Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest
- Thread starter Gazetteer
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Ultramandalore
Errant Quester
- Location
- just south of Parts Unknown
[x] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[x] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[x] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[x] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[x] Check on Faiza, one downtime
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
These are my choices because i want to talk to each and everyone of these people. I could skip talking to Lady Perbek, but I want both J6 and Faiza so Perbeck is the only choice with that.
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
These are my choices because i want to talk to each and everyone of these people. I could skip talking to Lady Perbek, but I want both J6 and Faiza so Perbeck is the only choice with that.
- Location
- Earth
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[X] Volunteer for extra duties doing basic scut work around the infirmary, two downtime
[X] Volunteer for extra duties doing basic scut work around the infirmary, two downtime
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
These are both valid reasons, but they're also in-universe ones. My conjecture was from the out-of-universe, this is a quest perspective. I think the main cause is the choice mechanic. Since we chose not to spend time with him, he doesn't gain importance he otherwise would have, so he dies. However, if we had chosen to spend time with him, he may well have survived, albeit at the cost of both him, Perbeck, and maybe even J6 being in a worse condition.
Also, there's a less reasonable? reason, which I included below. I blame lack of slleep for this.
This is more from a story type, this is a mecha anime, perspective. Since we spent more time with Perbeck and even J6 than Ito, both of them have narrative 'weight' that he lacked. However, by virtue of our connection with Anja, he's not too far removed from us and the rest of the cast that he becomes a faceless mook. His death serves to give the conflict with the Empire a personal stake, especially with Anja and Perbeck. Usually Perbeck, as the mentor/superior, would be the one who dies to spur her student/underling on. But, given our increased contact with her, she may have gotten more 'screentime' and thus become more important? I don't know.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
I really feel like we could use some downtime and I don't see enough advantage in doing work to really compensate for that.
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
I really feel like we could use some downtime and I don't see enough advantage in doing work to really compensate for that.
- Location
- scrabbling
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[X] Volunteer for extra duties doing basic scut work around the infirmary, two downtime
[X] Volunteer for extra duties doing basic scut work around the infirmary, two downtime
Mechanical
Initiate Action: Buzz
- Location
- Somewhere Strange
[X] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
- Location
- his hidden lair
Keep in mind the context, we might have comparatively not come out as bad, but we've always been retreating, reacting, limping from one attack on us after the other.
We got the Lily, by swooping in to save it from raiders that already destroyed it's escorts and fighting a desperate action. We got saved by the escort fleet after having all but co signed our ship and it's crew to die so that the princess could live. Between that, choosing the negative consequences each time, and the whole context of the war being the plucky holdouts facing an entire solar system that's been been consolidating it's not hard to feel like we're reeling for all that we roll with the punches well.
That's personally I wanted the strategic matter and the Lily. So that wherever we get assigned to after our ship limps into port, we can potentially play a more proactive role. Fancy new stealth carriers and a windfall in ship building material? That just reeks of waging our own raiding campaigns, or making them bleed for every piece of Saturn.
- Location
- 1
[x] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[x] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[x] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[x] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[x] Check on Faiza, one downtime
MacroDaemon
Lachrymose Lapis
[X] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
Well taking into consideration the fact that the Night Lily was noted to need a good six months to be ready for combat before it was damaged in battle... I'm expecting the princess to be asking for volunteers to sacrifice their shore leave* for the sake of getting the Night Lily ready in time for the push by the enemy main fleet.
*They'd probably view it as themselves being sacrificed on the altar of getting the Night Lily ready for combat given the absurd overtime involved in doing so.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Unfortunately, update is likely to be late again this week, because I am moving in two days and things are kind of hectic. Hopefully Internet in my new apartment will get set up smoothly and things will settle down in a couple days, and I'll be able to resume more or less normal work on this quest. Thank you all for your patience.
[X] Speak with Lady Perbeck, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
[X] Speak with Guardwoman J6, one downtime
[X] Check on Faiza, one downtime
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okay, hey, quick update: After some phone wrangling and being bounced from person to person, I've only just gotten Internet in this new apartment today. I have gotten some preliminary work on the update done (VERY preliminary -- jot notes on dead tree), but I will be working on it in earnest starting now. It's dialogue heavy enough that I expect it to stretch out a little, length wise, but I'll try not to drag out the writing process too much.
Ah very good, take it easy
*whispers* guys, cancel the search parties, we found her
Update 017: Medicine
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not dead. I've finally gotten comfortable in this new space that I've gotten significant work done very recently -- half of this update was written over the past two days, the first half took over a week picking away at it in dribs and drabs. Will try my best to get back to a more reliable "idk roughly weekly" schedule.
"I did it last time!"
"You did not. I did it last time."
"That doesn't count! She was asleep! You had the easy job. What about Rhoda?"
"Who, me? She hates me! I'm not going in there!"
The knot of unhappy junior spacers float around in an inconvenient space outside the mess hall, trying to pass a sealed food tray amongst themselves, each seemingly treating the thing as if it's radioactive. None of them notice as you approach.
You're still trying to decide whether or not to ask them what they're doing, when the tray slips out of someone's grasp and goes gracefully spinning through the air, headed right for your head. You manage to catch it, hastily grabbing onto a ceiling handhold to arrest your momentum before you crash into anyone.
"Ensign North!" One of them exclaims, the first to stop gaping. He snaps an awkward salute and his compatriots follow suit.
"Did you mean to throw this at my head, Spacer?" you ask, ominously gentle.
"Of course not, ma'am!" the sole female member of the group cries. "It was an accident!" The others around her nod. They seem mortified, although they're clearly not as afraid of you as they had been of whatever they were arguing about.
"An accident caused by you all tossing this food back and forth amongst yourselves, yes?" you press. "Why, exactly, was that necessary?"
One of the men's faces turns crimson. "Well, ma'am, we have meal delivery duty. For the injured not staying in the infirmary."
The particularly severe cases had been transported to the larger ships in the escort, but the Rose's modest infirmary is still completely overwhelmed. Anyone in need of rest and basic checkins, but not round the clock care, has been sent back to their own quarters, hence the meal deliveries. You note that each of the spacers has a bag full of similar trays, all stacked and seperated neatly between the three of them, with the one that hit you in the head being the sole exception. You glance down at the name printed on the side of the tray: CDR G PERBECK. "Is there something particularly difficult about delivering Lady Perbeck her meals?" you ask, voice honey, with the barest hint of razor blades underneath.
"Not… difficulty, ma'am," another of the men says, fidgeting guiltily. "Lady Perbeck is, well… she's under a lot of stress, I'm sure, after… after everything, and with her arm, and she's a bit… she's been…"
"Well, we're scared of her normally, but she's been downright mean," the woman says, finally coming out with it. You suspect she's realised that there's no way this can look less professional than it already does, but the others shoot her a betrayed look. "The last time, she was angry because the doctor's making her skip caffeine while she's on her meds. It's not like it was my decision what she eats or drinks."
You consider this. The scene before you really is an appalling lack of decorum, but Lady Perbeck is hardly the only one under a tremendous amount of stress. Months onboard ship with no leave, constant battle, the invasion progressing in the larger Saturn system… "I suppose I'll bring it to her, today," you decide. They all cringe, faces a mixture of relief and alarm. They don't have to make the delivery, but a bridge officer suddenly doing their job for them will most definitely be noted by the ailing mecha commander. "Your superiors will be hearing about this, I'm afraid," you add.
They cringe again at this news, but seem inclined not to press their luck. "Understood, ma'am," the woman says. "We'll just… get to the rest of these deliverities." The others mutter the same, snap guilty salutes, and scurry off, leaving you to make a delivery of your own.
A short time later, you're back in the mecha crew quarters shaft, where you recently held a sobbing Anja. You deliberately avoid looking at the hatch leading to Ito's vacant cabin, instead focusing on an identical one, bearing the same name as the tray you carry. Much to your private annoyance, you find yourself experiencing a degree of real trepidation as your finger hovers over the buzzer that would inform Perbeck that someone wants to come in. You force yourself to ignore this and simply push the buzzer. There's a momentary delay before the hatch finally opens. You cautiously stick your head in.
"So you're arriving late now, not just with the wrong food," a familiar voice snaps. Unlike your last conversation with Lady Perbeck, her manner of speech is waspish with displeasure. She hasn't looked up to see you yet, strapped into her sleeping bag, one arm bound to her chest while the other stabs almost violently at her tablet, magnetically anchored to a nearby wall. Her entire demeanor gives you the impression of intense restlessness. The bed rest, you're extremely certain, was not her preferred outcome.
"I apologise if anything fails to satisfy, ma'am," you say, determined not to take it personally. "There was a slight delay. I can't vouch for the meal selection."
