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RP: LSDF Akahar [Chapter 1.0] Once More Into the Howling Dark

Arieg

Arieg

DEFCON Everybody Dies
Hakahn slowly walked down the passageway of his ship, his eyes wandering to the volumtric display on the bulkhead. It was a unique feature... a 'safe' alternative to the Yamatain fascination of viewing glass on their warships. Effectively resulting in the same more or less... a orbital bird's eye view of the scared form of his kind's homeworld. The massive scar from the NMX operation laying bare their former ally's failure.

He shrugged slightly at the thoughts, they weren't his to consider anymore not with his present post.. not with his present tasking. Of course that was its own bag of bones in quite the literal sense. He was smirking now one his hands drifting into coat pocket to produce a communicator, pondering whether or not when to signal the crew that it was time to leave. He did enjoy surprising them with last second orders... but now was not the time... he soon found himself at Keib's door... and let himself in.
 
A MOMENT EARLIER

"Let's see... morning routine: vitamins, cup of tea, toast and jam, supplement..." Keib was going through his morning routine - having woken up a little further behind his superior. The nights were either too short or too long for Keib as his mind weighed his previous actions. In the end he took some solace in his actions during his waking hours. He slurped from a mug and turned around.

Greg was still fast asleep on his bed, clutching a teddy bear - the bed sheets were rising and falling slowly with each breath made. Let a sleeping Helashio lie. He thought as he walked over to his volumetric computer and checked what was new. Updates on his beloved Akahar, his account on the Kirin Games Service, the forums of Kirin Games and the headline news of the universe - in that order.

That's when Hakahn walked in, as the Executive Officer was crouched over his computer screen without sitting down, and wearing a long white night gown, a sleeping cap, cutesy-faced smiling neko-eared slippers and heart-printed underwear. His black mug read "#1 XO" on white letters.

"Oh, is it that time again?" Keib inquired, highlighting the most update on the Akahar. "I thought we made our briefing clear, but I suppose a refresher before takeoff won't be a bad idea."

He sighed, "What shall we fill their heads with, the usual? I know Bastion, Gough, Al'Ris and Yar'mak have seen it several times before - the crew expanding and contracting as people finally get back into the officer's good books by arse-kissing." He then sighed. "Such a small permanent crew."

Greg's ears perked up and he stretched in the comfort of its bed, stifling a yawn before looking at Keib and Hakahn. Orange locks of hair were all over the Helashio's face and it peeled them back to see what was going on clearly. For Greg, it wasn't the first time he'd seen his teacher, master and best friend walking around in his evening gown.

"Good point. I think I'll get dressed." Keib glanced over to the wordless Greg. "We don't want them thinking I'm unprofessional."
 
After the acquisition of the lower half of an LSDF standard uniform, a Kirin Games Manufacture T-Shirt, his favourite labcoat, and deodorant in no particular order, Keib was ready to walk out with his student by his side and his Commanding Officer before him. Keib's superior remained quiet as he scavenged for clothing.

All was quiet on the deck of the grave digging ship, but that was about to change as Keib took the microphone: "Attention all personnel - I hope your last decent meal was satisfying, because we're not going to see anything like it for a long time." He opened up, knowing that he only ever bought meat and fresh vegetables whenever the ship had to take on new crew for a temporary assignment. It was a courtesy to the disgraced and discarded people who were usually shunted to this black sheep. "We're going to take off shortly, and I want you all to head to the Pilot Ready room, pronto!"

-

Yar'Mak looked up from his book and over to Gough, who was in the opposite bunk bed and sighed. "For the fresh meat." Yar'Mak could smell it, having heard the sort of thing Keib and Hakahn were going to say plenty of times before.

Gough nodded knowingly. He was lying in his top-bunk and staring at the ceiling. He'd plastered it with pictures of his wife and two children.
They never made it off of old Lor, but one could still imagine things - they wouldn't go anywhere else otherwise.

