@Crossfire

It had been an uneventful week for Taleste. She helped out where she could, but besides jobs that anybody at all could have done, she hadn't been much use. She was just another pair of hands. Still, there had been some progress on the social front; more than half the crew found her annoying, and half of those still didn't trust the thief. That was fair. Annoyance is still better than indifference. Soon, they will find her endearing, then they'll have some scrapes together pulling off jobs. That was the path to friendship as Taleste knew it.

Taleste had never once wondered here they're going. She trusted the Captain and the crew to not want to go hungry, so they're probably flying towards a way to make money at any given time. Having heard that announcemnt, however, she suddenly put thought into that area, and was filled with a burning curiosity to know, so she headed down to the dining area and to her surprise was the first crew member there.

"Hey, Cap!" she chimed casually. "Looks like I'm the first whun here!"

"We will never sleep / 'Cause sleep is for the weak."

Tibulus didn't have a biological need to sleep, and he spent near the entire night piloting the ship to it's destination. He didn't mind it, as he'd just be laying on a bed with nothing to do or any way to sleep, and he was still skeptical about leaving the ship alone to pilot while he slept. In any case, he was able to consume a battery while flying and relax a bit. As Stryker woke up, he asked about Tibulus wanting to eat any breakfast, to which Tibulus replied simply "Don't need to eat, mate," as he burned out another cigar. Funganoids may be parasitic scum, but they make really good cigars.

When Stryker came on the PA system, Tibulus opened up a radio channel and asked his a question to Stryker. "Stryker, I'm staying up here. Is it fine if I listen in on this?" After last night, Tibulus was still unsure about leaving the cockpit. Taleste could rejoin him later, though. She was a good sport last night, and she didn't seem like she couldn't be a protege for Tibulus. He should probably ask about it later.

It wouldn't be long before Stryker would hear metal footsteps rapidly approaching. The door to the room Stryker was in would them be kicked open revealing Tobi. What are we killing? I can't wait to rip off its arm and beat them with it. Hope they like the taste of metal and gunpowder cuz that's what a grenade tastes like. A short pause overcame Tobi as he locked up. I told you he was just filling us in the situation. He doesn't need you for that. Tobis' visor turned red. It's not fun just sitting around. That's all I've had to do all week. It's significantly boring. Tobi we need to run tests on this, Tobi get that out of your pocket, Tobi blowing a hole through a wall and calling it an emergency exit during training doesn't qualify you as a hacker. I want to shoot something real. The visor color faded and changed back to blue. My apologies. Won't happen again till the next combat situation. Anyway, how are the others? I wasn't currently operational at the time but I heard some members were incapacitated during the event. I almost forgot. Tobi then handed Stryker a data pad. That data pad contains the reports and results on my routine diagnostics tests. Results show you that coding of the hostile hunter droid still hasn't put you as targets. I will continue to run the tests daily however.

Lataniva didn't really have all that much interest in what was going on, but seeing how this was the only activity that was really left for her life by now she could as well attend. She had simply kept her body in shape, polished the gems on her armor so they were even more shiny (if that was even possible), and sometimes visited her new "little sister" then and there just because and see how she was doing. Just because. Having someone to watch over helped Lataniva out mentally. By comparison, Arex was... infuriating in his origin and his mind still gave her headaches when she thought of him. Anyways.

She was present in the room for breakfast, seated just eating her food as usual, but her attention was on Stryker and whatever he had to say. That's about it.

@Silver Carrot
_{(After Taleste arrives but before the others.)}

Arex wasn't quick enough to leave the kitchen. He cursed under his breath from behind the large open fridge door as the chirpy chime of Taleste's voice pierced into his head. He sighed deeply in reply. It wasn't that she was a bad kid, or even because he still had the same killer headache since the raping of his mind. No it was none of these things that caused him to be so anti-social, ruder than usual and cut off from the others over the past week.

It was because he had lost his identity. Or at least the identity he had created. He had since been forced to question who he actually is and acknowledge that he has no idea who he once was.
Comprised of so much bio-mechanics he didn't even know if he could still be classified as human. His brain clearly wasn't spared from the cybernetic manipulation. We're his thoughts even his own...

