Lila Moss was a woman built to the most pleasing of proportions. And even though Mr. Sadler’s affliction wouldn’t permit his taking advantage of the fullness of her womanhood, the potency of his coin was more than enough to buy her willingness to keep appearances. After all, the head of the Blackborne Riders had to project a certain virility in all his dealings, lest any one chink in the armor give rise to doubt among his underlings.

She was well accustomed to the game, cooing as he pulled her into his lap before the nonplussed gazes of his lieutenants. A pinch, a wink, the occasional ribaldry concerning bedroom antics as she left the office. It was all in a day’s work., and relatively harmless.

She was, however, growing concerned over his souring mood these past couple days. Chet Muir, one of his Captains, not to mention one of the folk she could conjure as an actual friend of the old man, was supposed to check in. But two days had passed, with nary a whisper from him aboard that sleek new boat Buck had named Scalded Dog. In the absence of any word, he’d taken to holing up in his office, growling at anyone who dared enter…even her.

Lila was idly considering sneaking away for a drink when Red Mills strode in. Tall and well built, he was the senior of Buck’s lieutenants, and obviously next in line to take the top slot in the Riders when the Honcho hung up his spurs. She secretly longed for that day. “Hi Red,” Lila offered up her friendliest smile, leaning forward to emphasize a cleavage that strained the weakened grasp of two buttons on her blouse.

Her seduction did little to lift the grim expression on Mills’ face. “Is he in?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered, “but he’s not exactly…wait….Red!” Lila rose from her chair, hastily following Red as he burst into her boss’ office to find Buck, slouched angrily over his desk. She offered up a helpless expression as the men faced off.

The old man lifted a scowl. “What is it, Red?”

“We got somethin’.” He produced a cortex reader from a pocket. “Just a scrap. From Scalded Dog.” With a decisive jerk, the data transferred from the little handheld device to the much larger screen adjacent to the crime lord’s desk.

For a moment, the onscreen image was frozen. Buck recognized the cramped confines of the helmsman’s cockpit. A woman sat in the pilot’s chair…Nikeesha something or other. Chet had gone on and on about what a sharp stick and rudder talent she was. Chet himself was in the foreground, back toward the capture, watching the action as Nikeesha flew the boat. Suddenly, the vid started. Cabin alarms wailed; loose objects flew about as the pilot desperately jinked and yawed her craft. For a fleeting instant, Buck caught sight of something through one of the boat’s cockpit viewpanes. A larger vessel, raggedy with red coloration and attached human bones. The Reavers had got ‘em…

“Mind those grapples.” Chet’s voice remained icy calm. “Hard a port…”

The screen went dark. “That’s all we got,” Red turned toward his boss. “Definitely Reavers. What we could make of that big boat through the forward pane was a Trans-U…one of their favorites.”

“la shi,” Sadler muttered under his breath. “la shi…la shi…LA SHI!!!” In a cold fury, he swept his desktop clear, sending an oversized ceramic paperweight of a lounging nude woman to shatter upon the floor. Lila gasped at this display, though inwardly she took secret delight at the tacky artwork’s demise.

Buck Sadler glared into his hands, breathing heavily. When at last he chose to look up from his outburst, he’d regained enough of himself to find more interest. “Tell me you have something else, Red.”

“We do.” He called up an image from the capture. “This is our best frame of the pilot’s console. We’ve got her heading, which after some analysis we decided we can’t really trust. She was maneuvering to evade the Reavers,” he shrugged. “But that next set of numbers…those? Scalded Dog’s current location. Now that,” Red cocked an eyebrow, “was all kinds of interesting.”

Sadler watched as the navigation chart overlay displayed the edge of the known ‘verse, with positions for Miranda and some of the outermost worlds and outposts. Then, a white crosshair appeared.

“And that,” Mills pressed a finger upon the little X, “corresponds with the helm readout from Scalded Dog’s transmission.”

“Had no ruttin’ idea he’d run out so gorram far,” Buck shook his head.

“But there’s nothin’ out there,” Red gestured with one hand. “Heard tell there’s some asteroids, but…what? Buck? What do you know?”

Buck Sadler settled heavily into his chair. “You ‘member that Firefly that was on the Skyplex a few weeks back. The one whose story didn’t pass the smell test?”

“China Doll…the phantom cows. Sure.”

“I sent Chet out to see what kinda game they were runnin’.”

Red folded his arms, his chin dipping slowly onto his chest. “Damn shame, that,” he shook his head. “Chet was a good man. We lost good men to Reavers before. Cost of doin’ business.”

“Yeah,” Buck nodded, “but we still got no idea what pulls a Firefly that far outside the ‘verse? And for all the hardware they welded on, they gotta be goin’ after somethin’ mighty serious…”

“Buck,” Red interrupted, “way I see it, you know you lost a boat and a crew to Reavers out there. One thing we know about Reavers is they ain’t stupid! If Chet was trackin’ China Doll when they fell on him, sure as shootin’ the Reavers got their scent already. I wouldn’t give a plug nickel for their chances.”

