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1 yr ago
built like a truck and out for revenge

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In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Traveller's Phrase Book

Note: Question marks indicate the word may not be fully understood. Italicized words known only in non-human languages. User beware, translations are not fully accurate.
Nouns

Species names
Jotunheim
Friends
Foes
Sphere
Weapon
Bow
Gun
Earth?
Home?
Fire?
Mages?
Kanth-Aremek

Verbs

Travel
Repair
Teach
Stay
Go
Speak

Adjectives

Broken

Misc.

Nodding yes/no
Shrugging to indicate questions
After
Not
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Itxaro suppressed an urge to scream at Darnell, the Tamerlane parasite who'd latched onto the Jotunheim, and smothered some choice words for the commander as well. If she'd been among comrades, the engineer would have spun around in a heartbeat and given Darnell both barrels without a second thought, but she wasn't even sure all of the Jo's crew were on the same team. Hell, this thing seems like my best friend in the room, Itxaro thought, glancing at Shirik. Instead she played it cool, having learned long ago to mask her feelings around foreigners.

"They won't be able to find Earth from that," she stiffly reassured the two. Of course they wouldn't, she thought bitterly, that fucking lightshow was the equivalent of a fucking Treasure Island X-marks-the-spot map. I couldn't tell them how to find Earth even if I wanted to.

It didn't take an expert to see that some of the natives were shocked by her little lecture. Itxaro doubted they'd received intergalactic visitors before and likely didn't have the technology to do so themselves, let alone even consider it a possibility. She determined Earth was in no danger here, but the same couldn't be said for the Jotunheim's crew.

"Commander, I'm worried about that one," Itxaro said as she nodded to the soldier Kerchak. Nellara had told the humans that Kerchak was going to leave, perhaps to find someone who could translate for them in a city called Lenkik, judging from Kareet's map. Go. Stay. Speak. After Three new Kanth-Aremek words to weave into her growing lexicon. However, there was no telling Nellara's true intentions. Perhaps Kerchak would return with a legion of warriors like Kerchak and just kill them all. Itxaro thought it would be smart to send one human along with them who could warn them with a comms notification at the very least. Better to lose one than lose them all, she thought but Zey was in charge and Itxaro wasn't. The commander asked about the metal spheres, and Itxaro racked her brain for ways to communicate this. She noticed Kareet seemed confused. Maybe my little lecture wasn't as clear as I thought, Itxaro considered, before setting to work on her data pad.

Dr. Ibarra set the tech down on the floor and let the hologram begin again. First, came an image of a spear, the most simple of arms. "Weapon," Itxaro said confidently. A sword and bow then appeared next to the spear, conveniently omitting any human firearms in the display. "Weapon," she continued, pointing to each item. All the weapons faded, save for the sword, which grew in size. The broadsword suddenly splintered into several pieces. "Broken," Itxaro said. The sword was placed on an anvil, and a hammer appeared that smashed into the broken fragments several times. The anvil and hammer disappeared, sword now in one piece. "Repair," Itxaro finished with her second lecture as the holograms faded. "Jotunheim broken. Humans repair Jotunheim. Humans go home after," she said, weaving in the local language wherever possible.

The next lecture came as per the commander's request. First, Itxaro used the data pad to capture Shirik and Nellara's likeness for the program; the images would come out flat in the hologram without a full scan, but it would serve her purpose. Nellara's compressed image appeared, but it wasn't recognizable as her. Itxaro had rendered it a simple outline, a stand-in for all Tekeri; that, and she didn't want to break any cultural faux pas by presenting Nellara with her doppelganger. Several spheres rotated around the outline, electricity sporadically jumping from one to the other. "Sphere," Itxaro pointed to one of them. "Sphere weapon? Speak," Itxaro asked in the tone of a question, accompanied by shrug and an open-handed gesture to them, hoping it was enough to convey their confusion. Next, Nellara's image was replaced with a human, and the spheres continued to rotate around them. A large X was drawn through the entire scene to indicate humans did not have this technology.

“And now for my next trick…” Itxaro muttered; she was least confident in this one, but orders were orders. The images disappeared, replaced with an outline of Shirik's head. Holographic flames lept around him. "Fire," Itxaro said. The flames took the various shapes Shirik had created. A human appeared in Shirik’s place, another giant X through the images. Humans don’t know this technology. Or magic, as Darnell so thoughtfully put it.

