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  • 📅 February and March 2024 are YE 46.2 in the RP.

New ship same business

Already she was being offered a room, something she had not yet considered. From what she recalled of the YSS Kaiyō II, she held a room with others, though the number of times she actually spent the night cycle in that bunk equaled exactly one. During the time there, due to her mechanical form and programming, she never had to sleep, and not wanting to feel useless or a burden, she spent the nights patiently tidying up the medical bay, often with no one but other medics going in and out during the day anyway, save for specific cases where she was brought about solely to help with some bizarre medical scenario that training did little to prepare for.

She was the one in need of assistance once. She did not like to think of it, as it all ultimately turned out to be little more than the overworked stress of bothers and unresolved issues building up to a crux. It was a waste of worry for the others, and a waste of resources for the ship.

"I'll consider your offer." She began, though she was quickly cut off by the summons to the Captain. She was about to inform the Warrant Officer that he may be asked for assistance in repairing her body should heavy damage come to it in a way that was difficult for her to fix. She imagined such circumstances would be rare, but losing one or both hands would easily make repairs difficult, and a loss of optics would slow the process enough for help to need help. Thankfully such events had not yet occurred, though she had once been in a Mindy that had been shelled by some strange electromagnetic field like a lobster cracked from its shell.

"I look forward to speaking to both of you later." She concluded, turning abruptly, sharply, and with clean precision, she began to walk through the halls, each step carefully measured against the downloaded map in her head. As she turned corner, rising up a flight of stairs, a strange Nekovalkyrja passed her, tears filling her eyes despite a joyous, restrained look covering the rest of her face. Noteworthy, of course, though she didn't know the girl, and she had a place to be.

She strode into the Captain's Suite with the same trained stride that graced parades during public events. Perfect, without any form of hitch or favoritism of a leg, each twitch of muscle refined and intentional. Coming to a clinical halt in front of Ise Katae. Her body, rigid and proper, snapped to a respectful pose, giving a deep, inhuman bow to the officer. "Good afternoon, Taisa. Jôtô Heisho TraumaPatcher Care Seven Six 76-6165-3411 reporting for interview as ordered." She listed the numbers like they weren't a name, rapid-fire without breath, barely a pause between numbers, as if they were an unnecessary serial number on some part they had an excessive amount of.

Her body, the way her facial plates were stiff like a statue found in a museum, the way she moved and spoke, even the cadence of her voice-

They didn't feel genuine. They looked and felt like a mask; like some distant figure commanded a metal puppet rather than showing up in person. There was nothing inherently wrong in the motions, they were all far beyond proper, but something was clearly missing.
 
RP Location: YSS Aeon II

Captain's Suite

Katae was pleased that the increase in generated power caused the cabin door to recycle and worked properly. She made a mental note to be careful with her decision to build a new ship.

When Care entered her cabin she returned the bow with a lesser one given her status. She listened carefully to the crew member before her. She already knew of her origin, but to her it seemed as is only a portion of the name held any real meaning. "Take a seat Might I offer a suggestion to you Jôtô Heisho. You might wish to shortening your designation. TraumaPatcher Care would be both more descriptive and precise. It is just a suggestion. When you are dealing with patient do you speak as rapidly as you just did to introduce yourself?"
 
RP Date:
01 / 14 / 42
RP Location:
Engineering, Deck Three - YSS Aeon II

Seina did not keep Juni-Usaga waiting for longer than necessary. After stowing her meager personal effects in her cabin and wiping the tears from her eyes, Seina floated gracefully out of the cabin as the doors automatically sealed behind her. Then, the diminutive Nekovalkyrja rapidly ascended the stairs until she reached deck three. Utilizing the layout of the Plumeria gunship that she had downloaded to her mind before arriving at Libra Star Fortress, she quickly found her way to the upper engineering room.

The vessel’s blue-white halls had a soothing effect on her emotions, reminding her that she needed to stay composed so that she could efficiently perform her duties and make a good first impression with her department chief. However, while she was eager to impress her commanding officer, she was more excited for the prospect of training in the medical lab. In addition, it was likely that her activities there would see her working closely with the strange gynoid that she had spotted arriving in the observation area before her interview. If everything came to fruition as expected, she speculated that she would have a close working relationship with the gynoid as both her medical apprentice and her designated service specialist.

