RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [4th AASP] Recruitment

Wazu would be the last to enter the shuttle, Drei going first and heading into the cockpit, closing the door behind her. As Wazu passed by Orion and Orchid as he moved to an empty seat he would stop by Zoey, leaning in and whispering something into her ear before sitting down next to her, clipping the 5 point harness closed over his chest.

“Now we have some time for more proper introductions.” Wazu said, pointing all four fingers over at Orion. “This is Orion, he will be helping with technology development. He is a freespacer and will be needing radioactive supplements in his food.” He would then look over at Orchid, “And this is Orchid Anson. She will be handling interior design and I think you and her will have a lot to talk about.” Of course in this case ‘you’ meant Zoey, which Wazu would point to next. “And this is Zoey, Ex NMX Prisoner-Slave. She did not want to return to Elysia so she will be staying with us for the time being. I have asked her to help develop the mess hall of the ship.”

The shuttle doors would slide closed and a small buzz could be heard as the engines and artificial gravity systems turned on. Displays on the sides of the walls would show the exterior of the craft start to tilt, though the technology would ensure that ‘down’ on the shuttle would remain the same down even as the shuttle’s nose pitched upward on the launch pad. Though inside there was no noise and no sense of motion aside from a slight vibration from the engines, outside there was a loud, deep, roar as the atmospheric engines superheated the air for thrust, launching the shuttle upward with a violent blast.

Orion was finally inside a Nepleslian shuttle for the second time in his life! Ah, to be in the way to space again, where he belonged! To Freespacers, it was very odd for anyone to live in planets. When Heram introduced Zoey, Orion was in his right mind to talk with her.

"Zoey, my apologies for my behavior earlier. I am not very used to planets, you see. To quote The Art of Never Again:

The Art of Never Again said:

"I must admit that there is some comfort in the idea of a homeworld; no poor ice harvests to wipe out tens of thousands of our kind. No lack of air, fruits of the harvest, or room for their growing population. However, like us, they must eventually realize that planets are merely the cradle of civilization; as comforting as it may be, you can never mature if you still cling to your cradle."

– Dockmaster Nine One 91-0541-8962
The Art of Never Again, Chapter 478: Home is Where You Make It

Click to expand...

A truer passage has not been spoken! Planets are a commodity, but certainly one must become one with the universe to truly coexist with our reality! Of course, I am also inherently overwhelmed by them, considering I have never been to one and have not been exposed to so many elements at once.

Regardless, Zoey, how very nice it is to meet you! I am deeply sorry for the way you may have been treated in the past... but that's why we're here, right? I assure you we will not let your fate happen to you or to anyone ever again!" Orion said as the shuttle began to lift off. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly fit into the chairs. He would, however, sit down upon it, as he had done in the previous shuttle (which had been a lot fuller). Thankfully it was a chair designed for ID-SOL body structure.

When he sat down, the chair bent a little along with his structure. Thankfully these seats were much sturdier than the ones in the restaurant, but were not designed to be used by a being that weight half a ton. He would try to strap the belts on him, but they wouldn't really take up all of him, or he was just too clumsy to do it properly. He would keep trying, though, until either the shuttle had reached the atmosphere or he'd be successful in his operation.

Zoey bowed gently to the talkative Orion,

"The NMX treated me better then Elysia ever did. I never starved with my previous master, never whined with empty belly as famine after famine wracked my world. Watched my parents starve themselves to save just a bit more food for me. No, I never starved with the NMX. There was nothing bad about my fate! Master Grunder is very honerable, and I am thankful to have been his, and now I am thankful to be Master Wazu's!" She smiled softly at Orion, "And I am not offended by your agoraphobia, though if you ever get too nervious about it, I am willing to try to hug you better."

She looked around, finding Orchid, then sat next to the other woman.

