Above and Under the Island

[fh_npcs]

The battle raged on above Fandom, fighters and ships whistling through the air-- and through space. The bigger ships had canons that thundered. Most of the time, their aim ran true.

But not always.

One colossal volley broke atmosphere, pierced the sky, and came down hard on Ingvar's shore, scorching trees and sending dolls scattering around like ash. It caused a thunderous noise, an unearthly crash... and the quiet, shrill ring of a mother's siren, pulsing deep underneath the earth, where no one could see.

That was all.

Until Fandom itself started to rumble, the earth trembling and tearing off underneath it. One moment, it was sitting snuggly in its usual bay - the next, it was tearing itself free from it, pulling up into the sky... and up. And even further up.

Well. That was certainly something.

Comments

Re: Underneath Fandom

[bigdamnprincipal]

Zoe made sure she went in first, since she still wasn't entirely certain what would be waiting for them. Her eyes adjusted to the light as she looked around, and then she let out a quiet laugh.

"This place is never going to stop surprising me. Get inside," she said, making room for the others. "It looks like there's enough seats for everyone."

Re: Underneath Fandom

[gavegoodface]

Face whistled as he looked around the room. "Astral." He slid into a seat and started looking over the controls. "Hey, I think I found a pilot's station.".

Possibly this was when a normal person might bring up the fact that all their previous flight training was focused on snubfighters, or that said training was still mostly theoretical. But hey, it was going to turn out that two of Face's greatest skills would be piloting and being involved in plans that operated on completely sideways logic, so this would either work out great...or they were all going to die.

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[giveherahand]

Mara was glancing around too, with more knowledge on her face than she'd normally allow to show. She was pretty sure she could explain that an alien invasion was worth breaking her cover over.

Pretty sure. Not positive.

She slid into a seat as well. "So will this move the entire island?"

She didn't sound surprised. She'd been in Fandom long enough not to be that surprised.

Re: Underneath Fandom

[worstofalltime.livejournal.com]

This surprised no one. Seriously.

"This place has a hidden spaceship," Washington muttered, going to strap himself in without any fuss. Man did it make him miss Four Seven Niner, though. "Of course it does."

Re: Underneath Fandom

[not_a_moonie]

Alana slid into a seat across from Mara and eyed the console. Like everyone else, she was thoroughly unsurprised by this development.

"So the whole island is a weapon," she observed. "Trippy."

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[heromaniac]

"I'm only surprised the island was able to keep this from us for so long!" Momoko was pretty much starry-eyed as she headed for a chair and began looking over her section. Invading aliens killing people or not, this was beyond cool and totally made up for a lot of stuff Fandom had done to her over the years. "Is there a function to transform into a mecha?"

Re: Underneath Fandom

[bigdamnprincipal]

"At this point, I think the island could turn into just about anything, and we'd all nod and roll with it," Zoe said.

She took a seat at the center, so she could monitor what was happening, and it didn't take much more than that for her to slip into calm Captain mode. "I have a feeling this is going to involve moving the whole island, but the island... well, it took itself out of the damn ground and essentially told us to blow these things out of the sky, so I'm taking that as permission for a little moving and shaking. I'm glad you all came, and if you're willing, I say we see what these controls do."

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[gavegoodface]

"I'm not seeing a 'transform into a giant droid' button over here." Face, that hadn't been an invitation to start looking for one. "Just the usual."

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[giveherahand]

"Weapons, navigation, propulsion...that looks like hyperspace, maybe?" Mara said, pointing to a button that was not very helpfully labeled.

Well, maybe it was helpful to gremlins.

Gremlins in spaaaace. Terrifying concept.

Re: Underneath Fandom

[worstofalltime.livejournal.com]

"Let's not try that button," Wash said quickly.

He didn't want to go into hyperspace and end up on the ass end of the universe when they were trying to get something done here. But mostly because he didn't want to end up on the ass end of the universe.

"We just need to break atmosphere and shoot some alien ships."

Re: Underneath Fandom

[not_a_moonie]

"And try not to freak out everyone on the mainland by having a giant space battle where they can see it," Alana concurred, already poking at an onscreen atlas. "Hey, cool, it knows where my galaxy is."

Not that they were going there.

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[heromaniac]

"It's Fandom; it totally knows where everywhere is. Probably can get there better than Portalocity." Momoko was checking her own panels and instruments. "It looks like I have a pilot station too. I totally doubt the island separates into multiple ships... Ah! I see. There's a lot of navigation and monitoring equipment over here, too. I guess that makes this a co-pilot station."

She looked at the others. "What are the other seats? Someone said there were weapons?"

Re: Underneath Fandom

[bigdamnprincipal]

"Those look like weapon controls, on the panels over there," Zoe said, gesturing. "I think we should get as high up as we can, and see how the fight is going. We can test the weapons on some of the smaller ships, to see how they work and hopefully get those things off the backs of our people who are already up there."

There was a lot of optimism to the idea - what if nothing actually worked? - but they had to do something.

"Does anyone want to try navigating this thing?" she asked, looking around.

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[gavegoodface]

"Well, since I've got the controls right here," Face said, looking for the altitude controls. It shouldn't be too hard to handle, he'd picked up X-Wing controls quickly enough. In sims.

Face, no.

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[giveherahand]

"That one," Mara murmured to him as she walked over to settle in in front of a weapons array. "Um. Everyone strapped in?"

No that she didn't trust Face's abilities here, but she didn't. At all.

Re: Underneath Fandom

[worstofalltime.livejournal.com]

"Try not to crash," Wash suggested dryly. He was already running his hands over the weapons controls in front of him to get used to the feel.

Re: Underneath Fandom

[not_a_moonie]

"Good first step," Alana agreed, and glanced down at her screen again. "Oh, okay, the weapons panel is a lot like the ones on ships back home. I can make it work."

RE: Re: Underneath Fandom

[heromaniac]

"We won't crash as long as I have breath and a pilot chair." Momoko ran her hands over her console. She flipped a few switches and her screens came alive with flight systems status information, lots of flight stabilizer meters... and an ad for JGOB. There was also a whole screen dedicated to the location of all other objects in nearby flight-space.

"So you've flown an X-wing?" She looked over at her co-pilot. "Aren't they fun? Though TIE fighters are a better ride, over all. More like you're flying on your own. Hmm... Definitely looks like I am secondary pilot."

"All systems are good, Captain." She grinned back to Principal Winchester. "Ready when you are."

Re: Underneath Fandom

[bigdamnprincipal]

Zoe settled back in her seat, relaxing just a little at how competent everyone seemed. "All right, hold on and take her up. Let's see how this goes."