15673/Titans 3023: Lucky For Some

Titans 3023: Lucky For Some
Date of Scene:	21 August 2023
Location:	New Kronos and deep space
Synopsis:	If you're going to wander through empty passages of deep space in a rusting old escape pod with a tree growing out of it, you'll have to be very Lucky to be rescued by a couple of old friends who just happened to be passing through.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild, Jinx

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Donna Troy has posed:
    Traveling via Titan Travel-Sphere is not the most comfortable mode of transport. It's not that it's strictly uncomfortable so much as that it's a vehicle (if you're really comfortable describing something which seems almost partly alive as a vehicle) built without much concern for human comforts. There are places to sit, though they don't come across as if that was the intent in their construction so much as that they might coincidentally accommodate the human form. There is nothing that resembles a control console, a way to steer the vehicle, or a sensor array -- though none of these seem strictly needed as the Travel-Sphere always seems to know where its 'pilot' wishes to go, and there are sometimes windows you can look out of, which will often show you whatever it was you were wanting to look at anyway. Whether they have some kind of zoom function or the ship just goes close to whatever you're looking at is as unclear as virtually everything else about how a Travel-Sphere works. There are also no staterooms, no galley, no restrooms or other normal facilities you might normally find on a starship. Given how fast they travel, this isn't necessarily a problem.

    Troia's Travel sphere took a matter of hours to cross the gulf of ancient stars between the younger spiral arms and arrive at Alpha Draconis; the Athena, the T-Ship Caitlin had taken to find there, would take a couple of days to cross the same distance. It's about time the Titans upgraded to Blink Drives, but they're still a little rare and expensive.

    The visit to New Kronos had been brief, and Caitlin had not been invited in. This isn't really a surprise; she'd visited there a couple of times long ago, but the older Titans like their privacy. The viewports had shown her images of the planet the broken moon of New Kronos orbits, perhaps to keep her entertained. The sprawling cities on the world below bustle with activity, though none of it close. The people who live there take care not to approach their gods except in the most dire need. That the world below is a peaceful one owes a significant amount to the presence of the Titans of New Kronos, though Caitlin herself can take pride in the fact that at a point in their now ancient history, she was instrumental in establishing the peaceful society that now dominates the world.

    It's never entirely clear how getting into and out of the Travel-Sphere is achieved, particularly as from the outside the vessel can fit in the palm of the hand, while inside it has room enough for dozens of passengers to get lost. There is a strange sensation of stretching, a patch of glowing light, and Troia is back inside. The viewports blur and the Travel-Sphere is voyaging again before Troia starts to speak, speeding back towards Earth.

    "He agreed," Troia tells Caitlin once they are underway again. "The Travel-Sphere will do three time jumps for us. No more. Once to bring them forwards, once to take them back, once to return us to our own time. She... I... we're going to a point after I received the Travel-Sphere, but before I knew what it is. It's important that we give her as little information as possible. She may figure it out, but we'll need to be careful not to give anything away we don't have to."

    Troia stares at Caitlin a few moments, biting her lip. "Who else do we need to fetch from our own time? Who's still alive who was there... Lucky? Or did her luck run out at last? Any idea where she is?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's in no great hurry to jump out and meet the Titanians. There's little love lost there, and on some level she blames them still for Donnas decision to leave the fold.

The people, though... there are humans on the ground, scattered society living and even thriving. She presses a palm to the porthole and smiles at them from on high, with real pleasure on her face.

She's in that position when Donna returns, and holds it for a half-beat when she's addressed, and nods once in response to Troia's summary of the situation.

"Unfortunately, I don't," she says with a resigned tone. "Lucky tends to spend a lot of time off-planet, seeding life across the galaxy. She's been on a terraforming binge for a long time now. I could take a stab at her last sighting, but that's pretty old news," she warns Donna. "I usually just sit around until she comes home to visit, then give her a hard time for not answering our hails."

The last-known coordinates are produced and she flicks them over to Donna's console. "Best guess. We might need to dig her out once we're there."