Hands full with a plate of food, Arex shut the fridge door with his elbow. A faint fake smile starts his reply.
"Sorry, just me." Arex goes through the draws for cutlery.
"It's ok I'm just leaving. You can still say you were first."
Arex walks past her towards the door.
"I won't tell."

It was then his headache suddenly worsened as coincidently Lataniva slowly neared. Arex quickly made his retreat down to the engine room. Refusing to look at those he passed on the way.

As Amy made her way down the corridor, she stared at the figure she could easily pick out from a line-up as Arex. Tensions between the two of them hadn't gotten worse, though they necessarily hadn't gotten better either. She continued past him without saying a word, knowing that it was better they avoided talking unless someone was there to act as a mediator.

When Amy reached the kitchen, she whispered a "good morning' as she went straight for the cupboards to make herself a sandwich consisting of strawberry jam. She wasn't particularly hungry at that very moment, but she knew it was always a good idea to have something in the stomach just in case.

Once she was done making her sandwich, Amy grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator and sat down at the table to eat.

Maxi had had his hands full the first few days of the week, dealing with the injured members of the crew and all. Benny had been a bit more difficult than the other; the dude had suffered some rather severe damage, and Maxi had been running around sleeplessly making sure the explosive worker got the kickstart and stabilization he had needed. The work on his patients had tapered out as the week went on; once they were stabilized, all it really took was making sure they didn’t, well… die. Which was pretty easy once they were in the green zone. Outside of keeping two of the crew members alive and (somewhat) well, Maxi had taken some time to work in the lab. Mix some chemicals, run some tests on the efficiency of the chemicals in the med bay, and so on.

He had just finished his rather routine checkup on his patient's vitals when the speaker system sparked to life. For once, it interested him- an explanation on the bullshit that happened earlier in the week. He had to go get breakfast anyways, so once he was wrapped up on his work he made his way to the meeting area. His cube followed him, as always.

By the time he got there, a good chunk of the rest of the crew was already there and had fixed up some sort of a breakfast. He headed over to the drawers, grabbed various food items at utter random, and put his food down at the closest open seat. He nibbled on a bagel as he waited for Stryker to announce what the fuck had actually gone down a week ago.

@Xandrya@PlatinumSkink@BKburke@Tickout@Dark Light@Turbowraith@Banana@Silver Carrot

Stryker smiled and nodded as Taleste announced her arrival, he should've known she'd be among the first to arrive. Arex slipped away without a word, just as a few others arrived, Stryker glanced up from his coffee and nodded at each of them as they arrived. Soon enough, Tobi came along, pushing a small datapad into his hands.

"Appreciate it Tobi. The others are fine, doc's got em pretty well stabilized, one less thing to worry about for the moment at least"

Word came through the comms that Tibulus and Joe also wouldn't be attending, Stryker agreed to let them listen in from the cockpit and cargo bay, respectively, and went about setting the datapad to broadcast his announcements.

Grayson, unexpectedly, was the last to arrive.
"Sorry 'm late" he muttered as he fixed himself a cup "Long one las' night."

"Ok, we're all here now, minus the few that couldn't make it for various reasons, but they're all listening in" Stryker began "I guess we should address the elephant in the room....." a sip as he contemplated how best to put this "You know what? the details don't matter in this case. The short answer is, like always, the Alliance fucked us. They're the reason all of us are into this situation to begin with, so we'll stick the blame firmly to them and say no more about it right now. The real announcement, or whatever you wanna call this, just a quick, to-the-point info dump of where we're going, and what those bastards have us lined up to do next, just give me a second here"

He brought the mug to his mouth again and finished it off as he opened up the briefing file on his datapad.

