trans_9 | Coherent Light (open)

Anwei wanted a messaging laser so hard that she could taste it. A nice, simple, hand-held, low-fade messaging laser would have let her contact every ship grounded on Gondepetil in one sweep. It would let her send messages to other ships in space or the Bleed, if they had their receivers open. Just let her get through to the Vizsnunishne – somehow – and she would be on her way to finding out what was actually going on. The laser was standard equipment, really; shouldn't every ship have one?

But there was no sign of one in the Armory (or if it was there, the index wasn't showing it to her). She'd have to see if the parts were available to build it herself. Most of what she needed was in Engineering, but not everything; if she could find a precision micro-mirror array chip, she wouldn't have to make the targeting mechanisms quite so precise. And she wanted an optical linkage to the data transmission system, so she could carry information on a shielded datastore and not have it out in the open until she was ready to send.

She changed out the denim shirt she normally wore over her plantsuit for the grey jacket she had bought in Orongo; the spattering of alien text across it apparently read 'Love is a river, dive on in' but hopefully nobody would stop to read it. Then she went down to Special Weapons and started doing inventory – or rather, started searching for the parts she needed while labeling everything that she recognized on her omnicomm. She was trying to be useful, and if the search served her own purposes as well, who would be harmed?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was at least one other in the room, a tall woman with green hair who sat at a workbench above a large charged-particle weapon of some kind. Her focus on it was intense, and her eyes only barely flicked over to Anwei as she entered the room.

And immediately back to the rifle. But it didn't seem to be doing anything to merit that level of attention; no ruptured power cell about to go critical, not even some delicate micrometer adjustment of a focusing field coil or optics component. There was just a panel off and a little diagnostic unit plugged into the side, doing all the work that was being done at present.

But she wasn't going to let that stop her.

Not getting between a person and their weapon was deeply engrained in Anwei's habits. She had seen enough people pull back a wounded hand or tentacle when they reached in the wrong direction. The other person appeared intent on their work, so Anwei just made a mental note to work around - her, she supposed. Although if she was wrong about that, she would of course apologize.

But eventually she passed back through the woman's work area, and happened to notice a grooved plastic box carelessly shoved into a shelf above her workbench. There was a fair amount of dust on it, but it looked like a sealed powerpack recharging rack. And if the original contents were still in there....

She stood out of arm's reach of the woman, just to be safe, and asked diffidently, "Excuse me, but could I just take down that box over your head and look through it?"

Suriz glanced up at her and nodded. "Go ahead." Diffidence was not exactly something she was used to, and she was not entirely comfortable with receiving unearned respect, but she wasn't the type to take politeness as a sign of weakness either... and certainly not one to needlessly obstruct others.

She started to push her chair back to get out of the way... and the diagnostic unit chose the exact wrong time to beep. Suriz jumped at the sound and her chair, a hard plastic thing in the traditional four-legged form and not one of Stacy's flesh-things, almost went over, teetering precariously on edge for a moment before it clattered back to the ground thankfully upright.

"Aren't enough clones in the fleet for this devil-led tinkering..." She swore under her breath as she stood and clicked the little device off, then backed back out of Anwei's way like she'd been trying to do in the first place.

"What are you looking for?" She asked, a lot more gruffly than when she'd initially acceded. Just... going to pretend that hadn't just happened. Probably badly.

"Thanks," she said, stepping forward and then pausing, flashing one hand out to catch the chair - but she didn't need to. She frowned at the furniture in question.

"I wonder why Stacy doesn't just make all the floors out of bone or ivory? I suppose it would make it harder to rearrange the floorplan, but it wouldn't trip you up as often."

"Actually," Anwei picked up the box and backed away, putting it down on a clear space a few feet down, "I'm hoping that this has powerpacks. It feels like an imposition, asking the electrically-charged people to power up batteries for me; and I hesitate to tap into Stacy direct. And this is," she opened the box and a tangle of wires sprung out, "not powerpacks. Apparently."

She sighed, and then said, "Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Anwei Ayles."

"Or metal." There was an ever so slight bitter tinge to the words that said that that was obviously the only sane choice and all this tissue and carapace business was an affront to common sense. Right now more than anything else (well, except for Sheryl to be released from the pods again, but she wouldn't have admitted that) Suriz would have liked to be able to take a five minute walk (or two hour run) on nice solid hullmetal.

"Qula Hap Suriz." She returned the greeting coolly. "You can't use a weapon pack from the armory?" It was a question, but she almost cringed when the words were out anyway. Commit a division, commit a fleet, as the saying went.

"Could be worse, I suppose. Could be fur. Then either the crew would have to comb it, or the ship would have big bony rakes that came popping out of the walls to keep it from napping." And wouldn't fur and this humidity be unpleasant - no, it must be this humid to keep Stacy from drying out. If it was fur, though, there'd be the constant gnawing fear of dandruff.

Anwei pursed her lips and considered. "I could, but I'd prefer to find out if I can get a consistent energy output from equipment that isn't dedicated to military use. After all, this is all just lying around for anyone to use." She investigated further into the box in front of her - wires, more wires, sections of narrow ribbed piping, an elaborately spiraling seashell, a mixed assortment of washers. Maybe there would be a powerpack at the bottom?

Well, no help for it. She started taking out the wires and conduit, tying them into neater bundles, and piling them on the floor. Once the box was empty, she could refill it, add the data to inventory, and move on.

Coherent Light (open)

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