Chapter 2 - Ruins of better days

The feral misses half a step in surprise. He yelps and his leg almost immediately seems to react more sluggish. He and his partner disappear in the entrance, but he sways visibly.
Taelor shoulders the rifle and starts for the entrance to follow the 'prey'. Carefully she looks into the darkness of the ruin. Her target sits in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall, the other crouches in front of him and looks over its shoulder when Taelors silhouette appears in the door frame. It turns around slowly with a grim face, ready to pounce.

A little startled by the shot, Graham jumps involuntarily, jolted out of his thoughts. He catches the movement out of the corner of his eye, and hears Taelor's satisfied remark. He turns his head towards her, smiles and nods.

"Nice shot! Was this one alone, or were there others close by?"

He unslings his backpack quickly, and takes a knee. After a few moments of rummaging, Graham sets aside a set of manacles, and a hood. He unclips the holster for his semi-auto, and secures the weapon in the backpack.  "Too much crap, I've got to re-think this..." he mutters.

He stands up, secures the backpack, tucks the hood and manacles into his belt, and unholsters his stun baton.

"Shit, she's quick.." he mumbles, then runs to catch up with Taelor.

Taelor is startled by what she sees. The conscious feral looks like it was concerned for its comrade and is now protecting them. If they were purely animalistic, wouldn't they leave an injured fellow to save themselves? Could they be more conscious than they'd been given credit for or is she reading too much into this? She stares at their gaunt, grimy forms. Either way, they needed their help. They hadn't chosen this way to live.

Careful to avoid any sudden movements, she starts to reload the tranq rifle. "We're not trying to hurt you. We want to help you, cure you," she says, trying to sound soothing. "Please, let us help you."

Elan is silently impressed with the shot. He knows enough about shooting to appreciate the skill involved in tagging a target without using burst fire. No spray-and-pray for Taelor, he thinks admiringly, blissfully unaware of what she did to Cerebrus' UPS.

Graham has the stun baton - and the muscle mass - so Elan lets Taelor and Graham pursue the ferals, reasoning that the duo can subdue the targets more gently than he can. I can bonk them in the brainbox, but there's a fine line between a concussion and brain damage, he thinks to himself. And, under the circumstances, brain damage seems counterproductive to our intended experiment.

Elan watches their backs quietly, making sure no ferals flank them or come to the aid of the others.

Speaking calm, gentle words to the feral Taelor loads another dart into the gun, lifts the rifle to her shoulder and aims. She continues to try to sooth the feral and is about to shoot, when the feral makes a croaking scream and jumps toward Taelor, hands forward. Startled, Taelor pulls the trigger and pivots around the doorframe ending with her back on the outside wall of the building. In the same moment the feral leaps out through the door where Taelor just stood almost into the arms of the startled Graham. He yanks up the stun baton last second and shocks the attacking feral. Shaking it falls to the ground unable to move, making rasping croaking sounds. Then eventually the shakes grow slower and the feral visibly relaxes as it slides into unconsciousness. Taelors shot hit.

Taelor chuckles nervously. "Two for one?"

Seeing that Graham only has one set of manacles, she grabs the field radio. "Taelor to Jasper. Could you grab the other set of manacles and the hood from the gear and come meet us? We're less then 1k away from the spaceport if you head towards the biggest tower. Over."

"Sure thing. I'll be there soon. Over and out."

Taelor and Graham secure one of the two ferals. Jasper shows up a few minutes later and helps secure the other.

Between the five of them, the group finds that carrying two malnourished people is manageable. They have to take a few breaks along the way, but soon, the blocky shape of the spaceport comes into view. They traverse the ruined building, before emerging on the landing pad where the Tsunami waits for them.

Taelor grins widely at the sight of the shuttle, relief flooding into the deepest recesses of her being.

The group makes their way aboard and secure their "guests" in the infirmary, with Statton and Senn looking after them.

"Dibs on the first shower!" Taelor exclaims, rushing to the communal bathroom before anyone has the chance to object.

=========================

The crew takes a couple of hours to rest and get cleaned up. Taelor changes into fresh clothing: loose cargo pants, a tank top, and her second favorite (now promoted to favorite, since Satton butchered the previous) jacket. Jasper and Senn offer some of theirs to Graham and Elan.

The crew reconvenes in the mess, feeling refreshed and in higher spirits.

"So, now what? Drop off the two growlers and come back or loot what we can before heading back? I'm not sure I like having them aboard, but if the docs can keep them sedated..." Taelor shrugs.

The cramped little ship is like a luxury cruiser to the exhausted Graham. He smiles and jokes with the crew, pats them on the back, literally and figuratively, always aware of how close they'd come to losing some of the crew.

He feels grimy, the sweat mixed with the remnants of ancient dust from the night before, and looks forward to a proper sleep in his own apartment.

He thinks for a moment about Taelor's question. "If it's all the same to you, I'd love to get these kids off the ship as soon as possible. They're probably not very serious about holding their bladders. Does anybody have a mop?", he asks with a grin.

Taelor chuckles. "Sounds like a job for Elan. He can lean against it when his leg gets tired." She grins at their resident rogue.

"Dropping off the Zees sounds good. Statton and Sonia can start on their testing, and the rest of us can go start the salvage operation. If we get paid before coming back, we can hire some of the scavengers to help us. A few extra pairs of hands would speed things up. If we find a one-armed guy, we'll be back to an even number," she says, tilting her head towards her bandaged arm.

moarhair wrote:

Taelor chuckles. "Sounds like a job for Elan. He can lean against it when his leg gets tired." She grins at their resident rogue.

