15664/Brand New Exhibit

Brand New Exhibit
Date of Scene:	20 August 2023
Location:	A Collector Ship
Synopsis:	Alura and Caitlin are whisked away from Earth by a 'Collector' who thinks he's just hit paydirt by capturing a Kryptonian.
Cast of Characters:	Alura In-Ze, Caitlin Fairchild

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Alura In-Ze has posed:
Alura awakens with a start. Still wearing the jeans and blouse she was wearing while engaging in the classic Earth tradition of 'going out for coffee with friends', the trappings of Superwoman are no where to be seen. She grips at her wrist for her gauntlet and alas it too is gone.

Her eyes scan around the red tinted cell. No super vision. A throbbing headache. And Caitlin Fairchild in the corner with a wicked looking collar about her neck. Alura drops down to one knee and rocks her gentle, "Caitlin. Wake up..."

Another look around the space they're in. It's a cell, that much is clear. Standard light blue shielding tells her a lot about the tech level of their captors. "We've been abducted." But not -who- their abductors are.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Owwwww," is the first thing Caitlin says, and grips her temples. "My noggin feels like I caught a high-power rifle round." She squints around and sits up with Alura's help, propping her weight up on one hip.

The redhead touches the collar around her neck, then gives it an experimental tug. Electricity crackles, immediately dissuading her. "What on Earth--" she tries to look down at the collar. "Why can't I tear this off?" she demands of Alura. It's given another tug and this time the shock is enough to make Caitlin yelp with pain.

"Ow! Okay! No touchie," she acknowledges, and struggles to her feet. "Well this definitely isn't Central Perk," she points out to Alura, and gives the shields an experimental nudge with her toe. "How long have we been unconscious?"

Alura In-Ze has posed:
Alura helps Caitlin rise and then looks at the intricate line world on the walls of their cell. "Yeah. I don't think we're on Earth any more. Do you feel that?" She places a hand to the wall. "The resonance hum? high energy production core - we're probably on a ship that uses a lot of juice. Perhaps a faster than light vessel."

She goes to the edge of the shield and tries to peer around the corners, "Couldn't say. My gauntlet is missing. They've probably locked it up over there," she indicates pointing to what looks like a safe.

"Whoever they are they've pulled a trick from Brainiac's play book." She motions to the general lighting in the room. "My super powers are sapped." She notes the lack of furniture or blankets at all.

"Transport vessel? This feels more like a cargo hold than a prison cell. Can you bust us out - you're above average strong if I recall correctly?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Am stronk woman," Caitlin acknowledges, and tugs her arms across her chest to stretch them. She starts feeling her way around the walls, looking for a seam or weak point. Once she finds one she sets her feet, primes a punch, and *smacks* the wall with a firm punch.

Instead of the wall moving, it just *thuds* limply, and Caitlin dances a merry jig while shaking her knuckles out. "Holy hell's bells!" she curses. "That HURT!" She seems almost surprised by the pain, hissing and rubbing her knuckles to soothe them. "All right, whatever this collar is, it's got me locked down too," she tells Alura.

The redhead takes a second look around their cell. "Okay. Fixed repulsor technology, no bed or amenities, and I don't see any insignia on the walls," Caitlin remarks. "From the decor it's definitely non-terrestrial in origin and I doubt they're concerned about prisoner well-being since we're just sleeping on the ground. So not a formal prison ship. Cargo vessel, maybe?" she hazards. "Or some light freighter with a temporary jail cell in the hold," she speculates.

Alura In-Ze has posed:
Alura winces at Caitlin puts her fist straight in to the wall. "Ooouch," she adds sympathetically. Still it was a good spot to attack. She looks at it and then back to Caitlin. A quick assessment of what they have on them - clothes. Not much else.

There's a taptap on the blue shield and an alien who looks a little lizard like wearing synthetic white clothing looks in on them. "Oh good, you're awake. I was worried the transport beam killed you."

He laughs and pats his belly. "One Kryptonian - check. One... whatever you are - check. You'll get us a pretty penny."

Alura stares at the alien for a moment. Nope, no heat vision. Worth a shot. "Who are you and what do you want with us?"

He laughs again, "Classic questions. My name is Kevin and this is my ship. I'm a Collector. I collect alien species and sell them to the highest bidder. A lot of people want a Kryptonian. You'll make me rich. And a whatever you are," he motions to Caitlin, "Well I'm sure someone will want you. Someone always does. Anyhoo - make yourselves comfortable, you're not leaving that cell."

