Sairi [5] looks around, patting any flat surfaces for hollowness or hidden cabinets. There seems to be a lot of empty sockets where new information panels could slot it, but they are mostly dusty with a rectangular outline, as if there used to be panels there yet no more.
Vicky ... used to be a fine ship. She was ... well, she was something special. She had all the tools you could think of. All of them. But time passes, and time is the worst enemy for a high tech ship. In her time she was one of the most powerful steam boats in the Second Ocean, but now... well, she's nothing but another passenger ship which just happens to have a lot of cannons. And flak guns. And a firing robot. And a very important mission.[3] So no, Vicky has only the bare necessities. The pilot boards and the gauges. But the good thing is you can add more panels and sensors and gadgets and whatnot. You just need to have them. Installing them's as easy as one, two, three.Vicky sails straight in the night, her lights doused, hidden by the darkness. Below, the blue moon shines on the choppy surface of the Second Ocean, rippling, staring. Her attackers were left far behind, and unless they got a thousand cheetah souls slaving away in unison, they won't be catching up to Vicky on full steam. Of course, that's assuming Vicky doesn't flip over before dawn.
Luther decides to remedy this issue.
[1]+1 Now, jury-rigging and fixing are both his specialties, but this case is a bit hard. It's like trying to block a river with sand. Whatever he tries, it all just undoes itself and floats away. He climbs back up to the deck, triple-checking his safety ropes, and sits down for a think.
Doc saunters towards the Airborne Warehouse Vicky has in her belly.
[4] He doesn't find a welder (those are expensive! Besides, what use would a wooden ship have in welding?), but he does find a pressurized nail driver. He charges up the small portable tank it has, though 'small' is clearly relative, as it has its own wheels to move it around and apparently weighs a quarter ton full, and uses the freight elevator to move it upwards. He hands Luther the long hose the gun has and a small (again, relative) pack of nails.
Luther tries again.
[6]+1+1 Well, this time he fastens bits of scrap lying around to the various holes. Though it's a patchy solution, they won't be crashing any time soon. Vicky has to be careful, as the crude solution is far from the ideal that is welding, or even a whole new hold, which is severely expensive.
Jameson [6] packs every bit of coal in the stash under the plank into the hopper. He is dusty with coal, but the hopper won't run out.
Of course, if fire occurs, it'll all burn up in a second or two, what with the coal dust settled everywhere.
Roland quickly scribbles out his character card's skills area and rewrites it. He isn't able to join in quite yet
*.
Eunh [2] is unable to see what happens. The ship quickly draws away, as it doesn't have enough speed to keep up with Vicky, but it seems to be drooping heavily towards the rear. The night swallows up the ship again, the identity of those onboard an unknown.
The firing robot powers down, its clicking clockwork quieting to a tiny, intermittent
tick ,
tock.
The night grows older. The blue moon rises, striving to emulate the Sun and its everlasting radiance but ending up with just a pale shadow of what the Sun is. The white moon is not visible tonight, and the red moon is trailing the blue moon into the sky. The positions tell
Sairi that tonight won't be smooth sailing, that with minimum hazards.
When the red moon rises, magic is weaker. When the blue moon rises, magic is stronger. When both move together, the most uncanny things can happen. Ever see a coin land on its side? Well, it happens during color moon rising. You could swear by the three Oceans and the Mother Earth that something could never happen to you, but it does.Lost in his reverie, he suddenly sees a shimmer to starboard, nearly out of his range of sight, a bank of stationary, yet rolling grey clouds. It triggers a dim memory, one from his childhood, one of spooky stories in a heavy rain by a fire.
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Topic: Steam Ship Vicky—Compensation Thrusters Optional (Read 11194 times)