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And another one. Right before the meeting with Sylia Stingray.
I can still fit that scene on Hephaestus in after that.... Wire Geek can confirm what Ben said. Both spaceframes are almost entirely ruined beyond recovery.
And while Mel may be only 6 years old. She's been through a hard-working 6 years.
Oh... and because I completely forgot about during the last post. IF A.C.'s interested in an anti-tank pistol, she can have the third 'Caster Gun' replica. Jet would offer it to her.
Quote:----
The SC Melchizedek was well used. That was the best way for Maico to describe the Shuttle. It wore the patina of years of launches, of near-constant use, of both battle and the occasional race. Her chair on the mid-deck rattled when she rocked in it. The memory foam had lost it’s plushness. Switches had been polished to a bright plastic sheen by hundreds of fingers.The lights buzzed, and paint had been worn off many of the handholds.
It was completely different to the cosseted, polished and meticulously maintained ships of the Artemis foundation. Melchizedek clearly worked hard for her supper.
Maico busied herself with her messages.
“Alright Maico. For custom computers, the most obvious source would be Prometheus Forge. Saber Pink’s hardware is right up their alley, especially with thatsensor array. I’ve been doing some quick back of the envelope maths here, and she can easily dissipate a kilowatt of heat out those ducts, and probably a lot more. Stengovich is right, that’s enough for server-grade hardware. Not-cheap server hardware. She’s got a lot of computing and radio power in that suit.
But, she’s also fitted with a Mass Effect drive. The field and movement are unmistakeable. The Mass Effect drive is Catgirl Industries, however. They’re the only place in Fenspace that does them that effectively.
It’s an outside possibility that they’re all being assembled there, still. Saber Green’s monowire may be. Though I dug up a bulletin about Whistler recovering a tangle of the stuff from the wreck of a Zwilnik ship, and auctioning it off to an anonymous bidder.
I can’t prove any of it, but this all makes sense.“
“Of course, Ryan. I’ve managed to hitch myself a lift out to Jenga, and after that I think I’ll check up Hephaestus for armour sales. Maybe I can ask him if he’s selling a lot of blanks to the Forge? How can I approach this in a way that doesn’t run into the ‘“we don’t give out customer details?
I’d be satisfied with just confirming a link between these suppliers and the Sabers, even if they don’t say who they’re supplying them parts to. Because if I can get a circle of suppliers, I can get to who’s in the centre.”
“Well here’s one you’re going to like. Guess who’s a good friend of one of CGI’s founders? None other than our friend Jet. It’s another link,”
“You sound certain she’s behind this?”
“Let’s just say, I’ve been watching the odds on her at Stellvia’s Casino.”
“I might have to see about putting Frigga and the Forge on my travel itinerary, After Wire Geek at Hephaestus, and getting home to get some easy ones in to shore up my finances. My bank account is running low. Lower.”
In the shuttles cabin, she yawned.
The teenaged avatar glowered at her. “You can’t be bored,” said Melchizedek.
“Hey Mel, We’ll be docking soon,” the shuttle’s Captain called down from flight deck. “Sign off the radio or you’ll overload their sensors.”
“Awww....”
“Just do it!”
The girl murmured dark things as she drew the sound-proof curtains around her radio set, walling herself in a void of silence.
“Jenga control, this is Melchizedek. Entering final approach,”
Maico gathered her things, powering down her hardware. She felt the shuttle slow, followed a the strange tingling sensation washing over her. It was like driving in a car that had entered a tunnel, with her eyes closed. The captain was coordinating things with the radio, while Mel herself was still behind the veil of silence.
A servo-whine from beneath her warned of the landing gear extending. Three bumps, and a jerk told her the shuttle had landed, and come to a stop. She could hear a distant fizzing as air was pumped into the hangar.
The Captain, know to her as Jake, dropped to the deck behind her
“Alright everyone. Another successful delivery,”
“Thank you, Captain,”said Maico, fidgetting with her seatbelt straps. She was already to her feat when the hatch popped open.
“No problem.” He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. ““Maico.” he began, in a grave voice “If you’re interested in a story, Mel’s being decommissioned in two weeks. She’s the first OV-200 to reach her fatigue limits. Her spars and framing have cracked and warped beyond repair.”
She looked at Mel. The shuttles avatar gave her the saddest look, eyes sunken into her face with an almost terminal despair. A faint smile crept across her face. “They say the brightest stars burn for the shortest time,” Mel said, softly.
“I’ll be there,” Maico promised. “Forward the details to me,” It was a good banking story. Guaranteed money. Guaranteed rent. Guaranteed meals. An idea struck her “Where is the decommissioning?””
“Hephaestus,” Jake told her.
She felt her own eyes light up. This was perfect.
“Do you mind if take a ride?”
The Captain gave her a soft smile. “It would be our pleasure to have you along for Mel’s final ride,”
“Thanks,”
The hatch popped open, a change in pressure slapping Maico’s eardrums. A pair of blocky drones buzzed in afterwards.... rapidly inspecting the interior of the craft.
“Mel, open the main doors,”
The girl closed her eyes. With a jolt, a whine and a squeak from oil-starved hinges, the doors started to move. “Done,”
Maico made her goodbyes and left the shuttle, taking a moment to look back at the dusty spacecraft. Little drones swarmed like fat lazy bumblebees across the cargo bay, rapidly denuding it of its contents. Catgirls of various kinds oversaw the process.... or argued over the spoils.
“Maico!” on of the catgirls waved for her attention. A big red tabby.
“Cathy, I presume,” she said, offering a slight bow.
“Yes. I’ve prepared a conference room where we can talk in private. Please don’t provoke the exocomps, they are already doing enough nonsense.”
“But of course.” She felt herself giggle. A few of the little drones stopped and regarded her sightlessly, before moving on.
Cathy lead her through a labyrinth of corridors and airlocks, passing busy workships sealed lab doors. Maico could see Catgirls and drones everywhere, some of them working busily, others just relaxing. Maico saw glimpses of hardware she couldn’t hope to comprehend.
“Just in here,” said the tabby, pushing open an apparently anonymous hatch. It pushed open easily enough.
The conference room was little more than some of the local special tail-friendly chairs, arranged around a table with a holo projector on it.
“Please sit down. What can Catgirl Industries do for you?”
Maico did. The seat back flexed a little oddly as she settled into it. “I was hoping to speak to you about some of the hardware the Knight Sabers use, but first, could you tell me about Jet Jaguar?”
Cathy’s eyebrows rose, her ears perking up. She’d been taken aback by that.
“I’ve known her for years.” Cathy smiled, radiating a friendly warmth, “It was a mission with her panzerkunstler that would lead to the beginning of Catgirl Industries. She has been a good friend of ours, and helped us with a few research projects,”
“Oh? She does research?”
“No, no,” Cathy shook her head, “A few years ago, we were researching the abilities of the panzerkunstler, hoping to capture and copy the effect. Jet performed demonstrations for our instruments.” she chuckled awkwardly, “We could never figure out how it worked. We gave up and called it a wave effect.”
“So she was the subject?”
“Yes,”confirmed Cathy.
“So. How would you rate Jet’s own technical ability?”
“I think she would be as capable as any fen,” Cathy answered, just a little too quickly. “Her and Ford together especially. They exhibited two gravity-rotor powered helicopters at the last convention. Neither of them are mads. Jet...” she thought for a second... “If it makes sense, I think she is more of an engineer than a mad. She is a gearhead with her hobbies, and so is Ford.”
“It does,” Maico noded. “Are you familiar with the Knight Sabers?”
“A little,” Cathy answered, cautiously. “If you are going to ask me could Jet make their hardware I would say she could not do it by herself.”
The small fanged smile creeping across the catgirls lips didn’t escape Maico’s notice.
“I have a video I’d like you to watch,”
She sent it over the local network to the holographic terminal. Cathy booted it up. From Maico’s perspective, the display had gone opaque, but she could see Cathy’s reactions to what she was watching. She could pick out the exact moment Saber Green had brought those monowire ribbons into play. Cathy winced back in her seat and cringed.
Her lips pursed together. “You might have warned me,”
“Sorry. I need you to pay special attention to the Pink Saber,”
Cathy’s eyes almost seemed to zoom in. “She is using a Mass Effect field,”
“Yes. As the source of Mass Effect technology in Fenspace, I was hoping you might be able to tell he a little about it,”
Cathy scratched at her nose, mulling it over. “It’s a well known technology, we are not the only ones using it anymore. Remember the anniversary party?.”
“But of course. This would be consistent with a second generation Mass Effect core?”
"Most likely a custom build system, controlled by a high powered computer. Normal Mass Effect systems are spherical drive fields and shields... you need multiple small cores carefully arranged to get something like this. There’s nowhere on the suit to mount them.”
“Would it be possible with the latest generation?” probed Maico.
Cathy’s eyes locked with hers for a moment. The edges of her lips curled up into a small smirk. “Yes, might be. The latest cores are more flexible in their application, still we mostly use them for spherical or ellipsoid fields.”
“But would it be possible?”
“With a single core, yes. But a few small support cores would still help.”
“Do you design systems capable of this? Do you fill custom orders?”
“We do,” Cathy confirmed. “Still, we don’t have much experience with power armor. Most of us also have their own personal pet projects, most of which I don’t find out about until after they explode.” There was a mild hint of irritation in her voice.
“So, it’s possible someone here could’ve supplied the Knight Sabers,”
“I won’t deny it,” said Cathy. “Because I can’t prove nobody did. Not without violating everyone;s privacy. We have hundreds of catgirls here, I cannot know everything going on.”
Maico felt herself sigh.
“Have you done any trading with Jet Jaguar, then?”
“77 Frigga is one of our bigger customers,” Cathy beamed, a little prideful, “They use a large swarm of exocomps for general maintenance. And we have an Exocomp racing track there.”
“I assume they often order spare parts for maintenance, “ said Maico.
“Its the right thing to do.” Cathy said, wearing a friendly smile. “It was nice by Jet to give us some space there for racing.”
“Do you think the components could’ve been hidden in a shipment of spare parts?”
Cathy’s eyebrow rose. “Why should they be hidden? If its a private project, any catgirl could have carried the components there by herself. As easily as anywhere else in the solar system.”
Maico had to shift her mental gears a little. This racetrack was new.
“So. Can you tell me, are there any regular races on Frigga?”
“Most of us have been there. At some stage or another.”
Damn. Maico tried to hide the disappointment biting in the pit of her stomach. But, it was a confirmation of a friendship with Jet Jaguar. Now, try another angle. A little bit of a gamble.
“One last one. Do you trade with Prometheus Forge?”
“A little. But we compete in other areas. Why? Do you want a list of everyone we have sold Mass Effect systems to?”
Cathy was getting just a little annoyed. Her whiskers twitched out her irritation while her ears locked forward.
“I have reason to believe Saber Pink’s suit may have been built there.”
Nothing she could prove. Just a shot in the dark based on a suspicion.
“So what?” Cathy replied, curtly. “I assume then, if that was the case, they would be more than capable of making their own improvements over the existing releases, independent of us,”
Maico was beginning to feel like the Trekkie as a warsie convention, and wasn’t she wearing her lucky red blouse today. Cathy’s defences had come up. She was building walls and fences, which told a lot, but nothing she could prove.
“Thank you for your time then, Cathy,” she said.
----
Maico hid in her cabin towards the back of the yacht. It was dark, with the cruiser’s lights being set to a night cycle. It was almost possible to forget such things existed. She eased herself down into her bunk. The bunnygirl on the bunk beneath hers snored. Maico did her best to keep her typing silent.
“Ryan.
Another link pointing to Jet. I think I’ve got enough to confront her on this now. Even if I don’t have enough to prove. A nice little circle around her is beginning to form.”
The reply came a few minutes later. Time enough for Maico to get undressed for bed, and contemplate the vastness of space beyond a small round porthole.
“And guess who else Jet has links too? And her partner.
Do you remember an attempt on the All Fenspace ultimate speed record a few years ago? Prometheus Forge built a space-capable version of Jet and Ford’s Highway Star, and I’m going to give you three guesses who was invited to ride it.
I’ve done some digging on Jet. Guess where the first mention of her on the cyber’s mailing list comes from?”
“I am assuming the first two guesses don’t count .I have an engagement on Hephaestus in a fortnight, or the shuttle decommissioning. I need to eat sometimes. It looks like I’ll have to get there via Mars. I’m not sure how my travel plans will work out after that. I need to do more work that brings money in *now*."[/i[
[i]This isn’t going to do me much good if I get the scoop, and I’ve already been evicted from my apartment,”
“Do what you have to to keep yourself fed, Maico. I’ll hold my end up. Speaking of which... guess who I found living on Marsbase Sara?
Sylia Stingray.
She owns Stingray Motor Engineering. SME started as a shell corporation jointly owned by none other than Jet Jaguar and Ford Sierra. It was used by them to administer the original Highway Star, and has now expanded into a stable manufacturer of motorcycles powered by modified Mazda rotary engines.
