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Captain's Cabin
A neat, soldierly space, with personal items stowed out of sight in latched cupboards. Station chairs are clamped to the floor by a small table and comconsole; a vast assortment of weapons hangs on one wall and a washroom door is outlined on the other. The reading lamp is a relic, made out of a slagged helmet. A neatly made bed is visible in the back.
PSLs
Out-of-game threading goes here! (And does not necessarily have to be set in Bel's cabin, though that's a great place to get a cup of tea.<3)
Out-of-game threading goes here! (And does not necessarily have to be set in Bel's cabin, though that's a great place to get a cup of tea.<3)
Universe-hoppy murdernanigans, get~
...That last one, he's blaming for the current set of corpses.
User. Human. Three, all wearing the same unfamiliar attire—and the same weapons, though only one still has it in hand. Rinzler eyes the body as it floats past, blobs of fluid still leaking sluggishly from the disk wound carving its front open. The unlit weapon in his grip has more or less burned off its share of blood, but the fluid is still everywhere: adhering to his hands, to the corpses, to the walls and doors and tied-down crates that shape the contours of the room. There's a mess of splatter still hovering near the vents at the room's corners—too small to make an exit, but easily enough to suck out all the chamber's air.
Stupid of them, if not especially surprising. Their first mistake had been leveling their guns his way. The second one was firing. By the time the users at the rear had scrambled out and sealed the room closed, values like air or gravity (or the current lack thereof) were barely a concern. Not to the empty bodies bouncing through the room, and certainly not to him.
Still, the larger error was still cycling through queue, fault waiting for assignment. Who'd brought him here? And how? Rinzler's last log was waiting at the center of the Midway Hub, lingering outside the (pointless) user celebrations. He hadn't powered down, but he'd awoken here: in a strange room with strange, stupid users, and an airlock at each end. Another system glitch? If so, where were the others? He didn't feel tampered with, but that didn't mean nothing had happened.
Only one way to find out. Noise stays damped, circuits darkened as the enforcer coils in the shadows of the ceiling above the door. The threats had exited that way, and sooner or later, someone would come back. They'd answer his questions.
Or he'd get out, and find someone who could.
Most murdery nanigans XD
Keller Hub shouldn't have been good for much more, going off fleet chatter and local rumors. An unimportant backwater station, its three wormholes inconvenient byways to anywhere, it should have been the perfect place for a "chance" encounter with an old shipmate with some information to pass along.
She hadn't showed.
The ship had arrived all right, locked outside one of the small commercial landing bays, its Rangers insignia bright in the glare of the docking lights. A casual inquiry of a less-unfriendly-looking Ranger in the C Deck concourse had yielded the information that Bel's contact was somewhere in situ; the careless "Let her know if you see her....." all the interest Bel could afford to show in a mercenary officer of a rival fleet. But she hadn't showed, and the short window of deniability was closing fast. Sometimes operations were like that.
The cold tension had started when four or five civilians -- if civilians had identically flat, dead eyes and a few too many weapons concealed under poorly-selected travel clothes -- had, apparently spontaneously, closed their vid screens or thrown away their drink bulbs and, one by one, wandered back in the general direction of the deck's docking ring. It might have been almost believable if all the active docks hadn't been two decks up on E.
They'd bypassed the gates' standby security, locks and passages stretching ahead into dim-lit confusion. Finally Bel, far enough behind not to be heard, had spotted a gate with its bolts slid open, and listened hard for a few moments before slipping through.
The workspace, a long tunnel lined with lockers and equipment, communicated between two different cargo bays, the better to access (or seal) the bays in case of a lock malfunction. Bel had taken it all in between sharp bolts of adrenaline -- the thin wail echoing down the tunnel, the frantic ring of boots, the stunner in hand as though it had leaped there by itself, the nick-of-time cover behind a hanging pressure suit just before one of the strangers bolted past, stinking of blood and fear and babbling into a wristcom.
