RP: LSDF Akahar [Chapter 2.0] - Answer Me

In perhaps one of the rare shows of consideration and/or mercy, Veronica slips an arm around Korro's waist and hauls her away from Merril. "Hey, I know you're starved stupid, but maybe don't get in the fucking way of the only people that have a clue of what to do with this shit." Any approval that might have been met with her action likely faded when she grabbed another saltine cracker (Where was she keeping these things?) and smushed it against the face plate of Korro's suit ineffectually. "There. Now shut the fuck up."

If Mars could see Veronica's face, it'd be a raised eyebrow and an incredulous look. "The fuck you asking me for? I look like I deal with aliens that live in metal? Either we're holding on to something that'll make horror movies for decades, start wars over it, or we'll die horribly in the next ten minutes or so from it. Or all of the above." She pauses "Though in the chance that we live, I say sell it. People would probably throw money at you for some of this to research. Government spooks love to make a weapon out of every fucking thing."

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
"I'll play it safe and remove the fuel, Ma'am," Kam'kebek replied to Mars as he started heading out. "Al'ris, cover me, please." He asked of the Fyunnen. The request seemed reasonable and she followed Kam'kebek's lead towards the first of the two Antimatter Containers. He knelt down and started scanning it with equipment and making a diagnostic. "Seems mostly intact... I can work with this, I think," he chirped as Al'ris watched his back, looking at the walls and the ceiling and out the hall for threats.

Korro was tossed aside by Veronica and abused by her without resistance. Her frail and weakened frame along with her delirious state of mind made her realise a moment too late that she was being womanhandled. And by someone who wasn't Lorath of all things, the cheek of it. With the salt cracker smushed against her visor, she stood there listlessly and wondered what'd just happened. Complete stranger, speaking a language they'd never heard before. They couldn't even put together a coherent string of questions towards Veronica.

Yar'mak's eyes darted between Korro and Veronica growled at the pirate, but Gough seemed to be a little calmer headed as he overheard the conversation between her and Mars. "Veronica, excuse me if I'm wrong," Gough asked. "I can't help but wonder if your observations are laying the suspense on a little thick. Things are already tense A. F. here, see?"

He sounded like an eloquent delinquent, matching the pirate's pidgin correctly. Maybe a flash of his past was coming through under stress, "That's Keib's job to worry about the implications 'n ramifications of whatever the fuck's going on here, not ours. If he wants to sell it, fine, to who, fuck knows."

"Hey, what if the Government already knows?" Yar'mak asked.
"Shut up, Gough!" he raised his voice at his partner.
"Alright, alright, I'm shutting," he sighed and groaned. Gough seemed to be more buddy-buddy with Veronica. "Hey, Merril," he said, looking at the beleaguered Medic with a tilted head, "You okay there?"

Al'ris seemed to continue the observation without contributing to their argument as Kam'kebek continued working with a palm computer in one hand giving him diagnostics as he looked at Antimatter Container and its delivery mechanism. "The system's intact here and I've prepped the Jettison to go off, gotta do the physical valve lock too..." he said, removing the cover around the Antimatter Container and finding its feed valve at the base of where it connected.

He hooked his fingers into the valve release and gave it a firm pull upwards, the sound of a heavy metal clank followed by mechanisms would've been heard were there a volume for sound to travel through.

Meanwhile...

LSDF Akahar, Primary Engineering
Bes'linn had just finished making a small group of... somethings. Little, eight spindly legged metal boxes that could fly when provoked, with wings like a dragonfly for show. Well, the wings were Pratima's idea. So was the high intensity cutting laser. So was the fact that it chirped happily, like an excitable Ey'tis wolf-rabbit in the Spring. And then there was the grapple hook too.

Bes'linn could hardly keep up with the crazy Freespacer's additions upon additions. No two of the four robots they'd created looked the same nor functioned the same, each seemed to have their own little surprise, and each was about the size of a pizza box that'd been folded in half, and about as thick as one too - with the pizza still inside it.

"Where did you learn to prototype?" Bes'linn asked, head resting in her hands with her elbows on the table and a furrowed brow, like she'd just laid someone else's eggs for them and was wondering how the hell they'd gotten there in the first place. "We had a perfectly good basic template to work with..."

