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

"Mother, wait a moment? There's something important I have to tell you." Dame Nalah catches herself up short, turning to face you curiously. She glances back at the lift briefly but seems to decide that, if you're bringing this up now, this must be important.

You lead her off to the side, to a quiet rest area in an alcove away from the general flow of human traffic. "What is it?" she asks, looking slightly worriedly at your unhappy bearing.

Then you tell her. About getting the call, about Mosi being alive and well. About Mosi shooting Anja, nearly killing her and running off. About your suspicions that Mosi must be involved in 'something dangerous' without telling her what you really think that specific something dangerous is. Ordinarily, this would be dodgy. As you and Gloriana just demonstrated, your capacity to hide things from this woman in particular is generally handicapped. However, by the time you get even halfway through the story, she's in no fit state to discern anything so subtle.

Your mother's initial relief at hearing that her eldest is alive, is here on Anchiale, was heartbreakingly profound. Rendered momentarily speechless, she had covered her mouth with one hand, looking on the verge of some more emotional outburst. But she'd mastered herself, particularly as your guarded, worried look had communicated that something far less welcome was to come. By the time you've finished, her happiness is a memory. She stares at you, something close to horror in her eyes.

"Sol, what has she gotten herself into?" Nalah asks. She lets go of her handhold, letting herself float in place for a moment, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"It's hard to be sure," you say, blending truth with lies. Your stomach twists with guilt. "There's an investigation to search for her, though," you say. "After what happened."

"Of course there is," Nalah murmurs. After a long, worrisome silence, she whispers something, almost too quiet to hear: "This is my fault."

"What do you mean?" you ask, floating closer to her. "How could this be your fault?" You have a sinking feeling you know the answer.

"I… thought for sure she was dead. After what they did to Amir, they didn't need her as leverage. I thought…" she opens her eyes again, and they're not quite brimming with tears, but she looks startlingly her age in a way you've never noticed before. As if the lightning strike of your news has sent a lifetime's worth of regret and self-recrimination bubbling to the surface, temporarily robbing her of all vestiges of her youth.

"She and father weren't your fault," you tell her, voice firm. You don't know how many times you've told her this. She knows it, logically. You've never been convinced she accepts it emotionally.

"I… thought they'd killed her," she repeats, as if she hadn't heard you, eyes wide and haunted. "And I had you. I had to at least protect you. So I left her there, on Mars. In the Holy Empire. I left her behind."

"What could you have done?" you ask. "Flown in and staged a one-woman assault on the academy, if she was even still there? You're not invincible, mother."

"Something." She sucks in a deep breath, letting it out in an attempt to master herself. She looks abruptly like she wants to hit something. Experience with the transfer of kinetic energy prevents her from punching the wall and sending herself spinning slowly backward. "I should have tried. She was alone all this time, Amani. Who knows what she's been through? I… I should have done something."

"Then you'd have died, and I would have been alone too." She flinches at the exasperated note in your words, and you regret it. "I'm sorry," you say softening your tone, "but you can't be everywhere, mother. You did the best you could."

She continues to look so deflated that you push yourself closer, reaching a hand out to gently take her shoulder. Abruptly, she snatches it out of the air. Not refusing your touch, but looking at you with an earnest intensity that makes your heart sink -- you know what's coming next. "We need to find her," she tells you, voice firm and determined. "You are going to help me find her. And we'll help her with whatever it is she's dealing with, we'll… we'll be a family again!"

"Mother," you try to caution her, "there's an official investigation--"

"We're going to find her before it comes to that," Nalah says.

"The authorities are already looking," you say. "Station security and Navy intelligence."

"Why are you being so reluctant?" Dame Nalah asks, eyes narrowing, searching your face.

"She shot Anja!" The words come out of your mouth without too much thought -- one instant, you'd been searching for some explanation that avoids the classified parts of the story, the next something truthful-but-ugly is falling out. "I wanted to help her," you say, lowering your voice again to avoid stares, "I told her we could help her. And instead she shot my friend and shipmate. Anja almost died, mother. She has a family too."

