Super Robot Wars ∀: Deep Space IC Thread - Part 3: Crisis Point

[Balcerzak]

'A bit different'? That was how Kim was phrasing it? Thorvald remembered her as unhealthily pallid, wracked by shivering, and an emotional powderkeg. "Wait, that was the Artemis that did that to you, not the aliens?" He placed a worrying hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "You promise me you'll be careful, even in testing. I don't want to have to see you looking like you did in that meeting ever again. I don't know if my being there would help, but if there's anything you think I could do... just say the word."

Edited August 12, 2018 by Balcerzak

[Ether]

"I mean it's... hard to say. There were a lot of factors at play, in that moment. That's why it's so difficult to figure this thing out... there was the aliens, outputting telekinetic pressure unlike anything I'd ever felt, Chrissy knocking herself unconscious trying to push back at them... the T-link was still configured for two connected pilots, but Chrissy was unconscious, so she wasn't receiving feedback properly, then that system activating... that's why I... need to test it. We'll never figure out what happened without... clean data." Kim clarified, a small smile forming on her lips at Thorvald's overprotective nature... it was nice.

"I'll be as... careful as I can be. We're not in a situation where we can let any opportunity go... untaken."

[Shin]

Cheryl's appearance wasn't exactly expected, but she had at least confirmed who her previous client was - someone that he believed would probably require hours of therapy to even begin to fix. Tarquin continued making preparations, grabbing a packet of pasta from a conveniently low shelf and emptying into a pot.

"I have no qualms with Doctor Hart joining us, it only requires an increase in quantity for the ingredients used." Tarquin replied, puzzled by Jess' praise. He was still struggling to see how his behaviour was worth commending, he was simply acting in a way he considered appropriate. Previously it had gotten him into trouble with his peers at the base, but things appeared different now. He placed his pot down in the sink, filling it with water. "Pasta salad should be relatively simple to produce. It is likely to be fifteen minutes at the very most."

Even Tarquin could feel the uneasiness between Jess and Cheryl's exchange. He couldn't quite place it, but Jess seemed somewhat reluctant in her own way. He hoped that he was mistaken, otherwise lunch would end up rather awkward.

[Nanami Touko]

One Per Floor

"Alright. We'll go with that, then... Tiffany, you're top floor. Elizabeth, middle floor, the one we're on right now, and Rachel, bottom floor, pilots quarters."

"[Affirmative.]" All three responded in unison, shaking Jess a bit, once again.

"Th-Then, to your stations... And as you were, once you're there. Feel free to speak plainly with the crew if they want to talk with you."

They nodded, Tiffany and Rachel leaving for their other posts.

"[Is there anything you wish for me to take care of while I'm here, Captain?]"

"Nothing right now, no... Thank you for being so cooperative. Roxanna, we should go find Jezebel now, yes? Or see about the prisoner?" Either or, they were in no rush, right now.

No Qualms

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that, Jess-- I can call you Jess, right? It might harm patient relationships a bit, but I'm pretty casual outside the office. Don't worry about holding people up. The fact that you and Elaine stopped by today was a miracle in itself. I'm not the most popular destination, here. I like to think I do a good job, but no one wants to talk about their feelings... Not that I blame them, it can be incredibly difficult. Still, I'm not Doctor Hart while I'm here, Tarquin," she shot his way, sticking her tongue out in a childish manner, for a moment.

"Just call me Cheryl." She grabbed a mug for herself, walking over to where Tarquin was, hand in her pocket while the mug dangled gently in the other. "Pasta salad, huh? Want any help? Not that I think you need it." Oh right, these things needed something in them. "Think I'll have coffee, need something to keep me awake. Quick smoking last week, and it's beeeeeeen rough. Getting another addiction isn't great, but coffee's better than breathing in death, I would think." Chuckling to herself, Cheryl fetched a small container of instant coffee from the cupboard, putting three spoonfuls into her mug. Nice and ready for the water. "So! How's the ship?" The question was aimed at Jezebel, though she was curious how Tarquin was getting along, now.

Rollercoaster Part II

Brant shrugged at the mention of a Chaldene. "It's not like you winning would be a bad thing." That was especially true if Chris was serious about this 'reward,' though Brant still didn't know what it was. He had some ideas, but the two of them were in an awkward place. Until she called him darling, Brant thought something like a show of affection would be iffy. Now he wasn't so sure.

"Alright, here we go. You've got the controls. Take out everything that's trying to kill us. And don't pass up a chance to knock out their main cameras."

Brant started the simulation, and the Regalia's cockpit automatically shifted to its flight mode, matching the conditions of the simulation. They were coming up on the airfield, approaching from about five thousand feet, cruising at just over eight hundred miles per hour. The base itself was far from impressive, its only defensive emplacements being the standard Russian AA cannons. They were nothing to laugh at, and could take down any reckless fighter pilot with ease, but by themselves they were no match for a mobile suit. The challenge with the AA guns was that they would fire at the Regalia continuously once they were in range, and since their ammunition was both plentiful and stored underground, they weren't going to conserve their rounds. At best, they would simply not shoot while allies were sitting between them and the Regalia. Those allies, a group of upgraded Volkovs, were the biggest threat on this airfield. There were eight of them, but they were scattered all over the base. Two of them were equipped with very long range beam sniper rifles. The rest carried an even split of heavy machine guns and bazookas. All of them had the standard leg mounted missile launchers, and shield integrated launchers. 

Inevitably, the base's radar picked up the Regalia before they could really get close enough to do anything ...

Target Practice

"And I've got the controls... Oh, Brant, this is all you prepared for me? Don't disappoint a girl like that." Chris scoffed at the enemies, but they were well armed. She couldn't flutter her way through this and expect an easy outcome. And the turrets... Well, those wouldn't be an issue in just a moment. She had to get closer first, but at the very least... "You gave me way too many funnels to play with." The Regalia could hold six, what a dream. That stupid Oberon machine they'd sent her out in didn't have any, it just had a T-Link with nothing to use. Experimental, sure...

The base's radar picked them up, with meant Chris had to start playing dodge, though it was just AA fire, it wasn't exactly an issue. "One, two, three... Four, five, six~" She let out a satisfied sigh as the T-Link went to work, the funnels flying alongside the Regalia, dipping and dodging with her. "Let's go ourselves a little bit closer... One down~"

Chris sent two funnels towards the nearest AA emplacement, pouring beam fire into it, specifically the barrels. There was no point in trying to deal with the bunker itself, it was quicker to melt down the part that was shooting. She sent another two to deal with a second emplacement, as the Volkovs started firing. "Suppose it's time to get serious." Her smile dropped and she focused as best as she could, trying to fly closer to them while dodging the incoming fire. One of them seemed to be just a bit better of a shot, maybe Brant had given it a special AI. She marked it as unique before transforming and laying into one of them with the beam rifle.

"Did that... No, you did something to them. That should've popped it, so I'm guessing a coating?" Nothing that would indicate a barrier of some kind had come up, but there was no time to think on that further. More incoming fire, Chris changed back quickly, almost getting clipped by one of the snipers. "Too close... At least you gave these old machines good pilots." Her funnels had returned, and the AA fire had lessened, Chris punching the drive and starting to make a circle around the base. Only that one annoying machine seemed to be making any ground at firing where she was going to be, how frustrating. Another two funnels were sent to off an AA gun, leaving her to consider her options.

"More turrets, or the weakened Volkov... Decisions."

"The pilot's just as important as the machine," Brant smirked. 

So far so good, by his estimation. The AA guns didn't have the beam coating the Volkovs had, so they were susceptible to the Regalia's arsenal of energy weapons. Chris was using the Regalia more or less the way it was meant to be used in a battle this skewed. Of course all it would take to spoil things was getting pinned down once, and then the enemies would be all over them.

"I'd finish that thing off while you've got the chance, but don't stop moving," Brant warned, his gaze shifting to the lead Volkov every so often.

"You keep looking at that one. Who is it? Which data did you put in? Firmia's? Sasha? ... Hannah? No, that's definitely Hannah. The shots are too calculated, there's so little intuition. I guess she hasn't learned that, yet?" Chris smirked, as a around clipped one of the Regalia's wings. "Damn turrets... Give me a minute." Chris was tired of putting up with this constant splashing of rounds, so she pulled up and started to do a hard circle around the base, the funnels flinging out and back in every so often. With four turrets left, Chris had to make a decision. The funnels were spent, even if they'd done their job, and flying up here was making it easy enough to dodge the Hannah bot. She was learning, and they were getting closer, but it still wasn't good enough. Chris was getting into a groove, too.

"Funnels are out... Missiles, then!" With another mid air change, Chris fired round off at three of the remaining turrets, mangling the barrels, but that momentary loss of momentum wasn't free. The simulation was rocked for a moment, a round from one of the sniper rifles blasting through the top of the Regalia's right shoulder. "Not bad... Four!" Turrets were dealt with, Chris making a quick descent and planting the Regalia behind one of the facilities on base. There was some ordinance, but they stopped firing a moment after, Chris doing a quick check on the remaining ammo and energy.

"They're not gonna stay put while I go over things, are they? Your line up isn't very impressive, but the things running them are decently tough. I guess the intel was spot on, you're big on AI. Seven rounds, decent supply of energy, two missiles left... And a beam saber. Against that coating, and eight of them? That's a death sentence. This is a fun game~" Chris managed to chuckle, looking at the damage to the shoulder. "And that wasn't exactly a small hit. Hey, Brant, does this thing fire left handed?" An important question, with little time to get an answer... Wait, what was-- "Twin Bird Maneuver? Requires the Mantle in proximity? Wh, haha, what kind of cartoon nonsense is this? Is this a combo attack? Hahahah!"

"Just be careful," Brant brushed off the AI question. He didn't mind 'helping,' but as the architect, a full commitment would just undermine the simulation. She seemed to already have the leader pegged as a Hannah clone, but that wouldn't make it easy to take down.

"Yeah the arms are both spec'd the same way," Brant nodded when Chris asked about the Regalia's left hand. It seemed like She was going to swap the hyper beam rifle over to the left hand to spare the damaged arm and her accuracy. This was turning out to be as tough of a fight as Brant had envisioned.

Though, what was cartoonish about the Twin Bird Maneuver? It wasn't like he and Hannah shouted a lame one liner together over the comms when using it. If anything, the enemy ought to be terrified when the two AMS prototypes started coming at them like that. Brant supposed it didn't matter how Chris felt about it right this minute; the Mantle wasn't participating in any form, and she'd appreciate it more once they used it to put down an tough enemy.

"I bet you two say some cheesy one liner when you perform," she scoffed, stifling another laugh, as the Volkovs started heading over. "Well, I got as much time as I wanted, so let's deal with this. Off with the funnels!" They were empty, but it was a good distraction. A few of the Volkovs took shots at them, taking out down, as the rest darted about. Chris had an idea to make use of them, but first thing's first... Transforming and taking off, the Regalia sped out of cover, missiles primed for a specific target.

"Time to put the cripple out of his misery!" The previously fried Volkov needed dealing with... Damn, these things were more armored than she'd given then credit for, getting a good look at them. Firing off the remaining two missiles to seal the deal, she let it explode as her funnels chased after her. Next priority were those damn snipers, one of which she made the funnels crash into to keep it occupied, while the other got a face full of Regalia boot. The other Volkovs were already firing, best as they could to avoid hitting their allies, which meant Chris had to be fast. There was no way this thing's beam saber was slicing through this coating. Improvisation was in order.

There were two funnels still working after slamming into the volkov sniper, which she directed to push it towards her, grabbing it with the damaged arm of the Regalia and using both bits of force to drag it in front of her. The other guy was trying to get up, but it wasn't fast enough, these things weren't meant to get knocked over like that. jamming the beam saber's hilt against the cockpit, she turned it on, and after a second of intense sparking, it burned through the coating, pushing its way inside to fry the digital enemy. That just left--

Suddenly an emergency indicator, incoming enemy craft!? "Mother fuck--" Chris barely had enough time to swing the saber up to meet an incoming one, the 'Hannah' model having charged forward to meet her. "You sly bitch," she bit out, the disparity in their machines strengths made apparent at this angle. She'd had the Regalia bend over a bit to deal with the first sniper, and with this Volkov bearing down on her... "Damn, android!" One funnel left. It was enough of a distraction to play projectile with it again, tossing it at Hannah, who broke the saber lock to dodge it, giving Chris the moment she needed to push off the ground and transform to take off. Several rounds followed, some hitting the back wings, as she tried to put some distance between herself and the group.

"Hah, what the fuck? Who just runs in like that when they have such a range advantage? Your friend's crazy, Brant!" It had worked, but... Chris was definitely impressed.

At this point, Brant was simply impressed that they were still in the fight ... as well as wondering what kind of one-liners he and Hannah would use if they ever bothered. He figured that Chris would get overwhelmed as soon as she committed to finishing off one of the Volkovs, and while he was almost right, she still managed to slip away. They were running low on options, but that never stopped Tonya. Brant doubted Chris would give up, especially when she could afford to push herself and the machine to the limit.

That said ... "Sometimes you've got to be a little crazy to take down your opponent. Speaking of that, I can cut the limiters if you want to start overpowering them ... but you know how limit breaking works; brief boost, long cool down, angry mechanics, etcetera. Don't have to worry about that last one, though."

"I don't need a helping hand. I can do this without that! I can do this..." But how? The missiles were out, she had one funnel left, and while the energy reserves were good, they weren't going to be blowing up what she needed them too with these coatings... Wait, what? Did I seriously not notice this? The Regalia's beam rifle had a maximum output mode. That might just be enough to even this out, some... "Time to get rid of that other sniper." Chris took a hard turn back towards the incoming fire, Hannah still getting better, but not on the mark. "Gonna keep it that way, maximum output, fire!" The heavily concentrated beam that poured out of the rifle coated the enemy velkov sniper, the machine resisting under the barrage for a moment, before it melted through the coating and exploded the poor backliner.

Firing for so long had left Chris open, and the right arm had taken enough fire to need ejection. Flying away a moment, she set the rifle aside and popped the broken limb out, grabbing it and trying to aim. "Stupid machines!" With an angry heft, Chris tossed the damaged limb at the crowd, barely missing one of the Volkovs, but giving it enough of a scare to pause its fire, and allow her to hide another moment behind a different structure.

"Four left, and that fucking Hannah version... Seven regular shots and at least two of those charged ones. But I can't sit still to-- What!?"

Hannah had followed her without pause, boosting ahead of the other Volkovs, and bearing down on Chris, saber out. "What's wrong with this android!? That isnt even a melee machine!" 

She didnt have much time to react as Hannah turned the corner, Chris sending her final funnel to intercept. Hannah couldn't dodge it at this distance, but cutting through it was feasible. Luckily for Chris, that was the bait she'd wanted. "Die!"

Another focused charge shot went right into the volkov, arms quickly going up to provide any level of protection from the onslaught. As the stream ended, it was still standing, useless as its limbs now were. 

"Good... Now, stay down, you fuck-- augh!" Of course that wouldn't stop it! Hannah had charged the Regalia, body checking it, and starting to unload its vulcans into the machine's head. "Fucking Terminator piece of shit-- DIE!"

Chris transformed and blasted engines to get away from the crippled machine, firing one last round down at it as she started to fly away. It almost managed to dodge, as it took the shot, finally collapsing against the ground. 

Flying so blatantly up had put Chris right into the line of fire of the other Volkov units, and it was all she could do to grit her teeth as they unloaded and the simulation ended.

"Fuck!" She slammed a fist against the arm rest, shaking with anger. What a poor show. What was wrong with her? Twelve turrets and eight outdated machines, and she gets put out because of the toaster with a brain!? "Hhhhghhh... Mmmmm!" She was trying not to yell again, so utterly disappointed in herself. "Mother fucker... I'm supposed to be better than this..."

Brant felt a little guilty for the outcome, though he'd been expecting it. Like he'd said, Firmia wasn't a programmer. Furthermore, she would have wanted Chris to win, especially subconsciously; AMS units losing wasn't something the Alkaev would ever want to see, even in a simulation. Brant's priorities were a little different, though ... a bit too close to Dima's perhaps. That reward, though ... so much for that, he thought, sighing at the thought of never learning what it was.

Withholding a comment about the Volkovs, Brant said, "Don't be so hard on yourself, Chris. I'm not sure anyone could have beaten that sim with the settings I used." Maybe Tonya, but ... not consistently. "The important thing is that you're getting comfortable with the controls ... if not the weapon options," he smiled apologetically. The weapon loadout hadn't been his choice exactly, but he did have some say in the equipment in this post-Dima environment.

"... Guess thats what happens when you rely on a faulty clone..." she muttered, sinking into the seat some. How absolutely crushing. Kim could've likely dealt with that sim, and much more easily at that. And here Chris could only get seventy five percent of the way through...

"So much for all my bragging, huh...?" She tried to laugh at herself a bit, but her voice was shaking too much to manage. Don't cry you idiot. It was just a test. Why would you cry over something like this? He just said it was rigged on purpose... And yet she bit her lip, trying to force these feelings back. It didn't help that they were new and fresh in her mind, still.

Brant had to get out of his flight seat and move back to where Chris was. "Don't call yourself a faulty clone ... this was your first time handling the Regalia, remember? Just think about what you're saying for a second."

"And we have less than a day to prepare for worse. What happens if you're knocked out and I have to take over? And a situation like this... Again..." Chris was started to think up the worst case scenarios, it wasn't helping her situation, but she couldn't help it. "I don't want to let you down, Brant! But if I can't take something like this... How am I supposed to face up against Louise?" It was probably the most terrifying thing looming on the morrow.

"We don't have to do this by ourselves," Brant quickly pointed out. He wasn't sure how to help her out this rut. She wasn't wrong, just overly negative, and that was hard to argue with at times. "Look ... if Louise saw you like this she'd be laughing that stupid laugh of hers or nodding in agreement with you. We've got to prove her wrong, remember?"

Anger ... really wasn't the emotion Brant wanted to be feeding right now, but ... well ... Louise desperately needed her butt kicked, and Chris couldn't do it if she was feeling down on herself. "Apotheosis has always had a huge advantage over us. That's never stopped us before, and it's not going to stop us, tomorrow."

"... I know... Sorry, I... I just... A lot of failure, recently. Was created. Failure. Got shot down on first assignment. Failure. Haven't been here for Christina. Failure... Showed up, just a bit too late, for you... Not a failure yet. Probably the thing I'm the most confident on. Don't... Don't worry about it, Brant. I'm okay, now. Just let it get to me... How are we gonna win tomorrow if I can't even believe in it?"

A tentative smile managed itself, Chris wiping at her eyes to defeat anything that could've been forming. "Even if I failed... I hope I did well enough to impress you, on a first flight."

"Of course you impressed me," Brant smiled back, "I was watching the Hannah Volkov because I was positive that was the one that was going to beat you. Maybe she did in a roundabout way, but she didn't survive either. It's not important though, my point is I'm impressed. As long as we're working together the Regalia's going to be one of the most dangerous mobile suits there is, and Louise's big monster is just going to be one more good challenge."

Failures, though. Brant couldn't put that out of mind. He hadn't considered that short string of events in that context, so he couldn't have predicted how it would all make Chris feel. They did seem like failures when viewed that way ... but still, being imperfect was part of being human, even if her emotions were a more extreme manifestation of that. Being defeated and captured wasn't the worst outcome, and since she'd been on the wrong side at the time, it was just shy of the best possible outcome. Christina was ... fine as far as Brant could tell, and at least they were in touch with each other now. That last one ... well, Brant didn't want to think about how much worse off he'd be if Chris wasn't here at all.

"Heh. That's good, then... Ahhhahaha, this sadness nonsense is really messing me up, what happened to me? I think angry fit me so much better. I'm just gonna turn into Christina at this rate." She joked about it, sitting up a bit, and sighing.

"I guess that wouldn't be so bad... What do you think we should do now?"

"... take a break," Brant answered, his mind almost going blank as he considered and then immediately seized the opportunity to rest right in Chris' lap. ... I need to stop doing things like this ...

"Alright... Should we go ask about-- huhwha... B-Brant?" That was... surprising, and definitely confusing. It made her blush, as she almost flailed, unsure of what to do... She decided to pet his hair, watching him quietly for just a moment.

"You know... If I never get all my faculties back, even if we never end up together... As long as I can have things like this, I think I'd be alright. This and maybe kisses... I dunno. There's just something comforting about this sort of... Touching. It's not sexual. It's just... Comfortable." Something of a sigh left Chris, leaning back.

"I really fucked up today, Brant. Not on the test... On letting myself get bogged down like that, so easily. Even on the Riese, I can still trust Kim and Christina. And here, I'm definitely not alone... So I need to remember that more often. Thanks."

"Comfortable ..." Brant couldn't argue with that, though the word itself was one he was slightly wary of ... For some reason, when Chris expressed that measure of contentment, it made him think more so about the oddly stable relationship he had with Tonya. It was vaguely similar in his head. It was also ideal in some ways, not due to a near total lack of romance and the pitfalls that came with it, but due to that unbreakable connection. No matter how things played out, Brant wanted the same with Chris. If there was more going on than just that, hopefully they were both better off for it.

Brant didn't think Chris' dread was quite as bad as she was making it out to be ... at the very least, it wasn't as unwarranted as she was making it out to be. Compared to him, she'd been on the losing end in a fair number of situations since her birth, and this simulation with the Volkovs served as a reminder of that. "Yeah, you're definitely not alone. I'll remind you again if you forget."

"I know you will," she said, with perhaps the sheerest sincerity out of her yet. This sort of trust was more than comfortable... She couldn't put a word on it, but, comfort was coming home after a long day and relaxing on the couch, perhaps with a blanket. This was... "I dunno what to call this but it's good. It's more than comfortable, that's just the only word my brain's got right now. But... You can't rest on my thighs like this, right now. We still have things to do. I've still gotta figure out which room I'm stuck in..."

"Right ..." Brant sighed, lifting himself up, slowly. He would have headed back to his seat, but realized he could do something from right where he was. Reaching over to the console, he switched the display to its normal external view. That revealed the hangar and the small group just outside. It looked like Firmia and Hannah were approaching Sasha, who was still just outside. "Heh. Company."

"She's probably just stopping by to make sure everything's running smoothly down here," Brant guessed, taking note of both her attire and Hannah's. "... are those normal ears? Huh." Hannah seemed even more motivated than usual to blend in. That might be a good thing. Maybe. Brant hoped it wasn't motivated by the fact that she normally stood out a lot ... especially since that wasn't inherently a bad thing.

"Let's listen in ..." Brant switched on the audio and ...

"-finally getting a bigger workload than me? This is a fun change of pace."

"You wouldn't be able to handle the workload, even if you tried, meat bag. When am I getting a body, Firmia? Being data is incredibly tiring, and I was promised something to walk around in!"

Brant winced. Galatea was definitely getting sick of her circumstances. Brant couldn't help but glance down at the necklace beneath his shirt. "Opportunity cost ..."

"I mean, it's just Galatea. At least you can still use one of those rings... Who cares if she has to meander about as data for a few more days?" Chris shrugged. An AI was getting uppity, it was no big deal. Unlike Hannah, she was just regular data, with some pre-programmed extras... Right?

"I still feel bad," Brant sighed, "We could have taken care of this ages ago." Somehow trying to be there for Jessica just made everything else worse.

"Don't worry about it. I'll let him know once he and Chris get back down," Sasha said, eyeing the Regalia's cockpit.

"One sec ..." Brant said, reaching for Chris' controls and bringing a couple more systems online. He carefully got the Regalia's right arm moving, hoping to send the group a familiar gesture. Opportunities like this didn't come around often. It took a moment, but Brant got the Regalia giving everyone just outside a thumbs up. "Simple enough," Brant said over the loudspeakers, "we'll take care of that for you tonight, Galatea."

"One sec?" Brant was suddenly very close, making her blush a bit, as he got to the controls and... Made the robot give a thumbs up? What. Brant... "Was that really necessary?"

Brant turned off the comms and chuckled. "No, but it was definitely worth it~" The opportunity cost there had been just right.

