Part I - Highway to the Green Hell
As two men sat in a darkened office full of cigar smoke and the muffled din of outside commotion, a holo-recording played on a tabletop projector they sat around. There was a pall of silence over them and the sound of ragged, hoarse breaths filled the room, emanating from the recording. Digits in red flickered over the top of the hologram, noting a date a slight bit older than three years at this point. The recording itself showed little; Mostly blurry footage of a dense, noisy, wet jungle, the sounds of heavy footsteps and that eerie ragged breathing. As the recorder's point of view moved, a single thin light beam could be seen sweeping across the landscape; Likely a helmet-mounted flashlight. By the end of the thirty-seven second recording, the beam swept across a giant, unseemly chunk of metal, definitely out of place in such a landscape. As soon as it came into focus, one of the men hit a button, freezing the recording before it ended.
As the unsteady image flickered, frozen in time, the man in question pointed straight at the hologram. "Ya see it? Right there. It's the ship. I'd know that bow anywhere, an'- An' ya see these two letters there? Yah, that's a capital "I" and a capital "N", my man. How many goddamn Pilgrims you know whose name ends in 'IN'? And -there-, outta all places? Ya remember it like I do, crew was paintin' in green for three weeks in the vac-docks." A moment of silence drifted between the two figures, broken by the sound of a service buggy rolling over some loose grating in the hallway outside. "Look, I'm all for finding it all. Wreck like that, with the stories- If there's even an inkling of truth in there, that is- can be worth hundreds of millions." The first figure slapped the tabletop with a polymer glove. "Yeah, that's what I'm sayin! We jus'-", he began but stopped when the other figure continued speaking. "...But. Say we go down. We find it, we salvage it. Right? Sounds simple. Now say -he-'s still down there. What about another crew? That's not even touching the issues of logistics, landing spots, navigation, potentially hostile natives... I'm sorry, but this just doesn't seem like a good call. Maybe, just maybe, if we get our hands on more info. That'll be all for now, Swires." The first man, now identified as Swires, stood from the table and in lieu of a counter-argument simply gave the other man a nod, a curt "Yessir." and paced out of the room restlessly.
Afterwards, the remaining figure in the room touched his PDA, and a massive viewport screen slid down with a faint grinding of metal and the clicking of cogs' teeth on a runner. Violet mists swirled and billowed through the expanding gap to crawl against the thick glass. As faint pink light washed into the room, the bald man dragged the frozen holo-recording onto his PDA's surface and begun staring at the flickering, familiar Pilgrim liner bow painted in Underloch green. The outline of Gaia was faintly visible, the gift of an ebb in the Islay Cloud's densities. Quietly, to himself, after taking a drag from his cigarette, the man muttered: "You really went, huh? Crazy old asshole. Don't worry, the dumb kid's coming to get you." A grin flashed.
A plastic chit slid across a smooth white surface and struck Swires' hand as it was returned by the rather obviously phoney-smiled vendor in the Islay supply pit. It bounced off a fingernail and rested with two pairs of eyes on it. "Hell you mean, 'not valid'?", Swires asked as his gaze narrowed until they adopted an ophidian quality. "This is a cold million creds, there ain't no such THING as -not valid- there, you motherf-" His rant was interrupted by the heat-up whine of a readying rifle pointed in his direction by one of the Islay peacekeepers, specifically tasked with covering the shopfront. His arms immediately flew up in front of him, palms out. "Alright, alright, I get it... Fine, if it ain't worth a mil, how much IS it worth then?" At the teller's nod, the rifle was lowered and secured. A -massive- grin split the greasy little man's face immediately afterwards, and Swires felt his consciousness slowly fading, being proverbially crushed to death by heavy boredom as the teller begun spinning terms such as "risk compensation", "exchange rates" and "economic viability"...
An hour later, he was sitting in his usual spot- Back against a rusted, graffiti-covered hall barrier with broken, misshapen letters reading "Green Hell Beergarden", ass on the cold metal grating, rheinbier in one hand and a thick roll-up of some herb in the other- Gaian stores were always oh so advanced and creative about the sale of.. stimulants. He pointed his eyes down at the 250,000 credit chit he held in his hand, sighed sadly and pocketed it into his tattered, old BAF pilot's jacket. Afterwards, he slapped his palm against the barrier, producing two hollow thumps. "Same old, same old, buddy. One step at a time... We'll get it done." With a groan, he then picked himself off the floor and shuffled off slowly with the lit rollup hanging from his lips.
