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RP [Bounty Hunter Series] Mission 1: Housekeeping

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Whitehart

Inactive Member
System: Malaise
Planet: Purgatory
City: Half Empty


If a system could be considered a slum, Malaise would be it, and within the slum is Purgatory. Within Purgatory is Half Empty, so to sum up, a slum, within a slum, within a slum. If you need something from the Nepleslian Black Market, this is where you would go, now, it seems like a truly destitue place but they still had their dignity. The notorius Malaise Enforcers are feared even beyond the system for their brutal tactics and indiscriminate methods.

The planet was originally created to help with overpopulation from Nepleslia Prime and it shows, sky rocketing apartment buildings stacked right next to each other. One could even sometimes see ad hoc bridges built between the towering homes. The weather even added to the miserable living conditions, often times in the 20 to 30 degree range, the populace was consistantly bundled as they went about their day to day lives.

Duncan stood inside the large spacious and barely heated spaceport lobby. People bustled here and there going about their business, some arriving for business of some such or hastily departing. Various vendors had stalls nearby selling questionable meats or "souvenirs", one enterprising citizen even had the idea to bring a portable industrial heater and sold spots under it for a hefty fee. It was tempting to Duncan seeing as even his balls felt close to freezing off but he hoped he would not be waiting much longer.

He was dressed in his usual Emrys armor, the jacket zipped up tight for further insulation, he also sported slightly bulky armored gauntlets and a common drop holster containing his PiP on his right thigh. He shifter back and forth with his arms crossed containing as much heat as he could.

He had sent out the location of the job to the women he had met previously and even had been put in to contact with an additional person thanks to the those putting up the money for this job. He was hopeful, on paper it seemed like a solid group his only concern was how well they would work together. He loved working with others but he was certainly no leader, in fact he and his previously employers had rather liked that about him. He followed orders and followed them well, now here he was on an equal footing looking at a possible highly dangerous job. He had made mention in his message that those coming should bring their A game and come loaded with gear thy were comfortable with.

Now all he had to do was wait...

 
Gusting litter, clouds of warm breath, and the marching clatter of hundred hardened rubber soles on cold concrete.

There was a yelping noise somewhere out in the crowd. A man, and what looked like a snow globe on legs, scuffling over a bag between them. Seemed like the shorter thing was looking through his stuff, but... If they were stealing something, surely they weren't making the effort to be either act covertly or fast enough to be actually stealing something?...

Then, just as abruptly, the scuffle ended, with the half-machine troll simply letting go with their little metal pincers and allowing the suited man to fall back onto his behind.

It's large red eyes... They focused on Duncan next.

No foot movements. Motorised wheels on their steel-clad boots sped the thing over to his personal space, then took the last couple of cludding steps as it manually forced it's ungainly little body to a halt. It had three of those brass grasping pincers, not just two. Arm number four was a straight-up gun from the forearm downwards. Glass bulb of a helm looked like it was filled with battery flavoured cotton candy, as environmental systems struggled to flush out the condensation, and left little but those dimly glowing optical organs visible...

Yeah, it was probably for the best that the squishy wee metal nightmare barely reached the huge Nepleslian's waist in height.

"You do this huntin' thing you does?" It has a raspy, almost insectoid little voice. The arms seemed to writhe in sequence as it spoke, an interpretive dance unfit for human minds. "I'm am doing that message for money, huh? I am wanting this money, when is doing your job, and done, yeah? I am goodly for this, big meat man who is not at all overengineered."

A pause. They pointed back at the suited man, who was clearly put off talking to them by assuming Duncan somehow knew the weird little thing.

"Do not looking in that bipedal man's FANcy BAg!" Yelling for empthasis, staring, voice breaking all over the place. At least it seemed to be the last push needed to finally scare the guy off. "He is a courier of USelESs trASSShhh!~"
 
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Half Empty spaceport - Terminal

Amidst the stream of people pouring out from one of the downward escalators toward the back of the enormous terminal, a modestly-sized Nepleslian woman stepped off of the moving stairway and began to slowly work her way through the crowd. She was a full head shorter than most of the masses – much more in many cases, this was Nepleslia after all – and pretty much all she could see from her vantage point was a wall of shuffling torsos with only the flickering and poorly-lit signs overhead for reference, several of them barely hanging onto their moorings by little more than one or two remaining bolts. A heavy-looking brown overcoat hung down to the middle of her thighs, part of a pair of legs clad in snug-fitting blue jeans. The coat was buttoned in front all the way up to her throat, below a fair face framed by thick brown hair that fell to either side, bouncing lightly on her shoulders as she walked. Although her resting expression was stern and businesslike, and a pair of steel-colored eyes gazed out severely from it, the soft hint of laugh lines around her full-lipped mouth gave away the inviting and endearing person beneath it.

