As soon as they had been released, Red Snout had bolted for the nearest wilderness area. Yes the alien guide had said there was a place where you could go to hunt, but what fun was it to hunt something already caged, already captured. Waiting for you to simply sink your claws into it. Instead Red Snout simply ran, bounding off into the unfamiliar forest and running for the sheer joy of being able to stretch his legs on real soil, over actual ground. It seemed that he had been running forever when he at last forced himself to stop, chest heaving and nostrils flaring as he sucked in breath. Where he was now, he wasn't certain. But he was a raptor. And raptors do not get lost. He could find his way back easily enough. For now...time to see what there was to stalk in this new place. He slipped off into the undergrowth, following the scent of some strange animal in the hopes it would lead him to prey.

How fortunate. After a mere hour or two of stalking, he had come upon a mammalian creature grazing in a clearing. Some sort of oddly colored green-brown deer. If he had known what a deer was. It didn't matter. The point was that it was there and he was going to kill it. He tensed, then at last leaped, legs uncoiling as he hurled himself at his prey, a triumphant screech already ripping from his throat. His claws flexed, tore into flesh. The creature screamed, the sound cut off in the middle as Red Snout lowered his head and neatly snapped the thing's neck with a firm bite and a twist of his head. Red Snout, his mouth and claws dripping with gore, tilted his head back and let out another screech of triumph. He had killed his prey. And now he could eat properly for the first time in many, many passings of a moon.

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Loren, Dream Girl, Hunter, Red Snout, Renne]}

Sawyer had been avoiding the city ever since Bella had told him that the Vatican had been all but destroyed during the fighting with the zombies. No one had died, which Sawyer--rather immodestly--accredited to himself and all the work he put in getting the basilica ready for just that kind of occasion. But with the basilica trashed, Sawyer had lost the spot on the ship that he had adopted as his own little castle--even if other, more religious crew members had tried to mosey in on his turf. So, in an effort to familiarize himself with some of the newly opened areas of the ship, Sawyer had been walking around and poking his head into the command deck, engineering, neuropathy, and, eventually, the flight deck.

He spent at least an hour wandering around the deck, looking at all the different fighters, bombers, mechs, frigates, and shuttles before his eyes landed on something that most definitely didn't seem to belong. In one untouched corner of the flight deck stood an object covered up with a protective tarp. It wasn't large, especially in comparison to all the other machines around it. It, in fact, looked rather reminiscent in size to a normal vehicle from Earth.

With furrowed brow, Sawyer wandered over to the "mysterious" vehicle and cautiously took hold of the tarp and gave it a sharp tug only to reveal....

( ZOINKS!!! )

An hour or so later, anyone stopping by the hangar deck would find Sawyer, driving in circles in an empty corner of the hangar at five miles at hour. The windows were rolled up, and a cloud of smoke filled the vehicle as the meatship's resident a$$hole puffed away on something that was not a cigarette.

[OOC: Please keep to one thread. Thank you!!!]

After dealing with the mess that was waking up on this strange ship of sorts, Thrall has found it very hard to fit in at all, especially when there were so many human looking creatures on this ship - as well as other oddities. Yet, strangely, no other orcs.

It took him time to orient himself with his sense of direction, being too stubborn and stoic to ask for help to find anything, and it lead him to the mess hall. It was crowded and there were many others there, but he slowly gained his bearings - very slowly. It took Thrall a few times of standing there and watching others go through the process of being scanned by that large eye before they receive any nutrients, if you could call it that.

The orc was leery of proceeding and allowing that thing to scan him, if it was even doing that. The hesitation was quite obvious in both his motions and on his face. For a creature that is as large as him, he certainly did jump when the slop was offered upon his tray. There was a sharp inhalation of whatever was offered. Is this poisonous, he wondered? Thrall then proceeded towards one of the tables to sit and stare at whatever was on his tray. Unfortunately, it was not pork. Nor was it bear meat, lion, or any other red blooded beast that he could tear his tusks into. Instead, he lifted a utensil, and poked at the slop a few times. Maybe he lost his appetite already?

Red Snout was brooding. He'd gotten quite good at it over the last several days and today was no different. He had appropriated a sensorium room and was now sprawled in front of a simulation of his home. A dusty clearing near the edge of a wood that slowly turned into a sprawling grassland, a den sug into the side of a low hill. A breeze whispered through the trees over head and the faint sound of running water could be heard as well. The raptor himself was in front of the empty den. He laid there, tail curled slightly as he stared out into the trees.

Gone. All gone. Everything he had loved, protected and lived for. His world was quite literally shattered and there was nothing he could do about it. His chieftain, gone. His close companion and sometimes mate, gone. All of the little ones, the future of their people...gone. The thought was too painful to bear. So he hunkered lower in the dust and grass and stared listlessly off into the woods, hoping to somehow defeat this malaise that had settled on him over the past few days.

After the services the Doc had just needed a little peace and quiet. He'd never been one for funerals, felt awkward at the best of times and miserably guilty at the worst. Today had been the latter more than the former...

