[story] Saber Chase

[Dartz]

It's up to BA.

Can definitely work with it. Jet puts out a message to all Troubleshooters that Maico is aware of the Sabers being based off of Frigga, but doesn't give details. Ben overreacts when made aware of it.

There're two ways to spin the story after all. It depends on what each of them known.

Ben would be aware of the Sabers, and why they have to work in secret. It wouldn't be hard to come to a different conclusion. Maico may be about to endanger the lives of people by breaking the story, all for the sake of making her name and herself a quick credit. After all, she has given off signs of being obsessed for a while, and made no secret that Saber stories have been a good money spinner for her.

Maico is a good person... but even good people make mistakes, or get caught up in the rush.

The plan I had was that, after being told everything, meeting the individual Sabers, and hearing why things were being done the way they were, Maico decided that she would keep the secret.

Anyway. Fic writing has sort of taken a Back seat to Forza Motorsport 4 atm. Just bought the thing and am sort of infatuated....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Black Aeronaut]

Hmmm... How would Noah react to this?

"Look. I protect my own. I make no bones about it and you all know this. Now, we got this little reporter that comes along and wants to make Fenspace a more utopian place, right? Fine by me. Jet says that she can have all the exclusive material? Fine by me. But the very instant she starts to slander Jet then I will not permit her any more assistance than the Convention demands that I give her. Don't get me wrong. If she's in some kind of life-threatening trouble and needs help then she'll get it. We're not inhumane. But if she comes to us asking for anything else then she'll have to turn back because she's not welcome at 36 Atalante."

[M Fnord]

I dunno what Noah's response would be, but Mal's response would be something along the lines of:

"Telling the truth doesn't equal slander. Your argument is invalid, and you're still a goddamned bully."
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Foxboy]

VF: *looks up from making things and educating fenkinder* "This is why I stay out of politics."
''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]

Hmmm... How would Noah react to this?

"Look. I protect my own. I make no bones about it and you all know this. Now, we got this little reporter that comes along and wants to make Fenspace a more utopian place, right? Fine by me. Jet says that she can have all the exclusive material? Fine by me. But the very instant she starts to slander Jet then I will not permit her any more assistance than the Convention demands that I give her. Don't get me wrong. If she's in some kind of life-threatening trouble and needs help then she'll get it. We're not inhumane. But if she comes to us asking for anything else then she'll have to turn back because she's not welcome at 36 Atalante."

"Your home, your call, and I'll relay the message for her to stay away from you if you want. Ben, I understand protecting your own - I've been doing that for the Stellvians since before you got the Midnight - but exactly what are you protecting them from here? A woman whose main interest is in telling the truth? Embarrassment if that woman finds out something they don't want her to know? The consequences of their own mistakes? We don't shelter our people here, and don't mention the Kaboomite Incident because you don't know what went on behind the scenes then. Now, you said this yourself - Jet's okay with Maico getting her exclusives. But that means squat if Maico can't get to the Sabers because of you. Do you really want to make Jet a liar?"
--
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]

Meanwhile, more of the original story....

Maico pushed her way through he Republicon crowds. Corsucant city was heaving under it’s dome with the energy of Convention Time. If you wanted to catch up to a particular BNF, now was the time. If you want to find out what which direction the tech curve had bent to this year, check out the exhibition halls where sparks and mads were vying to find someone sane enough to mass-produce their latest creations.

A marked course recreating the original Death Star attack run allowed the latest in hardware to be put through its paces. It was becoming the big attraction.

If you were boring, the terraforming projects were giving dry dissertations on water reclamation. If you wanted a little excitement, the Martial Arts panel promised demonstrations, up to shattering the block of a running engine. There was a firearms show for those who preferred to put their faith in a good blaster rather than hokey old philosophies. The Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy was giving complementary lessons.

“My feet hurt,” Maico told no-one. “But of course, everyone else gets to enjoy the con except me,”

Such was the fate of the journalist.

“Alright, what’s left on my schedule?”

Her headset brought up her notes for the day on a flip down screen in front of her eye. She had to catch up with a representative of the Soviet Airforce. After that, Steganovich Steelwear who wanted to show off their latest Evangelion-styled hardsuits.

“And I have to ask them about the ‘other matter’., she reminded herself. “Then there’s the official announcement about Ultima Station.” She had the scoop on that already.

The Roughriders had their time on stage. Then the Forge. Then Greenwood. Then the Senshi were taking a long time over their elections. Then Haephestus, then John Henry demonstrating a new revolutionary manufacturing process. The Soviets had something planned.

After that, came the legal wrangling and the final convention wide voting.

“Then maybe I have some time to myself before the closing ceremonies,”

She sighed.

Her headset chose that moment to start trilling in her ear. She stiffened with the shock... it was always a minor fright.

“Maico,” she answer.

“Hey, Maico, it’s me, Ryan. When’re you free to meet?”

She swallowed a lump. Have to give the Soviet announcement a miss. “Give me ten minutes,”

“My place?”

“Your place,” she confirmed.

“Bring cookies.”

“But of course...”

Maico bought her cookies at the Stellvian exhibition. Even after a decade they were still among the best. After a quick chat that turned into a longer conversation, she made her way out into Coruscant proper. Which was being rebuilt again.

“Don’t these people know what the enemy of Good Enough is Let’s Make it Better?”

A squad of Stormtroopers didn’t even look at her. The Tower she was looking for was named for Noa Briqualon, a minor character nobody’d ever heard of. Inside, the lighting fixtures were flourescent white lightsabers hung on the walls.

Any any other day she might’ve found them curious.. Now, she was in a hurry. She felt she’d become an old woman by the time the lift reached the right floor, listing to that same Music from Episode IV.

She had no idea what it was called, just that it got annoying when looped.

The hallways were empty. Almost everyone was at the con. She counted the doors, while reading the map on her headset. 221 Bravo. There it was.

She pressed the door chime.

“Who is it?” a speaker mounted to the wall demanded.

“It’s me, Maico,” she answer.

“You said you’d be here a half hour ago,”

“I got caught up with some old friends,” she explained. “And I brought cookies,”

“Cookies?” the speaker questioned. A moment later, the door unlatched with a click from inside.

Maico pushed it open. Hmmm.... Bacon?

“I’m in the back,” Ryan called out. “And you want to see this,”

Maico made her way through a small apartment crammed with model battle-tanks, real and fictional. A wall of Honor Harrington books, a little Jack Ryan and a little Edward Cullen.

Everyone has their quirks.

Ryan Harrison himself was waiting at his workstation, bathed in a blue-hued glow from a jealously guarded CRT monitor. Snapshots of the Sabers and their hardware were pinned to the wall in front of him. Maico recognised her own photograph of their Lancer, blown up, enhanced as much as possible.

“You’ve got my cookies?”

Maico held out the bag. “But of course..... You got my information?”

Silence, for a moment. Then the pair shared a chuckle as Maico placed the bag on the desk beside the monitor. Ryan snatched it, putting it as far from her reach as he could managed.

“Well I can tell you one thing straight off the bat. Saber white is definitely not A.C. Peters.”

Maico seemed to shrink a little. “I know. She told me,”

“Well now we have proof,”

He started the video playing. It was rough, overcompressed and tending to jitter from time to time as the signal was interrupted. An armoured trooper wearing an old battlesuit.... years out of date but still deadly in the right hands. It stood almost dead centre in frame, readying it’s autocannon

“Watch this. This is what confirms it,”

“From that video?”

“Yup,” A white figure flashed through. She seemed to flow around the battlesuit, dodging around it’s cannon. Sparks and shrapnel flew from somewhere near the head. Smoke burst from the back as the suit began to collapse. “For one thing, Saber White just doesn’t have the same ‘talent’ “ he smirked.

Maico snorted, glared then snatched a cookie.

“Hey! It’s a fair point. Her bodyshape is complete different. There’s no way A.C. would fit in there.”

“Fine...” she sighed.

“Also it’s a completely different fighting style,” Ryan said. “And I even checked that against that Gauntlet run.” his expression flattened. “...which I had to pay for by the way. Compare highlights of that with how Saber White moves and it’s obvious they’re entirely different.”

Maico nodded, “I’ll take your word for that,”

“Also, I can tell you what fighting style Saber White uses...”

“Oh?”

He munched a cookie, tacking long moments to savour while covering the bag. Maico rolled her eyes. “Keep me in suspence why don’t you?

He smirked playfully and swallowed.

“Alright! Saber White uses Panzer Kunst. There’s no doubt about it. More to the point, Saber White exclusively uses Panzer Kunst with nothing else mixed in.”

He brough up another video with a sweep of his fingers. Another battlesuit getting introduced to some form of open-handed blow that shattered the armour. The back of the suit seemed to bow out, as it was hit by a shockwave from within, hinting at the fate of the pilot within. The outer covers flew off.

“That was the Herza Haon. You ever see one of their demonstrations at a convention, where they destroy an engine with a single blow and it just seems to fly apart like they’d packed it with explosives? That’s what she’s using.”

“So this is someone trained by the Gruppe then.” Maico spoke her thoughts out loud.

“Almost certainly. Even though I’ve never seen a powered armour using a move like that. But yeah, they’re all gruppe-trained.... or trained by someone in the gruppe at any rate. Check out Saber Green...”

Another image. She seemed to dance, trailing monofilament from her wrists, “A stardancer’s ribbons?”

“That’s what I thought. She’s got her own thing going. It’s based on Panzer Kunst, but she’s added her own tricks to it. She’s aerial, she seems to prefer close in fighting, and she’s the most elegant.”

Something onscreen burst into a fireball. Maico started.

“Saber Blue’s a bit more brutal. She can handle herself close in, but she trusts to her firepower more than than the others. She’s got a different weapon mount than on the Genaros video, so maybe they’re modular,”

“But of course...” said Maico.

The next shot. Saber Pink. She hunkered down beside some sort of comm’s panel.

