#oc rizel

This is one of few stories where I know exactly what’s supposed to happen and how it’s going to end so I’m able to indulge in art ahead of time 😌 Mari did an incredible job and I love her work 💕

Barton IV was a harsh and unforgiving planet, inhospitable everywhere except beneath the ice, if you could get there. The population was about one sentient per square hectare which made for very few towns and even fewer neighbors. The Vulture’s Spine made up a large portion of the mountain range in the fifth quadrant of the northern hemisphere, named so for the long, ridgelike peaks stretching and winding for miles and inhabited by ice vultures. How the vultures found enough carrion to sustain themselves, no one knew, but locals expected they cannibalized their own once they fell. Their feathers were as thin and razor sharp as the mountain faces, the mountains themselves built of brittle shale and hardened, subzero ice.

It was there that the Empire saw fit to plant Commander Mayday’s crew and tell them to keep watch over the supply depot, so keep watch they did. Outside of fending off raiders from time to time there was precious little to do besides repair equipment (damaged from the cold), maintain the fence and weaponry (faulty and unreliable from the cold), and try to stay warm (due to the aforementioned cold). Some days it was hard to even see the sky, thick clouds and flurries eliminating any scrap of warmth or sunlight they might have had, and the longer time went on, the harder it was to differentiate between day and night anyway.

They didn’t know how long they’d been there before the freighter crashed.

Rizel cursed, trying not to panic as her starboard engine smoked and flickered with fire. She kept a tight hold of the yoke as the ship yawed right and she flinched at the approaching mountainside beyond her viewport. Somehow she skated past the first mountain peak and was kept from being crushed against the side in a fiery wreckage of durasteel and duct tape, but her luck wasn’t so good that she didn't clip the tail on the lower peak as she slipped between the spires, an action that quickly sent her in a spiral downwards. The port engine didn’t have enough upward thrust against the thin air without its twin and the blades of the starboard rotors were sputtering slower and slower as systems failed. Rizel desperately flicked through the auxiliary ignition commands, hearing the strain beneath the cowling as she did. The aircraft’s power hitched like the breath of a bordok mule with pneumonia, and as the engines sputtered she braced herself and prayed the end would at least be quick.

That kind of luck was in short supply on Barton IV though, and she readied herself for a very literal, very rocky landing.

A muted crash and muffled explosion hit the inner ravine wall, snow coming free in an instant. It jerked the aircraft into an opposite spiral and it hit the snowbank, hard, sliding down with the accompanying avalanche until she’d reached the ravine basin and came to a stop.

Rizel groaned, astonished she hadn’t died or even been knocked unconscious on impact, but as she gingerly checked her neck and the back of her head for any damage she supposed the snow in the ravine could have been fresh and loose enough to absorb the shock, a fact that made her deliriously gleeful considering how the rest of the day was going.

Aviator cap came off as she ran her fingers through her displaced braid, but she didn’t find any blood and her vision was starting to clear. She tried lifting her other arm but immediately yelped— Any movement in her shoulder sent excruciating pain through the side of her neck and chest, and her other hand came up to scrabble at the restraining belts, struggling to release the catch and take pressure off her upper chest and left shoulder.

As her restraints released she fell forward with another exclamation of pain, the dash she hit devoid of light and the nose of the rig smoking. She sat up, smelled fuel, then felt the heat.

“Maker’s montrals.” Rizel struggled upright and slung her pack over her good shoulder, searching for a hand pick; with a few good smashes against the already-busted viewscreen, Rizel broke through and started digging snow out of the way one-handed, praying she didn’t have far to go.

This time her luck held out, and as she clambered up and out of the wreckage onto loose snow she sent thanks out to whatever forces that be that she hadn’t broken both collarbones.

“Go, go, go, go, go—”

Slipping and sliding over what remained of the fuselage, the pilot made her way down with the snow in a semi-controlled slide as far as she could before the bush-craft exploded, the fuel reserve blowing a good-sized chunk in the ice. Rizel shuddered with the quaking earth, scrambling up the bare rocks on the side of the basin as the second avalanche buried the wreckage, sliding it further down the ravine before settling. The feeling of relief was short-lived as she surveyed her surroundings.

Rizel Karth was a human woman in her mid-thirties who had been, until recently, one of the only bush pilots for the Barton IV outposts that side of the range. She’d been a pilot for almost twenty years and generally had an optimistic outlook on life. Any landing you could walk away from was a good one.

Now though, her optimism was being given a run for its money as she assessed the situation. Left with one pack of belongings in the most unforgiving landscape on the planet with no backup, no viable communication, and nobody capable of finding her, she was, in a word, stranded.

