[b]Location:[/b]
[indent][b]Unknown space - outer cluster space.[/b][/indent]
[indent][b]Aboard “the Golden Rose”, a Raygonian pleasure yacht.[/b][/indent]

[img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/018/982/531/large/ingram-schell-spaceyacht-shot-001-3k.jpg?1561497703[/img]

[hr]

“H-hello?! Can anyone hear us?! This is the Golden Rose, calling in a mayday! Our engine is severely damaged and we are heading for collision orbit with an unknown rocky planet! Please, SOMEBODY?!” 

While Jane DeWitt, daughter and heir to the DeWitt Insurance Conglomerate and proud citizen of the luxury moon known as the Resort, stood screaming and crying into the microphone of the beaten communication panel, Vladislav Grigorescu sat in a Halcyonic silk-upholstered armchair which he had pulled over to the minibar and tried to see how much Federation bourbon he could consume before the fear of imminent death disappeared. In the back of the yacht, a small group of four people, respectively named Pajeet Majipandara, Ndenga Sobo, Hernan Lopez and Mei Zhang sat praying in a circle, all while trying to consume the rest of the hallucinogenic drugs they had brought along.  While they were simultaneously giggling and bawling their eyes out, Jane tried desperately to restart the engine again. The ship’s lights flickered, eliciting screams from the stoned three in the back, but all the engine produced were a series of decreasingly enthusiastic hums. Broken and frustrated, Jane keeled over the panel. The ship’s velocity was building up as they approached the empty planet now so dreadfully visible through the front windows. Jane lifted her head and took in the gray sight of the dead rock far below. She cast a spiteful look at her crew members. This was supposed to be a birthday trip - it was -her- birthday! Or rather, it had been three days ago. A miscalculated gate jump written by careless drunken hands had cast them waaaay into the middle of absolute nowhere. Now, they were going to die - quickly at best; draw-out and painfully at the worst. If the reactor caught fire on the way down, they would at least be incinerated instantly in the ensuing ball of flame. 

“Oi, Dshane,” came a half-gurgle from behind her. Jane spun to see Chad make a futile effort to stand. He waved an unopened bottle in her direction and once more tried to formulate a coherent sentence, but Jane didn’t have the patience. She stomped over, grabbed the bottle, walked back to her seat and strapped in. She uncorked the flask and took a number of gulps. She wondered if death would be as bitter and sickening as this liquour in her hand, or if it would be soft and welcoming like the cushioned chair she sat in. She turned to her friends and watched Chad’s legs drag about the floor in an effort to propel him towards his seat, much like the tentacles of a squid. The four in the far back where now walking around the room to observe the different stimuli of the ship and surrounding space under influence of Halcyonic hallucinogens. 

“Strap in, you jackasses,” Jane warned. “Not that it matters, but if I at least get to survive, i don’t want your flashing corpses to hit me at ten G, is that clear?”

“Jane, babe,” went a surprisingly calm Hernan. “... We won’t die. Don’t you get it? We’ve… We’ve been dead since we came out here… Oh fuck, we’ve been dead since we came out here. Oh fuck, ohfuck, ofuckofuckofuck…” While Hernan sat down to properly have a mental breakdown, Mei Zhang came close enough to Jane for her to actually grab her and seat her in the seat next to her, where she remained and stared emptily at the blinking panels under the front window. While Jane strapped her in as best she could, Ndenga stood glaring at her own chair.

“Who the FUCK poured milkshake on my chair?!” he roared out of nowhere. Jane groaned.

“There’s no milkshake on your chair, Ndenga - God, are you guys -this- fucking dumb?! We’re actually gonna die, and you’re just--!”

“LOOK! It’s RIGHT there!” Ndenga exclaimed and pointed at the very invisible spot of the supposed milkshake spillage. Jane pondered for a moment whether to just pop open the airlock. She took another swig of liquour, unstrapped herself and tried to collect Pajeet, who had decided that the blank, snow white wall of the luxurious ship interiour was a very exciting thing to stare at. He came along without much conflict, however, at let himself be strapped in with his only words of protest being a breathy, “Stahp eet…” 

Jane felt herself getting heavier. She eyed the panel at the front of the ship and saw ominous blinkings and flashes, indicating the approaching atmosphere, as well as the danger of their angle of entry. Deciding that what could be done, should be done, she strapped in once more and tried to work the air jets along the ship’s exterior. With another swig of liquour to calm her nerves somewhat, she found that the air jets were weak, but relatively unaffected by the engine troubles.

“Okay, guys, we’ll try to fix out angle of entry… Hold on to something!”

“YOU’R’A SOMFINGF!” Chad blurted out before a tug of force tossed him back into his chair, where he got tangled in the seatbelts. Jane ignored his comment and wiped a backhand’s worth of sweat from her forehead. They still had no breaks without the engine, so it was questionable how helpful this maneuver would be. Hernan had taken a depressing shelter underneath the ship’s control panel, where his sobbing competed with the loud hum of broken circuits and devastated machinery. 

