Panic! At the Expo }{ [Onas + Maiden Crew]

[Ryan Lee Hawke]

Riley stepped off the Iron Maiden's forward loading ramp with a considerable spring to his step. At his request (and a teensy bit of begging), Aeryn had consented to park the ship in New Dunsmuir for "a day or two, at most" so that Riley could visit his Uncle Joseph Lee ("Jolee") and attend the annual tech expo. This year, it was being held at the prestigious New Dunsmuir Expo-Center, near the heart of the very city Riley had grown up in. The expo itself was a week-long event, but Cap'n Keel had made it clear they wouldn't be staying that long.

The young mechanic sighed. Work, work, work. Not that he minded; he loved the life he led on the Maiden, and in all honesty the only family he wanted to see was his Uncle, so it was for the best that they didn't linger about the place. Yes, he wanted to avoid running into his father and getting an earful about how he had "wasted his potential" and how he shouldn't be "gallivanting about the 'Verse on some ship with a bunch of miscreants and thugs".

Frowning, Riley checked his chrono* and then looked back into the cargo bay to see if his 'mates were ready or not. After several more seconds, the young man was positively vibrating with impatience and so began tapping his foot to rein himself in. Apparently the Captain would be staying with the ship, but Darren, and maybe even Reina would be accompanying him to the expo... just as soon as they were done doing... whatever it was they were doing.

Ryan Lee turned his gaze back onto the sprawling scape ahead of him, watching as the city's lights started to glow in the fading light of the evening. Finally when he could resist no longer, Riley again turned back towards the ship: "Guys! You're killin' me here! We gotta hurry or we'll be stuck in the back of the line!"


______________

* chrono: a hi-tech wrist watch. (Why call it a 'watch' when you can call it a 'chrono'? Sounds much cooler right?)

[Onas Knox]

So.

He was still here. Beaumonde.

But at least the scenery had changed. He was in a new town finally. The expo was what you'd expect so far, a lot of the same old ideas with a new shiny label. Onas had seen most of it before, but he was always looking for the up and up. To stay on the cutting edge was to get the best prices, and Onas only permitted the best prices. He had his eye on one new item, a new turbine coil, for the RG-226, a redesigned port conductor. It was supposed to reduce compression at the same conduction rate, allowing greater fuel efficiency by lowering heat, and allowing the port to overcome the temperatures created by long burns. Or so they said, Onas had his doubts, he was heading there now to see this new miracle piece, and judge for himself.

He stepped out of his apartment, swiping his card, locking up his room tight. He bit his card, and held his coat for a moment while fishing for his cigarettes. His hands tapped his pants pockets, then his shirt pocket, then his back pants pockets... then he smiled. What passed for a smile when you have a key-card in your mouth. He reached down to his coat, and there in the front pouch, was a combo-pak. He snagged it and flipped out a single cigarette, pulling his card and replacing it with a half credits worth of fine tobacco, the good stuff. The electronic sensor 'felt' the cigarette lift free and lit it as he pulled it from the "pak" already smoking it in one smooth motion. Onas then slipped his coat on while taking off down the hallway, a trail of smoke in his wake. He slid his card in his pocket and tagged the lift twice, then waited for his ride to the smoggy surface.

He was only blocks from the expo, New Dunsmuir was a big town, and if you had some extra scratch, you could rent a room near anything. Ten minutes walking found his feet at the entrance to the event of Beau's decade, and more folk than you could imagine. The port coil booth was on the third floor. He wanted to see the hype, if it was true, then Onas imagined he could get his hands on one within the day. This weeks finances could work themselves out in one swift stroke.

Thats the funny thing about crime, the less you try to take, the more they put in front of you... and who wouldn't pick an apple?

[Onas Knox]

He had been here for an hour now. What with standing in line to get in, and being hassled over his knife a dozen times, regardless of his "clearance" papers. Onas went nowhere without his knife ever since his run in with the thugs at Baxter's. Though, his paranoia came with a price, you didn't just waltz around with a foot long blade without folk askin questions, providing the need for permits and the like. They weren't real of course, the clearance papers. Hell, one might say they were made in a blacksmiths forg... ok, that's lame, but you get the idea.

At last though, he was in, and browsing the booths. Working for Sid all these years taught him one important thing, you didn't go straight to your mark, it led to accusations, and that was folly to a thief. He did see some interesting stuff along the way though. The new pressure systems for the Dragonfly class freighter's airlocks were promising, alleviating the wait time for atmo dump, and giving more efficiency for the air feeds. It was all very technical, but the punch-line was, you saved a ton of power from purging. Very impressive.

