[BlueInTheShell]

--- The HSS Incredulous: 12:00 ---

It had been a remarkable discover for the ship, to say the very least. Heinrich Jaskal puffed his chest out and stepped through the decontamination room as he approached the large, metal device and stared at the being in wonder. Some being encased in metal, or made of metal. Whatever the discovery actually was, it was an incredible find. No one had expected to find any sort of evidence of civilization out here. Planets were bathed in the star known as Annirah's lethal radiation. Nothing should have been out here.

"Its a wonder, isn't it? An automaton from some race that hasn't been discovered yet!" One if Heinrich's aides exclaimed, the woman beaming towards the scientist, who returned the grin with one of his own. Suzanne had been one of the more eager and ambitious of his aides. Confident. Smart. Heinrich could even make the mention of being exceptionally attractive, even if she was a decade younger than him.

"So far we have had it on board for several hours. No attempts to power it up have worked, and it doesn't seem to respond to any normal commands from machines. Never ind the fact the machine inside seems to be inert. A pile of junk, other than having a humanoid form." Heinrich replied, pushing up his glasses and sighing, before reaching into his labcoat and pulling out a small flask. Coffee, of course, the man a staunch protestor against alcohol. "While the discovery is immense, and we have dataslates of photos and speculations, the Hegemony just wants us to disassemble the robot to see if we can reverse engineer something useful."

Suzanne wrinkled her nose and let out an irritated exhale, before nodding slowly. "Its a shame. We still need to try and power the machine up one last time before the engies tear it apart."

Heinrich snorted, and turned to Suzanne, a curious look on his face. "Doubtful we'll ever be able too. And the order to transport her was given already. Have a small crew down, and getting ready to take her ri- Ah! They arrive!" Heinrich waved towards a set of men who looked at the machine in abject curiosity, as they set about strapping it up for movement.

"This is going to be a miraculous venture, Suzanne. A look into the mechanical designs the likes we have never seen."

--- The HSS Incredulous: 14:00 ---

Suzanne glanced in and turned the corner while that...Monstrosity plunged metal claws into one of the workers, the machine cocking an emotionless, skull-esque face bathed in spatterings of blood as it slowly pulled out a streamer of intestine; the worker still alive and pleading to every god imaginable before his mouth gurgled and filled with his own fluids. The machine continued to pull, draping herself in a boa of digestive organs, before her cold, metal hands dove into the man's chest cavity again, the creaking of bones turning into sharp, bellowing cracks as the man's ribcage was broken apart and his remaining organs were pulled out to be exposed for the ship to see; finally being dropped to the ground and stepped on with a nauseating squelch as the machine's advanced continued.

It had all happened too fast for the ship. The robot in the coffin had come to life, and when commanded by Heinrich? Pinned him down and set about ripping off sloughs of flesh to adorn itself with. Suzanne had managed to run, and clear out of the room as security forces tried to subdue the automaton, only for whatever metal the being was made from to morph and heal as if it were a living, regenerative organism.

As if it was alive.

Since then it had been a dream turned into a living nightmare. The robot had made a slow advance down the halls in eerie silence. Every being she found, whether it was human, alien, animal, was met with a tormenting death, as the machine took its time with its prey. Splayed organs and meat. Choice bits of alien and human set aside while it butchered the rest. So far the last bastion of hope was the medical bay, and it was so close...

Suzanne reached for her keycard and went to slide it through to gain access, only for a metal hand to clamp down and turn the woman to face her metallic aggressor, fingers slipping on the comms as she begged and pleaded like everyone else with the machine, only for it to bend her hand backwards, the snap and protrusion of bone showing a broken wrist, and the being moving her free arm to begin extracting broken carpal bones amidst Suzanne's howls.

The robot looked towards Suzanne, and let out a small mechanical whirl, before it extended a taloned claw, and flicked the digit across each button of her blouse, until skin met the tingle of cold air. One last offer of mercy in exchange for anything the mechanical being wanted, and that taloned claw began to sink into the skin right under her chest, and inched downwards, a sheet of milky white skin folding over itself, before being tugged away and ripped from her torso.

