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

OoC This update is very short, but because of that, you get it early!

My general goal for update speed is once a week, with the soft deadline being Wednesday. I'm usually a day or two slower than that, but the vote is definitely conclusive now, so...


You let your smile drop, until you're giving Lee the kind of politely neutral expression that isn't outwardly harsh, but also neither conveys nor invites warmth of any kind. You've found that it's often more effective than an open glare, at least for you. "Mr. Lee," you say, suddenly speaking crisp, perfect Imperial. "I am not at liberty to discuss details of the Titanium Rose's recent history or status with civilians."

His own smile wavers, and he makes one, final try. 〈"Aw, come now, miss…"〉

"I would prefer 'Ensign North', Mr. Lee," you say, the gentle correction coming across almost like an aristocratic rebuke.

Lee's smile fades away entirely, and he looks at you with a mixture of frustration and disappointment, before he hides it behind a sort of studious blankness. "Well, then, Ensign North," he says, slipping back into his own, broadly accented Imperial, "If that's the way you want to play things, I won't trouble you further."

With that, he moves back up to the front of the line, executing an impressively calibrated, low gravity bound to send him saling up to the front of the line while just barely avoiding hitting his head on the ceiling.

"Well, North," Anja says, "that's one less good looking man in your life."

You give her a slightly dubious glance. "... I'm beginning to worry you may have a type, Anja," you say, quietly, causing her to stifle a burst of laughter.

"Oh, no, don't make me laugh," she whispers, expression pained. "I'll probably puke on you." You remember, then, her comment about always experiencing hours of unpleasant vertigo after entering 'walking around' gravity. She's doing an admirable job of hiding it.

The two of you fall into more dutiful silence, as your short trip down the passageway is cut short by arriving at your destination. The door is labelled "Harbour Administration & Long Distance Com s". One of the letters in "comms" is missing, leaving only a fading, discoloured patch where it should be on the wall above the hatch. Birch, undeterred by this labelling failure, shoulders her way neatly past Choi and Lee to punch her code into the door, causing it to slide open with a slight, high-pitched squeal.

The office inside has the same well used, slightly claustrophobic quality that the entire space station has had so far. One large compartment, split off into multiple rooms by modular bulkheads, the faux wood panelling slightly incongruous against the yellowing off-white of the room's main walls, and the scuffed blue tile of the floor and ceiling.

A beautiful, slender young man, his spacer's jumpsuit unzipped a little too low over the chest, sits behind a desk, giving a nervous smile to the room at large. You note one of the marines giving Birch a look of newfound respect, plainly impressed by her administrative assistant. There are several doors in the bulkheads around the reception area -- one has Birch's name and title on it, the other the universal symbol for a gender neutral restroom. The third simply reads "long-range comms".

"Lyle, bring out enough chairs for our guests,," she says to him. "And make us some coffee, with the biscuits I've been saving. Break out the good stores. We are in the presence of a lady." She does not actually say it in any way that confers direct disrespect for Lady Perbeck, but the slight dryness of the delivery makes the mecha commander's eyebrow quirk up ever so slightly.

"Yes, right away, Ms. Birch!" he says, shooting up in his seat, even as Birch leads the group past his desk, through the manual sliding door in the bulkhead behind him, and into her office proper. Similar decour to the reception area, but with a large screen unconvincingly stylised as a window dominating the back wall, offering a fixed view of the main docking bay. There are family photos, one or two potted plants, and not-quite-enough hard, uncomfortable chairs grouped in front of her small, synthetic-wood desk.

The quantity of seating, if unfortunately not the quality, is swiftly remedied by the bustling form of Lyle, dimpled smile still conveying the same air of nervous excitement as before before he's gone again, presumably to fetch the coffee you're anticipating with a mixture of anticipation and honest dread. Anything, surely, is better than ship-stable, zero gravity safe COFFEE 2 CREAM naval rations. Then again, the first rule of extra-planetary living is that the food can always get worse.

Right away, you see Lee confer with Choi and Birch in a low, exasperated voice. He spares you only a brief backward glance, but from his bearing, and the way the demeanor of the other two becomes even less open and eager to please than it had before, you can take a wild guess that Lee had informed them of his intent to try and extract some information from the other members of the party on the way here. It's possible that he or someone else can get something out of the technicians, or the marines, but you doubt it -- after both you and Grayson made the official position quite clear in front of them on two separate occasions, it would have seemed exceptionally unwise.

