Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ao the Overkitty" data-source="post: 2816417" data-attributes="member: 9758">Synopsis of 7/04/05 Session“Episode 1 - Dead or Alive” - Second SessionSynopsis of 7/04/05 SessionWe returned from commercial break with the crew stumbling about amid the chaos of the recent explosion.  There was carnage everywhere.  People were crying, screaming, and bleeding.  Mort ignored it all and ducked into the Tattooed Man’s tent.  A large beam had fallen upon the tent, collapsing the front half of it.  Inside, the Tattooed Man was laying on the ground unconscious.  The beam was lying across his legs, trapping him.  Mort quickly rifled the man’s pockets and belongings, pilfering a few platinum and a ham sandwich.  Out front, Take, Daniel, and Campan were taking stock of the situation.  Parents were desperately hunting for their children among the smoke and wreckage.  Some people were working to free trapped loved ones from underneath the rubble.  Take stood over the barker, who now sported some facial burns and head trauma, pretty much ignoring him.  Mort called Take into the tent.Take entered to find Mort munching upon a sandwich.  Take looked over the Tattooed man and noticed his legs had been crushed.  He’d need some serious medical attention in order to retain his legs; much more than this little world could provide.  Daniel called over the walkie-talkie to Asta to find out their ETA while Campan kept an eye out.  Looking out at the crowd, Daniel begrudgingly removed his coat as well, not wanting to look like he was a target for the crowd’s aggression.Asta and Jasp wove their way through the wreckage and people.  They passed an older farmer clutching the body of a woman as they saw a few people had enough coherence to start dragging wounded towards one of the large tents to act as a triage center.  Asta was ushered around back into the Tattooed Man’s tent when she arrived.  After applying tourniquets to the man’s legs, the others lifted the beam off of him.  With a mild stimulant, The Tattooed Man was brought back to consciousness.  Daniel was quickly able to get out of him that the Barker, Bob, was the one who had the money and the hiding place for the goods.Rushing outside, Mort and Take found the Barker still had a pulse.  Asta followed and found the man had some facial burns, cranial swelling, and a mild concussion.  She was able to fix him up good.  Mort made up a couple stretchers.  The crew dropped the Tattooed Man off at the triage center with Asta and Jasp and the others brought Bob back to the Orasca.Asta found the triage tent in a poorly managed state.  She quickly took over and set it up moving smoothly.  A couple of hours later, Bob woke up and had a conversation with Mort and Daniel.  He basically said that it was a bit too hot right now to move the cargo and they should wait for things to die down to make the transfer.  The crew acted like they wanted to bolt, but Bob pointed out that their ship was very likely already landlocked (it was).  They then wanted to move the cargo off the ship, which Bob pointed out that the area was crawling with Feds.  If the cargo was found in the hold of the ship, then, well… the crew is transient.  If it was found on the way to his hiding space, he lives here and therefore would be screwed.  Bob made it clear that he was not wanted by the Alliance for anything and was looking to keep it that way.Back in town, Jasp was standing guard over the triage tent.  He watched as a crowd milled about in the open area.  Some were trying to clean up and some were still moving wreckage.  Most, however, were just angry and frustrated.  Jasp was able to overhear a man with corporal stripes (Grayson) talking with the butch woman with Lieutenant stripes (Quillan) from earlier.  He was talking about having run the factory manifest through the cortex and one of the workers got flagged for a suspicious background.  Jasp wasn’t the only one that overheard this conversation, though.  People started talking about a browncoat who worked with them, but never drank with them.  It wasn’t long till the crowd starts yelling, “We’ve got ‘em!”  Jasp found it very hard to see into the crowd.  As he climbed on top of an outhouse, he heard cries of, “Murderous Independent!”  Jasp could now see that it was a roughed up man in a brown coat like many of the crew wear.A shot rang out into the air and the crowd backed up a few feet from the man.  Lt. Quillan lowered her gun and stepped up to the man.  Looking him over, she called out to the crowd.Lieutenant Quillan: It’s not him.  We know who the culprit is and he's no longer in town. He's taken a land shuttle.  