Concordia Veil - Main Corridor - Some time earlier...
The dull mechanical ka-thunk of the ventral loading ramp closing echoed through the modestly lit circular corridor of the Veil, seconds before the airlock hatch hissed open, revealing Sienna's skin-tight Dusk Suit and helmet. The captain was already stepping purposefully over the threshold before the hatch was even fully open, her irate gait almost suggesting she would have smashed directly through it if it hadn't yielded to her in time. No sooner than she had stepped inside the controlled atmosphere of the ship, she had twisted her helmet off and made a beeline for the cockpit.
Angry fire flashed in young woman's eyes when the cockpit hatch whisked open, revealing no astrogator present. With a furious curse, she threw the helmet down to the floor, hard. It bounced off the floor and hit the base of the nearby computer console before clattering to rest behind the pilot's couch. "Amelia!" she shouted in unchecked fury, spinning on her heels and looking back out into the ship. "Where the FRACK are you!?"
Using the best Amelia voice in which the robot would allow Crash spoke up, "I am located right here. How may I direct your call..." Crash really didn't know what to do, if It had its spiderbot then it would have been simple: clitter clatter up the wall into a crawl space and hide. This damned big body was such a waste. The voice he had heard was quite easily identified, it had screeched through out the ship many a time.
Sienna's head whipped back around when she heard the voice, her short hair whirling and slapping against her brow, and her eyes darted this way and that, searching for the source of the voice for a moment before her eyes came to rest on the humanoid, skeletal-looking android sitting in the pilot's couch. A mixture of alarm, confusion, and the lingering anger crossed her face, and her hand clasped the handle of the pistol on her thigh. "Who the frack are you?" she demanded sharply.
"I am the Astrogator Amelia, Can you not tell from my voice? Are you feeling alright Ship Owner Sienna?" Crash asked with mild concern but also hoping to distract her from the obvious fact that Crash was not Amelia. What was taking Its pet, Crash did not know, but there will be no treat with dinner now.
The captain's lips parted slowly, eyes locked firmly on the android for a moment as she appeared to take in this turn of events. Gradually her chin tilted up and turned a few degrees to one side, and a slow, ever-so-slightly crazed smirk pulled up the corners of her open mouth. "...Ah," Sienna replied tersely, giving a sardonic nod. "I see. You're this little pet project she's been working on."
"She is my pet not the other... ER.. No i'm Amelia, I am most likely having feminine problems, they do cause bloating and change of voice sequences." Crash nodded hopeing Sienna would just accept the lie and move on. It was scared soild wasteless that the cranky woman would airlock It.
The amused grin on Sienna's face would have been exceptionally off-putting to an organic, given how obvious it was from the look in her eyes and the white-knuckled grip on her weapon that the young woman was one wrong word away from completely going berzerk. "Either she sucks at covering her tracks, or she really must not think much of me, if that's the best excuse you're programmed to give me," she replied coolly. "I'm only gonna ask one more time. Where's Amelia?" The clasp on the pistol unfastened with an audible click, and the stun baton on her belt came off with a single motion of her left hand, the sound of an electric spark buzzing as she activated it and stood there, waiting for her answer.
Dropping back into Crash's standard voice It shook it's head. "You know you are being a cranky poopy head, 'specially with me monitoring all of the ship's system, keeping the engines balanced, and the power core purring. And here you are growling at me for keeping up with what Amelia told me to do when she went to go and rescue that damned fleshbag in the shuttle." Another digital sigh came out as Crash turned back to the controls to check on the sensors and the ship's attachment to the ship.
By the time Crash finished his explanation, Sienna was shaking, her eyes wide and wild. Her grip on her pistol and stun baton at that point could nearly crush a boulder. This was the second time in less than an hour that Amelia had directly disobeyed her order to stay put, and after the matter of dealing with Six Four's ramblings, her patience was now depleted. "When. Did. She leave," Sienna intoned in a flat, emotionless voice.
"Ten point three five six minutes ago. I would also like to talk to you about getting a better networking system aboard. These are unacceptable work conditions at this point." Crash finished the monitoring part of duty for a few moments, "You know that this ship is looking a bit better now, though when I first bought it I had it painted pink, though this color is fine now..." Crash made a rasping chittery sound of a chuckle. "You know if you just relaxed and kicked back things wouldn't look so terrible at this point."
"Get up," Sienna commanded the android. "This is my ship. Not yours. Stand up, right now, or I'll fry you and drag you out myself."
"I never said it was my ship now... I'm sure you have a semi-legal deed to it. As for getting up I can but then all that would be keeping this ship in place is the maglocks... I'm not sure one should trust them alone." Crash gave a machanical shrug, "But it's your call I guess." Crash punched in a few last moment commands to help keep the ship stable. "I guess I'll just go and sit in my cornor until Amelia can get around to fixing me. Guess the savior of the ship will go now." Crash reached up and pulled himself out of the control seat.
