It Might Fly Apart Anyway

From RPGnet
Jump to: navigation, search


Title: It might fly apart anyway (RP: Poco/Val)

Scene: The overheated confines of the engine room, filled with the rumbling growl of the engines. I'm imagining a pack of angry hyenas, one of which is occasionally poked by a sharp stick. Poco reflexively winces each time there's a shriek.



Poco grunted as he gave the bolt one last turn past tight. Tight enough not to fall off immediately, loose enough to back out in a hurry. He chuckled to himself and thought, Just like every crew I've been through. He leaned back against the bulkhead and teased another cigarette out of his copious stash. Letting it droop from his mouth, he pointed at various components around the engine room and mentally ticked them off. Regulators tightened, port and starboard coils re-seated, and fuel lines rerouted. He'd also re-aligned some sort of gap-based surge suppression mechanism, which he was tentatively referring to as spark-shocks. He imagined that all knowledge of what the hell they were actually called died with ol' Pipes. He'd never seen them before, but they seemed simple enough.

He looked down to light the cigarette and stirred at the pile of trash in the center of the floor with his foot as he light up. Odds and ends, of all different materials had been shoved throughout the machinery as shims, gaskets, lubricants, and in one particularly frightening case, atmospheric containment measures. He doubted Francesco had deserved to die the way he had, but he had no business being an engineer. Fool kid running at a group of armed Triad, Poco thought angrily. What the hell did he expect to happen? Guilt flashed quickly and then dissipated. Poco had learned a long, long time ago that you never look back.



Do I want to have children in the future? Considering what Val knew about the engine and the chemical it produced, Val couldn't help but wonder if he was taking his reproductive life in his hands every time he visited the engine room, shielding or not. But he needed to talk to Poco. Of all the people on board this ship, Poco's motivations were both the clearest and the most mysterious at the same time. Despite the conversation with Rachel having gone well, he wasn't feeling any more settled about the whole situation. But what needs to be done...

The sound of the engine was about as far from what Val had imagined a ship engine's should sound like and he resisted the temptation to clamp a hand over an ear. He stepped over a pile of wires and broken circuit boards as he entered the engine room and saw Poco examing some part of the engine. Hopefully Poco knew which part because Val certainly didn't. The ability of the ship to survive until he could scrap it lay in the hands of the man who been hiding in a box when the ship launched. Not great, Val thought to himself, but you make do with what you have.



Brushing some of the loose engine dust off his vest, Val stepped forward and called out to Poco, raising his voice to speak over the constant background whining of the engine. "You have a couple minutes to talk?"

Poco looked up to see Val standing hesitantly by the door and waving. The smooth-talking man looked distinctly uncomfortable so Poco put out his cigarette and motioned towards the doorway. Once they were both outside, and the engine-noise was less overwhelming, Poco put his thumbs in the straps of his coveralls and cocked his head at Val, "Yeah Boss? Need somethin'?"

Being called Boss actually felt more comfortable than being called Captain. "I had a couple things to ask you and one thing to tell you. Let me start with that." He had briefly given thought to not saying anything to Poco about the hazardous waste notice to make sure he'd be willing to stick around the engine room when needed, but while Val considered himself practical, he wasn't that practical. Being a good boss meant getting your employees back, even when it wasn't necessarily the best for your own situation.

"Just wanted to let you know you probably shouldn't be spending all your time in the engine room. It's leaking a pretty nasty chemical that I'm told is flammable, explosive, poisonous and carcinogenic. And maybe some other bad stuff that I've forgotten."

Poco tried to snort in laughter, coughed instead, choked, coughed up some phlegm and spat it out. "Boss, you ever been in a zinc mine? I spent three years in one fixing mining equipment. Cadmium dust'll probably kill me before this will." He fished another cigarette out of his pocket to give his hands something to do. He could hear the timing coming off again in the regulators. He got distracted trying to count how many cycles off it was, the cigarette dangling in his fingers.

"Can't say that I have." Val shrugged and moved on. As long as he knew the risks, Val trusted him to make his own decisions. Poco probably knew more about it than Val did anyway. He crossed one item off his mental list and then, after thinking for a minute crossed a second one off as well. Nothing about Poco suggested that he wouldn't follow orders when needed. So why bother asking?

