trans_9 | A fixer-upper [OPEN]

Zouichi ducked as a spanner wrench suddenly flew through the air, and moved to pick it up. "That's some language. You all right?"

He couldn't yet see the owner of the voice, but you didn't hurl tools around if things were going like you wanted.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it's just these conduit fittings I salvaged don't fit," Wash said, a little embarrassed that someone was there to witness his outburst. He hoisted himself down from the bit of inner hull he was perched on and felt around with his feet for the edges of structural steel and starship plating that he used to climb up through the breech. Finally his feet found the ladder and he climbed down far enough to see who had spoken. "Hey, Zouichi, how's things?"

"Not bad. There are a lot of repairs that need doing, so I volunteered to help out in Engineering." He glanced up the ladder. "It looks like you have your hands full. Anything I can help with?"

"The Quarter took some nasty hits during the battle and we have some hull breeches," Wash said. Obviously, since if you looked up through the hole he was working in you could see into the interior of the ship. "If you want to help, you can go up top and help me align this circuitry. I don't think the conduits are going to get fixed until I find some better parts."

They couldn't close this breech back up until the electrical and cooling systems worked properly again. Wash didn't like his ship catching on fire when it flew.

"Sure, I have some time on my hands." He began climbing up the ladder, noting the damage to the ship. "Are you hoping to resupply somewhere? I haven't heard about the next shore leave."

Zouichi was pretty sure most people didn't like it when their ships were on fire, but in the case of the Quarter, it would be an awful shame to lose that cannon. An awful shame as in 'possibly the difference between winning and losing a battle'.

"I hope we'll get to resupply," Wash said. "I don't know how much we have aboard in the way of starship plating, and I don't like jury-rigging something that's supposed to be airtight."

He set foot on the ladder after Zouichi, waiting for him to clear. "Watch the edges," he said. "The power's down but some of those wires are hooked into capacitors."

"Doesn't seem like the kind of material that would just be lying around," Zouichi agreed. "Although I guess you could check with Howard. He's found a lot of odd things around the City."

He did as suggested; it would take an awful lot of electricity to kill him, but there was no point in sustaining damage if he didn't have to. "So who else is working on the Quarter?"

"Kaylee, a good chunk of Engineering, me, the Captain when we can give him something harmless enough to do that he won't screw it up." Wash was of course talking about Mal, not their resident seven-foot blue alien. "It's just a lot to do. This is the last of the re-wiring and coupling that needs to get done but I think reskinning the ship will have to wait until shore leave."

He climbed up the ladder, squeezing through the structural steel in order to wedge himself somewhere he could reach the wiring. "Let's deal with the ones that are just damaged and then we'll deal with reconnecting the broken wires." He picked up the soldering iron out of a toolbox balanced precariously on the edge of the breech and started picking through the wiring, looking for pieces that were frayed or had exposed copper.

"Sounds like a plan." Zouichi began tracing wires, looking for damage; it wasn't long before he turned up several connections that needed to be fixed. He took a small tool out of his jacket pocket as he talked.

"I've flown beside the Quarter during battles before, but I don't think I've ever been inside. Definitely not while there was fighting going on. What's it like?"

"Like we're almost the biggest, baddest thing in the sky. You've watched the main cannon fire? Try being the one who pushes the button." Wash grinned. He teased out another clump of damaged wires and brought the soldering iron to bear on them, mending the broken circuits so they would conduct electricity again.

"I mean, I know we're not the baddest thing out there by a long shot - did you see those city ships? - but that cannon is nothing to sneeze at."

"Well, it'd be kind of hard to miss. But I thought Eva was the one who pressed the button." Zouichi frowned a little at the thought; after all, Eva probably wouldn't be the one performing that duty any more. He fingered some of the frayed wires, using the tool in his hand to fuse the metal back together.

"The city ships, and those new Titans... looks like they're busy coming up with new threats to throw at us. Wonder what surprise they'll have the next time around."

Wash sighed when he mentioned Eva. "She missed this one," he said. "Don't know why. And now that she's resigned, we're going to have to find someone else."

He was still a little sore at her for that. Just when he found someone he thought he could work with, she went and had a breakdown. Not that he could really resent her for having a breakdown.

"I don't know if we should take it as a good sign that they have to make entirely new Ohm to try and kill us. At least they don't seem to have very much success."

Zouichi nodded. "Anyone you have in mind?"

He didn't blame Eva for what she'd done, though it was regrettable. Anger was an easy thing to lose your hold on, if you were exhausted enough. If you felt cornered enough. He had a feeling Eva had been feeling cornered for a long time.