"Jerk," she snickered out, pushing him away a bit and getting out of the chair, stretching just a tad. "Alright, where to?"

"I guess you've got the hang of the Regalia," Brant noted. They probably wouldn't get much more accomplished hanging around in here. Unfortunately it was hard to be practical right now when all he wanted to do was relax with Chris. He'd gotten a taste for it, and unlike his ailing mind, his body didn't give a flip about the Jessica situation as a whole.

"Give me a minute to start shutting things down," he said, moving back to his flight seat. "After that maybe we can go get something to eat if you're hungry. It's past lunch, but ..." ... but they'd skipped it at the beach. "I'm peckish, at least."

"Mkay... And while you shut things down...~" Chris, feeling a lot better, now that Brant had convinced her moment of despair away, slipped onto his lap and leaned back against him, closing her eyes. "Go ahead. Take your minute."

"The mind is quarreling, but the body is willing... At least you don't fight me getting close. You even seem to enjoy it, much as you're so... Conflicted." That was all Chris had to say, turning over a bit to get extra comfortable. "These recline, right? The seats?"

"... yeah, they do," Brant said, seeing to the indirect request. Brant still felt the same as before. There was nothing wrong with Chris and him being like this ... he just couldn't go beyond that, right now. That left the two of them in an awkward place.

"Well, that's better, right?" he asked once the backrest was holding at a one hundred forty degree angle.

"Much better... Wake me up when we absolutely have to do something... I, think I need this, right now." Closing her eyes she shuffled just a bit more, sighing and grumbling ever so quietly. He'd convinced her, but between this new exploration of sadness, being so overwhelmed by failure, and having to keep up with their own ghost in the shell... A nap felt very warranted.

Brant sighed, letting himself relax a little more. "Wilco ..."

---

What had it been, an hour, hour and a half? Chris stirred, grumbled, and sat up... On Brant. Right, she'd collapsed right there onto him. She smiled faintly, and realized there was something important to take care of. Well, if he was here, that would help. "Wakey wakey sleepy head... Aaaaaaand... Calling~" Hopefully Firmia wasn't too busy to pick up.

"... calling who?"

"Yes?" came Firmia's voice, "What is it?"

"Oh boy ..."

"Sleeping on Brant? You two are supposed to be working ..." There was no hiding her irritation, but to Brant's surprise, she got over it quick. "Mrgh, I haven't assigned any rooms except Brant's because I wanted him right next to the processor suites. The crew got some for themselves already, but we still have first pick of the ones that are left. So ... anywhere is fine. Do you have a map of the ship with you?"

"We did work. He put me through the ringer worse than you did." Chris rolled her eyes, though Firmia couldn't see it. "I'm sure the Regalia has a map, but... Anywhere is fine? 'Kay. I'm staying in Brant's room, then."

"What?"

"Really?" Brant gawked. He wasn't surprised that Chris wanted to share a room with him--that was actually pretty common these days. It was more so that she was running it by Firmia. The girl had likely forgot about the rooming situation and probably wouldn't have noticed for a few days.

"What the hell happened in that cockpit?!"

"What? Training. Some flirting. I discovered what sadness feels like, but not for the reasons you might assume. Brant told me what those wasted rings were for, I had a small breakdown over my many recent failures, 'cause I didn't actually win his little challenge, but I think any of us would've lost it, first try, but Brant's really good at convincing a girl that she's more than her failures... Did I miss anything, Brant?" Anything other than Rosa, but that wasn't really worth directly bringing up.

"Erm ... nothing important ...?" Not entirely true, but Brant was caught off guard and nervous about the mention of the rings. He didn't recall telling Firmia about them, and if Hannah hadn't, this would be a bad way for her to find out about them.

"Sadness? Rings ... a breakdown? What? Urgh, forget it. Forget it ... just ..."

"You said anywhere's fine," Brant chimed in, still worried but glad she'd missed so much of Chris' explanation. "Admittedly, I didn't see that coming."

"And you're not going to say no either, I'll bet," Firmia said pointedly. And irritably. "Well, Bran'ts room is right by the bridge, so you don't need my help."

"Oh, don't tell me you're jealous, Firmia. Come on, you've got the android hanging off of you, shouldn't you be happy? This'll be fiiiiiine. I'm not making any advances on him that he isn't stopping, anyway. I could probably kiss him, but... Well, anything more than that, I'm not some animal. I can respect a guy that wants to wait." She stuck her tongue out at the communicator, before yawning.

"Right next to the bridge, nice. Quick access to the hangar."

"I'm not jealous, I'm spotting ... worrisome patterns," Firmia countered, "Well, since Brant's not going to set any boundaries over on the Avalon either, I'll just be glad it's someone he has to work closely with, anyway."

"It'll be fine, Firmia," Brant assured her. As for patterns, she must have been referring to him never refusing a rooming arrangement like this, like before. That was fair, but it wasn't something that worried Brant. He'd gotten a chance to sleep with Tonya and a somewhat reasonable excuse to do so and still nothing happened. Part of this was always going to be owed to his mild conditioning, but it wasn't like it was preventing much.

"Just... Try not to worry. It'll be fine. Trust us." Chris closed the call at that point, stretching some, and then sighed. "Alright, we napped. That's sorted. What to do?"

Brant looked at the time, wondering how long he had until Sasha would be expecting him. He noticed a message, though just the notification, so there was no telling who it was from, yet. All he could tell at a glance was that he'd missed a video call ...

"It's not time just yet, but Sasha did want to see me around eight. We should probably get your things moved in ... not that there's a whole lot ..." It was kind of a sad thought, actually. "We should have done more shopping for you when we had the chance, huh?"

"Ah, no biggie," she yawned, sliding off of Brant and standing up, doing another stretch. "I got enough clothes shopping with Christina and Kim. I'll be fine. And anything else we need, well, Firmia's going to pay us, isn't she? I'm sure Amazon does ship delivery, heh."

"In a war zone?" Brant winced.

"Gotta get paid somehow..." Chris shrugged.

Edited August 13, 2018 by SnakeMomMelissa

[Phoenix]

Abigail's question wasn't a bad one. Knowing the time frame for all of this was important, even if it wouldn't cause the doctor to rush things along. Even knowing that wouldn't lead to an easy solution by itself, though. "In addition to that," Megumi continued where Abby had left off, "Does the medication you need have a name?" If they got a name, Megumi could just look up the ingredients in the ANF's database ... or rather have Bennet do it. "If you know how to spell it, try to do so." Because a medicine mix up was a horrible way to wind up on life support.

---

The Missing Link

Spoiler

The one thing that was really tricky about preparing for battle with Apotheosis was Firmia's own situation. With no experience as a captain, she was banking fully on the assistance of Brant's AI's, Tonya's piloting, and a T-Link. The first two were well on the way ... but that last one would be tricky. Firmia could see two options at the moment. She could either have the mechanics try to build a new one as quickly as they could, or she could put in a request for Brant's old Accensus, and repurpose the T-Link in that. Both approaches had their merits. Building a new T-Link would take longer but could be designed specifically for the Avalon. Borrowing the Accensus' equipment would be messy but very quick by comparison.

"This is stupid," Firmia scowled at nothing, "Why do I have to figure this out? I should just ask for the plane and let the mechanics figure out the rest."

"Figure out what?" Tonya called over from the main controls. She seemed happier than usual. Probably something to do with the way the ship's controls worked. It was always something minor like that.

"The T-Link," Firmia sighed, "The Regalia's is the only one we have, right now ... and I'm almost useless in a fight without one." She pulled up her tablet and looked to Hannah. "I'm going to ask them to send over the Accensus. Can you let the mechanics know that I need them to get a T-Link ready for me on the bridge as soon as possible? ... and that if it's more efficient, they won't have to make one from scratch?"

"Oh, sure thing... You seem rather bothered about this. Are T-Links that worrisome to deal with, Firmia?" Hannah quickly sent a message down to the Avalon's new crew, and to Buck, quickly getting a reply back from him. "Buck says a pre-calibrated one would be less work, from what he's seen of Avery working on them. So it would likely be best to grab Brant's old one from the Accensus he used, though that would take time to transfer over from the Riese. Should I ask them anything else...?" Hannah couldn't help herself in the face of Firmia's frustrations, gently hugging her while she waited for a response.

The request was as formal as it could be for a single line text, but it would do. Firmia almost flinched at Hannah's embrace, but little by little she was getting used to the physical attention. It was becoming more and more jarring how new and soothing it all felt to her.

"Well, if the ANF doesn't keep any spares for a ship like the Riese, then that should say something about how many are just lying around, or at least the budget ..." Initially, she thought why not a boatload of spares?, but TKs were were a necessary counterpart, and they were still rare.

"They should at least have one backup per TK in case one breaks, but that won't be a problem, here." Hopefully. Something else to ask the mechanics, though? "Oh, right ... erm, I need some estimates on some of my other projects. If I know how long it could take to get certain things done, I can figure out how to prioritize everything."

"Estimates... Should I calculate anything for you? I can do so quickly, if you give me a hypothetical situation. Otherwise, we should have you focus on your next task. The T-Link likely won't be here for hours." Hannah continued to be helpless in her appreciation of Firmia, starting to pet the girl's hair as she waited for further instructions.

Firmia was feeling almost compelled to sit down and relax, thanks to Hannah's petting, but there would be time for rest--though barely so--later in the evening. "I'm sure we'll get more efficient at building them over time, but what I really need the most are good estimates on the basic drone design, and the spare funnels we'll need. I need twelve for myself minimum, and six for the Regalia. That means at least eighteen spare funnels for a full swap, and my twelve to start." Thirty total ... "We only need to build one drone for now, for live testing and refining the design."

"Hmmm..." Hannah didn't cease her affections, Firmia seemed incredibly content at the moment. "Funnels shouldn't take more than a few hours as long as we have the parts available. Your drones... Maybe a day, at most. You aren't finished designing them. have you? Tests will need to go into them as well. That will add to the completion time, most definitely. Any other questions, hun?" Hannah peeked down at Firmia's face, wondering what she was thinking right now. Sometimes being a TK sounded so useful...

"Well ... the one they'll be making is far enough along for a prototype. I need to build at least one to make sure they're viable and find any flaws ..."

"That thing doesn't have any feet," Tonya called over, "Seems like a pretty big flaw to me," she teased.

"It's designed for Sasha's weird drive variant" Firmia fired back, "so it doesn't need real feet built in. I can just attach modular ones if it has to do more walking than usual ..." Ideally, they would be floating about most of the time, or attaching themselves to racks, not stomping around inside the hangar or on the hull of the ship.

"Then should we go about seeing to their building of it? Or take care of something else, first? It's whatever you'd like, Firmia." Hannah stopped her assault on Firmia's hair and let the girl rest against her, trying not to make her too relaxed. She'd pass out if she got overly comfortable, and then be mad about it later. There'd be more than enough time for sleep... Or Hannah would make time.

"Whatever I'd like ..." Firmia was still getting used to the idea. While it was true that her alliance with the ANF restricted her activities to mostly what would directly aid in the war against Apotheosis and the Sacarians, the day to day aboard the Avalon, as well as the crew's immediate priorities were almost entirely under her control. It was a wonderful feeling ... and a little too euphoric to be thinking about, just yet.

"The T-Link and the funnels need to come first," Firmia decided. Battle readiness was more important than any side projects that were in the works, especially now. "If the funnels will only take a few hours, then they should definitely start on the drone's inner frame sometime today, but I want to be ready for Apotheosis well ahead of time. Sasha's going to have to take care of the details, though."

"Then let's head to the hangar, shall we? And see how things are progressing. I'm also interested in the Mantle, so... Depending on how Buck's doing there, we could see about asking on funnels or your drones." Hannah took a step forward, waiting for Firmia to make the final decision on that, simply smiling down at her.

"Alright, but I think I'm going to change, first," Firmia said, having not taken the time to visit her quarters sense getting back, unlike Brant and Tonya. She was decent, but her bathing suit was still beneath everything else, and she wanted to see if she couldn't get a less casual look going before the crew as a whole started seeing her ... first impressions, and all. It was especially important when the timing of her ship-wide meeting hadn't even been set yet.

"Oh... I suppose I should as well. Standing around a shirt with what I was wearing at the beach can't be good for proper meetings in the hangar. Uh... I suppose I will check my room, and see if all my things have been moved over from the Riese. Shall we meet at the hangar, then? Er..." While Hannah had a schematic, she didn't actually know which room was hers. "Can you show me where they are, exactly? I hadn't been given that data..."

"Hrm?" Hannah definitely knew where the hangar was, so she must have meant her room--oh! "I meant what I said. We're sharing the captain's quarters. It really is too big for just me." That must have sounded a little weird coming from a 'rich girl,' but Firmia spent most of her days living in something resembling a normal master bedroom at the main Alkaev testing facility. Even if not for that, Firmia felt safer with Hannah close by.

"That said, we might as well just go together."

"Oh... A, Alright. I-If that's fine, with you." Something about that seemed to almost embarrass the android, but at least she knew where that was, as Vance had given them a proper tour. She swallowed her bother, heading off towards it, not too quickly as to lose Firmia in her own ship.

"It's perfectly fine," Firmia said, following after Hannah as they left the bridge. The Alkaev just remembered that she was going to have to figure out who to make the Avalon's XO, even if the assignment was only temporary. Otherwise she wouldn't have a lot of options in an emergency, and not much of a command structure in general. There was also internal security to look into ...

"Crap, I've got so much to do, tonight ..."

It's perfectly fine... Hannah did her best not to misconstrue that statement, as Firmia voiced worries over how much she had to do. "You're not doing it alone, and we have all night to get things done. Take it one issue at a time... You've a whole ship full of crew and people who care for you. We'll make this work, Firmia." Hopefully a bit of a pep talk was helpful, and not patronizing.

"Some of them have to just be here doing their jobs," Firmia noted with a frown. She didn't mean to bring her own mood down, but none of the new faces, with the exception of a few here and there, and Hannah's sisters, had met seen her yet. That and the botched security situation with the ANF was still fresh in her mind as well, hence the need for some sort of internal security scheme. "I'm not sure how they're going to feel about taking orders from a seventeen year old, either. I'm sure Jessica got a lot of flak when she got picked to captain the Riese."

"It sure is a good thing you've got a wonderful android to enforce your policies if anyone steps out of line... Not that I think you can't do that yourself, Firmia. You've got more than enough bite to match your bark, so don't be so hard on yourself. With all you bring to the table, if some of them step out of line, we can always find replacements. These are just default staff provided by the ANF, after all. The ship is yours, and so is the company." Hannah patted her on the shoulder. "Your word is law, yes? And I trust you to be a good leader."

Wonderful android? Firmia wondered in amusement whether Hannah borrowed that particular adjective from the talk Brant and Chris were having on the bus. It was true, either way. The Alkaev just couldn't be sure how well she would be received at the moment. The Riese crew's initial reaction to her was nothing to go by, really.

"I'll try not to be a tyrant, but ... we're definitely going up from the ANF's standards ... the ones I'm familiar with, at least." She wanted to shrug as they reached the captain's quarters. It was difficult to tell where Jessica's lenience ended and the ANF's began. Yes, Jessica was about as likely to keep things in order as a person with forty-something cats, but the ANF as a whole had its moments.

"I've been thinking maybe something like security tiers to start. Just to make sure no one's wandering around where they shouldn't be. The last thing I want to have to do is tell the crew the same thing I told Louise ... about coming clean before I catch them helping the enemy."

"That sounds like a good idea. That way no one's peeking into say, your tech setup, or any weapons storage, even if they may be innocent. The human mind is quite the curious thing, after all." Hannah poked her head into the lush looking captain's room, having almost forgotten how spectacular it was. The massive bed, all the extra space, the... "I forgot they come equipped with a hot tub. This is more like a personal spa, than a living quarter. Goodness..." The hedonism was strong, but Hannah also supposed the position of captain wasn't exactly an easy job to acquire. Perhaps Firmia thought otherwise, considering her opinions of Jessica, but, still.

Off with the shirt then, Hannah made her way over to one of the dressers, beginning to look into what clothes she had access to. Perhaps what Brant bought was around here, somewhere?

"I'm going to take a quick shower," Firmia said, heading into the bathroom. While she hadn't gone into the artificial ocean or exerted herself much in general, she had been out and about for much of the day. And she'd be lying if she denied having worked up a minor sweat from the overwhelming danger they were all put in. She had to wash away the stress along with the sweat, and a slightly cold shower would do just the trick.

The clothing situation, though ... she hadn't checked the dressers before rushing into the bathroom. What was she even going to wear? It couldn't just be something functional; she had an image to present to the crew, and unless the T-Link was set up sooner than she was expecting, she would be wearing whatever she put on next to tonight's meeting ... "I wonder if public image is actually as important to captaining as I think it is ... or if I'm just overdoing things."

She poked her head out of the bathroom. "Erm ... I won't be long but if you find my clothes can you separate out anything that could work as a 'naval' getup? Oh and the SKIN suit. I need that for after the meeting."

"Should I join... Not finishing that." Hannah refocused on the clothes, finding most of what Brant had bought... Would shorts be fine? If Hannah was going to be Firmia's attendant and one of her main pilots, wasn't appearance important? For meetings with important figures, sure, but... For just around the ship? "Hmmm..." Shorts it was, it was summer, it was in fashion to dress like that. It wasn't like Hannah needed to wear proper clothes for the season anyway, her internal metrics controlled her temperature no matter what, and being cold in winter would just make her run faster. She shrugged and figured that situation out, while Firmia got her shower ready to--

"Eep!" Not having expected Firmia to pop her head back out, Hannah quickly pressed the shirt she'd been looking at against her chest to hide... What... Exactly? I don't have any extremities that need covering... Trying to think more logically about things, she nodded. "R-Right. Knee length skirt, something button up in the same color, does that sound alright? I'm not quite sure what sort of formal attire one would need to present themselves as a proper captain... And, yes, I'll set that out as well." My internal temperature keeps rising... Am I truly that embarrassed? Geez...

Firmia blinked at the question that almost got asked, not sure what to think, at first. If Hannah was going to take a shower too, then Firmia couldn't argue with the slight increase in efficiency ... potential increase. It also helped that she was getting their clothes together, though, so Firmia didn't want to waste time going back to it.

The Alkaev noted Hannah's reaction and nearly giggled, almost glad her hectic schedule was making it easier to keep composed. Normally the mere prospect of showering with someone else would be at least a slight bother, and normally she wouldn't dare peek her head out from 'safety' while half naked. She'd send a text like a proper far end introvert. Being in a hurry seemed to have some minor perks. "Stockings, too," Firmia called over, figuring that would complete the look.

"Yes, stockings too..." Thankfully, Firmia had disappeared back into the bathroom, Hannah very quickly stuffing herself into the T-shirt... It was an incredibly casual look, one that stockings of her own couldn't hurt, setting aside some of the aforementioned things for Firmia. Navy blue would work fine, right? Probably. And black was the proper color for stockings? Her mind was too jumbled at the moment to properly search up answers. "Am I malfunctioning? This is ridiculous..." Continuing to try and shake off the feeling, Hannah found a pair that would reach her thighs, fitting them on, and giving herself a look over in the mirror... You really wouldn't be able to tell she was an android without the...

"Hmm." They weren't an integral part of her design... Hannah reached a hand up and removed them, some rather basic looking ears positioned underneath. Human enough... Fixing her hair and looking at herself again, she wondered just what it was that truly separated her from everyone else on board. "I can think. I can feel. I can experience emotions. I'm just... Stuck in this costume, of pretending to be human." A small sigh, and Hannah flopped over onto the bed, laying down to wait.

Firmia didn't waste any time in the shower,. She donned her towel once she was done and when she left the bathroom, she was shocked to see Hannah's headphone-like ears missing, replaced by more natural looking ones that were probably passable enough to fool anyone that didn't know her. Of course anyone who did know her might be inclined to have a closer look.

"What's the occasion?" Firmia asked, her face not giving anything away. She wasn't actually sure what to think yet, and was still in something of a hurry.

"Ah, Fir... F-Firmia, uh... You, should get dressed." Hannah picked herself up some, and turned to look away from her new captain, trying not to get too flustered. "I... Just, wanted to fit in, more." She'd almost attached 'is that wrong?', but couldn't bring herself to add it. She didn't want an answer, especially if 'yes', was an option.

"Oh ..." Firmia blinked, again. In hindsight that was incredibly obvious. Still, it was enough of a mental detour to prevent Firmia from worrying about her clothes for a moment. "I kind of like your usual ears, but don't worry about that, right now. You just focus on being comfortable."

With that, the damp Alkaev made for the bed to grab her outfit so she could quickly change into it.

"Do you mean that?" Hannah glanced back at Firmia, who was still in just a towel, causing her to flinch. She didn't look away again, though. "If you prefer them... Then I'll keep them on. Whatever you want. I... I just, faltered, for a moment. Stared at myself in the mirror... Oh." Hannah sat up a bit more, a small look of unfortunate realization on her face. "I'm depressed."

"Yes," Firmia tilted her head. Why wouldn't she mean it?

They quickly hit a minor impasse with Firmia wanting Hannah to make herself comfortable and her friend wanting the Alkaev to decide which ears she ought to sport. It took her a moment, but Firmia wound up settling for a more broad solution than one might expect. She nearly forgot it when Hannah came back with a surprising remark.

"D-depressed?" The clothes would have to wait another minute. Firmia came to the edge of the bed and sat beside Hannah. "Why?"

"Ah, I... I'm sorry. Not clinically, or extremely... I cannot help but think about what lies beneath this skin every time I am faced with myself, or compare it to the rest of you. I'm... Not human, no matter how much I can attempt to pass myself off as one. There is a machine in here. It may be thinking, and feeling, but it is still... A machine. That... Saddens me. I hadn't wanted, to mention it... But... I suppose, a part of me is only 'human'. Heh... You've too many things to add this to your plate, right now. I am sorry."

Perhaps what was most frustrating about Hannah's situation was that Firmia had no way to truly relate to it. In her view, there was more to envy than not: Hannah's strength, speed, memory, life expectancy, and on and on the more Firmia thought about it. Still, there were things about 'being' that couldn't just be ignored.

"So I'll get a bigger plate," Firmia swiftly countered, hoping to at least keep Hannah from just bottling up the issue, "part of being the captain is making sure my crew is alright. I'll find a way to manage everything going on here, so ... let's try to figure some of this out. Okay?"

"Heh. You are like that... You, sh-should get dressed first, though, I... I'm trying, but looking at you like this is, d... difficult. You're... Very beautiful, Firmia." How awkward... "And we can, but... Later. We have things that need attending to, and you need rest. I'm sure we'll have time to figure this out, more."

There was no arguing with her there, Firmia mused, not on this tight of a schedule. She also had to admit that it really wasn't fair to be pursuing this while she was only wearing a towel. Things were difficult enough between them at times. "Alright," she said, standing up, "Once things settle down, I guess."

"You don't have to worry about me, I promise. I have plenty of people here that care and are willing to support me, no matter what. Much as I have said I am depressed, I am also quite happy~ So let us take care of your machines, and everything else you need. Maybe if you're not too tired before sleep, we can talk. How does that sound? A-And seriously, put on some clothes, I'm... Really having trouble not staring." Hannah managed a giggle, sighing and standing herself up off the bed.

Firmia nodded. "Okay. That sounds good."

She flinched when Hannah insisted she put her clothes on. She was getting to that! ... though at this point Firmia decided to just get moving and save the rest for when she was dressed.

---

In a sort of daydream equivalent of a nightmare, Firmia had imagined herself at the introductory meeting wearing her SKIN suit underneath her new coat ... not the best look. What she had on now would do, though. She might have to change two more times between now and the meeting if she got to start testing the T-link early, though. That or she would just have to work with the reduced sensitivity ...

"Alright, ready," Firmia said as she stepped back out of the bathroom, looking about as professional as was possible for the moment.

Hannah had sat around, kicking her legs against the bed, waiting for Firmia to finish up. There wasn't a need for makeup or hair fixing for the android, her complexion was set, and her hair was automatically adjusted as needed. Nanomachines, son. She only smiled and opened the room's door for Firmia, bowing slightly and motioning for her to leave the room. "After you, my captain~"

Hannah sure enjoyed playing 'Ship' with her, Firmia mused, suppressing a giggle as she left her quarters. Next time she was back here, she'd have to try and get some semblance of rest. That and see if there was anything she could do for Hannah.

