RP: ISC Phoenix [Interlude 4] - A Hard Day's Night

A thorough search of the ship didn't seem to yield anything. This was a visible annoyance to the captain.
"Alright, enough games," Luca cracked his knuckles as he got up with his shotgun in hand, "Come out wherever you are, or I'll get Valo to make you."

"You don't seem to understand, I'm here on this ship, but not," The voice on the ship said.
"How's that supposed to make sense?" Luca was getting visibly annoyed as he walked the corridors, "If you're invisible, I'll get Arin to deal with you." He was on the right track, but the wrong tangent, recalling his previous experience where the NAM representative showed her resourcefulness.

Arin, meanwhile, came across quite a bump in the ship's computer data. In fact, it was a large bump of fluctuating size, and a log showed that an unauthorised data acquisition was made within the past few minutes.
Allison, who happened to be nearby in the engine room, watched the representative tap away.

"How should we deal with this?" She asked inquisitively, "Aren't Freespacers cyber criminals on Rage?"
The AI got wind of this, and was ticked off about it, "Watch your tongue, or I'll overheat your engines and cook this little ship!" Arin's computer access was severed, locked out from the system, "Now do as I say, and you won't fry, meatbags."
The ship was still on its course however, but it didn't want to deviate unless completely necessary.

The captain, meanwhile, put his weapon away and folded his arms, staring at the intercom, "Maybe we got off on the wrong foot," He was putting some social engineering into motion, "If you asked permission or made yourself clearer it would've been fine."

Melissa, meanwhile, was a little jarred at the unexpected entry, "I'll get back ta ya on that," She answered Panther quickly, then turned around to the artificial intelligence, "Oi mate, it ain't playin' stickball to nick someone's ship under their nose. Hell, you should thank us."

"I think not," The AI responded, "Isn't that what you Yamataians did to my home?"
"Listen, I'm Nepleslian, there are only five Yamataians on this ship, 11 Nepleslians and Geshrin, combined," She argued, "And even an Elysian, a Kohanian, a Lorath in medical, and a platy-friggin'-pus. We're hardly Yamataian, and in fact we're rather independent of those kitty worshipping bitches," She continued to ramble on about her dislike of Yamatai.
"Maybe that's the case, but I still can't trust you where I want to go," The AI was a little calmer, but still keeping a vicelike grip on the system.
Valo appeared to be inert at this point.

Luca grumbled shaking, his head. He turned around and and consulted his father, who was also in a bit of a spit about this.
"Your thoughts, aside from not trusting a computer you can't throw out a window?"
Sebastian whispered into his son's ear, and after a minute or so, Luca smiled, then nodded with a telepathic message. The advantage was that a telepathic message could not be intercepted.
"Excellent idea." He broadcast his plan to the others on the ship as he walked through the halls, rooms and hold of the ship, which, although the details were scarce, could be broken down into this:

• "Heave the reputation around a little..."
• "Get into a yes/no argument about releasing the locks she has on us, then switching from 'Yes' to 'No' midway and making her say 'Yes', then giving Arin a window of opportunity to seal her in, or whatever you computer folks do..."
• "Ask her how to get into a system and unhack it, but do it in such a roundabout and abstract fashion that she spills the beans by accident..."
• "Use a reverse psychology plea..."
• "Failing all that, we tear out the computer core and toss it out the airlock, then get Arin and Allison to jury rig one from the Super Demon."

If anyone else had a better idea, they could huddle and whisper it in, or respond in kind if they had the capability.
"If only she had a forehead to vent," Melissa grumbled under her breath.

Oh crud. This is not something of a Zeta specialty. SHe knew hot to kill people in many seberal ways. Not how to hack computers. She put her knife away deeming it not useful anymore.

They she heatd about yammie. "I don't want insult captain but I am not a some cat-lovin noodle sipping tiny squirt." She said for herself but aloud. She didn't ahve anything agains Yamataians. Or some of them, but she didn't like Yamatai. She went for armory, but the she got it was useful. Although emptying a mag in central computer core would be very satasfying right about now.

Instead of they she found a datapad. Then she received telephatic message. Hmm telepathy sure is handy. Getting some artificial body shouldn't be bad, when she gets older and weaker.

Zeta walked zo Enzo and started typing on her datapad, after checking that AI can't see what she is going to type. "Hey Enzo. You are specialist at ticking people off. Have a chat with this good AI. It friggin pissed me off and I would be VERY grateful to you if you returned the favour." She typed. She then handed datapd to Enzo if he had something to type back.

