Ace of The Duck Pond Thunder of the Ghost Ships.

[Ranger Reid]

Liam stood in the shadow, almost timid to come fully in to the light.

The woman squinted at him, fear etched on her face.   Suddenly she started speaking rapidly in her language towards Jace.   The pilot pulled at her ears, making them pointy like Liams and shaking her head.  Then she started tracing lines on her face.

The group stared at her in confusion till Liam offered an explanation   "I think she is saying I look like someone she knows and fears, except he has no scars like mine and his ears weren't ripped in to points like mine.

Liam looked at her and held his palms out to show he meant her no harm.

Still speaking rapidly, the woman took out a necklace from her shirt and held up the charm on it.   It was a round pendant shaped much like a wagon wheel, but covered in archaic markings.     She broke the leather thong that held it and allowed the wheel to lay flat on her hand.


Liam didn't know what to make of it all, but he could sense the raw power flowing from the talisman.

[MWBailey]

It had been a while since Al had seen such a medal as the one on the woman's palm; He decided to try and talk to her with his woefully horrible and limited vocabulary. "Er... Вибачте, молодих пропустити, що таке вашеімя? (excuse me, young miss, what is your name?)* It was perhaps a bit of a wrenching subject change from the one about her talisman, so whjen she appeared to inderstand, but was a bit put off by the question, he added, Ah...що... робити? , er, для є медаль? (Ah... what... for is medal?).

It was just the bare bones of what he'd learnt when in Burma, in order to use should they encounter one or more of the russians who were supposedly their and teh chinese' allies, but hopefully it would come in handy here. It had barely seen him through when rescuing a young russian navigator, the only survivor of a bomber that had been shot down over a particularly hostile stretch of river. Luckily, he had been able to speak a little broken English, to help with Al's badly fractured Russian.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Marta." She pointed to her self "Safe" the talisman caught the light like it was a living thing and her hand was moving in a way Jace rembered.

"It is a protection from harm like the mirror in the story with the house on chicken legs."  Jace had loved that story as a little girl.  Marta smiled brightly and twisted the talisman in her hand.  A dazzle very much like the sun on a sliver lake bathed the room in near binding brightness.  It lasted a moment and was gone.  "Is that why that ghost plane was after you?"

Marta nodded gravely and lapsed in to Russian spattered with broken English.  "The plane take make more monster. Never come roost.  Sister."  She said the last word with heartbreak in her voice.

[CPT_J_Percell]

Wilfred landed the Blue Fang, drove it into the hanger then pulled the doors closed.
Grabbing a pouch from under the seat he walked out the hanger, crossed the runway and sat of the edge watching as a boat came close. The boat cut it's engines and floated in close. One of the crew handed a crate to Wilfred, took the pouch and sailed away without saying a single word. Wilfred sat there for a while with his hand on the crate before getting up and walking back to the hanger, looking the doors behind him.

[MWBailey]

Al was touched by the woman's apparent misfortune. "It is sorry I, hearing of your sister, Miss Marta. How help, we can?" He asked, in his severely fractured Russian.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Vampir keeps safe under foot but the plane calls us up."  She sounded frustrated and Jace wondered what she was talking about.

"You mean hidden?"  Jace said miming hiding her thumb in her fist.

Marta shook her head.  "Under foot "  She hit the ground with an open palm for emphasis.

"I think she means below the streets captain."  Donna said and Marta nodded enthusiastically.

"So there are people under the streets?" Jace looked out at the others confused.  Was there really space enough for people to live down there?

[Ranger Reid]

Liam perked up at the word vampire.  Other than Meri he hadn't sensed any of them in the area.  Bad enough if his mechanical ability was faulty, but even worse if he had been oblivious to a creature like that nearby.

He needed to figure out this blockage, and soon.....

[MWBailey]

"Room to spare." Al answered. He looked the the others' bewildered faces. "Oh now, come on, don't tell me you guys never thought of it, with all the places we've been and the things we've seen, collectively, you didn't think The Pond wouldn't have an Undertown, did you? That's where Bob has his still that he makes my carb juice in."

"Don't look so shocked, kid," Al said to Liam, "everyplace has a place like it, the part o' town that the middle class and the upper crust like to pretend don't exist, but which exists anyway in utter defiance of what's supposed to be possible. Chinatown's like the entrance hall, it's where the biggest doors and boltholes are." He turned to Jace. "I'm surprised the Scarabs haven't told you about it, they're down there all the time with Tall Dark and Vampy cleaning out the problem cases; she's made quite a name for herself as a monster hunter, so I hear."

