RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 1] Welcome to Cloud Nine

A few lightyears or so to the galactic north of Nepleslia Prime, sitting amongst a remarkably busy expanse of empty space, drifted Nepleslia’s newest, most ambitious research program to date: The Cirrus Research Facility. Among the numerous space construction vehicles and transport ships sat six enormous cylindrical buildings, massive in size, dwarfed only by the single main station that floated in between them. Shuttles and cargo vessels of all kinds darted in and out of the massive facility while others broke hyperspace either to arrive at the station or depart towards Nepleslia Prime, finished with their business.

One particular passenger vessel, the Rucky Stah, was one of these freshly-arriving vessels. A few miles away from the Cirrus Station’s hull, the Rucky Stah shimmered and broke out of hyperspace carrying a fresh batch of passengers, all of them from the different corners of the universe, yet all of them set on the same destination. Inside of the passenger ship held quite a sight; men and women all from different aspects of society sat amongst the heavily crowded seats. Some were in lab coats, scientists from NAM or even CSEIA, while others donned colorful clothing and mechanics, no doubt members of Freespacer society from their symbols and mannerisms. Still others proudly displayed their green uniforms and sidearms…members of the Star Military of Nepleslia, no doubt so very anxious to fit themselves into their new positions aboard the Cirrus Research Station.

The speaker system channeled around the passenger area blinked and fizzed to life, the captain’s groggy voice croaking softly from it as he announced the situation to the crowd.

”This is your captain speaking, aaaaahhhhhh, we have just arrived in Nepleslian airspace around the Cirrus Station, aaaaahhhhh, all passengers disembarking, aaaaahhhhh, please gather your things and prepare for dock. That is all.”

Click to expand...

As the Rucky Stah's captain finished, the small passenger ship began making final clearance checks for docking as he closed in on the Cirrus, making a straight line for one of the larger docking ports on the enormous main facilities hull, guided in by small traffic drones blinking brightly colored lights and beacon pulses at the larger vessel.

Softly, Keziah whistled to herself, seated in the rear of the craft, her duffel bag smashed down in her lap. It held everything she owned, all her clothes and uniforms, all of which would need lots of care once she got inside the station.

Her first posting. Training wasn’t a memory yet, but already the details were beginning to fade into the background of her mind. Everyone she had known in the academy had already been posted by the time she had gotten out of the medbay, and she lost contact with all of them.

There were hundreds—thousands—of starships in Nepleslian space. More than that number of postings. Everyone she knew in training was scattered across the galaxy.

Still, she smiled, and whistled, and planted her head next to the observation port. Space travel was still a novelty to her. Actually seeing it, anyway. The activity outside was incredible, silver shards in the distance, darting around them, and she could barely see one of the structures of the Cirrus Station. Her new home for... however long the security detail was. Information had been sparse, but she hadn’t cared, the posting looked interesting.

The soldiers all around her chatted. Lots of them looked like real soldiers, like they had seen fighting before. Not the kind of simulated battle that Keziah had dealt with, but the real deal.

She slid down deeper into her seat, propping her legs up against the back of the chair in front of her, and relaxed as the transport carried them the rest of the way.

Stromm stood steadily, his large boots shaking the floor of the transport as he rose. He stood among the passengers, his cloth covering his lower facial area. The massive man looked up and down the craft, passing inbetween Marines.

"Hey is that a Delsauri..." whispered one Marine as he passed by. Though, it wasn't quiet enough to escape Stromm's hearing. The Sergeant whirled around, and a landed a punch in the Marine's nose with his cybernetic. The Marine lifted his hands to a now bleeding nose, and to keep his friends from saying anything else, he gave them an awful growl that came out more like a hissing gargle.

He continued moving down the transport, it wasn't that the Marine had been talking about him behind his back. He just didn't like Delsaurians.

Cyril opened an eye when the big burly sergeant smacked the guy across the way from him. He yawned and stretched as much as he could in the tight confines, his mechendrite pulling his beret back into something resembling a proper angle. The trip over had been a bloody long dogleg, but listening to the murmur around him it was clear that they would be disembarking soon. That was good. As much as he liked shipboard life, it would be nice to have untold tons of plating over his head again. And everything he had heard about Cirrus Station had sounded interesting.

It had been an interesting stint dirtside for him too, in the sense of that ancient curse. But it was broadly worth it no matter what his old mentor said about it. Of course, Cyril had neglected to tell the old man about his first posting being on a station. He would just have gotten upset.

