Emily giggled madly when Amaryst mimed throwing food at her, but calmed down as the name was picked and the champagne poured. She had rarely gotten anything other than water to drink in the facility -- and certainly never alcohol -- so she cautiously reached for a glass, half-expecting someone to stop her. Once she had it in hand she sipped a little...and then a lot. There was only a sip or two left when Jin question Cross.
She listened intently to Cross answer, and finished off her drink. "So...you're like a robot, but with a human brain?" she asked, though she felt the entire conversation was a sensitive topic. "Is that why you feel so calm all the time?"
"'Feel so calm'? The hell does that mean?" Cross said, clearly confused by the question. He folded his arms and leaned against a wall, at least trying to appear at ease around the others.
"She means you never appear to be angry or afraid. It's not just the helmet masking your face. Your body language does not betray nervousness or anxiety," Amaryst says gently.
"For instance, your tone was very flat when you were talking about being a mining ship. Your words imply a bitterness at being forced into your current state, but that wasn't in your voice. Did you enjoy being a ship, Cross?"
Emily was startled by the sudden shift in Cross' mood, and worried she had something very wrong. When Amaryst finished explaining, Emily shook her head emphatically. "No, no...that's not it at all!" she said. "I mean...like when you were racing, remember? All the other racers were tense, scared, excited, nervous... But you were just...calm. You know? That calm? And that's how you feel when you fly the ship, too."
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Jin’s brow furrows at the line of inquiry his original question has taken and sighs before speaking up ”Okay, before we continue and get more confused it’s explanation time, Emily is an Empath. She can passively read the emotions of people around her.” he explains to the assembled group of the party before turning to the Cored man ”Now, Cross, I am sorry for bringing up that line of inquiry. I didn’t realize it was a personal subject, so I apologize.”
Amaryst leans forward. This is interesting. How would Cross react? Her antennae swivel toward Emily ….
"I'm just here to fly the ship and hurt people that need hurting," Cross said, his voice colder than normal as he unfolded his arms and started for the door, "Let me know when you have a destination in mind."
Then he was gone.
Emily shrank into her seat while Jin explained her abilities to the others. She hadn't expected it to be a big deal...but then she had rarely ever dealt with anyone who didn't already know. She felt the fear from Amaryst along with her telepathic questions, and more so the feelings from Cross when he retreated away. "Yeah..." she said, answering Amaryst's question aloud instead of mentally. "It's true. I read everyone, almost all the time... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt anyone..."
Emily slipped out of her seat and took Cross' lead, retreating back to her and Amaryst's room, leaving her empty glass and half-eaten burrito on the table.
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Jin looks to Amaryst uneasily then nods towards the door "Are you planning to talk to her or should I?" he asks nervously "I mean, your people can read minds, it's a bit weaker but the principle remains, you should know how to approach it right? Regardless she seems to like you a bit better than me." he notes aloud before sighing slightly as he thinks to himself "I never should have even spoke up, i've made a real mess of things this time, yeesh.."
As the conversation ends, Rollo just grunts and points at the burrito - "Anyone gonna finish this?" he asks.
Korvan is busy playing video games in the den, and the two lashunta commandos are downstairs in their own space.
Cross retreats to the bridge and guides the ship into the docking pad of Azusa 7. Since they have heavy cargo, the ship is allowed to dock in one of the larger bays, hidden behind a huge blast door, which rumbles shut after the newly-christened Argintum floats in to land. The procedure for re-pressurization is long due to the size of the room.
Maldor was enjoying his food, and really enjoying the bubbly, when everything suddenly got really weird. About two seconds after Emily left, he followed her up to her room, knocking softly on the door.
"Hey Em...you OK? Don't feel bad about them - they're just coming off a pretty stressful few days and probably need some alone time. It's not your fault! Look, I'm here if you need anything, OK?"
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After a short while Jin excused himself from dinner as well and adjourned to the Den to relax with something more decidedly in his wheelhouse: playing games with Korvan. Shortly thereafter they invite Zen as well to join them.
