Urgh. This took forever to get to this point, and now I've got an info-dumpy scene I want to get around. Then there's the worldbuilding things I'm trying to sort out, even if it's just for my work.
Sitting in the slight clearing, Eve watched as the Bureau medic examined the mule, the Captain standing by her while helping their tech person understand the support framework.
Their increasing looks of disgust made that clear.
Finally, the Captain moved back in her direction as a white coloured arcane construct appeared under the buggy. With a dissolve effect and a flash the buggy and tech vanished.
Eve’s attention turned to the slight hitch in the Captain’s step.
“Are you injured sir?” She asked, getting the medic’s attention.
“Not really.” Colin shrugged. “No matter what they tell you or how good the tech is, you still need a couple of days to recover from implant surgery.”
The medic stopped raising her hands and looked at him with a cautious gaze in her purple eyes. Eve didn’t think that was why the others had stared at her, different shade of blonde not to mention the hair length.
“Implant?” The short haired blonde in the doctor’s coat asked.
“Disease countermeasures.” Colin shrugged again. “Don’t want to catch, or heaven forbid give away some bug. Staying in a sealed suit for long periods ain’t fun, and people tend not to like talking to a visor.” He gave the medic a wry look. “It’s as healed as the arm, thanks again for that, it’s just me not being used to it and being old.” He turned back to Eve. “So, what’s the read on the blood splattered on your suit?”
“Highly infectious contact agent, telluric enhanced, targeted mutagen. Robust, standard countermeasures will have only a fifty percent chance of holding the infection long enough for rapid medical assistance. Upgrades will be required.” Eve paused. “Standard thermal sterilisation works, I need to be cleansed.”
“Right-oh. Secured a sample?” Colin asked, deploying his omni-blade.
“Level four containment.” Eve stated, standing.
“Your countermeasures.” The medic asked as Colin put his glowing blade carefully to the dried blood for a second and moved on. “How available are they?”
“Ours?” Colin replied. “Not very. Expensive but necessary for service personnel, bonded Guild members get it as well. Part of standard procedure is a medical survey, so everyone else can just get a shot good for a couple of weeks the day before travel or do it the proper way and get the immunisations a couple of weeks in advance. Basic general protection is only just getting released, and standard med-kits have broad-spectrum antibiotics and antivirals good for immediate treatment.” He stood up, blade being reabsorbed into the omnitool. “All done. Safe enough for you to wash it off.”
“Thank you.” Eve relaxed slightly.
“Not a problem Mizuhara. Anyway, standard is upgrades needed every half year, but depending on the sitrep they’ll do things faster. Mizuhara’s better with this.”
“Countermeasure updates will be ready in two weeks, vaccine will be about six months. Based on its telluric enhanced nature.” Eve looked at the medic. “It is not known how much work would be required for use in thaum-linkers and others.”
“Oh.” The short-haired blond sounded disappointed. “Um, anyway. I’ve been told to extend an invitation to our ship for a joint investigation.”
“Not sure we can.” Colin winced. “What we know about your laws says our weapons are illegal, and our regs say we’ve got to be reasonably armed when deployed. Not sure how that stacks with me being diplomatic courier rated either.”
The Beebee medic looked to be listening to someone. Probably the telluric thought-casting they’d read about.
“Give us twelve hours. We can get some emergency licences in that time, what with the diplomatic considerations.”
“That would allow us to decontaminate and recover.” Eve noted.
“And get started on the reports this mess is gonna need.” Colin groaned, causing both blondes to wince in sympathy.
***
“So, how would our brand new medichines actually do?” Colin asked as the decon cycle finished and the inner door opened.
“Maybe eighty percent chance of total elimination in five minutes, but with side effects as infected tissue is purged.” Eve responded, removing her helmet. “Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t.” Colin told her, removing his own. “I just left things out to prevent our full capabilities from being disclosed. Remember, this was just a meet-n-greet. Things can still go tits-up later. This way we stay on their good side. Plus, wanna bet they’ll be talking about it right now?”
“Ah.” Eve released the seals on her hardsuit.
“Maki, sitrep.” Collin called out as he did the same.
“Everything’s A-OK here.” The young female voice came from the overhead speakers. “Been fairly boring actually. I’ve already downloaded the recorder data, and once again the luck of the Inspired strikes.”
