ic Adventures in Babysitting in Space

[Gizmo]

"An Earther complaining about other species having unexpected powers. Fantastic," Seven remarked sardonically as she led Geckoman and Bee-Keeper down one of the ship's hallways. Reaching a specific panel in the wall, she smacked a control pad authoritatively with her closed fist, revealing a shallow compartment against which she positioned herself. With a whir of machinery black and green combat armor with gold highlights down one arm folded over her shoulders and locked into her jumpsuit.

Retrieving a dangerous looking rifle from the same compartment, she waved the two humans along behind her as she took a left. "Their ship's Antarian but that doesn't mean anything. Probably dealing with a mixed bag." The ship shuddered again as they reached a locked door. The Lor officer took up a guarded posture in front of it, eyes narrowed and weapon at the ready. "Hired by beings who like our passenger in there even less than I do, though, so whatever you two... do, get ready to do it."

[Gizmo]

The portly technician blinked at Temperance for a moment as everyone else charged out of the teleport chamber, doing his best to marshal his thoughts in a situation spiraling rapidly outside his usual experience. "I-- oh, you'd say water, which-- sorry, the teleglot doesn't handle synonyms that well and-- right, never mind." Running a hand through his thinning hair, he took a deep breath. "Right. Alright. I'm Chief K'ilo and if you can mentally affect the temperature of water, miss, you can have as much as you like. If we can keep the reactor from overheating we might actually all make it through this in one piece."

Jogging out into the hallway himself, K'ilo took the lead down a ladder stretching down to the level below. The underbelly of the ship looked even more hodgepodge than the first room the humans had seen, clear signs of jury-rigging and ad hoc installations clear even to someone unfamiliar with the technology. Protrusions from the ceiling forced them to stood periodically as they continued on their way. "And, uh..." the Chief added with a cough as he stepped over a bundle of cables coiling around the deck plating, "sorry about, well. Abducting you lot. If I didn't say before."

[trollthumper]

Temperance gave a brief nod to Chief K'ilo. Her expression betrayed nothing - mainly because she was still trying to figure out how best to handle all this, and make sure everyone got out of it at least somewhat fine. Or, at least, with the least amount of people dead. And part of that would involve dealing with that reactor.

"Fortunately, I know a thing or two about dealing with water temperature." She followed in the engineer's footsteps, trying to put together what she did know about nuclear reactors. Which wasn't a lot. Meltdown occurred, logically enough, when the coolant failed to keep the core materials from melting. That was it, right? Of course, as the same time, freezing said coolant would be a bad idea, as that water would probably need to keep moving... right?

Well. There was one way around it. "Is the reactor built to resist faint pressure?" she said. "Such as, say, having a curtain of ice around its outer shell?"

[SpicyWaffle]

Granting Captain Geckoman a mock salute an an affirmative "Aye, aye," Bee-Keeper quickly took off after Shepard and the spandex-clad handyman, leaving Temperance and the chief engineer to whatever schemes they were undoubtedly working towards.

 

The situation was definitively feeling more and more heavy with each passing moment as they whisked their way down the hallway, with Shepard suiting up and giving the lowdown on these would-be attackers only serving to add to the cumulative weight of the fiasco; doubly so with the realization that there wasn't any concrete information about their opposition, save that they could be anything and were crazy-dangerous enough to attack a Lor vessel for their new alien pal. None of those things, in Baxter's meager space-faring opinion, sat well in his mind.

 

"Azz long azz they don't actually zzhoot lazzerzz out of their eyezz, I think we've got thizz one in the bag," Baxter chimed, his tone unsurprisingly less than confident about the ordeal ahead, yet striving to retain a positive outlook on the whole situation. Geckoman at least seemed to know what was going on -- or, at the least, seemed like he was ready. With Shepard, that made two of them, and that was at least something.

 

Taking a breath and letting it reverberate through the buzzing voice modulator, the Bee-Keeper steeled his nerves, fingers tightening into a pair of armored fists as he prepared for the intergalactic showdown ahead.

 

"Alright, captainzz. Juzzt zzay when."

