Chapter 1: A Brave New World
Chapter 1: A Brave New World
Author: riyku
Rating: pg
Pairing: none yet, but potentially everybody/everybody (except Chad, probably)
Word Count: 1,700
Summary: In which the dread pirate JDM and his crew encounter a wormhole.
"The moral of the story," Jeff starts, then grits his teeth though a bone-rattling crash, "is that you should never trust a eunuch." The ship takes another hit, the fourth in rapid succession. Stars shudder on the view screen, begin to blur as the ship's tailspin picks up speed.
"Should there be a moral?" Chad asks. "A moral seems kinda unnecessary, given our current predicament. And leave my balls out of this." He's squinting at the read-out on the nav-com, or he could be just looking at it normally. Jeff's not sure. It's anyone's guess really. An alarm starts blaring and a chunk of the ceiling falls in with a shower of sparks, and Chad squints up at that as well.
"Starboard thrusters are shot, Cap," Felicia tells him.
Jeff looks down at his feet, or more specifically the three inches of thin air between the soles of his boots and the deck. "I'm starting to feel a little light over here, kiddo."
"Then I suggest you sit down." Alaina slides in beside him, toes barely on the ground and gives him a quick shove into his seat. "Strap yourself in tight."
Jeff grunts, thinks about how he's losing control of his own damn vessel in a way that's both literal and metaphoric. Pitching his voice a register higher to sound like his navigator, Jeff says, "There's a shortcut, he said. Slingshot around Gilese-six, he said. We'll be kicking back with cervesas on a ruby beach on Tau-ceti in an hour flat. Oh, and I forgot to mention the wormhole, he said."
"Dude," Chad says, "how come you gotta be bringing up old shit?"
"Dude," Jeff shoots back, "it was ten minutes ago."
"Exactly."
With a dismissive wave, Jeff says, "Alaina, can I get a sit rep?"
"Sixty-five percent screwed, sir." She's straight-backed, moves easily with the lurching ship, still clings to her years of military training even though they're now a clean decade behind her. "The gravity regulator is the least of our problems. We're bleeding power--"
"I'm ditching the cargo," Jeff says, pulls his command screen closer and ignores the small stab in his chest. He might be a pirate, but he's never been particularly greedy about it. He and his crew only ever steal what they need and a little bit extra. It's taken him half his life to acquire his hoard, refine it, curate his collection. "Redirect some the juice going to the life support."
"Aye, Captain," Felicia says, and doesn't bother questioning the order. They all know that life support isn't going to make a difference if they can't manage to get the ship under control.
"And for the love of Christ, someone shut down that alarm."
Smoothly, Felicia reaches for the phaser Alaina has strapped to her waist, shoots out the speaker with barely a sideways glance. The alarm warbles for a second and goes quiet.
"Sorry, girl," Felicia says, as if the ship is a living, breathing thing. That she unerringly knows the right way to fix her sometimes makes Jeff harbor a few suspicions of his own.
Something massive collides with the ship overhead and Jeff winces like he's the one who's just taken a direct hit. "How big is this debris field anyhow?" His instrumentation got all jacked up in the wormhole, but he thinks he's starting to see a pattern. "Correction, belt. It's a ring." He can feel his face split into a grin. With a little luck and a whole pile of shoddy judgment, they might actually not die today.
"I'm picking up on a local gravitational influence," Alaina says. "Hold your breath, ladies and gents. I'm gonna throw everything into the heat shields."
"Save whatever you can for the reverse engines," Jeff reminds her. "Chad, are you seeing it yet? Tell me it's blue."
"Wait a minute…." Chad says absently, scanning his screen. "Yes. Yes. There it is. Big and blue and we're coming in hot and heavy."
"There's a joke in there somewhere," Jeff points out, but then he's wholly occupied with shouting orders. He's self aware enough to know that they're useless, that the crew knows how to fly the ship as well if not better than him, but they don't call him out on it.
~*~*~*~
The landing is concussive, knocks them out and when Jeff comes to his head feels like the inside of a bass drum. He's about to dig around in the busted up cockpit for his handheld to test the atmosphere when Alaina jumps down from the airlock.
"We've landed in worse. Come take a look," she says, heading back to up the ladder. "Oxygen levels are good. The water will do in a pinch. It's warm."
