Firefly: Black Cat Blues - 7.09 Sleeping Beauty, Part 2
Previous episode here.
Now that the crew of Black Cat has a good idea of where to look for Louise Kang's downed cryopod based upon the legends of New Prosperity's townspeople, they set out early the next morning in the shuttle to look for the tall mountain and red sands that were described (Daisy stays behind to keep an eye on Mary-Lou). They use the sensors borrowed from Black Cat to scan the wastes until they locate a mountain that fits the description. But when they fly toward it, they notice a large metallic object on the ground near the mountain, being operated by men in robes. The crew is shocked to see the object shoot a large rock in their direction - it's a catapult! Quinn does her best to evade the flying rock, but it impacts the side of the ship and does a fair amount of damage. Nicolas decides to return to Black Cat for now, since he knows another hit from the catapult could very well destroy the shuttle, and it's clear that somebody doesn't want them here.
While Birgitta and Jade repair the shuttle (and use up the last of Black Cat's spare parts in the process), the rest of the crew tries to figure out a way around the catapult. After some initial disbelief over the method of attack ("They hit our shuttle with a catapult? Who the hell uses a catapult?"), the crew decides that the best solution to this problem is to be just as decisive and violent as their attackers.[1] The crew hatches the somewhat screwball plan of finding another rock even bigger than the one launched from the catapult, and dropping it out of the shuttle to crush the device. The crew locates a suitable rock in the canyon in which they have landed and, once the shuttle is repaired, push it aboard and secure it in the back. Then they set out to make a second pass at the wastes. This
time, Quinn knows the catapult is coming, and evades the flung rock when it comes at the shuttle. While the catapult's owners are reloading it, Archer, Birgitta, and Jade (with Nicolas directing its aim) shove the rock out the back of the shuttle. The shot is good, and it crushes both one side of the catapult and a person working on loading it, thus rendering it inoperable for the time being. Quinn then lands the shuttle some distance from the catapult, hiding it as best she can in case anyone decides to come looking.
The crew's concealment means that they've landed on the opposite side from the red rocks and sand described by the townspeople, so they begin to hike around the mountain. While they are walking, a few crew members get the distinct impression that they are being followed - but whenever they look over their shoulders, nothing is there. Nicolas has very sharp eyes, however, and at one point he notices a small pile of rocks nearby that seems to be moving slightly up and down. Nicolas tells the others to stay nearby, approaches the pile of rocks - and is startled when a three-foot-tall creature (wearing a cloak with cacti, small rocks, and other desert detritus affixed to it) bursts out of the sand, throws a handful of dirt in his eyes, and runs away. Some other crew members get a glimpse of a deformed but human-looking dwarf before the creature is out of sight once again. Nicolas tells the others not to pursue the dwarf and to just be on their guard for now - though when Quinn suggests that she and Archer should go back to the shuttle to keep an eye on it, he ultimately agrees.[2]
Minus Archer and Quinn, the rest of the crew has an uneventful hike to the other side of the mountain. In the area with the red rocks and sand, they spot an opening in the cliff face, large enough for a cryopod to pass through; perhaps it landed here? The crew clambers through the opening, noticing a number of deep and fairly fresh gouges in the rock (though Nicolas is more focused on the incredible pain in his head now that he's whacked it really hard on a rocky outcropping). The opening terminates in a cave-like area, partially open to the sky above, with a pool of water emerging from an underground spring and what looks like a crater on the other side. The crew looks more closely at the crater and determines that it's consistent with the landing spot for a cryopod - but obviously, no pod is there. The scratches on the rocks outside suggest that the pod has been dragged away by someone else - the only question is who beat the crew to it.