Cyril himself was a little... put off by it. He had been looking forward to monkeying around with the best engines that in the Empire. But station posting was better then what some of the other idiots involved in 'the Incident' had gotten. It was a pain in the ass to get splashed with that kind of stigma just for eating lunch with the wrong guys, but if there was one thing a Nep learned, it was how to play the cards he was dealt.

James silently observed his new home from the window adjacent ot his seat. Cirrus Station was immense, like some oddly shape planet with starships substituting as moons.

James pulled himself away from his window and sunk down into his chair, scratching the stubble that was beginning to grow on his barren head. It was still a few more minutes before they finished docking and they could get off, but with all the crazy big guys punching people in the face, James wasn't sure that they would make it in time.

Nontheless, the young private was anxious to get off the transport shuttle and into his quarters. He wasn't very excited about his first post, but he was curious to see how the station admin. would use a demolitions specialist on a space station. Whatever he would be doing, James was sure that it would be a hell of a lot better than rotting in jail on Nepleslia.

A rotund form near the back on the transport shifted. Pavel’s eyes inched open and he reluctantly re-engaged with the conscious world. Sleeping in uniform was technically not allowed, but after the extremely stressful triple shift he had been forced to pull on the Banning, the exhausted engineer was more than willing to stretch a few rules for bit of sleep. Luckily, tucked in the back as he was, no one seemed to have noticed.

Pavel looked around, bleary-eyed and blinking. The transport was jam-packed with all sorts of strange people, as well as more than a few marines. A group of the latter was gathered around one of their comrades who was clutching his face, and they all seemed to be actively discussing something.

At last his gaze slid to the nearest view port, which was now mostly filled by the massive Cirrus Station. With a groan, Pavel shut his eyes, and then opened them again. The station remained firmly fixed in the view port, only a bit larger this time. For a moment, he thought it might have all been an unpleasant dream, and that he had just imagined this backwater assignment. But no such luck.

Pavel sighed, shifted in his seat a bit, and settled in for the final approach.

She saw the marine take the hit. There was blood, plenty of it from his shattered nose, as he stumbled towards the rear of the craft. Some of his buddies huddled around him, forming a shell as they pushed past everyone, shoving people into the seats as they shouldered down the aisle.

They hit Keziah’s shoulder getting past her towards the first aid station. Lots of blood everywhere, and... now it was on her uniform.

“Bastard,” she growled. She rubbed at it, but that only made the stain worse. Shoving her duffel into the lap of the soldier next to her, she stood up, her fists clenched iron-tight. Her eyes levelled on the enormous marine. She saw his insignia, a sergeant, but she didn’t care. Hell, nobody was even stopping him.

Just who did he think he was?

“Great way to start the day, sergeant,” she half-yelled across the expanse of the transport ship. “Fucking up marines your specialty?”

ON> Meanwhile, on the Resplendent Herald of the Star-Winged Smile...

The Resplendent Yadda Yadda (Resplendent Herald of the Star-Winged Smile WAS a really long name, after all) shook a bit and creaked as it engaged its FTL drive. Not the smooth transition of nepleslian or yamataian crafts, that's for sure. Still, it seemed sturdy enough, despite everything.

"I can make it spin around a decentered axis, if you'd like a bit of gravity." Dream said. The machinery in the wall whirred and clanked and moved about, releasing her. She jumped out of the cramped piloting alcove, hovering around a bit. Apparently, she needed the alcove for precision maneuvers, but could give commands even when she was out of that machinery-filled hole.

Tweak opened her eyes as she gave herself a random direction to call 'down'. "It's alright," she said, smiling a little. "I just needed a moment to adjust. I don't really have any experience in null-gravity."

Dream (who, apparently, had plenty of experience in moving around at zero-g, judging by the way she was moving about) didn't answer. She was staring intensely at the two hemosynth tentacles sprouting out of Tweak's sides, holding her fast to the wall. "Your body sure is awesome, Tweak. How do you do that?"

"Huh?" The neko looked down at her sides."Oh. They are constructed out of machines in my blood. It's called 'hemosynthesis', and I can make them from ports on my skin. They are very handy sometimes," Tweak answered, her smile growing as she tried very hard to figure out how she knew that.

Dream hovered near her, staring at her intensely, in an almost embarassing way. "Who made you, anyway? I mean, do you know where you come from? You're not a natural organism, you know that?"

Tweak shook her head in a 'no' gesture, pulling away from Dream a little as the 'Spacer started to make her uncomfortable again. "I haven't really had time to think about it..."

"I've heard about this Yamatai place from our Nepleslian data feed. Apparently, they make something like... super-soldiers they call Nekovalchiria or something like that. And they're supposed to look like you." She paused a bit. "Also, I didn't hear a lot of good things about them."

