Kai
Retired Staff
Sometime previously, Nicholas Clarke and Desmond Stroud had, for one reason or another, filled out some forms that promised a prize drawing from origin Industries. No purchase necessary, and fantastic prizes were offered, even! And now, several weeks later, they had both received messages, ones they probably didn't expect, likely having forgotten about the drawing while they were busy doing whatever it was they did.
Now, they found themselves in Dawn station, greeted by a Red-Headed representative, who seemed to have some rather good news for them. The young woman Bowed before them, smiling, and greeting them.
"Welcome Misters Clarke and Stroud, to Dawn Station. I am Sierra Merkur, head representative for Origin Industries, and I'm glad to be presenting you two with your prizes today. Millions of people entered the drawing, and thousands won prizes, from guns to cars, which you both did, but one of you managed to nab a great big one, too!"
One such winner raised a hand in greeting, waved it nonchalantly, then quickly stuffed it back in the side pocket of his jacket. He was wearing the plain gray jacket with a black sweater under it, added with boots and some dark brown cargo pants.To anyone, he seemed to be slightly on edge, but to those who knew him closely it was safe to hazard a guess that it had something to do with the station's No-Smoking Policy.
"Love freebies." Was all that Desmond said, eyeing the Origin representative before shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Truth be told, he'd never expected to win anything from a form he filled a long time ago, let alone that the other person who'd be also winning the stuff was Nicholas, who was standing right next to him.
Nicholas Clarke nodded, keeping pace with Desmond. He was dressed in his normal attire, save the body armor, and his sniper rifle slung across his back. He did however, have his handgun tucked inside his long coat.
He offered a handshake to the representative, "Thanks for having us."
"Oh, it's no trouble at all" Sierra assured Nicholas, taking his hand and returning the shake in a friendly manner.
"We're always happy to help customers, and in your case, Winners." she continued, leading the two men down a hallway from the chamber they had met, and toward another hangar, in which were, presumably, their prizes. Upon arrival, that presumption would turn out to be true, although the amount of stuff and activity in the room was more than they might have expected- It was the headquarters for the entire giveaway. Workers scurried about, taking packages that contained prizes and making sure addresses and names were correct, and loading them onto shuttles. Other representatives were in the room already, presenting prizes to other winners as they went along- cars, shuttles, and other things that fit easily in the hangar practically littered about.
"Well, which of you would like to go first?" the redhead asked.
Desmond looked towards Nicholas and shrugged, raising his hands to emphasize his lack of preference.
Nicholas supplied, "Let's do Desmond's first." And was rewarded with a scowl from his companion.
Sierra smiled, checking over a list on her datapad momentarily before leading the duo to a pile of things that looked rather expensive in its total. "Okie dokie, then. I'll start you off with the small stuff."
Looking at the top of the pile, she pulled out a small, but nicely made box, and opened it, showing Desmond a rather nice pistol.
"The ODM Raygun, which has been rather popular lately..." she explained, handing the box to the bounty hunter, before moving onto the next item, leaving Desmond to examine the pistol like a kid examined a new toy.
The next item, was sitting in a sort of crouched position and rather humanoid in shape, being a powered armor.
"It's only the base model" she notified Desmond, waving it off even though it was still worth more than 8,000 DA. It still didn't keep the bounty hunter from whistling as he circled the armor after he was done checking the pistol.
She moved onto the third item, which might be more or less exciting, depending on one's perspective. A Shiny red hovercar floated serenely just off the ground, promising freedom, speed, and a lot more sun than a car with a permanent roof.
"I drive one of these things around, actually. quite a fun little cruiser" Sierra explained, giving the machine a bit of a pat before opening the door for Desmond to try out the seats if he felt like it. Desmond, however, just contended himself with running his hand along the hull of the hovercar.
"And your final prize, by far the most valuable, is this!" Sierra said, suddenly pulling a large sheet off of a rounded thing that appeared to have wings- it was in fact a Starfighter which, despite its small size, appeared more than ready for battle, with four large blasters, and numerous hardpoints on the wings to allow for munitions and other things to be mounted on the craft.
"We only gave away a couple of these, so you should count yourself rather lucky." the representative added, nudging Desmond gently in the side.
"So, where do I sign?" He asked, looking at the starfighter. He had no idea how they would fit that in the Iron Ferret.
Nicholas whistled at the craft, "Bet we can do some crazy stuff with this thing."
"Like grocery shopping." Desmond replied, flatly.
"All I need is a thumbprint or signature on my datapad, and we're good. And no, we don't sell this information to telemarketers or scammers, we just need to match you to the database to make sure you aren't a fake" Sierra explained, handing the pad to the Nepleslian.
