Obdurate Defiance

Tisma had a burned finger in her mouth and a dejected look on her face.

"And this, Tisma, is why you don't work on electronics in the shower. They have these little tags on them that explain this."

"I'm not in the shower. I'm in the bathroom with the shower on! If I were in the shower I would be over there." She pointed at the shower as she spoke around the finger in her mouth. When she was done talking she pulled it out to look at it. It wasn't too horrible. Just a little bit black. With a shrug she popped the finger back in her mouth and headed for the shower, pulling Mier after her, even though he was still completely dressed.
 
"As much as I would love to join you in the shower, there are a couple problems. One, you have precisely one clean towel. Two, I have no desire to walk down the corridors butt-naked to get clean clothes, and Three, I need to put this cover back on and go reset the circuit breakers for the level." He gestured to the keypad Tisma had rather dramatically shorted out, kissed her again, and shooed her into the shower. "I'll be quick."

Turning to the wall, he produced a multitool from his pocket and quickly shoved the loose wires back into their box and replaced the keypad. That finished, he headed out of the room, resolving to swing by his room on the way back for a towel and a change of clothes.
 
"You need to learn to live a little. If you don't reset the breakers no one will be able to see you as you amble down the hall naked anyway, it'll be too dark. And you don't need to put the cover back on when all I'm going to do is pull it back off again!"

"I'll be quick."

"Oh fine! You're just no fun!!"

Tisma finally retreated to the shower to wash the Timmy spit off of herself along with the grease and grime of being under engines for the past week straight. At least she had a good stripping soap that would remove all the built up gunk, it just left the skin awful raw afterward, it's why she hadn't used it yet. With a sigh she decided to buck up, grit her teeth, and basically strip a layer of skin off. The end result was extremely pink looking skin that stung really bad. Dejectedly she began working on her long hair and debated chopping it all off. In fact, by the time Mier got back she was standing in the shower with a pair of scissors and a lock of hair held straight out in front of her looking like she was trying really hard to psych herself out and just make the cut all ready!
 
Mieranor really did make it quick. Inside of ten minutes, the lights were back on, he'd grabbed a towel and a fresh change of clothes, and made it back to Tisma's room. Coming inside (and making sure Boots didn't wander out behind him), he dropped the towel and clothes on the bed, stripped, and headed in to the bathroom. He stopped dead for a moment in the doorway before thinking better of it and just climbing into the shower behind Tisma, from where he gently relieved her of the scissors.

"Why are you trying to cut your hair? I like your hair."
 
"It's long! It's a pain in the ass to wash! And it gets stuck in the engines when I'm not looking all the time!!" Tisma pouted at him but relented and instead went back to shampooing her hair. It never occurred to her how small these showers actually were once two people were standing in them so it made things a little interesting to say the very least. It made her wonder if the showers in the family quarters were any larger. She snorted for a second then looked over her shoulder at him.

"Did anyone say anything about the power going out?"

The moment she asked her comm went off.
 
The closeness of the shower didn't bother Mieranor in the slightest. In fact, he found himself rather enjoying it. He was, therefore, disappointed to say the least when Tisma's comm started buzzing.

"Whoever's calling," he growled, "I'm going to kill them slowly."

"A braid or maybe some hair ties would help with the engine thing," he continued on calmly, in an apparent non sequitur as he stepped out of the shower to answer the comm. "And no, nobody asked about the power."

He picked up the comm, checked the caller's ident code, and tapped the 'acknowledge' stud. "You are neither Quinn nor Canada," he said in a deadly cool voice. "Therefore, if your reason for calling isn't fucking spectacular, you will die a slow and painful death."
 
"We have a cruiser coming in hot. I believe that to be spectacular enough of a reason. It's the Persephone. She's on her last leg."

"Fuck!" Tisma rinsed out her hair as fast as she could and whipped it up into hair tie while still in the shower. Making sure she was soap free she barely dried off with a towel before tripping over something on her way to get dressed. The cat yowled, indicating it was probably Boots that she had tripped over but she didn't have time to pause and apologize. Quickly she pulled on her skivvies and a shirt, hating how they stuck to her still damp skin, cargo pants were next, which she miscalculated in balancing to put on and wound up on the bed then floor with a thud.

"Aiya tiana! Chou ma niao! I don't have time for this!" Grumbling she pulled on her boots while she was on the floor and zipped them, reached under the bed and grabbed a few essential tools and was OUT the door at a sprint!
 
"Dermo. That'll do it. Privinch'te vash hod mati," Mieranor growled, skipping the towel entirely and going straight to the clothes step. Yes, it wound up a little damp, and no, it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world. But it saved time. Fatigue pants came on followed immediately by a shirt and a web belt. Boots scrambled out of his boot just in time to avoid a high-speed collision with his foot.

