Let the Stars Fall Down IC

[ERode]

"Why by my beard, is this monstrosity still not dead?"
"…You don't even have a beard. Please, just stop."
"Come on, boss, it's all in good fun. Tell me with a straight face that you didn't enjoy that movie last night."
"I have only one face. And it's captain to you."
"Whatever, whatever…wanna flambé it next?"
"Don't tell me you're eating it, Jobdou."
"I'm not THAT hungry, though now that I think about it…"
"No, just stop. Flash freeze it instead."
"Oh ho ho, what's the occasion, Cap?"
"Stop with the 'oh ho ho' as well."
"Fine, fine…"
"But as for the occasion, I do believe that I have the perfect present for our friends down below now."

❇ Let the Stars Fall Down ❇

First Job
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Headhunt

Thank god for on-ship entertainment. If it wasn't for the fact that Brent had the insight to download the entire remastered third season of 'Dimensional Heroine Chao Ling Shen', he probably would have been bored out of his mind waiting in the acidic atmosphere of Kroil. While he normally would have enjoyed the wonderfully green scenery of the militaristic planet, that particular day featured very heavy acid rain, to the extent that he'd have to get a new paintjob for the Asano-17 if he stayed below the clouds for any extended period of time.

So, for the past few hours, as a long queue of merchant and freelancer vessels joined his own spaceship in waiting for entrance to the Protective Dome that acted as the sole entranceway to the underground colonies, the young captain watched Chinese cartoons.

Really though, if his employer had wanted him to deliver boxes full of mysterious, undisclosed substances, it would have been reassuring if that person didn't go out of their way to wear a mask and use a voice modifier. Brent would have been more than happy to reject the job, really…but fuel costs were rising, and he had recently hired two other freelancer peeps as well. Hired guns, all things considered. His last run-in with space pirates cost him almost half of his savings to patch Asano-17 up, and it'd be great if he could avoid something stupid like that again.

It was when he was on the 22nd​ episode that he received a message from within his quarters. Popping up the holographical message, the dark-haired youth pressed 'play' and sighed as it wasn't a love letter from the daughter of his previous client. Instead, he got a straight-laced, square-jawed guard that said in an equally flat tone, "Asano-17, you may enter the Protective Dome now. Please have all your cargo ready for inspection, and shut down all weapons systems and mechs."

"About fucking time, you hardass cunts," he replied airily, taking comfort in the fact that they won't actually hear him. Standing up from his discount-price rocking chair and stretching outwards, the captain sighed at how pointlessly spacious his room was, before saying, "Welp, Asano, you heard the message. If you would do the honors of telling the others and landing us, that'd be pretty cool."

After that, the Captain got back to his duties.

Hopefully the citizens weren't so systemically paranoid as the guards, or it'd be a long three days in Kroil.​

 

[Krnon]

Upon descending into the allotted coarse provided by the Kroil's message, which would put you at about 33 degrees longitude and 60 degrees latitude, a large mountain begins to immerse itself into view. The green rain bombarding the hull and splattering against the vector shielding creating more objects to shield against. The green forest surrounding one side of the large mountain is mirrored only by a vast body of green liquid to the other side. Lowering further, you begin to notice a ravine at the base of the mountain near the forest side, and within a large dome.

A yellow light flashes near the trees as the dome starts to open as you get closer. As the rounded bay doors open large enough for the ships to get into, a field, orange in color, is left in their place. Once the doors open enough, the light shines green and you are given the "You are free to land." signal.

Once all the merchant ships land and power down, a young man wearing black goes up to a ship with four other men wearing differing types of armor and equipment. The man knocks on each ship, one after another saying, "We will now orchestrate the inspections, you must turn off all mecha and power down all weapons."

One man will take a thermal scanner to check and make sure the number of people registered is right and that the weapons and mecha are off. One man will go around checking the ships for external damage and making a list of repairs to be done later. Another man will look specifically for contraband in odd places, stuff like ship ducts and hidden lockers. The last man will go and check ships for AI and let them know that once they have dropped off their payload, they are to report back to the lunar base, and that they are to seal up until they hear back from them regarding the entities they have deposited.