Suzanne screamed as hard as she could for help, before a metal hand clamped around her mouth, and the machine finally spoke; a cold p, irritated female voice bellowing out from the robot.

--- Nepha ---

"Enough pleading, human. You never listened to my kind before. And now you. You alone will hear me." Nepha boomed. Reaching her claw to begin removing another sheet of skin from the woman's backside this time. "I require medicine. A doctor. Not one of your mechanics" A tug and the woman's muscles in her back hit frigid air and Suzanne struggled amidst the pain to point towards the medbay and utter 'd-doctor' at Nepha, the metallic woman slowly nodding before two metal thumbs dug into Suzanne's eyes, jelly and plasma eking out from what little space there was in the eye socket, and the aide's had cracking open like a melon once Nepha had gotten what she needed from her.

Nepha looked towards the chit of plastic, and picked it up. This was what the scientist used to get through doors when using body parts wasn't effective. The being studied the card for a few moments, then began to fiddle with it, trying to slide it in between the spaces of the doors, and through the keycard reader, only to frown when each time it was met with a red beep.

Keys had become so different since she was alive. Alive? Could she even say that word?

[sylvanSpider]

The quarters that the H.S.S. Incredulous provided for Dr. Marie Gallagher were nice. They'd brought her on the mission in the case they encountered intelligent life. One of her calliber was necessary, they said, as few had quite the diverse background she had. Tearing her away from the hospital took a lot of effort and persuasion, but with the promise of potentially viewing new life and thus anatomical variances to be observed, she relented, praying that her fellow surgeons would be able to take the reins in her absence. No new life seemed to have been found.

Remnants of ancient life, perhaps, but nothing that a doctor of living things could be of assistance with. This entire trip had been a disappointment. Certainly, archaeologists would be interested in an ancient technologically advanced species, but if they were gone, they were of no use to her anymore. Now, with free times on her hands, she took to study. The purpose of leaving was self-improvement, and she was still going to accomplish that if she could help it.

Now, the doctor sat hunched over several open books, worn so that the books sat where they were opened, each with notes scribbled in the margins and an open several paged data-doc sat open and propped up against the sole source of the light in the room, a small desk lamp. Silence permeated the air, excepting perhaps the soft click of fingernails against the dataslate's screen or the gentle scrapes of ink on paper. It followed, then, that she startled when the soft beep signaled the opening of her door. She clenched her jaw and straightened her posture, actions contradicting her soft, slightly shaking voice, “I thought we agreed I would be pinged if I were to receive visitors?”She pressed her lips together and mustered a smile of pleasant optimism as she turned around in her seat.

[BlueInTheShell]

Nepha watched the door slowly open, and the robotic woman looked down towards the mess of the remains that was once called Suzanne, before reached over and took hold of the cadaver’s head, pulling and tugging until meat and flesh tore and stripped away from the torso; Nepha bringing it along with her, and the various bits of flesh and entrails that she had used to adorn her body. Small slivers of memory began to flood in her mind, and Nepha raised a hand towards a cold metal hand in a mockery of someone struggling with a headache, and began to continue her way into the medbay.

The medbay probably smelled of antiseptic and that metallic, hygienic scent that Nepha could no longer sample; the woman letting out a deep, iron-coated sigh as she moved one foot after another, metal rotors and gyros humming with each glide of her legs. I remember being in these bays. Treatment after treatment to keep myself alive for a few more months on my home…Before they came and made us. Nepha hummed to herself, the machine turning the corner and stopping for a moment when she noticed a young girl in a seat, that began to slowly turn around. Now was the time. More than ever.

Nepha rolled the remains of Suzanne’s head towards Marie, before Nepha lifted her head and bore herself with a bit more regality, the cloak of human faces draped over her flowing slightly as a skeletal looking gaze locked horrific, green eyes on the doctor. One hand wriggled as the metal along her fingers contorted and twisted into flensing talons once more, and her other hand made a small, regal little wave towards the doctor.

