**Action** Molotov Cocktails

OOC: You may want to go get a drink or something first. It's a long one.
This is a JP between myself (Mk.10) and Johno (Ingen). He wrote most
of it, I just added some decent portions.
Who: Ingen Karpov.
Where: Storage bay 8.
When: Whilst the away team are in transit back to the big blue.
~~~~~~~
A loud crack and angry swearing were the last things an insect on the
side of a box heard before a mahogany chair was thrown at it.
Cursing under his breath, Ingen tossed aside the crowbar. This was
something like the thirtieth crate he'd busted open, and the thirtieth
which contained only furniture and cocktail foods. It was his second
week in this cruddy storage bay, and he hadn't had much luck during
his stay. He knew it was too much to ask to find something else in a
crate. He scowled walked over to what was formerly a bug and a chair,
picked up a bit of busted wood, and flung it into the fire he had
going for light and warmth. As he reflected upon it, he hadn't had
much luck AT ALL for quite a while. First he was sent on a bogus
mission and kidnapped by man-eating aliens. Then he was rescued, only
to be trapped on a planet with the same man-eating aliens. Then he
arrived on this ship, and despite every chance he might be free, he
got himself locked up in a cargo bay.
Suppressing an almighty sigh, he walked up to the next crate. Maybe
he'd push his luck a little tonight.
Just like all the rest, the next crate he walked up to had SEYMOUR
printed in elaborate letters across it. The name rang a bell, but he
couldn't remember what it meant - maybe a packaging company? It didn't
matter much, anyway. He jammed the crowbar beneath the lid and pried
it off slowly.
Ingen peeked in under the lid, and his heart stopped an instant. There
was something inside. That wasn't the surprising thing. The surprising
thing was that it was not a reddish-brown shade of mahogany wood, nor
did it have the bleak white tones of all that cocktail food packaging.
Heart racing, he forced the lid off and looked inside. It was... it
was... caviar. He sighed. "Caviar," he muttered to himself,
disappointed. "At least it isn't more ruddy toothpicks, though, or
cheese cubes, or salmon tarts, or... or cabawhatsit."
It didn't look like any of the caviar was in bad condition, so he
pulled a tub out. It was heavier than he'd expected; about the size of
a large tub of ice-cream. He dipped his finger in for a taste, then
wretched. "Yuck, what's in this stuff? It'd do better as fuel." He
threw the rest of the tub into the fire where, for all he cared, it
could burn and die. Which it did. In fact, it did it so well, the fire
immediately flared to twice its height and began to spit flaming blobs
of caviar in all directions. Ingen's vest ignited in one spot and he
howled, beginning the impossible task of tugging off a bandoleer, a
rifle holster AND a vest beneath them WHILE trying to pat out a fire
and being frantic about the whole thing.
Once he'd stomped out the burning patch and pulled his now
considerably lighter vest back on, he surveyed his surroundings. He
was met with an array of beautiful crimson and orange shades. At
least, it would have been beautiful if everything wasn't on fire.
Ingen floundered with his bandoleer and holster as he ran for the
cargo bay door, which was, unsurprisingly, locked.
"Crap! Dammit! Norway!" Ingen turned back to survey the flaming cargo
bay. Behind him stood several feet of solid metal. Everywhere else was
a vast expanse of wood, exploding caviar-turned-napalm and fire. The
whole room was illuminated now, and he could actually see the other
three walls and the ceiling - vast expanses of metal reinforced in
every which way, stretching far off into the distance. The place was
bigger than a cathedral, and it all seemed to be on fire.
It was time to resort to desperate measures.
Ingen shut his eyes and rubbed them with a thumb and forefinger while
he built up his courage. He had no other choice. He had to use... THAT.
He walked to the side of the door and pushed the button to activate
the intercom. "Sorry about this, but just letting everyone know, there
seems to be a fire in..." - he checked the number printed across the
door - "...cargo bay 8." He released the button and let out a deep,
relieved sigh. That wasn't so bad.
Then he remembered his survival tactics 101, and pushed the intercom
button again. "Also, it wasn't my fault."