"Yet, anyway. It's not just their weapons that seem to be changing, though. Their tactics appear to be adapting to us, as well. I ran into a trio in that last battle -- they seemed hell-bent on picking people off one on one."

"Can't say I know many people with experience at Tactical," Wash said. "Unless you know someone in Command. Maybe we should find someone who could do the job and promote from within."

There was a thought. He knew the General always looked for new blood in the podpops, but maybe it would be better to find someone who already knew their tactics and put them on the bridge.

"Let's hope they don't get smarter than us faster than we can handle," Wash said. "I like giving them a run for their money. I don't want that to change anytime soon." He found another connection with exposed wiring and broken pins and frowned, reaching into the toolbox for a pair of pliers.

Well, there was that Nightwing guy, but Wash had probably already thought of anyone obvious. Other than that...

"Unfortunately, the topic of who has experience as tactical officer of a large battleship doesn't really come up a lot in conversation." He wasn't sure any of the pilots he knew would be interested, either. As exciting as being on the Quarter might be, he liked being a little more hands-on with the wanton destruction.

"I only wish we could do more than hope," said Zouichi, frowning a little. "I don't like sitting around, waiting for them to figure out how to beat us. We know so little about them, though."

Edited 2011-10-20 15:39 (UTC)

"They're like Reavers," Wash said, pausing in his work for a moment. Reavers weren't something he liked to talk about. "Nobody knows where they came from, they don't act like they operate on any kind of logic..."

The more he thought about it the more the Ohm really were like Reavers. It made a little bit more sense now why the Daligig would rescue a boatload of Reavers and put them in the basement. Wash shuddered at the thought. At least Kennedy spaced them.

"Well... as I understand it, the Ohm are a little different, aren't they? Reavers can't be communicated with or reasoned with; they're just violently insane and incredibly strong. And the Ohm do seem to display coordinated attack patterns, at least. If Dhianeila is to believed, they're also capable of communication, although in a vastly different way than we're used to."

Reavers were something he could destroy without remorse. The Ohm... you had to kill them if they were presenting a danger, of course, and they were incredibly destructive. But the jury was still out on whether they were actually evil.

"I'm not sure what to believe," Wash said. "We've seen them attack planets firsthand, so obviously some of what the Daligig tells us is true. It's hard to believe the whole 'verse is gone, though."

He sighed, pulling out another mass of wiring and sorting through the frayed pieces. "If it really is gone, and it really was the Ohm, I'm not sure I really care about the why of things."

Zouichi nodded. "They're not blameless parties in this, by any means. However, you could say the same of most wars -- that both neither side can claim to be completely 'good'. I do think that it would be a mistake to take what we've seen of the Ohm and conclude that the reasons behind their actions are irrelevant, though. They may, in fact, simply be too numerous or resourceful to eradicate. If that's our goal."

He wasn't even sure if it was or not. Fuzzy mission goals were all he'd seen from the ship so far. "In any case, resolving the conflict may require us to force a stalemate, or even agree to coexist with them."

The hangar was the first place Red decided to visit while he was exploring around the ship. He wanted to take a look at what kind of things were at the location he was probably going to spend the majority of the time. He couldn't hide his surprise when he found his trusty machine there though. He was about to exclaim his happiness of finding Dahak lying around when he saw a spanner fly across.

"Whoa!" He turned to face the person who had thrown the deadly item. "Watch it!"

"Sorry!" Wash said. His head appeared from the (pretty sizeable) hole in the Quarter's hull - upside-down. It was a pain to get into the space and he wasn't going to try to crawl all the way out of it. "Sorry, just got frustrated. I didn't hit you did I?"

Red was taken aback by the other's appearance; it looked a little too comical for him to not snicker.

"Uh... Nah. I'd probably be out cold on the floor if it did." Red said with a laugh before asking, "...Is that your ship?"

"My ship?" Wash grinned. "I just fly her. This is the Macross Quarter, the fleet's flagship and starcraft carrier." He freed one arm from the hull breech and patted the outside of the ship's bulkhead.

The blood was beginning to really rush to Wash's head. "Hey, I know I nearly brained you with it, but could you do me a favor and pass me that?" He pointed to where the wrench sat on the floor of the hangar.

Ah, so a pilot!

"Well if you're piliotin' it, might as well take some ownership!" He said with a light laugh before moving over to pick up the wrench. He left his machine's side to avoid hitting it and gave a light toss towards the other. He would have offered a hand to help if he were more knowledgeable in maintaining machines, but all of that was left to Chocolat before.

"I'd offer to help, but maintenance and repair isn't my strong parts." Red said as he scratched at his cheek. If only, he might just make things worse. He was a little thick-headed, but he knew when to keep himself from sticking his head in the wrong place. Sometimes.

