ic Try Everything (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

December 2015 

Voidrunner

 

When the big barracuda-like ship didn't follow them, Aquaria croaked in noisy relief before settling down into her seat. As she did so, she realized just how much her relief was mixed by fear. Despite impossible odds and impossible distances, things had come through for Sea Devil and Singularity, for Aquaria and Jessie. It wouldn't be long now before they were back in the Solar System - a concept she only hazily understood but that she knew meant they were close to Earth, and close to a return to the home she and Jessie had been trying to get back to for weeks. 

 

Close to trouble. 

 

She was acutely aware, twitching in her seat, of all that had happened - of how her pride had sent them to the stars, of how her anger had gotten that Surfacer killed, and of how all the stars of space had seemed to be against them on their journey. She knew, too, that her life in Freedom City was not her own - she was a symbol of the fear and loathing that Surfacers had for her kind, and a criminal to boot. With all that she'd done, what would happen when she returned? Blackstone again? Perhaps Atlantean custody? Or maybe just exile - a banishment to the waters off Freedom's coast where she was an outcast among all who lived beneath the waves. 

 

Turning to her still night-catatonic friend, Aquaria took a long breath and released it as a deep, almost subsonic, bellow. Jessie would be home in the world of her birth, surrounded by her people, away from the world that Aquaria had thrust her into. That was what mattered. 

 

Through the blood of sacrifice, I gain power, she thought, closing her big goggle eyes. Through the blood of sacrifice, we are free. 

 

Up front, the dinky little Terran comet belt station had just hailed the Voidrunner. 

[Darksider42]

Ruby had managed to force herself awake the moment the ship had returned to normal space. She made a mental note to get some proper rest once this job was completed. Though considering they may have gained the ire of the Lor Navy that might not happen. "Everyone doing fine back there?" It was still mystery to her what had happened at that station exactly as it seemed to be a blur. At this point she would not be surprised if psychic interference was involved.

 

The Voidrunners comms channels opened up and focused on the stations frequency. "This is Ruby Voxx of The Voidrunner. We have some missing terrans on board." This far out and with a station like that, it seemed unlikely they would know about the chaos that followed them.

[Avenger Assembled]

They wound up speaking to a representative from the Terran system's defense organization - the Freedom League. Once the identity of the missing Terrans had been confirmed, the agent posted there replied smartly, "Roger, Voidrunner, we have your message loud and clear. Can you transmit a visual signal?" Aquaria looked up for the 'camera' pointed her way, waving with both big three fingered hands, and pointed to Jessie to show she was there too. When the signal was transmitted, the Freedom League agent said, "I've been asked to direct you to drop to .01 lightspeed and direct you to the Lighthouse, that's the LaGrange Point station orbiting Terra. Do you copy?" 

 

-

 

Down in Freedom City, Erin's phone buzzed. It was a message from Freedom Hall's emergency line. TRANSMISSION RECEIVED FROM SHIP ENTERING SYSTEM. CAN YOU VERIFY INNSMOUTH/WHITE? 

 

The picture that had come with the message, though grainy and blocky by Lor standards, was clear enough for Erin's standards.

[Electra]

Erin bolted to her feet when her Freedom League ringtone sounded, despite the fact that she was in the middle of a staff meeting. None of her people so much as blinked; this wasn't exactly uncommon behavior. "I gotta take this, I'll be right back." Nodding to Steve to take over the discussion of security upgrades, she stepped back into her office and opened the phone. Aquaria was looking all right, she noted with an attempt at detachment, Jessie was not. What the hell had happened out there? "Confirmed," she spoke into the phone, letting it transcribe her speech to a return text. "That's them. I'm on my way." 

