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Aiko was just toweling from a delightfully languid shower at the conclusion of her workout when the transmission began. Sitting on one of the convenient benches that seemed to plague locker rooms the galaxy over. Kicking her legs idly out as the collective buzz of the ship's internal speakers as these intruders started to declare their intentions and then themselves. When only part of the first sentence was out, time slowed to a crawl that even a snail could beat.
Well…not really. Even Aiko knew she couldn't control time, though she distinctly had the vague memory of someone telling her to 'give us more time! We've almost got it!' With some obvious explosions in the background. Vaguely, she wondered if she was able to give, whoever that was, the time they asked for. These thoughts were pushed aside as the…TI something something kicked into gear. More holes…she knew what that was once. But it was working as intended. As, while Aiko could certainly not control time, her ability to process during each individual second was increased at an exponential rate. The quantum links between her brain and her suit's central processing system had been ignited. Parceling through every bit of information reaching her senses. Comparing it against all other known quantities that may have relation. Then coming to conclusions that were distinctly personal. Broader speculation was possible, she knew this for certain, but only with the proper…integration with her peers. They were not in her squad, so to speak, so they did not enter into the calculations by the TI…thing. The ship almost did.
We're harboring fugitives, yes, she thought,
am I a fugitive? Maybe. Renegades. Come along come along. From interstellar governments. Obvious stated. Who knows how many people on this ship are running from or ran from or were born from runners. Ol' Regi, a bloke I haven't met yet, and sweet, sweet Gabi. Then some others. Hmmm. Only a few. How unhelpful! Be specific! Who and what's an Akkanar and why is its blood so important? And if they think that the Resistance will surrender, they must
be insane.
Well, I suppose to have begun this stunt, they must have some degree of insanity already. Still, I can't see how this is much of a threat to me at the moment. They did their initial entry quiet enough. Only detected after they were on board. But they want to be known. Why? Their operation would have had a greater chance of success in silence. The Resistance won't back down, so they must want them to resist. Goading. The goads! Do they want the Resistance to stop them? Now that was an amusing idea. Almost hilarious. Because it seemed as likely as the idea of actually trying to take the people off planet. Ah, it was good to find some humor outside her own. And with that, she began the long, long process of bouncing to her feat. Well, long to her point of view.
So, what to do about it? She thought and thought and then it came to her. A delicious idea. Scrumptious! Delectable in all respects. Time returned to its normal flow. Up popped Aiko. Eager anticipation bounced her running feet as the game in her mind took beautiful shape. Blooming as daisies in Springtime. Skidding to a halt, she checked her complexion in the body length mirror. Ignoring the mess that was her face, Aiko blessed the Kami that had seen fit to make her short.
"Come on, come on," Aiko snapped her fingers impatiently. Silver flowed up her. Bulking her out a bit, drawing up her height, slithering over her hair. Then, in a flash, Gabi Burnett was standing in front of the mirror. She touched her face, looking herself up and down. The image was perfect to look at. The skin, harder than iron to touch. Couldn't help that. All the data the suit had collected from their interaction came into play. From the blushes of high hormones to the heat signature of her body. Some of it wasn't perfectly precise, but, to all visual appearances, Aiko looked like Gabi. Pleased, the Gabi simulacrum nodded and the armor grew and molded into a perfect copy of Reginald Meadows. Aiko only spent a second on that image. Even she had enough proprietary to not play a man in the women's locker room. Naughty naughty! Gabi's face returned. Here, though, Aiko paused. She hadn't actually met this Perseus yet. Not unless she'd glimpsed him in one of her many wanderings of the ship. There was only one thing to do about that!
"Oh Eeeve!" Gabi's voice sang in Aiko's cadence, "Eve, tell me tell me, send it to me do. All about Perseus, his public image too!"
Aiko communicated with Even with a specific, thoroughly isolated and especially fabricated communications device. AI were tricky and thought as fast as Aiko did on a bad day. Who knew how one would slip under Aiko's guard? Eve felt the same enough. Not wholly trusting the Ghost in the Machine, as she had first mistaken Aiko as. As such, Eve only allowed direct communication through a specific set of fire walls to prevent any aggressive Phoenix Nebula programming from even having a chance of breaching the system. Even if the programs were as scrambled as Aiko's thought process, Eve wasn't about to take chances. Still, she was hungry for even glimpse of knowledge on the journey her ship and crew were about to embark upon and eagerly fenced with Aiko's machinations for such a glimpse. The only other exception is if Aiko was accessing the computer through one of the ships hard terminals. Partly because the risk was far smaller and partly because, as Aiko was on the crew manifest, she was entitled to all the rights and liberties of a crew member. Including computer access. Whether Aiko recognized that it would be unsporting to abuse such power over her electronic debate member in their back and forth or if it suited some other purpose in the chasms and labyrinths of her mind, none could say. But she didn't utilize the computer to cut straight to the answers she demanded.