Al'Ris and Bastion knew that this speech was on its way, but Four Six hadn't been around long enough to know what these sorts of pep talks entailed. "He won't be mad if we skip out, will 'e?" Al'Ris asked Bastion. "We've been here a long time anyway."
 
Mars was in her room and looked the info with Al'rik over cup of tea. Dinner was not bad. Mars was not exactly super happy about meat, she was used to eat stuff that was not exactly tasty. When she grew up, her family concentrated more on vitamins and nutrition. Chocolate bar was something Mars hardly ever saw, much less ate. And then she got used to it.

"Hmmm," Mars mused about posibilites. "I think Keib could not care less if we were there or not. But I bet old Brainfart will be there and he would not be pleased. That man thinks himself still fyunnen. Well we might as well go and let him do his stare on the acolytes." She said and chuckled.
 
Merril was just finishing up the alterations on Aiesu's request, having gotten the measurements after the previous meal. The whole outfit was neatly hung and folded onto one convenient hanger for transport. The sewing kit she brought along for the ride ended up being hastily stored in a drawer after hearing the notice on the comms.

"Well, looks like I'm going to have to hurry," she remarked, dusting her own uniform off to look presentable, then dashing down the hall to Aiesu's room. The medic knocked three times on the girl's door, holding the freshly tailored ensemble loosely on one pinky while crookening her straightened cap.
 
Vathr'dal's ears perked up as Keib's announcement resounded through the intercom. He was sitting at his desk looking at an intresting piece of circuitry when the XO ordered everyone to the ready room. Horizon had been through this song and dance a few times before, though he was by no means the most veteran member of the crew. He knew well enough that a mssion was coming though. The meat and vegetables were a dead giveaway.

Reluctantly, Vathr'dal put down the circuit and his tools and walked up to the ready room. He saluted Keib on the way in and then took the first open seat that he could. He wondered what would be in store for the crew now that there was a mission to complete.
 
The silence continued until the trio entered the lift to reach the next deck.. and their final destination. Someone at some point... had installed a small music playing sub function into the lift's sub systems, some wordless tune played out as the door slid shut.

"So." Hakahn began, still looking straight ahead. "How many of them do you think will come back this time?" He asked, his voice strangely quiet.

--

For those who manage to beat the pair of commanding officers to their own briefing they'd find there were already crew members ahead of them. Their small number reminding them of how lowly crewed the Akahar was.

Already seated where a quartet of uniformed Fyunnen and Lmanel, these four more or less made up the entirety of the Akahar's mecha unit... at least those who weren't under ice in the ship's cyro bay. They had been instructed to report as well.. their role however in the operation had yet to be revealed.

On the far side of the compartment was a small refreshment table, while the choices where slim.. some thought had still been put into it. The pair of beverage options being the distinctly strong Nepleslian coffee the ship's commander favored and a common variety of herb tea most of the matriarchy's population enjoyed. Circled around it was the ship's skeleton bridge crew.. a trio of lowly LSDF enlisted comprised of a pair of chatty helashio females and a distinctly bored looking New Turlista.
 
"Heh. Guess you're right." Al'Ris responded, as she had nothing better to do with herself during the intervening hours. "I wonder how casual Keib's going to play things? Wanna make bets?"

One time he showed up wearing a garishly patterned shirt, sunglasses, a straw hat and sandals when there was a Hulk recovery mission upon a paradise world a few months back. They even got to go to the beach afterwards and unwind on government time and money.

Of course, that was when things were a little more clear cut, and the Higher Ups had given him a better idea of what the job entailed rather than the Mok'ro's: "It was here somewhere... about half a year ago... and we have no idea why."

So maybe this time around, things would be a little more serious. Bastion knew that Keib did not enjoy having to search for answers with so little to go on - but he still did it.

-

"I suspect those with nothing better to do." Keib replied to his superior. "Which means all of us." He chuckled inwardly. He knew that he could leave this post any time he wanted without fear of retribution since he'd served his purpose - but he didn't have much of a plan, and the universe was so cold towards Lorath.