You have reason to suspect, in the ensuing discussion, that the decision to withhold so much information for the sake of operational security may have had unintended consequences. No one is talking about denying you anything you are requesting -- they can't do so, legally. Neither, though, are they being as helpful as you suspect they could be. Of course they'll give you oxygen enough to continue your journey, but it will take several days to make the transfer -- they're a small, poor settlement, after all, hardly equipped to service war ships. Which is just as well, because the only station residents with the proper licenses to perform the patch work on the ship's hull are away on a salvage mission, and won't return for some days. You would be utterly shocked if such a license were something that the stationers give two figs about on any other day.

The coffee, at least, is good. Shockingly good, served with real soy creamer. At your rapturous expression, you catch Anja looking at you, her hands notably empty of coffee mug and biscuits both, despite the dented platter laid out on the small, plain table nearby. Evidently, her dizziness is significant enough that she doesn't want to chance it. You give a sheepish, apologetic sort of smile, while she half glares, but make no attempt to avoid the drink in question.

You and Anja's presence, it turns out, is quite necessary. While your three hosts studiously avoid using anything but standard Imperial from this point onward, at several moments throughout the negotiations, they call up various people from around the station to acquire after personnel or supplies. The answers to these queries are frequently partially or entirely in Saturnian, and almost as frequently contain asides or comments that neither Choi, Birch nor Lee seem particularly pleased to see you and Anja dutifully transcribing onto your tablets, for later review by your superiors.

Grayson's patience and good humour, low to begin with today, is visibly wearing thin, and Perbeck has become increasingly silent and unimpressed. The LS specialists eventually start a protracted argument over the comm in Birch's desk as to how long, precisely, it should take for a station this size to be able to restock the Rose.

Progress is slow.

--

You have just come from the office's closet sized, but mercifully clean restroom, and stepped back out into the reception area. Lyle is nowhere to be seen, leaving the room empty aside from you. You're about to head back into the main office room, to resume your duties, when something odd catches your attention.

The room's other door, the one labelled comms, is ajar, and sounds are spilling out. You're not normally prone to eavesdropping, particularly not when you're a guest on a moderately unfriendly station, but something about the voices coming from within nags at you, and you find yourself drifting closer.

"MY HONEY WAS STOLEN BY A STARLING, LEFT OUT ON THE WINDOW, NOW I'M ALL IN A TANGLE. MY HONEY WAS STOLEN BY A STARLING, LEFT OUT ON THE WINDOW, NOW I'M ALL IN A TANGLE. MY HONEY WAS STOLEN BY A STARLING, LEFT OUT ON THE WINDOW, NOW--"

〈"And it just keeps going?"〉 a voice demands, incredulous, speaking in Saturnian, over the continued background noise of the grainy nonsense transmission.

〈"Yeah, weird, right? And there shouldn't even be anything within range of the hulk we're salvaging. It was enough for me to hook up this fucking booster unit, anyway."〉

〈"Fuck it, now I'm curious. Send over the whole thing?"〉

You can see the small comms room through the open door -- a figure hunches beside a bank of monitors and equipment, workstation surrounded by the shells of former snack containers, talking on an open channel. Behind him sits the bulk of the coffee maker, where you suspect your drinks originated. This is not why you're stopped up short, eyes wide.

〈"Yeah, half a moment, control. It's pretty big, and we're not exactly running an imperial comms ship out here."〉

Honey, Starling, Tangle -- hearing those words in conjuncture, in a message like this, is enough to make your heart start hammering in your chest. Those code words are drilled into the head of every scan and communications officer in the fleet, if not the precise meaning. It's enough for most technicians and junior officers to understand that they mean "this is a very important message, escalate this to your superior immediately." You, though, with your more than a passing interest in codes in general, have a little more context: What you just heard was a series of code words designating a top secret distress signal., originating from a source with the clearance to operate at such a level, and the authority to essentially signal any and all Imperial vessels within range to drop absolutely everything to come to the broadcaster's aid. And while the signal is apparently not close enough for the station itself to pick it up, there is apparently a salvage ship in boosted comms range who can.

It is, inarguably, Your sworn duty to ensure that your superiors get the full contents of this message. The reason why it is "weirdly big" is, of course, that it hides an encrypted message that can be decoded by the Rose or by any other current military computer of sufficient power and clearance. It is not desirable, however, to accidentally clue the civilian stationers into the exact nature or even the general value of the message in question. Particularly with the current mood on the station, and the ever so slightly illicit vibe, you can very easily see them either somehow attempting to crack the code themselves, or to simply hide away a copy of the message for themselves, selling it off to the highest bidder on the grey market. You are suddenly faced with a somewhat delicate situation.

What do you do?

[ ] Ask Lee to quietly give you a copy as a favour

[ ] Try to discreetly message Mazlo on the Rose to see if he can intercept it

[ ] Just tell Grayson, although there's probably no way to do this without tipping off the stationers

[ ] Tell Perbeck, although there's probably no way to do this without tipping off the stationers

[ ] Write-in