RP: LSDF Akahar [Prologue] - From Dark

Well you don't have to tell me twice Masakaji thought to himself as he stood up and exited the room. He went to his newly claimed quarters to unpack his items. But that would not take him long since it was only a small amount. He preferred to travel light.

Aiesu shone back with a lopside grin, rubbing her nose with her wrist as her broad but passive smirk returned. "A-Ah, hey!" she said in surprise, the difference in strength nearly knocking the construct off her feet.

"Any plans?"

"Gym. I want to pummel something hard right now," Merril replied, striking a fighting stance for added emphasis. It didn't involve fists, strangely enough, but rather her hands in open claws. With an added, fangly smile, she continued, "You can watch if ya want. We can talk while I beat the living daylights out of a bag."

"That's fine, I suppose" Aiesu smiled. "I might go running myself..." the construct mulled, her toned legs left thinner from the storage in the container.

Merril eyed Aiesu up and down, commenting "Yeah, you're a bit scrawny. Even for a civvie. What've they been feeding you at. . . whatever company you work for, anyhow? You're tiny!"

There was no intent of disrespect in her tone. It was more of a question-of-fact being asked.

The construct laughed quietly to herself as she thought about it, feeling her thighs clench. Her legs were runners legs, but the rest of her was tiny.

"I'm not tiny, fuck." she stared up at Merril. The truth was unavoidable. "Actually... Ah" she began. "The person I'm based on has this build, though no legs from the knee down. The last time she made a construct with your sort of strength, the construct underestimated itself and got her into trouble" her grin wained some.

A look of perplexed curiosity crossed the wildcat's face.

"Wait wait wait. . . your body isn't real? What does that make it then? Some kinda. . . robot then? Like one of those people from kitty land?" She asked, in her slightly-uncultured way of saying Yamatai.

"N-No, its biological but..." she tried to find a way to explain it. "I'm not real. The real me is somewhere else. I'm sort of like a copy."

Bastion gave Keib and Hakahn swift salute after she got on her feet. She knew that all the information she would need can be forwarded to her datapad. So she just went for her room. Bastion wanted to talk with Four, but the white Helashio ran away somewhere. Four being short that way, she had easy time disappearing on Bastion whenever she wanted.

With small shrug Bastion went to her room. After few minutes of walk she opened her doors and walked in. Liria looked up and got of her feet. "Welcome back mistress," she said with slight bow. Bastion's pet bulldog on the other hand only lifted head to show her that he knew about her. Getting on his feet and coming to greet her would be too much effort though.

"Thank you Liria," Mars replied with smile. "Could you go to mess hall and get me cup of chocolate milk?" She asked then as she took over her jump-suit leaving on only a black singlet.

"Of course mistress," the slave-minded helashio replied as she took the jumpsuit and put it away. She then hurried off to get the chocolate milk Mars asked her for.

Bastion sighed, sitting on the chair and taking out her datapad. She was still not sure what to do with Liria, should she try and make her free helashio like Four or just keep her? Bastion was not sure, it did seem that Liria herself was happy serving her, but Bastion for some reason did not feel right about owning other person.

Vathr'dal squared up to his superiors and gave a stiff salute on his way out of the ready room. Hopefully, they wouldn't be too upset at his lack of attention. No use crying over spilt milk, though, and the New Tur'lista pilot took leave of the briefing and headed back to his room, where there were a few things that needed to be tinkered with.

Horizon walked straight to his room, plopped into his chair at the desk, and began to fiddle around with some spare electronics the engineers had thrown his way. To Vathr'dal, this was the panecea for all of his worries. While he worked, stress melted like ice over a fire, and he could think clearly. One of the things his mind drifted to was the new crew members. There were three or four of them, if he remembered correctly from the briefing. He'd have to meet them later.

First, though, his cybernetic hands needed a tune up. He busied himself with this most pleasant of tasks, and was only interrupted by a sudden realization that he was hungry. Food, then work. Vathr'dal had his priorities.

Mist stood fast for a moment to watch a few of the other crew members exit the briefing room before rising up. He gave a sharp salute to Braincase and Keib before stepping off towards the rooms exit. At least now he knew who was in charge of the ship, and that demanded proper respect.
Stepping out into the hallway the Lmanel started piecing together the approach he wanted to take with the puzzle pieces the brief had introduced. Well the Mok'Ro puzzle anyways. The social structure of the crew made absolutely no sense still. Shrie'keng started to pick his way towards the recreation room. With any luck it wouldn't be in use.

OsakanOne said:

"N-No, its biological but..." she tried to find a way to explain it. "I'm not real. The real me is somewhere else. I'm sort of like a copy."

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"That's. . . pretty handy. Gets more done, I'd guess," Merril would comment as the two finally reached the gym. "How 'bout that! We're there already. C'mon, we can keep talking while I beat the hell out of that bag."

She led the construct into the gym , taking off her outer shirt for her uniform to reveal a tanktop underneath. Her wings rested on her shoulders like a mantle, the small black appendages plastered to the skin. Merril reached into a pocket to pull out what looked like a glove, though it didn't extend past the connections for each finger. As if to head off any questions about the gloves, she pointed out, "They're so I don't break my fingers with my style. I can't use my claws on these bags, so I have to adapt.

"Huh."

Aiesu gave a hurried nod, hearing nothing about gloves. She stared for what might be considered just a little too long at the tank-top - feeling her body grow light-headed. She hadn't seen other people like this for a long time and it took some getting used to.

"How... Educational."

"So tell me-" Merril asked, doing some stretches and other associated body routines to limber up. "Just who 'zactly are you working for? You guys might of mentioned it-" CRACK "-in the briefing room, but you lost me with your science mumbo jumbo."

The wildcat's fingers curled and uncurled in their strange, nearly exoskeletal holdings as she circled the punching bag, almost as if it were prey and she its hunter.

