• 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 stararmy@gmail.com 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

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

Della said:
"Amusing. For Yamatai, the greatest weapon..." She glanced at the two nekos. "...is stupidity."
Click to expand...
Stupidity...

Dream's words cut deep, even if she intended them to do otherwise. As Tweak walked away, her eyes squeezed closed to keep sudden tears back.

Just a stupid weapon...

She didn't say anything, instead continuing to walk until Dream called out for her assistance. Tweak stopped and forced herself to focus on the situation at hand. She would not let these feelings get in the way...if she performed her job now, she would stay out of trouble and be able to spend the time alone that she desperately needed right now when she got back to Cirrus.

Instead of turning to Dream, though, Tweak ran down the hall and out the front door toward where Cassifin's Wolverine did battle with the remaining nekos as the annoying woman lay nearby. She noticed Deacon standing on the vehicle, looking as though he was searching for something...maybe the Administrator? But there were still so many nekos...the hyena Kohanian would be able to carry and protect Cassifin better than Tweak; the neko 'Spacer's maneuverability would be limited while carrying Montreal where Deacon could just barrel through.

Tweak dashed over to Montreal's side and checked her vitals. "She's down here!" she called up to Deacon. "I need you to take her to the shuttle and I'll cover you. Dream is gonna try clearing all of the nekos out soon." Montreal seemed to have a moderate concussion from her fall, but it looked like her shoulder had taken most of the impact instead of her head. It wouldn't do to have her head bobbing around...Tweak looked around for something to immobilize it with. "Got any cloth strips on you?" she asked the hyena as she took off a thigh panel from her armor and slid it under Cassifin's back so one of the ends was under her head. All she needed was something to fasten it with; strips of cloth tied at the chest and forehead regions should work...
 
Della said:
"Hey, Kaz." Dream asked then, nonchalantly. "Apparently the nekos like my new Wolverine. Does it have a sufficiently powerful self-destruct system, or do I just need to make the reactor go critical?"
Click to expand...

Keziah shook her head. "I doubt there's a self-destruct. But, yeah, forcing the reactor into overdrive would be just as effective."

She watched Dream watch Tweak, but stayed on her perch, both unsure about what to do, and frustrated because of her broken arm. And what should she do about the neko's? What's to stop them from just trying to pull the crown off and rip her to shreds?

A stupid weapon, indeed. Especially if they were all so easily distracted. If this was the source of all that propaganda, all that fear in the government and military ads she had seen so much of, then clearly they were only really formidable with their weaponry. The neko's weren't advanced, not at all. It was entirely the Yamataian's that had that edge.

She sighed, and slid off the rubble throne, skipping on the floor to a stop.
 
Dream looked at tweak run away towards the battle. "...oh. She left." She sighed, turning to Kaz.

"How big a boom we're talking about, here? Don't want to catch ourselves in the shockwave, right?"

Meanwhile, in internal radio communication with Tweak:

You found her? Good, bring her back in this room...
Click to expand...

...um, no, she'd flip off as soon as she'd see the Nekos.

But where else to go?

Oh, well. She just had to make sure that she DIDN'T flip off.

...and I'll take care of her. Also, look out for the damaged wolverine. I'm using it to lure the nekos away and then blow up.
Click to expand...
 
As she spoke to Deacon, Tweak sent back a reply to Dream via her own internal radio.

Deacon and I are going to get her to the shuttle. There are two others inside this Wolverine. I'll try to warn them.
Click to expand...

After asking her question of Deacon, Tweak called up to Lenny and George. "HEY! Dream's gonna blow the Wolverine over there, so either get out of there and come with us or get ready!"
 
With Dream's Wolverine garnering most of the attention away from Tweak, Cassefin and themselves, George and Lenny were quick to react. "Blow it up?! Shit!" George exclaimed, frantically trying to move the vehicle abroad to make their escape.

