DocTomoe
Well-Known Member
Peer Review
"You know, Sana, when a message in your inbox is marked urgent, it just does not seem that urgent until someone screams at you to get out of bed and open it." Miles spoke, as he slid a straight length of sharpened metal against pale flesh, slicing away excess follicles, scraping aside a thick lather of lubricating foam. "I don't care how loud she screams, or how much tooth she bares, I'm getting my three... no wait, implant to handle that, my two morning S's in." Miles spoke, almost as if to make a point, in fact, it was to do just that; to make a point of the fact that he was still the boss of his own life, even though the subcompact Lorath woman in the next room over was his boss, patient, and general pain in the ass.
"Which are?" Sana lifted the page of a magazine of various international cybernetics used by law-enforcement and even armies, turning the page. The gleam in her eyes was closer to that of a child who'd picked up the most recent catalogue and had instinctively turned to the back where the goodies are. It would appear military hardware maintained this practice.
"Well, its just down to shower and shave now." Miles stated, feeling as if he had finally breached the cusp of what every single innovator and futurist had been yammering about for centuries, just because of a simple gastric implant that bypasses a single bodily function. It baffled him in that moment why the people at KZ would back-step behind that achievement with their recent Nekovalkryja model, but, that was an entirely different thought. "Hrm, I suppose I could keep it to the three S's of morning importance with a replacement item with an S. Anything you can think of?" Miles spoke with a smile, as he washed his face of the remaining lather, and the lingering feeling of sleep.
"Soup?" Sana stuck her tongue out. "I know the walls are thin but honestly, nobody cares. We're two of maybe four people in this entire building who speak trade."
"Hey, I was about to say something romantic and put you at the forefront of my day, by making a vast improvement on the reference to the 'Three S's', by making the first and foremost item with an S in my day you, Sana, you silly woman." Miles, while rough, tumbled, and Nepleslian, was still corny as hell.
"You baited me into coming here for sun, sea and sex. Thus far, the sun is in abundance beyond anything I could ever want. We're inland so I haven't seen the sea in weeks. And... You actually haven't played ball in a while. Knobbing your nubile employer is that it?" a chuckle followed.
"I don't think I've got it in me to nob her. She's too fragile for it... I'm pretty sure if I did, she'd lose her head." Miles could not help but to let out a grim chuckle, because he knew deep down, it was rather likely to be the literal case.
"Not after the shit you've filled her with. She refused to let go of you. Her grip was ridiculous."
"It is insurance for us. I mean, do you want a cold-blooded shark-thing as an employer?"
"You made a cripple stronger than you are. I don't think that's good insurance. And how could you not know about the pollen?"
"I also made you stronger than a NH-27, and you can't remember where you put the car keys a minute prior. So, I think I may be brimming with bad ideas. That pollen though, hell, it's back to xenobiology and my not paying attention to the... what the hell are they, rabbittis-things?"
"Is meant to be treating an alien. Doesn't know about basic animal behavior. Remember the blood moon? I think she told you. Since the ball went plop, the pollen is everywhere all the time now. Ey'tis are endemic. Some places you can't move through without being swamped by them."
"She went on about it after the fact." Miles spoke with a bit of a disapproving frown, as he went about producing a clatter of metal on metal as he went about securing his pants with a rather ornate belt, a local design, and a gift from his fiancé.
Carefully Sana leant back, peeking down her nose to get a view at him before he disappeared behind clothing, just to make sure everything was still there.
"You know, I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I bit off more than I can chew with her..." Miles thought on how to phrase the statement better; "I mean about treating her... That woman is fundamentally broken, and the only way I can think of to solve the problem is to cut out the cause like a tumor, and that would just unmake her who she is... and that's kind of killing her as a person, you know?"
"Lobotomize her? Oh~ Ohh~ you’re so kind, doctor Gunn."
"Can't even call it a lobotomy, it’s not even a whole lobe, it’s just a patch of synapses."
"Well... Some Lorath do aspect. Some don't. Can't you just cut out the part that does?"
"I'm almost entirely sure it would shame her to no end. While she is an atheist, she is also still an orthodox Lmanel in teachings at least. If it were not the case, she'd not be so much of a problem"
"She chose life over shame last time. What makes you think she won't do it again?"
"Because... I think she is starting to get tired of life." There was a frown to accompany those words, hidden by the fact that he was pulling a shirt over his head, it was an article of distinctively Nepleslian clothing; an Aether Sperm album cover shirt, which somehow in its lewd depiction of an eagle-woman carrying an aether-bomb while firing lightning from her tits, went about softening the grim nature of its moment in just how out-of-place it was.
"Long-term pain does that to people." She gave an approving nod to the shirt, rather liking the design before clicking her fingers and point toward the dresser.
"Hmm?" Miles sounded, as he stepped over to the dresser, opening a drawer and taking a quick inventory, a soft smile crossed his lips as he picked up a simple tank-top, adorned with a Nepleslian Marine Corps. logo, he then tossed her the top which was certainly just a bit too small for her, but, he liked it that way. "Either way though, my job is to turn her around a bit, get her back into the world of the living. It is a big job... and I don't think that I can do it unless I invest a big chunk of time here, and I don't think that is fair to you to anchor you here like that... Besides, it is not safe for either of us now, considering the Matriarchy and Yamatai are bedfellows, it'll just be a matter of time before someone knocks on, never mind, breaks down our door and drags us off."
She soon scrambled into the top, pulling it down over herself, fishing for her hair between her skin and the fabric. The green worked rather nicely with the dark emerald of her hair.
"So why aren't you using this as an excuse to get a pardon? You could make Aiesu defect for the Matriarchy. Considering how much she's contributed to them, that would be one hell of a thing."
Miles gave a soft shrug; "Honestly, I don't think it would work. I looked at the documents from that conference. I think Velor is already doing us a solid, because he was supposed to report us as fugitives quite some time ago." There was a look of intense doubt upon Miles' face, before he gave a shake of his head. "Besides, I can't make Aiesu do anything, at this point I'd be one fucking bastard if I did something to that degree, she is simply too fucked up. If she was not so fragile, maybe, but that's for another time... Let's go see what all the fuss is about, and then we'll get back to planning our great escape from justice when lunch comes around." On the matter of a meal, due to just how urgent Aiesu had made the matter sound, all Miles could do for a breakfast was grab a Lor equivalent to an apple, and a can of beer.
"If we're watching something, I half think we should have popcorn... but naw, she'd likely bite our heads off, from the way she is sounding about this." Miles mused, as he stepped out of their room, and crossed the hall, before knocking on Aiesu's door.
A certain effeminate construct answered the door, partially decked out in monochrome makeup. It appears that he had just gotten foundation and a few other aspects down when Miles decided to show up.
"Hihi!" He greeted the Nepleslian, beaming cutely. "You here for Aiesu?"
"Hey kiddo." Miles spoke, giving Seiren a nod, before stepping past the Yamataian, who he casually went about giving a verbal nudge aside by addressing him as 'kiddo'. "Yeah, not so much for her though, but because of her, she made one hell of a fuss about this message."
"Can't say I understand what you're talking about, but she has been a bit, euh. . . today, you know?" Seiren said with an unclear gesture. He closed the door behind the visitor, heading back over to the bathroom to finish putting on makeup.
A pair of cerise eyes glanced over the back of her chair: a hand following to steady her-self as she peeked in Miles' direction before returning to her work.
"S-Slumming it a-are we?" laughter followed but it wasn't natural, the raspy quality in her voice a little harsher than usual.
Either it’s the pollen, or she is really nervous about this message... I sure hope it is the message, it'll be less trouble. Miles thought as he listened to her stammered words, but something in his gut had made a decision on the matter. "Yeah, well, I don't exactly get the luxury of dressing up when I've got my boss on the comm-line, yelling at me to wake up over a simple message from our mutual employer."
"Yeeah..." she sniffled, stifling a sneeze. "I-I have something I want you to take a look at. Come sit." she began, patting her lap mischievously.
The pollen. Miles concluded, as the evidence of the sneeze did well to match to his gut-feeling. There was a brow raise from Miles, as he slowly shook his head, dismissing the gesture before he strode over and peered over the top of Aiesu's chair, at whatever she had been working on prior to his arrival. "I sure hope the thing you want me to look at is not in your lap. I forgot my gloves and speculum."
"Very funny. See this?"
Footage began playing, a date and location counter in the corner -- a news-feed on another window: Lorath units on a decidedly not Lorath world being shot at by something Miles wouldn't recognize.
"Huuuuuh? Is that some kinda Lorath action movie?" Seiren called from the bathroom, peeking out the door to spy on the duo.
"No, it’s a battle-record you stupid panda" Aiesu spat, soon tossing a stuffed toy in his direction.
Miles eyed the display, giving a chuckle, not at the berating of Seiren, but instead, at the apparent reason as to why he was graced by the message from their employer, they needed an expert's opinion, though, his attention did wander to Seiren. "Is it okay if he's around for this?"
"You won't even notice I'm here!" the construct said, although if Miles knew anything, it was that people who claim that they won't even be noticed are generally horrendous liars about that fact.
"Hey, you can be as obnoxious as you want, but I'm looking out for your hide." Miles explained, as he peered over to Seiren. "Things like this, people get shot for seeing when they're not supposed to."
"She pulled ME on! Anything I see goes through her, you know!"
"Anyway. After what has basically been half a decade of cold-war standoffs and some light-skirmishes, we've finally got hard footage of Lorath units against Yamataian gear. Some of this I don't even recognize."
"Well, I know a good chunk of these... and can guess on the others." Miles spoke, as he eyeballed the information on screen, and, opened up his own file attachment so he could pay mind to the annotations on the sensor footage gathered. "That one though, I saw on the news footage out of Asura yesterday." Of course, he was speaking on Lorath time, for a Yamataian, it would have been days prior. "Timestamps indicate our employer has been looking over this for a while before giving it to us."
"...Why are they carrying volucomps?" she quizzed, zooming into the footage some. The image was pixelated but pointing, she could see it quite clearly.
While the image on the display was pixelated, Miles' internalized display software handled the matter as he looked at the same time-index on the footage as what Aiesu indicated. Miles opted not to speak on the matter, figuring Aiesu's question was rhetorical, since she was referring to a technology piece he had only recently heard of, and had not had the opportunity to work with, since he was trapped in psychotherapeutic purgatory.
"A volumetric compression, Miles. Like CFS, but inside out. Bigger on the inside. You put things in it."
"Then the reason is fairly obvious." Miles countered, feeling a bit slighted by being outside of the loop on such information. "They want to loot things."
There was a pause for a moment from Miles, before he ventured into the inevitable question; "So uh, what happens when you put someone in it? Or like a part of someone?"
"That depends on what's already inside. The opening is what uses up the power: The compression itself can be maintained indefinitely."
"Independently of a functional or non-functional aperture?" Miles inquired, as he speculated on the physics involved, recalling much of his starship operations training from back in the Yamataian service.
"The aperture is what uses power. The rest is a permanent structure."
"Say... that's a clever plan." Miles spoke, putting together the puzzle rather quickly when given the framework to build inside of.
"You could use that sorta thing for super hero type stuffs, you know? Like one of those masked cyborg heroes!" Seiren cut in. The duo could see him doing a ‘henshin’ pose out of the corners of their eyes
Aiesu reached for another stuffed toy to pummel Seiren with but she froze for a moment, gears turning within her head. "...It ... Wouldn't even be that heavy if you used a stasis unit, either... I mean, this is mass dislocation, but it doesn't change the weight of a thing... But in stasis, when the probabilistic mass hits zero, the interior of the stasis unit becomes weightless.."
"Focus." Miles spoke simply, as he pointed to the display.
"A-Ah, yes, sorry."
"That's a Daisy... those were just coming into service when I made my exit... they've gotten pretty slick lately." Miles spoke, pointing out something, before he let out an audible 'Huh!' of interest, and perhaps, amusement.