A stance was struck, one foot (now bare, save for some equally stable looking socks that bore more resemblance to foot wrappings than actual socks) leading, the other supporting. Hooking claws sliced into the bag, but without the sharpness she would normally put to use in combat.

"The consortium" Aiesu stated flatly, eyes following Merril as she worked. "Essentially, the R&D that produces mostly high-end Lorath equipment turned private about a year ago - mostly in order to sell equipment beyond the Matriarchy." she continued, trying to make sense of not what Merril was doing but why she moved and positioned herself the way she did.

"And yourself?"

"Sounds like-" Merril said, hitting the sack with both hands at once with greater force than before. "-a blast."

She stopped striking for a moment, rolling her wrists out to relieve stress on her joints.

"Mom was an animal keeper for the town. My pop wove fabric and clothing for many things, mostly custom-order products and the gear my mother needed not to get gutted by the animals. It's why these gloves are so sturdy. Anyways, I liked medical stuff, but I hated the waiting and all the procedure that doctors have to do. Too boring. I figured I liked guns and stuff, so I applied to the military. First ship crashed, and this is now my new home. Can't say I've regretted the decision to join. How many doctors get to beat people up?"

She asked that last question with her signature grin beaming like a lighthouse.

Aiesu, someone who was usually confined to dormatories found herself in the company of what she presumed was a country gal - curiously humbled by what she heard to be a lack of friction in her old home-life as she watched.

"So far, I count two, including you. Three if you include my step-father"

She thought for a moment.

"It ... Sounds nice, actually. I mean, your parents, your home and all that." she said with the faintest twang of jealousy in her voice for the stability that Merril found boring.

Merril's voice took on a tone of near-longing, saying, "Yeah, I guess it was nice. . . but I wasn't getting anywhere. I just. . . had to get out, you know? There's so much out here that needs fixin', and I mean both fabric and people. And I just. . . arg."

A loss for words struck her at that moment, one hand escorting her mind by ruffling the back of her hair. Amazingly enough, she had kept her cap on this whole time, far less likely given its jaunty positioning in relation to her side-ponytail. A minute of this passed as her free hand took up its flowing and weaving motion that Bastion had noticed upon Merril's arrival. Finally, the words came to her.

"It's like, out here, I can break people and fix 'em too. Back home, I didn't have the option to spar or stitch people up, especially not without some sort of license. There were options back home, but they wouldn't get me where I feel like I need to go in life."

Merril's body arched with her shoulder's rolling back and her stomach pushing out, going into a very basic stretch.

"Bleh, sorry if I didn't make any sense," The wildcat groaned, turning her attentions and her sizeable hips to face the punching bag once more.

Masakaji's quarters were well kept, and awaiting a new occupant. Oddly though, he found a mint on the pillow and a hand-written note beneath it. Further inspection revealed that this odd configuration was in each new quarters, awaiting retrieval from each new occupant.

To the new occupant said:

Welcome Aboard, my name is Keib, and my superior is Hakahn. Not gonna lie here, the rules are a bit loose on this ship. As long as you don't try and take over the AI, smuggle aliens onto the ship or attempt to make us all breathe methane rather than oxygen, we're cool.

I operate on the trust system, since I trust that my crew can help themselves with day to day tasks and that you can come to me or Hakahn with any problems you might have. Whether its grievances about day to day chores, assistance with tasks or soul-searching, we can help. I do this so I can trust you to do your jobs to the fullest of your abilities. After all, a happy crew is a productive crew, not one under a bootheel of authoritarian bullcrap.

With that in mind, get comfy, and enjoy your stay on the LSDF Akahar. Are you ready to go salvage some wrecks?
-K

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-

Vathr'dal's search for sustenance would lead him to the cafeteria. It was mostly empty, and the chef on duty was in the kitchen. Lunch was to be served at about noon, which was about fifteen minutes away. Vathr'dal could smell meat, thick in the air. One of the sous-chefs poked their head out and said: "Take a seat, we won't be too long. Drink?" There was water, orange juice, milk, and oddly enough, a fizzy cola drink on offer for the New Tur'Lista pilot.

-

Mist, the pack-minded Llmanel, and possibly one of the only other sane people on the ship found the recreation room just fine. It had its OLED interface, and there seemed to be posters on display of Aethersperm, Phoenix Man! and Kirin Games Manufacture, in addition to some spare spaces of workspace for the rest of the crew to play with.

The garden beneath the retractable floors was growing a pleasant, green layer of soft grass. There seemed to be apples sticking out of a patch of soil, with a note reading: 'DO NOT TOUCH OR EAT, ITS AN EXPERIMENT. -K' If the note didn't dissuade a would-be pincher of food, the fact that whole apples were growing out of the soil without a tree would. Things like that had to be engineered - the details of which were in the hands of the madman.

As Mist ventured into the rec room he was a bit surprised to find it both devoid of other crew and having decorations already on display. Striding over to the computer console the Lmanel grabbed one of the rooms interface pens and started working on the interface. His first priority was to get some dirt under his feet. It only took a couple taps on the display to retract the floor. Mist hadn't been expecting to see grass and apples? though. Squatting down to run his hand through the grass he decided that he would have to pay a visit here during his non duty hours, it had been a while since Shrie'keng had walked on grass.

Now to get down to business. Standing back up Mist found himself an empty spot on the walls to use. "Computer, display a list of all known species that can evade life form detection. Remove all examples that cannot survive extreme cold environments." Mist wasn't sure if this would be productive for finding what he believed was responsible for the Mok'Ro going silent but no point dwelling on it. Tapping the first example from the list of remaining creatures he started reading the profile looking for something that would disqualify it from being able to have been in the package that had been picked up by the unfortunate ship.