 

[Skyswimsky]

The captain wasn't the only one watching Dimensional Heroine Chao Ling Shen, a certain name-giving AI was enjoying the bizarre show just as much as the fleshling, or maybe not. Nonetheless they got interrupted. "C'mon, can't they wait until it is finished? But I suppose they make a cliffhanger out of the fight against Darkdeath Evilman anyways." And with that, the device which allowed the captain and Asano to see the wonders of the show, turned black. If she couldn't continue watching, neither could the Captain; not like she was a monstrosity when it came to multitasking in a twisted kind of sense. To make it even more blatant she simply laid herself down onto a Holographic Couch.

Meanwhile, Asano made herself useful as requested, appearing in whatever rooms the 2 Crewmembers were, she knew both of them for around a month. One a nerdy Sephyrian Newhatever, though in her view just a glorified elf, as both shared the same pointy ears. The other a wannabe hero of justice, also an airhead, and actually, Asano liked that person, messing around with airheads was just so much fun, even before her great slumber. There was even something about the airhead that reminded her of Chao Ling Shen, but couldn't quite tell what it was.

Nonetheless both got to see her holographic grace. "Mr. Oktonia, we are hereby to inform You that we are just mere minutes away from proceeding with our schedule. Please refrain from any unnecessary actions that could upset our host. Sincerely yours, Asano-17!" Auric was probably the only one that got to see Asano with a monocle while drinking digital tea. Though she didn't bat an eye before throwing the tea over her shoulder and say way more casual. "Oh, and Cheeseburgers are still the most delicious food, ever!" And disappeared. Of course, on a ship that had the same name as the AI, she was without question Omnipresent, even if Auric couldn't see her, he was smart enough to realize Asano heard everything, saw everything and maybe even knew everything...that was going on on the ship. Or maybe he didn't and assumed privacy was a thing, whatever.

Mana on the other hand was informed in a completely differently manner. "Rise and shine my favourite Mahou Shoujo! We are nearly there! Make sure to catch any long fingers that think we arrived with less cargo than we actually have, aight?" Unlike somewhere else though, she made no sign of disappearing.

At the same time, the female AI was actually navigating her bigger counterpart into the dome. "If we actually have to paint the ship anew I want it to be a glorious pink!" Simply demanding to the captain.

 

[Random]

The form of what immediately appeared to be a young man was lain neatly across a bed in his plain, white-walled quarters, hands under his head and one leg folded over the other. It had been long enough for him to lose count of time since the ship had entered orbit of Kroil, and Auric was bored.

They'd been allowed to dock, sure, but now they actually had to land, and inspections needed to happen before they could expect to do any sort of anything outside the ship. Achron had been switched off down in the hangar, but the AI, with all the personality it lacked, didn't make for great conversation anyway. All the mechs and weapons had to be turned off now the ship was down for inspection actually, which, Auric noted, said very little about either non-electrical weaponry or the people themselves. He'd come across some real characters before who had really fancied themselves as living weapons, with their Ley-induced powers.

Still, at least the job was simple enough. Drop off some package or another, then you're done and paid. It wasn't the most exciting, but the general easiness of it almost made up for the uneventfulness that was currently getting under his skin so much.

He expected it'd be only be a matter of time before Asano popped up to declare that--

Oh, here she was.

"Don't worry, I know," he assured her, sitting up and moving his shoulders about, his back faintly clicking a little as he did, and his ears twitched slightly as his muscles woke up and realised that they actually had a job to do.

Unnecessary actions that could upset their host. That wasn't his reputation already, was it? Okay, maybe one or two curses had slipped out in the presence of their last client, but that was one time. It wasn't as if it was his defining trait.

Anyway, it was probably best to find Mana as quickly as possible in case she ended up doing something stupid. Admittedly, she hadn't yet, but Auric got the impression that it was only a matter of time before she did. The kid thought she was some kind of magical girl. It was admirable that she was so strong-moraled, but she was going to break something without supervision from someone more reality-ground. He didn't have much room to talk in that department, but he at least knew what he was doing most of the time.

He initially had intended on going to look for her, but he suddenly realised that he really couldn't be bothered to search the ship up and down for her quarters, let alone her.

There was no point asking if the half-mad AI knew where she was, because she did and everybody knew it. In fact, it was difficult not to consider the program and the craft one and the same. After all, both had that eccentric flair to them, and both had needlessly impractical tendencies.
"Where's Mana?" he asked the pseudo-empty room.

