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

"Petty officer?" you say, after thinking for a long, silent moment.

"Yes, Ensign North?" Nowak asks, cautiously.

"It's easy to lose track of what we have and haven't gotten to with all the repairs we've been doing," you say, looking up at the ceiling rather than directly at her, "but in the future… please try to keep an eye on all such repairs. If anyone asks you why, you can tell them I authorised it." You feel strange, and a little giddy, directly flouting regulations like this. And you can see Nowak's start of surprise out of the corner of your eye.

"... Ma'am?" Nowak asks, a little floored.

"You'll keep an eye on such repairs," you press, "and make sure they stay out of trouble. We need to be flexible, with so much at stake -- the fate of our ship and the princess's, but there's no need to be pointlessly reckless."

"Yes, ma'am," Nowak says, looking relieved, if a little confused. "I'll… I'll get back to it, then!" With that, she vanishes into the safety of the maintenance shaft, to keep working… and to keep an eye on Faiza, hopefully.

J6 hasn't outwardly reacted to this turn of events, other than eyeing you with a degree of interest. It's hard for you to tell exactly what she's thinking, but after a moment, she gives a shallow nod, as if offering her approval. You'd been banking on her not being willing to snitch you out to your superiors -- seeing this, you relax, visibly.

"If you need me again," J6 says, "I can see about helping when I'm not running a patrol." With that, she moves herself around smartly in the air, and pushes off down the shaft. You still have no real idea what to think of her.


Liger Station Shipyard:
Largest civilian operated in the outer Saturn System
Days later

Liger never had that much of a fight to put up, but it had tried.

Saturn's outer system is a sea of scattered, soft targets. It's too big, with too little to defend -- the real muscle of the heretical pretender's forces, the hardened military stations, the fortified moons, the true battle fleets, all that lies further in-system. Liger Station isn't even really a military installation, just a civilian salvage and refueling station like any either, ideally positioned as a trading hub, growing to the point where it can not only service small ships, but also build them. The heretics' naval presence there was new, and largely resented. They'd brave, but their ships hadn't really been prepared for an attack.

It's amazing, really, how effective taking out a few long distance observation and comms stations like Phoebe has been.

The civilians had produced some weapons that clearly the port authorities were looking the other way about, but their resistance hadn't even lasted long enough to result in a complete slaughter -- inside the station, civilian workers became aware that the naval port authority was attempting to sabotage their shipyard to prevent it from falling into the Divine Navy's hands. There had been a brief but bloody struggle, and the civilians, victorious, had promptly surrendered.

Not that a few harsh examples hadn't had to be exacted on those who had fought too long or too hard. Lieutenant Mosi North tries her best not to think too long about those. It's one of those things that one is required not to think too strongly about while in the service of his Divine Majesty.

Liger is a classic modular spindle station. Or really, at this point, a group of three of them -- Most of anything important is still in Liger 1, with 2 and 3 operating mostly as additional housing for the influx of workers that the shipyards brought. One end of Liger 1, stretching out long after the habitation rings stop, is the shipyard itself. Like an engorged port module, currently swarming with worker mecha and light craft to service the battle-scarred HDMS Oxeye, which ran into an unexpected heavy patrol while pursuing her objective.

The ships of the individual task forces of the Advanced Strike Squadron are all gathered, mostly Flower and Singh classes, the odd Metallic class here and there. Gathered together, the squadron makes an imposing little fleet, if somewhat lopsided and underweight. Their role isn't to attack hardened military facilities or take the enemy in a fair fight, however -- merely to soften the outer system in preparation for the real invasion. By now, each taskforce, intact or otherwise, has reported in. Well, all aside from one.

"So," a languid, blond mecha commander says, draining her glass of confiscated homebrew. It's shockingly good stuff -- Commander Green has declared it a 'Belgian dubbel'. What, precisely a dubbel or a Belgian is, Mosi has no idea. But it's dark and flavourful and has a bit of a kick, and that's more than good enough for Mosi. "So," the woman says again, speech slightly slurred, "what are we at? The Oxeye got banged up fighting a bunch of patrols, and you lot lost an escort ship on a fucking milk run." She gestures with her glass to where Mosi sits beside Commander Green.

Green grins. It's not a friendly expression. "Doesn't take much to sink a Singh," he says, "And we got most of the crew out. I don't think Tang's forgiven me for being the one that grabbed her lifeboat yet."

The other commander snorts crudely at this, draining her glass entirely, letting it fall from slightly too high over the table. It doesn't break, but it tumbles noisily to the tabletop, spilling residual ale all over the abandoned cards. "Fucking variable station gravity," she growls. "Would it kill these idiots to build a fucking O'Neill cylinder instead of crawling around in these rickety pieces of shit?" A few of the other officers laugh. Most of the Strike Squadron's off-duty mecha pilots, lieutenant and above, are sitting around the table in one of Liger's habitation rings. Mosi just takes a long drink.