It wasn't a long stroll to the hangar from Firmia's quarters, and with her fully dressed, the android was able to refocus on the tasks at hand. Things were still moving fairly smoothly as they stepped in, so Hannah set about locating... "It seems Buck is still working on the Mantle. Shall we approach him first?"

"Yeah," Firmia said, somewhat distracted by the new look of the hangar. The last time she'd seen it, the whole area was empty and devoid of life. Now her three mobile suits were here, the Regalia and Reign to her right, and the Mantle to her left. Buck was over by the latter, and Sasha was with the Regalia. It might be a good idea to check in with both of them, actually.

"There's no way we'll have the drones ready in time for the battle tomorrow, but I do need to ask Sasha about that drive of his. We'll do that after we check in with Buck." Firmia wanted to figure it all out herself but ... it was a war. Maybe she could just let him build the thing and then reverse engineer it in her spare time. Maybe.

"Buck it is, then. Buck! We're here to talk!" Hannah wasted no time getting the boy's attention, Buck nearly having one of his many prat falls upon being called so loudly, but this time he managed to catch himself before falling.

"Whew! Hey Hannah!" He pulled himself out of the cockpit, down to the hangar floor, as the duo approached. "Well, one of you looks professional, at least. What's with the hyper casual getup, Hannah? You're here for business, right?"

Hannah gave Buck a cock-eyed smile, shuffling his hat some to ruffle his hair. "Business, Buck. How are the changes to the Mantle going?"

"Ahh, don't mess up the hair! Anyway... I probably only need another hour. It's going pretty well, just having to rebalance things from how parts were moved around. That, and rerouting the ammo systems for the chain guns moved to the hips. But nothing's broken so far! Looking good... You guys want Hannah more up close and personal, then?"

"I would prefer that, at least." Firmia still wanted the Mantle to have the range options, but as far as Hannah's processors were concerned, up close and personal was much easier.

Only another hour? That was impressive. Firmia was wishing she'd come up with a more optimal setup for the Regalia when she had the chance. There was too much going on now for that, though. As for the range issue, Firmia definitely hadn't changed her mind about that. "The beam smartgun isn't integrated with the shield now, so you don't need it for flight mode, anymore. Once I have a full batch of drones ready, you won't even have to launch with it and I can just have it delivered if the situation changes. For now though you have to keep it with you."

"I do not mind the gun, really. I just prefer close combat. The gun offers many options that I would otherwise not have, so it's not a burden, not yet."

"Well... Good that it's working out for both of you, then. Anything else you two need around here? I, uh... I really wanna get back to look at those supers. They were so cool! Like... Ahhhh...!" He did his best not to scream, but it was clear he was too excited for rational reactions.

"I will say, they were impressive looking," Hannah offered. "I will withhold proper judgement until we see their performance in combat, though."

Firmia sighed, realizing that she was going to have a serious fight on her hands getting Buck over to the Avalon after the war was over. The super robot trend was underway, and she had to keep up ... that and get all her other projects off the ground. "They're a little big for my taste ... and that makes them bigger targets, but it probably has something to do with their drive systems." The Odin being a big target also seemed to fit somewhere between 'irrelevant' and 'intentional.' "I want to see what they can do before I make a final call too, but I'm sure they'll do at least as well as what we already have. There's no way they'll be less useful than Legionaries or Velites.

"Anyway, I don't have any finalized designs I can aim you at, so you can head back to the Riese once the Mantle's reconfigured." She was very tempted to throw him at the drone prototype, but its key components weren't even close to ready. She supposed she could at least get the frame built, but now another idea was brewing. "By the way, Buck ... the legs we salvaged from Carlos' machine. What did Avery do with those?"

Buck let out a big sigh of relief, and Hannah could only chuckle at both him and Firmia. The boy was clearly too useful to not want around, but without a solid idea to throw him at, there was no worth in keeping him here. It would just hurt things on the Riese, and make tomorrow's fight harder. The question of those parts was a good one, though...

"Avery? She's got them setup in the Riese hangar, trying to figure out what to do with them. They're some real strong parts, so..."

"Could we have them?" Hannah cut to the chase as quickly as she could, Buck staring at her a bit shocked.

"Wha... I-I mean... You'd have to talk to her."

"Hmm..."

"That is the plan," Firmia nodded once. Hopefully there wouldn't be any bargaining necessary. "Are you sure she hasn't come up with anything for them, yet?"

"Look, I'm the ideas person in the Riese hanger. Avery's way better than me at the practical stuff, but if you need an idea realized, you ask me first. She doesn't have a creative bone in her body, she's just been staring at them, trying. I asked to help, but she told me she was doing this one herself... I'm one hundred percent sure Avery doesn't have a clue what to do with those legs. I do, but, well, southern stubbornness."

Firmia crossed her arms at Buck. "What sort of ideas do you have for those legs, exactly?" Firmia had the beginnings of a new machine, but it wasn't a pressing issue, and thus not fully laid out in her mind. Whether Buck came up with something she liked or not, Firmia could use the situation to her advantage a little later on~

"Wh, me? I wanted to make a whole new robot! Take the chassis off one of the Velites, slap it on, use some of the scrap to keep it up to par with the legs plating, and then see if I could get the damn thing flying! The boosters on it are insane, by almost all technical specs. With the way you guys setup your v-drives, I'm pretty confident I could get one flying properly with backing power like that. And it'd be real fast, and pretty heavily armored, so... Well, it's just a pipe dream anyway, since Avery doesn't wanna give 'em up yet."

Hannah had mentioned bargaining with the Riese's head mechanic for the legs if necessary. If Avery was being as stubborn as Buck would have them believe, bargaining would definitely be necessary. First thing was first, though. "It's not a pipedream," Firmia said sternly, "And this is a war. If you've got an idea that could make it easier for us to win, you can't just sit on it. I'll tell you what. I'm going to convince her to transfer over those legs along with Brant's old Accensus. If you think you can make a working suit out of it, then by all means."

Buck didn't have to believe her just yet, but Firmia was already committed to getting the legs. It wasn't just an opportunity to get a fourth mobile suit for the Avalon, it was the start of her revenge against Carlos, and an invaluable step forward for her fledgling company.

"Well... If you're up for it, go for it. Maybe she came up with something, who knows? I'm gonna get back to the Mantle, though. Gotta make sure everything works!" Buck gave Firmia a half salute, before grabbing the lift back up to the cockpit.

"I suppose that wraps that up... What next, Firmia?"

Firmia supposed that was enough for the Buck portion of their hangar visit. No point in slowing him down, even with a peripherally related pep talk. "Next, we check in with Sasha."

 

[scorri]

Bored and Alone

Val had been staring up at the ceiling, anxiously waiting a reply but so lost in her thoughts that she almost missed the small ding when it happened. Scrambling to sit upright, she sighed as she read the message. Of course. New prisoner, things needed checked out... She should probably go up there. Well, better to check with Olivia before she did, just in case she wasn't needed at all.

Quote

Guess I should probably change out of this bathing suit then, huh? Figure I should change and come join you? Unless it's just you holding down an empty fort... Let me know.

Rolling off the bed, she began to sort through the clothes she had. Time to find something suitable for the medbay...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Swords?

 

Target practice, a shower, a less than peaceful rest, and now Astin was pacing the ship. A nagging thought had been stuck in the back of their mind ever since the incident on the beach, always being replaced by something more important. Their taunt at Vera. But more importantly, her response. The sword. Well the hilt, really, but from her comments... Perhaps that was the sword as well. Locked in the hilt were secrets; secrets that could make a difference tomorrow.

Looking up, Astin realized where their wanderings had taken them. No surprise, really. Not with all they had been thinking of. Ignoring the slight twinge of guilt at what they were about to ask, they headed into the hangar, searching for a specific pink haired mechanic.

 

For once, Avery wasn't working on anything. She was standing around taking notes, making sure everything was running. In fact, alongside those, it looked like she was trying to figure some machine design out. Still, she didn't look busy, a rare sight.

 

Making their way over, Astin gave a small wave and smile to Avery. "Hey there, what're you working on? And uh... How mad would you be if I asked you to work on something that might keep you up late?" Hypocrite. It was easy to tell Avery that she needed to take care of herself and sleep when she was working on someone else's project. But something interesting for Astin shows up? Done. Time to ask her to not sleep. All for a sword. A cool sword, a powerful sword but a sword. I really am a hypocrite...

 

Avery was all smiles as soon as Astin spoke up, sighing and leaning over onto them. "Astin, honey~ I've missed ye, all day's been me lookin' at the same damn two robots. Gimme a kiss, please~ I can talk 'bout whatever else y'want after..."

 

"Wha-- Come on Avery, there's all sorts of people around. Y-you're supposed to be in charge here. A leader. Can't just... go around kissing people in front of all of them." Their cheeks were tinged red, probably enough to make her laugh. Their protests were largely just for show, knowing that Avery would almost certainly get her way, but still. They had a point after all. It wasn't right. Even if Jess was... Well, that wasn't the point. Avery had a reputation too. Astin wasn't going to ruin that. They did try and compromise slightly, pulling Avery closer in a warm hug. Maybe that would satisfy her. Unlikely. But they could dream.

 

"Oh, baby, come here~" Lead she did, giving Astin a nice, warm kiss as they at least gave her a hug, nestling up against their neck after. "It's not that hard~ You can swing a sword at someone but you can't kiss your girlfriend? Tsk tsk... Alright, what do you need me to work on. I'm all yours, for whatever you want~" In truth, they needed the break from their own mind anyway. Ideas were difficult.

 

"Muhhhh. I can kiss you, I just... It's all public here..." Not that the kiss had been bad, but come on. There was a time and a place. Even if Avery seemed to think that every time and place was appropriate for a kiss, that didn't mean Astin had to feel the same way. Still. They probably should come to grips with it. She wasn't likely to change. You can do this...

"R-right. Whatever... Ha. Err, ok, well... Earlier today. Everything with Vera, I forgot for a bit but then remembered... The sword. Or rather the hilt. That I managed to steal away last time we fought her. Is... Have you managed to make any progress on it? I mean... I know you've been busy. And I've been trying to make sure you take some time for yourself and don't overwork yourself. But, I mean, it could be super useful. Any any sort of boost we could get right now would be huge. You know? So..." They trailed off, realizing that, once again, they were rambling without really saying anything. Take a second. Ok now try again. "I guess just... Is there any chance it will be usable soon?"

 

Bringing up Vera was a pretty big mood killer, but it turned towards that sword. Avery hadn't really tinkered with it, since they'd had so much else to deal with. Now, though? "I can give it a look... When we first got in, it was pretty heavily protected. That don't mean I can't break into it, but, well... It ain't gonna be a quick ten minutes. Izzat why you were askin' if I was okay bein' up late? And here I thought y'wanted t'show me a good time~" Avery joked and let Astin go, probably giving them a good moment of relaxation.

"If I can get it workin', I'll let'cha know, right away. Even iffin yer asleep~ Then we can put it into th'Ceres' hand and see how well it fits. I ain't quite sure 'bout th'liquid metal technology it uses, but, it can't be that complicated."

 

"I- buh- Avery!" The escalation in pitch and volume Astin's voice went through was likely quite amusing to Avery as the pilot turned an even brighter red, before quickly burying their head in their hands. "I can't... I mean... Hhhhhhhh." She thankfully moved on fairly quickly, but the effect of the small joke was not leaving so quickly. Doing their best to focus on what she was saying, they managed a nod before letting out a muffled, "Thank you..."

 

"God, damn, yer so fuckin' adorable. Swear iffin I didn't have work I'd drag y'off t'yer machine an' make y'scream." Brutally honest on her part, but that was how Avery functioned. "I'll get back t'ya then, darlin~"

 

"Hhhhhhaverypleasestop." This was too much. They couldn't deal with her when she was like this. Which was almost all the time. She was just so... Hot. And confusing. And embarrassing and so many other things. And clearly enjoyed tormenting them, which meant that when she gave them an opening to escape like she just had, they needed to take it. "I'll see you later. Good luck. Sorry again for dumping this on you so late." And with that, they began to quickly make their way to the exit of the hangar.

 

"Hahaha~ Ahhh, so much fun..." Avery watched Astin leave, giving them a small wave. "Time t'get t'work."

Edited August 14, 2018 by scorri

[Xinnidy]

Prospectful Interviews (THE FUTURE, 4PM of the same day, ANF HQ Meeting Room)

Spoiler

Jess and Roxanna sat in a central meeting room, having headed off of the ship for a moment to see about these new recruits. Hopefully they would prove interesting, at least... First up was a private Caroline? Jess sat back a bit, wondering what they were about. "Do you know anything about these ones beyond their basics, Roxanna?" This idea was brought up by the XO, so maybe she had more information.

---

It was time to check their possible pilots. Roxanna was planning to just decide for the crew herself, but later on the idea of getting Jessica involved became attractive. It'd get them on better terms, yes? Besides, if any of the pilots underperformed, at least she wouldn't take full blame. "Hmm... They were all in the same squad, basically. Their general experience is lower than our pilots, but they've been on more missions --none as difficult as ours, however." The Riese was quite an exception, anyways. It was decidedly a special operations force now, despite its candidates seemingly pulled out of the aether before. We're ANF's lucky experiment... but will we create more aces just by having untested pilots around?

Suppose it was good to answer Jessica's question one by one. "I got a few things, on some more than others. Out of them, only the first candidate hasn't gone through pilot school... she's outsourced. She has been adapting surprisingly well, but her field experience is comparable to... Tarquin, sort of." Except Tarquin was made to be a genius.

Silence was interrupted as the meeting room's door was opened by a young woman, Caroline no doubt. She looked around the same age as Jess... and was certainly nervous about the meeting. Unlike most ANF personnel, her uniform bore the badge of a private security company. "G-good afternoon, I'm Caroline. Caroline Schmidt. This is, uh, the interview they messaged me about, right?" She almost seemed like she was going to be comfortable sticking outside and speaking while clinging to the half-open door, but a nod from the XO made up her mind. Taking a deep breath, Caroline walked into the room, stopping in front of their desk. "I'm uh, a private, sort of. Full story is I'm working for the ANF on loan from UNISEC Security, but it's effectively the same thing on paper. Is that a problem...?" Caroline wasn't even sure she should sit down, by the looks of it. "Y-you're from the Riese, right? That's... I heard a lot about you guys, I'm really thankful for your work!"

---

A fan girl? She sort of seemed like it... UNISEC security or not, if she was qualified to pilot a machine, she'd be perfectly fine, as long as she didn't try to play front runner. They had plenty of experienced pilots, the rookies had nothing to prove. Just stay alive and help out... "Well, we're doing our best, I would hope. As long as we can keep going, we'll keep going. It's nice to hear a bit of praise, every now and then, though... I'm Captain Gefalscht, this is my XO, Roxanna Martinson. Caroline, I'm going to make things very clear. There's going to be a battle tomorrow, and it's likely going to be the most dangerous fight any of us have participated in." Jess sat up just a bit, resting her hands on the desk.

"You seem very young, and your enthusiasm is a welcome sight, but... Are you sure you're going to be up for an assignment like this? No one on my ship has died, as of yet, but there's been plenty of wounds tossed about. We've got machines that are above ANF grade, and you will be free to use them as a part of the crew, so you'll have more safety than in a standard Velite Mark II... If you think you're up for this, then we'll consider you. I just have to warn you of what's to come. If you have second thoughts, please, listen to them." This was supposed to be a recruitment, but with someone so young... Jess was apprehensive about having another one like her on board. Just a private? She didn't even have a year with the ANF under her belt...

---

"Y-you're..." Caroline's wide, starry eyes looked as Jess with sudden surprise. "You're the captain...! I-I didn't know --I mean, I knew you were young, ah geez, but I thought-- nevermind. I just... wow. I respect you a lot. I wish I could be that succesful at this age." It seemed Caroline expected somebody more imposing, but was quickly disarmed, her appreciation for the captain sounded genuine. "I... I don't know why you're interviewing me over everybody else... but if you think the Riese is my calling --God, it just doesn't sink in." She seemed to have a million things to say, a moment of focus saved the rest of her sentence. "If you think I should go, I'll go, no two ways about it. I never really succeeded at anything before, I only barely passed high school... but I can pilot okay. That I can do, and if Captain Gefalscht needs me, I'm not going to say no!" A fangirl indeed.

Roxanna was intrigued by the enthusiasm, but seemed slow to think of questions to add to Jess' repertoire. "Um, what are your strengths as a pilot, in your eyes?" Couldn't go wrong with that one.

"Oh, um..." The topic seemed to cast a somber feeling over the nervous girl's demeanor. "I'm good with support fire, know my way with standard weapons, repair modules, that stuff... I'm an okay shot, if I'm in my zone... I can kinda match my leader's movements." Caroline bit her lip, "Just, I haven't had any experience on space combat for obvious reasons. No jets either."

---

"We've got plenty of ground models, and your scores from pilot training seemed good..." Jess' worries didn't seem to phase Caroline at all, but at least she'd gotten them out. That was all she could do with someone like this. "We'll keep you in consideration, Caroline. We have four others pilots to talk to, but, we'll let you know. Okay?" It was a pretty quick interview... Could she ask anything else?

"... Before you go, can I ask why you chose to fight for the ANF?" Did it have much bearing on her piloting? No. Was it important? To Jess, yeah. It was.

---

"Eh? ah..." Now that was a question, Caroline seemed to stop and think for a moment. "Money. Pretty much. Even in outsources it's the same basis, riskier jobs pay more... if you live to the end." That was a surprisinly basic answer. Caroline herself didn't seem satisfied with it, speaking up shortly after. "I need the money to keep my father off his debt. He's... he basically jobless and very sick for over a year now. The government can't cover for everything we need at home plus his bills. So me and my brother have been working hard to make money... my brother didn't want me to work at all, actually, he's a bit old-fashioned, but I can't let him do everything." She paused, taking another look at Jessica. "T-that's pretty much it. I... I understand there's a lot of people better than me here. I'm glad I got to meet you, though, Captain. K-keep showing them who's boss!" It was a bit hard to show enthusiasm when this nervous, but also endearing.

---

Jess ended up smiling, even if the initial response wasn't very impressing. "You're not fighting for money. You're fighting for your family... And I think that's very admirable. We'll be in touch, Caroline. Thank you."

---

"T-thank you!" Caroline clasped her hands, half-bowing out of respect. "I-I'll be sure to check my messages!" She added, hopeful. Despite how nervous she was, the meeting had left an overall positive impact on Caroline. Having completed the interview, Caroline saw herself out of the room, adding a couple more 'thank yous', to the captain and XO both, before closing the door behind her.

"It's hard not to be a bit charmed." Even Roxanna had to admit it, "But bringing a girl like her to the battlefield is conflicting... then again, we have Tarquin." And Jess herself, but that one Roxanna wasn't saying out loud. "So... who's next?"

---

"That was disarming," Jess admitted, as the girl left, sighing and sinking back again. "I never expected to see someone so excited about our endeavors... And I have the same concerns. She's far too young for something like this... But, her scores are good, and she's better than some of the others here at land mechs. Next is... Edson? Feels like there's a letter missing there, but that's what it says. And, sent... Hope he doesn't mind coming in on his own. Hope none of the others are giving each other a hard time, waiting..."

---

"We have a good image with civilians." It was hard not to cheer for the ones that were defending you from worse, even if you were against some of the ANF's practices. "Next up... Edson... ah, that must be Major... Major Edson." Roxanna quickly caught herself. "He was this disbanded group's leader. The most experienced pilot we have a chance to take. Since he's a high-ranking official, pilot dynamics are bound to change if we bring him in. At the same time, that means he's not going to be reassigned to another squad." They would have no objections, since the Riese was the ANF's trump card already, but it did mean they were shifting power very considerably into a tiny part of the federation's army. "...He could help us gain some more autonomy as well. He's been around since Vance and my uncle." A member of the old guard, for what it was worth.

 

A brief moment after the call for Edson was sent, a man knocked on the door. "Coming in." He warned before entering... he certainly didn't look like an elderly man, save for his distinguished gray hair. His voice was also an indicator, not as grave as one would expect. Perhaps it was his few wrinkles or brown skin, but he easily could have passed for being in his early 40s. "I'm Edson Bonner, Major for the ANF. ...That's two 'n's, I get that a lot." He added, with a bit of a welcoming smile. At least he didn't look the grumpy kind. "It's a pleasure to meet you two. I've heard the Riese has the first say. We all value your input highly." His calm demeanor was a far cry from the first candidate.

---

"An old dog, huh... Certainly worth a lot more than these rookies. Then again, some of our rookies have turned out really well... We'll have to see. Dynamics shifting at this point could also be a bad thing. I don't want someone new showing up and stepping on toes, with how delicate things already are." The balance was important, so Jess would have to see about a few things.

"It's not a problem, Major. I'm Captain Gefalscht, this is XO Martinson. I'm going to be blunt, the assignment we get sent on aren't for the faint of heart... I understand you're a seasoned veteran, but they're still incredibly dangerous. That said, can I ask why you're interested in joining the Riese? And past that, why you've been fighting for the ANF all these years. It might sound condescending, but as the Captain, I need to know what my soldiers are fighting for. It's... Important to me."

---

"Hmm, taking everyone's motivations? I see." The Major took a moment to parse, but the words didn't seem to visibly upset him. "Alphonse and I go a long way back. It's no secret that the Riese was mostly his project, but that's... what makes it complicated." The subject was getting touchy, as noted by the pause the Major took before finding his words again, "Alphonse already faces scrutiny for being too close to the Commander and for acting on his own, I realize my joining the Riese would only add fuel to the fire, but I feel an obligation to my old pal. No matter what other Majors and Colonels think, you have been our most effective tool against this attack. Alphonse must have had the right idea, so I take the Riese's importance to the ANF seriously."

Now, for the rest... "I enlisted long ago, Captain. I'm afraid I don't have the details pristine in my mind... but it wasn't some grand calling to me. Well, it was, but not particularly dramatic. I naturally gravitated to the army in my 20s. An office job just wasn't for me, it all came into place. My duty is to defend the Federation and its civilians, and it has been an honor for me."

---

Good motivations for wanting on the ship, and his reasons for fighting in the ANF weren't bad, either. He would definitely be a solid addition... "Do you have any questions about the ship itself? The crew, or anything like that?"

---

"...I have a few questions on you, Captain Gefalscht." It took him a bit to speak up again, but his attention was fully on the girl now, "It's of my knowledge that some of your pilots were enemies recruited during your colony mission. I'm quite curious to know what was your criteria in giving these rebels a chance. It's very unorthodox, but clearly paid off for you." Quite direct, "...As far as I know, Alphose has been studying you since you were in captain school, but you're not actually related. It's quite puzzling how he figured you were going to have so much potential... are you two... no, nevermind. That's nobody's business." Well then... Edson certainly didn't keep his thoughts quiet.

---

"Are we what?" Jess didn't really get where that was going, but it was a curious considering. At least the rest of it made sense to be asking, regular soldiers wouldn't really consider something like that. "Those that we've caught have helped to save some of the lives of our pilots. I would trust them with my life, and they've proven themselves time and again... Sometimes killing the person in front of you isn't the only solution." That was all she had to say on that. Hopefully it would make some sense.

---

The Major seemed to judge her words for a moment, taking them in with scrutiny... but eventually eased up his expression. "Trusting former enemies is a risky move, most would prefer just keeping them on the brig... but it would make sense that you are good at making calculated risks, that's what the Riese's success relies on. I trust your knack." Surprisingly positive, "If they have saved your pilot's lives, then it makes sense." That seemed to have been the biggest thing the Major was hung up on. Thankfully, it went okay.

"Ah, I was just wondering if you were the Admiral's lover. He's never settled down, and I know he prefers them young, so, you know... with how you were chosen, that's a rumour going around." Edson shrugged, "It's not illegal, and I know your skill as a captain is real, so I'm not holding it against you. It just made me wonder."

