Petals of Carbon Steel -- You're a Pilot, Not an Ace. Try your best.

The prototype schematics you can see indicate superior speed, firepower and defencive technologies — alarming enough on their own. But something else catches your eye.

"What's this 'QDI adaptor'?" you ask, pinging the strange device in the torso of the mecha. One of a number of components that the data in front of you doesn't completely explain.

"We're not sure yet," Sails admits. "Something to study once we've actually secured the prototype."

"I noticed that too," Cam says, eyes locked on her display. "It's connected to the haptic control suite — to several devices replacing standard interface components, I'd say at a glance. It's almost as complicated as Tham's Hecate, and that thing plugs directly into his nervous system." She looks up at Sails, a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Can I have a look at it when we get ahold of this baby?"

Sails shrugs, looking faintly amused at her enthusiasm. "I've never known Yorke to turn down your help, but it will be up to him," Sails says.

"How has he not tried to lure you into just transfering to maintenance?" Kitty asks, twitching a smile herself.

"He has," Zhìháo says, dryly. "He's been trying to take her from me almost as soon as she joined up." Cam smiles, expression a little smug.

"Alright, let's get back on track," Sails says, raising her voice. "All our lives depend on this." That quiets everyone down. Sails might not be much for friendly banter, but you all trust her with your lives, and it means a lot that she feels the same way about you all in return.

Sails switches your displays to feature a simulated scan map, displaying the expected battlefield: Here again is the Verdant class transport, this time a dot on a three dimensional map of space. Another, nearby, is flagged as the Esther Strova. Sails continued talking. "We'll launch ahead of the engagement." A cluster of smaller dots, marked 01-09, move away from the Esther in formation, even as the two ships continue to move toward one another. "The Esther Strova will engage at range, targeting their drives. They'll come around to try and spread out the damage, but the shields won't hold for long." The Esther moves in, the railgun fire represented by a bright, red line in space, rather than the streak of invisible death that railgun fire really is.

The mecha are moving on the map now, splitting into their three component squads, even as the enemy disgorges several of its own. "Squad A takes point," Sails explains, moving the icons for herself, Kitty and Milo Owusu into attack position.

"So, I'm in for a bit of excitement," Owusu says.

"You volunteered to fill in for Jay," Sails replies. "This comes with the territory."

"Oh, don't worry," Owusu promises, smiling. "I intend to be the very best Mr. Tham I can be."

Azara snickers. "Start by smiling less, then."

Sails ignores this exchange. Your own squad's icons are being moved now. "When the enemy mecha intercept us, Squad B will move in and take the ship. Cripple point-defence, disable drives. Ready the ship for boarding, in case they won't stand down. Avoid damage to the hangars and cargo holds if at all possible."

Sunny nods. "Understood," he says, military crisp.

"Believe me, I do know the drill," you say, mouth quirking ironically. Azara grins at you. Kitty rolls her eyes, although she still looks amused. You elect not to look and see what Ryan's reaction is, but you suspect he's glaring again.

"Squad C is standing by, to act in a supporting role for the other groups," Sails tells Zhìháo.

Zhìháo nods his understanding, more relaxed than Sunny. He's ex-United Solar Empire Navy, from back before the Civil War.

Support is Squad C's usual role -- their trio of ancient ISM07 Lancers having been acquired, with some others, at considerable effort just ahead of being scrapped by the Divine Navy. They still work, after a lot of maintenance, and the Lancer was the backbone of the Imperial Navy decades before the Civil War, but today they fare poorly against their modern descendants. The AIJ is hardly in a position to turn up their noses at functional military hardware, but now that the production of the AIJ Pennant has increased to a trickle, the remaining Lancer squads have increasingly been taking a back seat.

You steal a sidelong glance at Ryan, sitting behind Cam — thankfully unobserved. There is an undeniable awkwardness to being forced to rely on someone who makes no secret of loathing you on general principle, just as you're sure the reverse is equally so for him. Thankfully, he hasn't yet brought the grudge with him into combat. Not that it would be at all reasonable for him to do so. Your crew didn't kill his father, after all.

SRI Commander Owusu is a different matter entirely. You've never fought with the man before, but you somehow doubt he'll be able to match Jay's uncanny ability to be right where he's needed at all times in the heat of battle. That will be a bit of a loss even if he does turn out to be otherwise reliable, and that's not in any way guaranteed. You're hardly going to go as far as Jay had earlier — you don't have quite his bias against the United Empire's SRI — but you're quite certain that you don't trust him yet. Not the best realisation to have, hours ahead of combat.

