PmWiki | XcomAcademy / Interlude3

The Firestorms look enough like scout UFOs that for this exercise they've been fit with silk ribbons hanging from the back and twirling along with the maneuvers. While this detracts from the futuristic look, making the exercise look like a kite fighting bout, it also makes sure that the base's AA battery, installed in haste after the attack, doesn't register a false positive. The Firestorms aren't as fast as UFOs entering from orbit, but maneuver like dragonflies. Even people who are getting used to shooting lasers at enemies who carry plasma guns can enjoy a light show, especially if it promises safer interception.

Plus, it looks cool. This, and indulging in we-are-totally-not-serious-but-maybe hypothesis about taking over Alaska with an army of SHIVs, helped Kay greatly after the rightful chewing out by Bradford about being a bad example to the trainees. Maybe things would work out well. Maybe Kay should also start planning for an "after", since the war situation is finally starting to look up. That's when a gentle poke from Kite signaled the need of a quick talk while most everyone else was distracted by what, despite design efforts, still looked a lot like an Independence Day prop while on the ground. [2/4/2015 1:06:46 AM] Kite Winters: (is that a yes to RPing the convo?) [2/4/2015 1:07:00 AM] M K B: (if thatsokay!) [2/4/2015 1:08:04 AM] M K B: http://boards.4chan.org/tg/thread/37817426 >_> [2/4/2015 1:08:34 AM] Kite Winters: (that's why i offered! snugs ) [2/4/2015 1:10:26 AM] Kite Winters: "You wouldn't believe the way sounds can carry through the base sometimes. Must be some kind of resonant echo phenomenon in the air ducts, wouldn't you agree?" Kite tries not to smirk, and much as she understand and even agrees with the bit of manners that says look at someone while talking to them, keeping her eyes on the show with the Firestorms makes things less likely to be noticed. And she'd been making SUCH progress on being less of a paranoid nut before the aliens invaded. [2/4/2015 1:14:44 AM] M K B: "Probably because there are at least three separate bugging systems in them, two of which are messing with each other. It was all made in Japan in the seventies, so we don't know who they belong to. There's a betting pool on the engineering whiteboard if you care... did anyone complain about the double rooms being noisy again, or is it serious?" This place is officially the world's worst kept secret, at this point. Unfortunately, the only place we can move to is the alien installation we cleared last month, and nobody wants to live on top of a giant tentacle monster. [2/4/2015 1:20:42 AM] Kite Winters: "Oh, there've been a few complaints, especially since I started hosting the 'special resistance' classes in that tiny room that butts up against the shared wall with the foundry where there's so much heavy machinery. But yeah, this is something a bit more serious. Something I figured it best I tell you about in case the others in the know stick to having decided not to." [2/4/2015 1:26:45 AM] M K B: Looks like everyone has their secret agenda these days... I'll admit to have been scooped by Dr. Shen on mine, of course. Hat off when warranted. "Thanks. You know, I used to think I was the last person to know what went on, then it turns out everyone else feels that way. The Council, too, I bet. What's going on and does it have to do with people playing with Meld?" [2/4/2015 1:29:25 AM] Kite Winters: "Only the aliens. My old not-quite friend and the stuffed sweater-vest found out that part of how the aliens upgraded the danglies was replacing whatever meatbag race they were originally based on with vat clones from human samples. Want to keep it hidden for fear people will freak. Some would. Some wouldn't. Though as promised, I'm not delibereately teaching anyone else to be a monster." [2/4/2015 1:32:02 AM] M K B: "The new danglies are human? This can't be all they want from us. Are you sure? I was told that the danglies had been taken apart, we're going to start playing with the boosters tomorrow and the squishy bits, apparently there was a way to get some Meld out of them so they pretty much got composted, I didn't get to see any of... Are you sure?" [2/4/2015 1:34:31 AM] Kite Winters: "I'm sure that the meat parts of the new danglies came from cloned humans. Whether that means they -are- human or not is a question for psychiatrists and priests. Perhaps we were able to get Meld out of them because we had a better idea what the physiology looked like before it was put in." [2/4/2015 1:37:50 AM] M K B: I flump sitting down on a chair that isn't there, which results in my behind hitting the grass. I look up. "I killed two of those. Fuck, I beat one to death with the scatter laser's frame." Normally I'd be preparing a defense to the "you're supposed to use your firearm for shooting, not bludgeoning" argument, but not now. "I killed two PEOPLE?" [2/4/2015 1:41:04 AM] M K B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCiRR3X7rjM [2/4/2015 1:43:59 AM] M K B: (my guy has really shitty will, which is negated by neural damping, and really shitty aim, which is negated by walking up to aliens and applying laser shotgun to face) [2/4/2015 1:45:14 AM] Kite Winters: Kite is probably not the best one to try to help with this, but she's the one who's here. "You killed two enemy combatants who otherwise would have killed you, and each and every other person there under your command. You did what was necessary to protect the people you are responsible for protecting, those who follow you, and those who would otherwise be helpless. We don't know how much of a human mind is in them. We could find out. But until we stop the fuckers who are creating them, and sending them against us to kill and die, we have to make those kinds of choices. It hits you hard when you make a call and someone gets a superficial plasma burn, how much worse if you hesitated out of empathy for the enemy and someone didn't come home?"