Jinx has posed:
It seems likely to Lucky that by now someone would be turning up. That's highly improbable of course - there's nothing out here. No stars, no planets, no moons, no rogues, nothing. In fact, what an escape pod is doing out here in the middle of no where is one of those mysteries best answered by its occupant. If the Titan Travel Sphere had star maps there'd be nothing to suggest a spaceship let alone an escape pod would have any business being out here at all.

The escape pod itself is curious too. Not the least because there's a tree growing out the side of it - frozen solid by the vacuum of space. It twinkles in the darkness illuminated only by the lights from the circular windows. It's not a cramped little thing either - it's comfortable in size, like that of a small apartment in New York. It's NOT an apartment from New York but anyone might be mistaken for thinking the occupant had transplanted one due to the decore; and then someone let the planets grow wild.

Inside pink petals fall from the ceiling as if it were the height of autumn. Roots rib the flooring causing a tripping hazard, one which doesn't seem to bother the occupant at this time. Lucky has a nicely made table with moss growing over it that she's set out a tea set on with three cups on saucers.

The wizened woman with wirey white hair that falls down over her shoulders. Tying it up would be a mistake at this point in her life. Yet, despite the obvious years waring her down, she still has a twinkle in her eye that suggests she knows far too many things that others do not and that they all happen to amuse her greatly.

The very comfortable white kimono and secret pants skirt fit the thin old woman well. The matching slippers suggest she isn't much for running about these days. She has seated herself at the moss table and is sipping her tea when the console makes another soft little 'beep' - sending out the SOS. Because even when you can manipulate luck you still have to give that luck a reason to actualise.

A second set of beeps tells her someone has arrived in this sector of empty space. "Ah!" Lucky says gesturing to the large tree trunk embedded in to the wall, "Right on time. You owe me maple syrup." A finger lifts up and she waggles it at the tree as if it had made a critical error betting against her. Which it did.

"Hm?" Jinx says tilting her ear toward the tree, "What?" She looks up at the tree. "No I didn't cheat. In so much as you knew well and good what you were getting in to when you made this bet." Her finger waggles again. "Now hush. We have visitors."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Fine," Troia answers with a business-like nod. "We'll head back to Earth and see if we can pick up her trail there. If the trail's cold, we can ask Menalippe to do a scrying for us."

    No sooner has Troia finished speaking but the view through the viewports changes; streaks becomes points of light, and ghostly blurs become delicate nebulae hanging in the sky. There's no sensation of a change to the motion of the Travel-Sphere, but it has clearly come to a stop, and Earth is nowhere visible. Dead center of the viewport is a very strange escape pod, with a tree growing out of it...

    "Intercepted an emergency transmission," Troia explains simply. "What the hell is one doing out here? We're not on any major trade-lanes, and we're not picking up any signs of wreckage anywhere close at hand. Either the ship this thing came from jumped away, or it has been drifting for a very long time."

    Troia studies the viewport more closely, and the imagery shifts colors. In this new false spectrum, a gas-like trail of ionized particles streaks away from the stricken escape pod into the distance. "No, it's under power and the drives are damaged. That makes it recent. But why the hell does it have a tree growing out of it? Ship, give me comms."

    A slender line of light forms in the air in front of Donna, wobbling slightly with the sounds of Caitlin and Troia's breathing, like an ancient oscilloscope display. "Escape pod, we have received your emergency broadcast," Troia says, the line of light following the sound of her words. "We are right alongside your vessel. Don't worry if you can't see us, we're uh... stealthed. This vessel does not have a docking port, do you have a vac suit to handle a ship to ship transfer?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin rolls her eyes at Donna's uncertain hail and gestures at the transmitter to get it to focus on her. "Jinx!" she says, and flicks the emitter wave with a fingertip a few times. The equivalent of tapping on a microphone? Less than a dozen people alive in the universe would know to drag that old nickname out, which narrows down the field considerably for the woman in the pod.

"It's Cait! I recognize that rusty pod, you crazy old plant lady," she informs her friend. A grin spreads across Caitlin's face at the ribbing. "Did you get bored and start terraforming your own escape pod?" she inquires, keeping up the ribald banter.

"Look, I've got Don-- Troia, here and we've got a whole situation going on," she tells Lucky over the communication. "It's actual Titans business. You're part of it. Pack your tree up and come on over," she urges. "We need your help. How about it, for old time's sake?" she requests.

