"Any idea what this meeting is about?" Vance asked to the mostly empty room.

"Probably a scavenging run, like always," groaned his teammate, Grant.

"With only two teams?" Vance replied incredulously, Grant simply shrugging in reply.

For most of the ship it was a normal day, kids ran up and down the narrow steel corridors, their laughter echoing throughout the ship. Dozens of hands tended to the makeshift greenhouses that had been built atop what was once two cargo ships. Each ship consisted of a large, mostly empty, hull between two massive sausage shaped helium balloons. Steam driven propellers covered the outer hull at regular intervals while a nest of brass pipes where the two ships had been joined connected the four total boilers to one another. The giant propellers spun lazily as the sun rose, simply working to keep the ship stable.

As workers, engineers, medics, teachers and hundreds of others woke to go about their various jobs the Scavenger corp was also gathering. Or, at least, a portion of them. While there were six total teams, all of which would typically be deployed whenever the ship neared the mainland only two of the groups had been called. The most senior team, lead by Grant, a man as big as he was ill mannered, but none the less always brought his team back alive and with supplies, was already gathering with two of their four members present in the small meeting room. The other group was an odd pick, and relatively new, all of them relatively recent additions to the ship. Jarred and his niece were survivors of a lost ship, doing them no favors in trying to make friends with the more superstitious of the crew. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Jarred had become a scavenger.

Keket was more of a mystery, picked up at the last stop she didn't talk about her past, and few asked. Everyone had dark pasts in this world, best to just ignore it, but there was still a need for strong fighters to protect scavenging teams and, lacking other skills had found her way there.

Finally Eliza had more the air of a child of wanderlust, her unique combination of engineering knowledge and physical ability making her ideal for recovering parts for the airship. Perhaps she was why that group, despite being untested, was asked to come to this meeting. Everything on the ship was at least decades old and always needed replacing, and engineers were generally too valuable to risk on missions.

Regardless the ship chugged through the air, several smaller ships launching from the makeshift top deck carrying fishermen with massive nets and crab pots. Distant singing could be heard from an early morning workshift tending to the ship's engines, more religious crew bowed their heads in morning prayers, chefs in the ship's galley began preparing meals for those working and mothers walked children to classrooms. Most unaware the scavengers were preparing for another dangerous mission even as they went about their day.

Keket silently walked into the room, finding a nice place to sit off to the side. She looked at the other team, seeing their massive coordination and finding it amusing. She crossed her legs at the knee and slipped the knife hidden in the thigh portion of her left boot out of its sheath. She pulled a peach from her pocket, beginning to slice small wedges out and eat them.

Anyone looking at her would note that she simply ate and observed, seeming to be waiting for the rest of the group to be her companions. They would be correct in assuming she was being reserved as she was still rather fresh on the ship. Her usually fiery nature was being actively kept in check, seemingly to help her gauge her surroundings. Anyone with any knowledge of how her pressure bands worked would notice they were nearly as tight as possible for their latches, hinting that she was at the least anxious or angry and at worst positively livid and stressed.

Jarred checked over all his gear once more. Each weapon was in its place and checked before heading out. The merc tank secure, mask resting next to his shoulder ready for use, blade sharpened, and gear up to snuff. Jarred walked into the briefing room, noticing that it didn't have many people in it. He nodded a silent greeting to anyone who looked his way as he came in and found a chair to rest on as he waited for the briefing to begin, one hand resting on his knew with his other forearm on the opposite one, a very relaxed pose. His gear was well worn, but it was effective. It did the jobs it needed to do and was well fit to him after years of service. He had good clothes, but he didn't see the sense in destroying them out in the field, besides, there was nothing that made the clothes unwearable, they were just a bit rough after the years.

He recognized the new girl. She seemed to be about Kiimi's age, though, much more mature. Her clothing was a bit odd to him, but whose weren't when you were getting ready to go on a mission, each person had their own idea of what gear to bring. He couldn't imagine what would drive a young girl into this occupation. He recalled seeing her in the ship's tavern one night getting harassed by a group of men who were trying to start a fight. He thought to step in until he watched her single-handedly begin to take out five of the men with her bare hands. Jarred had just sat back and enjoyed his drink and smoke as he enjoyed the show. With that in mind, he knew she could take care of herself in a fight, though he wondered what group she was going to be assigned to. And where were all the other squads?

Jarred looked to her once more with a smirk and a nod in her direction in greeting, "Well, mornin'. Haven't seen you since you became an overnight sensation in the tavern," Jarred chuckled as he began one last routine check on his gear, "So they decided to put you on a scavenger crew, eh?" What rotten luck, to be so young and have to face the a trek through the mainland. Jarred didn't see it as a place for the young. Capable or not, he didn't see it as a place for someone just starting out in life to risk it all like this, to experience these things. "Have you ever been on a scavenger mission to the mainland?" he asked genuinely. He didn't want to spook her, but he was curious if she had any experience. Odds are, with Grant's usual team filling out, she was going to be on his team, and he wanted to gauge her experience before they hit the ground.

