Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest

A spacer's funeral is not altogether glamourous. In the old days, bodies might simply be dumped out of the airlock, left to drift out among the stars. Space is big, after all. Unfortunately, the space around the planets that humans live on and in the orbit of is, relatively speaking, small. Bodies pile up over time, among the other space junk, and the practise swiftly loses its romanticism when you start finding decompressed corpses tangled up with the remains of old satellites and waste containers.

The six body bags are laid out in a row on in the main cargo bay, held fast to the deck by adhesive on the underside of the bags. The cargo bay is the only space on the ship large enough to comfortably house the entire crew assembled, and also, more practically, close to the cold storage lockers that Song, the two specialists and the three spacers have been stored. It's still a much longer space than it is across, however, much like the mecha deck, and the relative vastness of the chamber compared to the tight confines of the rest of the ship diminishes greatly while you're floating shoulder to shoulder with other junior officers, wedged in between them and the racks of labelled storage boxes. Regulations strictly stipulate a line or a circle a respectful distance from the bodies, forbidding the use of the more immediately practical "closter". The entire crew needs to stay on the same horizontal plane, rather than using the space above the bodies. The end result looks terribly impressive, so long as no one loses their grip on their handhold and drifts into anyone else, but is quite uncomfortable.

"... honour these brave soldiers who have given everything in defence of the empire," Captain Andre is intoning, reciting the words completely from memory with sad familiarity. "We will now have a moment of silence to remember the fallen." What little human noise was in the chamber fades away to an uncomfortable, heavy quiet, broken only by the rhythmic, mechanical sounds of the ship. It's a common myth that space is quiet -- in reality, true silence means that something that is supposed to be keeping you alive has failed.

When the moment ends, the mournful version of the Imperial anthem plays over the speakers, and Grayson drifts over to activate the body bags, one by one, large hands carefully manipulating the control panel at the foot of each. There's a tiny, almost imperceptible shudder from each, and the entire bag seems to shrink and contract, the shrouded form inside gradually disappearing until all that's left of each is a small, black rectangle, each displaying a name, a rank, a number and a date of death. A combination of close range molecular disruption technology, and a more powerful version of the same smart fabric used in your uniform. In truth, all that's left is the fabric. The body inside is entirely gone.

You can see Ito's face on the face side of the circle. There's no sense of levity or brashness about him now, only a solemn, blank expression you've never seen on his face before. He would have known three of the deceased, but his eyes are fixed pointedly on one of them: the black rectangle reading "Soo-ah Song." You don't know him well enough to take too good of a guess at what he's feeling. He and Ensign Song didn't get along -- she resented his seniority, his unit's unorthodox alterations, disliked him in a way that it was impossible not to notice, even at a distance.

One supposes, though, that that doesn't necessarily make a difference in the end, when you're ordered to go help someone, but you're ultimately too slow.

--

"And this is our best bet, you think?"

"Yes, ma'am," the navigator says, adjusting her glasses nervously. Rather than sitting at her own workstation, she's hovering in the air beside the captain's, interface-gloved hand indicating something on the captain's private display. "Quartermaster Daren has experience with the people there, and says that they're not quite criminals. Mostly just common Saturnians living out here and servicing long range ships."

"Not quite criminals," Captain Andre says, a little dryly. She quirks a faint, bitter smile, the closest you've ever seen to mirth from her. "Fleeing to a Shadow Ring space station so that we don't all choke and die," she says. "Not precisely the navy's finest moment." The bridge is back down to a more typical staffing situation, with only a handful of staff serving on any given shift, barring another enemy sighting. But things haven't quite returned to their former monotony, either. The tension in the air was only partially alleviated by the funeral, and the universal anxiety now, that you will all arrive at your next destination only to find that the enemy has launched a full scale invasion while you were enroute, is hard to shake.

"The nearest naval destination is farther away, ma'am," the navigator says, looking concerned. "And the other options aren't exactly…"

"... the other options are proper hives of smugglers and worse, I'm sure," Andre says, dismissively. "Fine. Quetzle station it is. Chart a course and make the adjustments sooner rather than later."

"Yes, ma'am," the navigator agrees, looking deeply relieved.

This exchange occurs at the tail end of your shift, a day after the funeral. As usual, Anja is off at the same time, and you find yourself trailing along beside her as you head down the shaft. She catches you watching her, and cocks her head to the side. "Something on your mind, North?"

You're taken a little off guard -- you hadn't quite meant to stare. "... yes," you admit, after a moment's thought. You allow your frown to show on your face, now that she's already noticed your discomfort. "What the captain said, she mentioned that our destination is part of the… Shadow Ring. I've heard that name before, but… isn't that some sort of group of criminal stations?" you ask. "Pirates, I thought."

Anja laughs, high and bright. "You've been here for ten years," she says, grinning, "but you can still be such an Imperial."

