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

OoC: I realise I'm churning these out much faster than normal lately, please don't expect this pace to continue forever.


You wake up gradually, in a soft bed beneath a comfortable blanket, a warm body pressed against your back. Still sound asleep, your bedmate has her arms around you and her face in your hair. You let your eyes slide back shut and allow yourself to half drift off again, your own breathing synching up with the woman whose embrace you've just spent the night in.

It feels like it's been a long time since you slept with someone. Not even necessarily sex -- there wasn't any in this case, you're even still wearing your borrowed dressing gown. But it feels like it's been a very long time since you haven't woken up alone.

You trace gentle fingers along the leanly muscled forearm wrapped around your chest, feeling its owner stir slightly at your touch. Your fingers pass a few odd indentations pressed semi-permanently into the skin, common from extended use of some types of spacesuit. For some reason, this makes you think of your mother and you abruptly try to banish the thought from your head. You love you mother, certainly, but she is not quite what you want coming to mind while you're in bed with a beautiful woman.

You and Lori eventually went to bed together after talking at length about what happened to you the day before. She listened in silence, providing only mute comfort as you slowly, haltingly told her about what occurred. Leaving out the details of your work with J6, but telling her about Mosi, about her call, about your panicked response. Anja calming you down, promising to come and support you, and how disastrously that had turned out for her.

When you mentioned Lady Bowman and what transpired with her, she'd spoken up for the first time. "Self-serving, two-faced cow of a baroness," she'd growled. "Remind me to buy the Captain a drink sometime."

Your explanation had eventually come to a close and you'd tentatively voiced the question you'd been wondering all this time: "Did I make a mistake, going to see her? When I didn't know anything about how she even got here?" With your head still resting on her shoulder, you couldn't see anything of her face but the elegant curve of her jaw. Her voice had been low, thoughtful when she'd responded.

"Not unless you could see the future," she said. "It's… hard, when family doesn't live up to our expectations. When we don't know them as well as we thought."

A strange way to phrase it, but you supposed she was speaking from experience. "How did you feel, when your cousin…" you trailed off, not knowing how to finish that.

"Hm. Cyrus." Her arms had tightened around you, momentarily, drawing you closer in against her. As if seeking consolation for herself briefly, instead of just providing it to you. "I was furious," she'd told you. "And beyond hurt that he'd betray me. Then, one day, I… It's hard to explain." A deep breath drawn in, then released. You felt the swell and fall of her chest, the passage of air against the top of your head. She continued: "One day, I remembered something he said to me, the last time I spoke to him face to face. I was officially appointing him steward in my absence. I told him to look after our family's holdings and our tenants well, and not to disgrace his name or mine. He just… smiled at that, and told me if it came down to those three commands, he'd rather fail the last if it meant keeping the first two. I used to think that was a joke. I suppose it wasn't one, when push came to shove." She was silent for a moment longer, before adding: "Most people think they have a good reasons, when they do the wrong thing. They tell themselves they had no choice."

You'd stewed on that story for a few, long moments. "So, you think I should forgive her."

"I can't tell you that. When it comes to family, you have your heart, your duty and your honour. They don't always play nicely together. I forgive Cyrus as a cousin, as someone who grew up with him. As the rightful countess, as a Knight Galatea, and as a loyal officer of the empire, I can't be permitted to do so so easily. I can't decide for you if someone from your past is worth forgiving."

"I'm not sure yet."

"That's natural." She'd kissed your brow again, pressing her lips there longer than before. "You don't have much to go on, to decide something like that."

"I was ready to help her," you'd said, a touch of bitterness in your voice. "I wanted to just… pick up where we were. Whatever trouble she was in, mother would help. We both would."

"And now?"

"And now she nearly killed my dearest friend. She carried illegal firearms on a station. I'm not sure, yet." Even if Anja had fired first, it's a lot to forgive. Mosi isn't the one missing a lung, maybe facing her career being ruined if she doesn't recover properly.