"Hello" she said, gently, smiling her unusual little smile "It's a pleasure to meet you, could you tell me some about yourself?" she asked in her meek and shy way

Orchid was sitting upright in her chair with her ankles crossed and in her curiosity she was looking around the shuttle. She gave an amused look at Zoey’s mention of trying to hug Orion better. Then when the girl came to sit next to her she was pleasantly surprised.

“What would you like to know exactly, do you mean professionally or personally?” Orchid asked.

Recessed lighting was along the top of the interior of the shuttle until it reached the back where the crew space ended with a large flat grey panel that had red warning lettering explaining that removing or damaging the panel was not recommended and would certainly lead to a variety of unpleasant outcomes. At the front of the crew space was the curved airlock door that was currently closed, blocking any passage into the cockpit. On either side of the interior of the shuttle were rows of displays that showed the planet continuing to disappear below them. The shuttle’s cameras would then turn to look at the ship they were approaching, a dark C3 class ship with numerous mechanical arms reaching out from its bulky midsection to grab cargo containers floating in space and convey them into its hold. Another shuttle was approaching from the planet as well, moving in to dock on the opposite side of the ship from where their shuttle was headed. The engine pods had already rotated out of the way to expose the number 3 door which covered the airlocks into the crew section which were already retracting to expose the docking ports.

As the shuttle began maneuvering towards the ship to prepare for docking Wazu would lean forward so he was a bit closer to Orion.

“The Nepleslians have only stopped killing each other long enough to begin developing an agricultural and logistics system that can fully support the population of the planet and sustain its natural growth. As much as you might want to advocate the Spacer way of life, try and keep in mind that Nepleslian Empire is only just barely out of its infancy. Right now it needs to be cared for, not set out on its own.”

Wazu’s datapad would beep. He would look down at it, read the message that was displayed, then quickly type in a request to Drei.

“And we just got a lead on our first operation.” Wazu said, “The ship we are meeting with is the Eucharis. Our goal is securing their involvement in an intelligence sharing operation at least. Optimally we get them to agree to share their combat assets with us so we can guide them to NMX targets of our choosing. This is going to lay the groundwork for Nepleslian/Yamtian relations for some time so this needs to go smoothly.

What we know is that they just fought and lost a series of battles in Elysian territory and considering the way Yamatai does things they probably lost a considerable amount of ships and manpower doing so. The 4th fleet just wiped out a decently sized NMX fleet with the loss of only one ship so we have some street cred going into this that we can perform.

The IPG thinks that the Eucharis is Hananko’s ship which could complicate things. From what I understand she is Yui’s right hand, She gets name dropped on the news, and it is likely she’ll be as aggressive as Yui would be. She has already crossed into nepleslian space before without asking and I do not think she had any objections to the blockade of Nepleslia or the attacks on the freespacers. Normally I do not think she would bother with the ally developing, as Yamatai tends to try and exploit its allies rather than helping them.

That being said, this is the perfect time to work on a diplomatic agreement with them. They are hurting from the NMX far more than we are. They just lost a fight, we just won a fight. This means we get to play the conquering heros, they need our help but we do not need theirs. I think we should try and project this image but I can say with certainty that if we directly insult their… warrior honor? … no, more like their pride. If we directly insult their pride they will certainly break of negotiations or even escalate directly to combat in the worst case scenario.”

Orion was perplexed by the Elysian's reply. Weren't the NMX supposed to be horrible creatures, even in their domestic affairs? Weren't they completely inconsiderate to other species and used them only to further their own goals? A slave did not sound like a good position to be in. Slavery was considered illegal and distasteful by almost all sentient species in the known galaxy with the ability of space travel. Why should the NMX be any different?

"I..." then Heram cut into the conversation, and mentioned some points that were pretty spot-on. Nepleslia was a community with much unrest within itself. It definitely needed more time to mature properly. "...hmmm. Heram, perhaps you are right. The Imperium might require some time to grow into space, as you have mentioned. Yamatai, on the other hand..." And speaking of the devil, Heram would now look into the datapad and start to speak of the 4th AASP fleet's next mission.

