Like the first time, as the Mantis exosuit was being constructed by the engineering bay robots, Yanim was hard at work at the consoles, simulating all matter of use and abuse in every conceivable situation, even unrealistic ones. She was so intently focused on producing something nonspecifically [I]better[/I] than what she had produced before that she didn't even noticed or heard Lion when he dismissed himself. Although she was briefly concerned that she had been rude, she simply shook her head and returned to work. "[Focus is important,]" she told herself. "[Focus saves lives.]"
She would eventually alter the design again, this time packing in a motor-assist computer. It would not only compensate for gravity and other environmental changes, as Lion had already intended, but it would also assist with balance on its own accord and help steady Viper's aim. In many ways, this design would be closer to Yanim's signature than Lion's, not that it mattered whose name was on the designation. Sooner or later, her tireless work would make apparent her essential role on this ship.
Suddenly, between the whirring and grinding of robotic machine tools against unsculpted metal, Yanim's mental train suddenly and unnervingly stopped. A wisp of abstract negative emotion traced its way through her subconscious. She felt compelled to confront it even as it slipped away from her, tantalizing her with its complexity and provocativeness. Out of nowhere, a lullaby, buried since childhood-
"[Little Terika, cute and sweet, loved a boy she met asleep. A thousand times she called his name, and for a thousand years they ran and played. Never did she seek another, never did she speak in anger. Until one day, she ceased to be, because for Atal, she was a dream.]"
Around the time she heard those words, she had just begun to attend school at the Academy at age five. It was before she learned anything about the sort of world she lived in or the sort of people she would serve and be served by- the hierarchy of things. The first time she heard the lullaby it was a simple play on words with a surprise at the end. One day she learned that "Atal" was a common [I]phirin[/I] name, and she suddenly realized that the true irony in the story was that Atal dreamed of a kanad girl.
In kanad society, marriage to a highblood grants the rights of nobility on a commoner. It sometimes happens for kanad lowbloods, much like the human story of Cinderella. It doesn't happen for phiri.
She wondered, just for a moment, about the idea of "Terika," one who could see past the boundaries between species and remain loyal, even in an impossible situation. The story implies she didn't exist- couldn't exist, even. All around her there were humans who, whether they admitted to doing so or not, saw her in the light cast by the Collective. Every day it seemed she identified with them more closely than before, but no matter how hard she worked she could never seem to eliminate the distance. Any time a stranger came along, any time the ship went to port, she had to start all over.
She wanted to be promoted from technician to engineer. Had she known that kanad technicians were trained as well as most human engineers, she would have applied for the higher-ranked job. She was every bit as qualified as any other engineer on the ship, but seemed to work twice as much and twice as hard, even Kr- what had he done lately?! But more importantly, she wanted the crew to offer- she wanted to know that they understood and cared about her in the same way she cared about them.
Her predicament came into focus. She had long believed herself to be Tarika, reaching out to unworthy humanity. Instead, she was Atal, pining for something she could never have. What could she do?
[I]What could she do?[/I]
Skada brushed against her leg and she shrieked. With a swift kick she sent the silvery fox sliding into the wall under the workshop tables where, moments later, he emerged with a goofy smile, programmed to believe it was merely play. However, Yanim was no longer in the room.
[Last wall of text, I promise.]
The operation was complete. Joseph and Arthur congratulated themselves. Well, maybe congratulate was too strong of a word. The doctors had completed their work, but Varn was still out. His body was still recovering, but the memories still rolled on.
Trixina hotel. 10 years ago.
What was supposed to be an easy assignment turned into a bloodbath. The job called for a team of mercenaries, specifically the Boome marines. Varn and nine others signed up, expecting an easy payday. Once in the hotel lobby, the nature of the job was revealed. It was a trap. The Alpha sisters along with the Gold dusts, Omega brothers and Kabelas had set up the trap to get payback for past transgressions. The battle had lasted for 3 days and the Boome's famous luck was running out. Every crew was giving its all with every assault. The Boome's managed to fortify themselves on the upper levels of the hotel after loosing 3 men in the lobby. The Alpha sisters were shooting through the windows with snipers. The Omega brothers were using the roof access to attack from above. The Gold dusts had deployed the Golden wave, so they wouldn't get their hands too dirty. And the Kabela's unleashed their dogs of war. Vicious hunting animals trained to hunt the galaxy's most dangerous game.