"That one has a weird color scheme. It looks different. A commander-type? I don't know Yamataian units all that well."
"I built that." Miles spoke simply, feeling that tickle of one of the most horrible sins which Nepleslians were so prone to, pride.
"No, this one. Its operating away from the rest of the group. It’s just entered the derelict. Here, here. Right there."
"Yeah, I built that. It’s a Ke-M3-1d." Miles stated, with a distinctive sound of insistence, as his pride bubbled up worse than usual... a decidedly male trait, and something which the Matriarchy as a whole frowned upon. "I did a redesign of the 1c model, and brought it up to current standard."
The look on Aiesu's face said his words were moving like a bird over some vast landscape: Directly above her head.
"Urgh, it’s a Kylie, it kills other power armor."
"We need somewhere better to watch this..." she said, fishing through notepads to take a timetable. Clicking her tongue, she skimmed a series of blocks. "The projection room is going to be vacant in about an hour or so after the seminar. We could probably book it."
"By all means, Professor." Miles spoke, giving a little jab... not at her qualifications, not at just how much of a mess she was, and not about her double life... it was a jab aimed at the fact that she had not taught a class or performed any sort of work for the university or Matriarchy in months. Tenure kept the woman afloat though and, untouchable.
Later That Day
There was a giddy feeling to be had when the prospect of a viewing session came along. For Miles, there were reasons upon reasons; pride, curiosity, enlightenment, blood thirst, and pride. While his allegiance was up in the air, he was still sickeningly egotistical over his past achievements. As a clear sign of his rather crass interest in the footage, he sat outside of the presentation room, waiting for the 'Professor', or as he knew her 'Boss', and as he sat he held a cardboard tray, upon which was a large cylindrical container, packed with the closest Lorath equivalent to popcorn, along with a 48oz beverage container, filled to the top with a sickeningly sweet fizzy drink. To add to his crass display, some sort of white cardboard framed eyewear adorned his face, with thin plastic lenses of blue and red.
She soon opened the door opposite, glancing left and right through the particularly sterile halls before motioning for him to follow her into the dark room.
Beyond sat something resembling a cinema, an arrangement of chairs comparable to a coliseum. Within the middle sat a large empty floor, gridded with glass, the entire ceiling and many of the walls matching this aesthetic, columns of this stuff throughout the room. She slipped a thick heavy disk into the adjacent console and began punching thick buttons -- the installation maybe a decade or two old but still even now considered quite modern.
Without skipping a beat, Miles strode into the presentation hall, and upon entering he let out a soft whistle. He was rather impressed with the investment the Matriarchy had made in their education system, enough of one to have a presentation hall with a genuine and full-on capacity to host a seminar, and likely have a thousand occupants seated close enough to a display to not even call them 'nosebleed seats', and then there were the nosebleed seats, which Miles did not even bother to count, as he approached the stage and set down his food and drink upon a nearby seat.
Soon, text floated in air, as she began to sift through records on the diskette until a particular cubic moving image thumbnail was highlighted and she hit return in the console. A progress-bar soon formed text beneath and graphs before the massive dark room was illuminated in its center by the scene at Asura. Carefully she adjusted a dial, fast-forwarding the footage, soon moving to sit next to him. She passed the chunky black box over to him, complete with dials and buttons and pinched a small fleck of popcorn for herself, finding it rather pleasant.
"Starting from where we left off? Oh, and could you bring me a remote for it too? I want to be able to toggle through the data." Miles called over to Aiesu, as he took in the images splashed upon the massive volumetric display, which brought everything to a 1:1 ratio.
"Here. Let's see your conclusions first. The footage works in layers, by the way -- you should be able to run an electromagnetic histogram with point-data and some wave-markers for gravitational changes if you pull them up. Our birds always have had better black boxes. This is all composite from every set of eyes we could get our hands on"
"The Matriarchy even before Lazarus was obsessive with data collection; it only stands to reason that our employer picks up the same habit." Miles added, as he eyed the large remote which he took into his hands, and decided to start the footage from a satellite feed, one that caught his eye the moment it scrolled by. "Hey, nukes? There were nukes used?"
"I don't know, this is the first time I'm seeing this outside of the footnotes. Again, you're the consultant here. You've got a much better eye for combat than I have. Let's see what you think of this."
"Alright alright... time index that you want, or should we go over the whole incident?"
"I've booked the hall for most of the afternoon. We're good for about five hours if you really need it."
"We can skim, and examine the important parts. You've got a cybernetic braincase, like I do
"Which I didn't ask for, nor did I require" she interjected, a harsh stare now.
Miles frowned a little "You can slow it down as needed if any of the skimmed material catches your eye."
"You first."
"Hah... but yes... we could spar like this, or we can start here..." With that, the image on the stage took on the harsh white of the unleashed fury of the atom, splitting, spewing everything into the world beyond the femtoscopic, having an impact which was able to be seen clearly from a Lazarus communication node in orbit above. "We've got a Yamataian asset right on top of the explosion there... Two, a power armor, and... That’s a fighter I haven't seen."
"Noudachi? I've only seen photographs of it. Follows the usual four turret arrangement we see in most Yamataian fighters. Latest model of the V-series. Underperforms, if you ask me."
"Hrm... we'll get to that... let's see..." Miles spoke quietly, as he sped up the playback, noting the sensor data on the Yamataian armor, as it was propelled several kilometers away from ground-zero. Eventually, the playback slowed, as Miles swapped to the record that was provided by the company, which switched to a 'first person view'. "Hrm... the sensor data here indicates this was recorded using a AMX-Series sensor cluster."
"Lor didn't deploy it. Intelligence suggests that Occhestian separatists were lucky enough to get their hands on a collection that was being moved. Ostensibly." she stated flatly, pulling the footage out into a third person perspective, combining the footage from a few different sources now to extrapolate such an image.
Miles looked to Aiesu, with an expression that spoke of doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty. "I don't know, your people, as in the Matriarchy, did well to squash the Occhestians like bugs. I've seen the released death tolls, and the method-assessment. You people have genocide to a science."
"We had to be kind before our new allies. They didn't much like our methods and it was hurting the negotiations" Aiesu sighed. "If you step back and compare the Occhestian death-toll to any international negotiations we have, you'll note they drop substantially until the negotiations are over."
"They dropped because everyone was dead." Miles corrected, but, somehow, he did not sound as if he was displeased, it was just a fact.
"Ah, you're unfamiliar with the northern Occhestian enclaves, then?"
"Those are your allies; you caught some of them too in the mess as well." Miles chuckled, before he stopped the playback. "The hell is this?"
"Again, they are ostensibly our allies. I wouldn't trust one as far as I could... What, the gravity pool?"
Miles pointed to the large behemoth of an alien ship. "Looks like..." he trailed off, as he checked his internal database, then, the Matriarchy's.
"I don't deal with foreign equipment; that’s the Communion group's department. I can't place the exact make and model of the vessel."
"Your Matriarchy has it recorded as an Iromakuanhe ship." Miles explained, before something came to mind, as he used the remote to browse the Matriarchy's available data library, before he brought up a news feed which he remembered seeing earlier in the Lorath week.
"Yes, that's correct."
She knew more than she was letting on, letting him reach his own conclusions rather than her saying anything that might tip something off.
"Looks like we should have paid more mind to the news. Look here." Miles spoke, as he noted the Asurian broadcast, which he caught just a little of, what was unsaid, was that he did not watch the broadcast in the first place because he was busy doing distinctively Nepleslian things with his fiancé.
"Do you see now why I came knocking?"
"You gone fucked up now. It’s on the bloody news." Miles griped, before he sifted the data around, coming back to the point after the nuclear blast, and, after the approach of what Miles instructed to recognize as borrowed Lazarus produce.
"Occhestian separatists" she waved her finger at him, illuminated by the hologram of the blast. "They're still around."
"I see Gust type armors here... AMX-102 with AWACs package... a few heavy assault packages."
"Nothing you're not familiar with, for the most part. Here" she zoomed in on something a few of them were carrying. Newer equipment. "Recognize this?"
"You pointed it out to me in the dorms... a Volucomp, I think you called it." Miles replied, before he split the image to bring up the satellite data, monitoring the Yamataian and Iromakuanhe movements on the ground, as well as the approach of unknown hostiles which engaged the Yamataian taskforce. "Occhestians with a small spacefleet I see."
"What?"
"I see that the Yamataians are not getting air-support because they were engaged by a hodge-podge of third-party assets." Replied the Nepleslian, before he moved the data along to the part that really mattered, as he saw a mosaic of images, each of them being first-person feeds from the Gust-armor clad infantry. "They're entering the Iromakuanhe ship... with Volucomps." Miles again rolled his gaze to Aiesu, that doubtful expression still present.
"Y-You've got the right idea, yes.." she tried not to laugh, her eyes rather wide now. She wasn't particularly good with direct eye-contact, doing everything but meeting his eyes before skimming to a particular block of footage: a radio communication from an armor on the field.
"Do you recognize this voice?"
Miles listened, before giving a shake of his head; "It is in Yamataian though... the tone speaks of age. I hear a rank designation too." Miles quirked his brow; "There is a Chusa on the field. Quite a high rank to be planetside in this kind of mess."
"They address her as Klein -- a Helen Klein. Our friends elsewhere looked up the name... There's a lot of muddled paperwork somewhere. First she exists, and then she doesn't. She's listed active but her position and deployment have been blank for a few years now despite active payroll information within the Star Army of Yamatai. What are they paying her for?"
Miles took the direct approach, as he looked into the public record available through the Matriarchy's network. "Pretty fa---" Miles stopped, as he thought he recognized something.
"Hmm?"
"Give me a minute... I'll look at this data before I tell you..." Miles mumbled, before he brought the images along to the grizzly point in which things took a turn for the worse, after skimming over the Gust-clad units looting whatever they could get their mitts on. "Looks like the Ke-M3-1d belongs to her... and that's a Daisy... and those are some alien units... There's another Daisy there."
"Over local comms, they call it a VANDR. Its a big high mobility frame. We're not entirely sure how it works."
Miles gave a light nod, before watching a number of the Gust-armor feeds go black "I'd have to get a better look at the sensor feed, but first, the play-by-play."
"First, what do you make of Klein? We have reason to believe she might be linked to an intelligence group within the Star Army of Yamatai, but we've not been able to pin down anything further. We've had some concern raised by one of other members over this matter regarding intelligence agency snooping, this concern was raised just prior to the disappearance of an associated party. The member went into hiding... I haven't heard from them since..."
"I told you I need a minute for that." Miles almost snapped, as he looked to Aiesu with a scowl.
Aiesu held her tongue, returning the look. She looked so desperately like she wanted to blurt something out, but it never came. Whatever it was, it was important.
While Aiesu was badgering, Miles' internal database was checking, rechecking, and confirming his gut instinct. Voice samples were analyzed at first, but there was another thing, as Miles brought up salvaged footage and dry-dock security footage of a time gone by.
"She's good... that one with the big gun and the Daisy is pretty decent, she's too rash though..." Miles spoke in quiet observation, as Gust after Gust was torn into by a combination of aether fire, and repulsion-cannon discharges, along with their own power plants getting blown asunder. "I see an AMX-unit made an engagement here... they're still using Zesuaium on the Ke-M3-1d... It took that railgun shot rather well..." Miles continued to look over the data, until it came to one of the Gust units being engaged at close range, after having landed a stabbing thrust with a monomolecular edged knife. That was when the occupant of the Kylie revealed her face, and spoke.
"Yeah... That's 'Her'." Miles stated with an expression that spoke of troubled displeasure.
"Old flame of yours?"
"Klein, she stole the Maras, now, she's here, having a tussle with your assets." Miles was done playing around with the matter, as he realized just how bad things were getting for his prospects.
"Klein is trouble."
"No shit." Miles replied. "You're going to be in worse shape really soon."
"I think she may have already tried. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to the Maras after she took it?"