“I’m guessing she’s a bot. Maybe they might be all bots but she’s the most likely. Anyway, she runs three cables from her suit to the panel. And watch this here...”A blue haze seemed to form a bubble around her for a moment, before fading out of view. “She’s got some kind of forcefield. It lets her get to work while being shot at. ”

To emphasise the point, a burst of gunfire sparked against the shield.

Her motorslave returned fire with a blast that killed the camera. The feed flickered and went blue

Maico thought for a moment

“If I remember right, the Panzer Kunst do train people to use power armour. Maybe they might know who this is,”

“It’s as good a chance as any,” Ryan shrugged.

Maico felt a smirk forming on her lips. “It’s a lead. That’s what’s important.”

“But of course,” Ryan smirked back at her.

Maico glared. She made a snap grab for the cookie bag. Ryan hugged it like a bear, grinning. Maico pursed her lips into a cute little pout. She went full arms akimbo on him. trying to glare him down into his chair.

Daring the other to make the first strike, they stared into each others eyes....

And burst out laughing simultaneously.

“Thanks for the information, Ryan,” said Maico after collecting herself together.

“No problemo. You bring good cookies and good rep, I bring good info’.”

Maico left the apartment feeling renewed. Panzer Kunst Gruppe, Benjamin Rhodes, make a note of that. She had meetings to arrange. Leads to follow.

“I’m back on the trail!” she announced to no-one not listening. She paused at the lift door, waiting a moment before calling the car. “I think I am getting obsessed,”

She exhaled a long, satisfied sigh, then pushed the button to call the lift. Her headset trilled in her ear. Caller I.D. Mike Peck. Researcher for Fen News Network...

“Maico,” she answered.

“Maico, Mike. You got the Soviet announcement, quiaff?”

Her stomach shrank. “What announcement,” she asked cautiously.

She swore she heard a pin drop at the other end of the line. “The one ten minutes ago, where they announced that the newest member of the Federation was the Sozvezide Soviet.”

Maico’s brain entered spinlock

“Bwa....”

“The Soviets just joined the Federation. It’s the biggest story this year...”

Bigger than the Sabers.

“No....” she said in a small voice.

“Well. Better luck next time,”

“Wait!” she yelped.

Too late. The line clicked to silence. Call ended

Maico slumped against the door, listening the distant reverberation of the working machinery beyond.

“I missed the big one,” she mumbled. “I missed the big one....”

When the doors finally opened, she was on the verge of throwing up. She was on the verge of crying. Sure she could mop up and catch the aftermath, the commentary, the reactions of a few BNF’s.... but the actual announcement itself was the money shot.

And she missed it because of her own pet project...

“I’m such an idiot,”

Her headset trilled again. Another caller. Another familiar name. Another demand for footage of the historic announcement.

And another after that.

Maico disconnected her headset with tears in her eyes.

-----

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

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh boy, I can just hear Ben now... "Gyahhh... MAL, you tard! I said IF she slanders Jet! If she's telling the truth that's one thing but the other way around would be equally bad."

Anyhow... really, let me take one more stab at this...

"You know, Miss Tange, I was a bit upset when Jet told me that she was letting you in on this. I ranted. I raved. Gina'll tell you, I assure you. I wanted to come in here, proverbial guns blazing, just to make sure that Jet got a fair rap. But fortunately for us all Gina got me to take a good hard look at your track record. And you seem to be the honest type. That's why I'm providing this data to corroborate Jet's story - because you're honest. In fact, you're honest enough that I've decided I could use you myself."

"... What?"

"Would it be too much on your plate to cover happenings at 36 Atalante? Mal's been bitching about the recent buildups we've been doing and it might help a bit if I had an impartial Third Party on hand to tell it how it is. You'll have access to myself, Gina, Jess, pretty much everyone from top to bottom. Even my daughter if she feels comfortable speaking with you."

"No way. I'm not gonna be some tool in your political battlefield."

"You will also have access to my classified documents."

".... WHAT?"

"Maico, I can be a patient man, but I got some serious hot buttons. Gina and Jess do a good job of keeping me grounded when those buttons get pushed, but I got a problem. I'm rubbing off on my faithful assistants and it's only a matter of time before they go with one of my somewhat more unwise choices simply because they see things my way and no one else's. I need someone that would be opposed to something like that enough to confront me when I'm in the wrong, and if worse comes to worse, put me in my place."

"Are you crazy!?"

"Gina assures me of that every day. Maico, I know I will get better with age, but for now I'm a man in his prime that is descended from a long line of prideful hot-heads that are more wily than a coyote and have steady gun-hands for when their wits fail them. I don't know how you feel about it, but that's a dangerous combination. Keep an eye on me. That's all I'm asking. The exclusive reports you get will be your payment."

[robkelk]

Much the same deal that Maico has with Noah, except that instead of it developing over years, it's all at once and includes a security clearance. (Noah doesn't share anything with Maico that he wouldn't mind seeing all over the Interwave the next day.)
--
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]

And more story.... could do with some editing over the 'interview' part of it. It doesn't read quite right.

She stared at the screen.

“It’s official. That’s the lowest click-through rate in ten years,”

She tried to say that in a celebratory tone... a mockering of her un-success, but it just fell flat.The graph onscreen sucked all the fun out of it in green and red tones. There was a nice big spike after the announcement as people rushed to her website to catch the video, hot off her camera.

Frantic machinegunned F5 keypresses kept the clickthrough rate high for a few minutes, right until it dropped clean off the cliff as the word got out that one of her rivals had gotten the scoop.

“And there it stays, right in the bottom of the pit.” She glared at the camera. “And you know the worst thing? If I’d brought this one in, it would’ve been triple the Genaros story, easy,”

The camera lens offered no sympathy. She blew a tired sigh through her lips

“And still I have to follow the trail, I’ve put too much into this story to stop now.” She paused. “What a dangerous thought that is.”

She clicked back off her advertisers webpage, switching over to her monthly planner.

“In a week’s time I have to be on 36 Atalante to meet Benjamin Rhodes. Three days after that, Grunthal on Mars for Lenneth Sylvan. I’m hoping Ben will be able to give me something on the Lancer, but I doubt it. Lenneth may be my best bet. Leader of the Engel Gruppe, she’ll either remember training them, or she’ll at least be able to tell me who. And whomever that is, maybe they’ll know.”

She switched back to the newsgroup.

“Okay. This one’s a weird one. The Patrol are investigating reports of the Knight Sabers raiding a few belter ships in the Belt.”

“Really? That’s a bit out of character”

“Yeah. It’s confirmed. No casualties but it was them. It’s on ISN.”

Maico cringed.

“That’s weird. Don’t they normally come to the rescue? Maybe it’s a Red Eye’s type scenario. Someone trying blacken the name”

“Remember, numb-nuts, they’re mercenaries first. They work for the highest bidder. They’re tigers... and no matter how cute and cuddly or friendly they might seem they’re still tigers and they will turn if it suits them,”

Maico felt herself begin to bristle just a little.

“There has to be something behind that. They don’t attack innocents...”

“Well, there’re no reports of casualties but.... Well, check this news report out,”

Maico clicked on the file.

The plastic face of Constance Gardner erupted onto her screen, chased by shining captions that demanded answers from the viewer. Just what are the Knight Sabers really? Protectors or predators in disguise?

Constance stood before the camera. “Some people have been calling them heroes. Some people call them vigilantes. But to some out in the main belt, they’re something far more sinister. James Mason, President of the United Belt Alliance had this to say.”

The feed cut to a man in a well-pressed suit. He was clean shaven with oddly beady eyes that gleamed in the camera lights. He wore the smug, self-satisfied smile of a man in power, and certain in the power.

“.... these women are far more dangerous than anyone gives them credit for. We’ve instructed our members to treat them as hostiles, and defend themselves accordingly.”

“How so?” Constance gave him the opening to speak.

“They’ve repeatedly frustrated our ability to provide security of living to independent operators and settlements. They fail to understand that we are quite capable of defending ourselves and, quite frankly, we’re not interested in their help”

“And how do you defend yourselves otherwise, Mr Mason?”

“Each settlement in the Alliance pays a subscription, which goes towards funding the provision of a private security service. The subscription provides for spacecraft and training. It provides for a rapid reaction force capable of responding within the hour to any distress call.”

An image of Constance holding the mic toward Mason, a feigned look of interest on her face.

“They’re actions actively encourage colonies to leave the Alliance, leaving them open to attack. And by refusing to pay their subscriptions, these mercenaries further endanger those communities remaining within the alliance who can no longer support the security service by themselves. “

Constance nodded. Keep going Mason, this is gold.

“Not only this, but they have deliberately attacked our spacecraft and stolen proprietary and confidential information from our computer systems on no less than five occasions. I can’t comment further, as the Space Patrol are still investigating, and we do not wish to prejudice any resulting criminal proceedings.” His voice oozed through her speakers. “However, I will say that quite a few of us feel that the Saber’s respond a little too quickly to Zwilnik raids,”

“Thank you Mister Mason. You’ve told us more than enough. I’m Constance Gardner for ISN,”

She seemed to smirk right at Maico. Across the electronic gulf and out of the monitor and right into the bedroom of her Lunar apartment, a Foxish grin.

“Take it with a pinch of salt,” she warned her camera, “But there’s a Patrol investigation going on. What possible argument could the Sabers have with the UBA?

She posed the question the the group.

“He’s just pissed off because his pet Alliance is losing money. The UBA have been putting out this sort of FUD for years. They don’t want anything to do with us because we’re so tied with Great Justice,”

“Still, it’s not like the UBA are doing anything ‘wrong’. I dunno about you, but I’m thinking the Sabers are crossing the line on this one. It’s one thing going after Zwilniks, but not ‘people you disagree with’.”

[i[“But of course, there are two sides to every story. And I would hardly call this fair and balanced. I would like to see what the Knight Sabers themselves have to say,”[/i]

“You’ve got two hopes of finding out. And one’s a diamond.”

