| abstract
| - Cockpit - Sanguine Raptor The cockpit of this wily shuttle has been re-upholstered in fine leather and wood. There are two plush seats in front of the controls, overlooking an unobstructed viewport. Near the entrance is a very small mini-bar tucked out of the way, mostly containing backup supplies for the larger bar in the back. The words -- Sanguine Raptor -- are embossed into the back of each chair. ________________________________________________________________________ Mira What can be seen of this woman under the large, grubby cloak that she wears isn't a whole lot. One might be able to tell that she is small and wiry, almost painfully thin. The bottom of the cloak drags on the ground, and looks frayed, as if it has been trod upon often. The hood of the dirty, dusty cloak that she wears manages to throw a shadow over most of her face, leaving it mostly obscured. A clump or two of frazzled, dark hair finds its way out of the cloak's hood to stick out at odd and unnatural angles away from her face. Simon Before you is a young human male of average height and narrow build. His hair is a deep brown, parted and cut short. A strong jawline and deepset eyes of blue-grey give the man a stern look at a glance. For facial hair he wears a well groomed goatee and mustache, trimmed short and of the same deep color as the rest of his hair. All in all, the man's demeanor can be summed up in a word: aware. At a glance, the man before you looks to be in good health. Scrutiny directed toward his right hand, however, tells a different story. While his thumb, index, and middle fingers appear to be in tact and functional, the ring and little fingers of his right hand appear to be missing. Two fleshy stubs protrude from where fingers should be. The skin there is pink and tender looking, as if newly grown. Simon is dressed in earth tones. Light tan, loose fitting trousers are tucked into soft leather boots that come up to just under his knees, and are tied tight with brown, leather chords. Tucked into the top of his pants is a simple shirt of a matching color. Over this is a loose wool tunic of dark brown, covering his arms completely and hanging down below his waste. It's comfortable clothing, suitable for most climates and cultures. ________________________________________________________________________ During the long jump to Caspar, Mira had spent most of her time sitting quietly in her chair, starting at the dimmed lights on the nifty machine that had allowed her to calculate the jump in the first place. She was sure that when they had arrived that something most interesting would happen on the box. And she was most disappointed that Simon's accidental launch of the ship had caused her to miss whatever it was that the box did when it made the jump. But she planned on making up for it as the jump ended. Fortunately for Mira, sitting and staring at boring objects was no problem for her, as she spent a good deal of time doing this back on Corellia. It never ceased to amaze her mother that she could stare so intently at the wall for hours on end, and yet could not focus enough on the task at hand to fold a pile of socks or unload the laundry. Finally, the ship jumps out of hyperspace, signaled by only a small blip of a green light on the hypernav computer and the disappearance of the star lines on the viewscreen. How disappointed. What a waste of time that had been. A little cranky, because of the great disappointment, Mira sits up as the ship appears over Caspar and grabs the flightstick roughly, jerking it around to bring the planet into view. Accompanying this movement, she pokes at the buttons on the console in front of her, trying to find a way to make the ship go faster. Anything would be more interesting than this most boring ship. Much as Mira had done, Simon had remained quiet on the long trip through hyperspace. Rather than dwell on the frightening display of controls and levers and blinking light indicators in front of him, Simon spent the time concentrating on his wound. From time to time, he would flex his remaining fingers, marveling at the feeling of his missing digits. It felt like they were still there. If he ever needed physical proof of the existence of his spirit, the phantom feelings of his lost fingers would be adequate. Not all of his time was spent marveling, however. Much of the time, he concentrated on the True Source, moving through the steps in his mind to draw upon that limitless source of life to regrow his fingers. How foolish Luke Skywalker was, to flaunt the technological invasion of his flesh. Mastery of the body led to mastery of the spirit... both for better or worse. To allow the machines to master your body, you allowed them to infect your soul, which was to taint the True Source within you. How could Luke Skywalker... the Jedi... be so blinded to this simple truth? It was while he was working on regrowing his fingers that the ship came out of lightspeed, and he had to blink several times to remember where he was and what they were doing. Looking out the viewport, his eyes catch sight of the planet that Mira starts to steer them toward. It turns oddly in his vision, as do the other ships in system that he can see. "That is where we are going, Little Sister?" Simon asks, incredulous. He starts to say something else, then sniffs the air. What was that smell? "I guess," Mira replies, continuing to plunge the ship towards the green and cloudy planet below. She didn't really know for sure that this was Caspar, but unless there had been some horrible error, or she didn't understand what machine she was using (which was entirely possible, I suppose). One of the buttons she had pressed had turned the communications system off entirely, so anyone trying to hail them or inform them as to where they were was not getting through. So she just aims towards one of the groundy parts of the planet. Preferably one that seemed to be covered by the characteristic gray colors of a city. Whatever smell Simon was smelling, it did not seem to affect Mira. Of course, she was quite focused on shoving the flighstick down and diving a little too quickly towards Caspar. "Do you think we'll find Markus's ship?" She was, of course, interested in finding Markus. But she was also worried about all her personal belongings left in the bags in his cargo bay. If Simon were a spacer, he might know that the rapid descent toward the surface of the planet was not classified as a 'safe landing vector'. If he had a little more experience in the cockpit of a ship, he might not that the lack of communication signals being broadcast toward them was not normal for a populated system like this one. Perhaps if he could simply read Basic clearly, and was not so intimidated by the control board in front of him, he might actually call attention to the light that just flicked on, labeled 'Hull Temperature'. Simon is none of these things, however, and simply looks out his viewport with a frown as he usually does when forced to fly the stars. He sniffs the air again, then looks at Mira. "I do not believe this vessel is well," he