“And once again I’m telling you it ain’t real.” Colin snapped. “Mizuhara, go grab the shower. I’ll finish up here. How your hair stands decon I don’t know.”
Eve pulled a lock round to her front, and sighed sadly.
“I wish I had an extra pair of hands; it would save water.”
Colin paused, pulling a leg out of his hardsuit.
“Girl, you’re about half my age, we just met a couple of days ago, and this isn’t one of those stupid Alex Sparrow novels. That, and your mother would kill me.”
Eve was blushing horribly.
“S-sorry sir, I didn’t mean-“
“Yeah, I know.” Colin cut her off. “Sorry on my end too. Having one young lady kiss me out of the blue kinda made me jumpy that way.”
Eve nodded in thanks, not meeting his eyes, and walked briskly out of the arrival bay.
“Way to go old man.” Colin grumbled to himself. “Not like this mission isn’t messed up enough. Stupid REMFs, not planning properly, not recognising AGIs as people, now you’re screwing things up as well.”
“At least it’s not dull.” Maki put in.
***
“He’s not given us the whole story.” Teana Lanster noted, going over the logs again.
“’Corse he hasn’t.” Vita snorted, reading the fight report Thoma had submitted and noting parts he’d need to change. “History’s littered with examples of groups not being careful when meeting and ending with one or both wiped out, or long standing enemies.”
Teana stopped and looked at the small Lieutenant.
“What?” Vita grumbled, not looking up from the report.
The junior Enforcer turned back to her analysis of the logs.
“Shamal’s really pushing to get that vaccine, if what they said is true.” Vita started again. “Be a good thing to trade for, which’ll make things go easier.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Lieutenant Vita?” Teana said in a deadpan tone of voice.
“Humph.” Vita grumped. “Youngsters these days, no respect for their elders.”
“Is that why you get asked for ID all the time?”
“They just can’t accept my greatness.”
There were a few seconds of trying to smother smiles.
“I’m worried about that Lieutenant though.” Teana continued. “Sounds a bit too much like the Mariage to me.”
“Metamorphs usually are scary, especially ones as talented as this one seems to be.” Vita commented. “Hopefully we don’t have to make up new training regimes for them. Still, not as bad as those ground Eclipse soldiers.”
“Ugh.” Teana shuddered. “Why would anyone do that to themselves?”
“Who said they had a choice?” Vita said simply, causing a cold silence to descend over the room.
***
“I hate paperwork.” The woman with shoulder length brunette hair groaned, slumping in her chair at her desk.
“It’s not so bad Master.” The doll-like figure at her own properly sized desk said, shuffling her own paperwork holowindows.
“When you have to get emergency licences for mass based weaponry, and everyone and their device needs to have why explained again and again and again…”
“At least it’s done now.” The doll said, brushing back her light blue hair. “Besides, the medical reports have come in.” She pushed one of her holowindows at her companion.
It appeared before her, and expanded to an equivalent size.
“Hum. Wonder why the sniper wasn’t also infected?” She mused. At least that spared resources for the containment of the others. The brunette’s blue eyes skimmed the dry, technical details of the support framework on the transport. She deliberately didn’t dwell on the individual medical reports, just on the rough overview. Even those vagaries turned her stomach.
She hoped their visitors from Mobius had some good news, but she knew better by now.
***
When she came back into the equipment bay, she was feeling much better. The loose t-shirt and sweatpants helped her relax, her hair was refreshed and only slightly damp, and she’d managed to dictate her initial report in the shower.
What she found was Colin apparently multitasking. He’d also changed into a t-shirt and cargo pants, and was running diagnostics on both hardsuits, editing his report, and apparently reprogramming his D38.
“Hey.” He said, not looking up. “Cereal bars are in the box by the heat clips. You had some stress fluctuations in the liquid crystal layer of your suit; I’ve cleared that up and done some more optimisations on the reactive crystal system. I’m still tweaking the code on the shockwave mode I hacked for the D38’s launcher; that should be done in an hour or two depending if an image makes timing this build set. I’ve FINALLY got my D38’s smartgun system properly upgraded. I mean, no offence to him but the gunsmith never saw something like my D34’s system.” He paused. “I miss my D34. Anyway, Maki’s worked up a translation matrix and is compiling a set of translators we can hand out so don’t forget your earbuds. In the new upload for your omnitool is the updated comm encryption, as well as a better firewall. Seriously, they really need to up their game at home. Also, don’t forget to have your tac-agent running this time. It’ll speed up your reports, among all the other things.”
