rudiger_eisen

Week Five, Friday Morning
Location: Exterior to the Lair
Character: Rüdiger
Reply: Transitional (if anyone wants to jump in, you're welcome to).

<lj-cut text=More times than he'd care to admit over the past few days, Rüdiger wondered if this all hadn't been a mistake.> It was only when he had a rare quiet moment that his enervated brain could piece together thoughts coherently enough to realize that anywhere else he could've been at that point would've been just as bad.  When the aid crews had been shuttled out on Tuesday, Rüdiger had already felt the most fatigued he'd ever been in his life.  The extra 1/5 gravity hadn't seemed like much at first, but three days of carrying around an extra thirty kilograms, on top of everything else left him feeling like he was hanging from the razor edge of dead.

And that wasn't even touching on what 'everything else' included.  He didn't think he would've been able to keep himself from passing out on his feet if he hadn't been able to get away from all the noise in his head.  Shortly after the transport had touched down in Jotunheim, he'd learned what real pain meant.  Maybe there weren't as many 'awakened' minds as back at base, but the increased concentration of people made for a much more intrusive, aggravating level of noise inside his head.  There were times that he wasn't sure he'd be able to deal with it, his stamina too worn to maintain any semblance of the protective sheath around his mind.

There was a worse aspect to it, one that he feared would hit him much more often once the shock and fatigue wore off: it was almost impossible to lie anymore.  Never before had he realized how much he relied on falsehood from day to day.  He tried never to show that he was upset, never angry, never sad.  Those were private things, his things, not to be shared or burdened upon others.  'How are you?' I'm fine. 'Are you okay?' I'm fine.  Fine.  Good.  Okay.  No problem.  Even if other people weren't able to hear what was in his mind on their own, he wasn't always able to keep his thoughts to himself, his true feelings leaking out.  He'd lost his shield, the ability to be able to hide behind a smile and a casual word.

That was why he jumped at the chance when they were sending out individual flyers to get personal confirmations with the out-lying facilities and smaller settlements.  A chance to finally get away from the noise and the people and the constant vigilance of his own thoughts.  It was peaceful at low altitudes, no minds making nice beside his own, and the limited populations at his destinations were easier to screen out.  It was a much less draining environment in which to practice maintaining the integrity of his mental walls, even if several of the check-ins ended up running longer as he was requisitioned to provide aide.  He spent most of Thursday at a desalinization plant on the coast, helping repair damage to the pumping systems, and scrubbing out the resultant mildew from the broken pipes.

He'd gotten the recall order from the Lair Thursday afternoon.  The rest of Yggdrasil had gotten itself sufficiently back together, and both the base and the mobile suits still needed a lot of work to return them to full functionality.   It was early in the morning on Friday when the flyer made its approach to Lair, coming to a stop outside the hangar.  He let go of the stick and popped the canopy, climbing out onto the wing.  He hadn't had to try and summon his mental wall for a while, and he stood there staring at the base long enough for the crewman who'd shown up with the tug to taxi the flyer in had started making impatient gestures at him.  He took a deep breath, and tried to summon up the energy he needed to raise the image of the granite boulder.

Although he didn't know it, that was the moment that Michael awoke.  All that Rüdiger knew was that it felt like he'd just caught a shuttle right between the eyes, a voice he didn't recognize ringing inside his head so loud it felt like his skull was about to come apart.  He reeled, and when the second voice, equally unfamiliar, but not quite as loud, struck him, consciousness simply winked out, and he slumped forward, his limp body sliding down the smooth surface of the wing and dropping to the ground.

(Sorry for the long silence, but I've been dealing with an insane amount of job drama lately, coupled with I've just jaunted back to the states due to family matters.  I have no particular plans for what Rüdiger does after this.  If this inspires anyone to make a post, go right ahead, otherwise he'll eventually wake back up, and rejoin the rest of the story.)

