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Fumiko sat in the airlock, despondent. She’d thrown her whole bodyweight against that door, tried cycling it multiple times, tried the cameras, everything. She was separated from the outside by a relatively thin layer of composite armor, wiring, and insulation. It kept her safe before, shielded from the vacuum outside - and now it served to trap her.

There [i]were[/i] things on the ship that would have enabled her to cut her way to freedom. A plasma torch and localized emergency power could theoretically let her cut her way free. There was another hatch on the roof - but it has been nonfunctioning for years. Repair orders had been deferred time and time and time again. She understood, of course, the frontline demanded far more resources - and this particular instance was something that was… well, it was impossible. She tried not to think about that. The impossibility of everything that had just happened. If she thought about that, she would think about everything else, and if she did [i]that[/i] then she would never get up from this seated position again. It was one thing to die in combat, but quite another to break the basic understanding of the universe as they knew it - and then die far away, alone, on an alien world that might not even have a soul to remember her.

She [i]tried[/i] not to think about it. 

She didn’t know how long she’d sat there, staring at the wall, racking her brains for any sort of escape plan that could get her out of this mess - when her ears perked up. She heard something outside, she was sure of it. Exactly what was another matter. Even with her hearing - far better than any human could imagine - she could only make out a dim sound outside through the armored hull. She rose, pressing her ear against the hull, straining to make out any sounds, anything at all. It could just be wildlife, some sort of bizarre and incomprehensible alien fauna. They’d never found aliens, heartbreakingly, besides some simple organisms on one of the moons of a gas giant. Or at least that’s what the old logs said - but it had been at least a thousand years since they had been trapped within the solar system. Who knew what had happened outside it since?  

Her attention was drawn back to the present by a distinct sound that snapped her to attention. Something was [i]tapping[/i] against the hull. It wasn’t just… some sort of native flora bouncing against the hull. It was too deliberate, too metallic. It sounded almost like a hammer of some sort. She tensed - this meant something intelligent [i]did[/i] live here. And it was trying to get in.

She looked around frantically, dashing away from the airlock and back towards the cockpit - no other weapons here, no [i]armor[/i] here. It was all in the ship’s armory, what should have been a single ladder away. But the armory was, presumably, crushed to nothing somewhere under the bulk of the crashed wreckage elsewhere. She patted herself down, feeling the reassuring forms of her revolver - technically against regulations, but then so was how long her hair had grown - and her sword. She bit her lip - she wasn’t like the special forces with this thing, she wasn’t compatible with the [i]really[/i] insane cybernetics. Certainly she’d used it, several times - but who knew what was out there?

The sounds changed, now, the tapping giving way to something happening just by the airlock. A rhythmic sound… sawing. Someone was [i]sawing[/i] at something… touching the ship? She drew her revolver, checking that all six chambers were loaded and ready as she waited around a corner, watching for… [i]something[/i] to come in and grab her. She might die to some inconceivable alien monstrosity but she’d die [i]fighting[/i]. A click filled the air as her clawed finger pulled back the hammer, then nervously eased it down, then pulled it back again - she hadn’t felt like this since her first time in combat. The nerves. The tension. The sheer mind numbing fear of what might happen. This was something new. She was somewhere new. There was no familiar feeling of her home environment surrounding her like a warm blanket, just the choking and oppressive feeling of an alien world and alien spirits - if there were spirits here at all. And something was trying to get into her ship.

The hiss of the door’s pneumatic actuation filled the air as the airlock door finally sprung open, having been freed of whatever had trapped it. Light from outside spilled through the hatch, bright blinding light. Natural sunlight the kind she had… well, [i]never[/i] seen, really. Only simulations of it, or memories in a dream from others. She stared at it for a moment, somewhat transfixed, before she snapped back to reality. A rush of air flooded the ship as it was exposed to the outside world for the first time in… years. Panic seized her momentarily as her mind flashed to the possibilities - toxic proteins in the air, trace molecules that would poison her. Was she now breathing the last breaths she’d ever breathe? The chance of food and water being consumable here was minimal - but would she even get the chance to come to terms with things or would she choke to death in a strange atmosphere before strange aliens?

She tried to crush the panic rising in her throat but it just kept building, kept growing. She tried to fight it, to calm herself - she was a combat veteran, she was almost two hundred years old, [i]why[/i] was she so panicked? Her breath came faster now, and she clamped a hand over her mouth to try and mask the sound of panic-stricken ragged breaths coming faster and faster.

She heard something outside. A voice. A [i]voice[/i]. A voice that sounded… humanoid. Someone speaking a language, a language completely unfamiliar to her - but it was unmistakably some sort of language. Intelligent tool using aliens speaking a language that sounded humanoid. She felt the urge to laugh at the sheer hilarity of the moment warring with the panic gripping her heart. She had come all this way, landed on an alien world and survived despite the odds, come close to coming to terms with starving to death inside her escape capsule only for some sort of intelligent aliens to cut open the path to freedom. 

A hand came to rest on her shoulder again and squeezed. That helped bring her back down from the cliff she stood poised upon, head spinning like a top in a whirling maelstrom of chaos and madness. She looked back, seeing the reassuring, though equally tense, expression of the ship’s spirit. 

Fumiko took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves, and moved for the door - but her legs would not budge. She was frozen in shock and anxiety, trapped in place, her gun clutched tightly in her hand as she waited for [i]something[/i] to happen.

The spirit moved ahead - a bullet, or whatever other weapons they might have, would be unable to truly harm him just as he could not truly harm them. His ears perked just like her own would have as he inched his semicorporeal form along towards the opening. His ears poked out first, followed by his eyes - and then his whole body shook with a terrible fright and he leapt back, coming to an inaudible landing beside her. 

Those outside the strange crashed object would see a pair of large fluffy ears poke up, followed by what was unmistakably something like a human face - before it vanished. Seconds later, another one appeared, an unmistakable expression of terror etched on its- [i]her[/i], features. It- she pointed something at them, something they could not quite place but which seemed to be unmistakably a weapon, especially judging by what was equally unmistakably some sort of sword clutched in her other hand. She wore an outfit completely unlike anything this world had ever seen, strange browns and greens and a material that seemed almost like cloth yet unlike any cloth of this world and pouches and strange items dangled off it at various points. She herself was a striking midway point between the humans and beast races of the world, the large foxlike ears, the teeth larger and more… canine than any human teeth had a right to be, the clawed hands, the strange markings on her face, the [i]nine[/i] tails that spread out behind her in a veritable cloud of white fur, the feet more like those of an animal than a human. 

She was yelling something at them. Yelling something in a language wholly foreign, with no discernable similarity to any tongue those present had ever heard, gesticulating wildly and staring at them in what appeared to be growing shock and confusion in addition to the fear. Whatever they were going to do, they would have to think fast.