Unfortunately, Tweak's yell of warning also caught the ear of on of the nekos in the rear of the crowd whom had been impatiently awaiting an opening in her targets attacks. Instead, the cat-eared woman turned and began sprinting towards Tweak and the down-and-out Head Administrator.

---

About that time, a hailing signal sounded out through all of the CSS squad's radios.

Code: 
Attention all Cirrus Station Security team members. This is Captain Abeck Winston of the CSS Elite. We are responding to an emergency call and will be arriving shortly. Head Administrator Montreal, as a priority target we will be securing you first. Where is your current location?

Of course, Abeck would not receive an answer from the unconscious Cassefin. Off in the distance, the tell-tale hum of shuttlecraft could be faintly heard over the screams and cries of the neko swarm. Time was running out, and with the main body of the amazonic nekos still active and unaware of the sudden switch in royalty, it was uncertain how this rescue attempt would fare.
 
Fitz nodded to his companion, "Your probably right, the guns aren't all that shiny to think of it, I probably just lost my pistol when they dragged me away..." then his thoughts were disrupted by the broadcast. "And it appears help has just arrived..."

He then sent out a communication to the approaching reinforcement.

 
Code: 
 This is Tweak Three Seven.

Montreal is unconscious, but receiving attention. 

Please be advised that one of the Wolverine vehicles is going to be overloaded in an attempt to clear the nekos nearby. Deacon and I are going to attempt to move Montreal to the shuttle, please hold position.

There are two nekos pacified in the generator room with Dream and the other team members. Repeat, they are no longer threats.

Tweak's ears twitched under her hat and she turned to see the stray amazon running back toward her. "Deacon, get the Administrator out, now!" There was no longer time for a field-treatment of Cassifin's injuries, they just needed to leave as soon as they could.

Tweak got up from where she knelt at the Admin's side and took a few steps forward and got into a defense stance.
 
Deacon's head snapped around to look down at Tweak when she first spoke, but then didn't give him time to come up with the cloth she was requesting. Then he noticed the neko sprinting at Tweak and the Administrator. This time, it would be his turn to land right atop a neko, as he pounced down and landed on it, before reaching down to snap the spine of the creature.

"Ya know, this is REALLY starting to get on my nerves." He muttered.

Picking up Montreal, and holding her on his broad left shoulder, began to sprint towards where the shuttle was, ducking and sliding under the claws of the Wolverine Dream was piloting, using that to try and dissuade any nekos from following.
 
"Alright, you can do that..." Tweak muttered as Deacon landed on the oncoming neko feral. She followed after him, leaping ahead momentarily here and there to clear him a path through the horde around Dream's Wolverine. Why he didn't just go around them was beyond her...

The closer they got to the shuttle, the further Tweak lagged behind to make sure they weren't followed and keep the attention off of the Admin when three nekos peeled off from the main group to intercept. She grabbed the arms of two of them and tossed them into the woods, and plowed the head of the third back into the pile around Dream's vehicle.

Close...so close...
 
The radio! She had forgotten about it in her... amazement? Confusion? Complete and utter shock at how easily the neko's were usurped? Too bad she couldn't tell them to do anything, that would've actually been useful.

Code: 
Confirmed that the generator room is secure. We're holding position here for the time being until reinforcements arrive that aren't of the feline variety.

"How big a boom we're talking about, here? Don't want to catch ourselves in the shockwave, right?"
Click to expand...

Turning to Dream, she frowned, thoughtful for a moment. "It should be a fusion core powering it." Then her eyes widened, as the realization of what she just said sunk in. "Real big."
 
Claire blinked at Fitz. "So are we going or staying? I don't want to sound pushy, but make up your mind please. For all intents and purposes, we'll follow you for now till someone higher in rank says otherwise." She didn't want to push him, but the situation was becoming gradually more hectic and pausing too much couldn't end well.

Though she did seem to break a small smile at what she thought sounded like help coming their way.
 