He settled into one of the little viewing rooms in the media library and lay himself out across the squishy couch, just looking up to the ceiling lost in thought as he listened to some music. For the moment he'd put in a request for an old favourite.

Anyone who stumbled on him would get treated to him softly singing along under his breath. He knows this one like the back of his hand.

A mass of zombies has laid seige to the Vatican.

Time to fight for your lives!!!

The Vatican had a lot of ground to cover. Normally covered in expansive gardens (just empty plots on the ship) and comprised of a multitude of buildings, holing up there meant holing up in simply a part of the Vatican. The group was therefore in St. Peter's Basilica, which had had most of its entrances sealed off. Now they had to work on small windows and a few other entrances left neglected, but overall, it was a very defensible position. There were no exits other than the ones leading to the sacristy and treasury--which was their main avenue of escape, and heavily guarded. The prisoners were being kept in this area, and guarded by the rear guards, as leaving them in the prison was deemed too dangerous for their safety. As bad as they'd been with the Yeerk conflict, they were crew, and no one wanted them to die.

The courtyard was a chokepoint. Gunners could sit on the roofs of the buildings running alongside the courtyard to strafe St. Peter's square from the sides.

The various chapels and vestibules along the sides made excellent areas for food, medical, and weapons supplies to be gathered, and most were clustered in the middle of the basilica. The Medical area was in the Chapel of the Column, the main weapons and ammo caches, and Food storage areas were in the two Transepts, respectively, to the sides of the Papal altar. Pews all in the main areas had been converted to sleeping areas, right in the center of the whole place.

There was still work to be done, before the other group could leave. Last minute barricades, blocking more windows, moving the last of the medical supplies, inventorying the food, and so on. Then it would be time to hunker down.

So push up your sleeves and lend someone else a hand, folks.

[ooc: Read instructions for these threads here!]

Sharp Tongue is hunched over a patch of paving in the city, painting the ground with a brownish paste using her hand claws. Her eyes are bloodshot and her movements jerky. Symbols, shapes, things that may or may not have meaning. Something that could be a serpent, a man, a raptor, all figures delineated in messy smears. Swirls and slashes and spots and shapes, more indistinct figures.

The shaman works quickly and intensely, occasionally making snuffing noises to herself as she goes. She has to get this down. Now. Before the memory fades.

Next to Sharp Tongue, there is a circle scratched onto the cement, her bag, and several emptied containers not including the one she got what she's painting with from. The remains of some ritual, perhaps?

Arha had been standing in the same spot for a very long time, staring into the the rainsoaked world she had asked he Sensorium to create.  She had done much research before she had begun to pull the world into her mind--many hours in the library looking at all sorts of worlds with rain--and now that the world was actually created, she couldn't make herself go inside.  It wasn't as if Arrakis hadn't had its rainy days while she'd been there; the open puddles on the streets of Arrakeen proved that, but on those days Arha had stayed in her cave and waited it out, burrowed down like Shai-Hulud in the depths of the sand.

And she still wanted to do that, epecially now that she was staring at her fear.

( That did not end well. )

Meet n' Greet, smell my feet, gimme something good to eat! Unfortunately, the newbie meet and greet takes place the same time the command staff is congregating, so they might be a little late to the party.

But the crew is there to welcome the newcomers and explain their situation. At the end of the milling and spilling about, the command staff is going to start a general meeting to apprise everyone of their situation and discuss their next course of action:

Getting off the damn ship.

There were many things Yuri was too young for that she'd been forced into. Being a teacher was only the latest in a string that had started when she'd put the Borg on for the first time.

She felt a dry tongue, moist hands as she waited for Red Snout. These reactions never went away. She thought they would after a while, in the same way it had taken her years to get used to Borg's presence. No. Her heart rate always refused to calm down.

What was worse was that she felt as if the creature could somehow sense it. He would take big sniffs of her sometimes and she always felt as if she were giving something away.

Still there was a small consolation. He was learning. She'd introduced him to katakana and surprisingly the Velociraptor had found that the sudden facility extended out so he was equally clumsy in all languages. It was probably the same mechanism that let her read stuff in English like it was her first language.

Currently she waited in an unused conference room, children's primers spread out in front of her on the table white and knobby as bone.

Red Snout had, through forcing a child a to help him and through his own sheer will, begun to learn how to read. And now he half crouched over one of the consoles, tapping at it with one claw as he goes through what he's been learning, starting with the alphabet again.  Fascinating, really, how the humans could make symbols that represented sounds. It would make more sense to have symbols that represented things he thought. But they were humans and couldn't be expected to be as smart as raptors.

He mouthed the first 'letter,' quietly reciting the alphabet.

"A. B. C. D. E. F.G. H. I. J. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R. S. T. U. V. W. X. Y. Z." A pause as he switched over to a few simple words, brow furrowing in concentration as he stared at them. He would master this or he would give up his gun! If humans could do it, surely raptors could...

A howl rings out through Stacy, an eerie and almost unearthly noise that'll make the hair stand on the back of your neck. Bella can use comm rings, but doesn't. They're Weaverish, and no proper Get lupus will use a darn Weaverthing! Or at least not Bella.

