Spore

Landing

She came to, and she saw green. Looking around, Jade saw that the air was, well... green. To be more specific, dense clouds of green. There was a somewhat strong wind threatening to push her over if she got up. The cockpit wasn't here, their seats probably ejected right before impact. It was possibly the only reason they were alive. She got up, initially disoriented from being knocked out, but hit with the dopamine jolt of exploring a new world. So much so she forgot she had come here with others, and to check her suit for damage. A new myriad of species to be discovered and documented! Who knows what could be here?

She shot up, began examining everything around her. It was... new. The ground was soft, brown. There were huge cylindrical creatures rooted in the ground. They had branches, almost like the ancient trees she had studied, but their shell, their skin, 'twas that of an animal. Scaly, almost reptilian. Upon closer inspection it could be seen they pulsed a bit. They littered the area, not dense but not scarce either. The air was green, like a tinted mist had descended over the land. Visibility was low. She looked up, expecting to perhaps see more bits of spaceship falling. Instead, she saw these... plants. These creatures that lacked wings, lacked any way to fly, and yet... they did. They floated, hovered maybe. There were only 3 in sight, and one of them exploded into hundreds of little seeds, all gliding down into the ground, spreading out. She could spend her whole life here, studying this planet.

"Hello? Did anyone else make it?" Jade snapped out of her trance and groaned internally. The voice was that of Jack. She didn't have anything against him, but she just wanted to enjoy this moment unadulterated by other humans. She considered answering, but instead shut off her comms. She could check on them later.

Jade began moving around, investigating the area around her. It didn't seem like there were any animals. The heavy air made it hard to see the sun, or any satellites orbiting the planet. She went back to her chair. Ripping open the weak padding revealed mostly intact sterile jars and vacuum containers. She took a sample of the ground she stood on, then used the vacuum container to suck in air. One of the seeds landed near her, and she took that along with others she chased down.

Moving in this atmosphere proved difficult, as it had almost as much resistance as shallow water. She moved to explore more, see what else she could find, until Alexander approached her. She turned on her comms.

"Alexander? How'd you manage to find me?" She faked a relieved tone.

"Your seat's beacon. Why were your comms off? We're going to rendezvous over by the crashed cockpit. You could have missed us."

"I uh, I think I might have turned it off by mistake earlier. I'm not really sure, something could have happened during the crash too..."

"Well, it doesn't matter now. Come with me. We need to set up camp immediately." He gestured at her container. "I see you're already hard at work. We can't test those samples properly until camp's set up."

She nodded, moved with him. She kept looking around, hoping to glance something new, hoping to see something to get her mind off the fact that she's just lost her last chance to be alone.

Ibrahim woke up from the crash, disoriented at first, but quickly analyzing the situation. He got up, patted himself down to check for damage. By some miracle, he was fine. Not even a scratch. He got up, tried comms.

"Hello? Jack? Jade?" He hesitated for a second, and spoke a little lower. "...Alexander?" No response came, and he decided the first order of business was to try and find some of the ejected pods. Assuming Jack ejected some, which he should have. He went to check on the feti first.

Ibrahim looked at his map on the heads up display. The feti were close, he could get there quickly. He moved towards them.

Then the voices came.