Shadows of Stars

And so the two went, using what remained of the vines as leverage. Pushing/pulling off at that range catapulted them through the tunnel, only just graceful enough to not break a skull or somesuch. The blue lights seemed to be in bars running down the side of the tunnel. The vines actually cleared up entirely, leaving only lights and that same green ceramic-like material.

As the duo began to creep closer to what appeared to be a single opening at the base of the tunnel, they heard what sounded like voices, the first male...

"Hey, man, this sector's a lot more abandoned than the others."

A second one piped in, sounding older and male.

"More abandoned? There's more aba... Wait. Yeah. The jungle."

A third and final, female.

"I was gonna SAY that. Now come on and help me with this crap."

It was a bit dark in the room below, and they'd have to get closer - possibly close enough to be seen - to get a good look. That, and Tychus seemed to notice a glint of light somewhere, a small shining point on the wall, like a misplaced piece of glitter...

"Need some help?" Tychus looked as innocent as possible as he drifted down towards the adjoining room.

Nevaraon pulled himself into the room beside Tychus. "What's up? Figuratively speaking of course."

The figures turned, moving to look at the very friendly Tychus and Nevaron. Now having moved closer, the duo got a better look at them. The woman and the first man's voices belonged to two figures in dark spacesuits, covered in all sorts of strange designs and imaginative colored swatches. Voidwalker suits - these people were Freespacers! The last one indeed confirmed this, for the older man was actually a tall gunmetal-grey robot, with three glowing red... eye spots on its conical head, and a large industrial-skeletal kind of look to its body.

Meanwhile, the room itself seemed to constantly hum from a large mass in the center. The room appeared to be spherical, with a distinct lack of surfaces to stand on, and a surprising amount of open space - almost like it was never meant to have artificial gravity in the first place! The central object was rooted by a single, thin blue-silver metal pole to the 'floor', and was composed of two large spheres of transparent material joined by a central juncture, with a series of rings made of the green ceramic around the juncture. The spheres, though, seemed to shimmer with thousands of small etchings deep within them, almost like circuits, and wisps of violet energy circled through them...

The robot was the first to speak, though, amidst all of this.

"Well now, if it isn't some other meatsacks come to join us. Last we saw anyone was over in the jungle on the other side of this access tube thing."

Then the suited man shifted, glancing at Tychus.

"Help? Well, quite honestly the only help I can think of is maybe a few more hands for the Love and Peace. You're not linked up right proper, but we do have some hand controls. Nep cooperation and all that jazz. Not like it matters, we're stuck going commando ever since we got here."

The woman, instead, focused on Nevaron, as if the three 'Spacers had already decided to split answering the questions up.

"You tell me, bucko. We've been cruising for about a month trying figure out a way out of this, uh. Thing. We actually managed to get our ship back from it, or what was left of our ship. It's docked way out on the far side of the jungle. If you're coming with us, that is. Whatever the case, we had come here to figure out what this thing did, anyway, and it's just leading us back to finding a control circuit, so we're about done here anyway."

"I'm just from some wierd cruise ship, we sailed through a cloud and next thing I knew I ended up here." Tychus said.

"So, Freespacers, eh? You're a bit... Different then I thought you'd be."

"And I'm from the same cruise ship as him." Nevaraon jerked a thumb over at Tychus. "And I'd be happy to come along." He looked at the metal pole. "So what does this thing do?"

((Sorry for the delay, this past week has been pretty busy for me!))

The man in the suit turned, and it sounded like he was laughing, as he spoke with Tychus.

"Different, huh? What is it you were expecting, exactly?"

The taller robot joined in, finishing the man's sentence.

"Is it the propaganda stuff about stealing everything and opposing traditional values or whatever?"

Then the man, immediately following.

"Or is it more that you'd have expected us to be more 'weird forrin people' than we actually came off as?"

The two seemed to be snickering a bit, before the woman interrupted them, her hands on her hips. Her expression couldn't be told from behind the helmet, but her tone could - she moved from unamused, to... explanator, maybe even urgent.

"Hey! Save the tardspeak muckery for some other time! Er... Anyway. Best we can guess is that it's some kind of big spacefolder. Or a piece of one. But it could be a shield or a drive or a giant-space-beam-lulz-thing. Whatevs. Places to be. There's things afoot 'round here, and it's good not to hang around stargazing. You guys ready or not?"

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by it." Tychus held up his hands in an innocent gesture.

"It's just that I've never seen any Freespacers before, and that's coming from a Funky City native. From what I've heard, you guys were like irradiated hippies, but... You're not, are you?"