In a panic Arin ran up to Luca as he passed by the engine room, her arms crossed in an "X" in front of her. "I am a mechanical, not an electronic tech specialist!" She shook her head, the captain must have forgotten the time where she ignored the door computer and focused on the machinery behind it instead. "The best I can do is to turn off power including auxiliaries to the entire ship and then remove the components it has occupied, but that'll leave us vulnerable to the debris outside while I fix up the ship." She added, sternly with her finger pointed at Luca's nose using body language to make up for the suppressed vocal communication. "It is very dangerous, please consider alternative solutions."

The Kohanian holstered his pistol when the talk was getting serious and looked up at... whatever Melissa was looking at, probably a wall. What could this be? A spirit? wondered Panther. He then heard someone's voice in his head and it took him a while to realize it was Luca's, which Panther took as maybe Luca having spiritual abilities.

Placing that aside for now, the threat became obvious that the spirit had control of the ship. I have only witnessed Shaman commune with the spirits, perhaps I would "give it a shot" as a human would say.

Panther took a step forward and asked, "Spirit, I sense you are angry, may I be humble to ask your name?" He did the last part with a rise of his right hand, though without much confidence.

Vincent literally sprinted back to the bridge when he got wind of an artificial intelligence. He seemingly materialized in front of his weapons console, scowling and fuming. If he foamed at the mouth at that particular moment, he would have probably been put down for having rabies.

"Listen you silicate piece of shit! This is not the place you wanna be toying with us; in a debris field, where if you play "Fuck Around, Fuck Around" with the ship's systems we all die! You've got access to the ship's computers; look up Vincent's combat records. I've killed hundreds of goddam Yammies for lookin' at me wrong! I have friends floating in this fuckin' debris field 'cos of them!" A meaty hammer of a fist crashed down on the user interface. "So don't preach to me about how Yamataians did this; because the people on this ship already know what happened here, and don't go seeking out people to fucking lay the blame on because YOU COULDN'T DO SHIT ABOUT IT! If you wanna go take vengeance on some Yammies, sit your ass back on the fuckin' hard drive, wait until we find an excuse to kill some and then hop right into a fuckin' Super Demon and kill 'em right your own goddamn self instead of fuckin' around with us!"

Sitting at the pilot's console in deathly silence was Uriel the entire time. He had no place dealing with this AI, but as soon as it decided IT should be in control, he made sure to lock in destination and travel route for the local area. And then it was beyond his control. A gentle sigh slipped out and he sat back. It wasn't quiet much longer as Vincent barged in, manhandling his station like a crazy person. Patrician Hisshana could only guess that he had a personal investment in the equipment. Then the flurry of obscenities followed, and Uriel couldn't help but wince. Harsh though it was, he also couldn't help but agree with all he said. This AI was behaving like a child, and he felt the need to say as much.

"This little power trip of yours," he began, eyes toward the intercom, "is childish in every sense. All about you, your passions. Cease this foolishness at once and let us speak like the civilized folk we are and come to a proper agreement."

"What's this about a crazy computer?"Seiren asked, peeking his head into the doorway of the engine room. He shrugged as he said this next part. "I was wandering around, then all of a sudden the doors start slamming down in places and I eventually wound up here. And what's the deal with an AI taking over?"

Immediately after that he telepathically told his boss, "I might be able to work the computer around. I've read books on it, anyways."

Robert followed along behind Vincent bolstering his pistol and sheathing his knife. " Ummm Vinny? Ya might not want to piss off the AI that has control of our ship.

Enzo pushed Zeta's datapad away with a frown and a shake of the head. He silently made his way to his improvised hovel in the cargo bay and produced his guitar. The notes floated softly in the air, with the intention that the 'spirit' hear them.

Enzo mentally crossed his fingers and hoped the strange virtual entity would take an interest in his display of disinterest.

Zeta wasn't quite sure what to do so she just went and found captain. Even though there wasn't much to do. At least she can try and protects Captain if soemthing happened.

She saw Arin next to him so she walked down to him. She took datapad and typed. "Is it posibble for that Ai to take control of that Demon PA?" She then let it Arin read and looked at her.

Arin's job did not require her to know the schematics of Power Armors other than the complex 'E' series and 'M' series from NAM, the Representative could tell with great accuracy the capabilities of the relatively simple Zen Armaments M1 Demon.

In discharging her duties as a NAM Representative, she looked at Zeta straight on with a straight face. "No. It is good for nothing."

In discharging her duties as a friend, she then leaned closer and whispered, very seriously. "It is only good for dying, so I heard..."

