|
|
Post by Fraze on Feb 14, 2009 2:17:19 GMT -5
Seeing Rider attempt to walk through the force field startled Fraze through his anger, and he almost laughed.
Listening to Keng did a bit more to calm his nerves. Though it was really little more than a technicality by now, she was still his superior. He could almost feel his pulse falling to a more reasonable rate. He wasn't completely over the explosion, but the worst was over.
Still, he nodded appreciatively at Keng's berating about stealing the book. That, at least, seemed an absurd move.
He even felt a bit of justification hearing Keng's message relayed to his suit's comm: "You appear to be right, Security thinks it was Speck... still she couldn't have the technical know how to breach security in so short of time. The pirates could have an associate. Wait... do you know anything about a colourful fellow who calls himself Merpo? He's the one who wanted the book. Offered to pay their way up here to get it. But eegads.. it's a freakin library book! Who steals a library book without borrowing it first? Honestly?"
Merpo? He did a quick, unauthorized search through Spacefleet's crew archives. This was technically frowned upon and could have gotten him in trouble, but he felt the situation merited it.
"Uh, let's see. He served here two decades ago. Came over as part of an exchange program. Discharged after six months for 'failing to return borrowed lab equipment.' Now residing on the surface, obviously."
Returning borrowed lab equipment? As far as Fraze knew, keeping any borrowed equipment past the due date would at most get you a fine and a stern talking-to. Except for weaponry and dangerous materials, of course--but the harshest punishment that could come from keeping those was a demotion, except in very extreme circumstances like armed assault. But this was lab equipment. If the guy had threatened someone with an x-ray machine, Fraze thought, that would have been stated as the reason for the discharge.
And why didn't he just take a shuttle back to wherever he came from? He'd been living on the surface for twenty years, he could have come back to his home planet at any time. Spacefleet should have covered the cost of a shuttle back--and even if it didn't, it wouldn't take twenty years to earn enough money to go back.
There was something proverbially fishy here.
He did a search of all Spacefleet archives, for anything mentioning the name Merpo. A white page with a multicolored Spacefleet logo came up. "Results 1-10 of about 11,300 for merpo. (0.004 picoseconds)"
The bottom of the window said "Spaaaaaaaaacefleet," which linked to the first ten pages of hits.
Most of these were research the guy was involved in. Pretty mundane stuff, honestly.
But--wait, something about his notebook?
"You must have level five security to access this page."
Level 5? That meant subcommander or above (where "above" meant "Commander Strife").
"Okay, Keng. This guy wrote a book or something. It's in the library, but a level 5 security pass is required just to access the file with a description of the book. Thing is, the work he did while here was pretty mundane stuff. Nothing that'd even warrant level 2 security. I would think that either he was involved in some secret work that somehow got out, and he was the scapegoat, or he was doing some research on the side that got people spooked."
Fraze now turned his attention to the pirate captain. This quick bout of research and the resulting mystery were at once calming and oddly invigorating.
He took a deep breath that became a sigh. "All right. I suppose I see your point. But I would have hoped that you would give that information on your own. Don't you trust me?"
Wait, what was that last part? "Us. Spacefleet, that is."
Attempting to regain control of the brain-to-tongue pathway, he added, "So, if I ask you a question, you'll answer truthfully? What is this book, what's in it, and why did you need to steal it?"
Fraze felt an odd sensation, as though his stomach lurched forward--but in time rather than space. His suit's chronometer registered a time distortion. Though where time had been eaten previously, it now looked like it was being regurgitated.
|
|
|
|
Post by Huntress on Feb 14, 2009 18:22:35 GMT -5
"Don't you trust me?"
Bloody Mary could feel Hunty's shoulder twitch ever so slightly, and stared up at her. The captain was poker-faced again, in her finest 'try to squeeze my opinion out of me and you're dead meat' manner. But something was still showing through. Something the meepit couldn't really pin down, but he knew that it was making him feel iffy.
Hunty scowled, and then shook her head slowly.
"Don't ask," she said dryly. "Really."
"So, if I ask you a question, you'll answer truthfully? What is this book, what's in it, and why did you need to steal it?"
"What I just said." The captain's poker-face was getting more transparent. She was pretty much driven to the edge. Whatever the edge was.