[Ecalsneerg]

Geckoman sighed and rolled his eyes. "Y'know my hopes for this morning weren't to not face aliens with laser eyes. Well, they were. But they were more watch some TV, eat a bagel." He dropped down low into a fighting stance, flicking open some compartments on his belt to ease drawing weapons. He quickly pulled out a couple of yellow metal G-shapes, and whirled them in each hand, testing their weight and balance. 

 

"Right, simple plan. Shoot, punch, or bee them until they fall down. Then maybe give them a couple of kicks to stop them getting up. Anyone gets dropped, first one to get there pulls them out of the line of fire." He paused to consider a little. "I mean, that does leave one pers- y'know, we're not blessed with an abundance of people, let's just make it work." Geckoman shrugged his shoulders out, and slid his head around on his shoulders until his neck clicked. 

[Gizmo]

"That's idea, gal," the Chief confirmed as he and Temperance finally made it to a section of the engine deck with a high ceiling, a cylinder of open space surrounding what Eliza could infer was the fusion reactor partly from K'ilo's body language as they arrived and partly from the sheer number of alarms going off on the terminals ringing the room. Steam was blasting from one side of the reactor at irregular intervals and it was hard to guess if it was supposed to be glowing quite so brightly. "Alright, alright..." the portly technician mutter largely to himself as he jogged over to one of the computer interfaces. "I can stabilize this. Just need time... Those are the water intakes," he told the human teen, pointing upward to a number of pipes that started at the top of the chamber, ran down the walls and then into the base of the reactor. "If you can keep the piece of spratz cool long enough maybe we all get to keep our atoms arranged the way we like them."

* * * * *

On the bridge, Ellie found not a transparent, forward-facing windshield but a circular room with wall nearly covered in tactical readouts and projected images from different sides of the ship. The stations spread out through the middle of the room were manned by an even mix of Lor in uniforms similar to the one worn by the technician in the teleportation chamber and other species in more eclectic clothing. The latter greeted Czak's entrance with a hearty cheer and several raised fists while the former maintained composure and continued to work as the ship was rocked by another hit.

"Statustate?" the blue skinned woman demanded as she vaulted over a railing and seated herself in the very center of the room, her chair swiveling about in three dimensions.

"Better if you're takin' the helm, Captain," a massive purple alien responded, nearly ten feet tall and almost as wide but still managing to tap away at his console with surprising dexterity. "These blighters must have a Lor tac-server hooked up, they're adapting to the auto maneuvers too fast, see?"

"Impossible!" the blond haired Lor stationed next to him blurted indignantly, looking a little embarrassed by the outburst as soon as he said it. "That is-- Those tac-servers are carefully protected!"

A pair of complicated controls rose out of Czak's chair to rest under each of her outstretched hands. "Not so neverchance," she told the irked Lor in a teasing singsong. "We foundhave one, ha! But let us seetest if they preknow this sliplock..."

"...I think we better find a place to strap in, Edie," Ellie suggested, adjusting her hold of her niece and preparing to raise her force field again at a moment's notice.

* * * * *

"You're getting pretty hung up on this 'laser eye' thing," Seven observed, voice filtered slightly from behind the faceplate of her helmet. "You do realize they've almost certainly just go plasma weaponry in the fir--"

Before the Lor commando could finish her point the lights in the hallway flickered briefly as power fluctuated and in the next instant beams of luminance on either side of the defenders solidified into two even groups of heavily armed aliens flanking the trio. A few were hulking, armored brutes Chris recognized as Broans, at least two were humanoids with deep teal skin and black eyes without pupils, some appeared to be Lor themselves and the rest were either covered by helmets and combat gear or too odd to describe at a glance. One of the Broan stepped to the front of his comrades and announced in a booming bass, "Give us the senator."

"Well, I can guarantee you that's not happening," the red haired officer announced matter-of-factly, leveling her rifle so that its laser sight left a visible red dot on the Broan's forehead. "You should go."