She looks briefly startled, head jerking over to look in your direction, and for a moment looks entirely thrown off guard. She was expecting one of the junior spacers, after all. Not you. "... Ensign North," she says, with an air of faint embarrassment, for directing ire intended for someone else in your direction. "This is a… surprise."
"I expect so, ma'am," you agree, drifting over close enough to offer her the tray… before getting hung up on the obvious fact that she has no free hand to take it.
"Just dock it on the workstation," Perbeck says. "Thank you. Have you been demoted to spacer recently, North?" She's not quite cracking a smile, but the hostility has at least left her expression.
"I certainly hope not, ma'am," you say. "The spacers assigned to deliver your meal were expressing an unacceptable degree of… trepidation," you admit. "I relieved them of it for today, in the interests of their not starving you to death."
Perbeck sighs, slamming her head gently against the nearest wall, sleeping bag straining at its straps from the recoil. "So, they're hiding from me now?"
"Not quite," you assure her. "Just apprehensive about delivering your meal. I will, of course, be reporting them."
"The discipline on this ship is getting worse and worse daily," Perbeck sighs, moving to undo her straps using only her non-dominant hand. She struggles visibly, but nothing about her bearing suggests that your help would be welcome. "Not that it's entirely the crew's fault. You can't run people all out forever and not start to have problems after a point. Still, though, it's like being on a ship full of petulant children sometimes." She drifts over to the workstation, scowling. When she gets there, however, stopping herself awkwardly with her one remaining hand, her expression softens ever so slightly. "Or that may be uncharitable. Writing these letters has not left me in a good mood."
"... letters?" you ask.
She sighs again, irritated at the universe and at nothing, even as she carefully breaks the seal on the food tray. The transparent top floats up, even as the compartments heat and cool their individual contents to the intended degree, plastic wrappers tenting upward with steam and fogging with cold condensation. "Decaf again," she mutters, inspecting the rapidly brewing TEA BLK, 2 SUGAR, 2 CREAM pouch with a degree of real animosity. "I don't give a damn how caffeine reacts with the painkillers or the high sugar content. I need real tea. Or as close to it as you get in the navy." She looks back up at you, as if remembering you've asked a question. "Letters. To the next of kin of my dead officers. I've been putting it off, with all that's been going on. But the names have been piling up. Including both my pilots."
Her cabin is larger than yours, with a larger workstation, her medals and qualifications displayed on one wall. The size difference makes this conversation -- with you just barely inside the hatch and her along the far wall -- possible, but as you realise the subject you've just broached, the walls seem to somehow contract until they're unbearably close. "Ah, that is difficult, ma'am," you acknowledge. Trying to sound polite, not patronising. "Have you lost subordinates before?"
"I have," she acknowledges, "but not every pilot under my command. On a milk run."
"Respectfully, ma'am," you say, speaking quietly, "but it's hard to call it a milk run, once an invasion is thrown into the mix."
She smiles at that, just barely. A harsh twist of her lips, and she lets out a sound that is in the loose neighbourhood of laughter. After a moment, she speaks again, a little less bitterly. "Those reckless idiots," she says, popping open the deeply unwelcome decaf tea. It is, evidently, better than nothing, although judging from her grimace, not much better. "Different kinds of idiots, mind you."
You're on thin ice here, you're aware. But she's clearly not doing well at the moment. And a part of you, the part that remembers Anja shaking while she sobbed out her grief only a few metres beyond the hatch at your back, finds the comparison more than a little unsatisfactory. "Ensign Song was quite inexperienced," you remind her, carefully. "And Sub-Lieutenant Ito died defending the ships."
She snorts a little. "He died defending me." in a few seconds, her shoulders sag, and she relents. "... but, I was was defending the ships, so, that's pedantic. It's.. just a waste. Song too. She was green, and arrogant, but this wasn't meant to be a challenging assignment. Being a highborn officer doesn't merely give license to act high handed and superior. There are expectations, responsibilities. If she'd lived longer than her first engagement, she might have learned that."
Her mood has, if anything, blackened further. Flailing for a distraction, you ask: "Was it difficult for you to learn that lesson, ma'am?"
She considers this, slightly surprised. "... Perhaps," she acknowledges. "My father sent me to knight training when I turned twelve, however. A seat in the Order Gallatea has run in our family for generations, but the training masters are particularly keen on drilling humility into first year pages. Far more than naval officer training. That… helped. Of course, I don't think I learned true humility until after we lost Mars."
"... your family's holdings?" you guess, heart sinking as you realise you've led her to yet another unhappy topic.
"Yes," she agrees, without looking up from the largely-untouched food tray. "I was with the counter-invasion when it stalled out around Deimos. My father had just died, and my cousin was in charge of our holdings in my stead. When the usurper's ground forces reached our lands, though, he… unconditionally surrendered. Gave them over to the usurper, pledged his loyalty. Since then, I've been a countess in name only."
"Oh, I'm sorry," you say, a little mortified. You've heard something vague to the effect of Lady Perbeck having lost her holdings, but nothing like details. "It must be very hard to have family on the other side of the war." While you're not sure that your family's broken state is preferable, you at least don't have to worry about that problem.
"It is," she says. "He's… I'm angry sometimes, but I can't hate him. He wasn't a general or a soldier. And, from our reports… the holdings of our neighbours who refused to surrender were nearly razed to the ground. He kept the holdings in the family and saved our people. He didn't do it for his own sake." She closes her eyes, looking truly miserable. "He's still a traitor, though, and if we ever retake Mars, I doubt I'll be able to save him from execution."
There's a moment's awkward silence, before, at length, you say: "I didn't mean to come here and make you feel worse, ma'am," you say, face heating with discomfort. "I apologise."
She looks back up at you quickly, frowning as if you're not making any sense at all. "What? No, no. I was already wallowing on these things. Being visited by a beautiful girl who wants to hear me gripe is hardly going to make me feel worse about anything."
It's your turn to be taken aback. "Excuse me, ma'am?" you gasp.
She winces, letting the hated tea pouch spin slowly away in space in order to slap a hand against her face. "Apologies, Ensign. You're an extremely dedicated officer and deserve to be addressed with respect. Meds or no meds, I don't really have room to be talking about decorum after that."
"I… don't take offence, ma'am," you say, not entirely certain what you feel. "You're on bed rest anyway. Not active duty."
"We're on ship, North. I'm a senior officer. It's not as though we're running into each other in a bar on leave."
Silence falls again, and this time you're too off balance to think of a good way to break it. "I… suppose I'll leave you to your rest, ma'am," you say, finally.
She nods, still looking more self conscious than you've ever seen her. "Before I make any more of a fool of myself," she agrees. "I do appreciate the company, North. If not precisely the meal."
Several days after your discussion with Lady Perbeck -- several long, gratifyingly uneventful days -- you're leaving the showers on your way to your cabin, taking a more circuitous route than normal. The hasty patch work necessary to keep the ship alive is ongoing, and you've all been notified of maintenance being carried out along the more direct path. This takes you past fabrication, a small but vital part of the ship, access to the machines that produce not only parts for the ship and mecha but also medications, supplements and other necessities.
The shaft leading to the main fabricators is nearly as busy as the one you're avoiding, and you find yourself respectfully moving out of the way of various crewmembers moving between hatches seemingly pell-mell. As you pass by the hatches themselves, you hear shouting voices, mechanical whirring, and the familiar sucking sound of small packages being sent to elsewhere on the ship. You decide to avoid the first two verticals, which would take you more directly to your quarters, but are currently in very heavy use.
The general background noise is great enough that you don't hear the strange noises until you're quite a ways down the shaft, separated from the working crew members. You almost dismiss them as nothing -- an odd, faint whimpering sound that you could easily have imagined. But something makes you stop, catching yourself on one of the handholds along the passageway. You push yourself back long enough to peer into the dim interior of the chamber on the other side of the hatch.
It's a small fabrication bay, a backup to the main ones currently being run all out. Several of the fabricator machines are being left to work on longer timeframe projects, the unfinished components they're slowly compositing visible through clear view plates. There's also a pair of medical fabrication machinse, however. In front of one, someone in a bright orange jacket is currently writing in pain.
"Guardswoman?" you gasp, pushing yourself into the chamber in alarm. She's drifting in the middle of the room, curled up into a fetal position, her body making bizarre and frightening twitches. Her eyes swivel to look at you, bright with pain, seeming to ask something of you. Beg something of you. "Are you alright?" Her jaw spasms, but remains clenched tight. Clearly, she can't answer verbally. "I'll get help, I won't be long," you promise, and begin to push yourself back out the passageway, prepared to call for the attention of the others further up the shaft.
You're stopped short as an arm abruptly shoots out to take hold of your wrist. The grip is weak, but it's still enough to bring you to a halt: "... no!" J6 manages, gritting her teeth in order to force the words out in a hoarse growl. "No! My… the… patches. The blue patches!"
