RP: LSDF Akahar [Chapter 2.0] - Answer Me

LSDF Akahar, Bridge
♫ Final Fantasy X - Seymour's Theme ♫

Four Six said:

“Can I help now, Mister Kieb?”

Click to expand...

Keib looked down at the furry little ninja of his. He hadn't seen her in a while - she had been on sick leave, after the... incident - and he was running short on friendly faces he could trust. "Good to see you walking again, Four. Has Vithr been taking care of you?" he asked.

"Yes." A prompt answer. The grey eyes wavered for a moment, her expression changing just slightly to hesitation before she looked back to the bridge 'at large', an unfocused attention. "Mister Vithr did. Was."

"Yes. I'm expecting my Away Team back, and I fear something's come over them. He's setting up a quarantine," Keib said as the door to the Hangar slid open - and he confronted another door, turning a small stretch of corridor into a valve as a rudimentary medical scan examined the two and identified them as 'Mar'zhaz Keib' and 'Four Six', both healthy and clean. The door to the hangar opened up. They entered, the larger officer and smaller soldier, at a brisk pace.

LSDF Akahar, Primary Hangar
Every exit in the hangar seemed to have been sealed - each door was turned into an examination valve, each vent was covered shut, and the only way out without authorisation seemed to be directly into space. Some rudimentary foodstuffs and basic entertainment had been set up for anyone unfortunate enough to be found infected with ... whatever was eating the Mok'ro.

Seven hours... Keib remembered, running his tongue along the inside of his mouth. This is just another quarantine. With any luck, this Sourcian thing is manageable. Four-Six unshouldered and checked her rifle, the sound somehow isolated and foreign from the rest of his thoughts. Somehow, after what he had been watching on the viewscreen, that seemed comforting. The little white Helashio, as mysterious as her origin had been when she had come to him, could at least be competant.

"Vithr, sitrep." Keib called from the balcony that overlooked the Hangar.

Vithr was standing next to the smaller Lmanel construct with a datapad in his hands. The two were coordinating something before Keib showed up. "...move structol materials away, got it," he said back to Aiesu. "Yeah Keib. Just wrapping up here. Aiesu's get everything planned to the minutae."

"Good," Keib replied. "The Away Team should be here soon. Talked to Bes'linn at all?"

"Yeah she's been moving things around, keeping the place clear. We're storing some of the more sensitive stuff in space."

"Like what?" Keib asked. "Why would you need to do that?"

Vithr's eyes glanced down to Aiesu, who crossed her arms at the two men. "Her orders."

Keib could hear the tiny, incredulous sniff from the relative height of his left elbow but that seemed to be the only opinion Four-Six would give. A glance showed him her impassivity. Keib knew Aiesu's disdain of Helashio, but maybe she was brought up orthodox or something. "Very good," Keib said as he started looking for a stairwell down, and stepped onto the hangar floor with the Helashio shadowing him close.

He stood beside Vithr and looked out into space, at the Mok'ro floating there, a weird being rather than just a bombed out hulk of a ship, possibly even alive based on the reports and visuals Keib had been seeing. Aiesu was right, nothing prepared the Away Team for such visuals. Perhaps getting mad at his team was wrong but what else could he vent frustration at? Maybe he could pitch stones at the Mok'ro through space.

Keib scowled at the thing, eyes narrow and knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists beneath his gloves.

"Mister Keib?" The quiet voice, low enough not to disturb the crew moving around the bay, gently intruded.

Keib looked down after contemplating the Mok'ro's gripping Madness. She looked at him with concern, but did not speak immediately. "Hm?" he mumbled while he looked at Four's white hair, face screwed up and brow low. Of course, she would not speak unless he asked her to. Had that been the collar, or had she always been like this?

"Are you alright, Mister Keib?"

He shook his head gently. "I'd be lying if I said yes."

-

Vithr looked over at his captain with some worry - but he could understand. He hadn't seen anything direct of what was taking place on the Mok'ro, but everything he'd heard from Aiesu as part of the quarantine prep was making his gut churn. "So, like you were saying..." he walked off with Aiesu to put the icing on the cake.