"We're all part of the empire," you say, slightly disapproving. Or at least, slightly annoyed at being made fun of.

"Sure, sure," Anja says, waving a hand. "But there's the empire, and then there's the empire. There's a difference between the inner planets and here, or Jupiter, or the belt miners. Before the war, we were kind of a backwater." Albeit a self sufficient backwater, nearly as rich in minerals as Jupiter.

"People here aren't blowing up their own habitats to make a point," you point out.

"They're not," Anja agrees. "Jovians are crazy, even before the war. We just have… a different way of doing things out here, is all." A way of doing things that includes what many in high society term 'deplorable manners and no sense of decorum', but that was admittedly a lesser problem than the one offered by Jovian separatists. "Anyway," Anja says, "the 'Shadow Ring' isn't an organisation. It's a… well, it's less a ring, and more of a scattered disc." The characterisation seems to amuse her, and she grins at you again, before explaining: "It's just what you call all of the random habitats and civilian stations out this far. They go all around Saturn. Hence 'ring'. Sure, some of them are illegal, or full of smugglers. Or pirates. But some of them are just…" she frowns, trying to get a particular description, even she she catches the handle to a vertical. You grab the one beside it, to keep yourself from sailing past her -- you didn't expect the stop.

She notices your surprise, and nods at the vertical. "Come on," she says, "I don't think either of us have any duties right now. I've had the urge to beat someone at dice for ages, and Hiro's no fun."

It seems agreeable enough to you, and you find yourself following her down the vertical in short order. "Some of them are just…?" you prompt, once the two of you are in a different shaft -- the same level as the mess hall.

"What?" Anja blinks at you. "Oh! Right. Most of them are just hicks who like to live out here because there's less control over their lives. Not crooks, just… people who like their privacy more than they like having a decent place to live. A lot of them only went out there in the last decade, after all of you showed up at every major colony. There wasn't a lot of space, before there was time to expand."

"I remember," you acknowledge, thinking back to a time where you'd shared an apartment only a little larger than your quarters on The Rose with your mother, on a military station orbiting Titan. "I guess it isn't something to worry about too much, then."

Anja leads you to the small but largely deserted leisure room. A beverage pouch vending machine is mounted in the wall perpendicular to the two hatches leading into the chamber, showing signs of heavy use. The rest of the room is largely taken up by a series of multi-use tables, each with magnetic pads as well as rails to secure various objects to them. Clustered around each table are four chairs that, here and now mostly useful for the straps that prevent you from floating away every time you lean across the table.

The tablets are standard issue, and the software loaded onto them is -- theoretically -- tightly regulated. Superior officers are rarely overly concerned with the presence of a contraband pet simulators or the odd discrete bit of pornography, however, so long as they aren't flaunted too brazenly and don't disrupt workflow. What Anja is setting up, however, is on the approved list of applications, capable of running a number of different games, for use in leisure time only. It helps to have crew members who aren't ready to murder one another from boredom.

"Chronos' Dice?" you ask, looking at the list in question.

Anja smirks. "Is there another kind of dice game I'm not aware of?"

"In most of the solar system, yes."

"Well, North, there you go being Imperial again."

Chronos' Dice is a game which, as far as you can tell, could not actually be played with physical dice, gravity well or no. It's a simple press your luck game, but it also has a card-hand style hidden dice pool system, and enough varieties of special dice with complex effects that trying to keep track of it all without computer assistance seems dubious at best. With computer assistance, however, it's relatively simple to pick up, if quite difficult to master. As you're reminded here, when Anja, true to her prediction, wins several rounds quite handily.

"It's too bad we're not actually allowed to bet anything," Anja says, wistfully, earning a short laugh from a table nearby.

"Too bad for you, maybe," you say. "My paycheck isn't actually any bigger than yours." Despite your losses, you are having fun. It's good to do something engaging, but where the only risk of failure is a bit of gentle ribbing from Anja.

"Oh, you'd improve if there were actual money on the line," she says, airily. "Karel did. Sort of. I mean, he wins sometimes."

"The boyfriend that your mother dislikes?" you guess. She's never precisely brought him up by name before, although you've heard periodic mentions.

"Yeah, that's the one," Anja agrees.

"You've never actually explained what's so terrible about him." You're genuinely curious, and part of you feels that you're close enough that it isn't a rude question. You told her about what happened with your sister, after all. Or, admittedly, some of what happened.

"Oh, you know," Anja says, shrugging, before she takes her first turn. Multi-coloured dice tumble across the board on your screen. "She says he's lazy, good for nothing, not serious enough about work or about bettering himself, that he takes too many party drugs…"

"What's he really like?" You stare at your own pool of dice uncertainly.