Rüdiger set down his kit bag, and saluted the uniformed pair approaching him. They tossed off a quick salute in return, the taller of the two walking past him to sign off the cargo manifest held by a bored looking clerk, the shorter, a woman, stopping in front of him. “You’d be Ensign Eisen, then?” she said, giving him a quick look over. “I’m Ai Oushin, but you can call me ma’am. Stow your gear in the back of the transport cab, and then give us a second to get it loaded up.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, nodding as she went on to join her partner in getting their paper trail sorted out, a heavily burdened tractor already heading towards the trailer ramp. He had to slouch as he settled onto the cab’s rear bench seat to keep his head from brushing the ceiling. He’s spent four days in quarantine after arriving on Yggdrasil, although for what he wasn’t told. That’d cost him the ride he was supposed to have taken out to the base, and so he’d had to spend another two days on layover in Jotunheim, waiting for a supply transport to make its run out.

“You’ll have to wait until you get to base for the full briefing, but I’ve been permitted to give you the rundown about what you’re doing here. You did military duty before this, right?”

Rüdiger nodded. “I started in the JPPF,” he said, and Ai smirked a little at that, “Mobile suit mostly, although I did a few dirt side details as well. Then transferred over to the Preventers and did MS duty exclusively for a couple of years.”

“Well,” Ai began, “duty in the Lions is a lot like the Preventers, save that we’re given what we like to call a bit more ‘operational latitude.’ While we fill much the same role, the Lion’s main purpose is to act in situations where the Preventers themselves should not, or can not get involved.”

Rüdiger waited for Ai to go on. “That explains why everything I’ve been given so far has such a hush-hush aspect to it,” he finally said when she showed no inclination to do so.

Swoffter, the other half of the pair, and currently driving, carried on from there. “While not an open secret, it’d be difficult to keep an operation this big and well supported concealed from the planetary brass, but off Yggdrasil you’ve only got a handful of important people in high places who know anything about us or what we do. We’re not some stone cold black bag outfit like you see on the vid though. You got any delusions that we are, Commander Maxwell will see you cleared of them right quick.”

Rüdiger grinned. “Much as I like ‘Tarnished Chrome’ I-.” He blinked. “Maxwell? Duo Maxwell?”

Ai kicked back in her seat, smiling broadly. “I love that expression. It’s almost as sweet of a sight as the Commander himself,” she purred.

Swoffter chuckled, catching Rüdiger’s confused look in the mirror. “You’ve seen pictures of the Commander from the war years, right? It’s the hair. There’s just something about it that wreaks particular havoc on dual X chromosomes. You ever want to disable half the personnel on base, just say, ‘Duo unbound.’”

Ai gave the obligatory sigh, and fluttered her eyelashes, then wound up and socked Swoffter in the shoulder. “It’s not the hair. It’s the ass, you ass.” She crossed her legs as she put her feet up on the dash, talking to Rüdiger over her shoulder. “You’ll find that there are very high standards of fitness in the Black Lions, mostly from the amount of time everyone spends in the gym, hoping to catch sight of the commander on the treadmill,” She raised an eyebrow at the expression on Rüdiger’s face. “If you’re... into that kind of thing.”

“Does...” he started, then swallowed, having trouble getting the words out around his obvious excitement.. “Does that mean, the base has gundams?”

Ai gave him a knowing smirk. Swoffter rolled his eyes.

The transport was cutting through grasslands on a bare imitation of a road. He could see a herd of plains yeddim milling around near the horizon, the massive herbivores placidly stripping the prairie grass down to the roots, leaving a path of denuded dirt behind them. He strained his eyes, looking for some sign that the herd had caught the attention of a fringe stalker, the yeddim’s equally massive primary predator. If one was out there, it was lying low in the grass that the yeddim hadn’t torn though yet. A little bit farther on, and the herd was out of sight, the prairie starting to give way to scrub, and the beginning of forest.

