[IC] The Forbidden Planet (Timemaster x Finris)

[Finris]

Noemi was tired. She still hadn't been able to adapt to her new home. It was warmer around here, given the fact that the corresponding sun was quite a bit bigger than what she was used to this came as no suprise. What made her tired was that the planet was also spinning slower. This stretched nights longer, but days as well.

But as anywhere else most of life happened during the day. Plants and animals needed the light and not everything could be provided electronically. The people here had adapted. A few hours of sleep, than about four hours of night time activities, which included most services like money changing, getting your hair done, insurances, doctors, getting things from workshops, although most of them were only open during the first or last hour, shopping, cinema... It was a time for private things and family and relaxation. Noemi loved that concept. Different groups of people, namely the ones with direct customers and those who did not have them, could work at their time and nobody needed to discuss that the doctor should stay open an hour longer because how should a working person get to the doctor?
And after that people went partying. or sleeping again. Or... whatever they wanted.

The downside to this were the days, which also were split around the middle of the day for a longer break to catch up some sleep but for the love of her life Noemi could not get into this. Split sleep times were not for her and she either felt perpetually tired or she stumbled around with a sleep rhythm which did not match life's rhythm here.

Right now she was perpetually tired because she had gotten herself a job. A ship came down with very strange technical problems in one of its thrusters and she had promised to look into it. She did. Or she had done it. Right now she set in fron of the ship, her work clothes dirty, her hat pulled down a bit and tried to think. For sure she had used her abilities to circle the problem but she would not use them to fix it - and also couldn't. She just needed to make a list first and was therefore tapping a pen on her hand. She did not mind that around her people were coming and going. She set on the side of the way, on a crate, and would not hinder anyone to go to his ship to leave the haven or to make the way in the other direction to get whatever had brought them here.

And she wasn’t particularly worried either. Sure she was on the run, but she was far out. Really far out. On a strange planet circling a strange sun. And had done her very, very best to remove any tracks. Given that she had been here for a while now she considered herself successful in that.

[Timemaster]

A month ago was the last day to pay the loan. Alexis was on the run ever since. She knew very well what happened to those that didn't pay. Hiding while also being on a job was an ability she learned from her military days but back then she wasn't flying in a grave ship. It was one of the first models ever created without a sentient AI to run it. In other words, a piece of flying trash with a human on board. Most of the money she gained in the first weeks were to upgrade the ships AI with maps and other small but nevertheless necessary upgrades.

At the moment, Alexis was taking a nap when an alarm came to life making a noice which could wake the dead.

" I'm awake, I'm awake. Alarm stop. JV, what the hell happened this? " said Alexis in a load voice. Her voice was rough and she was still a bit hungover since last night.
JV, the AI on the ship couldn't be named sentient even by the most hopeful person. It was a mere forgery or copy of an intelligence, knowing only what the pilot of the ship allowed it to know.
" Pilot, low fuel alert. Low fuel alert. " came from the speakers on the walls. A metallic voice which Alexis always hated but couldn't find the right setting to the AI in order to change it.

A string of swear words came out of Alexis's mouth that lasted a full minute. She fueled yesterday and now there is no more fuel which meant that the engineer at the space station 40 light years away conned her and didn't fix the fuel container.
Alexis quickly pulled up the holographic display with the galactic map and spotted what was a very remote colony. One of those fringe colonies which usually stored three times of people. Criminals, refugees and the usual passersby. Without much choice, she decided to use last of her fuel to plot a course there.

She didn't forget what brought her to this part of the galaxy either. A contract came in three weeks ago. Unusual was an understatement.
1 million credits for the capture of a female. The only information provided was a picture which was a bit blurry and a message stating that they want her alive. A bounty this big didn't come without many, many strings attached. As her name was not provided, nor anything else, the contract was like searching a needle in a haystack. Only the difference is that the haystack was the galaxy. So, she flied in blind on all the space stations she could find and small colonies in the hopes of finding her first.

