NSS Nemesis, Hangar
With the transfer of the unit to their new home immediately after their sortie, the joint operations unit found themselves surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a busy flagship. Bunks were assigned, quickly taken away, and reassigned. Personal effects were sent for from the Ulfbert, prisoners set up in the brig, and intelligence proceedures put under way. Left hanging in the wind were the recovered slaves from the Ruby Rose's cargo hold. The troll found a place in the metal shop, apparently forging ancient weapons. The elf seemed to be finding every single man on the ship and trying (sometimes succeeding) to convince him that it was manly to lie with men instead of women. This left Ilsa, the Raltean Neko who'd been locked away in stasis for ten years. She wandered the halls of the Nemesis alone, occasionally turning back the cat-calls of marines who'd never seen a Neko before with a few well-placed threats in her overly formal style of speaking.
Eventually, she found herself standing in the hangar of the battlecruiser, at the foot of Phase's shuttle. The berthing was quiet, isolated. The back entrance embedded with a familiar machine. It was an island in the madhouse, and so it was here that Ilsa stood in absolute silence looking up at the craft with a hard face and one hand toying with the thick blonde braid hanging from the more-Valkyrja-than-Neko's head.
The Frame embedded into the back door of the shuttle lit up, the head in particular having the full cross-section of view blaze with red, with a circular "blank spot" appearing in the middle. The head tilted slightly, and the eye matched the movement to angle down at the not-so-centennial woman.
"SO, THE EVIL MACHINE COMES TO VISIT? IT IS RUDE TO STARE, I HAVE BEEN TOLD," The figure bellowed from its very stationary position. One of the "skirt" pieces of the figure unfolded into a hand, though all it did was flex.
Ilsa bowed deeply at the waist, her legs frozen in position on the cold metal floor. When she stood once more, cold blue eyes surveyed the Freespacer ensconced in its shuttle. "I have only now learned why you call me an evil machine." She explained with a softness reserved typically for children and the ill. "If my presence disturbs you, I will permit you to kill me."
"I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU TOO, SO I CONSIDER IT FAIR. IT IS NOT HARD TO KEEP AN EYE ON SOMEBODY WHO IS NOT HIDING," Phase remarked, the body in the door shifting its legs wider. The metal between them flipped down, extending as a ramp and a doorway into the confines of the small vessel. "BUT YOU ARE HERE FOR MORE THAN JUST STARING, ARE YOU NOT? IT IS AWKWARD TO BE HAVING A CONVERSATION LIKE THIS. COME."
Ilsa ascended into the mouth of the beast. It was very, very cramped. She politely slid her boots off and left them on the ramp before bowing deeply once more in the entry way. Shifting in her cloak, she took in the long and short (mostly short) of her surroundings before speaking once more. "Please forgive my ignorance in matters regarding your people. I..." There was a pause, "I don't know how guests are received."
The shuttle wasn't cluttered so much as very, very utilized. Every space either had an arm extending from it, or it served as a storage case, or a tool case, and so on and so forth. Of course, that led to a very straight shot from ramp entrance to the back of the pilot's area, where Phase's little body was esconsed. It sat in the seiza position, facing the doorway.
"OUR TRADITIONS MIGHT NOT BE TOO UNLIKE YOURS ARE, IN THEORY. IRRELEVANT."
The little body pulled itself upright, the display lighting up with a neutral emoticon. "Now then~, I do not have much to offer to a fleshbag like yourself, but I can at least pro~vide~ a seat!"
Brass nails gestured to the wall, and a swarm of drones flew out and assimilated with one another until a reasonably safe (at least, from Ilsa's point of view) chair was formed. Removing her war axe, the Neko sat cross-legged upon the chair as if it were some sort of raised floor cushion and laid her weapon across her lap. Trying to look a little more comfortable, she produced a pipe. The thing itself had been among her effects, a relic of Old Ralt. This was, she reminded herself as she pressed tobacco into the bowl, probably the only opportunity she would have to smoke in her entire life. With a sigh, she spoke evenly to Phase. "I have taken in the history of the last twenty years in a way that only my kind--" She paused and fixed the machine in her gaze, "Only our kind, those with machine minds, can. But there is only so much that can be printed in textbooks."