Even if the conversation made you feel better at the time, remembering it here and now casts a slight pall over your morning. The mattress is just a little less comfortable, the sunlight filtering through the blinds is just a little too bright. That's not all you remember now. The gunshots. Anja's blood. Anja's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Amani! She shot first!"

"Why did you even have a gun in the first place?" you whisper.

Your eyes fall on the clock on the nightstand beside the bed, red digits gently glowing 0651. You give a little start. It's already nearly 0700! There's no indication that Lori has set any kind of alarm, nor is showing any sign at all of returning to wakefulness. A brief but intense war wages inside you, between the part of you trained for early rising and subsequent caffeine-fuelled productivity, and the part of you that would much rather stay here, enjoying Countess Perbeck's comfortable bed and even more comfortable presence.

It's with a slightly despairing sigh that you allow prudence to win out. Carefully, slowly, you wriggle your way out of Lori's grasp and push yourself up to a sitting position. You spot your dress and other clothes hanging by the doorway. You didn't wear these particular ones very long, and you steel yourself for donning the white sundress one last time between here and your quarters, where you can discard it forever as a memory of a truly horrible day.

While you have the dress over your head, a muffled voice grumbles: "Why are you up?"

"It's 0700," you say. Once the dress comes back down from over your eyes, you can see that Lori has rolled over to look at you, eyes cracked open just barely enough to glower heatlessly.

"Yes, it is. So why are you up?" she repeats, groaning a little.

You tilt your head, quizzically. "This is much later than I usually get up. You serve on a naval ship as well," you point out.

"I do," she acknowledges, grudgingly.

"Shouldn't you be used to early rising as well, then?"

She sighs thunderously. "I am willing to endure hardship in the line of duty: Injury. Death. Getting up before 0930. But we're not onboard ship and neither of us has an early appointment today that I'm aware of."

"That's…" you try to find the right word for it. "... remarkably lazy."

"If wanting to enjoy a proper rest with a pretty girl in my own bed is what you call lazy."

You turn away, hiding a smile. There's something intangibly endearing about seeing the cold, severe officer you remember from your voyage like this. It's not a side of her you imagine many people are allowed to see in the normal course of things. It does something to chase away your initial bad mood, at least a little

"I'll try not to make too much noise," you promise. She only grunts irritably in response.

You perform what early morning rituals you can with what you have with you, doing your best to avoid disturbing Lori too much. Including a quick, discrete call to make sure that nothing has changed with Anja in your absence -- the news is more reassuring than not. Before too long, you emerge into the living area halfway-decently put together. Your eyes drift over to the never-used kitchen.

The cupboards are stocked with what shelf stable essentials are practical for sporadically occupied senior officer's quarters. It's spacer food, but high quality spacer food, for what value that has. You set a pot of coffee brewing before anything else, locate a few spotless pans and get to work. It's admittedly been a little too long since you've actually cooked a meal for yourself, but it's not as though you're making anything particularly elaborate.

You look up from the slowly cooking egg substitute on the stove to see Lori standing in the doorframe, doing up the last buttons on a fresh shirt. She looks bleary-eyed, but to be fair, so did you before the coffee finished brewing.

"There's coffee in the pot still," you say.

"Yes. The smell makes it remarkably hard to stay in bed." You watch, out of the corner of your eye, as she proceeds to empty two entire packets of whitener into a cup of what had previously been perfectly honest black coffee. "I'm more of a tea person, but I'm hardly going to turn up my nose."

She eyes what you're doing on the stove, gaze travelling from the eggs to the frying slices of 'bacon'. As there are quite possibly no pigs in all of Saturn system, it's bacon-flavoured plant protein cleverly configured. It still smells impressively close to the real thing -- at least according to a faint recollection from your youth. "The kitchen isn't just for show, now," you point out. She smiles tiredly.

"You seem to know what you're doing."

You glance down at the meal. Scrambled eggs and bacon is not precisely a challenge, but you suppose, rusty or not, your comfort with the stove shows. "I can break an egg," you confirm.

She raises an eyebrow over the rim of her coffee cup. "Didn't those 'eggs' come out of a carton?"