It would certainly be a novel kind of relationship.

“Reporting for duty and awaiting orders Juni-Usaga!” Seina announced her presence with a crisp Yamataian military salute, which she held until the signal or order to stand at ease was given by the green-eyed engineer.
 
She moved and sat with the same stiff grace, like a programmed ballerina forsaking any sense of fluid to give cold precision to the movement, ever graceful yet wreaking untold havoc on the body that carried such a dance. Even as she sat she stood still and rigid, every position too stiff to be comfortable, but the very nature of her made it difficult to tell if such a harsh posture could even be felt in either sense at all. "Of course, Taisa, aside from introductions, most simply refer to me as Care, and I encourage them to do so." Was her response to the comment on her name. She hadn't known a single person to remember her full numbers, and she knew herself that she'd delete them from memory if they didn't appear on all of her files.

"When I deal with patients, I typically speak in a manner beneficial to the matter. Remaining calm, yet steadfast is appropriate in most situations, though a slow voice often helps. I introduce those numbers with such speed because of how little they matter beyond formalities, Taisa. It would not be fitting for me to stress the importance of numbers that have lack the value to devote them to memory, especially to those of higher rank." Her words were laced with formalities, phrased inoffensively and censored as if whatever she spoke had gone through multiple revisions before it left her mouth. The distinction was not lost on those who heard it.
 
RP Location: YSS Aeon II

Captain's Suite

Katae watched the minute signs of Care fashioning her response. Katae wanted to see how Care would respond. She smiled at Care. "I am pleased to know that you have developed your own version of a bedside manner. Do you have any special requirements? What do you do when you are off duty? Do you have any hobbies?" She made the inquiries because she wanted to know if Care was able to fit in at social events.

Engineering

Hisa started climbing down from the Aether generator. She did not just give a salute to me. She slid down the last few feet of the scaffold and turned to Seina. The Juni clearly had a scowl on her face. She walked towards Seina and stopped about one foot from the new crew member. "So Mazaki-Hei. you better put that arm down. Do you see any officers here in Engineering? Are you treating me like an officer. You better not be. There is only one person currently on the Aeon II who gets saluted and that is the Ise Katae-Taisa. I work for a living Hei. I catch you saluting when there is not an officer in sight. I'll throw a spanner at you."
 
Personal questions, ones she was unused to, questions that pried into things that she'd ultimately rather not share. She knew better than to lie, though, and that left her with little more to do than produce the uncomfortable, possibly disconcerting truth on the matter. The pause was notable, though her facial plates did not shift until she began to speak, though as before the only parts that moved were the exact plates and gears required to move her mouth as she spoke. “I don’t require much, physically. Due to my construction, sleep is not necessary for me to function, and aside from standard maintenance and diagnostics which I preform on myself, there are excessively little resources that I require to function at maximum efficiency.”

That was only the beginning of it, the softening start to what she knew would cause worry, yet was the one thing she had done little in the prior months to prevent or alter. She had, of course, tried. However that process had failed each time, and she was left feeling more empty than when she began. “I…” She hesitated, the word catching in her voice modulator as if she stammered. It was the first time since she came on board that she seemed to truly hesitate in her words, more so than just the momentary paused of her thinking of what to say next. “I do not have hobbies, Taisa. I have attempted to gain them, though I have unfortunately failed in such attempts.”

That just left one final question, one that she truly did not have an appropriate, plotted answer for. She seemed to stare forward blindly as words flashed and blurred in her mind. Words, like equations, trying to find a solution that adequately came together. “On the YSS Kaiyō II, I remained in the medbay even when not technically on duty. I simply did not have anything better to do.”
 
RP Date:
01 / 14 / 42
RP Location:
Engineering, Deck Three - YSS Aeon II

The pink-skinned Neko knew that she had made a grievous error when she saw the scowl twisting the pulchritudinous features of the warrant officer. In a panic, she quickly assessed her posture and the quality of her salute, but found nothing out of place. It was only when the Juni reprimanded her in a stern tone did she realize that she was not supposed to salute a warrant officer. She immediately put her arm down and nodded, keeping her eyes set forward and neutral as her commanding officer chewed her out for what she hoped would be her first and only misstep.

