2023-04-24: Reminiscence: A Pirate in Palau
- Log: 2023-04-24: Reminiscence: A Pirate in Palau
- Cast: Trevor Teach
- Where: Palau
- Date: U.C. 0097 04 24
- Summary: The Garencieres crew acquited itself well during the raid on Palau. They lived there, after all. Knew its layout like the back of their hands. It was home.
For most of them.
Trevor Teach finds himself in a spot of trouble. Alone, outgunned, protecting an innocent life from an unstoppable, shambling tide of Those Who Serve Cosmic Law, Trevor struggles to make it out alive. At the end of his rope, only a miracle will save the self-proclaimed pirate's life.
...Though nobody ever said that miracles couldn't come in giant, metal packages.
((Occurs at the same time as Palau Falling - Rescue Operation.))
--SEVERAL WEEKS AGO--
Palau.
It had been-- home? No. Not quite. Home was somewhere else. Home was the cramped corridors and makeshift chopshop hangars of Vesta. But in all the Earth Sphere, there was nowhere like Palau. It had been hauled out of the Asteroid Belt, even. If there were anywhere in the inner sphere capable of feeling like home, it was here.
And some kind of orange comet had decided to squat on it. To turn it into what Axis had been, years ago. The shock was not felt as strongly in the Belt, distant as they are from humankind's azure cradle, but it was felt all the same. More than that, the tension in the air was palpable-- even if he hadn't been a newtype, it would have been obvious. There are lives aboard Asteroid Base Palau. Innocent lives. Lives that Char Aznable, mind ensnared by a cosmic malaise far beyond his ken, had decided in all his mercy would be the first that would be snuffed out.
But somehow, he hadn't decided to just-- kill them, yet. Was he using them as human shields? Did their despair give him some perverse sense of purpose? Or was there something of the man who that was left inside the husk called 'The Comet of Ruin' that stayed his hand?
It didn't matter.
Trevor Teach had a job to do. Palau had been like home-- not quite actual home, but close enough, after all. He knew it-- well enough. Not as well as the rest of the Garencieres' crew, but mining asteroids have certain commonalities once people start living inside of them. His armored suit closes around his body with a hiss. "Keep a close eye on things over here for me, Yaro," he calls-- to nobody in particular in the prep room, but...
Aboard a certain mobile weapon parked in the old Zentraedi cruiser's hangar, tucked into a recepticle right next to the empty pilot seat, a little purple orb flutters its flaps and flashes its eyes. "[170:0:255]Yaro! Yaro! Aye-aye, cap'n! Yaro will watch close. Shiver their timbers, Yaro![normal]" Isadore is silent and still otherwise-- except for the occasional hiss-pop of the IFF scrambler integrated into its hardware, still chugging past its specs to mask the cruiser's presence.
The element of surprise is critical here. Pirates, like ninjas, do their best work when nobody sees them coming.
And so Trevor disembarks alongside the rest of the Garencieres' field team, confident that this would all go absolutely swimmingly. What's the worst that could happen, he thinks to himself. This is a mining asteroid, just like Vesta! There's no way anything could possibly go terribly wrong!
THINGS HAVE GONE TERRIBLY WRONG.
Honestly, he should have seen it coming. He should have expected it! The plan was simple. Lead the genocidal, orange-powered, zombie troopers in a merry chase and straight into the extended fist of one of the two members of the Shuffle Alliance dedicated to this part of the job. There were a few CRITICAL FLAWS with this.
One: The plan did not fully account for a Triple Zero-powered Sazabi going absolutely ham on the Governor's Palace and causing enough damage that it spilled over into the residential district. Nor did it account for being cut off from the rest of the squad in the process, nor the complete destruction of communications equipment. The situation is, as some might call it, 'FUBAR.'
Two: Trevor is a giant softie and, upon seeing a crying infant, was instantly brought back to that day at HaroCon where he and Captain Eight briefly discussed children. Which he remembered, because for SOME REASON Captain Eight's appearance stuck in his brain that day and damn him for it, because that's how guilt caused him to strap an actual baby to his chest. Why was there a baby there? Where was its parents? Was it secretly infected by orange awfulness and Trevor was carting around some kind of terrifying Dawn Infant? All excellent questions! All things Trevor does not want to know the answers to at this specific juncture, thank you very much.
