Family Dynamics
Invictus - Cargo Bay
This is the largest area of the Dragonfly class: a huge, cavernous room nearly the full length of the ship minus the Engine Room. The reinforced metal floor is littered with quick release clamps to easily attach or detach standard cargo containers. The huge cargo ramp is broad enough for the MULE parked on it to head in and out to load cargo. To conserve space, the MULE is usually parked on the ramp, causing it to be halfway outside the ship when it opens, although there's enough space left to park it inside when the ship's bay isn't fully loaded.
Beyond an airtight bulkhead to the aft is the ship's Engine Room. To the front, closer to the ramp, a stairwell leads up to the crew deck; and just beside it is some equipment for the crew to work out and exercise. Apart from that, the cargo bay contains shelves and lockers for the ship's own supply of parts, food and other things, along with any cargo onboard.
A frantic Isabella is currently pacing around in the cargo bay, seeming to be looking for something, as she does so. Seated not far from her, in an infant seat, is one of her young daughters, Genevieve. The little girl looks to be watching her mother as she moves about the room, all while chewing and slobbering on one of her tiny fists. Isabella however, doesn't seem so happy. She's checking behind crates and the MULE, looking behind anything and everything in the room. It's pretty clear that she seems to have lost something. And whatever it is, has her rather upset, judging from the tears that are running down her cheeks.
Ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk. Wren comes clattering down from the Commons into the Cargo Bay, and heads directly for the contraption she has set up near where the exercise equipment resides. A slowly turning wheel, with racks of rock wool holding the tiniest of sprouts, passes through a tub at the base at a rate of about once per hour, drenching the slabs in nutrient solution. The grow light in the center provides a tiny, constant sun around which the plants rotate. The sight of the distraught woman gives her pause, and she frowns at her, hesitating beside one of the crates. "You're leaking," she observes, biting her lip pensively as she glances from Isabella to the child and back.
Isabella seems startled by the sound of another voice, not having heard the other woman approach. She quickly turns and looks to Wren, reaching up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "I think...I lost my daughter.." she says, gasping a little, to try and catch her breath. "I've looked everywhere on this ship...and I can't seem...ta find her." Her head shakes a little and she looks over towards the ship's ramp, then back around the bay. She takes in a few deep breaths, trying to pull herself together. "I fell asleep in our room, and I left the door open. She must have gotten up and wandered out of the room. And now..I can't find her!" She steps away from Wren, continuing to look around the bay, which she'd already done, at least two times already.
Wren blinks at Isabella, her frown slowly deepening as she listens. Canting her head to the side, she takes a few steps closer to the small child trying to devour her own fist, and then settles into a crouch in front of her-- but she's careful to leave a significant space between her and Genevieve. "Where's your sister?" she queries, watching the girl with grave concern.
[Invictus] Grey says, "This is Grey. We're plannin' on goin' aboard the Tienlong ta run some analyses on the blood an' tissue samples from the Lady Antoinette... Whoever wants to come along, meet their crew an' all that good stuff, jus' come on along."
"I gotta find her before Grey comes back from wherever he is, and finds out that I've lost one of our children. He'll kill me!" She ceases in her frantic search, though she still wasn't convinced that she had looked everywhere. "There has to be somewhere that I'm missing. Where the hell could she be?" She turns once more, looking over towards the ramp, not wanting to believe that at some point, the little girl could have wandered her way outside. She shakes her head, her hand starting to reach for her commlink. Though, she quickly pulls away, not wanting to have to admit to her husband that their daughter had seemed to vanish. Genevieve however, seems genuinely happy and even more so, as Wren moves closer to her. She offers a little squeal of happiness as she continues to chew on her little hand.
"That's not helpful," Wren admonishes the child earnestly, shaking her head slowly. Isabella's commentary rates a quick glance in her direction. "Soft, but rough. Pretty sure he won't," she declares to her, for whatever that means, before her attention returns to the child in front of her. "Did you eat her?" she wonders next, considering the slobber on the girl's fist.
"That's not helpful," Wren admonishes Genevieve earnestly, shaking her head slowly. Isabella's commentary rates a quick glance in her direction. "Soft, but rough. Pretty sure he won't," she declares to her, for whatever that means, before her attention returns to the child in front of her. "Did you eat her?" she wonders next, considering the slobber on the girl's fist.
Isabella glances back across to Wren and the baby, shaking her head slowly. "I'm such an idiot." She mutters under her breath and goes back to walking around the bay, trying to think of anywhere that she might have missed, before. "I'm gonna have to go out there and start looking around. She's not on this ship. She can't be. I don't even know when she wandered off. I fell asleep, *hours* ago. It could have been *any* time." She starts to make her way over to Genevieve and leans down to pick her up out of her seat. "I'm gonna take her with me..Don't wanna be two for two.."
