Survival: Planet Purgatory

[BadForm]

OOC: This thread is open to anyone, the only request I make is that if you join you are a roleplayer and NOT just a sex-writer. There may well be sex as part of this thread, after all this is the SRP forum, but the background and storyline is going to be much more involved than that. Other than that, welcome.

Neither Heaven nor Hell. It is simply Purgatory.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

IC: It was an old tradition. When a nation was overcrowded, the unwelcome were shipped off to a hostile, unsettled land in order to found new colonies for the mother country. Bondsmen could earn high rank, prisoners could earn their freedom, freemen could gain land and privelege undreamed of and minor beaurocrats could earn a position they could never achieve at home. Most didn't of course, most died, but bondsmen and criminals had no choice and for the others, greed won out over sense. Yes, it was an old tradition, dating back to the early years of civilization, and as Sol's local neighborhood had become overpopulated, the various governments had reinstituted the tradition. Huge interstellar colony ships were dispatched to distant systems where habitable worlds had been identified. Hundreds, even thousands, of people at a time would be taken and dumped on unknown planets to make the best of it... and so galactic expansion progressed.

Merkin sat at the helm of the Diablo, the largest colony ship so far created in the Solar Federation. They were heading for Purgatory, 70 Virginis, a g-type star almost 60 light years from Sol, with a cargo of nearly 4000 assorted reprobates, felons and losers wanting to start a new colony. There were two earth-like planets identified around that star system, giving them ample time to get their tech-bases up and running before having to build stellar ships and terraformers to make best use of the resources on the rest of the planets in the system.

Even at post-light speeds, the journey was taking over a year to complete, but it was far from a tedious journey due to the Federation's rules. They ensured that two crew were always awake together, and that those two were lovers, psychologically analysed as being able to enjoy each others company alone for extended periods. Right now, he was enjoying Jandra's oral ministrations, as he eased into sub-light speed and entered the sytem. Purgatory 2 was the planet they would land on. Earthlike, warm and tropical, one look at the planetary analysis readout showed that its atmosphere was fully breathable. Perhaps, even with the need for hard work, the planet would be paradise. He closed his eyes as he felt his orgasm approach, allowing the autopilot to take them in to land.

Suddenly the ship's emergency siren blared into life. Pirates. He tried to react, but his distraction made him too late. Eight wolf-class ships were hidden behind the planet's moons, obviously having intercepted the various communications and aware of the prize they could so easily pluck. Wolves were light, relatively well armed and fast - ideal for preying on such bulky ships as colonists. There were over a dozen shots before he could respond, and even then there was little he could do. Merkin accelerated toward the planet, ordering Jandra to open fire with their limited weaponry. Two more shots, their engines were gone and the ship was on a crash course. The next shattered the ship's hull, sending shrapnel throughout the cabin. Merkin screamed as he felt the flying debris slice through him. Beside him, Jandra slumped forwards. He tried desperately to pull out of the burning dive, but couldn't. Like a fireball, the dead craft smashed through the canopy of trees below, ripping and tearing at both craft and forest. His fingers skimmed the control panels as he forced the craft to slow, at least preventing an earthquake inducing smashdown. The last thing he saw was a tree, scooped from its roots by the impact, snapping as it was thrust towards him through the gaping hole in the cabin.

Hours later, the first intact life support pod burst its sealings as the technology supporting it failed. Lights died onboard the ship as its structure began to creak ominously. Had he still been alive, Merkin would have been even more worried by the fact that none of the pirates had followed him down to the surface. They had already learned the one thing which no planetary scan could ever have told him. The atmosphere of Purgatory II was technotoxic. Electrical components, plastics, even synthetic fibres, decayed rapidly. The stranded would soon have none of the support they once relied on in their society.

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

Xidir sat in her containment cube, waiting to land on this new planet. One again she would be free. Free to watch the day pass, in shades of corse, but free none the less.

Ten years had passed since she was in cryo. Ten long years, waiting for her days to pass, waiting for the day she could excape from Dexac State Pen. Too long for her.

She had only killed enough to count on her hand, but they thought she was evil incarnate. The worst of the worst. She had no conscience, no morals. Perhaps she was evil. But who really cared.

Her childhood she spent killing cats and dogs for the pure joy of hearing them scream. Her father beat her, so why not find what joy he got out of it.

When she was thirteen she murdered her first human, a boy who had rejected her advances. She licked his blood off the knife that took his life as his eyes, still twitching watched in terror. She smiled a bloody grin, teasing him.

Nineteen, she killed her father, taking his bloody hand with her as a momento. She carried it with her for three weeks before the stench became too much for her.

From then on it took her three years to be caught, the next ten spent in cryo. Only about eight or nine victims, all who deserved to die in her eyes. Somewhere along the way she had her eyes fixed. Seeing someone in the dark would be easier now, no longer a sneak could come behind her.