"Metaphorically." You let that stand in comfortably silence for a moment, before plating up the bacon. The eggs aren't far behind it. "I haven't done much since college, but I learned young." You falter slightly, face tightening a little. "... Mosi taught me. When she made something, I'd always pester her to let me help. Which is fair enough, that's how she learned from father, when he was less busy." Would you ever be able to think of something like that again, now? Would you be able to recall any of those cherished childhood memories of your lost family and not also think about what happened yesterday?

She gratefully accepts the offered portion, and sits down at the small dining table adjacent to the kitchen. Truth be told, there's better food to be had through takeout. But this is here now, and she doesn't seem displeased that you took the initiative. "An old family recipe, then?" she jokes, skirting the sensitive topic of your sister.

You laugh. "Trust me," you say, "you don't quite have the spice cabinet here for anything I'd call a family recipe."

She seems to enjoy the meal, at least. As do you, in spite of all this time eating actually decent food while on leave. The navy, you've decided, has done unforgivable things to both of your tastebuds. Then again, the egg-substitute actually has the texture of scrambled eggs, and the bacon is both crispy and salty. You can't ask much more than that of either.

Lori rises to help you with the dishes once you're both done, but you wave a dismissive hand. "I need to be able to do some things for you," you explain.

"Some things?" she asks, amused.

"You're wealthier than I am," you point out, putting the cleaned pans away. "And a countess. And a senior officer. And you spent all of last night being extremely considerate." You're not bothered by this, necessarily. But you want to be able to at least gesture at returning the favour.

"You're more yourself, this morning," Lori notes.

You don't quite meet her eyes, conveniently focusing on the task at hand. "Since I've had my coffee?" you say, offering her a small, serene smile.

She looks at you for a long enough moment that you think she's not content to let that particular dodge go unchallenged. "Something like that," she says, instead. Lori yawns, stretching with an arm above her head in a sinuous motion. You can't help but take note of the same indentations you felt earlier with your fingers, some of which are plainly newer, slightly red and uncomfortable looking.

"Those look a little painful," you say.

"Hm?" Lori follows your gaze, looking at the underside of her forearm with a frown. Overlaid on top of the older impressions, the newer are obviously more complex, a pattern of horizontal lines pressed into her flesh there. She makes a face. "It's from my pilot suit," she admits. "The Huntress was still using the old Lancer model, and Banners didn't take anything too different from that. But, well, as you know…" she shrugs, alluding to the new model that she hinted at before, the one she can't talk about. "The new prototypes are all using a newer design that we stole from the enemy. Or that they stole from us. The haptic points in the arm are a little more… forceful than I'd like." she rubs at the spot absently, as if being reminded has caused the discomfort to resurface. "Ito, Sol take him, somehow finagled an upgrade for that monstrosity of his." she sighs a little wistfully.

"Into his Banner?" you ask.

"If you could call it that by the end," she says, a bittersweet smile crossing her face. "It was nothing like one inside anymore. It drove the mechanics mad. To say nothing about Song. I don't know how he got a cutting-edge haptic system to even work in what's supposed to be a Banner, but… it clearly did." Her expression turns slightly troubled for a moment. Perhaps, if you had to guess, following the subject of Sub-Lieutenant Ito to that of his foster sister, lying broken in a hospital. Of how he would have reacted to any of this. Not well, you suspect. Thankfully, the conversation carries on to lighter topics.

As much as you're enjoying this -- getting to know Lori in a private setting, where rank and social standing can be safely left at the door -- you can't quite afford to spend all day at it. Before too long, you make your apologies. "Thank you," you say, quietly, standing near the doorway. "For looking after me. I promise, I'll stay in touch."

Lori saunters over to meet you, partially obstructing your exit with her body. "It wasn't just for your benefit," she says. "I wanted to see that you were fine, for myself." Looking into her eyes, you see something there that you haven't since that day in the park. Before you can process this, there's an arm around your waist pulling you hard against her.

