TiTLE - Madaline & Veela

Posted on 19 Nov 2020 @ 1:55pm by Lieutenant Callisi Veera & Lieutenant Madalene Sabine

2,057 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Ab Intra
Location: Quarters

=/= Begin Log =/=

Madalene sat in her quarters, replaying the ex-ohs words, they were good, smart and true, very true. But, taking action was a whole different thing, "damn't Madalene, just go and do it," she muttered to herself, "alright let's do this," she said walking out of her quarters and heading towards her operations officer's quarters.

As she walked several versions of the same conversation running through her head, but as soon as she arrived in front of her door, how she was gonna start had left her brain, but her hand did the automatic thing and hit the chime.

The lights were low, almost to the point of darkness. The only illumination of merit was the soft blue glow of the optic of her prosthetic. At the chime, she perked up slightly. "Computer. Raise lights to seventy percent." and as she replaced her eye-patch, she turned towards the door. "Enter."

"Lieutenant, thank you for inviting me in," Madalene said, adjusting her gray, off the shoulder t-shirt, "I um...,I wanted to apologize for everything that I put you through when I wasn't myself," she said feeling very awkward, but knowing she needed to do this.

"I accept your apology. As you said, you weren't yourself." No one was. The rabbitess took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it slowly leave. "I will need the time to get to build a new impression, and I imagine you'll need time and opportunity to get to know me, for the first time." she walked over to the wall replicator.

"Tea or coffee?" she offered. Despite it all, Madalene was a guest.

"Coffee please," Madalene said taking a seat, "....so let's start over, I know that my meeting you in the infirmary was not ideal on any level, which again I apologize, truth be told I actually did come down to see how you were," she added looking down at her ripped, skinny black jeans.

Callisi gathered up the two mugs on a small tray, along with the fixings to flavor the two beverages to each lady's liking. "I'm doing much better, thank you." she replied, a soft smirk on her features. She sat, and laid out the coffee in front of her guest before she sat herself. "It's... going to be weird, moving on from that whole experience. I trust that we can do so, professionally as well as socially." a sip of her tea, which she found to her liking after adding just a pinch of sugar.

"I appreciate you coming in to check on me. Waking up in the infirmary was awkward."

"Yes I can imagine," Madalene said adding a small pinch of sugar as well, "....and yes I do hope to do that as well, and maybe this'll be our start for repairing the social side of things," she added.

Another sip of tea. "Look, go on. Ask." the rabbitess stated. "The longer it lingers, the more awkward it's going to be." she put her tea down. "I lost it in a shuttle drop, deep behind enemy lines. Took a shot, shattered the canopy view, and sent shrapnel into my eye. Our actual flesh and blood medic was on the field, and I didn't have the option to wait until they came back. I activated a medic drone, and the drone fixed my eye." a pause, "With a prosthetic."

She didn't sound pleased about that. "It gave me back my sight, but... I hate it." her pride showed brightest.

"Oh, wow, that is impressive I must say," Madalene said but oddly more curious about the drone, "you had a med drone? Like a android like Kat?"

"Nothing like it." she started, then took a moment. "We asked the Dalacari not to research Synthetic Intelligence, and they agreed. Their drones aren't autonomous. They're bound by laws, controlled by program. They're tools, platforms, and nothing more." she shook her head. "Nothing like that thing in the Cargo Bay. It's dangerous."

"But, every drop had a med drone, just in case. If I had waited for the actual medic to come back, I probably would have bled out."

Madalene felt hurt but the words the rabbit spoke about Kat, "have you spent any time with Kat, if you haven't you should," she said but also realizing she didn't know how she grew up or even where she grew up, "may I ask why drones even if they are govern by laws, it seems you don't trust the concept of sentient programming, and well....," Madalene started but stopped unsure how to finished the statement.

"I have."

A deep breath, "Our closest allies are a race called the Dalacari. They depend on drones for a lot of their day to day lives, nevermind military applications. It's standard practice to have a drone, and those drones are bound by laws. They're in no way sentient, they respond when ordered, they do the task they're instructed to do. They're tools, and tools don't show ambition."

A sip of tea. A pause, "Long ago, my people deemed ourselves unfit to live on the paradise that is our homeworld, Ts'usu. If you believe the history, our first Emperor made the decree to stop the fighting of thirteen warlords who would have consumed our world in war. Then, according to the stories, the first Emperor said they would wait for us on the moons, and departed into space." she recounted. "We place a lot of faith in the notion that one day we'll be worth the jewel of our homeworld. Until then, it hangs in the sky above us, a silent companion."

"Our first trek into synthetic intelligence lead to the creation of the Intelligence Construct, a machine built in the image of the Ts'usugi mind. Vast and clever, it held such potential. We had it assist in almost all higher scientific pursuits. It... made requests. We, in our youth and foolishness, abided. Three years after it went online we found out that it had built a mining facility on our homeworld. *It* came to the conclusion that our culture meant nothing, when there were resources to be had. We informed it of the transgression, but it saw no harm in its actions. We demanded a halt to the operation, and the ... It declined. It said our heritage was holding us back. We disagreed. It turned the mining equipment against us."

