RP: Kennewes Offensive NSS Banning

Pavel read Valen's message once. He read it twice. He read it a third time, just to be sure. He straightened, his tiredness seeming to fall from his shoulders. “Do you hear that, Banning?” he shouted, cracking his knuckles. “We are going to have some fun tonight! It is just you, me and the plasma welder. Repairing this is going to be a complete bitch, but for now, you are mine.”

The bulky engineer dug the talisman Dream had given him out from his pocket and hung the string around his neck, so that the bolt fell below the collar of his uniform and was thus out of sight. “I really must thank Dream again for you, little bolt. You must truly be as lucky as I thought you were.”

“We have no time to waste while I make the changes. Banning! Get the captain's permission for a fifteen minute burn at full power. By that time, I should have been able to reconfigure the cooling systems a bit and overridden that damn safety protocol. Everyone knows that even without modification these engines can manage at least eighteen minutes burn at maximum power before melting. Of course, we must be able to decelerate, so I'll have to get that set up within fifty minutes or so. . .”

Somewhere there was a thump and a squeak, but Pavel paid it no mind, already lost in thought as he clanked off into the twisty bowels of the engineering block, muttering to himself and accumulating tools as he went. A sudden thought struck him. “Miss Tweak!” he bellowed back over his shoulder. “It is wake-up time! I need you to find regulator 12-B and cut it out of the system. It is on the port side and looks like a big metal box that says '12-B' and has a red 'do not modify or disconnect' sticker on it. I will be having a look at the cooling system. Hurry! Fian is hurt.”

Dream smiled at Fian like she didn't care at all. "I see. Pleased to meet you, Fian... Warcase Fian." She said, assigning yet another of her nicknames. "I'm Dream Zero Zero, a priestess. My job here is quite the opposite."

Then, noticing that Fian was awake, she tried to keep him conscious by striking up a conversation with him. "Well, you were in really bad shape when I found you. Six bullets, one through a lung, one splitting a major vein, and one that stopped less two centimeters shy of your heart. Terra must've smiled on you."

She tapped lightly on his chest. "Right now I'm worried about the lung. Breathe in deep, slow breathes, and, when you breathe out, don't empty it completely. You must keep some air in it, or it might still collapse. You can talk, but don't overexert yourself."

She paused for a moment, thinking of what to say next.

"I've put some symbionts in you, they'll keep all of your holes patched up until we reach someplace with an operating room. I'll stay here with you, in case your body rejects one of the symbionts or something else goes wrong."

She grasped his unwounded hand softly, sitting beside him. Of course, those weren't the only reasons that he stayed by his side. He had to take care of his soul, too... not just of his body.

She looked around her, staring at the decapitated PA for a while. "I suppose the saboteur is taken care of. You'll tell me exactly what happened some other day." She said, shrugging. "Is there something I can do for you? Something you need, something you need someone to know? Someone you want me to call here for you?"

Pavel's shout woke the sleepy girl completely, her head snapping up at full alert. Who was that? Why was he shouting? Who was Tweak?

At that last question, she looked around. No one was in the vicinity, so she peeked out of the room into Main Engineering. She could hear the movements of two people, the loud man and another man...maybe the other one was Tweak? No, the loud man had said "wake-up". There was no one else sleeping. Only her.

The peek out gave her an idea of where she was...a ship, definitely, the engineering section, specifically. The next question (aside from the ones referring to the man's bellowing) was: Why was she there?

With no other ideas, she decided to just do what the man had ordered. "Hai!" Tweak called back, barely loud enough to be heard as she went about searching for this "12-B" thing, dashing back to the hammock to snatch up the kerchief and shove it in one of her jacket pockets. It had been with her, so she must have needed it for something, but she couldn't remember what...