Meanwhile, Archer and Quinn are having a pretty boring time back at the shuttle until they start hearing thumping and scratching on the outside of the ship, particularly on the roof. It goes on for quite some time, and Archer and Quinn are beginning to worry about the sensors - as well as whether their assailants are the same as the people who were operating the catapult. So Archer asks Quinn to boost her up through the shuttle's top hatch so she can see what's going on, and possibly scare off whatever is outside. But Archer quickly runs into trouble as something yanks her up through the hatch, getting her stuck halfway through. Quinn is forced to run outside, where she sees three dwarfs, similar to the one the crew ran into before, standing on top of the shuttle. Two are holding onto Archer while the third kicks her in the head. Quinn's response is to pick up some handy rocks and start tossing them at the dwarfs. The rocks hit the dwarfs, who drop Archer back into the ship, and jump down from the shuttle to run away, kicking Quinn hard in the shins as they run away.[3] Archer and Quinn establish that they are both bruised and embarrassed but otherwise okay, and decide to spend the rest of their wait defending against further dwarf invasions. This takes the form of keeping a lookout and setting up a couple of rather silly and ineffective traps. That said, the dwarfs don't bother the shuttle again.
The rest of the crew is making its way out of the cavern when a rain of rocks comes down on them from above. Covering their heads, the crew looks up and sees a number of dwarfs throwing things at them. They put their heads down and get out of the cavern as quickly as possible, with most crew members winding up very bruised. Demoralized and humiliated, they slink back to the shuttle to tell Archer and Quinn what they found. Although the crew is a bit confused by recent events, they can tell that the dwarfs clearly have a very good understanding of the geography of the wastes. Nicolas thinks that if anybody knows where the cryopod has been moved, it's them. He gathers up a team of the crew members who are skilled in wilderness tracking, Jade foremost among them, and tells them to pick up the dwarfs' trail in the hopes of locating their base of operations.[4]
Tracking the dwarfs does not prove very complicated[5], and the crew soon finds the dwarfs living in another cave higher up the mountain (and yes, there are seven of them in total). At first, the dwarfs are aggressive toward the crew, and speak an unfamiliar language. But once Siqin recognizes the language as an archaic version of Chinese with some unusual local features added, she is able to communicate with them and assure them that the crew doesn't want to hurt them or take their land. The dwarfs are very fearful of outsiders because, as they explain, the townspeople see dwarfism as an unlucky curse, and eject dwarfs into the wastes to be rid of them. The harsh conditions and the constant threat of attacks from mutants (who are apparently the people manning the catapult) make life very hard, and they're just trying to maintain the resources they have.[6] The crew assures the dwarfs that they have no designs on the wastes other than to find the cryopod, and ask the dwarfs if they might be able to find it. The dwarfs know what the crew is talking about (though it worries the crew a little when one dwarf comments that "all she does is scream,") and say that they can lead the crew to the pod - for a price.
The crew steps aside for a moment to figure out what they can offer the dwarfs, since money is pretty well worthless out here and it's not like the crew has a lot of that anyway. Nicolas wants to give them the fish finder he's been dragging around ever since Newhall, but that idea gets shot down in favor of something much more ridiculous: The crew wants to take the catapult away from the mutants and give it to the dwarfs, so that they can use it to defend their resources. Needless to say, the dwarfs are thrilled with this idea, and the crew goes to work figuring out how to implement it. The crew calls Quinn back at the shuttle to tell her about Nicolas's idea ("Your brother and the rest of the crew are going to steal a catapult from the mutants and give it to the dwarfs." "Point of interest: your brother whacked his head really hard."), and tells her to get the shuttle ready to haul the catapult, either as a whole or in pieces. She returns to Black Cat to get chains, rope, and other tie-down equipment while the rest of the crew, with help from the dwarfs, prepares for an assault on the mutants guarding the catapult.
The attack on the mutants goes pretty smoothly, since the crew succeeds in ambushing them. Within a few minutes, all of the mutants are either dead or fleeing. The crew calls the shuttle in, and rigs the ropes and chains so that the shuttle can fly the catapult mostly intact up to the area where the dwarfs make their home. The dwarfs insist on seeing that it works before they will show the crew where the cryopod is, which they do carefully so as not to get themselves in even deeper trouble ("We'll load up the catapult, but we're going to make sure nobody's around. The last thing we want to do is accidentally hit an Alliance ship"). The dwarfs are pleased by their newly working defense system, and send one of their own to show the crew where the cryopod has wound up.
