Welcome to Gaia! ::

Waiting for his CO he flew circles until he heard the radio call. He replied with a slightly playful attitude.



He knew that he couldn't fly a VF-1 yet but his sense of humor wouldn't allow him to get away without a little joshing. He knew that his training would and could come in handy so he waited for the response.

((OCC: well my reason was that I planned and litle real-flight session for Mokono, so thats why me and my squad remains on the area, but if you want T-Boss, I can send my squad back home, Ill return when I finish the training))



*Griffin responded, she tough to herself "did that sound mean?... naaa, we better get started"*



*Griffin acelerated her Fighter to near the maximun speed that a VF-1J can reach, she knew of course her fighter was faster by far, but she wanted tot est how mokono reacts to a sudden burst of speed*

Nida - our Nida; ASDF Nida - kept her face impassive when Hannah came into the brig. The cowgirl secured the door behind her and pulled up a metal folding chair to face the bars of Nida's cell. Nida didn't ignore her, but neither did she do anything to acknowledge her. They studied each other for a minute or so.

"I can show you around," Hannah offered. "You'd be muted, but you'd be out of the cell."

Nida snorted.

Hannah, in return, lay back in the chair, letting her head flop over her shoulderblades. "You Nidas - all of you, I through III and the shades between - are frustrating. Stubborn, arrogant, immutable, so sure of yourselves. At least in large groups you're so sick of each other that you're willing to allow some measure of reason in. One on one, you hold grudges to offensive limits."

Nida merely raised an eyebrow and swept her hand about. Reason enough for a grudge?

A moment of silence. The cowgirl scratched idly behind one horn.

Finally: "The Nida Ascendancy is made up of about thirty Nidas. Mostly type IIs; you guys seem to be most prevalent. Type IIIs are more common than Is. IIIs are wispy, Gothy Nidas who tend toward blue eyes and longer hair. Lots of them are actually vampires. They're all right, but you can't count on them in a violent situation, for the most part. Is are usually plain-jane humans, no gene tweaking. About half of them have some sort of magical or spiritual acumen. Mostly blue-eyed there, too. Some greens."

Nida didn't hide her interest in this, but she remained silent when Hannah allowed a pause for comment. So the cowgirl continued.

"Type IIs are always green-eyed, at least that we've run across. Variously, be it by birth, accident, or design, they wind up with body modifications along two basic models. There's the one that you and my commander have adopted - she's got the complete model, save for armored chitin plates around the tentacles - and then there's a much more exaggerated version which has a good chance of dying any time a shift is made. So they stick to one form or the other."

As she spoke, Hannah leaned over to a table covered with what looked like coffeemakers from Nida's perspective (the angle was bad), took a paper cup from a stack, and filled it with something. She handed it through the bars. Nida took note: the tendons in Hannah's arm stood out. She was visibly steeling herself against whatever assault might follow such an idiotic action.

Nida took the cup and peered inside. Hannah quickly withdrew her arm, relief passing over her face. "Lemon-lime Icee. Sugar free. My Nida's concerned about diabetes." Hannah poured herself one.

Nida let no relaxation touch her own posture, however, despite her goodwill in not breaking her captor's arm when given the opportunity. She preferred not to make buddy-buddy just yet. This was obviously a good cop / bad cop routine, after all.

"So anyway, a bunch of Nidas started forming a network after they found out that there were so many of them distributed around so many planets and demiplanes. Then they find out there's a bigger network. The Ixachtl. Nidas of all three types, about ninety percent of which are IIs like yourself, numbering over four hundred strong. They've all got attachments to entities or personalities whose names are variations on Ixachtl. Xachta, Ixachta, Xixacha, that kind of s**t." Hannah took a long pull from her Icee. "They're pretty dominonist. They're out to annihilate the other Nidas, and we think they have a goal of having an empire. Something like one planet per two Ixachtl. Some kind of Battlefield Earth bullshit without the Scientology. So we fight them, mostly for survival. We have few illusions about our capacity to bring them down."

Nida finally spoke. "What's all this got to do with your actions against the ASDF?"

"Salvage," Hannah replied. "We owe dues to the Ascendancy in technology, and we're about a thousand tons of salvage short. So we're using expendable tech to get some more priceless stuff. Mostly new engines and flight-capable mecha. Some ammo. We've got plenty of missiles, but almost no autocannon rounds."