Anja smiles a little wickedly. "Lazy, good for nothing, not serious enough about work or bettering himself, takes too many party drugs…"

You pause, waiting to see if she's joking, but she at no point seems inclined to take the words back. "He sounds, um…" you struggle to find a good, diplomatic phrase to cover what you've just heard. "... colourful," you offer, with a gentle smile.

Anja laughs. "Sure, let's go with that," she says. "He's a good listener. And it's just nice to have something waiting back home when you're not out on voyage, right?"

"Well, it's my first time," you admit.

"I can always try and set you up with one of his friends when we get back to Titan," she offers, with a mischievous sort of glint in her eye.

"What?" you jerk back slightly, taken off guard, and you drift up noticeably against the straps of your seat. You recover, shaking your head demurely. "Me? No, I'm fine, thank you." You make your move, perhaps not paying as much attention as you'd like.

"Do you have some kind of arrangement?" Anja gusses. She scrutinises the board with an easy, analytical eye, and swipes out several moves in a fraction of the time you took. "Your family's high enough up to care about advantageous matches and that sort of thing, right?"

"Oh, my family? I… suppose, but I'm not exactly a great prize," you admit. "We don't have much in the way of money. Just mother's knighthood."

"It's decided then," Anja says, with a nod.

"What's decided then?" You realise with quiet dismay that somehow, already, you're losing. You wonder if she's trying to throw you off on purpose.

"Setting you up on a date," she says. "With… Gavin, I think."

"... that's really not necessary," you say, trying not to sound alarmed, even as you quietly try to salvage the shambles you've made of your side of the board.

"Oh, you'll like him," she says. "He hasn't been charged with anything criminal in at least three years."

"That's really not necessary!" you insist, your voice rising fractionally upward.

"Oh, it's no trouble," she says, giving you an evil smile. "Also, good game."

To your shock, you realise that you have, indeed, lost yet again.

--

You've seen Lady Perbeck pilot this mecha. You can't begin to comprehend most of the controls, and fortunately, you don't have to, but from the software alone -- a legacy operating system hastily patched to remain compatible with modern systems -- you're not quite sure how it's possible for anyone to operate it.

It therefore takes you much longer than anticipated to get into the backend of the scan system, guided by the same young technician who'd spoken to Perbeck earlier. Working in tandem, you're almost a replacement for the lost Specialist Garcia. Albeit a slower and less efficient one.

"The compatibility control thinks it's an ISM07 Lancer," you announce.

Specialist Griggs, hanging onto the edge of the cockpit, gives a start at this. He had been squinting over your shoulder at the display readout, trying to understand just what you'd been doing with the 'guts' of the scanning suite. "What?" he says. "No, no." He catches himself, face colouring, before he amends: "Sorry, ma'am! I mean, if the compatibility control thought it was a Lancer the directional thruster array would end up ripping the whole mecha limb from limb the moment she takes off, if the automatic safety didn't shut it down right away."

"Mm," you agree, frowning at the display. You're seated in the Huntress's cockpit, with the hatch firmly locked open, and the machine set to diagnostic mode, enabling the traditional workstation interface you're used to. Or, the grandmother of the display you're used to. You suppose it's less of a bother with a display helmet and haptic-enabled pilot suit. "That is what's happening with the scanner suite, though. Whenever the compatibility control does its startup scan, it sets the scanner settings to Lancer." You drag a finger along the line in question, highlighting it for Griggs to read.

"... How?" He demands. Less of you, and more of the universe in general. Or, possibly, of the dormant Huntress. It's single, darkened eye holds no answers.

"It's hard to be sure yet," you admit. "We'll have to keep running tests before we can figure out how to actually fix it."

Griggs groans, running a hand down his freckled face. "We've been at this for hours," he says. "I was hoping that we'd have it done by the time Lady Perbeck wakes up."

"Well," you say, smiling encouragingly, "at least, we'll be able to tell her we've made progress, even if it isn't fixed yet. I'm sure she'll see you've been working very hard."

His face colours again, possibly for different reasons. You sometimes have that affect, intentional or not. "... yes, ma'am," he agrees, belatedly.

"You should let me have a look at that." At the unfamiliar voice, you jerk back in surprise, and Griggs actually loses his hold on the cockpit entirely, floating backwards away from the Huntress with a startled cry. Like most of the mecha crew, he refuses to wear his tether line except for combat scenarios, or as an added safety precaution when the hatches are being cycled -- the two scenarios where it's required by regulations. This usually doesn't cause too many issues. Usually. Now, admittedly, he looks particularly comical as he floats through the air, arms pinwheeling indignantly.

You're more focused on the small, tan face peering at you from the other side of the cockpit. A girl, perhaps all of 13, is looking over the interface curiously. As she pulls herself further into view, her civilian jumpsuit makes itself obvious, if her age hadn't already given that much away. "... what are you doing here?" you ask, baffled.