"Scuttled, she scuttled it. After taking what data she could, and from what I understand, she looted your Matriarchy for a substantial chunk of data as well... fleet counts, production manifests, equipment manifests, technical operation manuals... those kinds of things."
"...We've had a lot of our development efforts hindered recently. We're at least a year behind schedule. You think that's her doing?"
"Doubtful that she would make her move yet... from what the Matriarchy shared with us, they figured she had been on Lor for months before she took the Maras." Miles spoke, as he wore a touch of a frown, and his thoughts went to a mirror image of Sana, who he wondered about within that moment.
"...Given the state we found my machine in... I don't think it’s safe to stay here. Not just for me, but for you too."
"I'm not going back to that underwater shithole."
"I'm not expecting you to. I wouldn't call it a safe house but we do have a few options available to us. Specifically, the librarian left an address with me. I'm still decrypting it now on the network. She didn't cut corners with it so it’s important."
"If this Klein is with SAINT, you know we're not going to be able to hide from her on Lor." Miles stated bleakly. "Considering the treaty in effect."
"I know. I have reason to believe the address is far outside our territory. The good news is I don't think she knows you're here. There was no attempt against your habitat, only mine. The size of the explosion suggests I wasn't meant to survive that."
Miles let out a scoff "They want me alive."
"Then we can use that to our advantage" Aiesu snubbed her nose with her thumb.
"Only to a certain degree." Miles then enlarged the image from the Gust armor, focusing on the exterior projection which was presented upon the Kylie on screen, specifically, Helen Klein's face, as she looked at the Gust with a fury that was uniquely Nepleslian.
"You're really obsessed with her, aren't you?"
"Look at that face and tell me what you see. Not as a doctor, or a scientist."
"I see a reason to get my shit together and get off-world as quickly as I can with my tail between my legs."
"Yeah... no shit. She is more a killer than even Rebeka could be called, and Rebeka was a Captain Killer Extraordinaire..." Miles trailed off, not exactly wanting to elaborate to Aiesu on that matter.
"Do you think Rebeka could match her or do you lack faith in Sana? Be honest with me."
"Why do you think I've made my fiancé into a walking weapon that can go toe-to-toe with that machine there?"
"...Because you saw this coming. And you didn't have the nerve to tell me," Aiesu began. "I'm a dead-weight, is that it?" she tried not to laugh, a bitterness in her throat.
"You never asked, and I was not paid as a tactical consultant." Miles replied stiffly.
"If you want a pay-rise, you only had to ask. Moving money is easy: You know my situation: Provided it doesn't end up in my pocket, I don't have a problem."
"Frankly, I don't want to be a tactical consultant for Lazarus on a long-term basis, or even a routine basis."
"Then how about being one for me until my head isn't on the chopping block anymore? I'll admit it. I'm scared. I don't know how to deal with this."
"I'm helping on this case because that machine right there caught my eye." Miles took in a steadying breath.
"You really didn't come here for the money, did you?" He could see she was panicking now, trying to laugh a muted sense of shock. It took her a deep breath to steady her trembling hands.
"I came here for a safe place, and the potential to start a new life... that, and for the science." came the Nepleslian's reply, as he let out a somber chortle; "Besides, what employer would let their research staff get fucked up on the job, routinely, without docking pay?"
As Miles spoke though, he averted his gaze from Aiesu, there was something else he was not exactly wanting to speak of, something he kept pent up, and was not about to lay out on the table. His comments spoke of his skirting around the matter, but soon, after a few moments, he looked back to Aiesu; "Besides, I don't think the company was looking after us as well as we were led... you sign my paychecks, and I'd rather you not get into any trouble... alright?"
"Like I said. What you're seeing here..." she took another breath. "Isn't my doing."
"You're a cog in the machine. I know this." Miles replied flatly, before he turned back to the display. "Let's find out how big of a mistake the company made." With that, the image resumed, as Gust after Gust were torn apart, by the savagery of an agent, a callous Neko in support, and a VANDR.
"...We really do need to replace those."
"Gust is fine in infantry encounters... the Member that planned this fucked up, and was planning on an infantry engagement, not a power armor engagement."
"I think... We need our own Kylie."
"We were working on one back in the underwater piss-pot. I left the project to work with you."
"...Running means having little to do during your travels. You'd have time to kill."
"I'd need equipment, computational cycles, and assurance that we're not getting tapped." Miles replied, before giving a shake of his head. "We can't have that if we're on the move. We may need to have a research team thrown together comprised of Constructs."
"...Haaaa..." Aiesu backed up into her seat a little, gripping the arm-rests. Clearly the prospect wasn't appealing to her. She didn't want to talk of it but she was already taking the prospect quite seriously. "That... Might be tricky."
"We'll deal with that when the time comes, look at us, planning research while we have that after us." Miles gave a soft shake of his head, before giving a point to the feed. "Look at that... the AWACs and the heavy, they're guiding something... Oh wow, the company is wasting a whole ship on this? Just to crash it? What kind of chucklefuck planned this?"
"From the notes I got, survival of any of our units wasn't required to meet the mission goal."
"Now here's where I turn your Q and A game on you, why do you think that is?" Miles asked, knowing why, just from the introduction made earlier.
"Well... If you don't know already, my opinion in you has just fallen. They're Iroma. They have what they call veyrinite -- the extracted quasiconductor from the blue rift expanse. We're obviously there to collect it."
"Yeah, they're going to dip into the pocket later, after everything blows over..."
"Exactly, and no one would even know. It’s all 100% deniable."
"Data feed here shows no unique sensor signatures though... it looks like the Iromakuanhe may have hidden their goodies before the raid. We'll have to look at the loot for any traces." There was a sound of regret, Miles was disappointed, clearly, what scientist in their right mind would not be, after possibly being denied the opportunity to analyze something unknown.
"...All things considered... The Iroma use it pretty extensively in everything they build. Our best way of knowing if we were successful or not is if they can't account for some of their own. They'll.. Probably put it down to atomization during the initial nuke and call it missing."
"Hrm... not sure, that nuke was pretty far off... but let's see what happens with this ship... It may solve the problem." Miles mused, as he watched the moment unfold, then, paused as feed from another of the AMX-102 units caught his eye.
"Oh, you fucking idiot." Miles commented, as if the AMX-102 could hear him. "Idiot! You don't just sit there on your own! Stay mobile! You fucking deserved that."
Aiesu couldn't help but smile. "Its an older ARIA. Don't expect miracles out of it."
On the screen, the scene Miles was commenting over was the AMX-102 perched over a crashed Nodachi, only to be pelted by high-power sniper-weapon fire. On the data provided, a flourish of red indicators splashed upon the AMX-102's engine system status monitor.
"Well, your older ARIA up and lost a whole AMX-102 to one Iromakuanhe with a rifle... and improvised explosives. Either way, it was a stupid loss, that, or the Iromakuanhe is good. I can't tell with this crappy ARIA data."
"Did you notice the low-observable model on the field yet?"
"The one approaching the Iromakuanhe crashsite perimeter."
"Mmm. Keep an eye on it. I think we might have a positive here."
"I've got bets on it getting wasted."
"Probably. The question is can we get what we want first? Even if the projector is destroyed, our volucomp still works."
"True, but it has to get close enough first... and it has to avoid any perimeter defenses the Iromakuanhe may have arranged."
"Fingers crossed."
Almost as if to mock the two scientists, a bright flash of light splashed upon the feed from the low-observability AMX-102, as the low-cost ARIA inside of it failed to notice a monomolecular tripwire.
Miles' hand extended to Aiesu, before his fingers curled in a 'pay up' gesture but either she didn't understand or pretended not to.
There was a chuckle from Miles, as he returned to watching the feed, then let out a whistle. "Oooh boy, that bitch... did you see that!" Miles paused the feed, before advancing it one frame, reversing it a frame, then advancing it a frame, noting one of the Yamataian sensor signals moving kilometers within one nanosecond. "Teleport module."
"Hum..." Aiesu uttered. She designed kit but to actually see it in live-fire was strange for her, evidenced by the way she stared but didn't take much in.
Miles meanwhile continued his interested assessment, as he pointed to where the Kylie ended up, on top of the Nodachi it had arrived in, along with Helen Klein. "She has her fighter again... Looks like she found it after the Yamataians were permitted to get their communications back online... Mark that as another fuck-up for our team."
"She's ascending..." Miles mumbled, before the aetheric sensor readings spiked firmly, as the Nodachi began to fire upon the falling Lazarus ship, ripping into the hull. "Looks like she wants to keep the evidence intact... the escort AMX units are moving to engage..." As Miles spoke, he picked up his beverage container, from which he took a deep drink as he watched the feed, kilometers ticking away quickly in respect to the distance between the AMX-102 units and the Nodachi. "Ah-ah, see here? This is one of our problems. Our engagement range is limited by the packet rifle's maximum engagement range, and the AMX-102 units are far enough out so the Nodachi still has the ability to evade the railgun."
"And how would you have solved this?" Aiesu quizzed.
"Paycheck first." Miles countered, as he gave a chuckling laugh. "But from what these ARIA units are doing, they have the right idea... the one with our AWACs module is closing in though, that's a pretty dumb move, unless it does the job right."
On the screen, the AMX-102 quickly closed in on the Nodachi, and, overshot it. In a blur of motion, the Nodachi performed a drifting twist in air-and-space, swinging around 360 degrees, and at 180 of those degrees, the Nodachi opened up on the AMX-102 with a flurry of weapons fire that was more than enough to rip apart the Lazarus produced machine which had overshot its mark.
"Should have gone for the collision... dumbass." Miles scathingly remarked.
"I didn't write the intelligence they're running. They're based on Stalwart's original."
"They don't do well as SI-Modules. They work better when they have the natural body." Miles noted.
"We fixed that two versions ago. Someone's chosen an older version deliberately, probably not to incriminate us."
"The biological ones did have a better edge though in engagement situations... and do keep up with your current model for 'out of the box' problem solving."
"Someone's intentionally used the SI from the 101. Its security is weaker than the work I did on the 102... Whoever's doing this didn't want to go through me to do it."
"Comm-chatter is more emotional than the usual ARIA as well." Miles noted, pointing to the transcripts which came with the data log. "I figure, there is an attempt here to make them seem like biological pilots."
"Ahhh, here's the 'fun part'." Miles announced, as he gestured to the display. "Looks like our machines took out the Nodachi's torpedo payload. She'll have to close-in to get any sort of damage landed on that ship to make it break apart. The Heavy 102 is holding her in a stand-off position."
"...You practically want to strangle them, don't you?"
"They're so stupid. I was a far better pilot when I was in the service."
"Like I said. For whatever reason, someone thought not going through me was more important than making them smart."
"Hmm..." Miles sounded in response, his gut told him the why of the matter, but he dared not speak it. There was no reason to make an incident out of the matter, at least which was how he figured the situation, and what would come of his feedback.
"What?" She could see he knew something and didn't want to share it.
Miles was caught in that moment, as he paused the display. "How many projects have they trusted you with since I got here? More so, since you lost your arms."
"Four, mostly high-profile, but I've been given systems-work instead of platform work almost exclusively. They took me off Phasma and let me finish up Modus."
"You can see where this is going, can't you?" Miles asked, frowning.
"Someone thinks I'm already compromised."
"They thought this even before this bitch here made her move." Miles spoke, gesturing to the Nodachi, and Helen within.
Aiesu could feel the trembling returning, ebbing in her voice like she'd just been let down on her birthday. "...I'm really starting to hate that woman."
"I don't think it is her." His words, they came with a heavy frown.
"Battle maiden, then. Nekovalkyjra?" she hissed through her teeth afterwards, feeling things get worse. She wasn't even on the same page.
"No, I think you're being cut out due to a risk assessment based on personal 'faults'." Miles finally said it, bluntly, directly.
"And they don't think I can finish what I start. They've been throwing me harder and harder stuff. We're past petty stuff like AI and femto-engineering now."