Nevaraon snickered at Tychus's obvious uncomfortability with Freespacers. Nevaraon, on the other hand, had been on the original team to make first contact between the Freespacers and the Abwrehans. " I'm ready to go whenever you are." He told the lady.

The robot chuckled at Tychus's remark.

"Hippies?... From what I remember about that, I guess it fits. Sorta. We're more... Handy."

But the others nodded, and began gesturing to the tube. It's assumed that Nevaron and Tychus followed them, as they pulled and leapt their way up through the tunnel, heading through denser and denser vine-walls, until they seemed to erupt into a strange sight.

There were vines floating through the air all over the place, as long spindly versions of jungle trees seemed to be growing all throughout the room. It was an almost intractable mess to get through, before, with a loud, visceral *SHUNK*, the robot sprouted a blade from its arm, wordlessly hacking through the vines and branches, while the other two Spacers stalked on by.

But then, the woman paused, as if she heard movement. Then, vines shot throughout the zero-g room as... something seemed to stir them, sending rustles throughout the vast chamber. There seemed to be some kind of large, dark form moving nearby, but it was impossible to identify.

"...This wasn't here last we went through. Watch your meat. If you know how to kick butt, now'd be the time to remember how."

"No worries. I always come prepared." Tychus moved a hand to his formal dinner jacket's interior and withdrew a .44 Magnum revolver.

Nevaraon sighed as he realized that he didn't have anything to fight with. He had left his family sword in his cabin. He looked around for a metal pole, or something of a like nature, to use.

The sound of rustling could also be heard to the left of the party as well, as vines were parted. As the rustling got closer, occasional colorful curses could be heard coming from that direction.

Finally a woman literally fell out of the greenery next to the party, tripped by a large protruding vine. She looked up, obviously surprised to see anyone else at all. She stared for a minute, before lifting herself to her feet and asking, "Where the hell are we? Just as I think I can have some time to myself, I get sucked into some sort of strange dimension.... or whatever the hell it is!!"

With that, she kicked the nearest vine. By this time, everyone could easily see her and identify her as a freespacer with deep red hair, which flowed down to the small of her back, as well as a diatom structure in the middle of her forehead in the shape of a triangle. Odd trinkets hung from her form-fitting black dress, as well as from her hair and from the bracelets on her wrists.

"Holy sh-"

Gashonk! A high-powered .44 Magnum round whizzed right past the newcomer's head and buried itself in the vines.

"What, did you guys breed all of a sudden?" Tychus said, a bit starled.

"Good erroneous data!" The woman spluttered, "What the hell?"
Stomping towards the group, she shouted, "I am just trying to enjoy myself on a space cruise, then I'm transported to a stupid alternate dimension....or whatever this place is, and then I get shot at by a Nepleslian numbskull! I am having the worst week ever!!"
As she said the last of this, she reached the man who had shot at her. Hands on her hips, she scowled at the man, her face inches from his. "What is going on, anyway?"

Nevaraon shrugged his shoulders. "Beats me, I woke up with a splitting head-ache. and I saw this guy right here. So I followed him."

The suited man blinked, looking at Tychus incredulously.

"Man, if I was that potent, you think I'd be all the way out here? No, hell no. The three of us are the only crew of the Love And Peace."

The woman chuckled slightly, but still seemed guarded, against the... other thing in the vines.

"Dream on, less dick. Dream on. We've more important worries."

As if on cue, the dark form seemed to move forwards, revealing a hulking monstrosity! It was a deep charcoal gray, and seemed to be made of a hard chitinous substance, like a giant insect. It resembled a hunched over, very fat variant of a mantis, with gnarled spikes protruding out of various joints and parts of its back. It appeared to be, strangely, a quadraped, and had more reptilian claws instead of insectile talons. Finally, its narrow compound eyes gave off a soft, unnatural golden glow as it bellowed a roar!

The creature's first strike was crude, and the robotic Spacer's armblade was able to knock it away. But as the beast rolled across the segmented plating on its back and went back to its feet, it screeched in anger. With a flying leap, its new mark was decided.

Nevaraon.

The woman shrieked as the insect-thing attacked, covering her head with her arms, which, it is worthy to note, were robotic. However, this was little consolation to her, as her forte was information warfare, not physical combat. Nevertheless, she quickly scanned the room for anything to use as a weapon to defend herself.

Nevaraon gulped as he saw the Mantis-thing leaping at him. But Nevaraon was more of a fighter than most of the others. And with many years of grav-ball under his belt, He knew how to use zero-grav to his advantage. He kicked off a wall and charged the mantis, aiming for it's chest, hoping to dodge the worst of its claws.

Gashonk! another .44 magnum slug ran, expertly aimed, right into one of the beast's eyes. Tychus grinned with satisfaction.