Objects In Space: A Sci-Fi Ensemble

[SamuelT]

"Good to know, hon. Fuel line's leaking. You're talking out of your arse. Think there's a connection there?" Allan said, keeping one eye on the fuel gage and another on the pulse display. He tapped the output once, setting the course so they wouldn't crash headlong in a piece of floating rock.

He leaned back and streched.

"I don't think I've ever been to thingamajig before," He said, waving at the monitor displaying Aavasaksa. He dropped his arm when a bit of faulty wiring sparked.

"You have?"

 

[Mark Flanagan]

"Sure, I'll get on that when I'm done cleaning here".

urgh mayo, I wonder if people would notice if I chucked the pots out of the airlock...

Taking a biscuit out of her pocket and blowing the fluff of it she turn around,

"Umm Jewels. Do you have gun? It's just that I was thinking that I should have one in case of... pirates? Yeah pirates" Taking a bite of biscuit as she mulled it over "...Or Banditos" she added, spraying crumbs.

 

[Cap'n Ninja]

"Yeah, the connection is that you need to get your arse under the engine when I get us down safely as opposed to your last trick of 'Cut the engines just out of atmo' which I'm pretty sure is right up near 'Full blast in the refuelling station' in the list of times you've nearly killed us all. Either way, fix it or you're wasting your wages." she said, re-flipping the toggles for the ionised redirection array to move a few degrees starboard to send them along the right course for Aavasaksa "And yeah, back when you were so hungover you didn't even know what cluster we were in. It's... For lack of a better word, a shit-hole with a couple of hill-billies and maybe a few spare parts while we're there. But, like you said so correctly about the fuel line, I have to take a leak. Don't try to fly my baby while I'm not looking." she said, refinedly pulling herself out of her chair and giving Streak a light pat on the shoulder as she stepped down from the raised platform the piloting chairs sat upon.

On her way to her room, she nearly walked into Mirie just exiting her own cabin after retrieving or replacing some item or another. "Morning, Mirie, how are things with loverboy Leo?" she asked in a joking-with-a-hint-of-seriousness tone as she gave a knock on her own door, letting it slide open and placing a foot in the jamb so it wouldn't close back up while they spoke.

Spoiler: OOC

@Samuel: While it's meaningless friendly banter at the mo', are we going down the fiddly bits/power output route or the equal abilities one-upmanship route?

Also, FYI, a door jamb is a real thing, I didn't add a b on to a random word.

Oops, posted early. Will probably be edited when Dragonizer tells me where I've done terrible things and ruined her entire life.

 

[NeoAC]

Awww what? She took my biscuits? Dang it Randa! I was saving those. Jeez.

Jewels tried to hide the annoyance of seeing the lowest ranking member on the ship eating her food. This was made easier by the question she was asked. "Um, guns? I dunno, I got like, a little pistol, for emergencies and stuff, but it's not all that powerful. Probably not first call for taking down bounties, but that's why the others are here right?"

She leaned back against the counter in the kitchen. I mean, yeah I could probably take them on though, I got enough practice sneaking around things. I bet I could just go right in and catch one of those bounties right in the next. Game over. Yeah, if I want to call a bunch of attention to myself...

 

[CounterAttack]

"Oh, confound it. I put seven hours into fixing that up just the day before we filled the tank," Juniper cursed under her breath, shaking her head as she turned and left the bridge. "I'll assess the damage, see if I can't keep her together long enough for us to land," she added, talking more to herself now. She tended to do that when she was grumpy about something, usually a repair that un-repaired itself a few days later. Such as this one.

Upon arrival at the engine room, the first thing that Juniper noted was the particularly strong smell of oils and the various compounds needed to keep the engines of the WaxWing running. A few cracks in the tubing were the primary source of the leaks; Juniper swore quietly to herself at the sight of the ruined pipes and the pools of liquid beneath them. "How the hell did these just break all of a sudden?" she asked herself, clearly annoyed by this development. Nonetheless, she hustled over to one of the many store-cupboards and pulled out four of the small sheets of metal she kept in case of emergency, a rivet gun and the box of...

