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From the pit formed in the fight, the resulting detonation of a pipe's-worth of immensely flammable sludge sent a fireball not only to the ceiling of the hangar but also spilling out across the floor. The ground scorched black, metal grating turned red- and then orange, and all sorts of trash and refuse burned and smoked in the inferno.

On Russian engineering's resilience to high temperatures, Jackie Diamond could not speak. But his own personal war chassis had been specifically crafted for combat in this environment, and when working in an environment where hasty departures of space ships with blazing engines was the norm, that meant an impressive defense to the exact sort of fiery blaze roaring around him. Flickering in the middle of the fire was the irate, frothing insectoid crime lord, his loader-mech's thermal shield wavering in the intense heat.

With a groaning leap the entire 30-foot tall behemoth jumped up onto the hangar floor proper. What landed was a burnt, battered, partially-melted vehicle but now all four limbs glowed nearly white-hot. They sagged as they moved but visible distortions from the heat wavered above the raised arms ready to grab Brent, as Tick was out of sight for the moment. "The true warrior is not defeated by adversity, but grows all the stronger for it!" he screamed- his voice was getting shrill and pained. Clearly that thermal barrier hadn't protected him from all injury.

"ALL-CONSUMING LOYALTY HOLOCAAAUUUUST!"

A handful of gangsters suddenly arrived. Not by door or by ship, but rather by dropping down from the ceiling! Looking up revealed move clinging thugs crawling along the rafters before letting go to plunge down toward the battlefield. They landed on pulses of hover-pack assisted deceleration.

The first to drop threw his head in a violent full circle, popping every vertebrae in his neck before loosing a hollow, rabid scream that was soon joined by a dozen ragged throats. Foaming from the mouths and with eyes rolled up in their sockets, the drug-pumped crazies hurled themselves at Brent with blasts of their jet-packs to aid their frenzied tackles. Hands crackling with static, they lunged in to deliver their electric hugs, firing shock-pulses from their packs' batteries, anything to slow him down long enough.

And with them in play, Diamond forced his mech into movement against the sag of its melting limbs, to the screeching complaints of straining servos. "Noooooow you die!" He launched himself right at the dogpile, intending to burn all of them to a crisp beneath his shielded cockpit!




A bit of skill and a few choice codes did not- it would seem, make up for crippling stupidity. For all his past successes against the pair of infiltrators (ineffective though they'd been), it was now time for this exterminatorbot to be made the shadowrodent! "Khhhh khkhkhkh!" Frank was still laughing maniacly at his successfully triggered shock trap, hoping that he'd wired it correctly to render whoever had messed with his security system into so much barbecue. The thought actually made him salivate more. Upon confirming they were fried he might just head down there for dessert!

But to his chagrin he noticed that someone was still hacking around on his virtual turf, dammit! Tapping at buttons on his wrist device and fingering holographic commands he furiously called up additional defenses and queued his makeshift IC bots into movement. The agents were gutted leftovers from GC's cyber ops so they frequently malfunctioned, but for something as simple as blasting an intruder with endless chungs of garbage code they served well enough. Frank sat back and grinned as the trio of script executors threatened to bring down the entire node in a hail of errors and stack overflows.

Imagine his surprise when- instead of ending the problem- he found himself targeted by it! His eyes lit up with horrid pink warning signs, disabling much of his frightened flailing efforts at damage control. Heaving for air in the midst of a panic attack, Frank plummeted off his chair in the middle of the cafe, and after bouncing back off the ground he waddled with all his speed toward the counter. No one expected such a short, fat blob of a hacker to be able to vault over the pastry shelf with such ease, but he moved like a man with pants filled with attack dogs made out of fire running toward a pool full of extinguishing dog treats.

In Rosa's view Frank's avatar soon disappeared, his connection suddenly yanked without so much as a word. She might consider that the end, but likely her experience told her that she'd not defeated the keyboard warrior, only forced him to temporarily retreat.

And besides, there were other, more pressing matters... For instance, his cyber security protocols were still in play, and had been let loose. The three twitching approximations of riot control police now turned toward her, shouting garbled messages to stand down and unleashing what looked like pepper spray on her avatar. The resulting exchange was just about as blinding as actual pepper spray would have been, the data sent corrupting her processes.

More importantly though, Myuri could hear a hissing. It was either one extremely consistent snake with a practically endless set of lungs... or else there was a gas leaking into their enclosure. From multiple points, in fact. The disposal unit vent! Somehow every single gas vent had been turned on, unleashing an enormous amount of methane into their enclosure. Which wouldn't be an issue considering their environmental suits, right?

Except that the electric trap from before had already been activated, and the electrodes were beginning to hum with pent-up lightning once more. All of that flammable gas in there with them, and the spark was almost ready to set it all off...
 
Lightning itself seemed to have struck as dozens of jet-pack-wearing drug addicts smashed into the lone human, creating a mass of flesh that soon turned into an electric inferno. The wrath of Zeus descended upon the burning arena, electrified ozone mixing with the smoke and flames. Coming from the depths of hell itself, the incandescent mecha loped forwards, leaping up into the air into a full-on body slam. 10 meters worth of flesh-melting steel fell, a burning hammer falling with meteoric force. Delusional screams crescendoed, the nightmarish cacophony resounding gloriously as the All-Consuming Loyalty Holocaust began.

But then, another, deeper scream drowned out the druggies.

“BLUE RING! UNLEASH!!!”

Within the darkness, lances of blue light peeked out, before an explosion blew away all the junkies. The unfortunate ones on the top splattered against the body-slamming mech, while others were tossed into flames or crushed into paste against walls. Bloody rain fell, a crimson baptism to celebrate the advent of the three meter tall beast that stood within the carnage.

“FOOL! EVEN WITH YOUR SECOND FORM, THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP THE ALL-CONSUMING LOYALTY HOLOCAUST! GET FLATTENED!!!”

Brent gnashed his maw, splayed his midnight gauntlets, and roared upwards. “DON’T LOOK DOWN ON ME, YOU DEEP FRIED SHIT!”

The Hammer of Holocaust smashed downwards, driving the two of them two floors down. More pipes burst and ignited from the insane heat, their descent marked by more fuel explosions. Finally, the Hammer met the ground, pasting the Prec’Ilae into the ground. Jackie Diamond, euphoric, slammed his fingers against his head in vi-

“UOOHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

The mech shifted.

Then it rose.

And, underneath it, two orbs of frostbite shone. Smoke drifted up from the stumps that remained from the black beast’s hands, but there was no hesitation or pain in the Prec’Ilae. His legs had been reduced to pulp, and both of his wings had been crushed by the impact as well, but Brent was too pissed, too hot-blooded, to care.

“No, impossible, how can this be?!”

“Don’t underestimate the strength of flesh!”

“Inconceivab-”


Flames fell down as Brent’s body shone with blue light. With tremendous effort, the mech was tossed off. It crashed onto the ground, the chassis’ thermal shielding faltering now. But this…this was still not his MAXIMUM EFFECIENCY!

His last remaining, functioning arm dug into the ground and pulled him forwards, launching him straight at the thermally shielded, bulletproof chasis.

Brent was not hot, nor was he a bullet.

He was just a legless, wingless, one armed bio-mecha who still wasn’t dead.

“NAMELESS STYLE: SEXTUPLE MOUNTAIN CRUSHER!”

His head drove through the cockpit window, smashed into Jackie Diamond, and blew him right out the spine of the mech. The insectoid skidded against the hard ground, twisted off one of his segmented arms, and finally slammed into a pillar.

