Alrighty, guys! Let's begin this story for real. No short, half-chapters, lets do this.
Power on.
The ship was rattling. 07 craned it's neck, and it's pupil contracted in surprise. Still tightly strapped to the interior hull wall of the shuttle, 07 vibrated as the vehicle lurched. Something whistled in the background as wind conceivably whipped around the streamlined figure of the shuttle shot through the planet's atmosphere. Everything stood still for a split second. It was almost... peaceful.
That was when all hell broke loose.
A deafening crash, and there was smoking silence.
Optic camera focusing, 07 struggled to cut itself free from the restraining straps. With it's grasping limbs, it sliced through the rope and wriggled out into the open. Adjusting it's camera to the darkness, it searched for an exit. The shuttle began to burn. It searched harder.
There! A crack of light. Coiling back with all it's might, 07 crashed through the half-open door of the shuttle's cargo hold. Out into unfamiliar territory. 07 squinted in the sudden, almost blinding light pouring in from what appeared to be a tree canopy. Shaking it's head, 07 looked down at the deep brown soil, covered in a lichen-like organism.
Hypothetically grinning, the droid swept it's vision across the light green, semi-transparent canopy, supported by thick trunks colored tan and chestnut, striped horizontally from top to bottom. Around the tree-like specimen's bases, there were above-ground roots that curved downwards into the planet's crust.
What they did down there, no one knew. No one but 07. Leaning down to begin scratching at the dirt to uncover the tree-like organism's secrets, an alien cry stopped it short. 07 lifted it's head and activated it's audio recorder. The call was deep and haunting, like that of a hollow instrument. As the noise died, it seemed to rise in pitch.
Suddenly, metal clanging began from the interior of the crashed shuttle. A humanoid figure rose from the ashes, stumbled onto the ground, and winced when he burned his hands on the scorching dirt. Looking up, he saw 07 and got to his feet, making his way over to it.
As the figure strode closer, 07 recognized him as one of the Scouttroopers assigned to the same mission. He had obviously sustained damage from the shuttle crashing, and it struck 07 to go look for more survivors.
Without so much as a chirp, it dashed to the wreckage of the pod and began sifting through the charred remains.
Opening the main hatch to the cockpit, 07 turned it's head from side to side. Upon entering the cramped space, the droid was greeted with a gruesome sight.
07 sensed the trooper behind it and swiveled it's head to greet him. An expression of... disturbance? Sadness? Horror? A combination of the three? 07 was bad at judging these things.
Looking back to the corpse, the raptor-like droid scanned the remains of the dead Commander. Clutched in his hands were the remnants of an odd, unique device, unknown to 07.
Stepping over the wreckage, 07 used it's dexterous front limbs to pick up the foreign object. It turned it over in it's claws, contemplating what the device could be used for.
07 snapped back to reality when the surviving Scouttrooper shifted his weight before exiting the shuttle. "Welp. Nothing I can do about it now."
Bounding over the remains, 07 reached the exit of the ship, and remembered its objective. Its shutter-like eye refocused and scanned the surrounding area. It detected a high-pitched chirping directly above it. Raising it's head, it detected no movement, so it switched to infrared.
07 switched back to normal vision, target found. There.
In one of the tree-like organisms (Groveroot trees, as they would later be called) sat a creature that couldn't have been bigger than 07's head, colored a light purplish-blue hue. It clung to the trunk of the groveroot, using a pair of claw-like appendages to bore into the tree's bark. 07 peered more closely at the bark itself. It was a tough covering that seemed to protect an unseen part of the groveroot's trunk.
Again focusing on the creature chipping away at the bark, seemingly occupied, 07 studied the rest of its body. It appeared to have two more sets of limbs: A pair of legs, gripping the cracks in the bark, and two wing-like structures, folded tightly to its back. 07 needed a closer look, but wasn't authorized to provoke the organisms.
Its vision swept across the creature's body, towards its lower half. A sturdy looking, aerodynamic tail supported the creature's awkward posture as it leaned over, pressed to the trunk. 07 noted that the chipping sounds had stopped. It refocused its point of interest to the head of the creature.
The trunk-chipper's head was separated into two main sections. It had a brilliant backwards-pointing crest with white and red stripes, and a face that ended in a point. 07 saw that a section of the groveroot's trunk had been scraped away, and an amber-gold liquid was seeping from the wound.
Suddenly, from the trunk-chipper's pointed snout, a long pinkish tongue-like extension lapped up the liquid. 07 watched, fixated. When all the liquid was drained, the trunk-chipper abruptly spread its wings- giving 07 full view of the limbs. The droid saw that the wings were only pseudo-wings, and weren't really capable of sustained flight. They were supported by four appendage-like structures, and had flaps of thin, leathery skin connecting them.
The trunk-chipper pushed off from the groveroot, and glided across a stretch of air, aiming for another tree.
Further research was required, but it glided out of sight.
*CLANG!*
Turning with a start, 07 relaxed when it discovered that the noise had only come from the trooper. He was beginning to craft a makeshift base out of scrap metal, tarp, and other assorted materials. Remarkably resourceful, for a Scouttrooper. Moving on, 07 decided to check out where the clearing morphed into a hill. Cresting the slope, the droid found a field full of life.
A herd of huge, lumbering animals with light green scales strode across the clearing towards a lake shimmering with green light. Over by the treeline, smaller creatures with long legs and single horns on their heads, an ivory color, grazed peacefully among the trunks. By the lake, reed-like plants stood erect with blue stalks and red berries. Among the tall grass across the scene, the amber-yellow ground-plants shook, like a group of animals was sliding through the underbrush.
07 could hardly contain its excitement.
This was going to be fun.
WHEW! First chapter done, and with a shameless scene ripped right out of Jurassic Park to boot. This chapter is long overdue, but at least 07's right.
This is going to be fun.