Later on after the ship docked and connected to the station's datanet Jin and Cassius spent a few hours surfing their way through directories of on-station vendors, paying special attention to any offering specialized computers, scientific equipment, and medical equipment as they noted down places to visit and browse.
Emily had barely gotten to the room when she heard Mal's knock. She didn't answer right away, but rooted around a few moments and unzipped something. "I'm fine," she eventually answered, if not very convincingly. She knew Mal deserved a better response than that; he was only trying to help. "I mean, I'll be fine. I just need some time."
*** Party night ***
Jin looks to Amaryst uneasily then nods towards the door "Are you planning to talk to her or should I?" he asks nervously "I mean, your people can read minds, it's a bit weaker but the principle remains, you should know how to approach it right? Regardless she seems to like you a bit better than me."..."[/i]
Amaryst's answer is pre-empted when Maldor hurries after his fellow subject.
"Looks like Maldor's on it. I'll talk to her after him, if she needs it. They're both pretty tough. They had to be, I guess." Her eyes narrow slightly and she stares intently at the witchwyrd.
Amaryst gives it about an hour before returning to her cabin. She pauses outside the door...
*** Approaching Azusa ***
Amaryst waits for a moment to catch Rollo alone in his cabin. "Have you made up your mind whether you're staying with us or leaving? We can't offer you a payday or promotion, but the food's pretty good and the bunks are comfortable, if small. You can see Maldor and Em to safety, if you think that's the right end to your mission."
Amaryst goes to talk to Rollo when K-Van is busy in the trivid den learning how to play Castles and Mages, a simulation fantasy game, from Korvan. He looks up from a datapad when she enters, chuckling when she brings up that line of inquiry. "Well," he starts, "I wasn't running with the assumption that I was free to be along just because I said so. So... What is your thought?"
Emily's first reflex was to reach out and try to gauge Amaryst's feelings...but she made a conscious decision not to.
Zenvisk will have politely declined partaking in the champagne. If pressed for why, they explain that they had previously had bad previous experience with Earth-based alcoholic beverages.
Once the issue surrounding Emily, and especially her ability to read the emotions of others, has come up, Zenvisk will silently sit at their seat at the table. As each person around them reacts in one way or another, they remain almost perfectly still, as if they were attempting to impersonate a statue. The only indication of movement is their antennae and mandibles, which are all twitching as Zen thinks over this revelation. Once people start leaving the room however, they too leave, heading down to the bottom level of the ship. Once Jin extends an invitation to come up and play vidgames, Zen will come back up.
Amaryst goes to talk to Rollo when K-Van is busy in the trivid den learning how to play Castles and Mages, a simulation fantasy game, from Korvan. He looks up from a datapad when she enters, chuckling when she brings up that line of inquiry. "Well," he starts, "I wasn't running with the assumption that I was free to be along just because I said so. So... What is your thought?"
"We started out at daggers, but you've steadied out and pitched in. You stood with us in the alley and at the race. It's a long way to anywhere that could be safe for Maldor and Emily. There's a good chance Earth will track us down. We could use a good man in a fight."
Emily's first reflex was to reach out and try to gauge Amaryst's feelings...but she made a conscious decision not to.
** spoiler omitted **
[b]{What happened at dinner wasn't your fault, Sugar. Cross is the strong silent type. Who knew he could be so sensitive? And Jin was out of line telling us about you, your power, without your permission. It's probably a good thing that it's out there early in our trip. It's the kind of thing that might give us an edge in a negotiation or a fight.}
{But people are going to be sensitive about it until they get used to it. I'll confess it was a shock to me. To close to the 'emopaths' from lashunta myths and legends. They're a kind of bogeyman, like werewolves and vampires for humans. Because they can see emotions, they can see your deeper self, and that gives them leverage to twist you to their will. }
{I think many humans feel the same way about telepathy. They think it's like a magic, and an intrusion into themselves. It took me a long time to understand that.}
Maldor nods at Emily's response, then realizes that a solid object stands between them. "Yea - no worries. Look, we've been through worse, and you know that I've got your back no matter what. I'm gonna head back down - twitch me if you need me."
Emily smiled a little, even though she knew Maldor couldn't see her. "I know -- and I will," she said. "And...thanks, Mal."
