The Cage Sans Gorn

Posted on Fri May 3rd, 2019 @ 11:11am by The Narrator & Lieutenant Commander Mara Ricci & Staff Warrant Officer Blaise Birch & Stephen Spires

Mission: S1E3: Moments Of Consolidation
Location: Gastarox's Ship
Timeline: MD7 6.45AM

Then the door was shut, locking with a finality that was vaguely ominous. More so because the Reka walked back into the cargo bay, closing the companionway hatch behind them.

"Well," Rollins said through gritted teeth' "Worst field trip ever, am I right?"

"Anyone snag that Mary Sue thing?" Calhoon asked.

Dania had been fairly quiet up until then, having let the others do most of the talking, while she listened. Two words had caught her interest in that whole rather weird exchange. Myriad and Concordance. The way their captors spoke about them, made them seem like a current or at least recent interaction.

While they needed to get out of there as soon as possible, Storm also knew she needed to learn as much as possible in the process.

"Which one of the Mary Sue's?" Dania finally asked, rubbing her head.

"I didn't think of it," admitted Mara, crossing to Spires. "Let's get these two out of this stuff. Anybody have a knife or something? Oh, wait!" She pulled off a boot and produced a small Swiss Army knife from a secret compartment in the sole accessed by a flap in the lining. "Good thing they didn't search us," she said, starting to cut into the weird material encasing Spires.

"I suggest we don't let out Bloody McGhee over here," Calhoon said, squatting down beside Blaise. The Reka he was entombed with was very clearly dead, its neck missing a good chunk. Said chunk had, hopefully, been lost somewhere in the jungle trek. But the eyes of the enraged Dr Birch spoke to a different location. He looked back at Storm. "Mary Sue was that helpful little medic in a box. I'm a pilot, not a corpsman. A hangnail I can deal with, but..."

"Did someone ask for a doctor?"

The voice echoed out of a vent in the ceiling, the tinny quality of its passage through the ductwork rendering it devoid of anything save its meaning.

"Apologies, my manners are not as they once were. But when I heard that fat gastropod stomping towards the bridge, and his pet birds throwing more captives into the cages well...I had to introduce myself. My name Captain Varken, formally of the Carcosa Merchant Marine. Now...well, a prisoner is an apt descriptor," the voice sighed heavily. "I have some minimal medical training from my time in active service, I could be of help if you want?"

Elias, leaning against a bulkhead with his arms crossed, traded a quizzical look with the others, then positioned himself under the vent. "Varken, do you know anything about combat medicine? We have a badly wounded person here."

"Do you even know what a human is?" Spires spit out the remnants of the webbing that Mara had cut away from his face. "Because that's a pretty fucking crucial piece of knowledge that I insist you have before doing any sort of triage."

“Hold still!” Mara ordered Spires, almost in an aside.

"More to the point," Dania spoke up again, "what do you want in trade for your help?" She stepped over next to Elias. Strangers offering help, no matter how needed was a double-edged sword and a potential syphon of information without knowing.

"I would have thought the cost simple enough to grasp: we are both prisoners, I would think our mutual freedom payment enough," Varken's voice echoed from the vent. "And I served in the Carcosian Navy before retiring to the Merchant Marine. Field medicine was mandatory if only to aid yourself. Given the likelihood, your wounded crewman has been on the receiving end of a Reka phase staff. An elegant if somewhat brutish weapon, but it should have cauterized the wound. If you have medical supplies I would suggest anti-shock medication and pain killers. If we were free my vessel's medical bay has an auto doctor."

There was a pause.

"You said if I knew human...so the Myriad were not lying? A rarity these days. They have been saying now for a month that humans from the Milky Way have arrived in the Sphere. Interesting."

“That would be us,” Mara replies, finishing with freeing Spires and moving on to the crewman encased with the dead bird-man. “I grabbed as much medicine as I could, but I’m not sure what much of it is. I know which is for pain and which is antibiotics and even the correct dosage, but as for anti-shock...” She shrugged as she hacked at the webbing. “I have no idea,” she finished needlessly.

"Any muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories, neural stimulators, or corticosteroids?" Stephen offered. "What? I'm not a gossip columnist, for God's sake."

"Anesthizine is used to treat the neuroleptic shock associated with wounds from directed energy weapons," Elias said, quoting a half-remembered passage verbatim. "I remember reading that in some field survival manual, but I'm afraid I don't remember much else." He cast an apologetic look at Rollins.

