RP: 188604 [Exodus] Part 2, The beginning

[Alex Hart]

The Former Skyguard 2nd Fleet,

In orbit of planet B7R 604.

Tim Aricson was on the bridge of the flagship of the 2nd fleet, renamed the Exodus, and had called Sienna Nelson up to the bridge to confer with him before he gave the order to move out.

The auburn-haired, headband-clad human wearing what appeared to be a two-sizes-too-small (read: skintight) uniform hop-skip-something'd her way onto the bridge - seemingly as if she'd just had a couple dozen too many energy drinks - and, with the skill of a lifelong addict, blew a bubblegum-pink bubble. Pop!

"Heyos, sir! You rang?"

Tim turned to look at Sienna and... tried to ignore her distracting choice of clothing. "Sienna, is everything ready to go?"

"Yep-wait, hmmm..." - another bubble and another pop as the curvaceous kid thought back to what Wally had said to her a few minutes prior - "yep, everythin's ready to go, sir! We ready to dance~?"

"Okay, stand by, I'm addressing the fleet."

Aricson tapped a button on the Intercom. "Men and Women of the USO 2nd fleet, I am aware of yoru dissatisfaction with the current state of our homeland. It has been ruined by a corrupt government which exists only to serve those in the upper class. Sky Warden Tasuki has failed to reign in the corrupt parts of the government, and left us with only one choice."

"We go now to seek a new home, far away from here. We will start new lives, and build a new home we can be proud of. To all off you who leave your homes and families behind, I'm sorry for your sacrifice, but you leave them to build a better tomorrow. And to those of you who have brought your families along with us, I promise we will keep them safe."

Aricson made a sort of dramatic gesture, pointing ahead as if to the future. "Today, we are no longer the USO 2nd Fleet. Today, we are the Exodus fleet!"

Sienna, standing slightly behind and to the right of Aricson, smiled, but if anyone had seen her expression at that exact moment, they would've been...confused, to say the least, for she was known to always be happy and upbeat, no matter how serious, dark, or depressing life was at that particular moment - and yet...

And yet Sienna Nelson's smile was, at that particular moment, anything but happy and upbeat. It was more...melancholic in nature, as if she'd witnessed this kind of scene before despite being far too young for such a thing to have occurred - and, more importantly, it was scared. Not of the unknown - she lived for the thrill of meeting new people and getting to know them - but of what lay hidden within its depths.

She was scared, and she knew that sooner or later it would happen again.

Aricson seemed to sense that there was something wrong. Sienna was never usually this quiet.

He turned to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Sienna... Is everything okay?"

The kid's expression changed almost instantaneously back into its normal self. "Yeah, sir, I was just wondering where I'd put the rest of my beloved bubblegum~" - her expression brightened as she fished another piece out her pocket - "oya, an' that was a rad speech you gave." A deft hand motion later, the gum was unwrapped and being consumed. "Yum~~~"

Aricson sighed. "Sienna, please don't bullshit me. I know you too well to be fooled that easily."

"No bull, sir, for realsies. You an' I both know I can't keep a secret to save my life." That much, at the very least, was true - Sienna was absolutely horrible at keeping things to herself, particularly if one bribed her with bubblegum or something similar. It was why she'd been the last to find out about the whole plan to begin with, and why she - despite her attempts to wheedle the information out of her usual sources - still hadn't the faintest idea as to where they were all going.

"Sienna, please. I won't press you on this now, but I will talk to you about this again later. I want to help you."

As the two were talking, a guard poked his head into the bridge. "Hey Aricson, someone's here to see you."

Dressed in her short cut black jacket and blue jeans, the blonde Horizon liaison had easily slipped on board the ship before it left, Kryss had strolled the length as many times as she could count on her fingers poking her head into various places to see what was going down. Eventually getting bored she made her way to the bridge and had spoken to the guard posted outside, stepping into the room with a serious expression she eyed up the two standing there.

"I presume you're Aricson?" She addressed the ship's captain casting a glance in the direction of the neko beside them. "Kryss Black, although I won't bore you with the formalities of business but I'm here for two main reasons, to assist your little exodus and to gather data for my own endeavours. Sound like a fair enough trade?"

Aricson turned to the woman. "I am, and to be honest, we don't really have the choice to turn your offer down. What will you be doing to help?"