Jinx has posed:
Lucky is happy. She's been happy for many centuries. After she gave up being Sorcerer Supreme things generally just got better for her. She wasn't the center of all calamity any more and she could focus on things that brought her joy. The primary one was turning dead worlds in to living worlds. The other hobby - well, it involved chasing treasure.

"But I've made tea..." are the first words from the woman in the escape pod. She sounds hurt by the notion of abandoning her well laid plans and careful conceit of having prepared exactly the number of cups of tea needed for her guests.

Then again, her ears prick as she hears Cait's voice and is called by one of her oldest names ever. Jinx. A smile spreads over her lips. "You have Titans business and you find me out here - you two must be very lucky."

With audible groans, perhaps she's putting it on just a weee bit, she rises from her seat and approaches the capsule door. Stretching back her shoulders and rocking her hips. A wiggle of her head. Magic is what keeps her going and while she may be aging she really isn't as frail and helpless as she likes to make out.

"Troia--" She realises she didn't recognise Donna's voice. It's been too long. They didn't necessarily end their last conversation on the most positive of notes. "I'm sure you're a sight for sore eyes."

With a twist of her hand a pink bridge of energy with golden tendrils flowing through it extends from the escape pod to the travel sphere. No space suit necessary as the old sorceress knows far too many tricks now. The door opens and she walks over. Behind her, dancing in the air, three cups on saucers and a pot of tea.

"A k-nock k-nock," she says and wraps her hand upon the door entrance. "If Caitlin Fairchild and Troia Troiavich won't come to me for tea, I'll come to them with tea. Because what good is Titans business if we can't enjoy some aromatic hot water."

She makes her way in to the unsettlingly strange travel sphere and memories come flooding back. "Hm. Long story about the tree. And my ship. You see - I was hunting down a mysterious teleporting planet known as El Treasureo..." Her hand wiggles in the air as the cups, saucers, and pot settle upon something that'll make do for a table. Whatever it is she's not sure - may be a spleen. She can't tell with this weird sphere.

"I did make that name up, don't belabor it. It's important to give things names in stories." Her white eyebrows raise and she pauses as if she'd forgotten what she was talking about. "Well what do you know, my luck, the planet appears right where I happened to be. Out here in the middle of no where. But before I could investigate it - Pirates!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    It is part of the nature of humans that they love stories, and care little how true they actually are. The truth is often less important than the message. Thus in the aftermath of the Roman departure from Britain a petty British warleader fought some saxon mercenaries, and seven hundred years later the Normans who didn't even know his real name or what part of the country he came from reinvented him as one of their own, a romantic crusading Norman king rich with anachronism. Eight hundred years later they no longer believed there was any reality behind the story but they were still at it, and a director of movies about cockney hard men portrayed him as a cockney hard man. Five hundred years after that, long after archeologists had finally found enough to put an entirely different name to the original man behind the myth, a popular holo-v show portrayed him as star-going hero.

    Likewise, there are those on Earth, scholars of deep learning and repute, who know full well that Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a purely fictional character long before he became a folk hero. Nobody apart from them, and perhaps a few extremely long-lived science fiction fans, cared. What was far more important was the story, and the facepalm. For in the 31st century, long after the adventures of some ancient, 2-dimensional television show were long forgotten, it is still remembered that a bald space-captain of long ago could summon a facepalm of such feeling, such despair, that not a word need be said to shame the most rebellious of his crew.

    There are too few present for Troia's facepalm to enter legend, but were facepalms to be measured empirically, the subject of study rather than story, her facepalm would undoubtedly outrank the most cynical of Picard's.

    "Of /course/ it's Lucky," Troia bemoans. "A dozen parsecs from the nearest major space lane, drifting with no long-range transmitters, with a statistically near zero chance of rescue. She /could/ have cast a ritual to teleport home. I know she can do that. But no.... she'll just sit there waiting for the one in a trillion chance a ship picks up her signal. Because /why not./"

    Those inside the Travel-Sphere feel a momentary sense of the universe stretching around them, while outside a glowing rectangle of light opens wide to admit Lucky, and she's there in the ship.

