[ACHOO.

...

Okay, now that he's got that sneeze over with — excuse the scruffy mongrel on your mirror this fine afternoon. Sun's going down, leaving everything shadowed and orange.  He's found himself a decent opening, where he's still hidden under the cover of trees, but he's got a good glow of sunlight through the clearing. Max is — actually using the mirror, despite the nagging in his head telling him it's not a great idea. But he's just. Getting some stuff handled, okay. This is the best way to ask around without having to actually be in people's presences.

Nill don't watch this, thanks.]

... Need paper, and something to write with.

I can trade food, or radio parts. Could make a good blade for anyone if they need it.

[.......]

That's all.

[Bye.]

Well, it's official. "Someday" and "An emergency" are here. We need the zippy little battle craft and we need them now. This is basically all hands on deck for anyone I've flight trained.

[With one notable exception]

And if I haven't flight trained you, these still need a crew to work the weapons, so keep listening.

We have two kinds of shuttle. Harpy have some missile capabilities but are mostly for getting up close and personal with everyone who now wants to kill us. Need at least three people to keep them working. Wyvern are for sneaking around and dropping a nasty surprise from a distance. We need at least four people working those.

So speak up if you want on crew. And if I've flight trained you but you aren't sure about actually being the main pilot on one of these, tell me now. We could still use people working the guns who can step in if anything happens.

Gavvers, Newtie, I have a different job for you two.


((OOC: I've created a Google Doc for keeping track of who's flying with who. Let me know if you want me to just arbitrarily stick your character in any crew that needs them))

[ In a string of familiar faces, two more appear on the video to join in. Devon Resnik, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, crew jumpsuit stained with some mixture of grease and blood, looks tired as she speaks. ] He makes an impression, doesn’t he? By now, what he’s offering might have started to sound pretty good, but you can’t let yourselves be blinded by desperation.

[ With her warning out of the way, Ward steps in, expression flat and hard. ] You can't let him have the ship. You know what you're capable of now. You'll be putting that power in his hands.

[ Side-by-side, in an indistinct hallway of the ship, broadcasting from what seems to be a sturdy, built-in terminal, Ward and Resnik continue to snowball one another’s comments, picking up from the end of one another’s sentences as fluidly as if they were their own. ]

And all that control you think you’ve gained over the ship will be for nothing. Do you think it was an accident that it wound up back in Miraxian space?

It wants to be here. You've been fighting. This isn't where you stop.

[ The emphatic insistence in his voice edges on hard desperation. This isn't a day they'd ever wanted to see. ]

We have no intentions of letting van Rijn get his hands on this ship or any of its tech. You don’t want that either, so let’s figure out a plan and stop him.

[ jax is leaned back in one of the seats on the gunnery observation deck, twisting his heavy rings round his finger. the comm is propped ostensibly on his monitor while jax slouches back, ill at ease. ]

While we're chewing over Odessa's offer, I got something else to put on the table.

[ more like a heads up. jax's expression is serious, the twist of his rings a more clear show of anxiety than he's displayed on comms in his entire stretch on the ship. ]

Our rescuers've got us surrounded. Sensors are picking up a mess of ships out there. I figured that's about as worthy of discussion as everything else she and her new best friend are puttin' on the table.

[ The feed begins with a single tone, low, as if testing the audio capabilities of the devices. On the screen is an older man, white haired with bright blue eyes, standing in front of a deep blue banner emblazoned in gold with a circular symbol containing three five-pointed stars. Though his face now is solemn, there are laughter lines soft at corners of his eyes, the set of his mouth one clearly used to the curve of a smile. He only waits a moment before beginning to speak, voice level, carrying an assured authority, a confidence borne from experience. ]

Residents of the Tranquility, I greet you today after many, many years of waiting. My name is Hendrik van Rijn, Prime Minister of the Miraxian Triad, the people who built and launched the ship you've been trapped on. You may not have heard of me, but I have heard of you, and all the terrible events you've been forced to endure as a result of the unprecedented malfunction which took the Tranquility so far from her intended path. I offer you the deepest sympathies of my people, and myself. Mistakes have been made, and I give you every assurance that now, with your return to us, we will find the cause of this tragedy and set things right.

