Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » You Can't Take The Sky From Me (OPEN)

Tara watched as Kambel walked out and then got more comfortable in the seat. She looked over all the buttons and different things from a distance trying to remember having watched other people fly. She got up, of course right after getting comfortable in the seat she had been in, and moved herself to the main seat with all the flight control buttons and panels. She looked over what was before her and read some of the labels. "Of course there is no manual." she mumbled as she looked at the flight stick to her left and right encase someone wanted to manually drive it. She wasn't going to touch it of course unless she needed to. She looked at the control console again and took noticed of the intercom button, just encase she needed to call for some help. Not that she thought she would need it. Most of the flying she had done she remembered and she had a very good memory, not photographic but very good regardless.

Although frowning at Rhyzo's answer, Merrion had to admit the guy had guts standing up to the Captain like that considering the mood the man was in. Guts that were, most likely, about to be splattered all over the wall. Even though he hopefully wouldn't have had to clean up the mess, he really didn't want to see or smell a fresh corpse before he'd gotten a chance to eat. Talk about an appetite killer.

"Captain, if I may..." Merrion spoke up, trying to mind his manners and not irritate Coolidge any further. "...the easiest way to find out about this man would be to just check his identification and belongings. See if they match what he's been telling us."

Tyler very nearly pointed his shotgun at Merrion, but as luck would have it, the edge had fallen off his headache enough to make his a bit more amiable. Sucking his teeth a moment as he looked at Kambel, the captain's finger moved upon the shotgun, snaking towards the trigger. Then he turned the safety on and set the widow maker down beside him, his face transforming from seriousness back tot he expression he had earlier, the one with the slightly goofy smile that sometimes made it hard to take him seriously. "Well then, I do believe that Kambel has hit upon a pretty good idea. But I think I'll wait. You're free to roam about the ship, Rhyzo, and I'll ask Tara to set you up in a passenger bunk for now."
Holstering the shotgun, Tyler made to stand up, but had to wait for a moment, his hand hovering in the air, before he could grab the edge of his desk to aid him, there appearing to be something wrong with his eyes. Once he stood, however Ty walked straight over to Rhyzo and offered him his hand. "Sorry about the dramatics. I get protective about my ship sometimes."

Minnow hid in the vents, staying quiet as she watched them. She, of course, was a stowaway. Hoping to get a free ride away from the dull place she had once lived. Her stomach rumbled at the smell of food. Blast her for not packing something to eat. It didn't matter. Once they were all asleep she would sneak into the food cabin and find something small, something they wouldn't know went missing. Once again her stomach protested.

Aristide raised a brow at the captain’s sudden change of demeanor, then pulled his brow down into a frown again, watching the captain’s odd movement before he got up. His headache seemed to be a bit more crippling than your average headaches, or perhaps there was something else wrong with him. Not surprising, considering the seriousness of the scar on his face. Perhaps he was a veteran, Aristide reasoned. Veterans often had the most interesting conditions. War had that effect on people.

“I can’t blame you,” he replied when the captain told him he had a tendency to get protective of his ship. His tone was guarded, and a bit confused. “Thank you,” he added, although he was far from sure that he was safe from being pushed against a wall with a gun to his head. As quickly as the captain’s mood had changed, it could just as easily change back again for all Aristide knew.

Maybe they’ll tear me from my bunk when I’m asleep, he thought cynically.

He remained standing where he stood, waiting to be dismissed. He was going to be careful about making any sudden movements near the captain and the other man, although the other man had proven to be a lot more reasonable than Aristide had thought at first sight. But still. He was stuck on a ship, surrounded by people who seemed to know exactly how to handle guns. It couldn’t hurt to be careful.

After a few minutes of staring at the buttons, knobs, switches and gears she nodded pleased with herself. She pretty much remembered how to fly the thing. Now she wanted some tunes. She looked for a small radio she thought she had seen somewhere around on the ground. It was a fairly old radio from what she remembered and it was pretty beat to shit. Of course she also remembered it still worked. "Kambel hasn't shot it to oblivion just yet." she said as she spotted it on the far side of the room.

She quickly got up and walked over picking it up and flipping it on. It caught her by surprise by blasting some very old hard metal and she panicked slightly and turned it down. She stood there for a moment, stunned, before looking down at it thinking, Ive been shot at by a gang of good for nothing ass hats before and ambushed by a swat team of police yet I'm more surprised when a radio screams music at me. Shows how much I relax.

