ITT: We Are All Space Mercenaries

"Woah now, calm the flakken' hell down, Sparks, Sparks! These ain't just cops, these are my best buddies Rocky an' P'woo-winkle! An' they the best cops in the biz, the best, an' so the best they've come 'ere to putcha away fer the rest of eternity, rest of eternity! BWAHAHAHAHA!" Bodega laughed exaggeratedly - which given how she normally laughs, is a quite a statement - before walking over to the doubtlessly spooked android and jovially slapping him on the back. "Nah, ahm' just kiddin'. They were just here fer some terrorist warlord! Terrorist warlord! An' he was gonna kill us all, 'til it turned out he weren't a terr'ist warlord after all."

Responding to Roark's request, she turned back to the froglike alien and said "'Eyo, you wanna phone, Rocky, 'ere's a phone, I say, 'ere's a phone!" the Prutek said as she suddenly pulled the ship's slightly clunky, antiquated-looking phone out from inside the nearby refrigerator. "Yeah, we keep it in there 'cause when we use it too long, starts to overheat. Gotta let it cool down, cool right down. Also, y'all might wanna use it in the bathroom, best reception in there."

Frank, now back on the bridge, takes a quick moment to check the dashboard. Once he's done, he picks up his phone, and calls Becka.

So what's the new plan?

P'woo-winkle? (I've been called lots of names before but never that.) But, yeah, that's what we were here for!

(Bruno giggles.) I understood that reference! Yep, uh huh!

Erm...thank you... (Roark heads off to the bathroom with that huge phone. I can hear him mumbling about how he hopes the bathroom's clean.)

"Bodega why are you letting the police use our phone."

Sparks' tone will probably succeed only in making the cops curious as to what these people are trying to hide.

"Uhm... I guess we just relax. First, we gotta drop off the cops, though."

Becka never quite enjoyed the company of police. Too many bad memories. Regardless, she trots off to find the two officers that ended up goofed in all this mess.

"Hey." She asks them, keeping it brief. "Where are you guys stationed?"

(Just as I'm about to answer...Sparks, I think his name is? Becka asks me a question.)

Oh, Roark and I are stationed on our home planet of Faunatoid. (I explain to Becka.) Roark's trying to contact them right now!

Ooh, Faunatoid... (Bruno says as he finishes disgesting his food.) Uh huh, I remember the last time I went there. I think I'm still banned from that hotel...

(In the bathroom, Roark desperately tries to contact their Faunatoid Space Police station.)

Officer Roark to Chief, Officer Roark to Chief, can you hear me? Over. (Roark asks.)

(There is static on the other end.)

Chief, do you copy? Over. (Roark says again.)

(Finally, someone responds:) I believe you have the wrong number, sir, should I- (The call drops before they can finish. It clearly wasn't the Chief, though.)

(Roark groans and tries to dial again.)

A warning sign goes off in Frank's head when he thinks he hears Lizzy say "Faunatoid." Faunatoid's police don't have jurisdiction on these planets. What the fuck were they doing here? he starts thinking...

But Becka's orders are orders. Drop the cops off then take some down time. After all, for only a few minutes, that job was exhausting, even if Frank wasn't doing most of the heavy lifting.

Understood. he says, checking the orrery for Faunatoid's location.

Tilt had given Jotaro and Jane a silent salute, let Kristoph know not to get too excited about examining those Varrq specimens, and shot a brief glance toward the group figuring out Roark and Lizzy’s deal, but Becka’s requests had put him to task, so he’d ventured back into the barracks to call Everett back to negotiate.

His old quarters weren’t quite the way he’d remembered — the generic Power Pack charging dock he used when he was onboard had been replaced by a newer, shinier De Valliere Transference Module that he only needed to look at once before knowing it wouldn’t work with his Frankensteined-together power framework, and a pile of trading cards sat where Tilt’s stack of reprinted pre-Event comics once stood tall and proud.

It wasn’t as rough to look at as he’d expected — hell, whoever ended up moving in even left his Iron Giant poster up next to the bookshelves that weren’t there before.

With an impulse of nostalgia, Tilt smirked a bit and kept walking through the living spaces, eventually parking himself in one that had stayed empty through the years somehow — if he remembered right, it was because one time Kristoph used it as storage for a highly volatile capsule of Space Kentuckian peat extract and the pungent smell had lingered for months after the explosion — and started the call on his wrist from the blackened bed frame.

One ring, then, Limestone’s face. “Well?”

“The money and three times the Phyber, and I’m back in,” Tilt said. “No extra work from the Spotters for you, though.”

“Hmph,” the executive muttered. “I suppose it’s better than it could’ve been. We’ll get it squared away, then. C’est la vie.”

“Why are you so eager to help me out?” Tilt asked. “What are you getting out of it?”

“You’re so antsy, Fulton. My plans are my business, and they’re on a need to know basis,” Everett said. “There’s value in keeping you around, and if that means getting your sorry ass back into that group of bandits, well, I guess we’ll consider it a necessary step.”