Also, another nice innovation was the new ramp coatings, an aftermarket spray on adhesive that would provide traction regardless of temperature, they were showing it off by flash freezing ice to the ramp, and running a dolly loaded with 1,200 lb. of iron up and down it. No slipping. Very cool for a mechanic when you are running new turbines or coolant tubs, or other heavy freight.

The young thief continued his tour of the expo seeing all manner of improvements, from simple cluster heat sinks to ceramic laminates. Things that are put out every year with only minor adaptations, like the ever improving oscillating coolant drives, and the "fetch arms" emergency energy recovery systems. But there were a few remarkable ideas, one was a promising new canopy seal. The canopy seal was actually very smooth, a quarter inch rubber cement/polygrain fiber hybrid that could hold at -30 Celsius. That would be excellent for cusioning blows from rouge debrie in space.

He also noticed other things, like an over-abundance of Blue Sun employees about. Never a good thing really. Not in his few short weeks here. At least they wern't as ridgid as the Big-Brother Alliance types that permeated the core planets. As far as Onas was concerned, it was either big gangs or little gangs out on the fringe, and the Blue Suns were just a really, REALLY big gang. They had that God complex in full bore. Always looking to further their claim to everything. Still, it did beat some devilish reaver society, not by much, but, some.

He continued his walkabout until he finally reached his destination. The shiny new RG-226 turbine coil. A marvel of engineering now that he saw it. Polywelded hexagonal tubing, rough bore injection, slip-sawn cold tipped pumps, the works. A product of Persephone, a company called Great Dane. The heat shielding was almost perfect, Onas was noticing only minor problems, and began chatting with the techs on hand. How did they get the welds for the inlayed tubes inside the band without fracturing the port? And why weren't there bushing reinforcements on the forward linings? The tech was enthusiastic about his questions and went on and on, tables and graphs splayed out on the cluttered booth, and notations that would have sent Onas' head spinning before Sid showed him the importance of math in the field of 'ship scalping.' In the end, it became a debate over wether or not the Great Dane's new 226 coil was actually superior to it's forbearer, the Corspec Enot 84. Everyone around Onas who knew what he was talking about immediately drew a nerdy battle-line, and as previously mentioned, a rather heated debate had started. Half the folks swearing up and down you couldn't get welds to hold what a solid joint could, and the other half convinced that maintenance time would fall to flatline. In the end, this whole thing was simply a maintenance issue, at least, thats how Onas saw it.

Voiced it too, to the avid objection of the booth tech guy. The man swore on the Bible it would break the Enot 84's heat sink plane by 12 percent. If that sounds like a trifle to you, then you clearly don't know turbines. Imagine a full burn in atmo, and your heat temp so low, you didn't have to purge the coolant afterwards to restart the main drive. You could just swap fuel lines and keep running.

Alas, it was only a prototype, and it hadn't been properly broken in yet. The only real test, was to find someone with the balls to pull that stunt off, and the sheer talent to survive it. But the geek debate was in full swing nevertheless. And folk who were here knew plenty about their craft. Onas had gotten the attention of a young mechanic, very excited from his voice, and their conversation had damn near turned into a fight. The guy was obviously well taught, had to be schooling or even apprenticing. But he was being kinda blind about the aspect of conduction. It couldn't be an age issue, they looked to be on even ground there... Was he himself being naive?

"You aren't being fair, I'm only stating the math here boss, it's the Fairfax theory, weight=graincount=heat distribution=heat capacity. I'm just pointing out that the sinks wont spread out at over 200 megajules. How could they?"

That comment started some enthusiasm, most engineers discounted Fairfax's theory, on account of its singular minded view of grain types. Fairfax only used 4 elements to test his hypothesis, and a lot of folk said his theory wasn't fully tested. Onas was of the school of thought that no "theory" (keywords an all) was truly "tested." That's why they were theories, and not facts.

Still, the great part of all this was, with all the pointing at the design ideas, and the standing over the graphs, and the crowding around the small parts, no one had noticed that Onas had pocketed the delivery invoice with the warehouse address on it. Pricey as this thing was an all, Onas wasn't going to chance some douche with a massive credit flow buying it up before he could swipe it.

He shifted his attention back towards the optimistic mechanic.

