Year-End Festival Year-End Gift Opening [Open RP]

[hyralt]

"So long as it isn't functionally diminished," Kari re-iterated as she reached the lowest level, flipping to catch herself before jumping out of the zero-G passageway and into the adjacent medbay. It was the smallest of the medbays on board, meant to provide urgent care primarily for prisoners in the nearby brig. As such, it only had a couple of beds. But other than being smaller, it was largely the same as a standard Sakura med lab.

Kari set the spear on one of the beds before retrieving a couple of cases from the most out-of-the-way cabinet. She placed each of the science kits down on the bed next to the spear and opened them up, revealing their contents to Pierre. "Where shall we start?"

 

[Nugget]

Jackson drunkenly stumbled into his room, placing his weight on a near by table. "Maybe attempting to make friends at a bar isnt the best idea," he said to himself. As he attempted to take a step forward, his arm slipped, and brought the contents of the table and the table itself to the floor. A small cylinder shaped package smacked into his forehead as he fell. Mumbling to himself, he picked the package up. "'ats not one of my things..." he said inspecting it. "Mason... Mason!" he shouted to the bunk on the opposite part of the room. Oh. Thats right. he has friends. "Well I guess its for me..." Jack mumbled, siting upwards. A little tag protruded from a small brown loop sticking out of the cylinder. It said, pull me for some fun. "Welp, fuckin..." he said as he pulled it. A loud garbled voice came through the cylinder. "Merry Christmas jackass, this is for my beret!" Jacksons eyes widened, sobering up to realize it was a flashbang. "Got the fuck- GRENADE" he screamed, throwing it out into the hallway, then assuming a fetal position, with his hands covering his ears and his eyes closed shut. A loud bang and a flash sounded from the hallway, accompanied by some screaming and cursing. "Just one fuckin year can I get something nice?"

 

[Locked_0ut]

"Where shall we start?"

"Least invasive first," Pierre said "Look at it closely under a microscope. We want to look for machining marks, pitting, how the edges were sharpened... Was it forged? Stamped? Knowing how the spear was made could give us some hints about its materials. Some materials need different machining and forging techniques."

 

[hyralt]

"Very well," Kari replied with a nod. Grabbing the spear, she proceeded to the examination/operation room which also had a desk on which sat a compact unit that provided both optical and electron scanning microscope capabilities. She flicked a switch on its side and carefully positioned the edge of the spear's centre blade under the scope. As soon as she did so, a volumetric projection of the surface appeared in three-dimensions above the device.

After quietly switching between the different magnification settings, she glanced back at Pierre. "I am no expert, but it appears as though it were cast. There are no obvious tool or laser markings at any level. Despite this, the edge is razor-sharp. What do you make of it?"

 

[Locked_0ut]

"I'm better at research design and data analysis than the more hands-on stuff, but I'd assume it was either printed or molded. Maybe Zesuaium, but I can't say yet," At this point, Pierre was almost mumbling to themself.

 

[hyralt]

"If this were a medical case, I would attempt a differential diagnosis," Kari said, trying to draw upon her own area of expertise. "Is there another likely option, and some test we could perform to differentiate it from Zesuaium?"

 

[Locked_0ut]

"Easy, we can try to scratch it, or maybe electrify it Zesuaium should be resistant to both," tapping their chin, they thought for a moment. "Ooh, also we should have a number of Zesu pieces in the armory, Daisy shields are made of the stuff. Mindy's use it in their plates too. We could try to compare a closeup if we need."

 

[hyralt]

"Hai," Kari said after listening carefully. She reached over to a mug at the corner of her desk that held an assortment of pens and pen-like devices, from which she pulled one of the latter. She aimed it at the part of the blade that she felt was most expendable, one of the decorative swirls on one of the spear's secondary blades. "I'll try to scratch it."

Taking her time, she lined up the shot so that if the laser passed through, it would just clip the edge of the swirl without punching a hole through the spear itself. She also aligned it so that if it did clip through, the laser wouldn't hit either her or Pierre, and ought to dissipate before hitting the wall. Holding her breath, she switched on the laser scalpel and watched as it failed to scratch the material of the spear.

"Well, lasers don't seem to have an effect, but they are intended to be used on organic matter," she looked at Pierre. "Should we take it to the armoury and compare against Daisy or Mindy armour?"

 

[Locked_0ut]

"Sure, why not, they've also got some cutting and grinding tools down there," Pierre said hopping to their feet.

 

[hyralt]

Kari gave Pierre a nod and put the laser scalpel back in among the pens. Lifting the spear, she carried it to the bed and set it down between the science kits. Lifting them, she carried them back to the cabinets, putting them away tidily before grabbing the spear again and turning to go.

Suddenly, she stopped and turned back to look at Pierre. "Thank you for helping me with this," she said. Then she stood perfectly still, staring at them with her lips parted slightly. She wore her usual frustrated expression, but that didn't mean much. In truth, she wanted to say more, but wasn't sure what. In the end, she fell back on simple reiteration. "I appreciate it."

With that, she turned and marched out to the nearby zero-G passageway. "Deck 1 armory, I presume? I am not sure, but I assume based on proximity that the deck 4 armory is for fighters, deck 2 is for infantry, and deck 1 is for power armor."

 

[Locked_0ut]

"At this point, we're potentially stepping into other people's domains for a personal project. One's probably least likely to be busy right now, so why not," Pierre said following Kari to the zero-G passage and trying not to be too obvious about sneaking peaks at her tail.

