Daddy's Little Girl [Anna]

Was Anna's visit to Earth extreme, dramatic, and reckless? Yes, yes it was. And she knew that. But she also knows her fathers pretty well - it can be hard to get either of their attention when they're busy doing something they feel is important. So though she had other ways to get a message to them if she'd really wanted to, she didn't really bother to try once she couldn't get through to their respective space agencies. Problem is, if she hadn't come personally then whatever message she sent would have been easy to set aside for a 'more convenient' moment. After all, doing anything in space is extremely expensive - something that she's well aware of.

But she's very strongly of the opinion that she's worth the expense, even during a long war. And that's not a sign of too much of an ego - she's actually surprisingly more modest than many might think - it's that she believes in what she represents. She was built out of international cooperation - a physical representation of the universal curiosity and inventiveness of humankind. Something that she doesn't think should be abandoned just because the world is at war. It was not so much out of concern for her own existence that she took that giant leap to Earth, it was because she was angry at her fathers for not being able to work together on anything and all the implications of that.

Fortunately, her visit did the trick. She'd been worried that it wouldn't, but she also knows that daddy and papa both love her and that if she couldn't get through to them than probably nobody could. It actually had ended up being even less difficult than she thought - she suspects the fact that they were both so shocked to see her on Earth given the way she'd have had to get there was a part of it. The hardest part of the trip was handling all the gravity - she was still rather wobbly when she returned to space. Maybe if she gets a good opportunity for a another visit - hopefully in much better circumstances - she should take it. And then she can practice walking some more.

Another visit to Earth is the last thing on her mind at the moment, though. When she returned to the station, Uncle Kiku had sent as much of the vitally needed supplies as the rocket had room for and that had been enough to tide her over until an unmanned supply vessel could be sent. Of course, what she really wanted was a manned flight, but those are more complicated to organize so she forced herself to be patient. But today her need for patience ends because NASA warned her that she'd need to be ready for two astronauts to arrive. And there's a lot to do - she'd shut down whole modules to conserve resources, as it was a waste to keep anything but the bare necessities up and running when it's just her on board. And then there's the continual problem of making sure that she keeps everything on the station organized so that everyone can find everything.

And then the only thing left to do is to help with the docking procedure. Since the ship is much smaller than the station, most of the maneuvering has to be done by the ship itself - but she can function as a soft of an air craft controller, helping guide the pilot into the proper position. Once the hatch is properly locked in place and the seal is confirmed, she opens the door with a big smile on her face. "Welcome aboard the International Space Station!" she greets them, "I'm Anna! Who're you?" It feels so good to have people back on board the station, more than she realized. It's not unlike taking a deep breath when you hadn't realized that you'd been holding it.

Though she's not able to begin the process of asking enough questions of both the men to write a full length biography on each of them before she's surprised by a third voice. And not just that it's a third person, but one that she's extremely familiar with. "Daddy?" she says, for an instant questioning his presence as if she's not completely certain that it's him and not someone who sounds and looks exactly like him. But then she gasps in delight and flies forward with the intention of grabbing him around the waist and refusing to ever let him go.

"Daddy!" she exclaims in what's almost a sob. Certainly not one of sadness, but of joy and relief. There'd been a part of her that had been worried that she'd never see him on the station again. She even neglects to remember that he said something about presents - though she'll no doubt remember later. For now she has everything she could ask for. Well, except papa and for the two of them to be getting along perfectly both on and off the station, but she'll take this much for now.

The aging process of nations is certainly difficult to compare to humans, who simply get older each year. Nations can go for long periods of time without seeming to age a day, and when they do age it's usually slowly unless and the exact reasons are unknown. And while Anna doesn't consider herself to be a nation - she's a space station - the same principle applies. Yet it's true that she's been growing - very slowly, but she's certainly been doing so. Which is actually kind of surprising to Anna herself because she wouldn't think that now of all times would be when she'd grow.

But when the war first broke out she looked to be about eight years old, in human terms. Between then and when she confronted her fathers she'd aged to being closer to eleven, and now she looks like she's perhaps a full year older than that. Which means that she's still aging extremely slowly in human terms, but this has been quite the growth spurt. Being the curious person that she is, she finds this to be fascinating and she's got all sorts of questions about why it's happening and how long it will continue. Unfortunately, nobody she's asked (mainly Peter) can give her a good answer about that. Especially since they do know it has something to do with humans, but Anna doesn't even have any of her own, technically. She's just hoping that she doesn't get too much older too fast - she still feels very much like a child.