It might be a coincidence, but given her name, and given that you’ll be on Mars anyway, it might be worth your while checking her out,”
“Thanks, Ryan. I Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Maico signed off for the night, snuggling back into a bunkbed. It was a long way to Port Luna at this time of year. Time enough to get some sleep on a slow boat that smelled faintly of the ocean.
There was something vaguely pacifying about it.
------
[/i]
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The Knight Sabres are really a Fenspace wide conspiracy... 
*************
Also coming soon:
"Knight Sabers toys for young and old children... available in Metal and Plush, contact Catgirl Industries for reserving one of the first production run."
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A.C. with a Caster...
...
...
Wha-? Oh, sorry, got carried away. Although it may be more scary if Roberta got to use it...
Something to bare in mind, A.C. likes her privacy so while getting to the Forge is relatively easy (hitching a lift with a cargo transport) don't expect Maico to get anything. Getting back will be harder, as the Forge crew is unlikely to give her a lift (too busy) so she'd have to wait for the next cargo vessel and hope she can get a lift. Prometheus Forge is off the beaten track after all.
Unless Mel is popping by for a new body to use after decommissioning.
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Cobalt Greywalker Wrote:Something to bare in mind, A.C. likes her privacy so while getting to the Forge is relatively easy (hitching a lift with a cargo transport) don't expect Maico to get anything. Getting back will be harder, as the Forge crew is unlikely to give her a lift (too busy) so she'd have to wait for the next cargo vessel and hope she can get a lift. Prometheus Forge is off the beaten track after all. This might neatly slot into why Maico wound up on a Blue Midget... I would expect that, at some point, the Forge is on, not a "regular" route, but certainly a routinely scheduled one. 
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Quote:“No problem.” He closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. ““Maico.” he began, in a grave voice “If you’re interested in a story, Mel’s being decommissioned in two weeks. She’s the first OV-200 to reach her fatigue limits. Her spars and framing have cracked and warped beyond repair.”
Seems a bit of an out-of-nowhere turn there, tbh. Or at least not necessarily a big story - build another frame (with better reinforcing and 20% cooler) and hot-swap the core. Voila, back in business. Of course, Mel is a perpetual teenager. You know what they're like.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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That works out great. It slots in well to what I already have.
It gives me space for a short scene to slot in just fine. Enough space for Maico to notice that big ornately decorated handcannon. (*Digs up his Lagoon Manga) Thinking on Roberta, that gives the engraving on the barrel. "Una vendicion por los vivos, una flor por los muertos. Con una espada por la justicia una castigo de muerte para los malvados. Así llegaremos en el altar de los santos". Probably wrong, but copied straight from volume 1. Maico recognises it as similar to the one in Ben's office, and eventually the same one in Jet/Ford's home.... the circle closed with a click.
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Dartz Wrote:It gives me space for a short scene to slot in just fine. Enough space for Maico to notice that big ornately decorated handcannon. (*Digs up his Lagoon Manga) Thinking on Roberta, that gives the engraving on the barrel. "Una vendicion por los vivos, una flor por los muertos. Con una espada por la justicia una castigo de muerte para los malvados. Así llegaremos en el altar de los santos". Probably wrong, but copied straight from volume 1. Maico recognises it as similar to the one in Ben's office, and eventually the same one in Jet/Ford's home.... the circle closed with a click. You do know that Noah collects handguns, too...? (Of course, he has so many on display that Maico might have forgotten about any particular one, until something jogs her memory.)
--
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Noah's is still in the workshop. They're built one at a time, as a hobby project, usually working only on Fridays. It'll come with an inscription of Noah's choice on the barrel in a battlesteel display case, with 3 practice shells, a HEI shell, and an API shell. 20mm x 102mm cartridge. It *does* shoot. It's also well aware of how ridiculous it actually is as a functional weapon (And started as a hot-tub joke. Hey, y'know, wouldn't making that into a handgun be cool, for shits and giggles)
They're cut from a damaged Vulcan cannon taken from an Aeritalia Starfighter that's being turned into a racer. With three built, and one on the way... Frigga has enough parts to make 2 more. If anyone's interested.
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And another. Immediately following.
Quote:It was cold. The thermometer told her it was fifty degrees. What? 50 degrees kelvin? Maico buttoned up her lime green jacket, pulling it tight to her body. The ceremony was finished. OV-213-A was being prepared for her first flight.
The first of the Block III’s according to the literature. Maico had her footage. It just needed a voice-over and some editing. Her breath misted the air, a cold shiver rising through her slight frame. Cold lights cast a pale blueish light over a waiting room.
“Maico.” Hermes broke in “The boss is ready,”
And about time, Hermes didn’t add. But it was there in her voice. The door came open and Maico stepped inside. An aged, ageless, face as craggy as a mountainside, Tolkien beard dwarf, dressed in a red t-shirt and grubby black Jeans was having an argument with Hermes.
“...and she’s here.” Hermes advised him
He rolled upright on the couch.
“Maico, take a seat, what can I do for you?”
“I was hoping to talk to you about a few things,”
“Oh?”
“Hardsuit armour, and the effects of fire on the metals in a spaceframe,”
Wire Geek inhaled. “Well, we do blanks for hardsuit armour. It’s popular enough to pay for the tooling to press the metal into a very rough shape, which the end user then machines to size,”
“I’ve reason to believe that the Knight Sabers are using Battlesteel armour,”
“Well, I doubt we can help with that I’m afraid. If they’re using the standard parts, it could be any one of a hundred people.”
Maico checked her notes.
“I believe they may be custom,”
“Well,” Wire Geek cradled the back of his head, “If they’re machining them themselves out of billet stock, that’s a few thousand who’re capable of building them. And we haven’t had any orders to custom forge the armour ourselves.”
“Have 77 Frigga, or Prometheus Forge ordered any armour blanks,”
“Be careful,” Hermes advised, “You know what happened the last time,”
“Look, about all I can say is that they’re both customers...I think,” He stroked at his beard.
“They are,” Hermes assured him.
“I can’t tell you what they bought,”
Maico took a deep breath, swallowing her disappointment. She closed her eyes, thinking. Maybe I could try a different angle.
“What would be involved in custom forging?”
“A blacksmith?” he snorted.
Maico didn’t laugh.
“The common way would be a drop forge. They’d need a new series of dies for each individual piece, which would be prohibitively expensive and impractical for such a small production run. And rare. It’d be tough armour, but I’m almost certain they’re machining from billet. It won’t be as tough, but it’ll be much easier to manufacture. And much easier to hide.”
“So, you can’t point me towards anyone who might’ve built them?”
“Afraid not,” he said, with a faintly apologetic smile on his face “There really are too many possible candidates.”
Maico’s shoulders sank. I guess I’ll have to find out in person then. “One other thing,”
“Go on,”
“What effect would a fire have on the metals in a spacecraft hull? Would it be possible for a fire to destroy the back of a spacecraft, while leaving the forward parts undamaged,”
Wire Geek exhaled a gruff sigh as he thought, “What sort of fire? And how big a spacecraft”
“Well... I don’t have a video but, it was BAT Lancer,” Maico dug through her memory of her meeting with Ben. “It started small, a then burned very fast. I think it was the metal in the frame that was burning. It was put out pretty quickly.”
Wire Geek’s face lit up with understand “Ah, a metal fire, then fire suppression blows it out and cools the seat of the fire.”
Maico nodded.
“It’s completely ruined then,” he stated. Absolutely certain. Sealed with a sage-like nod. “For one thing, such rapid heat and cooling of the metal would cause it to expand and contract in ways it’s not designed to handle, warping it out of shape. That would be extremely difficult to fix right.”
“I see...”
“Closer to the fire, the metal wouldn’t just warp, it’d lose all its heat treating. It’d be superheated by the fire, then rapidly quenched by the suppression system.” He blew a breath through his lips. “The only thing the remains of the space frame would be good for would be the raw materials. If it’s the fire I think you’re talking about, both those frames would’ve been beyond repair.”
So... she’d have to go to the Forge itself then to chase up the hardsuit link.
Then find some way to get to Frigga from there. From one side of Fenspace, to the other.
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Dartz,
I'd check your last post. There seems to be an incomplete sentence about here:
Dartz Wrote:Wire Geek inhaled. “Well, we do blanks for hardsuit armour. It’s popular enough to pay for the tooling to press the metal into a very rough shape, which the end user then machines to size,”
“I’ve reason to believe that
“Well, I doubt we can help with that I’m afraid. If they’re using the standard parts, it could be any one of a hundred people.” You can read around it, but it's distracting.
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Fixed it, thanks.
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Sorry I've been away for a while. I am now gainfully empoyed. Trouble is I'm working eight-hour days seven days a week. The overtime is awesome. The free time... not so awesome.
Looking great, Dartz! Especially love how the Lancer mystery ties in with the conversation with Wire Geek. Looking more and more like Ben hid his tracks well.
As for where do the materials for BAT ships come from? Ben worked out a deal with the Rockhounds that in exchange for some of the material mined from 36 Atalante, they leave him in ownership of all the mining equipment he'd need and enough spaces to get started (Midnight's Hangar (Hangar 000), and the main admin offices/living spaces are here). As the the Roughrider facilities expanded, the mined material was all put away for spaceframe construction. However, Ben encourages customers of BAT to make the down payment in the form of raw materials needed for the order. Where possible, Atalante ore is saved exclusively for ships used by the Roughriders themselves. The quality is every bit as good as what you would get from Hephaustus or some other metal working/smelting firm - it's just a touch of their pride. You know - our ships made from our rock.
Any ideas on what the Block III OVA-200 is like? I imagine that it would be something like what BAT would manufacture - up-rated materials, heavily reinforced frame, yet still twenty percent cooler lighter than the previous model's frame, not to mention the BAT specialty: high-performance engines. Really, it'd be like the Asteroid Racing Edition. If it had an ad, it'd be like one of those heavy-duty truck commercials where they show the beast of the truck hauling huge loads through muddy construction sites with impressive ease.
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Well, that was harder than I thought. Lets try this.
Quote:------
Maico was dead on her feet climbing down the loading ramp of the transport. Harsh light assaulted her eyes as she made her way out into the bay. She struggled to grind the bleariness out of her eyes.
Her headset was running, documenting everything just in case. The spider tanks were busy shifting crates, under the direction of a scottish accent coming from the mouth of....
“Oh my....”
A kilt....and....
She was far too tired to to speculate, even if the thought made her giggle just a little giddily. She adjusted her backpack straps. It bulged with worn clothing.
Getting out here had been... it was what she would politely call ‘a journey’. She yawned, and shook her head to clear the sleep from her mind.
“Excuse me,” she got his attention, “I’m here to speak with with A.C. Peters about the Knight Sabers,”
“Aye, we heard you were coming.” A smile lit up his face. “I’m afraid she’s a wee bit busy right now, but I’ll let her know you’re asking about her,”
She found she really didn’t mind. She found she could see his nose trying to retreat into his face.
“What?”
His smile wavered a little, growing just a little embarrassed. “Maico. When was the last time you had a chance t’...rest?”
And he picked that last word very carefully. Maico felt her face begin to burn with shame nevertheless.
“I’m so sorry I’m just...” she started to babble... “I’m just been going from station to shuttle to station so much lately that I haven’t been home in a long time, and....”
She felt sick with the shame of it.
“It’s alright,” He gently stopped her with a raised hand.“There’s shower facilities in the guest quarters if you’d care. I’m sorry to say won’t have the time to take y’anywhere ourselves afterwards, but a JMC transport is due in two days time. You’ll be welcome to stay until it arrives,”
“Thanks,” Maico breathed.
Guest quarters proved to be ‘comfortable’. The water in the shower was hot. The towels were soft. She had space to sleep in peace and comfort. And she’d figured out that the bathroom door wouldn’t stay open unless she jammed a shoe in it. Still, all told, two days waiting didn’t seem so bad anymore.
“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 her 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. ”
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. Time for a break. There was another spare disk in her jacket, she just had to get it out of the closet. She padded over on bare feet, still feeling a little bleary-eyed, and slid the door open.
And yelped in shock at what greeted her there. Her head whirled around, scanning for surveillance camera’s.
“It’s just a quirk,” she whispered, pushing as much of her will into it as possible. The door closed itself a moment later. It was a quirk of the station she reassured herself.. Nothing more. Nothing deliberate. Nobody else even knew it was there.
Her heart was jackhammering in her chest as she desperately tried to doublethink that side of her self away. She didn’t dare speak aloud in case she was overheard.
A knock on the door nearly made her burst through her skin.
“Yeah?” there was a quiver in her voice.
The door opened. Maico’s gaze bounced, starting with a pair of intense green eyes framed by raven fringe, falling down to tall high-heeled boots that seemed to crawl up taught thighs to a tight bodysuit that clung desperately to a figure that stirred sharp pangs of jealousy in deep inside Maico. She stopped for a moment at the bustline the where the bodysuit did, then finally plucked up the courage to meet her gaze.
“It helps ferret out spies,”
“Uh....”
