Welcome to Gaia! ::

Since she was already braced, Koko wasn't too badly affected when the ship suddenly deccelarated. She brushed a bit of hair from her face and repositioned herself on the chair before she spoke,
"Alright Zed, I'll guide her somewhere."
Just before she could move to take control of the ship, a computerized (& slightly static) voice began to talk.
Course set. Destination Earth.
The enormity of what the ship had just told her made the mercenary's eyes widen as the ship's systems started re-engaging themselves. Earth? How could they have gotten that far away from Ares?

She frantically started trying to get them back under control, but nothing would respond. Various lights, alarms and readings were popping up over all the screens, making her cringe slightly. After a while she spoke over the intercom, her voice practically monotone.
"Zed, she's takin' us to Earth, better brace yourself."

{Sorry its been ages, i lost my RP groove : Also, what's going on with angie at the moment??}

Dimitri cursed and cringed as he leant against Thane and watched as his hand was tossed to those...those things. He pushed himself away from his helper and to a corner just as his stomach decided to turn inside out and empty its acid onto the floor. Spluttering slightly, Dimitri wiped his mouth on a rag and walked back to Thane, using the wall as support.

Dimitri's skin was becoming paler as they dragged themselves through the ship, away from those canine beasts. He had to stop for a moment to try and regain strength, but he soon come to realise that with his blood still seeping from his stump, he wasnt going to gain energy anytime soon.

The Aiolos' engines delivered a whack of speed, sending the ship hurtling into the inner solar system, past the orbit of Mercury and skimming around the sun's corona before catapulting the ship back towards planet Earth.
The ship slowed before the blue planet came into view, it's moon split apart into a few massive jagged chunks as well as an asteroid belt, which now orbited close to the planet.

The planet itself had changed dramatically in terms of tectonics, as the previous continents were almost unrecognisable. The large crater left by the lunar impact, which once covered almost a quarter of he planet had mostly eroded away, but a huge flat plain surrounded by magnificent rings of mountains remained.
There were also many more smaller craters, formed by the lunar debris showing the extent of the impact all over the planet.

After navigating the debris field, the ship decelerated as it hit the stratosphere, extending various flaps to slow the ship further as it plummeted towards the planet humanity once called it's home.

Several of the flaps shuddered as the ship fell though the cloud level, quick approaching the green-coloured ground. There was a low humming noise as the engines attempted to stabilize the ship and pull out of the dive and retract the flaps, but it was too late.

There was a large thud accompanied with a metallic screeching sound as the ship slammed down and slid on it's underside before coming to a stop about a kilometre later. The initial impact had overloaded the kinetic barrier shield, saving the ship from utter destruction, but deactivating the shield for the duration of the slide, that had damaged flaps, landing gear and other equipment on the ship's underside as well as one of the ship's main wings.

The ship lay lopsided in the middle of the huge grassy plain that existed in the area of the Earth that the moon had crashed into.

Zed sat bolt upright in a room that was now tilted to one side and bathed in the dim red glow of the fixed warning light, which was accompanied by a set of flickering white lights on the floor which lead to the airlock.
The pilot looked down at his metallic arm which had harmlessly discharged through the ship and into the ground that the ship had crash-landed into.

He manoeuvred himself over to the wall display once again and ran a ship diagnostic, which quickly responded by echoing the words #HULL BREACH# throughout the ship over the loudspeakers.
"s**t...a hull breach?... No decompression.... No abnormal heat levels... must be back on Ares..."

Zed pulled himself to his feet and walked through the ship's heart, heading back towards the cockpit and Koko.

The view out of the cockpit's window was clouded with kicked up dust and smoke, which kept Zed oblivious to their actual location as he staggered into the cockpit where he knelt down beside his companion and brushed the hair from her face while he checked her pulse.
"Koko?"