Mars frowned at what Veronica said and at her exchange with Gough. "Keib won't sell it and if he does, I will kick his arse. Besides who would you sell this to?" Mars intervened. "Give it to matriarchy? No thanks, not with a man behind wheels. Tomoe is crazy bastard, hell bent on destroying our race by provoking Yamatai. This nation needs a woman to lead us again. Now who else is there? Lazarus?" Mars pointed her hand at the Aria unit turned brain. "You want shit like that end up in hands of Lazarus? I think we should just blow this all up. Fire few torpedoes, toss it into a sun. Shit like that." Mars ran her hand over the back of her helmet in a small gesture of nervousness. She then grabbed her rifle with both hands again, her eyes watching scanners of her suits and her surroundings.

Exhale.

"Yeah, I'm good," Merril grumbled, pulling herself out of her reverie in response to Yar'mak's probing. She attempted to roll her shoulders once, hearing them pop painfully inside her head. It wouldn't do to lose focus now. The nausea still sat in her stomach, but it was bearable.

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
Kam'kebek continued to work with the mechanism until he had successfully decoupled one of the Antimatter Containment units. "Success," he said, "Moving to the next," he broadcasted as he was walking back across the room with Al'ris and past the arguing team. A moment after they'd left, the Antimatter Container was jettisonned into space. That was one half of the Mok'ro's fuel gone.

Yar'mak didn't take any sides in the argument between Veronica and Bastion over what to do with the Mok'ro or whatever the hell had infested it. He stood close to Merril, acting as a buffer between Merril and Korro. Korro, however, had decided to examine the brain of the ship and was mumbling something into it gently. Yar'mak's head swivelled away from Merril and he moved to intercept her from touching it.

"Hey, you don't know where that's been," Yar'mak told Korro. What if it tried to eat her or something, Yar'mak wondered. As he was pulling the frail Llmanel away from the brain-ARIA, he could've swore that there was an eye nestled in the ridges between each hemisphere of that brain, watching him before blinking shut. A chill went up his spine, but he held his tongue for Merril's sake.

When he turned back around, the eye in the brain opened again, gazing at Veronica and swivelling back to Bastion for a split second. The movement scanner Mars had activated detected a minute movement coming from the ARIA core.
"Did you see that?" Gough whispered, nudging Veronica with a one on one communication channel to ensure Merril didn't overhear it - he knew the girl was on edge. His grip on the rifle tightened.

When Kam'kebek came to look at the second one, Al'ris looked down the corridor and she saw something movement. "Possible contact behind you, I'll keep this corridor covered. Keep working."
"Yeah, yeah," Kam'kebek said as he started repeating the process of removing the Antimatter Containment unit and prepping it for jettison.

"Enough chit chat," Mars said as Al'ris reported possible movement. "Everyone on your toes, weapons ready. Something might not like us, cutting its wings off." Mars said and raised her own rifle.

"Soft Touch grab the captain and keep her by your reach, she is clearly a bit out of it. Hellion eyes on your engineer. Wild Dog, keep na eye on Soft Touch and her charge. Hawkeye, you are back up. Be on your toes people." Mars said to her troops, intentionally not telling Veronica anything.

"Sure, we can torpedo the ship... cept we don't know where this all came from so someone else will find it and use it anyway. Rather you have a choice who finds it first, eh?" Veronica shrugs. She gave her two cents on what to do with it, but she didn't have the final say in what to do with it. She sneers at Merril trying to crawl back into her own head. Deciding to giver her a slap on the back (for once), Veronica offered her own special brand of encouragement. "Hey, chicken girl. Might wanna pay attention to what's goin on. Could be important or something. Maybe." She either honestly didn't know or was being a jerk again. Either one didn't reflect well on her.

Veronica, sadly, did notice her observer. She apparently had dodgy self preservation instinct, or was just overconfident. Either way, her response probably wasn't the best, "The fuck are you looking at? Got a problem? Lookin's free, but staring too long will cost you that eye." Why she was speaking to the abnormality with such an aggressive and casual tone was beyond some of her observers. There wasn't even any indication it could hear or understand her.

She didn't care much for the Geshrin's words of encouragement, and scowled silently at her under the mask. But then the Geshrin snapped at something.

"The hell are you talking to?" Merril asked Veronica. She took Korro's arm lightly and pulled her close. Merril glanced at the ARIA, but saw nothing but creepy brain thing.

She desperately wanted to do something. The wildcat was restless. All they were doing was just. . . waiting. Like prey. Prey wait. Predators act.

"Hurry up, Tilt. . ." Merril growled, folding one of her hands into a white-knuckled fist.