"As some.... most of you will know, there's more stations like Minos all over the Deadzone. Mining hubs that fell over time into nothing more than pirate bays. In particular, we're headed out near the edge of the Deadzone, to Serros Station. That's the rallying point, because apparently, this is a 2 ship job, I don't know, maybe the other's a distraction or something, anyway they're reaching out to a merc crew to provide support. The target is Ne'ero Sol, a Trakerian who rules a faction of, to quote Dawson 'Feddy-sympathizing bastards.' Near as I can tell, his people have been in charge of Serros for years now, and according to this, time for a regime-change. Now, I've gone through this intel packet a couple times, all it really tells me about Sol and his pirates is exactly that, they're an ever-expanding band of cutthroats, slavers, and generally shitty folk. But it's not as simple as show up and bomb the shit out of it. Reason number 1 is because there are people living there, people completely unrelated to what we're doing here. Number 2 is just as 'simple' again, Dawson's version of the word, Sol's death will open a power vacuum among the 3 or 4 other crews that want to rule the roost over at Serros, and the idea is that whichever crew comes out in charge of the place, that's who we approach to try and make inroads. We build contacts with them, it helps us in the long run, apparently. There's way more to it than that, the intel actually refers to a plan carried out in phases, and Sol has a couple of high-ranking lieutenants that'll need to go too, but we can get into the specifics in a couple of days, when we get closer. I can try and answer any immediate questions now, but if there's nothing, then I guess that's it?"

Tibulus sighed when he heard the details of the mission, but he understood why everything had to go the way it had to. Especially when everything is considered, both in the details and in his past. That being said, when Tibulus considered everything, he did have to bring something up to Stryker later after he mentioned it, but it would hopefully help out with the mission when all things were considered. After a quick thought and a bit of hesitation, Tibulus spoke through his end of the connection, not with a question, but with a small statement. "I may have a few 'connections' that might help us out, if you're interested. I'll explain later."

The Funganoid puffed his cigar as he recalled his past. He had his connections, but the biggest challenge was getting them to work with the pilot. He could only hope they would be willing to.

@Crossfire

"I have two questions," Taleste responded. "Whun: Will we get downtime to mingle an' fraternise with the locals, an' two: Do we get to keep any spoils? I'm nut talking about stealing, well, nut jes' stealing. Gambling too. Or will this just be 'get in, kill some people, stock up on supplies, make friends and get out'?"

Taleste moved away from the table to fix herself some breakfast of a protein-rich broth of genetically modified algae, and the strongest, sludgiest coffee she could make, and sat back down at the table. Only now did she look like she'd listen to any answers to her questions.

"If only it was that easy," Amy whispered, her voice low enough so no one else could hear. For the most part, she was over her father's death, but unfortunately any mentions of a new mission usually forced the memories to come flooding back. It hurt like hell, but she was trying her hardest to not let it interfere with her job.

As the rest of the crew mingled among themselves and asked questions, Amy finished up what was left of the sandwich. She also gulped down her orange juice before stacking up the cup on top of the plate in front of her. She would put them away in the dishwasher later on, for the moment she would wait until everyone was finished with their questions.

Maxi… well, Maxi didn’t really look like he cared too much about the announcement. The disaster had been summed up as ‘Alliance bullshit’ (very specific, good job on that one Stryker), and the other mission was taking out an enemy and doing some relations talking bullshit. Remove the Federation stuff, replace it with Alliance stuff. Easy. From behind his glasses his expression looked incredibly unamused, but fortunately the eyewear allowed him to appear at least somewhat interested. His gaze flicked between the two others as some questions were asked and statements made- someone mentioned connections, which he only held brief interest in, and another asked about getting to know the locals. Along with the idea of steali- er, trading. Although he wasn’t a gambler, if there were any resources he could make use of, he’d love to get his hands on them. But that seemed more like an ‘investigate while there and not ask in advance’ kind of thing to him.

Even though he didn’t have any questions himself, he did choose to remain seated with his breakfast to hear everyone speak. He wasn’t an advance based soldier- he was a medic. It would be his job to deal with the injuries as they occurred (and… well, not get shot), not to go in shooting every which way. It wasn’t like asking questions would stop people from getting shot in the fight.