 

[R-9 Pilot]

Mana was enjoying a nap until the lovely ship's AI interrupted. Her quarters were small, but full of magical girl posters, hanging costumes, and other knicknacks taking up a large amount of the available space. She was buried under the blankets in her bunk, and the first indication that she wasn't still asleep was a pillow flung out from the pile which harmlessly passed through Asano's hologram to hit the far wall with a light thump.

Mana sat up, pushing the blankets off of her, and yawned. "It morning already?" She looked around drowsily, and quickly focused on Asano's image. "Ah, good morning, Asano!" Then she noticed the pillow. "...Sorry, I guess I'm still a little grumpy about the wake-up calls." She sounded suitably sheepish that it was a still reflexive for her to react in such a way. "They finally letting us down planetside? I didn't have anything else to do, so I just decided to sleep." How much sleep could one person need? Though with everyone used to slightly different circadian cycles, frequent naps were probably not uncommon on a ship like this one. She yawned again and stood up, smoothing the wrinkles out of her outfit of the day: a frilly, gothic lolita sort of affair in white and black trim, and long black stockings. Probably not the wisest choice of sleepwear, really.

"So, got to keep an eye on our mystery cargo? I should be able to do that." Parcel post was hardly glamorous work, but it was work, and work beat starving. Mana had adjusted well enough to her new way of life, though she wasn't sure what the rest of the crew thought of her. She at least got the basics down for working in a ship and didn't have any telekinetic outbursts after denting that bulkhead on her first day. It really wasn't something she'd meant to do, but it probably didn't improve any first impressions of her.

As far as her own opinions of the others, she liked Asano. The AI's sprightly presence helped make the ship feel far less empty, especially with the skeleton crew of just a few people. She didn't know much about the captain, but he didn't look much older than she was. He seemed nice enough, though. And they liked some of the same shows. Auric, she was less sure of, but she hadn't known him very long either. He definitely knew all kinds of things, and she couldn't shake the feeling he thought he was better than her as a result.

"Well...off to the cargo bay, right?"

 

[Skyswimsky]

Asano wa supposed to feel...dissapointed, right? She expected a more odder response from the young heroine, instead, she sounded rather normal and calm about it. Asano replied with pouted cheeks. "Hmpf, if you have nothing better to do than to sleep, you could totally play Magical Phantasm Battle ReduX: Revenge of Maestro Doom Jr. against, or with, me!" Though returning to her cheerful attire she continued. "And about your wake up call, fufufu, would you rather prefer me to whisper into your ear? The captain said he'd like that very much! Or do you wish for good old bucket of water? I read some people do that to their children on some primitive planets!" Whatever the case was, moving to the cargo bay wasn't that bad of a decision, thus, the AI actually started to use her digital feet to move out of the room, escorting Asano towards the cargo bay.

She didn't really hate or dislike Auric, Asano just had her own way of behaviour tailored to each of the crew members, and as long as he wouldn't change, Asano wouldn't either. And it wasn't like he reported her to the captain yet, though telling on her would mean admitting some sort of defeat, or not? Human emotions sure were complex, and that collaborative work would benefit both of them didn't even cross her digital mind. A few moments of silence passed, deciding on what her response should be. Telling him she was somewhere awkward was probably older than her creator is by now, and she doubted it would bother him much. Instead she gave him the truth. "Well, WE are on our way to a room that contains the point 40, -430, -40. Don't worry though I am taking gooooood care of her~"

 

[Random]

Auric resisted the urge to laugh at the tone with which Asano issued her quasi-challenge.

The thing about Auric was that pretty much everything was thought-provoking for him. Specifically, in this case was his reaction to her words.
We need more good crazy, he noted. It would have been nice to watch the news and think "that's fucking insane", but feel a little jealous, instead of just, for instance, alone.

Crazy could be fun though, which reminded him of a thought he'd had on the way over.
"Hey," he addressed the ship as he began to search for the room in question. "You feeling as inquisitive as I am?"
Inquisitive, in this case, was used in the particular fashion which Auric always used it in. Specifically, as a fancy word for not-wanting-to-call-it-really-nosy-but-actually-yeah-really-quite-nosy.

 

[R-9 Pilot]

"Ah, crap!" Mana reacted with more vigor this time. "I could have been playing games, couldn't I? I forgot you actually have a bunch of that stuff." She sounded suitably disappointed she didn't think of that herself. "As for the wake-up call, the usual is fine." She shuddered a bit, and muttered to herself, "...I thought I'd left the buckets of water behind..."

