Pragia12

Paradise Lost

Virginia Sokolova

---

The maintenance access shaft was not far from atmospherics, and by the time Ginny had patched her damaged suit and reached it, the screeching of the master-less metacer had ceased. It was likely that there was a new control bug in the area, but it seemed that she had gone unnoticed for the time being.

She had taken what she found most valuable from the engineering pack, the station schematics on the drive was useful, along with the manuals and other data that the colony ship may lack. At the very least it would be good documentation.

Far more useful for her purposes, however, would be a plasma cutter. A bulky handheld thing with five emitters in a cross pattern. It was a surprisingly uncommon piece of technology, even among the Society. The small screen jutting out of the left side of it enabled the operator to program and manipulate a pattern that the high-energy bolts will shape themselves into.

Looking at the screen, the schematics overlaid behind the vision, she could ‘see’ through the bulkhead and the access shaft behind it. Using the buttons on the side of the device, she manipulated a rectangular cut. A low hiss would fill the air as it charges, the housing warming before a shriek of shaped plasma streaks out, bubbling and sublimating the steel plate in seconds. Ginny would attach the cutter to her belt, and begin peeling away the detached plate, bending it along fused metal at the bottom, the ventilation air flowing out oppressively warm.

Before she embarked, she would call over comms “Lockman, on frequency Seven-Four-Seven-Seven-Zero.” she would tap the code into the beacon before putting it back into her pack “Coordinates for your shot, Only take it after I make the call.”

She would click her heels against each other twice in something resembling a prussian salute, the magboots becoming active. She would step up, the locks disengaging, and enter the breach she had made. Walking perpendicular to the hallway, and down towards the reactor chamber.

The access tunnel was a wreck, clearly the Metacer were using it as an access tunnel, the puncture marks of hundreds of insectoid limbs making clean steel look like swiss cheese. For now none of them were in the shaft looking behind her and to the reactor chamber ahead.

About half way to the reactor, one of the ant-like bugs would emerge, its gaze locking with the ranger. Eyes would widen and pulse would quicken as adrenaline surges. Drawing instinctually, she would point and fire at the Metacer, only for there not to be a discharge of blaster fire.

Instead, the whine of the plasma cutter would cause her grip to falter briefly before tightening. The insectoid creature would scramble up the walls of the vertical shaft towards its adversary. In a series of flickering pulses, the same rectangular pattern that gave Ginny access to this tunnel was now mapped onto the approaching alien, and as limbs were sundered in green gore, it fell back towards the glowing core.

Now the clock was on: the bugs knew she was here.

She would disengage her magboots and take a short fall, dropping to the frame of the bulkhead. She would repeat this twice before more metacer emerge from the core. Another hail of plasma and gore as limbs were severed and carapace fractured, they were closing on her, and she didn’t have time.

Looking into the reactor chamber, there was a red slick of biofilm over the stainless steel walls, flesh merging with metal in sinewy egg sacs. In the middle was the queen, a gargantuan thing that even her plasma cutter would likely not do much to. Bulbous eggs would be spat from orifices on her abdomen into a disgusting insectoid hive of squirming maggots. A few warriors and a control bug were skittering towards her.

She would take a baseball-sized beacon out of the engineering bag, prime it, and throw it towards the corner of the reactor chamber with all of her childhood ball skills: it needed to be at a strong point of the container to absorb most of the energy of the shot and avoid damage to the core itself. It needed to make an opening, and hopefully send most of the reactor atmosphere into space. The device would float straight and true, catching under a grate.

Once the beacon was in place, she would call over the comm “John, take the shot!”

Paradise Lost

Virginia Sokolova

---

The Metacer were a hive race, and while her education on them was brief, she knew the basics of their organization: The queen would be in the reactor compartment, incubating eggs in the hundreds in the ambient heat. Beneath her was the control bugs, who each could control nearly a dozen drones and formed complex hierarchies to serve their queen and function as synapses of a sort in a larger hive brain.

So she would need to cut it out at the base.

Making it to a maintenance locker, Ginny had fit herself into one of the soft-shell emergency spacesuits, hooking her comm into the helmet. “Check check, you hear me John?” she looks sidelong, she hadn’t caught sight of one of the bugs yet, but she had heard them down the halls, and it was likely they would notice her eventually. It was another deck down to the upper reactor level, which was behind a shielded door, one whose hydraulics and heavy steel would alert every bug on the station. “Need you to get an angle on the bottom of the station, keep trained on my comm’s location.”

