RE: The BATTLE of the CENTURY! [S!7] - Round 1: The New Frontier
07-10-2013, 04:47 AM
Mickey dragged his heels. Being escorted from the captain's quarters to the ladder leading belowdecks gave him quite a bit to look at, and he wanted to get in as much sight-seeing as possible. No sense letting the walk go to waste, right?
First up, the boat was flying. Like, some sort of combination of hot air and propellers were suspending it in midair. He didn't know just how it all managed to keep a full-sized ship from dropping like a rock, but apparently it did. He'd need to get some more info on just how that worked if he was going to get by.
Next, there was the island. It was looming really fairly close, and the big cliff the boat was heading for wasn't exactly unintimidating. A big, vertical rock face, with a couple of holes here and there leading into some caves, and for some reason, the pilot (were air-boat drivers called pilots?) was heading straight for it.
Well, not straight for it, I guess. After a sec, Mickey realized they were going more up than forward, probably aiming to just lightly bump up against the side. There were some sailors getting ready with ropes and stuff, so probably they were going to land?
As they reached the ladder down and the soldiers persuaded him to start climbing, he spotted one last thing: there were beams and struts off the side of the boat, and the pulleys and ropes and stuff probably meant some sort of lifeboat or something. There was probably room for just one off the side he'd noticed them on, and he'd wager there could be another on the other side. (Maybe a third off the back? Mickey wasn't sure, he didn't know boats. He'd have to check later.)
---
Michael nursed his hand. It'd been dropped out of a flying boat hard enough that it was bruised, at least, and he was pretty sure a few of the fingers were broken.
Oh well, he reflected. Could be worse. Could've started forming on the way down and broken my whole damn arm.
He could've also started forming inside the bag he'd been thrown out the window in and gotten tangled up, too. That wouldn't have been pretty for either him or the bag, and it's probably best that he'd managed to avoid that altogether.
Hoping to find something to make a splint of some sort for his fingers, he took a look around. The woods were fairly dense wherever he was, and it didn't look like the trees were the sort that had vines hanging from him. (Mickey didn't know trees, though. Were those even things that actually existed, or were those just in movies?)
Whatever. There was some long grass growing in a few spots, and with a couple of twigs and a bit of work, he managed to make something approximating a splint. (Somehow, he didn't imagine that whoever that was who'd brought them all there was going to provide medical supplies.)
That dealt with, he got himself his bearings. The forest had a fairly obvious slope to it, but he couldn't really see much past the trees to get an idea of where he was.
Need a good vantage point, then. Uphill it is!
---
Mickey hadn't ever really been trained in counter-interrogation, but you picked up a few things working for one of the families. The captain (Captain Deans, he'd learned) had been berating and threatening him for a good ten minutes or so now, and Mickey'd still managed to not give him so much as a name.
Of course, he hadn't exactly done too well for his chances of survival. Giving the captain the runaround was starting to look less and less like a good idea as Deans' face got redder and redder, and if it hadn't been for the young-looking sailor who clambered down the ladder in a hurry, Mickey'd probably have started being a bit more cooperative (as being thrown overboard didn't exactly seem like a great way to stay alive).
"Captain, sir!", the kid said, doing his damnedest to act all stiff and formal. "Message from Admiral Winters!"
The captain just turned to the kid. He didn't say anything, really, but the beet-red face and clenched jaw said plenty.
"Evidently one of Captain Brennan's skiffs has been destroyed, sir, and he's demanding a full inquiry. The admiral has called for a conclave down at Conquest's landing site. Noon tomorrow."
"Destroyed? Hah! Brennan's crew probably just flew into a cliff," Deans laughed. "Signal back that I'll be there. I'm not about to miss Brennan making a fool of himself in the first conclave on this rock!"
"Very good, sir." With a small and entirely unnecessary bow, the kid started back to the ladder. Before he went up, though, he added, "Also, Mr. Cirrus says we'll be planks-down in just a few minutes... and that 'our mite-brained leader might want to be there.' His words, not mine." Not waiting for a response, he scurried right up the ladder and to relative safety.
Deans chuckled. "I'm sure he did," he replied, mostly to himself. To Mickey, he said, "Well, you stay put. I've got to go be a captain for a bit, so you'll just have to wait."
Mickey didn't say anything.