"While you do that, why don't we walk this way, to mister Clarke's winnings?" she offered, moving on as she did so.
Desmond nodded and took the proferred datapad, pressing his right thumb against the screen. "So that's it?" He asked the representative.
"Yup" was her entire answer, as she took back the datapad and flicked over the list to see exactly what Nicholas had won in the prize drawing. She stopped by a collection of two items under the shadow of a Starliner the showing of which was much less impressive than Desmond's loot had been. The two items were simply a gun and a car.
"Looks awfully familiar." Desmond commented to Nicholas about the starliner. He hoped there weren't any pirates coming along with the prize, but kept that to himself.
"That it does Desmond, that it does." Nicholas replied.
"Origin starliners are in service all over the Kikyo sector, so they're rather common for people to see" Sierra explained offhand, regurgitating the information almost automatically, but ignoring the craft herself as she instead picked up a rifle.
"It's a Model sixteen with the A module, the civilian version of the Star Army's Type 33 service rifle, produced by Origin" Sierra established, handing the weapon to Nicholas nonchalantly.
He took the rifle, and flipped it around, getting a look at it, then taking a look down the sights with the touch of someone who knew guns. "I can use this." He stated.
"Well, I'm glad that you can, sir" Sierra responded, pointing toward the next item he had won. It was a car Plain and simple. black in color, it had an air of affordability about it.
"The Origin Coupe, designed to be so affordable, we didn't bother giving it an actual name. It's rather popular with low-income people, since it's almost as cheap as a handgun." Sierra shrugged, once again opening the door and showing off the basic interior. So far Desmond looked to have lucked out more than Nicholas had.
Nicholas looked at Desmond, "Think you can make it a bit better?"
Desmond simply nodded, unable to think of a snarky reply to that question.
"Industrial folks are always appreciated. Feedback on how we can improve or provide products to fit your needs is always welcome!" The representative seemed to be running off of some spiel that the company had ingrained in her memory, because even she seemed a bit weary of the phrases she had begun to spout.
"Oh, and the Starliner's yours too" she added, pointing a thumb at the transport craft which was currently casting a shadow over them.
Nicholas looked up, "Wonder where I'll find a place to put it..."
"Can always sell it. Unless you're planning on opening a tourist service or something." Desmond replied.
The redhead, listening in, joined in on the conversation with a suggestion of her own. "Personally I'd rip out the insides and use it like a bigass RV, but that might be somewhat overkill."
"Can't be worse than using a fridge to fix an antenna." Desmond commented, citing one of his most odd achievements.
"Well, we could always use it like a box of spare parts, we could use those." Nicholas added.
Sierra nodded sagely, looking over the space-airliner with the duo for a moment before she suddenly snapped to attention, as if she had remembered something. which she had.
"Oh, right. You also won the grand prize, Nicholas, but for that, we'll need to go outside."
"Lucky me, let's see it then." Nicholas replied, bit of curiosity in his voice on what it could be.
Without further ado, Sierra directed the two men toward a shuttle, and, soon, they were off, passing through the atmospheric retention field and out into the vastness of space. All around them were a number of starships, prizes that people had won in this wondrous and needlessly expensive giveaway, but there, in the middle, was something that was obviously 'grand'.
"Guess which one's yours." Sierra asked, as the descended from the prize hangar and into the small fleet of ships that had been given for free to participants in the drawing.
Nicholas pointed at the biggest ship he could see, "Are you kidding?"
"Lucky bastard." Desmond said, looking at the ship. Even though space made it difficult to figure the distance and true size of an object, he could still hazard a guess that it was... Big.
"Five hundred meters in length, two hundred meters wide, and one hundred meters tall. comes stocked with four cargo handling craft in blisters on the nose, and four shuttles in the hangar." Sierra listed, smiling at the men's reactions to their fortune.
Nicholas was quiet for a moment, "Think we found a place for the Starliner... and everything else."
"Probably could fit a couple of Iron Ferrets in there." Desmond said.
"Good idea." Nicholas replied, staring at the massive ship below.
"If you'd like, I can take you to the ship and arrange for your other winnings to be delivered to it" the representative offered, maneuvering the shuttle deftly toward the aft of the behemoth cargo craft, making a beeline for its hangar.
"I think we need to call a friend... or two. Putting the prizes in there would be great though." Nicholas nodded.
"Is it fully stocked?" Desmond asked, nodding with his head towards the freighter.