"Tesage kago no jigoku,"[footnote]"Hell in a handbasket."[/footnote] Juniper raged to herself in Japanese, one of the languages with which she had grown up as a child. There were only enough rivets to seal off one of the cracks in the pipes. Still, making do with what she had, the engineer put three of the metal sheets back, took the rest of the material with her and set to work patching over the pipe closest to the fuel tank. When combined with the engine, the two took up most of the space in the room.

Spoiler: OOC

Sorry for my delayed post. You guys started while I was asleep. >=(

 

[Sparrow]

"Goddamn hunk of crap, always breaking! It can never just stay in one piece, can it? Nooo, instead it has to go and break down like a little ***** at the first sign of danger. Three thousand! I spent three thousand on you, and you break. Again."

Ellery fumbled around with his weaponry, furiously cocking his prized pistol back and forth. From a different angle, paired with Ellery's breathless grunting, some people could easily get the wrong idea.

"Is it too much to just ask for you to work once in a while? All I need is for you keep going for ten damn minutes and you can't even manage that. Juniper-- hell, not just Juniper, the whole crew tries to get you in working condition. Everyone pitches in. Everyone!"

Slamming the storage door open, Ellery poked his head out of the room and toward the cockpit.

"Streak! Erin! Are we near to landing yet?"

 

[Fishtie]

Leonidas sat in the small room that served as the waxwing's lounge and smiled to himself. It seemed as though something had kicked up the hive of the more technically minded crew members, but it wasn't anything that he had to worry about. They always kept things running one way or another.

Leo meanwhile smiled to himself as he shuffled a pack of cards with apparent reckless abandon. Or at least that was how it would seem to most people, few had the eyes to follow Leo's quick hands as they worked the cheep plastic of the playing cards.

Stopping Leo flipped the top card off the deck and let it drop onto the table with a single fluid motion. The card showing was the jack of hearts. The next card reveled in a similar manor was the queen of hearts followed by the king. Finally, with a touch of extra flourish Leo flipped over the last card revealing the ace of spades.

"Well, looks like that's coming together quite nicely." He smiled in a self satisfied way as he propped his feet up on the table and leaned back into the old chair.

 

[Mark Flanagan]

"Yeah, I guess so Jewels" Randa agreed, wiping her mouth with the back of a dirty hand.
"D'know if where we're going? I felt the ship change heading. Is it somewhere nice? I hope it's somewhere with trees, I like trees. All green and tall and junk plus they're like living airscrubbers which is cool".

Popping the last can back on the shelf and twisting it around so the label faced the front she moved across the kitchen to the sink and the pile of pots it contained. Fiddling with the taps until she got the water to right temperature she looked over her shoulder and asked "After this is there anything else you need me to do for now?"

 

[SamuelT]

Allan spun his chair around and pointed at the rapidly expanding planet in plain view through the main viewports. His face clearly said Seriously, dude? before twisting his chair back into the original position again. He frowned as he saw the ionised redirection array in its full upright position. They were dangerously low on pure hydrogen as it was, and at these docking distances fusion power wasn't neccesary at all. He toggled the fusion->fuel, putting more pressure through the already stressed fuel lines into the fuel tank, which lead for regular old combustion propulsion.

"Her baby. Psh." He said to himself.


<spoiler=OOC>@Cap'n Ninja; Going for the oneupmanship.

 

[NeoAC]

"That's all I can think of right now," Jewels replied, answering Randa's second question before her first. One side effect of little food to work with, not many dishes to clean. "To be honest it doesn't look like we're heading anywhere good. There's not a lot in this area of space I guess. Just a bunch of rocks and junk. It seems like forever since we've found a decent place to restock and fuel up." She took a deep breath, trying to recall prior meals that weren't coming to mind after a while of eating nothing substantial. "I don't think this is going to be a fun stop."

 

[DktrAgonizer]

Spoiler: OOC

Sorry, here's my own delayed post. Meant to get something up earlier, but work got in the way.

"Guess we're gonna need more money again," Mirie said to herself as she left some of the others bickering on the bridge. She shook her head as she went to the dormitory corridor, reaching one hand up her shirt sleeve to slip a dagger out from the hidden pocket within. She tapped the nails of her other hand with the blade, entering her room. "Maybe..."