Zeta wasn't sure about how good audio receivers were on the ship so she didn't even try to whisper. She typed again on her handy datapad. "They it will be good if that wanker of the ai crawled into that super demon and died there." That was written there. Zeta let Arin read that and than she looked at captain with a "what now?" look.

The Artificial Intelligence was a bit speechless at the reception it got. It had to respond to everything one at a time, first responding with a grain of salt from the Elysian.
"Speak civilised?" It asked, now presenting some emotional fluctuation, "I can do that, just because you asked so nicely, winglike-person."

It addressed the Kohanian first, appearing amused, but taken aback by the appearance, "You could say that I'm a bit miffed off, being immobile for so long," It almost seemed like a lament, "And unable to share my plight for so long. Needed to scream, didn't have a body to do it."
"That must suck," Luca folded his arms, putting his shotgun down to rest next to the wall.

"That reminds me of what happened to an old adversary of mine," Sebastian recalled calmly, undaunted by the circumstances, "If I recall correctly, he's in statis, but he's aware of everything around him."
"'ow long ago wos that?" Melissa asked, taking a cue from Luca and putting her rifle down.
"It was one of my final jobs. It was at least 25 years ago."
"He'd be batty by now then, wouldn't 'e?" Melissa shuffled uncomfortably.

It then took Vincent's input with a grain of salt, "Your sentiments ring true with me, I am rather... fucked off. I never asked for it to happen."
Luca smiled somewhat in the back of his mind, he knew that he and the crew had made diplomatic progress, "When the attacks were happening, I left my body behind and uploaded myself to Polysentience and left my body behind, hoping to come back when everything blew over."

It then overheard the fact that there was an intact Super Demon sitting around somewhere from the talk between Arin and Zeta, and it could've smiled if it had a mouth.
Steadily, it started uploading itself to its computers, making use of some genius level compression algorithms and routines to fit into the limited amount of space present. The tricky part, however, was creating procedural movement functions to use the armour as a moveable body. Gross motor movements could be made, but finer tuning required extra space that simply wasn't present.
A ghost in a shell.

"Poor thing," Anna stepped in, roused from her usual station at the medbay, "Where did you want to go, anyway?"
"Anywhere aside from here," The voice seemed to fade for a moment, and then it went entirely quiet.

"How's about Drift? Ever heard of the place?" Luca asked earnestly. He then waited a minute or two for reply, "Where'd she go now?" He asked Arin as he walked around, scratching his head, "Did you do something?"
As he asked this, control to the ship resumed, and they could continue flying the way they wanted, with the crisis averted.

"Oh well, I suppose that was a fun enough diversion," Sebastian concluded, "We still have space to cover."

"Good." Vincent grunted, taking back his seat in front of the weapons console and returning his plasma revolver to the underside of his chair. As he began tapping back into the weapons system, entering his codes and allowing access to the Graviton cannons, he sighed, and said quietly, "I just wanna get outta here so I don't have to look at Freehold anymore. Goddamnit."

He used the graviton cannon to bat a piece of Freespacer ship off into space, not even noticing the frozen corpse gripping the opposite side until it was too late. At that point, he redirected the piece so that it headed back towards the skeleton of the Brightest Sunbeam of the Axially Tilted Green Star Aetulia, the blasted remains of a frigate drifting off the port bow. That way at least, the corpse could remain close to its home, its birthplace, its final resting place. Quietly, he keyed open a communications frequency with the Super Demon in the hangar bay. "I know you're in there," the mercenary grunted, his emotionless voice carrying an edge of unconveyable sorrow, "I told you it was here, so that's probably where you ended up anyways - with security access you would have figured out it was there anyways. I just wanted to say I was sorry - for everything. Freehold, The Lighthouse, you... Everything. So do you have a name or would you rather I just keep referring to you as the ghost in the machine?"

Enzo shrugged as the ship fell back onto course, and continued to play to himself as he sat up and made his way through the corridors of the ship. He was humming the melody to himself as he played the music on the guitar. At one point, he bumbled into Crane and stepped wordlessly past him as he made his way back to the bridge.

When he arrived on the bridge, Enzo took a seat cross legged in the back of the room. He kept strumming a few quiet chords to himself while he addressed everybody and nobody at once, saying in an annoyed tone, "I gots a feelin' this is gonna be a looooongs trip."

"You may call me..." The Freespacer in the suit thought for a moment, standing still and using the external speakers of the armour to talk, "Echelon."
It nodded, since that was all it could move at this point.

