Been Too Long

[The Light Dude]

The lights come on automatically as Rob Antone descends the steps into cargo bay of the Excelsior. The nominally built human walks over to the opposing side of the large room and begins checking the straps on the container containing an upgraded 'Studly' combat walker that he and his fiancé just finished testing. "Rob! Where are you? We've got a minute before we get to Coruscant and you know the traffic nightmare it is. You should really be in the cockpit and buckled in before we exit hyperspace." A female voice says over the com link of his neural net. Rob quickly tightens one of the straps a little then darts over to the small set of stairs he entered by. "I'm coming now Lisa. Was just checking the tie downs in the cargo bay" he says as the Excelsior suddenly decelerates.

The engineer ascends the stairs into the living area of the ship. The room is well lit with a large plush couch and two, well used, recliners in an arc across the center and facing the wall to Robs left. In front of the seats is a large monitor thats mostly used to watch movies on. To the right, separated from the rest of the room by an island, is the kitchen. Rob jumps over the corner of the couch as he makes his way over to another set of stairs on the far side of the room. Within a few seconds he has gotten up the stairs and enters the cockpit. Sitting down in the co-pilot's seat he looks over at the red haired woman in the pilot's chair, "OK, I'm here now! Now lets try not to scratch anymore of the paint. That asteroid field we got stuck in already did a number to it." Rob playfully quips as he straps himself in. Lisa just shoots a glance at Rob, then with a smile yanks on the controls dropping the small corvette sized ship into the approach lane. She glances again at Rob, who was now upside down in his seat, and chuckles softly. "I guess I deserved that..." was all Rob could think to say.

After an hour of navigating the packed transit lanes the Excelsior finally lands at a small space port. The young couple precedes to carefully unpack the container holding the combat walker. Once the very large, metal box was secured on a moving sled they sit on the floor of the half open cargo bay, letting their legs dangle over the edge of the opening. "I don't know why Mr. Ishikawa doesn't just let us keep one. It seems like we get a new version every year to test anyway. Wouldn't it be easier to let us keep one then just send us the upgrades?" Rob says as he stairs out at the tarmac nearly 7 meters below. Lisa just shrugs then lays her head on his shoulder. "He has his reasons. He has never given us a lot of information about anything he does. It's probably to protect us, so lets just work with it and be glad that we have a good income. Speaking of Mr. Ishikawa... Wasn't he supposed to be here already?" Rob gently scoots away from Lisa and pushes himself off the ledge. He catches the edge with his right hand, then finally drops to the ground. "Should of been here 10 minutes ago." Rob finally says after looking around the star port.

 

[Jiang Winters]

Sonam sighed and rubbed at his helmet's faceplate as he advanced towards the parked AD38. His new armor felt strange. Though it weighed over 500 pounds, he felt none of the weight. It clung tight to the frame, and, as it was filled with some kind of biological jelly, both cushioned him and kept the suit at a comfortable temperature. The armor's synthetic muscle was as responsive as his own, and boasted unimaginable strength and speed. His own superhuman abilities were further enhanced by the armored suit, though he was yet to decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The suit's 'smart' sensor pack finished scanning the dropship and ID'd it as the Excelsior. That was the ship of one Rob Antone and Lisa Cromwell. They were Ishikawa's people - he used them to test some of CARD's gear every now and then, from what Sonam understood. They were a secret kept from the rest of the company, and in turn, they were blissfully unaware of who was actually signing their checks.

His ears tried to perk as he drew closer, but they had no room to do so within the confines of his helmet. As it stood, he could scarcely move his jaw; it fight tight, he had to give it that. At least the breath filters and speaker systems were working fine; he didn't have to test the latter to know it worked. The armor ran off a Direct Neural Interface; he could 'feel' its status as if the suit was an extension of his own body.

As Rob hopped down, Sonam waved one hand. "Antone!" he called out as he approached, in order to get the human's attention. "I'm Sonam. Mr. Ishikawa sent me."

