Soban
Convention Veteran
- RP Date
- YE 44.7
- RP Location
- Pisces Station
Pisces Station
YE 44.7
Aliset leaned back at her desk, seeing the classroom before her. Sure, she knew she was on one of Pisces Station's volumetric decks, and merely a telepresence in this command class, but she wished there were some way to make the hours pass easier. The fractional seconds of latency between her volumetrics chamber and her telepresence drone made it difficult enough to keep up with her class, forcing her to think and react faster than anyone should reasonably have to.
That part she didn't mind so much. It just meant she would make a better commanding officer when the time came. What she did mind was this strange and alien command structure she was being taught to run. That commanders weren't people who knew every weld, or who hadn't grown to age aboard or been selected by their ships for their skill and prowess. She was a pilot, selected at her Trials by Soren for the comand training. She could park any vessel she flew with a hand's breadth on any side even without the augments some part of her desire. She understood much of the necessity. After all, military command was far different from civilian. A civilian captaincy could be as simple as owning the ship and paying the crew.
But military... Far more involved. The selection of her ship was more important, the crew had to trust the command staff. She knew this, intimately. Instinctively.
Although she usually attended in person, her permanant residence wasn't far from campus, the lanky Separa'Shan also sat in a voumetric deck. That she was read in on some secrets had opened a oppertunity for her to advance the study of genetics in a unique way. It would also serve as the thesis she needed to graduate with her MD. For now, what that meant was she also was attending remotely.
"Alright, folks. Today's simulation day. Each of you take a tablet and go stand under the number displayed on it." The instructor was already talking as he walked in, a full two minutes before class was scheduled to start. "What are your questions?"
Sacre glanced around, looking for her number and joining the Senti who stood at it. She took stock of her partner, the Senti were ever rarer than Separa'Shan. Even though Separa'Shan joined the millitary at a higher rate than average. There were only a few hundred million of them total in the tens of billions citizens of the empire. Senti who had joined the Star Army and eliginble be in this advanced class could be numbered on one hand, probably with fingers leftover. Nevertheless, Sacre had studied thieir unique physiology and genetics. She noted how Aliset's gait was slightly off, and hips seemed slightly awkward. It was probably a bent pelvis. Similar to how the last couple of feet of her own tail landed slightly off due to some injuries sustained in the war.
Sacre wasn't proud of many of the countless scars that crisscrossed her tail, body, and face. They were the result of pride, weakness, and what had scarred her soul more than her body. However, the ones that she had earned serving Yamatai she was proud of. They were the good scars, the kind that came from doing something worthwhile with their life.
"So, why do I have to carry them through this simulation?" Sacre asked, pointing a thumb at her partner. However, her words didn't match her emotions, she was fairly indiffrent if slightly negitive to anyone.
The instructor nodded, "This is a pair assignment, each simulation has been programed to play to each of your strengths and weaknesses."
Aliset gave a small chuckle as she listened to Sacre's pride and confidence, deciding to speak her mind in Essian, no matter how terrible her accent. "I think you'll find me more capable than you first think."
Sacre looked annoyed at the intrustion of Essian into the conversation. She strongly disliked her native language. She had practiced for years to remove every trace of it's accent from her speech. She hated feeling inarticulate, and being looked at as the 'one with the funny accent' had driven her to work hard to excise it. She couldn't even remember the last time she had actually spoken in Essian.
She didn't put hands on Sacre, no pat on the shoulder or back, and was very careful to avoid the tail, having beem bitten before and not yet knowing the difference between pythus and venis. As she made her way around her partner, she offered a smile and a hand before speaking. "Aliset of Koun. I'm a helmsman, right now. You're... Medical, right? This sim's gonna be interesting. We allowed to know what we're getting into?"
"Sacre Sanssinia. I've also been a team leader for a squad backing special forces. So it really could be anything." Sacre replied.
"This simulation will put you under the command of a superior who will direct you through a crisis situation." The instructor explained.
"Alright, sounds like a plan... I was captain of a postage freighter for ten years, and a Ginga pilot with the 17th SBW during the Battle of Glimmergold, so we both clearly have strong leadership potential. I just have the knowledge and skill to do inflight repairs if we need. Here's hoping we can avoid bumping heads too much, right? Knowing these command types, it's gonna be a lot more complicated than our instructor says, but I highly doubt it'll be harder than my Trials. Shall we give our class a show?" Ali's smile only widened, never dropping as she slipped into a casual parade rest and faced the instructor.
"It's never as simple as the mission brief says it will be." Sacre said, joining Aliset in a casual parade rest.
The instructor looked out across the groups. "Allright, people attending by volumetrics, you will be dropped immediately into the simulation. Everyone else report to your volumetic deck. Good luck."
With that Sacre and Aliset were standing on the bridge of a Medical frigate.
Ali's first action was to walk to the helm, tapping the occupant on the shoulder to announce her presence as she looked over the current location and spatial situation. Furrowing her brows, she double checked the location of the little medical frigate, then looked to Sacre, and the captain in turn. "I could go for a briefing. I mean, we're in neutral territory, everything looks normal, aside being neck deep in a nebula."
"A wildcat colony settled Echronedal three years ago. What they didn't know and wasn't on the survey, is that the whole ecosystem of the planet apparently breaks out into a aether firestorm. A sort of natural uncontrolled version of what our power plants do. It's being swept by the wildfire and we've been sent to the rather chaotic evacuation to save as many lives as we can. We'll be arriving in five mintutes, what are your thoughts?" He asked.
She quickly scanned the bridge and helm controls, attempting to identify the class of vessel. "No weapons to disable the aether storms, only a handful of shuttles, too deep in the nebula to call for Flotilla assistance..." Aliset spoke quickly, rattling off the facts she knew too quiet to be heard at any real range. "Standard doctrine would claim we land medical personnel and control, use the main ship for orbital tracking and comm relay to bring the civilian fleet into the evacuation... And I don't speak the language..."
Sacre looked at the map of the evacuation. "It doesn't help that the dunderheads put their city in the forest. Lots of animals running from the fire make thermal less useful. We should deploy science teams ahead of and behind the wavefront, see if the eggheads can pull something from their asses. We need soldiers to coordinate the city on the ground. Three prongs for the mindy search teams. One in front of the firewall, moving forward. One following whatever passes for roads in theese parts. One doing a search pattern coming inward towards the city."
"If I can maneuver the ship into low orbit, and I mean really low, we can use the thrusters to maintain geosync. I'll need some software engineers to reformat our gravitic shields to form a lagrange point inside the atmosphere and pull the atmosphere up to us, while using the distortion drive's continuum anomaly to slow the fire down. This'll allow their aircraft to enter our docking perimeter, but it'll make gravity real interesting down there. Make it easier for the Mindies to make their jump, too. We'll have to use some of the onboard weapons to keep clear sattelites, cause we'll be running with almost no shields up here." Aliset's idea spilled out before she could stop it, and she furrowed her brows, trying to consider if it was good or bad. She shot a look to Sacre for confirmation.
Sacre considered Aliset's part of the plan. It reminded her of Gravity, and part of her was suddenly sad, but she hid it quickly. "It sounds, intresting, although I'm not an expert on drive systems."
"I mean, it's not that different from the gravimetric distortions used by certain organic ships to avoid reentry. I used on Soren at Akina, but we didn't have much of a shield, so it was still a little rough. I also only had fifteen people. Fact of the matter is they probably don't have enough of a spaceborne fleet to handle the evacuation. Besides, multiple trips takes a while, especially dodging Aether storms. About fifteen minutes to break atmo, eight to enter. The less fuel and braking time we can use, the faster turnaround for civilian pickup. If their aircraft can land on the hull to drop passengers, even better. I like your plan. Took it into account with mine," she bluffed, turning to the simulated superior officer. "Captain, permission to take the helm and engineering boards?"
The Captain nodded, "We'll do it." He said as the medical ship arrived on the planet. Sacre issued orders to the ground team and started coordinating the search and the evacuation. Mindys and dropships deployed from the ship as it descended into the atmosphere.
With Aliset's direction to the helm and engineering boards, the continuum distortion drive spooled, even at maximum power, this close to a gravity well, it was only running at about eight percent efficiencey, not enough to move the ship past light speed. But that wasn't what she planned to do as she fought with the software. Atmosphere lifted to envelop the ship as the lagrange point was set, the shields inverted to form a simulated gravitational mass that would allow aircraft to maneuver in the atmosphere, and she looked up for a moment. "Comms, could you inform the folks down there on what we're doing, broadwave, repeating, use our com towers as a landing beacon if you have to. I'm having trouble with this... This drive was never meant to be repurposed like this. Neither were our shields. I'm reading half burn just to maintain altitude. We're gonna start overheating and burning things out if we hold this for more than a few hours... Helm, please start descending again, target altitude two five kilometers, reduce shield and lagrange to match. Descent rate five zero meters per second."
Sacre moved to the ground controll station, pulling up a map of the area. "All right apes, deploy out before it gets too crispy around here." Her hands swept over the map marking areas of responsibility. "Groups one and two, you have the city. One help with the evacuation, ir's your job to keep things orderly so we can get as many people out as possible. Two sweep the city to make sure we aren't leaving anyone behind. Three, sweep inward from the storm front to mark emergency pickups. Four your sweeping out from the city. Medics are assigned to the small craft. Triage injuries on the way up so we can prioritize treatment." Sacre explained as blue blips marking shuttles and powered armor poured out of the ship.
Anyone could see how Aliset was stressed, bouncing between stations and communicating across as many systems as were on her board, even slipping a few times into the notoriously information dense Shuristan for a few words before catching herself. Still, she was focusing on the ship, and using its systems to maximize Sacre's effectiveness on matters outside of the vessel. The MEGAMI system's constant software blocks and the technical limitations were starting to wear on her, though. Even with portable conn panels floating around her as she stood between the stations. She was deeply thankful that the other people on the stations had summoned additional boards to grant her simultaneous control as a tertiary. "Ghods, this level of control would be easier with a SPINE implant... Okay, looks like we're stabilizing. First point of failure's gonna be the FTL drive. How's that evac doing down there? Cause if I need, I can start redeploying tractor beams as docking webs and start pulling craft in... Right now the smallest I can manage is a small bus."
Sacre looked up from time to time from her monitor to the rest of the chaotic bridge before diving back down into giving the infantry more precise orders. Her words were terse and sharp as she gave a few informal reprimands to vital sectors. As her tension rose, her words became more professional. "I can have the small craft stack up so the tractor beams don't have as much work to do." She advised Aliset.
Breathe, Ali. What do you need to do better? The departments know. Let them handle it. They have the intimate knowledge. Let them do the shenannigans. You just have a bad idea and a freighter captain's instincts. The thought crossed her mind as she took a deep breath, moving the helm panel off to the side. The secondary helmsman had started settling into a groove with his primary and the requests of the command team. She could hear them chattering between themselves and passing information as they controlled each thruster with a precision she simply couldn't. She found her hand there idle as they didn't need her there at the moment. "Alright comm, could you pass me a headset, command channel? Who needs what, Engineering, I'm gonna switch over to take a look at some other systems, please let me know if something's up with the drive. I'm gonna use my helm panel to designate targets for FTL suppression."
Sacre started getting into a groove as well with her teams. The commands were given with an occasional sharp remark on how to improve. "With sector three cleared, you dunderheads need to move to sector seven to help team three."
Medical isn't too busy, yet, and they resupplied before we dropped out of FTL... I'll keep an eye on them, soon as they hit 50% supply, I'm gonna need to ask Fab to start spooling up... Which is gonna take more manpower away from other stuff. We should be in the groove by then, just gotta stay there. "Infantry, you got any guys need something to do? Cause if we have the portable graviton emitters for it, a few guys on the hull to catch people as they get caught in that gravity well would be a lifesaver. Also surface side triage if you can. Anybody who's not off the ship or already neck deep in something. CIC, if you can please help Engineering, helm, and other systems get around MEGAMI's safety limits, that would be amazing, cause I can't get infromation to support you folks while fighting with the ship. But try not to pull her offline, I need her to coordinate power. Sensors, could you tie in your feeds to engineering and helm so we can play a round of whackamole with these storms? Who's got ideas? Cause I need as much help as you folks are willing to give me."
As they worked the aetherflame wall moved steadily, devouring acres and acres of what had once been prime wildland. Sacre looked at her board, "There shouldn't be anyone directly below us. Medics are trialing on the way up." Sacre informed Aliset.
Suddenly, the aetherflames surged, smashing into the ship. The shields flicked, preventing everyone from dying, but the ship was like a toy in a vices dog's mouth as it was shaken.