Jeff takes a second to figure out his sea legs, get used to the sluggish roll of the ship and climbs after her. Felicia and Chad are sprawled on the rounded metal hull, comparing notes from their instruments. They're bobbing a quarter of a mile off shore and the tide is dragging them closer and closer. To the west, a huddle of buildings are propped up against a sheer cliff face, tendrils of smoke rising lazy from a few chimneys. Otherwise the sky is quiet.
A group of people have gathered on the shore, lined up in the shape of a horseshoe, and they all take a knee the moment Jeff sets foot on dry land.
"My Liege," a man says and steps forward from the center. He's wearing loose trousers and there's a pattern on front of his homespun shirt, something that's faded and washed out, but still makes Jeff mentally sit up and take notice.
"What?" Jeff asks, and hears Chad snort from a few feet behind him.
"My Liege," the man repeats, a bit more uncertain this time.
"Stand up," Jeff says. "What's your name, and why am I your liege?"
He stands up, shifts his weight from foot to foot. "My name is Misha, and we've been waiting a long time for you. They wrote about you in the Old Book. They said a bearded man would one day come, that he would have foreign magic and knowledge beyond our reckoning and he would be the one to save us."
Jeff scratches at the three days worth of scruff on his jaw. "You call this a beard?"
Misha shrugs. "Eh. I don't really have a lot to work with. I'm making most of it up as I go along." He takes a few steps away and says, "Come. Follow me."
Everyone forms a circle around the crew and nudges them toward the village, curious hands touching their clothes, the ladies' hair and Jeff's beard.
"Damn, I knew I shouldn't have shaved yesterday," Chad says.
Between his clenched teeth, Jeff whispers to Felicia "How long until we're up and running?"
She gives him a smile that's more like a grimace and starts talking fast. "The ship's gotta dry out before I can begin to assess the damage, then there's the problem of spare parts. I'm gonna need at least a pulley system, a dry dock would be ideal, heavy duty welding equipment and well...it looks like these folks only got around to inventing the wheel a couple of hundred years ago."
The village doesn't get much bigger as they approach it, maybe a few dozen buildings hunkered together, hardly more than sticks and stones, a somewhat larger building near the back.
"Would you look at that," Alaina says and saunters toward the center square.
Half buried in the sand is a late model airship, and immediately Jeff recognizes it as the predecessor to his own, older by a good five decades and left to quietly disintegrate in the elements, but it might be close enough, and in this case, close counts. It's hatch bears the octagonal symbol of its manufacturer, the same faded shape that's on Misha's shirt. The thing's mostly covered with offerings, dried flowers and food, sea shells and a wide array of bird skulls.
"Holy crap," Chad mutters.
"My thoughts exactly. Looks like we just found your spare parts, sweetheart," Jeff says to Felicia.
"Yeah," Alaina starts, "but you're gonna have to disassemble their sacred temple to get to them. We'll probably need a distraction."
"It's good to be king," Jeff points out.
"Not much of a castle, though," Chad says as he steps into the biggest building, the size of an overachieving foyer lit with torches at regular intervals, with a large chair situated at the far end.
The entire population of the place has crowded inside, and as Jeff approaches his throan a woman emerges from the crowd, dark hair and dark eyes and curtseying in a way that proves she's not quite sure how it's supposed to go.
"Sire," she says, and loops a string of flowers around his neck before melting back into the crowd.
Another woman steps forward, red haired with a sharp grin on her face that spells nothing but trouble. She doesn't do much better with the whole curtseying thing, hands him a cup filled with fruity red wine.
"Your Majesty," someone else says, deep and rough.
Alaina arches an eyebrow when the guy steps forward, taps one finger thoughtfully against her lips. "We have definitely done worse."
The man's a poster child for effective genetic engineering. Tall, wide across the shoulders with a mouth that's been built for a hell of a good time, and Jeff's launching into a decent enough daydream that involves getting this guy on his knees when another guy takes front and center, even taller, long, long legs that would fit really well around Jeff's waist.
"Your Majesty," he echoes, and gives Jeff a small, hopeful smile. There are dimples.
Jeff has always thought that admiral has a nice ring to it. Suddenly Your Majesty sounds even better.
Felicia elbows him in the side, knocks him back into reality, and alright, yeah, they need a distraction.
"Okay," Jeff says as he sinks onto his throne, addressing his newfound subjects. "We've been sent here to save you, but first, I want you to tell me a story."
