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

So, it's been three days, and as this vote means more about the upcoming battle than it does immediately for this next update, I already have update 031 finished. I've gone back and forth a little over whether or not to just let this play out a little more, but the actual vote hasn't changed in about five hours, so I'm just going to err on the side of posting.


Anchiale Space Port
Central Iapetus Combat Information Centre

"Lord Secretary. I can well understand your concerns. But, frankly, I do not have time to entertain them." Lord Admiral Sikes doesn't even look up at the other man, eyes focused ahead on the information coming through the main display screen in front of him, bathing his narrow, sour face in orange light.

"Excuse me, my lord?" Lord Secretary Song isn't a man who is used to not immediately getting his way. That comes with the territory, Sikes has to suppose, when you're the younger brother of an Imperial Elector, the infamous Duchess Song herself. Out of the corner of his eye, Sikes can see Song's face getting more and more florid with shock and anger. Most of the time, for all that he's one of the most powerful men in the Imperial Navy -- and by extension one of the most powerful men in what's left of the Empire -- Lord Admiral Sikes finds it prudent to play nice with people like Song. The repercussions of throwing his weight around are rarely worth the momentary satisfaction it garners. This moment not most of the time.

"We are dealing with a matter of national security," Sikes says, bluntly. "If you wish to remain to observe, Lord Secretary, I will insist that you take your seat in the back and refrain from interruption. I will be happy to answer any number of your questions, when we are not staring the prospect of a full invasion square in the face."

Song's jaw clenches, but for once, he masters his temper. Seemingly, he's not a complete imbecile. "I will be sure to do so, my lord," he says. When it becomes clear that Sikes doesn't intend to acknowledge him further, Song pushes himself past the other man, heading up toward the back of the large chamber.

The command centre for Iapetus and the Outer Fleet is large, filled with row upon row of workstations, seemingly all currently filled. The news, after all, couldn't possibly be more dire. "Sir, we have the full scan data, from before the Tulip was destroyed." The speaker is a woman in her thirties, his aide.

"How bad is it, Rao?" Sikes sighs. Rao, like Lord Secretary Song, is a close relative of an Imperial Elector. Unlike him, however, Duke Rao's youngest daughter has seemingly avoided developing a pathological need to remind everyone around her of the fact.

"Bad enough, sir. I've sent it over to your station -- this isn't just the raiding force that's been encountered previously." Rao points a gloved finger at the place on his personal workstation where the scan data has just appeared. "This is a full invasion fleet. Bearing right down on Iapetus."

Less than an hour before, an urgent upload had come from the HIMS Black Tulip, a Herald class reconnaissance ship on a short-range scouting mission around Iapetus. The message had revealed that the Tulip had encountered precisely what it had been sent out to look for -- the leading edge of an enemy invasion fleet. Shortly thereafter, the Tulip had been engaged by the enemy and unceremoniously destroyed. As nearly-ubiquitous scouts, the virtues of the Herald class were many -- durability and firepower were not chief among them.

Sikes pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Wonderful," he mutters. "Well, we've been forewarned, at cost of lives. Still, though, with these numbers, can they really get through the defence array?"

"They shouldn't be able to, sir," Rao opines. She frowns. "Although... there's a call from a Commander Sanchez, officer of the watch for Defence Array Control. He's being highly insistent, although with this situation, we haven't had time to review it too closely."

Sikes thinks for a long moment. He has a dozen things to juggle right now, preparing for a full-scale assault by the Holy Empire's forces. But the dire warnings that kept coming across his desk from that smarmy SRI operative resurface. Stories about possible infiltrations, enemy operatives becoming involved in shootings with ship ensigns...

"I'll take him," Sikes decides.

A moment later, the call has been patched in, much to the watch officer's evident exasperated relief. "Sol above, finally!" Commander Sanchez growls. "Who am I talking to?"

Almost amused, in spite of everything, Sikes responds, in his flattest, least impressed tone: "This is Lord Admiral Sikes."

There's an audible clicking sound as Sanchez's teeth literally snap shut on his prepared response. Evidently, he had not anticipated his call actually garnering this much official attention. "Sir," Sanchez begins, "My lord. I apologise if--"

Sikes cuts him off. "I don't have time for apologies, Commander. What did you need to tell me?"

