RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 2] Little Problems

Mimi, whom had been watching Kezziah from afar with a concerned look, trotted over to the entrance to the Men's shower block and spoke through the door. Mimi did not enter the shower area, but chose to instead remain outside and call out to them...a marked change, to those who took notice.

"If any of you require medical attention, I am authorized to escort you to the medical station down the hall and assist you in self-treatment. I am going to recommend Miss Kezziah take herself there and seek treatment before we arrive at Miss Purina's office. If you wish to receive a check-up, then you should come with us!"

---

If Kess had a physical body, it looked as though she would've grabbed Tweak by the collar and given her a shove...but seeing as that wasn't the case, the angered Savtech merely approached the neko and stood before her, arms crossed and glaring. Kess didn't bother having her volumetric image give the appearance of looking around for onlookers or pressing ears...she already knew nobody was around.

"You used your neko abilities down there. I specifically told you not to draw attention to yourself, and you did the opposite. Do not test my patience, and do not do it again." Kess said, her voice laced with enough poison to kill twenty Muck Shamblers.

Ozz was standing next to his bunk when he heard Mimi and her bright and cheery message. He hated bright and cheery, but wouldn't you know it.....Mimi grows on ya.


"Mimi, when you're ready, I'll follow you to the medical station. Not too rush you, but the painkillers are wearing off." he added with a smirk.

Tweak looked at the floor and nodded to Kess in apology. She spoke, her voice low.

"I was ordered to stop the Shambler. I did so in the quickest way, and none of my team mates know the extent of what I did. I can explain the cable another way, and my uniform looks as it did when I put it on this morning. I did what was necessary for the safety of my squad." She looked up at Kess from under her eyebrows, her head still tilted down. "But you are worried about the recordings in the tunnel, aren't you? Do many people watch those?"

Lucius had been quietly thinking, no doubt that some of the squad members would deny this possibility, as the team had filed out of the sewers and back to the marine's quarters. He kept his hand on his chin for a while, going over the events in the sewers. He felt he had a right to be paranoid about the Muck Shambler's appearance.

He abruptly turned and tucked his arms behind his back, striding out of the room as Kess called over Tweak and began their conversation. The team should be back in the barracks by now and Tweak will be occupied by Kess for a little. He thought in passing.

Within moments he was back in the quarters, taking off his armor and replacing it in the tube to send it back to storage. He paced the barracks for a moment before stopping in the middle. He listened to Mimi's short suggestion for medical treatment. He spoke up, loud enough to be heard in the showers, and maybe even enough to wake up anyone taking a nap.

"Anyone who is injured WILL follow Mimi for treatment. I don't care if it's a broken nail, a papercut, or a bruised toe. I saw several of you get beat up pretty bad down there, and you all need to be in tip-top shape."

However it was taken, Lucius felt he was doing his duty as a soldier, a leader, and a fellow person in looking out for the well-being of the team. Admittedly he still had to do it his way and make it an 'order.'

Ozz just smirked as Lucius merely repeated Mimi and ordered him to do something he already was doing. Ozz was sure Lucius thought he was being helpful or even perhaps thoughtful, but it didn't make the redundancy any less amusing. Regardless, he waited for Mimi to lead others to get some treatment. He wondered how this little marvel would repair him. He should have been a bit worried given how things are run around here, but he waited politely. He just hoped when Dream's shot wore off that he wouldn't begin to cry like a little baby. Not that he would...of course.

While Lucius was pacing about in the open area of the barracks, he would routinely pass by Serra and Flower. Despite the chance that her immaculate wings would be befouled by the muck from the sewer pipes, the Elysian had procured a washcloth from the tube system and a bucket of water from the shower room and was diligently cleaning the junker droid.

"Mm, how did you get gunk in there?!" She asked the silent droid after she managed to pop one of his service hatches and noticed a lot of gunk gumming a servo for one of his legs, which would have explained his slower then standard gait. "Here, hold on," she said, handing her wash cloth to one of flower's tentacles as she pulled out a couple of small tools from her satchel and began to tinker about inside of it. "Jeez, when you went sumo on that thing, you really cakes it in..." She grumbled as she cleaned and scraped away.