He laughs once more and walks back away. Alura snaps back around to Caitlin and thumbs at the wall. "Definitely don't want to be sold as a prize trophy. Also, we're wearing shoes." She offers an arm loop, "We kick it together. There might be some circuitry behind it I can work with."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin just scowls heavily at the alien until he leaves. "/Kevin/," she mutters. "He /looks/ like a Kevin."

"Give me a second, Alura," she requests of the Kryptonian. "I fortunately did not go to the coffee shop empty handed." She lifts her left arm and touches the black bracelet that sits above her golden-hued bracers. A light flickers rapidly in Caitlin's left eye, feeding her a data stream. "We're definitely on a space ship, my AI is picking up the effects of inertial dampeners. I'll have her start scanning frequencies to see if she can ping anything beyond the cell, she's a bit blind at the moment."

Caitlin gestures over her wrists and the golden bands become full-sized bracers that protect most of her forearms. "But this should be a bit easier than kicking the wall down. Might wanna cover your ears," she advises Alura. The redhead stands near the repulsor field, takes a deep breath, and with a grunt of effort smashes her bracers together. The Aegis of Zeus chimes with a powerful response, and yellow-gold motes of light and electrical sparks explode out in front of her with an astonishing amount of sheer energetic force and kinetic impact.

Alura In-Ze has posed:
Alura huhs as she looks at Caitlin's bracelet. "Earth technology. They probably thought the planet was too primitive to be a threat. The jokes on them." A smile of pleasure that the aliens have already made one mistake. She's sure there'll be more to come.

Alura raises an eyebrow but she's seen Amazonian bracers in action plenty of times. She learnt how to control her powers and how to fight on Themyscira after all. Fingers go in to her ears. There's no super healing right now to help her if she gets ear damage.

With a wince she watches as the magical bracers make short work of the shield. It flickers away even as all the sound batters the occupants within. Without it was silent. "Remind me to pack ear plugs the next time I get abducted."

She peeks her head out - a corridor and several other force fields. "We might not be the only cargo." Her focus is on the safe though. She approaches and notes the biometric lock. A quick glance around and she notes some saliva on the ground from the aliens laughter. With a grimace she scoops some up on a finger tip and then smears it to the safe lock.

With a click, it opens, and inside she retrieves her gauntlet. Just to make sure it's functioning, she activates it and it jumps from her forearm in to her hand as an energy weapon, then she gestures it back and it reforms on her forearm as a bracer.

"Let's capture us a spaceship."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Okay, but first things first--" Caitlin gestures at her neck, turning her chin. "A little help?"

Once the collar comes off, Caitlin stretches hugely with a great sigh of relief. A piece of discarded hull is picked up and she crumples it into a mis-shapen ball with little visible effort.

"I'm back online," she cheers, and cues up a small holo-display on her wrist bracelet. "Okay. Here's us," she says, pointing at the image. "I'm thinking the reactor is this way. The sensor batteries are probably a few decks above us. We're pretty close to the hangar/primary cargo hold. Do you know anything about the species of the Kevin?" she asks Alura. "They might be one of the weird ones who puts the command deck at the rear of the ship, and I hate to do much backtracking." The bulkhead door slides open and Caitlin looks both ways down the corridor, then looks at Alura. "Flip a coin?" she offers, barring a better suggestion from Superwoman.

Alura In-Ze has posed:
Alura brings up her holographic interface and touchtouches the air with Kryptonian symbols as she looks at that collar. A schematic of it comes up on her display and she flicks it around, dissects it, then finds what she's looking for. Tap, the collar shuts down and unlocks.

"I'm from Krypton. We're kind of known for being rather xenophobic. If I had to guess, I'd say... lizardman." It turns out Alura does have a sense of humour. It's strangely similar to Kara's. Still, the question of which way to go to get to the bridge is one without an answer.

"I can do better than a coin flip. It's called Koi-gat. Kryptonian scientists figured out a way to gather energy from the substrate of the universe as a seed for random number generation."

She taps on the holo-interface again and up comes two symbols that start flickering back and forth. "Though now that I think about it, that's still just a coin flip. A trans-dimensional coin flip but still a coin flip."

She taps and one of the symbols stays put. "That way?" A gesture and then she starts moving. "This Kevin needs a serious ass kicking."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin falls into step behind Alura, rolling her eyes over an irrepressible smile. A coin flip, indeed. Apparently, Kara comes by things pretty honestly. The similarities between the two women continue to stack up!

"Well, the more random, the mo' better," Caitlin whispers to Alura. "Can you patch into their data network? I've got a feeling this guy's an independent operator, but I'd like some heads-up warning if he's got a private army of combat drones sleeping somewhere."