    With nonsensical stories and tea.

    Troia stares at Lucky as she rambles, then turns her eyes heavenwards, or where heavenwards would be were they on a planet. "/Really/, Gaia? Dramatic much?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
First things first-- Caitlin collects Lucky in a gentle but firm hug, leaning way down and making especially sure she doesn't injure the wizened prognosticator. The redhead is, apparently, willing to take the improbability of their meeting on faith.
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"El Treasureo? Sounds awesome, and I am absolutely down to help you shake the legend loose," Caitlin promises Lucky. She fishes her teacup down and takes a slow, indulgent sip. White jasmine tea-- her favorite, and brewed perfectly. "Mmm. Look, don't mind Donna, she's all up her own butt about things right now," Caitlin tells her white-haired friend. "Saving the galaxy from itself. The more immediate concern is a threat to Earth," she explains, her expression sobering. While Lucky looks ancient as an old tree, Caitlin is youthful as the dawn-- one would not suspect the two women are bare years apart in age. It explains the casual familiarity with which Caitlin addresses one of her oldest friends. "We need to pull a bunch of the Titans forward in time, to fix the cascade corruption of a certain chrononaut we dealt with a thousand years ago. You were there, so you're kiiiinda indispensible for this," she tells Lucky. "I know it's a really big ask, and I'm sorry to get in the middle of your terraforming. But..." she holds a hand out to the white-haired prognosticator. "Think you could lend a hand? For old time's sake?"

Jinx has posed:
Hugs. Usually those happen when she gets back to Earth. This'll do. She gives her very long time friend a hug back. "El Treasureo..." She pauses as Troia comes in to sight. A slightly shy smile on her face at the first person who ever stood up for her. It might have been a thousand years but she will never forget.

"If I recall saving the galaxy from itself was the topic of our last conversation," she ventures to Troia, "I take it you're still working on that." Cheeky cheeky Lucky. Something something fools errands.

Is that a chair or is it a lymph node? eh. It's chair enough like. "Riker," Lucky says and swings her leg up and over the thing to sit on it. Tea cup once again in hand she takes a sip. "Straight to business. I didn't even tell you about the pirates yet."

A small huff of disapproval. What Lucky likes above all else is one of those good stories. The hand is left hanging, "So there she was, a grotesque black ship belching plasma from its manifolds. It wanted to land or perhaps to leave but it could do neither. They fired their grappling hooks upon my ship and boarded."

A finger raises as she looks from Troia to Cait, "Now, I know a tragedy when I see one." Tongue in cheek as she looks at the pair, "So naturally after a bit of theatre I let them take my ship. They did set off one of my terraforming pods though. I'm not sure they'll actually get that far before the engine gives out with vines all through it."

Sip sip. You can't rush her. People have tried. It was her time as sorcerer supreme that cemented the ability to force everyone around you to walk to your beat instead of theirs. "Now, you were saying. Something something worst idea I've heard all century? Time travel? us from the past to the future? Surely you jest." The hand is not left hanging now. She reaches out and gives it a high five.

Donna Troy has posed:
    There is an eyeroll at Caitlin's needling, though it is a muted affair, nothing like the facepalm of a few moments earlier. "I seem to remember both of you agreeing with me that saving lives was a good way to spend your time. It's strange you both seem to consider it bizarre that I would spend my time doing so. It's why we all became Titans, remember?" Not strictly true in the former Jinx's case, but close enough.

    "It just happened that I had the opportunity to take becoming a Titan a little more literally than the rest of us the second time around, and took that opportunity. Perhaps Caitlin thinks it is unseemly of me to get my hands dirty rather than dwelling in the halls of my aunts and uncles for eternity, like a good little deity. Or perhaps there's enough Catholic guilt left in her that she thinks I cheapen the whole concept of divinity, because she still remembers holding my hair while I threw up when I was still a teenager."

