RP: Terraforming Ake [Terraforming Ake] P1 - Dust Bowl Children

"Pretty good. If I had this computer at home. We'ld never lost the ranch!" Sapphire nodded as she spoke as Akemi smiled and her demeaner changed, "And a simple 'hi, whose yooz', would've sufficed," Glad that she didn't have to share her sandwich. "I'm the base's Communications and Computer programming specialist." Feeling and looking quite proud of her accomplishments in making it this far.

It was exciting, yet scary in a weird sort of way, herself on her own without parental supervision and guidence. A smile broke out, full of warmth with a feeling of a little acceptance as she apperantly passed some sort of test from the older woman, Akemi.

While the others filed in and picked up seats at the table, Daziel kept his eyes firmly on the material in his hands. A datapad scrolled automatically through the schematics and information available about his new weapon of choice, the Peashooter. Said weapon was presently settled in a belted-holster over the back of his chair, awaiting first use. Beneath the sound of Akemi and Sapphire's conversation, his only addition was to softly sip at the coffee in his other hand.

If Yori looked like she'd undergone some sort of midnight rendezvous while assembling the APS with Niel, her older counterpart looked as if he'd suffered some sort of anal violation at her hands. He was just a tad out-of-shape to be doing these things himself; having long ago become less of a mechanic and more of a designer. Nonetheless, Niel was descendent of the original Nepleslian settlers to Ralt and thus his viking blood told him that he must force himself to do the work if it is to be done. He stood next to the open deep-freeze at the rear of Sister Sara's cargo bay and downed an entire cup of water in one passionate gulp before refilling his cup and making his way to sit next to Yori at the conference table. His hair was sweat-pressed to his head and the sides of his face, crinkled from where his breathing mask had been. His attire was similar to her own, though instead of tying off the top of his jumpsuit, Niel just let the empty sleeves hang down like his drooping eyelids. Weakly, he started to congratulate Yori on a job well done.

"Kataoka..." He started, his voice a rumbling rattle. "You-"

"Well good gods-be-damned if the club ain't already meetin' up proper." Franklin's voice was loud and clear, a rumble of its own projected in the conference area. The eldest member of the team emerged from the ship's head with narrowed features focused on the conference table and let out one of his sounds. This time, I'll phonetically render it as 'Agh-hugh'. Surveying the assembled crew he added, "Though it looks like we're still missing the termite, Doc Mason, and Chickenshit. Ain't quite a reunion yet, is it folks?"

Without waiting for an answer, Franklin plopped into the chair at the rear end of the table and spun a few times while settling into the leathery cushions.

Mako floated about the cargo hold, specifically by the old beat up Sylph. She laughed and grinned maniacally. It was demiliterized, well past it's planned lifespan and had been used heavily before the military had parted with it. None of that mattered though, it was perfect!

The tiny security neko had half a mind to hop in right now as it was.

"Well that would be boring," Akemi explained dismissively. "Besides, I was wondering if I'd find a goofy kindred spirit. Anyway, the ranch? What'd you raise there? I just came from the military. Space infantry. Power armor specialist." Akemi had no interest in the sandwich. Being a glorious master race Neko she was an alpha predator and therefore would much rather devour the one consuming it. The ranch wouldn't have failed if she'd been at it. Her immensely powerful digital mind would've easily solved all the problems.

Sister Sara

Doc Mason walked into Sister Sara, just in time to hear Franklin. She regarded him with a look and then decided to not do anything about the professor being called chickenshit. Hopefully it would toughen the yammie up, but most likely it won't do anything other then antagonize them. Alice spent her time setting up her ship. Well she already started thinking about it as her ship, since the whole ship was pretty much medbay. So Alice set her things there, along with case of brandy she bought in duty-free before boarding. She was sure it would come in handy sooner or later.

When they landed, Alice donned a breathing mask, her trusty duster a cowboy hat, her rifle and went outside. It was sandy and ugly, just as she expected. A planet looked liked giant chocolate brownie, but in reality it was quite terrible. The woman sighed and walked around a bit to get a check of surrounding. She stayed just around the circle of ship. She just was about finished her 'rounds', when she got message to go to Sister Sara.