In one black-gloved hand she toted a stainless steel carrying case that was very nearly as long as she was tall, and in the other she towed a small, simple rolling suitcase of dark blue fabric. Several times she had to twist and move her effects as she gently shouldered her way through the crowd. Even though she was overly courteous with her "excuse mes," "pleases," and "thank yous," it didn't appear that many of the other members of the shuffling, chaotic amoeba of foot traffic were nearly as concerned with social graces, thoughtlessly jostling and shoving her aside as they needed, bouncing her around inside of them several times like a pinball.

When the dense crowd finally dispersed enough for her to be able to navigate the floor on her own, Kira allowed her grip on her belongings to slacken the slightest touch as she sighed to herself, scanning the area for Duncan's familiar face. Her dark black boots, polished and clean, clacked on the hard surface of the floor as she quickened her pace, heading for the common area where she'd been instructed to find him. She weaved to the side to avoid being bowled over by a hulking ID-SOL whose face was so covered with cybernetics that she wasn't sure if the way his gigantic strides straight at her were a result of total apathy, a misbegotten sense of arrogance, or utter blindness.

A quick, cold glare from those bombardier's eyes of hers quickly silenced a rather graphic cat call from a homeless-looking vagrant sprawled across a ragged, beat-up old vinyl bench along the wall that didn't look like it had been cleaned for a month, but her expression softened nearly the instant she saw the way the poor man recoiled from her warning stare. He looked absolutely wretched, emaciated nearly to the point of starvation, and from the vacant, jibbering look in his eyes, probably not entirely in command of his mental faculties. She tried to conceal her pity, but all the same she changed course to walk in his direction. When she was close enough to use a conversational tone, but still well out of arm's reach, she released the rolling suitcase and fished around in her coat pocket, never taking her eyes from the vagrant's apprehensive face. She withdrew a small chit with only a dozen credits or so on it, and took the next few steps closer to offer it to him. "Go and get yourself something to eat," she said with a soft, amiable smile, but her eyes stayed alert and locked firmly on him. "And please, think again before saying something so crude to the next woman that walks by. You're not likely to get this kind of reaction a second time."

The vagrant stared with confused incredulity at the offered credit chit, then back at her with a cocked, wary eye. He took it all the same, however, and soon enough his cracked lips spread once again in a grin that suggested an unintentional, probably even unconscious lecherousness. "Sure, sure," he replied in an accent so thick and through so many broken teeth that it was barely intelligible. Even though there was obvious surprised gratitude in the poor creature's voice, it didn't stop his eyes from wandering over her once more in a way that, even though her thick overcoat and cold weather clothing, made Kira's skin crawl so badly that she felt the only way to rid herself of the skeezy feeling was to scrub herself clean with nothing less potent than battery acid. She suppressed a gag, snatching the handle of her suitcase, and strode away as quickly as her legs would carry her.

She hadn't gone very much farther when she overheard the commotion at the baggage claim area, and spotted the altercation between a snappy-suited man and one of the most bizarre mishmashes of limbs she'd ever seen. Her instinct and training, without conscious thought, made her acutely aware of the familiar weight of the .45 pistol on her right hip, and she quickened her pace to approach. She wasn't sure exactly what she was going to do about it yet, but in that precise moment, that didn't really occur to her.

Kira had released the suitcase handle and was moving to draw her weapon when the machine-thing suddenly released the bag, sending the suited man tumbling backwards. She stayed her hand, watching with confused wonder as the entity then clambered directly over to a big man several feet away, a man she immediately recognized as Duncan. She watched warily as the thing drew uncomfortably close and was about to draw again when her senses told her that there was no danger. Still with her eyes on the thing, she snatched up her suitcase and towed it along as she moved over to where the man lay sprawled out on the floor. She knelt down and gently put a hand under his upper arm to help him to his feet.

"Are you all right?" she asked him quietly, but still looking bewildered in Duncan's – and the odd, bulbous monstrosity's – direction.
 
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Duncan was mid shiver as the commotion drew his attention to harasser and harassee, his hand moving to his sidearm with subtle ease. The large man's blue eyes took in the scene and saw that it was merely a common misunderstanding, well common when it involved Freespacers. He was a very accepting guy, willing to think well of most people and races and he liked to think it was the same case with the odd hybrid people as well. He had never really spent time with them but he easily respected their ingenuity and drive for independence. As the odd little thing bounded? Skated? Shambled over and moved a little too close for his comfort and spoke in a rapid and broken pattern, Duncan calmly and simply raised his large right hand and placed the fingertips against the fishbowl helmet and steadily slid the little thing to arms distance. A sight that looked rather comical to the surrounding on lookers but also helped to lower the tension that was building caused by the incident with the suited man.

