When I look out there, it makes me GLaD I'm not you. [OPEN]

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

It was the second time in seemingly as many days (it was unclear how long he’d been gone) that Ender had been spit out of an organic structure.  Shakily, using the wall for support, he raises himself to a standing position and tries to regain his bearings. He is back on the ship. Clearly having gone to the city for rest had not saved him from being taken in for “study”. Why the voice had kept promising him cake was beyond him. He hadn’t had cake since his sixth birthday, and Peter hadn’t let him enjoy that one anyway. If his /greater purpose/ is to be a guinea pig for further mind games... It had thanked him(the voice, not the cake) and let him go. It also specified that there was a cake shortage.

He walks apprehensively down the hall, tense and alert, for fear of being borrowed for another experiment.

Comments

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief is on the move, heading to the sensoriums from the mess hall. He has things to do and to build and to test there, and he'd be running if he weren't concerned about potentially slamming into anyone.

He notices one of the kids here in the hall, but can't put a name to the face. He hasn't met this boy. Either way, he seems nervous for some reason. The Chief stops.

"You alright?" he asks.

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

He hears the heavy footsteps from down the hall and does his best to compose himself before he meets anyone. Ender has no intention of looking like a lost child. He peers up at the man from his significant height disadvantage with a stubborn expression.

“Fine, sir. Merely exploring the ship.” He lies. He takes in the tall man's features; well-proportioned, imposing and fit.

[prettycoolguy]

John nods once. He suspects that this isn't the truth, but he'll let the boy have his dignity. He's also aware of his own size, and how he can be intimidating. It's useful at times, but others not so much.

"If you find anything unusual, get ahold of one of the security staff," the Chief says. "Most of the problems we have right now came from other parts of the ship."

He's thinking of the Yeerks. And of the roaches he only heard about. And the unnamed enemy that still stalks the bridge, out of their reach.

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

"Other parts of the ship?" Ender inquires. He remembers the pods along the wall when he first arrived. What else might have emerged from those?

He doubts that the security staff would have answers in regards to the disembodied female voice but he's eager to learn what other threats he needs to be aware of. He also hopes to learn more about the Ohm.

[prettycoolguy]

"Yes. Mostly the city, though Stacy's sterilized it since." From the tone, it's clear this has not caused the Chief to trust it any better.

"You were in one of the recent groups, right?" He's pretty sure this is the case but just confirming it. "How much do you know about what's happening?"

If he's asking about other parts of the ship, it sounds like he needs some filling in.

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

Ender likes the man's forward manner. He doesn't seem to be making plans of his own. He nods in agreement, taking in the man's reluctance to trust Stacy's claims, or perhaps Stacy's capacities.

"I know very little." He admits, "I've only just arrived."

[prettycoolguy]

"Alright," he says. "Firstly, I am Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117. I go by "Chief" here and I'm one of the two Lieutenant Commanders and head of training." Only the other Spartans know that his birth name is John, and he'd prefer to keep it that way. It's too familiar to use outside that small group. His rank works better as a name.

"I'm on my way to the sensoriums right now," he says, remembering, "I have some work to do. We can talk along the way if you follow me. It's a long story."

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

Master Chief Petty Officer, the ninth and highest rate in the United States Navy, he recalls. Ender quickly dismisses his initial assumptions on the Chief's motivations. He has learned to be wary of specialists. He doesn't want to train for Battle either.

He needs to learn about the enemy though, and the Chief knows what they're up against. He nods his acceptance and follows. "I'll assist you in your work if I can." What better way to learn more about the defenses on this ship?

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief may be the head Spartan, but he still ranks only about as highly as a Sergeant Major for ease of being given orders. He is a weapon to them more than he is a person, but that suits John just fine. It's his job.

The Chief sets off again, talking to the boy as he goes. "I don't know too much about the things that happened here before I woke up, but I think I have most of the important details." The Chief's not usually one to say a lot, but he wasn't kidding. It's a long story.

"The first of us woke up and knew probably only about as much as you do. Ship's not fond of telling us things. Cybil Bennet, the other Lieutenant Commander at the moment, wound up Captain and managed to hold the group together. There was an incident in the City with some giant cockroaches and someone was killed in the process of fighting them off. Then Stacy realized what was happening and killed them. I woke up a bit after that."

He thinks back to that briefly. The disorientation, the original certainty that this must be a Flood hive. Then Cortana. He thinks about her for a second, wondering where she is, and strengthens his resolve to recover her.

"After that, some of the crew was infested with Yeerks. Little slugs that crawl in your ear canal to the brain and take control of your body and can read your memories. By the time we knew what was happening they'd taken a good number of the crew, including the Captain, and were working on jacking into Stacy's brain in order to force her to take them home. Problem is that would wipe everything else, including the coordinates for all the rest of us, clean. So we captured them and starved them out of their hosts' heads. We're not sure exactly when Stacy sterilized the City, but we think it was after that."

"Then we reorganized the chain of command with Captain Picard and Commander Kirk. They've been captains of ships before and so far seem good at keeping the crew in order. So I trust them." The Chief trusting anybody is fairly big.

