RP: Kennewes Offensive NSS Banning

Tweak wasn't sure if the engineer had completely understood her suggestions, but she also didn't know the ship as well as he did, nor the people inside it, so she just gave him a hopeful smile.

The bridge received Pavel's message through the Banning's AI. The captain was dumbfounded, "Has engineering gone crazy or something? There can't be a fuckin' cat demon on my ship! Valen, go down to engineering and find out what the hell is going on!"

Valen, slightly grateful that the captain had gotten his name right this time, hurried off the bridge to get down to engineering. Cat demon? he thought to himself. Do they mean a 'Neko'? The young Geshrin had actually never seen a Neko before. His family had been on a freighter with all Geshrin and Nepleslian crew. Some of the them had referred to the 'Nekovalkyrja', but Valen didn't know what they were talking about. Now, maybe he would...

He arrived at engineering a few moments later. He was slightly out of breathe as he asked Pavel, "What's the matter? The captain is a little peeved at you, ya know?" The S2C hadn't noticed Tweak yet, though.

“Angry at me?” Pavel rumbled. “I haven't even asked him to clear out the spaces around the engines yet. What is it this time? I'm busy down here. Unless you are supposed to be security?” The robust engineer guffawed.

“The captain only sent one person? He must really hate me and want me to die. Here is Tweak. It would just so happen to turn out that she is a goddamned cat-de. . . I mean, a Nekovalkyrja. But so far she is being very cooperative and helpful. If she is a saboteur, she must be the worst one ever to live.”

Pavel leaned in close and whispered to Valen, unaware of the Neko's keen hearing: “Between you and me, I do not think she is right in the head. But she can do math, so how about we just let her stay here for a while, yes? From what I hear of these devils, if she wanted to escape I would already be dead.”

Valen then noticed Tweak. He remembered her from when she had first arrived back at the station. How could I have missed those ears? he thought to himself. That's right, she had been wearing a bandana!

He smirked as he replied to Pavel, though not in a whisper, "Agreed. However, I doubt that she is the saboteur. The real saboteur was terminated in the cargo bay by Sub-Lieutenant Vel Steyr. Hm..." Valen thought for a moment.

She looked harmless enough, but... The Geshrin then came to a decision, "Alright, Pavel!" He looked at the Nepleslian straight in the face, "Officially, she is labelled as a Freespacer, and we shall look at her as such. In truth, it is none of our concern. Never speak of this again. I will take care of it." He nodded to the engineer before walking towards Tweak.

Valen examined the Neko for a second before folding his arms and smiling. He simply said, "Don't worry," and tried to act as friendly as possible. The comm spec had no hatred for her kind at all, so it wasn't too difficult. He continued, "No one is going to hurt you. A bit of advice, though: For future reference, you might want to cover these." As he finished his sentence, the Geshrin pointed to her feline ears. He hoped that his friendly attitude and smile would make her less nervous.

Tweak had put her hands back on top of her head after showing Pavel her ideas, and was seated on the floor when Valen arrived. She immediately noticed the difference in his reaction when he finally noticed her. Valen didn't seem as fearful as Pavel was. If there were more of her kind, and if they were as bad as Pavel thought they were, maybe Valen had never met any? Or maybe Pavel had never met any.

That doesn't matter! she thought. I know I'm not that way, and that's what is important.

Her eyes roamed the room while the engineer and officer conversed, but flicked back to Pavel when he referred to her state of mental health. Hmph. Well, that didn't matter right now either, this time because she didn't want it to matter. She just had to focus on proving her usefulness to this crew so they didn't lock her up or boot her out an airlock.

When Valen addressed her, she slowly lowered her hands at his reassurance. "Alright...um..." She remembered the bandanna and that she had stuck it in her pocket, so the neko reached in her coat to find it. While she did that, Tweak looked at the floor and thought over what she had just heard. So far they had called her a "cat demon", a "nekowalkyrja", and a "freespacer", whatever those were. The large man had also called her "Tweak"...maybe that was her name?

Valen saw Tweak relax a little. He then said to Pavel, "You might want to keep on eye on the engines while I talk to Tweak." He wanted to speak with her privately if he could. She seemed to be confused about the situation, so having Mergeo or someone else walk in and have the same reaction as Pavel... or worse... was hopefully avoidable. He motioned for Tweak to follow him to another part of the engineering block.

Taking the kerchief from her pocket, Tweak folded it into a triangle and tied it over the top of her head, tucking her ears under it. She paused when the comm spec motioned for her to follow him, but decided that there wasn't any reason for her not to, since she was stuck on this ship anyway. She made sure her ears were hidden and then followed Valen.

After they had moved a short distance from Pavel, Valen turned to Tweak and asked, "Tweak, is something wrong? You seem... confused." He hoped that his assumption didn't seem far-fetched to her.

Tweak looked up at Valen. He was nicer than Pavel, and he knew who she was...but something bothered her about his actions. She pondered the man's question, thinking over her situation in what was only took a few moments.

Fact the First: She was supposed to be there, on that ship, that was clear enough. They just didn't know that she was what she was, apparently...so that cloth must have been what hid her ears to start with. The ears must be what make her visibly different than them, so that's why the cloth was on the ground when she woke up, wasn't it? The engineer had mentioned that she could have killed him rather easily if she wanted to, which would explain why he was so afraid when she first appeared.