“They died because they didn’t help me. Or couldn’t. Now I ask you. Help.” Nepha boomed, her voice echoing out with a crackle of static that masked her more feminine tones. It all sounded so dull. No emotion in her voice. A deep neutral sounding drone that made Nepha raise a metal foot and bring it down on the remains of Suzanne’s head; red splattering the floor and coating a steel foot in crimson.

“Help me, or suffer the same fate.”

[sylvanSpider]

When Dr. Marie Gallagher turned, she'd expected to see Suzanne, Edward, Simani. Any number of people who would potentially be willing to interrupt what was undoubtedly going to be a breakthrough. Instead, she was met with Suzanne's head rolling toward her. She immediately jumped back and lifted her eyes to the speaker, clapping a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Gore was generally not something that the doctor could be bothered with. She'd spent hours upon hours hunched over the living and dead, all in the name of science. But this? This is a nightmare come to life...

She was never given a chance to rise, instead, she backpedaled until the back of her chair hit the edge of her desk, making the doctor whimper a bit. Now, this creature was asking for help, but the mechanical whir of her fingers told her that she didn't need a doctor. She needed a mechanic. She was doomed to be one of those faces sewn to this woman's cloak.

The head had rolled close enough to her that when the metallic being's foot came down, blood and brains drenched her shins, a couple of drops even going so far as to hit her face. A trembling hand reached up and wiped off the blood. In the countless surgeries she'd performed, she'd had control. She was the one who held another's life in her hands. Now the tables were horribly flipped and she swallowed. “I'm...I'm a doctor...a-a-a-a surgeon. I'd...I'd be hap-happy to he-help, do wh-wh-what I can,” she stammered, “But all I...all I know is is...is medicine...surg—surgery...My work is important...please don't kill me...Please...” Please.

[BlueInTheShell]

Nepha's metal face contorted for a moment, skeletal features twisting and making a frail imitation of a frown. The woman's stammering was agitating. The common kind of talk among the lower classes. Het the woman said she was a medical professional. Extending a finger and letting the bladed talons whistle in the air, the mechanical woman pressing a now dormant talon right into the tip of the woman's nose, and flicked downwards to draw a bit of blood. "The doctor cries and stammers. That is not a good sign of someone who sees the insides of people regularly. Perhaps you should adorn my clothing as well..." Nepha hummed aloud, bringing her face in as close to Marie.

Green flickers scanned Marie, and the doctor could see it. The very last twinges of humanity that dwindled like a flickering candle on its last legs. They darted slowly back and forth, a realism near-impossible with any animatronical robot. Even cybernetic eyes for humans and their ilk were not so advanced. "I...Need someone to dig in my insides. Show me the vestiges of organic life that are left. I need..." Nepha paused, lowering her posture and clasping two steel hands to her face, a monotone, mechanical wail bellowing out of her. "I need to remember and know I'm me!" The woman roared, light seeping out from the cracks of metal hands as her green eyes lit up in fury.

The brief moment of rage subsided, and Nepha locked back on Marie. "So help me. Now. Or join the fate of the rest of your vessel...."

[sylvanSpider]

Marie's heart caught in her throat and she stopped breathing as the metallic woman brought a cold talon to the tip of her nose, swiping just hard enough to draw blood. She inhaled sharply through her nose, but didn't dare move. She was a deer in the headlights, frozen in the road as a semi sped toward her, full speed. She wanted to tell the woman that she was not accustomed to her patients threatening to kill her with the very real ability to do so. And that was to say nothing of the lives the woman had already claimed. The rest of the ship is gone. It's just me now, isn't it?

She didn't say any of this, however. Instead, she gulped as the metallic woman placed her face right in front of hers, fear gripping her so tight that she couldn't even blink. “I'm...a surgeon,” Marie said, slowing her speech to keep from stammering so much in a vain attempt to gather her composure, “I can...I can help you with exactly that.” Before her, if one were to look past the ornate face cape the woman so proudly wore, she saw tragedy, sadness, the eons of the nothingness of uncertaintly that bound the mechanical woman before her. Those faces had once belonged to her friends on the ship. Friends? Could she call them that? They were more like acquaintances, and bothersome more often than not. Still, she wouldn't have wished that fate on them. But then, the fate of the woman before her seemed so much worse somehow, constantly trapped in a cold metallic cage for eternity with a sever case of amnesia. She would help her, if it was the last thing she did. “I specialize in anatomical anomolies...”her voice trailed off here.

