The Infinite Black Ocean (The Intrepid Wanderer & darkangel76)

[darkangel76]

The sirens from the alarms were blaringly loud, the lights flashing an obnoxious shade of red and yellow as it sounded again and again and again. Just what was happening? And, all so suddenly? Laela had no idea. Then again, she never paid attention to how the ships ran. That wasn't her place or station and never had been. Besides, her mind had been too preoccupied with the fact that she'd finally been leaving her home planet of Helios...

It had been at least ten years since Laela had seen her cousin, Hal—ten long years of lonely isolation. She looked back upon her childhood, that time with her cousin, so very fondly. Hal had always been so kind to her, so fun. Though quite a bit older than herself, he'd never seemed to mind her tagging along and playing with him. And oh how she'd appreciated that! It wasn't often that she'd had any playmates as a child, at least none who stayed for any length of time and Hal and his family had stayed with them for a better part of a year before moving off planet to Themis. She'd cried that day when he had to leave, though—interestingly—Hal had not. She'd admired the boy for being so strong, but then that was why he was now an Illuminati Representative, was it not?

She often times reminded herself that it was.

Laela had always wondered how Hal was doing, had always missed him and inquired after him. But, her parents had always told her that Hal was busy doing good for both Helios and Themis, learning about the Lumos System and the ways of his bloodline within the Illuminati. Then, that fateful day had arrived when she'd heard word through whispers she'd overheard while lingering a bit too long in darkened corners. And eventually, her parents saw fit to tell her: Halmir Quinn is the newest Illuminati Representative for planet Charon. Oh, she was proud of him for earning a station within the ranks, though her parents had seemed a bit put out. Why? He'd earned a station, was proving himself to all just how capable he was.

Wasn't he?

Oh, Laela knew she wasn't overly versed on all the political nonsense of the Illuminati. Her family had kept her too occupied with other things...

Time to dance, Laela. Have you practiced your instruments, Laela? Are you ready for your art lessons, Laela? You must get ready for the party, Laela... Truly, it was always the same. She lived and breathed refinement, constantly 'bettering' herself for another, for that fateful day that she knew would soon be upon her. Her parents often whispered about it, though they never spoke directly to her regarding the matter, and it frightened her terribly. To be so alone, yet destined to be given away to whomever gave them the best offer. Too many times she'd wake up with nightmares of where she'd end up and with whom. It was why she needed to get off planet, to see more of the Lumos System than merely Helios. After all, she hadn't even seen Themis and it was practically next-door! Such a sad existence...

"Warning. Warning. Entering atmosphere." The ship's internal AI voiced the warning, the ship itself almost toppling as it began to literally fall from orbit into the atmosphere of the planet they'd been circling.

Charon. It was practically a desolate wasteland. Cold this time of year, so Laela had heard. Her blue eyes went wide as she looked over at where her parents were sitting, their own faces frantic as the ship's AI voice spoke in cool calmness. She swallowed hard, her mind a swirl of panic at not knowing what to do.

"Get to your seat, Laelestra!" Laela heard her father, Jareth Quentin—renknowned Illuminati official of Helios—shout at her. Her mother, Sherylindria, eyes seemingly wet with un-shed tears looked over at her only child, hands pointing toward an open seat.

Laela smoothed out her coppery gown, the skirts billowing as she began to move across the room. Just then there was a jolt.

"Warning. Warning. We have entered Charon's atmosphere. We have entered Charon's atmosphere."

The very idea that soon they'd be crashing sent Laela's thoughts into a whirl of panic. Instantly, she began to run, her feet trying their best to move. Unfortunately, as the ship jolted and jostled, she tripped on her skirts and fell to the floor with a hard thud and letting out a tiny howl as she landed. Wincing, she pushed her dark hair out of her face, her eyes connecting with those of her father's.

"No time!" Jareth shouted. The ship was falling fast. Faster, faster. All too soon they'd have to brace for landing, crashing upon the rough and harsh terrain of Charon.

Without further hesitation, Laela found a small nearby nook and crawled inside. It was next to what looked like some sort of control panel. But then, she was never any good with buttons, systems or technology. Not caring what it was, she hid inside the nook, her hands moving to cover her head, her face. As the ship continued its descent, falling... falling toward Charon's surface, she just let out a shrill scream. All sorts of things began to fall from overhead—gear, equipment, everything. Then suddenly...

CRASH!

"We have impact. We have impact."

The impact was hard and Laela felt her entire body shake and tremble, her teeth rattling within her skull as the ship struck the surface of Charon. Her thoughts ran wild and she wondered if Hal would ever find them. Would he know to look for them? As the ship seemed to skip along the desolate terrain, she could hear things banging, crashing about her. More things were falling, closing her in. Again, she screamed and her thoughts suddenly turned to her parents. Were they all right? Were they...?