Next, came Shirik’s outline and a Tekeri’s, both acting out the mysterious skills they possessed in front of a group of seated holographic humans. Then, the humans stood up and joined the Tekeri and Iriad, drawing fiery symbols in the air and spinning metal spheres of their own. “Teach,” Itxaro said with a sweeping gesture to the scene before them. Tell us how you do this. “Teach humans fire. Teach humans sphere. Shirik, Nellara, teach, speak,” she finished, gesturing to them. Your turn now. She didn't necessarily want a lesson, just an explanation. At least, that's what the commander seemed to want.
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
The situation quickly deteriorated, and Itxaro was caught helplessly in the middle.

A gravelly voice with an Israeli accent sounded off over her comms. "Two tangos are external." All the blood drained from Itxaro's face as she realized what was happening. Her idea, her stupid fucking idea to post guards around the ship, an idea borne of past trauma and paranoia, was now going to kick off the first human-alien conflict. She could only hope that Tamerlane mercenary would shoot her eyes out so she wouldn't have to see it.

Itxaro froze as she heard an electric thrumming that sounded like systems firing up behind her, accompanied by a metallic clicking. The natives all grew more on edge, and Nellara's metal spheres reappeared. Normally, Itxaro would have squealed with delight at her name pronounced by an alien tongue, but right now she couldn't fully appreciate the novel experience. The engineer slowly turned around to see Eva's javelin coming to life, and the spidery drones skittering around the shuttle bay's interior. Oh, that fucking kid. Eva wasn't to blame, Itxaro knew that, but she sure had chosen a bad time to reunite with the crew after being practically MIA for the past three days.

More chatter and movement from outside. Nellara was concerned, and in just three words Itxaro instantly knew what was happening. The Jo's crew had unwittingly surrounded their new guests, and as far as she knew, the natives thought it was a trap. Itxaro didn't know what else to do, so she slowly holstered her revolver into her overalls and held her hands up halfway, palms open to indicate she was unarmed. Of course, this gesture implied that the metal objects all the crew carried were in fact weapons to the natives, but Itxaro was sure they'd determined this for themselves already. But what could she say? What could she point to, indicating her peaceful intentions?

One of the natives started this game of charades first with a flurry of gestures. Head. Brain? Thoughts? Mouth. Speech? Us. Travel. He wanted them all to go somewhere, but where to? And what did the first gestures mean? Itxaro might have been able to figure it out, but not when she could be decapitated by a sword-wielding bird at any second.

The commander managed to calm the humans, no easy task in Itxharo's experience, but it was the charred tree-thing who had the final say. Itxaro felt a chill sweep through the room as the creature pounded the floor even through her thick sweater and chemically treated overalls. Her breathing slowed, and she felt the panic ebb. That wasn't natural. The thing immediately had the room's attention (or at least Itxaro's), and it chose to sit on the grated metal floor, joined by Kareet. The woody native reminded Itxaro of Cuba's elder statesmen, those who had sparked revolutions throughout South America and led the USASR in those first rough decades. Those legendary figures were seemingly ancient, yes, but commanded absolute respect despite their advanced years. Experience counts for a lot. Itxaro had a feeling this creature was old, with more experience than she could imagine, and she would be smart to listen to what it had to say. Itxaro mirrored the natives, sitting across from them with some distance, and listened.

As it turned out, the creature, named Shirik didn't have much to say. It identified the names of its comrades in a low, scratching tone, as well as what she assumed was their culture or species. Then it chose to conjure flames rather than waste time speaking. Itxaro was enraptured, eyes glowing from the brilliant fire as she took in the shapes Shirik made. She expected heat to wash over her face, but there was nothing of the sort. She didn't think much about how the creature made the flames; that could come later. For now, she needed to listen. Mountains. The Jotunheim crashing. Shirik understood they had crashed here. Then came the next barrage of images. Jotunheim again. Circle, dots, larger dot. Space? Arrow from Jotunheim to the planet. They understood that humans came from outside of this world. Then came rough sketches of Shirik's companions and himself within the circle, all on the same world. Kanth-Aremek.