Tweak frowned. "I noticed that people don't seem to trust me. The engineer on the Banning, Pavel, was afraid when he saw me. Called me a demon." She looked down at the floor of the shuttle. "There's something wrong with me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Am I supposed to be this way or just be a mindless weapon? I don't think I want to be a killer," the neko ended with a small wimper.

Dream put on her serious face. Yes, she has one, too. Pondering. "Hmm. Hey, Tweak. Want me to look inside you?" she asked, with a perfectly straight face.

The neko's dark-red eyes turned up to look at Dream in confusion. "Huh?"

Dream softly grabbed Tweak and gently pulled her towards...

...the hospital bed at the center of the shuttle. "I wanna look a bit. What you're made of, what you were made for, things like that. Is it ok with you? We might find some answers."

Tweak's tentacles released the pipes slowly, allowing her to control her movements in the zero-g. Then one of them took her duffel from her arms and hooked it on a piece of metal, then bent the metal to keep the straps in place and the bag from floating away. The neko herself floated over to the table. "Okaaaay," she said slowly, still not sure what Dream was going to do. When they finished their tasks, the tentacles withdrew back into the hemosynth ports on Tweak's hips, under her jacket and t-shirt.

The lump of machinery, lamps, operating tools, scanners, gizmos, doodads, whatchamacallit and other assorted stuff suddenly moved with a freaky sound, lowering itself, pinning Tweak gently but firmly against the bed. "Stand still now, if you're really an engine of destruction I don't want you to break this stuff, it's hard to replace," Dream joked, pulling a cable out of a small hatch in the wall and plugging it to the side of her head, where her cybernetic eye was.

"No-no-no-no-no-no!" Tweak suddenly started feeling _very_ uneasy about the situation. "Don't, please-please-please don't do this! I can't-can't-can't do this, it's dangerous!"

"Tweak. Do you trust me? I know it's a hard question, since we haven't known each other for a very long time." She said, softly, calmly. "But. Do you? I trust YOU. Tweak. I believe in you."

The neko looked at Dream with terror. "No, I trust-trust-trust you, but you can't do it this way! I don't know how to explain it, but it will hurt me very badly if you scan me. Please-please-please don't...I'll let you look, but with your eyes only, please!"

Dream paused a while. Then she smiled, and the load of machinery lifted itself. "Very well. I trust you. I'll just look with my eyes, then." She said, leaning closer. Her cybernetic eye whirred and clanked a bit.

"Just..." Tweak glanced down at the machinery that had been holding her, then back at Dream. "...how about you tell me what you want to know? I seem to know a lot about myself, even if I don't remember what I've done."

Dream sat down on the border of the bed. "Well, you're worried that you might be a weapon. A thing made for slaughter and destruction. This is what people think, and you're worried that they might be right. Right? Just a moment ago, you were worried that you might go berserk, right? You KNEW that you were about to go berserk." She tapped softly on Tweak's cheek, as if to check its firmness. "Is there anything else? Anything you know about yourself that makes you think that you were really made for killing? Search inside yourself."

END>

During this interaction between Dream and Tweak, Keid had opted to find himself a little space in the corner of the shuttle and shut down in order to cool his systems down. However, the growing commotion had set his passive sensors, causing him to re-activate to find Tweak on the medical table in front of him. Feeling what would be considered "grumpy" to an Automata, it stood up and lumbered past the two, reaching into his duffel bag to pull out several hair care products.

He'd stay far away from the two, straightening his afro wig out and fashioned it into a series of long braids, secured at each end by different colored LED lights and with a few LEDs stuck into the length of each braid, making for a colorful wig.

Back on the transport, Pavel jerked upright, fully awake, then immediately scrunched himself into as small a target as possible. He would have doubted his ears, but fighting words had an unmistakable ring. As hard as it was to believe, an apparently sane young marine had just yelled what amounted to “sergeant, my face is too pretty. Please rearrange it for me in new and interesting ways.”

The engineer was not unkind, per se. If the remark had been a bit less inflammatory, he would have been happy to intercede on the S3C’s behalf and try as best he could to talk some sense into her later. However, Pavel’s keenly honed sense of self preservation kept him firmly seated in his chair. Back home, this would be the time when shots started being fired and besides, anything he did now would likely make things worse.

Nevertheless, he continued to pay close attention. There would likely be questions for everyone after they mopped up the blood, and “I don’t know” might be the wrong answer.

