[mercenarymartell]

So who missed me?

Don’t all just jump at me at once. Give me some room here.

[sterling-iwan]

Did ye take a radiation shower yet?

[aria-parish]

Space Oddity (Ground Control) || Aria & Sterling

[aria-parish]

Aria nodded at Sterling’s commentary, matching up what he was saying with the specifications outlined in front of her, gnawing her lip with worry over even the “minor damage" he’d brought up— but her breath hitched when he mentioned the damage to the classified laboratories. “Sssshhhhhit." She sat upright, and angled her body more dramatically towards the screen, her hands hovering over the keyboard before she caught herself— surprised to find she was more concerned about the access codes she’d been going to enter falling back into Sterling’s lap than about getting herself in trouble again. Aria reached up to massage her temples. “Shit, shit, shit. Damage from the outside as in the damage was done to the outside, or as in there could be some fucking problems inside that you’re picking up on?"

She dropped her hands and turned to face Sterling, eyes wide and brows drawn together, and she reached out to grab the man’s wrist. "Listen." Aria stared at him for a moment, mouth open as if she was about to speak, but she released him instead, reaching up to grab at the back of her neck. “God— fuck! Alright. How do I do this?… Ahh— god. Dammit. You don’t need this shit to fall on you. Here, log out."

"I need you to trust me. I swear to you, I will explain— as much as I can— but I need you to trust me first." Aria hated herself for saying it, reminding herself of having jumped in blind in the VEC; and this would be the second time she’d have to exploit Sterling’s computers to try and do a good deed that would’ve been far less trouble to handle with far less bureaucratic policy in the way. “And I need you to not comment on anything you see on this screen until I… tap on this desk, okay?" Aria demonstrated, not waiting for Sterling’s answer before she turned to the corner she knew had the small monitoring camera mounted in it, the lens unobtrusive, but, she knew, recording everything. “And we can’t forget about you, you little sonuva—" She whipped back around, pulling off her hair tie and facing Sterling, still in his chair. "…I also need you to take off your shirt. And I’ll need a boost."

[sterling-iwan]

There was more to this than Aria was able to tell him, that was certain. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the stress of this entire situation, but Sterling had to stop himself from actually reaching out and shaking some answers out of her. Instead, his brows simply raised higher in disbelief as she continued talking, asking him to trust her. Trust her? He barely knew her. And from what he knew about she got her job, that didn't seem like the smartest thing to do. His eyes darted back to the screen, however, his curiosity more than a little piqued as he read signature outputs from both without and within the mystery room. You're gonna get yerself locked away, ye idiot, he thought to himself as he came to his decision. 

His arms stretched out, fingers brushing over the glass keyboard as he quickly logged out of everything and rebooted for good measure. It only took ten seconds, but he felt impatience gnawing at him. This was something extremely serious, and he wanted to get to the bottom of he. He needed to know that this ship was whole and sound because there was no way in hell that he'd be responsible for another explosion. When a simple log in screen was flashing across the board, he stood up, pulling his tucked in shirt out of his pants and up over his shoulders, tossing it gently onto his vacated seat. There wasn't anything for him to be shy about -- not when he'd been sharing a communal bathroom with the crew of the Vespasian for quite some time now. The only thing he was conscious of in that moment were the children's necklaces resting just beneath his collarbone and the thin white scar that spread across the bottom of his left ribs.

"Wha' now?" He asked roughly, his fingers curling and uncurling as he waited for further instructions from her. He hadn't missed her glance at the security camera, and he knew that whatever they were planning on doing was more than likely extremely illegal. But he'd deal with whatever consequences came afterwards as best he could. 

[aria-parish]

Space Oddity (Ground Control) || Aria & Sterling

[aria-parish]

"Yup. But it looks like you’ve been doing most of the heavy lifting by yourself. Save me anything good?" Aria took the seat he’d offered, letting it roll a few inches further back from the desk to face Sterling, to get a better look at him. She scrutinized his face, seeing how drawn and tired he appeared, hearing him muttering to himself before she’d entered, but knowing she couldn’t look much better. “How you holding up?"

