[Story]Shadowrunning, Part 2

[HRogge]

Adding what I've already mentioned, I think the only loose end left is the masses of Dark Senshi living on Nehalennia.

Yes... we have not decided what to do with them in the plot outline... some might get away, some might decide to fight and get captured... some might even surrender...

I am not sure.

Quattro? Depending on what precisely she is goes from rehabilitation to 'get Convention permission for experimental treatment'.

I would disagree that the Fenspace convention would go as low... thats why they have Azkaban (and might create similar high security prisons later)... Quattro might be dangerous as hell and a really bad person, but she IS a person according the the Fenspace laws...

[Dartz]

Damn yuku erasing my post.

It came up in IRC last night, before I really had to go to bed before I died standing.

So far, Jet's own rationalisation for taking Quattro to the Forge is that it'll be the best place for her to have some gunshot wounds dealt with, from someone familiar with Scott-series, while also being pretty damned secure. Whether that's the real reason, or just something cooked up by her mind to cover Jet's real desires and hide it even from herself, it's the reason Jet believes and puts in her AAR.

Azkhaban's out of the Nova's range... and I have a moment between Jet and Quattro planned.... something which Ford overhears and is worried by.

What actually happens to Quattro, and what the SMoF's want to do with her, might make for a good story in its own right.

--

That much hangar space is going to be nice. They're probably on standby to run in at an agreed time after Ford and Cathy have gotten clear... but it becomes something of a hurry when Jet receives an emergency signal forcing her to act quick.
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[Black Aeronaut]

So far, Jet's own rationalisation for taking Quattro to the Forge is that it'll be the best place for her to have some gunshot wounds dealt with, from someone familiar with Scott-series, while also being pretty damned secure. Whether that's the real reason, or just something cooked up by her mind to cover Jet's real desires and hide it even from herself, it's the reason Jet believes and puts in her AAR.

Azkhaban's out of the Nova's range... and I have a moment between Jet and Quattro planned.... something which Ford overhears.

What actually happens to Quattro, and what the SMoF's want to do with her, might make for a good story.

Sounds about right to me. Ben's not gonna want her within ten
lightseconds of 36 Atalante anyhow on general principal unless she's
thoroughly deactivated. (Her reputation as a big nasty precedes her -
when Ben watched StrikerS he cheered when Nanoha showed her just what she
could do with Raising Heart.)
Anyhow, I say wrap up this story first before we get too far into prisoner management.  Though Ben will have some very amusing suggestions.

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Quattro? Depending on what precisely she is goes from rehabilitation to 'get Convention permission for experimental treatment'.

I would disagree that the Fenspace convention would go as low... thats why they have Azkaban (and might create similar high security prisons later)... Quattro might be dangerous as hell and a really bad person, but she IS a person according the the Fenspace laws...

Sorry about that, wasn't feeling to well at the time. The main question is 'Is Quattro too dangerous to handle?'. If she is, how do you deal with her? Sadly, the easiest option is the final one. Otherwise (if she's too dangerous for Azkaban) you get to options the good guys don't normally consider, especially if Quattro happened to be biologic.
As is, Quattro would probably be subject to a forensic structual analysis at least, disarmed, and repaired.

[HRogge]

Sorry about that, wasn't feeling to well at the time. The main question is 'Is Quattro too dangerous to handle?'. If she is, how do you deal with her? Sadly, the easiest option is the final one. Otherwise (if she's too dangerous for Azkaban) you get to options the good guys don't normally consider, especially if Quattro happened to be biologic.
As is, Quattro would probably be subject to a forensic structual analysis at least, disarmed, and repaired.

Ahh okay... that sounds different...

Of course the easiest way to imprison her might be to use lots of low-tech (heavy door with lever) and keep anything that could be hacked out of range. But that would mean "no cyborgs" in the guard.

But lets not forget that there are some important parties who would like more information about her mother, so 'deactivating' her might be a bad solution.

[Dartz]

And as our RPG group is continuously reminded by our GM.... don't kill off all the interesting baddies in the first mission they appear in! We've had exactly one recurring bad guy.

Quattro's too interesting a character to kill.... and Jet personally dislikes capital punishment (For complex reasons related to Rorschach of Watchmen fame and that Steelyard story)
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[HRogge]

Would be interesting to see a prison break attempt by her mother... *G*

[robkelk]

I see that everybody's assuming Quattro is (a) a Scott-series android (b) built by Agatha Clay... I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm also not saying this is right. (However, look at what BA's written for Gina's Fenspace Infinities entry and consider what a full-time Mad such as Agatha Clay or Asmodeus Grey might do with the same tech.)

I am saying, however, that I've established in With This Station-Ring and The South Is Rising (Someone Get a Hammer) that a deactivation of a Scott-series android is equivalent to the killing of a meat-type person. Even if you reactive her later, you've still destroyed the original person.

I would disagree that the Fenspace convention would go as low...

I agree with you - the Convention is supposed to be "better" than the Boskonians.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[LynnInDenver]

I am saying, however, that I've established in With This Station-Ring and The South Is Rising (Someone Get a Hammer) that a deactivation of a Scott-series android is equivalent to the killing of a meat-type person. Even if you reactive her later, you've still destroyed the original person.

Certainly, the only group around that might not consider it such would be some of the Galacticans... until you point out the one that they met three months ago at one of the trading ports and never realized.
Although I expect more pragmatic Galacticans merely will refuse to create AIs and androids themselves, and have no issues with the ones made by others that interfere with them getting things done.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

[Dartz]

Actually that sounds like fun...... but not as complete and intensive. Maybe go back to what Quattro was in the original source material? There's some Scott-tech in there, and some artificial biology.... it's a bit of a hodge-podge.... kind of like Jet really. She's as fast as Jet, probably smarter, but rolls untrained when it comes to applied violence, whereas applied violence is something of Jet's stock in trade.
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[robkelk]

I'm just trying to keep your options open. (If you want her to be 100% Scott-series android, be my guest. If you want her to be a particularly successful Boskonian biomod, knock yourself out. If you want her to be the closest Fenspace can come to actually creating the Numbers, go for it.)

Although, whatever you pick, you should surprise us with it in the story instead of telling us ahead of time...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

Aye... or probably a combination of all 3. And God knows what's in her lab....

Note.... Ford's telling a strongly bullshit story to get in with Sato through the traditional 'common interests' method.

Cally and Teela were lost. They’d been trying to find their quarters from the bar, and figured they’d take a wrong turn somewhere. Compounded by another, then another.

“I’m sure it was a left,” Cally said, scratching her head.

Teela looked up at her, rolling her eyes.

“Up the main stairwell 2 levels, door 4, take a left... then a third right.” Cally recited from memory.

But they weren’t anywhere near AE-85. Wrong directions? Cally’s skin began to crawl...

“Directions were never your strong point,” Teela giggled.

Cally rolled her eyes. It was being mapped by the collar, that was the main thing. It was just a matter of wandering around lost in a very realistic manner.

“Maybe we should ask someone” suggested Teela carefully. Not really what they wanted to do now, but it sounded good.

“Then we look like idiots,” Cally replied and shook her head.

“We look like idiots wandering around.”

“Lets try this corridor... I think it should go back to the bar... maybe.” Teela said and pointed into a larger corridor. She had no clue where it was going. This asteroid station was definitely a large one and had most likely been in place for years.

Just when they decided to enter the corridor a voice sounded behind them.

“What you two are doing here? This is a restricted area.”

Cally and Teela turned around to see Sato standing in a different corridor, looking at them. Teela smiled happily and sighed relieved.

Cally looked angrily at Teela and slapped her.

“YOU said you knew the way to our room... keep your mouth shut next time if you are not sure” Cally said, then she turned to Sato with a slightly embarrassed look.

She exhaled a long sigh. “Teela said she remembered the way to our rooms....we’re new here.”

The catgirl scratched herself where Cally had hit her and stayed silent. It refused to stop stinging.

Sato wore a stern expression for a few moments, but then she nodded. “Follow me... and stay in the public areas next time...”

Cally looked annoyed at Teela. “Bloody cat..”

Teela put on an innocent ‘who me?’ face and nodded obediently.

Sato sighed mentally and began to lead them back to the living areas and to their room. She would have to check their story later by looking through all the camera recordings. Somehow though, she doubted any spy would make themselves look like an idiot by getting lost...

She decided not to tell Quattro.... it would just make her even more paranoid. She might even have sent the pair off into this area just to frame them.

“What is with that Quattro anyway?” Cally asked.

“She’s our madgirl.” Sato answered, “Try to stay away from her.”

“I mean, what could she want with Teela? She tried to buy her off us in the bar”

Sato shrugged, “Research.” Who knows? “She’s a madgirl. Try to keep it from straying if you don’t want to lose it,”

Teela bared her fangs, but her flicking tail showed she was not really feeling her bravest at the moment.

“Right so.” Cally cringed.. She’d picked that irritating phrase from Jet.

