A Birthday party. In Space!
2173-Q2
Hitching a ride
"Revy," Miranda greets you with a smile when you call her about a month before the IFV competition. "It is so good to see you again. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Miranda," you reply, smiling in return, while intellectually, you know that Miranda is one of those people who can control exactly the feeling they want to project, your instincts can't help returning her genuine-seeming friendship. Relationships like this is enough to send even your considerable intellect running in circles. Mom would say that you should small talk a little first, but both Miranda and you are busy people, and she'd see right through something like that anyway, particularly from you, of course that's not saying she wouldn't appreciate it. You sigh internally, yeah... Good thing you chose to revolutionize science and technology as the Galaxy knew it, politics would be exhausting.
"I have a favor to ask," you say, a little sheepishly.
"Sure," she replies, without hesitation. Again you feel your instinct informing you that she's nice and friendly and you should return that friendship, while your higher functions point out that you are making her company (and yourself) billions of credits a month, there is very little you can ask them that isn't worth maintaining a good relationship for. Which is also part of the reason you're calling them about this at all.
"I... Uh," you start, smooth Revy, real smooth, "I was wondering if I could charter one of your ships. I need to go to Earth for the Alliance's IFV competition, and well, I don't want to entrust my entries with commercial transport."
"No problem," she says, her smile conveying just how happy she is to do this small favor for you. Just like it would make any friend happy to help out a friend.
"Great. I'll have the Tigers ready for transport then, just patch the ship's specs through to Cortana and she'll take care of it."
Her eyebrow makes an amused little jump, she noticed something in that sentence. What? Is it a good thing? Bad thing?
"Sure," she says simply, giving no clue as to her thoughts, "I'll do that. Any reason you dropped that Roman thing you've had going for all of your products so far? Even our joined project has a Roman name."
You shrug slightly, "it's going to be exclusive for the Alliance, or at least mostly exclusive, and they're using a big predator theme for their vehicles; Grizzly, Mako, and now Tiger."
She nods, "that makes sense. It's a good name."
Yeah, she knew that, that's not what surprised her before. Meaning it was something else she noted, what? Cortana? Why would she... Oh. You referred to Cortana as a person. That's not weird is it? It's not like she's the
only one you speak with.
Dingy old boat
"When you said you'd borrowed a freighter from Cord-Hislop, I wasn't expecting
this," Brian says as he looks around your cabin. 'Cabin,' isn't really the proper word for it, though. 'Suite' would be more appropriate. Everything here radiates luxury, from the king sized bed's silken sheets to the soft classical music playing from some well-hidden speaker system and the entire wall given over to an aquarium full of exotic fish from Earth and beyond.
"Yeah, me neither," you absentmindedly reply as you play idly with the terminal they've set up here.
Yup, you think to yourself,
this is top of the line too.
"Seriously, Revy," Brian repeats, shaking his head, "I knew you were rich, but rich enough that borrowing this for a week constitutes a favor for a friend... That's something else." Intellectually, you knew. If you were to rent something like this for a week, this wouldn't cost more than ten or twenty million credits. That's still more than your house, but it's only around of a few percent of what the Gladius makes Cord-Hislop in the same period.
You shrug in reply, not much to say to that.
He grins at you, "don't get me wrong, your birthday party at your parents' farm last year was great. But this is by far the awesomer location."
The cake is a deep truth
You sigh contentedly as you look out the window at the massive form of the Shanxi-Theta Relay. The sheer size and elegance of the thing would be enough to blow you away even if you had no appreciation for what it does. And you do, both from a scientific and logistical point of view, it is a marvel that would inspire awe even if it looked like something hammered together by an idiot child.
Miranda, unsurprisingly, knew this was your birthday, and had been kind enough to supply a particularly excellent birthday cake in the shape of a CHA-PI-SSC-01A Gladius. Most of said cake still remains while the stomachs of all involved in its consumption growl unhappily at being overstuffed with deliciousness.
As you gaze upon the magnificence of the Mass Relay, you feel a slight twitch of regret that you can't build anything like that. Well, you add internally with a smile you try hard to keep from being
too smug, you can't build anything like that yet. It's not simple, you don't even see the full shape of it in your head yet, but one day, you'll build a Relay. Can't have things like that hanging around the Galaxy indicating that there have ever been greater engineers than you.
OK, Revy, time to quit the megalomania while you're ahead.
Your reverie is interrupted as James, the very handsome steward CHA has provided along with the ship and pilot, approaches you. "Miss Shepard," he says with a smile that shows just the right amount of his shining white teeth, "the Captain has asked me to inform you that we have picked up a distress signal coming from a commercial freighter on the far side of the nearby star. Unless you object strongly, he will go and offer our assistance. It should not put off more than a few hours off schedule."
Shipwrecked
[ ] Acquiesce and see what you can do to help.
[ ] Object, you have a deadline to keep. And besides, this could be a trap! It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
[ ] Write-in.
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A/N: Train rides are quite conductive to writing! It's a bit short, for which I apologize, but this way it's out now rather than this weekend
@UberJJK, I added your designs for the Gladius and the Tiger to the index, could you please check that they're going to the correct versions?
