The Most Dangerous Game IV: Flight

Posted on Mon May 28th, 2018 @ 11:56pm by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray & Lieutenant Commander Selune
Edited on on Mon May 28th, 2018 @ 11:57pm

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Past Tense
Location: Risa, Ohma Province, private cabin #7
Timeline: 2265

Fiona stood looking down at her friend for a long moment. "Laird, boot yer in a sad state." She let Char rest while she set about repacking her friend a bag to take with them and went to gather her own things. She took Teague with her and made sure he had plenty of food and water - she co-opted her favorite Ensign Riley to check in on the beast while she was away.

Leaving a message for Yuna, she put her contact information out for Riley including the communicator coords where they could be reached in the event of an emergency. She poked around a bit raiding her personal stash of home treats then added a handful of movies and her guitar and bodhran to her already burgeoning luggage and headed back to wake and dress the tipsy giantess with it trailing behind her on a small hover cart..

Selune's communicator beeped, "We're almost ready to head yer way," the engineer said then left the communicator open, "Ready whenever you are, got a few weird looks when I declined to file an accurate flightplan but I think they're getting used to it," the snowy Caitian replied.

"Ha! Sucks tae be them. I gave my aide our location, boot he kins better than tae give it oot unless it's an emergency," Fiona said, then poked the Vulcan again. "McCray oot... oooh... I'm bringin suim muir dried squid and wasabi peas," she said helpfully before she gave Char another gentle poke and shake.

"Come on Char... rise and shine... yer being kidnapped."

Charybdis woke neither quickly nor gracefully, as while she attempted to swat at the offending poking finger, she uncurled herself sufficiently to unbalance herself and fall off the bed with a series of drunken thumps. She sat up and groaned, holding her head then shaking it to clear it as Fiona tried unsuccessfully not to laugh at her. Levering herself up onto her feet awkwardly with her ass in the air, her grip on the bed slipped and she planted herself face first into the covers, then slowly reeled her body back in and brought herself erect, if somewhat unsteadily.

Shuffling drunkenly into the bathroom, she rebounded off of the door frame once with a muffled "ow" before actually achieving passage into the bathroom and the relief that awaited her there. Afterward, she groped her way to the sink to splash some water on her face and rouse herself. After the short nap she seemed surprisingly refreshed, and considerably more at peace. The tall scientist was quiet, and she still stumbled quite a bit, but she smiled and cooperated until it dawned on her that she had no idea what they were doing.

"So we're packing... where are we going again? Did I miss that part?" she inquired with her usual pleasant demeanor.

Fi grunted as she struggled to shut a suitcase. She fished out the ever present PDD and thumbed up the information before tossing it to Char, who fumbled it but managed to clutch it to her bosom rather than drop it. She smiled sheepishly at the engineer then looked down to see the images onscreen.

"Cabin... laird... ye catch like a girl" Fi groused good-naturedly.

"Part of my thing they screwed up... usually it is because my brain works faster than my fingers, but right now I'm still pretty drunk. Woooooo." the comely commander looked through the photos and smiled. "This looks very pretty... like the Sierra Madre mountains on Earth?"

"Aye... I was feelin tha need fer some hills," Fiona said with a smile. "I ken you enjoy beaches boot I figured going to yer place would be awkward at best soooo I had the space already. I'd be rattlin round like a pea in a can. Selune's coming with and she's gonna fly us duin."

The tall temptress pushed Fi's suitcase closed with a firm application of body mass and one strong hand, enabling Fiona to close the clasps, then she slowly and gently hugged the diminutive engineer.

"Thanks Fi... for everything. You're a lifesaver... I really, really appreciate this." Chary pulled back and held the scot at arm's length to smile at her, then she stumbled slightly. She was functioning, but she still had a blood alcohol level that could drop a company.

"Careful there... nae worries. Tis what friends are for, Char," Fiona steadied her then smiled.

"I'm starting to learn that," she replied with a smile. Moving to her closet she pulled out a somewhat thick olive sweater dress with a large loose cowlneck and slipped it over her head, which abbreviated it considerably. She pulled on her duty boots to go with it and ran her brush through her hair. "I don't imagine I'll need much... just a few days in a cabin with the habitual overpacker. But I'll bring my communicator, just... just in case he calls."

