Adventures on the edge of the Universe

[Kaikoura]

"Shhh!" Kai hisses quickly, waving her hands frantically as she pantomimes something between putting her hand over Naja's mouth and waving at her excitedly. "They'll hear us."

For her, the smell was pretty customary -she was out here a fair deal on one errand or another- and she moves through the alleyway to the edge of the street. She peeks around the corner to see who or what is about. Fortunately for them, this area of the station is in simulated night. High above them, the lights which hung from the ceiling between the massive open viewports to the stars had been turned off, replaced with smaller ones which left the place looking like a dimly lit warehouse. The street itself was alive with artificial light from signs, streetlamps, video screens and the like, very sci-fi, but fortunately it wasn't super busy. The ones that were out were seedy and packed into small groups.

"It's this way" Kai says, about to step out into the street when she stops in her tracks.

[Naja]

Naja already had her own hand over her mouth for the smell. Now there was a blue hand as well.
She gives Kaikoura a confused look before saying in a rather muffled voice "Who? There's no one around." before just giving a protesting eye roll, following after the blue alien.

As they step out onto the street, Naja stops too, although for an entirely different reason. This place just kept surprising her. Everything was glowing, lit up like a festival yet there was no partying going on. And the enormous roof and windows... was this whole town inside it's own building? Why?

She staggers a bit as she looks up at the stars but then steps up to Kai, completely ignorant of whatever Kai had stopped for. "This is... so WEIRD. I hope you realise that. This place is weird."

[Kaikoura]

Kaikoura carefully creeps out into the street...it seems no one notices her though, and she zips across the road to the next alley, gesturing for Naja to do the same. Once she was rejoined, Kai would begin the process of making her way to the shipping yards. She had no plan...none at all. Nothing aside from 'get away from the bar' and possibly 'get to a ship'. Either way, she was heading for the docks, which would mean she needed to stay close to the road. She knew some of the back alleys, but only in passing...if only her helmet were offline...

She picks her way carefully through the sidestreets, quickly and quietly checking now and then to make sure they were going the right way. Finally, they come to a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. On the other side, all that could reall be seen were large, multi-colored shipping containers with large-print alien logos and words on the side. Some of them were tinged with purple slime, others seemed fine. The only other thing visible from here were tall metal structures for moving freight.

"We need to get over this fence" Kaikoura says, pointing at the top of it.

[Naja]

Naja just sighs a long sigh and follows Kaikoura along, trying to avoid touching anything at all. She wasn't okay with this place!

When they reach the fence she stares at the shipping containers, another strange and bizarre feature of this world. "Boxes? What's with the gunk on them?" she asks before looking to her accomplice and says "Gotcha" and suddenly grabs onto the fence and starts to scale it without any sort of effort.
She reaches the barbed wire at the top, and starts pulling on it with one hand, trying to get the spiky wiring out of the way for the both of them. It's a bit hard since her other hand is holding onto the fence.
The hunter looks down at Kaikoura and says "You coming or what?"

[Kaikoura]

Kai looks at the fence uncertainly. Naja made it look so easy, but she'd never done anything like this before. She looks at her hands and then slowly, uncertainly, reaches out and wraps her over-long fingers onto the mesh. She pulls them back quickly...it was cold, hard...it felt like it would hurt. She looks back up at Naja again and takes a breath. She was going to try. As she'd said, they needed to get over. She grabs the fence as carefully as she can and tries to do as Naja had done, carefully sliding her foot into the chain and trying to pull herself up.

"It hurts..." she says, wincing. Her feet were often bare, so they were pretty tough but her hands were soft and she was pretty wiry overall. She struggles and makes it up a little ways. "I...I don't know if I can do it" she says up to Naja, turning her head up and looking a bit desperate. The Huntress had made it look so easy...of course, she also had made fighting that huge monster look easy.

She slips and falls, flopping back onto her butt, her Anai slapping loudly into a puddle and splashing dirty water all over.
"Oww...". She sighs a bit just as the little light on the front of her helmet starts to blink. She suddenly grabs at the metal restraint and flops onto her side thrashing and screaming.

