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Who: Horatio Hornblower
Broadcast: fleetwide, unintentional
Action: Marsiva
When: The 19th

God in Heaven, William. What time--

[But the person he's speaking to isn't there. Nothing is where it was when he fell asleep the night before. This is most certainly not Missus Mason's attic, and he can distinctly remember quarrelling with her. So he didn't happen to sleep somewhere else.

Might have been more pleasant if he had.

His head hurts, but that's from drink.

Slowly, he sits up, looking around the bunk he's found himself in. It's... quite unlike anything he has experience with. Even inns don't look like this, and that makes his head hurt even more.

He's dressed. He realises that after a moment more. He'd thought he'd gotten ready for bed before lying down, but after a certain point memory does get a bit foggy. What's disconcerting, though, is that there's nothing in his pocket when he feels it. No remaining money from his winnings.

But if he'd been robbed, his coat ought to have been taken. The buttons are worth a bit, at least, and his sword is still at his side. And he is alone. Which is perhaps the most worrying thing.]

William?

[But there's no one around. Not that he sees. He is here alone.]

Mister Bush?

God damn it, what's going on...

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You've been kidnapped.

[It isn't that he didn't notice the odd... thing... on a table near him, but he hasn't realised its purpose yet. So, instead, he just looks around the seemingly empty room.]

Who's there?

[Though, with a female voice? He's glad he isn't dressed for bed.]

[The urge to mess with him is so strong. Be good, Pryde.]

Kitty Pryde, but I'm not actually there. I'm speaking to you through your communicator.

You're not--

[Not really there? That makes exactly zero sense.]

What the Devil is going on?

[Sighing. This would be more fun if she just pretended to be a ghost. She already has the power for it.]

Okay, find the communicator. It's probably the thing that looks extra completely foreign to you. My voice will get louder as you get closer to it.

[Extra completely foreign.

That... actually helps quite a bit. Because there's only one item that looks like something he doesn't know in the slightest, and, sure enough, the voice is coming from it. So, he picks it up to get a better look at it.

Of course, even once he's looking at it... What he sees doesn't make much sense.

A woman's... portrait? But did it move? No. Surely not.]

I believe I've found it.

[She waves at him. How creepy is that?] You did. Hi.

[And there it goes, dropped on the floor.]

What the Hell?!

It's just transmitting my image to you. I'm not in the communicator or anything, but if I was dropping me would be a real jerk move.

It's-- What?

[It takes a moment for his mind to process everything it needs to. First off, he's still a bit hungover. Not that he would say that to anyone, let alone a young woman.

But then he thinks about what she said. 'Transmit.' He knows it primarily from his father. Medicine. To pass an illness from one to another. But in another context. To transmit an image...

It seems strange to him. Awkward phrasing, certainly, but it isn't his place to say such.]

How is this possible?

What manner of sorcery--

It's technology, not sorcery, but we have that here too. [At least one of her crewmates does.]

Just think about how all of your advancements [whatever they are] would look to a civilization from your past or without them. Then imagine it's happening to you. [Because it is.]

[It still looks like sorcery to him and, for that reason, he isn't picking up the strange thing.]

God.

And--

[There's something much more important now that he's focused a bit.]

And Mister Bush. We were lodging together. What's become of him?

He's probably still there. Safe. [Might as well assume as much without evidence to the contrary.]

A strange sort of kidnapping then, isn't it?

You're the one talking to the girl in a little box and you have to ask? [Not that she finds any of it odd, but he clearly does.]

[the artist had been mostly quiet since her sister arrived. It was an odd thing for her, withdrawing to her small crew, but she had her reasons. Here, in this strange place, she didn't have her close community of friends to fall back on to help with Raylene's arrival. Her crew was the closest she'd come to finding something like it. And, well...she wanted to give Raylene her space.

Ha.

Space ships between them, but the network was there as an instant reminder when she put herself out on it...and so she'd been quiet.

But, contained as it is, the man's nervous uncertainty is palpable as she watches his public conversations play out, and his manner of speech reminds her of how Tyrion had spoken uneasily of the vastness of space when she'd first arrived.

She knows the image might be unsettling, but as someone had already (loosely) explained about video being transmitted, she figured a face might be more reassuring than disembodied voices speaking out into the eerie space that was the Marsiva hospitality deck]

It's kind of a strange story, and I'm still learning bits and pieces of it, myself...but I can try to answer questions.

[Hearing the thing speak in one voice and show one image was strange enough, even if he can (vaguely) understand what is happening. To see it happen again is...

Well, Horatio isn't quite convinced he's not delusion somehow.]

I don't think I'd even know what to ask first. Save where my friend has gone.

You're trapped on a space fleet, to entertain the inhabitants of an unknown galaxy.

Hi.

[Most of that... really doesn't make any sense. But one word does. One very, very important word.]

Excuse me.

You said this is part of a fleet?

Yup. If you look out the window, you'll probably be able to see one of the smaller ships zooming around--they're all under the authority that big one you're on at the moment.

[Sort of.]

It's rather disorienting, isn't it?

[Eyy, another British person! That might be a comfort? Or possibly not, given the man in question is scarred, but that can't be helped.]

Have they told you what's going on yet? There ought to be a little video playing for you sometime soon.

I am... beginning to understand. In the vaguest of senses, at least.

[Another countryman is, at the very least, a point of note.]

Well, if you need help, I'm more than willing to answer any questions you have.

[Well. Beverly can't help but be intrigued by this: a man dressed in a uniform from the Age of Sail. Jean-Luc would be thrilled, no doubt.

Still, her biggest concern, as always for new arrivals, is his well-being. When she speaks, her tone is calm and authoritative, hopefully familiar to someone else in uniform.]

Hello? This is Dr. Beverly Crusher, on the SS Blue Fish. Do you still need assistance?

[Doctor.

A woman doctor.

A woman doctor speaking in that tone.

Yet, given all the oddities of the day, is it, perhaps, one of the easiest to reconcile. Because, given everything else, a woman becoming a doctor isn't that difficult to believe.]

C-- Lieutenant Horatio Hornblower. Your servant, ma'am.

[Good man, Horatio. She would not have taken kindly to any implication that women couldn't or shouldn't be doctors.

She nods respectfully in acknowledgement, taking note of that almost… Commander? Captain? Recently demoted, or was he trying to hide his higher rank from her for some reason?]

Lieutenant Hornblower. A pleasure, though I wish the circumstances of our meeting weren’t quite so… strange.

[ well, now. this is curious. ]

-- I imagine the others have given you a decent run-down of it all?

[ brisk, but attentive. perhaps it's the accent to which she responds most. or the funny look about his fashion. either way, her interest is piqued. ]

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