“Hold still.”
“I’m trying, mistress,”
“Just need to make one more tweak to your photorecptor…”
“No! I need that,”
“For more spying on the pool deck?”
“Yes-no, I mean, the observation data is key-”
“Mhm…data…”
Sparks trickled as a hydrospanner worked deftly against the circuitry of a reprogrammed ID-9 Seeker droid. Once used as a “Skitter”, Scooter found new life thanks to Zig repairing him after he met a gnarly end from someone on the crews blaster. While Scooters memory was foggy of who he was before, he still retained a desire to observe and record things.
So today, Scooter was being given a full job aboard the ship: camera operator.
Minstral-class Yacht Voidbreaker II Port Ol'val: Docks 40 ABY
The aft lift doors opened and out stepped a towering Barabel, being prodded in the back by a much smaller Zygerrian, followed by a floating droid with a camera.
To the right was the Armory & Workshop, which was dormant at the moment.
“Straight ahead big guy. Just keep walking, and looking…tough and stuff. We’re going to get a shot from over your shoulder as you walk towards the Dojo.” Zig attempted to direct the action.
Zig pointed past the Mess Hall, which was across from the medbay. Druzk obviously knew the way, but still seemed to regard the First Mate of the ship skeptically.
Looking tough and stuff. Easy enough. This whole thing was stupid anyway, so it was easy to show how nonplussed he was about this whole idea.
Druzk rolled his eyes as he stepped towards the dojo as directed. His hands were fists and each heavy step he made purposeful.
“This is stupid,” he snorted. “What do you want me to do next? Undress and start punching at the air?”
Zig’s face lit up. “Oh my god, would you!?” She then quickly realized that he was likely being sarcastic.
“I mean uh, no, just you know, this is good b-roll…”
Sagitta was at the dojo, working on some falls and rolls. She did a flip and landed on her back, the Mirialan was wanting to work on her focus of tightening her core in case someone throws her to the ground.
‘Undress and start punching at the air?’
The Mirialan could not help herself. “Well, I do train in the nude sometimes but not today.” With a bright smile, she rolled onto her belly and blinked. Oh hey! Two people she hasn’t met yet! Pushed herself up from the floor, “HI! I just joined the Voidbreakers not too long ago. I haven’t got around to meeting everyone yet! I already met Doon long ago, and then Cole. Zuza too! Though she was part of my training and I didn’t know that Zuza comes here often. Apparently, she has some chick here, her name was Zig, I think.”
She took a breath, “Didn’t you mention punching the air? I would love to spar if you rather have a moving target! The punching bag can only get so dull and boring. In fact, let me tell you about the time when I thought punching bag was all the training I needed until Buir - that’s my father by the way - got my sister and me to spar, and boy that was a whole other story! You see, she’s a three-foot nothing, actually, two-foot nothing at the time, she was really hard to fight! So point was, Buir taught us that sparring was the best way to go to learn strengths and weaknesses. Where was I, why did I talk about this - OH! Punching the air! What you got?” She grinned from cheek to cheek.
Zig felt her cheeks flush at the mention of Zuza. “I uh…hello yes, I’m Zig. Zuza told me…about you joining. Just hadn’t had…a chance to come say hi.”
Zigs eyes were clearly distracted by the Mirilan’s training..attire. It was a mix of admiration, but also, in the back of her mind a question of can she do more situps than me!?.
“Sagitta, this here is Druzk, one of our Security Officers. He’s actually helping me out with a video we’re making for the Voidbreaker. Would you be interested in being a part of it?”
Druzk’s eyes seemed to glaze over as the newcomer spoke. Did she always talk this much?!
The challenge, though. That piqued his interest… among other things. He pulled off his jacket and tossed it over Zig’s head. Undoing his shirt was next.
“You think you can take me? Really?”
“OH WOW, YOU ARE ZIG?!” She exclaimed while going for a hug and squeezed Zig in. “Hi! It’s so nice to finally meet you!” Then she noticed the droid as she tilted her head. “Security officer huh? Must be pretty good at hiding! Haven’t seen you around yet! A video? For the Voidbreaker!? Yes! Of course! I would love to help! I will abso-” She stopped when the jacket distracted her by going over Zig’s head.
What the-
Her head turned as she felt her cheeks become hot. Her eyebrow rose.
Then a mischievous smirk. Her pink hues glanced up towards him before slightly bending her back leg and she was ready to move. “Let’s go, scales.”
Zig felt her cheeks flush scarlet, even against her auburn skin. “Y-yep, nice to meet you as well…”
She blinked a few times and waited for the heat that had crept up to her neck to pass away. Pull it together, you have been hugged by tall atheltic girls before.
“Well, I guess this would be a good way to get some footage of the facilities…” she looked between Druzk and Sagitta.
Druzk swiveled his head to glance over at Zig.
“Yeah. And you got your wish. Lucky you.”
Attention back to the Mirilan, he smirked right back as he readied himself. “I’ll even be nice and let you start. Make your move.”
For a moment, the Mirialan was caught off guard. It’s her that was getting used to taking hits and not throwing the first punch. “Suit yourself!” Sagitta attempted to grab Druzk’s wrist and if successful, her hand would yank him forward as she attempt to knee him right above his belly button.
Druzk allowed it all to happen. Surely, she wasn’t strong enough to…
The Barabel grunted as her knee contacted his stomach. Okay, maybe this would not be so easy after all.
Good. A challenge.
He said nothing as he swung his fist towards her jaw.
Sagitta’s head went back to dodge the punch. Her hand was still on his wrist so she stepped forward, her body twisted, and the next thing Druzk would know that her back was up against his chest. In one fluid motion, she attempted to send the weapons specialist down onto the mat.
And just like that, someway, somehow, the smaller woman flipped the larger, heavier Druzk on his back.
The Barabel laughed in amusement.
“That’s one way to get me on my back,” he quipped. “You move quick.”
Zig blinked a few times. “You’re getting this right?” she spoke sidelong to Scooter, not taking her eyes off the fight- well not really taking her eyes off Sagitta.
Wow, she felt her pulse quicken but then focused.
“Make sure you patch the video feed to my datapad…”
Sagitta smirked though she doesn’t let go of his wrist. Her leg went forward as her foot was by his armpit. Her sister was known to play dead and faked it to get Sagitta’s ass kicked. Buir encouraged it because it would teach Sagitta to stop falling for those tricks.
“So, are you saying that I can take you?” She questioned. “And if you wanted to be on your back, all you had to do was to ask,” Sagitta purred forgetting about them being filmed.
Until-
‘….the video feed to my datapad…’
Sagitta’s cheeks got warm as she cleared her throat.
Zig glanced over her datapad, her fingers blurring as she tapped some settings. “Ooo…got it in slow motion too. Good work, Scooter,” she murmered to herself.
This was going well.
Druzk’s eyes narrowed as he pondered over the thought. “Bunk 609. Tonight.”
He turned his head to glance over at Zig.
“Turn that karkin’ thing off before I do it myself.”
Sagitta removed her leg and released his wrist, “See you tonight, big boy.”
Then she laughed softly and shook her head. Her hand went out to him for him to grab to get back on his feet. “No, let’s help her finish with this video. For what again?” Sagitta had completely forgotten why they were doing a video. And what it was for.
“After all friends help each other!” She beamed, finally! She was getting around to meeting more people on the Voidbreaker II. She was doing all she can to contain her excitement.
“I edited that part out, don’t worry.” Zig explained. “I have enough paperwork to do with inter-ship relationships. Ruka is just interested in ‘operational efficiency ’ or something like that.”
There was a quiet rumble within Druzk’s chest as his sparring partner accepted his invitation. When he was back up to his feet, he dusted himself off.
“I will have your head if I see that on the vid.”
“Sir yes sir,” Zig offered a salute.
Suddenly, the faint sound of the ventilation kicked in around the training hall.
A creak from above, as a flap opened up in one of the ducts and an insectoid head popped out.
“Hi Zig, Druzk and…” They paused a moment, contemplating whether they should say the third name. “Sagitta.”
Quickly ducking their head back in the vent, some legs popped out moments later, and an entire verpine slid out of the vents and awkwardly landed by the group with a light thud.
Standing straight, Mex brushed themselves off. As they approached the group, their hands fidgeted amongst themselves as they began to initiate dialogue. “Hi, I am Mex. It is cold in the vents. I was listening to you while removing hair from the filters - It was difficult to do otherwise with the fans off. You are filming Druzk being laid to sleep by Sagitta? Is this to assist the crew in effective sleep cycle management? Do you require assistance in the matter?” As they spoke, they snapped where their head was facing to the individuals in the group in an attempt to fulfil social norm quota - rhythmically providing uncomfortable amounts of eye contact one-by-one.
I could have sworn they cleaned the filters a day or two ago…
Zig didn’t seem to be nonplussed at the lanky Verpine dropping in. She did seem impressed by how much more talkative they had become, which gave her warm fuzzies inside.
“Hi Mex. Sure, that’s definitely one way to interpret things based on the observational data,” Zig replied easily.
“Scooter here is getting footage of the Voidbreaker II to help with a promotional video to show off the ship and why we need our funding. I was saving engineering for later, but I’d love your assistance.”
She gestured over at Druzk and Sagitta. “Assuming the two of them want to continue, or we can look at some of the ships other amenities.”
“Wah!” Sagitta yelped and hopped back in surprise. She was expecting a white ball of fur to drop down but it was another species entirely.
Her head rose as she was stunned and shocked to say anything but her face went muddy red when she realized what they were saying.
“It’s not sleep - well I don’t know if he wants to cuddle afterwards - but it’s not sleep we’re talking about. It’s um -“ She stopped. This was the first time someone didn’t get what they were saying and she did not know what to do with that.
Zig stepped in quickly to explain the video. The color slowly faded from her face. Oh! Right! More funding for the ship!
Sagitta smiled and nodded, “I’m ready! Mex? Nice to meet you! You would love my sister, she has the tendency to hide into the vents. Sometimes to attack us, other times just to be her chaotic self.”
Well, seeing Mex drop out from the vents wasn’t an expect sight. Druzk didn’t seem outwardly startled by the bug’s sudden appearance. As he dressed himself once more, he laughed at Mex’s social ineptitude and Sagitta’s apparent embarrassment in response to it.
What an odd emotion to have.
“Let’s get moving to something else.”
In a startled twitch at Sagitta’s own surprised cry, Mex quickly snapped back to Zig as she explained the situation, then to Sagitta’s introduction.
Responding first to Sagitta, Mex attempted to clarify. “Hi Sagitta. I am fortunate to meet you. Your sister sounds scary. I am only in the vents to fix things. It is easier to go to the source of the problem. I will try not to attack you from the vents… Or behave chaotically.” They raised their hand for a handshake, but awkwardly took it back as if unsure if it was the correct action to take. Bringing their hand to their tool belt to uselessly open and close a pouch in a nervous response.
The verpine’s attention soon found itself back to Zig, antennae moving erratically as they processed how to receive funding. With a slight tilt of their head but a moment later, it seemed as though they had come to an idea. “Hi Zig, Yes. I will provide assistance. I am not certain what to demonstrate to showcase why we need funds… Unless something is broken. Should we break the ship to provide evidence? We could target a variety of areas to accomplish the goal. Hi Druzk, you are capable of destruction. Would you like to be a tool for aquiring funding?”
Druzk stared blankly at Mex.
“Mex… as much as I’d love to do that… I have a better idea. All we have to do is make things look broken. We ask for funds to ‘repair’ and then… boom. Free creds.”
Zig blinked a few times. “That’s…one way to do it, yes. But I should note that it’s more so we get more funding, or upgrades. However…fixing things is something we are very good at.”
She tapped her chin. “How about you try and ‘break’ some of the workout equipment, Druzk. And then Mex can fix it and we’ll record it?”
Zig lead the way, scooter the droid following, as she stepped past the pool and into the gym.
The gym had a bunch of fancy equipment, but also had the standard fair. She had Scooter take some movement shots for B-roll. Then looked around to find the “complex” resistance/multi function machine.
“How about this one?” she asked Druzk.
The Barabel cracked his knuckles and tilted his neck from side-to-side.
“Easy.”
Jacket off once more with no regard to who he threw it to behind him, Druzk approached the machine and set the weights to an appropriate setting for himself. As he sat on the bench and pulled at the pulleys, one of them snapped, causing the weight to crash to the floor.
He looked unamused.
“Piece of shit.”
When Druzk threw the jacket, Mex attempted to catch it, fumbling it out of the air as the barabel got into position to use the equipment. The crash from the machine moments later caused the verpine to quickly drop the jacket in panic.
“Hi Druzk! You broke the machine!” They cried out almost in instinctual distress even though it was their objective. “I will fix it. Thankfully it is not a piece of faeces, I do not think I could fix it then.” Crouching down next to the line that snapped, the bug quickly got to work looking it up and down analysing the problem.
Grabbing the snapped line, they uncoupled the line and pulled out a tube of some kind of epoxy from their engineering pack. Working quickly, they placed some of the tube’s contents on the line and attached the break back into a single piece. Putting the tube away, they swapped to what looked kind of like a blacklight, quickly running it over the repaired portion of the line as it seemed to harden and take hold.
With a quick tug on the line, Mex re-attached it to the mechanism. “Hi Druzk, your pulley has been rectified. You may tug your weight rod with enthusiasm. A new line will be required in the future. Oh! Hi Zig! That could be one of the requirements for funding. I am fortunate that we actually broke the machine. I do not think I could pretend to fix a pretend broken machine.”
Zig tapped away at her datapad, and had to compose herself not to snort, and instead just smiled. “Excellent work, Mex. You and Druzk make quite the team.”
She took the footage and selectively edited it to be a ‘before’ and ‘after’ of the machine broken. She insert a shot of Mex’s deft verpine heroics to save the machine.
“And so it shall be said: leg day never has to be skipped!” she beamed.
Sagitta gave Mex a blank look. Wait. She had never seen someone so…. what was even Mex!? “I-” She stopped. She wanted to explain Asani a bit better but poor Mex was already so confused and Sagitta didn’t want to make a new friend confused!
No matter! They were onto new things! They started to plot and plan. Break and fix things to get more budget. Her eyes looked around the ship. It seemed to be in tip-top shape, why was Zig so determined to get the funds?
The Mirialan realized they had all left her behind. She had gotten distracted for far too long. “HEY!” She yelped and ran after them to be there just in time to see Druzk take off his jacket. Again.
Her eyebrow rose when poor Mex dropped the jacket in panic. “If you’re going to fling the jacket every time you do something basic, why wear it?” Her lips formed into a smirk but she picked up his jacket and held onto it for now.
When Zig commented that leg day never has to be skipped, Sagitta gave her two thumbs up. To be real, Sagitta doesn’t go to the gym. She must prefer to be able to go to one of the planets in the system, that’s safe, and use the outdoors. “Are we going to break another one?” Sagitta wondered if they were going to aim to break every single machine in this room.
“I think we’re good on that front,” Zig said, tapping her chin and thinking. We could go and check out the Mess Hall, or the lockerooms, which are unisex…Ruka would probably appreciate that…“
Zig’s datapad pinged. Then it pinged again. Then another ping. Just the latest in an ongoing tide of messages about one thing or another. All from the same person. All simply unfinished thoughts, queries, and weird tech banter cut off by the encroaching of the next thought. Of course, busy as she was, Zig saw the heard, maybe even saw the messages but was yet to send a response. So it was that Carr finally came stomping into the room, already violently entering the following string of thoughts that flew from his brain to his screen, a look of intense focus on his muzzle and showing in the slant of his ears.
PING.
The next message was sent and received with Carr stopping directly in front of the Zygerian. He started typing the next one, even as he looked up. “Don’t you ever respond?!”
PING.
Carr glanced around, grey eyes catching sight of Mex, of Druzk, and… hmm?
“Oh hai!” He grinned, “I’m Carr, Zig’s number one pupil. You are…?” he introduced himself to Sagitta.
Carr was as dishevelled as always, even in his nice school uniform. His head fur was everywhere, his tail in disarray, and those nice slacks looked to be in dire need of ironing. His droid hung out on his right shoulder, chirping and beeping something to the Shistavanen. Carr frowned then snorted, “No you. I am being perfectly polite. Oh yea!” finished the latest text and again Zig’s datapad pings. “Forgot to hit send on that one.”
Zig’s Envoy glasses did indeed show a little “unread” counter in the corner of the augmented HUD that displayed on the lenses. Usually it only got to be that high when Carr needed something.
So when he walked right up to her, she just folded her arms across her chest and looked down at the young Shistavanen and quirked an eyebrow.
“I respond when I’m not in the middle of suuper important project work, as you know,” Zig gestured to Scooter, the floating seeker-droid. “We’re working on that video I mentioned to you, you got super excited about, then promptly forgot about because when I tried to collect you earlier you were slumped over your terminal.”
She smiled at Sagitta. “This is Carr.”
Sagitta smirked when the locker rooms are unisex but heard a familiar name. She heard it so many times. “Ruka! I never still got to meet him.” Sagitta sighed. Course, it didn’t help that she spent most of her days running around and doing missions as well as training.
Maybe she should slow down.
Nah.
Meeting others can wait.
Sagitta heard the rapid pinging noises as she turned to see what it was. Just like that, motherly instincts kicked in and Sagitta had to refrain from telling him to go wash up. His clothes needed some ironing. And his fur needed some brushing.
This was not her child to take care of.
Her hands clenched into fists. She smiled and leaned down, her hands on her knees. “I’m Sagitta! It’s very nice to meet you, Carr!” She held out her hand for his paw to take. “Oh, I love your droid! What does it mainly do?” She curiously asked.
The teen eyed the hand for a moment before taking it with a wife grin that was all troublemaker. “The pleasure is all mine! Welcome to the Voudbreaker II! 53rv0 here is my partner in crime.”
The Droid chirps and whistles.
“I meant what I said, 53rv0, just because it is fun does not make it not wrong. The wrong just makes it more fun,” he argues.
“53rv0 and I are just visiting, no Zig, not skipping class,” He states before she can interject. “I finished all my projects and course work for the next couple months so I could… well… be near.” Theu were worried about Mune, but was not good at voicing it so much. “Anyway. A video! I remember that! How can I help!?”
“So, we got creative with making something for Mex to fix, but perhaps we could do something showing off the anti spying technology we have in the locker rooms. I showed you how the dampeners work, right? And how to monitor the dashboard remotely for pulse-checks?”
Zig glanced at Scooter as she noticed the former Skitter-droid starting to leer towards the lockerooms. “Oi, camera-tin can, focus!”
“The only ‘anti-spying technology’ we need is a blaster bolt to the back of the skull,” Druzk grunted as he walked over to pull his jacket from Sagitta’s grasp. “I’d be happy to work on a wall of death.”
“You going to stand guard here twenty-four seven, big guy?” Zig asked. “Skitters are clever. Some can even cloak. So, we’ve had to reverse engineer some things but have been able to render them more or less useless.”
“If you pay me enough.”
Sagitta smiled at Carr as she nodded. “It’s nice to meet you Five-three-R-Vee-Zero!”
Her eyebrow rose as she couldn’t help but to squint at him and wondered if he really did finish his homework.
THen the mention of the anti-spying cameras in the lockroom caused Sagitta to cough once before clearing her throat. Her eyes glanced down at the kid. Was he too young to even think about that!?
Course it didn’t occur to her that the kid may think nothing of it cause… a kid vs an adult’s mind.
Sagitta handed over Druzk’s jacket as her eyebrow rose. “Scared to show a bit of you to others?” She smirked, “Didn’t have that pegged for you. You’re constantly taking off jackets.”
‘If you pay me enough’
Sagitta could not help herself as she busted out laughing.
Because, he wasn’t wrong.
The Barabel glared at Sagitta, unsure why she was laughing. “Me, afraid of showing off? Kark no. Doesn’t mean everyone else wants to do the same with themselves, especially when they don’t know they’re being watched.”
A snort and a smirk.
“Besides—”
He cut himself off quickly as he internally reminded himself that Carr joined their group. “Nevermind.”
Carr distractedly moved towards the locker rooms. “The Voidbreaker II has a rocking security network! I play around in it all the time!”
The Shistavanen was already tapping away at his datapad, supposedly accessing said security network. 53rv0 chirped and beeped at him, making Carr’s ears twitch about. He just snorted then snickered and shook his head. Silly adults and their wierd conversations. The teen hummed as he tapped, the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his muzzle. Tail wagging.
“Though never actually played with this section before,” he muttered as he and the others entered the locker room.
That was when the lights flashed brightly, nearly dazzling the group before going out altogether. The mag locks on all the lockers released and swung open. Showers turned on all at once, sensors tripped by the malfunction. Carr’s face was illuminated by his datapad, a frown on his face.
“Huh, you were right 53rv0. Totally the wrong string of code.” Carr blinked, “Oh, don’t let the doors close…” As the last of them entered, the door swished close and immediately locked.
“Oh. My bad.”
Zig sighed.
Sagitta gave Druzk a warm smile. So he respects others. That was good. Every single VBII member she had met had been amazing in their own way and it just made her feel at ease being here. She gave him a nod to show tha she understood where he’s coming from and agreed.
Then a snort and a smirk, her eyebrow rose when he added never mind when he cut himself off. She assumed it was because of Carr.
Sagitta grimaced at the sudden flashing of the lights, everything opening and the showers turning on. Sagitta had to fight the urge to comment about the showers.
‘There’s a child present.’ She reminded herself.
Oddly, being in a room with her crewmates and a child, she found herself closer to Carr. Very protective.
“It’s okay. I’m sure we can get out without making a hole in the wall… right?”
The Zygerrian’s slender fingers started to dart and pinch and zip across her Performance Datapad.
“Lights,” she said absently. The lights came back on. She was able to stop the lockeroom from malfunctioning, but whatever reset of the DNS Carr had reset mean that the mechanics in the door were just going to be a matter of…time.
“This is fine.”
Mex was unfamiliar as to the rules of dealing with larva, so they remained silently present with the group for the time being. They perked up with the notion of cyber security, and remained attentive with the group. The verpine seemed focused on 53rv0 during interim, and beeped back at the droid in communication with it, attempting to introduce itself like a droid. ||“Hi, I am Mex.”||
Finding themselves within the locker room, something the larva did tripped seemed to reset the doors and mess with everything in the room. Reaching into their bag, they withdrew their own datapad. “Hi Zig, would you like me to assist? I am capable of attempting to override the reset. Is this part of the plan to acquire funding?”
“Yeah, for some reason I can’t remotely reset the DNS server, so we have to wait for it. Otherwise we have to cut through the door or…we can phone a friend.”
Zig tried to think of who was around.
Fidgeting with their datapad, they looked around in anticipation…
Nothing.
They looked back down to the datapad, and tapped again with fervour.
Looking around. “Hi Zig. I believe I failed to rectify the issue. I tried turning it off and on remotely. The room does not like me.”
Sagitta sighed as she scratched her cheek. “Well. Um. I can use my light saber and make a hole in the door?” She suggested towards the group.
“Hi Sagitta, I can fix the door after. Maybe it will encourage funding?”
“Me too buddy.”
She nodded towards Sagitta. “If you want. It will be quicker than my welding tool I carry. It’s meant for patching small holes, not a hole.”
“Wait, I have an idea…”
53rv0 chirped and beeped in return to Mex, greeting the Verpine in delight, happy to meet them too! Carr chuckled and gave the droid a pat before eyeing the door. “Huh… apparently… the door’s echani is stronger?” he commented, regarding the Verpine and the Zygerrian with an impish grin. “Door… three, sentients, zilch?”
Zig narrowed her eyes at the youth, all while typing out a message, and setting it to open-as-text-to-voice.
“` Hey Sull? It’s Zig. We got locked in the Lockerroom. I tried to fix it with computers, but can’t. Would prefer not to break the door down, but would you be able to try and open it from the outside for us?
Please and thank you. ”`
Sulith, on duty on Deck 4 that day, suddenly piped up to attention out of a standing daydream when his datapad sounded off. For a moment, he squinted at the words, casually hoping it could wait for a few minutes while he worked through the writing, when the mechanized voice Zig had turned on suddenly spooked him back a few inches with her unexpected reading.
They were stuck in the locker room down the hall. “Oh. Huh.” He turned that way and began walking.
From the entrance to the training hall, Sully turned right and knocked on the door. “Hello?”
“Sully, hey!” Zig called out. “We’re locked in from the inside, but there should be a way to open it–”
“Should be?” he replied, looking down at the door. His head tilted, and he dug through his pockets to dig out and try his access card on the door.
The access card reader light is not lit.
“Ah. It’s not. Okay, stand back!” Sully called through the doorway. The power hammer was drawn and connected from his back and drawn back for a swing.
‘Cover the ears!’
“Cover your ears!” Sagitta warned as she quickly covered hers.
Even before the shouted warning, Carr slowly stepped back and put his hands over his ears. How exciting things have gotten, he cannot help but think. Poor door, he also thought.
The doors magnetic, strong latches buckled under the might of Sully's hammer. The durable door swung inward and open.
The whole deck reverberated on impact as Sully’s power hammer ignited its repulsors and blew the door off its locks. Sully smiled proudly and planted the hammer’s head at his feet, leaning on the lengthy hilt. “There we go!”
“Hi Sully. You broke the door.” Mex shyly commented with a small wave.
Removing his hands from his ears, he grinned up at the vast Togorian. “Thanks for the save! Awesome hammer!”
Sully shrugged. “It was already broke, wasn’t it?”
Wait. Some of these people were new. Maybe. It was hard to remember, sometimes. “Oh yeah, sure! Thanks, little fella. What’s your name?”
Sagitta’s jaw dropped. “Oh woooooow! That was so awesome! I have to see that again!” She ran up to him, “Hi there, my name is Sagitta! I’m a new crew here! Thank you for helping us out!”
Carr grinned; they had yet to officially meet. “Carr Cinteroph, Mune’s younger brother,” he offered. Were all Togorian’s massive?
This Sagitta lady and Carr kid was easier to see up close, now that they were under the ends of his ungroomed mane fallen over his eyes. Sully blew upward to unblock his vision a bit, briefly unveiling the furless scarring over half his face, though the hair just fell right back down where it was.
“Yeah, sure thing! It’s a, uh…” Sully’s grin dropped as he looked down at the hammer. He hefted it back into his hands. “…You know, it’s been so many years, I forgot the mark, but it’s a power hammer! You’re supposed to use them for pounding rivets the size of an ewok clean through several inches of durasteel, but…” He shrugged. “Has a lot of other uses, too. Like opening doors!” Sully cheerily pointed his mechanical left arm to the damaged doorway.
Zig smiled at Sully, and then went to check on the door. Sure enough, the magnetic hinges clicked to life, and started to respond to her datapad.
If we had waited another 30 seconds…oh well.
“Hey Mex, can you help me get this back into alignment with the maglock?”
Since no one had told him to stop, Scotter the seeker-droid continued to record the interactions.
“Ooooh that’s so cool! We should spar sometime, Sully! I really do want to try swinging that hammer of yours around!” She wasn’t sure if she was capable or strong enough but by the stars, she wanted to try!
“Maybe we swing hammers around in the bigger area outside, heh?” Zig called over her shoulder as she tried to fiddle with the maglock.
“Oh, yeah! It’s pretty fun,” Sully said gladly, offering it to the excited lady. “Just don’t hit a person with it that you’re not trying to kill. They will actually lose parts if it’s powered on.”
Carr backed away a step, or two, maybe three.
“Hi Zig, yes I can help you. Do you require additional appendages for physical alignment? Or visual confirmation?” Mex chimed in, opting to go into a confused, if active stance ready to help.
Zig puffed her cheeks slightly but then let air out slowly as she steadied herself. “Can you see if your hydrospanner can get to the acuator-switch here in the part where the door secures in to the maglock?”
Sagitta eyes brightened. Her hands gripped the hammer so tenderly and the moment he removed his hands, Sagitta yelped in surprise. The hammer dropped to the floor and sending the Mirialan with it.
“I’m okay! Just caught off guard…” she struggled for a bit and managed to finally hold it properly before leaning forward and working on her balance.
“Whew, I need to work out more! I am not worthy for this hammer!”
“Hey, you’re already keeping it off the ground, so that’s a start,” Sully encouraged. Without really thinking about it, he grabbed the hammer’s rod at it’s center, between Sagitta’s hands, and lifted it overhead with the woman still attached, dangling her off the ground. He turned the weapon, giving himself a good chance to tilt his head around her body and admire her physicality. “And you’ve got great muscles so far! Should be easy, if you keep it up.” He righted himself and turned her back, beaming as they came face-to-face.
With a short jump of nervousness to the hammer dropping to the floor, Mex brought their arms up as if ready to shield themselves before realising there was no real threat and acting like nothing happened.
Turning back to Zig, Mex returned a short nod of acknowledgement and slid their goggles up over their head - pulling them tight with a snap. Retrieving their hydrospanner from their engineering pack, they crouched down to the actuator in question. Guiding the switch to the maglock secure, they kept it in place with the assistance of Zig and got to work.
Only a moment later the job was done and the verpine arose, sliding their tool into a belt pouch and a curtly dusting off of their hands. “Ok. Door is… Ok! Maybe needs work later. For now it functions like a door.”
With their job done, it’s almost as if they switched back into awkward territory, looking over to Sully. “Hi Sully. I am Mex. Thank you for breaking the door. It did not want to listen to our commands.”
Sagitta blinked when their paw went to the middle of the hammer and picked her up. The Mirialan unintentionally let out a surprised squeak when she was being lifted like a ragdoll. There was no harm in it. Then he tilted her and seemed to check her out. What the-
‘And you got great muscles so far!’
Oh. Okay. That explained it. Sagitta laughed as they were face to face. She grinned. “Thank you, Sully! You are mighty powerful! You’re made for this weapon! I’ll just stick with my beskar.” She refrained from having the urge to hug him. Or glomp him. He looked super soft. Her eyes narrowed for a second at having more close up at his injury at the side of his face.
The need to protect her team members had amplified.
Her hands released the grip from the hammer as she landed on the floor. Mex had approached to meet Sully so Sagitta got out of the way. She looked around
ENTERED TOO EARLY- EDITING
“Thanks Mex! My hero.” Zig sighed a bit relieved. When she noticed Scooter hovering, not focused, she narrowed her eyes and tapped a button on her datapad. The floating droid squeeked and made an abrubt turn.
“Sorry, yes, here!”
“Scrub the last 2 minutes of your recordings,”
“But-”
Her finger hovered over the button and she stared dead into the seeker-droids photorecptor. The droid somehow managed to slump midair, but complied. Zig smiled, her teeth flashing.
“Well, now that we have Sully, I guess we should head to the mess hall. And this time maybe not break anything right away.”
The hammer was much lighter once Sagitta dropped down. Sully stowed it, but his attention immediately redirected to the droid near Zig. He lowered himself to get a closer look at it.
“Well hi there. What’s this little fella doing?”
“This is scooter. He’s helping me make a video about the Voidbreaker, showing off the crew and the facilities. I’m hoping to use it to get us more budget, which means more cool stuff.” she explained.
“Let’s find more shit to destroy,” Druzk said plainly. Thinking the others would probably take it literally, the Barabel raised his hands and made air quotes. He’d seen a few made the gesture. “‘Destroy,’ I mean. I want us swimming in credits.”
Zig pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Think of what we could get.”
Carr grinned toothily, tail wagging. “On it!” he announced before bolting out the door towards the Mess Hall.
Druzk jutted his thumb towards Carr as he rushed off. “See? Kid knows what he’s doing.”
“Carr no!”
Sagitta smiled at Sully as she nodded then had a great idea. “I think we should-” Then she stopped when Druzk requested for more things to destroy. He cleared it up with quotation marks in the air. Zig did not seem to be amused and sweet Carr was quick on his paws as he dashed off.
Sagitta laughed before she shook her head. “After you!” She dashed off after Carr.
“` The Mess Hall, located in the center of Deck 04, was an open space made comfortable by lower-level lighting and well-spaced out tables that could easily seat four people with plenty of elbow room. Every seat is comfortable, with the leisure of the ship’s crew in mind. At the back of the hall is a wide counter where droids are hard at work to produce a varied array of cuisines for the crew members, filling the air with tantalizing scents to tease the senses.
A few droids milled about cleaning, while some uniformed crew members attended to various tasks. ”`
Carr entered the mess hall from the bar area at the back, scurrying into the mess proper and waving to a few of the droids in greeting. The impish grin never left his muzzle, and his eyes darted around as if genuinely looking for some trouble to get into. The Shistavanen hummed to himself, pulling his datapad back out of his satchel. 53rv0 chirped and beeped a warning to him.
“We want the video to be convincing, so we have to ensure we put on a good show, right?”
If it could roll its eyes, the backpack droid would have done so. It complained at him again, making the Shistavanen stop and sigh heavily. “Fine… Has Zig been telling you to keep me out of trouble again or something? Laaaaaaaame.”
Ssemingly drawn to whatever Zig was doing as something for the good of the ship and its crew, Sully wandered aimlessly after them. Upon walking into the mess hall, he smiled.
“I dunno about you guys, but I could go for a meal,” he said, rubbing the armor over his belly.
“Crew bonding over a meal sounds like an excellent idea,” Zig nodded.
“Bonding? Are we going to glue ourselves together? Is this something we need to fix for funding?”
“Yes. We’re going to use the strongest of bonds, Mex.”
“Phew. You run fast.” She smiled at Carr. The smell of the food made her stomach wail louder than a Wookiee’s opera.
“Not that kind of bonding,” Zig said patiently to Mex while narrowing her eyes at Druzk.
“Alright, well lunch is on me,” she smirked towards the serving line.
The joke being that food on the ship was compensated, thanks to their existing budget. Maybe this would motivate them to actually help make the video better.
Zig gestured at Scooter to start recording B-roll.
Druzk couldn’t bear holding back, despite Zig’s look of disapproval from earlier.
“Did you hear that, Mex? She wants lunch on her.”
The verpine looked to Druzk a moment. “Hi Druzk, I believe Zig intends to provide the food. It is ok, sometimes I get confused too.”
Druzk clicked his tongue and smirked. “I tried.”
Mex merely returned a vacant stare as they attempted to process what Druzk attempted.
Sully patted Druzk’s shoulder without looking his way. “Me too, buddy. So, what’s for lunch?”
` The lunch spread was pretty standard, but was surprisingly flexible considering the wide range of species that worked and lived the ship. There was everything from fish eggs, to grilled meats, to harvest vegetables to the more boring but reliable nutrition bars.
A tray was provided at the start of a counter, and by moving through the line either a crew member or service droid would place the food items onto your plate at request. `
Carr was quick to grab a tray and head to the counter. By the time he was done, the tray was heaping and he was already chewing a mouthful of something from the heaping pile. He found them a table with plenty of space for the entire group.
“Don’t forget to chew,” Zig called out.
“You’re not my mom!” he called back with a huff and grumble then started chewing over dramatically.
Mex had followed Carr’s example and brought back a tray of various foodstuffs - probably too much for the verpine to eat. Sitting down at the table Carr had claimed, Mex picked up the smallest of morsels to eat each and every time.
“Hi Carr, it is very evident Zig did not spawn you. Thank you for removing any potential doubt though.” They replied genuinely.
A few more small bites later, Mex inquired to the group. “Hi table group. Origins influence our development. Where did everyone spawn? I originated from the Roche Asteroid field. Though, I spent most of my development on Tattooine.”
Sully sat at the table with a loaded tray in each of his oversized hands. He looked at Mex after getting as comfortable as he could in the small chair. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“You actually saw where I mostly grew up, Mex. Mos Kenny, and the junkyard nearby. It’s where I ran away to, at least.” Zig poked at her food, ate a bite, but then seemed to focus more on her Datapad.
She eyed Sully, smiled at the display, and then went back to half looking at the Datapad , fingers swiping idly.
Zig sent a text to Adem Bol'era. Hey, wrench-boy. Where you at? Head to the mess.
“Ohh, is this about where you guys grew up?” Sully gladly stuffed a mouthful of potatoes into his jaw. “Yeah lef'f hear!” His jaw smacked a few times before remembering to stay shut.
Zig realized she didn’t actually know about Sully’s life prior to joining Arcona. They’d always had something to focus on, she never really pushed and he’d never really said anything.
Carr shrugged a bit, “Nothing exciting. I’m from Seraph, same place as Mune, very different experiences of course. It was boring, lame, to many fake people that just wanted to be friends because of who my dad was. People like that… ugh… Then I came here a couple years ago now to stay with Mune!”
As the others conversed, Druzk was still busy filling up his own tray. Vegetables? Pfft! The only thing his tray had was meat, meat, and more meat.
As the Barabel arrived to the table, he took his own seat and glanced over the others. Catching wind of the topic, he merely muttered, “Barab I.”
Sagitta finally got her food after talking the poor cook’s ear out. She arrived at the table and blinked at Mex’s words. “H-Huh?” But then Zig helped clear the air. The way Mex talked was baffling. She was still trying to get used to it. Spawn? Who even says Spawn anymore?
This was also the topic she was going to avoid.
She had two plates with her. One plate had half of it full of meat and few vegetables and the other was a mountain of fruits. All the fruits.
“Who is Mune?” Sagitta asked Carr. She hasn’t had the opportunity to meet everyone yet.
Adem arrived in the mess, having forgotten to eat after a few focused hours of tinkering with some hyperdrive optimizations. His handwashing hadn’t quite made it to his wrists, still slick with residue. BD-99 observed as his companion filled his plate, chirping intermittently. The droid focused intently on a few slices of exotic meat, unseen prior to now.
“Pretty sure I can’t digest that kind, buddy,” the Umbaran reminded the droid. “Cooks don’t like it when you scan the food, either.”
“Text the wrench-boy, and he shall appear,” Zig said dryly as she looked up from editing the footage on her datapad. She smiled as she saw his droid, however. “Hey Nines!” she beamed and waved at the BD-unit.
In the midst of chewing another hefty bite from his two trays, Sully followed Zig’s gaze and waved as well.
Mex didn’t know what they were waving at, but joined the others in waving.
Carr glanced towards Adem, eyeing the Umabran. He could not recall meeting him before. Of course, he also did not know everyone on the crew… The Shistavanen shovelled some more food in his maw, apparently, manners were lame.
Zig lightly kicked the young Shistavanen’s shin under the table and cleared her throat.
Carr yelped and huffed, slowing down. Gods, he may as well be having lunch with Mune.
“Oh! I hope I get to meet Mune some-” Then she laughed at Carr’s face. Ah yes, siblings. Something she knew all too well, especially with her three sisters. “Visions aren’t easy but neither are siblings.” She smiled as she took another bite. Sagitta turned her head to look at who they were waving at and she remembered him! Finally! “Hey, Adem!” She joined in on the waving.
Sagitta abruptly stopped when Carr yelped, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Are you okay? That was an odd thing to happen.
Druzk glanced over at Carr with a raised brow. “Clearly can’t handle eating quickly,” he said with an amused snort, in response to Sagitta’s question.
There was a startled cry from the lunch line area. A tray was dropped, food clattering to the floor. Smoke started to slowly pilfer out from behind the serving line.
“I did not break that for demonstrable purposes. Hi table, did someone light a fire?”
Carr frowned, “I was right here the whole time, Zig, don’t you dare blame me.”
Zig narrowed her eyes towards the smoke, started to rise, but stopped herself and thought pensively. Scooter had, being the nosy droid he was, swiveled over to start recording the event. No one was panicking, but no one was acting.
Was this one of those leader-type moments where you wait to see who steps up? Or should she just go over and fix it to solve the future headache?
Sagitta looked at Mex. “Did… you ask the table a … question?” Then Carr chimed in that it wasn’t their fault. With a smile and a shake of her head, she got up. Well, maybe they need a hand! “I’ll check it out-”
Then she stopped.
Kriff. She should’ve paid attention to the fire safety drill. “Does… anyone know where the fire extinguisher is?”
Carr arched a brow, “The nearest one is hung on the the starboard side of the counter, another on the port side.” He motioned with his nose then glanced towards Mex who has proven a very able mechanic. Carr knew he was still learning, himself, and was not feeling the opportunity to show off right then. “Mex, that one may be beyond me, want to show off how awesome you are again?”
Satisfied with his direction, he shoved another fork of food into his muzzle and watched.
Despite whatever everyone else was doing, Sully was shuffling out from the table. “I got it,” he said with half a mouthful of food left to chew.
He made it to the port side of the counter quickly and yanked the extinguisher off its restraints. The rest of his food went down in one tough gulp, and he vaulted the counter with ease. The smell of smoke drew Sully to the source, and without stopping to see what exactly was burning, he activated the extinguisher and sprayed.
Sully made quick work of the small fire, as it was now put out. But the oven used to cook the food made a sad whine and seemed to be struggling to remain powered
“Should’ve let the thing burn a bit more. Would’ve been quite the show,” the Barabel said nonchalantly, before taking a bite from one of the many meats that scattered his plate.
Sully lowered the extinguisher and tilted his head, listening to the machine’s vain attempts to keep chugging along.
“Uh, hey, Mex?” he called back. “Zig? You guys might wanna take a look at this.”
“Hi Sagitta, no I do not talk to the tables, they do not make very good conversationalists no matter how much I try. I intended to direct the attention to those stationed at the table, I will do better next time to address the group specifically. I am not used to groups.”
Mex got halfway standing at Carr’s suggestion, but then Sully went over to deal with the blaze. Sitting back down to enjoy their meal, they were quickly roused by Sully’s call - snapping up and almost knocking over their tray of food, Mex sauntered over nervously. “Oh! Hi Sully, what seems to be the issue?” As they asked, they shifted their gaze to the sad oven that pitifully whined out for assistance.
“That is not the sound an oven is intended to create. I will investigate the cause immediately.” They followed up, passing by Sully and getting down onto the soot stained floor and placing their engineering backpack on the ground next to them for easy access.
“Hi, this oven is not happy. We should eliminate the power draw while we investigate its ailments.” Mex chirped out to whomever would assist.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Sully said. He set down the extinguisher and leaned behind the smoking machine. When he leaned back, a plug was proudly held up. “That’ll do it.”
“How disappointing.”
“My hero!” Zig called out, as she was already editing the footage to show off how quickly the team worked to solve problems that arose on the ship.
She idly flicked a pea at Druzk.
Druzk caught it with his mouth and glared at Zig.
Zig flashed a grin with her pointed cainines.
“Once everyone finishes up, what other part of the ship should we check out to get some good footage?” Zig asked the gathered Voidbreakers.
“The armory, obviously,” replied the Barabel.
Sagitta was glad they took care of it as she sat back down and finished her meal. A small green pea went flying in front of her face as she side-eye Druzk when he managed to catch it and stared down Zig.
Her chewing got slower as her eyes shifted over to Zig who then grinned at Druzk, flashing those canines.
Sagitta coughed loudly as a muddy red color crept to her ears and cheeks. Cleared her throat, “Yes, the armory sounds fun! This reminds me of the time when Asani, my little sister, who is a Kushiban used the vents to snuck in the armory. We weren’t allowed in because Mr. Winchester said we were too young and Buir agreed with him. Well, Asani and I just wanted to check them out! So one night, they were sleeping and Asani and I planned this far in advance.”
She chuckled before continuing, “Asani got in first and she opened the door from the inside for me. It was so awesome! All those different weapons! Blasters, rifles, bladed weapons, you name it, they had it. Even explosions. Asani then got the idea of using one of the explosions in front of Wulfram’s room as a joke for an alarm.” She sucked in air between her teeth as she visibly grimaced.
“At the time, we didn’t know how much Buir had been through. A lot of… battles and wars. Really bad ones.” She waved her hand. “Luckily, Asani and I picked out a harmless one, out of all the explosions we could’ve used. Anyways, she got a trashcan, threw the grenade into it and we ran to the end of the hallway. There was a small kaboom,” the Mirialan made an explosion sound and gestured.
“And pieces of trash can went everywhere. Even the ceiling. Buir came out, only in his shorts with a blaster in his hand. That’s uh, when we realized we messed up.”
“That’s exciting!” Sully had lumbered over as she spoke and was listening intently. “That reminds me, there was one time back on Cyrkon, I was on shift and–”
“Please!” snapped Druzk as Sully seemed to start going through with his own drawn out story. “Another time.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Sully said with a shrug. “Gotta get to that armory anyway, right?”
Sagitta propped her elbows on the table and was so ready for Sully’s story! Finally! Someone else who shares adventures just like she does! Did he have a kaboom story? A prank story? What was it going to be!?
‘Please!’
Sagitta frowned as she puffed her cheeks into a pout towards Druzk.
Zig was usually fine with Druzk being Druzk. But anyone being mean, even jokingly, to Sully made her pulse quicken.
Her muscles tightened and she was going to throw something at Druzk’s face, but then saw Sagitta’s reaction and exhaled through her nose instead.
Her cheeks deflated, “You don’t have to be so mean! Live a little. What can it hurt?” Then a warm smile as she laughed softly and nudged Sully on the shoulder. “I would love to hear it.” Then she smirked at Druzk, “Unless, any objections?”
Druzk actually looked amused by that. It was quite the surprise, really. He laughed heartedly and stuck his fork into a slab of unknown meat. “Hah! I expected those balls from the XO, not you! Whatever. Go on. Gives me time to finish my meal.”
It was the Mirialan’s turn to be surprised. That word.
The XO. Luckily, she hid it behind her smile.
Leadership. Her heart thudded hard against her chest. She felt her torso tightening but doesn’t show it. “Thank you,” Sagitta said cheerily as she glanced over to Sully, ready to hear his story!
Zig made a quick mental note, and channeled her annoyance into somewhat command line sequences, interfacing with the Voidbreaker IIs systems.
“Yeah, Sully. Continue.” her words were clipped.
Carr listened to the exchange. Adults being Adults, he supposed. He glanced at Sully and smiled warmly. “I enjoy a good story too. I would love to hear it.” The Togorian seemed pretty cool.
Sully silently glanced between all of the people present, until attention went back to him. “…Oh, uhm, sorry. I thought we were gonna move on. But, uh, anyway!”
He smiled like nothing had happened and continued, “So, one time, I was on shift back on Cyrkon, and I was working at the yard when one of the guys there calls me off, and he says we got a block going in one of the recycler lines that he thinks I can fix. ‘Cause I had my hammer, see?” Sully made a point to draw and show off his power hammer. “At least, that’s what I thought he meant, but maybe it was just because I’m big, and I can reach stuff better. Well, anyway, I told him that if I leave, it’s gonna put us behind, but he was saying, 'nah, it’ll be fine’ and I trusted his judgement and all, so I figured it would be okay. Well anyway, I brought the hammer, and he takes me down to the lower decks. We ran across one of the ladies I like to talk to between shifts, and I thought it was probably okay to talk for a second, so we got to talking about this Lucrehulk we’d finished stripping for parts the last week - that one was a crazy big job, lemme tell ya! They couldn’t even haul it into the domes, but the Hutts insisted–”
Sully stopped, expression suddenly blank. His ears went flat with a thousand yard stare while his fingers twitched loosely in the air as if doing mental math. “…Oh, right, I was talking about the refresher incident. So anyway, we made it down to the lower decks and–” His ears shot up. “Oh, I almost forgot! This is important. So when we started on this new job, the yard they laid down for it didn’t have a refresher around. The first few days, everyone who had to go had to run back about four kilometers. We started using one of the lev-carts to make group runs, but they didn’t like us doing that, because it means we’re using more fuel, and that was costing them more credits, right? So they fixed the problem by putting one of those portable refreshers out there with us and rigging a recycler line for it back to the mainline. But that recycler line was put together in a hurry, and so we kept running into problems with it. Well anyway, that was what they wanted me for, was because it was having another problem!”
For a moment, Sully just looked down and huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “Right, well I get down to the rigged recycler line on the lower decks, and sure enough, one of the industrial bolts holding the support to the ceiling was popped loose. And that’s when it hit me: The guy that got me was this little Alena, see–” Sully lowered very close to the floor and held his hand flat about a foot off the ground. “–And I’m like–” He slapped his forehead. “–Yeah, of course he got me! He can’t reach that. I mean, maybe there was another lev-cart around, but I dunno. The lower decks were a mess, and they were still pretty mad about the extra fuel we were using. So anyway, I went to pop the bolt back in, but that’s about when I noticed the other problem. Without the support, the whole line was sagging a bit. I thought, oh no, that’s gonna mess up the flow. They didn’t have good pumps, see - it was a cost thing - so the whole system had to rely on gravity. So I figured, okay, I can fix that. I just gotta find the pressure point where the sag is hurting it hardest and get that fixed up. Straighten the critical point, bolt the support back in, all fixed, right?”
He was starting to laugh again mid-sentence. “Well that was when I kinda messed up, because– because I found the spot, right? And I tried to just straighten it up myself and push it back in, but it wasn’t going. I wasn’t strong enough for it. But then I remembered, I had my hammer, right? That was why the little guy got my help! So I just…” Sully stepped back and physically swung his hammer upward. “…hit the spot with the hammer. The impact goes off, the pipe kinda twists, not quite enough to spring a leak though, and I hear some kinda noise coming from the upper decks, but hey, that’s just expected, right? But that did it - that fixed the sag good enough for me to bolt the support back. But while I was doing that, I kept hearing noise through the deck. People up there sound like they’re shouting about something. And then I almost dropped the bolt, because I remembered: The sag point? That was where the refresher got linked in. And because of the sag, it was all backed up, see? So I finish the job and get back up and check on the refresher, and it is just–” Sully made an explosive display with his hands and blew out a tight puff of air. “The walls were all blown off, and you don’t wanna know how far the damage was spread out. The guy that was in there when I hit it–” He had to stop to laugh a bit. “…That guy stank for a week, heheheh… I got in so much trouble for that.”
Sully continued huffing a silent laugh and shaking his head at the ground. He seemed finished.
Zig smiled as she listened, letting Sully see that she had indeed ignored her Datapad the entire time. She processed his story, chuckled appropriately, but clocked his moment of pause.
“Well, once Mex is all sorted with the oven, we could check out the armory or medbay next.”
Carr listened, grinning wide. He even stopped eating and gave Sully his full attention, which was a rarity. He laughed as the Togorian concluded, imagining the mess and snickering. “That is awesome!”
He flicked his glance to Zig, “The armory ans workshop would probably be a great thing to show off. Especially if there are any current project going on.”
“What a story, Sully!” the Barabel exclaimed. Was he genuine? Sarcastic? Who knew! But, now his plate was cleared and he was satisfactorily satiated.
Not wanting to stay here for a moment longer than needed, Druzk scooted his chair back, stood, and headed towards Mex and the oven.
“Thank you Sully.” Mex replied appreciatively to the uncoupling of the power as the verpine already had their head stuck into the oven.
Basically half in the oven working, they began to talk to the others from within the oven. “Hi, I am Mex. Back on Tatooine I was required to keep all sorts of machines running. Heat destroys a lot of equipment. With redundancies in place you can extend the lifespan of your tools with little upkeep required.”
Sully’s story was good white noise as the verpine continued to tinker inside the oven, occasionally reaching out to grab something from their engineering pack. Using a rag, they cleaned off a lot of the char and refuse left over from the fire. Basically inside the oven, a dirty blackened rag came out before being followed by the rest of Mex - also covered in soot. “Hi Sully. You should have turned the system off. Like you did for me. That would stop the stinking of bystanders. I will remind myself to ask for your assistance the next time I require a big hammer. Most of the time my small hammer is good enough though.” Plugging the oven back in, the machine seemed to work better than it did before. “Hi. All fixed. Oven clean. Also should still work if another fire is present. I made a lot of fires learning to cook. Armory? Medbay? Are we breaking more things?”
“Hi Mex, we are going to try to avoid breaking more things, but great work repairing everything. You’re turning out to be the star of the video. Yeah, we could do the medbay or the armory.”
“Armory!” Druzk almost sounded excited. Just a little.
Carr, surprisingly, pulled a pair of foot coverings from a compartment of their satchel. He slipped them on. They looked well worn and fairly protective. Looking to have been worn for many sessions of working in the shop. He grinned at Zig. He knew how to behave in a workshop and armoury.
Zig slowly facepalmed as she looked around. “Let the record show, I’m making an executive exception to allow access to the armory.”
What could possibly go wrong? Doon will yell at me, maybe. Tali won’t notice…
Sagitta was laughing at the story, she wished she could be there just to have that memory ingrained in her mind forever. Ah well. Just having it as a story and visualizing it was even better.
It seemed like everyone wanted to go to the armory, even Druzk who sounded like a child who got the best present ever. Sagitta got up and followed Zig and Carr.
Sagitta blinked at the sign as she glanced down at her feet. She’s always barefooted when on the Voidbreaker II. “UH.” Would she have to go to her room real quick?
But then Zig chimed in as she smiled cheerfully, “Thanks Zig!” Sagitta stepped in and sighed, “For some reason this reminded me I need to clean up my weapons, ugh.”
Carr frowned, “Be careful of slivers of metal and other bits in the workshop area then… they’re no joke.” The young Shista looked annoyed. Shop safety was no joke and not to be neglected!
Sully looked down at his feet and, after a moment of consideration, started unfastening his boots. “Here, someone can use these,” he said.
Sagitta jumped back in surprise before quickly getting Sully’s attention. “No, keep those on!” She patted Sully’s arm gently. “I’ll be finnnnne besides we’re going to the med bay after this and if something does happen well, that’s what they are there for! Now you think about it, if one of us got hurt and got to the medbay… it would be wonderful footage! wouldn’t it, Zig?” She grinned at Zig.
Carr’s frown deepened. “Health and safety in the workshop is a serious topic. It would not be wonderful footage,” he huffed then entered into the combined workshop and armoury.
Druzk glared at Sagitta. “You better not have that careless attitude with weapons, too,” he said with a snort. “I’m glad the kid here at least has a good head on his shoulders. Learn from him.”
Sagitta blinked at Carr in surprise. Wait! That was NOT what she meant. Oh, Kriff. Was this what Buir meant to always think before talking or acting? Then she heard Druzk, “Oh for kr-” She stopped. There was a kid present.
‘Think. Think.’
“Okay. If my throwing you on your back was not any indication, I’m more trained in martial arts than… these beauties. I’m here to admire, not to play with them.”
Then she looked over at Carr, “Yes, you’re right.”
Zig blinked a few times, then exhaled slowly.
“Anyway, I trust you all not to hurt yourselves, but we can skip to the medbay in a pinch.” She toggled the lights and pointed at Scooter. “Get some footage…and Sully, Druzk, want to show off some of the weapons for our droid friend here to record? Some of them are modifications I’ve worked on, and a few protoptypes I’ve consulted on.”
Mex strolled on in behind everyone after Zig allowed them access. “Hi everyone. Chitinous feet are well protected. But please do not shoot my feet. Please do not shoot me anywhere. Thank you.”
Wandering around the armory room, Mex looked around curiously. They had not been in the room for anything but maintenance. There were so many gizmos and guns to look at. Stopping at a random locker, the verpine inputted random numbers just to check if it had a feedback sound. Then wandered around to find something else to gawk at.
“Hi Zig, lots of breakable things. Lots of weapons capable of firing. Lots to record.” They stopped to ponder a moment before looking back to the group.
“Who is the best shooter in here?” They asked alloud.
Zig smirked. Mex might have a unique way of navigating the galaxy, but their mind was sharp and while they might hide it, they had gotten a lot better at social interactions. She probably only noticed because of working closely with them in Eningeering, but she was proud nonethless, and happy to see him seemingly enjoying the experience.
She glanced almost challengingly at Druzk, then shifted her eyes over to Sagitta, curious, and then to Sully.
Carr winced, “Definitely not me, haha. I am finally getting the hang of the moves Zig has been teaching me for hand-to-hand.”
While Sully had come in perfectly content with the weapons already on his person, Zig’s prompt for display did draw his attention toward the other blasters and tools stowed around them. He’d just finished re-fastening his boots when Mex posed a question that gave Zig a competitive stare.
“Huh… Good question. I haven’t seen you guys shoot, so I dunno how good you are.” Sully shrugged and went back to eyeing the armaments. He’d practiced with just about all of them at least once each.
Zig’s prompt bounced back to the front of his mind. “Oh, right! You wanted to show these to the droid.” He glanced toward the TL-50 he’d deployed with a few times, still resting where he’d last hung it. As the most compact heavy repeating blaster in their arsenal, the similarly categorized weapons around it only got bigger. At Sully’s size though, even the Z-6 rotary cannon wasn’t difficult to heft. “Which one do you want me to hold?”
“Hi Sully. That’s a big gun. Bigger than mine.”
Sagitta’s pink hues looked around and admired the weapons.
Then she heard Mex.
Sagitta busted out laughing, a hearty laugh, as she tried to stop laughing but it was not kriffin’ working. “S-hahaha sor–ah-hahaha” The Mirialan was doing all she can to stop. After a few moments, with a clear of her throat and an amused grin on her face. Her hands went up to wipe the tears away.
She managed to stop laughing but there were a few giggles here and there that escaped.
This was more like it! There was that certain sparkle in the Barabel’s eyes. If Zig wanted to get some weapon footage for her dumb little vid she was making, Druzk was going to give it to her! And then there was Sully. Was that a challenge?!
He scoffed and walked over to heft up the Z-6 rotary cannon before Sully could do it themself. “This thing’s karkin’ ancient, but still reliable.”
He then nodded over to Sagitta. “Wanna set up some targets for us to shoot instead of laughing?”
Sagitta took in another breath, her expression was all smiles and happy and then Druzk had to open his maw.
The Mirialan gave Druzk a look that clearly and painfully states, ‘Bite me, you ass.’
But she said nothing. There’s a child present. She shook her head and shake it off.
Short moments later, she gave him a friendly smile, “Tsk, a bit of laugh never harmed anyone.” Then with a smirk, her arm rose as her finger pushed a button. There was a few beeping sounds as the targets were lined up, thanks to the droids, for them to shoot. “There you go!”
Sully didn’t react much to his surroundings until the targets came up. He stopped daydreaming a moment and the exchanges up to now clicked with an actual thought about them. “…Oh, are we competing? I can do that.” He drew his sidearm and waited for the targets to line up.
“We’ve been overdue for this, haven’t we, bud?” Adem directed his droid’s photoreceptors to the blaster pistol grip curving away from his left thigh. His hand wrapped around the delicately shaped and wroshyr wood inlaid grip - a gift from Kelviin - and his fingers slipped into the stippled rubber grooves. It was, quite literally, made just for the Umbaran after all.
So why does it still feel so strange?
He chased away his apprehension, produced his pistol, and pointed it down range. Two gleaming barrels and a cylinder cut a large profile for a sidearm, the distinguished silhouette of a custom RSKF-44. A soft, blue-green line of circles illuminated. The weapon recognized its owner and was ready to fire. With some trepidation, the Jedi slid his finger over the trigger and flipped a custom thumb lever. A faint hiss of gas came from the tibanna canisters slung under the barrels, pouring further accelerant into the blasters xciter chamber.
Either it works or I’ll be short a few fingers.
“Here goes.”
Sagitta stood behind Adem, Sully, and Druzk. She was practically getting impatience. She leaned against the wall. Her fingers rapidly tapped on her arms. Her one leg bounced. “Ah, I’m not going to say no.” She grabbed one of RSKF-44, something she was familiar with. She had one in her bedroom. Took an empty spot at the range as she took in a deep breath and then squeezed the trigger a few times.
Beautiful shots.
Sagitta smiled. Now she felt better.
She hasn’t entirely lost her touch.
Folks were already getting started. “Nice shots,” Sully said with a light smile. He casually pointed his handgun down range and squeezed off a blast himself. It hit the target he was aiming for, but not anywhere vital.
Druzk gave Sagitta a sidelong glance as she squeezed off her shots. Huh. Impressive. Not only was she good at hand-to-hand, but she knew how to shoot a damned gun, too.
The Barabel snorted as he held back the sides of his snout from moving into a grin.
“Yeah, yeah. Not bad.”
Had it been anything else, Druzk would have dropped the cannon in his hands outright. But, weapons were meant to be respected. After returning the ancient gun, he walked over to his own empty spot. Without pause, his hand whipped towards his waist to draw his DL-44 and fired rapidly. Each shot was perfect, landing against the head and the heart of the target he was aiming for.
“Too easy,” he grunted as the barrel of his handgun sizzled and steamed.
“Very nice shots,” Sully said with a nod.
“Pfft. I know.”
Carr watched ears up. He had never really interested in blasters, probably because of Caleb and his affinity for slugthrowers. Of course, weapons in general were not his thing. They were not computers or machinery really… But seeing how much the others were enjoying themselves. “Where did you learn to shoot?” Carr asked Druzk curiously.
Sagitta smiled at them, “I think we all did great! Let’s make things a bit more interesting, since it’s too easy for you, Druzk.” She heard Carr’s question and decided to click a button while Druzk answers it or not. Different colored targets appeared and started to move in many different directions.
“Sully, blue is yours. Druzk, orange. Adem, green. I’ll take the yellow.”
Sagitta took aim and fired a few shots. She frowned. Few hits at her yellow target but nothing that would scream dead at the first hit.
Sully’s ears lifted slightly at the challenge. These folks were taking the shooting a little more seriously than he’d figured. This was for Zig’s video thing, right? Well, good a time as any to make his shots count.
When his handgun raised this time, Sully closed an eye and gripped it with both hands, steadying his posture. The blue target was his, yeah? Yeah.
He shot it dead center. Druzk’s fancy repeat shooting from before replayed in his mind, and he took it as a baseline. Sully fired again, and again, and once more. The hole in the target had slightly expanded, and three fresh scorch marks lined the walls directly behind its path. Sully relaxed, smiled casually again, and set his pistol onto the board in front of him.
“Will that work?” He asked, turning his head toward Zig.
Right, green.
Adem was honestly surprised his first shot had even connected, yet the target was seared right through. The smell of excess tibanna followed the vapor trailing out of the barrels. He’d managed to build it as well as a lightsaber after all.
Probably the droid brain did the heavy lifting.
He shifted his feet and raised the blaster again, taking aim.
“Life, kid,” the Barabel replied as he turned slightly to the side so he could look at Carr. “Life circumstances taught me how to shoot.”
As he turned back down-range, he glanced at his designated target. After Sagitta’s and Sully’s display, Druzk lifted his pistol and fired at the orange. There were a few hits, not all dead center. Even a few misses.
“Too quick on the draw there,” he muttered flatly.
Zig nodded along as she tapped away at her datapad. Scooter managed to not get in the way, somehow, and recorded the footage.
“This is rad, really good stuff folks.”
Druzk shrugged. “Are we don’t helping you with this holovid? ‘cause I have some plans for tonight.”
Zig nodded along. “I should be able to work with this.”
Meanwhile, she opened a second tab, and added and notes to her blog.
Drugitta? Sagruzk? Hmmm
“Hi Zig, send us knowledge of the outcome. I am keen to observe the harvest of our endeavour. I am willing to assist if you require more is necessary.”
“Cool,” Sully said simply. He stowed his pistol and lumbered back to Zig’s side. “Now what?”
Curious as ever, he leaned way down to look close at her datapad while she wrote.
Zig showed off her preliminary organizing of the footage, playing back some clips.
Nathan stepped into the shooting range, peering through the doorway for a few moments before stepping in and calling over to the group.
“Uhm, Zig? Could.. Scooter come back to engineering now?”
Zig blinked. “PANTMAN. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?”
She puffed her cheek but then exhaled. “Yeah, he’s off the hook…for now.”
“In engineering?” Nathan rubbed the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly.
The Pantoran hyrbid looked over to Scooter and waved for the little droid to come over.
Sully’s head gently bumped Zig’s as he straightened himself. “Hey Nath– oops, sorry about that.”
Scooter seemed to sink a bit midair, a seeker droid sigh of relief. He quickly skittered after Nathan.
Nathan patted the droid on the top of its chassis once it came within reach, speaking in binary, “You can take a break for the rest of today, it’s ok.”
He offered the group a wave in farewell before attempting a quick exit without any Sully hugs.
Mex awkwardly waved back as Nathan left.