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She'd offered to show Mal Reynolds the way to the vehicle bay, and Nanoha was nothing if not a person of her word... but then again, she figured she ought to give Fate a bit of a tour too - and she certainly wasn't going to let her friend out of her sight if she could help it - so she'd decided to tackle both problems at once. Besides, it couldn't hurt to introduce some of the new arrivals to each other, right?

"You probably saw some of this when you came up from the Pod Caverns. There are five main levels in the Ship - the Living Area and the Observation Deck are at the top, then you have the City - which is where a lot of people settled in. Below that is Weapons and Possessions and the Armory, then the Pod Caverns, and below that the Hub. That's where we're going - you can get anywhere else on the ship from there."

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Fate followed a few steps behind Nanoha, trying to mentally map out the ship as the other girl spoke. Five levels didn't seem so bad... but the levels that Fate had already been to were enormous. Just the Pod Cavern alone seemed almost big enough to hold a ship like the Asura...

And there was one small, less important thing nagging her, so she spoke up. "Ah, Nanoha... what's the City like? Does it all look like this?"

'This' referring to the strangely organic-looking walls and floors, of course. Not that Fate would want to admit it, but it was kind of creeping her out. Just a little.

She shook her head. "Nope! The City looks like... well, it's a city! Stone and steel and glass and plastic and all of it. Actually, there are a bunch of different monuments from different worlds, which is a bit weird getting used to at first."

"That's a relief..." Fate muttered under her breath. A few monuments from other worlds would be better scenery than what looks like the inside of some giant monster, right?

Mal followed the two girls, listening to Nanoha's description of the ship's levels. He tried keeping them straight in his mind, because he figured he wouldn't always have a guide to tell him where to go.

As the three of them moved along, Mal listened to the girls talking, and then posed a question of his own, "You might've explained this already, but I figure I'll ask anyway. If this place is as big as it seems, how do people usually get around?"

"Actually, that's where we're headed right now. You'll see when we get there! Just to be on the safe side, though - you work in space, so you've had Zero-G experience before, right?"

They were walking further down through the halls, and it wasn't far now.

"No gravity, or weightlessness? I've experienced that a couple of times," Mal replied as they kept walking. He couldn't say he was an expert or anything like that, but experiencing weightlessness wouldn't come as a shock to him, at least.

"Well, good. You'll have an easier time adjusting than most people, then!"

The corridor seemed to stop at a dead end - but as Nanoha approached the wall, a section dilated open into the chamber beyond. It was a tube, not too wide - wide enough for a few people to stand side by side in, but not more than that - but it stretched up and below far out of sight. "Here we are! This is the transport system. It takes some getting used to, but it's actually really convenient."

Nanoha walked forward, stepping straight off the ledge into empty space without hesitation... and floated in midair. "See? No gravity. You just step in and tell her where you want to go, and she'll take you there through these tubes."

To Fate, though, she briefly elaborated in a mental message, I know it'll feel weird, but just trust her - you don't need to use your own flight, Fate-chan.

Fate stepped into the tube after Nanoha, pausing for only a second. Weird... wasn't exactly the right word for it. Just different. Standing in midair was nothing new to her, but she was used to the faint pulse of magic that kept her flying, so it was a somewhat new, but not unpleasant, feeling.

"How strange..."

"Suppose so," Mal replied; he would have said more but his attention was distracted as they arrived at the transport system. It wasn't impressive, exactly, seeing how it was just a tube, but Mal was still interested to see how it worked. He was even more interested when he saw Nanoha just walk off the ledge, followed by the other girl Fate.

"May as well give this a try." With that, Mal stepped off from the ledge and toward the tube. Like the others, he just floated in midair, and just like he'd thought, it wasn't that different from what he'd experienced before.

"Well, that was interestin'. I'm ready when you two are," the ship's captain replied with an easy smile.

Now that the three of them were floating freely in the tube, Nanoha grinned. "Now we're at the fun part. Stacy, can you take us to the Vehicle Bay, please?"

There was no sound of acknowledgment, but within a heartbeat the three of them were... well, they essentially plummeted into freefall. Nanoha knew that whatever had been keeping them floating before was keeping their descent carefully controlled and ensuring their safety, but it was still exhilarating and maybe slightly terrifying to be dropping through the tunnels like this - the wind ruffling through her hair reminded her of everything she loved about flying on her own.

What the other two were probably not expecting, on the other hand, were the tentacles that occasionally came out of the walls to nudge them into other tubes as the system branched off into a complex and labyrinthine network.

Okay, Fate had been enjoying the ride, for similar reasons to Nanoha. But then they were switched over into another tube...

Seriously, could this place get any weirder? Fate wasn't sure if she wanted to ask that, so she kept quiet.

Well, wasn't this interesting... Mal was intrigued by the idea of floating or whatever it was they were doing through the tubes. This was a completely different experience than floating in space with very little movement.

As much as he seemed to like the sensation, Mal couldn't help thinking that he wouldn't mind setting foot on firm ground again. He figured like most things, this would take some getting used to.

After a few more minutes of rapid travel, their descent slowed, and one of the fleshy appendages gently nudged them onto solid ground again. "Everyone in one piece?" Nanoha said, shaking out her hair - which was thoroughly mussed up thanks to their descent. "Here we are!"

Well, they were still in the tube, but if they neared the door it'd open up to their destination.