But the Diamond Fist Ruler of Gorthrak 7 still had not yielded. Even with a caved-in carapace, even with insect juices leaking out of his body, Jackie Diamond drew three railgun pistols and hard-light sabers from his mecha vest. Like a crane, he balanced on one leg, blades pointed forwards and pistols aimed from the back.

“You two are indeed worthy foes,” he boomed, “But this ends now, Prec’Ilae. You may have destroyed my mech, but you have not defeated me. Jackie Diamond, the Insectoid Kali, stands before you! Brace yourself, challenger, and accept your fate!”

Slowly, painfully, the remains of the Prec’Ilae molded itself back to Brent, the brunette bloodied, missing one arm, but still…smiling.

“No,” he said, point up towards the flood of flames, “Accept your fate.”
 
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As amusing as Rosa’s successes against the amorphous blob of the man that called himself a hacker were, their progress in the isolated chamber was slow, thanks to the sickly, thick liquid in the room and the trap that had triggered the fall of the live wires. Myuri’s own suit was decidedly more modern and had more features, so she mostly avoided the shock of the electricity against her thin but insulated suit. Really, she was surprised that Rosa even felt much of anything. Such was the price to pay when mending a suit with conductive material.

But in the meantime, while her fellow friend was fending away digital police on the holoscape, there were more pressing matters starting to develop. The high-pitched hissing sounds that had started up in the enclosure was not, in fact, a very long-winded snake with a long breath, but multiple gas pipes venting into their chamber. Myuri was sure the area was normally open, but with the HUD in her helmet detecting the gasses as methane and the exposed wires up above still live, she was quick to know that they were going to be really, really fucked if they stayed there without doing anything else for longer.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing? We need to do something about this gas. Right. Fucking. Now. You’re already logged in, so can you turn the valves off? Cut the power to the sector, even, because we’re about to go up in flames!”

As she yelled at Rosa urgently, she looked up at the remaining panels still in place in the ceiling, looking for some sort of manual control panel that she could manipulate from her side. She knocked at each rectangular panel with the butt of her rifle as an extended arm. Reaching the last one, one final tap of her gun allowed a panel to swing down, revealing a crusted over but dimly lit touchscreen panel. Another strong whack with the rifle at a faded button swung the screen down to a more comfortable height.

She was sure she could stop the gas and vent it with that, but Myuri was alarmed to see red and yellow error messages plastered over the old panel from a backlog of missed maintenance. After cracking off the distasteful grime, the turquoise haired girl was eventually able to clear the messages and physically shut off the vents with a manual override. What she couldn’t do, however, was vent the room or shut off electricity; either attempt filled the screen with errors again. Either some relay was fried or some dunce before her miswired something in a room far, far away.

“Vents won’t open from this useless panel. Find anything useful?”
 
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CAUTION!!! CAUTION!!!
EXTREME HEAT DETECTED!!!


Tick pulled himself from the flaming crater, flopping out onto the side of the crater just in time to see the mech's body slam. All this fire was definitely hazardous to anything if exposed long enough. Tick and the mech could take the heat a little better, but time was the enemy. Tick's head snapped up as he remembered a vital detail.

The miniguns! All this fire! If there was still any ammunition left in them they'd-

BANG!

Tick's sensors located one of the guns just as the remaining bullets inside of it burst. The intense heat had made the steel of the guns soft... soft enough for the small explosion to deform and disfigure it. But there was still time! Where was the other gun? Where?! Tick looked around frantically for the other gun, his head swiveling from side to side. He was momma bird and his high caliber baby was in danger. Tick Jr. was all that mattered right now...

There!

At the edge of the crater where he'd left it. Untouched by flame and doing okay so far against the heat. The explosion had shifted the room, and the mech's bodyslam only upset things further. Tick saw it, but he also saw the slight movement as the gun began to slide towards the crater. The flaming crater. Tick, despite having been fairly damaged already, got up and began a mad dash for Tick Jr. He ran, his metal feet tapping against the hot metal flooring, his hand reaching out for his baby's handle. Brent and the mech were going at it, sending little shockwaves from their impacts. The gun vibrated and slid faster.

The barrels were going over the edge. Tick was almost there! The gun was getting closer and closer! Tick was ALMOST THERE, HIS HAND REACHING OUT!!! The gun was tipping over!!! TICK IS ALMOST FUCKING THEEEERRE!!!!!!!!!!

Tick Jr. couldn't hold on, and its own weight only pushed it into the crater...
Tick arrived, only to throw himself where the gun had been a second earlier and reach into the hole in vain... and to watch as Tick Jr. fell... fell... and landed. Engulfed by flame, it only took a second for the unfired shells inside the gun to ignite and go pop inside the gun, shredding the firing mechanism and even shaking the barrel loose.

Tick froze there, hand stuck in that useless position, reaching to grab something that was long gone... Both guns... Gone. Just like that.
Tick Jr.
Taken too soon. Robbed of a happy future of shooting, and reloading, and then shooting again.

OBJECTIVE {ACQUIRE WEAPONS]: FAILED

It was over. They'd come into Tick's life so suddenly, only to leave again...

Jackie Diamond burst out of his mech, weapons and martial arts ready. Tick turned and his sensors highlighted the bug.

TARGET RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILURE OF PREVIOUS OBJECTIVE...
PROCESSING...
NEW OBJECTIVE: [KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLk̪͎͇̽́ͩ̈́͗͑͝i͊͗͂͆ͨ͗̿ͧ̔͏̶̲̱͕͍̪͔̺l̡̻͔ͩ͒̔̓̐ͭ͛̚lͧ̔̍̔͌҉͇̥͔̝̱̙k̡̻̓̊͑́̉͌ͬͮ̄ĭ̦̲̟ͨl̡͓̏̆ͥ̍͑ͭ̈̀͟l̨͈͔ͫͣ̒͑͌ͫ̆͌͟k̴̨̯̍̽ͬͭ͐i̷̺̙̫͈͖̳͎ͧͤͦ́̔͗̔̎͘͘l̵͖̤ͥ̑́͐ͫ̔̋l̻̬͙̙ͤͦ̔̓͝ķ̷̩̰͎̞͉͖̾͊͢i̛͎͍̓͋ͅl̗̼͔͗̾̽ͤ͑̉͂l̸̲̍̈͛̾͛́ķ͉͉̣̫̜̣̄̆̄͑ͨͤi̧̥ͮ͐ͩ̄̂̅ͥ͝͠ļ̱̳̥̗ͧͪ̃͂͊ͬ͂͝l̸̥̘͔̣͈̯̘͍̈́̏ͨͭͧ͒ͭ̈́k̡͚̩͙̥̰̺̩̹̪̃̆͘͡i̛̪̝̘̙͎̻̦͌̓̑͒ͫ̒́͝lͩ̑ͮ̋ͦ̿]
OBJECTIVE PRIORITY: EXTREME


Explaining how a robot feels fury is a bit difficult. When an organic is mad, it's an emotion; something that comes and goes, has a vague degree of reason to it, and is generally quite an organic thing. When a robot is angry, it's more than a simple emotion. It is a drive. Or in this case, an objective. When your entire system finds a reason to be angry, focuses each protocol on telling you why you should be angry, and then pretty much telling you to make it your goal to remove your source of anger. And unlike an organic, robots don't forget. They don't forgive very easily either. And to Tick, forgiveness isn't exactly a familiar concept. Have you ever been so angry, so furious, that your text software experienced minor data corruption?

Jackie had his eyes on Brent. He only started to turn towards charging robot once Tick got close enough for Jackie to hear him running over the fire. Jackie started to take some elaborate stance with his swords and guns, shouting,

"You want some too, tin can?! I'll take you both o- WOAH!"
"[ELIMINATE.]"