She followed Asano's hologram as it "walked" out of the room, into the winding corridors of the ship. "This place still feels like a maze," she commented as the two girls wove their way through the ships innards, moving toward the cargo bay. "I don't know how one guy has a ship this big either, but at least it only takes a few people to keep it all running, thanks to you." She smiled happily at Asano's avatar, her appreciation evident.

 

[Krnon]

In the restaurant on the civilian sector, A young woman enters causing the bells to ring. Going to seat herself in a corner of the room without being asked to or told that she can.

The room was quiet as the woman sat on her seat and looked up. Peering into the eyes of the waiter standing there, she finally said, "I'll take a milkshake and a crepe."

The waiter responds, "With all due respects to the lady, we are out of stock of the salt used in making the crepes-"

The lady retorts, "I don't care, get me that milkshake then!"

The waiter replies, "Very well, that will be forty credits."

Taking out her credit card and going to hand it to the waiter, but the waiter refused, "We cannot charge you, the leader of the planet, now can we?"

Furious, the woman slaps him then counters, "We are all human here, so no one here is better then anyone else, as such you will take the credits, now wont you?"

Reeling from the slap, the waiter reluctantly accepts the card, swipes it, then returns it.

Proud of herself, The lady eagerly awaits her treat before having to deal with the outsider influence of the next day.

 

[Zombehs]

Rubbing the back of his head, Icturin let out a rather annoyed sigh as he twirled a pair of Mahz sticks in his other hand. At this point he was ready to simply give up on the planet and find a captain to haul his damaged unit to another location and search for parts there instead; it couldn't be much harder than staying on Kroil. A few questions alongside some Mahz had told him all he needed to know about the underground colony and it hadn't been good. Given what he had learned, there hadn't been even an attempt to head underground. There was nothing except risk that could be found there for him, so instead he hung about in the Protective Dome and checked out the new arrivals. A few Mahz sticks left here and there had managed to convince a guard to drop off the results of searches and now he simply waited for something that caught his eye and suited their needs.

While Mechas of various makes had shown up fairly often amidst the scans he'd received, none were suitable for breaking down into materials. While Type-Zeros and Spacials had been aplenty with the planet being mainly used as a stop for vessels they were ultimately unsuitable for his needs. The one Type-Ace that had cropped up had been so old that he wouldn't have been surprised to see it ruined on Purgamentum with the last member of their rather motley crew. Mah… at least Asgharro had proved himself somewhat useful alongside Aeia in keeping the near-scrap of a ship together on its way to Kroil.

He shuddered slightly at the memories associated with the damaged commandeered pirate ship, pulling his jacket closer around the Nano Fiber Suit underneath to combat the shivers that had nothing to do with the temperature. Pointless really, but it was the gesture that counted right? He put those memories aside as a quiet beep came from his bracelet and quickly tapped it which caused a holoscreen to pop up. 'Another batch huh.' A few taps on the screen brought up a visual of the drop-zone and after confirmation that there was only a holopad at the location he zoomed in on the display and then closed his eyes to focus.

He was situated with several buildings between him and the holopad, but having gotten familiar with the position it proved rather simple to tear open the fabric of space. The connected portal was formed on the wall he leaned against, concealing it, and he reached through so as to manipulate the pad. A few moments later after he'd absorbed the information through the camera's feed, he retracted his arm and the portals snapped shut without so much as a trace of ever existing. "Interesting…" He murmured as his eyes drifted towards one of the ships currently moored.

 

[RJS]

Asgharro was lost. Again.

There was just too much stuff in the way. All these buildings, all these stalls, all these people. Back on Purgamentum, you could go for half a mile without losing track of where you'd come from, and while being able to watch for geographical references. Here, you were lucky if you got several metres without getting lost in the labyrinth of streets. And people here had no respect for each other, constantly bumping and jostling. The experience of walking down the streets had been suffocating. Asgharro had nearly let off his power several times today, just to get a bit of breathing space. The constant military presence was a big dissuader though - cause any trouble and he'd probably never be seen again. The equipment they had was a level above anything he'd ever managed to get working.