“So tell me Cally,” Sato continued, making conversation, “What was your last stop before you were attacked. What’s your normal route?”

“Stellvia was my last stop,” Cally answered. Sato’s expression blackened.

“That’s unusual,” she remarked.

Cally gave a dismissive shrug, “Best place. The rooms are private and there’s so much traffic through the station that they don’t have a chance to check everyone coming and going.”

Teela smiled. “And they like having catgirls around” she added with a cheery grin.

Sato looked dubious. “Most couriers I know run through Genaros,”

“How many of them get caught? Space Patrol and Bounty Hunters all over the place,” Cally began to strut.

“You nearly got caught,” Sato groused.

Cally saw her her opening. Time to spear the fish. The fastest way to make friends was to share an enemy.

“It was that 4-eyed stellvian bitch,” she spat. “I’m certain of it,”

“Oh?” Naoko raised an interested eyebrow. “Do tell,”

Cally snorted. “We did the deal in the bedroom... two duffle bags with 20 kilos apiece in them. Empty the bags of money, fill them with purple, the usual deal. So we do it, and everything’s sweet... I just have to check the purity of it,”

She popped open that small compartment on her arm, showing her the leatherman, and that leaflet of papers, one single one stained a deep purple. The papers were common, intended to detect thionite in a sample, or if a sample of thionite had been cut, and with what.

“A hundred percent pure, uncut stuff. Fresh off Venus.” Cally bragged. She hid the paper and closed the compartment. “Everything was done and dusted, just had to get out to my truck, when there’s a knock at the door,”

Cally took a breath.

“We both looked at the door, then each other, collectively shitting bricks. Kiko answered it, and it was herself in her uniform, smiling from behind her glasses. Fujisawa with some sort of scanner. Citing some safety clause about a bad pressure seal, she asks us to leave the room”

Probably bullshit. Cally knew as much about Stellvian operations as she did about memetic handwavium theory, but then again she was betting Sato knew even less.

“5 minutes later, she’s smiling as she lets us back in. Nothing looked disturbed at the time, so we finished up and hurried off.” Cally feigned a sigh. “Probably should’ve checked the bags for tracers, but we were both spooked and we forgot.”

Sato nodded. “And they were bugged?”

“Oh yeah,” Cally carried on. “I get out past Mars, I get a frantic message from Kiko in her van warning me. I hear the seals on the door go, followed by Fujisawa’s damn cheerful...” she loaded those words with as much hate as she could muster, “...voice telling Kiko she was under arrest and acting so damned proud of herself.”

Callys voice rang off the stone walls.

“I’ve known Kiko since before I came up here....”

“You weren’t tracked here were you?” Sato snapped her down, stunning her for a moment.

“Uh...”Cally held up her hand for a moment, “Well... when we lost the cargo we lost the tracker.... it’s how we got away. They went after the beacon while we hid on an asteroid.”

Naoko stopped for a few seconds, mulling it over in her mind. Paranoia could be a healthy thing in the right amounts.

“Are you sure?” she demanded. She stared into Cally’s eyes, her expression firm.

“Of course. Damn sure.”

Cally tried to act insulted. Hadn’t she been the one who planned the whole thing?

Sato stepped back a little. “We will still have check the truck for trackers,”

Teela smiled happily. “Can I help you looking for them... hunting for hidden stuff is always fun!”

The station commander glared down at her for a moment. “It would be best if both of you were nowhere near the vehicle,”

Teela shrunk down like a scolded child.

“So how did you escape, Cally?” Sato enquired, her tone flat. Cally wasn’t sure whether she was just curious to hear the end of the story, or starting to get suspicious. The senshi gave no indication.

Cally exhaled a sigh. “We got shot up, buncha trigger happy lunatics. The bags were blown out when the cargobay decompressed. The tracker must’ve been in one of them... they went after that while we cut power and hid on an asteroid. Once we were sure they were gone, we fired up the engine and crawled here.”

Cally forced the anger, calling up some of her most hated memories to fuel it.

“But they got Kiko. The bitch got her. Kiko’s my friend since I came up in ‘08... back before any of this SMoF politics got going, all these assholes making themselves kings in their own personal fantasy while screwing it up for the rest of us.”

Cally stopped with a bitter snarl. Sato mulled it over for far longer that Cally was comfortable with. After a few tense heartbeats, the zwilnik Senshi’s expression softened into an easy smile.

“I think we might get along just fine,” she said amiably. “Your quarters are just around this corner, try to remember where they are this time.” She chuckled, covering her mouth in that uniquely Japanese manner.

It creeped Cally out no-end for reasons she couldn’t quit put her thumb on.

“Thanks,” she said.

----

Naoko showed them through the door, before leaving on ‘station business’. If Cally hadn’t known better, she might’ve pegged her as just an ordinary Senshi. Villains had a disturbing tendency to be surprisingly banal.

There were very few Quattros in the world.

“So, do we do it know?” Teela asked, fidgeting with her collar.

Cally checked the her watch. “Another hour or so,”

Have to wait for both themselves and the Nova to be in position. Cally dropped herself onto the bed.... little more than a simple cot. She half expected the thing to collapse.

It was a small room, even for Fenspace, and decorated in the local manner.... which was subtly creepy. There was a small table, and a place that’d been set aside for Teela, and literally not much else aside from a small porthole, with the black cloak of space clinging to the other side of the glass.

Either Naoko was supremely good, and trying to string her along into a trap, or she’d made a connection with her.... she decided to hope for the latter and begin to wonder what she’d do if it was the former.

----

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[Dartz]

Little bit more.

Coming up with codenames is hard. The Nova's not a comfy ship... it's a bit of a U-boat. When not facing Nehallenia, they can run up the scrubbers and cool off... but otherwise it's going to get uncomfortably hot very quickly, even under some artificial shade.

True stealth in space may be impossible, but you can still do your best not to be noticed.

Cortana's communicated back with Fenspace via a second QED at Hedwig... bandwidth is pretty small, but it is enough.

Cortana using 'him' to refer to Jet, shows Cortana has done some research on Jet.

The air aboard the Destiny Nova was heavy... even the scrubbers had been shut off. A couple of low-power LED lights kept everything lit, but aside from them, everything was shut down. The heat aboard was getting intolerable, even though they were now on the shaded side of the asteroid, facing Nehallenia.

The Senshi crew were starting to wilt in the heat, some of them having long since stripped down to the bare essentials just to get cool. They’d even dropped the atmospheric pressure to the safest minimum, increasing the partial pressure of oxygen to compensate, solely to reduce vapour pressures and help them sweat.

It didn’t help much.

Mari considered switching to a full O2 atmosphere, dropping pressures to a minimum, but that just wasn’t safe. Not for the first time she found herself jealous of the cyborgs who could just step out onto the asteroid, or find shade under ship.

She checked a few settings, and turned off a few more unnecessary systems to reduce power drain from the batteries to just the couple of amps needed for the lighting. The engine field coils had been degaussed, and anything which generated a varying magnetic field was shut down. Electric motors, air scrubbers, even the computer systems had been throttled right back to a minimum. Desmond was kept at a low enough power to keep himself and Cortana amused with Team Fortress 2, and not much else.

Only DC systems were online. A constant magnetic field was easier to hide on an iron-nickle asteroid. Varying ones were obviously artificial.

They were hidden in a crater on an asteroid, under rock effect tarpaulin especially developed to diffuse their heat signature, to make it appear as little more than natural solar heating and re-radiation. It also happily acted as a nice radio reception antenna, while mimicking the reflection of the surrounding rock reasonably closely.

Cortana had not liked to be stuck inside another ship for that long, and neither had the Stargazer. The ships engine had shut down shortly after the cloaking sheet had been put over them and was refusing to produce much more than a standby trickle of energy. Luckily Cortana did not have that much problems with heat or oxygen storage, as an AI she only cared about some energy input and problems with overheating. Not being able to go around in the ship and talking with the people there was the worst part of the plan in her opinion.

Mari sat back in the pilot’s seat, looking out up at the underside of the sheet. They’d been aboard for about three days already. Three days aboard a hot, cramped ship, sweating buckets. She’d give the Boskonians who built her one thing at least, they were tough bastards to willing board a boat like this for weeks at a time. What it was like for the folks in the cargo hold, she tried so hard not to think about.

A small light flickered on the radio panel. Once, twice, three times, followed by a chirrup as a single message popped up onscreen.

She pulled herself over the vacant copilot’s seat to read it. It was just a simple short text message, only a few hundred characters at most.

It perked her spirits up no-end.

Running under radio silence , the best way to get in touch with the messages intended recipient was to open the hatch in the floor and shout down the length of the ship. Every pressure door had been jammed open anyway to let air circulate.

Forward, in the galley right at the bow of the ship, dinner for three Kunstler consisted solely of rip-pack self-warmed ready meals. They weren’t as bothered by the heat as the ordinary humans, having bodies capable dealing with it with little trouble.

