RP: LSDF Akahar [Prologue] - From Dark

Bastion froze. It seemed her mind was going on full, thinking about what just happened. Her head slowly turned to the civilian woman or rather girl and though what just happened. Did that civilian just attempted to take over a military ship? Using some strange access that is supposed to be manufactured into Aria-units? That was crazy. Insane. She could not wrap her head around this.

"I might speak out of turn," she started her voice ice-cold as she looked at the girl. She raised on her feet in her glorious statue. "But I wonder if LSDF would like to know that manufacturer made their AI units with programming that gives them opportunity to take over. Sir," she paused looking towards Keib and Braincase. "Do you want me to arrest this undressed civilian for attempted treason? If not I would like to hear a good reason why not?"

The Fyunnen found himself rather amused by the various displays and reactions to the furious little bundle of machinery that had arrived in a rather distinct fashion on his ship not hours ago. Of course they'd known about that particular quirk to the ARIA units... and of course he'd asked Keib to have it.. 'dealt with' before installing it on his ship. He didn't like back doors into his own dealings after all... at least back doors he wasn't privy to.

A raised his hand toward Bastion, a signal to calm down before pulling both hands behind his back once again.

"Now now Miss Kalopsia I do what I think is required to ensure the security of my vessel from those both within my own chain of command and those from outside of it, I believe you fall under the latter." He paused for a moment, eyeing the Helashio curiously before turning back to the individual in question. "Now.. if you ask nicely... just maybe I'll grant you the files your requesting, but if you continue this... act. I'll make a simple gesture and that 'inferior' being." He nodded toward the Helashio, "Will probably take pleasure in 'escorting' you to your quarters, do I make myself clear miss?" He finished, a slight smirk on his face adding to the murderous look in his eyes.

Bastion could not believe what she just heard. Will the ship commander really do nothing about this? Will he just let it slide. That Kalopsia, whoever it is, just tried to take pretty much take over the ship and he will let it go? Not even an escort or proper warning.

"Sir?" She asked, looking his was and straightening up. "Are you rally going to let her go scot free after this? Also you knew that military ship had this flaw? Does the command knows?"

Aiesu felt it again. Her shoulders stiffened up. Something about that look he gave her. That murderous look - something about it intoxicating. She began wondering if all military personnel were capable of it. The thought almost made her smile.


"You seem to be misunderstanding. We have root-access to all ARIA by design. The ARIA itself and absoloutely nothing beyond it. Not the vessel control codes. Not the terminal its plugged into. Not the ship. Nothing of possible security risk. If we didn't, the remote maintenance procedures that keep this fleet afloat wouldn't be possible" she said, still playing her poker-face and surprisingly well at that. One might argue she almost looked bored.

"And yes." she said, in her mind involuntarily wondering what it would take Keib to escort her in place of Four, toes curling against the deck as she briefly glanced at him. "Crystal"

Bastion raised an eyebrow, looking at the little civilian. Well for Bastion, everyone was little, but this one was tiny even for everyone else. The tall fyunnen smirked as she went and sat down again, looking at her boss. "Is that so?" She then asked. "Then I wonder how simple control over maintenance routines would give you access to the files related to this briefing, which are technically military secret.?" Bastion said her question, she was calm and did not have a smug expression on her face. Riddle me this, she thought.

"It doesn't, it lets me automate most of the registration procedure, saving your superiors the trouble. They do of course, get the final word - always" she cited, her thighs tensing and revealing their tone as she flowed into a slow and fluid yawn, feeling her shoulders crack as she stretched. "Are you quite done yet being so fruitless and..." she stretched again, seeming quite exhausted, rubbing at the darkness beneath her right eye. "Pendantic?"

Bastion looked at Hakahn, wondering why he did not say anything. It was over now anyway. Bastion just hoped that both commanding officers got what the woman tried to do, not matter how she tried to excuse it now. "I am just doing my job," Bastion replied with a shrug. "Watching over this ship's security is something I have to do."

"If you knew what you were doing, you'd know I can't actually do anything to compromise the security of this vessel, other than perhaps stealing your sweet little heart" Aiesu smiled, feeling a bit cheeky. She seemed almost child-like now, resisting the temptation to honk Bastion's nose.

"I work with what I have," Bastion said simply and looked at Four sitting next to her for a while. She did hear Hakahn's mention of 'inferiors beings' which was sent Kalopsia's way. "Let's get back to briefing now, shall we?" Time to go back to being professional after all. Bastion will probably get shouter upon by some officer later on but she did not care.

Her eyes looked at Keib, she was sure he was reading her thoughts as she spoke. She did not care. That Kalopsia was obviously a smug bitch. A bloody civilian thinking to be better then soldiers.

"Hah! This one's a cocky little bitch!" Merril guffawed, slapping Aiesu on the back. She really seemed jolly about the whole back-and-forth between her superiors and the small woman, it seemed. "This civvie's got spunk. I like her!"

She turned about in surprise, almost falling forward with the slap and laughing audibly.

"Haa. You're soft-touch, right?"

Merril looked upon the civilian with another of her trademark grins, patting the girl on the head softly.

"Yep!" She replied simply, ignoring whatever strange looks she might be getting from the others. The wildcat couldn't help it. Aiesu was small, and small people deserved headpats.