As the last dregs of fuel were consumed by the engine, she barely managed to reach colony. It was one of those "new age" ones too. Caxia-4 or that's what JV said. The ship hit the landing pad with a loud *thud* that made people around to turn their heads. A ship old as this wasn't something most of the people here saw, so, hopefully there was someone here that knew a thing or two about older models. If not, Alexis would be stuck here for a long time, if she was not found out first, of course.

[Finris]

Noemi lifted her head. She paid the ship next to no attention. And right now she had just decided what she needed to do and one of the toolkit robots was weezing and following behind her. They were not Ais. They were usually guided by simple verbal commands and a small chip attached to the clothes or belt. Belt in her case.

The little thing stopped and she grabbed or better activated the soldering parts. And took of her hat. She grabbed something to put her hair in a ponytail, put on a protective vest that folded itself around her torso and over her head and grabbed the parts she needed.

What ensued was quite a bit of noise. She needed to change a rather mechanical but also rather difficult part. The taking out would have been easy if she would not need to put the part back in. But she needed to and therefor she needed to be careful.

The robot assisted when she started changing the complex parts. It needed to. She was able to control it with her mind. She could not grab part of the control system of ships. Acids, energy, electricity and a lot of other bad things. The robot could. It was designed to. She concentrated on navigating it. Her hands seemed as if she used the software. In reality she had long taken the step up from the software and controlled it directly. It was preciser and no one would be able to see it. Especially as no one would expect something like that.

A good 10 or 15, maybe even 20 minutes passed. Than she finished. The little robot retracted the arms and went silent. Noemi looked at the newly created connections, at the fixed connections. She smiled. That should work. It would work… just… putting the part she had to take out in again, inserting it with its new guts. But first she went to the walkways again to remove her protection.

She was thirsty and went to grab something to drink from her bag. Sat down again for a second. Tired. She was so tired...

[Timemaster]

Not forgetting what is her mission in the first place, Alexis grabbed a small laser pistol from the armory. It wouldn't help a lot in a fight but would be enough to keep the target pinned down until she would get close enough for the next article of her weaponery. A sword which by pressing a button near it's handle would light up and become a plasma cutter for as long as the battery lasted.
The only thing she was allowed to keep after she was discharged. The sword even had her nickname carved into the handle. "Valkerie".

She grabbed the sword with one hand and started playing with it a few second in the air before putting it back into it's holder on her back. After that, she put up her helmet and activated it's sensors. Nothing fancy but enough to block holo-ads and had a HUD which was expensive for her but useful. While her armor was not top-notch, it could block laser shots as well as any other.

After the initial checks, she left the ship and wandered around until she found an Info-Bot. Not very intelligent for an AI but that was the fate of the AIs which chose something different than a humanoid body. This one in particular was a combination between a human head and wasp. A grotesque thing but if the AI chose it for itself, then, it was ok in Alexis's book.
Getting the Info-Bot to understand her was a bit more difficult than she thought as it didn't have information about older ships and couldn't help Alexis but after some time, she managed to get the questions right and it poined her towards a mechanic which might have knowledge of older ships.

As she moved towards one of the bigger ships in the docking area, she realized that her CFD badge was still attached to her arm. People usually got nervous when a bounty hunter came poking around, asking questions. Especially in a place like this. She removed it and put if beneath the armor. None could see it unless she removed it and as she didn't plan sticking around...

On the walkway, a female was drinking something from a canister and as Alexis didn't know exactly who to look for, she decided to ask for directions.

" I'm sorry to disturb you ma'am but I'm looking for a ship-engineer with knowledge of older models. A W1SP-2000, specifically. The info-bot pointed me in this direction and told me the engineer should be here. But, I don't seem to spot him. Do you know him or know where I can find him? " said Alexis. Her voice was modulated by her helmet to sound metallic in order to avoid detection and some people found it intimidating and that helped her quite a bit.

