RP: Kennewes Offensive NSS Banning

"Oh, those?" Dream asked, pulling out one of those sheets of paper with the star-and-winged-gearwheel logo painted on them. "They're prayer strips consecrated to Fabricator, god of starship engineering. Since an actual prayer can be bothersome or take up too much time, on my fleet we use these as pre-packaged prayers. The engineer or priestess slaps them on whatever they fix or repair. They help during maintenance, because if you see one somewhere you know that that part of the ship has already been checked - not everyone bothers to check Polysentience, after all, especially if they're doing boring, repetitive tasks and have their mind somewhere else. And it's about the only prayer I'd do on this ship for now, since I think the Nepleslians wouldn't be too happy if I started tinkering with the Banning without their consent."

She tapped on the symbol. "Plus, this metallic ink changes color whenever a magnetic field nearby has some sudden, violent change - it reacts to power surges, short-circuits, and so on. We call this the Blessing of Iron."

She smiled at Tweak while walking down the corridor. "If I remember correctly, you said you were on the Chicken, right? Small ships almost never have a druidess onboard, so a lot of this must be pretty new for you." She chuckled. "Engineers will tell you that fixing the physical body of a ship is all you need to do, but a healthy ship has a soul, too, not just a body and a mind. And the soul is made of beauty, symbols, and inspiration. It's made of love."

She stared into the empty corridors for a second, lost in thought, before heading back into the main room of the engineering section.

“Where is that blasted Mergeo?” Pavel muttered. “Bosses are never around when you need them. I just don't feel right without Anastasia. The sooner we get to the weapons locker, the better.”

/Engineering terminal 01/

Savtech post-infection scans complete. Full system restore. No further compromise detected.

Sorting requests. . .

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“You were asking for me Pavel?”

“Banning! It is so good to have you back. Someone has been cutting wires. Is it safe to return main power?”

“Scanning. No further physical compromise of the power grid is detected. It should be safe.”

“Finally. I will bring us back to main power. And do dedicate a few cycles to try and figure out who did this to you, Banning. Be sure to let me know when you find out.”

With only a small hiccup, normal lighting returned to engineering, and the hum of the Banning's engines returned to normal. Pavel sighed with relief. There was only one thing left to do now. Track down the person who had damaged his ship. At that moment Tweak and Dream returned to main engineering.

“Ah, what good timing. It is best to be in groups now, much safer that way. Oh, and very, very good work, you two. I am grateful you have succeeded, and I am sure everyone else on board is too. Anyway, I was going to go get some weapons, but I cannot just leave engineering now that we have communication with the rest of the ship. Since we have a bit of time to kill until I get some orders I will explain to you what happened, Miss Dream. Someone on board is not who they say they are. They are pretending to be our friend, but in reality have come to harm us. It is this evil person, or even persons, who has damaged our ship. They cut the power line on purpose and gave our poor Banning a virus. If they were a bit better at their job, they could have done much more.”

“But for now, we seem safe. However, we must be alert! Who knows what could happen next. It should soon be obvious who the culprit is now that we have Banning back on line. So pull up a piece of the deck and have a seat. I am afraid we are a bit low on chairs.”

Tweak looked a little confused when Dream mentioned the Chicken, but at that moment they arrived at Engineering and Pavel was welcoming them back.

The neko listened to Pavel's explanation to what had happened and frowned. "A saboteur?" she asked. "Why would anyone want to do only temporary damage to this ship? We're not carrying anything important, are we?"

Pavel shrugged. “Until just now, I did not even know you two were on board the ship. I suppose I can take a look.”

He pulled up a manifest. “Twenty four personnel. And a whole bunch of crates helpfully recorded by their serial numbers only. I don't know. I always thought that I was important, perhaps our enemy has finally agreed. Unless either of you have some sort of big power or knowledge or perhaps are secretly a new weapon system. Who knows what you Freespacers are up to these days.”

