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

Dream was... for once, it was really hard to read her emotions. It wasn't exactly clear whether she was angry, scared, sad... her face had become expressionless, a creepy kind of expressionless.

"...Well, I see. I understand why I'm here, now."

She looked around her, at the disgruntled marines.

Morale was low. Communications were restricted. Gearheads were being reassigned to Warmonger or Militant roles with no reason whatsoever. Resources were being wasted.
There was plenty of things that didn't work the way they should.

She took a deep breath and, out of the blue, jumped on the top tier of a bed, her long blue hair and large colorful dress flaring dramatically around her.

She stood there, folded her arms in an epic pose, and shouted: "BECAUSE CLEARLY THE GODS HAVE SENT ME HERE SO THAT I MAY SAVE THIS STATION AND ITS CREW FROM THEIR FATE!!"

She pointed her arm down, to the marines. "The people I'm taking care of are unhappy." Then she pointed at Serra. "Some of them have even been assigned to a job it's not theirs." She folded her arms again. "On top of that, the sacred free flow of information is being denied! This is bordering on the unacceptable!"

She leaped down from the bed, landing heavily on the floor, and passed a hand between her hair. "As the Druidess of this people, then, it is my duty to do everything that is in my power, and a lot of things that AREN'T in my power, to improve this situation!" She pointed her finger to the ceiling in an overly dramatical way. Then, moving it in a circular pattern, she made a kind of "ASSEMBLE!" signal.

"Then let us gather, and discuss this situation together. And, after agreeing on our priorities, We will see what we can do together."

She eyed the marines, one after another. "You've been cold earlier, as if you didn't believe that we can change the world around us if we try hard enough." She said to them, walking around the room slowly. "But I can read it on your faces, that you're not happy. How long do you intend to be unhappy? Wouldn't you rather try and change the way things work, for the better? Then, tell me, and I will do anything, even if it may cost my life, to help you."
Her face was serious. The marines had probably guessed earlier that Dream always meant what she said, but this time they could see that she wasn't exaggerating not even one bit. Not even when she said that she'd put her life on the line for them.
She REALLY wanted to help them, even though they had met less than one hour earlier. And she BELIEVED in them.

Again with the enthusiastic call to action. And with a hell of a lot of belief behind it too. She earnestly believed everything she had just said, which was a little disconcerting. Helping your mates was all well and good, but what made their lives worth more then hers? Well, Cyril had to give the 'spacer full marks for persistence. C- for knowing her audience though.

Broadly speaking, he had to agree with her. But there were some problems with her proposal. She hadn't out and said what she was talking about, but it was pretty bloody clear from the context.

"Wha' can we do, ma'am? 'er rules may be stupid, but I don't think Montreal's broken any laws yet."

"It's not a matter of LAWS, but of CORRECTNESS." She said fervently, waggling her finger in Cyril's direction. "If her rules are stupid, well then they must be CHANGED. And if she doesn't realize or doesn't care, well then I'll make her realize, or I'll make her care."

Then, talking to all the marines at once: "I don't know how you're used to, but from where I come from everyone has the right to say when he thinks that things are wrong."

She took another deep breath. "Now, here we are. Wrong decisions are being made. We can either stay silent and let the wrongness continue, or take our destiny in hand and raise our voices, so that they may be heard."

"Nothing good will ever come from the former choice. And, if you are afraid that the latter would carry bad consequences, then I will take full responsibility. This way, if things improve, they will improve for everyone, and, if they will worsen, they will worsen only for me." She said, plainly.

The comm monitoring. Well, that was expected, really. It made sense, out of all the things that haven't made sense at all since the beginning of this posting. Who knew just how much research was going on here, and how much of that was sensitive--and, of course, just how sensitive it was. Top secret, even, maybe, considering the station was funded by so many different groups. After all, some of them, especially NAM, would have a vested interest in developing new technologies that they wouldn't want anyone to touch before they gave the "Okay". And even after that, then it was up to them.