Bloody Mary scowled. He was a meepit. He didn't have a top-class emotional range, but he could still always pick up when something was way more wrong than he would've liked it, and at this point he knew that he wanted to get it figured out.
"Tell 'im," he said. "We won't lose anything from it."
Hunty's eyes flashed.
"Don't we? Besides their trust? Besides his trust? Look." She looked Fraze in the eyes, in her usual glaring-through-the-walls manner, but this time it was mixed with something quite similar to sorrow. "The truth? We're bloody pirates. Nuff said. We have our agenda, and our purpose, and although I'm fairly sure that it's completely harmless to the Spacefleet purposes-" Bloody Mary winced at this point. "-it'd still hurt. And I don't want to hurt you. I care about you too much for that."
Bloody Mary fell straight off her shoulder.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kengplant on Feb 14, 2009 23:43:25 GMT -5
Keng opened her mouth in one of her classic 'I'm about to say something intelligent that's an excellent and obvious point that I can't believe everyone else has overlooked" poses, with her finger pointing up in the air... but she was stuck on the last thing Huntress had said and instead of speaking was going between 'something important to point out' and putting her hand to her chin, while convulsing her face into a puzzled 'am I in reality right now, what the frak is going on?' kind of pose: her eyes looking around the room for answers in illogical places like the ceiling and that empty spot to her right, or that crinkle in her shirt.
Eventually she started pointing at an imaginary timeline in-front of her with her eyes staring distantly off into blank thoughts of confusion. Occasionally a thought of actual substance came into her. One theory was that Huntress was playing with people's heads. This seemed like a logical and very practical explanation for such an awkward statement towards a man that: as far as Keng knew, Huntress hardly did. Or maybe she's missed something when she was spending her time in la-la land during the last GW... no... this was all just some weird game. Yea...
|
|
|
|
Post by Rider on Feb 17, 2009 12:17:20 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]"I care about you too much for that."
Rider's jaw dropped like a merc off the Black Beekadoodle. Her eyes bugged out of her head cartoon-style. The whole situation hurt worse than getting zapped by a forcefield.
Mentally, she made a note to scrap all of the Hunty/Bloody Mary fanfics in her desk drawer. Blasted Spacefleet sunk my 'ship.
"Look, guys, the demons are gonna be here any minute now. When they come, you are gonna give yourself up or do whatever it is that made them go away last time."
"but I don't know what made them do away last time," Leraye said. He was sitting and crossing his legs very politely. If he hadn't been, Rider would have kicked him somewhere very uncomfortable.
"Guess! Because if they fire one shot at this Spacefleet..." She brought her cutlass up to Leraye's face.
"There will be no need for that." The demon just kept smiling.[/glow]
|
|
|
|
Post by Fraze on Feb 24, 2009 6:04:24 GMT -5
"And I don't want to hurt you. I care about you too much for that."
It took some time for Fraze to understand the precise meaning of this statement, as though his mental airline security had decided the words were unusually suspicious and had them detained while their baggage was searched. In this time, he managed three syllables.
"I see. I--"
Hunty's words then careered around down the hall of the mental airport, running to catch Fraze's plane of thought before it took off without them.
He could feel his face burning. He was sure that the silver suit--which could protect just fine from total vacuum, which could defend against most handheld projectile weapons, which could dissipate the several thousand-degree heat of atmospheric reentry like a cool breeze blowing past a campfire--did nothing to obscure the redness in his cheeks.
"...I know," he managed at last. He realized after he said it, that it was true.
With a thought, he requested the force field be lowered. A few seconds later, it dropped with a hum and a flash of light.
How did he end up this close to her? He must have taken several steps forward without realizing it. Somewhere along the way, the suit had slid down his face, now lying in a collar around his neck.
Fraze looked into the pirate's eyes--once deep and cold, but now...there was something, like a flicker of flame through frosted ice. "I care about you as well."
|
|
|
|
Post by Huntress on Feb 25, 2009 16:14:44 GMT -5
Hunty stared up at Fraze. Had he just said that?
"I..." Man, this is turning into a real coherent conversation, thought the ever-rational - if currently sadly outvoted - part of her brain.