"Since then two important things have happened. Firstly, Stacy sent ground teams down to a planet to recover some escape pods. I was on one of the ground teams. We found the remains of a nanite bomb there, and an abandoned city. We also found a warning." The Chief's dignity still smarts a bit from that mission. He was the only one to have a member of his team badly wounded, and then Samus had run off on her own against orders. But the memory of the things he heard from that team still sends a chill down his spine.

"It was a warning about something called the Ohm, traveling between dimensions and wiping out any sentient life besides themselves. We don't know much. Stacy wouldn't talk about it when we got back, but we did learn something from her." He looks to Ender.

"We don't know why we're on this ship, but we know why we're awake. That's the second important thing, when we got back we managed to get her to answer some questions."

"Something's taken Stacy's bridge. She woke us up in a last ditch effort to get somebody up there to get rid of them. That's why we need to get our teams organized. That's why I need to start training so we can defend ourselves if we are attacked, and go on the offensive when we're ready."

"Right now we have a... different problem, but that's the overall situation. Besides the bridge problem, some of our crew might be missing and we don't know about it. It's hard to keep track of where anyone is, and sometimes there's an AI named GLaDOS that steals crew members to do experiments on. Stacy blanks them out of our memories when she does this until they come back."

Which, of course, leads into the current snarled up mess.

"One of the infected crewmen was taken by GLaDOS and then returned, so there is one Yeerk still alive. My advice is not to bring it up. We haven't decided what we're going to do with it yet and it's a heated subject."

"You getting all this?"

It's a lot of information.

[captain-jtk.livejournal.com]

Kirk was on his way to the mess hall, when he spotted an alert and rather tense young boy walking shakily down the corridor. He paused, arms akimbo, "Are you alright?"

He can't quite place a name or a face to him. Odd.

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

Standing straight, Ender nods politely. “Yes sir. I'm a new arrival. I was exploring the ship.”
He decides it would be best to stick to the same story for those he encounters. There is no way of guessing if others have been abducted with promises of cake and he isn't sure explaining it would work in his favor.

[captain-jtk.livejournal.com]

Kirk smiles and nods, "I must have missed you at the last introductory meeting. I'm Captain James T. Kirk, acting first officer. Welcome aboard, son."

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

A commanding officer. “Thank you sir. Though it wasn't a choice.” Ender replies, saluting. He doesn't return the smile but he looks up expectantly. This is the man who will have information. He had decided back on Eros that he would learn more from adults from waiting than from asking.

[captain-jtk.livejournal.com]

Kirk almost raps a salute off in automatic response. He nods slowly, "Well, none of us have had much of a choice since our arrival, I'm afraid. What's your name, son?"

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

"Ender Wiggin sir." He's convinced now that no one here has any idea who he is. It's a relief, but it also reduces him to the status of his age.

[captain-jtk.livejournal.com]

"Pleased to meet you, Ender. I hope that you'll adjust quickly enough to the ship... if you have any questions, feel free to ask."

Well, he seemed like a decent enough sort.

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

"I will sir, thank you." He salutes a second time before continuing down the hall.
So that was the captain. Ender doesn't know very much about politics, but the man certainly looked like those he'd seen on television as a child; decisive, likable, with a manner that one instinctively trusts. It seems unfortunate that so little is actually within his command, he thinks.

[potentialmonkey.livejournal.com]

"Hihi!" Comes a voice from ankle level.

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

With a sharp intake of breath, Ender staggers back, taking a defensive stance. He tosses a look back down the way he’d come; nothing. He looks forward; still nothing. Another disembodied voice? Then, in a last attempt, he looks down to find...some sort of pink ferret. It looks like an axolotl with teeth.

He stares at it a moment, wondering if “hihi” is the equivalent of squeaking for this species. He gets down on one knee to take a closer look. Considering the size of the teeth, he deigns it dangerous to attempt touching it.

[potentialmonkey.livejournal.com]

"Hi. Me Rufus!"

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

He'd thought breathing walls might have given him some form of immunity towards strange occurrences, he was wrong.

"...Hello." he manages to stutter, furrowing his brow. Introducing himself to rodents wasn't in his training, but he's giving it a try. "I'm Ender." He wonders if it...he...belongs to anyone, but he doesn't think that would be appropriate to ask.

[potentialmonkey.livejournal.com]

Rfus sniffs the air, before running down the hall, only to come back riding the shoulder of a blonde teenager with a slightly pudgy middle.

"Hola amigo. You new here?"

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

Ender nods politely, determining that the blond boy isn't particularly threatening. He's the first person his own age he's met on the ship.

"New enough to get lost." He admits. He glances up at Rufus. "Do all animals speak on your home world?"

[potentialmonkey.livejournal.com]

"Nope, just Rufus that I know of. Well, there was that chimp, but I'm nto sure he counts cuz of the whole being a mystical beast of destruction thing."

[ewiggin.livejournal.com]

Though the mention of mystical beasts of destruction left Ender rather nonplussed, he decides he doesn't necessarily want to know.

"The closest animals come to speech where I come from is mimicking...and that's rare. How long have you been on the ship?" He inquires.