That made sense. Keziah rolled with that, as she had rolled with everything else. At least this one was easier to stomach.

She leaned back on the flimsy bed, pressing her back into a wall, ready to relax for a little bit before they were to report for duty. Not that it was going to be easy, with their hoity-toity 'Spacer XO going on and on about... everything?

Keziah dragged her heavy body up out of bed, into a semblance of attention. "Sir." Her eyes fell firmly on Rainbow, but she didn't seem the least bit convinced by her words. "You're our second. Whatever actions you do will affect us. We will suffer if you suffer. That's how things work here."

That's how things felt they worked here, anyway. She couldn't imagine Montreal suffering insubordination lightly, especially from an officer. And with the Savtechs so close by... a nervousness crept into Keziah. The words Rainbow was shouting sounded deadly, like treason deadly, like a-bullet-to-the-head deadly, like unmarked-grave deadly.

Dream stopped, staring straight at Keziah.

She waited for a moment... then she smiled, and nodded at her. "This means that you're fine with things like they are now, right?" She asked, in a sweet voice.

Then she looked around her, probing the marines one after another, waiting for each of them to say his or her own opinion. "Anyone else? If the majority of you people doesn't want anything to change from the way it is now, then things will stay the way they are. If you want change to happen, I'll make it happen no matter what. Come on, speak your mind."

Cyril sighed to himself and crossed his arms, leaning up against the wall between bunks. It seems their 2IC had gotten caught up on the 'democracy' part of Nepleslia, and extended it to the whole ruddy thing. A military was a dictatorship by nature, but it seems that she hadn't picked up on that yet.

Bless her, her heart was in the right place. Well, figuratively speaking at least. Cyril didn't know where Freespacers kept their internal organs. Anyway, her motives were good. But she was no NCO, that was becoming more and more clear. Again, Montreal showed her disdain for the marines, and her utter lack of understanding.

Cyril sighed again, and hoped that he could at least head her off until the Sarge weighed in. Thankfully, at least under the circumstances, she seem inclined to hold to the will of the majority. So Cyril added his bit to Keziah's argument.

"'preciate your sent'ment, ma'am. Really do. But you can' jus' bull straight at 'er. Tha's 'ow you end up takin' an EVA nakid."

((OOC: Wow, Cyril's accent keeps changing on me. I swear, this is the last version. I hope.))

"What do you mean, I can't? OF COURSE I can!" She answered, supremely confident.

Damnit. That's why hierarchical systems were inherently evil. But she didn't say that out loud because Foreman Luci seemed to believe in them, and she didn't want to turn the whole issue in a political argument.

Well, when one has only a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail, after all.

"You all seem very good at being worried, for yourselves and for others, but no one answered my question yet." She noted. "Do you like how things are being run here? Put aside the "It's impossible, we can't change things", the "It can't be helped", the "What can we do?", and all the feelings of worry and defeat, and just answer me with a yes or a no. That's all I ask. Tell me to shut up and that you like things like they are, and I'll shut up. But tell me. Don't just assume, worry, or cower in fear of retorsions. Tell me."

Ten Gods, this was hard. Those poor people were so used to be slaves to a tyrannical, dictatorial system that they had lost all their drive to change the world for the better.

Himiko took some food and ate it quietly. She didn't care for the taste too much, but it was still food. She swallowed the barely edible substance and waited for Mimi to tell her what to do next. A small smile came to her face, even though her stomach was complaining ferociously.

Mimi looked around worriedly, but loosened her nervous smile when she saw most of the marines in the small bunk room remain calm to Dream's mutinous speech. She raised her own hand slightly and chirped in, "...Well...I think it's rather nice here. I've met a lot of interesting people."

