Rose would be able to make inventory. What was and was not damaged, what was still salvagable and what was broken beyond repair. The crash was devastating. Due to the tumbling and smacking about, the warped metal and shattered glass severely damaged the seats. Whatever was in the trunk was long gone, as the top was ripped off and flew off somewhere in the forest. Her rifle and the prototype tumbled out of the broken windshield as the wreck finally came to a standstill.
Mjorlan sat eased back in his rocking chair. idly plucking at a banjo. His gaze moving over the orange foilage their world had. Slowly exhaling smoke from a large pipe, the elderly Gunja glanced to the sky. Long grey eyebrows raising as his eyes widened. That was no star nor meteor. It was none of the celestial bodies that usually passed. Noting a trail of smoke behind the object, the Gunja jumped to his feet, running inside. "Mirah, gem'me m'quadshot loaded please 'n thank ye," he barbled in the Gunja native language as he shoo'd one of the caravan guards away. "Get'm to my shack, if y'so kindly, then send'a crawler to his greatship to inform'im." The lanky ravenette nodded. Amber eyes looking at the slightly larger hunter as she stepped back. Before rushing in the living room, swiping a key from the stone furnace. Moving over to a locked display case.
Mjorlan in the meantime, had finally reached the aforementioned shack. A final glance to the still airborne object before he pulled the door open. Revealing a massive suit of primitively powered armour. Plated with chiseled bone and dressed with colourful scales. Though obviously worn by battle. Chipped and scraped, the entire suit was spick and span. The rumbling of an engine resounded, followed by a billow of smoke being pushed out of the spine of the armour. Sparks and rumbles audible from the volatile gasses escaping.
Shaking his hands momentarily, Mjorlan took a deep breath. "Come on on, my darlin', my sweet," he murmured to the machine. A soft sputter, before the suit sparked to life. Mjorlan let out a soft breath and pulled himself up on the chains that held his armour. Before loudly thudding on the floor. A soft tremble traveling throughout. And without more thought to it, he rushed out.
Mirah strapped the knives to her back, flicking up her own one-handed crossbow. Before moving a hand down to feel at the segregated pouch. Sorting explosive bolts from the regular. She heard an engine loudly rumbling, before picking up the odd-looking weapon from the table and rushing out. It looked like a primitive double-barreled shotgun, though the width of the barrels were far wider. And throughout the lengthy barrel sat a long ivory projectile, wich had been whittled to be pointy, a pattern carved around the sharp tip. Sliding her crossbow back into it's holster on her hip, she took a deep breath. "Oi-... Need some cavecrawler to 'ead to the kingdom, there's a strange object crashin' down planetside, go now!" Hearing a shout of affirmation, she turned on her feet again and rushed out.
Only to see Mjorlan having been able to gear up and in full sprint already. It was then that her jaw dropped as she saw the object coming extremely close to their lands. Moving, not due to forces of nature, a normal object wouldn't fall this way, but due to another force. Though she guessed the white-hot... Things on the bottom had something to do with it.
Finally catching up with the retired hunter, Mirah tossed the shotgun over. Mjorlan caught with a nod of gratitude, before cocking the thing and point it downwards as he ran with loud thumps. "Follow me," Mirah quipped as she took a deep snort. "I can smell'it from 'ere." The ex-hunter nodded and fell in behind the woman. Something he didn't mind at all, he estimated a long run. And the view wasn't too bad.
After thirty minutes, the two Gunja would finally show up to Rose's wreckage. A strange creature could be seen leaning up against the twisted metal, covered in one half of her face in red fluid like blood, and one hand cradled against her stomach as she took her weight off a braced knee, her supplies and salvage layed out. She hadn't started pulling parts from the crash that she would need tools for, though it seemed she was done gathering everything else.
Destroyed child seats could be used for supports, seatbelts for rope. The parachute could become her shelter if she could retrieve it. The knife from her glove box found its way to her hand through some power of flight, locking itself against her forearm as she leaned forward, limping to where some form of rifle had found its place in the dirt.
Picking it up, she brushed the dirt off, her eyes seeming to glow for a moment before she sighted it, checking something. Suddenly she spun and fired into the brush, one of the local predators being torn apart by the weapon as the rest of its pack turned tail. "Guess I have meat, now. Alright, first thing's first. Fire, then I get some kind of signal going."
Mjorlan glanced over at Mirah, who happened to do the same. With a soft nod from the female Gunja, she flicked out her crossbow. A soft click as she sauntered over to Rose's figure. Aiming for the throat. Her hand moved down to grasp at one of the knives, knuckles growing pale around the hilt. Her male counterpart had the shotgun trimmed at Rose the entire time as well.
Both surfaced from the orange shrubbery's cover. "Freeze dun'make a move," he shouted out loudly in the Gunja dialect. Meanwhile, Mirah had already bursted in a sprint. Having spotted what Rose most likely was going for. A loud blast resounded as Rose had managed to get her hands on the weaponry. Causing Mjorlan to stagger at the sound, though Mirah only picked up the pace. The cavedweller almost doubled her sprint in speed, jumping for Rose in a dropkick. Aimed for the Stormrifle, aiming to knock the weapon from her hands or at least get her out of the position of power she had with the exotic weapon. Trusting Mjorlan to take the shot when needed.
Rose's eyes went wide as the Storm Rifle was drop kicked out of her hands, and she spun, wildly slashing with her knife before her knee buckled and she fell, crying out. Still, she scrambled backwards. The knife detatched from her wrist, the ten inch blade ready to strike as it hovered menacingly around her before lashing out to cut the string of the crossbow and return to its mistress. She breathed heavily, closing one eye as blood welled from the gash in her forehead, her open eye glowing as she connected to the car behind her, setting off the alarm to try and drive these creatures off. Somewhere deep inside she knew that the flashing lights and loud squealing of a car alarm wasn't going to scare off a bipedal creature with a weapon aimed at her chest.