Aria had been keeping tabs on the away teams as they came through medical, and all of their tox screenings has been clean of radiation, even Robin and Fish, who, by any measure, were doing miraculously well. Which meant Sterling hadn’t been exposed to anything from outside, either, but she knew enough from his own maintenance data how shielded— and how unshielded— both the ship’s nuclear-reactor fuel cells and its engines were internally and externally. It was checked and maintained constantly, and under normal operating conditions, that would’ve seemed like overkill, but an older nuclear FTL vessel exploding less than ten minutes’ rover drive away couldn’t be doing anybody on either side of the Vespasian’s soon-to-close hangar doors any favors. Particularly anybody who stuck around those fuel cells and engines for any extended length of time.

"My mom’s a physicist," she blurted out, glancing quickly towards the console in front of her. “I only know the basics, but— I can help, you know. And I do know a thing or two about taking things apart and putting them back together. I can do stuff. Beyond just… data entry and programming and filing. If you need." Aria angled the screen lower, to match her own eyeline rather than the taller engineer’s, but didn’t focus on its readouts immediately, preoccupied. (‘Please,’ she thought, ‘just give me something to do. Anything. I can help. Please let this work. Let me help.’ She narrowed her lips rather than say it, though, recalling her last conversation with Sterling before they’d worked together on the Bridge, him asking her if she was really ready for something as ambitious as the Vespasian’s mission— her chest felt tight thinking about it, because she genuinely still wasn’t sure. How much of this was normal? How much of it should feel normal? Was she too green— what was that costing them? Could she have saved somebody’s life if she’d worked harder, known more going in? Everybody else had things that gave them results, all Aria had was data, new equations to solve, questions that stayed unanswered, or opened doors to new questions.) “What are we looking at, here?"

[sterling-iwan]

At her question he gave a noncommittal shrug, not particularly concerned with how he was doing at the moment. They were another crew member down, several injured, and more still out in the field with radiation slowly seeping into anything within a two mile radius of the destroyed FTL engine. It didn't matter how he was doing. What mattered was getting everything prepared so they could get the hell off of this godforsaken planet. Do you believe in God? He shook the question away, pushing thoughts of the pale, lanky scientist from his mind. No, it didn't matter how he was doing. Not one bit.

At her sudden outburst, he glanced back over at her, a single brow rising. He didn't know much about her parents. Hell, he didn't know much about her period. But it made sense that they both came from good stock as far as intelligence went. Wasn't that how it worked? Maybe it was why people never pegged Sterling to be quite as smart as he really was. After all, his father had been nothing more than a rancher. And he didn't know a damn thing about his mother. All he had of her was a faded black and white photo of a woman cradling a newborn in her arms. But Aria seemed almost desperate to help in any way she could, and that much he could sympathize with. Wasn't that how they all felt in this hour? Idle hands led to idle thoughts, and when death seemed imminent that was the last thing anybody needed. 

"I wen' down t' th' FTL engine a while ago t' make sure nothin' was knocked loose an' t' verify th' readin's. Blast coulda knocked off some o' our systems, ya ken. Had t' triple check everythin', so tha's all done with. Nothin's out o' sorts, some minor damage but nothin' t'at's gonna leave us high an' dry. Righ' now 'm gaugin' th' damage t' any o' th' shields an' how it'll effect us once we're in orbit." His lips twisted in a dry smile as she adjusted the screen, leaning back in his chair slightly so he could see as well. He pointed a long finger at one of the charts, a line that should have been dead flat but had a few minor disturbances. "There's a lab, th' one no one's allowed in -- 'm gettin' signatures from th' outside o' minor damage, but I cannae do any repairs because 'm no' authorized. An' righ' now 'm wonderin' why th' bloody hell their shields are at a hun'red percen' capacity when th' engine room shoulda been th' one with most o' it."

[aria-parish]

Space Oddity (Ground Control) || Aria & Sterling

Aria knew she probably should’ve paged down to Engineering before swinging by with her full toolkit (well, nearly full— but what she’d left behind in the Systems Control room was still a bit touchy, and shouldn’t be necessary for this); but she hadn’t seen Sterling since they’d both been on the Bridge, and she didn’t know what to say to him without fixating on what they’d both seen happen, and it made Aria feel… stuck.