So, she would need to think of another way in. The engineering team was likely to have heavier duty tools, and potentially access codes or schematics that might make entry possible. Problem is, if they’re dead, that means the Metacer are in atmospherics. A poor blaster shot in a room of compressed gasses is far from ideal, so she had already adjusted the capacitors in her revolver for quarter-loads. She hoped the lower power setting would reduce the noise, but still pack enough of a punch to take down a bug.

Coming down the ladder, she would hear the chittering of bugs. She took a long, shallow breath to control herself: too loud, and she would alert them to her presence. She was light enough on her feet, keeping a low profile and being careful not to move too quickly to disturb the air. She’d inch along, keeping against the wall to avoid being spotted between bulkheads.

Making it to the door of atmospherics, it was obvious that the bugs had made it there first: Scorch marks on the walls indicated that they had some form of blaster, torn walls from mandibles were much more aggressive indication. She raised her arm and peeked around the corner of the doorway.

Blood was everywhere, evidently the bugs were hungry, and it only made her heart sank as she realized they were probably tearing more survivors to pieces across the station. Mangled chunks of meat and shattered bones strewn about, uniforms only so many tattered cloths. That chittering was loud enough for her to know that one of them was unseen in the room.

When the chittering paused, she sprung into action.

Rounding the corner with her arm outstretched, she was less than her height away from the creature, who seemed surprised. The ring-shaped ridge on his head gave her only a moment’s pause, but the sharp discharge of the revolver sent a bolt of energy into its eye socket. The lower power setting still blew a chunk out of its head, and it screeched in pain, whipping its mandibles wildly, almost severing her hand had she not drawn it back towards her chest.

This put her on her backfoot, knocking her to the ground with her weapon against her chest, the intricate web of air pipes splayed above her and the reeling beast quickly recovering with adrenaline. The ranger leans herself up quickly, her hands holding her weapon stable as she follows it up, severing that crest and with it, its control over nearly a dozen other bugs. It advances, slashing its scythe-like legs and lacerating her lower left leg at the shin, cutting through her fatigues and the soft-shelled spacesuit as if it weren't there and eating into flesh.

A third shot would blow a mandible off, along with the other half of its head, and it would drop to the floor lifelessly. A red slick was growing against the plastic outer shell of her leg. Cursing under her breath, she would reach into her pack. Drawing a tube of bio-gel, she could hear the screeching of feral bugs. That was a good sign that the control bugs were spread thin enough that she had a chance to slip by them.

The ranger bit into the webbing of her glove as she pressed the bio-gel into the wound in her lower leg, grunting in pain. She was supposed to clean the wound first, but she didn’t have the time, or the wherewithal to do so in her adrenaline high.

She rose to her feet, her legs still wobbling with some heavy breathing, now able to survey the room that she was now alone in. There was a severed hand still attached to a toolbox that was still latched shut. Pulling it free of the last remains of its owner with some unease, the Texarkanan would place it on the main control panel for the atmospheric station. Opening the holo-screen, she would see readouts for temperature and chemistry. The reactor room was far too hot outside the core, and many of the temperature-regulating systems were nonresponsive. She turned on the fans and coolant for the rest of the station, hoping to stave off overheat how she could.

Opening the toolbox, there was a lot of tools available, and a shattered glass holopad. She hooked the pad up to the screen and began parsing through its contents. Most of the work to restore the temperature was beyond her capability, but now she had schematics for all the piping and access to the chamber, just as she hoped. The primary maintenance shaft opened right into the ceiling of the reactor, and the door was still functional. While the thought of venting the reactor came across her mind, the metacer could handle airless zero-g better than she could.

Instead, she’d need to place the beacon deep inside the reactor, in just the right location for Lockman to crack open the reactor vessel and kill the Queen in the explosive decompression.

Paradise Lost

Virginia Sokolova

---

Ginny cursed under her breath as she listened into the cracked security channel. Before she could speak, her comm began to chirp with Mark’s voice. She’d be quick to reply “If we both make it out alive, you’ll get it. The colony ship isn’t going to have anything for weapons, but that’s what the shuttle’s for.” she pauses for a moment, then says “Get us skipped past prep and start getting everything online. I gotta go see if I can buy us some time.” she adds, unhooking her carabiner and taking a swig from her bottle of vodka before rehooking it. She would put down her duffelbag in the access shaft, looking back to it for a long moment.