Finally, after the ship settled, Laela focused on her breathing, desperately trying to calm herself down. At least she'd managed to live through the ordeal. Now she just needed to somehow get in contact with Hal, if that was even possible. Licking her lips, she turned to the side and began to push at the debris blocking her way. It was tough at first, but eventually she managed to free herself from her hiding place. Once out, her eyes went wide at the mess before her. Everything was in disarray, seemed broken or worse. As her eyes scanned the area, she noticed the injuries. No... deaths.

Deaths?

Just then, Laela choked on a sob that suddenly bubbled up from within. "No," she whispered half to herself. It couldn't be, but there it was, plain as day. Her parents were both dead and impaled in their seats, their bodies limp and lifeless. Tears streamed down her face, her tummy going queasy. She needed air.

Clutching at her stomach, Laela raced out of the ship. The air was startlingly cold, then she was used to the warmth of Helios. But she wasn't in a state of mind to dwell on such things. Once outside, she fell onto her knees, her hands pushing back her dark hair. She dry heaved a few times before she finally vomited, feeling more alone than ever. As she finally stood up, she wrapped her arms about herself, her eyes watering. The smoke from the wreckage of her ship was billowing upward into the sky like a homing beacon, no doubt a call to anyone and everyone. She just hoped those who came were 'friendly'. Surely, once they saw that she was Illuminati they would be. Wouldn't they?

Of course they would, she rationalized. But even that thought didn't stop the tears from falling.

 

[The Intrepid Wanderer]

Had Leslie Falls been a man of poetic nature, as he watched the display monitors in the cockpit of the Tread Black he might have found use for such a tendencies as he looked at the scene before him. He might have described it as destructively graceful the way small pieces of debris broke upon his ship's forward kinetic barriers, pieces of rent metal sparkling in the glow of the distant star, and spinning in to the Black around them. He could have described the air that had settled over the Tread Black as almost serenely tense in nature. So many things around him at that moment were contradictions that begged for a man of skilled tongue to give them apt description lest they be forgotten about for eternity, but alas: Leslie Falls was no such man. He was a man of far more simpler tastes, who would rather describe the scene as simply nerfed excitement among the small crew of the former Illuminati trophy child's smuggling vessel. It had been, at first, something hardly of note as anything more than just a heat flare somewhere in Charon's high atmosphere, but as they had begun an approach on their landing route it had brought them closer to the supposed natural anomaly to reveal that it was anything but.

LADAR pinged it when they closed within forty five kilometers: an Illuminati-flagged Envoy-class transport shuttle. Designed for long range flight and planet-hopping when a large vessel was either impractical or simply not available. This particular one, which Illuminati security codes prevented them from identifying without inspecting the hull or flagging the crew directly, was in a rather sore spot as they began to enter Charon's high atmosphere behind it. Pieces of the hull were coming off, it looked as if it was shaking rather violently in the tell-tale mannered that betrayed the ship AI's failure to fully control the ship on it's emergency landing descent without input from the pilot. Even one of it's engines could be seen spiraling off in to the Black as they had gotten closer. Yet the Tread Black still didn't get too close as of yet for two very important reasons. The first was that the Envoy-class was going to crash, no two ways about it, and since they weren't a recovery vehicle they didn't have powerful enough anchoring systems to fight against the pull of a planet's atmosphere. The second was that, at a distance of approximately thirty kilometers between the two ships, they were rather uncomfortably close for two vessels of their size on planetary landing course. Any closer and any Illuminati warship that saw the armed smuggler vessel tailing the unarmed shuttle down to the surface wouldn't even bother to try making contact before blasting them out of orbit.

Not to say they were responsible, of course. They already had a dangerous enough profession without adding "cold-blooded murder of government officials" to the list of potential charges.

From the co-pilot's seat at the left side of the cockpit, Angeela Red spoke up, "She's going to go down, Captain, if she even manages to make it through the atmosphere."

Running a hand through dirty blonde hair, Leslie let out a rather irritably resigned sigh, "Yeah. Let's hope for the best, Angeela. That maybe there is a body or two left to identify once they've touched down."

Coming in to the orbit of a planet was bad enough in a fully functioning, atmo-rated shuttle. Doing it in one that was damaged? In to Charon? During the northern hemisphere's winter? They were asking for an extremely rough ride and many dead -- if the pilot was good to even get them out of high atmosphere in something resembling a whole shuttle. So at his order, the Tread Black kept it's distance, tailing the vessel down, and as he strapped in to the weapons station at the back right of the cockpit, Leslie monitored the readings on the ship, and let the rest of the crew go about bracing for the entry in to Charon's atmosphere. He would look up to the monitors often as they first began their descent, with too great a distance between themselves and the ship in question to watch it through the actual windows of the cockpit. What's more, as the ship began to shake they dropped the shields in front of those aforementioned windows, and left all those present restricted to only the monitors throughout the cockpit, and the instruments for the flight in. However, Leslie had been on enough re-entry flights to know what was happening as he felt his own ship begin to shake and rattle on it's way down. Flames were beginning to lick at the hull, kept at bay by advanced heat shielding that would prevent the crew from being turned in to a crisp husk before they could reach the surface. An advantage Leslie could only pray that the crew of that crashing Illuminati ship would also be enjoying from their own vessel on the way down.

