The Stars Await - Mists of Europa

[Alexis Voltaire]

"Good, that's more time than I hoped we'd get." Mariah said when Bailey had returned with the news. She followed Bailey's gaze to the set of strider armor, and shook her head, guessing what he had in mind. "Much as I'd like to, I don't think we can afford to attract that much attention. If we go in with guns blazing we'll probably get killed."

She took a set of light metal-frame and canvas wings down from the rack next to the armor, handing it to Lou before taking one for herself and starting to strap it on, showing Lou how to do the same. She pulled the lever to spread the wings just a little, and showed Lou how to work the controls. "It's pretty simple, make sure you lock the wings into place, start up the motor, and use these here -" She indicated the handles attached to wires that controlled small flaps on the wings "to control how high you go and to turn."

"I want us to regroup and keep out of sight for a while once we get to the city, if we don't act like we're running we should be safe enough. Our best bet once we're in the air is to head for somewhere on the edge of the city where there aren't many people. A scrapyard or anywhere abandoned should be perfect if you can see one."

Mariah grabbed two of pairs of goggles from their hangars just above the wings, gave one to Lou, and pulled her own pair over her eyes. Opening the small side hatch at the side of the cargo hold, and levering her wings closed again so she could get through it, she jumped down onto the dusty ground of Venus. Checking to be sure the others weren't having trouble with thier wings, she locked her wings into place, started up the tiny motor and revving it to full, and ran a short distance before the wings caught the dusty air and pulled her skyward...

[steamcowboy92]

As soon as he'd put his wings on, Talon opened the crate he'd stashed the three dead crewmen in and pushed it over, spilling their bodies onto the floor of the hold. When the engine went critical it would do so violently and the remains of her crew would be burned beyond recogniton and any would-be rescuers would be hesitant to get to close to the wreckage until an aether containment unit could arrive, that would give Talon time to escape with the others.

Before Mariah took off Talon hollered out to her "Captain Meriah! tha angines is rigged tah blow, anyun comin'll think tha ship blew witall hands aboard. We ought' head aways from town tah avoid tha rescue party den circle  back 'round 'hind 'em afta they pass an then head tah town!" 

[MWBailey]

Bailey grabbed a set of wingsoff of the rack, and said, "Well, it would've been nice, but no dice this time. But someday..." He cranked up the little aethermotor and took a running start like the cap'n, except that he went ahead and ran off of the top of a sloping boulder (he remembered he needed more of a swoop to take off, being heavier than Lou or  Captain Harper).

A while later, a huge steam van pulled up at the site, and it disgorged a score of armored figures, who deployed and then crept up to the edge of the pit of lava, surrounded by singed and destroyed ship parts, that had been the shuttle. A short time later, a radioed message said that the ship was "Lost with All hands" and that one very angry and distraught Kapitan Ernst was found uncoscious in the nearby rocks...

[Alexis Voltaire]

"Good idea, but we need to watch the fuel in these things." Mariah shouted over the rush of wind. She angled her wings out away from the city, but after a while turned more parallel to it, keeping an eye on the distant cloud of dust that showed the rescue party moving out toward the shuttle.

---

Some time later as the steam van trundled its way back to the spaceport, Kaptain Ernst was being fussed over by the medics that had accompanied the rescue van. He tried to brush them aside, but they insisted he was shock and didn't realize what had happened. The fact was he had indeed been injured, and between the shock and having other things on his mind he had little awareness of it.

He stared hard at the plume of rising smoke that marked the location of the shuttle, and turned his eyes out to the empty wasteland around them. It was empty, but he knew they were out there... Just as he knew the shuttle hadn't had a serious engine problem. He knew the sound of those engines, horribly maintained as they were, and he knew that there had been no problem. In fact the engines had started sounding quite a bit better after the pirates had taken the ship. They'd blown up the shuttle on purpose. "Damn fool trickery." He muttered darkly.

One of the medics gave him a shot of something, 'for the pain' they'd said, but he hardly noticed.

