[Tami] Designs of the Wicked

The NMX response was observed with interest, up until one of the Rippers fired its weapon. The attack earned a frown from Nel as she tried to classify the weapon's output.

The first iron blade began to heat up as Nel fed a steady, but low, stream of electricity pulses through the copper-infused silk line to the blade. At first the heat was insignificant, barely a fraction over the ambient temperature of the tree, then it reached one percent of ambient temperature. The silk, meanwhile, insulated the copper elements from grounding out as the electrical pulses were sent to the iron.

Then they stopped. This was not going to work. Her innovation processing was interfering with her knowledge base, causing improbable material combinations to occur. Also, at some point the electrical pulses would need to be strong enough to either fry the copper and silk or attract attention that could be backtracked to her position. Nel frowned again, still watching the Rippers. The radio signal thing would work well enough as a decoy...hm. She really needed to see that weapon at work again, and to know 1) what temperature would draw their attention, and 2) whether they investigated the source before firing on it. If the latter test turned out that they fired, then impersonating a critter of the area would be rather futile.

Nel decided to keep heating the blade until the silk burned or the Rippers responded, altering her perception in an attempt to see the energy signature and major energy distribution flows through the mechs. Maybe if she could identify the generator type and conversions from the generated energy to the weaponized energy, she could figure out how to counter it.

The NMX showed no further interest in Nel's activities that day, either because they were unaware of them or because said activities were unworthy of their notice. For example, the temperature threshold for gathering their attention was beyond Nel's ability to covertly heat the element before the silk threatened to burst into flame from the energy being streamed through the conductive material inside it.

With no more reactions, Nel took her data and retreated.

---

After a few more days of subtle poking at sensor limits and observation of movements and responses, she had the information she wanted. After waiting a week of doing nothing to the NMX and using that time to plan her next move while setting up another 'base', Nel set about capturing one of each Mishhu type, starting with the most-seen: the Ripper. Ripper armors were now considered a Mishhu variant by her, since she never detected anyone inside the things, just a brain. And, if it was just a brain...

Capture was complicated to set up, but was performed with only a couple hitches. Any active broadcasting radio or EM-based tracking devices had been quickly detected and removed upon capture. The disabled Ripper was brought to another reinforced laboratory cavern like the one Nel had originally tested herself in, but far from any place she wanted to keep hidden. The Ripper's weapons were deactivated along with its motor functions, and its radio was removed for study.

The new test chamber was set quite deep in the ground, over a hundred meters. Like the previous test chamber, it was lined with lead. This one, however, was also layered with thick plates of steel. Slender iron rods were inserted like nails in the ten-foot-square plates, the heads forming an organized polka-dot pattern on all four walls, as well as the ceiling and floor. These were a fail-safe, of sorts, as well as an external source of material for Nel to use. Half of the rods were fashioned as wrought iron, the rest as die-cast. And some actually held some of the steel plates in place.

The chamber itself was a single, very large rectangular cube with a ceiling as high as it needed to be and a length and breadth as large as they needed to be. The exit was hidden behind one of the steel panels in the ceiling, just out of easy reach. There were a few racks of melee weapons of different types and materials against the long walls for later tests, but those were the extent of the chamber's "furnishings" aside from a large, rather simply-designed frame at one end of the chamber.

The restraining frame for the captured specimens was at the far end, the head toward the wall and the frame tilted at a forty-five degree angle from the subject being fully upright. There was not an electronic device in the entire chamber except for the Ripper. Nel wasn't worried about it calling for help, as the lead shielding in the chamber would block most radio transmissions, and Nel had enough knowledge of what bands the NMX used to create a few jammers for those frequencies that were planted outside the chamber.

Over the next couple of days Nel performed a number of experiments on the Ripper, taking the PA apart piece by piece as much as she could without fatally injuring the occupant while keeping it knocked out or disoriented as best she could without killing it, then putting it back together when she had finished analyzing the components. After learning all she could from the "vivisection" (which still left the mysteries of the energy weapon mysterious to her, but let her know so much more about everything else) and reassembling what she had taken apart to their original state, Nel re-enabled the Ripper's motor functions -- leaving the energy weapon disconnected from the rest of the systems -- then released the restraints (which had been more to keep the mech in place than to actually restrain it) and waited for the brain-slave to wake up.