Kids loved her, felt her out in her moment, trying to be her. But they could not be her. For how could you ever be the best?

She was sitting there complimenting on herself of her release, Purgatory her new home when her body was jolted. She was slammed near the wall, her head hitting the back of it. Her black hair, too short to move, but splattered with blood as the person in the next cell came through the wall. Blood and grey matter going everywhere.

Her body, muscled from contant working out, poised itself for a fall, not knowing why they were going down so far. A few more jolts and the last thing she remembered was tasting the blood and grey matter of her companion before darkness..........

 

[android1966]

Ramon groaned and tried to move, but a dead weight pressing down on him prevented him from sitting up. Blearily his eyes focused, with a start he realised the term dead weight had been bizarrely accurate. Jammed around him were the corpses of the signoras other bondmen. Panic gripped him and he fought, kicked and clawed his way out of the cryo-chamber till he lay gasping for breath on the deck.

Ramon had run with the Diablos, the premier gang in his barrio till a police sweep had picked him up. Sentanced as a juvenile petty offender he'd been fitted with a neural suppressor and sold as a bondman to the signora. He'd spent three years of hell, virtually a zombie till the signora had decided to set herself up in a grand hacienda on a colony.

Ramon held his head in his hands and wailed as the waves of pain threatened to split his head open. Gradually the pain subsided and he staggered to his feet. Looking around he sensed the difference in himself, for the first time in three years he felt alert and alive. He balled his right fist and stared at it, then turned and smashed it into a plexi-glass screen set into the wall.

Ramon smiled at the blood coating his knuckles, for some reason the chip they had stuck in his head no longer worked.

 

[BadForm]

Kizzit

Kizzit groaned as her pod popped open. She hurt. She hurt badly and she hurt all over. That shouldn't be. The pods were fitted with enough medical devices to overcome any pain, that meant that they had failed. She looked around at the scene of destruction before her and felt a sense of dread wash over her. They had not just landed badly, they had crashed. It was sufficient to destroy the ship, or much of it, but even that didn't account for the system failure. Spaceships now were designed with such safety features in mind that they could lose whole sections and the sealed off areas would still function. She heard the creaking of the plasmetal structure around her and frowned. What was happening to everything. The air seemed fine to her, almost sweet after the inanimate artificiality of the stasis pod. But something was causing the ship to groan as if it was about to collapse.

Kizzit thought she had seen it all in her time. She had worked on starships for the last twenty years, since she had entered her Alma Mater at 16 years old. She had risen in ranks from ensign to planetary specialist, and with her background and fertility rating had found it easy to secure a place on board this vessel as part of the investigation team, and as a breeder. But nothing had prepared her for this.

She stepped out of the pod, into the dark of the ship. With no lights, only the faint traces of sunlight were filtering through the exterior of the ship. It was enough to find her way to one of the storage lockers, whose doors were now swinging wide open, the lock mechanism having failed. She reached in and drew out a hand-scanner, hoping to find out more of what was happening. A flick of the switch brought a dim light to the display, which immediately died. She shook the gadget in annoyance, but nothing happened.

A tremor passed through the ship suddenly, and as she tried to stop herself falling, she felt her skirt slip from her body. She dropped the scanner urgently as she reached for the material, and felt her coat fall open. Her clothes were falling apart, just like the ship. Suddenly, she remembered the lecture she'd seen on Space Channel 1 just three years ago. A scientific team had disappeared on an expedition to one of the ring system worlds. The last broadcast they had made was that something seemed to be causing everything techonological to fail. Everything. As the rest of her clothes slowly began to dissolve, she realised just how little nowadays was truly natural. Not weapons, not clothes, not, as far as she could think, anything anybody used.

 

[BadForm]

Kizzit

With a tremendous shrieking noise, part of the hull parted company with the rest of the ship, falling to the forest floor below them. Kizzit gasped in pain as sunlight far brighter than on her homeworld streamed in through the ripped ship, blinding her momentarily. Yes, this world orbitted a bright, slightly cool sun. It was going to take adjustment in order to be able to see properly even for her. Some of the crew, and some of the passengers, had had eye operations. For them it would be worse as their normally excellent night vision would be flooded by the sunlight.

The crew and the passengers, she thought. She had to free them. If the ship was really collapsing so quickly in this atmosphere she had to release the stasis pods both here in the crew quarters, and further back in the colony quarters. Hopefully, together, they could survive this world.

She struggled through the brilliance, searching out the control panels with her hands. Before she reached them, she heard both a tinkling of falling plasti-glass and a popping of release catches. The pods were already malfunctioning and decaying, opening themselves. She struggled forwards and cried out as a corpse fell on her, its face caved in by the force of the impact. Cold and clammy from the stasis pod, it chilled her almost as much physically as emotionally. She struggled out from underneath it, feeling the last of her clothing rip free as she did so.