Just as that part was beginning to wonder what'd happen next and if it'd possibly involve a duet, Hunty's eyes suddenly glazed over and developed a kind of inwards scowl, as if she was paying keen attention to something going on behind her back. Which was, in fact, the case.
Bloody Mary, who'd caught hold of the jungle of straps on her back as he fell and taken a second to compose himself, slowly rose back up on her shoulder. It looked rather like a small, blue, and very angry sunrise.
"Alright, Mr I'm-a-professional-diplomat, that's quite enough for distance."
Hunty's head jerked sideways to glare at the meepit. That was a mistake. Meepit stares are notorious to start with, and they know that, so they make sure to polish their skills to maximum efficiency. When a meepit chooses to turn up the volume of their stare, it becomes almost physical. It hit her like a welding torch.
"Look," said Bloody Mary, in a tone that read 'you know just as well as I what I'm about to say but since you're disregarding it all, don't expect me to spare you a single word'.
"I know," Hunty said, her voice cold and defensive. "Duties. Rules. Restrictions."
"Eh, you know how I feel about those," the meepit said, now a little more softly. He scrabbled up to her shoulder and sat down there, paying no attention to anyone around them. "Howsabout something more like 'doing bloody stupid things while in the middle of an important mission'?"
There was no answer. Actually the answer would've been something like 'I have to be true to my heart' but all of her braincells refused to form something as Disney as that into a spoken sentence. Instead they prodded her about the fact that the entire crew was still there and watching.
"Not the time and place, s'what I'm saying," said the meepit. "Actually it's pretty much the worst time ever for you to get reduced into a small soppy pile of sugarfluff."
Hunty's eyes flashed all of a sudden. "Bloody Mary...!"
The meepit met her glare and then broke into a happy little jig.
"See, now we're back on tracks," he said cheerfully. "Let's go clobber some demons."
Hunty sighed, trying to suppress a smile. Her life wasn't her own. She knew it well, and had long accepted it, but every once in a while it got fairly depressing. Still... duties. She wasn't about to approach this the rebellious teenager way. Bloody Mary's snark-well would never dry. Besides, there were too many people around. Bragh, deja vu. They always find a way to sneak up to you.
She glanced at Fraze. "We need to talk. Later. Too many things to sort out right now."
In most cases, Bloody Mary would've branded it as trying to avoid the inevitable, but as it was, he just lifted his head to eye the ceiling.
"They're practically here, so whatever you end up doing, I'd decide fast. My vote goes to feeding them the demonboy. Whether or not it helps, we'd still be rid of him."
|
|
|
|
Post by Rider on Feb 26, 2009 12:35:39 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Something in the bottom of Rider's stomach went clunk. After the initial shock of impact, it stretched out and started growing flowers and shedding sparkles.
-I swear, if you're gonna end this RP with another wedding...
Rider pushed Ventratta's tiny little head back in her pocket. The Meepits were right of course. This was the wrong time.
Heh, like Rane and Kienne worried about time.
"They're practically here, so whatever you end up doing, I'd decide fast. My vote goes to feeding them the demonboy. Whether or not it helps, we'd still be rid of him."
"The irony of this is staggering. Now, we could feed him to the demons. And when the timeline snaps back into place, well, we have a 50% chance of being rid of him forever and a 50% chance of him vanishing off their ship and them blaming us. They'd turn right around."
Rider paced around Leraye. "It's a risk we'll have to take. Fraze, are the demons within communications range yet?"
Leraye was getting nervous. Heaven only knew what the demons wanted to do with him. After all, they had banished him from his world long ago. Why would they be coming after him now? Ever since then, the only people who he had ticked off were.... humans. Of course. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Perhaps things would work out after all.
Meanwhile, Schzain was in a ship heading toward the moon, playing with her dagger restlessly. She infused a little magic in the handle of her dagger, for safekeeping.
"We'll be landing in Spacefleet soon. Best buckle up," Kyvr said to her. Schzain blushed again, and a strange feeling of deja-vu came over her. She reached out to run her fingers through his blazing red ponytail. The sub-plot that never was. [/glow]
|
|
|
|
Post by Goosh on Mar 1, 2009 10:29:15 GMT -5
The thing about being attacked by a horde of violent, shiny-crazed weasels was...
