trans_9 | HANGER - TARDIS - Half-safe(ish) zone

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HANGER - TARDIS - Half-safe(ish) zone

The Doctor isn't there to open the doors of the old girl.

Not the the TARDIS needs him to.

It's only a few hours after the attack starts that the TARDIS doors suddenly open on their own, that golden light spilling out onto the hanger floor, almost as if beckoning any companions or would-be companions or maybe they just want to try on some adventuring on for size in a safe(ish) zone and maybe she isn't quite 100% safe, but there's still loads of hiding spots for anyone who happens to duck inside. The hum and drone of the TARDIS tries to entice any crew inside that can make it through her doors.

She does miss having people inside her. It's been so lonely and wrong in parts of her thanks to that horrid Time Lord rummaging around in her guts, so to speak. There's that angry little library storming about somewhere in the Southern(ish) hemisphere, looking for bones to chomp and a willing ear to listen to the Recital of the Three Mountains audio-drama at the same time. The dumbwaiter is bored to tears (if it had eyes) waiting for someone to cart to places. The bog of black water and the stench of smelly socks expands a few more rooms out from the Wardrobe. Out Somewhere Beyond, the Everything Forest lies about its name and gets a few more shades of mind-wiltingly boring, but might provide cover if you can stand that sort of thing (the Doctor can't).

And there's loads more rooms, undiscovered. The chances are out there in Stacy or possibly risking diving into the depths of the TARDIS.

[OOC; Basically the TARDIS is wide open for anyone who wants to explore her. :3 If you want to make up a room or trash another (just not console room please), go for it. It's probably going to be possible for the smaller droids to follow inside but it's a huge place, so yes]

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Howard used a lull in the action to make another supply run, this time to get medical kits to the Macross Quarter. The Hangar has both a great advantage and significant disadvantage - while there are plenty of ships and fighters to take cover behind, almost everything is made of metal. A metal robot surrounded by metal machinery could hardly choose a better place to sneak around.

Thankfully, so far, the robots have seemed less interested in sneaking around than in just blowing things in as noisy and noticeable a manner as possible. Howard slips behind fighter to fighter, pausing behind a small white one to catch his breath and tie his shoes again. With all the running around he's done in the last ten hours, it's a miracle the threadbare sneakers haven't fallen apart entirely yet. And a relative miracle that he hasn't collapsed from exhaustion.

After peeking out and checking the surroundings again, he gets down to his knees behind the module and wraps his arms around himself, forehead to the ground, trying to pant as quietly as humanly possible. Fear that violent death is around the corner isn't new to him, and if he's honest, he by far prefers it to the fear that a slow death is somewhere in the near-future. At least the fear of immediate danger gives you the adrenalin boost to dart around for nearly ten straight hours.

He tries to get up and leans against the back of the module, feeling jelly-legged. Maybe just two more minutes to recuperate. Then to the Warehouse to check on Diana and collect more weapons for another supply run.

He notices something on the module glint out of the corner of his eye. Straightening up a bit and sneaking along the side of the module, he sees it's not entirely metal. Something organic, at least partially.

Well, his backpack is empty now. No one should blame him any if he uses his swiss army knife to take it off and figure out what it is. He may even return it, if it isn't something useful. There probably isn't enough time to really examine what it is here.

He starts to remove it from the module.

Okay, so John Crichton gets the whole material things are just things, but he'll be damned if he doesn't check to make sure his module is okay.

It's probably his only ticket back. And in the less rational part of his brain, he associates it with Home; Dad; DK; Earth and he just needs to see it for himself. See if it's a scrap pile or what. He doesn't even know what he'll do if it's suddenly turned into an IASA pancake.

Aeryn hasn't answered her omnicomm. John figures she's doing her Peacekeeper thing and holing up somewhere defensible, maybe making for the Prowler or gunning down some droids while she's at it. Droids. He never thought he'd think that and think Terminator again. The droids he'd gotten used to were small, drop-kick size or trip-over-and-almost-break-your-ankle size depending on your mileage, and he'd almost gotten himself shot when he gaped at the human sized droids coming at them. His sense of self preservation had kicked in and here he is now: doing something really stupid and risking his life for what every alien he's met considers a hunk of junk.

There's already more of the droids in the hanger. Some of them are occupied taking pot shots at one of the bigger ships and if they're going systematically, then his might, just might, not have been touched. Maybe Farscape One is safe.

John does that crouched run-jog to keep himself in the shadows and a smaller target, just like Aeryn showed him, Winona out.

He breathes a sight of relief when he sees his module is safe.

Then it dawns on him that somebody is actually trying to break into it. Are you serious? John's stunned at his crappy luck. All the ships in the hanger and his was the one that was getting boosted.