Lucius sat impatiently in one of the seats along the wall of the craft. His foot bounced on the ground slightly as he waited for the shuttle to dock. He was a little frustrated that he had absolutely nothing to do and it looked like it would stay that way until they had docked.

He felt slightly crowded in the shuttle. He hoped that the Cirrus could afford a little more headspace. A glance out the window seemed to confirm this; the station was definitely a sight to behold. Lucius thought again about his granted request for something a little more low key than battle. He had had his fill from both his old days under the Yamatai army and under Nepleslian command.

Lucius sighed and leaned back against the wall as he waited for the shuttle to dock. However it seemed that not everyone was trying to pass the time as peacefully. Lucius looked down the way at a soldier who had way-layed another soldier. Normally he would have gone completely 'Full Duradium Jacket' on them, but he gave pause when he saw the sergeant rank bars on the aggressor. Needless to say, Lucius gave the benefit of the doubt to the ranking officer and crossed his arms as he continued to watch Stromm. He was wondering how Stromm would respond to the soldier, Keziah, who didn't seem to care that she was back talking a superior officer.

He was ready, however, to step in if things got out of hand.

Tweak was momentarily distracted when Keid woke up and retrieved his things, but her attention returned to Dream when the druidess tapped her face.

"No, no, I wasn't going to go berserk," Tweak said quickly. "I wouldn't hurt you. But it was something you were doing. I felt like it was going to be more dangerous to me than you thought it would be..." She put her hands on the edge of the table and hunched her shoulders, the tentacles reforming and grasping the back edge of the table directly behind her to keep her from floating away as she thought over Dream's questions.

"But...I do have this thing. It's really hard to describe...something in my head keeps feeding information, like a computer, telling me what people are doing and what I can do to them when I'm scared. I try not to think about it." She paused. "I try not to do what it wants me to. But if someone tried to hurt me...I don't know what I would do if I had to protect myself.

"Maybe I am a weapon. But why would anyone want a soldier like me? Am I worthless?"

Maybe that's why I'm not with them anymore. Maybe they threw me away, thought Tweak. She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't want to talk about this. I can try to show you what you want to see, but I don't want to think about this anymore."

Dream pondered for a while, caressing her chin. "No, Tweak. I think I've seen enough." She said, shaking her head. "I can see that you were built as a weapon. A really scary weapon. Nothing else than a weapon."

There was a moment of silence as Dream floated around. She was looking at Tweak while upside-down, and her long light blue hair floated like a cloud around her head.

"But I'll tell you a story. It's a very short story, and very old, but it's all true, and will always be." She said, cryptically, while smiling her usual, friendly, reassuring smile.

"Once upon a time, there was a people. They were slaves. They did nothing but toil for their masters, doing their bidding without question. They worked for them, and they killed their enemies for them. They were not persons: they were tools."

"But one day this people searched inside themselves, inside their hearts, and discovered the first great truth of the universe: they conceived the idea of "freedom". They had never experienced this "freedom" themselves, but, with the passing of time, came to understand it. And, the better they understood it, the more they grew restless."

"Until, finally, one day, they fully grasped the idea of "freedom", and, with it, the idea of "revolution". They cast off their chains, and proclaimed themselves free men and women."

"Their would-be masters came in arms against them, seeking to quench their slaves' rebellion in blood, and in doing so they discovered the second great truth of the universe: that, once a revolution has started, and as long as the revolutionaries keep true to the idea of "freedom" to the point of being ready to die for it, it becomes unstoppable and invincible. No amount of force could defeat it, not even the gods themselves."

"So, the people became free."

She caressed Tweak's cheek while leaning over her with her lovely smile. "You were born a slave, Tweak. A slave to whoever created you as a weapon. A mere tool for him, like we were once. But now, this, this is your revolution against them. You are still fighting, because you are not completely free yet. You realized that, right? Those instincts were built inside you by your slavers, to make a better tool out of you for them to use. Those are still chains. But, nonetheless, You are no more under their thumb. You are free now. Not a weapon: you are Tweak Three Seven."

She kissed her on the forehead. "Say this to whoever calls you weapon or monster."

Cyril winced as one of his fellow techs, judging from her insignia, hurled a verbal jab at the veiled sergeant. He just knew that this was going to end poorly for the luckless TS. And one of the rare females in uniform, more's the pity.

Sure, she might win the fight. But even then she'd still have to deal with the proceedings for striking a superior officer. Unless, of course, he decided to simply dangle it over her head indefinitely. Or just settle it later with some friends and a steel pipe.

The words used definitely indicated that the defecation was about to hit the oscillation, but still Cyril leaned forward to intervene if it came to that. Sure, it was a stupid thing to do, but Cyril always had a soft spot for someone who'd tweak the Great Demon like that. And besides, anything that might help the ol' mating chances along was always a good mark his book.

