Ellen Park, the Lone Wanderer

Diana steps through after Ellen, head lifting as she scans the surrounding area, all while Ellen is giving her introduction.

It pays to be cautious, and a warrior's instincts are not so easily put aside (not that she believes Ellen would expect her to).

"Shall our return trip be from this same location?"

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"I intend it to be," Ellen says. "I don't like the idea of going back to Milliways from the ship. I've never tried to open a door up there and I don't know if it would work."

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Dinah, as she's used to when going into other people's worlds, rolls a soft growl around in the back of her throat, testing her sonic equipment in case she should need it later. As she does, she fingers her black choker, and her plastic Milliways drinks stirrer sewn into the lining.

"We won't need a door from the ship. We're bringing the people back here, right?"

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"As many as we can. It's a slow process and we're going to have to move a lot of supplies as well as people," Ellen says. "And beam down some of the pods as is, or at least get them to the Citadel, to be thawed out in a controlled environment. But.. yeah."

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"But there is enough power in the ship, as it stands, to begin the process for at least a few?"

Test cases, in a way. And also determining the right procedure for thawing in 'natural' conditions. It should make adaptation easier, when the need demands.

Or so Diana's thinking runs.

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Ellen nods. "We spoke with the aliens who still survive," she says. "They're workers- they call themselves servitors. I don't know what the others did to them, but they won't even defend themselves at gunpoint... anyway, they've made sure there's enough power available to start the process for a number of the people."

She crests the rise in the landscape and starts down into the crater. As she does so she adds, "There are a few people active on the ship right now. Dr. Tercorien's the one who's been awake the longest. He helped me take the ship from the aliens in the first place. He knows a little bit about superheroes but he thinks super powers come from being from an alien planet that happens to be friendly to Earth- the first one he met was Invincible, who's half Viltrumite, and then he met someone from Asgard. He's also from the year 2077. I haven't told him about Milliways, just that I know people who can help us with this job, so... bear that in mind."

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Dinah skips down the side of the crater carefully, watching her feet to prevent them from sliding.

"I won't be screaming, anyway," she says. "Not unless you want the ship dismantled from the inside with us all still in it."

She's guessing no.

Shame, because there went her chance to pretend to be Kryptonian.

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"All things considered I think I'd rather avoid that," says Ellen. "So we'll leave that without saying. Although he does associate fancy costumes with professional wrestling, for whatever that's worth."

She moves aside a small pile of stones and reveals a metal cylinder protruding from the dirt. "Unless there's any other questions, I'm going to activate the beacon for Elliott to beam us all up as soon as he's in range..."

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"I'm fully qualified," Diana observes wryly, "for either cover story, really."

Thanks, Kal. And also you, volume 3 storyline with the cage fighting.

"But yes, I think I'm quite ready to go. Provided you are, too, Dinah?"

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Ellen smiles a little, and when Dinah nods, presses a half-concealed button on the side of the cylinder. Several seconds later the wind begins to whirl around them, and a golden light bathes the immediate area as small stones and other objects begin to rattle around loose-

And then the light grows too bright to see through. When it fades, the three women are standing in a blue-lit room of white metal walls, with a worried-looking blond man in armor standing behind a nearby console. "Oh good," he says, "it worked again. I was starting to think we were going to wear it out... hi, Ellen. Who've we got visiting this time?"

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Volume three storyline with the cage fighting was the BEST storyline.

Dinah shoots him her brightest of smiles - one of those that only seems to come with the wig - and offers a leather-clad hand.

"Hi, I'm Dinah. This is Diana. Ellen asked us to help out."

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Up go the eyebrows, but the man nods and reaches out to shake the hand. "Pleased to meet you, ma'am," he says. "My name's Elliott Tercorien. I'm a doctor. I used to be with the US Army, but I'm told that doesn't matter any more, so I'm just a doctor now. Thank you both for coming- things've been getting really interesting lately..."

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"Fortunately we're used to dealing with interesting -- and for wildly varying definitions of the term, as well."

Her own smile is warm, much as it ever is.

"Is there time enough to explain, or should we cover only the short version?"

Everyone here has probably done more with less.

