Essie's Story

They were running out of fuel, but at least they weren't going to be hurtling into outer space for eons. They had no back up plan or reserves because of the sudden emergency evacuation that had taken over their planets, Etrippe and Iiines. Over 80% of the population were dead or dying, the rest were trying to escape before infection. If they escaped and were infected, there was no hope for the android-alien species, the Xupra.

"Aenanu!" His sister was scared, panicking. She hadn't wanted to leave the planet but her mate was dead and he wasn't even sure if she was infected or not. And she was five months pregnant with her first child which didn't help. She'd wanted to stay by her mate's side, but Aen wasn't going to let that happen.

They also had a third passenger on board, Sharar. Another soldier. The more soldiers that survived the better. He just hoped that the planet they landed on wasn't one where they would have to fight for their lives. The Xupra, until now had never left their planet and they'd had no alien visitors either because of being hidden in deep space. But now that was all about to change.

"Sharar! Make sure the landing gear is ready! Essie, hold on tight, it's going to be a harsh landing! Strap yourself in. Get that blanket yo protect your stomach. Put your head down!" Aenanu ordered.

He pushed some buttons on the lit-up metal ship that was octagonally shaped. He pulled some gears and looked out the window. They were heading straight for a building. He pulled the controls up, trying to get the ship to pass over the building. They were coming in too fast. They were going to crash right into it!

"Heads down! Heads down!" Aenanu shouted, ducking and putting his hands over his head for protection.

With a sudden and almighty bang, the ship had taken out the left side of the structure. The building had also taken out some of their ship. A big gaping hole was there, and Essie was gone. Her body, looking lifeless, was covered in rubble almost.

"Essie! Essie!" Aenanu came around with panic as he saw his twin wasn't in the ship. Without even thinking about security, he was out of his ship and looking around for his sister.

There was a loud ringing. Deafening even. But all Sharar could see was utter, and complete darkness. Sudden flashes of dull light would occasionally brighten the black, but did little else. As he grew more and more confused, Sharar finally figured out what was wrong,

He had yet to open his eyes.

Blinking, Sharar looked to his right, trying to identify his right hand, which was currently buried under a pile of small debris like dust and broken stone. With a heavy sigh Sharar pulled his hand free, and pushed it against the ground in an effort to pick himself up. Muscles were sore and skin was bruised, and as he looked to the ground at his feet, Sharar noticed shards of the ballistic glass and polyurethane polymer that made up the ships "windshield". A quick thought later he deduced he must have been sent crashing through it on impact....and a sharp pain in his left shoulder revealed large shards embededd in his skin, only further confirming his hypothesis.

Sharar continued his assessment of his surrounding area, completely decimated by the ship's crash landing. Slowly he put together a string of competent thoughts and proceeded to walk slowly towards the remains of the ship, now wedged at an angle into the side of the building.

Making his way to the ship's underside, Sharar placed his hands against her, feeling around for a certain break or niche. When he did find what he was looking for, the man made a tight fist, punching the unidentifiable metal with immense force. After two or three blows, their was a sizable dent in the body of the ship, which Sharar used to get a better grip on a hidden edge.

With a deep breath the man heaved, and with a single pull a section of the ship's underside gave way, revealing one of several landing gears.

"One of four landing gears lowered," The man said, almost mechanically. "proceeding to lower the other three as ordered."

All around, there was panic.

Distressed wails filled what was now a ruin of a building, one white wall cracked and crumbled and falling down to the lower levels. The UFO had broken right into a spacious meeting room, which had previously been a statement of formal and lofty artiste. It was now littered with broken wood and stone, twisted metal, and other miscellaneous debris. People ran, toppled over,

Rushing into the room with caution was a small security team that had been waiting for threats to come down the hallway, not crashing like a goddamned whale into the side of the building. Sich Karis, a woman with pale skin and young features, lead a team of six others. They all wore black, form-fitting combat suits, and from their fingers to their elbows stretched gloves that had delicate veins of light running through them. They were heavily armed with several different kinds of weapons.

"Find anyone who's injured! Get them out! Only engage alien lifeforms in a fight if they're hostile. Move."

She went forward first, and her first stop was the spacecraft. A man accompanying the agent, Shan Valk, a sharp-featured, brown-skinned young alulan man came up beside her. There was so much dust it made it hard to differentiate one thing from another, but Sich could just see something...

"Hey, you! Freeze!" she cried in Misranae, approaching them fearlessly.

"Stop with the shit and come and help me with Essie!" Aenanu shouted in his native tongue, Xi. They knew a few different languages, including English, but Misranae was not one of them as he looked up at the people shouting at Sharar. They hadn't seen him yet, it seemed, and despite their weapons, Aena went back to pulling Essie out of the rubble. She looked pretty badly hurt. As a female, the weaker gender on their planet, it was easy for her to get hurt.

