Breathe In Half Stop (Ch. 3b: Day 1, pt. IV)

Sheff · Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:15 pm

The local 'hog with crystal armor was gradually believing that the Space Colony was out not only to get him, but everyone else he'd met before, and was determined to continue sending urgencies their way. Having provided no use earlier to the partway trip to the core, he'd found himself returning to the main hangar, only to quickly find out they were still not through the storm set for them in this strange place. The whole situation in the ARK was frantic and crazed, and he'd been lost in the moving and panicked crowd for quite awhile now, glad to dig himself out of the masses.

Already his eyes found that of the group that was actually trying to do something.

His presence was quite silent as he lingered around now of the small meeting, listening more or less to Astrid the most. At her mention of needing help and the chance of exploring the other desolate ships that graced the area around the ARK, he stepped forward.

"I might not have the slightest clue of what's going on, but I'd rather be doing somethin' than nothin'." Sheffer's attention seemed focused on the squirrel at the moment, but he was actually not sounding hostile, having already come to accept the situation at hand. "I'm willing to help, and I guess you could say I have some practice for the conditions out there, gravity or not."

Kazz · Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 4:55 pm

After the hedgehog spoke, Rodolf paused, before he shrugged one arm (and winced almost imperceptibly as he did so-- while he was hardly in as bad a shape as Rock, he still was less than ideal).
"Anything I can do, say the word," the unicorn said plainly to the scientist squirrel, tossing his own metaphorical hat into the ring.

...
After another moment, he watched the retreating back of Animus.
"... and is anybody going to make sure she doesn't break anything else?" he added in a low mutter, not really meant to be heard or heeded.

Kythe-X · Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:09 pm

The sounds of distant running could be heard, growing increasingly louder with an accompanying pant of panic and confusion. It was likely obvious who it was, returning from their short jaunt away but Animus, now scuttling back through the hole and clumsily tripping over herself in her hurry, had something important to say to everyone. Tumbling and rolling over, she remaining in her scuffled sitting position as she flailed her arms around, conveying her panicked message in raised tones.

"Heyheyhey I was like in this rrrreeeeeeaaaaally big room with all these windows and I saw this big pretty blue ring outside in space, thatmust'vebeentheshieldything, but when that was boring, I looked down at the weird planet and saw a buncha pretty lights down below an' it was all shiny 'n stuff and I think there must be like a big city down there like Grand Metropolis only HUUUUGE! I wanna go down there and see all the pretty lights up close!" she fired out her sentences in rapid succession, her face seeming unable to fix to one expression. She darted between extreme excitement to passive confusion as she made her little pass of information. "You should come see!"

Greens · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 4:24 pm

Somewhere along the way while Astrid was laying down the info, Ace slid up alongside the others. It didn't seem like he was liking what he heard, judging by the way he crossed his arms and shook his head, but good news was quickly becoming something of a commodity as time went on. As were breaks. Certainly, he was pleased as punch to know he wasn't going to be dying trillions of miles away from home (even if he didn't know why). He would just have to take his blessings as they came.

"You know I'm in," in he answered simply, taking a glance at how the crowds were handling their situation. "Someone's gotta keep--"

When suddenly, Animus.

Ace took the time she provided to draw in a long breath and silently pine for his long-lost smokes while the pink noise jittered playfully over his ears. But the mention of his hometown tugged at his ears like fish hooks, and his curiosity was actually piqued. He set his sights to the starry-eyed girl with a glance that asked 'did I hear you right?'

"Wh, Grand-- a city?"

Kythe-X · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 4:47 pm

Animus had placed her hands firmly on her knees, bent over to catch her breath from two parts sprinting, one part jabbering. When the fellow feline sought some sort of affirmation, she was only too happy to reinvigorate herself for this task.

"Yeah. Like huge! REAAAALLY HUGE! It's covering tons of the planet! It must've been where all those rainbows came from earlier!" she revived the former natter, but this time slowing the pace somewhat.

Jahkari · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 6:52 pm

Part of Astrid felt a huge wave of relief wash over her as people stepped forward to help, but she couldn't let herself relax until the entire situation was addressed, not just her need for assistance. She first addressed the two simians, with a very slight hint of a smile. "I'd like to agree with her, really, that you should probably just lie down with some particularly strong pain medication, but, well, we might particularly need you. I'll be sure to see to some legitimate medication, if there is anything to be found."

