Igraine

The Last Kings of Orion

Yes Kuro, you NEVER fail to have the perfect .gif for every occasion, including the arrival of our evil overlords!

Masques and Daggers (Derren Krenshaw & Igraine)

Galina's head whipped back over her shoulder as the first deafening *whoomp* resounded through the very ground, shuddering through the wagon wheels to her very bones. For a single moment, the fires of the warehouse flashed in the dark depths of her eyes, alongside the briefest glimpse of regret. She had not intended to incinerate the building in its entirety, much less all the simple, hard-working men within, all consumed by the howling roar of the explosions. Her expression remained set, grim; there was nothing to do now but make good on the lives she'd sacrificed. Galina's attentions swiveled swiftly to Souma beside her, gaining control of their horse team as they fled for the compound gates.

"Hai," she countered quickly, scouting the gates ahead - their only escape. Stunned, bewildered, many of the yakuza who streamed from the adjoining buildings either stood there as if inexplicably rooted to the spot, stunned and staring at the impossibility of the inferno that had once been the warehouse; or bolted for the buckets and wells in a desperate attempt to stifle the flames. Either way, the last thing many of them could be bothered with, was the runaway wagon jolting past.

But a handful had all-too-quickly noticed their carriage, bolting far too fast and far too purposefully away from the conflagration. A few barked orders were flung at them, ordering their wagon to halt while clamoring for the attention of the already panicked, disorganized men. The blade of Galina's shashka flashed crimson and flame in the burning light, unsheathed in a single fluid motion as she crouched forward from the wagon's seat, perched for a single precarious instant on its edge as she found her balance in the chaos.

Silently, her lithe body moved swiftly and nimbly and without hesitation as Galina leapt for the back of the roan draft horse in front of her. With a quiet oof of an exhalation she landed, her Cossack horseman's instincts taking over instantly as her free hand snarled itself in the wild lengths of mane, steadying her easily as her legs gripped the horse's heaving sides above the straps of leather harness.

Her shashka held low in her expert grip, her attentions turned toward the large man sprinting at them, his expression contorted with a rage that could only mean that somehow, some way, he knew what she and Souma had wrought in this place. Staff in hand, he bravely rushed the horse and the team, screaming his inarticulate fury as he made to bash one of the horse's heads.

Galina's blade flashed upward and the down again in a single, seemingly effortless and fluid motion that belied all the skill behind it. Streamers of crimson followed her down stroke, and the man stumbled away screaming, blood spilling from between his fingers as he clutched at his face. Somewhere overhead, a single rifle shot rang out, a crack of thunder that ripped through the cacophony that reigned in the compound. Galina instinctively flattened herself over the horse's withers, realizing that the bullet had missed her at least, gone wide, but that was not the most immediate of their troubles.

The darkness of the gateway's tunnel artifice loomed ahead, the figures of the guards flanking the narrow sides of their passageway to freedom seemed not much more than jerkily moving blurs to her eyes, but she still made the calculations in her mind. They were going to close the gates. 'Dear God be merciful... ' They were going to close the gates and there was no way for her to stop them in time, not where she was now.

"Eggs!" she shouted above the din as she tried to twist toward Souma behind her, praying he saw the danger too, and deciphered her cryptic call.

The Last Kings of Orion

'Is it me, or does there really seem to be a timing issue going on here? Or maybe the universe is just getting its jollies at our expense... ?'

Abby still managed a smile though, even as she watched Gavin's back retreat down the hallway they'd just come up, hurriedly enroute to some emergency or other. That it truly was an emergency, she never doubted for a minute, any more than she doubted Gavin's quiet promise to pay his 'debt in full.' Even so, there was more than a little incredulity in that little twist of a smile on her lips before her attentions returned to the rumpled, sleep-fuzzied Antoine Eadore.

The poor man stood there in the doorway, the very genial soul of patient long-suffering and, if she weren't mistaken, certainly attempting something very like a military bearing. Her brow furrowed curiously for a moment over that smile, wondering where exactly Antoine Eadore had served, but bit the question back. Maybe another time perhaps, when they hadn't just tossed the poor guy out of bed.

"At ease, Mr. Eadore," she said easily, waving the man back toward a more comfortable stance. He was, after all, right outside his own room! "And please, just call me Abby. As Gavin... Dr. Brock was already saying, so very sorry for waking you, but that might just be the consequences of forgetting the military truism, wherever it was you served: keep your head low, stay out of sight, and volunteer nothing!" Abby laughed softly. "Because then you wind up with people on your doorstep, messing with your naps... "

She folded her arms over her chest easily, moving toward the door. "And yes, we do - or I guess you're just stuck with 'just me?' So I have some questions about the cryobeds, but do you think we might speak in your room? I won't keep you long, and I'd really like to make sure this stays just between us, if at all possible. It's about the mechanisms of the cryobeds, and the possibility of countermanding "

**********

Devika peered up at Dr. Brock as he strode into the surgical suite, letting out a slow breath of relief the moment she saw him. She stood straight up, which didn't exactly make that much of a real difference in her height. Pen light in hand, she waved the geneticist to her, beside a seemingly still unconscious Sung Pak where he lay on the gurney.