"I think it sucks," Kess said flatly.
"Kess! Mimi whispered harshly. "Administrator Cassefin will hear you!"
"Oh, stuff it. You know she's not watching her cameras right now. She's up on the Command Center getting ready to block out our communications," Kess replied in an almost mocking tone.
"Kess, please..." Mimi pleaded.
Kess sighed and paused for a moment. "...They feed me here. Golly gee, I guess it ain't that bad," She finally said, bitter sarcasm dripping.

This seemed to satisfy Mimi, who turned and grinned widely at the rest of the soldiers. "Miss Dream, you must understand...Miss Cassefin has placed these rules to protect people. If everyone just ran willy-nilly, why, nothing would get done! People could get hurt...Miss Cassefin doesn't want that."

---

Kess kept her narrowed eyes on Tweak.

"I know enough. You're fortunate nobody else took the time to look at the files on each person assigned to me. My advice would be not to draw attention to yourself...or else somebody might get as suspicious. So don't mope, or whine, or run off alone somewhere...others will take notice, and then something bad may happen to you. I can't do everything...I'm a box of neurons sitting in the main computer core," Kess said, deflated with a sigh. "You should just be wary. Do your job, or leave quietly. And keep your hat on."

Dream flashed a brief smile at Kess. Someone who wasn't afraid to speak his mind, finally.

Then, she turned her attention to Mimi. "Don't put in my mouths words I never said." She warned her, sternly.

Sternly? Yes, sternly. Apparently Dream could get angry, too.

Well, she wasn't actually *angry*, not yet anyway. More like... she meant business. "I never said anything about breaking rules or running willy-nilly, whatever that might mean. I simply asked for everyone's opinions."

She paused. "And, believe me, I can't see how assigning engineers to do a soldier's job - which is by far the worst offense to common sense we've come across until now - is "a rule to protect people". Care to explain?"

She coughed. "You see, I can understand secrecy. Even though, since it's a decision that impacts the life and freedom of everyone on board, I personally think it's unforgivable that we haven't been consulted, not even informed before than five minutes ago. And I can understand waste of resources to build an expensive nanomachine toy room - I guess the needs of Nepleslians are different from ours. Even though I still need to understand why scientists can use it, and soldiers can't."

"What I can't understand is this forcing people into jobs that are not theirs - no, more than that: what I can't understand is..." She hesitated, as if trying to put into words some difficult, abstract feeling. After a brief struggle, she delivered the final line: "What I can't understand is how all of this feels WRONG. Are I and Kess the only ones who think that there's something fundamentally wrong here?"

"No sir," Keziah said slowly, her body tensing. Not from anxiety, or anger, or even any emotion. Her body tensed from the memories drilled into it, of boot camp, that place not even a memory yet. Of Sergeant Connel and how she had broken Keziah's body within weeks, then rebuilt it into what it was now.

Most of it, anyway.

"It might be different for you, sir, being a Freespacer." She straightened up significantly, the soldier within her stirring to life. This 'Spacer was no soldier, not even an officer, but Rainbow had rank now, and that meant something, even as flimsy and false as it was.

"I can't say I like the laws here, or Admin Montreal, but I can't turn my back on this. We can't turn our back on this. We can't defy her. Or, if everyone else will, I won't, because I'm not going to be court marshaled over shitty food and toys we can't touch and watchdogs in the commlinks.

"It may mean nothing for you to stand up to her, sir, but to me, it means my life." She sighed, and relaxed. "You're not from here. This is how things are done."

During the tour, the briefing and now this discussion Oz, kept mostly to himself. If he's ever learned anything, its to watch and listen before speaking. He relaxed casually on one of the bunks with his hands behind his head as he broke down the situation inwardly.

After almost nearly disappearing into the background he spoke, "With all due respect ma'am, I think we should try it her way. Not because I agree or I'm afraid of being court marshaled. I just figure, if you really want to see change, its probably best to fully understand where the other side is coming from....at least thats what my poppa always told me."