He locked eyes with the mewling man and simply gave a trademark big man stare back that said, "Please say something." Luckily the man did not know that this was merely a practiced look and Duncan would never have followed through on the threat of his eyes. Back to the squat figure he was currently looming over he smirked and said, "Well hello, yes, I'm the one putting the crew together. The name is Duncan, you must be, uh." He scrunched his face in thought, his misshapen nose adding even more of a wrinkle, "Phage Nine Two B right? Glad to see you came geared up. We are just waiting on a few others then we will get this party started."

After a quick glanced around the busy room he spied Kira over by the suited man and waved his meaty hand, "Kira, you alright?"
 
Terminal

A single unbent canine ear, Poking free from a the bundle of her scarf wrapped tightly around her head was the only identifying feature denoting Shasta from the bulky being with 3 coats that tried and failed to navigate the terminal. With so many people walking around Shasta was easily distracted by introducing herself to a dozen off people at a time, Leaving each encounter with the contact information of new friends and promising services from babysitting to cyber security consulting. She even, At one point. Managed to trade scripts with a cool mohawk girl who was trying and failing miserably to make it look like she wasn't trying to hack her way through a security door.

Her attempt to stave off the cold had slowly been failing more and more after every encounter, Fought off only by occasionally sharing a blanket with an old lady she kept passing as she traversed the terminal in a circle, And her bodies own absurd excess of energy that seemed to burn hot inside her except where it counted, Like her legs. Which unlike the upper half of her body, Where only protected by a pair of shorts and stockings to allow her tail its own freedom unhindered by a dozen layers of clothing...

she kept moving to stay warm, Until by pure chance a shrill high pitched screech about trash caught her attention nearby. Drawing her towards the confrontation.

She easily stumbled past Kira, Not recognizing her without all the torn dress bits and smoke. And unable to smell her due to her scarf wrapped tightly around her face like a shawl. She did however recognize Duncan. He was easily backdroped by people his own size but slightly less built, But his voice and part of the tattoo visible on his neck where identifiable enough for Shasta. She proceeded to shuffle towards him, Stopping at his side without warning or regard for personal space as the coat and scarf monster she appeared leaned in to examine the neat looking freespacer with unfaltering curiosity.
 
Terminal

The suited man only tolerated the petite woman's assistance for long enough to get his legs underneath him. Once he had accomplished that much, he twisted his arm free of Kira's gentle hand in a way that, despite his valiant efforts to keep it subtle and unnoticed to any who happened to be looking on at that moment, still wasn't any less full of humiliated indigence.

"I'm fine," the man replied sulkily, his face flushed a brilliant shade of shiny red. He avoided eye contact with Kira as he "harrumphed" and went about gathering up his scattered belongings and, to Kira's mind, a few strewn-about bits of his damaged pride to boot. Kira, however, did not press the matter, nor did she appear the slightest bit offended by the complete lack of gratitude for even her relatively minor show of concern. She simply pursed her lips together in a little sympathetic pout. The look in her metal-colored eyes was primarily what made it evident that she clearly meant it as a genuine show of pity for the poor man's embarrassment, and not condescending derision.

Still, with it now made perfectly clear that her assistance was entirely unwanted, Kira clasped the handle of her rolling suitcase again and started warily toward Duncan and gave him a warm smile and little wave of greeting, but still kept one eye on the weird, shrieking cyborg-thing conversing with him. She noticed Shasta heading towards him as well as she passed by, not by her lanky build as it was now hidden inside an almost comic number of outer layers, but by the tail swishing excitedly back and forth as she strode along which, oddly, poked out from beneath a pair of unseasonably short shorts.

She strode up to the gathering circle of near-strangers, coming to a stop and resting her suitcase on the floor beside her on her right, the long silver case she carried (which was nearly as long as she was tall) on her left. She gave Shasta another of her bright, friendly smiles and waved to her as well when their eyes passed one another, then looked around expectantly for a few seconds before settling her eyes back on the machine-thing. Her smile never faded, but the gentle radiance in it had given way to mere polite kindness as she examined the bulbous helmet for some familiar sign.

She turned her face to Duncan hesitantly, still unconsciously stealing glances back towards the Freespacer. "This... this is Halcyone...? In... battle dress, I think?" she asked with no small amount of hesitation.
 
Terminal is a good word for this situation in general

The rotund bundle of plastic and wires didn't react particularly well to the large muscular man suddenly urging their helmet away, almost falling backwards as the Freespacer continued to attempt nudging themselves forwards regardless. As fearsome as the appendages were, those metal clad waddling pod-arms didn't have the range of motion necessary to reach the top of their own head, never mind Duncan's offending arm.

Took longer than it probably should have to realise the failing, but the cyborg did eventually give up, begrudgingly.