[Gizmo]

Unimpressed, the Broan mercenary snarled in a way that curled his upper lip away from his prominent tusks and began to level his weapon at the Lor commando. He'd barely had time to twitch before Seven dropped into a firing pose on one knee and had already squeezed off a pair of shots with her rifle, the first leaving a blackened, smoking scar through the alien's chest plate and the second toppling him backward into the rest of his boarding party. "Hard way it is," she deadpanned in the beat of silence that followed.

The remaining mercenaries roared in response, a few managing to take shots wide of there targets before all of the combatants staggered to the left as the ship's artificial gravity struggled to keep up with the breakneck maneuvers Myshel Czak was using to evade their pursuers.

[SpicyWaffle]

Nearly losing his balance as the ship's gravity buckled and waned momentarily, the Bee-Keeper staggered his way between Seven and the gaggle of mercenaries at her back. The Lor commando had made the first move, blasting one of the bigger goons flat on his tuchus, and with that it was on. Thrown into some kind of intergalactic shenanigans, Baxter was in much the same boat as Geckoman. He hadn't imagined himself going toe-to-toe with a bunch of aliens today -- but, perhaps, that was just another part of the superhero gig.

 

"Why do the bad guyzz alwayzz gotta do it the hard way?" snipped the Bee-Keeper as he leveled his hand against the invading space pirates at their rear, steadying himself as he and the armor's on-board targeting system synced up his shots. Following Seven's lead, Baxter let loose with his own hand blaster, firing wave after wave of concussive yellow energy towards each of the alien antagonists surrounding their flank. There was no way a bunch of weirdo mercs from beyond the stars were gonna get the best of them. Not if the Bee-Keeper had anything to say about it, anyway!

[Ecalsneerg]

"Why would you want a politician? You guys don't look the diplomatic type," pondered Geckoman, tossing his geckorangs seemingly at random towards a point on the ceiling. In one smooth movement, he whipped out his staff and extended it, slamming it forward onto the ground as he surged forward and flipped upwards, clearing a good twenty feet to hit the ceiling above three of the aliens.

 

"All these guns and blasters," he complained, swinging his staff down to crack one adversary in the head, riding the momentum downwards to land on the floor as the geckorangs hit the ceiling and bounced downwards. He drew his staff back with two hands in a batter-up position, slamming a second alien backwards to collide with the wall as he did so.

 

He whirled on the spot, hitting both the geckorangs as they came down to eye level, knocking one into his third opponent's eye and the other into his throat, knocking him on his ass. "Why not the old fashioned approach?"

[trollthumper]

Temperance stood between the vast alien reactor, trying very, very hard not to freak out. This was the nuclear engine of what she could assume was some sort of military craft - odds were it wasn't going to go critical if someone just took a wrench to it. But still, it was a fairly sensitive piece of equipment, and if she cracked it...

Don't think about that, she said. Think about how you're going to stop it from getting worse. There was still some water left in her pack, and then there were the reserves the technician had pointed out. She had plenty to work with.

Starting with her own supply, she started splashing water on the side of the reactor. The instant it made contact, it froze, forming into a thin, hard sheet. She pulled a little from her Vonnegut and a little from the apocrypha of her history class, trying to make a mixture of ice-nine and Pykrete that would resist even the infernal temperatures of an overheating reactor. She kept splashing water on the reactor, forming thin sheet after thin sheet to gradually reduce the temperature without applying too much pressure.

I think this might actually work...

[Gizmo]

The ship abruptly bucked as it was jockeyed through another mad maneuver with which the artificial gravity couldn't quite keep up. Geckoman's acrobatics, Bee-Keeper's suit and Seven's extensive zero-g training allowed them to keep their feet under them - or over them, in Chris' case - but the remaining mercenaries were not so agile. The Lor commando took merciless advantage of their opponents' momentary distraction and squeezed off a trio of precise shots that left the hallway abruptly clear of conscious hostiles.

 

In the reactor room Chief K'ilo worked feverishly at the control panels, glancing over his shoulder repeatedly to see how Temperance was holding up with her makeshift heat sink. "Hold together, now, you ridiculous patchwork beauty..." he muttered distractedly to the ship, patting a bulkhead the way one might the head of a large overeager dog. There was a rising sound that the Earthling couldn't mistake for anything but something massive powering up as an even greater wave of heat rolled off of the glowing cylinder and then, without warning, the ship ceased shaking and the reactor calmed to a steady hum. The Lor engineer heaved a mighty sigh of relief. "Made it to FTL. You did it, gal, haha!"

