As A Roaring Lion - Part I

Galley and Brig: Crew Deck 

This area is divided into two parts: the part outside and the part inside. That being outside or inside the aft-mounted cage. It's the single most sight-arresting object in the room, dominating the entire back wall. The outside part is obviously a galley of sorts. A trio of picnic-style tables jut out from the starboard bulkhead, cluttered lightly with serving tools, stacked plates and bowls, glasses and a few flower-filled vases. Built onto the port bulkhead is a fairly massive galley unit, with seperate burner stations, multiple freezer and 'waver units, and a hulking set of storage cabinets. Various pans, pots and other cooking tools dangle from a ceiling rack, securely locked into magnetic clamps to prevent their becoming shrapnel during extreme maneuvers. Spread out in the open fore area are a few comfortable chairs and a low coffee table, all securely locked to the gridded and multiple-drained floor. The outer area is nicely decorated in multicoloured plastics and shiny metals.

The area inside cage is a different matter and can be easily seen as its walls are made of cockpit transplaz. Its floor has the same gridwork and multiple small drains of the outside decking. The ceiling has flat-panel harsh white lighting welded to it, and other then the water sprinklers, is as bare as the rest of the cage.

A single pressure door is mounted on the fore bulkhead, providing access to the rest of the ship.

Sohaeyz is standing near Dayton at the Galley's corner, wrapped up in a blanket with a huge smiling kitty on a background of purple. "Seeby? Yeah, he's pretty creepy too. Mister F is fucked as well, but... I kinda need her. She's my unofficial guardian. Or that's the way it seems."

Dayton shakes his head. "She hasn't done none of her mind crap to me yet. I have no beef with her. But when you fuck where I eat my cereal, that's just too far." He makes a wide-cutting gesture across his chest.

Into the galley wanders the captain himself: Haddon Maury. Looks a little bleary-eyed. Has an empty chipped ceramic cup in his hand. Boldly proclaims: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." He walks toward the main counter and says, "Somebody better have coffee on."

Althea bust out into a giggle, suddenly dying away as the Cap'n makes his presence felt. "I did, sir!" She cuts eyes to Dayton, then back to the Captain. "Say, could you talk to gore, my cap'n? He's molesting the furniture again."

Dayton takes a step back to keep himself from being between the Cap'n and his coffee, folding his arms. "He's gonna be dead men's bones and all that if he doesn't knock it off, tootsweet."

Haddon Maury searches through the chaos on the countertop until he finds the dented tin coffee pot. He pours the dark, steaming liquid into the cup, which appears to be imprinted with the Da Vinci man-machine logo of Embryonix and the slogan: Making Life Better. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" the captain inquires philosophically. "If he can't, I suppose I'll just have to tell him to pray my aim's off."

"Your aim isn't the problem though. It's Gore's." Sohaeyz saids with a frown, huddling into the blankie. "Oh, nevermind." The Timonae and Dayton are still near the counter, the captain is busy pouring himself some coffee.

Dayton scratches his muttonchop. "What the hell's an Ethiopian?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. He then eyes the cup, his eyebrows raising above the realm of his mirrored glasses but no words escaping his lips.

Haddon Maury takes a sip from his coffee. If he notices Dayton's perusal of the Embryonix coffee mug, the captain doesn't say so. Instead, his attention shifts toward the incoming Gore and he intones somberly: "And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren." To which he adds, as the preacher-turned-pirate is wont to do, a more practical truism: "Keep wrecking the furniture and you're riding on a tether from the outer hull. Maybe with a space suit. We'll flip a coin on that; let God decide."

There is grumbling outside. Curses, barely audible mutterings -- a whole string of cacophonous murmurs all emerging from a single source: the man that now steps through the door and into the galley. "I am going to cook dinner now. I am no longer taking special requests, so it's whatever these pretty hands of mine manage to concoct," he announces, licking his lips. He glances briefly at Sohaeyz, makes a hip-thrust movement in her direction, howls and starts walking towards the main kitchen area. His eyes find Haddon Maury. "I'm not doing anything to the furniture. In fact, I am giving it love. A lot of love. Nice, hot, wet love, captain."

Dayton shudders involuntarily, his hand going instinctively to the empty holster hanging at his stomach. "It doesn't need that much love, sickie," he intones.

Sohaeyz rolls her eyes at Gore, though not without a flinch. "Seriously, dude."

"Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law," the captain recites with reverence and solemnity. "On the Albatross, *I'm* the law. Stop besmirching our places of rest, or be smote."

This would be the point where the Vollistan re-enters, her aura a gentle green, her coffee cup empty.

Gore puts a couple of pots and pans down on the counter. "Besmrich," he echoes while working. "Besirch. Is that like making something jovial? HUH!" He reaches into one of the freezer and produces a couple of colored jars. He is soon mixing all their contents inside a single pot. "I call this my Love Stew. Who wants dinner?" The food is not quite yet ready, however. He approaches a metal contraption set to one side of the kitch and kicks a few times before it kicks to live. On its surface, several blue energy circles light up. That's where he puts the pot and it only seconds before steam is already rising from its bowels. "I would love to be in there. Burning, burning. Oh, can I? Can I? I would love it so. My skin peeling off. Oh, yes. Yes." A soft moan escapes his lips, but his concentration is set on the cooking.

