Chapter 1: Waking Up (R)
“Uhg… “
The constant ambience of settling broken metals and ripped sparking wires was disrupted by the lone grunt. It was nearly inaudible compared to the shattered machinery surrounding its source. Nevertheless, it was heard loud and clear by the sole occupant currently conscious. Primarily because he’d been the one grunting in the first place.
Lying against one of the far walls was a man clad in dirty white armor, sans the helmet. He groaned again as another wave of dull pain flowed through his body, his teeth and fists clenching instinctively afterwards.
Slowly, his closed eyelids rose, exposing a set of brown irises to the harsh yet dim red lights that were illuminating the transport area. Those brown irises quickly began moving left and right, each pass making the blurry images surrounding him more clear in his mind.
“W-What happened?” The man muttered in a semi-raspy voice, lifting up his left arm so his hand could rest atop his aching head.
The first thing the trooper noticed was the fact that the area was engulfed in reddish black darkness, the occasional spark of electricity offering a split second of fresh light every now and then. There were also streaks of light from apparent cracks in the wall on his left, not nearly enough getting through to offer any clear visibility.
Luckily, his eyes were rapidly adjusting to the red tinted darkness, allowing a faint outlined picture to come into focus. He saw the silhouette of the broken hand holding rail that should have been at the top of the bay, along with a couple bodies clad in the same white armor that he was wearing. The walls were also at an angle, making him believe that the ship he’s currently in is either balancing itself on its side somehow, or was more likely propped up against something.
Against his body’s protests, the trooper pushed himself up from the wall and got into a semi-stable standing position. There was a slight twinge of pain in his left leg, but he ignored it for the most part. He'd deal with it later, for he had other things to check on first. He advanced towards the closest armored body and crouched beside it, his left hand reaching over to the fallen troopers neck in search of a pulse.
Nothing.
He moved onto the next body and mimicked his actions from before.
Again, nothing.
He checked two others, pressing his fingers more firmly on their necks each time. He was beginning to move more frantically with each lack of a pulse.
”No. No no no, the blasted crash couldn’t have killed them all!”
Yet, each pulse check afterwards proved otherwise. It didn’t take long for the realization to settle in his mind, the realization that he’d somehow been the only survivor within the transportation bay. If he was lucky, then perhaps the pilots of the ship had gotten the better end of the stick and had also survived. But if the crash had been bad enough to kill all but one trooper in the main transportation bay…
”I’m not getting anywhere just by standing in here. I’ve gotta contact the G.A.R. and get off whatever rock we crashed on. Hopefully there’s a spaceport relatively nearby.” He hoped, mentally wishing that he'd be able to figure something out sooner rather than later.
Although, there was still a chance. He rose up his left arm, where his rectangular com link was anchored on his armor. He activated it, and to his luck, it glowed green in confirmation that it was working properly.
“Hello? This is CT 3719, nickname Strider. Anyone copy?” ‘Strider’ inquired.
He waited a couple of seconds, but his only reply was silence. He didn’t even get any static, which was worrisome. Wherever he was, it had somehow completely severed his com-link from any satellites and/or outposts on the planet. This meant that getting back to the G.A.R. would be quite a bit more challenging.
With nothing left to do within the confined transportation bay, Strider approached the blast door that was slanted upwards. He knew it would be a long shot, but he tried the manual override mechanism to open the door. Just as he’d predicted, the door didn’t show any signs of budging. Luckily, there's a failsafe for these exact situations.
Judging by the fact that he hadn’t suffocated yet, and the vast amount of breaches in the walls. It was safe to assume that wherever the ship had crashed, it at least had some sort of breathable atmosphere. Still, Strider took a couple extra minutes to search the area for his helmet.
It didn’t take him long to locate it, having been only a couple feet away from his original resting position. He picked up the sideways helmet and straightened it out in his hands, giving the piece of armor a quick but thorough once-over.
Upon seeing it in alright condition, the trooper put it over his head, completing his armor once more. The built in HUD sprung back online almost immediately, illuminating the inside of the helmet with dull neon blue light. Much to his displeasure, the radar in the bottom left corner of his visor didn’t seem to activate fully. Instead the spot was hosting a constant flickering image of an empty circle as if it were being scrambled, completely useless for him right now.
”No use crying over broken tech, time to get a layout of the land.” Strider mentally exclaimed, turning to face his original target.
He approached the panel hosting the manual override switch once again, only this time he pushed a small red button just to the right of it. With the failsafe initiated, Strider quickly backed away from the door. A couple seconds later and the door had quite literally blown itself open, courtesy of a controlled micro-explosion.