"Not that you've got much choice, mind!", the captain added, laughing to himself as he climbed the ladder. (The two sailors who'd been escorting him, laughing because their boss was laughing and it'd be dumb not to, went up as well.)
Mickey just sat back in the cot, pulled his left hand out from under his jacket, and wiggled his newly-regrown fingers. He wasn't so sure he'd be sticking around.
---
It didn't take a genius to realize Michael was on one of the small satellite islands once he made it over the level of the treetops. The hill he'd been climbing had steepened into something he'd re-termed into a mountain at first and a cliff a bit later, and once he'd reached a bit of a ledge, he'd stopped for a rest.
Flopping down, he leaned up against the cliff face and opened up the bag.
According to a note on the map, the smaller islands circled around the mainland once a day like clockwork. It was evening-ish, based on the rather spectacular sunset he was being treated to, so with a bit of rough math, he figured out which island he was probably on on the map. It was smallish, even for a satellite island; the only real noteworthy feature (according to the map) was the barren spire that stuck up out of it, and Mickey had a sneaking suspicion that that was the thing he'd been trying to climb for most of the day.
Sighing, he put away the map. The dimming light was starting to make reading a bit difficult, and it was just occurring to the city boy that once it got dark, it was probably going to actually get dark.
Back down the cliff he went. He'd spotted a decent-looking cave on his way up, and having not seen any animals much larger than a rabbit all day, he figured he didn't have much to worry about in terms of bears.
---
As night began to fall, the sound of boots tromping back and forth, carrying goods from ship to shore, dwindled away. Mickey guessed that they were likely aiming to enjoy sleeping off the ship for the first time in however-long, even if that meant just sleeping on the dirt, and really, he was okay with that. All it meant for him was that he'd have the ship to himself and not much need to worry about absolute silence.
The lock on the cell didn't look to be too fancy or anything, but without some sort of tools or something and a decent vantage point, he wasn't going to be able to get it open on his own.
Sighing, he grabbed his left hand in his right, scrunched up his face, and pulled. He didn't like splitting up so much so frequently, and he was damn sure he'd be sleeping like a stone the moment he got the chance, but desperate times called for desperate more-clones-than-usual.
Once he'd pulled the hand off, it was just a matter of tossing it outside the bars, waiting for a few minutes, and trying not to watch as bone and flesh just sort of pushed their way out of the stump of the hand and shaped themselves into another him. (Well, another him and appropriate clothing. Thank fuck whatever mechanism let him do his thing worked based on his self-image, which included his family outfit, and not his genes, which really didn't.)
---
Archibald Merriweather, youngest member of the Cardinal's crew and second-lowest in rank, couldn't sleep. He knew he should be, really, since he'd been hard at work all day and he'd barely slept the night before (being so excited for landfall the following night and all), but he just couldn't bring himself to calm down enough. They'd made it. They were on a brand new island, untouched by civilization, and he was going to be there to see society flourish. He'd get to watch villages spring up, families come together, farms start to grow. He'd get to see society start fresh.
And, most importantly, he'd get to see it with his mom. (He grinned just at the thought of it.) He couldn't wait to surprise her tomorrow, sailing down to the Admiral's camp for the conclave and finding her amongst the crowds. She spots him, her eyes light up, he runs towards her, they hug, he shows her what he brought...
Reaching over, he grabbed his pack and started rummaging through it. After a minute, though, he remembered: he'd taken it out and hooked it on the post next to his hammock.
By the time he was done imagining what Captain Deans would say about going back aboard the ship in the dark, he'd already snuck his way up one of the gangplanks and made his way to the ladder belowdecks. He slipped down, found his hammock... and froze.
There were soft voices coming from outside, and oddly enough, that they weren't coming from the deck above. By the sounds of things, the people were more likely over aboard the starboard skiff.
No matter. Archie wasn't about to be found aboard the ship after dark, so he just found the surprise, made his way back to the ladder, and disembarked as quickly and as quietly as he could.
Once he was back at camp, he leaned down by the remains of the camp's main fire and examined his prize. The locket was all his mother had been able to leave him before she'd had to leave, and showing that he'd been able to make his way here without resorting to selling it was sure to make her very, very proud of him.
With a click, he popped it open. On one side, the picture, just her and a young Archie. On the other side, the inscription, one of the only things the kid knew how to read.
