Chapter Twelve [Video]

[thebestseller]

Who: Richard Castle and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Windrose, if desired
When: February 11th

[When Castle flicks on the video, he's projecting a veneer of calm... very badly, because one can hear an edge of panic in his voice.]

Ha, ha, ha! I don't mean to alarm anybody, but I bought myself one of those spiffy augment upgrades. I picked fire, because who doesn't want to be red hot, am I right? But, enhh... [He holds up his left palm, which has a small but persistent flame on the center.] I can't seem to turn it off. Does anybody here have experience with fire powers? And should it really be this powerful when I've only bought the first level...?

(no subject)

[outstandingbalance]

Who: Natasha Romanoff + various
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Starstruck, Heron, Vanquish, Iskaulit & Siourew
When: Throughout February

Visits - Starstruck & Heron

[Don't let it be said that Natasha Romanoff isn't good to her word. She's said she would pay visits to a couple of ships, and in early February, she proves good to her word.

First on the agenda, she stops in on the Heron. It gets priority because it's not just a social call. She said she'd help Barnes out with his hair—it's obviously been a while since anyone gave it a trim, and he's agreed to trust her enough to help him out. Hopefully Barnes is in. She didn't call ahead to check.

Later, she'll show up on the Starstruck. She's actually been here a couple of times recently, eating Wanda's cookies and stopping by to see Peggy, but she's trying to make more of a habit out of it. Steve clearly wanted her to. And she hasn't seen him on those visits, so here she is again.

In Starstruck's kitchen.

Making herself some coffee.]

Exploring - Siourew

[Natasha takes the opportunity to get down on the planet. Or around it, as the case proves to be. Either way, she's taking advantage of the opportunity to get outside, to see a real sky, breathe fresh air and stretch her legs.

If anyone wants to join her for a hike, she wouldn't turn down the company.]

Hallucinations - Vanquish, Islaulit & Siourew

[As the month wears on, the tone of things changes for the worse. Natasha hadn't assumed she'd escaped the glitches affecting various members of the fleet, but she had seemed no worse for them so far. That changes as the month wears on.

It starts with flashes out of the corner of her eye. Little girls who watch her with eyes too old for their faces. They stand in ones and twos, tucked around corners and in shadows, glimpsed in the reflection in a window, there for only an instant, then gone. It doesn't end there, though. After the flashes, aural hallucinations. Voices come straight from her memory, clear and distinct, speaking in any of half a dozen different languages. They bark orders. Praise her dedication. Quiz her on training. A few words, a phrase, and then they're gone.

Then the visions escalate. The girls stay are no longer just girls. They're ghosts, sporting evidence of the injuries that killed them—they're students she killed along the way, bruised or bearing bullet wounds. Sometimes they're missing eyes, missing mouths. They float in windows.

They don't speak, because the dead don't. They just follow her. Isn't that fitting?

Natasha tries to go about her days normally. She visits the shooting range, or bars. She makes her meals in Vanquishes kitchen and she stops into bars on Iskaulit. She even goes back planetside hoping getting away from the fleet will ease the glitch, but there's no such luck. By the end of the month, she might walk into a room and for five full seconds, it's as though she's stepped into the past, back in Russia, back in the Red Room, watching girls be winnowed away until only the weapons remain, or she might turn a corner and find herself standing face to face with the distorted face of one of her marks from her early days as an assassin. She tries to hide it, but as time goes on, even she can't entirely hide the signs of stress.]

Fleetwide Text Post, Action for the Tourist

[helladoomed]

Who: Chloe Price and you!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: On the Tourist
When: Around the 12th.

Text Broadcast:

Wanted: Single person for valentine's day.
Requirements: Don't be a little kid, don't be really old, don't be a stick in the mud. Don't mind cigarettes. Don't be a prude.

Details: So I am not sitting alone in my fucking cabin on valentine's day. Or third wheeling it with one of the 'so happy couples' everyone I know seems to have turned into lately.

Rented a pretty nice cabin down on the ringworld because FUCK YES RINGWORLD. Ever notice that even after a year in space there's still shit that can surprise you? I mean, damn, a Ringworld.

Anyway.

Let's see. I'll cook, there'll be booze, a view, place has a lake. Maybe go swimming? Heard of worse things to do on valentine's day.

If we hit it off you'll probably get laid so. Yeah. Date with benefits. Happy endings all around.

Come one, come all. Applications start below.

[Action for the Tourist]

[After her funk over the last few weeks, Chloe has seemed a bit more...up, recently? At least, she's not sitting in her cabin or the lab all day anymore. She's been cooking again, singing along with her music again, just...getting back to normal. Maybe she's feeling better?]

[Or maybe it's a glitch, of course, since she's also way more talkative when people are around. But even if it was, it's better than all the moping and pity-party stuff, yes? She can be found all over the ship really, cooking, working, sometimes exercising..]