The Outer Rim [IC]

Ruma shot Hartwin a displeased look but as the second in command did not pursue the antagonism, he followed the man’s lead and kept his thoughts out of his words. He let two of the others do the work of expressing his impatience, slightly worried about what would come out of his mouth if he added his own two cents. The captain was the only one he owed a damn thing to, he reminded himself irritably, twitching the suit one last time and wiggling his fingers to make sure he still had as much mobility as he was going to. The rest was just distractions.





The longer they interacted, the better sense Phalon got that she was of some level of interest to the medic. Suppressing a small smile as the smaller woman fumbled to answer, Phalon shifted to adjust her jacket, pulling it tighter around her torso and tucking her dainty hands into her elbows. “I can imagine the philosophical imprecations of bacterium battles as applied to the whole of humanity,” she said lightly, wiggling her nose a little to indicate nothing but fun. “I do not suppose my own ways of keeping busy are much to brag about, though. There are only so many marvelous ways to prepare canned foods, nutrition bars and supplement powders,” she sighed in the manner of one enduring a long defeat.


Swiftly, Phalon considered several other options; she had no doubt that the good doctor would prove an enjoyable conversationalist, if they could ease their way through the awkwardness of new meetings. “Do you enjoy card games, doc?”


(OoC: Oi, [MENTION=1001]Marira[/MENTION], Phalon isn't a giant, just tall >< I'll show you the picture I used for a base if you want)
 
Walking up to the airlock, Jim saw that everyone was already in position. Hartwin seemed to sense his arrival, as usual, Syndric and Ruma seemed... on edge. Adsila seemed her normal self, already talking about the landing. and there were the hover trolleys, pushed by Derrick(NPC). and so the captain just walked up and said "alright, we've all done this before, let's get going, before some Ion storm sweeps over us." And with that he activated the ship-side door of the airlock. Sliding down his helmet with a small metallic click, he signaled for everyone else to do the same.


Hopefully the income from this job would allow him to buy some in-helmet comms that would actually stand up to the ion storms in this system. They might not always be so lucky when it came to dodging ships passing through.
 
Syndric waved in greeting to the captain and Derrick as they came within sight. Syndric already had his helmet on and locked in place so he stood there and waited for everyone else to do so after the captain had done so with his own. He had at some point done some work on trying to make comm links for the crew but had forgotten where he put the finished piece. It must be somewhere on the ship, maybe in his room? Even he wasn't really sure. He did however still have to test them under the conditions of an ion storm but outside of that, they held up under certain other conditions such as solar flares without exploding like the first batch he tested did.
 
Kiri was resting peacefully, without any predators around, the abhuman felt entirely safe. A wailing shriek had her awake in an instant though, scrambling to her feet, a clawed hand lashing out and demolishing the alarm to little more than bits of plastic and wiring. Her adrenaline beginning to wane, Kiri stumbled, and collapsed to the floor; it's motion tripping her up again. It seemed that no matter how much time she spent on the ship, she'd never adjust to the inertia. More beeping, but now she at least didn't panic and destroy it. The datapad in her room had bleeped out to notify her of Jim's orders, that she was to go and see Janus again. Of course Kiri had never learned to read, so the captain had left her a voice file left to play automatically when the datapad was touched. Thinking it wise enough to do as she was told, and stumbled her way down to the engineering deck.
 
Ooc: I know. It was a figurative statement, that was supposed to be "as if," not "as is." >< but sure, if you want ^^


Lillian chuckled. She was glad to know that she wasn't the only one who seemed not to have any interesting factors along the ship. In fact, she had stooped down to examining a paramecia battle. She at least finally figured out what cured the common cold, that is, if the person doesn't get killed in the process.


"Sure," Lillian replied. She liked the idea of playing a friendly game of cards. She taught herself how to play many card games, some a little too well. She even used it as a gambling mechanism to get through medical school. She went to a clear table and set up two chairs across from each other. "What'll it be?"
 
(OOC: [MENTION=1942]Socks[/MENTION] Get it in gear! You're holding up the RP)


Janus was refering to his datapad,following the chemical trackers in the crates. They made it to the airlocks. He was about to follow them out to oversee the cleaning of the stash site when he saw a familiar feminine figure cross the doorframe,going into Engineering. As he made his way there,he opened a channel to the Captain. "Who told the animal to go to engineering?" He clomped up behind Kiri,and said to her, "Why are you in Engineering,Kiri?" His voice was heavily filtered by his helmet,although there was a distinct Spanish accent;the sleeper ship that went to Omicron Alpha was filled with almost nothing but spaniards.
 