For a long while Koko didn't move, she didn't respond to Zed's voice or his touch; the back of her head would feel sticky should he touch her there, due to blood oozing from a wound there. When she finally started to come round, the girl moaned softly & her eyelids fluttered open. At first her vision was blurry, so she couldn't make out the pilot's features properly but she could still tell it was him. With a sharp intake of breath, Koko tried moving a hand to the back of her head,
"Well... guess that proves I ain't dead huh?"
She blinked slowly, tilting her head to look at Zed more clearly. Her voice sounded a bit off, as though she was trying to come across more calm than she actually was.
"Are ya alright Zed...? I was pretty worried ya know."

Once on her feet, Koko felt a wave of disorientation wash over her & she had to place one hand against the wall to stop herself from falling over again.
Guess that hit to the head did more damage then I thought....
The mercenary figured that she probably had a mild concussion, but she didn't pay her injury much heed at the moment. When her rattled brain finally processed what Zed had said she looked at him in confusion
"Zed, you do know where we are right?"
It seemed that the pilot either didn't hear, remember or else didn't want to acknowledge the fact that they were now on Earth. For a moment Koko wondered whether or not she should tell him, but then, what if she was wrong? The Aiolos could well have taken them somewhere else, considering how it had been messing up at the time.

The mercenary could see that her friend? partner? - she didn't even know what to call him - was shaken, so she reached out & touched him, very gently, on the shoulder. After this small gesture, the girl turned & practically ran from the cockpit, heading for one of the airlocks since the cargo hatch might be stuck in the ground. After struggling for a while, the airlock doors finally juddered open, causing bright light to flood into the compartment. After shielding her eyes for a moment & blinking rapidly, Koko was able to see out onto the planet & almost fell over when she did. With her mouth open the mercenary took a couple of steps outside, a faint, pleasant breeze blowing her hair around her head. It was so.... green. Though there were a few places on Ares that had grown green plants thanks to the terraforming units, it was nothing compared to this! A field of green seemed to stretch for miles in all directions, with what appeared to be huge trees at the edge & a ring of mountains encircling the area. Koko could do nothing but stare at the world around her in wonder.

Koko heard Zed's voice over the loadspeakers, but she didn't really register that it was him talking, or that he was trying to get her attention. She didn't say anything for a long time &, when she did, her voice was almost a whisper.
"Beautiful...."
Whether she was answering Zed's question or simply talking to herself was unclear. After a few moments the mercenary took a couple of steps forward, her boots making slight indentations in the long grass.

As she looked around in awe Koko began to get a strange urge. Without really thinking about what she was doing, the girl reached down & tugged off her boots, placing them next to each other on the ground. She then quickly removed her socks, stuffing them inside the boots. With her feet now bare, she was able to feel the warm grass beneath her - it tickled a little, but the feeling was wonderful to someone who was used to barren desert or cold metal. A huge grin spread across her face & she practically threw her trenchcoat off her before letting out a small 'woop' & spinning off across the field, her long hair blowing out around her. She'd practically forgotten the Aiolos & Zed in her moment of elation; the sun on her skin felt wonderful, it didn't burn like that of Ares, it was warming without being uncomfortable. The slight breeze brought smells of life, flourishing all around them in a way the desert planet she called home had never done.

Zed found himself in the airlock, not entirely sure of how he got there. He pressed the cycle button, which would normally equalize the pressure and atmosphere in the airlock with that of the outside environment, however, pressing the button simply opened the external door.
The pilot gasped for air before remembering that the hull had been breached. He let out a relieved sigh before he turned his attention to the world that lay outside of his ship.

The rolling grassland that surrounded the ship felt eerily familiar, as did the air he was breathing and the sky above him. He stood, awestruck for a moment while a million memories of the planet he was born on flooded back, as well as those from his return to Earth before the accident that tore him from his own reality.
He was home.

Zed shook his head then stepped out of the ship, landing on some soil that had been churned up as the Aiolos ploughed through it while crash-landing.

He saw Koko spinning nearby.
"It's a little different from when we musta left it... I've seen it since, but it's still pretty cool..."
He grinned as he approached her, looking back over at the crashed ship.
"She'll fly, but won't be able to get us home yet... We need to make the damn thing airtight and spaceworthy while the core charges up. Which could take about a day or so."