There was a shake of Miles' head; "When you nearly killed yourself trying to get your interface off of you back there under the sea, that was likely the red-flag. I was assigned as your doctor shortly thereafter."
"I'm wondering if I can buy your amnesty, but then... We've got our claws in the government here too. Do you think Nepleslia would be a good bet? The infrastructure isn't quite so standardized. Nobody's obsessive with their book-keeping."
"I've read the treaty arrangement. I've got to sort this out with the Empire. That, or become a new person... I'm not keen on the latter honestly, at least not in the long term. Perhaps while we're on the move, I could send a clone-construct to stand in my place while facing charges and making a defense to the Empire's charges... If I can get that off my back, I'm home free."
"Key word: You."
"Moment I don't have the Empire on my ass, I have more options than ever, and I'll take those options and share them like a man shares a paycheck at a bar with rounds of drinks. Just like any Nepleslian man should."
"If it’s all the same... I don't completely trust you. You understand its part of my line of work."
"Hush, you're cute, you can be our mascot."
"...As soon as the empire even gets a sniff of who I am, they're going to come down on me like a ton of bricks and interrogate me until I piss blood and count my teeth on the floor."
"You already piss blood and lose your teeth daily."
"That's...” she grumbled quietly, whispering now.”Beside the point. You know what I mean."
"Officially, you have no criminal record; you have no financial ties to the company. If anyone is going to come after you, it'll be the company itself, if you make a move to leave it so soon."
"You're welcome to pursue your legal battle but first I want to know what's at that address. She said it was important."
"Likely a bomb... or a biological weapon or something."
"She said Lalah was abducted. You remember, our waitress? The two are close friends. Sort of like pen-pals though constructs."
"I don't know, Lalah kind of strikes me as someone who goes missing for days and comes back as if nothing happened."
"This was two weeks ago. It has the librarian scared shitless. They came for her and mistook Lalah at the address."
"You know this could be a ploy. Something to jerk us all around. Like tapping someone on their left shoulder, then stepping to their right side as they're looking the other way."
"The address is OPSCURUS. You can't fake that, even if you're forced. It doesn't work under duress."
"I won't argue. Besides, I'm still not getting that tactical pay." Miles remarked, before turning on the display again.
"You get me through this and I'll give you enough to buy a small moon. I'd be spending it if I could."
"I already have enough to buy two. Everyone fuckin' loves that pico-jelly I made."
"Then why are you haggling me for pay?"
"It would be unNepleslian to do otherwise."
"And what would be the.. Right and 'proper' thing to do in this situation, as a Nepleslian, Miles?"
"Space-driveby." Miles replied simply, before raising his hands and doing a 'gun pointing' gesture.
"Putting space in front of something doesn't make it a good idea," Aiesu graveled.
"It does when you outfit a Vampire-Class with aether arrays and an Aura reactor."
"Who in fuck are we even supposed to be shooting at?!" She was getting hysterical now.
"At this point, I'd say anyone in the company that does not like us, and anyone who is after our asses. This is why I put 'space' in front of it, because we'd have to be going pretty damn fast to get our asses out of the situation as soon as shots are fired. We hit first, say we mean business, and if they make a point of it after that, then we get serious." Nepleslian bravado dripped heavily from Miles in that moment, but, it was how his people survived for so many years.
"I assume you have a vampire class with said load out? Or are you just waving your dick in the wind, boy?"
"I could hire one."
"If it’s all the same... I'd like something I'm not expected to hand back in one piece. More specifically though, something I can call my own for good."
"That's what hazard pay and premiums are for... but seriously, we had that kind of thing with the Maras. Then... well... that bitch . Since the Maras was taken from us, we've been scraping by with the most pathetic parasitic lifestyle possible."
"Miles...Have you ever stolen a ship before?"
"I stole a power armor, then I was cut in half by a NIWS with an aether gatling, and left for dead."
"Hiring doesn't seem quite so bad anymore. Tell me, did you have anyone in mind?"
"Not really. I mean, I've seen some ads here and there." Miles admitted honestly in that moment, as some of his bravado drained away.
"We're going to be living rough for a while but... What are we now on your calendar, Nouvaembour?"
"Yeah, the year is due to change soon."
"If you know your way around a ship-yard, I might be able to get you something good for kuruissmass."
There was a smile, before a gentle correction "You're reading some old history, the cats call the holiday Yuletide... "
"I was doing my research. I wanted to get you something nice. You're kind of a dick but you don't talk down to me. You don't forget that I'm a doctor, even if I'm also a patient. I like that."
"Well, if you get me something nice, I'll get you something nice in return. Besides, you're cute."
"Again with that... I'm old enough to be your mother."
"You're overstating that, I'm just a few years younger than you... unless you're into laying really early."
"Lorath are full of surprises, aren't we?"
"Surprises, eggs, and trickery. Like some sort of spring holiday."
"You're alluding to that bastard heresy freak show you call Ueystar."
"I knew you'd get that, since you were reading the old history. Now, we just have Lewis Pasco day. Much more practical, and with guns. Though, it shares the same time as Yuletide." Miles explained.
"...Who's Leurwriszz Plraskglow?"
"Lewis Pasco, a Nepleslian soldier, pretty badass guy. He got a holiday named after him." Miles stopped for a moment, before gesturing to the display behind him. "Hey, we're almost done. I want to see how this goes down."
"Hmm...?"
Miles resumed the display, and with it, the scene unfolded rapidly, as the Nodachi quickly closed in on the AMX-102 and the falling ship, using aether beams to cover its advance, with thrusters at a full burn which made the approach happen within a scant few seconds.
"I don't get it... A 102 should out-maneuver a Nodachi. It should be doing rings around it."
"Combined Field System and gravitic field manipulation. It allows the Nodachi to perform maneuvers with zero inertial effect, and can redirect momentum. With those big aether-plasma thrusters I see there, it can hold its own... that, and the 102 is trying to maintain a defensive position to cover the falling ship."
"...I don't have a great understanding of the CFS, only that you managed to get my centrifuge to do it."
"CFS is a concept founded upon nestled dimensional layer manipulation, energy projection, and field cohesion."
"I know that. I mean, the applications. What I do know is when I turned it inside out, I could make things bigger on the inside."
"Cats were doing that before you. Not as compact as the volucomp, but they had the means to make 'pocket universes' for some time."
"I gather, but we can make permanent structures. It sustains itself, without needing a generator."
"Quite ha---" Miles cut off, as the display brought up the climax of the moment.
With that moment, the AMX-102's feed terminated, as the sat-feed indicated that a pair of high-energy detonations took place within that same few seconds.
Aiesu whistled softly, borrowing a handful of popcorn.
"Well, at least the bitch has style." Miles commented, before grabbing a handful of popcorn, and bringing his attention to the low-observability AMX-102 which made its approach on the Iromakuanhe ship. "Oh hey, this one scored a kill."
"I'm not going to lie" she said, chewing "I'm disappointed in them."
"It was a pathetic display." Miles remarked, as Klein made her return, in a Mindy, and promptly snuffed out the low-observability 102, after having swapped machines, and using a teleporter module to make her arrival, and with that last kill, the data feed ended. All the Lazarus units on site were wiped out.
"Also, damn, I really made a fine machine with that Kylie. Shit, and the Empire still owes me back pay on that thing." Miles remarked, being an asshole on the matter.
"Why don't you make a better one?"
"Honestly? Because I don't trust the company. I would want to make the design myself, and make sure it gets used properly. Especially after watching this fucking farce of an engagement."
"Keep in mind the company did split down the middle. I think I've explained that we're two competitive elements here."
Miles quirked his brow, before replying to the matter with a rhetorical question on the prospect "Team idiot, and team moron?"
"Lagrange and Lazarus, Red and Blue, respectively. yes."
"Yeah, fuck that. We're stealing a ship and getting the hell out of this game... I'm not really keen on sticking around for something that sounds so utterly stupid, while I haven't even been brought up to speed on the rules of how the game is even played. You're the member, I'm just the employee."
"Keep in mind Lazarus is still Lor's primary arms developer. I'm still a pretty big part of all that. If I up and leave, someone's going to notice. That's bad for us."
"So we're stuck?" Miles questioned; "How do you think we could make it so we'd not be missed... erm... in a way which totally does not mean us dying."
"Basically, to continue my work."
"This brings us back to the fact that we have a lethal cat-bitch meddling in Lazarus affairs, we've got the Matriarchy and Empire in bed with each other and that's going to have someone knocking on my door soon to take me away, and we've got a kidnapped lizard-trap that may or may not be related to our situation getting even worse."
"Trap?" the term puzzled Aiesu. "Anyway. You don't have a door. I have a door. You're here as someone totally disconnected from your identity."
"Your country is obsessed with biometric scanning. For every single reason, there is a biometric scanner. Because of what the Maras did for the Matriarchy a few years back, your government has been kind enough not to advertise my presence here. Though, with this treaty, that umbrella is not going to hold up. Besides, if there is someone from a third-party prying into Lazarus, they may catch wind of my presence and want to collect on the bounty on my head."
"Look, we've been going in circles for an hour now. Let's just collect our things. And leave."
"We need to make it look like there is a reason for our departure that won't make people suspicious of you leaving all of a sudden. You still have your public life to consider."
"Medical. It has to be medical. Tell my father... Step father, that I'm being moved under critical condition or something."
"Hrm... That sounds viable, but we need a reason that would not just result in it being more sensible to just bring you to the campus hospital."
"...Maybe its something to do with my work, instead."
"Remember how I was suggesting a construct research team? Why not leave constructs here as our doubles. Meanwhile we make a break for it."
"I'm bringing Albert with me."
"It should work out fine, and, we can just make a generic Albert clone, only you or a Lmanel that knows him can tell the difference really."
"I'm the only one who knows him properly... We're taking Seiren too. I'll be damned if I'm cooking my own meals," she tried to smile.
"I think you need to start working on those constructs. I don't think we can just up and leave as you're suggesting though, we need to plan it out, and do this in an organized way."
"I've got one of myself and one of Seiren already ready. I only need one of you, really. Unless you also want one of Sana done. They take a few days to make.... I ah. Don't recommend meeting your own. It’s not a nice experience."
"Of course I want one of Sana, an accurate one, including equipment so she'll appear roughly identical on Matriarchy sensor scans."
"That's fine, but you'll be expected to fit it all."
"I'll need to go hardware shopping. We're also going to need guns."
"Lots, I gather. What's our transport going to be?"
"Not sure yet. Maybe we'll steal something, maybe we'll buy something, maybe we'll rent something. I'll need an anonymous ID for the Matriarchy network, a fresh clean one, then we can start shopping." Miles spoke, putting his Nepleslian expertise to work. "Whatever we do, we need to do it in a way which leaves our options open at this point. The company may straighten out, you may get in good with them again, I may end up cleared by the Empire, and we still need to account for being hunted. Maybe not even by that Klein woman, it could be another agent, considering that Lalah went missing while this incident on Asura went down."
"Who's to say she's not smart enough to have people acting under her or..." Aiesu grimaced.
"Or?"
"Or maybe she has a copy of herself running around somewhere. If I'm smart enough to do it, who's to say she isn't? It’s illegal on Yamatai if I remember but what's to stop a member of SAINT? We're fucked."
"They're not exactly the same SAINT as they were back in the day, from what I understand by the chatter on Laz-Pub, they're adhering to law more than they ever have." Even as he spoke those words, they felt like a false hope, a liar's promise really.
"W-Who's to hold Helen to those standards?"
"The ruling clan of Yamatai, the Empress, Taisho Yui, the Imperial Pemier, the defense treaty between the Matriarchy, Yamatai, and Nepleslia. The list can go on."
"...I wrote letter to Yui once." Aiesu said. Miles could hear her nerves bundled tightly in her throat, trembling. "
Some how the girl was even pastier than usual, dripping with sweat.
"She replied. She actually replied. Would you believe that?"
