Guardians of the Stars

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January 19, 3015 AD
Human Space
Herrscherr System
Merikan Shipyards

Eight terrestrial planets, five gas giants, two asteroid belts, and countless moons and planetoids orbited the star long ago named Herrscherr. By itself, that was remarkable; few star systems could boast such a vast array of natural resources. The scene was made all the busier by the presence of numerous ships traveling among the star’s satellites, both natural and man-made.

It was an ironic fact that despite the large selection of planets not one was naturally capable of supporting life. The very active population defied nature by living in space habitats, mined out asteroid, and protective colonies on decent enough terrestrial surfaces. The star system’s inability to support life had not stopped life’s insatiable drive for more resources. Herrscherr’s dead worlds provided abundant metals and minerals useful for building starships, other crafts, and, most importantly, military vehicles. Which was why the majority of the system’s populous were military or contracted for the space forces.

Herrscherr was the number one production and repair center for warships and frames in the human alliance. Which made the presence of frame divisions totally justified, not to mention important. This did little to ease the unhappiness of several Ace squadrons, who felt their talents were being squandered.

Several of those squadrons were just now landing back at the shipyards after a particularly long patrol. Passing over partly completed battleships, the frames landed back at their hanger. Pilots leaped from their robots as soon as oxygen was available.

"Rest of the day is ours!" The squadron leader shouted as he headed off to finish some paperwork. "Donuts in the lounge, save me a bear claw this time or God help me, you'll spend the next 48 hours in the asteroid belt!"

Inside the lounge were indeed snacks, as well as coffee, a sofa, and holo-screens with the news on.

Some back home had criticized the fleet training exercise as needlessly provocative in a time of high tension. Others insisted that the show of strength was needed as a blunt warning against further aggression from the human forces. While politics and pundits bashed heads in chambers or on television, the military pressed on with its exercises, and now the Synthoid’s Red Fleet was en route to the border between the Republic and RISA space, ready to flaunt it’s might in a display that mixed pomp and pageantry with tactical maneuvers and simulated combat.

In fact, they’d been ready for the past week, when they were supposed to arrive at the border system. Yet they had still not dropped out of flowspace, that interdimensional limbo universe accessed by ship FTL drives in order to traverse space, despite the fact that the drive’s cutoff point should have dropped them into normal space by now

And so the Synthoid frame pilots did maintenance on their machines, spent time in the simulator, or were in their quarters, honing their deduction and memorization skills.

"Got any Queens?"

Sort of.

"Go fish."

edited 1st Jun '13 1:09:55 PM by Parable

Seth is currently playing Go Fish in the Synthoid ship, and is not doing particularly good or bad at it.

Merikan Shipyards
Earl got out of his Gladiator like he always did after a boring patrol, and made his way to the lounge. He grabbed a can of Pepsi Hyperspeed, and a bear claw in a napkin.

"Who put the news on again?" Earl said. "We make the news, so I don't need to see what some limpwrist who's never had to fight a day in his life has to say about how we're barbarians." He changed the channel to a sports network that had a women's volleyball game on, then sat down on the sofa and opened his soda as he watched the game.

Jacques Satch II- Promised Land Carrier - Living quarters

"Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?"

The young Jacques sets the bookmark and closes the old book. He stands up and stretches... Hungry, he felt hungry, the body, as the mind, should be fed. with that he walked off to the ship's canteen.

edited 1st Jun '13 2:17:19 PM by sanojutsu

Promised Land Carrier

After finishing up another game of Go Fish, Seth decides to stretch his legs by walking around the ship for a little while.

Merikan Shipyards

There were two things Miles hated. One was fighting, and the other was sitting around with nothing important to do.

In this regard, the shipyards were his own personal corner of hell.

"Copy that..." he replied quietly, hoping to snag an Old Fashioned before they were gone.

The Synths show up, I'm killing people. They don't show up, I'm doomed to complete and utter boredom.

I need to start breaking the Regs about fraternization...

Merikan Shipyards

Spencer sat beside Earl on the sofa, his feet on the table and a cigar in his mouth. He didn't really mind the boring patrols. In fact, he might have been the only one who thought so.

"Y'know, Royal Flush." He said as a cloud of smoke escaped his lips. "One of these days, we might just learn something by watching the news."

edited 1st Jun '13 7:21:31 PM by TehStanman

"... But right now it doesn't seem like my going out to really fight is likely, so you don't have to worry about that. And I promise that it won't seem like that long until I get to come home. Be good for the family, OK? I love you." Tea finished recording the message, sending it off the her home world and little sister. Of course it had to pass through military checks first but she hasn't said anything problematic, so it'd probably be off quickly. She sighed, getting up off her bunk to walk down to the hangar. Never hurt to do checks on the Frame, after all, and it was pretty much the exact task she'd been born for.