Next came someone she didn't recognize, and honestly thought a little strange- although his suit! She would have loved to examine it more in detail, find out about who had made it, but that was definitely not for this moment in time. She addressed Hoji, Sheff, and Rhodolf with a nod. "The more help, the better. As you said," she agreed, nodding towards Hoji, "we all want to get home sooner rather than later. To do this, I propose we send out a team to investigate that ship graveyard in order to figure out where we are- perhaps one of them has a navigational system that's functioning, or, I don't know, a starchart. It's worth a shot, plus that way we might be able to find out a bit more as to what happened to them to alert ourselves to any potential dangers around here. Anyone good in space should go for that one," she announced, glancing at Sheff in light of his last comment. "To expedite things, I'll be working here to assess the state of the ARK, and I might request some stay behind to help-"

She was cut off as the curious cat from before came barreling back in. What she was saying didn't make sense. "I doubt that's where those missiles came from," she mused quietly to herself as Animus regaled them with a tale of pretty-pretty lights. She had her own theories about that, but now wasn't the time. More audibly, she turned to Animus with a frown. The only question she managed to get out was, "Are you sure it was lit, miss?" She had been detecting a great deal of energy from the planet, yes, but it didn't seem to be electrical in origin... this was all becoming rather confusing. Coming back to her senses, she added quickly, "And regardless, no one is going down to that planet until we either learn more about it somehow or figure out what killed those ships out there, because if it is that planet then we're in more danger that previously thought." She frowned, adding, somewhat more softly, "At least, I think that would be the wisest course of action. I don't know... if a crew wants to go down to the surface I won't stop it, but, it could be risk... as if anything we're doing isn't."

psikeout · Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 8:26 pm

Any rational person would have course be skeptical of anything anyone of Animus' combined apparent age and maturity (or lack thereof) would say, but there really wasn't any reason for her to just make up something like that, was there? With perhaps that reasoning in mind, the white primate rasped out a quiet "Might as well look at what she saw," squared his shoulders (that is, as straight as his current level of fatigue would permit) and huffed his way through the hole in the door with the clanking, clattering, and jangling of his tool-filled duffel bags.

Whatever his opinion on the overall plan was, he kept it to himself for the time being.

Mie · Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 1:10 am

To their astronomical advisor's well-meaning but naive sympathy, Jam smiled a tired and embittered smirk, but the monkey merely shook her head, breathing in deeply through her nose as she listened to their briefing, while people picked their recon team of choice.

When the particular person of potential use per Astrid excused himself to check out the view, his pink counterpart deflated slightly, rubbing at her neck in a moment's deliberation.

"Unless you got a better use for me here," she stated dryly, jerking her thumb towards the compromised door. "I'm with Mr. Masochist."

"Somebody needs t'make sure he takes a breather if he gets himself decapitated, or something."

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:59 am

A few minutes had passed since the group split. Rock heeded Animus' call and inspected what it was she had to show them, but after he made it to the cargo bay and looked out those big windows, he didn't seem to have a lot to say on the matter. Sure enough, there looked like there was a city on that planet; sure enough, there were lights, and it was huge, and amazing. Yet, when it was all said and done, it was with an under-impressed "hm" and a vacant nod that he had moved on from it all.

The cryptically quiet soldier meandered the halls, pausing at directories, reading with tired eyes, and tracing routes absently with singed glove fingers. After some measure of wandering, he found his bearings and weaved his way down the correct hall, to the long-abandoned medical center, where everything was just as it was so many years ago—just as it was when everyone had been ushered out of it all in a rush.

It wasn't any kind of lab. It was just a hospital in space, really. He found himself in a lobby with chairs, a table with magazines, and huge windows overlooking the planet. For a moment, curiosity piqued, he forgot why he was there and paused to bend down and examine one of the fifty year old books. He was taken aback when its dried out pages made crispy, crackly noises at him and threatened to fall apart in his hand. UV damage from the window; the cover was nearly bleached blank. He sufficed to leave it where it lay.

It was as Rock raised back up that the world in his vision began to warble and shift, things began to feel truly amiss, and he was sharply reminded why he was there. His already pupilless eyes grew hazier yet; he stumbled a couple short steps, then caught and steadied himself with a palm against one of the thick windows.

"..."

His teeth gritted and his brows and lids lowered until his eyes were slits. The choice to finally slow down was what was doing him in.

He pulled himself together with a deep breath. Head dipped and arm clutched, a few dragging footsteps carried him to a bench, where he turned with stiff, uncoordinated awkwardness, and nearly fell onto the seat, and apparently found great interest in the barren, metal floor, which he hunched forward to stare at for a while.

