driftfleet | Whose Idea For A Practical Joke Was This. Thanks, Universe.

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Whose Idea For A Practical Joke Was This. Thanks, Universe.

Who: Katie McCoy and you.
Broadcast: Most definitely.
Action: ...the planet Lyuku, if you come looking, I guess?
When: Sept 7

[The problem with the investigations Katie's been doing over the past week is they've delivered her answers that she's reasonably sure nobody else will have. Which dilemma she probably should have expected if worst came to worst, but she's never been particularly good at planning ahead. Probably why she'll never get promoted, back home. (You know, apart from her general lack of reliability, but...)

The other problem is rock formations and trees and landmasses in general have no human sense of time, so the terrified message this world gives her could happen next year. Or it could happen in half an hour. She can't get enough coherency for specifics.

The other other problem is that every time she's tried to impart information to the Fleet it's been largely missed amidst the chaff she has to surround it with. Mikleo picked up one point last time. Edna and Sam also know, but that is too small a pool of people, and two of them have issues being noticed by most everyone else. This time, she can't afford anyone to not understand how very important this is.

In short, this is going to suck.]

URGENTSinging planet sent the dreams. [One.]

Planet is terrified [Two.]

What we saw is coming to ths planet in the near fture [...three. Usually a limit.]

marsva sent us here ergo it will happenw hile wer'e here ratings evactuate peope back la

[We're sorry. The pooka you're trying to talk to has passed out. Leave a message? She's... kind of in the middle of nowhere if anyone has a way to track her down, sprawled under some pretty huge and old trees. A geas to lie sucks.]

((Seriously, she won't be back to respond for at least a day. So feel free to threadjack others in this post and make her warning not be in vain.))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[that sounds... honest. Is that bad? that might be bad.

the way her typing trailed off looks pretty bad.]

Hey- are you okay? Do you need some help?

[It may be a question but whether she answers honestly or not, he'll probably know.]

[How do you feel about a response offff nothing at all? Her communicator is still on, but it's not broadcasting anything. Leave a message after the beep?]

[oh dear, did she pass out? she probably passed out. that's really not good at all. it's not like he has a magic locating arte or something.

there's not much else he can do, so he takes a deep breath, leans in, and-]

KATIE!

[he'll just have to keep yelling for her until he knows how to find her, sorry for your ears]

[Man, so you should be. Do you know how much her head hurts?

Yelling will net him an answer of sorts in a minute or two, though, as such high volumes close by do the trick, dragging her out of her faint with a wince. At least long enough for her to consider life choices and decide getting home under her own steam is not viable.

There's a couple of clumsy smacks at the communicator, and then she finally finds what shes' looking for, and her GPS location will light up.]

[There's another seraph who caught this broadcast and she's not pleased with what it says. She knows exactly what Katie's condition entails.]

She probably can't hear you. Get Sorey and Alisha. We can all go down and find her to bring her back to the ship.

[As much as she wants to act like she doesn't care, she does.]

[What in the world is she- oh. Ohhhhh, right, that's a thing. That... tracking thing. GP-whatever. Okay, he can use this. Which is good, because he'd been on the edge of yelling at her some more, since there wasn't really anything else he could do.

what the feck is she doing way out in the middle of- oh, whatever. time to move.]

Got it... hang in there, Katie. We'll be there as soon as we can.

[SHUTTLE SHUTTLE GET TO THE SHUTTLE]

[O HAI

Keith is on his way to the bay, too. Mikleo's urgency, and the fact that Keith heard him yelling were big clues as to why he was there.]

Did she wake up?

[He didn't block access to the bay, but he was just going to tag along to the shuttle. Need a fast pilot? That was Keith's specialty.]

[And here comes Sorey, as much a taxi service as anything else. He saw that post, heard (and felt) Mikleo's panic and came running.] No, her location just lit up. Let's go get her!

