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

Naoko sat, and listened, mildly. She was moderately fascinated by the woman with the faux-hawk, and when the ID-SOL stepped in, her attention turned to him as he talked. He did not have a very interesting face, and Naoko eventually found herself watching the way his body moved instead - like some sort of animal with muscle too big for its skin, his movement was fascinating. The talking became an annoyng drone.

When his hand began to snake to his gun, Naoko saw it coming and was on her feet before the tabletop-smashing began. Avoiding it all, Naoko sprang back up the wall, where she 'stuck' crouched, latching on to a chink in the bulkhead and looking up horizontally at the small group.

Her off hand lingered near the wrapped tang of the bare, single-edged knife blade slung across her back. It was more for utility than combat - it was amazing how many things a monomolecular blade made easier when you were only eight inches tall - but it was her only physical weapon at the moment. Without it, she'd probably manage, but it was still easier than other options.

"Would you really like to fight?" she asked, her brown eyes calm, her voice soft and even, almost a whisper, as if to herself. She looked to 'Crane', the cook. "I apologize for your kitchen."

Panther was a little hungry after his long nap he took when the crew was away. He saw the big fleshling walk into the kitchen and was followed by a lot of noise which made the cat man curious as he walked up to the door and checked inside.

Evidently there was a new person on the ship, he was a bit surprised that he didn't pick up her scent sooner. His sharp eyes quickly compared to the catlike human that was splattered on Nepleslian Prime and concluded it was the same species.

Interesting, she resembles a feline, Panther thought as he stayed by the door to watch and not interfere. The Kohanian decided it was best to wait here in case things were to worsen somehow, or at least trap the infiltrator if she decided to leave.

"Don't worry, this kitchen has had worse," He recalled the platypus incident that happened couple of weeks back, "Vince, ovens almost completely hot and the meals are defrosted, prepared and otherwise ready to cook. Please don't smash my counter!"
And as for Seiren getting his candies, about half of them had been eaten, but the rest were intact. Melissa seemed to be the guilty subject.

Luca, having heard more than a little bit of commotion in the kitchen, grumbled somewhat as he heard Vincent's voice raising to kill something.
"Crane, did you cook something he didn't like?" He got out of his chair and walked to the kitchen, leaning his head in, then noticing that the commotion was over a 'doll'. He sighed lightly and came all the way in.

"Vincent, should I buy you a life size Neko doll for you to punch when you're pissed off?" He came off somewhat condescendingly, but meant well, "I mean look at the doll. What'd it do to you? Someone probably put time, effort and care into making it look so lifelike."

"Uh, captain," Crane stammered whilst looking at him and Naoko, "That's not a doll."
Luca huffed a little, smiling, "Prove it," He requested, "Is it one of those synthetic action figures I keep hearing about?"
He walked over and inspect Naoko closely, calmly stepping past Vincent and wondering what all the fuss is about.

As he looked at the doll, not picking it up, he noticed that it blinked, breathed, shivered, and was wearing a shift and a teatowel.
"Wow, top quality," He said, still not knowing that this was an NH-12.

Echelon was quick to provide an answer to his question, detailing what she'd said about NH-12 earlier.
"The NH-12 was found as a stowaway. Diplomacy may be a reasonable course of action."

Luca then put his head back and realised that this situation had some weight. A potential ally, or enemy was in front of him, "Now I know why Vince is pissed."
He gave him a bit of a shove, "Zeta, hands off, Vince, calm down. I'll talk to her," When he saw the rage in his eyes, he felt the need to compound, "That's an order."

Crane stood back, and tried to resume cooking duty as best as he could. He started heating up meals alongside a large roast, especially for Vincent. There were roasted and steamed veggies cooking away too.

"Alright then. Might as well introduce myself," Luca said as he leaned against the upright fridge, as opposed to the coffin-fridge they'd picked up on the Crossroads, "My name is Luca Pavone, and judging by your alleged age (according to Echelon), you're probably behind on current events."

"If you're a stowaway, as Crane and Echelon say, you're the first, and probably the most pleasant," He smiled a little, "Although, there is a bit of an issue. You're a Nekovalkyrja. I have some slight trust issues with them," He then sighed a little, having some memories flood back.

"I was once in service to the Yamataian Star Army, the ship I was on got betrayed by the Executive Officer of my ship. She attempted to have the crew killed at least three times. Nobody died - we mostly survived by the skin of our teeth. Shrapnel wounds aren't pretty though, even without scars," He then sighed a little, shaking his head after remembering the YSS Goban, "But that was back then. My ID-SOL, however..."

He motioned to Vincent, "He's a bit more forthcoming with his dislikes, as you can tell. Good ally to have though. Saved my arse more times than I care to count," This was a slight fabrication, but he was sticking up for Vincent's better qualities.