Fact the Second: She had not been there long. Both Valen and Pavel had shown no sign of knowing that she didn't already know them...Pavel had mentioned that she was "not right in the head", and Valen wanted to know if she was alright...so her memory loss was not due to an accident seeing as Tweak knew her body was uninjured and that no one had mentioned anything about an accident. So either her lack of recall was a first-time occurrence, or it happened often, the latter combined with them not recognizing that she was a "nekovalkyrja" signifying that she was probably a new crew member. But how had she dealt with this before? There had to be some sort of record that she kept to help her remember.

Fact the Third: They were going somewhere important. Easily figured by the over-exertion of the engines that the engineer had insisted on performing. And there was mention of a saboteur, so the cargo or passengers must be important. Military, government, or VIP. Most definitely NOT herself.

And, finally, Fact(s) the Fourth: The most important facts were the ones she had picked up from the conversation between Pavel and the officer. Now she knew her name (Tweak), race (Nekovalkyrja), and cover (something called a 'Freespacer'). The last one was probably a race that looked very similar to these two and herself, but with subtle differences.

The neko decided that, if she was to figure any of this out, she would have to rely on herself and do it quickly. She smiled a little as she realized that her reasoning abilities were quite good and quick, which would greatly help her in finding out about herself and her surroundings.

"Uh, yeah...I'm fine. I just woke up from a nap, I'm afraid Pavel's outburst gave me a bit of a scare," Tweak said with a slightly embarrassed smile to the concerned man, being careful to use Pavel's name, which she had picked up when the Com Spec used it earlier. Hopefully she could get by without knowing Valen's...if she was new, maybe she hadn't met him yet? Valen seemed to recognize her, but that didn't mean that formal introductions had taken place. "I think I just need to be alone right now, though."

"Understandable." Fian muttered to himself. He figured the Freespacers didnt have different political entities in their society. This was something the Nepleslians have been trying to achieve for years, except with lots of explosions and none of that polysentience thing. How convinient.

"Yeah, if it were not for you, I would be really dead." Fian smiled back in return. "Guess I would have to listen to the advice of a good medic, keep awake? Yeah, I'll try."

Some time passed, without any other conversation. Dream was more silent than usual: She checked Fian's wounds and vitals every minute or so, and little else.
Her hands were less firm and dexterous than when she had pulled out those bullets so skillfully a bit earlier: she seemed both a bit shaky and... well, clumsy. Like she was sleepy, or drugged, or drunk.
Her skin had been slowly changing color, too, from her initial light yellowish-green to a darker shade of ochre yellow.

"Yeah, mmmkay..." she muttered. "You'rre... I mean, you'll be fine. Hope we arrive soon at that Alaian... Alleian... Alliance thing of a ship."

Valen nodded before replying, "Hm... alright, take all the time that you need. We'll be arriving at the NSS Alliance soon, and I have to get back to the bridge. I'm not sure if we'll ever see each other again, but just remember this: You'll have a friend in me, Valen Sasorix, Soldier Second Class. Remember that if you ever get into trouble again." He smiled one more time before turning to leave.

On his way out of Engineering, he told Pavel, "You can keep an eye on her, if you want, but don't harm her. Yamatai wouldn't have sent a Neko as a spy. A Yamataian disguised as a Geshrin would be more plausible." Valen hoped his assumption was correct, as they didn't need any more blood shed right now.

Tweak thanked Valen and watched him go. Then she turned to Pavel. As much as she just wanted to look for clues, they might still need her. "Can I still help here?" she asked the engineer.

Pavel gently let out a breath he had been holding. For a moment, it looked as if the Neko was going to leave, sticking him with the bewildering world of astrogation mathematics. “Why yes, I think I could find a bit of something for you to do. We are now very behind schedule, so I will leave you with the math while I try to get these heat sinks set up. If you find we need more deceleration force, well, I will just have to think of something. With your permission, Valen, we will get started at once.”

Valen nodded his approval right before taking his leave. He then made his way to the bridge. Fortunately, the captain wasn't in the mood to question Valen's explanation for Pavel's earlier behaviour. That was fortunate for Tweak's sake.

-----

About two hours later, the NSS Banning finally met up with the NSS Alliance. After Valen had transmitted an explanation and apology for their lateness, the freighter soon docked with the destroyer. Then, new orders came to Valen, who relayed them to Captain Sebastrano. The captain then spoke to everyone through the Banning's communication system:

Attention all passengers and personnel. Due to recent events, the Banning will be impounded for further investigation. All passengers and crewmates are to immediately board the Alliance. The crew will be reassigned to new ships. In summary, they are shutting us down, boys@ Good luck to all of you shitheads!

Click to expand...

Shortly after the message, some medics arrived in the cargo bay to bring both Fian and the decapitated head of the Red saboteur to the Alliance's medbay. They would be taken care of promptly and professionally. The lead medic ordered Dream to get back into her Voidwalker suit and proceed to the Alliance before leaving with his comrades.

Valen, as last act as a member of the crew of the NSS Banning, saluted his captain and stated, "It was an honor serving under you, sir! I hope that I may serve under you again one day!" The rest of the bridge crew also stood and joined Valen in his salute, saying in unison, "So say we all!" David smirked as he tried not to cry with pride. In his eyes, his subordinates had just given him the greatest gift possible. He turned away from them as he responded with a tough guy attitude, "Ah, get the hell out of here! Y'all were a bother anyways." Valen and the rest of the bridge crew smiled as they filed off the bridge. The captain waited a while to get one last look at the ship that he had called home for so many years. It was his own way of saying goodbye to the old girl... once and for all...