Her teeth were clenched, her knuckles white from the grip she had on the edge of the bed. It hurt... but... she was talking to an alien! It was so exciting and terrifying at the same time. She guessed it was asking her if they were... what? 'Mourning, Sydney?' They? What was with all the pronouns? Her head hurt, kinda...
"Mourning, Sydney, sure, we can be friends I guess..."
A thin trail of blood ran from her nose, and she fell backwards, unconscious.
Sydney came to with Mourning on top of her, sleeping again. She felt... fuzzy. Must be the aftershocks of the headaches. Trying to get off, the most she could do was push Mourning off her and then lurch to her feet, very uncoordinated. The ceiling rushed at her, then receded just as rapidly. Dizzy! Walls were spinning, spinning, twirly-whirly like a top gone mad.
"Turn off the room, I wanna get off," Sydney said in a drunken slur, staggering from side to side, bumping into the walls. Luckily all loose objects were secured in drawers and cupboards, or things would've started to fly - either by Sydney hitting them or by the room throwing them about in its motion.
Five minutes. Sat down, watched the room swim merrily, round and round the merry-go-round... merry stream on the merry-go-round, on Christmas! Her thoughts were... confused. Can't think.
Five more minutes, and she felt fine. It was a dim memory that slightly frightened the now coherent Sydney, but she put it behind her, while putting Mourning back on the bed, and the blanket back on her. Work to be done, she went up to the cockpit and launched.
Sydney! Sydney Sydney sydney SYDNEY!
MourningSydney?
Alone...
warm. hurr.
Something..something.
Sleep.
HISSSSS
HISSSSSSS
HISSSSSSSS
Rain and sand mixed in the air, blown by wind and tossed up in the wake of armour, hot bodies darting from softer clusters in the chilling storm. Smaller, brighter pinpricks hovered about the cluster, their centers at about the hight of a human head. One shrieked and died, another flared. Sputters of red flew from one, and then another, and then a third. Two began to move from the far side, and warm bodies sprang up in the interior. Sputters and streams flew through the air, impacting sand and shooting across the feild.
First one lance, and then two, hugely bright beams dancing across the feild, resting breifly on each point of heat. Some fell, peices dropping off, and others lit up the scope, obscuring everything near.
More lights flared overhead...some great blazing flares, whirling around one another, lances and beams darting between them. A light cracked, darkened..fell hurtling to the earth, and the world shook, bits of smoldering blue floating through the air, crashing into the earth. Shadows passed across the sky, dark patches raining fire and thunder and trembling earth...
Triplets...lights, pairs, bounced into one another, panicking and afraid, terrified, terror, fear, heat, cold, light..chaos. The sky rained fire, and silence reached out, surrounding all. Terror fought panic, and little figures lay curled, shivering. There was no light.
Four hours and Juan arrived at Yanagi. He instructed the mechanics on what damage had been done in the gas clouds and proceeded straight to the bar. He sat his keys on the table and ordered a small alacholic drink. He sighed.
"What a day. I just hope Yanagi has a good repair shop, those gas clouds banged up my ship." Juan said to the bartender.
"Oh they do, no need to worry about that." he replied smiling.
Juan nodded and took a drink. He hated small talk.
Mourning slept for awhile, peacefully now that it wasn't trying to read her mind. Drifting and floating around the 'verse, the open ranges of space surrounding Liberty, Sydney found some interesting wrecks and loot, hidden in the nooks and crannies of space, near stars, remote planets, and fugitive strongholds.
Solar winds blew Sydney to Yanagi, the itchiness of staying in one locale too long moving her. That, and the fact that the Navy were frowning at her choice of guns, ie, the Tizona turrets (as Salamancas had been replaced with the patched-up and scavenged weapons).
Yanagi, her home. It had been some time. The swirling blue mass of H-fuel rich clouds (and depleted ones) as well as the shadows of the hulks of the old Rheinland fleet made it a unique place in Sirius. Wrecks that had long been combed by Junkers lay desolate now, mostly untouched. Radioactivity in the area, as well as explosive gas pockets, kept most vultures at bay.
Securing her still sleeping (somehow, Mourning hadn't woken once the entire trip) passenger, Sydney struck out for the bar. Nothing unusual there, a few Corsairs, a couple Outcasts, the odd Zoner or two, and a lot of Junkers.
She sat at the bar and ordered a drink, not noticing the Corsair that was eying her oddly.
Juan looked down at the picture of a young Sydney standing next to some other Corsairs, he moved next to her and ordered another drink. She didn't say much, seemed to not even notice him setting down next to her. He looked for the right thing to say.
"Hi I'm your cousin from way back." just didn't seem to sound right. He met her once, and probably didn't remember him. But hell, what else was he going to say?
Sydney didn't hear the guy at first. She just kept sipping at her drink. Then he spoke up, repeating his first message. That got her attention. Cousin? she thought, considering her family tree. Her father, who had died when the transport had been blown up, had had two brothers and a sister. One of the brothers had been a minor Elder, built up by owning lots of Artifact-rich land, which he exported on his brother's transport. The other brother was a drunk who spent most of his time on Tripoli, boozing it up. She wasn't sure if any of them were still alive, or if either had married, but hey, it's possible.
"Juan, eh?" she said, looking at him as if weighing him. Come to think of it, he did look familiar... in a certain light.
Thinking a second, she motions for the bartender to bring a couple more drinks, then asked Juan, "So, what's happening?"
Mourning was awake, and moving. She crawled off the thin mattress in the medical bed, licked the ammonia-cleaned floors, and beelined out the door. A Collector is a tiny ship, with just a single bunk beside a table for a medical bay, sealed off by a sliding panel from the standard cabin, with three fold out hanging beds to a side. The ship's living quarters are a single hallway that wrap around the base. Mourning began at the farthest end, tucked in the med booth which sat right under the cockpit, next to a curtained toilet. Counterclockwise from the cockpit, the smallest possible bunk room spread out in front of her. Beyond that, a hallway with a table, and cupboards, then a food processing unit. After that was a complicated nav panel, glittering with cold lights that utterly infuriated Mourning. It was cold in here. After the nav, there was an opening into the engine compartment, which is where Mourning stopped, and curled up around a pipe leading from a cooling apparatus.