Vicious/Meia: Face off!

[Carthrat]

Carthrat resisted the tempation to burst out laughing, and followed the doctor. Standing just outside the room, he questioned the doctor-

"How long will you be?"

[Rezantis]

No, I don't think anything'll be following me.

'I don't think there'll be any trouble.  They were after me, and... well... if there were any left, you wouldn't have found me."

There was a slight pause as Meia found the correct subscreen and started tapping through the menus.

"What's this... gate authority, anyway?

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Meia

IC: The bored tone lessened slightly to a somewhat incredulous one. "Where are you from, again?"

Meia found two submenus, one labeled 'Powerplant energy feed-Diagnostic', and a 'Powerplant Systems diagnostic'.

Off in the distance, the flashing lights began to take shape as the two fighters roared toward the icy moon of Jupiter as the giant planet itself loomed in the background...

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Vicious

IC:

The older man called out in a shaky voice. "I-It's hard to tell, sir. A head wound left untreated for this long is difficult to manage carefully without incurring further damage..."

[Carthrat]

Vicious had expected such.

He didn't want to leave Lin alone with a strange doctor, but he didn't want to sit around and *wait* for however long, either.

He decided to wait an hour, and then see how Lin was.

[Rezantis]

Meia flicked the 'Powerplant Energy Feed Diagnostic' choice.

"Not from around here.  You never told me who you were, either..."

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Vicious.

IC: After a half an hour, the medic emerged cautiously, wiping his hands on a towel.

[Carthrat]

"How is he?" asked Vicious, without preamble.

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: Meia

IC:
The smirk in his voice was audible. "Actually, I did."

A 3-D image of the dread appeared on Meia's board, complete with glowing blue blue lines though it appeared, showing the hardly optimal power flow. The screen flashed. No leakage detected


"Hey, I was as specific as you were,"  Meia broke off with a muted snicker as she flicked out of the diagnostic and tapped the console, bringing up the diagnostic of the powerplant itself.

A chuckle. "If you want a specific answer, you should ask specific questions, Miss....?"

The Powerplant diagnostic was somewhat more revealing. Power regulating program corrupted. System reboot and engine shutdown recommended

Thoughts rapidly ticked through Rez/Meia's mind.

"Gisborn.  Meia Gisborn" was the firm response, as the blue haired one unconsciously raised a hand to touch the ever-present hair ornament. Dropping the hand back down to the book with a quick shake of the head, Meia started flicking through the book again - this time looking for information on life support. After a moment, she found it. According to the book, Life support had an emergency battery that was good for three days of operation...

"Spike Spiegel." The voice on her comm told her, with a slightly wry sound.

There was a blink.

"Hm."  What the hell.  "A woman dumped me out here, and she told me to keep you alive.  Man named Vicious is apparently trying to kill you, and... well... apparently he's someone I should know." A slight pause.  "And no, I'm definitely not from anywhere around here."

As she spoke, Meia started flicking through the book again to figure out if there were any special procedures to doing a shutdown and restart on the fly.

The book referred her to a menu in the maintenance screens, where power cut off was apparently a menu option, along with a timed reboot....

"..." The speaker was silent for a few moments. "You know, I'd swear that you were nuts if you hadn't named Vicious. But he's been trying to kill me ever since he found me still alive. What's so special about this time?"

"Something's wrong with me, and that woman I mentioned knows what.  She mentioned Vicious as a lead, and... well... like me, he isn't going to be acting quite like the Vicious you know,"

Meia flicked through the screens to see if she could find the status of the emergency battery.  "I'm going to try rebooting my systems to see if it'll clean up this engine snafu, they're beat up... but I think what's stopping them working is a screwup in the regulatory system.  If I power down my powerplant, it should hopefully let me reset the regulatory system back to the baseline, so when I power it back up... well.. it'll probably still be a touch iffy, but will hopefully give me enough power to move myself..."

After a moment, the display came up. The emergency battery was not QUITE at full power, but nearly.

Good enough.

"I see. So you'll be silent for a bit, hmm?"
 
"Probably, yep.  Here we go..."

Meia brought up the menus as instructed in the book, and set the dread to come back online after a five minute period.

With a wince, she tapped the controls and...slowly...in sequence...all the lights on her screen save one went dead, leaving the blue haired girl in almost complete darkness, with barely enough light to see, the only bright source of light was the engine flare from the fighter towing her...

[Rezantis]

And in the darkened cockpit, the young... person... mused.

This isn't a dream...

Rez, Meia, whoever she was lifted a gloved hand and stared at it in the dim light.

There's no way this is a dream.  It's too real, and too static.  I don't dream like this... I've never dreamed like this...

I'm definitely Nathan.  Definitely.  The other possibility is that I could be Meia, and... that makes no sense.  I'm completely not her, and years upon years of history like that is too much for...

Rez shuddered.

And I'm female.  I swear I'm going to kill someone for this...

Order, whoever she is... she said that others from a forum are here.  Four possibilities, really... Delphi, Evamod, Soulriders and... my one.  Delphi I doubt, and it's not somewhere I stay much.  Evamod just doesn't fit, mainly because... well... it's full of -kids-, even more than the others... which really puts it down to mine or Soulr-

Soulriders, probably, or at least it's my best guess... but I suppose at least whoever they are, I know them...

I wonder who else is here?

There was a pause, and the hand involuntary tightened into a fist as the strain of the events of the 'morning' continued to catch up.

And... I wonder what's happening at home... and...

Me vanishing without a word is likely to tear her up, a lot... and I think I'm going to be here for a while, it sounded like.

Meia growled involuntarily.

If I ever meet 'Order' in person, all the power in the world won't be enough...

The growl trailed off, and there was a resigned sigh.

But the alternative to order seems to be killing people, and decent people... and that's not something I think I can do...

It's not something I want to find out.

The cockpit returned to almost perfect silence for a time, broken only by slow, even breathing as Meia calmed herself down, tracing her fingers slowly along her headpiece.

I hope Meia's alright, wherever she is...

What a mess...

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: 'Meia'

IC: The light of the stars, and Spike's engine flare was all Meia could see for the five minute time limit.

When it had finally elapsed, a soft green glow lit the cockpit as her displays began powering up.

The cockpit was finally well lit, though the displays were still in 'sleeper' mode as the Dread's CPU came back online.

After a slow startup sequence, the sleeper function disengaged, and the panels and displays went active again, promting Meia for commands.

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: 'Vicious'

IC: The medic frowned thoughtfully, his work seeming to have settled his nerves somewhat.

"He'll be fine, sir. The skull was cracked, but only slightly. At worst, it's a severe concussion. Still...I'd advise getting him off of Callistio and to a proper doctor as soon as possible. Diagnosing a head wound is an iffy business, since even the smallest injury tends to bleed enough to make excessive blood loss a problem. I've cleaned and bound the wound, but it's a temporary measure, at best..."

[Rezantis]

Meia waited patiently until the systems came back online, then called up the diagnostic of the powerplant again...

[Carthrat]

Vicious nodded. "How physically capable is he?"

[Bean Bandit]

OOC: 'Meia'

IC: The diagnostic was no longer in red, but there was a flashing message on the screen.

Paxis core damaged. Efficency levels at 75 percent.