It was a long ride, and when silence finally fell, Rüdiger was happy to let it stretch on. Neither of them asked him the obvious question, and he was grateful for that. 'What happened to you during the Change?' He certainly wasn’t fond of the term, but it was easier to say than species-wide-anomalous-manifestation-event, which how the various talking heads were referring to it, hoping to drown their fear in banality.

He had, perhaps, been luckier than most. Change had taken them just after the ship had gone supraliminal. He’d been in his cabin, half-asleep, when he suddenly realized that he could feel things going on around him. Fear was suffusing the ship, and uncertainty. It was like being submerged in deep, still water, feeling currents of cold slime flowing past you. He tried to push the intruding thoughts and emotions away, but it was like trying to hold back the tide with your bare hands. They simply poured over and around him.

The captain called him to the bridge, and the tension in the woman’s voice would have been palpable even if he hadn’t been able to feel it behind his eyes. The ship’s command staff had made it through the Change mostly unaffected, but the crew had not fared nearly so well. They were an the verge of mutiny, and when the Change hit, the ship’s master of arms had, for lack of a better term, exploded, rupturing the ship’s hull, leaving access to the arms locker on the wrong side of a hard vacuum. Although the meant the crew was likewise unable to arm themselves, there were more of them.

As a Preventer, Rüdiger was the closest thing to a military authority on the ship, and the captain asked him to try and talk the crew down, or is he had to, use force to keep them off the bridge. She either didn’t think to ask, or didn’t want to know if he had been affected himself.

He could feel the fear, anger, and unrest radiating up from the galley where the crew had gathered, so he didn’t bother trying to confront them there. He had a shortwave disrupter in his gear and he armed himself with that, stationing himself in front of the access corridor to the bridge and waited for the crew to come to him. The Disrupter was powered up, but he had no intention of using it. It was designed to repulse large, potentially angry animals. Even dialed down to the lowest intensity hitting something man-sized at that range would make their muscles seize up so hard they’d tear right off of the bone. He hoped the crew didn’t call his bluff, because it wouldn’t make a very good club either.

He felt the crew coming long before he could hear them. The intensity of the emotion they were radiating was surprising, intimidating. He tried to shut out the disjointed voices and surging emotions, failing, but able to consign them to the back of his mind, a potential distraction, but nothing more.

The crew drew up short when they caught sight of him. He was in his uniform, standing at the ready, an intimidatingly nonstandard firearm cradled in his arms. They milled, purpose momentarily lost, until a fresh wave of malcontent washed over them, and they started forward again.

To his surprise, Rüdiger found that his receptiveness actually shielded him from the sensation, letting him discern that it originated exterior to himself. One of the crew had to be the source, whether they realized it or not, broadcasting their disaffection, infecting the rest of the crew with it. It wasn’t well directed though. Now that they’d come up against an obstacle, they had no ringleader, no focus of leadership to step forward to engage it.

Rüdiger decided to take the initiative while there was still a modicum of control. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but whatever it is, I highly suggest you reconsider it.” He exaggerated his body language. He kept the disrupter across his chest, but his arms were loose, showing it’d only take a thought to point it at them.

The first rank backed up a step, and he could feel the crews’ own thoughts start to break through the emotion. A trickle of ice ran down his spine as he realized he could actually hear some of them.

[Why am I doing this? The Bitch is a bitch, but this- too far. This- Mutiny? What about my, my- I was pissed she canceled my leave, but not-.]

A fresh wave of outrage rolled across them, but this time it was tinged with additional anger, uncertainty, and gnawing fear. Whoever the source was, he realized that he was losing his hold on the crew, and a singular voice broke through the tumult in Rüdiger’s head. [No! Damn it! Listen to me! You miserable little shits! This is my time! MINE!] Even inside his own head, Rüdiger could hear the petulance of the voice, and he suddenly realized who the source must be.