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Elliot glances at Ellen. When she nods, he squares his shoulders. "Well," he says, "I've spent the better part of the past year up here on this ship with only Sally Taylor and a samurai warrior who doesn't speak English for company- along with a bunch of aliens. I thought they were spying on us so they could kill us all by sabotaging the ship. Captain Park here-"

"I'm only captain by default, Elliott."

"It still counts and I should've said it before," says Elliott. "Captain Park here just made radio contact with us for the first time really recently, though. And when she came up here the first time she brought a half-alien guy named Invincible to help with getting at better supplies and other issues we were having on the ship. Now we've had an Asgardian ambassador show up and negotiate peace with the aliens, of all things, and they gave me healing chems and some really weird stuff that turned out to be a basic user's guide to the ship's cryo technology. I got started thawing people out and I've had three successful people in a row, if you don't count the huge green skinned mutant monster we thawed out by mistake."

"Which would be enough on its own, but one of the aliens who gave me the user's guide came in a while ago and I'm pretty sure it was trying to tell me there's a problem with something hostile somewhere else on the ship..."

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Dinah glances briefly at Diana just long enough to catch her eye, before turning back to the doctor.

"What kind of something hostile, exactly?"

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"I'm not sure. About its size, though," says Elliott, indicating something about a head shorter than him. "So not a mutant, and ... probably not one of their robots. They've got robots with energy cannons, but the robots are shorter than they are. They did some really sick experiments where they force-hybridized human and alien DNA, though. Toshiro's left enough corpses for me to be able to tell that much about them."

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"Force-hybridized," Diana repeats, unimpressed, glancing over at Dinah as she does so.

Hmm.

"Do you and your allies think this hostile force might be more of such beings, or is more likely to be a different type of experiment? And if it is the latter -- or even the former, really -- are there accessible records we'd have time to look through? Or do you judge the situation far too urgent?"

Edited Date: 2012-10-13 01:39 am (UTC)

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"Well, Sally hasn't seen any of them herself, but she tries to stay out of the line of fire anyway," says Elliott. "Can't blame her. She's only about seven or eight years old. Toshiro's used the word 'bakemono' a lot. I'm not sure what that means, but he usually says it after killing some of those hybrids. The crew aliens get all cringing and scared when they try to communicate about them, though."

He gives Ellen an apologetic look.

"The kind they used to give me when I thought they were the danger and tried shooting them. I think it means the hostiles are armed, not just bare-handed like these bake... bakemono things. As far as records go, there's consoles all over the ship, but none of us've actually figured out how to read much of the alien language other than the specific stuff they've got in the cryo labs."

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"Bakemono," Dinah repeats, in much the same way that Diana had earlier, including the same look. Her pronunciation is better than Dr. Tercorien managed, though.

"That could be shapeshifters. Or it could just be the fact that they're hybrids, I guess."

She rolls one shoulder, flicking her blonde hair behind it in that movement.

"Looks like the only way we'll find out about these hostiles is to go find them. Unless Toshiro is around?"

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"As far as I know he's meditating in the observation area," says Elliott. "I can take you there if you want- it's right off the engineering core, so you'll be able to reach the rest of the ship via the teleporter disks. Follow me, it's not far."

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And another look gets exchanged.

"I think we'd prefer that, yes. Thank you very much."

The really troubling thought -- insofar as there are any thoughts regarding this situation that are not troubling -- is that these bakemono might just as easily be both.

Or something more, besides.

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Elliott nods, and leads the way through a number of short corridors and rounded doors that pull apart into six smaller elements that iris out of the way as they pass. Fortunately, there's relatively little ducking to be done- especially once they reach the observation area. The ceiling there is about fifteen feet overhead, with windows one can only hope are of transparent aluminum or some similar material running from ceiling to floor.

(Ellen turns away from the view quickly, herself. She doesn't need to be reminded of just how unutterably vast the blackness of space is.)

"Hey, Toshiro?" calls Elliott as they enter the room. "Toshiro, are you in here?"

An observant eye will spot the kneeling figure off to one side before it starts to rise to its feet.

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This time Dinah doesn't grin or offer a hand for shake her hair.

She bows formally instead.

"Konichiwa, Toshiro-sama."

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Toshiro stares for a moment, then shakes himself off and returns the bow. "[Good day to you, lady,]" he says as politely as he can. "[Please pardon my surprise. I didn't expect to meet someone here who spoke a language I could understand.]"

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