ten_fwd_ooc | TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

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test drives

TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

Option 001. Alien planet, marketplace: So you're new to this whole space travel thing. The ship is cool and all, but there are hundreds of alien worlds out there. You want to explore. To see what the universe REALLY looks like.

Well, here's your chance! Your first stop is this lovely indoor marketplace, which looks kind of like a mall. There are stalls one after the other as far as the eye can see, and they sell all kinds of things: food, clothes, trinkets, animals, fabrics, jewelry, perfumes, books, etc etc. Some things look human, easy to recognize; other things look very alien. There are two levels, and constant chatter as people hawk their wares and discuss prices.

Do you want to explore? Poke at the weird shops? Buy a gift for a new friend? Flirt with someone at the food court? Maybe you see a pickpocket, and must run to the aid of the victim. Maybe there's some other villainy afoot. After all, a crowded marketplace is a good place for villains to lurk, causing trouble. Whether you're a hero or just an unassuming traveler, there proves to be some adventure for you on this planet.

2

Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

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"There are way too many people like that in the world," Dylan says, a hand running along the line of his jaw in lieu of a more obvious outlet for his irritation. He knows that from experience. Some people will do anything just to watch the havoc it creates, and for a guy trying to pull together an alliance in time to rebuild the Commonwealth soon enough to be able to save the Known Worlds from the Magog World Ship, there's no reason to have any patience with them.

It's only the fact that it's Peter Parker he's talking to and not this Q himself that stops him showing far more annoyance than he is.

"I've never heard of the Q. Or anyone called Q." Peter's right, though; it's kind of confusing. "How is he doing this, it must take a hell of a lot of power."

"I've never heard the word, but I'd say so."

This guy seems willing to listen to reason.

Good.

Things always go better when people are just willing to talk.

His crew would probably have something to say about that, but Dylan still believes it, after more than a year trying to build a new civilization out of the blackness. You don't make friends or allies by going in attacking.

And sometimes, just talking about what's going on can make things make a lot more sense. Admittedly, it helped that when Dylan found himself here, he met Trance, but the principle stands.

And Dylan's done the first contact with new people thing before. Hell, it's practically his life these days when he's not trying to juggle the requests of his coalition partners.

"It's the work of a being called Q who apparently makes a habit of being a nuisance."

Dylan straightens up and takes one hand off the lance. In slow, deliberate movements so his companion can see he's standing down, he twists the hand still holding the lance so that the weapon turns, parallel to the floor, and retracts it. He lowers the lance, but he doesn't put it away. Not yet.

"No apologies necessary."

"Hey boss." It's just an automatic thing to say as he sees Dylan as he's making his way to the bar for a drink. Wait a moment. "What are you doing here?" He wasn't there a moment ago. Harper was sure of that. Or maybe it was just what he was drinking. He'd not had any of the sparky cola so was making do with the vast number of beers and spirits he could try out.

Honestly, he still missed the sparky cola. He missed Andromeda. Rommie, Beka, Rev and even freaking Tyr. That had to be bad he was missing the crazy uber.

"It's not easy," Rose says.

She's certainly not trying to say it is, or that it's even fun. But it is rewarding, in its own way. Well, in a lot of ways, really. Seeing the world restored and its people relieved, seeing the Doctor smile like he's just gone and won the lottery, and turning that smile on her. Knowing that they've done something good, something that allows everyone to carry on for another day.

It's dangerous and she's had a few brushes with death causing her to question her place in life and how she wanted to spend the rest of her short human-life.

Perspective. That's what it is.

It's why she chooses to be calmer than her nature would instinctively act upon. Mum would probably get up in Dylan's face about it, scold him like he's her son or something. But she's not her mum. She almost laughs aloud at the thought.

"A good plan, for a start. Good friends, really good friends, and a whole lot of luck." She pauses, thinking of what the Doctor might say. "A blue box and a sonic screwdriver never hurts either."

"Mr Harper."

He doesn't need to turn to face the voice. He knows it. And if he didn't, the hey boss would be clue enough, because even on his incredibly informal-at-Beka's-insistence crew, there's only one person who says that to him.

And sure enough, when he does turn around, there's Harper.

"You know, I could ask you that."

He crosses his arms across his chest, then lifts one hand to wave at the room around them that's not on his ship.