Someone petty, someone small, who was suddenly broadcasting all the anger and hurt they had stuffed up in their head. Someone who suddenly found that for once, everyone was agreeing with them, they were no longer over looked, ignored, and disregarded, and now that the moment of significance was passing, they couldn’t stand it. He felt another spike in emotions wash through the corridor. The crew was growing even more aggravated. Most of them might not be aware of the external source of their feelings, but a few were growing frightened, panicky. If things weren’t defused quickly, there’d be a panic and who knew where it would end.

He hadn’t thought about the possibility of broadcasting emotions before, but ‘seeing’ it happen and being on the receiving end gave him a good idea of how to try. He shifted his hands, covering up the activation LCD on the disrupter as he unobtrusively powered it down. Just in case everything went wrong.

He focused his mind on authority, reassurance, and tried to infuse those feelings into his words. “Something strange is going on, something unexplained, but it’s not something that’s going to be made any better by a mutiny.” He saw several people wince at the word. Good. “We’re going to be in nullspace for three more days. What is overthrowing the command crew going to achieve, besides ensuring that it’s not the Jump Officer’s hand on the controls when we phase back to real space?”

The emotional surges were becoming more frenetic, but that made it easier for him to get a grip on them, follow them back to their source. He couldn’t see who it was, they were at the back of the press of bodies, but Rüdiger could feel his mind at the other end. Instead of sending out his emotions to everybody, he focused them on that one point. Authority. Indifference. Contempt. Disregard.

He felt the other mind recoil, and then boil over in rage. Whoever it was, Rüdiger was sure that he was the omega of the ships pecking order, an omega for every day of his life. He had to choke down attitudes laced with those feelings every waking momeny, and to feel them directed at him so directly, so intimately, was more than he could stand.

There was a disturbance at the back of the crowd as a man pushed his way through, a thick length of pipe in one hand. His eyes were red-rimmed and haggard, and he panted from heavy exertion. “No!” he shouted, waving the pipe and turning unsteadily to face the rest of the crew. “We’re not going to let the Bitch push us around any more! Is one tin soldier going to stop us? This is our time now! Our ship!” His voice went higher, starting to crack as he saw how little effect his words were having, the eyes beginning to turn against him. Rüdiger narrowed his mind to one thought, and pushed it into the other man’s mind. Contempt. It felt like sinking his hands into tepid, silty water.

The man turned to stare at Rüdiger, shaking with rage. Contempt was what he was forced to swallow three meals a day, from the captain, from his supervisor, from the mess cook, and to feel it so clearly from this tin plated tool of authority was more than he could stand. He charged Rudiger with an inarticulate scream, swinging the pipe overhead.

Rüdiger dropped the disrupter and caught the pipe in one hand, pulled it away with a sharp tug, then reapplied it, gently, to the side of the man’s head, dropping him half-conscious to the deck. The emotional turmoil instantly vanished from the air. Rüdiger took a step back, and tried not to sag against the bulkhead. He felt drained.

He saw several of the crew blink, disorientated now that the stifling blanket of driving emotion had been stripped back. “Everyone getting over the whole mob mentality thing?” he asked. He wasn’t sure how many would believe the lie, but it was something rational for them to latch onto, especially if they still retained the impression that he was Authority.

People were started to pull away, the crowd starting to break up. He reached over to a console on the wall and thumbed on a channel to the bridge. “Captain, the situation out here is under control. I’ve got one man who should probably be taken to the doctor, or the brig, whichever you prefer.”

He picked up the disrupter and double checked the safeties, making sure that the power stub was locked on ‘off.’ “And if I were you, I’d seriously reconsider the frequency with which you cancel crew leave.”

“Shit.”Swoffter swore suddenly.

Rüdiger jerked upright. He hadn’t even realized he’d dozed off. “What is it?”

“We’re being tailed by a fafnir,” he explained, gripping the wheel a little tighter.

