A few moments later, the Banning finally left the station. It began to follow its programmed course towards Kennewes and the NSS Alliance.

The NSS Banning's Jane AI system heard Tweak's comment and simply replied with a beep and materialized a console on a nearby wall. The console had public information on the ship, its systems, and the crew. All private information was left out, of course. It had everything that they probably would want to know.

The Freespacer stood still, staring intensely at Tweak for about four-five seconds and totally ignoring the Ship's response.
"...SISTER?"
Then, all of sudden, grabbed its own head and pulled it out.

It was a helmet, obviously, and it was hiding a very young, pale green, tattooed cute girl's face, crowned by a thick, long, unkempt mane of light blue hair. Her right eye was a rather conspicuous piece of cyberware, while her tattoos drew, around and over the left eye, the logo of the Free State.

Oh, and she was grinning from ear to ear like the little girl she was.

She pressed a button on her chest, and the whole suit came apart, revealing the shock of colors she was wearing underneath for a dress.

"SISTER!!!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, leaping out of her suit and into the arms of Tweak in a forceful, tackling bearhug (commonly known as "glomp") .

"Whatfleetareyoufromwhyareyouearwhydon'tyoulooklikeaFreespaceratallbutIdon'tcareatallandalsowill
youbemynewbestfriendeverTweak!Tellmewhatshouldidoijustarrivedwhatdoesthisshipdohowcanihelpout
whoelseisonboardandcanIbetheirfriendtoo?!" She machinegunned at Tweak at a rate of fire of about 200 words per minute.

Despite the ongoing girl-on-girl action before him, Lenny gazed upwards towards the ceiling of the room in a similar fashion to Tweaks. His expression was one of sincere surprise and he stared, massive jaw slightly agape as his eyes played over the roof as if watching a skittering insect dart across its expanse.

" . . . the ship can tawk?" The large ID-SOL queried as he looked around, as if he half expected the ceiling to sprout a mouth and begin chatting with him.

Across the hall, still slightly visible through the doorway and his previous plans ruined by a number of new elements, George slapped an open palm across his face an blew a long sigh from his nostrils. He remained quite content sitting against the wall across the hall, out of sight.

Stumbling backward from the unexpected glomp by the young woman, Tweak broke into a small smile despite herself, half in shock and half caught up in Dream's extreme enthusiasm.

She laughed a little and returned the larger girl's affectionate hug before attempting to answer the stream of questions.

"I was on the Viscous Chicken...I don't really know what fleet. I'm not really sure why I'm leaving, but I'm going to the NSS Alliance to work there for a while." Tweak tried to back away from the hug to see what Lenny was doing. "I just got here too, just before you did, so I don't really know much about this place then you. Maybe they know," she said, motioning to Lenny and where George was standing just out of sight beyond the doorway that Dream's suit completely blocked.

Like some sort of relentless automation fueled by enthusiasm and running on A.D.H.D as if it were an operating system, Dream spun around and grabbed Lenny's huge hand almost by force, shaking it vigorously, and then waving in George's general direction.

"Pleased to meetcha! I'm Druidess Dream Zero Zero Zero Zero One Eight Two Four Seven Five, from the Free State! I'll be staying in your care for a while on this ship! Actually I should've been assigned to the Cirrus research station, but it's not operational yet, so I whined and whined until they agreed to let me on another ship, and here I am!"

Her cybernetic eye "blinked" with a weak wizzing sound, as if sliding the large ID-SOL into focus. A green-colored filter passed on the eye, then a blue-colored one. It flashed a bit with some screens of text.
"...oh." she released her hand. "Um, I'm sorry, I had totally forgotten about that. Well, I hope you're taking anti-radiation chems. Don't worry too much, though, it's just 20 millisieverts per hour... about seventysomething hours before it becomes a lethal dose."
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she stared at her empty suit. "Ah, but there's the 30 millisieverts per hour from the Voidwalker suit's Radioisotope Generator, yeah. And then there's the Radon gas that was in there. Wounder how many millisieverts per hour does that produce? Ah, not too much, I'm sure."
She smiled. A bright, happy smile. A creepy smile, considering what she had just said.

"So, hello, Bannings! How can I help you? Maybe I should meet your resident priest or priestess first?"

The NSS Banning's AI system replied in a monotonous female voice from a nearby speaker, "Error: Term 'Resident Priest/Priestess' not found in databanks. Please redefine your question." The AI's databanks did not contain information on the Free State, just a little info about the Freespacers themselves that Valen had managed to discover and put in. More explanation and accurate terms were required.

Dream stared at the screen. "What? No priestess? That's no good, Banny!" She said, patting on the wall-mounted console as if it were a kid in need of comfort. "Ok, I got it! Don't worry, Banny! For the time being, I'll be your priestess! I promise I'll take good care of your machine spirit, ok?"

Then she looked around herself, surprised, looking for something that, apparently, wasn't there. "What? You don't have a neural interface system? Oh, well, it can wait."

She stared for a moment at her suit, and, with a whizzing, clicking noise, it turned off, or at least gave that feeling. Then, she grabbed Tweak's hand, and pulled her towards the corridor.
"Come on now! Let's go! You have to introduce me to everyone else on this ship!"

"But...I don't know anyone on this ship!" Tweak protested, her smile disappearing as she was towed out of the room, barely able to snatch up her book before leaving. She stowed it in the harness on her belt while trying to keep up with her hand, which was firmly in Dream's grasp. "I just got here!"

Valen yawned at his post on the bridge. It was pretty boring right now. Captain Sebastrano noticed the yawn and barked, "If ya tired, boy, then you can go get me something from the mess!" Valen didn't prefer to be called 'boy', but he assumed that it wouldn't be a good idea to fight with a superior officer. He stood up and stretched for a bit before leaving the bridge and heading towards the mess hall. He heard voices down a little ways. They seemed to be female, but Valen couldn't make them out clearly as he approached them.

In the mess hall, Mergeo de Ray gave his oiled dark brown hair a swift brush back and took a last sip of his coffee, figuring he'd have to get back on to duty a gain soon. Not that working with the Banning's systems wasn't equally as fun, but coffee seemed to have more of a buzz, and a nicer aroma than the air in the engine room. The Nepleslian man got up to refill his cup. Hell... I'm the bloody Chief Engineer, I should look the part. Then again, I'm machine enough to pass it, even if I'm the best looking bastard on this ship!

Indeed, the cadet would pass for a rather handsome man in his early twenties, with defined musculature and sleek, yet strong, facial features. His swarthy complexion was unmarred, save a cybernetic right arm and a long scar that crossed down his left eye. Needless to say, the scarred eye held a durable electronic replacement, as he'd lost the original some time ago. The newer one was a darker shade of yellow, giving him heterochromatic eyes, though he didn't care. If anything, I think they're cool. And it's un-Nepleslian to not have a single scar, or augmentation. And it's damn Nepleslian to be handsome, and have scars. Heh.

The engineer began to walk back to his post at the engineering room, coffee mug and food in hand, and a rather smug grin on his face. He was quite content with the his post, casually flirting with the occasional female passenger and getting to work on a half-decent ship. Mergeo looked in the hall way and greeted Valen, as he passed the junior bridge crewman by.

"Yo, Valen. Coffee's fresh. So what's up?" Mergeo said, taking a bite out of a piece of dried meat and sending a half cup of coffee to chase it down.