2022-02-03: No Closure
- Log: 2-3-22 No Closure
- Cast: Soji Murakumo, Mitsuba Greyvalley
- Where: Dreisstrager Conference Room
- OOC - IC Date: February 3rd, 0096
- Summary: Soji calls his captain for some heavy discussion about his place on the Dreisstrager.
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
Soji Murakumo has had a weird few weeks. People think his machine is haunted (or has an AI), he still feels like the outsider, and worst of all, everyone hates him! Well, no, not that last part, no one can hate Soji Murakumo.
But the first two, definitely.
He is currently in one of the smaller conference rooms, B3, having placed a non-formal appointment with Captain Mitsuba Greyvalley. He told her that she didn't have to come to talk to him if she was too busy, but that he'd appreciate it.
There is a table with a couple of seats around it, which Soji is sitting at, feet for once not ON the table. He's got a coffee - not engine room fuel, but the good stuff, and a pitcher next to him in case Mitsuba needs any, with a clean cup next to it.
Soji's fidgeting with his collar. For once, he's feeling out of his skin.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
Mitsuba arrives at the conference room about on time. She enters, gives Soji a nod, and says, "Soji -- at ease, please," with the confidence of someone who is *not* worried about this discussion in the least.
She starts pouring herself a cup of coffee. She considers asking about the mystery woman Soji brought on board, and whether he knows that woman might also be interested in Mayvy -- but Soji asked for the conversation. At the *very* least, she should probably let him voice his concern before she starts pumping him for gossip, even if Lune did a really good job of getting her interested in gossip.
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
Soji looks up as Mitsuba enters, and at eases slightly when Mitsuba asks him to. It doesn't take a Newtype to tell he's anxious, though, even if he immediately plays it off. "Sorry, spilled coffee. I'm not very good with my hands." A pause. "Wait, ignore that."
After the casual distraction and weirdness, he takes a moment to breathe and figure out how he wants to approach this. Perhaps to Mitsuba's surprise, he doesn't start with the AI.
"Captain, do you believe I belong on this ship? As a Federation vet, I mean. I don't really 'fit in'. Sure, there's others, but we've never been able to connect, and a lot of our crew is gathered from Academy 30, Nergal, or G-Hound."
He's pretty obviously priming to open up about his past and how it relates to his fears.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
That immediately gets Mitsuba's attention. She sits down across from Soji with her coffee, gets situated, and folds her hands. "Absolutely. We've got a wide range of people -- both on the ship and in the flight wing. Military Academy 30 had a lot of nontraditional students, so there was already some diversity of life experience there."
She picks up on the fact that there's an iceberg situation here, though -- so while she leads with a 'you're absolutely welcome here,' she takes a moment to sip her coffee and let Soji speak further. If he has something he needs to explain about himself to make sense of himself, well.
What Mitsuba can do is listen. So she'll do that the best she can.
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
Soji doesn't relax, despite the words. He's fumbling to pick them up - a rare sight of vulnerability. He's only this vulnerable because of the compound stress of Everything, but he trusts his captain a lot. He always has.
"Have you ever seen a dead body? I mean, up close. I haven't." Soji pauses for mild effect. He knows Mitsuba knows his background.
"I was born in 30 Bunch. I went away one summer, and never got to come back. No closure. My grandparents died while I was in training. I missed their funeral due to scheduling. No closure. My squad was wiped out during Axis Shock, and we were unable to recover their machines. No closure."
A laugh. It's offputting, a little. "People say I'm different. I probably am. I cut ties and just live life crazy. I'm a bad luck magnet, captain. Now my robot's haunted, according to Mayvy, and it's probably gonna get stripped for parts or whatever you do to things like that. I won't be there for that - they'll probably have me in a meeting hall, if I even get kept around. Federation didn't want me, after all, yet I kept fighting for them."
"No closure, as usual."
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
Soji puts a lot on Mitsuba very quickly. "... I have," Mitsuba admits, with a glance to one side. "Casualties were low when we evacuated the area around Military Academy 30, but..." Not zero. She's at peace with that -- you need to do what you can, and not beat yourself up for what you can't -- but even so.
