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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Okay, officially closing the vote. ETA sometime early this week.
Adhoc vote count started by Gazetteer on Nov 12, 2018 at 11:26 AM, finished with 64 posts and 47 votes.
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Update 029: Tests
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    • Go to Owusu, 30 votes

    Tell the princess first, 17 votes

    In a few seconds, the contact medication seems to have began to work. J6's breathing has grown less strained. The tremble in her arms and hands has stilled until it's barely perceptible as she carefully tucks the medicine container back into her jacket pocket.

    "Guardswoman?" you ask, tentatively.

    She blinks, looking back at you as if she'd momentarily forgotten you were there. A short but blinding migraine, by all appearances. You wonder why she's so eager to directly interface so often, if jacking out has such potentially painful results. "Mm?" she manages.

    "Do you remember that I was given this data and asked to go through it by an officer named Lieutenant-Commander Owusu?" you ask.

    "The SRI officer," she agrees. There's a strange note in her voice when she says that. It's hard to precisely pinpoint.

    "Yes, he's an SRI officer," you agree, frowning. "Is… that a problem?"

    She shrugs marginally, not quite looking at you as she replies. "It's… a thing," she says, thickly. Inadequately.

    Her words from before, immediately preceding her declaring herself unwilling to go on and making you instant ramen, swim up ghost-like into the subtext of this conversation: "The Empire says criminals. The Jovians say the Empire. The Navy. The SRI," she'd said, referring to whoever had bankrolled the project that had mutilated her as a child. Left her so she has these migraines. Bad associations. Like the surgery.

    "Well," you continue, delicately, "it's… his case. He found the transmission, he figured out what it was. He's the one who brought it to me. Would you mind if we took it to him, first? Obviously I'd never ask you to keep this from her highness, just to let the Lieutenant-Commander take the lead on it." J6 turns, finally, staring at you for an uncomfortably long amount of time. Thinking. "As a favour to me?" you add, a little desperately.

    J6 looks away again. "Okay," she says, slowly. "We can do that."

    The message with Owusu doesn't take long. "What I've been working on," you say, slowly, "I found something." You don't want to be too specific over the call.

    Something about your tone, neutral though you're trying to keep it, carries your meaning, however. "... what we weren't hoping to find?" he asks, quietly.

    "What we were looking for," you agree. After that, it's just down to him naming a meeting place. This time, he's coming to meet you. It's not that far.

    You glance up at J6. "He wants to meet me not far from here," you say. "You could come too, if you wanted."

    "No," she says, shaking her head.

    "Ah, I suppose your duties don't allow it," you reason, undoing your seat straps and gathering up your things.

    J6 shakes her head again, hair fanning like billowing snow. "No," she says."I don't want to."

    --​

    Lieutenant-Commander Milo Owusu gets to the location he gave you first, apparently having already been on the spindle. It's not terribly far from the Guardswoman's meeting room, a small piece of zero gravity office space that he maintains. You can't help but notice that, as you pass through the door, the signal strength on your electronics drops from five bars down to zero. So, it looks like you're doing that again.

    "Glad you weren't hurt, Ensign," he says, after a perfunctory greeting. He seems to mean it, although privately you're forced to admit that you're growing weary of the sentiment in a way that's not fair to blame on anyone in particular.

    Instead, you smile sadly and say: "Thank you, sir. I appreciate your concern."

    He's tenser than you've seen him, the laughing quality of his eyes turned serious. It doesn't render his beauty-model-looks any less captivating, but it casts them in a different light. That tension does little to abate as he reads what you show him. He hasn't bothered to properly strap himself in at the darkened workstation, instead hovering near it in a manner that's thankfully at least less unnerving than similar behaviour from J6.

    When he finally finishes, he closes his eyes and takes in a long breath, a profound fatigue settling onto his shoulders. When he's gathered himself, he repons his eyes. "Well done, North," he says, finally. "I profoundly wish there had been nothing to find."

    "I can understand the feeling, sir," you admit. "I couldn't have gotten that to you this quickly if I hadn't had help from the Guardswoman, however."

    "Yes," Owusu notes, finally pushing himself down into the chair with all the cheer of a man walking to his own execution. He wastes no time activating the workstation, gloved fingers gliding over its surface faster even than you can manage. Presumably already beginning to compose an initial report on your findings. "I did give you tacit permission to get the princess involved, although I frankly didn't expect you to manage that. Or considered her…" he pauses, looking more than a little awkward. "... aide as a potential resource for this project."

