The Stars Await - Mists of Europa

[Cpt Wallace]

He backed up using the lance to cut the closest thralls apart before backing off to the lift he leant back looking up before he went to the lift controls he signalled topside for the lift and then started to look around his eyes fell upon a case of quarrying charges and he went to them prying them open with his blade smiling he pulled out a charge unwinding the detonation cord he pulled the detonator from the crate and wired up the charge.

"Everyone drop back further."

He tossed the charge rolling it along the ground under Bailey's feet to the full extension of the cord, he placed the detonator on the ground and pulled a second and third charge out and rolled them after the first without untying the detonator cords he hoped the first charge would be enough to detonate them, he pulled another three out and knelt by the detonator waiting for the others.

[Alexis Voltaire]

Doctor Fitch used the leather straps to secure Lou to the table as a precaution before he set to work, using a scalpel to make light cuts down the thickest of the gray veins running between the bites, just breaking the skin to let out the venom.

As soon as the water was heated enough to be almost too hot to touch, and folded some of the linen bandages over until they made thick strips, and soaked them in the hot water. He let the first few cool so they wouldn't be such a shock, moving back momentarily to check on Lou. As cold as she felt, he hoped the warmth would do her some good in addition to working to draw out and counteract the venom. Still, the heat was likely to be a shock at first.

"Sorry miss Lou, this will probably hurt.'" He said, taking one of her arms and starting to wrap the heated bandages around her lower arm, just tight enough that it wouldn't cut off her circulation.

Mariah had moved to Lou's side again, taking her free hand and trying to offer what comfort and distraction she could. "it'll be alright Lou, just fight it!"

[Stella Gaslight]

The machine was back large and hazy in her view but getting more solid.  It spoke to her offering comfort and unending life as part of a collective mind.  The pipes were warm enfolding her and she was so tired and it hurt but then she heard her captain's voice.  It cut through the fog and shone like a beacon.  Lou pushed back against the silver pipes in her mind fighting their hold.  She thought about her favorite wrench and beating the pipes with it.  Each blow hurt but she kept on until she finally broke loose.  A horrific smelling gray sludge flowed from the bites as the swelling went down.  Lou blinked eyes taking a while to focus.  She saw the worried faces above her and smiled then realised where she was.  "Did they get those gray bastards?" She croaked.   

[MWBailey]

"Let 'er rip!" Bailey yelled to Robertson over the loudhailer as the platform drew even with the surface and they stepped off. "Gas th' bastards! Where's's Lou?"

Robertson, not knowing for certain who, "Lou" was, gestured vaguely toward the Sabertooth.

He drove the wwalker up into the hold and intio its alcove, parked it, disembarked, and headed for the infirmary, limping from the blaster burn on his ankle. "How's she doin'?" He rasped, as he came in through the door.

[steamcowboy92]

Talon followed Bailey into the infirmary, dripping with other people/things blood, the shotgun was empty and so were his pistols. He'd have to restock as soon as he got to his room but first things first. He walked through the doors looking like a barbecued zombie from hell, covered in blood and viscera. Dropping his filthy jacket to the floor, he walked up to the table where Lou was laying and asked, "how ya doin little'un?"

[Stella Gaslight]

"Next time we go fighting monsters I am wearing a dammed full body leather suit."  Lou chuckled a little and winced.  "It feels like I went three rounds with the dammed walker suit. Bailey I owe you a drink at least you saved my skin.  Did you get the bastards?" She tried to sit up a bit but just shook weakly.  All her joints ached and she felt weak as a kitten.

[steamcowboy92]

Chuckling wryly, Talon slipped an arm behind her shoulders and easily helped her sit up. "Easy now girl, ya been through tha wringer"

[Alexis Voltaire]

As soon as Bailey had given the word, Roberts waved a signal to the two forklift drivers to start dumping the chemicals down the vents. They'd rigged up dumping points at two opposite sides of the intake system, so that the chemicals wouldn't meet and mix until they were a safe distance underground.

The gas was heavier than air, and it flowed downward through the vents and into the lower levels of the mine like an invisible choking fluid. The gray things, already reeling and confused by the loss of thier leaders and so many of thier number, ran or darted in all directions, panic stricken. The thralls choked and died, and the gray things fled the shells that had once been men, only to face a slower version of the same suffocation and death as they slithered hopelessly in panic toward an exit they would never find.

A few of the more clever gray things, the surviving leaders at the lowest levels, fled back to the dark hole from which they had come. They slithered back into a seam in the blue rock that had been blasted open not a week before during the quarry expansions, and into a long tunnel that sloped down and away into the depths. The swiftest ones found the last of the working hibernation chambers that had protected them for so long, and they were sealed safely away, to dream of thralls and conquest until they woke again.