Tick's fury stops for no man or bug. He tackled the insectoid and they both tumbled, the heated metal flooring leaving slight burns on Jackie's skin. Jackie tried to wrestle the robot off, slamming the swords into Tick's chassis. The blades left scratches, but were unable to pierce the armor; especially from this close without much room to swing. They stopped rolling and Tick was on his feet, grabbing bug-man by his neck and shoulder and throwing him across the room. He hit a box of crates with a crack. Tick walked towards his prey, the fire illuminating his approach like something out of a movie.

"[You will join my guns, organic weakling.]"
"What? That doesn't make any sense!"
"[DIE.]"

Tick punched straight through the crate Jackie had been leaning against. He would've punched through Jackie too, had the insectoid not rolled away. Bootlegged holovids and nudie magazines spilled from the hole as Tick tore his fist out and pursued Diamond. The instectoid fired his railgun pistols, but in his desperation and also the fact that he was in an oven with a murderous robot chasing him, his aim wasn't very good. Two shots missed completely while the third glanced against Tick's shoulder and the rail charged slug deflected into the ceiling. Tick was close now, and so came the hard light swords. Similar to Eclipse's but in the steadily growing panic of utter annihilation, Diamond didn't swing them with much skill. All three ended up being glancing hits, doing little more than scratching up Tick's already ruined paint job.

Diamond was a gang boss. A mean one, but just a gang boss. Without the obvious advantage of a mech, and in a burning hangar with a robot designed to destroy everything he was... well let's just say gang life doesn't really prepare you for that kind of match up. Especially the burning hangar part. But that didn't mean he wasn't gonna go down fighting. The two stood a few meters away from each other.

"Alright then. Fine..." Jackie panted, wiping away some of the bug juice pooling away at the edge of his mouth, "Let's do this then."
"[TIME TO DIE, ORGANIC SCUM.]"


Insectoid swordsman versus engineered fury. Tick's hand-to-hand protocols moved front and center; he took on a boxer's stance, his metal fists raised in front of him. His hand-to-hand was nothing special, but you don't need fancy martial arts to punch a hole through an opponent with the robotic strength of a hydraulic press. Diamond dropped the pistols and brandished the swords in his hands.

Tick swung, a fist furious enough to dent armor. Diamond dodged, just barely missing the heated up fist. He swung the three blades in a downward arc; Tick raised both fists up and took it in the forearms. Sparks flew as the blades clashed against armor. Tick swung again, one punch, followed by another, and another. Diamond dodged, forced to go on the defensive. A bad step left Diamond open and a hot, armored fist pounded against his gut. Natural insectoid carapaces could take a beating, but not from a firetruck. And Tick certainly hit like one. He was knocked backwards, a sword flying from his grip, and clanging against the ground.

Move fists came. Diamond weaved away as best as his rapidly failing body could. Another one landed, this time square in the jaw. No direct hit, but contact was made and it sent Diamond wobbling away in a daze. Tick moved closer and Jackie made one last desperate attempt to kill his attacker. He swung his last two sword, taking them in two hands each, with full force at Tick's head. They struck... and once again left little more than a pair of lines in the robot's metal. Such a desperate move left Jackie open. A dumb move.

Tick punched his head so hard, it came clean off and flew across the hangar. It soared over the flames and rolled across the metal floor, finally coming to a stop near a wreck that used to be a mech. Touchdown.

Tick remained in punching position for a few moments more. With the whir and grind of damaged servos, Tick resumed a neutral position. It was done. Vengeance acquired, revenge served icy and cool, retribution 100% complete. Tick still had enough left in him to return to Brent, pull him up (albeit a bit roughly since having organic compatriots was still something Tick was getting used to), and proudly declare:

"[Objective complete.]"

Then Tick's fist fell off with a clang. All that punching, all this heat, all that fighting. Joint got weak after taking on an entire gang, a ninja, a giant mech, a burning inferno, and a sword wielding insectoid. Tick bent over and picked his fist up as casually as if he was picking up his wallet. Wasn't the first time a piece of him had come off.

"[If you are going to die, I suggest waiting until the mission has ended. The captain may need help getting the cargo onto her ship.]"
 
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"Yeah, go ahead and run like the slime-eel you are," Rosa grumbled at her antagonist's swift departure from cyberspace. Sure, it was a smart enough tactic, but he didn't even bother trying to fight back, which made her question the other hacker's capabilities. He'd left some IC for her to play with, at least. And without a fresh target, her own attacks were quickly redirected at the group of offending programs. She didn't have much attention to spare for what was going on around her in reality, as her digital persona flitted around in cyberspace, shaking off the initial assault of garbage data and static long enough to get a proper bead on them.

Her predictably stylized code erupted around one of the three police programs, surrounding it in a cage of vines before it began to deftly shred the program apart. "Bit busy in here. Jackass left a few watchdogs behind," she finally reported to Frey with something more coherent than swearing. "Got to deal with this first." She opted for a running combat, and began moving toward whatever local nodes she could to try and tip scales on their own problem as she continued to fight the local IC. The second, she managed to trap in a local partition, which may have...some bearing on some of the trouble with the hardware. The last one, she distracted with a few more data spikes of her own, before moving in for the kill. There was always something viscerally satisfying about dealing with a program oneself, tearing through its code with one's bare hands, or the closest equivalent. Sure, she suffered for it as her vision momentarily went white with the IC's last-ditch effort to defend itself, but in the end, it was the one de-rezzed.

Local network clear. Good. Now, what do they need to do again? No real point in venting the area until they've secured their prize. Oh yeah, something about flammable gas, and an igniter waiting to happen. "Find anything useful," Myuri asked. "I'm working on it," Rosa replied, sounding about as hurried and annoyed as your typical IT guy questioned before they could actually finish their work. There had to be something controlling this improvised shock trap around here somewhere... The search consumed valuable fractions of a second, but she eventually found what she was looking for, a nice little icon cleverly identified as xXShockBlasterXx. Probably what she was looking for, and easy enough to subvert and take over, with nobody watching.

In the real world, however, the hum of nearly-charged capacitors filled the air once more, the anticipation wearing thin as it would presage very unwanted explosion. The wait wore on...and after a few seconds it was clear the other shoe wasn't going to drop. "Got it just in time," Rosa said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Now...how are we going to get to that power condenser or whatever it was? There just a nice manual door nearby or something? I've got to go back in and keep watch for more traps. Not to mention get to work on the whole venting us out with our prize." She did have things she could best do back in cyberspace, and her eyes lost focus again as she returned her attention to the AR side of the world. She' be ready this time.
 
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Waddling with an uncharacteristic lack of grace, Pei made it back up the ramp just in time for Heather to hit the control to raise it. Her hands were full of loot- a variety of baked goods from the small dessert shop off the hangar. She'd just got her to-go bag when some fat weirdo had jumped over the counter hit some sort of alarm button, turning all of the holographic displays red with a warning message Pei hadn't bothered to read. But based on the way people were beginning to scramble and dart about, she deduced that the alert wasn't likely about a sudden sale at the Truffle Trough.

"Saddle up, we're heading out!" she commanded Heather in a hurry, darting past toward the lounge to deposit the mixture of cupcakes, brownies, and cookies- likely only half of them which had been made with some sort of drug. With those stashed, she zipped right up the ladder into the cockpit, grateful for the automated start-up procedures. The blinking panel on the dashboard showed a mess of ships starting up and maneuvering toward the hangar entrance. Too many in fact, backing up and nearly colliding with each other. Pei growled unhappily and punched in the command to lift off anyway. "Get zee missiles armed, we're making our own exit!"