"You... You have stated my name correctly, green neppy man... Dune-can Wheetakur..." The voice crackled, a small red LED on the collar lighting up in time with the syllables. It's tone was of someone agitated even over the basic formality of speaking, and thus was talking as fast as possible just to get it over with. There were no bonus points for efforts in politeness with this thing, either, as it's irate tone completely fell over itself trying to pronounce Duncan's own planet-walker title. "Your communal gathering, -this party thing-, though, it does not concern Phage, no. You must hold this after the task, if at all!"

It was at this point that the large bounty hunter called over to his friend, using a name that apparently made Phage pause in their tracks and jolt their oblate headpiece sideways.

"...Killahr!?..."

The arms suddenly ceased in their random writhing, making a kind of 'alert' stance... Which just entailed pointing every limb straight outwards, really. But did also include the black plastic noodle of a fibre optic camera slinking out of their rear-left hand in order to keep an eye on this new transgressor in greater detail. There was, after all, some other naked-legged cloth monster thing examining them at close range, too...

"I... I am designated Phage Nine Two Beee!~" The response was predictably rapid and indignant, meeting the sudden personal attention with their own audible suspicion. This woman with the piercing steely eyes was doing some kind of emotion thing, too. Phage didn't like that. "Y-y-you are Duncan's associate? W-why he refer you as he's... killer?..."

Standing still long enough at least made the fishbowl clear just a little, knackered environmental systems slowly doing their job with a whine of protest. The spacer had a stout face inside of the dome. Wide red feminine eyes, and a dense cloud of blue-grey hair permanently moulded into an upside down mushroom by it's glass confinement. Chubby cheeks with a barcode on one and a number on the other. Stern, bushy little eyebrows of an accusatory nature.

"And why you have such damn towels and ears?" A sudden shot back over to the other woman, this canine thing. Phage looked like they wanted to ignore it, but was ironically agitated by the person's own gyrating hyperactivity, forming a sort of unsympathetic vibration between the two of them. "And the tail and the legs and... and..."

"Just... just..."

A burning frustration, cheeks inflating and eyebrows getting more angular.

"WhY yOu tHIs thINGgs!?"
 
Terminal

Kira's fair cheeks, already a bit rosy from the cold air, flushed a furious red when she realized her mistake, and her steel-grey eyes widened in alarm. "Oh goodness," she said quickly, her voice rising in volume and embarrassment. "I'm so sorry. I didn't..." She held her open palms up in front of her, and offered a little apologetic smile, though she still appeared as though she kind of wanted to just pull her heavy coat over her face and hide behind it. "I haven't spent a lot of time around Freespacers, so please just call it ignorance on my part. I'm so sorry."

The Nepleslian woman cleared her throat, a bit more loudly than was necessary, and kept the forced smile on her face as she tried to power through her little faux-pas. "Let's just start over, shall we?" she continued, looking briefly at Shasta and Duncan with a self-reassuring series of rapid nods, then back at the odd Freespacer cyborg. "My name is Kira," she introduced herself, enunciating her name clearly and slowly to dispel Phage's confusion. "Kira Denere. And this is Shasta," she continued, looking hesitantly at the lupine woman standing across from her, eyebrows raised for confirmation, "and you've already met our little group's organizer Duncan."
 
Duncan displayed a wide toothy smile at Kira's expense. He was glad everyone was coming together and seeming to be relatively cordial to each other. "Kira, it's all good. This is Phage, they were forwarded to me by the hiring party, we could use all the help we can get," Duncan said as he continued to smile at the group. If you had not met him, one might consider this large man continually smiling may be a little simple but it was not the case.

The hustle and bustle of the spaceport lobby was thinning rapidly as the last of the passengers wandered out to destinations unknown on the unruly Nepleslian planet. It seemed like they were among the last to be standing around with only the occasional vendor or beggar to keep them company.

"We will wait for Halcyone a few more tthen I will take you all to the Iron Ferret. It's a ship we can use for jobs, brand new with some toys attached," he said as he adjusted his coat for maximum warmth.
 
Terminal

Phage rotated on an axis, using the wheels on their boots reflexively to face the more conventional of the two women looming over them... Well, relatively. This woman was being nice to the spacer. That in itself was not something the short thing expected, not least from a professional bounty hunter.

"This one dimension and capability are different frum Halcyone Three Seven, yis..." Another one of those raspy tones. They seemed to be examining Kira in great detail, moving their attention about the eyes and ears, as if confused by such demure fleshy appendages. "Did not upload no information 'bout you... 'Figured cause they didn' wanna expose ya, but... None o' you Nep-las-li-uns got any iron..."

A quick glance up at the mountain of a man, absorbing the information of his smooth, gravely tones. Clearly, Phage was coming to the realisation that he was just as meat-based as the females. Suddenly, it felt less like looking at a mountain, and more like a tree... Massive, weighty and powerful, but organic. Natural as an asteroid.