Itxaro nodded to indicate her understanding. Perhaps nodding didn't communicate the same thing in their cultures. Perhaps it meant, "Prepare to die, dog," on Kanth-Aremek, but the gesture was too instinctive to prevent. Kareet produced a map of some kind, but Itxaro had already set to work of her own, eager to engage in this pictorial exchange with Shirik. She pulled a beat-up data pad, USASR tech, from her deep pockets, set it on the floor, and began to typing away. It didn't take her long to produce the final product; she had extensive experience with the program as a teaching tool at the Universidad de la Habana. A hologram suddenly emitted from the data pad's projector showing a simple, 19th-century house with a human family in front of it. The colors were muted and the resolution low, but everything was still identifiable. "Home," Itxaro indicated as the lights in the windows went out, and the house faded into nothing.

In its place rose Earth, the moon orbiting around it, and a distant sun, all floating above the data pad. "Earth," she said, pointing to the planet. "Home," she added, with an unexpected twinge of sadness. Following Shirik's example, faces appeared within the planet, those of the Jotunheim's crew in the shuttle bay, but only human faces. Just us. Well, the Yenge too, but we won't get into that yet. Then came a small figure from the planet's surface. "Jotunheim," Itxaro said as the planet shrunk in size and the ship grew. Multiple planets passed by the Jotunheim at increasing speed to indicate how far they were from home. "Travel," Itxaro explained, borrowing Kolvar's pantomime of a person walking with two fingers. Suddenly, an explosion on the ship. "Broken," Itxaro said, pointing to the pixelated flames licking off the ship. This word was a stretch, but worth a shot; they couldn't just communicate in nouns. The Jotunheim came to a nondescript planet. "Kanth-Aremek," she tested her pronunciation of the alien planet's name as the Jotunheim burned through the ship's atmosphere. The light show came to an end. "Jotunheim broken. Humans travel home," Itxaro finished, a smile flickering across her face that was quickly suppressed. She had just communicated with aliens. Whether or not it was anything intelligible to them remained to be seen. Maybe I should have consulted with the commander first. Ah well.

"Did I miss anything?" Itxaro asked her crew members, but kept her attention on Shirik's smoldering eyes, searching for comprehension in the flames.
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Itxaro was still reeling when the commander appeared in the airlock with the others. She snapped back to the airlock window, now laser-focused on the scene playing out in the shuttle bay. The creatures looked like something out of a medieval artist's fever dream, a mix of human and animal physiology. The dominant caste was a massive, upright bird, easily a foot or more taller than her, but they varied widely in appearance as much as birds on Earth. A second species could only be described as a centaur with the head of a stag, wearing leather armor; Itxaro briefly imagined herself riding the centaur-elk into battle in full plate armor, thrusting a spear into her foes, but figured the creature wouldn't appreciate being ridden like a horse. The third took a moment to even recognize as a living being at all; it had a roughly humanoid figure, but resembled a smoldering tree more than anything. Perhaps it was some form of protection, she reasoned, but how could she even begin to speculate?

Even from her cursory observations, Itxaro knew these natives were sentient. The intricate armor one wore was the first giveaway, but she could tell just from the way they carried themselves that these interlopers were probably just as intelligent as the entire crew of the Jo. Compared to the Yenge’s cephalopod-like anatomy, they almost seemed human. A thousand questions ran through her head, and she found herself totally entranced. What was their history like? How did a world develop differently with multiple sentient species? Had they achieved world socialism yet? That would give the neo-Posadists back home a fit.

Her eyes grew even wider as several metallic orbs seemed to float about the shuttle bay. The objects sparked like a plasma globe and moved with purpose, manipulated by one of the bird-like entities without any physical touch. She watched in a trance as the blackened tree-thing conjured flames from nothing, creating symbols that hung suspended far longer than ephemeral sparks could. They're trying to communicate.

Once the communication barrier between mankind and Yenge had been broken, it was almost a disappointment; yes, the Yenge held the secret to faster-than-light travel, but humanity had already been on the brink of that discovery. Another 100 years and Itxaro was convinced they would have been colonizing the stars, Yenge or not. Outside of that, the Yenge were a letdown. No galaxy-spanning civilization come to dazzle them with new technologies or uplift them to an interstellar government, but instead a decimated people seeking asylum. These natives, on the other hand, might hold even more mysteries than the Yenge. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. A trite old saying, but to Itxaro it felt appropriate.

