Saviors of the Stars IC

[Eshkigal]

With that complete, Scrap shifts again, taking the time to craft the extra parts first to adapt its Plasma Cannon into the disrupter. Easier than setting up a bomb, less risk to the Silence and Scrap to shoot it instead of risk being in the path. While it works, bringing things back into its storage unit, Scrap looks over to the egg it had bought before, as well. There had to be something it could do to make the egg live...

[Queen Sapes]

Laishe maneuvers the Silence out of the way of the debris, but due to the sheer size of the Silence, the smaller loose bits still brush up against the massive vessel. Most just get pulled along with the Silence, but some of the larger bits scrape along the Silence's hull, the noise they make empty and nonexistent in space, but inside the scrape and screech they make is very obvious and apparent. The sound vibrates throughout the ship, loud enough to make most of its passengers cringe at the sound. The sound is not a fun one, certainly not for Laishe, and not a nice thing to hear for Caprice as she snacks, Strife as she calibrates her implants, and the Twins as they sight-see. Scrap is easily the least effected, if only because he's furthest from the bits scrapping. Scrap's egg sits in its liquid-filed jar on a shelf, unmoving and obviously dead. But that is the most confusing bit of Ne'Tal physiology. They were close to organic, generally, but still robotic. It makes one more than wonder if they can be brought back from the dead.

[Quellian-dyrae]

The twins' faces twisted into grimaces and their bodies shivered some at the "nails on chalkboard X10" sound. Eh-h-h-h.

~Everyone okay?~

~Did we hit something?~

[Arcran]

"Frakkin' pirates," Laishe mutters every time he scrapes against some junk, his ears screaming in pain. "Gonna make them pay for the new paintjob after this stupid mission. Sorry girl," Laishe says, patting the command console softly. "You'll get through it."

"Just crap scraping over the ship," Laishe says into the ship's mic. "Won't be near enough to hurt anything but the paintjob. Just put some earplugs in or something," the pilot mutters, wincing as trash once again scrapes his ship.

[The_Snark]

~Damn, honey, if anyone else'd scratched up your ship like that you'd be out for blood,~ comments Caprice from the galley, sounding more amused than annoyed. If there'd been more of an impact, she might have spilled something, but as-is? No harm done. Laishe is prickly enough that it's sometimes fun to watch the universe prickle back. ~You going to take us in stealthed, so we don't attract pirate attention while we make our way to port?~

[Queen Sapes]

A few more minutes of scraping, Laishe's ears screaming for a rest, and the Silence is through the scrap pile and into the true nest of the Garden Worlds. They lie before the Silence, scattered around and circling the sun in their barely sustainable orbits. Zolvin-9-7 would be their best bet for fuel, and luckily it is also the closest of the Garden Worlds, tied with its sister planet, Zoldin-9-17. The Zoldin-9 system planets were not named in any particular order it would seem, although that may be caused by how they tend to shift around one another every once in a while. It was another reason these planets weren't very colonized, since their orbits tended to result in their occasional shuffle. While it was easy to spot and avoid a rogue planetoid, it was far more difficult to avoid pirates, and thankfully none appeared on the Silence's sensors as it passes out of the scrap field.

[Quellian-dyrae]

When the scraping kept up, the twins headed for the cockpit. And assuming it was open and/or Laishe let them in, they'd step over by him and invoke one of their Layered Shielding spells, attuning it to sensory attacks (if they couldn't get in they'd just set it up right outside). Granted, the purpose of such a shield was to ward off things like blinding lights, stunning battle roars, and stinking clouds. But it'd work well enough for their purposes.

~Anyone who gets sick of that, we've figured out a ward for it over by the cockpit,~ Daniel reported.

Once they were clear of the debris, they'd lower the shield, and Heather would ask, "So, where we heading, Captain?"

[Arcran]

"To find pirates to shake down for a paint job," Laishe mutters, head ringing and overall in a sour mood from both his ship being damaged and the constant, grating sound.

"We'll head to 9-7 for some fuel. Maybe we can blast some pirates along the way or something," Laishe says, putting the last part in a bit quieter than the rest. He purposefully leaves his stealth systems off, intending to be as visible as possible for pirates attempting to search for him.

[Eshkigal]

Knowing the weapon would likely not be combat ready for a while, Scrap decides to see if he can't make a helper. It sets the fetal robot down before going to swarm form, designating a portion of itself to tear and alter, exposing power cores and wiring. It makes the torn up portion into an impromptu generator, linking it to the stillborn, and tries running a current, draining the refurbished, sacrificed drones of power entirely.