"The Briar still isn't back," Mosi adds, the first time she's spoken. Unlike most of the officers present, her uniform is pristine, neither unbuttoned, loosened or reduced for the casual atmosphere. She can't quite relax in this setting -- the couch mounted to the wall is a little too hard, the gravity is a little too light, the compartment, with its off-white walls and too-stark lighting, is a little too stuffy with the amount of bodies that are packed into it.

"Oh, North has a tongue," the blonde commander quips, grinning. "Thanks for the update, Lieutenant. I was getting to that."

Mosi's jaw tightens, but she falls silent. The woman in front of her, for all her crudeness, is a knight. Of merely the Lunar Order, though. Which goes to show exactly what kind of lowly muck the Lunar Order has been reduced to raking through. Like Mosi's mother.

"You were taking your time about it," Commander Green says, tone jovial as ever. He shifts his weight subtly, as if intentionally putting himself between his subordinate and his peer, Dame Costa. "She's right, isn't she?"

The two of them always make an absurdly odd pair -- Mosi slim, Green broad. Her dark, him pale enough that he burns in any kind of unshielded sun. Green talkative, always smiling, Mosi taciturn and gloomy. He'd been the one to take her in and protect her, though, when her parents had nearly cost her everything. That was more than enough.

"The Briar had that secret target," Dame Costa acknowledges. "Rousseau is a pompous bitch and not talented enough to make up for it, but she's also a fucking baroness. So it was probably important, whatever it was."

"Or command was hoping she wouldn't come back," Green quips. This earns a grudging laugh from Costa.

"Command doesn't have that kind of sense, usually," she says, filling a fresh glass with more beer.

"Command is led by the divine will of our emperor," Mosi says, quietly.

One of the other commanders, a small, unassuming man, chuckles at that. "If command were divinely inspired in everything they did," he says, "then things would be very different."

Mosi bites her tongue on a response to that. This is a casual setting, but she's still dealing with superior officers. And beyond that, she can't exactly say they're wrong, although the way the older officers roll their eyes or give each other knowing smirks rankles.

Dame Costa's communicator pings loudly, followed by the unassuming man's, followed by Commander Green's, and suddenly the room is a cacophony of pings as all the commanders are contacted at once. "Speak of the devil," Green says, bemused.

"Is it the Briar?" one of the other lieutenants asks.

"No," Costa says, frowning. "But it's one of her escort ships. Coming into scan range alone."


"Some kind of experimental weapon," the haggard face of the Agricola's captain says, the feed from the heavily damaged Singh flickering and unsteady. "Completely went through the Briar's shields. And that stealth drive… it was hiding a ship the size of a Flower, ma'am. They didn't come out of hiding until the Ranger had gotten a few good shots in on us." He rubs at his eyes furiously, as if trying to keep himself awake, something people usually do not do when speaking to squadron commander Lady Alicia Chavez, commodore and knight of the Gallatean Order.

For once, the infamously prickly countess doesn't seem to mind. "And the Briar's second escort ship, that was destroyed in the initial fighting?"

The former port authority board room located in the spindle is, by station standards, spacious and high ceilinged, but it's packed, both with the captains, strapping themselves into the meeting table, and with the same group of mecha officers from the habitation ring, many of whom are pretending not to be drunk. Off in a corner, Mosi can't help but notice a group of civilians, floating in place with a distinct air of worry, as if they've been forgotten there. She dimly recognises them as the 'delegates' collected from various Shadow Ring stations, in order to impress upon the local populous the change in administration.

"Yes, ma'am," the Agricola's captain replies. "They had more defences than we anticipated. An extra ship, and mecha flying Imperial guard colours."

"... so Rousseau let a heretical imperial slip through her fingers, did she?" Lady Chavez asks, looking distinctly disapproving. "Do we have an identification for either ship? Or a heading?"

"We do, ma'am," the Agricola's captain says. "Names, not headings, sorry, ma'am. The experimental craft is the HIMS Night Lily. And the Ranger scanned as the HIMS Titanium Rose."

"... The Titanium Rose?" Sir Ivanov asks, eyes narrowing. Chavez looks at him almost disapprovingly for a moment -- she doesn't like her subordinates speaking out of turn. Sir Ivanov, though, is easily the oldest and most experienced officer here, and while she outranks him both militarily and socially, clout does matter among highborn officers. She lets it slide.

