Discover Top Posts Tagged with #kingoftheseapancakes

Jan 21, 2014

continuing from last week:

"Decon chamber opening," the next set of doors slid open, and they stepped into the next room, "and closing. Decon beginning. Close your eyes."

They clamped their eyes shut, and the decon chamber filled with a blistering light. It persisted for half a minute, then disappeared.

"You should be clean enough to come in. We’re all resuming stations, so you should hurry. We’ve got maybe five minutes till we can’t get away, so hurry your asses up and get to your stations."

"Yes, Doc. Get your sorry ass back to the medbay, take care of Imiatru, we’ll get the Justified as far away from the raiders as we can."

The last set of doors slid open.

The inside of the Justified was painted in a warm gray, and had various piece of furniture scattered around the room and bolted down to the floor.

"Nice room. Where's the medbay?" Imiatru asked, stepping inside and to the right.

"Last door over that way. Follow me."

Doc stepped out of the cockpit. Imiatru looked up at her.

"You're really fucking tall, you know that?"

"And you're absolutely tiny. Over this way. Trina, the computer's on for you, Maggie, propulsion is prepped. Latasha and Ursula are down in the engine rooms, everybody's locked into their places, we're all ready to go."

"Gotcha. Dismissed."

Doc stepped aside as Trina, Maggie, and Johnny stepped into the cockpit. They slid the flimsy sliding door closed behind them. Imiatru stepped into the doorway of the medbay and looked around.

"Looks about like what they used to. Not like what sci-fi said it would look like."

"Figures. Reality never matches up to sci-fi."

"You a fan?"

"I live on space ship mostly. I don't really have time to read or watch much sci-fi anymore. Did a lot when I was younger." Doc shrugged. "You know kids."

"Did the same. So what are you inoculating me against?"

"We've got the whole outfit there, but for now we need to get strapped into seats because we're gonna do an FTL jump in like thirty seconds. Hear that buzz? That's the engines warming up. They don't warm up very long."

"Don't you ever black out from the g-forces? I mean, there were times I could barely keep conscious and I'm half your size, and we were going maybe a third of what you're going."

"We can talk in a bit, just buckle yourself into that chair and hold on."

"You aren't gonna pass out on my, are you?"

"Nah. Trina's good at sub-FTL maneuvers that avoid FTL ships. A lot of people forget that space is three dimensional and work only in two."

Imiatru buckled the belt on her chair, and Doc settled into another chair and did the same.

"If you're not buckled in, get that way quick." Trina came over the intercom. "Jumping in ten, nine, eight…"

"Stop counting and just go. They're all buckled in." Maggie interrupted. "Disengaging from station, we're headed out."

The ship jumped, the floor dropped out beneath their feet.

"That's new," Imiatru commented.

"Yeah, that's new even in the last twenty years. First ships I was in never jumped like that."

"How long you been on ships?"

"Since I could practically walk. Just local ones then with my parents, then later I started joyriding with friends. Nothing like literally dropping into a party from above from a stolen shuttle. It's great. Got me for it later."

"You don't look like a joyrider."

"I'm not anymore. I've got a real ship I can actually fly now. Grew up a lot in prison too."

"Right. Of course. Maggie told me you were in prison. Why?"

"Beat a guy's ass 'cause he tried to beat mine. Fought back when the cops came to break us up. Got thrown in, and they dug up my record, nothing good came of it. Ended up in jail for fifteen years. "

"That’s' a long time."

"How are you doing? Nausea? Feel like you're gonna black out? You good?"

"I'm good. How much force is it?"

"We're approaching two g's. It's gonna triple here in a second, The Justie's a little slow getting started. Hold onto your fillings."

"Fillings are a little older than two hundred years, Doc. Sorry to break it to you, but we didn't have filling anymore by the time I was getting them.

"Figures. Hold onto whatever you've got instead." Doc grinned, and then the light warped around them."

"You sealed?" Imiatru asked, twisting her head trying to make the light fit again.

"Yeah. Light does this at just the wrong speed it'll be -" Doc bent over without a word, unbuckling her belt, and dry heaved between her knees. "sorry," she gasped. "FTL does that to me sometimes. Get motion sick." She retched again.