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
A slurping noise could be heard on the simulated sound produced by everyone's powered armour sensor suites. Sounded like wet meat grinding and bubbling against each other. The brain in the centre of the room was starting to part - the toothy interior of which was looking positively Freudian as the eyeball gazed further around the room.

Gough's eyes went saucerlike as a sort of tongue began slithering out of it and tasting the air experimentally, assessing the room as the eyeball spotted everyone. Yar'mak raised his LMG immediately and flicked the safety off, "I don't care if that's our objective," he explained, voice cracking as he levelled his aim at the eye "I'm not taking any chances with that ... thing!"

"Who was that?" Gough wondered as he pointed the Lazarus-made Anti-Biological Rifle at it. "I have a clear shot."

"I always had suspicions that my head engineer was a deviant," Korro muttered over the communications. "This is a just form for punishment." Her tone of voice seemed aloof menacing, scorning the dead and transformed. Once upon a time, that ARIA come Brain Vagina Dentata-like thing in the middle of the room was probably a person. Korro didn't seem to have shed any tears, surviving herself somehow.

"Shut up, and sit on a stone." Gough growled as he waited for Mars' order. The tongue seemed to wave towards Gough and it snaked towards him through the air like a whip, slicing his left shin and wrapping around it, dragging him to the floor. "FUCK!" he screamed, as he retained control of his weapon, firing it desperately at the brain, missing his shots as he was slowly dragged towards it, teeth gnashing.

"Contact, corridor!" Al'ris could be heard relaying over the comms. "I have two figures, slithering along the ceiling towards my position!"
Kam'kebek was working quicker now, trying to get this thing disconnected. He glanced nervously over his shoulder to see two snakelike beings, who were fused into one, a push-me pull-you Naga with two torsos, four arms and two heads sliding on the ceiling, eyes white and dead as their mouths were agape in a silent scream.

Kam'kebek tried to ignore it and let Al'ris handle it - the Fyunnen firing at the thing.

Mars did not wait, she raised to move, draving her sword with one hand and speeding she slashed at the tongue to release Gough. "Wilddog, fuck that thing up! Everyone open fire, kill them bastards. Veronica back Hellion up!" Mars moved back to grab Gough and drag him away, her sword raised to fend off the brain thing should it attack with its ugly tentacle thing again. She was right from the start. This place was entirely fuck up. For now they could only defend themselves and then they might try to retreat. First the enemies had to die, that was the way of Lorath Self-Defense Force. Kill the enemy dead. So for now, all Mars could do was send images of what she saw to Keib.

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
♫ Super Metroid - Big Boss Confrontation 1 ♫

The tongue whipped and lashed, and slithered back into its maw. Gough meanwhile had the thing still wrapped around his leg and against the wound, but it soon fell limp after flailing in reflex like a headless snake. He scuttled backwards towards Mars and wrapped his hands around his rifle as his WIND armour (with GUST) assessed the damage to Gough's leg. The brain's eye swivelled and followed the blade, and as its tongue lashed out again, this time at Mars - the brain and its eye soon found itself the victim of a two pronged attack from Mars and Gough.

Projectiles impacted the thing and either burnt it holes in it with powerful tungesten from the High Kinetic Rifle or impaled and spalled it apart with the microwave bursts of the Silva rifle's projectiles. Either approach seemed to be working against the fleshier parts of this strange brain. There was absolutely no clue as to whether or not that was the ARIA core proper, of if it had survived the onslaught intact.

Gough, in catharsis and pain decided to yell something sardonic to ride off the pain that was shooting up his leg, "Not so smart with your brains outside 'a ya ... brains, are ya!" after a sigh, he looked over to Merril. "Medic!" he asked politely as he could, motioning to the gash in his suit and his leg, one of the composite plates protecting his shin shredded apart like cardboard while his wound was tourniquetted down to prevent further bleeding - but he was obviously hurt - he wouldn't be walking on that even after medical attention.

Yar'mak put his rifle up and covered Merril and Gough, keeping his eye on the Brain eye and the opposite corridor. He could see a shadow around the corner. His fingers drummed against the foregrip of his Deshe'vo and he grit his teeth. Korro had ducked and was covering her helmetted head once the bullets started flying around and coilguns got heated up. She was heavy breathing into the comms and muttering a liturgy of some sort into the communications, and with the sound of a beep, Yar'mak revoked her communication privileges.

"Thank you so much," Gough sighed as he knelt near Merril and relieved of whatever prattle Korro, awaiting medical attention. Yar'mak just nodded without taking his eyes off of the brain or the shadow around the corner.

