Z
Zack
Queen's Slave, a few hours after the storm>
Uso was waiting on board the Queen's Slave for Arccos. The ship's main room had certainly seen better days, and most of them were from before the ship was brought to this planet. Damaged power armors were stripped and left along the sides of the main room, while the center CIC table was full of datapads and dirt. Uso herself looked a lot better, the dirt having been cleaned off her body, a nice, warm, bodysuit clinging to her form as she drank from a blood packet using a small sippy straw.
In contrast, after a few thumps on the door that always stuck Arccos entered looking far too 'local' than normal. Without her armor, most of her clothing since getting here had been dangerously irradiated. Boots caked in sand, her coat and poncho of office tattered by tearing winds and sand. At least the spacer had made sure to wash her face before coming in. A couple of looks around the room, and she locked on to Uso's snack of the moment.
"If you're calling me here to be lunched upon, I don't actually have blood. Just so you know."
"I wouldn't be using a straw if I wanted to put my mouth on you," Uso replied, setting down her blood packet. "So, I get it. You're done working for Cyrus and I which means we need to discuss our relationship. I gave ~3% per person to work with me, and honestly I am very happy with the level of autonomy that Cyrus, Raph, ect carry out on their own.
You also seem to be very attached to the Spacers and the I'ee, I think maybe less so with working for me directly.
And just to drive home how much 3% is, it is going to end up being a shit-ton of cash. We're already pulling in a few million from selling to the spacers and you should be thrilled to be offered 3%.
So, I want to offer you 5% of the planetary profit to stay on and represent the spacers here. I was also hoping you'd agree to helping the I'ee kick the NMX out of their star systems in exchange for us helping get your spacer-friend's ship up and running."
Arccos just stared flatly for a moment. From her expression, it was difficult to tell if the talk of money just flew over her head or not. It was closer to a this shit again? Uso just never stopped.
"I'm sure you could always just bite me if you wanted to, but I think you're just trying to make me uncomfortable all the time" A glove went to Arccos' face, almost scratched her chin, then pulled away. Her glove was removed, too much dirt. And she didn't feel an itch to begin with.
"So you want me to sell the 'Spacers on a Nekovalkyrja empress, and fight a war with my nuclear spider arsenal?"
"HA!" Uso laughed, "Like they'd ever agree to an empress, much less a neko one.... no... they came here and as far as I see it they are our guests... our nuclear equipped, guests. This whole enterprise doesn't work if I start forcing people to do what I want... but... we DO have needs, the spacers have needs... I want a situation where everyone wins. The I'ee get rid of the NMX, the Spacers get their ship repaired, and this planet gets a profitable, functioning, government along with some nice infrastructure. I want that ship to want to help us. Unfortunately, I don't exactly know what they want, but between the I'ee and my ability to get my hands on things that I shouldn't I'm sure we get them what they like.
Of course.... one spacer ship is not going to turn the tide, but I was thinking they could help us build the appropriate weapons." Uso said.
Arccos tagged up another mark on her tally of innuendos from Uso. At least she thought she heard that one... A little frown, and the extraction of a small flask full of who knew what to take a swig of. The 'spacer leaned against the door frame and took a breath.
"The White Lament is a colony ship. One that failed spectacularly. It's full of what looks like terraforming and agricultural equipment. The survivors such as they are? Type two Automata at best. Truffleclub is only barely sentient, at best. At the same time, a 'spacer mother ship can potentially do electronic warfare for an entire fleet. It could be useful, if not for that, but for the junker hive and fabrications modules. What they want is just repairs, and I can trade with the I'ee for that if I want to, but I'm not in a position to decline offered help... So I guess I can't decline you."
Uso wrapped her lips around the straw and quickly finished off the blood packet, tossing the plastic bag into the trash can with the rest of the empty packs of nano-machine infused blood she had been using to repair herself, "Hmm.... You know I can't tell if you're playing hard to get because you don't want to be here, or if you're playing hard to get because you want more. You know we've got quite a few planets in this system... What does the White Lament want once it gets up and running? Planets? People? More spacers? More resources and capability? Defense against my kind that attached them during the Genocide? I want you to WANT to be here. Name your price."