You lean up to meet her kiss halfway. It's both long and forceful, nearly voracious in a way that leaves you blissfully numb to the world and all its troubles for a few precious moments. When she finally pulls away, her teeth briefly tugging at your lip, you're left gasping against her from the unexpected intensity of it. "Next time you share a bed with me," she says, voice a low, pleased hum, "sleep isn't the only thing you'll get."

You think you can live with that.


Anchiale Station,
The Spindle

"Ensign North. You weren't shot."

You've noticed before that J6 almost seems to move more naturally in zero gravity than she does on foot. When you push your way into the conference room on the spindle that her message mentioned, you find her floating in the middle of the room. She's oriented diagonally to the door, slowly drifting upwards at an angle, one hand idly sketching away at the tablet held in the other.

You called first, technically. Simply to arrange a follow-up. J6 being J6, however, the best time to meet is, apparently, immediately. Truth be told, short of wallowing useless at the hospital and staring fixedly at your black box pendant -- resolutely dead and unresponsive to further signals -- you don't have particular plans for your day. You are required to report for a follow up with station security tomorrow in order to aid in Mosi's capture, but that's not until tomorrow.

Given that this is J6, you elect to read at least pleasant relief into her comment. "I wasn't," you agree, floating inside and closing the hatch behind you.

She nods and stares, eyes very slightly frowning for a moment. "I'm… sorry," she says. Then, after too long a pause: "about Ensign Li." The basic nicety is rendered awkward and stilted in her mouth. Seeing J6 attempt to outwardly express emotion is like watching an abandoned piece of machinery creak back to life, joints stiff from neglect, operator no longer quite knowing how everything used to work. You suppose she's familiar with Anja, at least, from having filled in as a pilot on the Rose.

From anyone else, it would have seemed like a platitude. From her, it seems oddly touching. "Thank you," you say. "She's stable, but she's going to need a fairly major surgery." Is it your imagination, or does a minute shudder go through J6's body upon hearing that last word? You try not to think about her experiences with surgery, the hairline scars that you saw running between the induction plates on her limbs the one time you saw her with bare arms. She's back in full uniform today, sunburst-orange jacket hiding all of them but the ones on her neck and at her temples. You're wearing a long, grey skirt and a simple, floral top. It's only slightly more practical for zero gravity than the sundress had been, but you're by this point quite an expert at managing such garments with dignity. The new white sundress was, as planned, disposed of at your earliest convenience.

"How much time do you have here?" you ask.

J6 shrugs. "Six hours," she says. "Under normal circumstances. Her highness will return then. This conference room is near the transfer station."

You look at her sidelong. "You're here a little early, aren't you?" you ask.

"Sometimes she finishes early," J6 says, philosophically. "I wanted to go out."

You glance around the four plain walls, the unremarkable chairs, the long table with its magnetic docking plates. "There is a shopping district near here," you point out.

"Mm," J6 acknowledges. Having reached a sufficient height, she pushes off from the ceiling with one hand, sending herself slowly spinning down toward the floor. Somehow, she uses one of the chairs to arrest her fall perfectly, facing you on a plane level with the door. "You wanted to do more work?" she asks.

"I did," you say, trying not to feel dizzy from the maneuver you just witnessed. That's probably the most you're logically going to get out of her. You hold up your tablet indicatively. "Do you have your connection cable?" you ask.

"Mm," she says again, producing the thickly coiled cord in question from her jacket.

"Thank you for asking me to come right away," you say, setting the tablet down on the table where it sticks fast. "I think I need to work, right now."

J6 seems to process this as she pushes herself down into a chair near your tablet,unspooling the transfer cable as she does so. "Okay," she decides, finally.

"Okay?" you ask, pushing yourself into the seat beside her and doing up the straps one-handed.

"Yes," she confirms, attaching one end of the cable to her temple once again.

You sigh, and decide to just get to work. This consumes the next several hours of your day. Letters are discovered, layers of code peeled back. A slowly growing reference document of translated words are proposed, tested against the entire body of work by J6, discarded or confirmed. You don't have to think about how Mosi may have changed beyond recognition, about wounded friends you can do nothing to help, about the dismal prospect of being called in for a second, albeit less hostile round of questioning tomorrow. Just the honest, mind-numbing pleasure of making meaningful progress on something tedious, but worthwhile.

