RP: 188604 [188604] 16: The Storm

Ace looked up. "Oh so the AIs will be talking to each other. That's cool I can talk." Ace shifted his good leg into a more comfortable position. "Well to answer your questions I'm twenty one so my augments are around five years old I was one of the first to get these kind of augments they are the ones that people who don't get cybernetics and have enough money for cept I got em for free plus Aries manages them so they are always good as new and of course I give em maintenance every few months. Second I kind of didn't like Uso's approach to commerce so I took the Aether Reactors and jumped out of the ship from a couple miles up. That's about it. Anything else you want to know?"

:: Queen's Slave ::

It felt good to be in a sterile environment of a ship, even within the crowded confines along with more people and bug like sentient life forms. Errowyn showered in her cabin's bathroom enjoying the luxury of being able to do so. It was nice having the Captain's quarters and being Senior pilot. She let Daniels the Dwarf handle the ship as he was doing an excellent job of handling the crate that was the f6 Queen's Slave.

Once finished with her shower and into clean clothes. A simple ship formfitting utility jumpsuit. She left her cabin, looking like she had never been out in the storm. She moved to through the upper crew decks to the crew lounge. She was being a bit anti-social at the moment and was after food to eat.

::Missile bombardment ::

Captain of the Iceberg was true to his word. He had sent several antimatter loaded smart missile streaking to the planet. Since the explosion happened sooner than expected, missiles were reprogrammed in flight to hit the avalanche at the base of the mountain.

The Avalanche and the missiles collided in a flash of released energy. Anti-matter and matter colliding and roiling flashes of light as both matter and anti-matter vanished, leaving a vacuum of nothing. With multiple detonations of anti-matter, disrupted the flow of the storms mechanics and with the collapsing bubble of nothing, developed into a series of tornadoes. Few of them merged into a bigger one which slowly moved from it point of origin, sucking in the dust laden air. It picked up a lot of lighter stuff to great heights before releasing it rain down onto the ground.

Wizard of Oz but with cute wasps and confused toasters;

"Colony ship? Not only mushrooms???" A voltaic mumble was issued in response, through so confused over the latter point that the question marks were practically tangible. "Not is job to know, but see, Ar-cuss."

Crouching down and blocking their faceplate with their cumbersome spiked fingers, this amount of free thinking was clearly getting to the under equipped brain of the automata. Or perhaps it was actually being in the position to worry about others, that it wasn't used to? Just below the resurfacing din of airborne sand impacting on the foreign vessel's shields, a rapid clicking of old school hard drives could be heard.

"Wasps not even from here?..." A point reached a little late, but it explained a lot. "Only want help them. This planet is bad. All planets are bad. They use space suits for keeping out of... industry juice? Is then fine."

It wasn't 'poison' or 'contaminants' to something both a freespacer and a robot. It was more like every other species was just really really allergic.

"...Why them even trust Uso?... Why Ar-cuss trust Uso?..." Hands gripping their own horns now, staring into the dirt, but still crouching down to keep them at head level with the pale skinned type three. It was more than a little like sulking over the situation. "Clow-dee is confused. Clow-dee isn't trusting that Uso."

Surprise Hugs>

As Arccos spoke with Truffleclub, she'd feel a familiar set of four arms hugging her from behind: The Ee'ith ambassador from earlier, hugging her. Behind her were four I'ee engineers, presumably the same from before, if the crushed juice boxes they were nibbling on were any indication. "Hello, Miss!", the Ee'ith greeted in the usual, bubbly fashion. "Myself and these four just wanted to thank you for helping us earlier. The others also want to say that they like the automaton."
The ambassador indicated Truffleclub with a nod of her head, and the four engineers chattered in approval, one of them even bouncing up and down with excitement.

Meanwhile, 8-Ball would notice Gut-Stripe returning to him, now stripped out of her heavy armour, revealing the blood-red war paint on her body. "Greetings.", she spoke to 8-Ball, ignoring the fact that she was butting into the conversation between him and Ace. A small speaker was now visible, attached to her left mandible; a replacement for the one she had destroyed earlier. "Now that I can speak to you, I just wished to thank you for retrieving me from the palace."
There was a brief pause before she spoke again. "I am also sorry for attacking you during your efforts to save me. I got... passionate... during that battle.", she apologised, looking a little bashful about exposing her feelings in such a way.