“They’ve done a lot of good out in the Main Belt.”

“Naoko Sato did a lot of good on Crystal Paris. It doesn’t matter. Once they start going bad, it’s all the way down the slippery slope,”

Maico buried her face in her hands. “I don’t trust Mason,” she told her camera. And that told everyone everything they needed to know about him. “But I can’t discount that he might telling the truth. Or at least half of it.

-----

Predictably, Mason declined her request for an interview.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t want to talk to someone who’ll actually make you answer a question,” The camera recorded everything. “There’s a story behind this. There’s a reason the Knight Sabers are acting against them.”

“And if they were actually hitting in force and harming people, we’d be hearing more about it. Mason’s got something to hide, and he doesn’t want people digging, So he’s trying to blacken their names.”

“Outside thought. Maybe the only reason the Sabers are fighting the UBA is his name. ‘Mason’, come on, that’s their fandom,”

“Knowing the Senshi I’d believe that right there,”

“Anyway, I got the results back from my little survey.”

“And?” Maico typed. She edged towards the screen.

“All Lancers accounted for. Each and every one. I pulled down the ship registry’s and managed to confirm most of them. The only ones I can’t actively get are the ones in use by the RR themselves but the spacecraft-spotters can account for them. Unless they’re changing paint.”

“Spacecraft spotters? What makes a person want to sit out in the cold void of space for hours at a time in the hope that a single particular spacecraft with a certain unusual set of options will swoop past,”

“The same thing that makes them post on interwave newsgroups discussing a group of hardsuited vigilantes.”

“Anyway. The only possible discrepancy I found was an accident report. Two spaceframes were wrecked in a fire in 2019 while still under construction. Both were salvaged and recycled for raw materials.“

“Ho ho, what better way to hide a black spacecraft? Two half-wrecked planes make one whole. Completely off the books, since both SINs will have been voided. Let she who has a starship without SIN cast the first stone.”

“Two Lancer airframes destroyed in a fire. I’ll have to ask Ben about them,”

““But of course, if these two wrecks are the source of the Knight Saber’s spacecraft, then at the very least that means they have the backing of the Roughriders,”

“Or may even be a part of the organisation. Remember the A-team uses similar hardware a tactics? And where better to hide a secret than in plain sight?”

“And remind me to ask him about the United Belt Alliance,”

The camera made a note of it in her planner.

“Hey, did anyone realise there’s a Sylia Stingray on Marsbase Sara yet?”

“Doesn’t she own that company that builds those Bubblegum crisis bikes for the mundane market?”

“That’s her. What do you think her connection is?”

“A lucky biomod and a fandom, probably. There are more than four Crisis-fen in Fenspace you know.”

“Maybe I’ll have a quick meeting with Sylia while I’m on Mars. Even if she has nothing to do with it, it’d still be a good idea?”

The camera didn’t give her the confirmation she wanted.

She started preparing a message to Sylia, asking for her comment.

-----

UBA came out of a discussion elsewhere. And there is a reason the KS are hitting them.... it's a little consolation prize for Maico
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Black Aeronaut]

Looking good so far, Jet.  If UBA is what it sounds like, I can just imagine Ben's reaction when Maico asks about them.
"UBA?  I don't trust the way they do business, and I wouldn't dare to trust them with a ship out of my yards - even if it had been run all the way through hell and back and was barely worth the scrap."

Much
the same deal that Maico has with Noah, except that instead of it
developing over years, it's all at once and includes a security
clearance. (Noah doesn't share anything with Maico that he wouldn't mind
seeing all over the Interwave the next day.)

I can just hear Noah asking Ben if he thinks this is wise.  Ben'll just say that he's already made it clear in having her sign the appropriate non-disclosure agreements - though they do have a caveat that as long as it's not illegal then she'll need to get his okay before publishing anything sensitive.  She already knows how much trouble she'll be in if she violates that trust.  Beyond that, as long as she's doing her job in a respectful manner, then everything is hunky-dory.  (The way she's characterized, she doesn't strike me as the kind of reporter to give the RR too much trouble.)

[Dartz]

Came in handy for this. Used chunks of the original piece too.

Being very careful to keep Ben from actually lying to her.

And maybe give a reason why he might think Maico intends to slander Jet....

-----

Maico couldn’t help but look at the handcannon. A replica of Gene Starwind’s Caster Gun mounted on a plaque on the wall, among the other memorabilia and photographs. Beneath it was the 20 x 102 mm autocannon shell it was supposed to fire.

“Yup, it’s real” Benjamin Rhodes assured her wit a big hearty straight-outta-Texas smile, “It really shoots too. A friend put it together a few months back for me,”

Maico gave him a nervous smile in return. It wasn’t so much the power of the gun itself, but the strength it’d take to handle it. Or it might’ve been that quirk noted in his file. She liked to think she was beyond that.

He glanced at his computer monitor, his smile broadening just a little bit, “Maico, the Knight Sabers are not under my command, or control. No current member of the Roughriders is involved with the Knight Sabers. You can call that an official statement,”

“Thank you,” said Maico. She specifically saved the soundbite for later use. “But then, how do you explain them using a Lancer type spacecraft?” Just a quick heartbeat to let him compose the obvious answer in his mind. It made it easier that she was reading it off of her headset’s integrated eyepiece. “When every other Lancer is accounted for. I have data pinpointing the locations of surviving spaceframes, and Spacecraft spotters account for the Roughrider’s own craft. When compared with ship registry information, every single one is accounted for.”

Ben’s expression neutralised. Where was she going with this? She place her shot on the desk in front of him. Still grainy, still overcompressed. Still unmistakeable.

“Yet this is clearly a Blackaeronaut Lancer. How do you account for this?”

Ben’s smile returned. “I suggest you talk to the United States Airforce. Magnificent Midnight herself started out as a mundane Sr-71 Blackbird, brought up from below. There’s no reason someone couldn’t have recovered one of the old Bones from the Boneyards.”

Maico nodded. “But of course. Would it also be possible to construct a whole spacecraft, using the wreck of two or more ‘destroyed Lancers,”

“A cut and shut? Well yeah, I guess that’d be possible. Though whoever rebuilt it would never get the full performance out of the engines and I’d be hesitant to fly in the result,”

Again, Maico nodded, “I have been able to account for the fates of all fourteen destroyed Lancer spacecraft. Except for two.”

Ben waited. The metal arm of his seemed to tense up just a little.

“Two almost-complete spaceframes, destroyed in a fire while under construction on 37 Fides. The public report lists them as being ‘recycled’, and no more is mentioned.”

“And you think that the remains of both spacecraft could have been combined to form one black spacecraft, which wouldn’t appear on anyone’s books?”

“Yes,” said Maico, mildly.

Ben’s smile just broadened. “It’s standing policy to recycle raw materials and equipment as much as possible. The spaceframes would have been broken apart, and anything useful recovered.”

He turned his monitor towards Maico, showing a video of the bare metal frame of a single Lancer. The nose of another behind was just in shot. Orange-armed robots were reached out, throwing sparks as they welded seams. They seemed to waltz along to music heard only by themselves. A clock in the corner of the image was counting out the seconds.

Little trickles of smoke rose from behind the engine cowling of the first. It seemed to be nothing at all, a stray welding spark landing somewhere in shouldn’t. A moment later, white sparks began to spray. Maico blinked, and the whole compartment seemed to be ablaze with sparkling white light, mingling with black and orange flames spraying across the frame under pressure. Overhead lights burst open.

"This footage was not doctored in any way, Miss Tange.” Ben said. His tone was flat, but he wore the grin of a fox, “An electrical spark touched off some magnesium, the sparks from which ruptured the hydraulic lines in the assembly machinery and ignited the petroleum-based hydraulic fluid, spreading fire. Needless to say, we no longer use petroleum based fluid in any of our equipment, "

Flames rushed towards the ceiling, being pulled by an unseen force, chased by a thick smog of white vapour that smothered the brilliant magnesium light. It died down to a dim smouldering glow in the core, before finally going pitch black. The lights had been destroyed, or the main breakers had tripped, leaving only darkness. Only the clock still running told Maico the camera was online. Time since first sign of fire, thirty seconds.

"Fortunately, the suppression systems kicked in and saved the rest of the line. The electrical supply inerted, and the area was sealed off. Ventilation shafts opened to vacuum while pressurised liquid Carbon dioxide was sprayed over the fires. This is important for class-delta fires in that it cools the fuel back down below its ignition point, preventing a reflash when normal atmosphere is restored. The damage, grievous as it was, was well contained.”

“I see..” Maico said. This wasn’t going well.

“The thing with metal fires, is that they burn so hot and fast, nearly nothing is salvageable afterwards. The heat flux warped the frames of both spacecraft beyond repair.”

So. That’s the end of that lead. She sank down into the chair. Well, it’s pretty much what she expected.

“Is there anything else?” Ben asked, congenially.

“Yeah... umm.... The United Belt Alliance. They seem to be a target of the Knight Sabers. What is your opinion of the UBA? Why would the Sabers attack them?”

“I told you, the Sabers aren’t under my control,”

“If you had to guess,” Maico clarified, “Based on what you know about them,”

“I don't trust the way the UBA do business, and I wouldn't dare to trust them with a ship out of my yards - even if it had been run all the way through hell and back and was barely worth the scrap. But not liking them is no reason to attack them. They want to live in their own way, independent of the Convention; they have that right so long as they’re not harming anyone.”

It was Maico’s turn to wait.

“As to why the Saber’s themselves are attacking them, I genuinely can’t say.”

Time to try something risky

“Could it be that the Sabers see the UBA as competion? Are they trying to weaken them somehow, while building their own reputations as mercenaries and protectors of the belt, so more colonies will hire them over joining the UBA?”