While he was waiting for the others, he helped himself to some coffee rather than the usual tea. He stiffened for a brief moment as the coffee made its way down his throat. He looked down to Greg, and passed him a cup of tea. Greg looked up at his 'master', and Keib exchanged a glance with his student.

Was it really a mass education, just like the propaganda slips kept telling the rest of the world? Or was it a gentler term for subjugation and eugenics? Keib had made his stance on it all abundantly clear in the past - treating the Helashio as equals upon his ship - and violently objecting to needless cruelty.

Unless you counted teaching calculus and string theory as a cruel thing to do, Keib prided himself on his treatment and the education he was giving Greg. There was no way he could impose his way of thought on the rest of the Lorath populace, but he at least had a ship full of people who were willing to watch and learn.

"I shall wait a little longer before I begin." Keib said, his voice unusually flat upon reflection. Hakahn knew that Keib didn't drink coffee all that often unless he was truly stressed out.
 
Aiesu was slow to answer - a battery of heavy polished chromic equipment scattered through the room as she sat in the middle of it, stark as the day she was born. Or rather, made.

"Come" she spoke quietly, the door opening in unision with her words, eyes on the task at hand.

A large tray sat beneath her as she held her arm out - milky white fluid dripping from a long smooth self-inflicted wound made by a medical grade scalpel that sat at her side alongside others of its kind. Each was rank and file, like extended dinnerware next to the pan as milky droplettes fell slowly from the long clean cut down the length of her arm. A sickly sweet scent filled the air - the colorless blood nausiatingly saccherine rather than metallic.

A silvery set of clamps held the wound open, revealing pinkish flesh that resembled sashimi - with the same scored lines denoting the seperation of artificial muscle-groups as the almost gellatine meat in question, drenched in the thin gummy white. Her other hand worked, screwing something into place beneath her musculature.

Opposite the tools sat a spidery bundle of wet black inky cables and chromatic metal about the size of a coin - a long monofillament wire running from its heart - a tuff of that tissue about the end of it.

She'd removed the lid of the thing, identified the problem and attempted to salvage it, with the components all laid out neatly on a surgical tray but from the looks of things it'd been beyond repair - alongside a mess of vacuum wrap and packing paper (a few bubbles she'd popped to psyche herself up to this it seems) that housed the new component she was fitting.

With every rotation of her wrist, the ratchets in the driver clicked in sequence - the recipient arm tensing each time, muscles in her face tightening. Despite the fact she was pained, she didn't share it - her artificial mind giving her the capacity to be curiously detatched. That is, she knew it was there for it didn't seem important.


It looked like something that should have hurt but she continued with the detatchment of any surgeon until she heard the last of the bolts lock into place against her artificial skeleton. Her eyes rose up to smile in Merril's direction - expression flooding her cheeks now like clouds through a darkened sky, giving meaningful readable contrast.


"Softie!" she began with a smile consistent with opioid use (whether they were for the surgery or just her own amusement was another matter entirely) - a slightly drunken twinkle in her eyes, despite very clear speech and motion.
Thankfully, there would be no sneering today. "What brings you here?"

She then peered down at her arm then back up, remembering something she read in Merril's psychological profiling barely an hour ago, a chuckle in her throat.

"Mind giving me a hand? I bet you can close this up much faster than I can" she said, holding her arm out - pale fluid dripping. As she accentuated the muscles in her biceps, a thick drab of milky oozed out across the floor, followed by something resembling syrup or sap before the leaking stopped.

In spite of her instincts telling her something was very wrong, she was calm and level-headded enough to know that an ARIA quasi-organic body was far more resilient than a common Lorath's.
 
