[center][h2]”What’s a Fella Like You…”[/h2][/center]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/1bhOVc5.png[/img]
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OOC:  JP collaboration from [@wanderingwolf] and [@sail3695]                                                    

Urvasi was pretty enough, floating there with its vast oceans and green pastures, lit from the nearby star. Clusters of life dotted the planet, with vast spaces between them. Urvasi, if his memory served, had suffered some of the heaviest casualties during the war. He heard some one in fifty volunteers didn't make it home. Most like, that left mining operations without an owner or altogether failed settlements void of folk, Cal conjured, as he scanned the planet's sparse surface.

His hand guided the yoke of the China Doll through open space as he prepared to break atmo. From his seat in the pilot's chair, the Captain flipped the switch to engage the orbital maneuvering engines and opened comms to the engineering bay. 

"Elias, we're ready to break atmo; power up the OMS." Cal waited for the telltale code for 'O-K' tapped out in comm starts and stops--a shorthand they had adopted over the last leg. Sure as the mail, Elias faithfully tapped out three longs, followed by a long-short-long, to which Cal replied, "Heard."

Cal picked up the comm again, flipping the dial to general, "Passengers and crew, this is your Captain speaking. I'm bringing us into Urvasi. Won't be time for dawdlin', we’re just pickin’ somethin’ up 'fore we high-tail it to the nearby skyplex. Strap in, and a member of crew'll be by to make sure you’re situated."

Slowly at first, indicative of the seasoned mechanic in his bay, the power eased up his gauges in the console. He dialed the knob to route the energy to the positioning engines and begin to break orbit. Leaning on the yoke, Cal stuck the China Doll in a backwards spin away from Urvasi as the OMS eased them into its gravitational pull. 

Stuck with its nose to the black, Cal recalled the first time he'd watched a pilot by the name of Caesar maneuver the Doll into this awkward position, ass to land and nose to sky. As the younger Cal had quirked an eyebrow, Caesar, who loved his quips, replied, "Just givin' the planet another moon," before sniggering like a fool. In the present, the planet's gravity began to take hold, and the pilot's console jumped to life with calculations of G-force and pressure changes.

With a jerk on the yoke, Strand brought Urvasi into view, nudging their descent to forty degrees--so the Firefly's belly and heat-shielding took the brunt of the burn-in. The pilot's dash view screen flashed green as the text 'angle of attack' displayed, and Cal clapped the 'Hold' button beside the console to engage the automated flight guard.

Before long, the China Doll's burn-in was complete, and Cal called down to engineering for atmo engine power. Fighting gravity, Cal strained with the yoke as he leveled them out, and they began their on-planet flight to the coordinates he'd been given in the slim dossier belonging to their next pilot.

Yuri clambered up the steps, his footfalls announcing his arrival in the cockpit.  “Ready for our little touch-off,” he reported, his voice betraying the dubious sentiments currently weighing upon him.  Of course,  the incessant rounds of [i]‘Twenty Questions’[/i] he’d played with the crew had done little to set his own mind right about the mysterious hire.  “Looks nice,” he observed of the green landscape, dotted by numerous wind powered mills passing beneath their viewpanes.  “Doesn’t look at all like the captures from that battle.  You’d conjure,” the first mate said, “that the war never touched this place.”

Cal turned to his mate who had a good point, “Lots of good folk on Urvasi. Reckon most were stuck here from their lot after the war. Could be our next pilot flies for one of these mills, plenty of them around.” Indeed, the beautiful landscape was dotted with large mills turning gigantic paddles in the Urvasi breeze.

Antonov leaned against the copilot’s handrail, his posture intentionally casual, eyes forward as he offered, “Can’t wait to learn what’s what about this fella.”

He nodded, “Contract didn’t exactly paint me a picture. I got flight hour history and contract cost. ‘Nough to prick my ears.”

The Mate considered that.  Cal wasn’t the first captain who’d made calls based upon his gut.  Even a mechanic had to rely upon a certain level of intuition.  But as the mills and their rolling landscape gave way to a barren, hardscrabble swath of ground, Yuri had to wonder if this gift horse needed a dentist.

“Huh, scanners say to go further–straight out to the prison.” The hulking gray structure looked like a marriage of Alliance utility and some strange citadel with satellite disks and gigantic radar arrays circling on the outcroppings across the buildings that made up the anterior wall.

Cal wasn’t lying; a quick glance at the NAV display on his console told it plain enough.  China Doll was riding the beam, her course and angle of descent placing her on final approach toward  a broad, dusty square of ground splayed out before the main gate.  Yuri thought to speak up, voice his concerns.  He knew his words might veer toward prejudice, but thought of introducing a convict from an Alliance supermax prison to a boat full of passengers felt all kinds of wrong…not to mention the women among the crew.

But he also knew Cap’n’s mind was made up.  Yuri recognized the set of Cal’s jaw, a tell that he’d brook no second guessing of his calls.  [i]In for a penny, in for a pound,[/i] he relented with a mild shrug.

Standing just outside the entrance, a bear of a man stood looking up at the sky holding a bundle in his arms. “I got a sinkin’ feeling that’s our guy, right there…” Cal said, pulling up on the yoke. 

China Doll came in low, her nose lifting as the atmo engines brought her to hover.  “Abby,” Yuri keyed the comm mic, “stand by to lower the ramp.”  When the girl’s voice crackled her affirmative, the First Mate’s eye fell upon the Captain.  “Want me to bring him up?” he asked, “or do you wanna meet him at the ramp?”

“Come ‘ere and take over; I’m going to give our new pilot a warm welcome,” with that same look in his eye, he locked the control column and traded places with Yuri. The ex-con on the ground was a gambit no matter which way he sliced it, but the Doll needed a pilot and desperate times called for… well, he probably wasn’t that bad. Chances are he hated the Alliance, right? That was something, at least. Arching his brow at any quip Yuri might have on deck, Cal grabbed his duster before taking the stairs two at a time to the cargo bay.

“Uh…okay.”  Yuri slipped into the pilot’s seat with a raised brow.  He needn’t worry; Cal had set the boat down onto her skids, and the man they were taking on board had at least passed the flight hours portion of the smell test.  As to the rest?   That, the first mate conjured, would all depend upon how he sized up in the eyes of the man who’d come across the ‘verse to secure his freedom.

For now, his task was simple.  Keep her on the ground, engines idling, til Cap’n and his new pilot came to claim the cockpit.  A wise move, considering all the flight training that Yuri possessed was conducted by Abby…

Down at her station, Abigail was ready and waiting to lower the ramp. With a nod, Cal gave the order, and while the hydraulics whined, he looped an arm through his coat and asked, “How do you feel about ex-cons? They did their bit; shined up for what they done, right?” 

The deckhand give a shrug.  “Kinda hard tah say, sir.  ‘Lliance throws folk inta  stir fer a hangnail, I hear.  Uncle Bob always said “ever’body’s got crime.  Take a man fer hisself…’cept kiddie rapers,” Abby said flatly.  “I’ma straight up kill a kiddie raper afore he can say ‘howdy.”  

Her mouth hung at sight of tha man stood afore ‘em.  Cap’n was a tall man; Elias was a tall man.  But this fella was a gorram mountain, all muscled up an’ tattooed over like a warnin’ sign fer twenty mile ‘o’ bad road.  

Back ‘o’ her mind said somethin’ bout it bein’ impolite tah stare, but she reckoned if a body come face tah face with a tiger broke free from tha zoo, manners din’ always stand.  Fer now, she gaped at this man, eyes wide an’ mouth open.  “Howdy,” was tha only word come tah mind as tha barest whisper.