Sanchez accepts the reprieve like a drowning man thrown a life preserver. "Sir -- we have discovered a group claiming to be an officially scheduled maintenance team doing something suspect with the defence network. I have redirected them to Defence Platform 00-A-23-07 and authorised the extra security troops stationed there to attempt to apprehend them."

Sikes starts. "You have what?" he demands.

"I reported this as it happened, sir," Sanchez says, with a flash of his original annoyance, "but I've been getting three layers of assistants handing this up the chain of command. They're-- those maintenance mecha are armed!" the latter is a genuine exclamation of shock and horror, heedless of the audience or the original sentence.

"Rao!" Sikes shouts, causing a dozen heads to whip around in his direction, to say nothing of the woman in question practically giving herself whiplash turning herself around to look back at her superior.

"Sir?" she asks, looking uncharacteristically wide-eyed.

"Scramble whatever we have that can get to Defence Platform 00-A-23-07 as soon as possible! Use my authorisation! There's an attack on the defence array!"

"Yes sir!" Rao practically shoves the man in the seat nearest her aside in her haste to get to his workstation.

Meanwhile, Sikes prepares to make his third call of the day to the Lord Mayor of Anchiale. The measures they've taken so far will not be sufficient.

Sanchez's voice, even more alarmed than before, stops him cold. "It's too late! The platforms are--" his voice cuts off abruptly. Too abruptly. Collectively horrified, all eyes in the CiC have turned upward to the largest display screen, the one showing a huge, real-time scan map of Iapetus and its surrounding space.

One by one, clustered over Iapetus's northern hemisphere but expanding rapidly, dots representing the defence platforms are blinking out. Blinking out, along with hundreds of personnel and civilians, vented out into hard vacuum as the fragile walls of their little worlds are savagely breached.

Sikes knows, then, that if he survives this, even if he successfully rallies his people in the defence of Iapetus in a truly heroic fashion, he will be tendering his resignation afterward.


Anchiale Station Spindle

You glide along a broad, zero-gravity thoroughfare, sipping your coffee pouch in a moderately perturbed way. On one hand, you had not needed to deliver that report after all. On the other, the suddenness of this change in plans and the wide-eyed, harried expression on the woman who had asked you to leave did not inspire confidence. Not even terrible coffee helps.

You hope that seeing your mother will go well enough today, although you have your doubts -- she's entirely, if understandably, wrapped up in what's become of Mosi, in the lack of any news about her whereabouts. Or, substantially, at least -- you were very pleased to hear that, despite everything, she did bring Faiza to the attention of the head of the newly opened Imperial Academy branch in Alpha Sphere. The girl, apparently, made an impressive showing during her practical examination. Even if her manners leave a little to be desired.

You decide you'll ask if your mother's going to make good on her promise to let Faiza 'watch' as her Fenris Lancer is serviced -- you feel that it is perhaps in the best interests of all involved if you remind your mother to have someone keep a very close eye on her.

Thoughts about an evening spent in Lori's company, and what the likely end of the night will entail, are somewhat more welcome. The feeling of her lips against yours, and her hands running over your skin are still a very recent memory.

Along the entire length of the large shaft, video view ports are set into two walls, crafted to seem like exterior windows in spite of the significant distance between this large, well-populated space and the spindle's outer hull. Each shows a majestically rendered view of space, Iapetus on one side, Saturn currently on the other. On both, ships and stations wheeling through space against an endless backdrop of stars, the sun staring back small and remote from the bottom of its deep gravity well.

You're watching the side showing Saturn as you go along. At first, you don't realise what's happening when you see a distant flare of light near the top of the screen. Then as you see another, and another, by the time you've pulled yourself up short to stare in fascinated horror, you put two and two together: Those distant points of light, barely distinguishable from stars at this distance, are the defence array. And you're watching it be destroyed.

You feel your coffee pouch float free of your hand as your grip on it goes slack, hear gasps of alarm from around you as the crowd begins to collectively notice the same thing you have. You hear snatches of conversation you can't bring yourself to concentrate on.

"--at in the world?"