With her rifle in the dirt, she could only guide the knife to attack at range, and even that was a long shot.
Mjorlan raised his rifle, his finger squeezing the trigger ever so slightly. But he didn't fully commit, the thing was visibly spooked. Though as soon as Mirah would be at risk of getting actually hurt, he'd pull the trigger without hesitating.
Mirah rolled backwards to recover. Pulling up her crossbow and aiming it at Rose's chest. Though not before the string suddenly snapped. Flicking the knife around, she used it to slam down against the hovering thing as it was close. Aiming to knock it to the floor. Stomping her foot down on the flat of the blade if she could. Tossing her crossbow aside and flicking out a second blade.
A twitch traveled through the female. Though Mjorlan reacted a tad differently at the sound of the alarm. A loud explosion, possibly even louder than the storm rifle, errupted from his barrel as one of the ivory projectiles was shot from his weapon. Whizzing past Rose's and smacking into the car behind her. Clearing his throat, he adjusted his aim back to Rose. It wasn't too difficult to understand. They meant her no harm, but if she was dangerous, the next shot would be a hit. And judging from how deep the bullet had perforated into the vehicle, it seemed ill advised to be on the recieving end.
The explosion and crack of metal next to her forced Rose's mind back into rationality for a moment, and she looked up, her eye still glowing as she directed her blade to reattatch itself to her arm, slowly. She didn't retract it, nor did she make any other move to show she couldn't be a threat if they gave her reason to be one. But she had made it a lot harder for herself to strike back. She didn't know who these people were, and she would not be taken and be enslaved. However, she knew she needed medical care. Normally, in this situation, she would improvise and have a few scars to show for it, but she'd live long enough for her own people to rescue her. But the fact that there were people on this world forced her to change her plan, turn off the alarm, and pull the ring off her finger.
A careful eye was kept on the two creatures as she slowly pulled her laser pointer out of her pocket, shining it on one of the black dots on the ring's surface to activate the hologram. The other woman, of a similar species to her own, was family. A family she needed to get back to.
Holding her knives up, the lanky, feminine creature watched Rose carefully as the knife attached to her arm by some form of magic. Though it seemed that the paleskin seemed to relax at least somewhat. Causing Mirah to take a step back. Lowering her own knives as well. Glancing over to Mjorlan, the retired hunter spoke; "It be'll good," came the swift and harsh Gunja tongue, lowering his weapon in a disarming gesture. "She's hurtin' bad, 'elp'er." Mirah nodded, sheathing her knives fully and moving over to Rose. Hands raised, before she made a gesture, much as cradling a child. Before moving to scoop the woman up carefully, bridal style.
Meanwhile, Mjorlan swung the firearm over his shoulder with the strap, moving over to gather the massive projectile. A loud rumbling resounding as the primitive engine sputtered due to the exerted force. With a loud scraping and bending of metal, he managed to get it loose, muttering several profanities under his breath as the ammunition was damaged. The retired hunter, clad in the skeletal armour, then moved over to gather Rose's rifle.
"Freeze dun'make a move!" Rose echoed the harsh Gunja command, stiffening in Mirah's embrace, her arm rocking back to strike. "My... My people will come." Her voice wavered in the familiar Common, "They'll wonder where I went. She will come"
Nodding to the ring, Rose held her position, eyes glowing fiercely as her Geist searched for options, such as overloading her car's radio through the frame ground to send a massive radio burst visible from orbit.
Both Gunja stopped in their tracks, Mirah glancing down at the woman, tilting her head momentarily. Mjorlan rested a hand on his belt and shook his head. Moving on with a huff. Leaving only Mirah to deal with the woman.
Taking a deep breath, Mirah let out a bitter sigh. Taking a step back from Rose. Folding her arms as she thought on how to communicate the issue at hand. She pointed at the woman's leg. Then brought a finger up to her throat, slowly sliding it across. Before folding her arms again. She turned on her feet, digging her heel in the dirt, slowly scraping a line, before ending it off with two juxtaposed lines, to form a crude arrow in the dirt, once again, those brilliant crimson eyes befell Rose.
Rose's eyes flashed as she recorded the last ten minutes of her memory on the car's flight computer, wincing as she stood, her knife making a sharp scraping sound as the blade pulled back into its housing, a pair of carbide sharpeners honing the edge as the safety plates slid over the razor edged blade. Her brain quickly processed what she'd already heard, similar words and meanings, body language giving cues to words. She was by no means a linguist, but she could at least make an attempt at communicating. "'Hurtin bad. 'Elp'er"
She took a quick step towards Mirah, placing her hand on her chest. "Rose." Gesturing towards Mirah, she gave a questioning look, as though asking for the other's name.
Mirah stood and waited there, her arms folded and obviously not at all pleased with the woman, whether it was due to the cut bowstring or the fact Rose was taking so long in what still was a hostile environment, remained a mystery. An eyebrow arched however as Rose spoke in their native tongue. Furrowing slightly as she stepped forward, though Mirah still had a heart, the Gunja was swift on the uptake and soon, pulling Rose up in her arms as she had originally planned. "Mirah," she growled under her breath. With a last glance at the wreck, she broke into a jog, crimson eyes looking all around for any potential ambushes from the local fauna. Though intend on taking the odd creature to the farm and treat-... Her? There.
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