[IC] The Depths of Deception

[Muttonhawk]

The wine came as a surprise to Shiva. She was expecting some lengthy debriefing, or perhaps just a discussion on how they would improve. A celebration was perhaps the last thing on her mind. Judging by the way Rareth was putting it, the toast was not strictly following the rules anyway. Shiva raised her glass along with everyone else, coming up with her own line to add. "Officially, I am not breaking probation terms," Shiva said half-seriously. Really, the rights she had as a drafted convict were so few that any number of things she did today could be used as an technical excuse to send her back to jail, but that was the same every day. It only ever mattered when people cared. She realised as she sipped the exotic drink that perhaps it was not the best idea to drop a massive hint as to her background, but it was only Telmeck who hadn't been told, as far as she was aware. He probably knew by now anyway. "I don't think I've ever had a drink like this," Shiva commented, looking into her glass, "What is it?"

[EliteCommander]

Rareth smiled after taking her first drink of her glass. She sat herself down on a couch across from Shiva. It has been a while since she had been able to drink, especially since she did not join the others in drinking on their night out on Pax. Rareth was not greatly concerned about rules relating to the matter. It was quite difficult for a Datius to be reprimanded for any sort of small infraction or breach of protocol, especially since they operate above Rothian law. Technically, as the mission was a joint operation, Rothian laws and protocols were not necessarily what they were following, but it would be very difficult all the same for anything to happen to her or the others. "It is a wine from Rothia, my home city of Threria, actually. Strangely enough, it is not actually made from a fruit, but instead the root of a plant called...lulan'carth, I think. I do not know how one goes about making wine from a root, but apparently they can. The plant is actually ground beneath the main city, which is especially impressive considering that Thereia is built on a mountain range. If you didn't know, the ground level of Threria isn't really inhabited, at least not by the main population. It consists entirely of skyscrapers built on mountains, all of which are interconnected. It's known as "The City of the Sky," for obvious reasons." Rareth explained.

[cqbexpt]

Shuo let out a slight sigh before taking a drink of liquid, the slight burn serving to wake him up fully. As the others started to talk it occurred to Shuo that he didn't know exactly what Shiva's probation terms were. He quick wrote a reminder for himself using his implants. He didn't feel like now was perhaps the time to do that, plausible deniability and all that. Though once he heard about Threria his mind immediately jumped back to the war. He remembered rumors of a deep strike, that name seemed to come up a few times. Though they obviously never went through with it his knowledge of the place was that it was considered important enough to be considered as a war time target. Shuo sometimes wondered if some of the plans the brass came up with if the other races would have even accepted a peace treaty. He started pushing that out of his mind however and back to then. "Your home produced wine then? Fun seeing as my birth place was heavily agricultural until very recently. Their prized export was cheese, specifically from an animal called a "Golyeva" real ugly looking thing also native to the planet. But the cheese you could make from it's milk was the bitterest thing you could imagine, but the aftertaste. The after taste was absolutely amazing and they loved especially to give this stuff to troops because of that. Also helped it would keep you regular where as some of the other rations would "block" you for lack of a better term. Once we picked up two planets that could be used to artificially grow them and naturally though my home became R&D. I intend to find some of that stuff once we get back planet-side." Shuo said with a bit of remembering as well as reminiscing.

[Muttonhawk]

Shiva held her glass at eye level. "Root wine, huh?" She said, wondering herself how such a thing was made. She had believed that you needed a fruit to make wine. She took another sip of the sour drink as Shuo spoke, stifling an empathetic chortle at the lacking proportion of dietary fibre in Sovereignty rations. Shiva had heard of Golyeva cheese, but never really got around to trying it herself. "So that's how ArmSpecWar can sleep so easily when they get the opportunity," Shiva said, probably more bravely than she should have, considering that Shuo was her superior. "I'll have to try that stuff as well, perhaps." Shiva held her glass low in both hands and smiled, "Your homes sound more interesting than mine. All my home produced was rare earth elements, iron, tin, copper, and other ore minerals." Shiva peered at Rareth for a moment, "Hey, speaking of planet-side. Have we heard anything about where we're going next?"