Fitz couldn't help but to chuckle at Claire's commentary, "Aye, we stay here now that backup has arrived. We can recover our equipment after the area is clear, as well as whatever else we were supposed to be picking up." He explained himself and sighed that everything is going to go smoothly.
 
Dream read the wolverine's specifics and juggled a bit of math in her head. She wasn't particularly good at math, but she had been working with fusion reactors since she was born, so she had an instinctive grasp of loads and booms.

"...wait, your Wolverine's reactor is... too damn big. It's not a dwarf reactor... this thing could power a mothership!"

Too used to freespacer dwarf reactors, Dream had almost miscalculated the size of the reactor and blown them all to Terra's ship and back.

"...you nepleslians are all crazy." She grinned, sitting down thoughtfully. This was going to be complex.

She could let some of the deuterium escape the containment field before sending it to critical? This would reduce the amount of fusible material.

Worth a try.

She bled off most of the deuterium in the reactor, leaving just what she considered enough for a 20 ton explosion. Taking into account the Wolverine's armor... And the position of everyone from her squad...

Clear the deck, lads. At least 100 meters.
Click to expand...
She announced via radio to everyone in a gleeful voice, while the Wolverine kept trashing around in an effort to attract as many nekos as possible, and then, slowly, became sluggish and stopped, emitting a high-pitched whine.
 
Keziah laughed. "We might be crazy, but we get the job done."

Never such a thing as too much power. That was something her Sergeants had always told her.
 
Deacon and Tweak's efforts proved succesful as Dream's Wolverine lead the main body of nekos farther away. Cassefin was out cold, and put up little resistance as they hurried her into her own shuttle. As the two CSS members entered the shuttle, a few of the escapees that Fitz had brought there quickly sat up and attempted to help Deacon set her to rest on the floor.

George and Lenny, after nearly capsizing their Wolverine on a small crate, had finally decided to stop attempting to drive the hunk of junk and cheese it out of the blast radius on foot. The two high-tailed it straight into the spaceport, not stopping until they had reached the now-safe generator room.

---

The nekos assaulting Dream's Wolverine either didn't notice or didn't care that their attacks were bouncing off harmlessly, and continued their crusade all through the relocation.

As Dream began priming the Wolverine's reactor to explode, however, the high-pitched noise emitting from the vehicle caused many confused expressions from the amazonic catwomen. As the vehicles generator neared the apex of its overload, the nekos suddenly had a change of heart and began to hastily retreat...a little too late.

The explosion was loud, but not nearly as grand as the one George and Lenny had caused earlier. The nekos closest to the Wolverine when it erupted into flames and metal were thrown across the landing pad, singed and defeated, while the rest retreated onto the rooftop of the spaceport.

---

Before long, a few of the nekos, obviously disappointed with coming back empty handed, plopped down into the generator room from the hole in the ceiling. At first they were surprised; the lack of prisoners was the first thing they noticed. Then, of course, they caught sight of their new queen as Keziah sat, headdress jingling, at the front of the room. The amazonic nekos simply joined the two former neko queens and plopped themselves on the ground around the rubble, staring at the woman.

---

Back outside, the shuttles from the Cirrus quickly flew into view and positioned themselves above the spaceport and adjacent landing pad. Rappelling cables dropped from the sides of the shuttle, and several CSS Elites dropped down, their large, modified CSS suits glinting in the fading Prilisa IV sunlight.

They were met with some interesting sights. A few nekos they found outside on the landing pad were either incapacitated or unconscious from explosion they saw upon entry. The CSS Elite were quick to subdue them as they secured their way into the spaceport.

A CSS Elite appeared at the doorway of Cassefin's shuttle, carefully skirting the corner until he was sure that the interior was secure. When he was convinced, he lowered his weapon.

"Alright, remain calm. We'll take it from here."

---

Code: 
"Captains of Cirrus Station Security squads 34 and 67, this is CSS Commander Winston."

Abeck's voice sounded out through each of the CSS helmets amongst the scattered spaceport.

