[Log] "There will be no drunken fumbling..."

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Spaceport, Ariel
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Located at the southern most tip of Ariel City, the Spaceport is a sectioned mass of landing pads and Alliance Overview. Customs officers and Alliance patrols are the main staple of the area, making their way about each new arrival as it lands or inspecting a ship on as it leaves. Central to the port is a tall and imposing building that juts up from the main complex to inhabit the skies above. Most notable about the area is the waters of the ocean itself, giving off a light of their own.
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Josephine hurries down Grace's ramp, looking this way and that way and then this way again. "Ou est-elle?" she exclaims, but softly and to herself. "Ca n'a dure que cinq minutes... C'est ce que je pense...." Looking a bit dejected and sad, eventually the woman pauses in her steps and pointedly frowns.

Saienne is en-route back to the Grace, pheasant feather bobbing above the brim of her hat as she strides up through Ariel's heavily patrolled spaceport. She has a lightness to her step that suggests a certain element of nonchalance to her attitude. Diverting past a cluster of Feds standing by the customs she goes so far as to tip her broad-brimmed hat at them: "Afternoon, gentlemen," she says, pleasantly. As she approaches the Grace's familiar form, she stops at the foot of the ramp, listening. "That you, Josephine?" She asks, finally, finding the voice familiar but the words anything but.


Josephine pats at herself a bit, "Oh, I'm fairly sure that it's definitely me, Ms. Saienne!" she declares, with enthusiasm. "Isn't this just an impressive spaceport? It's so busy and populated and.." She eyes a particularly well-armed group of Alliance officers as they strut on by, "well patrolled... I don't suppose you were out having fun, were you?"

Maija is with Jerena in a long black limousine that goes through the spaceport area enroute to somewhere else. "Perhaps," she tells the woman inside with her, eyes crinkling again at the corners. "Though, I choose to think of us as men and women who simply enjoy being social and have an appreciation for the finer things in life."

"Not fun, exactly," Sai replies, hopping up onto the foot of the ramp and approaching the other woman. "But it ain't exactly toothache when a drop goes well, neither." She grins crookedly, and turns around to view Ariel's shining spaceport - the pads clustered with ships; the tall spine of the central building; the shimmer of the sea round about. "A sight different from Eavesdown, ain't it?" She says, nodding so that the feather in her hat bobs about jauntily again. "You waitin' on someone?" She asks.

The Limo isnt going that fast, just taking its sweet time. Jerena inside just chuckles and nods. "I do enjoy that answer." She then goes about opening up the box which Maija has brought along with her.

Josephine looks briefly unhappy again. "Not exactly waiting, no. Ara asked me to go out with her, and I was all ready to go but then there was this pink sticky stuff all over the galley decking and who can possibly imagine how it got there, but it was awfully hard to clean up and I certainly didn't want anyone to be tracking it all over the ship because then it would have been a /real/ mess, and...well, it seems Ara didn't wait for me. Maybe if I contact her on the comm unit... hey, you want to come with, maybe?"

Saienne peers up the ramp towards the open bay doors and the hold, as if she can peer right through the bulkhead and up a deck or two to the galley itself. "Pink sticky stuff?" She asks. "I ain't even goin' to wonder on what it was or how it got there..." Saienne looks back at Josephine, her grin gone but an easy lop-sided smile in its place. "Already got my walkin' boots on, ain't I?" She pauses, and slips her hands in her trouser pockets. "An' I'd love to accompany you, if it ain't no bother."

Josephine grins as she pushes a couple buttons on her basic model icomm unit and tries to track down the elusive Captain. "Josephine to Ara...hey you out there somewhere?" is what she broadcasts to anyone on Grace's crew who is actually equiped with a similar unit.

While Josephine is engaged with contacting the Captain, Saienne stands looking out over what of Ariel City she can see from this vantage point. She takes a couple of steps backwards up the ramp to gain some height, and gazes silently over the heads of the crowd of spacers, merchants, Feds - folk. "I always reckoned Ariel to be too clean an' tidy," she says, more to herself than anyone in particular. "But ain't it so that it's as chaotic an' as lively as Eavesdown." A pause, and she tips her hat back a little to the late afternoon sunshine falls into her eyes. "Just differently so."

Josephine remains in quiet dialogue for several minutes, although key words such as "junkyard," "cozy," "Saienne," and "avoid the dog," come to the forefront. "OK. See you soon!" the cook calls more loudly and cheerfully into the little unit. "You really should get one of these things, Sai.." she decides. "Anyway, we're supposed to bring and blanket and food and a bottle..of something, because apparently Ara wants to have a picnic in a junkyard of all places, but who am I to understand it.."

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Junkyard, Ariel
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The Junkyards of Ariel,the only truly 'gritty' place on this rock, is filled with the metallic scraps and refuse of every possible facility on planet. Everything from broken-down Shuttles to old Cargo-containers can be found here. Piles of scrap metal are heaped up neatly here, containing pieces of ships and simple unused sheets of steel that were just discarded. Steel bars twist and turn out of the exposed earth like a small metallic forest sprouting here in the wasteland. A small hut made of discarded steel sheets provides the reclusive Junkman with shade from the unrelenting sun as he does his dealings. A large mutt of a dog sits by his side, barking every now and then but otherwise being quiet and sub-servant to the Junkman. Deeper into the Junkyard is the massive hulk of an old discarded Cargo-Ship. Presumably a Trans-U it has since been stripped of any useful parts, even pieces of the hull have been taken leaving this once proud ship to rot in the sun like the skeleton of a beached and decaying whale. A small hole in the side provides an entrance to the warped ship.