You have no idea what she's saying, at first, until you become aware of the objects floating in the air around you. Medical supplies, apparently newly fabricated, and seemingly specialised -- a container of red pills somehow spilled open, its contents spinning slowly across the room, missing and colliding like miniature, slow moving asteroids. Several more pills, in various sizes and colours, still safely bottled. And there, there! A pack of blue medical patches. With J6's grip on your arm, you can just barely reach out to snatch them without flinging her halfway across the room after you. Fumbling to open the clasp, you pull a patch free and, following instructions, hastily undo the front buttons on her jacket. Implanted metal gleams from pale skin, yet more contact points like the ones at her temples, located at neck and shoulders. It's over her jugular, near one of them that you press the patch -- your fingers press it firmly into the skin over her neck. Your fingers brush against one of the implants as you do so. It's not cool at all, warmed by her body heat.
The result is almost instantaneous, if not immediately reassuring. Her body goes rigid -- so rigid that her arm is ripped away from your wrist, and you're worried she'll tear a muscle -- before she finally lets out a ragged gasp and falls limp in space. The guardswoman allows herself to just drift for a short time, seconds and minutes passing, until eventually you become concerned again. "Shall I fetch a medic, Guardswoman?" You ask. This finally jolts her back to life.
"What?" J6 spins herself around awkwardly, almost drunkenly, robbed completely of the fluid grace with which she normally navigates a zero gravity space. She over corrects and has to hastily grab a handhold to prevent herself from spinning away from you again. "No. I'm… I just needed the medicine."
"Are you sure?" You ask, frowning. She doesn't seem fine. She's blinking at you blearily, someone shaken from a deep sleep, trying to force their eyes into focus.
She shakes her head, then as if realising the ambiguity of this gesture, hastily adds: "Yes. I mean: yes, I'm sure. The doctors are busy, and they don't… understand how my body works." Her voice, at least is the same measured, flat tone as always, even if her motions are still strangely slowed and slurred. Even her white hair seems to have become uncharacteristically unruly, drifting into her face as she talks, necessitating a sluggish swipe of one hand to move the strands away. "I'll be fine soon'" she says. "Just… if you could gather my medication? It would be appreciated."
"... If you're sure," you say. And if nothing else, she had sounded very sure. Silently, you set about collecting the medication for her. Most of it is simple enough -- grab up the various dispenser bottles and snap them into the small pocket case you spot, open and empty, caught against an air intake. The red pills are the real pain, and you're only glad that they're too large to fit through the micromesh air intakes themselves. All the while you're doing this, J6 is remaining motionless, curled in a boneless resting posture with one hand limply wrapped around her hand hold.
"I think this is the last one," you tell her, and after a final scan of the room bears this out, you snap the red pill dispenser into the final spot in the case. You glance down at the ominously expansive collection of strange drugs, quietly marvelling at how much there is. "I… suppose you must rely a great deal on this medication, if it's bad enough you can't go to a regular doctor?" you venture, hoping you aren't overstepping your bounds under the circumstances.
"It keeps me alive," she replies, gesturing limply at the case in your hands.
"Which ones?"
"All of them. The red, orange and yellow pills stop my immune system from rejecting my cybernetics and killing me," she says. "The green and blue try to make up for the crippled immune system, so that minor viral infections don't just kill me anyway. The grey lets me sleep at all. The blue patches are for the… migraines. Attacks, really. Sometimes they cause actual seizures." She looks at you, tired and impassive, waiting to see how you'll react.
"Ah," you say, nodding slowly. You glance pointedly around, at the humming machines and the out of the way space, where you quite doubt J6 would have willingly come if she'd known she was going to collapse. "Do you normally have to worry about the… attacks happening at inconvenient times?" You can't imagine a worse sort of condition for a pilot to have to manage.
"Not as much as you'd think," she says. "Never when I'm plugged in. I'm fine to pilot. Just… after, sometimes. You're from the inner system, aren't you?"
You blink at the abrupt change of subject, accompanied by no facial cue or audible reaction. "Yes," you confirm. "Luna."
She tilts her head, thoughtfully. "Have you ever been to Earth proper? On the actual surface? Before the war, I mean."
"No, actually," you admit. "I would have eventually, but I was still young when the war started."
"A pity. Mars?"
"Not Mars either. You're definitely alright?" Along with Earth, fully terraformed Mars is the only other 'shirt sleeve' planet in the solar system. Even with a truly Herculean investment of time and innovation, Titan is still not even close, and in all likelihood never will be.
J6 nods, almost impatiently, the motion only slightly off as the side effects of the patch still attached to her neck seem to slowly lessen. "Yes. I'm familiar with my conditions."
"It seems like a strange time to ask me about where I've travelled," you say, a little defensively.
"I was wondering," she says, inadequately. There's something more there, you think. Unless you're imagining it after all. Her blank expression is hard to fathom.
She still doesn't seem to be in a condition to move, and despite her assurances of being fine, you don't feel right in leaving her alone just yet, as strange and frustrating as this conversation has been. "Are you Jovian?" you ask. It hardly feels rude, after she broached similar topics first. J6 doesn't sound Jovian, but you find yourself unable to entirely dismiss the petty officer's veiled hints on the subject.
She regards you without surprise. "That's what they tell me. It makes the most sense."
"... excuse me?" you ask, wondering if she's being deliberately difficult.
"I don't remember very much beyond… a point," she admit. "I couldn't tell you where I was born. All my memories from before Saturn are from Jupiter. It's close enough. I assume you've heard the rumours? That's why you're asking?" She asks this last with an air of very mild challenge.
"I haven't, actually," you admit. "Someone just told me you were from Jupiter."
"Oh." J6 does not seem to have been entirely prepared for that answer, looking at you thoughtfully. "They're mostly true," she confides, eventually, "ask around, you'll hear them."
"Not the actual truth from you, though?" you ask. "That would save some time."
"I don't want to," she says, unapologetic in her casual bluntness.
"I'm… sorry," you say, after a moment, "if I've offended you." You're entirely uncertain how you'd even begin to tell whether or not you have, short of asking. Even as you think this, however, you clearly perceive her eyes widen in very slight confusion. She isn't, after all, a machine. Or at least, not most of one
"You haven't… offended," J6 explains, slowly. "I like talking to you. You're… calming."
You frown slightly, struggling to recall a time in which J6 has seemed uncalm. "Well… that's good," you say, turning your frown into a smile. As she experimentally pushes herself off from the nearest wall, moving with obvious stiffness but nonetheless actually moving, she doesn't return the smile. Instead, she only nods.
It takes you a long time to find Faiza. The girl doesn't make it easy -- she's glimpsed now and again by various crew members, but never for long, and rarely seems to sleep with the other civilians anymore.You want to avoid raising suspicion as to why you're so keen to find her, so there's a limit to how much you can ask around.
Instead, you've taken to simply going past the area you saw her last whenever possible, even if it creates unnecessary travel time for you. When you finally do run into her, you're not even actively looking. You're on your way to eat a meal, and you almost miss her.
You're alone today, just having gotten off a bridge shift, floating in no particular hurry in the direction of the mess hall. You just happen, by sheer coincidence, to be positioned more or less exactly between the hatch from the mess hall and the nearest maintenance hatch. A small form darts out of the mess hall at unsafe speeds, making a beeline for the maintenance hatch which you realise, belatedly, is mysteriously unlocked, it's indicator glowing a steady green instead of the standard amber or the more worrisome red. You don't immediately recognise her, instead merely registering the fact that the darting figure isn't wearing the blues everyone else is, instead plainly dressed in civilian shades of grey. It's very nearly without thinking that, before she can sail past you, you anchor yourself on a handhold behind you, then snake out your free hand to grab a handful of her jumpsuit.
"Hey! Hey! Let me go!" she squeals, her armful of ration packs floating away as she abandons them to thrash semi-effectually against you. She's smaller than you are, and very skinny, but her movements have a wiry strength behind them that speaks of copious time spent in physical activity.
"I just want to-- stop that! I just want to talk!" you insist, ducking backwards to avoid a bony first in your teeth.
"I don't want to talk to you, just let me go and leave me alone!" she insists, if anything getting more agitated. You have never actually been fishing, but you are abruptly sure that this is roughly what it feels like to have something exceptionally big on a line, and to be at risk of it slipping away from you.
You consider, briefly, putting it to her that she's not supposed to be going into the maintenance shafts at all, asking her how she's managed to convince the ration dispensers to give her so much at once, without the proper identification of actual naval personnel. Looking at her belligerent, affronted face, however, you decide that a different tact may yield better results. "I just wanted to make sure you're fine!" you insist, "I had Petty Officer Nowak keeping an eye on you, and I didn't know how you were going to get along without her."