"Is it an atta--"

"My husband works on--"

Then the image disappears, replaced instead by a white background with a scrolling, flashing warning that begins to be read aloud over the speakers:

ATTENTION ANCHIALE OCCUPANTS: THIS IS A STATE OF EMERGENCY. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEAREST LEVEL 3 SHELTER POINTS, UNLESS FORMALLY INSTRUCTED OTHERWISE. ATTENTION ANCHIALE OCCUPANTS: THIS IS A STATE OF EMERGENCY. PLEASE PROCEED--

Your tablet buzzes, and you pull it off your belt to see a similar message. This one, however, likely falls into the 'OTHERWISE':

Ensign North, all leave is hereby cancelled, you are ordered to proceed to the HIMS Titanium Rose immediately, where you are to take up level 2 battle stations.

There's a precise location for the Rose, but you don't need it, considering where you ate lunch earlier.

You think of the number of people you knew were still in the defence array. The families waiting patiently for long years for a relocation that would never come. And you think of your sister. Your sister who looked after you when you were little, who taught you to cook, who defended you from bullies and tried, unsuccessfully, to teach you to fight. Who had hugged you so tightly when you'd met again, who had been undeniably thrilled to see you alive and well.

As you turn to force your way through the crowd, back in the direction of the spaceport, you know in your heart of hearts, that that same sister is responsible for this now.


Space around Iapetus

Mosi breaks hard to avoid a spinning, white-hot shard of debris the size of her MKIII. She narrowly avoids being impaled. The sabotage program, partially successful as it was, has proven to be horrifyingly effective on the parts of the defence array it did work on. She and Kim find themselves navigating a fast-moving cloud of lethal debris as they struggle to clear the destruction of platform 00-A-23-07. Mosi watches as guns, hull and habitat pieces go hurtling past, feeling more relieved than she should at not seeing any bodies.

They're there, she knows, but space is big.

As dangerous as the debris is, it's also at least temporarily making it impossible for the enemy to track them remotely, giving them a precious window of partial safety with which to avoid pursuit and get safely back to Anchiale, where their escape vehicle is waiting. This will be made much easier if Kim stops having a panic attack.

"What have we done, what have we done, what have we done?" Kim's voice is more than slightly hysterical over the comm. "We killed them all!"

"Ensign, listen to me!" Mosi says, trying to convey both urgency and calm. It would be easier, if she were feeling anything even approaching calm herself. Kim is, Mosi knows, a combat veteran who has taken lives before. There's a difference, though, between destroying an enemy mecha trying to kill you and this.

"It's just like... Sol, it's just like... my family lives in a habitat like that!"

"Kim!"

"We're going to die, we're going to die, we deserve to fucking die!"

"Su-jin!"

Kim's given name, coming from Mosi's mouth for the for the first time, seems to pierce her fog of self recrimination more than either her rank or her family name. "Lieutenant North?" she asks, almost confused.

"Ensign, do you want to die?" Mosi demands.

... No, ma'am?" Kim is slightly surprised to realise this. Under other circumstances, it would have been comical. "No, ma'am!" she repeats, more forcefully.

"Good. We're going to get out of this. You need to see how old your brother has gotten, remember?" It's manipulative, Mosi knows, but it feels extremely necessarily, just then.

"Right," Kim mutters. "I... I... I can do this."

They continue flying in the direction of Iapetus, this time heedless of any pre-arranged flight path. As they travel with the spreading debris cloud, however, Mosi sees two dots on her scan map moving much less erratically than the others.

Two ISM07 Lancers, configured for guard duty, moving as if searching through the debris. "Ensign, do you see those Lancers?" Mosi highlights them on her map, sending the relevant data over to Kim.

"I see them," Kim confirms.

"We're going to have to go right past them," Mosi says, grimly. "We'll lose too much time going around."

"So we're fighting in these after all," Kim mutters.

"North, avoid engagement if at all possible!" Roth's voice snaps in her ear.

"I'll keep that in mind sir," Mosi says, voice hard.

The lancers see the two MKIII's, first one, then the other changing course. The sleek, old-fashioned design of the ancient combat models a stark contrast to the unwieldy bulk of the worker units.

As they get closer, Mosi raises her cutting laser, tracing a line between her and the nearest. It darts aside, even as the second swoops in, firing on Kim. Kim's attacker's shot goes wide, and perhaps underestimating its opponent, is cut in half by Kim's own laser.