"The Lament is gutted. Everyone is dead aside from semi-intelligent drones slaved to damage control. It can't exactly want anything. Truffleclub wants it repaired, and something about honey that I don't understand. What it has expressed is that it wants the Syntelligence restored from backups to make the Junkers manageable... And also for the old crew to not be returned for some reason. It came out here to hide, but that mission died. So like most of the Deoradh? It just wants to be useful..."
Another pull on her flask.
"And I'm playing hard to get because I believe you're probably going to kill me sooner or later. You're certainly not desperate, or collecting notches on a bedpost as far as I've seen. Just makes sense you're trying to pull one over me."
Uso's serious tone softened a little bit as she smiled, "There we are... I suppose all the money in the world won't make you happy if you don't live to spend it? Of course I could tell you that I'm not planning to kill you, and that you're a huge asset to me, but you're smart... you know I'd say that even if I was trying to kill you. So then the question is how do we establish trust? We can both kill everyone on this planet so I think that mutually assured destruction isn't going to cut it. We've worked together for almost 2 months now, I would think you know what to expect from me. All this really begs the question, Why would I want to kill you?"
Arccos gave a short shrug, almost like she didn't expect Uso to need a reason.
"I expect that you have less reason to kill me now, since you're hiring me independent of Cyrus. That tells me I'm needed more than his other meat bodies. In that respect I trust you. I just think that you're trying to seduce me into a lower price for services rendered, or else trying to get me to think more highly of you. I expect you to kill Cyrus more than me, simply because you promised him a percentage in perpetuity, and there's no guarantee he'll stay loyal after you get your own army and want his cut."
"I was trying to seduce you into bed, if I wanted you at a lower price I would have offered you the standard 3%. Money is great, FANTASTIC even, but it isn't everything. At some point you need filthy rich friends too." Uso shut up for a moment, silently cursing herself for miss-stepping, "If you don't feel safe, or you want out, or whatever, I won't stop you. I'll even throw in the pay I would have given you for the next two months as a parting gift. I shouldn't need to extort you into helping."
"I don't feel safe. But I don't want out either. I was on the run from SAINT until recently, so I haven't particularly felt safe for some time. I got used to it. What I do with robot spiders and gun toting primitive dirt dwellers is quite independent of my personal comfort level. I just..." Arccos tucked the flask away, putting effort into emulating a sigh. "It's weird that you're hitting on me all the time, and I have a book which tells me it's safer to fuck a lab rat than it is to accept affection from a tyrant. I'm not the best of Freespacers. But for my people, you're every klaxon firing for danger levels."
Uso just stood there for a moment with a smile on her face, she wanted to put 'Every Klaxon Firing for Danger Levels' on her business card. "I have about 9 more years of life left, so I'm still going to make passes at you when I can. Besides, I haven't worked for SAINT in years... So I haven't been great at dealing with a group of this size... Frankly I'm used to dealing with a team of like, 2-3 people, all of whom know each other very well and can anticipate what the others are going to do before they do it. Some of that gets lost on a group the size of Ragnarock and right now I need you a lot more than you need me."
A little raising of eyebrows made it quite apparent that Arccos was unaware of Uso's history with SAINT. It didn't exactly seem to concern her that much. Mutually assured destruction may have reduced that paranoia.
"I joined Ragnarok for the sake of gaining enough power at my disposal to not be fucked with. So I'm going to take it as a sign that I'm succeeding that someone like you needs me. Cyrus was always going to be a springboard to something bigger... So you seriously just found me attractive enough to make passes? There's other Nekovalkryja around if you're in to women."
"I like what I like," Uso replied, tapping her fingers on the display table infront of her for a moment, "So you want power? You want not to be fucked with? You know we need to build a fleet here right? Don't get me wrong, a billion hostages will go a LONG way in getting what you want, but maybe admiralty is more your speed? We could use more Spacer ships, and we would need someone who can command those spacer ships."
"I'll add it to my list of titles after Thieftaker General." Arccos said, looking up in thought. It would be nearly impossible to actually gain command over a Deoradh fleet as an admiral. But then they did have a Prince that one time. Think on it later. "It's also a warning sign that you're going straight to tempting me with power, but I guess that's just how you run things and how I laid it out... It solidifies your general attractive but pure evil thing that you're pulling devil's contracts all day."
Uso was practically wearing her emotions on her sleeves, a slight frown on the tepid response to offering Arccos a fleet of ships, her eyes moving off to the side as she pondered what move to next after Arccos bashed her offers for power, then back to a smile on the attractive comment, "Come ooooon, you like it." Uso prodded, "This is what you want, Power, Independence.... all for the low, low, price of helping the I'ee fight off the NMX."