Crane then took a quick break from getting everything ready, since it'd take care of itself for the next hour or so. He was also overwhelmed by the amount of people crammed into the tiny kitchen, "So, uh, what's your name, anyway? We can't keep calling you 'Doll' forever."

"I suggest we move to the lounge to continue this discussion," Echelon directed, "The crowding will lower heart rates, allow easier respiration, and will 'lighten the mood' as you fleshbags put it."

"Sorry I am just tired," said Zeta as she let Vinces hand go. She could use a drink. Is there even any alcoholic bevarege on the ship? Zeta hoped that it is.

But more than anything she was angry at herself. There is potential assassin and she just takes it as a doll and lets it be. And even worse, when Vince tries to do something she tried to stop him. Good work miss bodyguard. she scolded herself.

Luca said:

"...Vince, calm down. I'll talk to her. That's an order."

Click to expand...

And that was that. Vincent, like a trained pitbull heeding its master's command, stepped back from the counter, his look of kill-rage fading into that calm, neutral expression his face usually wore. His hand cannon returned to its crossed holster on his back. The pulsing vein in his neck slowed down. Eventually, the mountain of a man just became part of the scenery. Silent and unmoving, yet foreboding and dangerous.

He stood and watched the situation as it unfolded, cold steel eyes darting from the countertop to his crew and back again.

Robert heard the loud thudding of Vincent's pounding. Curious , he followed the sounds to the kitchen just in time to hear Luca tell Vincent to stand down. "What's up boss? Anything I need to threaten with my scary scars?" he grinned as he looked over at the neko. "Wow, who sent the doll?"

Enzo was sitting in the lounge himself, silently strumming out the chords for some kind of bardic ballad on his newly acquired guitar. He ignored the commotion and continued plucking strings one at a time until he heard the beatings of a hand-cannon on a counter. He stopped playing until the beatings stopped. Pausing to ensure the new silence, Enzo heard the muffled sounds of people talking in the kitchen.

After hearing the talk for sometime, Enzo yelled up the hallway furiously, "Will you peoples stop sayin' the word DOLL and gets over whatevers goin' on?!", before returning to his playing to himself.

It was bugging Panther, not because even the lowlife fleshling yelled it, but the creature being called it seemed lifelike to him. His tail twitched in curiosity as he got up from his perch and walked in, though staying close to the door.

Not really keeping an eye on the creature since there were more than enough eyes on it already, he asked someone close by in a low voice, "Why does all of you call this little one a doll?"

Eventually, Naoko dropped down off of the wall, back onto the counter. It was like she was a fly; the object of some game. People were talking about her, but not actually -at- her. It was an awkward feeling.

She adjusted the teatowel again, mostly to protect her modesty; the rags she was wearing didn't do what normal clothing would have done for a normal woman - or at least they did not do so in the conventional way. At one point, the thing could have been a shift, or possibly even a dress, but now it was just the tattered shadow of something that could at one point have been frilly. Her legs were bare down to the pads of her feet; she had probably destroyed the arms early on, more for mobility. The result was hardly clothing. The teatowel helped immensely.

"Let me make this precisely clear," she said quietly, simply, "I am Naoko Aihara. Currently, I am traveling, and I only want passage to where-ever it is you are going. Probably, you should not trust me, but I since would prefer it if you did not toss me into an airlock, I will consent to disarming if the musclehead consents to cease beating in my general direction."

She paused.

"Where is this vessel heading, exactly?"

As things in Crane's workspace reached a crescendo, Uriel finally deemed it vital to discern the cause. He stopped in the doorway, easily spotting the source of everyone's concern clinging to a vertical surface. That's no doll, he commented to himself. His jaw clenched and his neutral expression became slightly more grim.

Like many others, he had serious trust issues with Nekos. They'd killed his father, and he'd waged war with them very recently in his lifetime. It was difficult to forget a lost war, especially when you were one of the defeated combatants. Not wanting to aggravate himself any further, he returned to the cockpit, arms folded over his chest.

"It seems an NH-12 Neko stowed away among our comestibles," he informed the pilot. "Needless to say, several crew members weren't particularly delighted. The Captain's sorting it out."

John shook his head upon hearing the news, preferring to have been ignorant to the details, "Nekovalkyrja on the ship? Nekovalkyrja!?" He then thunked his head back into the head rest, "Excellent, we're all crazy." Unfortunately, he was right!

"This vessel is heading towards Drift, Aihara-san," Luca now had a name for this little face, and he was now a lot calmer since she'd stated her intentions, "You might'nt have heard of it. It's a small place between Yamatai and the United Outer Colonies. Lovely place, I've heard."

"I don't think she knows about the colonies," Crane looked over to the captain from the kitchen as the steamed vegetables were ready, but the roast was only going to be a few minutes more before it was just right. He fished the steamed vegetables out of the steamer and put them in a heated pan with a bit of butter and ground pepper to sauté lightly.