She’d done all she could for medical, for now, and she couldn’t afford to freeze up when there was work to do; Aria figured the best solution was to just go down and get the ship’s ducks in a row as best as she and Sterling could, or get some confirmation on a timeline for it that would hopefully give the mercenaries and Synthetics in the field a little bit more time than Marlow had projected initially. She didn’t envy the Director his position in having to make calls like that, and she did want to get the fuck off of LV-223; but until speaking to Dr. Bennett and to Athene himself, Aria had been hopeful that everybody would’ve made it back to the Vespasian at the pace that had seemed impossible even as Marlow had been saying it. It made her uneasy.

Keeping herself mentally and physically occupied would help; hopefully Sterling would actually be there. Her Weyland access codes got her into the engine rooms easily enough, but she still rapped her knuckles on the doorframe to the “office" space that housed the engineers’ servers, consoles, and constantly-updating monitoring equipment. “Hey, Fuel Cells. Anybody home?"

[sterling-iwan]

To say that Sterling was less than disturbed would be a flat out lie. It seemed as though they had all stumbled into some horrible chaotic nightmare, and his biggest fear right now was that they were trapped. When the explosion rocked the Prometheus, his first thought had been for the crew members that had been trapped inside. Namely Caitlin. When he saw that she was physically okay, his thoughts had begun to spin. Radiation poisoning blocked out most of his thoughts, and it wasn't until most of Beta had returned and been cleared that he started thinking about the damage that might have been done to the Vespasian. He'd left Caitlin, and had a brief discussion with the Director, explaining what had happened. It was the Director's cool, blunt words that snapped Sterling back into a more professional state of mind. He'd been careless. He should have seen this coming. But there was nothing he could do about it now except to make sure everything was prepared.

So he'd spent the past day in the engine rooms, calibrating, wiring, doing everything he could to make sure everything was in perfect condition. The blast seemed to have done minimal damage to their own engine, despite the shields having been nominally lowered to conserve energy. Now he sat at the desk, a fist balled at his mouth as he glared at the screens in front of him. Why the hell was the engine compartment only the second highest shielded room on board? It made absolutely no sense. It was FTL, nuclear. It should be top priority. "Engine, Bridge, Labs, Quarters," he rattled them all off under his breath in the order that areas should be shielded with priority, his brows furrowing further with confusion. One lab in particular was shielded at one hundred percent. At all times. He was broken away from his thoughts as he heard a rap on the door frame, glancing up to see who it was.

"Oi," was all he said in response, waving her inside and pulling one of the chairs next to him. He scratched at his forehead, wiping at the shadow around his jaw before reaching his arms over his head and popping his shoulders. "Here t' help me out?" He asked bluntly. Parish wasn't his favorite person on board, but he couldn't deny her capabilities. It was when she opened her mouth for too long that he had a problem. Particularly when it came to her trying to give him orders. 

[directormarlow]

As most of you know

[directormarlow]

Understood. Next time I would hope you would have picked up on this earlier. I’m working on retrieving Martell as soon as possible, but in the meantime I want you to concentrate on your work. You’ve been distracted of late.

[sterling-iwan]

I should've, an' it's my mistake, Director. One I won' make again. ...You're righ'. An' that'll change. If y' need me for anythin' else, you'll know where t' find me. Permission t' be dismissed.

[directormarlow]

As most of you know

[directormarlow]

Just spit it out already.

[sterling-iwan]

FTL engines aren' designed t' work within certain parameters o' a planet's orbit. Tha's why we didn' jump until we were well out o' Earth's pull. From wha' I c'n tell, th' FTL was initiated durin' flight as, t' give more momentum. No' only tha', but it was further damaged in the two crashes. Add t' tha' th' carbon bath an' you're sittin' on a tickin' time bomb. I'll have t' talk t' Talon IV abou' wha' exac'ly triggered it, but there's th' facts. I'm still workin' t' see wha' kind o' damage th' Vespasian's engine mighta suffered. Th' suits kept th' radiation ou', an' they should all be clean since they took th' showers. Bu' I can' say for certain whether or no' Martell will be sufferin' from radiation poisonin' as I can' guarantee just how much th' suits can keep out o'er a period o' time. Th' sooner we get her out, th' better.

