Spaceship Parking & Beyond, Sunday Afternoon

[firstofitskind]

Liam had made plans with Kaidan and Verity to go on something of a joyride today, so he'd shown up at the junkyard early to give himself time to do an extra-thorough pre-flight check.

The virtual glass shimmered and became permeable as the shuttle recognized his biometrics, and he sat down in the pilot's seat and brought up the HUD.

ID core, optimal; conventional drive, optimal; weapons, optimal; communications, online; backup controls, online... everything seemed to be in working order. Now he just needed his passengers.

[ooc: for them what's mentioned!]

Comments

Before Takeoff!

[firstofitskind]

For all that pre-flight kinda stuff.

Re: Before Takeoff!

[spectre_alenko]

After his check-in with Sparkle, Kaidan headed to the junkyard. He had no idea what Liam's ship was like, where they were going, or what they might encounter.

So he was wearing his armor. Not the heavysuit, but the sleeked-down black SPECTRE armor. The only thing that identified it as such was the white wings-and-circle painted graphics on the shoulders. He had a helmet under his arm. His handgun was maglocked across the small of his back.

He headed to the junkyard and found Liam. He spent a moment looking at the ship - its build was completely unfamiliar to him.

"Hey, Liam."

Re: Before Takeoff!

[firstofitskind]

'Unfamiliar' was a good word- the shuttle was a techno-organic construct, something that had been grown rather than built, and looked it. The design was almost bug-like, the front half consisting mostly of shimmering, transparent virtual glass, and the walls in the back half constructed of purple bio-slurry.

Liam waved a hand, dismissing the controls and causing the virtual glass to dissipate so Kaidan could step inside.

"Hey," he greeted. "You dressed up, I see."

Re: Before Takeoff!

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan stepped up and into the ship, looking around with interest. "Unfamiliar ship, landscape without available oxygen - seemed prudent." He felt weird without armor in any ship that wasn't the Normandy.

"Girlfriend on her way? Or did she decide no?"

Re: Before Takeoff!

[firstofitskind]

"On her way," Liam confirmed. "But this means we have time to give you the grand tour." That was a joke, yes. The shuttle wasn't very large; there was the pilot's seat, the two passenger seats about a meter behind it, and then an empty space that could be used to hold cargo. Along the starboard side was a small touchscreen panel, the backup controls.

Re: Before Takeoff!

[spectre_alenko]

"It's definitely not of a type I've ever seen before," Kaidan acknowledged, looking over the walls. "Biomechanical? Looks organic."

Re: Before Takeoff!

[arboreal_priestess]

"Hello the ship!" Verity called, one of the Aeslin priests on her shoulder. She had a bag for him to travel in if he got tired clinging to her shoulder. "Two passengers reporting for sightseeing!"

[In the woods, will be slow af]

Re: Before Takeoff!

[firstofitskind]

"Hey, you," Liam greeted with a grin, dismissing the virtual glass so they could step through. "And hello," he greeted the mouse on her shoulder. "Glad you could join us."

Re: Before Takeoff!

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan glanced at Verity and then gave a long, slow blink at the mouse riding her shoulder. Had it just been a mouse, he'd have thought it a pet. It was wearing..clothing?.. and Liam addressed it. He could draw the math.

"Hello to you both," he greeted them. Then he discreetly kicked the back of Liam's heel for an introduction.

Re: Before Takeoff!

[firstofitskind]

"Kaidan, this would be Verity. The girlfriend you've heard me go on about." Just in case she might be confused with another more different Verity out there. "Verity, this is Kaidan. Mostly I kick his ass at chess. And this is- well, we're not capable of pronouncing his actual name," he added. "But he also goes by Abrazo."

Re: Before Takeoff!

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity started to wave, but her greeting was interrupted by the mouse. "Hail!" Abrazo squealed, making Verity wince. "Hail to the God of Distant Stars!"

In Spaaace!

[firstofitskind]

Introductions made and his passengers settled in their respective seats, Liam brought the navigational controls online. Right arm extended outwards and palm facing sideways, he moved it up along the vertical axis, the shuttle responding to his commands and lifting up off the ground.

Re: In Spaaace!

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan was familiar with HUD, though this one was different than the one on the Normandy. He watched with interest, then peered out the wall to watch takeoff. "Smooth," he noted.

Re: In Spaaace!

[firstofitskind]

The shuttle lacked anything resembling a physical control panel (except for the emergency controls at the back), there was just the holographic navigational axis. "Gesture-based controls," he explained. "More responsive than anything else I've worked with." Which... wasn't actually that much. But shhh.

Re: In Spaaace!

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan nodded, "Similar to where I'm from. Display's different. Joker, my pilot, uses them. I trained on them as co-pilot just to make sure we had one."

Re: In Spaaace!

[firstofitskind]

"These aren't the original systems, of course," Liam said, rotating his left hand in the direction he wanted the shuttle to turn. "They've been adapted for human use." As they continued to soar high above Fandom, he turned to ask Kaidan: "So, any idea where you'd like to go?"

Re: In Spaaace!

[spectre_alenko]

"Asteroid belt as a starter?" he suggested, more or less because that's where he and Kanan had gone on Tuesday. "The system's familiar to me but this version's different enough that it's..weird. The planets beyond Earth are empty and it's all so..quiet."

Re: In Spaaace!

[arboreal_priestess]

"So, Liam tells me this was your idea?" Verity asked Kaidan at some point after the guys were done geeking out over the ship.

It was absolutely worth geeking out over, but Verity had been in it enough times before that the controls were no longer fascinating.

The view though? The view got her every time.

Re: In Spaaace!

[spectre_alenko]

"Yes and no," Kaidan answered with a smile, "Liam offered it as an activity and I may have pounced on it immediately and pathetically begged to go, though. I'm from a time and place with space travel and have spent the last several years aboard ship."

He nodded at the wall, at the inky yet twinkling view outside, "That's home, far more than dirtside will ever be."

Re: In Spaaace!

[arboreal_priestess]

"So I'm guessing," Verity said with a small smile. "I expect you'd be less likely to call it 'dirtside' otherwise." She tilted her head. "So, are you from Earth, or, from some, like, galaxy far, far away?"

Re: In Spaaace!

[spectre_alenko]

"Earth, just not this version. Close enough that it's creepy. I grew up in Vancouver. When I landed here, I looked up my family and there's someone with my grandparents' names there now. This space is empty, though. Mine.. wouldn't be, even this far in the past," Kaidan answered.

"My universe is multi-species. We made it to space to find out we weren't the only sentients. Minor war ensued because humans don't deal well when they're suddenly not at the top of the food chain, but we got over it and joined the greater galactic community. Being on a monoculture world, barring the residents of Fandom, is..rough."

Re: In Spaaace!

[arboreal_priestess]

Verity waited for Kaidan to pick a seat and settled into the other one. "So, when you gonna teach me to fly this thing?" she asked, casually.

Re: In Spaaace!

[firstofitskind]

Liam raised an eyebrow and grinned back at her. "Whenever you'd like," he said, easily.

Honestly, part of him was surprised it had taken this long for her to bring the idea up.

Re: In Spaaace!

[arboreal_priestess]

She leaned forward and gave him a fond kiss. Look, that grin was just asking for one. "Good," she said. "We can trade flying lessons for tango."

Re: In Spaaace!

[firstofitskind]

"Seems fair to me," Liam agreed. "You show me how to dance on the ground, I'll show you how to dance up here." And if he executed a complicated little maneuver with a flourish of his hand to emphasize, well...

Sometimes he liked being dramatic, okay?