Now, it was time to see how one of these things fought in close combat and how she should fight against it.

The brainslave flickered back into its waking life in the deep recesses of the Ripper's armor. The armor activated, and stood, slowly, creaking as it moved. The brain running the armor was weakened by hunger and thirst, and Nel's patch-jobs on putting the thing's systems back together weren't quite perfect. The armor was twitching slightly. The "pilot" frantically searched through its systems, hunting for the communications uplinks, at least as much as its meager intelligence and initiative would allow it to. However, it found nothing. The armor simply stood still, twitching on occasion. Nel would be able to feel the energy given off by the armors sensors, but they weren't focused on her, or anything else in the room, simply on passive. The machine and its pilot seemed to be perfectly content to stand idly in the center of the room in the absence of any orders to the contrary.

More incomprehensible data. Feeling the radio emissions, Nel narrowed her eyes. It was trying to communicate with someone, or something. Calling for help, maybe?

What confused her, though, was that it wasn't doing anything else. The 'pings' of its active sensors were there, but they weren't focused on anything. It could see her, but it wasn't doing anything about that. She took a step toward the Ripper, watching it carefully and confirming that the radio signals were not making it through.

Still about three meters away, Nel decided to try speaking to it.

"<Hello,>" she started, using Yamataian for the greeting and then switching to common Trade. "Are you able to speak?"

--- ((section added 2011-09-03)) ---

It must be as dumb as one of the Lady Mistwalker's dead constructs...more so, even, if it doesn't know how to move. The constructs still had some sense in them.

Minutes had passed since Nel asked her question. She remained outside of the Ripper's melee striking distance, but it didn't seem like that was necessary. She frowned at it.

Mistwalker's constructs also retained a link with her, however. Maybe this thing requires the same. It would be a bad idea to let it communicate with its controllers, though...wait a minute...

---

Three days of non-stop work later, Nel had dug out the "commands" that the Ripper would respond to by methodical attempts at permutations, as well as narrowing down what frequencies to jam in order to prevent other Rippers from receiving instructions.

The process had been much different than what anyone else might have used. Nel didn't interpret the data in the transmissions, she 'read' it raw, sensing the radio broadcasts and identifying the patterns within them. (A parallel might be someone learning a foreign language by listening to it instead of being taught via a translation.) The end result was a key that she could use to issue her own commands. Perhaps she could also use her new knowledge to confuse or override the commands issued to other Rippers on the base. She also experimented with transmission methods in order to know her options for when one or more methods became impractical.

As an afterthought, she also found ways of delivering water and nutrition to the brainslave pilot, bringing it back up to its previous "health". A dead test subject was a much-less-useful test subject. Less likely to tear you to pieces and throw every piece into a fire, but much less useful all the same.

Lastly, after the experimentation was completed, the brainslave was healthy, and the data cataloged and filed away, Nel commenced with "programming" her new drone. After all, she needed to be sure that it would follow her orders over any others...

--- ((added 2011-09-06)) ---

After disabling the Ripper's sensors, comms, and movement again, Nel took it back to her initial arrival site, setting the armored Mishhu soldier down next to the remnants of her meteor. Arranging some more communication jammers around the Ripper, Nel then retreated to a distant position in line of sight with the Ripper, but just beyond sensor range.

Activate. Commence mission.

The Ripper's systems powered up and it lifted off the ground, heading for the NMX outpost. As it approached, the Ripper followed all protocol for its unit type; it attempted to reestablish communications with the base, transmitted all Friend-Or-Foe beacons and codes, essentially acting as a Ripper should on returning to base. If it was asked for a report, Nel had already given it the lies it was to tell: A malfunction. A mishap that the unit was unable to recover from until now. News of strange sensor returns at the crater...

The computer system onboard the Ripper that the brainslave pilot utilized had been wiped of all sensor records, except for the one that Nel had induced at the crater just after she reactivated the unit's systems.

---

It took some doing, and a fleeing Ripper, but Nel's testing chamber soon held a neko-type NMX soldier, knocked out and locked down on the examination frame.

