What's new
  • If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 May and June 2024 are YE 46.4 in the RP.

RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 3] Sunny Day on Prilisa Four

MoonMan

MoonMan

Inactive Member
A couple of days had passed since Squad 35's little misadventure in the Cirrus waste plant, and they had been delightfully uneventful. Word spread about their small conquer over Montreal, and a few of the other security squads shot them smiling glances or quick greeting gestures as they passed one another down the halls. They certainly had the time to; Cirrus seemed to be running fairly smoothly, save for the occasional problem...

This day in particular was a bit different. There was a lot of traffic going on in the Grand Atrium, especially around the corridors connecting to the commercial and equipment shuttle bays, and many of the security teams were being assigned positions in and around the Atrium overlooking the gargling mess of people. Squad 35, however, had received no such orders.

Awaiting assignment in the security quarters, Kess finally made her appearance, as well as Mimi.

"Alright, listen up," Kess started. "I just got the update from Popjoy; turns out that we're parked just above the orbit of one of the new colonies Nepleslia set up...the Prilisa system. It has a terran planet, and we're going to be receiving a large shipment of materials from them. That's why things are so heavy down at the Atrium."

"But but!" Mimi interrupted cheerfully. "We are going to be receiving some new members to our little group, as well as a special assignment. We, uh...don't know what it is yet, but Cassefin made it sound very important!"
 
Cyril looked up from the disassembled .45 spread over a cloth on his bed with a raised eyebrow. "New faces? Already? Wot, they miss the first ship in?"

Cyril had felt better about what had happened in the sewers after a good sulk in a quiet corner of the barracks, picking little bits of dried sewage from his tail. He still felt a little bad for it, but he had gotten over the whole 'I'm worthless, boo hoo' self pitying bullshit. He had fucked true, but that didn't mean that he didn't bring anything useful to the squad. He just hadn't had any opportunity to do what he was good at.

He did shoot a slightly guilty glance at Keziah. He had still yet to actually say anything to her about what had happened. It's not that Cyril was avoiding it, or at least not consciously, but stuff kept coming up. Shake down was taking a lot more time then he would have expected coming into the service, and he hadn't really had the time to talk it out.
 
Rolling his shoulders as the shuttle began it's final approach to the station, the male began preparing himself for the journey ahead.

Slowly getting to his feet in the back of the hired shuttle, the Kohanian once again adjusted the uniform he had been given to wear at the enlistment center. It was too small and felt awkward against his short pelt of brown and black fur, but he had been told that he must wear it until something else was given to him. Just the thought of the way he was treated by some of the other new people made the hyena's lip curl into a bit of a snarl, but he was able to keep the actual sound to a minimum lost in the sound of the engines preparing for the last of their trip from Nepleslia out to the Expanse.

Deacon looked down and lifted the two bags he had and hooked one over each shoulder, one for personal items, the other for military equipment. Once the shuttle was nestled comfortably in the bay, the shuttle's occupants began to disembark, Deacon making sure he was one of the last ones. As he left the shuttle, he took a step out of the flow of people, dropping his bags again as he slowly crouched down on his haunches and closed his eyes inhaling deeply the scents all around him, as well as letting finely tuned ears soak up the ambient sounds.

With a grin, he stood back up, adjusting the two gunbelts he had managed to aquire, and on each was holstered an HHG, his weapon of choice.

This is going to be fun... He murmured to himself, shouldering his bags again, and then following the others disembarking towards the main portion of the station.
 
P3C Himiko Muzai stepped off of the same shuttle as the Kohanian. The slightly busty armorer looked around quietly. So this is Cirrus Station... she said to herself. It was a lot bigger then she had first imagined. She stuck with the crowd... but not too close. She was still uncomfortable being around sooo many men.

A slight flush had crept onto the edges of her cheeks as she walked with her small duffel bag hanging from her shoulder. She was wearing what seemed to be a female version of the marine uniform, though there probably wasn't much difference to the normal male one except for more room around the upper torso area... hopefully.
 
Exercise always made her feel better. The last few days, especially the one right after the Shambler incident, she had taken to the treadmill with a vengeance. Not that she needed to, but getting her blood pumping seemed to quell all the pains of her body. That's what she was doing, running at a rather quick pace, her mechanical feet landing gently on the tread as she pushed herself.

The announcement from the Savtechs made her lose her footing for half a step, but it was enough to make her have to grab for the side bars and shut down the mill. When it stopped, she grabbed a towel that was hanging over most of the controls, and started to pad off the sweat. She'd been going for almost an hour already, and her workout clothes were dark with sweat.

"Maybe for this next assignment we can send all the rookies down into the sewers while we watch." She sounded faintly breathless. "Give them a good taste of the Cirrus."
 
Dream had passed most of the last few days either locked up in that damned armory, or walking around carrying stuff, often with Flower's assistance.