Itxaro was brought back to the present when the carbine was thrust back into her hands. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?" Itxaro muttered, as if she hadn't been the one who took it from the armory for a last stand against interstellar mercenaries. She clumsily removed the magazine and stowed the rifle against the airlock wall, favoring the revolver, though she didn't intend to use it on their guests. Still, as the airlock hissed open, she held the gun loosely in her hand. Insurance in case the Tamerlane men decided to try something. She made sure to follow the commander's example and keep Darnell in front of her.

Of course, Dr. Ibarra immediately broke rank when she spotted Vigdis working on what seemed like mathematics with one of the aliens. "Playing nice with the locals Vigdis? Who's your friend?" She asked as she strode over, eager to investigate. The engineer seemed a little frazzled, but the aliens hadn't done her any harm; if anything, they seemed just as interested in the humans as she was in them. As if on cue, the one nearest to Vigdis spoke, much to Itxaro's delight, and said both Vigdis' name and what she assumed was its own. The voice reminded her of corvids from Earth who mimicked human speech, but only in the broadest sense. "Kah-reet. Kareet," she repeated as she pointed to the creature, both to indicate her understanding and test out the alien language on her own tongue. She pointed to herself and said, "Itxaro," deciding to save titles and surnames for later.

Dr. Ibarra felt like she was meeting a celebrity. She wanted to reach out and shake the alien's hand, but decided against it, instead turning her attention to the figured Vigdis and her figures scrawled out on a piece of aluminum. "Hmm, I would have started with Spanish and worked from there, but I get where you're going," she joked. In truth, it was a solid foundation to work from. First contact with the Yenge had been purely mathematical, a transfer of data back and forth until a common language had been established almost from scratch. Itxaro wasn't sure if they had that kind of time or resources though. Instead, she opted for the old-fashioned way that cultures throughout mankind's history had used when encountering each other. Pointing. Itxaro pointed at each human in the shuttle bay and said, "Human. Human. Human. Human. Human." She finally reached herself and put a finger to her chest, hoping the message would get across. "Human."

Itxarto felt a growing desperation to communicate with the natives. There was so much to learn, so much to share. Her head was reeling with the possibilities, the Jo's busted FTL drive the last thing on her mind now. She wondered what resources they had on the ship that could be used to teach the aliens one of Earth's many languages. Did they even have a physical dictionary on board the Jo? Probably not. Perhaps the ship-bound AI could be used to translate, as much as she hated to use the dreaded technology. If it came down to it, she was perfectly content to sit here the rest of her life, pointing at things in the alien's presence.
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Itxaro had been playing detective.

Well, warp detective anyways. She was scrambling around the ship like mad, interviewing key crew, running diagnostics on ship systems, and begrudgingly consulting the ship's AI to piece together what exactly had gone wrong with the Jo when they left Norwegian airspace. Her task was made even more difficult by constant power fluctuations and her unfamiliarity with the drive. It boiled down to this: alien and human tech don't play well with eachother.

The doctor was now discussing her findings with wounded lead engineer Zhao Jiayin, the two women lounging at the Jo's docking rampway as they waited for the foreign sun to rise and their shifts to begin. They'd tried smoking in the open air of the new planet but quickly discovered their cigarettes ignited into flames, rather than gently smoldered. "I've been looking for reasons to quit anyways," Itxaro said as she flicked the burning butt to the dirt, where it reduced to cinders and blew away in the ashen soil.

The conversation, carried out in Mandarin, had wandered from the Jo's warp drive to home, perhaps inspired by the Earth-like landscape that stretched before them. In truth, there wasn't much like the untouched marshland on Earth now; most of it had been stripped for resources or polluted beyond repair. Almost all "natural" spaces back home were in fact manmade ecosystems, attempts to repair the damage done by decades of abuse. It was fitting that mankind's first step on a habitable alien world resulted in several hundred acres going up in flames. Judging from her calculations, Itharo determined that the planet had gotten off easy, too. Exiting warp in atmosphere meant a good chance there would be super-relativistic displacement of volumes of space, which could have a catastrophic, atomic-scale impact on any matter that got in the shield's way. Either the warp bubble had degraded slowly enough, or the Yenge's drive had some sort of fail-safe to prevent them from destroying every planet they exited warp next to. They'd been lucky.