"Yes, sir," the Agricola's captain confirms. He looks very young, compared to the more experienced captains he's speaking to. Only a few years older than Mosi. She has to wonder who his parents are -- nobility, at the very least. Perhaps even members of the Holy Circle. This is the sort of command assignment that can swiftly result in promotion… or death. Those two things frequently go hand in hand, in Mosi's experience.

"That is the name of the ship we encountered at Phoebe, ma'am," Ivanov explains, directing his explanation to Chavez.

"The one you let get away," she replies, voice without warmth. Rousseau was no great loss to the navy, but her family will hardly think so. Both as an officer and a countess, Chavez will be hearing about this later.

"My mission was to destroy the Phoebe surface and orbital installations," Ivanov replies, evenly. "Unfortunately, that had to take priority over pursuing the Rose."

Chavez grits her teeth, glancing around the room, as if for someone to blame. Her eyes land on the screen, and the sole surviving captain of the Briar's task force for a long, considering moment. But in the end, she doesn't pursue the line of thought. "Without a heading, we won't be able to do much but report this to the main fleet," she admits. "When we contact them again."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am?" Everyone in the room turns around in some shock -- one of the civilians from the corner of the room has drifted ahead of his group, hand raised almost sheepishly, smiling in a way that's both attractive and somewhat slippery looking. "Begging your pardon, ma'am," he says again, hurriedly, seeing the guards already moving in to silence him, "But, I may know something about where your Rose is headed. Or was, before they ran into this new ship."

"Do you now?" Chavez asks, voice thick with suspicion. The young man in front of her is currently riding a knife's edge between being rewarded, or being hurt.

"Yes, ma'am," the young man says, outwardly full of confidence. "My name is Lee -- I'm the… 'delegate' from Quetzle station."


On board the HIMS Titanium Rose,
One week later

"So we're sure it's going to hold up to regular use again?"

"It should, captain." You look across the magnetic surface of Captain Andre's desk at the woman herself. She has always given off a degree of fatigue, even when this was just a somewhat understaffed patrol ship on a routine mission. Now, though, it runs much deeper than that. There are dark circles under her eyes, and she may be the only person you've seen who can move through zero gravity while looking like her shoulders are weighted down. You're not exactly fresh and friendly yourself, at the moment, but you have been forced to sleep, at least. You wonder how much luck first officer Grayson has had doing the same for his commanding officer. "We still need to run some stress tests, of course, ma'am," you add, "but engineering has given it their stamp of approval, and neither I nor Guardswoman J6 has found any problems in simulation."

Andre looks up from the copy of your report you've sent to her workstation ahead of time. "I understand that the Guardswoman has some unexpected… qualifications in this area?" She taps the side of her head.

"She has some expertise in scan software," you say, slowly. "And some… abilities I'm afraid I'm not qualified to comment on, ma'am. It isn't my field."

Andre nods, glancing back down at your report. "You've all done well," she says, finally. "Please, conduct the stress tests as soon as possible. It will be good not to be flying blind again."

You nod. "Thank you, ma'am," you say, genuinely relieved and grateful. You wait to be dismissed. Instead, she glances back up at you, as if she has something more on her mind.

"The Guardswoman seems to have the ear of her highness," Andre says, quietly. "I hope you understand that working with her comes with an… opportunity."

"... ma'am?" you ask, confused.

"You're not stupid, North," Andre says, waving away the workstation display irritably. "You know where I stand with the admiralty. I don't have the influence necessary to hold onto good officers if someone else wants them, but I also don't have much I can do to give any of them a leg up. Your mother's a knight, that's a start, and you're damn good at your work, but…"

You shift uncomfortably against the straps of your seat, pretending to check something on your tablet. The small, slightly worn interior of Captain Andre's office feels more cramped than it really is, just then.

She continues, after a pause to gather her thoughts. "There are two kinds of people on this ship, North. There are those for whom it's a stepping stone, and those for whom it's a destination. And which is which is as often as not unrelated to who has the actual talent."

Different crewmembers flash through your head. Grayson, out on his voyage on a real warship, already a first officer, and, as far as you can tell, a good one, and a relative of a duke. His predecessor only lasted two years, you heard someone say before you left Titan. You wonder how long he'll be here. With a slightly guilty feeling, you then think of Anja, and her utter lack of any of his connections. She has Sub-Lieutenant Ito, you tell yourself. Although, last of a line with a family legacy but no actual title to his name, you're uncertain how far he can get her on his own. Is she going to end up like Mazlo? An aging junior officer on a scouting ship for her entire career?

Your own mother is respected by people who she works with, but she's always been terrible at the political parts of command, and you wouldn't be surprised if she stayed at her current rank for the rest of her career. You've always known that she can only be of limited help when it comes to advancing your own career, but it has never occured to you that associating with J6 could have such a mercenary incentive behind it.

