Jetsam on the Tides of Fortune

[Ezeze]

(ooc: We want to get this boat off the ground?)

[Tyrael]

Spoiler

Show

I'd love to! I'm ready anytime, just waiting for something significant to happen. What's our lovely GM say?

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Though the ship's expendable supplies are woefully humble, Folly is no place to go shopping. With everyone settled in to their new dormitories and the ship fueled, the ground crew gives an "uppercut" signal to the bridge, signifying that they are clear to depart the pad and please make room for another customer. Each passenger/crewmember straps in and the Jetsam leaps into the black, small smiles of satisfaction of the pilot and engineer's faces as everything operates properly.

The first stop is three full days' travel across some very desolate space, but fortunately it's a bit more civilized. Saint Ive's is another small planet, and much of it is frozen tundra, but the equatorial region took well to the terraforming and actually attracts a few adventure tourists, thanks to its dense forests, wild rivers, and impossible ski slopes. A few of the mining towns there are of good size and some folks have even managed to become wealthy. You can find jobs and cargo on Saint Ive's, and fly to many other places... but first you have to get there.

Once the last navigational corrections are made, folks either relax or wander about the ship till they get hungry. Time to make friends, or it's gonna be a long three days.

[Tyrael]

Cole Nydus

The merry chop-chop of cutting knives rings through the ship's galley as Cole and the Good Doctor work together to prepare that night's dinner. "...So then the guy grabs the waitress and says, 'Let's see you try that with a pineapple!' Which is totally uncalled for, I mean, how would that even fit, you know? Besides the obvious. So of course, I haul off on him, one thing leads to another, you know how it goes."

The scarred man smiles a bit at the memory. "Anyway. So what we gotta do here is chop the onions nice and fine, almost mincing them, you know? Throw in some butter, let those saute for a few minutes. Anyway, while I do that, you see what you can do about those hamburger patties."

He gets to work on the onions, his good eye screwed up tight against the fumes as he explains, "My mom did a lot of cooking with me as a kid, you see."

[Bonecrusher Doc]

A thud echoes along the ductwork that runs above the galley where Cole is cutting onions, but the exhaust fan doesn't skip a beat and there are no further noises.

[Ezeze]

Alegra wanders the ship, bored out of her mind. Without really paying attention she finds herself in the cockpit, and slips into a seat next to Jacob. She smiles at him pleasantly. "Hi."

[Forgotten T.S.]

Jacob lounges back in the pilots seat in the cockpit, a pillow resting behind his head as he surfs through the various cortex channels listening in on scrambled waves, and different broadcasted shows. In fact... Jacob could always be found in the cockpit unless he was getting food or using the restroom. All of his personal effects had been setup there, and he seemed to have made the place his bunking area, not having liked the space between the regular bunks and the cockpit. He has a blanket folded over an armrest, and several pictures put up. Some of him in the Alliance Military, some of him standing next to a large shipment of medical supplies and giving a big thumbs up, and one of him even burning his old uniform as he played a ukulele. He's even got some action figures setup, and a teddy bear stowed ontop of the comm-station.

A large box of clove-cig's, and an ash-tray sit right infront of the console he's at, and he's currently puffing away when Alegra walks in. He smiles, and hits a small button, and Alegra can hear a small hiss as a breeze comes through the room pulling all of the smoke out, as well as the smell of vanilla and firewood.

"'ello there miss. Not often I get the pleasure of company when I'm driving." He smiled wide as he spun his chair around to face her properly, "Don't think we've been introduced. I'm Jacob Bitts, otherwise known as 'Fire it Up' Bitts. What brings me the pleasure of your company, Ms....?"

[Ezeze]

"Miss Rios, if you want to be formal." She crosses her legs and rests her hand on her knee. "Alegra, if you don't. Personally, I'd prefer the latter." She looks out across the blackness in front of them, dotted by the occasional star. "The view must get boring up here, all alone..."

[Forgotten T.S.]

He gave a large smile and leaned back, "It's great... there's something about all of this that just... quiets the mind. Besides... have you ever seen a star from only a gigametre away? It's absolutely beautiful..."

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Spoiler

Show

Sorry to hear things aren't going well Lev. Hope they get better.
Sean is now an NPC...

At about the same time, various persons aboard the ship realize that they haven't seen Sean for quite some time - more than two 8-hour shifts. The doors to the bunks are always closed, but no-one knows if he's actually in there or not.

[Ezeze]

She shrugs. "I think it's a waste. I mean, here we are, traveling at speeds measured by comparing them to the speed of light, and it feels like we're crawling at a snails pace. Going sixty on a bike, when you're barely above the ground, feels so much faster."

[Forgotten T.S.]

Jacob shrugs, "True... you can't feel the wind til you are in atmo... that's when flying ships get to be fun. I trained to be a fighter pilot..." he turned a little and pointed to a picture of himself in military fatigues hoping out of a flight simulator, "Nothing beats the adrenaline... the fast paced explosion."

