||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

Stacy's voiced called the entire crew, until all of them were gathered at the Obs Deck. Then, a dossier appeared on the screens, along with the image of a rotating planet.

Planet Designation: Pelau
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Moderate flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: Yes
Water: 75% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Climate varies by region.
Landscape: Landscape at the North Pole varies. Within the biodomes, significant development. Outside the domes remains mostly pristine.
Air: Normoxic concentration: 29% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 3% xenon, 6% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.

Air Pressure: 14.352 pounds per square inch.
Sky: Blue/violet with white clouds.
Sun: A class D4K, yellow star.

Warnings: Be careful of frostbite outside the biodomes.

Mission: None. Shore leave is now initiated.

[Here's a handy map of the North Biodome where the crew is being dropped]


( Read more... )

The Southern Air Temple was pretty beautiful, architecturally speaking. With twisting spires and trees threaded into the framework of the temple itself, it looked half as if it'd grown out of the ground or been carved into it rather than that it had been built there.

The best part about it, though, was the sense of peace the place had. It was very easily the kind of thing that could draw people in and help them find calm, even if they weren't the religious type.

Hiccup was overjoyed by the presence of his special visitor and that was why he'd left her to go to his forge. Quickly gathering up all his plans and drawings, he made his way out.

He wanted to show her everything he'd thought of, every idea he had, wanted to share absolutely everything he could about himself in the day he had.

This was the first he'd get to know his mother, and the first she'd really get to know him, and he wasn't going to waste a minute of it.

It was a frigid cold even Hiccup wasn't used to when he entered the Sensorium where he was due to meet Sokka. The scene was set at what was clearly a vast land completely covered in snow and ice. The sun was bright, reflecting off it in a way that was slightly hard on the eyes. Even though the breeze was only slight, it crept in through the gaps in the very threads of his clothes, quickly chilling his body.

"Whoa. And I thought Berk winters were bad."

In only the brief moments it took for Hiccup to imagine up climate-appropriate furs, his teeth were already chattering. Fortunately, the warm clothes quickly made a dent on the cold.

"Toothless! Oh, Toooothless! You hungry, bud?"

Hiccup still preferred to feed the dragon, even if Toothless could will up food anytime if he wanted. It was their way of spending time together. Hiccup would feed him, Toothless would happily regurgitate some, Hiccup would politely decline and maybe fry up his own, un-eaten fish, and they'd just spend an hour or two in each other's company.

Toothless wasn't there in his Sensorium, though, but that didn't worry Hiccup at first. The dragon was free to wander where he wanted, and he could've been anywhere.

So he took to the halls.

"Toothless! Where are you, buddy? It's dinnertime! Toooothless!"

Not in his forge. Not in Daja's Forge. Not in the Drunken Dragon. Not near the river, not on Obs, not in the halls, not in any of the other Sensoriums, not there, not there, not there, not there.

Hiccup was in something of a panic towards the end.

"Toothless! Buddy! C'mon, where are you? Toothless! This isn't funny! No hide and seek, okay? Where are you?"

He knew. In his heart of hearts, he knew.

It was in the Spacewalk that he finally stopped, late, very late, when most were sleeping, when Astrid would've been expecting him come to bed, and there, heartbroken, he asked Stacy the question he knew was going to get an answer that he didn't want to hear.

"Stacy, where's Toothless? Where is he?!"

||There is no one named Toothless on the active crew roster.||

Repodded.

Hiccup knew he was safe, he knew he was even safer than if he was outside, he knew he'd see him again, but all the things he knew didn't matter when juxtaposed with one, simple fact. His best friend was gone. His best friend, who'd been by his side near-constantly since they'd taken their first flight together, was gone. His best friend who'd comforted him through the end of his world, through horror and being bed-bound with injuries, who'd kept him sane even when trapped in another form in Fairplay, who loved him all the times he couldn't love himself--he was gone.

Gone gone gone.