Six bullets? That explains it... Fian thought. "Deep slow breaths, don't empty it all... Let me try that." He then took a few breaths, Fian couldn't see nor feel his own chest rising or falling, but he gauged the amount of air he was taking in or out from the volume passing through his nostrils. Although half the bullets had hit his chest area, he felt no pain performing this exercise. Maybe I can last this five hours after all...

... But its going to be so goddammed boring.

He would have liked to learn more about the Freespacers (Especially what are the things Dream said she had put in him) but other concerns came back to him as his mind gradually became less foggy. "I need to know, is anyone else hurt... Is the situation over?"

The Banning beeped at the captain to get his attention. He had a terrible headache, so he didn't really want to be bothered right now. "What is it, Banning?" he asked the freighter's AI. The AI crisply responded, "Engineering has requested a fifteen-minute burn out at full power." The captain thought for a moment. That was fairly close to the melting point... However, the engineers knew the Banning's engines much better then he did, so he replied, "Alright, permission granted." He then prepared the helm to go to the burn out at full power.

Dream was still holding his hand. "Yes, no one was hurt. Everything is fine, don't worry." She said, in a motherly tone. Even though she was young enough to be his daughter.

"Can you feel my hand?" She asked, then. "Try and clench it. I have to know if the Greenwall lymph's effect is waning. It probably wouldn't be pretty for you, so it's better to keep you anesthetized. Oh, and I hope that you're under anti-rad meds." She added.

Given Pavel's instructions and the rather small size of the Banning, Tweak had little trouble finding the right part to remove. Finding something to cut it with was a little harder.

Without knowing how she knew she could do it, Tweak finally had an idea. Under her jacket, a hemosynth tentacle slithered out of her shoulder port and down her left sleeve, appearing next to her hand. The end formed a sharp set of shears, and snipped the bindings holding the regulator in place. Dissolving the tentacle, Tweak pulled the box away from its place. "Done!" she called back at Pavel.

"Oh thats a relief..." Fian exhaled. Feeling a little better, he tried to squeeze Dream's hand. It took a while but he gradually feel some feedback from his fingers, and also other unpleasant feelings from the rest of his body both from the pain and drug aftereffects. The Geshrin part of his genetic makeup must be breaking down the chemicals from his system faster than a pure Nepleslian.

"I can feel it...But..." The Vel Steyr continued. "Its best if you can knock me out for the long run... Jabbing me every half an hour can't be good..."

"Mhh, I don't know. This thing has never been tested on your physiology. It might have side effects if I crank up the dosage too much." Dream said, retrieving the syringe from the ground.

"Mhh. Better sterilize this first, with all the germs that you have around." She said... sliding it in her chest, between her breasts, and leaving it there for a short while, like it were the most normal thing to do in the world.

She pulled out another small green vial from her belt, and sat down behind Fian, trying to find a way to inject the anesthetic without moving him.

After a shorw thile, Fian could feel the needle penetrating the base of his neck, and a sudden, complete insensitivity from that point below, just like before.

"Okay, done." Went Dream's cheerful voice. "So, what happened here, exactly?"

“Thank God!” Pavel shouted back. “If you know anything about math, get over here and help me. I'm having trouble figuring out the tricky bits of our deceleration. I've got a good heat sink modification, but I fear we may need a better one very fast. But I am an engineer, not a damn starship operator! I shouldn't have to know these things. . .”

Still nervous in her ignorance of what was going on, Tweak did as she was told. Pavel seemed to think she belonged there, so maybe she did...but why couldn't she remember?

"Hai!" she called back to him, and started toward Pavel. "I know math-" and, as she said the words, she wondered how she could remember what "math" was... "-and are we coming into a new system or moving in-system already?" She came around the last large piece of machinery and stood before the harried engineer, looking half worried, half eager to have an engineering problem to solve. "Why do you need to run the engines so hot? Are we in a hurry?"

Pavel spun to face Tweak more fully as quickly as his bulk and prosthetics would allow. “In a hurry? Of course we are in a hurry! Have you completely forgotten what we are. . .”