[Ecalsneerg]

Chris dropped down to his haunches to pat around the aliens' necks, checking to ensure they were still alive. "I..." He stood up. "Am not an alien doctor." Geckoman turned to look at the Captain.

 

"Ok, that was fairly easy. So much for all the panicking and the shouting." He folded his staff up and slid it back into his belt as he moved over to rejoin those lackadaisical sorts who lacked the energy to run up and drop-kick alien space pirates. "Right, what's the plan? Any further incursion points?" 

[trollthumper]

Temperance breathed a sigh of relief as the reactor stabilized. Despite her wholly lacking knowledge of nuclear physics, she'd managed to keep things from blowing up. She could at least mark that off. She considered withdrawing the ice from the reactor, letting it creep to the floor, but she feared that if she pulled it away too fast, she might trigger something due to the rapid temperature change, and then wouldn't she feel stupid. And that was if it was fully stable...

"So," she said, "I take it the reactor is fully stabilized? Or should I keep the ice in place until some more manual repairs can be performed?"

[Gizmo]

"You can leave it in place for now," K'ilo decided, giving Temperance an enthusiastic slap on the back in congratulations, "but we ought to be fine now that we're not drawing directly on the reactor." As he spoke a small group of technicians in similar uniforms to the Chief hurriedly entered the chamber, moving as quickly as they could around the low ceilings and patchwork lumps of technology sticking out at random intervals from seemingly every surface. "Come on, we'd best go check back in with the captain. Captains. Hnn, can feel that headache coming back already..."

 

*****

Looking over the piles of alien mercenaries, Seven grunted flatly. "We made it to FTL," she explained, indicating the now smooth ride of the starship with a vague wave of her hand. "Nothing's teleporting on board for now." One Lor soldier and three more crew members of varying species clamoured down the hallway toward them, all armed with rifles similar to the one Shepherd-07 carried. "About time. We'll have words on response time later. For now just get these pirates to the brig. Kid, do me a favour and give them a hand, alright?" The last part was directed toward Bee-Keeper and with his help the deck was soon clear of fallen invaders.

With a tired sigh, Seven turned to the door they'd been guarding and rapped on it with her knuckles. "Alright, princess, good to go."

The portal hissed open, sliding into the bulkhead to reveal an extremely cross looking Lor teenager, perhaps sixteen or so if Geckoman was any judge. "That is 'senator,' Captain, as you well know!" she insisted primly, hands on her hips as she glared upward at the considerably taller commando. Honey blonde hair done up in a complicated style and held in place with ornate pins contrasted with dark, conspicuously flawless skin, while her robes suggested something between an elegant ballgown and a judge's ceremonial uniform.

"Acting senator," Seven rebutted, an almost invisible smirk suggesting that she'd set the girl up for that on purpose. Turning to Chris, she added, "May I introduce Lady Iana Th'emme."

The teenager looked the green costumed acrobat up and down twice in skeptical confusion before asking, "Who is this supposed to be?"

[Ecalsneerg]

Geckoman drew himself up at this perceived slight. "Well, Acting Senator, I'm Actual Captain Geckoman of Earth. Associate of Jack of all Blades, and one of the guys who fought off those boarders trying to ruin your day." He rolled his eyes. "Whereas I'll assume you're the one who insisted they call in Jackie Boy's favour, and got me and my team shanghaied into space."

 

He turned to look at the captain. "So, calling in Mr Sword, mercenaries trying to get aboard, and a princess. Why do they want her, and who do we have to punch to go home?"

[trollthumper]

Temperance tried to hide her smile as K'ilo gave her a friendly pat on the back, but at least felt proud that she'd managed to stabilize the reactor without anyone dying horribly. She did wave her hand as she left, trying to tighten the lattice of the ice - she may have done her job, but she just wanted to make sure her work wouldn't fall apart if she left for some time. It did well to make sure good lasted, after all.

