She howls, as she stumbles under the immense heat from the triumvirate of sun’s high in the reddish tinged sky. Beads of thick sweat pour down her ebony hued forehead inside her make shift helmet. The barren steppe upon which they’ve crashed is strewn with only a handful of scrub foliage, and no shade or cover from the glaring, harsh suns. Behind her lies a badly damaged Falcon-Heavy Class star hopper, it has a massive black scar along one side of the hull. A cavernous gash exposing all manner of wiring, pipes and life support systems to the open vacuum of space prior to falling out of the sky and crashing like a putelant child, into a lump of crumpled steel on a rugged strip of dirt on some unknown planet. “Fuck me.” Shouts her copilot from inside the wreckage. “We have a couple of weeks of repairs to undertake here Katayna. And that’s if, if, our stores hold enough raw materials for the mill and lathe units to process us our replacement parts… not only structural pieces but full fucking hull plates too. Nozzles and fairings. Fucking hell.” The co pilot is diminutive three foot tall, three armed blue-purple biped with large bulbous multi faceted eyes, and is completely hairless. Besides being a copilot come navigator, Errebor is also a mill Wright and does all of the ships servicing herself. Katayna, the lithe pilot and owner of the vessel is standing stock still admiring the damage wrought by their tumultuous landing. Muttering to herself soundlessly with her microphone turned off. making a mental list of parts and repairs that will need to be made to the exterior hull plating, and environmental shielding apparatus. “Does this planet look really red to you Kat?” Pipes in Errebor over the helmets comm’s unit. Taking a step back from the massive stretch of ragged black burned and torn hull, Katayna turns to look out over the steppe and really take in her surroundings. “Why yes, yes it does. Almost rusty. Why?” Asks Kat while standing motionless in the stifling heat of the mid day glare. “I’d wager a fuck tonne of that Pengar cock you love so much that this here planet is ferrous. I don’t think we’ll have to dig that far down to gather enough materials to smelt us up some ore of a useful sort. That’s what the fuck I’m thinking, Kat”. The short co pilot is now hanging from the mangled rear bay doors, observing the barren wasteland through a pair of range finding binoculars. With four limbs hanging from any available surface, and the last available arm clutching onto her binoculars she has a higher vantage point than Kat, and notices rising clouds of dust well into the distance. Alerted to the motion Kat moves along the steppe to the edge of a precipice. Way down below, in what could have once been a valley are strange beings. Strange hairy four legged creatures that appear to be running at an enormous rate of speed. “Oh me, oh my. Oh me, oh my!” Quips Errebor. “From here to there, strange things are everywhere.” Responds Katayna with a slight smirk.
PART ONE The Company: Sisters in Arms.
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