"I wanted to ask you about the weapons in the cargo. What do you think we ought to do with them?" He looked Poco straight in the eyes. "And be honest. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear." Not that Val was really worried about that - Poco didn't seem like the type to hold back. But Val knew he looked straight-laced and Poco was about as far from that as a person could get. That might have given Poco the wrong impression about the kind of moral obligations Val might care about.

Val's stare pulled Poco back to the conversation. He thought for several long moments. "Too dangerous to sell 'em. Too dangerous to keep 'em. I reckon we're humped. If the ship were in better shape...well there's a........job...I did one time. Made a ship look disabled. Like she'd been hit by debris. Opened up a huge gash in the side. If we could do that, we could space 'em. Give us a good cover story as to why we didn't have it. But I think this bucket would just fly apart if we tried something like that." Poco grinned widely, "I'm sure you'll come up with something Boss."

"I'll do my best," Val said, doing his best to project confidence that was only partly there. He couldn't decide whether Poco was being sarcastic or not, and if he was, whether it really mattered. This is what he wanted for this crazy trip, wasn't it? People who knew what they were doing and listened to orders when needed. The unfortunate downside was that then you had to come up with ideas and well...actually lead. Sarcastic or not, Val hoped he could live up to it. After all, he'd most likely need to if he wanted to get home with all his body parts intact.

"Last thing and then I'll let you get back to work." This one fell in the category of What You Don't Know Might Kill You.He didn't get a bad read off of Poco, but people didn't stow away on spaceships without a reason. Keeping his voice as non-judgmental as possible, Val asked, "Running away from something or being chased? And is it something I need to worry about?"

"No Boss, nothing to worry about," Poco replied with his eyes half-lidded. "Just getting out of town. Women are fengkuáng yu ta de huo pìgu yi ma [crazy as a horse with its ass on fire], si?" Something would've killed Francis anyway, he thought. Probably this ship. No. Don't look back.

When Poco explained that all women were crazy, Val briefly thought of his mother before shaking the thought away. She was hard to deal with, but not like she didn't have reason. Val was standing in the engine room of that reason right now, in fact.

Val just nodded in response and reached across to clap Poco on the shoulder. "Well, hopefully we'll get to Anson's World and she won't be able to find you." He started to turn to go and then stopped. "I'm going to assume that there is nothing on this ship that's working right, but if you got a chance to take inventory and see what we have to work with, I'd be grateful." You made your ask, now give him his chance to make his. "Is anything I can do for you until we get to where we're going?"

Poco was beginning to wonder if he had landed on a ship full of easy marks or if everyone was just high on the fumes from the engine, but whatever the reason, he'd take it. As long as it lasted long enough for him to get out of this scrape alive, he was fine with it.

"Not much inventory to take. You've got a worn out engine but she oughtta keep on chugging at least as far as Anson, if that's where we're headed. I've made some minor repairs already, to fix the things that were bothering me. I'll sort out some of the rest of it over the next bit. If you do happen to see Tinkerbell, send her up this way. Maybe she can fab another part for me. Apparently you can't hold a regulator in place with an old metal chair leg. Who knew?" he asked rhetorically. "I'm beginning to think that the late Mr. Ferdinand thought that fixing engines mostly consisted of shoving random parts into 'em. "

"I'll send her your way. Thanks." Val wasn't completely sure that Poco was telling him everything. On the other hand, he really didn't care. The makeshift engineer was clearly motivated to get the ship to Anson's World and once the ship got there, Poco could be someone else's problem. Hell, hopefully the ship would be someone else's problem then too.

Val headed back to his father's quarters to try and sort through some more stuff and let his brain be free to figure out the right thing to do with those weapons down in the hold. If there was a right thing.

Poco watched Val slip down the ladder and stood thoughtfully for a few moments until another shriek from the engine pulled him out of his reprieve. Goram regulators, he thought to himself. Another two beats off cycle.


HOW TO SPEAK CHINESE[edit]

Fēngkuáng yǔ tā de huǒ pìgu yī mǎ = 瘋狂與它的火屁股一馬 = Fung-kwong yee tah duh hwoh pee-goo yee mah = Crazy as a horse with its ass on fire Sound clip





Return to Episodes | Season One | Firefly-RPG Homepage | Crew Page |