Your mother looks at you, slightly taken aback, looking uncertain how to respond. "You said Mosi wasn't the first to shoot--"

"Why did she even have a gun?" you demand. "Anja knew something was wrong. That's why she got shot."

"She's your sister," your mother urges, almost as if you'd forgotten.

"I know that!" you hiss back. Your shoulders slump, and your face falls. All of the frustration seems to leave your body. "I know that. But… we don't know who she is anymore. You don't know. We have to be careful."

Her face softens again, and you find yourself pulled into another hug, this one one-armed as she reaches back to anchor the two of you to the nearest wall. "We know who she is," your mother says. "She's your sister. She's my daughter. That's who she'll always be. We're all the three of us have left in the solar system, Amani."

"I know," you say.

"I'm sorry about your friend."

"I know you are."

You're deeply conflicted as she finally goes, hurrying to prevent herself from being late. Frustrated at your inability to communicate the depth of your misgivings about Mosi. When they eventually all come out, you hope your mother can understand.


Iapetus Outer Defence Network Control
Several days later

"You watch. This is going to turn out to be nothing, and we'll still be the ones holding the bag," Commander Sanchez mutters, glaring at the message on his workstation. "Our evacuations are 'inadequate?' With how little time they gave us? And where, pray tell, are we meant to be sending them? They told us this was a temporary solution while they built more dedicated habitats for these people. That was years ago!"

"Well, you know what they say, sir," a technician quips, working her board. "There's nothing as--"

"If you tell me there's nothing as permanent as a temporary solution, Miel," Sanchez growls, "I swear to every star I will have you spaced."

"Yes, sir! Sorry sir!"

It would appear that the officer of the watch has heard this joke one too many times. After a moment's industrious silence, he predictably continues where he left off. "And there's this addendum from that pretty boy of a spook -- 'discretion is paramount.'" Sanchez lets out a derisive snort. "So, we need to evacuate all the habitat modules, and we need to do it quickly, and we need to do it without tipping anyone off. Three different directives from three different agencies."

"And whose neck is it on the line if it all goes wrong?" a corroborating voice speaks up from overhead. The control room is build along the lines of an Imperial warship, the ubiquitous chevron shape made cramped in the tight quarters of the nerve centre for Iapetus's precious defensive array. Located in the heart of a platform in an orbit directly above Iapetus's north pole, space is at a premium. On this platform that will never see gravity, for once the Navy is willing to bend its design ethos and risk disorientating personnel by mirroring the truncated chevron on "floor" and "ceiling."

"It'd be better, surely, if it's just a waste of our time." A half-dozen sets of eyes turn to look at the woman who spoke up, a lone ensign seated in a corner, who blushes at her sudden observation. "Begging your pardon, sir," she clarifies. "But, if it weren't a waste of time…"

"... yes," Sanchez agrees, reluctantly. He squeezes his eyes shut briefly, imagining as everyone sitting around the control centre is imagining, precisely how bad an actual full-scale assault on Iapetus would be in earnest. They had, miracle of miracles, managed to evacuate a scant third of the civilians crammed onto these defence platforms ahead of a mysterious enemy attack, and a possible sabotage attempt on the array itself. There was precious little space to fit them all, even with the available space being constructed in Anchiale's Beta Sphere being snatched up as soon as it's cleared.

That still left thousands.

"Mind you," Miel says, trying her hand at humor again, "if nothing happens, those extra marines might just destroy the place themselves out of sheer boredom."

To Miel's evident relief, this time Sanchez snorts with laughter. "Just throw more people with guns into the situation," he mutters. "Never mind how to manage feeding and housing them on all the platforms."

"Sir," Miel says, suddenly wearing her official news voice, "we have a scheduled maintenance crew coming through in under two hours -- two mecha with technician passengers, from Anchiale."

"Routine?" Sanchez asks, wondering at Miel's pensive frown.

