"Dangerous, but doesn't danger have it's own beauties?" Ruby asked, before going on to reply to his next comment. "Hey, I thought almost the same thing. Us coming here in a ship," she took a moment to wave vaguely in the direction of the ship, "-Might be the equivalent of a grocery delivery. Tinned meat." She followed James on his path as he walked past the bird.

"Hephaestus? Nah, I was born on Kepler-17x. Whatever deity is up there, if there even is one, probably decided to look into my future before placing me in my mother's womb. He or she saw I was going to be a military girl, and decided to place me on a non-Zenohunt world so I'd have to wait for longer to get into the nearest Zenohunt recruitment building," Ruby grinned. "As it is, they probably skipped over the part where my parents died and Zenohunt Intelligence picked me up. I probably won't ever be picked up for Zenofighter training, it's rare anyone actually is, but I do have a shot at transferring to another section of the military if I actually want to."

"How about you, where you from?" Ruby asked to further the conversation, even though she already knew. Perhaps he would tell her something she wouldn't know.

The more that Kari collected her samples, the more she found small groupings of the same things. Not uncommon at all. Simple stuff, from what she has studied back home and on the ship. However, it did remind her of her situation. It was her decision in the end, after all. She was the only Mynua from her settlement on the entire ship. There were only a handful that had the honor of being apart of the expedition. Her people weren't horribly Xenophobic, but they were not completely welcoming of new people.

She really should talk to some people.

She felt that she had collected enough samples. Her pincers were just maneuverable enough for her to place everything that she had chipped away so neatly and carefully into the little containers on the pouch attached to her waist. She could return to the ship and get to cracking on those rocks. She giggled to herself. Even after all of this time, she was still so young at heart. She still had a long way to go, though. Due to the nature of her species and how they lived, they could be alive for quite a long time.

Kari needed to stop herself, though. She needed to go out and talk to the others. She had been a bit of a... A. Spider. The Brown one. The word escaped her. It didn't like people. She'd have to ask one of the Human crew members if they knew what it was. Bottom line, she didn't talk to the crew as much as she should have, especially as the Ambassador for the Mynua. Well, unofficial Ambassador. She needed to be friendly with the peoples. So many Kasha, she assumed. So many people away from their homes. Maybe she would find something in common with them, if she could only urge herself to actually go and talk to someone.

She wanted to speak. She really did. The only thing she did, though was just stand around on two legs awkwardly, looking for someone to talk to. Maybe she could go back on the ship and find someone on the way to her lab. Maybe she could just take a minute to walk around and get to know some of the people that she would be talking to in the near future.

For now, she just... sorta stood around, bouncing on her digitigrade legs. They were so thin, so bony and skinny. The mid layer of her skin practically didn't exist down there, other than where her legs bent, of course. It was a little weird, sometimes she was on her hands and legs, and sometimes just her legs. Human's didn't seem to do that. They didn't seem to be much for climbing through caves, though. She wanted to know more about them.

But she was rambling, keeping herself from actually talking to people. Maybe those Zenohunts first. She just didn't know what to do!

@datadogie



He listened with some interest, which was something odd, considering that his emotions were heavily suppressed. As soon as she asked him about himself, he thought for a moment if he was allowed to say everything that had transpired in his life, but in the end he shrugged and answered.

"I was born on Hephaestus to a family of miners, I was abducted at an early age by some secret governmental organization that was bent on turning people into super-soldiers." he said, when he felt a small shock of pain, nothing he couldn't handle. "So they enhanced my strength, my mind, all of my senses and they even heavily suppressed my emotions so that I wouldn't feel fear in battle." he spoke, with the pain getting stronger each second he spoke about his past, even so, it was still way below his pain threshold to hurt him significantly. "They made more enhancements to my body while I was asleep so I do not know what they were... anyway, after a countless number of years, they decided to place me into this expedition, using their governmental positions to place me here as chief of security, though it is beyond my understanding why they would do so."

As soon as he stopped speaking, the pain slowly started to subside. "Wait... why did you choose to come here if you had the luxury of choice to go wherever in military you wished?"

Interest sparked within Ruby as the chief of security spoke about being abducted and placed into a super-soldier program. She took mental notes as he went on to explain what the organisation did to him: From what she could recall, the files only described him as a normal soldier, nothing that special about him, even though there were some subnotes including suspicion about his capabilities. The suspicion seemed justified, Ruby could check some boxes when she had a moment.

