Catch a Falling Star and Put It In Your Pocket

Kash could barely breathe. The tight, constricting pod screeched in her ears, multiple warning sirens blaring as the coffin-like shuttle gained speed.  The sides heated as she hurtled towards... Whatever had started pulling the pod. Was it even a planet? What if she crashed into an asteroid and suffocated in her windowless metal tomb. Gasping for air in her panic, Kash reached up and gently wrapped one hand around her crest ring for comfort.
"{I'm sorry you didn't get to see me grow up, mom. I'm sorry we couldn't all get out, Giin, please don't blame yourself for that.}*" She muttered apologies to everyone she knew under her breath like a mantra. Even if they could have heard her, her pleas came out muffled behind the muzzle on her face. She bit down on a quiet sob. She clenched her eyes shut and braced, with her shoulders up. After a few moments, she almost wished the pod would hurry up and just hit something, just to end the torment.

Then all at once, the insufferable wait was over. With a thud, a moment of weightless bounce, and another thud, the pod hit whatever had pulled it in. The pod skidded on it's end, until it let out a horrible metal screech. And Kash found herself flying through open air.

She tumbled, head over heels, then rolling to a stop. The crash had thrown up a cloud of dust that stung her eyes, and she coughed desperately. Between the dust and her muzzle, she couldn't get any breath. She pulled herself up onto her hands and knees, and peered over at the remains of the pod. The grey, twisted metal could most certainly never be used again, ripped open like a cave moth's cocoon. the half of it dug into the ground glowed a faint red from heat, but it was quickly cooling from the water falling onto it. As the dust started to slowly settle, the culprit for the tear and her saviour became apparent. structures began to form, tall, but wider than they were tall. One of which had a broken corner, exposing the metal rods inside.
"{They must've ripped open the pod.}" Kash muttered to herself. She was still having trouble getting her breath back, and reached up to try and adjust the muzzle to make it easier.

It was loose. She could actually get her fingers under it.

Ripping it from her face hurt for a moment, but the damaged straps gave way easily. Kash gasped, and almost immediately started to cough heavily, the muzzle now sitting in her hands. She looked between the destroyed pod and the useless muzzle. Then up at the roof.
"{I've never been in a cave this big before.}" She murmured. She'd seen mineshafts that rivalled it for height, but she'd never seen a space of both the height and width, not since she'd been a little girl. She could even see more structures, if she peered between the ones close to her, stretching to the roof, and lit from within and below.

A siren sounded in the distance. She remembered similar ones in the mines, when dangerous materials were brought from the deep mines.

All at once, the fear hit her like the pod had hit the ground. If this was a mining colony, and Kash was caught, they'd send her right on to her new owner. If they didn't just keep her to work for them. For a second there, she'd thought she'd just been handed her freedom as easy as that.

Well, all that meant was she had to get to work. She couldn't do anything about the pod, it'd take four Ith to move it by hand, but she could make it that little bit harder to trace. She laid her hand to the floor, calling the stone floor that the pod had dug a trench into to roll back into place, and fuse back together, showing only tiny cracks where the seams had been. Next, the building. The sirens seemed to grow louder as she worked, urging her faster. She couldn't get the rectangle pattern of the stone to match quite right, she had to hurry, but she quickly fused it back together so that the rubble no longer lay strewn across the path. With that, there was little evidence for what direction the pod had crashed from, and maybe they wouldn't be able to find where it had originated that way.

She noticed some flashing lights approaching one end of the path she was on, and she darted out of sight. She hadn't even noticed, in her focus on covering her tracks, that the sirens had multiplied. She picked a direction and ran, but quickly met with a wire barrier. She glanced around quickly, and noticed a ledge, leading to a... More normal-sized tunnel. She skidded slightly as she turned back, and jogged back to the space before it. Metal tracks led between it and several buildings, plunging into familiar darkness as the reached what must've been a mine tunnel.

She tried to shake off some of the moisture sloughing over her. It did little good, the water falling on her just replaced it. She looked back at the tunnel. It didn't look like the sprinklers were running inside it. She cautiously crept under it's cover and tucked herself into the shadow of one of the wall above her, hidden between it and what she thought looked a little like metal minecarts. She leaned back and breathed deeply, to calm herself. The voice in the back of her head that she supposed would always sound a little like Giin from now on murmured that she had to think of a plan, a long term plan. At least, longer term than what she was currently doing, which basically boiled down to 'stay out of sight forever'.

