LF Friends, Will Travel

The chasm between us [Chapter 1]

Date: 78 PST (Post Stasis time)

Ruixal was made aware of her consciousness through the new and exciting sensation of a whole load of pain. It wasn't one source of pain in particular, but rather a fun accumulation of different types of agony, all coming together in new and interesting ways, as if you had to host a family gathering for the most outspoken, politically different people on the planet.

There was the pain of the light battering her avian eyes, the cold chilling her bones, the general discomfort all over her body from the end of her beak to the edge of each bright red feather, and the sharp overwhelming pain of whatever was going on with her right wing. Ruixal gave a small grumble, involuntary as her brain was trying to reboot and work out what was going on. She'd been flying the small fighter ship, controlling her drones perfectly against the disgusting Terran threat, then...

She reached out with the wing that wasn't currently screaming at her, an attempt to poke the console to get a reading, only for her feathers to swipe at empty air. In fact, the entire wall that should have been displaying screens of data and boxes of survival goods was missing. This was concerning, because spaceships generally were supposed to have all their sides at all times.

It was a rule health and safety were very particular about.

Ruixal glanced around, her eyes finally adjusting to the brightness of a land of snow and ice, vision still blurry from what was probably a concussion. With a pained click the avian released the seatbelt, her body hitting the snow with a thud as the Lelzoil fell out of the seat with a complete lack of grace, just lying there in the cold as pain washed over her.

As time went on, the Lelzoil could vaguely remember more of what had transpired before she'd been dumped here. There'd been a battle, the Terrans and their slaves had been trying to encroach on the territory that the Lelzoil had rightfully clawed from the hard talons of a cruel universe. Ruixal had been one of many pilots in the fleet, controlling a drone swarm against the invading force, when something had hit the ship, something explosive, something that forced her to land on this random planet.

The crash landing had been as successful as an emergency landing could be. As Ruixal stood up on shaky legs, she could finally get a grasp over what had happened here. She'd hit the ice and rocks at speed, the pilot's lifepod automatically breaking off and ejecting, thanks to some very clever Lelzoil engineers making sure the part where the person sat was nearly indestructible. Nearly indestructible, as the avian could see the groove in the rock where her lifepod had been ground down, twisted metal littering the ice and rock until she'd finally come to a rest.

This did leave a confusing question as to where the rest of the ship was. With her supplies and various other comforts needed to survive on a hostile, desolate planet.

Ruixal stumbled forwards step by step, following the second path in the snow and ice, where the rest of her ship had continued thanks to physics once her lifepod had ejected. Each step forward sent a jolt of pain down her definitely broken right wing, the crunching of cold ice under her talons muffled in the snow that never seemed to stop falling from the sky. It didn't take long for her to find where her ship had gone.

Lelzoil were avians, and didn't really have the entire 'fear of heights' thing, but even she could tell the chasm that her ship had fallen into was deep, deep enough to be an instant death with her useless wing. Wide enough that traversing it without flight was a fantastical dream, the deep blue ice containing the remains of her vessel seeming to continue without end.

The rest of her ship had continued on its journey, bouncing and skipping along the ground, before tumbling into the abyss below. This was a problem, because the vessel not only came with a way to contact the main fleet to come pick her up, but also had all of her stuff in it.