She’d change her channel over a couple. “Lockman, going to need a steady hand outside the station.” she says sharply, quietly hoping that was enough of an authoritative tone to get things moving. She made her way down a ladder to the cargohold. Jogging forward past the piled supplies and towards the gaping maw of the cargo ramp. She entered more of a sprint down the grip-patterned steel of the door, magboots clanking even when they aren’t turned on.

By the time she had entered the halls of the station, the lights would begin glaring red and the calls of Metacer being aboard would be going out to the station population. The cries of anguish and the shouts of determination would echo, and the flow of people past her would make her feel like she was swimming upriver. She could only hope that the people at the tube were able to control a crowd without resorting to blaster fire, and that the station guards would be willing to go along with it.

Indeed, there would be a couple guards setting up a barricade in the arterial hallway, and the ranger would look between them. The first, a kiellar, would speak up “Get over to the ship lady, engineering is filled with–.” he notices the revolver on her hip.

“I’m going to head down there and try to take out their queen, slow them down enough for everyone to get aboard.” she tried mustering her most confident voice, but it was obvious from the heat and her uncertainty that she lacked

The two look at each other “Your funeral.” the human would say, “We’ll be holding this hall for ten minutes, but then you’ll be on your own.” the kiel was only marginally more professional.

She’d vault over the turned lockers, her hand cannon humming into a brief whine with her disengaging of the safety. She had hoped for some inhuman bravery from the pair, but it was as much a farce as she was planning. “Colony was around the reactor?” she asks.

“Yeah, engineering team was killed in atmospherics.” the human says, the fear in his voice overcoming his callousness.

"Might want to get clear sooner than ten." she'd say, letting her bravado fall.

♡♢ 𝚅𝙰𝙼𝙿𝙸𝚁𝙴: 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙼𝙰𝚂𝚀𝚄𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙳𝙴 — 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝕸𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖞 ♤♧

<sup>Vincenzo emerged from the back seat of his Mercedes with a bow of his head to Mister Keene to idle. He was wearing a charcoal vest over a well-worn pleated maroon shirt, his eyes were obfuscated by rimless brown-orange tinted glasses.

He carried himself past the flourishes of the decorative backlit fountain, past the rows of acacia trees swaying in a balmy breeze, past the faux-Corinthian pillars which line Caligula’s Palace’s valet roundabout. Ugly SUVs changed hands, with schlubby tourists passing their keys to the bowtied, waistcoated servants and vice-versa.

Those same tourists posed for picture after picture on the marbled front step, in front of gold-glassed doors and stiff, tasseled carpet, cut and dyed as if from the cloaks of five hundred dead patricians. The ancillae held some contempt for the kitsch of the Strip’s casinos, but often it was the behavior of the customers that truly soured his mood.

Through the golden gate and past the lobby, with its little-penised marble statue (arms tastefully hacked just beneath the shoulders) beneath a vaulted, frescoed dome ceiling. Past faux-gold elevator doors, its luster dulled with countless fingerprints left uncleaned. Past half a dozen celebrity-chef eateries with trendy names in trendy lowercase typesets: sizzle. the croft. fig & olive.] his shadow loomed, slaking across the glamour all too eager to be out of the even golden light as he entered the honored arena of the casino floor, whose lights raged with a far more aggressive character.

Across the pit, even amidst the overstimulation of malfunctioning slot machines, of dancing recessed lights, Vince recognized the figure. He had met Elijah Ezekiel Brace briefly at his own Elysial induction: A wispy man in a loud velvet suit, with a silver shock of hair, his fingers as heavy with rings as an ox’s neck. Jewel-eyed and handsome, squaring up with him even though he was facing away.

Screens flickering with the hectic roller coaster of wins and losses, slot arms jammed and rollers whirring as Vince walked past. The blackjack tables sat nestled between the roulette tables and the baccarat lounge, the latter dim and smoky. Vince’s nose raised into a sneer briefly at the mix of tobacco and incense, the Chinamen within wearing sweaty polo shirts and cheap sunglasses. Table five, exactly as the message had promised.
Brace was the third of three at his table: he sat beside 160 pounds of woman stuffed into a 130-pound leopard-print sausage casing, her silky hair and indigenous skin both darker than the brass-and-chocolate tones of the cocktail dress. To her right sat another man—her “date,” presumably—a fat Texan type with a bushy Sam Elliott mustache, a white ten-gallon boss-of-the-plains, a cheap bluish-silvery suit that felt distasteful even to the tasteless dilettante.