------------
Trisees blearily opened his eyes. He couldn't see anything. Breathing
was none too easy either. After about five minutes of laying prone, he
came to the conclusion he had his face firmly planted in the small of
Keto's back, and using the inside of the XPress lift, slowly rose to
his feet. After a few helplul nudges, Keto was also up and about and
the pair took a moment to take stock.
"Son of a bitch! Where are we now?" Trisees shouted at the serene
image of the lift attendant.
She seemed to smile curtly before replying. "Unfortunately, our
complimentary sleeping gas service rendered you incapable of departing
at your stop. For your comfort and convenience, you are being taken
back up to your original starting point, where you may re-enter your
destination, or take the convenient service stairs down through the
346 floors required to achieve your destination. Thank you."
Just prior to a fist nearly being firmly embedded in the LCD monitor,
Keto piped up.
"It's ok, at least now we should be able to get to the...captain,
and-" he said, before being interrupted by an abrupt shudder and the
sound of grinding metal.
"What now?"
"For your comfort and convenience, all XPress elevators are programmed
to halt transit immediately in cases of fire. If you look under your
seats, you will find emergency crowbars for opening the doors. Thank
you for using XPress lifts, we look forward to your future customs."
A smashed screen and a pried open door later, the pair found
themselves confronted with a hectic scene comprised primarily of
firemen, all huddled around the door to one of the smaller cargo bays
above the vaster supply fields. Not seeing anything better to do, they
headed into the crowd.
------------
The next five minutes were a toasty warm experience for Ingen. It was
better than the sharp chill the cargo bay air had about it when he
just had his measly bonfire, but he had to admit a measly bonfire was
preferable to burning, exploding crates and melting metal walls. The
cargo bay door finally began to grind open, and the moment the opening
was wide enough, he dove through and into more comfortable
temperatures and surroundings - ones which he hadn't even absorbed yet
before someone in a fluorescent coat tugged him aside and begun
checking his health.
A small crowd of firemen were around the door. Something seemed to be
wrong. More wrong than things usually are when it comes to things
burning down.
"The door's jammed!" one eventually conceded. "The mechanisms must be
melting." The door was only open about a metre or two.
The aide checking Ingen for injuries piped up. "You're not a crew
member, are you? How on earth did you get in there in the first place?"
"Well, I - -" Ingen started, before being loudly interrupted.
"What the hell's going on in there!?" someone yelled - a new arrival,
obviously a barman from his outfit, was running down the hallway, a
small crowd of people following. One was named Seymour - Ingen could
tell, because everyone was cursing his name as he pushed them aside to
get to the front of the crowd.
"Shut up and let me handle the business," Seymour said, pushing in
front of the Barman as well. "You." He pointed to a fireman and
cleared his throat. "What the hell's going on in there!?"
The barman jostled Seymour aside and cautiously approached the cargo
bay door. "Dammit! What's all this fuss for? I just came here to get
some more drinks for the bar and... and... is that fire?"
"Fire!?" Seymour cried. "My furniture's in there!"
"And the alcohol!" added the barman.
"Forget your - -" started Seymour.
One of the crew members poked his head in between them, "I'm sorry,
barkeep - - the what?"
Seymour looked like he was about to cry. "My caviar! My delicious caviar!"
"Delicious? Hah! That stuff made better fuel than it did food!" Ingen
shouted.
A sudden mood swing, and Seymour glared. "IT WHAT!?"
The crew member piped up again, "Did you just say alcohol, barkeep?"
"Yes! All the ship's alcohol's in there!"
Suddenly, something inside the cargo bay exploded - bigger than the
other explosions, and this time the shattering of glass was faintly
audible.
"The alcohol WAS in there..."
Silence gripped the crowd for a long moment until the previous crew
member spoke again.
"The... THE ALCOHOL! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Hysterical screams filled the air, and people started running in all
directions. Some ran back down the hallway, others - including the
fire fighters, the barkeep and Ingen's medical aide - suddenly ran
like a mob toward the narrow gap in the cargo bay door, pushing and
shoving and punching each other's lights out in an effort to get
through first. Cries of the news rang down the hallway and more people
appeared at its end, running for the door. Ingen watched the crowd
from what was a pretty safe distance. Then someone bumped into him,
hard, bowling Ingen right over to the ground - probably eager to get
into the cargo bay. Climbing back to his feet again, the old man
growled and reached for his rifle on his back intending to deal that
man some scare. His fingers grasped the air, and he did a double-take
as the man disappeared into the scrum at the cargo bay door.