"Herro, Miss Black~," said Sienna with a twirl and another coral-hued pop, "and yep, the more friends the merrier. If there aren't any unoccupied bunks left..." - if memory served, and it always did, there wasn't anyone by the name of Kryss Black in the ship's official roster - "...there's plenty of room in mine. If, of course, you're into that kind of thing~." Pop!

Kryss ran a hand through her hair absently before responding, "Well im not sure how far you expected to get with such lack luster security when you boarded, but I already have some cargo in your hold which I think you will find quite useful."

Switching her attention back to the neko she gave her a slight smile, "I don't see an issue with that, a business woman has to be adventrous in life after all, otherwise how will she get where she needs to go?"

Aricson sighed. "Now's not the time to be worrying about sleeping arangements. What are you bringing to the table Miss Black?"

"Yay~~~," replied the second highest-ranking officer onboard the Exodus, brushing over her superior's comment but also knowing not to pursue the topic any further.

"Indeed, I may not be staying so long as to need a bed anyway. As for what I have managed to bring with me we figured you guys would need a little bit of self defence and we need the free marketing, don't take this wrong way but this isn't something we're doing purely out of the goodness of our hearts."

Kryss straightened up and stretched her arms, "I have an unmarked container with 30 SSR's within and enough Energy cores to last each weapon for a month. They're yours regardless of what happens as I don't intend to take them back with me, consider that the freebie in exchange for gathering some data to help our research. Of course Horizon is willing to provide you with more supplies in the form of weapons, personal vehicles and some survival equipment if you catch my drift..."

Aricson offered Kryss his hand. "Thank you Ms. Black, I'll be sure to take that offer in earnest. We'll need all the help we can get, wherever we're going."

"Interested in going to my room?~" Sienna knew better - seriously, she did - but Miss Black was so gorgeous, and besides, the important serious stuffs were all over now, unless the stinkers at S6 tried anything.

"Sienna, please don't try to sleep with someone while we're trying to escape from the star system."

------ Meanwhile, on planet 188604 ------

Long range sensor instalations in orbit of the planet relayed information to the skyguard fleet in the 188604 system. Alex looked up as an alarm flashed. "Shit..."

Spoiler: OOC

@Zack @Jack Pine @FrostJaeger @club24

 

[Zack]

Nath Tower

"The fleet is still within range of our craft. I've provided a plan of attack to disable the ships and return them to our inventory with the least amount of physical damate to systems and zero loss of life." Vier explained.

"WE SHOULD DESTROY THEM!" Uso said, slamming her fist down on her armrest, nearly knocking over her fruity drink.

"That is inadvisa..."

"NO WAIT!" Uso shouted, a smile coming to her face. A much better plan was forming in her head. "I have a better idea.... Send them...."

Uso's face couldn't help but continue to curl into an endlessly pleased-with-herself smile,

".... an Invoice!"


---

The Exodus Fleet would soon receive a transmission. Text Only.

"HEY GUYS! Looks like you're setting out on your own. Cool. Do what you want!

There's the little matter of my ships that you're taking but that's cool. We're sending you an invoice and giving you a generous financing offer, like 5% intrest. With a little hard work you could pay that off in no time.

If you're looking for a little mercinary work, just let me know!"

 

[Alex Hart]

------ Planet 188604 ------

Alex had seen Uso's transmission recieved while he was monitering the Exodus Fleet's communications, and and made his way to her office to talk.

When he arrived, he knocked on the door before coming inside without waiting for a response. He kept it brief. "Uso, I don't know if you can bill them. Technically you don't own those ships, the Skyguard does and by extension the people of the planet."

"I'm going to catch up to them while their FTL drives are recharging between jumps and try to convince them to come back."

 

[Zack]

Uso nodded,

"Well. Ok. Do that. They are welcome to come back when they are done running away from home for the night.

If they do want to run off, we can hold that bill over their heads. It'll give us more of a leg to stand on when we eventually have to deal with them.

Can't let just everyone run off with Skyguard ships. It sets a bad example."

 

[Alex Hart]

Just outside of the B7R-604

The Exodus fleet had just come out of its jump, and was recharging its FTL drives. As the fleet was waiting for their drives, the first Skyguard fleet popped into existance.

Alex's face popped up on the communication screens of every ship on the fleet. "Attention Skyguard Personnel, you are absent without leave. Return to your base of operations at once."