The first Lancer overcorrects in its attempt to get out of Mosi's range, and is promptly crushed against a flying piece of gun emplacement.

"Hostiles down," Mosi says, "expect more trouble."

Already, the further in they move the more obvious it becomes that Kim's original worries about collateral -- before she'd even known about civilians on the actual targets of their attack -- had been well founded. The scan map is full of various habitats and orbital satellites being struck by odd pieces of debris, their shields flaring dangerously.

"Lieutenant, what's that?"

This time, Kim is the one who sends Mosi scan data, highlighting an object moving at the very edge of Mosi's map. Moving fast. "Is that a mecha?" Mosi asks, dividing her attention between the unknown object and keeping herself from being smashed ignobly the way the unfortunate Lancer just was.

"It is!" Kim decides. "Unknown model. The output on it, though..."

She doesn't need to finish the sentence: Mosi has access to the same data she does. The unit in question isn't just moving fast -- practically dancing through the expanding debris -- it's actually accelerating. And it's heading almost directly toward them. Too fast for it to possibly stop. "Evade!" Mosi shouts, burning hard out of the mecha's path. Kim follows suit, but neither of them need have bothered. It makes a minute adjustment, shoots past them, dodges half a rapidly spinning habitat pod, and somehow comes to a halt, directly in their path, matching velocity with so little margin for error that Mosi can suddenly see it on her cameras.

The mecha has a strange silhouette. A head with a novel, five-sensor camera cluster, the central camera much larger and seemingly more powerful than the others, all glowing ominously blue like staring eyes. Its underlying frame is sleek, almost slender, but the adjustable thruster array it sports is anything but. And the long, dark shapes folded up on its back... "Is that a-- is that a railgun?" Kim demands. It is. Mosi has no idea what the similar shape alongside it is, however. At maximum magnification, Mosi can actually see the paint on its armour -- factory pristine. Olive green, with commander's decal and heraldry split between the gaudy emblem of the Knights Galatea, and the ancestral crest of House--

Mosi fights down a powerful urge to slam her head hard against the hatch of her cockpit. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me."

"Lieutenant North?" Kim asks, "What's wrong? Do you know what--"

Kim is cut off by a video message appearing on both of their screens, the strange prototype's military codes automatically overriding the accept/decline feature on their civilian mecha. A helmeted face appears in front of Mosi. European features, with blonde hair and hard, blue eyes glaring daggers of ice at her. "Attention 'Maintenance Team 015,'" the heretic naval officer begins, "This is Commander Countess Gloriana Perbeck, piloting the ISMX40 Artemis. You are fleeing the site of a suspected terrorist attack. Surrender immediately, or be destroyed."


"--questing permission to engage again, Control." Lori tries to keep her voice calm, reasonable as she temporarily mutes the call with the two probable terrorists. Two faces stare back at her. 'Operator Park' is plainly scared out of her mind -- the kind of fear that belongs to someone pushed to extremes, not the kind that indicates helplessness. 'Operator Kaskazini', on the other hand, has a blankly desperate look in her dark, almond-shaped eyes. Strangely familiar eyes...

"We're... reviewing the specs for your unit now, Lady Perbeck," the harried sounding operator says. Lori can almost see the operator wince, as someone in the background distinctly demands:

"It has what mounted on it? That close to inhabited space?"

"I do not intend to arm either of this unit's long-range firing solutions," Lori says. She doesn't literally add obviously to the end of that sentence. Not responding directly to her call, the imposter operators are attempting to scatter, fleeing off in slightly different trajectories, using the debris as cover. It's obvious that they're both trying to go to the same spot, however -- Lori easily keeps pace. They're flying industrial equipment well, but they're ultimately still flying industrial equipment. If these were Banners, it might have been a bit of a problem. As it is, even in this close, the Artemis should be more than a match for both of them.

If Control ever bloody authorises her to engage.

Lady Per--" the Control officer cuts off as the second voice apparently snatches the microphone away from him:

"That thing you're piloting could hole half the platforms we have in orbit!" the second voice says, sounding agitated, on the edge of panic.