Tiegel was busy finishing a story, while Jet was half buried in a bag of ‘food, and Lenneth was still trying to figure out how to rip hers open, without tearing it apart entirely.

“So, I get out and these turrets are still there and they go on alert,”

“They shot you?” Lenneth asked.

“No, that’s the damnedest thing.” he answered. “They started to sing,”

Jet didn’t appear surprised.

“Bullshit!” Lenneth snorted.The bag tore completely open, spilling it’s contents in a cascade of dessicated flavouring and textured protein. The heat pack fizzled on the floor “Motherfucker,” she grunted through gritted teeth.

Tiegel chuckled. Jet just smiled. “They did it for me too,” she said. “You just hafta complete the test courses.”

Tiegel nodded.

Lenneth planted her hands hard on her hips, “You both went through the test course?”

Tiegel and Jet nodded. “You didn’t?” Tiegel replied.

“Of course not. Why the hell would anybody want to?”

Jet and Tiegel shared an aside glance. “Boredom?” both cyborgs suggested to each other in unison. Seemed like the obvious answer to them.

Lenneth rolled her eyes and set about clearing up the mess on the floor, grumbling to herself about strange colleagues and their weird ideas. Who in their right mind would take on potentially those lethal test chambers solely for shits and giggles?

“Hey Jet!” a voice called down the length of the ship.

“Shuttup,” someone grumbled in one of the cabin.

“What?” Jet yelled back.

“Message. From the Insertion team,”

A blonde head appeared through some drawn curtains. “I’m trying to sleep!”

Jet ran past her trailing a soothing draft and the wafting smell of Meals Rejected by Erisians. Jet rushed to the bridge, passing through the engine room on her way. Andrew Maion, the only person in Fenspace who could understand the Nova’s engines, was sleeping happily under one of the big gas generator turbines. Jet’s slamming footfalls jolted him awake.

“Too hot,” he mumbled and rolled over onto a cooler patch of metal. Linda was down in the battery room, still humming that odd tune of hers.

The cargo bay door was sealed, while the bay itself was purposely left depressurised. Aside from mealtimes, most of the Kunstler were staying in vacuum... it saved air loss through continuous depressurisation. A sign on the door advised against going in alone, coupled with a Ghostbusters logo.

Getting up the ladder to the top deck hadn’t stopped being a pain. Still, it was easy enough if she just pulled herself up with her hands, propelling herself up onto the deck with one last push.

“Just came in,” Mari said, taking her rightful position at the pilots seat. Jet may have been the mission commander, but she was the ship’s Captain. “It’s on the comms panel,”

“Thanks,”

It took Jet just a few moments to read the message. Short, but exactly what she wanted to her.

Both on Rock. Confirm Vidkun. Possible Bob Rife. Vidkun may trust. Teela safe. Retrieve QED tomorrow. Get car ready for hookup. Laters

Mari swore she saw a weight drop off of Jets shoulders. “They made it,” she said. Ford was okay.

“So, we’re finally getting off this rock sometime soon?” Mari asked.

“Couple days maybe,” Jet responded. “Next SMS will be them leaving, then we’re going in,”

“Great,” Mari sighed, flopping back against the console. She gazed out over the hull to the metallic rock beyond. “I’ve had enough of this view already.”

She was still staring at the rock outside when Jet went below decks. Jet herself dropped down to the third deck, both feet clanging hard onto the deckplates. The lower deck was far more cramped. Linda was busy in the battery room behind her, while Jet made her way forward through the life support generators.

Frost was forming on the stored air tanks. Some bedding had been clustered around them. Miranda was cooling herself in nothing more than a tank-top and shorts, face buried in a book... as usual.

Heart of Darkness, Jet noted. Odd... most of the Senshi crew had a thing for Stephen King. Both of them mumbled a greeting as Jet went by.

The computer room was where Luka usually hung out... He wasn’t there, but the dinosaurs were. Everything was shut right down to cut heat output. Desmond’s rack was specially marked with a single piece of notepaper.

On it, a sketch of the Destiny Nova exploding, and the words ‘Please don’t forget!!’. The rack had its own onboard batteries allowing Des’ enough time to do an emergency hibernate, and was secured in place by a single catch. The intention was to make it easy for Luka to pull him out, and escape in Little Nelly, usually stored in the forward shuttlebay.

A Zig fighter could just about fit in there. A Skoda Estate would also fit, if you didn’t mind not being able to get anything else in, nor wanted to close the inner airlock doors. Most of the equipment and survival suits had been dumped in what was usually the emergency control room.

When Jet came into the forward shuttlebay where the Stargazer had been parked, the ship was totally dark. The air inside was still normal, just the temperature had been raised by some waste heat from the small spacecraft. There was some condensation on the inside of the windows.

Jet knocked gently on the roof.

The screen projector activated, showing Cortana avatar sitting in front of a virtual TV screen with a gamepad in hand and playing a match of Team Fortress 2. She was getting sick of being stabbed in the back by the spy.

“Hi Jet, nice to see you again” Cortana greeted him with a smile, “I hope nothing bad has happened? So what can I do for you ?”

“Got a message from Ford and Cathy.” Jet told her with a relieved cheerfullness. “They’re on Nehallennia. They’ll have the QED set up tomorrow probably.”

“I have the QED link to Hedwig set up. Enough bandwidth for games.” the avatar informed her. “I have been losing on TF2” She sounded annoyed.

Jets smile grew oddly mischievous. That’d be Desmond’s little hobby then. “Good. have task force [whatevername] come up to hot standby. We might need to be going on short notice anytime over the next 3 days.”

Jet found her cheer dissolving. She hoped they wouldn’t have to go that quickly. The only reasons she could think of that would have them going on such short notice, weren’t good reasons.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

“[whatevername] responds affirmative, ready in three hours.”

“Right so,” Jet said, her voice soft. Her thoughts had already gone elsewhere.

----

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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Foxboy]

Task Force Butterscotch

Z Fox has spoken
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[robkelk]

Meals Rejected by Erisians

ROFL!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

Butterscotch it is.

If anyone has anything to add to the beginning, or want's to comment on things, now'd be the time. It's the end of the beginning we'd planned where we've gotten the plot set up. Next we're getting into gear and moving along with the main guts of things on Nehallenia.
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[Dartz]

And on we go...

----

Teela and Cally were sitting in their quarters, getting ready for the day. Cally lounged around in her underwear for a bit after her shower, tweaking a few little things on her leg before getting dressed. They’d survived the night, that was the main thing. There were a few things that had to be taken care of. Cally had to get to work repairing the truck, while Teela was making final checks that her collar’s mapping program would work.

“Hey, they said you could get to your truck today when they finished their examination... and I am pretty sure they did not find any damned Patrol toys on it, otherwise they would have taken it apart completely.” Teela said, hoping to raise Cally’s mood a little bit. “You will get it up and running within no time at all, I am sure.”

They just had to wait for Sato’s team to finish. Wait and hope they found nothing. Cally forced herself to focus on her truck. She had an OBD diagnostic checker in the truck, and the toolbox was in the cabin, not in the cargobay. Still, there was always the chance somebody else had bugged them.... or somebody would be clever enough to plant a bug to fake evidence, or any number of a hundred things.

They gnawed at the back of her mind as she paced around the room. A small console besides the door began to beep in time with a blinking yellow light.

“Cally, I think you got a phone call.” Teela purred. “What do you think, do we have won the Christmas lottery and willl get one million small toys for your brave and nice catgirl?” she said, curling up happily into herself, not even bothering to get up.

“Lazy beast” Cally snorted, throwing a pillow at the catgirl. She stood herself up, muttering dark things about lady Garfield, and activated the comlink. “Cally Auron here...”

Sato’s face appeared.

“Good morning Miss Auron... you might want to know that we finished the examination of your truck this morning.” Sato said with a cheery smile.

“Assuming it came up clean,” Cally said, archly.

“Well...” Sato answered, sucking air through her teeth like a mechanic about to give a big bill. “Define clean?. We didn’t find any bugs... at least, not the electronic kind anyway,” she giggled.

Cally could’ve throttled her. Those few moments had scared the hell out of her. “Oh Ha hah,” She blew a draft of frustration through her lips and opened the door.

Naoko was there, waiting like she was her best friend. Cally felt oddly ill.,

“I think now you can get started on fixing your truck, while we have a chat on the way,”

“About what?”

“A little job offer,”

-----

Teela kept laying on the pillow, even after Cally had left the room to get to her truck. She was bored, but they both could not afford that anyone on the station got even more suspicious about them. She had work to do.

She waited for at least ten minutes, then raised her head and looked through the room. With a big grin she jumped up and hurried over to a small box in the ‘luggage’ they had brought here from the truck. She opened it and looked over the small collection of cat toys, then took out a small piece of glass. She quickly put the box back where it had been and hurried back to her pillow and began to play a little bit with the glass. Then she yawned and pulled the blanket over her head.

Both she and Cally had agreed that it was unlikely that the apartments were watched, but Teela liked to be careful. She put the glass over her left eye and activated the small display for the collar, quickly opening the current map of the asteroid.