"Where are we?"

"This kind of thing is a little out of my area of expertise," Peter admits.

Hell, this is the first time he's ever been to space - and admittedly, so far it's not really living up to his boyhood fantasies. Being stuck (both on a spaceship and in that anchored area of space) doesn't help.

"If he ... was part of a crazy experiment gone wrong, mutations and that sorta thing, I might have more to say. But hey, I agree there are way too many people like Q in the world. Even a world as puny as mine.

"It's comforting to know that chaos-mongerers are a universal thing."

This last bit is said incredibly flatly.

"In a bar." Well Dylan did ask him. Harper tried to slip past the Captain so he could find a spot at the aforementioned bar and start drinking. He still had a fair way to go on that list. He stopped. "We're still on a spaceship. From what I can tell so far." No Harper do not go mentioning the chaos caused already. "She's got some engine problems. She's not Andromeda that's for sure but she isn't so bad. Few things could do bring her up to a little more. Give her some proper AI and the body to go with that."

He hopped up onto a stool. "Least let me get you a drink so you can join me." He's happy to see you Dylan. "Oh Trance is here as well."

"It never is."

She'd sounded flippant before. Like this was all some sort of game to her. He's not going to judge her on her apparent age or her small stature or any snap decisions like that. After all, Trance looks young and frail and helpless and she's anything but. But talking about saving the universe in such a cavalier way?

Okay. Maybe it's something he'd do when he's joking around with his crew after a day's good work, but he's under no illusions. The universe is a long way from saved from the chaos it's become, and ... she's right. It's not easy. It's never easy, doing anything important.

But a universe is a big burden for one ship and one captain. And sometimes, he feels that, though he keeps those feelings to himself, because he's the captain.

In truth, if there's anything she can really tell him about what she and her friends have done, he'll listen. So when she answers, he's watching her, blue eyes keen.

Until he lets out a laugh of surprise.

Because what she says sounds so familiar. Good plans, good friends, and a hell of a lot of luck is what's gotten him this far.

(You can never have enough luck, Molly had teased him as she curled up against his side, skin warm against his as she kissed him, and he'd laughed, but he'd believed it, too, with every kiss she gave him.)

"Well that's good. I've got the plan, the friends, and the luck."

His smile now is warm, not forced, softening his eyes and chasing away a few of the shadows that are never too far from them.

"I don't know about the other two, but how do the most powerful starship in three galaxies and a force lance sound?"

Edited 2014-07-12 17:42 (UTC)

Telemachus stirred awake, hearing two voices. One, familiar, the other, wasn't he talking to him before? That guy in the blue with the weird smile? Moving one of his hands, he rubbed his face, trying to clear the grogginess out of his system.

"What happened?"

He opened his eyes, and looked around. Not Med Deck. Oh, right. They had been fucked over yet again and were no where near Andromeda. Figures.
"How'd I get here?" It was a legitimate question. Normally when you fell down drunk on Seefra you woke up with no wallet or a bunch of prostitutes hanging around you. Or maybe that was just him.

So he doesn't know her, but she knows him. She knows him better than she knows herself sometimes. He told her once as a little girl that he could change; new body, new rules. Still, she's inclined to contradict him until he goes on speaking, and the words are just daft enough to make her believe him.

But just a bit.

"Would you say you're more in tune with the Vortex than the TARDIS is?" she challenges, eyebrow raised.

There is the slightest, smuggest smirk playing at her lips, because if this is true, if he is The Doctor, then she knows something he doesn't know.

Young man? That's funny. Steve would look smug if Dylan had said that out loud, but he hadn't. So the look Captain Dylan Hunt receives is exactly the opposite of what he's hoping for. Steve's brow beetles, gaze slipping thirty degrees to the floor.

More words he doesn't recognize.

"No," he says. At least he has met other people from 20th Century Earth here, including his partner, so he isn't totally adrift. In that respect he does offer Dylan his sympathy, but he wishes like hell there was an authority here he recognized. "I'm sorry. The words may sound familiar to someone else here, but I'm just a kid from Brooklyn. 20th, 21st Century Earth."

He drops the stance, bridging the few feet between them to offer a handshake in greeting. "Captain Steve Rogers, US Army, currently under contract with S.H.I.E.L.D.. I'm willing to guess the way I ended up here is pretty much the same way you did."