Yamataian diplomacy. Hmph... that looked like it would be very unlikely to work out well.

"I am but an engineer. While I can speak rather well in Nepleslian, I would require some time to learn Yamataian. I do hope you don't mind if I decline any offers regarding any diplomacy measures with the Yamatai ship." All of those previous words were a fallacy. While it was true that Orion would require some time to learn Yamataian, the time required would be akin to a couple of hours at most or, if he really wanted to, he could get an active translator through the Polysentience to talk in Yamataian. He was just not very eager to even see eye to eye with people that had caused his nation much grief-- particularly a person that had been the right hand of the person that had sent such a genocide to occur and would unlikely have had anything against the matter.

Yamataians were too proud for their own good, and their rule was much too tight on the galaxy. They considered themselves to be above everyone else merely because of their technological advances. While Orion didn't hate them as much as he hated the NMX, he certainly didn't see eye to eye with them. The Darkening had marked that boundary fairly well in his mind.

“You are also a Freespacer,” Wazu reminded him, “A nice reminder of an overaggressive policy and its fallout.” He would pause for a moment, focusing on information he was inputting into the data pad he was holding in his hands as the shuttle’s view screens started showing nepleslia again as the small ship began maneuvering to line up the docking hatch in the floor with the one on the side of the C3.

“We are going into this with every advantage possible and anything that makes them uncomfortable is going to be an advantage. I need you to at least show up, maybe speak a bit in your native language, and generally just make an appearance infront of them.

Our goal is to serve nepleslia’s best interests and although Yamatai poses similar problems to us than the NMX, we can at least negotiate with Yamatai at this point. We do not have the luxury of being able to start a war when their numbers alone would ensure high casualties among the other fleets and civilian population, nor do we have the luxury of being able to ignore them with the current situation in the senate.

Revenge and Justice are not valid options at this time.”

Orion looked at the screens, viewing the planet that was below them while lost in his thoughts. His optic fibers were now glowing red. After a while, he replied. "Alright. I will do that... I would rather not have to look at them, however. It is much like looking at the NMX, but without having known the people they killed. But the Free State was never the same since the Darkening... so I have felt the damage they dealt us, and the wound it left is deep...

...I hope you can understand if I am reluctant to seeing them face to face. I don't wish to talk to the bullies of the galaxy without the ability to voice my opinions on their policies."

"Personaly, of course" Zoey said with a gentle smile. She placed a hand reassuringly on Orchid's knee. "We are all going to be spending a lot of time together, and well I figure we girls should stick together and get to know each other."

(OOC: Sorry it's short, and it took a while to get to, I've been having net problems)

“That’s true. Well, I was born on Nepleslia where both of my parents still live. They sent me to boarding school for my general education when I was six and later I went on to study architecture and design at a private educational facility. I had just graduated and to celebrate mother and father took me on a trip where we visited several parts of the planet and I just sort of fell in love with the idea of designing. Eventually I finished my training there and I have been doing freelance for the last three years,” Orchid paused for a moment and pushed a curly red strand of hair back behind her ear.

“I enjoy entertaining my friends in my home and cooking for them. I like collecting new recipes from the places I visit for different designing contracts,” her green eyes lit up as she spoke about some of her hobbies.

“ I think that about covers the basics. Can you tell me about you now?” She asked.

The shuttle would finish getting nestled into place against the hull of the NSS Asp. The monitors showing Nepleslia would immediately switch over to displaying the 4th fleet’s logo as the Asp began closing its cargo bay doors, retracting its radiators, and bringing in its robotic arms in preparation for FTL travel. The crew members in the shuttle would only just feel a slight vibration as the ship left orbit of the planet through use of its hyperspace drive. The shuttle’s side door would then open again, this time leading out into a small white room with small datapad sized displays on either wall. Sterilizing UV lights were inset into the ceiling and the smell of a sterile and unused environment would start to permeate the shuttle.