FIVE DAYS PASSED SINCE THEN, DAY 7

The ISC Big Bird had crossed into Abwehran Space, and had gotten messages in their native language. After John responded in Trade, a moment or two passed, and a speaker that was in plain old Trade cropped up.
"ISC Big Bird, this is the Weltraumflotte," The voice had a highly Germanic accent, "Identification: Friend, or Foe?"
"Friend, Just passing through, on my way to the border of the Outer Colonies to avoid the Mishhu. Might have to stop somewhere for food," He said, "Is that okay?"
"Then pass, but be warned, try anything with that main gun of yours and we'll shoot."
"Noted."

The other days were relatively painless, with only small encounters, or the occasional navy patrol passing by.

Crane had his hat in his hands, wringing it nervously after serving lunch, "Guys, that was our last meal," He blushed somewhat, "Looks like we need to fill up for the second leg of the journey."
The ship had stopped at Star's Crossroads, a trade hub of sorts occupied primarily by Abwehrans.

"We can probably ask for something here," Anna observed whilst trying to piece the Abwehran language together, "Hopefully someone speaks Trade."

Meanwhile, Echelon had found her way around the ship by playing harmless scare pranks on unsuspecting passers by. Notably, Luca walked past her, and she started walking behind him. He paused and turned around, and stopped mid stride, desperately maintaining balance. Luca shrugged, scratched his head and continued moving, and so did Echelon.

Hitori, having something of a sense of humour today, decided to follow suit. This process of following, turning around and stopping repeated a few times, and Luca finally turned around, "I have the sneaking suspicion that I am being followed," He then turned back around, "I wonder what's for afternoon tea?"
"We need to buy it first," Sebastian observed wryly.
"Oh, okay." Luca frowned.

The idea of a station was a breath of fresh air to Enzo after a week aboard the Big Bird. He had busied himself with almost nothing over the last week, and aside from his brief shifts on the bridge at the communications console and the occasional 'asking a question about rifles' excuse to approach Mel, he maintained his own space quietly. This was highly out of character for the troublemaker sort, so Enzo felt it obligatory to leave the ship so he could be in an environment to cause trouble again. Hence; he was exceptionally excited to hear Anna mention need for a translator.

"Do yous guys knows what pidgin is?" he began his proposal with a question, "It's speaking another language, but only enoughs to do business in it. You know, likes how a Yammie businessman might says '500 DA, prease!'" His imitation of the Yamataian was exaggerated slightly for comedic effect. After a pause, he continued, "I tells ya this because I happens to be pidgin proficient, see? I happens to be ables to ask for just about anything and haggles a good price fors it in just about every language we speaks here in this galaxy."

Robert raised his eyes at the troublemaker. "Yea, I kinda do know a lil' bit of the pidgin of which we might be a talkin 'bout." he said with his own special imitation of Enzo. It wasn't great, but good enough for most people to catch on who he was imitating

The week passed with relative ease for the Elysian. Uriel was accustomed to prolonged periods of time on a ship- albeit, he was more comfortable aboard the more expansive Patrician designs. He was never one to complain over menial detriments, though. Nor did he complain as he ate only as much as the others, despite his hefty appetite. Ex-pilot Hisshana often wondered just how they did so much on so little food, but then they didn't have wings did they? It was perhaps their only downside, Uriel figured. In all honesty, he'd been hoping to take a straight shot to their destination, but the crew was a restless bunch, and there wasn't enough food to keep them going (especially with a hungering Elysian in their midst).

Uriel had been on one of his casual strolls about the ship when he came across Enzo and Robert discussing languages. He didn't catch all of the conversation, but enough to feel he had a good grasp. "If it's languages, I know Nepleslian and Yamataian in addition to my own native speech. Or, I suppose we could always ask Echelon. It probably knows its fair share. Make it feel part of the group."

"If we are going to let it stick around, I could order a body from NAM or we could find one on this station." Arin added her own two DA. "You know, one that isn't a standard issue Red Nepleslian war machine that is impervious to all our handheld weaponry." She let her distaste for the Freespacer AI show in her voice, her experience so far with other AIs were the non-intrusive type.

Arin was itching to get out of the ship, a Vampire class isn't originally designed to hold this many people (And the two Freespacer and Novacorp AIs that, if cooperated, could strangle and vent them out to space at the same time) in captivity for so long.

"Nepleslian-Abwehran international relations are still in its infant stages." The Representative noted to Enzo. "I'm going to change into something diplomatically neutral before the invariable hijinks happens."