0003: NEW ARRIVALS

[crux_npcs]

Who: New Arrivals, Captain Jack Hollis, Science Captain Urist McEngineer, Graham Baker
Where: Briefing Room
When: Late afternoon
Warnings: None

When awakening, you'll find the area you're in to be very busy. The people in the medical ward are polite and understanding, but firmly refuse to answer questions until the briefing. The same goes for the robots in the hangars. Either given hospital outfits resembling very comfortable pajamas, drone bodies, or their own bodies, they are escorted by polite, unyielding people in red and black uniforms to the briefing room.

The room is large, but not quite large enough for some of the bigger Cybertronians. They've been given drone bodies at least, skinny little things with no real features beyond primitive masks made of paper plates. There's seats for everyone, at least, well-cushioned and comfortable, and the room is pleasantly lit.

A few Security personnel, dressed in their red and black uniforms, stand at ease in the rooms in strategic areas. Three men stand at the head. One is Graham Baker, a slightly nervous-seeming middle-aged man wearing a multi-layered business suit that seems rumpled and oversized. The other two men are dressed in military uniforms, one with the blue undershirt and piping of Command, while the other wears the gold of Science.

[Questions to the NPCs will go in the briefing thread. The rest of the post is there for people to mill about and do whatever with.]

Comments

Re: THE BRIEFING

[interneet]

Urushihara is quiet through the long speech, watching the speakers, the other occupants of the table, the security personnel around the room. Too-causal glances map out the space, lingering now and then on unfamiliar technology.

He grimaces once at the mention of find a job but it's less displeased and more simply resigned.

After Zouichi's question, he raises his hand, looking more at Urist than the other two.

"You've said where we are. What about 'when'?"

THE BRIEFING

[crux_npcs]

He's looking at Urist, but it's Graham who answers.

"It's 0458 A.C. That's 'After Confederation', when our current government was formed. Converting into Earth years, that puts us at about... 27th Century. With the calendar changes..." He pulls up something on his spherical comm device and frowns, thumbing through the commands until he finds the right function. "Oh, about 2642 AD?"

Re: THE BRIEFING

[interneet]

His attention flicks back to Graham. Earth again.

"How long will it take you to get home if you don't find a faster way?"

THE BRIEFING

[crux_npcs]

"At the rate we're going? Oh... A few more centuries." Graham doesn't seem too concerned. He'd never seen Earth except in pictures, so it's nothing more than a name he's used to the elderly sighing over. "I'd accept getting out of Wadjit territory, though. That shouldn't take longer than another thirty or forty years, at this rate. Then again, we do take a lot of detours..."

Captain Hollis closes his eyes and laughs. "Well, it's the our duty to help those in need, Mr. Baker. We can hardly begrudge a few weeks here and there when it's saving a moon from the Palladium Death Corps or providing humanitarian aid, after all!"

Re: THE BRIEFING

[interneet]

The sigh isn't audible, but the slight fall in his shoulders betrays it.

"Good Samaritans, huh? Ah well, that's fine."

His fingers tap the desk idly, thoughts turning over this and the rest of the briefing's information.

"Other questions can be answered off your Infonet, right? So all that's left is what happens after your two month deadline."

[crux_npcs]

"For the most part, yes." Captain Hollis shifts his feet at the implied question. "If you don't have anything lined up before the deadline, we'll either give you some supplies and drop you off on a habitable world, or give you some money and drop you off at the nearest neutral space station."

In other words, make yourself useful or they'll maroon you without a second thought.

[interneet]

Oddly enough, that actually seems to relax him. Kindness might still be an odd concept, but using people? Far less so.

But that figiting . . .

"'For the most part'? Are there any other restrictions we should know about?"

From the casual way he says it, you would think it was a conversation about the weather rather than being placed under a potential security lock.

[crux_npcs]

"No, there's just some restricted material that most people don't have access to. Nothing that will be important to you." And that's as far as Hollis will elaborate on this.