[Cirrus Station, 4:59 AM, the morning of Episode 9: The Silver Lining]
The rooms of the barracks that housed the station's day shift security were enveloped in a thick darkness typical of the early morning. Most were silent, save for an occasional snoring occupant, or perhaps the rattling of a loose fan blade in the ceiling. In one, a clock shone vigilantly to no one in particular, nearing what was to it the only interesting part of the day. A flick of a circuit and its digits changed in unison to read 5:00, and a piercing beeping began to flood the room, on the lowest volume but singularly loud all the same in this quiet.

The clock scarcely had time to start its second report before a light-skinned hand bolted from the neighboring bed to silence it before any of the other sleepers were disturbed. Nevertheless, a dozy voice sounded from the bunk below, "Do you have to use that thing, Dan?"

Somewhat dejected at the failure, Daniel Clifton dropped down from his top bunk and landed almost silently. "Sorry, Vince..." he said, leaning in to make as little noise as possible. "I could swear I was getting faster at that." He then crept over to his trunk get his things.

His bunkmate grunted into his pillow. "The speed isn't the problem, it's the fact that you're blasting an alarm clock at 5 in the damn morning."

"Well, you can sleep as late as you like, but I have things to do," came the reply.

Vince rolled his eyes in frustration. Daniel was still dancing around the issue. "Look, could you not maybe use an earbud alarm, or do it with your implant? You stick clocks in every other thing you find lying around, I don't see why that would be so hard..."

Daniel paused tying his shoes to look up at the ceiling for a moment, considering the thought. That actually wasn't a bad idea. "Maybe," he said, returning to his shoes. He considered the knot for a second and started to undo and retie it.

"You have fun with your 'important business', Dan," Vince said with a yawn as Daniel started towards the door.
"Later, Vince," Daniel replied, slightly annoyed, as he exited the room.

[Cirrus Station, 5:37 AM, the morning of Episode 9: The Silver Lining]

Daniel left the closet where he had spent the last half hour meditating, shutting the door as quietly as he could manage. The click of the handle was barely audible, but still warranted a cringe on Daniel's part for fear of alerting some unaware passerby.

He probably didn't need to be so cautious. The janitor of the closet in question surely must have figured out by now that Daniel had been coming there every morning for the past several weeks. And if he knew, he clearly didn't mind Daniel being there (the fact that he had taken to neatly organizing all the cleaning solvents every morning probably didn't hurt either).

However, Daniel was still pretty sure that he wasn't technically supposed to be there and that someone in management would mind even if the janitor didn't, so he was resolved to keep his presence as low-key as possible. He'd had at least five or six close encounters with other janitors and their closets since his arrival on the station, and he was determined not to mess this one up.

Mentally chiding himself for the noise, Daniel started off down the hall in the general direction of the barracks, where hopefully his squadmates would be awake by now for breakfast.

--------

Fifteen minutes and a few absent-minded wrong turns later, Daniel arrived at the barracks to find most of the occupants still asleep. There were a few empty beds of early risers getting a jump on the shower lines or taking morning jogs, but the room remained nearly as dark and silent as Daniel had left it. Having nothing else to do, Daniel climbed back up and sat cross-legged on his top bunk, then pulled out his DataJockey for a quick game of Pacem.

After a while, the passage of time slipped from Daniel's consciousness. Before long, most of the sleepers had roused themselves and were engaged in varying degrees of morning activity. The morning people sat around in small groups chatting quietly or playing card games, while others lounged sleepily on their bunks with their uniforms half on, waiting for their coffee to brew.

Eventually Daniel glanced around and saw his squad beginning to gather around one of the vending machines, at which point he pocketed his DataJockey to the tune of Game Over music and hopped down to join them.

"Hey, Dan," greeted Nett, a tall, brown-skinned man who served as the squad's first-aid officer. A few of the others chimed in their own brief greetings as they took note of Daniel's arrival.

"Morning, all," Daniel replied, followed by a brief "Excuse me." as he cut around to the vending machine. "Sleep well?" he asked as he punched a few buttons on the machine and gave it a good whack to make it dispense properly.