[arabella]

To be honest Arabella was surprised she had all her clothing and other things. Apparently when dropped off, the crew of the Riley had left her things-including the trunk she had removed from her grandmother’s when they rescued her. Ai had kept things hidden for her as well as her past hidden. It was all very clever. As she went through her rehab she had gone by Sara Weitzell. It didn’t send up any red flags so she went about getting better. Even over a year later, she still had some issues. When Arabella woke up she was a lot stiffer then she remembered before the coma; probably from being bedridden for so long. Sometimes she lost her train of thought as well. Words would get mixed up and she couldn’t get her point across how she wanted. Probably hitting her head when she fell contributed to that as the injury may not have healed properly. Other then that she was much slower at doing things which made it difficult to get her old cooking skills back. But she was doing her best because her living situation required it. The condition of being on the Iron Maiden was that she was to help Riena in the kitchen. At first it wasn’t too pretty but some of her old skills were coming back. Be it cooking, cleaning, buying the supplies when planetside or whatever she was there to help the cook.

Putting the finishing touches, Arabella was ready to step out. Her faded skirt from being washed so often hung from her thing frame. She had to sew a drawstring in the waist so she could wear it. The printed t-shirt hung on her, a size too big now. It didn’t bother her as much because she never liked showing off her curves. A sweater, perhaps a bit too heavy, was pulled over her ensemble and the only pieces of jewelry she owned aside from a couple necklaces and her mother’s ring were on her figure. Nothing was of value except her charm bracelet which she no longer removed now that she had it back. Someone was good enough to lock it in her trunk. The earrings and rings weren’t real so worthless to anyone. She just liked them because they had been gifts from people who mattered. To top everything off, Arabella had a gray knit cap which her hair was pulled up into. She needed a new wig so that would have to do for now. Slipping on some well worn shoes, she made her way out of the dorm.

Finding her way through the path from her room to the opening everyone poured out of, she hung back a moment. She was still finding her nitch here. Everyone knew her back story from why she ran away on. They knew she had no desire to go back-especially since she had essentially robbed her grandmother while rescuing her. But she was even more subdued then before the coma. Arabella was no longer jumpy because she had coped from the rape. Now it was just because there was nearly a year’s gap of her life and she was doing her best to reenter society after two years in the hospital.

Watching Riley, he was probably the person she was closest to aside from Ai. Even close was being used loosely. She couldn’t tell if people were at a level to be considered friends or just ship comrades. When they found themselves around each other, Arabella would chat with him. They were both very similar in the sense they were proper, didn’t like confrontation and had certain naive bits about them. He was much more outgoing then her with talking and spoke his mind more; she tended to just hang back and spare people’s feelings her thoughts. But she didn’t mind chatting with him. Riley wasn’t a bad guy and she had no reason to think he was. He was a good mechanic and his openness to talk was good for her. Talking was something that needed to happen for Arabella. When she found a job someplace as a cook herself, then she didn’t want to come off as an idiot. Tucking a bang which hung out of her hat behind her ear, she moved to tand beside Riley. With her head tilted her head to the side, a shy smile appeared. ”Impatient much?”

She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to be at the gun show. Though she was no longer scared of every man with a gun, it’s not like she was interested in them. But she didn’t want to be stuck in the ship alone. If someone from the ship was within her eye sight, Arabella figured she’d get be alright.

tagged;; iron maiden crew/open
outfit;; here if one wants to see
notes;; nada
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[Darren Wilder]

Darren was taking a nap in the cargo hold on some safety webbing in a secluded corner when he was awakened by Riley's plea to hurry up "Guys! You're killin' me here! We gotta hurry or we'll be stuck in the back of the line!" Darren just grunted and swung his legs over the make-shift hammock. Before they'd entered Beaumonde's system, he'd begun stowing things away and securing their cargo for re-entry into the atmosphere, he was probably supposed to be doing other things too but, he'd decided to steal a nap instead.

The last couple of weeks had been kind of rough, first the Jiangyin job, then stopping and picking up passengers and other crew, it all took a toll of sorts after awhile. Trying to figure out how to deal with people was hard work, never mind the physical labor. Riley was a good kid though. He had a past but, who didn't. Darren wouldn't pry into his past life unless it directly affected him. He respected his privacy. Darren kept mostly to himself, he wasn't much of a talker around people he didn't know all that well. Not that he went out of his way to avoid them either though. He was friendly enough to those who knew how to show respect but, if he felt you were being out of line, he'd tell you about it.

Darren yawned and stretched, then rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He took a quick look at himself and was content to see that he was still armed with his trusty Magnums "yeah, yeah kid. Hold on. Geez, it's only a gorram gun show, what's your hurry anyway?" He stood up to stretch after putting his boots of and then placing his duster around his shoulders. He was ready to move out now. He glanced over in Riley's direction and noticed Arabella standing beside him.

"Ah, hey there Bella, going planetside with us eh? That's good, glad to see you up and about" Darren said rubbing the back of his head and squinting against the sun that came pouring into the open cargo hold.