It didn't help that he was completely unarmed. The Snout was an ugly, uncultured gun, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing. Having any weapon would be a comfort, but the guards had been incredibly thorough. Taking streets at random, hoping to find anything he recognised, he found himself back at the landing bay, where they'd limped in a few days back on a damaged and commandeered space vessel! Just the memory of being in space gave Asgharro a thrill, even though he'd been busy for most of it. All that running back and forth fixing stuff had been fun, and he'd picked a few tricks from Aeia. "Just a shame I can't pick up her power too" Asgharro thought wryly to himself. That miraculous ability had saved the ship on a couple of occasions. Leaving had been a massive culture shock though - he hadn't realised just how backwards Purgamentum was. He'd have to try and earn some money, get Peregrinus a refit.

Sighing, he wandered into the landing bay cafe and handed over some of the money he'd been given by Icturin. That had been the best part of leaving; Food, normally a grim necessity, was a pleasure here, to be savoured. The flavours were entirely new to Asgharro, and he'd been trying something new every time. Settling himself in his usual seat, he sat back and watched the ships coming and going.

 

[Skyswimsky]

"As inquisitive as you?" Was he trying to imply something or did Asano read too much into it? If he was bothered by her being everywhere she was sure he would have already left, which most likely only left the cargo, still. "Thankfully I don't know how you feel." A small chuckle, leaving the meaning of her words to his imagination. "BUT I always thirst for new information, it is supposed to give me... satisfaction? Though my duty comes first, and unless the captain changes his mind, the cargo will be left untouched!" She fell silent for a few seconds before continuing. "Unless of course, I have reason to assume said cargo could endanger my beloved ship." A digital sigh. "But by now WE will arrive sooner at our destination than my physical body would." She didn't doubt that he figured out her small riddle, the destination being the cargo bay, thus, her words didn't even count as a hint anymore.

"Eh?" Asano now floated a bit above the ground as they continued 'walking', turning towards Mana. She could blush, right? Or go totally. "Of course! Thank you, I was made for this after all. I may be a bit outdated, but I am still kicking ass!" A few self-affirming nods followed. "And we girls have to stick together, no? Anyways, a maze?" A multi-level 3D map opened up between the two of them, attached to it a bunch of texts and information up into the finest detail. "Here, you can call this map with that hand emotion, filter with those buttons and pick your destination through this menu, voice-command or click at your desired location." With that, a small path lightened itself up showing the way from their current location to the cargo-bay. "Of course, that is all just a simple hologram and simulated by me, but not like I am that busy yet anyways!"

 

[Random]

The Nephalem frowned at the insinuation, unsure as to whether to be insulted or embarrassed.
Asano was an AI. She shouldn't have been allowed to say paranoia-inducing things like that.
But then, as far as Asano was concerned, she'd demonstrated with frequency that she could do whatever the hell she wanted. She could nap all the time and rub her holographic face against people's shoulders and everybody would do nothing but wet themselves about how adorable it was, but if he did it, he'd probably get fined.

Auric sighed, slightly disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm about his proposed investigation. "I don't want to touch it, I just want to know what's in the box. Surely you can scan it or something."
If he hadn't know that the AI could still see him, he would have formed a diabolical grin. But she could, so he didn't.
"After all, if our mystery client doesn't want to tell us what it is, that's probably because we wouldn't deliver it otherwise, so maybe it's something that could put the ship in danger..." he pointed out, trying to reason with Asano. After all, if there was one thing he knew he could do, it was argue a point.

 

[Villamvihar]

What was he doing on this militaristic and suffocating hellhole again? Radsul had asked himself this question many times today and he always came back to the answer of absolute necessity, though if he was honest with himself, he did not know if he would succeed in finding what he was looking for anyways. He and the crew who tolerated him only spent two days on this planet before, but as as he had refused to leave his cute gearpillars alone, he spent most of that time inside the cargo hold at the insistence of the guards who were freaked out by machines that could still move when they were 'offline'. Not that he would have left the ship on his own volition, since the city was full with freaks, criminals, idiots or people who would not know the difference between a deathseed and an apple, yet they still contributed to the community kettle.

Yet now, he was out on the streets, with his cute little friends in the custody of the spaceport security forces, to whom he had been forced to give rather specific instructions on how to handle the gearpillars, provided that the people there wanted to survive in one piece. Foreigners really tended to piss the poor things off, mostly because they could not understand the gearpillars at all, which made them either quite agitated in the same way that the city was making Radsul feel like a piece of washed cloth. Honestly, as soon as he found his gearpillar, he would look for a ship to take him off planet and never come back into this den of idiots.