Wazu would unbuckle his harness and head out into the ship’s airlock.

“Orion, do not make the mistake of thinking that you are the only person with baggage here. I trust you will do what is best for your people and provoke them no more than is necessary to achieve our goals here.

Elysia is close by, it should not take more than 15 to 16 minutes to get there.

Zoey, some of the modifications to the dinning area have already been made. When we get to the bridge I would like you to go over them with Drei one more time. Orchid, I would like you to work with Zoey. Orion, we need to start discussing strategy for when we’re within range of the Yamis. Namey the best way to bring up that they should listen to us when it comes to which targets to attack without bringing up exactly why we are selecting those targets.”

Once the trip was done, Orion stood up as well, his third, upper arm almost touching the ceiling of the shuttle as he did. His cameras shifted to looking at Heram and letting him lead the way. As they entered the NSS Asp, he was finally glad to enter the sterilization chamber, sighing audibly as they stepped through there and his optic fibers glowing green for the brief moment the sterilization took place.

Heram's words were powerful. Obviously, he was not the only one to have suffered aboard their crew, but perhaps he did need some reminding of this fact.

"You are right, Heram. I only warn you that I would rather not talk to them out of fear that I might lose my temper. Though my brain lies within this robotic shell, it does have emotions; and though I usually am not one to fail to remain calm, I cannot trust my feelings under such stimuli. I will try my best to keep from mentioning anything that might worsen our situation, for the good of Nepleslia and the Free State, but I cannot guarantee anything.

As for the best solution... well, I am not so entirely knowledgeable of the Yamataian relations with Nepleslia. I could guess misinformation is in our best interest to deceive them into thinking we have information they do not... Perhaps I could be key in that particular aspect. We could claim I am hacking the Misshuvurthyar systems and receiving information that would give us away if I passed it over to the Yamataians. Alternatively we could claim there is a double agent that is working for us in their midsts.

It all depends on what you claim as a best course of action. Unfortunately, I might not be the best person to ask such a question to. I am but an engineer, I am not a diplomat."

Orchid arose and walked with the others out of the shuttle.

“I’m looking forward to working with Zoey and I have the basic designs right here”, Orchid held up her clutch to indicate the information was in there, “If we can use one of your computers I think we can get to work right away.”

After she had replied Orchid turned her attention back to Zoey.

“Drei will upload your data to the ship’s systems and have an interface ready for you when we reach the bridge.” Wazu said as the airlock held them in the area near the shuttle until it decided that they were sufficiently clean to enter the ship at which point the interior airlock door opened, sliding to the side to expose the large, open, circular room infront of them. A rubbery gray material lined the floor and long strips of white lights flooded the room with a washed out gray color tone. Various large cables and pipes were left exposed coming up from the floor here and then trailing out to the walls before continuing upward and disappearing into the ceiling. There were also several flat wall pieces in the room arranged somewhat randomly off to the side, each held a bulky grey suit of armor There was also a large room surrounded by transparent material near the center of this deck, a security door and various interior chambers could be seen, all of which were filled with racks of weapons, explosives, and other gear. The entire place looked like it had been designed to act as a distribution area for pipes, and then the other bits were added in later. There was a hatch on the ceiling and floor of the center of the room, and a single elevator and some stairs were also here next to the airlock.

“We should get up to the bridge,” Wazu said, “Though Orchid you should probably take note that we need to redesign this room too. We ended up rushing this version so the crew module would be complete for deployment of the C3E. There is also a standardized power armor storage system that is ready for deployment now that you can incorporate into the design.”

Wazu would then turn to Orion.

“I like the idea of you playing hacker cult. They have a good reputation for being able to find out things even though they do not quite live up to it. You are hacker cult now and if you do get out of hand during the negotiations I will excuse you. While we are here there is also the minor matter the BCACs. We have a set of the new K4 tanks onboard but they still use the older smoke screen system and that needs replacing. We should also start talking about what we should say once we reach Elysia, do we invite them over here, try and go over there, that kind of thing.”

