Pieces of the ship rose up into the air. Large sheets of metal bent at angles to suit Chrysalis' vision. Circuit boards slid into place as wires connected them. What was once a ship meant to fly through space was now a small fortress. Once everything was in place, the engines of the ex-ship roared to life. Lights flashed red on the consoles before turning green and fading back to normal. The weapons on the ship were repurposed to be turrets. If any hostile threat within range, it would be a pile of flesh and bone mere seconds
Chrysalis managed to stand up with the help of Almira. The two made a slow walk towards their new temporary home. Once inside, Chrysalis took some of the cushions from their original escape pod and parts of a chair from one of the fighter jets she tore apart and fashioned a bed of some sort. She gently laid down on her right side. A hiss escaped her muzzle as she did so. Her left side nearly screamed in pain. 'I guess the adrenaline finally wore off,' Chrysalis thought. While changeling chitin was strong and durable, it had its breaking points. It was also a pain and a half to recover from having it broken. Chrysalis knew she had two options left before her. She could either wait until her carapace healed on its own or she could drain Almira and Ge-Foli of their emotions and accelerate the process. As much as she would have liked to be treated already, she also did not need two husks with her. She would need all the resources she had if she were to plan on leaving and meeting up with some form of The Empire.
So, Chrysalis decided to take the long route to heal herself. She would be mostly out of commission for a month at the very least, but that would be fine as long as nothing else happened to them. Almira had returned with a few rolls of gauze and other medical supplies. Almira was about to clean Chrysalis's wounds herself, but she was stopped by the changeling who took the supplies out of her hands with her emerald aura. "I can take care of this myself," Chrysalis snapped, "You need to go take inventory."
"I'm just trying to help Chrysalis," Almira retorted.
"Well, your efforts would be better spent looking over what supplies we have," stated Chrysalis, "You're a better person at that than me. You're always the one keeping track of nearly everything back at the research ship." Almira looked as if she wanted to continue arguing, but she stopped herself. Whether it was because of everything that has happened finally catching up to her or something else, Chrysalis didn't know nor did she care at the moment. After nearly half an hour of Chrysalis patching herself up and Almira taking inventory of their supplies, the group took some time to rest for the moment.
Almira had reported that, surprisingly, they more supplies than they thought when Chrysalis broke the ship apart. Together, they had quite a few medical supplies, enough to fix up a small militia. She also found some food rations from both the escape pod and the other space crafts. Amongst the three of them, they could survive off the rations for almost two months alone! That should have been good news, which it was, but Chrysalis knew that she wasn't going to last that long.
She was a changeling. She needed positive emotions to keep her body in check. She managed to scrape by in Equestria when her hive was taken from her, but just barely. She managed to survive off of the free positive emotions of the researchers on the ship because of the sheer number of them. However, she was left with two beings to possibly draw emotions from on a planet that she had no knowledge of. That wasn't going to cut it here. Her best bet was to go out and drain some unsuspecting wildlife or, if she was lucky enough, find some civilization to integrate herself into. However, her luck in finding the latter was near zero. By the time her body healed, however, she doubts that she would be strong enough even to shapeshift. This situation was starting to get on her nerves.
Thoughts about her current situation were pushed away when she saw the multiple flashes from Ge-Foli. 'We really need to find a body of water for her,' Chrysalis thought, 'These flashes are starting to get annoying.'
"Almira," started Chrysalis. The akilion turned her head towards her. "I believe I saw a body of water to the..." Chrysalis looked at the monitor for a few brief moments as she looked at the holographic display of the planet and estimated where they were. " East of here before we landed. I think I can say for all of us that Ge-Foli would be glad to have a body again." In response, Ge-Foli flashed multiple times seeming to agree with Chrysalis.
"So, you want me to go?" she asked.
"Well, it can't be me," Chrysalis answered, "I'm going to have to stay here to try and recover. Your species is regarded as living war machines. I'm sure you can handle whatever decides to pick a fight with you. Plus, it would do well for you to get some fresh air, collect your thoughts." There was a brief moment of silence as a thought passed Chrysalis' mind. "Now that I think about what I said if something does poorly choose to fight you, can you bring it here on your way back? We can have a BBQ tonight!" Almira chuckled at Chrysalis' humor while Chrysalis drank in some of the akilion's mirth. Small moments like these proved to be highly effective.
Soon, the furry woman headed off from their base of operations with the core of Ge-Foli in tow. Chrysalis wanted to send Okdi along with them for mapping purposes. But she decided against it. While Okdi wasn't to most effective in terms of combat, it would prove useful in helping her if something were to make its way into the base. A few seconds would all it would buy for her, but a lot can happen in a few seconds. As the two of them disappeared in the forest, Chrysalis was left alone with the low hum of the base's engines. It did not take long before Chrysalis started talking to herself again, expressing her worries and doubts. It didn't take long for her to catch on to what she was doing and then began to reprimand herself. She was a strong, changeling queen! Sure, she had more than a few setbacks and was now countless galaxies away from her homeworld, but she would come out on top in the end. She could, no she would handle a few hours of being alone with barely any communications.
She couldn't handle it.