"Should be, sir," Miel says. "But, um… I might just be forgetting, but I'd swear that Maintenance Team 015 wasn't on the rotation at the beginning of the month." She seems torn between looking firm and cringing in her seat, well aware that she is deciding this position on what amounts to gut instinct and the strength of her recollection, going against hard data from an official source.

Sanchez frowns, looking at the schedule Miel has just sent him. It all looks perfectly routine. Ordinarily, this is hardly the sort of thing that would rate any degree of extra scrutiny. He glances over to the several messages he'd been complaining about moments before, then back to the listing, eyes narrowing. "Keep an eye on it, Miel," he says, finally. "We're on high alert, after all. And maybe... it doesn't really matter which platform they do the network diagnostic on, if this is above board. Pick one of the platforms that's been evacuated and change their route."

"Yes, sir," she says. "I'll take care of it and let you know if anything looks strange."


Anchiale Space Port

It's rare you get an exterior view of the HIMS Titanium Rose. Staring through the large viewing port in the private observation lounge overlooking the shipyard, you take in its exposed length at berth, surrounded by figures going over the repaired-hull in spacesuits and maintenance mecha. The distant figures flit here and there, checking on the finishing touches.

The observation lounge is deserted aside from you, your companion, and the remains of the lunch the two of you shared. The short row of plush chairs is vacant and the internal airlock between the room and the rest of Anchiale has been sealed behind you. An airlock rather than a simple hatch because you're not looking through a view screen, you're looking through an actual window into space busy with traffic.

Your ship seems substantially repaired, compared to the diagrams you remember from when you docked here. The damages were significant, of course, but through the combined gratitude of Princess Daystar and the shipyard's administrators -- the former for your protection, the latter for the recovery of the Menschy Matter this shipyard needs to continue the construction of new vessels -- the Rose seems to have been bumped up further in the queue than it normally would have been allowed. It's going to be as good as ever in no time.

Better than ever, in fact, unless you're very much mistaken.

It's been an incredibly busy few days, between the continued battery of increasingly nerve wracking reports you've had to deliver and the stress of waiting for the results of Anja's surgery. The latter, at least, has resulted in good news -- it was conducted successfully, and she should make a full recovery, as long as she has sufficient time on life support in order for her body to adjust and acclimatise. For the time being, she's being kept under sedation. It's taken a massive load of anxiety off of your shoulders.

Or it normally would, if it weren't for your knowledge of the impending enemy attack, Mosi, and your mother's response to her continued missing status. You shared dinner with her last night, and it's all she seems to be able to think about.

"Dame Nalah seems like someone I could like," Lori says, breaking your contemplation of the ship and startling you with such a direct reference to the subject of your brooding. "Although I'm not entirely certain that that's mutual."

Oh no.

You look back over to where she hovers beside you. Today she's dressed in her standard uniform again, but her hair is already back in the knot that tells you she intends to change into a pilot suit soon enough. She looks more amused than upset, but the prospect of what your mother may have done or said to leave her with that impression is worrisome. "She wasn't... unpleasant, was she?"

"Hm," Lori looks thoughtful. "I'm not sure if I'd go that far. She cornered me in an officer's lounge yesterday over a drink."

"Cornered?" you ask, wincing.

Lori shrugs. You suspect she's enjoying keeping you in suspense about this. "We 'talked'. About me and my service history, mainly. Given that she's a decorated, superior officer, it wasn't precisely the kind of conversation you can just walk away from easily. It felt a little like I was being evaluated."

"I'm sorry," you say, slightly embarrassed. "She can be a little... protective."

"Oh, don't be," Lori says, airily. "I'm not trying to take her for a lover." Then, catching you by surprise, she reaches out and tugs you toward her, hooking an arm around your waist to keep you from bouncing off when you bump into her.

"We're both in uniform!" you say, eyes sweeping the lounge in search of a camera. "What happened to decorum and setting a bad example?"