Saving the world is never a game. She'd been in a place where games were actually made real and as far as she's concerned, it'll be a good day if she never, ever goes back there. Not that she could anyway, she knows, though she's not entirely sure why.

(The memories are incredibly hazy.

But Satellite 5's one of the reasons why the holodeck sort of makes her a bit nervous.)

"That could definitely raise the odds," Rose says, though she's not quite sure just how powerful his starship might be, or what a force lance even is.

She gestures to the empty table she'd been about to sit at, her cup of tea no doubt cooling to a dismal room temperature as they speak.

"D'you want to sit for a bit?" she offers. "Saving the universe is no good if one of their saviours is out of sorts, yeah?"

Antagonizing Nietzcheans is a sport that Harper ranks quite highly in. If not at the number one spot. He'd kept himself alive this long and he wasn't planning on stopping now.

"I'm not getting you another drink." Look who's back Rhade. Harper is here to help. Though the definition of help may be a little questionable in itself. "I don't think you should be having any more."

"Of course not, that would be utterly ridicu-what what what?"

The Doctors hand stops moving and his face turns to hers, a look of utter confusion and concern upon it.

"Very few people know what a TARDIS is. That means you've dealt with Time Lords before. Who was it? Romana is more the type I would prefer you to know, but there are plenty who would travel with humans. Does the name Rani ring a bell? Or possibly The Monk?"

The look now turns serious.

"Now, now. Out with it!"

Edited 2014-07-12 21:31 (UTC)

"You passed out," Julian says simply and obviously, coming back into Telemachus' line of sight with a tricorder. "When you do so while talking to a doctor, you generally end up in sickbay."

He looks over the results of the scan, satisfied now with Telemachus' low blood alcohol level--it had been dangerously high for humans, but with his different genetics, Julian wasn't sure what he could put away before alcohol poisoning set in.

"This should help with your headache." Julian has another hypo in his hand, Telemachus has approximately 2 seconds to stop him before he sticks him with it.

"21st century Earth?"

That's before Earth became a Drago-Kazov slave world. Before it even made first contact with the Perseid. It's ...

It's more than three thousand years ago.

"That's before Earth joined the Commonwealth," he says, voice soft. Joined the Commonwealth and spread its people out across the Known Worlds. Even to Tarn Vedra, the Commonwealth's seat. Dylan's ancestors.

Three hundred years was bad enough.

"What year is this?"

He doesn't have Andromeda here to scan the stars and tell him this time. This time, he doesn't even have his ship. That explains why this ship looks nothing like any of the classes of ships he's familiar with; not only is it not Commonwealth, it's from millennia ago.

Dylan's eying the room warily when the man holds out his hand, but he turns his attention back to Captain Rogers to shake, mostly managing to make himself smile, because he likes the guy and whatever's going on is probably not his fault.

(But three thousand years.)

"How was that, Captain Rogers?"

"One day, one day that's going to get you in trouble. Just make sure I'm not there to see it." The Nietzschean took in another long drink. "But, I can't hate you. It's too much damned effort." Yes Dylan, he was too lazy to hate you.

"You're problem is you don't believe you're going to die. Either than or you're crazy stupid. Which one is it? I've been wanting to ask that for a while. Truthfully, you pit yourself against the universe and eventually the universe will spit you out bloody and filthy. Because no matter what, the universe doesn't care about you. It doesn't care about the Commonwealth. It just IS." And he took another drink.

Dylan's eyebrows lift, just slightly, and his chin tilts upwards, the only real sign that he still sometimes finds it irritating trying to get Harper to answer a question that doesn't have to do with fixing his ship (and sometimes, even then). But there are ways of managing Harper, and getting upset with him isn't a good one.

So he lets Harper talk and ... in there, there are a couple of answers.

Admittedly, most of them are about the ship they're on and how Andromeda is better, but that's something Dylan and Harper will always agree on, because he's her captain and Harper's her engineer.

But, as much as he is of the opinion that the Andromeda Ascendant is the best ship out there, that doesn't actually help much.

Still, you've gotta pick your moment with Harper, so he follows him over to the bar and when Harper perches on a stool, Dylan stays standing, leaning one bracer-clad arm against the bar.