She had been almost everywhere in the station, collecting old tools, burned-out parts of this or that piece of machinery... more or less anything that was old and too worn-out to be of any use. Basically, collected trash around. Trash and other mysterious stuff. And paint. All the colors of the goddamn rainbow, and more. Probably a lot of people around her realized that a certain color had a name only when they noticed Dream carrying around a bucket with that name written over.
There were also, quite literally, non-existent colors. Where the hell did she find paints visible only in the ultraviolet or infrared spectrum?

This time, Mimi and Kess' appearance caught her while she was lugging around, passing in front of the quarters, a small metallic can with, written over it, "BLOCKING PAINT for NEAR INFRARED SPECTRUM (800~900 nm)" and, just below, "For thermal imaging signals and technologies" and "Caution! Poisonous. Do not drink. Do not apply on bare skin. Wash immediately after contact. Keep out of reach of children."

"Huh?" She wondered aloud, dropping the can of paint on Flower's top. Flower being spherical, the can seemed in peril, and so one of his tentacles extended to support the small container with a whizzing sound. "We're gonna have newbies?"

She thought about it for a second. Then immediately wandered on to a completely unrelated topic. "Prilisa? It's one of your colonies in the Darkest Expanse, right? Oh, yeah, you call it New Nepleslia. Wow! That means we're near to where my Fleet is!" She said.
 
Dusty awoke to the sounds of people moving around the shuttle. The ID-SOL snapped his eyes open, and found the world to be a dark shade of green.

He pushed the beret back up on top of his head, and silently scolded himself for falling asleep. He did a once over of his duffel bag to make sure everything was there. Then he lifted his massive frame out of the chair, and did a quick stretch.

Most of the others were already out of the shuttle and into the docking bay, he silently noted. Quickly squezing to the aisle, he ducked out the door and hurried to catch up with the others.
 
Right after the female, Fitz stepped off the shuttle platform and preceded to walk in a straight line to the wall. Fitz had to take a breather as the guy that sat next to him on the shuttle gave him a headache, he had the luck to sit next to a loud and boring scientist who couldn't shut up. He moved his left hand along the wall to feel the metallic surface to gather his thoughts, then continued to follow the crowd.

As he walked along and lazily looked about, he had actually no idea where he was supposed to be going, and just assumed the crowd knew where it was going. Though what he did find interesting was a female he thought he saw earlier, and some animal looking guy that probably came out of the shuttle before he did. Fresh from the training camp all he ever saw was his own fellow Nepleslians, his first assignment was already becoming interesting.
 
Tweak had a lot of time on her hands. Even after re-learning everything she had found out the days before.

The neko had kept out of trouble for the most part, with a little help from Dream and Kess. The mornings were falling into routine...well, if she could remember from morning to morning, it would be routine. Since she couldn't, Tweak continued to wake up to someone shaking her and then needing that person to calm her down from the initial panic reaction to prevent damage. A brief concussion given to a fellow crew member had resulted in the rule that only the Savtech holograms were to have "Tweak Wake-Up Duty".

Her journal was having notes added daily, and more than she had written back on the Viscous Chicken. Probably because there was more to do and see on the large, and diverse, station. Especially because she had taken to exploring the station rather extensively. When Purina had pointed out the camera in her quarters, Tweak had gotten curious about exactly how extensive Admin. Montreal's security network was. After finding out what a camera looked like and a little discrete experimentation on the likely positions of such cameras, Tweak decided to try to find every camera on the station. That night she had written down her goal and theories on reaching that goal. Since then, she had mapped out the station using the map that Kess had provided as a model then began marking the locations and probable locations of cameras as she spotted them.

Today, however, Tweak was busy helping Dream move some pieces of machinery into place as Flower helped out lugging the latest batch of so-called "junk" back to the Druidess' ad-hoc temple. Finishing with the last one, Tweak set out to find Dream to ask what to do next. She found the azure-haired Freespacer in front of the security team barracks just as Kess and Mimi were finishing their announcement.

"What's going on?" asked Tweak, giving the solid-colored forest green beanie with ear flaps on her head a little tug. It was easier to keep on than the bandanna and hid her ears better, but it was also rather plain, so Tweak had woven the multi-colored LED lights that Keid had given her into the crown of the hat and tucked the power source into one of the ear flaps.
 
As the new arrivals exited their shuttle, they were greeted by the bustling crowd around the access tunnels. Before long, however, a young lady, dressed in a special Cirrus attendant uniform, walked up to them from the fast-moving mill of bodies. She smiled at them sincerely, brushing a few strands of her short honey-blond hair away from her face.

"Welcome to the Cirrus Station! I am your Savtech assistant, Mimi. If you all would please follow me, I will lead you to the rest of your co-workers and brief you on your position here. I'm sure most of you have been told your instructions beforehand...but you are all welcome to ask question while we walk, and I will be most happy to answer them! So, let's get started."

Mimi smiled and bowed slightly, hand folded in front of her, and motioned the group towards a bulkhead corridor off to the side.

---

Mimi's image faded away before an answer could be given to Tweak and the rest, but Kess remained. She didn't look particularly happy, but after the past few days of barely ever seeing her happy at all, it hardly seemed out of place.