[Leon5431]

Telmeck cocked his eyebrows towards Shiva after hearing her toast before he hid the expression and raised the glass to his lips. He wasn't entirely sure what she had meant by it, it was equally likely that it was true or just a joke, he could certainly see the Sovereignty doing something along those lines with a criminal. But, to send one to an operation such as this was a little more far fetched. Instead Telmeck mentally shrugged his shoulders and decided to put the topic off until a later point, should it ever come up again. He listened as Shiva spoke up again saying she had never had anything like this and asking what exactly it was. He could understand not being familiar with the Rothian wine, some people were only fans of drinks made by their own kind. But her never having anything like it struck him as a little surprising, given their line of work finding someone that wasn't at least acquainted with alcohol was a rare thing. Telmeck sat down next to Rareth before glancing over to Shiva looking her up and down a little quizzically before turning to Rareth as she went through explaining the wine to Shiva. As she finished speaking Shuo spoke up, telling them about his home and of a cheese they produced. Telmeck listened as he took another long sip from his wine, finishing just as Shuo did. "Well you two, if your respective careers here don't work out, you two will both make fantastic tour guides." With a happy smile to the both of them. He turned to Shiva as she spoke lightly about her home. As Telmeck listened his gaze dropped down to his glass. He gazed down at the violet liquid swirling the cup slightly as he did. This talk of home brought an uneasy feeling over him. He had never really felt at home anywhere he grew up, he had always felt like he didn't belong, like he was a nuisance to everyone around him. Though Jakra and his wife tried to make him feel as at home as possible, it never truly felt right. He never felt connected with them, he could never get close to them, no matter how hard they tried. As he spaced out into his cup an image flashed through his mind of a Rothian woman. Telmeck knew who it was the second it came into mind. A lump quickly formed in his throat and he forced the image out of mind trying his best to think about anything else. He swallowed as he forced the lump out of his throat. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat before shifting his gaze back to the others, he had been barely paying attention but did manage to hear Shiva ask Rareth if she had possibly heard of their next destination. Telmeck swallowed once again making sure the lump was gone from his throat before speaking up. "Hopefully it's to somewhere that we have a less likely chance of being shot at." Telmeck added with smile that helped to force down the unease.

[EliteCommander]

Somehow, it seemed appropriate to Rareth that an example of fine Masulu cuisine would be terribly bitter. Their society was strict, rough, and militaristic, so it was fitting that they would like something that would require them to go through pain to get to the pleasure. It was things like that which the Sovereignty seemed to take pride in, even if she did not understand it. Rareth gave a chuckle at Telmeck's comment. "In our line of work? doubtful." She commented, pausing to take another drink of her wine. "Anyway, I'm afraid I have no idea what's going to happen next. At least not after we get back to Pax. My knowledge of our plans ended at this mission. However, since this mission was a sort of test for our fledgeling joint organization, I suppose the Assembly officials are going to look at how we did, and decide how much they want to dedicate to this experiment. We did well, so they might end up being liberal with funding. No matter what happens, we'll probably face some restructuring. Our team might stick together, but there is still a chance that we will be separated. If not, though, we'll be sent on a mission as soon as they have one. Hopefully we get some time off first."

[cqbexpt]

Air left Shuo's nose forcibly as he cracked a grin with his mandibles, well he atleast hoped the lizard's took it that way. For a split second Shuo considered what he would be doing if he left right now. He supposed he had always guessed he would have died by now. Quickly mentally shrugging off that morbid topic Shuo came back to the topic. He proceeded to drink from his cup and almost finished the liquid in it. "I kind of doubt we'll be completely separated. Though knowing the Assembly they'll take 3 steps back then do a corkscrew and take a left turn to nonsense." Shuo chuckled to himself and finished off the glass and rested it on his knee and put his hand on the base to keep it from falling over. "At the very least I hope we don't get assigned to something reactive. Those tend to have bullets going in the wrong direction. Stopping something before it happens is always....satisfying." Shuo said making sure to atleast keep a form of decency between still relatively new acquaintances. Though he hoped they got to guard something fun....like alcohol or something along those lines.

[Muttonhawk]

It took a sideways glance for Shiva to realise that Telmeck was looking at her in a way that seemed odd, even if she wasn't too good with Rothian facial expressions still. Shiva saw herself conversing with him about her past in the near future. Hopefully he would be as understanding as Rareth. Unfortunately, no one had any clear answers on where their little outfit would be heading next. Given Rareth's reasoning on this operation technically being a test, Shiva guessed that would make sense. As Shiva took another sip of the wine, she actually didn't mind that she didn't know where they were headed. This was a high-end team, but she was still appreciated. It would be dangerous, yet worth every moment. It was like it was cheating her prison sentence by having such company. "Maybe our next operation might follow up what happened on that space station," Shiva suggested, "I'd certainly like to know what happened, especially with that one we captured that had that kill switch thing. If it even was a kill switch." Shiva shrugged, defaulting to a soldier's mindset, "Or not. It's not like we're the detectives or anything."