He was out the door a few seconds after Tisma, hobbling along after her as he struggled, mostly unsuccessfully, to strap on his leg holsters and run at the same time. A few one-legged hops as he rounded a corridor corner, and he was running as close to full tilt as his hand cannons would let him for the cruiser docks.

He arrived in time to see Persephone limping into the bay slowly bleeding atmosphere. The entire port engine was simply gone, and large sections of armor were ablated and blast damaged. With the way she was listing, doubtless her attitude jets were fucked to hell and gone, and the main airlock was visibly warped even as far away as he was standing.

"Bog i vse svjatoj v rae... how did they even make it back?"
 
The Persephone decided to give out just then, the antigravity engines failing caused the entire ship to crash to the bay floor and, while it wasn't far, Ti was positive there was now a dent there.

"Get medical up here now. How many crew last reported on the ship?" Tisma had her game face on as rushed to the ship. A loud pop and hiss followed by a burst of flame quickly put out by the automated system caused her to flinch for a second. Ignoring most safety precautions she went for the hatch control panel and was greeted with a spark that had her shaking her hand out and pulling on a pair of grounding gloves before working any further.

"I'm still waiting on the fucking crew count. You people know I'm it when Quinn isn't here, now answer me!!" While she continued to wait for the answer she was pulling half melted wires out of the panel and stripping what she could so she could get a signal through them. It took a few more moments but the hatch locks released with an audible hiss however they did not open all the way. Working her fingers into the small crack that was left from the locks releasing, Tisma got a good hold and tugged. Nothing. With a sigh she readjusted her hold and let her whole body weight drop out from under her, trying to use the weight and momentum to get the hatch moving. Nothing. Sure she was all of 125lbs but that should have done something.

"Mier, I need a set of jaws." They were now going to have to pry and cut the crew out and from the looks of things they didn't have a lot of time to get it done before shit went from bad to worse.
 
Mier didn't waste any time - as soon as Persephone's lifters had gone out, he'd grabbed a set of mechanics' gloves out of a nearby locker. He didn't see whose it was. A heavy wrench meant for tightening engine mountings came off the tool rack on the wall.

"Fuck the Jaws," he said, pushing Tisma out from in front of the hatch. "I'll do it myself." He jammed the handle of the wrench into the crack Tisma'd been trying to use and twisted, denting the panel and quite probably ruining the wrench.

Grabbing the new handhold, he lifted himself up. When it didn't shift under his nearly four hundred kilo body weight, he planted his feet on either side of the hatch and heaved. The hatch slowly gave with a sound like tearing metal, then popped open, sending Mieranor tumbling ass-over-head as the hydraulics ruptured and stopped trying to hold the heavy hatch closed.
 
"Because the jaws wouldn't have made that easier at all, lover." Tisma stood under the hatch to assess the situation and was surprised not to see anyone all ready rushing out.

"Ma'am, crew count was 10 at last check in. Comms have been unresponsive since they hit atmo."

Something niggled about the information. Ten meant they had refugees on board which meant they were coming from Lachion. Where the hell was Quinn and why was this ship limping home before any of the others had made it. Tisma had to fight with the warning bell going off in her head not to get on the ship but there could still be someone alive on board and it was her job to get them out.

"Mier, make sure the medical team and emergency ops is organized and ready." Ti grabbed a med kit off the closest gurney before pushing it back behind a proximity line. "And get these backed up some. They don't need to be right next to the ship when it goes." She waited long enough for everything to get moved behind the line before activating it. It shielded the rest of the bay if a ship decided to go up all of a sudden. The unfortunate part about the shield is that it also meant no one could get in and the only way to get out was with an emergency badge on you. Hopefully there was enough in the med kit she'd grabbed otherwise this wasn't going to end very pretty for her because she was 98% sure this ship had been rigged.
 
"Easier? Probably. Faster? No," Mier grunted as he clambered to his feet. He cracked his neck once, then made the motion that crew chiefs the 'verse over have made famous. Go, Go, Go!

"You heard the lady! Mechanics," he bellowed, walking backwards towards the ship and gesturing to make sure his point got across clearly. "start clearing the space! Five minutes and then you book it! Emergency teams, stage in the corridor, to the left of the blast doors. Medics, stage to the right! Set up a CCP and field triage station! Move, move, move!" A combination of facts and Tisma's last comment caught up with him and he made the connection. "Johnson, shag ass! If EOD isn't on their way though that goddamn door before the medics are set up, so help me, I will shove my fucking pistol up your ass and pull the trigger!"

Then he felt it...the buzz that ran down the back of his spine as the emergency blast shield activated. He swore under his breath, then ran out into the corridor and stole an EOD guy's fragment vest, strapping it on as he stalked back to the shield. It wasn't much protection, but it was relatively thin and had an emergency ID tag on it, which would make getting back out easier.