As the woman walked in, she took of her hat and put it aside on whatever was there to allow things being put upon. The hat was soon joined by her duster and XAR rifle. The woman wore her SSS uniform, along with a pistol in a thigh holster and eye-protective goggles. Sand in eyes was not fun.

"I am here now mr. Francis," the woman said as she poured a glass of water and set it up in front of the large nepleslian. Next to the glass she left a one of Franklin's pills. "Brought you our treat. Be so kind and take it now. I know you hate it. But you are part of the expedition and we need your health in top shape. So take one for the team so to speak."

Her eyes then settled on Niel. It seemed the man was quite out of shape and a little bit of work outside shown upon him.
"Mr. Strellan," she spoke using her 'doctor tone'. "I will prepare some vitamins for you and set up a exercise routine for you. Working in a breathing mask is quite taxing."

Yori turned her attention to Niel when he spoke her name, but Franklin spoke up, it almost seemed like he was going to say something that wasn't offensive to anyone, but that just wasn't going to happen. She sighed hearing more insults come from the man's mouth, but even he couldn't totally ruin her mood after working with new technology. She did give a slight wave to both Mako and Alice when they stepped in however. But her attention was soon back to Niel and she spoke up after Alice. "The APS is really could, just imagine if you made a portable version, put it on a jeep or something and you'd have a movable purification field for extended expeditions and you wouldn't need EVA suits which opens up new options for onsite research." She was notably excited about the prospect, but it also was obvious she was saying whatever came tom mind and not yet in the stage about thinking over the details.

Niel nodded along with the suggestions, only half paying attention. The tiny watch in his head told him it was well past Lo Mein-of-the-clock. But there would be no more carry out noodles for the duration of his stay on Ake. No cold pizza eaten shamelessly in his bathrobe and boxer shorts at the twaining hours before rolling into a ball of blankets on his couch in the dim glow of a volumetric drafting table. With a sigh, he raised his glass to Alice to acknowledge bitterly that he would in fact be imbibing her prescribed vitamins. Then, he took a sip before turning back to Yori and politely shooting her down. "Well, you see," He started, "The APS does make a nice clean camp for us when combined with volumetric fields, but its true role is the eventual purification of the entire planet's atmosphere. That's why we have the ozone dump every ten hours. It's--"

For whatever it was Niel Strellan had to say, Spencer Franklin always seemed to have something louder and more important to bark out.

"Now what is this y' got me, doc?" His voice cut through the inventor's once again as the old man plucked up the pill, a tiny white eggshell-colored thing, and held it between thumb and forefinger in front of his eyes. "You went and bought ol' Franklin a candied rabbit turd, did ya? Well, that's mighty kind of you, girl. Don't know why you'd think I'd hate it. I'll just save it fer later."

Spencer smiled in a crooked and mischievous way as he stuffed the pill into his breast pocket along with the other three he'd managed to escape over the last week. In the same motion, he brought back a thin hand-rolled cigarette and perched it upon his lower lip before lighting it with a small cigar lighter. It didn't smell quite as thick or grimy as what Nepleslians usually smoked. This particular puff of smoke had an almost wooden smell to it, like a burning match with a sour hint of still-wet leaves. Such were the wonders of home-grown, home-dried, home-roasted, home-packed tobacco. One could almost sense why Nepleslians were such foul smokers in first place. With a cigarette in his mouth, the hard-skinned cowboy started to relax a little, and out he called: "I'm ready for the meeting now, damnit. Where the hell is Chickenshit!?"

"Well I am afraid that you need to take the pill now, since from what I read in your medical dossier, you have a blood-pressure problem, which this rabbit turd fixes quite nicely," Alice said back to Francis with little to surprise at his reaction. After she got through the school and became doctor, she still spent few months in actual hospital as an intern. Sure it was yamataian hospital, but one could be surprised how many nepleslians visit those. It actually seemed like there was no one but nepleslians there, since yammies do not get sick. Number of nekoes with medical problems, she saw there was not even worth mentioning, but neko won't visit hospital for nothing less then a missing limb.

Of course nepleslian would not go to hospital until it would be too bad. So man who almost could not breath, another had pneumonia or another who caught some fungus and did not bother to visit hospital until his feet started to rot. Nepleslians were just too stubborn. Whether for neko, something was no problem at all, for nepleslian it could be a problem that might kill them, they just did not give a shit though. So Alice saw way too many nepleslians who came almost too late, and few that got there way too late, usually being carried by someone else and going straight into the basement.