She picked it back up and went back over to the flight chair plopping herself back down and turned it up to a more comfortable level of music. Heavy metal wasn't normally her thing but she would take it over silence. She then suddenly caught sight of the speaker button and a idea hatched in her scheming little head of hers. She carefully put the radio above the intercom, turning it down, and then pressed the button making a soft click noise echo throughout the ship. "Hello ladies and gents, boys and girls. Welcome to the Viator, your first class ride from the home worlds of the Alliance to the plants of bum fuck Egypt and beyond. Today on our first class stereo system from only god knows when, we currently have playing some good old heavy metal and from then on, this little baby can only tell. So sit back, relax, and enjoy your ride to where ever the hell this sweet little ship is going." She smiled and carefully placed the radio on the button to hold it down and then turned it up slightly. She popped her head out into the hall to listen and make sure it wasn't to loud and then awkwardly danced back into her seat turning it down just a tad bit so it wasn't blaring.

"Ahhhhh I remember why I wasn't ever allowed up here." she said laughing to herself. Although she didn't know if it was really the reason she wasn't normally allowed up in the bridge, it did sound like a pretty darn good reason. The intercom was a very tempting source of amusement for her.

Merrion shook his head, sighing at the abrupt change in the Captain. He'd met women with more predictable mood swings than Coolidge could have sometimes. Holstering his pistol and hoping someone else got to play backup the next time there was an interrogation, he gave the pharmacist a weak smile. "Welcome aboard then, Rhyzo." He said in a tone that made it obvious to anyone he wasn't buying that was actually the man's name. Though he was basing that only on how ridiculous it sounded. "Just try not to break anything, alright? I've already got enough to try and keep running around here with one trigger-happy lunatic shooting up the place."

With that reminding him of the bullet-ridden speaker once again, Merrion made for the exit to the Captain's quarters before he could be scolded about being that particular trigger-happy lunatic. Halfway through the gateway to freedom, he hesitated. Tara's voice came over the intercom and for a moment he thought something might be wrong, though that idea was quickly dispelled after the second sentence. By the end of her announcement, he was leaning against the nearest wall with one hand covering his mouth, shaking from silent laughter since the Captain was still in range to both hear and shoot him should the urge strike.

Once the music started, he pushed himself away from the wall and started down the corridor, still chuckling. Okay, if nobody else, I have to try talking with Tara a bit more often. He thought with a grin, hoping nobody missed out on that because of the broken speaker.

Minnow was surprised when music flooded the ship. She happy it did, now it would make it so much easier to move in the vents without being caught. All she had to do was wait for the next stop, then she would remove herself from the vents and off the ship.

Her once cautious steps became a little carefree now that the music played. She nearly yelped with a start when Merrion moved. Holding herself still to make sure that he hadn't heard her or seen her movements. Just because the music would make it harder for them to hear her doesn't mean she should get careless.

[My apologies for the delay, it didn't know it was my turn.]

Tyler was about to speak to Rhyzo when Tara's voice came over the intercom, followed by the teeth-jarring metal. The captain's dark face grey darker as his face grew red, followed by him tearing up the ladder, tumbling crosswise into the corridor and crashing into the wall, the unusual symptoms associated with his headaches worsening at the pain in the former Alliance man's brain worsened with the noise and stress. Shooting a withering look at Merrion, Ty kept one hand on the wall as he stomped forward, his balance and perception getting better as his medication kicked in. By the time he made it to the bridge, Coolidge had mellowed to the point where he wouldn't yell. Instead, he merely glared at his crew member, then shook his head slowly. "I would appreciate it if you find something else to play."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, the man stepped forward and turned the radio down long enough to speak over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the music and feel free to find something more relaxing to play. In the meantime, new arrivals and those overdue for checkups please come to the med bay." Following his own polite order, Coolie started towards the bowels of the ship, but paused on his journey, his head turning to stare at a vent. The air passage wasn't quite right... "Kambel!" The duality of Tyler's voice came back out, booming throughout the ship clearly and without the aid of the intercom. "Med bay! Please!"

((OOC: I’m confused. Do we, or do we not have a posting order? ))

Aristide shot a glance at Merrion, narrowing his eyes at the skeptical tone of his words when the man welcomed him. He made a mental note to self that people seemed to have trouble believing that the name he used was his real name. Which is odd, he thought, Because it is. Maybe not his first name, but still his name. Of course, he didn’t realize that he had so obviously hesitated when first introducing himself.

“I am not in the habit of breaking things,” he replied sourly. Aside from the tendency to poison his own body and break the occasional bottle, he wasn’t a destructive person. At least not when sober.

