Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[Jax Phillips<>commando]

Petrichor V

Jax placed an armored hand around one of the safety bars inside his drop pod as he rocketed towards the surface of the dangerous world of Petrichor V.

Over the operative radio network a Familiar voice began to speak
"This is your Capitan speaking, reports claim that there's something wrong with this place, the Contact light was brought down here by....something...."

With a crackle and a snap another voice entered over the radio, "you mean crashed sir..... right? What could've brought down a ship that size..... right Captain?"

Jax knew the voice well, he had heard it raised in song in the gally, telling jokes in the hallways and generally being an ray of light around the Safe Travels, Katja van hoerden, nicknamed the huntress by the crew thanks to her hard light bow. Jax enjoyed her quick wit, her Dutch accent making her words like a song.

"No.....our reports say it was brought down by a single person....some type of alien we think.... let's pray you don't meet anything like that, prepare for impact,"

The warning was not enough as Jax felt the force of the slam nearly shake his armor apart, causing his HUD to glitch before returning to normal.

"Operatives, your mission is to search for remains of the Contact light and it's cargo," Jax felt a pang of anger as the possibility of survivors weren’t mentioned.

"Orders are orders guys, although..... I can say there's a bonus in it for you if you can find and previous crew or passengers who may have survived, I know that is your specialty you two," this brought a smile to to the camandos hidden face.

"Yes sir," he replied as he brought his boot up and fprward, kicking the door off 9f hos drop pod and taking his first step outside.

"Y’know, this place is almost-" he had to make a quick combat roll to the right to avoid a fireball that was hurled in his direction, "shit! Hostile lifeforms encountered,  permission to engage,"

The captain's response was quick and snaped out of the radio with blazing speed, "granted, give em hell!"

Jax wasted no time as he took his pistols and sent a wave of lead into the large bipedal lizard who had instigated the attack.

The purple reptilian caught the brunt of the spray but somehow stayed standing, growling as it gathered another fireball into its claws, it unfortunately didn't get the chance to throw it as a second drop pod slammed down, eviscerating the creature with pinpoint accuracy.

Our from the pod emerged Katja in her red and black armor, hard light bow at the ready, "Goedemorgen Jax! Kept you waiting,  huh?"

"Your timing is impeccable Katja, ready?"

"Heheh, I'm always ready Jackaboi, let's 'bow'," She punctuated her terrible pun by holding up her weapon, Jax could only shake his helmeted head in response.

"Like bow, go....you get it? They like rhyme, yeah. Eh wat dan ook," She muttered a little defeatedly.

Jax couldn't help but grin at his friend, even in the face of death, she'd have a grin and a pun ready.

"Alright you two, checking the forecast, we're tracking you two, we'll need a bit to get you guys backup, something in that last launch messed with the drop pod station, there should be other Operatives down already but we haven't gotten any word from them," The Capitan informed the two, "but be sure to watch the sky, there's always a risk of rain."

Chapter Text

[Providence<>the bulwark of the weak]

Providence gazed down at the pod from the earthling ship, one that contained a living creature,  frozen in time, something small and weak, but full of soul.....

Providence loved soul.

The Bulwark had killed most of the rest of the crew but..... why couldn't he bring himself to obliterate this one? It would take so little effort to be barely a thought, but his sword seemed too heavy to lift.

"Perhaps.....Perhaps one soul could be spared....," he said to nobody in particular, he found himself looking at thr moon of commencement, "brother, if only you could've loved souls as I do.... we could've saved so many together.....I-" the bulwark stopped as he heard the footsteps approaching from behind, the last survivors of the ship.

With a simple movement of his hands he commanded on of his subjects to take the pod away, "rest now little soul, I shall wake you when these few rest in gilded caskets."

He turned towards the footsteps and sighed as the red warning lights and alarms began to blare, focusing his power and teleporting to where the group of misfits stood.

The one in the orange armor stood in defiance,  the purple beast at his side, the large one with the sheild, the woman with the bow.... and more.... it would not matter there numbers, none would survive this.

[Katja van hoerden<>the huntress]

Katja zipped over the plains of the dangerous world they had arrived at.

"Jax, do we know where the Contact light even landed on this world? Cap didn't give us a specific place to look," She asked as she placed a hard light arrow through one of the floating creatures spewing flames down at them, she had to quickly dodge a fire ball from a lizard and toss her laser glaive to slice through the creature before blinking forward. She loved the feeling of those micro teleports, the energy flowing through her body as she ripped a hole in reality and dashed through the immaterium.

When she exited the jump she was immediately sending arrows into the waiting aliens, turning them into walking pincushions,"its kinda odd to just send us down here with no direction to go or any real orders other than find the contact light...."

Jax wanted to answer but was a bit busy as he had been grabbed by one of the purple lizards, both a grunt he slammed his helmet backwards and felt the crunch as something broke, as the arms around his torso loosened he slamed his elbow backwards into the creatures side. He hated being grabbed from behind, he went low to the ground and flung out his leg, sweeping the reptiles legs from below, "damn reptiles,  why can't we just talk it out for once? Huh?" He placed a boot on the things neck and blasted it in the face with is pistol.

"Our job is to explore Katja, search around and make sure we can set up down here, once we clear out a good chunk here I'm sure they'll send down some support, engineers, loaders and stuff like that, let's just-ugeach," Katja looked over to see her comrad had tripped over a large blue crate.