Nel did her own version of "scanning" the neko's basic physical traits and internal structures, refraining from going to molecular detailing or more due to rumors of old anti-analysis safeguards built into nekos. It wasn't known whether the NMX had the same measures built into their neko slaves, but she didn't want to take that chance just yet. Once her scans were finished, the warrior-scientist left the Ripper to stand in front of the captured neko while she stood behind the frame and out of sight, silently waiting for her victim to wake up.

When the black-haired, brown-skinned Neko woke, it was suddenly — eyes flashing open, lips suddenly peeled back in a grimace, arms and legs immediately tensing and pulling at the braces of the table.

It relaxed for a split-second before realizing it was captive. Then it started to examine its surroundings.

It took about six seconds to do so before it stopped. Her expression was flat; her black-irised eyes were wide open. It was hard to tell how big the Neko's pupils were, but Nel likely could tell from body language that the NMX soldier was ready to strike at whatever foe had put her in that place.

The Neko didn't say anything, though.

The Ripper unit twitched, then moved to a five-meter distance from the NMX neko.

Nel brought herself up to combat readiness before silently pressed the release latches on the neko's bindings and stepping back, staying behind the restraining frame.

Raising its arms, the Ripper trained its weapons on the captive.

The Neko slid off the table and stood, facing the hulking menace of her armor.

She seemed to relax. Her arms lost tension, her feet slackened, her eyelids lowered a bit over her wide pupils. She just looked at the machine, despite its wide array of weapons pointed at her.

The Ripper informed Nel, in some fashion or another, that it had received a command via telepathy from the Neko — "Report status."

The Ripper replied in the same "all is good" manner that it had been ordered to when it infiltrated the base (not using those words, of course). The radioed reply was blocked, however, by the jammers planted throughout the room. All the same, the Ripper lowered its weapons and stood in place, silent.

Nel was in the middle of growing composite chitinous plates from her face when the telepathy was detected. There was a new signal from the neko, one that wasn't blocked by her jammers. She would have to change that, but it was too late now. It was time for the next testing phase.

The plates slid into place to form a stylised mask designed to replace her features rather than protect her from anything. To that end, it allowed for her normal range of vision and scent detection with massively reduced ability for facial expression. Nel didn't smile much to begin with, so that was no great loss...Preparations made, Nel double-checked her ASR settings before taking her first step.


She stepped out from behind the frame, circling around while starting to put a five-meter distance between herself and the neko. She figured she may get one step out before being attacked...but hopefully not.

The Neko did not attack. It did not even tense to prepare for a strike. Instead, another telepathic command -- "Identify immediate subject. Deliver report to nearest Commander."

There was the same signal type again. Nel's eyes narrowed. The neko was trying to communicate with the Ripper, if her reading of the captive's body language was correct.

The signal was a curious thing for Nel. It was atypical, but still within the known spectrum. Frequency-hopping, with a number of "trash" signals mixed in that, to Nel, obviously had no meaning either because they were randomized too much to be meaningful or because they were composed of patterns that were easily identified. The true information was still well-hidden from Nel, and the frequency-hopping increased the problem of determining what went where, but if she had a week or so, it could be cracked. If she had another week for the standard radio transmissions, Nel knew she could determine what the NMXs' radio signals said instead of simply repeating what patterns she had determined the associated reactions to through her experiments.

The Ripper stood still for a moment, then turned to Nel and sent a radio query to her over the pre-designated "safe" channel she had set up. (The jammers wouldn't do her any good if she was cut off from her 'puppet'.) She looked back at it and shook her head. What it had asked, she didn't know, but hopefully it was smart enough to know that she didn't want it to do anything yet. And it appeared to be, as the Ripper looked back at the neko and replied, this time using that unknown signal type.

"All subjects identified. Report delivered."

While the Ripper made its telepathic reply to the neko, Nel watched the captive NMX carefully, studying how she held herself, her expressions, overlaying the highest-probability movements based on known capabilities of the NH-series bodies (which wasn't much, as she had yet to face one in a combat setting). After the Ripper's broadcasting finished, Nel decided to try what she had before, hopefully with better results.

"<Hello,>" she started, using Yamataian for the greeting and then switching to common Trade as she had before. "Are you able to speak?"

The Neko took stock of her surroundings and situation.

The being before her was completely alien to her. It was not Mishhu, NMX or Elder.

It seemed to have some command of the Ripper armor, thus the brainslave inside.

It had captured her and restrained her for at least six hours.