    "I don't know that she would have agreed to help, if it had come from you, sir," you admit.

    He doesn't pause working, but seems to consider that. "Yes," he agrees, "that seems reasonable to surmise." Owusu is quiet for a moment. "I realise," he says, a little awkwardly, "that it would have been very easy for you to go over my head with this. Very far over my head." At your surprised expression, he shrugs. "You're not exactly officially under my command. I could swear vengeance and try to undermine you for it, but frankly her highness could do a lot more for your career. And she has a reputation for rewarding good service with like."

    "It's your investigation, sir," you point out. "I'm hardly the one who found this data on my own." You try not to let the stab of bitterness show in your voice as you add, "I… dislike people who take credit for the work of others."

    He actually laughs a little at that. A sound that's half mirthless, harsher than his ordinary laugh. "Taking credit for the work of others, North, is arguably a perk of rank." You're entirely uncertain that he's actually joking. "You, however, were in the somewhat novel position of it working the other way around, and I appreciate you not throwing me under the tram line."

    "... you're welcome, sir?"

    "I remember that sort of thing, North. I'm not a princess, but assuming we're not all dead inside of the month…" his shrug is lithely expressive, while simultaneously giving you nothing at all. "... well, I remember that sort of thing. Did Guardswoman 'J6' want to cut me out of things?"

    You blink at the abrupt change of topic, thrown off enough that you announce honestly: "Yes, but I don't think it was on purpose, sir."

    "I do," he says in a tone that might have been amiable on another day. "All considered, coming from someone with her background, I don't take it personally." He looks up from his work again to give you a searching look. Perhaps your slight discomfort with this topic is obvious, because he answers the question you're thinking. Sort of. "The SRI was a different organisation at one point," he explains, carefully. "Different emperor, different Lord Inspector, different… 'mandates'." You do not get the impression that he's attempting to wave away the concern. It seems to bother him -- this is simply the conclusion he's come to over the years. "Different empire," he admits, after a long moment. "Just when things have been moving in a halfway positive direction, the bastards show up to finish us off."

    "So I've heard, sir," you agree. "Is that why we're protecting it?"

    Owusu snorts at that. "Abstractly yes, Ensign, but more pertinently we're protecting it so that we don't all choke and die in space. There's no clean way to take this system by force. Space around Iapetus is too crowded with people and habitats. Even in places we're not supposed to have put them. Habitat modules on defence platforms was a 'temporary measure', and yet that was nearly six years ago. As the old proverb goes, 'Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution.'" He frowns at what he's writing at this, glancing back at the data you've provided him. "This battle plan really doesn't make sense," he says. "We're missing something. You're quite certain there's nothing further to tease out of the data?"

    "Nothing I or the Guardswoman could find." If you thought there was more, you'd still be looking for it.

    "If they just attack the system head on -- from any direction -- they'll need staggering strength of numbers and the kind of losses they'd take would still be unacceptable." He frowns. "If it were my fleet trying to take this moon, there's no question that I'd want to disable that defence network." He's almost more thinking out loud now. "It's going to be bloody regardless, but there's a difference between bloody and a mutual massacre. There'd need to be some way to sabotage them, or compromise them. Sleeper agents, some kind of infiltration team..."

    It's a little surreal, imagining what he's talking about. The orderly little section of space that served as a brief, safe harbour subjected to the horrors of space warfare. Ships and habitats decompressing, nowhere to run but unforgiving vacuum... Of course, Anchiale hasn't precisely felt safe or sheltered since Mosi and Anja. Anja. Anja…

    Slowly, one of your hands reaches up to touch your wrist, fingers sliding over the same smooth expanse of skin that Anja's own blood-slicked hand had fought so desperately to indicate to you. Your mind goes back to the feel of Lori's arms around you, your fingers against her strangely-marred skin…

    "Sir?" you ask.

    "It's from my pilot suit… The new prototypes are all using a newer design that we stole from the enemy. Or that they stole from us. The haptic points in the arm are a little more… forceful than I'd like."

    Owusu looks up from the message he's drafting, slightly surprised. Almost as if he'd forgotten you were there. "Yes?" he asks. He does a double-take at seeing your face. "Are you alright, Ensign? You look a little pale."

    "I saw-- … I saw... on her wrist… she's… your sister. She's… a… she's with… A new-- she's used a new--"

    "I… think I may have seen someone on the station who might be with the enemy."

    Owusu stares, his fingers finally stilling. "Explain," he says, with no trace of humour in his voice.