Even if someone had been watching her, they would have just seen something like ‘cat sleeps, cat plays, cat sleeps’ and hopefully never realizing she was looking through the acquired data, inspecting the video recordings, looking into details and creating a more solid map of this place.

Building this disguised computer system had been really fun, now was the time to make good use of it.

‘Somewhere here must be their working place for the Ghosthack’ she thought, ‘I just have to find it. The sooner we find what we were looking for, the faster we can leave again...’

There was nearly an hour of video to work through, looking for evidence of the working place of the hacker.

-----

“Oh, Agatha left her behind,”

Sato spoke so offhand, it nearly made Cally faint. She’d just asked about Quattro. She was just poking for a little info on the madgirl. And that was the explanation. Went fishing for minnow, caught a bluefin tuna.

“I see you’ve heard of her,”

“Agatha Clay?” Cally blurted out. Her eyes had golfballed.

Sato seemed to inflate. “Unh. She left a few months ago, and Quattro stayed behind. Two Mads on one base was a little too crazy.”

Two Mads on her base. Agatha Clay had been on her base.

“...wow.” Cally said.

Which meant, chances were, there’d be information on where Agatha had gone on her base. Cally’s skin began to prickle with excited static electricity.

“Where’d she go?” she asked, trying to sound as offhand and nonchalant as possible.

“She did not say,” Sato answered, her tone turning just that little bit sour.

Maybe it hadn’t been a pleasant parting? An acrimonious divorce? Cally tried her best to remember Clay’s profile, given on her bounty card. It was one of the big bounties, the kind every hunter knew about, but only the bigshot professionals ever thought about going after. From what she recalled, she gathered it wasn’t Sato who’d ordered Clay off the base,

She doubted Quattro had forced Agatha off...something about that just didn’t feel right. She wondered if maybe Agatha hadn’t seen what they were planning, and bailed out early before it blew up in everyone’s face.

Cally kept it in the back of her mind, even as she made small talk with Naoko. The other option was that Naoko was happily playing her as the fool, and Quattro was far more deadly than even Agatha.

“Have you been to Crystal Paris recently?” Sato asked her, taking a sudden left swerve in things. It seemed to be just a curiosity of hers.

“Don’t go in to Venus,” Cally answered. “But Kiko goes there...” a bitter pause. Cally forced herself to snarl. “Used to go there from time to time,” she corrected herself.

Naoko thought. Her brow creased as she tried to match the name to a face. She brought her hand to her chin. “I don’t remember her,”

Cally dismissed it with a shrug. “She ran from Titusville mostly. Paris was her vacation spot.”

“I see,” She looked at Cally, then at floor. “I was wondering if Café à la place du Café was still open.”

Cally shrugged again. “Never been there,” She didn’t dare fall for that old trap.

They walked through a few corridors Cally found herself starting to recognise. A pair of the locals rushed by pushing a trolley, being yelled at by some random courier. He made a pass at Cally. Gold teeth, what a dick. He sounded Russian.

She told him where he could stick it. Bastard probably had a Catgirl anyway.

“It is getting busy here. Especially since most other waystations have been hit in the last few months. Most of what went there now goes through here.”

“What’re you getting at?” Cally asked her.

“How about you start working for us?” Sato suggested, wearing a oily smile that reminded Cally of so many used car salesmen who made you feel like they were doing you a favour selling you that lemon of a Buick.

She made a show of thinking about it.

Sato continued with the pitch. “I am sure we could come to an agreement, especially if you have trouble getting the money,”

“I won’t,” Cally said, firmly.

Sato appeared unperturbed “Yes, Quattro told me you wouldn’t sell your catgirl to her. If you’re not interested in that, maybe we could renegotiate the rate of interest.”

Cally looked thoughtful. “What sort of renegotiation?”

“Work for me, and each job you do for me, also counts towards your debt,”

Oh, that old game. Cally’s eyes narrowed.

“Do I look like a moron?”

“Oh no,” Sato assured her. “I doubt we would be talking here if you were. I’ll drop the interest rate to below 5 percent for one thing, even if you can pay it back next week. All you have to do is agree to take a few simple jobs.”

“And if I agree, pay at the 5 percent and then run off into the wild black yonder?”

Sato’s smile broadened into an almost malicious grin “ Somehow I doubt you will. I am sure couriers like yourself pride themselves on keeping their word, and sticking to a deal. You depend so much on your reputations.”

The threat implied was that she’d badmouth Cally across the system so she’d never get a job again, and had more than enough influence and standing to pull it off. Any other Zwilnik would probably just have threatened her with either a catgirling machine or an industrial deep-fat frier. Or both...

“Seems fair,” Cally said. “I’ll take jobs from you on two conditions.”

“Those are?”

“No runs down into the ‘danelaw. And I get to veto pickups within 2 light minutes of Atalante, Prometheus, Heimdal or any other Space Patrol or OGJ base if I think it’s too dangerous.”

Sato shook her head. “No way... ‘any other Space patrol or OGJ base’ is a term for ‘everywhere worth going to’. Do you really think I would throw my couriers away by sending them to a certain death ? Atalante, Prometheus and Heimdal is okay as a veto list... but no wildcards.”

Cally crossed her arms, “Do you think I’ve been a courier for this long without knowing when to spot which jobs are good, and which will get me arrested or worse?”

Maybe she was playing the part too much? Maybe it’d be better to just get on Naoko’s good side and play the idiot. Something in her pride refused to let her...

Naoko’s expression darkened. “Do you think I have kept my operation here safe by throwing people away to get arrested?. One person arrested, is one person who can talk.”

“Good point,” Cally was forced to admit. “I’ll have to think about it.”

Naoko didn’t seem to be happy about the answer, but her mood seemed to be improving again.

“Do. The offer is good until you leave the station. And after this last incident, I doubt there are many who would give you as good terms as I am doing. We’ll talk later.”

Naoko left her with that, making damned sure she didn’t get the last word in. The landing bay itself was pressurised at the time, with another truck parked up and loading. That was where all the trolleys were going.

There was something she wanted in her toolbox, but first she had to make a show of getting about repairing the truck. She had to repair the truck anyway unless they wanted to get caught in the crossfire of the upcoming attack

She crossed the bay doing her best to go unnoticed, opening the passenger door of her truck before pulling out the seat. It wasn’t hard, the passenger seat was designed to be removed easy, so Jet could sit in the back in comfort.

Now it helped her get her toolbox out. She opened it, a basic key lock deterring casual thieves, checked to see if what she really wanted was still hidden in its proper place... it was... before removing her engine diagnostic kit.

It was literally just an ordinary OBD-II diagnostic unit and connection leads, a fault code reader... nothing more or less. It had a simple LED display. She hooked it up to the trucks ECU, now waved.... but still working much the same as it usually did.

It took a few moments to make the connection. The truck’s own minor AI smiled recognising the touch of it’s owner. Poor thing really was like a loyal dog, did she have to have it shot up so bad?

“Hey! Vot de hell iz dat?”

She snapped around, turning to face that same gold-toothed zwilnik she’d passed in the corridor. He was bearing down on her wearing an almost dog-like snarl, big ice-coloured eyes focused on the device in her hand.

-----

Teela had worked for hours on the data of the collar, slowly creating an annotated map of 3D images, looking for hints about the general design of the station and other interesting things. She was sure that the designers of this place had planned the asteroid for a high security facility, but there were some noticeable different areas.

A large area was a combined living and working area, a place where people spent most of the day.

The spaceport was another separated area, connected to the rest of the asteroid station by long and winding corridors.

‘Will not be that easy to break into for Jet and his group’ Teela thought, looking at the color marked area.

But there was a third part of the station she and Cally had wandered into accidentally. One that Naoko had said it was ‘forbidden’ or ‘restricted’ for them. They had not been able to move far into it, but this area had a different kind of layout than the living area of the station. There had been less people moving around, and nearly none of them had been chatting with each other. The few pieces of conversation the collar had recorded had even some technical content.

‘This must be some kind of construction or research area... but unless this place has a second starport, it looks like a place to build small things... or maybe to do research!’ Teela thought with a curious look.

Teela stretched herself and yawned, then she got up and moved over to Callys luggage again. She put her ‘toy’ back into the small box and took out a standard computer tablet. It took her a few moments to find the rooms network plug, but then she leaned back on the bed of the room and began to surf the internal web of the asteroid. She was not really doing something forbidden, but just randomly surfing the internal web was sometimes enough to gather useful information about a network.

Somewhere in there should be some evidence that this ‘restricted’ area was really the one they were looking for.

----

Hopefully nobody looks like a moron here. Though the reference to Agatha still feels a little thrown in... whole conversation really could do with being smoothed over.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Dartz]

Ford stared him down over the sights of her gun,

“Don’t come any closer to me shithead,”

He smiled at her. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

“Somehow,” he said, “Hi don’t tink hyu vill shoot me,”

He took a step forward, her finger was tense on trigger, taking up the slack. She’d shoot him. God help her she’d shoot him if he got any closer.

