Log:Space Team, Scene 20

Space Team 2015/10/17 Breach Griffin Quiet Malcolm Indira

20

Breach, as he finishes strapping himself in, swivels his head to focus on Muller. A slow, ugly little smile twists Breach's lips for several seconds before he realizes he's pointing that expression toward Muller and Indira. He wipes it away quickly enough, thumping his head tiredly back against the bulkhead of the cabin. This has been a very long three hour tour.

Forge, in the meantime, is trying to figure out an efficient way of venting heat out into the atmosphere, rather than the cabin. Several more droplets of liquid biometal hit the deck plating, though these ball bearings don't quite spark or sizzle as energetically as those during the most heated moments of re-entry. Perhaps it's fortunate that Forge isn't able to see where the ship is going or to read the control panels. No doubt there would be a lot of cable flailing and Muppet screaming as he tried to Denzel Washington his way through this inevitable end of Flight.

End of Flight. That sounds nearly as vague as "We'll be on the ground in 10.' Quiet wants to ensure that the landing is one of those that can be walked away from, and, after pointing them towards the correct hemisphere, then continent, then the eastern seabord, she starts dumping more speed. The controls are cranked hard to port as she puts the shuttle into a spiralling corcscrew of relatively tight turns rather than a direct drop. There's no doubt that they'll find the ground. The trick is finding it carefully.

Griffin merely looks on with a look somewhere between passive apprehension and terrified glee. There's little for Griffing to do other than hope everyones had a good time and kissed their butts bye-bye.

A bead of sweat runs down his temple.

Forge offers a very loud ULP as it dawns him how Quiet is performing landing/aerobraking operations. In his professional opinion, this method of landing is never a good sign - though it's definitely better than simply plummetting straight down. He tightens his grip on the metal around him, bracing for what will inevitably come next. Of course, it's never that 'next' that's the worst feeling, it's always the waiting for the 'next' part to come along.

Breach keeps his head pressed up against the bulkhead. His eyes may or may not be open beneath his orange visor. What is clear, however, is that Breach seems utterly at peace now that there's no longer a rabid bug monster threatening the crew and Indira has the one sticky wicket of a passenger under control. After all, how hard can it be to die for a second time?

More cool air rushes outside and over Forge, providing cooling relief as the shuttle starts to drop down gradually to more normal airplane-level speeds. There may be the rolling sound of ball bearings filling the shuttle with each turn as they move around in response to Quiet's piloting. Even the husk that was once a bug rolls along the deck.

Pollox is eyeing Muller funny as he gets real friendly with Indira, because what Pollox sees and what Muller sees is completely different. "Have you lost it, Muller?" he asks pointedly now that the danger of burning up in atmo is gone. Little do they know of the potential problems with the landing.

Fortunately, Muller is too preoccupied with Indira to notice Breach's odd expression. If Indira notices, she doesn't make much indication about it as she tries to recover from momentary psychic trauma.

"Space elves," is Breach's flat-toned explanation for Pollox. About a second later, Breach inquires, "Isn't there a constellation named Pollox?"

"No, it's the name of a star in a constellation. Gemini to be precise," Engineer Pollux mutters as if he's been asked this a bunch of times.

"Huh. Well there you go then," opines Breach, conversationally. A half-dozen ball bearings promptly plonk and plink off of his helmet, as though he were a bumper in the world's weirdest game of metahuman pinball.

Pollux then asks with a puzzled expression, for clarification, "Space elves?"

Violet has been extremely silent during all this and has her helmet on. She may or may not have gotten ill in her suit and doesn't want to talk about it right now.

Quiet is burning off speed, but not all of it. This, in itself, could be a warning to those familiar with piloting shuttles. They are not true conventional aircraft and do not provide much laerodynamic lift. They use thrusters or anti-grav for VTOL, thrn main engines for propulsion.

Currently, the pilot is using neither and is doing her best to glide in something that, at its best, is only slightly more aerodynamic than a greased brick. After she's burnt off as much speed as she dares, she angles them in on a course near, but not into CB. Preferably somewhere open, relatively flat, and free of protrusions. When she has a moment, she turns back to the main cabin with a gesture of explanation: one hand held out, palm up with the other swooping in to slide and land atop it. Those not in the know may take it as a simple announcement of impending landing. Others may better understand the significance. Either interperetation is still valid.

Breach gestures almost lazily at Muller (and Indira?) before he repeats himself, "Space elves."

It's almost like he expects this to explain everything.

