ataraxionlogs | in the shuttle bay

Entry tags:

in the shuttle bay | closed

CHARACTERS: Quinlan (

psychometry) and Riddick (

20mentholkools)
LOCATION: the shuttle bay
WARNINGS: uhhhh n/a
SUMMARY: One rather large and rugged fellow linefaces at another rather large and rugged fellow out of attempting to steal a shuttle.
NOTES: because in cross-canon cr terms this is pretty cool, okay

In the grand scheme of things waking up on an unknown starship set on a course of unknown co-ordinates was not the strangest thing to have ever happened to Quinlan Vos. He had certainly woken up in much stranger circumstances and in all fairness most of those had involved a great deal more people trying to kill him. The Tranquility was unusual only in its complete lack of violently murderous sentiment directed towards him - a change that Quinlan was only too reluctant to complain about.

That said, there were other niggling little disturbances that left him feeling far from relaxed in his new environment. The way that the ship felt beneath his hands was unsettlingly different - never had Quinlan been unable to get a psychometric reading from anything so obviously full of life and history. The vast, blank nothingness of the ship's memory was unlike nothing he had encountered before - usually there was at least something residing in the metal memory of a ship: the memory of stars and solar winds, long resounding vibrations of impact shots in battle or the ghostly imprints of past crewmembers. The realisation that the ship should still bear the imprints of its current passengers - still very much alive and kicking as Quinlan swiftly made his way from the passenger decks and in to the bowels of the ship – instead of this chilling nothingness was definitely a new and unpleasant experience.

Another little problem was the make-up of the ship itself. Completely unrecognisable for the most part, with no make or model number that Quinlan could pin on down to a planet registration. Surely then it was a civilian ship from beyond the Outer Rim territories, or so Quinlan reasoned - it was too large (and too clean) to be an unlicensed criminal ship. Not that that was any comfort. Quinlan would at least be on familiar grounds had he found himself on, say, a bounty-hunter ship. Dealing with new and unknown civilisations (no matter how rude their method of bringing on board passengers) called for a need to step carefully, and Quinlan hadn't exactly been very light of foot lately.

But less than an hour after reclaiming his clothes and his lightsaber from his new locker, Quinlan had stealthily set forth towards the shuttle bay. The weapon - seemingly an unassuming hilt, nothing more - remained at his belt and within reaching distance despite the fact that Quinlan knew that he didn’t want to use it. The shuttle bay itself, cavernous and dark, was a welcome sight if only for the one or two shuttles that actually seemed to be in working order. These would surely be his best chance of returning to the Republic. This ship, with its vaulted ceilings and peculiar passengers, was not part of his current mission. With a leap of triumph in his chest Quinlan paused only for a moment to pick a likely looking specimen before quickly scaling the side.

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[Riddick never spends longer than he needs to in the medbay. There's too much vulnerability wrapped in the cold, stark lighting, the blue stasis fluid spilling everywhere and the clean metal lines of the lockers. He doesn't shower, dresses quickly, and makes his way back into the ship - into the dark, what he knows and where he belongs.

The shuttle bay has become as much of a haunt as the depths of the ship, recently. Rarely making his presence there known, but finds a space in one of the higher level docks, one used for cast-offs of completely fucked shuttles. He waits there, and he watches, listens. Caroline is not his companion, not his responsibility, but he's already seen her die once. He keeps an eye on her.

He's been crafting more shivs out of cuts of scrap metal, idle work with his hands, because having too many blades has never been a problem he's experienced. When he hears movement in the bay below, he pauses, not expecting anyone up from the gravcouches just yet. Not a figure or a face he recognises, probably a new arrival. One used to space, the way he looks over the shuttles and picks one that's working.

Used to space, but not used to the Tranquility, the way he goes to climb in like flying off the ship is his best route out of the shit he just found himself landed in.]

You know what you're doing?

[Riddick's voice is low, dark, but it carries clearly across the empty space.]