[Finris]

Someone came matschig er way. She could hear it. Well to be honest it was not all to difficult to hear, although there was always something of a commission around here it was not to often that someone would come along directly into this direction

Still she did not care for it. She took another sip of her drink and rolled her shoulders. Just a minute or two again. Than she would finish up with this hip and her job for the day. She could go back to sleep. Oh sleeping...

She jerked up when somebody talked to her. Slightly irritated blue eyes with strange little sprinkles in them met the newcomer. She was armored. And armed. Both something that she did not like, but on the other hand this woman was probably stranded here. Or getting some of the junk from this planet. Noemi was really sure that it was not about her.

For a moment she thought about the words and the explanation of the info not. Strange thing. Bit useful and not too overachieving. And then she needed to think about the other mechanics around. There was an Android here, somewhere, but he was not trained on older ships. So it was really about her Well.. you can look a while for him but if that should be too boring you might come back and talk to me as I am mostly likely the mechanic you were told about. she shook her head slightly and smiled. One could never be too sure if there was somebody else here, but most likely the woman front of her just misunderstood the infbot.

A W1SP-2000 is one hell kf an of ship, even for this region. What is wrong with it? If it is something about the navigation or the AI it might be out of my league...

[Timemaster]

The woman seemed a bit irritated when Alexis came to her but that's normal in a way, she did make her to stop resting in what seemed her break.
As the woman spoke, Alexis realized that she might've misunderstood the InfoBot about the engineer as the woman replied to her inquiry with humor.

Alexis smiled, not that the engineer could see it but nevertheless and said " The fuel compartiment is damaged. Took a wrong turn a month ago and nearly crashed into a black hole. I already had it fixed but either I got conned or the damage was worse than I was told. Anyway, I'm loosing fuel and if I'm to leave this backwater slum, no disrespect intended, I've got to get it fixed. Also, fuel it. Make it a full tank.
As for payment, I can pay you half of whatever you request for the scan and half after I'm sure you didn't conn me. Ok? "

She only had 1432 credits left but hopefully it was enough until the next contract. She then turned to walk towards her ship without waiting for the engineer to accept or not. Losing time was not someone Alexis enjoyed and waiting for a reply, usually meant that she had to wait too long. Before taking her first step, she said " Name's Alexis " and then started walking.

[Finris]

The fuel compartiment sounded like something she could fix. Even though she needed to admit that, looking down at herself, she should grab a better suit. Fuel wa not so nice to get onto... mostly anything. Not all too healthy. She made a sign to her little robot helper and followed Alexis.

She was a bit... rushed? Harsh? Strange in a way that Noemi could not put her finger on right away "Noemi. I am not fueling up - you will need to check with the AI for that it is a fully automatic system thing. But let me just do the scan. If I can't help you you might as well keep your money." Noemi was usually a very helpful girl and she liked what she did AND she had ways to make more money than most people could imagine. So, why stress about being paid beforehand?

While marching behind Alexis she grabbed things from the robot and adctivated the suit components which were just automatically wrapping her up in something that was quite definitely not a typical mechanics suit. It was an exploration one and not even chea and from what it looked like it was adapted to her. But those suits offered protection against fuel - and many other nasty things.

As soon as she reached the chip Noemi paced around it for a while, before she grabbed a small service lift and helped herself up to get nearer and than into the whole compartmen where the fuel was stored. It would take her a while. Especially getting near black holes could lead to many disgusting little problems. But after about an hour she stepped back on the lift "Sooo the whole warping from the black hole or anything else had been repaired - to your luck. Unlucky thing is some internal components are also damaged and so it is not really losing fuel, rather not getting energy where it needs to be. Luckyly that can be fixed! I have to look, I think I even saw the spare parts by the junk and then it is just putting them in and reconfiguration. About..." she calculated "600 I guess, with the parts and config time."