[EliteCommander]

Rareth gave a slight chuckle. "Maybe you aren't." She commented, thinking about the wide variety of missions she had received in the past. "Direct military operations are actually rare for me. Infiltration, sabotage, and investigation are my specialty. Of course, as you can see, I can fight, but my specialty really does put me in a different role. If we do stick together after this, our missions will probably be ones that require all our skills at the same time. So, complicated missions, essentially." After finishing off her glass, Rareth quickly stood up and walked back over to the counter where she left the wine to refill her glass. This time, she brought the bottle back with her and set it on the table between them, along with another unopened bottle, since the original was closer to empty. She sat down on the couch beside Telmeck and leaned back, propping her feet up on the table and abandoning any sense of formality that might have existed. "So, Sovereignty military. You fight, you train, fight some more, but what do you actually do on the average day when you're not doing any of that? I take it sneaking in drinks isn't common leisure activity. Or maybe it is, and you're more exciting than I thought. Whatever it is, I don't want to sit around here just talking about missions."

[cqbexpt]

Shuo gave a laugh at Shiva's remark. He certainly hoped that their jobs wouldn't end up with them being glorified detectives. He usually had a person or AI specifically devoted for that task. His job was usually to keep a look out for any threats immediate or otherwise. However Rareth's question was a bit more interesting. He certainly had been pulled for recruitment duty once while on leave so he thought at worst he could just pull that answer out as to what he did. "Well....I haven't been a regular in a few years at this point but for the most part there is a lot of waiting. Unless your an engineer or want to be one of some sort, those soldiers typically get assigned to temporary public works projects and the like. So if you have or want a talent outside of guarding the base and there is no real immediate threat you might get loaned out to the locals to help with something. You get compensated for this of course and it's all very efficient believe it or not. However if that isn't what you want and you wern't already assigned to some sort of technician job you can expected to do a lot of waiting." Shuo filled up his glass again with the foreign liquid. While he didn't really enjoy it he didn't have anything pressing to do exactly. He took another sip and leaned back in his chair again.

[Muttonhawk]

While the others were enjoying their wine at a modest pace, Shiva held her glass at her lap. She wanted to pace herself rather than risk getting to eager. She didn't know exactly how strong this wine was after all. She looked at the drink and and swirled it around momentarily while Shuo described how his downtime was. Shiva felt the need enough to add to it. "Well, most of the squads I was in spent time with small gambling games where they could get away with it." Shiva didn't look up from her glass. She didn't seem terribly attached to the memories she was recounting. "I never joined in. Even if they would let me play, I wasn't meant to be doing that sort of thing. I mostly studied. It was within my rights to have access to academic medical material in my role, so that's all I really did. I probably wouldn't know nearly enough about the anatomy of other races if I didn't have so much time to learn." Shiva glanced up and realised that she should probably look more jovial in a celebration such as this. She raised a small smile and looked around at everyone before bringing her drink to her mouth for another sip. "I know what you're thinking; we're really boring. All the exciting stuff in leave happens with people without marks...or, you know..." Shiva gestured to Shuo, "...people on call all the time, or something. What about the Rothian military? What do you get to do?"

[EliteCommander]

Rareth was going through her wine more quickly than the others. Her actions and overall attitude were completely relaxed, something she hoped would rub off everyone else. The wine was of moderate strength, so she knew about how much she could handle. Although, for the somewhat smaller bodies of the Masulu, she assumed it would not take as much to intoxicate them. To Shiva's question, Rareth shrugged her shoulders before taking another drink. "I wouldn't know, I've never been in the military. The Rahn'Masser aren't exactly normal civilians, but we're not military either. We're sort of...separate from almost all Rothian governmental structures. The only entity we truly answer to are the Rahn'Saki themselves. Telmeck can tell you more about the military side of things, but when I am off duty, I can just kind of...go home, or on a vacation. Of course, I can be recalled at any time, but incidents that require my attention are not incredibly common. Around my home, though, there is plenty to do; more than I can list off the top of my head. Threria calls itself the entertainment capital of Rothia, though there are one or two cities that might dispute that claim. Some kinds of entertainment were developed on Rothia, and many more were imported in. One place I rather like, Tyri'Upva, is a sort of theater and casino. They have an entire underground complex where they can put on massive shows, holographic or live, that can literally put you in the middle of the action. And, of course, they have a myriad of games for you to lose your money. That is a popular spot, but there are plenty of lesser-known attractions. There is an amusement park and casino with rides that actually go well-beyond the city. They are some of the fastest and most exciting on the planet. Oh, and there's a restaurant and casino in a building just across from my apartment that I frequent which imports food from all corners of galactic civilization. I actually know the owner of that one; he's an...interesting individual. A bit eccentric, but friendly."