She gave a sharp yelp as she tried and failed to lock her mag boots, proceeding to be thrown across the bridge with one particularly violent pitch, and immediately regretting not tying in sensors earlier.
The ship took a plunge, crashing into the surface behind the wall of flame and digging a trench. Everyone was thrown from their seats on an Impact that sent a title wave of burned dirt into the sky.
Sacre got up, sliding over where the captain lay deathly still. She put two fingers to his neck, before looking up and announcing "The Captain's dead." Even though she had been suspecting that this was coming, she was still shaken slightly by it, even though she didn't let that show.
Aliset groaned from her position on the floor, dragging herself to her feet as she moved, shaking off the dizziness and the surely newly bent bones. Feeling the gravity below her, she had trouble telling whether the artificial gravity was working or not. Locking her boots to the ground, she looked at each station and the recovering crew. "Damage reports, please. Sacre, how're your people doing? If they can, we need to keep the evac effort up. I'll work on getting us back in the air."
She would not ignore the Captain's death. But for now, they were still in the middle of a planet quite literally on fire and stuck planetside. She couldn't do anything about it right now.
Sacre checked her screen as the damage reports came in. The aether wall had leaped forward almost a kilometer and while there hadn't been any infantry, two shuttles had been destroyed. The ship was mostly intact, the tough armor taking the brunt of the damage, but the surface of the ship was scoured of almost anything that jutted out too far. There were casulties across the ship from people and things falling and crashing into each other. The engines were also damaged, unable to operate at their full capacity.
"We've lost two shuttles. The flamewall is a problem. I don't think we can survive anouther surge like that. Engineering, we need to focus on getting the ship back up so the shuttles we still have can land and drop off their passengers. Science, did you detect anything before the surge? Medical, what do you need from us?" Sacre asked, trying to be proactive in the situation.
Aliset let nodded at Sacre's observations, finding her boards to let her fingers fly across them and get readings on systems as they recovered. "Do we have external comms? Engineering, what's the ETA on getting us off the ground? I've got Megami handling damage control and hull breaches, so let her do her thing. Fab looks like they're coming back online, now. Goddamn, those girls work fast, so we should have parts en route to their needed locations momentarily. Helm, you got any power?"
"Coming back online, now. Waiting on Engineering."
"Gotcha covered. Stand by, take us up to safe altitude as soon as you can. Engineering, you mind reversing my shield modification soon as we have engine power? Medical, I know you're kind of overwhelmed right now. We'll get you as much help as we can. Just bear with us, okay? Comms, I'm punching in an old Shuristan equation, now. With a tie-in to sensors and engineering, it'll let us use our CFS as an external antenna."
From engineering a voice asked, "Those orders are somewhat conflicting, who's in charge up there anyway?" The engineer asked.
"Sorry about that, Engineering... There's a little chaos up here, too. To clarify, I got MEGAMI handling the hull problems, so try to get us in the air as fast as you can, okay? Soon as you're able, we could really use our shields unmodified to help keep those fires off us. Sacre, you mind taking the conn? I'll go duke it out with the computer."
"I have conn," Sacre said, moving towards the center of the bridge. Her eyes darted around the bridge as she assessed things, reports starting to filter back to them about what the status of the ship and the evacuation was. She had been focused on her part of it, and the crash had damaged the ship. So a lot of the information was new. The ship gradually righted it's self and moved upwards. "Place us behind the colony, and keep a distance from the aether wall. We can't afford anouther hit like that again." She ordered.
"It looks like some of the tractor beams were damaged in the crash." One of the hanger bays reported.
"Got you, pulling up your diagnostics and ordering parts from Fab, now." Aliset's voice cut through the comm, her marker popping up as she parsed out the diagnostic data. "Looks like a couple Megami drones can handle the repairs."
For an instant, it wasn't clear whether the voice was in Sacre's mind or her ears as Aliset flashed her a thumbs up and spoke. "I got your back, Captain."
Sacre nodded in return, thankful for the words. "In the meantime, I think we can use powered armor to control the shuttles and make sure they land efficently." She said agreeing with Aliset.
She turned her attention to the next issue, and together they managed to work together to rescue a lot of the civilians trapped before the wall of fire completely destroyed the colony as the ship escaped. The simulation paused and noted that they managed to save 86% of the Civilians. This was noted as being a excellent score for that aspect. Sacre didn't show her emotions outwardly, but she was flooded with an immense anger. She marched over to the display and tried to find the 'replay assignment' button, but it was greyed out. She hit it several times anyway in frustration. "We should have done better."
Reaching over, Aliset placed her hand in the way. "Sorry. I should have done better. We'll have another shot at this simulation later in the year... If they want to show us how much we've learned."
Turning, she gave a smile as her form shattered into motes of light, leaving behind an echo of an impression. She was just as shaken. Just as angry. "We got a few moments before we gotta get back to the classroom. just need a drink of water. I'll be back in a handful."
"Right," Sacre said, disappearing as well and stepping out into the hall of Pisces Station to grad herself a drink as well. She looked over to her left and saw Aliset exiting another one of the volumetric decks. She felt amused by this, "I thought I had gotten rid of you when I left my deck." She said, sounding acerbic even though her emotions didn't match it.
"Hey. Sorry about using Essian back there. I... You're here... Well, that explains the emotional imprint.." Her brows furrowed, walling off her own emotions as though to protect herself... No... It was something else. "Sorry. You were amazing in the command chair. I got a lot to learn."
"If the amount you had to learn was a race, you would be light trying to get to the edge of the universe." Sacre commented.
"I haven't spoken Essian in a long time. When I joined the army, I bearly spoke Yamataigo well enough to join. One of my first nicknames was
Yontô Hissy." Sacre explained.
Just the diversity hire, Ali. Captain Belmont may think different, but you have no promise that this girl will think diff-- The thought cut off, as though the walls had finally settled into place, not that she had cut herself off. It was clear that Aliset was still dealing with a lot of insecurity as she finished her glass and folded the silicone away into her pocket, starting to move back to her volumetric chamber. "Yeah. Some of the nekos on my ship call me Chui rusteater. Kinda dumb, really. Thanks. I didn't know I needed to hear that. Yonto Hissy sounds a little asinine. Good to know their insults haven't changed."
Tsulrati weren't psionic. Nothing in Sacre's studies showed more than a basic ability for telepathic or empathic abilities. Lower psionic potential than humans, or even Separa. The only discrepancy was the burial steel, but every race had outliers, and there was next to no verifying research on its claims, anyway.
That amused Sacre, once again reminding her of Gravity. The Senti woman was attractive in her own way. She was assertive and eager to try new things in a way that Sacre wished she had more of in her life.
"C'mon, pretty one. We don't want to face the teacher's ire more than we have to. Would rather she not turn off the safety restricters from her end and strangle me for being a smartass." She gave a cheeky smile over her shoulder. "As entertaining as it would be to watch a 120lb cat girl try to get a good grip on me."
"She could tell me to do it. If I strangled smartasses when they were being idiots, I don't think I'd have time for anything else." Sacre replied, rejoining Aliset in the classroom that had most of their classmates returned and lounging around talking while they waited for the instructor to come back.
"On the plus side, we actually scored really high for our first run through the simulation," Aliset gace a small smirk as the classroom faded into view, immediately returning to her partner's side. "Gotta admit, you'll make a Hell of a captain, one day, Sacre. It'd be an honor to serve under you till a ship decides to select me. I'm in the astronav class next period, but got lunch before that. I hear there's a great little Duskerian joint on deck 22. Rumor is they serve real pack roach."
Sacre didn't know what she meant when she said the ship would slect her. She decided to ask her sometime. Sacre nodded, she wasn't particularly hungry, but having lunch with Aliset would be enjoyable. "Lunch would be intresting. I was slicing slides all last night so I didn't have any time for breakfast. I wonder if they serve the packroaches whole."
"You sure you can handle a thousand pounds and two meters of murder bug? I mean... I'm sure you could, but that's a lot of bone, from what I hear. It might take you a few days to be able to move again." She gave a small laugh, the mental defenses dropping just long enough to let the image of Sacre bloated full of pack roach and curled up under a restaurant table slip through. "And my room's a little toasty for most folks, but I'm sure the small space is a bigger problem or I'd be willing to say you're welcome to crash out. I'm buying, but let's try to keep it limited to like a leg quarter or something."
Aliset was correct, but that wasn't exactly the deterant she might expect. It probably wasn't polite, but she wanted to show off a bit for Aliset. Sacre opened her mouth fully, her jaw unhinging, cheeks unfolding, and throat widening to show she could probably swollow something pretty large whole if she wanted. "Separa'shan usually have their own division in extreme eating contests. I don't know if I could, but it might be fun to try However, I'll content myself with one of your small meals." She commented, radiating amusement despite the deadpan way she said the words.
"I don't doubt you, not in the slightest. But a whole pack roach is a very large, very expensive thing. Like smallish Kodian big. One of my flight school mates was on the officer exchange problem and got to go hunting with the Duskerian Legion once. She sent me back photos and two words." She gave a shrug, smiling. "Dunno if it was a pack roach or what, but it tore up a Mindy pretty good. I hear Sirrus is a deathworld. I think she might have been a bit biased on just how big those things are."
She tried to avoid staring at the inside of the jaw, especially the upper, but after being bitten by a Venis, she had to ensure those fangs wouldn't be going anywhere near her chest again. But Sacre didn't have fangs. Come to think of it, her form was a bit stockier, her face a bit softer and less reptilian and her tail longer, more muscular and powerful. Must be an ethnic thing, she dismissed the thought offhandedly, in stead, turning her mind towards the first time she had seen planet Yamatai as more than a simple blue marble, standing on the hull of some golden hulled piecemiel cargo ship delivering mail in the form of recruits, herself included.
"But yes, I'll get you a meal none of the smaller races would be able to finish," she laughed. "Then... Well, I hadn't planned that far beyond that... Maybe there's something you want to do later? Sorry, I'm not real creative."
Sacre finally felt like she was starting to understand Gravity a bit more with the attractive Shuristian. "I've got classes and a lot of research I'm doing. That said, with Shurista's achives opening up, I'm going to be going there soon to see if they have any records of what I'm looking at. I don't know much about your people. So just getting to know you would be useful. I enjoy making knives and knife throwing, I think there is a place to do that somewhere on the station. What do you like to do?" Sacre asked.
"There's a really nice--" Don't let your heart cost her life, Ali. Not like it has for the others. The thought cut through Aliset's defenses like a knife, ripping its way free like a scream from her throat and carrying the smiling faces of her fallen husbands on it, turned to closed eyes splattered in blue blood, then glowing steel for one. The other, the shattered husk of her sister in law after his disappearance. Shaking her head, Aliset continued. "Deck forty five. Aah, there's a little shop down there. An old Samurai blacksmith, retired and enjoying his obscurity. I don't know how helpful it'll be, considering I've never forged a knife in my life. Let alone thrown one. But it sounds like fun!"
Sacre nodded, feeling grief, but unsure as to why. "Making knives is both useful and fun. Long as you don't permanantly scar yourself, a likely outcome given your dexterity, you may be able to make something that at least resembles a knife."
The smile Aliset gave seemed hollow and indistinct, but the attempt at sincerity was there. "And a research nomination to the Shuristan Grand Library? That's really impressive. What are you planning?"
"It's not technically a research nomination, Admrial Fletcher..." Sacre trailed off for a moment, not sure of how much she could say. "Is very concerned about a new threat, I'm going through the Millitary Intelligance program which has some sort of priority, but from my understanding of things that I really don't there is some contriversy the eggheads are sorting out. I don't really care, but they seem to."
"What, like Senti being psionic or something dumb like that? I mean, don't get me wrong, digging around in the Library may reveal something, but it's far from a complete repository of the Universe. There's an equal chance they've never seen it before." She gave a shrug. "Good hunting, though. I really do hope something helpful is in there."
Sacre shrugged, "He's also worried about stuff like that, what with the Rathankans. He doesn't trust them. Not that he trusts much of anything that isn't a part of Yamatai. but I'm on a new external threat. I've been to where we think it comes from and I'm pretty certain that Shurista hasn't been there. However, if they do have records, it means that we might be wrong which would both be a relief and its own sort of worrying. Someone has to track the information down, so I'm it."
"Atteni Soren is an archivist. Mention me and she'll help you..."
The last of the students and the teacher entered, and the class fell silent. "I'm sending each of you your computer scores. I'll also be doing an individual assessment. Congratulations to Chuis Koun and Sanssinia for having the highest score of anyone in this class. What do you think the purpose of today's assignment was?" The teacher asked.