 

She punched another few buttons and sent a text to Trevor on his emergency line. They found Jessie. OMW FLHQ now. Sliding her phone back into its holster, she stuck her head back into the conference room. "I've got an emergency," she said flatly. "Tag me if you've got any urgent questions, otherwise we'll pick this back up tomorrow." By the time she was out of the elevator, she'd sent a text to Mara saying she'd be out of the building for the day and that Steve was taking over her duties. It was good to have an understanding boss. 

[Gizmo]

Even with her head start it wasn't long after Erin arrived at Freedom Hall that an example of the Manor's extensive motor pool pulled up in a hurry. The crimson wing motif adorning the vintage automobile gave a hint as to how that had been accomplished and from the driver's seat Redbird's holographic avatar waved briefly, a domino mask topping off her chauffeur's uniform. Midnight himself swung smoothly out of the backseat, letting the door close itself as he moved with quick, sure steps to catch up with the auburn haired security chief. "Was closer than Night Cycle," he explained, smoothing out the lines of his jacket and adjusting his weathered fedora. She could almost hear his forehead creasing behind his blank black mask. "They're sure?"

[Darksider42]

"Understood. Heading for the lighthouse now." Ruby announced over the channel before doing just that. So this is Terra. She thought as she say the blue planet draw closer into view. For a place that had the terrifying reputation for fighting off invasions from the Grue and The Gorgon to birthing superpowered entities capable of destroying battle cruisers, it did not look half bad. There was still some doubt that this was her birth planet. Perhaps she should ask about Birmingham at some point. It was the best confirmation she could get really. But for the moment she had two missing persons to help out. The Voidrunner cut through the empty blackness of space and started to dock with the station. "Check Jessie to see if she can walk." Having Bliss haul her around might give off the wrong impression.

[TheAbsurdist]

Bliss was the de facto mechanic, and would likely become the de facto medic at this rate.  She tapped the comm, "Am checking on her now."  And then she moved down to where Jessie was, sliding into a crouch with that boneless mannerisms she held.  Her demeanor gruff, as was to be expected.

 

"Can you stand?"  Asked with her harsh voice, the inner eyelids blinking as she tilted her head.  Despite her manners, she was surprisingly delicate.  She knew this one was tough, though if she was hurt Bliss was just strong enough to make the issue worse if she wasn't careful.  Though she knew better than to ask if she was alright.

Edited March 31, 2016 by TheAbsurdist

[Tiffany Korta]

Despite all the trouble she probably caused herself she couldn’t help but stare at the blue-green globe below them, the planet she’d left all those millennia ago. It had never been her plan when she left to find the two Terran’s, but she glad that she might have chance to visit her homeworld. Before she’d have to contact Amara and open up all the trouble that might cause. But first she had concentrate on the more important details.

 

“Here she’ll need these.” She slipped off her boots and offered them to Aquaria “They’ll automatically adjust to feet her feet, if we have time I’ll show you how to change the style and colour. Good Delaztri make as well, lasted me a good thousands years or so.”

Having lived so long she’d learned not to get attached to many things, besides she had a spare set back at base. If she ever got back there that was.

[Electra]

Jessie raised her eyes to look at Bliss when she was addressed directly, but didn't really begin to unfold herself until Aquaria began stuffing the boots awkwardly onto Jessie's feet. "Are we home?" she asked awkwardly, looking around despite a neck stiff from an hour of complete immobility. She noticed the boots and gave one a curious poke with her finger, furrowing her brow when it seemed to give way slightly under her finger. "Thanks," she murmured to Sitara as she pushed herself to her feet. The relative quiet of the journey had chased most of the cobwebs back to the corners of her mind, but Jessie still felt shaky and raw, and she wanted very much to be back in her own bedroom. "Is Erin here yet?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"We're in the Solar System," said Aquaria, slowly picking over the unfamiliar words that she only partially understood - though the swimming in the sea of stars they'd done recently had helped with that. "The place where the Sun and all the planets are. We will be on the Surface soon. Erin will be waiting for us," she assured her friend. "Tonight you will sleep in your bed," she assured her friend, acutely conscious of the lie she strongly suspected she was telling, "and I will be back in my pool. No more having to sleep in my armor," she croaked with false cheer. "And you will eat lots of food, and go to your classes, and you will be with Surfacers again. " 