John makes sure he has a clear shot to his module before he ducks over and materializes next to the kid trying to pull off one of the Moya components tacked onto Farscape One. His thief now got to have a nice, personal introduction to Winona, the pulse pistol not wavering like it might've a cycle ago. She's gorgeous, isn't she? She's also like the Hulk - you don't want to see her when she's angry.

"Kid, you got some serious issues with priorities," John hisses, keeping his head down. "That's my ride."

Edited 2011-12-11 02:39 (UTC)

Howard whips around just in time to see a pulse pistol maybe an inch from his face. At first he thinks it's a robot, and either way, his first response to anything dangerous being pointed in his face is to cower as far back as he can get. He presses himself to the side of the module, shaking and eyes wide and glassy.

To his credit, he doesn't scream - that might attract enemies. He does have fear written all over his features, though.

"I didn't take anything I promise I didn't take anything I was just curious!" he whispers. He's processed by now what John is saying, and well, if there's one thing he'd rather run into less than robots, it's the owner of the vehicle he is currently vandalizing and looting.

And yet, in some far-off corner of his mind, it registers that he finds it very, very strange to be called 'kid' still.

He's about to continue pleading when he pauses. There's something else in the Hangar with them. There's a sound, a whirring noise like wheels on a gurney, and the clacking of some sort of break.

"Let me go so we can run," he hisses.

"Yeah, yeah, heard that one before, same song and dance." John makes a motion with Winona like he wants Sticky Fingers here to get on with it. To his credit, John at least doesn't go pointing his gun at his head. He may be some ass-backward Earthman to the others on Moya but c'mon, that's common sense. "Don't tell me, you bumped into my module and some pieces just fell off."

He doesn't have any intention of shooting the kid, despite Winona getting friendly. The thing is, John isn't at that point and he doesn't plan to be, no matter how tactically sound it might be to some Peacekeeper mall-cop wannabe. After a moment of letting Sticky Fingers get a nice, long look at Winona's curves and angles, he relaxes his finger back from the trigger. Hell, he didn't plan on going in guns blazing, thief or not. For one it wasn't like he was packing unlimited Chakan oil for Winona here and two, he's still a kid. And they have bigger problems, as the thief points out. John risks looking away long enough to peer over his module.

One of the droids patrols their way on a set of three legs, almost like a bug's, clicking as its flat plate of a head peers left and right. Scanning? It packs a HAL light, shining red and it just looks like it means business.

He realizes the reason it's so bright is that the eye-stalk is looking right at him. Oh. Well, damn.

He squeezes off a shot from Winona as he decides he's not going to use his module for cover and that maybe the kid has it right this time with the whole booking it in the opposite direction thing. John dives behind one of the other ships, the droid following and taking potshots at the two humans. He ends up squeezed between what looks like some kind of starfighter and...

It's blue. It's impossible. And John Crichton half-expects Tom Baker to come swinging out of it with his scarf.

He banks on the TARDIS being fake. Wood isn't exactly much good against droids and he already can picture that thing going up in flames if it's so much as tickled. So that's not much cover there.

John fires again at the droid as he glances around, half-afraid he'll find Sticky Fingers facedown on the floor. Sure, he doesn't like him boosting his module, but that doesn't mean he wants him dead, either.

Howard's gotten quite good at sneaking around in shadows, so he might not be immediately easy for Crichton to find. The dizziness from the concussion he got in the Med Bay barely slows him up as he darts, shadow to shadow, vehicle to vehicle. He already has an idea.

Granted, not an amazing idea, and not anything even remotely approaching a plan, but an idea nonetheless.

Hunched under the wing of something that looks like a distant cousin of a Tie-Fighter, Howard roots through his medical kit as quietly as he can. He sends a little mental thanks to Crichton for drawing the fire, then, once he has Crichton's eye, makes a 'cut!' motion with his hand and hopes Crichton can get the gist.

The droid pauses for a moment, trying to locate one of its targets again. With both hidden from it, it rotates the eye-stalk back and forth on its angular little head, like a Lazy Susan of death and lasers.

Possibly that is going to be the title of Howard's first book.

Howard's going to take a wild guess and bet this thing tracks by motion. It wouldn't be an effective tool for destroying the ship if it went by thermal output, since some of the crew is cold-blooded.

He picks the most expendable of the items from his med kit - odds of a spare bottle of antihistamines being vitally important during a robot war are fairly low - and rolls it across the floor, away from him and Crichton.

The droid, reacting quickly but not especially accurately, fires a few shots at the bottle before returning its attention to trying to find them. It's a few seconds of distraction for them to try and make a break for it, but there's also an opportunity for the discovery that the tacky blue crate someone ditched in the hangar doesn't, in fact, burn.

It has a forcefield.

