SOME TIME PASSES...
Crimson Kestrel - Lounge
"Mission 1 - Complete!" the screen chirped. The mission statistics came up for the cooperative match to see how the players had done. Allison had been doing the introductory mission with her eyes shut and scored an illustrious 'S' rank. Reeves was, with Allison's lead and the tutorial's helpfulness earned a B out of E. Not bad at all for a first timer.
"Not bad at all. Must be those tech skills rubbing off on you." She then put the controller down and stood up, grabbing Reeve's hand and guiding him up wiht her. "I'll show you around to engineering. Inline Aether to Plasma can be tricky to work with but I'll show you the ropes. A majority of it is on third deck, near the bridge and escape pods."
She took the elevator with the minuscule technician, but he noticed something. She wasn't taking her eyes off of Rebeka while the doors were closing. As the elevator rose, she bit her bottom lip. She was very, very curious after watching its behaviour. She tried to ignore it while she was playing with Reeves, but he'd see her looking at the strange, alien construct when cutscenes were playing.
The engineering room was one of the only places Luca dared not enter to disturb Allison and Echelon's ecosystem. When they were working on something, they demanded absolute calm and no interruptions from without. The EVA suits were hanging up. Three workbenches were there, one on each wall that wasn't the one that had the door leading into the engineering room.
Allison's bench was on the left, wall plastered with schematics, diagrams, and tools. By her desk was a large box of scraps and offcut materials that could be turned into all a manner of devices. Labelled tray boxes of various parts were under the desk for tasks electric, logistic and structural. A creative mind with a well organised workspace so she could put it all together.
Echelon's side of the room had some computers set up, invading the space of the EVA suits. Three screens were haphazardly bolted to the wall, sometimes flickering with odd displays and readings of print lines of the ship's AI, as well as ship security. Strange engravings, adornments, baubles and fetishes of Freespacer design were on display - it was just something that happened naturally when a Freespacer was left somewhere long enough.
The middle desk was the collaboration bench, and the ship's overall status readable to human eyes on the left near Allison's side. The bench was currently empty, but Reeves could see that other technicians had been here too. A toolchest with Seiren's name labelled to it was hiding beneath it, as were smaller ones for John and Vita. There was plenty of spare room under the table for Reeves to put his toolchest.
Echelon had left after the cleaning and was sitting in the lotus position near her desk as though she was meditating. Her head peeked up shortly after Allison and Reeves entered the room. "0H41 4LLY. H41 R33V3Y!" She clapped her hands together. "WH4T 1S UP?"
-
Captain's Suite
The floor was clean enough for a stingy Yamataian diplomat to walk upon. The furniture was where it needed to be. The desks, computer viewscreens, dressers, closet, weapons rack and bathroom were spotless, as were the papers, figures and items in them. Whatever was old was thrown out for the sake of newer, faster things; whatever was irreplaceable was given better treatment.
The Phoenix Man! figurine was now standing upright with his crew upon the dresser, and Luca contemplated it for a few moments with Zeta by his side as they sat upon the freshly changed bed. Naoko's bed, still uncannily clean was untouched. The screens were turned on now, and Luca could see the status of his beloved Kestrel: watching identified people move around on the deckplan map, seeing how the power and systems were going - all readings nominal. The oversight was nice.
The keyboard had been replaced and the computer was upgraded and optimised with Vita's help. For her skills combined with Echelon's knowledge of the ship inside and out it was a trivial job. Origin software was always so easy to configure. It was running faster than before, the whole ship's operating system was. "WH3R3'D SH3 L34RN T0 H4CK?"
"School of hard knocks!" Luca replied with a chuckle. Satisfied, Echelon left the room to head to the Engineering room.
"Dad," Vita said as she sat upon Naoko's folded up futon, one leg resting upon her other knee, chin resting on her interlaced fingers. "You miss her, don't you."
"Why wouldn't we? She left an impression on us all," Luca replied solemnly.
Vita remained quiet to chew on that. She was an impression of Naoko in herself, a sort of continuation. "You don't mind if I take her stuff, do you?" She stood up off of the futon, crouched down and tucked it under her arm.
