ITT: We Are All Space Mercenaries

A hunking robot began moving over to the ship, its sensors detecting a large gathering of creatures on it. Some of them had a bounty on their heads. But then the boss didn’t care for money. He had a lot of it. The boss wanted him to go investigate this group. And so he activated the suit’s stealth function and began sneaking onto the vessel.

Edited by Zincmind16 on Sep 26th 2018 at 6:52:28 AM

"Okay Miss Emmylou, everything will be just fine."

Jotaro Is there too!

Jane walks into the room.

"Ah, someone new. Sup?"

She would object to "academics" being her species' "hat", but their culture does value academia and intellect highly, to the point where most jobs require years and years of education and a couple of tests to prove your mettle. It's all so...byzantine...

At first, Bodega violently shaking her hand startles her, but the Protek's continued rambling moves her to hysterics. By the end, after letting go of Bodega, she nearly doubles over in laughter, even leaning on the Protek herself for balance.

Bodega stepped back a little as she witnessed the strange alien falling into hysterics. It was a rare moment of clarity; she'd always expected people to laugh at her jokes, but the unusual occasion of a non-Prutek actually doing so had alerted her to how unusual an occasion it was. She rubbed her chin in confusion.

"Uh, y'okay there? Sounds like y'gonna shoot yer lungs at me, yer lungs."

Erik chuckles. "We're in danger."

Enzo awakens from his nap. He gets off of his bunk, sets his glasses back on, and peers into his ant farm, where he sees that his ants have made quick work of the piece of Varq he smuggled on.

He looks at the gathering of crew in the quarters, and peers into the situation, seeing the crew questioning Emmylou. He plans to simply head off to grab a bite, but he decides to pose a question.

Hey, uh, is this one hostile?

(Bruno, who has also been laughing, answers Enzo.) Nope, nuh uh, she's fine! She's Emmylou. She's not sure what she's doing here and she's gonna shoot her lungs out at Bodega! Like this!

(Bruno opens his mouth and spits out a blob of Catotian plasma, which sits on the ground sizzling afterwards. He fails to catch Erik's comment that they're in danger.)

The result of Bruno's expectoration happened to land in the immediate vicinity of Tilt, who leapfrogged onto Bumper's top side to avoid it.

"Hey, watch where you let that stuff fly, dude!" He stumbled a bit before settling into a squat atop the boxbot. "I've already had enough of me burned off by acid today, thank you very much."

He leaned to Bumper's left end and gave a quick whisper: "Thanks again for the patch-up job, bud." The two exchanged a fistbump as Tilt dismounted.

"If you guys have the situation with E-Lou covered, I think Tilt and I were gonna go ahead and see about working out his pen situation," Bumper said. "Unfortunately the things don't grow on trees, so we might be a li'l bit."

Tilt gave him a glare the likes of which hadn't been exchanged between the two in years, and Bumper gave him a bit-eating grin in response.

Edited by Tre on Sep 28th 2018 at 4:05:00 AM

She continues to snicker before eventually catching her breath and settling down. "No...my lungs are gonna stay in my body, thank you." Her lungs! ...she lets out another snicker at that thought.

"But, uhh, if you can, I'll need to get back to my school, yea. It's Menkeres...the Menkeres Institute, I mean, on Icleiss?"

(Bruno giggles as he absorbs the plasma he spat out, not wanting anybody else to touch it.)

Hmm...don't remember where that is, nope, nuh uh. Anyone else do? (Bruno asks nobody in particular.)

That's in the Daevish system, if I recall correctly... trip there from here would take somewhere between 200 and 300 hours, depending planet path, speed and whether or not we teleport there again. Frank mumbles in response. For someone who was trying to sleep, he sounds strangely awake.

"Woah, wait a sec, 'fore we go trekken' across space fer 200 hours, 200-frakken'-hours to deliver this strong-lunged li'l lady, we oughta ask a few questions! Questions such as 'what's in it fer us', 'what kinda reward can we expect', an' last, but not least, 'do I get paid'?" Bodega stated, holding up one finger on three of her four hands as she counted off the three totally different questions. "Back on Valtax, no-one 'rescued' nobody else, y'all gotta put in a contri-ma-bution, yanno? Contra-ma-bution!"

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on Sep 29th 2018 at 2:43:55 PM

You say that like us making the trek is a certainty instead of just a possibility.

Frank sits up on the bed and turns to face the crew.

True, the most direct way to get her home would be to take her there ourselves, but there are other methods. We could point her to a shuttle heading for Icleiss, we could ask a friend to take her for us (Faunatoid's a big planet, we've probably got some friends here), we could call the school and say "hey, one of your students is here and we don't think she's safe, can you send someone to take her home?" or some shit like that. Point is, there are other options, and it's her choice whether or not we take her there. Yes, if we make the trek, we'd want her to pay something for our troubles. But one, she's a student of a rather expensive school and may not have that big of an expendable income, and two, we're stuck here on Faunatoid anyway until Tilt and Bumper come back (unless Becka orders us to ditch them like last time we saw them, but that's not relevant right now), and she may want to leave sooner than that.

Frank pauses after finishing his little monologue, so that the others can think about his two cents being added. Then he realizes he didn't introduce himself to Emmylou, so he rectifies that.