Back out. Because he was about to do something incredibly stupid.

These shields weren't as impenetrable as everyone thought. He'd had to push through one before, during the last Rebellion. It was slow, and felt like getting flayed alive, but you could do it.

As he set his jaw and started to push against the shield, his skin and clothes lit up in a coruscating green glow.
 
Tisma had all ready started her way into the hatch, a task more difficult than she first thought it would be. Once inside it looked like someone had disemboweled the ship. The floor was littered with cable and wire. Essentials pieces strewn across the deck. A tiny piece of her heart wept for the Persephone. Ti had put a lot of work into it and had been a key part of giving it a heart beat. She needed to stop giving inanimate objects life in her mind. Maybe she needed to stop trying to make things be so shiny. It was getting too hard to try and find anything good in all of the bad.

Stepping carefully around and over bits of the mess, Ti remained quiet. The ship had an eerie quality to it, one that made your skin crawl and your throat run dry. Something was definitely wrong. The lighting kept waning in and out erratically and making it hard to pick out shapes and forms. An arch of electricity between a mauled cable caused her to startle and trip over the tubing that had been in front of her. With a faint grunt she started to right herself, hands covered in what she assumed was oil. Wiping it on her coveralls she stood and looked down around her again as the lights illuminated once more. Not oil. Blood. Not tubing. Body.

A moment of panic seized her and she fought down the rush of bile. This was not how she wanted to end what was supposed to be the most amazing day of her life. Squeezing her eyes and turning her head away Ti patted for an ident and pulled it out of a pocket once she found it. Navera Rothi. One of theirs. Shit. Slipping the ident into her pocket she briefly touched the woman's forehead and moved on. One down, nine to go.

From the galley she decided her best bet was the cockpit. Someone had to of been flying with the way the ship had been listing. She'd check mechanic room after. Making her way past the rest of the mess the hallway seemed clearer. Aside from a few pieces of ducting she had to shimmy under it was smooth sailing. However when she reached her destination it was empty. Several scorch marks on the walls and control panels told her there'd been weapons but no one was in the place.

A light on one of the panels kept flashing and out of curiosity, she pressed the button.
 
The shield finally gave up its hold on Mier, and he stumbled forward, shuddering. That really, really sucked and he hoped never to have to do it again. He shook himself once and entered the ship, trotting up the ruined ramp.

Inside, he cursed himself for not thinking to grab a flashlight - even the emergency lighting was intermittent and punctuated by actinic flashes from ruined wiring. He fumbled on the wall near the hatch panel and found the emergency locker. Grabbed a double handful of chemlights. Stuffed 'em in his cargo pocket. Grabbed another, opened it, snapped it.

He wasn't sure what was worse, the intermittent half-light from the ship, or the green haze. The ship was ripped up...it looked like it'd been the scene of a running gun battle. Which it probably had been. He eased one of his pistols out of its holster and flicked the safety off, the soft "click" incredibly loud, almost reverberating, in the eerie silence of the dead ship.

Picking his way carefully through the debris, he stopped at the galley hatch. The body on the floor had bullet holes in her head and chest, wearing civilian clothes. Either a refugee or one of theirs. Not good.

Someone had obviously fallen in the blood pool, got up, walked through it... Recent. Blood had started to congeal before it happened. Probably Tisma. He followed the bloody footprints, hoped he was right.

He found her in the cockpit, just as she pushed a button.

"Oh, tell me you did NOT just do that."
 
Tisma stifled a scream as Mier spoke. When she had a grip on herself she turned and glared at him. There was no reason he should be here. In fact with the shield up she wasn't entirely sure how he had gotten here to begin with. Extensive codes needed to be put in to bring the shield down and she knew for a fact he didn't know all of them. She was about to open her mouth when the recording started playing back.

Gun shots could be heard along with the horrible noise ripping metal made. Several screams and then silence.

Click. Click. Click. "Run."


Ti looked back at the button she'd pressed. It was now dark and she doubted the message would be accessible again.

"What the fuck are you doing in here!?" She gave him a little push to move him out of her way, the look on her face was extremely unhappy with him. "I need to go check the engine room. Get the hell out of here, Mieranor. I put that shield up for a reason!" Seeing the chemstick he was holding she dug in his pocket and pulled out another for herself.

Tisma forced her way back down the hall toward the engine rooms. Once past the galley the debris increased threefold. Well she definitely knew what they'd been aiming to do now. Cracking the stick she started looking carefully to find the best route. This was going to be interesting.
 