The look that she gave Fiona begged not to be judged, and instead she just sighed.

"Okay... aye, bring it... boot dinna hold yer breath oor check it every 5 minutes!" Fiona shook a finger at her friend and teased, "and fer your information, I dinna oover pack. I joost like to be prepared! It's mostly spare food and a few bits and bobs. I'm bringin me guitar and bodhran joost fer laughs... ooh and suim movies," the scott rattled off a list of things that could have stocked a small colonizing expedition admirably. Evidently the tiny woman could fold time and space because there was no way half of that could have possibly fit on the nifty little hover pallet she was using.

"Well, it sounds like a lovely weekend in store, and it beats laying on the floor crying over..." she sighed at that, and while she was moving, it was clear that the wound was still there, and that she felt it quite keenly whenever she stumbled across it. But she did not burst into wailing nor did she curl back up... instead she fixed a small pained smile to her face that fooled no one and tears slipped down her face as she worked to help out, and between the two of them they got the pallet squared away quickly.

"Laird, Captain Mongo is nae worth spending a perfectly guid weekend crying on tha floor oover," Fi expressed with a grimace. "Nurse tha broken heart boot save a whole weekend oov tears for tha next one who will be a mooch muir worthy source oov agony... "

"Mongo? I don't understand the reference, but really, Fiona, you don't know him like I do. And he's still our captain and we have to respect him and be professional..." The words were chiding but softly spoken.

The scottish spitfire rolled her eyes. "Ach, I'm gettin it oot oov me system before I have tae behave like a proper Star Fleet officer. He behaved poorly and made my friend cry so in these private walls and off this ship oot oov uniform...I get to mock him. It's part oov tha sisterhood code."

"Why you want complicate with talk? Mongo just want Snu Snu! Mongo deep, you just not see. Mongo too busy to call, why you hassle Mongo? Mongo big ol...pawn in game of love," The deep sonorous and somewhat silly-sounding voice that came out of the tiny engineer was completely incongruent with her proportions, but it did make her heartbroken friend giggle and wipe away her tears, so her mission was accomplished.

Fi powered up the cart, and the small sled hovered up. "Alreet! Off fer a peaceful weekend in tha mountains! We kin make smores an I'll introduce you two tae tha work oov genius thet is Mel Brooks!"

With only a slight stumble, the heartsick hottie fell in step behind her friend. She wondered if he was still in the bungalow she had wanted to share with him, and what he was doing, and if he was thinking of her... and if he missed her. She still entertained some small hope that he might change his mind and come or call for her, but it grew smaller with each passing hour that he did no such thing, and there was a very small part of her that was beginning to accept that he would not.

The rest of her still hurt in a way that a lifetime of agonizing pains and tortures had not prepared her, and inside her mind she spent her time questioning everything she had said or done, analyzing every exchanged word spoken, and fretting over whether she had made the right choices. Outwardly she continued working very hard not to burst back out into tears.

The trip to the shuttle bay area was quick but enlightening. Fiona kept up a stream of chatter about inconsequential work related things, nothing that overtaxed Char to respond to it or that had anything to do with the captain. The tiny woman also greeted every crewman that they passed with a smile or and a hello, even a pair of janitors. She knew their names and enough about them to make the greeting at least seem personal.

When they got to the shuttlebay Fiona paused long enough to have a quick conversation with 'some of her lads' as she called them. There was a spirited debate over the trim little raider's paint job and for a moment it looked like they were going to have to physically haul Fi away from the plans and tools but she finally signed off on a couple of things and came on along peacefully.
It looked like the Caitian was going to get her reactive paint job. The lads were arguing over how to do it and how many options other than pink there would be.

The little hover pallet made loading their gear into the boxy Starfleet shuttlecraft easy. They just had to pilot it into the storage area and lock it down. The thing had been rigged with an ingenious magnetic locking mechanism on the sides and bottom. When asked, Fi shook her head and said with a great deal of pride, "Ah, no... this is me Mum's work. She's still working on getting it through tha patent offices. She an' Angus built that first one... we all kind oov added bits to it. With 6 kids movin' could be a reet chore. I think she developed it oot oov self defense."