Beyond the Trans-U are several broken down and discarded Shuttlecraft, including a med-evac shuttle that still retains a stark white body despite obvious erosion from being exposed to the elements. The symbol for St. Maries hospital has since rotted off, leaving behind a warped stain of what once was a proud and serviceable craft.
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"There will be no drunken fumbling and awkward sex in the back seat," Aradia declares, uncrossing her legs from under her and nudging at the side of Hatch's boot with the toe of her own from where she's seated, leaning against the bulkhead frame of a gutted out shuttle's hatchway, perched atop a sizable mound of junk and commanding a spectacular view of the yard spread out around it.

And, what do you know. At the mention of drunken fumbling and awkward sex, Josephine and Saienne arrive in the junkyard, armed with a small portion of dog food (if necessary to distract the dog) and each baring a rather unobtrusive-looking backpack. "I don't know," Josephine is saying to Saienne, "Industrial grit has a sort of hard urban beauty to it.. did you see that huge pattern of rust on that sheet metal back there? It was all kinds of browns and oranges and greens and..really quite spectacular in it's unlikely sort of way..."

"Well ain't this more like home?" Saienne says cheerfully as she and Josephine, carrying picnic things and dog food, round the corner and step into the junkyard. "Scrap an' suchlike - an' folk lookin' more reasonable in their attire an' expressions an' all." She hears Aradia's familiar voice - and the comment - and her crooked grin returns. "An' if I ain't mistaken that there's the sound of our illustrious Captain." Josephine's question gives her pause for thought. "I don't suppose I've ever considered such things as beautiful," she says, finally. "Functional, certainly, an' familiar an' all." She turns her head to try to see the particular piece of sheet metal the cook is referring to. "I expect you ain't wrong. Don't reckon that'd look too out of place in some art gallery on Sihnon or Londinium."

Hatch isn't doing anything so fast as walking, but the voices do gather his attention to some degree. He takes a bit of a swallow from his flask before he slips it back into his pocket, "So were being invaded then, shame we don't have any mud.. or rubber bands or something."

Gesturing to the packet she handed to Hatch, Aradia says, "Try that, though you're going to have to choose between the two of 'em." Grinning as she looks from him and back out and down to the bottom of the junk pile, lifting a hand to wave to the other two as they make their way toward them.

"For the drunk fumbling and akward sex in the back seat?" Hatch asks in answer of Ara's question as the pair start to make the climb, or walk, otherwise coming into view. "Do I really have to choose? I mean it's so hard.. and what one are you going to get?"

Saienne looks up from under the brim of her hat and raises her hand in a responding wave to Aradia's. She hoists the backpack - containing whatever delicious picnic food Josephine has prepared for them - a little more securely onto her back and then begins to clamber up the pile of junk towards where Hatch and Aradia are waiting. "Ain't you lookin' mighty suspicious..." she says, looking between the pair. Something beneath her shifts a little, then, and she flings out her arms to steady herself. "Gorram!" She mutters, touching the pile with outstretched fingers as she regains her balance. "A picnic on a pile of rubbish!" Her tone is good-natured again, and quickly so. "Crazy folk."

Spreading her arms to either side of herself, Aradia shows herself, first to Hatch, and then to Saienne, to be empty handed. "I've no choice to be made," she says, breaking into a grin as she asks, "Would you rather have a picnic in the gardens with all the rich and fancy folks lookin' down their noses at the riffraff on the grass?" Wrinkling her nose up, she says, "Jo wanted to know where a good bar was and this smells less than any place I been 'round these parts."

"I think this is a super bar, or in the least we could drag one over." Hatch leans down gripping the side of the shuttle door to stretch his arm down and offer Sai some assitance, "Welcome aboard the SS heap."

Josephine eyes the heaps of garbage rather suspiciously. "Such a..unique ambience this place has.. And also.. a unique aroma," she decides, although she has remarkably good balance as she navigates around the various precariously decaying refuse.

Saienne, still touching with one hand what looks to be a bulkhead panel from a long-grounded shuttle craft, looks up towards Aradia. The angle of her body, however, means she is unable to look past the hat's floppy brim, and so she straightens cautiously, testing her balance and the stability of the pile with probing steps. As neither Hatch, Josephine nor Aradia seem to be slipping or sliding dirt-wards, Sai becomes slowly a little more confident on the pile. "Choose?" She asks Aradia. "Choose what?" And she listens, and nods, and smiles lop-sidedly. "Ain't that the truth," she says, about the gardens, reaching her own hand up to grasp Hatch's arm. "Ariel ain't my kind of planet, in all honesty, for all that I'm startin' to see its nuances." A pause. "An' a fine an'... lovely ship she is, an' all..."