He paced his way slowly into drydock J-4. It was almost abandoned, apart from two mechanics working on a faulty generator which caused the chamber to be lit only by the piercing beams of the mechanics' flashlights, the backup lights' dull faint orange glow which, when he thought about it, wasn't much better than utter darkness. But the prominent features were the signal lights flashing on and off in an odd bumpy pattern in the dark, describing the outline of a mostly deactivated, nearly unrecognizable piece of a "Pilgrim"-class slave liner. The ship in question appears to have been broken in half, hinting at a catastrophic end for the crew, if any existed- Still, the wreck had been thoroughly searched and no signs of life nor death were found. The hulking mystery in front of him loomed in the dark as he plodded along a catwalk and collapsed into a chewed up polyester lounge chair setup in front of the hangar control room.
He watched the ship in silence, past the occasional pop and crackle of the rollup he was sucking on, until it was too short to keep inhaling, at which point he added to the array of cigarette burns on the chair's side as he extinguished the butt and let it drop through the catwalk grid into a small graveyard of various smokables' butts at the hangar bottom. "Goddamnit. Where's all this headed, with this fuckin'... snake, who does he think he even is? Two-fifty outta a mill...", he grumbled as he pushed against the control room door. Having entered, he stumbled around in the dark until his shin hit the edge of a fold-out bunk hanging off the wall. "Sonofa- rrrrrgh" pushed through his lips, but then he simply collapsed into the bunk and was asleep before he knew it, rheinbier puddling on the floor where he dropped the bottle.
A bright flash of light pierced through Swires' eyelids. A brief moment of irritation turned to a minute, then two, then five, and finally he yielded, opening his eyes. Figures, the mechanics fixed the hangar lights. Slowly, he lowered his feet from the bed and was greeted by an oddly heavy clank against the grating underneath. He groaned when he noticed he'd fallen asleep in his boots and jacket, a trail of dried saliva shimmering on the jacket's lapel. "What's the time?", he asked with a voice several levels hoarser and deeper than usual and zombied his way to a water fountain in the wall nearby. A tinny voice, belonging to the hangar's VI, replied clinically; "It is 1:26 A.M., crewman number- Error, missing ID entry." He rolled his eyes into the pale, bony face staring back from the wall mirror and scraped at his stubbly beard with a few fingernails. "Douse main hangar lights, uh... six through twelve and reduce brightness in the control room by fifty percent.", he commanded, fiddling with a tiny fold-out toothbrush kit. "Acknowledged, crewman number- Error, missing ID entry."
A few minutes later, he was sitting in his chair, if one could still call it that, and staring longingly at the visibly mangled and heat-fused chunk of Pilgrim hull. One of the engines' biofuel chambers had exploded; An unstable modification by the previous owner likely gone terribly wrong at a critical moment. Most of the bulkheads were still sealed shut, however a few were cut open when the ship was first salvaged about a month ago. The first crews that went in were dead within a few minutes due to respiratory system failures; Later, they'd all find out the ship's cargo hold was turned into some manner of gigantic laboratory complex, mostly used for morbid cultivation of particularly devastating and horrific biological weapons- Bacteria, viruses, prions, parasites... The previous owner was one hell of a microbiologist, it seemed. Swires snapped from his thoughts and drank his lukewarm soycaf in two gulps before tossing the cup into a small overfilled trashcan on the catwalk. He lit up a cigarette and took a long, satisfying drag from it, but then, the VI spoke. And then, Swires nearly coughed up a damn lung, threw the light cig away and just... ran.
"Crewman number- Error, missing ID entry, your alarm trigger has been sprung. Bulkhead entry LQ6-339 has been unsealed and opened." Before the VI was finished, Swires was already out the hangar door, huffing as he stomped towards the Green Hell in a big old rush. He raced through the Islay corridors, rushed through doors, tapped his foot impatiently in elevators, and finally, he reached it. A small crowd had already gathered in front of the entrance, gawking- Some of the older onlookers begun whispering about the place, the people it used to entertain and the plans hatched within. "Fuckoff, outta my way-", he crowed, shoving his way towards the entrance, and froze once he reached the frame. He looked down to the ground and noticed a thick, undisturbed layer of dust. No footprints. Means whoever opened it up didn't exactly walk in... His eyes narrowed, but eventually his head prevailed. He knew this was his shot and he ran for the bar. Kicking up a cloud, he dove over the counter through an inch-thick sheet of dust which promptly exploded into another choking cloud. Through hacking and coughing, a faint "ding" could be heard resonating once through the old bar. Suddenly, screens began lighting up all over the joint. Tables rose from the floor in a familiar arrangement, joined by pod chairs rising slowly with a mechanical whirr. The Green Hell came alive once more.
