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

I will be doing something a little bit different with this shore leave downtime vote -- each of the social things you've voted for will be in a post of their own, with additional votes after each. Apologies for the posting delay, things continue to be busy


Work on the message is slow and frustrating. You spend most of your day sitting at a small table outside your building, watching the construction vehicles at work with a cup of coffee from the kiosk across the transit rails. The shine has come off your early infatuation with what your coffee machine produces already. What you have now is bland and forgettable, and exactly what you need to help you focus on tedious work.

The recorded transmission is a complete jumble, and the decryption process is both long and unfortunately manual. You constantly feel as though you're on the cusp of a breakthrough that never pans out. Like a sliding tile puzzle, where you can see where you want the last tile, but every attempt to put it into its place destroys the rest of your progress.

It's with mingled relief and annoyance when you get an audio call. It's Anja:

"Hey, North, I found a bar," she says, not waiting for you to speak.

"Oh, good," you say, closing out your work with a sigh. Which means you're taking a lengthy break. The file is behind a secure enough series of nested directories to be a significant pain to start back up. "You were cutting it fairly close."

"It's a new town, and I've only just stopped feeling like I want to throw up while going down a flight of stairs," Anja says, mock defensively. "I'm sending you the address now. I've been asking around with the desk jockeys stationed here for something decent in our budget range."

"An officer's bar?" you guess, mildly surprised as you look at the link.

"Kinda-sorta," she says. "It's not officially, but we'll get a discount off drinks if we show up in the uniform."

"Which I'm sure you'll overcome by ordering twice as much as you normally would," you say, dryly. A naval uniform is perfectly respectable wear for most social events, with the caveat that any behaviour too beyond the pale is much more likely to result in a reprimand than it already would.

Anja snorts. "I just sent ma the message about Hiro," she says, with forced brightness. "I'm entitled to drink twice as much. And you're going to match me, remember?"

"I don't think I agreed to that," you say, raising out of your chair with a stretch. You feel a pang of sympathy for her, but you know that sympathy is not what she wants to hear from you right now.

"It was understood," she informs you. "You're not weaselling out of this now."

You bend over the table to gather up your things, enjoying the feeling of the false sun on your skin. "I suppose not," you say.

"Good. I'll see you tonight."


Citrus is a touch more classy than you would have thought Anja would pick, an observation you can't actually voice without feeling unspeakably rude. The bar occupies the bottom floor of a prefabricated tower, the soft-cornered exterior walls painted a somber brown and tan. Music and laughter spills out from the open door. The artificial sunlight overhead has faded away, dimming to a pleasant evening gloom. Streetlights built into the walking path cast pools of radiance you trek between on your way toward the bar. Anja's already inside, or so she messaged you. You stow your tablet onto your uniform belt, and slip inside.

You're fortunately hardly the only one in uniform. It is, after all, 'kinda sorta' an officer's bar. The bar is a study in polished brass and light-weight, wood-grain synthetic material. The floor, bar and tables are made to resemble burnished hardwood. The real thing would, of course, be an unthinkable luxury, and a tactile examination of any of them reveals the truth, but it's nice to look at.

You halt at the doorway, scanning the packed room for Anja's familiar face. Approximately two thirds of the people you see are officers in uniform, with the remaining one third usually accompanied by the former. Not a bar civilians weren't allowed in, clearly, but one that they were perhaps not entirely welcome in. You can't help but notice, as you walk under the stained glass lighting fixtures and past the tables of laughing drinkers, that the civilians are of a relatively fine dress. Anja has chosen a bar that seems to exemplify the awkward place the modern navy holds, stretched taut over high society with the likes of her and Captain Andre pulling it down.

"North!" Anja's Saturnian accent is distinctive among the Imperial tones, and you smile pensively as you make your way toward her. Despite the fact that you recognise several of your shipmates, she has chosen to sit alone, and her grin has a reserved quality about it. You wonder how much that message to her mother took out of her.