"I'm sorry," Lori says, glancing around the deserted observation lounge with a decidedly more ironic air than you, "is there a group of spacers hiding behind those chairs for us to set a bad example for? Neither of us are back to regular duty yet, and there's not exactly going to be many opportunities for this then." She follows your gaze up to the room's discreetly hidden camera, and adds: "Enough important visitors spend time in these rooms that the footage is going into a closed database that can't be accessed without a very impressive warrant. Even then ,only for specific timestamps. It's fine, as long as you don't intend to set off an explosion in here."

Despite her words, you take a second or two to relax. You do relax, however. It feels a little dodgy to do this here, but at the same time... you have no idea how things are going to go for Iapetus, or for either of you.

"I can definitely tell you two are related," she decides, face close to yours.

"... and what is that supposed to mean?" you ask, amused in spite of yourself.

"Just something I noticed after being covertly grilled for half an hour," Lori says. "Let's just say that, in another few promotions, you are going to be very intimidating to your subordinates, when you want to be." When she kisses you, you return it, oddly pleased by the summation. Family resemblance aside, it's not often you, the junior scans officer, get compared to your war hero mother in that way.

What transpires is a pleasant way to pass some time, although at the end of it, you seem to be forced to straighten out your uniform quite a bit more than Lori has to. She has a decidedly self-satisfied expression on her face as she watches you at this.

"... you're enjoying yourself," you murmur, slightly flushed, slightly short of breath.

"I am," she agrees, "although less than I was." She pauses, continues watching for a moment, until her expression falls slightly, as if remembering something. "There are... rumours," she says, slowly.

"Rumours?" you ask, having finally tucked your shirt back into your skirt with an adequate amount of crispness. The smart fabric helps. You have a sinking feeling you know the sort of rumour she's going to reference.

"Leaves being cancelled on short notice," Lori says. "Extra security in strange places. Ships coming into dock one at a time that were meant to be out for weeks more. Civilians being moved around quietly, without normal notice being given -- just shuffled around. I've heard there have been complaints, but they're being kept quiet through emergency provisions." She looks at you curiously, noticing your lack of a reaction. "... this strangely doesn't seem to be news to you."

"I can hear rumours too," you offer. Which, given that you are an ensign at the beginning of your career with little real social status, is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

She narrows her eyes a little suspiciously. You somehow feel the look is attempting to spear someone else through you, not you yourself. "Just what," she asks, "has Milo gotten you caught up in?" Somehow, Lori using Lieutenant-Commander Owusu's given name feels like a sign that she's more annoyed with him rather than less.

"I'm not..." you begin, not without a slightly sheepish look, "at liberty to discuss, I'm afraid."

Lori continues the look, then sighs, irritated. "I'm going to have to have a few words with him, when I can pin him down."

"He might not actually dislike that," you admit. "He's... stressed enough that he'd probably like a chance to be sarcastic at someone."

Lori covers her face with one hand, letting out something like an irritable growl. "The fact that you've spent enough time around him to know that just makes me more concerned."

"Please don't be," you caution. "It's not anything that... wouldn't have affected me eventually anyway." This is ominous enough that you watch her stiffen with discomfort. "I've been doing important work for him. It hasn't been anything dangerous, but it's worthwhile."

She seems to unbend a little, with some effort. "Getting wrapped up with the SRI is never good, Amani," she says. "And not just because they'd give someone like him a commission. What they deal with is dangerous."

"Some things are going to be dangerous regardless," you say, giving her a long, speaking look while your hands, working on autopilot, finish buttoning your shirt collar up. "How do I look?" you ask, spinning yourself around in space for her inspection.

"Like you haven't just been pawed over by a pilot," Lori offers.

"Good." You'll have to check yourself in a bathroom first, just to make sure every last button and crease is perfect -- you have your last scheduled debrief today, at Owusu's request. You wish very much that you could tell her about it -- about everything. About the attacks, about what you realised about Mosi partially with her unwitting help. Even more than you wish you could talk about it with your mother, in some ways. It's less emotionally fraught.

"Still nothing from the sister, I assume?" Lori asks, startling you a little. "I assumed you would have said something otherwise," she adds, "but I just thought I'd ask."