"Things that can only be spoken about, yes?" Phase asked, a holographic display popping out of the wall and showing the viewpoint of a drone heading to the cafeteria on the ship. "I am not the font that you seek, of course~. I was. . . formed af~ter the genocide your successors performed. Tea?"
She gestured to the display, where the drone's camera had settled on a funky machine and a bunch of podlike vessels marked with various types of tea.
"Do Nepleslians drink mead?" Ilsa asked, trying to show interest in the vending machine. Eventually, she waved a dismissive hand and shook her head. "I'll have some water later."
"Fair e~nough. I just wanted to make sure you were com~fort~able!" Phase folded her hands over one another, her display turning to a smile. "We were afraid of your kind, you know. We wanted safety. But that plan is. . . what is the phrase? Ironically? It is what led to the mass murder. So many innocents slain that day~" Her giddy tone seemed to undercut her point, but maybe it was a programming error?
"The child refuses to speak to me, so it is up to my imagination to field the horrors." Ilsa admitted somewhat sourly.
"Of course she wouldn't. She is far older, and far wiser than I am~. So many secrets to uncover, so many~!"
"But I ask you...!" Ilsa took her hands off of the pipe and spread them wide in a pleading gesture, "Tell me, machine, did your people truly oppose the Empire? Were there foes amongst the innocent? Where--" This was the hardest question to ask, and its seeming irrelevance made it even harder, though to Ilsa it was part and parcel with the whole situation. "Where has my Emperor gone?"
Phase's display switched colours. A purple. Her tones shifted. Masculine. Deep.
"There were blades in the blood and wolves in the sheep but ultimately we were a vast and mostly uncentered group we had no consensus like your senate like the Nepleslians senate we had simply freedom but some wished to see what they could do while others wanted to assess your threat but the moment we began to see how dangerous you were we turned to your enemy to find safety but that was ultimately the worst decision and one that was repeated by the Lorath or perhaps they did it first either way innocent blood was spilt and Yamatai is to blame."
The display shifted back to its usual colours of shifting blue and teal.
"And your emperor fled. That history is not one I studied, because it was un~im~por~tant~!"
Ilsa took it all in slowly, returned in silence to her work with the pipe and finally put a lit match to the cavendish. She sat and pondered what she'd been given. In some places, the gaps were filled. In others, only shadows remained. Finally, she managed to inhale some smoke without coughing up a puddle of hemosynth and reported. "The Empire has demanded I return so that my body can be weakened. I do not have to serve them, and the modern arrangements give me free range over this galaxy..." Ilsa sighed. "Do you know where it is quiet in the galaxy?"
Phase was up in an instant, her staggered legs extending and compressing gently as she approached the neko and lowered her display to eye level.
"It all depends on what you mean by qui~et~! Free of Yamatai? Free of anybody? A quiet hole in the ground, six foot under? That last expression I just learned is a Nepleslian one for dead and buried, is it not clever?"
"It certainly sounds like a grave." Ilsa agreed nonchalantly, smoke pouring from her nostrils. "What would you do, in this position?"
"What would *I* do? Well. . . I have my talents. I would make more drones. And get more data. And use the two combined. I am getting so much data from just this ship alone. Nepleslians are a fascinating case study! But eventually the data I get won't be able to carry me anymore, so I expand operations and move out. If I am not getting new data, then my time is being wasted. Not having enough data is what killed my people, in the end. That, and brutal savages with big guns."
"Perhaps," Ilsa suggested slowly, pulling her braid over one shoulder and straightening it with closed eyes, "It would be wise to scan any NH-17 model Nekovalkyrja that wander into your presence."
"An opportunity I will never miss! On the other hand, you could do what your coward emperor did and flee at the first sign of trouble~!"
"Hmph." A smirk crossed the Raltean features for just a second, and the blonde Neko leaned forward to put a hand on Phase's chassis. "I know little of what happened, but the Uesu I served was no coward. The Empire that I will be returned to is not the Empire I lived with. And your people are not my enemy. I may be the last remaining member of the Skjoldsvulf clan, and only a machine made in their image-- but I will as one being to another offer you my assistance. Call upon me when you wish, not as an apology for the actions of my people but as a reminder that we are just that: people."
