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crossing_lostrpTeam Cockpit is coming from here
They moved out, sometimes making idle small talk, but mostly just listening. At first they listened to Sergeant Blaise as he directed them on how to mark their route and what to look for to find their way back to Camp Crash. Later they listened to the jungle sounds, and Megabyte figured that everyone was involved in his – or her – own thoughts. That's certainly the place where he was.
He wasn't worried about the "T-Rex," because they'd have plenty of warning about that thing if it were coming. However that didn't stop him from keeping a wary eye all about him, both in searching for possible predators (Forget Croc Hunter's stuff about carrion) and for the source of the niggling feeling he got that they were being watched. It was crazy, and probably just nerves, but Megabyte couldn't help but rub the back of his neck a few times as if he could wipe the phantom eyes away.
When they'd been walking for a good forty-five minutes, the Sergeant pulled abruptly to a stop, cutting his arm back to signal that they should all do the same. Megabyte was surprised to see that everyone, including Pretty Boy – who had yet to introduce himself – and George pulled to a silent halt.
They waited, quietly, only the sound of their breathing filling the air. (Amazing how loud breathing is when you're trying to be quiet.)
Right when Megabyte thought he couldn't be still any longer, he heard it. A rustling, shuffling off to the northeast of them. He realized he wasn't the only one when all heads turned in their direction.
Something was in the trees over there. Something coming right at them, and it was loud and it was fast. It wasn't the thing from the night before but it was something.
The rustling grew louder, and a loud growl could be heard. Instincts kicked in for everyone as the foliage ahead spread and a blur of something white streaked towards them. Megabyte dove to the side, instinctively grabbing George and pulling her out of harms way with him, and really hoped that Blaise or Rodney had sense of enough to use their guns.
They moved out, sometimes making idle small talk, but mostly just listening. At first they listened to Sergeant Blaise as he directed them on how to mark their route and what to look for to find their way back to Camp Crash. Later they listened to the jungle sounds, and Megabyte figured that everyone was involved in his – or her – own thoughts. That's certainly the place where he was.
He wasn't worried about the "T-Rex," because they'd have plenty of warning about that thing if it were coming. However that didn't stop him from keeping a wary eye all about him, both in searching for possible predators (Forget Croc Hunter's stuff about carrion) and for the source of the niggling feeling he got that they were being watched. It was crazy, and probably just nerves, but Megabyte couldn't help but rub the back of his neck a few times as if he could wipe the phantom eyes away.
When they'd been walking for a good forty-five minutes, the Sergeant pulled abruptly to a stop, cutting his arm back to signal that they should all do the same. Megabyte was surprised to see that everyone, including Pretty Boy – who had yet to introduce himself – and George pulled to a silent halt.
They waited, quietly, only the sound of their breathing filling the air. (Amazing how loud breathing is when you're trying to be quiet.)
Right when Megabyte thought he couldn't be still any longer, he heard it. A rustling, shuffling off to the northeast of them. He realized he wasn't the only one when all heads turned in their direction.
Something was in the trees over there. Something coming right at them, and it was loud and it was fast. It wasn't the thing from the night before but it was something.
The rustling grew louder, and a loud growl could be heard. Instincts kicked in for everyone as the foliage ahead spread and a blur of something white streaked towards them. Megabyte dove to the side, instinctively grabbing George and pulling her out of harms way with him, and really hoped that Blaise or Rodney had sense of enough to use their guns.
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[Blaise] Open Fire!
Date: 2006-01-13 05:05 am (UTC)The air was humid, warm and still under the jungle canopy. It was thick with the scent of unfamiliar plants. Birds chittered and cackled in the trees. And something moved in the greenery, rustling through the heavy growth. Not as loud or as large as the thing last night, but a large animal of some sort.
Blaise kept his gaze on the edge of the clearing. The animal was moving rapidly toward him--toward the group. Blaise thumbed the safety off and set the selector switch on his P90 to automatic by feel, then raised the weapon to his shoulder. He felt the tension creeping through his body and took a slow breath, consciously dispelling it. He let his finger slip into the trigger guard, caressing the trigger.