"Like a rock," said Phillip, a lanky guy with half a face of cybernetics. "Boss had us carting around these big cooling units all day yesterday, I'm gonna be sore for weeks."
"Come on, that was nothing," replied Gremel, a short, stocky man with half a face of tattoos. "You weren't here the time they made us move an entire bank of power cells to the other side of the station for the physics geeks."
"Gremel, how do you know if it was worse or not, you got muscle implants since then," Nett said with a chuckle.
This was responded with a credulous look and, "You're one to talk, doc. I'm sure you get plenty of heavy lifting up there in the sick bay."
"You know damn well I carried at least five more cells than you did that time, inkface," Nett retorted in his usual manner of good-natured insults.

--------

The banter continued for a while as they each sipped at their oddly-flavored protein drinks. The room became louder and more busy as more people got up and about, and the group eventually was forced away from the vending machine by the crowd. Having nowhere better to go, they began to amble back to their bunks.

As they started to leave, Daniel felt his DataJockey vibrate briefly. Pulling it out to check it, he found a message from his friend in the room next door. A brief moment of interest was cut short as he opened it and found nothing but another one of those joke pictures that had been circulating the station lately. Those CS guys get all that time in the labs and this is how they spend it? he lamented.

Dismissing the waste with a sigh and rolled eyes, Daniel looked up to find the others sitting on their beds across the room. A double take revealed Gremel, in all his not-too-cleanly splendor, slouched on Daniel's bunk.

"Gremel, I didn't invite you up there," Daniel said with annoyance.

"I know," the short man replied dismissively, his mouth half full of protein bar. "I've always wanted to see the room from up here. You can have my bed."

Daniel thought of protesting, but decided to let it go. There'll be enough to worry about later today, he thought as he sat down on Gremel's bunk two beds below his own.

"Anyone get a look at the planet yet?" he asked to distract himself from the impulse to keep Gremel's sweat off his mattress. "I haven't had a chance to get to a window since we docked."

"I caught a glimpse a few days ago when I was down by the South hangar," replied Philip from across the aisle. "All the lights are pretty impressive on the dark side, but I couldn't tell you what the surface looks like. Anyone else?"

"I've been in the interior since we got here," said Nett, followed various "Me too"s from the others.

"I was just wondering," Daniel said as he worked one of his temple implants into place. "I've heard it looks really nice this time of--"

He was cut off by a rummaging sound from above him. "Gremel, what are you-"

"Why do you have all this junk up here, Dan? I don't even know what half this stuff is, let alone-"

Gremel's intrusive musing was cut short. Daniel could tolerate many things...well, usually...but people digging in his things was not one of them. "Okay, that's it!" he snapped. He leaped out of Gremel's bed, hitting his head on the bed above him and prompting a muffled grunt of irritation from Vince, still in bed, followed by a second more pronounced one as Daniel clambered up to the top bunk, stepping on Vince in the process.

"What makes you think you can climb up here on a whim and start digging around in my stuff?!" Daniel shouted, his accent becoming more pronounced in his anger. "Look at this, you've gone and mixed everything up, I had this organized! I - no, give me that. That's not - NO, that's not where that was! You can't - just put it down, I'll fix it, just put it down!" All the while Gremel was hastily tossing all the miscellaneous pieces of electronics he had pulled out of Daniel's various boxes of parts. He hadn't made a huge mess, but it was more than Daniel was willing to tolerate. After putting everything back the way it was, he said in a slightly calmer tone, "There, now go, you've seen the view, get back to your own bed. I don't move your things around just whenever I feel like it..."

"The hell you don't," Gremel muttered as he climbed back down to the sound of another yelp from Vince. "Every other day I come back here and my socks are in color order."

"Yeah, but that's not...that's dif-...never mind, I'm just gonna go for a walk, I'll catch up with you guys later." he stuttered before slipping down to the floor. As he walked to the door he heard Gremel mutter something like "Kid's got a probe up his ass or something..."

--------

The hall air was much cooler than the stuffy barracks. It did a good bit to clear Daniel's head. He and Gremel would forgive each other -- this wasn't the first time they'd argued like that. He just needed to get out and move around some. Maybe he'd have time to find a window before work and see the planet.

Elsewhere, in one of the docking bays lining the Central Station of Cirrus...

As Cirrus station drifted above Fortuna's orbit, the loading bays were abound with movement. Docking near a planet was always a very busy time for the research station; during this time it was not unusual to see many, many kinds of ships leave to and from the Cirrus. The station needed things; food and water to replenish comestible stocks, raw materials for the endless projects, or simply fuel for the station's positional thrusters and personal vessels. One particular dock, near the middle of Central Station, had been devoted to the departure and arrival of personnel, those leaving for business or pleasure on Fortuna's surface as well as new arrivals on the Cirrus.