    You hurriedly tell him about what happened with Anja, with Mosi, your abrupt realisation of what your friend wanted to tell you so badly.

    He's watching you, perfectly still, face inscrutable. "Have you reported these suspicions, North?" he asks. "To anyone?"

    There is a wrong answer to that, you realise. A version of these events where this goes very badly for you. "I've only just realised what she meant," you say, voice strangely steady. "It… makes sense, though, in retrospect." You feel hollow. Too betrayed even to feel shocked.

    "And you're certain this is what Ensign Li wanted to say?" he asks, voice sharp.

    "Yes, sir."

    Owusu covers his face with a hand, staying like that for a long, agonising moment. Finally, he speaks again. "Well, Ensign," he says, "I'd suggest you break your uniform back out. You are going to be spending the next several days talking to unfriendly people far above your pay grade."

    All considered, that's probably the best outcome you could have hoped for.

    --​

    Once again, Mosi sees Saturn hanging overhead, view unobstructed by anything thicker than the polarised glass of her helmet, ears filled with nothing but her breathing, the whirr of onboard life support and the faint thudding impact as she methodically de-mags one boot and reattaches it to the section of station hull in front of her. It's an automated system, to prevent user error. User error here, of course, would result at worst in both boots demagged at once, sending Mosi drifting off into space away from the station.

    There is also, this time, the voice of Ensign Kim. "Well, the rings are very nice," she acknowledges, "but I've been looking at it for a while now, and Jupiter's a better view."

    "Kim…"     Roth's voice is thin with nervous fatigue, and it carries a warning note.

    "Sorry, sir, I've heard Earth is very beautiful from space as well, I've just never seen it."

    "Radio silence,"     he says. The short-range of the suit-to-suit communication is unlikely to be picked up by anyone inside the station, and Kim's comments aren't quite incriminating in of themself, but it does ease Mosi's tension a little not to be talking unless necessary.

    Ahead of her, the curving expanse of Anchiale's main spindle looms up at the end of the low-gravity anchor shaft she walks down, the bright lights of the space port shining a beacon toward their eventual goal. Three people in anonymous work suits. Nothing at all suspicious. It still makes her feel intensely nervous, being out of the hideout again. She half expects to be greeted at the next airlock by a cadre of security personnel with firearms.

    Roth's anger has cooled to a frosty dislike, an unwillingness to address Mosi unless necessary which she is entirely willing to take over being physically assaulted. He walks at the head of the short column, with Mosi bringing up the rear. Kim, in an almost fearful way, set herself up as a physical buffer between her two superiors. Kim made it hard, sometimes, for Mosi to keep disliking her.

    Mosi has to be here for this, because she does after all have a job to do. She and Kim both, one that justified grounding them here away from their units, unable to pilot anything for so long. Mosi almost doesn't care about the circumstances anymore -- she just wants to be in the cockpit of a mecha.

    The small exterior airlock is set into the spindle a very short ways away from a much larger one, on the fringes of the spaceport. A small and obscure maintenance mecha hangar. Mosi watches as Roth's gloved fingers input the access code they've been given into the keypad raised above the airlock hatch, and the metallic hatch slides open. Following the other two, she bends down to grasp the handhold inside the airlock before demagging her boots completely, pulling herself inside. The hatch slides shut behind her, leaving her floating in an enclosed space with the others.

    Lights on all four walls flash red, then amber, then finally, long moments later, setting on a steady, reassuring green. Airlock pressurised: Please remove your helmets flashes beneath the lights now. Mosi begins the process of declamping the helmet from her suit a few moments after Roth and Kim, more hesitant than they are. The black, merciless eyes of cameras stare at them from all sides. Supposedly, the facial recognition on these devices was disabled shortly before their arrival. If it wasn't…

    Cadre of security officers.

    The helmet comes off and even the over-processed airlock atmosphere tastes fresher than breathing from her suit. She blinks at the sudden brightness of their surroundings, absent the polarised dimness of the helmet. The interior hatch slams open with a much louder sound, and she watches as both Roth and Kim push their way out into the hangar.

    "Good, you're not late." The man is tall but gangly, his arms well muscled enough to look almost disproportionate with the rest of him. A salt and pepper beard dominates his face, in need of a good trim. Behind him, the hangar is mostly empty and strangely silent, only one other worker present. A youth, his shoulders hunched, determinedly not looking over at the three new arrivals. Both of them wear identical Anchiale Maintenance Staff jumpsuits to Mosi, Roth and Kim, gradually revealed as the three of them begin to disentangle themselves from their suits.