Spoiler: actions

Show

(1d20+20)[37]-using inventor to try and jumpstart the fetal bot with the equivalent of a plasma cannon core. Now live! LIVE, MY CHILD! LIIIIVE! *insert mad laughter here*

[Queen Sapes]

The Silence makes its way to Zoldin-9-7 without any incident, oddly enough. Although, given their close proximity to the planet, it was far more likely for them to make the trip safely than not. The Silence is practically drawn towards the planet's lone settlement capable of bearing spaceships, as Laishe cuts the Silence's engines and forces the Silence into descending to the planet on its own power. The pilot wisely straps himself into his seat in case anything goes south, and the rest of the passengers do the same, save for Scrap. It was fairly common practice to enter a planet's atmosphere through free fall, something most pilots outside of the military were actually trained to do. For a moment the Silence hangs above the upper atmosphere, adrift on what remains of its own force, before Zoldin-9-7's gravity takes hold. Then the ship begins pulling towards the planet, gaining speed within minutes, and plummeting through the upper atmosphere a few minutes more.

Thin fire appears at the Silence's windows as the massive ship falls to earth, the Silence becoming a massive meteor in less experienced hands. Thankfully, Laishe is one to know the ship well. A few minutes of burning through the upper atmosphere and Laishe engages the Silence's lower thrusters, the jets kicking on right as the Silence passes into the lower atmosphere. The Silence comes to a slow and lurching halt, the strongest thrusters disengaging as the Silence balances itself, stopping roughly ten miles above the surface of Zoldin-9-7. It's finally safe to unbuckle the seatbelts.

Outside the windows, Zoldin-9-7 stretches on as far as one could possibly see. It's the most jungle-like of the Garden Worlds, and everywhere surrounding the Silence is covered in thick jungle canopy, with rivers of impossibly blue water running between spots of trees. A few critters run through the jungles below, multi-winged birds in glowing green, blue, yellow, and red emerge in massive flocks from the jungle floor, and a herd of creatures that look like twice as large elephants emerge from the brush to sip from the streams with their trunks. A nature-lover's paradise. The outpost isn't far from where the Silence came to a stop in the air, and Laishe quickly sets his ship towards the outpost. It's a settlement run largely by the Lor, although the Lor in charge are unassociated with the Republic and don't claim complete ownership. But it is Lor engineering, meaning everything is smooth metal in varying shades of white, grey, and black, with little gaps in-between panels for easy access. The settlement covers maybe five square miles of jungle that grasp at every edge of it, and only has a handful of ships in port. The Silence finds a port to settle into fairly easy enough, the ship coming down to settle in the grav-locks already in place. Unfortunately a settlement like this isn't likely to be very automated so just ordering the ship to be fueled from inside isn't likely to be enough, and that's assuming it's even possible. That meant they would likely have to get out at least once. Oh well, more time to see the sights!

Inside the Silence, as the ship is pulling up to port, Scrap is attempting to breath life back into the bean in the jar. He hooks the strange object up to a few of his wires, and sends a jolt into it's shell. The white bean jump in the jar, almost causing it to tip over and spill out over Laishe's ship, but quickly settles as the power stabilizes and lowers considerably. The jar rattles down to the ground, the bean practically undisturbed inside. A bubble emerges from the case and bursts at the surface of the liquid, but it otherwise appears unaffected by Scrap's efforts.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Daniel and Heather were...still rather unused to the whole "free fall descent" bit. They had their seatbelts on, shields up, and were gripping each other's hands with whitened knuckles for the entire fall. (They were getting better though! They no longer cast telepathic sendings to their family in fear that it would be their last chance to say goodbye to them! So, you know, progress!)

But let's be clear: once "falling" had once again crossed that ineffable line that separated it from "flying", they sprang out of their seats and rushed to the windows to look out over the planet while Laishe flew in and landed the ship (going to windows on opposite sides to broaden the amount they collectively got to see). Both of them had their phones out and were snapping pictures at, just, anything that caught their attention. Which was basically anything that crossed their field of vision.

They kept at it the whole way down. Once the ship had landed, they wasted little time before asking, "How long will refueling take?"

"And more importantly, who wants to go exploring?"

[Arcran]

"Depends how competent these idiots are," Laishe states, unstrapping himself from his chair and standing up, cracking his back audibly as he stretches out. "I'll handle that though. You guys go do whatever. I'll radio if I need anything," Laishe states, grabbing his machine pistol before striding out of the ship, leaning against the hull and leering at anybody who gets to close to his baby until the rest of the crew exits for their respective destinations.

[The_Snark]

"May as well," Caprice says to the twins, stretching as she joins the others in the common area of the ship. "I don't believe I've ever been here before, though, so we'll have to find someone else to play tour guide if we want one. Are you planning to stick to the settlement, or did you want to head out into the jungle?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Definitely want to check out the settlement some, but...I mean, it does just seem like kind of a waste not to explore the jungle at least a little, doesn't it? I wonder if they have like...tourist trails or something."