***Later***
Emily frowned a little at the continued telepathic conversation.
Emily sighed audibly, and switched to speaking aloud. "Look, I know things are gonna be alright," she said. "And I'm sure Cross will be fine, too. It's just... I hurt him with my good powers, and by accident. He didn't even see what I did to those guys in the alley. What would he think if he saw those powers? What would anyone think?"
Amaryst follows MLE into vocal speech, nodding as she replies, "You're right, Cross will...." She stops, cocks her head, antennae coming together, nearly touching.
"What did you do to the guys in the alley?"
Emily didn't answer right away. After the visit from Mal, she had propped herself up in the bed with her stolen duffel bag beside her. She had taken out her old jumpsuit and sat with it in her lap, absent mindedly rubbing her thumb along the embroidered name tag; MLE-1138.
"I hurt them," she eventually responded to Amaryst, though it wasn't much of answer. "The ones that bled from their faces. I did that to them. Attacked their minds, hurt them..."
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Amaryst's breathing stops for several heart beats. Breathing resumes while she considers what MLE has said and thinks back over the fight. She sits heavily at the foot of the bed.
"Sweet Mindgather, I'm not sure what to say to that. Except they would have killed us and sold you and Maldor back to UFIA, or worse. We all did our best to put them down. To kill or hurt them before they could, us. Did any of us deserve what happened?
"A week ago, I'd never fired my weapon in anger. Now I've killed a Vesk and helped kill five men. I would have killed Ayda and Savael in the warehouse too if you and Maldor hadn't stopped the fight. I can't help you encompass this because I haven't had time to absorb it at all myself.
"But -- I, I don't think it matters how we did it. Dead is dead. We're alive and free. "
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Emily halfheartedly shrugged. "I know," she said. "What I did to those guys? That's what I was made for, that's what the UFIA wanted me to be. A weapon. But my empathy? Reading people...that's not meant to hurt anyone. But the things I read from Cross did end up hurting him. And finding out I could even do that? I know that frightened you, too."
She shook her head, and her voice started to sound distraught.
"What am I even supposed to do, Amaryst?" She asked, as a few stray tears ran down her cheeks. "You mentioned vampires, and were-emo-things... I'm not afraid anyone will think I'm a monster. I'm afraid I already am one -- and always will be, no matter what I do."
"We're all afraid we're monsters inside. That's why we're afraid of being read. Cross didn't suffer any lasting hurt. He's probably already put it behind him. Tomorrow if you pretend nothing happened tonight, he'll probably pretend the same."
The lashunta stands back up. "If you need some time alone, I'll go sleep in the tri-vid den. Here or there, I'm going to bed now."
Em nodded softly and forced half a smile. "Yeah..." She said, as she relocated her duffel and things to the floor. "Sleep here. I'd feel a lot worse if you didn't get to sleep in your own bed, on your own the ship, on the day you named it." Emily got ready for bed as well, and tried to look forward to seeing what the next day would bring.
In space, there is neither day nor night, and with nobody to stop them Ayda and Savael roll their hovercraft off of the newly-named Argintum and into the docking bay of the trade station Azusa 5. Who knows where they're going or where they'll end up, but it's none of your business now. As agreed, Ayda wires 5,000 credits to Amaryst's account.
Now that you've dropped off your unwanted crew and made it to a new system... what's next for your group?
Maldor asks Jin, "Can we go out on the station? I've never been on one before. And when we get back, I want to learn about this ship and what I can do to help out. It looks like we'll be here for a while and I want to be useful!"
Cross, having collected himself, is checking his various toys at the primary airlock. He unloads his pistol and repeatedly works the action, watching for some minuscule tell that something is off with the compact ballistic. Satisfied for now, he slams the clip home again and slips it into a shoulder holster under his muskin jacket. As he cycled the airlock, he snapped a message off to the others.
I'm going to have a stroll and see what the disposition of the station is.
