RP: YSS Miharu Mission 3, Aftermath

“And for the time being I am at your mercy,” Wazu said, he had been thinking about what to say to her sense they were planet side and her introduction took some of the impact away from his. He had figured out she was a Captain and a Ketsurui from looking at the ship and listening to the crew but now that information was in the open he would need to generate something else to impress with.

“If I may I see the situation as this:

You are working for SAINT trying to dismantle the Daughter’s of Eve organization and having limited success. You have destroyed one of their facilities and gathered some information but ultimately you feel frustrated because of how their organization acts namely because you believe there is a spy either on your ship now or gathering information from you from inside of SAINT to pass to Eve.

With you is this ship, a prototype Escort that is approaching two years of age already. You want to prove to KFY that it is a viable ship but so far you have not been able to do so and it does not look like KFY will add the design to its standard lineup of ships.

I would also assume this is your… second mission with this crew.” Wazu said, having to think about it for a little bit, “The crew aboard your ship has had plenty of time to get to know each other but are still quite green. You have crew members that are capable but few if any that have enough experience to truly perform at their jobs.”

Wazu paused for a bit, then added,

“And I am investigating a murder in which Eve played a key role. I need to speak with her.

You can get me closer to her, and I have extensive experience in engineering, intelligence gathering, and training techniques. Some agreement should be able to be arranged.”

"Freeman, I don't know what you did down there or if was just good karma on your part, but good job." he then comm'd down to the engineer.

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"Sir, it was the efforts of all the engineering crew, not just me," he said. "I'd need five sets of arms and three sets of eyes to do the work they do!"

He nodded to Rin.

"Yes, let's get out of these armors and through decontamination."

He followed Nimura on her way to the armor bay.

Masako looked upon the crowded Med Lab with a concerned frown. She knew most of them were probably rescued prisoners, but of her crew mates, she could only be thankful they were at least alive. The sight of three people in the chambers caused the Warrant Officer to express her concern in the form of biting her lower lip again. But she knew they would live, they had two of the best doctors helping them recover after all. Mara still seemed to be the same as always and had even gathered a small fan club as well. She looked over towards Sanjuro just as he placed the blanket over the unidentifiable (to her at least) corpse before he noticed her.

"Ah no, I am fine," she responded in a calm tone, calmer than she felt anyway. "I was just coming by to see..." she faded off before sighing. "Anyway Ashitaka-Heisho, I didn't realize we had taken this many casualties so I apologize for getting in your way," the Warrant Officer said before glancing over at the hemosynth chambers. "Carry on," she said with a nod before exiting the Med Lab calmly. She had seen enough injuries that such a sight didn't bother her...as much as it had when she was a Hei. But seeing Ichigo and Mara in those conditions wrenched at her figurative heart. Next training exercise is going to concentrate on evasion and use of cover, she thought to herself as she massaged her forehead a bit.

Kotori raised an eyebrow, a bemused expression coming on her face. "I'm not interested in making any agreements with a pretentious smartass of a man whom can't even shore up meager courtesies or gratitude for having his bacon saved from his captors."

The Taisa eyed the white-haired sprite. "Hinoto, escort Mister Wazu to our vacant V.I.P. room and arrange for his basic needs to be attended until we can send him home." As Hinoto nodded and complied, walking up to Wazu and indicating the door, Kotori turned back to the man and flatly ordered: "Get off my bridge."

~If you had left me there I would have gotten a message through,~ Wazu thought to himself, dismissing the thought when he realized he only had one more shot to get the outcome he was looking for.

“Very well, I am sorry that I offended you. In the future I shall remember to show more gratitude for your assistance” He said, turning to leave and follow Hinoto out.

Kotori watched Wazu leave with Hinoto from the other doorway out of the bridge and flicked her hand up to petulantly push some of her black hair behind her shoulder. "Hmph." Her disgust was rather plain.

Her eyes wandered to the data core recovered from Bowhowdia and she asked: "Is this it?"

* * *

Hinoto left silently at first, leading Wazu toward the wardroom on the upper deck. Once they were out of hearshot from even the people around the medlab she turned her head and hissed: "That was the best you could do? I thought you were supposed to be a smart bigshot!" Exasperation shown plainly in her silver-grey eyes.

