The Park, Sunday afternoon

[fh_test]

In all her years here, Zoe had asked people to do some pretty dangerous things in the name of protecting the town. This... well, there was certainly some danger involved, but the idea was so utterly insane that she was having a difficult time keeping a straight face.

The message about recruiting people with ships had been cut off on the radio yesterday, so she'd spent the time between dodging sharks and hurricane debris getting in touch with people she believed might be helpful in this (admittedly insane) mission.

She looked at the people assembled before her and tried to keep a straight face. "Some very smart people have been looking into a way to slow down the hurricane, in the hope that this will lessen the damage the sharks are doing. They've come up with a plan to... well, we're going to try to kill two birds with one stone, except there's sharks instead of birds." She put her hand over her mouth to try to keep from laughing because seriously, what the hell were they doing? "There's apparently some science that says cold things will slow down a hurricane, so the plan is to take the frozen sharks, fly them up above the hurricane, and drop them into the storm to slow it down."

Zoe bent over a little, her shoulders shaking as she lost her composure for a moment. She was so, so sorry about this, you guys.

"All right, if we're going to do this, we need people with ships that can fly, and people willing to help with the shark drops. Flying over a hurricane certainly isn't the safest idea, but this is what we've got."

	Look, on paper or even just put into words at all, this plan was way out there. Preposterous. Unbelievable. Laughable, even. This was the kind of thing no reasonable and rational person would ever take seriously. That was all the reason Peebee needed to be convinced to sign up. So one day she could look someone dead in the eye and tell them she'd once helped save an entire town by flinging frozen sharks into a hurricane. (It was probably going to be Suvi, and it would probably set off a debate that absolutely no one else on the Tempest wanted to get roped into which meant they all, inevitably, would.) She was bouncing on her toes, looking far too pleased at this whole plan.
	Kitty had done a lot of weird stuff here, thanks to a lot of weird situations, and this had to be right up there very near the top. If not right at it. Basically, of course she was here. Her life was ridiculous.
	"I want to state for the record that this is ridiculous and we're all going to get ourselves shipwrecked," Kanan announced, frowning as he tried to wipe some shark guts out of his shirt. "I'm in." What? He had been kind of raised to do the crazy, stupid poodoo. And he had a ship.
	"It's going to be fantastic," Ino bubbled, beaming at the man. "We're all going to die." Ino would be disappointed if she died. But she'd also be disappointed if she didn't come close to it.
	"We're trying to stop a massive storm with frozen fish," Kanan said, shaking his head and laughing. "There's a lot about that to unpack, even if we ignore the fact that if we manage to hold out against the sharks, it'll just pass us by and dissipate over the mainland eventually." This was not stopping him from planning to get involved, of course. Possibly because Baltimore was significantly less prepared to deal with falling carnivores than fandom was.
	"Yes, but then we'd be out of a lot of good fun," Ino said reasonably. "And who wants that?" Not her!
	"Boring people," Kanan decided. And then smirked a little more. "Or possibly the sane." Where was the fun in that, indeed.
	And who wants to be ordinary in this crazy mixed-up world? "What a drag! I ain't going out in some sensible way, if I gotta go out. This is way better."
	"Stupid and absurd?" Kanan laughed and shook his head. "I spent eight years trying to avoid things like this, and I was terrible at it every time. Might as well lean into it."
	"There comes a point where there's no point in denying the inevitable." Ino agreed, rocking back on her feet.
	"And the inevitable, apparently, is throwing dead fish at storms." That would never stop sounding absurd when it came out of his mouth.
	Aphra was there... for Science. She wondered why she had the urge to jauntily flip down her goggles after thinking that.
	"Once this is done I'm getting a meteorology degree to know just how ridiculous this all is," Tony said cheerfully. Also it might be fun.
	Magnus was waiting a little impatiently for everyone to arrive because he didn't know initiative order The full plan. But he liked the concept so far.
	This was absolutely the most ridiculous plan Ino had heard in a long, long time. She loved it. Easy chaos, easy violence, and being a hero while having a blast? Ino was totally down with that. Her long, long hair was braided up tightly today and she was grinning. This was so stupid. It was perfect.