Well, no. There were several things.
Mainly it was the surprisingly sharp claws that scrabbled across Goosh as he fell to the ground. He had expected that to, y'know, hurt, but the claws slid along his skin without finding purchase, as if he was coated in teflon.
In a state of bewilderment, he tried to get up, grunting melodiously. But 300 weasels, having grown fat on a life of theft instead of hard weasel labour, are heavy. As soon as he propped himself up, the rodents washed over him like a tide, drowning him in a sea of fur. A furry, licking, cute-in-a-mischievous-way sea.
don't stand for this; kill them
The voice again. Goosh was not going to slaughter innocent weasels. Biting his lip, he answered the voice.
No.
get rid of them! they're parasites!
How?
dazzle them!
...Dazzle them? How did one do that, exactly? Take them out to dinner? Except he couldn't stay here forever, trapped under the weasels. With a sigh, he pulled one off of his face, and flashed a jaunty grin at the entire horde. Plumbing the depths of his vocal cords to find the most beautiful voice he could muster, he murmured, "Hey. Guys. Er, do you think you can get off of me? Please?"
|
|
|
|
Post by Cyborg on Mar 1, 2009 10:47:25 GMT -5
" Hunty, Fraze stop flirting this is serious, in about, well who knows how long now, there will be a hoarde of demons coming to attack and kill us all. Now I know we don't get along well, but now we need to, this is a life or death situation, not just for us, but for the people aboard this very spacecraft. we need to figure out a plan to hold back the demons long enough to get the pedestrians to safety, and then we need to somehow kill or imprison the demons." Cyborg stated, attempting to bring Hunty and Fraze back to reality.
|
|
|
|
Post by Kengplant on Mar 1, 2009 17:05:56 GMT -5
Cyborg was being sensible. This was strangely out of character or him Keng thought but she felt a swell of pride for him build up inside her. She also wanted to laugh at the irony that it was Cyborg telling them this was a serious situation and no time to be flirting seeing as how they had gotten together in very similar situation.
Holding back a chuckle she managed to say. "Right, so, let's be off!"
In Keng's experience sometimes the best thing was to not stand around planning and just start going. A plan could formulate on it's way and...
"Wait a second..."
Keng called up Spacefleet's Flight Center. She had to put in a security pass to get past all the complaining guest calls lineup, but there was an important question that needed to be asked.
"Have any of the flights since the time mess up thing started arrived? All flights should have been cancelled correct?"
"correct" came the response in her ear.
"So has a ship carrying a passenger named Cyborg and another Passenger named Speck arrived?"
"Negative. They have not been checked in."
"Can you check the records from the Space Port to see if they've left?"
"....
They are stranded at the space port. Their ship was not allowed to leave."
"Thank you."
Keng hung up then looked at the others. "Good news. If it WAS Speck that shut down the systems then she never made it up here this time around. Which means she won't be able to shut down the security systems... unless she was forced to or something in which case the person really responsible might just use someone else... or the Speck that is up here and from our timeline... Ok... so that may not be good news afterall..."
Keng, realizing that this was something security should know passed the message on to them.
"Ok, first stop: the armoury. Let's get you guys some guns, maybe some shields... which we WILL take back at the end of this so don't get too attached to your laser pew pew toys. Let's move." and Keng set off at a run towards the armoury, just expecting everyone to follow her.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fraze on Mar 2, 2009 1:26:26 GMT -5
Fraze glanced at Cyborg, then at Huntress. "Heh," he began. "Haha." Had Cy really said that, when he had been hanging around Keng this whole time? "Hahaheee!" This really was absurd, when you thought about it. "Hehhe...hahAAAA!" They were about to be attacked, and he was looking for love. "BAHAHAHEHE!" He was doubled over now, hooting in full force. "HAHAHAAAAAAA...HOHEEE...BWAHAHAHAHAHOHO...HAHAHA...HA...heh." Once the laughter subsided, giggling remained.
"Cyborg, you don't know how much I needed that. Heh. All right. Hehe. Rider, I'll ask you later where you picked up the phrase 'communications range.' Hah."
Saying this, he sent what was the comm equivalent of tentatively knocking on a door, trying to find a house you knew was on this block, but not knowing where it was, and not even knowing if the people at the house you were looking for were home or not.