[directormarlow]

As most of you know

[directormarlow]

Would you like to explain exactly what happened out there, Sterling?

[sterling-iwan]

How much do you know about FTL engines?

[directormarlow]

As most of you know

This survey did not go as planned at all. There were many faults to various people, and they know who they are, myself included, and as such we will move past pointing the finger and begin take off procedures. We are not staying here for another day and I expect everyone prepared to leave once the silicone storm has left.

During the survey, a crew member and friend was tragically killed. Most of you have seen the footage and know what happened by now. Abigail Sloan will be remembered respectfully and her remains will be cremated to return to Earth.

Sebastian Stark, Jackson Savage and Christine Robin are all currently in the med bay for recuperation, and I expect them to be given all the time they need to get better. Talon V, Elsa Albrect and Gunnar Sorensen have left to retrieve Rosa Martell and Talon IV. Should they not return before the silicone storm we will be closing the hangar doors. I need to speak with Iwan Sterling before we leave. That is all.

[sterling-iwan]

Sir.

[drcaitlin]

Jesus fuckin' Christ | Open

[drcaitlin]

They walked quietly, though Caity could not hide how amused she was by him and his protective stance around her side. She wanted to sit down with him and a bottle of drink, to make jokes about Marlow and tell him about the crazy dream she had two nights ago. She wanted to ask him about his children again, to talk about home until they were both sick but in each other’s company, and to laugh away the pain like they did that night in the med bay that felt like so long ago. But she knew she had so much to fix between them before they could be what they once were. To say she missed him was an understatement. But Caitlin shook away those thoughts to examine the holotab someone shoved in her hands with Marlow’s vitals. Someone had placed Tom and the Director in the same examination room, and no one could figure out why the latter’s wind screen had shattered. She turned back to Sterling and gave him a smile. “I’m fine, darlin’, you don’t need te worry about me. I’m goin’ to see what happened with these two idiots," She stood on her tip toes and pressed a hasty kiss to his cheek.

[sterling-iwan]

He had to stop himself from rolling his eyes as she kissed his cheek, following after her wordlessly. Of course he would give her her space when they actually got to the room -- being a room with Tom and Caity wasn't exactly an entertaining prospect, and he wanted to talk to Marlow on his own about what happened to team Beta. Not while the Director was sitting on an examination table. So he kept quiet, following slightly behind her to the room. There wasn't much else for him to do at the moment in any case, though he knew he should be checking on the engines. His eyes narrowed slightly as he caught sight of the two men sitting on the table. Sterling had seen and heard everything, and part of him wanted to hold Caitlin back from going in there. Instead, he sighed heavily, tugging at her arm a bit before she entered the room. "I've gotta go check on the engines. Those two... page me if ye get in a bind or some shite," he muttered, offering her a faint smile and a brief kiss on the forehead before he turned on his heel and walked away. 

[drcaitlin]

Jesus fuckin' Christ | Open

[drcaitlin]

Caity shook her head gently, but grasped the back of his shirt, glad for the warmth after the awful coldness on the surface of LV-223. She stood on unsteady feet and bit the insides of her cheeks to stem the pain in her back. It wasn’t the worst it had ever been, but she knew she’d be cursing herself tonight when all of this disaster was over. “I can’t rest, I’ve got te go help." She helped Sterling to his feet, and placed her hand on his arm. “I am sorry, you know, I didn’t mean— I shouldn’t have snapped like that." When he admitted that she did good, she felt warmth spread in her heart, and smiled at him gratefully. It didn’t feel like she did, after watching life slip from Fish’s eyes one time too many. “I’m sure it was the last o’ yer concerns. I feel fine, an’ their vitals are comin’ up clean."

[sterling-iwan]

Stubborn, that was all Sterling could think as he looked down at Caitlin, standing tall and trying to smile. Her eyes still looked painfully distant. He merely shook his head at her apology, already trying to forget about it. He'd have to answer to the Director later, the Administrator as well. That was on him. "It shoulda been th' first," he muttered, more to himself than to Caitlin. Without asking, he put his arm around her waist, gently resting his hand against the middle of her back for some kind of support. "You're no use sittin' outside o' th' med bay. So let's go find th' others. 'M sure they could use your help with Jax, aye?" There was no use fighting her, he was sure. She wouldn't rest until she had done everything she thought she could possibly do, until she had seen that everybody, especially Tom, was okay. All he could do was help her, and at the first sign that her body couldn't handle anymore, he'd take her away, whether she liked it or not.