"Absolutely no contact," you confirm, "and no one seems to have spotted her." You frown. "Mother's not taking it well, but, well..."

"She's entitled not to," Lori says, "when her child returns from the dead and then violently disappears." She glances out the window, looking at space. "I am hoping that this trip out will be my last, at least for a little while. I am very tired of flying circles in space and writing tedious reports about it afterward."

"Are you meant to be telling me about that?" you ask.

"It's fine, as long as I don't specify what I'm flying them in. You'll see it before long, I imagine." She gathers up the discarded lunch containers floating above the nearby table. "Honestly, though, it's dull enough I almost wish something exciting would happen."

"You should be careful what you wish for," you say, frowning at her.

"I should," she agrees. She catches herself on a handle near the airlock, you close behind. "Are you free tonight?" she asks.

"I should be," you agree, relaxing a little. "I'm meeting mother in Beta Sphere anyway, but I'll be able to see you after that."

"Good," she says. She darts in to give you a quick, hard kiss, before pulling away again. "That will be something to think about while I'm going out of my mind with boredom."

You decide that it's a good idea to enjoy yourselves while you still can, although you don't regret not pushing things along faster than this. You push your worries out of your head for now -- hopefully, the war will keep away for one more night, at least.


Iapetus orbit

As Mosi expected, much of her nerves simply fall away the moment she's back in a cockpit. Even if she's effectively gone from flying a state of the art, blazing fast prototype unit to a glorified power welder.

Mosi proceeds along at a slow, methodical pace, following the pre-approved trajectory provided to 'Maintenance Team 015'. Verner, or their mysterious contact in admin, had arranged for this months ago. Once it was in Anchiale's system, as far as Iapetus should be concerned, they're legitimate.

Mosi spent the hours prior to the mission sitting ramrod straight, staring at a wall, trying to keep everything that could go wrong out of her mind. A team of marines at the mecha hangar, ready to arrest or shoot them. A squad of enemy Banners cottoning on and intercepting them on the way. The defence platform detecting the infiltration and blowing them to pieces. Even the simple fact that, as per her original plan, Mosi is the one whose unit will be carrying Lieutenant-Commander Roth is hardly calculated to set her mind at ease.

Kim, ever a study in contrasts to her fellow pilot, filled this same period of time with fidgeting, pacing, and endless chatter which Mosi absorbed less than a tenth of. To her surprise, Mosi almost finds it calming. In particular since the incident with Amani, Kim has grown on her.

Here and now, though, in the bulky pilot suit that matches the civilian worker unit, Mosi is at home, she's in control. She has the power to fight for her life and the mission, to live or die by her own abilities. That's everything to her. As long as she's in a cockpit, she isn't helpless.

For such a small, desolate moon, space around Iapetus teems with life and the infrastructure that supports it. Seemingly endless rings of habitats, smaller than Anchiale but each surrounded by an array of focusing mirrors. Communications satellites, observation platforms, the points of light that are ships going in between them. Flying in the direction Mosi is now, the two mecha appear to be heading directly toward Saturn. Whatever Ensign Kim might think about Jupiter being prettier, it's a beautiful planet.

"Attention, Maintenance Team 015. This is Iapetus Outer Defence Network Control. Do you read?" The officious sounding, female voice comes through Mosi's helmet speakers loud and clear.

"Control, this is Maintenance Operator Kaskazini leading Team 015, I read you," Mosi says. The rehearsed response comes easily to her lips in a calm, matter of fact voice.

"Operator Kaskazini, please be advised that we are overriding your prescribed course. Instead, please proceed to Defence Platform 00-A-23-07 on the following heading."

Mosi blinks at the new information queuing up on her screen. The course she is being given now deviates sharply from their plan, having them take a slow, meandering right turn, weaving around several established 'lanes' of space traffic in order to arrive at an entirely different defence platform from their original destination.

Quietly, Mosi mutes the call from Control and opens wired comms with the passenger compartment. "Sir," she says, "are you getting this?"