Keziah heard voices, but they were without any real definition to them. Sounds more than anything else. Her head was still singing, but the aching throb was gone, making her more than reluctant to leave her tiny little wedge.

"Cassefin practically lives on her goddamn security screens once the day is over!" Kess hissed in a hushed whisper as she glared over Tweak with angry grey eyes. "I will try and cover for you...but I'm not putting my neck out for you again. You remember to watch your hide, or I'll skin it for you. Keep your ears hidden. Keep you neko abilities in tow. Don't do it again."

With that, Kess turned around and faded, her image carried away by the volumetric displays.

---

Mimi bit her lower lip slightly as she took Keziah's position into account. "Perhaps Miss Keziah can attend later...in the meantime, we need to tend to those of you whom are well enough to reach the medical station," she finally said, casting a final look at the bed-ridden Keziah before turning to the rest and extending a welcoming gesture towards the entrance to the bunks.

"Please follow me."

Tweak nodded and murmured "Yes ma'am" as Kess vanished. When the display had faded, she glanced up, then around the room. No one was there. Brushing off as much of the sewage as she could with her gloved hands and stomping it off of her boots, Tweak tapped the visor switch again to close it and headed toward the barracks for a shower. By now the stench was finally starting to get to her too...

The grime had crusted nicely on Tweak's armor by the time she reached the barracks (but with the side effect of flaking off in the hallways as she walked), so she carefully took off her gloves and boots before walking in. She gathered her jacket and the cloth for her ears from her bunk and headed for the showers, stepping carefully around Serra and Flower. The Junker had certainly taken a beating, and Tweak was impressed by how quickly it had managed to fix itself up.

"Hey Flower, thanks for the help down there. I couldn't have done it without you!" said Tweak, giving the automata a couple pats on the hull as she passed.

When she finally reached the showers, Tweak went in before anyone could tell her Dream's warning. She set her jacket on a clothes hook with her bandanna in the pocket and put her gloves and boots back on before she walked into the shower with her uniform on, armor plates and all. The water warmed up as she stood under it, re-wetting and slowly rinsing off the slime with some help from her gloved hands. Starting at her helmet Tweak worked her way down the uniform cleaning it off, even using some of the body soap from a dispenser. When she finished, she turned off the water and started removing the armor starting with the helmet and plating.

Then she noticed a familiar set of robes nearby.

"Dream? Are you in here?" she asked.

Yes, Dream was under another shower, standing below a jet of water naked and without clearly having a very good idea on how water-based showers worked.

"Oh, Tweak." She said, cutting the water and turning to her. Her long hair, all wet, had practically become a light-blue curtain that almost hid not only her face, but just about her whole body.
She stared a bit at Tweak's face. "...What's wrong?" she asked, sensing, perceptive as ever, that something had happened.

Hearing Mimi, Ozz stood up and followed as he was asked. He might of look distracted as he was poking and pinching himself in various places testing the weakening effects of Dream's painkiller.

A smirk crossed his face when he realized the street value of this stuff on Neplesia would be immense.

The neko's face that poked around the stall divider hid her troubles well, but not well enough to keep them from showing to Dream. Kess' forceful warnings, the knowledge that her memory would continue to recycle itself each new day, and her uncertainty about her position in the team were all cluttering Tweak's thoughts as she was showering. She made a rather sad sight anyway, with her hair and the fur on her ears plastered down from the shower...like a cat forced into taking a bath. Her ears were even drooping a little.

"You're my friend, aren't you?" she asked after a short pause, gripping the side of the shower stall with one hand and her helmet in the other as she came around to stand in front of Dream. "I can trust you to keep a secret, right?"

Cyril didn't take any more time in the shower then was strictly necessary, however inviting the warm water was. There had been fairly extensive water recycling back home, but water had only been run to the residential modules for a few hours each day. After that, you only had what you could store in your apartment's tank. Navy showers had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember.

He dried off and got dressed leisurely. He had heard the sergeant's orders that everyone injured make their way to the med station. He would have a goodly while before they moved elsewhere, what with Ozzy's impressive collection of injury. He felt another twinge of guilt as the thought crossed his mind. He shook it off and headed for the vacuum tube terminal. He would talk with Kaz, and Ozzy too, about in the morning, assuming that she wasn't still too badly concussed.

