Thread: The Infinite Black Ocean (The Intrepid Wanderer & darkangel76)

Had Leslie Falls been a man of poetic nature, as he watched the display monitors in the cockpit of the Tread Black he might have found use for such a tendencies as he looked at the scene before him. He might have described it as destructively graceful the way small pieces of debris broke upon his ship's forward kinetic barriers, pieces of rent metal sparkling in the glow of the distant star, and spinning in to the Black around them. He could have described the air that had settled over the Tread Black as almost serenely tense in nature. So many things around him at that moment were contradictions that begged for a man of skilled tongue to give them apt description lest they be forgotten about for eternity, but alas Leslie Falls was no such man. He was a man of far more simpler tastes, who would rather describe the scene as simply nerfed excitement among the small crew of the former Illuminati trophy child's smuggling vessel. It had been, at first, something hardly of note as anything more than just a heat flare somewhere in Charon's high atmosphere, but as they had begun an approach on their landing route it had brought them closer to the supposed natural anomaly to reveal that it was anything but. LADAR pinged it when they closed within forty five kilometers an Illuminati-flagged Envoy-class transport shuttle. Designed for long range flight and planet-hopping when a large vessel was either impractical or simply not available. This particular one, which Illuminati security codes prevented them from identifying without inspecting the hull or flagging the crew directly, was in a rather sore spot as they began to enter Charon's high atmosphere behind it. Pieces of the hull were coming off, it looked as if it was shaking rather violently in the tell-tale mannered that betrayed the ship AI's failure to fully control the ship on it's emergency landing descent without input from the pilot. Even one of it's engines could be seen spiraling off in to the Black as they had gotten closer. Yet the Tread Black still didn't get too close as of yet for two very important reasons. The first was that the Envoy-class was going to crash, no two ways about it, and since they weren't a recovery vehicle they didn't have powerful enough anchoring systems to fight against the pull of a planet's atmosphere. The second was that, at a distance of approximately thirty kilometers between the two ships, they were rather uncomfortably close for two vessels of their size on planetary landing course. Any closer and any Illuminati warship that saw the armed smuggler vessel tailing the unarmed shuttle down to the surface wouldn't even bother to try making contact before blasting them out of orbit. Not to say they were responsible, of course. They already had a dangerous enough profession without adding cold-blooded murder of government officials to the list of potential charges. From the co-pilot's seat at the left side of the cockpit, Angeela Red spoke up, She's going to go down, Captain, if she even manages to make it through the atmosphere. Running a hand through dirty blonde hair, Leslie let out a rather irritably resigned sigh, Yeah. Let's hope for the best, Angeela. That maybe there is a body or two left to identify once they've touched down. Coming in to the orbit of a planet was bad enough in a fully functioning, atmo-rated shuttle. Doing it in one that was damaged? In to Charon? During the northern hemisphere's winter? They were asking for an extremely rough ride and many dead -- if the pilot was good to even get them out of high atmosphere in something resembling a whole shuttle. So at his order, the Tread Black kept it's distance, tailing the vessel down, and as he strapped in to the weapons station at the back right of the cockpit, Leslie monitored the readings on the ship, and let the rest of the crew go about bracing for the entry in to Charon's atmosphere. He would look up to the monitors often as they first began their descent, with too great a distance between themselves and the ship in question to watch it through the actual windows of the cockpit. What's more, as the ship began to shake they dropped the shields in front of those aforementioned windows, and left all those present restricted to only the monitors throughout the cockpit, and the instruments for the flight in. However, Leslie had been on enough re-entry flights to know what was happening as he felt his own ship begin to shake and rattle on it's way down. Flames were beginning to lick at the hull, kept at bay by advanced heat shielding that would prevent the crew from being turned in to a crisp husk before they could reach the surface. An advantage Leslie could only pray that the crew of that crashing Illuminati ship would also be enjoying from their own vessel on the way down. A five-point harness kept the 6'0 tall smuggler secured in his seat, but even then he could feel the violent kicks of the atmosphere around them as they went. One hand gripped the armrest, the other holding a white-knuckled death-grip on the metal of the console in front of him.After having been through so many things in life, he still absolutely hated atmospheric entry. He could hear his ship shake around him, pieces of cargo, and some of the personal belongings of the crew rattling about in the violence. He imagined it was worth on the ship they were following down, much worse, and that thought alone was enough to unnerve him. But soon it was over, and their pilot Cobalt was on the spot with the update, We're in atmo, sir. The young boy in the pilot's seat chirped, Scanning through cams for that shuttle. Looking at thermal camera feeds, Leslie watched the winter surface of Charon miles below their vessel. Found it. Angeela piped up as they saw the thermal imaging feed, It looks like -- one alive? Just one? She sounded rather surprised. Leslie shook his head, One is a step better than none. Cobalt. Bring us in to land. Angeela, gear up, and let's go to meet our lucky survivor. On the surface, looking up in the sky would reveal the Tread Water moving through the open sky, over the wreckage, and the bass roar of it's atmospheric engine following it like a rippling wave through the air. About one hundred yards away from the vessel, on the side opposite that apparent soul survivor, it's nose would flare, and it would come to rest upon fat and stubby landing legs. The ramp would drop and there would be little time before Angeela and Leslie came walking down. Leslie was wearing his normal fur-lined leather boots, khaki cargo pants, and white t-shirt with a few additions such as the thick fur-lined leather coat, or the black beanie he wore pulled down over his head. The three holstered pistols on his belt, though one might say they were unnecessary, were as present as always, too. Leslie followed in similar cold-friendly attire the 5'10 pale-skinned assassin dawning a pair of earthen brown trousers, a crimson colored long-sleeved sweatshirt, a black fur-lined coat, and in her hands she held a magazine-fed rifle of vaguely Illuminati origins. From a distance they would hail no salutations or greetings, each with a weapon in their hands as they kept an eye on their surroundings. For his part, Leslie tried not to seem threatening. Angeela just couldn't help herself. As they closed within distance to make out the survivor, a young woman in rather regal attire by the looks of it, Leslie would offer a wave of his free hand while he and his partner started up the slope to the wreck. This wasn't the first shipwreck they'd seen in their lives, so they seemed to be handling the whole situation like it was nothing new for either of them. Mostly because it wasn't.