Re: OT: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Egads! Could it be? Holy crap, it is!
Inspector Chief Jerderick Vulchuk did not particularly care for his job. Partly because his title was so regularly mixed up with that of a Chief Inspector, a title a good many pay grades above his, and thus most of his off-time was spent explaining his five-or-possibly-ten year plan to make it into the Inspectorate to increasingly disappointed-looking women. Then of course there was the job itself, which entailed tromping around damp, dank, and all-around unpleasant ships filled with damp, dank and all-around unpleasant crew, trying to ensure that everything was up to code. Exciting things like contraband or illegal weapons got nothing more than a note jotted into his notepad so the Customs boys could come swooping in to steal all the glory after he’d left. Vulchuk himself wasn’t authorized to do anything more than cite the ship for leaky drive coils or dirty air filters, and the crews knew it and so treated him with all the thinly veiled contempt that his mighty authority warranted. In fact, he often got the distinct feeling that if it wasn’t for Corporal Jenkins, the Bluestar Marine that accompanied him on all his inspections, he would wind up stuffed in a locker and left there until he’d signed off. Much like most of his as a hall monitor in middle school, he reflected ruefully.
The ship he found himself on now was different, however, and he was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that he might actually be about to have a good day. For starters, the ship was clean, well lit, and maintained at a comfortable temperature. There was no hint of burnt ozone in the crisp air, which meant the ships filtration systems had been running at least several months, and yet to look at it, one would think it was fresh off the production line. It definitely wasn’t a company ship, and the fact that he was on it meant it wasn’t military, so that left private ownership. It was rather large, gigantic, frankly, to be a pleasure yacht, and while the nature of the ships business was part of his questionnaire, ‘Private’ was still a perfectly acceptable answer. The crew had been decidedly friendly as well, what little he’d seen of them. The captain, while engrossed in a star-chart, had nonetheless glanced away long enough to give Vulchuk a respectful nod, and the well-armed gentleman who’d introduced him to his tour guide had smiled broadly and given Jenkins a friendly slap on the shoulder when they’d passed in the corridor.
And then there was his guide, the chief engineer. If Vulchuk had learned one thing from his many years of inspecting spacecraft, it was that chief engineers were uniformly ugly, large, greasy, foul-tempered men. What had greeted him with a friendly hello had thus been a bit of a shock. She was beautiful, for starters; her silky chestnut brown hair framed her delicately elven features, her eyes were a dark brown – almost black – and yet sparkled in the light. Her full, glistening lips were almost constantly parted in a smile, and her form-fitting engineer’s scrubs revealed a figure that balanced exquisitely on the line between curvaceousness and toned athleticism. Back home, a woman like that wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence, yet this was so disarmingly friendly that he often found himself having to ask to return to somewhere they’d just been, since he’d been too distracted to make a note of something. And so it was with a small degree of panic that he realized he’d almost reached the end of his checklist, and that his time aboard this magnificent ship with the enchanting chief engineer was coming to an end. He hurriedly flipped to his notebook’s menu, hoping to find some form or another that might extend his stay. He happened upon a survey, which being optional meant he’d never even suggested it to the crew of any other ship.
“Erm, one last thing,” he said nervously. “There’s a survey, optional, of course, but it helps us maintain detailed records of unimportant trivia, so if it’s not too much trouble?”
“Of course,” the engineer replied happily. “If you ask about stuff that’s classified, can I just say it’s classified?”
“Err, yes…” Vulchuk said uncertainly. “You could just say it’s private, though.”
“But it’s not the same,” she argued. “Private is like that little rash that we’re not talking about under any circumstances, unless you’re a doctor, which I doubt, and even still it would be awkward what with all the guns and all, and classified is like sentient cantaloupe.”
“Sentient… Cantaloupe?” he stammered, his mind suddenly reeling.
“Classified!” she replied, waving a finger at him.
“Um, of course, shall we begin?”
“Yes.”
“Right then,” he cleared his throat and tried to clear his head. “Drive manufacturer?”
“Classified.”
“Maximum sub-light speed?”
“Classified.”
“Maximum and standard acceleration rates?”
“Classified.”
“Null-space transition rate?”
“Classified.”
“Upper null-space band limitation?”
“Classified.”
“Standard cargo capacity?”
“Eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty cubic meters.”
“Ok, great… Optimal operating distance?”
“Classified.”
The questions continued for some time, and without fail, the answer to each was classified. The engineer took it all in stride, coming up with increasingly creative ways to inform him of her answer, at one point resorting to glow sticks and cantaloupe.
“Almost done,” he assured her eventually. “Standard armaments?”
“Classified.”
Vulchuk’s notepad beeped angrily at him. “Ah, apologies,” he said. “I’ve run through into the next form, and I’m afraid disclosure as to the offensive capabilities of your vessel is mandatory.”
“Oh,” the engineer’s smile disappeared suddenly and she paused slightly. “Well alright. She’s got eighteen launch tubes; six forward, four port and starboard, and four aft. She has a ninety-six point SigmaTek PDC array, twenty-four Brons Industries light LR47s, twenty-one Brons medium RF632s, six Krytidyne Systems heavy BX595s, and a Primarch Tech ventral-mounted DGZ322 ground suppression system.”
Vulchuk looked up from his notepad with a look approaching awe. “How?” he asked. “Why?”