The crew is already feeling a big nervous about not knowing what kind of situation they're walking into, and their fear is only heightened when their dwarf guide leads them to another cave (this one with animal bones and various garbage strewn all around the entrance) and then runs away at top speed. The crew approaches the cave mouth and hears a loud roar emerge from it, even as they see something moving in the darkness. The crew is shocked to see a gigantic lizard the size of a small bus emerge from the cave and lumber toward them - it seems that the radiation present in this area has had an effect on more than just the people who live in the wastes.[7] This creature is clearly not going to allow the crew to pass, so they don't have any choice but to stand their ground and fight.
Immediately the crew can see that this "dragon" is very dangerous. Apart from its sharp teeth and claws and the spikes on its tail, it is also capable of vomiting an acidic liquid that is very harmful and painful if it hits you, to the point of even dissolving away clothing. Elisa in particular is badly injured by the acid, to the point of needing to remove herself from the fight. Siqin also moves away from the fight, but she's doing it so she can climb the rocks nearby and look for a big boulder to push down on top of the lizard. Birgitta knows that engaging this creature in a hand-to-hand fight would be suicidal, so she focuses on defending the rest of the crew and keeping them out of harm's way when she can. Osiris tries to shoot the dragon in its eye, but the presence of heavy armored scales all over its head makes it difficult for him to hurt it as badly as he would like. Nicolas and Quinn are both firing their guns as well, but it's taking a long time to wear the dragon down even as the acid continues to fly.
Osiris in particular is getting desperate, so he calls out to Archer and asks her if she brought any grenades with her. She responds that she only has one, so they'll have to make it count. So the two of them work together to herd the dragon toward Archer so that she can make a single, perfect throw - right into the dragon's mouth. Archer shouts that the grenade has a short fuse, so everyone dives for cover as its head literally explodes. Unfortunately, Nicolas doesn't quite get far enough away, and the dragon's body topples over on top of him, soaking him in the remainder of its acidic venom.[8] And as the crew picks itself off the ground (and those crew members who are skilled in first aid run to help out Elisa and Nicolas), Osiris hears a sound overhead and realizes that the crew's problems aren't over with yet. The sound he hears is the engine of an Alliance patrol vessel, coming in for a landing. It seems as though the Alliance has finally caught up to the distress signal...
1 - Elisa: So the first thing that comes to mind is sabotage, right?
Nicolas: No, actually, the first thing that comes to mind is a rock.
2 - Quinn: Do you think someone should go back to the shuttle to make sure nothing's happened to it, Captain?
Nicolas: Why?
Quinn: All the sensors for our ship are on the outside of the shuttle.
Nicolas: So?
dayzdark, OOC: And Jawas steal technology.
3 - I'm pretty sure it didn't happen exactly like this - can someone correct me?
4 - Again, it's been too long and I don't remember exactly how the crew found the dwarfs. Please fix my mistakes.
5 - Something about this plot produced a serious problem in the peanut gallery. Witness:
gamerchick: It's easy to track these dwarfs because there are four of them.
dayzdark: And they don't walk in straight lines to hide their numbers.
gamerchick; Stop it.
Various other players, singing: Hi ho. Hi ho. It's off to work we go.
6 - Dwarf: It's the natural order of things that mutants would want to eat dwarfs.
<"lj user="dayzdark">: We used to be eight.
7 - Yeah, I know, this is so ridiculous as to be completely genre-breaking and suspension-of-disbelief-defying, particularly for the Firefly 'Verse, but it's not like I could send them to rescue the sleeping princess and not have it end with fighting a dragon, could I?
8 - Noel was going to be gone for two weeks, so I'm not just being an asshole here - I had to give him an out somehow, and what's a better out than a coma?