"Kiruh? How come so popular you's all walkin' round naked? No iron at all." The pod-arms squirmed again, one of them grasping at her oversized coat's sleeve. Chubby lower face hid itself inside of the grey mane, eyes ultimately suspicious. "And how you Nepluns made? No codes, no mindware... I can't tell what none of you is supposed to do..."

"This ship isn't made o' meat too, is it?"
 
Terminal

When the Freespacer's exploring metallic arm clawed at her coat sleeve, Kira tensed visibly and her breath seemed to seize in her lungs for an instant, but the Nepleslian woman did nothing to outwardly protest the breach of social etiquette. She merely smiled a pleasant, if somewhat taut, smile at the squat cyborg, still blushing at her earlier mistake, allowing the Freespacer to sate its curiosity. After a second or two, she extended her arm to give Phage a better look, turning her open palm up towards the face behind the oblate helmet.

A lilting, musical laugh issued forth from Kira when the Freespacer put forth its questions. "We aren't naked," she explained in a lighthearted tone not unlike one used by a devoted tutor describing a foreign culture to a child. "Cybernetic enhancements are actually quite common for Nepleslians. I just don't have any." She watched the probing mechanical digits poke and prod at her arm as she spoke, glancing up at Phage's face from time to time. "We aren't built for a singular purpose, really, at least none that I know of. We do as we choose to do. We follow a path, most of the time pretty blindly, making the most of what we have the best we know how, without knowing what's around the next bend. We laugh, we cry. We fight, and we love." The muscles in her cheeks twitched imperceptibly, and her smile faded a touch. "And we often make mistakes." Then the corners of her lips turned back upwards into a smile that was somewhere between sheepish and playful. "I don't argue that we're irrational, even fringing on nonsensical at times. But it's what makes us who we are."
 
"Exactly right," Duncan said in response to Kira's explanation for humanity. He was really enjoying the banter but even he was getting cold and so he easily draped around the close huddling, obviously freezing (and still a stranger) Shasta, pulled her in warmly and stated, "Well, let's roll. I have the Iron Ferret parked though it costs a ton of money to rent a space for a vessel that big. Mind you, while new, she lacks any on board defense and well, it only has meager cots for now. Though I am sure with our hefty workload ahead we can outfit her just right. I even persuaded the buyer to toss in some help whom you will meet on board."

Without much more fanfar he began to walk towards the back of the spaceport dragging Shasta in arm and frequently checking back on Kira and Phage. His eyes shown with excitement and reall he was exactly that. Nothing had ever made Duncan happier than being around others from when he was a young boy in the orphanage to even now as a part time teacher, part time bounty hunter. The groups path was through many different hallways and lifts, they were headed to possibly the furthest part of the port which made sense seeing as they strode though a secured hatchway and the Iron Ferret sat coldly before them. The Terrene Transport ship was recognizably new, the standard grey coloring went from tip to toe without any scratches as of yet.

"Here she is, Got her at a decent price for new, luckily my former boss kept a ship account and he was nice enough to fund our first ride." Duncan moved again toward the giant hangar doors that sat closed along the side of the ship. Walking up confidently he placed his hand on a small screen and the doors slowly began to open. The revealed hangar was noticeably less clean than the outside, in fact one would even say it was a disaster and revealed a thin wiry robot moving about comically with a duster in one hand and a broom in the other. Upon noticing the door the robot simply chucked the items to the side and moved quickly to the edge of the hangar.

"Hey, how all youse doin'? Welcome aboard the Iron Ferret, come on in, don]t mind the mess, this is just left over from the last folks who asked too many questions," the robot said in an imitation gangster accent, the featureless face gave an up nod as if to be intimidating. It's wise to note that nothing of the mess spoke of it being people of any kind, it was all metal and parts.

"Everyone this is Dee en one three el, though he prefers Daniel," Duncan said as he moved up the ramp and stood beside on of two vehicles within, An Outrider APC sat beside a Corona Gunship within the confines of the hangar bay.

"Yeah, you best not fugget it seein as I'm yer friendly Steward on board, anything you need, you just ask, especially you sweetheart," he said this last as he apparently gave Kira the once over his blank metal face moving up and down in a robotic fashion.
 
Iron Ferret

Grateful to finally be able to stop her dance of half walking half skipping as she tried to rub her legs for warmth. Shasta beheld the ship with an appraising eye, Attempting to recall what she knew from the "shippies" on certain online communities she frequented who would label off pointless facts and statistics that bored on about the terrene, But leaving one of particular interest for her.

It has a fabricator! A voice sounding an aful lot like her own seemed to echo in her head, Compelling her to stake her claim and begin building and prefacturing all the tools and designs she might need to build more friends and equipment while it lay within her grasp. But without knowing the interior of the ship itself and having to wander endlessly through its corridors and get distracted more than she already was would be an issue but lost the thought when her stomach reminded her that perhaps having a meal for the first time in a couple days might take priority.