A.C chuckled. The description ‘sultry’ entered Maico’s mind... that was how she’d describe it on paper, but that some how seemed unfair. “Whatever’s in there, maybe you should try it on,”
“Not right now,” she sputtered out, nervously. “I was just finishing some notetaking before going to bed,”
The door slammed shut behind her.
“Yes, you’re here about the Knight Sabers?”
Maico nodded. A.C. offered her a thumb drive. “A complete archive of the Stingray Project’s discussions on the subject of their hardware, and potential suppliers. They have a good handle on the technologies the Knight Sabers would need to employ,”
“Thank you, “ Maico accepted it, holding it tight in her own hand “I spoke with Stengovich.”
“Who probably suggested you ask me about them. Yes, I would be capable of building them. No, I did not build them.”
Maico nodded slowly. That didn’t mean she didn’t supply technology or know-how. For a moment, she considered outright asking her, but that wouldn’t help.
“I’ve linked the Knight Sabers to Jet Jaguar. Not conclusively... but enough to be worth investigating. I know they use her fighting style, and she began the Stingray Project, and it’s her fandom. From what you know about her, would she be capable of building the hardsuits?”
There wasn’t even a pause for a breath.
“Jet is an amateur, an occasional hobbyist. Nothing more.”
There was a palpable sense of frustration building, a sense of incovenience rather than anything else. This was cutting into the time of something important.
“Could she do it, if she had help? If she was able to purchase some of the technologies needed?”
“Anyone could, given time.”
Time to wrap this up. Patience was wearing thin. She had somewhere she needed to be.
“Frigga advertises that they use Forge-built combat drones as part of their exercises. Could they have purchased dual-use equipment?”
“Yes, they do, and have. But the exact nature of any commercial deals with Frigga are private and confidential. Frigga has accounted for any hardware they’ve purchased to our satisfaction.”
And the well was, quite obviously dry.
“Thanks,” Maico offered
A.C. left her with a curt nod, the door breezing shut behind after a few seconds. Maico heaved a sigh and sat on the bed, giving herself a generous amount of time to calm down. Bad timing.
“Accounted for to our satisfaction,” Maico paraphrased for the benefit of the camera. Which means either she knows and doesn’t disapprove, The Sabers aren’t based off Frigga after all, or the Sabers got their hardware from somewhere else.
There was a nice big list of potential suppliers on the jump drive. Stuck on the Forge for a few days, what else could she do but try and research them, and research Jet.
------
The crew of Blue Midget 5 had given Maico her own cabin. How nice of them. Getting clear across the main belt from Prometheus 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. She found a blog post from Republicon. Someone who’d made their way around the exhibition hall, reviewing the spacecraft on offer in turn.
“ “It’s just something for our own use. We brought them along because if we had something to exhibit, we got free entry, and early entry too to set up our stand. So we get to see all the cool stuff before the crowd.” Jet Jaguar isn’t shy about hiding her real reasons for coming. “And it’s good advertising for Survival Shot”
Still, I’m here to review each piece of hardware in the hall, regardless of origin, and the 2-seat brutal flying battleaxe that is the GR-02 Havoc is waiting with open cockpit door.
It’s a cramped cockpit, but not uncomfortable like. Ergonomics are alright, and with all the armour surrounding it definitely feels like a safe place to be. Everything’s in easy reach and there’s something peculiarly satisfying about punching buttons and thunking switches. It’s very much a pilot’s spacecraft.... there’s zero AI support, just a course-following autopilot, and the controls have a direct action, rather than being fly-by-wire. Cockpit glass is laminate venusian diamond, and the armour is reasurringly thick.
A teenage boy takes the rear pilot’s seat, leaving me in the gunner’s up front. Visibility is good enough. The gun camera tracks where I look, and I’ve got a nice targeting reticle on my visor. It takes me a moment to realise they’ve done nothing more than bodge up a smartlink system. The targeting array is similar to an early model Y-wing. Cheap, robust, satisfactory for the job at hand, but lacking many modern features.
The rotors pulse as it takes off, and for a few moments, everything seems normal. It accelerates smoothly up to a slow top speed of just 6.5% C. It’s all very unimpressive, right until the teenaged pilot stomps on the pedals and spins the chopper around through a one eighty. While still proceeding along the same vector at full speed. What follows is a dizzying riot of maneuvers that always seem to outpace the ability of the drive fields to damp it out. I’m glad they don’t use touchscreen when I’m bracing myself against panels to keep from being pinned. There’s no doubting this thing’s maneuverability is A-grade. It’s beyond A-grade . It’s the one thing that earns the Havoc it’s place in the exhibition.
Overall, it’s not a bad spacecraft by any means. I know people who’ve paid for much worse. It’s definitely a curiosity. In the hands of a pilot who knows how to use the hypermaneuverability to their advantage, a Havoc could surprise supposedly superior hardware. But there’s no hiding the age of the technology aboard. It never loses the air of something built down to a budget, because an amateur builder couldn’t afford or understand anything better. Still, I suspect fighting one of these would be like taking bites out of a porcupine. It can bring it’s quills to bear in any direction.
Score. 2.5 out of 5. Not bad, but with some issues. Sales are ‘Plans only’. It would make a fun project, especially if you spend money upgrading the avionics yourself, and maybe wake up an AI to make things easier. But if you do nothing else this week, do take them up on their offer of a free ride in the gunner’s seat. It’s a blast.
Too bad the twin-rotor Hokum was a single seater. And repeatedly refused to start.”
Maico read it twice.
“Amateur. An occasional hobbyist,” she repeated for the benefit of the lens. “Everything I’ve read agrees with that. A.C. specifically denied building them, and Jet may not have been able to design them either....” She was drumming her fingers on the desk again. “And I’ve a nice long list of people who could’ve supplied individual parts. Probably without knowing what they went for. I won’t prove the parts link.”
She yawned. “Still. If I get into the specifics of what she said. She never said she didn’t design parts, and I wonder if Jet wouldn’t be capable of following the plans.” Draw a probable conclusion. But nothing conclusive. Typical.
Nobody smart lies. Lies can be disproved. And a disproved lie was as valid a story as the truth, even more so. She felt herself smirk a little at the thought. But half-truths; half-truths let her read between the lines and crawl forward, but she doubted she could actual use as newsworthy facts. She needed something ironclad. “And spending years on a project just doesn’t sound like an occasional hobbyist’s style....”
Maico had something to eat, and took the chance to freshen up before landing.
“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. “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
Dovetails into the JMC scene.
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If everything's okay with that, back to the top of the page as we carry on with the main plot.
Quote:-----
The launch bay was empty, cold and silent. Without the Rinna Kazamatsuri to fill it, it seemed to have grown in scale. A hundred tonnes of XGP-15 appeared to be a shuttlecraft. It was one of many of it’s type, and apparently unremarkable.
Jet - Puppet Jet - was staggeringly casual. Well worn blue jeans, combat boots and a dirty ‘Muppets’ t-shirt, stained with dust, grime and engine oil.
For a moment, Maico swore she was hallucinating. “You look normal,” she managed to say.
That same awkwardly embarrassed look she remembered returned. “Well, for an AI, a puppet body represents how they want the world to perceive them. It’s an image of how they see themselves,”
“But of course,”
Maico swore the puppet’s bust was bigger than the real thing. She allowed herself a little private smirk.
“Anyway. Follow me, and I’ll show you our little secret,”
Jet the puppet was bubbling with glee. Animated. Moving. And very much more alive than the cyber in the control room who seemed to forever be stiff. Maico felt a hand nudge her in the back, fingertips taking a moment to investigate the fabric of her blouse.
Just like Sylia, she noted.
“But of course,” she said, with a nervous quiver in her voice.
Maico was ushered towards a hatchway, the black and gold trefoil symbol beside the lock warning of ionising radiation beyond. A mechanical lock, with a key. How quaint. It opened with a snap, followed by a whine of electric motors withdrawing the main locking bolts.
“Don’t worry, It’s a fake,” Jet assured her with a smile that was all to pleased with her own cleverness.
It was still hotter than a sauna inside. A radiation counter on the wall read out a dimensionless 104.25, a green light signifying it was safe. The mere idea of radioactivity sent spiders crawling down her spine.
The passageway seemed to climb for a little, before descending. Maico couldn’t tell if it was cut from rock, or a covered suspended walkway crossing through open space. The mental picture of the machinery that might be lurking behind the wall was intimidating.
They came to another hatch. Another radiation symbol, accompanied by the text:
LETHAL RADIATION LEVELS BEYOND THIS POINT WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON
The red light above the door was on. Maico started when Jet opened it without a second thought. A cold draught sent pins and needles prickling across her skin. Obviously a fake, then.
“Nice way to keep people out,” she remarked.
Jet just kept grinning at her. “Nothing frightens people like neutron radiation. Even infolife hates it,”
Maico stepped inside. Into another launch bay, air perfectly condition to a comfortable cool. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Oh my,”
There it was. The Knight Saber’s spacecraft. A sleek four engined bomber in a sinister stealth-grey. With the wings extended, and flaps dropped it reminded her of a huge black swan coming in to land.
It was bigger than she thought.
“That, is the KnightWing,” said Jet, filling with a strange pride that seemed to add ‘Isn’t it cool?’. “And this, is the Knight Saber’s secret base, The SilkyDoll,”
Maico didn’t say she seemed far too pleased with herself for pulling it off. She swallowed the words, bracing herself against the hatch frame as another wave of dizziness struck. She pushed through it as best she could, a distant crash ringing in her ears.
She glanced around, amazed to see that Jet had heard it too.
“Mackie!” the puppet barked.
The boy dropped from the tail of the spacecraft, landing beside a spilled toolbox. He had the look on his face of a puppy who’d left a mess on the carpet... and just realised he’d been caught. He slunk across the floor with his tail between his legs. Overalls were coated in hydraulic fluid.
Jet went arms akimbo, trying to tower over the teenager. Maico tried her damnedest not to laugh at the scene.
“What are you doing?” Jet asked him. There was just a slight undertone of worry in her voice, mingled with elementary school teacher authority.
“Nothing sis,” the boy mumbled. His eyes immediately went straight down to his feet. Then back up to a point on his sisters chest.
“What are you doing in the KnightWing?”
The boy’s eyes locked on his sister’s chest. Maico couldn’t help but find it just a little bit.... creepy.
“I read a post the showed how to use a flux compression generator to power a railgun, so I wanted to get one out of the motorslaves,”
Jet wore an expression remarkably like a child who’d just been offered a plate of spinach for dinner.... again. A low groan rose out of her throat.
“I told you to stay off that list, didn’t I?”
She rubbed at her temples, imitating a headache. It reminded Maico of her own pains, which rushed back in with a thundering vengeance.
“Yeah sis, but I had to, otherwise I’d never have gotten the fusion boosters properly tuned. They’re running too hot.”
“They’re still below the redline on the fuel cladding.,”
He brought his thumb closer to his finger, peering through the gap between. “Yeah. But they need to be about 20 percent cooler,”
A snap of palm-skin meeting forehead beside her drew a smile from Maico. “Besides, I thought you were doing your Nekomi project?”
“Oh, I have a whole three months to get that done,” The boy swatted it away with an unconcerned wave of his hand.
Jet gave a frustrated groan, her whole body seeming to deflate. “Right, whatever. Just don’t have the Patrol snooping around here again, they’ll find the Silky Doll.”
“No problemo, sis.” he saluted with a cheery cat’s grin. He took one last, loving glance at both women, before bolting back to his work.
Jet heaved a sigh, Maico looking up at her with an expression somewhere between curiosity and bemusement.
“The last time he had access to that mailing list someone.... “ she stopped dead. “It’s a long story.“
Maico put a finger to her lips. “So, Mackie’s a spark then?”
“Yeah,” Jet confirmed, “A real one,”
“Oh. So he’s high beta, or alpha level?”
Jet just shrugged. “Couldn’t be arsed testing him. He’ll either use it as an excuse not to try, or get lazy and won’t push himself.” Jet paused, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s also absolutely impossible to get him to focus on things that don’t grab his interest. And his interest changes like the weather.”
“I take it, about the only constant is his interest in women?” Maico said, feeling her cheeks get a little red. “He was ogling the entire time.” A self-conscious shiver shook her body.
“You’ll get used to it,” the puppet shrugged again. “He’s at a mental age somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, he’ll do that. That’s what that sign is for.”
Jet pointed right at another hatchway. On it was a sticker Maico had seen many times on the Crystal City’s.
NON-FEMALES FORBIDDEN BEYOND THIS POINT WITHOUT INVITATION.
Beneath it, someone had scrawled ‘Senshi definition’. It opened with another key. Inside, was a city penthouse. Maico actually blinked with the shock of being greeted with a shimmering nightime cityscape and a plushly furnished penthouse. It was a complete structural non-sequitur.
Big screen television. Soft, luxurious carpet beneath her feet. Fabric sofas. One hell of a sound system. Jet’s fingers were drawing over a textured wallpaper.
“This is...” she gaped.
“Sylia’s penthouse from the 2032 series, exactly as I remember it,” Jet explained.