In the space of only a few seconds, her dreams of making a good first impression with her commanding officer were dashed against the unsympathetic white walls of the engineering room. Suddenly, the Hei felt different kinds of tears well up in her eyes. However, Seina didn’t let her self-pity show across her features. She quickly blinked the tears away and donned a proverbial mask which showed a stoic face to the world.

“Yes, Usaga-Juni, I will not salute you again!” Seina yelled out at nearly the top of her lungs, her high-pitched voice echoing against the unflinching Zesuaium walls of the room.
 
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Captain's Suite

Katae listened to Care. She sensed that she was finally getting to see the real Care. "Care just because you were unsuccessful in your attempts with hobbies is no reason to give up. You can not fail in a hobby. You can find out that a given hobby is not one for you. So it means you have not found a hobby that suits you. When you were trying hobbies, were you trying it on your own? Or did you seek out a crew mate who was familiar with that type of hobby who could help you? You should not give up on finding a hobby. For one thing a hobby can give you something else to think about, and something to share with your fellow crew members."

She paused for a moment to let Care consider her words. "Now as for staying in the medbay when not on duty. There are only a few valid reasons to be there. The Chief Medical officer may have given you an extra assignment, or you are volunteering to cover for another crew member. Otherwise, you should be elsewhere on the Aeon II. I'm going to give you an assignment, when you are off shift. You must find two crew members who are not on duty. You must learn something about that each one. For example what is their favorite drink, or food. Once you have completed that task, send me a message about what you learned. Then you can retire to your quarters, or avail your self of the ship's amenities."

Engineering

Hisa watched Seina, After about a minute she relaxed and smiled. "You aren't the first one to make that mistake. Even though they drill it in training. But remember this, we work in a hazard area. So flailing limbs are no a good thing. You got here at a good time. I'm about to bring the Aether Generator online. That requires two people to do it safely. " She walked over to a console. "I want you to man this station. When the Aether Reactor gets to 70% you need to engage the generators. If the generators do not settle, then disengage. I do not want to have to tell the Taisa that we damaged a generator on start up." She punched in a series of keystrokes. "Okay, you have access for this console." She started walking to the other side. She paused. "Once we get this done we have eight androids assigned to the ship. They are in the cargo hold. You can initalize them them up and link them with Eternity."
 
Care could not pretend to understand the kind of perspective that Katae held, but she could at minimum hold her tongue on it, her still face not betraying the feeling that stirred inside her. She allowed the stirring emotions to find the right circuits, subroutines that caught and filtered those emotions before they swelled to dearly uncomfortable levels, and in result those simple programs felt more at peace having satisfied their basic, thoughtless programming. It was the kind of feeling one had when they finally got to use their new gardening tool after a long winter.

She had attempted something, a clear end goal in mind with a process to achieve it, and that end result was never acquired. There was not a finer word to apply to said attempts other than failure. Regardless, her mouth moved, and she answered back in the same inhuman way, that synthetic, radio tinged drone hid any thought of emotion to her words. “I performed these actions in solitary, as I did not wish to bother the crew.” The phrasing was simple, inoffensive, but spoke quite plainly what her own perception told her. ‘The crew.’ Not ‘The rest of the crew.’ Though she did not say it outright, the phrasing did it for her.

At least on her old ship, she did not perceive herself as an actual crew member, rather, she was an outsider, something that looked in from the outside and occasional took what role was assigned. From what she spoke of her hobbies, it was difficult to determine if she had even spent time with friends.

She did not respond immediately at the instruction, and though her still form did not give it away, her processors were firing off at an alarming rate. Something squishier might even call it panic; for what she was instructed to do seemed like an insurmountable task. She was to do this repeatedly? She could hardly imagine doing it once. Practically every interaction she had prior, someone else had began, someone else had pushed her to speak and open up-

And each and every one had been pushed back and closed out. Would this work? What more would this do than make it hurt worse for everyone when her shell inevitably closed the moment the required information was gained?