The name 'Nowak' has an immediate affect. She goes still, looking at you with startled, guilty eyes. After a moment, you're certain she's not going to bolt, and risk releasing her.
"Did…" Faiza stops, uncertain, before picking her train of thought up again at a different place. "Was she looking for me? When she died? Was it my fault?"
You aren't entirely expecting this, and it's a few awkward seconds before you can simply shake your head, face falling away from frustration and into something more like sympathy. "No," you say, soothing, "she was working to reroute backup systems around minor damages, during the battle, and the section of outer maintenance shaft she was in depressurised. It wasn't because of you."
The girl doesn't answer this out loud, instead letting her body sag, curling in on herself with a mixture of sorrow and relief. She doesn't look directly at you. After a long moment, she asks, half fearful: "Was the only reason she looked after me because you asked?"
You can't precisely speak for the dead petty officer, but you recall the guilty expression that came over her face when the J6 first told you about Faiza's additional modifications. "No," you say, "I don't think so. I just made it an actual order." She nods then, sullen, but less anxious than before, for long enough that you feel compelled to fill the void with something:
"Your father was a mechanic, you said?"
She seems surprised at this, but replies with an air of cautious enthusiasm. "Yes," she says. "He was the best one back on Phoebe. His job was mecha, but they had him doing all sorts of stuff, when he had time! Well, he never had time, even with me helping out when no one was looking, but he made do." There's a note of defiant pride, tinged with sadness in her voice. The man you're both speaking of, you're aware, is as dead as Nowak.
"How long were you on that station?" you ask.
"As long as I can remember," she says, shrugging. "Just me and dad."
You're recalled, all at once, to the latter part of your own childhood, the part that came after the desperate flight to Saturn. Life on a cramped military station, carefully staying out from under foot, your mother returning exhausted from a patrol or a day of meetings, still willing to talk to you, to play a quick game with you on her tablet, even if she often as not fell asleep during the latter. It sounded very different to be Faiza, allowed to come along and help on the sly.
"I lived on a navy station over Titan with my mother, for some years," you offer.
Faiza perks up, cautiously interested. "Is she a button-pusher too?"
"A… button-pusher?" you ask, amused.
"You know," Faiza says, rolling her eyes slightly. You should know this already. "Like you. You press buttons, and tell other people what to do while they do real work."
"Pressing buttons is important," you offer, trying not to laugh. You feel as though you should not outwardly laugh at this careless dismissal of your expertise and your specialist field.
"Only if someone's already made sure they work," she says, with an air of smugness you find strange in someone so young.
"My mother was a mecha pilot," you say, by way of answering her original question. "There wasn't a lot I could do to help out with that. I've always been terrible at piloting anything, too."
"Oh, okay," Faiza says, looking at you sideways. "Was she disappointed at all?"
"No," you say. "At least, I don't think so. She told me once that young pilots die too often, and that sometimes she's glad I'm at least on a ship."
"Yeah, pilots do blow themselves up a lot," Faiza agrees, evidently oblivious to the crass nature of this response, considering the recent fate of Sub Lieutenant Ito.
"Are you going to join the navy someday?" you ask. "Be a mechanic, like your father?"
"Yes, probably," she says, with a shrug.
"You could probably start on your certification at Iapetus," you gently suggest. "The navy does like its legacy families, even common ones. And your father was… a hero." Everyone who died on the Phoebe station was, really. They'd been shunted off to the absolute middle of nowhere, and they'd still been willing to die in the line of duty. The navy could hardly ask for more.
Faiza makes a face, though. "Yeah, but certification is boring. And a waste of time. I'd have to take courses to learn a bunch of stuff I know already and they'd make me fix things their way."
"It might be necessary, if you want to be let on another ship like this after we let you off at Iapetus," you point out, gently, "and doing things the way everyone else does means that whoever's assigned to the ship after you're gone knows how everything works."
She considers this with all the good humor of a small child being informed that broccoli is good for her. "Maybe," she allows, noncommittally. "I'll think about it. After I eat." With that, she tears open a packet of dessert ration, and eats it with almost dismay inducing enthusiasm.
"I haven't seen you much, aside from on the bridge," you say, when you finally find Anja while you both have time off. She looks up from her game and gives you the ghost of her usual smile.
"Hi, North. I've been volunteering in medical. Keeps me busy enough I don't have a lot of time to stop and think." It's the same recreation room you played dice with her in before. Possibly even the same table, although you won't quite swear to that. She's playing Chronos' Dice again, solitaire, rather than a standard match against an AI opponent. "Although, we had an interesting visitor, I'm sure you heard."
You nod, hovering by the chair opposite Anja. "Did you actually get a chance to meet her highness?" Daystar's visit to the infirmary was made with minimal fanfare, and the way she'd spoken to every one of the wounded and a great many of the medical staff had been the talk of the ship for days.
"She thanked me for all my hard work helping her Majesty's brave soldiers," Anja says, with an air of smugness that feels adopted rather than genuine. "If I had the nerve, I would have asked her about that perfume she was wearing. Ah, well, probably costs more than I make in a year for one applicator, whatever it was."
"It's good she was gracious," you say, a little regretful of the missed opportunity. Not taking on any extra duties since the battle has done you a lot of good, though. You feel better rested now than you have in weeks, even if you're sure you won't really relax until you make port in Iapetus. You glance between Anja, her game, and the seat opposite her. "Do you want an opponent?" you ask.
"Nope," Anja says, without looking up. Then she pauses, glances at your expression, and grimaces apologetically. "Oh, sorry, I mean… I'm not saying leave. I'd like the company. I'm just… playing by myself." Upside down from your vantage point, you watch her roll selection of dice in various colours, frown at them, before dragging two back to her side of the board, discarding the rest. You push yourself into the chair, and work the strap mechanism.
"How are you feeling?" you ask, after you watch her go through another two rolls in silence.
She glances up at you, and gives you grin. It's closer to a bearing of teeth than anything joyful, although the anger seems less at you and more at some unseen third party. "Fucking terrible," she says with enough force that you flinch slightly. "I'm not sleeping. I can barely make myself eat. I have no idea whatsoever what I'm going to tell my mother, and I am going to have to tell her something, aren't I?"
"I'm sorry," you say, gently, not quite able to keep her gaze.
"Don't be sorry," Anja says, shrugging. "I'd just like to talk about something else. Anything else. We can talk about anything else, right?"
"If that's what you'd like," you say, uncertain how you should feel about the request, and slightly ashamed at the wave of relief the words bring.
"Any plans for Iapetus?" she asks, not wasting time.
"Plans?" You haven't thought very far ahead, beyond wanting to live long enough to get there. You meet the question with a combination of surprise and mild confusion.
Anja sighs. "Shore leave, North. We'll at least get some while this ship actually gets proper repairs, right? You haven't thought about this at all?"
You shake your head. "I've been trying to focus on the duties at hand," you admit.
She sighs again, louder this time, casting you an almost pitying look. "North, North, North… what would you do without me?"
"I don't know?"
"Live a boring and unfulfilled life, that's what," she tells you, matter of factly. She looks at you, frowning in thought for a moment, before she nods, the matter settled: "I'm going to have to get you drunk."
"Wait, drunk? Is that really necessary?" you ask.
"Yes, North. Drunk. At a bar. With alcohol. I have never in my life met someone who needs to get drunk as much as you do, and that's saying something, because you cannot imagine how badly I need a good drink right now. Or a bad drink. Anything that won't literally strike me blind. I'm not picky." Her grin is a little more genuine now. Moreso at your wide-eyed stare.
"That's… not usually how I spend my shore leaves," you admit.
She actually laughs at that, brittle and just a little too long. "Obviously. That's half of why we need to get you properly drunk."
"What's the other half?"
She makes a final roll, and the program tallies up her results. A middling score, nothing spectacular. It seems like the trauma and stress of recent events has thrown her off her dice game. The score results in Anja making a face, before clearing the board, and starting another solitaire game. She glances up at you, though, and grins again. "The other half is that seeing you drunk will be funny."
"It's really not that entertaining!" you insist, face heating.
"Well, I guess we'll find out," she says. "After that -- once we've had a chance to sober up, we could probably try finding some company. Not that I'd have much of a chance standing out next to you."
You blink at this, curiosity overcoming your embarrassment. "What about Karel?" you ask, remembering her boyfriend's name.
"What about him?" Anja makes a new first roll and keeps most of the dice this time. "We're not that exclusive. I mean, we'd better not be, the amount of girls he goes through while I'm away."
"... ah," you say, smiling a little awkwardly at her frankness.
"Like I said, though, it's going to be hard to get much male attention if I'm out with you." She stops, tilting her head consideringly. "... You've actually never told me: What are you even into?"