[drcaitlin]

Jesus fuckin' Christ | Open

[drcaitlin]

People had been walking past for the last half hour without so much as a word towards the doctor, and Caity was okay with that. But when the call came in about team Alpha, about poor Abi and Jackson, she hadn’t mustered the courage to even stand up and meet them at the Hangar. She was so tired, so exhausted, and her back throbbed like white hot pokers had been stuck in it. And there was still no word on Fish and Robin. Beautiful Robin with her leg cut to the bone, and brave Fish with his guts shown to God. And when Sterling filled her vision, that apathy left and was replaced by anger, because someone was responsible for this. Maybe it wasn’t Sterling’s fault directly, but she was so furious, and scared that she hadn’t done enough, that someone had to take her anger away. She flinched her hands away, and immediately regretted the glare she gave him.

"I’m sorry, I just—" She paused, and met his eyes when a smile cracked on his face. “I’m so fuckin’ tired." She sat up on her knees and hugged him, when she noticed she was still shaking. She looked at her hands over his shoulders, the blood cracking in her nail beds, and clenched her hands into fists. Caitlin’s voice broke when she spoke again. “Where are the others? Where’s Tom?"

[sterling-iwan]

He flinched, visibly flinched, at the glare she gave him, acutely aware of the mistake he had made, the one thing he had overlooked. People were constantly underestimating Sterling's mental abilities. And it seemed as though he had finally given them an actual reason to. But seeing it written, as brief as it was, across Caitlin's face made him feel a hot ball of shame in the pit of his stomach. It faded slightly as she wrapped her arms around him.

His rested gently on her back, remembering that she had been carrying a two hundred pound man not an hour earlier. How was she even moving right now? "They're takin' Jax t' one o' th' labs since Robin an' Fish are in th' med pods. He's pretty beat up, but nothin' too vital. At leas' no' for a war veteran," he mumbled quietly, pulling bask slightly. To be fair, he was more worried about Caitlin right now. She'd been through hell and back and it showed. Her skin was still pink from the showers, blood still staining the edges of her nails. "Caity, 'm sorry, yeah? Shite -- I shoulda -- ye did good ou' there, bu' ye need t' try an' rest now cause ye know Freyja's no' gonna let ya in there until y've rested." He used the only thing he knew might work on her, trying to ignore the faint sting of jealousy as she asked after Tom. it was ridiculous to even entertain that, especially right now. She had every reason to worry about him. "C'mon, we'll go find Tom an' y' c'n lay down somewhere. I know yer back's killin' ya."

[drcaitlin]

Jesus fuckin' Christ | Open

[drcaitlin]

[She didn’t know how she did it, how she stemmed all that blood, yet it seemed like she was covered in it. She was a fool to think she could have applied an arterial clipping to Robin’s femoral artery, to think so boldly, and now blood had seeped in through her suit, cooling upon her sick and making her stomach turn over. No, they would be okay. Fish stopped tossing over and over, letting the morphine settle in his system before Freyja and Daniel had to fix him all over. Robin had a glassy look in her eyes that scared her soul from her body, and for five very long minutes Caitlin thought she had lost a patient. They were not her friends right now, like Swan said. They were her patients, two of the missions most valuable, and she would be damned if she lost them. The transporter’s journey across the bumped surface came to a stop when they rolled up through the hangar, when bright lights and screaming people pulled her patients from her hands.] No.

[She was almost crying. They were hers to be responsible for, and as fast as the people came (tears blurred their identities) they whisked away Fish and Robin in the same time. She stumbled down from the transporter doors and lumbered after them, blinking back hot tears and shouting out their vitals that had become a second language to her. There was an alarm ringing somewhere, and people in hazard suits running around. Maybe she was running on pure determination. Yes, that was it. That was what put herself in a decontamination shower, that was what pulled off the suit by herself and scrubbed her skin raw, stripping her hair and rinsing her eyes. And as fast as she could, zipping into a clean jumpsuit and boots, she took off towards the med lab. Hydraulics whirred and turned in the med pods, and for a split second she could have sworn she heard one of her patients cry out. Freyja wouldn’t let her in, she was shaking too much?] Shaking?