[cqbexpt]

Shuo finally began to feel the affects of the alcohol on his body as he poured himself another glass. His mind was still sound considering the caffeine he just drank but he could feel it beginning to grip his body. Either fortunately or unfortunately he knew this drunkenness wouldn't last terribly long. Masulu bodies had a funny way about making sure their brain was comparatively rather hydrated. It also didn't help that his implants sped up most of his body's processes as a side affect, which meant that unless he turned them off he would be not drunk very soon. So he decided to compensate and quickly slammed his new glass. He decided best to wait another moment so he didn't feel like he was hogging the drink. He lifted his top finger off the glass that he was holding and pointed at Shiva."Well it wouldn't be a real military if somebody wasn't gambling." Shuo said with a light chuckle. Moving his glass back towards his body he addressed Rareth. "I guess it makes sense that you have a place to live as it sounds like you spend more time off the job than on. I don't really own an apartment or home or whatever else you want to call it. Though I do consider the Conquest my home I suppose. I've probably spent more time there in the past 20 years than I have anywhere else by quite a bit." Shuo paused for a moment. "There are these things called grav sleds on the Conquest. Whenever it parks in orbit of a planet or gas giant the AI's run out a path that will shoot these glorified escape pods around the planet extremely fast on the same plane the Conquest is on and you go so fast you are on the verge of passing out the whole way around the planets gravity well. Ride is generally about an hour and involves some kinetic bleeders to not kill you but it.....is probably most soldiers favorite thing to do while there. Well probably any tourists actually." Shuo then looks at the ceiling."The whole time you can see the planet above you, never gets old." Shuo then looked back down and began to refresh his cup again.

[EliteCommander]

Rareth was not sure if she should add the Conquest to her list of potential vacation destinations. On the one hand, willingly traveling into Sovereignty space was something she tended to avoid. Even if they were at peace, she was not fond of several of the Sovereignty's laws, or the way they were enforced. Each time she went to one of their planets, she found herself more stressed than anything. On the other hand, what Shuo described sounded entirely too interesting to simply ignore.

---

The group continued to talk and drink for some time; exactly how much time had passed Rareth did not know. The only thing she was certain of was that she had been drinking the entire time. Rareth was definitely drunk, not so much that she could not control herself, but enough that it was plainly obvious. She assumed the others were as well, though she had not been paying close attention to how much the others had been drinking.

"I wish...I could make it warm in here. The air is so cool. I almost need clothes; the kind we use to stay warm on cold planets. They heat themselves." Rareth commented. Her tone was not quite annoyed, rather, it seemed like she just wanted something to talk about. Slowly, she turned her head to Shiva and Shuo curiously. "What does it feel like for you to be warm anyway? Though...I guess if cold is normal for you, then warm must be really hot."

[Muttonhawk]

Out of habit, Shiva was pacing herself with the Rothian booze. It was enough to get her slightly tipsy, but she wasn't nearly as incoherent as Rareth. It was as much amusing as it was uncanny to see her in such a state, but her slurring and slowness at least made her a little less alien.

"What kind of question is that?" Shiva responded with perhaps a little more volume than she intended. She continued with an interspersed, high pitched chuckle, "Right now is warm, before you turned down the climate it was like an oven in here! Try metabolising a little faster or something." Shiva redirected to Shuo, keeping him involved, "Hey, Shuo, so sleep for you yet, soldier. Do you have...a favourite weather?"

[cqbexpt]

Shuo laughed at Rareth's comment. His throat had gone numb at this point but he could feel the deep laugh in what remained of the feeling in his head. "You know that's like asking if my blue is your blue! Your warm is our hot and our cool is your freezing." Shuo leaned back into the chair again as he let out what was almost a growl but had the undertone of laughter. They had gone through quite a bit of the wine and he was beginning to wonder how much had been sneaked aboard as between all of them they had probably gone through several bottles....Shuo was rather unsure of how much he had drank at this point but decided to go for more.

As Shuo reached for the bottle with what used to be precise tools and poured more wine. He laughed at Shiva's remark about telling the lizard to have their body functions work faster. But once Shiva asked him a question it took him a moment to process what she actually said. He squinted for a moment. "Rain I think......yeah a nice cold rain anyways. Jungle rain....is terrible, got a foot fungus last time I did that. Yeah nice cold rain or snow......nice green forest." Shuo was actively aware that it was getting harder to talk but he was fighting with his mind to keep control at this point. He wondered how much he had drank, the details we're becoming fuzzy to him now.