If anyone were to come by the Spacewalk, they'd find a teenage boy sitting on the floor, staring out of the clear panels of the tunnel there, at the stars and twisting dimensions going by.

"I'll find you, bud. She can't hide you away forever, and if she tries, I'll find you. I swear."

His knobbly knees were drawn up, with his arms around them, and he was very pointedly, very purposefully, not crying. He wasn't crying at all.

[ooc: Can be a standalone, as he's emo-ing pretty badly, but if anyone's nice to him during it, he'll probably seek them out and try to be friends later.]

Despite Superman's suddenly odd penchant for sporting mullets, it was time to have a heart-to-heart chat... between the Council and the rest of the crew. If there was some sort of bond between them and the crew that needed to be made, it needed to be done without hiding behind Omnicomms and other decisions.

Thus, the Council was gathered within La Prefecture and everyone was welcome to come in and make their concerns, questions, complaints and what have you known. Care to join us?

(OoC: This is open to everybody and everyone! Also, don't wait for the Council to address you guys! If your characters have concerns, start up a subthread and we'll gladly tag it!)

Next to the Mall Hotel, a large bazaar sprawled out through the streets. Food stalls, jewelery stalls, plastic surgery stalls...might want to stay away from that last one. But since the bizaar was close by, it served as a good place for the crew to meet up and start their exploration of XaXing.

[[ooc: This is just a general mingling post guys, so jump in and start threads, tag into other people's, whatever you want!]]

It was just for practice, and also something to distract himself and pass the time. It was almost meditative, after all.

Not that he was feeling as sad anymore. Life happened, there were hurts that were just part of it all. He was human so he could feel them and understand them, so he could know heartbreak just as well as love, calm just as well as anger, sadness just as well as happiness. He was human so he'd make choices he wasn't sure were right that he had to live with, so he could be hurt and wonder if it was right to feel that way.

Aang had come to accept that, so now he was just distracting himself. He'd managed to find paper--real paper--from Weapons and Possessions. It was rice paper, in a wide variety of colors, and he sitting against Appa in his Sensorium and folding it into a wide variety of animals.

Some were pretty good, depending on how long he'd actually bothered to practice doing that kind of animals. Others...well they were almost recognizably animals.

"What do you think, Appa? What does it look like to you?"

Appa grunted a long groaning sound, and Aang scratched his head.

"Actually, it's supposed to be a bison like you, not a boarcupine. But I guess it's a boarcupine now!"

He smiled and placed it down with the others and picked up his birds (most of them cranes) and started making them dance in the air over his head, which was the real point of all this. Airbending practice. Fine control was something he could always use work on and making the little paper birds fly overheard was fun.

It was, all things considered, a pretty good day. Sokka had decided to take the day off and spend the day doing something he loved: fishing. He wasn't sure if there were actually any fish in the river that ran through the city now, but that wasn't really the point. The point was that he had a body of water and a stick with a piece of line that was baited with a worm. He was happy to sit beneath the artificial sun, hat pulled over his eyes and stick held easily in his hands as he idled the day away. True, he could have done this in the Sensoriums but that wouldn't be the same. Real water was just more satisfying. And maybe he'd go for a swim later.

All in all it was shaping up to be a pretty good day.

Matt had refused to go near the City, or near the others for a while. He had a lot to think about.

So with his guitar slung over his shoulder, he had gone to the furthest reaches of the beach area, using an ability he kept under wraps. Shouldn't be people from a few miles at least, unless they had followed him doggedly.

Unslinging his guitar, he settled on a rock and started to play.

Early light that burns my eyes,
A minute more the sun will rise
And paint the bright blue sky with yellow gold
I’ll be dead asleep by then,
Shut up in this box again
Until it’s gone
Outside I can hear it
Birds are singing, bees are buzzing, sun shines overhead
I’d be there to see it but I can’t get out of bed
Since the day you left the weather always feels this way
One more blue sunny day

With a heavy sigh, he continued to play in the midst of the wonderful lakeside view he found.