Though she's grown more than just physically due to recent events - she learned how to depend on herself more and upon others less, mostly because the latter wasn't really an option for awhile there. In fact, when dad asks her for a tour, her first instinct is to tell him that it's not really necessary - because it's not just her fathers who let the war get in the way, it was everyone. Even the neutral countries have felt like they have higher priorities than space, so it's not like there's been very much happening on the station. Everything is kind of just like he left it, really.

Then again... Her mouth forms a small, somewhat determined smile as she says, "Okay!" Releasing him, only to take his hand so that she can pull him fully into Node 2 like a tugboat guiding a much larger ship, she first turns him around so that they're facing the airlock. "Look, I still have everyone's flags!" On the panel above the hatch (though directions like 'above' are a bit arbitrary), are the fifteen flags of the nations she considers family. Her daddy and papa's flags are at the very top, side by side and even overlapping each other slightly. The rest of the flags - Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, England, Italy, Spain, Japan, Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, and Belgium are arranged neatly underneath - all together. It's like a family photo of sorts, or at least that's how it feels to Anna.

"Node 2 is still working okay," she continues, motioning to the module they're in. It's primary purpose is as a central connecting point, as it can connect to things in all six directions. Four of them are being used - there's nothing straight up or down - but one of them is the docking port, and directly opposite of that is the Destiny laboratory - daddy's laboratory. Kibō is Kiku's lab and it's attached to the left of the docking port, while Columbus is the European laboratory and is to the right. "Kibō and Columbus still work okay too - Kibō had a power outage a bit ago but I fixed it and it's great now," she explains. But she doesn't bother to take him toward either of those - they're both dead ends and he can see into both of them easily enough from Node 2. Both are sitting strangely empty, not completely because there's a few long-term projects on the station that Anna's been able to maintain, but they're certainly vacant looking.

Instead she pulls him into the Destiny laboratory, which is similarly empty - though much to Anna's excitement that's partly because she made especially certain that it was clean today because it's usually the primary working space for Americans when they're on board. It's also a main hub for a lot of the station's life support systems - power, water, air, temperature, and humidity - though not the only one. Which is good, because that means that if there's a problem with one of them then there's a backup. "Destiny is only mostly okay - I've had to work really hard to keep the life support stuff working. But we're not at full power right now because there was an ammonia leak I couldn't fix in the P3 truss a few years ago, so I had to stop using all the arrays on the port side," she explains, a loss of about a third of the station's power generation. "And I hope you don't need the MELFI for anything - it's not working right now," she adds, frowning at the freezer. Luckily it's not needed for any critical station operations, though it's necessary for some research things. There's other ways to freeze things on the station, but that's the best one.

More than Anna's apparent age has changed since the beginning of the war - she's also gotten quite a bit more serious. But who could blame her, really? A part of it is simply a part of being older, but yes a part of it was being left too much to herself. Then again, that seriousness has been an addition to her personality, not a replacement - the quick laugh that bursts out at her daddy's joke is classic Anna. As is the proud grin that lingers on her face. "Well, I've gotta keep the important stuff working - everyone's gonna come back after the war and they need it to work," she replies, speaking not just of her fathers but her aunts and uncles and all the other people they decide to bring.

And that's a point that she can actually be quite confident about - her curiosity at times has lead her to learn about history, and in times of peace the scientists and other kinds of people who really like space start to go crazy with inventing things and wanting to learn more stuff. (Well, they do that during wars too, but their focus seems to be more on how to blow stuff up better.) But what better place for inventing and learning than a space station? She just needs to last that long, and then everything will be fine - or at least she's pretty sure.

Though she'd been really worried for awhile there, now that she's talked to her fathers she can be more confident that she'll live long enough to see peace and many, many more astronauts and cosmonauts. Daddy and Papa love her almost as much as she loves them, after all. "If you brought everything on the list I sent to NASA, I'll be fine for awhile," she reassures, but can't help but smile at the idea that he's planning on sending more soon. She hasn't dared ask how long the astronauts will be staying yet - whether they'll keep her permanently inhabited again or not. But with the war going on she's guessing not, as it would not only be more expensive but it would also be impossible to accomplish without having people from opposite sides on board at the same time - which may not be a good idea. He fathers especially may have to take turns - as difficult as that is to think about.