[Electra]

Erin gave into temptation for just a moment, sliding her arm around Midnight's waist and leaning her forehead against his temple. "They're sure," she said at length, "because I confirmed it." Straightening, she pulled out her phone as they walked into the building, showing him the image that had been transmitted. "If it's a hoax, it's a very well-done one, and I can't think of any reason why somebody would do it." She smiled a little. "After my last trip to space, I was under the impression that they didn't really want to mess with me. I can't believe it's taken so long to get them back. We need better trackers." She led the way into the elevator and up to the communications room without really thinking about it, or the fact that nobody tried to stop them along the way.

[Brown Dynamite]

Roulette examined the blue planet with relative indifference.  Rumors and monstrously powerful residents aside something that looked that healthy rarely had any good drinking spots in his experience.  There are no visible fleets.  How did they survive a Communion Attack?

 

There  was something unnerving about how relatively undeveloped the Sol System as whole looked.  Hardly the sort of place to have earned decades of ire from the political powerhouses in the rest of space.  Leaving his mind with gaps to fill.  "The sooner we leave this horror holovid setting, the better."   Roulette told Ruby as he walked into the bridge.

[Avenger Assembled]

The Voidrunner continued their trip through the eerily silent Terran system - and all the while, Aquaria kept herself busy. Hopping around the spaceship, she gathered up all their supplies - the small amount of possessions and other things they'd accumulated during their time as fugitives in space, and pressed them into a mesh bag that was soon joined by what she could find of Jessie's small horde of food. She pressed the bag into Jessie's hand, her gigantic smile twitching with that awkwardness that meant she was particularly forcing the Surfacer facial expression. "Take this, and make sure you keep it when we are on the Surface. Tell them we didn't steal anything - we won it all." Aquaria had, among other things, been jailed for thefts when she'd gone off to Project Freedom. "Remember this? The cup from the swamp place? That was nice." She put it into Jessie's bag too, worrying over her friend as the Voidrunner slowly (relatively speaking) made its way to within sight of Earth - and (once they were even closer) the gleaming jewel of the Lighthouse in orbit. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Sitara padded up to share the view, her bare feet showing intricately painted toenails that almost seemed to dance as the caught the light. She again took a moment to enjoy the view of her home planet, and a little pride in its achievements. Before returning to the Praetorian, if she could after aiding the two over the Admiral, she hoped she’d have some time to set foot on the planet.

 

“You should have seen Earth when I first left for space, must have been...” She did a quick calculation adjusting for her time in stasis “...around five thousand years ago, give or take the odd decade. Almost no large scale technological development, agriculture had only just become a thing. I thought it might have been destroyed or conquered by some Interstellar race, yet it endures and even thrives despite all that’s happened.”

It might have been a little bit of hyperbole but it was nice to actually have rediscovered her home world, let alone be given a chance to possibly visit it’s surface.

[TheAbsurdist]

 

Bliss didn't know what to do with Erin, she was... deflated?  If she was capable of rolling her eyes she would.  Her response was smack someone and tell them to suck it up.  This place was not something that appealed to her, at least it the outset.  She was... not one for peace or seemingly idyllic.  Plus it wasn't the blue-green dot she saw, her visible spectrum different than theirs.

 

No, Jessie, she didn't get.  Not really.  She got Aquaria, however.  Her expression changed from the nominally severe to something else.  It wasn't her place to say this to Aquaria, she understood loyalty and other things.  "Does it smell?"