-

The ship wouldn't move, even if they stared at it. Even if they stared at it for a long time, which they did end up doing. Breaths seemed an inprecise marker of time; it might have been shorter. From Four-Six's perspective, she couldn't fathom how far away the ship was, or how powerful that it might be, or how relatively dangerous.

All she knew came from a few moments on the bridge and a general whispering among the ship's skeleton crew as she'd passed - but she hadn't listened very closely. Even though she did not have to instinctively fear that in a few hours she would have a pain in her neck and then the blissful forgetfulness, she had braced for it and mentally clenched. When it did not come, she felt... disappointed? Frightened?

She still ached. And, she couldn't be sure whether with all the drugs she was on whether the pain was fully mental or not, whether the pain in her gut would be her imagination or not. She'd dismissed it because something in the back of her mind knew it would be gone by the time she woke up the next morning, but it had stayed with her inside her eyelids all night.

The last few days had been hard.

At her side, fully half her height taller than she, the ship's Executive officer - her savior, of sorts - seemed troubled, and, even though she curled her tail very hard to think about it, she did not particularly know what to say or do. Some base urge made her want to comfort him somehow.

Would they be alright? Would it be lying to say so?

And why did she have to think about it?

Keib was still looking at her. She swallowed, and slumped, unsure. "Mister Keib, do you know what to do?"

"Trust my crew, trust Aiesu. That's all I can do for now," he said as he looked over to Aiesu and Vithr from across the hangar, in the process of moving more boxes - recently delivered ones away into a very secure place. "The rest is in their hands I think."

Four-Six followed his gaze, and found herself scrunching her nose a bit.

Aiesu.

"Do you trust her, Mister Keib?"

"Yes and no," he replied curtly. He didn't care to elaborate why. Four Six warred with herself over whether or not to ask him why. From her interactions with Aiesu, Four knew that the construct took pleasure in other peoples' misery, and Four's especially.

Nervously curling her tail the other way, she looked back to the doctors, then up at Keib, studying his expression for a clue as to what she should do or say or whether it would be appropriate or not.

"Mister Keib?" Small voice, again.
"Yes?"

"May I say something, Mister Keib?"
"You shouldn't have to ask," he replied.

Four looked down at the deck, uncertain if she should be commenting, even with permission. "I do not like her, Mister Keib."

Gee, can't imagine why. Keib thought as he looked over to Aiesu and saw some of the more bitter aspects of her personality on the surface to most onlookers - but she did want to make sure Keib's brain came out of this ordeal intact, whatever happened. Aiesu knew he cared about his crew because he knew no other family in the last couple of decades. Keib responded to Four Six with a simple "Mmmhm," in some degree of agreement. "I've seen enough. Let's move somewhere safer," he announced before heading back the way he came, en route to the skybox that overlooked the hangar and followed by the wet-nosed Helashio.

"Haah. . . Haaah. . ." She sighed.

Merril watched the events play out through the breath-fog on her visor, making it all very apparent the divide between glass and space that people weren't supposed to notice.

She so desperately wanted to see Mars hurt.

Mars had stumbled and dropped the dangerous object, sure. But Merril wanted to see pain. Damage. Hurt. And soon she realized that she was on the restrained, pinned between her charge and his partner. Mars raised her sword and put it back, and yet. . .

It was almost like watching a broadcast. The visor was her portal. Her screen. And not needing to move around, thanks to the two beside her just added to it. They could feel her muscles relax in their grips, though neural fire licked her skin across her body as adrenaline worked its course. They might have compared her to a cat being carried by its mother by the neck, had they been prone to analogizing.

A lewd sense of joy fought its way in both directions out of her stomach, indiscriminately teasing her with thoughts and promises of relief. Nostrils flared. Legs quivered. Springtime.

"Haah. . . Haaah. . ." she mewled again, the strangeness more apparent in tone.

Something nagged at the back of her head, at all of this. Trickling through her thoughts. Disconnected from her sensations. And as static crept into their communications, Merril suddenly felt very, very alone.

