Three weeks earlier

Meeting the infamous Cadrakous Rex was an experience she would never forget. She’d been approached by the literal rat of a man while at a bar back on her home station. Picture a skinny rat walking upright and wearing an actual pimp suit, velvet red with a black and white striped collar. Behind him was his brother, Neschal Rex, wearing a shiny black tracksuit and trying to look more imposing than he was.

“My dear miss Lambart, how are you this fine evening?” He said with a rather odd smile on his hairy face. He was, rather obviously, trying to put on his best “nice guy” face.

It wasn’t the first time she and her sister had encountered the man while they worked with what counted as the local police force. However nothing could be pinned on him and he was never proven to be directly involved with anything elicit. When something illegal was found on the station, he seemed to always be around it and ready to profit from it somehow.

“I was enjoying a nice peaceful evening, but it seems a cat has lost its favourite toys.” She replied, catching the briefest of twinges in the ratman’s facade. “What do you want Rex?”

He straightened himself up, no doubt in an effort to look like an upstanding citizen.

“I come with both a peace offering and a business opportunity that could make us all richer than your wildest dreams.”

She barely caught him whispering to his brother.

“Not mine of course.” he snickered.

The brother gave an overenthusiastic laugh that made some of the other patrons turn their way in annoyance.

“What could you possibly have in mind that would make me want to work with you?” She replied pointing at him dismissively before taking a long drink from her beer.

Unphased, he pulled up a chair and ordered a drink with the table’s inbuilt menu screen. Seconds later a small serving-bot flew over with three drinks on its tray-like body. Small arms dexterously delivered drinks in front of each of them before it whizzed off to serve other patrons. Cadrakous eagerly took his and took a long swig before producing a small disc out of an inner pocket of his coat.

“I think you of all people will understand the significance of this venture.” He said, sliding the disc across the table toward her. Neschal on the other hand took his drink and gingerly took light sips from it.

Still suspicious of the man, she picked up the disc, easily recognizing it as a navigation chip. Being one of the top navigators on the station had earned her a bit of a reputation. Being as far out from the major powers as the station was, many people came through searching for the unknown.

However many more came for one thing, the legendary lost planet known as Karuna. It had been lost for a thousand years and people from all across the quadrant came in search of fame and fortune. Zarine was no exception, she’d come for the same reason as everybody else, but made a living assisting small salvage operations and rescuing would-be adventurers that got lost. She had spent many long nights pouring over star charts, hyperlanes, nebulae and every other spec of dust she could find.

Upon putting the disc into her personal data pad, she instantly noticed the usual path that people took in their search. There was, however, one major difference. Most flight plans only had six major coordinates, nobody had figured out where to go from that point. That was until now it seemed, this plan had a seventh set.

“You’re kidding?! This had better not be fake, there’s a reason nobody goes that way from there. Nobody’s crazy enough to fly between a pair of binary supergiants.”

“I can assure you mon cherry, my source is immaculate, and my pilot is indeed crazy and skilled enough to pull it off. With him and your sister, the two best pilots in the sector, I have no doubt you would be able to manage.”

Zarine lightly massaged her temples due to both the horrid attempts at French and the implication that she would need to work with a certain other notorious pilot whom she was far too familiar with.

“Okay fine, he could probably do it with Rei’s help, but who is your source? Nobody has found any new leads in at least a few years.”

Cadrakous took a moment to straighten his coat rather deliberately and proudly declared,

“Why, none other than the esteemed Victoirique Du Boys, head of the anthropology institute back on your home planet of Dirt.”

“Look, Cad…it’s Du Bois, and my home is called Earth, EARTH!” she sighed, “Ugh, fine… Get me in contact with her and then we’ll talk. This better not be some scheme or a double cross, or so help me!”

—--------------------

Zarine had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but at least this time everything was quiet. Apparently it was long enough for her pod to have landed as it was standing upright with nearly a third of its length buried in the ground.

She decided to have the pod run a scan of the surrounding area to determine if it was safe to breathe. It was standard procedure and probably good sense since she was on some unknown planet after all.

While the machine did its thing with various sensors popping out the top of the pod, Zarine attempted to shift around and assess the damage to herself. It felt like she’d fallen down the world’s tallest flight of stairs.

She was battered and bruised pretty badly and imagined she looked pretty terrible, already able to see the normally pale skin on her arms turning an uncomfortable colour. Thankfully, nothing felt broken, but it was going to be hard to do anything for a while, particularly if the onboard survival kit’s medical supplies were lacklustre. It was a possibility considering both the owner of the ship and the one who funded the operation.

After some time the pod gave a cheerful ding which told her it was done doing its scans. Everything seemed to check out, the air was breathable and nothing toxic was detected. It was near perfect, oxygen was slightly high and there was a strange unidentifiable background radiation. The system however deemed neither to be harmful and promptly opened the front panel causing Zarine to nearly fall out.

She carefully stepped out and finally got a good look of her surroundings. Apparently she had landed in some dense forest, her pod must have punched through the canopy because it was rather dark except for a beam of light shining right where she stood. There wasn’t much foliage on the ground but what she could see was dark green, much like home. The ground was covered in a spongy moss, and the trees had large green leaves. All in all, it looked very similar to pictures she had seen of prehistoric jungles back on Earth.

She began to look around and try to remember the survival training Reiana had put her through when they were younger. “Think Zarine, think.” She muttered to herself. “ What would Rei do in this situation?”

As if to answer her, she heard a muffled yell close to her feet. Tyna was trapped because the pod was stuck in the ground. “Oh! Hang in there, I’ll get you out!” She shouted before hobbling closer to the pod. It took her a while to finally push the pod over because she was still in pain. When it dropped to the ground, it threw dirt and moss in every direction, most right into her face and wavy red hair.

She figured it must have alerted every animal in the area with the noise it made. The small hatch popped open revealing Tyna inside puffed up like a balloon with stars in her eyes like a cartoon.

“Wah…That was scary.”