Uh… honey, buddy? <proffers some bee-vomit/> I thought we were ffriendz!
<bzzzzzzzzzzz?/>
<waggles butt in confused dance/>
mmmmmm schmmoooe-kuh <inhales deeply />
soooooooooooo… who wants to ride shotgunz?
<bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz/> [falls asleep]
<zzzzzzsnrkwhuhz!/> [wakes up]
<eyes quote-unquote dancing/>
That’s an atrogshush accent you’ve got there, but I think you’re saying you want to double-team this here choose-your-own-space-adventure? Y’all ever been to Altair III?
They gots some awesome space-pollen there, the stuff practically reaches out and grabs you! It’s like nothing else in the whole galaxy!
Well, not in this sixième.
That I’ve been to.
And remembered.
Wait, do I know you? You’re not another g****n robot, are you? Themz trying to take over the whole galaxy, you know. My cousin, Zzebedziah, he married a cl… uh, a robot-cosmsosian, and … well, things did NOT go “well”.
Hey… which bathroom should I use? There are just pictures of moose on them. Anyway, while you were in there, Sir Patrick @micaela joined us. He’s a space lobster. Cool, huh?
Sir Patrick: “Another Romulan ale for my friend here, Guin… er… Duck? Duck right?”
Heyyyyyyy! You … thingz… You like smoke?
No, really, Sssir Patrick, I’ve had more than…
Well. If you insssissst.
(gurglegurglegurglegurgle)
It’sss a pleasssure to meet you both. Sssay, Phuong, no need to look ssso nervousss here. A nonzero percentage of the cussstomersss here appear to be human, ssso it’sss not like you ssstick out like a sssphenodont on Herpeton VI. Sssurely you’ve been to dozensss of divesss worssse than thisss in your travelsss…
No? Come now, you bear a ssstrong resssemblance to the refugeessss of the Terran Diassspora, and they left Earth centuriesss ago. Are you not Earthling?
Forgive me. I do not mean to put you on the ssspot. Let usss ssspeak no more of it, for here we are, ressspiring thissss sssweet recycled atmosssphere, enjoying our (in sssome casssesss barely) biological exissstence in good fellowship, merriment, and sssong. Permit me to sssubsssidize and pour the next round, one of the perennial favoritesss on Old Home Herpeton VI, a sssplash of Ganymede’s Tropical Coolant.
Never mind the label warnings, I’ve been lubricating the sssubssstructure that replaced my hyoid dewlap with Tropical Coolant ever sssince the indussstrial accident that cossst me that particular bit of mortal flesh back in my juvenile yearsss. I asssure you, it’sss perfectly sssafe for crussstaceansss and primatesss alike…!
Well, bugger it. More for me then.
(45 centons later)
Hey, I’m feelin’ ressstlessss. I was on my way home to Herpeton VI when I paused here for a quick weekend of R&R, but I’m bored. Anyone elssse feel like gettin’ into sssome missschief, preferably with the potential for profit and/or cloacal ssstimulation? C’mon, guysss! Let’sss get up and get…
Oooohhh.
Oh, damn. Why’sss the pub ssspinnin’? Why’sss that elk lookin’ at me funny?
Bloody hell. I gotta get that cyber-liver recalibrated. My nano-enzymes are all outta order. Glurk. Cannot processs thisss volume of coolant. Begin reverssse-perissstaltic chain-reaction…
Dear Deity, not again…
click to animate, though you may regret it
Hey Duck - I see youz finally got the loo remodeled. Stellar Pine. Spendy.
You know… I think I’ll pass on the coolant. In my experience, green glowing liquid is generally not a good thing to drink. In fact I gotta be honest, any drink suggestion from you is looking a bit dodgy right now, but the Romulan ale is good so I’m keeping an open mind.
I’m not uncomfortable because of the aliens - where I come from the population consisted mostly of mutants, although, this is actually my peoples’ first contact with other intelligent life as far as I know. Actually I just haven’t seen anyone since I, ah, accidentally left five years ago.
I didn’t actually know there was a Terran Diasssspora - I knew many people left earth around the time of the apocalypse, but they never phoned home. My ancestors were left behind, and with limited technology managed to escape and terraform Mars, another planet in our solar system. That was ages ago. We have better technology now, but nothing like what I’ve seen so far out here! I’m going to need some serious upgrades for my ship.
Anyway I sent a probe to Earth to recover my ancestor’s vehicle, initially to put in the Marsthonian museum, but I also recovered research notes on warp drive from a place called Stark Skunkworks. I built a working warp drive into the vehicle, having nothing better to put it in, hoping to attract the attention of Vulcans with a quick three-hour tour of space. I got this idea from an old movie I also recovered from earth.