Retreating back to the hotel, Katara could feel those overwhelming feeling of despair and whys me's echoing in the back of her head, but they didn't play to the surface. So Will was back. So she knew Matt would be conflicted, would have to decide what he wanted to do. Well she had a decision too. She could let him go, or she could tell Matt something different. In any case, part of her tried to insist their world was theirs, and she had no say. But Katara had too much training to allow herself to give up like this: she was a fighter, and she cared for everything that made an impact to her: and that was why she decided what she would do before she started her exercises.

Here it was simply the pool water in the hotel, but real water was a bit more of a comfort than artificial water from the Sensoriums. She wanted to bend it, move it as it should: for her, water had always been her calming space and her anchor. No matter where she went, it would be the link to her people, distinguish her on the ship.

Katara of the Southern water Tribe.

She was so caught up in her quiet streaming she wouldn't even notice someone approaching.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

It was one exhausted, tired, alien puke-covered, acid blood-burnt group of people that trundled out of the hangar and into the ship proper. Their mission? Had sucked. Their intel had been wrong. Their lives had nearly been forfeit.

But they had survived, mainly by watching each other's backs and shooting or slashed or flamethrowing at every damn thing that moved.

Now it was off to Medbay to tend to their injuries, but after that, maybe they'd finally catch a break.

They had no idea of what had just conspired, other than what they'd learned from Stacy's messages--there had been a traitor, and that traitor had been taken care of.

They had sneaked into the facility and out of the nest. They had gathered whatever equipment they could use as weapons. Now it was time for the rescuers to fight their way in, and the rescuees to fight their way free.

There was only a whole horde of xenomorphs in the way, after all.

In the complex, deeper into it near the core, several of the away team were all strung up near each other, around a clutch of disgusting looking eggs. Two appeared to have already been hatched. The rest were waiting. They were bound to the walls by slime and ick, some sort of substance spit up by the creatures that may as well have been quick-dry cement.

Outside the complex, the rest of the away team had made it to the ship--only to find it damaged. Acid spit up by one of the creature had burned through part of the hull and into important inner workings. They would need someone mechanically inclined, that understood electrical work, to fix it like Jamie--uh oh.

Well, that was a problem wasn't it.

It was time for the one group to try to survive, and the other group to figure out what to do about their missing comrades.

A cranky fire prince is waiting for his test student. He's still patchily burned in places from his latest round of maze-running, but the best cure for Zuko's crankiness is to get to work on whatever task has been put to him at the time. Currently, Hiccup is it.

Of course, this means he's sensorium-camping, which might not go over so well with the rest of the crew.

They had all been Chosen. The usual story when it came to Stacy. They'd had no say over who went on the mission, but fortunately a group of competent individuals had been chosen, with Kang, an Away Team leader there to act as mission leader.

The mission: to repair some of the mining mechanisms that had run down in an abandoned terraforming colony, to gather some rare ore with minerals and other substances vital to Stacy's functions. One small chunk would last her for ages.

The planet: LV-428 was a very hostile world, a dead rock with a very weak atmosphere that was comprised largely of Nitrogen, Argon, and Neon. Terraforming efforts had introduced enough oxygen for it to support human life, but only just barely. Due to the violent nature of terraforming on the climate, raging electromagnetic storms often occurred, cutting off all communications.

The intel: Due to a war on Earth, the members of the colony had been recalled back home. The entire place was abandoned, but thought to be safe.

The Mission Personnel: Jamie Hemeros, Kang, Sokka, and Hiccup were on to handle the mechanics ends of the mission. Scarlet Levy was to be their medic, just in case of injuries. Reimi was their pilot. And on the security detail were Tobias, Hap Suriz, Rose Tyler, Setsuna, Kettch, and Stoick. Kang doubled as their away team leader.

Surely this group could handle anything thrown their way. For something as simple as an empty colony, they were almost over-equipped.

...Right?