Ben’s expression darkened. A sunny day had suddenly clouded over. The heat sucked clean out of the room, sending a chill through Maico’s body.

“I strongly doubt it.”

“But it is a possibility?”

“Yes, it is.” Ben seemed reluctant to admit. “Is that all?”

Those metal fingers drummed on the table.

“Yes, thank you Ben,” Maico smiled to hide her dissapointment, “That should be enough,”

It wasn’t until she was reviewing the footage on the shuttle to Mars that she caught Ben’s change in demeanour.

“It’s almost like I insulted a friend of his.... but.....” it died in her throat. Somewhere, a 5 yen coin dropped. “He knows who the Sabers are!”

Everyone in the shuttle stared. Maico blushed, and sheepishly sat back down into her seat.

-----

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

[HRogge]

Someone is walking a very thin line... *grin*

But we still need some more background to decide who is doing it and on which side of the line.

[Black Aeronaut]

Nicely done, Jet. Really like how you got the playful attitude and mercurial nature down.

[Dartz]

And now 'Sylia Stingray'....

Sylia’s apartment on Marsbase Sara was dead.

That’s what it felt like. It was like a photograph. It was a television set. It was a showhouse. It was, in Maico’s opinion, most definitely somewhere someone did not live. The shelving was too bare. Lingerie catalogues and motorcycle magazines were months out of date, and completely unread.

And most of all, it was sterile.

No dust. No dirt. No wearing on the floor. The cooker had been spotless. It smelled faintly of perfume and that was it. None of the comfortable smells of a lived-in building. No scent of breakfast. No faint odour from the bathroom. Just dead, clean air.

“I’m away on business a lot,” Sylia told her with a smile, “Nobody told me running a company would be such a pain,”

Sylia herself was a curiousity. She dressed in a strange way... for a businesswoman. When had a high-collared, sleeveless, bare-midriffed blouse ever been in fashion? It was classy sure, but seemed to belong to another universe. Her figure seemed perfectly natural... a little on the athletic side hinting at someone who liked a little aerobics. Brown eyes seemed bright and intelligent, and her hair was trimmed and raven with a slight reddish sheen.

Someone seeking a particular appearance maybe, Maico wondered.

“Thanks for taking the time to see me on such short notice,” said Maico

“I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. Despite the name, I have nothing to do with the Knight Sabers,”

What accent was that? British, washed through Australia by way of a little America. Something about her voice seemed just a little bit forced, a little slip of her accent. Something wasn’t right here...

“I suspected as much,” Maico smiled at her. “Maybe you could tell me, just for my notes. Which came first? You, or the company,”

Keep her talking. Maybe somebody could make something of this..

“I came before the company. I bought SME from another Crisis fen who’d set it up as a shell, and started expanding it into a working business.”

“I see... I think I met her. Jet Jaguar?”

She knew she met her.

“That was her.”

“So you were involved in the original Highway Star then?”

“No.” Sylia shook her head “I didn’t hear about the company until your report on the record, and thought it was a damned shame Miss Jaguar only wanted to use it as a shell. I bought it off her.”

“But of course...” said Maico.

There it was again. Just a slip revealing a huskier, hoarser voice right around the word ‘Jaguar’. A voice that might’ve belonged to a smoker, or a post-concert singer. Someone who spent a lot of time shouting.

“And the Knight Sabers themselves, can you tell me how you feel about them?”

“I tiold you, I have nothing to do with them,”

“I know, but people are drawing natural conclusions...”

“Tell me about it,” Sylia sighed with a smile. “I think they’re doing a lot of good. Or trying to.”

“Even with the latest reports of their attacks on the UBA?”

“They have their reasons, I’m sure,” Sylia said flatly. “In the original source, the Knight Sabers stood for what was right, for justice. If they’re Crisis fen, and they’re sticking to the source, they won’t be anything else.”

“Thank you,” said Maico with a gentle nod. “Now if you;ll excuse me, I’ve a shuttle to catch,”

Sylia lead her to the door, with a hand on her back. Strange, thought Maico. There’s something really strange about her.

She sent the footage to Ryan, to see what he made of her.

----

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

[HRogge]

The difficult question for our reporter: how far can Fen of a certain fandom slip... time for more drilling for information.

[robkelk]

To be fair, nobody is a fan of only one fandom - a minor amount of slipping is to be expected from anyone who isn't an AI.
--
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]

And Jet is just not that good at doing it.

And also more.

Grunthal on the other hand, seemed centuries old and hewn from solid rock. It had an ageless quality to it, with a certainty in the iron air that it would be there for centuries more hence. There were flagstones on the floor that echoed off of steel walls.

In a ‘verse where revolution came every two weeks there was something reassuring in it’s monastic nature. A quiescence that wasn’t often found anywhere in Fenspace. There was none of the frenetic energy of Kandor or the Crystal Cities.

“It’s like the temple back home,” she told her headset, allowing herself to remember her training in full for a few seconds, before pushing it right back out of her mind. “For a place full of warriors, it certainly is wonderfully peaceful.”

And horribly intimidating to know that some of the people who smiled and said hello would be easily capable of pulling her arms off. By accident. She shuddered and did her best to put that out of her mind, besides, here was the door.the door she was looking for.

Lenneth Lucian. Krieger. Engel Gruppe.

Maico pushed the door-chime.

“One moment,” a woman’s voice crackled through an old speaker.

Maico waited an age-long minute before the door unlatched. Lenneth was waiting for her with a blue- painted body, platinum hair and a slightly embarrassed smile that suggested she’d been interrupted doing something, but what Maico couldn’t tell.

“Ah Maico,” she smiled at her, pushing herself up from the desk which creaked under her weight.

“Krieger Lucian,” Maico tried, right before her hand was gripped in a cold metal vice of a handshake that she felt was being very careful not to crush her hand into mincemeat.

“Lenneth, please,” she begged. “Take a seat. I’ve had a look at the video you sent me,”

“Thank you,” Maico said.

For a couch, it was horribly stiff and uncomfortable. Until she realised it had to support three to four times her mass, easily. She took a glance round, adjusting her own headset to make sure it recorded properly. She caught a glimpse of Lenneth’s awards from the Boskone war, and was amazed at how ancient they seemed. They sat beside pictures of people Maico couldn’t recognise, and a collection of Lovecraft books.... actual, faux-leather bound tomes of mythos fiction.

“Well, first thing’s first,” Lenneth began.”I can tell you it wasn’t us here who trained Saber White,”

“But she does use Panzer Kunst?”

“Exactly,” Lenneth grinned at her. “But, we don’t teach these techniques to power-armour wearers on commercial contracts.”

“Oh?”

“The Herza Haon she uses to attack that battlesuit; that’s only taught to those above Lehrling level, once they’ve decided to join the Gruppe proper.”

“But of course. So whoever trained them was a previous member of the Gruppe?”

“Not previous, there’s no such thing as a previous Kunstler, but you’re right.”

Maico forced a smile. “And you can tell me who it is so?”

“She doesn’t keep it a secret.” said Lenneth, “Jet Jaguar trained Saber White, I’m certain of it.”

“How certain?” Maico pushed.

Lenneth stared at her, with hard grey eyes. “I’d bet my right arm and leg on it. Jet’s the only Kunstler to establish her own independent school so far, so it’s the only other place in Fenspace they could’ve learned.”

“But of course...”

“And,” Lenneth continued, “Jet trained with me, used to spar with me, and Saber White moves in the exact same way. “ she explained. “In fact, I’d swear it was Jet Jaguar herself fighting, only Saber White here moves much slower in action.”

Maico thought for a moment.

“Is it possible it could be Jet Jaguar herself? Deliberately slowing herself down, sandbagging to keep herself hidden?”

Lenneth slowly shook her head. “Jet’s big schtick is speed. She wouldn’t go this slow all by herself. Jet trained them, and being a Crisis Fen herself would probably know who they are, and most likely won’t tell you,”

She gave Maico the smallest grin, chased by a mischievous wink.

“I’d still like to ask her myself,”

Lenneth gave her a gallic shrug. “It’s your time if you want to waste,”

Maico allowed herself a soft, satisfied smile, “And I shall. Now, is there anything else you can tell me about Saber White?”

Lenneth nodded once, “Sure. I can tell you that whomever Sabre White is, she has at the very least a direct neural interace with her armour, because the level of actuator control required to generate a Herza Haon just isn’t possible unless the actuators are a physical part of of the body,”

“Oh my...”

“Yup. Whoever she is, she’s either a cyber like me in there, or a cybernetic intelligence.”

A lightbulb flicked on inside Maico’s mind, a sudden inspiration.

“They could all be AI’s, so. Would Jet be capable of building four AI’s like that?”

“Capable?” She stopped, thinking, exhaling a completely artificial and superfluous sigh. Her brow furrowed. “Maybe, but not by herself. Jet doesn’t build AI’s, but hardware like the hardsuits? She began the Stingray project,”

“Hmmm.”... Yes, this fit together perfectly. “Thank you, Lenneth. This helps me a lot,”

“Glad to,”

Maico left Grunthal certain she’d figured this out.

-----

The camera was recording.

“A.C. told me she wasn’t Saber White, but she never said she wasn’t involved with them. If they’re AI, she could have awoken them. And supertech like that hardsuit forcefield, and discretion...”

The camera didn’t nod. It did nothing but stare.

“Benjamin knows the Sabers. Benjamin might even be friends with them... or their backer.... if his reaction was anything to go by. They’re someone he knows and cares about. ”

Maico took it’s continued silence for agreement.

“And Jet Jaguar is a Bubblegum Crisis Fen, and a known associate of both. Jet likely trained the Sabers, and began the Stingray project where their armour designs come from.”

A little red light showed the camera was still listening.

“Sylia Stingray is an associate of Jets. And she’s damned suspicious.... but I can’t figure out what she brings to the table.”

Her finger tapped on the table, timing out her own heartbeat. The camera lens offered it’s usual silent advice.