Meanwhile, Kam'kebek found that some of the pipes and wires were sweating, and the fleshy corruption was now creeping closer to the Antimatter containers. They held up their hands and watched the corruption spread into their workspace. He barely pulled the release valve off and started the jettison process when the warping metal suddenly clung to the disconnected antimatter container, stopping it before it left for space.

His heart skipped a beat and his stomach lurched - the Mok'ro could crush that container antimatter container and destroy everything in a light years' radius, Akahar included. "Guys? I'm gonna need a push here!" he yelled as he stood up and looked behind him, raising a carbine. He'd done all he could with finesse, but it seemed that some strength - or discouragement was required to make the final push.

That two bodied snakelike thing used one of its torsos to cling to the ceiling facing the reverse while the other dangled a few feet away from Al'ris, arms flailing towards her as her aim with the Anti-Neutron gun began to steady. It was putting holes in the thing - and the floor, and the wall behind that floor, then the hull. With every shot she took, it kept on gaining holes - but the ship seemed to feed into its sentinel, patching the wound up as the ceiling around them seemed to liquefy and bubble into the two-bodied form.

Push? Mars had more then jsut a push, she was one of the strongest and biggest Fyunnen in the LSDF. And she wore a power-armour. She sheathed her sword and ran to the anti-matter container that Kam'kebek shouted about. She slid to it and grabbed the handles on it. Her Tenshi armour would amplify her strenght and that was gonna be needed as the container was stuck. She grabbed tight and pulled with a certain strain, ripping the container from the metal that clung to it. Mars tossed the container onto her left shoulde grabbing her rifle into her free hand and opening up on the snake thing that Hellion fought, while moving back.

"Hellion, pull back!" Mars shouted and tossed the container at hanging snake-thing. "Titl where do I dispose of this thing?"

Merril loaded one slug into the M'cel and fired it at the thing just before diving to Gough's side and busting open her kit. The acid in the projectile should buy them time, if the advertisement was to be believed. She wiped off the wound with the nanomachine treated wipes, then stuck it with the nanite injector. Following that came wound closures and adhesive bandages to seal it over.

"Thank the goddess for nanomachines," Merril sighed.

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
Gough would feel a familiar sensation rippling along his leg as the nanomachines did their thing and started attempting to diagnose and treat the wound, doing on-the-spot cloud analysis. Each nanite was a little computer capable of fixing biology. It couldn't fix the brain, but it probably could fix the cut in Gough's leg, in addition to the vacuum exposure he'd suffered.

"Th-thanks," Gough's eyes watered as the nanites did their thing and disposed of themselves in his bloodstream, heading to his kidneys to be passed out. They even sewed up very clean cut in the WIND's leg.

"Its dead, I think," Yar'mak said as he looked at the Brain, "But we have incoming still on this side," he watched the shadow on the floor get longer and longer but he wasn't sure if anything was actually materialising or around the corner.

Gough looked into Merril's visor and noticed something, "Huh, you're fogged up."

Kam'kebek's eyes went wide as saucers as Mars reached over him and yanked that container out. He was covering himself and cowering - bracing for the absolute worst as his eyes were clenched shut, teeth chattering "Ah-out! Throw it out into Space!" Kam'kebek replied as he stood, swivelled and aimed his gun at the incoming Naga-like thing.

With both him and Al'ris firing at the thing and putting holes in it faster than it could patch itself up, the front half of it collapsed into the ground and flattened into it like a balloon full of mercury before sinking back into it to reconstitute and regain its nucleus. It seemed the things had a weakness to sustained fire. The other half of it sunk into the ceiling, not willing to risk itself.

Mars had given him an opening and one less thing to worry about. "Let's get that antimatter container outta here. I think the minimum requirement for this mission was to disable propulsion, and with no fuel this thing's going nowhere," he nodded at Bastion as he looked at the container and backed away from it, nervous. "Look, there," Kam'kebek pointed out a window and nodded furiously as his teeth chattered, "w-we can throw the remaining fuel out, easy!"

He was really uncomfortable around a potentially unstable container - and he wasn't just thinking of Korro either, who was now hovering around him since that... heretic... Gough was hogging Merril's attention. He clenched his teeth, grinned, and beared it as best as he could. This could be over soon after all...