Nyton listened and watched the Nepleslian he had just introduced summarily insult his crew. It took much effort to restrain himself from either smacking their guest in outrage or putting his hand to his face in embarrassment. As it was, he did manage to keep himself in check as Kotori handled things with aplomb.

Nyton watched Wazu depart the bridge and kept his sigh in check as well. If any dignity could be salvaged he would try to at least keep his emotions in check. After seeing Wazu, a name that may as well have been a household word back on Nepleslia, act in such a manner it was all up to him now to salvage his race's prestige aboard the ship. With a wistful notion Nyton supposed that it really was true how different a celebrity behaved in person.

"Is this it?"

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Nyton's attention was brought to the stolen databases from Bowhordia. He nodded in confirmation. "Yes Kotori-sama, these are the data bases from their main computer. We managed to secure them undamaged."

Wazu blinked… then blinked again. He could not quite wrap his mind around what Hinoto was saying This was not in line with how she had been acting before nor did he expect her to provide any help to him after he aggressively perused information from her earlier.

“People skills are not my strong suit,” Wazu admitted after his long pause, a confused look still plastered across his face as he took a step back from Hinoto

“… and your intentions right now have me confused. What is it that you were expecting?”

Hinoto pushed out into the zero-gravity passageway and turned to offer Wazu her hand so she could tow him up. "Well, think about it," she began - her snow-white hair billowing around her in a nimbus. "You impressed from very early on that you wanted to speak to the person in charge. You implied that getting in our good graces was very important to you."

"But then, once you get the chance, it's like you couldn't help resisting the opportunity to kick the hornet's nest!" Hinoto eyed him in disbelief. "You don't even greet her, you don't even make an attempt at courtesy even when the Nepleslian besides you already cued you as to her being royalty, you slap away her show of hospitality by presenting yourself as a prisoner rather than a guest, you start redundantly telling her things she already knows, openly make guesswork on what she is supposed to be thinking, and insult her crew in the process right after they achieved a great victory?"

"For shame, that has nothing to do with people skills, and much more to do with having an head on your shoulders and using it," Hinoto finished, then beckoned with her hand again so he would grasp it already.

* * *

Kotori smiled, glad the mission had worked out though a specter hovered at the back of her mind. "How many did we-" She left the end unspoken and shook her head slightly. "I apologize, I am getting ahead of myself. Suzuka-Shosa will take over the bridge. Please head to the armor bay with the other people that were in your charge, extend them my appreciation and then give them leave for the rest of the day."

Wazu would reach out and take her hand, pushing off from the floor he was standing on onto the zero-g passage way, again taking some time to process what Hinoto had said.

“That was not the intention of what I said.” Wazu replied, again pausing as he thought about what to say next.

“I had assumed that sense she is captaining a non-standard KFY ship model that she had participated in its construction, in turn implying that she does not follow the standard model for doing things. My thinking was that if anyone would appreciate getting directly to the business at hand it would be your captain.

I fucked up.

Would I be correct in assuming that you would not be telling me this unless you thought there was some way I could fix the situation?”

Hinoto tugged him up to the upper deck and helped him set foot in the corridor leading to the wardroom. "I can't be the judge of that," she replied, releasing his hand. "She's giving you the other V.I.P. room over a Chusa we also rescued from Bowhordia so you probably haven't sunk down to gutter level in her eyes yet. I think she's going to let you stew until you'll be more willing to be polite and then give you a last chance to make an appeal to her. On the bright side, she seems determined to bring you home... which is more than I would've done."

Hinoto started walking only to stop soon after to turn and innocently ask: "Oh, I meant to ask you: are you feeling stress from being sexually deprived after your long captivity? Seeing you come from the heavily male-populated Nepleslia, I'm sure we could have Sigurd service you. He's quite versatile: I'm sure he could entertain you tirelessly with various arousal and sodomization techniques."

As Masako was walking out and away from the medical center a couple of nekovalkyrja accidentally bumped into her with a chunk of Aoiko's discarded Armor. "Ah! I'm so sorry!" said a frizzy short haired brunette. "I couldn't see you there." For some odd reason there were holographic Yamataian characters floating above her head which read 'Akiko' so that one would suppose it was her name.