Those that were not as swift found nothing to save them, and they huddled around the stone feet of thier fallen god in a lightless chamber some seven hundred feet below the lunar surface, waiting for the inevitable end.

[MWBailey]

Bailey wasn't sure that it was such a good idea to help Lou sit up; rattler victims who did so tended to not do well for a couple of days longer than the norm if they did, but since the doctor didn't protest, and he himself was at best a barely-competent field medic by dint of being a fomer transport commander (The diveships often had to deal with the first stages of triage and first aid when picking up their charges in the rough, and in some cases were the closest thing to a medical facility for lightyears around until they managed to rejoin the fleet), he decided to let it pass. He was not jealous in the slightest. No, not at all, he insisted to himself.

"They're dumpin' th' chemicals now, Bailey said. I reckon everything that's still in the tunnels'll be goners in a short bit, if they ain't already. what managed to crawl back into whatever vein they come out of might survive, but for now, I think the danger's past." An old soldier through and through, Bailey knew all too well that insurgents and resistance fighters can never be truly weeded out, not completely. Some always survive, whether they stay in the same theater, or go elsewhere. After all , he and Talon were living proof that such was the case.

"I'll take you up on that drink as soon as yer up and strong agin," he said. "I want some good competition to go shot-fer-shot with." He winked at her. "Now, you rest up, and don't worry, we'll keep the ship up 'til you get back. I've still got that ol' roll o' baling wire, y' know." he winked again, upon revisiting the old running joke; it had its origin in an old brag about having kept the Busted Flush spaceworthy 'with chewing gum and baling wire.'

He reached over and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

[steamcowboy92]

looking up at Bailey, Talon gently let Lou lay back down and said, "yeh rest little'un, Willie if'n ya dont mind ill go shot fer shot wit ya, its been a long day and ah could use it" right now getting plastered sounded perfectly wonderful, his ribs were killing him, he was tired, and all he wanted was a strong drink or two..or ten.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Get that new lad to look over the engines.  I know he won't keep it exactly as I would but he isn't bad at it.  Can you get me a sip of water?  I am parched."  Her arms were bandaged with spots of gray staining the white and there was a few tears of the same stuff leaking from her eyes. She was pale with dark purple bruises in a few places.  It was obvious Lou would be in the sick bay for a while.  "I am a bit regretful I couldn't blast those gray slugs myself."

[steamcowboy92]

bringing the little wrench turner a glass, he carefully wiped the tears away with a semi clean bandanna, and looked to bailey.

[MWBailey]

Bailey saw the grey stuff coming from Lou's eyes, and long experience dealing with people putting a brave face on despite grievous wounds told him that Lou's ordeal was far from over.He took the bandana from Talon, found teh grey-stained corner, and lifted it to his nose. it carried an acrid odor, not too dissimilar from crater rattler venom, but nbot really the same; the rattlers reproduced through their venomous bites, and the squids seemed to be set up to do something similar, but only as far as subverting the wills of their bite victims. something about the scent awoke something in him, and his ankle wound suddenly twinged. Hwe looked at the bandages an drealized what the doc had to be doing. such had worked with the rattlers, but it was a slower process than red-hot iron cauterization, and more risky in his own experience.

The only thing that kept him from ripping away the bandages and shouting for a blaster and a bar of iron was the multiplicity of Lou's bites (so much of a physically traumatic measure  would "kill or cure," as the saying went, and she was already far weaker than he would have liked for that perocedure), and the fact that she was already at a point similar to the 'purging' stage, encountered in recovering rattler victims, in which they sweated and otherwise eliminated the venom leftovers from their bodies.

"I'll go ahead and say it out loud,"  he said, knowing Lou and Talon could both see his concern. "I'd prefer to go ahead and remove the bandages and slap red-hot iron to every bite, and follow the depth of each wound to its end, but the fact of th' matter is 'at you're already recoverin', sim'lar to a rattler victim (The rattlers attack and have similar effects; I wouldn't be surpried to find out th' two's related), and I treated scores o' 'em myself, on the breakout from Io."

"That, 'n th' fact there's a good chance 'at burnin' out s' many wounds at once might -er- do more harm than good." he had nearly said that burning so many wounds out might kill her; she didn't need to hear that. "Well, to make it short, I think the doc knows what he's about, do what he says and you'll be fine." He intended to pull the doc aside on his way out and let him know in no uncertain terms what would happen if Lou died while in his care.

"We'll stay here and keep y' comp'ny, 'til the Cap'n tells me t' fly us outta here."