"Go ahead," Luca replied. "Guess that can be a bonus on top of the allowance."
"'kay. I'm taking the room next to yours, where your parents were. They didn't leave anything behind but their smell. Hope you don't mind," she then tapped her chin. "Call them before you go interrogate that construct with Seiren, kay?"
He shuddered. He'd been out of contact with them for a long time and made no efforts to give them a call... but neither did they. "Afterwards," he compromised. Vita seemed to frown at him and shrugged her shoulders. All she could offer him was a suggestion and it was up to him to take it up. She left the room without another word.
The sound of a railgun being fired could be heard coming from below this paragraph, followed by a wet sounding thump. Luca's bottom lip dropped, he looked through the floor and he sighed. "The natives are restless. Better get to it and move things along."
He stood up off of his bed and started wandering down towards the cargo bay to investigate. He put a finger to his earpiece, "Seiren, meet me at the Cargo Bay. We're going to reactivate that construct and interrogate the shit out of it. We'll just reconsolidate what we know so far with Aiesu."
"Aiesu, we're going to crack that construct open. It's been in one of those Far-a-day Cages since we got back to Sargasso. Ech tells me it's for security."
-
Cargo Bay
Bronzi never liked being on ships. In his years in the Union RRF, it was the one thing he truely hated about his job. For most who sympathised with him, it was the fact that they were enclosed, and far from home that brought on the feelings of drudgery. For Bronzi it was the helplessness. For all of his skill, training and natural athleticism, his life was in the hands of some button pusher, and there was not a damned thing he could do about it.
Bronzi had some targets set up on the end of the Cargo bay, and all of his weapons were spread out across a table. Sura was standing over the table with her robes surprisingly off. The cargo Bay's environmental controls were cranked up to a 'chilly' 98.9 degrees, and warm air was swiftly taking control.
Bronzi was wearing a heavy wool tunic with a loose fitting pair of pants and boots. His armour was in an organised pile next to the weapons being repaired by three small spider like drones. The girl was wearing a loose fitted skirt, and a top that covered her blossoming breasts. She was well built if not thick and curvaceous. She would likely grow up to be a rather pretty woman, but she still retained a girlish appeal that screamed off limits.
"I recalibrated the coils on the rail rifle. The scatter gun needs to have its capacitor replaced...and your pistols are top notch. I uh...can likely built specialised ammo." Sura chirped as her assistant drone scurried over the axe Bronzi had, and began reloading it with another shot gun shell.
'Bah, Imma pop a few rounds off." Bronzi snorted as he lifted his primary revolver, and walked across the cargo bay.
A thunderous report reverberated through out the ship as the target shot hit the oddly Nepleslian shaped cut out square stuck to a large pig carcass in the heart (Left side of the chest). The clay round went clean through the target and hit the bulkhead with a loud THUMP, and flattened like a pancake . As Bronzi fired, Sura reactively covered her ears. "How do you like the soft rounds?!" She called out.
Bronzi paused. "Looks like they'd hurt a squishy."
"Imagine if it was explosive like that plastic stuff the Pinkskins like."
Bronzi lowered his weapon and loaded it with more of the clay rounds.
Sura crossed her arms accross her chest and perked a brow. "So uh....what is going on...Mr. Luca and Vita are....acting funny. That last mission kinda spooked 'em?"
Bronzi did not look at Sura, he held his gun up with both hands. "I derno. But, i'm fixin' on findin' out." He snorted in reply.
"The whole crew seems I dunno. Imma stop."
Bronzi did not fire his gun. He turned and looked at his child. "There's a storm on tha horizon. I dunno if they can feel it. Maybe they can. But somethin' is comin' for em, and they know it deep down."
"That's because you don't save a few lives without making a few enemies too." Luca walked in on the coattails of Sura's words. "Tit for tat, y'know?"
Sura looked at the deck of the ship unsure of how to react. "Just don't die for it." She said softly, with no indication if she was speaking to her dad or Luca. She then turned and went back to tinkering with the guns on the table. "I'm gonna clean the ones in the lockers when I am finished...if that is okay."
Bronzi shrugged and popped off another around. He snorted having placed the shot slightly off to the left. Luca jumped a little at the sound and saw the new splotch of clay on the wall, looking at Bronzi.
