[hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :43 - :44
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station; their arrival on Concordia is bumpier and smellier than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and nothing will ever be the same again. A moment ago you were somewhere familiar - or familiar enough; now you're lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber lit by a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. You can't shake the sensation that you've been asleep for a long, long time.

The sluggishness of coming out of a deep, dreamless sleep persists all the way until you disconnect the tube running from the compartment's rear wall to the base of your neck. Then things get loud. A wave of emotion fills the void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety; maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. Somewhere, someone else is feeding their thoughts and emotions into your mind. On the plus side, it's easy to follow that digging, familiar sensation to each other. After all, you're part of the same brood. You belong together.

Welcome to Station 72. Sirius and Kavinsky will have one day aboard the Station to acclimate to their new reality before they're whisked away to Concordia to join the rest of the young hosts. Get to know one another, ask some burning questions; in a day's time you'll be boarding a shuttle and going somewhere far, far away.

MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA, the host's espionage efforts are coming to a head. Preparations for infiltrating Public Security HQ are in full swing, a handful of hosts are planning to get in close with Representative Goram Saffit himself and there's currently a semi-functional android taking up one of the beds of the Bearings apartment block. Honestly, there's more than enough on everyone's plate without piling new hosts on top of it all. But that doesn't stop Nirad from disappearing when he's called to return to the Station. Presumably, this means everyone better get ready to debrief some new arrivals soon...

     ON THE STATION, there's a hum in the air - or the mind, rather. Follow the buzz and it'll lead to the Hangar Deck where a slick brick-shaped black transport is waiting. The source of the mental hum seems to be a young man: Nirad has come to collect you. He'll answer any questions; in fact, he seems happy to talk and length about absolutely anything. The boy's apparently the rambling type with little to no filter between his brain and his mouth. The combination of talking and mental hum can be disorienting. Once safely aboard the transport, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock. For a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft and ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, the rest of your brood is waiting for you.

     A BUMPY LANDING
The stealth ship slices down toward the planet until it fills the entire viewscreen. "All right, everyone out," Nirad announces, unbuckling his harness and jumping to his feet. Uh. What?

He leads to the port side of the transport ship where there's a small series of circular ports. They're roughly shoulder width. At a touch of a button, the ports open out to a series of escape pods. There's only enough room for one and it looks like you'll be lying on your back the whole trip. "Hop in. I'll launch you and then follow you down in my own. The pod's stealth tech should keep you invisible to the locals until someone comes to find it, but don't forget to scrap the pod when you're out of it. We can't risk someone finding it laying around." A pause. "Sorry, by the way. Usually we'd just land the ship but it's getting kind of obvious."

Hopefully you weren't expecting a nice, easy trip down to the planet because this is dark and joyless. The escape pod has no windows. It launches from the transport ship and rockets downward at the behest of the planet's gravity. Everything shakes. It's desperately cold, then violently hot and then-- something gives. The sound of something whistling. A jerk. The escape pod trembles as the anti-grav jets at the base deploy. It's a last attempt to soften the landing, then the pod drives down into a mountain of debris like a tent stake into muddy earth.

Congratulations, you've landed more or less safely in Concordia's only open air landfill.

     SEARCH & RESCUE
It's three in the morning and maybe you're asleep in Bearings or maybe you're burning the midnight oil; either way, Carata is in your mind telling you to get up and get ready. "The new hosts have landed. Let's go pick them up, shall we? If I were were, I'd wear some clothes you don't really care for."

Time to go digging through the city's biggest dumpster transfer facility!

The escape pods will have to be unearthed and opened from the outside to rescue their inhabitants. Once free, be sure to dismantle pods and scatter them through the piles of debris. Eventually all of this will be recycled, but we don't want anyone finding mysterious alien technology in one piece now do we?

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts!

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[shiro2hero]

No. No chance.

[To any of them. Least of all the one who'd been ripped away, who forced him on ahead. He should have stayed behind. He'd already been the one to suffer the enemy. She never should have -- ]

[For a moment, those stars flicker. The barrier wavers with flashes of faces left behind. Allura, smiling and proud and strong even as hands closed around her. The others, fighting some unknown enemy. Matt, lying betrayed and crumpled and wounded by his hand. And...]