"ALRIGHT! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT, BABY!", he screamed, then after a harsh coughing fit smashed his fist against the AC breaker. Immediately, he regret his decision as a proper duststorm kicked up in the bar, sucking up all the debris into wide vents all around the room. About a minute later, the bar looked like a place one wouldn't be offended to sit and have a drink. And have a drink, they would. "Everyone drinks free tonight! Tell your friends, tell everyone- The Green Hell's alive again!", Swires shouted and swiped the bar's tab onto the main screen of the bar. The amount showed a measly 67,000 credits. After everyone turned their heads to Swires to explain how exactly he intends to manage that, another soft 'ding' came from him, and the number leapt instantly to 317,000. His wide grin was only made wider when the curious and hooked crowd rose in uproarious cheering. Oh, hell... It looked like Swires was in for another hangover.
At 1:37 a.m. Matthew Grim was awakened in his rented quarters on Sandur Station with an automated nueral-net message: "Payment of 317,000 credits to the inactive Green Hell account has been verified and approved. Would you like to reinstate the automated inventory system to assist in timely replenishment of stock for the next business day? Y/N?"
Banger was confused.
"Uh, yes?" he said, still not fully awake.
"Acknowledged, Mr. Grim. The Islay Automated Inventory System thanks you for your continued business."
Matt got out of his bunk, harvested the crust out of his eyes, growled "WHAT THE F***!!" at the top of his lungs & by 1:45 a.m. tore into space heading for Edinburgh at top speed.
At 3:50 a.m. Banger exited his Claymore in the Islay hanger, stomped off towards the Hell, when a familiar sight registered in the corner of his eye, and stopped him in his tracks.
He approached the substantial chunk of Pilgrim liner and made specific note of the painted hull markings.
"What the f***?" he muttered under his breath, and by 4:00 a.m. he was in the Hell, dressed as a janitor & moping the floor, quietly eyeballing every person in his path.
"Crushed Velvet Corpsegrinder" he said.
"Master Password Accepted. Welcome back, Matthew." said the Green Hell's V.I.
"Ello Sweet'art. Who opened you up?"
"Islay logs register Crewman number- Error, missing ID entry"
'What the f***.' he thought.
"I want you to flash him for me. Subtley, please."
"Of course, Matthew." replied the Hell.
The song on the P.A. system changed, and lights of all different colors moved and blinked in tempo with the music.
The single white light flashed subtlety on 'Crewman number- Error, missing ID entry'
"Thank you, Sweet'art." he said, then pushed his mop and bucket ahead of him as he began stalking closer to 'Crewman number- Error, missing ID entry' drunkenly unaware of the light tracking his movement as he got up for a piss in the loo.
Banger entered the restroom, playing his part, moping the floor a few feet away from the man emptying his bladder in one of the urinals, and after waiting for the sound of the stream to stop and an polite extra two seconds for the shake, the Banger Grim slid behind 'Crewman number- Error, missing ID entry' covering his eyes with one hand, and holding the blade of his knife to his throat with the other.
"WHO THE F*** ARE YOU?" he croaked into the man's ear with a quiet rage.
The night had been going so well up until a point. Gallons of alcohol vanished by the minute in the throats of hundreds of Gaians, dipping in and out of the Hell at will. The usual smoky atmosphere, nujazz and laughter had been replaced by a bustling crowd, the flash of rarely used lights in the Hell illuminating the undulating mass of bodies bouncing to some kind of intense neo-trance music, trailing light and flashes from holo-bands... And all the while, Swires was in the middle of it all, reveling in the people's celebration. At a certain point, he begun to feel queasy and now there was a malfunctioning light poking him in the eye every so often... He needed a break. Through his alcoholic haze, he made his way to the Hell's urinal stands.