"Into?" you ask, raising your eyebrows in amusement.
"Yeah, what? Boys, girls, both, neither?" Anja tallies all these options off on one hand as she names them, rolling the virtual dice with the other.
You think about this for a long moment, mostly to keep her in suspense, before replying, with a gently amused smile: "Yes."
She stares at you for a moment, trying to decide whether or not you're being annoying. She seems to settle with somewhere in between -- she laughs again. "Well, that's convenient," she admits. "I'm stuck with only going for men who specifically my mother will disapprove of."
You cover your mouth, giggling slightly at the frankness of it.
"You think I'm joking," she says, shaking her head. "Sadly, no. Gender aside though, who do you go for, though? You must have some kind of preference, when you get the chance, right?"
You consider her question thoughtfully.
This question has significance, in that it's going to be used to signal interest in a romantic entanglement with a pilot. Pilot - bridge bunny romance being a treasured genre tradition, choosing one of these options will not quite lock you into that option, but it will make me feel as if I can have Amani go more directly down one road or another. There are options for Ito as well, but obviously that particular route is off the table at this point. If "definitely no one in the navy" wins, that's a good indicator that people don't' want a romantic subplot. I might still provide the option later if it makes sense, but I'll be less likely to steer towards that as an endpoint for certain relationships you're building.
Pick one from each category here, votes will be tallied in sets:
Personality:
[ ] Someone brave, maybe sometimes even a little recklessness
[ ] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side
[ ] Somene mysterious with a troubled past
[ ] Definitely no one in the military
Appearance:
[ ] A great smile
[ ] Tall blondes
[ ] Unusual looks
Speak with Perbeck, J6 and Faiza, 36 votes
Speak with Faiza and volunteer in the infirmary, 13 votes
Speak with Perbeck and volunteer in the infirmary, 1 vote
Speak with Faiza and volunteer in the infirmary, 13 votes
Speak with Perbeck and volunteer in the infirmary, 1 vote
"I did it last time!"
"You did not. I did it last time."
"That doesn't count! She was asleep! You had the easy job. What about Rhoda?"
"Who, me? She hates me! I'm not going in there!"
The knot of unhappy junior spacers float around in an inconvenient space outside the mess hall, trying to pass a sealed food tray amongst themselves, each seemingly treating the thing as if it's radioactive. None of them notice as you approach.
You're still trying to decide whether or not to ask them what they're doing, when the tray slips out of someone's grasp and goes gracefully spinning through the air, headed right for your head. You manage to catch it, hastily grabbing onto a ceiling handhold to arrest your momentum before you crash into anyone.
"Ensign North!" One of them exclaims, the first to stop gaping. He snaps an awkward salute and his compatriots follow suit.
"Did you mean to throw this at my head, Spacer?" you ask, ominously gentle.
"Of course not, ma'am!" the sole female member of the group cries. "It was an accident!" The others around her nod. They seem mortified, although they're clearly not as afraid of you as they had been of whatever they were arguing about.
"An accident caused by you all tossing this food back and forth amongst yourselves, yes?" you press. "Why, exactly, was that necessary?"
One of the men's faces turns crimson. "Well, ma'am, we have meal delivery duty. For the injured not staying in the infirmary."
The particularly severe cases had been transported to the larger ships in the escort, but the Rose's modest infirmary is still completely overwhelmed. Anyone in need of rest and basic checkins, but not round the clock care, has been sent back to their own quarters, hence the meal deliveries. You note that each of the spacers has a bag full of similar trays, all stacked and seperated neatly between the three of them, with the one that hit you in the head being the sole exception. You glance down at the name printed on the side of the tray: CDR G PERBECK. "Is there something particularly difficult about delivering Lady Perbeck her meals?" you ask, voice honey, with the barest hint of razor blades underneath.
"Not… difficulty, ma'am," another of the men says, fidgeting guiltily. "Lady Perbeck is, well… she's under a lot of stress, I'm sure, after… after everything, and with her arm, and she's a bit… she's been…"
"Well, we're scared of her normally, but she's been downright mean," the woman says, finally coming out with it. You suspect she's realised that there's no way this can look less professional than it already does, but the others shoot her a betrayed look. "The last time, she was angry because the doctor's making her skip caffeine while she's on her meds. It's not like it was my decision what she eats or drinks."
You consider this. The scene before you really is an appalling lack of decorum, but Lady Perbeck is hardly the only one under a tremendous amount of stress. Months onboard ship with no leave, constant battle, the invasion progressing in the larger Saturn system… "I suppose I'll bring it to her, today," you decide. They all cringe, faces a mixture of relief and alarm. They don't have to make the delivery, but a bridge officer suddenly doing their job for them will most definitely be noted by the ailing mecha commander. "Your superiors will be hearing about this, I'm afraid," you add.
They cringe again at this news, but seem inclined not to press their luck. "Understood, ma'am," the woman says. "We'll just… get to the rest of these deliverities." The others mutter the same, snap guilty salutes, and scurry off, leaving you to make a delivery of your own.
A short time later, you're back in the mecha crew quarters shaft, where you recently held a sobbing Anja. You deliberately avoid looking at the hatch leading to Ito's vacant cabin, instead focusing on an identical one, bearing the same name as the tray you carry. Much to your private annoyance, you find yourself experiencing a degree of real trepidation as your finger hovers over the buzzer that would inform Perbeck that someone wants to come in. You force yourself to ignore this and simply push the buzzer. There's a momentary delay before the hatch finally opens. You cautiously stick your head in.
"So you're arriving late now, not just with the wrong food," a familiar voice snaps. Unlike your last conversation with Lady Perbeck, her manner of speech is waspish with displeasure. She hasn't looked up to see you yet, strapped into her sleeping bag, one arm bound to her chest while the other stabs almost violently at her tablet, magnetically anchored to a nearby wall. Her entire demeanor gives you the impression of intense restlessness. The bed rest, you're extremely certain, was not her preferred outcome.
"I apologise if anything fails to satisfy, ma'am," you say, determined not to take it personally. "There was a slight delay. I can't vouch for the meal selection."
She looks briefly startled, head jerking over to look in your direction, and for a moment looks entirely thrown off guard. She was expecting one of the junior spacers, after all. Not you. "... Ensign North," she says, with an air of faint embarrassment, for directing ire intended for someone else in your direction. "This is a… surprise."
"I expect so, ma'am," you agree, drifting over close enough to offer her the tray… before getting hung up on the obvious fact that she has no free hand to take it.
"Just dock it on the workstation," Perbeck says. "Thank you. Have you been demoted to spacer recently, North?" She's not quite cracking a smile, but the hostility has at least left her expression.
"I certainly hope not, ma'am," you say. "The spacers assigned to deliver your meal were expressing an unacceptable degree of… trepidation," you admit. "I relieved them of it for today, in the interests of their not starving you to death."
Perbeck sighs, slamming her head gently against the nearest wall, sleeping bag straining at its straps from the recoil. "So, they're hiding from me now?"
"Not quite," you assure her. "Just apprehensive about delivering your meal. I will, of course, be reporting them."
"The discipline on this ship is getting worse and worse daily," Perbeck sighs, moving to undo her straps using only her non-dominant hand. She struggles visibly, but nothing about her bearing suggests that your help would be welcome. "Not that it's entirely the crew's fault. You can't run people all out forever and not start to have problems after a point. Still, though, it's like being on a ship full of petulant children sometimes." She drifts over to the workstation, scowling. When she gets there, however, stopping herself awkwardly with her one remaining hand, her expression softens ever so slightly. "Or that may be uncharitable. Writing these letters has not left me in a good mood."
"... letters?" you ask.
She sighs again, irritated at the universe and at nothing, even as she carefully breaks the seal on the food tray. The transparent top floats up, even as the compartments heat and cool their individual contents to the intended degree, plastic wrappers tenting upward with steam and fogging with cold condensation. "Decaf again," she mutters, inspecting the rapidly brewing TEA BLK, 2 SUGAR, 2 CREAM pouch with a degree of real animosity. "I don't give a damn how caffeine reacts with the painkillers or the high sugar content. I need real tea. Or as close to it as you get in the navy." She looks back up at you, as if remembering you've asked a question. "Letters. To the next of kin of my dead officers. I've been putting it off, with all that's been going on. But the names have been piling up. Including both my pilots."
Her cabin is larger than yours, with a larger workstation, her medals and qualifications displayed on one wall. The size difference makes this conversation -- with you just barely inside the hatch and her along the far wall -- possible, but as you realise the subject you've just broached, the walls seem to somehow contract until they're unbearably close. "Ah, that is difficult, ma'am," you acknowledge. Trying to sound polite, not patronising. "Have you lost subordinates before?"