"The mechas are here," she informs you. "And I'm bored. I'm Faiza, by the way."

You struggle to process this for a long, awkward moment. "You're one of the refugees from the civilian lifeboat," you decide. Then, trying to look stern, you say, "You're not supposed to be here." The civilians have been given space to sleep, but they hardly have the run of the ship, let alone being permitted to just wander into a military mecha hangar with work in progress.

"Well," Faiza says, with strange conviction, "I'm here now, and this is a real Huntress!" With that, she slaps a hand down on the edge of the cockpit, face lighting up with glee. "I've always wanted to work on one of these! You're looking at scan diagnostics. Did something go wrong with the compatibility updates? That was always happening back on the Station, with the Lancers." There's a flicker of something across her face as she says this last part -- Phoebe Station was her home, and, if she is expressing such familiarity with the mechas the garrison used, there's a dubious possibility that she has some sort of connection with the pilots who gave their lives.

"I can't let you touch anything," you say. "You really shouldn't be here," you repeat.

"Who is that, Ensign?" Griggs calls over to you, sounding more than a little angry. The other workers around the mecha bay have started to turn to see what you're doing.

"It's one of the refugees," you call back, before turning to look at Faiza again.

"It's fine, I'm really good with mechas," Faiza says, smiling winsomely again. "Better than dad, even. I bet I could solve the problem really fast!"

You look at her skeptically. The truth is, you don't know this girl, at all, and have absolutely no way of verifying if she's being at all truthful, let alone if she's actually as talented as she believes she is. You haven't been involved with the refugees at all, beyond a glimpse or two, and it seems quite absurd that you would risk a serious reprimand by letting an unknown civilian teenager fiddle around with a rare and expensive piece of military hardware capable of punching a hole straight through the ship. "Absolutely not," you tell her, flatly.

Her face falls immediately. "Fine," she says, letting out an explosive sigh. "Can I at least watch?"

"The only thing you're going to be watching are the four walls of your cabin," a gruff voice says, sounding none-too-pleased. The mechanical chief has just floated over and seized the back of Faiza's jumpsuit, her lined face managing a sort of intensity that, in this moment, you envy. "Kick me, girl," the chief continues, seeing the motion of Faiza's legs, "And it'll be the brig instead. Do I look like I'm joking?"

Faiza stops struggling, going limp, and adopts a defeated, pouty look. "I could have fixed it," she insists.

"Well," The chief growls. "We'll never know, now will we?" She gives you a quick, acknowledging salute, which you return, right before she pulls the still sulking civilian girl away from the Huntress, in the direction of the nearest hatch back to the rest of the ship.

Whether or not making use of the strange girl's purported talents would have helped or hindered you, It takes you multiple leisure shifts over the course of the week to finally get things right. By the end, both you and Specialist Griggs are frazzled and tired, but there's a deeper satisfaction in knowing that you managed to solve the problem. Or, just about.

"I'm told you've nearly fixed it."

You look up with a bit of a start at the voice, and find yourself faced with Lady Perbeck herself. "Hello, ma'am!" you say, surprised, Nonetheless, you hastily salute. She returns it with the hand that's not currently holding onto the cockpit. Rather than looking over your shoulder, she's in front of and above you, very nearly upside down from your perspective, reading the display from that perspective with the ease of long practice. "We're very nearly finished," you confirm. "Specialist Griggs has gone to get 'celebratory coffee.'"

"I know, I gave him permission," she says. "I don't recognise this interface -- what exactly are you doing?" She's not reprimanding you, and seems to be making an effort to sound merely curious, but her eyes are narrowed with a sort of possessive intensity that reminds you very pointedly of just whose prize mecha it is you're modifying the internal settings of.

"This is the scanner profile creation interface," you explain. "It's not something that's even normally accessible, ma'am. Griggs had to look up the override code to even access it."

She frowns now. "Why would you ever have to do that?"

"Well, ma'am," you admit, "I'm not entirely certain, but the last patch to your scanning suite seems to have had the data for the 07 Lancer's scanning suite inputted accidentally as its base specifications."

She blinks, shocked. Then it's a little like watching storm clouds roll in on a calm day. "They accidentally did what?

"They set the basic specifications to that of the Lancer, ma'am," you say, evenly. You suspect that the anger is not actually directed at you, and that the best you can do is to answer her questions calmly and in a timely manner to avoid being splashed by it. "So the compatibility sweep was flagging your settings as incompatible and unsafe with your hardware, and so…"

"... The safety override kept deleting them," Perbeck growls. She looks very much like, if a programmer from Titan were standing in front of her, she would be sorely tempted to shoot them. Fortunately, even if there were such a programmer present, she doesn't actually wear her sidearm around the ship with her ordinary uniform. "So you had to rebuild the listed specifications from scratch?"