Merikan Shipyards - Lounge
"You say that," Earl replied, "But I don't see you scramblin' to change the channel back. Go on, Smokey, I won't stop you if you want to watch something else." He leaned back and took a bite of his pastry.

Grabbing a powdered donut, Carter voraciously bit off half of it in one go.

After sending it down the hatch and chugging a bottle of soda, he sprawled across one of the empty sofas.

"Yo! Mind if I have that remote for a bit? Just curious to see what's on the other channels."

"It's the same stuff that's always on," Miles stated as he entered the lounge. "I'm surprised we haven't run out of material for sitcoms by this point in human history..."

Or made better tasting military food...

edited 2nd Jun '13 3:57:00 PM by Dragon573

"Knock yourself out," Earl said, handing the remote over. "Just count yourselves lucky that you get to fly your big fancy robot and then come back to watch TV and drink soda. It's a lot better than how it was last time. Smokey knows what I mean, don'tchya?"

Merikan Shipyards - Lounge

"Well, the war's still young. When they put y'all youngsters out of patrol and into the front lines, you'll learn to enjoy little things like this." Spencer gave another puff as he reminisced about the first war with a grim look in his eyes. "It ain't always donuts and TV."

edited 2nd Jun '13 6:25:43 PM by TehStanman

"Yeah, well, better no war at all than a quiet war," Miles replied, sitting on the arm of the sofa and retrieving a doughnut.

"I don't know what's worse... Losing your home to invaders," he mused between bites, "or losing it to politicians."

As he flipped through the channels, Carter mused, "Pfeh. One sitcom is pretty much the same as any other. Now anime, on the other hand, that's where your variety is! ... Or at least where the competent writers are."

"Besides," he continued after taking another drink, "I think we all know that war isn't pretty. Anyone who grew up watching G****m should understand that."

Turning to face his comrades, he grinned. "'Course, that doesn't mean we can't have ourselves a good time off the clock, am I right?!"

Merikan Shipyards

"Who says war isn't pretty!" Abbie said haughtily with a flip of her hair.

"The politicians take your home and say it's for your own good." Abbie added when she passed Miles and she flopped down onto the sofa. Her mouth opened unusually wide as she took a giant bite of a jelly-filled donut. "At least the bad guys are honest about wanting to take and break your stuff."

There was a long pause while she chewed and swallowed. "Where are you from anyway?"

Just leaving the hanger was Sam Lincoln, having just finished running a maintenance diagnostic on his frame for the third time in two days. He had also cleaned the interior, double-checked the weapons, replaced the cameras, and added a sticker of an octopus just below his communication screen. God, he was bored.

And hungry, come to think of it. He had not eaten in almost seven hours. A rumble in his stomach agreed with him.

Noticing movement ahead of him for the first time, Sam looked up at saw a familiar Precision Model walking towards him. He waved to get her attention.

"Hey, Imbrium!" The Guardian shouted. "Wanna get a bite to eat with me?"

Tea looked over at the other pilot. "Huh? Oh, sure!" She smiled. "So, what've you been up to?"

"Existing." Sam said after he had jogged the rest of the way over to Téa. "Is it just me or could we have built, taken apart, and rebuilt all our frames in the time it's taken us to get to the border? At this rate, the other fleets will have started without us!"

Turning around the corner he spotted another pilot and hollered after him. "Yo, Jacques! Where you heading?"

Merikan Shipyards

"Can't argue with the second part, I suppose," Miles admitted. "First one's a little more relative," he added, with a wry grin.

"I'm from Neo York, though I was born somewhere else, agricultural colony. We lost it in the negotiations... I can barely remember it, these days. All I remember about it for sure is that I had a swing-set and my father talks like he's from Minnesota."

edited 4th Jun '13 3:48:17 PM by Dragon573

"Ah, another Neo Yorker," Earl said, leaning back to watch the TV as he spoke. "Guess it's just us being the voices of reason here, then. What part you from? Roboken?"

Jacques turned to see the other two pilot "Mr. Lincoln, Miss. Malion" he said with his inherited, intellectual cadence "I was just about to take... is it dinner now, I lose track of time these days"

"Well, as much as we can have a day when we're off planet - yes, it's about dinnertime," Tea answered, quickly checking her internal clock. A small part of her grated at not giving the precise to-the-second time but in this case it wouldn't be helpful.

"Ah great, I wonder what they'll be serving today..." he paused "Care to join me?"

"Moved around a lot. Too much to really say," Miles replied casually. "Dad never really got used to anywhere after we had to leave his land."

Coughing loudly as he entered the lounge, tablet in hand, Edgar Ikin dropped into one of the unoccupied seats, casting a barely-hidden look of disgust at Smokey. "I'd thank you not to fill all our lungs with that poison, Starling," he greeted curtly in his typical low baritone. Coughing conspicuously once more, he pushed his sliding glasses back up his nose with a gloved finger and stared down the other man with bizarre intensity.