Code: 
"We are en route to the aforementioned secured area in the facilities generator room. We have not met resistance yet, what is your situation?"
 
"Ah someone is coming!" Fitz was quick to realize the bounding furry creature carrying some dead weight, "Ah it's that animal guy... person... someone open the door and let him in!" He shouted to some of the squad members in the back.

After the commander was lain on the ground he had to ask, "Is she ok? She ain't gonna die on us?"
 
With the CSS Elite on the scene on the actions of Squad 35 suppressing most of the strange cat-eared amazons, things became much easier to manage. Before long, all of the nekos had been more or less subdued as they followed silver-crowned Keziah (with a small amount of assistance by Guard Captain Abeck), into a suspension cell in one of the larger shuttles. With things settled down as they were, the civilians were released just around the time additional support from the Star Military of Nepleslia arrived on the scene.

After a short while, Squad 35 was hurried back onto one of the Cirrus shuttlecraft and brought back to the station.

”Whew, you guys are lucky,” Abeck Winston explained to the teams during the flight. “From what the inspection crew back planetside can tell, it looks like you all jumped right into the middle of a neko slave-trade gone wrong. All those nekos are reprogrammed, and it looks like one of the ships destined to arrive on Prilisa IV was going to make a pick-up and head straight back to Nepleslia… they’ll be getting a warmer welcome than they expected once they break atmosphere, yeah? You all really lucked out this time…if these nekos brain’s where blank slates, I don’t think you all would’ve lasted very long.”

“How’s the boss?” George asked from the rear of the shuttle.

Abeck flashed him a smile. “Head Administrator Montreal is fine, as far as I can tell. She twisted her arm a bit on that fall, but nothing a nights’ worth of medicine won’t fix. Don’t sweat that though…you guys made good with what you were given. I’ll bet even Miss Montreal can’t argue that, whenever she wakes up. In the meantime…I suppose you all are dismissed for the day. You’ve earned it.”

---

Late that evening, back on the Cirrus Station…

Back in her usual evening duty of constantly monitoring her multitudes of camera view screens, Cassefin Montreal sat illuminated, bathed in the light of the monitors before her as she reclined into her chair. Her attire of long pajamas, printed with test tubes of red liquid, belied a serious expression as she poured herself over each volumetric screen, her eyes eagle-like in their determination of finding a wrong-doing.

A graveyard shift CSS member dozing off in one of the many miscellaneous hallways…

Two scientists in the SCEIA sub-department performing blatant acts of sexual-harassment upon each other…

Even that one odd Type 2 Freespacer who seemed intent on stealing the pens from the Chemical Plant offices was up to his old tricks.

All of this was negligible; Cassefin had bigger things on her mind…and if her growing frustration was any indication, she wasn’t having much luck finding it. Exhausted, the young woman leaned back heavily into the folds of her chair, casting a glance down at her right arm, held in a translucent sling. The events down on Prilisa IV were still very fresh on her mind… and not just the many unanswered questions about how those reprogrammed nekos made it past the tight security on the surface.


Cassefin’s eyes drifted off and softened for a moment, her shoulders relaxing as she released the tension in them. Perhaps Dream was right…


…or perhaps that stupid ‘Spacer didn’t know anything. The Head Administrator flared right back up again, a low growl building in her throat and culminating in a heavy-handed fist banging on the small table at the side of her chair. The shock of the impact was jarring enough to transfer to her injured arm, and Cassefin quickly curled the slung limb inward to her body, wincing and sucking air through her clenched teeth before muttering a string of curses in a quiet, weakened voice.

When the sting had subsided, Cassefin relaxed herself back into her chair with a defeated sigh. The chair bent backwards with her, and the scientist sat back and stared at her ceiling for several minutes. She knew she would need to get some rest tonight, instead of the usual all-night stake out in front of her computer. She would definitely need the strength to accomplish what needed to be done in the following days.
 