[Alexis Voltaire]

Mariah looked up when Jameson's voice came over the intercom, saying that Roberts was down at the hold with the paperwork the she'd had asked for.

"That might be soon, let me find out what's going on." She said in response to Bailey's last comment, waiting a moment to let Fitch finish bandaging the cut on her ribs before she got up to answer. "Alright, I'll meet him there." She said over the intercom, putting her coat on again as she left, partly out of habit, and partly for appearances sake since the black and red fabric didn't show blood.

When she met Roberts down in the hold she took the contract and started to read it over, even though it was a standard form and only the dollar amount written at the bottom actually mattered. She realized she must have been getting tired because it took a moment for that to click into place.

"Great, thank you." She said, seeing that the amount was a little better than she'd expected.

"No, thank you." Roberts said earnestly. "I have to tell you also, me and the boys are headed back up to the crater rim, the gas we used is heavier than air but it might fill up the mine and start coming out here. I can seal the vents, but not the elevator shaft, unfortunately. You'll be fine if you don't go outside, and you're free to take off when you like. Sooner might be better if you want to avoid the rush, they're sending in a bunch of ships from the light side to start cleanup here. I'll not chase you out, but I thought I'd tell you that it's going to get busy here in short order."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do." Mariah said tiredly, not entirely sure if that was the answer Roberts was looking for, but he seemed satisfied enough. When he had left she turned on the intercom and called back up to Bailey, recounting what Roberts had told her. "Are you up to flying us back to Tranquility?" She asked. "Or... damn, we still need to drop off Hermes. Maybe they'll let us park for the night at Fungible's."

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou laid back on the pillows and smiled.  A good crew was almost better than a family.  "Don't know why I am crying.  You both have done right by me and capt. too.  I hope our next job is less full of monsters.  I should make you both ridge suits we could trounce anything that got in out way."  Lou yawned deeply blinking she was bone tired.

[MWBailey]

"Well, hells, looks like I'm already needed up on deck," Bailey said, then pressed the button to reply. "On my way, Cap'n," he said. "Darksiders tend to be accomodatin' in such matters, so maybe so. It'd be good fer Lou if we could sit still someplace for a few hours, I'd reckon."

He found Heinrich in the mess hall on the way and hauled him along. "Time ta git flyin', kid. I'll need yer help ta squeeze back outta this glove-finger we've squeezed into here."

A few odd back and forths and even a sidewise slip to port, followed by a radical tilt to starboard later, and they were free and clear and roaring off into the eternal darkside night to Fungibles'. "Be about twenty minutes, Cap'n." He opened the intercom to Hermes' cabin and announced their imminent arrival; he swore vehemently when he heard Hermes' obviously drunken and incoherent reply.

"Consarned eels of Greater Praetonia! Heinrich, if'n ya will go and wake Mr. Hermes and pour him into a seat in th' hold, with his effects, we can be soon rid of the drunken lout." He intercommed Cap'n Harper with this latest development. "I guess I can see why he'd turn to a nightcap, but from the sound of 'im he had a whole bottle."

[Cpt Wallace]

He went to his bunk and peeled off his coat dropping it onto the bed he pulled off his shirt and groaned seeing the blackeing bruise over his ribs.

"Ah bugger."

He prodded the bruise wincing at a few points and pulled a long bandage from one of his drawers he wrapped it round his body and then pulled on a fresh shirt and headed for the kitchen, once there he prepared Lou a light meal of fresh fruits and meats along with a slice of bread, he topped it all off with a half dozen strawberries and headed to the sick bay with the plate.

He stepped into the room looking at her as she laid back.

"Wee thing will be starved when she wakes up, needs to keep her strength up when she comes too."

He laid the plate down beside her folding a clean towel over it and leaving heading back to the kitchen, he had work to do and food to prepare he'd let himself rest and heal when the crew were fed and refreshed.

[MWBailey]

Bailey got clearance from Fungibles' to set down on the so-called "front lawn" pad jusyt outsid eteh main administration building. "What do you mean he's 'out of it?' " the supervisor on duty demanded over the radio link. Bailey explained the situation , including the occurrences over at their previous destination.

"Yes, we heard about that; nasty business. Glad you brought Hermes out of it alright. So, he has a flask with him, huh? must be a pretty big one. I'll have a med receiving team out there for 'im when you get there.
"Roger that," Bailey respionded, then called up the Captain and relayed the conversation and its outcome.

[Alexis Voltaire]

"Alright, 'least he'll be off our hands now..." She replied back to Bailey, from her cabin intercom, having headed there to put the contract somewhere safe and put away the disintigrator with the other rayguns. She thought briefly about getting a regular carry hostler made for it (so far she hadn't found on in the cabin). It was far too destructive to use safely on a ship, but on the ground it would be very useful to have along.