The engineer's face drained of color as he noticed two feline ears clearly perched on Tweak's head. He snatched up the heaviest tool in reach and brandished it at the Neko. It would have been much more threatening if the spanner wasn't shaking in his grasp. “Stay back! Don't come any closer! I knew it was the goddamn Yamis. I knew they'd never let us be free! Banning! Get me security! There's a damn cat-devil in engineering.”

Tweak's eyes widened in alarm and she scrambled backward. "Don't hit me!" she whimpered. "You knew my voice!" Then she noticed his unsteady grip and stopped. For some reason, he thought she was more dangerous to him than he could be to her... "What's going on? Why are you afraid? I'm not a devil..." Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "...am I?"

Oh crap, here we go again! Fian braced as Dream put the needle back into him. A few moments of discomfort later, the Vel Steyr suggested. "There should be long term Nepleslian-made knockout drugs onboard, or over there..." His eyes motioned to the Power Armor. "... Especially the kind for half dead Power Armor pilots like me."

"That Red over there jumped me as I was about to enter my AIR2." Fian grew incensed as he remembered all his encounters with the enemy. "Let me tell you something... If you wanna fight a Green, the bigger the gun, the better. If its those Reds your'e after, forget the gun, get some good armor. They'll come for you, not the other way around."

That said, the Vel Steyr let out an esperated sigh. "Luckly Elsae offed him, otherwise I won't be the only person lying down at the end of day."

Dream stared at Fian, with that "I don't understand" look on her face.

"...I don't want to fight no Green or Red or any other color." She said, missing the whole point of Fian's last sentence. "I'm just here to help."

There wasn't any pacifist rhetoric in her voice. She wasn't scolding him, nor she was acting superior or anything like that. She was simply stating the plain truth.

"And you're not half-dead! I'm not that bad a medic, c'mon." She retorted, throwing away the syringe. "It's better for you to stay awake, after all. It's been a traumatic experience, but you survived. Keeping your consciousness during the treatment and immediately afterwards will strengthen the link between your body and your soul." She smiled again at him. "I'm here to take care of both of them, after all."

“Of course you. . . are. . .” Pavel trailed off into silence. When he lived back on Nepleslia, many violent and dangerous people had frequented his shop. Most of them just came to get things fixed, but many of them had come to try to intimidate him into helping them sabotage their enemies, extort protection money, or scare him just for fun. None of them, even the most viciously sarcastic, had ever, ever started out by saying “don't hit me.”

Of course, that didn't mean it was some sort of a trap. Everyone knew Nekovalkyrja were dangerous, crafty, evil things with perverse lusts and unnatural abilities, sinister agents of the Yamatai government who had kept Nepleslia under its thumb for years. Their motives were unfathomable and methods unconventional. But this one didn't even seem to know where it was, who he was, or even who it was. As unbelievable as it might be, it really did appear that one of the most advanced war machines in the universe was almost completely unaware of its surroundings. Pavel tightened his grip on his spanner, but lowered it to a less threatening position, clearing his throat and attempting the most in-command look he could muster.

“But no one is going to have to hit anyone if you will just sit down and put your hands on your head. Please make no sudden moves. We will soon find out what is happening here. Security will arrive, and then hopefully things will be made clear. While we wait, maybe you can answer some questions. Like who you are and who you are working for. Or maybe how many newtons I'm going to have to produce to get the ship down to docking speed once we hit our target system. You could be still a saboteur, so I will just have to have Banning check your work.” The engineer flushed slightly with embarrassment. “Truthfully, I have never done anything this complex and am even unsure of the right questions to ask her, so I still need your help.”

Her ears laid flat in submission, Tweak did as she was told, sitting where she stood and placing her hands on the top of her head.