He cocked a smile as he looked back to her, "If you don't care for all of this... what brings you up here?"

[UserClone]

Captain Williams does his rounds, this time including a particular eye out for Jacob. As he gets to the galley, he finds Cole chopping onions.

"Mister Nydus, I hope you're finding 'er to your liking?"

[Tyrael]

Cole Nydus

Cole's good eye snaps up from his work, and he lays aside the knife long enough to tip his hat respectfully.

"Yessir. Got no complaints. Doctor's helping me make onion burgers for supper tonight."

[UserClone]

"Real onions? How the hell did you get those out here? Resourceful, Mr. Nydus. I like that." Maxx flashes his signature smile, at the same time approving and authoritative, while still being disarming. "By the way, have you seen Mister...say, what is his last name anyway? Sean, that is."

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Alegra gets up to go the head, and on the way there something catches her eye. Protruding from underneath one of the catwalks is a boot, and as she leans over to see better, she realizes it's Sean lying there, eyes wide open, pale as a ghost, and his neck at a bizarre angle. He does not appear to be breathing.

[Connington]

Everett sat on his bunk, thinking things over. They had made their first interplanetary voyage on this ship, and arrived in one piece. They had passengers, but no cargo. And this was the planet to fix that. Their had been trouble with the Alliance, but it looked clear, for the moment. More pressing was Sean's disappearance. There weren't too many places to hide on a ship. He had a bad feeling about that.

[UserClone]

Everett's reverie is interrupted by Maxx's knocking on the door. Everett allows him in, and the Captain enters, closing the door behind him.

"Everything seems to be smooth sailing, except one thing: I can't seem to find this Sean guy.

"I mean, I know he paid his way, and in advance to boot, but I still don't like the idea of his snoopin' around our boat, know what I mean?"

[Tyrael]

"Real onions? How the hell did you get those out here? Resourceful, Mr. Nydus. I like that." Maxx flashes his signature smile, at the same time approving and authoritative, while still being disarming. "By the way, have you seen Mister...say, what is his last name anyway? Sean, that is."

Cole Nydus

Cole smiles at the compliment, but shakes his head in response. "Nope, haven't seen 'im. I'll tell him you're looking if I do, though."

[Ezeze]

A woman's scream can be heard through the ship.

[Forgotten T.S.]

Jacob blinks in immediate surprise as he spins in his chair, the disruption knocking the teddy-bear off the comm-station as he looks around. In the same action his hand moves over and he taps on the bridge-control, bringing up the security grid for the ship, along with the cameras. Spinning back around he starts going through the cameras looking for anything out of place as he slams a fist on the comm-release to send out a message across all open comm-stations on the ship, "This is your pilot speaking... I'm hearing a whole lot of hollerin'. Running through camera's now, but if anyone would like to save me time and just... you know, tell me what is going on... that would be nice, you know?" With that the comm-squeaked off.

[Ezeze]

With a few seconds to calm down, Alegra speaks more clearly. "I... I found Sean..."

[UserClone]

"That was a woman's scream, Bitts! Where's Allegra?!" shouts the Captain in no particular direction, knowing that ship's surveillance will pick it up and that Fire-It-Up can pass along the info via the PA.

[Bonecrusher Doc]

Bitts sees Allegra on the screen, and recognizes her location as the catwalk near the dorms.

[Tyrael]

Cole jerks in alarm, whipping the onions off the stove and on to a cooling surface, and then takes off at a sprint, careening through the ship up to the cockpit, where he bursts through the hatchway.

"What happened?" He demands.

[Forgotten T.S.]

Jacob stares at the vid-screen for a hard moment as he hits the comm-PA again, "Attention, all hands. We have a... dead guy, on the catwalk above passenger dorms. I repeat... a dead guy. That is all." He turned off the PA and opened up a channel to the comm-station the Captain was using, "Get that cap?"

Jacob looks to the guy comes barrelling into his room... well, he supposed it was still the bridge no matter how roomy he made it, "Dead guy. Dorms. Go."

With that, Jacob turns back around to his station, and begins to all out scan as far as the ship-sensors would allow, making sure there were no vessels anywhere near. He should been alerted the moment another ship came within a megametre, but... some ships were smaller and harder to detect then the passive scans performed. As well, he scanned any signals coming out of the ship, making sure not alliance alerts were going out, or anything else. His paranoid side was lit up.

Speaking of which... he reached up and grabbed a clove.

[UserClone]

"Loud and clear, Bitts," calls Williams.

Arriving at the grisly scene, Maxx comments, "Yeah, that's him."

Bending down to investigate, he closely scrutinizes the body, trying to figure out if anything was stolen, how long he's been dead, and what exactly killed him.

[Ezeze]

"I'm sorry I screamed. He just... Caught me by surprise."

[Tyrael]

Cole dashes out of the cockpit and sprints towards the dorms as fast as he can. Once he arrives, he looks around and down at the corpse. "Dead? What happened?"

[UserClone]

"Your guess is as good as mine. You wanna go get the doc for me, soldier?"