The Boome's were down to two men. Varn and Krum.
"You really made your ex mad eh brother?"
"How was I supposed to know she would gather every prick with a gun and a grudge."
Krum let out a hearty laugh. "Well, It's the two of us now. So we either die here or we escape."
"You have a plan?"
"Yes. See that armored car down there? We take the elevator down, shoot our way through the lobby, hop in and drive to the nearest space port."
"That's a bad plan."
"You have a better idea?"
"No."
"Then lets move."
The two mercenaries rush towards the elevator, dodging sniper bullets on the way. Once down in the lobby, they are greeted with enemy fire. Both manage to get to cover behind a desk with barely any shields left. The enemy had surrounded them and were looking to go for the kill. Krum saw an opening. The left flank was weak so he cleared it with a well placed grenade. "Last one. Go!" Bullets were whizzing by them outside. Three Omega's were guarding the car. Tho shots each was enough to secure it. Varn and Krum hoped in the car and drove off. What's left of the crews chasing after them.
They were close to the port, when their luck ran out. A RPG hit the car. It was sent up in the air and it tumbled. The Boome's crawled out, barely keeping alive. Varn picks up Krum on his shoulder, dragging him. A shot is heard and Krum falls dead. That familiar voice is heard again "Was that you friend Varn?" Something inside Varn snaps, the world goes dark red.
Varn wakes up in Medbay. His head pounding. He gets up, gets dressed in the appropriate uniform and walks to the armory. He turns on the intercom. "Jebb, when you have time. Put me up as a patient."
Iska had now downed the entire sixpack and decided to call it a day.
She was going to hit the shower and then go to sleep, but first she would spin isoro around the hangar to see that everything worked properly. Iska being Iska, she had also opened the headers for, according to her, a real engine sound.
As she switched the ignition an ungodly sound went through the hangar. She backed up and rewed up the machine. She saw Yanim leaving the hangar and steered the bike her way.
Iska came around, partially blocking Yanims way to the exit. With rosy cheeks and a smug smile she leaned over the steering handle. "Where have ice princess been all this ti.." Iska was interrupted by Yanims angry stare as she stood there waiting for the brash Khergian to move out of the way.
Iskas smug smile disappeared and she leaned back into the seat, driving the bike back into its storage room. Before entering the storage she cast a glance yanims way as she exited the hangar.
"[Kanads sure are a grumpy bunch]" she mumbled to herself.
She stowed the bike and headed to the ships shower room. As she stood in the shower she contemplated what had happened earlier. Perhaps she should contact someone about the berzerker rage. Either Joseph or Arthur for a medical solution or Dwan for magical advice, anyhow she would have to discuss it with somebody.
When she arrived in her bunk she just took of her shoes and fell down on her bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
[HUGE ass post coming in your way, really important too.]
[quote]In a star system not far from the Privateers’ secret installation, an inconspicuous polar research station on the planet Weikan conceals the regional headquarters of State Security, the cortex of the agency’s periphery. If the cradle of human civilization and its local neighbors were an arid valley, Weikan HQ was the rock on which the eagle perched.
And yet, this was far from the top of the ladder.
In the center of a luxurious yet modern meeting room sat a stone-faced Colonel, intently focused on a hologram projection. It depicted the aftermath of a massive battle involving three separate fleets, centered on the seemingly useless swamp world of Gadon.
“[Gentlemen,]” he said flatly, more out of habit than respect, “[Why has this information taken so long to arrive here? Why is it that mercenaries and criminals are so much better at information gathering than you so-called professionals?]”
A staff officer leaned in sheepishly and placed a folder on the meeting table, filled with actual, printed documents. Inside, it was clear that the Divinity Creed had been detected on long-range instrumentation, but this data had not been passed along in a timely manner.
The Colonel stared blankly as the sickly looking officer explained, “[by order of the Demitar Commissariat, electronic communication was shut down during the lead up to the battle. It was believed that our lines and encryption had been compromised by Crimson Son operators.]”
“[Where was this originally delivered?]” the Colonel demanded.
