The Park, Sunday afternoon

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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.

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	You know, if it wasn't for the weather, both meteorological and zoological, complicating this whole process at the moment, Kanan would probably be a whole lot more concerned about things like 'the Escape is going to smell like fish for weeks,' and 'I hope there are no stray bags of spice in the cargo hold that I haven't noticed in years.' But since the situation was at least slightly more dire than that, he was actually staying focused, pegging off the odd falling shark with his blaster while prepping his ship for her unconventional cargo. "It's gonna be a tight squeeze in here, especially once we're loaded up," he cautioned, "but anything we can't fit into the cargo hold, we can drag up underneath, if anyone has, uh, rope or something." And if they were crazy enough to step outside in order to cut that rope while Kanan's little fighter was hovering over a hurricane. He actually almost missed the Expedient just then. At least that ship had been a proper freighter.
	"Okay," Kitty said, looking around, "I'm going to be really glad I can phase and make some more room. You know. For sharks. Inside the ship." God, how was this her day.
	Peebee was using her biotics to fend off the occasional shark, usually by throwing up a barrier for them to bounce off of, though she wasn't above trying to yank two of them into each other just to see if they'd ricochet off in different directions. You know, just for the fun of it. "Bet you didn't wake up on Monday expecting to have that sentence come out of your mouth, huh?" she asked cheerfully. To Kanan she added, "I can cram into a corner pretty well, don't worry. I don't need a whole lot of room. In fact it'd probably still be more comfortable than the second leg of my trip here . . ."
	"Well, good," Kanan replied, giving Peebee a little grin. "Then we can stuff you in the cargo bay when the time comes to lose the fish." Well, it wouldn't be him. He was going to be piloting the ship. He leaned his head toward Kitty to call in her direction, not taking his eye off the not frozen sharks, "And hey, this is probably only the third or fourth most stupid thing I've ever done in my lifetime, so it can't be that bad. What's phasing and is it going to hurt my ship?" If you ever wanted to see a grown man cry, hurt his ship.
	"I can pass through solid matter," Kitty explained. "As long as I don't phase through the controls the ship'll be fine." See, she'd even make sure she was the farthest from the controls if it'd make him feel better.
	It really, really would. The Escape was his first ship. His baby. His Master probably would've scolded him for being so attached, but really, she was dead now, so that was kind of a non-issue. "Huh. That's a handy trick for stuff like this," Kanan decided, tilting his head a little. "Okay, then you do your phasing thing. Is there anything you need to make that easier, or should I just keep shooting sharks?"
	"Nope! Just keep shooting sharks." She sighed. "Today is ridiculous."
	"And by that you mean awesome, right? Because it's totally awesome." A blue glow enveloped the shark plummeting down toward the Escape, connected by a fine 'thread' of sorts to the corresponding glow coalescing around Peebee's fist. The shark seemed to just stop falling, like it suddenly weighed a lot less, and Peebee gestured like she was giving a rope a good hard tug. The shark went spiraling away overhead, for the moment a perfect target for anyone who wanted to take a shot at it. "Ha! In your face, gravity!"
	"Huh," Kanan said, taking a shot at the shark while it was still within range. "Looks like everyone has some neat tricks around here." This wasn't going to get him to start flinging fish around with the Force, mind, unless it absolutely came to that. But for the time being it was still kind of nice to see people just casually using powers this way.
	"Yes, Chopper, I know it's windy out," Hera said. "Just check those connections! I need to make sure they're good before you head off." *irritated and slightly worried bleeps* Hera smiled. "Don't worry, just help Zoe out. I'm sure you'll do great." He wheeled off, and she muttered after him, "Then we can clean out both cargo bays for the next week."
	"I promise, I'll help clean up," Zoe offered with a smile. "It's the least I can do in return for you letting me use your ship."
	Hera smiled. "That's okay; it's probably had worse. They shouldn't smell much if they're frozen. And don't worry about Chopper - he's touchy, but he's very good at his job, and he was pretty much designed to be a copilot."
	"I've had much worse copilots, believe me," Zoe said. "Chopper seems like he might at least listen to reason."
	"Mostly, yeah," Hera admitted. "If nothing else, he's got a good self-preservation instinct, and he hates being in crashing ships."
	"The only thing that's going to be crashing is the sharks," Zoe said, before sighing. "I still can't believe this is our plan. I can't believe so many of you agreed to help either, to be honest."
	Hera shrugged. "I've flown through worse in much worse ships; at least no-one's shooting at us. If this stands a chance of helping, I'm in."
	Aphra took pot shots at sharks with her blaster. "You know, this would go a lot faster if we had some kind of freeze ray," she said, because there was no way putting that idea out into the world could go wrong. "Skip the middle man."
	Oh, hey! That was a fantastic idea! "How 'bout magic instead?" Ino said brightly. "That, I can do!" Blizzard wasn't her usual choice of magic (Ino favoured Thunder) but that didn't mean she hadn't kept some materia of it around. Blizzaga wasn't as exciting, but as ice exploded out to freeze the sharks around Ino, it was... rather satisfying all the same. "Frozen sharks, coming up!"
	"I dont want to be that guy." He was that guy. "But are we sure the sharks aren't innocent in this?" That was followed by ducking and slicing a shark in half as it attempted to bite him. "Nevermind! Game on!"