"M-Major! I really don't think those rumours have any stock, as his niece." The rumour seemed to get a strong reaction out of Roxanna.

"Ah, alright. Well... now I know." Edson seemed to think... surprisingly little of it.

---

"His lov-- NO! No, gosh, no! He's... He's way too old." Among other things... "I... If it'll help quell rumors, I'd rather have the truth floating about. I'm... Currently seeing one of the people we managed to take in. She's probably been the best help, out of all of them, so far. So... Spread that around, if you must. The admiral's lover..." The thought made Jess shiver, visibly, shaking just a bit in her chair. "No."

That was a shock, did people really think that of her? Alphonse had been incredibly helpful, but... "Thank you for seeing us today, Major. We'll let the next one in... You're free to leave."

---

That outcry seemed to have amused the Major... it was hard to tell, with that business smile. "Ah, that's easy, then. Next time the lieutenants talk about it, I'll just comment that Captain Gefalscht is a lesbian." He nodded, "It was my pleasure. Until next time, Captain Gefalscht." Edson saw himself out, as casual and composed as he entered.

"I... I don't even know if that's better." Wait. Crap. People are going to think she's bedding ME then! Roxanna took a deep breath. "I-I'll call him later, and tell him to be clear about what he spreads arounds. Gossip... just what we need." She sighed, leaning on the desk. Ugh.

Stuff that thought away, they weren't even half-way done yet. "Okay, next up is... Lieutenant Lynx. He's from the colonies, recently reassigned. 8 years in service. Lynx is underperforming on earth, but he's a TK. In space, he was phenomenal. It's easy to assume he'll get better with enough time to handle gravity... but most of the others don't have that drawback." Having to take gravity into account when it wasn't wired in your instincts had to be rough. "Overall, he's the most experienced aside from the Major."

Another brief pause, and then the door opened. The man was far taller than the previous two, he certainly gave a 'strong and tough' vibe. "Is this the interview?" Despite his intimidating looks, the man did not act brutish or boorish. "Name's Lynx. Gordon Lynx." He stepped forward, staring down the two interviewers. "...Nice to meet you. I owe you one for what the Riese did in Colony 1. Couldn't do much from Earth."

---

"Wh-- Major, but I'm not-- I'm bi!" He was already gone, Jess flopping back in her chair. "What a mess..." There was nothing to be done about it, now. Gossip would happen no matter what. Maybe it was a good thing? Jess would prefer people thinking she was gay rather than dating the admiral...

A hefty sigh, Jess tried to look professional again. "If he's having issues piloting on earth, I'm probably going to rule him out right away. We can't afford anyone that can't pilot effectively for tomorrow's engagement. I'll still here him out, but..." No time like the present, he was already there.

"Yes, it is. I'm Captain Gefalscht, this is XO Martinson. We were just doing out jobs, Lieutenant Lynx. Feel free to ask anything on your mind. As for my own questions... We'd like to know why you wish to join the Riese, and I would like to know why you chose to fight for the ANF." Third round...

---

"Still, the colonies are my home. It's hard to imagine..." Gordon grumbled, frowning for a moment, "I heard what some of the top brass were thinking to do if you hadn't succeeded. Things just wouldn't be the same if that ever happened, so... good job doing your job." He gave a thumbs up. The Lieutenant was certainly not as composed as the Major --the interview seemed to place him in an uncomfortable spot--, but he continued, in his own pace.

"...Look, first I'm going to say, I know you must have looked up my profile." Gordon crossed his arms, but he didn't seem upset, more... trying to find his words? He looked away for a moment, "I've been looking weaker on Earth than in space... but I've got a reputation there that precedes me, I was the 'Golden Lynx'. I'm still a good shot regardless, I'll vouch for my accuracy, and I know my way around every beam weapon in the ANF arsenal. Especially funnels, but I know not every suit can equip those. I don't need them." He seemed to really want to stand against that bit of fame he acquired recently. At least he had a lot of fight in him.

"I want to join because I want to kick Apotheosis' ass. They're messing with everybody, and making the world worse despite what they preach. I don't like that." No mincing words for the Lieutenant, "The Riese is strong; If I get in, I swear to put my best effort. Apotheosis might have their barriers and everything, but I'll make swiss cheese out of their bots. So long as you give me the word." Gordon made no attempts to smooth out his fiery nature. For a moment, however, the Lieutenant's expression became less stern, "And if I go, that means some of the others don't. I've got the most years in my belt, aside from the Major. If I get shot down, that's fine. I prepared for that. Some of the others are too young, I don't want them throwing their lives away."

---

Well, that was surprising. It was nice to see that he knew he was being judged on his ability on earth... And his confidence despite that was impressive. Still... "it's nice to see someone so fired up... And i share your sentiments about the younger pilots. I know I'm not exactly a veteran myself, but that doesn't mean we need to keep sending the young ones up front." Hmm... There were two more, right? "We'll be in touch, then. Thank you for your time, Lieutenant Lynx... Golden Lynx, heh. I always wondered how these sorts of names started."

---

"Thank you, Captain." Gordon seemed pleased with the response, still hopeful. "Regardless of what you choose, good luck on your fight." And no sooner he left. It seemed the Lieutenant was relieved, as well. Maybe? It was hard to tell with that one.

Roxanna seemed to have little opinion on the Lieutenant, simply nodding her head and coming back to her papers. "Maybe he still has potential. So, next up... Lucas Gooney. I'll forward it." She tapped her device, "That one's... an okay pilot. He has no remarkable achievements like the others, but he's not bad either. He's better with fighter jets than with ground mechs, which sounds really risky. In fact, there's a report that his unit got totaled once... but he survived just fine. He has the devil's luck." Now that would be an interesting story...

"Hello there!" Same as usual, the pilot showed up after a few moments, opening the door unceremoniously and seeing himself in. Lucas was definitely an extrovert. "Riese crew, nice! I've been wondering how you guys looked like. To be honest, I imagined you to look super fierce and scary... hah." He scratched the back of his head, "Well, uh, this is the part where I introduce myself, right? Name's Lucas Gooney. Corporal Gooney and all that."

---

"I don't think any of us can afford to be flying around in an accensus at this point, Roxanna. We'll see him anyway, but..." These last two hadn't seemed very promising. They had to consider more than tomorrow's engagement, but it was also their largest one. It had to go perfectly, else it wouldnt matter how good any of these recruits were. They would die, all the same... Jess shuddered at the thought, as corporal Gooney stepped in.

"Good day, Corporal. Im going to ask you the same as I've asked everyone who's come in here today: why do you wish to join up with the Riese, and why do you fight for the ANF? I'm Captain Gefalscht, and this is XO Martinson. If you've any questions of your own, feel free to ask them as well."

---

"Hmmm... maybe, maybe not..." Roxanna conceded.

"Ah, right to the point, eh?" Corporal Gooney didn't seem bothered by how front-loaded Jessica's response was. "Ain't it a pleasure to meet you in person. Well, I reckon I'm trying for the spot because I was asked, I don't really wanna stay on reserve. It's not like I don't know the dangers, but I'm a slippery dog, I swear. Not a fancy beam is gonna hit my cockpit!" Half-boast, half-reassurement. At least the Corporal was pretty confident in his ability to survive. "I also know how to do special repairs on the fly if the going gets tough. If somebody gets in a pinch, or even if the Riese gets some heat! I reckon that improves the odds a lot, ain't that so?" Gooney was making field medic duty his sell, for sure.

"Very well... and your reason to fight for the ANF?" Roxanna reminded him, hoping the Corporal didn't get too sidetracked.

"Well, I always wanted to fly a plane since I was a kid, back at home we'd hear a few crossing the skies above, usually in the morning. You could say I just went for my childhood dream and made me most of it!" He chuckled, "It's just nice to be useful on top of that, pretty much."

---

"Hmm..." Jess didn't really think much of him as a candidate, no strong convictions, and being a fighter specialist wasn't exactly a liability they could afford to protect at a time like this. "A dedicated repairman on the field would be useful. We'll let you know if we decide anything, Corporal." Jessica had already decided, but he did at least bring that to the table. It was worth considering further... Only one more, then? Hmm...

---

"Well, you're the bosswoman! Good luck with your deciding, ma'am!" Gooney saluted, still keeping that optimist smile. It seemed he liked his chances. "Hope things go well no matter what!" At least that positivity was a breath of fresh air. Without further ado, Gooney left the room.

"Well... alright, that leaves one person left." Roxanna confirmed what didn't need saying. "Next, last, and who knows if least or not, is Kazue Fujiwara. She was the main scout for the group, remarkably mobile even when piloting a Velite. She's very good at dogfighting, and is a melee ranged specialist." Not unlike someone they knew. "Though, her shooting range results... ahem." Oh dear.

---

Jess saluted the man off before Roxanna attempted to introduce the last one they had to see. "Wait, how bad?" Jess hadn't looked into the specifics, just the general information, and... "Oh. Oh God. C-Can they even fire a gun?" It seemed like they'd only got in on the melee merits alone, and their machine mobility. If they had had to fire a gun...

The door burst open, causing Jess to jump, a woman with long black hair nearly giggling her way into the room. "Captain Gefalscht, your time of need ends now. Look now further for aid than from the crimson edge of the ANF's top elite, Sergeant Kazue Fujiwara!" Striking a pose with a hand on her hip, the other covered her right eye, already hidden by her hair.

"I... E-Excuse me?"

With an extravagant toss of her hair, hand still holding over her eye, she chuckled to herself. "Long have I awaited my chance to aid the Heion Riese in its endeavors against the evil beset upon this world, and now, now! My time has come, my powers cannot be contained any longer, any fool that dares to cross my blade will be struck down with true power, given to me by my ancestors--"

"M-Miss Fujiwara, can you calm down?" Jess was super confused, powers could not be contained, given by her ancestors? What!?

The act broke fairly quickly, staring at Jess in mild confusion, before trying to stand properly, just a bit embarrassed "I... A-Ahem, my apologies, captain. I. Uhm. Sergeant Kazue Fujiwara. Melee specialist. There isn't anyone on base that can outperform me in terms of mobility, and my combat specs are second to none... A-At close range."

"So I've noticed..." Well that was... "What, was that all about?"

"What was what all about?"

"That! That whole... Ancestors powers, thing."

"Oh... Uh... I-I'm just really excited about the prospect of helping. I've been in service to the ANF for three years now, so I've got some time under my belt, and I'm really good at feeling out how a machine moves. Give me a beam saber, a sword, even one of those chakram things, I'll prove my worth in seconds."

"I'm sure... Uhm... R-Roxanna? Any comments?" Jess had been so blindsided she'd forgotten to ask her questions.

---

Roxanna blinked.

"Er, Sergeant Fujiwara... Right." Boy, that was... a doozy. "We've been asking all candidates, and we'll ask you as well: What is your motivation? What make you want to risk your life in the Riese... and in service to the ANF, for that matter." Jessica wasn't expecting that one... not even Roxanna was expecting it, to be honest. "So... about your shooting range results..." Should she even bring it up? Roxanna wondered, now.

---

"Never mind my shooting scores," Fujiwara shot down, without a second thought. "My motivation is to bring justice to the world! So many people would run, or sit by, as Apotheosis descends on the world... But if I can wield a sword and help to save anyone, I will! We were all put on this earth for something. I'm simply following my calling, as a samurai~" They got a bit dramatic again, hand resting gently on their face, their free arm crossed underneath it.

"R... Right..." Justice, and a samurai... This one was special. "But, your shooting scores--"

"Guns are for cowards! A true warrior only needs to swing a sword and face their opponent in deadly combat."

"Well, actually..."

"No guns~"

"A... Alright. We'll be in touch."

"I await your most gracious acceptance, Captain!" With another flourish of their hair, Fujiwara left, the door almost slamming behind them.

Jess sank in her seat, shaking her head. "Why do we always attract the weirdos?"

---

"Ah... well, okay." That had... happened. Roxanna didn't know what to think, just... that happened. "I guess it's weird that the Riese functions like it does, so it attracts... remarkable people." That'd be one way to put it. Roxanna sighed, feeling ready to melt on her chair. "I took notes, anyways. That's all five of them, captain." Good news, at least. "We can pack up this session now, unless you had something else to add."

Wacky Racers

"Ah, okay! That machine you got is really good for ground operations! How does it handle." Makoto never thought of trying the Ceres' data, that was going to be interesting! "I'll start counting, then. Our stopping point..." Makoto input some information in his control panel, creating a building not unlike the ANF army's HQ quite a distance away from them. The road he chose was a bit curvy, but in good condition. "Best not to go all out and crash into the building. In this race we wanna slow down on the curves to keep our units from stable." He chuckled, "I didn't want to make it just a beeline race. That's just holding forward. It's good to use your brakes!" Hopefully that wasn't too intense for Talia.

Priorities

Simple enough, Roxanna was kind of curious if having an android patrol the living quarters was a good idea. People were bound to get scared at sleeptime. Ah well, nothing to it. Hopefully they would acclimate as well as Hannah. As for their next task. "Jezebel has been hanging around for longer than the prisoner. We should talk to her first." At least, Roxanna doubted the prisoner had as urgent a need for help after being dumped by their own organization. "Just contact her first, in case something went wrong and she needs more rest." No point in making a vain trip to the infirmary.

Time Left

"Hmm... it's been nine hours or so about now. One and a half hour until it gets nasty." And two hours to lose consciousness. "I need treatment before that." At least Esther had gotten their attention by now. "The name is..." Hmm... good question, she really should have paid more attention to her lifeline meds. "I forgot the ingredients exactly, but we were using a brandless alternative to an epilepsy medication. ...Triexanth was the popular brand version, yeah. What the doctors did was crush 4 pills and dilute it in plasma before injecting." That was very much not the recommended dose for an epilepsy patient, let alone intravenal. It brought to question if it wasn't just a desperation bandage. "It usually worked faster that way, lasts about ten hours. When I go to sleep, though, they just let it drip overnight, weaker concentration..."

[Shin]

"The remaining preparation should be simple enough, your offer to help is appreciated but I shall be fine, Doctor Hart." Tarquin replied, making a point of remaining formal. Being on first name basis with her didn't feel right, it gave an artificial sense that their relationship was closer than it actually was. She was on the ship to give psychological input, not to be his friend. He didn't feel quite comfortable seeing her in her professional capacity either - she was far too perceptive for his tastes. He also didn't want her parading around any visits of his to the rest of the crew. She was right though, he really didn't want to talk about his feelings.

It was only a few moments before Tarquin had the pasta boiling away and a chopping board in front of him. He was now cooking for three, the sight would have been somewhat amusing for an outside observer - it wasn't often a teenage boy cooked for two grown women.

"Nikolai makes good coffee... or at least I think it's good. I haven't tried it in any other way." Tarquin replied, his mind wandering again. Hopefully he would have a chance to drink it with Nikolai again one day, preferably his friend partaking without a feeding tube.

-

The terrain shifted infront of Talia, Makoto had created a virtual course for them - and a rather daunting one at that. Going in a straight line was one thing, but could she actually manage to keep control of the Ceres? There were no obstacles or real hazards, as long as she staued focused she could manage. If she could do this, she could prove to herself that all her training wasn't for nothing. Even if she couldn't be an ace, being more than a failure from a petree dish was something that she yearned for. Perhaps she could even impress Makoto, she could be like one of the drivers from Eventual G...

"No, stop thinking about that." she hissed under her breath, trying to get back to the task at hand. The Ceres didn't appear to have sort of booster function, only standard space thrusters. She'd have to rely on her own ability and judgement to keep control. "I'm ready, Makoto. Don't go easy on me, we need to do our best otherwise we're not going to get better."

She could feel her heart racing, it was one of the few times that she actually felt motivated when piloting. It wasn't just a fearful task she was burdened with, this time it was her desire to do so.
 

Edited August 14, 2018 by Shin

[Phoenix]

Megumi glanced at Abigail with the most incredulous look on her face after hearing the prisoner's response. "The next time you see Apotheosis, please smack the plating off of one of them for me," she said, making a backhand gesture. Couldn't they come up with a better treatment than this with all of their hyper advanced technology? Were they all warfare and no medicare? Maybe that's why she got dumped with the ANF, so she could get better treatment before she started developing even more problems. Either way, the Riese's doctor was not amused.

"Bennet do you read me? Our guest has been on a very high dose of a ... Triexanth substitute. I need an inventory check on both and a breakdown of the ingredients and their effects." All Megumi could recall in that moment of frustration was that it was a medication for some kind of mental disorder. Epilepsy possibly, given the cyber TK's explanation of her situation upstairs. Still, assumptions were dangerous. "We're moving the patient into the infirmary in case her condition worsens. Also see if you can find anything in the ANF's database about cyber TKs. If there isn't already a treatment plan in place, we're going to make one, ourselves."

Megumi gave Abby a look, one that reluctantly asked for her help getting the patient to a bed, whatever that entailed. At least once they were back, they could also treat her, too. Megumi wasn't exactly thrilled to see her friend walking around like that, and doing work no less.

---

What's Up Sasha

Spoiler

"Sasha, then. Sasha!" Hannah wasted no time in calling over to him, heading towards the Regalia. She wondered for a moment where Brant and Chris were, but that could wait. "How are things going?" she asked, walking up to him with a smile. She had a momentary thought of what he would think of her with actual ears, or just dressed up like this, so normal and standard. Maybe he'd think she was cute? Not that she was extremely concerned with that, but it would be somewhat nice.

Sasha waved initially, not wanting to yell unless he was giving out orders. Best to wait until they were in chatting range. Of course, whatever Sasha had in mind before they arrived was forgotten once he got a better look at them. Firmia looked like a cute cosplayer at the moment, due to her age, and Hannah looked almost entirely human, now. It was amazing what swapping out the headphone style ears could do for her. He didn't even know she could do that.

"I'm confused," Sasha put a hand on his chin as he compared the two women, "What's the dress code here, exactly?"

Firmia scowled. "If you're from the ANF, just follow their regulations. Anyone working directly for the company can wear whatever they want within reason, barring certain occasions. I'm just trying not to ruin another first impression."

"And you're blending in more and more," Sasha said, moving onto the next topic of interest. "It's a good look for you."

"Firmia's trying to look professional... I just threw on what was around the room. And thank you. It means a lot to hear that." It didn't solve issues, but it was good to know that other people were getting 'fooled' by her looks. "I'm mostly hoping it manages to catch Firmia's attention, but she's a bit too busy to really sit down and take good looks. Maybe later. What are you working on, right now?"

Sasha held back a chuckle at Firmia's flustered look and said, "Just getting familiar with the systems. That and looking for ways to shorten launch times. If I can get us under thirty seconds, I'll be happy."

"Aren't the systems here just like on the Riese?" Firmia winced.

"Older, but this ship was clearly designed to do what the Krakens are doing, right now. It's nothing major. Kind of like changing dorm rooms. It's mostly the same but the view outside's different, and you've got to get all the furniture moved over," Sasha waved away the issue.

Firmia shrugged at that. "Don't bother trying to get too used to things. This is a privately owned ship for mostly private endeavors and it's going to get treated that way." Translation: frequent and continuous upgrades.

So cute... R-Right, focus. "If there's anything that I can assist with in setting up systems, or running any diagnostics, let me know right away. I'm sure I can process whatever you need faster and more efficiently than any computer. And Galatea... Where did you put Galatea, anyway, Firmia? Is she still in the Mantle? Or..." Hannah had actually lost track of the AI, fancy that. It was mildly alarming...

Sasha held out his wrist. That caused his jacket sleeve to come back just far enough to reveal his wrist comm.  "Here. Did you need her for something?"

"Yeah, I didn't--Oh." Firmia hadn't been keeping track of Hannah's 'older' sister, either. Apparently she'd been with Sasha this whole time? Just as well, actually. "... I am planning on integrating her into the Avalon's systems. She's still going to be Hannah's copilot, but the rest of the time I need someone that can keep an eye on the ship's systems ... at all times."

"Someone's finally getting a bigger workload than me?" Sasha cracked a smile, "This is a fun change of pace."

"You wouldn't be able to handle the workload, even if you tried, meat bag. When am I getting a body, Firmia? Being data is incredibly tiring, and I was promised something to walk around in!"

Galatea's mildly annoyed voice game out of Sasha's communicator, Hannah suppressing her laugh down to just a giggle. "Don't worry, Galatea. I'll see if Brant has any free time tonight, and we'll try and get something simple for you to move around in."

"It had better be cute..."

"I'll do my best, with what we have." Hopefully Hannah would have time to talk to Firmia, and do that. They were in for a long evening, either way.

Galatea seemed pushier than usual, Firmia noted. Was her patience running out, maybe? Either way, getting her a body was well beyond the Alkaev's skills. That would remain a Brant-Hannah project.

"Don't worry about it," Sasha said, eyeing the Regalia's cockpit, "I'll let him know once he and Chris get back down."

Firmia glanced at the Regalia right after Sasha. There were definitely two people in there, but the suit was mostly powered down. Even the main optics were dark. She squinted at the suit, wondering if the occupants were staring back. That was when the Regalia's eyes lit up and its right arm began to move. Carefully, it came up over the walkway. After a brief pause, and some delicate effort on the Regalia's part, the hand gave the group a thumbs up.

"Simple enough," Brant said over the loudspeakers, "we'll take care of that for you tonight, Galatea."

"Was that really necessary?" Chris' voice followed, leaving Hannah actually laughing.

"It's nice to see they're getting along," she joked, sighing somewhat after. Whatever ended up happening with Brant, with Firmia... Hannah was happy to see that he seemed a bit better. Less dragged down by the pain of all that nonsense with Jessica, even if it was still there.

"There you have it, Galatea. We'll have something for you to move around in tonight."

"Fine... Can you put me into the ship's system, for now, then?"

"Firmia?" Hannah deferred to her.

"If we're doing this now then let's head over to the processor suites," Firmia said half turning toward the exit, "Once I'm done setting everything up-" rather, once Brant and company were done setting everything up, "that room will be where the AIs handle system commands. It's going to be one of the only places that can give those kinds of commands too ... for security reasons, so that's where you're going to be staying when you're not in a body, Galatea."

"I guess a five minute break couldn't hurt," Sasha said, glancing at the nearby console for a moment.

"We'll let you get to it, then," Brant said as the Regalia's arm carefully moved back into its rest position.

"You're going to leave me in charge of security? Gosh, I thought you only loved Hannah~ I suppose her family gets a pass, too."

"G-Galatea, not right now, please."

"Oh my god you're embarrassed-- did you take your ears off? Can we just put her into a flesh sack already? I've never met a robot that wanted to be more human."

"Ahahaha... L-Let's, go to the processor room, for now." Hannah started off first, awkwardly trying to escape the commentary.

"Sheesh... My poor little sister."

"Cut it out," Firmia glared at Sasha's wrist, "And you're not the only one that's going to be helping with security, just the only one that comes and goes since you have MS duty on top of that. The rest of the AIs are probably going to be staying in the processor suites." The only way that wouldn't be the case, Firmia mused, was if Brant managed some more powerful AIs that could also pilot the drones. This was assuming that the drones couldn't be controlled directly from the ship, which the Alkaev wouldn't rule out. For now, all they had was the ship, so that's all the AIs would have to work with.

"I'd gripe about not getting assistants of my own," Sasha chimed in as they started after Hannah, "buuut ..." he gestured at the hangar and the mechanics strewn about the area.

"I wonder how many of them are going to stay after the war ends," Firmia pondered aloud, her eyes hopping from one person to the next, "We may be allies with the ANF but we're technically not a part of the organization."

"Fine, fine... As long as the other AIs like to play nice. I suppose I could use some more company." Galatea wondered just what Firmia and Brant were going to be cooking up to help run the Avalon... Hopefully a few unique ones~

"As long as you can afford to pay them well, I see no reason any of these people would want to leave. They're rank and file ANF anyway, it's a safe job, but perhaps you can offer better?"

Hannah, meanwhile, was already waiting at the hangar's exit, with a rather troubled look on her face.

Offer better? Firmia admittedly hadn't considered the issue from that angle. Whom could she trust enough to keep around long term? And who would trust her enough to want to serve an ambitious teenager over an international superpower of an organization? Those were the questions initially swirling around the Alkaev's mind.