You don't quite realise what you're looking at at first. You've spent so much time treating this data as a puzzle to solve, as an abstract problem, that at first what you're seeing just baffles you. J6's voice is what breaks through to you.

"This makes reference to an all out assault on Iapetus by the Holy Empire," she says. "One that will happen soon." She says this in the way someone else might reference that the weather forecast calls for rain later, blinking her eyes slowly to bring them out of the glazed state they get when she accesses a system neurally. They gradually refocus on your face, slow enough to be disconcerting.

You stare back at her, stunned, then slowly back down at your tablet, eyes scanning over the raw text you've painstakingly made legible. "We… have time," you say, relieved. "It looks like we still have time." The timeframe this message alludes to isn't precise enough to say with absolute certainty when the attack is coming. However, it's not happening so soon that you've uncovered this horrible knowledge too late to meaningfully do anything about it. If this information gets in front of the right people, preparations can be made, reinforcements called in.

"It's strange, though," J6 says.

"Strange?" you stare at her, mind too filled with the grim certainty of an attack to possibly track her meaning.

"The invasion they're making reference to," J6 explains. "It doesn't say anything about how they're going to handle the defence platforms. They make anything like a simple frontal assault too costly to be worthwhile." She stares into space again for a moment, as if running through the data for anything you might have missed. Not finding it, she reaches up, braces herself and removes the cable snaking its way into her temple. She winces as she does so, gritting her teeth against whatever pain and disorientation this always seems to cause her. "Still," she says, speaking more slowly than usual, eyes squeezed shut as if to combat a sudden vertigo, "we should report this." Seemingly, the aftereffects were hitting her a lot harder than last time.

Well, of course you should report this -- that much was never in question. Despite her veiled discomfort, J6 has already raised a comm unit from her belt, is clearly ready to contact someone.

"Who are you calling?" you ask.

"I'm interrupting her highness's meeting," J6 says, matter of factly.

"You're allowed to do that?" You shouldn't be impressed, considering how close a confidant the Guardswoman seems to be, to say nothing of being the princess's personal bodyguard.

"In an emergency," she says, before halting in order to brace herself for a further wave of pain. She sets the communicator down momentarily, thrusts a hand into her pocket, and produces a small packet of blue dermal patches you recognise as her painkillers. While she proceeds to self-administer one of them with slightly shaking fingers, you look away in mild discomfort. Nothing about her bearing invites a desire for help or sympathy at the moment.

It does, however, give you a moment to consider what she's about to do, with some of the immediate panic of the discovery cooling. If J6 presents this information to the princess directly, you can't imagine that Daystar won't immediately act on it. This constitutes a major threat to Iapetus, and if anyone is equipped to bypass or at least accelerate the layers of military and civilian bureaucracy necessary to fix this situation, it's a member of the Imperial house of Helios in good standing. It might make a difference in how swift and effective Iapetus's defence is.

At the same time, Princess Daystar isn't the one who asked you to do this assignment. While Lieutenant-Commander Owusu did give you his blessing -- if hypothetically -- to get the princess involved, you're uncomfortably aware that simply bringing it to her now may well cut him out entirely, even if you contact him immediately afterward. Potentially, and not even necessarily through any malice of Daystar's, cut him out of both decision making and credit for finding this message, noticing its significance, and identifying you as a trustworthy resource for translating it. Part of you thinks you owe it to him, to ask J6 as a favour to allow you to contact him first. You have no doubt she'll call the princess regardless, but you have some hope that she would be willing to do you a simple favour here. It's not as though Owusu doesn't have contacts, doesn't know who it's best to bring this to. It might even be, that with his intimate knowledge of the local intelligence structure, he gets things started faster or quieter than Daystar would. It may also simply cause a delay.


What do you do?

[ ] Let J6 tell the princess first.

[ ] As a personal favour, ask J6 to please let Owusu be the one to bring the report forward.