"It is fully furnished, but stocks of basic supplies do not come with the craft, no." Sierra answered sounding somewhat disappointed. "Mostly because we don't sell an especially large amount of these, expensive as they are, and foodstuffs might go bad while they sit in storage."
"Fuel?" The bounty hunter asked as he tried to get a look at the thrusters behind the starship.
Sierra checked her datapad again, looking up statistics on the particular ship they had given to Nicholas, and nodded. "Ten months active on standard power, though it'll do longer in low power mode if you want to be thrifty. It *IS* fully stocked right now, and all origin ships get a discount at Origin fueling stations, so that's a bonus."
Desmond nodded, content in watching the freighter as the shuttle drew closer.
It was not long before the shuttle touched down on the hangar deck, and Sierra encouraged the bounty hunters to disembark, following them into the open hangar space with a bit of a confident smirk. She handed Nicholas the datapad, indicating that he sign it.
"Same as with Desmond" she offered as she did so.
Nicholas pressed his right thumb on the pad, "This is huge."
"Sam and I can handle it." Desmond said with confidence. Now there was a solid reason to keep the mechanic around: Less work for him.
"Well, I'll leave you two alone with your good luck, and send over the other things. Enjoy your prizes! And remember-" Sierra almost began to spew more spiel, but stopped herself short.
"Aww, forget it. Just have fun and don't go killing innocent bystanders or running into things, Alright? Origin's not responsible for any of that shit but that doesn't mean we encourage it, either. Now, Behave!" and with that, the bespectacled redhead absconded to her shuttle and took off, leaving Nicholas Clarke and Desmond Stroud to their own devices.
The change in attitude took Desmond a bit off guard. "I sure hope you're not planning to retire now that you got all this." He said to Nicholas after Sierra took off.
"Why would I do that, I just met all you... wonderful... people. This just makes our jobs easier." Nicholas replied, grinning.
"I'll take a look around the place." Desmond said, obviously excited to take a look at the new ship that had seemingly fallen on their laps, and then took off, leaving Nicholas standing in the hangar bay.
Nicholas looked around, "Damn I'm lucky." He said to himself. He took a quick round about the hangar bay, sticking to the outer wall. 'Quick' was a relative term, as large as the hold was. "We could fit the Iron Ferret in here, no doubt." He continued his walk musing to himself, "Could use it to store the stuff we get. Iron Ferret can hardly fit a starliner in it." Nicholas went to the bridge, and sat in the Captain's chair, "Strike of Luck..." He nodded, and raised a finger, "Lucky Strike, that's your name." He patted the chair, "So let's get lucky some more."
Now, they found themselves in Dawn station, greeted by a Red-Headed representative, who seemed to have some rather good news for them. The young woman Bowed before them, smiling, and greeting them.
"Welcome Misters Clarke and Stroud, to Dawn Station. I am Sierra Merkur, head representative for Origin Industries, and I'm glad to be presenting you two with your prizes today. Millions of people entered the drawing, and thousands won prizes, from guns to cars, which you both did, but one of you managed to nab a great big one, too!"
One such winner raised a hand in greeting, waved it nonchalantly, then quickly stuffed it back in the side pocket of his jacket. He was wearing the plain gray jacket with a black sweater under it, added with boots and some dark brown cargo pants.To anyone, he seemed to be slightly on edge, but to those who knew him closely it was safe to hazard a guess that it had something to do with the station's No-Smoking Policy.
"Love freebies." Was all that Desmond said, eyeing the Origin representative before shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Truth be told, he'd never expected to win anything from a form he filled a long time ago, let alone that the other person who'd be also winning the stuff was Nicholas, who was standing right next to him.
Nicholas Clarke nodded, keeping pace with Desmond. He was dressed in his normal attire, save the body armor, and his sniper rifle slung across his back. He did however, have his handgun tucked inside his long coat.
He offered a handshake to the representative, "Thanks for having us."
"Oh, it's no trouble at all" Sierra assured Nicholas, taking his hand and returning the shake in a friendly manner.
"We're always happy to help customers, and in your case, Winners." she continued, leading the two men down a hallway from the chamber they had met, and toward another hangar, in which were, presumably, their prizes. Upon arrival, that presumption would turn out to be true, although the amount of stuff and activity in the room was more than they might have expected- It was the headquarters for the entire giveaway. Workers scurried about, taking packages that contained prizes and making sure addresses and names were correct, and loading them onto shuttles. Other representatives were in the room already, presenting prizes to other winners as they went along- cars, shuttles, and other things that fit easily in the hangar practically littered about.
"Well, which of you would like to go first?" the redhead asked.
Desmond looked towards Nicholas and shrugged, raising his hands to emphasize his lack of preference.