Mars shook her head a little as in agreement to something she though inside her head. "Well," she started and took a deep breather and gave Al'rik a little worried look. "I only saw Keib not playing it casual few times. And it had me worried. He is dangerous man. Luckily he is on our side. As for today, I bet for bathrobe and most likely some funny mug full of black teas. What about you?" She asked back and got up.

She took on a jacket and waved at the other fyunnen to tag along. It was time to go and Mars was curious if she will win the bet. "If I win, you will have to live trough one of mine training courses Al'rik," Mars joked, looking at the woman. Mars will have to tame that berserker in Al'rik, otherwise it will get the girl killed. "What do you want if you win?"
 
Four came in through the hatch in an extremely normal way, especially considering her antics last night in the mess hall. She had worn her uniform a little more relaxed this time, having managed to find a pair of pants with the appropriate modifications, and carried her cap in her hand.

There wasn't a button on her jacket buttoned today. It was a relaxed command, and Four had settled into that fairly naturally. If Keib could wear a Nepleslian t-shirt to this stuff... Four couldn't help staring at it. She couldn't make the words out, exactly. She then realized, a little late, that she had frozen in one of the walkways descending to the briefing area, while she'd tried to figure it out.

Curling her tail, she saluted the Captain and Keib, "Good morning, gentlemen."

Then, she sat down and settled back to wait.
 
Merril hooked the outfit on the handle of the wardrobe, giving a casual reply of, "Just dropping off the tailoring. . . But the hell are you doing to your arm?"

Seeing Aiesu's leg opened like that made Merril uncomfortable. Not because it was an open wound, but because it was self inflicted and Aiesu didn't seem affected at all. She remembered and saw the fact that it was artificial, but it didn't change the fact that it was more than a little weird. The offer of the fake-bodied-female was taken up almost instantly, with the medic pulling three small, sealed pieces of waxy paper from her front pocket. One was a typical disinfectant wipe, used to clean her hands. It was used and discarded unhesitatingly. The second, a tissue, like gauze, to clean up the wound. Absorbent, clean, and effectiver. The third contained her emergency suture packet, containing an already threaded needle.

She set to work immediately after discarding the package.

"This is really weird, you know? Does your body not have a pain function?" She asked, slicing the thread off in between strokes. Her thumbnail, though kept short, had a v shaped indentation made for cutting the thread in between strokes, allowing her to make things like the simple interrupted suture easily.

A minute passed and the wildcat finished her task, neatly sealing the wound. A fourth packet appeared, though this time Merril removed the corner and squeezed something out over the wound. Cool, liquid adhesive sealed the wound shut, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why were you cutting yourself up anyways? Got bored?" She asked, feeling an immediate rush of satisfaction at having finished so quickly.
 
"Maintanance" Aiesu shrugged,

"I have to swap things out every few years... Running things the way I am, years become months or even days, since the body isn't meant to run like this, with a real person's mind inside it."

She clicked her tongue for a moment as she thought of another way to explain herself more clearly, fingers rasping - tendons in her arm flexing.

"In the cryo-unit, my synthetics kept going when my organics didn't. I couldn't do my 'regularly scheduled maintanance'" she said, aping the manner of someone Merril hadn't met.

"I'm just playing catchup -- and I'm going to be playing catchup for the next two or three days" she said, examining Merril's expression.

"You don't need to use the disinfectant... I really hate the way that stuff smells... With this body, you could probably sew a dead rat in me and I wouldn't know."
 
Keib returned Four Six's salute cordially, "Good morning, good to see you well." He commented as he looked her up and down and noticed that her uniform was much better fitting than he previously saw. "Looking sharp, Soldier. Carry on."

He then let her move and sit down. Keib, meanwhile, still seemed to be waiting for more. He knew everyone on ship and he did make it clear that he expected everyone, including the medical staff, the maintenance staff and the chef to come along.

At least, so far, most of the crew organised for the Mok'Ro recovery mission, and the most relevant targets to his speech were coming in slowly.

