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

Cyril returned Keziah's worried look. This 'Lorcan' fellow was shaping up to be trouble incarnate. Frankly, the situation could not have gone much worse worse if Finagle himself had tap danced into the room and did a P. N. M. Johnstone reading.

For now, he concentrated on being as unnoticeable as possible, at least until Sarge went back to sleep. This was not the time to even think about deviating from the norm. Oops.

Still, later, o-oh yes later. They would have to send the big, thick skulled marine a message sooner or later. Maybe roll a smoke grenade or something into the head while he was there, see if he got the message. If not...

Well, there were so many ways that fire suppression systems could go wrong...

With a subtle glance Ozz noticed an exchanged of worried glances. He wouldn't disagree, tossing a knife at a commanding officer was just....well stupid. Regardless, he thought the Captain's reaction was just as volatile. However, he didn't want to throw oil onto a open flame and calmly strolled to his bottom bunk bed. He took out his guitar and pretended to fiddle with it despite having his entire attention on the scene unraveling before him

Cyril was right, now was not the time to make commotion, but he was worried that a short-tempered commanding officer would just make things more unpleasant then they already were.

Maybe they just needed a drink and some time to talk things over...maybe then our Captain wouldn't seem like such....arse.

Ozzrik then thought pensively to himself, "A drink......man I wish I had a drink. A strong one."

James eyes snapped open. He didn't have to wait for his eyes to focus, his eye enhancements made sure of that. His brain was still coming around though. It was a sort of mental systems check that James went through whenever he woke up from a nap, just to make sure that he wasn't missing a limb or anything. He laid in his bunk a few seconds more while he tried to remember where he was.

Oh yeah, I'm in hell. I nearly forgot.

Then James discovered what had woke him. His CO was currently yelling his ass off at the big ID-Sol. James wasn't sure what had caused Sgt. Lucius to get angry, but he was sure that the ID-Sol probably deserved it. In James mind all big guys are either cause trouble because they like it, or they cause trouble because they're stupid. James was pretty sure that Lorcan made trouble because he liked it.

The private sat up in his bunk and simply sat there for a moment while the drama unfolded. In the middle of Sgt. Lucius' rant, another private came by and sat down in the bunk across from James' and began tuning a guitar. When he said something about having a drink, James responded with a heartfelt

"Hell yeah"

Lorcan had noticed Lucius's temper as soon as the man had dared him to use the knife by getting closer. He wasn't even half surprised when the Sgt. pulled the PDA from his fingers and tossed it across the room. Lorcan turned to meet Lucius's full fury, watching as the Sgt. completely blew up in his face. As soon as Lucius fell silent Lorcan could tell from the near silence from everybody that they were trying hard not to be noticed by the Sgt. A soft 'tap,tap,tap' rang out into the silence and Lorcan arched an eyebrow, feeling the long strands of his hair slide right down over his eyes. But his eyes never left Lucius's so the man wouldn't know where it had come from.

Subconsciously, the grip on his knife went from a loose handed one to a fighting grip. He had to take a deep breath as he thought up one hundred and sixty ways to either kill, disable or seriously injure the Sgt. on the spot. He thought about several things, including but not limited to blooding his blade and offering the Sgt. a fight, handing over the rest of his precious booze in the hopes it'd get him out of deep shit or just cracking their skulls together to make the man pass out. Instead he just nodded and kept his mouth shut.

Hoping the Sgt. was done he took a set back, sliding the knife up behind his back so he could thread it through the belt loops against backside. Halfway through all the muscles on his right arm twitched and stood out and the muscles in his jaw tightened, but he didn't say a word. Instead the muscles in left arm tightened as he shifted his hands behind his back his left clenched tightly around his right. If there had been a medic there they would have been able to tell Lorcan had cut himself and was keeping himself from spilling blood all over the place. At the moment he could feel it pooling in the palm of his hand, hoping the Sgt. would hurry the hell up so he could up and leave.

Lucius narrowed his eyes slightly as he waited for the half-ID to do, or say anything. Honestly, Lucius was hoping that Lorcan wouldn't do anything else with the knife besides put it away. Lucius had been personal witness to several sergeants misreading soldiers and getting stabbed or shot. The offending soldier was always taken care of, but Lucius definitely didn't want to die on this sort of space station.

Lucius' eyes stared back as intently as Lorcan's did. He was doing the same as Lorcan, except with defenses. His combat experience would leave him with a huge web of possible attacks against him. As for actual combat, Lucius wasn't sure he could take the private, just for the reason that he was up against a half-ID with a knife.

Lucius was thinking he may have put too much fire into his schpeal; he definitely pulled the 'one person screws up, everyone suffers' card much too quickly, but at least his target didn't react badly. In fact, his target didn't seem to react at all, besides a nod of acknowledgment. This was just fine for Lucius, he wasn't expecting a sudden 'yes sir' or a turn around of Lorcan's disposition, but the nod was acceptable. But Lucius knew that Lorcan was biting his tongue, at least metaphorically, and that satisfied Lucius.

After Lorcan stepped back, and at least a full five second of staring at the soldier, Lucius turned to the rest of the room. "Good!" He said, his voice and temperament reducing quickly to a simmer. He took a few step over to his bed and looked over everyone again. He continued in a rather calm but strong voice, quite a contrast to the yelling he had done before. "As the station AI's have told us: patrol rounds start tomorrow, and everyone needs sleep. If you gotta take a piss, unpack or whatever, do it quickly. Lights out in one hour."