"No time!" Mars shouted at the group. "Thing got too hot, we are getting out of here. Hellion you are on point. Someone prepare a bomb with 10 minutes timer. Kam get us the pilot, we are retreating to the extraction point right now!" The extraction point being the large scar in the hull of the ship that went through all the decks, that was what they decided earlier. Mars moved up to go second right after Al'ris leaving the rest of the group to form up on the go. Mars made sure to keep firm grip on the cointainer as she still had plans with it.

LSDF Akahar, Bridge
♫ Ape Escape: On the Loose - Ride of the Terror Coaster ♫

Keib was listening to and watching everything. He was fine with how the mission was unfolding so far - the ARIA core seemed as though it was unable to be salvaged, but the rest of the Mok'ro was intact. The talk amongst the soldiers about weaponising the Mok'ro scared him a little but that was not for him to worry about what Lazarus or the LSDF wanted or why.

It was the talk from Mars about destroying the Mok'ro that scared him even more. He didn't want that being spread all throughout space and infecting more people - if a piece of that hull struck an asteroid or another passing ship - then there'd be more than one Mok'ro. He didn't want to wish that on anyone.

The LSDF and Lazarus would not tolerate it, he knew. So much was riding on this, it'd been a long project and the one chance that the Akahar had to have its sins forgiven and pardoned for the sake of the Lorath was about to be blown up by a soldier who used her heart and not her head. His hands gripped his chair, fingernails digging into the fabric as he sat up.

"Mars Aresian Fyunnen!" Keib's growling voice sounded in the Away Team's ears, addressing the Sergeant in full, frustrated and tense. "You are not to destroy the Mok'ro or let it come to harm in any way. Dump the antimatter container into space immediately and move for extraction and quarantine!"

The Bridge Bunnies turned around to look at him, surprised at the sudden seeming outburst. He was usually so laid back on these missions - what about the Mok'ro had gotten up his backside and forced the jubilance out of him?

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
Gough, Yar'mak and Al'ris went still. Gough looked at the container Mars was carrying - and with the threat neutralised, so was Al'ris.

The two of them had long and sordid pasts that'd lead them to the Akahar, and they didn't want to be responsible for a fuckup so big that it'd mean that they were put to the sword for insubordination. "P-put it away!" Gough said, shaking his head. "I don't want the LSDF taking our ship and our lives! We can't get sentenced any further, it'll be death for all of us! K-Keib too!"

Al'ris turned around, rifle still in her hands, barrel pointed at Mars. "Do it for us, please."

Yar'mak was too busy watching the corner and their way out back to the Extraction Point - Kam'kebek was too overcome with conflicting emotions to act, and Korro's helmet was against his own, grinding against his head and worming into his skull, heavy breathing audible with every grind she made against him.

"Protect - My - Baby."

This ship was dangerous, it should not exist, but he wasn't keen on being executed for supreme subordination either.

Merril saw that Mars waited for Al'ris to move first, but as the situation registered in her own brain, time seemed to slow down. She saw Al'ris raising her rifle. Keib's order's warbled in her ears. Her own rifle resting on the ground. Mars with her back to the wildcat and Gough. Gough's complaining. The creature's melting. Her breathing heavy. Echoing on comms. Everything resonating in that one instant. For her, everything stood still.

And yet, as her mouth dried like a desert, her skin and senses lit like an outback wildfire.

Again, her mind flicked back towards that day back home. The stampede. Everything in that one moment is what counted the most. What she did then would decide her fate. Their fates.

And suddenly she was back there. In the shattered hulk of an empire's glory. Time was resuming. The muscles in her hand warped as she made her move. A finger toggled a switch. Highest setting. The Stalwart Enforcer raised. Shaking. Teeth clacked in an attempt to grit.

Merril fired straight into the back of Mars's knee. And then the other.

LCS Mok'Ro, Main Engineering Room & Engine
"Vathr'dral, we need pickup at Rally Point ASAP," Kam'kebek relayed to the pilot.
"Understood, moving out. See you in two. Be ready."

Merril's shots, while well aimed in the heat of the moment, were from a rather small pistol against powered armour - their only saving grace was that the back of the knee was a difficult part to armour without sacrificing mobility. Mars felt two pinpricks shoot up her leg and cause her knees to buckle, spoiling her concentration and letting go of the cylinder - now floating through the air.

Gough looked up at Merril and screamed "God almighty Merril STAND DOWN!" He stood up on his newly reformed leg and put his arms around the medic, and tried to wrestle her down. Al'ris had a container of antimatter floating towards her and she grabbed it in the zero gravity. Yar'mak's attention flickered and he charged ahead of the group, trying to see if there was indeed anything around the corner making that shadow.