The Timonae hmms softly, moving away from the kitchen, moving to the entrance of the cage, peering throug the clear plassteel, distracting herself.

Dayton takes a few steps back from the counter, placing him far enough away from the love stew as is safe. "Sickie," he repeats, shaking his head and turning away.

"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap," Haddon Maury says as he watches Gore begin ministrations on the cooking circles. "You're an odd man, Gore. Let's not catch you taking a bath in the reactor core, though, hmm?" He sips his coffee, then walks over to one of the tables and sits the cup down before taking a seat. He nods in the Light Singer's direction. "Mister Fabulous."

"'o, Cap'ain," the Light Singer says, one eyebrow lifting. "You've graced us wi'your presence, I see." Dropping the cup off on a tabletop, she wanders towards Sohaeyz with a threading of red light around her.

"COME AND GET IT!" Gore bellows, taking the pot off the heating device and placing it on the counter. He sets empty plates beside it, filling one for himself. "Back in Zatracla they had a cooking program. It was originally decided to..." He pauses, eyes rolling upwards while he skims through mental contents. "...refocus our negative energies. That was around the time I got there." He walks to one of the tables and sits down, smiling at his plate of love stew. "Eventually, it became an incentive program. Highly... incentive." He lowers his head and begins to lick away at the food, not unlike a common canine.

Sohaeyz presses her face to the cage's door, making a snorting noise against the glass, ignoring Gore's bell-ringin' and bellowin'. That's one cookie she wants nothing to do with. As for right now, she remains ignorant of anyone approaching her, but does mutter back to the captain. "Mister Fabulous?"

Dayton laughs under his breath. "Fabulous," he mutter, thumbs going under the hem of his sweatpants. He turns to look at Gore, twisting his head. "It was time for a diet anyways."

"And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not," Haddon responds to the passing Vollistan. "What better way for a captain to catch up on the sort of chatter that doesn't filter up in memos ... oh, wait, that's right. We don't *have* memos." He takes another sip of coffee from the Making Life Better Embryonix mug and then glances toward Sohaeyz. A faint smile, then: "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Who am I to tarnish the palette of vocabulary?" The smile fades. The coffee finds his mouth once more.

"Cap'ain doesn' believe in se's," the Vollistan advises the snickering pair of Lunite and Timonae, her voice soft. She doesn't laugh, not even spilling pink into her aura. Instead, she pinches Althea's butt.

Gore sits back and rests his hands on his stomach, staring at the empty plate. "When are we going to pay a few due visits, captain? It has been too long since I last wet my... lips... with the glistening, red surface of a feisty lover. And my pockets with coin."

Althea jerks briefly, moving the sensitive body part out of the Vollistan's reach, spinning around to place it against the clear wall. "Fuck." She puts the name in with a serious nod, a cheerful greeting. "Oh, Gore, you're such a dreamer. The only lovin' you'll be gettin' will be takin' coins -out- of your pockets." With her so-called guardian around, she's a little more verbal.

"It just so happens," the captain replies to the seemingly sated Gore, "I have secured for us the possibility of gainful employment. A small service for the fellow fashions himself Lord Fagin." He finishes off his coffee and rises from the table. He walks over to the sink to rinse out the mug.

Mister F wanders past, busying herself with something inside the cage for a moment.

Dayton raises his eyebrows, and licks his lips. "Fagin? That fuggers back? Well, hang my guts on a bayonet, that could be the start 'a somethin' good. What kinda job?" Into the galley wanders a rather new face, that of Bart Kether, carrying himself with a bit of a swagger as he beelines towards the area where the food is kept. Even though he glances to the members of the crew that he can see with a rather cold and impersonal look, he doesn't say anything to show that he actually notices them.

"Oh, no. I take something else out of my pants and force it on them while I slowly slit their throats," Gore explains, smiling darkly at Soyhaez. "Then I kiss their necks, slowly clean off their warm blood with my tongue... oh, yes... quite... delicious..." His head tilts back and yet another moan is issued forth from his lips, now pressed with pleasure. "Lord Fagin, is it? Do I have to call him lord? My Lord? Will I have to kneel? Perhaps I will get to suck the dirt right out of the area between his toes. So what will he have us do?"

Sohaeyz slinks down the cage wall, tucking her legs up to her chin, resting her head there. "Lord Fagin, huh?" Her eyes follow Kether for a moment, hand idly scratching at the dataport. "I wonder what he's like."

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour," Haddon offers in response to Sohaeyz. That faint smile returns and he bobs the mug that dangles from his index finger. "He's a lot like Colin Neidermeyer."

Dayton lowers his sunglasses and squints his eyes. "You've gotta be shitting me," he mutters gruffly, eyebrows low, his eyes flitting about as if the man was in the next room.