Aristide frowned when a female voice suddenly sounded over the intercom, shortly after Merrion had left. He recognized the voice as belonging to the woman with the mismatched eye colors. He cringed at the music that followed. He didn’t know what kind of a boat the captain ran here, but he certainly hoped blaring music – any kind of music – all throughout the ship was not something that occurred frequently, otherwise he feared he was going to be guilty of tearing the speakers off the wall of whichever bunk he was going to get for the duration of his stay. And that would make him a liar, since he had just told the other blond man that he wouldn’t break anything. The interesting change of the captain's expression suggested that this wasn't a normal occurrence, though, which was a relief.

He followed the captain up the ladder, simply because it was rude to hang around in someone’s quarters when that person was no longer around, but also because he had gotten close enough to getting shot for one day already. He emerged from the quarters in time to witness the captain’s run-in with the wall. Aristide opened his mouth to ask if the man was alright, but it seemed a pointless question. Firstly because the answer was obvious, and secondly because the captain didn’t let it hinder him and legged on towards the bridge.

Aristide waited for the captain to return from the bridge, and would follow him to the infirmary, since he had no clue where to find it on his own.

(OOC: Not sure myself. I've just been taking it as rounds. Like... Jay, then one from everyone else in whatever order.)

Shortly after swinging by his bunk to grab his tools, Merrion had arrived at the speaker and removed it from the wall. Only a couple parts needed replacing, which he was about to do when the Captain's voice boomed down the corridor, yelling for him to go to the med bay. Blinking and wondering why they even needed a ship-wide intercom, he sighed, tucking the speaker under one arm and heading to the med bay.

It didn't take a minute to get there, and once inside he leaned against the wall by the door, holding the speaker in one hand while working parts free with the other. "Okay, I'm here, what is it now?" He asked, not even knowing if anyone was around. All his attention had been focused on the broken speaker since he'd stepped into the room.

Minnow smiled. The med bay! This was her chance to get out of the vents! Then she can be part of the new arrivals and wander through the ship without getting questioned. There was a problem though. The music that had been playing had stopped and left her in a position where she both had to hurry and do it quietly. To add to that, she could see from where she sat that captain was looking up at the vents making the color drain from her face. If she got caught now she was surely going to be tossed out.

Kyta walked happily down to the med bay, smiling. She wanted to get down there so she could get back to the dining room for dinner that should have happened 10 minutes ago. She smiled at everyone as she entered the room.

Tara jumped in the seat she had been in clearly being caught off guard. She spun around with a sort of 'oh shit' look on her face. When he walked over next to her though and turned down the little raido and made his announcement she inwardly sighed and a smile came back to her face. She looked back as the captain walked out and then leaned forward, "You heard it folks! We just got a call in from the CAP-E-TAN himself making a request! So here's a little something that personally makes me think of rainbows and unicorns."

She leaned back and quickly, and rather easily, found a station that was playing classical music and turned it up so it was a quiet hum in the background. She giggled to herself and sighed as she looked out the front window. She then stopped and thought for a second, she didn't need to go to the medbay. She grinned and peered out into the hall just as the Coolidge screamed for Kambel, once again making her jump. "God damn..." she mumbled under her breath. She hoped that wouldn't be happening to her any time soon.

She quickly slipped out of the bridge and down into the kitchen, without running into the captain. She grinned seeing that some sort of dinner was already prepped. She grinned and when the cook wasn't looking, she quickly grabbed a plate that had been prepared for someone else. She giggled and slipped out of the kitchen just as she heard the poor fellow gasp, "The hell!?"

Tyler wasted no time once he was in the med bay, stethoscope and sensor package in hand, immediately turning his attention to Kyta, checking her pulse and taking her vitals quickly, jotting them down on a piece of paper rather than try to dig out her file from the locked cabinet. "If you're any sort of decent sawbones, Rhyzo, would you please take Merrion's vitals?" A look was given to the trigger-happy blonde, the smaller and darker captain unwilling to let his engineer skip another one of his necessarily more frequent checkups that Kambel's implants required.
"Merr, did you leave a toolbox or anything else in the vents? The airflow wasn't right in the bow corridor, like there was a blockage." Finishing up Kyta and sending her on her way, Ty finally unlocked to records cabinet and pulled out the necessary files, noting that Tara was overdue but letting it slide. Seating himself, Coolidge began writing up a new file while he waited for Rhyzo to finish, writing the man's name clearly across the top.

“Er… Alright,” Aristide muttered at the captain’s request, and put his bag down on the ground so he could work. He took a pen and a piece of paper like the captain had done, for lack of a proper file. It wasn’t precisely part of his job description, but he knew well enough how to perform a routine checkup, and so he went to perform just that.

He approached the other man, brow raised apologetically. Unless Merrion would be violently opposed, Aristide started by checking his pupil reflex. He took a small flash light and shone it upon the eyes, then frowned.