"You just let me worry about that," Sienna hissed, keeping a wary eye on the robot as it hoisted itself up and out of the seat. She stepped to the side, her hands still on each of her weapons, the stun baton crackling softly with the electric arc still active. With a flick of the baton, she waved the robot to walk ahead of her, and marched him out of the cockpit. She led him down the steps and around the corridor into the living area, passing through the lounge and Oreza's cabin, before nudging him brusquely into Cabin 3. "Now sit in there with the rest of Amelia's toys like a good robot. If I catch you outside again, you're dust."
"You do know I'm a sentiant being... right, Miss Grumpy Pants?" Crash said as It slid down into the cornor It has spent so many hours in.
Sienna was about to close the door when Crash's response came. For a second she ignored it, but her jaw slid to one side after a pause, and she groaned softly. "You're a what, now?" she asked irritably.
"A killer robot with a heart?" Crash snarked off as It sat there thinking over what Amelia was going to say to him when she got back.
"Really, now," Sienna replied, glaring at the robot. "Does that heart of yours believe what I said about frying you if you cross me?"
"Where did you ever get the idea I would cross you? I protected the ship from those hi-jackers, rescued Amelia from them, and got my spider bot damaged when I attacked and stopped the older one. I've gotten this ship manuvered through all that debris to this safe location. If you noticed there is a cargo bay hatch lined up pretty close to our cargo bay door... I have mantained the ship through out this whole adventure you have started on since you first bought it." Crash crossed it's arms with a metal screech. "Your pretty pessimistic if you think I'm going to cross you now after all of that hard work."
Sienna's jaw went slack again and the same open-mouthed smirk of realization returned. "Oh, that's clever," she said, chuckling slightly. "I mean, that's good. She soaked up all the credit for that, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker." The captain shook her head and hung the stun baton back on her belt. "God damn. So now what? I suppose you'll be thinking you're entitlted to Amelia's share of the loot here, huh?"
"First I told her to, I didn't want anybody knowing about me, hell i would like to ask you not to tell the rest of them... As for shares I believe I should be entitled to 50% of everything, This is my ship... well it was before someone stole it while I was napping...." Crash stood back up and attempted to look intimidating, but was failing a bit, "Don't you dare yell at my pet for protecting me! Grrrrr!" The growl ended up sounding more like a purr from the damned cheap audio card in the 'bot.
Unexpectedly, Sienna burst into laughter at that. Not an amused little chuckle, but an uproarious belly laugh, to the point of making the young woman's eyes water slightly. It was several seconds before she composed herself enough to be able to string together a sentence in reply. "Fifty percent, he says!" she replied, still laughing. "Stole his ship, he says. And now you're worried I'm gonna yell at your owner, or pet, or whatever!" The captain continued laughing for another several seconds before finally calming down. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, shaking her head before she levelled her gaze back at the robot. "Damn, it must be nice out there in that little fantasy land of yours. But let's dial it back a bit, and lemme set the record straight so nobody's feelings get hurt by expecting the wrong thing." She cleared her throat, fighting off another titter of laughter. "This ship?" she continued, motioning in the air around her. "It's mine. M-I-N-E. I don't much give a shit what claim you think you got to it. And Amelia? Y'all both should consider yourselves lucky if yell at her is all I do to her now.
"Oh yeah. About the hijackers. I suppose that was you who sent me the messages warning me of them? And when Vel hacked the computer?" she inquired.
"Yes I did, but he hacked me... When he attempted to... bastard... Can kill him and use his bones for replacements for part on my spiderbot?" Crash said as he sat back down. "But yeah, I sent you those messages, not that you heeded them... Ever..."
Sienna grinned again, raising an eyebrow. "Not very observant, are you?" she asked rhetorically. "I came back the moment I saw the message about the hijackers, thinking it was Amelia. I was locked out, and by the time she let me in she...you had already dealt with them. As for Vel?" she continued with a smug tone. "Let's just say he'll be enjoying the sights around here for a long time." She rested a hand on the stun baton again, taking a step forwards. "So in light of that, I won't space you. But I am going to shut you down for now, so if you cooperate, you and I can have a little dialogue about what we're gonna do with you after we get back to port."
With a shrug Crash "powered down" shutting off all external devices and starting a slow upload to the ship's computer core to activae his other "body." After a few moments the 'bot's body become silent and Crash awoke in the computer core. 'Bit more power here, hehe. Well, she's going to be pissed when I start toying with her from here. TEEHEE!'