“Money!” she yelped “Sylia runs a reasonably successful business, outside of Fenspace so she can hide the money for the Sabers to operate. She’s the money launderer,”

The lens stared.

Maico deflated. “I’m getting ahead of myself. A shared fandom isn’t evidence. Being a little bit weird isn’t evidence. And Sylia is strange,”

She made herself dinner, boiling up a bag of cheap noodles and adding something that claimed to be chicken flavouring. Not from where I’m from it isn’t, thought Maico with a rueful grin. Well, it was hot food at any rate.

A quick glance at the stats from her advertiser told her she wouldn’t be getting hot food for very long. With her mouth full, she fired of an email.

“Ryan, tell me you’ve got something. If I don’t find more Saber stuff soon I’m going to starve! I need something big,”

No answer. Well, not starve.... she’d have to put up with unflavoured tofu and cold noodles for a while. She got back to work. There’re were stories other than the Sabers that needed followups. There were some video’s in need of a voiceover, and there were rumours that the Queen was about to declare the first official Planetary Senshi.

“Ah yes, that time of year again,” she mused out loud. “That one always comes out in the runnup to the annual honours list.” Still, it’d be nice to spend some time on Crystal Tokyo again. She glanced at the speculation. “Nothing original, the usual suspects. Except for Jupiter....”

She booked her shuttle now, while she could still afford it. It never ceased to be a relief to have the payment go through. Her headset chirruped as it received a new mail. Confirmation of booking, she thought.

Then she saw the sender.

And pounced on it like it was a bag of Meg’s cookies.

“Maico

Been meaning to get back. Sorry. Got hooked on Forza RR. Racing with Melchizedek with my trollface on beating n00bs who think that the Space Shuttle was included for completness only and no real gamer would play with it.

Anyways. Sylia Stingray.

She’s a real ghost. I had a hell of a time tracking information on her down, beyond the obvious.

First, what you already know about her. She bought Stingray Motor Engineering from Jet Jaguar and expanded it into an operating business down daneside. By all accounts, their motorbikes using Mazda rotary engines are popular, if a little pricy. There’s a news report of her giving an interview to a mundane news crew about Job creation, how government openness is good for Fenspace and the local economy together.... the usual bullshit.

Second. She moved in to Marsbase Sara a month before the sale, in early 2016. She registered her identity there, and is considered a resident. She registered with no previous identity papers, nothing at all from her previous history. Nothing unusual in that mind you, some people don’t want their identity following them up for their own reasons.

Third. It’s almost impossible to find appearances of her in Fenspace. She went to Convention in 2016 and ‘18, with SME having their own trade stand. Now here’s where it gets interesting. Her only appearance between then was at an auction.

When the New Birmingham asteroid mine went belly up, everything in it was sold off. Sylia Stingray attended, and bought some CNC machinery. But, guess who else was there?

Jet Jaguar. Jet bought Frigga itself.

Here’s where it goes beyond coincidence. A Foglio spark named VanVeen had his eye on Frigga to build his own personal Spark Castle. Sylia Stingray sat beside him, and actively discouraged him from bidding against Jet. Three hours later, he spots Sylia, and Jet and Jet’s partner Ford talking together. Needless to say, he was ‘annoyed’. I’ve linked the blog post below so you can follow him up yourself.

At the very least, that makes Sylia ‘friends’ with Jet.

Sylia herself. You said she had her hand on your back guiding you out. Take a review of the footage. She’s a very touchy-feely person. She always has her hand on something. She’s always rubbing them together, or brushing herself. That’s a classic sign of a standalone-AI using a puppet body they aren’t used to....enjoying. And I timed her blinking.... it’s regular to the millisecond.

I’d bet Sylia’s an AI puppet. And if she’s an AI puppet, the intelligence behind her could be anywhere in Fenspace.

I can’t say who built her, but if you want to find out more about her I suggest you hit up 77 Frigga.

Oh, and in the style of the late master, one more thing. Sylia Stingray lied to you. Sylia Stingray is Saber White. I pulled a 3d model from your footage. Her body-shape matches the hardsuit exactly.

-Ryan”

Maico sent as much rep as she could his way. That was dynamite. That was Kaboomite. That was it. Bang. Boom!. There’s your lead right there.

Right in touching distance.

------

It seemed silly for him not to pull the same stunt.... so know Maico knows the identity of one of the Sabers. And knows Jet knows Sylia well.... and knows Jet trained the Sabers. She's getting other things wrong.... natch.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Black Aeronaut]

That's okay. The others will set her story straight soon enough.

[Dartz]

New scene with Jferio's help. Which may explain why it got so long. It was originally planned to be a short hop, then on to Frigga.

Also now edited to remove a robot whistling twice.... and Nene realising twice that Maico knows who Saber White is. This is the cost of typing at 4am.

------

The crew of Blue Midget 5 had given Maico her own cabin. How nice of them. Getting to the main belt from Mars via Ganymede seemed a bit silly at first. But JMC were her ride, and they gave her her own private cabin for the journey.

It was a peaceful place to think.

“Sylia the puppet. Sylia’s been around since 2016, so she wasn’t created specific for the Knight Sabers. That’s something that came after. It was something she decided to do”

She glanced at the notes on screen...

“Unless. Sylia was woken by Jet. Sylia’s Jet’s daughter. That makes more sense. It put’s her at the centre, rather than the periphery. It explains why she would have connections to all three. She goes through her mother...”

Another glance at Jet’s file.

“Father,” she corrected herself with a sigh. “And if Sylia’s an AI, who’s to say the other three aren’t? Ryan thinks pink is too. They’re either all Jet’s daughters, or a collection from among the three.”.

She paused. She remembered, months earlier, a meeting she had on Stellvia. It struck her like a brick.

“Noah Scott too. Noah asked me to quash this, because they’re doing good. What if he knows who they are?” She found herself feeling just a little sick.”That’s four. For four hardsuits.And the perfect people to have on your side if you wanted to run a group like this in secret. Which also explains the Halcyon node on Frigga.... ”

A beat. She cringed.

“Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself with speculation. I’ll see what happens on Frigga, and what Jet tells me.” She drummed her fingers on the table, scowling a little, “But if she’s anything like Sylia she’ll probably lie about it, anyway....”

“There is no more space available to record,” her headset interrupted.”Delete old files, or insert a new disk,”

“What?” she blurted. “Disk full?”

Obviously. She’d dictated gigabytes of video over the last few weeks.

“Red Alert!” the intercom announced. Maico started, a shock of fear lancing through her body. Frantic, she glanced around looking for the seatbelt, then for her backpack.

“Bad time to crash when I don’t have any space on my disk,” she hissed. “Where did I put the spare?”

“Red Alert.” the intercom repeated. “We’re approaching landing,”

Huh?

“Shouldn’t that be a Blue Alert sir?” a second voice questioned in a soft, mid-Canadian accent

“Yes, but I don’t want to get up and change the bulb again,”

Oh. That was a mild relief. She still strapped herself in, just in case.

As far as landings went, it was remarkably uneventful. She gathered her things, loaded a new drive into her headset, thanked the crew, assured them that it wasn’t the vindaloo that made her ill last night, and quietly slipped her way down the loading ramp while they were busy with other things.

Two other Blue Midgets shared the bay, being loaded and unloaded concurrently by their crews. The level of activity startled her. Glancing around, it wasn’t hard to pick out a variety of familiar names and destinations on waiting packages. It was frenetic, it was energetic. It was fizzing and throbbing with life, a stark contrast from the monastic Grunthal. It was black and white.

It was just a little bit unnerving.

She pushed on, scanning for Jeph Antilles, wondering more and more if she wasn’t late, or early.... or if she hadn’t been forgotten about. It wouldn’t be the first time...

“Maico!”

Huh? She scanned the room once more.

“Maico!”

A woman was waving for her attention. Average to attractive, with fine golden blonde hair, wearing clothes that in parts seemed a bit too big for her figure, and in others embarrassingly tight.

So, obviously not usually in the female form so. Or laundry day.

“It’s me. Jeph!”

“Oh my...” she murmured. That would explain it. She put on her best sympathetic smile, jogging around freight pallets.

“Nené’s waiting in my office,” Jeph said with a gruff edge to her voice that spoke of some recent burning aggravation that hadn’t quite cooled off.

Waking up biomodded will do that to you, thought Maico, smiling inwardly.

“But of course,” she demurred.

Jeph sliced through corridors, storming forward with a purpose. Her hair swished out a beat in time with the sway of her hips. Maico was having a hard time keeping up with her, lugging a backpack full of essentials

“Jeph!” Maico called after her.

She stopped dead, spinning on a heel offering a soft, apologetic smile.

“Sorry. We’re a little pressed for time. I have a meeting in twenty minutes with a client,”

“Maybe we can wait for after?” the reporter suggested.

“No can do.” she shook her head. “The client is your ride to Frigga.”

“I thought I was riding with a delivery.”

“Yeah.” Jeph snorted. “That was the plan. But things haven’t been going according to plan here at all this last week.”

“Oh?” Maico rose an eyebrow,

“You’re not the first to ask after Nene because of the Sabers, Maico.” Jeph said. Her nostrils seemed to flair. “And things haven’t been going well since they left empty-handed,”

“Who was it?” Maico asked. “If you don’t mind?”

Competition?

“Let’s keep walking,”

Maico still found herself struggling to keep up.

“It was some mine managers from the United Belt Alliance, asking about her involvement in the Knight Sabers. They seemed convinced that because she was based on the original Sabers, she must be one,”

“I see,” Maico puffed out.

“Of course, two days after they leave, every single UBA mine cancelled their contract.” Her expression blackened, “It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.” She took a long, deep breath. “So know we’re dealing with the fallout of so many cancelled contracts, thousands of credits worth of their goods still in our warehouses, ‘requests’”... and she made the airquotes with her fingers around that word.... “ to drop all our other scheduled flights and return it all immediately, and them calling the Patrol on us calling us thieves.”