Through Stacy's onboard translation, there's a creepy effect going on where you can hear the howl but also instinctively understand it as if it were words.

"THIS ONE IS BELLA, THIS ONE IS AHROUN, THIS ONE IS GET OF FENRIS. THIS ONE HUNTS IN SENSORIUM-PLACE. THIS ONE IS ALONE. COME HUNT WITH THIS ONE IF YOU HAVE TEETH AND CLAWS. TOGETHER WE KILL. TOGETHER WE FEED."

It'll carry a good long way, Bella has a strong voice. Whether it reaches the ears of any potential members of a hunting party will just have to be seen. She'll be sitting outside the sensoriums waiting for a bit, sitting and looking excited. So, ship, have a wolf in a podsuit!

(OOC: Feel free to come talk to the howly wolf! If you're going to join in on the hunt, please keep to one thread for better organization!)

Sharp Tongue's been avoiding the city since she woke up. It's instinctive for a raptor. The buildings, the streets, it's all very human and therefore not something that makes her feel welcome. To make matters worse, it's larger and far more sophisticated than the settlement she knew from the edge of her tribe's territory.

But still, it does demand her investigation if no one is going to stop her from poking around. She is a shaman and there are strange, unknown things. It's her duty to look.

The raptor stalks along the city's streets, claws clicking on stone and concrete and other forms of alien paving, head weaving back and forth in a wary fashion, and a stream of soft muttering going meant for her ears alone.

"Strange place. Very empty. No prey. No hunters. No plants. No life..."

It's not just broken. The brokenness of this place was obvious from the first step she'd taken into the city. No, this is all dead.

(OOC: Sharp Tongue's wandering all over the city. Feel free to dictate where you come across her if you want.)

Wags honestly did not want to do things this way. But the raptor was never going to shut up unless he did. Which is why he was walking into the Sensoriums in full-blown Crinos mode, bat in one hand, resting on his shoulder, and gym bag slung over the other.

"Deinonychus, come out to play-ee-ay!"

Sharp Tongue has everything she owns spread out in a corner of the Obs Deck, where she's hovering over it jealously and arranging it with loving care as she makes sure it's all in order. The entire contents of her shaman's bag, and the bag itself, are here. Strange pastes and dried herbs and oddly shaped bits of stone, bone, and occasionally metal. Tools. All the mixtures and some dry ingredients are contained in various ways. Glass bottles are frequent, most of these in still-usable pieces with the few that are whole and stoppered containing some kind of mysterious liquid. Also common are things that at least appear to be the round bowls formed by the insides of broken skulls. Something whitish and about the consistency of cold butter is held in a sizable sea shell.

The bag itself is designed to hang across Sharp Tongue's back and against her left side, it's made of thick brown triceratops hide. Strange sigils have been apparently branded into it, usually in three claw slash motif. There are smears of paint in similar markings across it, in yellow and white and red. Hanging from the edges of the bag are teeth, feathers, and some claws. The biggest of these are two velociraptor hunting talons near the front.

It's a grisly assortment of things and doesn't smell all that great, but they all clearly seem to have a meaning to Sharp Tongue.

She's muttering to herself indistinctly as she goes over them, occasionally growling or hissing. She appears to have restored her body paint, having drawn long white and red slashed up and down her sides and legs, and a few across the muzzle for good measure. They're not sacred paint and they weren't done by Narrow Face, but they will have to do.

Team November, report to the Precinct immediately.

Javert is not particularly skilled with the omnicom,  but he's double and triple-checked the short message and is fairly sure everything is correct and clear by the usual standards, cursing the small, awkward keypad.

He stands firmly outside the Precinct, ideally easy to spot, for once not lurking in the background but allowing his height and stature to make him a clear and obvious landmark, and waits for his team to find him. He's fairly sure it won't be that difficult.

Red Snout roamed the halls of the ship, muttering to himself. His attempt to win leadership had failed (failed!) against the old human, who had proved more formidable then he expected.  It was no shame to lose, he knew, not against a chief (he knew now why the old one was chief. He was wily, tricky and even possessed some physical strength) but the humans did not see it that way, he could tell. They laughed at him. And the one thing Red Snout hated was to be laughed at. He was a skilled warrior, a good hunter, and enjoyed a decent position of respect at home. Here? Here he was a stranger among strangers, made even more different by the fact that he was a raptor and not human.

It angered him so to be laughed at. He must rectify his humiliation, he decided, and soon. Preferably by beating up another crew member where others could see and then they would know his abilities were not a joke. Then they would know why the Swiftclaw tribe had lived in the same land for generation on generation, why nobody, not even a T-rex, had driven them from their hunting grounds. Yes, they would learn to respect Red Snout.

"Stupid humans..."

For the newbies, there are people waiting for them in the Obs Deck. A whole gaggle of people. Behind them is the nasty statue, and the beautiful sight through the windows of the stars streaming past and the swirling vortex of collars that was interdimensional travel.

There are more questions than answers, but the crew is willing to help, especially the Command Staff and greeters.