He had just about finished clearing his mind when he was assisted by the feel of cold, serrated steel against his Adam's apple. When Grim barked his question, Swires froze. That was a voice he'd heard once before, but he couldn't be sure. If it -was- the voice in question, he figured he'd best reply and fast, if he didn't wanna breathe through a shorter tube for the rest of his life (which would in itself not be too impressively long thereafter). "Shit! Uh- M-Mikey Swires is the name, sir! Please don't kill me, I didn't even do nothin' wrong... Today... probably!" He was shaking, and had Matt not waited with the ambush, would probably have a golden stream running down his leg at this point. Up close, he faintly stank of smoke and antifreeze oil; Yep, Gaian pilot ID sure was checkin' out.
The kid was pale by nature. With dark brown hair, unkempt to a point where dreadlocks begun forming and strangely... verdant green eyes, there was something about him that'd remind Banger uncannily of the past. But this kid was pasty, I'm talkin' curd cheese white; Logic reeled at the connection of him and the person he STILL most looked like. "JB's my brother from another father, and I'm lookin' for him, please-", the kid squeezed out, then raised a palm; In it, he clutched a pair of dogtags VERY familiar to Matthew. In fact, the very same pair that had vanished without a trace after J did.
Banger glowered at Mikey Swires, darting his eyes back and forth between the mans face and the dog-tags in his hand for what seemed like forever.
Grim stepped menacingly into Swires personal space, and after another very uncomfortable pause, said, "Yeah, Alright." in such a bright tone that it diffused the moment.
Mr. Swires offered his hand in introduction, but Banger refused to return the courtesy. He simply turned and headed towards the door.
Before exiting, and keeping his back to the man, he said over his shoulder, "Let's talk Mr. Swires. Join me at the bar for a couple of shots, or a bowl of kalisti if you prefer, but please feel free to wash your hands first...but preferably after you deal with your current fly and zipper issue.
After what seemed like an eternity of fearing to swallow as not to cut his own throat on Banger's blade, Swires felt relief like he never thought he could when he was finally released. When he turned to the man and outstretched his hand, his expression sank and he indeed raced to the font on the wall and washed his hands quickly before booting off after Banger. When he reached the bar, he found the man already cracking the bar as if he owned the place, and raised a brow. Something was familiar about the wiry man pouring shots and depositing smoking implements onto the bar- His addled brain took a while to process the whole picture. Round glasses, very old-timey, check. Long white hair AND beard? Check. Green symbols painted on his jacket?
The realization hit Swires almost as hard as he ran into the bar when he rushed to take this opportunity. He sat on a dusty barstool and stared dumbstruck at the man for a few moments. "Now I know assumin' is bad, but I'm thinkin' it's pretty safe to say, you's Banger Grim, aren't you?", he spoke as quietly as possible considering the neo-punk racket they were now surrounded by. "Holy f***n' hell, I knew it. I knew you weren't f***n' made up, and god DAMN am I glad to know that. I gotta say, I hoped I'd get to meet you one day, man. You're like... the ghost of a legend around here, you know that?", he spewed, finally taking a break from speech when Banger handed him a lit kalisti bowl. He took a brave hit and held it in while eyeing a row of shots on the bar surface. With smoke still in his mouth, he downed one of them and then expelled a wad of silvery vapor through his nostrils, watching Banger intently.
Banger takes a hit of kalisti himself like no one's watching and holds the smoke in his lungs as he looks around the bar. Happy to see it alive again after all this time. He savored the moment, as he felt some things long dormant in his psyche spasm like an ancient combustion engine restarting after so much time has past. Feelings of pride, purpose and gratitude.
He exhaled a few smoke rings and became a little pie-eyed as the kalisti took hold of him.
He reached into a drawer under the bar and grabbed a couple of small ear pieces. he slid one over to Mr. Swires and gestured to the man to insert it as he did his own.
"Can ya hear me Mr. Mikey Swires?" Banger asked in a casual voice.
"YES! I CAN HEAR YOU JUS--"
Banger winced with pain and cut him off with a hand gesture that signaled the man to tone it down.
"Just speak normally. Please."
"Alright," Banger continued, "The first thing I want to say is thank you. I owe you one. Second, now that I've calmed down, I can see that you kinda got the look of Jonah the Nameless. Is that the JB you were referring to earlier?"
Matt slid another shot in front of the man, and held one up for himself with a nod, as a gesture of peace.