Sadler thought on that a spell, his eyes sweeping the empty desktop save for his hands pressing firmly into the leather surface. “I conjure you may be right about that,” he nodded slowly to himself. This time, when his face lifted, Lila was at first relieved to see a smile taking root…a relief that only lasted until he spoke. “Get Phobos and Deimos ready,” he ordered. “We’re goin’ hunting.”

Suddenly, China Doll was alive; not a body among her crew didn’t feel the electric sense of excitement. Paydirt. Big paydirt.

With only two days in their window before the asteroid’s orbit moved to China Doll’s ‘bingo fuel’ point, Captain and crew made hay while the newly profitable sun shone upon them. The bulky snuffler had been reeled down in record time, putting Yuri and Abby to work churning up dust in steady, neat furrows. Occasionally, the greedy walrus mustache brushes would suck up a treasure. A candlestick here…a displaced jewel there. All were collected and catalogued by Edina in the cargo bay.

Others were getting ready to join them on the surface. As China Doll repositioned herself for another search grid with the snuffler, Abby stood beside Yuri, gazing into the yawning depths of a seemingly bottomless crevasse and the day’s biggest discovery…one of the three containers they’d come all this way outside the ‘verse in hopes of finding. Hand torches shone downward, beams playing over the crumpled poly alloy surface held fast in a stone embrace. “Looks tah be wedged in there right firm,” she observed. “Might just serve best to cut our way in and take what can be took.”

“Mmm,” the First Mate nodded. “If we had good intel on how that container held up for the past three centuries, you and I would be breaking out the cutting torches right now. Those poly alloys could be cheap. Some were known to get brittle after longterm exposure. We go cutting into that end cap, we could break the last dynamic tension that’s keeping the whole thing from collapsing in on itself. We’ll have to play it careful,” he said. “Repel down, check the crane connect points and get her anchored before we conjure the next move.”

Yuri set to orderin’ hardware from the boat. Abby caught sight of the basket, reeling it’s way back up into China Doll’s open belly hatch. Auspicious Cap’n had said about this day, the girl ruminated. It surely was that. But She still wasn’t easy in her own thoughts. There was a mess to clean, one of her own making. She waited til he’d finished with his list, then spoke.

“Yuri?” Abby’s voice filled the silence on comm.

“Go ahead.”

“Can we switch off channel fer a tick?” She lifted a gloved hand, four fingers up.

He answered with a nod, then tapped the channel select on his arm’s keypad. “You here? What’s up?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “Just wanted tah say Ah had no call tah come off at yew the way Ah did t’other day. Yah had ever’ right tah ask what’s been goin’ on with me an’ muh ways of late, an’ Ah feel most bad an’ sad fer how Ah blew it back on yah.”

Normally, Yuri would rush to fill the void with a reply. This time, he paused a beat, then keyed his mic. “I really appreciate you sayin’ that, Abby. I’ve been feeling much the same. You and I both know I didn’t handle my part of that exchange at all proper.”

“Yah done better’n me,” the girl replied. “Ah know this ain’t place or time, so when we’re not so busy Ah’ll sit down an’...” She stopped, her head lifted slightly. “Yuri,” Abby spoke again, curiosity and a growing alarm in her tone. “Yew seein’ that?”

“What?” The First Mate turned, eyes following the deckhand’s raised arm as she pointed toward what by rights should’ve been empty black. Four lights twinkled there. As he watched, their color shifted from a hot white to blue. The fact they were steadily increasing in size didn’t tell him everything, but it told him enough. “Drive plumes!” Yuri exclaimed. “The boat won’t see ‘em. We’ve got our radars trained on the surface!” With hasty fingers, he switched channels back to the public comm.

“China Doll! China Doll! You’ve got four boats inbound, closing fast at your seven o’clock! Rabbit! Rabbit now!”

JP by @Xandrya and @sail3695. Cal Strand and S.A.M.A.N.T.H.A. appear courtesy of @wanderingwolf.

The urgent message echoed throughout the shipwide comm system.

“China Doll! China Doll! You’ve got four boats inbound, closing fast at your seven o’clock! Rabbit! Rabbit now!”

For an AI with SAMANTHA’s processing speed, the 2.65 seconds it took for China Doll’s servo motor supported radars to reset to their standard operating positions seemed eternal. During this time, she busied herself with a probabilities study regarding the identity of their surprise pursuers. Though she sent information queries via the cortex, communication with the now distant relay station K-29B was extended to an excruciating 7.4 seconds per leg, not counting the innumerable network and server delays required of her surreptitious usage.