Al'Ris walked in before Bastion and spotted her XO. She was not pleased by what she saw. No pointy shades, no Kohanian costumes, no dollhouse helmet nor smiles. Her smile faded away and she looked to Bastion, somewhat concerned. "You know, I think I'll forget about that bet." She saluted her XO and sat down, feeling tense, tapping her knees together quietly in agitation.

Keib took his second drink of coffee, jittering slightly as the caffiene started to work through his system. He contemplated the cup quietly before setting it back down.
 
Shrie'keng had been doing an early morning workout when the call for a briefing had gone out. He had assumed that there was still some time before it would actually start. So the Lmanel continued to work his way through the set of exercises he had already started. Mostly focusing on shoulder and back exercises. Once he had finished he threw on his uniforms jacket to head to the appointed place.

Mist walked in from the direction of the weight room. His jacket sticking oddly due the sweat he had worked up. Stepping into the room the Lmanel took a moment to pull on the bottom of his jacket so that it would sit properly. Then went up to the XO and presented himself with a sharp salute before taking his seat.

Shrie'keng tried to pick a position near Aresian. before fidgeting with the sleeve of his jacket again.
 
Merril shuddered at the mention of the dead rat.

"Sorry about that, then," She apologized, tossing the leftovers into the small dustbin nearby. "Force of habit. A good one, but still a habit. I have to keep my skills in rhythm with eachother, or else I might screw up when I actually need them."

The medic gave a shrug, glancing at the clock.

"Oh, damn. I've got 'bout a minute and a half to make it upstairs. Clothing's right there, and try not to slice yourself open while I'm gone," Merril said, gesturing to the hanging clothes before bolting out the door. She made it to the compartment about a minute later, barely out of breath. Her steps took her to salute before the XO before taking a seat near Mist.
 
"Clothes?" Aiesu echoed back to herself, fingering over them thoughtfully before settling them on her bed. She pursed her lips inwards, trying not to laugh as she remembered asking for something that would better fit Four, laughing quietly to herself.

She did remember to ask right? Or was there entropy in the ROM-Construct's own software? Surely not.

She stared back at the large heavy boxes piled up in her chamber she'd dragged from the cargo-decks over the last few hours. There was only a narrow path left between the towers of containers and the bed - which she'd performed the impromptu surgery on.

Dressing herself quickly, she this assigned the coat to a gray only slightly darker than her pearly shirt, deciding the shift in color would do well to set her apart from the dark uniforms of the LSDF types, though she took the belt for herself over her shirt and the arm-band over her coat in a thick black stripe - and a company datapad that hung from her waist on a retractable ribbon - a smooth chromic silvery slate.

Aiesu then fished for a photograph, one of who in her memories was her father - giving it a long look before putting it aside and leaving for the meeting - whether or not she was supposed to be there - a few steps behind Merril.

Once more, she chose to stand.
 
Mars saluted to XO and Captain. "This looks serious," she whispered to Al'rik as both fyunnen females went to sit side by side. Mars sit on her reinforced chair. The tally warrior folded her arms in front of herself on the table. Four-Six on one side, Al'Rik on other.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Mars said to both woman and looked at each of them. Her fingers tapped on the table and she wondered why she got this bad feeling. Sometimes they just happen.
 
Masakaji had not been doing a whole lot with himself since being on the ship. He was laying about in his quarters looking over Lorath regulations, fully clothed in his duty uniform. When the called for the meeting came over the intercom, he sprung up quickly and headed for the briefing room.

He saluted the two officers and took a seat slightly away from the others once he arrived.
 
"Looks like you dressed to disappoint this time around," Commented Hakahn as he stood next to the Lmanel and his student. He was watching as well as the crew entered in singles, twos or threes. The bridge crew had taken to their seats soon after the trio had showed up, now he to was nursing a cup of the near boiling liquid.

He tried to deduce what had his oldest 'friend' drinking what he had at one point called the most vile liquid in existence. Such wonders however had to be put aside as he stood and waited for the briefing.
 
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