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 Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:20 pm
It was the day after Xander had happened across the Pantheon that Jessica wandered up to the satellite. Cosine had been to see her early that morning and explained everything about the man she had found. She told her his story, the location of the satelite and asked her to look in.
Jess had been more than happy to help out. She and Kayne had been tinkering with the old laptop since it had been brought to them. She'd managed to build a generator for it and get it running for the most part.
With the laptop under one arm she followed Cosine's directions until she reached what must be the satellite.
"Nice." She mused out loud, shifting the computer and walking up to the door to knock.
Nicholas looked up at the metalic sound of the knock and tucked the picture he had been studying into his pocket.
"Someone at the door." he muttered, pressing a couple of buttons and hitting the consol with his fist once. A grainy image appeared on one of the screens.
"A woman, she looks normal." by normal he meant not half goat, horse or any other farm animal.
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Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:36 pm
That had gone about as well as he'd expected. Things hadn't gone especially well, no, but they'd gone about as well as he'd expected them to go. There'd been a lot of denying at first, but once Izzy had shown them what was left of Zelan...
Well. Not even he had been well-prepared to handle it. There had been a asteroid belt of debris where there should have been a planet. Debris where there should have been life.
It wasn't easy to take in. Tayna had taken it the worst, as he'd expected. It was asking a lot of a 16 years old to come to accept that almost everything she knew and loved was gone forever. He'd left her brother to console her - really, he would have done a shitty job at it.
Zeta and Zero had been very helpful, even through he'd been shocked to see them at first. This place was indeed.... particular.
"Must be Jess. Can you let her in ?" Xander did not even bother looking away from the screen. Normally he would have said something about not punching the equipment, but well... Right now, Xander was of the mind that Nicholas could punch anything he wanted as long as it wasn't someone's face, or Izzy. "There's more scrambled data than I thought. Izzy, unlock the door will ya ?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:31 pm
Nicholas sighed and stood to go and greet the woman. Who died and made Xander Captain? Oh yeah ... everyone. He leaned a hand on the side of the door and waited for it to open. On the other side a woman, late thirties, early forties at a guess, she looked a bit worn, there were greyish streaks in her curly brown hair and her green eyes had a haunted tinge to them.
Yep Jess had been through the works, though you had to keep trucking. She listened to the sounds coming from within the ship and waited. Sure, she could have been more presentable, dressed in her usual coveralls marked with grease and engine oil, but she was a practical person before anything else.
"Hello." She smiled as the door opened. "Are you Xander?"
"Nope, come in." He said stepping back. "That's Xander over there. I'm Nicholas."
Jess smiled and stepped into the satellite, looking around with an engineers eye.
"Niiice." She appraised as she wandered towards Xander. "This is real nice." It was like a flashy piece of Confederation machinery.
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Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:03 pm
He liked this lady already. Sure, she looked like she had been through hell and back - who the hell hadn't, at this point ? - and snobs would have turned up their nose at her stained clothing - Xander gave exactly zero ******** the light in her eyes was pure, raw passion. That was something he could respect, even if they were not passionate for the same thing. "Jessica, I assume ?" He did stop typing to look at her, which... was an improvment.
Or maybe he was actively trying not to look like an a*****e. Which was a rare enough thing. "You should have seen it before. There isn't much that's left working now, but if you can make heads or tails out of it..."
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:17 pm
Jess looked back at him and gave a nod.
"Yep, Jessica Shaidey." She held her hand out to him as she approached. "I p0robably would have thought I'd dies and gone to engineer heaven, I can see the tech is more advanced than what we used to have on our ships."
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Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 3:51 pm
Xander took the offered hand to shake it, finally getting up from his seat once he had done so. "Nurvus was more or less the greatest technological accomplishment we had, yes. I could give you a tour, if you'd like. Some components are still working, but most were shorted out in the landing. If you find familiarities in the remains and can use them, you're welcome to it. Cosine told me you'd help me find some place to live for everyone ?" It was hard to think of the short woman as a goddess, still. Sure, he believed it now - somewhat - but it was hard to match Numbers up with his mental expectations of a deity - great and distant. Cosine had been anything but that.
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Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 9:20 am
Jess gave his hand a firm shaked and gave the interior another appraising look.