Therefore, utilizing her onboard resources, SAM deduced that the raiding party closing on their position were likely one of three organizations:

(1.) Pirates. Her studies, both during and after their docking at Little Moriah Skyplex had revealed it to be the base of operations for The Blackborne Riders, a local pirate fleet under the control of one Bartholemew “Buck” Sadler. He’d made a name for himself as a privateer during the war, converting vessels into masked auxiliary cruisers. Armed with letters of marque from both sides, Sadler filled his coffers and built his fleet by taking both Alliance and Independent prizes, relying upon the “fog of war” to conceal his skulduggery. In the present day, his piracy was passed off as the act of Reavers, which played neatly into Alliance claims of Reaver attacks actually being the handiwork of unrepentant Browncoat terrorists.

(2.) The Alliance. Though China Doll had been careful to avoid the Miranda ‘no fly’ zone, her captain had commented that “we shaved the fuzz off that peach,” as regards the forced narrowing of their flight path. Probability that they’d been sighted by the Alliance was unavoidably high. Still, the most telling reason that the AI ruled them out was the lack of a terse wave. Without a harsh warning to “heave to” and the fact that the First Mate reported no missile launches from the inbound vessels, SAM was left to choose either item (1), or…

(3.) Reavers. Human beings who’d been stripped of all compassion and empathy, their intelligence and industry bent toward unceasing service of an insatiable lust that exceeded psychopathy. In the heavily scrubbed and redacted databases of the present day Alliance, there were few reliable texts from which to draw. Much had been replaced by propaganda. SAM had located personal accounts, some similar to Abby’s story of that violent Sunday morning at Three Rivers.

Of the two probabilities, SAM weighed the outcomes, and arrived at the odds of the crew's survival. She’d opted to hold that number back, revising as their status shifted. Though SAM's current situational awareness deduced an undoubtably dire circumstance facing Calvin Strand, her algorithmic intuition surmised that for the moment, he didn’t require his trusty AI spouting off those odds by percentage.

The radars finally lifted into place. “Three targets,” SAM reported, “moving abreast in an uneven line, with a fourth trailing behind. ETA 35.2 seconds.”

For those left on the surface, the message had been loud and clear. Imani processed it for a second or two before her body was moving. She had dropped her tool, getting to her feet to rush over and reunite with Abby and the first mate.

"Where did they come from?" She practically shouted into the mic as she went, her voice laced with that urgent tone of hers. The question was hypothetical in nature of course. She looked up beyond her fellow crew to see the lights slowly approaching from a distance.

"...and what do they want?" a whisper, thinking out loud to herself as she rapidly grew fearful of what they would very soon face.

Yuri’s eyes tracked the incoming boats. “Can’t be good,” he replied.

Yuri’s warning caught Cal flat footed. In the time it took his radars to cycle up, he mighta been surprised to learn just how close his thinkin’ came to that of his AI. Then, with SAM’s ETA for these encroachers still ringing in his ears, the Captain’s thoughts had to go a few steps further.
Thirty-five seconds was barely time to spur this old boat to a trot, let alone get her to a full gallop. He had three on the surface, but if he tarried to pick ‘em up that could be a death sentence for all ten of the folk on his crew. Calvin Strand felt the tightening of his jaw, the clenching of a fist upon the handrail…his backbone rising up with ire toward whoever the hell this was comin’ down on him an’ his.

The Captain’s first impulse was to order his helm about. Put China Doll’s nose straight at ‘em and scatter ‘em proper with a righteous chicken run. But no, his cooler head prevailed. Til he knew just who it was come to call, his best move was to steer clear of any target locks. And that meant a choice to put a hot ball of horror right smack dab in the pit of his stomach. “Get us outta here,” he ordered his pilot. “Hightail it.”

JP from @Xandrya and @sail3695. Cal Strand appears courtesy of @wanderingwolf.

For those on the surface, the sudden glow of the firefly’s thrust section was an unmistakable sign, a confirmation of the dark thoughts none had spoken. It was Yuri who broke that silence, engaging his comm. “Edina…the big red button with the white tape X on it? Push it right now!”

In the cargo bay above, Edina tried to bury the shock of the inbound raiders…pirates…whatever they were… as she made a beeline in her EV suit for the equipment panel. Yuri would next call for the basket to hoist the crew. Green light. Check. Wouldn’t be time to haul up the snuffler. She conjured she’d have to push…

”“Edina…the big red button with the white tape X on it? Push it right now!”

“Copy!” Her gloved palm slapped hard upon the glowing red disk. In an instant, the couplings and power connections to the bulky snuffler detached, permitting it’s escape through the belly hatch like a fleeing serpent. “Standing by with the basket!” she nearly shouted into her helmet comm.

“No time for that,” Yuri’s voice had quieted. “Batten yourself down, qīn'ài de.”