"Hah!" Wash said. He took the wrench from the dog...man (best not to think about that too hard, there had to be worlds with dogmen somewhere out there) and swung his arms forward, pulling himself back into the breech with a grunt. He slowly righted himself, moving carefully to avoid falling out. "If you want to talk about my ship, I'd have to show you Serenity. Now there is a sweet, trim little thing and the best ship flying." Wash was many things, but modest about his girl he was not.

"And don't worry about it. We've pretty much got it under control, that's as long as we don't get dropped in on by the Ohm."

"Really? I'd like to see!" A pause. "..Well when your hands are free."

Red certainly understood where you were coming from, Wash. If he had the time to talk about his robot, he'd probably spend forever talking how amazing it was too.

"The Ohm..." He thought over how they were the ones that apparently destroyed the world, not ancient technology from his home land. But if they had the ability to wipe out his world in a flash, he certainly didn't want them appearing out of nowhere right now before he got to see if Dahak actually worked or not. "Haha... Wouldn't want them attacking us right now."

"Nope, that wouldn't exactly be the first thing I wanted right now. But you know how killer space bugs are, they never call before they come over."

Ha ha, wartime jokes. To tell the truth, it shook him up to think the Ohm might come back before they were ready for them.

"But! I'm never going to say no if someone wants to see my girl. This can wait, I'm pretty stuck without conduit couplings anyway. We need a shore leave." Wash put the wrench back in the toolbox and extracted himself from his work station, feet finding the rungs of the ladder. When he was safely on the ground, he turned to Red and offered his hand. "I'm Wash."

While the other got out from the ship, Red took the moment to take a better look at it. It really was different from how the ships and robots his world had... He had realized this when he woke up from the pods, but it still felt like a foreign thing for him, to be in such a strange place.

"Red Savarin. Nice to meet ya!" Red replied with a grin, accepting the hand with a shake. "So what kinda ship is Serenity, anyways?"

Shaking hands with a talking dog. Way to go Stacy, always upping the weirdness level.

"She's a cargo transport, Firefly class," Wash said, and started on his way across the hangar to his ship. "But don't let that fool you, she has plenty of zip and she'll surprise you if you underestimate her."

Some people said Serenity looked ungainly, like a fat duck or a strange-looking bug, but Wash thought she looked like a swan. The 'head' of the ship sat over them as Wash went to the access panel to the loading dock, opening her up. "This is my girl," he said, beaming.

Sorry Wash, Red thought it looked like a duck too... At first glance, he was reminded of the airship (http://nintendoartwork.com/gallery/solatorobo/solatorobo-asmodeus.jpg) his adoptive sister and he had used back in his home planet. The design, obviously, was different so the longer he gazed at the ship, the less familiar it felt.

"Not to underestimate, huh?" Red said with a small grin as he gazed up at the ship. "Hard to believe that, but I guess I'll have to see in action, haha."

In the never-ending quest to avoid her newly-appointed robo-guardian-slash-babysitter, Chell found herself frequenting locales she didn't ordinarily set foot in, like the hangar. It was large and spacious and had lots of strange, alien crafts to see, not to mention plenty of places to hide if the need arose.

For now, however, she was content to explore, weaving in and out of the rows of ships and vehicles.

It was difficult to ignore what she could only assume were profanities--in a language she didn't recognize, but those were definitely angry words. Of course, Chell wasn't going to let things like flying wrenches deter her, and she padded towards the frustrated man, peering around a nearby craft to see what he was doing.

What he was doing was picking carefully through the structural steel to the ladder he had set up on the edge of this breech. His feet found the ladder and he climbed down, looking around for his wrench.

That was when he saw his visitor, and he jumped a little. "Oh, I uh, didn't realize anyone was here," he said. "Sorry about the outburst." He rubbed the back of his neck, cramped from being stuffed into the space, and looked around for where his wrench had fallen.

Chell shrugged, seemingly unfazed by profanities and flying wrenches, more curious as to what, exactly, he was cursing about. But no harm done, at least, and her gaze traveled to the flying tool that now rested on the hangar floor.

When she realized Wash was looking for it, she wasted no time in picking it up, closing the distance between them and handing the tool back to its proper owner.

"Thanks," Wash said, taking the wrench from her. "I'm Wash, I fly the Quarter. The Ohm gave her a few new breathing holes in the last battle so I'm just trying to seal her up." He put his hands on his hips, facing the huge spacecraft carrier. "Bits of her are just a little finicky about getting put back together."

She guessed Wash was referring to the giant ship that just a moment before he'd been cursing. As much as she didn't like space, she had to admit that spaceships were sort of cool, and this one was no exception, mostly because it was so huge.