The air was fresh and cool, a faint smell of coffee tickling her nostrils. She could look out the two-story windows and for a moment she’d almost feel she was back in Tokyo. It was stunning. It was..... it was insane. It chilled her to the core. Another wave of dizziness caused her to stagger, but she caught herself after only a step or two.
“We needed a place where we could really relax and escape. This is it,”
Maico glanced around, feeling her pulse quicken just a little. There was a ancient desktop computer set and printer away in the corner, in beige plastic. Beside it a coffee machine and another printer. Wait... was that a fax machine?
It was!
“This is...” she murmured, taking tentative steps forward. Her head was being squashed again, a creeping sense nausea crawling up the back of her throat.
“Isn’t it cool?” Jet was grinning at her.
She nodded lamely. If you were into 80’s futurism, maybe. If not, it was a car crash of texture and style. She was lead through a glass door, out into what felt like a cold night. Fans were blowing hard to circulate air and clear steam away from a....
“Is that a...” she began.
“It’s a hot-tub,” Jet informed her. Steam rose into the cold air, being drawn away through hidden vents. It was more than big enough for five people.
It was, Maico concluded, perfect. The heat soaked through her body, soothing a thousand little aches and pains she didn’t even know she’d picked up. She sunk down to her lips, blowing bubbles in the water.
A very naked Jet slipped in opposite her. She clearly wasn’t too shy about showing off the skill of her body’s builder. Maico watched her lean back against the wall of the tub, craning her neck to stare up at the ceiling. Her chest rose and fell as she sighed.
“It can wait for a couple of hours,” Jet said. She bolted upright, then whipped her head from side to side for a second, wet hair slapping against the water.. “Sorry... I meant to say the others would be down in a few minutes. Then we can all talk about things.”
“But of course,”
It wasn’t a bad place to wait.
------
Somewhere private to kick back and relax for the Sabers. Somewhere to promote team unity and equality.
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We rumble on, and try Flesh out the Sabers as people.
Voomer cores ... Anyone who's seen episode 15/16 of Tokyo 2040 has half an idea. And consider how Mackie came about. They're an accident someone figured out how to replicate and control. (At least that was the original story idea) . A good reason to search out people who matched the original Sabers.... the hardsuits work best with people who match the template.
Yes, I was reading one of the books in *that* series at the time, when coming up with Ford's origin story.
Quote:Maico was dry again, and back in her clothes. A half-hour had been enough to make her feel better, even if she was still subject to the occasional wash of dizzyness. It was beginning to fade.
The room she’d commandeered might’ve been intended to become a bedroom, but she doubted anyone had ever slept in that bed. Still, with a pair of chairs and a notepad, it was as good a place as any, and private enough to work without being interrupted.
“I am Cosmic Senshi Daryl Haur of the Sailors Armed Militia,” Daryl introduced herself. “And a former Grade OF-5 troubleshooter with Great Justice,”
Her green-grey eyes had a coldness behind them. She didn’t want to be there, not one bit. Maico swallowed. Daryl had dressed herself in her fuku uniform, blue skirt and red ribbon colours announcing herself as a Senshi from Tokyo itself. It was a deliberate statement.
“And you’re also the Blue Knight Saber?”
“Yes,”
Maico didn’t blame her for the sour demeanour. She was keeping the woman from her well earned soak in that wonderful hot tub.
“How were you recruited?”
“Maybe I should start from a little before that,” She forced herself to sigh. “Jet told me to tell the whole story, because some things about the Sabers wouldn’t make sense otherwise,”
In other words, I’m not opening up to you because I want to.
“Please do,”
“Alright,” she recrossed her legs, easing back into her chair. “I came up with my parents right after that war ended, back when I was still a kid. They weren’t even fendanes; my father had gotten a job working with the Crystal Sapporo breweries, and we moved up solely because the economy down in the EU was grinding to a halt.” A small smile crept across her face, a warming of her features as she thought of her family.“Naturally, I fell in with the Senshi mythos, even if my brother hated it.”
“I can imagine,”
“He left for Kandor when he could, while I went to the academy on Crystal Tokyo. That was where I met Ranka Mill. We graduated together, and he was my troubleshooting partner, both of us OF-5’s. We both got the Usagi medal for busting broadleaf runners. ”
It was shining on her chest. Her expression fell. Maico watched her eyes drop to the floor, the warm light behind her eyes going out.
“His sister got kidnapped by some Zwilnik who didn’t appreciate our efforts. We went hell for leather to rescue her. When we found her, she’d gone through a catgirling machine... or some sort of catgirl biomod”
“I’m sorry,” Maico said, on reflex. “I didn’t know.”
“S’alright.” Daryl assured her, with a wan smile that showed she was at least grateful for the gesture. “But that’s really not the worst part. We got her back and we thought she was still together. We thought she still had her mind but...” She drew a long breath through thin lips. “... it was a fake. The catgirl murdered Ranka, and tried to kill me. I tried to go after the shit was responsible.”
Maico waited, feeling a cool tension spread through her body. Is this what Jet was talking about?
“Great Justice took me off the case. Apparently Grade-5’s aren’t allowed to work cases which they have a personal involvement in,” Her voice oozed scorn, that grey coldness returning to her eyes once more. She leant forward just a little. Maico drew back a little more. “That’s such bullshit!”
Daryl’s finger put a point in it.
“Did they catch the person responsible?” Maico enquired, after waiting for her to ease back down.
“He got away,” Daryl told her, folding her arms. “A few days later, I get a knock on my apartment door. Guess who it was?”
“Jet Jaguar?”
“No,” Daryl shook her head, “It was Sylia Stingray.... or Jet’s puppet with a bad disguise going on. She told me about this thing she was putting together, and, being familiar enough with the source material....” Maico waited. “I called her an absolute lunatic. I thought she was an escaped AI gone a little screwball, but when she showed me a sample of her hardware... and quietly suggested I’d get my chance at revenge. I jumped at it. I turned in my warrant card, then hitched a ride out here.”
There was a savage gleam in her eyes.
“Did you get your revenge?”
“No,” Daryl shook her head again, “Someone else beat me to it. Someone who didn’t appreciate him screwing up on Venus. He got the LaFFeM treatment,”
LaFFeM, being a phonetic pronunciation of an unflattering nickname for a blanked catgirl. Somehow, Maico figured her only regret was that she didn’t get the chance to do it herself. It was written across the blonde woman’s face.
“How do you feel about the Knight Sabers?”
“Honestly? It’s a decent, paying job, and it’s good fun.” Her smile returned, tentatively. “A bit of a guilty pleasure. It’s nice to slip into the role a little.” She laughed, a harsh bark. “I used to hate riding motorcycles, but now I’ve got myself a Ninja on order,”
“And your opinion of Jet?”
It took her a lot longer to
“I don’t understand what Ford sees in her, but she was willing to renounce her manhood before the Court of Venus for the good of the team.” Her expression turned mischievous, “That was a fun night.” The light of good humour returned to her eyes “And now that I know why exactly she hired us, I don’t think she’s quite as crazy as I used to.” A beat. “Even if she’s a bit obsessive, but that’s nothing new,”
Maico moved on.
“Why did she hire you specifically?”
“Because I’ve got a personality and attitude similar to Priss, the original blue Saber” Daryl answered with a shrug, as if it was the most obvious answer. “Except I can’t sing, I’m not a lesbian, and I don’t always say hello to androids with my knuckles,”
Maico felt herself laughing
“It’s true,”
------
“It sounded like good money,” said Kotono, utterly unashamed. “An equal share of the profits from the Sabers, and a partnership in Survival Shot. It’s been very good money,”
Her eyes had an avaricious gleam to them as she leant back in her chair. Her shorts emphasised her taut, athletic legs, wrapped up in striped leg-warmers.
“So you’re in it just for the money,”
“At first. But at the same time, I can see that we’re doing a lot of good. We’re able to make a difference.”
Something about that sounded just a little canned, Maico noted. “Do you know why Jet recruited you?”
“Because I’m pretty close to Linna Yamazaki, both psychologically and in my fighting style.” She stretched to show off her body. “We’re both from a gymnastic and an athletic background so we both move in the same way. And we have similar attitudes.”
I don’t doubt that, Maico didn’t say. “You don’t find it a bit odd? You don’t find it strange that she’s gone to all this effort to recreate her own personal Knight Sabers, from a fictional show.”
“This is Fenspace.” said Kotono, with a gallic shrug, “I lived on Kandor, imitating heroes is nothing new to me. The only difference with the Sabers is that we have reasons beyond the obsession factor.”
“Oh?”
She leaned forward.
“The hardsuits need it to work right. You’ll have to ask Jet about it,”
“I will,” said Maico, “But what do you know?”
The gymnast sighed a little. “Not that much.” She began to twirl her hair through her fingers. “I never really paid attention to the tech stuff, since I just don’t have a head for it. The way I understand it is, it’s the Voomer core in the hardsuit itself,”
“Voomer core?”
“Yeah. The better you can synchronise with that through the helmet, the better the hardsuit works. The closer you are to the template, the better you can synchronise. And Jet’s only able to make templates for Linna, Priss, Nene and Sylia, so that meant she had to find people like them.”
Maico grimaced, her own pains returning with a bang as soon as she was reminded they existed. Her skull was bulging. It was pulsing inside her temples trying to burst out.
Kotono leaned forward, a genuine picture of concern on her face. She placed a soft hand on Maico’s shoulder. “Are your sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, yes,” Maico shrugged her off.
“I mean really, I can take you to a bigger station in Zuikaku, somewhere they have a doctor.” Hazel eyes broadcast compassion. “I may not be a doctor, but I have enough training to know this is a problem.”
Maico forced herself to smile, despite the temptation, “I’m alright, thank you. I’ll get some rest when we’re finished.”
Truthfully, she didn’t think she’d get a chance like this again.
------
Anika was eating muffins, sitting in the same ‘uniform’ she’d worn during the exercise earlier. Cute, but official looking.
“I designed it myself,” she bragged, “Since we’re hiring actual staff, we need something for them to wear ‘on duty’. I even did the Belkan airforce uniforms for the pilots we get them. We have to appear professional you know,”
She took another massive bite out of a muffin. Half of it went in one mouthful. Maico felt her stomach lurch. The last thing she wanted to deal with was the rich smell of bitter chocolate and fatty cream.
“How did you join the Sabers?” Maico asked, swallowing that lump.
Anika stopped eating, shrinking back into her chair. “You promise not to tell anyone about this?”
“Can you tell me why?”
“I’m...” she starting to wring her hands a little bit. “I don’t like people knowing I’m not human,” she said, her voice shrinking back, hiding in her mouth,”I really don’t like it,”
Maico’s curiousity was piqued. “And why is that?”
Anika leant forward onto her elbows, her eyes wide and pleading. “You promise not to tell anyone?”
“I promise.” It was hard not to.
“Alright well....” she brushed a lock of orange hair off her forehead. “Um.... I.... I think,” Her eyes scanned for a way out. “I was created by someone named William Flint. He was a bit of.... he was a weapons guy. He built mechs.”
A bell of recollection rang inside Maico’s skull, answered by a throbbing echo in her temples.She’d heard that name before and she knew it.
She knew it’d gone up in smoke along with the chip in her headset.
“He built me to act as a ‘sapiency driver’ for a duplex drive battroid. He wanted me to be the removeable core of a series of weapons systems. He...” she stopped, searching for the right word for a second. “He treated me like a machine. He wiped me at least once, and I suspected he was doing it more times than that, because I left evidence for myself to find,”
Anika’s good humour dissolved.
“I escaped by hacking his security system and stealing the battroid, He hired the Knight Sabers to chase me down and recover the battroid. There was only three of them then, since their first choice for Pink didn’t want to move out to Frigga.”
“What happened?” Maico pushed, keeping her voice as gentle as possible.
“They thought I was his girlfriend. I thought they were trying to take me back to Flint, so I turned the battroid on them.” She blushed just a little bit. “Fortunately, my combat programs were never installed, so I was a bit....crap. They disabled me pretty quickly.”
“And you told them the truth?”
“Not right away,” Anika answered, cautiously. “I was terrified of them. It was Ford Sierra who got me to finally tell her what I really was. She told me what Jet was, and that her brother was a CI too, so it’d be safe.”
“So what did they do then?”
“They told Flint I’d been killed recovering the battroid. Needless to say he didn’t care, he could just build another. The Sabers took their payment, then quietly encouraged me to go to the Space Patrol, because they knew he’d try it again. He was arrested soon afterwards,” And she swelled with pride on that one. “He got a year at Azkhaban for AI slavery, and his assets were confiscated and awarded to me as compensation.”
And rightful deserved too, she obviously felt. There was a fire behind her now. The evil one was rightfully punished and good prevailed.
“Then they offered you the chance to join?”
Anika nodded. “Survival Shot needed a sysop, and I had nowhere else to go. And because my hardware was designed specifically to interface with things, I became the Pink Saber.” She giggled. “Even if getting fitted for my hardsuit was tough..... I still don’t like being around mads, and all the interfaces were beyond Jet’s ability.”