"Bōzu, NeeSan!" She unlatched herself from Duncan to face him, Kira and their new snow-globe friend to greet, Tugging the impossibly long scarf down to coil like a soft fabric serpent around her neck to finally reveal that she was actually everyone's friendly neighborhood mutant in disguise from the start before putting her sights on daniel, Blocking him from his ogling of Kira and offering him a self printed business card with her name and information on it but with P̶r̶o̶S̶e̶c̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶I̶n̶c̶ crossed off with a black inked pen and Freelance Security Consultant written below with in blue ink correctively.

With the rituals and formalities of greetings out of the way she begged her leave to commandeer Daniel to begrudgingly show her to the wardroom to raid its food stockpile and that everyone should meet her if they "wanted pancakes". Her thoughts quickly turning to the fact that maybe being secretly recruited into the IPG after helping defeat an evil terrorist organization had its perks, Like free food and fabricators!
 
Iron Ferret

Phage was silent and brooding on the rest of the trip through the space dock, running Kira's words around and around in their head on repeat. All of the evidence pointed to these people basically just being created to enjoy themselves, provide some vague service to society of their own volition, and look nice doing it. That couldn't be right. Why would even the most faulty of overloaded fabricators even consider producing a person like that?

"
A terrene... it's very... Nepleslian." Phage eventually piped up again at the sight of the ship, though in a way that might have even been surprisingly pleased. Of course, they were downloading a heap of information on it from the networked mindware component of their brain. "A hard monocoque shell, many possible hardware reconfiguration... Yes. And those cells look very appealing, too..."

Some kind of skinny half-unbuilt robot was waiting for them on the loading ramp. Even more confusingly, it had gone native. Gave Kira the same kind of look that some of those dirty capitalists back in the lobby had given her.

"DN13L." The squat creature simply nodded towards the robot, wondering how it would react when spoken to by one of its own material cousins. Ditching their true name was just a thing that did for the meat men. Phage 92B-4561-8893 had leaned how bad these people were at remembering proper codes the hard way. "Your configuration is unfamiliar. Please expect a request for formal specifications soon, I may need to organise a restructuring."

In their own head, that was flirting.

Flirting with efficiency, a.k.a. the best kind.

Now it was time to look around the ship. And figure out who or what 'Parncauks' was.

Same went for Shasta as a person, too, really. So the noisily rolling globe-tank-spider followed her relentlessly, clunking and clattering over the floor grates behind them...
 
Iron Ferret

Kira's jaw went slack as she brought up the rear of the little parade approaching the pristine lines and shining metal of the massive ship. She would have been surprised to see it even in a less dilapidated starport; her entire career as a freelancer had not always landed her in the most affluent areas, nor had she come to expect anything other than basic functionality when it came to equipment, and experience had taught her that even that much was sometimes a luxury. Against the backdrop of neglect and disrepair that was this spaceport, the Iron Ferret looked unmistakably divine behind its menace, like a majestic lion crouched in a golgotha of bones, observing all who passed near it with a quiet nonchalance that almost dared people to challenge it.

Her steel gray eyes shifted towards Duncan, who was looking away from her and admiring the craft, and filled with a newfound sense of astonished admiration. She had no idea how he'd managed to get such a ship, but here it was. She felt a wave of reassuring confidence in her new employer. If his ability to find wealth was as good as this brand-new hull looming before her would suggest, she felt that job security wouldn't be a concern for her any longer, at least for a while.

She followed the others inside, hefting the oversized case in her left hand to readjust her grip. Her rolling suitcase proved a bit of an aggravation to drag aboard, but she managed after only a few seconds of a mild struggle. The inside of the hangar bay was even more stunning that the outside, most obviously because of the two other brand new vehicles stored inside. The young Nepleslian wouldn't have been able to conceal her awe even if she had been trying. Her old police unit had barely been this well-equipped.

Daniel's voice snapped her out of her daze, and she quickly looked at the wiry-looking construct, slightly startled. The campy gangster's accent was off-putting at first, but quickly drew an amused grin on her lips as she eyed Duncan again, one eyebrow cocked. "Really?" that wry expression seemed to say with good-natured sarcasm without a single word escaping her lips. "I mean, really?"

It was about then that Kira became acutely aware that she was being ogled, but not by Duncan. On reflex her brow knitted slightly together in puzzlement, and the wrinkles only deepened when she realized that it was the robot that was... was it actually flirting with her?

No. That would be ridiculous.