"Montreal is beefing up certain squads for this big assignment we're getting. Judging from the reports I'm getting from the shuttle bays and what communications we're receiving from Prilisa Four's docks, we're probably going planet-side for this assignment. I'll bet Cassefin's waiting for the new members of our squad to get here before giving us our debriefing though. So suit up and be ready."
 
"Maybe we'll get to stretch our legs." Keziah smirked, and took her towel with her into the showers, intent on washing the sweat away.
 
Serra kept herself busy in the off time, having scored several piles of junk from Dream in the sense of broken down and poorly maintained pieces of random equipment, which she spent her time tinkering and fiddling with to try and repair. Anything she managed to fix, she happily donated to Dream's temple, and anything she failed to fix... She also donated.

She had also talked to Dream and asked an explanation about the Machine God she was enshrining in the armory and was interested in the beliefs that the smaller one had. If anything, it was at least more acceptable to fate and whimsy then her own people's religion.

This particular day, Serra was working on a burnt out gyro system Dream managed to find. But was too focused on her tinkering to notice The SavTech's announcement.
 
At seeing the woman coming to show them off to where they were to stay, Deacon canted his head, ears twitching as he looked Mimi up and down with a lecherous grin. After licking his lips, he would fall in behind her, stealing a glance down at her rear before watching and memorizing the corridors they took to get to their destination.

"I have a question, Miss. We are all to be To'Yaree, but are there really that many Kee'Awloo to be protected? This one does not understand why so many born to the sword are needed..."

With his question expressed, the large hyena would adjust the straps of his bags, hunching over slightly and just followed in silence, taking all that happened around him.
 
Plantetside.

That world echoed throughout Dream's (mostly cluttered with useless, random junk) brain.

"...PLANETSIDE?!"

She glanced nervously around her. "Planetside, by, uh, by planetside you mean, you know, actually on the planet? A planet, you know, out of our safe, comfortable, sturdy, spaceworthy starships and actually on a planet, right?"

No, that sentence didn't had much sense. It didn't even have a verb, for instance.

"I, uh, well, but, it's not, I mean, it's not likely that they'll send us, right? So many security squads here who can do the job. Eheh. Eheheheheheh." She laughed the worst nervous giggle ever, and started to hyperventilate.
 
Himiko almost bowed to the SavTech, but she caught herself and saluted instead. The female armorer quietly followed the AI image, the large hyena-looking.. thingie, and several other marines along the hallway to their destination.
 
Dusty listened quitely to the Savtech as she talked. The large ID-SOL did a quick glace through the crowd to see if there was anybody he recognized, his gaze stopped on the large Hyena-Man that had just asked a question.

He didn't know the Hyena-Man but he was interesting looking and was the first one of his species that he had ever saw. He stared for a few moments and then decided it was best not to, he didn't want to get into a fight his first day on the station. He then continued on with the rest of the group.
 
Fitz continued to follow the crowd in uniform like manner while carrying his pack in his right hand. He snuck up close to the busty woman to check her out in an act of curiosity, It is amazing how much weight woman can hold up these days, Fitz contemplated, he then made sure that anyone else wasn't actually paying attention to what Fitz was analyzing.

Of course being nervous that there was no one he knew to talk to he just said out loud to himself mostly, "I wonder if the rooms are better than the barracks back at home."
 
Serra looked up from her gyro when she heard Dream's jibbajabba about planet side, and then her eventual bout of hysterics. Dropping what she was doing, Serra got up and raced over to the hyperventilating Spacer.

"Dream, dream! Calm down." Serra said as she held the spacer by her shoulders, "try and take deeper breath."
 
Tweak joined Serra in trying to calm Dream down, unsure what to do. "Dream! Dream, it's gonna be alright, maybe they'll let you sit this one out," she said, holding her friend by the shoulders. "She doesn't have to go, does she?" Tweak asked Kess.
 
"No, no, wait!" Dream flailed her arms around. "don't---" She struggled a bit with Serra and Tweak. "I'm- I'm alright..."

She didn't really look alright. She was paler than usual (meaning she was lemon-yellowish now, instead of her usual green-pink-yellow complexion).

"I... I kinda want to... to try it." She admitted. "I'm a priestess... I should experience the universe and revel in life and the stars. But... I'm scared." She admitted.
"Oh crap. I'll have to take a load of vaccinations." She tried to distract herself from the thought of actually walking on the surface of a planet. "But it's gonna be alright, right?" She muttered, almost more to herself than to Tweak and Serra. "A lot of people live on planets. Oh, yeah, like the Great Lighthouse. The Great Lighthouse..."

...great. Another mood swing. She was getting all teary-eyed, now. Ever since Yamatai attacked the Free State, she manifested occasional bouts of sadness and depression.

Well, they were a bit unlike her. But never lasted long.

"Tweak... Serra... you gonna help me? Get on the planet? Please? I, I think I can do it, if you'll be with me."
 
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top