trans_9 | "Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

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"Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

The Maingate Hotel was pretty extravagant, and an entire section of it had been eked out for the crew's use during their stay. They had several suites, three communal areas, a conference room, their own kitchen with a chef on call if they required her.

They were all teleported from the main teleport pad of the hotel into the conference room, which was a large enough room to be able to hold a group their size and had plenty of chairs arranged in a circular pattern so they could mostly all face each other or whoever was in the middle of the room.

Everyone had to settle down so they were all able to talk, and the meeting itself would have to be carefully controlled so they wouldn't all talk over each other. But they were up for the task, right?

[ooc: Guardian Setup, General Mingling, Clone Checkup, Newbie Briefing, General Briefing, More Mingling, Back to the Meeting, and The Idea Guy sections are open. Backup characters introduced to the plot can join in the mingling subthreads if they want. The opening of new subthreads will be announced here and the ooc. Please read the linked OOC post for a plot timeline.]

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And that, in the end, was why Zetta ignored her heroic desires and motivations and taught her anyway. She had the dark half of a demon's heart.

"Man, this conversation sure got morbid," Zetta said after a moment. "Stupid ship! Stop making me think about things when I'm not even on you!"

Oh, she knew that, just as she knew the reason why she didn't get a psychiatric evaluation: the results would have been too alarming. She didn't need the headache of trying to convince people she was normal when she knew she wasn't.

"Things are going to get more morbid in the future anyhow," Hit Girl said casually. "Might as well get used to thinking like that."

Privately, Dick was wondering if there actually WERE rambunctious members of the CLF. Oh, there probably were, but he'd seen too many governments that would go to any extreme to get the people on their side. Even sacrificing their own.

But they couldn't chance that that was the case. "All right. I'll work up teams tonight. Fewest casualties is the best." And yes, there was a moment to glance at Kang. "Also, if anybody has any good ideas for getting in contact with the CLF, I'd love to hear them."

Just because Dick couldn't go to meet them straight away didn't mean there wasn't someone who could manage it.

"Eh, not for us, we're not going anywhere. Besides, I already told you that if you or Ruffnut die, I'm freaking reincarnating you. My minions may not have a ton of mana power, but they have enough for that."

...hmm, he might want to have a word with Lash about these reincarnation plans. Just in case!

"That's true," Hit girl said, who had forgotten there was such a thing as reincarnation. It was comforting to hear, that she wouldn't be dying so easily anytime soon. All the same though, she at least wanted to stay alive as long as possible.

"I'll hang onto living as much as possible. I still have a lot more to do."

Wow, it was like Zetta had experience with complaining and being irritated in the past. Were they moving a second mini fridge in there? Lash had to hold her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing, but while they talked with the book, she quietly opened the door and slipped a small tracker into the dolly covered by expensive sheets.

She gave the book a tiny thumbs up before hiding again completely.

You know, why was she hiding exactly? It's not like they would have questioned other people being in there.

Oh well this was waaaay cooler. Kind of. This place was stuffy.

Edited 2011-07-08 08:36 (UTC)

The Doctor exchanged a look with Daniel. Fine, be that way. He was certain sooner or later Daniel would trade in his archaeologist hat for an Otter Soother one. Just had to give it some time.

Like he said: there was a certain level of faith he had in the human.

For now the Doctor focused on Chef Polynta and Davin. It didn't escape his attention that most of the talking was done by Polynta: almost, he thought, as if it didn't cross her mind that Davin could speak for himself about running of kitchen. It didn't even seem to be something conscious, instead the sort of thing you took for granted, like learning how to tie your own shoe laces. If Davin wasn't allowed to make cakes, well -- the Doctor was sure he made some fascinating cakes just for that very reason, no matter how terrible they might taste or how there was the slightest chance Davin could have too much (or too little!) frosting. Maybe it might not be seven out of seven stars, but it would be out of Davin's parameters and that, in the Doctor's opinion, was much more interesting than anything else. Staring at Davin for a beat too long, he nodded and smiled and said:

"You know, I'd like to see one of your cakes, Davin," the Doctor's voice dropped conspiratorially. He tapped the side of his nose. "I do love an interesting take on things. In fact, Daniel here was just saying to me on the way that he'd love a cake. You know humans and cakes. Maybe he could help you."