Three: Trevor was relying on there being similarities between Vestan mining patterns and the layout of Palau's interior. You know. Two completely different rocks that were hollowed out by two completely different sets of people, only one of whom had any modicum of sensible engineering while the other was mined through by an eclectic bunch of makeshift pioneers, a hodgepdge of drifters, and several factually insane convicts. That is to say, what should have been a shortcut through critical structural infrastructure actually turned out to be a deadend because who in their right mind would carve a hallway into something responsible for holding the entire asteroid base together? This would not be a problem, if Trevor was good at memorizing maps.
Four: Trevor is not good at memorizing maps.
Four. That's four major reasons. By all rights and by most conventions of genre fiction that is the exact correct number to ensure that Trevor (and this baby) should be dead.
By some miracle, he is not-- but that might be about to change.
At the best of times, the vast mining town that sprawls beneath Palau's political sector is a chaotic and labyrenthine undercity. Today, it is a warzone, albeit one that is wholly alien to any human perception of 'war.' In the distance, some of the greatest of mankind's warriors heroically carve beachheads into a cityscape crushed utterly in the iron grip of Cosmic Law. The streets between him and them are distressingly still. Devoid of life. Rendered still and sterile and *silent.* Despair and fear resonate through the quantum substrate of this accursed place, clouding his senses with a haze of orange-grey malaise, occasionally cut through by lances of fleeting, desperate hope.
And here, somehow, he had found his way into the heart of the industrial sector. Breath surges through starving lungs, carrying the faint scent of brimstone and the acrid, nostril-cauterizing aroma of mining-grade accelerant. He'd secured a cloth mask to the little one's nose and mouth, but the child still shrieks from the fumes. They're just a baby-- and not one like him. Human. Fragile. Something that can't count on custom-moulded genetic heritage to see them through. Heat assaults his senses-- part of the ceiling had caved in nearby, coring a foundry and exposing the heart of its smelter furnace. Collateral damage from the Sazabi's rampage, assuredly. Admittedly, the sight (and scent (and sensation)) of the broken factories is, in a twisted way, welcome. Somewhere like this would be in close proximity to the freight docks. Which means that the shuttle has got to be nearby. All he needs to do is to make it there and he'll be home free.
Trevor clambers up onto a toppled crane, moving like a four-limbed spider across the cris-crossing steel. He hauls himself up onto a conveyer duct and breaks into a run--
"Surrender and your end will be painless." The warning came after the shot. Gunfire grazes the pirate's cheek and shoulder as his footfalls scramble to confound his pursuers. Soldiers of the Sleeves-- or at least, they used to be-- stalk out from the crushed industrial furnace. They're... broken. Rebar impales one through the shouler. Another's skull is partly caved in by rubble. Yet another seems like he was gripping his rifle with an arm with too many joints-- or rather, with several broken bones. But each one glows. Their eyes smolder like cosmogone coals. Already their Oath Over Omega is repairing their shattered bodies. They clamber up after him on ruined limbs, relentless. Life-- hope-- has presented itself before them, and must be extinguished.
"What barmy corner of hell did you all come from!?" Trevor curses, nearly tripping over himself when a bullet sings across the makeshift steel walkway. He hisses a string of explitives that begin with 'fuck' and end in 'son of a worm-riddled pus-goblin,' but is mercifully cut short before it can infect the innocent mind strapped to his chest-- by a corpse falling from above and hitting the duct in front of him.
No.
Not a corpse.
The light of dawn pours from the broken body, mending a severed spine and congealing a crushed eye. A writhing limb levels a burning, orange rifle.
"Above!?" Of course. From the Governor's Palace-- and the political complex surrounding it. They're falling through the hole! Trevor bites back a yelp as a bullet scythes across his arm, stumbles, falls to the side...
And leaps at the last moment, grabbing hold of a still-crackling but mercifully insulated electrical cable. Gunfire screams through the air behind him, a lethal crossfire barely escaped that nevertheless tears the fallen not-corpse into pieces-- and blows the jaw off one of the others. It won't stop them. Nothing short of obliteration or the destruction of the brain can stop them, and even that is a big maybe. Trevor swings his legs forward, contracts his abdomen, and unfolds as he releases his lifeline, sending him hurtling, scrambling up the aggressive slope of a corrugated metal rooftop. "Bastards. I've got a kid here! Are you so far gone that you don't you even give a damn!?" He knows the answer. Their minds hum with cosmic certainty. He can feel it encroaching at the periphery of his senses, as if he were staring into a hollow-hearted star.