“[…Here,]” replied the officer. [“It was placed aboard the cruiser Trezhnika and delivered via dropship two hours ago. We missed the battle by less than ten hours, it seems.]”
“[It’s clear,]” cut in another officer, “[that the Crimson Son operatives got exactly the reaction they wanted from us.]” With an heir of cocksureness he removed his cap briefly and ran his fingers through his slick white hair. “[The eighteenth perimeter fleet was close enough to have caught them and smoked their lawless asses-]”
The Colonel slammed his fist on the desk to silence the arrogant young officer. “[You watch your language in the presence of your betters,]” he warned. “[Yes, they wanted to limit their opposition. It’s [i]also clear[/i] from the fact that we never picked up on HarkArk’s movements that they must have been waiting in ambush. So what does that tell us?]”
A thoughtful Commissariat in the corner spoke up. “[I think this whole thing was orchestrated by HarkArk to draw out Crimson Son.]”
“Eh? [How so?]”
“[There’s a HarkArk ship that gets serviced at Termina Central; the captain happens to be on our payroll. A few days ago he reported suspicious activity. He claims that another ship had been in a few hours earlier at the same dock, and that the dockworkers gave strange descriptions. They claimed almost nothing was in the cargohold, and yet the management authorized some high-dollar transfer of weapons on goods onto it. We looked it up and yeah, we had it in the database already.]”
“[Continue,]” said the Colonel, scratching his chin.
“[It’s a vessel called Archius, flagged as a possible incognito agent, last seen leaving Rigel. Our field agent there says it had just been launched. Going by time, distance, and estimated capabilities of the ship, we were able confirm that it was impossible for the ship to have stopped anywhere else in the meantime.]”
“[That means they must have been carrying something important,]” said the arrogant officer, “[like Trezhnika with our intel. But what does this have to do with the battle at Gadon?]”
The Commissariat smiled, “[Running those same numbers, it seems that the shooting began at roughly the proper time had Archius made a direct jump to Gadon, give or take a half hour or so. So I’m willing to make the wager that the Crimson Son knew the Archius was coming, and harassed us so that they could get a clean shot at nabbing it – and whatever it’s carrying – with only those Creed fanatics to keep at bay. The whole thing was a HarkArk trap though, they saw the attack coming and prepared an ambush.]”
“[That’s one hell of a theory,]” the Colonel said after thinking it over. “[However,]” he said with a critical eye, “[do we have any proof that the Archius was even there?]”
“[No sir,]” replied a bored-looking female officer. “[We’ve been searching the wreckage since we arrived and haven’t encountered any vessels of interest aside from the Crimson Son ships. If the Archius was there, it must have escaped during the chaos.]” There was silence for a few seconds as the theory began to deflate.
“[We must be missing something important here. I think the biggest question of all is: why Gadon?]” asked the Colonel.
“[We’re scanning the planet’s surface right now, but we haven’t found anything yet. I think it would be a good idea to alert all field agents to watch for any mention of Gadon, ambushes, and that Archius ship, wherever it got off to,]” said the female officer. There was a general atmosphere of agreement.
“[Next time the Crimson Son attacks in this region of space, we’d better not be tricked,]” warned the Colonel. “[And we can be quite sure that with all three factions still strong and present in this region that they will perpetuate hostilities. Blood begets blood, after all.]"
[/quote]
The operation was a success, and Arthur wiped the sweat off of his brow. While Joseph had taken the honour of cracking the Boome mercenary open and threading the device into his brain, Arthur was the backbone; he had meticulously worked on the concept, design and biological technology behind the chip, only resting when the real thing had been created by the engineering department. He allowed Joseph to stand down for the day, and told Varn to come back if the chip gave him any trouble.
...But, Arthur's work was not finished. Once Varn and Joseph had left, and all was said and done, there was still some issues that had been playing on his mind. All sensibilities that Arthur had were telling him to confront this nagging problem.
So, Arthur began making his way to the bridge. He pulled out his ship communicator, and called up the captain.
[I]"Jeremy, my friend... may I speak with you in private? I'm making my way to the bridge, please meet me there when you're free."[/I] Arthur told the captain, as the door to his bridge opened, and the scientist took a seat.