"But I can show you what I've got left," she says, pulling him the rest of the way through Destiny, as the station's main storage areas are next. Node 1 wasn't originally meant to be a storage space, but it was daddy's first contribution to the space station so all of its old functions have been supplanted by newer modules. But like Node 2 it's an important connecting piece, and has ended up being the storage area for some of the more important things - like the water. "The pond is almost empty," she says with a frown, as there's not many bags of it left in the wall slot where it's stored. Now, water is something that's very much recycled in the space station, so a little bit of it goes a surprisingly long way. The fact that she's almost out of water is a testament to just how long it's been since she was last resupplied with it - she's supposed to have enough on hand to keep a full compliment of astronauts going long enough for those on Earth to arrange a rescue if the life support systems start to fail. But that's why it was at the top of the list she sent to NASA.

Next she directs his attention to one of the small modules attached to Node 1. "The door on the Quest airlock is stuck shut, and I don't know why," she says with a frown, "But the Poisk airlock still works good, so we can still get outside." But she leaves it unsaid that it's definitely not a good thing that the station only has one functional airlock - if something were to happen to Poisk now, and you needed to go on a space walk to fix it, then the logistics of the mission would get really, really complicated.

But instead of dwelling on that, she turns to the side opposite from Quest. "Node 3 still works perfect. Except I had to close the hatch to Cupola because it started to leak..." she says, with a deep frown. Some would argue that Cupola is the best part of the whole space station. It's also completely unnecessary, since its main feature is seven large (for a space station) windows arranged in the shape of a dome, and a fancy window is extremely unessential. But still, the view!

Moving on from that, and since both of those directions are dead ends, instead of going either way she instead pulls her daddy through the end opposite from the Destiny. "I'm worried about the outside fuel tanks on Zarya," she says as they enter the module. It's the first and oldest module on the station, and it's primary purpose now is storage. And in a show of the international nature of the station, it's considered the first piece of the 'Russian side' of the station, because it was built by her papa, even though it was her daddy who paid all the money for the whole thing. Unlike the pond, it's not very close to empty, though that's the work of the unmanned supply ship that was sent up first. It's mostly 'household' goods like towels, clothes, and other things you need around the station aside from food and water. "The last time I was outside I saw that they've been really banged up by micrometeorites and I'm worried they could leak," she explains, though you can't tell that from the inside.

Unfortunately for Anna, she has little choice but to be optimistic, because if the rosy future she's looking forward to doesn't pan out, then she's literally doomed. And that's... a bit of a heavy load for someone her age to face, so she does her best not to. But hoping for the best is something that does comes naturally to her - a trait from her daddy's side. She does have reason to hope for the best, though - she does not believe that humans will ever abandon their desire to explore space. No, the question is whether the war will last too long

Though she'd never question that both of her fathers love her, she also knows that they care deeply about their allies and their people. And while she sometimes struggles to understand money she does know that she's very expensive. And the war is very expensive. And taking care of people can be very expensive. What happens if it gets bad enough down there that they have to make a choice? But that's not a thought that she likes to think about either, let alone voice, so she simply notes that it's not that bad yet and she doesn't even know if it ever will get that bad. Still, one of her main goals now is to become self-sufficient as soon as possible - that's the sort of thinking she gets more from her papa. But if she's going to be self-sufficient there's a lot of work to do, and it may not even be possible until the war ends.

So for now survival is sufficient, and having people on board again is a huge boost to her confidence that she'll manage that much. It's a much more positive sign than a shipment of supplies - which is a huge expense on its own, but sending people is much more of a commitment. As for things that are neither people nor supplies - no, Anna did not miss the way her daddy implied that he had presents for her, either before or now. This time she reacts more to it though, so he doesn't think that she did. "You have to show me after the tour!" she says with a smile. And yet her daddy would notice faster than pretty much anyone else how extremely mild of a reaction that is for her when it comes to presents. She's changed more than he probably understands yet over the past couple of decades - still the same Anna, but... different.

She's not nearly as troubled by all the problems that have arisen on the station, for example. While some of them - like the water - are extremely important, she's used to there being a long list of problems. Problems are a reality for her now, though she doesn't doubt that her daddy will do everything he can to help fix them while he's around. "Well, I need your help, because I fix everything important that breaks myself if I can," she replies - meaning everything that isn't fixed she can't take care of herself, for one reason or another. In some cases because she doesn't have the expertise she would need, in spite of her vast knowledge of herself, but more often the problem is that she simply needs a second person to lend her a hand.

But though her daddy seems eager to get started, she won't neglect the last part of the tour, but it's almost finished. If Zarya's status on being more Russian or American is a bit hazy, the rest of the station is quite clearly Russian. All the equipment is labeled in English because that's Anna's official language, but all of it was papa's doing. Pulling her daddy through Zarya on into the next module, they enter Zvezda.