Tweak gladly boarded the ride back to Cirrus. Today had been hectic, putting it lightly, especially for her. Finding more of her own kind, then fighting them and finding out what kind of creatures they were, all while seeing how everyone else reacted toward them was having an emotional drain on her that the 'spacer neko was barely keeping under control. All she wanted to do was sleep. To get away from everything -- the fighting, her teammates, even her suit -- and just be alone with her thoughts and quiet. Meanwhile, she subtly avoided eye contact with Dream. Her friend's comment on the status of the nekos still stung.

Also troubling was the realization of what she had just asked of Deacon. The Kohanian had every reason to hate her now. She couldn't tell for sure, but Tweak had to assume that he knew something now, even if she hadn't used any of her more obvious abilities. Either way...she had to ask him what he saw at next opportunity. And this was _definitely_ going in her journal.

She tugged on one arm of her suit; it was itching in the area of her upper arm over her heat vents. The material seemed a bit on the hot side, and lightly deformed with a similar state present on the sides of her thighs but to a lesser degree. Tweak frowned, but stopped picking at it and let it be. The armor plates would hide it from casual eyes for now.

!!!

Tweak had been staring at the deck plating, but her eyes shot up to look at Abeck in surprise. Reprogrammed? So they were not naturally that way? Then the realization hit: Reprogrammed meant that they were programmed to begin with. But what were they when they didn't have programming? Tweak looked back down at the floor, her face thoughtful and a little confused.

---

Late that evening, back on the Cirrus Station…

Dream's mostly-finished (if it ever could be finished) shrine in the abandoned armory was dark, with blinking LED lights here and there flashing and performing patterns to the night cycle of the station. In a far corner, though, behind a stack of storage containers, bits of scrap metal and a large generator block, a red-tinged light flashed in irregular intervals.

Tweak had been nearly first in line to change out of her CSS armor, glad to have worn her normal clothes underneath. She found herself unable to stay in the barracks, though. Even up on her bunk, it was far from peaceful in the room as everyone did their post-mission thing whether it was relaxing, talking, doing minor exercises...the cramped room just made it seem too busy. So Tweak left it and headed toward the shrine with her journal.

Now she sat on the deck behind the collection of junk, recording her day's experience on paper and in crystal. Even a summery of the day filled three pages, front and back. Encoded in the crystalline tags, of course, were the important parts: Her recollections of the nekos mostly, but also notes about Shastabaar and Deacon, the two newbies from races she had no knowledge of. The other additions to the squad had profiles added to her paper journal where she had already written information on the squad mates she had met when she joined.

Deacon's information had an addition to the physical description and semi-portrait: A transcript of the conversation they had shared on the shuttle before beginning their plan, including Deacon's mention of neko reputation on his world. Tweak felt a twinge of worry as she made a note in her book to follow up on Deacon, to find out what he thought of her now and whether he knew anything and if the promise he had made to her held any weight now.

The neko finished her note, then closed the book and set it on the deck beside her. The fact that Tweak knew she wouldn't remember anything in the morning never caused her so much worry as it did now. The neko pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them and smelling the faint scent of the heat-seared fabric (where her shorts had taken the brunt of the heat-dispersion vents on her legs during the mission) as she stared at the blurred reflection the LED lights in her hat made on the inside of her little 'fort'. A tear traced its way down her cheek, tickling her nose a little making her sniffle before it dripped from her chin.

With today, things were more complicated now. And even knowing she had people who would watch her back in a battle didn't keep Tweak from feeling very, very alone.
 
For her part, Dream was in the old armory-turned-shrine, which had become her "headquarters" and hiding hole whenever she had some free time.

The walls, roof and ceiling had been painted- or, rather, splattered with countless different colors in abstract, meaningless, bright patterns overlapping each other. Rough geometric shapes, symbols, stylized planets and moons and suns and stars and starships and orbits and starmaps and rough schematics of the Cirrus all intersecting with each other so much as to be nearly incomprehensible.