 

[The Light Dude]

Rob jumps a little from the sudden calling of his name in the distance behind him. He quickly turned to see an dark armored figure approaching the starboard side of the ship. Through his neural net he says to Lisa, "There is someone coming. Might want to keep the MARS handy just in case, this guy looks dangerous." Rob just then could hear the armored humanoid state he came on behalf of Mr. Ishikawa. Relaxing slightly Rob walks towards the armored figure who calls himself 'Sonam'. He takes this opportunity to look over the impressive power armor Sonam was clad in. Very high end, looks like something Rob's family friend would have made. Rob buried his frustration over Mr. Ishikawa not ever sending a suit for him to tinker with.

It wasn't like Mr. Ishikawa to not come to these meetings, though the possibility was discussed. If this guy was the real deal he would have to answer Rob's greeting with a comment regarding his own prosthetic arm. It was something only a few for his closest colleagues knew about, which is why it became the agreed topic for the trusted pass code if Mr. Ishikawa was not able to personally make a scheduled meeting.

"That's me sir. I'm guessing Mr. Ishikawa won't be joining us. I'm Rob and the woman peering out of the cargo bay is Lisa." Rob says with a friendly, yet serious tone as he holds out his right hand. "I sure hope this guy is for real... I don't particularly feel up to being punched by someone in this much power armor..." Lisa could hear Rob think over the neural com link.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"He's couldn't pull away from the office. He's bogged down with work, but that's why I'm here. Hurrah for playing messenger boy!" Sonam quipped sarcastically. He chuckled and planted his paws on his hips, then nodded towards Antone. "Anyways, I'm here to recover the BAU you were testing and all the data you have for it. We're going to put it through a final round of live combat testing if your tests green light it for duty," the feline stated. "Oh. One more thing; Ishikawa gave me the challenge, but I can't think of any clever or even tactful way to work it into a normal conversation, so... How're those synthetic arms of yours workin' out?" he queried.

Smiling sheepishly - not that his faceplate allowed them to see that - as he rubbed the back of his neck, the feline hitched his shoulders and apologetically said, "Sorry, I just was drawing a blank on tactful ways to weave that into a conversation."

 

[The Light Dude]

Rob chuckled as Sonam asked about the arm then returns with, "That's all right. I don't expect everyone to be amazing with words all the time." He then looks up through the cargo doors to Lisa and gives her a thumbs up. She leans her assault rifle against a wall then jumps down to the tarmac to join Rob and Sonam. "Anyway, Mr. Sonam, sir The BAU is in that crate over there. It's in full working order, though we did modify the power conduits to work better in cold environments." Rob says as he walks over to the large, metal box to his left. Lisa, meanwhile, opens up the front of her coat and pulls out her personal data pad and a small storage device. She downloads a copy of their service report as well as a incident report and munitions request from their recent run in with an asteroid field. "On another note, we had an engine failure while in transit to the meeting place and got stranded in an asteroid field for three hours. As a result, we have exhausted most of our munitions and would like to acquire additional rounds. The full report of the incident as well as a list things we need is on this storage device. You will also find the service report for the BAU on that drive." Lisa says, in a tone much more professional then Rob's, as she hands Sonam the thumb nail sized device.

"Now to the most important thing Mr. Sonam! Did Mr. Ishikawa say anything about that one month vacation I ask for? Rob yells happily as he skips back over to Sonam and Lisa. "What vacation? You never told me you requested vacation time." Lisa comments while staring intently at Rob. Rob counters with a snide look of his own then comments excitedly, "Don't give me that look. Besides I wanted it to be a surprise! I got a letter from my mom couple of days ago and she saying she bumped into Jiang! Apparently he has moved back into the Mutunda house and he's living there with some black furred girl. Mom didn't give me a lot to work with, but I'm guessing it's Ayda." Rob pulls out his own data pad and hands it to Lisa for her to read the letter herself.

It had been close to twelve years since their old neighbor and babysitter Ji and his girlfriend Ayda had disappeared from Mutunda. In all that time Rob and Lisa have never heard a word about ether of them. Being the optimist they strive to be they aways thought that Ji and Ayda had gotten fed up with Mutunda's darn caste system and ran off together. They never could shake the feeling that there might of been more to the couple's disappearance however. They would of at least said goodbye to (at that time 12 and 13 respectively) Rob and Lisa.

Lisa's expression instantly turns to one of complete surprise. After the initial shock had dissipated she said, "Normally I'd throttle you for going behind my back like that... But I will let it slide this time cause of situation." Turning towards Sonam, "Did we get that vacation time?"