The pirates had taken his his ship and ruined whatever was left of his career. Nobody got assigned to the prison transport that had a future in the aetherfleet, he reflected darkly as the drug began to take effect and pull him down into blackness, and now even that was gone. He knew they were out there somewhere, and they were going to regret having let him live...

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou closed her eyes as the warm air lifted her up.  She wasn't entirely sure what to think of suddenly being so high but at least it wasn't as scarey as she thought it would be.  "Captain I think I see a good place to land off to the north.  Just over that ridge there.  It looks like a graveyard for ships.  There are piles of wrecks as big as houses.  We should be able to loose anyone that comes after us there."

[The Corsair]

The morning brought clear air. A lot of it too. It was probably a pause before the heavy weather he had marched here in got heavier. In any case, it meant the Space Port was livelier than before with all the lighter ships taking advantage of the clear air. It was generally little vessels owned by opportunistic merchants, he figured, because they seemed to fly up and away, then return within half an hour with far less crates aboard than when they left. There was one thing adding more hustle and bustle to the area than anything else, though, and he couldn't quite tell what it was at this point. People were running about, calling things as they passed. Then he heard 'over at the Land Port in 5' and he realised something must have happened there. A major crash maybe.

He had been wandering about with Jemima for only a little while, trying to find a cheap, or maybe even free, breakfast. The second he heard something was happening at the Land Port he grabbed her hand and started running as best he could toward it. When he got there he found a whole host of vehicles lined up and ready to leave. Even a set of Rabbits being filled with members of Venus' small army sat idling. He needed some way of getting out to wherever they were going. He ran for the mechanic's guild building (in VC6 they were hardly an organisation, here they were a guild) and made his way to the garage. In all the rush nobody seemed to notice him, probably because he was dressed similarly to them. Jemima would stick out like a sore thumb unless he got them a vehicle and got out quick.

He spotted something, then. A single vehicle with no-one tending to it. He made his way over to it, almost sure of what it was but somehow unable to recognise it. When he got to it he understood why. It was a Roach, but it was two-seated and partially enclosed. Theoretically you could ride one without goggles (not that he overly wanted to). It must have been for transporting lone civilians from place to place. It would be useful on rescue missions, no doubt. The speed of a Roach with just a dash of a Rabbit's transport capabilities. As the others all revved their engines and started rolling out he threw his bad leg over the vehicle, sat astride it and started it up as he felt Jemima's body press against his as she climbed on.

He made sure to stay toward the back of the pack without sitting too far behind. He figured this emergency was big enough that everyone would have tunnel-vision and he would go unnoticed. It was refreshing, being back on a Roach. The two-seater felt a bit ungainly at first but once they were moving in mostly straight lines across the desert he found it just as easy to drive as his old one-man bike. In moments they were out by a smoking pile of wreckage, where he noticed something wrong. Everyone else was dressed just slightly differently to him. Then he realised, they had protective clothing on, radiation-blocking helmets, all sorts of safety gear that blended right in with their mechanic's outfits. He had driven out with tunnel vision too, not noticing how unprepared he was. He turned sharply, eliciting a brief squeal from Jemima, and headed back to the Land Port before he could be exposed to anything dangerous. There had only been one body there though, and it looked like a ship that could carry a lot more than that. Even Turtles had bigger crews... Something was up, someone was missing from the wreckage...

[MWBailey]

Bailey left off manipulating the right-side controls of the wing to adjust his goggles and pull the knot holding his make-do keffiyeh on a little tighter. He had gotten a whiff of the outer air and decided that the large-ish checkerboard blue-on-black shop rag hanging beside the wings would do the trick, and had folded and tied the rag into a semblance of the balaklava-like headscarves he had been forced by necessity to wear during a battle on Olympus Mons in the Great Martian Desert.