He swiveled toward Daniel all of a sudden. Why, if he was a surprise Otter Soother, then the Doctor wouldn't be at all surprised if there was an inner cook blossoming in there as well.

You could get "seven out of seven stars" food anywhere in the galaxy, as far as the Doctor was concerned. It was Davin's "out of parameters", though, that was the unique thing and he was quite prepared to sit there for as long as it took for Davin to show him how wonderfully special the Doctor believed him to be.

Excellent! Mission accomplished! Zetta watched the dolly and the somewhat more disgruntled worker leave. When the door shut, he cleared his throat.

"...You carry tracking devices on you as a matter of habit?" Struck by a sudden suspicion, the book attempted to twits in order to see its own back cover.

Whoa, hey, she could totally die. She just wouldn't be going to some stupidass afterlife or something.

"Damn straight you do."

"Nah. I'm testing this one out," she explained, looking at a tiny screen. "They have very short range. I brought them along with my stuff for the trip." She pointed to her overly large backpack. With a grin, she flipped it on, as the dot was getting a bit weaker from the signal.

"You never know when you have to track someone during a diplomatic mission."

"Over a very short range."

The book attempted vigorously to scoot over on the table enough to see the screen. It immediately fell on its spine, then flopped open.

"Damn it!" The book snapped shut again and began to wobble upright. "Can we freaking have another de-aging disaster or something?!"

She bit her lip to stop herself room laughing again.

"Aww it's not so bad." Pause and said really quickly. "I mean I don't mind you either way and we still have the sensoriums right?" Cough, cough cough. "Anyway, I really should make you a hovering platform. Have all the mana power you want, but nothing bets science! ...And those two hovering g-diffusers I still have."

She watched the dot move somewhere else and began to trace of it mentally using the map on the back of their expensive looking door.

"Right now here's..." she pointed to another of the rooms. "Right here. Phew! Good thing I didn't just sneak on there, that would be been weird to explain, tee hee hee!" It began to move again. "He should be pretty empty by now."

Sakura quirked up an eyebrow for a fraction of a second. Outside of that, she merely nodded. "Understood, sir. Integrate and absorb what we can." A pause. "While working on our squirrel tendencies."

Hoarding away information like nuts in a very big tree.

"Oh yeah, hovering." The book lifted a few inches off the table under its own mana power. Why did he keep forgetting about that?

Oh well. Mollified by her words, believe it or not, the book drifted over to peer at the map as well. "Good. He'll be heading back to the storage room then! We'll find out where their stash is and plunder it!"

That was a good question. Why did he forget about that?

"Yeap," she said with a grin and a nod. "They'll never know what hit them, tee hee hee. We just have to make sure no one else finds out until we get home."

Because his life is intended to be miserable for the enjoyment of others.

"Great!" he said. He was probably watching the path of that beeping dot closely, but without pupils, who the hell could say? "Soon the ship will know not to laugh at US any more!"

Oh Zetta never change.

"I can't wait to see their faces when we bring that much food back." Dude this was such an ingenious idea, she was practically bouncing at it. Speaking of bouncing.

"Oh! It stopped!" She pointed to another part of the map. "Right here."

The restaurant area.

"The kitchen! Well that makes sense, I guess." She'd never admit she hadn't thought of it.

Doc straightend a little from where he'd slouched in his seat, head leaned in one hand, eyes flicking around the table as each person spoke. As usual others had covered most of his thoughts already which was fine by him. He was never good at huge round-table discussions like this; ninja were loners by nature and as good as he had gotten at cooperating in teams and small groups with his family having to do so much negotiating with so many people made him fidgety with the urge to take action instead of sitting around talking.