Now that the crew of Black Cat has a good idea of where to look for Louise Kang's downed cryopod based upon the legends of New Prosperity's townspeople, they set out early the next morning in the shuttle to look for the tall mountain and red sands that were described (Daisy stays behind to keep an eye on Mary-Lou). They use the sensors borrowed from Black Cat to scan the wastes until they locate a mountain that fits the description. But when they fly toward it, they notice a large metallic object on the ground near the mountain, being operated by men in robes. The crew is shocked to see the object shoot a large rock in their direction - it's a catapult! Quinn does her best to evade the flying rock, but it impacts the side of the ship and does a fair amount of damage. Nicolas decides to return to Black Cat for now, since he knows another hit from the catapult could very well destroy the shuttle, and it's clear that somebody doesn't want them here.
While Birgitta and Jade repair the shuttle (and use up the last of Black Cat's spare parts in the process), the rest of the crew tries to figure out a way around the catapult. After some initial disbelief over the method of attack ("They hit our shuttle with a catapult? Who the hell uses a catapult?"), the crew decides that the best solution to this problem is to be just as decisive and violent as their attackers.[1] The crew hatches the somewhat screwball plan of finding another rock even bigger than the one launched from the catapult, and dropping it out of the shuttle to crush the device. The crew locates a suitable rock in the canyon in which they have landed and, once the shuttle is repaired, push it aboard and secure it in the back. Then they set out to make a second pass at the wastes. This
time, Quinn knows the catapult is coming, and evades the flung rock when it comes at the shuttle. While the catapult's owners are reloading it, Archer, Birgitta, and Jade (with Nicolas directing its aim) shove the rock out the back of the shuttle. The shot is good, and it crushes both one side of the catapult and a person working on loading it, thus rendering it inoperable for the time being. Quinn then lands the shuttle some distance from the catapult, hiding it as best she can in case anyone decides to come looking.
The crew's concealment means that they've landed on the opposite side from the red rocks and sand described by the townspeople, so they begin to hike around the mountain. While they are walking, a few crew members get the distinct impression that they are being followed - but whenever they look over their shoulders, nothing is there. Nicolas has very sharp eyes, however, and at one point he notices a small pile of rocks nearby that seems to be moving slightly up and down. Nicolas tells the others to stay nearby, approaches the pile of rocks - and is startled when a three-foot-tall creature (wearing a cloak with cacti, small rocks, and other desert detritus affixed to it) bursts out of the sand, throws a handful of dirt in his eyes, and runs away. Some other crew members get a glimpse of a deformed but human-looking dwarf before the creature is out of sight once again. Nicolas tells the others not to pursue the dwarf and to just be on their guard for now - though when Quinn suggests that she and Archer should go back to the shuttle to keep an eye on it, he ultimately agrees.[2]
Minus Archer and Quinn, the rest of the crew has an uneventful hike to the other side of the mountain. In the area with the red rocks and sand, they spot an opening in the cliff face, large enough for a cryopod to pass through; perhaps it landed here? The crew clambers through the opening, noticing a number of deep and fairly fresh gouges in the rock (though Nicolas is more focused on the incredible pain in his head now that he's whacked it really hard on a rocky outcropping). The opening terminates in a cave-like area, partially open to the sky above, with a pool of water emerging from an underground spring and what looks like a crater on the other side. The crew looks more closely at the crater and determines that it's consistent with the landing spot for a cryopod - but obviously, no pod is there. The scratches on the rocks outside suggest that the pod has been dragged away by someone else - the only question is who beat the crew to it.