Plus, he wasn't worried about an attack. The android side of his genes would protect him. They were trained in defense. He frowned as he looked at Essie, she wasn't doing good. The darker lines on her body glowed lightly, showing that her android side was working to try and protect her - trying to save her. And the baby she was carrying.

"Ignore them! They don't matter. What matters is Essie. I don't care what they're saying Essie is more important!" He told Sharar, still talking in Xi. "Get the medical kit. It should be somewhere in the back of the ship." He then told him, looking back at his sister. "Come on, Essie. Come on. Wake up."

"Alert, inseminated female in critical condition. Crisis protocol dictates raised priority status." sharar stated aloud as he yanked down yet another one of the ship's landing gears. "Current orders dictate the location of medical supplies."

Sharar blinked for a moment before climbing through the wreckage and into the remains of the ship. The Misranians went completely unnoticed, as Sharar focused solely on his orders.

A product of military programming, Sharar's higher cognitive processors were installed with a "Crisis Protocol" a state of heightened alert, and awareness. In this state, almost everything human about him was overridden and controlled by his machined parts.

He was extremely dangerous as well.

Sich stormed forward. "Hey!" she screamed. A million thoughts went through her mind. This couldn't be an attack, could it? The Supremacy wouldn't dare. Not with Badoren as their Alnova. That was also not one of the Supremacy's ships. She could not recognize it at all. Was this an attack by aliens? Was this an invasion?

But why would they just...crash...into the City Hall...on a day when nearly no one was supposed to be there? It didn't make sense. It had to be unintentional. She advanced all the way up to Sharar, because of this, and held up a hand in a gesture that said "Calm down."

She peered past him toward the two people inside the ship. One seemed to be injured. She looked at Sharar again and put a hand over her heart. "Sadah," she said. "Saaa...daaah..." Help. Help you. She tried to speak slowly, then mimic winding bandages over her arm. "Sadah lue." Help them. She pointed to the pair.

Aenanu didn't care about the woman currently screaming their way. He had other important matters. More important matters. Like helping his sister. This woman shouting was nothing to him. She was just a woman. She was even lower in importance than his sister. And his sister was pretty low because she was a woman - though, being pregnant gave you a higher status in their land. You get better care because you were pregnant.

He looked up when he saw the woman behind Sharar, suspicious at first, almost ready to shout at the man to get him to defend, but despite their lack of contact with the outside world, and despite their language barriers and lack of everything else, he realised that they weren't ready to shoot them, or attack. She wasn't aiming a gun at them. Maybe she was sent to aid them. To serve them.

"My sister." He said in Xi, expecting her to understand right away, "she's hurt. Fix her. She's pregnant."

He looked down at the unconscious girl that was no longer buried in rubble of both the ship and the building. He looked up at them and when they made no move. He pointed to the woman there, then to his sister, and then to her stomach. And made a motion for her to move over to him.

Sharar walked past Sich without so much as a blink. "Unidentified xeno -species, scanners indicate probably a female. Protocol dictated action: Disregard. Use of force unauthorized." Sharar climbed into the wreckage of the ship and began his search into one of the ship's rooms.

After a few moments, Sharar emerged carrying a footlocker on his shoulder.

"Objective completed." He said as he climbed out of the wreckage and moved back towards the other two members of his species. "Medical supplies located, new objective; apply first aid to injured female."

Captain Thunder tore across the sky above the City Hall, stopping for a moment to simply hover there, surveying the scene. Her wings hummed in there air, making her flight sound like that of a large insect. Slowly the diflaecan descended to the city hall, trying to identify the crashed ship. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, though this didn't let her know if it was local or not, as she hadn't seen any of the local ships before. She was already feeling fatigued by the short flight, and landed on top of the crashed ship, trying to determine the status of the occupants of both ship and building. She wasn't entirely sure of what Duren's sister even looked like, but she assumed, something like he did.

Despite how drained the short flight had left her, Thunder was quick to slide down the side of the ship, landing in what could have passed for a heroic pose, if not for the fact that it likely went unnoticed. It seemed that some of the commotion was around a downed female, or at least Thunder assumed so. One of the males was pantomiming at the downed female, likely asking for help, as the captain guessed there was some sort of language barrier.

Thunder hurried over, holding her hands up defensively, and relying on the translating magic that was contained in one of her earrings,"Hey, hey, I have some medical training and I'm a doctor, I can help." She left out that she wasn't exactly a medical doctor, but at this point it was best to put everyone at ease. She pointed at Sharar with the footlocker,"You said you have medical supplies, right? Crack that puppy open, and I can try to help."

While she spoke, Thunder's eyepatch took extensive scans of each person there, finding that the injured people were somewhat mechanical in nature. While she had never seen anything like it, it gave her the hope that she was possibly more helpful that she originally thought.

