[RP] The 'Verse (Accepting profiles)

[Akai_ryu]

"It's not in here." Jaden reported over the comm after having ransacked what looked like the pilot's quarters.

Ze had even gone as far as to search the bed itself with hir knife, just to be sure. Hir search had been short, but very through. Mere minutes after the ship's muscle had pried open the door, Jaden was prying open another set of doors. This time, it looked like the ship's first mate or the security officer. Plush, but largely uninteresting to Jaden.  

[DeirdreTonbo]

Though Aria could hardly feel the fabrics of the things in the captain's cabinets, her eyes were well trained enough she could tell some of it was quality. Perhaps not sellable, but certainly usable. Quality linens, some clothing made for an indeterminate sex, and then stopped to stare at what looked like a crack in the back of the wardrobe. Shoving things out of the way, Aria pressed, then pushed, and eventually shoved the crowbar Jaden had given her into the crack. When it slid to the side, the companion's eyebrows rose.

"Jaden, it's not the beacon but you should take a look at this." Aria said over the comm, stepping away to finish looking through the desk.  

[Akai_ryu]

"Be there in a minute." Jaden grunted as ze used the crowbar to tear apart the Security Officer's closet. "Found the beacon, by the way. It was on this jackass' desk." There was a brief pause. "Bah. Nothing in here aside from that."

Then, as promised, Jaden poked hir head into the room that ze had left Aria in earlier. In one hand Jaden had the beacon and the other bore the crowbar. Using the crowbar, Jaden rapped on the bulkhead loudly enough that Aria would be able to hear the vibrations. The ship's muscle tilted hir head slightly in question and arched an eyebrow at the companion. Ze found it odd that Aria had found something there that ze - and not Jas - should come take a look at.  

[DeirdreTonbo]

Aria looked around at the vibrations, eventually homing in on Jaden. She stood up from the chair she was sitting in and pointed over to the wardrobe. The companion wasn't entirely sure if what she found was good of if it would be wise to mess with it. Jaden would know and ze was closer than Jas was.

Behind the panel she had moved was a cache of weaponry. Aria knew how to shoot plenty of guns, she was pretty damn good with smaller pistols. But some of these were guns she had never seen before. She didn't think they were decorative, they wouldn't be hidden if they were.  

[Akai_ryu]

Silently, Jaden strode over to the wardrobe and inspected the cache. Some of the pistols were fairly standard across the 'verse, cheap things that were easy to find, but others...There was one laser pistol in the mix.

"Someone has things that he shouldn't have..." Jaden mused before methodically making sure that the weapons were unloaded and safe. As ze did so, ze dropped them into Aria's bag of loot. "We'll just borrow these since he probably wasn't supposed to have tehm anyway."  

[DeirdreTonbo]

Aria laughed lightly as she pulled the last drawer of the desk clean out and let it float there while she flicked through the contents. She'd been hoping to find more contraband but so far there was nothing more interesting than the guns. She'd packed a few pretty things into her bag but mostly the junk from the desk was floating around her.

"It looks like that was the extent of the captain's secrets that I can find. Jaswinder, is there anything else we're after while we're here?"

She leaned down to look behind where the drawers went, just to be thorough. When there was nothing there, Aria moved to the bed and flipped the sheets back, all the way to the mattress and then heaved that up. There was usually more storage space down there so it seemed a good place to look for anything useful.

"Oh. Jaden? Do you think those are safe to move?"

What had the captain been expecting to happen on his trip? Tucked into the storage was two cases of grenades. It was like christmas for Jaden.  

[Akai_ryu]

Jaden had been toying with the little laser pistol when Aria addressed hir, drawing hir attention away from hir new toy. The ship's muscle blinked at the companion before looking at the boxes of grenades. Ze clipped it to the front of hir suit and moved to inspect the boxes. They didn't look like they were trapped. And they did look like the real thing.

"Should be. This guy must've really been expecting trouble. Grenades on a ship full of colonists?" Jaden said with a slight shake of hir head. "Oh well. More toys for me on the cheap. Grab the bags, will you?"

Then, with that, Ze pulled the crates out of their hiding space, grabbed the beacon and strode out of the room. They could have spent the time to turn the entire ship upside down, but Jaden was pretty sure that none of them wanted to spend that kind of time on the ship and that they simply didn't have the cargo space for all of what they would find. Besides, they might have been there to salvage something off the ship, but they weren't vultures to steal things from the dead settlers.  

[DeirdreTonbo]

"Glad I can keep you entertained," Aria said with a little bit of a smile.

Once Jaden had taken out the two cases from the space below the bed, Aria saw there was a smaller, wooden box beneath it. Since they were running slow (Jas was probably done by now) she just shoved this into her bag and then gathered up everything they had gotten together to take with them.

She walked quickly to catch up to Jaden, half jogging in her space suit. Once she had caught up Aria hummed where no one could hear her, train of bags all gathered around her.

"Jas, you ready to go? We found the beacon and a few goodies."  

[Akai_ryu]

"About time." Jas grumbled from where she had chosen to perch on a table with her arms crossed when Aria and Jaden walked back into the common room. "Did you two have fun?"

"Lots. Aria found new toys, Cap." Jaden grinned, gesturing at one of the boxes of grenades.

"Great." the tall blonde replied dryly. "Aria, you want to head up first and catch the salvage as we send it up?"  

[DeirdreTonbo]

"Yeah." Aria smiled at Jas and gave her leg a little pat, more than happy to leave the dead ship.