Lori is forced to dodge back, as Kaskazini's cutting laser lashes out with impressive accuracy, although not impressive enough to catch Lori's new prototype. "With all due respect," she growls, "They've already holed half the platforms you have in orbit. I just need permission to engage in close combat -- this unit is also outfitted with an anti-mecha rifle and a cutter. Surely those can't be such a risk that it's preferable to let dangerous lunatics fly around unchecked."

"The others that were scrambled--"

"Are busy dodging debris and trying to stop it from destroying occupied habitats!" Lori fires back. "I was an ISM016 Huntress pilot for years -- I'm not some trigger happy amateur who doesn't know what a rail cannon can do. Do I have permission to engage or not?"

There's an uncomfortably long silence, long enough that Lori is worried they're purposefully ignoring her. "You have authorisation to engage in close combat only, Commander," the reply finally agrees.

She spent all this time flying in circles, half wanting something to happen to allow her to really put this new unit through its paces, to see how it really stacks up to her beloved Huntress. And when that something finally comes, untold numbers of civilians are dead and she's being ordered to use a long-range prototype with enough firepower to sink a small battleship for close combat. There are reasons, Lori acknowledges as she extends the Artemis's mono-filament cutter, why tempting fate is considered bad luck.

She puts on a gratifyingly intense burst of speed, striking out at Park's clunky, slow unit with all the murderous intent in the world.


Kim barely escapes Perbeck's meteoric attack, and only then through Mosi's cutting laser causing the countess to change course. Immediately, the strange prototype executes a sharp turn, coming back around at them. The part of her that's still faintly caught up in ego and professional pride notes with some satisfaction that, while its acceleration might be faster, its fine maneuverability isn't quite up to snuff with Mosi's own Provespa.

"We can't win this!" Mosi says.

"Then what's the plan?" Kim demands.

"Evade, use the debris for cover, support each other!" Mosi breaks hard, changing course to put a large chunk of station between her and Perbeck's unit. The particular irony of fleeing for her life from the wrath of Amani's lover is not lost on her, as inconvenient as it is right at that moment. "Don't die!" she can't help but add.

"You're taking us too far off course, North!" Roth's strained voice suddenly breaks back in over the comm. "What are you--

"Sir!" There is a particularly dangerous edge to Mosi's voice as she talks over him, "If you don't keep your mouth shut while I try to save your life, I will space you. I am not joking." Wisely, he keeps his mouth shut, although Mosi can see over the camera feed from the passenger compartment that he's silently fuming. Jens, strapped in beside him, has her head in her hands, and might simply be praying.

Perbeck comes for Kim again, the cutter shearing off a chunk of lateral thruster on the first pass, the entire left arm of Kim's MKIII with the other. Mosi attempts to swoop back in to assist, but the arc of her cutting laser barely wards Perbeck off.

"Why is there a countess just... randomly out here in this thing?" Kim practically wails.

"My guess? She's test piloting it," Mosi says. "Not the most important thing right now."

"I mentioned that I really don't want to die, right?" Kim adds, tone getting increasingly close to hysteria once again.

"Just focus, Kim," Mosi instructs her. "We can get through this." It tastes like half a lie in her mouth.

Kim sucks in a shuddering breath, letting it out slowly. "Ma'am, I--" her words are cut off in a cry of alarm, as the Artemis reemerges alarmingly close to Kim's MKIII again. It dodges under her cutting laser, darting in to grab the wrist of the arm the laser is mounted on, wrenching it up in a move that brings Kim's unit in close.

"Ensign!" Mosi throws all caution to the wind, intent on nothing but saving her. Fuck the rest of the team, at this point. She doesn't want Kim to die. Or, for that matter, the solid, stoic Chief Petty Officer Wallace, silently stowed in Kim's passenger compartment. He'd been the one to talk Roth down, to save Mosi from a worse beating than she'd gotten. She knows she's going to be too slow to save either of them, though, before she's even halfway close enough to try.

Perbeck puts the barrel of an anti-mech gun directly against the torso of Kim's MKIII. Against the cockpit. "I'm... I'm sorry," Kim says, as if all the air has been sucked out of her. As if she knows what's coming. "I didn't--" The automatic bust from Perbeck's weapon rips through the civilian model's torso armour like it's nothing, shredding cockpit, passenger compartment and everything in between. What's left of Ensign Su-Jin Kim is just more broken, mangled debris, left in pieces too small and insignificant to track.