(OOC: Kash has landed in the complex above the Braidwood Mines, and then moved into the mine to escape the rain and hide. The 'roof' she reckons she saw when she first landed is actually a cloudy sky, and the 'sprinklers' are rain. the sirens are actually the sirens of emergency vehicles, called to the scene by people who saw her pod crash over a distance.)

Cold. Dark. Unfamiliar. This is the world to which we are born. Birthed into the world screaming and kicking, to grow and grow and grow some more. From the simple life of a child to the mundane and redundant life of the average adult. It was so fascinating to be born in one such a world, yet isolated from it all. To be an outsider to the very place you were born. To know nothing of it, yet live with an ever growing curiosity. The Human race, the pinnacle of power upon the small planet on which they lived...and now it wallowed in mediocrity and contentment. Making actions that made no sense. A society that preached acceptance, but shunned so many with a zeal; one which was rivaled only by Gravitas and his desire to destroy The Agency. This was mankind, the same society run by people who so quickly wage war with one and other, yet turned to the populous of the more powerful and hold such contempt for their actions.

    The mysteries of this world and it's curiosities were ceaseless. Some days it took every single moment of the day to simply fine a single good thing to hang onto. Some days it felt like a losing battle, while others were bountiful harvests of knowledge and insight to the human condition. Though on this particular day the question was not about humankind. The question was not of morals, or human hypocrisy, nor was it a question of superiority or supremacy. Today the question which weighed so heavily upon the mind was the repetition of these three words.

  Cold....
                 Dark....
                                     Unfamiliar...

   The sound of rain echoed throughout the caverns. The large empty underground mines seemed so silent from within the darkest crevices. This place was much like the world outside. The Darkness of the mines allowed for not a single light to shine, the cold and damp air clouded the mines, and the deeper in you went the thicker it felt, but the less one could breath. The oxygen levels in the lower most area were practically non-existent. No mere-human could survive such a low level of oxygen and a high level of carbon monoxide for very long. Even if they could, the constant threat of the over-abundant blackdamp it made it quite clear that most things could not survive in the old abandoned mines.

     The cold earth beneath the creature was coated within a slightly discolored polymer mucus excretion. The abdomen muscles of the excessively long creature contracted link by link as it arched through the air, pushing it's tail into the ground before gliding forward. It was the typical movements of the creature when it lost itself within it's own mind. The locomotion style resembled that of a worm and allowed the creature to strengthen the muscles within it's entire body. It was this discipline which actually allowed the creature to make the occasional quick snake-like advancements, or prop itself up as a snake did for extended periods of time.

   Cold. Dark. Unfamiliar... The creature's mind rushed through these words over and over again. First they defined each word and began to compare it to their antonyms. Then the creature would compare the collective product to that of humanity, and ultimately it's own situation. It's many eyes closed as the slithering creature recalled fragments of it's past, the psycopheramones within it's cells triggering.

  "Oh Christ what is that thing!?" The man shouted as something squirmed and writhed within it's hands. It's flesh was slimy, though oh so soft to the touch. The velvety flesh and slime covered child began to writhe with incredible muscles, enough to overpower that of a grown and hard working farmer. The mandibles and sharp talons that seemed to protrude from the sides of it's mouth and the arrow shaped head with bright lime colored piercing the soul.

  "Wha-what is it Blake?" The woman asked as the "baby" continued to writhe, but rather than cried it let out only shrill little grunts and gnashed it's sharp fangs as it began to try and circle around the man's wrist. The woman tried to lift her head to look for what she expected to be her beautiful child. Thankfully for her, she did not see what she had actually birthed into this world.

 "Oh God it's squirming, eeehhh. Oh Christ!" The man called out as it dropped the juvenile creature to the ground with a crash. Just a baby. A child and it's father cast it to the earth. In fear, or in sheer malice it did not know. But it's father cast it to the ground and drove the leather boot to it's face, kicking it under the car before closing the door. The creature was intelligent, it knew a great many things from it's mother's mind. It knew what it wanted to say, alas it's body was incomplete and it's perceptions of life so naïve.

  The creature's many eyes opened as it finished it's mindless movement. The trail behind it was a perfect path to where it had been. It never dared to go near the outside of the mines, Gravitas had warned it of the humans and their "Stala-mite" technologies across the stars. It reached out with one of it's scythed hands and soon they broke apart into several tendrils that began to wiggle and worm, reaching through the darkness with uncanny precision as it began to press unseen buttons and dials. Soon enough power sparked and several monitors seeming to be embedded into the walls had began to emit a soft light. The creature's sensitive eyes shut half-way to a squint as it began to adjust it's optical nerves to the brightness of the monitor.