“Hyu don’t haf de look hin de eyes,”

Her heart was thumping in her chest. His eyes dropping down warned her that the diagnostic kit wasn’t anything more than a pretense.

“I’ll kill you!”

Shoot him, and the mission’s blown.

“Not a chence,” he said. “Hyu are scared ov me Hi tink. If Hyu vere goin to keel me, hyu vould not be afraid. Hyu vould not be afraid to keel.”

His smile broadened into a grin. She could see her own frightened eyes reflected in each on of his golden teeth.

She felt her blood chill, her body going dead calm. Him dead or bleeding and her explaining things to Sato would be far better than the alternative. She was going to shoot. she had to shoot.

“Stop vasting time end get back to vork!” someone yelled from across to bay. “Kent hyu zee ve hef shit to load?”

He turned around. “Sorry boss,” he drawled. “Hi gots distrected,”

He leered back at her and she clung tight to the pistol. Her slips twisted into a snarl, her gaze hardening.

“Ah,” he sighed with satisfaction. “Dets de look.”

He turned and left her, stunned for a few moments, just standing there with the weapon in her hands. Deep breathing, let the adrenaline fade away. The bastard was getting back to work at the other end of the bay. She returned her pistol to its holster, letting that familiar weight sooth.

He’d been right about one thing. As far as she knew, she’d never killed another human being.

She did her best to just put it out of her mind while hooking the diagnostic tester up to the truck. It gave it’s answer after a few seconds.

She placed a warm hand against it’s cold metal body. “Poor thing. Just give me three days and I’ll have you good as new,”

She got to work. First, remove all the damaged parts.

“Yes we can,” she promised herself. It would be a small miracle to get it going again. It was time for an insistence on small miracles.

Ah... this is still going. I've just been busy doing something else for a quick break.

Which is something set after this, which effectively is also Jet taking a break in Australia in and around the Lake Gairdner area.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[HRogge]

Teela finished her initial probings, poking at the local network like a cat might poke at a ball of yarn. She’d been finished for hours.

Hours left waiting alone in that room, staring at the door. Waiting for Cally. She scratched at her collar, the metal ring getting tighter and tighter around her neck. It was constricting. It was making it hard to breath. She was not used not to do anything that long, but at the moment she was not supposed to do anything.

It was about time she figured out how to get the electric blankets working. Time flies when you’re curled up in a furball soothing yourself with your own purring. She lay there, lost in bliss for hours.

If any part of Teela’s mind was aware of the door opening and then closing, the catgirl did not show any evidence of it. Teela had better things to do at the moment..

Then she felt a hand going over her fur for a moment and Teela thought she heard a voice somewhere far away saying something about a ‘lazy clever cat’... and then the blanket was switched off.

Teela mumbled a little bit and stretched herself, then she looked up into Callys face with a smile, then she jumped up and hugged Cally hard. “You have been away for that long... did something bad happen?”

“Just a lot of work on my truck” Cally answered, slowly extracting herself from the catgirls embrace. “And what did my lazy clever catgirl do in the mean time?”

Teela just grinned. “Oh, just some experiments to move the clock faster than normal... can I come with you to the truck next time? I could carry your toolbox for you!” Teela looked down to the large box Cally had put down.

Cally’s expression darkened.

“Nobody touches my box but me. Besides, our little gadget’s in there.” And nobody would blink an eye at her keeping her toolbox safe from would-be thieves. She undid the lock, opened the toolbox and carefully removed all the trays inside.

The last thing she removed was a well-wrapped box.

“How’d you’re first look at the network go?” Cally asked.

“Well enough,” Teela answered.

“I sense there’s a but in there,”

“Well enough to tell what we are looking for is not on the main network.” the catgirl clarified. “Which means that it must be islanded away somewhere safe.”

“Which means we have to figure out where, and how to get in there without getting caught.” Cally sighed. “Joy.”

“It would be boring if it was easy,” Teela said, licking at the back of her hand.

“We should at least test the box first,” Cally said. She started to undo the wrappings. It was utterly unremarkable looking... nothing more than a black box with a label warning the user to Beware the cat.”

“I think a local test would be sufficient. We can transmit our floor plans and a short update of the mission status to the ship, less risk to trigger too many warnings on the first run” Teela replied and nodded.

They quickly got the cubic box out of its wrappings and Teela put a small network cable into its socket and connected the device with Callys collar remote control.

A few lights switched from red to green and Teela smiled. “The QED is online, we are connected... Cortana is accessing the data I have prepared in the last hours... if you want to add something, you should do so.”

“Any sign it’s being monitored?”

“None”.

She stopped to think. “Even if what we’re looking for isn’t on the main server, maybe there might be some evidence. Confirm that Roland was being controlled from here.”

Teela nodded. “Lets just get the current data out of here, after this we can connect it to the terminal and let Cortana a little bit fun with the local network. Maybe she can find more evidence than me, she is better in correlating data.”

“But not the terminal in this room,” Cally said. “If she fucks up, I don’t want it being traced back to here.”

Teela started to scratch herself behind the ears, concentrating hard. “There are some terminals on the floors.... and I think I have seen some maintenance hatches near a few of them.”

Cally nodded.

“We should find a place that is not directly watched by a camera with a hatch like this, there we will find a hidden network access I think” Teela’s grin bared her teeth.

Cally dropped onto the bed with a thump, leaning back onto the pillow. “I don’t know about you, but I feel like a beer. Maybe you could stop by the bar and pick me up a few bottles when Cortana’s got the message.”

“Sure... I think I even know the right box to carry them...” Teela answered, her grin deepening into a full bare-fanged smirk.

Those big white canines were glowing with mischief in the light.

We have started working again on the story...

[Dartz]

----

Half an hour later Teela left the apartment with a small box under her arm. Slowly she made her wa towards the bar where herself and Cally had met Quattro the day before. She took great care to keep out of the way of larger groups of people.

Cortana was still working on her analysis of the stations floor plans and had promised the results the next day, so they had cut the connection early.

“And make sure the beer is still cold” Cally had shouted when Teela left, her voice sounding more than a little bit stressed.

The first hatch she had identified on her way was just around the next corner and Teela was already looking forward to being done with dropping her little cargo. She found herself starting to speed up, only to stop dead in her tracks when she rounded the corner.

The terminal near the hatch was in use. One of the local Dark-Senshi, all dressed up like an extra in a Marilyn Manson video in cheap fishnets and dark makeup.

The Gliesbie using the terminal looked down at her as Teela passed and cooed. “Oh, that’s a cute cat... are you new here, I don’t remember seeing you earlier.”

Teela shook her head. “We are just here on a visit... I am sorry, I think I should go now.” She tried to hurry along.

The senshi sighed. “Poor things, always in a hurry, no time to have a nice chat. Just tell me, what is your name?”

Teela stopped and turned towards the woman. “My name is Teela... I came together with Cally, my owner.” She looked at the box in her hand. “And I should get her some cold beer from the bar she said.”

“Oh, she will wait for a few more minutes without being angry, I am sure... Teela, a nice name... tell me Teela, is Cally a nice owner?”

‘Dangerous question’ thought Teela, but running away now would be bad. “I think I had a lot of fun together with her, and she has always looked after me... I like her... yes, I would say she is nice” Teela said with a smile.

The woman nodded pleased. “That sounds good... goodbye Teela, maybe we will see each other again.”

Teela bolted.

“Oh, the bar is that way...” the woman called after her, pointing down a separate corridor. A little bit puzzled Teela hurried away, still unsure what the woman had wanted. ‘

She found another hatch quickly, this one unguarded. Teela quickly opened it in a hurry, fumbling with the catch, and crawled inside before closing the hatch behind her. As Cally and her had thought, there was enough space behind the hatch to access some network equipment, stored away in a small locker.

Teela removed the QED from the box and found a suitable cable running into the switch. She clamped a vampire tap around it, screwing it down tightly before wiring it up to the QED. Data began to flow into the box. She looked away from the QED to the vampires LEDs, which began to flicker along with a stream of pings and acks.

“Good luck Cortana, I will get you back tomorrow” Teela whispered and quickly left through the hatch again.

The rest of the way to the bar was easy... but getting the beer proved to be a little bit more difficult.

“We don’t sell to cats” the barkeeper said, glaring down at the catgirl “Do you have proof who sent you?”

Teela tried to smile friendly. “My owner Cally said I should get her six bottles of beer... and something to keep them cold on the way... you can call her in her room if you want, she gave me the money for paying.”

The barkeeper weighed the risk of possibly annoying a customer on the station and giving beer to a catgirl and finally concluded it was not his fault that this cat had money. Money was money no matter where it came from.

“Here is your beer... for five bucks you can get enough ice water to keep them cool.” He grinned avariciously at her.

Teela sighed, but paid up and quickly left. She smirked. It wasn’t her money anyway so why worry? She hurried back to Cally’s apartment, stabbing at the doorbell.