Meanwhile, Archer and Quinn are having a pretty boring time back at the shuttle until they start hearing thumping and scratching on the outside of the ship, particularly on the roof. It goes on for quite some time, and Archer and Quinn are beginning to worry about the sensors - as well as whether their assailants are the same as the people who were operating the catapult. So Archer asks Quinn to boost her up through the shuttle's top hatch so she can see what's going on, and possibly scare off whatever is outside. But Archer quickly runs into trouble as something yanks her up through the hatch, getting her stuck halfway through. Quinn is forced to run outside, where she sees three dwarfs, similar to the one the crew ran into before, standing on top of the shuttle. Two are holding onto Archer while the third kicks her in the head. Quinn's response is to pick up some handy rocks and start tossing them at the dwarfs. The rocks hit the dwarfs, who drop Archer back into the ship, and jump down from the shuttle to run away, kicking Quinn hard in the shins as they run away.[3] Archer and Quinn establish that they are both bruised and embarrassed but otherwise okay, and decide to spend the rest of their wait defending against further dwarf invasions. This takes the form of keeping a lookout and setting up a couple of rather silly and ineffective traps. That said, the dwarfs don't bother the shuttle again.
The rest of the crew is making its way out of the cavern when a rain of rocks comes down on them from above. Covering their heads, the crew looks up and sees a number of dwarfs throwing things at them. They put their heads down and get out of the cavern as quickly as possible, with most crew members winding up very bruised. Demoralized and humiliated, they slink back to the shuttle to tell Archer and Quinn what they found. Although the crew is a bit confused by recent events, they can tell that the dwarfs clearly have a very good understanding of the geography of the wastes. Nicolas thinks that if anybody knows where the cryopod has been moved, it's them. He gathers up a team of the crew members who are skilled in wilderness tracking, Jade foremost among them, and tells them to pick up the dwarfs' trail in the hopes of locating their base of operations.[4]
Tracking the dwarfs does not prove very complicated[5], and the crew soon finds the dwarfs living in another cave higher up the mountain (and yes, there are seven of them in total). At first, the dwarfs are aggressive toward the crew, and speak an unfamiliar language. But once Siqin recognizes the language as an archaic version of Chinese with some unusual local features added, she is able to communicate with them and assure them that the crew doesn't want to hurt them or take their land. The dwarfs are very fearful of outsiders because, as they explain, the townspeople see dwarfism as an unlucky curse, and eject dwarfs into the wastes to be rid of them. The harsh conditions and the constant threat of attacks from mutants (who are apparently the people manning the catapult) make life very hard, and they're just trying to maintain the resources they have.[6] The crew assures the dwarfs that they have no designs on the wastes other than to find the cryopod, and ask the dwarfs if they might be able to find it. The dwarfs know what the crew is talking about (though it worries the crew a little when one dwarf comments that "all she does is scream,") and say that they can lead the crew to the pod - for a price.
The crew steps aside for a moment to figure out what they can offer the dwarfs, since money is pretty well worthless out here and it's not like the crew has a lot of that anyway. Nicolas wants to give them the fish finder he's been dragging around ever since Newhall, but that idea gets shot down in favor of something much more ridiculous: The crew wants to take the catapult away from the mutants and give it to the dwarfs, so that they can use it to defend their resources. Needless to say, the dwarfs are thrilled with this idea, and the crew goes to work figuring out how to implement it. The crew calls Quinn back at the shuttle to tell her about Nicolas's idea ("Your brother and the rest of the crew are going to steal a catapult from the mutants and give it to the dwarfs." "Point of interest: your brother whacked his head really hard."), and tells her to get the shuttle ready to haul the catapult, either as a whole or in pieces. She returns to Black Cat to get chains, rope, and other tie-down equipment while the rest of the crew, with help from the dwarfs, prepares for an assault on the mutants guarding the catapult.
The attack on the mutants goes pretty smoothly, since the crew succeeds in ambushing them. Within a few minutes, all of the mutants are either dead or fleeing. The crew calls the shuttle in, and rigs the ropes and chains so that the shuttle can fly the catapult mostly intact up to the area where the dwarfs make their home. The dwarfs insist on seeing that it works before they will show the crew where the cryopod is, which they do carefully so as not to get themselves in even deeper trouble ("We'll load up the catapult, but we're going to make sure nobody's around. The last thing we want to do is accidentally hit an Alliance ship"). The dwarfs are pleased by their newly working defense system, and send one of their own to show the crew where the cryopod has wound up.