Mosi breaks hard by turning her back to her destination, sending herself off at an erratic course taking her between as much debris and other objects as she possibly can. It's a losing proposition, she knows -- they had a shot, before, running interference for one another, as ineffectual as that had been. Now with Mosi on her own, she's stalling. Anchiale is getting closer with each passing second, but she's now very close to overtaking the edge of the debris field, and she knows all too well exactly how long she'll last out in the open against the Artemis.

Just as Mosi clears the debris field, she twists out of the way to avoid being run through, and a bulky leg goes flying off into space. She rotates as fast as she can, bringing up the cutting laser -- this time, she scores a faint line in the Artemis's paint... before the arm with the laser weapon is removed as well. Increasingly, desperate, Mosi has to resort to physically kicking out with her one remaining leg, connecting with the faster mecha's chest. The cutter still slices deep into the MKIII's torso. Mosi winces, bracing herself for the end, but it doesn't come -- instead, she's just treated to the sounds of shrieking alarms.

Almost as an afterthought, Mosi looks back at the feed from the camera in the passenger compartment. A huge rent has been shorn into it, showing space beyond. Jens is simply gone, her straps slashed wide open. Roth wasn't quite so lucky -- what's left of him still hangs in his own straps, blood still misting out from the spot where his upper torso was sliced away from the rest of his body.

"Well, sir," Mosi says, voice too loud, smile too wide, eyes too scared -- there's no one listening anymore, "I guess you won't be getting me court martialled after all." They're all dead. All of them. Mosi is the only one left.

Her last, desperate line of defence, Mosi takes aim with her anti-personnel gun, the rounds ricocheting uselessly against the Artemis's armour. She's still close enough to see what a royal mess she's making of the crest of House Perbeck. That, at least, is a small satisfaction, before the cutter takes that away from her too.

The cutter stows away and Perbeck reaches out to get a grip on the now unarmed civilian mecha, gun aimed squarely at her cockpit as they continue heading in-system, straight at Anchiale. "Well flown," she says, face reappearing on Mosi's screen. She doesn't sound particularly gracious, staring at Mosi like she's the lowest piece of trash in the solar system, "But it ends. Surrender now, and keep your life."

For now. Execution almost certainly waits at the end of a long interrogation, should she surrender. Or a short interrogation, considering the Divine Navy is due to attack any hour now. She almost considers it, in light of that. But her mouth, so excellently trained that it doesn't need her mind anymore, is already moving: "I will fight to my last breath for my Divine emperor and I die in His name!"

Perbeck narrows her eyes. "This is your last breath. Die a zealot as well as a traitor, a coward and a murderer."

Something bubbles up from deep within Mosi. A confusing blend of fear, guilt, anger and blind defiance. And she's shouting something that she was decidedly not trained to say: "Yeah? Well, you're fucking my little sister!"

Blank, stunned recognition flashes over Perbeck's stormy features, and for a fraction of a second, she hesitates. "You're--"

Mosi braces her remaining intact limb, the right leg, against the Artemis, and pushes with everything the MKIII has left. She rockets away from the prototype, now on a direct crash course with Anchiale station, going too fast to slow herself now. She can feel that something's broken in the controls, the crude haptics in her maintenance pilot's suit going disconcertingly slack around her. With a growl of effort, Mosi scrapes up the last of her skill and energy as a pilot to at least aim toward an emergency landing hatch.

Then her world goes black.

"... happened?"

"... know, but..."

"She's still..."

"... tting more like her before too..."

Mosi's eyes don't flutter so much as they lurch back open, almost drunkenly disorientated, fighting ineffectually at hands reaching for her, pawing at her, hands undoing the straps that hold her in her cockpit.

Techs. Maintenance techs. Mechanics.

"... miss, miss!" a large man is shouting in Mosi's ear, "can you hear me, miss? Are you hurt?"

They don't realise who or what Mosi is. She realises this all at once, and for a few more seconds, she doesn't know what to do with it. "Hit... my head," she admits. "The bruising's from-- it's from before," she adds, shaking her head like a dog, trying to make the world make sense. Those same strong, helpful hands are lifting her delicately out of her ruined cockpit, out of the wreck that is the MKIII, floating her up and away toward medical attention.