[Edna doesn't really like the sense of urgency, but she joins Sorey and Mikleo as quickly as she can. Katie is probably the only person she likes outside of her group from home, and it's not that easy for her to admit that. So, if Katie's doing something dumb, Edna will be there to help her and then harass her later.]

Took you long enough to show up.

[And before Sorey can respond to her, there she is turning into a little golden globe of light and entering him. Hi, Keith. You wanted to see that, right?]

[Oh, yeah, since they're taking the shuttle and bringing Katie back, it might get a little cramped if they're all piled in. Plus it's faster if fewer people have to get in, get seated, and take off.]

Keith, you're in charge of flying us there. Sorey, here- navigate him to her location.

[He passes his communicator over with the GPS system already open and follows Edna's lead, orbing into Sorey. He's usually better with maps anyway, and this way the seraphim can conserve their mana in case they need to do any healing when they get there.]

[Okay... if things weren't super urgent about getting Katie, Keith would probably be more weirded out by that whole orbing thing. As it was, he sort of froze up for a split second, staring, before mentally shaking himself out of it and headed into the shuttle.]

I hope you're a good navigator.

[He went through the start up procedures as fast as the shuttle would respond to him as Sorey strapped in.]

[Well he's certainly a better navigator than a pilot, and he's seen (even experienced) how good a pilot Keith is so he'll leave him to it.] Don't worry about it. Um, it looks like...we should head for the basin nearby. [Sorey turns Mikleo's comm a bit before pointing as they exit the bay.] Go that way.

[Keith glanced over for just a second, and then banked the shuttle in that directly, kicking the engines to full. There was something of a drop before they got there, too, so Keith tilted the nose down to get a slight dive and boost their speed in the process with the planet's gravity.]

The basin isn't far. [Keith had done some exploring in an attempt to figure out what that weird humming he'd been hearing was. He'd seen the area Sorey had pointed out on the map.] It won't take us long to get there.

[Sorey at least just braces himself against the dash instead of freaking out; he's used to this, and he saw how Keith liked to drive, not to mention he's just as eager to get to her as quickly as possible.]

What do you think happened? Was she attacked?

[From inside Sorey, she can hear everything, but Keith won't be able to hear her.

Oh well~]

No. She told the truth.

[eh, Sorey's a convenient filter sometimes.]

You knew that about her, too?

[And the convo continues on without the humans.]

I saw what happens to her when she tells the truth from those stupid rooms two months ago. Let's just hope she's not bleeding.

[Nope... not hearing the voices in Sorey's head.]

Why would someone attack her? Do you think she found something?

[That was concerning.]

Edna and Mikleo are saying it's because she told the truth. [Sorey knew that she was a magical type of being (a 'pooka' in her memories) and that her name was Katie, but he'd kept calling her Dorothy out of respect for the lack of correction. It was the name she'd given him, so it's the name he'll use.] Apparently it hurts her; she could be in really bad shape.

[Keith frowned.]

Telling the truth hurts her?

[Well, that was a damn sucky thing to have to deal with. Holy crow. And he had no reason at this point not to believe something weird like that, his mind actually figuring it was probably some sort of curse with everything he'd been exposed to since arriving in the Fleet.]

Alright... hang on.

[It wasn't much further. He dove down into the basin, skimming the landscape at the minimum altitude he needed to keep the shuttle in the air.]

You have coordinates on that map? Is there a spot for us to land nearby or are we going to have to trek in to get her?

It looks like we'll have to land and walk a little, [Sorey mumbles, fiddling with the map and zooming out.] She's in that forested area over there. You can land in that clearing over to the left of it, right? [It's pretty small, bro]

[Keith checked the readout on the map, considered what he knew about the size of the shuttle and how well it handled in a pinch, and then nodded.]

That'll work.

[Zoom! He headed in that direction. It wasn't much further, really, and soon he was skimming the treetops and closing in on it. He kicked in the reverse thrusters to bring them to a hover over the spot (sorry for the rough stop!) and then brought the shuttle down into the clearing with a smooth landing on the ground... mere inches to spare and only a few scraped branches.]

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