“Can that be classified?” she inquired innocently.
“You’re going to have to give me something,” he replied regretfully.
“Well, I did it with some serious size-modding, and linked it through the engine cooling system which you already agreed could be classified, and neatly tucked everything away inside all sorts of expand and unfold bits. And I did it for the same reason that anyone ever does anything like this.”
Vulchuk raised an eyebrow. “And that would be?”
“Because I can,” she replied sweetly.
“Of course,” he said with a genuine smile. “Well nothing here is illegal. You have an awful lot of not-illegal stuff, but you’re licensed to travel through Zedron Holdings’ space, so the more firepower you’ve got the better, really. Now as for your on-board arsenal?”
“Well the ship is equipped with a number of ceiling, wall, and floor mounted turrets for repelling boarding actions, and we have enough power armor and weapons to equip two platoons to the maximum degree permitted by our H9-423 license, which I provided you earlier,” the chief engineer replied, sounding suddenly very official. But, as he’d told so many pretty ladies before, he wasn’t a detective, and didn’t care to investigate further.
“Ok, and lastly, this one’s a bit silly, I have a hard time asking it with a straight face,” he said, already beginning to chuckle. “Do you have any weapons of mass destruction aboard the vessel?”
“Yes,” she replied simply, killing the chuckle in Vulchuk’s throat, and causing the normally impassive Jenkins to stir nervously.
“I’m sorry, come again?” he asked, his mind insisting he’d somehow heard wrong, unwilling to accept the idea that someone would own up to the possession of the only restricted weapons in all of Corporate space.
“Weapon of mass destruction,” she said slowly. “WMD. Willful Mitigation of Dysfunction. That is what we have.”
Vulchuk cleared his throat nervously. “And might I inquire to the exact nature of these weapons?” It wasn’t really his place to ask, according to procedure he should be racing back to his ship to alert the nearest military vessel, but instead he stood transfixed, unable to believe what the petite brunette in front of him was saying.
“Weapon,” she said. “Weap-ON. Singular. Meaning only one. Or none. Is zero singular or plural? Relevance is irreverent. We have one. Used to have two. But now, there’s just me.”
“I’m sorry,” Vulchuk said slowly. “Did you just say that you are the weapon of mass destruction?”
“Yes,” she replied simply. “Make a note of that.”
“I’m sorry,” Vulchuk said, his tone becoming officious as he realized that as friendly and beautiful as she might be, the chief engineer was utterly insane. “People cannot be weapons of mass destruction. That’s just absurd. You can’t…” He trailed off, realizing he’d spent his best ammunition with ‘absurd’.
The chief engineer pointed to a handgun sitting on the table a few meters away, unloaded and with the safety on. “What would happen if I grabbed that gun and pointed it right in the middle of your manly forehead?”
Vulchuk scoffed officiously. “You’d never make it, my dear,” he told her. “Corporal Jenkins would have you on the ground and restrained before you made it more than halfway to that table.”
“Really?” she asked skeptically, fixing her inky eyes upon his.
“Yes,” he replied, still officious, but starting to feel terribly nervous.
“Really?” she repeated.
This time Vulchuk said nothing, just met her gaze with what he hoped was a steely stare of his own, and tried not to blink. But Vulchuk was no veteran investigator, no nerves-of-steel detective, and after a few seconds, he blinked. When his eyes flickered back open, the chief engineer had the handgun, loaded and with the safety off, pointed right at the center of his forehead, and Jenkins was toppling to the floor with a pained sigh. She grabbed him by his collar and shoved him against the bulkhead, which he was fairly sure was impossible since he had to weigh at least twice as much as her, but it was just as impossible to argue with his feet as they dangled in the air.
She leaned in close, her eyes blazing and spoke slowly and precisely. “I am a weapon,” she grated, pressing the gun firmly against his temple. “And I am fracking terrifying. Make a note of that.”
As Vulchuk was stammering for an appropriate response, the ship’s captain entered and upon seeing the two of them, sighed resignedly. “Ah ****e,” he said, noticing Jenkins. “There’s a dead man on the floor. And you were doing so well.”
“Not dead,” she replied, not taking her eyes off Vulchuk. “Be fine in an hour.”
“Uh-huh,” the captain replied. “And so this whole mess is because - ” he paused, then raised an inquiring finger. “You didn’t tell her she doesn’t qualify as a weapon, did you?”
Vulchuk gurgled.
“Oh, I should have warned you,” the captain said in the same tone as one might apologize for a guest being bitten by one’s hyperactive terrier. “She’s very sensitive about that. Just make a little note in your log, and then we can all go about our business without anyone having to clean brains off the bulkheads.”
Vulchuk gurgled, then tried nodding a frantic assent. The engineer dropped him, but remained close enough that she could peer over at what he was writing in his notebook.
“Ok…” he said, trying to get his officiousness working again, or at the very least, some semblance of dignity. “Weapon of Mass Destruction: Count: 1. Type: Ahh, I suppose your name would do?”
“That would do nicely, Jerderick,” she replied, her friendly bubbliness suddenly back in place.
“Ok, um, I never got your full name,” he pointed out nervously.
The engineer slid her gun firmly into its leg-holster and drew herself up proudly. “I, Inspector Vulchuk, am Alice Fiona Komatsu.”
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Suction feet are not to be trifled with!
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