The Italian approached the table confidently, those eyes hidden behind tinted lenses, hovering over each of them as he took a seat opposite the aged man, bowing his head to the pair between them. He kept his arms off the table, letting the round play out with an almost disinterested following of the game, its minutiae amusing, but hardly interesting compared to its players.

Brace took note of the new arrival with an eyeroll, letting his own rest back on the larger man. They chitchatted over the minutiae of the game, but his patience was running low. The Texan alternated between teaching his date how to play the game, and rattling out some advice for the aged Brujah as if he, too, was erring at every opportunity.

Brace feigned a moment’s recognition, his glass-blue eyes widening, his wrinkles deepening with glee. “Giorgiadis? Shit, that really is you! How you doing, man?! Fred, Agustina, this is Stefanos. We go back.”

Fred veered his eyes away from Agustina with the hint of a scowl towards Vince, as if more players would ruin his luck. He offered only a “Howdy” before his eyes returned to the table.

“So what’s up? You hanging around tonight?” Brace was quick to keep the mood of the room up past the bullheadedness of the other patron.

Vince, for his part, bowed his head to Fred, thankful that he was far enough away for it to be acceptable not to kiss the lady’s hand. “It’s been too long, Henry. Joe sends his regards.” He let that hang in the air for a moment. “Mind if I watch for a round or two?”

“Take your time. We got a few hands to go until Afaaf here—” he gestured briefly to the croupier—a withered old Arab lady with skin the same shade of tawny brown as her short, fluffy hair and a long, dignified nose—”refreshes the shoe.”

Vince returned a brief nod of his own, finishing his introductions. “Have you been having a good night so far?”

“Ups and downs. Ups and downs. Ain’t no way to win every night but to love the game.”

“There’s truth in that. Shame I can’t end up on the Strip every night.”

“Busy man. Well, track down a waitress, why don’t you? Grab a drink. Get settled. I can hold the fort.”

Vince gave a small chuckle and rose, a small bob of his head to the Texan and his ornament before putting his back to the table. He returned to the circle of light and sound to seek out the bar. The ancillae carried himself casually, his eyes wandering where they had at first been direct, regarding the lights and symphony of electronic sound with a hint of unease.

Finally making it to the counter of the bar past a series of orange columns, he rested his hands on the vinyl top, his hands a half inch of plastic away from snaking obsidian patterns in the marble below. Flagging one of the attendants with one hand, he ordered a Vesper martini. It was quickly prepared by hands that could claw away thousands in tips on a single night, and had a presentation to match in a sharp crystal bowl, with a tied lemon skin being the only thing breaking the perfect clarity in the glass.

While making his return to the lounge he felt the hairs on his arms rise under fabric. The storm of flashing lights dampened for a moment few could even notice, but the Lasombra kept as clear as his drink. Presence. A perfectly mundane weapon, wielded haphazardly by even the youngest hunters, but still sharp, still potent, drawing even the glassy, witless eyes of the slot addicts, standing even the neck hairs of the limp-skinned pensioners on end. Now, he needed to get to the business he had come here for.

Elijah was alone then, the Brujah leaning forward over the table. Afaaf was still going through the shoe, much more slowly without the presence of the charming couple. Her eyes carried a stale fear, reserved and concealed enough to impress the Lasombra.

Vincenzo was quick enough to speak. “Ah, I had wished Fred could stay around.” A flick of a finger towards Afaaf “And her?”

“She’s on the level. As for Fred, said he’s got a long drive ahead of him. Hmph. Heavy eyelids and light pockets, I suppose.”

Vinc, with nary a gesture, nary a word, bought into the next hand; placed his chips in a tidy pile. “All the same, we can enjoy some rounds. Must admit your envoy was quite the character.”

Nervous hands dealt cards deftly, and Brace picked back up. “Spooked your ghouls, did he?”

“Timothy has learned well to roll with the punches. Doesn’t mean he’s looking to get punched.” Vince paused to consider himself for a moment. “Am I supposed to take something so explicit as a test?”