"In there!" Howard turns on a dime and dives for the door of the TARDIS instead, not even bothering to consider the possibility that it might be locked, that the forcefield might block people as well as lasers, or that the droid might nail him before he gets the door open.

This would be a really awesome time for Territorial McWavesaGun to fire at the dumb droid.

Hello. What's this? She is a strange blue box who is being very enticing right now, of course, but this is a diminutive purple-haired alien that likes spaceships.

Clef doesn't immediately realize that he has just met a spaceship, however. He thinks he has inadvertently met some very good drugs, because he walks into the console room and then walks out and around the blue box and back into the console room and then into another room and several more rooms and oh there's the console room again wow I think I need to lie down oh look a bedroom!

"You're bigger on the inside!" he finally exclaims to, one assumes, the TARDIS.

"Not -- " It's too late, 'cause Sticky Fingers is making a break for what John is convinced is the worst possible place to take cover in. Nah, why don't you hide in the one place that's basically tinder?

He takes another shot at the droid, Winona blazing, before he runs after his thief to try to save him from doing something really stupid. Aeryn might've considered him not worth running after, what with the whole...thieving thing, but John didn't care if he was Sebacean or even a real human -- he still saw him as a kid. A kid who's gonna get his head blown off at the rate he's going. Apparently John's too busy shooting at the droid to see that the other guy makes the right call with the TARDIS too. John tries to grab at Sticky Finger's arm as he - as he...

He runs right through the doors and there's a whole new room inside.

John gapes as he lowers his hand. There's no physical way this could be real except he's standing there next to an old school hat stand and it's really...orange.

Common sense kicks in, John glancing to make sure the kid is in the room.

"Help me with the doors!" John struggles to close them. Okay, he's not entirely sold on this really being the inside of the TARDIS but maybe it's a - a teleport or whatever and maybe they want those doors closed. His feet scrabble as he tries to pull them closed, the droid clicking closer.

If there's one thing people should learn to trust Howard's instincts on, it's running away. He's gotten very, very good at it over the last two years. But Howard was planning on opening the tacky blue box and waiting out the droid in a cramped phoneboothy space, not opening it up to find a gigantic room full of gadgets and things in it.

If he had time to absorb it, it might occur to him that this big circular room filled with thingamabobbers and whatevers would be his ideal workspace. The location of what seems to be the console allows people to easily view their surroundings, and Howard could think of so many uses for the components making up the ship's masterboard.

He could, if he weren't helping Crichton slam the door shut. Howard, not being especially strong, probably gets in the way more than he helps, but at least he's trying. The droid tries to fit its eye stalk in between the doors and Howard ducks down, hoping not to get shot at, before shoving it back out. The doors close with a phenomenal whacking sound.

Howard immediately starts piling things in front of the door as a barricade, although really, there isn't much large enough to be much use. This door can't hold long against the droid, especially not if it brings reinforcements. Having stacked aforementioned hat stand and a box of somethings in front of the door, he takes a brief breather, aware they'll probably be running again sooner rather than later.

Howard doubles over and pants, arms wrapped around himself. He's hurting from the beating he took in Med Bay earlier - being thrown into a wall is hardly fun. His nose has started bleeding again and the bandage has come off his head wound.

He shoots John Crichton a look, a "you're the adult here, tell me what to do" sort of look. And also a "don't you dare take this brief reprieve as a moment to get back on my case about stealing stuff off your ship" look.

And finally, he sums up his opinion of this baffling room-within-a-room blue box spaceship with one word.

"Huh."

Ian had seen enough robots to know that not having weapons was a bad thing. But since he was near the TARDIS and it was open, he ducked inside. And then got very lost. It was different to how he remembered.

"It is," he said, smiling at the boy. "Don't worry, you get used to it."

"Huh's right," John grunts. He tilts his head, listening as the droid tries to fire on the door from the outside and then seems to realize it might have to ram its way in. The door shake but hold.

For now.

He lowers Winona as he motions for the kid to follow him up one of the impossible stairs up to to what looks like an impossible catwalk and at this rate he's just trying to swing with it because just thinking about the physics of it is making his head hurt. He doesn't think that door is going to hold something battering at it with the way its shaking and if this place really is bigger on the inside, then John intends to go with it -- even if his inner geek is looking around and going "this isn't what it's supposed to look like". The control console is all wrong, so is the Time Rotor, and it's like someone glanced at classic Doctor Who and just stomped all over what wasn't broken, in his opinion. What happened to the wobbly sets and the rinky-dink console? It's so brown and orange in here that it reminds him of an antique shop. Or a consignment store.

Not that now is the time to go into these details. All that matters is they can find a place to hole up.