8-Ball Corner
Ace recognized Gut-Stipe almost immediately after she spoke of the previous events. "Hey its you! You shot at me after I pushed you out of the way of gunfire! That almost hit me I was only trying to help! Also you left to me to die while I was bleeding out and barely conscious!"

If Truffles Only Had a Brain, or Does This Make the I'ee Toto:

"I haven't really been in the dome, Truffleclub. I don't know what's in there. But if anything would be badly damaged by returning to orbit, we should patch up the hull..." Arccos gave the big Automata a pat on the back of the manipulator, as if trying to reassure them. Arccos had at least some faith that any I'ee she might ask for help would be able to survive the industrial fluids. She thought about it though.

She thought about it all through looking up at the giant mushroom cloud, followed by a tornado funnel touching ground where a mountain once stood. Sand stopped moving sideways and started to fall downwards... Weather was really weird. And witnessing apocalyptic weather kept her busy as Truffleclub mused on the nature of space wasps. It was a fair assessment, so she didn't really have anything to add to it. She just nodded an affirmative to Truffleclub. I'ee are from space, is.

And then one hugged her, just as Truffleclub was wondering why anyone trusted Uso. A little pause for thought, before reaching around to pluck the I'ee ambassador from the back of her armor, holding them up and hugging them close to her chest-plate.

"The I'ee came here to find friends. Because they need help. And I'm only too happy to give it." Arccos gave the little ambassador a pat on the head, and a little smile. She welcomed the thanks from these little critters. "I think they trust Uso because she only asked for help making this planet less awful. Yamatai, or Nepleslia would demand submission. Uso didn't..."

Arccos then looked over to Ace and 8-ball, then over to the ship.

"As for me? I don't trust Uso. But I know she's... Afraid of us. Sort of. A few switches flipped and the Junkers would tear her apart and recycle her." Arccos' expression went flat at the thought of yet more violence. "...I can leave if I want to, but she hasn't done anything too bad just yet. If she goes too far I want to be here to stop her... To help the I'ee if she fails. To fix the people she breaks."

"The Free State failed, Truffleclub." She admitted a harsh truth for her. Something she rarely said out loud. "The Book said tyranny was a forgotten memory, but tyrants flew in and broke us apart all the same, and it's because we let these things happen while we ran away. We can't pretend we won in the first place. And we can't inspire a new generation without giving everyone a chance at choosing a better way. Even her."

"Alastair, go ahead and investigate this new AI," 8-Ball said enthusiastically as he spoke with Ace. He always did enjoy the opportunity to allow Alastair to make new friends, even if the biologicals never worked through their problems. Something about AIs never holding animosity endeared them to 8-Ball.

Tiberius opened his mouth to reply to Ace's remarks, specifically about the antiquity of his cybernetics and what possessed him to jump ship with Aether Reactors when he was cut off by an I'ee. It wore blood red warpaint and had a speaker in its left mandible. The I'ee, who Ace quickly identified as 'Gut-Stripe', was thanking 8-Ball for saving her and apologizing for attacking him during the extraction. "No need to apologize, no damage was done," Tiberius responded with a hearty laugh. "Nor is there a need to thank me. I know some day you shall return the favor." He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "I am just glad that you are alright." A big, toothy grin was hidden behind a black mask.

"That is... That is good.", Gut-Stripe replied uneasily, stiffening slightly when 8-Ball rested a hand on her shoulder. Ace's outburst made her turn her head to stare at him for a moment, trying to recognise him and failing. "As I said, I was fighting passionately.", the I'ee stated. "You should be glad I did not pierce your skull like I did with the other fallen."
After a brief, awkward pause, the I'ee commander gently rested a clawed forelimb on 8-Ball's arm, acknowledging his kind words, then turned and stalked away silently. Her rapier, still clutched in one clawed limb, was coated to the hilt in dry blood; her mention of piercing skulls coming to mind.

Sour Grape
Ace stood leaned against the wall. "Well I guess its ok since you didn't actually hurt me and I did tackle you knowing you were probably insane." Ace thought about something for a minute. "Know what you weren't the one who put me in a position to get hurt. That was me and Uso so I don't know why I'm yelling at you guess I lost it sorry." Ace put out his hand. "Swear I won't do it again." Ace shouted to no one in particular. "Hey has anyone seen a robot named Scrabler and a Helashio by the name of Tomblyn?!"