Nicholas supplied, "Let's do Desmond's first." And was rewarded with a scowl from his companion.
Sierra smiled, checking over a list on her datapad momentarily before leading the duo to a pile of things that looked rather expensive in its total. "Okie dokie, then. I'll start you off with the small stuff."
Looking at the top of the pile, she pulled out a small, but nicely made box, and opened it, showing Desmond a rather nice pistol.
"The ODM Raygun, which has been rather popular lately..." she explained, handing the box to the bounty hunter, before moving onto the next item, leaving Desmond to examine the pistol like a kid examined a new toy.
The next item, was sitting in a sort of crouched position and rather humanoid in shape, being a powered armor.
"It's only the base model" she notified Desmond, waving it off even though it was still worth more than 8,000 DA. It still didn't keep the bounty hunter from whistling as he circled the armor after he was done checking the pistol.
She moved onto the third item, which might be more or less exciting, depending on one's perspective. A Shiny red hovercar floated serenely just off the ground, promising freedom, speed, and a lot more sun than a car with a permanent roof.
"I drive one of these things around, actually. quite a fun little cruiser" Sierra explained, giving the machine a bit of a pat before opening the door for Desmond to try out the seats if he felt like it. Desmond, however, just contended himself with running his hand along the hull of the hovercar.
"And your final prize, by far the most valuable, is this!" Sierra said, suddenly pulling a large sheet off of a rounded thing that appeared to have wings- it was in fact a Starfighter which, despite its small size, appeared more than ready for battle, with four large blasters, and numerous hardpoints on the wings to allow for munitions and other things to be mounted on the craft.
"We only gave away a couple of these, so you should count yourself rather lucky." the representative added, nudging Desmond gently in the side.
"So, where do I sign?" He asked, looking at the starfighter. He had no idea how they would fit that in the Iron Ferret.
Nicholas whistled at the craft, "Bet we can do some crazy stuff with this thing."
"Like grocery shopping." Desmond replied, flatly.
"All I need is a thumbprint or signature on my datapad, and we're good. And no, we don't sell this information to telemarketers or scammers, we just need to match you to the database to make sure you aren't a fake" Sierra explained, handing the pad to the Nepleslian.
"While you do that, why don't we walk this way, to mister Clarke's winnings?" she offered, moving on as she did so.
Desmond nodded and took the proferred datapad, pressing his right thumb against the screen. "So that's it?" He asked the representative.
"Yup" was her entire answer, as she took back the datapad and flicked over the list to see exactly what Nicholas had won in the prize drawing. She stopped by a collection of two items under the shadow of a Starliner the showing of which was much less impressive than Desmond's loot had been. The two items were simply a gun and a car.
"Looks awfully familiar." Desmond commented to Nicholas about the starliner. He hoped there weren't any pirates coming along with the prize, but kept that to himself.
"That it does Desmond, that it does." Nicholas replied.
"Origin starliners are in service all over the Kikyo sector, so they're rather common for people to see" Sierra explained offhand, regurgitating the information almost automatically, but ignoring the craft herself as she instead picked up a rifle.
"It's a Model sixteen with the A module, the civilian version of the Star Army's Type 33 service rifle, produced by Origin" Sierra established, handing the weapon to Nicholas nonchalantly.
He took the rifle, and flipped it around, getting a look at it, then taking a look down the sights with the touch of someone who knew guns. "I can use this." He stated.
"Well, I'm glad that you can, sir" Sierra responded, pointing toward the next item he had won. It was a car Plain and simple. black in color, it had an air of affordability about it.
"The Origin Coupe, designed to be so affordable, we didn't bother giving it an actual name. It's rather popular with low-income people, since it's almost as cheap as a handgun." Sierra shrugged, once again opening the door and showing off the basic interior. So far Desmond looked to have lucked out more than Nicholas had.
Nicholas looked at Desmond, "Think you can make it a bit better?"
Desmond simply nodded, unable to think of a snarky reply to that question.
"Industrial folks are always appreciated. Feedback on how we can improve or provide products to fit your needs is always welcome!" The representative seemed to be running off of some spiel that the company had ingrained in her memory, because even she seemed a bit weary of the phrases she had begun to spout.
"Oh, and the Starliner's yours too" she added, pointing a thumb at the transport craft which was currently casting a shadow over them.
Nicholas looked up, "Wonder where I'll find a place to put it..."
"Can always sell it. Unless you're planning on opening a tourist service or something." Desmond replied.
The redhead, listening in, joined in on the conversation with a suggestion of her own. "Personally I'd rip out the insides and use it like a bigass RV, but that might be somewhat overkill."