Aliset balked, looking confusedly at the teacher. What? Is she talking about us? Uuh... Adaptability? Teamwork under fire? Something like that? I dunno. I was just kinda winging it... Sacre's the real hero of that sim...
Her body spoke before her brain as she raised her hand as though she knew. Which she most definitely didn't. Put your hand down, you dumb xeno bint! But Ali was not as stubborn as herself, it seemed, as the psionic signal controller in her breast pocket sparked and let off the tiniest puff of smoke. "Damn it, those are expensive..."
Sacre glanced over at Ali, hearing what she sait and noticing the thin whiff of smoke that no one else probably did. She wasn't sure what it meant, but she would probably ask later.
The teacher pointed at Aliset, "What is your answer?"
Sacre was brought back to the question and her answer rose to the top of her mind. It was command, the simulation was designed to push us into conflict about who was in charge. There were three major factors in our sucess. First, we were able to establish quickly who was in charge. Second, I knew how to conduct a evacuation. Third, Aliset's innovative ideas probably allowed us to increase the rate we were able to get shuttles docked then back out and repair damage. The thoughts had a strong undertone of obssession with getting the simulation right and saving everyone.
Thank you, "The simulation's exercises had several factors defining success or failure. In the case of Sacre Sanssinia and myself, it was a challenge of who was in charge of the situation combined with a complex exterior situation a sparsely equipped rescue vessel. With our differences in command style, there was expected to be an incompatibility and argument. However, our passing score was based on those same factors that should have made it difficult to pass. In establishing early who had overall control of the situation, we managed to rescue 85 pecent of the possible civilians. We will be working on ways to improve our future scores, as we don't believe that the score we got was acceptable."
She offered a smile to Sacre. putting her hand down and sitting back down in her seat as she took a deep breath, beginning to wrestle her emotions back to something approaching calm.
The teacher nodded, "Sometimes in the fog of battle, it can be unclear who is in charge. This lack of clarity most be resolved quickly and efficently, often it matters less who is in charge than that someone is in charge and taking control of the situation." There was class discussion for a while longer, addressing various aspects of the simulation before the class was finally dismissed.
Within half a second, the tsulrati had disappeared, and could be found outside her volumetric chamber, a set of tools working on what appeared to be a personal psionic signal controller surffering burned shielding. "Cheap ass piece of substandard civilian junk..."
Sacre exited her volumetric chamber and looked over at the electronic mess. "I can't say I've ever seen someone so inept they can break electronics just by being around them, but I suppose your inneptitude is exceptional." She said, her tone dry. Her mood was midly curious and amused, not knowing what it was that was broken.
"To be fair, it comes in a five pack, and I really don't want to break out the null glass." Aliset looked up momentarily, then downturned her head until something in her hand sparked and fell, exhuding a foul smoke as Sacre could finally see the remains of a civilian grade psionic signal controller. "And I just shorted the power supply... Great."
"You get what you pay for." Sacre shrugged, "You need to grab a replacement before we eat?" She asked.
"I should be good. It's fine. Not like it was really there for more than keeping me from getting a headache around so many Nekovalkyrja." She shrugged, scooping up the charred plastic as she crushed it into a foil ball and tossed it away. "Thanks for the save back there. I was kinda panicking and I kinda winged it in the simulation."
"You were the one who suggested that I be the one in charge." Sacre said, unaware of her helping Aliset in class.
"I meant... Never mind. Let's go get food." Aliset gave a soft, warm smile as she straightened. "I'll grab a new PSC from the vendors on the way. I think I have the credits... Oh! Right, YSE uses KS. Sorry. Anyway, you still want a whole pack roach to show off?"
That wasn't what she had said, but perhaps what she had meant. The two of them moved down the corridor together. "I've learned to live with Yamatai's rather irregular feeding schedule, lots of small meals. If you got me a pack roach, I probably woulsn't need to eat for a month. So something smaller will be fine."
"Yeah, let's go with a leg quarter, keep you full for a week?" Her joke was punctuated by a shake of her head. "I dunno. I think you'll really like Shurista. It's beautiful. Lots of parks. Real stone houses. Real wood. And most of the clothes sold on board are natural fibers. They have a universal basic income based on what we use and the waste produced. It's very different. Just remember that the water credit doesn't exchange with the KS, yet... Which is why I have problems buying nonmilitary clothes. Gets real expensive when you're not on UBI, anymore."
"It sounds like a beautiful place. My original solution was never leave where it's acceptable to wear a uniform. What's a water credit?" Sacre asked, curious about Aliset's home.
"Oh!" Aliset quickly lifted her necklace out of her uniform, unclasping it to dump a series of metal rings into her hand. Reclasping her necklace, she offtered the weighted steel rings, each with a different colored gemstone.
"So most gems are kinda useless to us, especially sapphire. So we artificially induce colors in them to help color code our currency. Each of these weighted steel rings denotes a volume of water. This little white one is a deci, or one tenth of a liter. The brown is a single, then we have increasing quantities by muliples of five." She separated out each of the notable currency units, and quickly counted up. "So these would be a total of... Just under five thousand liters of water in value. This is about one month's income for a postage freighter captain like I was, not counting the Ubi.
"I'm probably not going to be able to bring several onsen of water with me." Sacre remarked dryly.
Gently, Ali took Sacre's hand, dumping the currency into it. "Then take these. I have a few hundred thousand liters. Nobody out this side of the lonely expanse takes Shuristan credits. The credits are based on water volume on the Flotilla. Both in use and in the greywater system."
Sacre flinched away from the unexpected contact, causing the gems to fall and scatter acorss the corridor. There was a bright sharp panic that threatened to overwhelm the normally stoic Separa'Shan. What looked like a knife of bone suddenly sprang from her wrist. Sacre stopped herself from doing more. The bone knife slid slowly back into her wrist. "Sorry, I... don't like being touched unexpectedly." Or at all a voice inside her added.
"I was one of the first Separa'Shan to leave our homeworld. I was young and nieve, looking for adventure in whatever came my way. It didn't end well, and there's still... shrapnel." She added in explaination as she stretched out with her tail, using it as a sort of broom to gather the scattered gems.
"I get it." Ali stooped to help gather up the fallen currency, offering a warm smile. "I've never seen an implant like that. It's really impressive. But I am truly sorry for what made that necessary. "I'll keep that in mind. I... There's a solid dose of trauma on my side, too."
Sacre put them into a pocket, "Thank you for the loan, I'll be sure to repay it when I can."
"What's a loan?"
Sacre gave Aliset a odd look, not understanding how someone could not understand what a loan was. "Sometimes you need more money than you have, so you agree with someone that has the money, but doesn't need it right now for them to let you borrow it. In exchange, you pay them some money for the service." It was vastly oversimplified, but hopefully enough to get the idea across.
The concept brought furrowed brows and radiating confusion from Aliset as she tried and failed to fully comprehend it. "Weird. Senti have this belief that any negative action puts everyone at risk, while doing something positive for others, with or without an expectation of repayment allows everyine to prosper. So the general expectation is to pay it forward, not back. It's one of those cultural things that I'm still wrapping my head around."
"My father was very good at making loans that benifited people. I don't have many good memories of him, we fought, a lot. But I do remember this one debt that he forgave and he explained that anyone can lend with the expectation of repayment, it is much more difficult to lend without a real expectation of repayment even though it helps everyone." Sacre explained reaching back to things from a long time ago.
"Do you have a good relationship with your parents?" Sacre asked.
"My grandmother volunteered me to the Shuristan Councils without my knowledge. My father killed my assaulter and then proceeded to coddle me for fourtieen years. I suppose my relationship can be described as average." She shrugged again, smiling. "Aside from your father, do you have any family? People you're honestly close to?"
"I used to have a very large family, but the way I understand it is that the senator from Essia was from my hometown. My father was rather... defiant during the occupation. So there's not much left but a smoking ruin. I'm not good at relationships. I have a girlfriend, and well I'm not sure what Hildr is. There is Klaus and some others from various postings. But I wouldn't describe my social life as exactly thriving." Sacre explained.
"Ah... Same, honestly. I don't have a lot of folks I'm really close to. There's this Consort, Sayako, and my Captain. But my husbands are dead. I have no siblings, just cousins, and I may have burned the bridges that would make me welcome on Shurista. So I'm kinda out on my own. Little lost xeno girl. With just enough known by my ship medics to not kill their diversity hire when she got bitten by a Separa Captain. It's been a long few years." She gave a soft, hollow grin, considering her position. "You were there, once. The Star Army isn't exactly our normal. So I got awakened. I'm working with our CMO and Say to make an implant that'll help me feel the ship. Normal stuff to bring me up to something approaching standard."
The two finally arrived at the Duskarian resturaunt. "We're two sad sacks aren't we? It might have been harder for them to accidently kill me, but have you ever tried going up stairs with this tail? Don't even get me on the expectation that your able to fly. Yes, I do enjoy being a blimp." Sacre comiserated with a bit of sarcasm, waving her tail in the air for emphasis.
"Oh, my gods, and when they expect you to be able to just sleep in gravity? I never snored once in my life before joining the Star Army!" Aliset laughed, "Now I'm waking myself up literally twice a week! And personally, I think you have a rich and beautirful coloring and pattern on your tail. While yeah, stairs and zero grav channels are hard, at least you don't have a medical profile requiring you to wear mag boots so you don't go sliding across the bay floor during PT."
Breaking away from the conversation, she quickly ordered and paid for the whole leg quarter of slow roasted pack roach, and a barbeque plate for herself. It was a pleasant note that they offered to change up the recipe for her species, one she took without thinking. "And half their controls are either psychic or deadass just "Oh, just connect this little USB port in your left ass cheek. Like I have one, Megami! Also, the Nekos like refridgerator magnets."
Sacre didn't laugh, but she was highly amused. "Have you ever seen us do a jumping jack? No, because it's made for ridiculous biped physiology. I've got a great idea, I'm going to fall over and than catch myself repeatedly. Yes, this is a sensible way to do things. Nekos like refrigerator magnets? How so?" Sacre asked, finally taking a bite of the huge packeoach leg.
"I have seen that. It was sad and dumb. Any idiot can see that jumping jacks aren't good for either of us. You fall over, I leave a dent in the deck. Gods, I hated flight school. And yeah. Magnets. My bones are ferromagnetic. So magnets stick to me. Apparently that was really funny to the kittens." She took a forkful of her barbecue, giving an eye roll. "And then they keep it so cold in their ships! I'm stuck in a 30C and I still have to wear a thermal layer and a heater. I've gotten about staying just dehydrated enough."
"You're species is warm blooded at least right? Why are you so lethargic Sacre? It's like two degrees out, not even freezing! I was made for twenty five minimum. If you aren't sweltering, than I'm probably trying to figure out how to conserve energy in a blizzard. Why is the heat lamp glued to my tail? You guess."
"I'm risking hypothermia below thirty, and I'm comfortable between forty and eighty, so I get it! I went out in the snow one time, woke up in a hospital. It was like one and a half degrees out and apparently I was unconscious in five minutes."
"Mmm fourty. I might have to see if I can use you as a heat source. I was assigned to Ralt once, way up in the north. I hated every second of it. Everyone else is like yay! Snow. I'm by the fire and trying to figure out how to get closer without actually being in it. What's been your worst assignment so far?" Sacre asked.
"Easily shore leave on Freebeer with the Wrath of Nepleslia, during the disaster relief after Turassiel, " she gave a chuckle, though it was dark, not quite so soft. Clearly more had happened there than she was about to say. "You think Ralt's cold? Freebeer's a ball of mud and ice full of gun nuts and incoherent boogaloo noises. I still celebrate Lois Pascal day, but damn it, I don't want to be digging bullets out of my half frozen ass half the time Or trying to run on any high G world. You think these are made for running?"
Aliset grabbed and lifted her breast, before letting it drop. "What about yours? Worst or strangest assignment."
"Everything is so much lighter out here." Sacre thought a moment, "Strangest has to be the time I heard a insane dead God talking to me and I helped destroy a universe. That one was weird. But it's probably the combination. Riding dragons was fun. Once you've spoken draconic, nothing else is quite the same." Sacre said, turning the leg over and eating the other side.
"If you dislike low gravity, you will have to get used to Shurista. There is no gravity. We never needed it. Our physiology lets us use magnetic fields in the place of gravity. So... Yeah. Good luck?"
"Magenetic fields? I don't hate low grav, but I do like having the ground under me, or at least thinking I do. On the other hand, there are plenty of Separa'Shan who swim, and I've heard being in zero g is like that." Sacre worried slightly.