"I hope you weren't waiting long?" you say apologetically, settling down across from her at the small table.

Anja snorts. "Almost two minutes, North. It's been agony." With that, she raises a hand to flag down a waitress hurrying past with an empty tray. After ascertaining that the house lager has an ABV of over 10%, she orders a pint. The beer that's eventually delivered to her in a tall glass is pallid yellow, with a thin, soapy head and an air of bad idea about it. This doesn't stop Anja from immediately taking a large gulp.

Remembering that you've been informed that you are matching her drinking pace, you sigh and take a more restrained sip of your own double serving of whiskey and bitters. It's good, you think, for synth-wood whiskey. Anja eyes your choice of drink dubiously, clearly beginning to suspect that you're not quite as innocent of drinking experience as she may have hoped. "How has your head been?" you ask her, one finger toying with the spiral of lemon peel protruding from your cocktail.

She sighs, and takes another long pull of beer. "Better," she admits. "I can go up and down stairs without wanting to puke, remember? As long as I don't have to run." She grins. "Being a little drunk usually makes that better, I find. It's hard to notice not being steady on your feet when you have an actual excuse."

"You'll get entirely used to it just in time to go back into space," you predict.

"Yes, that's how it usually works," Anja agrees, sighing. "They're restricting civilian bandwidth pretty heavily, so hopefully that will be before ma can send a reply out here." Seeing your shocked expression, she hastens to add: "She'll take it hard, but I just don't… have anything to give right now. It was hard enough just getting that message out without listening to a recording of her sobbing on top of it." It's not callousness, you think -- she says this with a guilty air, shoulders bent under the weight of her own self disgust. You watch her morosely drain her glass, make a face at the bitterness, and order another. You hurry to finish your own, liquor burning your throat pleasantly.

"Is your family listed as his contact?" you ask. "You've said he didn't have much of a family left."

"I think so," Anja says. "I mean, I know my mother was on the list. It was a short list."

You nod, once again thinking back to that meal you delivered back on the Rose. "Lady Perbeck was writing one to his next of kin as well on the way here," you say. "Your mother will probably get that one too." It's more meant as distraction than consolation. You don't know how you would begin to console here, when -- one tearful moment back on the ship aside -- Anja seems determined not to be consoled.

She snorts at this. "And I'm sure her highness, Commander Ice Queen was great with that, but that sort of thing doesn't come easily to people with actual human emotions." She punctuates this by tipping her glass back, sparing her the look of mild afront that flashes through your eyes.

In your head, you can see the bitter, hunched over form of Lady Perbeck trying her best to compose a written message one-handed, furious at herself for the loss of multiple subordinates. She is often cold while working, you freely admit. The person Anja is describing still has little to do with the woman you've made plans to meet later this week. "I'm having tea with her in two days," you admit.

Anja pauses in mid-gulp, slowly setting her glass down to stare. "You're going to have tea with her."

"... yes?" you offer, toying with the lemon peel once again.

"Alone."

"Well, it's a popular tea and coffee house," you say, still not quite willing to meet the baffled amusement in her expression. "So there should be other people… around."

"And whose idea was this, exactly?" Her voice goes up an octave, expression poised for you to give away the joke, so she can laugh and be annoyed at you for making her believe you were serious. It never happens.

"Mine. She made a reference once to, well, drinks on shore leave. I just thought it could be… nice to get to know her? She seemed pleased." You add the last bit with a defensive stab of irritation, and finish half your second drink to salve your ego. She's staring at you like you're a lunatic.

Anja finally lets out a brief, explosive bout of laughter. "Wow. I mean… fuck, Amani. When I was teasing you about the blondes thing, I didn't think you'd actually--"

"It's not because she's blonde! We're just spending time together!"

"-- do something this crazy." She grins though, thoughts of her dead foster brother driven ever so fleetingly from her mind. "Alright, give me details. How did this happen? And don't you dare just tell me 'I called her.'"