There was only one problem, however: A gearpillar would likely be only present in the black market and Radsul had not a single clue as to where he might find something like that. More pressingly, he was not even aware of the existence of such a thing, so he hoped to just sense his lost friend somewhere within this layer of Kroil, but with this huge of a crowd, he doubted he would come even anywhere close. Going back to Entomon, was, of course, out of the question, since no ship captain in their right mind would go there unless they had explicit business.

Taking a turn to the left, Radsul sighed as he tried his best to be on the lookout for what seemed like security forces or intelligent people unlike the sheep on the streets.

 

[Psyker Landshark]

An entire planet dedicated to being a scrapyard and they couldn't find even one usable Type-Ace to cannabalize? In Aeia's opinion, that was some bullshit. She shook her head as she sat down at a bar, ordering a beer from the bartender. Well, at least Icturin was out looking for mechs to steal from. As the bartender set a glass of lager down in front of her, Aeia nodded in thanks and handed him a Mahz stick as payment. Taking a sip of the beer, she grimaced in distaste at the poor quality before shrugging. Shit booze was better than no booze. Fucking Purgamentum. What kind of hellhole planet didn't even have alcohol readily available?

As she continued drinking, Aeia pulled out a datapad and booted up a readout of the pirate ship she and Icturin had commandeered. After their battle with the pirates onboard, the ship itself hadn't come out looking hot. Hell, even with her technomancy, it was a miracle the thing had managed to make it off Purgamentum. As it was now, they were probably better off just selling it as scrap than trying to fix it.

Aeia polished off the last of her beer and called for another, slapping another stick of Mahz down on the counter. As the bartender refilled her mug, she pulled out a long, thin cigarillo, lighting it up. After a few puffs, she leaned back, relaxing as she received another beer. Considering she had nothing to do until Icturin got back, she could just while away the hours drinking and smoking.

 

[R-9 Pilot]

"Hawawa..." Mana's mind boggled at the holographic map, until it drew the path and pared down the information. That map can display way too much information for her to easily keep track of. "That's a super-handy thing." She took her time experimenting with the gestures to call up the map and poking at the holographic construct interface to see how it worked. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier? It's going to save me from getting lost so much."

As the two continued to speak, they arrived at the cargo bay. Mana opened the doors and stepped on in. "Well...let's wait here for whatever guests we'll have paying us a visit from the customs people," she said. She was glad to be almost done with this leg of the journey, but there was always the possibility something could go horribly wrong. Still, once they were cleared, she could help offload the cargo and things would be easy-peasy. Not that she had a clue what the cargo even was, but it's extremely poor form to look inside someone else's packages, right? Mana hummed to herself and bounced a bit on the balls of her feet as she waited to greet Kroil's customs personnel.

 

[Skyswimsky]

"Well, you never asked me~" Asano replied with a smile. "Or maybe I never thought about handing out a map myself? Whichever version you like most!" Though the truth was probably that the AI could mess around way more with Mana than she could have done if Mana already knew her way around the ship.

Scanning the cargo? Was he assuming she could do that? Woah, he was most likely already aware of her police-state like reign on this ship, but the nerdy elf actually assumed something Asano was not capable of yet? Good. "OF course I could do that, but that would be way less fun, don't you think so?!"

"Regardless, we have arrived~" The AI now stated the obvious to both of them, it may have just been convince, or some ominous unknown force that could break the fourth wall that made Mana, and Auric, arrive roughly at the same time in the big cargo bay. Not to mention they finally finished landing too.

 

[Krnon]

~At the Cafe~
​

Looking towards the person who had just sat down, the cafe tender had just finished washing a glass but asks, "What will you be having, and what is this? We here at kroil use credits, they are attached to your ID when you were given it, which handles the money needs here for now, but your going to need to pay it back later in whatever currency type you want. We are able to accept this though, should you want."
​

~At the bar~
​

The barkeeper sets down another brew for the lady, "Complimentary for the patrons, seems you like to drink so you may find this one better to your tastes."
The champagne sitting there is a bubbling, colorless liquid in a glass mug.
​

~At the landing bay~
​

As the ship starts to land, people start to walk over to it. The ship is hailed to start unloading and to turn of external weaponry, mechs, and powered weaponry. The ship is informed to let people board the ship to search for contraband and to tell if the people registered is correct. Taking a pair of thermal imaging glasses each, the four people in different armors get to the ship and wait for a response from this newer ship.​

 

[ERode]

If he cared at all about appearances and first impressions, perhaps the honorable captain of Asano-17 would have dressed himself in a fancy outfit, or, at the very least, combed his bedhead hair. But he did neither of those things, and instead, found himself a tattered, black hoodie. The worn attire had clearly seen better days, and the amount of patchwork fixes were quite noticeable, but Brent had always liked it. Putting it on, he stretched out with another yawn, before making sure that everything was in place.