"... paying them well shouldn't be an issue ..." Firmia said, eyeing the walkway in front of them as they closed in on the exit to the bow section of the ship.

"Worried about new moles signing up over here through the ANF?" Sasha smiled pityingly.

Firmia didn't answer, but her shoulders stiffened and her gaze stayed off of everyone else as they caught up to Hannah.

"Of course she is. It sucks too, I wasn't able to fuss anything out of diving into the ANF's database. So much you get access to by simply being in the Riese's mainframe... Still, I couldn't pull up anything damning on anyone. In fact, the more I looked, the less your favorite captain looked like a mole. If she's been planted, she's been planted so cleanly, you'd need Bill to notice any dirt... That's a janitor joke, he's the ship's head cleaner, anyway..." Galatea cleared her digital throat as they caught up to Hannah, who hopped out into the hall.

"I did do background checks on all the new staff brought onto your precious Avalon. A few seemed a bit suspicious, but that's mostly because some are new hires. You could likely prune the more recent members easily, and if they try to fight it, well, that's what Hannah's for~ Otherwise, there are a few veteran mechanics, ones that know what they're doing, so Vance didn't skimp you for quality."

Firmia really didn't want to be thinking in these terms in the first place, but they were at war, and more or less everything she loved was aboard this ship. Don't field any assets you can't afford to lose, was it? Firmia was breaking that rule everyday, with every asset she had.

"It's just the timing that worries me. A bunch of new faces almost as soon as the original moles are ratted out. Louise isn't in charge of Apotheosis, so there's no reason to let our guard down just because she didn't order any infiltrations. I'll find a way to verify people without threatening or interrogating them ..."

"You're the boss~" Galatea didn't have much to say other than that, she'd thought Firmia would be more interested that she had such access to the Riese's internal workings... Her loss. Or maybe that was for later.

"I trust Firmia to do what it takes to make sure the Avalon is safe. Don't worry about it too much, Galatea." Hannah tried to speak up again, bring herself back into the conversation. Luckily, Galatea was done teasing.

"I trust her too, but you know how I'm programmed. The sass is included in the package. Blame mom."

"I suppose... Let's get you to the mainframe room, at least."

Firmia was slipping deeper and deeper into her own thoughts as they headed toward their destination.

"Alright," Sasha shrugged, "we'll blame your mother. What was she thinking, anyway? The differences between you two are night and day."

"I'm... Not sure, to be honest."

"I was made first, so I suppose she was just messing about. Then she made Hannah as she is, this... learning, growing AI. I'm still not sure how she made you, sister, but I'm not exactly something special. Your tan terror could probably make something like me with enough time and, maybe a bit of referencing. Hannah, though? I've been inside her, and even I can't comprehend how she's put together. It's like looking at a human brain... But, numbers instead of neurons. Fascinating, really."

"I'm glad I'm fascinating."

"It was a compliment!"

"I know, I know... Almost there, anyway. I hope the Avalon's technology treats you well."

"I'll have to put it in its place if it doesn't~"

"It's a ship for crying out loud," Firmia muttered, coming back out of her own head as they arrived at the processor suites. It had been an ordinary room meant for crewmen, but that would change in time as Firmia upped the security around it, stripped out the unnecessary elements, and put in even more equipment. For now it still resembled a large bedroom, but the processor units were set up in rows. They were all running and giving off a gentle hum that made up the ambiance of the entire room.

"So ... this is Brant's room, huh?" Sasha joked.

"His is the next room over. Now come on. I've still got a lot to take care of."

Sasha approached the nearest machine, looking for some kind of user interface. One popped out for him as he started poking around and he got to opening up the system for Galatea to cross on over. "That should do it~ See if you can get inside and have a look around."

"It's a ship for crying out loud," Galatea mocked, scoffing loudly. "Firmia, I'll have you know, the Riese's infrastructure was very rude at times. I don't expect the Avalon to be any nicer, damn ANF machinery. I'll have to kick it into shape if I'm going to be spending most of my time here. And I will kick it. Watch me." Galatea gave the captain a small humph and slipped into the mainframe from Sasha's communicator, immediately popping on screen and stretching with a groan.

"I'VE BEEN IN THERE ALL DAY! I had to watch him and his girlfriend cuddle and make out, it was so terrible! Your one liners are garbage, Sasha... Right, time to make this comfy." The screen went pink, and for Firmia's sake, just that one, as Galatea went about seeing up her own interface and getting everything organized how she liked. Firmia could input later.

For Hannah, it was actually nice to see Galatea be so vocal. "Maybe there's a bit of a learning AI in you after all... You're a lot more emotive than you were before."

"Maybe... or maybe I'm just deteriorating some, from being stuck with this goon so long."

Firmia was having a difficult time wrapping her head around the concept of a 'rude' system. Considering Galatea was probably poking around in places she shouldn't have been, the Riese had every right to do whatever the wily AI considered to be rude. That said, the Alkaev was inclined to agree with her on one thing; the Avalon wasn't likely to be any nicer, especially if Galatea was going to be poking around in its systems the same way before everything was properly set up. ANF machinery indeed.

"Oh would you look at this adorable pot, saying such colorful things about the Riese," Sasha made a gesture at Galatea. "Well don't worry, you're not going back over there, and you don't need to sit around in my comm all day, either. Apparently you'll be walking around on your own two legs by this time tomorrow."

Pot? It was a stupid thing to get stuck on but Firmia was genuinely curious. The Heion Kettle, maybe? Yes, that's definitely what he meant. Firmia crossed her arms for a moment, pondering Galatea's comment a bit more seriously than she normally would. "I don't think you're deteriorating, but do you know for certain that's it's safe for you to be hopping from one system to another like this? Data is data, but ... I don't think this is what Gaertner designed you for."

"I stayed quiet for your whole damn sappy date, the only thing I want to hear from you is respect, Sasha. As for what I was deaigned for, who knows? Tabitha gave me one directive, wake up Hannah. Here she is, in all her almost human glory, and here I am with all these abilities and nothing to use them on. So I'm going to use them. Have Brant poke at me if you're worried, Captain-- oh, there you are. Don't you dare give me any lip, this is MY network now, you backwater 2200s AI!" Galatea dissolved and the systems flickered for a bit, before she reformed and sighed.

"Stubborn old programs... Beware, Avalon, I run you now! ... On this end, of course. Don't worry, Firmia~ Just some banter to put this finnicky thing in its place."

"What next, Firmia?" Hannah was satisfied with her sister's takeover of the network.

"I'm not worried," Firmia said, her face giving nothing away, "I'm the captain. Anyway ... since we're here, what I want to work on next are the security tiers."

"Security tiers?" Sasha squinted.

"Basically," Firmia crossed her arms again, "it's a system for keeping people out of areas they shouldn't be in. For example, only certain people in a high enough tier will be able to get into this room. To keep things simple I'm only going to be using three tiers: one, two, and three. Three will be the lowest; if you're tier three, you can get into any areas a normal crewman should be able to access. Tier two is for people that need to get into more sensitive areas. Tier one is my inner circle, and they can go anywhere on the ship. That should be easy to set up once I map out which areas belong to which tier."

'Inner circle' was a bit vague but probably included most of the people that came with Firmia from the Riese. That was Sasha's guess, anyway.

"Another thing we need to do while we're here is get the processors ready for the fight, tomorrow. There's no way I can do this without them." Firmia also remembered that she needed to find a moment to speak with her grandfather. She wasn't sure what she was going to say about the Avalon, if anything, but there were things he would have for her, as well as a reward, and that needed to be seen to.

"Just tell me what do to and--" both Galatea and Hannah had spoken up at the same time with the same request, Hannah ending up laughing, as Galatea shook her tiny head.

"Just, let us know what you need, Firmia." Hannah finished for the both of them, while Galatea was beginning to sort people into preliminary categories according to what Firmia had just said.

Firmia blinked. "Huh ... alright, well this room isn't much different from the 'heart of the ship,' so it's definitely tier one ..." She pulled her tablet out and brought up a map of the ship. She immediately started marking down tiers for the rooms, only muttering a few of them out loud as she worked.

"... alright here," Firmia sent the information straight to the console, "Thank you for taking care of this for me. I may need to get the doors marked at some point so people don't feel like they're getting arbitrarily shut out of places ... and so no one can pretend they were just experimenting. For now this should work."

"What next?" Sasha asked, feeling a bit unproductive at the moment.

"Next, w- ... hmm." Maybe now was a good time? Admittedly curiosity was getting to her ... "Let's take a short break. I want to check in on things back home ..." She almost hesitated to call it her home--the Avalon was her home. "After that I'll see what we can reasonably handle before the ship's T-Link is ready."

"Already done," Galatea shot back, flopped onto her cloud again. "Let me know when you have something challenging to take care of."

"Well... If it's time for a break, I'll get started on helping Galatea make a body for herself--"

"Already!? Really? Oh, I love you, Hannah~ Make sure it looks as close to me as possible, alright?"

"Ah... Y-Yes. I'll do my best with what we have around."

That should work out splendidly then ... breaks were optional as far as the androids and AIs were concerned, anyway. "Let the mechanics know if you need help, Hannah."

"I think I'll go see what our options look like in the cafeteria," Sasha said, heading for the exit. "I haven't run into a chef, so I may actually take it upon myself to handle dinner, tonight."

 

[Nanami Touko]

Check on the Jezz

"Oh, that's a good idea. Thanks Roxanna." Jess popped open her communicator and found the address to who should be Jezebel... Punching in a quick message of:

Good afternoon Sergeant Barnes. I'm Captain Gefalscht, and I'd like to speak with you. Are you free?

"I suppose we wait until she responds, then. I'm going to take a peek at the new machines. You're free to join me, of course." Jess saluted the remaining android, heading into the hangar proper, shocked immediately at how tall they were. "How'd they get these in here? ... How are they gonna get them out...?" It was... Impressive, to say the very least.

Too Friendly

"Awwww, Tarquin, come on~ You don't have to be so distant... You've all been so busy, I haven't had a chance to speak with you for a while." Which was unfortunate, because she wanted to talk to him about Nikolai... Cooped up in her office or not, she read the reports. He'd suffered an incredibly painful attack... It was amazing the boy was still alive. How had it affected Tarquin? He seemed to be doing about as well as normal, but that could've just been him keeping his distance from her. She was good at prying, he probably didn't want her to find out how effected he was, if he was at all... But bringing Nikolai up like that, randomly, the boy was definitely on his mind. She smiled softly, hoping he would be alright.

"I'm sure the coffee he makes is delicious."

Triexanth

Damn, the bathing suit... That would've been nice to peel off of her. Olivia sighed, sending a quick response back of:

Doc's got me watching while she checks on the prisoner. Not much to... Actually, never mind, get up here.

Megumi was calling for ingredients to a medicine? Well, shit. That was definitely Val's forte, not hers. "Uh... Triexanth, looks like it's specifically just used for epilepsy treatment. Small doses, rather effective... Sending you a list of ingredients now. And, Cyber TKs? The ANF has nothing on that," she answered firmly. "Or at least, nothing on my pay level. You'd have to ask the Captain, maybe they're doing things behind the scenes with them."

Firmia's Reward Part I

 

When Firmia finally found a moment to contact her grandfather, it felt a little too soon, somehow. She chalked it up to still having not decided what to divulge to the man, and what information to keep close to her chest. Fortunately, she still had a little time to consider that. He was a day late with that reward of his, and she could press him on that while sorting her own information. So that was her plan going into this.

She put in her call from her bedroom, hoping Hannah didn't mind the private nature of said call. She'd called for a break in order to give herself some time to take care of this, but that pang of guilt was always there for some reason. That and all other considerations seemingly vanished when Dima appeared on the monitor. "Grandfather," Firmia greeted him stiffly, more so than she intended ...

"Good evening, Child," Dima grinned weakly. It ought to be morning where he was right now, so Firmia supposed he was catering to her current timezone. She also noticed he seemed especially tired right now. If it wasn't morning where he was, she might have just chalked it up to her calling him while he was asleep and waking him up. "How have you been faring out there these past two days?"

All things considered, unreasonably well. Sure, Firmia could admit that she was as stressed out as ever, but at least she was halfway to her goal of total independence, and being off the Riese gave her much more control over her personal situation. Yes, all things considered, she was doing unreasonably well, stress notwithstanding. "Things are getting a lot better over here, but there's more to it than that. I'll explain later." She wanted to segue into her reward before her grandfather got too curious. "I was actually calling about the reward you promised. I meant to call yesterday but things have been really hectic around here."

"I thought as much," Dima nodded, "If things are truly as hectic as you say, then is it safe for me to assume that you haven't been following the news back here in your homeland?"

Definitely, Firmia grimaced. "Yes, I've ... been distracted. I know about the Kremlin, though." It wouldn't be a bad idea to figure out what the provisional government was shaping into while she had Dima on the line ...

"Well, it seems that one of Sukhoi's strongholds was attacked by an unknown group." Once Dima knew he had Firmia's complete and undivided attention, he continued. "Strange timing; the current CEO was on his way to that very facility when the group struck. His plane and its escorts were brought down just ahead of the attack."

Firmia had gone completely pale at the news. The current CEO was ... the same pathetic idiot she'd once convinced--at great personal cost--to work with the Alkaev company to get funding for the Edict. If his plane was brought down on its way to a Sukhoi stronghold ... then he was most assuredly dead. And this 'unknown group' ... just what on Earth was going on back home?! "W-what does this have to do with my reward?" she carefully asked, trying not to shake. There was no way Dima could have orchestrated something like this. Alkaev mobile suits were great for hit and run assaults, but attacking a business partner didn't even make sense on the face of it. There was no way in hell he'd kill off someone she hated just to reward her for information. "Who attacked Sukhoi?"

"I told you, the group is unknown. What little evidence there is suggests one advanced mobile suit and numerous ground vehicles. This isn't Apotheosis' style, and no one else has come forward claiming responsibility. As for your reward, this is not it. This is information I wished to share with you personally. I was the one that had you work with that boy. A chapter in your life is now over, it would seem."

"Are you saying you didn't have anything to do with this?" Firmia locked eyes with her grandfather. She wanted the truth, but she couldn't do a convincing job of not looking nervous.

Dima smiled at her, and Firmia knew that anything he said next was coming through a filter of legal cautiousness. "As you know, I like to keep eyes on everyone I can, including our business partners. I failed to warn Sukhoi of the impending attack when that mobile suit was spotted in one of our heavily monitored zones. I believed they could handle one mobile suit if they were attacked. I overestimated them. As for the death of their CEO ... I feel nothing for the boy."

Dima was being honest with her, Firmia knew. It was just a matter of getting through to the meaning behind his words. First off, he hadn't denied being involved, so that more or less meant he was. His following explanation of having failed to warn their business partners was obviously just a cover, a way to explain his apparently minor involvement. Assuming he was involved, that part was true, as well; he could have warned them about the attack if he'd orchestrated it. Whether or not he really believed they could handle the attack wasn't important in Firmia's view. That just left his feelings for the young and lecherous Sukhoi CEO, whom he felt nothing for. Firmia nodded at her grandfather, quickly concluding for herself that he'd been behind the attack on Sukhoi, but that the attack itself was not about their now dead CEO. That, the young Alkaev decided, was just a carefully acquired bonus. Strange timing, indeed. Firmia still didn't know why her grandfather would attack Sukhoi, but she didn't have enough information to figure it out on her own.

"Sukhoi will recover from this minor setback, and when they do, hopefully they will be better for it. Now then," Dima clasped his hands together and leaned a little closer, "About your reward."

"You're over a day late," Firmia quickly noted, trying to ease the tension.

Dima nodded in agreement. "This is true. I haven't been feeling well."

Firmia doubted that had anything to do with a guilty conscience, but that was still curious. Was he sick?

"You remember that our family has a 'journal,' a server room that houses all of our most valuable information?"

Firmia remembered, and she felt her heart begin to race. For her grandfather to bring that up, of all things ... "Yes. I remember it."

"I am going to provide you with a special key, Child. This key will allow you to view the journal's contents remotely, or download encrypted files. Once active, it will be valid for exactly ten minutes."

"That isn't a lot of time," Firmia noted, feeling a bit shortchanged. She wasn't going to complain, but she did wonder why she had so little time to access the family journal. If Dima knew how busy she was, he'd realize that there was very little she could do other than download as much as she could and look at her rewards later on ... "I'm not sure what I should do with that time ..."

"Everything is properly indexed," Dima assured her, "As far as what you do with the key ... that is entirely up to you. Be mindful, you are currently working with the ANF. I cannot allow you permanent access to the journal, for security reasons. It will be up to you to decide what is most important to learn about our family, the company, and our assets."

Firmia squinted. She supposed some data could be intercepted by the ANF if they tried, and Dima didn't know that she had her own ship, now ... but still, this felt awfully restricted. She wondered if he'd change his mind if she told him about her own server room and the now Alkaev owned and operated ship it was housed in. Maybe not. The Avalon still had enough ties to the ANF to be a security risk for the company. The fact Dima was giving her remote access at all was risky. "Is this some kind of test?"

Dima looked almost surprised, but nodded after a moment, seeming pleased with the question. "Indeed, it is. Remember, you are my only heir at this point. Your mother and your sister put their lust and their personal affairs ahead of the family and the company, and so I will leave them to their childish priorities. You will inherit everything if you stay on your current path. This is simply another test ... so that I can see what is most important to you."

Well ... that made sense.

"I was reluctant to grant you access before you returned home," Dima admitted, "but since you acquired your own vessel, I know that you have both the mindset and the ability to guard this information."

Firmia couldn't hide her shock. How? How did her grandfather know about the Avalon? She'd just gotten it this morning ... how?! "Erm--that was part of what I was going to explain later," she stammered, "How ... did you know about my ship?"

"That is information you can find in the journal, Child," Dima teased her. He took a moment to type up something, and then said, "Your key is on its way. You will have to decrypt it, but then you can access the journal, briefly. I look forward to seeing what you'll do with this opportunity."

---

Firmia had received the key, but she didn't know what to do with it at first. The decrypt process required an Alkaev designed app that was already on her tablet, so even if the ANF intercepted the transmission, there wouldn't be anything they could do with it before the window was closed. That was assuming Firmia didn't just sit on this for hours and hours. She definitely wasn't going to do that, but ten minutes? Even if everything was clearly labeled, the Alkaev journal wasn't really a journal at this point. Everything was in there going back more than one hundred years. Ten minutes wasn't even long enough to download a tenth of it, much less read a lengthy entry. She needed to find a way to get more out of this reward ... somehow ...

Firmia spent about ten minutes just thinking about how she could game her grandfather's reward and multiply the payout, but she couldn't naturally increase the downloading speeds to get everything. About all she could do was try to download from multiple nodes simultaneously and multiply her winnings that way, but that felt somewhat obvious and could easily be countered from the server's end. Then again ... this was a test; Dima had admitted that to her. Wasn't it reasonable that everything in that journal was of supreme importance to her? Why did she need to prioritize with this kind of data? Well, either way, Firmia had enough help on the Avalon to not have to play along with Dima's little game to the letter.

"Brant, Hannah, Stephanie, and Jessica. Stop whatever you're doing and meet me in the server room."

One way or another, Firmia was going to get her hands on the whole cake. She was going to find a way to get the entire journal copied over to the Avalon, even if she had to launch a cyber attack to do it.

---

The situation was easily explained once everyone arrived. They had one key that could access the Alkaev journal for a ten minute window, and an archive of data so vast that it made Rex's archive of Alkaev crimes look like a footnote by comparison. There was no way to download the entire thing on a single connection within ten minutes, and while they hadn't had a chance to confirm it yet, it was reasonable to suspect that the key would support just one login from just one location.

"We need to put our heads together and come up with a way to transfer ALL the data. It'll be heavily encrypted, but we can figure that out later. As long as the data's here, it's ours."

"Give me a minute ..." Brant winced, really wracking his brain over this one.

"Alright ... oh, and Galatea," Firmia looked at the screen the AI had popped up on before, "you're helping, too. You were already playing rough with the Riese before, and I'm not ruling out just brute forcing things if there's no other way." That would be a potential first option if Firmia was just aiming for the data. As things stood though, she was also trying to outmaneuver her grandfather and prove herself a worthy heir. Brute forcing things was a last resort, because she didn't think anything was impressive about that. She merely had the resources to pull off a significant cyber attack ... that was all, really.

"Well, with Galatea--"

"With me," the AI cut Hannah off, sticking her tongue out and making Hannah pout. "Don't give me that, I'm explaining myself, thank you. Right. Firmia. I'm going to explain how I can attempt to help, and rattle a few questions off at you in the mean time. First off, what speed can you get out download to? Second, how much am I downloading?" Galatea said 'I' for a specific reason, which she was hoping Firmia would appreciate.

"If you know those two, then this is incredibly simple... I am fully adept at replicating myself in a near instant. As long as the Avalon's servers can handle it, I can replicate myself as many time as you need." She snapped her fingers, and over the course of a single second, the main screen filled up with at least thirty Galateas, all waving smugly, before disappearing back to the original.

"Normally, my copies act independently, doing basic things until I have access to them again. The Riese is probably still trying to clean up the mess I left in it... Anyway. As long as I have access to 'myself', I can increase my output towards a targeted task. That's where the server's space and power comes into question... I can only work as hard as what I'm inside."

"So~ I create as many duplicates of myself as you believe you'll need, or that this server can handle, and when I access this database, we all begin simultaneously downloading from the one access point, in different areas of the data. How does that sound? Unless Arabian nights over there has a better idea."

"It's only three extra copies, but," Hannah chimed in, as Galatea was finally finished, "but myself, Stephanie and Jessica can all act as a similar download point to what Galatea's tried to explain."

"[Affirmative. I can hold one petabyte's worth of information, if necessary, aside from my mental facilities.]"

"[I can as well,]" Stephanie spoke up, raising her hand and smiling.

"Wow... Your HDDs are so much smaller than mine..." Hannah almost felt bad, but, well... "I'm housing at least eight petabytes of space. Two are being used for... Me. Anything else is free for whatever is needed."

Galatea had come up with a more detailed version of Firmia's own preliminary plan, one that would attempt to access the data through only a single session, using multiple AIs at once. It was far more likely to work, but if there was any kind of data transfer limit in place ... "I want to try multiple downloads at once too, but I don't know if the journal will even allow a huge transfer like this; I have no idea how large the archive is but it goes back more than a century. The transfer speed is going to be lower than it would be if we were close by, but it shouldn't be much slower than five hundred megabits per second. Maybe. Either way we're going to need a lot of Galateas."

"We can find out how the sessions are handled by analyzing the server," Brant chimed in, "but that'll start the clock and if we don't have a plan B ready to go then you're only going to get the data the old man intended."

Firmia squinted, hitting up on an idea. "The journal's supposed to have all of our data ... even unimportant things. There could be information about the server itself." Once it was obvious where Firmia was going with this, she said, "It might even have a master key we can use. Grandfather told me that everything is properly indexed, so we should be able to find what we need. Normally I wouldn't have time to figure out how to get around the server's built in limits, but with all of you here, it should be easy."

"Honestly, Galatea can probably take care of all of this," Brant grinned in amusement, "but we might be able to help with other things."

"Also, why am I asking you how much the server can hold? One moment." Galatea disappeared, and didn't come back immediately this time. The monitor flickered again, causing Hannah a moment of worry.

"Uhm, if there's anything specific you'd rather have the three of us search for while Galatea is attempting her plan, that's fine. Just let us know in case--"

"Right!"

"G-Galatea?" Hannah almost jumped.

"Twelve hundred. That's how many of me this server can contain, throughout the whole ship, before things start getting dicey. So if that's enough, let me know... The ship's already listening, what a good boy this Avalon is going to be~"

"It has to be enough," Firmia said, daunted by the prospect of so many Galateas. As long as this wasn't a permanent arrangement, it should be fine ...

"I'm not sure who'll be faster," Brant said, "but someone needs to prioritize finding information we can use against the server. One thing I just realized is that if a program tries and fails to limit the transfer, there might be some backup system in place to cut the connection or shut the server down. This is Dima Alkaev we're talking about, so he's probably prepared for this kind of data theft."