"Y'ello, Zorbon's1 Plasma Mat, how can I help you?"
Zorbon's? The nearest one he knew of was at a rest stop in the inner Kuiper belt.
"Sorry," Fraze answered back. "Wrong channel."
He tried a different frequency. This didn't get any answer from anything.
Though "hailing on all frequencies" sounds good in dramas, it's the subspace equivalent of going into an office building, grabbing the intercom speaker, and saying "Mike? Hey, Mike, you there? Listen, I'm sorry about what I said last night. I really do like your needlepoint, I was just having a bad day. Are we cool?" And then hoping that Mike will yell to you from his office so you know where to find him.
Well. The situation was serious enough, Fraze thought it was warranted in this case. Not caring that he didn't even know if the demon fleet had subspace communications systems, he formulated a message and sent it out on medium strength in the general direction the fleet had come from the first time. The message spread outward through subspace in expanding cone; every last active communicator in that cone from here to the far side of the planet would hear it. "Demon fleet, we know you are coming. Tell us your terms and we will be willing to negotiate." He hesitated half a second, not sure how to put the second part, or whether to say it at all. "We have your leader Leraye in custody. He is unharmed, but he has betrayed you."
While he was at it, he remembered his doppelganger, now cruising through space somewhere. "Am I here? It's you again."
The voice on the other end laughed at the abnormal use of pronouns--possibly because he had thought of the same joke. "Yeah, I'm here. What's going on?"
"Uhm...too much. Trying to contact the demon fleet, and I think I pretty much told Hunty we love her."
There was a pause. "...Finally? I didn't think we had the courage to do it."
"Eh," 'Fleet!Fraze responded, a grunt that both understood to mean "I'm trying to make this sound like it isn't a big deal, but I'm really both thrilled and scared by it."
"So. What's happening with time?"
"What? Oh, that. I think it's jumping back forward again, closing the gap. I guess you'll absorb into me or something if it keeps going like this."
The other Fraze paused, took a moment to formulate this mental image, and laughed. "Kinda terrifying in a way."
Both of them cut off communication simultaneously, knowing there was no more to say. The whole exchange, being processed at the speed of thought, took no more than ten seconds.
"Well, guess we need to wait for a reply now." With that, he trotted to catch up with Keng. Armory? Well, this ought to be fun, though he wondered if Keng had forgotten the mobile armory right behind her.
------
1The name "Zorbon" is, in fact, completely fictional. The creator of Zorbon's was a human entrepreneur who, having never traveled outside his human-inhabited world, had no idea what names are common for other races. So, he looked back at popular works of fiction with extraterrestrials, and decided Zorbon was a sufficiently alien-sounding name. Of course, more often than not, alien races have vocal cord setups completely different from humans', and therefore, their names (and languages in general) are almost completely unpronouncable. (A particularly popular name among a common alien race is *clickclick**squirrrrrr**buzz**taptaptap*, though it may vary depending on dialect.) Despite the nonsensical name of the chain of plasma filling stations, their easy access and willingness to locate in remote star systems has made them quite popular across much of the galaxy. However, the naming backfired, causing many non-human races to believe Zorbon to be a common human name.
|
|
|
|
Post by Rider on Mar 2, 2009 13:37:10 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]((A-mazing. "Communications range?" OOC, your doin it rite.))
"Let's get you guys some guns,"
Rider, back in character, lit up like a child on Christmas morning. Her voice came out in a barely-audible squeak. "Guns?"
Forgetting the demons momentarily, she pranced after Keng, visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. 'cept the sugarplums were on fire.
"Demon fleet, we know you are coming. Tell us your terms and we will be willing to negotiate. We have your leader Leraye in custody. He is unharmed, but he has betrayed you."
They knew they were coming. Kyvr reluctantly swallowed the trail of swearwords that was gelling on his tongue. The High Warmaster started re-configuring his battle strategies, leaving Kyvr to deal with the call. "So you admit that you're holding Leraye captive. If you're holding him, how can we believe a word you say? For all we know, you're just trying to save your own skins."
The demons were getting nervous. Morale was weakening. Schzain held her dagger for reassurance and prepared to shift out of the visible spectrum.