---

Despite having heard the announcement for a meeting, Liz still managed to arrive late. In her defense, it wasn't entirely her fault as one of the engineers who was analyzing some pieces that were recently received from one of the scavenger teams asked for her help to see if it was able to repair an old, medium sized mercureal boiler that was recovered. She ended up taking more time than she thought it would take, since it's interior was in much worse state than both of them previously though. Most other engineers would have instantly realized that it was a waste of time and given up, including the very engineer who asked for her help, but Liz ended up getting a bit too excited with rebuilding it... And that brought her to the situation she was at the moment, darting back and forth on her quarters, getting her equipment, her weapons and all the stuff she would probably need in an eventual mission before running to where the meeting was probably already taking place.

"I'm sorry! I'm late, I know... Was helping an engineer from the other team with a medium sized boiler that was recovered in a scavenging run. It ended up being in a worse state than we previously thought it was..." Liz said as she dashed inside the room, after taking a moment to catch her breath.

Even though Liz was pretty new on the ship, due to her enthusiastic and energetic behavior had already earned her some fans and a lot of people liked to have her around. Despite that, she was still new and didn't know many people inside the ship other than a few, like Kiimi, the other engineer, who was one of the first people she bonded with when she boarded the ship.

"Everyone calls me Liz or Lizzie, feel free to do the same. It's a pleasure to meet you all!" She said, with a smile and a friendly wave as she looked to the group that was reunited in the room.

"So... Did I miss anything? What is this meeting for?" Liz asked curiously as she looked around, noticing that there two teams on that meeting.

"Hey honey," Vance said as Liz took a seat, sliding over to lean against her table, "don't think I've seen you around here before, what do you say we-."

Before he could finish a massive hand closed around the back of his neck, dragging him away and half throwing him back into his chair.

"Mission now, women later," Grant said warning as he retook his own seat, glaring at the younger man. Any complaints vance may have had were silenced as the last two members of his team along with the ship's vice captain and a senior engineer walked in. Eric and Jim were brothers, at least, that's what they told everyone, and tended to be troublemakers in their free time, really only their skill at and willingness to go on scavenging missions allowed them to be tolerated.

The vice-captain, Huxley Winters, was a stern but fair man and son of the previous captain. While the position wasn't supposed to be hereditary it didn't stop the Winters family from controlling many upper leadership positions. As Huxley entered he directed the engineer with him, known simply as Scott, to put a large, cloth wrapped and apparently very heavy package onto one of the tables, which groaned under the weight.

"Everyone here?" Huxley asked needlessly as he scanned the two teams, "good, let's get this started.

"The details of this mission shouldn't leave this room, hopefully the troubles we are experiencing will be dealt with before the general crew notices anything. In short, one of our primary boilers isn't working."

"The boiler itself is fine, technically," Scott corrected.

"I'm getting there," Huxley paused to glare before motioning to the package which Scott unwrapped. It resembled a block of steel as long as someone's forearm, nearly as wide and a bit more than a hand span thick. Oil seeped from several smaller holes drilled in the face while salt encrusted larger openings lined the sides.

"This is the steam distribution manifold from boiler A2," Scott explained, "it stopped working about two days ago, it's supposed to manage steam pressure through various systems but was causing several lines to over-pressure while neglecting others. We've rigged up a stopgap measure, pushing the output from A2 through A1's manifold, but that won't hold long."

"In short, in a few days things will start getting cold," Huxley took over, "we'll have to direct power away from unnecessary systems, heating, lighting, support craft, that kind of thing. Your mission is to find a replacement. We've located three possible places," Huxley paused to pull out a map and lay it out on the table, "the first two are in this town, the ruins of Yonkers. It had two main boiler plants, one located near the port and the other inland to service housing. The city has doubtless been scavenged before, and the steam plants are a primary target of anyone's missions, but we're hoping the manifolds were too heavy and difficult to extract when compared to other parts.

"The other location," Huxley paused to pull a black and white photograph from a pocket and put it next to the map. It showed a distant and slightly blurry photo of another airship, "is this, the Hephaestus, a ship reported lost last spring according to messages we received. Our scout pilots found it drifting near by, frankly I'm surprised it's still afloat but it'll have several manifolds we can use. But it's likely crawling with Touched and who knows what else."

"Have you tried, I dunno, fixing that thing?" Vance asked, one foot up on the table and nodding to the manifold.

"It's a precision tooled piece of kit," Scott answered, "none of the machine shops on board are capable of the accuracy needed, we plan to try anyways, but the chance of it working is low."

"Do you really think anyone here is stupid enough to go to a ghost ship?" Grant spoke up.

"That's why there's only two teams here, Old Man says we're not desperate enough to force you try that. If it drifts over land we might try to force it down by punching holes in the balloons but it's over sea right now and we don't know where it'll end up," Huxley replied, "Grant, your team is senior so you get first pick."

"The port plant," the large man grunted after a moment's thought.

"I've written details for how to identify the manifold here," Scott said, handing out slips of paper, "in short make sure you find the part number on the side and match it to one of the numbers here."

"Finally while the manifold is the most important, keep your eye out for other things, Merc tanks, good food, you know the like," Huxley finished, glancing at Jarrad, "which location do you prefer?"