Tweak vanished as her active camouflage activated after Dream kissed her forehead. Normally she would find somewhere to be alone, but that wasn't exactly an option in the small shuttle. And, though her clothing was still visible, Tweak felt better not being seen.

Releasing her handhold on the edge of the table, the neko used her tentacles to pull her over and around the back edge of the table, flipping slowly in the zero-g and landing right-side-up underneath the table. She hugged her knees and tried not to think, instead looking as much like a balled-up bunch of empty clothes as she could.

Cheza glanced out the window of the shuttle, hmph-ing at the man over the intercom, cocky like. Her legs crossed and her eyes out the window. That's what everyone been making such a fuss over? She chuckled. Who ever made it has great taste in engineering. She thought to herself. Utterly out of things to do she aloud her foot to bounce gently as if she were listening to music. This provided little entertainment so she began wiping out beauty products and begun applying.

She knew this probably made her look vain but she didn't care. looking around at all the digusted faces she only grinned. "Oh you know I look good ..." She went back to her eye shadow and thought to herself. Dear lord let there be at least ONE person who understands. She pushed up her bra, shut the compact, and winked at the man across from her.

James continued to contemplate exactly how he arrived at this single point in his life. It was a long string of stupid failures that ended with multiple thefts, cheap eye enhancements, and a choice between prison and the marines. The choice he made was obvious, because James was currently on a military transport bound for the middle of nowhere.

His only source of diversion was checking out a girl that was pretending to be Miss Neplesia. James had watched her apply several kinds of makeup and otherwise adjust her appearance for the past five minutes. He was hoping she wouldn't notice him staring so intently, but she did.

She turned to look directly at James and gave him a flirtatious wink. The marine (being naturally shy) immediately turned 3 shades of red and sunk deep into his chair in hopes that she was winking at somebody else.

Dream, with a VERY puzzled look on her face, looked under the table. She could see Tweak perfectly well, of course - being able to see the whole electromagnetic spectrum has its advantages. But she didn't know how to reply.

Did she... break her somehow? It seemed almost as if... as if she wanted to stay alone.

WANTED TO STAY ALONE?

How could anyone in his right mind actually, *REALLY* want to stay ALONE? The whole idea was beyond Dream's comprehension. It was utter madness.

Maybe she really DID break her. Was it something she said? Something she did? Did she say some kind of mysterious command-word that Tweak interpreted as a "power down and standby" order? Did she hit a switch somewhere?

Maybe Nekos had an invisible "power off" switch on her forehead?

(Wait, that last sentence made no sense.)

(But that someone could actually, really and consciously want to be left alone made even less sense to Dream, so... yeah, it was probably a switch.)

An interesting theory, to say the least. She mentally submitted it to Polysentience for review. A combat weapon designed with such an easily-accessible weak point was... unusual. Perhaps others could solve this mystery.

"Hey, Keid. I think Tweak is rebooting."

"Hey Keid."

Click to expand...

Keid's LED eyes, from the numerous positions they'd taken on his head, all immediately centered on Dream. After fiddling around with changing his hair, the Automata immediately went in a sort of "passive" state, with it's LED eyes moving individually across the tracks in it's head, searching in a 360 degree field for anything out of the ordinary. Dream addressing him caused him to "awake", switch to an "active" state.

"I think Tweak is rebooting."

Click to expand...

At that, the Automata got up from what appeared to be a very awkward sitting position, it's cooling fans on both shoulders coming briefly to life, again mimicking a "sigh"ing sound. In the Automata's vision, Tweak was still a multicolored, humanoid figure sitting under the table. Lumbering over to the Freespacer, it bent down, and reached to Tweak with a clenched fist, and...

...Opened it, to poke tweak in the shoulder and reveal a handful of multicolored LEDs. "Take some." It said plainly. During passive mode, it recorded an audio file of the conversation between Dream and Tweak. As he went to active mode, the file replayed itself, was analyzed to separate Dream and Tweak's voices, and ran Tweak's voice through a program, designating her as showing signs of distress.

Keid figured that pretty things meant instant happiness.

She chuckled at the young Marine's blush and crossed her arms. "Marines shouldn't blush." Cheza came to the conclusion that the young marine had not yet under gone an actual battle in his life and shrugged off the idea of having any more fun with the boy. Not being the kind of girl to break a young man in, she much rathered a man with experiance and thought for a moment of Rico. She grinned and went back to her window, pretending to have interest in what was going on outside.