says, simply. Not well? Mira jiggles the flight stick back and forth a little bit, sending the ship careening in a zigzag pattern towards the spaceport. It seemed to respond okay. And as long as the ship was moving and responsive, she certainly wasn't going to worry about it. Those were the only important things about a ship, right? "I think it's fine," Mira retorts, but for good measure she angles the nose of the ship down just a bit more. After all, if something were wrong with the ship, she would want to get off it as soon as possible. She is silent for a few minutes, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that Simon is right. Finally, heaving a great sigh, she asks, "What do you think is wrong with it?" Pursing his lips, Simon brings his left hand to his chin and rubs the short hairs of his goatee thoughtfully. His eyes remain fixed on the planet in front of them as more and more details become clear. There was something definitely odd about this, but Simon couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. And then there was that smell... "It reminds me of something burning, yet it does not smell like wood smoke, and I know that there is little on this ship that would hold a flame," Simon explains, looking back toward Mira. "I do not remember such a smell before when landing, Mira. Are you certain this is how it is done?" As Mira neglects her piloting duties, the shuttle continues to dive towards the surface of Caspar, the basic structure of Plaxton City begins to become visible. The general gray muddle is divided into sections by the roads crisscrossing the landscape. Closer and closer the shuttle descends to the planet before Simon snaps her out of her smelling with his final question. Her head turns towards him and tilts slightly to one side. "No?" she answers questioningly. How was _she_ supposed to know how to fly a ship? "Haven't you done this before?" "What?" Simon exclaims, more than a little startled. Of course, it shouldn't have surprised him that Mira wouldn't have landed a ship before. She hadn't known exactly how to take off when they'd left the _Angry Rancor_, and she hadn't known exactly what she was doing when figuring out how to get them to Caspar system. Why should she have any stronger grasp on the intricacies of landing? Suddenly, the speed with which they were descending seemed frightening and... wrong. Other vessels could be seen in passing as they made their way toward the building and structures of Plaxton City. They were not moving nearly so fast, and they seemed to be pointed differently. On a whim, Simon throws his hands toward the co-pilot's flightstick and pulls back on it. His hands clasp around the control tightly, as if he were grabbing a venomous snake by the neck. "No! I have not done this before!" he says, roughly as panic starts to take hold of him. As he pulls back on the control, the ship begins to barrel roll rapidly, and Simon's stomach begins to complain loudly. "Aaaaagh!" Mira exclaims as she is pressed into the seat when Simon grabs his flight stick. "What are you doing? We're going the wrong way!" she protests as the ship starts to spin out of control. "Look what you've done!" Grabbing her own flightstick she jerks it around fighting for control of the ship. This, of course, does not help matters. Twisting faster now, the Gnat also takes on a rocking motion, as control for the landing pitch angle is wrestled between Simon and Mira. The ship continues its plummeting and quite uncontrolled descent into Plaxton City, the buildings beginning to become apparent, separating from the gray blob into tiny speckles of different heights and colors. "Aaaaaiiiiiiiiggh!" Simon yells in thorough agreement with Mira's sentiments. He knew it wasn't the best idea to grab the co-pilot's controls, but now that it was in his hands, he couldn't let go either. The ship plummets and rocks and groans. The smell of burning wires grows stronger, and beads of sweat pop out on Simon's brow as he looks out at the city before them with growing apprehension. It was hard to judge with the way they were spinning and rocking, but it looked to Simon as if they were going to plow right into the top of that tower. The one with the letters F, L, and S becoming more and more prominent. "Look what I have done?" Simon barks back at Mira. "If Markus Lisardis were here, he would not be pleased with how you have handled this vessel, Mira!" "I was doing fine before you grabbed the stick! We were going down all smoothly!" Mira argues, getting frustrated with Simon and deciding to ignore him from now on. Having determined that she was not going to deal with the man, she shifts to concentrate of not smashing into the tower, lest he try and blame her for that later. Throwing all her weight into pulling the flightstick over, the Raptor angles away from the top of the FLS tower, only barely brushing it with one of it's sublight drives, shattering windows on the building. Unfortunately for Simon and Mira, it takes any semblance of control that they may have had over the shuttle and sends it careening out of control over the city, falling and falling towards the surface of the planet. "AAAAAAAAAGH," Mira continues to screech as the ship tumbles towards the ground. "AAAAAAGH!" This most clever and appropriate phrase is repeated several times over the matter of seconds it takes for the ship to find a landing spot. CRAAASH! BOOM! With a lurch and a roll, the shuttle crashes into the aforementioned landing spot, which just so happens to be the Imperial Embassy. The force with which it hits the ground is enough to badly dent and crack the tarmac of the roof of the building, where the landing pad was located, probably sending a shower of plaster down from the ceilings on anyone who happened to be in the building. Mira stops screaming on impact for all of 10 seconds, during which time she spent most of her energy determining that the crash had not in fact killed her. And somehow she was sure that it had not killed Simon either. He was still there, though whether he was injured or not, she didn't know. Forgetting about her resolve to ignore him from now on, she weakly says, "Simon?" "Aaaaaiiiiiiiiggh! Aaaaaiiiiiiiiggh!" BOOOOOM! CRASH! BOOOOOM! CRUNCH! Time had seemed to lose track of itself while the ship had been traveling to its resting place. When time finally does begin to move in its normal procession, with seconds lasting their appropriate length rather than being drawn out like separate eternities, Simon raises his head from where it was resting on his chest and blinks open his eyes. They had survived. Bruises were across his chest and thighs from where the seat restraints had dug into him, holding him in place. Otherwise, he was unharmed. Mira's voice reaches his ears, which continue to ring from the extraordinary loudness of their crash. Slowly, he turns his head in her direction and regards her. "We are unhurt?" he asks, disbelieving. His eyes move back to the controls in front of him, which are now destroyed beyond recognition. "The ship is no longer well."
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)