"We have the audio, not the course data," Roth's tense voice replies. While Roth seems to be determined to set aside his continued fury at Mosi insofar as she's one of only two pilots he has, she can well imagine that relying on her assessment of such a situation hardly makes him happy.

"The course data is just the most direct path to Platform 00-A-23-07 instead of our original goal," Mosi explains.

"Specialist?" Roth asks.

The passenger compartment's other occupant, Specialist Jackson, speaks up: "We... should be able to do this with any of the networked platforms." Jackson's voice is uncertain. He hastily adds, a little more confidently: "There shouldn't be a problem, sir."

Roth sighs. "Adjust course as instructed. We aren't going hot at this stage, that would be suicide. And not even useful suicide. Inform the other unit."

"Yes, sir," Mosi agrees. She renables audio on her call with Control. "I understand, Control. Changing course now. Advising Operator Park of the changes in course now."

Kim, acting as Operator Park over wireless comm, is slightly less tranquil in her performance than Mosi. "... understood!" she says, with agitation or fear playing beneath her superficial calm. "We'll just keep following you, then, Operator Kaskazini."

Gradually, the defence platform becomes more than simply one dot among many on the scan map being displayed on the visor of Mosi's helmet. Seen through the mecha's main camera, it's an ugly, slightly lopsided thing. The guns and scan array modules that make up its core glint lethally in the light of the distant sun, newer modules awkwardly appended onto the ends. Notably, a number of these appear to be set onto rotating shafts for the purposes of inertial gravity simulation. More than Mosi might expect -- she hadn't thought the personnel on these platforms would be assigned long-term.

Long minutes stretch by, filled with the sound of whirring controls, the blinking of lights, and the satisfaction of Mosi getting a handle on this unit's forward-thrust-heavy propulsion setup. Hardly a precision tool, and she doubts she'll express this opinion in front of Kim, but frankly it handles easier than a Banner does, in terms of acceleration and deceleration in a hurry.

"Attention Control, this is Kaskazini. Maintenance Team 015 is approaching Platform 00-A-23-07 and will arrive in approximately three minutes, matching velocity with the platform now."

"Confirmed, Operator Kaskazini. Your team is cleared to begin the diagnostic portion of your maintenance sweep."

Mosi and Kim slow themselves gradually, adjusting rotation until the platform seems to hang still in space. Slowly, carefully, Mosi eases herself forward until she can engage the high-powered magnets on her unit, clamping her MKIII's feet down onto the flat surface of the the defence platform's exterior maintenance pad. The pad shudders slightly as Kim lands beside her.

Mosi is already opening her passenger compartment, allowing the space-suited forms of her two companions to drift out, still tethered to her MKIII until the magnets in their boots have stuck them fast as well. It's only a short time before the remaining two passengers drop out of Kim's compartment.

Now begins the dangerous part, as the two specialists carefully make their way over to the array of access panels and ports built into the partial shelter of the exterior landing pad, the ports overlooked by the blinking, red eye of the camera set above the two airlocks leading into the cramped interior of the defence platform. Whether it be through noticing the malicious infiltration piggybacking on top of the legitimate maintenance sweep, someone watching them on camera noticing that the collapsed tool on the belts of the Lieutenant-Commander and the Chief Petty Officer are in fact vacuum enables SMGs, or some other unforeseen calamity, they are truly on the clock now.

"We're in the system, LC," Specialist Jens says. "We have enough access to begin infiltration." The words are spoken over very short-range, suit-to-suit comms, although there is always the possibility of interception, literally standing on the station. It's small enough to discount.

Mosi finds herself casting an eye toward space. At the orderly little lunar system, filled with life. With people like Amani, just trying to get through their day. Soon, Mosi knows, death and chaos will be introduced to Iapetus. Will any of them thank the Divine Navy of Correction for delivering them, one day? Will they appreciate that accepting the Emperor's peace is preferable to living with a proverbial sword hanging over one's head? Will Amani? It's been a long time since Mosi has questioned that particular bargain.