He followed the others to the boneyard for wrecked spacecraft. Most worlds had junkyards like these, often several dotted around the planet; some planets had them outside every town that had a semblace of a spaceport. A good place to hide the wings and cover our tracks, he thought. Maybe there'll be usable odds and ends scattered around, too...

[steamcowboy92]

Following the others in their descent, Talon landed, none to gracefully, in the junkyard. His big boots plowing large furrows in the ground that looked like a small tractor had come through.
Jerking off his wings, he let them fall with a clank as he quickly threw hisself to the ground and began hugging the dirt, thankful to be out of the air and back on something solid.

[Alexis Voltaire]

Mariah chose a open space out on the edges of the junkyard to land, careful not to get too close to any of the wires or antennas on the wrecks that could snag on her wings. She turned the motor lever down until it was sputtering and glided in low, almost skimming the ground, and then pulling up when she'd slowed down almost enough to fall. It would have been a graceful landing, had a large gust of wind not come behind her and sent her diving back into the ground instead of setting down on her feet. She levered the wings closed with some difficulty and got to her feet, unbuckling the straps and taking the wings off. She held onto them, intending to stow them out of sight somewhere.

A harsh sandy wind was starting to blow, and she squinted out of instinct even though she was wearing goggles. The air around them was quickly filling with dusty gusts, limiting visibility to only a few hundred yards. Perfect cover for landing, but they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while in this.

She covered her face against the stinging dust with her coat sleeve, and looked at the dimming outlines of the ships around them. The nearest one that hadn't been stripped to a skeleton and looked like it might offer shelter was an ancient and rather ugly, but sturdy-looking military cargo hauler.

"That looks like a good place for cover," She pointed it out to the others, almost having to yell over the rising wind.

[Stella Gaslight]

It took her two times to land. The wind kept catching her and lifting her up before her feet touched ground.  It was a horrible tease and she was going to yell for some help but then it took her right by an exposed pole and she held on for dear life with one hand while unbuckling with the other as the winds tried to lift her up again.  Lou was happy to reach reach the ground. She flipped down her mask and suddenly everything was darker with strange shadows but she was safe from the stinging winds.  She ran in to the guts of the old ship barely able to see breathing hard.  Lifting her mask she saw their was a crude room set up inside with glowing emergency lanterns taken from other ships.  "I think someone has used this as a safe port in a storm before.  I am not sure how long ago tho.  Those old model glow lamps can go for years on a small charge."

[The Corsair]

He needed a way of getting back without being noticed, which was impossible as far as he could tell. Then again it wasn't so easy to think clearly while hurtling along at 70 miles per hour along the Cytherean mud and sand. What he did know is that going back with the local mechanics would get him noticed by them now that he had sped off. Had he not done that then maybe he could have parked and slipped away in the rush of them arriving. The Land Port would have been in a flurry then. If he went back to VC3 now, though, it would be calm and someone would find him out in no time.

He wasn't the only brain on board though, and Jemima didn't have the added stress of driving to cloud her thoughts. He had to explain everything to her first though. The air was still clear. If he found a hiding place to stop they could talk away and maybe figure something out. For the first time in his life he felt like a legitimate idiot. He'd acted with good intentions but had made the mistake of not thinking things through and it had cost him. Now he risked being stuck out on the sands chancing his life, again. Only there was Jemima here, the poor orphan waitress whose only promise in life right now was that offered by him. He wasn't the brash kind but somehow he'd ended up making a terrible mistake the one time he needed to make none.

Then he spotted a series of awkward rocks and wrecked vehicles. They didn't look like land vehicles though. It must be something of a ship 'graveyard'. Apparently most cities with spaceports had them, but Venus' were known to be especially full given the dangerous weather. It was a good place to hide. Hell, he might even survive for a while out there. Thanks to the little spot of rocks on the edge of his vision, he had remembered that he still had a chance, he always had a chance it seemed.