 

[Jiang Winters]

"It's just Sonam; no 'mister' or 'sir' required," the feline chortled as he took the thumb drive. He 'felt' his suit's on-board AI thinking very seriously about absorbing the little item, and had to mentally tell the silly computer that absorbing random items was not a good idea. Ultimately, though, DOC won out by pointing out that the suit didn't exactly have any pockets into which Sonam could stick the drive, and so the cat succumbed and allowed the AI to do as it pleased. The device 'melted' into his hand as it was devoured by the suit's nanites, its data and materials being stored within the suit's buffers and raw matter storage cells.

The query about the time off made the Kasa Horansi blink in surprise. He hadn't been told about that! Fortunately, Ishikawa had given him carte blanche to give the two engineers almost anything they asked for - the dynamic duo must have been important to Ishikawa for the old man to authorize something like that! However, the query was only the tip of the spear - within a moment, Antone was talking about Jiang!

Sonam's perked -or rather, they tried to but were stopped by his helmet- and he slightly tilted his head as he listened in to Rob and Lisa. He'd fallen out of touch with Jiang and had been unable to find his twin, as such, any news about Ji was bound to grab his full and undivided attention.

"Yeah," Sonam replied, as Lisa asked about their requested vacation time. "You've got a couple months."

Ayda and Jiang on Mutanda; he knew Ayda wasn't there. She was still taking a ice nap in CARD's custody. Jiang, on the other hand... He'd be willing to put money on his brother being back 'home.' However, his spook's paranoia kicked in and he began to wonder if he was being baited in. The cat frowned and folded his arms across his chest. He'd have to check this out for himself sometime soon. Still, he couldn't help but ask how they knew Jiang; curiosity killed the cat, or so the saying went!

"So, how do you know my bro - er, Ji?"

He could've facepalmed. How he slipped up like that he'd never know, but it was done. If they were paying even the slightest bit of attention, they'd know that he was familiar, in some way, with Jiang. Ooops!

 

[The Light Dude]

Rob jumped for joy upon hearing that his vacation time was granted and on top of that double what he asked for! Lisa smiled for the first time since getting to the spaceport as she watched Rob dance around like a little kid. Rob grew quiet and look of curiosity appeared on the couple's faces at Sonam's question though. Rob didn't hear all of the question but Lisa, on the other hand, heard the whole thing, including his failed attempted to not say "brother". "Rob? Did you hear that? Sonam knows Ji! and he said something about being his brother!", Lisa comments over the neural com. Rob replies over the com, "Wait... What? Ji doesn't have a brother named Soman... Maybe he's thinking of another Jiang..."

Rob raises an eyebrow then with a smile answers Sonam's question, "Oh? You know Jiang Winters? Awesome! I lived a cross the street from Ji for most on my life. Lisa lived down the street from our houses. Other then my parents and Lisa's dad we didn't have a lot of family, and even then our dads were off planet most of the time working. Ji, his family, and his girlfriend at the time help my mom raise the two of us and for all intensive purposes became the extended family we never had. Heck... Ji was the one that taught me how to work on engines!" Rob chuckles lightly to himself then continues, "We haven't seen Ji or Ayda is 12 years and any of the other Winters in at least 8. That's why the sudden request for vacation time. This might be our only shot of seeing our old babysitter for years to come."

Meanwhile, Lisa just stands there and smiles as Rob banters away the armored figures unsee-able ears. "Gee Rob, with as excited as you get you could be passed off as a 5 year old! I've haven't seen you this way since you got the prototype of your laser welder working!" Lisa playfully quips as Rob finishes talking to Sonam. Rob shoots a look at Lisa then returns with smile and says, "I'd rather be a 5 year old and have ton's of fun then a 'don't know what fun is' 25 year old, like a certain redhead I know"

Lisa sneers at Rob as he faces Sonam again and cheerily asks him, "So whats your connection Ji? I could of swore you said something about being his brother and I don't recall ever meeting or hearing of a 'Sonam Winters' during my time on Mutunda." The engineer ponders to himself for a moment then continues "If you are in fact a Winters you would have one of the family pendents! While normally slow to warm up to strangers if you have the pendent your basically family for us and wont dig to much into why we have never heard of you. Unless you want to tell us that is!" Rob smiles shyly to Sonam, trying to keep his excitement down at manageable levels as he waits for a response from Sonam. The over excited human was just hoping he didn't ask too much. He was generally good at engineering but when it to being tactful his experience was lacking. It didn't help that he was as excited as a seven year old going to his first theme park.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"Oh, right. Pendant."