Ozzrik smiled widely at Dream and finished, "Plus, I learned a long time ago, coming at things without proper planning, forethought and understanding gets you into trouble."

He chuckled good-naturedly and pointed at his cloudy left eye and scar, "This kind of trouble."

Moonman said:

Kess kept her narrowed eyes on Tweak.

"I know enough. You're fortunate nobody else took the time to look at the files on each person assigned to me. My advice would be not to draw attention to yourself...or else somebody might get as suspicious. So don't mope, or whine, or run off alone somewhere...others will take notice, and then something bad may happen to you. I can't do everything...I'm a box of neurons sitting in the main computer core," Kess said, deflated with a sigh. "You should just be wary. Do your job, or leave quietly. And keep your hat on."

Click to expand...

Tweak frowned, but the expression carried a sense of resignation with it.

"Seeing as I have nowhere else to go and you're not giving me any choice..." she muttered, adjusting the strap of her duffel on her shoulder. "I want to know what you have in that file. If you know as much as you say you do, then you know why I want to know." She gave her head a little shake as if to rearrange the thoughts that gave birth to that confusing sentence before continuing. "Look, right now, I don't care if one person watches me, be it you or anyone else. I just want to be away from the group back there--" She nodded her head back down the hall where she had come from the briefing. "--and have some time to myself to...get things straight in my head before continuing." She glanced down to the journal notebook in its holder on her leg. "If you know as much as you say you do, then you know why that is important to me," she finished.

Cyril shrugged. Their 2IC made some good points, there was no way 'round it. Having a bunch of Technical Sentries doing security work was a waste of a lot of training. And it was unusual, at least, not to mention the security precautions in the briefing, especially all pervasive ones like this blackout. And ignoring the impact that it would have on the Freespacers was rude at the least.

But the thing was, the military was all about this sort of stuff. The one on top was usually there for a reason, if only to make the org chart look nice an neat. You couldn't back out for simple shit like this. Crap food and toys indeed.

"Gotta agree wit' Kaz an' Cueball, ma'am. I mean, things ain't right, but they ain't tha' bad, 'least by my standards. An' orders is orders."

He shrugged again and scratched between his shoulder blades with his artificial arm.

"Mind, ask me 'gain after two weeks wit'out a smoke." He shook his head. "Look ma'am, jus' stan' down. For your own sake, if not ours."

Dream raised her hands and shrugged. "Not for my sake, but for yours." She replied to Cyril. "I'm your Druidess, and my job here is to take care of you. And if you say that you're fine like this, Then it's ok with me."

"A system where one single person is in command, and can punish others for expressing their ideas, and make their lives miserable on a whim..." She muttered to herself with disgust. She still couldn't wrap her mind around how anyone could just sit down and accept that.

But apparently, the fact that the marines were speaking her mind, and telling her not to do anything, was enough.

Enough not to change her mind, because she clearly had her "All of this is wrong and evil" face on. But enough to make her respect the will of the people.

The best way to persuade her wasn't the voice of reason, apparently, but the simple weight of democracy. She smiled, and duly complied.

She shook her head, freeing her mind of those thoughts, and returned back to her usual, brightly smiling self.

"...So, now what?" She asked the AIs, after a brief pause. "We sit here and wait for something to happen, or we still have places to see? And, by the way, do you have an empty room that no-one uses around here? Possibly nearby, but, really, anywhere is fine. Doesn't matter how big or small."

Oh gods. She was on to something else now?

Lorcan had placed himself on a bed furthest from the door, knowing instinctively just how much time he was going to end up in the bathroom. And he was sure it wasn't going to be for taking a piss. His duffel was sloppily shoved beneath the bed and his mind only half listening to the rest of the conversation going on with the rest of the room. He caught word of the blackout and nodded, already working on circumnavigating it. At least his mind could work on putting something together even if his hands weren't. His fingernails worked fine for the touch screen of his PDA as he ran several hyped up downloads from the neppie network to his PDA. Hopefully he'd find somewhere else he could stick the files for later.