The haunted robot starts to make things make a little more sense. Soji didn't bring home a woman -- or, well, he might have, but only in the abstract sense. "I'm not really interested in stripping something unusual for parts, especially when it isn't mine," Mitsuba answers.
She chews at her lip for a moment, and then says, "In fact, I have no intention of adding to that trend in your life. I can't *give* you closure, but I'm certainly not going to stonewall you from getting it."
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
Soji realizes he's putting a lot on the captain. "Sorry for the braindump. I've never talked to anyone about it. It's not that I can't - no one wants to hear it, they've all been through it. A lot of people lost loved ones when I did. I just, you know, know you knew my file. You know?"
The hesitation lessens a bit as Mitsuba says what she does. "I appreciate it, Captain. The techs haven't taken a look, given the Chief's orders of distance, but I'm surprised she gave that order at all instead of prying it open for its secrets. VangRay is...we don't even know where it came from, besides the fact the Federation had it. Classified all the way down."
"There's apparently some game of telephone going on, though. I have no idea what that's about, but people are gossiping about me. It's weird, *I'm* the gossip!"
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"It's one thing to read it. It's another thing to hear it from you, personally," Mitsuba says, tone shifting slightly. Despite Soji being both older and more experienced, she sounds almost motherly here. "I'm from Side 7, myself... I was very young when we moved -- not old enough to have those kinds of connections, and it's a distinct feeling, but... I don't know what you've experienced, but I can certainly see where and why it'd be painful. There's a lot from my early childhood that I never said goodbye to in a way that made sense to me, either."
Soji pivots so she pivots too. "Mayvy scans as that type of person if you only know her casually," Mitsuba says, "but she's not that voracious. I don't think she's the type of person to... hm. How to put this..." She closes her eyes a moment. How would *Mayvy* describe the orientation? "... She really wants to know things, but she doesn't decide for others and she doesn't like it when others decide for others, either. I'm kind of..." She trails off. Something about talking about *herself* in comparison gets muddled. It makes her uneasy.
She reorients on something practical. "... What we'd *heard*," she says, a little more playfully, "is that you brought a woman onboard and the woman was also flirting with the Chief. I was going to just let it happen, as long as neither of you keyed her into secure areas."
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
"Yeah..." Soji doesn't dwell on what Mitsuba says, but her tone is comforting, so he's relaxing more. He'd rinking coffee as Mitsuba talks about Mayvy. "You really care about her, don't you? I'm not surprised. She's a great person." His coffee goes back down, just in time for him to nearly spittake at the gossip.
"What? Why would I bring a woman on-board when there's already so many attractive ones here? Wait, no, forget that. Why do people even think that?!"
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"I didn't get very close to a lot of people at Academy 30 -- I'd only say I really *know* Reynold, Mayvy, Lian, and Jiequan," Mitsuba replies. "Reynold is reliable, but not a very complicated person. Mayvy is reliable *and* complicated." She laughs a little before taking another sip of coffee. "My options are knowing why she does what she does or never letting her out of my sight."
Mitsuba seems *fully* at ease now -- enough to laugh off Soji stuffing his foot in his mouth. "Most likely something about the ghost in your machine got twisted in the telling due to the number of secrets around it. It's fine, Soji. I'd rather let people on the Dreisstrager choose their own fates, when it comes to the things they care about the most."
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
"It's good to have reliable people. I hope one day, I'll be able to rely on this crew fully." Soji says, as his hand hovers over his coffee.
"Choose our own fates, huh? Well, that seals it, captain." He takes on a startlingly serious tone, but it's not cold.
"I was unsure about this ship until I heard the mission. And I was still unsure if I fit in. But if it's about choosing our fate, mine is to be here. If the Dreisstrager is the gun that will change the world...I'll become a bullet." His seriousness eases into a firm, determined smile.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
At the start of this conversation, Mitsuba had authentically no idea where this would end up going. "... I appreciate the vote of confidence," she says, with a twinkle in her eye. She takes a long drink of coffee, finishing her cup.
There's a seriousness in Mitsuba's own expression, too, though. "... I hope it doesn't come to that. You can only fire a bullet once. I'm hoping... we can become people who can rely on each other, instead."