"Full marks young man. The neurogenic shock is more dangerous in the short term, and any infections he might be picking up will be Reka based. They will not know how to exploit your biology yet so, he should be safe," Varken said from the vent. A rumble ran through the brig, and a steady growing whine of a power source spinning up to full power began to chatter teeth. "We're taking off now. I would find a seat on the floor if I were you, this ship does not handle at all well within the Censor field of Prior artefacts. Especially when the pilot is a kreten like Gastarox."

With a weighty heave, the ship levered itself free of the ground, the uneven thrust making the floor as steady as a tilter whirl. Then gravity seemed to shift, and 'down' stopped being the floor and turned into the aft bulkhead as a fearsome amount of thrust pushed them all towards it. The pressure increased as the ship's thrusters piled on more and more thrust...and then the inertial compensator's suddenly reactivated and the floor once again became the floor.

At that Dania frowned. Another familiar word. She did as instructed and sat on the floor, holding on to one of the protrusions on the wall. "So what's Carcosian Navy? You seem to know about us, we've got no idea where the Navy or the Merchant Marines hail from."

"The Carcosian Navy, Miss. The premier fighting force of the Sphere if I am to be modest. We are a small star nation, a single system. But as you probably already have guessed, you must be as ten out here. The Concordance, the Myriad. The Merchant Marine could be classified as its unarmed auxiliary, but mostly we are traders. This vessel in fact, the Wind Queen, is my own under licence from the MM. We trade a little with everyone, some independent systems, even the distasteful Myriad. It was there that rumours of a new faction entering the Sphere came to my ears," Varken said with a chuckle. "Though I think the Myriad might be playing you up to be a bigger threat than you are. After all, we are both in the same cage are we not?"

"For now," replied Mara, rummaging through the medkit. "Everything in life is only for now." In fact, she thought, if the security on this ship is anything like the thrusters- and the inertial dampeners- that's not going to last very long. "Anesthizine," she announced, holding up a small phial. "Got it. I don't suppose anybody has any idea on a proper dosage."

A grim-faced Elias shook his head. He had been rummaging through the dusty corners of his brain, trying to remember what else that survival manual had said. It just wasn't there. "Maybe we should stick to a small dosage," he suggested. "Just enough to take the edge off the pain. Five CC's to start? If it's not enough then we'll give him extra increments of one CC every ten minutes? But we don't give him more than ten total." He hoped it would be enough. The last thing we wanted to do was kill a man.

"Hey, you hear that buddy? Got something to help take the edge off," Calhoon said, kneeling down by the cot Rollin's was lying in. The crew chief looked worse for wear, his skin pallid and grey. "You look like you did after that three-day bender on Typhon Station."

"Felt...better," Rollin's said weakly. Then with a sudden burst of energy, he lurched up, gripping Calhoon's collar with his eyes wide. "I can still fight!"

Calhoon winced, peeling his friend's finger's off of his collar and pushing him gently back onto the filthy cot. Rollin's drifted into mumbled utterances.

"Nobody help me out of this shit," Stephen groused as he pushed against the rest of the webbing. "Not like I'm wrapped up in God knows what here."

“You seem to be doing just fine,” snapped Mara as she loaded the Anesthizine into the hypospray and dialing in a low dosage. “And in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a much bigger problem over here.”

"Yeah? Fuck you, Mara," Stephen muttered. "Oh, wait. I already have." He kicked and fought and bit and cursed against the sticky chrysalis.

"Really mature, Spires," Mara retorted as she pressed the hypospray to Rollin's neck, the eye roll evident in her voice. "If you don't have anything constructive to add, just shut it."

=/\="This is Canopus Actual to survey team."=/\= Everyones combadge came alive at that moment, and a tinny, static-laced rendition of Ingram's voice piped out it. =/\="We have detected your capture and are preparing a response. If you can respond to this message, do so as soon as you are able. Canopus Actual clear."=/\=

“Actual, Ricci,” said Mara, tapping her combadge. “Is there any chance you can just beam us out? We’ve got injured.”

Elias also tapped his commbadge. In case they were cut off he wanted to pass along whatever intel he could. "Madrid here. We're being held in a brig on a lower deck, near the cargo hold. Enemy headcount is unknown but numerous. They're well armed."

Dania, next to Elias leaned closer to add her own bit, Ingram would be interested in that little bit of intel as well, "Actual, cell above us, we have an asset a Captain Varken of the Carcosian Navy, I advise extraction for the Captain as well, he has assisted us with our wounded."

Not to mention he was in possession of information Canopus would sorely need to get ahead, or at least try to get ahead of the game.

From the far corner of the enclosed space, Blaise let out a snarl in the form of a drawn-out single word. "Bloooooooooood!"

From the lack of response, it was clear that combadge signals weren't going to cut it, and given how low res the signal from Canopus Station's main array had been, it was a miracle that had gotten through.