And now let's hand the baton over to cleflink. Best of luck!
Author: riyku
Rating: pg
Pairing: none yet, but potentially everybody/everybody (except Chad, probably)
Word Count: 1,700
Summary: In which the dread pirate JDM and his crew encounter a wormhole.
"The moral of the story," Jeff starts, then grits his teeth though a bone-rattling crash, "is that you should never trust a eunuch." The ship takes another hit, the fourth in rapid succession. Stars shudder on the view screen, begin to blur as the ship's tailspin picks up speed.
"Should there be a moral?" Chad asks. "A moral seems kinda unnecessary, given our current predicament. And leave my balls out of this." He's squinting at the read-out on the nav-com, or he could be just looking at it normally. Jeff's not sure. It's anyone's guess really. An alarm starts blaring and a chunk of the ceiling falls in with a shower of sparks, and Chad squints up at that as well.
"Starboard thrusters are shot, Cap," Felicia tells him.
Jeff looks down at his feet, or more specifically the three inches of thin air between the soles of his boots and the deck. "I'm starting to feel a little light over here, kiddo."
"Then I suggest you sit down." Alaina slides in beside him, toes barely on the ground and gives him a quick shove into his seat. "Strap yourself in tight."
Jeff grunts, thinks about how he's losing control of his own damn vessel in a way that's both literal and metaphoric. Pitching his voice a register higher to sound like his navigator, Jeff says, "There's a shortcut, he said. Slingshot around Gilese-six, he said. We'll be kicking back with cervesas on a ruby beach on Tau-ceti in an hour flat. Oh, and I forgot to mention the wormhole, he said."
"Dude," Chad says, "how come you gotta be bringing up old shit?"
"Dude," Jeff shoots back, "it was ten minutes ago."
"Exactly."
With a dismissive wave, Jeff says, "Alaina, can I get a sit rep?"
"Sixty-five percent screwed, sir." She's straight-backed, moves easily with the lurching ship, still clings to her years of military training even though they're now a clean decade behind her. "The gravity regulator is the least of our problems. We're bleeding power--"
"I'm ditching the cargo," Jeff says, pulls his command screen closer and ignores the small stab in his chest. He might be a pirate, but he's never been particularly greedy about it. He and his crew only ever steal what they need and a little bit extra. It's taken him half his life to acquire his hoard, refine it, curate his collection. "Redirect some the juice going to the life support."
"Aye, Captain," Felicia says, and doesn't bother questioning the order. They all know that life support isn't going to make a difference if they can't manage to get the ship under control.
"And for the love of Christ, someone shut down that alarm."
Smoothly, Felicia reaches for the phaser Alaina has strapped to her waist, shoots out the speaker with barely a sideways glance. The alarm warbles for a second and goes quiet.
"Sorry, girl," Felicia says, as if the ship is a living, breathing thing. That she unerringly knows the right way to fix her sometimes makes Jeff harbor a few suspicions of his own.
Something massive collides with the ship overhead and Jeff winces like he's the one who's just taken a direct hit. "How big is this debris field anyhow?" His instrumentation got all jacked up in the wormhole, but he thinks he's starting to see a pattern. "Correction, belt. It's a ring." He can feel his face split into a grin. With a little luck and a whole pile of shoddy judgment, they might actually not die today.
"I'm picking up on a local gravitational influence," Alaina says. "Hold your breath, ladies and gents. I'm gonna throw everything into the heat shields."
"Save whatever you can for the reverse engines," Jeff reminds her. "Chad, are you seeing it yet? Tell me it's blue."
"Wait a minute…." Chad says absently, scanning his screen. "Yes. Yes. There it is. Big and blue and we're coming in hot and heavy."
"There's a joke in there somewhere," Jeff points out, but then he's wholly occupied with shouting orders. He's self aware enough to know that they're useless, that the crew knows how to fly the ship as well if not better than him, but they don't call him out on it.
~*~*~*~
The landing is concussive, knocks them out and when Jeff comes to his head feels like the inside of a bass drum. He's about to dig around in the busted up cockpit for his handheld to test the atmosphere when Alaina jumps down from the airlock.
"We've landed in worse. Come take a look," she says, heading back to up the ladder. "Oxygen levels are good. The water will do in a pinch. It's warm."