The nudist gynoid she was speaking to was already strapped into the secondary, lower cockpit and running the ship through its paces. "That is a highly inefficient means of egress..." Heather warned, but called up the targeting system all the same.

Before the next command could be given, the squad sent to apprehend them finally showed up. Their laser rifles planted pinpricks of warmed metal on the side of the Feline Purrsuasion. "Wow, way too late," Pei tsked in a disappointed tone. "Heather?" The fembot obliged with a burst from the nose cannon, shredding the trio of goons on the hangar deck. "Thank, you!" With a grin she maneuvered the ship- not toward the exit, but inward, where the layout indicated the bulkheads between the primary hangar and the private one reserved for security forces awaited. "Fire!" she yelled with a wide grin, practically standing up in her seat. A moment after a quartet of missiles blazed into the wall, forming the corners of a square, the ship blasted ahead and pounded the wall. The shrieking was horrid as the metal buckled- the blunt nose of the Feline Purrsuasion crumpling slightly but the wall yielding against the attack.

Backing up once more she barked a final command. "Rocket pods three and four, fire!" And this time streak after streak of explosive projectiles bolted into the wall.

On the other side, Tick and Brent could hear the commotion, like the sound of the nosiest construction crew ever. Percussive blasts battered the wall just under the now-abandoned control tower sitting above the hangar. The metal dented and bent inward, in multiple places, before finally it peeled open with one more thwump as a familiar space ship burst in, only slightly more banged up. Coming in over their comms units was an equally familiar, cheery voice. "Are you two done fooling around yet? Go get that Capacitor Bank, time to gettow tahere!" It wasn't hard to find; following the blueprint lead to a utility room where the suitcase-sized electrical components awaited, three of them plugged into the wall. Pei set the ship down with the cargo ramp lowered, allowing Heather to hop out and calmly heft one of the 100+ pound devices, shuffling back up the ramp to deposit it into the carbo bay.

"Hooooow's it going Team Estrogen? We're almost done here, you 'bout ready to do a little space-walking?" The original plan had been to vent the air shaft and blow them out into space after all, where they could be picked up mid-flight. Nothing barred their way now to the capacitor banks, though the fact that there was three of them would prove... fun, as far as transporting them went. Upon disconnecting them however, the warning lights on the console of the capacitor receptacle went disturbingly amber, and a distant klaxon filled the corridors and chambers of the space station with a howling call of danger.

"Ehh... the place should be able to hold until the third bank is emptied. Uh- but maybe, getting out of here super fast would be best!" The thunderous rattling booms in the distance seemed to confirm the wisdom of Pei's advice.
 
Well, shit. With one arm missing, two legs that had yet to reach normal muscle mass, and a stomach that was beginning to eat itself, Brent, on top of the mech, had a decision to make when Jackie’s insectoid head flew over to it. To eat, or not to eat?

His stomach roared louder, the bellow of an ancient beast overpowering the explosions that were occurring everywhere, and the brunette decided to eat. Mouth cracking open and transforming into his Prec’Ilae battle-face, Brent swallowed the head whole and tried not to think about it too much. Burping out a couple of antennae, he rolled off Tick’s battle-scarred chassis the moment the warbot tossed him on. Looked like the dude had a sense of humor, regardless of how soulless and murder-y he was.

“Don’t worry,” Brent said, waving his slowly regrowing stump of an arm, “If I could die from just this much, I might as well go become an accountant instead.”

That being said, his steps were definitely a little less energetic, and he almost toppled over when more explosions sounded throughout the space station. Pei’s bucket of not-wholly-rusty bolts basically just crashed through the ceiling, and, following that, the commlink that Brent stuck into his ear began to burst out with the Vuploid’s energetic voice. Well yeah, looked like the end of Gorthak 7 was beginning earlier than expected. Closing his eyes and recalling the map, he walked into the utility room, properly unplugged the capacitor bank, and used his one good hand to pull it up over his head, balancing it on top. His legs were filling out at this point, and there was no way he was going to let Tick do ALL the heavy lifting of the mission.

After all, Pei was watching now, so he had to earn his pay, right?
 
"Yeah, we should be good to go here," Rosa replied to her new Captain's question. "I've got my finger on a nice red button to vent the area to space, although it took a while." And oh, how it had. The station's crumbling network architecture made it a real pain to get anything to actually function as intended, and she'd had to carefully dig through quite a bit of the station to get to a set of commands that not only worked, but actually pointed to the right area.

"We just need to actually grab the caps, and we'll be all ready for pick-up."
 
Tick had completely forgotten that they had come here with an objective in mind. All the shooting and blowing up and burning alone had been worth coming here. He hopped onboard, walking up the ramp and into the cargo room. Funny, the ship looked bigger on the outside. Heather was there, and the aforementioned exchange of greeting data took place (aka, that robot butt sniffing mentioned earlier).

"[I require repairs! My ally also requires repairs, but of the organic kind.]" He meant Brent, "[Our mission is complete but,]" Tick gazed over at a melted hunk of metal sitting in the middle of the hangar like a sad little tree stump, "[We have sustained heavy losses...]"

If robots had hearts, Tick's would be broken. Two guns. Two chances at guns, both of them failures; resulting in zero guns. Zero guns could have been one gun, or maybe even two; but fate is a cruel mistress and she knows no mercy, not even for robots...

Brent was returning with the package, though he didn't seem to want help. Once he was inside, everything was ready to pick up their two slightly squishier allies and they'd be off this station. The robot eyed Brent's missing arm and called up his dusty old 'Morale Protocols'. His model was designed to be self sufficient, and therefore had never required human soldiers to fight alongside them. However, they still had protocols for dealing with allies combatants anyway.

"[Your limb has been severed. I suggest replacement with a robotic limb, as well as acquiring a robotic brain and body to go with it. Or perhaps your pain is enough to warrant a mercy killing. If so, I can provide.]"

That is indeed his professional medical opinion. Paging Dr. Tick, PhD in Armed Aggression.
The protocol's there, but no one ever said it had to be a well designed protocol.
 
“Right…. Let’s pick up the damn thing before you accidentally press that big red button,” was Myuri’s short response to Rosa’s comm exchange with Pei. With the gas and sparks deflating, the short girl strode over to the far end of the chamber, nearly ready to kick down the one remaining door between them and their target. Well, there was one more corridor, but that was a small detail.

There wasn’t much further resistance from the station’s defenses besides air that stank even through the ventilation system of the pair’s suits. The room with the capacitors, rather cramped, was at the far end, through which Myuri had taken a light sprint to reach. Standing in front of the three instruments, she twitched her antlers. “So… if I remember how to disconnect these things, you twist here, and pull this lever…”

Working at a console in the center of all of the capacitors, Myuri went through the removal procedure, expertly ignoring all the warnings of potential explosion or station destruction it might entail. Like a worthy engineer, she barked out orders at Rosa to carry out the (proper) de-installation sequence.

Midway through the procedure however, she stopped and groaned. “How are we even going to carry three of these things!? They weigh as much as I do!”
 
Rosa did her best to follow orders and get the capacitors disconnected safely and harmlessly (to them, at least; the rest of the station was well and truly fucked). She did answer the other woman's complaints, however. "Well, most humanoids can at least lift something around their own body weight. But, the plan is to get off the station, at which point these won't really weigh much at all. Getting around with the extra mass might still be an issue, but keeping hold of them won't." Or, put another way, if blowing the pressure in the area would carry them out to space, it'd carry the capacitors out there, too.