(OOC: Once again, sorry for the time this keeps taking me V.V My life takes more time then I expect and leaves me worn out.)

Zoey smiled "Well, I was born on Elysia. I grew up and chose to specialize in child care. Eventually I joined the colonization effort effort of Anakes. There I was captured during an NMX attack on the system, and I was eventually given as a gift to Wazu. As Wazu said, I am helping to redesign a room for diplomatic functions."

"Ah, yes! I was about to ask you for access! Much appreciated!"

The hybrot machine walked the halls and rooms within the ship with some awe. He had never been in a military Nepleslian craft before, and watching so many different, odd sights was indeed a distracting aspect of their journey. It wasn't long before Heram had new directives for his tight-knit, hand-picked crew.

"Ah! You know of the Cult of the Network Backbone! Well, if you must know, Heram, that is not far from the truth! I am part of the Hacker Cult, as I was taught by them for years. Not a very official member, mind you, as it never caught my interest enough to dedicate myself to it fully, but still I'm capable of performing most of their feats in hacking and programming, at least.

I must point out that whichever way we go about talking to the Yamataians, I would much rather not be in their presence. We could always talk to them from our ship to theirs, and let them know of our plans that way. I don't see anything wrong with that." Of course, clearly Freespacers wouldn't really much care about etiquette, so Orion didn't know that the best way would have been to go in and talk to them in person.

“There is more to be learned with close contact than with trading messages over the communications system.” Wazu replied as he headed into the lift which would take the group up to the command deck. “We will be far better to judge intentions in person.”

The lift would take the group up to the command deck. Here the atmosphere was tweaked perfectly for the humanoid occupants of the ship with air pressure, oxygen content, and trace elements in the air set up to help keep the crew awake, alert, and productive. The occasional round junker drone would walk by as Wazu limped his way to the small airlock door which led into the bridge. The cylindrical airlock would cycle to let one person through at a time.

On the other side was the ship’s bridge, copied straight from the older C series cruisers. The entire room was covered in displays which projected various star charts, readouts, and technical schematics around the table in the center of the room. Ten chairs were setup around the table, 2 at each end and 4 along either side. Each had a built in workstation, computer, keyboard, various customizable inputs, data ports, and displays capable of handling just about any task, all of which were carefully inset into the decorative wood finish of the table. In the center of the table was yet another display, showing a time till arrival near Elysia countdown. Unlike some parts of the ship, this area was entirely deliberate, laid out to allow everyone to see each other, collaborate, and work efficiently.

“We will stick with the Hacker Cult thing for now. It will not be much longer until we arrive so start familiarizing yourself with the ship’s systems.

Orion, I need you to be a diplomat for the next few hours. This is one of those ‘fate of the universe, do or die’ type things. We make this happen or it is likely there are going to be a lot more unnecessary deaths.

And Orchid, Are you willing to play diplomat too? Being able to talk them down from aggression would be nice but I would really like for you to be able to talk with them girl to girl. Any insights you can provide will be valuable.”

Orchid took a quick glance around the rather unfinished looking room and responded to Wazu who was ahead of her, “Were you hoping for it to just have a more finished appearance or are you looking for more segmentation as well?”

She then turned back to Zoey who was walking next to her, “Forgive me, but I think I don’t fully understand. Is this room you are designing more focused on diplomatic discussions or sustenance consumption because I am wondering what deck we are talking about at this point.”

Once they were on the bridge Orchid replied to Wazu, “I would be willing to try my hand at it, but I would greatly appreciate a briefing first as I have no experience in being a diplomat between species. I will do my best in any case.”