Jeremy heard Arthur's message. "Hmm? Well I was getting bored anyway." He went up the elevator lift and entered through the bridge.
Pippin grew bored and went to take a nap. He lay in his bunk and put his feet up against the wall.
Arthur smiled at Jeremy's arrival, and went up to greet his captain.
"Good evening, Jeremy. I have an issue that I'd like to bring up with you, regarding this assassin that we had captured." Arthur said, as he beckoned the captain over to a nearby table. Once they were sat down, Arthur began to explain his issue.
"This is regarding the technology that the fellow had. You see, after Ms Greene left and we started work on Varn's surgery, I received a rather odd message. I didn't think anything of whatever the assassin had on him... but one of our resident engineers did. Our maintenance engineer, Yanim Sidikan, sent me quite the pertinent message soon after she left the medbay, in which she asked me not only to hide the technology the assassin had with him, but to also instead give it to her department, for analysis and reverse engineering. A message like this worries me for two particular reasons; firstly, due to the unusual interest in the tech. I can understand why someone would express an interest in keeping it out of enemy hands, as Yanim asked of me, but I could see quite instantly the opportunism behind the message, which worries me highly. As you know, Yanim is a Kanad, a race that serves as Earth's most major antagonist within the galaxy. Before this event, Yanim had quite a nasty attitude towards me when we first met, attempting to one up me to prove the Kanads' superior knowledge over us. This didn't improve with time, though I must admit this was due in part to my interest in her, heh..." Arthur trailed off, picking up his communicator and bringing Yanim's message up.
"My second line of suspicion comes from her wishes for me not to show anyone this message. Surely, if she wished to work with this technology, then she could of asked you first? Perhaps she believed that you would immediately say no... which only fuels my suspicion further. If she's willing to so quickly flout your law, then who know's what else she's willing to do?" Arthur stated to Jeremy, gesturing to the message sent by Yanim, as well as his own reply.
"As you can see, I have told her of my intentions to report this to you, but I must also air my grievances as well. I also must ask that you keep a [I]close[/I] eye on dear Yanim, in case you do decide to approve her requests. What do you make of all this, captain?"
Jeremy felt false awestruck unto his veins, he never really expected to hear one of his crew mates hide a message without his consent after reading her message exposed by Arthur. "Yanim? Of all people? I'm... upset. It's not the fact that she wishes to experiment with that technology that disappoints me but it's the fact that she hid this information from the crew, including me. This ruins the trust of everyone that's apart of a crew in concept."
Jeremy stood silence as Arthur awaited for him to come up with a decision. "While I agree that Kanads don't have a good history with us humans, I doubt Yanim is researching this for her own interests. Had she come up to the whole crew with this then I would have likely approved. There must be more to this than a message." Jeremy rose from his chair and towered over Arthur, the Captain gave a stern look and needed to find out why would Yanim keep this message from command.
Jeremy was aware of the importance of keeping the technology status queue ahead of your enemies, but their side couldn't do this if they weren't willing to work together to fight the common enemy and keep secrets from each other.
"I need to speak to Yanim, do you have any idea where she could be right now?"
"Mmm, I'm glad you share my worries. If Yanim intended to hide this information from you, or at least mitigate my interest and interference in the matter, her execution was exceedingly poor. I am not a person to be used, no matter how much I know and trust someone." Arthur replied in kind, standing up and facing Jeremy.
"I can only guess that she would be somewhere in engineering. I'm going to hurry down to the janitorial storage room, where the technology has been stashed, to keep an eye on it just in case. For the record, I share her notion of using whatever technology that we can scrape off of this kit to our advantage, but only for dire situations. Either way, I would suggest that it is kept out of the hands of the Kanad."
"I'll try to find her." Jeremy nodded and exited out of the bridge to search for Yanim in the Engineering Rooms.
Lion finished his maintenance on Roughrider. He returned to the armory and begun working on a universal armor system alongside a few other weapons.