The rustling grew louder, accompanied by a blood chilling growl and then something burst from the brush. Blaise got a glimpse of something huge, something white, moving with more than human speed. His training kicked in even as his conscious mind scrabbled to make sense of what he was seeing. Blaise breathed out and in the momentary pause between breaths when his aim was rock steady, he squeezed the trigger twice.
Two short bursts hammered the weapon into his shoulder. Blaise continued tracking the beast as it stumbled, then sprawled to the ground only yards away. Blaise lowered the P90 with shaking hands as the adrenaline shock hit him. His pulse thudded in his temples and roared in his ears and he gasped for air as if he'd just sprinted a hundred yards.
The beast was down but not dead. It snarled and snapped it jaws in impotent fury, flailing as it tried to get to its feet. Blaise stared at it for a moment, his mind spinning crazily as he tried to make sense of the situation. Then he aimed the P90 and put another three round burst into the bear's head--he now recognized the beast as a bear. The growling and snapping ceased.
Blaise continued sighting down the barrel of the P90 for a long moment before finally lowering the weapon and taking a shaky breath. (Jesus Christ!) Blaise thought. (That was close. Why the hell did that bear attack?) It was several second longer before he thought to wonder what the hell a bear was doing on a tropical island in the Pacific.
[Rodney] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 05:32 am (UTC)"That," he said between adrenaline-fueled gasps, "is so not a dinosaur."
[George] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 05:53 am (UTC)It all happened at once. Something huge and white and furry erupted from the jungle, bellowing its rage. Someone seized George by both arms. Her shriek of surprise and alarm was lost in the hammering sound of an automatic weapon. The world spun around her as Damon pivoted, whirling her around him and getting both of them to one side.
George caught at a nearby tree to keep her balance. The monster was twitching and writhing at Blaise's feet. Blaise aimed. Another brief blast of gunfire assaulted George's ears and the beast stopped moving. Damon's attention was riveted on the monster, his grip on her arms apparently forgotten.
McKay was the first one to speak, breaking the silence.
"That...is so not a dinosaur."
George looked at the monster again. No, not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs didn't have fur. It was...a bear? A white bear.
"That is so fucked up," George said.
[Jon] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 02:42 pm (UTC)The fur was dirty and stained with green in places, but it was a polar bear, clear and simple. Jon shook his head in utter frustration. Polar bears, this far south? They lived in the Arctic Circle for cryin' out loud, not near the equator. By the look of it the thing wasn't even tagged, which he guessed would be SOP for a zoo transport, so where the hell had it come from?
"Hey guys, did the Bermuda Triangle take a left turn when no-one was looking?" he quipped, raising an eyebrow in Blaise's direction. "More importantly, does our resident Canadian - or anyone else - know whether polar bears do that 'mating for life' thing?"
[Locke] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 04:27 pm (UTC)Locke strode forward to examine the bear's remains, giving McKay and Blaise an approving nod. He circled around it, looking for signs of illness or starvation as well as the animal's gender. "I don't know about mating for life, but most bears are solitary. There was no sign of other creatures flanking or approaching from behind." He knelt beside the bear's belly, running his hand through the animal's thick fur. "Her mammary glands aren't swollen, so there shouldn't be any cubs around."
OOC question for
[George] Being Practical (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 04:37 pm (UTC)It was also huge. George had only ever seen a bear once before, a supposedly tame bear that killed two animal rights protesters. George had been there to take their souls. The bear had looked small and placid before it struck. This one...was a lot bigger and had a lot more attitude.
Staring at it, seeing the mass of flesh that had moments before been a living bear, George had a thought.
"Can we...eat it?"
Faces turned in her direction, some shocked by the thought. Some clearly surprised that she'd mentioned the possibility.
"What? Airline food sucks, and there's not much of it anyway. It's just gonna lie here and rot otherwise. Why waste it?"