A bleary-eyed Cally answered, looking and smelling like she’d just been roused from an unintentional slumber.

“Phh... mission accomplished” Teela beamed. “I have your beer.”

The door closed behind her.

----

Jet had a problem.

“Top down, strange charmed....” she thought out loud.

And after that she ran into a mental wall. Try again.

“Top down strange charmed...”

She knew they came in pairs like that.

Tiegel was smirking at her. “There is no wifi out here. We are on radio silence,”

“Ah, I fucking know this!” she grunted, holding on finger on one hand up as if it’d serve as proof. Her frustration was obvious. It was palpable. It stained the air.

Tiegel read from the card again, “There are six kinds of quarks. Name all six,” His German accent almost seemed to mock. His eyes gleamed. He knew he had her. “And there ist no wi-fi out here.”

“Top, down, strange, charmed...” A pause. “Ah feck!”

Everyone at the table was staring at her. Engels and Senshi, joined together in Trivial Pursuits. anything to pass the time

“Give up?” Tiegel enquired smoothly. “You still have a minute,”

“No!” Jet snapped at him. “I know this,”

Mari started to laugh. “Yeah, and I’m Queen Serenity”

“Alright your Majesty,” Jet curtsied. “Top, down, strange charmed and...”

Mental block. The comm panel on the wall crackled to life. “Jet Jaguar, Jet... this is Cortana.”

Saved by the bell, thought the cyborg. She reached over and flicked a switch. “This is Jet,”

“Lucky,” Tiegel mumbled.

Jet shot him a dark glare while Lenneth whispered something in his ear.

“Jet. I have contact with the computer on Nehallenia using the second QED. I have a basic map from Cathy’s collar and a message for you,”

“I’ll take it down in the bay,” Jet responded.

The others at the table were staring at her. At times, she was as subtle as a brick to the face.

“Up down, strange charmed...” she began. She quirked her head a little. “Top bottom?”

Silence.

“Correct, but two seconds too late,” Tiegel answered. His accent gave it an almost bureaucratic finality. “And that puts you out of the game Jet, I’m afraid,” He rapped his fingers against the table. Hard ceramics meeting light chipboard made a hollow sound.

“Fine,” she exhaled a breath. The penalty for failure was ten solar credits, taken from a wallet in a pouch strapped to her hip. “Bloodsucker,”

Jet left them to their game. It was frustrating running under radio silence. Without wireless or interwave access, her apparent IQ dropped by about 20 points. She reminded herself that it was also possible to rely too much on her hardware, at the expense of her own skill. It was all about balance.

Max wouldn’t have been please.

Jet dropped down the ladder, hitting the deck with a heavy thunk. Luka woke up and looked at her for a moment, before dropping back behind his console. Jet silently apologised with a raised hand and a soft smile, before heading forward into the shuttlebay.

Cortana was still waiting in the Stargazer

“Hi Jet... you didn’t need to come down instantly” The AI’s avatar greeted, smiling. Truthfully, she was glad for the company. Playing Desmond at TF2 was getting boring.

“Got news?” Jet question, leaning in to the car through an open window.

“Ja,” the Avatar nodded. “Our two agents managed to connect me to the local network... I am currently browsing through the directories and attached services.” Cortana explained. “They have a lot of digital security attached to the network, but not enough to prevent a direct intrusion. Their system is set up more to prevent outside access and fly-by attacks. They did not expect an AI to be attacking from inside network.”

There was an air of self-satisfied smugness to her voice.

“But I think Cathy was right,” The avatar continued “Some parts of the station are not connected to this network.”

“And that’s exactly where what we’re looking for is.” Jet added. It was a fair assumption.

“The system was not designed by a moron,” Cortana told her. “It appears they decided that the added complexity and inconvenience of securing against an AI intrusion from within the Station’s intranet just wasn’t worth it. What I have is sensitive enough...”

“So what can you get access to?” the cyborg asked. interrupting.

“Everything almost,” Cortana said. “I was able to achieve root access to the main server using a flaw in thow their internal mail application handles message attachments. I can get anyones documents. Station schematics. A great amount of administrative files. I have some references to what we might be looking for, but nothing concrete.”

“Such as?” Jet questioned. She stared at Cortana’s display.

“i have verified that Sato was in contact with Roland. She sent the emails to him personally. ”

Jet smirked. That strengthened the link. That was good evidence

“And,” Cortana continued, sounding like she was boasting. “This particular email from Naoko Sato’s account referring to the VSW project. It gives it’s real name as Virtual Slaver Wasp.”

Jet drew back.

“You’ve heard of it?” Cortana enquired.

Jet rested her chin on her metal hands. She was staring at something that seemed to be on the other side of the bulkhead wall. She was running a quick text search and some files she hadn’t bothered deleting.

“Slaver Wasp rings a bell,” In a mail someone had sent her about a Girl Genius collection they had for sale. Jet felt her blood chill just a little bit at what that implied. “Can you search for any references to Agatha Clay in the data?”

Jet tried to sound casual and unbothered.

“There is a message from Ford along with the first batch of data. She is mentioned there.”

Jet unplugged a memory stick for her ear. “Can you give me a copy of it? The map, and any relevant mails or docs,”

She purposely waited for Cortana’s permission before plugging it into her dataport. It was generally considered the polite thing to do, rather than just sticking it in.

“Go ahead,” said the AI. “I have scanned the email archives I have for the names mentioned in Fords message, and documents I can perform a plaintext search on. I will include those too.”

Jet plugged the drive in. “There should be about a Gig or two free on that,”

Cortana grinned. “And I have uploaded you a copy of the relevant pages of the webcomic the slaver wasp is coming from.” she said and finished the file transfer. “The whole comic is a little bit too much, but I think you will get the reference.”

“I do.” Jet said.

“Ah okay, sorry... thought you did not know. What I think is fascinating about the name is that the slaver wasps in the comic were much more than a memory wiping attack.” Cortana said thoughtfully. “Do you think the attack on your friends was just a test for something more ?”

“Definitely,” Jet responded. “It’s what that something might be that bothers me,” Jet pondered for a few moments, waiting for the transfer to be finished. “Can you access their defence systems?”

“No,” Cortana answered. “They are on a separate system. I cannot get access. Like I said, their network was not designed by a moron.”

“Damn,” Jet breathed.

“What where you thinking?”

“Can you install a backdoor on the system?” the cyborg enquired. “We might not be able to take out their defense grids with it, but it’ll still irritate the shit out of them if we can bring down their comms remotely.“

“I can try... its still difficult, but at least we will not care about alarms from cyberspace at this point.” Cortana admitted. “This might make it possible. Maybe I can connect it to the alarm level in the asteroid. When they raise alert, it can bring down their computers and communication.”

“Any little edge.” said Jet.

“I will try what I can... I will try to backup most systems, they might be damaged when the worm will go online.” Cortana turned her attention back towards the data. “I will work on the data I am acquiring from their computer system... I think in a few hours I might tell you more about the station. I will call you again.”

“Right so. Be about it,”

Jet left the AI happily munching away on the data, making her way through the ship. She was looking for somewhere she could go through what she had with a little privacy. Jet was sorely tempted to switch over into raw mode, but this was just too trivial to be worth risking damage to her psyche.

The thought served to remind her of the Lehrling back at Grunthal. How well where they doing with Gant training them. How was Jana doing?

She climbed up to the top of the ship, hoping to find the bridge to be empty. The Captains cabin was off-limits. Jet wasn’t the Captain. the gun-room was too small, so that left the bridge. She dismissed the Sammie Knight on watch, agreeing to take over the rest of his watch for him.

Bridge watch on an asteroid was little more than having someone awake who could notice there was an alarm going off warning of an impending Boskonian attack.

She found herself a comfortable position in the Pilot’s chair, and srt about reading, beginning with Ford’s message.

“Didn’t think we’d have this chance. Day 2. Vidkun appears to trust me. She offered me a permanent job and all. Began repairs on the truck, but it’s a mess. Do me a favour, kick the Nova’s gunner for me. If I’m lucky I’ll have it flying day after tomorrow. You have access to main station network now through the black box. What we’re looking for isn’t on it, but on a separate system. We’ll try and find it tomorrow. Teela thinks she knows where it is.

Our Bob Rife’s name is Quattro. She’s the only madgirl on the station right now and she’s a hell of a bitch. She’s about medium height, a build that really suggests she was modded. Golden brown hair, bunched into a pair of pigtails. Golden eyes behind a pair of spectacles. When we saw her, she wore a blue body suit with ‘IV’ engraved on a nameplate, and some sort of heavy white overcoat.

She’s also a hell of a cutesy bitch. She tried to buy Teela off me.

Discovered from Vidkun that Agatha Clay was here recently. She left some time ago and I don’t think it was a pleasant parting. I get the feeling that she saw what the other two were planning and decided to get the hell out of dodge before it all blew up. Quattro may have been her apprentice or understudy. That’s just a hunch.