Groaning again, Rizel flopped over onto the snow, her hood thankfully cushioning the back of her head. She’d forgotten that she took off her cap. Looking to one side she could see that her bag’s contents had already spilled out onto the ground up the incline behind her, and she sarcastically mouthed another thanks to the deities that may be.

Rizel sat up, retrieving her goggles and mask first. She hooked the nozzle up to her vest and warm air flooded in, immediately easing the strain of thin, cold air on her lungs. The filter was still intact, and as she pulled her cap and visor back on the snowglare cut down significantly. She stuffed her tools and belongings back into her bag, unclipping one strap’s latch and stringing it across her chest to hook onto the other strap before gingerly moving the pack to cushion and support her bent forearm. Her collarbone throbbed, sparks of sharp pain flickering through her shoulder in protest at the movement, and she knew it would only get worse as the adrenaline in her system started to wear off.

She needed to find shelter first though; proper medical assessment would have to wait.

“Looks like six klicks east, in the ravine,” Veetch said over his shoulder. “Image is fuzzy but it looks like a ship.”

“What kind?”

“Unknown sir. Never seen its like.”

Commander Mayday’s frown dug in deeper as he assessed their readouts. Barton IV wasn’t bereft of sentients, but he wasn’t aware of any with a significant starcraft presence. If even the gearhead couldn’t identify it, they could have a problem.

“Civilian?”

Barak scoffed. “Who's way out here joyriding a little thing like that in the mountains?” he asked. “I’m surprised it wasn’t shredded on the Teeth.”

“They were coming straight for us,” Veetch said. “Civilian or not, someone knew we were here. There’s no other markers to identify for a hundred miles.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mayday said. “Could be the Empire just happened to find the best flight path locals already knew about. Void knows they’re not going to make it harder for themselves to get in or out of here.”

“Wish they’d get us out of here…”

“Barak, Hollis, you’re with me. The rest of you lock down after we’ve passed the perimeter. If we’re not back within twelve hours, Hexx is in charge.”

“Aye sir.”

“Hear that, Hexx? You just got provisionally promoted.”

“Hoo-rah.”

Mayday and the two troopers following him geared up for the hike toward the crash site, strapping on some of the lighter mountaineering gear. If they found nothing but a dead pilot and some cargo, they’d haul whatever they could scavenge back to base and call it a day. If they found evidence of hostiles, they’d dispatch with what they could and hope for the best.

That was the running mantra of the Outpost. Plan for the worst, and take the pleasant surprises as they come.

Rizel shivered against the wind, making west for the vulture hollows. There were a few smaller caves dotted along the range from the mines, but she wasn’t sure just how old said mines were. The old gaffers who drank caf at the lodge and hogged the fireplace from breakfast to midday had said they weren’t even in operation when their granddaddies’ granddads were still working, so she reckoned there to be only partial stability at best. Even if she could just get inside an adit and out of the wind, she’d fare better than having to weather the elements.

The bush pilot was a member of one of the local groups that had lived at the base of the mountains for centuries. Despite the inhospitable terrain, they had made a living working and doing whatever they could to make life a bit easier for themselves and those around them. She was the only cargo pilot who could make it between the vultures’ pass, and if it weren’t for whatever hack job the little weasel had done on her backup engines, she’d still have that title, not a wrecked aircraft and little hope for survival. The draped parka and boots kept her insulated from the worst of it, but even with the cloak pulled around her sleeping outside wasn’t an option. Two fuel bricks did not a bonfire make, and unless she could find something to improvise some tools, she’d be out of luck in four days as far as heat was concerned anyway.

“Cheap, lousy, two-bit son of a nickel-hooker…” Rizel cursed, stomping through the snow. “I’ll wring his neck when I see him. “Oh don’t you worry Mrs. Karth, I’ll take good care of it, I know you’ve got a big job to do.” It’s Miss Karth you little rat, and the next time I see you I’m going to knock you and your sabotaging cousin’s teeth in.”

Rizel huffed, double-checking her heading. The sun was starting to fall and before long it would be behind the other side of the mountains. Her torch was freshly charged, stars be thanked, but one breed of vultures was nocturnal, and she didn’t quite know whose territory she was in right now. She was off course even before the tailspin, and she didn’t recall ever seeing that particular ravine on the map.

With a sigh, Rizel stopped and dug around in her pack for her staff, jamming it into the ground and pulling up to extend it, twist it into place, and secure the catch. Latching her torch to it and digging the spiked end into the ground ahead of her, she continued on.

Mayday shivered, steadying his feet once more in the snow and sweeping a path clear for the men behind him. The squad was unsure of the exact amount of days they’d been at the outpost, but they knew it had been at least six months, and their under-armour was starting to show the wear and tear for it. Though it had been somewhat insulated at the start, they didn’t have all the resources necessary to maintain the integrity of the fabric layer beneath the blended kevlex, and with very few rec clothes that kept them warm enough to function, they’d worn the thermal body gloves more often than not. Any added layer was a blessing.