How disappointing. Phase thought.
"Oh? I will keep that in mind for future in~ter~ac~tions! This was a. . . productive conversation, I think! But do know that Yamatai does~not~like its things to go a-wandering too long~!"
The holographic display lit up with the image of a lilac nekovalkryja and a bounty under her head, posted recently by the Empire.
"I am to be converted," Ilsa explained, mentally noting the Neko she'd been shown. A potential contact? Prey? The Valkyrja set this aside and stood up, slipping her axe back into her belt. "They mean to remove my capabilities. I am told that we have some rights now, my sisters and I-- that we may keep our body if it is weakened? Perhaps it is a lie and I will be destroyed when I return to Geshrintal. But Nepleslians walk around in their fragile bodies, and they are able warriors-- so I think I will manage. And in the end I think I prefer to be out from beneath the yoke of the creature which wears the mask of my old master. Gods willing."
"Do it quick or don't do it at all, Nepleslia is allied with Yamatai now and there's only so long you can delay a transfer~!"
Phase's display lit up with another smiley.
"But, in the meantime, did you get the answers you wanted? Or the ones you needed? I like to make sure that everybody is sat~is~fied by my interactions~!"
"I don't think you can help me with what needs to be found next." Was the answer. The neko shook her head, her ears folding flat and her eyes taking on a look of resignation. "I had a, well, a woman was to be my wife and I must find her. Aside from that, there are secrets buried in this galaxy that I intend to uncover on my own. I suppose," That soft smile came back and Ilsa reached once more for Phase's chassis with delicate fingers, "Perhaps you could tell me your name?"
"Dollmaker Diharmonious Phase 46-9084-314. But you may call me Phase." She interlaced one silicon-and-metal coated hand with Ilsa's own synthetic flesh.
"Phase, I am Ilsa. I will send you a means of contacting me once I've gained freedom again." Ilsa assured her new robotic compatriot with a firm shake, fingers tight around the wrist of the offered hand. A Raltean handshake, for warriors. "Call upon me when you need me."
Phase's display turned purple again.
"I will certainly make sure to."
With the transfer of the unit to their new home immediately after their sortie, the joint operations unit found themselves surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a busy flagship. Bunks were assigned, quickly taken away, and reassigned. Personal effects were sent for from the Ulfbert, prisoners set up in the brig, and intelligence proceedures put under way. Left hanging in the wind were the recovered slaves from the Ruby Rose's cargo hold. The troll found a place in the metal shop, apparently forging ancient weapons. The elf seemed to be finding every single man on the ship and trying (sometimes succeeding) to convince him that it was manly to lie with men instead of women. This left Ilsa, the Raltean Neko who'd been locked away in stasis for ten years. She wandered the halls of the Nemesis alone, occasionally turning back the cat-calls of marines who'd never seen a Neko before with a few well-placed threats in her overly formal style of speaking.
Eventually, she found herself standing in the hangar of the battlecruiser, at the foot of Phase's shuttle. The berthing was quiet, isolated. The back entrance embedded with a familiar machine. It was an island in the madhouse, and so it was here that Ilsa stood in absolute silence looking up at the craft with a hard face and one hand toying with the thick blonde braid hanging from the more-Valkyrja-than-Neko's head.
The Frame embedded into the back door of the shuttle lit up, the head in particular having the full cross-section of view blaze with red, with a circular "blank spot" appearing in the middle. The head tilted slightly, and the eye matched the movement to angle down at the not-so-centennial woman.
"SO, THE EVIL MACHINE COMES TO VISIT? IT IS RUDE TO STARE, I HAVE BEEN TOLD," The figure bellowed from its very stationary position. One of the "skirt" pieces of the figure unfolded into a hand, though all it did was flex.
Ilsa bowed deeply at the waist, her legs frozen in position on the cold metal floor. When she stood once more, cold blue eyes surveyed the Freespacer ensconced in its shuttle. "I have only now learned why you call me an evil machine." She explained with a softness reserved typically for children and the ill. "If my presence disturbs you, I will permit you to kill me."