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Looking away from the match of Mega Brawl Siblings that he had been playing with Zen for just a moment, his character promptly gets punted off the screen as he responds to Maldor ”Hmm.. a visit to the station? Not a bad idea, maybe we could even find something to help cheer Emily up” the witchwyrd says, putting down the controller and stretching his back and arms as he stands ”Just a few ground rules this time so we don’t have a repeat of the situation with the thugs. 1: Stay close and don’t wander off, and 2: Try to avoid using psychic powers unless absolutely needed. Sound fair?”
“SolGov still has this place under their thumb, so while it is safer we still shouldn’t draw attention.” the Witchwyrd concludes as he rummages through a backpack and pulls out a few empty credit chits that have long since had their funds stored in his Rig and then shoves them into a pocket.
Cross leaves the ship first, deciding to take a walk around the station. Outside of the hangar bay which contains the Argintum, the station is mostly a tangle of wide hallways filled with holographic advertisements, logos, and images. Every shop that Cross passes blares an advertisement at him - sometimes targeted, other times not. "Your hardware getting old?" he hears as he passes a cybernetics shop, "Complete the body you've always wanted - no, the body that you deserve."
It seems that just about everything is sold here, but almost all of the shops on the inside of the station are automated, operating via credit chits and shipping the product to the buyer's ship.
Outside of the inner bubble of shops is a ring of storage. The warehouses are all locked with sophisticated double-function analog and digital locks. Outside of that are the station's airlocks. Very few people are on the station, other than a few security agents and what appear to be administration, though Cross does catch sight of a single group of merchants trading raw materials for ship maintenance supplies while strolling down one of the avenues.
Emily slept in a little and grabbed a food cube for breakfast before leaving the bedroom; wich she munched quietly on her way to the tri-vid lounge. She was a little sad to find out Ayda and Savael had already left with no goodbyes, but she doubted the others would really miss the pair. Or vise versa, for the matter.
She perked up a little when she heard Jin and Mal mention a trip to the station. She was still afraid they would be seen or caught, but the chance to be on a space station was too enticing to pass up. Going shopping would just be a bonus!
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Cross was sorely tempted to put a ballistic round through the emitter of the last advertisement. He hated targeted ads, if he wanted something prying into him, he would have stayed on the ship and subjected himself to the curiosity of the others. That was not totally fair, they had formed a unit and he was still on the outside, he knew how these things worked. They were all just so bumbling while still trying to be conscientious. He knew himself better than they did and there was no real point to the leading questions they tried to ask him.
Satisfied that things were quiet on the station he turned his attentions to the business at hand.
Send me clothing measurements, I'm going to grab some stuff to throw off curious eyes. Cross sent to the others.
Maldor couldn't help staring at everything in awe and wonder. The ads were all random announcements, since he had absolutely no online presence or identity that the marketing AIs could tap into. He found himself apologizing to 3D vids because they were so life-like and beyond anything he had seen. Sure the Institute had augmented reality training routines, but nothing like this! And they preferred to pit teams against each other anyways, to add realism and raise the stakes. To make sure we were really trying... Maldor thinks to himself bitterly.
In response to Cross' text message, Maldor simply replied, "Medium?"
Listening to Jin and Maldor talk about going onto the station, Zenvisks antennae perks up slightly at the thought of getting off the ship for just a couple hours. While the station was likely to be no less cramped than any other, it would still provide a place to stretch their legs. And, after all, there was always a chance to find new components to upgrade SAM's chassis with. Pausing and quicksaving the progress of the game, they too will set down their controller before turning off the console. As they do so, they speak up to the other two "If you don't mind, I would like to accompany you."
Seeing Emily enter the room as they say this, they turn to her and wave one of their three-clawed hands. Extending a telepathic link between them, they say to her
.
When Cross's message comes through, Zenvisk will send a quick reply.
In Cross' absence, Amaryst sits on the bridge, thinking. As usual on ship, she's dressed in her multi-pocketed overalls. Her pistol is still on her hip, but, unusually, her battleglove is in her cabin.
She replies to Cross' inquiry by text over the comm. "No thanks, Cross. I've got spare clothes here."