[Caitlin stared at her hands, and it seemed after all that scrubbing, even the blood beneath her fingernails would not budge. Somehow she stepped back, stumbling against the wall and sliding down it, her gaze always on her hands. On the blood of her friends whose lives were now in the balance, who depended on a few of her actions.] I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.

[sterling-iwan]

[Sterling had been pacing the Bridge for what seemed like hours now, his eyes darting from the vitals of team Alpha and Beta, to the feeds of their suits. He watched with apprehension as Fish and Robin  were loaded up into the transporter, throwing up another small screen to watch their progress towards the Vespasian, and then through the bowels of the ship to the med bay. 

And then the screaming started, his heart skipping a beat as he watched from Abigail's point of view the Engineer rising, watched it crush her like she was nothing more than a tiny doll. Do you believe in God? Sterling wasn't so sure anymore. And then Savage was there, firing at the thing, being thrown around, beaten into a pulp with that crazed grin on his face. Marlow arrived, attacking the Engineer as it had its guard down, until finally, the thing lay dead. Albrecht, Cabrera, and Frost arrived, Marlow scooping up the queerly shaped figure of Sloan in his arms while Albrecht and Cabrera took care of Jax who seemed to be unconscious. He gave a shaky sigh, wiping his face with a hand. His stubble poked at his palm, and he knew how haggard he must look. But it was nothing compared to how the others must have felt right now. The others were in the transporter now, heading back to the Vespasian. 

"I'm gonna --" he didn't bother finishing the sentence, practically running from the bridge without a backwards glance at Parish or Athene. Everything seemed red, red from all of the blood that had been spilled. Clarke, dead. Fish seemingly on his way to joining him. Robin and Jax severely injured. What kind of hell had they stepped into? His feet somehow found their way down to the med bay, stopping at the end of the hall as he caught sight of Caitlin. He hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment, before he was moving down the hall towards her, crouching down in front of her and gently taking her wrists in his as he tried to get her to look at him. "Caity -- Caity, talk t' me," he muttered, his brows furrowing with worry.

[nihilxdolere]

Oi!

[nihilxdolere]

Sohn eines verdammten Hündin! I’m on my vay right now. Send ze docs down here immediately. I’m assumink ze engineer is still in ze proximity? Und vat about ze Director und Frost?

[sterling-iwan]

English, Elsa. I can' see where he's at. They're in a chamber abou' fifty meters from your position. There's a shite ton o' tunnels 'e could head down. Marlow an' Frost are alrigh', excep-- Marlow's bloody wind shield is cracked. 

[nihilxdolere]

Oi!

Someone up zere get me vitals on Sloan, ze Director, Frost, und Jax. Immediately.

[sterling-iwan]

Sloan's flat lined, and from wha' I c'n see, Savage has some injuries. Albrecht, their feeds -- there's a fuckin' Engineer alive in there.

[aria-parish]

Holy geez.

[aria-parish]

Plants, too. I handed it off to one of the other engineers— Fyodo…rova, I think?

Heard. Retrieving now.

[sterling-iwan]

Don' think I've talked to 'er much. But yeah, plant an' animals. Out here it's bloody rocks an' th' occasional alien.

Thanks. 

[aria-parish]

Holy geez.

[aria-parish]

Seriously, deserts on Earth are a little less bleak than this, man. Whatever lived on this rock must’ve been pretty fucking gnarly.

You get that replacement holotab, Sterling? Your last one was a casualty of the quarantine, I’m afraid.

[sterling-iwan]

Tha's cause we still 'ave animals in our deserts. 

Uh, no, haven' been payin' attention. Was somebody supposed t' bring it t' me? Fuck it, we'll worry about it later. Bring up all o' Betas health stats, wan' 'em front an' center, an' I'll send th' feed t' Bennet an' Hargrave. 

[sterling-iwan]

Team Beta

[drcaitlin]

Yes, I know what they damn well look like. I can’ talk right now Sterlin’, contact Swan and check if they’re okay, would’ye?

[sterling-iwan]

Fine.