"Oh, that's right," Luca scratched his head, trying to recall any snippets about the Colonies he'd picked up, "I don't know much about them either. I heard it in the news. A huge chunk broke off from Yamatai and sided with the Lorath and occupied the Galactic east. That's all I know - oh," He then remembered something as he drew the grenade pistol from his belt in a flash, "They made this lovely little number too. I gotta thank 'em for it someday."

Meanwhile, Melissa was closest to Panther to do the explaining.
"Well," Melissa explained to the Kohanian, "Y'see, we didn't know wot 'er name was b'fore, and she looked like a Doll, so that's what we named 'er - but her real name appears t' be 'Nah-oh-ko'." She made finger quotes in the air, "'Doll' is wot we call a nickname."

She then turned momentary attention to Enzo, "'Ey bard-brains, play somethin' twangy 'n boingy. Y'know what I mean."
Only she was sure what she meant by that and left it to Enzo to decode it.

Other than that, the ship was chuffing along nicely and the smell of food started to waft through the ship. It seemed like the rest of the trip was mostly clear sailing until they hit the eastbound space lane.

Zeta figured that the best thing she should do now is to get out of there. She was awake now and her mind was in chaos. Her self-estemm was low and she wanted a drink. SHe took a out a *** and lighted it. At least that should calm her down a little. With a litghed cigarette in her mouth sho got back in cockpit and sat down on any unoccupied chair at any unimportant system console. She was careful to blow smoke away from others.

"Hey John, is there any booze on ship?" she asked suddenly. Her eyes were focused on little red button on console. She had no idead what does it do, and wasn't interested in it even slightest. It was jsut there and it was easy to watch it, so she didn't have to look into faces of others. SHe wanted to dissappear right now and because that was nto posibble she coul at least get herself stoned with a bottle or two.

"Drift," Naoko echoed, searching the back of her mind for any reference material to draw from in order to aid understanding. "Colonies."

Unfortunately, she came up with nothing. Naoko gave Luca a look that was painfully blank. She dismissed the look after a few seconds and walked to the edge of the counter and looked down, then paced back to somewhere near the burner on the stove and sat, draping the small towel around her shoulders like a blanket-tent.

"I would like to read about it, later," she decided, in a somewhat exausted manner, "Right now, I would like to rest."

An ear briefly twitched when the words 'Twangy' and 'boingy' floated across her awareness, but she gave no other indication she heard, or cared.

"The good news is that dinner's almost finished," Uriel added, not bothering to correct John's exaggerated comment. He was not crazy, but was aware that a number of the crew members were... not entirely what one would label 'normal.' Regardless, the Patrician did agree with John's general message: letting and keeping a Neko- especially one that could go anywhere on the ship- was a bad idea.

Uriel planned on letting the Captain know what was on his mind when they could have a moment away from Naoko.

"I see so the cat fleshling was thought to be a doll because of her size?" replied Panther to Melissa as he scratched his ear in attempt to understand. "Now I must understand the cause of anger toward such a small creature. I have yet to see anger to this creature to someone like Enzo," stated Panther his observations and in a way declaring Enzo as some kind of bum. He already understood sentiments of hating a Kohanian for looking so different, though Neko's looks similar to a human with a few differences making him curious.

In the meantime Arin was fixing up the Jeep. With the successful trial run of her leg braces back at the Abhweran space station she then extended the system into a pair of arm braces too. Unfortunately the crude power-assist system she devised was not sensitive enough for the fine-motor functions of the arms as they were for the legs, operating tools and user interfaces was stiff and clumsy, she'll definitely not use it as a standard loadout for away missions.

But still the arm braces have their uses. Before she put them on, Arin had removed every screw, bolt or nut holding the engine block of the jeep in place. Zeta had professed that the Aether-based engine was beyond her skill to look at, it was to the Representative too before, but a company database account to the largest collection of manuals in the Nepleslian empire had its benefits. Step one, remove the engine block from the chasis for closer examination. Arin held the designated locations on the block and took a deep preparatory breath.

Heave! The dynamo-piezoelectric system of the bracers designed to generate power from Arin's motions reversed themselves to instead feed power to the hydraulics on the exoskeleton's frame, augmenting the Representative's feminine strength. A majority of the weight was distributed through the arm braces and down the leg braces, reducing felt weight. Still, the weight remaining was no pushover.

Come on, you can't have Vincent helping you out at every turn! The Representative broke into a sweat, her salt and pepper hair joining at the tips to look like Yamataian calligraphy brushes. She closed her eyes to concentrate. You have the strength of an ID-SOL now, HEAVE! HEAVE!