[Leon5431]

Telmeck listened along closely as the others talked adding in his bit when he could all the while enjoying the drink Rareth deffinitly didn't bring aboard. With time his unease faded and was replaced with a warm fuzzy feeling that was slowly spreading through his body. At this point he couldn't tell if the feeling was being caused from the drink or just his enjoyment of the company, either way he didn't care much, he was having a very good time, perhaps one of the best he'd had in the company of Sovereignty soldiers.

He had been downed quiet a few glasses and was on the verge of adding another to that number as he listened to the others. Their speech had begun to slur and no doubt was his own. He began to find it harder to follow one train of thought for too long before he got confused. The others were talking about temperatures well at least had been, he wasn't sure what Shiva had said, in honesty he hadn't been paying complete attention to her, he was busy trying to get himself another glass which was proving to take more attention then it had before.

With a bit of an unsteady hand he set the bottle down on the table and leaned back in his seat. He took a long sip from his glass before lowering in back down resting the glass on his knee.

"I...am more curious how it is to have a stinger coming out the top of your head." Telmeck said as he eyes Shuo's curiously. "Like, it's odd to think about how that would feel...I...I can't even really imagine it." Telmeck mused as he raised the glass back to his lips.

[Muttonhawk]

In response to Telmeck's comment, Shiva smiled widely and slowly leaned to one side on her chair and reached out to grab the end of Shuo's head spike. It appeared that the alcohol was allowing herself to be assuming of Shuo's personal space. She held it up, but didn't pull on it enough to cause discomfort. "You want to feel it Telmeck? Come and touch it," Shiva suggested, perhaps suffering a miscommunication with Telmeck's words.

"I can't remember what it's like to have one. Mine's been kept cut for years. Also," Shiva broke into another giggle, "It's not a stinger, you fool," Shiva patted the end of the spike lightly with her other hand, "No venom."

[EliteCommander]

"Yeah, it's more of a head-tail...thing." Rareth commented. While the others continued to discuss Masulu head-spikes, Rareth stood up, somewhat unsteadily, and walked back over to the cabinet. Unfortunately, she found it was now empty, which, now that she was thinking about it, was probably what she told everyone last time she got up to check. Nevertheless, she informed them again. "Ah, bad news. Out of wine. I can have...no, wait, this place doesn't come with a machine servant. Always had Thavrin make me something at home. Well, there's stuff here to eat if you want. Some of it doesn't need cooking."

Rareth returned to take her seat, but this time, she laid down across both the couch, and Telmeck's lap. She let out a relaxed sigh as she stretched out her muscles and closed her eyes. "Feels good to relax. My muscles are so sore from today. At least Shiva here's good with her magic, or I'd be a lot worse off. Well...not really; the ship has plenty of doctors and stuff, but...she got to me a lot quicker. I feel like I could kick all your tails right now. Well, Telmeck here could give me a problem. Those implants of his are like getting hit by a dropship."

[cqbexpt]

Shuo began to realize that he may have drank more than the others. In his quest to compensate for his implants making it harder for him to get inebriated he may have over done it quite a bit. His vision beyond 10 feet was more blurry than he could imagine and he could feel himself swaying a little bit. There was nothing he could really do about that though other than sit back in the chair, though his body was refusing the command. He forgot that along with his drunk states not lasting as long his implants would get rid of his tolerance for him. He found that this was....counterproductive sometimes. Even if he wanted to he couldn't build up a tolerance to anything as long as his implants were on their current setting. Even to venom........he looked over to Shiva and found her holding his head spike.

At that moment Telmeck's question registered with Shuo. After looking back over to the blob of colors that was what he assumed the lizards he managed to speak a coherent sentence. "Well.....what's it like having a tail at your waste. It would drag around on things, and you can't sharpen......it." Shuo looked back over to Shiva and pulled his numb spike back towards himself and towards his hand, attempting to be mindful to not cut Shiva. He put the spike up to his thumb and took the long side of the sharp end and then ran is thumb along it. This cut very cleanly a small gash on Shuo's thumb. He held it up for the lizards to see. "You can sharpen it, I wanted......I wanted to get my head spike modified to have some metal in it but my application didn't get approved until after we left. Took like a week or two or something." Shuo then pressed the larger of his 3 fingers against his thumb to stop the bleeding of his blue blood.

Shuo sat back in his chair and rested his head spike on the couch arm. He blinked out of sync for a moment then kept trying to look at the blobs across from him, giving up he looked at Shiva. "Why do you cut your's off, most people have a medical reason or a implant reason or some personal reason. Last isn't terribl...y common." Shuo was fighting off the urge to go to sleep in the chair as his belly burned like a furnace. Somehow Shuo managed to catch the word implants out of Rareth and raised his hand and said "Yes I have implants. They do things......I think."