A single shuttlecraft began to make its slow descent onto one of the many landing platforms as it cleared through the widened bay doors. The marks of identification strewn across the craft made it easily recognizable as an official military transport, the SMoDIN emblem emblazoned on the side, along with a number of identification marks for visual verification. This shuttle was not uncommon; Cirrus Station had a close relationship with Nepleslian Arms and Munitions, which was for the better part an indistinguishable part of Nepleslia's military structure. Soldiers were often called to the Cirrus to take simple security positions often; most of the Weapons Development Labs were almost exclusively NAM or military in origin.

When the shuttle touched down, it rested out for a few minutes as clearance transferred from the command post to the pilot. After that time had passed, the doors to the shuttle opened, an extending walkway jutting out from beneath the opening maw of the craft to let its cargo of men and women pass onto the Cirrus Station... after passing through the Customs booth, of course.

Cable efficiently situated the straps on his gear and unceremoniously took his seat on the shuttle. He spared a quick glance at the other passengers...mostly civilian and some military personel. Normally, he would sit and watch everyone else around him and try to predict their actions, deduce their character, or categorize them by level of interest; a kind of game he and his father used to play. Not today. He had been awake over 38 hours, preparing his gear, contacting his family, and mercilessly second guessing himself. He was mentally exhausted. He leaned his head back into the seat and closed his eyes.

His mind swam with uncertainty. He struggled to calm the rolling waves of doubt. Did he make the right choice in joining the Marines? Would his mother and sisters be alright? Would he have been better off following his fathers or mothers career paths? Most pressing of all at the moment...had he make the right choice of duty station?

He had graduated Basic in the top 5% in academics, physical conditioning, and skill proficiency...which meant he could pick his duty station. Most of his friends in his training company had never even heard of Cirrus Station and those that had only knew what they had heard on the news vids. His superiors had actually laughed uat first reading of his choice, they thought he was trying to be "cheeky". Once they realized he was serious, they...well,they were stunned to say the least.

His reasons for choosing Cirrus were sound:

1. Undeniably the most important research facility in recent scientific history.

2. High "visibility" to the public, which ensures notoriety to some extent.

3. Fewer military personel, which meant less competition for advancement and getting lost in the "herd".

And most importantly...

4. After researching Cirrus Station, watching all the news reels, vid chips and Government reports, he had decide that this was the place to go after his dreams...either of them. It could serve him well in a military career or could supply him with contacts if he decided to go "civilian" down the road. Regaurdless, to himit seemed it would be a good location to show his skills and grow as a Marine.

Only after his request for Cirrus Station was approved and in the works, did he hear a disturbing rumor. Cirrus Station was known as a place to send misfits, malcontents, and in general...sub-par soldiers. Well...if that is the case then he should be able to rise to the top rather easily he thought. Then his mind shifted gears and took the path of pre-sleep...random pictures and thoughts, then unconciousness.

Cables mind jumped awake...took a few seconds to re-orient itself, then he slowly opened his eyes as the shuttle came to rest at Cirrus Station with a slight "thump"...more felt than heard.

[Cirrus Station, 0545 hours, the morning of Episode 9: The Silver Lining]

A timer went off in the Freespacer shrine, the bell of an ancient-style alarm clock ringing incessantly for three-thousand-fifteen milliseconds before a mechanical limb stilled the clapper. The owner of the arm stretched each of four limbs, then each of seven supplemental limbs before getting up from the cardboard box with a subtle tremor from its servos.

The mouse-sized boxbot skittered toward the massive door of the Freespacer shrine, where it waited patiently for five hundred seconds, if patience could be attributed to a machine.

After the three minutes had passed and no one had entered the shrine, the robot tapped the number two limb tip against the floor. Someone was late. A shining lens swiveled over to peer at Flower, making sure that the larger, industrial-grade Junker was still in sleep-mode before the robot clambered up a particularly tall pile of scrap to a vent opening. Padded limbs scuffled through the vent spaces. The robot easily avoided any detection systems as it headed toward the barracks that housed Squad 35.

---

The neko woke up her usual way: In a panic.

Where am I?

Who are these people?