The pointy-eared pretty leaned against the hull of the Jupiter for a moment, pressing her forehead to the cool aluminum hull. Internally she continued to chide herself, and worked to focus on something else. "Your mother sounds like an amazing woman, Fiona... what's she like?"

Fiona chuckled "Mum's... a force oov nature," she smiled fondly, "you're goin tae loov her. Everyone does. She keeps us all in line and manages tae make everything fun. She and Da are the best parents. They kept a firm hand on us boot let us... um... suss things oot for ourselves." Fi went on to describe her mother, painting the woman with broad colorful strokes and ending up with someone who was a cross between Mother Weasley and Red Sonja with a bit of MacGyver thrown into the mix.

"No really....she stabbed the man with a screwdriver right through his sack!" Fiona exclaimed as the punchline to an anecdote about her mother. It apparently had never occurred to her that the apple had not fallen far from the tree at all.

From the enthusiasm she displayed in speaking of them and the animated light in her eyes when she spoke it was quite clear that the little engineer idolized her parents. Her father she doted on, but her mother she was friends with in addition to being a daughter. Bonnie McCray was the type of woman who baked cookies on a reactor and repaired doll arms while she tuned an engine.

The reformed Romulan listened with rapt attention, a faraway look in her eyes. Fiona's childhood had been the polar opposite of Char's . It was filled with family and bedtime stories, homemade cookies and love. "Sometimes we were a mite lean... there were so bluidy many oov us and that cavern thet we call an ancestral home takes a boonch oov upkeep. Boot we nivver lacked in love."

It was a perfect day for flying down below in the area of the planet where they were headed. The weather report was clear and the spacelane was pretty much wide open. Fiona dropped in to one of the rear seats and belted in.That's something the Caitian had noticed the first time she'd taken one of the Bonnie's shuttles out. Most of the shuttles had been modified to include seat harnesses. Charybdis eased herself into one of the rear seats as well and belted in, resting her chin on her fingers, lost in thought.

Taking the shuttle smoothly out of the bay and into space, Selune put them into the most obvious arc for a decent straight back to the resort. Waiting until they were almost at the atmosphere before sliding back a panel on her console and killing the communications, tracking and location systems, idly wondering what her passengers would think of the small modification, she then flipped the shuttle into an oblique descent towards the co-ordinates Fi had given her. They would still be easily picked up from the ship if they went scanning but for now they were ideally invisible, for at least a small while.

The sun was beginning to set over the Omha Mountains as the Shuttlecraft Jupiter banked in toward the space-age cabin atop Mount Ash. It was autumn in this hemisphere, so the leaves were just beginning to turn colors, and as the golden rays of the sun traveling through the thickest of the atmosphere reached the landscape it illuminated it brilliantly, even as the valleys filled with deep pooling shadows.

Selune circled the cabin once to look it over and select the best possible landing site, and decided that the side of the cabin with solid walls had the best possibility. Since loading and unloading wouldn't be much of a chore, it also appealed to her aesthetically that it would not be a part of the vista. As much as she enjoyed piloting shuttles, she didn't particularly care to see it squatting there and suspected that her friends would not either - the marauder, once it had its paint job, would be another story entirely.

"This is your pilot speaking," Selune stated clearly in the approved public transport and tour guide fashion, "We have arrived at our destination and will unload shortly, if you are inebriated or otherwise unable to really help, our overly excitable engineer will see to you shortly. Thank you for flying with Escape Airways, we look forward to seeing you in the future," the excitable engineer gave her friend a good-natured raspberry and a rude hand gesture and laughed, "Bonny landing Puss... as usual."

"Can you believe I once considered flying tourists around Cait for a living? Feh," Selune muttered as she unstrapped herself from the chair and went to help unload.

"Oh aye with that announcers voice ye did you wuid have been a success boot what a waste it wuid have been. Yer meant fer tha stars, Selune."

 

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