Greens · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:03 pm

Sneaking in from out of nowhere seemed to quickly be becoming a habit of Ace's, but sure enough, there he was, not far from Rock's trail. Awkwardly hanging back behind a wall. Seeing the otherwise strapping young primate in such low conditions put a perturbed tilt on his brow, but he did his best to wipe it off before he turned the corner, and approached.

He strolled up with a hand planted uneasily on the back of his neck. "Guess I picked the wrong week to quit smokin', huh." It was an obvious icebreaker, but just as needed. Even when he stood almost directly in front of the monkey and all his bloodstained bandages, Ace's was a very difficult expression to read directly. "Is this seat taken?" he inquired with a tilt of his neck in the bench's direction. Normally, he wouldn't feel the need to even ask, but circumstances as they were, the serval was prepared to give Rock space if he wanted it.

NPC · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:15 pm

The city had been huge, and it had been amazing. It was as if the pristine planet had been impacted with some alien meteor, and from a meteor had grown a strange, metallic substance, that spread, and grew, and grew and spread until it had covered almost half of the planet's surface.

The city reached out in tendrils like a drop of ink in a glass of water, swirling up and down and around various planes of the planets surface. Building into mountains and skirting them, biting into deserts or avoiding them. It was immense.

Although it was no-where near as well lit as anyone might expect, seeing a city on earth, the city lights were patchy and stringy, and largely subdued, some parts of the city were almost invisible through the ice-blue halo, from the single, exploded missile, that was now drifting gently away from the ARK.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:21 pm

Rock looked at Ace—fleetingly, unreadably—then back to the floor.

"You can relax," he replied plainly after a few seconds consideration. "I feel like hell, but I'm not gonna bite your head off 'cause of it," he then further explained, penetrating what he at least must have sensed to be the cause of Ace's cautious approach.

Greens · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:43 pm

The cat looked like he'd been dealt a check in a game of Chess. "Sh'yokay," he admitted with a quick bow of his head. "We haven't had a lotta 'free time' since this whole... stupid ordeal got started. An' if we can't fix it right now, then I at least wanted to know what got us here."

He leaned back in his seat, apparently more comfortable looking at the back of Rock's head. "Figured now would be a good time to ask: What was up with that chick in the Iron Hog gear? I knew she was bad news, but did she join Astrid's team just to screw us over?"

psikeout · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:58 pm

Rock's face, tilted at the floor, invisibly soured a bit at the mention of her, but it was a valid question.

"I don't think so," he answered with a slight head shake. "I'm not sure why she came, but I don't think she realized who any of us were, except Cooper."

Rock apparently knew that this admission opened up a whole can of worms, so he sat back and explained it a bit further, turning his focus somewhere vaguely in the cat's direction, his voice rattling groggily, but his words proving him at least reasonably observant.

"She's some kind'a... soldier of fortune. Mercenary. Couldn't really find much info on'er, except that that orange suit's shown up in a lotta places, and killed a lotta soldiers."

He scratched at his neck a couple times. Finding it relevant, he thoughtfully added, "We ran into'er in Central City, when she an' Coopmore were attackin' GUN headquarters. I get the vibe she wasn't doin' it for the same reasons he was, though, even if they were workin' together... Otherwise, I don't think Cooper would've let us beat down on'er like that."

Tau · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:38 pm

( I need to stop letting myself get distracted from teh RPz so often.. )

Disinterested in pitching in his own offers for assistance ( He figured they'd call him either when they were ready or when he was needed regardless of his pitching in or not. ) Tau had take the groups split up as opportunity to quietly wander off on his own and head down one of the various interconnected that lead towards fluidics/core access, away from large cargo storage, the hanger and the other cargo bays.

As Tau quietly wandered down one of the corridors, the A.I. took a moment to silently review several of the records, files and databases related to the colony he'd kept over the years with no apparent purpose in mind other than to weigh them against some of the recently acquired files he'd manged to collect while routing through the colonies systems. Tau's intent was to end up at the nearby labs, but he wasn't really in any rush to get there, nor was he entirely concerned with any one who didn't talk much following him.

For the time being, Tau wasn't as concerned with shortening the duration of his stay aboard the aging space colony as the rest of its recent refugees. (Well, save for any more attacks against the station at least.)

Breathe In Half Stop (Ch. 3b: Day 1, pt. IV)

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