[Electra]

Aquaria's fidgeting and nervous twitching was making Jessie even more nervous than she'd been before, but she was determined to be on her feet and not doing anything stupid when Erin finally found them. She rubbed one hand over her face and forced herself to pay attention to what Sitara was saying. "You came from Earth?" she asked blankly. She hadn't thought that any of these people knew anything about Earth. That was bizarre enough even before the rest of what the woman was saying caught up. "...how old are you?" 

[Tiffany Korta]

With a little smile Sitara sat across from Jessie, tucking her bare feet under her.

 

"That's a lot more complicated question than you'd think. I left Earth when I was around sixteen, the race that took me willingly to the stars taught me to fight, not much different to friend, but they also taught me the arts and sciences. They also altered my body, the face you see now was the one I wore at thirty. And trust me it was difficult to keep track on a alien world." another friendly smile, she seemed pretty unconcerned with it all.

 

"After that I spent a couple of centuries in stasis both times I missed the end of major wars and the fall of civilization. I guess I'm around three to four thousand years old." she was still fairly matter of fact about the whole thing.

[Avenger Assembled]

The radio crackled to life around the time they were entering Terran orbit, the vast blue-green bulk of the planet enough to get Aquaria to settle down and look out the window along with Jessie. There really was no point in worrying. One way or another, they'd be as close as they got to being home soon. And her own worry would only upset Jessie - and hurting Jessie had never been the point of any of this. 

 

"Voidrunner, are you capable of atmospheric descent? We've been, ah, authorized to direct you to our secondary landing facility in Freedom City - codenamed Lonely Point Naval Base, over." The directions, based on the map beamed over to Ruby's navcomp, put them down in what looked like a primitive aero/spaceport near the population center that Jessie and Aquaria had identified as their home city - a strangely small town of low buildings and strange powers, alongside a vast slate-grey sea of salty water. 

 

 

[Darksider42]

Ruby rolled her eyes. Of course the Voidrunner could. The ship was not a space locked capital ship after all. Though for the sake of politeness and not screwing up this job after coming this far she elected not to voice that fact. "Understood. Changing heading now." She voiced back before pulling the ship off course with the Lighthouse. She did wonder what had happened to change plans so fast. Caution might be needed once they hit dirtside.

 

At the very least, the grey dreary imagery that was sent to the navcomp did tug at distant memories. Certainly looks like home.

[Avenger Assembled]

Erin and Trevor watched the spaceship execute a pitch-perfect landing on the tarmac, the armed Marines that were providing their 'escort' keeping a discreet distance from the Voidrunner and the two superheroes. There wasn't much the troops stationed at Lonely Point could do if the space visitors decided to cause trouble, but that didn't mean they wouldn't try. The Freedom League had been contacted too - but the Freedom League was willing to let the descendant of their parent organization handle this 'contact.' The ship's engines stopped roaring and it seemed to power down, alien metals cast a dull grey beneath the overcast sky overhead. The only hole in the clouds, in fact, was the opening the Voidrunner itself had made on its way down, an eye from above seeming to peer down at the scene below.

[Brown Dynamite]

Roulette's trepidation at approaching the planet full of physical monsters like Erin and Jessie was slowly being replaced with the comfort of knowing they were about to get their promised huge payday.  They hadn't quite ironed out the detail of how many credits avoiding an entire Lor armada was worth.  But, it hardly seemed like a paltry amount.  Especially with how far of a trip it took to reach this Khan forsaken world.

 

"I've been wondering this since those two crash landed...you don't think Terra is a low-tech planet?  Wander used a strange club as a weapon, you could count the number of visible space stations in this sol system on one hand, and don't get me started on what those buildings look like they're made out of."  At this rate, they'd be lucky to refuel let alone find some place to begin spending credits on the planet.

[TheAbsurdist]

Bliss moved from the others, making her way to the airlock, getting her standard enviro suit on as she did.  She knew it would be breathable, but it was more a matter of comfort for herself.  She was use to Ruby's piloting, so she knew it was a stable landing.  Unlike hers, which generally meant that Ruby was incapacitated, and we always a little... rough.