The Golden Rose entered the planet’s atmosphere, thankfully not catching fire on account of the angle change. The crew was screaming, out of fear, out of joy, out of sheer inability to comprehend what was happening. Despite falling several thousand metres, it felt like it was over in an instant. A final crack of bones contrasted with breakage and bendage of metal was all Jane heard before everything went black.

[hr]

Curious. The seeker ships, when encircling Zpithi in their nascent flights, did not find any debris that was likely to enter the atmosphere. Indeed, they had found sparse presence of space stones at all, and especially not any of any significant size. For one to approach, and at just the right angle to avoid the worst of the descent friction, something must have gone rather awry in the surrounding gravitational well. It seems most likely that such a stone would be projected from a nearby gas giant, but there were none of those in the Zpithi system as well. The most reasonable theory, then, would be that this particular asteroid had been hurtling through empty space for many years and many more light-years, only to meet its end right here on the Noriscovic homeworld. The drone watched it descend for a few seconds, calculating the velocity and projecting the likeliest place of meeting the earth. Then, it started walking in that direction. At least one drone should be present when the asteroid touches ground, and record this most questionable of astronomical circumstances.

The drone could detect the impact with its vibration detection mechanism long before it could perceive the object with its video receptacle. When at last it reached the destination, it discovered not a bumpy rounded stone, as it had logically predicted, but rather a more angular sort of shape, comprised of pure metals. This was no asteroid. The drone realized it had come across instead a ship, of obviously more sophisticated make than what is capable on Noriscovo. Immediately, it began to interface with the ship’s black box, raising ever more questions.

The ship was a passenger craft. Human by make, under the designation of “Golden Rose”. The engine has been disabled, as well as a selection of other crucial organs. A few designations are recurring in the registry, including “DeWitt” and “Raygon”. While Prime Mind is currently not present with it, it determined that the primary directive in this situation, unorthodox as it is, would be to investigate the remains of the crash and seek passengers aboard, living or dead. The drone approached the airlock doors, and redirected its power towards its arms. Then, it began prying the door open with its hands.

The metal door was torn from its hinges and a ‘pop’ of escaping air sounded as the equilibrium of gases was reached between the inside cabin and the outside. The inside reeked of blood, alcohol and defecation. Across the entire floor at the pilot’s end of the cabin, as well as the majority of walls and windows, the ground-up remains of what had once been people painted the facade a terrible crimson shade. The panels still blinked desperately through the crusts of freezing blood and a weak siren indicating some form of emergency still did its very best to tell the crew something was very wrong. The cabin was otherwise silent as a grave, for it was one, indeed.

Or was it? A weak cough hacked from one of the seats facing the front window.

“Are you able to detect noise?” asked the drone, its audio projection device crackling to life. It had not used its audio projection in at least three hundred Earth years. The experience was . . . decidedly unfamiliar. It suspected that whatever life was on board, it would not be able to interface with it the way it normally would with fellow Noriscovic. “Respond to any noise or vibration you may detect.” The drone spoke in the old communications code of the Noriscovic, which it suspected may not be so widespread as to be understood. It began sifting through the registries, trying to find an alternative. There existed a few files on English, so it repeated the message in that language as well.

With a sharp clack, the drone stepped into the ship and activated its perspector lamp. The fleshy Noriscovic had designed the video receptacle attached to every Noriscovic drone to mimic more closely a human’s flesh eye, and thus its capability to perceive in lower light is limited. Thus, a drone must be outfitted with a light source. Prime Mind has made the preservation of the old technologies mandatory, and thus no upgrade was to come to the video receptacle. 

Where the light landed, it could see traces of humanity. Glasswork, once filled with amber colored liquids, now lay shattered about the floor. Behind them, four limbed forms, strapped to a clothed edifice. Certainly humans. The drone walked over to the forms to study them, shining its light down on their faces. Coloration and general shape appear to demonstrate human-like qualities. The subjects seem unable to respond to him, excepting one, who ejected water and carbon dioxide upon its approaching them. That one, most certainly, is still living.

A blonde haired female, by the looks of it, kept alive only by the hard work of a multitude of mechanised and artificial organs - particularly a set of modified lungs made for surviving Raygonian air. Her forehead had received a nasty, but shallow cut, causing blood to cover one half of her face, and scans of her torso hinted at multiple broken ribs, as well as a dislocated shoulder. While she was alive, she was very weak. She unleashed another set of quiet coughs and rolled her head a little to the side.

“Da… ddy?” she whispered.

The human was in need of medical attention, by the looks of it. Unfortunately, medicine had not been practiced in Noriscovo for centuries. Nonetheless, the drone set about its work preserving the human organism. It reached down and tore the edifice from the ground, with the human still attached to it, and carried them out into the open air. Glass crunched under its steel feet surrogates, and occasionally, it’d step in a pool of the strange liquid, sending its contents splashing every which way. 

