2022-10-05: Officer Meeting
- Log: 2022-10-05: Officer Meeting
- Cast: Sophia Mayhew Castellan, and her merry band of bridge officers
- Where: Hyperion Officer's Lounge
- Date: U.C. 0096 10 05
- Summary: The chief crew of the Hyperion gather to discuss the impossible events at Torrington.
No, not that one.
Captain Castellan sits in her seat at the head of the Hyperion's officer's lounge, long legs crossed. She's beyond upset - she can barely sit still, fingers coiling around themselves like snakes as she struggles to retain the composure she has worked so hard to build. To one side, her XO, Lieutenant Amata Kole, the green-haired girl who has been at Sophia's side since....long ago. To the other, Major Almace Laurent, the huge dark-skinned woman who served as her head of security, and had followed her from the Flag unit she'd previously commanded.
And seated further down, at the presenter's position, is the devil's wizard, the one man forced into her orbit completely out of her control: Desmond Siege. He professed to be her most loyal crew. Between Amata and Almace, that position was already highly contested, to say nothing of his origins. Still....Still.
He had his merits.
"As the Captain reports it, during the battle at Torrington Base, her Geass indicated a presence like none she had not seen before," he began. They had no secrets among them. Seats at the heads of Sophia's crew was a privilege she only permitted to those she already trusted to know of the devil's power. "A great light, spearing toward her to the point of distraction, outshining all other connections and ties. This is rather remarkable, as the field also contained what we believe to be the ghost of Amuro Ray, a man to whom every soul in the Earth Sphere should surely be bound."
Sophia found herself rubbing her gloved forefinger anxiously.
"There is only one conclusion I can draw. The greater light could only be someone to whom the Captain's connection is overriding."
"She's dead," Sophia says, her voice hollow.
"According to documents recovered from the very final moments of Augusta? Suspect at best, Captain," Almace says.
Sophia simmers in that for several moments. She knows. She knows that. But...there'd been NO clues...She bites her lip hard for several moments. They'd been crawling the Earth Sphere, hunting for scraps of clues, the tiny hints of men who worked at Augusta, so that she could take her vengeance upon the very ghost of the institution. If she was alive, then, what was it for? She murmurs, "What on Earth have we been doing until now..."
"Killing vermin, as a king ought."
That stops her cold, and Sophia sucks in a long breath through her nose, her eyes all but pinned open, jaw tight and hands again coiling unhappily.
"Killing vermin," Desmond repeats, "until a new lead on your true quarry emerged. It now has."
He flicks a file onto the projector. "The Captain's testimony connects the anomalous response with this machine, a magenta Jagd Doga."
"Looks more pink to me," Amata quips, scratching her cheek.
Desmond gives the greenette an entirely flat look, then continues as if she hadn't spoken. "This particular machine has no history of note - a few previous sightings, nothing indicative of a home base or origin point - but the Jagd Doga is an Axis Shock-era Axis Zeon ace machine. It's not inconceivable for one to have gotten into the hands of an unrelated Vulture, but the odds of a personal connection of some kind with Axis Zeon in general and that line of machine in specific are high."
"I see. So in other words, we need an official roster of pilots from Axis Zeon to sift through." Almace says. She's barely moved this entire time. "We need their records."
"Zeon," Sophia says, numbly. "Axis Zeon...!?"
Almace and Amata both look over, worried at what they know is building in the too-small pressure-vessel that is Sophia's internal world. Sophia's spite for the modern dregs of Zeon is one they know well.
She takes in a long, slow breath, the kind a person doesn't think to take when they feel their world on fire unless they've practiced long and hard to control it. "Fine," she says. "We make for--"
"I am empowered to force you off duty if you try to make us go to Palau, Sophie," Amata says, with a wry cock of her eyebrow.
"It's suicide," Almace agrees.
Sophia's hand tenses.
"Desmond," she says. The mask is up. She's retreated to the cold commander persona that they know is her first and last defense.
"My Captain?" he replies.
Her eyes cut to him, scanning him up and down. "I expect a target and a plan of action today."
"My Captain," he replies, and bows.