Unable to think of a graceful way to back out now, you steel yourself with another sip of whiskey, and explain as much as you can.


The surface of Iapetus, Atlas mining colony

The 'city' of Atlas is, in Mosi's qualified opinion, worthy of neither the name nor the description. Mosi grew up in a relatively small, Lunar domed city. By any reasonable measure even Parrot had been far more established, livable and populated, ignoring that Parrot itself was merely a part of the greater Albategnius area. Mosi has difficulty even categorising the settlement the team is hiding out in as a true dome city.

In truth, Atlas is several creaky, ageing domes ranging from modest to tiny, surrounded and interspaced with a constellation of smaller habitats. A confusing warren of airtight passageways bridge the divide between them. The end result, as far as she can tell, is little better than being on a civilian-grade ring station.

The entire team is antsy and ill at ease. Several team members are sleeping in the cots provided by their host, various limbs protruding awkwardly over the sides in the microgravity. The technicians have their heads together in a corner, murmuring quietly amongst themselves. Mosi herself sits solemn and motionless by the void-facing window of the habitat they've been housed in. It's flush to the ground, staring out onto the alien landscape they came across. She can just barely make out one corner of the tiny space port that will take them to their next destination.

Ensign Kim, in contract to the rest of the habitat's occupants, is performing the micro g version of brisk pacing. She pushes off from the ground with barely any effort, soaring up to the ceiling, then letting herself drift back down to the floor. She has been doing this for most of half an hour, seemingly lost in thought. The only sound this produces is the very faint thud of her feet connecting with the floor, the rustle of her drab worker's jumpsuit. Mosi has been deliberately looking away, but the Ensign's shadow travels visibly up and down the wall beside her window.

"You're driving me crazy," she says finally, turning to look at Kim. She's all exasperation -- the tension is starting to get to her like an itch that just won't go away.

Chagrined, Kim lets herself settle back down to the floor. "I'm nervous," she admits. "I don't like being cooped up still."

"We were just out on the open landscape after landing," Mosi points out.

"No, we were in spacesuits -- that's even worse than a habitat." Kim makes enough sense that Mosi can't find it in her to argue.

Lacking any response from Mosi, the Ensign glances up at their host, who has just appeared in the doorway with a pile of civilian grade ration trays locked together in a neat stack for easy carrying. He locks the stack of trays into the groove build into the room's single, rickety table. There is gravity here, of course, but everything still weighs little enough that a careless gesture can send a tray of food flying off of a flat surface.

Once everyone is awake and alert, preparing to eat, he speaks: "We have a window in a few hours' time," he says. "I've got you cover as unskilled labour up there. It will get you up to the station."

The Lieutenant-Commander nods. "Thank you for the risks you take on behalf of our Emperor," he says.

The man snorts, waving this off. His name is Mr. Olivette -- Mosi doesn't remember if there was a given name. A rake-thin, pale creature, face all hollows, bad memories and staring blue eyes. "I take risks on behalf of our Emperor every day, doing what I do," he says. "Thank me by not getting caught, please."

"How bad is it over here?" Kim asks, frowning. "I've heard the Pretender's Imperial Guard have been downright brutal."

"Their special investigations branch have, in a few cases," Olivette admits. "Generally towards actual sedition or Holy Empire sympathisers, however. They haven't actually reinstated a secret police organisation, properly, since the Empress here abolished it pre war."

Kim looks a little startled, and Mosi can't help but privately feel the same. Oppression, mass arrests and other horrors are all over what little news they get out of Saturn, along with terrifying quotes from high-ranking officials in the rogue system. "What about Duchess Song making that public declaration to stamp out subversives?" Kim asks. "The other Electors who backed her? That talk about uncooperative Saturnians being jailed?"