    Though there's no fire in the response, the words are bitter enough to indicate that Caitlin's minor needling has finally gotten under Troia's skin. She changes topic suddenly. "Space pirates. We should track them down before they endanger anyone else." It's not the mission, and Troia had already impressed upon Caitlin that she had a war to get back too, and couldn't spare too much time. Nevertheless, space pirates. Troia always found it hard to resist any opportunity to fight space pirates.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin shoots Donna A Look that suggests she's at the edge of her patience. "Are you done?" she demands, finally. Donna can be as petulant and offended as she likes, but Caitlin's concern for their mission overrides all other factors.

"We don't have time /right now/ to go hunting pirates," she says, putting a little iron her her voice. Caitlin turns to Lucky, kneeling down so they're on an eye-level and holding both of her hands between them.

"Here's the long and skinny of it: we were pursuing a chrononaut back in 2023, as a team," she clarifies. "We thought he was lost to the time stream, but he reappeared in Manhattan city about two days ago. Now there's a temporal field destabilizing the entire block," she explains. "And if we don't get it under control, the displacement is going to lead to seismic catastrophe and a *lot* of loss of innocent life."

"We need to get the original Titans who were present into our era. Then we can collapse the chroniton field and the time-slip should resolve itself. If we don't, then the expansion field is just going to grow and grow until the temporal shift starts causing world-ending eruptions and upheaval."

Jinx has posed:
Lucky raises both her eyebrows at Donna's response to the needling. There's no winning here. She wonders what kind of minor miracle was performed to get Donna to abandon her war at all. This is a blessing and one that she decides not to push any further.

"I remember that guy--" She furrows her brow. It was a long time ago and details are fuzzy. For humans, every time you remember a thing you change it a little stowing it back away. "Or am I confusing it with..." She glances side long at Troia and smirks.

"Yes. Similar problem. It's too bad we don't have that tech anymore. So I guess we do it your way Cait." She considers for a moment and hmms. "That will... be disturbing for past me. I had a lot of issues back then and seeing ...me..." She gestures to herself.

She snaps her fingers, "A disguise. How fitting." Sipsip of the tea she weaves her hand in the air and her features change. She looks much younger suddenly and her white hair is replaced with pink. "Good good. This will work. Now, the mindset. Fuckity fuck fuckin' fuckoff..." She raises an eyebrow. That wouldn't convince anyone. She doesn't have the kind of rage inside her any more that she'd need to pull it off.

"Close enough," she remarks and half shuts her eyes. A hand comes to her mouth and she yawns, "It must be just about nap time don't you think. Could we put this whole nonsense on hold for a good two or three hours. And point me to the nearest non-sticky pancreas where I can lay down."

"Also this is a terrible idea and while I think it's rife with risk, you have my full support o' captain my captain." She then glances back over to Troia with a smile, "Come on. One more adventure for old times sake." She nods encouragingly, "I've got your back. I promise."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Are you?" Troia snaps back at Caitlin. "You have been constantly critical since you showed up again for the first time in over a century." It's closer to two hundred years. "From the first words you said to me. The person I remember you as was always pleased to see her friends. You think I've become cold? Look in the mirror, Caitlin Fairchild."

    Troia stares out of the viewport. The stars beyond smear across the sky as the Travel-Sphere gets underway again. The two hundred and twenty light-year distance is rapidly eaten up.

    "It'll grow exponentially," Troia says without turning back from the viewport. "It'll be more than a city block by the time we get there. How much more I cannot predict, but hopefully not too far. Its rate of growth will expand with its size, but the flatter part of the growth curve could last millions of years or a matter of weeks. It could take just a month to cover the entire planet. It may only be a few years before it reaches other systems. The entire galaxy in a matter of centuries."

    Well then. Troia regards this as not just a threat to Earth, but a potential threat to everything. Perhaps it wasn't such a miracle she could be persuaded to abandon her war for a while.

    "We'll be there in a few minutes, Lucky. If you can hold on a little longer, you can sleep in a proper bed back on Earth rather than a pancreas."

    Still staring through the window, her lips break into a brief smirk. Slowly they settle again, and even more slowly the ends of her lips hint at a downturn.

    "So..." Troia begins slowly. A subject she doesn't want to raise. "Next name on the list." She pauses a little before saying it. "Raven."

    Troia sighs softly, then gives a little shrug. "I guess we're going to have to find ourselves a Doctor Fate."