Sonam reached up and released the clasps holding the 'face' section of his helmet in place. It hissed as pressure released, then popped free and fell into his hands. The armor still covered his neck and the top of his head, though it left his face visible. Two small armored 'ears' were fashioned into the head covering, into which his ears were inserted for protection and comfort. The feline clipped the faceplate assembly to his hip's magnetic hardpoint, then searched around his neckline for his pendant. He found it without any real difficulty and lifted it up -along with his ACE dogtags, which were on the same necklace- just enough to be seen.

"There you have it. Jiang made it for me. He's quite the craftsman," the feline remarked. Once he felt the two humans had gotten a long enough look at the pendant, he returned it to its hiding place. "Hope that's proof enough. Now... You two said you grew up around Jiang and the rest of my siblings?" He smiled and chuckled. "Lucky. I... Never had that chance. I was separated from the family for a long, long while. Ayda and Jiang brought me back, though, and I've been a part of the family ever since."

 

[The Light Dude]

The two humans gazed curiously as Sonam undid the armor about his face. He was defiantly Kasa Horansi and if they didn't know better would of swore him off as Ji himself! The feline then pulls out a necklace with the all to familiar hammer shaped pendent indicative of the Winters family, thus confirming Lisa's previous hypothesis. "See Rob? It's amazing what you catch when your paying attention." Lisa quips over the neural com. Rob looks over at at the smugly grinning redhead, squints his eyes at her, and finally sticks his tongue out at her. That display of contempt would be noticed by anyone even half looking at the frustrated engineer and likely would cause a number of raised eyebrows at the silent conversation. "I still have more fun then you." Rob says out loud as he turns to face Sonam again.

"Well Sonam... I'm... Kinda at a loss for words... I guess Ji never got around to telling you about us... Well that will have to change sometime soon." Rob said as the shock started diminishing. Rob continues after taking a breath and thinking for a moment, "I wish we had more time to get to know you, but I told my mom we would be home in the next three days... wait... I know! Why don't you come with us! Judging from the amount of armor you have you probably don't use enough of your vacation days as it is! The trip there will gives us all a chance to get up to speed on stuff! I have a story about Ji I bet you would just love to hear about. There is a reason he rubs his right cheek when duck tape is brought out! We'll leave as soon as the Excelsior is stocked up and I can email Mr. Ishikawa with the fact I Lisa and I kidnapped you once we get into orbit. I'm sure he won't mind giving you some time off. OH! I need to go make sure one of the guest rooms has clean bedding!" Rob finishes his excitement fueled rant and runs towards the stern of the ship before ever letting the, most likely deafened, feline ever say anything about his proposition.

Rob suddenly stops mid step and says, "Wait... where is the ladder again? Right! It's at the front of the ship!" Turning around and rushing past Lisa and Sonam he quips, "Of coarse, it would help to lower the ladder." He taps his right temple twice, which was his neural nets analogue command for opening the main hatch and lowering the ladder. He gets to the ladder just as it finishes lowering and clambers up into the corvette.

Meanwhile, Lisa covers her face with her hands out of embarrassment. "I swear that he isn't like this all the time, Sonam. He's just really excited to be able to see Ji again after all this time." Lisa comments to the feline as Rob bounds from one end of the Excelsior to the other. The young human lowers her hands from her face as her over excited fiancé disappears into the ship, her cheeks still visibly flushed. "I'm sure your very busy, so don't feel obligated to come if you don't want to. As Rob mentioned though, we could probably sway Mr. Ishikawa to give you a week or so off to go see your brother. He is an old friend of mine and Rob's families so he'll most likely understand the situation." Lisa calmly explains.

 

[Jiang Winters]

"Much as I'd love to come, I have a lot I need to finish up here on Coruscant before I can even think of taking a day off. Still, thank you for the offer, miss," Sonam replied with a short nod of his head and a thin smile. "Speaking of finishing things up..." He paused and keyed up his neural net. A HUD popped up in his field of vision, and a virtual clock gave him the time. "I've got less than an hour to get out of this armor and into a suit for a meeting. Go ahead and take off; I've arranged for a cargo transport to pick up the BAU. It was a pleasure meeting you, and if you see Jiang before I do, send him and Ayda my best, alright?"