Letting him go, Bel had dived into the suit and run in the opposite direction. The fleeing goon, Jacksonian by his accent, certainly hadn't been going for station security.
And who depressurizes an entire bay to get rid of one killer?
Going by the terrified babbling, it'll be too late for cryoprep by the time anyone else arrives. If it's too late already, station security can handle the remains. But first Bel has to know.
There's no sign of life through the tiny lock window. The spattered blood is rime-crusted, already starting to boil away with nothing to keep it pressurized. Bodies drift gently through the gore.
No Rangers uniforms are visible from here.
Little hope for cryonic intervention, either.
The last of the air hisses out of the intervening lock and Bel cycles the hatch. The bay is a bloody mess and getting caught in it won't help anyone. Two of the bodies are definitely strangers. The third might be the killer. It's hard to tell from here. Had four mercs wandered out of the hub? Or had it been five?
If the third body is a stranger, there's no reason for Bel to stick around. A quick look will be enough. Cautiously, one boot under the footrail for balance, Bel leans over the edge of the gravity shelf to pick the best approach.
What other kind of nanigans would you want, really~?
So, not before he gets his answers.
Rinzler waits, still and silent, as the shape below leans forward, limbs curled on the supports to keep control. Better to wait until it kicks off, catch it mid-jump with no way to alter path. But this user has enough processing power to look before it leaps, and if it checks above, there's a chance he might be spotted.
Better not to risk it.
Feet brace against the ceiling. Grip shifts around the grate he'd chosen for a makeshift handhold, minute adjustments to guarantee the straightest path. And Rinzler kicks off, a soft, swift motion toward the extended plane of the user's back.
Bel would prefer SO MANY other types of nanigans, starting with watching paint dry XDDDDD
It happens too fast to get a look at the attacker. The weight hits Bel's back hard, Bel's own mass halving the velocity, but half of fast is still a respectable speed. There's an arm locking around Bel's waist, a hand groping for the stunner.
Bel twists sharply, down with the right arm and up with the left. They'll bounce when they hit the floor -- best if the attacker hits first. The anchoring foothold is lost with the movement, but if Bel can get the stunner up over their left shoulder, there's a chance to stun them before they can do anything else.
Wow, Bel. Learn to nanigans!
They'll also feel a curved edge digging in across their front—and rising to intercept the lifting hand. Activating his disk risks killing a potential source of data, but Rinzler recognized the shape of that weapon on his way down. If he can knock it aside without the blade, he will, and if not... better the user than him.
Not that he doesn't have other concerns. The sideways twist aims Rinzler's dock straight for the ground; he curls in, turning to take the blow on a shoulder instead. Rebound is immediate, only a fraction of an instant's contact with the ground... but speed has never been the enforcer's weak point. He slams down a foot at a sharp angle, sending them off at a corkscrewing, rapid spin across the room.
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Spotty memories or no, Bel's priorities shift immediately from 'disable' to 'disengage'. Despite rigorous training since returning to Ariel, there's a skill gap uncloseable by simple human reflex: Rinzler, damn the dehumanizing mores of the system that birthed him, is literally designed for this. The perfect, programmable soldier.
Secondary priority: get away from that disc.
The stunner hand lashes back to the right, forgoing the shot for a chance at deflecting Rinzler's disc arm. Simultaneously, Bel twists right and elbows down at the encircling arm, hoping to break its grip and let the next impact throw them apart.
Their helmets are touching, Bel's large enough to allow freedom of movement without providing a choke point in an industrial environment. Maybe a shout will transfer; maybe not. Bel shouts anyway.
"Rinzler! Stand down!"
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Rapid-fire calculations track their vector as the room twists past in periphery, a cycling blur of walls-ceiling-floor. This time, the user can be their point of impact, and his limbs tuck, shifting a little to be sure. There's a buzzing vibration at the point of contact in their shells, an odd noise that doesn't quite match the feedback from his own. Shouting? Stupid, pointless... unless it has a comm line open. Scans sharpen, checking to be sure...