------
"Just so you know, I'm not the "wampyr" that stays safe under ground," Meri said from the doorway to the hangar, dressed in what appeared to be a sheath-like, deep blue satin Chinese slit-side evening dress. "I'm also not some kind of ravening bloodhound." She cocked her head to look around Al at the young woman on the floor. "As I said to your friends, those kitsune twins," she said in perfect Russian, "as long as you're not a problem to the people I've allied myself with, and you don't do something to fall afoul of me or the Scarabs, I'm not going to be after you. And, no, Liam,
" she added, in English, "I don't go out hunting for blood. Er, anymore. Unless it's sanctioned." She smiled a bit crookedly, and shrugged slightly, then added, "The Scarabs have been quite helpful in that regard, Services Rendered, and all of that.

"There are of course other vampires, some benign, some not so much so, and some who are downright maleficent. Those last are the ones I and a select few scarabs go after periodically."

"And yes, Marta," she added again in Russian,  "I do feel the pull of that infernal light. I used to be their creature, after all. The insufferable bastards..."

[Stella Gaslight]

Jace shrugged.  "I don't go too far it to the Scarabs territory, after all looking beneath the wrappings is bound to get you in trouble."  Perhaps she would have to take a closer look in the dark corners of the station.  "Do you think they are coming back for you?"  There were lingering doubts that the doctor's mind had been truely gone when they sent him away.  She wondered if that factored in to the trouble she had with her power and the fact that she shuddered every time anyone touched her neck.

[Ranger Reid]

Liam listened to the exchange with keen interest.   He wasn't assigned to clean out any nests of vampires.  In fact, after the gremlins were gone, he had asked to stay with the Aces simply to heal.  So far, he had not been given any new orders.    But his people would want to know of any dark creatures.   And he knew that if there was an infestation of kindred, he could well be ordered to remove it. 

It would be his biggest challenge to date, but especially daunting since he was impaired.   Even as he wallowed in his self doubt, Donna caught his eye.   No.... If the "Tribe" had gouls here, he would remove them simply to keep her safe.    This thought brought a surge of awareness and a brief moment of clarity.  His power flared and he once again could feel the way things functioned around him. 

He observed the artifact Marta held.  He knew it's origin and function.  "That pendant isn't just a charm for safe harbor.  It literally masks the bearer from evil's sight."

After a pause, he added  "Marta is something of a hedge witch.   Romanian gypsy stock but distantly removed."   

[MWBailey]

"These latest people feel both the same, and different, from that Doctor's compatriots," Meri said. "I think they are perhaps not the same, or it may be that they are a higher-level group. I also noticed that the ship smelled like Wi-, um, like I myself did when I first came to this world," she added. "As it they come from another one. The... pomade, as I think I mentioned a while back, is not the same as yours is, or as mine is now." Shje stopped and thought, and then said, doubtfully, "Perhaps they've heard of me? But I can't believe I, whom they must consider a rebellious and troublesome turncoat, would be so valuable to their aims as that. They do tend to be obsessive about such things, however."

"I was not aware that the Vosh Project," her mouth twisted in distaste at the word, as if it tasted bad to her, "had come quite so far along as that; I happened to walk in on a design conference once, several years ago, in which a mechanical drawing and artiste's painting of a proposed vessel bearing the word "Vosh" in all capital letters were being projected on a portable screen. I had to wait patiently to give my report to the Grand Master of the order, and got an earful of what they were talking about. They were discussing problems with the interaction between the machinery that supposedly rendered the vessel capable of traveling through time and space, and the shielding that protected the vessel."

"You saw one aspect of that shielding when I tried to hack through the tail section. It would seem they have solved the problems they were discussing, but at the time, they were concerned about the power drain of maintaining the ship's ability to do that. I cannot believe that it can just continue to take and repair damage indefinitely. Even my kind must succumb to massive damage, even if only temporarily."

