Fortress Doctrine

[Reeves]

Thallia's ship glided through the black toward the docking collar designated by the station's automated beacon. As Ramsey loomed ahead - a hulking mass of metal and carved rock hunched in the Georgian Ice Field - she could already feel the difference. Unlike most fringe installations, there was no chatter from flight control, no half-sarcastic instructions or bored techs guiding her in. Only a curt digital handshake and a sequence of blinking lights on her HUD.

The docking arm itself was overbuilt and armored, designed to withstand sabotage or assault. As magnetic clamps seized her hull with mechanical finality, she felt the sudden silence - the hum of her engines fading as the station took over. Then came the hiss of pressurization, and the docking bridge lurched forward.

Inside, the airlock opened onto a decontamination chamber - not standard protocol for most stations, but here, everything was about control. Floodlights slammed on, and she was hit with bursts of pressurized air, followed by a pass from an automated scanner that clicked and buzzed as it swept over her gear. Her comm crackled to life: a flat voice, devoid of emotion, reciting instructions.

"Remain still. Do not speak. Keep your ID visible."

Thallia couldn't help the subtle rolling of her eyes, but she understood. Security had to be paramount, both for the reasons she was here and what she knew of these Xenos. Slipping her ID out of her pocket, she held it in one hand in front of her, then stood motionless. Lips tight. Eyes forward.

Two soldiers entered, weapons not raised but in hand, visors down. Their uniforms were immaculate, bearing the insignia of the Ontario-trained squadrons – sharp silver trim, dark gray plating, a stylized Liberty eagle partially overlaid by a gear motif. These weren't pirates. These were disciplined men and women trained to move like infantry and think like enforcers. They didn't ask her questions. They told her where to walk.

"Forward."

One of their voices boomed authoritatively, gesturing at the door on the other side of this divide. It was only on the other side that Thallia would see yet another soldier who was kitted in all black and bore a striking white and red Cobra on his shoulders. She might note the fact that this one in particular was equipped with Kemwer.

Regardless, he wordlessly nodded at her and led the way ahead.

The corridor past the airlock resembled a naval facility more than an outlaw base. Steel plating. Vaulted bulkheads. Surveillance cameras mounted at precise intervals. Every ten meters, a biometric scanner. At every corner, a soldier - not lounging, but standing at ready. She was escorted through silent passageways, occasionally stepping aside for marching squads, boots synchronized, rifles slung across backs.

There was no graffiti here. No personal touches. No signs of clutter or improvisation. The veterans had reshaped this part of Ramsey into a miniature command post - efficient, unyielding, and distinctly unfriendly to outsiders. Even the lighting was calculated: pale, steady LEDs recessed into the ceiling, casting no shadows, leaving nothing to the imagination.

She passed a sealed chamber with thick armored glass - a tactical planning room, perhaps, or an interrogation cell. A display table glowed faintly inside, and the air carried a faint trace of gun oil and antiseptic.

She was ushered into this space but he did not follow alongside her.

Thallia does as she's asked. No complaints. No grumpy or frowny faces. She would have looked out of place in such a rigorously disciplined military environment. Beige coat, boots, brown hair tied back. Brown eyes that looked around and took in everything they saw.

The Kemwer was of particular interest, and she made no effort to hide her looking over what the soldier had on their person. 'Possible Order affiliations... intriguing. How involved are they in this situation...' she thinks to herself as she's led towards the chamber.

Thallia hesitates for a brief moment on seeing the chamber. Frankly, anyone with a modicum of self-preservation would. Taking a deep breath, she steps inside and turns to face those who had escorted her here.

The door shuts and blocks the man who brought her here from view entirely. Instead another door opens and a woman enters, dressed in a grey uniform with a medic's emblem on the breast of the jacket. But she is also visibly armed with a pistol securely tucked away in a holster on her right thigh.

"Please strip and then step in the chamber."

She gestures towards what appears like a large tube recessed into the wall nearby. For a moment it looks like a walk-in shower but there are no faucets or water outlets - only what look to be thin vents and small glowing lights.

Thallia's expression sours at the request. With a moment's reluctance, she lets out a sigh and begins to undress. Taking off her coat, she folds it up and uses it as a base to place her other garments as she slips them off one by one.

Once bare, Thallia makes her way into the chamber and turns to face the medical professional.