Sich was not sure completely what she was supposed to do. She looked between Sharar and the couple, trying to make some sense out of the jibber jabber that was their language. She knew one thing, however, and that was that someone was hurt. They needed help.

She stroked the skin on her cheek, causing it to light up in a thin design similar to a circuit board. She began to speak into it, calling for medical assistance. "Lifeforms are not hostile...so far..." she finished.

"Sich?" said Shan, tapping the girl on the shoulder. "Um...it looks like we have a bit more company." He rose his hand to point to the green-skinned, bug-winged woman. Sich froze.

"Another alien? With...wings?" That was crazy! But she was speaking their language! And the other people's language? "Hey!" said Sich, pointing to Captain Thunder. "Could you let them know that more medical assistance is on the way?"

Sharar set the footlocker down and pried it open, the lock he didn't bother to undo ripped open with a loud crack. and stepped aside.

"This unit is programmed with limited medical knowledge. Sit-rep; options are to allow the medical assistance of unidentified xeno with unknown intentions, or to render basic first-aid. Odds of sufficient treatment to stabilize injured female are increased with xeno, However there is possibility the xeno is hostile. Crisis protocol dictates commanding officer to decide course of action. Error. Commanding officer Ja'el is not present. Program head Sevani is also not present. This unit is not part of standard military ranks...advise independent course of action. Notice, Female's sibling is present. Brother of Female is part of standard military ranks. Resolution; injured female's sibling shall decide upon course of action."

It was then that Sich stroked her cheek, and Sharar's head snapped to her, eyes focusing on the pattern on her cheek.

"Unidentified xeno demonstrates construction similar to Xi." Sharar extend a hand towards the woman. "Protocol does not include appropriate response."

Aenanu was surprised when the new alien arrived and could translate their language. Maybe everything would be okay now. He glanced at the other two, trying to get his head around everything and letting Sharar open the medical supplies. They weren't the normal supplies either and Aenanu immediately went digging around inside, trying to find what he needed, but he was no doctor.

"Leave them, Sharar." Aenanu spoke in Xi. "They're not hurting us. They're here to help. Let them help. If they show signs of attack, then we defend." He told his associate. They weren't really classed as friends.

He looked at Sich and Captain Thunder.

"My name is Aenanu. That is Sharar and this is my sister, Essie. She's heavily pregnant with twins. We need to help her. She cannot die." He hoped that the fairy-bug-thing would translate for him so that help would be on the way and was glad to hear that medical assistance had been called for.

Thunder nodded to Sich and Shan, before turning her attention back to Aenanu,"She," she indicated Sich,"Said that more medical assistance is on the way."

She knelt next to Essie, checking to make sure the pregnant woman was breathing before anything else, while switching her eyepatch's scanning mode so that she could examine the soft tissue. As she checked Essie's vitals, she spoke to Sich,"The male here is named Aenanu, big grumpy over there is Sharar, and the poor girl here is Essie, she's got twins, which if its anything like my race's issues, is really tricky." To both groups, which would sound strange as the translating magic worked to make her understandable to both,"We can't move her yet." Speaking to only Aenanu again,"I'm going to need you to tell me the most important parts about your species' biology. Speak fast, I'm a quick learner."

She needed to assess the damage, and stop any bleeding, but it would all be pretty pointless if the poor woman wasn't even breathing in the first place. It seemed that the mechanical parts of the woman were acting as life support for now, but with only internal resources, Yuui could only guess at when this would give out,"Alright first thing we need to do is stop the bleeding. Hey, tall dark and grumpy, if you have something we can bind tightly, gimme that." She pointed at Sharar for the last part, clearly unaware of any sort of hierarchy, and at the moment, not particularly caring about anything like that. If Essie bled out before the real medical personnel got there, both the woman and her children would die.

And that would suck.

To Sich she tried not to sound overly concerned, so not to freak Aenanu out any more than he already was,"Hey, how long until those medics get here? Poor girl is already on her last legs."

"They should be here-" Sich was not allowed to finish as shadows hovered above, answering her question.

Scyphozoa were versatile, excellent medical units that were both gentle and precise. They carried a distinct resemblance to the jellyfish they were named from, with a hard shell as the cap and transparent tendrils hanging below. They hovered down toward Essie and Aenanu cautiously. Behind them hovered a more humanoid figure standing atop a vehicle that resembled a manta ray with feathers. She was clad in a tight combat suit, but she was not armed.

She hopped off into the ship with the Scyphozoa, trying to get close enough to administer care to Essie.

"Aretu..." sighed Sich. "Well, at least it wasn't anyone worse." She looked towards Thunder. "Thank you."

She froze as Sharar snapped his sights onto her. The woman's fingers twitched toward her weapon. Shan came to her side, but he was more useless than she would ever be.