Over the comms, the air traffic controller for Starguard (Who by the sound of it is Agent Oberhelman to Forge's knowledge based on the voice) transmits, "UESS Pyle, you're way off from landing."

Indira regains some of her wits finally and lifts her eyes only towards Breach. "Space elves...?" Apparently no one is grasping Breach's meaning.

"Gee- seems we got ourselves a real Rhodes Scholar on the comms today." Griffin says drolly.

The anticipation of the impending crash washes over him like the waves of the sea- except this sea has a very clear end and it's rushing up fast.

Griffin spends what may be his last few moments praying for the people in the cabin around him, and even the people below.

He pulls out his sidearm and caresses it lovingly. 'We did not get to spend enough time together- but if we get through this- I'll take you to the range, and see about having someone fix that battery of yours.' he thinks at his weapon. 'You've been a good friend.'

"I honestly had not considered this possibility," comments Forge. At least his butt is no longer on fire outside of the craft. That's a blessing. On the downside, he's nowhere near in position to use the comms. Wiggling about, Forge inquires, "I don't suppose you know how to signal in Morse too?"

Breach looks at Indira. His expression is, momentarily, in the realm of normal for him. There's a way he looks at her that is both sad and happy at the same time. It's right there on what little's visible of his face as Breach re-reiterates, "Space. Elves."

As Quiet guides the ship closer to the coast, air traffic control transmits, "UESS Ptyle, you have traffic at 2 o'clock, 6 miles." And after the announcement, more casually, Agent Oberhelman asks, "What're you doing back ahead of schedule, Agent Gibbs? This isn't in the flight plan..."

There is a rapping of metal on the bulkhead. Precise and measured tapping. N O P E, for those familiar with the mentioned Morse. Quiet could attempt to hold a protracted conversation with control, assuming that someone groundside recognized it for what it is. That would be a SLIGHT distraction from other slightly more important things, though; such as emergency landing. She chooses to focus on the latter, for the most part. Hoping it's still functional, she activates the shuttle's emergency beacon. So that she isn't completely ignoring the ground transmission, she keys the comms in response. Repeatedly, in pattern. With the one snippet that even many civilians have recognized for centuries:

. . . - - - . . . She repeats it several times.

There's some turbulance that causes the less than aerodynamic ship to rattle. The passengers are uneasy, but unaware of the direness of the situation at first. They are mostly calm, but nobody finds comfort in turbulance. But some of the engineers recognize the SOS in morse and start to look about. "Wait, are we in trouble?"

Indira isn't aware of the SOS code. But she -is- picking up on the subtle tension, which mentally isn't all that subtle at all, among their protectors. Her eyes settle on Breach with a sudden understanding of his strange expression. Well, a partial understanding. "Kaldri bosh..." she breathes as one would a quiet prayer.

"Hang on, hang on. I think..."

Forge wriggles and wriggles and flexes impressively in the ceiling. Grimm is almost certainly going to kick herself for missing out on the show. He flexes again, eyes closing as he focuses entirely on the act of warping the metal of the hull and interior bulkhead to his will. As the metal bends to his will, Forge starts to slowly drop out of the hole in the ship, hanging by metal cables in a sort of dramatic fashion.

When Forge's feet finally touch the deck, Breach comments, "Welcome to the party, Mr. Simmons."

Looking quizzically at Breach, Forge throws up the horns and comments, "KISS Army," before he returns his attention to the task of minimizing the risk of catastrophic decompression. I mean, the last thing we need is Charlie Sheen or Nicholas Cage popping up to vent.

Griffin turns around and smirks to their flock. "A little issue with the flight-gear. Remember that rough landing I was talking about? Well that's it." Griffin says stretching the truth far past its intended limits. "Just hang on tight and remember my roll call!" He adds before turning around to clench his jaw and stare out the windshield.

"Do we have anything to protect us from this rough landing?" Indira asks.

"Let me get back to you on that..." Griffin says as he looks back towards Malcolm & Quiet.

As they shuttle gets closer to landfall, green is visibile ahead, with the city and ocean beyond to their left. The gentle slopes and grazing or farmland inland from the city is their LZ. Quiet sticks out a hand back towards the cabin to offer a thumbs up to all before snugging up her harness and getting ready for the final approach. There isn't much she can do for the passengers, besides try and make the crash landing the least crashy as possible. That, and... she taps the controls on her right forearm hastily and her suits gravitics spin up. Slight power is directed to help further attach her to her seat, while the remainer is diverted to distort gravity in the cabin to form a rough bubble around her passengers. Anything to help keep them in place and/or shrapnel out. She then makes the final adjustments, slowing further.