[Timemaster]

Someone that didn't charge even for a scan was something too strange for Alexis to grasp. She grew cold in prison and learned how the way really worked and this Noemi was a child in that way. Strange. But, if she didn't charge too much, who cared?

The fuel part was something she didn't know about, most of the times the engineer would fuel it up and be done with it. Has Alexis been away from a colony for so long that she forgot how things are done? Or was she simply, too used to crooks, thieves and the like? A soldier turned prisoner then bounty hunter was not one that lived in colonies like this, where not everyone is out for blood, credits or the next fix.

Noemi was fast in doing the initial scan which meant less time spent staying out in the open. She knew that a bounty hunter will probably track her down eventually and make her pay the debt. A debt of 10000 credits plus interest was way out of Alexis's reach even if she sold everything she had. Staying out in the open like this wasn't good for someone that's hunted's health. She should know, she did it herself as a living. Most would do a mistake similar to what she was doing right now and would get caught.

After Noemi's last words she let out a few swears words common on the moons of Malaria. She was cheated on 800 credits.
" Perfect. I'll give you 700 credits if you can repair the ship in less then an hour. I don't care how you do it. I want to be up in the air as fast as possible " her harsh tone could be felt even through the voice modulator she used but she didn't care. It wasn't like she would see the girl ever again.

She then went to the AI to arrange the fuel loadup and then went inside the ship, waiting for the repairs to be done. That's when an alarm came up in her helmet's HUD. Alexis had JV to scan everywhere around the ship which was not guarded against instrusion for signs of the "Mistery Girl" that was worth a forture. The program was not very complicated as there wasn't much information on her but nontheless it was worth a shot. Curious, she opened it up and the program got a hit. The woman is somewhere in a 50 meter radius around the ship. Alexis eyes lit up even though she knew very well that it was probably a false positive.

Alexis went outside the ship and started looking around. A good way to past time while waiting for the ship to be fixed.

@Finris

[Finris]

Noemi just nodded. Most people were rather rough around mechanics and she did not expect to be treated with too muhc care. She also did not care all too much about this. She wanted to live her life and be free and that's what she did. So a little bit of harshness would not stop her "Sounds like a deal, I see what I can do." To be honest she would never, in no way, nbe able to meet the limit of one hour if the parts where not to be found in the junk.

While Alexis went to the AI she went back up into the ship again to scan which parts she would need. Some things were really easier done with a device - like the scanning. A slight vibration at her wrist indicated when each scan was complete. She nodded and helped herself back to the ground, grabbing her little helper and marching toward the junk pile.

She nodded again as she passed Alexis and moved on.

The pile - which was really rather a room - was just outside the 50 meter radius. And it had a back window. To bad Noemi had no idea what she had just gotten into with the woman she was helping. It would either way be quite obvious, she was the only female around aside from AIs. She made the robot get the small things she new that were there from the dispenser. She herself turned to a bigger pile and cautiously began searching through. She was sure she had seen it...

After a good five minutes she found the part she had been looking for which was rather specific for old ships for efficiency reasons. That made the fix a realistic one hour of work.

With a grin on a face she returned to the damage ship and her client, again turning to help herself up to the fuel parts again.

[Timemaster]

The alarm kept showing up in Alexis's HUD, over and over again. The target was moving around the docking bay then disappeared for a while then appeared again. If this was for real, then that's it. Alexis would be out of her debt and could live with no problems anywhere in the galaxy. Hell, maybe in more places at once.

As the tracker was not very precise, she spent a lot of time looking around at each face of everyone around the starport. Human, AI, Android, she didn't even knew what she was looking for. Just a blurred image of a woman. She took out the picture again and displayed it on the HUD again, making sure she didn't forget any detail.
That's when it hit her. The girl. Noemi, she has the same body shape and if zoomed a bit, it looks like...she let out another string of swear words. That's her! The girl everyone was looking for. Noemi. Alexis couldn't believe her luck. What where the chances of finding one of the most wanted people in the galaxy by mistake?