Jeff takes a second to figure out his sea legs, get used to the sluggish roll of the ship and climbs after her. Felicia and Chad are sprawled on the rounded metal hull, comparing notes from their instruments. They're bobbing a quarter of a mile off shore and the tide is dragging them closer and closer. To the west, a huddle of buildings are propped up against a sheer cliff face, tendrils of smoke rising lazy from a few chimneys. Otherwise the sky is quiet.
A group of people have gathered on the shore, lined up in the shape of a horseshoe, and they all take a knee the moment Jeff sets foot on dry land.
"My Liege," a man says and steps forward from the center. He's wearing loose trousers and there's a pattern on front of his homespun shirt, something that's faded and washed out, but still makes Jeff mentally sit up and take notice.
"What?" Jeff asks, and hears Chad snort from a few feet behind him.
"My Liege," the man repeats, a bit more uncertain this time.
"Stand up," Jeff says. "What's your name, and why am I your liege?"
He stands up, shifts his weight from foot to foot. "My name is Misha, and we've been waiting a long time for you. They wrote about you in the Old Book. They said a bearded man would one day come, that he would have foreign magic and knowledge beyond our reckoning and he would be the one to save us."
Jeff scratches at the three days worth of scruff on his jaw. "You call this a beard?"
Misha shrugs. "Eh. I don't really have a lot to work with. I'm making most of it up as I go along." He takes a few steps away and says, "Come. Follow me."
Everyone forms a circle around the crew and nudges them toward the village, curious hands touching their clothes, the ladies' hair and Jeff's beard.
"Damn, I knew I shouldn't have shaved yesterday," Chad says.
Between his clenched teeth, Jeff whispers to Felicia "How long until we're up and running?"
She gives him a smile that's more like a grimace and starts talking fast. "The ship's gotta dry out before I can begin to assess the damage, then there's the problem of spare parts. I'm gonna need at least a pulley system, a dry dock would be ideal, heavy duty welding equipment and well...it looks like these folks only got around to inventing the wheel a couple of hundred years ago."
The village doesn't get much bigger as they approach it, maybe a few dozen buildings hunkered together, hardly more than sticks and stones, a somewhat larger building near the back.
"Would you look at that," Alaina says and saunters toward the center square.
Half buried in the sand is a late model airship, and immediately Jeff recognizes it as the predecessor to his own, older by a good five decades and left to quietly disintegrate in the elements, but it might be close enough, and in this case, close counts. It's hatch bears the octagonal symbol of its manufacturer, the same faded shape that's on Misha's shirt. The thing's mostly covered with offerings, dried flowers and food, sea shells and a wide array of bird skulls.
"Holy crap," Chad mutters.
"My thoughts exactly. Looks like we just found your spare parts, sweetheart," Jeff says to Felicia.
"Yeah," Alaina starts, "but you're gonna have to disassemble their sacred temple to get to them. We'll probably need a distraction."
"It's good to be king," Jeff points out.
"Not much of a castle, though," Chad says as he steps into the biggest building, the size of an overachieving foyer lit with torches at regular intervals, with a large chair situated at the far end.
The entire population of the place has crowded inside, and as Jeff approaches his throan a woman emerges from the crowd, dark hair and dark eyes and curtseying in a way that proves she's not quite sure how it's supposed to go.
"Sire," she says, and loops a string of flowers around his neck before melting back into the crowd.
Another woman steps forward, red haired with a sharp grin on her face that spells nothing but trouble. She doesn't do much better with the whole curtseying thing, hands him a cup filled with fruity red wine.
"Your Majesty," someone else says, deep and rough.
Alaina arches an eyebrow when the guy steps forward, taps one finger thoughtfully against her lips. "We have definitely done worse."
The man's a poster child for effective genetic engineering. Tall, wide across the shoulders with a mouth that's been built for a hell of a good time, and Jeff's launching into a decent enough daydream that involves getting this guy on his knees when another guy takes front and center, even taller, long, long legs that would fit really well around Jeff's waist.
"Your Majesty," he echoes, and gives Jeff a small, hopeful smile. There are dimples.
Jeff has always thought that admiral has a nice ring to it. Suddenly Your Majesty sounds even better.
Felicia elbows him in the side, knocks him back into reality, and alright, yeah, they need a distraction.
"Okay," Jeff says as he sinks onto his throne, addressing his newfound subjects. "We've been sent here to save you, but first, I want you to tell me a story."
And now let's hand the baton over to cleflink. Best of luck!