Wren rises from where she was crouching as Isabella moves in to take the child. "Maybe she got packed," she offers, nodding to the collection of crates and boxes in the cargo hold.
Grey comes back onto the Invictus, crutch under his left arm, limp-crutch-limp-ing back into the Cargo Bay with Jean-Rousseau following just a step behind him. "Can't believe I left my gorram notes on board," Grey says to JR, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity. "How the hell am I supposed to brief the Tienlong crew if I don' have my - Oh. Hey, love. Wren."
Jean-Rousseau, 5'11 and somewhat a stark contrast to Grey with dark hair and soft green eyes framed by perfectly circular lenses, smiles and bows his head in greeting to Isabella and Wren. "Madame, mademoiselle," he greets, a slight accent to his voice. "Tristan is becoming senile." A humorous twinkle lights his eyes. It's very apparent that while JR is a fairly new hire, he and Grey go a ways back.
Isabella freezes as she hears her husband's voice. Before she turns herself to look back at him, she reaches a hand up to her face and wipes away any remaining tears, and brushes a hand back through her long, dark hair. She forces a smile onto her lips as she looks to Grey and then the man who is accompanying him. "Hi dear..I was just on my way out actually. I...have to go..." She glances down to Genevieve and then back over to Wren, hoping the other woman doesn't say anything about her current 'situation.' She then looks back towards her husband, offering an apologetic glance. "Nice to meet ya..I gotta go." There's an urgency in her voice as she quickly starts to make her way towards the ramp.
Wren also freezes at Grey's arrival, her eyes darting to Isabella before she takes a small step back from the pair. "No killing," she tells the Captain, shaking her head at him in warning. JR is only given the briefest of glances and a small, forced smile.
"Uh," Grey interjects, not really able to move himself to block Isabella's path or delay her. "Um," he adds, turning on his crutch to watch her go, pretty sure that she'd wiped tears away when he came aboard. "Wait, Izzie," he calls out at last, finding his words. "Hold on. Where are you headed? Lemme give Jenni a quick kiss. Didja get my comm? We're goin' over to the Tienlong, you should come with me. I wanna show off my wife an' daughters to the crew, an' their Captain's wife is there too, so it's only fitting that we show up as a family, dontcha think?" He pauses for a moment and blinks, looking over to Wren. "I weren't planning on killing them, Wren. They're lendin' us use a their medical facilities, an' their Doc is runnin' some analyses on blood an' tissue samples from the Lady Antoinette - do you all have yer iComms off, or somethin'?"
Isabella pauses, just inside the hatchway, turning halfway around to look at her husband. "Okay..give her a kiss, and then I gotta go. There's something that I gotta go do, and I don't have much time to do it in." She takes a few steps closer towards Grey, holding the baby out closer to him. "We can't go with you..we're already busy. I don't have my comm with me, so I didn't hear what you said on it. Maybe later, when I get back, we can meet up with you over there and they can meet us then, okay?" She waits for him to kiss the baby, so she can make her quick get-away.
Wren's eyes unfocus briefly at the flood of words from Grey, taking her a few extra seconds to process them before she can make a response. "Meant her, not them," she explains with a hint of impatience. "I heard..." she adds, tapping her comm and shrugging a little.
Grey gives Genevieve a quick kiss. "You be a good girl for Mommy," he says to her with a smile. "Okay, you ladies are in a hurry, get outta here. I jus' gotta go grab my notes, then I'll be over on the Tienlong. At least drop me a text-WAVE or something when you can, okay, love? I have my Cortex linkup on me, at least." He smiles and gives Isabella a quick kiss too. "Love you, be careful." He looks over at the stairs with a baleful eye. "Jean-Rousseau..."
"Five steps ahead of you," the Frenchman replies easily, and bounds up the stairs and returns a minute later with Grey's notes. "C'est tout. Miss Wren, will you do us honor by accompanying us to the Tienlong?"
If Grey is confused at all about Wren telling him not to kill his own wife, well, he just shrugs it off as yet another incomprehensible Wren-ity.
Isabella doesn't waste any time in getting herself back over towards the hatchway and starts to make her way down the ramp. She only pauses for a moment, to look back over her shoulder at Grey. But, once she's further down the ramp, she turns back around and starts to walk at a rather quick pace, getting herself as far away as that ship, as fast as she can.
Wren mouths the words in French, silently shaping them with her lips as if to try them out, and only focuses on JR after she's done a few trials. "Honor," she echoes with a slight frown about to say something else when she's interrupted by her comm. "Oh!" she cries, abruptly turning and darting over to where a small collection of items lays beside her hydroponics system. Grabbing the towel wrapped wrench, she trots back to Grey and passes it over to him. "There!"
Grey nods and takes the wrench from Wren. "Good. Let's get on over!" And they're off, at Grey's hobbling speed, to the Tienlong.
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