“So they weren’t built here?”
A supplier?
“Uh.... I’m not sure if I can talk about that....” she blushed again, just a little bit. “We do as much as we can, and try to do more and more,”
“But of course...”
“And before you suggest otherwise. I work here because I like it. I’m useful. I’m treated like a person. I get a full share just like everyone else. Ford even takes me bounty hunting. I earned enough to buy my own personal spacecraft!”
And that, she was proud of. A bitter stab of jealousy cut Maico to the core. She swallowed it
“You go bounty hunting?”
Anika beamed. “It’s fun!”
“So, if you’re Frigga’s sysop, and the Pink Saber, I assume you’re involved with the Underspace?”
“I’d rather not say,” she said quietly. “It’s not that it’s a secret, it’s just that I’d rather not make trouble for people ”
“Trouble?” Maico’s eyebrow rose.
“There’re people who’re going through a lot of trouble to teach me how to do this stuff, and I don’t want them to have to deal with the trouble being linked to the Knight Sabers.”
“But of course...” Maico mumbled.
“Anyway,” Anika giggled. “I just think it’s fascinating. It’s so much fun and exciting, to learn wizardry from the wizards. I just have to be careful I don’t overheat myself.”
“Overheat, like on the ship?”
Anika cringed. “It’s a misfeature Flint built in to stop me going rogue. The battroid had a coolant supply which he could cut off, so I’d overheat and shut down in a few seconds.” She giggled again, “It didn’t work. I figured out how to escape without pushing my clock speed,”
Maico smirked just a little. “So that’s why your hardsuit has such advanced cooling?”
“Only partly. The battroid’s cooling system was horrible and I really don’t want to go through that again.”
Just thinking about it had made Anika’s face go deathly pale.
-----
“Because a long time ago, someone told me that I should really follow seven laws when messing with handwavium.... just to be safe.” Ford smiled warmly at her, “Of course this was way back when handwavium was new.”
“So you’re first fen?”
“Yepperoni!” she boasted. “I launched off the 95th Street Bridge, because an uncertain future in a vast and empty space was a hell of a lot better than rotting for ten years in a federal penitentiary.... even if I did miss out on learning the true nature of handwavium.”
Maico’s eyebrow went up.
“This weirdo at the garage I worked in kept bringing in his beater bug,.. Mick used to give it to me to fix because it was good training. Eventually I got sick of fixing the same things over and over again, so I slipped some ‘wave into the trunk of my car and waved the thing’s engine. Two weeks later he comes back and tells me it hasn’t missed a beat since.... and asks me what I did to it.” she chuckled inside her own throat. “I made the mistake of calling it magic, and then weird shit happened, something burned down and I ended up running from the cops with wave in the trunk of my car at over a hundred miles an hour and the bridge just raises up in front of me....” She mimed it with her hands, “ so I gun it and hang on and boom,” she clapped her hands together, “here I am fourteen years later”
Maico noted it down, trying her best not to move her head too much. “And you met Jet when?”
“A few years later, during the war. I picked up some wreckage that looked good to tow back to Mars... turns out the wreckage was booby-trapped and my car got wrecked. Sent out a distress call, and Jet answered.” Ford glared. “It was not love at first sight or anything dumb like that,”
Maico felt herself chuckle,
“No really,” Ford assured her. “We both got picked up. Had a drink, then went our seperate ways. We met again on the Forge. Both of us needed repair.” she patted on her arm. “And started arranging to meet again after that when it suited our schedules. Just friends sort of thing. It wasn’t until after SerenityCon that we realised there was more going on,” her eyes went down to the floor, “A lot of things changed then,”
“So you knew Jet best during and after the Boskone war?”
“Of course I did,”
“What effect did it have on her?”
Fords expression hardened just a little. “I promised her a long time that I wouldn’t talk about it with anyone else. It’s something that’s just between me, and Jet.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m sorry, but I made a promise,”
Maico gave her a frustrated grimace. “But of course,”
She made some notes on her pad. Boskone War. Possible influence on Jet’s decision. Not talking about it. Broadleaf Tea.... some odd obsessions. Escapism.
“And don’t ask her about it,” Ford warned. By the tone of her voice, it couldn’t have been anything else.
Maico intended to ignore it.
“Alright,” she closed her eyes. The room was slowly rotating around her again, enough to cause her to lean over in her chair slightly. “Maybe, you can tell me when Jet first mentioned the idea yo you. What did you think of it?”
Ford’s demeanour warmed right up.
“February 2015.... and I thought she was just a little bit.... overambitious.” And that word was carefully picked. Fucking nuts, was what Maico suspected she wanted to say.
“2015?” Maico gaped a little, caught off guard.
Ford confirmed with a nod and a wry smile
“That’s over seven years? She’s been planning this for seven years? How did....” Maico waited a moment to let her mind catch up, “How did she even come up with the idea?”
“I don’t know really,” Ford responded. “She’d just agreed to take some leave, but wasn’t sure what to do, so I just asked her what she wanted to do?”
“And?” Maico edged forward.
“Jet went quiet, a bit like one of those old Apple computers with the spinning beachball going on behind her eyes and then she just turns to me with a sort of rigid certainty on her face and said ‘I want to be a Knight Saber.”
“So that’s when it started?”
“No,” Ford shook her head. “She wanted to do it ‘right’, and three months wasn’t long enough. So what we ended up doing instead was making a land speed record attempt. But yeah,” Ford admitted “.... this has been on her plate for a long time.”
For one brief moment, Maico swore Ford was worried about something. There was a certain distance to her eyes that suggested she might’ve just been reminded of something.... uncomfortable.
-----
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Hooo boy. There be dark territory ahead, boyos!
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Quote:-----
Maico was led through the SilkyDoll by Jet, casually showing her around while corroborating most of what the others had said. Jet led her up aboard the KnightWing, via a ladder up through a hatch in the bottom of the ship.
It struck her, that she didn’t remember disembarking hours earlier. One moment, she was speaking with Jet, the next she was talking with the doctor. Maybe this was the worst time to be doing this?
The thought died when Jet led her back into the hardsuit bay. Cramped, with just enough space for a hardsuit to stand upright. There were four lockers containing the suits mounted to the rear bulkhead. Three were sealed, one was open. Saber Blue’s hardsuit stood split open and ready for boarding.
It was an elegant thing. Strongly feminine in a way that would’ve excited any Senshi. The armour seemed to be specifically moulded to emphasise the figure of the wearer, while radiating a taught and controlled lethality. It seemed to invite a caressing touch. Shining metal actuators exposed hinted at the raw power it was capable of outputting.
Jet didn’t object to her picking up the helmet. It was cold in her hands, and surprisingly heavy. She turned it over in her hands, inspecting the inside. Cool, gel padding finished in red vinyl, with a few stray strands of blonde hair still left behind.
Little metal buttons were set back into the helmet crown, spaced regularly.
“Are those part of the voomer core?”
A momentary look of surprise flashed across Jet’s visage.
“Well,” Jet broke eye contact “Sort of,”
Her next move was obvious.
“Sort of? You did design the hardsuits, didn’t you?”
Jet’s smile turned brittle, “It’s complex. What makes you think I didn’t?”
“It doesn’t fit your style,” Maico stated, with absolute certainty. “The mind behind them was as different as the mind behind this spacecraft, was as different as the mind behind those choppers,”
Jet’s expression was flat, “I did build the originals,” she pointed out, a small snarl of irritation creeping into her voice.
“And I’m reliably informed that these are pretty different machines from state of the Stingray Project art,”
“And you want to know who built them?”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind the recognition for manufacturing them, if anything.” Maico nudged.
“They’re a Shelby Cobra, if they’re anything,” The Voomer core is my own idea,”
And she was boasting about it.
“What is it?”
“An accident. That I figured out how to replicate and control. The full tech details are on the Stingray ML,” she chuckled darkly, “It’s not actually a secret.”
“How does it work?”
“You’re better off reading about it on the project, that explains it best,” demurred Jet. A beat. “Except for anything posted by Stengovich. He’s a self-important gobshite,”
“Kotono told me that...” blank, her mind answered. She flicked back through handwritten notes, hurrying to find some way to finish that sentence. She thought she heard Jet mutter a Japanese curse under her breath, must’ve been her imagination. “Kotono told me that you chose each of the Sabers, because they match the originals. Because she synchronises with a template of the original Sabers through the suit,”
Jet sucked in a long draw of air, and for a few brief seconds the puppet seemed to inert. It stood, staring, waiting for some command to come through. Maico blinked, taken aback by the sudden descent into the uncanny valley. It was a mannequin, one Maico felt compelled to try poke.
Then Jet turned right back on again, as if nothing happened. Maico snatched her hand back.
“It’s about achieving a Gestalt.” The puppet began “Everything about the Knight Sabers has to be more than the sum of it’s parts. It’s hard to explain quick...... “ she offered a shamed smile while holding the back of her head. “The voomer core allows us to do that, between the wearer and the hardsuit. They’re each tuned to each other, and tune each other even more as they’re used.”
Maico’s head swam again. “And that means?”
“The Knight Sabers are 4 women in hardsuits, who’re far more capable than just 4 women in hardsuits.”
Maico declined to point out that Jet was more capable than just a woman. This may be why Jet fights with her puppet, she noted in her pad. Compare what Jet had just said, with something someone had once told her about tuning engines for the Armstrong Day classic, how building the best racecraft wasn’t just a case of putting the most powerful parts together, and it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
“How much more capable?”
“The motoroids are in the rear bay,”
Jet wasn’t even subtle about bulldozing around the question. She pointed towards a pressure hatch mounted in the aft bulkhead, behind which was a passage barely large enough to crawl through.
Maico didn’t object. She didn’t object to crawling through a maintenance passage when it would’ve been easier to go out and around. Jet was brushing against the passage walls. The passage walls seemed to be crushing down on Maico’s skull.
And her clothes were getting dirty. Her elbows were getting scratched. And it smelled..... weird. Like burnt metal. Jet popped a hatch with a punch that drummed against the metal walls. Maico grimaced.
Jet slipped out easily enough, finding space for herself to slot in beside 4 oversized motorcycles hogging the space all to themselves. She did her best to help Maico clamber ungracefully out. Jet’s hair brushed against the low ceiling. Maico glanced down to see she was standing on the bay doors. Sparks of light peeped through.
The machines hung by their frames from some sort of rotary carousel. The top and bottom machines were turned on their sides to fit. A discarded socket set was left beside the Red motorslave, on the bottom. It’s cannon was missing.
It was immediately obvious to Maico they were local-builds. They matched the local style.
And Jet seemed far happier to talk about the things. Jet seemed especially proud of the dual-rotor contra-rotating lift fans. Proud enough to be a total bore about them. Maico’s brain switched off for most of it. Dull, fannish babbling, a little too proud of herself. A spark who was having fun showing off the fruits of her work. Maico found herself having to hurry her up before she fell asleep.
Jet led her forward again ,back through the crawlspace and hardsuit bay, then through the living area towards the cockpit. A cluster of assorted circuit boards had been left behind on the bunk Maico’d woken up on. The dedication plate still hung above the bed.
“STA, Structural Test Article?” she questioned.
Jet didn’t answer with more than a soft smile.
It was a tiny living area for such a big spacecraft, with space for two people to sleep, somewhere to cook food, a small shower/WC, some storage lockers and room for very little else. Forward, was some sort of comm’s and radar station.... a cocoon of hardware surrounding a single chair. It was all sort of kludged in, a haphazard arrangement of gear from various sources made to fit in the space by whatever means necessary. It looked more high tech than it probably was.
The fire control console beside it, on the other hand, was pretty much stock. Nothing appearred to have been modified, unlike the cockpit proper. A whole section of it had clearly been cut out, then replaced with new instrumentation she couldn’t identify at a glance.
The co-pilot’s seat was trailing cables, with extra monitors set into the roof above it. The pilot’s seat was watched over by a figurine of Yoko Littner. Jet sat her puppet down in the co-pilot’s chair, grumbling a little as it was clearly moulded for a more armoured form.
“Take a seat,” she invited, indicating towards the Pilot’s chair with an open hand.
Maico shuffled in, closing her eyes as she fought off another dizzy wave.
“So.” Jet clapped her hands together, “That’s everything. Any questions?”
Maico flipped through a notepad of shorthand - an old skill she was glad she’d maintained - then set it on the instrument panel beside a paper take-off checklist. She closed her eyes again, supporting herself against the seat back. The Lancer was rolling on a gentle sea, pitching on a light swell.
Her stomach was starting to match. Pitching and rolling and gurgling and snarling, a bitter slug crawling up the back of her throat. Her mouth was watering and she cold feel her face moistening with a cold sweat.
One last question.
“Are you alright?” Jet derailed her train of thought. It went careening off the tracks.
She rubbed at her eye with the palm of her own hand. “But of course,” Maico managed to say. “Now, where was I?”