"Come on, let's get a move on," Mars said to the rest of the team as she was pushing ahead with rifle in her hands. She hoped that superior fire-rate of the gun should help, should she ran into more monstrosities. She also made sure to not ran off from her team, they were the ones that really had to get out of here. Al'ris, Yar'Mak, Gough, Merril who was hurt, Kam, even the pirate bitch Veronica. Mars also wondered if it was okay to take the captain of Mok'ro. Bastion did not trust the fact that the person survived on this ship for months. It seemed impossible.

"Keib, we are almost at the extraction point. Everyone is with me and we have a survivor." Mars radioed back to Akahar. "I suggest you blow this fucking ship to smitherness once we are clear."

LCS Mok'ro - Port Side Hallway, Deck Two
"I'm on level two, middle of the big gash, you can't miss it!" Vathr'dral yelled into his communications. "Hatch opening,"

"Its hell here, glad you aren't here!" Gough said over the communications as he carried Merril with Yar'mak. He could hear her breathing from where he was standing and the sound of static in his ear. Maybe she was drooling into her microphone? Gross he thought, her mind must be completely broken.

He muted his communications to her, but the buzz persisted. He rationalised that it must've been something glitchy with his system. All the technology around him had been on the fritz for quite a while - maybe whatever was eating the Mok'ro was getting to his suit too? He didn't want to have to be quarantined - he was cut by a goddamn brain! Maybe - maybe Merril's nanites were safe. His mind was swimming with worry as he dragged Merril to the shuttle.

"Come on, quick!" Vathr'dral said over the radio again as the hatch was down, gangplanked through the gash in the ship.

"Hang on, got something to dispose of," Al'ris said as she was the first along the gangplank, throwing the canister of Antimatter out into the intervening space, away from the Mok'ro, hurling and hurtling forever into the void as nothing further impeded its motion. "Antimatter clear, let's go people!" she said as she dove into Shuttle first, followed by Gough and Yar'mak.

Mars would've barrelled through next, followed by Veronica (and Korro) and Kam'kebek bringing up the rear, all of them breathing a sigh of relief as they sat down and watched the gangplank retract and the shuttle hatch starting to close. The six of them sat tight and uncomfortably as the shuttle begun to disengage from the cursed Mok'ro. Merril was sitting between Gough and Yar'mak while Mars was between Veronica and Kam'kebek, the Fyunnen male shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Korro was left to hang onto something and stand, her frail form visible to all.

As they watched the hatch close, the gash in the Starboard that they'd seen seemed to have changed shape - something like a giant pair of lips, with each jagged interior of the gash resembling a tooth. It could've been their overactive imaginations running wild and fear colouring their view.

Could it have been? Question to ponder as the hatch closed and the air started to fill in the empty space.

'It is not safe to remove your helmet' a digitised voice spoke in the shuttle. 'Please keep your helmets on for the duration of the ride.' Gough had his fingers against the underside of his helmet, but he drew them away, and his sweaty, panting and reddened face was obscured by his visor. Yar'mak resisted the temptation to remove his helmet too, resting his head against the backrest of his seat with a quiet donk.

"Oh my god," he panted into his communications. "What the fuck," he said, addressing just about everything that'd happened in the last half hour.

"That is the Wrath of God," Korro trilled as she hung fast against a grab rail for the trip.

"Shut up you," Gough sighed as he looked at the hatch to Vathr'dral's cockpit. The seven of them were stuck there together having been exposed to the lurking chaos of the Mok'ro, and maybe the Shuttle wasn't clean either. Gough's mind was awash - he was cut by that damn thing and the woman sitting next to her just fucking snapped. He'd never seen someone act so rashly on the Akahar, except in private as a form of ventilation.

He could feel Yar'mak's gaze looking at the both of them, judging them and Korro too. Were they safe? They were most likely to be quarantined material to his knowledge. Korro had spent so long on the damn thing, Gough got cut up and Merril couldn't hold her stones.