She was excited and knew that she couldn't let it show. She still needed the girl to fix the ship and then...that's it. Just call the client, something very strange, as any prisoners are usually left at the nearest CFD spaceship/office and the client can pick them up from there and then, that's it. Meet with them and get paid a fortune. Luck finally smiled upon her. Karma or whatever it's called.
Waiting patiently was one of Alexis strong suits when hunting. An ability she honed in the military as being what was known as a "Ghost Warrior". They would go behind the enemy lines, soften them up and sabotage what they could.

After about an hour, she saw Noemi climbing down from the fuel fuselage. Dirty but it was worth a shot. Even if she wasn't the real person, a call was enough to clear things up. She went behind Noemi's back and put CFD badge on.
Her sword went out from it's holder very fast and came down towards Noemi's spine, stopping a hair-length away. A simple move of her wrist and Alexis would impale her. Alexis's other hand had a pistol pointed at Noemi's legs, just in case she wanted to run.

" CFD! I've got a bounty on this person. " yelled Alexis as loud as she could so that no onlookers tried to intervene. No one was stupid enough to do it anyway but she had to be sure. A million of credits was standing in front of her.

" Noemi, I'm placing you under arrest under the GN's laws. If you move, I'll kill you. You are worth the same to me, alive or dead but let's try to keep things civil. Shall we? " Alexis's tone changed from before, she was dark, threatening. She was putting a show, of course, one that usually made people double think if it was smart to try resist. Most of the times, they didn't.

She put the pistol in it's holder, always having the sword ready to strike and activated the cuffs. She then threw them in front of Noemi and said " Put them on and rise slowly. I don't want to have to wash my sword of blood, today. ".

@Finris

[Finris]

It took a while to exchange the parts. Working with fuel was not necessarily nice, although waste systems were more horrible. It was just always somewhat... difficult. After a while she had gotten things in order. Just the recalibration was missing. She sighed and took a seat, half cramped between parts but at least she could sit for a moment and not awkwardly stand, bend forward or having something poke her sight.

One of the rather nice things was that the calibration would only be fonde on the real fuel and energy system. The ships AI had some control over it, but the connection could be stopped for the calibration. And for Noemi that made the calibration easier. She just needed to connect her little screen and started calbrating away. No tools. No charts. This was something she could do with her powers. It went quite a bit faster than with a screen and tools. A normal engineer would have probably not hit the 1 hour that was given to her. On the other side she decided to sit down a few more minutes before something appeared odd to the either way rather irritated captain of that ship.

About a few minutes less than an hour she descended onto the list and closed the compartment for good. Everything should be working and she was content with her work, smiling slightly. She just stood there for a moment, slightly stretching when a very, very unsettling sound reached her ears "What the..." the shout after explained everything and made her fall into a string of very colourful words. But she stood still. She was not dumb and this was not her first time being arrested "Civil.." She spit the word out and looked to the ground. As sigh escaped her as she kneeled down "Shut the hell up..."

She was getting a headache from this and she had not even started threatening or bargaining. But there would be the time for that. Just not here and now. Here and now they already drew too much attention. She snatched on the cuffs. At least those would not pose her any problem "You're not doing yourself a favor.." she slowly picked herself up again and gazed back at Alexis.

[Timemaster]

Alexis let herself smile for a second before stopping. Noemi was calm, a bit too calm for Alexis's liking. She either had tricks under her sleve, which made sense for a bounty this big on her head. A million alive, half a million dead. Both could make her very rich and carefree.

She thought about it very hard, she could snap her spine or just put a bullet in her and be done with it. No fuss, no threats. A part of her stopped her though. If this girl wasn't the one the client was looking for, she would just kill an innocent. She done it before, many times but innocents always came back to haunt her when she went to sleep and another one to the count wouldn't make her feel any better.

