Sparks of the Soul: Machina Sins

[Arachnion As Captain Jack]

Morning came to Olivent, hot and humid as usual.


Though for the staff of the Olivent Military Research base, today was special-the ship that R&D had been working on in total secrecy for the past few months was going to take off for a shakedown run, with a select few personnel being chosen to come along for the ride. They had been chosen in advance for their skill and loyalty, and all had been sworn to absolute secrecy regarding what they saw. Envy ran wild, at least among the more curious soldiers left unchosen.

Today was also special for the Xenobiology division-they had just received a stable sample from a previously unstudied alien race, and if the stories were true, it posed nearly limitless potential for advancement.

For Dr. Nathan Hale, today was also special. Today he was going to save the world.

[Takezo]

Valeriya's eyes opened with the dawn. This was the first time in some time that she had had a full nights rest but she had run into a doctor on her way to the training area and he had most strongly objected to her not getting a full eight hours sleep.

Valeriya slipped out of the bed and stretched. Not that she could blame him; it was likely to be the least boring day for a while and he didn't want pilots at any less than their best. She took a quick shower with the, most annoyingly, rationed cold water. She toweled herself off, sprayed herself with talcum powder and struggled into her suit(white coloured today). Many pilots who used one would have only worn it when necessary but Valeriya believed in constant readiness. That and as a former deep spacer it was basically just normal clothes to her. She activated the compression control and removed it as it fixed any areas not next the the skin already. She had known some people who left the control on all the time but she failed to see how a few seconds of labour saving each day was worth your life if you accidentally activated it. Nothing is entirely disaster proofed. The very first thing she put on after was her cross followed by pulling on her knee length magnetic boots. She attached one pistol holster on each hip. She grabbed her glasses. Ready for breakfast.

Having consumed the closest thing to food procurable on this place she shrugged into her trench coat(black), clipped on her sword belt with scabbard, grabbed the satchel containing her laptop and linked it to her glasses. Anything else she had was on the her Machina already. Not that she expected to use any of it. Still best to be prepared. Now hopefully she could get away with practicing with the KSI-314 until the excitement today. All she had to do with avoid anyone who looked like they needed a job done...

[y7h65]

Rachel's POV
As the sun rose, Rachel finally finished drawing up the design on the Knight MK.F. She had pulled an all nighter instead of sleeping, but when she looked over the design she felt an ever present sense of pride. As she checked the design over for any missing things, she mumbled to herself. "Hmm.. this should take about 4 months to finish. But hey, at least now, the VF mods will be finished." In the background, better known as the hangar, somebody screaming her name and something about "Not the truck!" could be heard. Rachel sighed, got changed, put on the pilot suit, and walked to the hangar. She saw the lead mechanic mourning over the death of his beloved truck. She gave him a pat on the back as he mourned. "It died for a good cause." The lead mechanic turned his head to her. "Like what." Rachel shuffled a bit uncomfortably."Uhhh, I took it apart to see if I could put it back together. Then I forgot about that 2nd part and started working on something else." The lead mechanic started gibbering with rage as Rachel decided to make herself scarce. Just another day on the Olivent Airbase Delta.

[Kilroywuzheere]

Markus was awakened from his sleep with the arrhythmic beeping of a computer. For a lil' bit he groggily groped around for his alarm clock, only to find that it wasn't time for it to go off yet. Then he remembered. Weekly diagnostics. "Dammit...." It was far before dawn, he needed extra time to run Exodus through its check up. Reaching around, his fingers met with the metallic form of Exodus. He slid a panel back, and stuck his fingers inside this machine.

*vvvvvvvvvsssssssssssssssssssssssss*

Exodus unscrewed itself from the port in the base of his skull, severing the connection. Before he could forget what he was doing, he shoved the machine into a large port next to the computer. "Diagnostics running. Please wait."

"This would be a good time to..." he paused, looking around. Where was he? What was he doing? Shaking his head, he rubbed his head. Peachfuzz. "...I like my head shaved?" He knew he did, he just wasn't sure that he shaved. Looking around for a moment, he found an electric razor, examining it for a bit, he clicked it on. What the? These things... they cut hair right?

.....He put the razor against his head, flecks of short hair fell from his scalp, littering the sink and floor. Soon, the rest of his scalp was bare, devoid of hair. Looking at himself in the mirror, he noticed a scar. Running his finger along the slightly raised surface felt... odd. He knew what this was...

"Diagnostics complete. Please reinstall the Exodus system." The computer's chirping brought him back to what he needed to do. He walked over and pulled Exodus out of the port, lining it up with his head properly... What was he doing? He pulled Exodus around and looked at it. This thing....

"Diagnostics complete. Please reinstall the Exodus system." His mind jerked uncomfortably back to what he was supposed to be doing. Lining up Exodus once more he pushed it on.

*VVVVVVVVVVvvvvvvvvvvvssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*

His mind cleared of fog all at once. He told the computer he'd reinstalled Exodus, its annoying chirping ceased. He really didn't like his reliance on this thing. At least it was waterproof so he only had to take it off for diagnostics.