She secured all her bags around herself again, ending up rounder than she was tall. Then Aria secured herself to the line tying the two ships together and flung herself across the space. It was a little more difficult to shift herself and bring her feet down first on their ship than it had been initially. But Aria managed and turned her boots on to walk into the cargo bay. Once she detangled herself from her bags the companion returned to where the line connected and waved to Jas.

"Ready."  

[Akai_ryu]

While Aria was heading back up the ship, Jas gestured to Jaden and the pair silently worked out their roles in the next step. Jas headed up the access first, pulling and pushing a pair of crates. Behind her followed Jaden doing the same. Once out of the ship, Jas clipped a pair of magnets with hooks to a crate then to the line. At Aria's signal, she gave the first crate a shove to get it going and started on the second while Jaden returned to the common area for another pair.

Before long, all four crates were zipping down the line with a two minute pause between them for Aria to unhook them and shove them into the cargo bay on the other end.  

[DeirdreTonbo]

Aria let the crate clang against the side of the ship. She could feel the impact rather than hear it but she knew from experience it was audible from most of the ship. Why wasn't all freight moved weightlessly like this? It was so easy. One crate she pushed into the cargo bay close to the floor, followed shortly by a second crate.

They all should have known that the salvage had gone too well. While the fourth crate was zipping across the line, Aria stumbled. Her boots had suddenly lost their magnets and her light flickered to dark. She'd been clomping over to the line for the crate and stopped to contemplate her lack of magnetics when the last crate struck her shoulder. Though weightless, the crate still had a hell of a lot more mass than Aria did. Jas was going to kill her. Instead of trying to grab hold of her line, Aria relaxed because the line was going to catch her anyway. And hurt a whole lot less if she wasn't tense about it.

The line didn't catch. The gorram line didn't catch. She'd disconnected it to put all those bags into the cargobay. Jas was really going to kill her. If she got the chance to.

"Jaswinder? Oh god, Jaswinder?" Her comm wasn't working either but she tried it anyway, twisting around to try and find which way the ships were.

Was anything working? Aria checked her readout and it was just blank. Her suit hadn't lost pressure so... maybe she would just freeze to death? Or suffocate when her air stopped refreshing. She didn't want to die, just jetsam in the black.

"Jaswinder?" All that came through on the other end was static.  

[Akai_ryu]

Jas had been clamping magnets to the next crate when the previous crate had sent Aria spinning away from the ship. The tall blonde didn't notice that Aria wasn't in position by the cargo bay until she looked up from the crate to make sure the Companion was ready for the next one. Only, when she looked up, Aria wasn't there. Frowning, she waited a moment.

Then. Motion caught her attention. Moving at a decent rate away from the ship in an uncontrolled spin was a figure. Given that Jaden was coming up right behind her, there was only one person that could be.

Without a second thought, Jas hit the reel of wire anchoring herself to the main line and launched herself off the salvage ship. The tall blonde hurtled through space, slowing only slightly because of the friction of the line reeling out from her spool. As an intentionally launched object, Jas was moving quite a bit faster than Aria. However, she did have further to go before she hit the point where she had guessed that the companion's path would intersect hers. If she missed...

Well, that would be bad. It would take time for Jas and Jaden to get back in the ship then to the shuttle and then to retrieve Aria. If they found her.




Jaden noticed something was wrong as ze came up behind Jas with another pair of crates. Before ze could say anything, Jas was already launching herself off the ship. That left Jaden there to manage three crates by hirself while trying to figure out what was going on.

"What the ********?" Ze blurted over the comms. "Aria, what the hell are you doing over there? Gorram it, you two!"

There was a pause as Jaden looked around before ze bit out another expletive then degenerated into Chinese. Cursing to hirself in Chinese, Jaden slapped a magnet on each of the crates before clipping them temporarily to the line. Once they were secured, ze went after Jas' clip, which was scooting its way down the line toward the ship while Jas moved to intercept Aria.  

[DeirdreTonbo]

Aria had her eyes closed. She couldn't stabilize herself without venting air. And -that- would be stupid. Right on par with not having herself connected to their line. Her hands came up to cover her faceplate and before she could help it, Aria was crying. It was already getting cool in her suit, she really was going to freeze to death.

"Jas I'm sorry..." She tried her comm again, only Jas' name carrying through with a good deal of static.  

[Akai_ryu]

"Jaden, shut up!" Jas finally snapped and a moment later Jaden's comm shut off abruptly.

She was a little over halfway to Aria and gaining on the woman, however, it looked like her estimation was going to be rather close. The spin the crate had put on Aria's trajectory made it a bit difficult to predict. Then there was the wait. After launching herself after Aria, there wasn't much more Jas could do but wait and make last second corrections with the handful of magnet-clips she had on her belt.

"Aria!" Jas tried on the comms. "I'm on my way, just hold tight."

The blonde waited a moment to see if there was a response. Instead of Aria's warm voice she got silence.

"Aria!" she tried again.

They were closer now. Within metaphorical spitting distance, but too far to reach out and grab each other. And then they were passing. Jas made a grab for Aria. Any bit of her. The first attempt missed the toe of her boot by inches. The second by centimeters. The third, her fingertips almost brushed Aria's suit. Then she was almost past. Jas tried hooking her foot to Aria and turned on the magnets in her boots.

And then Aria was just out of reach again.

No luck.

Until Aria's line, waving out behind her smacked Jas in the face. The blonde blinked. Went cross eyed. Realized what it was. Automatically, she wrapped her body around it until she found the loose end. Jas clipped the loose end to her own line before purposefully tangling Aria's closer to herself to draw Aria closer.

"Jaden. Pull us in. I'm a bit tied up here..." Jas ordered, now far too tangled to hit the appropriate button on her spool.