James then asked Ruby why she chose to come on the expedition. "Oh, you don't understand, I can go to any section or the military or remain a true intelligence person, but I have little leeway when it comes to deployment," she says.

Mentioned: @Nevix

"No, you're old, I'm wise. Never been called a saint before though," Lucia said with a smirk. "And you could've asked and used the dolly to do most of the hard work." She pushed off from the previously mentioned dolly she'd been leaning against and walked over with a cheshirelike grin. "I've got some time before making anymore deliveries, so how about a friendly game of poker? I'll try to go easy on you this time."

She produced a deck of cards from one of the many pockets on her cargo pants and moved over to the table, starting to shuffle the deck. "So, excited to be on a new, possibly hostile planet?" She asked, now trying to make idle conversation as she began to deal. "Five card draw or Texas Hold'em?"

---

Mentioned: @pyroman

Aubrey hummed while she worked, finished with taking samples from the bush and moving on to find some other possibly food bearing plant. She found a tree and scowled for a moment as the looked up to what appeared to be something like a giant seed pod hanging in groupings of five. Well that wasn't good, she didn't have a ladder and there weren't any smaller trees near by. She was close to the Nepra though, maybe there was something she could use from the ship to help? She sighed and turned to start walking, pausing as she spotted Kari, grinning.

"Kari, perfect!" She said happily and started over to the Mynua. "Hey there, having fun?" Aubrey asked with a friendly smile.

Alden continued to work with the computers, enhancing their network and bugstomping for errors. Normally, you wouldn't need to do such a thing, but with so many different systems and requirements, it was a must, especially on an alien world without easy access to the main Planetary network. "Just... a little... more" cooed the man softly, tweaking part of the software to run more efficiently on the power available "Gotcha" sighed Alden with relief. The systems were slightly slower, but they had less power draw on the other parts of their camp, keeping the barrier stable at all times. He would rather slow computers over a slow death any day.

---

"Five card draw? I look like an amateur to you?" He said, cocking an eyebrow as he sat down in his chair, immediately tipping it back on two legs. He thought about the mechanic's earlier question. "Excited, eh? To be on a new planet? Maybe a little bit. Hostile? That's got me intrigued. If we're being frank, I miss the military, I miss danger." He smirked. "Or, at least, I'll miss it right up until some alien-thing is eating my kidneys." He got his cards and smiled. Pocket Jacks. There were, of course, three cards on the table, at the moment. A king, a four, and a six. The fourth card was another king. The corner of his mouth twitched into something resembling a smile. He didn't fold. He glared at the deck.

Come on, you rat bastard! He mentally shouted at the cards. Give me a Jack. I need a Jack, or a king. Come on, come on, c'mon, comeoncomecomeon!

It was a five. Thomas groaned, laying down his cards.

"Two pair. Jacks and Kings." He said, dejectedly. "I was this close. Could have had a full house."

@Raptor

"Hey there, having fun?"

She had been so mixed up in just standing around to notice that someone had been calling for attention. Kari looked to the Human who had addressed her. It was Audrey, resident biologist, who had some to her rescue. The visor that had once covered a great portion of her face slipping up and behind her, revealing a face quite similar to a Humans, but with angles as sharp as rocks. Kari smiled, her eyes yellow and reminiscent of a Human Cat's shining.

"Very much so." She nodded. Her pincers clipped at the pouch at her side. "It's so exciting to be on an uncharted world. There's so much to find here!" She was a long way from home, but she was enjoying it. Aubrey, from Kari's memory, was also born on Hephaestus. However, due to their differing species, they probably had different memories of home. "It's a long way from Home. All of us together, we aren't Kasha, but we are wanderers on an unknown land."

@datadogie

"I see..." James says, as if pondering the situation at hand. As they walked, they reached the barrier that the three cyborg's have set. Simply out of human instinct, James just sighs and turns to Ruby. "Well, it seems our exploring duty must be cut short for today." he says, knowing that he should at least smile to the girl, yet his body did not feel the need to do this.

"Let's go, or the people back there might be a bit pissed that we are not helping them unload." this time, he did briefly smile, but his natural suppression of these kinds of emotions took over and his face returned his usual emotionless self. After a few more moments of silence, heading back towards the base, James asks. "What do you think of me so far?" he asks, slightly curious as to what this woman thought of him, despite the fact that normally he should not think about these sort of things.