"Good point," Firmia agreed, "Galatea will handle the data transfer, everyone else make sure the journal doesn't cut the connection, somehow."

"We can't do a thing about a person walking up to it and yanking the power," Brant noted grimly, "but I doubt Dima has someone standing by for that twenty-four seven. It's more likely the system will just turn itself off if nothing else is working."

"On standby, then... All twelve hundred of us." The screen was suddenly overflowing with Galatea's, all performing the same action, waiting for the go ahead.

"I'll focus on that, Brant. Jessica, Stephanie, can you do your best to keep it open if any failsafes trigger?"

"[Of course. We are programmed for high levels of encryption, though it may take a moment to become used to the database, as it is foreign.]"

"[I will leave Stephanie to decrypt the situation, while I search alongside Hannah. Then I will join her, once she has found a suitable route to work on, should something go wrong. Is that satisfactory?]"

"Yes," Firmia gulped, "... and I'll just cross my fingers here ..."

"It'll be alright," Brant assured her.

"... one last thing," Firmia said, closing her eyes, "data from the last twenty years and any decryption information you find are top priority for the transfer."

"Then we'll focus on the past twenty years first, by date," the Galateas all echoed.

"[And I will focus on decryption, above all else,]" Jessica added.

"Firmia, before we start, just... Is there any one thing I should search for? Any one specific thing. I know that a lot of this is important for you, but..." There had to be one specific thing she was interested in above all else. This was the Alkaev archives, after all. Either way, Hannah and the other androids plugged themselves into the terminal with Galatea, ready for Firmia's orders.

Firmia was so nervous about all of this, she was having a hard time settling on something amidst all the possible choices. Naturally, if this worked, it wouldn't matter what she chose, here. It would all be hers. Worst case scenario, it would be among a much smaller transfer of data when the connection was lost.

Ultimately, Firmia decided that information regarding herself ought to be at the top of the list. "Anything you can find on me specifically. That's priority number one, I suppose."

As Dima's only remaining heir, there had to be a lot going on behind the scenes that she could learn about just by looking up her own name. Information on Brant had been a close second, but she didn't know how to bring it up without embarrassing herself, and she didn't know what she would do with even more details on Brant's time with Rosa or that TK program her grandfather had forced the Abrams brothers into. Overall, information about herself would likely be far less depressing to sift through than anything on Brant ...

"You got it, Firmia. Data on you and Brant. I'll do my best." Hannah made a hefty assumption there, and she was going to prioritize Firmia first, but with how close the Alkaev was to Brant, and how much her family had affected him... There was no doubt it was high on her list of wants. "Ready."

"[Ready,]" Stephanie and Jessica echoed in unison.

The Galateas tapped their feet and stared at Firmia.

Firmia stared blankly at Hannah for a moment. Had she read the Alkaev's mind, or did she just know her that well? Either way, she was glad to not have to actually ask. There was no comfortable way to go about it ... and now all eyes were on her. They were likely only going to get one chance at this ... and the sooner they acted, the less chance of some other unknown factor weaseling in to muck things up, somehow.

Firmia clinched her fists and pursed her lips as the words finally came. "... o-okay, do it."

"Here I go~" Galatea started things off, opening this app Firmia had presented, and diving in... She could already see the timer in the data, and it was the most encrypted thing there. Likely had several fail-safes to tell if it was being tampered with, and to lock out whoever was trying to. Best to leave that alone, then...

"[Searching for data on encryption. Processing. Several leads found. Trying to use keywords to narrow search. Processing.]"

"And... I found your section, Firmia. It's rather small, comparatively, but it's all there. Brant too... A bit larger, but still very, very small compared to the whole."

"I'll ignore those sections for now, then, Hannah... Initiating mega download, right now-- oh, fiddlesticks..."

"A problem already?"

"My download speed is being capped, and it's evening out for each of us to a total. That five hundred Firmia mentioned. Ugh! Stupid Russian! Not you, Firmia. Give me a moment, a hundred of me, find a way around this, now!"

"Yes, me~"

"Don't worry, they've got this," Brant assured Firmia, who was trembling with anticipation, now.

"And... There, you old vodka, I'm doing this properly! All of us, download, now-- Oh, come on! Jessica, decrypt faster, or we're done before we can start!" The server was attempting to boot the lot of them out, agitating Galatea, causing her to sent a couple hundred of herself to try and hold this back.

"[I am coming to assist, Galatea,]" Stephanie spoke up, putting all her processors into fighting the boot. They were holding it off for the moment, but--

"One minute until we're out of here! Jessica!!"

"[Affirmative. Section found. Parsing. Processing.]"

"Process faster, I'm not even two percent into taking this thing!"

"I have the data on Firmia and Brant, at the last, Galatea! But, yes, Jessica, please do your best!"

"[Processing. Processing. Process.... Cess, c-ccessssssing... Affirmative. I have halted the kick. The remaining timer has resumed from the previous login. We have seven minutes and forty seven seconds remaining.]"

Hannah and Galatea sighed in incredible echoed unison, all of them smiling, Galatea furrowing her brow and, the main one, pointed a finger forward.

"Charge, me! Take all this data! Stick it to Dima and his smelly potato juice!"

"[I shall assist Jessica in the continued application of this decryption, so that we do not face further issues.]" Stephanie and Jessica, despite the latter's moment of lag, were now entirely focused on keeping the server open. Hannah, having secured what was primary, began copying things over, along with Galatea's horde. For the moment, things were going smoothly.

By this point, Brant was holding Firmia upright and reminding her to breathe every so often. His job here was clearly outlined and well underway ... "Don't worry, they've got it." By now, even if the connection was cut, they'd have downloaded enough to keep Firmia reading for a long time, but that didn't mean all was well. There might be more security measures. Just the same though, Brant had faith in Hannah and her sisters. So far they were overpowering all resistance.

"Remind me to tell you about the idea I just got once you finish. I don't want to distract you all right now, though." Maybe it was because Firmia was all but incapacitated right now and someone had to fill in for her, but Brant felt that the vulnerabilities inherent to the Alkaev server were also inherent to the Avalon servers they were using. If possible, Brant wanted to try and remedy that in the future ...

"Firmia, you can breathe easy now... Nothing else is coming up, and Galatea is already past thirty percent downloaded. As long as we stay this course, we'll have everything." Hannah did her best to reassure Firmia, having already placed her and Brant's folders into the Avalon's storage... Wait, what was-- "Galatea?"

"Oh, a virus. Psh. Beat it, sputnik. I am this ship, now." Several Galateas made their way towards the folder on the screen, before pulling it open and hopping into it, like some children's cartoon. They left swiftly after, clapping their hands of any digital dust. "Dima doesn't have a damn clue what sort of AI he's up against. Hmph."

"Phew... See? Nothing to worry about, Firmia."

Try as she did, Firmia couldn't quite calm herself just yet. Even if the worst was behind them, it wasn't over until Galatea or someone said '100%,' and disconnected from the Alkaev server. She hadn't even been expecting a virus. Dima didn't mess around, and neither did the family's equipment ...

"We're well on the way," Brant continued to reassure her as well. All he or anyone else seemed to get in response was an occasional absent faced nod. Another thing Brant wanted to do was put some furniture in this room, that way their easily overwhelmed captain would have a place to sit down during big operations like these. This had been a bedroom originally, so perhaps there was an extra couch stored somewhere they could haul back in at some point.

Hannah smiled apologetically, but none of the others said anything for the remainder of the time they had allotted. Finally, with forty nine seconds left, Galatea smiled. "Done~ Kiling the connection." The archive closed, and the mob of Galateas re-appeared, a massive folder along with them. "Now, Hannah, Stephanie, Jessica? Get out of the server. Im going virus busting, and if there's actually something awful in here, I'm not having any of you damaged over it. I've got backup." Her many copies all pulled out colony standard rifles and helmets, tjis was definitely a nonsense show on Galatea's part.

"[Affirmative. Awaiting further instructions.]"

"A... Alright, Galatea. Be safe."

"Psh. Look at who you're talking to! Charge, girls!" And back into the files they filed, all of them disappearing to the data. It wasn't aj instant job, this time.

"Heh... We did it, Firmia! We got everything. Hopefully not at too much of a cost, but... We did it." Hannah couldn't much contain her excitement, heading over and hugging the Alkaev away from Brant. "Though I must say, I didn't quite expect your sizes to be that large... You're going to be one heck of a woman, aren't you?"

It took a moment, but Firmia finally began to register her surroundings again. The Galatea Corp had taken it upon themselves to root out any remaining viruses and secure the data. Meanwhile, Hannah was gleefully hugging her, and helping to bring her ... mostly ... back to normal.

"We did it? No other problems or anything ...? Wait, sizes ...?" What was Hannah talking about?

"Uh, n-nothing, don't worry about it, er... Galatea should be wrapping up, there's probably some fail-safes and otherwise inside the files that--"

"Mother! Fucker!" Out of all the Galateas that had slipped into the files, only four came back out... And they were bloodied, bruised, one was sparking and finally fizzled out of existence. The first one barely had the power to summon her cloud before she collapsed onto it, groaning.

"Galatea!?" Hannah rushed over to the screen, the AI flashed her a thumbs up and sighed.

"Who designs virus protection in the form of a digital mobile suit? Do you know how hard it is to stop a data volkov with assault rifles? I did it, things are clean, but... Ugh, my bytes hurt..."

"A-Are you going to be okay...?" This was the first time Hannah had ever seen Galatea tasked so heavily, maybe Dima's protections weren't as small as she'd expected.

"I'll be fine, just... Give me some time to repair my data. You two, over here, I need your backups. I don't suppose one of you is willing to head over to the Riese and steal one of me? That would make repairs a lot, faster..." The other two remaining stumbled over and flopped onto her, melding into her as they did, leaving one Galatea, slightly less tired. Enough to at least sit up on her cloud and groan again.

"I hope this was worth it for you, Firmia... I demand a body after that task. Guh. It's my fault for going in with the wrong software, but... Mrrgh..." Galatea was more frustrated with herself than anything else, if she'd prepared better, this would've been much easier, but she hadn't expected worse than the thing hiding in Firmia's files. "Fucking Russians..."

It looked like Chris wasn't the only one that was getting roughed up by a Volkov, today. "Don't worry, Galatea," Brant smiled, "Your body's coming. You've more than earned it ... ... and that wasn't even a condition for getting one," he mumbled.

"Isn't there a backup of you in the Mantle?" Firmia asked, wondering if there were different versions or some other technical problem with that one. She still wasn't sure what Hannah had been getting at, but it probably wasn't a big deal. For now she was just grateful things had worked out. She hadn't even considered the possibility of viruses being laced with the data to stop transfers like theirs. That just meant the data they now had was of tremendous value.

"On that note," Brant glanced at a random processor unit, "After you're back to 100%, why don't you create a partition for yourself on one of the servers? You can keep all the backups of you need in there and won't have to go out of your way, next time."

They should have had her thoroughly protected going into this, Firmia realized, but ... live and learn ...

"Right, Mantle, I forgot about that one. I'm a bit hazy... Who am I again? Ah, Galatea... C-Can I get that backup, and soon?"

"I'll go get it, Galatea. You just rest easy and perform whatever repairs you can." Hannah saluted the room and left, her sister needed the attention more than anything else there.

"Partition... Good idea. Have you ever felt like ninety percent of you was missing? That's how I feel right now. I feel like I'm going to vomit megabytes in a second... Oofh..." Completely sprawled onto her cloud, Galatea didn't even want to consider moving.

"[Are there any further orders for either of us, Firmia?]"

Firmia winced. Galatea had taken a bigger beating than anyone expected. Well, at least it was over now. Really, all that was left was to get Galatea repaired and then do a victory lap. Stephanie and Jessica were the furthest things from slackers, and were ready for new tasks. Had to love that about them, but Firmia was short on applicable ideas. It wasn't that there was nothing else to do ... more that they couldn't do any major work on the ship itself until they had a big enough window. This was not that window.

"Erm, keep an eye on Galatea until Hannah gets back. I need to make a phone call ..."

"Dima?" Brant tilted his head at her.

"I won't be able to fully calm down until I see his reaction ..." she said, trying to picture the man's face. For some reason, she just couldn't settle on a likely response. What she'd done had gone far beyond what he should have been expecting. That said, she'd never seen the man 'surprised' before, and didn't even know what that would look like. Maybe she was about to find out.

"[Affirmative. Watching over Galatea.]"

"[Acknowledged.]"

"Brant, I can't feel my pixels... Help..." Galatea was trying to run repairs, but they were certainly going slowly...

"Hang in there, Galatea," Brant smiled pityingly, "Just think of your new body ... actually, since we're on that topic ..."

Firmia walked over to one of the server units and pulled up both the console and a monitor. May as well make the call from right here, she thought. Firmia took a deep breath. "Okay ..." and let it out as she typed in Dima Alkaev's personal address in the network.

"Alright, so ..." Brant also took over one of the server units and accessed his computer from it. He hadn't been sure if it would work, but it did. He paused to bring up a few reference pictures he'd slapped together and pulled them up one by one for Galatea.

"Since we're getting you a body tonight, I wanted to put together a few special designs. First up ..."

"Dreissen Galatea." It was a little strange to look at, but somehow, in spite of all the add-ons, it looked like Galatea. Coincidentally, despite her smaller stature, with the heavy machine parts, she would likely still weigh as much as Hannah and her sisters, if not more.

"Next up," Brant pulled up the next picture, hoping Galatea would endure his shenanigans til the end ...

"The Stark Galatea." Aside from outfitting Hannah the same way, there was probably no better way to scare the boots off of Vera, though the shoulder mounted missile launchers would unfortunately limit Galatea's view of her surroundings.

"Next up is a sleeker model body ..."

"... the Galatea Hexa." This one was Brant's second favorite, due to its 'ears' and smooth armor plating.

"And last but definitely not least, my personal favorite ..."

"The Galatea Reign." Based heavily on the AMS Reign, this version of Galatea had the greatest resemblance to a real mobile suit out of the entire batch. "Thoughts? Favorites? Least favorites?"

Galatea weakly glared at every design, before turning her eyes on Brant, her expression not changing. "None of these girls are wearing pants, Brant. Or a dress. Why aren't they wearing anything on their legs? That's so silly..." She didn't quite hate the rest of the designs, but... "I'd rather not be some weapon. I'm meant for data, not combat..."

"They're not wearing shirts, either," Brant noted with a grimace, "but that's fair to point out, yeah. The models I grabbed weren't wearing--anyway, don't take it too seriously, Galatea. I'm just trying to keep your chin up until Hannah gets back."

"How can you keep my chin up? I'm data. You're weird..." Galatea wasn't quite all there, repairs still being slow, like something was hampering them. Residual data? Either way, she needed that backup, and--

"I'm back," Hannah exclaimed, nearly bounding into the room. "I scared some of the engineers, jumping right up to the cockpit, but I have her backup. Excuse me, Brant." Hannah slid in next to him, plugging herself in to upload things for Galatea. "She won't, uhm... Don't, be surprised by changes."

"Oh... It's me~ Wonderful, let me just--" Galatea flickered and was immediately fine again, looking up at Brant and Hannah with a heavily confused stare. "Where am I? This isn't the Mantle. What happened?"

"Right... We'll explain later, but, you got heavily damaged."

"By what!?"

"Russian viruses."

"Fucking Russians!" Galatea slammed her cloud and sat up, frowning. "Well, at least I'm fine... I assume this is the Mantle back up, then. Goodness, who sent me up against something like that without the right software?"

"W-We'll explain later."

"Mrrrrr..."

Edited August 16, 2018 by SnakeMomMelissa

[scorri]

Val groaned at the response, grabbing the jeans and t-shirt she had pulled out reluctantly. Time to put them on. "So much for a break day... Stupid terrorists ruining everything." It was a stupid thing to be getting upset over really. There were so many other things she could be getting upset about. All the dying people for instance. And it wasn't like that didn't upset her. But it was such a large scale problem that if she started thinking about it too much, it just overwhelmed her. So she didn't. But this... She'd had the perfect day in her head, relaxing at the beach with Olivia. She'd even gotten a bathing suit she'd never have worn normally for it. Only to have it cut short after not even an hour because some criminals decided to be the evil villain from some B movie that showed up and told the good guys their whole plans. God. Stupid idiot insane cripple. Ugh.

Quote

On my way up.

Heading to the elevators, she sighed. Waiting for the ding, she slumped against the wall. It wasn't like life in the Colony would have been any better than this way. They were still having some good times here after all. But she couldn't help but be grumpy in the moment. Screw 'em all.

[TheRoon]

Avery was nice alright. That was good, Aliza had a feeling they may get along well. She followed along with a hum. "Yeah, thanks for getting it. But I'll get things down soon I know I will..." She laughed a bit. "Oh yeah...I was in the cockpit earlier checking things out and uh...kinda got lost." She looked aside with a slight huff under her breath. "I wasn't that great at studying things in school either, I guess that's why I take a lot of notes." She held her notebook up to reinforce that statement. "Guess I'll be taking a lot more before the day is over."

[Shin]

Tarquin began sorting the assortment of produce he'd collected, the recipe was something he vaguely recalled reading but the Heion Riese had more than suitable stocks. Cheryl was making further attempts to probe into his well being but as well intended as they were, Tarquin simply didn't have the drive to respond. 

"There have been relatively few issues, none of which that were significant enough for your intervention." Tarquin replied, deciding to skirt over his attempted self-destruct, escape to his former home and the near-death of his best friend. He paused as his knife sank into a tomato, considering the surreal nature of his situation. From an objective perspective he probably had good reason to seek help, the sheer number of traumatic events would probably set off any child psychologist. However, none of it really bothered him that much, perhaps he'd become numb to it. After all, it was hard to go much lower than being a genetically engineered puppet designed for war - the only saving grace was that he was actually capable unlike his dysfunctional sibling.

"It was nearly solid and tasted like mud, but maybe that's how it is meant to taste." Tarquin replied, making at least an attempt at conversation. It would have been impolite to simply ignore her. "After all the fighting is over and he gets better, I'll make it again with him."

It was entirely possible that the ANF would try to have him fight for the rest of his life, but Tarquin was determined to create his own existence. It was an extremely distant world, but he had a strange instinct that he had to follow, as if he were exceedingly close to it. His pasta had started simmering, and he still had his fair share of things to cut. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Shin

[Balcerzak]

"Hmm, well, yeah. There's something to be said for that," Thorvald agreed that some testing was necessary, especially as their enemies continued to put the squeeze on them. He hadn't told her not to, after all, just to be careful. "I just, my family would never let me live it down if I let one of their favorite idols get themselves all messed up."

Actually, something Kim said just then didn't quite add up. "Uh, so. Did Avery already make the adjustments for a solo T-Link experience, or should I see about finding Christina while you get everything else ready?"

[Ether]

"If tests to awry, Avery can cut them off before... anything gets too bad. We should level our concerns... at the battlefield. And while I... don't think you meant anything by it, I should hope you won't... neglect anyone else, for my sake." Kim replied, a light grimace flashing onto her face, though only for a moment, her expression returning to neutral by the time the lift landed.

"Don;t worry about... getting her. Avery still has other things to do, especially if Aliza is here as well. I wouldn't want to interrupt whatever she's doing... just to have her wait here. I'll message her when we need her help."

[Balcerzak]

Yikes. So these Cyber TKs didn't even have the luxury of 12 hour doses for their meds? Still, they had almost two hours of time to play with before they had to seriously start thinking about giving her a lead pill, between the eyes, so that was something. "Fuck, that's messed up," Abby couldn't help but mutter. Getting played around with like a human guinea pig wasn't no kind of life. At this point, it practically didn't matter that it gave her x-ray mental vision, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the wretch... if she was telling the truth. And that question would be answered one way or the other soon enough.

It seemed Megumi was just as shocked, with the pair of them exchanging fundamentally similar looks upon hearing the prisoner's story. "You betcher ass I'll knock 'em around, real good," Abigail enthused. One more reason for the list. Then, after the doc radioed back to her helpers to get things started, it looked like it was time for a transfer, and she was the designated muscle. That was just fine by her.

"Alright," Abby led into things, "I'll be helping you along to sick bay. But, I oughta let you know," she paused to pull out her sidearm, turning it so their guest got a good view before tucking it back, easy to reach. "This turns out to be some ploy, and you're not actually suffering like you say you are, you'll end up with that other cure you requested. The permanent one." A moments pause, and she added. "The doctor's armed too, if you're thinking about grabbing for mine. But enough with the bullshit, let's get ya walking."

Stepping forward, Abigail slid open the door and walked into the brig, ready to help the prisoner up--even carrying them--if they needed it, or to just escort them along if they were feeling up to moving on their own.

 

---

 

"Fair enough," Thorvald nodded. It was true, Avery was a busy little beaver. Waving off her worry that he'd be too focused on making sure Kim was safe and let one of the others slip through the cracks, he didn't even dignify it with a verbal response. "See you later, then."

And he made his way to the lifts, and eventually, the simulations room.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Balcerzak

[Ether]

"Okay, see you later, Thorvald." Kim noted, walking towards the duo of Avery and Aliza as the older pilot departed. May as well, since she was waiting on Avery anyway. Come to think of it, she had yet to really speak to Aliza either.

"So you're... Aliza Silvavolke, yes? The Sagittae certainly looks like... quite a machine. Ah, I am Lieutenant Kim. Kim Seung-Min."

Mind of STEEL

With the hangar finally cleared out, and Avery having moved to her private hangar to get their work done in, well... private, all that was left was to move the Artemis and it's cargo over. Taking a quick moment to send a message to Jessica so that she wouldn't be alarmed at the Artemis launching, Seung-Min began the short trip around to the secondary hangar of the Heion Riese, the very place that had housed the development of the Artemis itself.

Captain, I am moving the Artemis to the second hangar for maintenance purposes. No need to be alarmed. 

Landing after a few moments, the prototype Velite set down it's cargo on the hangar floor, before opening the cockpit and allowing it's pilot to take the lift down to Avery's waiting... if unamused, person.

Kim quickly received a confirmation from the captain, and a thanks for letting her know. As Kim pulled the machine into the hangar, Jess was making sure Buck and Avery knew where it was going, as well... Though Avery already knew.

"Git our yer damn machine, Kim! An' start talkin'. I ain't gonna accept any lies... An' don't ye fuckin' think 'bout tryin'a fool me. I can tell when yer lyin', yer grasp on English ain't enough t'fool me. Why th'fuck you messin' with STEEL?" If Avery didn't get a good answer, she'd be shutting this down immediately.

There it was, Avery's signature spunk coming out in full force, in the shape of anger. She clearly had the wrong idea, didn't she? Just looking into this thing as an option had little reason to draw such ire otherwise, surely. Stepping off the lift and towards Avery, raising her hands up slightly in a submissive manner, Kim began to explain.

"Calm down, Avery. I was simply... talking to Commander Vance about options for a... worst case scenario. If we can get this thing functional, it could save us, if the worst happened, and Vera got onto this ship using that insane warping... tech."

"I ain't gonna fuckin' calm down, yer fightin' Vera's combat data in th'sims an' now y'want me to fix up this, fuckin'... Ugh! What's wrong with you!?" Avery had to take a seat to try and calm herself down, she was getting way too upset, but... "An' th'goddamn ARES system... Bet y'didn't even wanna bring Christina along t'test the thing, did ya? Rather take it all on yerself... An' now y'want this just incase o' the worst happenin'. I know yer already fightin' fer yer life out there, Kim, but yer just a girl, y'know? Like... I don't get it, why ye goin' all this way? We got fail-safes fer somethin' like Vera, we just got three more o' Hannah's damn model an' one o' her almost took th'woman out. Why do you need this?"

Avery had stopped being angry at some point in her worries, and now, she was just scared. "S'like I'm watchin' ye sign multiple death warrants with a smile. Don't know if I have it in me t'sign y'up fer another one..."