@Banana@Silver Carrot@Simple Unicycle

"I'll keep it in mind Tibulus" Stryker said, directing his voice towards the comms unit on the table "As for your questions Taleste, I'm sorry to say I don't have an answer right now. The orders for the mission were included with the supply drop we picked up at the same time as you, but as per usual Alliance bullshit, the data cube has a firewall locking me out of all the real details. Until we pass by a safe relay where they'll transmit a code to lower the firewall, what I just told you all is all I really know unfortunately"

------------------

Elsewhere

------------------

The Maelstrom soared effortlessly through space. It used to be an Alliance stealth-recon vessel before it was "commandeered" by it's current owners, who, at that particular moment, were rousing from their slumber to begin another glorious day.

Captain Alessio Carver woke to the gentle rustling of the bed covers shifting aside, he glanced sideways to see his wife and executive officer, Kira, slipping on some clothes.

"Mornin' baby" he said, sitting up and leaning over her shoulder to plant a kiss on her cheek.
"Good morning" she returned as she adjusted her top "Coffee?"
"Yeah that'd be great, I'll join ya in a minute, just gonna check in with everybody"

Kira exited their cabin as Alessio hauled himself out of bed and got dressed himself. As he walked out of the cabin he glanced to his left to see Kira busying herself in the galley as she chatted with her brother Marcus, the crew's combat specialist. The three of them had served together during the Corvais War and had continued working together as guns for hire after it's sudden and unsatisfying end. The Captain wandered through the crew quarters, nodding a good morning to the twin sisters Juliette and Jennifer Thane, the ship's engineers, as they walked towards the bathrooms. As usual, the good doctor Gudbranssen had slept in, no doubt he'd stayed up too late again fine-tuning and taste-testing his latest batch of homebrew. He let the man rest and walked on, headed for the ladder to the upper deck. His cantankerous quartermaster, Robert Vulcaan was already up and about in the Armory and grunted a half-hearted 'morning' in response to Carver's greeting. He walked onto the bridge to see Seth Firren, a strange young drifter who'd joined them a little while back, hell of a navigator. He was in the midst of a conversation with the other two members of the crew present: A blue holographic orb that served as the visual representation of the ship's onboard AI, Q-23, and Ace, the pilot.

"Good morning" Carver interjected to Ace and the others when the conversation subsided "How we doin?"

@Crossfire@Banana

"Awright, Cap," Taleste sighed. Until she knew, she expected not to have R&R time, but hoped for the best. "Lat me know if we get more info. I'm uff until then. See you whan it's go time, everywhun!"

And with that, Taleste left the group of people, several of them getting visibly annoyed by the thief and her stupid alien accent, and went back to her room, though when she got there, she didn't feel like sitting around. She was bored! She wanted to do something! Talk to someone! Taleste hated this part of life the most; the travelling between jobs. Even prison's more fun than this! They have open spaces, and hundreds of people who don't distrust you, and compulsory workouts. Whereas space travel...you'd better pack an e-book.

---

There was a knock on the cockpit door. "'Ey, Horrorshow! It's Tal! Want some company? I know I do!"

"Uhm, yeah. Sure, why not?" Tibulus opened the door to the cockpit after he switched the ship to it's auto-pilot for a moment. After he let her in, he returned to the pilots seat and continued the journey to the next mission. He wasn't antisocial as he sat there driving, though, rather he did try to start up a conversation with Taleste. If it would go anywhere, Tibulus didn't know, but trying and failing was better than never trying at all! At least for a majority of situations. Bluh, now wasn't the time to remember the past, he had to talk to Taleste before she thought he was just another brainless skeleton.

"What'd you do that pissed the Alliance off enough to get you here? Everyone down there seems to be their own little slice of deviance, and I don't think you're super different." Was that the right thing to say? Tibulus didn't know, but if it got him either answers or a friend, he'd count it as a success.

@Silver Carrot

@Tickout

"Well, I guess if there's nothing else...." Stryker trailed off as he finished his coffee "I won't keep you all any longer. Maxi, you mind if I follow you up to the med bay? Wanted to check up on the others"

@BKburke

"Tobi, I'd like you to follow me please, we have work to do" SAL spoke as he walked away. Whether the other robot followed or not, SAL was headed straight for the tech lab to begin preparations on some upcoming projects.