"Can't be worse than using a fridge to fix an antenna." Desmond commented, citing one of his most odd achievements.
"Well, we could always use it like a box of spare parts, we could use those." Nicholas added.
Sierra nodded sagely, looking over the space-airliner with the duo for a moment before she suddenly snapped to attention, as if she had remembered something. which she had.
"Oh, right. You also won the grand prize, Nicholas, but for that, we'll need to go outside."
"Lucky me, let's see it then." Nicholas replied, bit of curiosity in his voice on what it could be.
Without further ado, Sierra directed the two men toward a shuttle, and, soon, they were off, passing through the atmospheric retention field and out into the vastness of space. All around them were a number of starships, prizes that people had won in this wondrous and needlessly expensive giveaway, but there, in the middle, was something that was obviously 'grand'.
"Guess which one's yours." Sierra asked, as the descended from the prize hangar and into the small fleet of ships that had been given for free to participants in the drawing.
Nicholas pointed at the biggest ship he could see, "Are you kidding?"
"Lucky bastard." Desmond said, looking at the ship. Even though space made it difficult to figure the distance and true size of an object, he could still hazard a guess that it was... Big.
"Five hundred meters in length, two hundred meters wide, and one hundred meters tall. comes stocked with four cargo handling craft in blisters on the nose, and four shuttles in the hangar." Sierra listed, smiling at the men's reactions to their fortune.
Nicholas was quiet for a moment, "Think we found a place for the Starliner... and everything else."
"Probably could fit a couple of Iron Ferrets in there." Desmond said.
"Good idea." Nicholas replied, staring at the massive ship below.
"If you'd like, I can take you to the ship and arrange for your other winnings to be delivered to it" the representative offered, maneuvering the shuttle deftly toward the aft of the behemoth cargo craft, making a beeline for its hangar.
"I think we need to call a friend... or two. Putting the prizes in there would be great though." Nicholas nodded.
"Is it fully stocked?" Desmond asked, nodding with his head towards the freighter.
"It is fully furnished, but stocks of basic supplies do not come with the craft, no." Sierra answered sounding somewhat disappointed. "Mostly because we don't sell an especially large amount of these, expensive as they are, and foodstuffs might go bad while they sit in storage."
"Fuel?" The bounty hunter asked as he tried to get a look at the thrusters behind the starship.
Sierra checked her datapad again, looking up statistics on the particular ship they had given to Nicholas, and nodded. "Ten months active on standard power, though it'll do longer in low power mode if you want to be thrifty. It *IS* fully stocked right now, and all origin ships get a discount at Origin fueling stations, so that's a bonus."
Desmond nodded, content in watching the freighter as the shuttle drew closer.
It was not long before the shuttle touched down on the hangar deck, and Sierra encouraged the bounty hunters to disembark, following them into the open hangar space with a bit of a confident smirk. She handed Nicholas the datapad, indicating that he sign it.
"Same as with Desmond" she offered as she did so.
Nicholas pressed his right thumb on the pad, "This is huge."
"Sam and I can handle it." Desmond said with confidence. Now there was a solid reason to keep the mechanic around: Less work for him.
"Well, I'll leave you two alone with your good luck, and send over the other things. Enjoy your prizes! And remember-" Sierra almost began to spew more spiel, but stopped herself short.
"Aww, forget it. Just have fun and don't go killing innocent bystanders or running into things, Alright? Origin's not responsible for any of that shit but that doesn't mean we encourage it, either. Now, Behave!" and with that, the bespectacled redhead absconded to her shuttle and took off, leaving Nicholas Clarke and Desmond Stroud to their own devices.
The change in attitude took Desmond a bit off guard. "I sure hope you're not planning to retire now that you got all this." He said to Nicholas after Sierra took off.
"Why would I do that, I just met all you... wonderful... people. This just makes our jobs easier." Nicholas replied, grinning.
"I'll take a look around the place." Desmond said, obviously excited to take a look at the new ship that had seemingly fallen on their laps, and then took off, leaving Nicholas standing in the hangar bay.
Nicholas looked around, "Damn I'm lucky." He said to himself. He took a quick round about the hangar bay, sticking to the outer wall. 'Quick' was a relative term, as large as the hold was. "We could fit the Iron Ferret in here, no doubt." He continued his walk musing to himself, "Could use it to store the stuff we get. Iron Ferret can hardly fit a starliner in it." Nicholas went to the bridge, and sat in the Captain's chair, "Strike of Luck..." He nodded, and raised a finger, "Lucky Strike, that's your name." He patted the chair, "So let's get lucky some more."