“Listen up,” the Captain took control of the comm. “Don’t yet conjure who we got behind us, but once we got this sussed, we’ll be back for you. Til then, you hunker down, mind your batteries, and breathe easy.”

"You hear the man, we hunker down!" Imani didn't mean to sound as authoritative as she did, yet it was a reaction to their grim reality at the moment. She rushed back and was quick to turn off the couple of lamps lighting the area she was working. "There's that large boulder not too far ahead, let's make our way and think up a game plan." Stepping over the tools that were being left behind, her mind scrambled for a solution, though that was hard when they didn't have the slightest clue whom or what they were up against.

There wasn’t time for tears. For a tick, Edina sensed a panic rising within. How could Yuri tell her not to haul him and the others up? Her eyes darted about, frantic for some bit of aid to offer…some lifeline for those who’d soon be stranded on the unrelenting dark of the asteroid’s surface. She whirled about as the boat gained speed beneath her feet. Anything…anything…

Air. Of course! There were three replacement tanks all neatly held in a rack, just waiting for a ride down in the basket. Buddha only knew when they’d be back to deliver them. “I’m dropping spare O2 tanks for you,” she announced over comm, as her body willed the bulky suit to move faster.

“Good thinkin’,” Cal’s voice sounded over the comm. In the cockpit, his will was summoning up every bit of thrust he could get out of his boat. China Doll had begun moving, but even in this low G, a boat doesn’t just spin right up. “Listen up,” he told the pilot, “we get past that ridgeline, you pull a split S and nose ‘er over hard. Should buy us some time to get into the briar patch…Edina!” he shouted without waiting for anyone to ask just what a “briar patch” might be, “Double time on those tanks! I need that belly hatch dogged tight and you strapped in pronto!”

Everything was happening in the blink of an eye. China Doll’s bright lower lighting had been doused, leaving only a single, muted shaft trailing down from her open hatch as she picked up speed. Yuri tried to watch carefully as, one by one, Edina pitched the spare O2 tanks into the darkness. Each would fall roughly twenty meters to the surface, not a terrible concern as he considered the very low gravity and the relative cushioning of the thick dust.

That was all his guess, anyway. Once they dropped through the hatch opening, each tank literally vanished into the darkness, save one. As he watched, that unlucky vessel’s regulator must’ve struck China Doll’s underhung truss on its’ way down, snapping the neck and birthing a spark within that ignited the contents. The tank became a rocket, spiralling aimlessly into the unforgiving black. There was no time to bemoan the loss. Two out of three, Yuri observed in silence as he turned to watch the pursuing boats.

There’s one thing Abby knew ‘bout times like this. Best thing she could possibly do was Keep. Her. Gorram. Mouth. Shut. Cap’n had la shi flyin’ at him six ways from Sunday. Yuri, too. Didn’t take a reader to see the truth in people’s fears right now; she could hear it in ever’body’s voice, and feel it in ‘erself, like a mainspring wrapped way too tight that’s ‘bout tah burst.

Her eyes followed Yuri’s, just in time to see them boats fly in above ‘em. Dark as it was with no sun close tah hand, she could only make out shapes. Two smaller boats, ‘bout half as big as China Doll, was flankin’ a much bigger one in the middle. They was low. She wanted a look. Wouldn’t take more’n a quick gander tah know fer true. Without a second thought, she lifted ‘er hand torch.

“Don’t…” Before Yuri could voice the order, the beam of light flashed upward, playing across what he could only describe as a hellscape of lurid red color. Everywhere was a jagged morass of welded chains, pikes, and blades, many of which held impaled human bones and skulls as macabre trophies. Abby cut her light as the leading boats peeled off after China Doll. When the fourth, a much smaller craft, passed overhead to follow its’ mates, He broke the stunned silence. “Was that what I think it was?”

“Yeah,” the deckhand replied, her voice a harsh whisper.. “Reavers.”

“I never really thought….” The First Mate left those words to hang. You could fill a book with what Yuri felt he didn’t know about how to handle this situation, but for Buddha’s sake, the one thing he did conjure…the one thing that was welling up from deep inside and screaming at him…was that he couldn’t just stand here like some idiot. His eyes roved the broad expanse. The darkened plain upon which they stood offered no shelter, nor any chance cover, should the Reavers choose to return. High cliff faces on either side would prohibit their climbing out without the right gear. And behind them yawned the crevasse with the one container lodged in its’ throat. They couldn’t make it across, that much he understood. The only other option was the ridge line, some three kilometers distant, with unknown territory beyond.

His gaze landed upon the snuffler, a lifeless python heaped in the sea of thick dust. Perhaps… “Imani,” he said, “Abby. Here’s how it is. I need you two to dangle the snuffler into the crevasse, right over the old shipping container. We can use it to climb down and cut our way in. While you’re doing that, I’ll go find those tanks Edina dropped and gather the tools.”

Reavers.