“Really?” Rüdiger asked, pressing his face up against the window. “We’ve picked up a dragon?” He’d read about Yggdrasil’s most dangerous mega-fauna, but the pictures had done no justice to the actual animal. It was more of a mantid/pteradon cross than the European/Nordic imagery usually used to describe it, but that made its appearance no less formidable. More so in fact, because there was a certain sort of comfort in the familiar mythic imagery of scales, horns, and fangs, that the real thing lacked, especially as it’s sensory spines and talons unfurled and swiveled in ways not even remotely terrestrial. “Can it hurt us?”

“Not if we stay in the transport,” Swoffter said, “but it can be a hassle if it decides we’re intruding in its territory. We’ve had really determined ones tip transports over before. Once, one even managed to break out the windows, and the crew had to hide inside the hold until the lair could send assistance. By that time, there were six of them fighting over the transport. They had to call in a couple of mobile suits to shoot them off.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ai said with grunt, unlatching the clips securing a heavy rifle to the wall of the transport.

“Is that big enough to take it down?” Rüdiger asked.

“Not a chance,” Ai said, unlocking the safety, and slapping in a clip, “but it’ll hurt it enough to scare it off.” She reached up and spun the lock on the roof hatch, the bolts retracting with a distinctive rattle. Rüdiger turned his eyes back to the window. As soon as the hatch bolts shot back, the fafnir’s aural spines twitched, and it banked off and dropped low. This must not have been its first encounter with an armed transport crew.

“The hell, where’d it go?” Ai demanded as she heaved herself up through the hatch. She hadn't seen it change course. Rüdiger started to make a quip about her scaring it off already, when he saw it dip one wing low and pivot in midair, turning straight back towards them, pulling its wings in tight, coming in low and fast.

Yeah, it must have encountered armed transports before, and recognized that the sound of the hatch undogging meant that the nasty armored thing was about to stick out a soft, vulnerable bit. Ai still had her back to it, only now starting to turn, not aware of how close it’d gotten. There wasn’t even time to shout. He threw himself forward, throwing his arms around her calves and yanking downwards. He heard her jaw crunch as it hit the rim of the hatch, and a second later, the scrape of keratin talons on metal passing directly overhead, the transport rocking from the force. The fafnir roared in frustration as it came away empty clawed, a sound like a thousand gallons of liquid fat burning, and it banked into a wide, slow turn, coming around again.

Swoffter threw a glance over his shoulder. “How is she?” he asked worriedly. Ai lay unmoving in a boneless heap beneath the hatch. “She’s breathing,” Rüdiger said, fairly sure he could see her chest stir, and unsure of what to do beyond that. “Are you going to stop?”

“Can’t.” Swoffter ground out, his knuckles going whiter around the wheel. “That hunting cry is going to draw in every other fafnir for two hundred kilometers. If we stop, they’re going to be on us so thick the lair’ll have to send out a mobile suit to clear them off.”

The fafnir passed overhead again with another cry, then dove down, the cab rocking violently as it clung for a moment, talons pounding against metal as it tried to pierce the soft spot left open in its prey’s armor before launching into the air again. “Secure that, would you?” Swoffter asked as the loose hatch clanged.

“There any other weapons in here?” Rüdiger asked, glancing around. The rifle hadn’t come back with Ai.

“Nothing that’ll make any difference” Swoffter said, pushing the throttle forward, but the transport was made for power, not speed, and the fafnir easily kept pace.

“How long will it take help from base to get here?”

“Five hours, two if they push it hard.” He winced as the fafnir swept by overhead again. “Damn it, dog that hatch, wouldja?” he pleaded, obviously thinking about what would happen if it started poking its talons around inside the transport.

“I think I’ve got something for it,” Rüdiger said. He carefully picked Ai up, and set her into her seat, then turned back to the long case he’d set on the bench seat. He spun the dials on the locks, and popped the lid open, revealing a several layers of padding, each one holding a disassembled gun. He pulled out the bottom one, and quickly started twisting the parts together.