Suddenly all the felt weight was gone, the exoskeleton was holding the entire weight of the block without any torque effects. The braces were only designed to augment her strength, not completely replace it. Eh? This is only possible if... She then looked up, and saw that she was carrying the entire block over her head, the exoskeleton formed a straight line from the block to her feet like a pillar. She would have turned red if she wasn't already from the exertion.

Carefully but quickly she ambled over to the workshop table before the Big Bird encounters any kind of space turbulence.

ELSEWHERE...
A cloaked ship, small, sleek, and only detectable by visible line of sight rather than any sort of scanner, sitting inert and watching the spacelanes. When it got a blip from the Big Bird passing by, it responded internally.

"Ma'am, we've got incoming," A lackey passed a datapad to his superior. The superior took a look at the datapad whilst sipping a glass of unidentified green drink.

"It's him," The superior snarled, "The guy who killed our plan, and its top scientist," His clenched knuckles started to shake, "And he's had the IPG and SAINT hot on our asses for a year now."

"So, do we pursue and attack?" The subordinate asked with a smile, eager to do some damage.
"No, let him continue," The superior was cool to just let Luca and his crew slide, "We'll tail him, quietly. A lack of subtlety is where his enemies have failed."

The superior had a cigarette in her mouth, lit it with a permanent match, took a drag and exhaled, "He might've wisened up since Nepleslia Prime softened him some, but he's only reaching the tip of the iceberg." She then smiled lightly, confident that her plans would be successful.

"I expect, at least, if not to be thwarted, to at least do some lasting damage to his psyche."

BACK ON THE BIG BIRD
"Dinner's ready!" Crane announced whilst ringing a bell, deciding that the waft and flow of the food wasn't enough to get everyone's attention.

He got the roast out of the oven, and put it down on a large plate on the table, carving it into slices and lining up plates for a self-serve dinner. He had extra large slices for Vincent and Panther.
On offer was the large roast garnished with rosemary; a lovely selection of steamed carrots, broccoli and potatoes, sautéd lightly in butter and pepper sauce.

Crane was in the process of making a gravy out of the juices from the roast. He felt as though he'd outdone himself. He'd forgotten about his addiction to creating the perfect cornmeal, and just wanted to cook for its sake, making better and better meals.

After all they've been through, I figure this'll lighten the mood, Crane thought to himself as he stirred the gravy lightly to get the lumps out, I just hope for once the rest of the trip can go without adversity, and this Drift place is anonymous enough to give us a rest.

The dinner table had been set up by Anna, and it was out on the cargo bay, with chairs lined up, placemats put down and room for everybody.

Sebastian was the first one there, getting a plate, some roast, gravy and vegetables to round it off. Anna was next, and got a similar meal to Sebastian, and they sat next to each other.
Jimmy was next in line, the Hitori, Melissa, Allison and Mitch, who'd been remaining unusually anonymous on ship. They all sat down around in different parts of the table, sometimes next to each other, other times not. Nyezeh was left a small portion of food aside, the poor girl was still recovering from her injuries on Tami.

Everyone else was free to line up and receive a helping of good food. Luca came up and took some roast with gravy, and veggies and sat down with his crew, as equals.
"Well guys, once we're seated, we'll begin to chow down. Where's John?"

His voice called out from the Bridge, "Just leave some aside for me and I'll warm it up later, okay?"
"Alright, but you're missing out!" Crane called back at him as he left some aside and left it in the cooling oven so it'd still be warm by the time he comes to eat it.

Echelon stood by idly, watching the crew from a distance.
"This is something this body cannot consume," She said, seeming to sigh with a soft burst of white noise, "I cannot judge it either, due to the lack of olfactory inputs."
She seemed resentful towards the others of this fact, but stood nearby, leaning on some furniture in the Cargo Bay.

"It's something you flesh bags will not understand."

Robert's eyes left the tiny neko towards the food that Crane was setting out for everyone. "It looks better than usual Crane. What's the occasion?" he asked as he helped himself to a little bit of everything.

Uriel managed a half-smile at the pilot's disinterest in food. He couldn't see how they managed with so little, even though he was more than well aware of the biological differences. "I'll bring you a plate, Pilot Morris," the Patrician offered. He didn't wait for a response. In the kitchen he served up two full plates- one for John, the other for himself- and made his way back to the cockpit. He set John's plate down in the most convenient place available before leaning against some portion of a panel that didn't have any manipulative devices; then he began eating at his self-taught smooth and fast pace.

Ostensibly depressed, the small NH sank further down into her towel, and seemed to wilt slightly at the smell of food. She watched from her perch on the counter as they ate.

Eventually she got up and began to walk. First, off the counter - unconcerned, she dropped the rest of the way to the deck and still managed to land lightly on only two feet. Then out the door, and into the passageway beyond. Due to size, and her naturally easy gait, her progress was slow, but she was out of the room presumably before anyone would stop her.

And then the rest of the ship was more or less hers to explore.