Slowing to a stop, he waited for Jemima to take the cue and dismount before hauling himself off and saying "We need a plan."
"You drove me out here, I was feeling pretty safe in the assumption that you already had one." she retorted, an almost playful smile darting across her lips.
"I did. I was going to help out with the wreck and hopefully get us jobs, then I realised there was something radioactive out there and we were completely exposed. Nice scream, by the way." he said, shooting a smirk back at her.
Suddenly her face was all seriousness, though surely not out of anger. She must have just felt the gravity of the situation, he thought to himself.
"Well we can't go back without the pack or we'll attract attention. And we're on a stolen bike." she said.
"Exactly."
"God, you're trouble." she said. He had been called 'alright' and things along those lines but 'trouble' was new, hilariously, almost tantalisingly new.
"Yeah, well..." he responded, having nothing useful to say in retaliation. If he was trouble, the lack of anger in her voice usggested she didn't mind.
"Well, I've got no solutions." she said, bringing the conversation back on track, as well as an abrupt end. He had no solutions either, or at least none that didn't involve lying low here for a couple of days and trying to slip in when people wouldn't still be vigilantly looking for a missing Roach. They'd be better off against 2 mechanics guarding the place at night in 3 days than all of them today.
"We're going to try and last out here, aren't we?" she asked. Well, not really asked. He nodded lamely, knowing exactly what dread she must be feeling. It was dread he had forcibly suppressed only a few days earlier, dread he was again forcing down now. This was Venus. You weren't even meant to survive once, nobody was allowed to survive twice.

[steamcowboy92]

Pulling his bandanna over his mouth and nose, Talon ran towards the structure Mariah had pointed out. Once inside, he noted the lanterns and immediately unslung the Greener, checking that both barrels were loaded before snapping it shut with a loud clack. The little mechanic girl had already beaten him inside but he was still on edge, unsure of how long ago the room had been vacated by its previous occupants. The massive 8 guage trailed back and forth, from entrance to entrance, and even the ceiling as he made sure the room was clear.

[MWBailey]

Bailey came in last, leaving both goggles and shemagh* in place; there'd still be dust in the air, and lord only knew what might flash out of teh darkness or what teh regular denizens of this hovel might throw at them; it ha dbeen clear when he approached thatthere was some signof habitation. Teh way in was too well-worn, and lacked the usual clutter that marked normally-untraversed areas. The glow lanterns took him slightly aback, however.He already had the pump gun out, but he loosened the Walker in it's holster just in case, and went to stand in the darkest corner; from there he could see most of the room, if such it could be called.

What looked like just a huge pile of rags in the corner attracted his attention. He and his crew had disguised a bolt-hole hideout in one of the abandoned mining domes on Titan in much the same way. He moved from the corner toward the pile, and began to poke it with the barrel of the shotgun...


*shemagh: another name (Afghani in origin, I think) for a desert head scarf; also "tactical scarf," and several other names.

[steamcowboy92]

Noting the older veterans attention to an abnormally large pile of rags, Talon moved in to cover his flank. The twin hammers, loudly clicking when they engaged the sear as he eared them back. Both massive barrels were ready to unleash a hellish blast of 0000 buckshot* at the first sign of motion.
 

(0000 = roughly .38 caliber pellets if i remember right. no i dont think u can buy them factory. my grandpa always handloaded his.)

[Alexis Voltaire]

Mariah ducked into the ship with the others. The storm was quickly blurring the landscape into a haze of dust, rain, and windblown mud. "Why did anyone decide it was a good idea to live here..." She muttered to herself as she headed into the depths of the ship. The ship was well sheltered from the storm, although intermittent patters of rain and the odd whine of that wind as it caught on the edges of metal sheeting could still be heard from outside.

She drew her peacemaker as she saw the lights ahead and heard Lou's comment. The small room was almost empty, aside from the pale green-yellow lanterns, a few empty crates, and the pile of rags in the corner...