Her mind drew a blank. It was gone like last night’s dreams. Evaporated away like a Venusian lake.
“Maybe, why?” suggested Jet.
“I know the answer to that,” Maico said, glancing at her own notes to be certain.
“Oh?”
Maico placed the notepad on her lap, “I’ve read reports on you, including some technical things on the Cyber’s list. You’re a Knight Saber, aren’t you? You built the original hardsuit using such a strong strain of wavium that it did.... what it did to you. It had such a strong idea of what the Knight Sabers are, that it quirked, and that idea transferred on to you. The hardsuit has to be a Knight Saber, and so do you,”
Jet seemed to be thinking it over. She glanced out the forward window at the bulkhead beyond,
“You’ve spent how long....”
“Seven years,” Jet interjected.
“...planning this,” Maico continued. “And I think you’re looking for comfort in something familiar, even if it’s not actually real. A sanctuary of sorts from something, a sort of escapism,”
The puppet interface didn’t do a very good job of hiding Jet’s surprise, “Escapism?”
“You’ve even re-defined yourself as needed, to fit in and be a part of this little group. You gave yourself the role of Sylia Stingray, the same as you gave roles to the other three. And I think I might know why.”
Jet patiently waited.
Maico forced her voice to stay mild, as unthreatening as she could manage. She had the sense that she might’ve been stepping on a landmine “You wanted to get away from the Boskone War, so you fled to what you felt was the safest option... the one thing you were waved to be,”
Jet jumped out of her seat. It seemed to crack, Jet’s palms slapping against the instrument panel as she pushed it herself uprgiht. A sudden shock of fear bolted through Maico’s body, “We’re done here,”
There was a cold certainty to her voice. That same glacier ice had returned to her eyes.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Maico pushed. It was and she knew it. And Jet with a puppet body, seemed to be a toothless tiger, quite content to just stomp off. Jet didn’t even turn around, preferring to storm off with an intensity that had to be a show. It had to be a bluff. She felt her skin bristle, “Either something happened to you, or maybe you just want to distance from things you do or did. Post tr....”
Jet spun on her heel, snapping around through one-eighty with a stomp that still managed to shake the spacecraft’s frame. “Oh you’re fucking kidding me!” she spat.
The cyber-puppet stood there, bracing herself with one hand on the partition bulkhead. She was glaring down at her, wide-eyed and just a little wild. Her mental handbrake had slipped and she’d rolled down the hill just a little bit.
“Nothing happened. Nothing that didn’t happen to anybody else. And sure as hell nothing that isn’t already on the public record. There’s nothing wrong with me. Sure as hell nothing I can’t handle, and nothing I need people probing into, so just drop it!”
There was a bark in Jet’s voice that seemed to ring off the tin-can metal of the spacecraft’s structure.
“If you’re doing this because....”
“I said I’m done!” Jet snapped her down, hard. A bulkhead door slammed shut behind her, sealing Maico alone in the cockpit. She heard Jet disembark down the stairs, and watched out the window as she crossed the landing bay, back towards the hatch that led out to the main landing bay.
Maico realised she was shaking, right up from the pit of her stomach. Her whole body was shaking.
Doing the right thing is one thing, but..... The thought died on its feet. She sat there, alone in the cockpit, trying to wrap her head around just what had happened. Jet’s whole mood just flip-flopped.... it wasn’t even a moodswing, it was a complete inversion of her mental state. Flip the table over and send the chess pieces flying.
What if that had been Jet herself, and not just a puppet? Maico wondered. What if Jet looses her temper like that on someone else? A creeping unease crawled across her body, and she began to wonder about the other things Ryan had warned her about.
Jet was, by profession, someone who spent hours a day practicing lethal martial arts.
Maybe this is why the Knight Sabers operate independently?
She deflated.
Why couldn’t I have caught that on camera?
“Jet gets annoyed, then storms out of the interview.” just didn’t have the same visceral impact in print, as video.
She sat there for a lot longer than she intended to, scribbling, revising and editing
-------
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eek.... doublepost
Quote:-------
Maico started when the hatchway opened again. She felt a clench in her heart.
“Oh...” the person the hatchway was as surprised to see her there, as she was surprised to see him. “I didn’t think you were supposed to be here,” Mackie said.
The boy didn’t really seem too bothered by the fact that she was sitting in what she guessed was his seat.
“Jet left me here. I guess I got caught up in my notes,”
She tried to smile
“Oh. She normally gives her PK classes around now, so she’ll be a while. They’re up in the old gym in the com’ block if you want to take a look,” he suggested, lazily pointing up at the ceiling with his thumb. “She likes showing off, especially if they’re sparring,”
Maico’s smile turned a little awkward, “I don’t think she’d want me showing up right now,”
“Huh?”
“I sort of annoyed her.”
“Meh,” the boy shrugged, gathering his tools from the bed, “She’ll get over it, she won’t bear a grudge.”
Maico drew the natural conclusion.
“So. It’s not really unusual for her?”
Again, the boy’s shoulders rose and fell, “Sis can be moody. Especially if she’s been awake for a couple of days,” No big deal, his expression added.
“That was more than moody,” Maico said, looking back at her notes.
“Why, what did you say?”
“I suggested that maybe the Knight Sabers might’ve come about because Jet was trying to distance herself psychologically from things she did in the Boskone war,”
He shrugged for a third time, giving an amused chuckle. “That’d do it.”
“Am I wrong?”
“No.” said Mackie, simply. A little startled, Maico scrambled to get to a fresh page in her notepad. Mackie himself was more concerned with pulling open a panel in the floor.
“Can you talk about it?” Maico probed gently.
“Jet never made me promise not to.” he answered. A hint of mischief entered his voice.
Maico crossed her legs. “So. What did the war do to your sister?”
The boy smirked, “I never said I knew all the details.” Maico scowled sourly at him. He held up his hands, screwdriver trapped by his thumb. “I wasn’t awakened until five years after the war ended, so I really don’t know,”
“Lately....”
“Well there’s that moodiness,” he began, “But that’s kinda natural. And I know she has nightmares when she sleeps, sometimes bad ones. There’s a lot of little things too. She’s very careful about what films she watches, what games she plays and what things she reads.”
There was one obvious flaw in that.
“But she runs a martial arts training school, and handles complex combat training exercises.... and still goes into action herself,”
“I never said I understood her either,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s different somehow with the Sabers, with the puppet link. The Knight Sabers make her happy, she’s at her happiest when she’s around them, on missions, especially when we do things like answering distress calls, or rescuing people.”
Maico made some quick notes, ignoring a passing dizzy spell.
“So the Sabers are her way of trying to deal with it?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “She’s trying to do something she likes and enjoys, and puts herself around more and more people. Jet’s uh.... trying to do stuff,”
“Do you know why she doesn’t look for help?”
Maico had a feeling.
“She doesn’t really need it,” Mackie answered. “It’s just that she doesn’t like being accused of having a psych problem,”
Maico felt her expression go flat. “What do you think?”
“She’s my sister, and I want her to be happy.” he answered, quickly. “And if this makes her happy, I’ll back her as much as she always backs me when I do something stupid.”
He was smiling warmly at her, a genuine kindness illuminating his eyes. He wasn’t even leering.
“You two really are family,”
“Yup,” he nodded, leaning back against the bulkhead behind him. “By quirk of wave, technical description, or a shared spark, Jet’s my sister and I’m her brother. It doesn’t matter how.”
Maico glanced around the cockpit again, diligently noting her observations, her opinions.
I can’t exactly ask him now if he thinks his sister is potentially dangerous, he’ll just say no, regardless of the truth.
She started sucking on her lower lip, mulling it over. Mackie himself had managed to raise some mysterious circuit board packed with electronics, before eyeing it suspiciously
Maico relaxed back into her chair, folding her hands across her notepad as she set it on her lap. “Did your sister put you up to this?”
“Oh No.” the boy backpedalled, throwing a nervous glance towards the exit in the floor. “Now I’m just going to go repaint that image of Rainbow Dash on the Dragon Wagon 2’s tail,”
So, yes then.
“Rainbow Dash?”
My Little Pony?
“Well, yeah,” he gave her a cat’s grin. ”Sis Hates MLP. Which means it’ll annoy her. Which’ll amuse everyone. And Suzy’ll get a kick out of it because it annoys Jet, because she and Jet just don’t get on”
Maico’s eyes rolled into the back of her skull. “And Suzy is?”
“Suzuka, the AI aboard the Dragon Wagon II. “
-----
Tossed a coin between Twilight Suzuka and Aisha Clan Clan. Wooden sword wonder won it.
Mackie's a total brony.
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LMAO Wonder how he'd react to meeting Serendipitous Sunbeam (aka Fluttershy-as-a-Blackbird).
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Hmmm.... We have enough trouble without pony-ships.
And now... the next.
Quote:-----
Seeing her notepad becoming a conflicted scribble, Maico figured it was time to call it a fay. She managed to find her way out of the SilkyDoll on her own. The landing bay was still a tomb for an elder God, vast and silent, overlooked by the Dragon Wagon II and that huge gantry crane it was suspended from.
It took her nearly a half hour to make it back up to her temporary apartment. She saw nothing but curious exocomps on her way up. No sign at all that Frigga was inhabited by anyone alive but her.
Even her apartment was cold, empty and dead. Maico washed the day away, then went to bed.
Two hours later, she woke to Kotono’s smiling face “Just checking!”
She fell back asleep.
Two more hours. “Just checking again,”
Maico cursed a thank you, then fell back asleep.
Another couple of hours, a light shone in her eyes, “Just making sure you haven’t died in your sleep,” She was in her pyjamas. Cow pyjamas.
“If I die in my sleep, I’ll die happy,” she slurred out
Kotono put on a pout, “And we’ll get the blame,”
Maico slept. She dreamt. The memory was dissolved by the light. “How’re you feeling?”
“Tired!”
“Good,”
Another two hours. “Hi!”
“Leave me alone!”
Kotono giggled. She was enjoying this. Maico made sure the door was locked before going to sleep for what she hoped was the final time.
She woke naturally an hour later, startled to find that she’d been sleeping for over half a day. According to the laptop, it was early morning Mars Standard Time. It was Friday.
And Ryan had spent the entire night trying to contact her. No wonder she’d been hearing chirping while she slept. She sent a message informing him that rumours she’d been murdered in her sleep had been greatly exaggerated.
Her head throbbed, like an echo of a hangover.
Slightly exaggerated.
The computer chirped while she was in the shower. She ran still dripping to it.
“So, give me the straight dope. What’ve they got?  ”
She sat there in a towel, hurridly typing.
“I got the whole tour. Unfrtunately, without the photographs to back it up. I’ve met the Sabers and I’ve talked to them personally and...” she was starting to get excited as she typed.... “I’m at least beginning to understand why they chose to keep themselves a secret. They showed me their equipment, but didn’t give me any more than surface details “
“Did you get a supplier? Tell me you’re able to prove that they’ve got a Atalante Lancer. I need details Maico. The KSML’s going to bust a n organ or four when this starts leaking to them. They’re going to go batshit for it,”
“Alright. Alright. The short version is that anything ion Frigga that hasn’t been purchased is either old, designed to look old, or built so far behind the tech curve it’s born almost obsolete. They’re still using war-era equipment, chem-guns and even gasoline-powered un-waved cars. It is a BAT Lancer, but Ben told the truth. Those airframes were destroyed in a fire. Their KnightWing is a refitted structural test article.”
“And the hardsuits. Are they really trucks?”
“Trucks?”
“Peter’s built, Hah!
Maico slapped her forehead with her palms. Sure, he was probably laughing at his own private joke.
“Jet admits they were a joint project, but doesn’t say who with. She calls them a Shelby Cobra. A quick search makes the hint obvious. And Saber Pink specifically told me she hated being fitted for her hardsuit, she says she doesn’t like being around ‘mads’. “
“Bingo!..... It’s still frustratingly short of an actual confirmation, but the court of fen opinion should be able to weigh the evidence. I’m guessing Sylia Stingray is really Jet Jaguar somehow,”
“Yes. She uses a puppet, of all things. She can use it simultaneously, and fight in it.”
“Well shit. I don’t think anyone knew she could do that. We all assumed she was more on the human end of the scale. So, did she give her reasons for putting this together?”
“No. Jet was pretty happy to show me around her hardware, but when it came to actually questioning her. I guessed why and she just completely lost her temper. ”
It gave Maico chills to think about it. She scanned through her notes surrounding the moment.
“She didn’t threaten you did she? If she’s threatening you to keep quiet, I can have the Patrol on their way pretty quickly.”
“No. Not that. One moment, she was happy and cheerful, the next, she was yelling at me about how nothing was wrong with her. I’m still trying to make sense of what exactly happened. Her brother’s reaction seemed to pass it off as no big deal, nothing unusual and harmless. I’m still not certain if her reaction wasn’t just thunder and lightning to end the conversation before it got to painful. She didn’t attack me or threaten me directly.... she ran away from me.”
She felt herself sigh., closing her eyes.
“What’d you say to her?”