"I like it. Yes. It's just very hard to rally a Freespacer fleet." the 'spacer took a few steps towards Uso. Placing a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. "It's easier to get them to help the I'ee since they're... Them. But you're going to need to offer some sort of guarantee we can operate freely in whatever space you want to hold. I like the offer of power, but to have a 'spacer fleet I'm going to be doing the heavy lifting. I can help you since I like this one deal. So I'm with you on this one. I'll also consider your passes as more viable in future as long as you're sincere."
"Oh, you misunderstand.... " Uso said, placing a hand on Arccos' hips, "I didn't mean Rally a spacer fleet.... though we could certainly do that too. We could build you your own fleet. We have junker drones for assembly, a planet full of resources, and more than enough labor force to bring the two together....Plus, you know, a billion or so hostages... I've got an engineer friend who I think will help us once we show him just how cute and 'easily murdered by the NMX' the I'ee are.... I even got a group of pilots who flew for the Nepleslians during the Genocide! It'll be like old times!"
"...You have no idea how the old times were for me, but that sounds more attractive than you'd think." Arccos' face fell into a weird sidelong glance. It was possible this was was closest to a blush she could manage. Just a little more of her weight was leaned against Uso, her hand slipping around to the back of the Neko's neck.
"So. Good? Deal done? I accept? I'm not going to fall to my knees and shout praises in thanks."
"It is a deal, so unless you're going to force me to MY knees, we can meet back up tomorrow to discuss the details. I was hoping to get everyone together then for a meeting and strategy session." Uso replied, gently pressing up against Arccos in the process.
Some sort of gears turned in Arccos' head for a second, then for another second her hand raised to tense in Uso's hair as if to yank her head back and force her down. Just for one second, though.
"...While the devil does tempt me so, I actually now feel dirty on at least three separate levels. I do not need this amount of sand in my life right now..." She let go, stepping back and away. Her expression looking like she'd avoided a bullet but didn't quite know how to feel about that. "Maybe later... Uh. You... know where to find me, but it's not really that private..."
Uso was waiting on board the Queen's Slave for Arccos. The ship's main room had certainly seen better days, and most of them were from before the ship was brought to this planet. Damaged power armors were stripped and left along the sides of the main room, while the center CIC table was full of datapads and dirt. Uso herself looked a lot better, the dirt having been cleaned off her body, a nice, warm, bodysuit clinging to her form as she drank from a blood packet using a small sippy straw.
In contrast, after a few thumps on the door that always stuck Arccos entered looking far too 'local' than normal. Without her armor, most of her clothing since getting here had been dangerously irradiated. Boots caked in sand, her coat and poncho of office tattered by tearing winds and sand. At least the spacer had made sure to wash her face before coming in. A couple of looks around the room, and she locked on to Uso's snack of the moment.
"If you're calling me here to be lunched upon, I don't actually have blood. Just so you know."
"I wouldn't be using a straw if I wanted to put my mouth on you," Uso replied, setting down her blood packet. "So, I get it. You're done working for Cyrus and I which means we need to discuss our relationship. I gave ~3% per person to work with me, and honestly I am very happy with the level of autonomy that Cyrus, Raph, ect carry out on their own.
You also seem to be very attached to the Spacers and the I'ee, I think maybe less so with working for me directly.
And just to drive home how much 3% is, it is going to end up being a shit-ton of cash. We're already pulling in a few million from selling to the spacers and you should be thrilled to be offered 3%.
So, I want to offer you 5% of the planetary profit to stay on and represent the spacers here. I was also hoping you'd agree to helping the I'ee kick the NMX out of their star systems in exchange for us helping get your spacer-friend's ship up and running."
Arccos just stared flatly for a moment. From her expression, it was difficult to tell if the talk of money just flew over her head or not. It was closer to a this shit again? Uso just never stopped.
"I'm sure you could always just bite me if you wanted to, but I think you're just trying to make me uncomfortable all the time" A glove went to Arccos' face, almost scratched her chin, then pulled away. Her glove was removed, too much dirt. And she didn't feel an itch to begin with.
"So you want me to sell the 'Spacers on a Nekovalkyrja empress, and fight a war with my nuclear spider arsenal?"