The edge of the rags twitched slightly as Bailey poked them, and with a sudden chittering several rat-sized creatures darted away, almost too fast for the eye to follow. In panic one skittered across a fallen scrap of canvas in front of closed door at the far side of the room. The canvas suddenly leaped up with a loud CLAAANNG, and where the creature had been a second ago, the outline of a very large jaw trap could be seen under the canvas.

Mariah swore loudly, looking very intently at the dimly-lit floor. They'd been incredibly lucky not to have run into anything like that on the way in...

Something else on the floor caught her eye, and she took down one of the lanterns to look more closely at it. There were several bits of wood and freshly-broken crate lids scattered around, stamped with faded military lettering and symbols. "Looks like whoever was here has been scavenging old supplies from the ship. I wonder if there's anything else around..."

[steamcowboy92]

When the ratlike things jumped out Talon swore loudly and fired both barrels, one after the other, catching several of the little ratlike things  in the blast.  cursing the waste of two good shells, his dark expression lightened as he realized that hemd unintentionaly provided his own dinner. Leaning the Greener against a wall, he began walking around collecting what was left of the dead rodents  and tossing them in a pile to be cleaned and eaten later. If they were anythin like the rats back home they would make a tasty, albiet greasy meal.  The last one had to be pried out of the steel jawed trap but it more or less came out whole...minus the head that is.

Spreading out a tarp he'd salvaged off the shuttle, Talon began cleaning and skinning the bits of ratcreaturethings, dropping the larger pieces of hide in one pile, the meat in another and what couldnt be eaten in another. Cutting the old rags into smaller pieces, Talon used a piece of flint he always carried on a leather chord around his neck,and the back of his 'hawk to strike sparks. A single .44 shell from his gunbelt provided the necessary flame to ignite the old rags. A jagged metal rod provided a decent skewer and fairly soon the smell of roasting meat filled the room.

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou found a pole and was currently investigating the side room when much to her surprise she found something that sounded like a tank full of water when she poked it with her stick.  She used her small head lamp to get a closer look.  "I think I know why this place was booby trapped.  There is a still in here and it looks like it gets a lot of use.  There is a big pile of grain and a tub of clean water.  This is quite a set up realy and it was used not too long ago."

[MWBailey]

Bailey forebore to waste any shells on the rat-things. The Still, however, piqued his interest, and he gripped the shotgun in anticipation. "Moonshiners, huh?" Bailey was intrigued. "I don't suppose there's any jugs o' squeezins layin' around in here --" He cut off, stepped across to the curtained doorway, and said, Or more impostant any Moosnshiners?" He thrust aside the curtain, finger itching on the trigger...

And found a room in which resided a rusty and dirty, but apparently still serviceable, motorized bicycle of some kind, complete with a sidecar. "Huh." he said. "Lights are on, but nobody's home. This doesn't feel right..." He glanced around, becoming more suspicious and wary by the second. then he noticed a hatchway door behind the vehicle, closed and partly blocked by crates that were labeled with the names of various canned goods. "Where does that go, I wonder..."

[steamcowboy92]

as soon as Bailey pulled back the curtain, Talon literaly jumped straight up from a seated position and ran to the bike, gun in one hand and skewered rat in the other with a loud shout of "dibs!". The bike was an older model, but years of being continualy behin enemy lines and cut off from his own forces had taught Talon to be a pretty damn good mechanic and it was probably nothing he couldnt fix. . going over the bike inch by inch, he immeadiately fell in love with the older sportster look. The sidecar would have to go but other than that the bike looked great considering its age.  He knew he was probably putting on a bit of a show infront of the others but having been on two feet for as long as he had, had made  him forget how much he missed it.

[MWBailey]

"Fine, have it," Bailey said. I prefer wings, myself. Hate to let them ones we had a li'l while ago just blow away, but I guess there's no alternative; they'd tie us to the wreck.. Lemme see what this door's hiding..." After several minutes, he managed to force the heavy hatch to creeaakkk open, revealing the source of power for the glow globes and probably more besides. The little aethermotor generator was hooked up to a capacitance array, whose gauge showed about a half charge. The wiring and relays and switches indicated that the machine was rigged to start itself when battery power ran low, and thus turn a magneto and recharge the array. "Now, why would they need power to stay on all the time...?" He supposed he might never find out, since they'd be gone in probably a few hours tops, never to return.