Her eyes widened, the whites stark against her dark irises, darting frantically as if searching for an escape that wasn’t there. Her mouth parted slightly, trembling, but no sound came out—just shallow, rapid breaths. A chill ran down her spine, and in her mind, chaos reigned. The memory surged without warning, vivid and raw, as if it had just happened. The voices and screams echoed in her head—again and again, the scene played on an endless loop. Her breath caught in her throat, her chest tightening as the past blurred with the present. Every detail came back with cruel clarity and no matter how hard she tried to push it away, the memory clung to her, sharp as broken glass, demanding to be felt all over again.

Imani glanced over at Abby and a crease formed between her brows, deep and tense, while her jaw clenched in a futile attempt to stay composed. When she finally managed to utter a few words, they were brief.

"We're on it."

Cal Strand, Sister Lyen Giu, and S.A.M.A.N.T.H.A. appear courtesy of @wanderingwolf

Aboard China Doll, ‘Merry Hob’ was having a high old time. The mere seconds granted her crew to change over from working a ground op to whipping and running like a rabbit meant precious little stowing and battening. While the galley stove mighta been doused an’ hot grease an’ boiling water dumped, time wasn’t left to secure pots, pans, and lots of sharp edges that now became missiles with each wild maneuver the boat undertook to avoid capture.

Likewise, the cargo bay. Though Edina had been careful to pack each artifact as they came up, what she wasn’t prepared for were the work tables themselves, which now stampeded about the place like a herd of enraged cattle. No place was safe; each time the boat rolled or plunged, the tables, along with bracing pipes and any other tools they managed to knock loose, would tumble about, tearing down the poly sheeting as they lined up once again on their human target.

“Eddie!” Cal’s voice over her helmet comm, barely distinguishable over the blood roaring in her ears. “We gotta close that belly hatch!”

“Doing it…NOW!” she grunted, propelling herself upward with a backward flip that just managed to evade the ragged claw of a shattered table leg. She had some four meters to cross on a pitching deck, with the boat’s G forces climbing as she took on speed. Time to haul pi gu...

For the moment, China Doll was scooting through clear black…the worst possible place to be..with the Reavers right on her heels. Ever since Abby’s voice crackled over the comm….”R#%vers”... Cal ordered every trick in the book to avoid their grapples and harpoons without bleeding off any of the precious speed that was gonna mean livin’ or dyin’ today.

The Firefly swept over the distant ridge, rolled onto its’ head, and then plunged down, down, down the asteroid’s shadowy backside. Their pursuers, all close and angling for kill shots, were caught off guard, and forced to make wider turns to keep up the chase. The captain craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the hunters. “Two Sampans,” he said aloud, “with a Trans U callin’ the shots. Little guy bringin’ up the rear…I can barely make him out. SAM?”

“Unusual,” the AI responded. “The radar signature indicates a Peregrine class racing yacht. There are radar distortion anomalies, typical result of Alliance Stealth Tech hull coating.”

“He was painted black,” Cal observed as he tapped the pilot’s shoulder. “Down there. In the asteroid belt,” he said, pointing toward a wall of stone. “Get us in there.”

“The Peregrine’s drive signature is still clean,” SAM replied, though none heard her for the welling argument in the cockpit. “None of the usual reactor containment issues. The Peregrine could be a recent capture…”

The pilot was aghast. “In there?”

“Like now,” the Captain ordered.

“We’ll get killed in there!”

“We’ll get killed out here! You’re a hot shit pilot. Time to show us what you can do.”

The flyboy shook his head at the advancing wall of stone. “What I can do is keep us outta there!,” he said. “Never had a sim for nothing like that…cuz it’s slap dab moon brained!”

“”What?” Cal demanded. “You mean all those thousands of hours an’...” There was no time for this. With a grimace, the Captain took the copilot’s chair. Hands driven by years of muscle memory activated controls and brought his yolk to life. “Then call me moon brained. I got the stick,” he growled. “Stay up here with me. I need your eyes. This is gonna get real stupid, real fast.”

“It’s already there!” the discharged pilot took his hands off his yolk.

The firefly swooped into the asteroid belt, her captain white knuckling his yolk and throttles as he threaded a very lethal needle.

“The Sampans are pursuing,” S.A.M.A.N.T.H.A. reported. “Radar indicates the Trans-U is keeping pace from the belt’s exterior. The Peregrine has reversed course.”

“Gorramit,” Cal swore to himself. His people on the ground were sitting ducks. One tussle at a time, he reminded himself as he hauled the boat’s nose into a narrow gap. Won’t matter to them if I can’t get us outta this one alive.

In the cargo bay, Edina had sprinted…if such was possible in an EV suit…the final distance to the equipment controls. With one hand to steady her before the small panel, she turned the key beneath the hatch lever, which changed a once solid red LED to a rapidfire flashing. “Closing the belly hatch,” she announced over her helmet comm. Her hand wrapped the lever’s grip, pushing upward, when a sudden blow sent her tumbling over the panel.