The heavy footsteps of their resident vacuum cleaner made Kiri forget herself for a moment and stumble again, barely catching herself on the door frame. After Janus had finished insulting her and asking questions, Kiri merely shrugged; she actually wasn't sure why she was here beyond being told to do so. The relationship between the Tundellar and their cardamine reliant crew member could be described as tense at best. Neither thought very highly of one another, and both were sure that should the time come they would be able to kill the other at a moment's notice. The waiting was what drove Kiri mad; she knew that Janus planned to kill her some day, and were it not for the captain's direct orders on multiple occasions, she would have done it herself by now. It seemed the two got assigned to work together regularly in what must have been an attempt to make nice.


Again she stumbled, this time falling to the cold metal of the floor; snarling at herself in frustration.


"This damnable moving floor!" she hollared, striking said offender in her anger, releasing a loud gong through the chamber.
 
(Maybe he's dead? Hope Syndric's 2 crates of failed and incomplete inventions doesn't get tipped over. If that happened then all hell would break loose.)
 
Janus chuckled. "Deal with it. Like it or not,you're in space. Also,don't touch anything. If you break anything,you'll be the one suffocating,not me." Janus clomped towards the main terminals,and gave the levels another look. They were low on deuterium,as usual. Hydrogen-2 was hard to come by,and usually quite expensive. Coolant was high,as usual,thanks to jury rigged heat sinks that bled into open space. Sadly,they made stealth impossible,but they needed to save every penny they could...Until Janus' private dealings bear fruit. Atmosphere levels were good;Janus rigged the airlocks to vent the atmosphere stored within back into the ship before opening to the outside,and ran the waste from the fusion reactor through an electrolyzer,providing more oxygen for the ship's atmosphere. Nitrogen,however,was the only atmospheric gas that he couldn't recycle;they had to buy that whenever they stopped on a planet or station.


After he finished with the examination,which only taken a moment,Janus turned back to face Kiri. "So,back to my question. Why are you in Engineering?"
 
"Touch nothing," Kiri repeated, using the doorframe to stand herself up again on shaky feet.


When the airbag repeated his question, she repeated her response; beyond 'captain said so', she really had no reason to be here.


Before she fell again, the Tundellar took a seat at one of the various workbenches around the room.


"Thought captain told you..."
 
Janus laughed. "I'm the engineer. I may have been aboard for five years,and I may be two and a quarter centuries old,but the captain only tells me what I need to know to keep this ship afloat. And how I can improve the design,short of getting an entirely new ship." He opened his com to the captan again. "Why did you send Kiri to Engineering,sir?" He kept his gaze on Kiri; he didn't want to risk her damaging anything.
 
“Jus’ the Cap’n” Hartwin noted to Syndric, rocking back and forth on his heels slightly all while listening to Adsila. The woman was about to talk on about the many complications she avoided before cutting herself off. When she recuperated, her simple question spiked his nerve again but luckily Syndric was the one to provide her an answer. The man even offered to listen to the rest of her tale and he found himself slightly smiling at the minor bonding effort.


Jim entered the airlock finally and he gave his friend a slight nod, noticing the hover trolleys behind him before exactly cluing in. The captain was only giving the group a sort of pep talk though and after he was done, Hartwin followed the signal and clicked his helmet on. Then almost as if to make sure, he nodded again, slightly tightening is fist and prepping himself for outside.
 
With the hiss of air escaping into the recycling system, Jim hit the second switch, opening the airlock to the asteroid. The dead vacuum of space loomed before them, but the captain wasn't afraid. walking through a fed checkpoint carrying illegal goods, that was scary. sneaking through Molickar space without having paid protection, that was terrifying. But walking into the vacuum of space was nothing.


Activating the comm system, the captain said "OK, spread out and find the hatch everyone, could be far. don't know how close we landed to it." Then he got Janus's message about Kiri. he switched over to a private frequency, so as to keep this separate from the supply run. "Janus, your man Derrick told me you needed some muscle to move the spare thruster. figured Kiri could help with that just fine. oh and Janus, try to be civil." and with that, he switched back to the broad frequency and resumed his sweep.
 
(Finally this can move on.)


Syndric stepped out through the now open airlock but right before he did, he stick a line from his suit to the outside of the ship as a precaution. He wasn't sure what could happen if anything but if something did, he wanted to have a quick escape as an option. He said over his comm "Where exactly here is the cargo again?" He looked around a bit for any hints as to where the cargo was.
 
Adsila was about to continue talking to Syndric when the captain appeared which meant that they could finally start getting the cargo and getting it on the ship. She smiled at Syndric.


"I'll tell you more later if you want, maybe even show you." Adsila had not really shown any of the crew how to fly the ship though she was sure if she was unable to someone would be able to take over for her. It wasn't because she didn't want to, but once she gotten started talking about it, she would keep going on and on. She looked out onto the asteriod and grinned, stepping out. Space was so beautiful.
 
"Right,that." Janus clomped to the door. "Apparently,the captain wants you to help me move a spare thruster component. Come on. I know you're strong." He began walking towards the elevator; the component was kept in one of the ship's many cargo bays. "And before you run off telling me how weak I am,the component is about five times your size,and twenty times as heavy." He pressed a button on the tube,waiting for the elevator to arrive.
 