"It didn't go anywhere," Olivette says. He scratches his shaved head with a slightly awkward expression. "Their pretender. The Empress here -- the Imperial Electors picked her because she'd be staid and calm and ease off on that sort of thing. To ease tension in Jupiter and elsewhere. After the Civil War, though, the ones that were left standing lost their taste for that. They want a crack down, they're afraid of the Saturnians, and of… subversive elements in the general population." Olivette gave a self effacing smile at this, showing no teeth. "For once, their Pretender has grown a spine, though. And Princess Daystar has been agitating against it. Complete deadlock. The Songs can lead whatever highborn rabel they want and make whatever statements they want, but things aren't budging unless something gives there."

There's a moment of silence. The entire team has paused in opening or eating their spacer drek, all eyes fixed on Olivette. One of the techs speaks first, voice almost affronted. "But, she's their puppet-Empress," he asserts. "Why can't they just make her?" Which is in line with the known causes of the war. Their emperor's reasons for starting his holy crusade. A corrupt, bloated Electoral Council shackelling the rightful line of monarchs to their greed and lust for personal power, passing over the late Emperor's own chosen successor in favour of some nobody cousin who would be easy to control. From the official reports, the Electors, led by House Song, should be ruling Saturn all but openly.

Olivette senses the growing tension, hands raising in front of him as if to create a physical barrier with which to ward off accusations. The shabby little habitat is no place for an altercation after all. His tone is softer, more careful when he continues: "News is hard to keep straight across hostile borders and interplanetary space," he points out. Not without some justice. Mosi is forced to bite her tongue. He looks suddenly weasel-like, his thin smile widening. "The Princess is doing a lot to maintain equilibrium," he adds, continuing with a cautious air. "Things have gotten tenser again with her off on some sort of assignment. All I can gather is it was out here beyond Titan." He sighs. "It would have been nice, at least, if our forces could have captured or killed her. It's in our interests for tensions to increase among the enemy."

Mosi keeps her gaze steady, trying not to let her hands clench into fists. That strange prototype ship she failed to sink had been guarded by that equally strange mecha, the one she'd duelled in her Provespa appeared unbidden in her mind. It had been painted with the sunburst colours of the Imperial Guard.

"Regardless, though," Mr. Olivette continues, "there has been some trouble with the Saturnians. They're not altogether happy, being crowded out of their own system. They're not political about it like the Jovians are, though. And they don't think we'd be any kind of improvement for them. We're having difficulty turning any of them beyond money grubbing opportunists." A traitorous thought -- literally traitorous -- occurs to Mosi. That, given how harsh things have gotten around Jupiter, in the Inner Belt mining stations, even in the Imperial heartland, the Saturnians might not even be wrong.

"You're free with your insights," the Lieutenant-Commander says, strangely. He gives Olivette a searching look. Not disapproving so much as concerned. "We'll be taking this moon soon, Mr. Olivette. And you'll be back among the loyal."

"Watch my tongue for my own good, is that it?" Olivette asks. He smiles in a way that's not at all pleased.

"It isn't my neck at stake," the Lieutenant-Commander says. "I'm still grateful for your service. I will do my best not to bring anything down on you, one way or another."

Mosi is mulling this over when she realises, to her revulsion, that everyone in the group other than Lieutenant-Commander Roth is glancing at her sidelong. She instantly sees herself how they must see her. Unsmiling. Overly patriotic. Overly keen. The kind of ambitious young officer you don't say certain things around, who might report you over an impious joke or a moment of doubt in your cause. Indignation wars with an icy, gnawing guilt in the pit of her stomach. They don't know her. They don't know where she came from, where her family left her, the way her parents' choices have haunted her for her entire career. When push comes to shove, though, are they wrong?

"I'm not going to report him," she says in a moment of unguarded heat.

"I didn't say you would, Lieutenant," Roth replies, giving her a hard look. He does not, conspicuously, deny thinking it.

Mr. Olivette stares at her, eyes narrow and appraising. Mosi abandons her meal on the floor beside her cot, and returns to her spot by the window, steadfastly ignoring the rest of the room.