[CPT_J_Percell]

Wilfred removed the cloth cover on the create and pulled out the assorted collection of parts. Compared to what was fitted to the Blue Fang while some were close in function hey were primitive versions. Something niggled at him about the design patterns and he walked over to his safe and withdrew the Temporal gyro. Placing the gyro next to the other parts, he began to examine everything, his brow creasing evermore with each new discovery. Wilfred stepped away from his bench and grabbed a beer. From what he had seen, this parts were not local to this world.

[Stella Gaslight]

"It makes sense we had plenty of pilots in the circus that could do things people called magic.  I always thought it was skill but then again I thought my own talent was luck so who knows." Jace shrugged she was learning new things about the world at a rapid pace and had given up on being shocked.

"How can we defend against those planes?  I mean if they figure out the truth they will be after us and I couldn't do a dammed thing to stop them."  Donna looked at Liam a little worried if the ships hurt him and she couldn't defend her friends then what good was she?

[Ranger Reid]

Liam reveled in the flow of his talent.   It felt so clean and pure.  Until he had touched magic with it, all he had ever really done was make machinery work, repair damage, sense other people's abilities.   Now he could feel so much more.   It was a little frightening and very distracting.  He could feel the workings of Jace's ability and it was like a deep pit.   If he wasn't careful he could lose himself in someone else's being.   

Suddenly the problem was that his ability was working too well.   While it was working, Liam turned his gaze inward to see if he could figure out why it seemed to come and go.

He realized that for the first time in his life, he cared about something more than just his duty to the hunt.  His feelings for Donna had both been the block and the redemption of his power.   This would be problematic.   His propensity to fall too deeply into a problem coupled with his newfound love would cause him to be erratic at best......


Liam smiled.   What a wonderful problem to have.         While things were working, he might as well help Jace.

"Captain, I have one last lesson for you on your talent."

As he spoke, Liam made minute adjustments to Jace's powers.   He found the damaged nerves and coated them with healing energy. 

"From now on, don't think about it at all.  I have been pushing you to do things exactly the opposite of how your talent grew.  Instead, just be in the moment.  Don't even think about it.   And when you notice your power working, then just listen and feel.   You will notice something, a sound, a smell, something tangible.  And when you find it, you will be able to think of that and call up your power.     But it has to come instinctively, just like you have been doing before I complicated things by forcing you to do it the way I learned."

Liam finished tweaking Jace's flow of energy.  She wouldn't notice, but within days she would start getting stronger physically, and in her ability.

[MWBailey]

Meri stepped close to Liam. "When you're not meddling in other people's auras, perhaps you could use your other talent to try to come up with a weapon to fight those bastards with," she said  sotto voce, so that only Liam could hear her, but still with a bit of the lash in her tone. She smelled his startlement; surely he wasn't still surprised that she knew? She answered that reaction by saying, still in sotto voce, "I don't know exactly what you did, Hunter, but I know that you did something to the Little Amazon, the same way that I know what you are; I can smell, taste and feel it. No magic, just simple instinct and heightened senses." She smiled in am attempt to reassure him, but then remembered the effect of thse damned canines. Oh, well, she thought resignedly.

She said out loud, then, "There are weapons on this station that can affect those ships," she said,  if they are modifired to improve their output. I have not the skill to figure such a thing out, but I believe some one else here in this hangar does. Eh?" she said, looking back at Liam.

[Stella Gaslight]

Jace could feel pins and needles in her bad hand but it quickly melted away to soft warmth.  She hoped that wasn't the signal for another attack of the cramps. Wilfred already wanted to ground her and if he could go to the tower and prove it she would have a have a doctor's note to be allowed back in the air.  That would make her miserable.  "I can put forth the funds if we need it to outfit us."  She was not going to leave them unprotected.

[CPT_J_Percell]

The engine cowling of the Blue Fang was sat on the floor with wires hanging out. On the desk in front of Wilfred lay the Chrono Key and a file containing the plans and typed documentation of it. Wires had been connected between the Chrono Key and the Temporal Gyro and it sat on the bench humming away while he attached something between the superchargers and the missile rack. The round brass object looked like a cars headlight and would work like one, but instead of the sickly yellow light that normals laps sent out, this one was different.
Wilfred wiped his head with the back of his hand, took another swig of warm beer before getting up to retrieve the cobbled together contraption. It still fit in the cavity between the bulkhead and the engine block, but needed additional wire to be moved to drop it into place. He methodically connected each wire back before adding new cables and when done checked the new gauge on his dash. Everything was working as he expected and he flipped a switch. A beam of light came from the underside contraption and in the middle a ball of lightning formed.
"Command receive, command receive, 2-4-2 green, repeat, 2-4-2 green." he switched everything off and replaced the nose cone. If this is what they had been expecting then maybe he could return home.