What--

*ping*

WHAT WAS THAT?!

The electronic ping persisted, presenting a code that she slowly realized was of her own idiosyncratic design, but she didn't remember creating it.

In fact...she didn't remember anything before waking up. That sent her into a new fear state, shoving herself as far into the back corner of her third-level bunk as she could. After no one investigated, though, she made a tentative connection to whatever was pinging her.

More code, again, her own encryption. She didn't know the key, but it just felt familiar. After poking at it a few seconds, the neko began deciphering the contents.

A while later, after finishing the introduction file, Tweak finally knew what she was accessing. She found her name, her location, her status and role at that location...and that she had apparently fallen asleep immediately after the upload of the previous day's memory files to this external memory unit completed (it had been a long day). A connection cable ran from the back of her neck, down her back, wrapped around her torso a couple of times, and then tangled itself around one of her arms. Also apparently, she was an active sleeper. But at least now she knew what was going on.

Sort of.

*tap*

*taptaptap*

The neko frowned, her ears twitching underneath the knit hat that had remained on her head through the night. They ached something annoyingly fierce, now that her attention was on them, but the tapping pulled her back to wondering what that was and where it was coming from. It was not a loud tap, almost sub-sonic. Glancing around the barracks, Tweak noticed that no one else seemed to be hearing it. Untangling herself from the cable, then checking her state of dress (slightly large gray t-shirt, necklace with crystalline tags under that shirt, long cargo shorts with harness for the memory unit, knit hat that covered her ears: check, check, checkity-check check...) and grabbing the aviator jacket crumpled up near her pillow, Tweak dropped to the floor without a sound and, donning a pair of boots she found down there to cover her bare feet, she left the barracks. The tapping followed her, she could hear it in the ceiling. The sound was still barely audible to her over the ambient sound of the station, no one she passed in the corridor seemed to hear it.

That was another thing: Despite her state of dress, only a couple people here and there seemed to give her more than a moment's glance. It was like most of them recognized her. The idea made Tweak want to curl up inside her coat and hide, but she continued walking.

Oddly enough, the tapping sounded like it was trying to lead her somewhere. Searching for, then finding a map in the external memory unit, Tweak noticed they were heading toward something labeled as a "Freespacer Shrine". While she walked, she researched a few more details of what she knew so far. Where she was, what she did, why she was here, who she knew...

Reaching the shrine, the tapping had vanished momentarily only to appear on the other side of the large armory doors. Tweak gave the doors a curious frown, then opened them. A flurry of multi-colored metal tackled her, nearly knocking the disguised neko off her feet.

After an initial panic, Tweak realized it wasn't trying to injure her, and in fact was happy to see her. The air was alight in multi-colored volumetric shapes and designs around it -- the little robot had projectors, it seemed -- and the mechanical whining noise was modulated to give the impression of excitement. No speakers or vocal processors, then...

"Tweak!"

Tweak's eyes went wide and she stared at the robot. Its "eye" lens jiggled up and down rapidly, then it moved the secondary limbs around its body very precisely...

"Tweak!"

"You...you can talk, but you're not talking..." Tweak murmured in amazement, kneeling down next to the bot. "Okay-okay-okay...my name is close enough to a squeak that I can understand how you can do that...w-w-wow, that is so cute! Can you say anything else? How are you doing that?"

The bot's lens focused straight ahead, then the secondary limbs began making micro-movements, the servos and joints sometimes barely budging, other times moving faster than a human eye could track to produce sounds.

"Tw-ee!-k...issss...'aah-p-p-p-EEEE!..."

It was stuttering, but there. Tweak's jaw dropped.

"You have no idea..."

Adrian Decane woke up slowly from his extended nap as the shuttles doors opened. He inhaled deeply and grumbled profanity, looking around the small vessel with a special kind of hate in his eyes, the same look he had given half the Imperium on his very long trip from the Nepleslian Core.

His former superiors had decided that one very unique form of degradation for the Staff Sergeant would be to send him on a route to the Fortuna System that would require a stop and layover in almost every settled system in Nepleslian space. In fact, Fortuna was the 8th planet he'd seen since leaving Delsauria, and the 3-hour stop on the spaceport of its planet was probably the shortest he'd had to endure.