"I'm not stupid, Tisma. I'm not about to let you martyr yourself for no good goddamn reason. Look, we can split up. I'll check the living quarters, see if there's anyone holed up there. If there is, I'll get them out. Meanwhile, you've got a pistol, right? If you see anything...just try not to shoot anything explosive, and I'll come running."

Sighing, he peeled off in the opposite direction from the engine rooms, through the Galley and to the living quarters. When he got there, he found three more bodies in the common area, one of them wearing a Logrunan uniform. He prodded it to make sure it was actually dead, though with the amount of blood it was lying in, that wasn't really a question.
 
Tisma took up a long stream of grumbling as she started practicing yoga moves she hadn't used in years to get through the hall.

"Don't martyr yourself, Tisma." Her voice was high pitched and mocking. "I don't see how both of us getting blown up will be any better than just me! No now when I die, I now have to worry about having a guilty conscience because someone couldn't keep their damned self on the other side of the fucking blast shield." She grunted as she shoved another piece of ducting out of her way. "Someone has to take care of the damned cat, you know. But no, we had to follow little Tisma because she apparently can't take care of herself." There was a thud as a few things shifted. "I also don't see how you coming in to rescue me isn't making you out a martyr if we both don't get out of here." She was fairly positive he wasn't hearing a word, or so she hoped.

Finally making it through the mess there was a strange and sudden lack of anything on the deck in front of the engine room. Odd. Holding the chemstick up she spun in a small circle taking in the strange empty space before cautiously approaching the door. A quick analysis told her it wasn't rigged and she pulled open the door. At first glance she could tell the manifold was completely shot along with three of the five stabilizers. A better look told her that someone had tried to repair the mess. There was evidence of a lot of rerouting she herself would have tried. However there was no one present and that above all else was the strangest to her.

Holding the chemstick with her teeth, Tisma leaned over the engine trying to get an idea if any of these things could be what was going to trigger the ship. So far all of the modifications looked harmless and made sense. Three quarters of the way down she spotted it. Or at least what she thought was it. Keying her comm she reached to better assess what was going but before she could speak something pulled her up and back. A faint whimper came out as she felt breath by her ear and felt something sharp slide against her back.

"Run."
 
Four of the six rooms were locked from the inside, and when he got close to one door, he heard a frightened whimpering sound. He moved on - he could come back easily enough. The fifth and sixth rooms were empty, and just as he was starting to double back to the locked doors, his comm clicked to life. He heard Tisma whimper over the comm, followed by a soft, unfamiliar voice.

"Run."

His brain clicked. The voice on the recording. He lifted his pistol into the comm's audio pickup range and pulled the hammer back - another soft sound that became eerily loud in the silence.

And then he ran. Ran through the debris-strewn corridors, somehow making top speed -or close to it- through areas Tisma had had to pick her way through. He stopped just outside the Engineering area, tossed in his chemlight, and waited a few heartbeats to let his vision adjust a little bit better to the darkness, and stepped inside.

Not running anymore - prowling. Like a big cat, with his pistol at the ready. A moment's thought, and he pulled his second pistol without stopping his scan, flicked the safety off, ratcheted back the hammer.

Another step. Saw an odd shadow behind the engine. Sidestepped to get a better look. Two people. One of them probably Tisma. Probably not the one in a better position. Crap.
 
The hand that had a grip on her tightened as Tisma heard the return sound over the comm. A faint smile touched her lips despite the fact she was pretty sure she was supposed to be keening in pain. The problem was she was stubborn and had a bad habit of not giving people what they wanted. "You're going to die. Just so you know."

The sharp point against her back, which she figured was a regular knife due to the lack of hum, pressed deeper. Shit. Ti gritted her teeth but refused to make another noise. Maybe goading the bad guy was a bad idea.

"You don't listen very well do you?"

Tisma snorted, what was this guy, her mom? The exact words had been said to her so many times she'd lost count. However the snort was apparently a bad idea as she was wrenched around, her back burning in protest. A hand went for her throat and as she started to say her prayers in her head she was dropped to the floor. A muffled sound of anguish came out as she hit the deck, trying not to scream. She'd been doing a lot that not quite screaming thing today, it was taking a tole on her throat.
 
The guy made a quip, dropped Tisma. Mier spoke up.

"You're not so good at it yourself."

He pulled both triggers, pumped six round from his left-hand gun into the guy's back.

Tisma was hurt, but he'd heard the recording. He wasn't about to make a careless move. He crept up on the man's limp form in his predator-walk, stopping just over an arm's length away.

"If you're just playing, I suggest you get up now before I pump a few extra rounds in just to be sure."

There was no movement. He fired two more rounds into the asshole's head and holstered his now-mostly-empty pistol, leaving the other one out. He stepped over to Tisma, crouching next to her, ready to help if she needed it.

"How bad, babe?"