A five-point harness kept the 6'0 tall smuggler secured in his seat, but even then he could feel the violent kicks of the atmosphere around them as they went. One hand gripped the armrest, the other holding a white-knuckled death-grip on the metal of the console in front of him.After having been through so many things in life, he still absolutely hated atmospheric entry. He could hear his ship shake around him, pieces of cargo, and some of the personal belongings of the crew rattling about in the violence. He imagined it was worth on the ship they were following down, much worse, and that thought alone was enough to unnerve him.

But soon it was over, and their pilot Cobalt was on the spot with the update, "We're in atmo, sir." The young boy in the pilot's seat chirped, "Scanning through cams for that shuttle."

Looking at thermal camera feeds, Leslie watched the winter surface of Charon miles below their vessel.

"Found it." Angeela piped up as they saw the thermal imaging feed, "It looks like -- one alive? Just one?" She sounded rather surprised.

Leslie shook his head, "One is a step better than none. Cobalt. Bring us in to land. Angeela, gear up, and let's go to meet our lucky survivor."

On the surface, looking up in the sky would reveal the "Tread Water" moving through the open sky, over the wreckage, and the bass roar of it's atmospheric engine following it like a rippling wave through the air. About one hundred yards away from the vessel, on the side opposite that apparent soul survivor, it's nose would flare, and it would come to rest upon fat and stubby landing legs. The ramp would drop and there would be little time before Angeela and Leslie came walking down. Leslie was wearing his normal fur-lined leather boots, khaki cargo pants, and white t-shirt with a few additions such as the thick fur-lined leather coat, or the black beanie he wore pulled down over his head. The three holstered pistols on his belt, though one might say they were unnecessary, were as present as always, too. Leslie followed in similar cold-friendly attire: the 5'10 pale-skinned assassin dawning a pair of earthen brown trousers, a crimson colored long-sleeved sweatshirt, a black fur-lined coat, and in her hands she held a magazine-fed rifle of vaguely Illuminati origins.

From a distance they would hail no salutations or greetings, each with a weapon in their hands as they kept an eye on their surroundings. For his part, Leslie tried not to seem threatening. Angeela just couldn't help herself. As they closed within distance to make out the survivor, a young woman in rather regal attire by the looks of it, Leslie would offer a wave of his free hand while he and his partner started up the slope to the wreck. This wasn't the first shipwreck they'd seen in their lives, so they seemed to be handling the whole situation like it was nothing new for either of them. Mostly because it wasn't.

 

[darkangel76]

As Laela stood up, she wiped the back of her mouth with her sleeve. Her lips turned into a frown as she brought her arm away and then about her middle. The air was freezing, a wind licking against her flesh as it blew through the wreck that had once been a beautiful ship, a sight to behold. It was still clearly Illuminati-make, anyone who happened to come by would surely know that those who'd been on board had been important, people of stature, of wealth, of...

Just then, Laela could feel her pale eyes prickling with tears. No one... no one else was emerging from the ship. Not a soul. Even the AI voice stopped its infernal dialogue, ceasing to warn or advise. Not that it had matter. She'd seen what had become of her parents, their impaled bodies stuck fast to their chairs where they'd been sitting in wait for the vessel to crash-land upon this godforsaken planet! The gruesome vision was all to ingrained in her mind, the way her mother had looked, her father... and even the chair that had been meant for her. It too had been broken. To think she'd almost...

No. No, she wouldn't think on it. She couldn't. She'd go mad.

Laela walked around the smoking debris of her ship, pieces still falling from the sky like snow. She tilted her face upward, her arms hugging herself tightly—hands rubbing at her body for warmth as the wind began to howl. What was to become of her now? Would Hal hear of what had happened? They hadn't been due for another couple hours at least, or so she thought. It could be a while before he bothered to send someone. Anyone. And what then?

What then...? What now?! Laela's eyes widened as she heard something loud rumbling in the distance. Almost instantly she felt her muscles tense. Pushing her dark hair away from her eyes, she stared in awe at another ship as it made its way ever downward. It was clear that whomever it was that flew it had seen what had occurred and had gotten curious. But... were they friendly, hostile, something else entirely? She had no idea. This was a first for her. To think she'd finally gotten the chance to leave Helios, to have the luxury of seeing her beloved cousin—the one person she recalled having been kind to her all those years ago—and now this. Chaos and mayhem! Was that what life was outside the comfort and warmth of the Inner Sanctum?