"That's about it, ma'am," you admit. You've continued to work as you responded, carefully copying figures and setting from the dense, archaic manual into the interface Perbeck had initially remarked upon.

Perbeck closes her eyes, and takes in a deep, soothing breath. "No wonder Garcia kept putting this off," she mutters.

Eager to assuage her annoyance, you try to hurry your work along without making any serious mistakes. "Almost… there!" You can't keep a note of triumph out of your voice as you fill out the last field, and finally save for the last time. "That's my part done, ma'am. Now all that's left is for Specialist Griggs to check my work."

As you begin to undo the straps, Lady Perbeck reaches out a hand, offering you a way up. Once you've freed yourself, with only a short moment's hesitation, you accept. She pulls you up and out of the cockpit, and you swiftly flip yourself around, catching the edge of the cockpit just long enough to leave you more or less in the same orientation as the mecha commander. You're both quite experienced enough with zero gravity not to take too much notice of a conversation between two people on different planes, but it does make it a little less awkward. Facing you now, she gives you a disgruntled sort of smile. "Thanks are in order, Ensign. This is going to make my life significantly easier."

"I'm happy to do my part to help you defend the ship, ma'am," you tell her, with a gracious bow of your head. On her uniform's jacket, the heraldry of her knight order and her house take up significant amount of real estate, a stark difference from the plain, blue expanse of your own.

Perbeck shakes her head, golden hair spreading out like a halo. "I'd think of this as being rather more in the realm of a personal favour, North. Working on my unit is not your job, especially not during your off time."

This much is more or less inarguable, so reluctantly, you nod. "Please let me know if anything is amiss, though, ma'am," you tell her, although privately your heart plummets at even the thought of having to redo the work you and Griggs have spent so long undertaking.

Perbeck looks slightly amused at this. "I'm sure you'd rather I didn't," she says. "I remember people who go out of their way to do me favours, though. Now, however, I'd suggest that you go use whatever time you have left in this leisure shift to get some sleep. You probably need it."

This much is difficult to deny. "Will you tell Specialist Griggs that I've finished, ma'am?" you ask.

"I think I can manage that much," she replies.

Wth that, you leave her - it's only two hours until you're required to be on the bridge once again, and, indeed, you can think of very few ways that would be better to spend it than asleep.

--

On one hand, heading for this Quetzle Station has ensured that ordinary ship activity can continue instead of rationing the air supply, and very likely saved your lives. On the other, it's hardly on the way back to Titan or in the direction of any other major military installment, and even once the ship has had its oxygen supply restored, this diversion will have taken up valuable travel time as well as permanently altering the viable routes available to the Rose going forward.

From your place on the bridge, you spot the station on scans long before you see it. A large blip amid the defused dust of the Phoebe Ring, growing as you head toward it. This time, at least, Mazlo manages to make the comms connection quickly.

"Attention Quetzle Station: this is Commander Lillian Andre, captain of the HIMS Titanium Rose."

"This is Quetzle Station Harbour Control. We read you, HIMS Titanium Rose. What do you want, then?"

Andre is taken aback by the voice on the other end of the line, for an instant losing her air of weary determination almost entirely. She recovers before responding, however. "We require an emergency berth and supplies," she says.

The voice -- it's difficult to put an age or a gender to it -- speaks again, words slurred together in a Saturnian colonial accent so broad that it makes Anja sound like an Imperial Capital schoolgirl: "And I doubt you're actually asking, or buying," they say, simply. "You-- What?" There's an awkward pause as a brief, muffled exchange occurs in the speaker's vicinity, as though they've just put their hand over their microphone to confer with someone out of earshot.

Abruptly, a different voices comes onto the air, this one low and feminine. No less heavily accented, but certainly politer: "Apologies, captain. We will of course be providing any and all necessary aid as outlined in the Military Requisitions Act." An act which did, notably, have fairly stringent limitations on what exactly could be requisitioned under it. Bringing this up signals compliance, but can also be read as a reminder that their obligations did have limits.

"Who am I speaking to now?" Andre asks. From the way she's holding her shoulders, it's obvious that she is fully capable of reading between the lines.

"Mara Birch, Quetzle Station Harbourmaster, Captain," the woman replies.

"Ms. Birch," Andre begins, slow enough that you can tell she's trying to supress annoyance, "you will of course be reimbursed for any necessary requisitions we are forced to make, as outlined both in the Military Requisitions Act and the Wartime Measures Act."

This second proclamation leads to a weighty, prolonged silence on the other end of the line. Invoking the Wartime Measures Act allows much broader use and seizure of civilian resouces -- to be repaid at a later date where possible -- it also, however, necessary declares that the Rose has just come from or is heading to active combat with an enemy considered to be the enemy of the Imperial throne or its representatives. "... is there something we should know, captain?" the harbourmaster asks, slowly.