Another neko with a holographic 'Shizuka' over her head walked up holding a piece of armor that looked as though it had been cut through. Shizuka was slightly taller than both Akiko and Masako with long reddish blonde hair which was somewhat matted and dirty. "Akiko-chan, you just bumped into a superior officer. Show some respect and apologize
properly will you?"

Akiko looked at Masako in horror. "Oh please forgive me Itto-Juni-san!" Akiko said, quickly bowing and forgetting that she was still holding the piece of armor and proceeded to bonk Masako over the head again. Shizuka just looked at Akiko and shook her head.

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Nyton knew what Kotori had almost asked and gleaned that she felt responsible for the losses. If anyone should bear that it was him since he had been in charge of the ground mission along with the journey from space into the atmosphere. That could wait for the debrief and mission reports. For now he would do as ordered. "Roger that Kotori-sama. After I have completed my Armor stowage I will be ready to present you with a debrief and mission report immediately if you so wish. Unless there is some other task you would rather I attend to."

"No, thank you. You have leave to go." Kotori gave Nyton a slight bow to express her thankfulness for his efforts and then walked to the damage diagram at the back of the ship to study the beating they had taken during their third combat campaign.

“The last thing I need is a relationship on that level right now.” Wazu replied, “I tend to ruin those fairly consistently too.” He would reach down to his hip to pick up the datapad that was attached there. The screen was shattered and useless but the frame looked intact.

“If you have a replacement screen or some spare manufacturing time for your nanomachines I would love to get a replacement screen to install instead. I would also like to know what exactly your captain will be expecting in terms of greetings and politeness?”

Hinoto resumed walking, gesturing him along. "Oh, don't worry. Sigurd is a NovaCorp Custodian war android; he has no feelings to hurt; I'll be sending him to you shortly."

She eyed the datapad. "I'll see what I can scrounge up for you. As for military courtesies, didn't you study them back when you served in the Star Army?"

"Hai," Rin replied quietly, following the other two out.

"Etto, I didn't do that much to help..." she muttered as response to Tom's response to Nyton. Confusing, no? She hadn't been around, existing, long enough to have made much of an impact on whatever improvements that were made to the ship's systems.

"No, it was a different Stararmy back then. The crew in those days were more…” Wazu had to pause for a moment again, trying to think of the right word to use. “… Haphazard.

I did not receive any formal training prior to being taken onboard the Yui and by the time I was on a different ship I was to busy to take the formal classes that were beginning to be offered. Nepleslia also did not offer courtesy training when I joined nor was it their biggest concern at the time.

As for Sigurd, I do not think I was clear. I have not had time for sex in quite a while nor do I feel I have the time to waste now. NovaCorp tech is also not really my type, my interests tend to lie more with people like you.”

Hinoto gave Wazu a shocked look. "But Nepleslia is mostly male-populated and you served on warships for months at a time, ships that surely are exclusively male populated. If you want to relieve such tension, you have no choice to turn to your fellow men."

The sprite frowned as they entered the ship's wardroom, though it was Wazu's impression that the room's size was much more suited for an hangar than a dining room. "You don't have to be shy. I've read plenty of Yaoi doujinshi like ID-SOLxID-SOL and Steamy Clone Vats, so I know how it is. I'll send Sigurd to your room and not make too much fuss out of it too, I promise."

After some brief travel through the Hoshi, Tom and company reached Miharu's armor bay. His suit's AIES had conveniently uploaded his battle data to Miharu's database in preparation for the process.

Tom's elation was tempered by the calming and detailed process of peeling off a DAISY's armor piece by piece. He thought of Yukari, how he would apologize to her for having their last conversation be a stupid argument. It was petty and insignificant, a fleck of dust compared to what he and everyone had just been through. To imagine, he could have died, full of regret just because he had gone to bed angry.

The complete foolishness of it made his blood boil underneath his smile. Never again.

But, he had kept his promise to her, at least, in not dying. It was the first step towards mending the wrongs he suffered upon his lover.

The rest would come later.

“While there is some truth to that, really it only expresses itself as a higher percentage of men attracted to other men rather than a complete disinterest in women. Those women that are there also tend to make plenty of money off exploiting the lack of women in comparison to men that are interested in that kinda thing.

I am also not from Nepleslia and…”

Wazu looked over at Hinoto curiously,

“Is that why are you being so nice to me? You want to see some guy guy action in person?”