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JANUARY TEST DRIVE MEME
You awaken to godawful static overlaying a female voice that's too monotone to be anything but a recording. The static makes it difficult to understand the warning, but it's clearly a warning if your surroundings tell you anything...
You're buckled into a sturdy seat bolted to the wall behind you. Around you, there are dozens of others like you, some awake and others still unconscious, but it seems most of the seats lining the walls are occupied. The lights are dim, likely auxiliary lighting, leaving you mostly in the dark. You smell smoke and hear the sizzling crackle of electrical systems popping and shorting out. Some of the seats were jarred off the wall, leaving the occupants either wounded or dead. Count yourself lucky all you have is a headache and various aches accounted to whiplash.
You appear to be in a drop ship or an escape vessel of some form but the pilot is dead and the hull bears a massive gash where it buckled under the impact and sheered off. Through the door-sized opening, you can see vegetation. The air that wafts in is heavy with a humid heat, but it's obviously breathable.
Once you make your way outside, you'll see greenery: Trees, grass, and shrubs tangled with vines that grow wildly and suffocate the trees they climb. In the distance, behind the ship, you can make out a sandy desert that seems to stretch on endlessly. Forward through the trees, however, you may see a crumbling wall, but more importantly, you'll see signs of civilisation. Buildings and other structures seem contained within those decrepit walls. Maybe the natives can fill you in on what's going on, because the last thing you remember isn't being in an escape shuttle. As a matter of fact, you don't remember much about your arrival or where you are. But it's going to be a bit of a hike, better get moving. Though you might want to grab the backpack of supplies under your seat before you go.
With that, the power dies, leaving the drop ship in the dark, crackling and groaning as the hull cools from its catastrophic re-entry.
padme amidala | star wars
And yet there is a seat at her back, a ship around her, for a ship it seems to be when her eyes finally adjust to the dim light. She passes her hand over her eyes before unbuckling the harness and standing up, shaky and uncertain, wincing at the pain moving her neck brings. (For her, the reason behind that is not whiplash; it is a planet clouded in fumes and lava, her throat constricting as she tries to gasp for breath.)
She moves her hands over her belly, breathes in, out. She doesn't know what has happened for her to be here, standing inside a ship she doesn't recognize, the sight of a planet she never remembers setting course on barely visible through the crack in the hull of the ship. She doesn't know, and that is enough to make her worry, because what could have happened to make her lose her memory of the recent events... but she is more than determined to find out. More than that, she needs to know.
Padmé Amidala has never been one to stand still when there is something to be done. She turns to look around, to whoever is next to her and conscious, whether in their seat or out of it already.
"What happened to the ship, can you tell me? Was it an attack?"
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no subject
'I don't remember,' she says, slowly. 'We must have been.'
She can smell smoke from somewhere, and there's a few sparks and creaks of metal from a destroyed ship. 'Do you recognise this planet?'
no subject
There are very few other reasons a ship this size would have crashed like this -- a mechanical malfunction should have been able to have been repaired. Should have.
"No," Padmé says, the answer disquieting. She couldn't even begin to guess the system they're in. "It looks like we must rely on whatever information we can gather here, or from the ship's archives... if they can still be accessed."
no subject
'I will check the engines. Will you try to access the ship's log?'
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Padmé nods, too, her mouth a thin line and full of determination. "I will try." She doesn't know if it can be done, with the main power source being as it is, but it would be foolishness not to try at all.
no subject
And that unnerved Clint more than anything, if he was going to be honest. He'd been one of the first to wake up and had managed to get himself out of his seat and helping others pretty quickly. He was injured but it was minor and he'd deal with it later.
He could move and that meant he needed to be helping.
Hauling a pack up onto his shoulder, he finally glanced at the woman beside him, eyebrow lifting.
"You alright?"
no subject
At his question, she looks down, realizes how she must look -- hair in tangled curls, dressed in a white, simple dress like those worn in a medical bay, framing her stomach that still looks at least six months pregnant. No surprise, with her last memories being of a clinical room and cradling her children in her arms, breathing out the names she'd chosen for them. Of course she would still look as if...