=/\="Canopus Actual to away team, brace for incoming fire."=/\= Ingram intoned gravely from everyone's chest. But no sooner had he said, than the bunk room turned brig they were in rocked violently as the steady thudding of high energy weapon hits rained against the cargo vessel. The attack only last moments, but the lights never dimmed. After a second there was a dull clacking noice from where within the ship, a mechanical sound.

"Gastarox is firing on your compatriots. Port side missile tube, probably a Hell Lance from the sound of it," Varken's echoey voice said from the vent. "An anti-starfighter weapon, most effective against Reka shard craft. I'm sorry to say."

And then...silence and nothing more. No more repeated attacks by the CAP from Canopus, no more thudding missile launches from the ship they were prisoners aboard.

"Well...shit," Calhoon said.

"That bastard Ingram sent more than one vessel, right?" Stephen blurted.

“Give him some credit, Spires,” snapped Mara. “He’s smarter than that.”

Blaise stirred from his corner. The jostling from the impact had weakened the webbing enough that he'd managed to free a limb. While everyone had been recovering from the impact, Blaise had been working to free himself. Only one leg remained caught in the twisted tangle.

Black eyes assessed the group like a spider surveying its web. "Blooooood," he said in a hoarse whisper.

Slowly, Mara turned to look at Birch. “Oh, shit,” she said flatly. “We’re fucked.”

"Oh for gods' sake, doesn't anyone know their xeno-biology?" Dania sighed, "he's Corvan. They get that way due to their mutation. He'll need meds to be well, but maybe we can mitigate his escalating state. Anyone got a light?"

"Anyone got a light?"" Dania's words rolled back through their minds, and a spindly Reka stepped up to the bars. It had removed some of its armour, showing where some of the yellow paint sprayed onto the plating had also been sprayed onto its bruised grape coloured skin. Its yellowing beak was chipped along the edges, and one of its four eyes was a knot of angry scar tissue.

It lowered down on its haunches, making it just about chest height to a normal human, and looked through the bars at them. It cocked its head to one side, and then jutted its beak at Rollin's.

"Dead meat?"

“I know he’s Corvan, but I don’t know what to do about it!” Mara replied. “Of course we don’t have any lights! Why would we have any lights? That would make too much sense.” She turned at the Reka’s voice. “No, he’s not dead meat!” she snapped. “Keep your dirty mitts off him unless you want to be dead meat!”

The Reka clucked, its head flicking to the other side, as it brought a long arm up to wrap its three clawed fingers on its chest plate.

"This one keeps meat from being dead. Is old feathers, is gut fixer." it then pointed to Birch. "Reality sickness. No big fixing for him. Prior dreamers don't undo what they unmake in some. Machines more durable. Meat, less so."

"Bright light is the best I can think of to help keep Blaise contained," Dania explained. "Without medical help."

Mara glanced back and forth between the Reka and Birch rapidly several times. “I have an idea,” she said, turning to the Reka. “We need bright light in here, as quick as possible or we will be very dead very fast. If you keep meat from being dead, do that for us, eh?”

A guttural hiss interrupted the brainstorming session. Blaise was free of the webbing and dashed forward, hands outstretched with elongated black fingernails that curled like talons.

The Corvan's charge was cut off by the snap-crackle-hiss from the other corner. Red sparks cast shadows against the walls as a small cylinder rolled into the middle of the hold. Shocked at the sudden burst of light, Blaise covered his eyes and ran aflutter like a blinded moth.

"You're welcome," Stephen Spires said to the group. He was working on another red cylinder, this time stretching out the fuse and tying off the end. "I always carry old-fashioned signal flares whenever I venture into the sticks. Never used them before, but now seemed as good a' time as any." Nodding to the burning flare on the floor, he said, "I'd keep away from him if I were you. That one's only good for about a minute. Hoping I can rig it's brother here to burn a mite slower and maybe save our skins."

"Save our skins," The Reka said, chuckling with an odd twittering lilt to the sound. The creature shook its head, and then tossed in a few tree bark like strips of a dark material into the cage. "You go the Mire now, skin have good price there. Eat. Is good for you."

As though to demonstrate, the Reka took one of the strips and bit into it, making overly pleased noises as it chewed up the jerky-like foodstuff.

"Some of you need the meat. Mire home to the Sleepers Bazaar. Good place to get good fighters, good place to get good thinkers," it chewed thoughtfully. "Not so good place if weak. Weak become meat."

It gestured with the jerky, and then tossed the rest of it into its beaky maw. As it did so, the ship's engine sounds changed pitched, and the gentle lurch of the deck suggested a less than subtle jump to superluminal warp speeds.

"I go get light" it said, and left them.