Bronzi grumbled at the miniscule imperfection. "Oh, sorreh." He grunted lowering the weapon. "I uh. was lookin to talk to ya when ya had tha chance."
Bronzi's head turned and looked at Sura, who had placed a set of head phones on her head and was bobbing it up in down mouthing the words to Yamataian Synthpop music. "She has a point. You an' yers have been goin' about likes toys in da attic. Tha move to tha ship...that synthoid walkin' around askin me bout my biology. What's comin Lewkz? What has you shakin?'"
"Something. Something does. I'm expecting a counter attack from whoever the hell poisoned Handler's Reach. I just don't know who from. Could be Lagrange, could be SAINT, could be Lazarus, IPG, Reds, NMX," what he did know after sitting back and mulling it over scared him. What he didn't know scared him a lot more, "could be the freaking Temperance League of Nepleslia for all I care." A truly lost cause if there ever was one, moreso than aether disarmament.
Bronzi grunted and nodded his head. "Me an you gots a good thing goin hea. An I don't walk away from mah responsibilitehs. So, I'll follow yer lead on this. But if I see any funny bidness from who ever the shit is comin our way..."
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Luca would see the target now had a freshly made frowning face on the "head" drawn with holes made by the clay shots. "I'll take em down."
Bronzi reloaded the weapon and flipped it over in his hand, so that the grip was facing Luca, who smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's good to know I've got people I can trust by my side. V says it's good for me, says it's been to long since I've seen friendly faces."
Bronzi smirked. "Ya, but dun go trustin easy. I know yer not fixin on backin' outta this shitstorm. But ya got every reason to."
"Nah. Not my style. Now, I'm expecting Seiren. We're gonna interrogate that construct Enzo facevented."
Bronzi half laughed at the though. 'Errr....I don't mean ta piss in yer Neppie-Os...But your crew is....Fixin stuff, flyin ships, shooting the EVERYLIVING out of the galaxy...we got it. But I dunno if any of em have the stomach to go on tearin somebody's toe nails out, savvy?"
"Aiesu told me they can't feel pain anyway. They can block it - it'd be a waste of time."
"Hrm. An it prolly wants us to kill it... well all we gotta do is make tha idea of livin in comfort a bad thing. Livin in comfort. Floatin' through space in a steel coffin...."
"We'll see. We'll see. I think Aiesu has that base covered. Seiren's getting it reactivated, and I'm asking questions-"
Luca heard a loud thud hit the table. He would see a large stack of papers clamped together with metal rings in front of Sura (About the size of a massive phone book). "I could read the uncut directors edition script of ID-Sol Dawn to it. Its 832 pages long!" She said excitedly.
Bronzi shuddered. "That is just... wrong!"
"Whoa whoa whoa!" Luca put his hands up defensively at the younger gartagen. "I'd pull out its toenails if I could - he could just walk that off; but ID-Sol Dawn?! That's just
inhumane!"
"Hey!" she replied looking dejected.
"I could always read the script to the Luca Pavone movie coming out next summer..." Luca looked at Sura, wondering where she'd gotten that from.
"Vita showed me. She think's it is hysterical. She loves the guy they have playing you..."
"He looks like a shaved toilet brush with mince meat for a face," Luca replied, rolling his eyes.
Bronzi waved a clawed hand at his spawn. "I'm sure Luca will call you in when all else fails...back ta work." He turned back around to Luca. "So yer gonna ask dat thing who sent it and why. Then what? Plus if its a construct...wouldn't they have....if they had a trackin device on it, they'd prolly already be here..."
"
That's the gist of it." Luca replied as he looked at the elevators to the Cargo Bay, waiting for Seiren, tension rising as he looked at the cargo container that was currently containing the remains of the construct and locked tighter than Hanako's panty drawers. Echelon had put it in a Faraday Cage as soon as she could. No signals could transmit in or out of it with the power on.
Bronzi huffed and began arming up. "Imma likely play it safe and guard up. Better safe den sorreh. We're gonna sit back and watch. Been a long time since me an Sura watched a Gartagen street trial."