[ooc: Don't post until I have subthreads set up]

While her room, the W.I.T.C.H. bus and the Sensoriums were all places that Katara tried out for her new puppy, Zhin still felt more at home in the Hydroponics bay. The flora had agreed with her, and the alien dog missed all of the friends she'd made. Some were still here but most were gone, either a pet of the crew or simply brought to a safer place. Zhin understood this, but likened the start of her new life with her owner as starting the moment she'd been brought to this place. Zhin was wise for one that had lived such a short life so far, but she also made Katara understand that she would not talk about the things she'd been through all at once. Katara respected this, and in turn Zhin accompanied Katara on the tasks she went through without complaint. One of those was meeting the guys right now: Sokka, Zuko, Toph and Mai. She'd asked to meet them in the Hydroponic bay, but if anyone else came, they'd have a sight.

She'd chosen particularly brighter spot in the bay, where the flora seemed to give off a bio luminescence all its own. Katara, for the occasion, was dressed in the glowing club clothing she'd bought on their offshore leave: a little expensive and certainly bright, but enough so that she could be seen, and the plantsuit was still underneath anyway. She had prepared several different foods for the guys too: some meat and fish for Sokka, fairly spicy food for Zuko and Mai, and a dish of vegetables and poultry for Toph. She laid all of this out on a tablecloth on the ground which Zhin helped her set up.

Now she would wait, and play host.

To say that Kelly was having trouble relaxing would have been an understatement. Perched on the tallest, rocky outcrop she could find, the waves crashing against the smooth stone far below her, she was throwing stones across the water almost absently. The way her eyes refused to remain still however, attested to the fact that she was alert and wary as ever. Unlike the other members of the crew, who seemed to have taken the shore leave well enough, the Spartan had never been comfortable with inaction. Zokez II may have been a rest stop, a play-planet as it were, but to be on a strange planet, disallowed weapons and worst of all, her armor put her slightly on edge. Of course, a Spartan didn't need weapons to be deadly, but they sure as hell helped when it came down to it. In stark contrast to other members of the crew who had happily shed the majority of their clothing in favour of beachwear, Kelly's attire had hardly changed.

Dressed in cargo pants, combat boots, and a tight singlet with 'U.N.S.C.' stamped across the chest (something she had undoubtedly done herself sometime) she was the picture of discomfort. Her too-pale skin seemed to gleam in the sunlight as she sat, ignoring the gleeful cries of the people surrounding her. She kept a watchful eye on any member of Stacy's crew who was within sight, all the while lobbing rock after rock into the sea. At the rate she was going, it was surprising that she hadn't run out of them yet.

R&R simply wasn't her thing. She could appreciate rack time as much as the next person. A good soldier knew when their body needed rest. But this, relaxing, not doing anything. Unarmed and completely open to enemy attack. She didn't like it. The Ohm were out there. Who was to say they wouldn't hit this planet next? And without weapons, completely unprepared for such an attack, how would a single member survive. Her entire life had been a battlefield. Honestly, she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been fighting, recuperating from a fight, or preparing to fight. This sort of relaxation simply wasn't for her. At the moment however, all she could do was keep a watchful eye out for anything that may have signaled trouble. Leave the others to enjoy the water and the sun. She would make sure they were safe.

The first thing Katara would do once she got her shore leave and money would be to head to a shop a buy a bathing suit: it nothing too bare, she preferred one pieces to bikinis anyway, and she got one with a pretty interesting design decked in blue. When that was done, she purchased some suntan lotion and made straight away for the water, laughing and giggling as she playfully had the tide come to meet her. When she got close enough she turned in the air and landed neatly into the water, using her hands to have the water sweep her out as she dove in and out. She did just about everything she could there: water surfing, exploring the sea creatures within, and bringing the waves up and down to take her higher in the air. Anyone who could have observed the girl would have known immediately her element, and when she finally DID get out of the water, she wasn't tired but in fact more pumped up and ready to see more of this place.

Also, she could eat seafood, couldn't she? The possibilities were endless!