At any rate he was already done sending coded info to Ant and Fence, his closest 'friends' and once the downloads were done he picked up the rest of the compressed folders from where he'd stuck them on the net and let them upload while he listened with a detached interest to Dream rant and rave about people not being happy... again. He was fine with what he had. He knew he'd end up getting sick from most of the food and drink Montreal provided -hence why he was close to the bathroom- but he wasn't about to say that out loud till they were forced to do something about it. He knew he'd have a chance to go dig around in the store rooms after a while and he still had to have his knuckles looked at. For now whatever Mimi had made him put on his hands was doing the job, but with things going to hell already he didn't know how long it would last. Checking back to his PDA he noted the files were completely uploaded and then he pinged the Station network with a request for the FULL layout of the station for 'navigation' purposes while on duty, It was after all a completely valid reason.

Getting off his bunk. He left his PDA on the bed and pulled his duffel out and opened the top, pulling out a small tin can and fetching something from it before closing it up tight and sticking it back into his duffel. Disappearing into the bathroom Lorcan popped the giant piece of bubblegum into his mouth and chewed. Ah, thank god for the free spacers and a tin can labeled 'Raw Uranium' which acctually held his sole source of gum. No one in customs had touched it naturally...It was uranium, why would someone want to get radiation poisoning on purpose?! After finishing business, Lorcan tucked the gun beneath his tongue and walked out into the room again, picking up his data pad. "Hey Mimi..." he said softly, walking over "I'm going to get my knuckles looked at just so you know where I'm headed..." He wiggled his PDA and then turned and stalked off and out of the room. Having got a glance at the layout he knew excatly how he was going to get there.

Watching the ceiling as he walked and retraced his steps down to the Scientist rec area and made his way across, saying hello to nearly everyone he ran into, pick pocketing them as he went. With a crowd like this it would be rather easy to pick up random bits of stuff and a DA card or two if he tried. Just more reason to stir up trouble. When he finally got to a wall where he could lean against and sort through his findings he pocketed most of the minor crap like pens, a few notes and things people weren't supposed to have and a DA card. Lorcan chuckled and instead of keeping it he walked up to another fella, chatted him up and 'left' the DA card with the man, knowing it would stir up chaos and havoc among the scientists and everybody else. With a flat, depressed look on his face he wandered around in the general direction of the Med Pavilion he'd gone to last time. It was time for a little chemistry trip, with Hydrogen peroxide and good old gauze for his hands and maybe some pain medication if he could manage to scare up some.

On his way he eventually found a giant storage closet and opened the door and stuck his head in. Except for the crates that sat there on the floors and were stacked up there was nothing interesting... until a thought came to mind and he pulled out his data pad and pinged the station with another request of what was stored in the crates of all the storage rooms and cargo bays on the station. If he could find out what was in them he was sure he could find something edible to eat... unless Montreal's "food" was shipped in crates from an off-station location... then it was hopeless... He typed out a message to Cyril.

To: Cyril
From: Lorcan
Subject: Questions

Hey, I have a few questions I want you to ask Kess and Mimi for me. The answers you get will help me figure out several ways to make life a little more livable on this piece of junk...

1) Will the message traffic between Marines and others on board Cirrus be looked at?
2)Is Montreal's tasty little food and drink made on cirrus or is it shipped in from another off-site location?

I'll tell you all about it later....

~Lorcan

Click to expand...

His message sent, he tucked the PDA away and went back into the hall, closing the door to the storage area and wandered off again in the right direction to the Pavilion, waiting for answers as his mind turned with all sorts of ideas and things. Though what he really wanted right now was a beer and some feminine company... As his mind wandered towards that he skipped right past where he was supposed to be, following the corridor wherever the hell it led him. He took random turns that eventually ended him up right where he'd been not five minutes before, infront of one of the storage rooms... Getting a big, goofy and rather rare smile on his face he opened the door and slipped inside. He closed the door behind him and turned the lights on. Flexing his muscles a bit to strech them out he started shifting boxes. He wasn't going to hang out with the rest of the guys or dream, he was going to organize his life into a subtle and controled rebellion against authority.