The pair of engineers discussed the planet's similarities to their home countries; Zhao pointed out the wetlands that were reminiscent of the Zoigê Marsh, while Ibarra spotted trees in the mountains not unlike the Caribbean pine. Their ecological study was cut short when Itxaro caught sight of a smoldering mass floating through the sky. At first, she assumed it was some burning detritus floating in the breeze, but the shape moved slowly, and with too much purpose. A drone. Itxaro and Zhao exchanged a look of pure disbelief before they scrambled into the metal hull of the Jo.

As if on cue, Commander Kadıoğlu's voice came through their comms systems. Itxaro didn't need to be told twice. Somehow, whoever had attacked the ship in Norway had followed them, and were here to finish the job. None of it made sense, but with adrenaline filling her system, Itxaro didn't have much use for sense. She dashed for the armory and briefly eyed the racks of heavy weaponry before grabbing a wheel gun and cramming some spare speedloaders into her overall pockets. Revolvers were easy to use, and the large caliber meant you probably wouldn't need to hit your target twice. Plus, it made you feel cool.

"Oh, why not?"

She also picked up a light carbine and two spare magazines, feeling like some supersoldier loaded up for a last stand. If she thought hard enough, she could just recall the single firearms lesson she'd received in school where they loaded and shot an ancient, wood-furnished gun. The sleek rifle in her hands now was a far cry from that derelict AK though. She jammed a magazine inside and hoped for the best, ready enough to confront whatever danger was outside.

A new voice hissed over her comms. "Shuttle bay, shuttle bay!" the woman whispered. Vigdis.

Itxaro dashed from the armory and around the corner, almost running into a large man already peering into the shuttle bay. She recognized him as Jack Mallory, the ship's X.O. "Jesus, Mallory, am I happy to see you," Itxaro said, immediately shoving the carbine into his hands. She remembered from his dossier that he had served in the military, so he was much better off with it than her. Why the hell did I grab that in the first place? Stupid!

"What's the plan Mallory? Are they in the shuttle bay? Is Vigdis OK? We gonna plug these fuckers? Can you believe these pendejos followed us all this way?" She fired off a flurry of questions, running a hand through her white hair as she drew the revolver from her overalls. Her body was pressed against the bulkhead, not peering through the airlock for fear of getting shot in the face. She knew Vigdis was in the shuttle bay, but she couldn't hear any guns going off. Itxaro ventured a peak through the window and slammed back against the bulkhead as if shots had whizzed by.

"Oh."
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
“You’re only five minutes late. Go check the chief - she’s hurt.”

"Sorry, I got held up in customs," Dr. Ibarra replied, the attempt at humor half-hearted and hollow. She hefted up her medical bag, apparently christened as the ship's new medic, and set to patching the chief engineer's bleeding head.
The next several hours were a blur. Dr. Ibarra and the rest of the engineering department scrambled around the broken ship repairing whatever systems were currently threatening to kill all the passengers. By the time they were no longer in immediate danger, Itxaro was covered in blood, soot, and sweat. The emergency stimulant she'd taken had long since worn off, and Dr. Ibarra barely made it to the medical bay to receive proper treatment for her wound. The floor was slick with blood, the room crowded with wounded crew and civilians seeking some kind of aid from the overburdened medical staff, but she was lucky enough to get a proper stitch job on her leg by a droid. Not the best bedside manner though.