[Locke] Being Practical (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 04:56 pm (UTC)"Good idea. The bear was healthy, so the meat should be safe to eat." He turned to Blaise. "If you have some rope, we could lift her off the ground and come back to field dress her after we've found the cockpit."
[Rodney] (tag George, open)
Date: 2006-01-13 07:00 pm (UTC)"Ignoring the rather stereotypical content of that question," Rodney told the group, "no, they're not monogamous, nor do they stay together for any longer than it takes to mate. A series of one-night stands, you might say."
[Blaise] (tag Daniel by radio, open tag)
Date: 2006-01-13 10:50 pm (UTC)When nobody spoke up, Blaise nodded to himself. He removed his backpack and searched it for a moment, then produced a coil of nylon rope. "Try not to cut it," he said to Locke as he tossed it to him.
Reaching up to his shoulder, Blaise keyed his microphone. He almost identified himself as SG-23, but caught the mistake. "Sergeant Blaise calling Dr. Jackson. Dr. Jackson, do you copy?" He waited a bit, then repeated his call.
The radio crackled. "Jackson here. Go ahead."
"You may have heard gunfire just now. We have no casualties here, but we did encounter a...polar bear."
Silence. Then, "Say again?"
Blaise shook his head with an understanding grin. "You heard correctly, Dr. Jackson. I bagged a polar bear. I'm standing here looking at it."
"That's...incredible."
"I'll say," Blaise agreed. "We're going to continue our search, but we will also be butchering the bear. That's a heck of a lot of protein. George's idea," he added with a glance at the girl. A more practical suggestion than he'd have expected from her.
"Copy that. We'll have a cookfire ready to go when you get back. Over."
"Roger. Blaise out."
Blaise turned his attention back to the group. "Let's get her strung up and then continue on our way."
[Jon] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-14 12:05 am (UTC)"Hey Locke," he called out, eyeing up the distance from ground to the largest palm's lowest branches. "Do you have an end spare?"
"Excuse me?"
He shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. "Ok, so it may be a stupid idea but that's a heavy lump of meat we're planning to reel up there. It might be worth testing the strength of the branches with a bit of our own body weight before spending time on all those knots."
[Locke] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-14 02:51 am (UTC)[Megabyte]
Date: 2006-01-14 02:38 am (UTC)(Because I really need to see more blood and gore today.)
He blinked and stared down at the ... bear. The freaking big, white polar bear.
Megabyte felt Ami's desperate nudge at the back of his mind, probably checking to be certain that he was okay. (Sound carries.)
/Megabyte?/ Ami asked quietly.
He answered her telepathically, while addressing the others orally. It didn't matter, the words were precisely the same. "What the fuck is wrong with this place?"
[Rodney]
Date: 2006-01-14 12:31 pm (UTC)Maybe it's all part of a damn zoo exhibit and some incompetant idiot of a curator thought they'd just lump all the Earth organisms together. That thought was just a little more sci-fi than even Rodney could take at the moment and he forced himself back into the here and now.
Then he made the mistake of actually looking at the bear. "Oh, god," he whimpered before turning away and losing his breakfast to the undergrowth.
[Megabyte]
Date: 2006-01-14 02:04 pm (UTC)(I have to be in shock. When my brain catches up and processes this, I'll probably be a stuttering nut job.)
/Megabyte?/ Ami nudged, /Talk to me./
Her 'voice' startled him, and he wondered precisely how long he might have been unintentionally ignoring her while he took in the tableau before him.
Thing was, he wasn't precisely sure of what to tell her. /Um ... the Sergeant just bagged a polar bear./
If he hadn't expected the sudden dead silence in his mind punctuated with a wild wave of incredulity, her response would have temporarily overwhelmed him. He did the only thing he could, and telegraphed the visual image of the dead polar bear back to her.
Almost immediately came the shock, and the disgust. /I didn't need to see that./
/And you think I did?/
She didn't answer, not that he was surprised. Sending the image had been a bit underhanded. (I'll apologize later.) Right now there was the small matter of a polar bear to attend to and . . .
