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

Okay, the vote is closed.

Note: This is about half of the originally planned update, but due to a lot happening at once, this was dragging out for long enough that I decided to split it half. The remaining scenes, including what was voted on last time, will be included in the next update.

Also, the one year anniversary of starting this quest was less than a week ago. I hope everyone enjoys where things go in the coming year.

























Tanner Station,
Headquarters of the Alliance for an Independant Jupiter

You at least don't need to walk in zero gravity, as much as part of you very much wants to get to a hab ring right away. After so long on the ship, keeping up bone density with horrible medication and muscle mass with tedious exercise, you just want to feel the weight of your own body for a while.

But there's your leg, still useless in a cast, maybe damaged permanently. So you're stalling your return to simulated gravity, and not looking forward to hobbling around when you finally get there.

Tanner is a standard residential station gone several steps too far. Three habitation rings of increasing diameter, an expanded spaceport, and significantly more defensive hardware than most independent stations ever need. The interior of the hab rings had that typical, endless upward slope common to all similar designs, spinning so fast that you don't even notice you're being thrown against the floor, unless you turn your head too fast. Not too grimy or rundown, by your standards. Your standards are not necessarily high.

Out here in the spindle, though, you're floating just as much as you were on the ship. You have an excuse to still be loitering around here, fortunately — you're going to check up on a couple friends who have been transferred to holding cells here on Tanner. You and that Mari girl hit it off so well the last time, after all.

So, you're pushing yourself through narrow station shafts, using a shortcut you know to bypass unnecessary delays and questions. It was originally a route from the spaceport to the hab ring that your long-term lodgings are theoretically located in, but the fact that it swings so close by the jail here is just a bonus. You know the general trajectory of your life, after all. It never hurts to know something like that.

You're speeding your way through side shafts, slowing only to adjust your trajectory or round a corner without ploughing directly into a wall. You come to regret this decision shortly. Up ahead, through an open hatch, there's a flash of green. You pull up short, grabbing hold of the last handhold you could to prevent yourself from colliding with someone's back.

Amani North doesn't seem to have noticed, drifting at a more dignified pace than you, but with a definite sense of purpose. Her eyes are fixed on something in the chamber beyond the hatch. With a bit of careful maneuvering on your part, you see that she's looking at a person anchored by a rail that separates the rest of the chamber from a large display pretending to be an exterior window. "Guard-Lieutenant North," Amani says, perfectly poised and serious, like she's just run into a work colleague in a shop. There's the faintest trace of a smile in her voice, though. "Imagine meeting you here."

The Guard-Lieutenant blinks, taken aback by the formality of this greeting, before seeming to catch on to the joke, if a little awkwardly. "Sub-Lieu— I mean, Lieutenant North," she says, hastily correcting herself at the sight of Amani's rank insignia. "Congratulations on your promotion." She tries to match Amani's feigned professionalism, but fails as a harried sort of grin spreads over her features. "What are you doing here, Amani?"

Lieutenant North actually laughs, pushing forward to wrap the Guard-Lieutenant in a hug. "Is that the greeting I get, Mosi?" she asks. "Just 'what are you doing here'?"

Mosi receives the hug with a slight start, but she does receive it, returning the gesture with the awkward, one-armed air of someone who doesn't know how to handle physical affection. "Sorry, it was a bit of a shock when I heard," she says. "I knew you had a mysterious reassignment, but I didn't know you were here!"

"Well, it was a bit of a surprise for me too, but it came with the promotion. And honestly, I owe Commander Owusu enough that his request wasn't something I was going to deny." Seeing Mosi's face at this second point, Amani laughed again. "Honestly, you and Lori have more in common than either of you like to say."

"I'm sure. We get along quite well, for people who were on opposite ends of multiple battles," Mosi says. Which is very interesting: Contextually, this means either she or whoever they're talking about was very likely with the HSE at some point. There were rumours of defections after the failed Saturn invasion, but hardly anything concrete. The Divine Navy certainly wasn't bragging about that. "You still haven't answered the question, though," she says, frowning a little.