John makes a shooing motion with his pulse pistol at the kid. "C'mon. For all we know, it can't make it up stairs." He pauses once they're tucked away in another smaller room, this one lined with pots and pans and he's not sure what that is, but it might be a spatula. On crack. "Guess we better start over. Okay? I'm John Crichton."

He offers the kid a smile, trying again. Waving guns in kids' faces. It's times like this that he realizes how much he changed. He feels bad about it now, especially when he takes in the state Sticky Fingers is in: ugly head wound, although it might not be as bad as it looks (he knows how much even small head wounds can bleed), blood coming down the poor kid's nose. John instantly feels like an idiot. It's not like he couldn't have negotiated the stuff back. That first split second he'd almost been ready to shoot him, too, and it sinks in that this isn't just a little thing here. John holds up Winona in a look Ma, I'm standing down gesture and reholsters her.

"Mind if I have a look?" He motions at the kid's head. "Sorry about nearly shooting you."

It doesn't come out as good as it sounded in his head. He guesses there's no real easy way to put it, even if he still thinks the kid should've kept his hands to himself.

Clef didn't have any weapons, unless you counted the very large, heavy-looking staff he was carrying. Which he did, judging by the way he was holding it. However, it didn't pay to be small, alone, and without any cover even when one had a weapon in hand. An immense area with only one known entrance seemed relatively safe.

"Strange place to put a subspace dimensional pocket," he remarked. "Don't you think?"

"What is this place?" Howard quirks an eyebrow at John. John looks as surprised as he is to see the inside of this place, but John also looks a bit like someone suffering serious déja vu. Or someone who's come home to find their belongings in the wrong place. It's a feeling Howard knows well, and one he expects to be working through when he goes back to the Warehouse and learns whatever Diana's done with her access to the spare key.

Thus, John has become the go-to person to ask questions about the room-within-a-box, or the Wild Blue Yonder, as Howard's now thinking of it.

Howard follows John up the stairs, taking them at a brisk two-at-a-time pace. "The droids might not be able to, but I know for a fact the Terminators can. We ran into trouble at the Med Bay with them."

His voice sounds a little choked, thinking of the Med Bay, his favorite place on the ship, completely trashed and bloody and currently, occupied by evil robots. So much for a safe haven. For a moment he distracts himself trying to figure out what the weird spatula thing is and thinking of how easy it would be to turn the weird baubly bowl thingy in the corner into a small still, until John interrupts him.

"Yeah. I do mind." Howard responds to John's question less as if it's an offer to help and try and mend some of their immediately awful mutual first impressions, and more as if it's an insult, like John's telling Howard he can't take care of himself. Of course he can take care of himself. He had to, ever since people like John, adults with authority and responsibility and property rights that people actually acknowledged, decided to peace out and leave the kids to fend for themselves. There's distrust and bad attitude written all over Howard's face.

But after a second's pause, he remembers most adults actually pretend to care about injured minors, so he explains, "I'm a medic. Even working on myself I can probably do a neater job than most people I run into. No offense."

He touches the edge of the wound, up over his left ear, only a little distressed that it's oozing again, before unslinging his medical kit (tied up to the same strap as his backpack - he's gotten very used to carrying both) and going through it. White bandages won't do, too easy to see against the metallic greys of the hangar. He starts ripping a strip off his shirt - being made for average-sized adult men, it's a little too long on him anyway.

He's very heavily considering giving John a piece of his mind, something to the effect of how he's been running around all day getting shot at to get people food and medicine and he really had enough stress on his plate without gun-toting alpha males shaking their weapons in his face, thank you very much, and so what, John's space module is clearly a piece of garbage anyway if a teenager with a pocketknife can dismantle it, and and and...

But instead he just soaks a piece of gauze in disinfectant and starts to fold it up. "They should make bandages in less ospentatious colors." That's the word he was looking for, right?

And after a pause. "Thanks for not shooting me, I guess. I'm Howard."

Edited 2011-12-13 02:19 (UTC)

"It's camouflaged. Who would expect a police box to be bigger on the inside?" he said lightly. "There ought to be something we can use against the robots in here."

On second thought, checking on her Prowler might not have been the best move. But it's important to keep a secure means of escape, any decent training would at the very least emphasize that, and Crichton's module isn't her idea of a secure... anything.

Aeryn swears under her breath, ducking fire from something on wheels that she's honestly surprised can even stand up on its own, and returning that fire in short order. She might have even considered using her secure means of escape by now, if Crichton was with her. As tempted as she is to get the frell out, she doesn't feel right leaving him behind.

It's a strange stroke of luck that brings her to the TARDIS. She doesn't think much of it when she first sees it: an old, narrow box that could be barely adequate cover if anything. But when what can only be described as a mechanized man catches her in her sights and lurches toward her, Aeryn decides it's better than no cover at all. She dives into the TARDIS, landing with a grunt on the floor grating and kicking the doors shut behind her.