The little chamber seals shut with a hiss and turns on with an audible hum just as the medic approaches a nearby console. Those glowing surfaces begin to fan out and scour across every inch of the person inside, taking stock of whether or not she was augmented, had previous surgical procedures, abnormalities, or was infected. In which case a single button push would vent the chamber with plasma from a nearby reactor.

The medic studied the imaging intently, not wanting to miss any details since this would need to form part of an official record.

Thallia slowly raises her arms, bending them at the elbow, and placing her palms on the back of her head. She wanted them to know she had nothing to hide.

The scan picks up a few items of note. Firstly, Thallia is not infected. There is no sign of alien matter or deformities that would suggest alien matter attempting to blend with her own. Secondly, her nervous system 'tics' on irregular but common intervals - sending a ripple of electrical activity through her body that emanates from her lower brain stem. Thirdly, there was a small augmentation on the back left quadrant of her skull. An interfacing between brain and two ports just behind her ear. Importantly, and if the Xeno Alliance had such information, it was clearly not of Technocrat nor alien design.

"Common nervous disorder."

The medic notes out loud. Her tone is entirely deadpan so it's clear that no attempt is being made to mock her.

"Origin of augmentation?"

She asked flatly, as if there was no alternative except to answer truthfully.

"Self-Augmentation," Thallia says calmly, though the warmth in her eyes shows she appreciates the lack of mocking at her condition.

"You operated on yourself?"

She seems genuinely surprised at this, and perhaps a touch concerned also.

"I d...d...did, yes. It was necessary at the time."

After a pause, she looks at the doctor. "I would be grateful, if there is time, if you'd be willing to check my handiwork."

"I'll refer you to our specialist. He's currently indisposed and I'm not qualified to assess it."

She seemed to make a mental note of this request and clicked a yellow button that generated a file before unlocking the chamber door.

"You are here under the Alliance Commander's hospitality. This is a great honour and show of trust for an outsider."

She spoke the last word with a degree of emphasis that betrayed both significance and contempt. These people were not without their prejudices.

"You will be expected to adhere to Fortress regulations while here. Please keep this in mind."

With this she gestured that Thallia was free to get dressed and leave.

"Thank you, I am grateful for that trust." Thallia says simply. She wasn't going to challenge such prejudices. Not with her words anyhow.

She steps from the chamber and takes her time to dress, working through those feelings of vulnerability. That official record has more information on it than almost anyone knew about her.

Once dressed, she flashes the medical officer a smile before stepping out of the chamber.

When the door opened again, that same guard was waiting outside for her. Though Thallia might feel remiss to find that her smile was not reciprocated. No pleasantry was being attempted by anyone she had met here so far. But at least this crucial step was over.

"Follow me."

The guard urged, turning on his heel to lead her away towards their new destination.

Thallia lets the smile on her face slowly fade as she follows the Kemwer-clad trooper to their next destination.

The further they go the more it becomes clear that this is no mere outpost. They pass what look to be administrative offices, restaurants, storage units, high-rise residences, and eventually arrive at a platform resembling that of your average monorail station.

Though unlike your average monorail station, this one overlooked a sheer drop into the guts of the rest of the Fort below. A spiderweb of walkways and gantries obscured the full extent of the workspace beneath. But the fact a community of this scale had painstakingly pulled itself together and created something like this was by itself an achievement.

When the tram approached, the guard gestured that she get on first, making sure to gently redirect anyone who was getting off with a nudge or shove as necessary. This way her path to board was clear, and he would follow behind her.

These people must have been workers going home after a shift, and in a hurry to do so. Likely exhausted.

Only a small assortment of people in clerical looking uniforms were still aboard as the tram slowly moved from its stop at relative speed. This was her opportunity to look around if she desired.

Thallia takes in every scene and every moment as much as she could. She doesn't deviate from their path, but her eyes and senses do. The residences. The restaurants. The offices and transportation. Those living in and around the Fort.

It wouldn't be hard to see how surprised she was, taken aback by how sophisticated and developed the asteroid base was. She'd underestimated these people drastically... and in a way she found it inspiring. The drive it must have taken. The ambition. The resourcefulness. She found herself walking onto the tram with growing respect for these people, gazing out its window as it moves off from the station.

It was unclear whether the guard noted her growing respect from behind the opaque visor of his helmet, it seemed unlikely because his head never once turned in her direction while on the tram and instead remained glued forward.

The rails would wind their way through tunnels and over chasms before coming to a steady halt at what appeared to be a civic center of some kind. Exiting the tram put them on a platform overlooking many other high-rises of varying purposes but the most topical of which lay just ahead. Denoted by the white star at its apex.