...That didn’t make sense.

For a moment, it seemed, her own thoughts defaulted to it, The isolation, the lack of bother of others. Why did her brain default to that lonely state? She didn’t know. The queries she put into her behaviours often came back confused or directionless. The question put into her own system scans simply told her: Insufficient data. Insufficient meaning.

“Yes, Taisa.” Was her response. “I will carry out your orders.” That was about all she could respond with. Nothing else seemed fitting, anything else felt as if the wording would give the wrong equation, the wrong result back.
 
Shunjou regarded the Juni with his usual large, friendly smile and spoke in tones just a tad too casual for an enlisted to an officer. "A pleasure, ma'am. I'll be right back."

He did as requested and delivered his lightly-packed bag to the lounge before levitating himself into the air and quickly drifting himself back to the XO. He saluted her this time, still airborne. "Ready when you are. Lead the way and I'll follow. As for questions... I don't really have anything off the top of my head, though I'm a little concerned if you don't have any birds yet. I'm not sure what use I'll be, unless you have a stage or karaoke bar or something like that on the ship."
 
RP Date:
01 / 14 / 42

RP Location:
Engineering, Deck Three - YSS Aeon II

Seina endured the achingly long minute with the patience of a priestess, her features unflinching as her commanding officer examined her with a steely-eyed glare. When the Juni finally spoke, Seina held back a sigh of relief as the raging storm of her emotions abated and transitioned into gentle tides. She was relieved to be assigned a task, even if it didn’t necessarily fall under her primary occupation profile as an android service specialist. In training, she had often went out of her way to avoid working in generators and engineering rooms. Given her rating as an 06, Seina was more suited to working in front of computers than in hot generator rooms. Nevertheless, Seina nodded to her commanding officer and immediately moved to boot up the console.

“Yes, Juni!” Seina answered as she established a wireless connection to the console via SPINE. In doing so, she could react far more quickly to any unexpected shifts in the generator’s power levels than she would have through manual input. After taking a few seconds to re-familiarize herself with the necessary inputs, Seina sent a silent transmission to the Juni to let the woman know that she was plugged in and ready.

A few moments later, the reactors hummed to life, an oddly tranquil noise which belied the sheer amount of stellar power that they were capable of channeling into the ship. All the while, Seina perceived the power levels with surgical perception, feeling every harmonic note and rhythmic beat as they gradually increased. Then, as soon as the power levels reached 70%, Seina kicked the generator to life with a single decisive thought, adding a booming note to the melody of sounds in the room. She immediately shifted her focus to the integrity of the generator and began to monitor it closely in the hopes that it stabilized.
 
Captain's Suite

Katae had been watching Care. She could see the internal struggle that the crew member was experiencing. "One point of clarification regarding the instructions I have given you. I am not expecting you to ask about personal things. Simple things, like what is their favorite beverage, or food. That will be sufficient. Your interview is complete. Choose a cabin and stow your gear. Then report to the Main Medbay. Sakura-Juni will be expecting you. Welcome aboard."


Engineering, Deck Three - YSS Aeon II

The generator engaged and started to cycle up. There was a bit of a fluctuation in the readings. While the reactor was providing a stable source of energy and slowly increasing, the generator was not responding in the same fashion. "I'm throttling the reactor back to 70%. Check the generator on your side. Look for any large pins with a red tag. If you see any, pull them out. Means someone on the station did not remove them after install. I'll monitor the systems while you do that." Hisa called out.


Hanger Deck Package

Yani smiled, "I'll be sure to bring up those talents if we have a ship's dare night." She entered the Zero-G Passage way and moved down towards deck 5. "We may not have our fighters but we will before we leave. And we do have shuttles on the Hanger space. We currently have a Ke-T8 Kuma and a Ke-T7 Raccoon. They are the ones from the original Aeon. There will be 3 more Kuma and one more Raccoon. It will be enough for the moment to show you around and let you meet the maintenance crew."
 
The short man followed, still hovering lazily in the air. He shrugged, his easy smile still plastered on his lips. "I've flown a Kuma before. Not a Raccoon though. I wouldn't mind taking one out for a test drive sometime. Still, nothing beats a proper fighter. The faster the better! Any idea what models they're giving us?" His voice grew excited as he spoke about his passion, but he shook it off just as quickly and changed the subject.