Itxaro escaped it into the rec room and collapsed onto an empty couch next to a hot tub - a fucking hot tub, she simply couldn't believe the decadence of these corporations - and rested her exhausted body for some time, but her mind continued to race. She felt equal parts horror and relief at the mission's failure, and the relief only made her feel sick to her stomach. The ship was trashed, the FTL drive seemingly a failure, and she could soon return home. Disappointed, yes, with only a fraction of the knowledge she'd set out to obtain, but home nonetheless. She'd gotten to know the surviving engineering crew by name only during the frantic repair, but they all seemed brilliant in their own fashion. Wish we had the chance to work on a USASR ship together instead of this fucking death trap. She was silently fuming about the hack job the Tamerlane Corporation had done, splicing alien warp drives onto a human vessel, and she assumed with a dramatically shortened project timeline that left little room to prevent accidents like this. Don't know what I expected from capitalists, but certainly not this level of incompetence, she thought bitterly as she closed her eyes.
Itxaro barely had a chance to rest before a call for all ship personnel was made. She cursed and hauled herself to the conference room, squeezing between crew into the dimly lit and hazy space. Itxaro was surrounded by faces only known to her through minimalist Tamerlane dossiers, but she quickly focused her attention on Kadıoğlu as she began to speak; the woman had a commanding presence, that much was sure.

As Kadıoğlu's speech continued, Dr. Ibarra felt a sinking feeling that she wouldn't be seeing Cuba anytime soon. She didn't claim to be a great read, but Itxaro believed the commander was hiding something from them. Why bother with repairs when we should just be evacuating, waiting for a rescue? Shouldn't someone have arrived by now? Whether this deception was intentional or not, Itxaro understood. Sometimes the truth hurt. Itxaro wouldn't make her suspicion known - not now, anyway. However, something had been gnawing at her since she'd boarded the ship, and when the commander opened the floor to questions she was the first to step up, quickly introducing herself before addressing Kadıoğlu.

"Commander, whoever attacked the Jotunheim is well-organized; do we have a contingency plan in place if they arrive before help comes?" Dr. Ibarra, normally confident and boisterous, felt self-conscious addressing the crowd of strangers, though she tried not to let it show. Of the three languages in which she was fluent, English was the weakest, and she was unaccustomed to the formal and rigid command structure she assumed the Jotunheim's adhered to. That, and ship-bound firefights had haunted her dreams for the past ten years. Not exactly an easy topic to talk to a crowd about. "I'd like to suggest some kind of defense perimeter with armed guards, whoever is able. Maybe we can rig up a simple security system if resources allow." How much an impromptu militia would help against the vicious fighting force she encountered at the airport would help Dr. Ibarra didn't know. At the very least they might be able to alert the others since most of their sensors were down.
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

[Stavanger Interplanetary Spaceport]

Mierda, this fucking place is cold.

Dr. Itxaro Ibarra knew it was a ridiculous thought. Of course it was cold; they were practically in the Arctic Circle. But did it have to be cold inside too? Already, Itxaro was bundled in so many layers she felt like she was wearing a bulky, old-fashioned EVA suit. Even still she shivered, arms clutched to her chest. Fuck it. Nothing to be done. She hurried down the stark white and grey concourse, bulging canvas sea bag rustling on her back. And there's another thing. Why is everything so damn sterile? Isn't it white enough outside? Accustomed to the vibrant colors and neo-Aztec architecture popular throughout the USASR, the bare nordic design was yet another reminder to Dr. Ibarra she was an interloper. She supposed the ship, the Jotunheim, would be more of the same. Oh well, at least I'll only be on it for the foreseeable future, Itxaro thought ruefully.

Truth be told, she didn't want to be here. Not in Norway, not with the Jotunheim. But what choice did she have? Continue to pick through the scraps of Yenge tech? Or work on a functioning faster-than-light drive, and bring that knowledge home? The choice was painfully obvious to her, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Frankly, it was a miracle she was here at all; the previous FTL specialist had disappeared, likely kidnapped by rival factions seeking to reverse-engineer the already imitated FTL drive. Dr. Ibarra was Tamerlane's second-stringer, and would receive on-the-job training before their first dry run. She'd had the opportunity to review very abbreviated specs of the drive, but Tamerlane was protective of their proprietary FTL technology, so she possessed only a working knowledge of it.

Itxaro pulled on her chunky headphones to quiet her racing mind, and the world around her fell silent for a moment. Then, the sound of shuffling feet and tinny overhead announcements were drowned out by her playlist. Dr. Ibarra tugged her fur-lined hood over her head and pulled the drawstrings shut, narrowing her field of vision to a pinhole but trapping body heat. Not like there's much to see in this shithole anyways. The spaceport around her faded away, her only link to it a single eye peering out while her mind wandered to more pleasant pastures.