"Leraye is a champion for the oppressed. You have no proof that he would ever betray us."[/glow]
|
|
|
|
Post by Huntress on Mar 4, 2009 15:15:50 GMT -5
Bloody Mary eyed the giggling Fraze with a raised eyebrow. Not that it showed in his dark blue face, but it was the principle that mattered.
"You have a weird taste in men," he said.
"Cork it." Hunty's patience was clearly strained so far that it was, as it were, over the cliff and only waiting for gravity to kick in with an unrealistic delay and eyeballs getting left behind. Knowing her, possibly someone else's eyeballs.
The meepit was about to wonder whether those eyeballs might be Cyborg's - gods knew that he'd spent the entire day prodding the captain's patience and interrupting the bluebirds'n'rainbows only meant cutting the road down to his inevitable smackdown shorter - when armouries came into play. He looked up, then more up, to see Hunty's reaction.
It was mostly a wide grin. Hooboy. Rider wasn't the only one who got insta-distracted upon the mention of pointy mass destruction.
"Looks like this'll be a lot funner this timeline around," she said, following the procession. "Hey, got any of those close-range zap-zap thingies? I've always kinda wondered if they're any better at close distances than crossbows."
"Not if you waste your time on trying to reload out of habit," said Bloody Mary. "I could personally go with one of those mercury-suits he has," he nodded at Fraze. "Zapping won't do you much good if your defense is lacking, and we'll be going up against magic. Demon magic."
He seemed to give it a good thought, then took aim and jumped over to Fraze's shoulder. He nearly missed, considering that both point A and point B of his jump were moving at variable speeds, but managed to catch a hold.
"'ey, any chance you can divide that blob-suit of yours between us?" he asked. "The medics here should be able to patch you up no problem whatever happens to you, and you might even get a nice tragic-slash-heroic hit-on-battlefield scene out of it that way, but when a little meepit gets squished by demons, he tends to stay squished, s'what I'm saying."
|
|
|
|
Post by Zylaa on Mar 4, 2009 18:13:38 GMT -5
Zylaa would have done something to stop the weasels. Really. But for one, she realized the futility of trying to block 300 crazed weasels; for two, Goosh's melodious voice seemed to have taken away all her will to do anything but stare at his sparkling physique, and thirdly, she had felt a great disturbance in the Roleplay... as if millions of 'shippers had cried out in joy, and were suddenly silenced.
It was mostly the first one, though.
Goosh didn't seem to be harmed by the swarm, really... perhaps that shininess was more useful than just dazzling. Zylaa got a bit of her wits back as Goosh fell down. Melodiously grunting.
What to do? I could just run back to the crew... but he's obviously very, very sick, and I can't just leave him. Heck, next he could sprout a tattoo and start using never-before-seen magical powers. I can't take that risk. Zylaa thought some more. Where's earplugs when you need them?
At that moment, Goosh spoke again. "Hey. Guys. Er, do you think you can get off of me? Please?" His voice! Like the sound of nightingales, or so Zylaa assumed, since she had never heard a nightingale sing. But she had heard songs about nightingales, and they were captivating.
His voice captivated the weasels, too. They stopped, and as one, gasped, at the joy of hearing such a beautiful sound... such music, such poetry in that sentence! It was like... like... like shinies in auditory form!
Overcome with emotion, the weasels swooned.
Of course, since most of them were still piled on Goosh, he still had a swarm of weasels on him... they were just unconscious now.
Zylaa considered this.
"Goosh... I don't want to sound harsh, and you know you're a great friend and crewmate... but give me one good reason why I shouldn't run screaming to the Captain and leave you pinned under a few hundred musteliads."
|
|
|
|
Post by Jina on Mar 4, 2009 22:12:53 GMT -5
Jina lost track of what had happened to the monkey, so instead she decided to wander around.
...And she found Zylaa, next to what appeared to be all her weasels, in a pile. Unless... no, there was apparently something shiny under them. That explained it.
"Goosh... I don't want to sound harsh, and you know you're a great friend and crewmate... but give me one good reason why I shouldn't run screaming to the Captain and leave you pinned under a few hundred musteliads."
"Wait a minute... that's Goosh?"
|
|