"I have," she acknowledges, "but not every pilot under my command. On a milk run."
"Respectfully, ma'am," you say, speaking quietly, "but it's hard to call it a milk run, once an invasion is thrown into the mix."
She smiles at that, just barely. A harsh twist of her lips, and she lets out a sound that is in the loose neighbourhood of laughter. After a moment, she speaks again, a little less bitterly. "Those reckless idiots," she says, popping open the deeply unwelcome decaf tea. It is, evidently, better than nothing, although judging from her grimace, not much better. "Different kinds of idiots, mind you."
You're on thin ice here, you're aware. But she's clearly not doing well at the moment. And a part of you, the part that remembers Anja shaking while she sobbed out her grief only a few metres beyond the hatch at your back, finds the comparison more than a little unsatisfactory. "Ensign Song was quite inexperienced," you remind her, carefully. "And Sub-Lieutenant Ito died defending the ships."
She snorts a little. "He died defending me." in a few seconds, her shoulders sag, and she relents. "... but, I was was defending the ships, so, that's pedantic. It's.. just a waste. Song too. She was green, and arrogant, but this wasn't meant to be a challenging assignment. Being a highborn officer doesn't merely give license to act high handed and superior. There are expectations, responsibilities. If she'd lived longer than her first engagement, she might have learned that."
Her mood has, if anything, blackened further. Flailing for a distraction, you ask: "Was it difficult for you to learn that lesson, ma'am?"
She considers this, slightly surprised. "... Perhaps," she acknowledges. "My father sent me to knight training when I turned twelve, however. A seat in the Order Gallatea has run in our family for generations, but the training masters are particularly keen on drilling humility into first year pages. Far more than naval officer training. That… helped. Of course, I don't think I learned true humility until after we lost Mars."
"... your family's holdings?" you guess, heart sinking as you realise you've led her to yet another unhappy topic.
"Yes," she agrees, without looking up from the largely-untouched food tray. "I was with the counter-invasion when it stalled out around Deimos. My father had just died, and my cousin was in charge of our holdings in my stead. When the usurper's ground forces reached our lands, though, he… unconditionally surrendered. Gave them over to the usurper, pledged his loyalty. Since then, I've been a countess in name only."
"Oh, I'm sorry," you say, a little mortified. You've heard something vague to the effect of Lady Perbeck having lost her holdings, but nothing like details. "It must be very hard to have family on the other side of the war." While you're not sure that your family's broken state is preferable, you at least don't have to worry about that problem.
"It is," she says. "He's… I'm angry sometimes, but I can't hate him. He wasn't a general or a soldier. And, from our reports… the holdings of our neighbours who refused to surrender were nearly razed to the ground. He kept the holdings in the family and saved our people. He didn't do it for his own sake." She closes her eyes, looking truly miserable. "He's still a traitor, though, and if we ever retake Mars, I doubt I'll be able to save him from execution."
There's a moment's awkward silence, before, at length, you say: "I didn't mean to come here and make you feel worse, ma'am," you say, face heating with discomfort. "I apologise."
She looks back up at you quickly, frowning as if you're not making any sense at all. "What? No, no. I was already wallowing on these things. Being visited by a beautiful girl who wants to hear me gripe is hardly going to make me feel worse about anything."
It's your turn to be taken aback. "Excuse me, ma'am?" you gasp.
She winces, letting the hated tea pouch spin slowly away in space in order to slap a hand against her face. "Apologies, Ensign. You're an extremely dedicated officer and deserve to be addressed with respect. Meds or no meds, I don't really have room to be talking about decorum after that."
"I… don't take offence, ma'am," you say, not entirely certain what you feel. "You're on bed rest anyway. Not active duty."
"We're on ship, North. I'm a senior officer. It's not as though we're running into each other in a bar on leave."
Silence falls again, and this time you're too off balance to think of a good way to break it. "I… suppose I'll leave you to your rest, ma'am," you say, finally.
She nods, still looking more self conscious than you've ever seen her. "Before I make any more of a fool of myself," she agrees. "I do appreciate the company, North. If not precisely the meal."
--
Several days after your discussion with Lady Perbeck -- several long, gratifyingly uneventful days -- you're leaving the showers on your way to your cabin, taking a more circuitous route than normal. The hasty patch work necessary to keep the ship alive is ongoing, and you've all been notified of maintenance being carried out along the more direct path. This takes you past fabrication, a small but vital part of the ship, access to the machines that produce not only parts for the ship and mecha but also medications, supplements and other necessities.
The shaft leading to the main fabricators is nearly as busy as the one you're avoiding, and you find yourself respectfully moving out of the way of various crewmembers moving between hatches seemingly pell-mell. As you pass by the hatches themselves, you hear shouting voices, mechanical whirring, and the familiar sucking sound of small packages being sent to elsewhere on the ship. You decide to avoid the first two verticals, which would take you more directly to your quarters, but are currently in very heavy use.
The general background noise is great enough that you don't hear the strange noises until you're quite a ways down the shaft, separated from the working crew members. You almost dismiss them as nothing -- an odd, faint whimpering sound that you could easily have imagined. But something makes you stop, catching yourself on one of the handholds along the passageway. You push yourself back long enough to peer into the dim interior of the chamber on the other side of the hatch.
It's a small fabrication bay, a backup to the main ones currently being run all out. Several of the fabricator machines are being left to work on longer timeframe projects, the unfinished components they're slowly compositing visible through clear view plates. There's also a pair of medical fabrication machinse, however. In front of one, someone in a bright orange jacket is currently writing in pain.
"Guardswoman?" you gasp, pushing yourself into the chamber in alarm. She's drifting in the middle of the room, curled up into a fetal position, her body making bizarre and frightening twitches. Her eyes swivel to look at you, bright with pain, seeming to ask something of you. Beg something of you. "Are you alright?" Her jaw spasms, but remains clenched tight. Clearly, she can't answer verbally. "I'll get help, I won't be long," you promise, and begin to push yourself back out the passageway, prepared to call for the attention of the others further up the shaft.
You're stopped short as an arm abruptly shoots out to take hold of your wrist. The grip is weak, but it's still enough to bring you to a halt: "... no!" J6 manages, gritting her teeth in order to force the words out in a hoarse growl. "No! My… the… patches. The blue patches!"
You have no idea what she's saying, at first, until you become aware of the objects floating in the air around you. Medical supplies, apparently newly fabricated, and seemingly specialised -- a container of red pills somehow spilled open, its contents spinning slowly across the room, missing and colliding like miniature, slow moving asteroids. Several more pills, in various sizes and colours, still safely bottled. And there, there! A pack of blue medical patches. With J6's grip on your arm, you can just barely reach out to snatch them without flinging her halfway across the room after you. Fumbling to open the clasp, you pull a patch free and, following instructions, hastily undo the front buttons on her jacket. Implanted metal gleams from pale skin, yet more contact points like the ones at her temples, located at neck and shoulders. It's over her jugular, near one of them that you press the patch -- your fingers press it firmly into the skin over her neck. Your fingers brush against one of the implants as you do so. It's not cool at all, warmed by her body heat.
The result is almost instantaneous, if not immediately reassuring. Her body goes rigid -- so rigid that her arm is ripped away from your wrist, and you're worried she'll tear a muscle -- before she finally lets out a ragged gasp and falls limp in space. The guardswoman allows herself to just drift for a short time, seconds and minutes passing, until eventually you become concerned again. "Shall I fetch a medic, Guardswoman?" You ask. This finally jolts her back to life.
"What?" J6 spins herself around awkwardly, almost drunkenly, robbed completely of the fluid grace with which she normally navigates a zero gravity space. She over corrects and has to hastily grab a handhold to prevent herself from spinning away from you again. "No. I'm… I just needed the medicine."
"Are you sure?" You ask, frowning. She doesn't seem fine. She's blinking at you blearily, someone shaken from a deep sleep, trying to force their eyes into focus.
She shakes her head, then as if realising the ambiguity of this gesture, hastily adds: "Yes. I mean: yes, I'm sure. The doctors are busy, and they don't… understand how my body works." Her voice, at least is the same measured, flat tone as always, even if her motions are still strangely slowed and slurred. Even her white hair seems to have become uncharacteristically unruly, drifting into her face as she talks, necessitating a sluggish swipe of one hand to move the strands away. "I'll be fine soon'" she says. "Just… if you could gather my medication? It would be appreciated."
"... If you're sure," you say. And if nothing else, she had sounded very sure. Silently, you set about collecting the medication for her. Most of it is simple enough -- grab up the various dispenser bottles and snap them into the small pocket case you spot, open and empty, caught against an air intake. The red pills are the real pain, and you're only glad that they're too large to fit through the micromesh air intakes themselves. All the while you're doing this, J6 is remaining motionless, curled in a boneless resting posture with one hand limply wrapped around her hand hold.