"Of course she is," he says, his voice a little amused in spite of himself. Because if anyone was going to be wherever this is with whatever is going on here, it would be Trance.

Especially the new Trance, the one who's come back from a broken future to fix the path of events.

"Harper. How did we get here?"

If antagonizing Nietzscheans was a sport, Harper was a gold medalist. He had lots of practice, including harassing this particular Nietzschean. He was just a few years shy of that practice. But it was pretty equal opportunity, right? Insult one Nietzschean, insult them all?

"Dammit Harper I want that bottle. And the pretty ladies who were combing my hair a few minutes ago." Thank goodness Harper also had adequate survival skills, and that Rhade was quite drunk and couldn't go after the engineer if he tried. Really hard.

"You are due the respect your rank commands," Nerevar says. "Even if I did arrive under duress."

And even if this is not his ship. The Andromeda Ascendant, he called it. Another star-ship, such as this one? A question to be answered later - the nature of this Q is more pressing.

"Do you know if Q is its true name? The Daedra often take false names for themselves."

To toy with mortals, and disguise the neonymic. Like many things the Daedra do, it serves many purposes.

Dylan earns himself another soft frown. Steve's used to being part of history, but his planet? Not so much.

"I've heard the same thing about the Federation," he murmurs, keeping his expression friendly and his shake firm. "To be totally frank, Captain Hunt, my Earth may be completely different from the one you, or anyone else here, knows. There's talk of parallel universes and alternate timelines."

He stands akimbo, and were it with anyone else the pose would strike a visage of authority. "I was pulled aboard about six weeks ago from D.C., while I was on my way to headquarters. No warning, no explanation. Just one minute underground, and the next out in space. When I got here they said it was the 24th century, and we're floating out in space somewhere near something called the 'Neutral Zone'. The best anyone can tell, this is the work of some omnipotent alien species bending time and space."

While he turns serious, Amy can't help but feel lighter. She laughs, a brief, bright chirp of realization.

"That may be the most I've ever had you tell me about the Time Lords," she says, almost victorious. "None of those names sound familiar. Just one."

She smiles, but it is oh so bitter-sweet.

"The Doctor."

It's not that he wants to be here, at the bazaar. It's more that if he has to be here, in this universe, kept away from his desk, and his job, he might as well actually see the few options at his disposal.

He didn't mind being two hours behind the first groups beating the bricks to come down here. He didn't need anything. Even if he found himself studying more than one or two of these entirely alien wares inquisitively for longer than he planned. But he still didn't need them.

If, while stepping into a whole new section, his eyes find Miss Fisher across the way, engaged in some lively debate with one of those people across a booth, it might be impossible to quite detect whether it's surprise or an abject lack of surprise at finding her of all people there. He didn't exactly miss passing the few tables between here and there, but he didn't exactly see what was on them either. Even the clear of his throat is likely lost in the din.

But his hat still intact, even for the decided lack of the fashion among anyone else here, and tipped. Minutely. "Miss Fisher."

Edited 2014-07-13 03:38 (UTC)

"The Doctor? But that's me, and I don't know you. That must mean..."

There is a dramatic clasp of a hand to his head.

"You're a future companion! You can't be here! At least not with me around! do you know what happens when two Doctors exist at the same time? They annoy one another to no abandon! And besides, I cannot know my own future. There are very big and important laws in regards to that."

The Doctor looks around a bit, this time with a much less dramatic flair.

"If you see me...the other me, I mean, just flap your hands. That'll tell me he's around and I'll be on my way. Pleasure to meet you, but I can't stay if I'm around."

Now that is a voice she knows, and well.

Very well, indeed.

Spinning on her heel, her face is luminous, a laugh at both eyes and mouth, delight sparkling out all over her. "Hello, Jack!"

She greets him as if he'd simply walked into her parlor, or as if she'd whirled her way onto a case he'd expected to keep to himself; or perhaps as if she hadn't seen him in far too long, what a tiresome wait. "What do you think?"

The second refers to a sheen of some sheer, deep sapphire blue fabric, shot through with silver threads, that she's draping up against herself, and if she hams it up a little, well! Clothes are meant to be modeled. "Trés chic, no? Madame Fleuri will be beside herself wondering where I could have picked it up."

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TEST DRIVE #3 - Alien Bazaar/Ten Forward

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