With a gesture she begs a halt near a display terminal, examining it with a frown. "OK. That's got to be the engine room, that's the cargo bay, we are... *here*," she says, pointing at a dot. "And that means the bridge is-- yep, about fifty meters down this corridor," she tells Alura. "Once we're in there we can try to re-direct the ship. Or shut it down and steal an escape pod," she suggests. "If you're taking a poll, I have zero objection to setting the self-destruct and high-tailing it outta here."

Alura In-Ze has posed:
"I admire the enthusiasm Caitlin. But how are we going to get home if we blow this ship up. It took us from Earth - it can take us back." Alura smirks just the tiniest bit as they find a console. "I can work with this. Cover me."

Alura takes a knee as she begins to hack in to the systems with her Kryptonian technology. It's not like hacking in to Earth technology where most government and secret organisations still think their crytography will keep them safe. No, this is alien technology and while it's not Kryptonian it is certainly far more advanced than Earth.

"Schematics," she states as a hologram of the ship appears. Big it is by Earth standards, it is a single person ship. This whole operation is run by Kevin. "Life forms," she adds as dots appear on the ship. One at the bridge indicated by Caitlin and several others in holding cells.

"Another reason not to blow it up," Alura says with a sigh. "Navigation," she says and the ship zooms away in to a dot as a dotted stellar course shows them mere minutes away from landing on a moon simply called Maaldoria on the display.

"Well would you look at that. The Hegemony knew about this place," Alura says with a look of surprise. "I integrated part of their database from Astra's ship after the ... actually that's a long story." More information comes up. In Kryptonian it has the equivalent of Earth's 'mostly harmless' except this one says 'slave traders'. "Well that's just great."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin looks over Alura's shoulder and makes a face when she reads the highlighted data. "Oh man, I /hate/ slavers," she seethes, teeth grinding. "All right, so we rescue everyone first, *then* we blow up the ship," she suggests. "It looks like half a dozen biologicals in captivity. My only question is, how far are we from Earth?" she inquires of the Kryptonian. "If the escape pods have hyperdrives, we can probably get back OK, but I'm not gonna leave anyone behind if I can help it. We might need to just commandeer the ship and get it steered back the other direction. Once we're home, we can help the rest of the prisoners get free and to safety."

Alura In-Ze has posed:
Alura raises an eyebrow, "Escape pods with hyperdrives? You're looking at the same schematics as me right?" She gestures to the large unmanned section, "This. This is the hyperdrive." She rises back up and pats Caitlin on the shoulder. "You're spoiled by Kryptonian pod technology - the rest of the universe hasn't caught up to Krypton's legacy."

She turns her head toward their destination and the gauntlet jumps to her hand reforming in to an energy shield. There's a tiny repeating pattern in the golden energy - tiny tiny little Ss. "I block - you punch." She charges at the door and pushes the shield out.

Kevin is startled by the sudden intrusion on to the bridge. He quick draws like a proper cowboy and fires at Alura - but the Kryptonian energy shield absorbs the blast with ease.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin grumbles under her breath as Alura steps away and toys with her gauntlet. Fortunately she keeps any actual words from forming on her lips-- the redhead is well aware of how keen Kryptonian hearing actually is. Instead she gets a hand and foothold set, and when Alura pushes in, Caitlin is hot on her heels. She shoots past Alura once the first salvos go, face set in determination and leaning so violently into the turn that she puts a hand on the floor while her feet scrape for traction. She's *fast*, too, and by the time Kevin can react to her assault Caitlin slams into him with bone-rattling force to pin him against a console. Her other hand grabs his blaster hand and crushes the weapon he's holding, his fingers breaking loudly in her tight grasp.

"Override codes! Now!" Caitlin demands, yelling in his face. "Or I start taking arms off!" And just in case he doubts her threats, Caitlin puts a little more torque on his broken wrist and tugs like she's going to do exactly what she threatens.

Alura In-Ze has posed:
Kevin is bewildered and clearly afraid as he blurts back out, "Override for what?!"

The large windows before them reveal the sprawling market place of cages and aliens milling about as Kevin's ship settles down in to the slavers market. There's a ~clunk~ as the docking clamps come in to place.

Alura shuts off the shield and approaches the window. Looking out she can see hundreds of species in cages and her jaw drops. "You have GOT to be kidding me." It's unspoken but the 'rescue the prisoners' just got a whole lot bigger in scope.

As the vision of the supervisor for the landing area zooms out, we see several dozen more ships landing. Their cargo being emptied out summarily in to cages that land on hover carts. Those carts zip off toward the auction areas. Farther along are all the customer ships here for the big auction. This is a bizarre like no other.

[ https://youtu.be/PCsGRCf8T9Y - In the Meantime - Spacehog ]

To be continued...