    The news came to pass and there had been reports of a crash site that was being investigated not all that far away from it's mine. The creature began to make a series of clicks and blinks before making a very sickly squeal, it's body having several slits in it that began to open and close, a thick green ooze began to discharge from the abominable creature as it seemed to take a breath in and then exhale through these slits. The creature's actions were already in progress, but what it had not expected was the alarm to trigger in regards to one of the mine-carts now being constituted as "Offline".

   The creature made a soft and curious chitter before hissing as it's eyes narrowed again and switched the cameras with one of it's free tentacles moving the dial. It was then the creature realized that it had made a rather serious miscalculation. What the creature had heard could not have possibly been rain, as it was far too deep into the mines to possibly hear such things. How could it have possibly been so distracted!? The though of it's safety being compromised by some unknown intruder was alarming, although the second that the creature noticed WHAT had compromised it's safety it lost all forms of fear. It's aggression dies immediately, drowned like a defenseless infant by the overwhelming curiosity of what exactly this new "Specimen" was.

   Blinking the creature watched as the sprinkler system continued to downpour over the mine cart as it focused on what was trying to hide behind it. The creature also began to wonder what exactly happened to trigger the sprinkler system. It was possible that it was simply old and it gave out, however it was incredibly unlikely.

    Mysterious specimen...what are you? Do you mean me harm hm? Oooor seek thee shelter? It wondered as it began to focus in on the monitor. The sprinkler system made the air rather heavy, it would make it impossible for the creature to infect this new specimen immediately. Video feed of the entrance popped up as human in blue clothing appeared in pairs. Soon there had been close to a dozen, as black cars began to pull into frame as well. The creature had a moment to reflect on what it wanted to do. It could very easily reveal this specimen and secure it's own safety...that was the human way, was it not?

  But the creature would decide against this....

  In attempts to signal the new specimen to safety, the creature began to move it's second scythe like hand over, the hard chitin breaking off of it as the loose and lubricated tendons shifted into flexible tendrils that began to flip switches, changing the lights that turned on and off.  The lights would turn on twice before turning off, then the next light would turn on twice before turning off. The lights would hopefully act as an enticing guide to a much safer area than the humans could offer.

A little while after Kash ducked into the tunnel, the sirens that she heard had approached her crash site, and by extension her hiding place. She'd assumed they were mining sirens, but what kind of mining siren moved? Kash ducked down to look out under the bottom of the minecart, between the wheels. She just wanted a quick look. Several... Kash didn't even know how to describe what rolled up. Whatever they were, they had huge bright lights mounted on their fronts, and several smaller shapes emerged from them. They looked like Humanoids*, and Kash wondered if she was looking at workers, overseers, or maybe owners?

She tried to tuck herself further behind the minecart. Some of the humanoids had taken notice of the tunnel, and looked at it like they were going to approach it. Investigate it. And find Kash. She held her breath.

Then, she noticed something deeper in the tunnel. It was extremely faint, too faint for anything but an Ith to notice it, but Kash could see the edges of some light flashing around a corner. She looked back and forth between the lights the humanoids used to see into the tunnel, and the faint light further in. Well. What did she have to lose.

She quickly glanced at the humanoids. At exactly the wrong time. One humanoid reeled back at the sight of a pair of disembodied yellow eyes, and stumbled. They lost hold of their light, sending it skittering over the floor uselessly. Kash jumped back herself, and rushed deeper into the tunnels.

She followed the light deeper. As she ran, she slowed down, nerves catching up to her, until she just walked. And then inched.

This system was nothing compared to what had to be the main cave, but it still stood up to a good number of the colonies she'd been in for size. At one point, she found herself in another chamber that stretched high above her head, echoing the quiet sounds of her footsteps back down at her. At another, she found herself under another set of sprinklers, much to her consternation. At least these ones didn't pound as hard as the ones in the main chamber. Kash shielded her face with one hand, frowning. Still, she followed the flashing light she saw. The way it flashed... It didn't look accidental. Kash slowed to a stop, now close to the source of the light, she had to be. What if it was a trick?

Well, nothing for it. It was too late to turn back now. Kash screwed her courage to the sticking place and continued on.

(OOC: * Kash isn't actually using the term humanoids. The slave colonies have a slang term for these different alien races that all look strangely similar, but it just translates better as 'humanoids')