She strode onto the bridge, scanning everything. "Forgive me if I missed anything," she said. "I'm guessing we haven't been boarded and forced to surrender. If someone could catch me up on the why? And hopefully, the what comes next?"

[Gizmo]

"Favour?" the Lor teenager asked, confusion spreading across her face. "The Jack of all Blades doesn't owe us a favour. When last we met he saved our life!"

 

Seven shrugged. "Eh, you know Czak. She'd have come up with something, I'm sure." The commando stopped just short of rolling her eyes but it was pretty clear she didn't think much of the way the blue alien conducted herself. "Your friend and the Flareriders helped rescue the princess from pirates a few years back."

Iana scowled but didn't bother correcting the title again. "Indeed. So when our parents were abducted we knew we would once again need the aid of the most singularly capable individual we have ever known and instructed the Captain to make all haste to his homeworld. How she managed to bring you aboard instead, I cannot fathom, ah, Sri Geckoman."

"Lousy genetic lock. We picked up his sister, his kid and a few others who were nearby instead. Chief K'ilo did everything possible with the resources he had while under attack." The defense of her subordinate in front of the girl was a far cry from the way she'd spoken to him directly.

"He has a child?" Iana looked vaguely disappointed, biting her lip slightly before abruptly straightening in abject horror. "We abducted his child?!"

*****

As Temperance followed K'ilo down the corridor, they met up with Jill, still carrying Eden in her arms, and Myshel Czak, her long coat flapping about her ankles as they hurried. "Hey, nice work with the reactor thing, apparently," Jill congratulated, shifting Eden away from the bulkhead before the toddler could make good on her plan to touch everything in sight. "C'mon, we're meeting back up with the boys."

[Ecalsneerg]

"Woah-oah-oah," said Geckoman quickly, waving his hands placatingly. "Totally an accident, she's fine, she's with her aunt." He wasn't sure what to do with alien space princesses who were upset because they couldn't tell Erik they were old enough, or something. "I'm sure he'll underst- Ok, I'm sure I can restrain him while we explain or something. Same thing."

 

He looked the princess in the eye. "It's alright, I'm on his team. We can help you. But someone really has to tell us what's going on. Where're your parents? Why were they taken?"

[trollthumper]

Temperance tried to hide her smile, and almost managed it. Almost. Even after all her time pounding the pavement, it still brought her a little bit of delight to receive praise from a veteran superhero. "Thank you," she said. "That said, I think I've had enough fiddling around with complex nuclear engineering for one day. Next thing I know, someone may ask me to attempt brain surgery."

She noticed Jill trying to keep Eden away from anything that might have launched the photon torpedoes. To assist, she willed a little water from her Camelback - what was left, at this point - and extended its lattice before solidifying it, turning it into a large three-dimensional snowflake. Instead of using it like a projectile, however, she set the snowflake to spinning like a top, on one axis after another.

[Gizmo]

Eden giggled in delight and clapped her hands when she saw Temperance's spinning ice sculpture, her attention thoroughly captured as the group proceeded down the corridor and came upon Geckoman talking with Seven and a fancifully attired teenager. "You are kind, Sri Geckoman," Iana was saying with a morose expression, "but we are truly mortified. We vow-- galaxies, is that her? She's adorable!" The change in demeanor was immediate as she noticed the approaching humans, placing a hand on each of her cheeks and bouncing up onto her toes to get a better look.
 
"Take your word for it," the Lor commando muttered, studiously looking anywhere other than the toddler. "I'm tank-bred. I don't do children."
 
"But you are muchso maternalwarm, Shepseven!" Czak piped up, bringing both hands together by one of her own cheeks in an exaggerated swoon, her antennae crackling with amused lightning.

"You think I won't shoot you but I really, really will."

"Ladies! Decorum!" Acting Senator Th'emme interrupted, hands on her hips as she did her best to stare down the two much more imposing Captains. "Ahem. We believe explanations are due. Our parents, like ourselves, are members of the Omgran'te royal family. Our mother, a vocal and respected proponent for peace has been kidnapped, along with our father, by warmongering extremists who desire more aggressive military action against the Stellar Khanite." The way the corners of Seven's mouth tightened for a moment suggested that she had something to say about all of that but she held her tongue.