Pavel eyed the two women with exaggerated suspicion.

"Geh!" Fian flinched. Just as I suspected, it happened to the NSS Alliance before too. There is at least one in every ship isn’t there? The Vel Steyr gritted his teeth and paused for a moment to think before entering the bridge and grabbing the shipwide microphone.

"Attention all personnel and passengers onboard the NSS Banning, this is Sub-Lieutenant Fian Vel Steyr speaking. There has been a security breach. In the absence of the Captain and in my authority as the next highest ranking officer onboard, I hereby order everyone to remain at their positions. No one is to leave the room they are currently in unless given permission by the bridge or myself. Anyone with information regarding this incident is to contact the bridge immediately!"

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After putting down the microphone really hard, Fian turned to the S2C. "Soldier 2nd Class Valen Sasorix, you are to get to the bottom of this. Use whatever resources or manpower at your disposal to find the culprit, and to make sure nobody moves unless either you, I or the Captain permits it." The marine felt his pockets to make sure his .45 was in there before pacing out of the bridge. "I'm going to make sure the Captain is safe, lock the door behind me."

Dream stared into Pavel's eyes with a rather dumb look on her face. Apparently, she couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that there could be bad people around her, on this very ship.

Then, she eyed Tweak, then herself. "Um, no, I don't think either of us is a new weapon system." She stated, seriously.

Then, she hesitatingly looked around. "I... I can help with ship repairs and maintenance, but I have no previous experiences with... this kind of things. Besides, the structure of our ships is so different from yours that even the wartime directives in the oldest chapters of The Book cannot be applied to this situation."

She sighed, feeling useless. Helpless. "But I don't want to just stand around without doing anything useful." She muttered, glancing at the deck of cards. "...what's that? Prayer strips?" She asked, interested. "I didn't know you were a machine priest, too."

"Not a weapon...not a new system," murmured Tweak, sounding a little distracted. When she heard Fian's announcement, something in her laughed at his orders, but outwardly she just smiled a little bit at them. He just alerted the traitor that he or she was known to be on board, now it would be a matter of how far this saboteur was willing to go to achieve their goal.

Tweak followed Dream's comment and gaze to the deck of cards. She was going to say something about them, but she realized that she was very tired. It had been almost 30 hours since she had last slept, after all of the packing, the notes, the goodbyes...and then the trip so far during which time she had stayed up in her cabin, writing. So now she just felt drained. It had been a full day, and she couldn't think straight anymore. "Is there somewhere I can take a nap? Or can I return to my quarters?" she said in a half-mumbling way. "I'm about to sleep where I stand."

Pavel's attention fell on Tweak. She was muttering nonsense and really did look like she was about to pass out. He'd seen it before. Hell, he'd DONE it before. “I always say sleep is for the weak, but these days, if you cut me, I would bleed coffee. For normal people who have not outgrown sleep, we have a hammock rigged in a compartment just down the hall for extended maintenance schedules. Now that is what I call a good time, extended maintenance. One day I must tell you about it. But for now, go and get some sleep. I am sure your room would be more comfortable, but remember not to leave here, or you could get into trouble.”

“As for these,” he said, picking up the deck of cards and turning back to Dream, “I do not believe they have ever been used by any priest in all of history. I cannot believe you do not have playing cards where you come from. We use them for many kinds of games, and they have saved sanity more than once in the long hours I have to sit down here. Maybe it would not be so fun, after you developed that link I hear about, polyscience or whatever. Never heard of cards. . .” Pavel looked deeply conflicted for several long moments, then sighed and shook his head. “I am sure that if there truly are gods they will all damn me to hell if I teach you Poker. You seem like the worst lier I have ever met, and it is unkind to take from those who cannot defend themselves. Let us start out with 'Go Fish.' I will teach you more interesting games later, if you ask me. But for now, we will start at the beginning. There are four different kinds of cards, you see? This kind is called 'hearts'. . .”