"I think that would be very generous of you. There are several different races of space dwellers about, looking to fix their ships. We'll be sticking around I think but I've been helping them out as much as I can." Her green eyes moved back to him. "Yup. I can certainly find a place and work for all of you. My family are living within the Pantheon at the moment, there is some space in there. I think it's the safest place to be personally.
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Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:08 am
"Well, there's no reason to make it fly again. It might as well be useful to someone." Xander did his best to remain impassible as he spoke, through it was easy to see that admitting it hurt. He was slowly, painfully, getting used to the fact that almost everything he knew was gone. For now, it was easy enough to get lost in work, in getting everyone else updated and settled, but once that was all over, what could he do ? He had no idea, and part o him did not even want to think about it, as if thinking about the future was admitting that Zelan was, indeed, gone for good.
"Beside the computer. She's..." One of the only thing of his father that he had left, beside his ring. He still wore them both, his parents' marriage rings, on a chain under his shirt. "Well, Cosine wanted to try and database a library. She'd be best for that."
"Nurvus was a climate regulation satellite. Zalan was an harsh desert land, through with the technology we were able to terraform some parts in order to become less reliant on the rest of the solar system for our food and water. So it's mostly biological systems on there, plus the machinery to make it fly. Most of the crew are biologists too, or at least have some knowledge of biology. I just kept the systems running and developped programs and adjusted the data according to what they told me to adjust."
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Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 9:53 am
Jess gave a nod as he spoke and a sympathetic smile. She understood how it felt, to know everything that you had known was gone.
"We'll need to extract her hardware then? Find a new home for it, out here isn't very secure. The climate systems might be useful to some, the flying parts most definitely useful." A cheeky smile formed on her lips. "You know, I can get you good prices for them. You don't have to give it away. Well, I say prices, it's mostly barter here, a consol for a month of food, that kind of thing."
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Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 3:40 am
"I figure the library would do for now, unless you or Cosine would have a better idea. She was built to be able to be taken out and moved if needed, so unless the casing suffered damage in the crash, it shouldn't be too hard." He had not looked too closely at the casing, to be honest. It had been more urgent to get the insides back up and running first.
"That'd be nice. I've never been good at barthering." Food would be nice, and he was used to money being more or less useless here - most of the small jobs he had taken had been in exchange of food and other supplies.
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Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 3:19 am
"Right then, we'll get her to the library then." She replied, quickly forming a list in her head of things that needed to be done to get this small group of people up and running.
"So we need to get you guys some rooms, strip the satellite down for parts, then I think I know just the place we can take them. There's an old space port not too far from here."
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Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 12:07 pm
"I'd be curious to go visit that space port sometime." If only to gauge how high tech this world was - or perhaps had once been would be more appropriate to use, after all that happened. He had already seen ruins that were clearly more advanced than what was currently rebuilt, so it had made him wonder. If he was truly staying here, if this was going to be his new home, then perhaps it would be good to give in to that curiosity.
"We can get the other settled first." A box of matches had been taken out of his ratty old jeans' pockets, and was now toyed with idly. "I don't mind staying here as long as there's something to keep the rain out." Most of the survivors were taking this situation harshly, he knew. Xander felt it just as keenly as they all did, but he was perhaps better ai ignoring it. As long as he had something to think about, he did not remember all he had lost. Therefore, he planned to keep himself busy as long as possible. "Did you have some place in mind ?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:42 am
Jess nodded.
"Yup, there are rooms within the Pantheon, specially created for the non-god refugees. It's a good place to start up I think, my family live there, for now. I'm not moving anywhere until I know it is safe. There's all sorts of talk about worse to come." She made a face and shoved her hands in her pockets. "You can take a look, see if it's suitable for you."
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Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:54 am
Worse to come ? What could possibly be worse than the s**t they'd just gone though ? Xander was quick to come to the conclusion that he would prefer not to figure out at all. Zelan had been destroyed by whatever had happened before, and it was unlikely that his home planet had been the only one. But some place with that many people ? He was not sure how long he could tolerate them, really. "I will have a look."
That much he could promise, at least. One hand reached to his pockets once more, to pull out a cigarette. "So, where do you want to start ?" Talking was all well and good, but there was a lot of work to be done.
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