“Nothing so uncouth. Besides, someone your age?—you’ve been tested aplenty.”

With the air broken some, Vince slacked in the shoulders. “I consider working with violent men a matter of course, but I had been led to believe that we deal more in implicits here.”

“Vegas is a different city than you’re used to. We can talk freely for the same reason someone like her—” he gave a nod to Afaaf—“is strictly off-limits. Caligula’s is Cassandra turf, and Dearborn vets his people closely.”

Vince nodded, those shaded glasses dipping some on his nose. “Suppose so. Then with that, I will be explicit with you. I am looking for protection, and my sire is displeased with my recent decision.”

Brace seemed unbothered by the assertion, smiling somberly when Vince lost out on the hand. “I’m sorry to hear that. But it’s funny you mention it, actually.”

“Oh? I’m not the only one making questionable decisions of late?”

“Does the name ‘Dandy’ Johnny Shea mean anything to you?”

Vince placed his next bet. “An old name, that. Heard about him secondhand some time ago. Has a ghost reappeared?”

“Another apostate hopeful. But unlike you, he has regrettably chosen to curry favor with another party. The wrong party.”

“That so? May I ask which?”

“You may. Not that it isn’t obvious.” He won again, raking in the cash nonchalantly. The moving of hundreds of dollars was inconsequential, deft hands moving cards as if he didn’t have seven, eight rocks on his fingers.

“Those roughneck types—the likes of whom paid your dear old Timothy a visit—dealing with them affords me a certain number of inroads. I’m not ash-on-sight at their Rants, for instance. That’s how I have it that the venerable Mr. Shea is trying to make a deal of his own. Protection—just enough Status that old grudges can’t catch up to him—in exchange for information."

Vince bobbed his head, thinking he had put two and two together. “And so you want me to try and sway a fellow errant brother?” he offered. “I have no entanglements with them, but I doubt they’d take too kindly to me.”

“I doubt there’s any convincing him.” A beat. “Best we can hope for is to make sure Baron Childers cannot benefit from what he knows. About us, sure—but also rituals. Local cults. Menhirs and altars. Any source of hard power she could use against us—against you, now that you’ve cast your lot.”

“I can take him out, though I must admit it's not my usual practice. Don’t suppose you have any hatchetmen lying around?”

A hand raised in calm. “All he has to do is not talk. Doesn’t matter to me what because he won’t or because he can’t.”

“Appreciate the leeway,” Vince said, ”though I doubt someone like that has much left material to work with.” A smile. “Consider it done regardless.”

A slim, approving smile shifted across Brace’s lips. “You’ll learn soon enough, ‘Stefanos,’ that I take care of the people who make my nights easier instead of harder. You do this for me, the Prince will be hearing some very good things at our next brouhaha. So what do you think? You still want those phone numbers?”

“Yes, that would be good. I have made nights easier for far less pleasant company.” A raise of his glass. “To easier nights, then.”

The Primogen drew a business card from the Napoleon of his velvet jacket. It read simply: Henry Karnes, Managing Director, Crusoe’s Casino & Hotel.

On the back he scrawled a name, and a ten-digit that he knew by heart. He cut into the card with his pen knife, twirled it, balanced it on the lip of Vince’s glass beside the lemon twist, their tips almost kissing. He raised his whiskey, the ice cubes long melted, the fine spirit lukewarm and untouched.</sup>

Paradise Lost

Virginia Sokolova and Mark Lopez

Mark sat hunched over a console deep in the guts of engineering, diagnostic lines crawling across the screen while the steady hum of the ship grew just a little stronger with every cycle. His biomech fingers tapped absently at the edge of the panel while the other hand keyed through readouts, making sure nothing was ready to cook itself the second they put power into the drives.

“Portside grid’s holding steady… coolant feeds are cycling…” he muttered more to himself than to anyone else.

He leaned back in the chair, rubbed the back of his neck, then glanced over at the redhead across the bay. For a long moment he thought about just staying quiet, burying himself back into the work but instead, he cleared his throat.

“So… you got any family among the refugees?” He realized immediately how that probably sounded. He shifted in his seat, trying to soften it.

“Sorry. Don’t mean to drag up bad shit. Just… figured we might as well talk about something while we’re down here, running circles with the diagnostics.”

Ginny, for her part, was torquing down a flange not far away, a methodical series of powerful whines from the impact driver coming from not far away. It gave her a zen-like focus which would be broken with Mark's Words.