Easing off a bit, she adds, "So -- I'd rather hear it from you, in full. What do we know about the VangRay? Even my G-Hound clearance isn't giving me much."
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
Soji doesn't dwell on her comment about hoping it doesn't come to that, but the smile stays up until she asks about the VangRay. He hmms thoughtfully, as he scratches the back of his head. "Federation blacksite prototype, is what we've figured. Something that must have failed - given that they gave it to me." Despite the self-flaggelation there, there's no sense of negativity in his tone. "The VangRay, frankly, wasn't built for a human pilot, captain. The controls require coordination and reflexes that most humans don't possess, the protections for speed are few, and the comfort is worse than a Jegan. Any normal pilot would either crash or burnout within a week."
His soft smile turns into a cheeky grin. "Luckily, there's nothing normal about me."
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"Hmmm." Mitsuba takes that all in and starts drawing some conclusions based on things she *does* have access to. "There's a long history of that in certain corners of mobile weapon development, within the Federation. The Gaplant is a good example -- a design that, you might recall, was scrapped for those exact reasons. If we assume the VangRay came from a similar project, there's a lot that starts making more sense."
It's troubling in its own way -- Mitsuba has read the full transcript of some of the post-Gryps trials. It suggests that someone in the Federation might be repeating the mistakes of the past. More Cyber-Newtypes...?
In fact -- that's cause to consider. "Have you undergone any postnatal enhancement?" Mitsuba asks, suddenly. It doesn't sound like there's a judgment attached to the answer, but even so.
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
"The Gaplant, huh? I imagine the VangRay controls even worse than that. Though, in space, controls like a dream. It's weird." Soji shrugs, before suddenly pivoting towards Mitsuba's random ask.
"I'm a Natural, if that's what you're asking, ma'am. Sometimes I get little sparks of intuition, but nothing like a Newtype. My bad luck magnet sometimes horseshoes, I guess."
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"Hmm." That doesn't fully scrap the theory on the development, if someone has a grudge against Soji and wants him to get pulped by his mobile weapon. But it doesn't conclusively answer it, either. "We'll have to keep our eyes open for more information. Or hope the VangRay itself gives it to us."
Mitsuba pours herself a second cup. "It's strange -- we have a lot of that on the ship, actually. Strange technology seeming to come alive with a little prompting. I hope it doesn't give the AOS any ideas."
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
"I bet it'll all come out in due time. I'm comfortable piloting the Vangray. Rubber-band setup helps. We can probably take it off of 'containment' so the engineers can work on it, too."
Soji goes for his second cup as well. "I wanted to ask, actually. What is the AOS? Is it alive or something? -not asking for confidential information, just trying to figure out if it's gonna get into a catfight with my robot's ghost."
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"That sounds good to me," Mitsuba says. It's Soji's unit, that came to him under his circumstances; she's not going to override him on it unless the risk is very serious indeed.
The topic of the AOS comes up, and Mitsuba answers like she's reading the manual. Probably because she's read the manual a lot. "The Advanced Organic-organizational-operating System oversees ship functions and distributes tactical data to ships and mobile weapons in the field. It's an experiment in alternative approaches to the sort of battlefield support a Macross-class can theoretically provide."
<Pose Tracker> Soji Murakumo has posed.
"Wouldn't that be the AOOOS?" Soji asks, *immediately*. "But huh, that's pretty handy. A ship this big needs something like that, for sure. We have a lot of pilots."
"Anyways...thank you for meeting with me, Captain. I know it got heavy, but I'm feeling like a weight's left my shoulders." He moves to take a drink, and spills a dab of coffee on his collar, enough to not really be noticeable. "Agh!"
And then, he starts cleaning it up, unbuttoning his collar. This will have Ramifications.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.
"I'm glad I could help," Mitsuba says, fully at her comfortable stride now. "If you need to talk, you can always schedule another meeting with me." It's a captain's responsibility to take care of her pilots, after all -- and a ship of ships has a lot of pilots indeed.
After a little consideration, she decides to get a third cup and rest for a few minutes before leaving. They're *technically* coming in under scheduled time, after all.