Dream, apparently, was the kind of hyperactive person who couldn't stand still with nothing to do for more than a couple seconds, and so, she took up learning Pavel's games of cards with focus and dedication.

"Ah, so, they're like a template for strategy games." She said, checking the cards one after another. "Interesting. No, we don't have those cards in the Free State. Actually, we have little physical media for entertainment. Most of the games we play are entirely virtual. Almost all, in fact."

She pulled one of her paper talismans out of her sleeve. "I asked because they kinda looked like these at first. They're strips we use during maintenance on our starships. We check an area of the ship and then slap those strips on as a quick blessing for Fabricator. It also alerts other that the area has already been checked, and this red ink turns black with power surges or short-circuits. I just used them on the routers I checked..."

She shook her head, putting away the strip. "Uh, I'm sorry for interrupting, I didn't mean to." She apologized, giving once again her whole attention to the cards and Pavel's explanations, and then, trying a couple of games with him.
She lost the first, while still trying to grasp the basic strategy of the game: She was clearly trying around randomly, calling ranks she had only one card of, two, or three, calling ranks she knew that Pavel had, ranks she knew he didn't have, ranks she didn't know whether he had or not... it was almost like playing with a child who couldn't formulate a strategy, or a computer programmed to act at random but without breaking the game's rules. Pavel won easily and by a landslide.

However, she seemed satisfied by her first match. "Ah, I get the game now. Wow, it's pretty straightforward. You just have to run statistical calculations on the number of cards played, the cards you have in hand, and the cards called by your opponent, and try to guess accurately what his hand is and how it evolves during the game." She smiled. "By the way, what did you mean with "take from those who cannot defend themselves", back then?"

Valen nodded to the Sub-Lieutenant and locked the bridge doors after he had left. He began inquiring the AI and video records for something of importance.

-----

Meanwhile, Captain David Sebastrano cursed as his cabin door finally opened. Apparently, whatever had happened was over now. Until he heard Fian's announcement. "Who the fuck let that guy on the bridge, let alone make an announcement ship-wide?!? he roared as he headed towards the bridge.

He eventually met up with Fian, whom he wanted to have a few words with. "Hey, you're that Sub-Lieutenant that made the announcement, right? Do you think that you can just take over my ship?" The captain was apparently furious... mostly because his ego had been damaged. Sebastrano continued, "What the fuck happened, anyways? What kind of security breach are we talking about?!?" David took a few deep breaths to calm himself a bit. This was not healthy for his blood pressure.

Fian took his hands out of his pockets and saluted the captain. "With all due respect sir, it is military protocol for the next officer to take over in the absence of his superior." He then dropped his hands here. "It is fortunate that you aren't hurt, sir. I will escort you to the bridge where you are needed."

The Sub Lieutenant moved himself into position behind the captain. "A power line has been sabotaged. I have issued an order aimed at limiting the saboteur's movements and actions, we can easily narrow down the suspects if anything else happens." He then looked over his shoulder for a moment. "Thats if S2C Valen hasn't dug out the video records from the JANE."

Tweak went to the hammock and carefully got in. Ah...that was better. She was asleep as soon as her eyes closed.

Pavel looked a bit uncomfortable, and picked up a prayer strip. “So, I am guessing they are made with magnetically charged fullerine-like structures that are red on one side and black on the other. And they are in some sort of suspending medium that allows them to turn, perhaps? I very much like this kind of thing, you must tell me how they work. . . Oh, alright. I will tell you what I mean.”

“Some games you can play with these cards are played for money. Good God, I do not even know if you have any idea what money is. Let us say, for resources. Whoever wins the game keeps the resources, yes? This means that everyone else can no longer use them. If you are able to run statistical analyses in your head, you could be very, very good at this sort of game. However, you will still have two problems. One, people do not like to play with card counters, because they will win very often. The other is that there is another part to most of these games, and that is deceiving your opponent. Even if you know what the other guy is likely to have, there is still a chance that he has something else. Therefore, he will try and keep you from knowing what is in his hand by lying to you, both with his words and with the way he controls his body. And I do not think that this is a skill that you have.”