"Are we really going to eat it? Who is going to do the skinning and gutting?" Off the looks he received, Megabyte pointed to Rodney, "See that's me when its only fish being cleaned. This is a lot bigger, a lot messier and probably a hell of a lot smellier.
"That and I'm just really a whole lot better with things that have power or batteries and removeable parts. So, unless that's a cyber polar bear, I've got nothing to offer." Megabyte paused and stepped closer, squinting hard at the bear, "Is it a cyber polar bear?"
The fact that he asked the question, and that those gathered around actually looked at it a bit more closely for a reason, told Megabyte more than they knew about their expectations.
(Okay, so I'm stranded on an island with people who actually took the cyber polar bear comment into consideration. So, I say again, what the fuck is wrong with this place?)
[Locke] (tag Megabyte, open)
Date: 2006-01-14 03:50 pm (UTC)After giving his companions a few seconds to heed his advice, Locke pierced the bear's hide just above her eye with the tip of his knife. He slid the blade back about two inches toward her ear. Bright red blood oozed from the incision. Then Locke twisted the blade, lifting the fur, skin, and thin layer of muscle from the animal's skull. "There's bone," Locke announced. "Unless there's circuitry inside, I declare this a normal polar bear."
[Rodney] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-14 07:15 pm (UTC)"Now that we've determined it actually is what it looks like, can we please get a move on before this carrion draws more predators, hmm?" Rodney kept his eyes averted from the morbid sight, focusing on a distant tree. "I know practically everything there is to know about everything, but somehow, how to gut and skin a polar bear escaped my notice, so if you don't mind..." He waved a hand absently in the air as he turned his back on the gruesome facts of life. "I'll just keep watch in this direction, all right?"
[Megabyte] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-14 07:57 pm (UTC)[Rodney] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-14 08:27 pm (UTC)As inane as the conversation with Damon was, it gave Rodney something other to focus on than the carnage behind them. Don't think about it, don't think about it...As if the Wraith weren't bad enough, now it's blood and guts and death on my supposed vacation... He had to swallow hard to force the bile back down.
"So, uh, Damon? You're American, right? And Ami's a Brit?" he asked, to distract himself from nasty thoughts. "What were you doing in Sydney?"
[Megabyte] (tag Rodney, open)
Date: 2006-01-14 08:38 pm (UTC)"What about you? What brought you all the way from our neighbor to the north to the land down under?"
[Rodney] (tag Megabyte, open)
Date: 2006-01-14 08:54 pm (UTC)Then something rolled over in his head with a faint mental click. "Huh. My sister - I have a sister, Jeannie - she's a biochemist. That's..." Rodney grinned. "Why else would I go to Australia?" he wondered, more to himself than his companion. "If we finally made it back and she had a prior commitment...That almost makes sense."
[Megabyte]
Date: 2006-01-14 08:58 pm (UTC)Then he noticed the man muttering, mostly to himself it seemed, about a sister who was biochemist and going to Australia. Megabyte tried to make sense out of the babbling, "So you were visiting your sister?"
[Rodney]
Date: 2006-01-14 09:17 pm (UTC)Of course, the possible telepathic, mind-controlling aliens could have picked through his brain to find that little connection, or even planted it there themselves, but Rodney chose to ignore that. He ignored it the same way he ignored Sgt. Blaise's casual evesdropping. I've been keepig your country's secrets for longer than you've been protecting them, sergeant, Rodney thought at the man.
[Megabyte]
Date: 2006-01-14 09:47 pm (UTC)(He's suggesting that this is the result of some sort of alien influence and/or brain washing.)
"You don't have your memory back yet, do you?" Megabyte asked casually. "Because I seem to remember a plane crash that would pretty much account for us all being here. I can't account for the T-Rex and the polar bear, but I do remember getting on a plane. And I really remember the plane being ripped to pieces."
"Anyway, I'd blame all the oddities of this place on some sort of secret military or shadow government organization." He gave a quick glance at Sgt Blaise, realizing that he probably shouldn't have said that aloud, but it was too late now.