"Any relevant information can be exchanged in person, I think, Ms. Birch."

"... understood, captain." She does not sound altogether pleased, but there's little she can do. "We will have Docking Bay E cleared for you by the time you get here. If you'll transmit your current velocity and heading, I can provide you with a safe approach vector."

--

The station, when it comes into view, is a slightly different variation on the spindle and disc design. While Phoebe Station had a single, narrow spindle with one large ring to provide enough inertia to simulate gravity, Quetzle Station has a long, fat, modular spindle lined with row after row of smaller disks, each of a slightly different size and make. It's the sort of civilian station where, when they need to add additional space, they find the most affordable solution on the market, second hand if necessary. It has a population of 2246, zero gravity in the spindle and variable-low g differing from ring to ring, and a complete lack of an interior docking bay large enough to accomodate the Rose. Bay E turns out to consist of a large connector on the far end of the spindle, with a set of military-surplus docking clamps to secure the ship to the station.

"Identification on those mechas?" Grayson asks, from the CiC.

"They're coming up as HS Workmen, Heineken Robotics, sir," you say, looking at your readout. One of the monitors at the head of the bridge fills up with a closeup view of one of the machines in question. Several of them drift a short distance out from the space station, civilian models, looking awkward and almost skeletal to you, without the armoured plating present on even the lightest military model.

"Those are tools they're holding, I hope," Captain Andre murmurs.

"It should be a short-range cutting laser," Grayson says, dubiously. "But it doesn't look like the specifications I have here. I'd… like to run these past Perbeck's people, with your permission, ma'am?"

"Granted," Andre says.

A moment's consultation on Anja's part later, and, surprisingly, Ito's voice comes over the general bridge comm. "This is Sub-Lieutenant Ito -- I recognise what's been done to those cutters. Permission to speak, Captain?"

"Once again, granted." Andre does not seem particularly pleased to learn that anything has been done to them worth remarking on.

"It's a common modification, ma'am. They've swapped out the standard emitter for a high powered, aftermarket defence model, and upgraded the power supply at the back. It's not a military weapon, exactly, but at the right range they can cut through armour. It's illegal."

Andre frowns, thoughtfully. "Well," she says, "We're here to refuel, not to arrest civilians for arming themselves against pirates."

"... illegally, ma'am," Grayson says, voice a little tight.

"File a report when we return, Lieutenant," Andre says, her own tone ever so slightly sharp. "Here and now, my concern is making sure we have enough air to breath, and seeing about getting the hole in my ship patched with something even a little bit permanent.


"Understood," Grayson says, if not happily.

--

That the docking process was uneventful was hardly surprising. What was surprising, was being ordered to make up one of the shore party.

"They're speaking Imperial to us now, but when I initially hailed them, they answered in Saturnian Creole," Mazlo explains.

Of the several languages you're fluent in, Saturnian Creole -- the eclectic blend of Imperial and several older languages commonly spoken in various corners of the Saturn System -- is one of the ones listed on your personnel file. And so it is that you as well as Anja, a native speaker, find yourselves floating through the exterior hatch, behind First Officer Grayson and Lady Pebeck. Behind you, a pair of life support technicians, and the unfamiliar forms of two of the Phoebe marines -- grim and rather jumpy from the recent destruction of their last post, and none-too-pleased to have been told only to bring sidearms, and no visible body armour.

It's unlikely that you'll actually need the Creole to communicate, but having translators on hand, it was decided, will dramatically reduce the likelihood of information being passed over your heads unbeknownst to the shore party.

The connector shaft isn't quite rundown, but it's clearly old -- synthetic surfaces yellowed with age, handholds worn from long use. Part of the lighting strip along the side is flickering, engaging in a long, slow death toward going out entirely. In the distance, there is the characteristic, harsh whirr of an air exchange in need of a replacement fan.

On the end of the shaft, through two sets of emergency hatches -- at least one of which you're not certain you'd like to bet your life on -- the shaft opens up into a strange sort of crossroads -- curving passageways branch out at four points, to your right and left, but also "above" and below you. This isn't an Imperial Naval ship, designed to be functional within a gravity well -- whatever else, the spindle seems to have been designed specifically to take advantage of the weightless environment. Through large glass windows, you can see the interior of the spindle; a complex of compartments, largely taken up by the zero gravity hydroponics farms that produce the air you're all breathing as well as the food that keeps the station alive. You can see people working there, but the passageway you're in seems oddly deserted.

Three people are there to greet your group. Two are older -- a heavyset woman, and wispy-haired man. The third is a younger man, long hair floating behind him in a braid. All three are wearing the kind of practical, if unexciting jumpsuits you'd expect for civilians working and living in space.