At the head of the room, Sails moves on. "Now, when we—"

/////PoCS/////

It might be that initial mistrust that sees you hanging back at the end of the briefing. You watch the others file out in groups of one and two. Azara pauses at the hatch, raising a dark eyebrow, but you shrug, and she departs with the others, all dispersing to their own ends for the hours between now and the combat ahead.

Milo Owusu is still at his workstation, casually scrawling something onto an anchored tablet. You begin to drift over to him. Commander Sails, the last to leave aside from you two, gives you a tiny, searching frown on seeing your trajectory, but ultimately leaves you to your own devices.

"Himegami, was it?" Owusu says, looking up at your approach. His smile is dazzling, and seemingly just for you. It might have been enough to make your heart skip a beat... if it had reached his eyes. They're as dark and cold as your own, reflected back at you from the mirrored surface on the back of his workstation.

Positioned as you are above him, one hand anchoring you loosely in the workstation's general vicinity, you have the literal highground, rather than merely the figurative. Or as literal as it gets, in space. "Kana works," you say.

"I don't believe we've had a chance to speak before, Kana," he says, looking deep into your eyes. "It's good to be able to rectify that." Your ego very much wants this flirting to be genuine, whatever your common sense tells you — that's a jawline you could chart a course by, so to speak. As for your own looks, comparatively...

A whip-thin, raven-haired beauty. Eyes dark with mystery, lips twisted upward in a smile that promises danger and pleasure both, exuding an aura of wicked allure. Or, so went the description of a romance novel heroine you read at age twelve, which you have, in your heart of hearts, been pining to achieve ever since.

Truthfully, your hair is closer to brown — straight and glossy through your every effort to protect it from the cruel ravages of space travel. Kept long for the sake of vanity, but kept tightly braided for the sake of cramming it into a helmet on a regular basis. Your Japanese features would be obvious even without the name. Beyond that, your face has a sharply thoughtful quality to it. Your dark eyes a glint of raw calculation that it's hard to hide. Your smile an ironic lilt that comes across as both very self-satisfied and, at times, entirely devoid of warmth.

Colt-limbed and tall for your family, while 'whip-thin' might be a little much, your figure is slender, and gracefully so, you'd like to imagine: A notion once savagely punctured by a joking comment from an old boyfriend — who swiftly became your ex-boyfriend — dubbing you "skinny as an unfed boy".

So, you're not bad. You have your days. But you're good at spotting a line of bullshit — you do your best to remember his eyes.

"Sure," you say. "Did you piss off someone important, to get sent out here? Some rich noble?"

"What makes you think that?" He gets out of the workstation, unfolding elegantly.

"You're Imperial," you remind him. "Some rich bastard making you do what sucks too much for him to want to do is what the Empire is, whatever version you're talking about. And being out here? In enemy space, spending time around a ragtag band of rebels? That's a shit detail. So, what'd you do, screw someone's spouse?"

"Oh, worse than that," Owusu says, gravely. "I was promoted."

You look at him skeptically.

"It's true! I'm actually very popular down at headquarters. Someday, ask me to tell you all about how I single handedly saved Iapetus, along with an adorably earnest Navy ensign. Have you considered that I volunteered to be here?" He grins at the flat, disbelieving lines of your expression. "What can I say? I'm a true patriot."

You can't help but scoff at that. "Do they train you in spy school to deliver lines like that last part with a straight face?"

"Yes," he says. "You're a bit of a cynic, aren't you?"

"I'm realistic," you say. "You could be nice and safe back home around Saturn, but you're out here, risking your life."

Surprisingly, his manner turns briefly serious as he says: "Mars is home. I'd like to see it again."

"And Jovian Independence helps to get you there?"

He's back to that smooth smile of his. "Every piece of space liberated from the Holy Empire is a step closer to that, isn't it? We're all on the same side, after all." He turns, pushing off from the workstation to float out of the hatch, tossing you a cocky sort of backward wave as he goes. "I'll see you when it's time to launch later. Good luck, Kana."

You continue watching the hatch for a long moment, even after he's left you alone with nothing but the empty, darkened workstations and the quiet hum of the life support in the briefing room's walls. He might actually be a patriot after all. But call you paranoid... 'The enemy of my enemy' has never struck you as the basis for a lasting alliance. At the end of the day, it's best not to rely on your new friends from the United Empire overly much. Jay might be biased toward the SRI in particular... but he's probably not wrong, in the long term.

/////PoCS/////

You have hours left before the operation, in which you do not have active duties to occupy yourself. How do you spend this time?

Note: None of these are trap options, or otherwise designed to lock you out of interesting scenes, although they all lead to different scenes.

Pick two, use plan voting.

[ ] Clear the air with Ryan
[ ] Go to the gym for some low impact exercise
[ ] Read alone in your quarters
[ ] Track down your squadmates
[ ] Triple-check your mecha's condition