"We're bound by an android organism. It's connected to our nervous system and is part of our immune system. You can't get rid of it or we die. I guess our biology isn't much different to other species. We have limbs and blood. If we lose our blood we can die too." Aenanu told the other alien that had turned up.

Essie was bleeding on the back of her head and her leg. She was already paler than normal. Her brown lines that covered her cody seemed to be glowing, working on trying to keep their source alive so that they didn't die either - the android organisms.

When Aenanu saw someone else around, he glanced at them and then back to the winged alien, waiting for a translation for who it was. When they told him that it was the medic to treat Essie, only then he'd take a step back to let them help his sister.

Thunder nodded to Aenanu and motioned to the medics,"Alright, they're the medical personnel."

When the medics were close enough, Thunder spoke to them next, explaining as much as she could,"This one is pregnant with twins ans seems to have several lacerations, the worst of which are on her head and leg. Probable concussion, considerable blood loss, and possibilities of other complications are evident." She motioned lightly at the spot on Essie's leg that Thunder had bound to help hold off the bleeding, as well as the back of Essie's head, which Thunder was manually applying pressure to,"Also they have a symbiotic android organism which must not be removed or damaged, as its wired into their nervous system. Right now its all that's keeping this poor girl alive."

Thunder was hesitant to leave Essie's side, but she wasn't actually a medical doctor, and besides, there was no profit to be had in all this. On the other hand, the scientist in her screamed for more information on the species, and a thirst for knowledge, just for knowledge's sake,"The male here is her brother, so he should be allowed to stay with her at least."

The Scyphozoa surrounded Essie, and their hundreds of clear appendages would latch onto her skin, melting into it, creating a hovering, organic gurney. The tendrils stemmed bleeding for their abundance, but they dared not administer the anesthetic they carried within their main bodies. They had no idea how these aliens would react.

The Scyphozoa began to float off toward one of Zanzaria's hospitals with the woman. More of them came, but not for Sharar or Aenanu. There were more people in the building who were hurt. Aretu Liiga went with Essie, and the dash on her Sajeera lit up with a quick diagnosis on her state .

Sich and Shan made their way closer, cautiously, to Sharar, Thunder, and Aenanu. "You all should come with us. Our translators aren't working with them because we don't have their language in our database. We'll need you-" She gestured to Captain Thunder, "-to help us out a bit more while we take these two aliens in for some questioning."

Sharar stood rigid with his hands at his side, staring at the people surrounding them. "This unit observes that the immediate danger has passed. Crisis protocol disengaging, please standby."

The man closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them his body seemed to loosen, if only slightly. Giving the others another once over, Sharar turned to look toward Aenanu.

He did not know why he had wound up in an evacuation craft with the other Xupra and his sister. He had chalked it up to pure chance. His last memories indicated that he was supposed to have been evacuated with the officer's of the program, but ti seemed like that hadn't been the case...

Odd, had the virus really spread that fast?

"For the record, I don't believe senselessly indulging strangers with information about our construction is a good idea. Just because they haven't attacked us yet, doesn't mean they won't try later."

He turned away from the Xupra, looking at Sich for a moment, before staring hard at Shan. While it seemed the female was the one giving the orders, he still registered Shan as a higher threat.

Aenanu frowned as Sharar seemed to snap out of the android side of himself and commented about his way of handing information over. "I gave the information because they need to save her. They cannot save her without it. If we're the last of our species, and the only ones that successfully made it to another planet, that means we are the last of our kind. And that means you'll be the one needing to mate with my sister." Aenanu spoke fast in Xi to Sharar, turning hostile to the only other Xupra.

"Now you go and talk to them, help them with whatever they need. I'm going to my sister." He ordered before looking at Captain Thunder. "Tell them I am going to follow my sister and that Sharar will stay and help them with whatever they need."

With that, Aenanu started to follow his sister. He didn't care what they thought or wanted. He was going to stay by his sister's side.

Thunder threw up her hands and sighed heavily, considering how little she was getting paid for all this. It seemed like there was some sort of domestic dispute between the males, and then she got conflicting requests/orders. Great, what had she gotten herself into?

First, she turned to Aenanu,"Alright, I'm going to be coming with you guys so I can translate, so, uh..." She looked between each person, then back to the brother of the injured female,"Maybe it'd be best if all you guys stuck together, since I only have one earring, and I'm totally not trusting any of you guys with it."

She then looked back to Sich and shook her head,"You can do your questioning at the hospital or whatever. These guys need to stay all together, and the one guy was saying that they might be the last of their species. Plus...you are not going to deny me the chance to study these guys a little more. Have you ever met anything like these guys? Judging by the way you're staring at my wings,"She buzzed them for emphasis,"You haven't even seen someone like me, and my race isn't critically endangered."

With that, Thunder snapped her fingers, and turned on her heel to follow Aenanu and his sister.