Eve took in the stream of information.
“Shower’s free.” She replied.
“Thanks, I’ll grab it once the suit checks are done. I’ve had some bars myself, then I should probably grab a catnap before we head out.”
“Which uniform?” Eve asked.
“Field, don’t need to be too formal.”
“And it doesn’t give up too much information on us. Surely Class B if we’re to be helping their investigation.” Eve pointed out.
“Can’t carry my gear properly with base or formal.” Colin disagreed. “Plus, regs on arms.”
Eve restrained her wince, knowing that the Captain hadn’t said anything on her adherence to regulations previously and how it had made things difficult.
***
“That was disappointing.” The black clad long haired blonde said as her colleague stepped out of the containment area.
“Belkan and this German are not as closely related as we assumed.” The other woman said, acknowledging the Raptors standing guard before moving off down the corridor. “The brief sample Raising Heart captured did not help, and that seemed to be a translation device anyway.”
“Yet another thing to ask for. Headquarters will need a full survey mission for Earth at this point.” The blonde sighed.
Her companion thought on that as a red haired fairy flew up to them.
“Master, Captain. They had to move the trapped guy to Vaizen.” She said, facing the Blonde’s companion.
“That’s worrying.” The Blonde said. “That means the implantation is extensive.”
“The Mobian Captain did say it was not meant to be removed.” The fairy’s master pointed out.
“That doesn’t speak well for the Bureau’s relationship with them.” The Blonde noted.
“Having an enemy that you can despise is a powerful thing. Dangerously powerful.”
“Signum.” The Blonde said, unsettled.
“Testarossa, you have never been in War.” Signum warned, the ponytail of pink hair swaying as she turned her experienced eyes to her companion. “It is much easier to fight something you can say is evil, monstrous, or just plain cruel. You can tell yourself it is the right thing. But good intentions can easily lead one astray.”
“Geez, this got depressing.” The fairy grumped, folding her arms across her chest. “Anyway, aren’t the Mobians due up in about ten minutes?”
“True Agito.” The blonde replied. “We should go meet them.”
***
Colin rubbed the side of his head, trying to work out the headache he had as they appeared on a platform.
“OK sir?” Eve asked quietly.
“I’ll be fine, I took some paracetamol beforehand.” He muttered back, adjusting the backpack and walking off to their welcoming committee.
“Good to see you in person Captain.” Colonel Yagami said, holding out a hand.
“Nice to meet you too.” Colin shook, then passed her off to Eve. “How’re things going?”
“Not well.” A long haired blonde in a black uniform said. “Enforcer Fate T Harlaown.”
“Oh?” Eve asked, looking at the black clad blonde.
“We are having translation difficulties.” A pink haired woman in navy blues replied. She had a fairylike being, also in a navy blue uniform so probably also an officer, floating over a shoulder. “The language we thought was equivalent turned out not to match well.”
“Good job we brought spares then.” Colin said, swinging his backpack off his shoulders. “We have a dozen translators for use.” He reached in and rummaged around to bring out a small case. Popping the clasps he opened it and showed off the devices. They looked to Hayate like hands free ear mounted headsets for cell phones used back on Earth, with a switch on the outside. “They’re fairly simple, the switch selects the output language from English, Mid-Childan, and German or off. Square, circle, triangle, blank, in that order. Just stick it in your ear with the thin bit pointing to your mouth. Probably only ninety percent accurate on Mid-Childan at most, and we’ve encountered so many slight variants and accents that they’re only ninety eight percent accurate on German.” He closed the lid and handed it off to the Enforcer. “The charges are good for about a week if you turn them off when not using them. We shouldn’t need them, we have our own system.”
“Thank you, these should help.” Harlaown smiled, taking the case.
“Right then, I believe the Colonel and I are due to have a chat.” Colin shrugged the backpack back on. “The Leftenant here can help with the investigation if you want, I’m more a tech person.”
“Any assistance is welcome.” The Enforcer said. “This way please.”