"It... doesn't make sense," Kim's voice abruptly comes in over the comms. Sounding confused, troubled. "Why would they put that many grav rings on a defence platform? They shouldn't need that many long term residents."

"Keep the channel clear of chatter, Ensign," Roth snaps, "And your mind on our mission." Mosi can't help but think that there's a new, strange sort of tension in Roth's voice. A degree of mild alarm at Kim specifically.

"Yes, sir," Kim says, still troubled.

Time passes, with minimal developments beyond a few curt status updates to and from Control.

"Sir," says Specialist Jens, sounding a little uncertain. She looks up from where she and Specialist Jackson are clustered around the control panel, supposedly performing a diagnostic on emergency thrust ports on all the networked defence platforms. In actuality, doing something terrible to the networks FOF system that will make the defence array literally blow itself out the sky. "We've hit a... stumbling block."

"A what?" Roth demands.

"It's fine, sir, we can still get access," Jackson cuts in. "A slight delay, that's all. This is almost definitely automated -- we haven't been made yet."

"Make sure it's only slight," Roth growls.

"Wait!" It's Kim again, this time sounding both horrified and outright panicked.

"Ensign, I tol--

"Sir! Those are long term res modules!" Kim cuts in. "I'm sure of it! That's not... just for a few naval personnel. Those hold two hundred people each!"

Roth doesn't immediately respond and the two specialists seem almost oblivious to the entire argument. The CPO is characteristically silent. Mosi speaks for the first time: "Kim, if these platforms were full of that many people -- that would have to be thousands in the whole array -- we would have had intel about it. There's no way we could know as much as we did about these platforms without even knowing that." Roth should jump in at that. Mosi expects him to. He doesn't, a pregnant silence ensuing. Then, all at once, she knows without a trace of doubt.

"Sir?" Kim asks. "I'm sure those are civilian hab pods. There's no--

"It doesn't matter," Roth says, turning to glare up at the hulking form of Kim's MKIII.

"Sir!" Kim gasps, "How can this not matter? This is completely different!"

Mosi is the one who answers, voice almost eerily calm. "He knew," she says. "When you mentioned collateral back when we were running tests, Verner started to tell us about this. But the Lieutenant-Commander glared him silent. There are civilians in these platforms. We did have intelligence about it. It was just kept need to know."

"It doesn't matter!" Roth shouts into his mic, loudly enough that it makes Mosi wince. "Do you have any idea how many of us will die if the fleet arrives and this array is still operating? It's not our fault if the heretics are using civilians as human shields!"

"... sir!" Jens' voice is actually a little shrill from the tension she's otherwise successfully ignoring. "Sir, we have-- we have partial control. Wait... Jackson, what's that?"

"I signed up to destroy military targets!" Kim is shouting. "Not to blow residential habitats like a fucking Jovian separatist!"

"You signed up to do as you're damn-well told for the good of the Empire, Ensign!"

Mosi listens to ensuing argument with a curious feeling of detachment. Was she really, in her heart of hearts, surprised that the Holy Empire would do this in the name of the glorious cause? She wants to say no. If asked out loud, she'd say no. It would be a lie. For every one one life taken, a million more saved. Who, exactly, are they saving?

"That... was an alarm," Jackson finally decides. Then, louder, trying to pierce the increasingly strident exchange between Kim and Roth: "Sir! That was an alarm!"

"How long do you need to finish?" Roth demands.

"I don't know! More time. If we activate it now, we'll only blow about a 4th of the array. That's within the minimum, but barely."

"We don't have time," Roth decides, all at once. "We're going to have to blow it with what you have."

"Sir, we just need a few more minutes!" Jens insists.

"They're all going to die," Kim moans, "and so are we."