It was her specialty that led her here to begin with. They'd needed her in case any remnants of the ancient alien civilization were left. She should have stayed at the hospital. But then, she had made it her purpose to study the different anatomical constructs of every sentient being in order to help them, and now, one of these anomolies was before her asking for help. It should have been like a wet dream. If the threat of death didn't loom over her head, it probably would have. “I... will help you,” she said softly, “But I need equipment. If you'd...just follow me to the operating room, I can begin this case.” Already, her mind was reeling with possbilities as to what she could possibly do to satiate the woman. She decided to explain as she made her way to the operating room, praying to whatever god that could possibly exist (by her standards, none, but she prayed nonetheless) that she was not going to be working in vain.

“I'm...going to begin with x-rays, of sorts. I don't know if you are familiar with those or not considering you have been trapped on an empty planet for a while now, but it will essentially let me view inside you without needing to open you up,” Marie explained, just as she would with any of her other patients. She was in her comfort zone now, pushing the looming of threat of death to the comfortable recesses of her mind. “The first x-rays only allowed to show foreign objects but as the use of biomechanical appendages and replacement organs came into popularity, the need for one to detect flesh within mechanics was necessitated for the more extreme cases. It's one of these that I'll be using. This way, I won't have to prod around in you blindly. I have back up plans if this doesn't work. That is, provided I have your permission.”

[BlueInTheShell]

Surgeon…

The memory of doctors of her own people opening bodies and pulling out various organs and sewing warm, tender flesh made the mechanical woman pause for a moment as Nepha continued her assessment of the doctor in front of her. Each fear-tinged bout of fear gave her a sense of life again. As did every moment of life that faded into a flickering, and then finally…Silence, that had occurred with everyone else she had gotten ahold of on this ship. It was…Rather painful. For Nepha at least. When did she get the same pings and ounces the rest of the people on this ship had? She wanted to have the gut-pains of terror again. Nepha slowly nodded and remained silent for a few seconds, only the light hum of her body echoing around the halls giving Marie any sort of sign that the being was still alive. Operational. Whatever Nepha should have been. Finally, the mechanical began stirred to life again. “Anatomical anomalies. Am I some sort of anomaly?” She asked, finally pushing herself away from the doctor, and beginning to pace in front of her.

While Marie began to prattle and ask away for her cooperation, Nepha lost herself in her own mind, trying to remember something. Anything. Why couldn’t she remember anything other than her name? She couldn’t even remember what she was, let alone whatever she had become, or how it had happened either. Looking down towards metal hands, Nepha turned her head towards Marie in a slow, deliberate movement, “Then get equipment. I have an eternity to figure out this ferrous existence. You do not. Your flesh is weak. Brittle. Time will consume you.” Nepha hummed, slowly adding under her breath, “If I do not end you first, doctor.”

Her strut was regal and purposeful as she made her way towards the X-ray room, her hands gliding across the walls of the ship, and leaving small scars engraved in the metal of the ship where talons streaked across them. Nepha grunted, and the metal talons retracted and smoothed into more human-ish hands, whatever she was made off seeming to obey whatever thoughts in her mind that she had about her metal body. It was half the reason she had a cloak of faces, she supposed. “X-rays…Will they show me what I am?” Nepha asked, before looking down at herself. “I would rather have been cut open to see what is inside. I do not remember if I bleed, or if metal encompasses everything I am. I just…I don’t even know if this is what I was supposed to be in general…What is wrong with me, doctor?” Nepha asked, cocking her head to the side and bringing a hand to her own face.

What was she?

[sylvanSpider]

“You can end me,” Marie said, looking down at the faces and then back up into the mechanical woman's eyes. This was also the first patient whose name she didn't know, or relative medical backstory for that matter. “But keep in mind you asked for a doctor, a surgeon, not a mechanic. If you end me, you will be ending the life of the best surgeon in the galaxy, not to mention the neighboring galaxies. If it is indeed a doctor and not a mechanic that you are in need of, you will be ruining your own chances of aid. My own natural death does not frighten me. What does is ceasing to exist without being able to say that I did something.”