"You know, Sana, when a message in your inbox is marked urgent, it just does not seem that urgent until someone screams at you to get out of bed and open it." Miles spoke, as he slid a straight length of sharpened metal against pale flesh, slicing away excess follicles, scraping aside a thick lather of lubricating foam. "I don't care how loud she screams, or how much tooth she bares, I'm getting my three... no wait, implant to handle that, my two morning S's in." Miles spoke, almost as if to make a point, in fact, it was to do just that; to make a point of the fact that he was still the boss of his own life, even though the subcompact Lorath woman in the next room over was his boss, patient, and general pain in the ass.
"Which are?" Sana lifted the page of a magazine of various international cybernetics used by law-enforcement and even armies, turning the page. The gleam in her eyes was closer to that of a child who'd picked up the most recent catalogue and had instinctively turned to the back where the goodies are. It would appear military hardware maintained this practice.
"Well, its just down to shower and shave now." Miles stated, feeling as if he had finally breached the cusp of what every single innovator and futurist had been yammering about for centuries, just because of a simple gastric implant that bypasses a single bodily function. It baffled him in that moment why the people at KZ would back-step behind that achievement with their recent Nekovalkryja model, but, that was an entirely different thought. "Hrm, I suppose I could keep it to the three S's of morning importance with a replacement item with an S. Anything you can think of?" Miles spoke with a smile, as he washed his face of the remaining lather, and the lingering feeling of sleep.
"Soup?" Sana stuck her tongue out. "I know the walls are thin but honestly, nobody cares. We're two of maybe four people in this entire building who speak trade."
"Hey, I was about to say something romantic and put you at the forefront of my day, by making a vast improvement on the reference to the 'Three S's', by making the first and foremost item with an S in my day you, Sana, you silly woman." Miles, while rough, tumbled, and Nepleslian, was still corny as hell.
"You baited me into coming here for sun, sea and sex. Thus far, the sun is in abundance beyond anything I could ever want. We're inland so I haven't seen the sea in weeks. And... You actually haven't played ball in a while. Knobbing your nubile employer is that it?" a chuckle followed.
"I don't think I've got it in me to nob her. She's too fragile for it... I'm pretty sure if I did, she'd lose her head." Miles could not help but to let out a grim chuckle, because he knew deep down, it was rather likely to be the literal case.
"Not after the shit you've filled her with. She refused to let go of you. Her grip was ridiculous."
"It is insurance for us. I mean, do you want a cold-blooded shark-thing as an employer?"
"You made a cripple stronger than you are. I don't think that's good insurance. And how could you not know about the pollen?"
"I also made you stronger than a NH-27, and you can't remember where you put the car keys a minute prior. So, I think I may be brimming with bad ideas. That pollen though, hell, it's back to xenobiology and my not paying attention to the... what the hell are they, rabbittis-things?"
"Is meant to be treating an alien. Doesn't know about basic animal behavior. Remember the blood moon? I think she told you. Since the ball went plop, the pollen is everywhere all the time now. Ey'tis are endemic. Some places you can't move through without being swamped by them."
"She went on about it after the fact." Miles spoke with a bit of a disapproving frown, as he went about producing a clatter of metal on metal as he went about securing his pants with a rather ornate belt, a local design, and a gift from his fiancé.
Carefully Sana leant back, peeking down her nose to get a view at him before he disappeared behind clothing, just to make sure everything was still there.
"You know, I'm going to be honest, I don't know if I bit off more than I can chew with her..." Miles thought on how to phrase the statement better; "I mean about treating her... That woman is fundamentally broken, and the only way I can think of to solve the problem is to cut out the cause like a tumor, and that would just unmake her who she is... and that's kind of killing her as a person, you know?"
"Lobotomize her? Oh~ Ohh~ you’re so kind, doctor Gunn."
"Can't even call it a lobotomy, it’s not even a whole lobe, it’s just a patch of synapses."
"Well... Some Lorath do aspect. Some don't. Can't you just cut out the part that does?"
"I'm almost entirely sure it would shame her to no end. While she is an atheist, she is also still an orthodox Lmanel in teachings at least. If it were not the case, she'd not be so much of a problem"
"She chose life over shame last time. What makes you think she won't do it again?"
"Because... I think she is starting to get tired of life." There was a frown to accompany those words, hidden by the fact that he was pulling a shirt over his head, it was an article of distinctively Nepleslian clothing; an Aether Sperm album cover shirt, which somehow in its lewd depiction of an eagle-woman carrying an aether-bomb while firing lightning from her tits, went about softening the grim nature of its moment in just how out-of-place it was.
"Long-term pain does that to people." She gave an approving nod to the shirt, rather liking the design before clicking her fingers and point toward the dresser.
"Hmm?" Miles sounded, as he stepped over to the dresser, opening a drawer and taking a quick inventory, a soft smile crossed his lips as he picked up a simple tank-top, adorned with a Nepleslian Marine Corps. logo, he then tossed her the top which was certainly just a bit too small for her, but, he liked it that way. "Either way though, my job is to turn her around a bit, get her back into the world of the living. It is a big job... and I don't think that I can do it unless I invest a big chunk of time here, and I don't think that is fair to you to anchor you here like that... Besides, it is not safe for either of us now, considering the Matriarchy and Yamatai are bedfellows, it'll just be a matter of time before someone knocks on, never mind, breaks down our door and drags us off."
She soon scrambled into the top, pulling it down over herself, fishing for her hair between her skin and the fabric. The green worked rather nicely with the dark emerald of her hair.
"So why aren't you using this as an excuse to get a pardon? You could make Aiesu defect for the Matriarchy. Considering how much she's contributed to them, that would be one hell of a thing."
Miles gave a soft shrug; "Honestly, I don't think it would work. I looked at the documents from that conference. I think Velor is already doing us a solid, because he was supposed to report us as fugitives quite some time ago." There was a look of intense doubt upon Miles' face, before he gave a shake of his head. "Besides, I can't make Aiesu do anything, at this point I'd be one fucking bastard if I did something to that degree, she is simply too fucked up. If she was not so fragile, maybe, but that's for another time... Let's go see what all the fuss is about, and then we'll get back to planning our great escape from justice when lunch comes around." On the matter of a meal, due to just how urgent Aiesu had made the matter sound, all Miles could do for a breakfast was grab a Lor equivalent to an apple, and a can of beer.
"If we're watching something, I half think we should have popcorn... but naw, she'd likely bite our heads off, from the way she is sounding about this." Miles mused, as he stepped out of their room, and crossed the hall, before knocking on Aiesu's door.
A certain effeminate construct answered the door, partially decked out in monochrome makeup. It appears that he had just gotten foundation and a few other aspects down when Miles decided to show up.
"Hihi!" He greeted the Nepleslian, beaming cutely. "You here for Aiesu?"
"Hey kiddo." Miles spoke, giving Seiren a nod, before stepping past the Yamataian, who he casually went about giving a verbal nudge aside by addressing him as 'kiddo'. "Yeah, not so much for her though, but because of her, she made one hell of a fuss about this message."
"Can't say I understand what you're talking about, but she has been a bit, euh. . . today, you know?" Seiren said with an unclear gesture. He closed the door behind the visitor, heading back over to the bathroom to finish putting on makeup.
A pair of cerise eyes glanced over the back of her chair: a hand following to steady her-self as she peeked in Miles' direction before returning to her work.
"S-Slumming it a-are we?" laughter followed but it wasn't natural, the raspy quality in her voice a little harsher than usual.
Either it’s the pollen, or she is really nervous about this message... I sure hope it is the message, it'll be less trouble. Miles thought as he listened to her stammered words, but something in his gut had made a decision on the matter. "Yeah, well, I don't exactly get the luxury of dressing up when I've got my boss on the comm-line, yelling at me to wake up over a simple message from our mutual employer."
"Yeeah..." she sniffled, stifling a sneeze. "I-I have something I want you to take a look at. Come sit." she began, patting her lap mischievously.
The pollen. Miles concluded, as the evidence of the sneeze did well to match to his gut-feeling. There was a brow raise from Miles, as he slowly shook his head, dismissing the gesture before he strode over and peered over the top of Aiesu's chair, at whatever she had been working on prior to his arrival. "I sure hope the thing you want me to look at is not in your lap. I forgot my gloves and speculum."
"Very funny. See this?"
Footage began playing, a date and location counter in the corner -- a news-feed on another window: Lorath units on a decidedly not Lorath world being shot at by something Miles wouldn't recognize.
"Huuuuuh? Is that some kinda Lorath action movie?" Seiren called from the bathroom, peeking out the door to spy on the duo.
"No, it’s a battle-record you stupid panda" Aiesu spat, soon tossing a stuffed toy in his direction.
Miles eyed the display, giving a chuckle, not at the berating of Seiren, but instead, at the apparent reason as to why he was graced by the message from their employer, they needed an expert's opinion, though, his attention did wander to Seiren. "Is it okay if he's around for this?"
"You won't even notice I'm here!" the construct said, although if Miles knew anything, it was that people who claim that they won't even be noticed are generally horrendous liars about that fact.
"Hey, you can be as obnoxious as you want, but I'm looking out for your hide." Miles explained, as he peered over to Seiren. "Things like this, people get shot for seeing when they're not supposed to."
"She pulled ME on! Anything I see goes through her, you know!"
"Anyway. After what has basically been half a decade of cold-war standoffs and some light-skirmishes, we've finally got hard footage of Lorath units against Yamataian gear. Some of this I don't even recognize."
"Well, I know a good chunk of these... and can guess on the others." Miles spoke, as he eyeballed the information on screen, and, opened up his own file attachment so he could pay mind to the annotations on the sensor footage gathered. "That one though, I saw on the news footage out of Asura yesterday." Of course, he was speaking on Lorath time, for a Yamataian, it would have been days prior. "Timestamps indicate our employer has been looking over this for a while before giving it to us."
"...Why are they carrying volucomps?" she quizzed, zooming into the footage some. The image was pixelated but pointing, she could see it quite clearly.
While the image on the display was pixelated, Miles' internalized display software handled the matter as he looked at the same time-index on the footage as what Aiesu indicated. Miles opted not to speak on the matter, figuring Aiesu's question was rhetorical, since she was referring to a technology piece he had only recently heard of, and had not had the opportunity to work with, since he was trapped in psychotherapeutic purgatory.
"A volumetric compression, Miles. Like CFS, but inside out. Bigger on the inside. You put things in it."
"Then the reason is fairly obvious." Miles countered, feeling a bit slighted by being outside of the loop on such information. "They want to loot things."
There was a pause for a moment from Miles, before he ventured into the inevitable question; "So uh, what happens when you put someone in it? Or like a part of someone?"
"That depends on what's already inside. The opening is what uses up the power: The compression itself can be maintained indefinitely."
"Independently of a functional or non-functional aperture?" Miles inquired, as he speculated on the physics involved, recalling much of his starship operations training from back in the Yamataian service.
"The aperture is what uses power. The rest is a permanent structure."
"Say... that's a clever plan." Miles spoke, putting together the puzzle rather quickly when given the framework to build inside of.
"You could use that sorta thing for super hero type stuffs, you know? Like one of those masked cyborg heroes!" Seiren cut in. The duo could see him doing a ‘henshin’ pose out of the corners of their eyes
Aiesu reached for another stuffed toy to pummel Seiren with but she froze for a moment, gears turning within her head. "...It ... Wouldn't even be that heavy if you used a stasis unit, either... I mean, this is mass dislocation, but it doesn't change the weight of a thing... But in stasis, when the probabilistic mass hits zero, the interior of the stasis unit becomes weightless.."
"Focus." Miles spoke simply, as he pointed to the display.
"A-Ah, yes, sorry."
"That's a Daisy... those were just coming into service when I made my exit... they've gotten pretty slick lately." Miles spoke, pointing out something, before he let out an audible 'Huh!' of interest, and perhaps, amusement.