“For people who like being independent, they sure do call on the Space Patrol a lot.” Maico remarked.

“Do you think they left their hypocrisy behind on Earth when they came up?” Jeph snarled. “They’ve been triggering my biomod every day for the last week. It’s starting to get annoying.”

Maico offered her best sympathetic smile.

“I take it, you’ve heard about the Knight Sabers attacking them then?”

“Yup,” Jeph nodded curtly. “And after the last few days I can understand why. They used to be some of our best customers, but since Mason became their president they’ve been getting worse and worse,”

“Worse how?” Maico pushed.

“Everything has to run through their head officers. No more dealing with individual mines. They’re slow to pay up, switch shipping details at the last minute when we already have a Blue Midget on the way. They insist on micromanaging the loading and unloading, and they were trying to encourage us to pay into their private spacefleet because, as far as they were concerned we were benefiting from their defence without paying a red cent. And that’s just the top of a real big iceberg,”

Maico could sense how big it was. The air reeked of frustration. Frustration and fried pork dumplings. Her mouth began to water, and Maico forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat. A cavern was growing deep in her gut, widening by the second.

And bats were fluttering around inside.

And the bats were eating crawling, hairy bugs.

Hopefully her ride to Frigga would have food aboard. Twenty minutes was too short for a meal.

“Well, here we are,” Jeph told her, opening a hatch.

The head office of JMC was a somewhat cramped affair, although at least it wasn’t housed in a repurposed cargo container like a lot of the facilities in Serenity Valley. ‘Cramped’ was a relative idea, but it was smaller than Maico’s own apartment

There were a couple of desks covered in sheaves papers and computer hardware of various eras, with a well-worn green leather couch in the room for guests.

Green, Maico wondered.

It was the layout of the furniture that made it feel cramped, but it began to make sense when she saw the red R2 trundle through, blurting a whistling greeting as it retreived some files, before leaving the room again.

Jeph’s personal office was more of the same, save for being encrusted with the memorabilia one would associate with a dozen different factions, and a cheekily grinning blond in a green shirt.

“Maico Tange, meet Nene Romanova,”

“Hi,” Nene said. “So you came here to learn about the Sabers then?”

“Yes,” Maico nodded.

“Well take a seat, I’ll tell you all about them,” For a moment, Maico almost swore she could see a hint of longing in those eyes. “Of course, my Sabers were completely different to these Sabers since I’m mostly from the 2040 series, while they based themselves on the 2032 OVA series,”

Jeph made her presence obvious with a cough. I’m watching, Maico.

“Oh...”

“But I still have some memories from 2032. So how can I help you?”

Jeph scowled as the intercom on the desk beeped. She leant in and stabbed the button. “Yes?”

“Sorry to disturb your meeting, sir, but the client liaison is already here.” it announced.

Jeph looked at the clock on the computer monitor and heaved another sigh.

“She’s only ten minutes early, Jacques. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” She released the button on the intercom, and stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes, Maico. Job duties, this shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to take care of.”

She yanked an antique PDA of some fashion out from under the debris on her desk and rushed out, leaving the door to slam behind her and Maico alone with Nene.

“So,” Maico mumbled, trying to get her train of thought back on track. She fiddled with her headset for a second, fixing Nene in the frame “Since their first public appearance on Genaros, I’ve been trying to track down the Knight Sabers...”

“And you think that, because I’m from the series, I might have information,” Nene finished for her.

“Yes,” nodded Maico. “If they’re in the Crisis fandom, you might have an idea who’s behind this,”

Nene took a moment, looking at her own reflection on a running laptop on the desk.

"No, I don't know who, or what, might be in those suits," Nene replied, sighing, still not looking at Maico. "That... wasn't even really a lifetime ago for me. Memories of people... six of them... that really never existed in the first place." She fiddled a little bit with the laptop. "Not that it would have stopped me from joining up if I'd been asked." She smiled, lightly. "As hard as it was... it was also a fun bit of challenge for me."

“I know who Saber White is,” Maico informed her. Nene visibly winced. “At least, I have an idea. I think she might be a relative of Jet Jaguar somehow,”

She deliberately witheld the name

“Well, y’know, that’s news to me if it is,”

“Do you know Jet?”

Nene’s face lit up with obvious relief.

“Jet Jaguar, she’s a big Crisis fen. She sings like Priss does. 2032 Priss anyway, including the Megatokyo accent. Oh... and she built my hardsuit for me. It’s as good as Sylia’s work was, even if it made me sound like Priss too. Frigga’s a good customer for us, they have regular shipments of equipment.”

“Do you think she’d be capable of pulling something like the Knight Sabers off?”

Nene was visibly thinking. Thinking about and answer, or thinking about whether the answer

“She’s military, so probably. But she’s always complaining about how much work Survival Shot is, so I doubt she’d have the time needed to actually put the work in. It took her two months to build my hardsuit in her free time.”

“Do you know if Jet has any relatives? Did she awaken any AI’s?”

That seemed to throw Nene a little. Maico could see her mind go through a loop.

“Ford Sierra’s her partner, they’ve been together for ages. Her brother Mackie is an AI like me. He’s cute to look at, but he’s a total perv.” her expression flattened a little, “A lot like the real one, really.”

Brother? that wasn’t in Jet’s file. How out of date was that thing? And how did an AI become a brother?

“Brother?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Nene shrugged. “I think it’s sort of the same thing that’s between me and Jeph... the Moll Flanders effect, only as a family bond instead. Yeah,” she confirmed, “It’s a handwavium quirk.”

Maico sucked on her lip, mulling it over in her mind.

“Do you believe Jet would be capable of building more AI’s?”

“That’s not her style,” Nene answered real quick.

“It’s just. Saber White is an AI too. And I have evidence linking Jet with her. The evidence itself is still circumstancial. I’m trying to build a theory that fits the facts, and every theory I have points to Saber White being either a close friend of, or relative of Jet’s,”

Nene glanced away at the door, almost pleading for it to open again, and for Jeph to come back. It refused to budge.

“Who is she?” she whispered

“I can’t say. It’s to early.” Maico answered.

“Tell me, please,” Nene pleaded.

“I can’t. Not until I’m certain.”

“You’re mean,” Nene whined at her, staring at her with huge, watering puppydog eyes.

“If I’m wrong and it gets out too soon, I lose my rep, and you know how important that is. People won’t talk to me.”

“....Alright,” Nene relented, dropping her shoulders and making it perfectly clear Maico was still being a big meanie by not telling.

Maico felt herself relax. Threat to her integrity passed. Tell Nene, and she tell’s the underspace. The underspace makes it go viral, and her half-formed and probably wrong theory blows the whole story out of the water, blows her reputation, and blows the big payoff at the end of the long and winding path.

The door opened, Jeph pushing her way in, being drafted by a rather attractive young woman, with the most stunning flame-hair Maico’d ever seen. It was such an irridescent orange, it might as well have been burning.

“Anika!” Nene chirruped.

The pair collided in mid air, embracing each other in mid air, giggling like schoolgirls.

“They’re friends,” Jeph explained, teresely. Her lips pursed together. “Anika Daini is the SysOp out on Frigga. She’ll be your ride there.”

“Anika!” Jeph’s bark broke up the little hug-fest. Nene broke out her puppydog stare once more. “This is Maico Tange,” a beat, “And for the love of God don’t forget to tell Jet about the matter we discussed,”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Anika reassured him, wearing a sunshine grin that seemed to be painfully endearing. “Maico... my A-wing’s in the hanger,”

Nene was silent,

“Sorry I can’t stay, Nene-chan. We’ve got customers, and I can’t leave Mackie at the controls of TITANIC or Bad Things will happen,”

“I know,” Nene frowned. “I’ll message you in the ‘verse when you get back,”

The pair shared another hug as they gave their goodbyes, and Maico wasn’t certain, but thought she might’ve seen a glimmer of jealousy in Jeph’s eyes.

There was something strange about Anika, Maico mused. Definitely a biomod with that hair. There was something about her that made her seem so.... pleasant. Like her hair had been moulded out of a captured ray of sunshine, brightening up the room as she entered.

As she left, the door closing behind her, she swore she could hear Nene giggling madly.

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

[Dartz]

Yet another story bit. These scenes are tough. Trying to drip feed information without making it too obvious/un-obvious.... and to keep Maico guessing and following up her guesses.

It has to be a quirk.

That was the only natural conclusion.

Maico’d just been witness to Anika Daini wolfing down an entire bag of cakes. An entire bag of sugary sweet treats, slathered with cream and painted with icing. It was a solid bag of diabetes that had made her nauseous after three.

A three course dinner, all of them dessert.

“How long before we get to Frigga?”

“21637 seconds, approximately,” Anika smiled at her. Curious? Or maybe, she wasn’t a biomod at all., Maico thought.

“So what brings you out to Frigga anyway, Maico?”

“I’m chasing up a story about the United Belt Alliance.” Well, not technically a lie, Maico told herself.

Anika’s expression flattened a little, “Oh...” For a moment, it seemed like she wanted to say more, but

“Have you had any dealings with them,”

Anika’s face went sour, like she’d suddenly sucked on a bitter lemon, “Twice. But they leave us alone after Ford broke their manager’s jaw the last time,”

Maico’s eyes widened, “Really?”

The sun came back out as Anika’s smile returned. Her body seemed to inflate with pride “Yup! Right after we got raided for the second time, they showed up demanding we join up, or we’d be on our own again. Ford punched him and told him where to go,”

She giggled. Maico found it hard not to smile.

“Did they threaten you?”

“No, not really,” said Anika. “Not much more than your average anti-virus program tells you Bad Things will happen if you don’t pay for the next version. They said we’d be defenseless against another bigger raid, but we held the attack off pretty good all by ourselves.”

“But of course.” Maico demurred.