She left and headed back up to bridge while they were still a few minutes away from landing, without any particular reason other than that it was something to do, and she didn't feel like heading to bed just yet. Aside from being tired and the fact that she couldn't use her right hand much yet, and that almost any kind of sudden movement including breathing sent a stab of pain through her side, she was in good spirits. They'd had some close calls today but no one had been killed or torn up too badly, and they'd made enough that they could afford to rest in Tranquility before they found something else to do.

"Hell of a day." She said, wincing a little as she took a seat in the battered but comfortable co-pilot's chair Heinrich had left unoccupied while he went to deal with Hermes.

[steamcowboy92]

Nodding to the cook when he came in the room, Talon pulled his vest off, and began carefully unlacing the leather that held the damaged plate in piece. It fell to the ground with a loud clank, and he quickly stuffed it back in his pocket before putting the vest back on, he'd fix it later. reaching under the towel, he helped hisself to a strawberry.

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou slept peacefully and dreamed in a place free from pain.  She dreamed of clockwork tiny human like figures that zipped around cleaning the red city of trash in movements almost like a dance.  Lou watched them with delight. Such tiny things tacking such a big job made her feel proud.  In the way of dreams she understood how the little automatons worked by just holding them.  Lou tried to remember how they were made so that when she woke up she could make them in the real world.

[Alexis Voltaire]

The war between Britain and Germany was officially ended after a week of negotiations, the redrawing of a few planetary territory lines, and the eventual signing of a peace treaty that most guessed would be only a temporary respite from the fighting.

The privateers that had made good money preying on one side or the other had turned to other work, or slunk off into the less civilized corners of the aether to continue the same business without the government's blessing. The official military fleets of both sides had been recalled to thier home bases, but one ship in particular either hadn't noticed the end of the war or was refusing to...

---


It was early morning by standard time when Mariah got up for breakfast, but the sun outside the ship was slanting down on Tranquility from near the horizon as it angled slowly into the days-long true lunar evening. Much as she disliked being on the ground for very long she'd enjoyed the time they'd spent in tranquility, often enough circumstances didn't allow them to take time off when they really needed it.

"I'd like everyone back here by afternoon." She said over breakfast. "If I can find the information I'm looking on that German rogue ship, I want to leave by this evening."

The job was something she'd come across a few days ago, shortly after peace between Germany and Britain had been declared, a large bounty had been placed on one German scout cruiser that had refused to stop attacking any ship it came across on the trade route between Mars and the Jovian moons, that it had originally been stationed to protect. Whether the ship's crew had mutinied or the captain had gone pirate or just gone mad no one was sure, but both the Germans and the British had given up trying to bring them in because they simply couldn't find them, but the attacks had continued, with the survivors giving reports of the same ship. The military was now hoping they could find someone else to do thier dirty work for them, but they were paying a lot, and Mariah  knew someone who used to run that trade route and knew its secrets and hiding places.

[MWBailey]

"Fine by me, 'long's I can rent a cycle," Bailey said. " I need to go find a gunsmith who kin tell me how ta charge up that li'l ray derringer. Dang thang nearly made me mess mah shorts when it fried that moonsquid; I'm glad I didn't try to use it to shoot the tentacle that it stuck through the message port."

---
Heinrich spoke up, " I just need to go and see my Yuu; I know I missed her birthday party, and she may be so very miffed at me," he said, a tinge of worry entering his voice. "She's such a sweet flower, though..." he sighed, trailing off and smiling absently.

[steamcowboy92]

Stepping out of his bunk, Talon looked around and smiled slightly as the sunlight bathed his upper body as he made his way to get breakfast. Barefoot, and wearing naught but his jeans and gunrig, the sunlight felt good. The bruise over his ribs was mostly faded away, and the gunshot to his shoulder was almost entirely sealed, leaving just a small puckered scab. "Ought make a right interestin scar," he thought to himself

Not that he didn't have enough of those already. His upper body looked like a jigsaw puzzle, crisscrossed and pockmarked as it was by old scars from both during and after the war.

Sitting down to eat, he stabbed a small fruit from off the table and started carving slices off with his scalping knife, careful to wipe the juice off the high carbon steel blade everytime.

Looking over at Mariah he asked

"So whatcha got planned fer today Little lady-er uh, i mean uh, Captain?"

[MWBailey]

Bailey's eyebrow quirked, and he held himself ready to come between the two lest the Cap'n started trying to tear strips off of Talon; not that he didn't think the boy deserved it, it was just Bailey's turn at mess cleanup duty, and he didn't want to wipe up blood and skin so early in the morning...