The faint stiffness that coils through their captor's frame, Bel will definitely be able to feel. No comm line, no call, but a match, signature identified and known. Bel_Thorne. User security (former security) from the system they both shared until it crashed. Part of the group he's tagged along with since, in their (pointless) (hateful) search for the Portal.
Ally? No, not in the least. But Rinzler knows them.
And they, unlike the other errors who'd walked in, know Rinzler.
He clings on through the ricochet. It's only after that Bel will see a curve of light flare to life, white edge surrounding the red-orange ring as Rinzler activates his disk. They know the weapon, they know what it can do, but there's no move to slice or throw, no attempt to bypass their weak block. Instead, Rinzler twitches his blade carefully: toward the stunner, then away.
Drop it.
no subject
All Bel can do is reach for the strap on the pressure-crate block they'd hit, fumbling the first one but latching firmly onto the second. The crates are secure, lashed down against any change in gravity, and Bel's arm becomes a pivot. It's pure luck that Bel's feet hit the crates next, landing them in a crouch that absorbs enough of the impact so the rest doesn't rip them away again.
It's a hectic half-second or two. But Bel doesn't miss Rinzler's reaction to the shout -- they hardly can, with the program plastered to their back, the grip immovable. He heard it, at least. Whether he understood or not... well, that's yet to be learned.
The lit disc, with its accompanying gesture, needs no further words.
Bel waits a fraction of a moment, just to show deliberation, and then extends the stunner arm away from Rinzler, fingers mostly opening. They're not going to use it, but letting it ricochet around the bay would not be the action of a responsible soldier. Stooping just a little more, Bel tucks the stunner between the cargo strap and the corrugated depressions in the crate beneath them, then releases it, shifts upward until it's out of easy reach, and goes still, looking over the aching shoulder at Rinzler's blank helmet.
Now what?
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Easy enough to light the weapon at need. Easy to split it, easy to throw, to add another user shell to this room's complement. Maybe he should. Bel_Thorne isn't an ally, and they've proved themself a valid threat before. Bel_Thorne had made it clear they thought much worse of him, the last time he killed users. Thrashing and aimless, something to be caged and sent away. Given to other users for keeping and correction. Wasn't that what they had recommended?
Is that why he's here?
...Unlikely. If editing is (as always) an unknown, it seems improbable that any captors would manage to wipe all memory of how he got here without stopping him from fighting back. And if this user did have a part in it, he doubts they would be stupid enough to step so carelessly in reach.
No, calculations favor some kind of group transport. It wouldn't be the first time. Which means that ally or not, he and the user still share a likely goal. Assessment reached, Rinzler reaches down with his free hand, snagging an inventory tally off the wall. The pad gets tossed unceremoniously in Bel's direction as Rinzler reaches for his own communicator. The network functions have been down since he woke up, but it still works fine for base projections.
Location?
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After checking and not seeing his staff, Dorian went to go find people.
(OOC: Sorry this took so long. If you need anything changed, please let me know and I'll be happy to do it.)
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[[Forgot where we were setting this, so am putting them in a spaceport. Don't worry about taking long! As you can see, that's how we roll around here. XD;]]
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"Hello," Dorian said, falling into step beside Bel. He was still wearing the armor he'd had on back home, with its covering for his off arm and his metal boots. "Could you tell me where I am?"
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"In the wrong century?" Bel quips, with an amused half-smile. A reenactor or holovid star having, perhaps, lost his way after too much celebration? But there's no alcohol on his breath. "Deck Three, level Lambda-Q. I'm on my way to the spacedock on K, if that's what you're looking for. Or are you staying over on the station?"
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He kept pace easily, accustomed to walking everywhere.
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"A port, yes. It's not surprising people would get turned around back here; Pol doesn't seem to have heard of intuitive architecture. Are you bound somewhere in particular?"
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It was normal for it to depend on the price of passage but he didn't recognize Pol and couldn't remember where he'd been going, figuring for the moment that he must have been very drunk when he crawled aboard.