ONE SHOWER LATER

"Bleh... dawn already..." Today he needed to be on duty... And they might need him to pilot. Might as well put the pilot suit on, not that he really needed it to pilot. Appearances are important after all, at least while on duty. His special suit had a hook up for Exodus, he wasn't sure why he needed his suit to hook up to the blasted thing but they stressed its importance so... He wasn't one to argue. Slipping into the suit wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience but it wasn't any different from any other suit. He'd been in so many that it has ceased to be a problem. At the neck, Exodus and the suit came together, hooking into each other. "This thing always feels so... weird..." he said, moving around, making sure it didn't tug in any... unfortunate places. He grabbed a jump suit, if he was gonna go anywhere else he didn't want to have to take this suit off to do it.

And with that, Markus stepped out of his room, ready to face the coming day.

[Toastradamus]

Iggy slowly awoke as his room was filled up with the suns rays."Damn, I never wake up this early." he groaned, rising from his bed.He made his way to the sink in his room and splashed some water on his face to help him wake up. As he wiped the water off his face he quickly got dressed, sliding on his leather jacket as the walked out of his room."Might as well check up on ol' Hephaestus before boarding the ship." he thought to himself, making his way to the hanger. "Those damn mechanics better not have messed up my ride, it took me forever to get the armor all shiny!" He started running now, he never really liked the idea of other people messing around with his machines without his permission.

[the red soldier]

Mysk V Lyxer

As the base seemed to slowly wake up, one man hanged around in the hangar. Dressed in a soviet military overcoat, you could guess him as being an old soviet commissar during the Stalin years by the way he looked. He seemed to only have just arrived this morning in this supposed research base. "Atleast this place actually looks like a government installation. Unlike the last one... Although thinking back, I dont think it was legit, they paid well though."

As he stopped talking to himself, he looked at the massive mech being hauled in. It was almost twice as big in size then all the other mechs in the hangar, which made the man grew a big grin on his face. "No wonder they called for me! Look at the puny contraption they call machinas!"

[Kisuke]

In the training room, the sounds of blows landing on a punching bag could be heard as well heavy breathing. Right hook! Followed by a left jab, then a roundhouse! As Katrina's right heel collided with the heavy bag, the sunlight from the window in the corner collided with her eyes. Momentarily blinded, she lost her balance and fell, [censored]-first, into the ground. "Damned sun..." She stood up, rubbing her lower back, and looked at the clock on the wall. "Well, good timing I guess, time to get ready for takeoff." She grabbed her towel from a nearby bench, wiped the sweat off her forehead and then took a huge drink from her water bottle. After cooling off a bit, she grabbed her gym bag and headed for the showers.

One freezing cold shower later:
"God dammit! Stupid rationing..." Kat stepped out of the gym, wearing her usual tank top, jeans and fishnet gloves, then reached into her pocket and produced her mp3 player. She slipped the earbuds on, turned on her favorite song, and headed for the hanger, music blaring in her ears.

[Kilroywuzheere]

Markus mentally went over the list of things he'd need to do before the ship's departure, listing them off in his head as a computer would... First he had to go ensure that his Cougar was prepared to be loaded, which also meant preforming a routine maintenance... Markus sighed, dropping by the cafeteria for what might be a doughnut, and a suspicious brown beverage that he believed was supposed to be coffee. Oh well, he was used to the food here by now and it didn't bug him too much. He hoped to go out on the town for one last lunch, but he doubted there would be time for that...

Sighing, Markus entered the hanger, doughnut crumbs on his face, and a mostly empty cup with the dredges of what this place called coffee in the bottom. Tossing it into a nearby refuse bin, he made his way over to a Cougar, crouching in the back. They liked to keep it nearby simply so they could check up on it and make modifications as they please. Usually nothing fancy, swapping out a part here or there for something with a higher performance rating. Honestly, Cougars were already tricked out, the parts amounted to a difference of .1 seconds in control delay, which is what they're trying to control with Exodus.... Oh well. He waved at a few people along the way, and when Markus got close to his machina, it sprang to life. Sorta. It was rather obvious it had powered on, and the cockpit popped open, revealing that it had what could barely pass for control mechanisms. "Might as well run diagnostics on this baby. Make sure I get it working all nice and good before leaving."

[Kisuke]

Katrina found herself in the hanger, a cup of coffee in her hand and a piece of toast in her mouth. She looked around and saw all kinds of Machina being loaded onto the ship and smiled through her meal. Wonder where mine is... she thought to herself as she roamed around looking for Shadow Wolf. It didn't take her long to locate it seeing as all the machines were unique. She looked up at it with a smile and tossed her now empty cup of coffee into the trash. "Hello beautiful..." She was itching to climb into the cockpit, but knew she needed to let the technicians load it onto the ship, so she decided to leave them to their jobs and went to go look for her quarters aboard the ship.

