Lost

Stranded

Unknown planet. An hour later...

It was very cold.

The ground and triangle-shaped trees were all blanketed underneath thick layers of frozen water flakes known as snow in most planets, except this one were colored a pale green.

The escape pod had landed in the forest, leaving a small trail of destruction behind it. Its external lights were turned off and there seemed to be no life inside until a powerful kick sent the door flying.

Fury was the first to come out. He warily sniffed the air and looked around, confirming the atmosphere was mostly breathable. Fury let out a loud sneeze; the air was overwhelmed by the smell of dust, ice, and carbon dioxide, thankfully not strong enough to render oxygen unusable. Once he was sure there were no threats around he proceeded to carefully drag Blue, Ilk and Lena's unconscious bodies out of the pod.

Fury's attention first centered on Blue. With a few purrs and gentle growls, he started nudging at his head, releasing some of his breath into Blue's own nostrils. When he got no reaction, Fury's tongue came into contact with his face.

This made him react. It took a few seconds longer than expected, but it did work.

"Argh, Fury..." Blue groaned as sat up on the snow. Brrr! It was freezing! "You know it doesn't wash off..." He sneezed. Damn, his olfactory glands couldn't take so many scents at once.

"Owowow..." Lena and Ilk awoke next, but the former had taken most of the hits in her attempt to protect Ilk, making it harder for her to lift her body.

"Are you two okay?" Blue asked them, rubbing his head.

It took both irkenettess a few moments to recall they had been trying to escape before the indokuro interrupted them. They got on their feet and tried to run away, but it didn't take Fury a fraction of a second to subdue them by pressing them against the cold ground with his arms.

"Get off me!" Ilk cried.

"Can't you keep this monster under control?!" Lena snapped, glaring up at Fury in disgust.

Blue sighed as he stood up and walked up to Fury. However, he merely crossed his arms as he glanced down at the Irkens. "What did you expect when you just tried to get away?"

"Excuse me? You and your pals kidnapped us, so sorry if we want to escape from you as soon as possible!"

"Okay, I understand that, but look around you," Blue gestured to their surroundings. "Even if you had escaped, what would you have done next? As you can see we're stranded with no food or water in an uncharted planet which might as well be uninhabited, and since you Irkens rely too much on technology you won't last more than two hours before you succumb to either frostbite or starvation.... or get eaten by whatever lives here, if there's any fauna.

Fury and I, on the other hand, can hunt and defend ourselves should the latter happen, we can hunt food and we know how to survive without depending on electronic gadgets. In other words, we are your best chance at survival until we're rescued."

Ilk and Lena exchanged glances. They hated to admit it but he was right in a way.

Ilk might know one thing or two about survival, but she wasn't fully prepared to survive on her own with no access to technology of any kind yet. Lena completely lacked any abilities of that kind whatsoever, she was a doctor, not an explorer, and her PAK was still infected with that virus kept her from using tools.

"Alright, then..." Lena sighed bitterly. "But we have conditions."

Of course. What else could he expect given the circumstances? "What conditions?"