[ It used to bother Sam, honestly, half because it reminded him too much of the Raft and half because he wanted to know how long he'd been here, even if he wasn't sure he had plans on going back to his world.
It only bothers him now that it's harder to keep track of things like when holidays should be, or birthdays, or anniversaries. ]
The first one - we were covert, too, though not as bad as this. We were in a city called Concordia, and there was a lot of political shit going on there, mostly about whether AIs were people or not. The Enemy'd gotten involved with one of the anti-AI groups and suddenly they had a hell of a lot of power and resources. We found the Enemy's contact, but he was killed mid-interrogation, either by suicide or... something else. I wasn't fast enough to keep him alive.
[ I felt him die, he doesn't say, keeps that locked carefully behind his shields - he hasn't told anyone that, and remembering the sensation makes him shake out his hands briefly before the settle. ]
Second one was less complicated. Some intergalactic competition was going on, and the prize was something that Cathaway said we'd need down the line. We had to get it. [ He huffs out a soft laugh, and his tone is fond even as he insults people. ] Buncha dumbasses ended up getting themselves caught doing some recon on where the prize was being kept, we had to break them out and make a run for it. As for a lot of us coming through here -
[ There's a soft, considering hum. ] Maybe not a lot. There's people like Rhan and Lyr - it was Nirad and Carata my first mission - who've been Hosts longer, who're off in small groups doing recon. On the Station there's never more than a few dozen of us, but... yeah, it cycles. There's only two people left who're here when I got here, and both of them have gone to sleep before.
preemptively apologizes for the tl;dr
It only bothers him now that it's harder to keep track of things like when holidays should be, or birthdays, or anniversaries. ]
The first one - we were covert, too, though not as bad as this. We were in a city called Concordia, and there was a lot of political shit going on there, mostly about whether AIs were people or not. The Enemy'd gotten involved with one of the anti-AI groups and suddenly they had a hell of a lot of power and resources. We found the Enemy's contact, but he was killed mid-interrogation, either by suicide or... something else. I wasn't fast enough to keep him alive.
[ I felt him die, he doesn't say, keeps that locked carefully behind his shields - he hasn't told anyone that, and remembering the sensation makes him shake out his hands briefly before the settle. ]
Second one was less complicated. Some intergalactic competition was going on, and the prize was something that Cathaway said we'd need down the line. We had to get it. [ He huffs out a soft laugh, and his tone is fond even as he insults people. ] Buncha dumbasses ended up getting themselves caught doing some recon on where the prize was being kept, we had to break them out and make a run for it. As for a lot of us coming through here -
[ There's a soft, considering hum. ] Maybe not a lot. There's people like Rhan and Lyr - it was Nirad and Carata my first mission - who've been Hosts longer, who're off in small groups doing recon. On the Station there's never more than a few dozen of us, but... yeah, it cycles. There's only two people left who're here when I got here, and both of them have gone to sleep before.