milliways_bar | (no subject)

Out of Milliways:

Back in February, Shephard took his good buddy Bumi to his world. Bumi got to meet Shephard's pants-on-head crazy ship, visit the biggest wine cellar still remaining in the world, see the Amazon rainforest, and eventually spend some time on an admittedly occasionally Xen-critter-plagued Brazilian beach.

You know. When he wasn't being threatened by Scandinavia's answer to Robinson Crusoe, or investigating reindeer stampedes.

Anyway, that was in February and Shephard's been into the Bar since then a couple of times, but you know how the door gets, so the Shephard you're seeing today is fresh from that Brazilian beach, and so is Bumi. The next time he comes in, he'll be back in his proper time sequence and all will be well. For now he's tanned and pleased with himself and not really being careful about wearing a glove over his metal hand, because it was a good mission, and he's paying for all Bumi's drinks for the same reason, so feel free to stop by and say hi while they're both here and in a good mood.

[OOC: two pups, two muns, tag either or both; it's out of sequence but Shephard will remember this the next time he's in, along with all his other posts since February. Bumi tags will go to slowtime very shortly, fair warning.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A similarly time-displaced Alyx Vance smirks at Shephard over her beer.

"Doing some Arctic Circle sunbathing, Sergeant-Major?"

"Recovering from same, ma'am," corrects Shephard in a completely unrepentant tone. "I accomplished the mission in spite of my primary vessel bein' an icebreaker with a pathological fuckin' fear of icy environments and I got Corporal Maripyaipok's people fixed up with a bunch more seeds suited to their environment 'stead of ours. I reckon that counts for somethin'."

"Admit it. You planned this whole trip because you wanted an excuse to go on vacation, didn't you?"

"I will confess, the thought of a high Arctic huntin' trip did cross my mind a time or two durin' the planning stages," Shephard allows. "You ain't gon' git me to admit to more'n that, though."

"If you say so."

She takes another sip of beer.

"I take it you ain't seen what else we brought back from Svalbard yet, huh?" says Shephard.

"Considering this is the first time I've heard from you since you left Greenbrier, no, I haven't."

"Shit. I told the folks in Rowlesburg to radio you when I dropped the seeds off'n picked up Mari," says Shephard. "Guess I'm gonna have to break a couple noses."

He resettles himself in his seat.

"Turns out when the Combine hit Svalbard they didn't have a whole lot of use for the place. Ain't nothin' industrial up there they needed, so they just swept the island one end to the other'n killed all the humans they could find, scuppered the ships'n planes, then left. Guess they reckoned they had better shit to do with their munitions than blow up the buildings."

"All the humans they could find," echoes Alyx. "So there were survivors?"

Shephard nods. "Six of 'em," he says. "Folks who were workin' in the seed vault when the Combine hit. Said there used t'be two more, but the others tried makin' their own boats some years back and they ain't seen 'em since. Don't git me wrong, there's other places on the island used to have a fair few people, but those folks've been stuck on that godforsaken rock near eighteen years now. They ain't found nobody else there the whole time."

Alyx lets out a low whistle. "How'd they handle being rescued?"

"First one we ran into spent near twenty minutes screamin' at us in Finnish," Shephard says. "Did a whole lot of knife-wavin', too. Can't say I blame him. Eighteen years stuck with the same five assholes and a fuckload of polar bears is a real fine way to lose track of your manners."

Edited 2014-04-26 00:26 (UTC)

"Oh, Jesus. The polar bears survived??"

"So'd the reindeer," Shephard says. "And a couple dozen sled dogs. 'Parently not everybody up there relied on gasoline to git around, and they didn't neuter their dogs, neither."

"I guess that's good to..." Alyx trails off. "Shephard? What were they using for food?"

"Reindeer's red meat," says Shephard. "And they broke out Vault seeds from Norway'n Russia, planted enough to keep themselves goin'. That Finn? Fucker was a botanist."

"Ohhh, okay," says Alyx, visibly relieved. "For a second there, I thought, y'know, the dogs..."

"Yeah, I didn't ask 'em too much about that," Shephard admits. "If they did, I didn't want to know."

He's well aware of the role dog often played in northern people's diets. He just didn't want it confirmed.

"There was somethin' else up there the Combine missed, though."

"And that would be...?"

"Restaurant called Huset," Shephard says. "Turns out before the Combine showed up, Longyearbyen had damn near the largest wine cellar in Europe. I ain't sayin' the folks we rescued didn't make a dent or two in it, but the fuckin' thing had twenty thousand bottles of wine in storage at the time of the Seven Hours War, and ain't nobody up there died of cirrhosis of the liver."

"Now that is some impressive salvage," says Alyx. "Good work, Shephard."

Shephard grins. "Left a fair bit of what we got in Rowlesburg when we offloaded their seeds'n picked up Mari," he says, "but there's plenty ready for shipment back to Greenbrier. I reckon we earned it."

"So what about the survivors? Are they coming to the Greenbrier or staying in Rowlesburg or striking out on their own?"

"The Finn's stayin' in Brazil," Shephard says. "Told him we could use a botanist and we'd treat him right, but he wants to be as far the fuck away from snow country as he can for a while. Can't say I blame him. The others ain't made up their minds yet. They're in Rowlesburg for now, iffen you want to meet any of 'em. Fair warning, the fella from Iceland's an engineer but he's fuckin' off his rocker."

"I used to know a Russian Orthodox preacher who made zombie traps out of old motorcycle parts. I think I can handle this guy."

"Fair 'nough. Name's Dagur Einarsson," Shephard says. "Don't try askin' him 'bout his snow goggles, he won't take 'em off for love nor money no matter where he is. Speaks fair English, but we got a translator if he runs into problems with the language."

"I should at least make an appearance. I am technically the leader of the free world right now," says Alyx. "I'll see how soon I can arrange for a visit."

"I'll let momma know to git ready for you, ma'am."