"We just need to get these disconnected and keep a good grip on them. You can leave the rest to me~" She continued to help with the capacitor disconnection process, until they had managed, between to two of them, to drag the trio of heavy components out of their housings and get them sitting neatly on the floor. "Okay, just grab one and hang on tight!" Rosa did her best to keep track of the other two capacitors, getting a solid grip on one with each hand. She waited for myuri to secure the third, before starting the emergency vent.

Once she did, several bulkheads along the entire line of the ventilation shaft blew wide open, both between them and space, and further back in the bowels of the station. If those still onboard didn't realize something was amiss before, they damn well would now. A mass of air hit the two women and their ill-gotten gains easily lifting them bodily up toward free space. Rosa was momentarily anchored by the additional weight of the capacitors, flapping in the wind like some sort of flag and hanging on for dear life, before they too began to budge and she was carried off. She couldn't help a shout of enjoyment as she and Frey were blown clear of the station's exterior in a spout of air and assorted debris.
 
Knox jolted awake, rubbing his forehead groggily. He grunted and looked down at himself, realising that he was, for the moment, a she – and then over at the chaos that lay before her. A mountain of outdated computers, several broken holographic notepads, a few post-it notes left by the woman she was impersonating and a half-empty bottle of Vorgnak’s 80-proof vodka hidden haphazardly in the tablet stylus drawer. Once again, Knox was painfully aware of the fact she hit rock bottom and wondered how it managed to get to such a point.

For the time being, her name was Clarissa Banks – some pencil-pushing bureaucrat devoted to the illusion of restoring order to Space Station EG7. Never left her room, hardly talked to anyone, and never got any notification or acknowledgement of her existence from the Diamond Sentinels who took over the place. Arguably, it was the perfect place to lay low after her most recent heist. But having to let the money laundering take place was agonisingly slow, and suddenly she needed a new paycheck to get her at least one square meal every day...but it wasn’t like she could go out there and ask for a raise, it would blow her cover.

Knox took one of the broken holopads, gave it a quick rub with the side of her sleeve and checked her reflection. A mousy-haired, gaunt and unbelievably pale human stared right back at her with thick spectacles. Yeah, the vision thing was annoying. One minute she was fine, the next she was kicking every table in the room like she had a personal vendetta against flat pack furniture. These deals were easy enough but they didn’t pay well, or in this case, at all. Go up to someone who hates their job (and, believe me, there were plenty of people like that in space station EG7), ask a few quick questions, give them a few weeks unpaid vacation – no strings attached. Of course, that meant Knox was stuck with a shitty wardrobe that looked like she was physically trying to avoid any sexual encounters and spectacles thick enough to open a beer bottle with. Since she also took Clarissa’s living quarters that meant no money coming in either, as the real Clarissa needed it to buy a room in some motel on the nearest moon. Furthermore, the fridge was almost empty of its TV dinners.

Needless to say that Knox was feeling pretty desperate, and mildly hungover. She slipped out of the office and made her way out into the station itself, wandering aimlessly until she passed into Hanger IV. Some sort of commotion had gathered outside a pitiful excuse for a spaceship – the heap of metal looked like it was being held together with craft glue and staples. A Vulpinoid was yelling and giggling, surrounded by a cast of people and flanked by a naked sexbot. Since the thought of returning to that cramped office was just about as desirable as putting her hand into a blender, Knox decided to lean against one of the support beams holding the hangar up and listen in for a while.

From what Knox managed to gather, the Vulpinoid was called Pei. She was asking about what would happen if there were two of her – and Knox had to hide a grin – but it looked like the result was a lot better than most of the reactions Knox had seen when her target accidentally found out. Fight to the death but nobody else was allowed to join in? Walk in the park. Much better than being rugby-tackled by an Orzomian Knight and tied to the stake for witchcraft. Knox watched the crew disappear inside of the ship and, realising the party’s over, decided to wander on to the food court and see if she could scrounge something up for lunch.

Fate had decided otherwise though, as the moment Knox went to the checkout at the food court, alarms started going off and the sounds of distant gunfire were heard. Knox may be a gelatinous sentient bag of stem cells, but she still had feelings – at least, she still had a nervous system – and a bullet wound was never too enjoyable to experience, especially not when you’ve shapeshfited into something like a human. Like many of the other customers, Knox hit the floor the moment the gunshots rang out. Things went from worse to utterly fucked in a matter of minutes – she could hear explosions and all manner of thumps, thuds and shouts. No cover was worth this amount of trouble – Knox had to get out of here, and fast!

Like the light at the end of the tunnel, illuminated by the red holographic warning signs that sparked up after some obese, three-eyed alien vaulted the counter and pushed a button, was the captain of the ship from earlier. It was stupid and dangerous, but Knox had no other options – she got up and started to run, gently shouldering the Vulpinoid out of the way as Knox tried to outrun her to that rusty old ship. The moment Knox turned a corner she stumbled – her centre of gravity was off by the addition of those massive breasts and she felt Clarissa’s shirt unbutton from the strain. No time to worry about her tits being out, nor get anxious over the big puffy tail sticking out of her pleated skirt – the glasses were tossed onto the ground immediately and Knox, now disguised as Pei, bolted it up the ramp into the ship and heading into the cargo bay.

The bay was full of crates and boxes, quite a lot of them displaying popular alcoholic brands on the side. Knox ducked under one of them and within moments the real Pei climbed aboard and started up the ship. Knox poked her head out...she could just about hear Pei barking orders to that sexbot from earlier. Hopefully, Knox could use this valuable time to try and sneak into the-
One minute she was fine, the next thing she knew Knox was tumbling towards the other side of the cargo bay as the whole damn ship hit a wall. Convinced that the captain had gone utterly mad, Knox made the split-second decision to dash up to one of the living quarters – there had to be some here, right? Hopefully the smaller room will stop her from getting a horrid concussion. Knox kicked off the shoes which were now too big for her anyway and tip-toed towards one of the doors at the back. She could hear Pei talking about...Capacitor Banks, whatever they were. Knox’s real worry was that robot – if that thing picked up on the fact there were two Pei’s aboard the ship Knox was done for.

The door to Pei’s quarters had no visible locks or security systems. Knox simply let herself in and went straight for her closet, trying to ignore the...well, let’s call them interesting garments. Say what you like about the excitable and eccentric ship captain, Pei knew about fashion. After Knox had pulled on one of the less revealing outfits, she aptly noticed that hiding in the room of the person she was trying to avoid was probably not the best course of action. After all, she had just opened and went into the captain’s quarters whilst the captain herself was in the cockpit; if both Pei and Heather weren’t too focused on getting out of the exploding space station, and the screens didn’t notify them of her presence, then maybe Knox had a chance.

Knox sprinted down the corridor – no use hiding in any of the living quarters, she needed some place they couldn’t get into – and made a beeline for the other door into the lounge/kitchen area. A kitchen! There had to be a knife, or something-...Aha, that looked remarkably like a laser knife hanging above the sink. Knox grabbed it, flicked the switch and beamed at the reddish glow from the translucent blade. Perfect. She tucked it into the back of her booty shorts (after turning it off, of course) and went through the only door she hadn’t tried yet.

It lead into some sort of engineering room, cramped with machinery and wires and pipes which looked very important. There were no more doors to go through. Knox gave it...what, five minutes until they tracked her down? Fifteen minutes at a push. Fortunately, Knox was used to these sorts of awkward situations...she had a bunch of excuses lined up. One of the most effective ones in this situation would be to pretend to be kidnapped and kept in the engineering room, or hiding from the so-called ‘evil’ Pei...If she played her cards right she could take control of the crew, land at another populated area and shift into...I don’t know, a construction worker; something quiet and undetectable.

She just needed to get out alive first.
 