"That one has a weird color scheme. It looks different. A commander-type? I don't know Yamataian units all that well."
"I built that." Miles spoke simply, feeling that tickle of one of the most horrible sins which Nepleslians were so prone to, pride.
"No, this one. Its operating away from the rest of the group. It’s just entered the derelict. Here, here. Right there."
"Yeah, I built that. It’s a Ke-M3-1d." Miles stated, with a distinctive sound of insistence, as his pride bubbled up worse than usual... a decidedly male trait, and something which the Matriarchy as a whole frowned upon. "I did a redesign of the 1c model, and brought it up to current standard."
The look on Aiesu's face said his words were moving like a bird over some vast landscape: Directly above her head.
"Urgh, it’s a Kylie, it kills other power armor."
"We need somewhere better to watch this..." she said, fishing through notepads to take a timetable. Clicking her tongue, she skimmed a series of blocks. "The projection room is going to be vacant in about an hour or so after the seminar. We could probably book it."
"By all means, Professor." Miles spoke, giving a little jab... not at her qualifications, not at just how much of a mess she was, and not about her double life... it was a jab aimed at the fact that she had not taught a class or performed any sort of work for the university or Matriarchy in months. Tenure kept the woman afloat though and, untouchable.
Later That Day
There was a giddy feeling to be had when the prospect of a viewing session came along. For Miles, there were reasons upon reasons; pride, curiosity, enlightenment, blood thirst, and pride. While his allegiance was up in the air, he was still sickeningly egotistical over his past achievements. As a clear sign of his rather crass interest in the footage, he sat outside of the presentation room, waiting for the 'Professor', or as he knew her 'Boss', and as he sat he held a cardboard tray, upon which was a large cylindrical container, packed with the closest Lorath equivalent to popcorn, along with a 48oz beverage container, filled to the top with a sickeningly sweet fizzy drink. To add to his crass display, some sort of white cardboard framed eyewear adorned his face, with thin plastic lenses of blue and red.
She soon opened the door opposite, glancing left and right through the particularly sterile halls before motioning for him to follow her into the dark room.
Beyond sat something resembling a cinema, an arrangement of chairs comparable to a coliseum. Within the middle sat a large empty floor, gridded with glass, the entire ceiling and many of the walls matching this aesthetic, columns of this stuff throughout the room. She slipped a thick heavy disk into the adjacent console and began punching thick buttons -- the installation maybe a decade or two old but still even now considered quite modern.
Without skipping a beat, Miles strode into the presentation hall, and upon entering he let out a soft whistle. He was rather impressed with the investment the Matriarchy had made in their education system, enough of one to have a presentation hall with a genuine and full-on capacity to host a seminar, and likely have a thousand occupants seated close enough to a display to not even call them 'nosebleed seats', and then there were the nosebleed seats, which Miles did not even bother to count, as he approached the stage and set down his food and drink upon a nearby seat.
Soon, text floated in air, as she began to sift through records on the diskette until a particular cubic moving image thumbnail was highlighted and she hit return in the console. A progress-bar soon formed text beneath and graphs before the massive dark room was illuminated in its center by the scene at Asura. Carefully she adjusted a dial, fast-forwarding the footage, soon moving to sit next to him. She passed the chunky black box over to him, complete with dials and buttons and pinched a small fleck of popcorn for herself, finding it rather pleasant.
"Starting from where we left off? Oh, and could you bring me a remote for it too? I want to be able to toggle through the data." Miles called over to Aiesu, as he took in the images splashed upon the massive volumetric display, which brought everything to a 1:1 ratio.
"Here. Let's see your conclusions first. The footage works in layers, by the way -- you should be able to run an electromagnetic histogram with point-data and some wave-markers for gravitational changes if you pull them up. Our birds always have had better black boxes. This is all composite from every set of eyes we could get our hands on"
"The Matriarchy even before Lazarus was obsessive with data collection; it only stands to reason that our employer picks up the same habit." Miles added, as he eyed the large remote which he took into his hands, and decided to start the footage from a satellite feed, one that caught his eye the moment it scrolled by. "Hey, nukes? There were nukes used?"
"I don't know, this is the first time I'm seeing this outside of the footnotes. Again, you're the consultant here. You've got a much better eye for combat than I have. Let's see what you think of this."
"Alright alright... time index that you want, or should we go over the whole incident?"
"I've booked the hall for most of the afternoon. We're good for about five hours if you really need it."
"We can skim, and examine the important parts. You've got a cybernetic braincase, like I do
"Which I didn't ask for, nor did I require" she interjected, a harsh stare now.
Miles frowned a little "You can slow it down as needed if any of the skimmed material catches your eye."
"You first."
"Hah... but yes... we could spar like this, or we can start here..." With that, the image on the stage took on the harsh white of the unleashed fury of the atom, splitting, spewing everything into the world beyond the femtoscopic, having an impact which was able to be seen clearly from a Lazarus communication node in orbit above. "We've got a Yamataian asset right on top of the explosion there... Two, a power armor, and... That’s a fighter I haven't seen."
"Noudachi? I've only seen photographs of it. Follows the usual four turret arrangement we see in most Yamataian fighters. Latest model of the V-series. Underperforms, if you ask me."
"Hrm... we'll get to that... let's see..." Miles spoke quietly, as he sped up the playback, noting the sensor data on the Yamataian armor, as it was propelled several kilometers away from ground-zero. Eventually, the playback slowed, as Miles swapped to the record that was provided by the company, which switched to a 'first person view'. "Hrm... the sensor data here indicates this was recorded using a AMX-Series sensor cluster."
"Lor didn't deploy it. Intelligence suggests that Occhestian separatists were lucky enough to get their hands on a collection that was being moved. Ostensibly." she stated flatly, pulling the footage out into a third person perspective, combining the footage from a few different sources now to extrapolate such an image.
Miles looked to Aiesu, with an expression that spoke of doubt, skepticism, and uncertainty. "I don't know, your people, as in the Matriarchy, did well to squash the Occhestians like bugs. I've seen the released death tolls, and the method-assessment. You people have genocide to a science."
"We had to be kind before our new allies. They didn't much like our methods and it was hurting the negotiations" Aiesu sighed. "If you step back and compare the Occhestian death-toll to any international negotiations we have, you'll note they drop substantially until the negotiations are over."
"They dropped because everyone was dead." Miles corrected, but, somehow, he did not sound as if he was displeased, it was just a fact.
"Ah, you're unfamiliar with the northern Occhestian enclaves, then?"
"Those are your allies; you caught some of them too in the mess as well." Miles chuckled, before he stopped the playback. "The hell is this?"
"Again, they are ostensibly our allies. I wouldn't trust one as far as I could... What, the gravity pool?"
Miles pointed to the large behemoth of an alien ship. "Looks like..." he trailed off, as he checked his internal database, then, the Matriarchy's.
"I don't deal with foreign equipment; that’s the Communion group's department. I can't place the exact make and model of the vessel."
"Your Matriarchy has it recorded as an Iromakuanhe ship." Miles explained, before something came to mind, as he used the remote to browse the Matriarchy's available data library, before he brought up a news feed which he remembered seeing earlier in the Lorath week.
"Yes, that's correct."
She knew more than she was letting on, letting him reach his own conclusions rather than her saying anything that might tip something off.
"Looks like we should have paid more mind to the news. Look here." Miles spoke, as he noted the Asurian broadcast, which he caught just a little of, what was unsaid, was that he did not watch the broadcast in the first place because he was busy doing distinctively Nepleslian things with his fiancé.
"Do you see now why I came knocking?"
"You gone fucked up now. It’s on the bloody news." Miles griped, before he sifted the data around, coming back to the point after the nuclear blast, and, after the approach of what Miles instructed to recognize as borrowed Lazarus produce.
"Occhestian separatists" she waved her finger at him, illuminated by the hologram of the blast. "They're still around."
"I see Gust type armors here... AMX-102 with AWACs package... a few heavy assault packages."
"Nothing you're not familiar with, for the most part. Here" she zoomed in on something a few of them were carrying. Newer equipment. "Recognize this?"
"You pointed it out to me in the dorms... a Volucomp, I think you called it." Miles replied, before he split the image to bring up the satellite data, monitoring the Yamataian and Iromakuanhe movements on the ground, as well as the approach of unknown hostiles which engaged the Yamataian taskforce. "Occhestians with a small spacefleet I see."
"What?"
"I see that the Yamataians are not getting air-support because they were engaged by a hodge-podge of third-party assets." Replied the Nepleslian, before he moved the data along to the part that really mattered, as he saw a mosaic of images, each of them being first-person feeds from the Gust-armor clad infantry. "They're entering the Iromakuanhe ship... with Volucomps." Miles again rolled his gaze to Aiesu, that doubtful expression still present.
"Y-You've got the right idea, yes.." she tried not to laugh, her eyes rather wide now. She wasn't particularly good with direct eye-contact, doing everything but meeting his eyes before skimming to a particular block of footage: a radio communication from an armor on the field.
"Do you recognize this voice?"
Miles listened, before giving a shake of his head; "It is in Yamataian though... the tone speaks of age. I hear a rank designation too." Miles quirked his brow; "There is a Chusa on the field. Quite a high rank to be planetside in this kind of mess."
"They address her as Klein -- a Helen Klein. Our friends elsewhere looked up the name... There's a lot of muddled paperwork somewhere. First she exists, and then she doesn't. She's listed active but her position and deployment have been blank for a few years now despite active payroll information within the Star Army of Yamatai. What are they paying her for?"
Miles took the direct approach, as he looked into the public record available through the Matriarchy's network. "Pretty fa---" Miles stopped, as he thought he recognized something.
"Hmm?"
"Give me a minute... I'll look at this data before I tell you..." Miles mumbled, before he brought the images along to the grizzly point in which things took a turn for the worse, after skimming over the Gust-clad units looting whatever they could get their mitts on. "Looks like the Ke-M3-1d belongs to her... and that's a Daisy... and those are some alien units... There's another Daisy there."
"Over local comms, they call it a VANDR. Its a big high mobility frame. We're not entirely sure how it works."
Miles gave a light nod, before watching a number of the Gust-armor feeds go black "I'd have to get a better look at the sensor feed, but first, the play-by-play."
"First, what do you make of Klein? We have reason to believe she might be linked to an intelligence group within the Star Army of Yamatai, but we've not been able to pin down anything further. We've had some concern raised by one of other members over this matter regarding intelligence agency snooping, this concern was raised just prior to the disappearance of an associated party. The member went into hiding... I haven't heard from them since..."
"I told you I need a minute for that." Miles almost snapped, as he looked to Aiesu with a scowl.
Aiesu held her tongue, returning the look. She looked so desperately like she wanted to blurt something out, but it never came. Whatever it was, it was important.
While Aiesu was badgering, Miles' internal database was checking, rechecking, and confirming his gut instinct. Voice samples were analyzed at first, but there was another thing, as Miles brought up salvaged footage and dry-dock security footage of a time gone by.
"She's good... that one with the big gun and the Daisy is pretty decent, she's too rash though..." Miles spoke in quiet observation, as Gust after Gust was torn into by a combination of aether fire, and repulsion-cannon discharges, along with their own power plants getting blown asunder. "I see an AMX-unit made an engagement here... they're still using Zesuaium on the Ke-M3-1d... It took that railgun shot rather well..." Miles continued to look over the data, until it came to one of the Gust units being engaged at close range, after having landed a stabbing thrust with a monomolecular edged knife. That was when the occupant of the Kylie revealed her face, and spoke.
"Yeah... That's 'Her'." Miles stated with an expression that spoke of troubled displeasure.
"Old flame of yours?"
"Klein, she stole the Maras, now, she's here, having a tussle with your assets." Miles was done playing around with the matter, as he realized just how bad things were getting for his prospects.
"Klein is trouble."
"No shit." Miles replied. "You're going to be in worse shape really soon."
"I think she may have already tried. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to the Maras after she took it?"