"Yeah, I guess," Ruby replied, once they had reached the barrier. She giggled at James' remark about the unloading: It was true enough. His next question caught her off guard, though. What does she think of him? Is he genuinely asking, or is he trying to make himself look good for me? Her face lit up red. He is handsome, for a human, she thought to herself, her tail swishing behind her as she stared at him for a moment.

Her face turned a tiny more red as she realized what she was thinking about, and she quickly broke her gaze away. "O-Oh, well, you seem good," Ruby says with a small giggle. "Competent. Cool." She adds on, whilst walking.

Mentioned: @Claw2k11

A-09, also referred to as "Cuddles" by a young girl before his deployment, had observed his Security Chief interacting with the non-Human he knew as Ruby. He could detect small variations in their temperature as they spoke, but otherwise ignored it. Approaching, he patiently waited until he had the Chief's attention before speaking. "Sir, barrier is running at optimal settings. Seeking new instructions." he greeted, holding the SMG in his hands loosely, finger not on the trigger.

Meanwhile, Alden had run back onto the ship, gathering more equipment to bring down to their small camp. He was transporting food fabricators now for their cooks, needing to link them up into the main network as well so those working could make an order while on duty instead of leaving their posts. The three Cyborgs and their Security Chief took priority for meals as they needed their strength to work effectively should anything dangerous occur.

Mentioned: @Nevix

Lucia looked at her cards and frowned, a 3 and an ace. Well this was a shitty hand. She sighed as the next card showed a 5. Well shitty hand indeed, good thing they weren't gambling. She slapped her cards face up on the table and glared at them before looking up to Thomas.

"Well, it's better than this, if there was a pot, you'd have won it," She muttered before gathering the cards up and then handing them over to him so he could shuffle and deal the next round. "So, your nurses still acting like lovesick schoolkids?"

---

Mentioned: @pyroman

"That's good, find anything interesting?" Aubrey asked as she walked closer, having to crane her head back to look Kari in the face.

Even though she grew up on Hephaestus, Aubrey never really got to know Kari's people, she knew about them but was really too busy with schooling to socialize with any of the family groups. She looked back briefly to where her testing kit was and then looked back to the Mynua. Meh, she could ask Alden to haul a ladder out here for her later. 'Kasha', the word made Aubrey's head tilt to the side in thought.

"Kasha, does that mean family?" She asked curiously.

---

@Raptor- Lucia

---

Thomas brightened immediately, pumping his fist.

"Yes!" He shouted, perhaps louder than he should have. "Now, I finally have enough imaginary money for my imaginary yacht!" He grinned, taking in the cards and shuffling professionally. When he finished, he burned a card, then laid three on the table. He dealt one card to himself, and one to Lucia, one more to himself, and one more to her. He thought, pondering her question. "They're probably doing something romantic, like looking for a nice place to watch the sunset." He said, chuckling. "The thing is, I couldn't care less about their romance, I just wish they would make it a romance already. All of this, and they have the gall to suggest that they're just friends." He turned over his cards, sighing. A two and a king. They were both clubs, though. He could make something of this. He looked at the flop. Jack of Hearts, Seven of Diamonds, Six of Diamonds. He sighed again.

Or, not.

"I dunno, I'm beginning to think that I'm subconsciously living vicariously through them." He said, scratching the back of his hand as he dealt out the next card. Two of Diamonds. "It's like watching one of those old soap operas. But, after a year of watching, I'm growing tired of the old 'will-they, won't-they' game." He flipped over the last card. Eight of Hearts. He laid out his cards. "Pair of two's." He said. "We all got to keep entertained somehow. How do you do it? Do you give your tools names, and act out complex story lines?" He put on a stage-feminine voice. "'Oh, Erik the Drill! How I long to be with you!'" He snickered, before putting on a deep, masculine voice. "'Alas, Jane the Screwdriver, it is not meant to be."

@datadogie

A slight smile appeared on his face appears as he saw the girl's face turn red and her tail started to swish around. "Well, it seems you are rather bashful!" he said, as slight grin formed on his lips. "And here I thought I was made to be a warrior not a Casanova!" his grin widened, in the back of his mind he wondered if the emotional suppressing had been broken since he could feel emotions so vivid.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Then after we unload everything, maybe we could have some fun!" he said, with a rather devious smile on his face. "If you agree, I'll carry all of the things you are supposed to carrying as well!" and though he would carry her things either way, the rather raunchy joke would serve lighten the mood.