Yes, the initial shock had worn off, and now she was all business, ready to either help or be destroyed. Her claims, regardless of how grand they might have been, were anything but hyperbolic. She spoke the truth, so far as her reputationw was concerned. As she spoke, she put in the pass code to the operating room and stepped in, the energy efficient lights clicking to life. Of course, the air of confidence was just that—an air. The doctor was frightened, yes. She did not want to end up like the others, but her chances of survival were slim to none simply begging for her life. She needed to clear her mind in order to do what she'd meant to do.

“Considering it was a medic you asked for and not a mechanic, and if your claims of being an organism rather than machine are true, then yes, you would be an anomaly,” she paused her speech briefly to get some of the equipment ready. Her hands moved deftly, as ones who had done this a thousand times before despite her youth. “Ideally, yes. Though I've never seen anyone or anything even resembling you, so I'm not sure if it will work.” She shook her head at the woman's protests, “I will cut you open soon enough, but going in blind is a rather foolish endeavor, yes? I will see myself a failure if you die on my table.” Marie stopped her preparations to gaze at the woman before her, her brows furrowed with concern.

“From what I gather, a severe case of amnesia. As to whether you can bleed or not...well, we'll just have to find that out, and we will. If possible, we will find out exactly what you are. Before we begin, I am going to have to ask you if you can remember anything. Parents? Lovers? Friends? If so, what species were they? Were you always on Trars 5T49?”

[BlueInTheShell]

“You speak with authority and the privilege of someone who orders others around. I am not that person to be ordered.” Nepha replied, tugging at one of the eye-holes in her macabre cloak until it tore the face from the ‘quilt,’ the mechanical woman studying it for a moment, before reaching over to press it against Marie’s face. “You’ll die. You’ll be put in one of these metal bodies as well by…By angels eventually. That is one thing I can remember. The angels.” She said, with a small mechanical hiss, one of the slivers of memory finally ekeing back into existence. Barely enough to bring about what she needed, but..But it was something yes?

Whatever claims of reputation didn’t seem to phase the mechanical woman in the slightest; Nepha standing there for a moment like a dormant robot; with only the occasion whir of noise and the inching of her head at some perceived movement reminding the world that she was still functioning. Or alive. Whichever one Nepha was supposed to be. The Mechanical being let out a deep, binary sigh while Marie began to fiddle with various instruments that the being couldn’t remember the names of. “I am not an anomaly. I have a name. Somewhere in the ebb of time. It will be found again. And I’m going to remember.”

The lack of immediate vivisection made Nepha tap a foot, the metal clanging dully against the floor while she listened to the doctor’s decisions and her reasoning. It was all too time-consuming. If there was something Nepha could assure herself with, it would be a lack of patience determining that she was most likely not a doctor in her previous life. “I survived the onslaught of your security forces. They did not deter me. A simple…Whatever you are…With a small knife will not deter my existence either.” Nepha said, before the mention of memories made the being pause and stay for a long time in silence.

“…I am..I do not know anything other than the faintest sights. I hear the words Angels. And Immortality. Faydians…was…Is that what we were called?” Nepha murmured, the being tilting her head and pressing a blood-soaked metal hand to her head. Another round of silence as she tried to remember what she could.

“…I am Nepha. That is what they called me. That. I remember.”

[sylvanSpider]

Marie was too busy setting up the equipment to notice as Nepha tugged free one of the faces from her cloak. She was greeted with cold moisture pressed against her own face, cold...moist. She froze for a moment, only lifting her hand to touch the mask. It was skin. Unattached skin with holes where the eyes, nostrils, and mouth would be. She screamed yanking it off and flinging it. Any confidence she regained by being in the operating room disippated and she was reminded once again that she was to be operating on a cold blooded murdering machine. Tears flowed down her cheeks in steady streams, unchecked and unabashed. “Why?! Why would you do that?!” she choked, stumbling back, bracing her hands against one of the counters.