She’s obviously based herself off some source fandom, but beyond the Audi 4-wheel drive system I’ve no idea who or what Quattro is trying to be.

Most Dark Senshi here are just a bunch of Gliesbies. They’re idiots playing with fire, trying to be edgy or some dipshit thing like that by running drugs. We have a few real Zwilniks in among them, coming in on freight runs, but most are just morons.

With a bit of luck. I’ll see you in two days. It depends on how truck repairs go.”

Agatha Clay.

Virtual Slaver wasp.

“Chikusho,” Jet grunted under her breath.

She reached over to the comm panel, flicking a switch.

“Cortana, this is Jet,”

“Yes?” the AI responded with inhuman speed “Back so soon?”

“Yeah. I need you to look for a few things. Get any data you can on Agatha Clay from their servers and collate it. Anything that might hint where she was gone, why she left, or how much she was involved in this project. Second,” she let her mind catch up. “Can you run an interwave search for characters named Quattro, or for shows where characters take their names from Italian numbers. If you have Ford’s message, compare any matches to the given description.”

“Is there anything else?”

Jet was about to say no, but a thought occurred to her. “Forward the data to Butterscotch. Include Quattro’s description, somebody in the task force might recognise it or what fandom she’s in. Uh...Classify it Gamma 2 and above.”

“Done,”

“Thanks.”

Jet closed the line, and stared out the windows at the rock walls of the crater. These jobs never did get simpler as they went along, did they?

----

I had to watch StrikerS for this story, so it stands to reason neither Jet or Ford would recognise the name Quattro. Jet's more of a fan of shows like Gunbuster or Diebuster (Hmmm... Zig-drone Buster Corps) Someone on the task force probably will.

“Chikusho,”.... Just think of all the times Priss says that in Bubblegum Crisis, and that's Jet's voice right there.

There's space there if anyone wants to jump in and inform Jet just who Quattro is.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

The doors and walls of the office of the President of Stellvia Corporation were soundproofed, so that none of Stellvia's day-to-day operations chatter would disturb anyone working in the office and so no corporate secrets would get out of the office before their time.

And the President of Stellvia Corporation was not known to use profanity, either on a regular basis or under most types of stress.

Which is why everyone in Main Operations was doubly shocked to hear, through the closed doors, Noah Scott yell "Holy FUCK!"

The Gamma 2 bulletin that Kohran Li had flagged "Priority: SuperNova" and forwarded to Noah sat on the middle of the desk as he used his Great Justice OF-8 clearance to cut through the red tape and contact Task Force Butterscotch.

Knowing that he was only human (and thus not able to send burst transmissions), they patched him through to the field team immediately to reduce data transfer lag.

"Jet Jaguar here."

"This is Elite Troubleshooter Noah Scott. You requested information about an entity known as 'Quattro'."

"That's right."

"From what little information you were able to provide, my best guess is that she is a Scott-series android built by Agatha Clay, based upon the most sociopathic character in the anime 'Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS'."

"The team on site indicates she's a 'cutesy bitch', Mr. Scott."

"Yes, she's very good at faking that persona. It gets people to underestimate her. The canonical Quattro appeared to everyone, even her sisters, to be something of a ditz, but she was more than capable of keeping a criminal conspiracy organized while still toying with the lives of almost everyone around her."

Jet winced. "Are you sure of this, Mr. Scott?"

"As sure as I can be without actually coming on site, Mr. Jaguar. And if I was to do that, your operation would be blown. However, your report also said that she's the station's resident madgirl. The canonical Quattro was more of an administrator and power behind the scenes than a researcher, so this Quattro likely doesn't match the canon character exactly. That's why I think it was Clay who built her - Agatha tends to deviate from canon whenever she can."

"So you don't actually know who or what Quattro is, then."

Noah thought for a second. "Maybe not, but I'm willing to bet a share of StellviaCorp stock on this."

"You're *that* sure?" Everyone knew that owning even one share of Stellvia Corporation stock was enough to let you retire to Pallas.

"I'm sure that Quattro was based on the character. I'm also sure that you won't be able to predict her actions with complete accuracy by comparing her to the canon character, but I'm having Kagome work up a personality profile of Quattro even as we speak. Expect to receive it within the hour. Do you need any additional troops?"

"Surely it can't be that bad."

"That depends on who else is there and what strings Quattro has been pulling behind the scenes. And don't call ..."

"... me 'Shirley'." they finished in unison. Jet continued. "If you're making jokes, then the situation can't be that dire, Mr. Scott."

"I'm making jokes because the situation is that dire, Mr. Jaguar. I don't want to start swearing at you over the radio. If it's at all possible, could you send me a copy of whatever data you manage to retrieve about Agatha Clay when you storm the base?"

"Why?"

"As you can probably figure out from the fact that she can build my sort of androids, I have a certain responsibility for her. I'd like to bring her to justice eventually."

--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

Thanks... this is also probably the first time Noah and Jet have ever spoken to each other. It works good like this... especially if I work it in after the next scene, it'll ratchet up the tension nicely.

Running and gunning a little...

"Right," Jet responded. Something was clearly bothering her. "We plan to try take the computers intact anyway, I'll send a courier with a copy of what's on there."

"Thank you,"

"Thirty seconds Jet," a very British voice offscreen advised. Thirty seconds until the Destiny Nova was within line-of-sight of Nehallenia.

Jet looked away for a moment at the source of the warning. "I'll have to cut this short. Just so you know, based on what you've told me, it's clear Quattro is too dangerous to be allowed off Nehallenia. If we can't capture her, I plan to kill her," she said.

"I was about to suggest the same thing, Mr Jaguar."

How's that to finish it off?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[robkelk]

Looks good.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[HRogge]

This time three chapters... (including the integrated one from Robkelk from Noah)

‘Airducts... I hate air ducts’ Teela thought while crawling through a small pipe connecting two parts of the asteroid station.

Most Fen space stations had air ducts... or maintenance tunnels... or Jefferies tubes. Everyone had them in some areas of their station. Most times, they’d forget they were there.

Ducts were not that large in most stations, normally it’d be considered impossible for the average human to fit through them...not without making noise like Thor having a fit with a steel drum anyway.

Teela was not an average human being. If there was one thing thick tabby fur was good for, it was for deadening sound.

Teela still recalled her Senshi training.... Twenty meters of tight curving pipes, just to learn that she couldn’t open the other side, it was much too tight to turn around, and she had to crawl back out through the entire thing without making a sound.

On her trip through the ‘forbidden’ part of the station Teela had found a choke point with two guards, and no way to get around it... at least no way through a corridor. And so she was scouting a number of smaller air ducts, designed for modified maintenance Roombas, not normal people.

Catgirls could squeeze themselves into places normal people could only bream of.

‘After this turn I should be in the corridor behind the chokepoint’ Teela reminded herself while relaxing for a moment. Crawling through a maintenance shaft was not easy, drawing the wrapped QED behind her did not made it easier.

Looking around the corner she could see the light of another one of the stations corridors. And another closed hatch where her current shaft should continue, but this hatch had something most others had not... an electronic lock.

‘Ohh... just won a jackpot!’ Teela carefully opened her collar and took the waved microtool out. Getting high end toys from OGJ’s toolbox was always fine. Quickly she drilled a tiny hole into the casing and put the tools fiberoptics through it.

‘Two sabotage contacts, fibre connection to the other side... wow, there is a whole waved phone inside.’ Teela carefully began to connect wires to the phone inside after widening her hole in the casing. After a few minutes she had really short Ethernet cable connected to it. She moved a little bit back and closed her eyes, waiting for Cortana to connect to the system and work her way into the lock.

After a while she was rewarded with the sound of an opening hatch. She opened her eyes again, only to see the LEDs on the QEDs casing die again.

“Damn quirk” she mouthed and quickly unplugged the box. The continuing shaft was dark as usual. It opened out a little more the further in she got . Perversely, that only made it harder for her to keep quiet. Chilled air blew through the ducts, sprakling frost lining the walls. Teela could see her breath turn to ice in the air. Another good thing about fur; it kept the cold out.

Her nose started to tingle.

About six meters ahead, there was another grate with a lock on it. This one, the light was flickering green. She slid along on her fur towards it.

‘Lets see why you need all this cool air’.

The first hatch closed behind her, but the lock didn’t latch closed. The second hatch obediently came open for Teela and let her look into a large pitch black room.

It took Teela a while to adapt to the tiny amounts of light generated by a few technical devices.

On the left she could see the glassy outlines of some human sized tubes. Directly in front of her on the other side was the only light source of the room, a rack of servers and their merrily blinking lights. Other shapes loomed out of the darkness, the outlines of cabinets, tools, machinery. A desktop computer sat on top of what looked to be a sleeping dinosaur, trailing a thick conduit tail.

She spotter a single red laser spot on the far wall, the beam highlighted by the few stray dust particles in the air flickering red as they crossed it. she traced the beam back to a shaded football standing atop a tripod.