For old times sake, he started playing a tune that his grandfather used to listen to; Bon Jovi - Livin' on a Prayer
After Jeb did his first bit of his rehab, he returned to his quarters. A lot resided on his mind and he wanted to figure out what the extra information in his most recent flashback told him. For the moment, he knew someone set him up; but he knew neither who or why they wanted him out of that race. His chest still ached, but the pain in his nose nearly disappeared. He wanted to talk to someone about this new revelation, but Jeb felt that now wouldn't be the best time. He heard that a lot of the other crew possessed some kind of issue that required more of the captain's attention than what he needed. He wanted to make sure exactly what he saw, but for the moment, he didn't know how. Jeb then spent some time brainstorming how this new event would come to him.
Varn was sitting in the armory, basically doing nothing. He was wondering why he had those dreams again. Usually they came with the chemical disbalance, but he felt better than ever after the operation. The chip was doing its job. One of the staff had reported to him, that he was the new temporary head of security. "Really? Me? Well, best get to work." As he was leaving, Lion entered the armory and turned on the old human music. "You can take a man out of Earth, but you cant take Earth out of the man, huh Lion?"
Varn entered his new office. He had to move the furniture around a bit, since Viper was the last person there. He was no stranger to being in charge, but it was a long time since he had to give orders. He just hoped that his past mistakes wouldn't come to haunt him and the crew.
After several hours of getting the hang walking around with the crude augments, Viper imminently begin work on the pet project that was put aside for security details to push the growing anxiety out of Viper's mind.
Viper was able to access the room's systems though an console on the wall, disabling the artificial gravity within the room along venting out the air and neutralizing all bacteria there as well.
The Sanghvi made sure to take time with these exotic materials, their quality and how they were prepared exceeded anything Viper could have expected. The Harken Saw knew exactly what Viper was planing, Viper didn't know to be either relieved or afraid of Harken's resources.
Nevertheless, Viper put suspicions aside and continued with the project. The project was that of Sanghvi origins, that of creating an simple lifeform. An sister species to the Sanghvi, aptly named by UGG's explorers as the "Peterson Rock Sake".
The tunnel Yanim was walking down seemed utterly quiet and disused. She paused, checking over her shoulder; no one had followed her despite the sidelong glances she received from the Privateers who had spotted her leaving the ship. Perhaps they ignored her trespassing because they knew she was under total surveillance. Even in this darkened passage, the soft glow of LED lights traced a pathway ahead of security cameras.
The floor seemed to be an incline, and in time she discovered that it terminated at an airlock at the surface of the asteroid- not quite a door, it was actually a hatch with copula windows, glowing softly with the illumination of a foreign star. Yanim sat down in the center of the bluish patch of light and looked at her tablet. The captain had been looking for her, and had just sent a message requesting that she return to the ship. It hadn't been long since she wandered away, maybe only fifteen minutes.
She sighed, remembering that Arthur had said he planned on telling the captain about their arrangement to hide the Crimson Son cybernetics. Hopefully he had made a good case; Yanim was in no condition to do so. If only the captain hadn't gone away with the Major, she could have tried speaking with him directly, but time was critical... the Privateers were already on the ship.
The message didn't contain any other information. There could be several explanations... perhaps the captain agreed with her suspicions about the Privateers and didn't want to mention any details over vulnerable lines of communication. Maybe the captain had been convinced of the their trustworthiness instead and she was about to be arrested. It didn't quite seem to matter, whether she was ambitious or reserved, honest or conniving, her words and actions would be misinterpreted nonetheless.
Although she would have preferred to do it in her room, in the absence of any oxygen gas, she accepted that there was no place else she could go right then. She removed the outer shell of her mask, along with her goggles, as they were in the way. Her eyes stung slightly as the air made contact.
((I'll return to the ship in my next post, I'm having to borrow a computer atm so this is my only update for a couple more hours.))
Jeremy couldn't find Yanim anywhere, was she going to run away? With this sort of thinking things would surely go worse. "Damnit Yanim, don't tell me you've walked out on us." Jeremy rushed outside of Archius, looking about from every angle.
Finally, Yanim appeared from a distant corner of the base hangar, her hands deep in her pockets and her head hanging. Her eyes appeared bruised and dark, made worse by the shadow cast by her hair. Jeremy looked her over and realized she was badly disheveled.
"Where have you been?" he asked. "Are you alright?"
"You wanted to see me?" she replied, distantly.