"Dr. Brock - great! So good to see you, thank you for coming so quickly." And she truly was glad to see him. So much so in fact, she didn't even bother scolding him for coming into the surgical suite without booties over his vintage Converse sneakers - she'd just have the place re-sterilized later.

She lay her small, warm hand over the elderly Asian man's forearm where she stood, nodding her approval to the med tech beside her, monitoring the modified EEG hookups attached to a cap covering most of his head, strapped up neatly beneath his chin. The holographic screen above Sung's body pulsated with a faint white glow, black lines translating the electrical waves of Sung's brain to display an encouragingly vibrant surf of wavering ebony lines.

"This is Sung Pak," she began, falling easily back into the rhythm of giving years of nursing reports to physicians and oncoming nurses. "He's 58-years old, one of our precious few NI techs. During the last shift change, Sung didn't come out of the neural interface as he should have - he actually... Well, there isn't really a word for what happened to him. To my knowledge, it's never happened before, but in essence, Sung 'glitched.'"

Devi good-naturedly offered up her penlight to Gavin, so he could check Sung's pupils for himself if he wished - the man really didn't seem prepared for the doctoring role at the moment. "His consciousness was trapped, in essence, in a loop like... Well, like when a computer seizes up, I suppose. We literally shut down his NI chamber completely, and in essence, 'rebooted' him." Devi winced apologetically, feeling terrible about having to use such insensitive language to talk about a human being, but she honestly did not have any other words to use. And then winced all over again, when she realized what pronoun she'd used in that last sentence.

"No... No, not 'we.' I'm the one responsible for how we got Sung out of there, for better or worse. It was my call." The woman nodded her dark head briskly, firmly, and then continued on with her briefing. "He seems to be in a coma, though we have gotten him to obey commands intermittently, squeezing a hand occasionally - it's promising. And you got here just in time - we're taking him next door for a CT scan. His brain... I don't trust myself to read this, to see if there is any lobular damage. All the NI techs literally have wiring surgically implanted into their brains. Even adjusting for metal artifacts, this is... Well, all of this is unprecedented, I suppose."

The Last Kings of Orion

Well all of it is very much deserved Heroes, a most excellent move with that last post ;) And Dot though I missed saying it before, Deli is just absolutely adorable!

I know I should write tonight, but so sorry, just really tired and have to be up at oh-dark-thirty tomorrow morning, so I'll be writing for Abby and Devi tomorrow

The Last Kings of Orion

Oh WOW fantastic post Heroes - that was... Yeah, that was awesome, all the way around. And not a damn thing is being made easy for Hob *grins*

The Last Kings of Orion

A time jump would be wonderful, though even further would work for me just as well, even upwards of a week if need be though that is, as always, up for discussion.

As for Abby, she is simply speaking to the cryotech Antoine, awaiting Gavin's input.

Devi is doing what Devi does, being a protective little thing and generally pissing off the people who cross her, and likely digging an enormous hole for herself.

Pauline is talking gummy bears with a rather dazed Deli and an unspeakably good-looking Marine SRT sergeant, and I do believe that's about it for the moment.

Masques and Daggers (Derren Krenshaw & Igraine)

"You're worse than an eager little child, my dearest aniki, sneaking to peak beneath the tree on Christmas Eve... " Of course Galina could not know if Souma had the least idea of her reference, but surely he could not miss the tease in her matchless voice. As Souma began to edge the horse team forward toward the exit, she peered nonchalantly over her shoulder from beneath the brim of her wide hat, her dark eyes inscrutable. The warehouse supervisor had only just begun to gesticulate wildly, slamming the tip of one thick finger into the stack of paper he held in the other hand, and then peering back at the pair of brothers and their newly loaded wagon.

Galina's gaze returned to Souma beside her, letting a long, longsuffering sigh from her nose as she shrugged her shoulders. Nothing to be done for it of course, though they'd come so close to getting away completely clean. No matter, no matter - this wouldn't be the first time Galina managed a tromp l'oeil in her line of work, though perhaps not one near so brilliant as she intended now.

"You'd best be as good a horseman as you are a thief," she whispered once more in his ear, "Because you've got about twenty seconds left to impress the hell out of me."

Galina scrambled over the back of the wagon seat once more, dropping down into the bed and crawling nimbly over the tarps that had already been lashed down. But for the supervisor and the underlings harangued who the eagle-eyed Souma had noted, no one else in the loading area gave any of them so much as a second glance. Sliding easily back into the role of the younger brother once more, fingers already scratched and torn from the ropes still worked nimbly to loosen them but for a moment, reaching down to the canvas bag beneath, reassuring himself that it too had been loaded and his elder brother need not worry they failed to pick up the entirety of their supplies.