Holopad? Check. Retro music player? Check. ID and Mahz sticks? Check. Instructions? Check.

There were probably a whole bunch of other important things that he should be checking for, but he was fairly confident that Asano would handle the rest. Looking out the window, he saw the vapour trail that the sword-like ship was leaving behind. There was a perpetually green tint in the sky, and trails of acidic rain drops crashed against the reinforced glass. The shielding system of Asano-17 took care of most of the acid, but the sight of the opaque Protective Dome still made him feel relieved. It opened up like the jaws of a beast, and swallowed the ship whole.

Within a safer environment, the Asano-17 began to power down, its landing gear jutting outwards from its sides, reminiscent of the legs of a centipede. He had always wanted to change the badass ship's landing gear into something fancier, like those hyper-energy-efficient flotation devices that allowed the ship to hover just a few inches above ground, but, as always, money was an issue. Brent switched out his fuzzy slippers for proper boots, turned on the intercom, and then said, "Yo, so we're all here now, right? Meetcha'll at the cargo bay, and don't forget, no obvious weapons!"

"Also," he added, "Asano's going to strictly be a gynoid assistant now. Do your best not to blow her cover, eh? Which also means…Asano, get back into your body."

With all that said, the young captain walked out of his dorm, and unlike all the other plebs who had to navigate themselves through hallways and stairs, took the elevator down to the cargo bay. After a half minute of repetitive elevator music and foot-tapping, the hissing of the door notified him that he had arrived at the cargo bay, where both the singular Type-Ace of Auric, and their precious cargo, lay.

It was much cooler in the cargo bay, temperatures shifted to much lower degrees, in consideration to the request of the super suspicious employee of theirs. Separated into a few reasonably large steel crates, the three boxes that were to be brought to the upper colonies of Kroil had stayed undisturbed for the majority of the trip, and only now were to be opened. With another pneumatic hiss, the doors opened to allow the guards entrance, and Brent walked forward to greet them.

"Good day to you, peeps! As you can see, the Asano-17's really just scary-looking so I can scare away space pirates. I'm sure it won't deter you from the search regardless, but we have only one Type-Ace at our disposal, and our on-ship weaponry…well, appearances don't deceive. We have no cannons or what-not, just a gynoid for manual labor. And as for our cargo…"

He turned to Auric and Mana then, motioning for a drumroll to build up tension.

"…we have no idea what's in it, but I'll be opening it now, if you please."

Another simpering, theatrical bow and a smile were performed, before, like a proper showman, Brent flourished a card and pressed it against the lock of the first box. No less than one hundred and twenty seven individual clicks could be heard before it was opened, revealing…

…just lots of frozen meat.

The rest of the boxes were the same.

"Fuck," he swore, his showman's enthusiasm vaporizing, "That was more boring than I thought."

 

[Skyswimsky]

Gynoid Assistant? Really? Wow. Just...wow. But orders were orders and who knew what mysterious cargo was hidden in those crates, so acting too unordinary was probably not the wisest of choices. The only other thing that annoyed her even more was the fact that the lasertag prodigy waited with his order just about as the ship landed. Like, seriously, her other other body was stationed strategically in the room where her core was, after all, the ship didn't have enough utility kind of things to just trigger some kind of self destruction! "What a jerk." She proclaimed to neither Auric nor Mana before her hologram disappeared, they were probably supposed to not even realize they had someone like her on board?

The piece of female scrap metal made arrived mere seconds before the cargo was opened, using the same elevator as Brent, and as the cargo got finally opened. "..." And this was probably one of the few moments where Asano-17 was lucky to be a bot, as it was easy to shut down the emotion simulator for being very very disappointed. Crap, she couldn't even taste the food!