There's a bounty for whoever captures this guy.  400 credits will go to the one who captures him, but he has to be brought in alive. If anyone harms the target they'll face Alliance justice. Every available ship in port is now under my control. Alliance personnel and volunteers will be assigned to each in order to go after and apprehend the target. Captains please report to Corporal Grayson.When Jasp relayed this info, Campan and Take headed off towards town.  Campan tried to pretend he was the captain of the Orasca, but they’ve got Take on file as the captain from when the ship landed.  Take quickly dismissed Campan as a little off and low on the totem poll.  Take was approached by Quillan and told she would be accompanying him on the ship, along with three others.  She handed Take a paper and told him that was the target and to be ready to go by oh-one-hundred.Take recognized the target as Private Declan Everton, a kid who served on the Grieving Lark (Daniel's ship back during the war).  When this info was brought back to the Daniel, he remembered Everton better.  He was a man so by the book he’d get upset if someone pissed without getting an officer’s approval to leave.  He even wanted to write Mort up for smoking and because he wouldn’t shave.  Daniel, Mort, and Take seemed torn on what to do.  They weren’t sure if they wanted to bollocks up their mission with the Lieutenant on board or actively find him so they could escape or what.  Mort began ‘sabotaging’ the ship by disconnecting several parts and making a few areas where ‘accidents’ could happen to Alliance personnel can happen onboard.Meanwhile, the crew was checking in with Asta on if she’d be able to accompany them on the search.  She heard a commotion outside with people yelling about having gotten him free and calling for a doctor.  Asta met them when they enter the tent.  Two Alliance soldiers burst in carrying a stretcher with a man on it.  Grayson hovered next to them, switching back and forth between looking for a doctor and attending to the man on the stretcher.  Commander Tanaka appeared to be in a great deal of pain.  He had his arm wrapped around his stomach, but was still issuing orders.  Grayson told Asta that he had been trapped under the wreckage and he needed help.  He then scurried off after Tanaka ordered him to bring him a status report.  Asta quickly assessed that he likely had a lot of internal injuries and was going to require more equipment than was here in the tent.  She sent Jasp off with a list for Mort to collect from the medbay and bring back.  She then started to work on stabilizing him.  Mort packaged up the equipment in a box and sent Jasp back, making sure he locked Jasp in his room while collecting the items and making a box.While trying to stabilize him, Asta convinced Grayson and Quillan to hold off the departure of the Orasca for an hour so she can accompany them.  Quillan really didn’t like this, but agreed.Tanaka had a nasty habit of drifting in and out of consciousness.  When he was awake, he demanded reports from Grayson.  One particular report that was brought to him was the fact that the man they were chasing was a private in the war on the side of the Independents.Tanaka (difficulty breathing): Damn brown coats. Should've wiped out when had chance.He then drifted off back into unconsciousness from the pain.Quillan arrived at the Orasca with three other shortly before one in the morning.  Two of them were skeevy looking bounty hunter types; one with a sleek and shiny rifle (Jonah) and the other with an electric crossbow (Mather).  The third was a farmer type in his late fifties with a shotgun strapped to his back.  Jonah and Mather looked over the outside of the Orasca while Take greets Quillan.Jonah: Well, shoot, doubt this piece of rustin' dust would be able to find a stick of dynamite up a donkey's ass.Take took great offense at this and insulted him back, then Daniel told Quillan they didn’t need him onboard.  Jonah backed down and apologized. (Admittedly, Mort had been taking the past couple hours to junk up the ship).  Jonah, Mather, and the farmer were led onboard and stuck in the cargobay.  Quillan then informed Take that they’ll be leaving an hour later because of their doctor and will that they would be patrolling the north sector.A rumbling was heard from the tent as ships start taking off.  A shiny Alliance shuttle rose, followed by three spaceships of various shapes and sizes, none of them particularly elegant or new. All the ships went off in different directions.Almost an hour later, Asta realizes she wasn’t going to finish Tanaka anytime soon.  Since he did have a lot of internal bleeding and she didn’t have an x-ray on hand, she was forced to operate.  She managed to cauterize one laceration and was trying to reroute a crushed artery when she decided she wanted him back in her medbay.  She knew moving him was risky, but she had decided, damn it!  