“What is that?” Swoffter asked, his eyes flicking up to watch Rüdiger in the mirror.

“It’s a rifle,” he said sliding the receiver, and then the barrel into place. Fully assembled, it was longer than Ai was tall. “For hunting large animals,” he said, reaching deep into the foam to pull out a box emblazoned with a biohazard symbol. He popped it open with one hand and took out a round, sliding it into the chamber and closing the bolt. “Or small tanks.”

He waited until the fafnir passed overhead again, and then popped up through the hatch. It was already turning for another pass, and as he came out, its head swiveled nearly two hundred and seventy degrees to track him until its body had realigned itself. Rüdiger steadied himself, bringing the rifle to bear as the fafnir came straight towards him. Instinct told him to aim for head, pointed dead steady at him as the beast streaked in, but even if that had been where the fafnir kept its brain, he wanted this shot to go to the center of mass. He fired, the report almost deafening as ir echoed down into the cab, watching the sabot casing peel away once the stabilizing fins had done their job, the round’s payload headed straight for the center of the fafnir’s abdominal carapace as he ducked back down.

“Did you miss?” Swoffter asked as the fafnir swept overhead. It screamed again as it went by, but the sound had changed, sizzling fat replaced by ripping canvas.

“I’m pretty sure I got it,” he said, but reached into the box and prepared to load another round, just in case. “Just hold tight a minute.”

It kept its distance this time, made wary by the sting that it’d just received. It circled twice more, and as Rüdiger popped back into view, grabbing the hatch and hauling it shut, it’s wings dipped and it started another attack run. As it spread its talons, it suddenly sagged in the air, giving another ripping canvas cry, and then simply dropped from the sky. It hit the ground hard enough to throw up a cloud of dust, the plume quickly falling behind them.

“What’d you hit it with?” Swoffter asked.

Rüdiger held up the round in his hand. “Trisene Neurotoxin. It’s designed for taking down things too big, or too tough for standard man portable weaponry to be effective against. You can blow the head off a fringe stalker, but if you don’t take out the secondary and tertiary brains as well, get too close and you’ll be eviscerated by the midlegs or skewered on the tailspike. It takes effect a hundred and eighty seconds after hitting the bloodstream, and has a half-life of about five minutes. Wait a couple of hours for it to break down, and we can go back there for a drumstick.”

Swoffter gave him a shaky smile. “Not too useful if you’re getting charged by a fringe stalker and need to kill it fast.”

“If you’re getting charged by a fringe stalker and you’re in the open, you’re dead no matter what you do,” Rüdiger replied. “Are we going to stop now?”

“I’d rather not, not until we’re farther away from there. Hopefully that one spilled enough blood when it hit the ground to draw in any others nearby, but I want to be sure we’re well away before risking a stop. You can get on the radio though, and tell the lair to have a med team waiting for us.”

Rüdiger did what he could to make Ai comfortable, which in its entirety involved making room for her on the bench seat and laying her down. A medical team was waiting for them when they finally arrived at the base, although Rüdiger wouldn’t have even known they’d arrived if Swoffter hadn’t slowed the transport. The few above ground buildings had been so nondescript that he hadn’t even noticed them, and the rest of it was either tucked into the mountain in front of them, or underground, if not both.

He grabbed his kit from the cab as Swoffter accompanied a stretcher bound Ai and the attending medics inside. If there was supposed to have been a welcoming committee, they never found him, as he was left standing alone once the medics had cleared out, and someone else drove the transport into the base. He looked around for a moment, unsure of what to do next, and then followed after it, ducking from the vehicle pool into the base proper. First thing to do was get his weaponry registered and stowed in the arms locker. After that, he probably couldn’t go wrong by presenting himself to the Commander, even if he was still lugging his full kit with him. He looked around for a directory, or someone looking helpful who could get him set in the direction of the arms locker.