[Naja]

Naja rolls her eyes at first, a bit disappointed in Kaikoura's lack of physical ability.
"Come on this weird fence is prefect for climbing. It is like someone made it to be climbed!" she insists before looking down again at the blue alien girl, and starts to climb down to try and help her up. "All right, all right, I'll give you a lift."
She drops down next to Kai, leaning over and smiling at her almost mockingly... right up until the girl starts screaming "Huh?" she says, leaning back in surprise. "What the hell? What's wrong?"
She quickly tries to grab Kaikoura and hold her still, looking the alien over. "It was only a little fall." she mutters before staring at the strange headgear. She bites her lip and tries to tug it off carefully. Hopefully this wasn't part of her skull or something. She had no idea what it was or what Kai's species is even meant to look like.
She soon realizes, it kind of is attached! "What do I do? Do you need medicine or something?" she asks, looking around for anything to help her.

[Kaikoura]

Kaikoura looks up at Naja, her eyes are shimmering with tears and she bears a piteous sort of look.

"They're coming" she manages to say, her fingers now clawing helplessly at the metal restraint on her head. "You must go. They'll be here any second...". She whines and claws at her helmet, but even a casual glance would show it was rather permanently in place.

She curls up, the intense telepathic shrieking making it nearly impossible to think. The little red light on the front was blinking rapidly now.

[Naja]

Naja looks down at Kai and blinks before looking around again "They're onto us huh? Okay, I'll go." before reaching down and picking up Kaikoura, and hefting the girl over her shoulder. "And you're coming with me." She starts climbing the fence, with much more difficulty this time but still with expertise enough that she can manage. "How do I get that thing off you? Or just, make it stop hurting you? I kinda need your help here, I have no idea where I'm going."

She somehow manages to get right over the fence with Kai, although getting a couple of scratches from wire in the process, dropping down on the other side and making for the containers so they could at least hide.

[Kaikoura]

Kaikoura writhes in Naja's grip, but even if she wanted to get away, she'd be no match for the huntress in terms of strength. The pounding in her head was growing more intense as the tracking device got closer to her location.

"Just...go" Kaikoura vaguely points in the direction of the docks, Naja would be able to get there if she just headed towards the towering cranes. "Fast".

She flops, Naja wouldn't get much more out of her until she got far enough away from whatever was behind them, and based on the shouting, whatever it was was getting closer.

[Naja]

Naja nods and holding onto Kaikoura tight she heads in the direction she was pointed to. She glances up at the cranes, wondering what the strange towers were for. She wonders if climbing one would keep them safe, but probably not. It would just be a death trap.

The huntress continues onwards, and while not being the fastest athlete she certainly had stamina to spare and didn't seem stop for breath.
"If I had a proper weapon I could take them on." she mutters to herself, trying to find somewhere to hide for the moment and get more out of Kaikoura. She ducks behind a crane once she gets close enough and gently puts Kaikoura down. "Hey, wake up." she says, jostling the blue alien.

[Kaikoura]

When they get behind the tower of crates, Kai relaxes a little...all the layers of metal and whatever was in the crates was dampening the effects on her a little bit. She whines weakly as she's put down and shaken a bit, staring up at Naja and barely able to hear her or even focus on her. She wobbles a little, nearly toppling over again. Whatever was happening to her, it was pretty serious. Some sort of purple slime squelches its way between two nearby containers as Kaikoura tries to think clearly enough to help Naja.

"Two..." she says weakly, but the interference is making her enitre Anai pulse maddeningly. She couldn't even hear what she was saying to Naja, so she only hoped she was actually speaking words. "Ship or telebobrr.." she says, but that could mean anything. She gestures again in the direction of the dock...it wouldn't be long and Naja would reach it but in her current state, Kai couldn't help her when she got there. She starts smacking weakly at the helmet, a piteous sort of gesture.

"Goooo" she groans, gesturing again.

[Naja]

Naja gives Kaikoura a confused looks before glancing up as she hears their pursuers draw closer. The huntress grunts and picks up Kaikoura again, putting the girl over her shoulder as she starts moving along again.
"Two... ship or.. telewhat?" she says to herself on the way towards the docks, before noticing the 'ships' She staggers back a bit, not sure what to make of them. As far as Naja was concerned, a ship is a wooden thing that goes in water. These things looked more like giant metal beasts! Still... what else around here could possibly be considered a ship? This was the docks right?