“Ah,” he muttered. It was obvious now that the eyes were not organic. “I see.”

Without making any remarks on the matter, he continued the checkup, now knowing he should pay attention to other possible augmentations.

[OOC: If anything isn’t right here, Rosewood, please PM me and I’ll edit my post!]

Frowning at the idea of being looked over by a stranger, Merrion set the speaker on the floor as Rhyzo approached, pocketing the broken bit he'd managed to pry out of it. It was under orders, so he'd put up with it, if not like it. His eyelids didn't even twitch when the light overtook his vision. "No Captain, I only ever use my own toolbox, and it's currently sitting under the spot where that goes." He gestured to the speaker. "I'll have that back in place in five minutes once we're done here, then I can have a look at the ventilation system."

Watching Rhyzo carry on with the checkup, he considered just outright telling the man where his implants were. Then decided letting him figure it out could be more entertaining. Instead, Merrion figured he might as well at least try talking with him, since he now was one of few people that was going to get away with looking him over so closely without promptly getting injured in one way or another. "So, Rhyzo, where are you from?" He asked, hoping that might shed some light on the man's odd name.

Aristide didn’t look up from his work at the man’s question, continuing the checkup. “Was born on Londinium, travelled a lot between there and Sihnon as a child,” he replied absent-mindedly, more focused on his work, “Until we moved to Osiris for my schooling. Spent most of my life there.”

Londinium and Sihnon were the two major planets of the known ‘verse, vastly populated and technologically advanced, the former being the home of the Alliance Parliament. Osiris, as another central planet, was no less prestigious. If ‘Rhyzo’, or at least his family, travelled regularly between Londinium and Sihnon, and could afford education on Osiris, it was logical to assume he must be from a well-off family.

He looked up and raised an eyebrow as if to ask if that answered the man’s question. He then went quiet for a moment while he took Merrion’s pulse, and discovered some surgical marks on the man’s arm that led him to believe there were more implants there.

“Where did you get these implants?” he asked, thinking it only fair to ask a question in return for a question answered. He cast a sideways glance to the captain, “You know, this would go a lot faster if I had the appropriate files and knew what I was looking at without having to discover it first.”

"You offering to be our medic now, Rhyzo?" Tyler grinned at the man, then reached into the previously locked cabinet and pulled out the two thickest files, setting them both next to the newcomer, along with the newly created folder for Rhyzo himself. The two thick files had Merrion and Ty's names written across the top respectively, though Coolie simply looked over his engineer and quirked a brow. "You feeling okay, you trigger happy freak? I don't want your wife to poison me if she finds out you're not healthy." The captain's tone was playful, bantering, as the technologically enhanced blond was the closest thing that he had to a first mate at the moment.
Assuming Kambel was okay, Tyler signed off on the check up and allowed the man to go about the business of the air vents before turning his attention to Rhyzo. "My turn."

Thinking about the names, Merrion nodded. He was pretty sure he'd heard of at least two of those. It also explained the man's name a bit. If people gave their planets such ridiculous names, he didn't doubt there would be people with some equally odd ones. He considered for a moment when asked where he'd gotten the implants. Rhyzo's answer sounded far more honest than when he'd told everyone his name, so Merrion decided his reply should be just as honest even if it made no sense.

"I got them on Kalistine, the moon orbiting Odessa. They were pretty much required for the line of work I was going into at the time." He told Rhyzo, even though nobody in this neck of the galaxy had heard of either, unless there was a planet with the same name drifting about that he was unaware of. Going quiet when Rhyzo and Coolidge spoke, he smirked at the idea of Rhyzo becoming the new medic. Not because he found it absurd, but because he liked the idea. So far, the man had seemed a little less crazy than most of the people on this ship. A sane addition might be a nice change.

He smiled a bit when Coolidge addressed him. "I'm fine, Captain, and you don't have to worry about Serene poisoning you if something happens to me. She prefers a more hands-on approach." Merrion said with a laugh, though it wasn't much of a joke. She did find cutting things to ribbons with her blade the most enjoyable way of dishing out punishment.

Once Coolidge gave the okay, Merrion had snatched up the speaker again and hurried out of the med bay without waiting for any word from Rhyzo. He'd gotten the parts replaced on the short walk back, grabbed his tools and reattached the intercom to the wall in less than four minutes. Heading straight to the vent outside the bridge, he wasn't sure if the flow was weaker or not. He'd honestly never paid too much attention when something was working properly. Thinking he should at least check, he began detaching the grate from the wall and hoping the Captain was imagining things. They didn't need the airflow system to break down now.