" I don't know who you are, nor do I care, to be honest but you're worth enough both alive and dead. Let's try to avoid the latter, shall we? If you're not who I've got the bounty for, you'll be free to go. No problem. " said Alexis. Her spoke the truth and her tone indicated as much kindness she could offer for a possible innocent.
" Now. Move. Slowly. Hands in front of you. No funny business. " her tone was like steel now and she said one more thing before pushing her slightly with the sword in the spine. " I'm doing myself a big favor. "

She guided Noemi slowly through the ship and after two minutes, they arrived at the brig. Not a proper brig, but it was remade to look similar to a prison cell from the prison Alexis was in. Two layers of bars, one of the same metal the ship was made and another one of energy. Even if the ship would run out of power, the metal would keep the prisoner inside.
Alexis pushed Noemi inside the prison cell, closed the metal door with an physical key. Something not very common these days but it short of stealing the key or breaking the metal, the door would remain close and yelled to JV to close the energy wall too.

" JV. Keep an eye on her and tell me if she even approaches the cell walls. Also, call client 24@41!. "

The call went through in a matter of seconds and the face of a male man appeared. His face was hidden from view with encryption software.

" CFD agent - Alexis reporting in. I heard you placed a bounty of a million credits on the girl behind me. " she switched the view to the one from the cell's camera and for a second, Alexis thought that the man smiled but it was gone too fast to be sure.
" Be at 425.12557.123.15.6.6.2.2 these coordonates in 2 hours. A ship will meet you there. The prisoner will be taken in and then the credits will be transferred to your account. " the man said. His voice was like 10 people talking in the same time, the same thing. A strange way to hide one's voice but Alexis didn't care.
Before she could say anything, the comm window closed.

" Heard that? The mystery client is ready to take you home or wherever he'll take you.

JV ! Plot a course to the received coordonates but be sure to stop 50 kms before them. I want to be sure we're not walking in an ambush. " said Alexis. Her voice no longer being changed by the helmet.

She then went back to Noemi and after taking off her helmet, said " So, we've got about 2 hours until we reach the destination. First of all, thank you for the repair. It would've cost me a lot more on a starship. Second of all, do you mind if you tell me, why is there a million credits bounty on your head? Who did you piss off that high in the GN Council? " her voice was calm and steady. There was no sign of the harshness with which she spoke to Noemi before.

[Finris]

She shuddered as she was led into the ship. This was not going according to her plan, not even remotely. And she needed to admit that her plan was not even that detailed so this was really, really bad.
A part of her was at least very content to still be alive. She could not say if Alexis bluffed and would not get any money from a dead Noemi, or if she just left her alive because it seemed… right? In the end she was still alive right now and that gave her at least chances.

"I am the one they are looking for and I just don’t like the idea of my life turning back into what it was – or even more into a spiraling void of abyss and darkness." She moved without hesitating. She was still alive and if she decided she’d rather be dead she would do that herself. Concerning the facor she did not command further on that. She just took the way. Sat down in the middle of the cell. She considered disturbing the call but she could not grasp fast enough to really do it.

She knew the voices. She was very sure to know the voices "50 kilometer will not be enough. And 2 hours will not be enough to tell you my story. I can give you the short version: I am a very successful experiment into a very new, promising and morally more than questionable area."
She shifted on the ground and looked a while at Alexis "For most of my childhood I have been content with my position, I was sure to be in the right place, doing the right thing and..." she sighed silently "Then I was released out of the isolation of signals into the big wide world. And besides doing what I was supposed to do I started to listen and think and learn. And none of that was welcomed – or at least my decisions were not. The experiment that decided that its master’s were wrong and she needed to go somewhere else..."
For a short while she went silent and just observed something behind Alexis. It was not possible to say what she was looking at. She questioned herself why she was telling all this to a stranger, but she knew why: Whatever would happen to her she most likely would not be able to tell anyone anymore about herself.

After that she cleared her throat "I can manipulate everything on this ship just by my will." She smiled for a second "And I can weigh out the credits – just let me go. I do not want this life anymore..."