"You know, you're the one who's supposed to be getting drunk!" Anja tells you. Her voice is blurry around the edges, and she gestures with the hand holding her latest serving of beer. The foul looking liquid sloshes over the table before she manages to correct the motion.

"I am," you say. You feel more than pleasantly warm in the face, most of the room having receded to background detail as you focus, tunnel-vision, on Anja. Your movements, by contrast, have become slow and deliberate, aware of your impaired dexterity. In this moment, it seems almost absurdly important not to spill or smash anything. "I've been drinking whiskey all this time, Anja." As if reminded, you take a long drink from the glass of water sitting next to the liquor in question.

"You're not supposed to be slower about it than… than…" she seems to lose her train of thought, slumping her head down onto the table. "Do you ever get tired of being perfect?" she asks instead.

"No," you say, your alcohol-loosened tongue responding before you can reign it in.

Anja splutters with laughter, and you can't help but join in with a more restrained giggle of your own. "You're not supposed to admit to it, North!" Anja exclaims.

"I knew what you meant," you say. Over Anja's shoulder, a man in fine, civilian clothing sits quietly across from an officer. He shoots Anja the latest in a series of irritable looks. His sidelong glares have been coming more and more frequently the louder her voice has gotten, which has proceeded apace with the amount of beer she's had. The officer doesn't do more than glance over, face neutral as the captain insignia gleam on his shoulders. Anja is hardly the only person in this bar wearing a uniform whose voice has risen, or who has had slightly more than is advisable to drink. The bar is filled with the voices of cheerfully intoxicated junior officers in fact, taking advantage of an environment where they can't be accused of setting a bad example for the spacers. They're doing so in a range of Inner Solar System accents, however. Anja's unmistakably Saturnian tones cut through the air like a knife.

She falls quiet for a moment, as she pushes herself up to quietly sip at her drink. She's slowed down, at least. The responsible part of you -- what's left of it after four glasses of whiskey and bitters -- wonders if you shouldn't start convincing her to call it a night and go back to temporary quarters to sleep things off. When she speaks again, she starts in on an entirely different subject, her mind working on the unexplainable logic of the very drunk.

"How much time did you spend on Titan?" she asks.

You frown at the question, unable to think of why she could be asking this. "Years," you remind her. "Remember?"

"No, no," she says, waving your answer away as if it's a physical obfuscation hanging between you. "You lived… you lived… You were over Titan. Around it." She twirls a finger in the air, miming a station in orbit around a celestial body. "How much time did you spend ON it?"

"Ah," you say, confusion evaporating. "In the domed cities? Not… very long." You have, of course, been to the capital city known only as Titan several times. Shopping trips with your mother or friends, to say nothing of your appointment to officer after graduation. This did not amount to very much time, all told. Titan City is crowded, large sections of it dirty.

Anja nods, as if expecting this, the gesture exaggerated into something comic. "There's a hill there, in the city. The capital, I mean. My hometown."

"A… hill?" There are several hills that you're aware of. The region the city had been built on was relatively flat, but not completely so. Particularly as the satellite domes were added, spreading out spider-web from the original.

"Tall," she says, nodding again. "Near the edge of the big dome. You can see… you can just see out for… I don't know. A long way?" She looks at you almost questioning. As if you, especially good at math, might have an answer for her. You don't. "Well, a long way," she decides, more confidently. "One of those little… you know, 'pocket parks.' So we don't all have a mass nervous breakdown. You know. A bit of grass and a tree and a bench and a waste can that's… that's… that's always overflowing with recyclable cups. Those ones."

You do, although primarily from similar places on Luna. "Do you like it there?" you ask, smiling at her.