I pointed at the Pleiades star cluster which seemed to have some significance to my ancestor, who mounted it on her vehicle:
But, my navigation computer was… insufficient, you could say, and I have been desperately searching either for Mars or someone who can help for the past five years. Luckily, I had reverse-engineered the original pepperoni-powered propulsion system of my vehicle so that it flows in reverse, sustaining me via the energy transmogrifier.
I finally stumbled across the Unizone headquarters, and signed up because I didn’t have any money to put in the parking meter. The representative gave me parking validation for signing up, though, so I decided to defer the signing bonus.
Since I’ve had a helmet on for five years, my hair is a bit messy, so I kept the helmet on at Unizone. A quick look inside this bar and I was sure that nobody in here would care though so I took it off. Hey, Sir Patrick, you couldn’t happen to use those claws to give me a hair cut, could you?
don’t mind if I do.
Out in the cold of space Mamma felt his Beard shiver, as if hundreds of small voices had suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
Those would be the bees. Poor li’l thangs.
A distress beacon is detected - it’s the Cosmosword! But a couple hours later it turns off. Soon a communique:
“no worry about Browf, sabotage and space fight. client dead. Browf win bonus ship if anyone want. back later, will tell all. over and brout”
You know, no offense but I’m going to treat this like Sir Galaxy’s drink suggestions. Perhaps you can explain the appeal?
Also, I can already feel the smoke sticking to my greasy skin and hair. The integrated cleaning system of my space suit broke down a couple years ago.
The door to Duck’s swung open tiredly. A dirty, unkempt figure stood there for a moment, clutching the door frame for support. He slouched to the bar. “Beer. Not Moosehead.” Duck cocked an eyebrow and pulled the tap on a small local brew that sold kegs. Keeping his eyes fixed on the figure he rumbled a low question that was mostly missed. “No, no problems with space moose overall, just one of them. But I hear he’s not going to be a problem anymore. You got a bar towel back there buddy?”
Wiping his goggles down and cleaning what appeared to be copious amounts of soot and oil from his Snoopy cap, Mamma Aiuto was revealed in all his bearded glory. Turning to the others in the bar he started in. “Boy, that was a hell of a trip. Where’s Browf? He back yet? Well, I imagine he’ll be along.”
“He and I got to taking the other day and it’s apparently space moose migration season. And sometimes someone needs something moved pretty badly and maybe they don’t have the cargo space. Or maybe they don’t want someone else to know about it, typical small scale black market stuff. We weren’t out to screw over any families or anything, just looking to get one over on someone looking to get one over someone else. Maybe just do a little skimming, forget a few boxes before closing up, the usual sort of thing when you’re operating on the fringe.”
“We made it out to his homeworld, Yukonia-6, you guys ever been there? It’s over in Alces sector. Well, it’s cold. Cold and beautiful. Really majestic, you guys should see it. Mountains. Crazy mountains. Just amazing. Anyway, we meet the moose, seems okay, but he’s running a tight ship, scanning this and that, really tracking his inventory. Cheap too, so we’re not looking at making a lot of money on this without having to resort to something clever.”
“We hit sky, climb through the atmosphere. Incredible auroras out there by the way, seriously. And we’re making the transition to space, we’re only going to Kongakut-5, so it’s not a long trip. If I’m going to do anything clever it’ll have to be pretty soon. I go into the cargo area just to have a look and see if I can think something up.”
“Rustic wooden crates, a few loose nails poking out, I start thinking maybe try a Houdini, pull off the bottom, take a few things out, put some other heavy things in, make sure the crate ends up at the bottom of the stack. The nails come out smooth and straight, this is looking up, but the clock is still ticking and in my haste I must’ve missed the wire. Damn thing was booby trapped.”
“Smoke everywhere, this giant dust cloud, like hyperfax toner, just everywhere. And, well, let’s say it did not smell pleasant. Just then Little Bill calls me up to the cockpit. I glance over to Browf’s Cosmosword and see him and our client just blasting the hell out of each other. Well, I’m not about to watch this moose blow my partner out of the sky so we start firing away and this must have distracted him, we were pretty far away, but something happened that caused him to stop firing and his ship to get awful dark.”