Hunched over where she perched precariously against the wagon's edge and the tarp-covered supplies, Galina broke the seal, snatching at the pin that ignited the ten-second fuse. Unnoticed in the bustle of the warehouse, she shoved it swiftly through the wooden slats. The squat iron ball rolled some yards away, lodging itself neatly beneath a plank of shelving.

'10'

Galina leapt nimbly back into the seat beside Souma, her hiss of a whisper carrying all the weight of her sudden and most appropriate urgency as the bag fell from her shoulders to her lap. "Oh! Yes, this would be the point where you impress the hell out of me. And you've about nine seconds to do it now, or we're dead." She reached for the hilt of the shashka within, pulling it forward as she let the rest, with the nitro and the dynamite, lay beneath her feet. Leaning forward, she steadied herself against the coming jolt, though whether from a sudden and desperate forward motion or from the heated death of a grenade blast, she could not possibly have guessed.

'8'

Under her breath, she whispered the Lord's Prayer nonetheless.

'7'

The Last Kings of Orion

I sure didn't get the chance to say so last night Kuro, but that was a great Connor post, bless his socially awkward little heart!

The Last Kings of Orion

Beale had been easy enough to cow with the threat of legal action held over his head - well, for the moment at least. Devika didn't even bother with wishful thinking about the score she'd have to settle in the future, one way or another. She'd been feeding him a line of bullshit from beginning to end, and he'd figure that out soon enough, and he didn't seem the kind to be swayed by arguments about the sanctity of human life. Yes, she had certainly made inroads and allies among the like-minded among the people working with the NI techs, good people like Evangeline and the other techs. But no matter how precious they might be, they were far too few and held far too little real authority.

Beale and Harris however, were a whole other story, and Devi cursed under her breath as she climbed up on a chair, kneeling on the built-in desk before rising shakily to her feet. She reached for the overhead panel the engineer had told her to pry open while he maneuvered into the crawl space beneath Sung Pak's tube. The panel just above her head opened easily enough when she pressed a metal corner, the array of color-coded lights and switches blinking patiently, almost cheerfully at her.

For no reason she could name, this irritated her to no end.

Devi scowled, her lips pressed into a thin line as she peered over her shoulder. The engineer's booted feet were all she could see, as if the wall had nearly swallowed him whole. She willed herself not to tap her booted foot impatiently as she waited for the word from Beale, to do her small part in all this.

"Now, Major!" came Beale's voice, muffled by the distance and the machinery, but loud enough. Devi's fingers flashed over the circuits in the order the engineer had given her, her nerves wound so tightly she nearly jumped out of her skin when the entire chamber fell dark, and the clicking hum of emergency lights burst into a golden glow about the edges of the high ceiling.

Within the cyber world traversed only by the NI techs, darkness descended in the space between the ship's vast videologs and the emergency computer back-up, an eclipse nearly as black and formless as the void of space itself, engulfing the damaged consciousness of a single man.

Sung Pak stirred, his dark eyes opening wide as the virtual world suddenly burned bright all around him, his world gone in an instant from cold blackness to an explosion of the senses. Time lost all meaning, and he winced and shut his eyes tight again against the blinding light, his nostrils filled with the acrid stench of ozone and burnt hair and the growling shriek of ancient metal gears grinding -

"Sung? Sung Pak, can you hear me?"

Devi had flown into action, leaping from the desk the minute the chamber came back to life, helping to yank Beale from the crawlspace and opening Sung's NI tube. At her shout the techs dashed in with a gurney while she swiftly disconnected the man from all the tubes and wires and catheter. The man's body was rolled to the side, then rolled back again as they slid a sheet beneath him, then hauled Sung to the waiting gurney.

Devi pulled open one eye, and then another, the scowl disappearing as she watched first one pupil dilate, then another - promising. This was promising at the least, as was the soft moan that escaped the man's lips. It wasn't words, but she dared to hope he was at least trying to respond to her.

"Get him to the surgical ward - the CT scanner is next door - Wait, what... ? No! No, not to the MRI - dear God, with all the metal in him? You'll rip out his brain!" she hissed impatiently at the nearest tech, and then shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you couldn't know - please, just take him to the surgical suite and I'll be right behind. "

Devi watched the techs pushing the gurney out of the chamber, stepping briskly to follow behind - and then stopped in her tracks. Her large dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and she pulled the tablet from the deep pocket of her white medical coat, small, slender fingers dancing swiftly over its screen.

"Dr. Brock, you're needed as soon as possible to come take a look at one of our NI techs in the surgical ward. I know this is not your bailiwick, but your input would be invaluable - I'll explain when you get here."

Devi hesitated for a moment, and then typed just one more message.

"Hob, just wanted to let you know we've gotten Sung Pak from the interface. He's semi-conscious but alive, and at the very least, that's something. - Devi"

She slid the tablet back into her pocket and dashed from the chamber.