"Dropping off the Zees sounds good. Statton and Sonia can start on their testing, and the rest of us can go start the salvage operation. If we get paid before coming back, we can hire some of the scavengers to help us. A few extra pairs of hands would speed things up. If we find a one-armed guy, we'll be back to an even number," she says, tilting her head towards her bandaged arm.

Graham chuckles at the joke, and finds himself getting comfortable, finally. It's a nice change of pace, to just think about logistics without sudden robotic death rolling around the next corner.

"What do you think -- would it be possible to just bypass the drone controller unit, attach an external battery to the motor, and use an on/off switch to roll the robotic bastards out of the government building? If it doesn't take heavy lifting on our part, we won't need to hire anybody else. Tsunami is already pretty crowded as it is, and these scavengers charge a premium."

Taelor can see Graham's mind switching into gear. He might be tired, but this seems to be the topic that energizes him.

Also, I don't want the scavengers to know what we've found, either. This is an area they haven't been able to reach, and it's better not to give them a reason to go there. This is a good time to pull the drives from Cerebrus, too. If they're heavy, we can strap them to a drone. We don't want scavengers touching Cerebrus' innards, that's for sure."

Mentally, Graham starts fitting all the pieces together. People he'll have to hire. Officials he'll need to convince. Smart people he'll have to out-smart. Scumbags he'll need to out-scum.

Elan is quiet on the ship. In fact, he's been a bit quiet since being shot. Maybe reflecting on the experience. Maybe going back to his old habits of self-sufficiency.

On the ship, he's not sure why Taelor gets to shower first. She wasn't the one crawling through 100-year-old grime, he thinks. But, on the same hand, she got shot and had a pretty bitchin' story to tell, so he's not going to try argue. In fact, he mostly just wants to sit down.

Actually, he'd love to lay down, but he's far too dirty for that. So he sits in the galley, happy to have the weight off his leg. He gets a cup noodles and adds hot water. He's colder than usual, perhaps due to blood loss, and the lack of hot food last night set a chill deep in his bones. He feels the heat soaking through the cup and warming his finger tips.

He eats the noodles, mostly keeping to himself. When he's done, he uses the chopsticks to drum a little pattern on the edge of the table. Laying low after scores has taught him all manner of curious skills and ways to pass time. He knows a few instruments, can sing a few songs, and might even be convinced to perform them at some point. Once, you know, the rest of the crew figures out what he knows how to do. Like, say, Statton and HIS GODDAMN TELEPORTATION THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN PRETTY USEFUL TO KNOW ABOUT. And so Elan resolves to share some of his talents, maybe show off some of his legerdemain, maybe even give a dramatic speech or two that he's memorized from plays. It helps pass the time, and in deep space that can be a very good thing.

Captain_Hoyt wrote:

"What do you think -- would it be possible to just bypass the drone controller unit, attach an external battery to the motor, and use an on/off switch to roll the robotic bastards out of the government building? If it doesn't take heavy lifting on our part, we won't need to hire anybody else. Tsunami is already pretty crowded as it is, and these scavengers charge a premium."

Also, I don't want the scavengers to know what we've found, either. This is an area they haven't been able to reach, and it's better not to give them a reason to go there. This is a good time to pull the drives from Cerebrus, too. If they're heavy, we can strap them to a drone. We don't want scavengers touching Cerebrus' innards, that's for sure."

Taelor thinks about tinkering with the drones. She frowns, moves her head from side to side as she works through the different options and challenges. After a few seconds of this, she turns back to Graham. "Getting them to just move forward wouldn't be hard. If we want to be able to remote control them, it'd be a lot more work." She shrugs. "I guess we could just turn them off, re-orient them, then turn them back on when we get to a turn." She winces, thinking about moving those drones by hand with her injured arm.

"If we don't want to be at this for weeks, it would be worth partnering with a crew of scavengers. Crab seemed like a decent guy. I'm sure you can negotiate a fair agreement."

moarhair wrote:

"Getting them to just move forward wouldn't be hard. If we want to be able to remote control them, it'd be a lot more work." She shrugs. "I guess we could just turn them off, re-orient them, then turn them back on when we get to a turn."
"If we don't want to be at this for weeks, it would be worth partnering with a crew of scavengers. Crab seemed like a decent guy. I'm sure you can negotiate a fair agreement."

Graham shakes his head.
"We could spend a hundred credits for the privilege of losing twenty thousand. Crab's business is literally to go into the ruins and take things of value. This is just handing him the key to the city. "Hey Crab, here's the goldmine, but don't take anything, ok?"" He smiles slightly, and gives his mustache a twist

He nods towards Taelor's arm. "If you're worried about that, you don't need to wrestle with the drones. I'll do that all day, every day for a week, if it will keep the Scavs out of the starport and government areas. We get the best return if we're the first and only for a while, and we have to set up legal cover to discourage any others from getting in. We could go in, and discover that Crab has pulled the CPU from Cerebrus just because he could sell it for a measly 50 credits."

Graham slowly shakes his head a little more, "No, we need to lay some groundwork with officials, lawyers, banks, that kind of crap. In the meantime, we should be the only ones in or out. Otherwise, we're just throwing a lot of money in the toilet. Once the secrets are gone, they're gone for good."

Taelor purses her lips and squints, not sure if graham is just being careful or downright paranoid. After the considering the matter for a bit, she concludes that even if she thinks he's exaggerating the risk, he has been on Astyoc for much longer than she has and is more familiar with the locals. Reluctantly, Taelor has to admit to herself that she has found herself in sticky situations before due to her trusting nature, and that a quick draw might not always pull her out of them in the future.

She nods in agreement. "Alright, let's try it your way."