The Alliance Building stands in stark contrast to the rest of Fort Ramsey - not just in function, but in form. Where the station's veteran-occupied sectors bristle with armor plating, narrow corridors, and industrial gloom, the Alliance Building rises like a shard of ambition thrust into the void - clean, deliberate, and gleaming with light.

Its tall, angular architecture breaks sharply from Ramsey's utilitarian aesthetic. The central tower - narrow and glass-skinned - is encased in a gridwork of blue-lit lattice beams that trace its edges like an illuminated skeleton. Triangular glass segments form one of the lower faces, sloping upward in a crystalline sweep, evoking design philosophies more at home in Liberty's corporate metropolises than a hardened insurgent stronghold.

At night, or under the station's artificial day cycle, the tower glows from within: interior lights tracing lines across dozens of stories, flickering through transparent panes like veins in living glass. Red indicator beacons pulse rhythmically along its upper spires, accompanied by slim vertical antenna arrays that relay encrypted data to militia squadrons and Alliance envoys spread across Liberty.

This polished exterior is not merely aesthetic. Its construction was a symbolic gesture - one granted by the Ramsey administration to the Xeno Alliance in 828 AS, an act of cooperation designed to centralize the movement's fractured elements and elevate its strategic operations. The building was constructed with assistance from veteran engineering crews, but the architectural vision came from a younger generation of Xenos - those with ties to DSE's disgraced designers and Liberty's fringe infrastructure specialists. The result is a headquarters that feels more embassy than bunker, projecting ambition in glass and light.

Inside, the building maintains its visual clarity. Walls of smart glass partition off briefing halls, command balconies, and planning rooms, each surrounded by transparent walkways and surveillance catwalks. Tactical holotables cast blue-white glow across conference decks, while secured elevators rise silently between levels, always flanked by militia guards in full dress.

Thallia stayed quiet throughout the escorted journey, but her eyes betrayed her wonder at the sight of this incredible building. She had underestimated these people drastically...not only in not realizing their proficient militant arm but also how developed their civic culture was. She had expected something akin to a pirate base or zoner facility... this was something else entirely.

"It's impressive," she says quietly to the soldier escorting her.

"Is it."

He said back in return, it sounded like it wasn't meant to be a question, but it could only have been exactly that. It seemed he cared little for small talk or her opinion of the place. He had been told to bring her here safely and he had done exactly that.

This awkward one-sided conversation aside, they would walk by two checkpoints without any interjection by the people manning them and head straight inside an elevator. Of the many buttons to select floors, there was a flat black surface meant to scan access cards. The guard had just one such card which granted them the access required to travel up to the penthouse office.

It was quite a way up. Filled by your expected blend of shockingly generic elevator music. But the doors did eventually open into an empty waiting area, a clean black door ahead of them. He opened this for her but did not follow through. He was not required and after all this was their intended destination.

Thallia, once standing within the elevator and looking away from the soldier, makes a brief face with pursed lips and widened eyes. Tough crowd.

Once the doors open, Thallia walks through them into the office.

The office that lay on the other side of the threshold once through the waiting room was an eccentric space. A large curved window covered the far wall, and a man was standing there looking out at the view, turning around when he heard the door.

He carefully and quite gracefully paced around his desk which was flanked by that very same view and approached her at the entrance to the office, choosing to offer a handshake and polite smile. The first sliver of any kind of politeness so far.

She's even given the opportunity to speak first.

Thallia returns the smile, reaching forward with her right hand to shake the man's hand.

"Th...th...thank you for receiving me. This place... this haven of yours is impressive. I openly admit I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect...expect this."

"Neither did we. It all kind of came together over the years."

With his hand withdrawn he turned to the side to gesture towards his desk, indicating that she could sit down and they could continue speaking.

Much like the tower they were currently in, he stood out as being unlike the people she had met here so far. His hair seemingly dyed a crisp white, a hard contrast to the pale blue in his eyes, besides this his facial features sharp and pronounced. Everything about him screamed Manhattan as being the source. His choice of clothing seemed somewhat casual, likely having showered and changed out of his flight-suit during the time that she was being processed. A shirt and trousers were what he had elected to wear, the latter plain and black while the former was fine silk and even appeared to be hand stitched. Someone had put a significant degree of effort into making it for him, perhaps a partner of some form.

Thallia's eyes darted over him, taking in each of these aspects in detail as she walks towards the chair awaiting her near the desk. "Your voice is familiar. Are you the pilot that intercepted me before my arrival?"