Aubrine & Archibald Merriweather, it read.
Archie read it over and over again, carefully sounding out each syllable and eventually falling asleep by the fire.
First up, the boat was flying. Like, some sort of combination of hot air and propellers were suspending it in midair. He didn't know just how it all managed to keep a full-sized ship from dropping like a rock, but apparently it did. He'd need to get some more info on just how that worked if he was going to get by.
Next, there was the island. It was looming really fairly close, and the big cliff the boat was heading for wasn't exactly unintimidating. A big, vertical rock face, with a couple of holes here and there leading into some caves, and for some reason, the pilot (were air-boat drivers called pilots?) was heading straight for it.
Well, not straight for it, I guess. After a sec, Mickey realized they were going more up than forward, probably aiming to just lightly bump up against the side. There were some sailors getting ready with ropes and stuff, so probably they were going to land?
As they reached the ladder down and the soldiers persuaded him to start climbing, he spotted one last thing: there were beams and struts off the side of the boat, and the pulleys and ropes and stuff probably meant some sort of lifeboat or something. There was probably room for just one off the side he'd noticed them on, and he'd wager there could be another on the other side. (Maybe a third off the back? Mickey wasn't sure, he didn't know boats. He'd have to check later.)
---
Michael nursed his hand. It'd been dropped out of a flying boat hard enough that it was bruised, at least, and he was pretty sure a few of the fingers were broken.
Oh well, he reflected. Could be worse. Could've started forming on the way down and broken my whole damn arm.
He could've also started forming inside the bag he'd been thrown out the window in and gotten tangled up, too. That wouldn't have been pretty for either him or the bag, and it's probably best that he'd managed to avoid that altogether.
Hoping to find something to make a splint of some sort for his fingers, he took a look around. The woods were fairly dense wherever he was, and it didn't look like the trees were the sort that had vines hanging from him. (Mickey didn't know trees, though. Were those even things that actually existed, or were those just in movies?)
Whatever. There was some long grass growing in a few spots, and with a couple of twigs and a bit of work, he managed to make something approximating a splint. (Somehow, he didn't imagine that whoever that was who'd brought them all there was going to provide medical supplies.)
That dealt with, he got himself his bearings. The forest had a fairly obvious slope to it, but he couldn't really see much past the trees to get an idea of where he was.
Need a good vantage point, then. Uphill it is!
---
Mickey hadn't ever really been trained in counter-interrogation, but you picked up a few things working for one of the families. The captain (Captain Deans, he'd learned) had been berating and threatening him for a good ten minutes or so now, and Mickey'd still managed to not give him so much as a name.
Of course, he hadn't exactly done too well for his chances of survival. Giving the captain the runaround was starting to look less and less like a good idea as Deans' face got redder and redder, and if it hadn't been for the young-looking sailor who clambered down the ladder in a hurry, Mickey'd probably have started being a bit more cooperative (as being thrown overboard didn't exactly seem like a great way to stay alive).
"Captain, sir!", the kid said, doing his damnedest to act all stiff and formal. "Message from Admiral Winters!"
The captain just turned to the kid. He didn't say anything, really, but the beet-red face and clenched jaw said plenty.
"Evidently one of Captain Brennan's skiffs has been destroyed, sir, and he's demanding a full inquiry. The admiral has called for a conclave down at Conquest's landing site. Noon tomorrow."
"Destroyed? Hah! Brennan's crew probably just flew into a cliff," Deans laughed. "Signal back that I'll be there. I'm not about to miss Brennan making a fool of himself in the first conclave on this rock!"
"Very good, sir." With a small and entirely unnecessary bow, the kid started back to the ladder. Before he went up, though, he added, "Also, Mr. Cirrus says we'll be planks-down in just a few minutes... and that 'our mite-brained leader might want to be there.' His words, not mine." Not waiting for a response, he scurried right up the ladder and to relative safety.
Deans chuckled. "I'm sure he did," he replied, mostly to himself. To Mickey, he said, "Well, you stay put. I've got to go be a captain for a bit, so you'll just have to wait."
Mickey didn't say anything.
"Not that you've got much choice, mind!", the captain added, laughing to himself as he climbed the ladder. (The two sailors who'd been escorting him, laughing because their boss was laughing and it'd be dumb not to, went up as well.)