Kite steps back, and squeezes Kay's shoulder briefly. "When this is all over, I'll help however you want with mourning those we couldn't save. But for now, we have to save as many as we can." [2/4/2015 1:52:58 AM] M K B: I get up. "... Can you get this out of my head? I'm serious. You did the right thing in telling me, but... Fuck, the last person who tried to kill me, I hugged until calmdown. I already do enough stupid things as it is. You know me. I'll do something stupid like hesitate, or try to talk to a dangly, I'll get myself or one of our crew killed. I know it's cowardly, but... if it's possible, get it out of my head." I realize that it's wrong of me to ask, but what use am I in a fight if I can't fight? Can Kite or Kip even do something like this? Am I prepared to deal with the consequences if they can? Can I live with myself if they can't? Still, Kite did the right thing. I'm still wearing the captain's hat, and that means being responsible. Even if she can make me forget this conversation, it's still wrong. [2/4/2015 1:54:08 AM] M K B: (I have to miss the overseer UFO assault anyway, coz wounded) [2/4/2015 2:00:53 AM] Kite Winters: "It's possible that I could. I don't know. I haven't tried, even when I've been doing the 'resist being invaded' and 'resist mind control' classes, I haven't done anything to fuck with anyone's memories. If you order me to, I will try." Kite clenches both fists, suppressing a shudder. If anyone else asked her something like that, it would be a 'go directly to concussion, do not pass go, to not collect 200mg of ibuprofen.' But Kay knows exactly what she's asking, what it would mean to do that. "And you're right, I do know you. Instead, let me ask you for a chance to resolve it another way. Give me a chance to try to get into one of -their- heads in the field. You know how I think. I divide the world into friend and enemy and have no empathy for what is on the wrong side of that line. Let me find out how they think, what they think, and bring that to show you, and only then, decide whether or not you think they are human, and if you want me to.... fix it the other way." [2/4/2015 2:07:19 AM] M K B: Exhibit eleventeen that I am a bad leader: I asked exactly the wrong person for this. "Okay. We can do that. And... I'm going to keep bringing an arc thrower, I think. I don't know exactly what you can and cannot do, and it was wrong of me to ask you this. I guess we have to catch one, either way. Just... if it's an actual person, I don't think we can... fix that." Mary's going to make a full recovery, and since she has the mission count and the Canadian government wants her back in fighting shape, we're going to graduate her as soon as she gets out of sick bay. "This is the second time the Canadians all but demanded that we make them a cyborg soldier. That's what's coming, isn't it? Superhumans and robocops and... I guess everyone else is obsolete. I knew it'd haoppen to me eventually, but not in my thirties!" I keep looking up. [2/4/2015 2:15:08 AM] M K B: (Sorry if hit a nerve miw, realized while writing) [2/4/2015 2:17:21 AM] M K B: (miw pls be ok) [2/4/2015 2:18:12 AM] Kite Winters: "It hasn't happened yet. If nothing else, the world needs, and is going to keep needing, people like you to keep people like me from forgetting that we were born human the same as everyone else. And I don't believe that's the only reason, either. I don't know exactly what I can and cannot do either. But whether fucking with memories is something I -can- do or not, I... hope that I do not have to. We'll catch one, and answer the question. We can clone organs, and that's not enough to make a whole person yet. We don't know if the aliens have, or if they're just cloning organs, too, and one of them happens to be the skin." [2/4/2015 2:18:31 AM] Kite Winters: (did hit a nerve, but i am okay, and don't worry about it too much. sometimes emotional conversations should touch nerves) [2/4/2015 2:24:59 AM] M K B: "Arright. No unnecessary risks, though. Target of opportunity. I just... I'm not medically cleared for another four days, I'm going to give myself until then to sort out what's left of my head. And you're probably going to have to cover me if I try and wrestle one down, which I will because I'm stupid like that." That's actually something that scares me. I've made my living by being smart. After all this... am I still going to be any good at it? The stuff we got from the aliens is going to force every electrical engineer on earth to go back to school. Maybe if we beat the alien bosses, that's what we'll have them do. Put them in chains and have them teach us. Worked for the space program seventy years ago... [2/4/2015 2:26:58 AM] Kite Winters: "Get Shen to come up with a version of the Arc Thrower that works at my sort of range of engagement, and I'll help. Maybe I can mess with their heads enough to help anyway. I'm calculating, not heartless. And in this anthill you're the one doing the most to keep me on the right side of that line." [2/4/2015 2:36:42 AM] M K B: I stand up. "Thank you." The physics of tasers don't really work that way, but I'm talking to someone who I have seen move stuff with her head. Granted, other than the kitchen incident it was very light stuff, yet... who knows? Every day this mess goes on, I feel more ignorant. "Thank you for being honest with me. What I'm really scared of is... well... I pushed the button just fine. I thought there'd be something.... mystical against killing someone. A line to cross. Now what worries me is that at the time it was just another scary thing to beat up. I get that this is basically religious scruples, but... hey, what you've done recently? you could start your own religion and get away with it." Heh. I'm breaking rule zero of command again - whining should always only go upstream. But that means that whoever's wearing the big hat, has to bottle it all up. [2/4/2015 3:20:16 AM] Kite Winters: "Remember, I follow your orders because I trust you, not because of a chain of command. I'm here to make sure as many of the people I care about as possible can go home when this is over, and they have homes to go to. When the shit hits the fan, when it's truly kill or die, or worse, kill or watch someone else die, it's easy for me to choose kill. That's what I'm here for. It's hard for a war machine to have a conscience, to prosecute something like this while staying human ourselves. That's what you're here for." (sorry! ended up vaguing out hard and thought i'd sent this awhile ago but ended up Ctrl-Enter not enter! i sorry!) [2/4/2015 3:21:16 AM] M K B: (noworries! thankies for rp! i recommend sleepies!) [2/4/2015 3:22:10 AM] M K B: "I thought I was here to get shot at and get yelled at for getting shot at..." I smile. "Thank you. And... sorry I asked. It's not a good solution, even if you can do it." [2/4/2015 3:23:23 AM] Kite Winters: "It's okay. I know why you asked. And if after what we find, you still want me to, I will try. I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it, anyway."