"Unless of course you start claiming to me that your pressure is just fine, which I will re-confirm later when I am going to do full physical of every member of this team. Yes Mr. Franklin that includes you as well." Alice continued her doctor speech. "And if you even think of chickening out, then I have measure to get you there, whether I would have go to mr. Daziel or pump you full of drugs or even hit you over the head. In extreme case I just ask miss Koga to drag you there, which I assume she would find as quite a fun exercise. So please take your pill now."

"Yeah, 15 years and a few months. Bank foreclosed on it after there was three years running drought and they had to transport water by cargo haulers from the Desalination Plants on the coast. Couldn't sell the stock fast enough to keep up with the loans." Sapphire spoke a bit wistfully where at this time she would be in school.

As the others showed up, making all sorts of noises, her attention wandered to them, listening to the doctor give Mr Franklin the riot act, she gave an uncontrolled chuckle at watching Franklin get his arse chewed on by the Doctor.

Sister Sara

It was about this time where Seiji 'Chikenshit' Morimoto made his way into the room Much the same way he was first seen he had a frown on his face, but his steps where not hesitant he had made his peace with his fate. His shuffle took him to a seat at the table, pulling it out and sitting down. He couldnt help but smile as well , watching the doctor roast the mouthy Nepelsian, but he was smart enough not to look Spencer's way . He adjusted the glasses up his nose, obviously waiting for the meeting to start.

Yori gave Franklin a stern look when he interrupted again, he was really loud when he spoke and it made it hard for those around him to talk, but she wasn't going to tell him that to his face, she didn't want to get on his bad side it looked like much more trouble than it was worth. She decided not to continue her talk though it would take a while to go over the applications of the APS on a smaller scale, and it looked like the meeting would start soon, especially with Seiji having just walked in. So she instead made a not on her PHC to review it later with Niel.

And so everyone enjoyed the show that Alice and Spencer were putting on for them. Even though everyone was at the table, and the meeting should rightly begin, Daziel let the show go on a moment longer for what he would later write in his journal beneath a list of his injuries from the day to be 'morale reasons'. This journal would then be uploaded to his blog, which was quite popular due to the fact that many of his readers thought he was a woman and most of them wanted to get with the charming and affectual 'DB'. Ignoring this puzzling aspect of his life for a the time being, I'll go on to cover what Franklin said next.

The first thing is that the old man laughed. A hearty guffaw, as it were. Franklin had a laugh that was most often to be described as possessing a definite 'y' sound somewhere in it. 'Hyeh' would be the way to write the thing. These 'Hyeh's would usually bolt out, about three or four at a time and then fade into a punctuating grunt that rumbled on as a sort of chuckle for a moment afterwards. It is at the end of this rather long description of his laugh that Spencer told Alice, very matter-of-factly, "If'n you think I have any problem what-so-ever with a fine lady such as yourself putting her hands around my pouch, you got another thing coming, girl. Why, I might just come gussied up in my fine Sunday clothes, hyeh. Be ole' Spence' first date in a pair of years."

"What a wonderful prospect for the both of you." Mister Burton finally interrupted, deciding the meeting should begin before Alice threatened to remove Mister Franklin's aforementioned 'pouch', "Now, as to the business at hand!"

Daziel set down his datapad and plucked a spots on its slick screen, causing video of a rather angry-looking fat man to appear behind him on the vidscreen. Daziel didn't seem to notice this faux pas, because his next words were: "Here is a photograph of Team One's landing site. As you'll no-doubt notice, it's a tad larger than ours and unlike ours absent any water. The soil is most unusual, you'll know it immediately as the landing has disturbed the 'freshly-baked coffee cake' effect the ground seems to have out here. I'll of course be taking you to it-- so it's no matter as to the direction-- that said it is a wonderful kilometer's hike from our present location."

As Daziel went on, the man on the screen behind him began to look increasingly more angry and increasingly more impatient as time went on. Soon, the man was almost beet red as he clutched at his tie; his jowls jiggling in a very un-jolly way. Which was disturbing, you see, for fat people are meant to be jolly.