There's a brief second where John wonders if Howard seriously just said Terminators. After the TARDIS being here -- even if it's like some cheap knock-off of his childhood memories here -- maybe it's not too big of a stretch to think hell, they probably have honest to God Terminators running around too while they were at it.

Great. At least he's sure this isn't one of those Am-I-Going-Crazy afternoons, 'cause everyone else has the crazy bug too and he almost finds that comforting in a weird way. So it's not just him. John pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking it's gonna be one of those days, glancing up when Howard comments on the bandages. Hey, he'd shake hands with the kid now that they're on a first name basis, but somehow he doesn't think he'd take it very well, what with the whole gun to the face thing and instead he watches as Howard tries to fix the bandages. From what he can see of the wound, it looks pretty ugly, kinda...oozing. But Howard's lucid and he doesn't see any real signs of him losing motor control, so if he was fit to stop to boost Farscape One, then John figures he's got some second wind there and he won't keel over on him.

He doesn't know what to say about bandage colors. To him, so long as they're clean, he's not too likely to care.

John focuses on Howard's first question. "This place? I'd say it's the TARDIS -- you know, Doctor Who? -- but it's way off," he says with a shrug, listening for any sign that droid out there has broken in yet. Howard looks like he could use a breather. "British show. Spaceship that's bigger on the inside."

They got that part right. John at this point figures it might make his inner geek shake his fist at all the continuity errors and the TARDIS is white not orange but if it means endless rooms and cover between them and the droids, then he plans to take it.

He's silent for a moment, before he speaks up again. "So I take it you're the resident medic slash thief. What happened to the others in Medbay?"

John thinks he can figure it out. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen both movies more than once. It's a struggle to wrap his mind around the fact that all the stuff from fiction, like the TARDIS and Terminators, was apparently real on this ship. Suddenly alien life and all the downright insane things he'd seen in the Uncharted Territories didn't seem that bad in comparison.

Howard notices the way John doubletakes and slowly nods his head. "Yeah. Those Terminators. T-700's, if I remember the movie franchise right." He gingerly wipes some of the blood from his nose and upper lip with his thumb, mostly just succeeding in smearing it and giving himself bloody hands. There's a metaphor there, probably.

The blank look Howard gives John should answer whether or not the kid's seen Doctor Who (spoiler: he isn't that geeky, John). "The TARDIS has to be the dumbest name I have ever heard for a spaceship, bar none. But. Okay. How much room you think this place got?"

He gives John a bit of a glare at the 'thief' bit. Accurate, sure, but certainly not how Howard sees himself. "I'm a salvage expert, not a thief. Maybe if your spaceship didn't look like a piece of junk I wouldn't of tried to save it, alright?"

Howard realizes as soon as that's out of his mouth that he's doing that 'hostile' thing people have told him to tone down.

"Sorry, I'm just rocking one hell of a headache right now. Anyway, no one in Med Bay died, thank god, but that place is running with robots by now. And trashed. We beat a tactical retreat. I got chucked into a wall, but I wiped the Terminator with an MRI machine, so I guess that makes him and me even."

He does sound pretty proud about that stunt with the MRI machine. Take that, super strong scary robots. Human ingenuity wins again. He kind of smiles a bit, as if looking for John to act impressed. As much as he isn't fond of adults, especially after Rory disappeared, there's a part of him that still seeks that approval, when he's not actively rejecting it.

"So what do you do round here, besides wave guns at teenagers?"

Edited 2011-12-13 20:53 (UTC)

T-700's? Oh yeah. The big skeleton ones, right? John's pretty sure that's what he means. Getting tired of watching Howard trying to deal with a nosebleed that seems like it's damned determined to keep right on doing what it's doing, John fishes about in the drawers and pulls out what has to be the ugliest box of Kleenex he'd ever seen; polka dotted, the colors clashing in a way that it makes his teeth instinctively grind together. It's kinda hideous and he isn't even the Martha Stewart type. Sorry, kid. It's that or your sleeve.

"You're just lucky I'm not as trigger happy as someone else. You were boosting my stuff, no matter what you feel like calling yourself. Farscape One's off limits, capisce?"

He holds the box of Kleenex out to Howard. It's not quite a peace offering, but it beats watching him struggling with the bloody nose. If Howard wants to impress him though, telling him he soloed a Terminator is a pretty good way to do it.

John whistles. Thief or not, that's pretty insanely creative of him. Even if the kid has no idea what classic TV is (John struggles not to feel offended at Howard trashing the TARDIS's name). If the Terminators are anything like the movie ones, Howard and the other medics are lucky to be alive. John shrugs when Howard asks him what his mission in life is.