    "I said when I'd be here," Roth tells him, narrowing his eyes.

    Their contact in maintenance, Verner, Mosi's been told, is unimpressed. "You have no idea how much paperwork is in my future for disabling that face recognition -- I had to break more than just that, to make it look halfway convincing, and it's going to be a bastard to fix."

    "And you're going to have to break it again when we do the actual mission," Kim points out. "But you probably aren't going to be on the hook for those repairs after that."

    Verner looks at her somewhat dubiously. Kim is already most of the way out of her suit, with Mosi a little ways behind. Roth is experienced, certainly, but he's not a pilot. When Verner's eyes drift over to Mosi, they go wide, and his face goes pale. He rounds on Roth. "What the fuck is the trigger-happy one doing here?"

    Mosi bristles slightly, but doesn't rise to the insult. "My job," she says.

    Verner's jaw sticks out, but Roth cuts him off. "She's right," he says. "I can do this with one pilot, but it gets a lot harder. You disabled those cameras -- we took precautions." There's a subtext here, that seems to say that if Mosi hadn't been critical to his mission, he would quite cheerfully have watched Verner push her back out the airlock, without a suit this time.

    Verner accepts this with silent ill humour.

    "Who's the kid?" Kim asks, pushing up and out of her suit, and effortlessly gliding up to a nearby handhold in the same motion.

    "Oh, Chen?" Verner waves it off. "Don't worry about him. He's solid, he just… wants to pretend this part isn't happening."

    "I know the type," Roth allows.

    Without asking -- let alone waiting -- for permission, Kim pushes herself off toward the nearest mecha bay. It's occupied by a chunky, civilian grade mecha painted an eye-popping caution-yellow.

    "... Cirntech?" Mosi asks, dredging up her knowledge of such machines.

    "Yes," Verner agrees. He eyes Kim as though she might somehow break something on the colossal figure she's peering at. "A Builder MKIII. Both of them. The MKIV is harder to work with for the modifications you insisted on."

    "Almost as big as a Banner," Kim happily declares. Gripping one of the maintenance handles around the cockpit, Kim uses her other hand to rap sharply on the squared off torso. She makes an unimpressed face at the hollow sound she's greeted by. "A standard round would go right through that," she complains.

    "It's not a military mecha," Verner retorts, annoyed. "The armour is for small debris, not bullets."

    "They are armed, though?" Mosi asks. Rather than opting directly for a physical inspection like Kim, she instead wants to get a few things straight with Verner.

    "Yes, like you asked. The emitter on the cutting laser has been swapped out for a weapon grade version -- the heatsinks and power draw on that modification is a bitch to handle."

    "Energy weapons," Kim says, face still looking slightly disdainful. "Give me some reliable, kinetic force over that any day. Or high explosives."

    "We're only using the weapons in a last resort," Mosi points out. "They have to be things that will go unnoticed otherwise."

    Kim sighs ever so slightly, patting the surface of the mecha as if to reassure it that it wasn't it's fault that it was deficient. Kim, Mosi knows, ordinarily pilots a Banner Heavy Type, although her file lists her as being extremely skillful. "You know what the say about Jovians and explosions," Kim had said the first time they'd met. There had been something oddly vulnerable about her when she'd told the joke -- as if it were one she were telling simply to prevent someone else saying it. Kim's parents had transplanted themselves to Jupiter in the decade before the civil war. Kim and all her siblings had been born there, but one generation's remove from the inner solar system is already enough for the realities of being born on the colonial frontier to creep in.

    "What about anti-personnel?" Mosi asks, glancing back at Verner.

    "Ugh." he makes a disgusted sound deep in his throat. "Yes, that. I managed to gut the rivet gun and put something in there, without changing the confirmation. When are you possibly going to need that for what you're using it for?"

    "You'd be surprised," Mosi says, bluntly. Roth eyes Mosi for a moment, but doesn't object or intervene. Seemingly, as unhappy as he is with her overall, he still does recognise her as a capable pilot.

    Curiosity satisfied, Mosi drifts over to examine the other modified MKIII. She pops the cockpit hatch, inspecting the interior with a critical eye. While there's a degree of standardisation within the mature technology that is mecha controls -- barring minor improvements in haptic suits and other such trivialities -- every manufacturer has their quirks, and every model is a little different. Enough to matter when one is putting their life on the line. As she straps herself in to examine the control setup, Mosi hears the whirr of motors, and knows that Kim is following suit.