"You need me to get you a bucket?"

"Don't have any," Doc laughed. "Didn't eat. Be fine in a bit."

"I'm gonna have to get a new helmet to correct the light."

"Won't help. They haven't made one yet."

"Okay, really, you need a bucket?"

"Told you. Don't have one."

"You ain't been on a spaceship long enough to realize the cardinal rule of places with gravity." Imiatru unbuckled her belt and stepped carefully across the floortiles that looked to warp beneath her feet. She opened a drawer, dumped its contents into another, and held the drawer out to Doc. "Everything is a bucket as long as it's down."

"Thanks." Doc laughed. She settled the drawer into her lap, and Imiatru sat back down. She only buckled her lap belt.

"Turn straight upwards, hold onto your stomachs!" Trina barked over the intercom.

Doc grabbed the drawer on her lap and wedged one leg onto the seat to keep herself from moving.

"And now to the left!" Both were slung to the right.

"And the right!"And then to the left.

"And down and straight on until morning."

"People still quote peter pan." Imiatru observed when acceleration had flatlined and she could move easily again.

"Hell yeah. Of course. If you think Spacers aren't the worst for quoting books you'd obviously been asleep two hundred years." Doc grinned up at Imiatru, who fixed her with a look of as much disdain as a face-obscuring helmet could manage. Doc grinned wider. "See? The light's going back to normal. We're returning to sub-FTL, thank god."

"Do most space doctors get sick like that?"

"Almost nobody gets sick like that. It sucks balls."

Doc straightened up and looked at the drawer.

"Still clean, right?"

"Yeah, looks like."

"Which one did you grab?"

"Third one up."

"You a doctor?"

"Nah. Spent enough time in labs though."

"What all happened over there? I mean, that stuff's still top secret."

"if it's still top secret, it's still out of my jurisdiction to tell you. Sorry."

"Nah, nah, I get it. We're gonna quarantine you in the back office. It's got a locking, sealed door, but it's got good ventilation and it's sterilized. I think it's actually a quarantine room they just told Maggie was an office when she bought it. All the tech screams quarantine."

"Trina said she was an explorer but the glimpses I got don't look like an explorer. Not streamlined enough."

"She's not. Johnny, Serena, and I found original dataplates for her, turns out she was a small-crew transport ship. The main room was basically a storage room too. Mostly for the plague that broke out on a couple colony planets fifteen years ago. Guess the quarantine room would've made sense then. In case it got on board you could lock the people who'd caught it up and away. Usual functioning crew is five, we usually keep it at seven because more hands is better, but we found a half dozen ship droid outside the engine rooms. Guess they were there in case the rest of the crew died off."

"Ship droids? You guys actually got robots to pilot ships?'

"Usually inbuilt computers did the piloting, but the droids were equipped to handle starting the sequence. They're mostly for maintenance and simple tasks. A couple of them qualify for Maggie's position in the crew."

"You've come ma long way in two hundred years. Real, working robots that pilot ships. We had maintenance bots. Cleaned the floors and alerted us when there was a problem. My ship would've killed to have something half the complexity of what you have. And they're actual androids?"

"Yeah. Actual, working androids. They're kinda cheap, there's ones on some of the space stations that you can rent out for the usual stuff. I mean, you know the sort. Robophiliacs mostly. Heard sometimes the droids they rent out are real people in plastic suits. Never really wanted to test it myself. So uh. I'll bring you food in a while unless you want it now."

"It's been a while since I've eaten, and the nutrition gel hasn't worn off yet. I'll wait I think."

"Nutrigel hunger hits bad when it hits. You're gonna hurt in an hour or two. How long was it before we were in hailing range?"

"Maybe half an hour. I've only been awake maybe an hour overall."

"It's on its way. I'll be right back, get comfortable in there. There's blankets in the cupboard over there, some really shitty pillows on the shelf above them. You should get settled in, I'll bring you some food."

"Yes Doc." Imiatru slid open the door to the quarantine room and settled on top of the examining table. "Not real comfortable is it?"