Mayday dug into the ice with his boots, hugging the side of the mountain face as the path started to narrow. Circumventing the shorter pass between their base and the crash site had been a necessary concession just to keep out of the buffeting winds. It was much higher up on the mountain anyway, and everybody on their crew had already had the joy of experiencing altitude sickness at least once. Mayday hoped it wouldn’t take longer than three hours to get to the site, but they were already approaching that threshold and still hadn’t seen any sign of the wreckage, or even any smoke, for that matter.

As luck would have it, they found something more telling.

A figure appeared in the distance, a little over forty meters away. Mayday halted the other two, motioning for them to get behind a boulder and get a look ahead as he lined up his scope for a closer look. He couldn’t tell from a distance how tall the figure was, but they walked upright with a staff in one hand. A thick hood and fur cloak obscured the rest of their appearance, save for their face; a pilot’s cap, a thin visor with no discernible eye holes, and what might have been a mountaineering or gas mask covered the entirety of their face, with a thick scarf tucked in around their neck for good measure. Mayday ran through the list of reported sentients on Barton IV but came up short of any that might breathe something other than oxygen— The mask and nozzles were unsettlingly familiar. They didn’t fit the bill for Geranites or the Kel Dor, and they certainly weren’t Ubese…

With a chill that had nothing to do with the cold, Mayday’s hands tensed. They wouldn’t have… Mayday thought, doing some mental math back to the months before their assignment to the outpost, trying to recall where Barton IV fell in the Trailing Sectors. The Republic— The Empire wouldn’t have put us that close, not that soon…

With a start, Mayday pulled his scope down, pressing the relay on his helmet’s comm: “Boys, listen carefully:” he said, keeping his voice level. “Their mask looks to be Tognath, at least partially. Do not engage unless they do. Let me do the talking.”

Barak and Hollis both jerked to look at the commander, their alarm apparent. “Commander, we— You can’t talk to them, we need to—”

“We will not engage first,” Mayday said firmly. “It’s possible they weren’t there. It hasn’t even been a year, and Barton IV is several parsecs away. There are no resources or centralized population centers on this rock.”

“Commander, Yar Togna was—”

“I. Know.” Mayday spoke tightly, his gaze never wavering from the figure beyond. He didn’t see a rifle, but he couldn’t see anything under the thick cloak. “I know. But it’s only one person. There’s no reason to assume anything.”

“Boss, they hate us,” Hollis whispered urgently. “They have no reason not to react on sight—”

“We are not,” Mayday said, louder this time. “Going to engage first.”

“It could be a trap, it could be an ambush and they’re just drawing us out— Even if they don’t do anything immediately they could- they could—”

“Barak.”

The short bark of the captain’s name snapped him back to attention. Mayday put his hand on his shoulder. “This planet is made of ice. Nobody chooses to come here, not even refugees. So far it's one pilot. And we’re not the raiders. We’re investigating. Don’t fire unless they do. Let me talk.”

“… Yes, sir,” Barak and Hollis said. Mayday nodded, and stepped out from behind the boulder to approach. His rifle was slung low and pointed down at his side, but he unclipped the holster for his blaster on the opposite thigh, just in case.

“You there,” he called, raising his voice above the wind. “Where’d you come from?”

The person in the cloak stopped, jamming their staff into the frozen ground. They raised their hand up to eye level, blocking the sun over their visor as if to get a look at them. Mayday still didn’t see anything to indicate the figure had eyes at all where he’d expect them to be. He continued forward before holding up a fist to halt Hollis and Barak behind him.

“Stay there,” he said to the stranger. “Put both hands up.”

The figure slowly moved the one hand aside, palm out, but the other remained hidden in the lumpy overcoat covering the majority of their body. “I can’t,” they called in Basic, and Mayday’s frown deepened. They sounded like a woman.

Before he could say anything she pointed to the hidden arm. “Broken bone.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Having the best day of my life,” she said dryly, still not moving. “Looking for shelter. What are you doing out here?”

He ignored her question. “What were you doing before that?”

She waved her hand in the direction of the ravine. “I’m a cargo pilot. Rig went down few hours back and spat me out.”

“Why’d you come this direction?”

“I was hoping for a nice warm cabin with three beds and options for dinner. Maybe a sauna if I’m lucky.”

“Cut the sarcasm.”

“You must be Papa Bear,” she said, amused. Mayday and his men didn’t move, but Hollis and Barak snorted quietly behind him. He still couldn’t see her face.

“… There’re some hollows in the peaks where the birds nest. Mighty cold out here, you know.”

“Birds?”