“This may not be easy for you to understand. If you want, I could teach you and we could play a few rounds with fake money, just to give you an idea. However, I think you should probably not play Poker with normal people. If my guess is right, you will either be very bad, and loose all of the time, or very good, which will make people angry. And believe me, on Neplesia, you do not want to make people angry over a game of cards. Sometimes they can get very. . . serious.”

Dream nodded. "I know the definition of "money", as with a lot of other words which are new for me, straight from the Nepleslian dictionary I memorized before coming here." She said, sounding quite proud of herself. "Money: Noun, uncountable. A generally accepted means of exchange and measure of value; A currency maintained by a state or other entity which can guarantee its value. Synonyms: Cash, Coin, Paper, Moolah, Bucks, Beer Tickets."

"Of course, I don't quite grasp the purpose of it, but I am aware of its existence." She stared at the cards. "I like strategy games, but I prefer perfect-information games over non-perfect-information ones. You could say that I'm not good at deception." She said, stumbling a bit on the word itself.

She put the prayer strip back into her sleeve pocket. "Yeah, I used those around because I was a bit worried for Banning's soul. I think it's quite weak."

She stopped for a moment, pondering. "Of course, I'm looking at her from my point of view, so maybe from where you stand, it's not like that. I'm only a temporary priestess here on board, after all. I still don't know her well, and I don't have a lot of experience about your starships." She added. "But I can't just use Freespacer religious procedures on a Nepleslian starship, can I? Maybe I should come up with an alternative liturgy, combining your starships and your gods with our-"

She paused mid-rant, looking up to Pavel. "Say, Pal, now do Nepleslian gods work?" She asked.

At first, Pavel looked at Dream blankly. Then he began to chuckle, then to laugh with full-bodied gusto, until tears began to fall down his cheeks. Finally he managed to gain some control over himself, clutching his ample side with one hand an waving the other feebly in Dream's direction. “I am sorry, Miss Dream, I am so sorry. I am not laughing at you, or your question. But that you should ask someone like me such a question. And about Nepleslia! It is almost too much.”

“Telling you this is like kicking a puppy, but it is better that you know sooner rather than later. The good news is that you can do whatever you like with your religion on the Banning, provided you do not make any permanent changes. The bad news is that not only do we Nepleslians not believe ships or any kind of machine have souls, but we barely have religion at all. Most of the time, I myself only call on God to curse him.”

“Let me tell you something. Where I grew up, New Leningrad, there was always such violence. Always gangs fighting, people killing each other. Two of my own brothers are dead. Alexandir joined the Black Faction, but he was not bright enough. I told him so, but he went anyway, and chose the wrong side in an argument. He was killed. Boris was even less smart, but he owned a grocery and payed his protection, so he should have been safe. But he was shot to death in crossfire from two fighting gangs while he was opening his shop. And me! I just barely escaped alive. You see my hands? I was not born this way!”

“But that is not the best part. You decide you want help, that you are in danger, that someone should do something? You can go to the police. But they are just puppets of the Black Faction. You can run for office. But the elections are always fixed. You can start your own movement, try to make people drive off the gangs and the mobsters. It could happen. But then, if they think you might succeed, you will be killed. And this never changes. It has been so for longer than anyone can remember, and will be so long after we die.”

“I suppose you could say that we Nepleslians, we need gods more than anyone else. You come from a good place, a hard place, I have been told, but you have each other out there in the endless black. We have planets and a government and weapons. But there is no one to save us from ourselves. How can we believe in gods we if we cannot believe in one another?”

Sorrow washed over Pavel's face, his round features crinkling themselves into a mask of tragedy. “I am so sorry I must tell you these things. You are a good person, a person who believes that other people are good too. And I see so few good people."