After a beat, he groaned. “What do I owe you?”

“Cross that bridge when we get to it, Thaddeus,” the executive said. “I’ll call when I need you. Not the Spotters, just you. I expect you to answer when that happens, and if it doesn’t, I’ll find another way to get my message across. It won’t be pleasant, but it’ll happen if it has to. Savvy?”

Tilt glared at the hologram. “Yep.”

“Good. Be seeing you.” Everett disappeared from the space above Tilt’s arm, and Tilt himself stared at the ceiling from the bed with a blank expression, the green light typically in his eyes dulled to a brown matching the rest of his pupil-like lenses.

Edited by Tre on Sep 28th 2018 at 4:11:12 AM

Aha! There you are! Frank has just found Faunatoid on the orrery. He taps it, and the orrery starts calculating the planet's distance from Phobos, the ship's top speed, the orbit path of Faunatoid, and a bunch of other variables that Frank doesn't have memorized. He sets the phone down, ready to pick it back up if Becka has anything else to add, and turns on the intercom for what, he hopes, will be the last time today.

Attention crew, and guests, this is Vliet speaking. Now that our unexpected job is finished, our next order of business will be escorting our fine guest, Officer Roark, back to Faunatoid and dropping him and the stowaway off. The orrery's still calculating the journey, but my conservative estimate is that the trip will take somewhere between 100 and 120 hours, assuming something doesn't come up on the trip. So for now, feel free to kick back and relax for the next few hours.

The orrery beeps the Shave And A Haircut pattern, which is its way of saying "I'm finished calculating." 113.27 hours. Perfect.

He starts going through the take-off procedure. It's significantly less abrupt than the landing was, to say the least.

"...wait, what? We're just... going to escort the coppers back home, simple as that? No payments, no contracts, nothing?"

Sparks does the closest thing to a frown his unconventional "face" can muster.

"That is... not like us. No, sirree, it's not normal at all..."

Hey, I have to be dropped off back there with Roark, too! (I laugh.)

You're leaving? (I hear Bruno ask me.)

Yes, of course I am! I'm a space cop, remember? (I say. Then what Sparks says catches my attention.) Oh, uh, we kinda got stuck on here by mistake in the first place. What are you talking about?

Erik comes slithering into the room.

"Hey guys, I just cleared out another space worm infestation. They were all up in the-" Erik stops when he hears what Lizzy says.

"Leaving? Aw, but I barely got to know you!"

The bag in Bodega's room begins to stir, a high-pitched nasaly groan coming from it. Something pushes at the bag from the inside, struggling to get out. It eventually rolls off the bed, making a loud clash against the floor.

(Good grief, between Bruno and Erik, part of me almost WANTS to stay here, but I'm still a space cop at the end of the day, and I figure Roark wouldn't be very happy if I just flaked out on him all of a sudden.)

Hey, maybe we'll bump into you guys again, though. You guys are all pretty cool, and it was pretty fun stopping those bad guys! (I say.) I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of you guys.

Ooh, maybe you're right! Yeah, uh huh! (Bruno says.)

(Then I hear a crashing noise.) What was that?

(Roark is still having no luck with the clunky phone. He's in for a surprise when he gets out of the bathroom and finds out they're going back to Faunatoid anyway)

Back down in the barracks, Tilt was attempting to defragment some old memories of the Celestial. Things still felt weird, felt off. It felt like he'd finally managed to get on the path to making things better, but he wasn't going to fool himself into thinking things were gonna be sunshine and roses just because he'd given Becka his own CPU-felt apology and someone else's money. Proving himself was gonna be its own challenge, and with Limestone breathing down his neck, he dreaded the moment where he'd have to be in two places at once.

His eyes lit back up as he brought up a photo he'd saved of the crew a few years back. In the middle was Becka, her wide-brimmed Stetson shadowing the rest of her face. Bodega was on the right, flexing two arms upward and the others down with a grin, and Frank stood to the left with a classic "I'd Rather Not Be Here" expression on his face. Flashing a peace sign with his original right hand, Tilt was sandwiched between Kristoph's frazzled smirk and a boxy fellow floating next to them with a pixelated smile. Things had changed since then, but there was a part of him that hoped that they weren't completely gone.

There was another part of him, though, that felt like something had brushed his leg. With a start, he lifted himself from the bed and turned to each side, suddenly and panickingly taking inventory of his surroundings.

He heard a hiss, and a shadow emerged from the ground below him, a thing slithering onto the seams of his jeans' left side. Tilt shook his leg frantically to unhinge it, but it wouldn't budge, and soon he felt the unmistakable burn of an acidic fang tearing into his pants and shin. With a desperate upward lift, he tried to summon something from his matrix to repel the worm, but the pen that he tossed at it was just a pen, and it bounced pathetically off of the green menace to the floor.

Tilt let out a pathetically loud yelp and tumbled to the ground, whacking the creature with an umbrella that showed up when he needed a sword. A set of sparks flew out from his leg as it continued to tear through, but the worm's burrow came to a halt when Tilt caught a glimpse of the blue glow of a laser blast. It screeched and thrashed for a second before bursting into charred shards, and he turned to find a yellow-green robot in the doorway, with a front panel displaying a shocked expression not unlike an ":O" emote.