"You'll be fine," she started focusing again, radiating confidence in her smile. "You're among the top of your class. You did your zero gravity training before the Draconic Wars, you learned to speak the language. Considering what little I know of our universe, I would assume that Draconic isn't simply an extragalactic, but an extradimensional language. Don't ever doubt your ability to adapt. Not to me, please."
Sacre didn't really see herself that that. There was a lot of fear and insecurity she still felt. "You don't know me very well... but I suppose I have adapted. From hunting in the jungle alone, to being wrapped in a giant metal caccon. Perhaps your on the opposite journy and you'll end up being a lone hunter in a jungle."
"You're as insecure as I am." Aliset offered a forkful of her barbecue, a bright smile on her face. "And that's perfectly fine. Knowledge of your limitations is a powerful tool. One I learned to use too late. For all its flaws, you get to see something truly beautiful. And when you get back, tell me how the sun sets over the hull disk, and tell me how the hullsong feels, okay?"
"Hullsong? What is that?" Sacre asked, the encouragement from Aliset perking up her feelings.
"How do I describe hullsong..." Aliset looked off to one side, her forkful of barbecue just within reach if Sacre wished to lean forward and claim it. "You know how in an older ship... When you hear the creaks and groans, the slight vibration when the engines light or she hits atmosphere at the perfect trim. It's literally the song of the hull. And... I know it's weird..."
Sacre thought back to a old cago transport that she had been stationed on, one of the fans was supposedly completely within maintinance specs but it had this tiny hum and on the ship Sacre could tell exactly where she was based on what the hum sounded like.
She shook her head clear of the memories, trying to keep her confidence up. "It's probably just some silly superstition. And I've been thinking it more and more now that I'm on ships that don't sing. It's kind of... Unnerving. I don't know how to share memories with people. Can barely peel apart enough encryption to activate controls or talk to the crew of my ship."
"Our ships don't sing?" Sacre asked, not completely understanding what Aliset said.
"Our starships are living amalgamates of our ancestors. Literally built of half a million years worth of the cremated remains of... My species doesn't die. Not in the traditional sense. When our bodies die, we get cremated, folded into steel that makes up everything from our ship hulls to..." She pulled the fork back, setting it on her plate to pull a necklace from her uniform, an ornate and abstract shape of burial steel and white, opal like slag gem nearly the same size as Sacre's rank pin. She unclasped it from her neck, placing it on the table to slide across.
"Cookware, tools... Even jewelry. This necklace is part of the remains of Setiel Soren. My mother. Every ship's soul is the amalgamate of those who lived and loved in its hull. When we die, those emotions and energies don't just dissapate. Those memories don't just dissapate. Sorry, that probably sounds like a bunch of religious and superstitious hoogedy boogedy from a weird ass spacer nomad, doesn't it?"
"Pretty much, I'm an atheist. But it does remind me of a old Separa'Shan belief. We're born into this world, and we make friends, enemies, lovers, and more. We are then reborn with the chance to remake ourselves and fix the relationships we have broken. Eventually, we will fix all of the relationships with everyone in the universe, and everyone will live in harmony. It's a stupid anchient belief that really doesn't make sense, but there you go." Sacre explained.
"It's the way Shuristans believe." Ali shrugged. "I was raised in the culture. I'm still learning what was real and what was just myth. But that was my main source of training and learning. It helped me feel the ship around me. Let me do things that weren't strictly by the book. And it's part of why I got so stressed out in that simulation. I still find myself listening and feeling for it."
"I don't think any ship can tell you what to do, well the ship's AI might, but that's not the same thing. I don't get a sense from a scalpel 'ok, make an incision there', and if I did, I'd probably be labeled as crazy." Sacre responded, finishing the leg and putting the bones on her plate.
"I was called crazy. Flight school sucked. I dunno/ Might be some artifacting AI combined with instinctive sentimentalism. Throw in a bit of jerry rigged engineering and a loose beam, and bucket of bolts, five or ten thousand years of rust, and anything'll start loooking like ghosts in the metal." Somehow, she didn't sound convinced as she gave a soft shrug. "I dunno. Forget it, I guess."
"What was leaving there like for you?" Sacre asked.
"Like I cut away a piece of myself. A piece that had abandoned me thirty years ago. I've grown stronger for it. I wasn't going anywhere with my career with my own species. I'm sixty kilos overweight, got a twisted pelvis, and my heart costs lives. I'm better off here. What about you? You grew up planetside, right? What was that like?"
"I grew up before Yamatai came, my brother told me that I actually tried to bite one of the away team that first visited the surface. I'm not sure I believe him, but it was right before my ascension and I was eating everything I could put my mouth on. My father was a tradtionalist, so I spent a lot of time in the jungle, hunting, learning how to survive on my own. My favorite way was sitting in the branches of a tree over a game trail and then dropping on whatever came by. There was this one rock I'd hide under at night and then look up at the sky. I always wondered what was up there." Sacre said wistfully.
"I didn't get along with my father, we fought a lot. So when I decided to leave, it felt freeing. Like I was where I was meant to be, and there was a universe of possibility. Instead, I found a universe of pain. Hopeful, nieve, childish are the words I'd probably use to describe myself when I left. I haven't been back since. I think we felt two very diffrent things leaving. I was rather glad to have it behind me." Sacre explained.
"Not so different as you might think. My whole life, I grew up listening to the songs of peoples who could look up and see the stars lensed through an atmosphere. Not half a meter of glass. The first time I felt sunlight on my skin, it was... Indescribable. I used to sit on Soren's hull and watch the void. Wondering if what I was always hearing on the comms were just more echoes of the dead and dying. Then we picked up a beacon. I'd been Soren's captain for maybe...Ten? Twelve years before we caught a beacon. Refugee camps at Akina. I thought if we made contact, and forced Shurista to make contact then maybe we could finally see something real. But then two years later, nothing had happened. So with the Kuvexian War heating up, well, I figured I needed to help out. So I got warranted as a bomber pilot... Okay, pretty different. I mean, I passed my Trials at sixteen." She gave a shrug, picking up her biscuit. "Maybe Turassiel wouldn't have split if I didn't decide to be a hotshot. Maybe we would be a bunch of derelict remnants of a half million year dead culture. Who knows?"
There was a lot in what Ali said that Sacre didn't understand. "Turassiel, who's that?" She asked.
"Turassiel is... Was one of the sister structures to Shurista. Ninetey three hundred kilometers across, population of nearly three billion. It operated out of Nepleslia. Two years ago, the Gift of Song was leaked and it was attacked. Eighty five percent of the population was lost. My husbands and I were pulled to the Wrath of Nepleslia to perform search and rescue support. The Grand Library was completely ruined. Ninety eight percent loss. I hear they're starting to rebuild, now."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know about that. But I'm not sure why you would blame yourself. I don't think your the type to leak something like that." Sacre responded, the single structure had almost ten times as many people as there were Separa'Shan.
"I wasn't. But thank you. I don't think we ever found out who leaked the songs. They likely died in the attack. All I know is I still some times have nightmares about it. But that's unimportant in the long run. They're a hardy, industrious people. They'll recover. What of Essia? I hear it's a beautiful world. Full of beautiful people. Now that may be a bias with my first experience with a Separa being that I got bitten by the Captain of the Wyvern. But I'ld like to form a more honest opinion."
"I'm probably not the best example of the beautiful people. In my memory, their just people. The thing that's there that I've not really seen many other places is the density of... life. It's packed in everywhere. Everything constantly moving, growing, changing. What I remember is a lot of hard work, taking care of animals, stoking fires for the forge. We were semi-preindustrial, so none of the conveniances you find on starships. There was this one ridge, where you could look out over a valley filled with life and see the sun set over it. A warm red glowing ball sinking between the splashes of clouds. Always unique and beautiful. You should go there if you get a chance. Hopefully you won't rust from all of the humidity and rain. Because it's like a lot." Sacre said.
"Not the best example? That bone knife you almost took my hand with is a really interesting and unique augment, you have a softness and warmth about you that's lovely, and... Anyway, I've never been planetside to really see a sunset. Or a sunrise. I mean, it's happened, but... I've never been able to just appreciate it." Pushing her empty plate away, she kept nibbling on the biscuit, as though chewing on her thoughts. "It's a common misconception that humidity leads to rust with my species. I'd be more worried about a lichen or moss infection."
"Then you should probably include whatever lichen-off you have in your bag. When it comes to a sunrise, get there while it's still dark. The rise it's self is beauitiful, but also how the jungle changes as the sky does. From black to blue to pink and purple. There are a lot of animals active around sunrise that aren't active the rest of the day, so getting their early is your best chance to see them." Sacre explained.
"It sounds beautiful. And the fact that there's no solid barrier between the ground and space doesn't bother you? I always found it strange and disquieting how atmospheres work. But it sounds stunning."
Sacre shrugged, "Physics? I find it much weirder to grow up in a tin can than on a nice solid planet that anchors you to the ground. It's a lot harder to destroy a planet than to poke a hole in a wall."
"And it's harder to kill a ship than that, too! I mean, dozens of redundant systems and safeguards, knowledge of the... You're screwing with me, right? I'm the weird one for my first experience with walking in gravity being at Akina?" She stuck her tongue out, teasing.
"No, I'm clearly the weird one for having the experience that most people throughout time have had." Sacre said deadpan.
"Oh, I dunno, considering how fast Senti reproduce and how many Flotillas are out there, you planetborns might be the weird ones." She gave a shrug, throwing her hands wide. "Fact of the matter is that since it's next to impossible to know where all of the Flotillas are, and it's hard enough to find even one, an actual population estimate would be impossible to make. But yes, I'm the strange metal woman from between the stars. Least I could have done is be cute, but I can't even do that, can I? I'm all dented up and have a visible love for this strange planetsider food called pizza."
Sacre thought Aliset looked very cute. "I think that when it comes to cuteness, you are such a failure that you have utterly failed to fail."
"Wait, huh?" Just like that, Aliset's confusion sparked, as though something had ricocheted off her consciousness. Her face flushed a soft blue as she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sorry, you're the pretty one, here."
You have a girlfriend one part of Sacre's mind reminded her. Who's practically given you a blank check the other part added. Sacre looked down, to hid her own flushing cheeks. "I haven't been pretty in a long time. I know you and Gravity think so, but..." She traced some of the scars that ran up her neck and onto her face.
Tsulrati are polyamorous, some part of Aliset's mind snapped back as she offered a soft smile. "Your girlfriend? Gravity's her name? A smart and lucky woman, to have your heart. Why don't you tell me about her?"
Sacre hadn't said that, but it was an easy enough infrance. "Callsign actually, she's a pilot, like you. We met while we were serving on the same ship. I was a lot more... acerbic back then. More than once when someone touched me accidently, I sent them flying to land on their asses. Once during a mission even. I was a Santo Hei, but I'd been all over the enlisted ranks. Kept getting busted down for fighting. I didn't like people." Sacre explained, relaxing and thinking back.
"So our pilot, Gravity, decided to break me out of my shell. She was so annoying, but also... radient? She had this enthusiasm for life and doing things. I felt more, alive, when I was with her. She pulled me along on a lot of adventures, and I began to realize that I wanted more of that 'spark' in my life. One thing lead to anouther, and you can't lie in Draconic. It will pull the truth from you, one way or anouther." Sacre said, looking at Aliset, but her mind somewhere else.
"So even with the truth that I'd fallen in love with her, that I trusted her, confessed. Trust being in some ways more important. There were a lot of bumps along the way, but we tackled them. Her with endless optimisim and energy, me with logic and stopping her from doing things a bit too hairbrained. She put up with me when I was at my worst, so I give her my best. She's changed me, for the better and how can you not love someone like that? Want to help them grow and change for the better." Sacre finished, finally coming back to the moment. "Have you ever felt something like that?"
"His name was Levente Barna. He was a Nepleslian exchange pilot on the YSS Tokyo. I was a Santo Juni. He was my escort pilot. Funny enough, he was the grounded and reasonable one. His sister, Grand Admiral Irene Barna is so much like him. But she's the logical one. He went missing on a routine patrol. All that was recovered was his knife. The one I gave him." She gave a soft shrug, her smile never wavering. "It's a wonderful feeling. Maybe in a couple centuries I'll be able to persue it again."
Sacre nodded solemly, "I'm sorry for your loss. If I lost Gravity, I hope I'd be able to find it again someday." Her communicator buzzed and she glanced at it. She stood from the table, "Duty calls. I've got to get to a meeting. But I'd like to do something with you again."
"Yeah. Maybe something with brighter conversation." Ali looked at her comm. "Oshit, I gotta get to my xenolinguistics class..."
