2017-11-07: Yugh've Got Guts
- Log: Yugh've Got Guts
- Cast: Kahm Yugh, Tolone
- Where: Bledavik
- Date: November 6, 2017
- Summary: After the attack on Bledavik-and Lily Keil's simultaneous escape-Kahm tracks down Tolone to discuss the actions of Lieutenant Voss
OOC Note: This scene takes place before The Gears of Change'
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
There was an oppressive amount of tasks to for Gebler's administration to attend to in the wake of pirate attack on Bledavik, and most of them involved paperwork. Most people didn't think about this kind of thing when it came to the realities of soldiering, but the fact was that after the blood had drives and the particle cannons cooled, somebody had to make a record of these things. Captain Kahm Yugh had no small portion of responsibilities on his end, and the fact that he hadn't been terrible harmed throughout the engagement meant medical needs weren't around to excuse putting him off.
The Captain stepped through ensigns and other aids with a light jaunt as he pressed towards the next point in his list of tasks for the day, a reasonably thick sheaf of papers clutched beneath his arm. He'd already reviewed the logs taken before Lily Keil's escape, and received a debriefing from Lieutenant Voss on it. He'd need a higher pedigree than his own to sign off on this, and since Lieutenant Commander Hawwa was not available and he wasn't entirely sure anything Seraphita signed would stand up to scrutiny, he was left with one other gambit to play.
Co-opted into the lesser used wings of the royal palace, the tech labs weren't a part of Gebler's facilities Kahm had taken much time to visit, but he steps through them as purposefully as any engineer, blue eyes perfunctorily scanning the room until he'd sighted the person he was looking for. His approach is direct but respectful, snapping a crisp salute before speaking. "Ma'am, is this a good time?"
<Pose Tracker> Tolone has posed.
"I suppose it's as good as any other," says the figure in the chair. Tolone has her hair down, but it's gray and her outfit is recognizable by and large.
Tolone turns in the chair. It resembles something you might see in a hair salon. Tolone probably needs it; with her twin-tail style removed, cybernetic diodes peek through gray locks. From the brightly colored gell on the side of her face, she was going to have the gash carved there by drifters resurfaced. She seems unperturbed by the reveal of about thirty percent of her skull.
"Sit close," she says. "I'm going to have to talk quietly or this will all get screwed up." She gestures with her one arm, the visible aperture of her positron beam shifting a little on sympathetic body motion alone.
"What's on your mind."
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Aside from the occasional mission with Cardia Ortell, Kahm hadn't been exposed to many 'enhanced' individuals in the fashion of Tolone. But if nothing else the Captain had a reputation for a stiff upper lip, any discomfort at the state of the young woman did not rise to his face. If anything, he saw her body as reflective of her resolve: the will to serve the mission-or perhaps in this case, the commander-by any costs necessary.
It was something Kahm could respect.
"Thank you." Kahm will take the offered seat, wasting no time in pulling the appropriately tagged reports from this sheaf of papers with an efficient motion and passing them over for Tolone's review, "I've compiled a quick report of the issues surrounding Lily Keil's escape during the battle, and need sign-off on the details. You should find everything you need in the report, but I can answer any questions."
The prose is quick and to the point, and squarely placing the root cause for Lily Keil's escape on the actions of the rebels who infiltrated the palace (How they did so was still under investigation), along with explosive charges the woman had set that sweeps had failed to identify after he capture. Lieutenant Voss is mentioned as being present for the incident, but is otherwise not specifically quoted other than to say his debriefing corroborates the events Kahm describes.
<Pose Tracker> Tolone has posed.
Tolone does not move distinctly while Kahm settles himself down and withdraws the papers. She extends her hand for the report, and when she gets it, she has to set it on her leg. Strangely, she seems to just be skimming it.
She isn't just skimming it, of course.
"Good first take," Tolone states. "Is Voss unconscious? You left out his testimony. You're going to have to redraft section 4 completely once he's been debriefed. I'm assuming this is incompetence, not subversion."