[arabella]

Arabella was glad that she had a lock on her trunk. And she owed plenty of thanks to whomever had hidden it for her. Her stash of platinum was still hidden along with some things she had picked up the Riley. Just clothes and books were in her bags. As soon as she was able she sold some things she didn't mind parting with. Add that to the money she had plus there had been a fund set up for the ill patients. Apparently people would donate money so that as patients woke up they could figure out starting back up. That is the ones who had no family ties which technically she didn't. Arabella had been thankful for that bit of help because it helped her get onto the ship. Add that with helping when she could hopefully it kept her going for a small while.

As she stood outside the open ship hatch, she glanced over the converging people. Before the illness she'd be so paranoid she walk anywhere near these people. Especially people with guns. Arabella still hated the things but she was trying to get over that. When she had learned to properly fire a gun it had helped out. Lately she hadn't been able to but didn't want to in case she found a decent trade in value. Guess it's good the Iron Maiden decided to come here. 

Arabella glanced to her side at Darren and nodded. She was still getting used to everyone around here. It had taken plenty of time to get used to everyone on the Riley well over a year prior. "Yes well I figured I may trade in my gun for something more practical. If not I'm content just checking things out." The one she owned was very much a rich girl's gun. It had carvings and wasn't that intimidating. She didn't want anything large but perhaps something that didn't scream it was a woman's gun. Problem was she didn't know too much about the different types that she could purchase. Arabella really didn't need a gun right now but if she decided to leave the Iron Maiden then she probably would. Better to get that taken care of while she could. Even if she didn't find one she could get the platinum for her stash.

tagged;; iron maiden crew/open
outfit;; here if one wants to see
notes;; nada
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[Ai Tsuchiya]

Ai Tsuchiya did not know how long it had been since she boarded the Iron Maiden. What she did know the one she was hoping to see was not on board. Just before she got on board Corran Boid had left on a side venture to seek out information on reaver activity. She was trying to fill he mind with other things so as not to show her grief of missing him. Some of the crew was happy about a expo, yet her mind even filled with helping Bella recover and checking and rechecking the health and the medical resources of the ship at least four times in the last week, she still often found herself in his room sitting and rummaging through his clothes.

She felt a bit of comfort from just the smell of them even after their many washes they still smelled like him. Now she was wearing his leather jacket over her white tank top and tattered blue jeans. The jacket was three sizes to big for her but she didn't care. She wore it like it was extremely cold outside. In a dream like state she walked past Bella and Darren not seeing them or hearing them.

When the sun started to beat down upon her she raised her head and squinted into the sky looking for Corran. For her there were time she could almost here him.

Hey Sweetie, I thought rich doctors like you could afford better clothes and not stealing from those who aren't dead yet.

The sound of that voice made her blink her eyes and turn to her left. There in a old duster stood a man who looked weather worn but still full of life. Corran Boid the first friend she allowed herself to have and her first love which was yet unspoken. Turning she rushed him and lept into his arms and spun around a few times before stopping.

Boid-Well it looks like you missed me too.

Ai could not say a word she was too happy at the moment. Simply burying her head into his shoulder she held on tight as if he would get away from her again if she did not.

[Corran Boid]

Boid return to the crew most triumphantly. Well as one can after the fire fight at the bar where he was suppose to get his infomation. Yet it turn out to be nothing more than a failed attempt to bind him by law. Also he found and scavanged as much of a abandoned reaver vessel as one person could and still make New Dunsmuir before they left.

The captain had left the direction as to their birthing location as soon as he got with in a clear wave band. Finding the birth was a bit trouble some for him in that every tom 8=D and harry was trying to get him to come aboard and 'fly with them'. Pssssh as if he really would consider joining up with another crew this late in the game. He knew the people he trusted them with his life and they with theirs.

He was even more happy when he got with eye sight of the beauty did he start to feel relaxed. Yet as he approached the vessel he heard Ryan's voice bidding them to hurry and Darren chatting a beauty up did he finally feel like it was home a little. When he saw the next person walk down the ramp did time slow for him and the tremmers in his left arm stop. Ai Tsuchiya the only person he knew that risked more than anyone else he knew was there. She had became his world while he was taken from Hera and had his cybernetic enhancements made and fitted.

He had to say some to her but what, then it hit him.

Hey Sweetie, I thought rich doctors like you could afford better clothes and not stealing from those who aren't dead yet.

The sound of that voice made her blink her eyes and turn to her left. Turning she rushed him and lept into his arms and spun around a few times before stopping. She was his first love which was yet unspoken.

Boid-Well it looks like you missed me too.

Ai could not say a word she was too happy at the moment. Simply burying her head into his shoulder she held on tight as if he would get away from her again if she did not. The same was how he felt silently they held each other.