 

She stopped at her destination and hunkered down into a crouch, leaning back against a bulkhead as she waited.  Her hackles unraised.  At the moment.  She'd see how the... Terrans?  The Terrans would do.  Not that she spoke the language, honestly.

[Tiffany Korta]

“Let’s be honest there are worst planets you could end up than here, though I guess I might be biased on this one. And don’t worry we have a facility on the edge of the system, despite what happened my credit still good. At the very least you should be able to get the ship refueled.”

 

She doubted the Praetorians would abandon her completely, but if the worst came to the worst she had a little something stored away for if things go bad.

She walked down to the ship's ramp forming her armour around her feet as she did so, she didn’t like to wear them like this but she didn’t know what the surface of Earth would be like. The rest of the armour she left undeployed not wanting to alarm the local to much. She walked down the ramp taking a lungful of the air, full of pollutants but again she’d breathed much worst before. Sitara stood a short distance from the bottom of the ramp, she didn’t really want to get in the way of the hopefully happy reunion.

[Electra]

Erin suddenly wished she'd changed into her uniform for this meeting, but at least she still had her bat at her belt, just in case something went wrong at the last minute. Working with aliens could be very tricky, and she knew that Jessie and Aquaria had gotten into trouble while they were gone. If this were some kind of ruse, or a convoluted sort of extradition, well, Erin just wanted to be ready. All the same, she felt considerable relief when the ship settled itself on the ground and the ramp extended. She studied the people who came out first, automatically assessing the possible threat they would pose, then returned her attention to the exit door. 

 

Moments later, there was a slight movement at the hatch as Jessie peered cautiously out. Erin was obviously not the only one concerned by the possibility of a feint at this point. Erin gave her a slight wave, and suddenly Jessie came barrelling down the ramp at several times normal human speed. Erin thought for an instant that Jessie would hug her, but instead her blonde doppelganger pulled up abruptly just a couple feet away, looking at Erin with wide eyes. "We're back," Jessie said needlessly. "I -we- didn't mean to run away. I'm sorry." 

 

Erin stifled a sigh. "I know. It's okay." She reached out and put an awkward hand on Jessie's shoulder, then gave her a good up and down study, checking for damage. Jessie seemed to be okay, if even more twitchy and nervous than usual. "You're back now, that's the important part. Are you okay? Where's Aquaria?" 

 

Jessie looked over her shoulder. "Still in there," she told Erin, indicating the hatch with a subtle hand motion. "She's afraid. She thinks she's going to have to go to prison because it's her fault we violated our probation. That won't happen, will it?" She leaned in, lowered her voice conspiratorially. "We can say it was me," she offered, her words quick and forceful. "if I was the one who touched the thing, then it was my fault and I would go back to Blackstone. It wasn't so bad, I would be okay and she wouldn't-" 

 

Erin gave Jessie a little shake by the shoulder she was already holding, then reached out to take the other one as well. "Nobody's going to jail," she promised, quietly but firmly. "Things happen to people like us, and it's nobody's fault but the bad guys. I've already talked to Project Freedom and it's fine. Go get her, okay?" Jessie nodded and turned, heading back up the ramp to fetch her friend. 

[Avenger Assembled]

After a few minutes, Aquaria hopped out of the ship just behind Jessie, looking rather different than when she'd left. The Deep One was wearing nothing but what looked like a tightly-fitting, ornate spacesuit (without a helmet) that gleamed with visible power running through internal veins. She stood, shoulders hunched and three-fingered hands before her like a praying mantis, big eyes downcast. Finally, she croaked mournfully, "Everything that happened in the sea of stars was my fault. All Jessie was trying to do was help me and stay alive. If you want me to leave the Surface, I'll do it. Jessie will be okay, she's stronger than she knows she is. These are our star-pod," she said, indicating the crew of the Voidrunner. "They saved us from the many monsters in the stars."