She felt herself roll, her body pitched like a rag doll, trampled beneath a marauding table. Suddenly, black sky. Table flying into nothing. Houses of stone rising up to the underside of the boat. Edina heard herself scream, but in the confines of her helmet it seemed a muffled, inconsequential thing.

“Edina! Pull!”

That’s when she felt the hands. They had her by the calves. She could feel the fingers struggling for a better grip.

“The hatch is closing! Pull! Edina!”

Transfixed as she was, she almost didn’t make the connection. If anyone was to ask her later, Edina would say she honestly didn’t remember stretching her arms out wide til her hands caught the advancing edges of the outer hatch. She used their momentum, both halves of the hatch lifting her up as they came together. An arm tucked about her waist, pulling her to final safety as the inner hatch rose and sealed into place. Now restored, Edina took a ragged breath, turned, and looked through the suit faceplate into the almond eyes of her rescuer.

“Sister…thank you,” she stammered.

The nun responded with a smile. “How else can I be of service?”

“Y’all alright down there?” Cal asked over their helmet comms.

“Yes, Captain,” both Sister Lyen and Edina responded as one.

“Shiny. Here’s what I need. Get to Abby’s quarters. Grab her guns and ammo. Also, every mop, broom, and roll of duct tape you can find. Bring ‘em to the galley.”

“On it,” Edina replied a touch shakily as she and Lyen dodged more of flying table wreckage. “What are we doing?”

“Gonna take short pointy things an’ make long pointy things out of ‘em, dohn mah?”

JP from @Xandrya and @sail3695

“Yessir,” was all Abby could think to chime in. She weren’t no tactical genius, but one thing she conjured right quick was that to the likes ‘o’ Reavers, three folk stranded on a rock in the black was ‘bout as near as yah got to the proverbial ‘bird in the hand.’ Didn’t hurt to add that the less she ran ‘er mouth, the less she’d give away a quiver in her voice, to boot. Havin’ a hidin’ place…even if it’s halfway down a crevasse in a broke down old container…was scads better’n just standin’ around up here waitin’ for them Reavers to come back. “One thing’s true,” the girl said into her comm as she grabbed one side of the headpiece, “low grav sure made this big bastard a lot easier to move about.”

Imani made her way around to the other side of the snuffler to work in unison with Abby. She grabbed the opposite end of the headpiece, finding humor in the crewmate's statement despite the peril they found themselves in. "You right for that, the job's not awful hard to pull off when the weight's scaled down." As they trudged forward, Imani matched her steps to Abby's, favoring the improved rhythm.

Eventually arriving at the edge of the crevasse, Imani peered into the depth below. She placed the snuffler gently on the ground and eased her way down to a kneeling position on the ground with her legs tucked underneath her. Better leverage and all that. "I can guide it down as you feed it foot by foot, shiny?"

“Sounds good,” Abby give a nod inside ‘er helmet. Truth was, it really did sound good. Work she done recently with Imani, learnin’ fightin’ moves an’ how tah defend ‘erself, offered a gander into how the doc could take hold ‘o’ her emotions an’ get down to business. Seein’s how the deckhand’s still fit to get all jittery over sight ‘o’ Reavers, havin’ Imani to hand was a fit prop to steady her own self, and she found gratitude for the example. “Here it comes,” she said, confidence on the rise as she let the twelve inch thick tubing of the snuffler play through ‘er hands.

It hadn’t taken more than a few seconds’ sputter and fizzle for China Doll’s comms to erode into the background static. Yuri moved off into the darkness, his strides exaggerated by the paltry gravity. As he strode forward, the beam of his torch swept the surface, left, right, left, in search of the gleaming O2 tanks or the white canvas cloth of the tool bag. He could only hope that his shipmates might’ve heard the warning from their people below.

He found the bag first, neatly arranged where Imani had left it. The First Mate snapped a glow stick to mark the location before resuming his search. The voices of the two women sounded in his helmet, working things out to repurpose their extraction tool into an escape ladder. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering what the Captain might’ve chosen in this moment. Forty-three percent, Yuri mouthed the words in silence as he checked his O2 capacity. Statistically, both Imani and Abby should have higher counts in their tanks at the moment. He could only hope that the exertions they’d undertaken at his order were actually meaningful.

A dull glimmer at two o’clock caught his eye. As Yuri approached the tank, his spirits fell, ”La shi”, he muttered to himself. The tank lay on its’ side, exposing a dent and crease through which escaping oxygen was now stirring up eddies in the surrounding dust. He probed, gloved fingers pressing along the damage, until finally his thumb disrupted the flow. Carefully, he lifted the cylinder, turning the regulator with its’ meter up for his eye.