In most other situations he'd have liked to stick up for Daniel's more diplomatic approach but his desire not to cooperate with or even vaugely support a clone-enslaving government held his tongue. Besides that, no matter how angry this world made him, Doc had always been a 'bigger picture' man...

"If the Ohm weren't as persistent and insanely destructive as they are I would be inclined to take Dr. Jackson's advice and do this the 'nice way' but frankly considering the stakes I don't have any qualms about stealing what we need to save the rest of the universe from this place."

"Yeah, we're probably going to make enemies of the Galileeans and yes it's kind of a dick move to take their tech and leave them to fight it out for themselves, but when it comes down to it - so what? The chances of us running into them again are slim and if we don't get all the resources we need to go up against the Ohm it's possible those chances will drop to nil due to neither of us existing anymore.

I'm all for diplomacy, but I don't think we can afford much of it here."

He cast a glance at Dick. "I'll take care of getting us information on exactly what equipment they have and what it's used for if you want. I've spent more than enough time with Stacy's libraries to know what's essential."

Kang really needed to try and get more information on Lex. That man could very easily be a danger to the crew, with his intelligence. He had a feeling that however this ended up, too, that Kon was not going to be very happy with some of them, including himself; there was more than likely going to be death at some point. Frankly, he didn't care. It wasn't that he thought that their lives were worthless, like others in the group, but he just flat-out didn't care.

If it wasn't for the branding, and the deception and utter disrespect shown to the entire group, he might have helped the government with what they wanted. Now, there wasn't a chance in hell.

The plan was agreeable to Kang, though. "I would be more than happy to head talks with the CLF. In addition to what's already been said, it makes sense that we have one of our own Councilors each dealing with both sides of the matter. However, like Howard has brought up, we need someone who is more neutral with us as well. I would like some say in who goes with me, Lt. Commander, to make sure we don't screw things up on that end. And as for how we do get in contact with the CLF... if one of us were to loudly disagree with another in our party in a very public place about taking down the CLF, it might get their attention." At that part, he glanced over at Ter'thelas.

Edited 2011-07-08 23:00 (UTC)

As the others talked, Tana listened and tapped away on her omnicom, taking notes and writing notes in shorthand to keep up with all the chatter. Some suggestions were marked with an X (or more) to denote how Bad in the Idea Realm they were.

She looked at Kon for a moment, then went back to writing.

Daniel shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as Polynta patronized Davin in front of them. As if it were perfectly normal to treat another living being that way. Outside his parameters, right to his face. Polynta's treatment of Davin was nothing short of appalling. Davin might as well have been a shadow. Or just another piece of the kitchen's equipment. Polynta only seemed to deign to notice him just to talk down to him. As if he were some appliance that was about to expire past its warranty. And Davin let the condescension roll off him.

Wait, huh? Help out in the kitchen? The archaeologist didn't want to dismiss Davin like Polynta. He refused to. But Daniel didn't think he was going to help his case. He'd probably be responsible for a cake turning out bad.

"I wouldn't mind trying Davin's cakes. You guys do such an amazing job already. I'm sure it'll be far better than what I could do. Easily," Daniel agreed, shooting the Doctor a warning look. He could cook well enough, but Daniel was pretty sure he wasn't anywhere near a seven star level chef. He really didn't want embarrass himself in front of top tier cooks. It was like a teenager playing at painting in front of master artists.

The Doctor had no qualms "borrowing" things that needed borrowing, especially if the universe was at stake.

But he was also inclined to agree with Otter Soother Daniel Jackson. They needed a better look around at all sides, hopefully without starting a war between the CLF and the rest of the Galileans.

The plans being thrown about were good, scatter-brained and also downright foolish, not quite in that order, which sounded about right for any sort of group discussion with different sorts of lifeforms in his experience. The Doctor sat where he was with his hands folded in his lap, having picked a spot between Daniel and Rory (both decent, good humans -- if they hadn't talked, they should. They'd hit it off with all their human-y things, he thought). Some of the crew seemed depressingly ready to initiate a rebellion right off the bat, which was fine and all when you had a very good look around and they didn't even seem to be checking for those bugs he'd assume where in the room. Kang's secret plan probably wasn't so secret, if this was a respectable diplomatic conference room and there was a "respectable" number of bugs listening in on them.