"Best that we end its life now, before it can know suffering," one of the Dawn Apostles answers, raking gunfire across the foundry roof. "Give up now. This flight is pointless."
"Bite me!" Trevor shouts-- as something smashes into his back, blasting into an armor plate. It saves his life, but concussive force must be conserved. His breath comes out in a wet wheeze. Something inside cracks. A trio of bullets found their mark, sending him sprawling forward-- but he catches himself before he crushes the little life shackled to him. It doesn't stop him from rolling, from falling from the edge of the rooftop. No. No. He can't die here. He /won't/ die here. His hands snatch out, grabbing hold of the roof's lip. With a shout, levers his body forward and hurls himself-- knees first-- through a glass windowpane. Firelight and flashing klaxons illuminate the smoke-choked foundry. He can just barely make out--
There's no floor.
Palau has seen better days. A chunk of the sector above had fallen into the sector below. And the result is messy. Molten metal leaks from a cracked smelting furnace and pours down into a hole that all but certainly leads into some kind of-- old mining tunnel?
And it's right underneath him.
"SHIT--" Trevor screams, moments before he falls into the void.
"...Do not let the interloper escape," a Dawn Apostle murmurs. It's not a command for others to follow. It's an imperative repeated aloud. The half-broken soldier lunges casting itself into what would all but certainly be a lethal fall. But the Power of Dawn does not easily relinquish those it holds in thrall. Another follows him, then another. Then another.
Down, down, down, into the depths...
The Garencieres was a sweet gig. Even after the old girl was blown to smithereens, serving with the crew was /still/ a sweet gig. At least, if your name is Tomura. While the others are all up ahead dealing with the front line, mechanics like him were left to hold the fort, and to make sure that mobile suits didn't get up and walk off or anything silly like that.
Not that that would happen! Hah! What a crazy idea. Who would ever think an MS would just... get up... and walk off...?
"...H-hey," Tomura stutters, staring at... at a giant robot, white and green, pulling free of its restraints. The gantry holding it in place slides away, harmlessly answering a signal to disengage. "Hey. Hey!!" He sprints after it, waving his arms like a maniac, "Who gave you clearance to leave-- Trevor, weren't you-- I saw you--"
His communicator hisses and pops with static. A voice crackles in his ear. "Yaro... Yaro... Cap...tain needs-- help--" The Isadore's visor flashes blue as it steps forward. One. Two. The hangar doors hinge open, a rush of escaping air nearly drags Tomura off his feet if it weren't for some very extremely conveniently placed machine-guarding. Tomura stares wordlessly as the mobile suit leaps off into the dock, airlock sealing behind it.
...An MS just... got up... and walked off.
...
...!?
"...How the heck am I going to explain this...!?"
If it wasn't for the body armor, they'd both be dead right now, he thinks. Trevor stumbles forward. His breaths come pained and wet. Every move feels like it's dragging a shard of glass across his insides. Broken rib, he thinks. Probably close to a punctured lung. He'd fallen... far. Somehow, inexplicably, the child was still alive. Cut up, caked in dirt, but-- so was he. Choking on asteroid dust-- but so was he. He had it worse, without the mask. Astral silicates shred lungs if inhaled directly, and what little cloth he could spare for himself to use as a mask just wasn't cutting it. Tying it in place was a no-go. Not with one arm half-encased in a layer of freshly un-molten metal.
The body armor saved that too. Barely. He thinks. He can still move it, but he can't-- it doesn't hurt. That's either a good sign, or a terrible sign, and Trevor is ever an optimist. But even he has to admit...
They're on borrowed time. He can hear them coming. They wouldn't have found a body, after all. It took them a bit to suss out which passage he'd taken, but now...
Ancient steel supports bend and groan all around him. These mining tunnels would have been used by colonists ages ago. They had to have been reinforced when the city was constructed core-wise to support its inertial mass. How long it'll hold up now that it's been blasted full of holes...