Amani sighs. "I'm assisting an ongoing operation in a support capacity, as a communications and scan data analyst. I can't really talk about the strategic goals in mind, obviously — anymore than I'm sure you can tell me much about what you're all doing here, beyond the obvious."

Mosi frowns. "A 'support capacity'. Is that what the SRI calls getting into a gunfight with pirates and being shot?"

Your current position leaves you hidden behind the lip of the hatch from their perspective. You're not sure that you could make it look like you hadn't been listening in on their conversation if you went in now, and you're fairly certain Mosi will catch sight of you if you try to back up down the shaft and go around. While you're certainly not above eavesdropping, from the stiffening you can see in Amani's shoulders, this is looking like it's going to turn into a messy family thing. You can do without that sort of awkwardness, frankly.

"Commander Owusu mentioned you'd... heard about that," Amani says, not exactly pleased.

"You weren't planning on telling me?" Mosi asks.

Amani sighs, a little exasperated already. "I'm fine, Mosi. It only grazed me. I would have told you, although ideally in a less alarming way than just 'Amani was shot'. I shouldn't be exposed to more firefights anytime soon, but this sort of thing is a hazard of operating behind enemy lines. I'm prepared for the risks."

"Are you." Mosi's voice is dubious in a way you're not sure is entirely deliberate. The contrast between her and her sister is, somehow, the thing that drives the family resemblance truly home. Apart from wearing the bright Imperial Guard colours, Mosi is a little shorter than Amani, a little leaner, features shaded by a sense of weary caution that's absent in the SRI officer. Although they still have some fire in them, you know that look in her eyes of old. It's one that speaks of hardships beyond her years, an inability to ever fully let her guard down, a constant readiness for the other shoe to drop, to roll with the next blow, whenever it comes. A gut-level surety that whatever semblance of security she's found will eventually be wrenched away from her by a cruel reality. It's a wholly different response to this objectively dangerous situation than Amani's frosty, almost fatalistic professionalism.

"I have been trained, you know," Amani says. "And briefed on the risks."

"You've been briefed," Mosi says, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before she continues, voice an almost pained whisper. "Do you have any idea what will happen if you're captured by the Divine Navy? By the IIS?"

"I won't be captured," Amani tells her, almost gently.

Mosi shakes her head. "You can't know that. It doesn't matter if you're not here as a combatant, this is behind enemy lines, Amani. You can't predict how it's going to work out."

"I am fairly certain I know the risks of capture better than you do," Amani says, frustration coming fully into her voice. "You can stop giving me your 'oh you sweet, sheltered child who has never known hardship' look, Mosi. I've read reports and watched captured recordings of IIS interrogations. I've interviewed survivors. You were a combat pilot." There's a pause there, as Amani takes a breath, and Mosi looks at her like she's just been struck across the face. "I will not be captured."

"... How are you this certain of that?" Mosi asks, sudden suspicion overriding her anger at Amani's words.

"I'm SRI, Mosi," Amani reminds her. "The Empire can't afford to have me break under interrogation."

Suspicion turns into horror. "... you're carrying an L-tab," Mosi says, sounding a little faint. "They gave you an L-tab."

"I was given what I need to do my job," Amani tells her, voice gentling again. "It's like I've had to tell Lori — I'm an Imperial officer as well. I share the risk when asked to. I am not a little girl to be coddled and protected."

Mosi grimaces, visibly sagging as she relents. "You're not," she admits somewhat reluctantly, like this reality is hard for her to reconcile with her internal image of her younger sister. You hadn't been entirely sure before now, but you'd bet money that Amani is at least a few years younger just from that reaction. "Just... it's hard to think of you being hurt."

"I'm fine," Amani tells her again. "I'm just sorry you didn't hear it from me. Are you okay to be out here?"