He offered up a slightly warmer smile, but it disappeared in an instant once he donned his mask again, his head covered completely in armor for the second time in as many minutes. "Anyways, I need to dash. It was nice meeting you and your fiancée, miss. See you around." The feline turned on his heel and walked away. An automated cargo skiff whipped in and hefted up the BAU using a pair of clumsy manipulator arms, then fell in behind Sonam.

A part of him regretted not travelling with the two engineers. He wanted to see Jiang; he wanted to know that his brother was alright, and he wanted to know just who Jiang was hanging out with. He could not, however, risk travelling with a pair of strangers. Though Ishikawa trusted them, he did not - he'd travel to Mutanda on his own in due time, and when he caught up with his brother, he'd learn everything there was to learn about his family and he'd take his sweet time to do so. He wanted to have weeks, if not months, to spend with his family the first time he went to Mutanda. If he just up and left, he'd only have a day or two.

For now, he had other business to attend to, and so he reluctantly filed those thoughts away in the back of his mind and kicked his pace up to a jog as he headed back to his ship. In an hour, he'd be attending a formal dinner as Mr. Ishikawa's translator, and a few hours after that, he'd be returning to the Noblesse Oblige's medical wing for another round of check-ups and augmentation tuning. It was a busy day, but to Sonam, it was all business as usual.

 

[The Light Dude]

A slight look of disappointment cames a cross Lisa's face as the armored cat declined their offer. While Sonam was still a new person to the young engineer any chance to get back in touch with the long lost Winters family was welcome. Non-of-the-less she understood the fact that he was a busy feline and probably had far more important things to do then go adventuring with a couple of kids. "OK. We'll be on planet for at least three or four more hours if you change for mind. We still have to restock our pantry and fridge from our 3 week stint on Hoth before coming here. Anyway, So long and I do hope we can meet again soon." she said as she waved goodbye. She now wondered how she was going to tell Rob that he had scared off Sonam.

Just as Lisa turns to go into the ship and Sonam breaks into his jog a panicked yell and several loud thuds echo from out of the open cargo door loud enough to catch a glance from the a service droid across the port. Lisa jumps at noise and runs over to ladder into the ship. "Rob!? Are you OK!?" She yells into the ship as she hurriedly climbs the ladder, only to be met with silence. Just before completely disappearing into the ship Lisa says, "Gosh darn it! Rob! Talk to me!"

Lisa pulls herself into the airlock located just off the living room and darts passed the arc made by the couch and recliners. On the same wall as the stairs going down to the cargo bay and closer to the kitchen was another set of stairs that lead to the lab, storage, and crew rooms that where all located above the cargo bay. Once in the hallway that lead to the various smaller rooms of the ship Lisa could see one of the automated sliding doors to a guest room open with a light on inside. Looking into the room all she can see is one of the ships two droids straightening out a rug over the metal deck.

"Hey... E42? What are you doing? And where is Rob at?" Lisa queried the droid. The droid responded with, " Rob is currently in the cargo bay and there is a discrepancy with the deck paneling here that needed to be covered." Lisa raises an eye brow then pulls the rug off the floor. Where there should be a metal deck plate was a nice hole straight through to the cargo bay below with the exception of a number wire bundles stretching across it. Looking down the through the square hole she see a hapless Rob hanging in the cargo bay from the wires. Looks like the droid was doing something to the wires when Rob came aboard looking for a room to put Sonam in and just threw the rug over the hole before Rob came into the room. Not knowing the hole was there he went about cleaning and fell through. Fortunately the bundles of cables wrapped around one of his ankle preventing him from falling the 8 meters to the floor of the cargo bay.

"Rob!" Lisa yells then runs out of the room to the cargo bay. Once there she grabs a ladder, climbs up to the strung up engineer, and pulls out her data pad to run a quick medical scan. She breaths a sigh of relief as the scan shows that Rob is just out cold but that then leaves the question of how the 5 foot 6 inch woman was going to get her fiancé off the ceiling.