Sienna, by virtue of being petite, smol, and nimble, was the first one to make it to the communication console and hit the [TALK] key. "I-oops, we are really, really, really sorry, sir, but we just can't do that."

Sienna's reputation preceded her, and by the time Tim Aricson had scrambled up to the bridge, Alex could already be seen pinching the bridge of his nose. "Oh great. I've heard plenty about you. I can see that I'm not going to make any progress with you. Tell you what, get me the guy in charge please."

"Oi!" The aforementioned smol was, to put it mildly, pissed. "I'll have you know I graduated top o-"

As Alex spoke, Tim had moved into frame. "Oh good, someone who can be reasoned with."

"Listen, I don't know why you guys are leaving all of a sudden but I'm sure I can figure something out."

Tim's face hardened. "Sir, with all due respect, it's clear that you can't figure something out. You promised us that we'd be protecting our home."

"And you were!"

"No, we weren't. Your spinelessness let the upper class, those who came to my home from space, rule us with impunity, sending Osmans to fight and die on petty errands based on personal desire rather than any interest in the good of the people they governed."

The headband-clad human, still decidedly irate, chimed in, "Yeah, what he said! It's no fun fighting a bunch of business people to settle your personal score, and it really isn't fun fighting a bunch of icky bugs to fix your mistakes, sir!"

Alex seemed to not know what to say. His mouth hung open but no words came out. Aricson took this oppertunity to hammer his point home. "Sir, you're just as corrupt as the rest of them. You were supposed to stand up to people trying to exploit those you were supposed to protect, but you didn't."

"And that makes you just as bad as them."

"Why not join us, Alex?"

Alex seemed to twitch, as if looking for a source of sound that wasn't there. Then he seemed to realize that someone was speaking to him through his mindware, and he began to talk back. "I can't. I have a responsibility to the people here, and well... I've got something I still need to do."

Just at that moment, the Exodus fleet's FTL drives finished charging.

"Sooner or later, Alex, they'll find us - and when they do, you'll be the only one capable of stopping them."

Tim Aricson seeemed to give Alex a last sidelong glance before speaking. "Goodbye, sir."

The fleet jumped.

And Aricson flopped into a seat, exhausted. He cradled his head in his hands. "Oh god Sienna, I don't know what to do now. We can't go back, and I don't know where we're going."

"Oh..." - a pause, as Sienna's expression faltered - "meh." A shrug, then she continued, "who cares? What matters is that we'll have fun getting there - and besides, what could be possibly more exciting then the thrill of discovering an unknown world or something, filled with mysterious ruins and ancient shipwrecks? We could go exploring, and maybe even make some new friends!"

"But what about all the ones we had to leave behind? The only person I've got left is you now." The commander of the Exodus fleet seemed to be taking said exodus very, very hard.

"It's not just me you got, sir," said the auburn-haired girl formerly in charge of the 22nd Task Force. "You got all of us - John, Landon, Daryl, Donny, even Wally."

Her features, which could've been easily described as gleeful - perhaps even joyous - a few moments prior were now...soft. Almost as if she'd done this kind of thing before - but that was simply wasn't possible.

"We're your family, sir, and we're all grieving the ones we left behind, so..." - she paused, fished some bubblegum out of her pocket, consumed it, and kept going - "...let's keep our heads high, let's wipe our tears dry, and let's all have some fun as we fly!" Pop!

"Hell, there's nothing more useful to do right now I guess." Aricson conceded, "I'm going down to the mess hall. I need a stiff drink. You wanna tag along?"

"Sure~~~" was the upbeat response.

===== 10 minutes later, down at the Mess Hall =====

Tim Aricson clearly could not hold his alcohol. After a single bottle of mildly strong beer he was already incoherently babbling about his family which he had left behind, was slumped over on a table and occasionally hiccupped while mumbling.

His (unfortunate?) companionship sighed to herself, pouting as she polished off a third caramel sundae. "D'oh...you're no fun at all..."

While the others had conversed Kryss had been busy sending some of her own transmissions to various others back at the Horizon HQ only walking back onto the bridge to see them jump away from the planet. Blinking slowly the blonde looked around as the severity of the situation set in, she was now stuck with this ship until someone else figured out where they were.

Instead of freaking out as some may when they are suddenly away from home with no way back she kept her head and decided to hang around the captain for a while to find a time to talk to him. As he started babbling and drinking it became clear talking would have to wait. "Well if you cant beat em, join em. Or something like that." She muttered to herself moving over to get herself a strong drink.

