GR RP 'Adventures In GunRunning' ACT 25
POSTED BY: CapnRahn
UPDATED: Monday, May 30, 2005 17:34
VIEWED: 27521
PAGE 8 of 10
MERZ move
LOCATION – RIVERs DORM
Inara has moved into the room, and taken River in hand, kissing her gently. Merz envies her the ease of knowing the appropriate action. Merz files her actions away for future use.
INARA
"Now? Hm. Now we... go to my shuttle and have a cup of tea, and perhaps braid our hair and paint our nails?"
Ah. Tea. Nails? Hair! NO, mustn’t. Merz shakes her head, standing suddenly. “Inara, thanks, but no. You take River, keep her safe. I … am not ready for such yet. I shall go back to the galley.” She starts off out of the room, to stop and stare puzzled for an instant at the small hole punched in River’s door. She had not seen that, going in. Turning back to River she says Bahini, go with Inara. Come to the party when you are dressed and ready. I will wait for you there. I can be no help to you now. I am not … trained.”
EOM
A man who loves you buys you flowers. A man who wants you buys you diamonds. But a man who trusts you, buys you weapons!
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Book's Move
Location: Bridge
Book presses his palms together with his fingertips up underneath his chin and leans against the railing to the belowdeck area of the bridge. He fans open his fingers, closes them again and repeats the motion for a few moments while Zoe leans down and whispers something unintelligible to Mal. He wouldn't have heard what she said anyway... his mind focused on other things. A buzz of words in the background catches his attention and he breaks back into the conversation. "Wash, maybe you and Kaylee can work together to find out if the transmission was jammed or not. In the meantime, can you recall exactly what Slight said before you lost the signal?"
EM
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River's move
LOCATION – RIVER's DORM
River gladly accepts the hug from Inara, realising she craves the physical contact as much as the steel needle that sinks into her arm. The kiss almost goes missed, she's so momentarily overwhelmed by the hug. Merz is the silence that allows the echoes to stop, but can't fill the empty that's left behind.
The thought seals her acquiescence to being led off and away from both her room and the nightmare.
"Now? Hm. Now we... go to my shuttle and have a cup of tea, and perhaps braid our hair and paint our nails?"
Tipping her head up, River nods instinctively. Not the party with the drunkenness. Not the bridge. A quick slide out of the near-protective grip from the Companion but staying close, and she glances around the room.
The hole in the door earns a mild huff.
"Bahini, go with Inara. Come to the party when you are dressed and ready. I will wait for you there. I can be no help to you now. I am not... trained."
Like the nod to Inara, the response is out before she can censor herself-- not that she was good at that before the Academy-- offering Merz a mildly frustrated look. "There are more important things to do than play. Too many things to do. The family is broken."
EOM
---
"And I make my bed with the stars above my head / And dream of a place called home."
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Merz move
LOCATION – JUST OUTSIDES RIVERs DORM
Merz makes her way out of the room, mind busy. Can’t turn off the thoughts, tired of thinking … and River’s words bring her back around.
RIVER
"There are more important things to do than play. Too many things to do. The family is broken."
Merz shudders slightly. Too close to home. Not even turning around, not wanting to face either woman with her naked face showing she responds.
“The family has been broken for longer than you can imagine. Important? How can you understand what is important to me? You cannot imagine how important playing is to me. You know how…
She turns back suddenly and looks Inara full in the eyes. “Someone once attempted to teach me the importance of ‘shore leave’. At the time it made no sense to me. Now … I have been on duty for as long as I can remember. I want to experience something else for a short time. I have never been able to say that before … I need this. Please forgive me.
And she turns away, knowing she will hear any response.
EOM
A man who loves, you buys you flowers. A man who wants you, buys you diamonds. But a man who trusts you - buys you weapons!
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Bolo's move (finally)
Location - Personal ship
He flicked on the comm connecting to the other ship. His voice came over, deadly calm, his weapon ssytems activating with the efforts of his hands manipulating the board while he speaks.
"Helsing, this is Blue Fury controller Bolo. I am ready to open fire on your ship if you do not agree to surrender unto me, any others on your ship are free to go, but you must give yourself up without question and accept to be transported to my ship."