And before you ask, I'm Frank Van Vliet, the Centaurian of the group.

Edited by WilliamRadarStorm on Sep 30th 2018 at 9:56:03 AM

Again, she chuckles at Bodega's response, though she does raise a pretty good point. If it's really that far, how would she justify them taking her for that long? That's, what...two, maybe three weeks?

The sleepy-looking fellow does have some good ideas, she may know someone relatively close to Fauntanoid, so she could try and contact them—oh, wait, he's greeting her.

She shakes Frank's hand. "Emmylou, though you probably heard it earlier." She snorts a little (the little holes beside her mouth flaring up as she does), then says, "There is someone I think I can call, but..." She clasps her ear-hands together. "I don't know if they're gonna actually be there when I call." She stares blankly at Frank and Becka.

Edited by BlackMageAnolis on Sep 30th 2018 at 9:57:07 AM

...the room went silent for longer than Frank expected with that. He looks around at the crew, seeing a mix of confusion, worry, impatience, and various other emotions about the crew's various faces (or equivalent), but nobody wanting to speak. Unnerved by this, Frank looks at Becka, his facial expression saying "I don't like where this is going..." without a single word leaving his mouth.

He looks back at Emmylou. Go on... he says.

But then, before anyone could react, the big shadowy form materialized in the room, finally allowing everyone to get a good look at it.

The creature resembled a grizzly bear, but much bigger, about 11 feet tall, and very wide and round. The creature was made up of a dark blue matter dotted with tiny stars, and it had eyes glowing just as brightly. The creature stared off in the distance, as if she couldn't clearly see the Celestial's crew.

"So, you are the "mercenaries" I have heard of... Uh, do you have any room for a millenia-old, omniscient cosmic entity on your team?"

Edited by DrNoPuma on Oct 4th 2018 at 8:18:00 AM

Yeah! I don't mind! (Bruno says, not even really caring that this bear just showed right the flip out of nowhere.)

Edited by kablammin45 on Oct 4th 2018 at 8:14:37 AM

"Wh..."

Becka seems to have noticed that she doesn't have any logical point of entry however.

"AND HOW DID YOU GET HERE?!" She asks, darting around with her gun.

The creature shrugged. "We Ursas have transcended the laws of physics and logic. I come and go as I please."

The creature is not one bit concerned that Becka is pointing a gun at her. "By the way... my true name is too long for most creatures to pronounce, but you may call me Hubble."

Bodega immediately turned on her heels as she noticed the vast bear-like critter that suddenly appeared... and was worryingly quite a bit taller than she was. She hadn't had to look up at something since Valtax, and that reminded her...

"Well well, well well... Hubble, 'zit? Hmm..." she stopped to think brushing her chin in an over-dramatic fashion. "Y'all ever been to Valtax, Hubble sir, Hubble sir? 'Cause I coulda sworn I once imprinted yer ass-end into the side of a mountain, the side of a mountain, BWAHAHAHA! ...Nah, 'course it wouldn'ta been you. Y'all woulda remembered that. But yer kind get around, don't they? 'Cause, yanno... could definitely kick one o' yer's tall asses, tall asses..." she muttered under her breath.

"S'what's yer story now, anyways? Ya here to give us a mission from God, or Gods, or whatever? Y'look the sorta guy who'd give out missions from some big ol' deity, big ol' deity."

Hubble looks over at Bodega with an awkward smile.

"I'm a woman, actually. I never understood why beings like us have genders, but... apparently we do."

"Anyway, eh... not really. Sorry to disappoint. I have never had direct contact with a deity, but I hear that some of the older Ursas have. Like Brenda, that stuck-up little-"

"...Anyway. No. The thing is... I've been wandering around the universe, observing countless galaxies, for thousands of years. It's what we Ursas do, but I have grown so tired of the same old thing. I've always wanted to connect with creatures like you. I was inspired by how your particular group is so diverse. I can feel the energy of so many different species in this room. I would like to join your team if possible."

"...Please?"

Edited by DrNoPuma on Oct 4th 2018 at 8:57:44 AM

Can we let her join us? Please? Hmm? She seems nice! Yes! Uh huh! Please? (Bruno asks Becka, making his eyes grow larger as he looks in her direction?)

Frank, having still been in "empathize with innocent bystander" mode, takes a few seconds longer than the rest of the crew to register what's happening... but when he hears the ursa say "We Ursas have transcended the laws of physics and logic.", a thought occurs to him, and he sits up straight and points at(?) her.

Wait... did you screw up the radar and then take our ship here?! Unusually, his voice is in a louder tone than normal, and his face has a quite visible look of anger.

Emmylou puts her ear-arms up. "I have no authority here." She kinda interrupted her, too...now that she thinks about it, she should probably tell Frank and Becka about it in private, if this Ursa is gonna busy the others with more idle conversation. She gallops over towards the two, whispering, "You mind if we talk about my friend while she gets friendly with the others?"

The sight of Hubble, an Ursa, conked what Kristoph had seen on Faunatoid right out of his cranium. "A creature of kountless centuries of experiences, wishing to join a misfit brigade. Vell, it does seem a little bit suspekt to me." Still, the fact that an Ursa was this close to him and (potentially) willing to provide organic samples is a major plus.