He looked out the window and it turned out to be a piece of debris floating just outside and casting a shadow. "...Clear."
"Help me!" Gough yelled as he tried to force the pistol out of Merril's hands. Yar'mak came to assist and grabbed, and the two soon had both of her arms locked against the struggling Medic.

"Merril, what are you thinking?!" Yar'mak yelled into her helmet as he dragged her through the weightless space towards the extraction point, anchored to the floor by magnetics and assisted by Gough. "Come on, we're leaving," Yar'mak said "This place ain't healthy for us."

"Just a moment!" Al'ris was carrying the container, and carried it with her to the others. "I'll..." she hesitated as Gough and Yar'mak stared at her, "toss it out along the way. V, move."

Veronica grunted, picking up an utterly petrified Kam'kebek along the way and dragging him into a standing position, before his legs found the ground and he started moving. Korro seemed to be rapt by what happened, but the smirk on her face was wiped off when Veronica saw her grin, clotheslined her and slung her over her shoulder. "Freaky bird," she sighed.

LSDF Akahar, Bridge
Keib's mouth was agape.

What the hell was happening over there? From what he was seeing, he was less incensed by the bloody imagery and sheer physics-defying weirdness of the subverted Mok'ro and more surprised by the conduct of his soldiers on it. What the fuck was wrong with his medic? What made his squad team leader qualified to make 'tough calls' all the sudden? Something about that ship was inflaming and exaggerating all of their worst qualities.

"For your safety," Keib didn't seem to have any care in his voice as he lectured his Away Team, "get out of there immediately and return for quarantine processing. You have let me down today. Keib out."

He then cut off the radio support, and they knew it. He buried his hands into his palms. He'd had some shocking salvages and missions but none as nerve wracking as the Mok'ro. He buried his forehead in his palm and sighed, looking into the floor and shaking his head. The bridge bunnies exchanged worried glances with each other and looked back at Keib, who got out of his chair and wiped sweat from his brow.

"...sir?"
"Not, now, Miri," Keib sighed as he flicked his sleeve dry headed towards the Hangar to see how quarantine prep was going. "Vithr. Sitrep," he asked over intercom.

"I've followed everything Aiesu's said," the doctor replied back. "This is as good as its gonna get, but what exactly are we quarantining against?"

"Something unknowable," he replied.
"Not unknowable. Just unknown." Aiesu chimed in.

"Not funny," Vithr replied to both. "When is Away Team inbound?"
"Five, maybe six minutes."

"Sir, an LSDF scouting craft is nearby," Miri said over the intercom. "They have a dropoff."
"I'll talk to them later, you handle it," Keib replied.
"Understood sir,"

There was no sound in the space, Mars could not hear two shots as her subordinate aimed her gun at the tall Fyunnen's knees and hit. Luckily the weapon was too weak to penetrate, but it was enough for her to loose balance mid-stride and loose the container. Mars quickly got back on her feet, looking the container, but seeing that Al'ris handled. She then truned to Merril, who was being handled by Gough. The Mars "Bastion" Aresian was furious. This whole situation was shit. Mars drew her sword and aimed the tip at Merril for a second, she was shaking and could not find words. Her Fyunnen blood was boiling. But then she remembered her training and training she was trying to give to Al'ris and got her feelings under control.

"Come on we are out of time let's get out of here, I will take the point." She said, putting her sword back into sheath and holding her rifle with both hands. "Once we are clear of the ship, ditch the cointainer." She tried to ignore Keib's comment about being dissapointed. He should have been glad, Mars decided to not do what she wanted to do earlier. Besides he was not even here, he did not see.

The white shadow, innocuous as always, seemed to materialize without even the slightest susurrus at Kieb’s elbow. Her slender tail brushed his leg; otherwise she could have been easily standing there for longer. Anyone's guess as to how long she'd been there exactly was bound to be wrong.

“46” was in uniform, again, carrying all the impliments of her wartime trade slung over her shoulder and belted at her hip, though her demeanor seemed more subdued than before, as though whatever weight she had carried unknowingly had irrevocably descended upon her. Physically she seemed fine; however, her normally alert gray eyes flagged, shaded by her field cap, and wouldn’t raise to meet Keib’s – or anyone on the bridge for that matter.

The little soldier did look up for a bare moment, and he got a glimpse of them.

“Can I help now, Mister Kieb?”