How many had died? She didn't know. She didn't think she could find out either - the electricity was dead already. The pods were opening, whether the occupants had survived or not. She struggled over to an intact hatchway, swinging open in the cool breeze. Then she dropped out onto the forest floor. All she could hope was that enough had survived the impact to make surviving the planet possible... and that anyone who did so would understand the need to work together.

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

Xidir opened her eyes, seeing a little stream of light from the edge of the pod. "Well, I guess I lived." She smirked to herself, the pain in hear arm hurting like hell. "After all, you don't feel pain if you are dead."

She moved so she was no longer leaning on her arm and tried to pry the top of the pod off her. As it opened she was instantly blinded by a rush of light, "Auughhhh".

She felt her way around, the sharp edges of the pod, peeling away it seemed. She felt the metal she curl in her hands. "What the Hell?" she yelled. Was this place just plastic now?

"Hello!" She yelled, hoping someone would hear her. She was shit if she couldn't see.

 

[android1966]

Ramon wandered through the ships interior as it decayed around him. Occasionally a survivor would call out for his help as he passed, but he ignored them. His clothing had crumbled and fell away shortly after he had got out of the stasis pod and
he laughed a little crazily as he walked naked through the dying ship. Up ahead there was a loud crash as a section of hull collapsed. He hurried forward deciding to exit the ship through the breach before the whole thing fell apart.

"Hello?" Someone called.

Ramon stopped and listened, the voice had sounded like a young womans. He was torn for a second between his disregard for anyones welfare but his own and the attraction of seeing a bit of naked puta after three years of enforced abstinance. His hormones won.

He made his way towards where the voice had come from. The lid of a pod was moving as though someone was trying to get out. Silently he crept up and looked into the plasti-glas panel. A young woman was inside and Ramon leered as he saw she was attactive with a fit body. He waved his hand
in front of the panel, but the woman made no sign that she could see him. He had never had the money to have his eyes fixed so he had adjusted to the light quickly.

Finding the release button Ramon pressed it, but nothing happened. He shrugged then punched his fist against the panel. The fast weakening plasti-glas shattered easily making the woman inside jump as she was showered with shards of broken panel.

"Hello." said Ramon.

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

The glass spread like candy around her face. Her eyes were closed so she could only guess what was going on around her, but a male voice came out of the shadows.

"Hello."

"Well, about time someone decided to come help me. I can't see. IF I open my eyes, it will cause more pain than your balls in a vice. WHAT the HELL happened?" she yelled outloud, reaching up and helping herself stand.

 

[BadForm]

Kizzit

Outside, Kizzit found the sun was even more blinding, making it nearly impossible to see. She would have to get into the shade of the forest quickly - such exposure would leave her dangerously open to being preyed on by whatever hadn't been scared away in the crash. Those creatures would be used to this light, she would have to adjust to it.

She sheltered in the lee of a giant tree, avoiding touching its sticky bark in case this was a predatory plant. There she waited, thinking over what the best thing to do would be, and hoping others had survived too.

 

[android1966]

Ramon helped Xidir out of her stasis pod. As she stood her clothes which had decayed along with the rest of the synthetic materials on board the ship fell away from her well toned body. Ramon grinned to himself as he quickly appraised her lithe physiche.

"The ship, she has crashed and now she is falling apart." He told her. "We must leave quickly."

Ramon took her hand and led her to where the section of hull had collapsed. A hole gaped in the ships side. Ramon peered through, they were about six feet off the ground and appeared to be in the middle of a forest.

"We will have to jump, it is not far to the ground." Ramon said.

Ramon guided Xidir's hand to the edge of the hole and satisfied himself that she was ready. He put his arm around her waist and on a count of three the pair leapt down from the ship. They hit the ground and rolled over, coming to rest with Ramon lying on his back with Xidir sprawled on top of him.

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

"Well, I hope you are cute, because otherwise, this wouldn't happen." She smirked.

She stood up, feeling her way around. "Where are we? What planet? Do you know?"

Stumbling on something on the ground she fell and sat. "Well, I guess this is as good a place to park it as any."

Once again she opened her eyes, slightly at first. The sun or light, was bright still and it stung her eyes, but she could at least see this time.

"Well, hello. Nice outfit."

 

[android1966]

Ramon

Ramon stood up as the woman he had rescued tripped over a log. She sat up and blinking in the sunlight squinted at him as her sight slowly returned.

"Well hello," she said "nice outfit."

Ramon laughed and looked back at the ship. It was rapidly collapsing in on itself.

"I don't think many others made it out," He said. "and if that is what happens to ships on this planet I don't think there'll be anyone coming to rescue us."