A long pause of silence as if waiting for a reply then adds.
"You have one hour to comply."
He ended the comm, comfortable in the knowledge that if this son of Helsing had even the slightest clue of what a blue fury could do with a well trained and seasoned Blue Sun pilot behind it, he would not venture a hope to defeat him in a firefight and would merely surrender. It' look better if Bolo was able to walk in with the son alive, but that thought wouldn't make him hesitate to kill, its what he was made for.
EOM
Everyone has their weaknesses. Some people smoke, I collect stuffed penguins, if you don't tell I won't.
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Wash's Move:
Location - Bridge
(Book speaks to Wash): "Wash, maybe you and Kaylee can work together to find out if the transmission was jammed or not. In the meantime, can you recall exactly what Slight said before you lost the signal?"
(Wash turns to Book, and says): "Oh, no problem, I can do better... I can replay Serenity's bridge A/V log flight recorder, on the MRFUCSS screen here. (Wash pushes a few buttons on the MRFUCSS console, and says): "Here you go."
"Begin Playback from 21:05 to 21:14 Alliance Mean Time." Serenitiy's female voice says, and repeats it into chinese as well. (On the MRFUCSS screen we see and hear the following):
(Wash manically gestures over the New Hokkaido map, displayed on a helm screen. A chime sounds and on MRFUCSS, a blue light flashes, alerting Wash into realizing that the cortex has an incoming live wave holding. Wash looks up from the map with the friendly yellow and red arrows, and muttering to Rex): "I can't even be starvingly psychotically bored in peace, gotta answer the Wave, so..." (Wash grabs Rex, and holds him an inch away from the camera pick-up to the cortex monitor, reading that it's from a Neon-class ship. Slight and a med-bag, and a big fuzzy looking blur appear on the screen.)
(Slight says quietly over the wave, which Wash, leaning about two inches from the console speaker can barley hear.): "My old ride. It's a rickety old Firefly-class, run by someone called Reynolds. He calls it Serenity. Has something to do with. . ."
(Wash as Rex): "Thank god you've called! We've been boarded by fat fleshy two-legged mammals, and we're running out of condiments, Please help us..." (Wash then leans back and lays Rex down, and says): "Oh, hi Slight, sorry about my disguise, but you know how it is... and hey, if Kaylee or Mal hears you call my lady a 'rickety old anything', I can't be held responsible for what ever happens. What can I do you for?"
(Slight sighs, then replies): "Hail, Serenity. I need to speak with the captain. And your shepherd, and your mechanic, and the little girl. I have no problems with you, but I have some news that I think all four will want to hear from me, firsthand. It's about your doctor. . ."
(Wash, Still lounging in his chair): "Sure, let me see what I can do..." (Pulling down his microphone, he flips a switch on the intercom panel over his head): "OK, Wash here... ahh, well, I'm almost always here right? Who would be flying this thing if I weren't? Oh, right... Mal, Slight's on the screen, and he wants to talk to you, Kaylee, River, and Book. Come on up, OK?" (Wash replaces the mic, and glances back to Slight): "I called them, they'll be here when they get here... Where are you? The cortex seems to think that you're close to us, but (glancing down to the sensor scan screen) I'm not picking you up."
(Not bothering to wait for a response, Wash calmly scoots his chair back from the helm console, and lifts the lid to the top of the console.) "Gorram chicken musta got a little too deep inside." (Wash is heard to mumble.)
(Slight nods his thanks.) "Location is. . .undetermined at the moment. I do appreciate this, Mr. Warren." (Slight glances back over his shoulder off the camera's view, and murmurs something, and turns back to the screen. Wash drops the lid with a small bang, and says to Slight): "It's no problem, and call me Wash..."
(Wash turns to Zoë, who has been loitering quietly in the back of the bridge, and says quietly): "Why don't you go to the galley and get all good and relaxed, honey-bunny?"
(Wash turns back to Slight's image on the screen): "We're throwing a shiny party down in the galley... wish you could make it... Wow, I just thought of something, I hope Kaylee left enough engine fuel to land tomorrow, I don't know how much rocket wash she's serving..."