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Heather had of course noticed the impostor Pei. ImPeistor? She cursed the pun generator injected into her software by the hacker who had provided her code. While the other new members went about getting the second and third capacitor on-board, Heather hurried off and hid her personal stash of replacement components in Pei's locker. The Vulpinoid would have no idea what they were and the Tarra hopefully wouldn't locate them to use for repairs to their less... refined robot. Perhaps they could collect some bits of the station once it detonates, to see to Tick's repairs.

With a soft sigh and an even softer padding of bare feet on the cold metal floor, Heather headed back out of the crew quarters, glancing at the door to the lounge. She was connected to the ship's security system and thus completely aware of the usurper who had entered, and taken a change of clothing, as well as a kitchen utensil. It was so very frustrating when her captain refused to share with her the methods of crew induction, but she recognized this scenario from earlier and surmised it to be a test for the new members of the team. How Pei could locate such an accurate facsimile in such short time was astounding to Heather. Especially after reading the ad that the vixen had come up with. But she knew better than to worry, by now.

Instead, she moved about to the cargo bay, and made sure Brent at least had cleared it. Tick could stay- it wasn't like he needed to breathe. There were two more stages of this plan, after all. Pei maneuvered the ship around, dodging pot-shots from pissed off outlaw freighters and Diamond Sentinel gunboats, and before she knew it the cargo bay was opening- air already pumped back into the reserve tanks so that the vacuum from outside matched the vacuum within. Riding their geyser of vented air, Rosa and Myuri made for small targets, but Heather was nothing if not precise, and she leapt out toward the vegetative hacker first, trailing a small cable attached to her ankle. A mid-air collision resulted in a spinning hug, and Heather gripped on snugly as the cable reeled them both in, along with the two capacitors. "Well done," she offered after a few seconds of silently zipping toward the ship. Then lapsed into silence again as they landed.

Lining up for one more leap, she jumped back out toward Myuri this time, but the ship suddenly twisted about. "Damn V-Discs, nebula take 'em all!" The ship's shields flared against a series of invisible directed energy attacks from a passing fighter, a nimble ship with twin wings framing a glowing blue toroid reactor. The design was an old one scrapped to so many flaws: incapable of atmospheric flight, its vital components almost laughably unprotected. And yet right now Pei was growling over the comms while trying to juke the pair of them taking turns making attack passes at the Feline Purrsuasion.

As a result, Heather's jump was off by just enough that she missed the Tarra, by a handful of feet. But in space without maneuvering capability, that was all it took to miss completely. Thinking fast, she disconnected the cable. "Myuri, please catch." As calmly as her words, she swung her end of the cable towards the mechanic, so that it wobbled within reach. Her trajectory took her toward the station they'd just left. Careful reorientation left her feet facing toward it, watching through unblinking eyes as energetic eruptions of metal and air blasted out along the station's power grid lines, as each substation overloaded in turn- and then the devices connected to those substations went critical as well.

But... it shouldn't have been suffering widespread failure like this yet. Not unless the third capacitor bank was already inoperative. "Captain Pei, the station is experiencing cascading failure. The third capacitor bank must be compromised. Additionally, please relinquish ship control momentarily." She finished her request just as her feet touched down on the EG7's hull. A third leap this time sent her zooming back out into space- chased by a silent blast following her as that portion of the station detonated, the latest casualty in the asteroid base's death throes.

With so many calculations to make, Heather established remote control over the ship, twisting it around right after Myuri finished reeling in. Both V-Discs went for shots that didn't connect with their spiraling target, and had to veer off so as not to run into each other. And then the old bombercraft blazed its way right toward the gynoid. What she had planned would have killed an organic, so it was a good thing she'd hid those repair parts. There wasn't enough time to have the ship slow down enough to catch her safely in the cargo hold, and hitting the nose would leave her as crushed as the wall of the Diamond Sentinels' hangar. So instead she aimed the ship lower, twisted herself around just right, so that instead she hit the sloped glass of the cockpit. Her fingers grasped at the metal ridge in between panels, but slipped, and she slid along the gunner's dome.

But fortunately the pilot's cockpit provided a second chance and she'd slowed enough- pulling the ship up enough- to allow her to latch on, with manageable strain on her shoulders. Even though she was a robot, her satisfaction at a successful maneuver in the face of uncertain odds was palpable. Then she looked down, and saw Pei's face of complete shock and annoyance. And that made it all worth it. "Gah! I told you! Don't sneak up on me, ya damn show off! Get your naked ass back in here!"

Heather could tell from her tone that she was impressed, even if she would never admit it. That explained her smirk as she began crawling forward, using the window's frame for handholds at first, and then the ship's antennae and the access door itself as she crawled inside from the top, allowing the door to close before turning the artificial gravity back on and settling to the floor with Rosa and Myuri. The telltale hiss of atmosphere returning marked a successful recovery, and a safe time to remove their space suits at last. "We are clear to leave the system."

"Waaaay aheada ya!" Asteroids had minimal gravitational wells, and Pei was already juking and jiving her way out of range of the self-immolating space station. Its reactor core shone as brightly as any star from this distance, nearing total meltdown, but the stars soon leapt into streaks of light that melted into the relaxing, slightly psychedelic hues of a Warp Corridor. "Ha-hah! We did it! Sort of... six out of nine. Not terrible," their fearless captain chimed over the communications, before sliding down the ladder now that it was safe to open up the cockpit and enter the storage bay. The doors to the other rooms opened as well, allowing her to address everyone- fluffy tail swishing madly and hitting whoever was standing next to her in the leg repeatedly. "You all did great! Seriously, that was stellar! I sure can pick a good crew, huh?!"

Heather found the lack of hesitation and stated intention to continuing testing them a bit odd. "What about the next test?" She asked in a measured, but still meaningful tone. Pei just looked at her in confusion. "There's... no... what'reyo-" "The Pei impersonator in the maintenance access room?"

For a long moment, Pei was silent, thinking this a joke. Her ears went upright in full attentive posture, until she remembered that she had never heard Heather kid about anything. And then she gritted her teeth, ears pointed back with a determined look on her face. "You- with me," she told Tick, marching purposefully to the back of the lounge.

Heather went back into the crew quarters, squeezing past anyone in the way, making for Pei's locker. She could hear the swoosh of the door open, and sound of a started gasp from their Vulpinoid leader, followed by a series of unintelligible aborted queries. "Whaa?! Who're- How'dya- What'sis... Don't move, you!" she finally declared. "I've got a crazy killbot and I am not afraid to use him!"
 
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Now Tick finally understood why Pei had asked what he'd do if there were two of her. It had been training! Upon discovering the second Pei, it all started to come back to him; even though "it" had taken place about an hour ago.

"[I remember this.]"

Tick would have gone with what he'd said he'd do and let the two Pei's fight it out, only to follow whichever Pei won, which would clearly have been the superior Pei. Emphasis on "would have". As Tick's target acquisition software finished registering the second Pei, a teeny tiny error occurred that threw the idea of letting the two Pei's tussle, bite, and scratch each other into submission. A tiny error. Something so small, yet with big consequences, as computing errors tend to be. The entire crew had been placed on Tick's 'Friendly' list. If he recognized anyone as Pei, Heather, Rosa, Myuri, or Brent; he wouldn't shoot. Since this new Pei couldn't be Pei since there was already a Pei, she was labeled as Pei (2). Pei (2) was a not a name or entity on Tick's friendly list. And you know what happens to things that aren't on his friendly list?