"HA!" Uso laughed, "Like they'd ever agree to an empress, much less a neko one.... no... they came here and as far as I see it they are our guests... our nuclear equipped, guests. This whole enterprise doesn't work if I start forcing people to do what I want... but... we DO have needs, the spacers have needs... I want a situation where everyone wins. The I'ee get rid of the NMX, the Spacers get their ship repaired, and this planet gets a profitable, functioning, government along with some nice infrastructure. I want that ship to want to help us. Unfortunately, I don't exactly know what they want, but between the I'ee and my ability to get my hands on things that I shouldn't I'm sure we get them what they like.
Of course.... one spacer ship is not going to turn the tide, but I was thinking they could help us build the appropriate weapons." Uso said.
Arccos tagged up another mark on her tally of innuendos from Uso. At least she thought she heard that one... A little frown, and the extraction of a small flask full of who knew what to take a swig of. The 'spacer leaned against the door frame and took a breath.
"The White Lament is a colony ship. One that failed spectacularly. It's full of what looks like terraforming and agricultural equipment. The survivors such as they are? Type two Automata at best. Truffleclub is only barely sentient, at best. At the same time, a 'spacer mother ship can potentially do electronic warfare for an entire fleet. It could be useful, if not for that, but for the junker hive and fabrications modules. What they want is just repairs, and I can trade with the I'ee for that if I want to, but I'm not in a position to decline offered help... So I guess I can't decline you."
Uso wrapped her lips around the straw and quickly finished off the blood packet, tossing the plastic bag into the trash can with the rest of the empty packs of nano-machine infused blood she had been using to repair herself, "Hmm.... You know I can't tell if you're playing hard to get because you don't want to be here, or if you're playing hard to get because you want more. You know we've got quite a few planets in this system... What does the White Lament want once it gets up and running? Planets? People? More spacers? More resources and capability? Defense against my kind that attached them during the Genocide? I want you to WANT to be here. Name your price."
"The Lament is gutted. Everyone is dead aside from semi-intelligent drones slaved to damage control. It can't exactly want anything. Truffleclub wants it repaired, and something about honey that I don't understand. What it has expressed is that it wants the Syntelligence restored from backups to make the Junkers manageable... And also for the old crew to not be returned for some reason. It came out here to hide, but that mission died. So like most of the Deoradh? It just wants to be useful..."
Another pull on her flask.
"And I'm playing hard to get because I believe you're probably going to kill me sooner or later. You're certainly not desperate, or collecting notches on a bedpost as far as I've seen. Just makes sense you're trying to pull one over me."
Uso's serious tone softened a little bit as she smiled, "There we are... I suppose all the money in the world won't make you happy if you don't live to spend it? Of course I could tell you that I'm not planning to kill you, and that you're a huge asset to me, but you're smart... you know I'd say that even if I was trying to kill you. So then the question is how do we establish trust? We can both kill everyone on this planet so I think that mutually assured destruction isn't going to cut it. We've worked together for almost 2 months now, I would think you know what to expect from me. All this really begs the question, Why would I want to kill you?"
Arccos gave a short shrug, almost like she didn't expect Uso to need a reason.
"I expect that you have less reason to kill me now, since you're hiring me independent of Cyrus. That tells me I'm needed more than his other meat bodies. In that respect I trust you. I just think that you're trying to seduce me into a lower price for services rendered, or else trying to get me to think more highly of you. I expect you to kill Cyrus more than me, simply because you promised him a percentage in perpetuity, and there's no guarantee he'll stay loyal after you get your own army and want his cut."
"I was trying to seduce you into bed, if I wanted you at a lower price I would have offered you the standard 3%. Money is great, FANTASTIC even, but it isn't everything. At some point you need filthy rich friends too." Uso shut up for a moment, silently cursing herself for miss-stepping, "If you don't feel safe, or you want out, or whatever, I won't stop you. I'll even throw in the pay I would have given you for the next two months as a parting gift. I shouldn't need to extort you into helping."
"I don't feel safe. But I don't want out either. I was on the run from SAINT until recently, so I haven't particularly felt safe for some time. I got used to it. What I do with robot spiders and gun toting primitive dirt dwellers is quite independent of my personal comfort level. I just..." Arccos tucked the flask away, putting effort into emulating a sigh. "It's weird that you're hitting on me all the time, and I have a book which tells me it's safer to fuck a lab rat than it is to accept affection from a tyrant. I'm not the best of Freespacers. But for my people, you're every klaxon firing for danger levels."