--
JP with @HarperMadi
YE 44.7
Aliset leaned back at her desk, seeing the classroom before her. Sure, she knew she was on one of Pisces Station's volumetric decks, and merely a telepresence in this command class, but she wished there were some way to make the hours pass easier. The fractional seconds of latency between her volumetrics chamber and her telepresence drone made it difficult enough to keep up with her class, forcing her to think and react faster than anyone should reasonably have to.
That part she didn't mind so much. It just meant she would make a better commanding officer when the time came. What she did mind was this strange and alien command structure she was being taught to run. That commanders weren't people who knew every weld, or who hadn't grown to age aboard or been selected by their ships for their skill and prowess. She was a pilot, selected at her Trials by Soren for the comand training. She could park any vessel she flew with a hand's breadth on any side even without the augments some part of her desire. She understood much of the necessity. After all, military command was far different from civilian. A civilian captaincy could be as simple as owning the ship and paying the crew.
But military... Far more involved. The selection of her ship was more important, the crew had to trust the command staff. She knew this, intimately. Instinctively.
Although she usually attended in person, her permanant residence wasn't far from campus, the lanky Separa'Shan also sat in a voumetric deck. That she was read in on some secrets had opened a oppertunity for her to advance the study of genetics in a unique way. It would also serve as the thesis she needed to graduate with her MD. For now, what that meant was she also was attending remotely.
"Alright, folks. Today's simulation day. Each of you take a tablet and go stand under the number displayed on it." The instructor was already talking as he walked in, a full two minutes before class was scheduled to start. "What are your questions?"
Sacre glanced around, looking for her number and joining the Senti who stood at it. She took stock of her partner, the Senti were ever rarer than Separa'Shan. Even though Separa'Shan joined the millitary at a higher rate than average. There were only a few hundred million of them total in the tens of billions citizens of the empire. Senti who had joined the Star Army and eliginble be in this advanced class could be numbered on one hand, probably with fingers leftover. Nevertheless, Sacre had studied thieir unique physiology and genetics. She noted how Aliset's gait was slightly off, and hips seemed slightly awkward. It was probably a bent pelvis. Similar to how the last couple of feet of her own tail landed slightly off due to some injuries sustained in the war.
Sacre wasn't proud of many of the countless scars that crisscrossed her tail, body, and face. They were the result of pride, weakness, and what had scarred her soul more than her body. However, the ones that she had earned serving Yamatai she was proud of. They were the good scars, the kind that came from doing something worthwhile with their life.
"So, why do I have to carry them through this simulation?" Sacre asked, pointing a thumb at her partner. However, her words didn't match her emotions, she was fairly indiffrent if slightly negitive to anyone.
The instructor nodded, "This is a pair assignment, each simulation has been programed to play to each of your strengths and weaknesses."
Aliset gave a small chuckle as she listened to Sacre's pride and confidence, deciding to speak her mind in Essian, no matter how terrible her accent. "I think you'll find me more capable than you first think."
Sacre looked annoyed at the intrustion of Essian into the conversation. She strongly disliked her native language. She had practiced for years to remove every trace of it's accent from her speech. She hated feeling inarticulate, and being looked at as the 'one with the funny accent' had driven her to work hard to excise it. She couldn't even remember the last time she had actually spoken in Essian.
She didn't put hands on Sacre, no pat on the shoulder or back, and was very careful to avoid the tail, having beem bitten before and not yet knowing the difference between pythus and venis. As she made her way around her partner, she offered a smile and a hand before speaking. "Aliset of Koun. I'm a helmsman, right now. You're... Medical, right? This sim's gonna be interesting. We allowed to know what we're getting into?"
"Sacre Sanssinia. I've also been a team leader for a squad backing special forces. So it really could be anything." Sacre replied.
"This simulation will put you under the command of a superior who will direct you through a crisis situation." The instructor explained.
"Alright, sounds like a plan... I was captain of a postage freighter for ten years, and a Ginga pilot with the 17th SBW during the Battle of Glimmergold, so we both clearly have strong leadership potential. I just have the knowledge and skill to do inflight repairs if we need. Here's hoping we can avoid bumping heads too much, right? Knowing these command types, it's gonna be a lot more complicated than our instructor says, but I highly doubt it'll be harder than my Trials. Shall we give our class a show?" Ali's smile only widened, never dropping as she slipped into a casual parade rest and faced the instructor.
"It's never as simple as the mission brief says it will be." Sacre said, joining Aliset in a casual parade rest.
The instructor looked out across the groups. "Allright, people attending by volumetrics, you will be dropped immediately into the simulation. Everyone else report to your volumetic deck. Good luck."
With that Sacre and Aliset were standing on the bridge of a Medical frigate.
Ali's first action was to walk to the helm, tapping the occupant on the shoulder to announce her presence as she looked over the current location and spatial situation. Furrowing her brows, she double checked the location of the little medical frigate, then looked to Sacre, and the captain in turn. "I could go for a briefing. I mean, we're in neutral territory, everything looks normal, aside being neck deep in a nebula."
"A wildcat colony settled Echronedal three years ago. What they didn't know and wasn't on the survey, is that the whole ecosystem of the planet apparently breaks out into a aether firestorm. A sort of natural uncontrolled version of what our power plants do. It's being swept by the wildfire and we've been sent to the rather chaotic evacuation to save as many lives as we can. We'll be arriving in five mintutes, what are your thoughts?" He asked.
She quickly scanned the bridge and helm controls, attempting to identify the class of vessel. "No weapons to disable the aether storms, only a handful of shuttles, too deep in the nebula to call for Flotilla assistance..." Aliset spoke quickly, rattling off the facts she knew too quiet to be heard at any real range. "Standard doctrine would claim we land medical personnel and control, use the main ship for orbital tracking and comm relay to bring the civilian fleet into the evacuation... And I don't speak the language..."
Sacre looked at the map of the evacuation. "It doesn't help that the dunderheads put their city in the forest. Lots of animals running from the fire make thermal less useful. We should deploy science teams ahead of and behind the wavefront, see if the eggheads can pull something from their asses. We need soldiers to coordinate the city on the ground. Three prongs for the mindy search teams. One in front of the firewall, moving forward. One following whatever passes for roads in theese parts. One doing a search pattern coming inward towards the city."
"If I can maneuver the ship into low orbit, and I mean really low, we can use the thrusters to maintain geosync. I'll need some software engineers to reformat our gravitic shields to form a lagrange point inside the atmosphere and pull the atmosphere up to us, while using the distortion drive's continuum anomaly to slow the fire down. This'll allow their aircraft to enter our docking perimeter, but it'll make gravity real interesting down there. Make it easier for the Mindies to make their jump, too. We'll have to use some of the onboard weapons to keep clear sattelites, cause we'll be running with almost no shields up here." Aliset's idea spilled out before she could stop it, and she furrowed her brows, trying to consider if it was good or bad. She shot a look to Sacre for confirmation.
Sacre considered Aliset's part of the plan. It reminded her of Gravity, and part of her was suddenly sad, but she hid it quickly. "It sounds, intresting, although I'm not an expert on drive systems."
"I mean, it's not that different from the gravimetric distortions used by certain organic ships to avoid reentry. I used on Soren at Akina, but we didn't have much of a shield, so it was still a little rough. I also only had fifteen people. Fact of the matter is they probably don't have enough of a spaceborne fleet to handle the evacuation. Besides, multiple trips takes a while, especially dodging Aether storms. About fifteen minutes to break atmo, eight to enter. The less fuel and braking time we can use, the faster turnaround for civilian pickup. If their aircraft can land on the hull to drop passengers, even better. I like your plan. Took it into account with mine," she bluffed, turning to the simulated superior officer. "Captain, permission to take the helm and engineering boards?"
The Captain nodded, "We'll do it." He said as the medical ship arrived on the planet. Sacre issued orders to the ground team and started coordinating the search and the evacuation. Mindys and dropships deployed from the ship as it descended into the atmosphere.
With Aliset's direction to the helm and engineering boards, the continuum distortion drive spooled, even at maximum power, this close to a gravity well, it was only running at about eight percent efficiencey, not enough to move the ship past light speed. But that wasn't what she planned to do as she fought with the software. Atmosphere lifted to envelop the ship as the lagrange point was set, the shields inverted to form a simulated gravitational mass that would allow aircraft to maneuver in the atmosphere, and she looked up for a moment. "Comms, could you inform the folks down there on what we're doing, broadwave, repeating, use our com towers as a landing beacon if you have to. I'm having trouble with this... This drive was never meant to be repurposed like this. Neither were our shields. I'm reading half burn just to maintain altitude. We're gonna start overheating and burning things out if we hold this for more than a few hours... Helm, please start descending again, target altitude two five kilometers, reduce shield and lagrange to match. Descent rate five zero meters per second."
Sacre moved to the ground controll station, pulling up a map of the area. "All right apes, deploy out before it gets too crispy around here." Her hands swept over the map marking areas of responsibility. "Groups one and two, you have the city. One help with the evacuation, ir's your job to keep things orderly so we can get as many people out as possible. Two sweep the city to make sure we aren't leaving anyone behind. Three, sweep inward from the storm front to mark emergency pickups. Four your sweeping out from the city. Medics are assigned to the small craft. Triage injuries on the way up so we can prioritize treatment." Sacre explained as blue blips marking shuttles and powered armor poured out of the ship.
Anyone could see how Aliset was stressed, bouncing between stations and communicating across as many systems as were on her board, even slipping a few times into the notoriously information dense Shuristan for a few words before catching herself. Still, she was focusing on the ship, and using its systems to maximize Sacre's effectiveness on matters outside of the vessel. The MEGAMI system's constant software blocks and the technical limitations were starting to wear on her, though. Even with portable conn panels floating around her as she stood between the stations. She was deeply thankful that the other people on the stations had summoned additional boards to grant her simultaneous control as a tertiary. "Ghods, this level of control would be easier with a SPINE implant... Okay, looks like we're stabilizing. First point of failure's gonna be the FTL drive. How's that evac doing down there? Cause if I need, I can start redeploying tractor beams as docking webs and start pulling craft in... Right now the smallest I can manage is a small bus."
Sacre looked up from time to time from her monitor to the rest of the chaotic bridge before diving back down into giving the infantry more precise orders. Her words were terse and sharp as she gave a few informal reprimands to vital sectors. As her tension rose, her words became more professional. "I can have the small craft stack up so the tractor beams don't have as much work to do." She advised Aliset.
Breathe, Ali. What do you need to do better? The departments know. Let them handle it. They have the intimate knowledge. Let them do the shenannigans. You just have a bad idea and a freighter captain's instincts. The thought crossed her mind as she took a deep breath, moving the helm panel off to the side. The secondary helmsman had started settling into a groove with his primary and the requests of the command team. She could hear them chattering between themselves and passing information as they controlled each thruster with a precision she simply couldn't. She found her hand there idle as they didn't need her there at the moment. "Alright comm, could you pass me a headset, command channel? Who needs what, Engineering, I'm gonna switch over to take a look at some other systems, please let me know if something's up with the drive. I'm gonna use my helm panel to designate targets for FTL suppression."
Sacre started getting into a groove as well with her teams. The commands were given with an occasional sharp remark on how to improve. "With sector three cleared, you dunderheads need to move to sector seven to help team three."
Medical isn't too busy, yet, and they resupplied before we dropped out of FTL... I'll keep an eye on them, soon as they hit 50% supply, I'm gonna need to ask Fab to start spooling up... Which is gonna take more manpower away from other stuff. We should be in the groove by then, just gotta stay there. "Infantry, you got any guys need something to do? Cause if we have the portable graviton emitters for it, a few guys on the hull to catch people as they get caught in that gravity well would be a lifesaver. Also surface side triage if you can. Anybody who's not off the ship or already neck deep in something. CIC, if you can please help Engineering, helm, and other systems get around MEGAMI's safety limits, that would be amazing, cause I can't get infromation to support you folks while fighting with the ship. But try not to pull her offline, I need her to coordinate power. Sensors, could you tie in your feeds to engineering and helm so we can play a round of whackamole with these storms? Who's got ideas? Cause I need as much help as you folks are willing to give me."
As they worked the aetherflame wall moved steadily, devouring acres and acres of what had once been prime wildland. Sacre looked at her board, "There shouldn't be anyone directly below us. Medics are trialing on the way up." Sacre informed Aliset.
Suddenly, the aetherflames surged, smashing into the ship. The shields flicked, preventing everyone from dying, but the ship was like a toy in a vices dog's mouth as it was shaken.