TARGET ACQUIRED: [BIOLOGICAL ORGANISM] PEI(2)
ELIMINATE TARGET


One Pei, Two Pei, Dead Pei, No Pei. Tick reacted, reaching for the first firearm within view. Pei (the real one) had a pistol holstered in her back pocket (or rather just stuffed into her pants). Nothing too big, but definitely usable. Tick's hand shot for it, pulling it from it's impromptu holster and raising it in one swift motion. The safety clicked off, the hammer snapped back, and the robot fired twice. The second Pei took both right in the chest, just below the neck.

The real Pei was given about a second to react. She looked like she was about to say something. There was a targeting hiccup... unfortunately. Tick's targeting software isn't very good at differentiating between two identical targets, one of which is OK to kill, the other which isn't. In a moment like this, his software defaults to the computer equivalent of "Ah, fuck it, just pull the trigger." Pei had about one and a half words out of her mouth when the pistol went pop! two more times. Hopefully, Pei wasn't too fond of her hips or legs because one round found home in her hip and the other in her thigh.

Tick stood there for a moment, processing what just happened. There was Pei... who he couldn't shoot. And then another one... that he could shoot... but then he'd shot them both... and now they were bleeding out... and... Oooohh... Oh! Oh? Oh!!

"[Wait... I have made an error.]"

The robot gave them the best piece of advice one can give to a pair of freshly shot Vulpinoids,

"[Wait here.]"

Tick opened up the door to the cargo bay and the rest of the crew, who were no doubt curious as to why shots are being fired even though they're off station.

"[There was an impostor, but I have saved the ship. The captain, however, has been injured.]" The bot pointed his hand, pistol still in it with the safety off, at the swearing Pei, "[She most likely will not survive. I suggest a quick end. I will provide it.]"

For those curious; yes. "They are too injured, we must kill them." is Tick's diagnosis to almost every injury and/or illness out of the three diagnoses he's aware of. The other two are "we must amputate" and "turn them into a robot".

Tick was not designed to be smart.
 
Well, reality went and hit Knox pretty hard this time when the captain opened up the maintenance room backed up with a "crazy killbot" to find a copy of her armed with a glorified toasting knife. In fact, all Knox really managed to do was whip out her laser-blade of doom and hold it out menacingly in front of her as the real Pei sputtered and tried to take control of the situation again. The realisation hit her when aforementioned crazy killbot started to talk - Knox had just shown an act of aggression. She couldn't move, she could barely talk because her vulpinoid heart was pounding blood so frantically that it hurt to even breathe. Knox found herself reminiscing about the good old days when she drank vodka in a cramped office. 'Rock Bottom' had never looked so inviting before. Just when Knox wondered if things couldn't get any worse, she watched as the robot grabbed a gun and shot her.

"HURK-- " Knox sounded exactly like Pei, even in what should be her death throes. The bullets ripped through her Vulpinoid lungs - now she really couldn't breathe - and hit quite a few major arteries. The bullets were fired point blank so they came right out of the other side and probably hit something mechanical, taking with them a liberal splash of blood. Knox dropped the knife and fell back in a heap, blood seeping from her clothes, gurgling a little. She could barely see from the pain but she heard the other Pei get shot too. The acute observer would've noticed that as the blood gushed out of Knox's wounds and away from her body, it congealed on the floor into a fluorescent pinky-purple slime. Unfortunately, the only observer was Tick, and Knox safely assumed that her would-be murderer suffered from a pretty serious case of tunnel vision. Knox felt...funny. Weren't Vulpinoids meant to reincarnate? Knox didn't want to wait long enough to find out; after all, she was currently quite concerned with dying in the first place.

The killbot ordered them to wait there and turned around to leave the room. As he did, the imPeistor started to shift and distort. The hair receded, her breasts and hips shrank whilst her forearms bulged and her tail shortened. Knox didn't say anything but instead emitted a low hiss of pain as she planted a hand on the maintenance room and slowly pushed herself up onto her elbows. Knox was shaking hard, because in the absence of a proper nervous system, the gelatinous material that made up her body reacted chemically to the sudden introduction of two unwanted holes. Everything burned, a feverish, aching sensation sent spasms of pain throughout Knox's entire form until those holes - which continued to ooze a brighter pink slime - were sealed.

Once Knox had tended to herself, her gaze snapped up to Pei. She couldn't just leave her there; the whole ordeal was technically Knox's fault for choosing to sneak onto her ship in the first place. Besides, if she didn't do something quick, Knox was about to spacewalk without a suit. A pair of dimly glowing yellow eyes blinked slowly as Knox was already raising herself into a seated position. Her bright violet skin shone ever-so-slightly in the light from the doorway to the kitchen and Pei's clothes hung loosely off her flat chest, soaked in blood. Whilst her body readjusted its proportions, Knox decided to make a proposition to her companion before even daring to approach Pei. "You can sit there and bleed to death, OR you can get that fucking oversized toaster to stand down along with the rest of your crew. I can fix those wounds in a heartbeat but I'm not getting anywhere near you if it means another bullet in the chest. Your choice."
 
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In all the history of confronting stowaways, there were probably quite a few worse outcomes. But very few of them were so predictable as what happened next. What had meant to be a show of force soon proved to be exactly that, as force was applied alright, to both Peis, and that was one Pei too many. The irony of being shot by her own gun while confronting herself was not lost on her, and just as Knox had done, so too did she: "HURK-!"

Her blood was more traditionally red, and her crumple characteristically ungraceful as she toppled to the ground. "Daaaamn it robot, it's the trash compactor for you!" she called out after him as he left the scene of the crime, like a Barrulean sentryblob fleeing the still-smoking puddle of its acidic secretion burning through the nice rug.

The offer to help came with an eye roll that ended in a wincing twitching tremble, but Pei bit her bottom lip before responding. "Stand down?! I didn't tell him to stand up in the first place!" Pei growled back, ending in an annoyed, pained groan. She hadn't even given the order to fire; this situation had really gotten away from her. And she was in no position to refuse medical treatment being offered. By this weird, potatoid person who wasn't her any longer. "Fine, fine. Whoever you are. Or aren't!" She was so clever. "Tick, hold your fuckin' fire! Go stand in the corner, bad robot!"

And speaking of bad robots, Heather chose that moment to make a timely appearance, once all the shooting was over. She looked calm and collected as she assessed the damage, to clothing and Vulpinoid and the pressure control valve that had been dinged by Tick's shot behind them. Pei was still bemoaning her injuries and so missed the near-silent gynoid's arrival until she spoke. "Atmospheric pressure regulation has been reverted to manual control. We will need-"

Pei's ears twitched and she laid her right forearm across her forehead, mrowling in pitiful agony. "Ohhh, the pain! I am not long for this universe! Pulsar? Quasar? Comfort me in my final moments!"

Heather had been intending to ask about the melodramatic foxgirl on the ground but the comment made her gaze remain locked on the maintenance room, eyes narrowing just a hint as if focusing on it intently. "I told you, those are not their names."

"But you won't tell me their names!" Pei countered quickly.

"They don't have names!" came the insistent retort, with a surprising degree of emphasis for the normally flatly intoned fembot.

"Pulsar, Quasar, I know you're there! Cushion me on my journey to the great beyond!"

Heather paused for a long, dramatic moment and her expression- though never leaving the neutral, vaguely-pouty countenance of her sexbot chassis- was about as close to glaring as she could get. Then she finally turned to Knox with a suggestion. "Let her die." And then she left, marching back out into the hangar bay and climbing the ladder to the pilot's cockpit.

Pei was left giggling impishly in spite of the pain making her grit her teeth. She too faced Knox but with a conspiratorial grin. "Okay, you can heal me now."
 