@Xandrya

"Hey Amy" Grayson said tiredly as he rubbed his eyes "Got a little somethin to show ya in the Armory, when ya get a chance that is, I'll be in there all day, so drop by whenever yeah?"

No answers? It didn’t seem like there was a point to letting them ask questions if he had told them all he knew. Not like it really mattered to him. Asking questions wouldn’t change what had to be done. Maxi was silent as Taleste headed out, and until Stryker chose to address him again. “Huh? Yeah, sure, I don’t see why not. They’re doin’ just fine, though.” He was still pretty bitter about being ordered to tend for one of the wounded that he really didn’t want to tend to, but Stryker was the boss. He couldn’t turn his request down, lest he get the short end of the stick.

He sat up from his seat upon finishing his breakfast, put his plate where it needed to be (he’d clean it later, maybe), and gestured for Stryker to follow him. He hardly waited for the guy to actually sit up; he motioned for him to come, and then headed down the hall back to the med bay. Not like he’d be polite to him after he was ordered to put up with that idiot from earlier. Maxi knew very well that he couldn’t disobey a direct order, but he could be petty and be the most intolerable person in the world until he felt satisfied.

@Banana

Taleste sat in the same seat she used for monitoring the skies, and even gave it a few glances in the comfirtable (at least to her) silence that followed. She was such a socialite, that even doing literally nothing in the presence of a crewmate was better than entertaining herself alone in her eyes. She didn't want to force Tibulus to talk, as she'd reached the stage with him where she didn't want to annoy him. He didn't mind her company, it seemed, and that was valuable.

So she was pleasantly surprised when he asked her about herself. Taleste was not secretive. She just wasn't an over-sharer. She had accrued many stories in her years of thievery but she only told people who asked to hear them.

"Well, me an' the whuns I wus travelling with at the time, the Cosmos rest their souls, had a stupid cap'n. He wunted to break into an Alliance fort and steal a Class J diamond. We're talkin' the worth uv a couple'a planets 'ere. It went badly, as yud expect, and I surrendered before anybody even sin me. Got the safe open, tho, and I saw the gem."

The plucky thief stopped smiling and looked out of the screen.

"Those whuns all died that day, but this crew's different. This crew's made of survivors."

"Eh, most of us are survivors. You probably don't want to know how I was made." Tibulus remembered waking up back in that cavern after Lykor, and the thought shook him to his core. Being in an unfamiliar area again, surrounded by nothing but these weird mushroom people (and dogs), it was something he could never forget. It was also something he didn't want to remember, so he quickly tried to avoid thinking of it as opposed to telling Taleste a bit about himself.

"I'm piloting this ship voluntarily, but that's probably only because the Alliance couldn't find any intel on what I've done," Tibulus started, trying to figure out the words to what he did before all of this. "I might've dealt with a bit of bad crime. Not anything like you did, mind, but I was involved with intergalactic gambling rings, as both the guy that took your bet and the guy that drove away when the cops were near." Tibulus chuckled when he remembered some of the more ridiculous fights he witnessed. "You had stupid match ups on an hourly basis, with dogs being pinned against these eldritch horrors from the other side of the sector. What's even more stupid was that the dog won that match."

@Silver Carrot

"You got it." Amy got up, carefully picking up her used dishes as to not drop any of them on the floor. With one leg, she pushed the chair into the table and made her way across the kitchen. She was somewhat exhausted, but also curious as to why Grayson wanted her to go down there, so she would make her way to the armory to meet with him in a couple of minutes. For the moment, Amy stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, her mind randomly alluding to the worst case scenario regarding their upcoming mission. The level of bloodshed she imagined was unlike anything she'd seen before.

"Damn..." she whispered, slightly disturbed by her own thoughts, but she was able to smile just as easily as she headed for the exit. "See you guys later."

---

"Hey, you wanted to see me?" Amy leaned on the doorway, her arms crossed in front of her, "This better be important because you're cutting into my nap time."

@Crossfire