"No, its fine, I didn't have anyone planetside." she said it casually with a slight longing in her tone. The redhead paused, as if she were confused by her own words. "My family are a few thousand light years from here. Your folks make it out?"

Mark let a silence sit, eyes on the scrolling diagnostics before he finally muttered, “Doubt it. They were still back on Shinar when it all went to hell. Farms don’t get priority evac. Odds are… they didn’t make it.”

He shifted in his chair, forcing a shrug, “Can’t dwell on it. Not when we’ve got a few hundred souls counting on this over designed heap of metal to run when we hit the switch.”

"I can appreciate overdesigned, beats the hell out of most ships I've been on." she drives a couple more bolts into full engagement "When it comes to last chances, this is about as good as it gets." she seems comfortable enough with brushing past the harder subject left to hang in the air.

"I just hope that people aren't too against getting frozen away. We don't have the food for everyone to be awake the whole time." She says, the lilt in her voice conveying her conflictedness on the matter.

Mark leaned back, letting the console hum as he considered her words. “Yeah… it’s a hell of a change. Never thought I’d be crawling around in something this new. I’m used to servicing tubs two generations out of date, keeping them stitched together with tape and prayers. This thing? Feels more like I should take my boots off before touching it.”

He smirked faintly, but the expression didn’t linger, "Those pods are the last resort for me. No way I’m climbing into one of those coffins unless I’ve got no other option. You close your eyes and wake up God knows how long later? No thanks. For all I know, I’d pop out just in time to see one of those big-ass Ragons trying to chew me in half.”

He gave a dry chuckle and shook his head. “Nah. I’ll take my chances awake. At least that way I can keep a gun in my hand.”

"Not gonna be a choice for most, count your blessings there." she has some somberness in her tone, looking down toward the console to distract herself from that thought. "You do much shipboard work? Not really sure how much Eden folks went into space."

Mark scratched at the stubble on his chin, eyes still on the console, “Yeah, I’ve had my fair share of ship work. Mostly patch jobs after pirate raids or some poor bastard clipping a meteor field. Shinar never had the newest toys, so keeping the old ones alive was half the job.”

A faint grin tugged at his mouth, “One time, we were deinstalling a thruster assembly, and the damn thing fired. Whole workshop turned into a fucking tornado. Tools flying everywhere, alarms screaming. One of my squadmates caught the thing square in the head... barely flinched. Just stood there like he was made of steel until the power finally cut. Funniest damn thing I ever saw.”

He chuckled at the memory, the sound short-lived as it trailed into something quieter. His gaze drifted for a moment, “He’s probably gone now. Most of them are.”

Mark let out a slow breath, pushing a few buttons on the diagnostics screen like the work might steady him. “Still… guess I’m lucky enough to be here making this thing run. Could’ve been a lot worse.”

Ginny stays silent as the man reflects, it felt more appropriate to give some space for the man who had lost everything he had ever known. So she took her time to rush over to her console, marking the procedure complete before digging through her pack. "Suppose there's a good chance for new beginnings." she offers only slightly above the din of the engine room

Mark noticed the quiet stretch between them, her eyes down on the console, and it clicked that maybe he’d gone too far down memory lane. He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck as if to brush the weight off.

“Anyway,” he said, forcing a lighter note into his voice, “once we’ve got this beast running, we’re gonna need something to keep people from going stir crazy. Maybe set up a tabletop game in the mess. Hell, even a ping pong table if we can scrounge the space, that is unless there's already something set up.”

He let himself grin faintly at the thought, “Back on Shinar we had this old mini-soccer table in the rec shed. Thing was beat to hell, supposedly came all the way from Earth before we even had FTL. Still worked though, kept us sane and entertained.”

Mark shook his head, “Figure anything’s better than staring at bulkheads waiting for the next jump. Don't ya think?”

The tech gives an approving nod at that "Mini-soccer table?" she asked almost rhetorically, trying to imagine it and seeming to get the gist "I'm sure there'll be plenty in the cargo hold to break out. Got some cards myself. You guys still use 52 and 2 right?" she's almost teasing... but she has seen some interesting divergences.

"Even with everything fresh and clean, plenty to keep track of on a watch. Seeing as there's two of us, that's twelve a piece." She feigned excitement at the prospect.