"Eighty six hours later, the conflict was over. We dared not bombard the site from orbit, we couldn't risk damaging our homeworld more. Precision bombing runs, troop landings... in the end, the conflict left a scar on our world that, if you know where to look you can still see it. As for the building that housed the Construct itself, we demolished it. Burned everything to the ground, paved over it with three layers of concrete, and erected a memorial to everyone that died in the Three Day Conflict."

"That's why I don't like it." she looked up from her tea. "No child of Ts'usu would."

Maddy gulped, not expecting her whole history, "I I am so sorry, um I now understand your....your fear and hatred of artificial intelligence," {shit, was that the right thing to say,} Maddy thought as she continued to second guess everything she said, and this just wasn't with Veera this was with everyone.

Callisi, to her credit, just gave a nod, "I'm sorry if I rambled there for a moment, but you deserved the honest and complete story. Anything less, and you'd be left wondering. In this regard, I didn't want any confusion. If I came across a little heavy, I apologize." a pause, another sip of her tea. "But, it's just me doing all the talking, imagine what grandfather would say." she gave a soft smile, "Tell me a little about yourself? A little about the woman I'm going to call Chief."

"I am a child of the stars," Madalene said chuckled, "no I was born into the Boomer culture, group of Humans, who ran freighters for Earth Cargo, just after we became warp capable, but I guess we are considered the children of the stars," Maddy said with a smirk looking around the quarters, "it wasn't until the academy that I spent any real time down on a planet, which was weird and slightly painful physically as I was so used to artificial gravity," Maddy explained, "so I was glad when I was assigned here," she added.

Callisi's ears perked as Madalene spoke, "I think Child of the Stars has a more poetic ring to it, Though, as a Daughter of Ts'usu, I may be biased." she offered. "Your first experiences with a planet must have been weird, but probably something you were anxious about." Callisi's quarters were sparsely decorated. Either she didn't own much in the way of aesthetics, or she chose not to display them in public rooms. The occasional mirror, or maybe a photo of herself, a younger sibling, and her father. Some of the photos even included her mother, but Callisi looked much younger in those photos. There was even a photo of her in a uniform, crisp and new, but mother wasn't in that photo.

"Getting off of actual gravity and home to the familiar. Must have been such a relief, I'm glad to hear." she said with a soft smile, refilling her tea. "More coffee?" she offered while she was tending to her own drink.

Madalene slowly sipped her tea, "my mother did as well, as for me and my father we still prefer Boomers," Madalene said with a small chuckle, "it seems a little tougher," she added with a small grin, "but as for getting off planet again yes, it took me several months to learn how to fall asleep without hearing or feeling the warp core of a ship, and yes more coffee would lovely," Madalene said.

As any good hostess, Callisi tended to Madalene's coffee first. "Would you like to know a secret? Ts'usugi don't call it Warp Speed, we call it the Dark." a pause, "And that hum? That constant sound and the feel of the reactor and the engines that you can hear throughout the entire ship?" she paused, to illustrate the noise.

"Our ships don't have those. They're quiet, even at full speed. No noise, no hum, nothing. It took me four days to realize that the sound of a Federation ship wasn't going away." she admitted.

"Oh, interesting, I don't think I could handle that, I need that hum," Madalene said with a smirk, "but I like what you call warp speed, the Dark," Madalene repeated letting it hang, "yes, it is very poetic," she added.

"I don't know how much I can share, but it's more then just poetic. When your ships go to warp, there are streaks of light and color. Trailing starlight struggling to catch up, or blue shift radiation from stars still to be born."

She paused, "When our ships go to warp... dive into the Dark... it's just that. Black. Empty blackness. Forever." she shook her head, "We close all our viewports and hull windows when we dive. For us, there's nothing to see. Or rather, nothing that we'd want to risk seeing. The first few Dark Drive tests had a poor effect on the test crews."

Madalene couldn't listen to this rabbit describe space, going into warp, it was dark and bleak but in reality it was beautiful, "have you ever thought about writing poetry? You are a natural at it," Madalene said with a smile.

Callisi responded with a smirk, "That's years of school coming back to haunt me. 'Learn how to speak proper, Veera' or 'Hold yourself to a proper standard young lady'. How to talk, how to listen, how to sound proper. Make every word count. We get that early in life so that should we ever have a question to ask we don't fumble our words. Though, I do appreciate the compliment. Maybe I'll start up a new hobby once all this is well behind us all."

Madalene nodded, "I think that'll be good, I think getting this time to hopefully find some outhouse hobbies is gonna be a good thing," Madalene said with a small smile, and with a little hope that she can find something like that.

 

RSS Feed