He punched up a request for the cybernetics maintenance kit from his bag. He could kill half an hour giving his arm and tail the once over.

Dream pondered for a moment. "I AM your friend, but that's a weird question. You know I'm a Freespacer and I'm connected to Polysentience. There cannot be secrets within the State. Free information is the cornerstone of our society."
She smiled. "But you can ask me not to talk about it in public, and, obviously, I'd do it. Because I'm your friend, and I trust you and believe in you."

Mimi led them down the opposite corridor, to a small room bordering the stairwell leading to the next floors of the Central Station's lower interior. This room, at first glance, contained little more than what would be expected from a corporate coffee room; a table and a few chairs, a snack and drink machine, a small potted plant in the corner, and a set of cabinets and counters on the opposite wall.

As the rounded the corner, Mimi practically skipped ahead over to the cluster of cabinets and motioned towards one in particular in a sickeningly cute gesture. As she did, a small audible *click* sounded faintly from behind the cabinets door, followed by a red display light on the front of the cabinet promptly changing to green.

"Painkillers and antibiotics are right here, in the blue-labeled bottles! I'm authorized to allow only the recommended dosage, so please be careful of your intake!"

Tweak nodded, looking down. "That's true, you don't keep secrets from your own people. But I have been told that there is a strong prejudice against what I am in many places. That's why Kess wants me to keep what I am from everyone else...I don't know what they would do if they found out. From what she says, my ears and my ability to manipulate my blood the way I do are the key traits of my race." Tweak closed her eyes and bowed her head. "So...as my squad commander, please forgive me if I don't perform at my best in future missions, and I will be indebted to you as my friend for keeping my secret...Kess said that not even Administrator Montreal knows, so I guess that would mean you will need to keep it from the administrator as well. I apologize if this causes any trouble."

Dream smiled and patted on Tweak's shoulder.

"You realize you didn't have any need to say all that stuff, right?" She said softly.

With her other hand, she tried to brush her wet hair sideways. "Unfortunately, despite all their cool technology, most other races in the galaxy appear to be... far less socially advanced than we are. In an ideal society, people would judge your heart by looking at your soul, not at your biomolecular composition." She said, matter-of-factly.

"...You're a part of us, Tweak. Even if you're not connected to our hive mind, you're still a citizen of the Free State." She proudly stated. "Therefore, we will protect you."

She closed the shower and started putting back on her dress. She was still soaking wet, however.
"Oh, yeah." She said nonchalantly while dressing back up. "You're not linked so you probably don't know that Yamatai, the people who made you, have recently attacked Halna and the Great Lighthouse."

Dream stopped for a moment. "I don't know what this might mean to you, actually." She admitted, before stepping out of the bathroom. "It's just... I thought you might have wanted to know."

She returned in the barracks, leaving a trail of water behind her from her dripping clothes and hair. "So, people! Are we goin'?"

Ozz strolled casually as Mimi skipped energetically. After the explanation, he stepped up to the medical cabinets. He was dispensed the allowed dosage of medicines.

He had popped his shoulder back into the socket, albeit painfully, but he was fairfully certain he had no futher fractures or extensive trauma to his rotator cuff. In the end, he would just need some painkillers to help with swelling and rest. He also took a small dosage of antibotics in case there was an infection building where he was cut around his face from being in the nasty pipes below.

When he was finished, he didn't bother to wait for the others and strolled casually back to the bunks. Deciding he needed some relaxation until it was time to go, he took out his guitar from under his bunk and began to strum one of his favorite melodies.

Tweak wanted to hug Dream. She smiled, and her head lifted. The blue-haired druidess had said just what she needed to hear: She had a friend willing to stand by her, just like her journal said. Before Tweak could follow through on her hug impulse Dream was already out of the shower, dressing herself, and moving on to other topics...like the destruction of Halna. Tweak became a little more pale than she already was and her smile left.

"Why?" she whispered, almost incredulous. If these Yamatians can _build_ beings like her, then what possible threat could the Freespacers have posed? She was about to ask something else, but Dream had already left the showers. Standing still for a moment, half in shock, Tweak knew she couldn't really do anything here...