"Just tell me what and where," Kiri replied, following. While they were traveling by ship, this was all she had to look forward to; moving the things that no one else could. Could they at least get a thresh infestation?


Again the sound of boots meeting metal floor rang far too loudly, painful to her ears in such confined space.


In the abhuman's frustration, her brands itched, reminding her of prior failures and impatience. The judicial system on Tundellag was much like it's people; brutal.


Four brands on the back of her right shoulder, reminders of shirking her responsibilities. Youth learned to get over their rebelliousness quickly when they were prodded with red hot metal, forever marking them with shame for it.
 
Phalon hummed a little, watching the shorter woman set up a place for them at the table, and tapped her cheek lightly in thought. “Are you familiar with Cuspir? Obviously not the drinking game.” She didn’t know if Zarich allowed his crew to bring or consume alcohol while in the ship, but she hadn’t seen any evidence of it thus far. Still, she wanted to see if the doctor has any sense of humor at all.


 
The door opened with a mechanical noise Hartwin was almost too use to and he took a moment to observe the space around them. Just as he found the gleam of a planetary nebula in the distance, Jim spoke over the intercom, directing them to get to work. The man did just that, the first to actually step onto the surface of the asteroid before darting his eyes around carefully. Jim and Syndric followed, the latter idly wondering where the cargo was supposed to be “We’re s’posed to be lookin’ for it…?” Hartwin noted, not really sure what he meant.


To his knowledge, the cargo was in the hatch, and that’s what the group was currently looking for. He, himself, was traveling in an angle away from his captain also looking for the hatch…or cargo…or something.
 
Syndric sighed inside his suit. He was expecting that they would be given a precise location for the cargo but so far, that seemed to be something completely different from the current situation. Thankfully, he had a scanner with him but he was hesitant to use it as asteroids had a tendency to be heavily consistent of metal, ice and rock which could blur the readings if he set his scanner to detect metals. He opened a compartment of his suit and took out his scanner which he had incorporated into a device the size of a PDA. He activated the device's scanner function before setting it to scan for metals. Looking at the screen, it was as he feared. The mapping was blurred due to the metal content of the asteroid itself but he could pick out the cargo since it was concentrated in one spot and at the surface there about. He started walking, following his readout towards the cargo.
 
As the elevator pod arrived,Janus stepped in,and motioned for Kiri to follow. The pneumatic tubed had an alarming failiure rate,something Janus was trying to solve for the longest time. The only solution he was able to find though was to completely replace them with more space-consuming,but more reliable,conventional counterweight operated elevators. Or stairs. However,the captain was against that; such a retrofit would be too expensive. Just another reason for Janus to hope his private dealings bore fruit.


After a moment of hesitation,Kiri boarded the pod reluctantly. Janus pushed the button to go to the bottom deck,and waited. "Scared of tight spaces or what?"
 
"Just the machines," Kiri replied, eying the machine suspiciously as if it were about to tear from it's housing for a snack. Stranger things had happened.


The abhuman was having bad feelings about the elevator, her instincts trying to tell her something, but they seemed to act up all over the ship; always telling her things were wrong.


Apparently being wrong in space is being right.
 
Lillian chuckled and replied to Phalon's ending response. "If you think med school is any more conservative than any other adult education system out there, you're wrong." She added lightly, sitting down on one of the chairs. "So Cuspir? I remember it by a different name..." Jandice added. She easily recalled her favorite "elementary" card game. In fact, it was one of the first she learned. Hopefully, a fully grown medic still has hands quick enough to keep up with this game.
 
Janus shrugged. "Adapt. Last I checked,it's what your people do." He leaned against the side of the capsule as it descended the tube. Suddenly,it came to a halt. Janus looked around the capsule;they weren't lined up with a door. "Great. I guess my number had to come up eventually..." He pulled his pistol from it's holster on his thigh. It looked fragile,but inactuality it was pretty solid. There were exposed electromagnetic coils around the truly enormous barrel,with a small tube filled with ball bearings on the side of the weapon,feeding into the chamber. He wrapped his right arm around Kiri's abdomen,while he pointed his weapon downward. "Exhale."
 
Snarling a little at the vacuum cleaner's quip, Kiri followed him onto the elevator anyways.


When the elevator stopped, yet wouldn't open, she was about to point out the flaws in technology when she received an abrupt order, to exhale. Doing as she was told, she looked questioningly at the Maltese man, expecting some silly civil reason to come through his voice box, but instead he pulled out his claw, the damn things it seemed everyone carried around here, that could kill most anything from a distance with just a shot or two.


When Janus pointed his claw at the glass that showed the vistas of open space, despite the beautiful view, a look of terror made it's way onto Kiri's face instantly erasing any traces of anger from her visage; even disregarding the arm that wrapped around her midsection.
 
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