Anja Stavarov's page

Anja sighs in relief as she watches the fanblades spin in their reinforced titanium casings. "Okay, we need to find a marked hatch, about the size of my head, and get that opened. There's a switch in there that shuts down the fans, and if we're lucky, the engineers that installed it were lazy and didn't bother to connect the alarm systems. Of course, if they did, I have no idea how to check for that." She begins to look around for the hatch.

Notice: 4d3 - 8 + 3 ⇒ (1, 2, 3, 1) - 8 + 3 = 2

She starts crawling down the ventilation shaft toward the suits, only to freeze again. "Of course, if they're *not* the same model, we could have problems." A few flicks of the data-pad and she's looking for schematics.

Investigate: 4d3 - 8 + 4 + 2 ⇒ (1, 1, 1, 3) - 8 + 4 + 2 = 4

I'm going to invoke the aspect Former Part-Time Bioengineering Student. She spent a lot of time working in and setting up well-ventilated labs, so she'd know a little about the type of systems that could be used. Maybe enough to know how to find the schematics. Spending a Fate Point for the +2.

After another moment or two of thinking, she frowns, crosses her arms over her chest, and looks away. "Fine, but if my eyeballs get sucked out of my head, I hope those guys catch you. Where are the nearest suits?"

Anja takes the pistol, checks to make sure the safety's on, and then holds it by the grip in something close to a Weaver stance. After she's satisfied it'll do, she looks in the duffel herself, finding a spare magazine and shoving both it and the gun into one of her pockets. "I'm still not staying on this station. We'll try the docking bay again tomorrow. Until then, I'm going to get some rest."

"What are you into, Sela? Guns? Strangers in suits shooting at us? Tell me what I've been dragged into, and how it's going to get me off this station."

Time to go, Sela!" Anja tosses the other woman the bag before scooping up her own and ducks into the air ducts.

She takes another look, gathers up her courage, and throws herself toward the center of the room, landing awkwardly. The Black-out Conditions mask the worst of her fall, though, and she finds herself on the ground near the duffel bag.

Athletics: 4d3 - 8 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (1, 2, 2, 1) - 8 + 1 + 2 = 1

I'm going to invoke the Black-out Conditions and use a FATE point to add 2 to my roll.

"Whadayya mean, we know too much? I'm just a waitress! We're just trying to leave this station!"

While she waits for the question to (hopefully) slow down their attackers, she points at the ventilation shaft and mouths a few words at Sela. "That way." Taking her own advice, she starts crawling slowly behind the chairs, aiming for the shortest exposed distance between her and her potential escape.

Stealth: 4d3 - 8 + 1 ⇒ (2, 3, 2, 3) - 8 + 1 = 3

Since the room is in Black-out Conditions, I'm hoping for an advantage to my Stealth roll, or something. I'm going to try to get out of here. We can find the heavy thing later, if it's around.

Anja reacts quickly, recognizing the weapons these men are going for from three separate firefights in The Last Meal in her tenure, and drops into a half-kneel, ripping her shocker from its holster so hard it pops a rivet. She spends only a split second on each target. The men? Not enough juice to drop all of them. The water? no telling what it's connected to. The Flickering Lights, though...

*pwap!*

*Kzap-zzzzzzzzzzzzPOP*

50,000 volts rush into the lighting system, tripping the breakers and casting the compartment into an eerie twilight. A few residual pops echo as the surge fades over a few seconds, the only light coming from a few emergency lights and a console in the corner.

Creating an advantage with my shoot. Calling it Darkened Room. That good?

Anja, too, notices the compartment emptying, and she freezes in mid-stride, looking around to see what’s up. She looks down at the shocker in her boot-holster, checking to make sure it's there.

Short one, since I don’t know what I’m looking for/at.

"Most of these aren't gonna do it. There's a few openings on the hopper at Gamma-3-073, but that's about it. Let's take a look."

Approaching Gamma-3-073, Anja struggles to suppress first a shiver of apprehension, then a sigh of frustration. A dozen or more denizens of Rock Bottom mill around, almost all of them with 'sea bags' like hers and Sela's, but what's worse is the craft itself. The Second-to-Last Star isn't a large station-hopper by any means; little more than a drive-engine, a cabin for crew and passengers, and a bay for fuel and supplies, with little in the way of comforts. A chipped and peeling paint job, red with dark purple stars, half-conceals shoddy repairs to the hull and rust on the engine-housing. Anja looks at it for a moment, then shakes her head slowly.

"Still want to leave, Sela, even if it means that rust-bucket? Last chance. I won't hate you if you go back."

That said, she steps into the cluster around the ship, mentally reviewing her resume and wondering just what Sela actually did for work...

As the two women pass some of the port-holes near the Gamma Sector docking bays, Anja takes a moment to look at the company shuttles coming in from the dozens of Goliath rigs floating above Split Pea (the colloquial name for the gas giant SRJ-7546-C). ”Shift change, Sela. It’ll be crowded.”

Sure enough, it’s crowded in the dry-docks, with gas-rig workers starting to form disorderly queues for their shuttles, a handful of gas-freighter crews sit around waiting for their shuttles to take them back from their shore leaves, and perhaps a half-dozen mom-and-pop crews servicing their poorly-maintained station-hoppers. The weekly spaceliner doesn’t seem to be in, judging by the lack of action on the far end of the bay, but there seem to be plenty of options.