The long silence from Banger after the question Swires posed made him nervous. He fidgeted and tapped his fingernails on the bar surface, scratching up dust and gathering black lines under his fingernails. Finally, once the earpieces were in place, he listened intently, watching Matt slide the next shot over; He was already loaded, but hey; If this was really Banger Grim, he would have nothing to worry about anyway. "Tha's right, sir- He was an old member of, uh... Nature's Last Hope and uh, Underlake? Underloft? Somethin' like that...", he half-slurred, then kicked back the shot. "Now, his -real- name was- IS John Quentin Barrett. To -everyone- but his family, thass us, he gave that bulls**t name, Jonah Blint. Like, it was his idea of humor, 'cause it sounded like 'blunt', and I dunno, he found it in this old archive 'bout Earth, yanno, Terra-"
He stopped himself in his track and looked at Matt. "Yah, sorry, I'm talkin' a lot, but see, I think I oughta clear the air right off the bat, otherwise later on there might be confusion and s**t if I call him John, yanno? Anyway, he told people this story about how he was born on liner Hawaii... Bare bones? He's a slum kid, like me. We're both from Leeds, the planet, that is. See, from early on, he was obsessed with ecology and virology. Swallowed books on it like you wouldn't believe- But he didn't apply it. Now, we did this together sometimes, but I was interested in different things too. Him... He was a zealot. After gettin' his hands on a piece, he headed out into the world. That was... ten years ago, almost. And wouldn't you know it, he found you guys. I joined up bout eight months ago and I've been workin' since on finding him." He sank a little, then grabbed another shot and downed it. "That's the short of it. You probably don't have time for life stories right now, but whatever you wanna know, you just ask, alright?"
At that point, he paid attention to his PDA, sliding it halfway out his pocket. Something on it caught his eye and he removed it entirely, fixating on it for a few seconds. After a few swift taps, he got a return message and beamed. "Well, well, now- It seems there's a friend of mine on Islay. Just moored at point seventeen... You fancy a walk and a meet'n'greet, Mr. Grim?", he asked, halfway getting up off the chair to reach over the bar and kill the music. In the ensuing moment of dead silence, he shouted; "Alright, the fat lady sung her song, now get the f**k out and don't make me ask twice, you all drank for free!" A few mumbled complaints came from the crowd which ultimately slowly shuffled out through the Hell's entrance and scattered themselves everywhichway. When the bar was finally empty aside the two of them, he packed himself a small bowl from the jar of kalisti on the bar and took a long ass hit before putting it down and gesturing towards the Islay corridor.
A blocky silhouette stood out against the pink background of the Islay cloud. Ice crystals struck the cruise shield dome projected in front of the cockpit, producing a shower of glimmers around the hulking shape of a strange visitor; A Serenity-class transport was on approach to a massive asteroid floating in the cloud and its ice crystal field. "This is Sierra-Sierra-882-Tango-Oscar on approach to Islay base, authorization code sent.", Rogers barked into the headset, lounged in the chair before his comm console. A wiry, short man, he twirled a cigarette nervously between his fingers, lighter in his free hand. He looked like he was -dying- for that smoke. After a brief delay, he exhaled sharply and reported to a tall, imposing looking woman overlooking the bridge; "Authorization confirmed, Captain. We're green for mooring bay 17." The woman nodded at him and turned to another wiry man, this one sitting at the helm. "Taft, you know what to do- Slow and steady." Taft nodded and immediately shifted the hulk off its course. "Aye, Captain Willows. Navigation locked, on approach." The captain sidled over to her seat and planted herself in it, then opened a comm channel in the ship. "Sand, get ready. You're up in 10."
Ten minutes later, as the Serenity neatly locked to the mooring bay and the docking umbilical passed, through the airlock door came a trio. At the head, a -very- serious looking mercenary man, armed with a high caliber snub rifle hanging off his chest but very much in immediate reach- Dressed head to toe in high grade ballistic armor, he and his nearly identical partner at the rear were the definition of overkill protection, however... The middle man sort of justified it. A tall, impossibly handsome man wearing a perfectly tailored gray pinstripe suit and a midnight blue tie paced steadily between the two bodyguards, hands leisurely stuck in his pant pockets. He scanned his surroundings with a pair of icy blue cybereyes, every so often running a hand through his unruly short hair, dyed a clean white. The trio made their way to the mooring bay's "waiting area", so to speak, and very carefully chose the cleanest possible seat in the house, then strategically positioned the back of the man's chair to a wall corner. He meticulously wiped the seat and backrest with a wet wipe, then slowly sat down before smoothing down the creases resulting in his suit. Twining his fingers in front of himself, he placed his hands on the table, two fully masked and combat-ready men standing to either side of him. And so, they waited.