He turned and scanned the forest wondering what creatures were lurking inside.

"We could try walking around the ship." Ramon suggested. "There could be more survivors around."

 

[BadForm]

Kizzit

Kizzit saw the pair leap from the ship and, praying desperately that they were not the only two other survivors, made her way over to them. They had found their way into the bushes on the colony pod side of the vessel, where the light was dimmer. To normal eyes, it would be like normal homeworld sunshine - to those who had a corrective operation, simply painfully brilliant.

"You made it out too..." she said, wondering who they were.

They were colonists, but that could include anyone from the greedy to the criminal. She just had to hope that they could understand the necessity of working together.

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

Xidir looked up at the newcomer. "Well, it seems to look that way."

She looked the woman over, gauging her. She wondered if she would be able to figure a way off this planet. "Are you a pilot? If so, how the fuck did we end up here?"

 

[android1966]

Ramon

Ramon turned to look as a second woman approached from the treeline. Like Xidir and himself she was naked and had no equipment of any kind. She was older than Xidir and Ramon, he judged her to be mid thirties.

"Have you seen any more survivors?" He asked.

The newcomer answered in the negative. Ramon looked around and spotted a branch riiped off a tree in the accident. He picked the three foot lenght of wood up and gave it a couple of experimental swings. His arms were powerfully muscled from the hard manual labour and he grunted with satisfaction.

"There may be creatures about, we should be ready to defend ourselves." He said, thinking that perhaps he looked a little foolish.

He wondered to himself what the background of these women was. He was tempted to lie about his own, but the gang tattoos he wore ruled against it.

"My name is Ramon," He introduced himself "I was a bondsman, but I suppose my owner is dead now."

 

[BadForm]

Kizzit

A quick look at the other pair told her several things. The woman would be invaluable at night, and weak during the day. She was blinking hard, even against the brilliance of the forest, meaning she had had an eye operation. The man was a criminal, and as his first statement had been the need for a weapon, she couldn't help thinking he might be a dangerous one. What choice did they have but to work together?

"You're right," she said, looking around and listening for the sounds of the creatures of the world. "We need to be prepared. We can probably fashion some kind of tools if we can arrange a hunt... that's how they did it in history - stones and bones. But we also need some kind of shelter. I have no idea what kind of weather this planet gets."

She realised she hand't introduced herself and wondered how they would react when she did.

"Kizzit," she said, by way of introduction, "I wasn't the pilot - I was crew for planetdown. I'm trained in xenobiology and several other sciences, so I was going to be part of the scouting force, investigating the life of the planet..."

Should she add the problem with that, or would that put her at risk? Well, they would find out quickly enough anyway.

"Unfortunately, most xenobiology now is about reading scanners and... well... we don't have any of them any more."

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

"Well, the only thing I know how to do I can't do without you returning the favor. We could probably fashion some weapons with the wood from these trees. If we can get that up there."

She closed her eyes enjoying the release of pain that excaped her. It was wonderful at night, all the wonderful shapes around, but days were going to plainly suck.

"Does it ever get dark on this damn planet?" She asked, more yelled.

 

[BadForm]

Kizzit

She nodded, suddenly realising that was a pointless gesture to someone who was half-blinded by the light here.

"This looks like Purgatory II, the tropical world. Scans revealed there were no satelites around the planet. That being the case, it is likely the nights will be very dark - in deep forest without even moonlight to reflect the star."

 

[android1966]

Ramon

Ramon stared into the forest and a chill ran down his spine, it was staring back at him. The tales his mother had told as he sat upon her knee came back to him. Superstitious tales the poor of the barrio believed wholeheartedly, of creatures that lurked and waited for men in the depths of the jungle. He shook himself and tried to force the feeling of dread away.

"You are the expert Kizzit, what is our first move?" he said loudly.

 

[BadForm]

She almost laughed at being called the expert. Hadn't he listened? Her expertise ran to reading instruments, and they didn't have any of those any more. She thought as thoroughly as she could. What were the important things they would need? Well, the basics of establishing a colony, she guessed - although in this case they were going to have to forage it from the world around them.

"We need the basics. Food, water, shelter, protection, probably clothing if we can find a way to trap skins from some creature. That, at least, should allow us to survive for the time being. What are your skills? Are you hunters? Builders? What?"

 

[ARaynes]

Xidir

Xidir laughed. She was a hunter of sorts, but what she hunted no one would want to eat. "I can handle the food department, but I am nothing without the cloaks of night. Shelter, well I could try my best, but no promises."

She looked at the other two. Not really your survivalist types. This should be fun! "Have either of you learned to survive without the means of comfort?" She said, knowing it would sound sarcastic. But she also knew that to survive you had to have been put out on your ass a couple of times. This didn't seem to be their type.