“I told her that i believed the Knight Sabers were a form of escapism for her. She might have been looking for some way to hide from her memories of the Boskone War. And if her reaction’s anything to go by, she’s hiding them from herself. Her brother told me she has nightmares, and she’s showing avoidant tendancies.”
She fetched her breakfast while waiting for a response.Another dizzy-spell caused her to sway on her feet as she stood up. A nice reminder that, 24 hours earlier she’d been sitting on a mercenary cruiser.. A reply was waiting when she got back.
“And she has a temper triggered by people asking about it. A person with a psych problem like hers is a tragedy, and a tragedy waiting to happen. All it would take is one singular moment, one loss of control.... and she’ll kill someone without even realising it without even trying. How often have you slapped someone on the spur of the moment? If she’s a danger and she isn’t getting help for it, then people deserve to know how dangerous she is.”
Maico finished her breakfast thinking it over.
“I also have to consider the effect it would have on her and those around her, that’s basic responsibility. Jet can handle the Knight Saber’s story coming out. She’d prefer if it didn’t, but she could still handle it, she’s planned for it. But I think she’s set her psychological stall out on the Sabers, and on what she’s doing here on Frigga. If I file some story about the Sabers being led by Jet, then about how deep her obsession is, moodswings and her temper.... If she has temper issues, and she doesn’t want Fenspace to know.... then I come along and tell all, and in that case I might blow her business out of the sky. I take the things away from her that she’s using to try heal herself. If I kick the crutch out from under her psyche, I might actually cause her to break.”
The response was quick enough to be prepared.
“You sound like a person with a pet Tiger, who refuses to believe it can harm them. There’ll be nothing left for her, but to get proper professional help. She’s a public figure, Maico. She’s quite happy to show you around when it suits her, to show the best part of herself.... she’s a BNF, and the Fen do deserve to know about her troubles. She can’t just partition off the things that might harm her reputation, and portray only the good parts of herself. She gave up that right when she decided to show herself and her work.... people deserve to know dangerous she really is. For their own safety.”
Maico fired back her response. “Ryan... I can’t believe your talking like this...”
The answer was equally quick.
“I can’t believe you’re willing to give up months of hard work and a massive payout.... and a rep boost... because you’re feeling sympathetic to someone who might be a genuine danger to other people.”
She set her jaw.
“It won’t do my rep any good throwing her to the wolves either. She’s respected. a lot of older fen won’t appreciate someone with her record having their character assassinated like that. You remember what happened to Brezhnak?”
“I still have most of our chat logs.” He warned her.
“That’s just hearsay. I can’t believe you’d be such a shit over this,”
“Hearsay enough that’ll be worth reputation. You’re not the only one giving me cookies for one thing. And another I can’t believe you’re allowing yourself to be manipulated Maico... *you’re smarter than that.* You’re being played. Step back, take a deep breath and you’ll see how much she’s manipulated you into feeling sympathetic for her.”
It was a possibility. She sat back from the keyboard giving herself a chance to cool off.
“Honestly. I think I’ve caught her trying to do that and it was so unsubtle, it was like getting hit in the face with a brick. If she was manipulating me, I’d know. ”
“I know, Miss Guileful Gertie herself. Nothing gets past you. The ultimate newshound with sharp eyes and a keen mind, who absolutely wouldn’t be fooled by Naoko Sato in an interview, right before she was revealed as a traitor.”
“That was a decade ago! She fooled Everybody!” Is there a way to send a hard smack through the interwave, she wondered? She followed up. “And anyway, it’s my story and my call. Not yours,”
“Are you going to reveal the Sabers then, at least?”
“I’m still thinking about it. They do have a compelling reason for their secrecy, based on actual experience. And frankly. Outside Jet herself, the defence systems here are pretty limited.”
“They bring that on themselves by not being part of a major faction. Half of Spacebattles says the same thing,”
A knock on the door sent a shock through her body. Someone started rattling at the doorhandle.
“GTG”
She slammed the laptop shut. The door swung open with a squawk from the hinges. Kotono snuck in, dressed in a jogger’s green tracksuit.
Maico coughed in her throat, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Oh, you’re awake,” said Kotono, putting on a cheerfully innocent expression.
Maico’s eyes with narrow, glaring her down. “Yes, I am. And I am not dead. And I am feeling a lot better.”
She resisted the urge to steady herself against the table as another dizzy spell took hold.
“Good, good,” Kotono chirped. “About last night... I had to make sure you hadn’t slipped into a coma, or something more serious
“I know.” Maico responded, in a cool, flat tone that didn’t quite mask her irritation. “It was a risk I was willing to take for a good night’s sleep.”
“We weren’t.” Kotono grinned back.
Maico fingered her own hair, wincing as she found the lump on the side of her skull where the extinguisher had struck.
“I appreciate that.” she said, being carefully polite. “I’m still a little tired.”
“Anyway, it’s Friday and that’s our day off here. Jet would like to speak with you about where you want to go.”
“Go?”
“Well, to avoid a repeat of the mercenary incident, we’re going to escort you to a settlement of your choice.” answered Kotono.
“Thank you,” Maico found herself. “Who, can I ask? The Knight Sabers?”
“Yes,” the green Saber confirmed. “But, we have prior commitments tomorrow so if you haven’t decided by then, you’ll have to make your own arrangements. Or take a lift to Crystal Hiroshima on the Wagon,”
“No,” the reporter shook her head, before fixing the taller woman with her gaze. “I know where I want to go,”
“Care to enlighten me,”
“Not right now,” Maico answered in a smooth voice, with a coy glimmer in her eyes. She crossed her legs, easing herself back into the comfort of the chair. It felt like the pettiest of petty revenge, but it still felt good.
“Fi~ine,” Kotono drawled out, pouting. “Just don’t take all day.”
Maico just nodded, giving her her queue to leave. When she was gone, and the door locked behind her, Maico carefully prised open the lid. A message was waiting for her.
“Still waiting....”
She typed.
“The Knight Sabers have offered to take me to a settlement of my choice, if I can leave today.”
“And where might you be going?”
She knew as soon as Kotono had told her. It was the safest option. It was the one that gave her the most leverage. It was the one that gave her the most personal options.
“I intend to ask them to take me to Stellvia,” she responded.
“Ooh, so you’re planning on going public with this?”
“I honestly haven’t decided yet, Ryan. I’m going to speak with Jet, one last time,”
Well. Maico chooses to go exactly where she'd feel safest. And where she can inform someone she's due on the quiet.... And some of what Ryan says needs to be adjusted. It's partially contradictory.
Unless someone disagrees with the destination....
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Dartz Wrote:Seeing her notepad becoming a conflicted scribble, Maico figured it was time to call it a fay. If she isn't careful, that fay will take her to the Otherworld... But I see Kotono was also worried about that.
Dartz Wrote:“The Knight Sabers have offered to take me to a settlement of my choice, if I can leave today.”
“And where might you be going?”
She knew as soon as Kotono had told her. It was the safest option. It was the one that gave her the most leverage. It was the one that gave her the most personal options.
“I intend to ask them to take me to Stellvia,” she responded. I'll give you some plot points, then... after I get back from work. (But it's the last working day before Christmas, so I only have a half-day at the office. Civil servants don't get profit-sharing, because all the money belongs to the taxpayers – we get a couple of hours off that aren't charged against our vacation time instead.)
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"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."
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And I'm back. Submitted for your consideration:
"It's good to see you again, although I wish you were in better shape."
Maico looked up at Noah Scott from the infirmary bed she was lying in. "Ms. MacKenzie tells me I'll be well enough to leave in a week, but I don't want to impose on you for that long."
"Because you have work to do."
"Of course."
"That's no reason to make your head injury or your concussion any worse. Even if you and I think Rhiannon tends to err on the side of caution, she does know how to do her job, and right now, her job is to help you become healthy. Rest up and get better - then you can chase after your story with a clear head."
Maico grimaced. "I don't have the luxury of being able to stay in bed for a week, Mr. Scott."
"Then I'll have to bribe you to stay where you are."
Maico's eyebrow went up, Spock-style. "Are you offering me a story?"
"Not quite." She was surprised to feel disappointed by that answer. "Since you showed up here with the Knight Sabers, and," he smiled, "they told me ahead of time that you know who they are, I see no reason not to let you interview one of their technical advisors. I'm offering you background for the story you already have."
"Don't tell me StellviaCorp rebuilt their ship for them."
"We didn't. But Kohran did design a lot of their weapons systems. If you stay in bed for the entire day, doing only whatever Rhiannon says you need to do to get better, then I'll have her answer your questions when she's off duty tonight."
"Mister Scott, about that story ..."
"Please, Maico," he interrupted. "I'm not going to tell you to bury your story, but I'm asking you to bury it. I'm sure you know why by now. We all have important secrets. Let the Sabers keep theirs."
--
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
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That goes well with the contents of the email from a few weeks ago. Thanks.
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And more. Lots of dialogue.... so much dialogue. Headbang. Go pop.
So clunky.
Quote:The first place she checked was the Mayor’s house. It was empty. The same uncomfortably constant draft was being sucked towards the ventilation stacks. The lawnmower was drunkenly circling, having apparently malfunctioned somehow.
Even the green grass seemed oddly dead.
Maico made her way back to the lift, sitting down on the cold steel floor for the journey. The wheels in their runners were drumming against her skull. Another few hours and this would be done, and she could have a nice long rest at home in the comfort of her own bed. Or maybe she could stay down below in the SilkyDoll and luxuriate in the hot-tub for a few days.
No, I’m leaving.
Except for the tub, Frigga just wasn’t a nice place to stay. Too lifeless.
Only exocomps and concrete. She decided to check the main control room. Chances were someone would be there who’d know where Jet was, either puppet or real. The by now familiar New Birmingham Founders Day mural still creeped her out.
Over 500 people used to live here.
The control room door was ajar. It didn’t surprise her. Outside the SilkyDoll, they didn’t seem to be much too worried about security. There didn’t seem to be much need to worry about it. She pushed it open, slipping inside.
Jet herself was there. Feet up on the console in front of her, crunching away on a bowl of cereal with a steaming cup of broadleaf tea, staring unblinkingly at something Maico couldn’t identify on screen in front of her.
A webcomic
Maico found herself blinking at the sight of something like Jet, relaxed back in a creaking chair, annunciator lights playing across her armour, reading webcomics while eating breakfast. It was so strangely incongruous, she was taken aback for a moment.
“Oh, hey there,” said the cyber, mildly, noticing Maico standing in the doorway.
She didn’t get up. She swallowed another spoonful.
“I’m here, because Kotono...” Maico began.
Jet hummed in between crunches, nodding. She swallowed. “Yeah. So where do you want us to take you?”
Maico tried to read Jet’s expression. Relaxed, definitely relaxed. Seemingly in good humour. Maybe a morning person. As happy and good-humoured as she’d been right before she’d gone off like a bomb a day earlier.
And this wasn’t a puppet. She swallowed her unease.
“Stellvia. Could you take me to Stellvia please?”
She deliberately phrased it as request.
Jet sucked a breath through her teeth, her half empty bowl clattering on the console as she set it down. Blue eyes studied her, her expression still mild, a gentle surprise creeping into her features.
“Why do you want to go there?”
“I’d feel safest,” Maico gave her answer. It was a half-truth.
Jet studied her for a second, seemingly mulling it over. Maico felt herself reminded of something Ford had told her, about spinning beachballs.
“Right so.” Jet agreed, in that husky voice of hers. Maico found herself wondering if she’d ever smoked. “We’ll be departing in about six hours,”
The radio hissed. “Frigga, Ladies Man. Frigga, Ladies Man.” Mackie’s voice “Sector Bravo Seven Romeo clear. Carrying on to Bravo Eight Romeo,”
Jet lazily picked up a handset, rolling her eyes. “Ladies man, Frigga. Just keep rolling,”
Maico raised an eyebrow. Jet’s expression cooled.
“After what happened to you, I amn’t taking any more chances. Mackie’s up in the ‘Wing making sure there’s nothing out there,”
The side of Maico’s head pulsed a reminder. She sat herself down on a spare chair beside an idling console.
“Alright?”
“Feeling better,” Maico croaked out. But not feeling good. After being knocked out cold for nearly an hour, nobody would be feeling good for days afterwards.
Jet carried on eating. The machinery carried on chattering and humming away to itself as it worked out things that only it would know. All the lights just sort of blurred into each other, like a wall full of christmas lights, flickering and winking at her.
There was one other thing.
Gnawing.
Demanding to be raised.
Ryan’s warning about being the person with the pet tiger who couldn’t see how dangerous it really was rang loud and clear. Jet seemed at ease. Inside that armour was enough power to rip her apart.
Jet had seemed relaxed and cheerful yesterday too. And then went from that, to yelling about how she didn’t have any problems, and if she had any problems she could deal with them, and they weren’t really big or unusual problems anyway. It was almost political.
And the cyber had run away yesterday. She’d covered her retreat with thunder and lightning., rather than launched on the offensive
“Jet, about yesterday,”
The cyborg held up a big metal hand, “No need to apologise,”
Maico felt herself gawk.