"Um..." Her expression turned from fearful to perplexed as she realized she didn't have the answers to any of those questions. But she knew she could answer the last question if she had more information, so she chose to do that rather than face her missing memories. "...um...I need to know a few things before I can answer that for sure. How far away are we from the place we are to dock at, what is our current velocity and trajectory, is this dock is in orbit or on the surface, and what is its current velocity and trajectory?" the lost neko asked quickly.

“Yes, yes, good. That is just what I am talking about. Banning, bring that data up, please.” The ship obediently produced a holographic model of the Kennewes System, placed the Banning and the Alliance, and labeled them with the pertinent information. “Bring up the engines too. I want to show Tweak here my modifications.” The engineer turned his attention back to the Neko.

“As you can see, I have found away to sink heat into various places around the ship. I am especially proud of getting our water supply into the link. However, we must be careful not to overload the engines too much, or we will start to melt the crew. That would probably make them angry, I think. You can see why I am so interested in exact times and places.”

Pavel squinted cannily out from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Don't think I'm forgetting that you have not answered all my questions. But perhaps it is better that you don't. Anyway, we must get back to work. Tell me what you think.”

Tweak studied the hologram for a moment, but already had an observation to make.

"You realize that we don't have to keep the engines at full burn once we get to full speed, right? We only have to run them at maximum for a matter of seconds and then we can bring them down and let inertia bring us in." She looked at Pavel. "In fact, we should probably shut them down now and prepare for full reverse when we get close enough. I think that normal entry would need us to start the reverse slowly now, but it sounds like we're in a bit of a hurry."

She looked over the list of improvisations that the engineer had made for heat dispersion. "Also, if you can somehow close off all corridors around the rooms adjacent to the engines and the nearest airlocks, we can pipe the heat into the sealed rooms and open a passage to the airlocks. Open the locks and those rooms become instant cold vacuum....yeah, I think that will work," she said, her voice trailing off. "Seal these doors and open these," she added, tentatively taking one hand off her head and pointing out the relevant doors after asking Pavel to bring up a ship schematic. She also began typing in the calculations for the deceleration burn. "Before moving the heat, though, you'll need to transfer the atmosphere from those rooms and corridors into other rooms instead of venting them because venting will change our course and my calculations on when to start slowing us down. Though your computer might be able to make the adjustments if you choose to vent instead of transfer."

“You would be right about shutting of the engines now, but we only travel at about eighty percent of our maximum speed so as not to stress our equipment and allow room for maneuvering. This burn will only bring us up to eighty-four percent. That will allow us to go ballistic for maybe forty five minutes,” Pavel's brow furrowed in confusion, and he glanced quickly down at his fingers before catching himself and looking Tweak back in the eye. “I think. Hopefully that will be enough time to bring the engines back down to cold with the modifications I already have in place, and allow me to finish with the rest. From there, I was planning on a two hour deceleration at a slightly lower speed, which should allow the Alliance or a medical ship to catch up to us relatively quickly.”

Pavel looked thoughtful. “Of course, forcing the Alliance to come out to meet us will definitely not be good for our careers. But who can put a value on life? Anyway, they can't demote me any lower than I already am.”

“As for using livable spaces as heat sinks, I must admit I had never thought of that before. Perhaps because they will make me repaint it all when the paint is burnt off of the walls. Also, it will be a huge pain to move everything out of those rooms, and because the marines will have to do it, they will all be very angry with me. Also, it will likely get very hot in here as well. You might not know this, but I am a very sweaty person. It will not be pretty.”

A look of devious satisfaction spread across the engineer's face. “However, it is a beautiful and simple idea, especially if we vent the atmosphere. We can reload at Kennewes. I believe it will be much more effective, and the last time I tried to run the numbers, I came up very far into the system, extra burn or no. Besides, I have always hated the infantry. They have no respect for their machinery. Not once have they had the politeness to bring their armor back without holes everywhere! Now I will be putting them to work.” Pavel rubbed his hands together happily. “I will submit your idea to the bridge. We will definitely need both help and permission for this.”