    The next few minutes proceed in silence as Mosi familiarises herself with this machine, runs a few discrete tests. While she can't say quite for sure how it will handle until she actually has it out in the void, she gets the impression that, true to its physical confirmation, the MKIII is liable to handle like a thrown brick. Surprisingly powerful rear acceleration, but barely adequate thrusters on all other sides. Strange in a civilian construction model, but Mosi will take having to turn to break over creeping along at a snail's pace in an emergency. The passenger compartment, necessary for the mission, is a feature she's not used to dealing with, but as long as she takes it into account during any particularly dramatic maneuvers...

    "So, what do you think, Lieutenant?"

    Mosi looks up to see Kim peering around the edge of Mosi's still-open hatch. Mosi swallows something terse and annoyed. Frankly, Kim deserves better than that from her by this point. Even if she does insist on being perky. "Not my first choice for getting into a fight in," Mosi admits. "But it's honestly better than I expected."

    To her mild surprise, Kim nods slowly, apparently agreeing. "I think that's accurate," she says. "It's probably going to be a little clumsier than my Banner, but I'll manage. What about you? It's a big step down from that souped up little mosquito you fly around in."

    "I can manage a clunkier unit," Mosi says. "I started out with a Scouting Lancer, believe it or not. Before the Vespula went into mass production and then Commander Green finagled me my Provespa." She falls silent, spending a long moment looking at the scan interface. The familiar data and mapping software -- differing significantly for the needs of a civilian mecha -- fills her with visions of a smoothly elegant girl wearing a sundress, perched on a bench across from her. It makes Mosi's throat tighten uncomfortably. "It will be a little annoying," Mosi admits, glancing back up at Kim, and giving her a small, grudging smile. "Are you still annoyed about the laser?"

    "No," Kim says. "I've thought about it, and it's probably for the best."

    "For the best?" This was looking like it was going to be an actual conversation, so Mosi undid her straps, pushing off and catching herself on the edge of the cockpit to face Kim more or less directly.

    "I saw the stats on paper," she says, slowly, "but… actually seeing this place, Iapetus is just… so crowded." She glances over at the sealed mecha-sized airlock as if she can somehow see out into space, with the many habitats and platforms she's referring to spinning around their dead little ball of ice.

    "You're worried about collateral," Mosi realises, not harshly.

    Kim nods. "Even just from the plan by itself, if everything goes perfectly… the debris from the defence platforms could hit some of the habitats. And if we start an actual fight, well… lasers don't send ordinance out into space. I grew up in an orbital habitat, you know? A little one, around Ganymede. They're… fragile."

    Mosi looks at Kim's face, uncharacteristically serious, looking to Mosi for answers that Mosi isn't sure she has. War in space is not merciful, and doesn't often discriminate. It's impossible to take a moon like Iapetus without civilians dying, accidental though it might be. "We're hitting military targets," she says, voice as reassuring as she can make it. She has the brief, irrational notion that Amani would be better at this sort of thing than she is. Maybe Amani should have been an officer after all. "We can't control where random debris goes, but there should be a safe buffer zone between the defence network and anywhere anyone's raising a family. It's not like we're going to deliberately attack civilian habitats, Kim. It's just navy personnel on the defence platforms."

    Behind Kim, Mosi sees Verner listening in. He's frowning as she talks, and opens his mouth as if to interject or add something, but he falls abruptly silent as Roth outright glares at him. Before Mosi has a chance to think too hard on this, Roth is floating up beside them. His voice isn't overly loud, but it harkens back to the parade ground. "We are His shining sword and shield," he begins.

    Without conscious thought, Mosi's mouth opens to add the next part of the Oath, spine stiffening with newfound vigour. "With one hand He wields us to strike down our enemies, with the other raising us to protect the people!"

    Kim, looking more resolved than reassured, finishes: "For every one life we take in His name, a million more are saved."

    "All praise to our Emperor." Roth nods, satisfied. "We have our orders," he says.

    And they do. Mosi does. Amani, safe on the largest and most valuable habitat in the system, will surely be relatively safe. She will be, Mosi tells herself, part of that million. Not part of that one. When the time comes, Mosi will pilot this mecha out to their goal, and she will not hesitate.

    She doesn't notice the look on Verner's face as he watches this all.

    --​

    The port looks strangely different from this angle, watching a ship dock and its crew disembark. It's not precisely the same as the docking bay the Rose first landed at, but it's a close thing. The Herald class ship is lighter armed than a Ranger, but it's in the same size range, using an identically sized berth. You wait quietly, drifting a little by a far wall, waiting for the officers to finish gliding out of the access hatch and onto the station.