Mosi almost more feels her hand reaching out to press the button, rather than consciously deciding to press it. From where she is, deep in her cockpit, she hears the sound of machinery whirring to life. The sound can't carry through vacuum, shouldn't be picked up by her mic without voice recognition turning it on. But for some reason, by some sixth sense, Roth looks up at her MKIII

He looks into the barrel of the anti-personnel weapon hidden in the mecha's left arm as it extends, and begins to spin up, ready to obliterate all life on the maintenance platform. For a moment, the angle is just right that, even through his polarised helmet, Mosi enjoys the fancy that she can almost see his shocked face. See the fear in his eyes. "North, what the fuck do you think you're--"

Mosi unloads the weapon, the machine-gun spewing out a hail of death, piercing spacesuits, cracking helmets, sending red mist bubbling out into space. The burst only lasts for a second or two, but it does the job. She stares for a fraction of a second longer, simply taking in the shredded human wreckage she's left floating in space, breathing hard. Finally, she masters herself enough to speak into her microphone again:

"Marines, sir." It's perhaps slightly unnecessary -- the corpses that clutter space around the first of the airlocks are obviously wearing marine hard suits. Corpses, because, seeing them pouring out of the airlock, Mosi had acted on lethal reflex. Necessary or not, Mosi feels a need to fill the air, staring at the men and women she's just killed in the interests of protecting the team and the mission. "There will be more behind them. Mecha as well. We can't stay here."

"Sir!" Jens calls, voice shaky, "Jackson--" The second specialist's body is rooted in place near the control panel by his suit's magnetic boots. Evidently, in their death throws, one of the marines still managed to fire off a burst that shattered Jackson's helmet and vented the contents of his skull out into vacuum.

"There's nothing you can do for him!" Roth recovers from his shock, having clearly thought that Mosi had been intent on sweeping her weapon over him and the team members on the platform, rather than using it to save their lives. "Specialist, blow the platforms now -- however many you can -- or we won't have a chance to blow any!" he's already making a beeline for Mosi's opening passenger hatch.

"Yes, sir!" Jens says. Then, the next moment. Scant moments later, she's throwing herself into the MKIII's passenger compartment, and Mosi is pushing off from the platform, Kim following with the CPO likewise retrieved.

"Sol, Sol, Sol," Kim is moaning. "We're all going to die for this. We all deserve to--" She's forced to cut herself off as the horrible spectacle they've just set off begins in spectacular fashion -- a railgun shot strikes the station they've only barely gotten clear of, its shields flaring visibly as its own weapons re-orientate to return fire on the other platform that hit it.

They have a perfect, front row view of the guns on so many of the defence platforms swivelling and, silently, beginning rain devastation on one another. The damage is already extremely impressive, platforms crumpling and blowing, venting their compartments into space under the sustained friendly fire. It's the herald for an even larger, and more devastating kind of destruction that Mosi knows is already bearing down on Iapetus, but the sight more than sobering in its own right.

She tries very hard, and largely unsuccessfully, not to think about how many innocents are dying at this moment, even with the sabotage being so dramatically less successful than they'd intended. She tries even harder not to imagine what Amani would think of her.

Most of all, though, she tries not to think about how she'd spun her AP gun up before she'd known the marines were going to come through that airlock. And what she was going to use it for before they came pouring out.


The HIMS Titanium Rose, the trusty ship you serve on, has finally been repaired and just in time for you to need it at its best again. But, seemingly out of gratitude for several different outcomes of your otherwise-disastrous patrol mission, the ship is now better than ever.

What has been improved on the Rose?

[ ] Improved weapons systems

Ranger class ships are already well armed for their role and size category -- Thanks to an unexpected upgrade, the Rose is now particularly formidable, able to hit above its weight class and more easily penetrate heavy shielding.

[ ] Cutting edge shield technology

During the repair process, the Rose's shield system was simply ripped out and replaced with a new one. The new system is from an entirely new generation of shield array that helps to compensate for the the Rose's inherent fragility to increase survivability.

[ ] Quasi stealth system

While most of the technology developed for the Night Lily requires a purpose-built vessel, several of the more minor innovations included in it are applicable on any ship within certain parameters. This would allow the Rose to be harder to identify and keep track of on conventional scans.