He'd raised a finger to interject and then decided at this rate, they were going to blurt out all their plans and then some. Hm. Maybe they'd have so many potential scatterbrained plots out there all at once that they could dance around the Galileans that way.

So much for "secret" talks. The Doctor was all for a few crew "accidentally" slipping away and "happening" to bump into the CLF, nice and quiet and no one had to get hurt. After all, it was much easier to slip away and talk to them if you weren't broadcasting, loudly, just how you were going to stage an encounter and maybe they should invite Polynta, Darvin the Special Cake Maker and maybe that nice fella on the street who waved at him from the window while they were at it. The Doctor supposed he shouldn't fault Kang or the other clones who'd been branded. They'd been treated incredibly poorly by the Galileans and naturally they'd take it personally.

"The Otter Soother's right," the Doctor said, glancing at Daniel. Sorry, Daniel, no matter what you're destined to be the Otter Soother. Clearly all that Otter Soothing has made you a better diplomat than an archaeologist, in the Doctor's opinion. "But I rather think we need a better look around before we start talking about overthrowing our hosts' government and starting another war we don't need."

Lex, too, seemed to be thinking this through, but in true human fashion was announcing his plans which was also to be expected -- intelligent humans had a habit of doing that. He'd clearly thought it through how to play both sides off each other and the Doctor thought it would work if he didn't feel that need to share his brilliance with everyone else in the room. This was exactly why he hadn't felt much of a need to fill in his companions about his Plans or Things or Things That Looked like a Plan: too many people in the know and big old chance it could get leaked. Him, he'd rather have a talk with Davin and any of the clone's friends before he decided if it was right to start overthrowing a government or handing in CLF clones to the government and...

Okay, so maybe he didn't quite like every aspect of Lex's plan, now that he thought about it. The man didn't seem to care who the collateral damage was, the Doctor frowning at Lex and his brilliance: it occurred to the Doctor that he probably would've been one of the few humans the Master would've been fond of, if the Master liked any humans and wasn't, well, dead on top of everything else.

The dead thing probably wasn't helping things along.

Edited 2011-07-09 10:26 (UTC)

"Wait, these things actually have to be prepared or something? I figured they just came in giant crates or something."

Oh well. He thought a moment. "Got any distractions in your toolkit? I think I've got a plan."

Jalith simply watched the discussion go back and forth from his spot at the wall, running through the possible situations in his mind. He personally had little care for the situation, so a few clones and xeno had been branded, that was of little matter to him, even the Technology had little matter to him, only his duties held any weight.

"Of all these plans, has any of you considered extraction options once the technology has been stolen or otherwise? The shuttles and transports that dropped us off, are still on station aboard the Macross Quarter currently in orbit," He noted nodding to the four 'backup' crew members he had been sent along with.

"However should the Government catch wind of this plan, or even a lack of cooperation, they may well jam any communications between here and those we have available in orbit, I propose if we are to move on this 'plan' we will need to take out the source of any jamming, whether by subtle, or less than subtle means,"

Letting a hand drift down to pat the case beside him as he looked specifically to the lt commander, like it or not Grayson had a Vindicare assassin waiting for orders "Should any targets be required to be taken out, be they facilities or personnel, I have the appropriate equipment for the job,"

"Well they probably need to add water in them. Not to mention they maybe cook other things in there. Or want to look fancy." Her eyes lit up and she was already rummaging in her backpack.

"How much distraction do you need?"

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Page 30 of 32

"Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

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There is one of her in a box but she had cat ears

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Soooo?

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In the rain. Crying.

Awwwww. /gives Lash hugs forever

Maybe I should icon it one day. For all the times Lash is a cat left out in the rain

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/saddest thing ever sniff sniff

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