[ the voice in the darkness causes on the briefest of pauses as Quinlan secures himself in the pilot's seat; he glances out through the pilot's hatch and upwards, coolly gauging just how far the voice had carried and the approximate build of the speaker. A large humanoid, well-built and clearly more at home in his surroundings than most if he had travelled all this way ahead of Quinlan, or so he guesses. But soon Quinlan's gaze is dropping back down on to the control panels laid out before him. With hands outstretched he brushes his fingers along the controls, expecting to feel the imprint of the hundreds of times that pilots must have sat in that exact spot... except there was nothing, just like the skin of the Tranquility itself. No memories, no imprints, just silence. ]

Force willing, I will.

[ It's a muted mutter meant more for himself than anyone else in particular, stranger included. With a grim flicker of exasperation he settles for thumbing the nav screen in to life and loudly calls back out the hatch without raising his head from his work: ]

I'll forward you some credits for the shuttle when I hit the nearest Republic outpost.

[Most would be more surprised at Riddick's presence, maybe even enough to entirely stop what they were doing, caught red-handed. Maybe thinking he was a guard, and it sounds like that much from the response Riddick gets. The guy's confident in himself, in dealing with potential threats, in getting what he wants even if the route to doing it isn't the cleanest.

But he still doesn't know what he's doing.]

No credits here. [There was probably some currency rolling around out on the populated planets out there, but if any of it was meant to mean shit on the Tranquility, the Captain hadn't sent out that information.] No 'Republic'. And that shuttle doesn't have enough fuel to get you anywhere except drifting.

[ That the Republic's arm handed extended as far as the ship's current location - or that the ship wasn't even affiliated with a Republic planet - wasn't an issue. The Outer Rim had a tenuous enough relationship with the Core worlds as it was that the offer of credits could only have been a half-hearted offer - but at least it confirmed that much. In his pilot's seat Quinlan set his jaw and gripped the controls resolutely; it was better this way, anyway. Less Republic influence meant more freedom to work in his own particular way, and he knew how to operate in the darker regions of space. This was nothing new, no matter how far away from his own galaxy he was.

So, no Republic and no credits. No fuel, either. No psychometric imprints and no flight manual. But there was still the Force.

From his seat he lifts his chin and stares back out of the pilot's hatch, seemingly unfazed by the revelations. ]

You in charge of these ships?

No.

[Riddick shifts the scrap of metal he's working on over in his hand, feeling the weight, the balance. None of them made perfect blades, but here, he had time to make them better than some of the shanks he'd used in the past.]

Gonna be waiting a while, you want the guy in charge.

[None of the flight crew had assumed an overall position of authority, as far as he could tell. Not since Hotspur had been around. Which left Ward, and Riddick doubted the Captain had much care for the shuttles beyond necessity. He definitely wouldn't be down here to deal with one new passenger, fresh out of the couches.]

[ With one thumb he keys the start-up systems in to life, producing a low hum of energy as the pilot computers flicker on and start to rattle off streams on information. Hidden amongst the reeling digits is one little piece of data that is impossible to ignore: a flashing symbol, fuel status, negligible. Quin couldn't even make a parsec on that, even with the most ingeniously economic of piloting. He frowns at the display and his grip on the controls before him slackens. ]

Right.

[ His gaze turns back up again, back to the man in the mechanic's gallery above the shuttles. The shiv in the other man's hand is heavy and crude but certainly more than fit to serve a certain purpose; Quinlan considers it - and the man hefting it - before speaking up again. ]

Not enough fuel and most of the shuttles busted. Almost like someone didn't want the passengers escaping.

Almost like.

[Riddick repeats it, his tone making it sound like a possible agreement, or a possible question. Whether it was a matter of not wanting the passengers (the previous crew, maybe) to escape or not, the state of the shuttles was extremely fucking suspect, as far as he was concerned. But then, everything about the Tranquility was extremely fucking suspect. He just didn't care much about figuring it out further than he needed to in order to get out (but that was getting further and further, these days).]

Figured that one fast.

[But every move the guy was making was proving him more and more knowing his shit. It was just a case of what side he'd end up standing on, the lines getting drawn through the ship.]