I know you may have heard promises before, and met with the unfortunate souls in our society who prefer to cheat and steal than offer a helping hand. I know you have no reason to trust me; if I'd been through as much as you have, I wouldn't trust me either. But we have someone else here to speak to you, and I hope hearing from her will help to show the truth of our intentions, and allow us to begin the forging of a strong partnership as we move into the future.

[ With a last look to the camera, he steps back, turning his attention to the side and holding out a hand to greet and guide the woman joining him to take center. The woman's face is one known to many aboard the ship. She's gracious as she steps into view, appearing to squeeze the man's hand before she lets go and takes her place.

Odessa Knutson. ]

Thank you, Prime Minister.

[ Her attention turns to the camera then, head tilting to one side as a wide smile spreads across her familiar features. She has a look of health to her. A better diet, some proper sunlight, and time will do that. ]

Hello, Tranquility. [ Spoken in the same way one might ask, did you miss me? ] It's been a long time. Too long. For all of us. [ That smile turns a little sad. They've been through some horrors, haven't they? Time and distance has allowed much of it to become a distant memory. ]

The time has come to stop running. When I left the ship, I didn't know what to expect. We received so many conflicting stories, didn't we? I expected all the worst ones to be true, but it was a risk I was willing to take. I'm sure many of you can understand why. Still, I was afraid that I would find monsters. That I would be thrown in a dark cell and never see the light of day again. Now, I don't say this often, but... [ Her hands spread out to her sides, palms up in a gesture that says just look at me. ] I was wrong. After my escape two years ago, Prime Minister van Rijn's people found me. They gave me food, clothing, shelter, a new life and a new purpose...

To find all of you, and help you to be rescued as I had been rescued. I know most of you aren't like me; I'm starting over here, and I'm happier than I've ever been, but many of you have lives you want to return to. [ The delight she has in sharing this good news seems genuine enough, especially (or even) to those who know her well. She clasps her hands in front of her, a light in her eyes. ] I've seen what the Miraxians have been working on myself. There's hope, so much hope.

Pack your bags, my friends. We're coming to take you home.

[[ OOC: van Rijn exited stage left once off camera, and responses will come from Odessa Knutson only. ]]

Hi! I'm Skye.

[ Waving at the camera is Skye, hair pulled into a braid over one of her shoulders, long-sleeved shirt pulled down over her hands. ]

I guess some of you already know that. I mean, not just the people I know, but the people who I don't know I know 'cause I was here before. [ She shakes her head. ] Point being ...

I know we're all dealing with the same thing right now. These powers, manifesting out of nowhere. At first, I thought it was great. You idealize that sort of thing when you don't have it, but ... [ She bites down on her lower lip. ] I've seen some pretty messed up things since then. Not just seen, but felt. What it's like to be missing body parts, to smell my own flesh burning, to kill people. And I don't—

It's not a walk in the park for anyone, okay, I get that. I just want to know if anyone's found a way to, like, control it, or stop it.

[Max knew this whole stupid mind powers thing was a generally awful idea. Elizabeth and even a little bit of Rey's work on the comms (even if he still would rather glare at her, in private) had done a relatively bang-up job making Max think maybe there was a shadow of possibility this powers business would actually do any good for them. Besides — if he could calm his mind down enough to actually control it, he would stop giving away memories and hallucinations and feelings all willy nilly. So yes, he tried focusing, tried materializing things, tried to keep it all in check. Nothing too personal — just channeled it. Other than a few rather personal thoughts hovering through the cracks from other people he'd never know the names of, he has had pretty good luck.

'Til of course, a particularly rough series of nightmares had caused him to muck things up. He'd woken up in the corner of his room with something heavy and rough against his jaw and cheekbones and lips. Somewhere in his fervent dreaming, he'd gone and materialized that fucking muzzle; the same one he had supposedly locked up in his locker, kept away so that it couldn't actually get used against him again. And now it's on his fucking face. 

