| Flight to the Falls |
| Summary: | While still in a Coma, Hosedown dreams again of Lampridis Falls |
| Date: | 11 Feb 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | The Bull and The Sparrow, Enter the Swarm2, A Bloody Mess, Bloody Hosedown |
| Players: |
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| In Andrea's Head? |
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| You don't want to know. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #350 |
While Andrea's body may be in Sickbay, her mind is far and away from the troubles of her physical form right now. There's no sense that it's a dream. It feels as real as anything. Andrea is flying. In the cockpit of a Viper, through the blackness of space. There's nothing around her but the expanse of the starfield, no wingman, no Fleet, just her and her plane speeding into nothingness. The chronometer on her instruments blinks "17:00" in bright green letters. A simple time read-out. The DRADIS itself is clear. All systems green, though you seem to be on a course to nowhere.
"AAAAAAHHHhhhwhhuuuu?" One moment, the universe was exploding around her. Now… nothing?" Andrea looks around, checking her readouts, checking everying. "Flight, Hosedown. Anyone there?" She gives her stick a jiggle and the Viper responds. What the hell is going on?
And there is a reply to Andrea over the wireless. Clear and free of static, a man's voice. "Hosedown. Do you know God, Hosedown?" The Viper responds perfectly to her controls. It's space around her that's behaving strangely. For in the blink of an eye she's not in space anymore, but flying in atmosphere. There was no appearance of a planet on her instruments. It was just suddenly around her, blue skies and white cloud banks, which she's now breaking down through, into the planet itself. Still high above the ground, but breaking toward a decent view of the surface.
"What the…" Andrea pulls up on the throttle, and settles her Viper to about five hundred meters abover the ground, watching for any kind of recognizable features. "Who… who are… wait." A memory. She's heard that question before. "What in Hades is going on, here? Who are you?"
There's nothing particularly recognizable about the planet as it breaks into view through the clouds. She's flown into a region of low hills. Not quite large enough to be called mountains. The landscape is rich and heavily forested, water running in blue, billowing waterfalls off the tree-covered hills and into a river in the valley below. It's kind of pretty, really. "Do you want to go home, Hosedown?" That voice over the comms asks again.
"Home?" Andrea asks, confused. "What do you mean? Aerilon? The Cerberus? Who ARE you?" Almost instinctively she flies lower, so that her Viper skims over the river as she follows its course. They were never allowed to do that, normally.
This most definitely isn't Aerilon. No part of it Andrea's familiar with, anyway. Her Viper now does *not* respond so perfectly to her commands. Its course is zeroed in on that waterfall, heading toward it with far more than the speed of sound. The voice is probably familiar to Andrea. A man's voice, with the scratch of an older soul. She's heard it before, in another dream long ago, above Tauron. "Ever been to Lampridis Falls, Hosedown? Pretty place. Got to get there early, though. Might lose your chance if you're late."
"Lampridis…" Andrea starts, frowning as she struggles with the controls, trying to pull up. Damn, not now! "Wait… Lampridis Falls… the last dream…" Where is everyone else? There were others here, before. They shared the dream. "Where are the others? Who are you! Are you a Cylon?" Am I? She can't make herself voice the question.
Andrea keeps rushing, headlong on, toward the falls. And suddenly the water is not juts flowing down over the rocks anymore. It is pouring in a torrent, as if to drown the whole valley. To drown the world. "Do you know God?" The question is repeated over the comms, but those are the only further words Andrea receives. As her Viper careens toward it, the water seems to take on a shape. Twining, snaking. The fall becomes the image of a serpent. And she's headed right toward it.
"NO!" Andrea shouts. "I DON'T know God. Never met him, not entirely sure I want to. I don't know who you are or what you want, but…" as the Serpent forms, she snarls. The snake. Always, the damned snake. Grimacing, she pulls her triggers, unleashing every weapon her Viper has. Damn the Serpent.
Rushing, rushing onward. The falls, the valley, are swallowed in the flood of the serpent. And Andrea's Viper crashes toward them. Its nose hits the water, body hits the rocks, there's a flash of light…
And there's pain then, oh yes. But not the feeling of drowning. The pain is of reality this time and, when your eyes open, you're in the recovery ward on Cerberus again. The chronometer on the wall reads 17:36 hours. And it ticks, in its very mundane way, toward 18:00.