“Ford calls them the Fenspace equivelant of ‘Ambulance Chasers’, whatever those are,”

Fenkinder. Biomod. Or AI herself? Hopefully the image from the JMC offices would be good enough for Ryan to run a comparison. She wouldn’t call the two-seater cockpit cramped - with the luxury cabin option selected the A Wing went straight through ‘cramped sportscar’ and became wonderfully snug and soft ‘grand tourer’ - but it made it hard to get decent footage. At least the sound deadening kept her audio from being ruined.

The seats were soft and plush. There was carpeting on the floor. The frame rails around the windows were padded. All of it was meticulously cleaned and maintained.

There was something about being snuggled up in a small little ship that was so obviously loved to bits by it’s owner that made her feel perfectly safe and secure. It was like wearing a favourite slipper.

I could use a ship like this, she mused. That’s what I’ll do when I finish this story, I’ll put a downpayment on my own little cruiser.

It’d even pay for itself, what with not having to beg for a lift everywhere, or getting caught short while important things happened on the other side of the ‘verse. i’ll just bring this score in and I’m done.

“Could you tell me about the attacks?” Maico enquired.

“The first one happened before I moved to Frigga. It was only Ford, Kotono, Daryl and Jet but it wasn’t a big attack so it was easy enough to fend off.” A pause. “Or so they told me, I really don’t know for sure,”

“And the second?”

She heard Anika groan just a little. “That was much bigger. Because we had this big BNF out renting the training centre, and we thought it was an assassination attempt at the time but...”

Anika stopped, dead, like her words had fallen from a great height, built up the momentum of the sentence, then slammed to a stop straight into the dirt.

“What happened?” Maico pressed her.

“I’m not sure I should really talk about it...” Anika demurred, “Secrets about how we organise our defences and the like.”

“I won’t record it,” Maico told her, clicking her headset off with a touch from her fingertips against her temple. “I promise,”

She just wanted a few hints on questions to put to Jet Jaguar, or Ford. What exactly was meant to follow the ‘but’?

“Alright,” Anika took a long, deep breath. “Well, we were running through an example training exercise, showing how everything worked, when our net-facing systems came under attack. I got it under control quickly, but there were five incoming transports, and two escorts coming towards us. Jet assumed it was an assassination because we had our BNF customer.”

“But it wasn’t an assassination?” Maico probed.

“Well....um.... I... “ Maico seemed to go into spinlock. “They were mercenaries. Fifty of them, including about ten shock troops in battle armour,”

“Mercenaries? So they were hired?”

“Yeah, and told that they were raiding a mine. Somebody wanted to attack us, and it was just luck we had... company,”

“Who wanted to attack you?”

Anika went quiet.

“You’ll have to ask Jet,” she said, after long moments considering.

“But of course,” Maico breathed. “What happened, with the attack?”

“We shot down a transport, and disabled an escort, then ran out of live missiles. We evacuated the living quarters, and got everyone down to the mines, and we started arming our customers with live Ammo. The Zwilniks broke in through apartment windows, like we expected, and started to spread out. They planned to get the computer systems, the control room, the mayors house, and the generators.”

“So they knew what they were doing?”

“Yeah.” Anika nodded, “That’s why we thought it was an assassination at first; they knew their stuff. Jet left the control room, and I had to coordinate with our guests and get everything working. Ford and Daryl rigged the powerhouse, and Kotono was trying to seperate out the non-fighters and get them to the landing bay. What we did to beat them was a hammer and anvil. Jet and her students were the hammer, and our guests were the anvil. Once they realised they weren’t attacking a lightly defended mine, the merc’ fleet retreated, leaving their friends behind to die fighting, or get arrested.”

“And what happened to them?”

“The survivors were handed over to the patrol,”

Again, Anika was obviously picking her words very carefully. Maico quickly jotted down a note to do a quick check for any Patrol or GJ reports.”

“Where they hired by the UBA?”

Another silence.

“....We couldn’t prove it,” Anika mumbled. She seemed to shrink into the pilot’s seat, dissolving down into herself. Maico could hear the girl’s breathing quicken just a little bit.”

A motive for the Sabers attacking the UBA then? But of course... this makes sense. If Jet controls the Sabers, she could set them on the UBA.

“So why did you suspect them?”

Maico kept her voice flat as a Martian desert, but inside she was fizzing. She was ready to pop with the excitement of it. Another little piece to the puzzle. Another step. More information to fuel more tough questions with more answers that’d make one firecracker of a story that would feed her for a year. This was so Woodward and Bernstein!

“Uh... well. Two days after the raid we were cleaning up when two of their managers show up pushing membership,” Anika giggled, “Ford knocked one out when they wouldn’t leave and Good riddance too!” For a moment, her voice seemed to ring off the cabin windows. “And it wasn’t the first time. They did it after the first raid too...”

Ambulance chasers. Or something more sinister?

“Thank you Anika, that helps a lot,”

Maico was true to her word. She hadn’t recorded a word. She’s made a few notes leading into questions for Jet.... but nothing Anika

“No problem!” the operator chirruped. “Just don’t tell anyone I told you,” she added in a small voice,

Maico smiled at her. “Don’t worry, it’s just between you and me,”

“Thanks,” Anika breathed. Her shoulders dropped in relief and she snuggled herself into the Pilot’s seat.

“Just one more thing,” Maico said.

“Oh?” Anika’s eyebrow rose.

Be casual, Maico

“What do you think about the Knight Sabers?”

The little “eep” that came from her mouth told Maico everything she needed to know. This.... this was the place. This was the heart of the matter.

“I’ve heard they’re fighting the UBA for some reasons,” she answered, the words pilling out of her mouth.

Okay. Time to try this again.

“Do you think they’re trying to eliminate the competition?” Maico asked, absolutely straightfaced. Anika hissed, a sharp breath rushing through her teeth. Maico could feel the air grow could as the sun went in. “Or maybe they’ve just been hired by Greenwood for a mission,”

“Or maybe they’re just trying to do some good out here,” added Anika, quietly. She stared out at the stars.

Bingo! Maico took her headset off, and set about fixing her pink hair. They were going a quarter turn around the belt; this was going to be a long one.

She fell asleep against the window frame a few minutes later.

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

[Black Aeronaut]

I could use a ship like this, she mused. That’s what I’ll do when I
finish this story, I’ll put a downpayment on my own little cruiser.

It’d even pay for itself, what with not having to beg for a lift
everywhere, or getting caught short while important things happened on
the other side of the ‘verse. i’ll just bring this score in and I’m
done.

That a hint? 
Honestly, I can see Ben taking the 'Recon Package' and tricking it out with interior cameras.  Instances where she was trying to get footage of the Knightwing won't be a problem for her again.

[HRogge]

If/when she gets a big story and the end, she might want to continue her life as a reporter. Of course, some more resources or even a small ship will help with the job.

[Dartz]

That a hint? 
Honestly, I can see Ben taking the 'Recon Package' and tricking it out with interior cameras.  Instances where she was trying to get footage of the Knightwing won't be a problem for her again.

"In sensational news today, Freelance reporter Maico Tange has been found to be taking bribes from the Roughriders. Maico, in violation of all ethical requirement of the profession, was found to have accepted a luxury custom-shuttlecraft, and in exchange she would place a positive spin on events surrounding 36 Atalante. This is Constance Gardner, Fenspace fair and balanced News Reporter,"

Which... even if that's not the case is exactly how it would be spun by her enemies. Which means she'd likely turn it down and leave, or be forced to speak out in order to maintain her integrity. Maico really can't afford to be seen to be taking favours from anyone, can she?

Buying one straight up(or second hand), on the other hand... she might be able to do that when she exposes the UBA as Mason's protection racket. If enough interested parties are interested in buying that story. And it gives her some payoff for all her work, with the hint that maybe there'll be more to come....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh no, she'll have to buy it alright. But Ben would have the thing waiting for her, keys in hand, already warmed up and ready to fly.

[Dartz]

Well, we'll see how this ends.

Rob, I hope you don't mind me putting a few Stellvian's on Frigga.... since they're mentioned as being regular customers of Survival Shot, why not have Maico pick a busy day, when the future crew of Ultima are aboard for their early training. And Anika and Miyuri in the same room....

Unless you have any objections... I can switch them out for nameless warsies quickly enough.

Also. Frigga is 69km long. It's silly to assume everything's going to be clustered together.... so they have to have some way of getting around inside that isn't walking. And nobody else had one.

Someone was singing

[i“I've been from Tuscon to Tucumcari[/i]
Tehachapi to Tonapah”

A woman’s voice, with a radio’s hiss. Singing.

“Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed”

A second joined. Rougher, coarsing and more gruff. Husky was the word. She opened her eyes, to be greeted by a view of the back-seater’s instrument panel. The pain in her neck, matched the pain in her empty stomach. A pane of transparent carbon did not make a good pillow.

“And if you give me: weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a si~ign”

Both voices harmonised. Giggling cut in. Snorting, rapid, sugarcoated giggling from right in front of her, rather than on the radio.

“What’s going on?” Maico managed to slur out, still half under the covers of sleep.

“I'll be willin', to be movin'”

“We’re nearly at Frigga,” Anika announced. “Just picking up Ford and Jet moving the S.C. One Night into orbit.”

“I've been kicked by the wind, robbed by the sleet
Had my head stoved in, but I'm still on my feet and I'm still... willin'”

The first voice took over again.

“That them singing?”

Her brain was still struggling to catch up.

“Yup. It’s a quirk on Ford’s old truck.” Anika explained, still giddy “It tows better if both the driver, and someone on the towed vehicle sing that song in harmony.”

“Oh.... but of course,” she murmured. Not bad singing. Husky sounded like she knew what she was doing

“Now I smuggled some smokes and folks from Mexico
Baked by the sun, every time I go to Mexico, and I'm still...”

“Ford, Ford, Stop it there!” the hoarser voice interrupted. “That’s bang on,”

“Cut engines!” the first voice called out.