With everyone's attention focused more or less on Lucius Lorcan backed all the way to his bed to fetch the hydrogen peroxide and gause he'd origionaly gotten for his knuckles, holding them loosely with the fingers of his left hand as he backed up and straight into the bathroom withot so much as presenting his back to Lucius. Only for the reason he didn't want the Sgt. to rail on him for cutting himself. Now that he was alone he managed to set the little bottle and roll of gauze down and fixed himself up, making sure his hands where clean and wrapped from the knuckles up past his wrists before he tied it off tightly and pulled his fingerless gloves over it to hide it.

He took a few minutes to get his nerves together, make the knife stick in the door and then he went back out into the room and retreived his data pad and murmured something softly to himself when he saw what was waiting for him. It was a rather morbid stick figure drawing of him beating the bloody hell out of someone. Lorcan gave an almost unnoticeable shake of his head and walked over to his bed, noticing he'd left little drips of blood across the floor. He stepped around them like they weren't there and spent a few minutes unpacking. He made sure to sheath the knife. Then he pulled a rather rough looking piece of off-white cloth out of his duffel and pulled it around his shoulders, tying it in several places till it almost looked like a rough shirt. He stripped off his pants and then crawled under what blankets there were, burried his head under his arms and seemingly was out like a light. But he didn't quite fall asleep yet, he was listining intently...

Keziah slipped off to her own bunk once their sergeant was finished with the marine-baby, not wanting to be anywhere nearby if another explosive temper got put to the flame. She pulled off her tunic, finally, tossing it on top of her duffel, unlaced her boots, and slid out of her trousers.

In her underwear now, she felt better. Though the sight of her legs--all metal and armor plates--made her stomach turn. She wanted to pull them off, like shoes, and stick them somewhere. Just looking around at all the other marines, just at their faces, or arms, as they all started obeying their CO's orders, told her all she needed to know. It was normal. It was a thing of pride, even, in the way some of the soldiers carried themselves. I guess they all lost theirs in fights, or battles.

Lights out. She lowered her elbows onto her knees, and sat there, her head lowered. She didn't even think about her tattoos right then. Her mind raced with everything that had happened today.

The drama is over and Ozzrik took to actually tuning his guitar. He hummed a few notes quietly as he finished tuning his guitar. Honestly, nothing could put him more at peace. He stashed his guitar under his bunk, kicked of his boots and shoes, took of his shirt and fell asleep on top of the covers. Hopefully, tomorrow he'll be able to find someone to talk to him about some cybernetic implants.

As Dream made the final stretch to the room Kess had directed her to, she would find the entrance firmly blocked by a large, grimy-looking Automata. Behind him, several sounds were ringing out from behind the closed door, most of them being low whirring sounds, like a sander being spun in mid-air.

"Sorry," the Automata stated flatly. "Cleaning crew in progress. Return at a later date."

Any other attempts were met with the same automated message. This Automata was, apparently, one of the many non-sentient machines running the lesser jobs around the Cirrus. It wouldn't move for the little Spacer...not today, anyway. She would have to try again tomorrow.

After a while, more security personnel filed into the small, cramped sleeping compartments, and a few whom were already in the room sighed and left. Many of the new arrivals were just finishing their patrol times, obvious from their CSS suits and weapons, and made a wavy line for the Pneumatic Delivery Tubes near the end of the room.

Each of the CSS members disrobed their CSS suits and into more casual clothing before placing both their weapon and the suit pieces into the delivery capsule and sending them off to their personal storage. A few of them made their way afterwards to their bunks, while others made a line to the BioNutri-Snack and Montreal Reservoir machines, giving Serra an odd look as they ordered while she assessed the machines.

Most of the station seemed to follow suit, as many of the scientists and other crew turned in for the night to allow for night cleaning crews and night-security to sweep the halls. A few stronger-willed scientists remained at their stations, working late on their assignments

---


In the upper reaches of the Central Station, behind her large, well secured bulkheads and amidst the glow of several volumetric screens, Cassefin Montreal sat and brooded. She had changed into more casual clothing...sweat pants and a fleeced shirt, and sat comfortably in a cushioned chair much too large for her physique, only made to appear even more out of place as it was bathed in the blueish light emanating from Cassefin's spying eye screens.

Launch was scheduled for tomorrow. Several projects were behind schedule on their deadline. Someone had defaced yet another BioNutri-Snack machine. According to her wonderful little volumetric displays, the new security squad was running into a little trouble. Someone was also urinating on the plants in the near-empty Grand Atrium again as well. There was another leak in the Hazardous Chemical Plant. Peke was having her robots "clean" again. Administrator Dick Vanderhuge was tapping one of the cameras, looking quite angry and motioning towards a man behind him whom apparently had set fire to himself. Two on-duty guards were smoking in an empty hallway. Someone spilled a Vitawater in another hallway and left it there.

Cassefin yawned, deeply, audibly at her empty room as she removed her glasses and placed them on a handy free-floating table, amidst a number of other objects, thrown there messily in her exhaustion. The days events had been draining, and despite her unshakable will to spy on her wonderful little worker bees, the Queen of the Cirrus decided to indulge herself in a light nap before assigning the smoking guards to receive their 'gifts' for following her rules oh-so-closely.

Tomorrow was a big day, after all.