"Cards’ll do the trick. Yeah, we still play with 52 and 2. Can’t say I’m much good at it, but it’s about the best way to kill time when you’re stuck somewhere you can’t walk away from.” Mark said with a smile.

He keyed through another set of diagnostics, watching a line of green bars crawl across the screen. “And you’re right, with just the two of us keeping this tub humming, twelve-hour watches are gonna chew us up quick. We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

He tapped his biomech fingers against the console, thinking aloud. “Still, we can get smart with it. Rotate checks so neither of us is babysitting the same system all shift. Maybe rig a couple of auto-pings to alert us before something cooks instead of chasing every little light. Buy ourselves some breathing room.”

He gave her a quick look across the bay, smirk lingering. “There's also something I've been working on which may help, if the ship has a workbench and enough materials I may be able to cobble it together and will save us a lot of time..."

“I'll need to get you up to speed then. Ever play Durak? We'll need some extra players." she'd offer with an impish grin. Clearly she was a shark among these stars. She'd finish writing up a list of material to test, her eyes narrowing at the growing number of things that still needed to be evaluated.

"Plenty of ways to skimp on duties as needed, and she should be running well. Material history seems pretty light so I'm sure problem pieces will be very clear very quick." She rolls her head some and turns to look at him, the man's expression and tone causing a raise of half a lip "Oh? Going to lash down some controls?”

Mark let out a short laugh at her jab, but it trailed off into silence as he scratched at the back of his neck. He hesitated, weighing whether to even say it out loud.

“Well… not exactly lashin’ down controls,” he said at last, “I had this idea, back on Eden. Off-duty, I’d fill up notebooks with schematics... half-baked, really. A sort of helper machine. Nothing smart, nothing that’d get me run out of the colony for even whispering the wrong letters. Just… an extra set of hands.”

He shifted his weight, “Picture a little drone, something that could pass a wrench, carry supplies, maybe even keep the crops tended while the real folk got on with their day. Pre-scripted routines, dead simple logic trees, no more independent thought than a coffee maker. I never built it, never had the resources. But I carried the notes everywhere. Guess I couldn’t let the idea go.”

Ginny's eyes betray her, those green-brown orbs being narrowed for a quick moment, their focus dipping down for a moment to his actuated arm. Even so, they reopen and she shrugs "If you think you can throw something like that together on your own, I don't see why not, might be a pain in the ass to get running with preformed boards." She offers affirmingly, her skepticism more implicit.

She'd look over to her duffel for a moment, and sighs, slipping an arm down to schlep it onto her back. "Got my list to get things moving, should only be an hour and a little extra."

Mark caught the look toward his arm but let it slide, he gave a small nod. “Fair enough. Might be a pain, but I’ll see what I can jury-rig once we’re stable.” He pushed back from the console, “I’ll stay here and check on the secondary systems then, don't get lost out there, it's a big ship..."

Mage The Ascension: Illusion and Reality in the City of Sin

Nathaniel Durand

---

The knight would raise an eyebrow when Ezekiel spoke to the provenance of the chips, apparently there was something even greater afoot. Whether it be provenance or a greater plot by powers not that high, he was here now, and the quest before him was quickly becoming clearer still. “Sometimes it takes a little more than spells to find someone when you need to.” He says, his expression betraying a slight unease with the more mundane and lower ways of hunting someone down.

That brow would lower quickly as he saw the figures on the CCTV. “Seems the pure intentions have ran out, Ezekiel.” He says flatly, taking a few steps towards the junk pile. He reaches down towards his hip, drawing a combat knife from a concealed holster under his jacket as he faces away from the crew.

He grasps the blade firmly with his left hand, crimson life dribbling down the blade and soaking into his jacket. His voice is little above a murmur, unlikely to be heard unless anyone was listening closely. “I do not fear, for you are with me. I will not be dismayed, for you are my God. You strengthen me, you protect me, and you hold me in your righteous hands.” He takes a couple breaths, and even at a glance he was more physically robust, like he gained a couple inches and about twenty pounds of muscle on his lean body.

He turns back to his fellows, reaching into his pocket to draw his machine pistol, a similarly brutish, bulky thing with a flipped up electronic sight “Who can hold their own here? Need to make the call if we’re fighting them off or trying to get out of here.”

