Cathern kicked a small stone into the stagnant pond. Shielding her eyes she peered through the canopy of the primal forest. The sun was bright, but the leaves made for diffuse light under the trees. Taking in a deep breath, Cathern scrunched up her nose. The air smelled of rotting vegetation and dank mildewing leaves. There could be worse places to be marooned she thought. At least the air was…breathable…if not exactly sweet. How long had she been here? A month? Two? Three? Longer? The day and night cycle here was erratic and the chronometer on the small ship was destroyed in the attack. The Attack….
Twisting, turning, diving and climbing. Three alien scout fighters were bracketing her ship with fire. Her craft didn’t have the firepower to take them all on. She had gotten lucky and exploded one but now she was totally on the defensive. At least the aliens didn’t seem to be any faster than the long range currier ship she was piloting.. If she could just avoid their fire long enough, maybe they would give up. KAPOOOW. Her ship shuddered under the alien fire. Alarms began sounding and systems started red-lighting. DAMMIT! Her ship lost propulsion power, regained it, the lost it again. The ship careened out of control, end of end over end. The end was near she thought….
Cathern walked back to the wreckage of her ship. She had come down on this forsaken planet after a couple days adrift. The Alien ships had left her for dead. They might have been right. Engines severely damaged. Communications out. Fuel cells damaged. Many of the on-board system nonfunctional. Life support, navigation computers, stability control, orbital reentry programs/heat shielding and food systems were still functional. Functional enough to use her limited remaining engine power and fuel to crash land on this planet and survive. Cathern swatted a large bug that landed on her. She thought it looked like those damn aliens. There was no shortage of aliens…and no shortage of biting bugs. Infernal place. She never should have left Rubi-ka.
Crawling into the cabin of the ship, Cathern laid down and thought her lover Xaun. She must be going out of her mind with worry. Xaun didn’t even know where she was heading. Cathern sighed and tried to sleep, a feeling of foreboding creeping across her. A feeling that something happened to Xaun worse than her own plight entered her brain. Turning a bit to get comfortable, Cathern drifted into an uneasy slumber.
[Well, I am done with AO for now. With way over a full year of play time on one character and over 5 years time with active account, it was time to move on. So many great people come and gone. Pretty much every goal I set out to achieve I achieved. Will I be back? Probably if that expansion ever turns up…so NO, you cant have my stuff! To all the role-players…..remember…it was the role-players in this game that drove PvP in the early days. Anyone who tells you that RP and PvP don’t mix is a big liar. Some of my best RP stories were based on the PvP battles that RPers set up and drove. A lot of the old skool PvPers got some of their first blood in battles organized by RPers. If you claim to be a warlike person in your RP…prove it! Go fight instead of sitting in The Cup or Reets all the time. ]