"I'm trying to figure a way off this boat and back home. It's like a full-time job without the benefits," John's laugh is on the resigned side. He gets down to business, something that might've been a little bit of Aeryn rubbing off on him. "Look, we'll probably have to secure the Hanger. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be in here if one of those ships explodes, and -- "

There's a deafening crash as the droid finally forces its way into the TARDIS, the doors banging open on their hinges. The TARDIS gives a groan that almost -- call him crazy -- sounds like it's actually pissed off at the intruders. John exchanges looks with Howard. Probably better get moving. Motioning for Howard to keep down and use whatever skills he had that got him from the Medbay all the way here in one piece (sorta), John sneaks over to the door and the catwalk, his pulse pistol drawn. He peers over the railing's edge.

The droid is scanning the area again, one of the more humanoid ones following after. Great. So he brought a field trip buddy. Still, two on two didn't seem like bad odds, and he was packing heat, so it wasn't like they'd have to come at the droids with rocks and spears.

John turns to Howard, holding up his fingers. Two. Coming this way, but not zeroing in yet like they had an exact fix on their location. Glancing over at Howard, he's suddenly struck by how young the kid really looks with the bloody nose and the Kleenex.

Edited 2011-12-14 11:59 (UTC)

This is not Howard's first bloody nose by a long shot, nor his first concussion. Take a black child whose stature can best be described as 'runty' and toss him into an overwhelmingly white school with a staff that isn't paid enough to care, and the bullies come out. At least, they did until he became the bully himself in middle school. He takes the kleenex with a mumbled 'thanks' and jams it up his nose, not seeming to care about the color and pattern of the box (in his mind, something that ugly deserves to have its insides be bled and snotted on). It's strange how much this reminds him of his mother; the clearest memory he's held onto of her is of sitting in the passenger seat of her car, nostrils stuffed with tissue, some time she picked him up at the school nurse's office, listening to her prattle on about her day and other things he didn't care about.

Maybe if you'd just keep your smart opinions to yourself sometimes... she said.

It's just a kleenex, he thinks.

"Fine. Whatever you say, Triggerfinger. No touching the Farscout Whatever."

Howard's gaze falls a little at John's explanation of wanting to go back home, and John's assessment of the ship's jobs. Ah. Another person whose homeworld is a step up from the ship. Howard's starting to wonder if he'll ever find someone else who really sees the ship as he and Diana do: a saving grace and temporary reprieve from certain suffering. A home away from the home that let them down. "A roof over your head, a hologram room and all the free food you can shake a stick at isn't 'benefits'?"

Howard follows him to the catwalk, not because that's the tactically sound decision but because he can't help but play Follow the Authority Figure. Also 'follow the taller person you can hide behind'; he slinks around behind John like a bloody shadow. He nods, slowly because even hours after getting put through that wall his sense of balance is still compromised and the world is still a little swimmy, trusting that John has no reason to lie to him about the amount of enemies. Although the idea of trying to secure the whole hangar with just the two of them is simply laughable.

Howard's under the impression that John is one of those up-front action heroes whose been through enough close calls as to think he can do anything. It's a bit of a harsh judgment and probably not all that accurate, but Howard's sense of charity got temporarily knocked out of him back in the Med Bay. He doesn't see John's attempts at apology so much as he sees the weapon, the way John falls into the role of planner and how willing he is to execute said plans, the way he redefines what Howard's been saying.

"Just so you know, I'm worse than useless in a fight." He pulls out the three-inch knife from his pocket, though. Not to stab a droid, obviously, but because he's got his eye on a roped-up crate at the far end of the catwalk. He doesn't know what's in it, but the wooden frame alone should be heavy enough, if dropped from a height like the catwalk. The first droid has a solid enough base, but the humanoid one looks like it has spindly ankles - getting Wiley Coyoted from the catwalk could very well cripple the thing.

The question would be how to get it above the catwalk rail, but Howard figured if push comes to shove (as it might, literally), he and John can roll it up and over the rail together. Unless he or John are shot or dead by then. It's a possibility. And if the droids are under the catwalk, the architecture itself could serve as cover.

"That gun you shoved in my face," why yes, he is going to hold that against you, John, "does it have limited ammo or need to recharge or anything? Because I think we could take out that bipedal one with the crate."

And after a pause. "You know, if the crate isn't full of explosives. Because then we might just end up dead."

"Good point," said Clef, who had no idea what a police box was in the first place. In fact, his native language didn't even have a word for "police".

He took a look around, considering all of the sundry objects in their current surroundings. They seemed to be in a bedroom, at the moment.

"I suppose that depends on what you want to do to the robots."