"Scuttled, she scuttled it. After taking what data she could, and from what I understand, she looted your Matriarchy for a substantial chunk of data as well... fleet counts, production manifests, equipment manifests, technical operation manuals... those kinds of things."
"...We've had a lot of our development efforts hindered recently. We're at least a year behind schedule. You think that's her doing?"
"Doubtful that she would make her move yet... from what the Matriarchy shared with us, they figured she had been on Lor for months before she took the Maras." Miles spoke, as he wore a touch of a frown, and his thoughts went to a mirror image of Sana, who he wondered about within that moment.
"...Given the state we found my machine in... I don't think it’s safe to stay here. Not just for me, but for you too."
"I'm not going back to that underwater shithole."
"I'm not expecting you to. I wouldn't call it a safe house but we do have a few options available to us. Specifically, the librarian left an address with me. I'm still decrypting it now on the network. She didn't cut corners with it so it’s important."
"If this Klein is with SAINT, you know we're not going to be able to hide from her on Lor." Miles stated bleakly. "Considering the treaty in effect."
"I know. I have reason to believe the address is far outside our territory. The good news is I don't think she knows you're here. There was no attempt against your habitat, only mine. The size of the explosion suggests I wasn't meant to survive that."
Miles let out a scoff "They want me alive."
"Then we can use that to our advantage" Aiesu snubbed her nose with her thumb.
"Only to a certain degree." Miles then enlarged the image from the Gust armor, focusing on the exterior projection which was presented upon the Kylie on screen, specifically, Helen Klein's face, as she looked at the Gust with a fury that was uniquely Nepleslian.
"You're really obsessed with her, aren't you?"
"Look at that face and tell me what you see. Not as a doctor, or a scientist."
"I see a reason to get my shit together and get off-world as quickly as I can with my tail between my legs."
"Yeah... no shit. She is more a killer than even Rebeka could be called, and Rebeka was a Captain Killer Extraordinaire..." Miles trailed off, not exactly wanting to elaborate to Aiesu on that matter.
"Do you think Rebeka could match her or do you lack faith in Sana? Be honest with me."
"Why do you think I've made my fiancé into a walking weapon that can go toe-to-toe with that machine there?"
"...Because you saw this coming. And you didn't have the nerve to tell me," Aiesu began. "I'm a dead-weight, is that it?" she tried not to laugh, a bitterness in her throat.
"You never asked, and I was not paid as a tactical consultant." Miles replied stiffly.
"If you want a pay-rise, you only had to ask. Moving money is easy: You know my situation: Provided it doesn't end up in my pocket, I don't have a problem."
"Frankly, I don't want to be a tactical consultant for Lazarus on a long-term basis, or even a routine basis."
"Then how about being one for me until my head isn't on the chopping block anymore? I'll admit it. I'm scared. I don't know how to deal with this."
"I'm helping on this case because that machine right there caught my eye." Miles took in a steadying breath.
"You really didn't come here for the money, did you?" He could see she was panicking now, trying to laugh a muted sense of shock. It took her a deep breath to steady her trembling hands.
"I came here for a safe place, and the potential to start a new life... that, and for the science." came the Nepleslian's reply, as he let out a somber chortle; "Besides, what employer would let their research staff get fucked up on the job, routinely, without docking pay?"
As Miles spoke though, he averted his gaze from Aiesu, there was something else he was not exactly wanting to speak of, something he kept pent up, and was not about to lay out on the table. His comments spoke of his skirting around the matter, but soon, after a few moments, he looked back to Aiesu; "Besides, I don't think the company was looking after us as well as we were led... you sign my paychecks, and I'd rather you not get into any trouble... alright?"
"Like I said. What you're seeing here..." she took another breath. "Isn't my doing."
"You're a cog in the machine. I know this." Miles replied flatly, before he turned back to the display. "Let's find out how big of a mistake the company made." With that, the image resumed, as Gust after Gust were torn apart, by the savagery of an agent, a callous Neko in support, and a VANDR.
"...We really do need to replace those."
"Gust is fine in infantry encounters... the Member that planned this fucked up, and was planning on an infantry engagement, not a power armor engagement."
"I think... We need our own Kylie."
"We were working on one back in the underwater piss-pot. I left the project to work with you."
"...Running means having little to do during your travels. You'd have time to kill."
"I'd need equipment, computational cycles, and assurance that we're not getting tapped." Miles replied, before giving a shake of his head. "We can't have that if we're on the move. We may need to have a research team thrown together comprised of Constructs."
"...Haaaa..." Aiesu backed up into her seat a little, gripping the arm-rests. Clearly the prospect wasn't appealing to her. She didn't want to talk of it but she was already taking the prospect quite seriously. "That... Might be tricky."
"We'll deal with that when the time comes, look at us, planning research while we have that after us." Miles gave a soft shake of his head, before giving a point to the feed. "Look at that... the AWACs and the heavy, they're guiding something... Oh wow, the company is wasting a whole ship on this? Just to crash it? What kind of chucklefuck planned this?"
"From the notes I got, survival of any of our units wasn't required to meet the mission goal."
"Now here's where I turn your Q and A game on you, why do you think that is?" Miles asked, knowing why, just from the introduction made earlier.
"Well... If you don't know already, my opinion in you has just fallen. They're Iroma. They have what they call veyrinite -- the extracted quasiconductor from the blue rift expanse. We're obviously there to collect it."
"Yeah, they're going to dip into the pocket later, after everything blows over..."
"Exactly, and no one would even know. It’s all 100% deniable."
"Data feed here shows no unique sensor signatures though... it looks like the Iromakuanhe may have hidden their goodies before the raid. We'll have to look at the loot for any traces." There was a sound of regret, Miles was disappointed, clearly, what scientist in their right mind would not be, after possibly being denied the opportunity to analyze something unknown.
"...All things considered... The Iroma use it pretty extensively in everything they build. Our best way of knowing if we were successful or not is if they can't account for some of their own. They'll.. Probably put it down to atomization during the initial nuke and call it missing."
"Hrm... not sure, that nuke was pretty far off... but let's see what happens with this ship... It may solve the problem." Miles mused, as he watched the moment unfold, then, paused as feed from another of the AMX-102 units caught his eye.
"Oh, you fucking idiot." Miles commented, as if the AMX-102 could hear him. "Idiot! You don't just sit there on your own! Stay mobile! You fucking deserved that."
Aiesu couldn't help but smile. "Its an older ARIA. Don't expect miracles out of it."
On the screen, the scene Miles was commenting over was the AMX-102 perched over a crashed Nodachi, only to be pelted by high-power sniper-weapon fire. On the data provided, a flourish of red indicators splashed upon the AMX-102's engine system status monitor.
"Well, your older ARIA up and lost a whole AMX-102 to one Iromakuanhe with a rifle... and improvised explosives. Either way, it was a stupid loss, that, or the Iromakuanhe is good. I can't tell with this crappy ARIA data."
"Did you notice the low-observable model on the field yet?"
"The one approaching the Iromakuanhe crashsite perimeter."
"Mmm. Keep an eye on it. I think we might have a positive here."
"I've got bets on it getting wasted."
"Probably. The question is can we get what we want first? Even if the projector is destroyed, our volucomp still works."
"True, but it has to get close enough first... and it has to avoid any perimeter defenses the Iromakuanhe may have arranged."
"Fingers crossed."
Almost as if to mock the two scientists, a bright flash of light splashed upon the feed from the low-observability AMX-102, as the low-cost ARIA inside of it failed to notice a monomolecular tripwire.
Miles' hand extended to Aiesu, before his fingers curled in a 'pay up' gesture but either she didn't understand or pretended not to.
There was a chuckle from Miles, as he returned to watching the feed, then let out a whistle. "Oooh boy, that bitch... did you see that!" Miles paused the feed, before advancing it one frame, reversing it a frame, then advancing it a frame, noting one of the Yamataian sensor signals moving kilometers within one nanosecond. "Teleport module."
"Hum..." Aiesu uttered. She designed kit but to actually see it in live-fire was strange for her, evidenced by the way she stared but didn't take much in.
Miles meanwhile continued his interested assessment, as he pointed to where the Kylie ended up, on top of the Nodachi it had arrived in, along with Helen Klein. "She has her fighter again... Looks like she found it after the Yamataians were permitted to get their communications back online... Mark that as another fuck-up for our team."
"She's ascending..." Miles mumbled, before the aetheric sensor readings spiked firmly, as the Nodachi began to fire upon the falling Lazarus ship, ripping into the hull. "Looks like she wants to keep the evidence intact... the escort AMX units are moving to engage..." As Miles spoke, he picked up his beverage container, from which he took a deep drink as he watched the feed, kilometers ticking away quickly in respect to the distance between the AMX-102 units and the Nodachi. "Ah-ah, see here? This is one of our problems. Our engagement range is limited by the packet rifle's maximum engagement range, and the AMX-102 units are far enough out so the Nodachi still has the ability to evade the railgun."
"And how would you have solved this?" Aiesu quizzed.
"Paycheck first." Miles countered, as he gave a chuckling laugh. "But from what these ARIA units are doing, they have the right idea... the one with our AWACs module is closing in though, that's a pretty dumb move, unless it does the job right."
On the screen, the AMX-102 quickly closed in on the Nodachi, and, overshot it. In a blur of motion, the Nodachi performed a drifting twist in air-and-space, swinging around 360 degrees, and at 180 of those degrees, the Nodachi opened up on the AMX-102 with a flurry of weapons fire that was more than enough to rip apart the Lazarus produced machine which had overshot its mark.
"Should have gone for the collision... dumbass." Miles scathingly remarked.
"I didn't write the intelligence they're running. They're based on Stalwart's original."
"They don't do well as SI-Modules. They work better when they have the natural body." Miles noted.
"We fixed that two versions ago. Someone's chosen an older version deliberately, probably not to incriminate us."
"The biological ones did have a better edge though in engagement situations... and do keep up with your current model for 'out of the box' problem solving."
"Someone's intentionally used the SI from the 101. Its security is weaker than the work I did on the 102... Whoever's doing this didn't want to go through me to do it."
"Comm-chatter is more emotional than the usual ARIA as well." Miles noted, pointing to the transcripts which came with the data log. "I figure, there is an attempt here to make them seem like biological pilots."
"Ahhh, here's the 'fun part'." Miles announced, as he gestured to the display. "Looks like our machines took out the Nodachi's torpedo payload. She'll have to close-in to get any sort of damage landed on that ship to make it break apart. The Heavy 102 is holding her in a stand-off position."
"...You practically want to strangle them, don't you?"
"They're so stupid. I was a far better pilot when I was in the service."
"Like I said. For whatever reason, someone thought not going through me was more important than making them smart."
"Hmm..." Miles sounded in response, his gut told him the why of the matter, but he dared not speak it. There was no reason to make an incident out of the matter, at least which was how he figured the situation, and what would come of his feedback.
"What?" She could see he knew something and didn't want to share it.
Miles was caught in that moment, as he paused the display. "How many projects have they trusted you with since I got here? More so, since you lost your arms."
"Four, mostly high-profile, but I've been given systems-work instead of platform work almost exclusively. They took me off Phasma and let me finish up Modus."
"You can see where this is going, can't you?" Miles asked, frowning.
"Someone thinks I'm already compromised."
"They thought this even before this bitch here made her move." Miles spoke, gesturing to the Nodachi, and Helen within.
Aiesu could feel the trembling returning, ebbing in her voice like she'd just been let down on her birthday. "...I'm really starting to hate that woman."
"I don't think it is her." His words, they came with a heavy frown.
"Battle maiden, then. Nekovalkyjra?" she hissed through her teeth afterwards, feeling things get worse. She wasn't even on the same page.
"No, I think you're being cut out due to a risk assessment based on personal 'faults'." Miles finally said it, bluntly, directly.
"And they don't think I can finish what I start. They've been throwing me harder and harder stuff. We're past petty stuff like AI and femto-engineering now."