(Slight pulls out his glasses, starting to clean them, as is his nervous habit.) "Ah yes, the landing tomorrow. I assume you're sticking around for a while on New Hokkaido?"
(Short pause here)
(Wash glances back at the monitor): "I don't know h
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RIVER'S MOVE
LOCATION – PASSENGER DORM AREA AND HALL
Merz's words have a tone River knows all too well. "The family has been broken for longer than you can imagine. Important? How can you understand what is important to me? You cannot imagine how important playing is to me. You know how..."
The chance is there to be sympathetic, to find some of the compassion humans need to keep their sanity. But then again, River's also been stripped of much of that. She knows what it's like to not have play anymore. To have childhood wrested away for a far grimmer fate.
And Merz probably knows that, despite the words. She huffs, unable see past the silent walls of the other woman, patience and her own wants knocked aside. "There is no real play without family. All else is illusion--"
Interrupted by the voice on the intercom, she frowns. "OK, Wash here... ahh, well, I'm almost always here right? Who would be flying this thing if I weren't? Oh, right... Mal, Slight's on the screen, and he wants to talk to you, Kaylee, River, and Book. Come on up, OK?"
Whatever she would have said before is gone, but River looks to both women before going into a run, savouring for that brief moment the look of concern and curiosity in Inara's eyes. "Ge-ge!"
EOM
---
"And I make my bed with the stars above my head / And dream of a place called home."
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Malachi's Move
Location: His Ship
How very... good. Malachi thinks to himself as the communicae from the blue fury ends. Turning to the lump on that floor that he now assumes is "Helsing," Malachi bends down to peer closely into the face of the man. "There are many people trying to get rid of you it seems... I wouldn't want to break with tradition." He turns away with a deep, gurgling chuckle.
Hailing the Blue Fury, Malachi speaks. "This is controller Malachi. Your terms are acceptable. Prepare for transport of your prisoner."
EM
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Rowan's Move
PHYSICAL LOCATION: Galley
PSYCHOLOGICAL LOCATION: Somewhere inside her very personal level of hell.
"Do you remember why you don't sleep, Baby Dragon?"
Rowan looks up at the question and sees her brother standing near the wall by the exit leading up to the bridge. He looks different from the first time. From that eerie dream she had while Dr. Tam worked on her eye. Dimly, Rowan recalls that she hasn't seen her brother in 20 years. At least not the brother she knew as a child, the brother she loved like no other.
Finding the world in the smallest of a grain of sand
And holding infinities in the palm of your hand.
He was dressed in black with a stark white shirt and a blue bow tie. In the palm of his left hand, he held a small, glistening mound of pure white sand in his left hand. Tipping his hand slightly caused the sand to drift downward, almost but not quite touching the galley floor.
"It's not too odd that you don't really, since it doesn't have as much to do with me, so much as with what you did."
And heaven's realm in the seedlings of this tiny flower.
And eternities in the space of a single hour.
In the distance, someone screams and Ru smiles. "But you were too late, Baby Dragon. The harm has already been done."
River. That's River screaming. Why this time? How much pain could one girl endure?
"Do you remember what you did, Baby Dragon?"
Now he's dressed in white again, as if for a funeral.
"Do you remember the blood? You cannot forget forever, you know."
A blotch of red appears on his left lapel and begins spreading outward. The color is ominously dark.
"You cannot forget…"
Another blotch appears in the center of his chest and that one spreads too.
Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel.
"You cannot forget…"
Never ending or beginning
"Cannot… cannot… "
On an ever spinning wheel.
"Forget."
Her brother fades into the dark still saying that word and in his place stands Xiang. Dressed as he might have been in life, in tweed and a black cardigan over a linen shirt, he gives her that enigmatic smile.
"I am here, Meili Long. I have never left."
Like a snowball down a mountain.
ROWAN: "That was his favorite line."
Realizing she's spoken out loud, Rowan comes back to herself and realizes that she's alone in the Galley. She'd gone into the kitchen for something right after she called up to the bridge to invite Reynolds and the Shepherd down to the shindig. Looking down, she finds her right hand half raised, three fingers curved as if to form around the handle of a pistol.