“So,” Colin asked as Eve followed the Enforcer and pink haired woman, “Shall we?”
Sitting in the slight clearing, Eve watched as the Bureau medic examined the mule, the Captain standing by her while helping their tech person understand the support framework.
Their increasing looks of disgust made that clear.
Finally, the Captain moved back in her direction as a white coloured arcane construct appeared under the buggy. With a dissolve effect and a flash the buggy and tech vanished.
Eve’s attention turned to the slight hitch in the Captain’s step.
“Are you injured sir?” She asked, getting the medic’s attention.
“Not really.” Colin shrugged. “No matter what they tell you or how good the tech is, you still need a couple of days to recover from implant surgery.”
The medic stopped raising her hands and looked at him with a cautious gaze in her purple eyes. Eve didn’t think that was why the others had stared at her, different shade of blonde not to mention the hair length.
“Implant?” The short haired blonde in the doctor’s coat asked.
“Disease countermeasures.” Colin shrugged again. “Don’t want to catch, or heaven forbid give away some bug. Staying in a sealed suit for long periods ain’t fun, and people tend not to like talking to a visor.” He gave the medic a wry look. “It’s as healed as the arm, thanks again for that, it’s just me not being used to it and being old.” He turned back to Eve. “So, what’s the read on the blood splattered on your suit?”
“Highly infectious contact agent, telluric enhanced, targeted mutagen. Robust, standard countermeasures will have only a fifty percent chance of holding the infection long enough for rapid medical assistance. Upgrades will be required.” Eve paused. “Standard thermal sterilisation works, I need to be cleansed.”
“Right-oh. Secured a sample?” Colin asked, deploying his omni-blade.
“Level four containment.” Eve stated, standing.
“Your countermeasures.” The medic asked as Colin put his glowing blade carefully to the dried blood for a second and moved on. “How available are they?”
“Ours?” Colin replied. “Not very. Expensive but necessary for service personnel, bonded Guild members get it as well. Part of standard procedure is a medical survey, so everyone else can just get a shot good for a couple of weeks the day before travel or do it the proper way and get the immunisations a couple of weeks in advance. Basic general protection is only just getting released, and standard med-kits have broad-spectrum antibiotics and antivirals good for immediate treatment.” He stood up, blade being reabsorbed into the omnitool. “All done. Safe enough for you to wash it off.”
“Thank you.” Eve relaxed slightly.
“Not a problem Mizuhara. Anyway, standard is upgrades needed every half year, but depending on the sitrep they’ll do things faster. Mizuhara’s better with this.”
“Countermeasure updates will be ready in two weeks, vaccine will be about six months. Based on its telluric enhanced nature.” Eve looked at the medic. “It is not known how much work would be required for use in thaum-linkers and others.”
“Oh.” The short-haired blond sounded disappointed. “Um, anyway. I’ve been told to extend an invitation to our ship for a joint investigation.”
“Not sure we can.” Colin winced. “What we know about your laws says our weapons are illegal, and our regs say we’ve got to be reasonably armed when deployed. Not sure how that stacks with me being diplomatic courier rated either.”
The Beebee medic looked to be listening to someone. Probably the telluric thought-casting they’d read about.
“Give us twelve hours. We can get some emergency licences in that time, what with the diplomatic considerations.”
“That would allow us to decontaminate and recover.” Eve noted.
“And get started on the reports this mess is gonna need.” Colin groaned, causing both blondes to wince in sympathy.
***
“So, how would our brand new medichines actually do?” Colin asked as the decon cycle finished and the inner door opened.
“Maybe eighty percent chance of total elimination in five minutes, but with side effects as infected tissue is purged.” Eve responded, removing her helmet. “Why did you lie?”
“I didn’t.” Colin told her, removing his own. “I just left things out to prevent our full capabilities from being disclosed. Remember, this was just a meet-n-greet. Things can still go tits-up later. This way we stay on their good side. Plus, wanna bet they’ll be talking about it right now?”
“Ah.” Eve released the seals on her hardsuit.
“Maki, sitrep.” Collin called out as he did the same.
“Everything’s A-OK here.” The young female voice came from the overhead speakers. “Been fairly boring actually. I’ve already downloaded the recorder data, and once again the luck of the Inspired strikes.”