36%

“Gorram it.” He reached into a pocket on the leg of his suit, producing a package of quick patches. The one handed work was awkward and slow, but after a few frustrating moments, Yuri had managed to slip one of the smaller suit patches over the tank’s wound. The contact of oxygen to the adhesive was instantaneous, and with a small wisp of smoke, the damaged O2 tank and its’ remaining contents were safe.

A minute later, he laid eyes on the second tank. “Everybody check your O’s,” Yuri said as he approached the life giving oxygen.

They was just about done when Yuri's voice rang in through the comms. A smidge alarming message in context. She placed a hand on the snuffler, palm down, as she looked back at Abby. "Wait a moment." Imani then took a moment to read her oxygen level.

"It's 77% for me."

Abby took hold ‘o’ one of the firm wire rings inside the snuffler tube, stopping it’s downward slide as she followed Yuri’s order. “Seventy-four,” she reported as the last of the bulky contraption played out twixt her gloves. The deckhand leaned over, gazing into the crevasse. When she couldn’t get her helmet lights to train right, she went for the hand torch instead. “Well, hell,” the girl muttered.

“What’s up?” Yuri asked.

The torch’s beam played over the snuffler’s dangling end, the top edge of the trapped container below, and the unhappy distance between them. “We got us a powerful gap ‘tween our snuffler an’ the container,” Abby replied. “Nigh on five-six meters is my guess.”

For a tick, all that could be heard in response was Yuri’s breathing over the helmet comm. Eventually, he spoke. “Copy. I’m on the way back with more O2. Heading for the toolkit now. We’ll see what we can…shit. They’re back.”

Both women turned from their work. Yuri could be seen, roughly a hundred meters distant, his suited figure silhouetted in the unforgiving glare of an approaching searchlight.

JP from @Xandrya and @sail3695

If you were to size up the crew of China Doll to pick out her fighters, there’d be some right obvious choices. Her steely eyed captain would always make the cut, along with the fiercely countenanced mechanic and the tattooed giant who took the pilot’s chair. A sharper eye might detect the taut discipline in every movement of the boat’s medic. Then, there was the quick drawing deckhand who was keen to uphold her family’s business.

But the First Mate would never catch anyone’s eye as an example of fighting prowess for the Buddha’s own truth that he simply wasn’t one. Though Yuri had raised a pistol as a member of China Dol’s crew, he’d never been called on to throw hands or stand in threat of doing violence, a bluff that he knew would most like inspire naught but laughter.

And now, here he was, on the surface of a lifeless rock with dwindling air and who knew how many Reavers looking at him in the boat at the other end of that searchlight’s beam. For a second, there was paralysis. They were almost on top of him. He squinted, trying to make out some details of the dusky predator swooping in upon him from behind the glare of that awful beam. Few details emerged. The boat was trim and crisp, a broad delta shape whose winglike edges clipped downward toward the tips, sheltering a pair of atmo engines. She didn’t appear large enough for cargo. But for the midnight black coloration, he’d have tagged her as some sort of pleasure craft. The raider didn’t carry any traditional Reaver gore as hull decorations. As she closed upon him, all that he could make out was a name, large print glowing like hot coals. Scalded Dog.

RUN! his mind fairly screamed, the message eventually translating to his body. Yuri bolted, crabbing sideways into the sheltering darkness. The light beam jerked afterward, catching up to him as he tried to sprint clear. “Listen up,” he huffed into his mic as the merciless beam dogged his heels. “I’m gonna lead them away. You two get out of sight.”

Her eyes met those of the deckhand's, the brief silence like the calm before the storm. "Don't keep us waiting," was all Imani could say as she peered at the depth below. "We have to move too." Abby may be just a kid, but she was glad that the girl had the maturity of someone twice her age as that was certainly needed in these life or death scenarios.

And with that, Imani began to ease her way down. She sat adjacent to the snuffler then pivoted to begin her descent, guiding herself with slow, calculated movements. Little by little, Imani worked her way down, using the snuffler as support. Some time passed before she eventually reached the end. The woman paused to look down, realizing the given estimate had been pretty accurate. After a quick exhale, she let go and slowly floated downward, her eyes fixed on the girl on the surface.

Gettin’ hid made a pasel ‘o’ sense, even if it meant takin’ a mighty leap down onta that old container down there. Fer a spell, Abby hung onta tha snuffler’s bulky metal intake…she an’ Imani had turned it upside down to make the handgrips dig into the ground. Trouble was, they wasn’t diggin’. She put ‘er weight atop the contraption, holdin’ it steady as Imani went down hand over hand. In the distance, them Reavers was hard after Yuri. She watched as two figures dropped down from their boat, dead set on makin’ a proper foot race of it.