(Besides, I've hacked into a few of them, so I know that they exist and they'd have the power and resources to pull this off. I just don't know the why.)
OOC note
Date: 2006-01-14 04:43 pm (UTC)[Locke]
Date: 2006-01-13 04:09 pm (UTC)Then it rushed.
Locke jumped downwind, putting his back to a tree and drawing his larger knife. Blaise and, surprisingly, McKay stood their ground, weapons drawn. The others moved or were moved out of the attacker's path. Blaise's P90 quickly put the animal -- (A polar bear!) -- down. Locke stared with the others for a moment, then scanned the area for any other predators. All was quiet.
[George] The bear is well hung at last (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-15 09:49 am (UTC)George watched curiously as Locke sliced into the bear's head, revealing bone and pronounced it a real bear. Watching Jon and Locke prepare the rope for suspending the bear's corpse from a tree wasn't as interesting and she paid attention instead to Damon and McKay's discussion of cybernetic polar bears and then why McKay had been in Australia.
She was getting very bored by the time Jon and Locke had finished fussing over the rope. George gathered from listening to the seemingly interminable discussions that they had to hang the bear's body from a tree, drain the blood, gut it and then carve it up for meat. George hadn't known that her suggestion of eating the bear was going to be such an involved procedure.
George was thoroughly bored and paying no attention when it was finally time to hoist that huge carcass into the air. She found herself drafted into helping to pull on the rope. Not that she was going to be much help, but they needed everyone's muscles. Dragging a line over a rough tree branch with several hundred pounds of meat at the far end wasn't easy.
It was even harder to help hold it in place without Locke's efforts while he hastily tied off the rope. They managed, but everyone was sweating and breathing hard before they were done. The rope stretched slightly and the branch creaked a bit, but it held. Now they could continue their search, and Locke could come back to butcher the bear afterward.
That was fine with George. Continuing their hike through the jungle was a lot less tiring than wrestling with dead bears.
[Megabyte] (open)
Date: 2006-01-15 05:06 pm (UTC)Instead, he turned his attention to his interesting group of companions. He considered trying to draw them out in idle conversation, but the determined looks on their faces made him think otherwise. He decided to focus on George, walking in front of him, actually glad that he'd ended up walking behind her. It gave him ample opportunity to enjoy the view.
(OOC: *snicker*)
[Jon] Finding the nose (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-15 05:18 pm (UTC)Heh..
The smell of burnt plastic and ozone was the first sign that they were close, followed by a bright gap in the dense forest canopy to one side of their path where sunshine streamed into the shady half-light below. Blaise obviously smelt the wonderful aroma too, changing direction to lead them to the edge of an unnatural clearing before calling a silent halt.
Everyone froze as they took in the sight, Jon included. He'd had a fairly good idea of what to expect, but this surpassed his hopes by a long way. Broken trees, singed and ripped branches all about.. that was to be expected.. and one Boeing 777 nose portion, angled sharply into the sky with the cockpit still in the air. In one piece. Part of the Oceanic Airlines logo was still visible close to the ground, and there'd clearly been a fire among the seats - soot stained the outer fuselage around some of the windows - but as far as Jon could tell the cockpit itself hadn't even touched the ground. For the first time he actually began to believe that there might be a working transceiver in there, though he wasn't willing to bet on a living pilot just yet.
Either way, a huge grin split his face as he nudged Rodney playfully in the ribs. BINGO!
[Megabyte] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-15 05:45 pm (UTC)He fell back on his abandoned Catholic upbringing and crossed himself, muttering a soft benediction. Then he turned and looked at Blaise, all practicality, "We should probably salvage any medicines and anything useful from this part of the plane as well."
He didn't harbor any hopes of finding anyone alive.