‘A turret. And I am thinking in hatchways.’ Teela whispered with a grin and entered the lab. ‘I am sure there is a portal gun in her somewhere,”

She grabbed the QED and edged over towards the rack, her furred feet damping the sounds of her footsteps. She slipped around behind the turret.

It began to sing.

“Ca~ra bella, cara mia bella,”

Cathy stiffled a yelp, clasping her hands over her mouth

“Mia bambina, o ciel”

It kept singing as she kept moving over to the computer rack, moving carefully to make sure she didn’t tip anything over.

‘You have to be our goal, no chance they keep this amount of equipment around except for their madgirl’ she thought and began to examine the rack. It was loaded with waved computer hardware, all hooked up to a watercooling system which seemed to route back into the ventilation. It smelled of hot electronics and hummed with power.

Teela methodically began to open maintenance flaps at the back and finally found what she had been looking for, a large empty space which had originally been designed for a second uninterruptible power supply unit. Large enough for putting the QED in.

“Nobody will find you here my little toy” she said after she had put the communication device in, splicing it directly into the hardware with a few specialised jumper cables. Satisfied that the job was done, she closed the flap again. “At least not until this whole mess is over and you are sitting in a base on Mars.”

She gave the guard droid at the door a final look, then slipped back to the hatch she’d entered through. Behind her she could already hear the harddisks of the rack server spinning up. The turret was still singing.

Getting back out was a little easier. She knew where she was going, and wasn’t carrying the box.

More than once Teela had to stop, waiting until someone she’d heard outside the duct had moved on. Just sit still and wait, breathing shallow through her nose. Finally, she made it back to the hatch she’d gotten in through.

She was glad to be free.

‘Now back to Cally’ she thought, taking a few moments to orientate herself. She knew the way back to Cally’s apartment, it wasn’t hard to find her way out. She set off, confident she hadn’t been spotted, and glad that the job was done.

The hard part was over.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite catgirl” A sweet voice sneered behind her. “Going out for a walk?”

Teela spun on her tip-toes, every single hair on her body standing on end “I just got a little lost” she replied quickly.

Quattro’s expression darkened into a fiendish sneer. Keen gold eyes regarded her like a fox would regard a rabbit. Her teeth were bared in a hungry smirk.

“Well, finder’s keepers then,” she giggled.

With inhuman speed, she snapped something from her pocket. Teela had barely started to move before she felt something bite into her skin. She had just enough time to notice the two barbs before she felt the shock burning through her body.

Teela yelp, dropping to the floor, spasming and convulsing as the current took hold. She gasped for air, scratching and pawing at the floor despite herself.

A few moments later, she blacked out.

Quattro regarded her for a moment, and started to laugh. Catgirls. Just another puny catgirl. Completely incapable of defending itself. A pathetic little creature.

“It was the rabbits fault it got caught by the fox.“, she remarked, picking the body up, slinging it effortlessly over her shoulder. And it was the foxes right to do what she wills with the rabbit.

The doors and walls of the office of the President of Stellvia Corporation were soundproofed, so that none of Stellvia's day-to-day operations chatter would disturb anyone working in the office and so no corporate secrets would get out of the office before their time.

And the President of Stellvia Corporation was not known to use profanity, either on a regular basis or under most types of stress.

Which is why everyone in Main Operations was doubly shocked to hear, through the closed doors, Noah Scott yell "Holy FUCK!"

The Gamma 2 bulletin that Kohran Li had flagged "Priority: SuperNova" and forwarded to Noah sat on the middle of the desk as he used his Great Justice OF-8 clearance to cut through the red tape and contact Task Force Butterscotch.

Knowing that he was only human (and thus not able to send burst transmissions), they patched him through to the field team immediately to reduce data transfer lag.

"Jet Jaguar here."

"This is Elite Troubleshooter Noah Scott. You requested information about an entity known as 'Quattro'."

"That's right."

"From what little information you were able to provide, my best guess is that she is a Scott-series android built by Agatha Clay, based upon the most sociopathic character in the anime 'Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS'."

"The team on site indicates she's a 'cutesy bitch', Mr. Scott."

"Yes, she's very good at faking that persona. It gets people to underestimate her. The canonical Quattro appeared to everyone, even her sisters, to be something of a ditz, but she was more than capable of keeping a criminal conspiracy organized while still toying with the lives of almost everyone around her."

Jet winced visibly. "Are you sure of this, Mr. Scott?"

"As sure as I can be without actually coming on site, Mr. Jaguar. And if I was to do that, your operation would be blown. However, your report also said that she's the station's resident madgirl. The canonical Quattro was more of an administrator and power behind the scenes than a researcher, so this Quattro likely doesn't match the canon character exactly. That's why I think it was Clay who built her - Agatha tends to deviate from canon whenever she can."

"So you don't actually know who or what Quattro is, then."

Noah thought for a second. "Maybe not, but I'm willing to bet a share of StellviaCorp stock on this."

"You're that sure?" Everyone knew that owning even one share of Stellvia Corporation stock was enough to let you retire to Pallas.

"I'm sure that Quattro was based on the character. I'm also sure that you won't be able to predict her actions with complete accuracy by comparing her to the canon character, but I'm having Kagome work up a personality profile of Quattro even as we speak. Expect to receive it within the hour. Do you need any additional troops?"

"Surely it can't be that bad."

"That depends on who else is there and what strings Quattro has been pulling behind the scenes. And don't call ..."

"... me 'Shirley'." they finished in unison. Jet continued. "If you're making jokes, then the situation can't be that dire, Mr. Scott."

"I'm making jokes because the situation is that dire, Mr. Jaguar. I don't want to start swearing at you over the radio. If it's at all possible, could you send me a copy of whatever data you manage to retrieve about Agatha Clay when you storm the base?"

"Why?"

"As you can probably figure out from the fact that she can build my sort of androids, I have a certain responsibility for her. I'd like to bring her to justice eventually."

"Right," Jet responded. Something was clearly bothering her. "We plan to try take the computers intact anyway, I'll send a courier with a copy of what's on there."

"Thank you,"

"Thirty seconds Jet," a very British voice offscreen advised. Thirty seconds until the Destiny Nova was within line-of-sight of Nehallenia. Thirty seconds before their transmissions risked being detected.

Jet looked away for a moment at the source of the warning. "I'll have to cut this short. Just so you know, based on what you've told me, it's clear Quattro is too dangerous to be allowed off Nehallenia. If we can't capture her, I plan to kill her," she said.

"I was about to suggest the same thing, Mr Jaguar."

The screen flickered and went blank, the transmission cut off automatically at the other end. Noah sighed and relaxed back into his chair, pondering for a few moments. He glanced at Jet Jaguar’s profile, scanning through character notes. A little different from the usual he noted, but by all accounts someone who could be counted upon to do the job.

It was mildly reassuring to see that Jet tended prefer taking prisoners where possible.

Maybe, if she was taken alive, she could be helped?

The more ruthless part of his mind noted that if she was taken alive, she might know where her mother had gotten to.

He sighed. He knew he’d feel a hell of a lot more comfortable having someone he actually knew personally handling something this sensitive. Infact, he knew exactly who he would’ve preferred to have handling this.

Noah made sure that the details of the mission where shared with those who needed to know about them, but decided against asking anyone to take charge. It was too late for that, much too late.

He decided to hope Jet would live up to his reputation.

Aboard the Nova Jet drew a long breath, staring at the blank screen. She was tapping her finger rapidly on the console. Tat-tat-tat-tat... sharp and metallic. Ceramic fingers met metal console.

“You’re worried about Ford, aren’t you?” Desmond asked her.

Jet glanced over at the speaker from where the voice had come, then at the fisheye lense observing her, then out the forward windows at the rock walls.

“I sent her in there to that mad thing,” she said, her voice soft. “And I can’t even warn her.”

If a speaker could’ve smiled reassuringly at her, it would have. “I’m sure she knew the risks,” he said. Ever the proper British stiff-upper lip spy. Who the hell on Hephaestus had been responsible for him?

Jet didn’t say a word. She glared at the screen, visibly tensing up.

“Jet, Jet, this is Cortana,” the speaker came to life once more.

“Jet,” she answered with a bark, “What is it?”

“I have a connection to a new computer system. It looks like it is what we are looking for.”

“Good. Forward it on through EMCON as it comes in. I want the details back before we go in.”

“I will. It could take some time, it’s a huge amount of data.”

“Just get it done.” Jet snapped at her.

She just had to trust the Ford knew what she was doing. The plan was good, Everything so far was good. it was just a matter now of having the nerve to stick to it and see it through to the end. Ford could really look after herself.

[Dartz]

We modified this a little bit, mostly to reflect that Noah does not know Jet, beyond what's on screen on Jet's profile. He may have seen Jet at Alphacon doing a hell of a rendition of Konya Wa Hurricane, or recognise the name from old reports but that's about it. I'm assuming that it's the first time they've ever spoken to each other.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?