"Ivan Choi, Stationmaster," the balding man says. That's unusual, in this age -- male pattern baldness has been a treatable condition for centuries. You find yourself hoping that you haven't found yourself in some sort of strange, human-baseline commune, as unlikely as that sounds. He looks between Grayson and Perbeck, clearly uncertain as to who is in charge, precisely. Given that Grayson was the one of the two of them who was actually intended to go, and that Lady Perbeck invited herself along to Captain Andre's mild displeasure, you feel like there's a slight doubt of that among the two officers as well. She is the one who responds.

"Lady Perbeck, Mecha Commander," she says, simply. "This is First Officer Grayson of the HIMS Titanium Rose.

"Not a lot of call for a pilot in here," the young man cuts in, looking at Perbeck somewhat critically. She ignores this, and Choi picks up where things left off, with an unhappy look shot at his junior.

"Welcome to our station, Commander," he says, before reaching out and clasping her warmly by both shoulders. The effect of this overly familiar greeting -- by aristocratic standards, at least -- seems to leave her stiff and speechless. Choi releases Perbeck, apparently oblivious to the lack of propriety. "This is Mara Birch," he says, identifying the woman beside him, "our Harbourmaster. I believe you've been communicating with her already. And this is…" he hesitates, looking suddenly fairly uncertain that he should have brought the third stationer along at all. "... this is Heinrich Lee. He's… well, he handles a lot of procurement and inventory issues."

"Among other things," Lee says, with a languid shrug. You can see Grayson's shoulders tense at this last remark -- he's evidently still unhappy with the station's open flaunting of imperial law. Lee pays no mind to Grayson, however, and instead, his eyes flick over to the sidearms worn by Perbeck, and the two marines. His easy smile shrivels up and dies, a little. "We don't ordinarily allow personal firearms anywhere on the station," he says, voice clearly disapproving.

"... but, obviously, we make exceptions for lawful officers of the crown," Birch cuts in, giving Lee a hard look.

"Are they at least station-safe?" Lee demands.

"Low penetration frangibles are standard issue for all armed naval personnel and marines," Perbeck replies, giving him a slightly withering look. "I'm not enough of a fool to fire solid rounds inside a habitat."

"... I'm sure there will be no cause to find out," Choi says, speaking up again. "We're just all a little on edge, what with, well… you're invoking the Wartime Measures Act."

"And your ship looking like it ran headlong into rail cannon fire," Lee adds.

"It is not immediately important how our ship sustained its current damages," Grayson says. His ordinarily easygoing manner has been steadily chiseled away with every moment you've spent in Lee's presence, and his voice now is uncharacteristically flat, almost harsh.

Birch's neutral expression fades into a frown. Choi's mannerisms grow a little less open, and a little more suspicious. "I see," he says. There's a pregnant pause, during which no one seems to know whose turn it is to speak next.

"I have an office in Alpha-Ring," Birch says, pointing in a vaguely upward direction, after a moment. "If you like, we can discuss the specifics of what you… require of us there."

Making the transition from zero gravity to gravity -- even low gravity -- is always slightly disorientating, no matter how many times you go through it. Following the stationers upward, into the passageway directly overhead, you are led to a connector shaft, one of four bridging the gap between the spindle and Alpha Ring. It's a familiar setup -- opening the sliding hatch, positioning yourself feet first toward the ring, even if the handhold you're gripping is smoothed and cracked with age, and the platform you're pressing your feet against feels ever so slightly rickety. Glancing over to Anja, she shoots you a quick smile, and a 'what can you do?' sort of shrug, one-armed by necessity as slowly, rumblinglingly, the lift begins to descend.

Over the course of several minutes, a slight tugging sensation in the pit of your stomach begins to build, until you feel your feet press down onto the platform without any help from you. You finally let go of the handhold, relishing the simple feeling of being able to stand in place on your own two feet without the aid of handles or straps. It also leaves you dizzy, suddenly acutely aware of your clothes, your hair, the way your body hangs on your bones. The sudden narrowing of your world from three dimensional movement to being truly limited to a single, flat plane -- oddly claustrophobic. It's only a fraction of Earth's gravity, but it's still a dramatic difference to what you've become accustomed to over the course of your voyage.

"Hold on there, miss," Lee says, suddenly reaching out his free hand to close yours back on the handle. "You might want to hang onto that just a little longer."

You only have time to consider informing him that you're an ensign, not a miss, or to consider how his hand lingered just slightly longer than was necessary over your own, before you find out what he meant. Whenever you've been in a similar lift before, coming to a stop is a gentle, gradual thing. Sometimes, you can't even feel a minor jolt. The jolt you feel now, as you finally touch down on the inner surface of Alpha Ring, is anything but minor. If you hadn't been holding on tight, you would have stumbled, possibly fallen. Which, you note, one of the life support technicians does, only saved from tumbling over by the steady hand of the marine corporal. Falls at this gravity rarely result in physical injury, but wounds of the ego are another matter. Lee catches your eye, and smirks a little. You notice he didn't make any particular effort to warn anyone else about the bumpy landing.