    You've spent the past several days alternating between mind numbing boredom and the deep anxiety of speaking before people who had the power to end your career with a single screen stroke. Going over the same points, justifying yourself for your suspicions about Mosi over and over again.

    Owusu is hardly telling you everything, but you do appreciate his willingness to keep you generally informed. The report written from the data you and J6 compiled has entirely convinced the powers that be of an impending attack, to the point that they are, he hints, quietly recalling long-range patrols to much tighter routes around Iapetus. Pulling garrison forces out of outlying stations, even at the cost of leaving them exposed. Your and Owusu's evidence for the existence of an infiltration team has received… more of a mixed response. The evidence is quite circumstantial, after all. But in large part due to Owusu's dogged persistence and frustrating charisma, you get the feeling that something is being done. More resources for the investigation, improved security at high value areas of the station. You try not to think about how that all ends for Mosi if you're right, but in your heart you know that you and your mother will have to fight hard to keep her from being shot.

    You know, deep down, that your mother will fight to spare her that fate. You, for the time being… feel less certain about it. Anja is scheduled for surgery in two days. Maybe you'll feel differently when you can talk to Anja about what happened -- anything you suspect about Mosi is incredibly classified, but if Anja already knows, that might be allowed. Thoughts of your sister piloting an enemy mecha plague your dreams. You haven't even been allowed to tell Lori -- not about that part. You keep scrambling for other explanations for how Mosi would have access to an advanced, military grade mecha, but nothing else makes sense. And why else would Anja have tried to arrest her at gunpoint? Why else would she have a gun to fire back?

    You tamp the thoughts down, maintaining your air of serene calm as you scan the faces of the departing officers, blue jackets smart under the artificial light. Even though you still have no idea what you'll say to the person you're waiting for, if she asks.

    You spot her instantly. Tall, dark, laughing quietly at something another officer has just said. She's dressed in her ordinary uniform, marking her as a Mecha Captain, with the emblem of the Knights Lunar boldly displayed over her breast. Dark eyes that match your own catch sight of you a moment later and she excuses herself from her subordinate, making a beeline for your location.

    As she glides to a halt on a handhold next yours, you bring your hand up into a smart salute, voice classroom crisp. "Welcome back to Iapetus, Dame Nalah North," you say, dead serious.

    She returns the salute just as gravely. "Thank you, Ensign North," she replies. She looks at you for a few more seconds before the facade breaks, and she grins broadly, pulling you into a tight hug. For all that you're a woman grown and an officer in your own right, Sol help you if it's not exactly what you needed. Hugging done, she pushes you out to arms length, letting the two of you drift along the wall. Her shipmates either politely ignore this, or smile to themselves, obviously noting the strong family resemblance. "Look at you," she says, radiating pride so obviously that you feel a small lump forming in your throat. "You father would be so, so proud."

    "Thank you," you whisper, smiling more reservedly. "I missed you."

    Your mother sighs, still smiling. "Well," she says, "I do hope one day we're stationed anywhere near each other. We're all the family either of us has left in the world, after all."

    This confirms what you already strongly suspected. She has no idea about Mosi. Not about her even being alive, let alone possibly with the enemy. The former has been kept tight to the chest in media broadcasts, the latter is actually classified. Still, though, part of you had hoped that one of her "friends in Comms" might have slipped her something before she arrived. Something to prevent you from having to be put in this position.

    "I'd like that," you say. "Titan is just a little too far to be able to see you here."

    "One of the realities of serving," she says, sadly

    You open your mouth to respond to this, but you stop as you see a familiar figure floating in across the arrival area, clearly cutting a path toward you and your mother. Lori has been spending a lot of time around the spaceport, you know, testing out the mysterious prototype you may have somehow convinced her to give a chance. And she looks it now, still wearing her blue and silver pilot suit, blonde hair tied back in a knot the way she always does when she expects to have to wear a helmet. Following your gaze, Dame Nalah turns to look at her, and frowns curiously. She squints at the crests on Lori's pilot suit, recognising them shortly before she arrives. "... Perbeck," your mother mutters, and not quite with the sort of relish you'd prefer.

    "Dame Nalah," Lori says, stopping gracefully beside the two of you. She salutes your mother coolly.

    "I believe you have me at a disadvantage," your mother lies, returning the salute.