@Metadude

With the smile on his face quickly vanishing, he looks at "Cuddles". "Help the others unload, then announce me when the food is prepared." he says, looking at the cyborg with his usual blank stare. "I will take the first night shift tonight, I need to stretch for a bit." he says looking at the other cyborg's.

Though he was mostly human, most of the people on the trip here considered that both him and the robots to be the same in the sense that both of them mostly lacked emotions, which he imagined that didn't make him very well liked among the people. This in return made him feel a bit of empathy for the cyborgs, even if they were as different from them as Ruby was different from the cyborgs themselves.

Mentioned: @Claw2k11

"Order for Unloading, confirmed. Order for food preparation, denied. Order for Commanding Officer to hold the first shift, confirmed." stated Cuddles. As he was a security enforcer, being aware of meal preparation was not part of his programming. The two blue units did not have the same level of intelligence as A-01, the Brown unit. They could not improvise and understand certain things.

Mentioned: @Raptor

"I have, I have." She was clearly quite pleased with her growing collection of rocks and minerals from this planet. Surely there would be more for her to find the more the explored. However, Aubrey did have a question relating to Mynuan. She shifted a little, but still smiled at the human. "No, Kasha is a term for stranger. Clanless." She began to explain, her pincers waving around a little as she did so. "If you are wandering or traveling to another settlement, those who pass you and do not recognize you will regard you are Kasha until you identify yourself as something else, if you are something else, of course. There is nothing wrong with being Kasha. None are treated differently. It's simply a title for those who wander alone." She was rambling, but she always did enjoy it when people asked about her kind. She liked spreading truthful information to those who wanted it.

Ruby lit up inside at James' words, and she smiled back at his grin. Her face once again went tomato as he placed a hand on her shoulder and claimed that they could have some fun after they unloaded. "Sure we can, but I need to unload some of my stuff personally. Zenohunt stuff I and my two colleges have to move into our new accommodation," she says, leaning against him slightly with a gentle smile on her face. She watched as the cyborg, Cuddles, was spoken to by James, and stayed quiet as they did, hugging him gently with another blush on her face.

Mentioned: @Nevix

"A real yacht would be great to have in this place. I don't think Elias would allow me to repurpose any of the gear we brought though... Also don't have the time either, I've still got vehicles to build after getting the rest of the equipment sorted," Lucia said, picking up the cards seeing a 5 of clubs and a 9 of spades. Not great, at least it wasn't until that 8 of hearts was laid down, a grin splitting her face. "Mano perfecta. I give you, a straight," She said, laying her cards face up on the table and taking the cards to shuffle them again for the next deal.

She chuckled when he asked her how she kept entertained and gave him an amused look as he enacted his little toolbox soap. "Nah, and besides, I'd call them telenovellas, but some do have names, especially when I'm cursing at them. But you really want to know how I entertain myself?" Lucia asked, bridging the deck before shuffling it again.

---

Mentioned: @pyroman

Aubrey nodded as the new word was explained to her then looked back up to Kari with a smile as she rambled a bit and giggled. She had to admit Kasha seemed like a fitting description of their group. She spotted a nearby rock and plopped down on it.

"Doing anything important at the moment or are you free for a bit of a friendly chat?" She asked.

Taking a seat, an exhausted Alden let out a sigh. "Finally... networks all linked up... for now?" groaned the man, slouching over with his head in his hands. Sitting like that for only a few moments, the man leaned back into the chair, making himself more comfortable. "Wonder what Aubrey's up to?" he asked himself out loud, running a hand through his partially grimy hair, the sweat from running around having mostly dried up now. Getting to his feet, he went to the small mini fridge that was standard in each room, grabbing himself a small bar and discarding the wrapper, eating it for a boost of energy. Today was going to be a long day. He still had more to do and needed to run some more bug stomping through the night should any hardware fail.

"How you entertain yourself." He whistled, high and long. "This better be something. If you tell me like 'Oh, I play solitaire' then I'm going to be rather cross. You're talking this up." He laughed. "If you ask me 'do you really want to know', then you need to follow it up with something interesting!" He stood, stretching and rubbing the area where his leg met the metal of his prosthesis.

"Because I've lived for a fair few years, friend. I was at the siege of Ulrioch! I was in the Webley Riots!" He sighed. "Yes, I want to know how you entertain yourself. Sorry for that...outburst."

@Raptor