[It's only flashes, this time. He's got other thoughts to focus on. To bring himself out of it -- to keep it from spilling over too much onto someone just arrived.]

... I hope I am. I -- have to hope I am.

[Slow breaths. Ragged.] Sorry, I... still getting used to this brain-sharing thing.

[doggo]

[Like swimming too far out to sea, it would be easy to get snatched up by this feeling, an insidious pull. Briefly overwhelming, more impression and sensation than anything to really hold to. A kind of guilt that seeps into his guilt, responsibility and regret and--

Merlin.

All that, and it could be worse. That was easy. Difficult only because of the familiar, and because Sirius is only just barely upright. He presses his fingertips the back of his neck anyways, a gesture that's becoming nearly habitual.]

S'all right. [A bit slurred. Sirius swallows; tries again.] I'll know better than to ask, next time.

[He lets his fingertips press down harder, pressure as distraction.]

I don't expect any of it gets any easier.

[shiro2hero]

I'm... working on it. Pulling it back. I shouldn't let it spill onto anyone else.

[Especially a new arrival. Sure, the apology was accepted, but he still has to take responsibility. He always does. That's who he is. Who he'd had to become. It isn't your fault, I should be better.]

[A slow shake of his head.]

You get used to it. I don't know if that means 'gets better'. But everyone tells me it does.

[doggo]

[Despite everything, Sirius' smile jumps back quickly. Grim, but still there.]

'You get used to it' is about the lowest recommendation there is. You can get used to anything.

[Unfortunately. Or fortunately. It's difficult to say.]

S'ppose it helps a bit to think of it more like, nowhere to go but up. Only that's usually proved wrong as well.

[shiro2hero]

[The look on his face is apologetic. And tired. And sympathetic all in one. The kind of look you tend to manage well only when you've had too much practice in making it.]

Yeah, I know. But it's all I've got to offer.

[Unfortunately.]

I hate to say it, but, I'm pretty sure there's more ways to fall down, now that we're all here.

[doggo]

Right. [Sirius doesn't need any more tired, thanks, but all the same. His smile crooks at the corner of his mouth again.] You're not very good at this, are you.

[Which honestly almost makes him more comfortable, so there you are.]

[shiro2hero]

[His own expression is a weary sort of half-smile. Apologetic and grateful.]

I'm better when it's a pre-fight peptalk, honestly. Or pre-flight.

Anything that's not brain-link related.

[doggo]

[Interest is like the mental equivalent of a shiver that pricks up a dog's ears. Something briefly lively, for all that it's ages old.]

What sort of flight?

[shiro2hero]

Outer space. I was trained to fly spacecraft.

[There's a small note of pride there, for once.]

Always thought I was decent with it.

[doggo]

Yeah?

[Outer space, that's films and muggles and, more familiarly, astronomy, standing out on a tower in the dead autumn chill. Star charts. His own name. It's the pride and the flying he can cleave to, the easiest since--

Well. Kavinsky.]

So you're familiar with all this, then. Getting dropped down onto planets, in pods.

[shiro2hero]

Yeah.

[He smiles faintly, a real, albeit small one. Thinking back to when space was... it was some big, amazing mystery. And not reality.]

[A shrug.] Dropped onto planets more than pods. Usually it was in a different kind of craft.

[doggo]

Easier landing, I'd bet.

[Or, like. A landing, and not the crash sort.]

I'd say you should suggest the idea of easier landings to someone, but I don't know whose ear to get on that one. Or if it would matter.

[shiro2hero]

Some days.

[Like when no one was shooting them. Or at them. Or they were making a crash landing because of some malfunction or--]

We had an actual transport when they brought me in. I wonder why things changed for you.

[doggo]

Too obvious.

[Or so they were told, and weren't given a reason to mistrust the explanation. Sirius' own wariness is just too well-learnt. Comes of how remotely he's lived. He'll come around, maybe.]

There's only two of us. It's all meant to be a bit quiet, anyways, isn't it?

[shiro2hero]

Too obvious?

[Maybe it's easier with a larger number of people -- or more easily hidden. Which doesn't make sense. You'd think it would be the other way around.]

Yeah, it is. No one's supposed to know we're here.