"I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU TOO, SO I CONSIDER IT FAIR. IT IS NOT HARD TO KEEP AN EYE ON SOMEBODY WHO IS NOT HIDING," Phase remarked, the body in the door shifting its legs wider. The metal between them flipped down, extending as a ramp and a doorway into the confines of the small vessel. "BUT YOU ARE HERE FOR MORE THAN JUST STARING, ARE YOU NOT? IT IS AWKWARD TO BE HAVING A CONVERSATION LIKE THIS. COME."
Ilsa ascended into the mouth of the beast. It was very, very cramped. She politely slid her boots off and left them on the ramp before bowing deeply once more in the entry way. Shifting in her cloak, she took in the long and short (mostly short) of her surroundings before speaking once more. "Please forgive my ignorance in matters regarding your people. I..." There was a pause, "I don't know how guests are received."
The shuttle wasn't cluttered so much as very, very utilized. Every space either had an arm extending from it, or it served as a storage case, or a tool case, and so on and so forth. Of course, that led to a very straight shot from ramp entrance to the back of the pilot's area, where Phase's little body was esconsed. It sat in the seiza position, facing the doorway.
"OUR TRADITIONS MIGHT NOT BE TOO UNLIKE YOURS ARE, IN THEORY. IRRELEVANT."
The little body pulled itself upright, the display lighting up with a neutral emoticon. "Now then~, I do not have much to offer to a fleshbag like yourself, but I can at least pro~vide~ a seat!"
Brass nails gestured to the wall, and a swarm of drones flew out and assimilated with one another until a reasonably safe (at least, from Ilsa's point of view) chair was formed. Removing her war axe, the Neko sat cross-legged upon the chair as if it were some sort of raised floor cushion and laid her weapon across her lap. Trying to look a little more comfortable, she produced a pipe. The thing itself had been among her effects, a relic of Old Ralt. This was, she reminded herself as she pressed tobacco into the bowl, probably the only opportunity she would have to smoke in her entire life. With a sigh, she spoke evenly to Phase. "I have taken in the history of the last twenty years in a way that only my kind--" She paused and fixed the machine in her gaze, "Only our kind, those with machine minds, can. But there is only so much that can be printed in textbooks."
"Things that can only be spoken about, yes?" Phase asked, a holographic display popping out of the wall and showing the viewpoint of a drone heading to the cafeteria on the ship. "I am not the font that you seek, of course~. I was. . . formed af~ter the genocide your successors performed. Tea?"
She gestured to the display, where the drone's camera had settled on a funky machine and a bunch of podlike vessels marked with various types of tea.
"Do Nepleslians drink mead?" Ilsa asked, trying to show interest in the vending machine. Eventually, she waved a dismissive hand and shook her head. "I'll have some water later."
"Fair e~nough. I just wanted to make sure you were com~fort~able!" Phase folded her hands over one another, her display turning to a smile. "We were afraid of your kind, you know. We wanted safety. But that plan is. . . what is the phrase? Ironically? It is what led to the mass murder. So many innocents slain that day~" Her giddy tone seemed to undercut her point, but maybe it was a programming error?
"The child refuses to speak to me, so it is up to my imagination to field the horrors." Ilsa admitted somewhat sourly.
"Of course she wouldn't. She is far older, and far wiser than I am~. So many secrets to uncover, so many~!"
"But I ask you...!" Ilsa took her hands off of the pipe and spread them wide in a pleading gesture, "Tell me, machine, did your people truly oppose the Empire? Were there foes amongst the innocent? Where--" This was the hardest question to ask, and its seeming irrelevance made it even harder, though to Ilsa it was part and parcel with the whole situation. "Where has my Emperor gone?"
Phase's display switched colours. A purple. Her tones shifted. Masculine. Deep.
"There were blades in the blood and wolves in the sheep but ultimately we were a vast and mostly uncentered group we had no consensus like your senate like the Nepleslians senate we had simply freedom but some wished to see what they could do while others wanted to assess your threat but the moment we began to see how dangerous you were we turned to your enemy to find safety but that was ultimately the worst decision and one that was repeated by the Lorath or perhaps they did it first either way innocent blood was spilt and Yamatai is to blame."
The display shifted back to its usual colours of shifting blue and teal.
"And your emperor fled. That history is not one I studied, because it was un~im~por~tant~!"