It's a unique module because it's designed to be almost strictly living quarters - there are other places on the station with life support equipment, places to sleep, places to eat and drink, etc. but those are scattered through Node 1, Node 2, and her daddy's lab instead of all gathered in one relatively small spot like on Zvezda. As a result, it's probably the most home-like spot on the entire station, or at least that's how Anna feels about it. While many of the walls in the station are 'decorated' with small little things left by those who were here before, cluttering up spaces that would otherwise be blank walls with no purpose, there's probably more of that here than anywhere. Photos of prominent figures in the Russian Space Program, mission badges, a little Russian flag - there may not be any Russians on the station today, but the fact that they were here is obvious everywhere.

"The Elektron is broken again," Anna comments as they enter, frowning at the unit. This at least shouldn't be too much of a surprise to anyone - it's always been problematic. But it's one of the systems that can make oxygen out of the humidity in the air so it's a very useful thing to have working even though the space station is still habitable without it. It just means that the other systems that add oxygen have to work that much harder. "But the other stuff in here still works good," she adds, which is good news because there's a lot of critical components here. Well... except she won't complain about how outdated the computer system is - it's really, really old but that's not exactly a need but a want and she knows it.

Without much else to say about Zvezda, she backs up slightly - getting closer to where Zayra and Zvezda intersect and gestures upward, where Poisk is connected. "I told you that Poisk is still good," she comments, before she looks down, "Nauka is still good too..." When she speaks of Nauka, her voice suddenly becomes quieter, troubled. It's her papa's lab, and though the entire station has gotten quite old, it's the newest piece. But that alone isn't responsible for it's good condition. It wasn't added until after all the trouble down on Earth began. It was still very early on in the war, while the rift between her fathers hadn't been so great that they couldn't still cooperate in space, and her papa had still believed that he'd get a lot of use out of the lab. Instead much of its good condition is because it's hardly been touched, and when he mind touches on that fact her forehead wrinkles.

But, unsure of how much her daddy would like to hear her talk about how much she misses her papa and not wanting to ruin his visit with that heavy of a conversation right now, she pulls her thoughts and eyes away from Nauka and doesn't have to force herself too much in order to smile. After all, she's thrilled enough as it is to have her daddy on board. "And that's the whole tour," she declares, before adding, "I'm sorry that there's so much we need to fix. I mean, I worked really hard and I think I did a great job, but we're not going to have very much time to relax." Well, they could slack off and do nothing until he leaves - and in fact, it's the part of her that she inherited directly from him that thinks that sounds like a great idea - but she knows how important the repairs are and that her daddy cares too much about her to sanction that idea. They'll have to make up for it by eating only desserts or something.

Anna knows all the swears. All of them. In several languages. Yes the people who get sent up here are the best and brightest of their respective countries and with that comes a certain sense that one ought to behave in a perfectly respectable fashion at all times, but space is dangerous and incredibly expensive. Whenever something goes wrong it's likely to be important, might be extremely complicated to fix, probably very expensive to replace, and if it isn't directly life threatening then it's still probably something that will have a negative impact on the quality of your life. So the potential for something expletive-worthy to happen is quite high at all times, even if the very people who are having the problem are incredibly good at figuring out what to do about it. But though she knows them, she generally doesn't use them - it just doesn't fit who she sees herself to be to say such things.

Especially not around her fathers. Especially not papa.

"Well, you and papa are... kind of busy," she says, avoiding mentioning the war directly as she explains herself, "And I know it's kind of a big deal to get up here right now - not all your people think this stuff is important. So I don't want everyone to have to come up here and spend a long time fixing everything, I want them to have lots of time to do experiments 'cause that's what makes coming up here worth it."

One thing she won't speak about is whether or not her fathers should have been around. Because she agrees, but what more can she say about it now that would do anything but make both of them feel worse about it? Especially since they've been taking the necessary steps to rectify the situation. It would seem ungrateful of her to say anything more on the matter - that might imply that what they're doing now isn't good enough. And they reached across enemy lines and committed resources to something together in the middle of a war - if that's not good enough, how could anything be?

Still, in spite of all these serious thoughts, she can't help but grin when her daddy promises that they can still have fun. Which she should have realized - this is daddy she's talking to - of course it will be fun. "...Can we fix the Cupola?" she asks, as that's the best not-exactly-vital part of the station that's broken. In fact, she's already assuming that even if the answer is yes it still won't be the first Item on the list - anything that might kill someone if it gets any worse is obviously first. But once they get into things that aren't quite that important, a break to fix the cupola would be nice.