“Angels don't exist,” Marie spat, shaking her head. Whatever this woman wanted with her, she didn't care. She didn't care if she lived or died through this. That little piece of sanity that the operating room provided snapped. The surgeon was broken, knowing she was just a toy that this predator was playing with until she got what she wanted from her. “I won't let myself end up like you. I'd rather end up like them!” she gestured with a trembling hand to the cloak, now asymmetrical with the missing face.

She shook her head, forgetting what it was she was doing. She was going to die anyway, why not sooner than later? She watched as the being tapped her foot, feeling her lower jaw begin to tremble as another onslaught of tears threatened, “I'm not standing in your way. Y-you...you asked me to use this knife...on you...” The woman was saying words, but they drifted through one ear and out the other until she heard 'I am Nepha.”

“N-Nepha? A-alright, Nepha, if you're going to kill me, just...just do it,” she closed her eyes waiting for Nepha's cold claws to tear through her, to imagine her face being pulled off of her own lifeless corpse.

[BlueInTheShell]

If Nepha could have raised some form of metal brows at the woman who was beginning to cry, she would have. The gaunt, emotionless face however warped jnti a parody of a smile on the mechanical being's face, and Nepha chuckled; a haunting metallic noise that repeated without the semblance of emotion. "You seem to speak like you have control. Freedom. I placed that mask on you to remind you of what happens when your frail, fleshy frame is going to act smarter than it should be."

Neoha growled however at the mention of angels. Or the woman's disbelief. If only she could have known. They were real, and thought Nepha didn't have proof, let alone the ability to remember as much as she wished. She knew they were the reason for. Well, all of this. "If they don't exist. Explain my reasoning for being?" Nepha demanded, crossing her arms and looking down on the battered surgeon, before that montonous chuckle showed itself again. "We will see. Perhaps the angels will come to your people. And you'll become something worse. Creatures who must scream, but have no mouth to do so. And as for adding you to the cloak. It is a possibility. Among others I can envision for you..."

The woman seemed to beg for death and with her eyes closed, Nepha pondered just giving what the woman desired. She seemed more scared then she had seen from the rest of whatever crew this was. "You sound like I aim to kill you. My statement of your security's inability to wound me was in relation to your worries of harm with the knife." She said, trying to correct herself, and letting out a rather agitated noise when the girl repeated her request to be killed swiftly.

"Why do you wish for death? I grant you the ability to work and be spared. Unlike the rest. A chance to cure me. Would a doctor such as yourself shy from such things?" Nepha questioned, wriggling her metallic fingers. "They would not. Stop crying. Control yourself and carry yourself like a physician."

[sylvanSpider]

Marie hated herself for trembling. For crying. But the tears now ran forming trails in the blood that now covered her face. She pressed her lips tightly together to keep from speaking. There was no control. No freedom. She was now owned by this metallic woman who quite literally had her life in her hands. It was oh so different from what she was used to. Especially here, in the operating room. This was the one place in the entire galaxy where she had the utmost control. Everything she said was heeded, brought to life. Now? Now it was her prison.

“One can't explain the reasoning for anyone's being,” Marie muttered. Her voice was almost inaudible, and it cracked at the last word. “I don't exist for a reason, and neither did they,” she nodded her head toward Nepha's macabre cloak. “None of us do. If I can't find a reason for any of us, how do you expect me to find a reason for your being?” She shook her head looking away, letting one of her blood soaked hands touch the equipment she'd been setting up a moment before. Bowing her head, she listened as Nepha described the angels, or rather, what they did...and what Nepha herself could do. “Yes. You seem to be quite creative,” Marie spat back. She didn't even want to know what some of the 'others' Nepha had envisioned.

She swallowed, listening to the monster's reasoning as to why she should help her. On one hand, she'd taken a vow to help whoever came to her asking for her help. On the other, helping this woman could enable her to carry on potentially thousands more murders. Still, she was an anatomical anomaly. It was the chance of a lifetime. Marie was hardly one to turn this down. “Do...do you want me to be broken or like a physician? Which do you want? You cannot have both...”