"Oh, Jax,  you alright vriend?" She blinked towards him and gave him a hand up, "quit the tumble there."

She looked down at the blue crate and noticed a very familiar logo, "Oh stront, Jax, this is cargo from the Contact light! Oh yes! We found some of it.... I wonder what's inside. "

Even through the helmet she could see Jax was giving her a look, "Katja, no, that's someone else's cargo."

"But what if...,"

"No"

"How about just-"

"No"

"....."

"....."

"I'm opening it!"

"STAHP!"

The commando attempted to stop her but his speed was no match for the blazing velocity of the hunters as she opened the box, gazing upon to other worldy treasures that lay within, cornucopia of wealth the absolute magisty of...... the ukulele

"Oh....well that's veagly disappointing, " Jax muttered as Katja heald it over her head in triumph.

"IK HOU HIERVAN!!!" The huntress squeeled with glee, she gave a short strum over the cords, an almost electric surge passing through her fingers, "huh, odd...."

"Alright,  let's get going,  I see more of those containers up ahead and.... huh, is that a cryo-pod?" This grabbed Katja's attention as she looked to where Jax was, she could see the cave he stood in front of, putting the ukulele on her back she blinked to the spot next to him.

"Huh, wanna check it out?"

Jax gave a quick nodded as he readied his pistols.

Chapter Text

Jacqueline casúr<>Loader]

Jacqueline or 'Jacq' as she was often called lifted the large fuel container and moves it across the cargo baywith relative ease, it only weighed a mere five tons, her loader gear hardly needing to strain in order to move, damn she loved her job! Most people saw the job of loading cargo boring, Jacq couldn't disagree more.

As she moved the fuel tank alone in one of the man cargo bays of the UES Safe Travels she could almost feel the sensation of eyes on the back of her neck. Attempting to ignore the feeling she placed the fuel pod on one of the holding racks before stopping at the sound of footsteps clanging off the metal ground, a sound that shouldn't have been made in the empty room.

"Hey! Whoevers there you should head out, it can be dangerous- " She cut herself off as the steps sounded again to her left,  she could see nothing in that location.....

"I don't know who you are, but if you know what's good for you, you'll leave," She emphasized the point by slamming her large mechanical fists together,  the echoing clang ringing around the room.

"Whatever you say," She heard the smooth words behind her as a blade stabbed into her lower backwhere her loader gear didn't cover, the wound burned with pain and Jacq couldn't help but letting out a grunt of pain. Unbeknownst to the intruder, this was a big mistake. With a growl she brought a mechanical elbow backwards grinning as the satisfying 'crack' of metal as her strike struck the attackers helmeted head.

She turned around in time to see the the figure alame against the full tank she had just placed one the rack.

"You Lil' bugger, I was gonna give ya a chance ta get out, but ya really messed up this time," anger mader her Irish brogue much more intense then normal.

As the intruder stood he brushed off his long coat and straitened his blue hat, "Alright then, let's dance!"

The man looked at her throu the glowing blue optic, long knife still gripped in his hand.

Jacq swung with all her might, her fist creating a whistling sound as it picked up speed, only missing by an inch as the intruder dropped backwards landing on his back before contortions on the ground.

"Nice try m'lady," he muttered as he kip-uped, slamming his boots into Jacq's visor causing her to stumble backwards a few steps, "if circumstances were different my dear, I'd be buying you a drink right now, maybe after this?"

The crestfallen look clear even though his mask was almost palpable as Jack began to genuinely laugh at the offer, "Oh boy.... that's a laugh, trust me, yer really not my type,"

She swung at him with blinding speed, catching a blow across his chin and spinning him a full 360 with the force. In an attempt not to put murder on her record she was holding her gear back from full force.

Bringing her own boot up Jacq kicked the stunned desperado into the wall, "ouch, are you sure I'm not your type? because your definitely mine," The intruder barely dodged a metal fist slamming into where his head had been just a moment ago.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure...." The Slightest tilt of her helmet caused the desperado to glance towards a particular calender hanging on the near wall.

"OH..... I see now, sorry for hitting on ya, if I had known I wouldn't have bothered ya,"

"Oh it's ok, I'm used to it by now,"

"Dose it happen often? I kinda got the vibe but I didn't want to assume...."

"No, people often see it pretty quickly,  Y’know?"

"Yeah, sorry about that,  anyways...," The intruder took this momentary pause in melee to grab the revolver at his waist and quickly struck it against the side of the larger woman's helmet before spinning it around and aiming at her, "no hard feelings right?"

"Screw you!"

"We both know you wouldn't," With this final taunt he pulled the trigger,  missing the behemoth of a woman and hitting the fuel take behind her, "Oh shit."

The blast destroyed two of the walls, on connecting to the next cargo bay, and the other to open space.

"Oh shit," was all that Jack was able to mutter as a landing craft was sucked quickly towards her by the vacuum of space. She heald to the ship with a death grip, the metal bending under her gears strength.

She would've been dead in seconds if it hadn't been for her suit, she could survive maybe until they hit the atmosphere, but after that she would burn upon entry. She found the idea almost comical that after everything shed been through this would be her end, funny how she wouldn't even get to see the planet she'd heard stories about. Through her thoughts on her impending doom it was to her great surprise when a purple gauntlet with green fingertips reached out and clasped the railing of her loader gear.

She was pulled into the ship, another helmeted figure quickly slamming the door shut, and so she lay there, heart still racing.