Agents of C.O.W.- Prologue
Just a normal, boring transport run... right?
Hey everyone. Here's the start of a new story series, and though I'll try and update all my series a little more this one may get a bit more focus than others. As always, all constructive criticism is welcome. Enjoy!
"Dang, these transport runs are about as exciting as watching grass grow..."
Patti sighed heavily as she paged through the latest issue of the Dustbowl Gazette. The holo-scan versions were technically more convenient, but she still preferred the feel of paper in her hands, especially when it came to news of her hometown. Some of the techs complained about how difficult it was to get, but the higher ups made the accommodations for one of their best field agents. Why they stuck said field agent on a simple transport job was kind of puzzling, but in a way the cowgirl welcomed it. She'd seen a lot of action and been in a lot of hairy situations since joining C.O.W.(short for the Coalition of Organized Worlds), after all. Maybe a nice, simpl-
KA-BOOM!
Patti would've noted the ironic timing of the interruption if she weren't too busy being tossed around her room by the massive explosion. Books, souvenirs from the various world's she'd visited, not to mention the cowgirl herself flew about as the ship shuddered and groaned. The force was even enough to send Patti's treasured sixty-shooter flying from its spot on the holster hanging by her bedside, a veritable rainbow of different colored bullets also shaking loose. Patti thanked her stars that she'd unloaded her weapon beforehand; nothing would be more humiliating than getting shot by her own weapon.
The initial shaking stopped, though the ship was certainly not flying at its usually steady and smooth pace. Patti laid on the floor for a moment as she waited for her own world to stop spinning as her body came to a rest facedown near her bed underneath her holster. She managed to roll over just in time for another bullet that had been shaken loose earlier to slip off and land on her face, specifically on her patch covered right eye.
"Gah!" Patti bolted upright as her white furred hand flew to cover her eye, though it was more in reflex than in any actual pain. "I've been caught in a hail of bullets before, but this is ridiculous!"
Alert and more than a little worried, Patti grabbed her sixty-shooter and a few rounds before heading out of her quarters. At least the automatic doors were functioning normally, and there didn't seem to be any immediate danger as the cowgirl carefully scanned the hallway while she loaded her weapon. She could hear the groans of her crew mates in the nearby rooms joining the groaning of the ship, and she thanked her stars none of them sounded seriously injured.
"Doc! Ricky! Shadow! Up an at 'em!" Patti knocked on the doors of her crew-mates. "We've got trouble! Cheye-"
A small yelp escaped Patti as the door to Cheyenne's room opened just as her fist reached out to pound on it. Patti managed to catch herself before she accidently hit the coyote in the face, the dark brown furred woman clad only in a long cloth shirt that went down to her knees. Well, that and the glowing blue necklace where she hung her tools was around her neck as always. Did she sleep with that on?
"The ship. She cries out in pain." Cheyenne barely even registered Patti's presence as she looked past her toward the engine room. Right; she thinks the ship's a living thing, Patti reminded herself.
"Yeah she does, and there's gonna be a lot more of us crying out with her if we don't find out what's going on now! Get to the engine room!" Cheyenne nodded as Patti took off toward the bridge.
Whatever was the source of the ships troubles, at least they didn't seem to be under attack. No one seemed to be wandering the halls of the ship that didn't belong, and no one leapt out at or took a potshot at Patti as she made her way to the bridge. Still, there was clearly some kind of trouble given that the star-studded view of normal space was outside instead of the white of warp space as she slid into the captain's chair. The cowgirl grabbed the radio for the ship's public address system as she started up the ship's long range communications.
"All non-crew on board, we have an emergency! Stand by for further instructions!" Patti turned her attention toward the screen that showed the ship's overall status. While she wasn't always the quickest on the uptake when it came to understanding and learning the technology that surrounded her in the ship, the glowing red section of the ship where the engines and exclamation points at the top of the screen were pretty easy for anyone to understand; bad things were happening.
"Command, this is the Shooting Star!" Another screen showed a male wolf in the typical gray uniform of C.O.W. as Patti opened up deep-space communications. "We have an emergency! Our warp drive just gave up the ghost!"
"Understood, Shooting Star." The calmness of the wolf on the other end was almost as un-nerving as the situation unfolding around Patti. "Relay your position and we'll send a repair team out."
"Position unknown!" Patti's eyes flicked over the various screen and out the view window, trying to find a star or planet she recognized. "We're somewhere in unexplored space! I can't ev-"
KA-BOOM!
"Gah!" Patti braced herself as another, smaller explosion rocked the ship. Patti slammed the button for the engine room's communicator when it let up. "Cheyenne! What happened now?!"
"Something has interrupted the ship's main life flow. She will be unable to support herself, or any of us soon." Cheyenne's voice had just a hint of what sounded like sadness as she spoke. "Her wounds are too deep for me to heal; at best, I can give her a few more minutes of life."
"Do it, Cheyenne! It ain't just the ship's life that's in danger here!" Patti caught movement out of the corner of her good eye, her sixty-shooter halfway out of its holster before she recognized the pajama clad raccoon taking her place at her terminal. "Ricky! Scan for a habitable planet for an emergency landing!"
"Negative, Shooting Star." The wolf on the C.O.W. command line disapproved, though Ricky ignored it as she started scanning the galaxy. "You are not authorized to make first contact with unknown planets."
"Well, I didn't authorize my engines to break down, and I sure as shooting ain't authorizing the death of over a hundred souls on my watch!" Patti snapped back. She understood the need for a chain of command, though at times like this it really rubbed her the wrong way.
"There!" Ricky pointed at a spot on her own screen. "Water, oxygen, and it's close! Sending the co-ordinates to your terminal, Captain!"
"Got it!" The normally quiet thrusters made some unsettling noises that did nothing to soothe Patti's concerns, but slowly the ship started turning. Even the controls seemed to be shaking as the ship ever so agonizingly drifted toward the alien planet.
"Everyone, we are coming in hot! Brace for an emergency landing!" With that last announcement over the ship's P.A. system, Patti's attention was entirely focused on the controls. If she didn't break atmosphere before the main thrusters died, they'd all be dying right alongside them.
Ricky took over communication as Patti tried to keep the ship in one piece, trying to ignore the various systems powering down and failing around her. While concerns about how they would survive or deal with the aliens on this planet were in the back of her mind, making sure they didn't slam headfirst into the ground was a much more immediate concern. The previous shaking of the ship only grew worse as they broke the atmosphere of the planet. The only thing she could hear besides the sounds of the ship threatening to tear itself apart was Ricky's frantic attempts to communicate their location to command.
"Earth! They call the planet Earth!..."