She got some people to clear a place for the Orasca to land and radioed for them to move to pick them up.  She had to convince some officers that it was imperative for his survival that he was back on the ship.  Jasp packed up the equipment and they transferred Tanaka to the Orasca.  Quillan was just happy to get underway.  One of Tanaka’s attendants tried to accompany them onto the ship, but Daniel tricked him off and Mort shut the door.Bob was still in the medbay, sitting around and relaxing as he healed.  They never actually gave him a chance to get off ship, just made sure Daniel had a cover story for why he was on the ship (old childhood friends).  Bob played along.Daniel also tried to get info out of Quillan about why they were chasing this person.  It boiled down to the fact that he ran, had a suspicious background, and ‘it just felt right.’  Quillan commented that her instincts were usually pretty dead on.  She also commented that her instincts told her Daniel wasn’t telling her everything.The Orasca took off at a seriously diminished speed, due to ‘engine trouble.’  By now the other ships had located Declan’s land shuttle and were in pursuit, though about an hour behind it.  A while out, Take noticed that, for the past twenty minutes, the shuttle’s flight pattern had been continuously repeating.  Every zig, every zag.  It was a bit too precise for a human to be at the wheel.  Mort ‘fixed’ the engine problems and the Orasca sped up.Asta had done a spinal block on Tanaka to keep the pain gone and him more at peace.  She was still trying to get his bleeding under control when he awoke again.Tanaka (a little loopy): Pain gone.Asta just nodded.Tanaka (still loopy):   What give me? She told him she had done a spinal block so he wouldn’t feel the pain.Tanaka (loopy):   Fancy technique for border doctor.Asta shrugged.Tanaka (looks around):   Not to mention tools.  Who are you? Asta ignored the question and continued to work.  Tanaka kept asking her.  With no one to stop her, she blindfolded and gagged him.  His face turned red in anger over this.  Getting all riled over this was not good for his condition.Once the Orasca got to the point where they believed Declan had jumped ship, Mort faked some engine problems and they were forced to land.  Saying it’d take him a few weeks to get things fixed, Campan and Daniel decided to take a walk.  Quillan and company followed.  Mort, Take, and Jasp went outside as well (Mort to tweak the engines and Take to look around).Somewhere in between taking off and landing, Campan explained to Jasp that these people weren’t aliens, but they could work or were working for the aliens.Mather noticed a trail about the same time Take noticed some bent branches.  Mort and Take stayed behind while the others went off following the trail.  At one point, Mather noticed the tracks go off one way while Campan noticed them go off another.  After some discussion, the group split into Campan, Daniel, Quillan, and Jonah following Campan’s tracks while Jasp, Mather, and the farmer following Mather’s tracks.Campan’s tracks led them to a briar patch while Mather’s tracks stopped at a tree.  Mather was slightly confused by this and, since he wasn’t good at climbing trees, asked Jasp to do it.  Jasp wasn’t good at it either and said the farmer should do it.  The farmer just moved up to the tree, pulled his shotgun off of his back, and shot up into the tree.  When nothing fell, he shrugged.For some strange reason, Jasp took this as a sign that these people needed to be dealt with.  He raised his two big pistols and aimed them towards Mather and the farmer.  Mather had a look of complete shock on his face as a bullet went through his heart and he collapsed to the ground, dead.  The farmer was able to start to turn around before Jasp shot him dead.  Standing over the two bodies, Jasp put his guns away and took Mather’s crossbow.  He then radioed Daniel saying that he had spotted the fugitive and was giving chase.When Daniel heard the shotgun, he asked Quillan, “I thought you specified you wanted him alive.”  She confirmed that.  When the two pistol shots were heard in rapid succession a few moments later, Quillan looked at the others and said, “Let’s go.”Finding the scene wasn’t too hard.  With the look of surprise still etched on Mather’s face, the farmer down as well, the crossbow missing, and the shot pellets imbedded in the tree nowhere near Jasp, Daniel had no problem piecing together what had happened.  He could also see that Quillan was heading towards the same conclusions and would likely know it all once she investigated further.  He immediately tried to throw her off with a couple of observations, though it was clear none of the crew were sure what they were going to do now.Fade to Black</blockquote>

Verification