[Toastradamus]

Iggy burst into the hanger, looking around to see where his machina was. He saw a few mechanics about to start moving Hephaestus from the hanger and onto the ship. Muttering under his breath he ran over to them."Whoa now, where are you guys going with that?" He said angrily. The mechanics quickly reassured him that they where just moving it onto the ship and preparing it for the journey. Realizing they were just doing their job, he calmed down a little bit. "Eh, fine. Just be careful with it okay? Its...important to me." He stepped out of their way and let them go about their business. He directed his attention to the ship, staring at its magnificence. "Ohhh man! That's what i call traveling in style!" he remarked to himself. He began to make his way on board. "Might as well explore a little bit. I'm dying to see what the inside of it looks like."

[furon117]

As usual. Juan woke up later than he had meant to and probably later than any one else in the entire compound. Dragging himself from his bed he stepped in for a cold shower to wake himself up.

*shower transition*
Stepping back into his room he quickly got dressed because he was already running late as hell, put his jacket on, grabbed his rosaries and satchel with his bible and stepped out of his room. Quickly running to the cafeteria he grabbed some tasteless food and drink and went off to the hangers to check on his mecha and the ship he would be on.

[Arachnion As Captain Jack]

The Gravitas was an odd creature; originally a cruise vessel donated to the military, it was used as a testbed for several experimental technologies that were later implemented in other vessels. The rooms were in their original state, though the golf course had been converted into a machina bay. The internal components were another matter entirely, with so many parts being replaced over so many years that it might as well have been made from the ground up by the military.

Most recently it had been used as the testbed for a technology deemed so expensive and impractical that absolutely no ship in the entire Earth Federation armada was going to be retrofitted with it, but the sunken costs fallacy demanded that the military finish the job and get at least some use out of the whole thing.

Today was a basic shakedown run, to see how the ship held together and what needed fine-tuning before it was switched to active duty. As such only just a bit more than a skeleton crew had been invited to take part in the operation.

After all, Matthew was a peaceful area. It's not like anything was going to happen.

**********

While the technicians were finishing up moving all the machina to be included in the test, Valeriya got an alert on her glasses. A new message had come in for her on the most recent mail ship, this one just reaching her laptop.

SENDER: Society For Logical Discourse
SUBJECT: The Society Wants You

**********
Elsewhere, Dr. Hale's ship landed, and he was nervous through the whole process. He was on a mission, and there was very little time to actually carry it out. If he should fail...well, that didn't deserve thinking about.

And of course, the commercial spaceport he was getting off in just had to be on the opposite side of the city as Airbase Delta. Because who said it needed to be easy?

[the red soldier]

Mysk

As he walked around, drinking from a flask while examining the other machinas, he noticed at the corner of his eyes that they were moving his machina into some kind of ship. Running at full speed towards the hangar guys, Mysk seemed out of breath when finally reaching the other side of the hangar. "HEY! HEY! HEY! "gasp" where are you "wheeze" taking the comrade?!" The hangar worker looked confused as he looked at his computer pad. "Mysk V Lyxer correct? This machina is scheduled to be on that ship." "But I never signed up to be on some ship!" "I wish I'd be going, considering all those zeroes..." When he mentioned zeroes, Mysk grabbed the computer pad from the workers hands, his entire sheet, expected work and most important, his pay was all on the pad. Mysk's eyes opened wide for a second when he saw the zeroes he was talking about. "Suddenly I'm ok with you loading the Comrade!" With that, he tapped the man on the shoulders and went on his merry way towards the ship.

Few minutes later

On the ship, Mysk looked around, completely lost. "Didn't look that big from the outside..." Truth be told, Mysk wanted to meet with his employer. "This better not be some bureaucratic screw up... Also, where is everyone? Expected a bigger crew for such a ship."

[Takezo]

Valeriya examined the message for a moment, committing it to memory and deleted it. Thoroughly. She made her way to the hangar and after keeping and eye on the KSI for a moment shrugged and started moving to the ship. Not getting some practice in was a shame but hopefully she could see what was up with the ship. They had been keeping specifics relatively under wraps and it would be interesting to see what stuff was under it's shiny hull. She reached the ship and walked up the ramp, dodging the occasional technician with last minute supplies of varying mysteriousness.

[y7h65]

Rachel's POV
Rachel jumped climbed into the cockpit of the Knight while the lead mechanic continued gibbering madly. She put on the pilot suit's helmet and flicked on the main engines while setting the ramjets to standby. She quickly bought her mission briefing as she started to taxi to the runway. (Ok, so all I have to do is to make sure nothing hits or attacks the ship. Despite being a peaceful planet, Navy doesn't want to take second chances. But I only have my 40MM and LMG. This planet is peaceful, what's going to happen that's going to require LGB's or AAM's and AGM's.) As she got to the runway, a message came over the radio. "Knight 11, you're clear for liftoff." Rachel nodded and throttled the thrusters. "Got it! Lifting off!" The Knight roared and lifted off, hitting Mach 2 in a few minutes. The Ramjets then kicked in and the Knight and Rachel were sent hurtling towards the Gravitas.

A few minutes later, The Knight was circling the Gravitas. "Gravitas command, this is Knight 11, I have been assigned as air defense, over." Rachel adopted the Chuck Yeager tone as she spoke over the radio, making sure that Gravitas command wouldn't hear the wrong thing.