"Or! We could go flying!

[Eshkigal]

As the ship docks, Scrap regards the process. Then an idea spawned on it a bit as it carefully disconnects the fetus. The Ne'Tal are living machines, and what does a living thing need to grow? A system of nourishment, and a specialized environment. A womb. However, Scrap has no idea what the most effective form of womb would be for such an entity, but perhaps there's something on planet that could be observed.
Besides, when else would it get the chance to enjoy such an area? It heads to the doorway, and looks to the others.
"Personally, I could use a chance to look at some of the life here, it might give me a better drone design for trying to get what Laishe wanted, and a problem I'm working on in my own time. But the settlement could speed up conversion of my rifle into something that should knock out a casino. However, I say jungles. Because why not see what there is to discover, right?"

[The_Snark]

"Tour guide first," Caprice says, amused at Heather's enthusiasm. "I've no objection to a little sightseeing in the jungle - from above or within - but I want to know what the local megafauna is like before I walk into that. And megaflora, for that matter. 'Eaten by carnivorous tree' is high on my list of ways I'd rather not die."

[Eshkigal]

"Then let's get started. Not like Laishe's liable to wait too long after refuel for us to finish things up when he has credits dangling in front of him, right?"
Scrap heads down the path a bit, waiting for the others to head out while it checks the shotgun, ensuring it had enough premade solid and spread shells to make life simpler.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Daniel and Heather followed along. Both of them had their phones out, snapping pictures of the trees, the buildings, the people, anything that caught their eyes, really. They'd sometimes get in the pictures themselves by telekinetically manipulating their phones, or ask their friends to go stand beside something to get a shot of them. They'd try and sneak a picture of Laishe disembarking from the Silence, since that would look all captainy and stuff (they didn't expect actually asking Laishe to pose for a picture would accomplish anything).

[Queen Sapes]

Laishe:
Standing outside the ship, waiting for someone to address him with whatever question about what he wanted, Laishe stands around observing the area, at least partially bored about it all. The spaceport is definitely bustling with activity, at least as much as could be expected from a small spaceport. Which is to say perhaps two dozen people were walking around, on their way to one activity or another. Elsewhere on the spaceport, a smaller ship shaped like a pyramid on its side lifts up into the sky, coming into Laishe's vision as it ascends upwards towards space. Laishe watches the little ship for a moment, before he becomes aware of someone approaching him. His eyes dart down to meet two men, both wearing dark green outfits to match the environment.

"Greetin's!" says the first man, who is obviously a Lor with brown hair, an athletic build, and a thin pistol-like device by his side. His face is relatively handsome, but with some obvious scarring on the right side of his neck. The scars appear to be claw wounds, which cover up and distract from the scales than run on that part of his neck. The man apparently isn't entirely Lor, it would seem. "Welcome to Zoldin! Name's Stevis, this here's Craxis," he says, gesturing to the man behind him. Man is a loose way of putting it, as the figure behind him appears closer to a massive humanoid ant with a blue shell dotted with green and red accents. On his back is a large device which looks similar to a thermos, and is only slightly longer than the average one. "And we're the welcomin' committee 'round here! Now, first things firsts, there's a toll around here, and I'm 'fraid that big vessel," he says, pointing at the Silence, "Is gonna cost you a little to park here." Craxis grunts in agreement, his six arms all stuck inside an individual pocket on his shirt.

Everyone Else:
Walking around the spaceport for a short time, the group very quickly realizes just how small of a place they've stopped at. Almost everyone around is either just making a quick stop, or works as a researcher for the supposed research base the spaceport is supposed to be. A group of these men prod at one of the massive vines attempting to grab at the spaceport, while elsewhere another group of passing Daran do the same for fun. A few more minutes of searching, and the group is able to find a tour guide, inexplicably. A small gazebo rests on an open stretch of the spaceport's floor, right before the stairs and overlooking the massive sprawling jungle before it, with a sign stating 'Tour Guide' above it. Nobody sits inside the gazebo, but rather an odd robot appears to be placed in the center.

The robot's body is simple, just the shape of an oval with two completely flat sides, like a disk or skipping stone, with two arms and two legs attached underneath. His body is painted a faded red which was once bright and eye-catching, and one of his sides is not a case, but a screen. As the group approaches the robot, his screen activates, the blackness replaced by a happy cartoon face. "Hello-o-o, -o, -ooo..." the robot says in a cartoon voice fitting of the screen image, the voice winding down and fading into emptiness. The screen goes black again, a single word flashing up on the screen a second later.

Rebooting

A moment later the screen pops back into life, the robot coming to life once again. "Hello! Welcome to Z-Zoldin-9-7! My name is R-R-R-Roby, would you like to take a tour of the facility?"