The tall, furious marine reached into his standard issue bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and discovered to his immense displeasure it was empty. In fact, the entire carton he'd brought with him was empty. So, of course, more profane exclamations as he slung his bag and staggered out of the spacecraft and onto the walkway towards the Customs booth.

After a little bit of experimenting with the odd means of communication devised by the cute little robot (encorporating a surprising range of modulations while keeping the means of creating the sounds restricted to the secondary limbs, enabling it to retain its ability to move with near-silence), the Freespacer-adopted neko checked her assignment schedule before holing up in the shrine. Today was a day off, with a trip to the surface of Fortuna planned for her squad later that afternoon, at least a half-dozen hours from then. Plenty of time for tinkering with new things for the little bot that apparently was hers. According to her memory unit notes, the little thing wasn't exactly authorized and Tweak needed to keep it within the Shrine.

The robot watched Tweak work for a while before entertaining itself by pestering Flower. When the Junker didn't respond, though, the smaller automaton gave up and returned to its creator. Tweak was still busy with some soldering and not paying attention to it, so the robot slipped out of the shrine to look for someone else to interact with, using its volumetric emitters, small size, and the maps of the security camera arrangements given to it by Tweak to sneak by the cameras and employees of Cirrus Research Station. As it came up on a corner, it detected some footsteps ahead and quickly moved against the wall where it froze, putting up an image of a small toolbox around itself.

As both Adrian and Cable made their way out of the shuttle along with a small group of passengers, the thinning crowd were nearly melted into the larger hustle and bustle that was happening around them. Personnel hurried back and forth across the docking bay, far too busy to take notice to the new arrivals as they left the confines of the shuttlecraft. After a moment, the group was approached by another small group, entirely comprised of young women in matching uniforms.

One by one, the group began to splinter as the ladies gathered them, wielding comforting smiles and some convincing words of wisdom. It wasn't long before Cable and Adrian were met with their own duet of lovely assistants.

One of the Cirrus Station Attendants, a slender raven-haired woman, stepped forward and addressed the two. "Adrian Decane and... Cable Davidson, correct?" She asked in a slightly stern tone. While most of the other attendants that they had seen were all smiles, this one seemed a bit more reserved. Her companion, however, was more than happy to make up for the friendly smile to no-friendly-smile equation. "Welcome to the Cirrus Research Station. We're here to take you two to your new assignment. This is Kess," the auburn-eyed woman rested a palm onto the raven-haired attendants' back, warranting little response from the stolid-faced woman. "And I am Mimi. We're the Savtech assistants for Cirrus Station Security Squad 35!"

[Cirrus Station, 7:24 AM, the morning of Episode 9: The Silver Lining]

Daniel walked down one of the station's innumerable nondescript corridors, a degree of agitation still lingering in his loping gait. His mind focused on the steady rhythm of rubber on steel tapped out by his footsteps, its regularity helping him to organize his thoughts.

His life on the station had been a huge change from his previous existence on the streets of Nepleslia's inner cities. The transition from subsistence living and sparse freelance hack jobs to the regularity and uniformity of military routine had taken considerable adjustment on Daniel's part, and he still wasn't quite used to it. Still, he much preferred this to the near anarchy of the alleyways. Having a regular schedule took a lot of stress off of him, and it was nice getting three meals a day, even if they were all weird nutrient mushes.

It occurred to Daniel as he passed an intersection that he wasn't precisely sure where he was. He had been going in what direction he thought was towards the outer wall of the station, but had only kept a vague account of the turns he made. He considered turning back, but decided to keep going. He still had time before work, and he had a map in his implants if he really got lost.

As he rounded a corner, the monotony of the hallways was momentarily broken by something he passed in the corner of his eye. Looking back, he saw a small box leaned against the wall. Figuring it had been left there by some absentminded maintenance man and guessing that they would probably want it back, he knelt down and reached out a hand to pick it up.

Adrian stopped as the group of women swirled around him, his face still twisted in an expression of discontent and minor withdrawal. "Yeah, I'm Decane," he bent to the side slightly looking towards the Custom booth through the crowds of people swirling around them, and felt hope that he wouldn't have to deal with the delay thanks to his new guides. It was a small one, but present none the less.

He gave the two women a quick once-over, and smiled slightly to himself. "So, uh, where I go?" He leaned in close, looking around conspiratorially before continuing in a whisper, "Is it true there's no smoking here? There're a lot of rumors floating around out there. You guys have some seriously fucked PR."