"I'm eager to meet the crew, actually. I like to be well-acquainted with the people who work on my bird. I like to help them with it, actually. I'm not a dedicated mechanic, obviously, but I hope the regulations on this ship will let me work with them."
 
Hanger Deck Package

Yani stopped on deck 5 and stepped into the Deck area. "Well, its been my experience that the maintenance crew appreciate at pilot willing to help. The normal crew for a 2E is around 44. However, the Taisa's modification has added approximately 80 techs to maintain the small craft. We are requesting some "Nodachi" Assault Fighters, and "Kawarime" Fighters. Of course we'll have to wait and see what Logistics sends us."

She looked around the spacious section of the ship. "Definitely going to take some time to get used to a space like this. Over there you can see the shuttles. You can see the status of the craft by the volumetric barrier around it."
 
"Understood, Taisa. Good afternoon, Taisa." She said simply, the thorough programming and subroutines taking over quite flawlessly. She abruptly stood, taking a proper stance and a deep, formal bow. Properly shifting, she turned and strode back out of the Captain's Suite, keeping her standard, formal pace as she vanished from sight, into the bowels of the ship once more. She kept the route stiff, heading straight for the barracks. She held little else other than her other than other uniform items, which she quietly stowed in the cabin that had been offered to her earlier by the enlisted female she had spoken to.

From there, she strode out towards the Medical Bay, each step firmly calculated against the map in her head. She tried to keep those requirements made of her down, away from her thoughts for the moment. She didn't need to think about those... Clogs in the gears. Sakura-Juni. The name was unfamiliar, she'd have to look for the rank. As she entered the medbay, her eyes quickly clicked and twisted, scanning quickly about for the rank, for the individual she was to report to.
 
RP Date:
01 / 14 / 42
RP Location:
Engineering, Deck Three - YSS Aeon II

“Yes, Juni!” Seina shouted after she unplugged from the console and floated towards the generator on her side of the engineering room. The noises of the generators and the reactor pounded against her sensitive ears as they slowly re-acclimated themselves to the constant din in the room. Nevertheless, the pink-skinned Nekovalkyrja set about her task and utilized her enhanced vision to examine the generator in search of any large pins with a red tag. As she worked, she wiped her hand over her forehead, which came away clammy with sweat. Although her Nekovalkyrja abilities ensured that simple labor in an engineering room would not even remotely tire her, she was entirely unaccustomed to working in high temperatures. Even though the sweat had nearly soaked through her bodysuit, she couldn’t imagine how the older engineering Nekovalkyrja had endured working in such hot conditions in bodies that were unable to perspire.

Seina was willing and eager to put herself on the frontlines of danger to protect Yamatai, but if they ordered her to switch to a body that could not perspire, she was almost completely certain that she would request a discharge from the service instead.
 
Main Medbay

Sunflower was stocking one of the medical supply cabinets when she saw Care enter. She loaded the shelf with practiced speed. "Hello, you must be Traumapatcher Care. Welcome to our new medbay. Hard to believe that we actually have 3 separate medbays and this on is three times the size of the one on the old Aeon. "I am Ittô Juni Sakura Sunflower. I served aboard the Sakura long ago, I've been on the Aeon since YE 33." She looked around. "Its quiet at the moment, but was the crew comes on board, we'll be busy doing soul backups. I you are not organic, so we'll need to make sure to backup your neural net."

Engineering

As Seina checked the generator she spotted a piece of a bright red ribbon. It was in between two sections of the generator. That explained while it took her a while to find it. Only about two inches of the ribbon was visible.
 
Care spotted the rank before anything, and after the rank, very little else mattered. She gave an appropriate, stiff bow to the Warrant Officer, each motion the same robotic movement of a dancer that fit each conduit motion to the finely tuned metronome of motion. The essence of organic naturalism, of the comfort of movement, was clearly lost, maintaining only the terrible stiffness; the terrible acute movements that followed all the key signs of what it meant to walk, to bow, to look around, but losing something key to their beauty along the way.