Jeremy's expression hardened. "Arthur brought a recording to my attention, I think you know what I'm referring to. What I want to know is why you would want to keep something like that a secret to the crew, to me especially."
"To the crew..." Yanim repeated. "Captain, I was referring to the Privateers when I asked Arthur to keep my message secret. They were in our science lab and medbay, and you were speaking with the Major, so I took it up with the highest-ranked person available. I thought time was of the essence. I would not keep a secret from you; if you heard all messages you would know I never objected when Arthur..."
Jeremy nodded, understanding the situation a bit more clearly. "If you had asked me first I would have probably granted permission, but just because I wasn't around doesn't give you or anyone else the right to go behind my back. We all need to be able to trust each other on this ship, do you understand me?"
"Yes sir," she replied.
Lion sat back as he had finished another personal weapon. Infact, he had done two, alongside some sets of his universal armor.
He stood up and walked into the security office. He did a quick salute to Varn.
"Varn, sir. I have some things you might want to take a look at, please come with me."
Varn was deep into his new job. The fact that the position was vacant for a while, meant that the paperwork had pilled up. When Lion walked in, he was more than happy to follow. "Lead the way."
Lion nodded and walked back into the armory. They walked up to the equipment table and Lion gestured towards several armor pieces on the table organized into five rows.
"The LWA Knight Universal Armor System." He picked up a helmet and handed it to Varn. "I began designing this after Gadon, seeing as our non-combat personnel had almost no form av personal protection aside from weapons. It comes with a helmet, vest, shinguards and forearm protection."
A hologram appeared. "Helmet features a HUD linked to whatever weapon the operator is using, a communications package, integrated sunvisor, a flashlight and a built-in rebreather. Visor can be folded up and the helmet itself is shockproof, laserproof and plasmaproof. The two latter ones being only to a certain grade."
Lion pointed towards the vest. "Flexible nanoplates with integrated holsters, pouches and a camelback as well as a oxygen tank. Comes with a pair of medium-sized shoulderpads that can be removed if wanted."
He then pointed towards the shinguards. "Boots are built-in, protects most of the operators legs. Comes with a set of utility pouches as well. Dampens shock after jumping or falling longer distances."
"Finally, the gloves comes with NewGen NanoGrip technology for maximum grip control, also comes with a datapad with links to Roughrider and Archius."
Lion crossed his arms. "One size fits all."
"This is some impressive work." Varn put the helmet down. "Hopefully the non-combat personel wont have to worry too much about personal protection, but after what happened on Gadon, you never know." He picket up one of the gloves, inspecting it and trying it on "Just curious, have you heard anything about the Crimson son, before we met with Mr.Saw?"
Jeremy after giving the chat to Yanim went inside the ship to find the security room as he found Lion and Varn playing with their toys. The Captain observed the new equipment through the window, opening the door to see them both. "Evening guys, I see you made some new gear Lion."
Lion nodded. "Thank you. As for the Crimson Son, I've only heard the name once before my time on Archius. All I knew back then was that one of the terror groups I helped bring down was competing with Crimson."
Lion saluted as Jeremy walked in. "Good evening Cap, this is the LWA Knight Universal Armor System. It's for all non-combat personnel onboard this ship that usually goes out on missions."
Lion then approached one of the sets and tossed over the helmet. A small ID-text on the back of it read "J. SPACEHAWK - CAPTAIN - ARCHIUS XI".
"This one's yours."
Jeremy immediately grinned like a school boy and took the helmet like some artifact that was made for him. "Appreciate it Lion, how did you manage to create this stuff in a fiddle?"
"No problem, my onboard computer finalized the designs while I was working on Roughrider, all that was left was construction."
(( Hey, I'm back. Gonna get caught up today. <3 ))
The Captain nodded and observed the helmet, seeing how they were outgunned on Gadon along with these inventions of protection he thought of something that might help them put in the future. "Who has ever received military training besides me and security on his ship?"
[Glad you're back Bat]
"Stand by, assessing crew profiles." Said Lion as he simply stood upright, he then turned his head to Jeremy. "None."
Varn did a short salute when the captain walked in. He remained quiet up until Lion did his assessment. "Well, that's not good."
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