"Su--rrender," a voice croaks behind him. A gunshot rings out, shattering against one of the old scaffolds. Trevor curses and whips around, intercepting another series of shots with his metal-wrapped arm while returning fire with the other. His shot finds its mark, turning his pursuer's jaw into a fine mist of bone and blood... Ensnared in a nimbus of orange light, dragged back into place, fused into something resembling a human face. He can see now, this one-- it's covered in metal that's been knit through by the power of Cosmic Law. The ones shambling out from behind it, too. Zero Robos are quite similar to Zonders; but while they don't necessarily need organic cores, who's to say they can't form around ones anyway? As the first one heals, molten metal creeps across its face, hardening into a cyclopean mask.
Trevor scrambles back. He can't die here. He won't die here. He pushes another few feet from behind what little cover he can find, only...
The way forward is... blocked. Of course it is. There's atmosphere in here. If this mining tunnel had a way out, it would also be almost impossible to breathe. This is it, then. Trevor sags, he turns and between his teeth and his hand, manages to slide a fresh magazine into his gun. If he's going, it won't be quiet. Though with this screaming kid, it's not like it was going to be quiet anyway--
A voice.
A voice echoes in his head.
'Don't move.'
Rock explodes in a rattling collapse. An enormous, tungsten carbide stake carves into the passageway, crushing one of the Dawn Apostles to a bloody paste. The mines tremble as more shafts ram in-- the kind of tool that would have been used ages ago to mine this very stone. The asteroid groans as /something/ grips the other end of those oversized nails and drags them /out./ Trevor's eyes widen into saucers as he feels the breath sucking out of his punctured lungs-- vacuum. The pirate curls into a ball, smothering a hand over the child's mouth as its screams echo into a dwindling air supply--
--A moment before an hand the size of a man tears the nearby nail free and digs them out, and into... its cockpit.
Isadore's visor blazes, its chest sealing shut. Beam cutlass ignites in place of its weaponized bolt-thrower and carves a deadly arc through the collapsed tunnel. Ruin Apostles flash-boil, dissolving to dust as the arc of crackling Minovsky plasma seals the old tunnel shut again.
Inside the cockpit, Trevor gasps as atmosphere floods in all around him. The voice of a screaming, terrified infant fills the sweet, life-giving air. The child had only been exposed to vacuum for moments. They would be... Fine. Probably. Trevor... stares, stunned at the purple haro flapping happily nearby. "Cap'n. Saved. Cap'n. Safe! Cap'n. Father? Yaro?"
"I-- what?" Trevor Teach, space pirate, is for once at a loss for words.
And, critically, he is... alive.
...
He reaches for the controls. Isadore yields to him as he pulls it into a slow disengagement.
If it's here, then... what happened to the shuttle? HOW is it here?
All questions he can ask-- Later.
Right now, all he wants is to get home.
---NOW---
Punctured lung, severe burns, several broken bones and bullet wounds. Trevor had made a remarkable recovery, all things considered. The skin on his arm is still discolored from where they'd needed to perform some grafts, but that's the miracle of modern medical science for you. The kid-- was reunited with his mother, thank heavens. He doesn't want to think about the fact that his father was apparently a soldier for the Sleeves stationed at Palau-- and still MIA.
It's... a very uncomfortable train of thought.
Even moreso than the topic concerning the thing in front of him. Isadore looms in its gantry. Trevor leans against the railing, staring blankly at its visored face.
"...Did you come for me? On your own...?" Trevor wonders aloud. Yaro flutters happily in its harness on his back. Of course, it didn't know anything about what had happened. All it said was that it heard he had needed help and acted accordingly. But, the only thing that could have known was...
Trevor locks eyes with his partner in crime. The machine is expressionless as it returns his gaze.
"...Thanks." He says, dumbly. "For getting me out of that mess."
The Isadore is silent.
"You know, if you want to... I don't know, talk or something...?"
Still, silence.
"You... can't, or you don't want to...?" Trevor scratches his cheek, then shakes his head. "Alright. Well. Next time, ask permission before you walk off, okay? I caught a lot of flak for 'dangerous Haro modifications.'"
"Yaro! Yaro! Yaro misses integrated laser eye!"
"Ugh... though maybe Tomura had a point...?" Trevor mutters, limping away. The lights in the hangar dim as he leaves.
...As Isadore's visor pulses with a gentle, blue glow.