Hatch 's arm curls slowly drawing Sai up, "Jo you want a hand up hun?" He asks looking across Sai's shoulder as he finishes pulling her to a more level setting. "Oh, Ara and I were discussing my.. youthful adventures is all. It sprung from there, nothing to important."

"Well I'd prefer never to have to choose between one thing or another if I'm wantin' both," Aradia replies to Saienne with a shrug, swinging her legs around and out of the way of the hatchway, keeping her back set against the bulkhead to watch the other two make their way up into the shuttle. "Big world really, ain't it? It's like judging the whole of 'sephone on the Eavesdown docks 'n not looking any further past that, ain't it?"

Saienne sits herself down on the flat of the shuttle's corroded deck and swings the backpack off next to her. She crosses her legs and takes her hat off. Two long fingers absently smooth along the length of the feather. "Thank you, Hatch," she says, with a lop-sided smile, and then turns to Aradia with a slight shrug. "I expect you ain't wrong," she says, agreeing with Aradia's assessment of her position. "I reckon I'm the type to have always been heavily prejudiced by first impressions, an' it ain't no different with planets." She nods to Hatch. "Speakin' of youthful adventures, Ariel was the location of one of mine, an' it din't end so well." She turns to gaze out from the top of the heap, catching sight of the sea glinting in the far distance. "Water's real pretty, mind."

"Water's real pretty Sai, lot of things are out here." Hatch says with a bit of a grin as he takes up his spot leaning against the bulkhead again, and digging into a pocket to take a pull at his flask. "You grew up round here didja Sai?" Hatch asks as the tops comes unscrewed and he kicks back a swallow of the contents, then offers it up.

"On Ariel? Good gorram, no!" Sai says, chuckling a little. "Grew up a million an' one miles away from here." She glances upwards. "Charlotte's Crossin', Boros - under the beady an' ever-watchful eye of the Iskellkian shipyards." Looking back at Hatch, she smiles, and reaches out for the flask. "Youthful was perhaps... less than accurate." Another pause, and she takes a mouthful of whatever's in the flask, and then offers it towards Josephine. "About six or seven years ago, I was here on a job." She grins crookedly and shakes her head at the memory. "Ain't never done nothin' quite so fong luh before nor since, an' I don't expect to neither." She regards Hatch and Josephine carefully, head tilted ever so slightly and dark eyes solemn. "An' you? Where'd you grow up?"

Hatch 's shoulders come into contact with the frame of the shuttle as he looks out again over the rows of garbage, "I've had jobs like that now and again." He says wistfully as Sai partakes of the whiskey, "Well, I grew up on Higgins moon in Jayne's Town matter of fact."

"That a fact?" Saienne says, nodding. "One of the few lumps of rock in this 'Verse I ain't yet had the pleasure of visitin'." A pause, and she offers the flask back to Hatch instead. "Folk on Higgins Moon just don't seem to require the services of a courier, for one reason or another." She sniffs, the whiskey having cleared her sinuses nicely. "Flavoursome drop you got in there, Hatch." She says, nodding in the direction of the flask.

"Well it's mostly for medicial reasons I tag it around, but every so often got to break into it for pleasure... places like this work well enough for me, rather then drinking it for pain or dumping some over a wound." Hatch mentions as he screws the top back on in time when he gets it and slips it into his back pocket. "I'd like to visit my Da' on Higgins thats about the extent of it.. ain't hardly no one but the barons who could afford someone like you Sai, you'd come off of that rock sadder then a hound dog left home for a week of hunting."

Saienne grins her lop-sided grin straight at Hatch. "Sadder than a hound dog left home from huntin'. Is that so?" She asks, and then frowns abruptly. "Well, if that's the truth of it, ain't no wonder there ain't no jobs goin' to or comin' from. I expect the barons can afford to use men on their payroll, an' the rest of the folk just ain't got more than two pennies to rub together." Saienne picks up her hat and peers out to the rest of the heap. "You know, I reckon I might take a poke about down there. All manner of fascinatin' stuff stickin' up out of the pile... ain't that a roll of Solar Sheetin' down there? Get a fortune for that..." And, emboldened by not having broken her neck in the climb up, she slides back down towards terra firma.

"Thats about right Sai, thats about right." Hatch says in a bit softer tone but brightens as she starts talking about salvage, "I saw a couple of good bulk seals too in walking in, and some decent plate floating around.. problem is someone owns the yard so be careful."

Josephine had already been lost and distracted, wandering from one interesting piece of refuge to another until she finds herself out of view of where the others have made their temporary nest. "Um. I think I'm lost," Josephine says, calmly, into her icomm unit.

Saienne looks back up the heap towards Hatch as he cautions her. "I wasn't plannin' on liftin' it!" She calls back, looking somewhat alarmed at the thought.

"I was thinking it over." Hatch respons to Sai before he lifts his Comm, "Look for the shuttle atop a pile with Sai wandering around below it neh?"

Well, Josephine knew that much already. "Big help that is," she complains into her comm unit while wandering here and there and there and here until she finally sees what seems to be the shuttle in question. "That you up there?" she asks. "Or some big scary sniper?"