"HEY! YOU! COME BACK HERE WITH MY RIFLE, YOU SON OF A #^$&?@%!!! I
HOPE YOU DIE IN THAT @^*#$ING FIRE!!"
He dove into the throng after the thief. What followed were several
minutes of non-stop shoving, elbowing, kicking and general aggressive
jostling. Unfortunately, it was all happening to Ingen. Painful
moments later, he was pushed violently out of the crowd and into a
hot, crimson room filled with the shouts of people.
Today was going just great. He was back in his metallic prison with no
means of escape all over again, chasing someone he'd long lost track
of. Ingen was just picking himself up off the floor when someone fell
on top of him, then scrambled up and sprinted off again. Ingen sprang
to his feet and cursed after this latest offender. It wasn't long
before he realised it was the same guy - the thief.
"OI! STOP RIGHT THERE!"
Ingen ran off after the man, weaving through and jumping over flames
and crates and flaming crates, the thief always just out of sight
until amidst the yells and cries filling the bay, he heard a sickening
scream. He turned a corner and found before him a corpse, most of the
torso burned through by glowing liquid metal dripping from the
ceiling. Held in a not-so-intact arm was a very intact rifle, though,
and Ingen gratefully took it back, holding it quite firmly now. He
turned to the body, "I didn't want you to actually die, you know."
It was then that he realised he had no idea where he was. He found a
crate which amazingly was only beginning to smoulder, and climbed on
top of it. He was roughly in the middle of the hall. The scene at the
door hadn't gotten any better. Crates were scattered everywhere; he
could see the one that used to hold caviar. Ash lay thickly along the
parts of the walls that hadn't already melted, and here and there,
planks of wood jutted out of the only partially-melted sections of
wall, blasted there from the force of explosions and burning away like
candlewick. He turned to the other end of the hall from the door, and
before him was quite a spectacle.
Dozens and dozens of people were climbing over crates, yelling and
shouting at each other if they weren't already fighting. Crates were
being smashed open with no regard for whether someone was already
standing on them or not, and people were running around with kegs and
boxes and bottles of every kind of alcohol Ingen had seen before, and
some he hadn't. They were throwing them to each other, fighting over
them, fighting WITH them, and the most normal person there was
chugging down an entire keg of beer before someone smashed a wine
bottle over his head and stole the keg. It looked like fun.
Trisees and Keto had of course taken a slightly more intelligent way
about making the most of the situation; they had waited safely outside
the door, and decked a few blokes fleeing the scene, taken their
booze, and strolled off towards the bridge to await the captain.
The old man inside had no intentions of staying in the inferno for
long, though. He'd only just gotten out, and he preferred out. He
hopped down from the crate, then yelped in pain and fell back onto his
hindquarters as he noticed his ankle was on fire. Just as he was
patting it out, someone who obviously wasn't paying enough attention
to his surroundings tripped over Ingen's outstretched leg and fell
heavily to the floor. The stranger didn't get back up, so Ingen picked
himself up off the floor, nicked the two kegs of beer the stranger had
been carrying under his arms, and ran off with his loot. Finding his
way back was easy enough - he just made sure he moved toward the cargo
bay doors.
Once he got there, the crowd in the doorway seemed to have dwindled
considerably, so Ingen charged head-on into their masses and managed
to force his way to the other side. Someone grabbed his collar just
after he'd broken free on the outside of the cargo bay, jerking him
back, but as soon as Ingen swivelled to meet the owner of the hand on
his collar, a left hook came out of no-where and knocked its owner
out. Ingen didn't stay to say thanks, and sprinted off down the
hallway as fast as his tired legs could take him.
He had a feeling the kegs under his arms would be very, very valuable
after this fire, and headed up to Parrotts.
OOC: So basically, all primary alcohol supplies are up in flames. All
that remains is what people have flogged, and what remains in Parrotts
and people's personal stashes. Riot time.
< Tag, everyone on board the Blue Dwarf! >