Itxaro's daydreams of French knights and English archers clashing on the fields of Agincourt to the score of Andean synths were interrupted when several people sprinted past her in a frenzy. Huh, flight must be leaving early or something, she reasoned. Then, through her tiny porthole to the world, Dr. Ibarra saw red flashing lights switch on from various sirens on the wall; her headphones blocked out the noise, but she knew something was wrong. Some ship malfunctioned, maybe a fire somewhere. Still calm, Itxaro quickened her pace.

It wasn't until her right leg collapsed under her that Dr. Ibarra decided something was up. Her headphones slipped off as she fell hard to the ground, and suddenly her ears were no longer filled with music but screams, alarms, and the cracking of gunfire. Some distant, some dangerously close. Dr. Ibarra tore off her hood and examined her leg. Blood flowed freely from her upper thigh, the fabric and flesh ripped by the stray round. A graze, but a damn good one. She looked behind her down the long concourse and saw spaceport security as they fended off an unseen foe; they were being torn apart. Itxaro felt her heart pound into her throat and the pain in her leg dull as adrenaline flushed through her body. Acting on instinct, she regained her footing and half ran, half hobbled to the Jotunheim's hangar bay, high-powered rounds shattering the ceramic tiles under her feet.

Even with her brain pumped full of fight-or-flight chemicals, Itxaro had a pretty good idea of what was happening. Corpo thugs, some nation's special forces, or fucking terrorists were gunning people down, and they were here for the Jotunheim. What else could it be? Why she chose to head straight for their objective, Itxaro didn't know. She could have just hidden in a bathroom and been fine, but something in her monkey brain tolde her ship equals safety. Maybe she already thought of it as home. Dr. Ibarra stumbled into the hangar bay, now filled with thick smoke, the smell of cordite, and the roar of engines and frantic gunfire. Fuck it. Itxaro could barely even the silhouette of the ship, but charged ahead anyways, ducking low for all the good that would do.

[The Jotunheim]

Dr. Ibarra surged onto the ship when the doors opened, propped up by the press of bystanders caught in the firefight who also sought safety in the Jotunheim's metal womb. She was unceremoniously thrown to the floor when the crowd entered the ship and fanned out, bouncing her head off the deck and wrenching her bad leg. Several frantic refugees trampled the wounded engineer, their footfalls cushioned by her heavy sea bag. Itxaro scrambled back to her feet, head reeling, and was corralled with the rest of the civilians to the ship's living quarters. She flung herself into the first room she could, a bedroom of some kind. Itxaro didn't spend much time appreciating the ship's interior design, instead shrugging her bag off and propping herself against a cold bulkhead to examine her injury. The bullet had grazed her, but the wound was deep, located on her inner thigh four inches down. It looked less like a gunshot wound, and more like she'd been slashed with a serrated blade, the flesh and skin viciously splayed open. She remembered one of her comrades suffering from a similar injury, and remembered watching him bleed out in zero-g within minutes as she helplessly clutched her mangled arm.

Itxaro pushed the memory from her mind as she set to work, feeling the ship vibrate to life under her. "It missed the femoral artery. If it didn't, I'd be dead," she soothed herself aloud. In a distant part of her brain, Itxaro knew the ship was moving, but as the adrenaline wore off and blood loss-induced lethargy set in, she didn't really care. Dr. Ibarra futilely tugged at her pant leg with her right hand when she realized she had a fucking robot arm, which she used to roughly tear the tattered fabric off her throbbing leg. Perhaps a bit too roughly, as pain spiked up and down her body and her vision was blurred with tears of pain and frustration. She tightly bound the bleeding wound in her own garment, absently noting the new fashion trend she had inadvertently created: the half short, half pant. She'd workshop the name later, maybe sell the patent to a corpo. Make billions.

Through her ringing ears and the ship's engine, Itxaro detected a faint voice speaking. "Puedo sentir la gravedad en mi pie-" Dr. Ibarra tore the headphones from around her neck, still piping out music, and threw them across the room to her sea bag as she unleashed a flurry of curses. In response, the Jotunheim began accelerating, sending the sea bag and headphones sliding across the floor back to her. Itxaro stowed them in a floor compartment, eager to avoid any more flying missiles, and took a moment to compose herself.