"I think this is the last one," you tell her, and after a final scan of the room bears this out, you snap the red pill dispenser into the final spot in the case. You glance down at the ominously expansive collection of strange drugs, quietly marvelling at how much there is. "I… suppose you must rely a great deal on this medication, if it's bad enough you can't go to a regular doctor?" you venture, hoping you aren't overstepping your bounds under the circumstances.
"It keeps me alive," she replies, gesturing limply at the case in your hands.
"Which ones?"
"All of them. The red, orange and yellow pills stop my immune system from rejecting my cybernetics and killing me," she says. "The green and blue try to make up for the crippled immune system, so that minor viral infections don't just kill me anyway. The grey lets me sleep at all. The blue patches are for the… migraines. Attacks, really. Sometimes they cause actual seizures." She looks at you, tired and impassive, waiting to see how you'll react.
"Ah," you say, nodding slowly. You glance pointedly around, at the humming machines and the out of the way space, where you quite doubt J6 would have willingly come if she'd known she was going to collapse. "Do you normally have to worry about the… attacks happening at inconvenient times?" You can't imagine a worse sort of condition for a pilot to have to manage.
"Not as much as you'd think," she says. "Never when I'm plugged in. I'm fine to pilot. Just… after, sometimes. You're from the inner system, aren't you?"
You blink at the abrupt change of subject, accompanied by no facial cue or audible reaction. "Yes," you confirm. "Luna."
She tilts her head, thoughtfully. "Have you ever been to Earth proper? On the actual surface? Before the war, I mean."
"No, actually," you admit. "I would have eventually, but I was still young when the war started."
"A pity. Mars?"
"Not Mars either. You're definitely alright?" Along with Earth, fully terraformed Mars is the only other 'shirt sleeve' planet in the solar system. Even with a truly Herculean investment of time and innovation, Titan is still not even close, and in all likelihood never will be.
J6 nods, almost impatiently, the motion only slightly off as the side effects of the patch still attached to her neck seem to slowly lessen. "Yes. I'm familiar with my conditions."
"It seems like a strange time to ask me about where I've travelled," you say, a little defensively.
"I was wondering," she says, inadequately. There's something more there, you think. Unless you're imagining it after all. Her blank expression is hard to fathom.
She still doesn't seem to be in a condition to move, and despite her assurances of being fine, you don't feel right in leaving her alone just yet, as strange and frustrating as this conversation has been. "Are you Jovian?" you ask. It hardly feels rude, after she broached similar topics first. J6 doesn't sound Jovian, but you find yourself unable to entirely dismiss the petty officer's veiled hints on the subject.
She regards you without surprise. "That's what they tell me. It makes the most sense."
"... excuse me?" you ask, wondering if she's being deliberately difficult.
"I don't remember very much beyond… a point," she admit. "I couldn't tell you where I was born. All my memories from before Saturn are from Jupiter. It's close enough. I assume you've heard the rumours? That's why you're asking?" She asks this last with an air of very mild challenge.
"I haven't, actually," you admit. "Someone just told me you were from Jupiter."
"Oh." J6 does not seem to have been entirely prepared for that answer, looking at you thoughtfully. "They're mostly true," she confides, eventually, "ask around, you'll hear them."
"Not the actual truth from you, though?" you ask. "That would save some time."
"I don't want to," she says, unapologetic in her casual bluntness.
"I'm… sorry," you say, after a moment, "if I've offended you." You're entirely uncertain how you'd even begin to tell whether or not you have, short of asking. Even as you think this, however, you clearly perceive her eyes widen in very slight confusion. She isn't, after all, a machine. Or at least, not most of one
"You haven't… offended," J6 explains, slowly. "I like talking to you. You're… calming."
You frown slightly, struggling to recall a time in which J6 has seemed uncalm. "Well… that's good," you say, turning your frown into a smile. As she experimentally pushes herself off from the nearest wall, moving with obvious stiffness but nonetheless actually moving, she doesn't return the smile. Instead, she only nods.
--
It takes you a long time to find Faiza. The girl doesn't make it easy -- she's glimpsed now and again by various crew members, but never for long, and rarely seems to sleep with the other civilians anymore.You want to avoid raising suspicion as to why you're so keen to find her, so there's a limit to how much you can ask around.
Instead, you've taken to simply going past the area you saw her last whenever possible, even if it creates unnecessary travel time for you. When you finally do run into her, you're not even actively looking. You're on your way to eat a meal, and you almost miss her.
You're alone today, just having gotten off a bridge shift, floating in no particular hurry in the direction of the mess hall. You just happen, by sheer coincidence, to be positioned more or less exactly between the hatch from the mess hall and the nearest maintenance hatch. A small form darts out of the mess hall at unsafe speeds, making a beeline for the maintenance hatch which you realise, belatedly, is mysteriously unlocked, it's indicator glowing a steady green instead of the standard amber or the more worrisome red. You don't immediately recognise her, instead merely registering the fact that the darting figure isn't wearing the blues everyone else is, instead plainly dressed in civilian shades of grey. It's very nearly without thinking that, before she can sail past you, you anchor yourself on a handhold behind you, then snake out your free hand to grab a handful of her jumpsuit.
"Hey! Hey! Let me go!" she squeals, her armful of ration packs floating away as she abandons them to thrash semi-effectually against you. She's smaller than you are, and very skinny, but her movements have a wiry strength behind them that speaks of copious time spent in physical activity.
"I just want to-- stop that! I just want to talk!" you insist, ducking backwards to avoid a bony first in your teeth.
"I don't want to talk to you, just let me go and leave me alone!" she insists, if anything getting more agitated. You have never actually been fishing, but you are abruptly sure that this is roughly what it feels like to have something exceptionally big on a line, and to be at risk of it slipping away from you.
You consider, briefly, putting it to her that she's not supposed to be going into the maintenance shafts at all, asking her how she's managed to convince the ration dispensers to give her so much at once, without the proper identification of actual naval personnel. Looking at her belligerent, affronted face, however, you decide that a different tact may yield better results. "I just wanted to make sure you're fine!" you insist, "I had Petty Officer Nowak keeping an eye on you, and I didn't know how you were going to get along without her."
The name 'Nowak' has an immediate affect. She goes still, looking at you with startled, guilty eyes. After a moment, you're certain she's not going to bolt, and risk releasing her.
"Did…" Faiza stops, uncertain, before picking her train of thought up again at a different place. "Was she looking for me? When she died? Was it my fault?"
You aren't entirely expecting this, and it's a few awkward seconds before you can simply shake your head, face falling away from frustration and into something more like sympathy. "No," you say, soothing, "she was working to reroute backup systems around minor damages, during the battle, and the section of outer maintenance shaft she was in depressurised. It wasn't because of you."
The girl doesn't answer this out loud, instead letting her body sag, curling in on herself with a mixture of sorrow and relief. She doesn't look directly at you. After a long moment, she asks, half fearful: "Was the only reason she looked after me because you asked?"
You can't precisely speak for the dead petty officer, but you recall the guilty expression that came over her face when the J6 first told you about Faiza's additional modifications. "No," you say, "I don't think so. I just made it an actual order." She nods then, sullen, but less anxious than before, for long enough that you feel compelled to fill the void with something:
"Your father was a mechanic, you said?"
She seems surprised at this, but replies with an air of cautious enthusiasm. "Yes," she says. "He was the best one back on Phoebe. His job was mecha, but they had him doing all sorts of stuff, when he had time! Well, he never had time, even with me helping out when no one was looking, but he made do." There's a note of defiant pride, tinged with sadness in her voice. The man you're both speaking of, you're aware, is as dead as Nowak.
"How long were you on that station?" you ask.
"As long as I can remember," she says, shrugging. "Just me and dad."
You're recalled, all at once, to the latter part of your own childhood, the part that came after the desperate flight to Saturn. Life on a cramped military station, carefully staying out from under foot, your mother returning exhausted from a patrol or a day of meetings, still willing to talk to you, to play a quick game with you on her tablet, even if she often as not fell asleep during the latter. It sounded very different to be Faiza, allowed to come along and help on the sly.
"I lived on a navy station over Titan with my mother, for some years," you offer.
Faiza perks up, cautiously interested. "Is she a button-pusher too?"
"A… button-pusher?" you ask, amused.
"You know," Faiza says, rolling her eyes slightly. You should know this already. "Like you. You press buttons, and tell other people what to do while they do real work."
"Pressing buttons is important," you offer, trying not to laugh. You feel as though you should not outwardly laugh at this careless dismissal of your expertise and your specialist field.
"Only if someone's already made sure they work," she says, with an air of smugness you find strange in someone so young.