    "Countess Gloriana Perbeck," Lori says, thankfully not rising to the mild provocation. "The two of us have never been formally introduced. I've served on the Titanium Rose as mecha Commander with your daughter, this past voyage."

    Your mother releases you in order to grasp a nearby handhold, apparently feeling she needs grounding for this conversation. You're left drifting between the two of them for a moment, until you grab another, putting you beside Lori. Dame Nalah looks from you to Lori, before speaking again. "I'm pleased to meet you, Countess -- your reputation certainly precedes you." She shoots you a questioning glance, before adding: "I'm surprised you'd know each other. I've been mecha commander on a similar vessel, and I can't say I had prolonged contact with junior bridge officers."

    "Yours precedes you as well," Lori says. Then she shrugs lightly, glancing at you. "Ensign North helped my crew with some software issues relating to scans -- we took losses partway through the voyage, and she was good enough to volunteer."

    You nod, happy to play along for now. "Lady Perbeck is a very dedicated officer," you say, attempting to project respect and admiration, rather than romantic affection.

    "You've said," your mother agrees, looking between the two of you again. You're each demonstrating nothing but cool, professional respect for one another. Your mother's eyebrows raise fractionally, and your heart sinks. "It was a rough voyage, I've heard," she says to Lori. "You have my sympathies for your losses -- it's always hardest when it happens on a milk run."

    Lori closes her eyes for a moment, face unreadable. "Thank you," she says. "My pilots were both… very young."

    "Our mecha squad was exceptionally brave," you say. "We wouldn't have made it through without them."

    "Or without a very capable scans officer," Lori says, with no trace of flattery. You feel your face heating very slightly at the praise in front of your mother.

    Your mother, for her part, has been continuing to look between the two of you, eyebrows continuing to steadily rise with each exchange the two of you make. "Doing my job to the best of my abilities is the least I can do, ma'am," you say, hastily.

    "I've seen the least that can be done, Ensign," Lori says, dismissively. "And fortunately for us, you exceed it."

    Your mother's eyes abruptly narrow, and you struggle not to squirm under her regard. You should know better than to even try to lie to her, even by omission. Now simply didn't seem to be the best time, and you admittedly had wanted to see her and Lori talk as officers before dropping any awkward news. "While I am very pleased to have spoken with you, Countess," your mother says, finally, "I am due to deliver a report soon, and I would like a few moments more with my daughter before that." Then she gives Lori a broad, almost threatening smile. "I hope we see each other again, under more casual circumstances," she says. "I'm sure we'll have… a great deal to talk about."

    "I'm certain," Lori agrees. "I hope you enjoy your time together. Good day, Dame Nalah. Ensign North." You watch her drift away a little helplessly, fully aware of your mother's continued scrutiny.

    "So," she says. "A countess."

    "It more or less just… happened," you say, lamely. She gestures for you to follow her, heading out of the arrival area. "I'm sure it did," she says. "... with a junior officer, no less."

    "It's not as though I'm in her chain of command," you say, keeping your voice low. "And we're hardly… doing anything onboard ship. It's just since we've been ashore."

    Your mother gives you a long, searching look, then sighs, deflating a little. "Well, you're a grown woman," she admits. "I'll trust you to have some sense." Her face, for the first time, shows the signs of stress, of sleepless nights, knowledge of the invasion. "Sol knows, I can understand needing… something."

    "Thank you," you say, relaxing slightly.

    She sighs, regaining some of her good humour. "Still… you don't aim small."

    You miss your next handhold, keep sailing and hit a bulkhead. Your mother looks back at the muffled thump, eyes wide. "Amani? Are you alright?"

    "Fine! Fine," you say, warding off her offered assistance. "It just slipped out of my hand." What kind of cosmic joke was it, to have her pick the same words Mosi had? Mosi looks so painfully much like your mother. Same complexion, build, hair, voice. Even, you realise, the same manner of speech, the same mannerisms. You wonder how much Mosi knows about the last.

    "Okay," your mother says, deciding to accept this. She nods at a nearby row of transit shafts, smiling apologetically. "We'll meet up again soon," she says. "I appreciate you coming out to meet me. And I haven't forgotten about that Bal girl, Faiza -- I'll be keeping my promises there, the moment I get a chance."

    "Good," you say. "She needs someone not to just leave after getting her hopes up, I think."

    Dame Nalah sighs. "Yes," she agrees. "I got that feeling." She reaches out to press the button "Message me later, Malaika? We can catch up properly, before we end up not seeing each other for another six months."