She looks almost affronted. "North, that view is of Titan. Titan is a frigid, unbreathable, yellow mudball. They heat it up a bit with fancy fucking mirrors, and they say 'well that's partially terraformed, isn't it?' Not vacuum at least, you… you can go out there in a breathing mask and a jacket, but… why would you want to? Dead boring, the whole things. No, I don't like that fucking hill. Fuck that hill, the amount of times I had to climb it." Seeing your baffled look, confusion plays over her slurred features briefly, before she masters herself for more of an explanation. "Hiro liked it there," she corrects you. "He liked boring shit like that, almost as much as he liked terrifying shit like fighting in mecha and getting blown up." She throws back the rest of the glass and finishes it in several gulps.

When she finishes, you gently ask: "Do you want to go there, after all this?"

Anja frowns, as if that thought hadn't even occurred to her. She looks briefly as though she'll refuse, but by degrees her face softens. "Yeah," she says, slowly. "Yeah. We'll go to that hill. After we don't get blown up, like some idiots."

"Assuming I'm not going to be sacrificed on the altar of your career," you remind her.

She stares for a moment, before dissolving into annoyed laughter. "Oh, fuck off, North, I'm trying to be sentimental here." It's not really a complaint. What comes next is a complaint, albeit from an entirely different source.

"Is this what I should expect, while dining near young officers of the Imperial Navy?" asks a man in crisp, aristocratic tones. It's the rich man from before, who has risen from his table and taken a step toward yours, evidently for no other reason than to complain. He's tall enough that you find yourself craning to look up at his disdainful face. It's much easier to concentrate on his jacket -- adorned with the bright heraldry of a noble house, and crossed with a black and white sash indicating he has a high office here on Iapetus, even if your foggy mind can't quite piece together what office that might be. Behind him, the captain he's dining with is looking on with a weary, unenthusiastic expression, as if he'd rather just let things be. Nonetheless, to your dismay, you see him set down the utensils he'd been about to raise to his mouth and the situation his full attention.

"Is there a problem, sir?" you ask, trying to keep your voice steady and polite. Trying not to sound as thickly drunk as you suddenly feel.

He scoffs, like a man who suspects his time is being wasted, but hasn't decided precisely how angry he should be about it yet. "Yes, there is a problem, Ensign," he says. He looks at Anja then, and only Anja. "Are you aware of how loud you were being? And not just loud, but foul mouthed." No 'Ensign' for Anja. He glances back at his companion, asking: "Is this the behaviour the navy expects in public, Gilbert?"

The weary captain reminds you of a paler, greyer Lieutenant Grayson. The muscular bulk that must have made him truly fearsome in his youth is beginning to give way to a slight doughiness. The hands that flex ever so slightly on the table, unseen by his companion, seem to have lost none of their strength, however. "No, Lord Secretary," he admits. He has gained no enthusiasm for the enterprise but seems resigned to the situation, now that it has been so directly drawn to his attention by the important man he appears to be treating to dinner.

A complex series of emotions goes over Anja's features. Confusion first, as she glances around the room, takes note of the other boisterous tables. Then indignation. She opens her mouth to give voice to this, making your heart leap with alarm. However, she closes it without prompting, sinking down into her chair with a miserable, humiliated air. She knows why she is the one being spoken to in particular. She averts her eyes as the Lord Secretary, buoyed by the captain's reluctant agreement, adds: "I think an apology is the least I can expect." The least, implying that there may well be worse to come.

It makes you angry. This isn't fair. You just wanted a nice night out with your friend, who is having a terrible time right now after the two of you survived an extremely dangerous, stressful series of weeks. Now you're being faced with this. You feel yourself straighten up, square your shoulders, and, caution lost somewhere a glass or two ago, open your mouth. The Lord Secretary is, all at once, looking directly at you. What comes out of your mouth?

[ ] Back down and attempt a charming apology on Anja's behalf to get her out of trouble
[ ] Attempt to explain to them both what kind of long range patrol mission you have just survived
[ ] Try to get the attention of some of the other crew members from the Rose who might be in the room
[ ] Call the Lord Secretary racist