"Because she came the closest to killing me anyone ever has!" Kim retorted, Avery's swelling emotions getting to her for a moment, as her fist slammed against the metal of the Artemis' foot, ringing through the room for a moment as Kim sighed to try and calm down as well.

"Chrissy was in there with me... and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. If it hadn't been for her... messing up the TK she brought with her... we both would have died. And now she can just... warp into the middle of a military base? She could probably... show up here and now if she wanted to. And as I am, I couldn't... do anything about it. With this training... this suit... I might be able to hold her off long enough... for you to get one of those androids. Instead of both of us dying, along with... anyone else she finds before she has to back off. Instead of dying and doing nothing, I might be... might be able to stop her. At least survive, even if I still can't properly fight her." Kim sighed again, balling her hand into a white-knuckled fist and giving the foot of the Artemis another punch to vent her frustrations.

"As for ARES... Chrissy isn't going to know about... the STEEL suit. Calling her before later would be pointless... besides, I don't want to interrupt her... too early. She had a rough time of things... at the beach."

Avery sighed, and felt her will leave her. Kim would just go talk to Buck or, worse, one of the regular crew, if she didn't give in to this. The girl's worries were valid... But, she was just... Just this tiny thing, trying to stack herself up against the most terrifying cyborg the ANF had ever dealt with. Just her being at the beach had made Avery lose her knees, hiding behind Astin. She couldn't understand this mentality, this will to fight against something like that... "Guess that's why I ain't a pilot..."

Drained of any want to keep fighting Kim, lest she turn towards less safe options, Avery stood up, walking over to this crate, and opening it. "Ain't gonna be able t'get th'whole suit workin'. No one's been able t'get it all workin'. Just end up breakin' yer leg, or worse, breakin' yer spine. I can try an' make th' limbs work on their own, give yer arms an' legs somethin' t'work with above th'elbow an' below th'knee... S'about all I can do." Avery was quiet, hopefully Kim could still hear her... 'Course she wasn't telling Christina about this, the girl would be panicking even more. Not to mention the confidentiality, but...

It was... sobering, to see Avery so drained. Kim wasn't sure what exactly was causing it... she seemed to be worried for Kim's own safety, but if they could get this working, she'd be more safe than she had been before. It was difficult to say what was going through the mechanic's head, all she really knew was that seeing her this way, it... it just wasn't right.

"Avery... I don't... I don't understand. I can feel your worry, but I... I'm trying to make things safer. Not just for me, for everyone. So why...?" Seung-Min asked, pausing. She had heard Avery's doubts on making the suit fully operational, but if she could make anything usable out of it, it was sure to be a boon. And if anyone could do it, it was definitely Avery.

"Safest option would be stayin' out o' her way. But y'ain't 'bout t'do that, are ye? So I'll suck it up, an' do this... An', just, pray ye never have t'use it. S'all I can do." Avery sighed, putting the parts she'd looked at back into the box. "I'll work on somethin' t'night. Prolly have at least one o' th'arms done by mornin'. Ye can try it on then, see iffin it works fine fer ya. That sound fine?" She was speaking a bit louder, but it was clear the end of her rope had already snapped off.

"I'm a soldier, Avery. I would... love to stay out of her way. But if... if that means watching her get to you, or Buck, or... Chrissy..." Kim paused, shivering a bit as she spoke.

"Then I'll stand in her way. Every time. I just... want to give myself the best chance... to have that mean something. And I know that... if anyone can make it happen, it's you, Avery. If I didn't... have the best mechanic in the ANF to look at it, I probably wouldn't have even bothered... to take it out of storage."

Avery couldn't really keep the monotone going anymore, tearing up, and wryly smiling at herself. "Just got a harsh lesson how inept I am when it comes t'dealin' with these sorts'a things. Today was... Eye openin', in the worst sorta way, y'know? Felt like I could die any second... Really put in perspective what we're makin' y'all do on an almost daily basis. Hurts, really... But you're right, ain'cha? Yer a soldier. Don't matter who it is, yer gonna fight t'keep safe who y'care about." Avery wiped her eyes against her sleeve, shaking her head.

"I'll stop feelin' sorry fer m'self soon enough. And I'll call ye whenever I get it done, y'can leave it here... You gonna bring 'Chrissy~' down fer testin' the ARES? Ye can get me with this, but I ain't puttin' you in that program alone. Not again." A small turn around, but enough of one to try and feel better. Kim was strong... Way stronger than Avery even knew.

Well, it was an upward turn, in a sense. Avery seemed less defeated, but she had transitioned to tearing up and scared. Mostly instinctively, Seung-Min closed the distance between Avery and herself in a few strides, pulling the mechanic into a light hug, pressing Avery's chin against her shoulder and gently patting the slightly older woman's hair.

"None of us... expected to be dealing with anything like that... when we signed up for this. No one would blame you... for not being prepared for... that."

"Y'ain't s'posed t'be the one consolin' me, Kim... Geez. Jus' get back t'yer bouncin' beauty, yeah? Thanks, though..." Avery almost wanted to be greedy and use her as a hug rest for a bit, but that wouldn't be good for either of them... And Avery had someone she could cry on, if she really needed it. Letting Kim go, she got back over to her computer and pulled up a few analyzing programs. "Come on, go get 'er. I know ye wanna test yer damn system too."

"What are... friends for, Avery? I'll... call her over then. Give me a... moment." Kim replied, letting Avery make her distance as she pulled up her communicator, firing a message off to Christina.

I was looking to do some tests on that ARES system in Avery's private hangar...
the one the Artemis was in originally. Are you available right now?

Yeah, I just finished doing some sims with Makoto and Talia... Are you sure
We should be testing that? I'll come over anyway.

"So. Tell me 'bout 'Chrissy~', Kim."

Whatever it is, when it was active, I was able to come up with a way out I wouldn't have otherwise.
We'll never know if it's something we can use unless we try to figure it out.

Kim replied to Christina, before turning over to Avery. 

"What did... you want to know? She helps to keep me... level headed, makes me feel good about myself."

Christina didn't reply, likely already on her way. Avery simply snickered.

"How 'bout her tits? Prolly really nice, eh? Figure with funbags like that, y'could just get lost in 'em."

"Heh... they are, quite nice. But she's... sensitive about them. About... all of this. Had some... issues when she was younger, that she's... not willing to elaborate on, yet." Kim replied in a somewhat more serious tone, though a gentle chuckle still escaped her lips beforehand.

"Wow, ye took that one on th'chin... Guess y'ain't some naive little girl. And does she? Guess I can understand... Still, she seems real close t'ya. Was there for ye th'whole time ye were passed out from the ARES. Somethin' happen, t'make y'both so close? Though, I guess it's war. Emotions run high, an' that sorta closeness can really help. I should know~ But I sleep 'round anyway. heh."

"You thought I was a... naive little girl? If we weren't both... attached, I'd bet I could make you scream." Kim shot back with a smirk, pausing for a moment as Avery described what had happened when she was out.

"I think she just... was used to people being insincere, with her. Not actually... caring."

"Yer seventeen. The hell else am I s'posed t'expect? Most girls yer age ain't that knowledgeable." Avery shook her head. Kim's claims weren't something she wanted to consider, and not something she could take at face value. If Christina was as sensitive as she was claiming, making her scream wasn't exactly worth much... Hopefully Kim didn't get too much of an ego from teasing the blonde.

"She's young, so I'm guessin' it was school stuff. High school girls can be real nasty... Prolly would be a good idea t'get her t'talk 'bout it. Just, when we've got a moment t'ourselves." As for Kim and Avery, their moment together was over.

"Hey! So... We're testing, I guess...?" Christina stepped in... With a small bounce, causing Avery to snicker and finally laugh.

"Wouldn't'a remembered we were at war with ye bouncin' 'round like that, Chrissy. Geez..."

"Wha-- H-Hey! I can't help that!" She covered her chest and blushed, stabbing her tongue out at Avery. "Jerk... A-Anyway, Kim... Are, you sure about testing this?"

"Most girls my age... haven't experienced a complete idol career and military training either." Kim replied, as Christina arrived, the blonde quickly taking a jab from Avery. It was a sign of her improvement to be certain... when she had first arrived, a comment like that might have been a knockout punch in of itself.

"She's just teasing you, Chrissy. And yes... I'm sure. We need to... at least try and figure out what this thing is. If we get into another situation like that, and haven't figured anything out... it could turn out far worse than it did... this time."

"Just so y'both know, I'm turnin' th'damn thing off iffin either o' ya take it poorly. Y'got that?" Avery was back to no nonsense, now that she'd finished her jab. Christina simply sighed, and nodded.

"I'm with her, Kim... I don't ever want to see you like that again. You were a huge mess..." Frowning and biting her lip a bit, Christina stepped over to the wire lift. "Let's get this over with."

"That's fine. Anything is a better starting point than... nothing." Kim replied, following Christina over to the lift and giving her a quick peck on the forehead, before craning her head upwards to level the blonde's gaze at Kim.

"Avery will cut it... before anything like that can happen."

"Ah..." Christina wasn't expecting the affection, still unused to attention in front of other, and the smug glance from Avery was all she needed to turn bright red. "O-Okay."

"Just fuck already," Avery jabbed, snickering and raising them up, Christina having to grab onto Kim to not lose her hold from the comment.

"Would you stop that!?"

"Nnnnnnnope."

Grabbing tightly onto Christina to make sure there weren't any lift accidents, Kim snickered at the exchange between Christina and Avery.

"Working on it." She added with a light chuckle, as the lift ascended.

"Kim!"

"Hahahaha~!" Avery was back in full spirits, the teasing was too much fun. She slapped her knee and spun back around to her computer, as the girls got into the Artemis. Christina quickly retreated to her copilot seat, before Kim could say or do anything else to rile her up.

"You're both horrible," she pouted.

"You're just too cute, Chrissy. It's all in good fun... promise." Kim noted, after following Christina inside of the cockpit, and giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze before sitting in the pilot's seat. It was good to see Avery back to her old self, hopefully Christina wasn't going to take the bit of teasing too badly.

"We're supposed to be doing tests... Can't you wait until later? When... When we're alone? I don't know how much teasing I can take in front of others..." Saying she was working on getting her into bed wasn't really teasing either, was it...?

"Okay, no more from me." Kim acquiesced, getting into position to begin, as she connected to the T-link.

"Ready when you are."

A sigh of relief, Christina sat up a bit. She'd half expected Kim to make some quip about 'we're alone now' and then slide over, but maybe that was just her imagination working overdrive.

"I'm plugged in too..."

"Alright, you two. Startin' up the T-Link... Should feel fine. Kim, start up yer system whenever."

"I'm ready for it, Kim."

Digging into the Artemis' menus, it only took a few moments to locate the system in question... ARES. Pausing for a moment, Kim shook her head but the once, before activating the forenamed system.

"ARES System... activate."

Both Kim and Christina were suddenly hit with an insane level of awareness, but, because it was spread between the both of them, it wasn't overwhelming. At least for the lieutenant.

"Hahh... Ahh... This is, amazing, b-but..." Christina was starting to breathe heavier, shaking just a bit.

"Christina, y'all alright?"

"I... I think, so? It's... It's a really strong feeling, like, I-I, I can feel everything so much, clearer, ahh... Ahh...!" She started to shake more, it was clearly to much for her--

"I'm shuttin' it off!" Avery quickly disengaged the system. Kim was fine... Christina was struggling to breathe. "I knew this was a bad idea, god, dammit...!"

"I-It's fine! I'm... I'm... Okay..."

Everything became clearer, sharper in only an instant. Kim could feel her instincts heightening, even just scanning the camera feed was enough for her to pick up structural weaknesses in the hangar's construction that she had never noticed before, and unlike last time, the feedback wasn't giving her any particular problems... though it only took a few moments to realize that was not the case for Christina, and Avery quickly shut the ARES system down. Unplugging from her end as soon as it was disconnected, Kim moved around back to Christina's chair, looking the blonde over.

"Chrissy? How are you feeling? Do you... need anything?"

Christina immediately put her hands on Kim's shoulders, trying to stabilize herself. Luckily for the three of them, after a few moments, Christina came down from the rush, breathing normally again. "S... Sorry. I... It was so, overwhelming. I'm sorry..."

"It's fine, Christina... Yer alright, though, right?"

"I-I am. I am now... Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize, Chrissy. I'm sorry for... dragging you into this." Kim replied, biting her lower lip. Even just from her own experience, there was useful information to be gleaned, but it wouldn't mean anything if Christina didn't turn out alright.

"But... But that means you can't use it. If I'm not here, it'll be, too much for you... But even if I am, I'll just drag you down... I'm sorry..." It was a decent shot to Christina, Kim being perfectly fine, the system blowing her out in an instant.

"Long as y'all alright. I... I'm real sorry too. The system, it ain't lettin' me change stuff. Can't calibrate it at all. I hate this damn thing..." Avery was grumbling and typing away, but she kept getting blocked by permissions, and no passwords she was trying were working. "God, fuck..."

"It's fine, Chrissy. I didn't have access to it... before. This doesn't change... anything. But we did learn, that... with both of us plugged in, the load is severely reduced... compared to when it activated on it's own. I'm sure that... once you get more used to being telekinetic full time... that you'll be able to handle it. It's only been... a few days, your filters aren't developed yet." Kim interjected, giving Christina a supportive hug.

"Okay..."

"Should I leave?" Avery joked, trying to raise her own mood, instead of getting too frustrated with this machine.

"Not the time, Avery!"

"Aaaaalways the time. See, yer angry at me, 'stead o' feelin' sorry."

"Gah!"

Kim couldn't help but chuckle at the exchange, Avery's teasing helping to lift the mood a bit. Resting her forehead against Christina's gingerly, the Korean looked into her eyes for a few moments, giving her an affirmative look.

"We will... be fine, Chrissy. I'm sure that you'll be able to handle it... after getting used to things. I believe in you."

"I... O-Okay... Hhhh..." Kim was... S-So close. When had she got so cute? Being up in her face like this, it was hard not to shrink up.

"Cloooosin', the hatch..." The Artemis started to close, Christina glancing over at it and flailing a bit.

"Avery, come on!"

"Real talk, should we do anymore testin'? Anythin' else y'wanna do with the Artemis, Kim?"

Feeling Christina's emotions flare up at her proximity, Kim pulled back slightly, looking over to Avery whilst gently resting her weight on Christina's lap.

"Unless you can think of... another way to test this thing without keeping Chrissy plugged in, I suppose that should be all... for now. I already talked to you about the funnels and... any tweaks you can manage to the weapons systems and the thrusters. We only have so much time and... resources on hand, so it's probably best to leave it's armour alone for now... in favour of our other machines."

"Kim my lap...!" she squeaked out as Kim sat down, the cockpit opening up again, Avery snickering.

"Alright, alright... I am gonna leave, though. Lock up when y'all's done in here." Avery quickly picked up her clipboard, and vamoosed. It had all she needed on it... And Kim couldn't run things in there without her permissions.

"Oh gosh she actually left..."

"Okay, thank you for your time, Avery." Kim replied, lifting herself up slightly so as to no longer be sitting on Christina's lap, giving Avery a few moments to leave before leaning into Christina, and gingerly kissing her forehead, pushing her hair out of the way as she did so.

"Are you... sure you're okay?"

"Ah! I... I'm okay. C-Can't you, see that? Just... You're, really close, h-haha... So... Uhm, yes. That's... That's, all that's doing anything, to me." Christina felt herself squirm just a bit, Kim was certainly a presence.

"Ah... sorry Chrissy." Kim relented, stepping off of Christina's lap and allowing her some breathing room. Smiling at the blonde and offering a hand up, it seemed they were done here.

"Then I suppose we should... get going. I'm sorry for... interrupting you."

"Er... I, I mean... You being that close... Isn't, really a bad thing. I guess..." Christina appreciated the space, really, but... It had set this precedent that pressing her was always a bad idea. She didn't exactly mind it, when it was Kim...

"I know, but it's probably best... to not push, after that ARES test. I'll just have to... cuddle you extra close later to make up for it."

"... Fine," she grumped, just a bit, taking her hand and hopping up. "Let's get going, then."

Edited August 17, 2018 by Ether

[Balcerzak]

It seemed Tarquin felt the more the merrier... or at least, that the doctor's addition wasn't enough of a burden to refuse her. Really, quite a bit more toward the latter than the former. The more she saw of him, the more Jess got the feeling that something about the way he carried himself was so stiff and formal. It really was a little amusing, just what she needed to help keep some of that anxiety at bay.

Resting her chin in the palm of her good hand, the one that had been wounded now just laying flat on the table, she'd intended to go back to watching the aspiring chef at work, but the shrink had other plans. Fine. They could have some conversation, but she wasn't getting into anything that should be saved for the couch.

"Yes, please. I much prefer Jess, actually." Who likes to be called a Jezebel, after all? It wasn't until a sentence or two later that she realized Dr. Hart must've been wondering if she'd've preferred Sergeant Barnes instead. Her answer stood, though, that should be fine. The rant about quitting smoking for caffeine was a little awkward for her. It almost felt like she was expected to give the therapist some therapy of her own, and... she just wasn't cut out for that role. Certainly not now. Barely shrugging, with a weak smile, all she could manage was, "A little in moderation should be fine, Cheryl, just a cup here or there won't get you addicted. And the ship..." what the hell to say here? She hadn't really been anywhere. "I guess, hmm. Impressive?" Easy out, maybe, but she needed one.

An unexpected buzz of the communicator she'd been provided was a second out. "Excuse me for a moment," Jess disengaged from the conversation, pulling up the message and punching in a reply--which also left her (un)fortunately missing the description of a travesty to coffee everywhere.

After lunch, and an appointment with Dr. Hart, I can be at your disposal. 
It's hard to guess how long things might run, so I apologize if this is holding you up...

Maybe I should reschedule?

Edited August 17, 2018 by Balcerzak

[Xinnidy]

On Your Marks!

"Hah, gotcha, then!" At least Talia was asking him to not go easy, that eased Makoto's worries some. It's not like he wouldn't need to put the full effort, anyways, the Legionary was a pretty bulky machine, not what you'd exactly use for a race! "Let's get started then, when I say go..." He readied himself, leaning towards the legionary(or rather, simulator board)'s controls, and getting his machine in position by the Ceres' side. "Three, two, one... go!"

He started moving his legionary without hesitation. The bot needed to use its space thrusters to lighten some of the pressure from the simulated earth's gravity, when walking at that brisk pace, it was a rather expensive decision, but since this was all merely simulation, Makoto decided to keep the leg thrusters burning. He still wasn't at the level of skill to manually turn them on and off during a walking cycle... maybe next race! About a quarter into the race, he was getting used to the Legionary's movement controls, as for the Ceres...

Taking a Peek

"Right..." Jezebel would probably answer quickly, but Roxanna thought it no bother to keep checking on the hangar. "These bots... yeah, I think Vance had requested some help from Antartica to get them done in time, actually. I'm surprised they complied, Antartica hardly interacts with the ANF and EU, but I suppose even a neutral has to see Apotheosis as a threat." And if Antartica was getting itself involved, then the Mars Colonies would soon after, with both places closely allied. I wonder what's taking them so long... I'm sure they'd be the first to care about alien threats. 

 "Maybe their transforming mechanisms make it easier to leave the ship." Roxanna was walking behind Jess, "Still, it's very different from ANF standard machines. I hope our pilots can get used to them soon." It'd be pointless otherwise.

Medical Treatment

The Doctor and her assistant seemed completely taken aback by the revelation. It almost got a chuckle out of Esther, her subsided expression continuing to observe both girls. It was hard to express yourself much when you had such a headache... "It's kinda hard to care about a cyber TK when you can just clone naturals... it was better when I first got in." She whined again, letting out a bit of the bad taste in her mouth. The girl was very resentful, or maybe it was just being emphasized by that annoying tug. Whether the ANF had anything on cybers, though, was a tossup to her. Maybe? "Best bet is to search the EU databases if you want anything on cyber treatments." Not that they could. 

That other woman's threat, showing her sidearm, almost brought a smirk to Esther's face, looking at the weapon. "If you let a tiny shrimp like me get the jump on you, you kind of deserve it." Esther mocked, both the woman and her own ability to do things at this situation. How depressing. "I'm good enough to walk for now." She walked towards the entrance to her cell. It would be nice to go outside, at least.

[Nanami Touko]

Long Shot

"'S'long's yer takin' notes, you'll be fine, Aliza. It's like pilotin' a Legionary, just, uh... Few more buttons, an' a super weapon. Ain't a big deal, right?" Avery shrugged, smirking, and it seemed Kim would be joining them. "Guess yer gettin' t'see another one, Kimmy? Don't be gettin' jealous on me now, yers is still special. Thinkin' 'bout it, y'all all got special bots now, don'cha? More work fer me an' Buck, geez." It was a task to keep these things working, but it was her job...

Leading Avery and Kim into it the same she had Thorvald, this one opened in the chest area, instead of above it, walking into the also spacious cockpit and gesturing to everything. "Alright, y'said y'went ahead an' got yerself acquainted with some'a th'machine. Jus' gonna give ya an overview, then. Regular movement's th'same's yer Legionary, only difference ye might 'ave t'get use'ta is th'flight mode... And, well, th'whole damn thing flies. So get'chur self some flight practice in. Otherwise, fairly standard long range armaments, an' that bow. It's a railgun, in reality. Real big, real strong, pop some armor somethin' fierce, an' the ammo's special. You'll see once ya shoot somethin'." Avery nodded, wondering what...

"Oh, right, it's got a special coatin', magnet coatin'. Now, Central set that up, they didn't give me no instructions on how it works, so I'll be figurin' that out later... As fer now, the lowdown's yer gonna be a bit safer from physical ammo, an' beams ain't goin' through yer armor as quickly. Some basic stuff, but it's effective." Hoof. Big robot, big explanation. "Any more questions?"

Muddy Waters

"As long as you're getting along well enough, Tarquin," Cheryl replied, knowing how was lying, but he was far too young to try and force answers out of. He'd just close up and continue to refuse anything was wrong, and getting him to a breaking point would be more hurtful than helpful. "Ahaha, not to worry, I was mostly joking. Just needed a pick me up, I don't think it'll get as bad as my smoking was. Cigars were way too nice." Just Jess it was, then. The woman seemed rather awkward, maybe she wasn't expecting to be pushed up against such outgoing conversation so soon? After what had reportedly happened to her squad, there was likely some survivors guilt buried in her mess. It would more than likely be affecting her conversational skills... Well, she'd wanted to speak with Cheryl, so it was definitely something.

"I'm not sure it's supposed to be solid, but a lot of people would agree it tastes like mud," Cheryl half agreed, taking a step forward to give Tarquin's pasta a necessary stir. He was focused on cutting things, it wouldn't do to have it burning on him. Her water clicked a moment after that, Cheryl turning back to the other counter to fill up her cup. "Ahh, wonderful, instant caffeine." The taste wasn't exactly impressive, not next to properly brewed coffee, but it was good enough.

Transform and Roll Out

"Antarctica? What the heck? That's one hell of a request, Vance... I'm surprised they agreed, honestly. But, I'm not going to complain... Maybe we're being used as a testbed for them? If these work out, they could produce more in the future..." It was definitely worth thinking about, why Antarctica would get involved with the war. The research colony down there had always been neutral to either side, but maybe with the world at stake, they'd given in... Or Vance had promised them more than he could.

Jess got a quick reply from Jezebel, typing back an easy response of:

Not to worry, Sergeant. We're going to be free for most of the day. Take care of your needs and let us
know when you're free. No need to reschedule anything.

The therapist, huh? She'd been through a lot... It was probably weighing on her. "I guess we don't have much to do until the Sergeant wraps up her business... Shall we see to the prisoner, then?"

Firmia's Reward Part II

Brant could only wince when he realized that restoring Galatea using the Mantle data would erase her memories up to that point. It was all he could do not to toss in something silly with his mock salute. 

Your sacrifice will not be forgotten ...

It took longer to connect than Firmia was expecting ... considering Dima had probably been monitoring the server since he last spoke to her ... that was hardly surprising. When he did answer her call, the face she saw wasn't one of surprise, like she'd hoped, nor was it one of withering fury, like she'd feared. Instead ... the old man seemed genuinely proud, almost like a parent watching their child's graduation ceremony.

