itstopped | Re-Entry 08: Video/Spam

Help!

[The cry goes out while the video is still turning on. The picture, when it appears, is chaotic: Felix Gaeta, ashen grey and soaked with sweat and tears of panic, but only for a second before the shaking camera turns on what looks like an empty Western ghost town, caught from a high vantage point, shingles visible at the bottom of the screen.

Not empty. There are snarls and yowls and a terrifyingly organic sound coming from below.

Felix's voice cuts in again, tight with fear. He's not a hero. He's not a fighter. He's the one at the controls, and for all that he's usually good at staying calm in a crisis, it's a lot frakking easier when there's a console between him and it. He sounds a little hysterical.]

SOS! SOS! I'm pinned down in the-- oh, gods-- [There's another furious roar from below; his voice hitches, the camera shakes.] --the CES. Something attacked us. I think Dean is dead. I--

[There's a scream from underneath, unmistakeably human. The communicator drops against the shingles--] Dean? [--and cuts out.]

[Open Spam for Level Two/Infirmary, Later]

[After it's all over, after they've done what they can with Dean's corpse and patched up whatever needs to be on the survivors, Felix is set adrift into the aftermath. He should get cleaned up and then stay with Dean, he knows, or else he should get back to work and keep something like this from happening again. But he can't seem to make himself go to the latter just yet, not with Dean dead less than an hour, and the former...

He's always known that the death toll exists here, but he's never had to really confront it before, not in a way he couldn't brush off and ignore. The truth is that it scares him more than almost anything else about the Barge, even here, even now. It's not ignorance; it's not that he's never seen anything like it before. It's that he has.

The pull to sit by Dean's side and wait is powerful, but in the end, he winds up haunting the door to the infirmary, still red-eyed and disheveled, constantly peeking inside.]

((Right after/congruent with this, obviously.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Riddick wasn't among the first responders, nocturnal as he's been lapsing, but when he wakes blearily to the SOS cry it's really hard to put a little non-morning coffee and constitutional first on his list of priorities. Things are resolved by the time he gets to the infirmary.]

You're on your feet. What did you see in there. What went for you. We gotta do better about keeping people safe while we're 'training'.

[His voice is sleep-rough, adrenaline-terse-- who does he mean by 'we?' Equal parts the wardens, the prison vets, the strong fighters, but he's drawn to this crisis like he could stop it from happening again.

He knows he can't. He's still asking.]

[He's calmer now, more adequately prepared to answer questions, although he knows deep down that if he were really settled on this he'd be in the infirmary like he should be. Still, he's terse but not angry when he replies -- almost back in military mode, really.]

There was a pack of wild dogs. Seven that attacked us, more in total. I didn't see the full number. [And then he remembers the other part.] Someone took our guns.

[The gun thing was going to be his next question anyway so-]

'Someone'. When, did you see them? Or did they just vanish?

I didn't see anything. I didn't even feel... neither of us knew until it was too late.

Well. Shit.

That's a new one on me. What were you armed with, when you went in? Anything special about the weapons or the ammo?

[Riddick hopes rather than actually believing there'll be a pattern, something that can be worked around.]

[He shakes his head tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose.] Just regular sidearms. Handguns. Older than what I'm used to, but normal. I think his is called a Colt and mine was a Beretta.

[His jaw tightens, brow knitting.] All the doors were locked. All the doors and windows, every entrance.

[He exhales through his teeth, sounds not a little like he's hissing.]

Right.

Winchester gonna live, do they know yet?

[He stifles a snort, still closed off, withdrawing a little bit more into himself.] That depends on what you mean by 'live.'

Death-toll doesn't count.

Then, no. He won't. [He pauses, and he still can't help the bitterness in his voice when he adds:] Until he does.

[Ooh, graveyard humor, extra bitter. His favorite. Riddick's mouth twists; he nods.]

You ain't lookin' so hot yourself, by the way.

I'm fine. Nothing happened to me. [He softens a little again, glances away.] He saved me. [Which had been, frankly, an idiot thing to do: literally the only way for him to survive had been for Dean to die instead, and there had still been a pretty frakking good chance of the both of them going.]

He'll wake up.

I know his coffee order. I'll have something for him when he's feeling up to eating again.

I know. [He sighs; in its way, that's its own problem, but it's not a thing he plans on talking about. At least, not until Ned winds up accidentally prying it out of him.] Thank you.

I'll see if I can figure out what the CES is doing, maybe warn anyone else who's going in.

... Gaeta. It's shit when people die for you. This guy's coming back, though. Keep moving forward.

[Fry never got the death toll. And what he wouldn't trade for her to have been able. And with those ... less than useful words of ... comfort? He's gone.]

Re-Entry 08: Video/Spam

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