 

[hyralt]

"Understood," Kari shot back enthusiastically as she tossed her spear up into the passageway.

Unencumbered, she tucked her tail tightly against her body as she somersaulted forwards into the open shaft. Just as the weight of artificial gravity lifted from her shoulders, she jumped. After a fraction of second to calculate her trajectory, she realized that she'd slightly miscalculated. She locked her gaze on the side of the passageway with which she was about to collide, then without any conscious thought she started pirouetting her tail behind her, acting as a counterweight that let her rotate. She landed against the wall with both hands and feet, at first outstretched to absorb the impact, then pushing off again.

This time, she succeeded - catching the spear and pulling it tight against her body to make it less likely to impale someone who might be jumping into the passageway ahead of her. Spinning her tail again, she rotated herself to face downwards as she shot up the shaft towards deck 1. "Is it a problem that we are stepping into other people's domains for this personal project?"

 

[Locked_0ut]

Impressed and slightly fascinated by the way Sunde used her tail as a natural counterbalance, Pierre followed. They propelled themself from rung to rung, catching on with hand and hoof. “Well yeah,” Pierre said in response, “We’re on a warship, wouldn’t you be peeved if you were busy in a medlab with patients and I came in to use your microscope to look at a cool bug?”

 

[hyralt]

The muscles around Kari's eyes tightened, but otherwise she kept her usual frustrated look as she thought about Pierre's question while she floated backwards up the passageway. As Kari's air resistance slowed her ascent, she used the blunt end of the spear, pushing it against the floors as they passed to counteract the slowing force.

"If there were no more urgent reasons to use the microscope, then I would allow it. If there were, I wouldn't allow it. I wouldn't feel peeved either way," Kari replied. The way she tensed her face and flicked the tip of her tail suggested she was still thinking about something. "I'm not sure that I've ever felt peeved. It seems like a reaction to discovering that the world is different from how it actually is. I am often surprised. But never peeved."

Without looking up, Kari caught herself against the ceiling of the passageway once they reached the top, then pushed herself diagonally downwards towards the floor of deck 1. Once again, she zeroed in on her landing site with her eyes and performed a half backflip to land feet-first before looking at Pierre again. "I am quite certain of this because I often find myself discovering new things about the world and my place in it with you, Pierre."

 

[Locked_0ut]

A small smile perched itself on Pierre's face as they listened. She had a fascinating way of viewing the world. It was something that kept the curious officer perpetually coming back for more. Curiosity turned to shock as their brain struggled to process her last statement. "With me?" they managed to with a yelp, as they landed a little too hard and went staggering out of the passage.

 

[hyralt]

"Yes, with you," Kari watched as Pierre staggered, and her frustrated look actually softened for once - turning into concern for them. "Are you alright?"

Holding out her free hand towards Pierre, she didn't quite touch them, but she kept it at the ready in case they fell. "Whenever I'm with you, the experience and wisdom you share helps me see new things about the world and my place within it."

 

[Locked_0ut]

Pierre grabbed Sunde's hand before they could go tumbling off into a bulkhead. Instead, they managed to stop centimeters from the medic, steadied by her strong grip. Their face burned as they listened to her earnest words. "I'm not really all that wise," Pierre said, suddenly aware of her sent. SAoY standard issue soap and detergent, mixed with something uniquely her. Eyes fixed on Sunde's teal-paneled uniform, they continued "I just always want to see what you'll say next. I'm never bored when I'm with you."

 

[hyralt]

"Respectfully, I disagree," Kari replied, still holding Pierre's hand, though she was fairly certain at this point that they weren't likely to fall. "While my body may have several improvements over the Minkan body for the sake of military performance, it is nevertheless beyond question that in the nearly 3 years since the Empress gave me life, I have accumulated fewer life experiences than you have in, well, however long you have been alive." Kari could easily recall Pierre's medical dossier, including their date of birth, but she also remembered some of her socialization training suggesting that older people were often uncomfortable when they were reminded of their age.

"I suppose the only reasonable point of disagreement is whether or not you have been able to draw upon those experiences to give you sometimes intangible guiding principles," Kari reasoned. As her mind explored the possible directions for an argument, her eyes naturally wandered up to Pierre's stubby antlers. Once she'd plotted a course through the ideas she had, her eyes snapped back to Pierre's. "I assert that you have based on what you have so far shared with me. Therefore, though you may not recognize it yourself, you are wise. At least, you are wiser than I am. So you are wise to me."

 

[Locked_0ut]

"Sure, there's a correlation," Pierre said with a small laugh, "'Older and wiser' as the saying goes. But I've met a few older people in my day who were complete dumbasses. You're right, wisdom probably has a lot more to do with your ability to learn and your willingness and interest in learning. By that logic, you're also pretty wise. We just need to keep finding more and more experiences for you." They looked down at their hand still in Sunde's and gave it a quick frown before simply switching it to their other hand. Now with her right hand in their left, Pierre said, "Shall we continue to the armory?"

 

[hyralt]

Kari observed as Pierre switched hands. A moment of confusion showed on her face, before she realized that they wanted to continue holding hands and this was the natural orientation if they were both walking in the same direction.

"I suppose that's a fair assertion, about my wisdom," Kari gave them a firm nod. "Let's continue."

Walking hand-in-hand they proceeded into the armoury, which was directly adjacent to the zero-G passageway and adjoined with the power armour bay next door. Kari began looking around to see if anyone else was there who might object to their experiments.

Spoiler: OOC

@Immortal Cyan would there be someone in the armoury? I imagine so. Whom do you think would be there?