Nida crossed her arms. She expected that her response was self-evident: why not just explain all this s**t in the first place, instead of capturing Nida and tossing her in a cell in a half-operational undersea base on some backwater planet? Hannah shifted uncomfortably. Her tail slapped against the aluminum chair.

"Some Nidas have come out and asked for help in the past, rather than raid. And they got favorable responses. Then the local Nida would turn out to be an Ixachtl, and the whole exchange was a trap, and good Nidas died. So no more of that s**t."

"I'm no Ixachtl," Nida grunted. "I've never even met another Nida before now. Let alone something or someone with such an unpronounceable name as Ixachtl."

Hannah shrugged. Them's the rules, her expression said, like it or not.

-------

Alternida stood from the swivel chair and arched her back. Mid-stretch, she froze. "Horse nuts," she hissed.

Within two minutes, she had her counterpart back onscreen; it had only taken so long because she'd spent most of the time getting busy tones, as they were both calling each other at once.

"The plan won't work--" the other Nida started.

"I know, the inertia--"

"Stops right on Limbo--"

"Even if the portals were close--" Wild gesticulation.

"Like two meters, even then--"

"Dead in space, relative to Gaia." Alternida slammed a fist on the console. "We'll have to overhaul the plan completely. Look, I'm coming out there."

"Dude, we thought of it at the same time," the Type I responded. "We were totally on the same brainwave. You know how rare that is among Nidas? It never happens."

"Wait, wait."

"I mean, psychic s**t here."

"Wait."

"Yeah?"

Alternida stroked her chin thoughtfully. "When you thought of it - the problem--"

"Yeah?"

"Did you say 'horse nuts'?"

*Griffin sudenly changed to Gerwalk mode without reducing the speed, she was quite used to the feeling of the sudden stop and presure of the leg trusters firing to stop the VAF, she felt her breast pressing againts the seat belt, obviusly she make sures Mokono is not directly behind her when she performs the maneuver, to avoid crashing against her student "that was crazy...."*

Alternida stood on the deck of the orbital rail launcher, looking up at Earth (Terra 36, the one with the magic/tech FF7 feel) below her. She hated EVA. Spacesuits were so restrictive. But at least the Ascendancy had seen fit to modify some suits to take advantage of Type II bodies. This one was even designed for full-on monstrous form, and Alternida was taking advantage of it. 34-14-30, baby. Talk about beach-ready.

That would be Type I - we really need a name for her, too - over the commnet.

Alternida guttered her reply in the few low tones of which this form was capable. There was a sort of b*****d language developed around Type II vocal capabilities. It would never be a source of saga and song, but it got the job done.

still?> Type I was incredulous.

The Type I knocked on the girders supporting the housing for the lower magnetic coil. It was a little eerie to see it, yet not hear the dull clang of knuckles on metal.

Alternida growled something about needing staying power.

Type I shrugged. you're the one with the mecha, girl. You figure out how to make it work.>

The redskin sighed, but assented. Even offered thanks.



A nod.

((For the sake of the RP's pace, those two days will transpire relatively quickly. If you have something you want to accomplish before the next crazy blow up happy fun time, go ahead and do it; otherwise, be prepared for a fast-forward.))

Hannah had been gone for two hours; Nida assumed it was safe. She produced a bent pin from her jacket's breast pocket, jammed it through a thick disc made from wadded-up and flattened paper cups, and transferred the affair from hand to tentacle pod. With a bit of stretching, she'd be able to jam the pin into a bundle of wire snaking up the far wall. The wire led to a fuse box, along with five other bundles. Four bundles came from the ceiling; one led to a control box which she knew was on the wall around the brig's dogleg corner. Thus, she theorized, the four bundles came from the four cell doors, and the fifth led to the brig control unit.

Sure enough, when she shot the pin through the bundle, the alternating currents connected and shorted out the whole affair. Sparks flew. Her paper-cup insulator prevented electrocution, but she got a few minor contact burns, and she swore she felt some sort of jolt anyway. The paper insulator was in flames.

It took little effort to rip the deadbolt lock free from its moorings now that the magnetic lock was disengaged. There would be silent alarms, of course, but for the moment, Nida was a free woman. First order of business: take down one of those aerophysalis variants and nab its rifle.

Usually, if it has eight legs, it can climb walls. Nida was no exception. She kept close to the ceiling, peeping around corners and sneaking out into the main hallway. She wasn't sure what she'd do out in the huge open area of the mecha bay, but she'd burn that bridge when she came to it.