She gave a sharp yelp as she tried and failed to lock her mag boots, proceeding to be thrown across the bridge with one particularly violent pitch, and immediately regretting not tying in sensors earlier.
The ship took a plunge, crashing into the surface behind the wall of flame and digging a trench. Everyone was thrown from their seats on an Impact that sent a title wave of burned dirt into the sky.
Sacre got up, sliding over where the captain lay deathly still. She put two fingers to his neck, before looking up and announcing "The Captain's dead." Even though she had been suspecting that this was coming, she was still shaken slightly by it, even though she didn't let that show.
Aliset groaned from her position on the floor, dragging herself to her feet as she moved, shaking off the dizziness and the surely newly bent bones. Feeling the gravity below her, she had trouble telling whether the artificial gravity was working or not. Locking her boots to the ground, she looked at each station and the recovering crew. "Damage reports, please. Sacre, how're your people doing? If they can, we need to keep the evac effort up. I'll work on getting us back in the air."
She would not ignore the Captain's death. But for now, they were still in the middle of a planet quite literally on fire and stuck planetside. She couldn't do anything about it right now.
Sacre checked her screen as the damage reports came in. The aether wall had leaped forward almost a kilometer and while there hadn't been any infantry, two shuttles had been destroyed. The ship was mostly intact, the tough armor taking the brunt of the damage, but the surface of the ship was scoured of almost anything that jutted out too far. There were casulties across the ship from people and things falling and crashing into each other. The engines were also damaged, unable to operate at their full capacity.
"We've lost two shuttles. The flamewall is a problem. I don't think we can survive anouther surge like that. Engineering, we need to focus on getting the ship back up so the shuttles we still have can land and drop off their passengers. Science, did you detect anything before the surge? Medical, what do you need from us?" Sacre asked, trying to be proactive in the situation.
Aliset let nodded at Sacre's observations, finding her boards to let her fingers fly across them and get readings on systems as they recovered. "Do we have external comms? Engineering, what's the ETA on getting us off the ground? I've got Megami handling damage control and hull breaches, so let her do her thing. Fab looks like they're coming back online, now. Goddamn, those girls work fast, so we should have parts en route to their needed locations momentarily. Helm, you got any power?"
"Coming back online, now. Waiting on Engineering."
"Gotcha covered. Stand by, take us up to safe altitude as soon as you can. Engineering, you mind reversing my shield modification soon as we have engine power? Medical, I know you're kind of overwhelmed right now. We'll get you as much help as we can. Just bear with us, okay? Comms, I'm punching in an old Shuristan equation, now. With a tie-in to sensors and engineering, it'll let us use our CFS as an external antenna."
From engineering a voice asked, "Those orders are somewhat conflicting, who's in charge up there anyway?" The engineer asked.
"Sorry about that, Engineering... There's a little chaos up here, too. To clarify, I got MEGAMI handling the hull problems, so try to get us in the air as fast as you can, okay? Soon as you're able, we could really use our shields unmodified to help keep those fires off us. Sacre, you mind taking the conn? I'll go duke it out with the computer."
"I have conn," Sacre said, moving towards the center of the bridge. Her eyes darted around the bridge as she assessed things, reports starting to filter back to them about what the status of the ship and the evacuation was. She had been focused on her part of it, and the crash had damaged the ship. So a lot of the information was new. The ship gradually righted it's self and moved upwards. "Place us behind the colony, and keep a distance from the aether wall. We can't afford anouther hit like that again." She ordered.
"It looks like some of the tractor beams were damaged in the crash." One of the hanger bays reported.
"Got you, pulling up your diagnostics and ordering parts from Fab, now." Aliset's voice cut through the comm, her marker popping up as she parsed out the diagnostic data. "Looks like a couple Megami drones can handle the repairs."
For an instant, it wasn't clear whether the voice was in Sacre's mind or her ears as Aliset flashed her a thumbs up and spoke. "I got your back, Captain."
Sacre nodded in return, thankful for the words. "In the meantime, I think we can use powered armor to control the shuttles and make sure they land efficently." She said agreeing with Aliset.
She turned her attention to the next issue, and together they managed to work together to rescue a lot of the civilians trapped before the wall of fire completely destroyed the colony as the ship escaped. The simulation paused and noted that they managed to save 86% of the Civilians. This was noted as being a excellent score for that aspect. Sacre didn't show her emotions outwardly, but she was flooded with an immense anger. She marched over to the display and tried to find the 'replay assignment' button, but it was greyed out. She hit it several times anyway in frustration. "We should have done better."
Reaching over, Aliset placed her hand in the way. "Sorry. I should have done better. We'll have another shot at this simulation later in the year... If they want to show us how much we've learned."
Turning, she gave a smile as her form shattered into motes of light, leaving behind an echo of an impression. She was just as shaken. Just as angry. "We got a few moments before we gotta get back to the classroom. just need a drink of water. I'll be back in a handful."
"Right," Sacre said, disappearing as well and stepping out into the hall of Pisces Station to grad herself a drink as well. She looked over to her left and saw Aliset exiting another one of the volumetric decks. She felt amused by this, "I thought I had gotten rid of you when I left my deck." She said, sounding acerbic even though her emotions didn't match it.
"Hey. Sorry about using Essian back there. I... You're here... Well, that explains the emotional imprint.." Her brows furrowed, walling off her own emotions as though to protect herself... No... It was something else. "Sorry. You were amazing in the command chair. I got a lot to learn."
"If the amount you had to learn was a race, you would be light trying to get to the edge of the universe." Sacre commented.
"I haven't spoken Essian in a long time. When I joined the army, I bearly spoke Yamataigo well enough to join. One of my first nicknames was
Yontô Hissy." Sacre explained.
Just the diversity hire, Ali. Captain Belmont may think different, but you have no promise that this girl will think diff-- The thought cut off, as though the walls had finally settled into place, not that she had cut herself off. It was clear that Aliset was still dealing with a lot of insecurity as she finished her glass and folded the silicone away into her pocket, starting to move back to her volumetric chamber. "Yeah. Some of the nekos on my ship call me Chui rusteater. Kinda dumb, really. Thanks. I didn't know I needed to hear that. Yonto Hissy sounds a little asinine. Good to know their insults haven't changed."
Tsulrati weren't psionic. Nothing in Sacre's studies showed more than a basic ability for telepathic or empathic abilities. Lower psionic potential than humans, or even Separa. The only discrepancy was the burial steel, but every race had outliers, and there was next to no verifying research on its claims, anyway.
That amused Sacre, once again reminding her of Gravity. The Senti woman was attractive in her own way. She was assertive and eager to try new things in a way that Sacre wished she had more of in her life.
"C'mon, pretty one. We don't want to face the teacher's ire more than we have to. Would rather she not turn off the safety restricters from her end and strangle me for being a smartass." She gave a cheeky smile over her shoulder. "As entertaining as it would be to watch a 120lb cat girl try to get a good grip on me."
"She could tell me to do it. If I strangled smartasses when they were being idiots, I don't think I'd have time for anything else." Sacre replied, rejoining Aliset in the classroom that had most of their classmates returned and lounging around talking while they waited for the instructor to come back.
"On the plus side, we actually scored really high for our first run through the simulation," Aliset gace a small smirk as the classroom faded into view, immediately returning to her partner's side. "Gotta admit, you'll make a Hell of a captain, one day, Sacre. It'd be an honor to serve under you till a ship decides to select me. I'm in the astronav class next period, but got lunch before that. I hear there's a great little Duskerian joint on deck 22. Rumor is they serve real pack roach."
Sacre didn't know what she meant when she said the ship would slect her. She decided to ask her sometime. Sacre nodded, she wasn't particularly hungry, but having lunch with Aliset would be enjoyable. "Lunch would be intresting. I was slicing slides all last night so I didn't have any time for breakfast. I wonder if they serve the packroaches whole."
"You sure you can handle a thousand pounds and two meters of murder bug? I mean... I'm sure you could, but that's a lot of bone, from what I hear. It might take you a few days to be able to move again." She gave a small laugh, the mental defenses dropping just long enough to let the image of Sacre bloated full of pack roach and curled up under a restaurant table slip through. "And my room's a little toasty for most folks, but I'm sure the small space is a bigger problem or I'd be willing to say you're welcome to crash out. I'm buying, but let's try to keep it limited to like a leg quarter or something."
Aliset was correct, but that wasn't exactly the deterant she might expect. It probably wasn't polite, but she wanted to show off a bit for Aliset. Sacre opened her mouth fully, her jaw unhinging, cheeks unfolding, and throat widening to show she could probably swollow something pretty large whole if she wanted. "Separa'shan usually have their own division in extreme eating contests. I don't know if I could, but it might be fun to try However, I'll content myself with one of your small meals." She commented, radiating amusement despite the deadpan way she said the words.
"I don't doubt you, not in the slightest. But a whole pack roach is a very large, very expensive thing. Like smallish Kodian big. One of my flight school mates was on the officer exchange problem and got to go hunting with the Duskerian Legion once. She sent me back photos and two words." She gave a shrug, smiling. "Dunno if it was a pack roach or what, but it tore up a Mindy pretty good. I hear Sirrus is a deathworld. I think she might have been a bit biased on just how big those things are."
She tried to avoid staring at the inside of the jaw, especially the upper, but after being bitten by a Venis, she had to ensure those fangs wouldn't be going anywhere near her chest again. But Sacre didn't have fangs. Come to think of it, her form was a bit stockier, her face a bit softer and less reptilian and her tail longer, more muscular and powerful. Must be an ethnic thing, she dismissed the thought offhandedly, in stead, turning her mind towards the first time she had seen planet Yamatai as more than a simple blue marble, standing on the hull of some golden hulled piecemiel cargo ship delivering mail in the form of recruits, herself included.
"But yes, I'll get you a meal none of the smaller races would be able to finish," she laughed. "Then... Well, I hadn't planned that far beyond that... Maybe there's something you want to do later? Sorry, I'm not real creative."
Sacre finally felt like she was starting to understand Gravity a bit more with the attractive Shuristian. "I've got classes and a lot of research I'm doing. That said, with Shurista's achives opening up, I'm going to be going there soon to see if they have any records of what I'm looking at. I don't know much about your people. So just getting to know you would be useful. I enjoy making knives and knife throwing, I think there is a place to do that somewhere on the station. What do you like to do?" Sacre asked.
"There's a really nice--" Don't let your heart cost her life, Ali. Not like it has for the others. The thought cut through Aliset's defenses like a knife, ripping its way free like a scream from her throat and carrying the smiling faces of her fallen husbands on it, turned to closed eyes splattered in blue blood, then glowing steel for one. The other, the shattered husk of her sister in law after his disappearance. Shaking her head, Aliset continued. "Deck forty five. Aah, there's a little shop down there. An old Samurai blacksmith, retired and enjoying his obscurity. I don't know how helpful it'll be, considering I've never forged a knife in my life. Let alone thrown one. But it sounds like fun!"
Sacre nodded, feeling grief, but unsure as to why. "Making knives is both useful and fun. Long as you don't permanantly scar yourself, a likely outcome given your dexterity, you may be able to make something that at least resembles a knife."
The smile Aliset gave seemed hollow and indistinct, but the attempt at sincerity was there. "And a research nomination to the Shuristan Grand Library? That's really impressive. What are you planning?"
"It's not technically a research nomination, Admrial Fletcher..." Sacre trailed off for a moment, not sure of how much she could say. "Is very concerned about a new threat, I'm going through the Millitary Intelligance program which has some sort of priority, but from my understanding of things that I really don't there is some contriversy the eggheads are sorting out. I don't really care, but they seem to."
"What, like Senti being psionic or something dumb like that? I mean, don't get me wrong, digging around in the Library may reveal something, but it's far from a complete repository of the Universe. There's an equal chance they've never seen it before." She gave a shrug. "Good hunting, though. I really do hope something helpful is in there."
Sacre shrugged, "He's also worried about stuff like that, what with the Rathankans. He doesn't trust them. Not that he trusts much of anything that isn't a part of Yamatai. but I'm on a new external threat. I've been to where we think it comes from and I'm pretty certain that Shurista hasn't been there. However, if they do have records, it means that we might be wrong which would both be a relief and its own sort of worrying. Someone has to track the information down, so I'm it."
"Atteni Soren is an archivist. Mention me and she'll help you..."
The last of the students and the teacher entered, and the class fell silent. "I'm sending each of you your computer scores. I'll also be doing an individual assessment. Congratulations to Chuis Koun and Sanssinia for having the highest score of anyone in this class. What do you think the purpose of today's assignment was?" The teacher asked.