"Stop them from killing anyone, ideally." Although not with anything they would find in here. "I don't think it's laid out the way I remember." It didn't even look like he remembered it. But the Doctor had said something about changing the wallpaper. "It's a big enough place, we just have to keep looking."

The next room turned out to be a small kitchen. Ian went straight to the selection of knives, although he was limited in what he could carry. He was sure they would do some damage to the electronics.

There's scraping by in some backwater planet out in the galaxy and doing it back home on Earth, as far as John's concerned. He doesn't reply immediately, instead choosing to scope out the area and keep his head down. Maybe he isn't some crackshot like Aeryn -- y'know, some people weren't bred and trained on PK Prowler training wheels to be expert marksmen -- but he likes to think he can at least hit more than the broadside of a barn these days.

He almost jumps out of his skin when he notices Howard following behind him. Geez, give a guy some warning! John has to take a moment to close his eyes, breath in and out, and decide you're never too old for a heart attack. Now that Howard's whispered to him about how much backup he has today, John's suddenly more worried about him and that knife than their chances with the droids -- he has to wonder if 1). Howard even knows how to use that thing 2). Good luck getting in range to use it and 3). Why don't people do the smart thing and hide if they're going to come to a gunfight with a ~~sword~~ knife? John frowns at Howard as they huddle there on the catwalk, so far hidden from the droids prowling about the room under them.

"You better hope it isn't," John's voice is low. He holds up Winona, popping the cartridge and licking the end to test it; it's another one of those habits he picked up unconsciously from Aeryn. Yep, she's still good to go. He pops it back in with his palm. "Limited ammo. Basically when I run out of Chakan oil, we're down to whatever we can scrounge up around here."

He sizes up Howard's crate. It looks heavy. Normally he'd say they should be able to get it over the railing. But trying to do the same thing while they're getting shot at is a whole 'nother story and right now he's privately glad he didn't try to pass a pulse rifle to Howard. He doesn't think the kid would shoot him. Accidentally, though...no promises there. At least Howard had the courtesy to warn him.

"C'mon," John starts to sneak toward the crate. The catwalk sways slightly, John wincing. It's times like this that he's aware that being bigger and heavier than Howard isn't really helping things. Any second now he expects them to start getting shot at.

Edited 2011-12-15 10:28 (UTC)

Howard has no idea what Chakan oil is, although he assumes it must be some sort of futuristic gunpowder, but the phrase 'limited ammo' sends a chill down his spine. At least that's one thing he doesn't have to worry about with his trusty knife. He turns it over in his hands, studying the railing, before pushing past and under John's arm in a quick little sprint to the crate. The catwalk bucks and Howard drops to a crouch, hidden from the robots by the crate. He gives the crate an experimental shove; it doesn't budge, even a fraction of an inch, even when he puts all his hundred pounds into it. Even with John helping, they aren't going to be able to lift it.

He sneaks around to the front side of the crate and starts unscrewing part of the railing with the tip of his knife. Basic phillip's head screws, simple and old-school human technology or something close to it. Easy enough to dismantle. Just because they can't carry the box doesn't mean they can't slide it.

It occurs to Howard that this is probably a very convoluted way to smash a droid, all about timing and luck and the probably stupid notion that John will go along with it instead of just using his gun, but once Howard's set his mind to something he's hard to dissuade. He will find a way to make this work, or, at the very least, take out a droid somehow. He won't be made useless here. He's done enough hiding today, and the droids have made him mad. Every pulse of pain in his bleeding head ticks him off just a little more at them, and that's not considering how angry he started at these dumb bolt-heads taking over his home, threatening his friends, threatening to take away the resources he was so grateful to have.

He's finally made something for himself here. He's piecing something together after having everything he cared about warped or stolen over a year ago, and these stupid robots want to take it away. Not a chance.

He wraps the strap from his backpack around one of the railing edges and the part he's dismantling so the railing doesn't fall forward and off the catwalk, onto the droids and giving away their position before they're ready. Luckily for them the droids don't seem to look up much; they're programmed to expects to find their targets at ground-level. The humanoid one is poking around what appears to be a hammock; the swaying of said hammock, which should be impossible given the 'how is there a breeze in the Wild Blue Yonder?' of it all, keeps tripping its motion sensor. The rolling one, which Howard has mentally categorized as 'Wheels', is prodding what appears to be cardboard cut-outs of cartoon monsters.

For the first time, Howard wonders what kind of lunatic lives in this place. He also thinks those monsters would make good scarecrows.

Once the railing's disassembled enough that they can push the crate off the edge, Howard hides behind it again and beckons to John to lie in wait with him. The crate should provide some good cover until the opportune moment, anyway, although Howard's not sure he trusts John not to just wave his gun around and shoot the droids at the first chance. He didn't seem as worried abut the limited ammo as Howard felt.