Kira's grin stayed on her face, but she narrowed one eye at the robot cautiously before glancing back at Duncan. "I think you might want to reconsider one or two aspects of that thing's programming," she advised him with a chuckle, then let the subject drop. Thankfully Shasta interjected herself in front of the android, engaging him with what Kira was rapidly coming to recognize as her trademark high-energy enthusiasm and dragging him off in search of foodstuffs, the bulbous spacesuit on rollerblades in tow.

Her own stomach rumbled a little, as if in response. It had been a good while since her last meal. Eyeing Duncan once more and suppressing a little laugh, she shrugged and nodded her head in the direction of the others. "Well, shall we?" she asked him melodiously.
 
Iron Ferret

Duncan was glad to see that everyone seemed relatively happy with the ship though in truth it was difficult to truly know what the short Freespacer was thinking about.

"Come on, let's take a look upstairs and catch up to Shasta in a few," Duncan said as he gestured to the Elevators off the Hangar. He strolled towards them, his slight limp minutely noticeable in his gait, almost as if he were walking with moxie. As he entered the elevator he pushed the up arrow and crossed his arms in wait.

The state of the elevator and the upper deck was in a much cleaner, shinier and overall new car style compared to the mess of the hangar. As they stepped out he gestured down the hallway, "Just down there on the right is the armory, it just has my stuff in it right now, feel free to add your own." He turned left and started strolling pointing to the first doors on either side they came to, "On the right is our bunk area. No individual cabins available on this baby except the Captain's room. I don't like sleeping alone so it's available if anyone has a desire. On the left are some Life pods." A little further down was an open archway on the right and a wide door on the left.

"We have the Medical bay on our left and the bridge on our right. A little further down is the Cells, Hydroponics bay, gym and the showers. Come on let's swing through the Bridge to the Wardroom.

The bridge fit the description of the ship as a whole, overly large, clean and Spartan in furnishings. At the sound of people entering an almost exact copy of Daniel spun around in the pilot chair. "Aw, sugah, you brought your friends for a visit. That's so nice. It is a true pleasure to meet ya'll," the robot said in a, once again, cheesy accent of a Southern Belle. "Call me Maxine, short for MX-one N three."

Duncan waved as if greeting a robotic lifeform was a normal thing to do, "Maxine this is Kira and Phage. Shasta already took Daniel to the Wardroom."

Wardroom

The trip for Shasta was actually quite direct seeing as she was with Daniel. The stepped off the elevator on the opposite side from the others and moved down the hallway to the Wardroom. It appeared to have seen little to no use up to the entrance of the young mutant. The only signs of life came in the form of empty meal cans and traditional "microwave dinners". Oddly enough two small sets of plates, bowls and silverware were stacked neatly beside the sink, much too small for any humanoids in the known universe.

"Yo, feel free to use the space but be sure to clean up after yourself. I ain't no janitor. Fuggedaboutit," Daniel said although his denial flew directly in the face of his job title.
 
Wardroom

Her amalgamation of jackets and clothing neatly folded on a chair and finally back into the considerably breathable and somewhat more appropriate indoor attire of her shorts and her graphic Mutant Pride World Wide T-shirt. Shasta spent the better part of a quarter hour excitedly preparing the late breakfast for the group for their arrival. Delving mostly into the non-perishables of the mess to make pancakes out of flour, Salted butter, Liquid egg, And powdered milk with sides of dehydrated fruit on-top of oatmeal with a tall pitcher of the milk centered on the mess table beside a precarious stack of slightly burnt pancakes ontop of a washed dinner-tray.

She sat herself on the rooms couch with her task complete, Her tail practically dusting the couch and her ears twitching in at every sound expectantly from excitement so much that sitting still quickly became impossible. She wandered around the wardroom examining its functions and utilities while waiting for the rest of the group, All the while examining the layout of the ship on her datajockey making quick notes and claims for later projects; The first few priorities including making her claim on the fabricator and installing her usual set of backdoors and softwares in the ships terminals over time in her new temporary home.
 
Iron Ferret Bridge

Phage was distracted from following Shasta, but the small Freespacer's attention was constantly darting between additional details they encountered. Regardless of how non-lived in the ship was, the pocket pudge still found multiple items to pick up in each room, soon filling each of her various grasping claws.

An unused shelving bracket, an internal sensor camera, a spare elbow joint for one of the ship's service robots... It might have counted as thievery, only they were making zero effort to hide such actions?

"Hello muchly, MX One N Three?" The creature sort of half-questioned towards the oddly accented drone on the bridge, glossy helmet reflecting a dazzling rainbow of colours from all the control panels. "All dis ship... An armour'ee and all them empty rooms you is got... Sleepin so good, you norm sleep you selves?...Is you leader some kinda... Fee-lan-frow-peest?"

Looking upwards at Duncan with confusion, there was a distinct creak and clank of metal parts, their multitude of arms gyrating unconsciously, and threatening to send their newfound hoard of pilfered supplies clattering to the floor.