The transportation bay was instantly bathed in fresh bright light, and his helmets visor quickly filtered out the sudden rays from the nearby star. It didn’t take long at all before a vast amount of trees and grass covered ground came into focus. There were tons of trees surrounding him, all standing tall and close, giving off a rather dreary and cagy vibe. Their oversized leaves also created patches of shadows on the ground, offering some cover for any wildlife to bask in and stay cool. There were also a handful of bushes around, some rustling gently in a faint but noticeable breeze.
”A forest, and a healthy one at that.” Strider noted, before hopping down from the transportation bay.
His white and grey boots met the grass rich dirt, remaining still and steady regardless of the drop. Strider first looked to his left, immediately noticing a wide trail of destroyed wildlife. A large dirt ditch had been created thanks to the L.A.A.T.’s underbelly grinding against it, and more than a handful of trees seemed to have met the front of it as well.
Knowing that there was nothing of current value that way, Strider turned around and began walking towards the opposite end of the ship. As he walked, he glanced back over at the scenery on his left. Strangely enough, he couldn’t see or hear any sort of wildlife. This meant that either there wasn’t that much animalistic wildlife around, or more likely the crash had scared off whatever had originally been there.
That, or they’d been standing in a rather unfortunate location.
Upon reaching the front of the ship, Strider took notice of a heavily damaged tree that had managed to keep itself from getting completely uprooted by the crashed machine. The trunk was leaning against the ship in a rather unstable way, but luckily it was on the far side of the twin cockpits rather than on top of or to the left of them.
Using the dents and outstretched pieces of torn metal on the wall, Strider managed to climb his way up the side of the ship towards the cockpits. Once he made it to the top, he was momentarily caught off guard by the sight of two empty seats where the pilots should of been. The oval casings over the twin cockpits were also gone, allowing him to notice an incredibly faint glowing light from within the primary flight seat.
”Where’d the pilots go?” Strider wondered, taking a quick glance around the area again just incase they were anywhere in sight. Upon seeing no signs of the two clones, he shifted his attention back towards the cockpits.
Deciding to check out the ship’s systems first, Strider navigated his way towards and eventually into the vacant primary cockpit. He immediately began flicking switches and pressing buttons, resulting in a previously faded screen getting engulfed in green light.
”Good, systems seem operational enough. Hopefully I’m able to figure out where we crashed.” Strider thought, pressing another button that had been flashing yellow.
The monitor flickered for a few seconds, before a long empty bar suddenly appeared across itself. A couple seconds was all it took for the bar to slowly become filled from left to right by a brighter green light, the entire thing collapsing upon reaching the other end.
All that was left on the monitor were three words in bold red galactic basic;
ERROR! UNKNOWN COORDINATES.
Strider rose an eyebrow at that, knowing fully well that each L.A.A.T. had complete maps of the known galaxy. Those things were constantly updated and distributed throughout the G.A.R. and the C.I.S., so this error wasn’t an easy one to come across.
Still, it could happen if a ship finds itself in unmarked territory. However, he highly doubted that the gunship would have been able to reach that far from its digital map without hyperspace. Thus, Strider drummed it up to the system simply being heavily damaged just like the ship’s hull.
With that answer satisfying his curiosity, the trooper flicked a few other switches and looked over the system as it began performing a scan of itself. It took less than a minute before the screen was already filled up with messages on broken and damaged things, each one longer than the last. The ship it seems has taken very extreme damage from the crash, and would have likely been decommissioned and scrapped for parts in the hands of the G.A.R. back on Coruscant.
Now knowing what the ship’s status was, Strider shut off the systems to conserve its limited power supply, exited the cockpit and climbed back down onto solid ground. He took another look at his surroundings, searching for any sort of clues as to where the two pilots might have gone. Yet the scene hadn’t seemed to of changed in the slightest, meaning that he had absolutely no idea as to which way they might have gone.
That was, until he noticed a particularly scrunched up looking bush towards his right. It’s far left quadrant looked different than its right, more depressed towards the ground if only by a couple inches.
”It’s the only lead I’ve got, but I’m gonna need my weapon first. I’ve got no intel of this forest or its inhabitants so I’ll be practically going in blind.” Strider proclaimed mentally.
This thought at the brunt of his mind, the trooper climbed back into the gunship’s transportation bay which was now very well illuminated via the nearby star’s light.
After a bit of rummaging, he found his discarded DC-15A. The long plasma rifle seemed relatively undamaged, with the exception of a chipped stock and a cracked sight. Strider double checked its power pack to see if it had sustained any damage, before shutting it back into place and locking the blaster in place.
Once that was checked, he did a bit more rummaging around the area in search of anything else that might help. Luckily, he managed to find a backpack that had taken minimal damage in the crash. Its contents had also managed to for the most part come out undamaged, hosting a medical kit, a DC-17 pistol, a few extra rations, and a set of lamp attachments for his helmet.
Strider took out the attachments and set them into place on his helmet, before slinging the backpack over his shoulder and securing it tightly to him. Now armed with a weapon and some basic supplies, he could finally leave the crash site. He took one last glance at his dead brothers within the ship, before finally exiting the damaged vessel.