"Not comfortable at all. It's even worse if you're tall. I don't fit on any of the beds in this entire goddamn spaceship. I've got a cot set up down in the engine rooms for when I can't stand being doubled over on these shitty mattresses anymore. Do you want nay crosswords or anything? I can get 'em while I'm getting food."

"Do you have any general information on culture right now? I've got a lot of catching up to do."

"Sure thing. I'll bring you a terminal. You have a favorite space-prepped food?"

"It's all disgusting. Bring me whatever you think is palatable."

Doc laughed and ducked out of the medbay. Imiatru used her absence to dig through the cupboards until she found a decent blanket - most were more than a little threadbare and obviously decades old - and a real pillow - also decades old and having seen better days. She arranged them on the bed the same way she had at the Blue Star Facility - not more than a week had passed, as far as her internal clock could tell, and the movements and styles were still familiar.

Doc returned with a self-heating food pack, a pad with a digital textbook pulled open, and a paper book full of unfilled crosswords.

"I brought you the fake mashed potatoes with the meat substitute gravy and the fake pork. I hope you don't have any dietary restrictions."

"None. Thank you. I'd prefer to eat alone."

"Sure thing. There's a window dimmer switch on the panel over there. It's got environment controls, I'm pretty sure you can figure them out."

"Thank you."

"I'm gonna seal the door now, there's a comm button over on the panel too. I can pass things in to you but you won't be able to pass them back out to me. Hope that's okay for a week."

"I think I can manage."

"Alright. I'll probably sleep in the medbay for the next week just in case you need something. Sealing you in now." Doc pressed the button, and the office door slid closed. She pressed the comm button.

"Can you hear me in there?"

"Loud and clear, Doc. You got any clothes around in the ship? I'd like to be able to change out of this suit sometime and it's all I've got right now."

"I can go look around. We don’t have anyone your size, but maybe I can rig something for you. Might be a while. Page me if you need anything."

"I'll be fine, Doc."

Doc got up from her chair and cast one last look at the quarantine room. Imiatru had already tinted the windows, which was understandable. She headed out to the storage room.

Latasha, Andrew, and Ursula were all sprawled on couches in the main room. The cockpit door had been slid open, and Johnny was visible fiddling with something on the wall just inside the door. Maggie and Trina sat with their heads together, over the galaxy map in the console.

"So Doc, I hear we have a passenger?" Ursula asked.

"Yup. Girl off the Blue Star Station back there. I assume you had her over the intercom. 'Bout five feet tall, stuck in her soft suit and quarantine until further notice. You know if we have any clothes in storage?"

"None that'll fit someone that tiny. We've got some that might fit someone five four, but not anyone five foot."

"Oh well. Thanks."

"What all happened back there?" Andrew asked. "I heard you worrying over the comm about the integrity of the pods. What pods? What happened? I mean, I know the raiders were basically on top of us by the time we got out of there, but what happened?"

"Blue Star Station was full of test subjects. She got woken up when we came within range. She's been asleep for two hundred years. Supposedly the pods are self-contained , so she jettisoned them to keep them safe from the raiders. We're coming back to pick them up. We've gotta get a cargo ship and a shuttle out on Ninety-Three, and then we'll be back out here."

"How many pods are there?" Latasha asked.

"Hundred forty-nine. Obviously not enough space here to bring them all over, and not enough time to get them anyway. All she could do was scatter them I guess. I'm not sure I believe it. Seems awfully callous to throw a hundred fifty people out the airlocks even if they are supposedly protected."

"You trusting her alone in the quarantine room?"

"For now. There's nothing she can do from in there anyway."

"Doc, did you say we need Ninety-Three?" Maggie asked from the cockpit.

"Probably. I mean, that's the best ship seller in range. Our only other even half decent option is Forty-Seven and you know all about Forty-Seven."

"Fair point. Thanks for the input. Recalculating trajectory."

"How do we break it to the rest of the crew that we've taken on a passenger while they've been getting their beauty sleep?"

"Same as we would any crewmember I guess."

"From what I've seen, she seems like a pretty decent person," Johnny offered. "I mean, a little weird, but she's been asleep for two hundred years. It makes sense for her to be a little odd."