"What happened out there?" a woman asks, voice fearful. "Was it an attack?"

"Elise," the first man says, frowning. Mosi can see clearly enough now to make out his face, "give the girl a chance to--"

Mosi's arm catches him in the throat, and she shoves off away from them all before anyone has a chance to catch her. Already, she's reaching around behind her, clumsily gloved fingers fumbling over the surface of the vacuum-capable SMG she has there -- like the ones Roth and Wallace never used. There are shouts behind her, cries of alarm, demands for her to stop. She doesn't. She flings herself away toward the nearest shaft, barely registering the wide open space of the mecha hangar around her.

Mosi checks the time as she leaves the hangar behind. All around, there's chaos, raised voices, warnings flashing on screens. Obviously, they know about the attack. Once again, that's precious confusion Mosi can use to her advantage -- there's a shuttle waiting for her, an extraction to get her out ahead of the invasion. She can still survive this. But, still...

But still...

This episode has reminded her, in a way she shouldn't need reminding of, of just how ruthless the Emperor's Divine Navy can be in their pursuit of His goals. Of how many people they're willing to crush simply for being in the way, not committing any real crime against Him or His empire.

Non-combatant or no, civilian or no, innocent or no... Amani isn't safe here. Mosi unlatches the gloves from her pilot suit, leaving them behind her to float in the shaft, then begins to work on her helmet. She knows what she's thinking is crazy. Beyond crazy -- it's ridiculous. But she has to. The suit finally breached enough for it, Mosi reaches a trembling hand down beneath her collar and pulls out her black box, lining it up with the battered tablet that came clipped to the side of this pilot suit. She had been the older sister. She had been responsible for Amani's safety. Their mother had made well certain that she'd be able to find Amani, if the worst happened. In an emergency.

A small, solitary dot blinks on the map Mosi has brought up, moving along the station's length to the spaceport. To the shipyard. Mercifully close to where Mosi is now.

This certainly counts as an emergency.


Anchiale Shipyard, interior

"I'm on my way to the Rose, sir. We're shipping out, it looks like."

"Yeah, I'm not surprised," Lieutenant-Commander Owusu's voice is a drawn, hollow shell of his usual good cheer.

"Are you alright, sir?" you venture, catching yourself on a blind corner to let a stream of unfimiliar ship workers rush past, before you venture out onto it, going as fast as you safely can.

Owusu laughs mirthlessly. "Getting to say 'I told you so' is never as satisfying as you want it to be, Ensign. There's your life lesson for the day."

"How..." you hesitate, before steeling yourself to continue, "... how bad is it?"

"We have no idea how many dead," he replies. "The worst hit areas had already been partially evacuated. Partially. And the team was intercepted in the middle of the sabotage, so they only got... a bit more than a quarter of the array. But there were still hundreds of civilians there. Operating crew. Marines on security duty that I pushed for." He sighs heavily, wearily. You can image his handsome face crumpling wherever he is, on the other end of the call. "Honestly," he says, "we needed to catch this sooner."

"Sorry, sir," you murmur.

"What? No. No! I didn't mean... look, North, I told you you did well. You did do well. You helped me get this information sooner than I would have gotten it. We did what we could, with what we had, in the time we had. Doing everything right doesn't always feel like winning, but it's better than nothing, right?"

You consider that for a long, bleak moment. "Sometimes," you admit, "it just feels like losing less badly."

He laughs again, still not an entirely happy sound. "Better than nothing, right?" he repeats.

"I'm sure you're right, sir," you say. You're in the shipyard, or around it, headed straight for the Rose, as fast as you can make your way there. So far, you haven't run into any of your shipmates, but you suspect you're taking a strange route -- the narrow, twisting shafts inside the arms of the shipyard are infinitely more confusing than the broad, brightly-lit thoroughfares of the spaceport and the main spindle that stretches out to either side of them.

"Bad shit is coming, North," Owusu cautions, "I'll probably be in the fighting as well."

You blink. "Really, sir?" you ask.

"I'm a pilot as well, Ensign. Not just a devastatingly good looking operative." This time, the levity doesn't feel quite as forced. "I know it can be hard for one woman to keep track of my many, many talents."

