==> Stranger: Crash Land
@two2day continued from x.
He was halfway to the hangar when he received an alert from the officer of the Star Splitter. A glowing red signal that pulsed on the monitor embedded in the headrest of one of the scuttlebuggy's seats. Admiral Ampora's scowl grew as he watched the screen. The brass wouldn't be happy to learn a state-of-the-art vessel had been neutralized by what seemed like space trash hurtling 72 kilometers per second. He shut off the terminal, irritated, signaling the driver to pick up the pace toward the docking site.
A ring of smoke encircled the enormous fleetship. Parts of its skeleton were exposed, extending skyward like the ribs of a great, beached whale. The hole in the hull was relatively small, and yet, whatever had caused it possessed enough firepower to decimate an 8,000-kilogram spacecraft. Eridan Ampora glowered at the wreckage from a distance of several feet, hands clasped tightly behind his back, before boarding.
"The coastal guard should be arriving shortly to investigate." Said an officer, a meek cerulean who wouldn't look him in the eye. The Admiral's arrival was inevitable. An accident on this scale warranted top-ranking intervention.
There were rumors of the blast being the handiwork of the Resistance, another suicide attack, but nothing was conclusive. Eridan listened silently to the supervisory staff's spitballing, as if somehow their crackpot theories would relieve his mounting frustration.
"Enough." It was the first word he's said since arriving, other than exchanging pleasantries. "Where is Crilar?"
Ekhior Crilar, captain of the Star Splitter, was a fucking idiot. It was not Eridan who appointed him, but an admiral-turned-corpse. The man whose shoes he had filled. Were Eridan to have things his way, Crilar would be cooked. Thrown overboard and forced to float in the endless vacuum of space until he inevitably and spontaneously combusted. "I am startin' to notice a pattern here, Captain." The young admiral made himself at home atop Crilar's desk, clearing the surface with a wave of his hand. A "#1 Captain" mug was hurled to the ground before shattering into a dozen misshapen shards. "Whenever you're involved, it all goes to shit. Remember Operation Eclipse? The Condesce's patience is beginning to run thin. My patience is runnin' thin."
"I apologize, Admiral. But it happened so suddenly, we were given no opportunity to prepare. There was no warning."
"Shut up, imbecile. I'm not through with you yet. But there are more pressin' matters at hand."
"Show me to the crash site."
Crilar whimpered, cast a dejected look at the mug shards, and heaved, attempting to lift his portly body from the ejection seat.
He led them down a winding path toward the sinkhole where a pissblood mutant lay fetal in a bed of elaborate tubing and cooling alloy.
"Bloody hell." Eridan said, peering down into the molten crater, "Get him out a there now. Bring him to the bay. I want him tranqed before he wakes up."