The snuffler went slack; Abby’s gaze met Imani’s as the medic dropped down. “Lookin’ good, Doc,” she said of the trajectory. A tick or two passed before Imani’s boots touched down clean on the end cap. What happened next brought the girl’s jaw to drop.

Without warning, to poly fiber surface beneath Imani’s boots came alive. A spidery network of cracks crazed outward in all directions, before the brittle material gave way altogether. Imani fell into the darkened container, her helmet lights glancing off the walls and remnants of cargo straps disturbed from centuries’ old slumber by their passage. She soon reached the bottom, a full ten meter drop to the front end, her fall abruptly ceased by the worn strands of a heavy nylon cargo net.

“Doc!” Abby cried out as the woman disappeared into the darkened confines of the container, along with the brittle shards of the ancient poly fiber end cap. “Imani! Yuri!” she called out urgently. “The container gave way! Imani fell inside!”

There wasn't a warning; not a single clue preceding her sudden fall into the container. Imani let out a gasp, attempting to reach for something to hold on to but nothing was within grasp. A few moments later and her fall was stopped by a netting of some sort. She was breathing hard from the scare, the beam of light following wherever she looked, though all else was black as night.

"Abby, I'm okay..."

No sense worrying them. Imani had landed on her behind and she remained on it. At first glance, nothing in there seemed too beyond the ordinary. But then she caught a glimpse of the large hole off to her right. It almost looked like something had broken its way out by force. That was slightly alarming. Even more alarming were the large scratch marks on either side of the hole. She stared for a moment, and it took her some time to realize the dark splatters also surrounding the hole looked a whole awful lot like blood.

Imani got to her feet after catching her balance. She looked behind her and thank Buddha nothing else concerned her 'cept for the mess left behind by whatever made that hole.

"Hey, something was already here. Something...feral."

From above, Abby could hear Imani, but weren’t squat to be seen ‘cept the twin pinpricks of light from her helmet lamps. They’s movin’ about, some proof offered that the Doc’s assurances wasn’t just hollow brevity. Least for the moment, she could call ‘erself proper hid. Trouble would be gittin’ her…them…outta there if the deckhand found ‘er way down inta that inky blackness alongside the medic.

She’d just turnt tah spy how Yuri might fare dodgin’ them Reavers when Imani knocked ‘er right off ‘ert pins. “Feral?” Abby knew the word; for sure had come across it more’n once in umpteen different books. But this time, actually sayin’ it, and in a sitchiation what really mattered, she caught herself all struck over how five little letters could add to an already powerful chill workin’ down her nethers. “Yah mean like a wild thing?” she asked, not knowin’ what else there was to offer.

A quick nod in response. "Exactly like a wild thing." Imani did her best to remain upright as she moved forward a little closer, the net making each step a challenge to balance. As she moved, so did her headlamp.

“Feral,” Yuri grunted in response. Just two seconds prior he’d been on the knife edge of panic. These Reavers were smart, putting numbers on the ground to fan out and prevent him doubling back in the dark. Now, with the rock wall less than a half click ahead and the hunters driving him toward it, he’d come to the conclusion that unless he found a miracle escape they’d soon have him in their clutches.

But Imani could be in even more serious trouble, a notion which dealt him an even greater fright. He had to think. That container left Earth-That Was some four hundred twenty-five years ago aboard the Gossamer. After being jettisoned, it would’ve crash landed here just over three hundred years ago. A long time in total vac…

“What are you seeing, Imani?”

"Uh... Quite a number of crates busted open," Imani turned the other way, "leaving a big ol' mess in every inch of this place. I'm guessing prior to whatever broke out, well, broke out, it got itself involved in quite the struggle. That or it lost its temper." Whichever instance was true, Imani figured she might as well investigate a little further. She made her way to the end of the net and eased herself on down, stepping on one of the few crates that was intact. "I'm gonna be honest as a dog, that blood on the side of the container got me not feeling right... But Yuri, how are you managing?”

“Gonna be shiny,” Yuri lied. The Reavers had some kind of weapons. They trained ‘em like rifles, but what came out was more akin to a tent spike. His engineer’s brain puzzled over the propulsion theory, while the rest of him reeled in fresh terror at getting impaled or having his suit lanced open in the vacuum. Either way, with the wall coming up ahead and the boat dropping onto its’ skids behind, this part of the game was nigh on close to checkmate. “Abby,” the First Mate said, “listen up. I marked the tool kit and the oxygen tanks with glow sticks. Come pick ‘em up when the coast is clear, dohn mah?”

Lamps flickered from behind. For a second, Yuri could see his own shadow in the confused jostle of light. One of the lethal spikes embedded itself in the dusty soil at his feet. He grabbed the little projectile before leaping clear to avoid any other shots. There were more helmet lights. Three, now four Reavers out of their boat, all making for him.

Yuri propelled himself toward the wall. He wasn’t a fighter…his older brother Ivan had drilled that into his head. But now he had no choice.