He needed to find those pilots as well as an exit from this forest, and he wasn't gonna simply lie in the rubble of a ship until they returned. That was, if they’d return. Who knows what could be lurking in that forest, waiting for him to enter its domain.
As Strider continued walking, the dull ache in his left leg gradually began to grow into a more noticeable throbbing sensation. He continued ignoring it, more determined on finding the pilots at the moment. And as he kept navigating through the forest, he couldn’t help but notice the complete lack of wildlife that wasn’t simply plants.
Not only that, but there weren’t any tracks in the stray patches of dirt he came across. No prints of any animals, not even any tracks from the pilots. The dirt was malleable enough for tracks to form, as evident of the boot marks left by himself as he passed through the patches. So why weren’t there any?
After awhile, the trooper ran across a shallow trench, which he carefully went through in an attempt to keep his leg from acting up again. Once he crossed the trench, he spotted a set of white armored legs sticking out of a bush, clearly one of the pilots.
"Pilot? You alright?" Strider questioned as he walked over to the bush with the legs.
When the clone gave no response, Strider began pushing twigs and leaves out of the way until he spotted their helmet. He rolled the pilot out of the bush and waved a hand above their helmet's visor, still no response. He checked for a pulse, which sealed the deal for the pilot.
Strider mentally grieved for the loss of yet another friend and brother, before something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. His gaze quickly locked onto a part of the pilot's chest piece, which appeared to have large gash marks slashed into it.
"What the, these claw marks are massive!" Strider mentally emphasized, tracing one of the marks with his pointer finger. What kind of creature could have done this to the poor pilot?
As if the force itself had read his thoughts, an audible snapping noise caught Strider's attention. Slowly, he poked his head out of the bush, DC-15A primed and ready as he advanced towards the source. He took cover behind a large tree trunk, and cautiously peaked around it into a small open clearing amongst the underbrush.
What greeted his eyes was a haunting sight that he wouldn't be forgetting any time soon.
A large creature that shared a slight resilience to a loth-wolf stood before him, except it was made out of what seemed like bark, large twigs, and leaves. It appeared to be chewing on something. Strider narrowed his eyes, trying to see what the wolf was chomping down on, only to realize that it was the helmet of the other pilot.
Strider felt what was left of his last ration meal try and resurface, but he fought the urge to vomit. The wolf bit into the helmet again, this time with enough force that caused it to shatter in its mouth. Strider tried to look for a body nearby, but no signs of the pilot were anywhere else.
"Did that wolf eat the whole pilot!?" Strider questioned in his mind, taking aim at the wolf.
But before he could pull the trigger, two more wooden wolves emerged from the trees behind the first, their yellow eyes scanning the area in search for something else to eat. Strider lowered the blaster at the sudden change in numbers against him, and as quietly as he could, took off in the opposite direction from the newly formed pack.
The trooper ducked below some low hanging branches and vaulted over a couple bushes, trying to find his way either back to the gunship, or some sort of spot to take deep cover. He stopped his rapid pace and frantically looked around, trying to identify anything that he could use as cover. Yet no matter how hard he looked, nothing popped out at him that could be used well. Only tree trunks and bushes far too small to proficiently hide him.
In the distance, he could hear what sounded like howls, most likely from the pack. Either they’d found something to eat, or discovered his trail. Possibly both.
And just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, the light around him caught his eye. It was far darker than it had been when he’d first left the gunship, dark enough to elect turning on his helmets' newly added headlamp attachments.
He glanced upwards through a small hole in the underbrush, spotting a rapidly darkening sky above.
Night had fallen...
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A very intriguing premise so far, I'll be keeping an eye on this one.
However, I would strongly recommend proofreading or picking up a credible proofreader. There are some very noticeable spelling and grammar errors.
9695733
Sorry about that, i'll try to keep the grammar correct. Thank's for telling me.
I feel like there is a 50% chance of random explosions bringing you to EQ :I
*looks over to gas oven* "HHMmmmhh....."
I don't know what rules do you have for corrections so until I know such I'll post them in the comments while reading:
Interesting so far!
I mean... at least try to kill the thing that might not have killed the pilot yet? Or a better view to see if he’s alive?
HELLO THERE
9983280
Ah general Kenobi
9832192
Well then, better ensure I die by explosion. After setting lots of MLP related objects around me; you know, to make it seem like a ritual and not just some random deatj – might increase my chances.
Oh crap.
Are we sure the clones are not from the U.S.A "all mah bros are dead, I'm hurt there are wooden ass hat wolfs trying to eat mah ass for dinner"
"At least I got mah gun I like mah odds".
hmmm, how about you climb the trees? CT's are more than capable of crawling their way up in trees as is shown by the animated show so saying that there is *no* cover is quite dumb