...and my armor is still dirty, she thought, looking for a distraction from what she had just heard. Numbly, she returned to her shower and continued cleaning her armor until it was done.

Removing the undersuit, and standing in her tank-top and shorts, Tweak finished cleaning the suit in the shower and then wrung it out and folded it, placing it on the breastplate of the armor and stacking the smaller plates on top. Then she donned her jacket, tied her bandanna over her ears, and picked up the armor to take back to the pnumatic tubes as she had seen everyone else doing. She sent the armor away in silence.

Apparently Dream had heard Tweak's whispered "Why", because she turned around back to her.
She was still smiling, but it was some sort of serious smile.

"Because it's what they do. They're a fascist empire, ruled by a single absolute leader like some kind of paleolithic cavemans despite their advanced tech."
Freespacers had trouble considering even Nepleslia's somewhat generous and well-meaning democracy a decent form of government, so an actual empire with an actual emperor or empress was completely out of question for them.

She took Tweak a bit aside.

"And like all fascist empires, it thrives on war. It needs it." She explained, with the self-confidence of a historian five times her apparent age, and probably more than ten times her actual age. "They build a navy with countless ships made for war, and create advanced weapons. But then, what do they do when there is no war, and when war is all they know? They make one. And what do they do when confronted with an event that requires an answer on their part? They answer in the only way they know. With war."

She lowered her tone of voice. "Think about yourself. Think about being created and raised in an army where all you must do is to obey orders. You aren't really entitled to an opinion, you're not really free. You're a weapon, not a person. You can only justify your existence through war. But there's no war to be fought."

She brought her tone of voice back to normal, hands on her waist. She started talking in a dramatic voice, apparently quoting something. "After a certain degree of social evolution, a time comes when a nation must decide whether to live in peace, or in war. If they choose peace, they will not be able to bear the weight of open war for a long time. If they choose war, they will not be able to bear the weight of open peace for a long time. For he who is bred for peace refuses war, fights only if he must, and accepts humiliation for the sake of armistice. And he who is bred for war incorporates strife and suffering into his worldwiew, and calls compromise weakness and peace idleness. And, if idle too long, desires to start war anew. The Art of Never Again, chapter two hundred and ninety-eight: Essays on Political Ideology."

"We are a nation of peace. Nepleslia is choosing peace over war. The Reds, the Misshu, and Yamatai are nations of war." She counted on the tip of her fingers. "Nothing new."

She sat down on a bench. "And, if you're curious, they attacked us because a Freespacer contacted the Misshu and had a chat with them about the extent and security of the Yamatai's information network. Therefore, Yamatai decided to answer by obliterating a colony and occupying the Great Lighthouse en-force." She said matter-of-factly. "When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. When you have advanced combat technologies, a powerful fleet, and the social evolution of a paranoid hermit caveman, violence becomes the answer to every problem." She said, standing back up.

She closed distance and hugged her. She was still wet.

Despite having the tact and subtlety of a Pseudonova EMP nuclear cruise missile, Dream knew when someone needed a hug.

"All this doesn't matter now. You're one of us, and you're here, and you're well. We, as a race and a culture, will survive. We've survived far worse than this."

Or perhaps... perhaps it was Dream who needed a hug.

For all her cold, detached political rant... she didn't seem exactly alright.

She held on to Tweak tighter.

"I... I didn't say anything. We were in the middle of the mission when I realized. But I heard their voices... everyone's voices. I've seen through their eyes. I've read their blogs and diaries. I know what they thought, who they were. Everything filtered through the network."

She looked straight into Tweak's eyes. Her only left eye was red. Water from her still-wet hair disguised her tears. "It's the price we must pay for a world in which everyone loves everyone else. A small price."

She forced herself to stop sobbing, and put on another one of her fresh, brightest smiles. "I don't know the pain you feel. The pain of being alone, feared, mistrusted, rejected." She whispered. "I'm never alone. But, I'll do everything I can to make sure that, when you'll wake up tomorrow, you'll never be alone, too. I'll be always with you. Always."