It would be easy to say, at first, that there was nothing thinking behind that cold gaze. “Good afternoon, Ittô Juni. I am Jôtô Heisho Traumapatcher Care Seven Six 76-6165-3411.” The same, standard response as before, as if she had months ago said it once with purpose, and had simply copied and repeated the same exact sound file over and over, each greeting the same tone, the same ups-and-downs, the same rushed completion of meaningless numbers. “Though I encourage those who speak with me to simplify that as much as it suits them. Care would do just fine but is entirely up to your discretion, Itto Juni.

That much was new but held just as much practiced stillness to hold no emotion as the other words. With other machines, she could dictate her meaning almost instantaneously, but with organics, they preferred speaking, the words that could be inferred and read a hundred different ways from a hundred different perspectives. The benefit was that she could practice the phrasing just as many times to get it perfect in the time it took her to speak. She didn’t see it kindly to allow them the chance to dissect the words for the pronunciation.

“I am prepared to begin such tasks as soon as the new personnel arrives. For my own information and backups, I am fully capable of uploading and updating my own information, as I have done at my prior stations. I have unique coding, as my thought process is still entirely original and self-improving, as designed by my creators.” Her coding did not make her better as it improved, by any means. It improved in much the same way anybody else organic did, her experiences and thoughts would change her. Organics all ran the same wet code, as far as Yamatai’s synthetic soldiers mattered. Hers were… Notably different, even if checked against known Freespacer indexes.

“However, I am aware that there are qualified robotics and android specialists. If necessary at and their convenience, they are also qualified to assist in the scanning, verification of integrity, and updating of my data. Despite my specific career, my internal functions are still very mechanical, Itto Juni.
 
RP Date:
01 / 14 / 42
RP Location:
Engineering, Deck Three - YSS Aeon II

Finally.

The pink-skinned Nekovalkyrja breathed a deep sigh of relief when she spotted the bright red ribbon. She immediately stuck her hand between the two sections of the generator and pulled the pin off by the ribbon. Frustratingly, the simple sounding task had taken her longer than expected. Fortunately, she at least had something positive to report to her commanding officer, rather than nothing at all.

“I found one, Juni.” Seina relayed through wireless transmission to the green-eyed Nekovalkyrja. “I’m currently looking for more.” She added, not wanting to be premature in her declaration of her success. After wiping her hand over her sweat-soaked forehead, Seina once again set her focus on searching for more red ribbons, especially in the hard-to-reach and inconspicuous areas around the generator. The pink-skinned technician didn’t stop until she had searched every nook, cranny, and aperture. She had heard more than a few rumors of Mini-Neko being utilized in the engineering of some ships because they could fit into spaces that normally-sized personnel were unable to. If one of the tiny creatures had been particularly careless in doing her job, it was possible that a pin could have been left behind in an area that she would be unable to reach or even see.

For the sake of the already bad first impression she had made with her commanding officer, Seina desperately hoped that was not the case.
 
RP Date: 01 / 14 / 42
RP Location: Medbay

Sunflower smiled at Care. "I understand, but we do need to make arrangements to ensure your continuation. Even in a worst case situation. All members of our crew have the right to survive. I would suggest that you take advantage of a crew member who can help with your physiology. Then provide me with a report that I can submit to the Taisa."

She picked up the empty containers and stacked them to be recycled later. She then logged that the cabinet she was working was fully stocked.

"When you get a chance check out a 31C Medical Kit and store it in your quarters, That way when you need to respond to an emergency and are in your quarters you can grab it and respond. If you do not mind, go ahead and finish check the cabinets and ensure they are all properly stocked. I need to start reviewing our crew members medical files." Sunflower said. "I will not close the office so you can talk to me while I review."

RP Location: Engineering

Seina's search revealed no more safety pins left behind. However she did find a lower panel on the generator that had writing on it. The panel had official markings that read, "Main Generator - YSS Aeon II" Below it were the writings that were brief and seemed to be intended as inspirational. There were various hand writing present.

"If you are sure of your search, lets get the generator up and running. I do not want the Taisa to have to come down and ask why were are still using Station power. Hisa called out to Seina.
 
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