Slipping the dagger back into its pocket in her shirt sleeve, Mirie knelt down beside her cot and reached under for the case she kept there. She lifted the lid and stared inside at its contents. Her case was normally full of threads of all different materials, thicknesses, and colors, as well as different pieces of fabrics and needles of the same extensive variety. However, she'd sold the best bits off almost a week ago on the last planet The Waxwing had visited to get food supplies. Fabrics and threads from Dunmar usually sold for a pretty penny. Now, her case sat empty of all but the most basic threads, and she barely had any full pieces of cloth left.

Damn. I'm actually going to need to buy some more of these myself if I want to keep our clothes properly mended. Hope we pick up a good bounty soon, she thought with a sigh. Shoving her case back under her cot, Mirie walked back out of her room and gasped when she nearly collided with Erin.

"Morning, Mirie, how are things with loverboy Leo?"

"Hello there, Erin." Mirie gave the other girl a broad grin, placing her hands on her hips. "Oh, the usual. You know. It's so undercover that the two of us barely know about it," she said with a conspiratorial wink.

 

[Cap'n Ninja]

"I'll bet it's undercover" Erin said with another wink, chuckling to herself as she slipped into her room and cast the door shut behind her. "You aren't going to sell all of the pretty ones are you?" She asked through the door as she stepped over to her dresser. She hadn't actually needed the toilet, but being in the cockpit with Streak for too long wasn't often a good idea, and they'd been up for most of the last "night" if you could call it that navigating an asteroid field, and while she didn't mind being smelly, her hair was unkempt and her face needed a wash. She went to the sink and scrubbed her face as best she could, before drying it with a towel and went back to the dresser to sort out her hair and put on a little makeup before they went planetside.

 

[Mark Flanagan]

"Oh you find a lot of interesting things in rocks, yup. Iron, coal, rock salt, sparkly stones..." Randa paused for a minute while she pondered other things inside of rocks while she vigorously scrubbed at particularly crusty patch of mayo.

"...gold, Iron -no wait I said iron already, Phosphorus. Any way what was I saying? Oh yeah so it all comes down the belts after the diggers have crunched it all up like chruk chacker crack!" Randa slapping the water with both her hands to imitate the ore machinery to accompany her sound effects, sending water splashing out the sink and up over the wall.

Grinning she turned around "Sorry.. Anyway all done" popping the last pot up on the drainage board and flicking water off her hands.
Turning around she took a biscuit out off her pocket and broke it in half, offering a piece to Jewels before snaffling hers "D'ya know if anyone needs help or can I just slack off?"

 

[Sparrow]

Ellery stormed out of the storage room, pistol strapped to his hip, and headed toward the intercom system. He took a few seconds to compose himself, as to avoid sounding angered over the tannoy system.

"Alright!", his voice boomed througout the ship, "If anyone is coming with me to the market you better get your behinds down to the air lock. Everyone else stick with Streak as he fuels up."

 

[SamuelT]

"Aww yeah. Second in command right here." Allan said as he lowered the shielding. This high up, and on this kind of planets, junk floating around'd smash right through unprotected glass. The turbulance of an atmospheric entry rattled the entire ship, and he heard something crash in the back. He kept an eye on the VD of the outside, and one of the ship's diagnostics, and after they descended far enough he opened the shielding again.

He tapped the automatic landing procedure, leaving the ship to be shephered in by the docking guide, rather than find a dock big enough for the WaxWing.

 

[CounterAttack]

"That should hold that one until we land..." Juniper mused, having patched over the crack closest to the fuel tank. "But there's nothing I can do for the rest of them unless I scavenge or buy some new piping." True enough, she had nothing to fix up the rest of the rends in the metal. It was annoying because the damned thing seemed to break down or need a touch-up every other day.

Then the familiar turbulence of the Waxwing entering a planet's atmosphere kicked in, and Juniper quickly grabbed a stanchion built into the tank's side to avoid falling over. At least the artificial gravity system never seemed to break. Someday it would, though, just like every other piece of important machinery on the ship. Juniper liked the idea of working in zero-gravity, although she'd never done it herself. As the shaking subsided, she heard Ellery's voice over the intercom.

"Alright, if anyone is coming with me to the market you better get your behinds down to the air lock. Everyone else stick with Streak as he fuels up."