There were some chairs around, taken from here and there, and a couple of tables, and other odds and ends: numerous starmaps printed on paper or other physical media duct-taped to the walls, countless pieces of random machinery, mostly broken or very old parts saved from recycling or waste disposal, often painted in very decorative, more or less abstract color patterns, lying about, pieces of scrap metal or old tools like wrenches or screwdrivers, armor plates, optical fibers, pots and vases with colorful, exotic plants and flowers bathing the room in a multitude of aromas, jugs full of water, patches of grass, moss and lichens growing here an there on the ground, the walls or the ceiling...

It felt like being in another dimension, one made up only of colors, life and machines in their simplest, rawest, most beautiful and insane forms.

There, Dream was sitting idly on a chair, pondering what had happened.

Warboss Win had said that those nekos were programmed to act that stupid way. This information had forced her to scrap the hypothesis that the "society" they had developed was "natural" for them.
If they weren't building up a society from blank, then... what society would blank nekos end up building?

Dream thought long and hard about it, visiting Polysentience (however controlled and restricted her access was) and exchanging opinions with fellow sociologists, priestesses and freethinkers, without reaching a conclusive verdict.

However, an idea lingered in Dream's skull. A terrifying idea, one that she dared not talk aloud.

Maybe they didn't. Maybe, without programming, nekos just... wouldn't be able to have a society.

No society. Solipsism.
She shivered.

"Enough thinking of this." She said out aloud to herself, jumping up from the chair. "Flower!"

The spiderlike Junker drone, brightly painted like everything else in that room, sprang back to apparent life, rising on its four mechanical legs. Dream had created a small niche on its topside, filled it with soil, attached a small, internal agro-control system, and had planted a flower in it. A small, lithe red-and-yellow flower.

Now Flower had a flower coming out of his head. The image of the brightly-colored, semi-sentient drone scuttling around the ships' corridors with this small flower on the top of its head, bobbing left and right as he ran around, had quickly become one of the least easily forgettable sights of the Cirrus.

"Flower, take care of the shrine while I'm out."
The small drone seemed to nod, the flower swinging up and down.
 
"So now what?"

Claire frowned as she scanned over the brief message she recieved from her superior. It was evasive and dodged any questions she had as usual. She was still a little shaken at the thought that there was a neko slave trade going on practically right underneath everyone's noses there and half of them weren't even aware of it, herself included.

For the time being, she was placed on the Cirrus station itself, seeing as how her previous position basically no longer existed. Thankfully they had determined that she had no knowledge of the whole operation. (Which she didn't.) However, they had been a bit hasty in declaring that, making it look like a bit of a coverup almost. She knew better otherwise, but how much of the crew on the station believed that? How many of them thought that she was a part of it? Truthfully, she'd never have anything to do with that. Slave trade left a bad taste in her mouth, no matter what species it is.

She sighed. They had basically just dumped her off on Cassefin, who she had the feeling would object once she found out why she was still on board. Claire rubbed her forehead a bit, her head still pounding from the whole ordeal. Brushing her red bangs off to the side, she closed the message and sighed. Where would this be take her? Undoubtedly, the things that happened here were far more interesting than anything that ever happened planetside. Though she had kind of grown accustomed to it by now and was already missing having actual ground underneath her feet.

Claire shook her head. Looked like she was on her own now for a little while. They certaintly had an odd crew here, so at least they'd be interesting to watch. She read some of their previous 'adventures' before from a friend of hers that was higher up in rank. She wondered if that sort of thing would continue to happen. Would she still be here to see it? She wasn't sure.

Claire decided to go to the barracks. She basically had nothing aside from her standard gear, so she didn't even have a bunk, but maybe there was someone there to talk to at least in the meantime. As she walked through the armory, muttering to herself about basically being written off by her superiors, she paused. She let out a small 'Hmm?' seeing Tweak's little 'shrine'. How odd. Cassefin didn't strike her as the kind of person that would allow such a thing. She tilted her head in curiosity.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…