Glancing around again as she felt her cheeks turn warm from embarrassment, she's awfully glad no one else is around to have seen her mishap. They might all be looking at her the way they already look at River. She can't hear the girls screams anymore and chalks that whole business to the dream… hallucination…thing. She also comes to the conclusion that mixing bao constructed entirely of protein with Kaylee's moonshine might not be such a fantastical idea.
Since the shindig seems to have come to a quiet little pause, Rowan wonders if now might not be a good time to check up on Damon. That little tussle with Merz may have caused him some harm and even pulled stitches.
Moving to the exit leading up to the bridge, she takes a look and sees that everyone up there seems sufficiently occupied. They might not even notice her going in, particularly if she worked it right. The worst Reynolds could do is threaten to drop her off on the destination world of their current little caper. Wouldn't be the first
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Rowan and Damon Blended Post
LOCATION - FRONT HALL to MERZ DORM
Remembering suddenly that Damon may not get to eat for awhile, Rowan goes back to the kitchen and grabs a dish towel. Taking it to the table, she loads it with eight of the smaller bao and folds the corners tight around. Making a loop out of two of the corners, she hooks it around her wrist and then gets back to business. With the sourcepad link active, she begins working a little techno-magic. First is to get to the video feeds she showed Wash earlier and work it so that a continuous loop image of an empty hallway appears, should anyone think to be checking, which she doubts. Once that's done, she slips off her sandals and moves into the hallway. As she recalls, the crew bunk he's in isn't locked, but Reynolds did order a ping grid installed to safeguard it. Seems the Captain must have had some tunnel rats of some kind to deal with during the war if he has one of those on hand, or even some rudimentary knowledge of it. If that was the highest level of security on this boat, Rowan figures she might have to offer them an upgrade. At a significant discount, of course.
At the hatch to the crew bunk, Rowan is able to verify that the ping grid isn’t hooked in to the ship’s systems before she reaches down and flips the switch to deactivate it. As quietly as possible, she pushes the hatch open and descends the rung-ladder into the crew quarters. The tiny room is dark, but she can hear breathing near the back.
ROWAN (whispering): “Damon – it’s me. Are you okay?”
He is still lying on the bunk, hands behind his head, musing, when he hears the door engage. Damon does not speak, but only waits to see who is entering. He takes a deep breath, and prepares himself, although what for he is not sure. Rowan's voice is a complete surprise; he expected Captain Reynolds at worst and ... Shepherd Book at best.
Damon (whispering): “Rowan? What are you doing here? You're gonna get in trouble. I'm okay."
Ignoring him, she waits for her eyes to adjust - she always had pretty good night vision too, so that doesn't take long, thankfully.
Damon: "Rowan? Are you okay?"
Rowan "I'm fine - I'm more concerned about you. How are those stitches holding up?"
Leaving the ladder, she uses the light from the hatch to find her way to the bunk.
Damon: "Not too bad, but I think I mighta tore something a little. Nothin' I can't live with."
Rowan takes a deep calming breath at that.
Damon (quieter): "Not bein' no Iron man neither. Promise."
Rowan: "Good. Otherwise I'd have to kick your xiao jiay pigu. Look, I can't stay long. Reynolds doesn't know I'm down here."
Damon: "Wu de tien. I'm supposed to be the stupid one. Don't you start, I got enough guilt." He smiles into the darkness to take the sting off of his words, teasin' her. Forgetting she will not see it.
Rowan (smiling): "You are the stupid one. Here." She hands him the bundle. "I brought you something to eat. In case the da huai captain doesn't let you out till morning."
Damon: "Thanks!"
He takes the bundle he feels her hand him and smells ... bao? Oh man. He's eaten well today, perhaps better than he has in months - and his stomach still growls loudly at the smell. He digs into the package, and pulls out a piece - stuffing it eagerly into his mouth.
Hearing the telling rumble, Rowan grins.
Rowan: "That's gotta last you awhile, remember?"
She can almost see him now and the urge to lean forward and give him a quick sisterly peck is ridiculously compelling.
Damon: (Mumbling through a full mouth): "Wonderful. Thanks!"
Rowan (chuck
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