Call it a hunch.

[ A blithe response fiercely tempered with grimness and frustration. Of course it was more than a mere 'hunch' - it came with the sense of black grimness and fear that seeps through the passengers like a sickness. Quinlan had only been in the sickbay for mere minutes after the jump but already he had seen far more passengers than could possibly be evacuated on the broken little shuttles - and each one of them jarringly foreign and alien against the backdrop of the ship's vaulted corridors. None of them really belonged, it was obvious enough.

Astromaps and drift charts can be worked around with the will of the Force but a lack of fuel was an obstacle that would need more resourcefulness to overcome. Still, he's loath to extricate himself from the pilot's harness just yet - climbing out of the cockpit was too much like defeat. It isn't pride that keeps Quinlan in place but the sense of dread that comes with admitting that his mission was about to be put on hold. It's too painful, too raw; hundreds - possibly thousands - of parsecs away there was a second Sith Lord to hunt and a war to stop.

He turns his attention back to the stranger above him and coolly indicates the crude weapon. ]

You got much of a need for those on here?

[Frustration. Riddick can understand that. Ten months and he should be gone by now, should have been gone a long time ago. But he knew, some places took longer to find a way out than others. Patience was necessary, waiting for the right opportunity, the right information. Slotting all the pieces together.]

Always a need. [He flips the blade (it isn't quite a blade, yet, needs binding around the rough end to work as a handle. A scrap of torn fabric from somewhere, sealed down with the sealants they use).] Just a matter of time.

[He hadn't needed them, not for a while. Not the way he was used to. Demons, fear toxin, the fog and all the personalised hells it had contained. But he knew the universe, knew how this went. You didn't have a weapon ready, you were just waiting to die.]

[ The response leaves him cold but there's something there he can agree with on principle - even though he knows that he shouldn't. It's a product of long years lost to the depths of his missions and immersing himself in the tasks that his master - a shadow himself, now the ringmaster of the galaxy-wide Jedi spy networks - has given him. Instead of arguing - instead of doing what any good Jedi might do and gently spit a pearl of wisdom - he nods fractionally. The stranger's response hadn't been no, after all - and it doesn't take a Jedi to realise that this was a man who had seen his fair share of situations involving melee weapons.

He passes his hand back over the desk controls again - touching a button here and there, interpreting the foreign displays and commands as best he could and applying a little common sense for good measure. ]

No astromech droids, no flight data. [ a beat, and then a curious look up at the other man as Quinlan asks, louder than before: ] What kind of ship is this?

Colonization, original design. [That's what they liked to say, anyway, and it matched well enough. The huge amount of people the ship should have contained. But now there were only two crew and a few hundred confused, unwilling passengers.]

Better to think ghost.

[He doesn't mean haunted, even with all the shit that happens. He means a drifting wreck, damaged systems and no crew. Back in his universe, it would have been abandoned already, crawled over by scavengers multiple times, ripping out parts for salvage. Two crew attempting to keep powering it through whatever course it had originally been set on was madness, but he's getting some idea of why they were sticking around.]

[ This far out in to the reaches of wild space (for that's where they must be, as far as Quinlan is concerned) to be on a ghost ship was tantamount to being on a dead ship. His expression betrays his thoughts for once, lips parting in a slack frown and dark brows creasing over. Derelict and doomed ships that strayed too far in to the dark patches of the unknown and lost their way wasn't all that unusual - especially when it came to colonisation. Deep space missions often came with the caveat that it might just be a one-way trip. ]

Original passengers?

[It's the first time the guy's looked surprised, but whether that's a matter of him previously holding a good poker face or the depth of the shit he'd found himself in finally making itself clear, Riddick doesn't try to guess.]

Two crew. [He doesn't include the smile. If that was another crew member, an original passenger, something else.] What happened to the rest... [The knife turns over in his fingers again, and his gaze shifts slightly, out and over the shuttles to one in particular, and then back again.] Getting drip fed pieces of that picture.

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