#;indira

In which an explanation of the Analeigha's unique escape pods.

“You’ll never guess what I found in the old systems.”

Alix dropped to a seat, disrupting her peace like an explosion in a daisy field. Not that she'd ever seen a daisy field. But she'd heard they were nice and explosions fucked up generally everything.

Indira looked up, conveying with only her eyes how much she didn’t care. Unfortunately the groundie tech seemed immune to it, leaning even closer into her space. Like a gift sent from some higher power, Ian settled to a seat beside her and Alix unconsciously leaned back again.

“What did you find?” the cyborg asked.

Almost seeming to reconsider the whole thing, Alix glanced between the two of them. Reading expectant faces, he slapped his datapad down on the table, clicking and pulling the edges wide to cover the entire available surface. His excitement returned in full force.

“Okay. So, you know the escape pods double as cryo, right?”

Ian nodded. “For long and-or frequent mission jumps, yes.”

“Right. And it helps if your ship gets busted up and you’re gonna be in space awhile. You just jettison, freeze up, and wait to be scooped.”

They simply stared, waiting for some grand revelation now far too long in coming.

Alix grinned and began outlining by touch the systems on the mainframe shown on his datapad. Previously indistinguishable circuit-like lines and boxes took on colorful tints according to the path of his finger.

“Okay, blue’s cryo, right? And this here…in red…is the ejection systems. Nearby but separate. They’re on a flipswitch. Only one can be active at a time. If you activate cryo systems, the escape pod function stops working, relegating control down to individual choice within each pod. Same in the opposite. Don't wanna freeze up when you jettison? Rather set it on a timer? All on personal controls. But this line here…” He traced a new line in green. “—connects them.”

Silence.

“Meaning?” Ian prompted.

“Meaning that the ship’s CO could jettison frozen crew any time he wanted.”

The revelation took a moment to sink in. Alix licked his lips, looking from a stoic face to an even more stoic face. But before Indira or Ian could summon a response, Cross spoke from a few feet away.

“Cut it.”

All three looked over, only Ian not startled by the usually obvious captain’s sudden stealth. Alix glanced around, unsure.

“Uh…what?”

“Cut the function. I don’t want it on my ship.”

“That’ll take forever. This flipswitch override is buried. I mean, there’s thousands of systems and subprocesses built around—”

“I don’t care, Alix!” Cross finally turned his body to face the kid. He’d yet to smile. “I don’t care how long it takes you, I don’t care how deep you have to cut. I want it at the top of your list, I want it out of my ship—do you understand me?”

“Y…Yeah.” The young mechaneer deflated a little, more stunned than anything. “Yeah, I understand. Priority One.”

Ian and Cross entered the hall to the cargo bay to find the shore party already waiting near the port airlock. ‘Shore party’ was a little generous. It was just Indira and Alix and Kenzi. Ezebel was nearby, but that was simply because she wanted to see them off.

Indira looked much the same as ever, though she'd donned her gloves with the hook claws on the knuckles and the gun on her back looked almost too heavy for her slight frame to support. Alix had shed his usual jumpsuit in favor of an actual shirt, pants, and jacket. He'd even smudged off some of the worse grease stains.

The captain smiled as he approached, arms spread. “Alix! You decided to join us after all.”

The mechaneer shrugged one shoulder. “Decided the recycled air of a spaceport’s the best I’m probably gonna get for awhile.”

“So it has nothing to do with the fact that we’ve arrived at a leisure house?” 

Alix’s cheeks heated a little, but the look in his eyes spoke only of murder.

Immune to it, Cross glanced back at Ian. "Why don't you stay here, then. I'd prefer someone with tech knowledge keep an eye on things."

"Yes, sir."

In which Gaines is a dick--have I mentioned that?

“If a priest ingests blood, he must cleanse his spirit immediately or risk losing himself.”

Reaper coughed. Choked. Strained against his bonds as his body contorted. A sludgy liquid came up his convulsing throat and spilled past his lips but it wasn’t blood. Black and glistening on the ground, it looked like something Alix would scrape out of the engines of the Analeigha. Cross grimaced, though sympathy still won out for the dominant emotion.

Their captor laughed, abandoning his quoting gravitas for his usual agitated cadence. “Fuck if I know what that means, but it’s fuckin fun to watch, huh?”

Surprising everyone inside the tiny cell and outside it, Indira was the first to speak up. “Bitch, your dick so small you get off on this? Let him go—I bet he could take you even like this.”

“Oh, he definitely could.” Gaines traced the fingers of his robotic hand through the splatter of blood on the window where he’d smashed the technician’s head to paste and chunks of bone. He made a parody of the blood priest’s sigils on the glass between them, then grinned through the mess. “That’s why you three are in there, instead of me.”

Reaper was shaking now, tiny little spasms in his muscles. The blood on his skin somehow lacked its usual vibrancy. He hadn’t reapplied in such a long time that every line was brown and cracked, chipping away or smearing into a mess with feverish sweat.

“Reaper?” Ezebel ventured. “Reaper, can you hear me?”

His eyelids fluttered, but only the white showed. Another, much smaller cough splattered flecks of black against his lips. He murmured something, but it made no sense.

“Little girl, I wouldn’t talk to the monster,” Gaines spoke up again, grinning even wider now. “Nobody knows how long it’ll take for the Corruption to really set in. Martians are a secretive bunch. But I wouldn’t draw attention to yourself if I were you. Toodles. I’ll tell Dekker you all say hello.”

It took a lot for Indira to share space with anyone for more than a few minutes. Too accustomed to the secure solitude of her cockpit within Blue. That cocoon of invincibility. But the bay was the only place large enough on the ship to facilitate her work on the mech and...whatever the fuck the new bitch was doing. Indira mostly ignored her. Until a gasket blew off the tank and the bolt shot out with enough force to be called a bullet.

It narrowly missed Indira's head--maybe because she'd jerked, maybe pure chance--and she was moving almost before her heartrate kicked into overdrive. Haymaker punch on the off-chance it'd hit, and then an underhand stab for the ribs. A tried-and-true combo she'd learned long, long ago. The punch missed, that wasn't too surprising, it was mostly diversion. But a slim hand caught her wrist, stopping the thrust of the serrated shiv before it even touched clothing.

Indira was too stunned to react because of all the people on the ship she only probably thought less of the princess in terms of the ease with which it would take to kill. But the thief was standing there, staring at her calmly, hand wrapped around her fist. And they stared. Every pulse in the Earth-born factory brat's bloodstream was telling her to kick, bite, claw until she got the upper hand again, but her opponent wasn't moving like the rape gangs and Blitzed-out addicts she was used to fighting. There was no follow-up or lunge for the throat, just this chilling stare. And then the bitch let go. And then the bitch stepped back, lifted her hands, took another step, and went back to her work. Not a word. Not a fucking word.