“I was motoring over to Browf to figure out our next plan and suddenly out from nowhere come about six big, black cruisers, like black as night, just blotting out the stars. I don’t know who they were with or what their deal was, but they were awful close to me and I didn’t appreciate them. Maybe they were our client’s backup or maybe they were there to loot his cargo too. All I know is that we kicked it hard out of there and took the long way back here to make sure nobody was behind us. Heard Browf’s message along the way, so it sounds like he got out, and with an extra ship along the way.”
“All I know is that I’m going to take my sweet time figuring out what else I have in those boxes, cleaning up the Dabohaze is already underway but will probably take most of the weekend. Barkeep, a round on me.”
Smoke is just… it’s calming, you know? Chillllaxzable…
So, you wore that helmet for a long time, hunh?
Speak for yourself. I call it a good start.
Wouldn’t want to be caught with your pants down.
Two ships drop into the dockyard outside Duck’s Pond. The Cosmosword lands, it’s taco-hoof silhouette blocking view of the other ship, much smaller ship.
Minutes later, Browf strides proudly through the lock and approaches the bar. Making a show of it, he draws from his jacket pocket a set of ship keys and a pink slip. using the keys to depress the activation button of the Pond’s geniune-imitation Navy klaxxon, an act only done by someone buying the whole bar the next round.
“drink up all friend! Browf survive and got crazy story!”
Joining Mamma Aiuto and his compadres at their booth, he shares:
“after Mamma and Browf realise client run tight ship, also realise we need also escort client ship Bingo from Yukonia-6 to Kongakut-5. so we fly.
“while fly, many black cruisers detect. So client try and dock success, which okay, maybe he want protect from cruisers. but client try piracy, which not okay. so Browf shoot client dead. Browf no like kill, especially kill moose, but Browf know captain rights.”
“while ship fight carry on, sudden engine fail, sudden airlock use. Browf suspect sabotage, but only crew on Cosmosword Browf. make matter worse, Bingo auto undock, start fire on Cosmosword power, Cosmosword go dark. Dabohaze fire at Bingo, and disable.
“so stuck, no weapon power up. start emergency power up, tell BAMBI start auto repair, and BAMBI retrieve security video. turn out cargo self assemble into sabotage bot, which sabotage engines, and eject self out airlock. BAMBI predict fall in closest star.
“suddenly six black cruiser ship uncloak. shazbot. Dabohaze punch it, she gon. shazbot.
“Browf think quick. shoot lowtech magnet wire to ‘poon Bingo, tug over. Browf suit up, EVA over to Bingo. Bingo puny size and pack serious firepower with black market modifications, so like deadly dart. Ship dark so cruisers no react.
Browf target Bingo enemy ships and fire missiles, fire beams, targeting weapons. lots shoot, shoot back at Bingo, but Bingo nimble, and take out four of six cruisers! Bingo have crazy shield power too. BAMBI radio over Cosmosword ready for speed away, Browf say punch it to Sevrag system, BAMBI obey. Bingo follow. Cosmosword and Bingo both escape remaining cruisers.
“in Sevrag, then jump around to other system, repair. rinse, repeat. Finally get back here.
“still repairs need do, but got very nice cargo, much illegal modifications. me no install, but me sell cheap! Mamma and Browf share all spoils right down middle.
“Bingo very nice ship, but glove box for cargo space, single pilot, no AI, no jacuzzi. Browf like ship, could keep docked with Cosmosword, but Browf sporting!
“Browf glad to offer ship Bingo as prize for most damage taken but no die at end of week four’s missions!
Captain Browf hands over the pink-slip and keys to Duck, who agrees to keep the Bingo parked outside and the keys hanging behind the bar.
Permit me to offer my mossst sssincere congratulationsss on the unexpectedly profitable outcome of what at firssst looked to be a ssseriousss misssadventure. Charybdisss sssmilesss upon sssuch beingsss that disssplay cunning, resssourcefulnesss, and a finely-tuned cussstom-built ssset of ssscruplesss in the pursssuit of commerce and adventure, and I am only the firssst to manifessst thisss pleasure in the form of an electronic sssmile-analogue, and a brisssk but hearty hoofshake.
Recent acquisssitions as my bionic auditory receptorsss are (sssince it was only lassst week that my biological tympanic membranes were blasted from my ssskull during a hassstily-engineered exit from the… er… unlicensssed guessst ssstorage and interrogative processssing “bungalow” of a local conssstabulary down Omicron Minor way, though that’sss a tale for another level of intoxxxication), I couldn’t help but overhear:
In resssponssse to which I mussst inquire for the sssake of clarification: does Browf refer to “mossst damage taken (but no die)” in the Week Four mission(s) alone, or mossst cumulative damage taken between now and the end of Round Four?