“And once again I’m telling you it ain’t real.” Colin snapped. “Mizuhara, go grab the shower. I’ll finish up here. How your hair stands decon I don’t know.”
Eve pulled a lock round to her front, and sighed sadly.
“I wish I had an extra pair of hands; it would save water.”
Colin paused, pulling a leg out of his hardsuit.
“Girl, you’re about half my age, we just met a couple of days ago, and this isn’t one of those stupid Alex Sparrow novels. That, and your mother would kill me.”
Eve was blushing horribly.
“S-sorry sir, I didn’t mean-“
“Yeah, I know.” Colin cut her off. “Sorry on my end too. Having one young lady kiss me out of the blue kinda made me jumpy that way.”
Eve nodded in thanks, not meeting his eyes, and walked briskly out of the arrival bay.
“Way to go old man.” Colin grumbled to himself. “Not like this mission isn’t messed up enough. Stupid REMFs, not planning properly, not recognising AGIs as people, now you’re screwing things up as well.”
“At least it’s not dull.” Maki put in.
***
“He’s not given us the whole story.” Teana Lanster noted, going over the logs again.
“’Corse he hasn’t.” Vita snorted, reading the fight report Thoma had submitted and noting parts he’d need to change. “History’s littered with examples of groups not being careful when meeting and ending with one or both wiped out, or long standing enemies.”
Teana stopped and looked at the small Lieutenant.
“What?” Vita grumbled, not looking up from the report.
The junior Enforcer turned back to her analysis of the logs.
“Shamal’s really pushing to get that vaccine, if what they said is true.” Vita started again. “Be a good thing to trade for, which’ll make things go easier.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Lieutenant Vita?” Teana said in a deadpan tone of voice.
“Humph.” Vita grumped. “Youngsters these days, no respect for their elders.”
“Is that why you get asked for ID all the time?”
“They just can’t accept my greatness.”
There were a few seconds of trying to smother smiles.
“I’m worried about that Lieutenant though.” Teana continued. “Sounds a bit too much like the Mariage to me.”
“Metamorphs usually are scary, especially ones as talented as this one seems to be.” Vita commented. “Hopefully we don’t have to make up new training regimes for them. Still, not as bad as those ground Eclipse soldiers.”
“Ugh.” Teana shuddered. “Why would anyone do that to themselves?”
“Who said they had a choice?” Vita said simply, causing a cold silence to descend over the room.
***
“I hate paperwork.” The woman with shoulder length brunette hair groaned, slumping in her chair at her desk.
“It’s not so bad Master.” The doll-like figure at her own properly sized desk said, shuffling her own paperwork holowindows.
“When you have to get emergency licences for mass based weaponry, and everyone and their device needs to have why explained again and again and again…”
“At least it’s done now.” The doll said, brushing back her light blue hair. “Besides, the medical reports have come in.” She pushed one of her holowindows at her companion.
It appeared before her, and expanded to an equivalent size.
“Hum. Wonder why the sniper wasn’t also infected?” She mused. At least that spared resources for the containment of the others. The brunette’s blue eyes skimmed the dry, technical details of the support framework on the transport. She deliberately didn’t dwell on the individual medical reports, just on the rough overview. Even those vagaries turned her stomach.
She hoped their visitors from Mobius had some good news, but she knew better by now.
***
When she came back into the equipment bay, she was feeling much better. The loose t-shirt and sweatpants helped her relax, her hair was refreshed and only slightly damp, and she’d managed to dictate her initial report in the shower.
What she found was Colin apparently multitasking. He’d also changed into a t-shirt and cargo pants, and was running diagnostics on both hardsuits, editing his report, and apparently reprogramming his D38.
“Hey.” He said, not looking up. “Cereal bars are in the box by the heat clips. You had some stress fluctuations in the liquid crystal layer of your suit; I’ve cleared that up and done some more optimisations on the reactive crystal system. I’m still tweaking the code on the shockwave mode I hacked for the D38’s launcher; that should be done in an hour or two depending if an image makes timing this build set. I’ve FINALLY got my D38’s smartgun system properly upgraded. I mean, no offence to him but the gunsmith never saw something like my D34’s system.” He paused. “I miss my D34. Anyway, Maki’s worked up a translation matrix and is compiling a set of translators we can hand out so don’t forget your earbuds. In the new upload for your omnitool is the updated comm encryption, as well as a better firewall. Seriously, they really need to up their game at home. Also, don’t forget to have your tac-agent running this time. It’ll speed up your reports, among all the other things.”
