let's call it a grand opening •

[spaceling]

WHO • everyone
WHERE • deck 2: corridors & mess hall
WHEN • day 1
WHAT • characters arrive
WARNINGS • please warn in the subject headings



[ you wake up on an abandoned spaceship in an unfamiliar quadrant of space, unhurt, but nauseated and dizzy, wearing whatever you were wearing before, with no possessions but what you were carrying with them.

the corridors are dark and grimy, dimly lit by lights that flicker now and then. it's cold enough to see your breath fog up before your face, but artificial gravity and life support seem to be working just fine.

welcome to your new home. ]

Comments

[causae]

[ these are things he recognises: how she blinks, the tension in her body, blood, the laughter that does not sound happy at all. he has seen these symptoms and others in pilots and intelligence officers, in civilians and commanders, in rebels and once even in a stormtrooper. ]

Are you hurt?

[ the blood would indicate that she is, but he can't tell how fresh it is. she doesn't hold herself like someone who is hurt physically. she holds herself like someone who is shell shocked. ]

cw: talk of being eaten??

[suddenlycaptain]

[ Are you hurt? She should be. She should be more than hurt. She should be dead, ripped apart for food between monsters, eaten alive in the rain while she screams.

God, she hopes Riddick made it to the skiff. Jack and the Imam needed one of them in order to get off the planet.

One hand raises, still bloody, to push back her hair. Carolyn freezes right before she does and drops it. Her other hand is still clutching a large, curved claw. ]

I should be. I was, but I'm- not.

[causae]

[ that doesn't make sense, and cassian would be inclined to think it is the shock talking if not for the blood on her hands, her clothing, her skin, if not for the hole inside her clothes. ]

What happened?

[suddenlycaptain]

[ What happened. It's a long fucking story, and not one that Carolyn wants to go spilling to the first person who asks. Not when she doesn't know who he is or where she is.

Short version, then. ]

Crash landing on a planet where the only dominant lifeform was extremely hostile. Those of us who were left were trying to get to an escape skiff.

[ She looks down then, for a moment -- not at her feet but at the rip of her clothing, the smooth space on her skin where there should be a hole. ]

I was impaled from behind. It went right through.

[causae]

[ even the short version is still one hell of a story, and cassian is frowning at her stomach, the rip in her clothing, the blood there. ]

What planet? [ he asks instead of questioning how she's still standing. she is, and he knows how to read people well enough to be certain that she's more surprised at that than he is. ]

[suddenlycaptain]

It was- [ a pause, Carolyn shutting her eyes for a moment, tilting her head back. She can still hear Owens reading off the computer, trying to send out a distress signal. ] M6-117. In the M-344/G system -- we were on a back route to the Tangiers system. Transport of a prisoner was involved, so they wanted us to avoid the main shipping lanes.

[ And it killed them. Fuck. ]

[causae]

I don't know any of those planets or systems.

[ the universe is big, but given the sheer number of charts cassian has studies, he'd been hoping for at least some familiarity. she seems used to space travel, more so than anyone else he's met so far. for a moment, he'd felt a sliver of hope that they might be able to work out more information.

maybe they still can, but this does not bode well. ]

[suddenlycaptain]

Fuck.

[ That about sums it up, doesn't it? They're in a strange place, a strange ship, with strange people. They have no idea where they are. The two of them so far seem to be about the only people familiar with space.

Carolyn sighs. ]

Well- I don't know about where you're from, but I'm pretty sure that there isn't technology that grabs people out of nowhere and spits them out on the floor without the fatal injuries they already had. Not that I'm ungrateful, but...

This is weird.

[ She doesn't like weird. ]

[causae]

Weird.

[ cassian repeats the word flatly, somewhere between an acknowledgement that it is, indeed, weird, and a helpless mockery of her words because it is weird, but that word does not nearly begin to cover it. he didn't think the empire had this kind of technology; he's still not convinced that they do. but what else could it be? ]

Maybe if we find the cockpit, we'll find more information.