Both Jareth and Sherylindria Quentin had always reminded Laela—and all too often at that—at just how fortunate she'd been to be born into the world she was. Ah, such a life to be Illuminati-born, destined for a life where she'd want for nothing. Yet...

Blinking hard, Laela forced back the tears and watched the new arrival, its engines roaring so loudly she felt the urge to cover her ears, land in the distance. A part of her was morbidly curious as to whom it was that had found her, another part—a larger part—felt that wave of fear, a fear of the unknown. Panic began to course throughout her body, prickling at her flesh and causing it to break out into goose bumps. She whimpered for a moment before letting out an audible gasp, though quickly she sucked in a breath so as to find her composure. After all, she was Laelestra Quentin. Illuminati-born, resident of Helios. Daughter to Jareth and Sherylindria Quentin. She had connections, pull, sway... didn't she?

Oh Hal...

Suddenly, the door to the ship opened and Laela caught sight of two figures beginning to make their way out into the vast expanse of the harsh and horrid planet she now found herself upon. How she could've wanted to see Charon before this moment, she had no idea... But none of that mattered. She was on the abominable planet—alone, with no one and nothing—and now she there were two people... were those weapons?... approaching.

"H-hello?" Laela called out, not knowing what else to do. There was nowhere to hide and even if she'd tried, she knew it would only be a matter of time before being found. Besides, didn't she want to be found? Yes. Yes, she did. She needed to get to Hal. He was expecting her.

Biting down on her lip, Laela awkwardly moved through the obstacles of debris, her tiny hands reaching for her shimmering skirts laced with metallic objects—an Illuminati trait, especially those of the wealthier and more prestigious families—so as to more easily make her way toward towards the newcomers. She eyed them carefully. And though naïve, she saw the weapons they donned, her mind swirling with the rumors she'd heard about the Barbaric Rim. Were they true... were they? No. Of course not. Those were mere fancy and fairy stories.

"I am Laelestra Quentin," Laela then announced without much thought that perhaps her name might be recognized... hated, despised, linked to the cousin who was wreaking havoc on the planet she now found herself standing upon. Oh how little of the world she truly knew... Her heart beating fast, she licked her lips and shivered, her mind going into a slight panic. Deciding to bold, she then asked, "Are you here to rescue me? Did Hal send you?" With hopeful eyes, she looked at the two and awaited their answer.

 

[The Intrepid Wanderer]

Her name, she said, was Laelestra. A name by itself that carried little weight to the Illuminati-born who had just heard her words. Hardly anything worth fretting over.

But Quentin? Quentin was a name known well by those on the Barbaric Rim. The normal representatives were bad enough, just trying to bring Illuminati law where the law wasn't wanted, but Hal Quentin, Mad Man of Charon as some called him, was even worse. He seemed to care about the actual scope and depth of Illuminati law even less than the criminals who broke it -- but he had the kind of power to enforce the ones he did like. Or to make them up if it suited him well enough. Leslie and Angeela had both seen the remains of pirates after they were "questioned" by Hal Quentin's personal goon squad. Bloody wrecks that, if they were still alive, could really only be aided by the small mercy of a bullet to the brain-pan. So to hear that name, that name which any self-respecting smuggler out on the Barbaric Rim would hate and fear in equal measure, put Leslie on edge as they approached. He motioned with his free hand in the direction of the ship.

"Angeela. Check the shuttle."

She gave a nod, "Yes sir."

Jogging ahead of him, Angeela paid the young Illuminati girl little attention as she approached the shuttle. She clicked the flashlight mounted on the pump of the shotgun and approached the entrance. The former Illuminati assassin slowly stepped inside, sweeping over the interior of the shuttle as she checked for survivors. She would disappear inside at around the same time that Leslie approached the young woman, Laelestra. He holstered the pistol he carried, yet his hand ddi not yet leave it's handle as he eyed her briefly. She was Illuminati, as the clothes she wore would betray, and the expression on his face was one of scrutiny as he looked her over. He said nothing at first, simply trying to answer the question. Where had he seen her befor? She was a Quentin, yes, but he could swear he had seen her from somewhere. A poster, or one of the countless pieces of other Illuminati propaganda perhaps? He couldn't remember.

Then he noticed her arms, the way she was practically hugging herself, and suddenly the well-groomed Illuminati representative-to-be kicked in. He quickly worked in removing his coat: exposing tattooed arms to the cold of Charon's winter winds. One hand returned to the recently holstered pistol's handle, while the other held out the fur-lined coat. He was a gentleman in some part, yes, but the woman was fully capable of dressing herself he imagined.

"So." He began, "Illuminati, right? A Quentin?" He glanced around, "Didn't think Mad Man's