"But you are in the Nepleslian Empire now. If you are not careful, someone will hurt you, in a big or small way. It does not have to be soon, but if you stay with us long enough, it will certainly happen.”

“I know I have talked at you for a long time. I know you might not truly know what I have told you. But I do not tell you these things to hurt you. I say them because it is important that you know. You must try to understand!"

Pavel looked thoughtful for a moment, and his mouth twisted into a rueful grin. "Here, consider this. It may help you. The saboteur who is on our ship right now and still could kill us all, who made us think he was our friend and then betrayed us, he is probably a Nepleslian. It is very sad, but it is who we are.”

Dream listened to Pavel's rant in the utmost silence. It was clear by seeing her face that she didn't understand everything that was being said, but still that she was understanding enough to make sense of Pavel's tale.

When he had finished, Dream's eye was all watery, and she was shaking, on the verge of tears.

"...I... I... I'm... sorry..." She wimpered, as if it were all her fault. As if crime, corruption, war, all the evils of the human condition, as if everything that was wrong in the world was just her own fault for not trying hard enough. For not fixing everything that didn't work in the universe.

She lunged at Pavel, hugged him tightly, and started crying. A lot.

Pavel was at a loss. He had not cried since he was quite small, and neither had anyone he knew. There was supposed to be some sort of comforting, wasn't there? With extreme care, he brought up a hand and gingerly patted Dream on the shoulder. “Um. There, there?”

It didn't seem to help. Dream continued to latch onto him and bawl inconsolably. Pavel flushed. He felt like the worst person in the universe. Dream seemed so naive she could easily come to serious harm, but perhaps he had made the wrong choice? He gently tried to pry her off, but Dream clung like a limpet.

He tried patting her shoulder again. No effect. Pavel was getting desperate. He didn't very much about Freespacers. Maybe he had broken her? A note of panic crept into his voice. “Anyway, you must stop this “sorry” business. You are just being silly. It is people like you that make the universe a place worth living in, not horrible people like me. So no reason to cry, yes?”

"YOU'RE NOT A HORRIBLE PERSON!!" She cried in a half-broken voice, still clinging to him.
"You're... you're my friend!" she sobbed. Apparently, her crying fit had ended, but she was still clinging to him. The pressure of both her breasts and her chest-mounted radioisotope generator against him was feeling uncomfortably awkward, for completely different reasons.

"I'm... I'm sorry for all that you've been through, Pal." she whimpered. "I... I don't know what to say." She tried to regain her composure. "Oh, what am I doing? I mustn't cry." She somehow forced herself back to her usual brightly smiling face, although her eye was still red and teary.

Then, she looked back to Pavel. "I'll be your friend, Pal, and I want you to know that you can trust me and count on me, until the end of the universe." He pointed to his pocket. "Keep the Starlight Bolt. The Gods don't care much if we believe in them or not, as long as we're good people and we work hard. And you're a good person and a good engineer." She said, almost as if she had known Pavel for a long time.
"Even after our ways will have parted, it'll bring you hope and inspiration, and maybe some luck." She cleared her last tear with the back of her hand. "It's a lucky bolt. Eighty years ago, my mothership was hit by an asteroid. That was one of the few bolts of the hull that held together."

The captain nodded slowly as they made their way to the bridge. Valen nodded to them, saying, "Good news is I was able to quarantine the virus... Bad new is the virus was able to not only wipe the AI's memory files, but also the video recordings from the mainframe. I don't have an id for the saboteur, unfortunately."

Fian sighed, it wasnt the first time the Reds had eluded him. "Your call, sir. Might be for the best if we can to the NSS Alliance as soon as possible. I can review the rosters to find a few less suspicious marines for security detail if you need it." The Vel Steyr then eyed the captain for a response. Violent outburst aside, he looks like he would know what to do in this situation, the old man must have been flying freigth for years.