“You all not from these parts?” she asked, tipping her head to get a look around him to the other two. “The birds, the big ones. Ice vultures.”

Mayday didn’t respond immediately, but something about the woman’s frank response and self-amused line of answers told him she was telling the truth. Though her attire was concealing, up close it looked utilitarian and suited for weathering the surroundings. He wasn’t sure what kind of creature her cloak— coat?— used to be but he was envious.

“You were planning to den with the ice vultures?”

“They won’t eat you if you’re still wriggling. At least most of the time.”

“… Can I come closer and trust you’re not a threat?”

“Considering you seem to come well-heeled,” she said. “Not much I can do to stop you.”

Mayday hesitated, but signaled for his men to stand down. Carefully he came out from under the shadow of the outcropping, slinging his rifle back behind him and keeping his own hands steady on his approach. One woman with what he already believed genuinely was a broken bone was hardly cause for alarm, and nothing about her put his senses on edge.

The pilot, to her credit, stayed where she was and seemed unbothered as Mayday met her in the middle. He gestured to the cloak’s fastening on her shoulder. “May I?”

“I’m not stopping you.”

His frown deepened, but he gingerly unhooked the left side of her fur cloak.

A brief assessment told him the woman did have some notable injuries, her clothes singed and somewhat dirty. This close, he could smell the smoke and fuel through his helmet’s filter. The story of a ship crash tracked, and her left forearm lay limply on her pack, parallel with the ground and with the straps configured to give her some kind of support as a makeshift sling. Her visor was a thin band of some hard material with horizontal slits, though he wasn’t sure how she could see anything through them. The mask, though similar to the Tognaths’, hooked to a different apparatus on her cargo vest than theirs did and his worry abated. She sounded human anyway, or something close to it, and that was enough for Mayday’s overt wariness to dissipate.

She had one sidearm holstered to her thigh, but aside from a utility belt and harness and some basic tools he wouldn’t consider much of a danger if it really came down to it, she didn’t appear to be carrying anything else he felt the need to confiscate or investigate further, at least not until they were back at the depot.

“I have to take your blaster,” he said with a sigh.

“Oh do you now?” she asked, amused, and Mayday had the distinct impression she somehow had the upper hand here and had been laughing at him since the start of their conversation. “You actually an Ardennian under all that? Got another hand somewhere to shoot it with?”

Mayday suppressed the urge to smile and he tilted his helmet to the side. “It’s standard procedure more than anything. I believe you, but we have some questions we need to ask.”

She hummed, but didn’t otherwise respond. “May I?” he asked for the second time, gesturing to her holster.

“Like I said: I’m not stopping you.”

She didn’t move, and he hesitated before stooping to slip the gun from its confines and hook it to the back of his belt as he mulled over his thoughts.

He cleared his throat, covering her with the cloak again. “… We have some medical supplies back at our base,” he said finally, clasping it at the shoulder and covering her bag.

“Who exactly is “we”?” she asked, nodding to the other men.

“Soldiers of the Republic.”

“The Republic?” she asked. “Out here? The Republic’s all Core planets and trade routes. What’re you all doing out this far?”

At that Mayday did chuckle. He moved to the outside of the mountain path beside her, offering her space to take up her walking stick again. “We’ve asked ourselves that before. Come on, we’ll get you fixed up and go from there.”

The men, somewhat settled at the confirmation the woman didn’t appear to be a threat, led the way back to the supply depot, but it wasn’t long before Barak and Hollis connected their comm channel to his, silencing their helmets to talk privately.

“Commander, do you think this is a good idea? She could still be a spy.”

“Even if she really is a cargo pilot, she’ll have our location,” Barak added.

“If whatever we’re guarding was valuable intel,” Mayday said, “They wouldn’t have stuck just ten of us out here, and if the Republic, or the Empire, or whoever they are nowadays really wanted it, they’d have come got it by now. Not enough generators to power a vault, not enough databanks to fill one, too temperamental a climate to house a dish for a comm tower any bigger than our own. Therefore it’s not sensitive intelligence of any use to a spy.”

“You’re willing to risk it for one civvie? We don’t have to help her.”

“You’re willing to become the kind of man who lets innocent people die when there’s something you can do to help?”

“We don’t know that she is innocent.”

“True,” Mayday said. “But I’m not staying out here to question her. I’m sure between the eight of us we should be fine.”

Hollis didn’t respond, and after a minute he shut off his comm. Barak sighed, popping his neck and following after.

Mayday meant what he said about not being concerned about the pilot being the spy, but he also knew any kind of discord between him and his men was tricky to navigate when there were very few places in the compound to get away from one another without coming back in an even worse mood, and now he was introducing an entirely new variable into the ecosystem. Hopefully this would be sorted out in short order and they could move on with their lives.