Mosi is taken aback by the sudden turnabout. "I was cleared by Psych, Amani. We do have that in the Guard."

"And I'm sure the Lady-High-Commander taking an interest in you doesn't speed things along at all," Amani says, unconvinced. "I don't doubt your loyalty, Mosi, but are you really okay to be fighting and killing Divine Navy personnel so soon?"

Mosi gives her an unimpressed look. "I'm not—" her mouth slams shut as, thank the stars, someone else comes up from the other direction. You use this distraction to slip into view, pushing yourself into motion as though you hadn't been listening in on a discussion that was growing increasingly uncomfortable to hear.

"Thanks again for the assist, GL," you tell Mosi, half raising a hand in an ironic salute as you pass by.

She jumps a little at your voice behind her, but relaxes as she recognises you, dark eyes tracking you as you go past. "You're welcome."

Amani gives you a terse nod. "Himegami."

"Lieutenant Pr— North." Something about Mosi's subtly protective posture tells you that 'Lieutenant Priss' is probably not a great idea at this juncture. From the way Amani pointedly does not acknowledge the slipup, you know that she understands what you had originally intended to say.

You leave the two of them to their complex mix of happiness and worry. You have places to be and people to see.

/////PoCS\\\\\

It's a jail, rather than a more long-term facility, which is one of the reasons that it's all the way out here in the spindle, rather than on a part of the station with gravity. It's an unassuming sort of entranceway, a sealed hatch with what can charitably be called a guard station alongside it.

You recognise the guard but for some reason, as he looks up from the screen of his display, the sight of your face doesn't quite seem to brighten his dreary day. "Do you have business here?" he asks without any preamble. He looks at you warily, as if you might be here to cause him problems. You!

"Greg!" you say, smiling broadly as you stop yourself short on the edge of his workstation. "Of course I've got business here."

He gives you a skeptical look. "You mean aside from getting your other leg blown off?"

"Ouch!" you exclaim, eyes widening in mock hurt. "Please, Greg, would I do something like blowing my own leg off?" His eyes drift down to your cast. "It's still there, as you can see. Are you going to let me in or not?"

"Why would I do something like that, Kana?" he asks, looking back down at the game you can just barely make out on his display.

You examine the nails of your free hand. "Well, there's a bottle of real Martian whisky that could find its way to you. Hypothetically."

He glances up at you, suspicion thick in his gaze. "You're not planning to do something stupid like settling a score with one of the prisoners, are you?"

"Oh, no. Just planning to be myself!"

He snorts. "Now that is cruel and unusual punishment. It'd be kinder to just rough them up. Fine. Don't make me regret this, Kana." And so, despite his appalling lack of faith in you, you send him a cheery wave as he opens the hatch for you, allowing you entry to the newly unlocked jail.

The familiar prisoners of war from the Esther Strova are the primary inhabitants at the moment, and it doesn't take so long in the large, squared off chamber to find the cells you're looking for, harshly illuminated by bright lights on white tile. These ones are designed for shorter stints than those aboard the ship, and they at least allow communication between adjoining cells. For this reason, you catch the tail end of a conversation that certainly grabs your interest.

"I don't know how you can be so complacent," hisses a tall, thin woman. It takes you a moment to place her by her voice alone — Divine Navy Lieutenant Su Limin, the woman who nearly killed you very recently. She's speaking to Tanaka Mari.

Mari is floating freely, legs curled against her chest again. "What else is there to do? They have us locked up. They have guns — they point them at me everytime they get me to go anywhere."

"You're an officer of the Divine Navy. You must stay alert at all times to the possibility of escape." Limin glares at her for good measure.

"She's just a kid," says Mari's cellmate. They decided to keep Naiya Beryl with her, apparently. "She didn't sign up for this. None of us are getting out of this mess for a long time, if ever. Calm down."

"I don't take orders from pirate scum," Limin tells Beryl with real acid in her voice.

"Not even gorgeous, talented pirate scum?" you ask. "And here I thought we were bonding, last time we talked!"

