Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Tempus Frigate: Roswell That Ends Well

Finally having a moment to think, Julian decided to rename himself Julius, to bring himself out from under the shadow of his original.

He, Henry, and Samuel carefully scanned the area, using the remote and any sensors they could cobble together, but the nanites that escaped were well and truly gone. Whatever will come from that is anyone's guess.

Leaving the others to repair the ship, Julius headed in a spiral, keeping an eye out for any activity. As Amy warned, in a few days, interest would begin to pick up, and soon they would be overrun with government and military officials; he didn't want to get spotted early.

Up the road, he found a farmhouse and some outbuildings; there was a car in the drive, and he could hear music playing on a radio. Sneaking up to the building, he peeked in - a housewife was preparing dinner, it looked like. He crept around, then through the open back door and into the study. Finding a map, he began to leave, then paused. Pulling out his knife, he carved a "crop circle" into the wall of the house, then waited for the woman to notice. When she did, he revealed himself - a tall man in a power suit, standing in her kitchen! She screamed; he introduced himself. She dove for a gun, and he decided to head outside. After a bit of dialog, where he suggested she remain inside and stay away from the crash landing - the first she heard of it, by the way - she firmly requested he leave, mentioning she had a shotgun pointed at the door, so no funny business.

Julius circled the house, not finding any dish or communication equipment; over comms, he asked Henry, sho said to look for a box with a wire that ran into the ground. Julius found such a wire, pulled out his knife... and cut the wire to a blast of sparks. As it happens, he cut the power line, not the phone line; lucky for him, his knife survived. The front door... not so much. Startled, the woman of the house left a gaping shotgun hole in it. Julius continued around the house and found the phone line, and cut that with much less drama.

Unbeknownst to him, the woman had already called her husband, who returned from the far pasture with his head farmhand. Julius waited until sunset, when a car drove up, and the woman's husband stepped out, rifle in hand, and called out to her. After a bit of watching, he finally told the men to stay away from the field to the south, and left.

Meanwhile, Daisy continued to fix components. She fell asleep at 5, gently snoring into an access panel... and at 6 AM, a sharp knock sounded on the ship's door. Charles answered, finding a thin, bald man, wearing a black suit and tie. A Man in Black! The man suggested that, perhaps, could they finish repairs to their ship in the next 2 hours? Additionally, he asked Henry how Daisy was doing, and showed him his badge - a member of The Agency, with an identification number of AA-56.

Henry, groggy from missed sleep, found and woke up Daisy, and together they continued working on the ship, with Samuel assisting. The Man in Black - a member of the Agency, actually - bid them good day, and returned to his (spotless) black car.

Just in time, the ship lifted off, heading for a beacon that showed up on their screen.

Meanwhile, the Agent and several members of his team returned to the site, playing the rubber and metal to be found there later; he also paid a visit to the house just up the dirt road...

The beacon was, in fact, the warehouse. Oddly, it looked much the same inside in 1947 as it did in 2882; the door was blasted off its hinges, and the roof was slightly warped from where they had run into it, fleeing from AlSec.

There was one difference... Caelie Kay was waiting for them. She produced a part for Daisy to repair the time drive, and explained just why she had to be gone...

Captain Daneel Kaspar erased his past. He is, at the moment, a non-entity; while he can no longer return to his own time, there is no way to remove him from the time stream except by finding him and taking him out. Whatever his true mission is, it likely has to do with the Entity - AlSec has always planned on breaking the Entity out of its jail, and this is a last-ditch method to do just that. She also found their base of operations - they jumped around in time, setting up bases, all funnelling to this one location: 2268, in low orbit around Jupiter.

Julius wasn't quite ready to give up command, but Calie opened the ship's door, and gestured behind her. "Would you rather stay?"

Behind her, the walls of the warehouse were beginning to go gray; objects fell into nothingness. Grumbling, Julian agreed, and the ship lifted off. Behind them, the open roof of the warehouse fell inward, fading out like a hologram, leaving the warehouse untouched. No trace of the time-traveling interior remained; only a blocky street address: "Warehouse 13".

The ship finally in working order, all the guns and shielding intact and functioning, the party made their way to the base. They fired themselves out of the airlock, and using their space suits' controls, managed to make a perfect landing on the far door of the base. They were ready for battle... or at least as ready as they would ever be.

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