'Ret' What?: Hurry!
OOC: The events in this post occurred in the past!
Things were right on track. Hook and the Sister would soon be bound for the China Doll with the last dozen Anabaptists, and the volunteers were scheduled to arrive to take their places. The Captain, seated in his chair with his foot up on the console, armed with a toothpick, was engaged in a duel with what remained of his lunch between his teeth.
"Hurry-" The wave had come through while he engrossed thusly, but it didn't prompt on the deck--it came through his personal 'tex. After a moment, he rose, donned his duster and hat, and quit the bridge without a word. His mind furiously ran over the message while his legs carried him through the cargo bay.
"Hurry, they're here-" it had started, Lyen's calm voice straining toward discomposure. Her eyes were wide, like she'd seen a ghost. 'They' weren't supposed to be here for 'nother day. 'They' were the inbound slavers the China Doll and crew had been working double time to ferry the Anabaptists from, at the nun's behest.
The mule roared to life as he kicked it down the ramp toward the dusty spaceport's exit. Saddled, the Captain made a b-line for the city proper.
"-and they're going to take all of us."
That set the Captain flying down the boulevards of Osiris at break-neck speeds. The students who had signed up to risk their hides to help smuggle out the wretched souls tucked inside every cranny of his ship were about to get snatched in their stead. And the Sister, too.
Rolling to a stop, Cal ditched the mule outside the checkpoint. The wary looks from the guards told him they were curious as to his presence; after all, to them, he was the man who'd ordered all those wheelbarrows of bricks they'd stopped searching out of boredom. Little did he know Detective Hekubah had yet to set the local constabulary's sights on his back. Strand did know, however, exactly where he'd find the volunteers and their ring leader: Club Banebdjedet. As he approached the open doors, the neon signs depicting men spread over poles were lit only by the light of the setting suns. And the door hung ajar...
---
There hadn't been much time to get the S.O.S. out to Cal and the China Doll. A contact from the Underworld had alerted her, Isaac the bartender, with a sly message scrawled from beneath the bar. By the time she'd received it, however, it served only as grim confirmation.
She was in the club Banebdjedet when she saw them. The nun had revisited to her regular haunt to tie up loose ends when she caught a glimpse of a shadow cast over the papered glass of the club's front doors. Nearing the entry, she held her breath as she listened to their exchange.
"It's all gorram fucked."
Sunlight from between the gaps in the newspaper fell across her face as she moved a tendril of hair from almond her eyes. The pair of men looked hardened, one with a scar across his cheek, the other with a shaved head burnt in the Osiris suns. One glanced at a Cortex in his hand, while the other cleaned his nails with a hand-and-a-half blade.
"Boss said H. screwed the pooch on this one. Blamed a nun for the whole operation goin' south." The man's shadow leaned against the door, cupping his hands for a better view inside past the plastered paper. Lyen flattened herself against the wall, trying to stay out of sight.
"The nun fucked us?"
"...We got nothin' to show for this run. So he said to nab anyone what looks like who we're 'sposed to be here for."
As one man turned to the other, she slowly backed away from her hiding place toward the center brass pole on which, over the years, dozens of men had undoubtedly danced lithely around. Now, it stood alone in solemnity. It rarely drew the nun's eyes any longer after a year here, but now she walked up to it with a resolute expression on those high cheek bones. She lay hold of it with both hands and, as quietly as she could, gave the rod one violent tug, aiming to uproot it. Her plan to brace the door with the rod came to an abrupt end as she emitted a muffled yelp.
"You hear something?" Said the large one to the bald one.
"-Like a fuckin' nun."
"Will you shut up with the nun? I don't wanna hear who touched you as a kid. Now, get this open," he said, rattling the lock.
Lyen was already carefully closing the back exit when the pair stormed through the double doors of the club, and into the darkness of the shuttered strip club. From the alley, the nun raised the hood of her kasaya and melted into the workers and philanderers of the Blackout Zone.
Hook, he has to get out now, she thought as she circled around the back of her destination.
She entered through the service entrance of the Underworld as was her custom. Isaac, recognizing her, sent his message on a cocktail napkin via bus boy, continuing to polish the glasses behind the bar of the steadily filling club.
With a nod, Ly acknowledged his warning before burying herself in a booth. Extracting her cortex, the Sister recorded two one-way messages in the dim light of the Underworld.
"Joe, take the last dozen now. Don't wait for me."
Quickly followed by:
"Hurry..."
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