Alpha Ring, as opposed to the broad avenues of larger stations, is a relatively cramped corridor, sloping gently upward in either direction, lined with hatched to either side. You acclimatise to the gravity well enough that you're at least graceful when you step off of the lift. Grayson, with his considerably greater bulk, lurches past you with his first step, very nearly slamming into the far wall. He catches himself, and lets out a short laugh at his own expense, the first sign of his usual good humour you've seen since entering the station. There isn't quite a smell in the air here, but there's the suggestion of closeness. That perhaps, while still perfectly functional, the CO2 scrubbers could do with changing.

Your group proceeds in a line, Perbeck at the front, marines at the back, led onward by the nervously chattering Choi and the silent, sullen Birch. You pass people coming the other way with some frequency. Most watch your group, with your uniforms and weapons, with obvious but silent suspicion. One, though, speaks to Lee, in a conversational tone, words the odd hodgepodge that constitutes Saturnian Creole: ⟨"It's done, Heinrich."⟩ He glances meaningfully at your group. ⟨"I'll take them out again when the Impies are gone."⟩

In response, Lee only nods shallowly. His eyes scan over your group, noting Anja's raised eyebrows, and your scrutinising glance, and almost imperceptibly winces, before letting himself drift to the back of the group, until he's walking alongside you and Anja. When he speaks, it's in a low tone, and in the same language the strange man had used. ⟨"Most girls in uniform can't be bothered to pick up Saturnian,"⟩ he comments.

Anja grins at him. When she replies, the sharper tones of her accent seem obvious compared to the broader stationers. ⟨"I wasn't born wearing a uniform, Mr. Procurement."⟩

⟨"That's not what I hear about Titans, these days,"⟩ he adds, but seems marginally more relaxed. Certainly, he would rather the exchange not have been overheard at all, but he clearly now considers Anja a known quantity. His dark eyes slide over to you. ⟨"And you?"⟩ he asks.

⟨"North was born in a uniform,"⟩ Anja quips. There's an odd quality to the acoustics in the corridor -- sound kept at a low, conversational tone scarcely travels.

⟨"I picked it up on Titan,"⟩ you say, simply. ⟨"I'm good with languages."⟩

⟨"I can hear that,"⟩ Lee agrees. ⟨"You look like a girl who tries to be good at most things she does."⟩

You can't be entirely sure exactly where this is going, but you do recognise that tone, and the way he's looking at you. Not leering, but interested. You consider simply shutting him down, here and now, but then again… a little harmless flirting certainly can't hurt your chances of picking up something useful. ⟨"It is a trait that's encouraged in the Navy, Mr. Lee,⟩ you say, with the trace of a smile.

Lee glances up at Perbeck and Grayson, who are paying attention to his fellow stationers, then back down at the LS specialist walking behind you, whose expression speaks of nothing but incomprehension for your conversation with Lee. ⟨"While we're being friendly,"⟩ he says, slowly, ⟨"Maybe one of you two is inclined to be a little more… reasonable than your boss up there."⟩

⟨"Our boss's boss,"⟩ Anja corrects. ⟨"More or less, anyway. What are you suggesting, exactly?"⟩

⟨"Well, you know, we're fairly isolated out here,"⟩ Lee says. ⟨"Us, we prefer it that way -- lets us live like space is still a frontier, not just settled lines on a map. But it means that we're… on our own, often times, in a crisis."⟩

⟨"Yes?"⟩ you ask, tilting your head a little curiously.

⟨"An imperial warship -- even a small one -- shows up out of nowhere with battle scars, and invokes the WMA,"⟩ he says, blunt all of a sudden. ⟨"And now your boss's boss won't give us a scrap of information. We need to know what's out here if we're going to keep ourselves safe, yes? We need to know if there's suddenly a pirate gang that serious out here, or if the zealots have finally decided to stop fucking around in Jupiter and deal with you lot here."⟩ Seeing your expression, he clarifies, ⟨"I'm not about to get you into trouble or call him out, but if we actually know what we're dealing with, things are a lot better for us, and I think trade's going to go a lot smoother for all parties, if you know what I mean. We just want to know if we're going to be caught up in a war zone or not."⟩

Anja catches your eye, but doesn't immediately respond. You realise that she's waiting to follow your lead. What do you do?

[ ] Clam up, follow Grayson's lead even if the Saturnians don't like it

[ ] Lie and tell him it was a pirate ambush and your commanders are embarrassed

[ ] Offer veiled hints without openly admitting the truth

[ ] Admit about the possible invasion

[ ] Write in