She glances back in the direction they came from, and she knew they were running out of time from the noise. Naja makes a snap decision, running for a ship that was being loaded, seemingly by more of the strange machines this place was so fond of. She puts Kaikoura down for a moment, and grabs onto the door of a container, and starts wrenching it open with a loud grunting in effort.

[Kaikoura]

The dock was bustling, rows of spacecraft all lined up along the edge of the concrete and steel dock, hanging out over essentially open space. Each of them floating a few dozen yards up in the air, many being worked on by crews...some simply being loaded. Aside from the crates, the only way to get on many of them would be a long climb up flights of stairs or the maintenance scaffolding...all of which would leave them terribly exposed. What Naja would think of all this, or if she even realized given the circumstances...Kai wouldn't have been able to guess.

The tone was unbearable now, overwhelming her senses and causing her vision to blur. She saw spots...dark patches...and now and then through the haze things would come back into focus enough for her to comprehend their situation. Her head turns and she sees Naja trying to force the end of the crate, fighting against a powerful magnetic locking mechanism. She reaches out and bats weakly at her leg, wanting to explain to her it wouldn't work..at least as far as she knew.

She only had one thought keeping her head in check...get to a ship. She turns again and grabs at one of the support poles for the crate, trying to pull herself to her feet. Somewhere nearby, she thought she might hear shouting...Naja would hear it much more clearly. A thick, scummy sort of voice that was spewing obsenities in an alien tongue. Once she was on her feet, Kai jumped, reaching for the top of the crate...it was a feeble attempt, all things considered, and she missed the top by a wide margin. She toppled back to the ground, barely consious.

Hopefully Naja would have understood...get to the ship...climb up... high above them, obscuring the overhanging lights from her view, the huge white clamp swings over their crate and with a metallic whirring it drops, coming down to hopefully carry them to freedom...

[Naja]

Naja pounds at the doors of the crate, causing it to dent slightly, a lot like her cell door.. once again though, she doesn't manage to achieve anything, not noticing Kaikoura's attempt at getting her attenion at first. "Why the hell is everything made of metal around here!?" she scowls before turning to watch Kaikoura make a jump, and fall straight after.

"Hey, knock that off, you're going to hurt yourself!" she says before glancing up. She watches the clamp for a moment before realising it's purpose. The huntress quickly reaches down and grabs Kaikoura, and whispers a "Sorry about this." before throwing the blue alien up onto the container. Hopefully she wouldn't get hurt, or fall off for that matter. As the clamp grips onto the container, Naja only has a moment to jump up and grasp onto the edge, trying to the the support poles to her advantage, and cling for dear life as the metal box raises off the ground.

[Aye]

Space docks were always such noisy places- the clang of metal on concrete, storage crates grinding as they slid into place, the mechanical whine of cranes lifting and moving materials, all in all it was just an assault on the ears. Which is why a certain ball of blue fluff with very large ears was finding it difficult to sleep in a dark cubby filled with loose wiring, unfinished metal edges and an air duct that had to be forcefully moved out of the way so that he would fit. A mouth appeared among it's fur, a short muzzle lined with needle-sharp teeth, and it yawned. Eyes appeared just above that, wide and yellow with large, black irises that shrunk to slim, vertical slits as they adjusted to the darkness of a cargo bay. Two, hand-sized, triangular ears perked up and then winced back as another crate screeched into position below him. The ball then began to unfurl into a humanoid creature with a cat-like tail before stretching out and extending the its claws on both it's hands and feet which scratched ineffectively against the metal plating and loose wiring that he had fallen asleep among. It lazily flopped over to look out of the venting grate that overlooked the ship's cargo bay. Nothing really looked out of the ordinary. Mechanoids were doing the majority of the work as she heard gruff working talk surely coming from outside the ship. Aye considered getting up until his whiskers twitched, verifying that they were still under artificial gravity. Must have just been another scummy space port; and he didn't seem all that interested in venturing out just yet so he settled in again, keeping his ears laid back against the noise.

However, one sound did seem to catch his interest and his ears began to lift once again. It wasn't the sound of workers or machinery but instead, the sound of yelling. A form of yelling that he was all too familiar with- the kind one usually yelled when they were trying to catch someone. He slowly began to shift into a readied position, just in case that yelling turned out to be for him and waited.