Her children. Padmé forces herself to breathe and not think of it; Obi-Wan would look after them. Would make sure they're safe. It is only dimly that she registers the slight pain at the side of her head -- she must have hit it when the ship crash-landed.
"Yes... thank you. I'm-" not alright at all "-not badly hurt. You don't need to worry about me."
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"It's probably a good idea to worry no matter what," he replied, one shoulder lifting and falling in a mock shrug. "Just in case."
Aka he knows you aren't telling him the truth, Padme, but he's not going to pry. Not like others might. Instead, he's just going to be sly about trying to get her sitting down somewhere with others.
"Need help getting out of this mess, at least?"
no subject
"I think we all need help to get out of this," she sighs out, stepping carefully over a cut power line. "We should start by seeing how many of us are here, what supplies we have... where everyone was before this. Maybe we can see a common thread between all of that."
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And as strong of a look as it was in both cases, Clint had grown use to having to stay strong in the face of it.
"Once we get someplace safe, then we can do all the talking. But if this crash is a pretty messy one and it'll no doubt draw attention. We can't stay here."
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"No offense taken. But you must realize that while some of us tend to the wounded, the others will have to do something, as well. And we can't afford to leave this ship without knowing we've taken everything worth taking with us." Because with a crashed ship like this... they can't know if the engine has been damaged, if the ship is about to blow up any second. They can't rely on the idea that they can come back and find the ship intact later on.
"And not everyone might agree to stay together." She frowns as she says that, knowing it would be in everyone's best interests... but there are always those who don't trust people, who want to stay alone. And they can't force them to stay if they don't want to.
"But you're right - we must find shelter."
no subject
He looks up at the woman from where he was looking through an extra pack and shakes his head. "Looks like it, but seems like none of us survivors know anything." He offers her a hand to stand. "Where were you, before you came here?"
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"In the Polis Massa system... it's a sector on the Outer Rim," she adds, quietly. Perhaps she shouldn't have revealed the location at all (and she is quite certain Obi-Wan hardly even knows she managed to catch the name of the place, drifting in and out of consciousness as she was), but... they are cut off from the galaxy, here. With nothing to contact the former Republic, it isn't a threat to anyone. By the time they can establish a secure connection to any of the nearby planets, the remaining Jedi must have fled already.
"I can't even remember how I got on this ship." She pauses, shaking her head a little before focusing her attention on the young man. "How about you? Are you... alright?" Not hurt in the crash, she hopes.
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He isn't entirely familiar with Polis Massa, but it does sound vaguely familiar, and Finn nods again.
"I can't either, honestly." Finn sighs quietly. "I'm still in one piece. I thought maybe the Resistance was attacked, but if you were in Polis Massa...that doesn't make sense."
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She breathes out, a frown marring her expression for a moment. "I can't say if that is true... but I hope it isn't the same for me. Where I was-- someone I trust very much was certain it was a safe place, for now, so I must believe whatever attack on the ship brought me here had no effect on those I left there." She can't even bear the thought of the Empire finding out about her children, or Obi-Wan.
no subject
She's still a little out of sorts after freeing herself and scavenging the ship but she knows that she needs to be meeting others and working on establishing a location and a plan for survival. They can't stay at the scene of the crash for too long, things are liable to explode. There's also too many dead bodies on board, it's bound to attract scavengers eventually.
"We could look at the damage on the outside of the ship. An attack would be noticeable, even after a crash landing."
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"That's a good idea," she says and nods. "Would you come with me? I'm Padmé." Her smile softens just a bit, and though her head is full of plans, to see their surroundings at the same time, to gather round the survivors and make a list of what they have, where they came from -- she's keeping it in for now.
no subject
She looks toward a hole large enough for them both to climb out and points to it. "We should be able to get out through there. Follow me."
She speaks with the air of a child that is used to delegating tasks and having adult conversations, and doesn't seem to want to wait for a response from Padmé as she moves first toward the way out.
no subject
So her response is to nod and follow Athena, climbing out of the hole with some difficulty.
"Well... at least the atmosphere here is good for humans. That is a relief." And there is a forest, vegetation, probably water -- as far as luck goes, theirs was pretty alright.