This place is a damn maze.

John feels like he should've known this. It wasn't as if he hadn't grown up knowing the words "it's bigger on the inside" by heart. But being in the boot-leg version of it is different and he'll have to say that that amount of running down corridors just to get to where you wanted to go is getting old already. He's almost surprised to come running up the stairs and almost stumble, literally, back into the console room.

"Aeryn!" John breaks out into a relieved grin as he makes for her. Winona's getting low on Chakan oil but if anything comes through the doors after her, he thinks he can still provide cover. John hurries over to the Sebacean and starts to hold his hand out to help her up, going on auto-pilot before he remembers that she's the original intergalactic GI Jane here: the last person she probably needs help from is him.

"Take it you swung by to check the Prowler?" He doesn't ask about the module. Aeryn's made it clear several times just how little she thinks of it.

Yeah, nice try pushing, Howard. Points for trying.

John takes his time across the catwalk, not counting on their luck to hold just 'cause it's faster to run. He finally joins Howard next to the crate. Watching the kid for a moment, he gets where he's going with it, helping to hold the railing bit he's loosened so he can tie it off with the backpack strap. Thief or not, at least Howard was quick on his feet. John thinks he can respect that. He'd take Howard McGuyvering up some way to even the odds here over him getting sticky fingers on anything that fits his loose definition of junk, which, by the way, assuming they even survive this, John plans to have a discussion about. He's still sore about being told his own ship is junk, even if it...might be true. Kinda true.

He exchanges looks with Howard and nods, inching forward while crouching so he can peer over the catwalk's edge.

The humanoid one is almost directly under them, a rifle under one arm and a crackling energy staff in the other. Red eyes are swiveling around. Even from here he can hear the click-click-click of its servos as it leans on the staff and then seems to finally establish that the hammock its poking at is neither living nor worth even shooting. If they were gonna do this, they have to do it now.

John makes sure Howard's with him on this before he starts to heave. The crate doesn't give at first. Suddenly it's sliding away thanks to their combined push, scrapping along the catwalk floor as the droids both look up in creepy unison. The humanoid one starts to try to dance out of the way when the crate tumbles on it with a floor-shaking whud, pinning it as the other droid began to open fire.

John tugs on Howard's arm, pushing him back down the T in the catwalk and trying to provide cover for the kid. Winona lights up as John leans over to shoot at the remaining droid.

Say what you want about robots, but this one isn't just standing there: the damn thing actually skitters for cover behind a metal cabinet as it starts to charge up its own canon. (So much for the Stormtrooper Syndrome, damn!). John's pulse pistol splashes off harmlessly as he turns and sprints after Howard.

Something tells him that they're going to have to duck in deeper into the TARDIS. No telling if their pal back there is calling in reinforcements; John just hopes Howard's as hopped up on adrenaline as he is at this point, 'cause the way it's looking, they're going to have to get ready to run.

Well, that worked better than Howard hoped. The humanoid droid is clearly down for the count, although Howard's a bit concerned that the parts that weren't immediately pinned and crushed are shooting sparks. Not such a big fan of Wheels using tactics, though. Howard could do without that.

His adrenalin's pumping, but Howard's feeling close to the end of a very frayed rope. How many miles has he put on since this morning? Twelve? Fifteen? Most of them sprinting. He's going to hit the point of collapse sooner rather than later. But, for the moment, he runs like his life depends on it (which it does).

With no real regard for whether John's behind him, although he supposes John's at least useful for providing cover, Howard races down the catwalk, swings open a door and runs through it. And nearly - but not quite - hesitates.

A blanket fort maze? Really?

Well, at the very least, it should provide them some cover. Howard drops to his knees and starts crawling. Once he's far enough in and under a dark enough blanket, he stops and waits. He doesn't dare call out to John just in case any pursuing droids would hear him.

For not the first time, Howard wishes he were more confident with firearms. There's only so long they can run, and lucky opportunities like the crate are scarce. Besides, the robots might learn. He knows Terminators, at least, are programmed to start picking up on your tricks, and it's only a matter of time before robots learn to look up.

He tries to think of how fast the droid moves, how long it might take it to get up to the level of the catwalk. A few minutes. Not long enough to be comfortable. He's shivering and sweating. At least part of the reason he doesn't ditch John entirely is because he knows he probably won't get much further on his own.

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HANGER - TARDIS - Half-safe(ish) zone

[Closed to John Crichton]

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OPEN

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see what happens when I teal deer, I get typos 8|

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happens to everyone :)

Re: happens to everyone :)

Re: happens to everyone :)

Re: happens to everyone :)

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Re: happens to everyone :)

Re: happens to everyone :)

Going to timey-wimey this post-Howard

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