The unofficial 'cook' of the ship seemed to be running the show down in the wardroom, having set up a makeshift bar. "What can I get ya miss?" The cook, an older woman with slightly greying hair, asked Kryss.

"Something with a kick, enough to make me forget tonight and then I may actually get drunk and enjoy myself." Kryss replied with a smirk looking at the shelf behind the bar lady choosing out the best looking thing available.

The 'cook' picked up a dubious looking bottle. "This is the strongest drink I've got. If you think you can handle it, it's all yours." The cook's face seemed genuine enough, but what Kryss didn't notice was several crew members all around the wardroom grinning and snickering softly.

An auburn-haired beauty joined the onlookers, clearly having gotten bored with hearing the same incoherent familial story told and re-told five different times.

Grinning ear to ear the blonde picked up the bottle and took a small sniff of the contents, "Hmm, seems like this has been maturing for a while which is good to know, despite the stock or lack of I'm seeing this might be worth the hangover."

Uncapping it she flicked her fringe away from her eyes and brought the bottle to her lips before downing a huge swig.

The drink burned like liquid fire, and seemed to suck the breath out of Kryss' lungs as it induced a coughing fit. After the coughing fit came a swift and vicious headache which lasted for a few seconds before subsiding miraculously. The burning in her throat was still there though.

Kryss was not expecting what she drank to be quite so strong folding forwards as she coughed violently several times as her throat seemed to melt in some intense heat. Straightening back up she gave a slight grin and slowly raised a hand to her forehead at the headache.

Sienna giggled softly at the businesswoman's reaction.

"Well now it makes more sense why you're all so quiet, that must be your homebrew to weed the boys from the men, sorry to inform you all but this isn't even the worst I've had." Kryss offered the bottle to the closest guy, "Want to try and do better sweetie?"

The man laughed. "Hell no! I couldn't believe that anyone could possibly be dumb enough to accept that drink." He frowned. "Where in the hell did you get the idea that anyone would WANT to drink that?"

A four-fingered hand - the result of what its vertically-challenged owner referred to as "birth defects" - could be seen amongst the gathered crewmembers.

The cook put on an obviously fake scowl and shook her fist at the man. "Bad talk my recipie will you wise guy? Just for that you're kicked out!"

The man groaned, but the cook continued talking.

"Unless you can finish the little lady's drink." The cook now wore a wicked grin, akin to something out of a nightmare.

A slightly-sweeter grin could be seen adorning a certain smol's features. "Ooh, was that a challenge~?"

"Well I thought your recipie was quite refreshing, been a while since I had something this strong. And considering how long it may be till the next time I'd be happy to finish it if this guy here doesn't have the balls." Kryss smirked at him waving the bottle in his face.

"Listen," The man began, "The last guy who finished a whole bottle went blind. After his kidneys gave out, the drink ate through his stomach and made its way into his bloodstreamb and up to his brain."

Sienna nodded. 'Lucky Eddy' was the poor guy's name, and it was quite a shame he was now in a coma - he'd been one of the very, very few individuals who could keep up with her in certain bedroom activities.

"Sounds to me like someone is afraid of a little drink, he was obviously not fated to succeed and his luck ran out. So what'll it be?"

The man got up from his bar stool and made his way to the door. "It's your funeral."

"D'oh, you're no fun either...boo."

Kryss sighed, guess these guys were a bit harder to impress than downing some pure poison. Sliding the bottle slowly back across the counter to the barmaid she spoke, "Thanks for the drink but, guess the show's over now." Rubbing her throat the lady made her way to a seat and pulled out her pad.

Seeing everyone congregating over at the bar, Aricson made his way over there as well. Albeit shakily. Upon seeing him the cook raised an interesting question.

"Hey, uhhh, sir. I know we're going somewhere, and I get we're gonna make a new home, but how're we going to get enough infrastructure up and running wherever we end up? It's not like we can stay in our ships forever."

Aricson seemed slightly out of it, but he still managed to respond. "I read somthin about some big fukkin scrapyard 's big as a star system. We're gonna go there 'nd grab a bunch of big, old ships and use em to live in."

"When we get wherever we're goin', we can land em, and turn em into buildings."

The explanation was acompanied by several hand gestures. Aricson got a little too over-enthusiastic and soon toppled over off his seat and onto the floor.