It takes a few moments for Limin to put two and two together as to who you are. In that timeframe, Naiya gives you a look that's weary, but almost genuinely amused. "I don't know," she says. "If we find any, we can check." That draws a laugh out of you.

Mari eyes you dubiously as you approach. "Why do you keep coming here?"

It would be pedantic to an obnoxious extreme to point out that you've never been to this jail on the station before, when she obviously means your previous visits to her on the Esther Strova. "I've never been here before, technically," you tell her, smiling. Mari glowers.

"... You!" Limin has clearly recognised the sound of your voice. She's staring at you like you're a dangerous lunatic.

"Me," you agree.

"How are you alive?" she demands.

"I'm good at living when it's inconvenient for people," you decide after a second or two of consideration.

Limin rounds on the two prisoners in the adjoining cell. "She detonated a hull-cracker bomb in melee combat!"

Mari is startled by this. Naiya looks at you in stunned disbelief. "You didn't."

You shrug with the arm that's not holding onto the bars of the cell. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Did it really?" Mari asks, her voice a little shrill.

"Well, little miss Shrieking Zealot here was trying very hard to murder me in your emperor's name," you tell her, shrugging again.

"With a cutter, like a normal person!" Limin protests.

"Well, excuse me for not just laying down and dying in the way that was best for you," you say. You honestly expected more unhinged, fanatical ranting, but she's apparently still too flabbergasted by your spur of the moment battlefield tactics. "Good for you, staying alive through that too, by the way."

"You people are insane!" Limin hisses, drifting back from the bars. Which is a bit of a pot calling the kettle black situation, honestly.

"You still probably would have won, if Guard-Lieutenant North hadn't stepped in," you allow.

For some reason, that name makes her momentarily stiffen before she forces herself to relax. As if recognising it, then forcing herself to remember how very many Norths there were in the Solar System.

Still a little bit interesting, considering what Amani had let slip earlier. "About Beryl's height, black, seems a bit high-strung. Probably right around your age. Seems like a relatively recent defector, but what do I know? I'm insane, apparently."

Limin is unnaturally still as she looks at you, not saying anything. Your attention is pulled away from her by Mari. "Why are you here, though?" she repeats.

You shrug and say, guilelessly: "Maybe I just like to annoy you." Mari continues to look unimpressed. You sigh. "Do you know what we used to call you — well, you and your unit — after that first fight? 'The monster'."

Mari blinks. "What?" Both Naiya and Limin seem to find this harder to believe than Mari had. She hasn't precisely left much of a monstrous impression on either of them.

You might as well lay things out. "You appear from nowhere, fight like a fucking demon, kill a third of us almost instantly... It was scary shit, honestly. Then it turns out that, actually, you're just some stupid—"

"I'm not stupid!"

"... just some stupid kid in way in over your head," you finish, as if she hadn't interrupted. "That makes me curious. Do you even know what we're fighting for out here?"

"You're terrorists," Mari says, not meeting your eyes. Limin mutters in agreement.

"That sounds like a no, then," you say.

That annoys her into a more honest answer. "You're trying to 'free' Jupiter, but you're just making it worse for everyone!"

You raise an eyebrow. "Worse than it is now?"

Mari falters, before rallying a little. "It's only this bad because of people like you!"

"Oh, is that right?" You ask. "Things would be better for us if we all just shut up and followed the Holy Empire?"

"Yes!" Mari insists, with a distinctly teenage conviction.

Article:

What do you do to make her doubt this?

[ ] Pitch her the AIJ's party line
(Easily digestible, morally inoffensive. Sincerity is not Kana's strength, however)

[ ] Push Naiya to tell Mari about what really happened at the Battle of Iapetus
(Horrifying war crimes, Naiya won't like it)

[ ] Be candid about your tragic backstory
(Easy to make ring true. Ew, emotional honesty, though, and Limin and Naiya are also listening)