"I'll… keep that in mind, ma'am," you say, after an uncomfortable pause.

She nods. "See that you do," she says. "Not that I'd object to keeping you, but what's convenient for me, and what's good for your career are two different things, and if you want to go places, you're going to have to get yourself noticed by the people who count. Dismissed, Ensign."


The scan map at your bridge workstation is simultaneously dead boring and deeply exciting. Boring, because there's almost nothing around you in this stretch of relatively empty space between moons, aside from the residual particles of the Phoebe Ring still around you as you head inward towards Saturn. The planet is larger now on visual feeds as you near Iapetus -- but still a distant, ringed orb. Exciting, conversely, because The Rose's scans are finally working as expected. There are still the old, familiar quirks of the scan hardware -- imperfections and minor annoyances that part of you still wonders if you could have eliminated, but it's operating well within naval standards, from what you can tell.

Even if there might be a few non-standard additions added by a certain civilian girl.

Your workstation actually has two, almost identical scan feeds, both simply showing the same stretch of unremarkable space, along with the Night Lily travelling at a close enough distance for uninterrupted communication. There's the newly stress-tested feed from the Rose, but then there's also the one being sent over from the Night Lily, providing something to check your work against, ostensibly. The prototype ship's scan hardware and software is newer and more sophisticated than you're used to, providing more detailed data than you suspect you will ever need for anything short of a dedicated scientific research mission, but the unfamiliarity has proven to be awkward for you. Not that the data itself is bad, or that you can't make it work, it's simply a matter of integrating data from a system you've never trained on, and which is by its very nature experimental.

So far, this double feed of slightly differing data has cause no particular problems, and you doubt anyone else has even noticed it. Due to a lack of anything requiring precise maneauvers or firing solutions at present, there's nothing preventing you from having the data "overlap", and simply sending the output of both feeds over to the main navigation map.

"Everything's looking good, North?" Grayson asks, from his place in the command chair. You find yourself fervently hoping that captain Andre actually manages to get a few hours of real sleep, while he has command.

"Yes, sir," you agree, giving him a relieved smile. All around the bridge, you can see others relaxing. "No problems so far."

"No disruptions in the communications equipment, despite the monkeying around in it they had to do, sir," Mazlo adds, and you can't suppress a flash of resentment. As if the technicians don't know how to conduct simple repairs without breaking anything further.

"Good to hear, on both counts," Grayson says, with a degree of real warmth. "We'll keep running it like this for now, and the captain thinks that if nothing's caught fire by the end of the day, we're fine to rely on the repairs to hold."

You nod, putting thoughts of Mazlo out of your head. A few moments later, though, you start. There's something on the very edge of your scan range, appearing on both feeds at once. It's too distant to tell that it's anything other than a hot object moving at a somewhat different vector to your own -- it could be anything.

"North," Mazlo says, suddenly, "the Night Lily has picked up a strange object, and would like us to confirm."

"It's here too, sir," you say.

Grayson's eyes narrow. "Anything to worry about?" he asks.

"Hard to say yet, sir," you say. "I'll keep you posted." A shiver of unease goes down your spine as you look at the strange object growing slowly closer. The data from the Rose's and the Lily's scans, controlling for differing distances from the object, are nearly identical, albeit with a slightly stronger reading from the Lily. Nothing that would really make a difference in a battle, you hope.

You realise that, at this point, sending both feeds directly into the navigation map as is is impractical. On the off chance that this situation goes south, you are going to need to decide now what to prioritise, so you're not scrambling when the time comes. If you want to continue to use the Lily's scan data, if there are differences between the two feeds, one of them is going to need to take precedent and overwrite the other. Your head mentally runs through the checklist you memorised in specialist training, about the various reasons to choose one feed source over another, but at the end you think you can justify going either way, and as the officer in charge of the scanstation, you are the only one present with the expertise to make this decision.

Using the Lily's scans more heavily might improve accuracy over some obscure variable, and you know you can work with that data, but you hardly know all its quirks and eccentricities. All systems have those, even when they aren't highly experimental tech. The Rose's scans, which you have just spent weeks repairing, are comparatively like an old friend. You know them very well by now, enough not to have that sort of worry.

What will you prioritise?

[ ] Use only the Rose's scan data.
You know them and their quirks and you're prepared to stake your life on this information

[ ] Continue to splice together your scan data with the Lily's, but prioritising the Rose's data
You can make use of some of the advanced technology, but when the two systems contradict each other, you want to go with the system you fully understand.

[ ] Continue to splice together your scan data with the Lily's, prioritising the Lily's data
The Lily has better scans, period. It doesn't matter if you don't know every intimate detail of its quirks and kinks, you have an obligation to provide the best scan information you can.