Cross-examination, her eyebrows furrowing.

He says he doesn't want to 'sleep' alone. This phrase perhaps eluding to something else? Very Nepleslian. Already heard some big boys say it. Confusing... This war-seeker ship had lots of living space, not too many kill-guns... What was up with that, too?

Babies! Babies that had cabinets in them! Didn't understand! Bloody humanoids talking in weird little slurs!

"....HHhhrrrrrggggg~!...." A guteral noise followed by the clatter of random parts, as Phage intentionally dropped everything at the same time. Whirring of wheels, creaking of tightening kevlar around their rotund little suit. They wasted no additional time in climbing into the lap of the pilot's chair, then placing a metallic hand on each side of the caretaker robot's boxy cranium. "~ggghhhhhhhmmmmmAaaaaaxxxinnnneeee-I-NEED-YOU-HEAD! YOU ARE UNDERSTANDING!?"
 
En route to the Bridge

Kira dutifully followed Duncan towards the elevator, all of her belongings neatly in tow. While they waited she examined the bulkheads and floors around her. Its bizarre mimicry of a crass personality notwithstanding, she found herself wondering if the janitor robot would be capable of keeping up with the rest of the ship better than what she'd seen so far Her eyes happened across Duncan's as she scanned their surroundings, and she gave him a bright smile, but didn't trouble him with pointless conversation. She knew he'd be forthcoming with it when it suited him.

The lift arrived with a chime and she stepped in, hesitating only a fraction of a second as the bubble-body of the Freespacer crammed unceremoniously in ahead of her.

They rode up in silence, Kira watching the lights on the panel as the car moved. When the doors opened, she was mildly surprised to see the stark contrast in the level of cleanliness and order between this deck and the one they'd just departed. She exited behind the big man, having to quicken her steps to match pace with his long strides. Her eyes followed his gestures everywhere they pointed, taking in the layout of what was likely to be her new home for a while. She considered taking him up on his invitation to leave at least her big rifle case in the armory, as it was starting to become a burden, but one look at the increasing collection of seemingly random detritus that Phage was amassing in those twitchy, rounded appendages made her quickly think better of it for now.

An eyebrow raised high on her brow as Duncan punctuated the bunk arrangements with that rather blunt invitation for one of them to share his cabin, and fixed the back of his head with a dry sort of half smirk. His nonchalant delivery made it impossible for her to tell for sure whether it was the most awkward excuse for an indiscriminate solicitation or one of the most sweetly naive things she'd ever heard. She again elected to keep her silence, however, and continued to follow a few steps behind him.

When they entered the ship's nerve center and another of those pseudo-human androids greeted them, she felt the smile break across her face at the quaint personality this one emulated. When Duncan introduced them, before she knew what she was doing she realized that she had put down her rifle case and extended her hand in greeting, beaming at the robot. "The pleasure's all mine," she said brightly, and bit back the urge to laugh at herself for addressing a robot in such a manner.

The clatter of the Freespacer's pilfered prizes all hitting the floor at once startled her out of her amusement, and she watched in horror as Phage climbed up into the chair and appeared to try to unscrew Maxine's head like a lightbulb. "Phage, what are you doing?" she exclaimed in shock, but seemed rooted to the floor and completely at a loss as to how to respond to such an off-the-wall scenario. She looked helplessly at Duncan, wide-eyed.
 
Bridge

The abrupt movements of Phage combined with the deafening clatter of the previously handled items on the ground did little to drown out Maxine's southern shrill. Though obviously robotic and not afraid for it's personal safety, her personality software still held, "Aiiieeeeee, no, sir! Keep your hands to your self!" She grabbed Phages limbs and held them at bay.

Duncan shouted out an exclamation as he hurried up and grabbed ahold of Phage by the metallic collar and with surprising but still human strength tugged the Freespacer back from Maxine. "Let go of her Phage, don't make this a thing."

The combined effort of Duncan and Maxine herself seemed just enough to lurch Phage back on to the ground in front of the pilot. Duncan heaved with the exertion, even coughing a little trying to refill his lungs with air. Maxine meanwhile just stared with her robotic lenses, physical representation apparently lacked in the software.

"Come on man, why you gotta be like that? If you have questions just ask them, without her this ship is just a gigantic paperweight," Duncan said as he laid a hand on Phages collar again, this time in as friendly a maner as he could muster.

Wardroom

Shasta's breakfast creations sat cooling on the counter as she explored the fairly well sized room. The ships schematics were fairly on point though lacking any information on a robotic crew. If she connected with the systems of the ship she would however find that the fabricator that came stock with the ship was currently deactivated and not yet fully installed.

Her sensitive ears perked briefly at the faintest of scratching and tittering off within the metal bulkheads as if there were somehing far away skitering around the internals of the ship.
 
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