"Yeah, I think so..." Fate laughed as stepped forward, waiting a moment for the door to open before stepping out of the tube. Like Nanoha, her hair was pretty messed up from the trip in the tube, and she was doing her best to comb it out with her fingers. That was one downside to having such long hair.

Yes, yes it was.

And the image of Fate with her long hair so tangled and messed up - bedraggled, even - was something that, well... Nanoha had sorely, sorely missed seeing. "That's a sight I haven't seen in a while," she said teasingly.

Innocuous enough, right?

Edited 2009-12-05 04:39 (UTC)

Innocuous enough, maybe. But that didn't stop Fate from blushing darkly, eyes darting to Mal to see if he had caught the innuendo.

Nanoha... She said in almost a whine over the telepathic link. Don't say things like that when other people are around!

I have no idea what you mean~, she replied in a telepathic singsong before turning to Mal. "I hope the trip wasn't too jarring. It can take some getting used to."

"Jarring? No, not at all. Pretty fun, actually," Mal replied with a smile, casually running a hand through his hair; like the two girls, his had been messed up by the trip. He caught a bit of their banter, and his smile widened, though he didn't comment on it, noting Fate's blush. "Bein' used to weightlessness helped, though it's still going to take some getting used to. Traveling through tubes, that is."

"I can understand that," Fate said, refusing to respond to Nanoha. If she kept going, Nanoha would just keep teasing her, and that would just lead to her getting flustered, so. Ignoring time.

"Flying is so natural to me, but that was still a completely different experience."

"You'll get used to them quicker than you think. I'm glad you enjoyed it, though - I've heard some people just scream the whole way down their first time!"

Fate was avoiding her eyes. Oh well. Nanoha grinned at Mal, heading toward the door, which dilated open ... into perhaps the biggest room any of them had ever seen. It dwarfed even the Infinite Library that Fate would be familiar with, stretching far, far into the distance, filled with machinery from hundreds of thousands of different worlds.

"If your ship is here," Nanoha said to Mal. "You'll just have to ask Stacy where it is."

"Stacy," she said out loud. "We'd like to find something, if it's here."

||What are you looking for?||

You have her attention. Or at least the attention of part of her.

Mal laughed a bit at that. "I've never been much for screamin'; never found it necessary." He was mostly joking, but he definitely wasn't the type to start screaming about something, least of all a different method of travel.

Then, his attention was redirected toward Stacy, who was addressing them. Taking a breath, Mal voiced his request, "Uh... Stacy... Just wonderin' if there was a chance that my ship Serenity might be here, and if it is, where I'd be finding it." He finished talking, feeling more than a bit awkward, not having much experience talking to a ship that could talk back.

There's a very brief pause as subroutines sift through Stacy's inventory, then,

||Yes. The Serenity is here,|| Stacy's disembodied voice confirms.

||The distance is considerable. A transport will be provided.||

There's silence for a moment, then something glides down from the ceiling. A chitinous platform, complete with a ridged railing to keep passengers from falling off and an opening for getting on.

For the first time since his arrival, Mal felt something like a surge of hope when he heard that his ship was actually on board. This knowledge almost made up for the sense of hopelessness he'd experienced when learning about the fate of the universe, and all others in existence.

Again, awkwardly but very gratefully, Mal replied, "Thanks, Stacy... That's... Just thanks." He sounded incoherent, but hopefully he still got his point across.

"Nanoha, I'm going to go see my ship. You both can come, if you want to," said Mal, figuring it'd be rude not to invite the two girls. "It's up to you, if you think you've got the time." That being said, he moved towards the newly-formed platform, more than ready to see his ship again.

Nanoha beamed at him, genuinely happy for the man, because - despite being the sort of man who she guessed tried to keep his best poker face - that gratitude and hope was unmistakable. It was how she'd felt earlier when she'd first caught sight of Fate - the knowledge that something or someone you cherished was safe and was here with you.

"I'd love to come," she said. "You always sound so proud of it - of course I have to see it for myself!"

Fate was a little curious, seeing the wide array of machines, ships, and such. If their rescuers were able to salvage spaceships, certainly they could've saved... but she shook it off. She could check later.

"I'd love to."

"Great. You're more than welcome to come along." Mal grinned widely at both girls.

"Well, ready to go?" He stepped onto the newly formed transport, trying and mostly failing to conceal his excitement while looking back to see if the girls were following.

Nanoha stepped up beside him, looking over the assembled crowd of machinery - it was still hard to believe that there were so many of them. "I'm ready when you are! Fate-chan?"

Fate was the last to step in, and she flashed a thumbs-up. "Ready!"

Once they were all on, the transport launched into motion, and they were on their way to the place where Serenity was being kept.

Roughly a few minutes later, they arrived at their destination, and Mal stepped off the transport platform. It wasn't long before he found what he was looking for.

Unable to hide a giant smirk, Mal spread his arms wide, and with a bit of an exaggerated flourish, declaimed, "This, girls, is my ship, Serenity."

To be honest, the only other starships Nanoha had seen on any sort of regular basis were the ones in the TSAB fleet, and their sleek, precise military lining was a far cry from Mal's ship. It looked well-worn, like an old workhorse, and it didn't have a gleaming coat of paint... but what was wrong with that?

She'd remembered that look on Fate's face when she finished making an adjustment or a tune-up, or whatever she was always out doing with that car of hers, and it was something similar: A look of pride, a look of ownership - that this thing was theirs, and no one else's.

Nanoha smiled. "She looks like the sort of ship that would see you through thick and thin. I can see why you're so proud of it!"

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