[Ecalsneerg]

"Smart plan," nodded Geckoman. "'We want you to agree with us, so let's get you to do this by kidnapping you.' Man, movies told me you spacey folks were all more advanced, but you still get warmongering as-" He cut himself short and quickly stepped over to where Ellie was holding Eden. "Butts." He placed a hand firmly over each of her ears, and semi-mouthed, semi-whispered. "I mean they're assholes."

 

"Righty-ho," he said, pulling his hands away, and brushing them on his knees. "Icky girl germs," he digressed, sticking out his tongue at Eden. "I can't speak for the rest of them, but I'm in. Just tell me where I need to go and who I need to punch." He looked over his shoulder at his fellow Earthites. "Elaborate space rescue mission?" he asked Ellie, pointing a finger at her. He moved his finger to Temperance. "Elaborate space rescue mission?"

[trollthumper]

Well. This day just kept getting more and more interesting. It wasn't exactly a reassuring sort of "interesting" - Eliza worked best with terra firma under her feet, not a bulkhead separating her from the void of space. Nor did she know a single lick about interstellar politics - spiritual politics, yes, but that was a whole different kind of alien. Still. People were in danger, and right now, she didn't much care what species they were.

"Yes," she said, "elaborate space rescue mission." She turned to the others. "What do we know about the kidnappers? Any affiliations, favored hangouts, particular tactics, knowledge of numbers and weapons, food allergies...?"

[Gizmo]

Eden giggled at Chris' antics even if she didn't completely follow what was being said. "Are you a princess?" she asked Iana, looking up and down the Lor teen's elaborate outfit as she doted over the toddler.

"Ah, well, it is a little more--" The acting senator's eyes were drawn upward by Ellie clearing her throat and giving the alien noble a significant look. Turning back to beam at Eden, she corrected herself, "That is, yes! Yes, we are."
 
"At least someone is asking something relevant," Seven complimented Temperance with a short nod. "Don't know much about numbers but we do know where they're holding the senator and her husband. Lucky us, Czak has contacts with all the big shot scum and villainy."

Electricity arced between the Tempestian's antennae as she grinned. "You canable admit you're aweimpressed, Shepseven," she crooned before looking at a readout attached to her wrist. "We have shortlittle time beforefirst arriving."

[Gizmo]

The humans had enough time to prepare themselves and familiarize themselves with Seven's plan of attack before the ship dropped out of faster-than-light travel above a desert world that looked harsh and uninviting even from orbit. The strategy was simple: Czak's sources had been able to provide her with the location of the kidnapper's base of operations on the planet's sole super-continent and they were already heading down through the atmosphere toward the coordinates. While the bulk of the Lor forces kept the terrorists occupied and distracted, Seven would take her privateer counterpart, Geckoman and Temperance around the side to find a way to slip in undetected and rescue the hostages.

Iana had hotly insisted on being part of the rescue party and had been just as hotly denied by the clone commando. Ellie hadn't much liked the idea of letting Chris or their new friend out of her sight but she certainly wasn't bringing Eden into any more danger than she could help nor would she trust her niece to anyone else. Besides, her force fields would be sorely needed back at the ship if the kidnappers were able to bring more firepower to bear than expected.

[Ecalsneerg]

Geckoman leaned back in his chair, and glanced over at his new comrade. "So, Temperance, is it? We've not had much chance to talk, what with all the shooting and exploding and teleporting and whatnot. Happens a lot, quite irritating, you meet a lot of people and never get to just chat..." He sighed, tutted and shook his head.

 

"Anywho, I figure we should have some sort of rough strategy. You mentioned you do can do watery things? What kind of watery things, more of a shooting kind of deal? I figure I try to get up close and stop any resistance from opening fire on us, you and the space people try and shoot 'em down and cut off their exits. We don't want them running around, they might extract themselves with the hostages. Not really ideal, and it'd end quite poorly."