    Now, at the moment of departure, you're suddenly gripped by the reality -- blissfully postponed by the awkwardness of her putting two and two together about Lori -- of her not knowing about Mosi. If you let her go to deliver this report, you have no doubt that someone will tell her something about it. About you having been involved in a shooting, about her eldest child being miraculously alive.

    You've been instructed not to say anything about your suspicions, and even telling her about Mosi being alive at all is dodgy, but… this is your mother. This is her mother.

    --​

    Do you say anything to Dame Nalah?

    [ ] Don't tell your mother about Mosi

    Better safe than sorry. You can talk later, in private and hope she doesn't blame you.

    [ ] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting

    She has a right to know her eldest child is alive, and that part isn't as sensitive.

    [ ] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, possibly with the enemy

    She has a right to know, in spite of security concerns.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, possibly with the enemy

    Yeah, she needs to know this, NOW. Because I am not doing what bad writers do and have us ignore it.
     
    [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting

    Our mother is smart, she can put the pieces together. There are very few reasons for Mosi to be alive and to have shot a Navy officer before running off.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    "While I am very pleased to have spoken with you, Countess," your mother says, finally, "I am due to deliver a report soon, and I would like a few moments more with my daughter before that." Then she gives Lori a broad, almost threatening smile. "I hope we see each other again, under more casual circumstances," she says. "I'm sure we'll have… a great deal to talk about."
    Click to expand...
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    In case anyone were wondering: We now have ironclad confirmation that Dame North is, in fact, our mother.

    [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting
    Like Amani herself thought, it basically can't be hidden that we were in the shooting, after which she'll want more answers (and being a mom, she will get them). This is the least we can do.
     
    [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting
    As we ourselves noted, Mosi's existence has been down played, but the "working for the enemy" part is outright classified.
     
    Gazetteer said:
    We can't control where random debris goes, but there should be a safe buffer zone between the defence network and anywhere anyone's raising a family. It's not like we're going to deliberately attack civilian habitats, Kim. It's just navy personnel on the defence platforms."
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    I'm going to point out that I predicted that this was going to happen, and tried to pre-empt it.

    10ebbor10 said:
    Knowing that the defense platforms are inhabited could save lives, or at least add some weight to the enemy commander's consciouscnesd.
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    Anyway, that's going to be fun. Odds are that all the people involved in this plot will get a death sentence, even if they're arrested before they can enact it.
     
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    [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting

    Yeah, I expect Mom is going to be a lot quicker to put the pieces together than Amani was. And she deserves to at least hear the non-classified bits from us first instead of some rando at HQ.
     
    [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting

    If the Prodigal is to return, we have to be ready for her...
    EDITED to the middle of the road option. I really don't have the mental bandwidth for deep contemplation at the moment.
     
    [X] Tell your mother Mosi is alive, about the shooting

    Mom is smart, she can put the pieces together with context.
     
    10ebbor10 said:
    Anyway, that's going to be fun. Odds are that all the people involved in this plot will get a death sentence, even if they're arrested before they can enact it.
    Click to expand...
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    I think we can possibly wriggle an escape out for Mosi.

    Obviously Mosi showing showing herself to us was her way of trying to warn the rightful empire of the oncoming attack. She didn't say anything out loud because she fears getting executed from stepping out of line, and she reflexively shot Anja because she (probably correctly) assumes that if taken prisoner by the imperial army she won't have long to live.

    But she knew that her sister is smart and learned, and would probably figure out the secret of the indentations. That's why she hoped we we'd become a researcher, you know. If we had experience with pilot suits we'd be able to gleam the truth easily.

    Clearly she's a terrified agent who has had to do terrible and horrible things in order to survive a monstrous regime, and is desperate trying to use this infiltration mission as a way to escape her current hellhole of a life. Can the members of the board really bring themselves to execute the sole reason we were able to find out about the infiltration team in the first place?
     
    10ebbor10 said:
    I'm going to point out that I predicted that this was going to happen, and tried to pre-empt it.
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    I was pleased at the time that someone was considering that vote from the perspective of potentially breaking Mosi's resolve instead of just in terms of giving the least information to the enemy.

    Although you got a hint here as to Roth's probable level of surprise to that intelligence if Mosi had brought it with her, so appealing to the commander's guilt was less of a sure thing.
     
    [X] Don't tell your mother about Mosi

    Why complicate things? Better to explain later, after everything has calmed down.

    It can have no downsides.

    For sure. None.
     
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