There was a shake of Miles' head; "When you nearly killed yourself trying to get your interface off of you back there under the sea, that was likely the red-flag. I was assigned as your doctor shortly thereafter."
"I'm wondering if I can buy your amnesty, but then... We've got our claws in the government here too. Do you think Nepleslia would be a good bet? The infrastructure isn't quite so standardized. Nobody's obsessive with their book-keeping."
"I've read the treaty arrangement. I've got to sort this out with the Empire. That, or become a new person... I'm not keen on the latter honestly, at least not in the long term. Perhaps while we're on the move, I could send a clone-construct to stand in my place while facing charges and making a defense to the Empire's charges... If I can get that off my back, I'm home free."
"Key word: You."
"Moment I don't have the Empire on my ass, I have more options than ever, and I'll take those options and share them like a man shares a paycheck at a bar with rounds of drinks. Just like any Nepleslian man should."
"If it’s all the same... I don't completely trust you. You understand its part of my line of work."
"Hush, you're cute, you can be our mascot."
"...As soon as the empire even gets a sniff of who I am, they're going to come down on me like a ton of bricks and interrogate me until I piss blood and count my teeth on the floor."
"You already piss blood and lose your teeth daily."
"That's...” she grumbled quietly, whispering now.”Beside the point. You know what I mean."
"Officially, you have no criminal record; you have no financial ties to the company. If anyone is going to come after you, it'll be the company itself, if you make a move to leave it so soon."
"You're welcome to pursue your legal battle but first I want to know what's at that address. She said it was important."
"Likely a bomb... or a biological weapon or something."
"She said Lalah was abducted. You remember, our waitress? The two are close friends. Sort of like pen-pals though constructs."
"I don't know, Lalah kind of strikes me as someone who goes missing for days and comes back as if nothing happened."
"This was two weeks ago. It has the librarian scared shitless. They came for her and mistook Lalah at the address."
"You know this could be a ploy. Something to jerk us all around. Like tapping someone on their left shoulder, then stepping to their right side as they're looking the other way."
"The address is OPSCURUS. You can't fake that, even if you're forced. It doesn't work under duress."
"I won't argue. Besides, I'm still not getting that tactical pay." Miles remarked, before turning on the display again.
"You get me through this and I'll give you enough to buy a small moon. I'd be spending it if I could."
"I already have enough to buy two. Everyone fuckin' loves that pico-jelly I made."
"Then why are you haggling me for pay?"
"It would be unNepleslian to do otherwise."
"And what would be the.. Right and 'proper' thing to do in this situation, as a Nepleslian, Miles?"
"Space-driveby." Miles replied simply, before raising his hands and doing a 'gun pointing' gesture.
"Putting space in front of something doesn't make it a good idea," Aiesu graveled.
"It does when you outfit a Vampire-Class with aether arrays and an Aura reactor."
"Who in fuck are we even supposed to be shooting at?!" She was getting hysterical now.
"At this point, I'd say anyone in the company that does not like us, and anyone who is after our asses. This is why I put 'space' in front of it, because we'd have to be going pretty damn fast to get our asses out of the situation as soon as shots are fired. We hit first, say we mean business, and if they make a point of it after that, then we get serious." Nepleslian bravado dripped heavily from Miles in that moment, but, it was how his people survived for so many years.
"I assume you have a vampire class with said load out? Or are you just waving your dick in the wind, boy?"
"I could hire one."
"If it’s all the same... I'd like something I'm not expected to hand back in one piece. More specifically though, something I can call my own for good."
"That's what hazard pay and premiums are for... but seriously, we had that kind of thing with the Maras. Then... well... that bitch . Since the Maras was taken from us, we've been scraping by with the most pathetic parasitic lifestyle possible."
"Miles...Have you ever stolen a ship before?"
"I stole a power armor, then I was cut in half by a NIWS with an aether gatling, and left for dead."
"Hiring doesn't seem quite so bad anymore. Tell me, did you have anyone in mind?"
"Not really. I mean, I've seen some ads here and there." Miles admitted honestly in that moment, as some of his bravado drained away.
"We're going to be living rough for a while but... What are we now on your calendar, Nouvaembour?"
"Yeah, the year is due to change soon."
"If you know your way around a ship-yard, I might be able to get you something good for kuruissmass."
There was a smile, before a gentle correction "You're reading some old history, the cats call the holiday Yuletide... "
"I was doing my research. I wanted to get you something nice. You're kind of a dick but you don't talk down to me. You don't forget that I'm a doctor, even if I'm also a patient. I like that."
"Well, if you get me something nice, I'll get you something nice in return. Besides, you're cute."
"Again with that... I'm old enough to be your mother."
"You're overstating that, I'm just a few years younger than you... unless you're into laying really early."
"Lorath are full of surprises, aren't we?"
"Surprises, eggs, and trickery. Like some sort of spring holiday."
"You're alluding to that bastard heresy freak show you call Ueystar."
"I knew you'd get that, since you were reading the old history. Now, we just have Lewis Pasco day. Much more practical, and with guns. Though, it shares the same time as Yuletide." Miles explained.
"...Who's Leurwriszz Plraskglow?"
"Lewis Pasco, a Nepleslian soldier, pretty badass guy. He got a holiday named after him." Miles stopped for a moment, before gesturing to the display behind him. "Hey, we're almost done. I want to see how this goes down."
"Hmm...?"
Miles resumed the display, and with it, the scene unfolded rapidly, as the Nodachi quickly closed in on the AMX-102 and the falling ship, using aether beams to cover its advance, with thrusters at a full burn which made the approach happen within a scant few seconds.
"I don't get it... A 102 should out-maneuver a Nodachi. It should be doing rings around it."
"Combined Field System and gravitic field manipulation. It allows the Nodachi to perform maneuvers with zero inertial effect, and can redirect momentum. With those big aether-plasma thrusters I see there, it can hold its own... that, and the 102 is trying to maintain a defensive position to cover the falling ship."
"...I don't have a great understanding of the CFS, only that you managed to get my centrifuge to do it."
"CFS is a concept founded upon nestled dimensional layer manipulation, energy projection, and field cohesion."
"I know that. I mean, the applications. What I do know is when I turned it inside out, I could make things bigger on the inside."
"Cats were doing that before you. Not as compact as the volucomp, but they had the means to make 'pocket universes' for some time."
"I gather, but we can make permanent structures. It sustains itself, without needing a generator."
"Quite ha---" Miles cut off, as the display brought up the climax of the moment.
With that moment, the AMX-102's feed terminated, as the sat-feed indicated that a pair of high-energy detonations took place within that same few seconds.
Aiesu whistled softly, borrowing a handful of popcorn.
"Well, at least the bitch has style." Miles commented, before grabbing a handful of popcorn, and bringing his attention to the low-observability AMX-102 which made its approach on the Iromakuanhe ship. "Oh hey, this one scored a kill."
"I'm not going to lie" she said, chewing "I'm disappointed in them."
"It was a pathetic display." Miles remarked, as Klein made her return, in a Mindy, and promptly snuffed out the low-observability 102, after having swapped machines, and using a teleporter module to make her arrival, and with that last kill, the data feed ended. All the Lazarus units on site were wiped out.
"Also, damn, I really made a fine machine with that Kylie. Shit, and the Empire still owes me back pay on that thing." Miles remarked, being an asshole on the matter.
"Why don't you make a better one?"
"Honestly? Because I don't trust the company. I would want to make the design myself, and make sure it gets used properly. Especially after watching this fucking farce of an engagement."
"Keep in mind the company did split down the middle. I think I've explained that we're two competitive elements here."
Miles quirked his brow, before replying to the matter with a rhetorical question on the prospect "Team idiot, and team moron?"
"Lagrange and Lazarus, Red and Blue, respectively. yes."
"Yeah, fuck that. We're stealing a ship and getting the hell out of this game... I'm not really keen on sticking around for something that sounds so utterly stupid, while I haven't even been brought up to speed on the rules of how the game is even played. You're the member, I'm just the employee."
"Keep in mind Lazarus is still Lor's primary arms developer. I'm still a pretty big part of all that. If I up and leave, someone's going to notice. That's bad for us."
"So we're stuck?" Miles questioned; "How do you think we could make it so we'd not be missed... erm... in a way which totally does not mean us dying."
"Basically, to continue my work."
"This brings us back to the fact that we have a lethal cat-bitch meddling in Lazarus affairs, we've got the Matriarchy and Empire in bed with each other and that's going to have someone knocking on my door soon to take me away, and we've got a kidnapped lizard-trap that may or may not be related to our situation getting even worse."
"Trap?" the term puzzled Aiesu. "Anyway. You don't have a door. I have a door. You're here as someone totally disconnected from your identity."
"Your country is obsessed with biometric scanning. For every single reason, there is a biometric scanner. Because of what the Maras did for the Matriarchy a few years back, your government has been kind enough not to advertise my presence here. Though, with this treaty, that umbrella is not going to hold up. Besides, if there is someone from a third-party prying into Lazarus, they may catch wind of my presence and want to collect on the bounty on my head."
"Look, we've been going in circles for an hour now. Let's just collect our things. And leave."
"We need to make it look like there is a reason for our departure that won't make people suspicious of you leaving all of a sudden. You still have your public life to consider."
"Medical. It has to be medical. Tell my father... Step father, that I'm being moved under critical condition or something."
"Hrm... That sounds viable, but we need a reason that would not just result in it being more sensible to just bring you to the campus hospital."
"...Maybe its something to do with my work, instead."
"Remember how I was suggesting a construct research team? Why not leave constructs here as our doubles. Meanwhile we make a break for it."
"I'm bringing Albert with me."
"It should work out fine, and, we can just make a generic Albert clone, only you or a Lmanel that knows him can tell the difference really."
"I'm the only one who knows him properly... We're taking Seiren too. I'll be damned if I'm cooking my own meals," she tried to smile.
"I think you need to start working on those constructs. I don't think we can just up and leave as you're suggesting though, we need to plan it out, and do this in an organized way."
"I've got one of myself and one of Seiren already ready. I only need one of you, really. Unless you also want one of Sana done. They take a few days to make.... I ah. Don't recommend meeting your own. It’s not a nice experience."
"Of course I want one of Sana, an accurate one, including equipment so she'll appear roughly identical on Matriarchy sensor scans."
"That's fine, but you'll be expected to fit it all."
"I'll need to go hardware shopping. We're also going to need guns."
"Lots, I gather. What's our transport going to be?"
"Not sure yet. Maybe we'll steal something, maybe we'll buy something, maybe we'll rent something. I'll need an anonymous ID for the Matriarchy network, a fresh clean one, then we can start shopping." Miles spoke, putting his Nepleslian expertise to work. "Whatever we do, we need to do it in a way which leaves our options open at this point. The company may straighten out, you may get in good with them again, I may end up cleared by the Empire, and we still need to account for being hunted. Maybe not even by that Klein woman, it could be another agent, considering that Lalah went missing while this incident on Asura went down."
"Who's to say she's not smart enough to have people acting under her or..." Aiesu grimaced.
"Or?"
"Or maybe she has a copy of herself running around somewhere. If I'm smart enough to do it, who's to say she isn't? It’s illegal on Yamatai if I remember but what's to stop a member of SAINT? We're fucked."
"They're not exactly the same SAINT as they were back in the day, from what I understand by the chatter on Laz-Pub, they're adhering to law more than they ever have." Even as he spoke those words, they felt like a false hope, a liar's promise really.
"W-Who's to hold Helen to those standards?"
"The ruling clan of Yamatai, the Empress, Taisho Yui, the Imperial Pemier, the defense treaty between the Matriarchy, Yamatai, and Nepleslia. The list can go on."
"...I wrote letter to Yui once." Aiesu said. Miles could hear her nerves bundled tightly in her throat, trembling. "
Some how the girl was even pastier than usual, dripping with sweat.
"She replied. She actually replied. Would you believe that?"