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The more she saw of Pei, the happier Knox was that she didn't have to impersonate her. The Vulpinoid had a flair for theatrics, and seemed remarkably nonchalant about her wounds - as Vulpinoids usually were. It was like watching a really bad soap opera, Pei flailing and moaning on the floor whilst Heather exasperatedly refused to allow 'Pulsar and Quasar' anywhere near the horny captain. For a millisecond Knox even forgot she was in any danger until she caught sight of Tick and her eyes narrowed again. Chipper as she was, Pei still had the authority to chuck Knox out in a moment's notice; whilst Heather's suggestion was increasingly tempting, the shapeshifter reluctantly decided to hold up her end of the bargain.

With another quick glance over at Tick, Knox grunted and pushed the base of each palm onto her lips. Her jaw clenched as she pierced holes in her hands and carefully approached the wounded Vulpinoid. "Heads up, this is going to look weird," warned Knox as the pinkish ooze dripped from her hands. The process was remarkably simple - she just pushed her palms onto the bloody injuries and waited. The bullets or bullet fragments were pushed to the surface by the introduction of the pink goo, and there was a slightly uncomfortably tingling sensation. After a few seconds of awkward hip and thigh groping, Knox removed her palms and dusted the bullets out of the way. The skin was smooth and healthy; the only evidence left were the dark red patches of blood on Pei's clothes and the maintenance room floor.

Knox sat back onto her knees, peering down at herself and then up at Pei. Either everything else was bigger, or Knox had gotten smaller. "Great," she sighed, now a head shorter than Pei and feeling irritable due to the familiar grogginess that started to creep up on her. Knox didn't quite know what to say; she had nowhere to go and was completely at the mercy of the eccentric pervert and her pimped-up sexbot. "Sorry about all that; I might've accidentally got you shot but you blew up my home. So-...I guess we're even." Knox pointedly neglected to tell Pei that Clarissa's home was only a temporary one. If Knox looked pitiful and weak then she might show a bit of mercy. Luckily, her diminished height and the saggy, bloodied clothes made for a good 'helpless ragamuffin' look. "You're not gonna chuck me out into space, right? 'Cause I can help out around here if you need it. Crews like yours always need a doctor on hand, and even though my resume's been disintergrated in the blast, I'm hoping my skills speak for themselves."

Though she was loathe to admit it, Knox felt the knot of fear in her belly. The stakes were always high, but...never this high. She'd been found out before on a foreign ship but Knox couldn't remember a time when she managed to get her target shot in front of the whole crew. There weren't many escape routes either - in fact, she couldn't think of a single way out of her situation unless she used Pei as a meat shield and tried to cut through the gun-loving robot with that little laser knife of hers. Alternative options were slim, and Knox wasn't too thrilled about the idea of outright begging for mercy.
 
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As soon as she was onboard the ship, Rosa set about securing her capacitors in the cargo hold. Better to get the damn things squirreled away where they couldn't just move around and smash everyone, particularly with all the evasive maneuvers. Which did not make the job of cargo hauling any easier. She eventually got her load somewhere in a heap where they were unlikely to roll around or be tied down, about the time Heather finished dragging everyone around to save her own artificial skin.

Once the atmosphere came back up, Rosa quickly pulled her helmet off, shaking her head. "Ah, it's good to get some fresh...air," she began, trailing off as the cocktail of residues stuck to her suit's exterior reached her nostrils. "Or not-so-fresh air. Ifni, but I would've thought the trip in vacuum would boil most of this crap off. This suit's gonna need a good sterilizing before it's really acceptable. She promptly stripped out of it just the same, leaving a few petals to flutter to the ground from flowers too crushed by the suit's mechanical pressure to really survive unharmed. She let her hair down and gave it a good shake. "It's good to be back to nearly naked again," she said with a sigh.

The sudden crack of gunshots elsewhere in the small ship made her jump, and Tick's arrival armed with a gun did not encourage her any. "Please don't go shooting any captains any further," she said to Tick. She doubted the robot simply wanted to finish the job, but it was still best to discourage it, at least until she was in on whatever swift and efficient mutiny was apparently taking place. "Wait, you said an impostor? The hell?" Did that wild question about a fake Pei seriously come true so soon? She had to see this.

Rosa gave the murderous old Russian a wide berth as she exited the cargo bay and made her way over toward the sounds of a Vulpinoid suffering in stereo, and some sort of conversation with Heather about things. Seemed the other robot was less killer, but incompatible with their organic crew in her own way, judging by her expression as she headed for the pilot's seat. She leaned in through the door to the cramped maintenance bay to rubberneck, and got a good look at one Pei slowly transforming into...some sort of gelatinous humanoid shape, and the other continued to writhe in her own blood for a time.

After Pei's medical treatment, she finally spoke up. "Yeah...that definitely looked weird." No comment on the offer for a ship's doc, but they probably would need one. And the best she could likely manage is to shove the large seed of a parasitic plant in someone's chest and hope for the best. Not that she really had any spares, so it would be more transmigration of some sort.
 
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As it turned out, Myuri didn’t take too kindly to almost being incinerated in space at the very last second by Heather’s initial miscalculation. But then she recalled that she might have played a hand in all that, so in the end, she was quite mum about the whole thing. Her immediate instinct upon reaching the cargo bay, however was to complain. Being thrashed about by Pei’s tactical maneuvers, she was more worried about not having her pretty head bashed in like a watermelon against a bulkhead. Even so, she had some choice words for the ship and its owner.

“P-PEI! What the fuck! Does this thing even have inertial dampeners!? What kind of a rust bucket is this!”

Several variations of these choice epithets continued for the duration of the wild maneuvers, the irony of the situation lost on her in the chaos of the bay. When it all stopped and Myuri was sure she wasn’t going to lose her day’s meals all over the capacitor banks, she was finally able to get a rest after all the hustle and bustle of her first mission. Like her fellow crewmember, she was quick to remove her helmet for some less stifling air. Unfortunately, she found herself put off even more by the smell of whatever was on her suit, and she came even more close to losing her food before she hurriedly stripped down and tossed the protective skin in a corner for later sterilizing.

Before she could… get dressed, however, the distinct sound of gunfire within ship bulkheads sent Myuri up with a jolt, leading to her quickly finding and rearming herself with her rifle. She was surprised to see Tick pop out into the cargo bay, but found herself amused that Pei’s hypothetical question had become prophecy. When she’d finally arrived behind Rosa, much of the action and drama had died down, replaced by the decidedly unfun scene of a surgical operation on the injured captain. Myuri did find momentary amusement, after seeing that Pei wasn’t about to die, that a good portion of the crew was just standing around unclothed. Awkward.

“Okay, so that’s great and all, but who is this?”
 
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With Jackie Diamond’s head in his stomach and an explosive job well done, Brent really was just going to kick back, relax, and regenerate while Pei and Tick dealt with whatever the hell crawled into the Feline Persuasion, trusting that a battle-scarred killbot was enough.

Turns out, the battle-scarred killbot was the worst choice for that particular scenario. When there’s two Peis, kill both of them? Brent leapt out of his chair, scratched the back of his neck, took another look at the stumpy midget-hand that was slowly growing bigger, and followed Tick to where the intruder and the captain were currently bleeding. “Well,” Brent said, “Someone’s gonna have to clean this up, huh?”

His stomach gurgled, and the Prec’Ilae spat out a particularly hard piece of carapace. “That’s the imposter,” he said, “Probably some sort of slime-blob shit that can mold their matter into shit that plugs up holes in other people’s bodies. Literally just nanomachine therapy with an attitude.”

“Anyways, where’s the mop? Or is our imposter gonna clean up the mess with its body?”


Seriously though, every bit of cleaning matters when it comes to extending the lifespan of rusted ships like these.
 
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