For several moments Anna struggles to know how to respond to her daddy's words. When she was younger she might have said something about it being okay - not because it actually was okay but because she doesn't want her daddy to feel badly about even something that he probably should feel badly about. But though she still feels that, she also feels a bit more strongly about being honest about the situation. So after a moment she manages to simply say, "Well, you're here now, so..." Unsure of how to end that thought properly, she lets it trail off. But she figures that her daddy will understand - while what he did isn't okay, she recognizes that he's trying to make up for what he did and she's not angry.

Well... maybe she's a little angry. Though perhaps anger isn't the right emotion - she's not in a hot rage about it, she's just a little bit hurt. While she understands that her daddy and papa are both really busy and need to pay attention to many things, she thought that she was at a certain level on their list of priorities only to find out that she was much lower than she thought. Well, either that or they forgot something important while they were distracted by something else, but then again if she was that important how could they let themselves be so distracted?

Still, they're her daddy and her papa, and she loves both of them - even if they make horrible mistakes. Of course, a part of her internal struggle about that right now is that she's growing up. Actually being able to recognize that her parents can, in fact, make horrible mistakes is still kind of a new thing to her. When she was younger and such things happened she'd be much quicker to assume that they didn't actually do anything wrong - she just wasn't understanding the situation properly. But now? Now daddy and papa aren't the flawless nations she used to think they were. She still loves them just as much anyways - perhaps even more because that makes her feel less inadequate when she makes mistakes herself - but it's still a bit of a difficult concept to swallow.

But there's nothing fake about the instant brightening of her smile when he says that they can fix the Cupola. "We should probably do a spacewalk first thing so that we can look at everything outside - I don't like to go out there when it's just me, so I haven't checked things out there very well," she says - but can you blame her? When she's alone, she has no backup - so if the least little thing goes wrong on a spacewalk... Yeah, even if she's the best spacewalker ever, it's a huge risk. For the past several years she's only gone out there to fix something if she had to in order to live. But now that she has backup and the goal of fixing the Cupola in mind, she's eager to get started.

"But before that..." she adds, "You said there were presents?!?" And no, she didn't forget.

Anna is a very bold and daring young woman - she has to be in order to live in space. But she's also not totally reckless either - safety matters a lot to her. Space is dangerous enough if you follow all the appropriate safety procedures - it's lethal if you ignore them. So when her daddy agrees that it's good for her to have someone with her while she's spacewalking, she's quickly nodding. She's just as happy about the fact that she's not having to go out there by herself again as he is.

Though when he asks about her spacesuit, she frowns, "Oh yeah, my spacesuit. It's okay... I mean, it works." Not especially well, but... "It's too big, though," she explains, because her daddy hasn't seen it yet, or how much of a struggle it is for her to maneuver around in the thing. She can, but it's hard. "But that's not uncle Kiku's fault - I needed to get back up here really fast, and making a new spacesuit just for me would have been too much time, so he gave me the smallest one they had, but it's still for an adult." She makes a slight face but she seems resigned to it - she needs a spacesuit, after all, and beggars can't be choosers.

She used to have a beautiful spacesuit that was just her size. But then, when the war began to rage, she grew - a lot. And she could barely squeeze into the thing anymore, though she'd quickly become accustomed to making do with whatever she had. Then came the day that she threw herself down to the earth so that she could have a little chat with her fathers. She'd been wearing the suit at the time, and it burned up on reentry with her. She got better - it did not. After she finished doing everything she needed to on Earth, she needed to get back into space as quickly as possible. With so much of the world focused on the war, the only one prepared to launch her back into space on such short notice was her uncle Kiku, since he'd been trying to remain out of the war as much as possible at the time. Even so, the best suit he could offer her without waiting for one to be made for her was made for a small woman, and it's actually quite a bit dated - it had been sitting in storage for quite some time before it was pulled out and readied for service.

Which is why, after following her daddy back to the ship and eagerly tearing open the first package, she emits a squeal of delight when she first sees the shape of a helmet, and then again when she fully pulls it out and sees that it's just her size. Pulling the rest of the suit out of the package as if to make sure that it's really all there, she can only grab her daddy in a one armed hug because the other arm is refusing to let go of her new suit. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she gushes, "It's perfect!" Well, she's pretty sure it is, anyways. Doubtless daddy had made sure that it was just her size - it looks like it is. And it's the best kind of gift - practical and awesome!