[Rodney] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-16 03:28 am (UTC)"I wouldn't certainly qualify it as structurally sound," Rodney told the group, "And it'll probably come crashing to the ground - again - as soon as we step foot inside. I'd recommend only the minimum number of personnel, sergeant - myself and Mr. Murphy." Thoughts of wild carnivores, never far from his mind, possibly drawn by the human carrion, prodded him to add, "And maybe a third person in case of trouble. But certainly no more than four."
[Locke] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-16 03:57 am (UTC)As the others discussed how to proceed, Locke walked around the cockpit, careful not to disturb the trees and vines holding up the nose of the plane. One of McKay's statements caught his attention: "I'd recommend only the minimum number of personnel, sergeant - myself and Mr. Murphy."
(Murphy? McKay, who considers himself the most valuable person on the island, *wants* to be accompanied by a teenager?) That was the last bit of evidence Locke needed. Jon Murphy was no ordinary teenager. Although he tried to hide it, he acted like a seasoned soldier. (No wonder McKay wants him along.) If McKay trusted his precious gray matter to Murphy, then that was good enough for him.
Locke returned to the group, stating, "No sign of any large animals near the cockpit." He turned to McKay. "Perhaps we should try to brace it before anyone enters."
[Rodney] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-16 04:33 am (UTC)Rodney unbuckled the thigh holster and held it out to Locke. "I'm going to need both hands for climbing," he explained before the man's quizzical look. "And our not so friendly t-rex? He'll be coming after you people first. Maybe you can, I don't know, scare him off with loud noises or something."
Image: The cockpit (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/ratgirlusa/livejournal%20roleplay/cockpit.jpg)
OOC Comment
Date: 2006-01-16 05:13 am (UTC)See you folks in the morning.
Re: OOC Comment
Date: 2006-01-16 05:32 am (UTC)[Jon] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-16 01:30 pm (UTC)He shook himself mentally and decided to trust Sgt Blaise with whatever happened on the ground while they were inside the wreck. "Ringing the dinner bell aside, what say we just get in and out of there as quickly as possible? I'm good to go up, but we'll need at least one other person if we're going to be passing stuff down."
Could he get away with making a suggestion? What the heck - it wasn't like they had a great deal of choice. If Blaise and Locke were stay below while he and McKay were going up, that left George, Boone and Damon. Boone acted far too much like a pretty boy with something to prove, and he didn't want to seem biased against the girl but he didn't know anything about her - other than the fact that she was very blase about almost everything. So..
"How 'bout it Damon?"
OOC: that's just picking him cos he seems like a decent bloke - Jon'd get a kick out of it if MB managed to get something working when Rodders is blustering though :)
[Megabyte] (open tag)
Date: 2006-01-16 02:57 pm (UTC)(Just who exactly are you, Jon Murphy?) Megabyte wondered. (Because you're not a normal eighteen-year-old, and having been a not normal kid myself, I can say that with fairly good authority.)
"Yeah, sure," Megabyte answered casually. He didn't think about the possible number of dead bodies inside the nose section until after he answered and he blanched a bit inside. But his need to get his hands on that transceiver was a bit stronger than his unease around dead bodies. (Times like this, I'm glad that I'm not psychometric. That would be a nightmare and a half.) "Who's first?"
"This isn't a game, Damon. What, do you want to draw straws –"
Megabyte cut off Rodney with a wave. It worked, because what Rodney didn't realize was that Megabyte sent a soft, emphatic 'shut up,' when he waved his hands. Just because he wasn't a walking telepathic radio tower didn't mean that Megabyte didn't have access to some skills and abilities that he used when necessary. He considered quieting Rodney in that instance necessary. "You want to go first, then, Rodney?"
OOC giggle
Date: 2006-01-16 03:29 pm (UTC)Poor Rodney. With so many psychics on the island he's going to have to wander off by himself to let out all of that ranting. *snicker*
OOC Into the fuselage?
Date: 2006-01-16 08:51 pm (UTC)OOC Question
Date: 2006-01-16 11:31 pm (UTC)OOC Answer
Date: 2006-01-17 12:03 am (UTC)onwards and upwards
Date: 2006-01-17 12:08 am (UTC)