"It's a constant burden, sir," you say, dryly.

"Anyway, North. Try not to die. Like i said, you're wasted on front lines scan work. Special Reconnaissance and Intelligence can always use good--"

Before you can even process the offer of advancement properly, you feel an arm seizing your shoulder, yanking you to an abrupt halt. The headset slips down off your face, and barely snags around your neck. The grip is tight -- too tight, in fact. You begin to struggle, pushing against your accoster, until you see the barrel of the gun. Instantly, you go limp, eyes tracking to the face of the one holding it.

"Mosi?" you gasp.

"Why," she demands, shaking you hard, eyes looking almost a little crazed, "why are you wearing that?"

You follow her gaze, taking note of the blue of you uniform, with its prominent Titanium Rose ship patch, then look back up at her, your own eyes hardening. "I told you," you say, "I'm a scans officer. I worked -- I work with Anja."

Mosi is shaking her head, as if to deny what she's hearing. "Why are you..." she repeats. Stops, seeming to realise that she's already asked that. "Why..."

"What have you done, Mosi?" you ask, cutting her off. "That was you, out there, wasn't it?" you gesture with your free hand, trying not to make any movement that was too rapid or alarming. "You killed all those people."

"I-" Mosi's words seem to catch in her throat, and she shakes her head again. "I... I... I serve my emperor," she says, with the air of flailing for words of more comfort than substance. "His Divinely-ordained--"

"Stop!" you say. You'd known -- you'd believed what you were telling Owusu about her. But hearing such words from the mouth of your own sister, seeing the almost desperately fanatical light in her eyes is turning your stomach. "You were just following orders to murder hundreds of civilians, it has nothing to do with you. Is that what you're telling me, Mosi?"

Her mouth works, as if she's trying to think of what to say. She's wearing a bulky, ageing civilian pilot suit, prominently missing the gloves and helmet. And she looks terrible. An older, purpling bruise discolours her dark face, like someone's punched her there repeatedly. There's a fresher one on her forehead, shaped as if it has made hard contact with the interior of a helmet. "You're... you're coming with me," she eventually decides, unable to muster a better defence. With her so armed, you're forced to let her haul you along.

"Where are you taking me?" you demand.

"Away," Mosi says.

"Away where?" you demand again.

"To the fleet!" she snaps, at the edge of hysteria.

"The Divine Navy, you mean?"

"Yes, the fleet!" she tugs you around a sharp corner, barely looking back. Almost afraid to look back at your face, you imagine. "It isn't safe here, Amani."

"But I'll be safe with the enemy?" you demand. She winces at the last two words, as though they'd landed across her shoulders with physical force. "I'm a loyalist officer, Mosi!" you point out. "I serve the rightfully elected Empress. What do you think your fleet will do to me?"

She wheels around to face you, mouth half open as if to deny the truth of what you're suggesting. She can't seem to lie to herself on this score.

"They'll kill me," you tell her.

"I won't let that happen!" she says, irrationally, tugging you along the shaft again, grip tightening on the gun. "I won't-- you can't stay here, Amani," she says again. "You can't fight Him... us. Your empress is the losing side of a war, and those who oppose him-- I've... seen. I know. You aren't safe."

Your initial impression that Mosi isn't well -- perhaps injured worse than she's letting on, perhaps in shock from what's occurred -- has only strengthened. She's not speaking rationally. She's not acting rationally. You can't be sure what she will or won't do with that weapon, should you push her unwisely.

The other thing you know, however, is that you never hung up your call to Lieutenant-Commander Owusu. Your headset is still caught around your neck, and Mosi doesn't seem to be in a fit state to notice. Every self-incriminating word she's said so far is being listened in on, and you have to believe help is on the way. When you've gotten her talking, she's slowed, or even stopped. If you can stall her long enough, it might be enough for help to arrive before she can take you wherever you're going.


What do you use to stall and distract Mosi?

[ ] Anger, accusations

Try to get through to her about how wrong what she's doing is, how she's disappointed you

[ ] Guilt, confusion

Ask if she realises the gravity of her actions, how you would have helped her if she'd trusted you

[ ] Cold disdain

Hurt her. She needs to hear it.