Sighing, Orion agreed. "I will do my best, Heram. I can't guarantee anything if I'm forced to communicate with them, but my presence alone should be enough to justify the means of our expedition." Orion accessed the networks of the ship via his Polysentience Terminus unit and began to browse them in his mind while he spoke. "As for who meets who where, if we must, I believe that choice is entirely up to you... though, I would choose against boarding their vessel due to the lack of trust I have towards the Yamataians. Boarding their ship might be the last thing we do, if they deem it necessary."

Such was the outlook Orion had on the Yamataian Star Army.

“We would like to have a finished product, standardized room layouts, equipment, ect, that can be used on other designs as needed. Having a finished look is important but the end goal is to have a catalogue of standardized designs which can be applied elsewhere so we do not have to re-design everything anytime we want to have a new starship class.”

Wazu would then listen to what both Orion and Orchid had to say regarding the Yamatains.

“I will try and keep you in a position where you can exit quickly if need be.” Wazu replied to Orion before turning slightly to address them both. “Smoking, Chewing gum, using their computers without asking, all things you should avoid doing in their presence. Do not intentionally provoke or get drawn into comparisons about how they operate, as this will likely lead to them acting more aggressively than we need them to.

In the past they have traditionally used gunboat diplomacy to achieve their goals and previous negotiations between ‘they’ and ‘us’ have resulted in unfavorable term for the treaties that had been put in place. Do to some maneuvering on our part we do not have to worry about re-negotiating any previous agreements, we will be starting from scratch.

Sense the Mishhu started causing problems with their latest offensive the Yamatain government has shifted to a less aggressive approach to dealing with other nations. The UOC and Nepleslia have been left alone for the most part. I have reason to believe that they are perusing a more covert method of achieving their aims in this regard but that is a conversation for another day.

The military situation is this: The NMX’s latest offensive has cost Yamatai several worlds already and they are still on the attack. The likely outcome of this is that Yamatai will eventually win as the NMX, back when they were the S M X, tend to get frustrated when they are not winning and lack the intelligence to find ways to retake the initiative. Once the tide turns against the NMX, I do not expect them to be able to retake it, leading to their eventual defeat. From our perspective the homeworld is mostly secure from a major offensive and as more of our new ships are produced we should be able to start reclaiming worlds from the NMX. Militarily our goal is not to defeat the NMX but rather position ourselves as best we can for when the war eventually comes to an end. If we can bring that end about sooner then all the better.

Our goal with this negotiation is going to be to set up the basics for a joint task force to deal with the NMX. Information sharing is a top priority and if we can talk them into handing over a few of their teleporter units that would be amazing. We want to be in charge of this task force and being able to guide where Yamatai attacks is going to be key for implementation of the plan. If we can get that in addition to an information sharing agreement Nepleslia will be in a very good position for the next year or so.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there tend to be a lot of freshly created soldiers in their armies. Though they have basic training and all the skills they need to function pre-programmed into them they tend to be immature from having lived only a year or two. Everything is still new, cute, and shiney to them so keep that in mind. Hanako will be an exception to this of course. She has lived considerably longer than their newer model soldiers and she has been around for a lot of that gunboat diplomacy. She is also going to be the ranking officer there, and it is tradition for Yamatain crews to share an unspoken love for the captain. It is likely she will be the one we have to be careful around.”

As wazu finished the counter displayed in the center of the table finally reached 0. The walls showing various schematics and diagrams went black, and then sparkled with white lights as the external cameras began picking up images from around the ship. Yellow squares would then begin to crop up, one showing a magnified view of the main world in the system,. Red squares would also start popping up, outlining various starship shaped grayscale images generated from subspace radar systems. The squares would slowly be filled with color images of the ships over time.

“Drei, would you please introduce us?” Wazu asked, causing yet another display to pop up in the center of the table, showing volume information for the audio transmission that Drei was about to send out, replaying that same transmission for everyone in the room.

“This is the Nepleslian 4th Fleet Starship NSS Asp. We have set up a meeting with YSS Eucharis and are awaiting instructions on how to proceed.

Our Location and Identification information are attached to this transmission.”