Shfiting stuff around so that what he was doing was hidden behind a wall of boxes from the door, he got to work. They had to have ventalation shafts around here somewhere, otherwise the air would be stale, warm and eventually unbreathable. And where there were ventalation shafts there were no cameras and unrestricted access to the rest of the station, including the cargo bays. Thats what he hoped to get from the schematics the system should give him with his reasonable request. That and the locations of all the areas he wanted to hit up and search for what he needed. He'd have to talk to Serra and Tweak and a few others about a water distiller and such, but he was positive the scavanged parts they'd need would be in the bays and the store rooms...

Serra, after getting what information she could from the Savtech's display, calmly ignored the holographic constructs and turned to the food dispensors. She looked the machines up and down for a second while she rubbed her chin, though it looked like she was just thinking of something while staring at their direction, she was actually meticlously examining them for bolts, screws or other means of sealing.

After a moment of silence, she strided over to the machines and slid a hand down one of the edges. Turning to face Dream, she smiled. "Well, as the Xo, we need to follow your orders, no?" She asked as she knelt and placed her satchel on the ground, unfasioning it's straps and unfolded the bag, to reveal an extensive tool collection, meticlously sorted by type per flap (there are four, the top, bottom and both sides) with screwdrivers, wrenches, Torque wrenches, Allen Wrenches, pliers, and several tools that were unique, and probably Elysian in origin.

"Then I think the first line of business is to cripple the capitalisticly corrupt idea of making us pay for our food and drink rations." She said as she pulled a wrench, screwdriver and a pair of vicegrips from her tool satchel.

Dream stared at what Serra was doing. She wasn't..

No, to say that she wasn't understanding would be wrong. She WAS understanding, sorta.

Those machines were needlessly complex, sure, but they didn't figure out in the Big Equation of Evil in her mind.

But the instincts derived from the society she had been living in until that moment kicked in.

Serra was a Gearhead. Well, Gearwing, but only because "Gearwing" sounded somewhat more appropriate. She was a technician and an engineer.

And she was working at something.

So, she clearly knew what she was doing, and it was obviously for the greater good. (Because EVERYTHING is. Or should be.)

"I trust in your judgment." She smiled at her, nodding.

Cyril breathed a silent sigh of relief when the 2IC backed down. At least she was a quick learner. Now that the marines had made their desire not to be court marshaled within mere days of arrival clear, she seemed ready to drop the matter. Of course, if he was any judge of character, she seemed the type to bring it up again later. Likely once she saw more of the military life.

Still, things were settling down. Sure the Elysian was about to take the vending machines apart and either dick around the price setting or leave it cracked open like a lobster. There wasn't anything wrong with that. It was going to happen sooner or later, either from a pissed off marine or a cunning engineer. But her timing could use some work.

Cyril kicked off from the wall he was leaning on and sauntered over to the vending machines and leaned against the one next down the row from Serra’s. Arms still nonchalantly crossed, he tapped the Elysian on the shoulder with his tail.

"Don' ge' me wrong miss, 'ell I'll even 'elp you wit' it later, but maybe you should wait" He stuck a thumb in the direction of the savtechs. "'till they're gone."

Ozzrik smiled at Cyril's words in agreement as he strolled to join them.

In a quieter non-chalant tone he added Serra, "I'd have to agree, after all they are ordered to report to her later. Plus, once out of earshot of our lovely -assitants- here, I had an idea I'd like to talk about...with as many are willing to hear it. It just might help lighten the mood around here."

He turned to Kess and Mimi then and openly asked "So, are we all done here? Are we on are own or is there something else?"