Juniper was definitely going along to see what there was available. She - and the Waxwing - desperately needed parts to repair the fuel lines. Heck, maybe they could scrap the existing ones and pick up a whole new set of pipes to replace the old ones. Stopping at her room momentarily to pick up her custom-modified laser-pistol, which she gave a quick once-over and then holstered as she made her way to the airlock.

 

[Cap'n Ninja]

"Yes she is, and that's why she's heading into town with the boss" Erin said, flicking the automatic landing procedure off above Streak's head, having entered quietly unannounced. "You know I don't trust those. Besides, you could do with the practice" she said seriously, her tone jumping to a jocular tone in an instant. "Anyway, I figure since we've been up here all night you haven't told anyone to get you something in town, so here's me asking. Want me to grab you anything?" she said at a quick pace as she pulled her planetside bag from her overhead storage bin, careful not to let Streak see her code.

Spoiler: OOC

Sorry, stressed post is stressed, short and poorly written.

 

[SamuelT]

Streak quickly put his hands on the controls again, surprised by the sudden switch of automatic to manual. The ship dipped for a second before being pulled into a controlled trajectory again. He sighed. and barely heard Erin's offer.

"Oh, um. Sure. Thanks, I've been meaning to get this to a smith," He said, tapping the buckle and old-fashioned revolver that he had put aside when settling down into the seat. "Would you mind? Oh, also get something that'll hold during long flights. I swear, last time we got served 'flight snacks' I swear I destroyed the plumbing myself."

The ship broke through the overhanging smog and smoke hanging over one of Aavasaksa's ports; a collection of houses, walkways and platforms all attached to giant stilts sprouting from the by now toxic ground. There was one dock big enough for the Waxwing, and Streak, with the tip of his tounge between his teeth, manouvered the ship right through the open deck while the software made contact with the ground command, registering them. A loud clunk sounded, and Streak turned off the belly engines.

 

[DktrAgonizer]

"Truth be told, I hardly have any of the ugly ones left, never mind the pretty stuff," Mirie said through the door as Erin stepped inside her room. She stood in the hallway for a moment, folding her arms across her chest as she thought. I can't spare any more sewing stuff, but I guess I could always sell off some of my makeup. I'll just have to hope I won't need to make myself look like an old woman with patchy skin anytime soon.

Deciding not to wait on Erin, Mirie slipped back into her own room. She pulled out another case from under her cot, this one smaller, and peered at the contents within. This case held a variety of eyeliners, concealers, brushes, contacts, and the like. "I could stand to rid myself of the more gaudy stuff, I suppose," she told herself, eyeing the particularly bright containers of eyeshadow. Some of it was sparkly. She hadn't had to use the stuff since that job on Kadonis a few months back. The nobles there had a strange sense of fashion.

"Alright! If anyone is coming with me to the market you better get your behinds down to the air lock. Everyone else stick with Streak as he fuels up."

"Whoops, time to go." Mirie grabbed an empty sack sitting on the end of her cot and carefully placed the items she'd selected inside. Done, she shoved the makeup case back and slung the pack over one shoulder as she headed for the air lock. She hoped they'd be able to find some decent food supplies in the market this time.

 

[NeoAC]

Jewels took the half of biscuit offered to her and quickly ate it as the captain's message crackled over the intercom. Well it's better than nothing. I guess the kid doesn't know any better. "I don't know if anyone else needs anything. You can ask Ellery I guess, I'm going out there with him when we get to the planet. I have to make sure he picks up something I can cook with. If it was up to him he'd just be picking up nothing but beef jerky and beer."

As the rumbling started, she grabbed a hold of the cabinets and braced herself on the floor. Luckily in better times, Ellery had sprung for the cabinets with the magnet locks, so there was no worry of being covered in anything. Even the shelves had locking mechanisms...if Randa had remembered to relock them after she was done cleaning. Either way the rumbling stopped.

Jewels got up, sure that the clunk meant the landing was over. She brushed herself off. "So yeah, I'm going to head down to the air locks there Randa, um, so yeah." She left the kitchen before she noticed if there was any kind of mess that needed additional attention. Out of sight, out of mind.