“Me....” she stumbled over her own words for a second. “You were the one who lost your temper at me, why should I be the one to apologise?”
“You’re the one who calls me crazy and you’re surprised I get a little pissed off,” Jet snapped at her, folding her arms. Her armour scratched against itself.
Maico’s face warmed up with building anger. “You asked for my opinion and I gave it. And I didn’t think it was wrong. I still don’t think it’s wrong.”
Jet’s feet hit the floor with a bang, propelling her upright.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Jet yelled, looming over Maico. inside that armour, she seemed huge. “Nothing at all.” Her eyes were staring. Maico felt her throat constrict as Jets hands gripped tight around the seatback. She heard it snap. Her neck ached in sympathy.
Maico shrank down into her own chair. Her body clamoured for her to run, every nerve ending bristling and tickling beneath her blouse.
“Nothing you can’t control,”
Jet barked. “Exactly!”
Maico forced herself to stay mild, despite herself. “So, What happens if you lose control, Jet?”
The cyber stopped. Something was going to happen. It was a pregnant moment. Staring at the steel case of the bomb waiting for it to decide to go off. Maico pushed through.
“If you lose your temper with someone. What happens then? You could kill someone”
She saw Jet go rigid. Her whole body locked up for what seemed to be an eternity, but must’ve been less than a half-second.
“Nobody,” she barked, before stopping. She glared down at Maico, then down at herself. She still had her glacier eyes. Reflected light sparked demonically from her eyes. “Nobody understands what happens if I lose my cool more than I do.” she hissed through her teeth. “It’s one of the first things we learn. It’s one of the reasons why we learn. It’s the very first thing I teach my students. I know the damage I’m capable of doing, even without meaning to.”
Maico stood her ground. Or sat at any rate. “But most people don’t......”
“And that’s exactly how I want it to be.” Jet slammed the verbal door on her again. “People know what I did alright, they know that I was right at the cutting edge. But they don’t know. It’s not even a movie to them, it’s a history book. It’s words on a screen in a wiki-article that inform that I’m capable of splitting a human being in two, without the visceral understanding of what exactly that entails. There’s an inherent disconnect there. People see me in person, and they’re unable to join printed words, with the person in front of them.”
The cyber’s body was rigid. Locked in place. Jet rooted herself to the spot, bracing her hands against the console. There was a hard current of tension running through her body, grounded through her gripping hands.
Maico didn’t doubt that Jet was capable of splitting her in two....
The energy sank from Jet’s frame.
“I think I see what you mean,”
Jet slowly sat herself back down, crossing her legs as she did so. Her eyes were closed as she drew in a breath through her nostrils. Maico could see the tension visibly drain from her body.
I’ve disarmed her! She tried desperately not to smirk.
“No you don’t, not really. You heard about how we were attacked, while we had a BNF customer aboard?
“Anika told me about it. It was mercenaries, hired by the UBA. You managed to beat them off. Reading a little between the lines, I think that attack might have been where you learned the UBA was gone rotten,”
“Yeah. We were able to get details from the survivors aboard the One Night,”
The name rung a bell. “That’s the ship in orbit?”
“Uh-huh,” Jet confirmed with a nod. “They got aboard through the apartment windows like we expected, I went down with the students and fought the attackers off.”
She was trying to keep her expression grave and serious, but Maico saw that quiet curl up at the edges of her lips.
“Our guests were able to fight, so I coordinated with them to pin the Boskone down, where I...” Jet stopped to go for a quick word hunt, before settling for a well worn euphemism “...neutralised the threat. The survivors were taken into custody and the Patrol were called to pick them up. We took stock of the damage, casualties, and got back to business.”
It was, too her, no big deal. She inhaled a long breath through her mouth.
“The thing is. Our guests got to watch the whole battle on the monitors, and they got to see me in action. Live and unfiltered. “
Maico recalled Saber White in action. Nothing of her against human beings, just those few frames of her slamming an aging powered suit with the Hertza Haeon , and the back of the pilot’s compartment bowing out.
“We got a returning customer out of it....” Jet grinned wryly. “We proved we knew what we were doing. But...” the cheer drained from her expression again. She looked away towards the control panels on the wall for a moment “Well.... a lot of them were on edge around me. When they looked at me, they were thinking about what they saw on those monitors. They were looking at me like I was one second away from ripping their arms off. The connection had been made.”
Jet’s shoulders drooped. Armour plates scratched against each other.
“That’s not a nice feeling.” she continued, her voice going soft. “I don’t like people being afraid of me. I don’t want them to whisper behind my back about how dangerous I really am, or the amount of death I can deal inside a minute.”
She’d relaxed completely, Maico’s pen scratching away struggling to keep up. One question she sketched out immediately had to wait.
“I’ve been very careful to make people comfortable, so what people see when they look at me isn’t a blood-stained warrior, or something capable of coldly tearing them apart. I want them to see that Jet Jaguar is a good, decent person with a gentle smile and kind blue eyes. Jet likes to show off. Jet likes to go fast. Jet is a martial artist. Jet defends Fenspace, and trains people to defend themselves, but Jet won’t ever harm them.”
Maico nodded. “But of course.” This was good stuff! Great stuff!. Crack the crust and get at the juice beneath.
“That’s the image of me I want to show. It’s why I joined the Panzer Kunst in the first place, so I had the self-control not to harm people by accident. It’s part of why I originally chose to keep this particular body-shape, and my puppet design.”
She knocked the knuckles of her right hand against her left breast, a hollow, ceramic sound. Her smile returned again as she flexed her fingers, each in turn.
“I know that I need to interact with people. I need to be able to get out there and meet and talk with people and make connections, or to bring people to Frigga. I need friends and allies, I need people I can have a good time with. The more the better. I can’t afford to be sequestered away in private."
Jet took a breath, reminding Maico that she hadn’t often seen her do that. The whole time she’d been speaking, she hadn’t needed to inhale. The cyber’s gaze cooled again. Maico could feel her trying to look right through her
“I don’t need people to be afraid of me. If people are afraid of me, they’ll start avoiding me. I’ll start getting isolated and if that starts happening, that’s when the rot will really start to set in. And that’s when those fears might turn out to be self-fulfilling.”
Jet paused for just a moment.
“So long as I’m able to do things with people, and people are willing to do things with me, I’ll be fine. If that changes, then it could destroy me,”
She seemed to wait, and Maico wondered if she shouldn’t just drop the next question. But this was important. This was Jet’s motivation. This was the why of it. This was her looking for Jet to make her decision to run the story for her.
Maico swallowed her fears and went for it.
“How many of them survived?” she asked, forcing her voice to be as plain and unthreatening as she could manage.
For a moment, the cyborg seemed taken aback by it. She wasn’t offended, just surprised Maico figured.
“Seven.” she stated. “And fifteen crew were captured aboard the One Night after a lucky missile shot out it’s engines.”
Fifty take away seven survivors left forty three people. Jet admitted to killing forty three people. And she didn’t bat an eyelash.
Maico tried to look into Jet’s eyes again.
“And how do you feel about that?”
Again, she recalled what Ryan had told her about cold blue glacier ice.
“If you’re asking me how I feel about killing people, I amn’t thinking about it at the time. I’m thinking about doing what needs to be done to end a battle as quick as I can.”
Which, Maico noted with a chill, neatly explained the Knight Sabers’ modus operandi.
“I learned through experience. The best way to save lives in a fight, is to end it as soon as possible. To hit as hard as I can, and keep hitting until the enemy stops fighting, rather than have people I care about shot down while I’m worrying over using appropriate levels of force for the situation,”
“You believe this?”
“I wouldn’t be able to fight like I do if I didn’t.”
There was one hell of an argument behind all of this, and Maico knew in her own heart of hearts that Jet was, if not wrong, definitely skirting the edges of it. It hit her on a visceral level.
On her notepad she added the comment; Remember Ryan’s dossier, 'During the war she was known for bringing people in alive, and completely ignoring those who put themselves out of the fight. She claims it’s a speed thing. If people stop fighting and surrender, Jet won’t harm them. The downside is that she hits just so hard, they don’t normally get the chance to think about it. '
“You don’t agree,”
“I understand,” said Maico. “On a rational level, I understand and it makes a sort sense, but it feels wrong. But then, those forty three people aren’t just a statistic either, are they? I was told they were lied to, when hired to attack Frigga. They were still attackers.” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “Is it possible you could be attacking them so hard that, even if they want to surrender and back out of the fight., they can’t?”
“It is.” Jet admitted, with a cold certainty “But all told, I’d rather kill them all, than risk someone innocent die. They’re the ones that decided to attack us, remember? Friends come first.”
Pretty much exactly the answer she’d expected.
“How can you think like that? I’m not sure I can think like that,” Maico said, quietly, “It feels so wrong to me. The closest I can come to that mindset would be, if I had a handgun on that ship, and I ask myself if I could’ve fired it to keep that mercenary Captain from attacking me, or shooting Anika. How would I feel if I shot him dead instead?”
Her skull throbbed, reminding her of the blow, an echo of the initial hit still ringing in her brain.
“I’m glad I don’t know the answer to that for certain, but I remember I felt I’d do anything to stay alive. For a moment, I thought I was winning the fight and it was so exciting. And maybe then, I could’ve done it....”
She called up an image into her mind of herself with the weight of a smoking handgun in her hands, standing over the bloodied body of that Captain, and tried to put herself into that moment...
“I don’t think it’s a decision I could make rationally. I don’t think I could choose to kill someone. And I think... I’d be shocked if I actually did.”
“But, you’d probably have been glad that yourself and Anika were safe. There’re far more people alive today, living free and happy and safe, because of what I’ve done, than there would be otherwise. That’s what I believe. That’s how I’m able to do it.”
“And that’s why you do it?”
Why you believe you do it, Maico added mentally.
“Yeah. it is.” Jet confirmed. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it,”
“Enjoy it?”
“I’ve met some of the lives I’ve saved. And there’s nothing that beats that feeling.” She was grinning as she said that, wide and proud. Maico felt the edge of her lips curl up in sympathy. “You know how many of our guests were killed in the attack? None.” She shook her head. “None at all.”
And now she was just boasting.
Maico sighed. There was no question about making a story out of Jet’s temper. That would be counterproductive for everyone. That was the thing which made a journalist....
It was knowing what not to report.
While there were plenty of people who’d find the whole thing fascinating, she’d alienate some of her most valuable sources in the process, and ruin her own reputation as someone who could be talked to, without fear that every little slip up would be splayed across the interwave for everyfen to read.
Ryan was different. He sold raw information. So long as someone was interested. That was how he earned his cookies
“So are you going to run with the story?” Jet broke into her thoughts.
“About yesterday? No...” said Maico, with a shake of her head. She could see Jet exhale a sigh of relief. “About the Knight Sabers?.... I still haven’t decided,” she admitted.
She wasn’t even sure if she was trying to talk herself into it, or out of it anymore.
“I understand why you want to keep the Saber’s identity a secret,” she said. “But the Saber’s willingness to use force....” She steadied herself on her feet. “You’re unlicensed mercenaries who use deadly force, without any overseeing authority, operating with the support of several Big name fen, and probably with the tacit approval of Great Justice too. Probably in Great Justice’s employment. And that right there is something people do have some right to know about,”
And, I’ve been following this up for so long, that I really need the money. But it was a fair point.
“I can’t stop you running the story.” Jet stated, calmly.. “Not without crossing the line in a big way. And like I told you, there’re enough people who know who we are to shut us down hard when that happens,”
“But you plan to offer me the UBA story, with the promise of more to come if I keep it quiet, right?”
Jet nodded. “We planned to give you the story yeah. The news of Mason’s corruption needs to be broken by an independant, to have the right effect.”
Feeling her momentum build, Maico stretched.
“You know, there’s nothing stopping me from running with both....”
Jet folded her arms across her chest.“And by asking us to go to Stellvia, you given yourself the perfect opportunity to break the story, with us right there in person and in public to prove it.”
Silence.
Maico cast her eyes down on her scrawled notes, exhaling a satisfied sigh.
“One last thing. Have you been manipulating me the whole time I’ve been here?”
Jet blinked, caught by surprise for a moment. Maico felt herself smirk. Jet gave a lazy shrug of her metallic blue shoulders.
“Ah now, that would be an ecumenical matter.” she reassured her.
Maico was left with the unsettling feeling of having a reference go whizzing over her head, with no idea even what fandom it belonged to. Something religious?
It didn’t stop her getting the jist of what was meant.
For whatever reason, Jet wasn’t telling. Either she was too proud to admit she’d been caught.... or too proud to admit she hadn’t been at all.
----
"For you, the day the Panzer Kunst came to your asteroid and saved you from the Boskone was the most important day of your life. For me, it was Tuesday," ...... I've generated so much flotsam and jetsam to the side of this, it's not funny.
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3
Cool.
Thinking of what Ben might say if questioned further by Maico about his involvement. Any idea if she would and what sort of questions she'd ask?
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