"Thaddeus Fulton!" he said as his laser mount collapsed back upward into his boxy form. "The legend himself!"

Tilt blinked a couple of times. "Bumper?!"

The boxbot hovered to the android with a grin and the two went into a hug. "You had me worried sick! I thought you died after... y'know... what happened!"

"Don't worry, bud, I held my own," Tilt said, letting out a groan and turning to the exposed wiring and leaking fluids coming from his leg. Bumper turned to it and switched his display to an exclamation mark.

"Hey, let me help you with that," he said, and a panel on his right side slid upward and projected a beam of blue light onto the burned area. With a effervescent pop!, Tilt's wounds were nowhere to be found.

"Did I teach you that?" Tilt asked.

"I've figured out some new stuff since you left, T-Fult," Bumper said, teetering about with a joyful vibe. "Oh, it's so good to have you back, though! Maybe we can go to see the Countach Belt like we always pla—"

His fantasizing was interrupted by a loud clatter from the other side of the hall. "What was that?''

Tilt clutched the handle of his umbrella. "I don't think I want to find out."

Edited by Tre on Sep 26th 2018 at 11:37:58 AM

With the Celestial now out of Phobos' atmosphere, Frank pushes out of Phobos' orbit and into Mars', planning to use the planet's gravity to launch them towards Faunatoid. As usual for this trade, this maneuver is slow, time-consuming, and takes a lot of concentration, so to keep his mind focused, Frank hangs up his phone and puts on another song, which he also sings along to.

Some folks trust to reason, others trust to might...

The ship is now orbiting Mars. In a few minutes, they'll be on the other side of the planet, which is where the ship needs to be for Frank to pull this maneuver off. By then, hopefully, the song will be halfway through.

The bang from the barracks momentarily startles Frank, but he quickly regains his focus.

Edited by WilliamRadarStorm on Sep 16th 2018 at 3:45:57 PM

Erik hears the bang too, but is surprisingly unfazed by it. He does seem nervous about something else, though, looking around with his ears twitching anxiously.

"I just hope we get to Faunatoid soon, before anything else bad happens. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like we're being watched?"

"Yeah, I think we're being watched. Let me sing a song to draw it out." Erik opens his mouth, and out comes a loud static sound. This goes on for several seconds, but nothing happens, so Erik stops.

"Eh, it's probably nothing." Erik walks away from the window.

Meanwhile, a large shadowy form is floating outside the Celestial. Upon realizing that the ship is going to Faunatoid, the shadow dashes down there first.

Edited by DrNoPuma on Sep 17th 2018 at 8:52:20 AM

"...Erik what was that."

Sparks's "eye" plate has by now turned into a pair of question marks in his sheer confusion.

"What was what?"

Erik dashes back to the window and looks out, but there's nothing there now, except Faunatoid, which is getting closer.

Frank is a bit freaked out when the radar glitches out for a few seconds^* Intended to be a result of the shadow's dash to Faunatoid., but when he looks out to see its cause, all he sees is... Faunatoid.

Wait, we're there already? He's suddenly thinking. True, there is the well-known "other end of a hyperspace highway" illusion, but that's clearly the real deal. It's within flying distance. It's not translucent. ...the song isn't even over yet!

Frank is a bit confused, but decides to let the crew know they've arrived.

Uuhh-tention crew, thi— and guests, and guests... this is, ah, Vliet speaking... we've arrived. I don't know how, it's only been a few minutes... From here, Frank bumbles out a series of false-start words for a solid 10 seconds before settling on Iiii will look for the nearest elevator, then we'll dock and drop the cops off. Oh and the stowaway. Almost forgot.

Frank, thinking he's seen too much in one day to function normally, pulls out a crate of whiskey from the same closet his binoculars are in, and pours himself a shot.

"Man, that hurt more than... Vissan Poetry? No, that's not it. Verdict Poetry? No... Verde Poetry-"

"Vogon Poetry, Jane. However, I'm impressed you even know a thousand-years-old reference as such."

"There's a lot of stuff you don't know about me... maybe."

Jane scratched her head as Jotaro went back to reading his book.

It seemed like the bum in the barracks went mostly unnoticed for them.

Aur wanders into the bunkroom.

"Hey, what was that noise?"

"Which noise? There's a lot going on right now. Was it the overly long, hellish noise I made? Sorry."

Yeah, uh, that was kinda... (I'm not sure how to put it, but before I can answer, I see Roark coming back out of the bathroom.)

Stupid phone didn't work... (He groans.)

Oh, well, we're about at Faunatoid anyway, so...we don't really need that phone anymore... (I tell him.)

(Oh, yikes, was that the wrong thing to say? Because now Roark's getting kinda mad...next thing I know he's spiking the old phone down onto the ground in front of Bodega.)

Spent that long in there...wrestling with the dang thing...