ARRIVAL ▒ 002

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Basecamp, Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: The Tranquility jumps again.
NOTES: Can be found at the bottom of the post.

T H E   C A M P   ( C U R R E N T   C H A R A C T E R S ) Clouds have rolled in, obscuring the high noon in grey shadow when the alarms start. Wailing through the air, not as keenly as it had when base camp still huddled in its shadow, but still loud enough to turn heads and give people pause. It sends a shiver of nervous energy throughout camp. They were out of range the last time, and there is no sudden scrambling attempt at retreat, but the crowd does begin to thin. Some pick up and go, just to put distance between themselves and the inevitable, because you never know. Others stay behind, for whatever that reason might be. Those who were closer towards the ship emerge from the treeline in a hurry. It's ten hours later when it happens. A tremble in the earth, shaking up through the trees, sending the jungle's wildlife into distressed flocks of movement and alarmed cries. Under the shrouded sun the wreck of the Tranquility begins to cord with lines of white light, threading across the hull like veins, some patches remaining dark, standing out against the vision like splotches burnt to the back of the eyelids. There's no great sound. In an instant, the ship is gone, a soft whomp, a feeling of air rushing past, the trees bending towards the site as if blown by a fierce wind. It's only a second. With a crack, the wreck returns, a rumble rolling through the air like thunder. The earth shakes. The trees tremble. The ship groans, the sound echoing out like the cry of a wounded beast. The jump has passed. Before search and rescue can gather and see for themselves if anyone new was dragged from their homes, something strange happens. A gas mask, old fashioned and heavy, round-eyed, with a filter like a muzzle at the mouth, lands in the packed earth at someone's feet. With a clatter of plastic and metal, something that was once a radio receiver apparently plummets from the air, shattering on impact when it strikes the metal framework of a communal tent, and another lands in softer earth, intact. Tin cans of food, earthenware bottles of water, candles wrapped in paper and tied in string, a box of matches, a set of well-used playing cards with roughed up corners, a rough woollen blanket, a pillow, a gas lamp all hit the ground throughout camp, or are discovered in the jungle beyond. This unusual rain of items ceases, hardly a minute after it has begun. M E D I C A L   ( N E W   A R R I V A L S ) You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. The impact is painful, winds you, and it takes several seconds to overcome and persuade uncooperative limbs to move. All around you is chaos: the sirens of alarms are shrieking in your ears, close and claustrophic in the wreckage of the medical bay you've awoken in, lit dim and red. Around you, others are waking up, falling from other gravcouches, stumbling to their feet. Light catches your eye, and you look up to see a huge rend in the outer wall high above you, overhung by broken structural beams and damaged cabling. Climbing up takes all the strength you have. You emerge in bleak, grey sunlight, surrounded by an immense, vast jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an unknown world, two moons hanging heavy in the sky above. In the distance, far out on a great swathe of torn up earth through the jungle are a clustered crowd of figures, moving towards the wreck. Your welcome party, but are they friend or foe? N O T E S Anything remaining within a mile radius of the ship when it jumps will be irreperably damaged. Soft organics will be pulverised, while all trees and plants will initially appear fine but crumble to pieces within a day (or sooner if disturbed). Non-organic material will also be weakened, bending or falling apart when touched. Newly arriving characters venturing through the medbay will discover their inventory items somewhere in the heavily damaged locker banks. They will also be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage. The alarms will cut after two hours, a which point a looping audio message telling passengers to make their way to the blue lifts will be audible. The lifts, if investigated, will be missing, leaving only empty elevator shafts. The wreck will show increased signs of instability for a few days after the jump, and will have seemed to have sunk further into the rock of the cliff than it was before. As mentioned, items as described above will also rain down on camp and all areas beyond it. Feel free to find these in sporadic quantity. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via PM, the FAQ or Questions pages!

Comments

[coldshot]

The foliage rustles in answer, a leafy shock-wave from a flinch of quick motion beneath, but it's stopped short. They're in unknown territory, and if Steve is going to walk right out in the open that only makes it more important that he doesn't just yet. Alone, Steve is easy to underestimate; the element of surprise is an advantage they might need. Staying out of sight is a safer for both of them.

That doesn't keep his heart from jumping in his chest at each of Steve's leaden steps. That he feels anything at all through the cold numb of adrenaline is still strange, new in a way he tucks silently away to examine later, but he doesn't bow to it. He waits, a shadow in the undergrowth.

When Steve reaches the treeline, one arm reaches out to pull him in. It isn't exactly a hug, but Bucky's hand on his arm is strong and solid, checking for injury or for metal ports or just— "You're real."

[ex_paragon697]

The bones under Bucky's hand shift as Steve lifts his own, slim fingers spidering out and gripping him underneath the elbow in turn; he's always carried a surprising amount of strength in his fingers for all his lack of it elsewhere. Steve squeezes him briefly, his own brand of reassurance of the same, though he's not really intending the way his finger slips into the hollow space of the port there over the thin material of his sweater. "Yeah," he says, and for just a moment lets the exhaustion and uncertainty line his face (as though his questionable ability to stay upright were at all concealing that or protecting him).

It's just for a moment, though, and in the next he tilts his head back to look up at the canopy above them, the hints of two suns beyond it. "That doesn't tell us what this place is." The angle makes him want to cough again, makes his voice come out more affected by it than he'd like, and he lowers his gaze back down to Bucky — well, still taller than Steve, but reorienting: he'd always gotten a crick in his neck if he looked at Bucky for too long. "Natasha's not—" He winces, shakes his head. "She doesn't remember."

[coldshot]

He checks Steve's six o'clock while he talks, making sure they're alone, safe, but it's those rare glimpses of vulnerability that catch his attention, and the words that follow that still him, his arms going taut beneath his sleeves.

"REAPER," he guesses, his voice abruptly chiled, and it might as well be no more specific than enemy for all they know about this one, but they're the most recent, and he remembers the screams as their drones had snatched the unplugged from the ground.

"Anything?" Natasha. "Or just the real?" The machines can do that, can't they? Erase everything but the lie. Pull you under again. Unconsciously, the fingers of his left hand begin to curl at his side.