Aliset balked, looking confusedly at the teacher. What? Is she talking about us? Uuh... Adaptability? Teamwork under fire? Something like that? I dunno. I was just kinda winging it... Sacre's the real hero of that sim...
Her body spoke before her brain as she raised her hand as though she knew. Which she most definitely didn't. Put your hand down, you dumb xeno bint! But Ali was not as stubborn as herself, it seemed, as the psionic signal controller in her breast pocket sparked and let off the tiniest puff of smoke. "Damn it, those are expensive..."
Sacre glanced over at Ali, hearing what she sait and noticing the thin whiff of smoke that no one else probably did. She wasn't sure what it meant, but she would probably ask later.
The teacher pointed at Aliset, "What is your answer?"
Sacre was brought back to the question and her answer rose to the top of her mind. It was command, the simulation was designed to push us into conflict about who was in charge. There were three major factors in our sucess. First, we were able to establish quickly who was in charge. Second, I knew how to conduct a evacuation. Third, Aliset's innovative ideas probably allowed us to increase the rate we were able to get shuttles docked then back out and repair damage. The thoughts had a strong undertone of obssession with getting the simulation right and saving everyone.
Thank you, "The simulation's exercises had several factors defining success or failure. In the case of Sacre Sanssinia and myself, it was a challenge of who was in charge of the situation combined with a complex exterior situation a sparsely equipped rescue vessel. With our differences in command style, there was expected to be an incompatibility and argument. However, our passing score was based on those same factors that should have made it difficult to pass. In establishing early who had overall control of the situation, we managed to rescue 85 pecent of the possible civilians. We will be working on ways to improve our future scores, as we don't believe that the score we got was acceptable."
She offered a smile to Sacre. putting her hand down and sitting back down in her seat as she took a deep breath, beginning to wrestle her emotions back to something approaching calm.
The teacher nodded, "Sometimes in the fog of battle, it can be unclear who is in charge. This lack of clarity most be resolved quickly and efficently, often it matters less who is in charge than that someone is in charge and taking control of the situation." There was class discussion for a while longer, addressing various aspects of the simulation before the class was finally dismissed.
Within half a second, the tsulrati had disappeared, and could be found outside her volumetric chamber, a set of tools working on what appeared to be a personal psionic signal controller surffering burned shielding. "Cheap ass piece of substandard civilian junk..."
Sacre exited her volumetric chamber and looked over at the electronic mess. "I can't say I've ever seen someone so inept they can break electronics just by being around them, but I suppose your inneptitude is exceptional." She said, her tone dry. Her mood was midly curious and amused, not knowing what it was that was broken.
"To be fair, it comes in a five pack, and I really don't want to break out the null glass." Aliset looked up momentarily, then downturned her head until something in her hand sparked and fell, exhuding a foul smoke as Sacre could finally see the remains of a civilian grade psionic signal controller. "And I just shorted the power supply... Great."
"You get what you pay for." Sacre shrugged, "You need to grab a replacement before we eat?" She asked.
"I should be good. It's fine. Not like it was really there for more than keeping me from getting a headache around so many Nekovalkyrja." She shrugged, scooping up the charred plastic as she crushed it into a foil ball and tossed it away. "Thanks for the save back there. I was kinda panicking and I kinda winged it in the simulation."
"You were the one who suggested that I be the one in charge." Sacre said, unaware of her helping Aliset in class.
"I meant... Never mind. Let's go get food." Aliset gave a soft, warm smile as she straightened. "I'll grab a new PSC from the vendors on the way. I think I have the credits... Oh! Right, YSE uses KS. Sorry. Anyway, you still want a whole pack roach to show off?"
That wasn't what she had said, but perhaps what she had meant. The two of them moved down the corridor together. "I've learned to live with Yamatai's rather irregular feeding schedule, lots of small meals. If you got me a pack roach, I probably woulsn't need to eat for a month. So something smaller will be fine."
"Yeah, let's go with a leg quarter, keep you full for a week?" Her joke was punctuated by a shake of her head. "I dunno. I think you'll really like Shurista. It's beautiful. Lots of parks. Real stone houses. Real wood. And most of the clothes sold on board are natural fibers. They have a universal basic income based on what we use and the waste produced. It's very different. Just remember that the water credit doesn't exchange with the KS, yet... Which is why I have problems buying nonmilitary clothes. Gets real expensive when you're not on UBI, anymore."
"It sounds like a beautiful place. My original solution was never leave where it's acceptable to wear a uniform. What's a water credit?" Sacre asked, curious about Aliset's home.
"Oh!" Aliset quickly lifted her necklace out of her uniform, unclasping it to dump a series of metal rings into her hand. Reclasping her necklace, she offtered the weighted steel rings, each with a different colored gemstone.
"So most gems are kinda useless to us, especially sapphire. So we artificially induce colors in them to help color code our currency. Each of these weighted steel rings denotes a volume of water. This little white one is a deci, or one tenth of a liter. The brown is a single, then we have increasing quantities by muliples of five." She separated out each of the notable currency units, and quickly counted up. "So these would be a total of... Just under five thousand liters of water in value. This is about one month's income for a postage freighter captain like I was, not counting the Ubi.
"I'm probably not going to be able to bring several onsen of water with me." Sacre remarked dryly.
Gently, Ali took Sacre's hand, dumping the currency into it. "Then take these. I have a few hundred thousand liters. Nobody out this side of the lonely expanse takes Shuristan credits. The credits are based on water volume on the Flotilla. Both in use and in the greywater system."
Sacre flinched away from the unexpected contact, causing the gems to fall and scatter acorss the corridor. There was a bright sharp panic that threatened to overwhelm the normally stoic Separa'Shan. What looked like a knife of bone suddenly sprang from her wrist. Sacre stopped herself from doing more. The bone knife slid slowly back into her wrist. "Sorry, I... don't like being touched unexpectedly." Or at all a voice inside her added.
"I was one of the first Separa'Shan to leave our homeworld. I was young and nieve, looking for adventure in whatever came my way. It didn't end well, and there's still... shrapnel." She added in explaination as she stretched out with her tail, using it as a sort of broom to gather the scattered gems.
"I get it." Ali stooped to help gather up the fallen currency, offering a warm smile. "I've never seen an implant like that. It's really impressive. But I am truly sorry for what made that necessary. "I'll keep that in mind. I... There's a solid dose of trauma on my side, too."
Sacre put them into a pocket, "Thank you for the loan, I'll be sure to repay it when I can."
"What's a loan?"
Sacre gave Aliset a odd look, not understanding how someone could not understand what a loan was. "Sometimes you need more money than you have, so you agree with someone that has the money, but doesn't need it right now for them to let you borrow it. In exchange, you pay them some money for the service." It was vastly oversimplified, but hopefully enough to get the idea across.
The concept brought furrowed brows and radiating confusion from Aliset as she tried and failed to fully comprehend it. "Weird. Senti have this belief that any negative action puts everyone at risk, while doing something positive for others, with or without an expectation of repayment allows everyine to prosper. So the general expectation is to pay it forward, not back. It's one of those cultural things that I'm still wrapping my head around."
"My father was very good at making loans that benifited people. I don't have many good memories of him, we fought, a lot. But I do remember this one debt that he forgave and he explained that anyone can lend with the expectation of repayment, it is much more difficult to lend without a real expectation of repayment even though it helps everyone." Sacre explained reaching back to things from a long time ago.
"Do you have a good relationship with your parents?" Sacre asked.
"My grandmother volunteered me to the Shuristan Councils without my knowledge. My father killed my assaulter and then proceeded to coddle me for fourtieen years. I suppose my relationship can be described as average." She shrugged again, smiling. "Aside from your father, do you have any family? People you're honestly close to?"
"I used to have a very large family, but the way I understand it is that the senator from Essia was from my hometown. My father was rather... defiant during the occupation. So there's not much left but a smoking ruin. I'm not good at relationships. I have a girlfriend, and well I'm not sure what Hildr is. There is Klaus and some others from various postings. But I wouldn't describe my social life as exactly thriving." Sacre explained.
"Ah... Same, honestly. I don't have a lot of folks I'm really close to. There's this Consort, Sayako, and my Captain. But my husbands are dead. I have no siblings, just cousins, and I may have burned the bridges that would make me welcome on Shurista. So I'm kinda out on my own. Little lost xeno girl. With just enough known by my ship medics to not kill their diversity hire when she got bitten by a Separa Captain. It's been a long few years." She gave a soft, hollow grin, considering her position. "You were there, once. The Star Army isn't exactly our normal. So I got awakened. I'm working with our CMO and Say to make an implant that'll help me feel the ship. Normal stuff to bring me up to something approaching standard."
The two finally arrived at the Duskarian resturaunt. "We're two sad sacks aren't we? It might have been harder for them to accidently kill me, but have you ever tried going up stairs with this tail? Don't even get me on the expectation that your able to fly. Yes, I do enjoy being a blimp." Sacre comiserated with a bit of sarcasm, waving her tail in the air for emphasis.
"Oh, my gods, and when they expect you to be able to just sleep in gravity? I never snored once in my life before joining the Star Army!" Aliset laughed, "Now I'm waking myself up literally twice a week! And personally, I think you have a rich and beautirful coloring and pattern on your tail. While yeah, stairs and zero grav channels are hard, at least you don't have a medical profile requiring you to wear mag boots so you don't go sliding across the bay floor during PT."
Breaking away from the conversation, she quickly ordered and paid for the whole leg quarter of slow roasted pack roach, and a barbeque plate for herself. It was a pleasant note that they offered to change up the recipe for her species, one she took without thinking. "And half their controls are either psychic or deadass just "Oh, just connect this little USB port in your left ass cheek. Like I have one, Megami! Also, the Nekos like refridgerator magnets."
Sacre didn't laugh, but she was highly amused. "Have you ever seen us do a jumping jack? No, because it's made for ridiculous biped physiology. I've got a great idea, I'm going to fall over and than catch myself repeatedly. Yes, this is a sensible way to do things. Nekos like refrigerator magnets? How so?" Sacre asked, finally taking a bite of the huge packeoach leg.
"I have seen that. It was sad and dumb. Any idiot can see that jumping jacks aren't good for either of us. You fall over, I leave a dent in the deck. Gods, I hated flight school. And yeah. Magnets. My bones are ferromagnetic. So magnets stick to me. Apparently that was really funny to the kittens." She took a forkful of her barbecue, giving an eye roll. "And then they keep it so cold in their ships! I'm stuck in a 30C and I still have to wear a thermal layer and a heater. I've gotten about staying just dehydrated enough."
"You're species is warm blooded at least right? Why are you so lethargic Sacre? It's like two degrees out, not even freezing! I was made for twenty five minimum. If you aren't sweltering, than I'm probably trying to figure out how to conserve energy in a blizzard. Why is the heat lamp glued to my tail? You guess."
"I'm risking hypothermia below thirty, and I'm comfortable between forty and eighty, so I get it! I went out in the snow one time, woke up in a hospital. It was like one and a half degrees out and apparently I was unconscious in five minutes."
"Mmm fourty. I might have to see if I can use you as a heat source. I was assigned to Ralt once, way up in the north. I hated every second of it. Everyone else is like yay! Snow. I'm by the fire and trying to figure out how to get closer without actually being in it. What's been your worst assignment so far?" Sacre asked.
"Easily shore leave on Freebeer with the Wrath of Nepleslia, during the disaster relief after Turassiel, " she gave a chuckle, though it was dark, not quite so soft. Clearly more had happened there than she was about to say. "You think Ralt's cold? Freebeer's a ball of mud and ice full of gun nuts and incoherent boogaloo noises. I still celebrate Lois Pascal day, but damn it, I don't want to be digging bullets out of my half frozen ass half the time Or trying to run on any high G world. You think these are made for running?"
Aliset grabbed and lifted her breast, before letting it drop. "What about yours? Worst or strangest assignment."
"Everything is so much lighter out here." Sacre thought a moment, "Strangest has to be the time I heard a insane dead God talking to me and I helped destroy a universe. That one was weird. But it's probably the combination. Riding dragons was fun. Once you've spoken draconic, nothing else is quite the same." Sacre said, turning the leg over and eating the other side.
"If you dislike low gravity, you will have to get used to Shurista. There is no gravity. We never needed it. Our physiology lets us use magnetic fields in the place of gravity. So... Yeah. Good luck?"
"Magenetic fields? I don't hate low grav, but I do like having the ground under me, or at least thinking I do. On the other hand, there are plenty of Separa'Shan who swim, and I've heard being in zero g is like that." Sacre worried slightly.