"Someone has to be."

An attempt at humor as he rounds the corner of the desk and seats himself in the lone chair on the other side, looking up at her and waiting to see if she would also do so.

Thallia offers a slight grin at that, but perhaps didn't find it as amusing as he did. She lowers herself into the chair, her smile warm whilst her eyes were wary.

"I am grateful you gave me the opportunity to talk with you, rather than returning me to space dust."

"Do you want something to drink?"

He reached under his desk to open what sounded like a small fridge.

"I've got sodas, juice, and those artificial milkshakes you get in small cartons."

A grand selection surely.

Her brow rose, and the light hesitation in her response gave away her calculation of how risky it would be.

"May I have a soda? Whichever is your favourite in what you have?"

He pulled two from the small unit and popped both open before sliding over a can for her. It smelled like a blueberry cola and was audibly fizzing on the inside.

"Do you have any questions, expectations or terms?"

He asked, taking a small gulp from his own can.

Thallia takes up the can and lifts it to her face. She gives it a tentative sniff, her lips curling into a bright smile as the blueberry flavoring reminds her of a home she's not seen in a long long time. She takes a sip from the can, and leans back in the chair.

"I want to be able to study the anomaly on Sudbury, and I want to be able to travel freely. Both outside of Ontario and within the AO." She speaks softly with a warm tone, but not with any hints of expectation or entitlement.

"I will be honest, when I offered my help I did not expect to be seeing Kemwer, or an operation so secure. Unless you're still interested in my expertise, I'd like to know what you'd ask of me in return."

"That you reserve your findings for us. Otherwise I will revoke the privilege of being able to use this facility."

He came out with it immediately, not beating about the bush or making empty threats either. While watching how she reacted, he idly spun his can using both thumb and index.

Thallia scratches the back of her neck, closing her eyes for a moment as she contemplates the terms.

"A question related to your term. What is your relationship with the Order? Your soldier wore a comprehensive set of Kemwer, and your MO of locking down Sudbury is reminiscent of their approach."

He smiles at this because she clearly hadn't taken the hint that he wouldn't necessarily give her an answer regarding a benefactor that valued secrecy so highly.

"Why do you ask?"

To a certain extent, it was that lack of an answer that was enough for what she needed to know.

"I ask because I am OK with your term on the proviso that if we discover some truth or element that can help protect humanity in any way, it can be shared to other parties."

"I can consider that. Fine."

He nodded his head once emphatically, seeming to have a way about him that suggested both total calmness and high intensity at all times. It was peculiar. Perhaps she might notice further such eccentricities besides this, little things which almost felt like they were by design.

"You want to do what's best for people. I want to do what's best for my people. These can go hand in hand under the right circumstances."

Thallia relaxes in her chair, smiling warmly as she watches the man with a wary curiosity. She was gathering a number of questions for him, but this was not the time.

"I'm glad we can see we're both acting with good intentions." she sips from her soda, evidently irritated with her own stammer.

He finishes the last of his drink and sets the empty can down with a soft metallic clink, then reaches into his desk drawer to retrieve a small data pad. A few quick taps and swipes, and he slides it across the polished surface toward her.

"Your quarters assignment. Level 7, Section C. It's nothing fancy, but it has a proper bed, desk, and its own refresher unit."

Thallia picks up the pad and glances at the details, her eyebrows raising slightly in pleasant surprise.

"Quarters? I... I honestly expected you might stuff me in a cargo bay somewhere."

"We considered it," he says with the first genuine hint of amusement she's seen from him all day. "But cargo bays tend to be drafty, and we need you functional, not frozen. Besides, the last thing we want is complaints about our hospitality reaching the wrong ears."

Despite herself, Thallia lets out a small laugh. "Well, I do appreciate proper climate control."

"The access codes are already programmed to your biometrics from the scan earlier. Fair warning - there's a curfew after 2300 hours, and certain sections of the station remain off-limits. The pad will guide you to approved areas."

He stands, indicating the meeting has reached its natural conclusion.

"Welcome to Fort Ramsey, Thallia. Try not to make us regret this arrangement."

"I'll do my best not to cause trouble," she says, rising from her chair with the data pad in hand. "Thank you for the... accommodations. And the soda."

"Don't mention it."

As she moves toward the door, she can't help but notice that despite his dry humor, his eyes never quite lose their calculating edge. Time would tell how this arrangement would serve their respective interests.