Uso just stood there for a moment with a smile on her face, she wanted to put 'Every Klaxon Firing for Danger Levels' on her business card. "I have about 9 more years of life left, so I'm still going to make passes at you when I can. Besides, I haven't worked for SAINT in years... So I haven't been great at dealing with a group of this size... Frankly I'm used to dealing with a team of like, 2-3 people, all of whom know each other very well and can anticipate what the others are going to do before they do it. Some of that gets lost on a group the size of Ragnarock and right now I need you a lot more than you need me."
A little raising of eyebrows made it quite apparent that Arccos was unaware of Uso's history with SAINT. It didn't exactly seem to concern her that much. Mutually assured destruction may have reduced that paranoia.
"I joined Ragnarok for the sake of gaining enough power at my disposal to not be fucked with. So I'm going to take it as a sign that I'm succeeding that someone like you needs me. Cyrus was always going to be a springboard to something bigger... So you seriously just found me attractive enough to make passes? There's other Nekovalkryja around if you're in to women."
"I like what I like," Uso replied, tapping her fingers on the display table infront of her for a moment, "So you want power? You want not to be fucked with? You know we need to build a fleet here right? Don't get me wrong, a billion hostages will go a LONG way in getting what you want, but maybe admiralty is more your speed? We could use more Spacer ships, and we would need someone who can command those spacer ships."
"I'll add it to my list of titles after Thieftaker General." Arccos said, looking up in thought. It would be nearly impossible to actually gain command over a Deoradh fleet as an admiral. But then they did have a Prince that one time. Think on it later. "It's also a warning sign that you're going straight to tempting me with power, but I guess that's just how you run things and how I laid it out... It solidifies your general attractive but pure evil thing that you're pulling devil's contracts all day."
Uso was practically wearing her emotions on her sleeves, a slight frown on the tepid response to offering Arccos a fleet of ships, her eyes moving off to the side as she pondered what move to next after Arccos bashed her offers for power, then back to a smile on the attractive comment, "Come ooooon, you like it." Uso prodded, "This is what you want, Power, Independence.... all for the low, low, price of helping the I'ee fight off the NMX."
"I like it. Yes. It's just very hard to rally a Freespacer fleet." the 'spacer took a few steps towards Uso. Placing a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. "It's easier to get them to help the I'ee since they're... Them. But you're going to need to offer some sort of guarantee we can operate freely in whatever space you want to hold. I like the offer of power, but to have a 'spacer fleet I'm going to be doing the heavy lifting. I can help you since I like this one deal. So I'm with you on this one. I'll also consider your passes as more viable in future as long as you're sincere."
"Oh, you misunderstand.... " Uso said, placing a hand on Arccos' hips, "I didn't mean Rally a spacer fleet.... though we could certainly do that too. We could build you your own fleet. We have junker drones for assembly, a planet full of resources, and more than enough labor force to bring the two together....Plus, you know, a billion or so hostages... I've got an engineer friend who I think will help us once we show him just how cute and 'easily murdered by the NMX' the I'ee are.... I even got a group of pilots who flew for the Nepleslians during the Genocide! It'll be like old times!"
"...You have no idea how the old times were for me, but that sounds more attractive than you'd think." Arccos' face fell into a weird sidelong glance. It was possible this was was closest to a blush she could manage. Just a little more of her weight was leaned against Uso, her hand slipping around to the back of the Neko's neck.
"So. Good? Deal done? I accept? I'm not going to fall to my knees and shout praises in thanks."
"It is a deal, so unless you're going to force me to MY knees, we can meet back up tomorrow to discuss the details. I was hoping to get everyone together then for a meeting and strategy session." Uso replied, gently pressing up against Arccos in the process.
Some sort of gears turned in Arccos' head for a second, then for another second her hand raised to tense in Uso's hair as if to yank her head back and force her down. Just for one second, though.
"...While the devil does tempt me so, I actually now feel dirty on at least three separate levels. I do not need this amount of sand in my life right now..." She let go, stepping back and away. Her expression looking like she'd avoided a bullet but didn't quite know how to feel about that. "Maybe later... Uh. You... know where to find me, but it's not really that private..."
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