Finally, after digging out some food from the freezer and smacking the frozen object down onto the counter with a smirk, Kether speaks. "Hot damn, I feel like I'm back in the 'gard." he mutters, and then looks once again towards the crew as he busies himself the process of preparing the frozen solid meal. "Colin Neidermeyer? Good, sounds like my type of guy."

"Who?" Gore asks. "Who is that? I did know a man they called Colon Widermeyer in Zatracla. Are they perhaps related?" He howls with laughter.

"If your type of guy is an abomination before God Almighty, then, yes, I would tend to agree," the captain answers scoldingly. He favors Gore with a disdainful gaze. "And our cook would therefore be just your cup of tea to boot." He shrugs. "Lord Fagin will brief us more fully this weekend. We have been invited to participate in an audience aboard that luxury blimp of his with the cannons poking out of the gondola." Haddon scratches his beard. "Of course, 'invited' may not convey the true nature of the communication."

Sohaeyz frowns at the name, "I 'member that name. He was a mean piece of work, if all the rumors are true." Arms go around legs, holding the postion for a moment, then shifts her head to look over at the captain after everyone has voiced an opionin. "You mean told, right?"

Dayton removes his sunglasses entirely, folding them up and stuffing them in a holster and pinching his nosebridge. "This really better pay well," he grumbles darkly, walking over to the fridge after Kether and retrieving a silver-canned beer.

"Told's probably close enough," Haddon Maury agrees with Sohaeyz. "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph." He nods soberly, pondering in silent contemplation for a few moments, and then he starts a slow pace for the hatchway. "No shore leave until after the meeting. Last thing I want is one of you getting drunk and running your mouth off about it."

Sohaeyz stands up, heading for the exit. "I'm out of here guys, need some rest."

"My type of man is someone who could see through all the bullshit that was thrown at us. Abomination to God my ass, sounds like your God is an abomination to Neidermeyer." Kether says with a smirk. As Gore is pointed out, the medic just levels an unimpressed gaze towards the man. "I'd rather screw a lightbulb." he says with a snort, and continues preparing the meal.

Gore turns to Kether and watches him silently for a few seconds, then smiles. "I once did. In, then shattered. Mmmm. Regardless," he adds quickly, "the only time I have ever cared about gods... is when they are spilling out of lover's belly." Another guffaw.

Haddon Maury stops at the hatchway. His grip tightens perceptibly on the mug. His jaw clenches. He turns and stares at Kether - a hard, cold, measureless stare. "And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." His eyes narrow. "Colin Neidermeyer was my commanding officer in the Guardian Fleet for a time, Kether. But he's died and risen more than God's own blessed Son. No good comes from such necromancy. None at all. Unless it's for yon Mister Gore. I doubt he'd bother to check for a pulse before profaning it with his flesh."

"Maybe he's fucking immortal," Dayton muses. "Maybe he just can't die."

"They don't complain as much when they're as stiff as I am," Gore states simply, grinning.

At this, Bart's face breaks into a smirk and he shakes his head. "You were in the Guardian Fleet, old man? I certainly never would've guessed it, you must've been one of those tuber-loving guys who went all soft on us when it came time to make the hard decisions." he then returns his gaze to the food, which he currently throws onto a plate and puts into a food-cooker-thinger. Again, a glance is given to Gore, accompanied by a snort. "If you ever catch a bullet, I'll remember to leave it in you."

"Don't blaspheme in my presence, Dayton," the captain growls. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. None is immortal that the lord God does not set so, and the lord God would sooner grant such favor to the fallen on Earth than to the man who put torch to her the second time." His flinty stare shifts toward Kether now. Softly, but sternly, he says, "I've made harder decisions than you're like to ever know. Call me soft again, you'll know my wrath."

Gore's reply to Kether is a flapping of his tongue.

"Blaspheme? You hired all of -us-, and you expect us not to blaspheme in your presence?" Kether flat-out laughs at this one, an empty and mocking laugh. "You stop using your big words and fancy smaller words at me, and I'll think about patching you up when you get yourself shot up in a bar by some guy who lets his gun do his preaching." he growls, although apparently towards his slowly cooking food. At Gore's reply, he jerks a thumb in the man's direction. "Preacher, looks like you've got an exorcism calling your name."

Dayton turns away at the Captain's rebuking, waving his hand angrily. "He obviously has some sort of voodoo shit going on. Maybe you can try an exorcism, r' something." He begins to stalk out of the galley. "I'm gonna go prepare some voodoo dolls, just in case," he teases.

"I hired you because I needed a crew and you needed work," Maury says, sighing. "You may take liberties with the holy word of God Almighty when I am absent your presence, but until such time as we are parted, you will abide by this singular rule or I will put you off the ship - be it planetside or into the cold vacuum of space." He twirls the Embryonix mug on his finger and then steps toward the hatchway, mumbling: "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." He ducks out into the access corridor, footsteps fading as he moves deeper down the hall.