[center][h2]Prelaunch Hustle[/h2][/center]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/lECs9U6.jpg[/img]
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For a moment, she’d seen something in Yuri’s eyes.  A message unspoken, yet no less understood.  Edina felt the pull of her own reaction, the urge to move toward him, toward something of which she didn’t quite grasp…but found herself wanting all the same.  To understand a thing without actually thinking was strange and frightening territory for her, but instinct seemed to rule the day.  As his arms opened, a part of her thinking mind dimly conjured what was about to happen, while the rest had already decided for her.

Then his cortex signaled.  

She watched Yuri’s face as he listened, noted the serious nature of his eyes, the furrow to his brow as he turned away.  In an instant, the here and now came crashing all around them as he announced Cal’s imminent danger.  China Doll’s celebrations would have to wait; their rescue mission now faced a new and alarming chapter.

Now it was Yuri the First Mate before her, cooly decisive as he issued his orders.  Abby was first to react, her response a characteristic “On it” before she dashed toward the cargo ramp.  

Sight of the girl fired Edina into action.  “Twenty-eight hidden up top,” she said to Quill and Hook.  “If you’ll check on them, I’ll handle these twelve.”

<Tag Quill, Hook>

The cargo bay was alive with the clattering of bootheels on the catwalk steps and the slamming of hatches.  The tortured screech of hydraulic driven metal forced her to shout her greeting to the final contingent of Anabaptists.  “Hi, my name is Edina.  We’re about to lift off.  Kindly follow me and I’ll get you situated.”  

These people were half starved and filthy, their faces painted with the bone weariness and perpetual stress of their suffering.  Yet despite their trials, they proved unfailingly gracious.  “Thank you, Sister Edina.  Thank you,” they all managed but for one,  a frail man who coughed into his sleeve as she hustled them through the aft hatch.  She settled him first, strapping him into a chair of the medbay lounge. The blood on his lips, and the bright red stain upon his sleeve from his fits of coughing told their own dark tale.  [i]The wet lung,[/i] the woman realized.  She’d get him to the doc as soon as they were in the black.  Until then, her job was to make certain all of her charges were buttoned down tight before the boat spread its’ wings.

“The rest of you, come with me,” Edina said as the little procession made its’ way aft to the passenger rooms.  As the precious seconds ticked down, she saw each of the remaining Anabaptists into the rooms where they’d find secure accommodation in either a bed or a harnessed side chair.  “I’ll be around to check on you, once we’re away,” she promised each before making her way to the nearest intercom.  “Lower deck passengers are secured.”

“Copy,” Yuri’s voice echoed in response.

After collecting a towel from the lav, she took her own seat, strapping in next to the pale, sickly little man.  “I brought you this,” Edina offered the towel as China Doll began to shudder from the force of her atmo engines.  “You see that hatch?” she pointed across the way.  “That’s our medbay.  We’ve got the best doctor in the ’verse,”  Edina offered a reassuring smile.  “Soon as the captain gives us the ‘all clear,’  I’ll take you to get fixed up.”