"My mother was a mecha pilot," you say, by way of answering her original question. "There wasn't a lot I could do to help out with that. I've always been terrible at piloting anything, too."
"Oh, okay," Faiza says, looking at you sideways. "Was she disappointed at all?"
"No," you say. "At least, I don't think so. She told me once that young pilots die too often, and that sometimes she's glad I'm at least on a ship."
"Yeah, pilots do blow themselves up a lot," Faiza agrees, evidently oblivious to the crass nature of this response, considering the recent fate of Sub Lieutenant Ito.
"Are you going to join the navy someday?" you ask. "Be a mechanic, like your father?"
"Yes, probably," she says, with a shrug.
"You could probably start on your certification at Iapetus," you gently suggest. "The navy does like its legacy families, even common ones. And your father was… a hero." Everyone who died on the Phoebe station was, really. They'd been shunted off to the absolute middle of nowhere, and they'd still been willing to die in the line of duty. The navy could hardly ask for more.
Faiza makes a face, though. "Yeah, but certification is boring. And a waste of time. I'd have to take courses to learn a bunch of stuff I know already and they'd make me fix things their way."
"It might be necessary, if you want to be let on another ship like this after we let you off at Iapetus," you point out, gently, "and doing things the way everyone else does means that whoever's assigned to the ship after you're gone knows how everything works."
She considers this with all the good humor of a small child being informed that broccoli is good for her. "Maybe," she allows, noncommittally. "I'll think about it. After I eat." With that, she tears open a packet of dessert ration, and eats it with almost dismay inducing enthusiasm.
--
"I haven't seen you much, aside from on the bridge," you say, when you finally find Anja while you both have time off. She looks up from her game and gives you the ghost of her usual smile.
"Hi, North. I've been volunteering in medical. Keeps me busy enough I don't have a lot of time to stop and think." It's the same recreation room you played dice with her in before. Possibly even the same table, although you won't quite swear to that. She's playing Chronos' Dice again, solitaire, rather than a standard match against an AI opponent. "Although, we had an interesting visitor, I'm sure you heard."
You nod, hovering by the chair opposite Anja. "Did you actually get a chance to meet her highness?" Daystar's visit to the infirmary was made with minimal fanfare, and the way she'd spoken to every one of the wounded and a great many of the medical staff had been the talk of the ship for days.
"She thanked me for all my hard work helping her Majesty's brave soldiers," Anja says, with an air of smugness that feels adopted rather than genuine. "If I had the nerve, I would have asked her about that perfume she was wearing. Ah, well, probably costs more than I make in a year for one applicator, whatever it was."
"It's good she was gracious," you say, a little regretful of the missed opportunity. Not taking on any extra duties since the battle has done you a lot of good, though. You feel better rested now than you have in weeks, even if you're sure you won't really relax until you make port in Iapetus. You glance between Anja, her game, and the seat opposite her. "Do you want an opponent?" you ask.
"Nope," Anja says, without looking up. Then she pauses, glances at your expression, and grimaces apologetically. "Oh, sorry, I mean… I'm not saying leave. I'd like the company. I'm just… playing by myself." Upside down from your vantage point, you watch her roll selection of dice in various colours, frown at them, before dragging two back to her side of the board, discarding the rest. You push yourself into the chair, and work the strap mechanism.
"How are you feeling?" you ask, after you watch her go through another two rolls in silence.
She glances up at you, and gives you grin. It's closer to a bearing of teeth than anything joyful, although the anger seems less at you and more at some unseen third party. "Fucking terrible," she says with enough force that you flinch slightly. "I'm not sleeping. I can barely make myself eat. I have no idea whatsoever what I'm going to tell my mother, and I am going to have to tell her something, aren't I?"
"I'm sorry," you say, gently, not quite able to keep her gaze.
"Don't be sorry," Anja says, shrugging. "I'd just like to talk about something else. Anything else. We can talk about anything else, right?"
"If that's what you'd like," you say, uncertain how you should feel about the request, and slightly ashamed at the wave of relief the words bring.
"Any plans for Iapetus?" she asks, not wasting time.
"Plans?" You haven't thought very far ahead, beyond wanting to live long enough to get there. You meet the question with a combination of surprise and mild confusion.
Anja sighs. "Shore leave, North. We'll at least get some while this ship actually gets proper repairs, right? You haven't thought about this at all?"
You shake your head. "I've been trying to focus on the duties at hand," you admit.
She sighs again, louder this time, casting you an almost pitying look. "North, North, North… what would you do without me?"
"I don't know?"
"Live a boring and unfulfilled life, that's what," she tells you, matter of factly. She looks at you, frowning in thought for a moment, before she nods, the matter settled: "I'm going to have to get you drunk."
"Wait, drunk? Is that really necessary?" you ask.
"Yes, North. Drunk. At a bar. With alcohol. I have never in my life met someone who needs to get drunk as much as you do, and that's saying something, because you cannot imagine how badly I need a good drink right now. Or a bad drink. Anything that won't literally strike me blind. I'm not picky." Her grin is a little more genuine now. Moreso at your wide-eyed stare.
"That's… not usually how I spend my shore leaves," you admit.
She actually laughs at that, brittle and just a little too long. "Obviously. That's half of why we need to get you properly drunk."
"What's the other half?"
She makes a final roll, and the program tallies up her results. A middling score, nothing spectacular. It seems like the trauma and stress of recent events has thrown her off her dice game. The score results in Anja making a face, before clearing the board, and starting another solitaire game. She glances up at you, though, and grins again. "The other half is that seeing you drunk will be funny."
"It's really not that entertaining!" you insist, face heating.
"Well, I guess we'll find out," she says. "After that -- once we've had a chance to sober up, we could probably try finding some company. Not that I'd have much of a chance standing out next to you."
You blink at this, curiosity overcoming your embarrassment. "What about Karel?" you ask, remembering her boyfriend's name.
"What about him?" Anja makes a new first roll and keeps most of the dice this time. "We're not that exclusive. I mean, we'd better not be, the amount of girls he goes through while I'm away."
"... ah," you say, smiling a little awkwardly at her frankness.
"Like I said, though, it's going to be hard to get much male attention if I'm out with you." She stops, tilting her head consideringly. "... You've actually never told me: What are you even into?"
"Into?" you ask, raising your eyebrows in amusement.
"Yeah, what? Boys, girls, both, neither?" Anja tallies all these options off on one hand as she names them, rolling the virtual dice with the other.
You think about this for a long moment, mostly to keep her in suspense, before replying, with a gently amused smile: "Yes."
She stares at you for a moment, trying to decide whether or not you're being annoying. She seems to settle with somewhere in between -- she laughs again. "Well, that's convenient," she admits. "I'm stuck with only going for men who specifically my mother will disapprove of."
You cover your mouth, giggling slightly at the frankness of it.
"You think I'm joking," she says, shaking her head. "Sadly, no. Gender aside though, who do you go for, though? You must have some kind of preference, when you get the chance, right?"
You consider her question thoughtfully.
This question has significance, in that it's going to be used to signal interest in a romantic entanglement with a pilot. Pilot - bridge bunny romance being a treasured genre tradition, choosing one of these options will not quite lock you into that option, but it will make me feel as if I can have Amani go more directly down one road or another. There are options for Ito as well, but obviously that particular route is off the table at this point. If "definitely no one in the navy" wins, that's a good indicator that people don't' want a romantic subplot. I might still provide the option later if it makes sense, but I'll be less likely to steer towards that as an endpoint for certain relationships you're building.
Pick one from each category here, votes will be tallied in sets:
Personality:
[ ] Someone brave, maybe sometimes even a little recklessness
[ ] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side
[ ] Somene mysterious with a troubled past
[ ] Definitely no one in the military
Appearance:
[ ] A great smile
[ ] Tall blondes
[ ] Unusual looks
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- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
[x] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side.
[x] A great smile.
Just to frustrate Anja, North's preferences have to be as boring as possible.
[x] A great smile.
Just to frustrate Anja, North's preferences have to be as boring as possible.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side
[X] A great smile
[X] A great smile
Thors_Alumni
Proud member of Thors Class VII from Liberl
- Location
- Liberl Zemuria.
[X] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side
[X] A great smile
[X] A great smile
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Kinruush
Who?
- Location
- USA
[x] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side.
[x] A great smile.
Just to frustrate Anja, North's preferences have to be as boring as possible.
Sure, that seems convincing.
[x] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side.
[x] A great smile.
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The most frustrating response to Anja here would have been to make it obvious you're into her surrogate brother, if he weren't super dead.Just to frustrate Anja, North's preferences have to be as boring as possible.
"Ew. Never talk to me about this again."
[X] Someone serious and unapproachable, with a private warmer side
[X] A great smile
[X] A great smile