[Eshkigal]

Scrap stares at surprise at the automaton near them, before walking up near and close to it, peering at Roby.

"Greetings, Roby. I would, though would you like a tune up first?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

The twins took a couple steps back. They'd had enough technology glitch out on them that they figured Roby the Robot would find it...preferable for them to keep a little extra distance.

"You think we can keep him?" Heather whispered.

"Probably not," Daniel replied in an equally amused voice.

[Arcran]

"You don't say," Laishe says, keeping his right arm as close to his holster as possible as he reaches his other hand into his pockets for the ship's remote control. "If you don't mind, I'd like to see some papers. Something to prove you're not just a couple of dock rats looking for an easy buck off us naive offworlders. You understand, right?" Laishe states, giving his best patronizing grin.

[The_Snark]

Caprice folds her arms as she leans against one of the gazebo's pillars, looking distinctly unimpressed by the tour guide. That thing might be able to toddle around the facilities here - might - but it doesn't look like it'd last five in the jungle. Oh well, maybe it can point them towards someone who'd be willing to show them around outside, or at least tell them what to avoid...

"D'you give tours of the jungle around here, or just the spaceport?"

[Queen Sapes]

Scrap, the Twins, Strife, Caprice, and Colosar:
"S- sorry! But tampering with or removing Ce- Cecel- Zoldin-9-7 property from their designated sites is considered an unlawful act and you w- will be prosecuted t - t- to the full extent of C- Z- Zoldin-9-7 law. But as for the other q- question, I can function efficiently on, around, or in the cas- jungle grounds as well as I can in the local fa- facilities! The local wildlife has no indigenous hostilities to my model!" Roby explains, his cartoon face changing to a different cheerful image every other word and lighting up with each word.

Behind the group, as Roby talks, a man approaches, having recognized the group from their briefs travels together prior to his departure of the Silence. A man with a mech.

Laishe:
"Ah, course," Stevis says, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a small black rectangle and presses a button on its surface, causing two holographic pieces of paper to appear, filled with identification information for both Stevis and Craxis. With a flick of the wrist, the papers are flung over to Laishe, hovering in front of him to manipulate as he needs to read them. "Also, as a little tidbit of information, we don't use papers 'round here. Too expensive. 'Sides, this way is cooler, am I right mate?" Stevis asks, nudging Craxis for an answer. The insect-man remains stoically silent. "Ah well, so that's a rather big brute of a ship, what'cha thinkin' Craxis? 'Bout 75? 100?" The man remains just as still and quiet. Honestly, with how impossible his eyes are to read, Laishe can't even tell if the alien is paying attention.

[The_Admiral]

"Has the Silence come to roost here?" he asks, almost offhandedly as he approaches the group.

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Ray?" Heather said and as the twins turned to the voice, both wearing bright grins as they beheld the mech pilot. Assuming he wasn't currently in the mech, Heather would step forward to give him a hug, followed up by Daniel offering him a handshake.

"I'll be honest, never thought 'it's a small world' would apply to the entire universe. How've you been, man? What have you been up to?"

Spoiler

Show

I dunno, I'm feeling like Daniel and Heather would go Last Name Basis with Colosar .

[The_Admiral]

"The only," he replied, chuckling at the hug and returning the handshake.

"The usual, hiding out, fighting piracy, doing science on the side, the second mostly helps me with the first and last, so Laishe get you guys into any trouble?" he smiled back at the twins.

[Eshkigal]

Scrap turns at the initial words, letting those more comfortable with words talk first, touch first. He owed Colosar for a great many things in this existence, including his function and form. He was the closest thing to family Scrap knew, not that he would know from how the machine had trouble sharing. As his elders hugged, he quietly approached, and spoke at the question about antics.
"Soon enough. We are en rout to a big one, actually, so care to join us, Colosar? We could use the help."
He extends a hand, shaking his savior's own.

[The_Admiral]

"Scrap! How are the repairs, I am not a master of nanotics, give me a mind machine interface any day. My contracts up, I'll need a lift out of system anyway, so if Lashie'll take me on again, sure." he replied cheerily, shaking his hand.

[Arcran]

"Well, that seems to be in order," Laishe says, having little to no idea on whether or not the holographic papers are correct.

"And don't you call this beauty a brute," Laishe says, a tint of anger creeping into his voice. "This 'brute' just killed more than her fair share of pirates up above. We went out of our way to try to clear up your spaceways and you're still charging us for docking? That's just something you don't do. Have a little gratitude," Laishe says, the lies flowing naturally.

Spoiler: Question

Show

About how much is 75 in terms of real world money?

Also, roll: (1d20+12)[19]