Eve took in the stream of information.
“Shower’s free.” She replied.
“Thanks, I’ll grab it once the suit checks are done. I’ve had some bars myself, then I should probably grab a catnap before we head out.”
“Which uniform?” Eve asked.
“Field, don’t need to be too formal.”
“And it doesn’t give up too much information on us. Surely Class B if we’re to be helping their investigation.” Eve pointed out.
“Can’t carry my gear properly with base or formal.” Colin disagreed. “Plus, regs on arms.”
Eve restrained her wince, knowing that the Captain hadn’t said anything on her adherence to regulations previously and how it had made things difficult.
***
“That was disappointing.” The black clad long haired blonde said as her colleague stepped out of the containment area.
“Belkan and this German are not as closely related as we assumed.” The other woman said, acknowledging the Raptors standing guard before moving off down the corridor. “The brief sample Raising Heart captured did not help, and that seemed to be a translation device anyway.”
“Yet another thing to ask for. Headquarters will need a full survey mission for Earth at this point.” The blonde sighed.
Her companion thought on that as a red haired fairy flew up to them.
“Master, Captain. They had to move the trapped guy to Vaizen.” She said, facing the Blonde’s companion.
“That’s worrying.” The Blonde said. “That means the implantation is extensive.”
“The Mobian Captain did say it was not meant to be removed.” The fairy’s master pointed out.
“That doesn’t speak well for the Bureau’s relationship with them.” The Blonde noted.
“Having an enemy that you can despise is a powerful thing. Dangerously powerful.”
“Signum.” The Blonde said, unsettled.
“Testarossa, you have never been in War.” Signum warned, the ponytail of pink hair swaying as she turned her experienced eyes to her companion. “It is much easier to fight something you can say is evil, monstrous, or just plain cruel. You can tell yourself it is the right thing. But good intentions can easily lead one astray.”
“Geez, this got depressing.” The fairy grumped, folding her arms across her chest. “Anyway, aren’t the Mobians due up in about ten minutes?”
“True Agito.” The blonde replied. “We should go meet them.”
***
Colin rubbed the side of his head, trying to work out the headache he had as they appeared on a platform.
“OK sir?” Eve asked quietly.
“I’ll be fine, I took some paracetamol beforehand.” He muttered back, adjusting the backpack and walking off to their welcoming committee.
“Good to see you in person Captain.” Colonel Yagami said, holding out a hand.
“Nice to meet you too.” Colin shook, then passed her off to Eve. “How’re things going?”
“Not well.” A long haired blonde in a black uniform said. “Enforcer Fate T Harlaown.”
“Oh?” Eve asked, looking at the black clad blonde.
“We are having translation difficulties.” A pink haired woman in navy blues replied. She had a fairylike being, also in a navy blue uniform so probably also an officer, floating over a shoulder. “The language we thought was equivalent turned out not to match well.”
“Good job we brought spares then.” Colin said, swinging his backpack off his shoulders. “We have a dozen translators for use.” He reached in and rummaged around to bring out a small case. Popping the clasps he opened it and showed off the devices. They looked to Hayate like hands free ear mounted headsets for cell phones used back on Earth, with a switch on the outside. “They’re fairly simple, the switch selects the output language from English, Mid-Childan, and German or off. Square, circle, triangle, blank, in that order. Just stick it in your ear with the thin bit pointing to your mouth. Probably only ninety percent accurate on Mid-Childan at most, and we’ve encountered so many slight variants and accents that they’re only ninety eight percent accurate on German.” He closed the lid and handed it off to the Enforcer. “The charges are good for about a week if you turn them off when not using them. We shouldn’t need them, we have our own system.”
“Thank you, these should help.” Harlaown smiled, taking the case.
“Right then, I believe the Colonel and I are due to have a chat.” Colin shrugged the backpack back on. “The Leftenant here can help with the investigation if you want, I’m more a tech person.”
“Any assistance is welcome.” The Enforcer said. “This way please.”
“So,” Colin asked as Eve followed the Enforcer and pink haired woman, “Shall we?”