"You'll be fine," she started focusing again, radiating confidence in her smile. "You're among the top of your class. You did your zero gravity training before the Draconic Wars, you learned to speak the language. Considering what little I know of our universe, I would assume that Draconic isn't simply an extragalactic, but an extradimensional language. Don't ever doubt your ability to adapt. Not to me, please."
Sacre didn't really see herself that that. There was a lot of fear and insecurity she still felt. "You don't know me very well... but I suppose I have adapted. From hunting in the jungle alone, to being wrapped in a giant metal caccon. Perhaps your on the opposite journy and you'll end up being a lone hunter in a jungle."
"You're as insecure as I am." Aliset offered a forkful of her barbecue, a bright smile on her face. "And that's perfectly fine. Knowledge of your limitations is a powerful tool. One I learned to use too late. For all its flaws, you get to see something truly beautiful. And when you get back, tell me how the sun sets over the hull disk, and tell me how the hullsong feels, okay?"
"Hullsong? What is that?" Sacre asked, the encouragement from Aliset perking up her feelings.
"How do I describe hullsong..." Aliset looked off to one side, her forkful of barbecue just within reach if Sacre wished to lean forward and claim it. "You know how in an older ship... When you hear the creaks and groans, the slight vibration when the engines light or she hits atmosphere at the perfect trim. It's literally the song of the hull. And... I know it's weird..."
Sacre thought back to a old cago transport that she had been stationed on, one of the fans was supposedly completely within maintinance specs but it had this tiny hum and on the ship Sacre could tell exactly where she was based on what the hum sounded like.
She shook her head clear of the memories, trying to keep her confidence up. "It's probably just some silly superstition. And I've been thinking it more and more now that I'm on ships that don't sing. It's kind of... Unnerving. I don't know how to share memories with people. Can barely peel apart enough encryption to activate controls or talk to the crew of my ship."
"Our ships don't sing?" Sacre asked, not completely understanding what Aliset said.
"Our starships are living amalgamates of our ancestors. Literally built of half a million years worth of the cremated remains of... My species doesn't die. Not in the traditional sense. When our bodies die, we get cremated, folded into steel that makes up everything from our ship hulls to..." She pulled the fork back, setting it on her plate to pull a necklace from her uniform, an ornate and abstract shape of burial steel and white, opal like slag gem nearly the same size as Sacre's rank pin. She unclasped it from her neck, placing it on the table to slide across.
"Cookware, tools... Even jewelry. This necklace is part of the remains of Setiel Soren. My mother. Every ship's soul is the amalgamate of those who lived and loved in its hull. When we die, those emotions and energies don't just dissapate. Those memories don't just dissapate. Sorry, that probably sounds like a bunch of religious and superstitious hoogedy boogedy from a weird ass spacer nomad, doesn't it?"
"Pretty much, I'm an atheist. But it does remind me of a old Separa'Shan belief. We're born into this world, and we make friends, enemies, lovers, and more. We are then reborn with the chance to remake ourselves and fix the relationships we have broken. Eventually, we will fix all of the relationships with everyone in the universe, and everyone will live in harmony. It's a stupid anchient belief that really doesn't make sense, but there you go." Sacre explained.
"It's the way Shuristans believe." Ali shrugged. "I was raised in the culture. I'm still learning what was real and what was just myth. But that was my main source of training and learning. It helped me feel the ship around me. Let me do things that weren't strictly by the book. And it's part of why I got so stressed out in that simulation. I still find myself listening and feeling for it."
"I don't think any ship can tell you what to do, well the ship's AI might, but that's not the same thing. I don't get a sense from a scalpel 'ok, make an incision there', and if I did, I'd probably be labeled as crazy." Sacre responded, finishing the leg and putting the bones on her plate.
"I was called crazy. Flight school sucked. I dunno/ Might be some artifacting AI combined with instinctive sentimentalism. Throw in a bit of jerry rigged engineering and a loose beam, and bucket of bolts, five or ten thousand years of rust, and anything'll start loooking like ghosts in the metal." Somehow, she didn't sound convinced as she gave a soft shrug. "I dunno. Forget it, I guess."
"What was leaving there like for you?" Sacre asked.
"Like I cut away a piece of myself. A piece that had abandoned me thirty years ago. I've grown stronger for it. I wasn't going anywhere with my career with my own species. I'm sixty kilos overweight, got a twisted pelvis, and my heart costs lives. I'm better off here. What about you? You grew up planetside, right? What was that like?"
"I grew up before Yamatai came, my brother told me that I actually tried to bite one of the away team that first visited the surface. I'm not sure I believe him, but it was right before my ascension and I was eating everything I could put my mouth on. My father was a tradtionalist, so I spent a lot of time in the jungle, hunting, learning how to survive on my own. My favorite way was sitting in the branches of a tree over a game trail and then dropping on whatever came by. There was this one rock I'd hide under at night and then look up at the sky. I always wondered what was up there." Sacre said wistfully.
"I didn't get along with my father, we fought a lot. So when I decided to leave, it felt freeing. Like I was where I was meant to be, and there was a universe of possibility. Instead, I found a universe of pain. Hopeful, nieve, childish are the words I'd probably use to describe myself when I left. I haven't been back since. I think we felt two very diffrent things leaving. I was rather glad to have it behind me." Sacre explained.
"Not so different as you might think. My whole life, I grew up listening to the songs of peoples who could look up and see the stars lensed through an atmosphere. Not half a meter of glass. The first time I felt sunlight on my skin, it was... Indescribable. I used to sit on Soren's hull and watch the void. Wondering if what I was always hearing on the comms were just more echoes of the dead and dying. Then we picked up a beacon. I'd been Soren's captain for maybe...Ten? Twelve years before we caught a beacon. Refugee camps at Akina. I thought if we made contact, and forced Shurista to make contact then maybe we could finally see something real. But then two years later, nothing had happened. So with the Kuvexian War heating up, well, I figured I needed to help out. So I got warranted as a bomber pilot... Okay, pretty different. I mean, I passed my Trials at sixteen." She gave a shrug, picking up her biscuit. "Maybe Turassiel wouldn't have split if I didn't decide to be a hotshot. Maybe we would be a bunch of derelict remnants of a half million year dead culture. Who knows?"
There was a lot in what Ali said that Sacre didn't understand. "Turassiel, who's that?" She asked.
"Turassiel is... Was one of the sister structures to Shurista. Ninetey three hundred kilometers across, population of nearly three billion. It operated out of Nepleslia. Two years ago, the Gift of Song was leaked and it was attacked. Eighty five percent of the population was lost. My husbands and I were pulled to the Wrath of Nepleslia to perform search and rescue support. The Grand Library was completely ruined. Ninety eight percent loss. I hear they're starting to rebuild, now."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know about that. But I'm not sure why you would blame yourself. I don't think your the type to leak something like that." Sacre responded, the single structure had almost ten times as many people as there were Separa'Shan.
"I wasn't. But thank you. I don't think we ever found out who leaked the songs. They likely died in the attack. All I know is I still some times have nightmares about it. But that's unimportant in the long run. They're a hardy, industrious people. They'll recover. What of Essia? I hear it's a beautiful world. Full of beautiful people. Now that may be a bias with my first experience with a Separa being that I got bitten by the Captain of the Wyvern. But I'ld like to form a more honest opinion."
"I'm probably not the best example of the beautiful people. In my memory, their just people. The thing that's there that I've not really seen many other places is the density of... life. It's packed in everywhere. Everything constantly moving, growing, changing. What I remember is a lot of hard work, taking care of animals, stoking fires for the forge. We were semi-preindustrial, so none of the conveniances you find on starships. There was this one ridge, where you could look out over a valley filled with life and see the sun set over it. A warm red glowing ball sinking between the splashes of clouds. Always unique and beautiful. You should go there if you get a chance. Hopefully you won't rust from all of the humidity and rain. Because it's like a lot." Sacre said.
"Not the best example? That bone knife you almost took my hand with is a really interesting and unique augment, you have a softness and warmth about you that's lovely, and... Anyway, I've never been planetside to really see a sunset. Or a sunrise. I mean, it's happened, but... I've never been able to just appreciate it." Pushing her empty plate away, she kept nibbling on the biscuit, as though chewing on her thoughts. "It's a common misconception that humidity leads to rust with my species. I'd be more worried about a lichen or moss infection."
"Then you should probably include whatever lichen-off you have in your bag. When it comes to a sunrise, get there while it's still dark. The rise it's self is beauitiful, but also how the jungle changes as the sky does. From black to blue to pink and purple. There are a lot of animals active around sunrise that aren't active the rest of the day, so getting their early is your best chance to see them." Sacre explained.
"It sounds beautiful. And the fact that there's no solid barrier between the ground and space doesn't bother you? I always found it strange and disquieting how atmospheres work. But it sounds stunning."
Sacre shrugged, "Physics? I find it much weirder to grow up in a tin can than on a nice solid planet that anchors you to the ground. It's a lot harder to destroy a planet than to poke a hole in a wall."
"And it's harder to kill a ship than that, too! I mean, dozens of redundant systems and safeguards, knowledge of the... You're screwing with me, right? I'm the weird one for my first experience with walking in gravity being at Akina?" She stuck her tongue out, teasing.
"No, I'm clearly the weird one for having the experience that most people throughout time have had." Sacre said deadpan.
"Oh, I dunno, considering how fast Senti reproduce and how many Flotillas are out there, you planetborns might be the weird ones." She gave a shrug, throwing her hands wide. "Fact of the matter is that since it's next to impossible to know where all of the Flotillas are, and it's hard enough to find even one, an actual population estimate would be impossible to make. But yes, I'm the strange metal woman from between the stars. Least I could have done is be cute, but I can't even do that, can I? I'm all dented up and have a visible love for this strange planetsider food called pizza."
Sacre thought Aliset looked very cute. "I think that when it comes to cuteness, you are such a failure that you have utterly failed to fail."
"Wait, huh?" Just like that, Aliset's confusion sparked, as though something had ricocheted off her consciousness. Her face flushed a soft blue as she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sorry, you're the pretty one, here."
You have a girlfriend one part of Sacre's mind reminded her. Who's practically given you a blank check the other part added. Sacre looked down, to hid her own flushing cheeks. "I haven't been pretty in a long time. I know you and Gravity think so, but..." She traced some of the scars that ran up her neck and onto her face.
Tsulrati are polyamorous, some part of Aliset's mind snapped back as she offered a soft smile. "Your girlfriend? Gravity's her name? A smart and lucky woman, to have your heart. Why don't you tell me about her?"
Sacre hadn't said that, but it was an easy enough infrance. "Callsign actually, she's a pilot, like you. We met while we were serving on the same ship. I was a lot more... acerbic back then. More than once when someone touched me accidently, I sent them flying to land on their asses. Once during a mission even. I was a Santo Hei, but I'd been all over the enlisted ranks. Kept getting busted down for fighting. I didn't like people." Sacre explained, relaxing and thinking back.
"So our pilot, Gravity, decided to break me out of my shell. She was so annoying, but also... radient? She had this enthusiasm for life and doing things. I felt more, alive, when I was with her. She pulled me along on a lot of adventures, and I began to realize that I wanted more of that 'spark' in my life. One thing lead to anouther, and you can't lie in Draconic. It will pull the truth from you, one way or anouther." Sacre said, looking at Aliset, but her mind somewhere else.
"So even with the truth that I'd fallen in love with her, that I trusted her, confessed. Trust being in some ways more important. There were a lot of bumps along the way, but we tackled them. Her with endless optimisim and energy, me with logic and stopping her from doing things a bit too hairbrained. She put up with me when I was at my worst, so I give her my best. She's changed me, for the better and how can you not love someone like that? Want to help them grow and change for the better." Sacre finished, finally coming back to the moment. "Have you ever felt something like that?"
"His name was Levente Barna. He was a Nepleslian exchange pilot on the YSS Tokyo. I was a Santo Juni. He was my escort pilot. Funny enough, he was the grounded and reasonable one. His sister, Grand Admiral Irene Barna is so much like him. But she's the logical one. He went missing on a routine patrol. All that was recovered was his knife. The one I gave him." She gave a soft shrug, her smile never wavering. "It's a wonderful feeling. Maybe in a couple centuries I'll be able to persue it again."
Sacre nodded solemly, "I'm sorry for your loss. If I lost Gravity, I hope I'd be able to find it again someday." Her communicator buzzed and she glanced at it. She stood from the table, "Duty calls. I've got to get to a meeting. But I'd like to do something with you again."
"Yeah. Maybe something with brighter conversation." Ali looked at her comm. "Oshit, I gotta get to my xenolinguistics class..."
--
JP with @HarperMadi
Last edited: