1y8m1w BV
Training room, Whitecrest Clan Enclave, Wi Kao, Gao
Whitecrest Officer Garot, Spec Ops trainee
Back in the ring again with Ronovin’s pet project of a Brother. Every few days, the Associate technician arrived, bringing with him with a few new or improved gadgets. Four unarmed martially trained Officers against one ‘noncombatant’ Associate armed only with what he had managed to build for himself. Somehow, the cub managed to hold his own, even after Ronovin had ducked out of the challenges.
Ronovin insisted that this was good training. After all, unexpected surprises were always the largest threat to a well-rehearsed operation. Still, the same encounter over and over again should have become tedious by this point. It would have, if the cub had been a sane, rational being using sane, rational tools; But he wasn’t. Instead he used the staff.
Each time it made an appearance, the shocks it inflicted grew more and more severe. Ronovin had insisted that the cub was completely unaware of this gradual adjustment. Possibly true, but completely unverifiable. The one thing that he could confirm is that the shock hurt. Being subjected to it several times per fight was perhaps the… mmm… seventeenth most painful experience of his training thus far.
The cub had other toys too. The second time he entered the ring, he had worn the very suit that had tried to kill him in its first appearance. On that day, Garot himself had been the first Brother to weave around the Fyu-damned shock device, happily claiming the first pounce. His pounce… failed. He didn’t miss. He simply collided with a stone-like wall of force protecting the cub’s back.
This was a problem. Without the reaction force of a flung opponent, Garot’s maneuver did not land him where he wanted to be; instead leaving him in a rather compromising position. He was swiftly dropped to the ground by another rather painful jab of the staff.
With the cub now effectively un-pounceable, the rules of engagement changed; The goal was now disarmament. That meant, of course, engaging in even closer quarters with an opponent that could no longer be easily thrown off balance. Each engagement was tough, but still held the chance of victory. Even as the cub had expanded his tactics to include walking on the Keeda-damned ceiling, the Brothers still managed to claim numerous victories by the end of each match.
That simply left the question of what torment was to come today.
Ronovin called the start of the match. Garot prowled cautiously around the cub, taking the first few seconds of the match to study him, searching for any new gadgets or weapons. Sure enough, the cub had attached yet another inevitably overpowered device to his belt. What would it be this time? Reactive armor? Some sort of temporal distortion device? There was only one way to find out.
Garot circled behind the cub, meticulously studying the surprisingly skillful flow of the cub and his weapon. Carefully timing his assault, he leapt, aiming a swipe to force an over-rotation of the staff, hopefully ripping it from the cub’s paws. Instead, he was simply thrown aside before even reaching the cub. Deflected, likely, by some sort of diffuse pulse discharge.
Garot quickly rolled away and hopped back onto his hindpaws, avoiding a low swipe of the staff in the process. This new development was concerning. What other options were available? He carefully circled wide, providing his Brothers at least a small distraction as he considered the situation. Perhaps he could try the previous tactic of climbing up and over the cub’s field? No, the new pulse device would probably render that infeasible. Unless…
“Kent.” He called quietly. “Come over here, I’ve got an idea.”
Kent approached as quickly as he could without drawing attention to himself. One of the Brothers had noticed Garot’s communication and dutifully sacrificed himself to distract the cub for a few seconds. The other hastily joined Kent and Garot.
“Up and over Brothers. He’s got some sort of deflection field at half a meter distance. We’ll give Kent a boost.”
Kent nodded, positioning himself in front, keeping his ears back to hear the command. With a soft yip, all three Gaoians exploded upwards, easily catapulting the Gaoian over the cub’s head. He impacted the staff as it was spun overhead, successfully grappling it and jerking it free of the cub’s paws. He then collided with the floor on the other side of the room, bruised, but victorious.
Garot chittered happily. Another impossible obstacle overcome.
Then Ronovin shouted the worst possible command that he could. “Again!”
1y8m4d BV
Pekin’s office, Ironclaw Assembly Facility, Gao
Pekin
Pekin studied the box that had just been set in front of him. Lamphur shipyards? He expected no package from… He stopped. “No, it couldn’t be!” He extended a claw, carefully opening the package.
It was.
Pekin yipped in excitement as he pulled the cloaking engine out of the box.
He glanced around suspiciously, enabling his office’s privacy field. Then, he stood up and pawed every inch of the space within the field, searching for cloaked sapients. Finally satisfied that he was alone, he studied the device.
A few minutes careful study revealed that the device was protected against direct copying, much like the Corti’s black-box drives. But that didn’t make it useless. He performed a deep scan of the device, storing the information in a carefully hidden datacard. Even if this device was not able to be reverse engineered, perhaps it could still reveal the missing secrets of the Hunter’s cloaking engine.
That could wait until later. With this device, he could now prepare for the Carpe Aeternum’s refit. It was the least he could do. A new logistics system and now a complete scan of a cloaking engine? The few credits that had thus far been spent aiding the human were paying enormous dividends. Easily replaceable goods traded for potentially revolutionary information? If only every transaction could be so profitable.
The question did remain, however, of how much should have share with the clan. Obviously, the factory plans. That should be more than enough to justify the expenses incurred and should be a sufficient return to keep the Fathers happy. Yes, keep the cloaking device secret; for now at least.
With that decided, Pekin quickly turned to the necessary design work. He had acquired assistance from his Brothers for the hydroponics station and its associated subsystems, but if the cloaking engine was to be kept secret, he would have to work on it alone. Still, what use was a project without a good challenge? Should be fun!
1y8m4d BV
Hangar Bay 1, Fyunipper Clanhouse, Haidao
Sharon
Immediately after they had finished unpacking from the re-supply trip, Sharon dragged Darpin towards the hangar. “Did you really have to pick a fight with every Gaoian we found?”
Darpin glanced at a few of his new scars, chittering. “It was a productive trip!”
She had no idea how he managed keep himself alive. “Do you win any of the fights that you start?”
Darpin shrugged. “A few. But you don’t get better scars by winning, so I usually don’t bother.”
She smiled. “I thought so. The one Gaoian that was cleaning the electronics store. I knew that you threw that fight.”
Darpin pondered a moment. “Oh right, him, yeah. It was a pain to get any scars in that fight! He wasn’t even trying!
“You weren’t either.”
“Hey, I worked hard for those!”
Sharon started laughing. “He only clawed your face to make you go away. You know that, right?”
Darpin pant-grinned happily. “Still counts.”
Sharon shook her head and sighed, but it was impossible to keep the grin off her face.
Once they arrived in the hangar, Sharon donned Jeeves and began studying the derelict ships. She approached the largest of the ships in the hangar. “Alright Darpin, what is this vessel?”
“That’s Plunderer, one of the old clan’s salvage vessels.”
“Salvage? …Right. That’s how the clan earned its money.” A thought crossed her mind. “Darpin, if this is your salvage vessel, how has Clan Fyunipper been earning its money?”
Darpin shrugged. “I’ve just been selling some of the scrap we don’t need. There’s plenty in the storerooms to last a while.”
Sharon peered at him. “That’s not sustainable. We need that scrap to build!”
Darpin ducked sheepishly. “Seems to be working ok so far.”
“What happens when you run out of scrap?”
Darpin thought a moment. “Ok, so the clan will have to work on that.”
“What about resuming salvage operations?”
“Can’t, ship’s dead.” He waved an arm at the ship.
Sharon rolled her eyes, then made her way to the Plunderer’s bridge. After consulting her general databanks to study the ship’s function, she ignited the ship’s main reactor. The ship slowly came to life, small puffs of dust erupting from several of the air ducts. “Power and diagnostics seem functional. I can work with this.”
With a few quick handshaking routines, she became the ship. She glanced through each of the sensors, and browsed through the databanks. A few of the subsystems gave her trouble, but most of those systems could simply be replaced with little difficulty. She consulted the Clanhouse’s new inventory management archive, compiled a list, then disconnected from the ship.
After taking a moment to reorient herself, she addressed Darpin. “This ship is certainly repairable. With the scrap we have in stock, the nano-forge can construct all but one of the components that we need. To return the reactor to operational capacity, though, we’re going to need one additional component. We either need to acquire a better containment field shaper, or some Yttrium rich scrap to build one ourselves.”
Darpin tilted his head as he glanced at her.
“You didn’t know what the ship needed?”
“Well, no… I was going to ask how in Fyu’s name you figured that out so fast… but, obviously, the answer is, well… “ He gestured at Jeeves.
Sharon laughed. “It certainly helps, but don’t forget that I studied ship repair on Local Refueling Station before you arrived.”
Darpin perked an ear. “Ya know, I kinda forgot that. So, this ship is fixable?”
Sharon nodded. “We just need the parts. [Hell], the maintenance bots could even do most of the installation themselves.”
She had initially tried to avoid introducing English words into her Gaori speech, but quickly reverted that decision. It was simply infeasible to speak fluidly if she restricted her use of foreign vocabulary. After all, her introduction to Gaori had started with an emotionless vernacular.
Her own barely-present fears of cultural contamination were not shared by her Clanmate; Darpin seemed perfectly happy to mix her words into his own speech.
Focus, Sharon. There is a task at hand. She turned back to Darpin. “Let’s look at the others.”
Sharon inspected each of the ships in turn. At each vessel she stopped, scanned a few components, connected to the diagnostic system, and recorded some notes.
Eventually, with her inspections complete, Sharon joined Darpin in the center of the hangar. “OK, so, those two shuttles” She pointed to a pair of ships on the left wall. “Could be up and running today. That one, another two days. As for the pair of medium range light transports. Hmm…” She reviewed the notes in her mind. “Two and three days, respectively.”
“What about that one?” Darpin pointed to a small Hynar class vessel.
“That one is a piece of garbage. Sell it for scrap.” She studied it a moment. While it was a terrible vessel, it was still a ship. “With three hours work, it could be returned to functional condition.”
“You want to spend time to repair scrap?”
“At the cost of an hour of nano-forge time we can turn a pile of parts into a sellable ship.”
Darpin duck-nodded. “I can’t fault your logic there.” He tilted his head. “Was that your plan? Sell that ship and use the proceeds to buy the scrap we need?”
Sharon nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Darpin pant-grinned. “I know just the guy.”
1y8m4d BV
Training room, Whitecrest Clan Enclave, Wi Kao, Gao
Milt
Ronovin asked the impossible. A series of one on one fights with each of the Brothers, unarmed. The Officers shared glances of sadistic joy between them. Milt could hardly blame them; He had ‘won’ most of the previous encounters due solely to a set of rather severe handicaps. They undoubtedly eagerly anticipated retribution.
The only boon granted to him today was the promise of Ronovin’s painful and thorough retaliation against any Brother that rendered him unfit to fight the next challenger. Milt had no such requirement, but that did very little to calm his nerves. Still, he would let himself not falter.
His first opponent stood at ready, beckoning Milt to make the first move. With one final, deep breath, Milt pounced. The Brother stepped to the side, lightly pushing upwards on Milt’s hindlimb as he passed by. This slight adjustment to trajectory caused Milt to land face-first on the mats. The Brother jogged over and pinned him, ending the first match barely after it had begun.
Milt glanced uncertainly at Ronovin, who merely waved the next opponent in. Kent slowly sauntered towards him, flicking his ears tauntingly. Milt charged at him, fangs bared. He was swatted aside and soon found himself literally crushed as the Officer delicately balanced his weight across Milt’s shoulders.
Milt cried out in pain, rolling himself over in an attempt to dislodge his opponent. That bought him a temporary reprieve but, barely a second later, the match ended when Kent’s jaws closed around his neck. Kent was quickly replaced by the next opponent.
Fight after fight, defeat after defeat. For over an hour Milt was grappled, thrown, flattened and pinned. He did get a few hits in, here and there. But each wound he cut merely convinced the Brother in question to stop toying with him and end the round, violently. He did earn himself a significant number of new scars in the process but, due to Ronovin’s requirements, most of them weren’t all that impressive. In all likelihood, very few of them were even intentional, instead simply being the inevitable result of barely-restricted combat.
Regardless, his wounds eventually began to take their toll. Just as he was beginning to become lightheaded from the cumulative loss of blood, Ronovin called the end of the exercise. Milt was bruised and beaten, his will to fight depleted.
Ronovin dismissed the Brothers, approaching Milt only once they had left. He opened a medical kit as he plopped himself down next to Milt.
Ronovin chittered grimly as he began tending to his wounds. “That didn’t look like a whole lot of fun, Brother. But, I truly need your help and that was the only way to prepare properly for the next exercise.”
Milt looked up at Ronovin. “How can this possibly help me? I already know that I can’t beat them.”
“Milt. There are very few Gaoians alive outside of Stoneback that can match my special ops trainees in unarmed combat. They may be of strong will, but trust me on this; They needed this victory.”
Milt growled as he flattened his ears. “Are their egos too fragile to suffer unfair losses? They already knew the outcome of these fights as well.”
“This had to happen, Milt. I need them to underestimate you for this next exercise to work. You’ve trained hard, Milt, and you are now ready. Ready to strike fear in the hearts of your opponents. My cubs will soon find that nowhere is safe. The Gaoian that they so easily defeated,” He ruffled Milt’s crest. “Will soon show them the true meaning of fear.”
Milt tilted his head in confusion.
Ronovin chittered softly. “You’ll be dismissed from your official duties for the next few days; I’ve got someone that will cover for ya. Your only job will be to stalk and defeat my cubs as ruthlessly and mercilessly as you can. Lunch, mid-ablation, while sleeping, wherever. It does not matter. Anything that does not cause permanent harm is open to you.”
Milt pondered a moment. “Why me? Don’t you have someone better qualified? More experienced?”
Ronovin duck-nodded. “I do. But this exercise is just as much about you as it is about them. This will be your final training exercise.”
“My last one?” Milt dropped his ears. “But I’m no better than I was when we started.” Milt chittered grimly as he lowered his head. “So that must mean that you are giving up on me, then. I’m no longer worth your time.”
“No better? Cub, you’ve fought the same opponents over and over again. My Brothers, they’re smart cubs, they’re taught to learn your strategies quickly. Yet even so, your margin of victory increased over time. Now I doubt you’ll beat them in a fair fight for a very long time, but it isn’t your job to fight fair. It’s your job to win.”
Ronovin stopped and stared menacingly at Milt. “Stand up, cub.”
Milt duck-nodded and worked his way to his hindpaws, his tired limbs still sore from combat.
“Now, come get me.”
The look in Ronovin’s eyes told him that there would be no way out of this. Milt approached and swiped at Ronovin a few times. As he had before on the ship, Ronovin deftly evaded with his paws still behind his back.
“You’re not even trying. Hit me, or I’ll fight back.”
That was all the incentive Milt needed. Wincing from his injuries, he dropped down into a lopsided fourpaw stance and pounced. Ronovin deftly slipped to the left to evade, but Milt twisted himself sideways in an attempt to snare Ronovin as he fell to the mat. Ronovin pulled his paws from behind his back, successfully deflecting the grapple.
They fought for a few minutes with Ronovin deflecting all assaults with almost effortless ease, until Milt was too tired to continue. He collapsed on the mat, with Ronovin falling in beside him again.
Panting heavily through aching bones, Milt lifted his head to look at Ronovin. “I can’t do it, Brother.”
“Can’t do what? Fight for an hour then defeat a fresh opponent in an open brawl? Fyu’s balls, Milt, you really need to scale back your goals. You did well. Two months ago when you fought me, you couldn’t come close to that level of performance.” He began stretching out Milt’s sore muscles. “And that time you weren’t completely worn out before the fight began.”
Milt winced as one of the cuts on his back was torn back open. Still, the waning soreness of the muscles beneath was worth the pain. “I… honestly didn’t notice a difference.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to trust me. Now rest.”
Milt sighed as he lay his head on the mat. “Thank you for this.”
“What? For putting you back together? Milt, this ain’t entirely selfless, you are of no use to me in the infirmary.”
The sudden crack of a vertebra left Milt briefly gasping for air. Ronovin waited briefly for Milt to recover before he tackled the next one.
After one final pained whine, Milt retorted. “Still, thanks. I know you didn’t have to.”
Ronovin chittered. “Thank me later, once you are back on your feet. Now, relax, or I’ll make you relax. I can’t do this with you tensed up.”
Milt did the best he could, but he found it quite difficult to calm himself with such a brutish Gaoian abusing his musculature. If only Chuck were here to help… But he was, kinda, wasn’t he? He was the one who had all but assigned Ronovin this task. Somehow, that idea, as abstract as it was, was enough for Milt to let himself rest.
They sat in silence for several minutes as Ronovin continued working through each of his muscle groups.
Eventually, Ronovin stood and beckoned Milt to follow. He led Milt through the halls of the enclave to his office. With a quick paw swipe for authentication, Ronovin opened one of his locally stored armories. He grabbed a few unfamiliar devices before locking the armory door. “To the range, Brother.”
They entered the vacant room, the lights engaging as descended the stairs. Ronovin approached one of the tables and laid his toys down.
“When Chuck first arrived, I studied him and any human information I could find. I’ve got connections that provided me with a significant datarray of content. One particularly useful datanode contained a rather substantial quantity of video content, detailing human simulated combat. The staff that you based your toy on was modeled off of the content of one of those videos.” He picked up what appeared to be a modified pulse pistol. “This is based on another. Aside from a few test fires, you are the first Brother to use it.” He handed the device to Milt.
Milt turned it over in his hand. It looked very much like a standard pulse pistol with a tubular container bolted to the top. A small pipe was connected to the bottom of the container, extending a forelimb length along the pistol’s direction of fire.
“Humans call this a paint-ball gun.” Ronovin gestured downrange. “Go ahead a fire a few rounds.”
Milt took aim and fired. He was so startled by the recoil that he didn’t even notice the weapon’s effect until he lined up his next shot. A small, unevenly distributed green blotch had appeared on the target downrange. He fired off a few more quick pulses, peppering the target in more bright green splotches.
Ronovin chittered. “I think my cubs will love being the target of that, don’t you agree?”
Milt stared at the pistol. “Are you sure it’s safe? If this is a human device…”
Ronovin shrugged. “Let’s find out.” He walked down range and spread his paws wide. “Hit me in the chest.”
Milt lifted the pistol, took aim, then lowered it again. “I can’t.”
“Milt, I trust the Brother that built this. He says this device uses thinner walled ammunition and lower velocities than its human equivalents and assured me that it is quite non-lethal. Either you shoot me, or I’m going to shoot you.”
Reluctantly, Milt raised the pistol and fired.
Ronovin yelped and staggered slightly for a second or two before wincing and returning to the table. He pant-grinned malevolently. “Perfect.”
Milt pawed at the impact site. “That will take forever to clean off.”
“Not my problem. Or yours. This is why I let them have their fun today. Today they had a chance to reinforce their understanding of who you are and how you fight. If they allow themselves to be bested by you…” He shrugged with a flick of an ear. “After all, you shouldn’t even be a challenge to them. Speaking of, you also get to use this. Ya know, to keep things interesting.” He handed Milt a cloak that looked to be made of nothing. “Go on, try it out.”
Milt grabbed the cloak and draped it over his shoulders. Everything below his neck was rendered nearly invisible.
Ronovin chittered. “I’ll give you a few days to get your own equipment sorted before we start. You’ll have three days to do whatever you want to the cubs. Don’t be nice.” He thought for a moment. “On second thought, why don’t you limit your attacks to no more than once an hour or so. I don’t want you to wear yourself out too quickly.”
Milt looked down at his invisible body, then at the pistol. “Any time? This can’t possibly be fair.”
“Fair ain’t your job. Don’t limit yourself either. Pull out the stunstick or one of your other toys a few times, have some fun with it.”
“Fun? This… this is torture!”
Ronovin moved close, all joviality gone. “Yes. It is essential that they are challenged and thoroughly and repeatedly. For if they don’t suffer here, they will suffer at the hands of our enemies. This is an important task I am entrusting you with, and it is possible that I may have to dismiss you from it if you do not do well enough. But I do not believe that you will fail. Hit them hard, hit them fast, hit them unseen. It is the only path to success. Now go, prepare and rest.”
With that, Ronovin dismissed him, handing him a spare sack of ammunition as he left.
1y8m3d BV
Ablution chamber, Whitecrest Clan Enclave, Wi Kao, Gao
Kent
Stay in the enclave. Wear a tracking beacon. Don’t hide or resist. Endure. Those were the instructions. It hadn’t taken long to figure out what was meant by ‘endure’. Only minutes after the start of the three day exercise, each of the four Brothers had felt the bite of the stunstick. Kent had seen the stick as it drifted gracefully through the air, tapping each Brother in sequence, but the implications of its presence took just slightly too long to register. That is, until he was struck by it. The shock was nearly as bad as the one he had felt trying to free Garot on the first day that it had made its appearance! Whoever was on the other end of it wasn’t holding back their claws.
That was three hours ago. Since then, each Brother had been ambushed a few more times. Kent had initially tried to ignore the ‘don’t hide’ part of the exercise. Ronovin quickly found him and choked him nearly lifeless before shocking him a few times for good measure. None of the other Brothers dared trying to hide.
Kent glanced around cautiously as he approached the ablution chamber. He entered the room, locking the door behind him. He then fully explored the room, making sure that no invisible operatives lurked in the corners.
Satisfied that he was alone, he began his business. The stalker, of course, chose that moment to strike. From the impact he felt, that must have been the damn stunstick again, likely swung from above. He forgot to check the void-damned ceiling!
Kent sat down at a bench in one of the cafeterias with his Brothers. With each of them keeping a careful eye, this was about as safe as they were ever going to be.
There was no warning, nothing at all to foreshadow what was to come. Out of nowhere, the two Brothers across the table flew towards the left, seemingly impacted by something fast and heavy. Glancing over to the fallen Brothers, he noticed his own vulnerability to a second pass, and leapt out of the way. He felt a painful impact on shoulder. The Brother next to him took off running down the hall. He wasn’t fast enough. With a pop, a bright green ball flew through the air, bursting as it struck the Gaoian, spreading a thick paste across his back. Kent glanced at his shoulder, noticing that he, too had some cleaning up to do.
The stalker seemed to have his own set of rules. Almost to the minute, each attack was one hour after the previous assault. This surprising regularity made the whole event rather easier to endure. All he had to do was find himself a nice, comfortable position to sit and wait for the inevitable on the top of each hour. The stalker had only once failed to make an appearance at the chosen interval. This exercise was never going to be pleasant, but with it at least being predictable, he found ‘enduring’ to not be as torturous as he imagined.
Kent was walking through the halls when he caught the scent of a nearby Gaoian. As a quick glance around yielded no plausible source; It seemed rather likely that an invisible Gaoian was near. Surely he could outrun the stalker, right?
He was preparing to sprint off down the halls, when he stopped. While running was not explicitly stated in the original rules of the exercise, Ronovin may not necessarily see it that way and crush him anyways, just for fun. As the instructor, he set and interpreted the rules; It would be best not to upset him.
So Kent stopped and turned around. He glanced around the room. “Well, are you gonna do something?” He heard someone sucking in a quick breath behind him. Kent jerked around to face the stalker just as an impact from above drove him to the ground.
Reflexively, Kent grappled the Gaoian as it tried to roll away. He dragged the assailant in, hearing its claws scraping against the floor, failing to gain purchase. Its yelp of fear broke Kent’s trance. He immediately let go, suddenly recalling the rules of engagement. The stalker scurried away, the sound of frantic clawed scampering tracing his path up the wall and across the ceiling as he escaped.
Fyu’s balls, he really shouldn’t have done that. Kent stood very still for a moment, almost expecting Ronovin to pound him right where he stood. Quickly realizing the futility of waiting for such an attack, Kent retreated to his nest-room. He had just been attacked, and thus was probably safe for an hour. He collapsed immediately into his nest to try and get as much sleep as he could before the inevitable assault coming in an hour’s time.
Unfortunately, he failed to notice the stick-n-sleep patch that had been carefully placed in anticipation of his arrival. He awoke several hours later to another one of those Keeda damned green balls hitting his flank. He sat up, feeling something running down his side. There were seven separate splotches, one for each hour he had been asleep. With a rather impressive string of profanity, he worked his way to the ablution chamber. He was thankful, at least, that he would probably again be safe for the next hour or so.
1y8m2d BV
Hangar Bay 1, Fyunipper Clanhouse, Haidao
Darpin
Darpin had watched with fascination as Sharon moved from ship to ship, fixing one system here, another there. Each time she left one ship to travel to another, a drone arrived to fix or rebuild something; Sharon wasted no time on the tasks that the drones could handle. Everything she did was precise, necessary and thorough. No wasted effort and no system left unmaintained. Fyu’s balls, it would have taken him at least ten times as long to perform these repairs, even with those drones!
But still, she had been spending too much of her time on these ships these last few days. No sapient could keep up such an effort forever, she needed a break.
As Darpin entered the hangar, he quickly found Sharon standing in the engine bay of the Hynar vessel, surrounded by disassembled components.
Darpin approached the human and tugged on her garments to draw her attention. Sharon set aside a conduit and turned to face him.
“Sister, you need to take a break.”
She turned and studied the mess in front of her. “This should only take a few more hours.”
Darpin grabbed her wrist and tried, futilely of course, to drag her out of the ship. “Come on. I’ve got something I want to show you.”
Sharon shrugged and removed her neural iterator. After a few seconds standing still with her eyes closed -her normal reaction when disengaging the device- she stepped out of the ship. “What’s up?”
Darpin had long since learned to interpret those two words as a request to continue whatever he was doing, so he did. “As Clanfather of clan Fyunipper I have have made the decision to assign my Clansister a vessel.”
Sharon looked confused. “You are giving me a ship?”
Darpin shook his head. “No, no, I don’t think it’s a good idea to give away clan property. The clan is granting you use of the ship. Similar, but different.” Seeing no readable reaction, he continued. “You’ll be free to modify it to better suit your needs, at the clan’s expense.”
Sharon thought for a moment. “That would be nice…” She glanced at him wide-eyed. “I could put a [shower] in it!” That English word had no Gaori equivalent.
Darpin chittered. “Yes you could. Now, normally, the clan would prepare the ship for you, but as you are the one best suited for the task…”
“…I’ll be doing it myself.”
Darpin duck-nodded. “Yes.”
Sharon scanned the room, “Which one?”
“Uh… One of those maybe?” He raised a paw towards the medium range transports.
“That one?”
Darpin shook his head and pointed to another ship. “No, I want to keep that one for myself, you can use the other one.”
Sharon shrugged. “Well okay, I didn’t want to take the nicer-looking one.”
Darpin growled softly. “I’m keeping the one with better scars for myself.”
Sharon broke into a hearty chuckle.
Darpin wasn’t quite sure what she found so funny, but he was happy that his Sister was smiling again. “I’ve got one more thing for you, come.” He led her to the galley.
Once she was seated, he pulled a pair of stasis boxes from the pantry and set one in front of each of them. He then poured each of them a small glass of talamay. In the evenings Sharon would drink more, but for mid-day meals, she preferred smaller glasses. He wasn’t quite sure why. “I really hope you enjoy this. I spent a lot of money to get this ready for you.”
They opened their boxes. Inside each sat a human meal. Well, kinda. “The guy at the trade station said this was pretty close to real Earth food. I hope you like it!” In each tray sat a seasoned ‘Italian’ naxas sandwich on flatbread with Corti cheese, a small cup of thin gravy, and some square-cut, oil-fried Guvnurag tubers with a Rhwk sauce.
Sharon smiled as she stood up and walked over to Darpin. She reached her forelimbs around his chest and squeezed. “Thank you, Daar.” She stepped back and reclaimed her seat.
Oh… ok? He sat still for a moment as he waited for his heart to calm down a bit. This wasn’t the first time that Sharon had attacked him in this manner. Confusingly, she only seemed to do this whenever he helped her out. Maybe this was how humans show thanks? Well, she is a Deathworlder; A constriction like that was probably barely a nip to her. He softly chittered. “You deserve the best, Sister.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Her face softened. “But thank you.”
After they finished their meal, Sharon returned to the hangar to resume her rebuild. Darpin watched her as she departed. She seemed to enjoy the meal. Money well spent, probably.
Anyways, with lunch complete, he pulled out another of his purchases and plugged it into his datapad. He laid back and browsed through a translated copy of a human travel guide from a place called ‘Orlando’. Why not take a look at what he had gotten himself into?