The crew is already feeling a big nervous about not knowing what kind of situation they're walking into, and their fear is only heightened when their dwarf guide leads them to another cave (this one with animal bones and various garbage strewn all around the entrance) and then runs away at top speed. The crew approaches the cave mouth and hears a loud roar emerge from it, even as they see something moving in the darkness. The crew is shocked to see a gigantic lizard the size of a small bus emerge from the cave and lumber toward them - it seems that the radiation present in this area has had an effect on more than just the people who live in the wastes.[7] This creature is clearly not going to allow the crew to pass, so they don't have any choice but to stand their ground and fight.
Immediately the crew can see that this "dragon" is very dangerous. Apart from its sharp teeth and claws and the spikes on its tail, it is also capable of vomiting an acidic liquid that is very harmful and painful if it hits you, to the point of even dissolving away clothing. Elisa in particular is badly injured by the acid, to the point of needing to remove herself from the fight. Siqin also moves away from the fight, but she's doing it so she can climb the rocks nearby and look for a big boulder to push down on top of the lizard. Birgitta knows that engaging this creature in a hand-to-hand fight would be suicidal, so she focuses on defending the rest of the crew and keeping them out of harm's way when she can. Osiris tries to shoot the dragon in its eye, but the presence of heavy armored scales all over its head makes it difficult for him to hurt it as badly as he would like. Nicolas and Quinn are both firing their guns as well, but it's taking a long time to wear the dragon down even as the acid continues to fly.
Osiris in particular is getting desperate, so he calls out to Archer and asks her if she brought any grenades with her. She responds that she only has one, so they'll have to make it count. So the two of them work together to herd the dragon toward Archer so that she can make a single, perfect throw - right into the dragon's mouth. Archer shouts that the grenade has a short fuse, so everyone dives for cover as its head literally explodes. Unfortunately, Nicolas doesn't quite get far enough away, and the dragon's body topples over on top of him, soaking him in the remainder of its acidic venom.[8] And as the crew picks itself off the ground (and those crew members who are skilled in first aid run to help out Elisa and Nicolas), Osiris hears a sound overhead and realizes that the crew's problems aren't over with yet. The sound he hears is the engine of an Alliance patrol vessel, coming in for a landing. It seems as though the Alliance has finally caught up to the distress signal...
1 - Elisa: So the first thing that comes to mind is sabotage, right?
Nicolas: No, actually, the first thing that comes to mind is a rock.
2 - Quinn: Do you think someone should go back to the shuttle to make sure nothing's happened to it, Captain?
Nicolas: Why?
Quinn: All the sensors for our ship are on the outside of the shuttle.
Nicolas: So?
dayzdark, OOC: And Jawas steal technology.
3 - I'm pretty sure it didn't happen exactly like this - can someone correct me?
4 - Again, it's been too long and I don't remember exactly how the crew found the dwarfs. Please fix my mistakes.
5 - Something about this plot produced a serious problem in the peanut gallery. Witness:
gamerchick: It's easy to track these dwarfs because there are four of them.
dayzdark: And they don't walk in straight lines to hide their numbers.
gamerchick; Stop it.
Various other players, singing: Hi ho. Hi ho. It's off to work we go.
6 - Dwarf: It's the natural order of things that mutants would want to eat dwarfs.
<"lj user="dayzdark">: We used to be eight.
7 - Yeah, I know, this is so ridiculous as to be completely genre-breaking and suspension-of-disbelief-defying, particularly for the Firefly 'Verse, but it's not like I could send them to rescue the sleeping princess and not have it end with fighting a dragon, could I?
8 - Noel was going to be gone for two weeks, so I'm not just being an asshole here - I had to give him an out somehow, and what's a better out than a coma?