[Ranger Reid]

Liam was glad that meri had misunderstood his reaction.  He still had to get used to her smell of suspended death.  Ideas for weapons sprang into his head.    He nodded thoughtfully.    "I could do something based on the energies of Marta's pendant, but it would be better if we had a real brick and morter church nearby.   I could use some items crom there too.   It wouldnt even have to be Judeo-Christian.   Any permanent place of worship."

[Stella Gaslight]

"The light house is what you need.  Granted it was built by someone who worshipped coconuts as the most perfect as the most perfect connection between god and man. Some still do but if it just tradition or they actually believe it I have no idea.  Before the pond ate it up this place was coco island. When the towers started going up no one needed the light house so they used it as their high cathedral.  that is why the whole place is a dense grove of palm trees." Jace grinned her home had always been a bit odd but that was how she liked it.

[MWBailey]

"I was speaking more in terms of actual weaponry." Meri said, slight exasperation coloring her tone, "Surely you know, guns that shoot...oh, what is your word for it...Back in the village, the Oni would have called it a word meaning "fires of heaven." Surely you know what I refer to. Somebody on this station is repairing such things at a price that is undercutting the regular repair folk. For such an industry to exist and be undercut, surely the weapons would have to be common klnowledge, yes? getthjem to build us a weapon , or more than one, to mount on your aircraft. Then, we'd be able to fight the Vosh on its own terms."

She colored slightly. "Your pardon, I meant that you would be able to. I don't have an aeroplane."

[Ranger Reid]

Liam looked at Meri,    "First you said "maybe you could make such weapons.  When I start figuring out how, you say someone already is.   Did you think it was me?   I work for the Aces right now.  And that's it.  I don't know of anyone building cheap augments, but if there is, we should see what they can do.  In the mean time, I can still visit the coconut tower and prepare a plan B.  "   

In his head, Liam knew he was snapping a little.  But he simply wasn't happy with how the vampire had sidled so close to him.  Working together was going to take some getting used to.

"Captain, it's up to you.  We can all go to together, or we can split up and you guys can look up the scarabs while Donna takes me looking at coconuts."

Even as he said it, a small part of Liam hoped for the split so he could be alone with Donna.   Almost as if to self regulate, he added, "and maybe Wilfred could go with us?"

[MWBailey]

So, you want You and Donna to compare your coconuts, do you? Naughty boy. Meri sthought to herself, and fought (with only partial success) to keep from giggling girlishly.

"Or, we could split up the boys and the girls - to keep the 'coconuts' safe, I mean." Meri quipped as she smirked at Liam.

Al guffawed once and then literally swallowed his hilarity. It looked like a painful experience. "Ah. Harrumpf." Al cleared his throat, and then interjected, "I'd rather stay with you if it's all the same to you, Jace. Nothin' against you, kid," he said, turning to Liam. "I guess I have nothin' against goin' with ya to get a pair of coc- I mean, a coupla bricks, but I prefer Jace's company. No offense." Al just felt like someody had to do something to keep the vamp and the mechanic apart; sparks of a not-terribly-friendly sort were flying between the two, it was obvious. Just what the hell did that woman say to Liam to set 'im off like that? he thought.

[Stella Gaslight]

Jace grinned and for a moment considered telling poor Liam he had to pair up with Meri but she wasn't cruel. "Donna I expect you to protect Liam from the nudists.  I did mention that right?"  She turned to Meri as Liam and Donna blushed.  "Can you take us to under town? I have an idea how to get there nit I think an introduction will be a lot better than just barging in."

[Ranger Reid]

Liam felt the surge of connection to his power fade suddenly.  He swayed on his feet and felt his nose begin to bleed.   


"Donna, I need to rest a bit before we go."  He said.  He staggered over to a chair and half fell in to it.  "Seems my ability still exacts a cost." Liam thought.

[Stella Gaslight]

Donna was over to his side before she realized what was happening.  "I can try that warm thoughts thing you were trying to teach Jace.  I don't have power like she does to lend but I bet some warm comfort from my arms if nothing else would be nice."