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
"Lieutenant Voss was assaulted and suffered a broken arm, but otherwise maintained consciousness." Kahm answered, one hand hand casually held by his side while the other safeguarded the remaining papers in his lap. "And while i'm prepared to attend in that capacity as commanding officer, I should mention that the conclusion of my report is that Lieutenant Voss does not bear blame for the prisoner's escape."
One second is all Tolone's cyborg brain gets to process that statement, more than enough in Kahm's assessment, before he continues. "The Lieutenant was administering a regularly scheduled check-up on Keil in light of her declining health, and guards were posted outside. It was bad timing that the room she'd been moved to happened to be in proximity to the undiscovered explosives, and that other rebels were nearby to render assistance. It was the explosions that either disable critical functions of the ether damper or dislodged it enough that she was able to access a degree of ether, which allowed her to cause further destruction. Lieutenant Voss is a medical officer, not a combat specialist, so it shouldn't be a surprise that he was overcome by a rogue ether user."
The state of the room certainly supports Kahm's assertion, on the surface. Walls had been destroyed, electronics fried, and all staff in the vicinity other than the Lieutenant had been killed. Any video and audio surveillance had been fried by Keil's power, and the back-up footage was not available-the one oddity Tolone would discover if she tried to access the database in that moment.
<Pose Tracker> Tolone has posed.
Tolone looks at Kahm as he speaks. She doesn't interrupt. She doesn't blink. In fact, she could be a corpse there, although she does seem to cycle a breath.
"Very thorough statement. You've practiced it." Her eyes lose focus for a moment.
When they come back, she frowns. Several strips of red material snap, revealing greyish plastic in her 'skin.' It leaks out, and this probably doesn't help Tolone's mood as it seems to air-cure into something resembling pale human skin. "Back-up's down."
Her head inclines forwards about five degrees, eyes not breaking with Kahm's.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
If Kahm had learned aught from the months spent under the stewardship of Lieutenant Commander Hawwa when she'd had the bandwidth to oversee their operations, it was in maintaining composure under even the most considerable scrutiny. Recognizing this trait wasn't likely to improve Tolone's mood, but the Captain's face doesn't budge from her gaze other than to flick quickly at his papers when she mentions the lack of back-ups.
"Yes." He affirmed. "I looked into that. It seems a generator was knocked out by those same explosives, and they're working hard to bring things back up. I wouldn't get my hopes up though-we likely didn't get anything during the time this took place."
The Element didn't have the sort of face one could read, really. Kahm took a few moments to reflect, and added, "I'm not trying to be a problem for you, ma'am. But I am trying to do right by those under my command."
<Pose Tracker> Tolone has posed.
Tolone doesn't look away from Kahm. If she's emoting, it's hard to tell. Her face, you know. Time passes, marked mostly by those portable machines here and there that make the air incrementally more like Etrenank.
Eventually:
"You've got guts, Yugh," Tolone says. "If you're confessing things like that to me, you're either sure as shit that I couldn't prove it, or you have a hell of an argument."
She makes a small gesture with her free arm. The positron cannon swivels a little as well. Is it moving towards Kahm? Well, not... overtly. It might be easy to let one's attention go there, though.
"Which is it?"
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Kahm was silent a moment, but he was no machine. His flesh and blood face couldn't match Tolone's robotically-enhanced placidity, and while she did not see him sweat, his slight facial tics and eye movements had all the flags of a man who was deeply considering her question.
"I have surface blood in me, ma'am." The Captain confessed. "'Guts', as you call it, is the only way I can hope to accomplish anything from where I stand."
His peripheral vision was acutely aware of the positioning of the cannon, but his words remained locked on their chosen target. "If you'd like an argument, then consider this. Whatever his other flaws, Lieutenant Voss has been exemplary in his willingness to embed himself in the field, amidst abject danger, and collect critical intelligence. That Keil was discovered and captured in the first place was largely thanks to his efforts, and even if we could not hold her, we took enough samples from her to start unraveling the mystery."