"It’s weird we haven't seen her face yet. Freaks me out. And she gave us a fake name." Trina chimed in. "No one by the name of Imiatru, first or last, listed anywhere in the system. I mean, she warned us it was a nickname, but we don't even know her real name. There were some real characters in the project."

"Are there profiles of any of them?" Doc asked. "She's a spacer, from a rota-grav colony ship. Didn't get the name or the captain. Anyone with those creds anywhere?"

"Doc, there's two hundred colony ships that sent people in and there's seventy five of those that were rota-grav. Did you even listen in history class?"

"Yeah, I did. Woulda been a later model, least as late as they came. No droids. There were maintenance bots."

"Oh yes, that's so helpful."

"I can go ask her if you want me to."

"Like she's gonna tell you anything. We don't even know what Blue Star did in that facility. She could be a robot for all we know."

"Voice was wrong. They've got a standardized voice transmitter that's a lot deeper than her voice. Even with mods the frequency wasn't anywhere within range for the voicer," Johnny volunteered. "Probably not a robot voice at least. Could have significant body mods besides that. Only nominally human. Might not have registered on the scans though. I'll bet she's human."

"There's still twenty ships she could have been on. We don't have much else we can narrow it down by."

"We could try a voice code, but all the samples we've got have been filtered through at least one piece of electronics. Might work, might not. Might as well run it through. Mags, you got a print for me?" Johnny asked.

"Should be one in the archives. We’ve got a file for her already."

"Gotcha. Thanks."

"So what sort of cargo ship we looking for? I mean, obviously it's gotta be pretty big."

"I was thinking one of the old C-981's. Reliable, decent size cargo bay, only twenty or so years old so they aren't too out of date but just out of date enough to be cheap."

"Really? A C-981? The C-750 is just as good and it's way cheaper."

" 'Just as good' means a salvage life of thirty years max. The 750's are way expired by now."

"Fine, if you wanna spend three times the money on a ship that'll fly more like a beached whale, that's all on you. You aren't getting any of my money to buy the damn thing." Ursula held up her hands in a gesture of defeat. Doc scowled at her.

"That's alright," Johnny interjected, looking up from his tablet. "We've got enough money in our accounts to handle renting a ship for a couple weeks. What's gonna be worse is gonna be teaching all of them how to be people again. Imiatru seems to be doing alright, as far as the learning curve, but we haven’t really had her do anything newer than about a hundred years yet."

"I gave her a datapad, we can see if she can manage one of those."

"Datapads have been around in some form for centuries."

"She asked for one with history and culture on it. If the rest of them are like her, they'll teach themselves everything they need to know."

"There's still over a hundred of them," Trina replied from the cockpit. "Are we bringing them out of cryo on the ship, or somewhere else? I mean, is that legal?"

"Probably not," Andrew offered. "Nothing I've heard about the Blue Star Facility makes any of this sound legal."

"We could rent a warehouse or something," Latasha offered. "I know you don't like going back to Forty-Seven, Doc, but they've got a few cheap, well-insulated warehouses that would work for teaching a bunch of two-hundred-year olds how to live again. You wouldn't have to leave it if you didn't want to that way."

"Ninety-Three has a bunch of them," Doc insisted. "We don't have to go anywhere near Forty-Seven."

"Forty-Seven is cheaper, Doc, plain and simple. You don't have to even go outside if you don't want to. Hell, you can stay on the ship. God knows we'll need someone to guard it." Trina told her. "We’re going to Forty-Seven. It's cheap, it's out of the way, we know there are warehouses that are insulated and unused there. It's a better option."

Doc looked at the other six crew members and sighed. "Fine. I'll stay on the ship. It would probably be better if we cracked the pods on the station than on the ship. Over a hundred people is too many to take on a shuttle, and at least the pods stack and don't look too suspicious. We should probably ask Imiatru what to do too, since she's the one in charge."

#del did a thing #anamnesiunending #kingoftheseapancakes #ive seen you liking things kingoftheseapancakses #you havent said anythign about it but i see you over there quietly likign htings #you get tagged now too

ialpiriel