"I always thought the planet looked like a giant brownie," Akemi interjected enthusiastically with a shit-eating smile, not actually having anything to say beyond that, but wanting to be annoying. She paused for a moment trying to come up with something more in the same vein. "I can't wait to name everything. Gotta find Koga Cave and Akemi Gorge."

Sapphire's attention was glued to the fat man going through the various shades of red. She had never seen a man that fat before. Only women at the socials back on her native planet. But as it may be. Sapphire wondered how long it would take for the fatman to get a nose bleed from all thaat blood rushing to his face.

When Akemi began naming places after herself, Sapphire spoke up, "Don't forget Sapphire's Lake. Or Sapphire Mountain Range. That would be really cool! To have a mountain range named after one's self!"

Yori blinked, rather confused at seeing the large man show up on the screen, it was obvious that he was not supposed to be there and that Daziel wanted to show them something else as well. Yori would try to interject, but much like before Daziel was speaking without room for a polite interruption so she soon gave up on trying to interrupt and instead just listened to his words taking in as much as she could. When there was a chance to interrupt though it was spoiled by the girls talking about naming things, which was an interesting thought. "Hmm there isn't much to name though is there?"

It was Seiji's experience that the only people that got angry when they where ignored where important people, or rich people. That was one very angry man on the screen, so much so that he sat up straight and proper, smoothing out his uniform quickly. Attempting to get Daziel's attention, he cleared his throat in a very pronounced, very warning way.

"Pffff! I'm sure there's loads of things. You're only limited by your imagination," Akemi exclaimed in response to Yori's obviously silly question. "But if you don't think there's anything worth naming though I guess I'll just call dibs on naming whatever disappeared the last team that went down here. Hopefully it's at least half as cute as miss Sapphire here and doesn't mind me petting it. Hopefully Sapphire doesn't mind either."

"A kilometer hike in oxygen masks, wonderful," Alice said with a frown. She then aimed her frown at Franklin. "Mr. Franklin. I am sure you enjoy your macho posture and love to make clear that you are strong, tough nepleslian. I simply do not give fuck. Your blood pressure is too high and you need to take your medication. I hoped you would be man enough to not be afraid of little pill. But if that is a problem I can simply put you off duty for medical reasons. Belive me, that I will do so. Long travel on foot in oxygen mask is highly tiring and your pressure will rise, if you do not take your medication you will be a liability to the whole team and I will keep you grounded. So stop arguing with me and take your fucking pills."

Sapphire just rolled her eyes and activated the screen's vocal emitters that showed the Fat Man turning several shades of red. "Oops. Forgot that sound was turned off. " She shrugged her apology to Daziel. She kept the volume low incase the Fatman exploded in loud obnoxious words.

Franklin snickered to himself, a dull smile to Alice's face. He plied the little white pill from his pocket and sat it upon the table with a defiant look in his eyes. Next, he brought down a hammer-like fist, smashing the tiny pebble of a thing into a fine powder which coated his hand. Finally, he held his palm next to his face and scoured the length of it with his tongue, eyes still defiantly focused upon Alice. With his feat accomplished, Spencer broke into another bawdy laugh wile he wiped his now wet hand across the face of his jacket. "Next time," He warned her, "Yer gonna have to make it worth my while. A feller cain't be expected t' give a lady what she wants every time, even if she is a tall glass of milk."

Amidst all the jibber jabber about naming things and the disgusting acts happening at the other end of the table, Daziel's face took on a puzzled expression. He jammed a finger under each side of his bandana to adjust his ears as if to ensure he was hearing everything correctly. Leaving the lower cartilage of each impliment jutting out of the fine cloth, he smiled again and started to try bringing everyone back on track.

"I say, it's very good that you're all so excited to work, yet--"

"BURTON!" You see, this is when the massive gentleman on the other end of the video finally began to speak. And despite his volume having been lowered, the man in question was still very loud. His face scrunched up when he shouted and a pointy little tuft of dirty-blonde hair seemed to pop out of formation and slide down his forehead.