The open air may not, in hindsight, be the most optimal place for a human. The gravity well of Zpithi is admittedly more shallow than that of earth, and that, combined with the relatively sparse vegetation, means that oxygen is slim. If her lungs are weak, then this effort is already futile. Considering this, the drone pressed on towards the nearest autonomous community, Morea. There is the possibility this specimen is augmented, like the flesh Noriscovic were. Even so, there is a better possibility of the drones improvising a solution from their existing equipment and treating her of her wounds than there is her surviving on her own regeneration capabilities.

The familiar sights of Morea were not far away from the site of the crash. Immediately, the drone began interfacing with the community’s central systems, which would then be redirected to the mayor and everyone else. Soon, a link was established. A situation as irregular as this was certainly within the task roster of the mayor.

“Are you aware of how the human arrived upon Zpithi?” asked the mayor, through interface.

“No, excepting that their craft was badly damaged above our atmosphere,” the drone responded. 

“Bring her to the wildlife registry. Some of the devices there may be repurposed for human use,” the mayor commanded. So the drone did. The wildlife registry was intended for the census and preservation of the Zpithi native fauna, but in any situation, an x-ray is an x-ray, and a bone setter is a bone setter.

The girl appeared too far gone to notice the aid she received, but it was evident from various scans that the stress levels in her body were reduced considerably. She would likely not be conscious for a short time, but at least she wouldn’t puncture her artificial lungs with her broken ribs anymore. 

“I have established contact with Prime Mind,” the mayor said. “They have insisted on you keeping watch over the human by description. Report to me immediately when she exhibits activity.”

“This is an unusual command,” the drone said.

“Prime Mind understands humanity better than we do. Perhaps certain entities present aid in human regeneration. When your task here is done, return to the workshop for testing. If you are in fact a positive presence on humanity, you will be issued a seeker ship. Furthermore, you have been granted a designation from Prime Mind. From henceforth, you are to be called Marina, category girl.” The mayor said. Marina accepted the command silently, awaiting Prime Mind’s arrival. Usually, it takes them a few hours to sift through the drone roster, within which time she expects the flesh human to awake.

Sure enough, a few hours passed and the girl eventually opened one of her eyes, the other one still crusted shut from the blood. Her single pupil darted around, affixing on various point in the room - the odd paintings of foreign trees and mysterious beasts on the walls, the ceiling resembling the sky on the Resort, the medical instruments - before finally settling on Marina’s form. “... You, cybe… Which hospital is this?”

“This is not a hospital. You are in the wildlife registry, within the autonomous collective Morea. I am Marina. What is your designation?” Marina asked, making use of the English file once again. Prime Mind was feeling her out, prodding the various functions with its shared command. They were giving her suggestions, a long registry of phrases that is supposedly more natural for humans to respond to. “I am sorry. Let me rephrase. What is your name?”

“... Wha-... Wildlife registry? Morea? What sector is thi--Ow!” The girl’s attempt to sit had been to painful to endure and she conceded to lay down again. “I’m sorry - this is a foreign port, isn’t it?” She looked around again. “Not Federation, that’s for sure… Alright.” She sighed. “My name is Jane DeWitt. I’m from Raygon. My citizen registration code is TRC-000-000-009-321-114 and my father is Alfred Justinian DeWitt.” She paused for a second. “I’m sorry to be a bother just as we’ve met, but could I ask you to contact the nearest gate authorities and have them send a message for me to my father, please?”

Marina quietly processed information for a few silent seconds, as Prime Mind relayed information to her regarding the nature of fathers, mothers, and human genetic relation. However, the both of them were stumped by the rest of what Jane said. Prime Mind, for all their wisdom, knew nothing of the various designations she had detected audibly.

“What is Federation?” Marina asked. “What is Raygon? What is gate authority?” 

Jane blinked dumbfoundedly. “The… The Federation? The New Eden Federation? C’mon, you’re not going to tell me I’m…” Jane’s expression waned and grayed over with despair. “Oh fuck… The comms weren’t broken… There’s no gateway in this system, is there?” Her eyes teared up and she covered her mouth with her palm. “Mommy, daddy, Brendan…”

Marina was not sure whether Jane was malfunctioning. It seemed possible that the impact had shattered her lens cleaning mechanism, and it was now going into overdrive. If so, she should begin preparation immediately for invasive correction. Prime Mind, however, commanded her to leave the flesh human alone, and redirected Marina to other tasks. Marina left the malfunctioning human to her devices, but before she did, Prime Mind stopped her and turned her around to say one final thing.

“Welcome to Noriscovo, Jane,” she said. “We hope to make you feel at home.”

(Collab with [@AdorableSaucer]. Thanks dude!)

[hider=TLDR]
Raygonian ship crash lands on Zpithi. Noriscovic drone saves the lone survivor.
[/hider]