So he does the totally wise thing, which is struggling pathetically to remove it with his hands before he rushes into the nearest kitchen and starts pulling out drawers and ripping open cabinets. The motions are rough and not too careful, and his network device crashes onto the ground and displays him pretty much wrecking one of your kitchen areas. This drawer? He's pouring it out on the counter and digging around. It's all spoons, who needs spoons. There's a knife and he tries to shove it under the padlock behind his head and scrape it open, but it's just grinding down the grooves on the blade.

As he pushes over appliances and spills someone's coffee, this is an approximate translation one can hear while he spits the dummy:]

Fucking [INCOHERENT CURSING] shi—fuchgk [INCOHERENT GROWLING] my face, for fuck's sake, bloodghy— [???????] FUCK!

[WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL YOUR SHARP THIN STABBY OBJECTS, I THOUGHT THIS WAS AN AWESOME HIGH-TECH KITCHEN

EGG-BEATERS ARE NOT GOING TO FUCKING CUT IT.

He tugs pretty pathetically on the long chain hanging there, slips his fingers under the thick metal bands before he tries to shove a butterknife into the keyslot.

....

THWUMP.

This the sound of his forehead softly thunking against the cabinet door in frustration.

... Well, maybe there's a decent nail file somewhere in engineering or something...

Fuck your powers y'all can eat your powers and get indigestion and cark it, for all he cares.]


((OOC: Action permissible for Nami and Elizabeth, have fun girls.))

[Rey is looking significantly different now than most have seen her prior to the jump. For one, her hair is much shorter, almost pixie-ish, but not so much as cut as it has been growing back. While she has an array of new scars, the most notable one right now would be a nasty-looking horizontal gash across her throat that resembles a knife blade.

[Other than that, she looks no more worse for wear than her last public appearance. But she's not really here to talk about her harsher mien.]

"Other people saw it, right? Outside of the pods at the jump?

"Seems that it's been watching us for a long time."

[She looks away briefly, biting the inside of her cheek, and then back to the screen.]

"Whatever is happening to us, this connection we share... Perhaps it's supposed to help us fight it. Not sure how yet, but if it wants us alone and it can't control us to the point where we have it scared, it'd be nice to think that we've been given more of a fighting chance than the old crew ever had." [Hey, she's at least trying to be optimistic here.] "So maybe we should be learning how to control our link, rather than resist it."

['The clock has stopped.' 'It means the path planned for you is gone now.']

[Taking a deep breath, her eyes close. When they reopen, her expression changes. Even her voice is different when she speaks; suddenly hardened by fortitude.]

"Don't know about you, but I say fuck it. I plan on taking my own path."

[ Kate is framed from shoulders up, in a black tank and ponytail. Over her shoulder some might recognize a shuttle bay. She looks annoyed, mouth set in a thin line, dark brows angled inwards. The camera is panned so she is out of frame and instead there are rows of half-built spacecraft, smaller than the shuttles in the main bay. She talks from off-screen. ]

These are fighter craft. Attack ships. We haven't got a single one finished yet, which is kind of a problem since in case you missed it or somehow forgot, Van Rijn knows where we are now and is sending more ships after us. These need to get built, and people need to learn to fly them. And the ship's guns need repairing.

[ She turns the camera around again, still annoyed but trying very hard to be serious and persuasive and not just irritable/irritating. There's a smudge of grease on her bicep and she swipes at it with her free hand but only makes it worse. ]

I don't know shit about engineering or mechanics, I could barely put the chain back on my own bicycle before I got here. But I am pitching in and trying to learn because if we don't get this stuff done we are dead in the water. Okay? This shit is important. It is the most important, right now. So even if you're in another department already, you should be here helping with this, and if you're not in a department you should absolutely be helping with this. Also, who the hell doesn't want to learn to fly a spaceship or shoot giant spacecannons? So go sign up already and do your part, or I want to know why you aren't.

And I know people love polls, so we'll end with a poll. Are you not helping out because you're:

A) confused
B) lazy
C) hoping we all die
or
D) all of the above?

If it's A then read the things I've linked below and sign up, or ask me whatever and then sign up. I know being new sucks and is confusing and I'm happy to help but it's your asses we're trying to protect here too, so you should still be pitching in. If it's B, C, or D, still read the things below and sign up. No excuses. Everyone just please get on this, okay?


Att: volunteer sign-ups
Att: gunnery sign-ups