Mickey just sat back in the cot, pulled his left hand out from under his jacket, and wiggled his newly-regrown fingers. He wasn't so sure he'd be sticking around.
---
It didn't take a genius to realize Michael was on one of the small satellite islands once he made it over the level of the treetops. The hill he'd been climbing had steepened into something he'd re-termed into a mountain at first and a cliff a bit later, and once he'd reached a bit of a ledge, he'd stopped for a rest.
Flopping down, he leaned up against the cliff face and opened up the bag.
According to a note on the map, the smaller islands circled around the mainland once a day like clockwork. It was evening-ish, based on the rather spectacular sunset he was being treated to, so with a bit of rough math, he figured out which island he was probably on on the map. It was smallish, even for a satellite island; the only real noteworthy feature (according to the map) was the barren spire that stuck up out of it, and Mickey had a sneaking suspicion that that was the thing he'd been trying to climb for most of the day.
Sighing, he put away the map. The dimming light was starting to make reading a bit difficult, and it was just occurring to the city boy that once it got dark, it was probably going to actually get dark.
Back down the cliff he went. He'd spotted a decent-looking cave on his way up, and having not seen any animals much larger than a rabbit all day, he figured he didn't have much to worry about in terms of bears.
---
As night began to fall, the sound of boots tromping back and forth, carrying goods from ship to shore, dwindled away. Mickey guessed that they were likely aiming to enjoy sleeping off the ship for the first time in however-long, even if that meant just sleeping on the dirt, and really, he was okay with that. All it meant for him was that he'd have the ship to himself and not much need to worry about absolute silence.
The lock on the cell didn't look to be too fancy or anything, but without some sort of tools or something and a decent vantage point, he wasn't going to be able to get it open on his own.
Sighing, he grabbed his left hand in his right, scrunched up his face, and pulled. He didn't like splitting up so much so frequently, and he was damn sure he'd be sleeping like a stone the moment he got the chance, but desperate times called for desperate more-clones-than-usual.
Once he'd pulled the hand off, it was just a matter of tossing it outside the bars, waiting for a few minutes, and trying not to watch as bone and flesh just sort of pushed their way out of the stump of the hand and shaped themselves into another him. (Well, another him and appropriate clothing. Thank fuck whatever mechanism let him do his thing worked based on his self-image, which included his family outfit, and not his genes, which really didn't.)
---
Archibald Merriweather, youngest member of the Cardinal's crew and second-lowest in rank, couldn't sleep. He knew he should be, really, since he'd been hard at work all day and he'd barely slept the night before (being so excited for landfall the following night and all), but he just couldn't bring himself to calm down enough. They'd made it. They were on a brand new island, untouched by civilization, and he was going to be there to see society flourish. He'd get to watch villages spring up, families come together, farms start to grow. He'd get to see society start fresh.
And, most importantly, he'd get to see it with his mom. (He grinned just at the thought of it.) He couldn't wait to surprise her tomorrow, sailing down to the Admiral's camp for the conclave and finding her amongst the crowds. She spots him, her eyes light up, he runs towards her, they hug, he shows her what he brought...
Reaching over, he grabbed his pack and started rummaging through it. After a minute, though, he remembered: he'd taken it out and hooked it on the post next to his hammock.
By the time he was done imagining what Captain Deans would say about going back aboard the ship in the dark, he'd already snuck his way up one of the gangplanks and made his way to the ladder belowdecks. He slipped down, found his hammock... and froze.
There were soft voices coming from outside, and oddly enough, that they weren't coming from the deck above. By the sounds of things, the people were more likely over aboard the starboard skiff.
No matter. Archie wasn't about to be found aboard the ship after dark, so he just found the surprise, made his way back to the ladder, and disembarked as quickly and as quietly as he could.
Once he was back at camp, he leaned down by the remains of the camp's main fire and examined his prize. The locket was all his mother had been able to leave him before she'd had to leave, and showing that he'd been able to make his way here without resorting to selling it was sure to make her very, very proud of him.
With a click, he popped it open. On one side, the picture, just her and a young Archie. On the other side, the inscription, one of the only things the kid knew how to read.
Aubrine & Archibald Merriweather, it read.
Archie read it over and over again, carefully sounding out each syllable and eventually falling asleep by the fire.