She sits brooding a while more. Having Ayda and Savael off Space Av -- no, Argintum made her less worried, but she would feel even better once they were wel away. Even with the biometric locks, she didn't want to leave the ship unguarded so close to Earth. And someone needed to guard Emily and Maldor. And they needed to collect the money, if Ayda had managed to transfer it already. One cannot live without trust.
She thumbed the comm to opena channel to Rollo, "Rollo, how'd you like to get off ship and watch over Jin and the others?
Then texts Jin to give him her Castrovelli account number. "I'm staying to guard the ship. Empty the account except for a few credits to keep it open. I won't want to use it for a while in case they try to trace it."
Cross shows back up at the airlock a few minutes later laden with bags from some establishment called 'The Interval' and deposits them in the lounge.
"Hey, grabbed some camouflage for a few of our oddballs!" He called through the ship "Zen, Mal, Em, you should get changed before you head out." He seemed intent on finding a single syllable nickname for everyone.
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Emily smiled a little at Zen's contact.
When her communicator thingy buzzed with a message from Cross, she took a few moments fiddling with the device to work out a response. Um I don't know. Here's the tag thingy from my shirt it's got a bunch of instructions and stuff. That ok? The message was sent with an awkward, upside down picture of her shirt tag, taken over her shoulder.
Twirling their antenna slightly, Zenvisk replies mentally to Emily as they head out to the main room to examine the new clothes that Cross acquired.
"Sounds good," replies Rollo. "I should stock up on batteries and ammunition anyway."
Maldor scans through the new clothing items, picking up a pair of pants, a belt, a t-shirt and a hooded jacket. All in all, he looked like most every other space traveler. Not a dock worker - the clothes were too nice and too new. And not a rich tourist - the clothes weren't nearly nice enough for that. But perfect for blending in with a crowd.
Of course, his skinsuit fit perfectly well under the new clothes and were hidden by them, and pulsecaster pistol was concealed well enough by the jacket. His battlestaff could not be hidden, so he would leave it on the ship. Maybe he could find a dagger or combat knife somewhere in the station for self defense...
If he finds any medical supplies or kits, Maldor will examine them and see about supplementing his powers with more mundane, but less feared, healing methods.
"Sounds good," replies Rollo. "I should stock up on batteries and ammunition anyway."
"Good idea. Can you pick up a battery and a box of rounds for me too?"
Emily gave a genuine smile during her mental conversation with Zen.
Once on board the station, Emily was amazed by all the lights and sounds. It was a little intimidating at first with all the different signs, everything seemed designed to draw the eye, and she felt like her attention was being pulled in a dozen directions at once. As the initial excitement settled, Emily found a few stores to browse through. She felt like her credits dwindled quickly -- new clothes were cheap, and a few healing serums weren't that bad, but protective wear was expensive. She knew she needed something more than just hoping their enemies didn't target her, and settled on a skinsuit similar to Mal's.
With shopping complete Emily returned to the Argintum, more tired than she had expected to be.
While everyone else, except Cross, is off the ship, Amaryst wanders through the public rooms. Twirling and swaying, she circles each one then glides serpentine down the passageway to the next. Eventually she winds up in the smuggler's hole, where she ceases her motion by sliding down a bulkhead until she's seated on the deck.
Why did Eastern have this fitted in the ship? It always seemed so strange.
Cross settled himself back in the bridge and begins idly scanning the various communication channels. Out of habit, he sent a ping out to the mining operations to see if there were any cores operating out there. He used the old handshake protocols from his time as a miner.
Maldor finds a medical supply shop and picks up a spare medkit and a handful of healing serums for the group. As they wander the station, he is tempted by a custom gaming controller with a 4D headset, but decides that he should spend less time gaming and maybe learn how to do something useful on the ship. In the end, he resists all other temptations except for a new, carbon steel survival knife featuring a 6" blade with blood groove that provides blade strength while reducing the weight of the knife. The spine of the blade has serrations for sawing applications, and it also includes a polymer sheath with pistol belt clip and leg-tie down for secure placement.
Eventually Amaryst returns to the kitchen and begins cooking a slow simmering stew. Warned by Evy, she meets the returning party at the main airlock door where she gathers in her battery and spare ammunition from Rollo.
"What did you all think? Come, tell me over dinner."