It contained her to a room that, from all appearances, was lined with metal.

The Neko herself had no armor, no weapons, no way to communicate with base and — most importantly — no orders.

She then started to pout, and looked down at her feet. "Yes, I can. ... Did I lose?"

The neko understood Trade, and spoke it too. That was good. Nel tilted her head a little at the question.

"Lose what?"

"Lose the fight. I'm here, like this ... I must have lost." The Neko hung her head, her hair falling around her face. "I've failed to live up to the ideals of my creators."

Nel pondered this. There was an opportunity here: A chance to gather information without expending physical effort. And possibly another sort of opportunity.

"Who are your creators? What are their ideals?" Her voice was distorted by the mask and she spoke in a quite audible whisper, but the words were able to be understood.

"New Mishhuvurthyar Military," she said. "They gave me life. The Yamatai horde wants to take it away. They hate us. They want us dead because they don't like how we are trying to save them. They don't understand the bondage they're in! They don't understand how oppressive they've become! We're showing them the way! Giving hope to the universe and they just kill us for it! They're EVIL!"

The Neko definitely was on edge now, not staring at Nel, but beyond her, teeth gnashed together as she breathed through her nose.

If the Yamatians did not wish to be saved, why save them? More resources were being consumed in conflict than would be if they were left alone...

After reviewing the information she had obtained concerning Yamatai, Nel decided that there was no reason to believe that Yamatai would attack or continue fighting the NMX if the NMX retreated. The Yamatians were expansionist, but from her records the war had begun with the NMX attacking first. Of course, those records had come from Yamatai...and the neko's information had come from her leaders. Leaders that she apparently worshipped, in a way. If Yamatai was misinforming its populace, then the NMX could possibly be doing the same thing.

Nel's thoughts buzzed with probable scenarios that only became recursive in their logic until they were terminated and logged as unsolvable. When dealing with either side, the truth would only be known by the leaders. As things were right then, Nel did not have access to those leaders, or to any assurance they would not lie to her; she would have to find another way to obtain what she wanted.

What did she know for certain now? The NMX were spreading and that they had not only declared war on Yamatai but Nepleslia as well. New Kohana was allied with Nepleslia, Lenwe resided on New Kohana, and Nel's primary allegiance was to Lenwe. So her primary mission goal still applied: Maintain the safety of New Kohana. However, the neko before her was not acting as an immediate threat as Nel had anticipated, and the information the neko was providing also had the possibility of redefining Nel's mission parameters, but not its goal.

"Your explanation is insufficient. Yamatai claims the NMX is doing what you have said Yamatai is doing. Conclusion: The leaders of both sides are lying to their own people in order to assure loyalty. I require the truth." Nel paused to stare at the neko for several seconds before continuing. "You will help me find the truth."

The Neko's eyes fixed on Nel. Her expression was wavering between anger and confusion.

"You ... you're no better than the Yamataians! You won't LISTEN! Why won't you listen to the Truth as spoken by the Elders, by the superior race of this galaxy?!"

Philosophy was not what Nel was trained for. She was trained to fight and learn from her enemy to better oppose them. Anticipation of tactics and strategy required logic and creativity to be effective. Those traits were easily applied to philosophy, however, and would enable Nel to understand her adversary's mindset and use it against them.

Or she could just fight the neko now. Nel was not a negotiator. Lenwe was a negotiator, she was a bodyguard. If the neko was so set on the rightness of her crusade and her leaders' infallibility -- a thought fluttered through Nel's mind at that notion, but it was brushed aside and stored for later consideration -- then the rest of her kind may have been similarly brainwashed. Nel watched the neko passively for a couple seconds before speaking again. She had one last question, this one drawn from curiosity rather than tactics.

"Are the Yamatians a threat to the Elders if left alone?"

The Neko replied with a queer expression, then sneered at the being.

"You're just another brainwashed sympathizer, aren't you," she said. "You don't know. You'll never know."

"Answer the question so I may determine my path. You will help me find the truth. Are the Yamatians a threat to the Elders if left unopposed?"

The neko would help by either speaking or fighting. Nel re-checked her readiness status; she was prepared as well as she could be. Her stance had not changed through the 'interview'. Then something occurred to the pale woman:

"You do not know the answer, do you?"