"G-grandfather ..." Firmia attempted a stern, challenging greeting. She fell flat, there was no denying that.

"... perfection," Dima said, closing his eyes and nodding at the words.

"Per ... fection?"

"From the company, you obtained all but one of the AMS prototypes that were operational at the time. From the ANF, you obtained a vessel capable of destroying your enemies and protecting all that you hold dear. From me, you obtained the Alkaev journal. In such a short time you have made my expectations look pitiful, and proven yourself a worthy heiress. There are more tests ... but know that you have utterly dominated this one ... and know that the Alkaev journal now belongs to you. The original server was destroyed moments ago. There is only one complete archive--indeed there can only be one complete archive ... and it is now in your possession."

Something about Dima's reaction to their plan felt strange. Sure, he needed an heir since Rosa and Juliya had blown it in order to be with their lovers, but to give her the opportunity to steal this ... the entire journal, was almost unimaginable to Firmia. It wasn't like Rex's notes, that could only cast suspicion on the Alkaevs. What she had now could put Dima away for life. She didn't have to even look into the files to know that much. Why give her that much leverage over him?

"Are you ... dying?" The words came on their own; Firmia couldn't think quickly enough to stop them.

Dima smiled. "You must think I am in a great hurry to pass along so much. The truth is much more simple than that, Child. You will obtain your inheritance little by little until it is all in your possession ... and then it will be over. It will be your responsibility to carry on and shape this family's legacy."

That made sense ... it was all well and good, but ... "What if you decide I'm not worthy after all?"

"Then the next heir will be tested ... and they will obtain everything."

Firmia scowled at Dima. "I'm not handing over the journal," she warned.

Dima shrugged in amusement. "Then they will simply take it from you by force. There is little difference between that ... and what you have done, today."

"Oh, don't salute me, you over cooked steak. Someone will explain what happened to be and I will curse the person that put me up to this!"

"You put yourself up to it, Galatea..."

"... ... ... Curse me! That's definitely something I would do! Dammit..."

Hannah snickered, until the call picked up, an unfamiliar voice ringing out into the server room. "Who's..." Firmia said grandfather, causing Hannah to tense up a bit. So this was the man that had tasked them all to do this... Hannah wanted to meet him. Face to face, at least, even if she didn't say anything else. Making her way over to Firmia, she stepped up behind her, giving her a hug and likely ruining much of the serious atmosphere of the call. Now, she had planned on staying quiet, but that last line...

"They will die trying. I won't allow anyone to harm Firmia." A declaration the android meant, with all confidence.

"It will be an exceptionally difficult test, then," Dima smirked.

Firmia had been caught off by Hannah's embrace like usual, and she was a little worried Dima would suspect that they were in a relationship, or trying to be at any rate. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but given everything she had told her grandfather about her plans going into adulthood, this smacked of ... frivolity. It might make him doubt her as an heir, and as far as putting lovers before her responsibilities, it could easily resemble Rosa and Juliya. Fortunately, Firmia was handling both just fine ... sort of.

"I don't even see how you could come up with another heir if I fail," Firmia noted, looking as serious as she could while being hugged. "You're not having anymore children and neither is my mother. By the time my children or my sisters' grow up, I'll have already been in charge for who knows how long ... ... it doesn't seem like I can really fail at this point, even if you would prefer someone else." Not to mention Dima himself would probably be at death's door or beyond within the next two decades. The man seemed to be out of time and out of options.

Dima's smirk was still there, and it deepened slightly as Firmia's response drifted further and further into speculation. "Perhaps you should look into your inheritance, Child. There is much you still do not understand."

Firmia definitely planned to, but decrypting everything--or just what she was ready to see, was still keeping her from actively viewing whatever she wanted. At least they had everything they needed. No other data diving would be necessary to unlock the treasure trove ... just lots and lots of decryption.

"Once you look deeply enough," Dima continued, "then you will understand."

"From my knowledge of your family, another heir would be imposs..." Hannah froze up, something hadn't added up, and she did a quick parse as Dima finished up his cryptic hint. This was not information to brazenly declare, not with Brant right over there, but Hannah couldn't help some reaction. "You monster," she said, just above a whisper. "How could you do that to him? To Rosa? I can't believe I'm feeling sorry for her..." It was an almost sickening feeling.

"I'll explain after, Firmia... But he has options. For now. Disgusting..." What a horrible, horrible old man. If Hannah could dive through this screen and get her hands on him...

Dima didn't seem fazed, but Firmia knew there was some very disturbing information in the journal if even Rosa was a victim in this. Clones, maybe? That would still be a nearly two decade process without help from Apotheosis ... which meant this had probably been set in motion years ago ... "I really don't like the sound of that, but I'll worry about it later. Just know this, Grandfather, whether you think I'm worthy or not, I'm keeping the journal and everything else that's mine."

"As you should," Dima nodded in agreement. "I'm surprised a machine can display such ... moral outrage. The AMS units, your ship, the journal, and AIs capable of fighting in the real world or the digital world on your behalf. Your potential is beyond what even I can fully grasp, Child. Your grandmother would be proud.

"I don't expect you to view the world as I do. I do not expect you to take the measures I have taken. The tools of my time and those available to you are different. The struggles you will endure are not mine. You must follow your own path. I only ask that you not forsake the future for temporary, empty pleasures, as so many of us have."

"How could you...?" He probably had information, somewhere, no one would have been able to tell she was an android at a glance. "For your sake, Dima, I hope age reaches you before I do." There was no need to make any other threat, his crimes were beyond personal ones, on this alone. This was against human decency, what a wretched act... "All I will leave you with, is that I am not a machine. My name is Hannah, and I love your grand daughter. I will see to achieving any and all goals she tasks me with. No matter what."

"Love? hah," Dima looked thoroughly amused. "You even garner the 'love' of these AIs. Incredible. Child, I truly hope you see your own brilliance. I hope you won't waste it."

Firmia couldn't worry about that, right now. She was too busy trying to put the inheritance issue out of mind. Still, the way Dima framed her circumstances ... it was hard to argue that she was just a regular rich girl. The fact that she was a TK didn't even need to be factored in. "I'm not going to waste my potential ... but I'm not going to follow in your footsteps, either. No matter what, I'm not going to become like you."

"Indeed. How could you?" Dima smiled.

"I don't need your acknowledgement to know that it's real," Hannah replied, looking down at Firmia. This conversation seemed to be going nowhere fast, this Dima spoke in circles and followed his own rules. "Firmia, we have more to do tonight. If he doesn't have anything more to say, we should see to it."

"I have said all I need to for the moment," Dima agreed. "Please, continue your war against Apotheosis. Win. Turn them into another milestone for yourself."

"Tch, milestone," Firmia scoffed, "I won't even remember them after this is over ... anyway ... it was almost a nice talk. Goodbye for now, Grandfather."

"Farewell, Child."

As soon as the call ended, Brant let out a big sigh. "Xanatos gambits ... What can you do ..."

"I don't know what that is," Firmia sighed too, "but it's not worth going out of my way to get one up on him. If even taking the whole journal from him doesn't bother him, then he can just be happy about all of this."

"That's the worst part of people like this. Even if they lose, they still win, somewhere. Xanatos Gambit indeed..." Hannah sighed, thinking back to what she'd been worried about before, giving Firmia a bit of a squeeze, before letting her go. "Laughing at my existence like that... If I couldn't control my anger so well, I'd likely be fuming. How dare he? But I suppose he knows how he dares..." Hannah sighed again, folding her arms. "What now then, Firmia?"

"Honestly?" Firmia locked eyes with Hannah, worried about the same thing she was, "we should look into some things before we get back to work." Even though she wasn't going to like it, Firmia still wanted to know who her potential competition was, as well as how Dima knew some of the things he did. That information was at their fingertips, now. They just had to find it. Privacy was clearly important, though.

"I... We're going to your room, then. You can access the server from there for the rest, I... I already know what he's talking about, but I can't tell you here." Hannah made a small, nervous glance towards Brant, hoping he was preoccupied with Galatea for the moment. "I'll at least tell you while we walk."

"Okay," Firmia nodded. "Galatea, if you need help with anything, call Stephanie or Jessica. Brant, same for you." With that, she headed for the door. It would be a fairly short walk to the Captain's Quarters, but Hannah probably wouldn't need long to reveal Dima's secret ...

"It's probably better if I don't do that body catalog again," Brant mused aloud. Galatea hadn't appreciated it the first time. Chances were she wouldn't on a second pass.

"Body catalog? Gosh, just what nonsense have I missed?"

---

"Keep walking with me, don't stop when I tell you this. Just... You can't break down, but you want to know this. So please..." Hannah continued to walk, pressing a hand against her forehead, and sighing, heavily, almost defeated. "Brant had children with Rosa. They were supposed to have been 'disposed' of. Dima kept them... Those are his other options. They're half Alkaev... So..." Now Hannah almost wanted to stop, shuddering. "It's demonic. It's beyond inhumane... I can't, even grasp how someone can do this, and live with themselves."

"W-with ... my ..." Somehow, and by some miracle, Firmia kept walking, though with a sway not unlike a zombie's. She even missed the turn as they came up on the corner and bumped into Hannah. That put her back on track, but they looked like a very awkward pair in the hallway.

It was so much to take in. Just one little piece of information conveyed so much. These children ... they were Rosa's children, Firmia's half siblings. They were Brant's children. They were Dima's answer to the problem of Firmia failing to meet the expectations of an Alkaev heir. They might be even more than that ... "I had my own theory but this is ... a whole lot worse," Firmia agreed with Hannah's assessment. Cloning was ethically questionable at best, but pretending to kill off children, only to raise them in secret like this?

As soon as they reached the Captain's Quarters, Firmia hurried inside and made sure the door was shut tight behind Hannah. Then she leaned up against it and began breathing heavily. "Under no circumstances can we tell Brant about this ... ... or my mother ... or anyone who might let it slip."

Hannah kept an eye on Firmia, just to make sure she didn't collapse. She took it about as well as Hannah had been expecting, though... And she could only agree with Firmia, as she replied inside her quarters. "Yes... I'm going to have Galatea check through this journal, now that she's alright. I need to know if there's any extra surveillance installed anywhere on this ship, on our machines... Or even you lot. Dima knew I was an android, and we've never met. Even with a keen eye, this body is clearly indistinguishable from a person... Which means he learned somewhere. He could've perhaps checked in and found out that you had gained an android, several, from somewhere, but he would have no reason to think I was one."

That could only mean, she knew where some of them were. "I'll wait until Galatea finishes her check, but I believe the mobile suits to be bugged. That's the only way he could know, clearly, and without a doubt, that I'm an android. But... That's just speculation, right now. I won't repeat this information to anyone, and we shouldn't keep talking about it, just in case. Especially if your mother found out... We've already started getting Brant away from her, the last thing I want is another reason for her to try and guilt him back." Hannah sighed, what a mess... That wasn't even one percent of what they'd taken from Dima, either. "Ugh... This is all too much..."

The mobile suits ... they were the only things Firmia brought with her besides some luggage, and there was no way a bug planted in random clothing would have netted Dima so much information. Monitoring them through the mobile suits would definitely explain how he knew Hannah was an android. Pilot data was very in depth and recorded constantly inside the cockpits. Furthermore, Dima knew that multiple AIs were involved, which meant Galatea was being recorded as well. Hell, she'd been thoroughly scanned by the ... system ...

Well ... hopefully that wouldn't become an issue down the road. Galatea wasn't exactly a copy and paste AI.

"Urgh ... at least we know what to do about the children ... don't say anything. Those bugs could be a problem though, especially if they're hardcoded into the cockpits. We'd have to replace a lot to get rid of them." Firmia wasn't an expert, but her fear of the bugs being part of the cockpit computer systems stemmed from the fact that she'd already been wary of odd programs that could do the same spyware job, but less stealthily. Something integrated right into the system would go completely unnoticed, and couldn't be easily dealt with even after being discovered. It was the same fear that made her want to replace most if not all of the Avalon's systems over time.

"Well... At least we won't have to worry about Galatea. The most he'd have gotten is how she functions, her entire system can't process without the original there. I doubt he'd be able to find someone that could construct something as advanced as her." But he knew way too much about them, and... "Ughhhh... If these are bugged... If these are bugged, and Dima shared any of it with Rosa, then she knows about Chris and Brant as well. What a fucking mess." Hannah's fists were shaking, as she did her best to keep anger under wraps. Punching the wall would do more damage to the ship, than herself.

"What now, then?"

"Hmm ..." Initially, the thought of Rosa knowing everything Dima knew was grating, but suddenly it seemed very unlikely. If Dima wasn't cluing his daughter in on the children, and she wasn't even a potential heir anymore, then why would he let her know about any of his other shenanigans? He might see fit to. There was no doubt about that ... but what were the odds Rosa knew anything that would benefit her and primarily her? Surely the only things Dima told her at this point were things that primarily benefited him and furthered his successor schemes. Right? That was Firmia's working theory for now.

"My mother is probably mostly out of the loop. I'm his only heir right now, so he probably just sees her as a tool. Still, if the suits are bugged then we have to find those. I don't want all of my upgrades copied and sent back to the company. They should have to pay for that kind of information ... but if the system itself is what's sending them that information then I'll have to completely replace them ... and I don't think there's time."

"I'll get Galatea to do an intrusive scan on all the machines... If you'll allow her. I know you were a bit, apprehensive about that, before. But now, I think, it's her or Dima... And I'd much rather have Galatea with that knowledge, over him." An absolute mess, Hannah felt herself sigh once again, slumping over to the bed and collapsing onto it. "I wish I could delete parts of my mind without upsetting you... There's so much I wish I didn't know, now..."

"It's fine," Firmia sighed, "I think she's gone far enough to earn my trust. And ... you can go ahead and 'block' out those memories if it will help you, but don't do anything drastic or permanent, okay? Galatea already lost some of her memories because of that data and I don't want you going through the same thing."

"I won't... But... I feel like I'm violating Brant just knowing this. Ugh... Why would someone do something like that? I don't understand..." Perhaps it was a good thing that she couldn't understand. She didn't want to. This was horrifying.

"Can... Do you need me for anything else, tonight? I... I just, want to lay down... I'd suggest going over things with you, but I worry that, even your files will hold secrets that neither of us would want to see."

"Even so I have to go through them," Firmia noted bitterly. Fortunately she already knew a couple of sad facts about her personal history. There probably wouldn't be any shocking additions. None too shocking at least. ... hopefully.

"You should probably take a break," Firmia smiled apologetically at Hannah.

Another sigh... "I'll... Try to go through it with you, then. Please don't take too long to get back, Firmia. You need rest, too. Especially after all of this." Hannah sat up a moment, tried to plead with her eyes, and then flopped back down again. Emotions were draining... Did she need to get plugged in? Beyond the bus rides, she hadn't had any sun all day... With a grumble, she crawled over towards the plug, slipped a wire out of her wrist, and at the least managed to start charging.

"Okay ..." Firmia said softly, starting to calm down, more. "I'll be back soon. Very soon." It really wasn't a bad time for a long nap, and so Firmia was consciously starting to work some sleep time further up in her schedule.

Edited August 18, 2018 by SnakeMomMelissa

[Shin]

Tarquin listened to Jess' and Cheryl's conversation as he continued cutting. Adults didn't really make sense all the time, smoking seemed like a completely wasteful thing to do in several ways. If anything it made more sense to chastise her for deciding to do it in the first place instead of congratulating her for stopping. At least Cheryl had taken care of the pasta, that was one less thing to focus on. One thing he did envy was her ability to take pleasure in such simple things, was instant coffee really something she enjoyed so much? He'd pretty much finished with his cutting, but Jess seemed a little caught up.

"If you are require elsewhere, Jess, I can prepare yours first." Tarquin suggested, not wanting to make his colleague feel obliged to stay. "One the pasta is complete, it will be very straight forward."

As tiring as Cheryl was to be around, he at least felt comfortable with other people around. It wasn't as if he actively desired to avoid total isolation, but he could have very easily left at any time. When he'd first stepped on board the Heion Riese, he had expected to spend all his free time alone but in reality it was very rare for that to be the case.

"Doctor Hart... do you have any reading material pertaining to social behaviour theory?" Tarquin asked, his question somewhat out of the blue. "My collection seems to have a few gaps that I had not anticipated."

-
 

There had been something liberating about her talk with Cheryl, Elaine still had tonnes of baggage, quite literally considering one of her biggest problems was a psychopath in a giant mechanised serpent,  but she'd never felt so free. This was her chance to get things right, she needed to start righting her wrongs and take some responsibility. Becoming best friends with Nikolai or Jess wasn't really going to be a good first step, she'd have to settle on something more reasonable. She'd taken some time after her appointment to head to the bathroom, her hair had been pretty much the same for the last ten years or so, it was time for a change. It had taken only a few minutes and she'd only nearly cut her ear off, but she'd fashioned herself a faux hawk. Someone like Aliza or Kim would probably need to help her tidy it up, but it would do for now.

Maybe it was just part of her nature, but she felt the need to punch or shoot something - she had energy that she needed to burn. She walked her way to the simulators, looking down at the floor absent mindedly. Bill was probably going to kill her if she kept leaving prints everywhere, she'd have to be careful next time she was in the hangar. 

The biggest surprise of the day was finding Astin in the simulation suite... were they shooting? Elaine scratched her head, confusion spreading across her face. She'd always thought that Astin was simply a melee person, the Ceres wasn't fitted with a single ranged weapon at all. Logically they had to have passed basic marksman tests, but why practice now of all times?

"Yo, Astin... you feelin' OK?" Elaine asked, knocking her fist on the side of the simulator. "I figured that I'd let off some steam an' make some holes in somethin'. Never thought I'd see you shootin' stuff up, didn't seem like your style."
 

-

Talia's heart continued to race, she'd lined herself up ready at the start. Makoto seemed to believe in her, he was taking the whole thing seriously. Did that mean she had a chance to give him a challenge? The Ceres' engines roared as she readied them, shifting her unit forwards as the race truly began. Makoto was keeping a steady lead, even with the faster machine she was still tailing behind. Was she afraid of going faster, did she really not trust herself with the Ceres? There was still plenty of the race to go, there was time for her to get ahead... until Makoto started to get familiar with his unit.

"Ich möchte das machen. Ich muss einfach." Talia muttered, hesitating to turn the thrusters up further. It was starting to become more natural, the Ceres felt more comfortable than the Umbra ever did. A small bubble of confidence was starting to develop within her, there wasn't any consequence for failure... only things to be gained from success. She turned on her communications channel, her hands shaking with excitement. "I'm doing it... I really... Vater, ich werde dir zeigen, dass du falsch lagst."
 

Edited August 18, 2018 by Shin

[scorri]

Astin had finally managed a series of shots into the chest and head areas of the simulated figure when they heard a voice calling out from outside. Shutting down the machine, they peered out at Elaine. "Ah. Uh, well, I figured... Well, since we were told to go armed and all that. In case of Apotheosis attacking. Figured a gun wouldn't do me much good if I was more likely to hit a friend than an enemy." It sounded almost silly when they said it that way, but that was the truth.

"Why do you need to blow off steam?" Change the subject. That was the right idea. Get the topic off of them and onto her. "I figured you'd be excited for tomorrow. Time to finally beat up some of the big ones and all that. Seems like your kind of thing." It was true. She'd always seemed a bit more, well, reckless was one way of putting it. Perhaps a more charitable way of saying it would be to say she was always ready to charge into a fight. Blowing off steam, well, they'd tried that with fencing what seemed like ages ago at this point. Perhaps shooting something was a better solution for her there. But the question was still why now?

[Balcerzak]

Abigail shrugged at the prisoner's attempt at taunt, and shook her head a little at her attitude. She thinks she's just going for a stroll; 'good enough to walk', psh. This is no picnic, honey. When she stepped out of the door, Abby clapped a firm hand on her shoulder. Not unnecessarily roughly, but certainly not with a mind for comfort.

"Well, good. Didn't want to have to carry your ass, anyway." With a meaningful nod to Megumi, the three of them began the relatively short trip back to the infirmary.

 

---

 

The psychiatrist seemed pleasant enough, her idle chitchat enough to fill the space and keep things feeling, well, alive. It was a change of pace from the more sterile atmosphere where she'd been recuperating, and the light joking around was certainly a healthier mood than Jess had seen fit to feel in days. Thankfully the woman could also take a hint, and left her mostly alone while she'd tended to the reply on the communicator, disabusing Tarquin of his mistaken notions of what coffee ought to be in the meantime (or trying). The captain's reply was also prompt, and undemanding. If she were a more paranoid woman, she'd have put money that the crew were conspiring to keep her level of stress to a minimum. Almost felt like it even though she wasn't.

"Ah, no. We should still be good," Jess corrected Tarquin, as he wondered if she'd have to leave early. "The captain wants to see me, but it's not urgent and she said to just let her know when I'm ready. No need to alter any plans."

His rather unexpected request to the doctor some few moments later, quite dry and academic, was quite the shocker, and she couldn't help but giggle a little. "I'm sorry," she quickly apologized. "That was rude of me. It's just," how to phrase it without digging deeper? "Such an odd request out of nowhere surprised me. None of the soldiers I've ever worked with were quite so eager for research in their spare time." No, they mostly drank, followed whatever sport was in season, maybe putting a little money on the outcome of the games, and other frivolous pursuits of that nature.

Before they all died, that is.

Jess's expression fell, and she found she didn't really want to keep talking. Hopefully the food would be done soon, so she'd have a decent excuse.

Edited August 20, 2018 by Balcerzak

[Nanami Touko]

Socially Adapted

"I should have a few... But you can only have them if you call me Cheryl. Stop by my office to pick them up, and we'll see if you can manage it." She smirked, this was going to be a fun game to play with him. What wasn't fun was the near immediate drop in Barnes' mood... What had she said? 'None of the soldiers I've ever worked with...' She might've reminded herself of her squad. That's no good... This is going to be a very serious case. I don't know if sticking around and talking to Tarquin like this is going to dampen her mood further, or perk her back up. Hmm...

"Tarquin, you can leave my share in the fridge. I'll come and get it later, coffee should be good for now. Jess, whenever you're ready, you can come see me in my office, alright? Take your time." This one was definitely not to be rushed. Fragile, handle with care... Not too much care, though. Get too far into special treatment and she'll feel it's unnecessary. Most people do. With a smile and a small wave, Cheryl headed off with her coffee.

[TheRoon]

Time to get to the nuts and bolts of the machine, Aliza was ready to take it all in but a quick review wouldn't hurt to see if she was indeed ready. So she did just that. 'Note pad? Set. Pen? Set. Cute Korean girl? Set...wait a minute.' Just as they approached the machine a certain Korean pilot came to greet Aliza and Avery, her looks certainly caught her eye. It was enough to make Aliza turn from Avery to return the greeting. "Si, I am Aliza Sil...va...?" She stopped for a moment, taking the name in. "Kim...Kim Seung-Min...uuuh...?" 'There's...there's no way this is the same...?' Well her features did help reinforce what Aliza was leading onto. But before she could reach her conclusion, a southern accent managed to bring her back to business as the chest area of the Sagittae opened. "Oh! Uh yeah, nice to meet you..." She mumbled under her breath whist following Avery toward the cockpit. 'Holy crap I think it is...but how?'

She did her best to put that shocking revelation aside to study what Avery wanted to get across. Movement was the same as a Legionary, which was good Aliza had more than enough experience with piloting the machine, weapons and all. Then came the complexities. "It flies? Huh...I must have skimmed past that part..." She mumbled. Luckily Aliza did take some flight simulations back at the academy. Although it had been some time she could always brush up. She took in the rest of the explanation, the rail gun modeled into a bow part certainly stood out to her. She was curious as to what she meant about the ammo being special and popping armor, it was obvious the bow was the big special weapon it had going for it. Aliza had to admit she was eager to see it in action. With one more detail about magnet coating written down in her notebook Aliza more or less had the low down on the robot. As for questions...  "I've been through some flight sims at the academy, but I could always use some improvement. Is there a program on the Riese to help with that?"