[OPEN to civilians] mod plot | sacking of olympus: merchants' voyage

[unplug]

CHARACTERS ▶ Civilians aboard the Dowager
LOCATION ▶ The Gates of Olympus, at least to start with
SUMMARY ▶ Entry text features several backtag-friendly hooks that summarize 48 hours of travel and the arrival to Olympus. Feel free to start your own threads! Two more threadstarters will be added: 1) the 'sacrifice' thread, as the RNG was completed tonight (6/15/15) and Kitty was selected; and 2) the debate among crew and passengers of the Dowager about what to do before the Zion Defense Grid arrives.
WARNINGS ▶ PG-13 to R for non-graphic descriptions of violence
NOTES ▶ This is the civilian part of the Sacking of Olympus plot.

▶ Sacking of Olympus Part I

Travel Time ◀

[It's only a two-day journey, and these civvie hauls are very different from any Zion Defense Grid mission. To the taste of most people, it is considerably more pleasant. Sure, the Dowager is small, but you get used to close quarters in Zion. The crew is small and accustomed to their diversity of roles; passengers only have to share rooms if they're cheaping out, and it's not hard to find a bit of engine crawlspace or a crate serviceable to sit on in the supply hold, if you desperately want privacy.

For those who mind company less, Bullet sits them down to dinner both nights, pretends not to notice Old Man Willow tipping moonshine into every willing cup, asks lots of questions but not the kind that would bother most people, obviously just looking for an opportunity to tell stories. She's shipped out to Olympus seven times in the past year, thinks it's gonna make her rich. She warns Anya that Antiochian kids are going to be the real bastards for discipline, but somehow the Irkallans are the most beaten-up to look at, will fall quiet at the faintest sharpening of a word. Perhaps misunderstanding, she gets into telling Stephen all about the beautiful boys that came into Olympus last month, before inquiring savvily with Benji about the cost of a custom crew tattoo, you know, like a logo, and she's already got some good ideas, not noticing her pilot Xerxes making throat-cutty-no-no motions behind her.

Bullet doesn't prod Bloom and Driver too much, but she ends up asking Kitty how old she is and if she prefers blonds or brunettes, so. that's. weird. she doesn't even drink.

The best part is probably the food. For one thing, it's not the infamous ZDG protein slop; for another, Bullet has no objections to Willow asking Kitty for advice or a helping hand in the narrow galley. He explains that they take a quarter of their fees from produce and food supplies. The time passes quickly, and after the first day, even Xerxes, Willow, and the taciturn gearhead Quartz start to get to talking too, about the constellation of farm lights in Kosala, vegan silk, pirate gore, and of course-- Olympus.]

Final Destination ◀

[Most of the subterranean human civilizations of Earth are like Zion, fortified holes in the ground, like massive burrows that bear little resemblence to the cities of old.

Not Olympus. This section of sewer system had run through miles of intermingled granite and limestone, which no doubt would have been converted to a mine at some point in the impending decades. That is, you know, if humankind hadn't suddenly and spectacularly lost the war. Olympus is a city in the old style, taking advantage of the massive series of inter-linked caverns that ancient sewer engineers had created long ago. Neighborhoods consist of squat, simple, but strong buildings bricked out of coarsely hewn stones, its boulevards in concentric circles emanating from a central square. Mines and processing factories are cordoned off into neat industrial sections, like wedges of a pie between the newer residential areas. There's no farmland and every boulevard is lit as artificially as the next human settlement, but it had its austere, nostalgic loveliness.

Had.

From the city's open gates, the Dowager passengers can see that the light rising from the city is too orange for electric lamp-light. Something's very wrong. Of course, there had been signs earlier: no response to the hails on the comms. Then the wreckage. If the bulbous, black drones scattered below her front lights aren't telltale sign enough, there are also broken APUs, damaged barricade tech, an exploded transport there, and a couple human corpses so thoroughly dusted over they're almost indistinguishable from the ruined metal.

You'll have to be at a port side window, to be the first one to notice the blood-red sign REAPER painted on an upturned chassis, right before Bullet gives the order.] Turn off the goddamn lights! [She hisses, her voice already bitten back with restraint, despite that nothing functional seems to be within range of auditory detection, and these drones don't look as efficient for the hunt as Sentinels.] We're going cold, now. Xerxes, take us--

--On it, ma'am. [And at the same time the ubiquitous mumble of the engines abruptly cuts down to near-silent, the Dowager's lights go out.

Except for the eerie firelight glowing through the bridge viewport, and the faint swarm of insectoid silhouettes high above the city skyline. The pilot ducks the Dowager down behind a mound of rubble still bristling with sparking electrical wire, in hopes the guttering remains will provide cover and disguise their residual heat signature. At first, those in the bow might think the fritz of electronics outside is throwing static into Xerxes' comms console, but it's not too long before the educated tech can tell: there's something jamming their signals.]

Comments

[nightride]

[We're dark, Benji says, and the hollow of dumb shock just under his ribs fills with something cold, blossoms outward, tightens every muscle it touches, a wash of tingling up the back of his scalp. He can feel the clarity of his newly adrenalized gaze, though it's useless. This tactic, going dark, he's used it before, but on a much smaller scale and in much smaller vehicles—apparently it feels a lot different when you're not behind the wheel. Also, the cops in his neighbourhood didn't usually rip your shit apart with telescopic limbs. So that's an added concern.

All he can offer in reply is the soft sound of fabric moving, the sense of his body's shape rising calmly before her, and remaining there in tense readiness.]

[cestrumnocturnum]

[ Benji has her own associations, but in truth, she's been on these hovercrafts enough times that that her association is now native. Still, there will always be little memories -- twisting the valve on a lantern with the water quiet and inky, or hiding beneath the floor with dust and spiders. Even then, that had felt more like something from the animal kingdom, predator and prey. The machines were so different. And she has only heard stories.

There's the soft, if clumsy sound of her placing down tea wherever seems convenient and available. Her breathing isn't quicker, but it is a little louder, the only give away that she's stood at all.

They wait there, waiting for god knows what.

Then, the sound of boot falls. Two sets. Crew moving, headed the same direction. ]

The bridge?

[nightride]

Yeah.

[Probably, he means, but an economy of syllables feels wise, even if it isn't entirely necessary. Is it like a submarine, like in a movie, where one cough could kill them all? Probably not, or people wouldn't be moving around the hallway. Maybe there's some auxiliary glow out there, but it's dark as hell in here—he'd better mind his feet so he doesn't go tripping over another, less important, power cord.

He turns his head toward where he thinks Benji is, aware of the minute muscular confusion as his eyes try to focus on anything, find nothing.]

Let's go.