Ilsa took it all in slowly, returned in silence to her work with the pipe and finally put a lit match to the cavendish. She sat and pondered what she'd been given. In some places, the gaps were filled. In others, only shadows remained. Finally, she managed to inhale some smoke without coughing up a puddle of hemosynth and reported. "The Empire has demanded I return so that my body can be weakened. I do not have to serve them, and the modern arrangements give me free range over this galaxy..." Ilsa sighed. "Do you know where it is quiet in the galaxy?"
Phase was up in an instant, her staggered legs extending and compressing gently as she approached the neko and lowered her display to eye level.
"It all depends on what you mean by qui~et~! Free of Yamatai? Free of anybody? A quiet hole in the ground, six foot under? That last expression I just learned is a Nepleslian one for dead and buried, is it not clever?"
"It certainly sounds like a grave." Ilsa agreed nonchalantly, smoke pouring from her nostrils. "What would you do, in this position?"
"What would *I* do? Well. . . I have my talents. I would make more drones. And get more data. And use the two combined. I am getting so much data from just this ship alone. Nepleslians are a fascinating case study! But eventually the data I get won't be able to carry me anymore, so I expand operations and move out. If I am not getting new data, then my time is being wasted. Not having enough data is what killed my people, in the end. That, and brutal savages with big guns."
"Perhaps," Ilsa suggested slowly, pulling her braid over one shoulder and straightening it with closed eyes, "It would be wise to scan any NH-17 model Nekovalkyrja that wander into your presence."
"An opportunity I will never miss! On the other hand, you could do what your coward emperor did and flee at the first sign of trouble~!"
"Hmph." A smirk crossed the Raltean features for just a second, and the blonde Neko leaned forward to put a hand on Phase's chassis. "I know little of what happened, but the Uesu I served was no coward. The Empire that I will be returned to is not the Empire I lived with. And your people are not my enemy. I may be the last remaining member of the Skjoldsvulf clan, and only a machine made in their image-- but I will as one being to another offer you my assistance. Call upon me when you wish, not as an apology for the actions of my people but as a reminder that we are just that: people."
How disappointing. Phase thought.
"Oh? I will keep that in mind for future in~ter~ac~tions! This was a. . . productive conversation, I think! But do know that Yamatai does~not~like its things to go a-wandering too long~!"
The holographic display lit up with the image of a lilac nekovalkryja and a bounty under her head, posted recently by the Empire.
"I am to be converted," Ilsa explained, mentally noting the Neko she'd been shown. A potential contact? Prey? The Valkyrja set this aside and stood up, slipping her axe back into her belt. "They mean to remove my capabilities. I am told that we have some rights now, my sisters and I-- that we may keep our body if it is weakened? Perhaps it is a lie and I will be destroyed when I return to Geshrintal. But Nepleslians walk around in their fragile bodies, and they are able warriors-- so I think I will manage. And in the end I think I prefer to be out from beneath the yoke of the creature which wears the mask of my old master. Gods willing."
"Do it quick or don't do it at all, Nepleslia is allied with Yamatai now and there's only so long you can delay a transfer~!"
Phase's display lit up with another smiley.
"But, in the meantime, did you get the answers you wanted? Or the ones you needed? I like to make sure that everybody is sat~is~fied by my interactions~!"
"I don't think you can help me with what needs to be found next." Was the answer. The neko shook her head, her ears folding flat and her eyes taking on a look of resignation. "I had a, well, a woman was to be my wife and I must find her. Aside from that, there are secrets buried in this galaxy that I intend to uncover on my own. I suppose," That soft smile came back and Ilsa reached once more for Phase's chassis with delicate fingers, "Perhaps you could tell me your name?"
"Dollmaker Diharmonious Phase 46-9084-314. But you may call me Phase." She interlaced one silicon-and-metal coated hand with Ilsa's own synthetic flesh.
"Phase, I am Ilsa. I will send you a means of contacting me once I've gained freedom again." Ilsa assured her new robotic compatriot with a firm shake, fingers tight around the wrist of the offered hand. A Raltean handshake, for warriors. "Call upon me when you need me."
Phase's display turned purple again.
"I will certainly make sure to."
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