Nodding, Chell walked a few strides down the craft, hand sliding against the cool metal before turning back to Wash, picking up a stray tool and looking at him questioningly, as if to ask what she could do to help.

"Don't talk much, do you?" Wash observed wryly. "That's okay, I've had plenty of people say I talk enough for two." It worked out well with him and Zoe. "If you want to lend a hand, we can table the conduits and work on pulling out bad circuitry. A little demolition now and again never hurt anyone."

He indicated the ladder that led up into the burnt hole in the bottom of the ship. It was big enough to fit two people, but the way was a little precarious - the structural beams were all that was left to step on, since the hull plating was blasted through. "Be careful going up. And thanks for the help, it's a lot of work."

Eva swallows a bit and takes a breath when she sees the Quarter again. Maimed as it is, it was still a nice workplace for her for quite a while. And a part of her longs to return to it.

At the very least, she needs to thank Wash again for the wine, now that she doesn't look like a human trainwreck.

"Somehow I don't think that's a traditional workman's song," she calls up.

"Not so much," Wash said. He looked down between where he had his legs braced on the outer edges of the breech. "Hey there, Eva. You're looking a lot better."

The unspoken question that lingered in the air was 'how are you feeling,' but given that the last time Wash tried to show concern he almost got his head bitten off, he was treading a little more carefully this time.

"I'm feeling a lot better," she says, answering that unspoken question. "Actually getting to move around has that effect on a body."

She runs her hand over the surface of the Quarter. "How serious is the damage?"

"She's got a few new holes to vent oxygen out into space with," Wash said. "But I was able to take all the shots on non-essential decks." Translation: he'd rolled the Quarter around like a goose doing barrel rolls and purposely intercepted the Ohm's major blasts in unoccupied areas where they couldn't be avoided. Eva should probably be glad she was on Stacy for this last one.

"And I'm glad to hear you're feeling better," he said. Not only because she worried him, but because she had kids on the ship that both depended on her and were likely to rip the whole boat apart to get to her.

"Well, I'd say she was due for a vacation, then." Maybe getting tossed around on the Quarter would have been a little better psychologically than torturing a hostage, but probably not so easy on the old knees.

"Going back to the grind helps. Routine, exercise, breakfast at an actual table. How have you been holding up? Better than this lovely bucket of bolts, I hope?"

"I hope we get one, Eva," he said, patting the bulkhead. "She does deserve it, but we can't really control when we get into a rough spot. If the General says go, we go. It's why I try to take shots on unoccupied decks. It's a really good thing we don't have a full crew." If they did, they would have lost a good number of people in this last battle.

"And me? I'm... I'm okay." He sighed, propping his elbows on his knees. "Still no sign of Zoe."

"If the General says go, this old girl better have a ventilation system that doesn't leak. That's all I'm saying." She shakes her head. "Maybe our next shore leave will be a planet of tropical paradises, without all the insanity that usually accompanies out pit stops."

She reaches a hand over to pat his shoulder. "She'll arrive. From everything I've heard, she's the more fighterly of you two. Stacy wouldn't have taken you alone."

She decides against mentioning that Peter visited for a day.

"No she wouldn't have... not unless she didn't have a choice," he said. "I love Zoe more than anything in the world and I know she's the kind of stupid damn hero who'd hold the line while we escaped. It's just... I wish I knew she was here. I wish I knew she was okay."

He was grateful for the attempt at comfort, but it was probably as helpful as he'd been to Eva in the brig.

She nods and sits next to him, taking weight off the old war wounds in her hips and leg. "I'd say it's the not-knowing that's the worst part, but it's better than knowing the worst, I suppose. Not that there's any comfort to be found in it regardless."

She scrapes her teeth over her lower lip. "I'm sorry. I know it hurts and nothing but a positive answer will alleviate it."

"I live in hope," Wash said. "There are always a few stragglers that come in after everyone else. She was special ops, you know, back when there was a war in my end of the 'verse, she might have gone to ground at podpop to figure out what was what."

That actually sounded a lot like Zoe. Wash couldn't help but hope. More and more of his crew was arriving every time, so Zoe would come. He knew it.

"And there's always the next podpop. And the one after that. She'll be stellar when she arrives, with all that beauty sleep." She winks. When, not if.

Wash smiled. "You're a good friend, Eva," he said - not because he needed to, but because he thought Eva might need to hear it. Something about the way she looked in that jail cell told him that she appreciated herself much less than she ought to.

A fixer-upper [OPEN]

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I apologize for such a late tag

lol don't worry I'm so slow right now

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