The music stopped. The music seemed to run into a wall.

“Firing anchor cables.” A pause. “And we’re done. Frigganstationary orbit and stable.” A deep breath, “And about bloody time,”

“Yeah,” the first snorted. She sounded American. Chicago? “Fucking thing, At least the junk-heap should stay there now.”

“I’ll be at the airlock, waiting,”

“Keep your panties on. I’m not going to forget you can’t just scoot over this time,”

“Again...” the husky voice added with a growl. “Poxy touchscreens.”

“Don’t start!” the Chicago voice snapped her down. “You’ve had that body for six years and you still haven’t stopped bitching about touchscreens,”

“Because of the amount of gobdaw’s out there who insist on still using the things because they’re lol-futuristic,”

Maico had this image of a woman rolling her eyes. That was Jet? So, Chicago would be Ford. She trawled back through her memories, to that image of Jet in her mind from seven years earlier. Big, armoured... but most of all cheery, good natured and earnest. Ford; active... very active with a metal arm. She was always moving.

“Frigga control, this Little Cool Rider, I’m on my way in,”

“Little Cool Rider. Side door’s open. Just park up on the porch and wait a little for the Dragon Wagon,”

Jet’s voice. Husky, rough... on the verge of being hoarse. And coming from the control room on the asteroid itself.

“How could Jet be in two places?” Maico asked herself. On some orbiting spacecraft waiting to be picked up, and in the control room. She was just one person.

Out the window, there was nothing but stars. And a point of light that was beginning to grow

“Frigga Control, Little Cool Rider. Passing outer marker,”

“Little Cool Rider, you know the way home,”

Now why did that sound like ‘Don’t bother me, I’m busy’? She heard Anika snarl a little a mutter through her teeth, “Why did I even write those procedures if nobody follows them?”

She puffed out a sigh and slumped against her harness, throttling the engines down. The turbines whined, sending a shudder through the frame that banished the last of Maico’s tiredness.

Frigga grew from a spark, to a pebble on the window, to a sixty kilometre wide stone hanging in space. That never got old. Sparks flashed across it’s surface in the accomodation block, while a dome was visible on the horizon, the sun shining through it like an arclight for a moment before night fell and the lights came on inside.

Gunshots from thrusters aligned them up with what seemed like a small doorway at first. Maico gaped as it began to grow bigger, and kept on growing until it dwarfed the little shuttlecraft. Painted onto it ribbed steel surface in tall, faded dirty-white letters;

NEW BIRMINGHAM WELCOMES YOU.

The A-wing would’ve fit happily in the dot on top of the i. Between the legs of the H was a smaller hatchway, picked out by for throbbing red lights. Above it, an obvious patch in the distinctive shape of an old war-era ramship. That was a hell of a door

“It’s big,” said Maico.

It was big, the same way Mercury was hot.

“Wait till you see inside,” Anike promised with a knowing smirk. “It’s the oldest part of the original mine, the original lode they excavated. They built the hatchway over it when the war began so they could load up in safety, so there’s a huge chamber in there that we can pressurise.”

She was bragging about it, and Maico couldn’t blame her for it. There was something intimidating about such a big door, and mildly disappointing about the small airlock inside. Small, being a relative term, adecent sized cruiser could still get through it with room to spare.

The A-wing touched down and began to wait, a sign painted on the inner door warning them to wait until both lights were green The force of pressure on a doorway that large, even with only one atmosphere behind it, must have been immense. It made Maico shiver just a little bit.

“Frigga Control, Little Cool Rider, we’re waiting on the porch,” Anika broadcast.

“Standby Anika, we’re on our way,” Jet responded. Which Jet?

She growled, settling herself into a bitter, octopus-lipped pout.

A green pickup truck skidded to a halt beside her, smoke puffing silently up from locked tyres. It rocked on its suspension, blue black puffballs of smoke rising from stained chrome stacks. It still wore stickers advertising “Ford’s Independent Mechanics”. Had there been a time when people actually drove around in waved land vehicles?

Lights went green, and both shuttlecraft and pickup truck drove forward

Maico yelped.

The delta wing planform of a Gagarin class was parked above them, blotting out the starlight floodlights far above. The ship’s own running lights took up the slack, picking out the loading ramps and access hatchways on the walls.

The StellviaCorp logo was painted proudly, a transponder giving the craft’s name as the SCSV Rinna Kazamatsuri. Still brand new.

“Oh, they’re just dropping off a group of trainees for Survival Shot,” Anika told her.

As if a Gagarin Class parked indoors was nothing at all remarkable. A sleeker, smaller BAT Outlaw was parked hanging from an overhead crane, and obviously blocked in by the bulky explorer.

“But of course. I heard they’re a big contractor for you out here,”

They hovered across the floor on reaction control jets, the green truck just driving behind with its passenger door half open. Both stopped to wait for a break in the human traffic disembarking. A redhead in motorcycle leathers took the opportunity to bolt. Who was she?

Maico thought she looked a little like Jet.

Anika pushed the shuttle forwards, skimming across the scarred steel floor, finding her way to a partitioned sector of the floor, where it stopped.

“Wait for me,” Anika ordered, “I have to tie this down or it’ll drift when the gravity plate is turned off,”

“But of course,” Maico murmured.

She stood, shoes on the steel, just staring up, while someone was barking orders in the distance. The gravity was tangibly wrong, like just about every settlement really, but never in a way it was possible to put a finger on. And it was wrong in a way that was unique to Frigga.

It smelled industrial. It smelled of old steel and oil, and dry stone and engine exhaust.

Across the bay, two dangerous looking attack choppers flanked a larger sister, which had the distinctive three-bladed radiation symbol emblazoned on it’s flank. She recognised the type immediately.

“A Hind D, what’s a Russian gunship doing here?” she asked no-one.

And beside it, those two must’ve been Havocs then.

Behind her, she heard Anika tut to herself. “It’s part of our defense force. We don’t have pilots yet,” she stated, deadpan.

“Maico!” someone barked out her name.

The redhead was running towards her, hair billowing behind her. Blue eyes, soft smile and face.

“Mister Jaguar?” She said, half unsure.

“Yup,” she nodded with a smirk. Maico gave the woman a dubious look. Jet, wearing black padded motorcycle leathers and crash-proof boots. Maico winced as she placed a lightweight hand on her shoulder, gripping tight. But not painfully tight. “Though it’s Miss Jaguar now, or really just Jet,”

“But it says in your file...”

“I changed it,” Jet stated. “To fit changing circumstances,”

“Oh?” Maico raised an eyebrow.

“Mackie’s my Brother, I have to be his Sister,” explained Jet, as if that was the entire explanation.

“But of course,” Maico demurred, not really understanding, but knowing that was all she’d get on the subject “It’s nice to meet you again,” she managed to say.

Jet offered her a handshake, which she reluctantly accepted. It surprised her to find the grip firm, but not crushing her hand into a bloody pulp.

“The same.” said Jet, warmly “I’m assuming you’d like to rest and get something to eat before we talk?”

Maico cringed, a sharp pang of hunger slashing through her stomach. Her face scrunched up, a little ashamed. “If it’s no trouble, Jet”

“No,” the cyber shook her head. “We’ve got plenty of space. Though were a little busy right now,” she took a deep breath, looking up at the ship above her. “You know what they say about running a business. Sometimes you have to be in two places at once,”

The grin told her it was supposed to be a joke, but she didn’t quite get it. She forced herself to giggle anyway. Manners.

“Jet,” Anika called from behind, “I have an important message from Jeph,”

Jet’s answer was a quick hand signal. Maico was certain she caught it on tape, whatever it meant. Ryan would know.

“Got it,” said Anika with a grin. “I’ll go get changed. Later Maico,”

“Bye,”

Anika was gone, running towards a hatch.

“Ford’ll be along with the Warthog in a few seconds, she’ll take you up to the control room. I have to head up and meet with the Rinna’s navigator.” another deep breath. “And we’re a half hour behind schedule already,”

Jet was running fingers through her hair, and seemed to be partially mesmerised by the sensation of doing it. Maybe if she changed her gender identity, she changed her body, Maico theorised.

“Warthog?” asked Maico.

She was answered by the throaty roar of a big-block V8 downshifting as if to say ‘that’. An open-topped fat-tyres 4-wheel off-roader in grey-white military camo, with Ford Sierra in the driver’s seat, pulled to a halt behind Jet. It towered over her.

“Oh... A Halo Warthog,” she said, in a small voice. She was just below eye level with the sill.

It barked and snorted like a hog, that was for sure. She could exhaust fumes, hot carbon monoxide and carbon, mixed with the distinctive odour of genuine big-fireball gasoline. She swallowed a lump. It was the real deal...unwaved. 521cu according to a plate on the side, powered by Ford Racing.

“Hop in” Ford beckoned. “We’ll take a shortcut through a service tunnel in this,” she patted the steering wheel.

Maico tentatively gripped two cold steel handrails and hauled herself up what felt like a mountain, before settling down into a passenger seat that was snug.

The engine thrummed through her spine, a deep, sub-bass rumble that made her feel just a little queasy. She glanced at a clipboard pinned to the dash, beside a wireframe map of the station. In the back, a pair of inert CGI Exocomps and a toolbox where a gun mount was supposed to be. The floor beneath her feet was checkerplate. Something about the whole machine made it feel very dangerous.

She heard Jet shout out at Ford over the engine, but missed what she’d said. It might’ve been “Talk later.”

Ford just nodded wordlessly, then turned and grinned right at her.

“Buckle up, this thing can really move,”

Why did that sound like a threat?

Well...... they dug out a big lump of ore from the surface and stuck a door over it so they wouldn't get shot to pieces if they were attacked while digging the deeper parts on... but they could still get bulk ore carriers off the surface by opening it. I'm assuming most operating mines would have something of similar scale....
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?