The bleeding seemed to have stopped, for now. She was safe, for now. Dr. Ibarra half-expected soldiers to burst in through the airlock, firing down the tight corridors of the ship; she'd seen this once before, and the memory sent a sickening chill down her spine. Now the ship was really gaining speed, and she realized they were taking off. She remembered seeing the runway filled with taxiing spacecraft. Fucking pilot better know what they're doing, or the thugs outside are the least of our worries.

Itxaro drunkenly staggered out of the room, unsure if her dizziness was from blood loss, an adrenaline hangover, or a possible concussion. She started navigating towards engineering, the only place she could make much of a difference, though in her condition it was doubtful. She stumbled down the stairs, taking no notice of the red smear she left on the wall she leaned against as she walked, nor the warm blood filling her boot.

“Passengers, strap yourselves in for a bumpy ride. We are attempting to exit the fjords.”

Itxaro instinctively flung herself through an airlock in response, and felt her stomach drop when her eyes focused and began scanning the room. An escape pod. With a sickening feeling of deja vu, Dr. Ibarra tore a first aid kit from the wall and fell into a crash couch, frantically strapping herself in. The ship was suddenly rocked by an explosion. Breaching pod, Itxaro thought nonsensically, knowing that wasn't even possible in atmosphere. She opened the small red box and found exactly what she needed, an aerosol coagulant and sealant. Itxaro removed the makeshift bandage, mopped up the excess blood with a grunt, and hosed down the wound, which formed a sickly yellow coat over the area; the bleeding did stop though. Itxaro started searching for her next item when the ship began a new cacophony of booms, as if the engine were stalling; but this wasn't like any thrust drive she'd heard before. Oh god, did they fire up the FTL drive?

"BRACE! BRACE!”

A familiar weightlessness washed over Itxaro before gravity returned. Freefall. Apparently the FTL drive hadn’t powered up after all, which was good; there’s no telling what kind of havoc an FTL drive could wreak on a ship while in atmosphere if the vessel wasn't designed for it. But also, bad. Because they were now falling back toward the Earth. Dr. Ibarra laughed bitterly. She’d narrowly avoided death in that cramped escape shuttle all those years ago, but it seemed fate had caught up with her. What happened next was a blur. She clung to the medkit with a death grip as her body was whipped around in the crash couch, caught in an invisible maelstrom.

When the ship finally came to a shuddering halt and the emergency lights flickered on, Dr. Ibarra took a few deep, shaky breaths. So she didn’t die. Fuck you, fate. Never believed in it anyways. With a fumbling hand, Ixaro rummaged through the contents of the medical bag until she located the emergency stimulant injector. Dr. Ibarra carefully shot the syringe into her good leg and depressed the plunger. She felt a pleasant thrumming in her head as her blurry world came into sharp focus. She unstrapped herself and stood up, pleased she hadn't sustained any more injuries in the crash aside from what would soon be pretty purple bruises.

Itxaro limped towards engineering medical kit in hand, knowing it was too late to do any real good, but she could still shut down systems, administer first aid, or extinguish fires. She pulled open the door with her prosthetic hand and was met with an engineering room in ruins. Itxaro considered saying something real funny, maybe, Wow, she runs smooth, doesn’t she? Dr. Ibarra held her tongue, though, when she spotted the charred and contorted body of an engineer on the grated deck. Shame and sadness shot through her simultaneously. She tore her eyes away from the crumpled body and directed her sharp eyes toward the others. Did they even know her? Had the company supplied them with her file? She supposed it didn’t really matter right now. Her words were shaky but calm, accompanied by a flowing Cuban accent. “I'm Dr. Itxaro Ibarra, the new FTL specialist. What can I do to help?”
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
In The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide) → 2 yrs ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Hi all! Tossing my hat in for the ship’s crew, let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

In Hi, I'm new... kind of. → 2 yrs ago Forum: Introduce Yourself
Hello! Another lost spirit here as well returning to the guild after years away. Sounds like we should start a club. Lot of fond memories on this site!
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