"I've a project for you later, if you don't mind, that is" Aiesu grinned, her manners falling in line with her child-like appearance. There was some dissonance between this and who she had been but moments ago.

The access codes and routines to the ARIA had been rewritten long, long ago by one very cheeky, one very idle and one somewhat annoyed Executive Officer. The motivations for doing so were worryingly simple: So he could use the Matriarchy's time and money to play computer games using the network, and to ensure that the Matriarchy gets fed a stream of misinformation about how the ship was being run.

The truth would've scared the crap out of them, and probably had the ship mothballed and everyone detained for questioning. Those motivations aside, Aiesu didn't exactly seem all that forthright about something. Even as a civilian contractor, she was getting wonderfully nosey.

"Don't children usually spend their time catching bugs, or trying to hack into PANTHEON?" Keib commented on her body's appearance first, "Or, better still, pacified by video games rather than poke around where they aren't wanted? This isn't a Yamataian kid-detective story where you solve everything and go home with a big fat reward."

He then looked to the others, "Oh, yes, forgot to say. This is a civilian party interested in the Mok'Ro for some reason or another. She may seem inscrutable but-" He looked over at her. "I can make guesses." He didn't even say her name.

Keib made the 'I AM WATCHING YOU' hand gestures towards her and gave her an upwards nod. His guess was that she was here to evaluate the ship's conduct, and probably bring the truth to the matriarchy - or she was deeply interested in something the Mok'Ro was carrying - and he hoped that it wasn't the same thing that sunk it.

Vathr'dal couldn't help but be amused at the events unfolding before him. He was not worried at all, because he knew that if there was a security problem, the Commander would not have been so relaxed. He let out a small chuckle as he listened.

What was even funnier to Horizon, however, was the conversation between Aiesu and Soft Touch. A minute ago Aiesu seemed so haughty and self important, and now she and the Llmanel medic chattered on like school girls. This amused him greatly, and with a big grin, he asked the two women sitting next to him, "You two are new around here, right?."

Masakaji was initially perplexed with the vast difference in personality types from the two officers. Mental note: Avoid the CO at all costs. Masakaji thought to himself. The one advantage of his digital mind was that he was actually able to do "mental notes".

Once he was done with that, he simply just sit back and watch the "entertainment" from this child thing, Bastion, and the officers. He chuckled a few times at the mentions of Yamatai towards the child.

"Kitty land..." Masakaji mumbled under his breath while also slightly gesturing like he was calling over a pet.

Mist sat silently taking in the information displayed. Honestly it seemed like a pretty basic trap set up. Throw some poison meat in a box and let the prey take it seemed to be the basic execution here. The young Lmanel had hunches about what could have been the suprise but nothing specific enough to warrant suggestion.

As far as the artificial's antics. They wore thin on Shrie'keng's nerves almost instantly. It was obvious in the way his eyes started tracking her movement to the exclusion of everything else in the room. Mist was sure to hang on to the name Kalopsia for future reference.

Aiesu frowned at the child-talk, a tenseness worming through her belly unfairly as insecurities and inadequacy boiled up inside her. She could feel her fingertips balling into fists despite her very placid expression, biological knuckles born of a mind that should be impervious to this sort of thing. That should be detached. In the back of her mind, she desperately wanted to break his nose to make a point.

It was the hand-gesture and the eyes that had her stand up straight, correcting her posture unconsciously. She even knew which detective story he meant.

What she didn't know however was that something about Keib's seemingly playful air about all of this and the deliciously eloquent diffusion of the situation had her cheeks warmed by cloudy pink hues. Her mind was betraying her again and her poker-face was crumbling rapidly. Her posture quickly became muddy once more.

She tried to speak but her breath wouldn't come, held in her throat audiably. She furrowed her brows in frustration, lips held tight. The best thing to say would be nothing, she told herself.

Yes, she was normally inscrutable but Keib was the joker on deck and her hand was wasted. He reminded her of her step-father in ways that weren't fair.

"I'm ... Not a child" she uttered under her breath as she made a walk of shame to the opposite side of the table, putting it in between her and Keib for what she believed in her own deluded mind was his own safety.

She eventually slumped into a chair at the table with everyone. Her sleepy maroon eyes stared at the table, shoulders slumping. She felt wasted but she'd eventually get what she wanted, one way or another. She told herself in her mind this wasn't a failure but a strategic retreat.

Bastion has enough of these all antiques and she cared little about Kalopsia by now. There was still mission and even though their job was mostly boring it was sometimes also quite dangerous. Her eyes looked at Al'rik for a second, she was sure that the other fyunnen thought about the same thing. Whatever happened to Mok'ro might as well happen to any other ship if it won't be careful. Or Mok'ro was hit by an asteroid and they just come and pick up the pieces. That could have happened, but Bastion always counted with other option. Pirates, NMX, spies. Anything could destroy Mok'ro. Or it could have just reactor-failure and explode on itself. So many possibilities.

"Nevertheless," Bastion spoke up again and looked at Keib. "I must say that in the end I would too like to listen to the original audio-log. If nothing else them might be chance we pick-up those sounds in side-passage. The ship might have been boarded. Any skilled PA operators would be able to do that."

"You um..." Aiesu paused, wondering if she should even say anything at all. "Might I make a suggestion?"

Keib was really on the money: Aiesu couldn't resist a mystery.