Immediately, Daziel's shoulders rose an inch or two and he turned in his chair. The startled appearance was dropped as quickly as it came, however, and Daziel immediately greeted this very angry, very important person. "Ah, John Fox! Why hello, old boy! How pleasant it is to see you today, dear fellow. I say, you are looking a bit out of sorts there, old boy. What ever is the matter, my--"

"Burton! You filthy sycophant!" John Fox was not a nice person, nor was he a good person. He had a fondness for fur-lined collars, you see, and such people while warm even in the coldest of breezes are rarely pleasant to be around. He was the kind of person they based Ebeneezer Scrooge off of. The type of man who gains power due to his ability and then uses it to make everyone miserable. He'd gained weight to spite his wife, and then refused to sleep with her when she admitted with glee that she'd always had something of a fat fetish. He was the sort of person who ate sacks of candy before a trip to the dentist and passed quiet gas in crowded elevators. While he took no pleasure in these things, he took markedly less displeasure in his life for having done them-- and so John Fox was there, yelling at Daziel so he could sleep at night.

"What is this about you pulling the debt from the October file!? And hiring the parents!?" He shouted, slamming a fist on the table and freeing another lock of hair from its gelled prison.

"Ah, yes, well-- you see-- They were not fit to work on the planet, yes? But fit to work on the station, sure, and we need fellows on the station with things, you know." Daziel informed John Fox, holding a finger to the sky. "So, naturally I thought, we've trained these people and we might as well--"

"You didn't think at all, you idiot." John Fox cut Daziel off and clenched his fists, making an ogre-like face. It was hard to believe it, but in fact Daziel was this man's boss.

"I say, no need to get so hot and bothered, dear fellow." Daziel protested.

"Listen to me, you cheery little tinker-toy-- I am supposed to handle accounting for this operation. Not you. And you are moving money around like you are supposed to handle accounting for this operation." There was a pause, so that John Fox could take in a breath and sputter the next word, "STUPIDLY!"

Daziel peered over his shoulder at everyone behind him for a moment. His eyes searched their faces calmly, as if he were doing some sort of math. Eventually he turned back to the screen and said slowly, "I shall take this call on the bridge."

And then, John Fox opened his mouth to start yelling again; only to be quieted by disappearing completely and leaving only a black slate on the wall where he'd once been. Daziel smiled and turned back to everyone, spreading his arms across the width of the table. "Everyone, I'm terribly sorry. I must ask you to go ahead without me for a while. I shall catch up, and believe me I shall make good speed to do so. Mister Strellan?"

Niel just grunted in response.

"Do stay here and eat something, you look absolutely ragged. As for the rest of you..." Daziel stood up and began pulling equipment from a small chest next to his chair.

"Kindly and carefully examine the other team's landing site for any clue whatsoever, if you would." He started, walking first to Seiji with a handheld scanner and an advanced datapad. "Mister Morimoto, please cooperate with Mister Franklin and examine the terrain and soil-makeup of the area for any peculiarities."

Next, Alice was presented with a simple datapad. "Doctor Mason, if you could be so kind as to keep an eye out for corpses or any organic matter-- which I'd like you to record here. Prepare a field kit in the medical bay as well, if you would, so as to preform autopsy if necessary. Keep them safe while I'm gone, yes?"

Then, the proximity key for the armory was placed before Akemi. "Miss Koga, Miss Mako, do see that you're both adequately armed and prepared to incinerate just about anything if you would. Of course, provide weapons for the others as well, should they ask."

Yori received a datapad like Alice had. "Miss Kataoka, you'd be quite dear to me if you'd play Mister Strellan's role and keep an eye out for the ships or any debris from those ships-- and of course figure out what happened with them and record it here for me. Recover any equipment as necessary."

Finally, poor Sapphire was given charge of a headset of sorts. It was a modified FatCOM, paired with yet another datapad. "Miss October, you shall be the secretary so to speak. This datapad is constantly uploading to Sister Sara as well as being synced with the others, and this FatCOM has a camera built-in. Record everything and monitor the feeds to make sure we're getting a constant stream of data from the site."

With everything distributed Daziel whirled around the table one last time to pull a rack of masks from the wall for everyone except Akemi and Mako. With them settled over the table, he took one and hung it limply by its straps around his neck like a giant plastic medallion. "As I said before, I shall catch up as soon as I finish haggling with that oaf of an accountant we've got. I travel fast, so don't worry about me. If there are any questions, direct them to me via Miss October. She'll be able to communicate with the bridge during the whole process. Now, if you'll excuse me-- I'd like to get this over with."

And then he left. Immediately, Franklin took his mask and began putting it on while Niel just sat there looking pitiful and feeling sorry for himself.