Mage The Ascension: Illusion and Reality in the City of Sin

Nathaniel Durand

---

When Ezekiel emerges, Nate gives pause, watching him with a skepticism on his eyes, the claims of miracle workers were often overblown, but one stuck with the Templar sourly. “How are you sure everyone who can see it has good intentions?” he has a genuineness in his tone, not dismissive of the idea, but never fully confident in mechanisms of the awakened scientists. He was unsurprised by the final arrival, but he was nervous about the amount of heat that this little gathering was liable to attract.

“What sort of work do you have in mind?” He asked, beginning to follow him only for Jalen’s words to immediately draw his attention. He looked over the man closely, those eyes carrying a golden glint as they rest on that crucifix at his side. “Haven’t been looking for her, but I’d be glad to help you with that. Wouldn’t be the first missing person.” He said with a slight somberness that indicated those didn’t always end well. A reassuring smile was all he could offer as he entered the van behind the technomancer.

Paradise Lost

The arrival of another member of EDF gave Ginny pause for a long moment, trying to clock the demeanor of the kiellar marine. When she started being buddy buddy with her fellow, the tension flowed from her shoulders. She gave the older elf a firm nod, those eyes sharp as she recognizes the executive approach. She wasn’t going to be able to lead these people properly, even if she could nudge them in the right direction. The words of the ‘officer’ betrayed herself, but the ranger didn’t speak on it.

Her duffelbag kept feeling heavier and heavier on her back in the growing heat, a weight that was not eased when she rose from the bar, first addressing Velia “We need get the word out to people here to get things together, nobody's getting left behind if we can help it, and the more stuff they can get together, the better." she says with a solemnity. This wasn't the first time she had to leave people behind. "And someone go check on the damned atmospherics and the station reactor if you can, before we all fry in here.” She says sharply, wiping the bottle across her forehead before placing it in a webbed holster on her utility belt. “Sync on the station open channel, give regular updates.”

“I’ll make my way to the ship and make sure things are ready to rock.” She’d nod to the engineer “Care to join me?” she offers, scooping up her bottle in her left hand and regarding the rest of the rapidly mobilizing assembly.

Paradise Lost

Ginny gave Ren a quick look up and down with a furrowed brow, station 6 meant nothing to her, but the way the Kiellar spoke implied things she would leave unquestioned for the time being. Despite this, she'd regard Velia with a growing grin "Well, think we've got a pilot now." her eyes flitting to John with as much interest as Velia. When the fish-woman arrived and identified the CSF-certified pilot affirmatively in front of everyone, the Texarkanan would scoff in amusement, clearly laying low was going to work out in her favor anyways. She'd nod in affirmation, despite not being the officer Fihlyn was looking for.

"I've got enough technical chops to do whatever wrench monkey work they'd need in machine spaces." she'd offer casually. "Hydroponics, Engineering, co-pilot." she'd nod down the line to the growing throng of eager would-be crew. "Sounds to me, pep talks aside, we got the right people in the right place with the right ship." she downs the remainder of her glass with gusto, confidence on her lips and courage burning down her throat. "I say we load up that ship with everything not nailed down and try to find solid ground before this station toasts us all alive." She holds up her empty glass in a toast before resting it back on the bar.

Paradise Lost

“Ren” She said as an introduction, falling almost into a seat with relief that her aching feet she had been on for hours now without rest had a short break before they had to try and make it to the last ships off planet.

@PrinceAlexus

"Ginny" she offered, raising a glass in recognition before holding the cool drink to her forehead for a moment. She wasn't sweating hard, but beads were blending with condensate before she withdrew the drink and took a long draw.

"One or two," the woman replied, taking a sip from her whiskey, and giving Ginny a thoughtful look, "I mean, if I were the station chief, which I am not, I'd be looking at getting everyone onto that colony ship then setting out to find a new home... can't go to the original location, the primitives have proper guns and we don't have an army to slap them down anymore. I understand they have some crew shortages though," she shrugged as if to say she didn't really know what she was talking about.

@Dyelli Beybi

The redhead gives a quick hum in interest, letting the firewater flow through her. "Plenty of people not wanting to die, I'm sure if they're needing extra hands, they have them. Might need to barge into the office and get my ticket out of here." She says with an earnestness. She regards the man who joins them curiously, the accusation of a pilot being plenty to get her attention on John. "Well, worst comes to worst we can try mobbing the ship, right?" she offers idly.