Kahm cast a glance towards their surrounding, perhaps the whole palace, and continued. "Already he's accumulated more knowledge of the surface and it's ways than most bother to learn in a whole tour, and i'm sure he'll continue to learn. Such individuals are in short supply, and it will be the Commander's loss if we let politics make a victim of him."
<Pose Tracker> Tolone has posed.
Tolone tracks Kahm without remorse. He abases himself. He argues for his subordinate. Some part of Tolone is reminded of - - she can't remember it so clearly, not right now, but the Commander -
Is her heart melted?
Tolone has a rotary press-pump to provide even blood flow for her residual organic parts. She does not have a heart.
Her fingers drum three times, twelve fingertaps total, on the arm rest.
"Past performance isn't a guarantee of future results," Tolone says, but there is no imminent lasering. "He could have gotten lucky. If Keil had escaped without using the -Drive-, it's not impossible it could be replicated by the surface dwellers. Can you justify Voss's carelessness in having it on his person?"
Her hand raises slightly as if to say: Don't answer yet. A second passes. She speaks again. "You know that I won't deceive the Commander." After this she looks expectant somehow.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
The Element's point receives a duelist's nod. Even Kahm himself was not quite sure what direction Loren would go in, but he did known that the Lieutenant stood at a crucible of sorts, and that this may yet be another part of the forging.
He had to do his best to ensure the younger man didn't break before he could even be tested.
"I've said nothing about deception." Kahm said, looking at the report in Tolone's hand, "I swear to the events I've related in this report as true. Should it be proven otherwise, I will take responsibility."
The Captain's hands folded quietly into his lap. He thought a few moments longer.
"I'll grant that it was sloppy for the Lieutenant to be carrying drive on him at the time, but he's hardly unique in that respect. I've seen it on more enlisted and officers than I care to count-this event should be worth a good amount of reflection on how we've allowed the relative safety of Bledavik to slacken our standards."
There's a shuffling of the papers in his lap, and the Captain turned his attention to a particular item among them. "Keil shouldn't have known about -Drive- anyways. I asked the Lieutenant how that could have happened, but he said he didn't know. If you were to ask me i'd say he wasn't very forthcoming, but like you, I don't have anything prove it with."
He handed the document over. "That's the log of all Keil's visitors during her imprisonment. Aside from regular check-ups, she didn't have many."
One name in particular on that list might stand out to Tolone.
<Pose Tracker> Tolone has posed.
Tolone might as well be a corpse while Kahm speaks. How does she do that? (Her face is entirely artificial. She just kills the motion signals. That's how.) She shifts, abruptly, to take the document. Plucking it, in fact, from Kahm's hand.
Down turn her eyes.
Down turn her lips.
"..."
Tolone's eyes unfocus.
When they focus again, that frown is extremely intensified. It's more of a gritting of the teeth. The split in her cheek widens, internal fluid leaking out and drying in weird rivulets. There's a faintly chemical smell from it.
"I see," she says, almost growls.
"I'll render a full report to the commander. My recommendation is that you liase with Seraphita on avoiding this kind of screw-up in the future, Yugh. Nobody gives a crap about ration swaps or medical outreach, but if our key technologies end up in the hands of the Lambs, the situation could go south, fast. Imagine that colonel in Kislev with access to -Drive-, and I don't think I have to elaborate."
Her head turns away, sharply. "Do you have anything else to say?"
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Maybe it's instinct or some other kind of preternatural anticipation, but before Kahm is quite aware what he's doing he's gone and offered a tissue or two to Tolone to stuff that leak.
"I spent a few years fighting the Kislevi, ma'am." Kahm acknowledged. "You don't have to tell me twice."
As for counseling Seraphita, the Captain just....nods, since there wasn't damn well else much he could do. "I'll see to it." He said, mentally filing away how to get anything through to the fire rabbit at a later date.
His response to her last question is a shake of his head, "Nothing pertinent at the moment. Thanks for your time."
He'll snap a quick salute at this and, if there's nothing else, rise to leave.