So it was that they communicated and danced in this oblique way. Eve, in secure curiosity, tried to gain access to whatever Phoenix data she safely could. Aiko simply delighted in the game of keep away. It was perfectly natural that Eve's response was a very flat NO. Declaring that frivolity had no place when the ship was BEING INVADED!
Time slowed for Aiko again as the two entities communicated. Each other's electronic hardware more than capable of keeping up with the lightspeed debate. "Oh, Eve, don't be like that!" Aiko chided.
Eve's reply was the quantum computer's assertion that she would be exactly as she pleased to be and wouldn't share any information on Mr. Galatea anyway. And, besides, EVERYONE, hint hint, would be needed to repel these INVADERS!
"Really?! Invaders! My oh my."
A very strong affirmative blasted through the communicator.
"Don't worry Eve, I have a plan that will most assuredly help."
Obstinate doubt. Aiko would assuredly treat it like a game.
"Hey now, everything's a game! Ah well, I suppose I don't need to know Perseus much. He's that one human who cleans the railgun, right?"
For her information, Mr. Perseus is a Lustrian and the Chief Engineer! …wait.
To late did Eve realize her mistake as Aiko, given this critical information, immediately searched through her suit's recorded video. Lustrian significantly cut the ship's population. Engineering sliced it even more. And the Chief, well, that was a matter of parsing out footage of the person everyone in the department seemed to listen to. Leaving…bingo! Seen about five times on her many wanderings of the ship, awake or not. With cackle of delight, Aiko shot a picture of the golden boy to the irate Eve whose curse would have made any sailor jealous, if it could be translated, followed by a declaration that Aiko had cheated.
"I thought we weren't playing games!" Aiko cackled just before cutting the communication and returning time back to its normal speed. Peering furtively out into the medrakkar, she saw it empty. With a giggle, she shot off, returning to formless silver. She slipped into a service hatch and disappeared from the scanners. Becoming a dense spot of nothing to those seeing outside of the visible spectrum of light. Usually, such crawl spaces with necessitate long hours on one's hands and knees or, if fortune was with them, they could use a hover or roller board. Aiko, however, flowed like an ooze. A terrifyingly fast blob as out of an ancient horror movie's modern remake. Inside, the mind wondered who she would find first. The sweet captain? The good Doctor? The engineer of meaning? Or one of these invaders.
The Good Doctor
Reginald froze when he heard the declaration. Then took a deep, steadying sigh and sat back down. He hadn't realized he had shot from his seat. Realistically, there wasn't much he could do yet. Until the bullets started flying, his brand of expertise remained unneeded. If it came to combat, Doctor Meadows easily came up at the shallow end of the pool. Far more likely to get in the way than provide meaningful contribution with a gun. Not that he even wanted to fire one in the first place. No, he'd leave all of that affair in the more capable hands of Gabbi and the marine teams.
Still, he found it mad for these Akkanar fellows to attempt this before the
Cotopaxi was even properly underway. Employing such a bold strategy to boot. Reginald distinctly remembered the times, while being smuggled to the Resistance through several systems, the times when he or one of his compatriots had been found. The first were by Imperials themselves. Who had also announced their presence and demanded surrender. When the silence defied them, they had utilized overwhelming firepower to blast into the hiding place. Which had just so happened to be a gang's hideout who had more than happily returned fire. It was in that chaos the information broker had slipped Dr. Meadows out. The other two times had been bounty hunters. Both of whom had employed stealth to attempt to get the Doctor out and back into Imperial hands. Both had failed and were buried in unmarked graves.
Reginald sighed and leaned back into his chair. Battling the rising nerves and fear that sought to gnaw at him. Again, there was nothing he could do for now. Even if he could, would he want to? A crux of the matter. Reginald had never described himself as a pacifist. War, as horrible as it was, sometimes was justifiable. If, for example, an entity was so overbearing, unrelenting, and unchanging in its oppression of others, then war was certainly justifiable. Not desired, but justifiable. However, Reginald himself had never held a firearm. Or a cannon. Or a grenade launcher. He could remember a time when his ignorance of weapons could span across the spectrum. No longer.
Yet was the Empire that? That answer seemed to change on the day. On days like these, it seemed a bit closer.
At the moment, Reginald was alone. Save for Eve, technically. All his staff were out and about. Either stealing the last minutes of relaxation or preparation for the voyage. He doubted it would remain that way for long. Either crewmembers or mercenaries would come to join him soon. The thought of running didn't really occur to him. An after thought worth as much to him as a pistol in his hands. After all, running right now was just as likely to lead him into trouble, becoming trouble, as it was to lead him out of it. Adding chaos would solve nothing. So, Reginald sat and awaited a doom he had long wondered about. Pondering the mysteries of weapons and war. Eventually, he brought up, to his mind's eye alone, schematics. Formulas and equations. Living organisms to be deployed by warheads that could bring ruin to planets. Raze entire systems. Doomsday. Reginald almost fell into the memories but, at the last moment, pulled away. Now was not the time for this. Strangers wanted his life, perhaps alive or perhaps dead. But he would await it as calmly as he could.