”Sela, check the gas-freighter crews. See if any of them need a couple of hands. I’ll take a look at the station-hoppers.” As the other woman shoulders her two bags and wanders off toward the freighters, Anja starts watching the mom-and-pop crews, looking for one that’s a few people short…

Taking liberties with the docking bay’s design. I’m imagining it as something akin to Mass Effect’s bays, with internal dry-docks for the smaller vessels and shuttles for the big ones.

She gives the other woman a quick, one-armed hug as the other arm slings her bag over her shoulder. ”I’m bugging out. I hope. Maybe I can jump a freighter heading somewhere better. If not, I don’t really know, but it’s gotta be better than this... The rent’s paid through next month, so you should have time to find a roommate.”

After a few minutes of good-byes, Anja goes to the door and cautiously pokes her head out, looking for a gap in the corridor’s traffic...and for any signs of Madame Turnelle.

Notice: 4d3 - 8 + 3 ⇒ (2, 3, 1, 1) - 8 + 3 = 2

It’s taken six months. Six months of degrading conditions and near-nonexistent pay. Of unwelcome hands and a series of bad roommates. She’s borne disappointment and depression remarkably well, but something snaps in Anja at the thought of being traded around between Stubbs McGrimes, Madame Turnelle, and whoever else might want her like some sort of game chip. She drops to a knee, pulls her shocker out of its holster, and then stands.

”Thanks for the job offer, ‘Madame’, but I’ll take my chances in the job market. Stubbs McGrime, it’s been...well, it’s been hell, but I think I’ll keep the uniform.” She opens the door, slips out into the crowded passageway outside, and starts pushing through it toward her microapartment. There, she pulls off the yellow-and-black dress, pulls on a pair of beat-up cargo pants and a tank-top, and tosses a few shirts, a second pair of pants, and a couple changes of underwear into a bag. She’s getting off this station if she has to stow away on a gas-mining shuttle to do it.

Did I really think this was rock bottom? Really?

Still leaning against the wall near the door, Anja’s mind whirls as Stubbs finishes talking. The younger, less jaded her from her days at IUTU would have just followed along, but it’s a rough town with rougher people, and she’s gotten a lot rougher too. Instead of meekly undoing the velcro catches and unzipping, she spits a nice, big loogie onto the floor, where it hits with a loud ”splat*

The silence in the room is palpable, broken only by the constant humming and rattling of the station’s ventilation system and a squeaking sound as Anja rubs the spit into the floor with the toe of her boot. As she slides it back and forth, she looks her ex-boss dead in the eye. ”That’s the cleanest place in this diner. If you’re trying to figure out why you’re not making money, it’s not the employees. There’s one mop, no soap, and the water comes out of the faucets brown-tinted. You've got a hell of a Rhizopus stolonifer problem in the store room, too.”

She starts undoing the top catch of her stupid, poor-fitting dress, then stops. Tilting her head at an inquisitive angle she perfected in school but hasn’t had much chance to use, she looks her prospective employer over again, a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. ”What did you say your business was?”

That jacket’s going to be a nice, loooong one…

Notice: 4d3 - 8 + 3 ⇒ (1, 1, 1, 1) - 8 + 3 = -1

Anja glances quickly around the room, eyeing the woman as an alternative to looking at her boss. Someday, I'm going to get off this flying junk-yard, and when I do, I'm going to buy a nice long coat. I bet I'd look good in a long, corduroy coat with split tails...

"...purple, of course. Much classier than this shi-" She looks at the wall, wipes a spot clear of the grease and dust that's coating it, and leans nonchalantly (or at least, as nonchalantly as she can in her current getup) against it. "This won't take too long, yeah? Bethanne's shift ended five minutes ago, and she'll give me hell if I'm late to relieve her out there."

"Good morning! The time is 4:30 SRJ-7546 System Standard! Cleanup crews are still working to pull survivors out of the Goliath mining rig that whose engines went critical last week. Protestors allege that QuikMine Corp. neglected to put proper failsafes in place that could have prevented the-"

*Wham!*

Anja slams the cheap alarm clock before it could continue, rolling out of bed and stepping over her most recent roommate, who'd passed out on the floor after her shift at the gas-shuttle bays. As she slips quietly into the tiny shower and pulls off her sweat-soaked nightclothes, she pauses to look at the tattoos she's picked up. Then, the shower gets going and, exactly one minute forty-five seconds later, she's done.

The uniform. The only good thing that can be said about it is that it's cool on the too-hot station. There's entirely too much latex and not enough cotton, but it doesn't cover enough to be sweltering. She zips it up, sealing velcro catches over the zipper, and takes a cringing look in the mirror. From mid-thigh to just above her breasts, she looks like a sports car from one of those old earth vids; yellow racing stripes over a black background, complete with two nearly-revealed headlights. It's too tight around the chest and bum, but the boss said it was 'one size fits all' when he handed it out... At least he let her keep her headband...

She sighs, shoves a shocker into the holster on her boot, and steps out of the door into the humid heat of the station. One-size-fits-all, my ass!

Will that work?