[Alexis Voltaire]

Meanwhile, Mariah was looking through the stash of boxes and picking out some of the canned goods that still had readable labels. Talon's cooking had reminded her that she hadn't eaten since the awful stuff they'd been given for breakfast on the prison ship, and she guessed they were all getting hungry.

She looked over to Bailey's discovery, and shrugged. "Don't know... maybe there was a radio transmitter here at one time, someone might have been using this place as a beacon or a relay point."

She rummaged around in a crate that found a small folding-type can opener. Unable to find any faster way of getting the cans open, she sat down and started to slowly work on getting them open. She threw a few more scraps of wood on the embers of Talon's fire and stuck the open cans around the edges it to warm them. Once they were heated enough she slid them out with a scrap of wood, until they had cooled enough to pick up.

"Here," She said, offering some to the others. "It's not much, but it's better than nothing."

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou turned over a box to sit down and took a bite.  "This isn't bad.  Hell that Brandywine place near Luna was worse and we nearly paid an arm and a leg for that."  Lou has simple tastes and fancy food with tiny portians seemed like a horrable tease to her.  "I am not so sure we should take anything from this hidy hole if we can help it.  I don't think this is someone making bathtub gin it is too swanky for that. And profesonal crimanals tend to hold gruges."

[steamcowboy92]

Kicking over the bike, it fired up  with a roar that reverberated through the hull of the ship surrounding them like the roar of some eldritch creature awakening, Talon rode it over to where the girls were eatin,  and said " if'n yall take and chop up somathat left over rat meat and mix it in what yer eatin i betcha it'll taste a might better, and it'll fill you lasses up more." 

Taking the crescent wrench he'd pocketed on the shuttle, Talon started to remove the sidecar to the bike then stopped when he came upon an idea. "yall, i was jest contemplatin on somethin. If'n one uh yah dont mind ridin behind meh, we can fit three on this thang. She's an ole hardtail with a newer motor so she'll hold us no problem..." Looking at Bailey, he amended " 'ceptin fer you hoss, i aint got the foggiest on how we supposed to move yer around with any real speed unless yeh think yeh can cram yer big ass in tha sidecar and let tha little missy..." he jerked a thumb towards Lou "...sit on yer lap" 

"damn sho wouldnt be the most comfortable ride but it sho beat hoofin it to town"

[MWBailey]

Bailey left off of searching the crates, and walked over and pulled out his jacknife. He eased down crosslegged by the fire, and took one of the thicker scraps of woodd and began to whittle. before long, he had a usable spoon, with little serrated points on the front lip, and a thinner, bladelike form on one side. He picked up a can of pork 'n' beans and started in on it; The spoon proved to be good enough to eat with.

"Dish Taysh Goodtha mieh," he said, around a mouthful of beans. He swallowed. "All in all , this all beats bein' pinned down in a trench with nothing ta eat and no shelter." He finished the beans, and bored a hole in the spoon's handle, strung it on a thong* that he kept tied around his neck, and stuck it back under his shirt. He then took a leather waterbag from a 'possibles bag' (really a sling pouch that held extra shotgun shells that he had found on the ship and stuck his waterbag into), took a small sip of water and offered it to the others. "Tastes sorta like a leather canteen, but its good, I assure you." HE looked at Miss Lou. Miss, I don't mind Talon's suggestion if'n you don't, beggin' your pardon."

[Stella Gaslight]

Lou smiled. "I don't mind the ride.  I just think we should get rid of the bike real quick wheb we get to town lest someone take offence at us.  I think we have enough to watch out for at the moment.  Balley you might want to refill your skin from the big old vat by the still.  From what I can tell they are making whisky the fancy stuff that needs very clean water."