In the year 2815, humanity is still standing strong, and the Terran Grand Republic stands the strongest among the star-nations humanity has seeded across the galaxy. Forged during early years of wide scale human expansion from Earth and her solar system, it was created to prevent the possibility of war on Earth as non-space capable nations feared they may be denied access to resources or territory their own populations required.

So, to make sure a global conflict did not break out, a new type of government was formed to represent Earth as a single body and to provide council and rulings for her colonies. The TGR was formed in the year of 2090, and since has taken over as the prime form of government for Earth and the Inner Colonies.

While the Inner Colonies are united under a single government the Outer Colonies, seeing themselves to be on their own against the dangers of space, both natural and human, and so far away from the central government on Earth, they should be the ones to govern themselves. Under a body known as the ?Outer Union?, the colonies used political maneuvering to separate themselves from the control of the TGR. Since most of these outer worlds were still new colonies that were still getting sorted out, or private ventures that didn?t always end up as profitable as their investors had hoped, there was little resistance to the separation.

Though it had achieved its goal, the Outer Union was politically too weak to hold together, and bit by bit, the outer colonies broke up among themselves into single planet star-nations or small two or three planet ?pocket empires?.

In the year 2108, an Outer Colony, Neo Caledonia, detected a non-human ship at the outer range of their sensors. Unsure of what to do word was sent out to anyone who was receiving for help and guidance, but with no word, the colony did its best to avoid any appearance of hostility as a larger non-human ship began to move into the system a few weeks later.

The aliens, who would later identify themselves as a species called Melik, saw how small the colony was, they offered to help them along; it turned out the first ship Neo Caledonia detected was an advanced scout for a survey fleet, while the second was the fleet flagship. Everything was going fine for a few months, the rest of the Melikian survey fleet moved in system, and the fleet commander and the Neo Caledonian president began drafting some formal ground work between Neo Caledonia and the Melikian home world Thoth.

That was until the Terran Grand Republic?s fleet arrived. When the TGR received Neo Caledonia?s message, the belief was that the colony was under threat of hostile invasion, and thus an armed response was sent. When repeated attempts were made to contact Neo Caledonia by the Grand Republic Stellar Navy and they failed to receive a reply, the worst was assumed. In reality, the lack of a reply was due to several factors; a bad storm had blown over Neo Caledonia?s main planet-side comm station, and repairs were still underway, and the waste energy of the Melikian vessels were on a similar frequency to the incoming GRSN signals, which left them badly garbled and barely disguisable from background ?noise?.

As a result, the GRSN Fleet came is with its weapons hot, and managed to surprise the survey fleet. The Melikian?s response was swift and despite the fact it was merely a survey fleet, with limited weapons in general and only a few light warships acting as escort, they badly out classed the attacking GRSN fleet, inflicting heavy casualties. Fortunately, Neo Caledonia managed to get messages through to both fleets and convince them to stand down before the GRSN was wiped out. A cease-fire was brokered and the GRSN fleet was able to return to the Republic.

While Republic lost in the battle, they gained much more in the long run. Aside from some ?recovered? Melikian technology and footage of their tactics, Earth learned they were not alone in the galaxy?and that the Melik, while more than willing to assist others to grow and become better, are no pushovers and have humanity badly outclassed. These realizations have led the TGR to constantly strive to be at the forefront of human technology and to regard any non-human sentient with suspicion.

While the TGR recovered, Neo Caledonia learned of the worlds under the rule of the Melik Sphere, of the worlds of The Great Corus, a body as vast as the Sphere, but who only guided and advised it?s member world never ruled; as well as the many worlds, some friendly, others not, who were a part of neither. This was how humanity found out that they were truly not alone among the stars, and in the past seven hundred and seven years, it has become another player on the galactic stage.



Walker, The Captain of the Sweet Child Mine, has formed of a team of misfits for a mission from the mysterious Chronus Corporation. The team met with the Chronus Corporation main flagship, The Prometheus in orbit of the planet of Sasleyria. There, they talk with the Vice-Director of the sector about their mission.

It came to be known that the mines of Sasleyria had an ancient alien artifact deep below the planet surface. The TGR and The Chronus Corporation demanded the artifact to be delivered to them, while the government of Sasleyria says the artifact belongs to them. Trying to make this matters unknown to the galactic at large, The Chronus Corporation hired The Sweet Child of Mine crew to sneak in and steal the artifact at a warehouse it was located at.

Though unknown to everyone else, a third party had already invaded the compound and kill the workers and guards station there. Once the Sweet Child of Mine crew landed and enter the Warehouse, all hell broke loose.

The mysterious third party had reinforcements to deal with the TGR and The Chronus Corportion small fleet in space, and the forces inside the Warehouse pushed back the Sweeties' crew. Being outgun and outman, the Sweetie crew made a break for it and escape with their lives. After meeting, the crew decided to head to a pirate port to make repairs and resupplies.

There they had a meeting with the infamous Mr.Watts and a deal was struck. Mr.Watts will repair and resupply the ship, for a favor from the Sweet Child of Mine. A simple delivery to a mysterious benefactor. Though many on the crew deem this to be shady, with little choice the crew is now heading towards the location.



The Sweet Child of Mine was fully finished with its rehaul and after expectation from the refitters, some of the crew, and Pitt himself, she was ready to set sail again in the dark waters of space. Walker smiled to see his baby able to fly once more. He knew he was being overhappy about it since the ship wasn't that badly damaged, but he really wanted to test out all the new gadgets and etc they gotten from Mr.Watts.

As Walker made his rounds around the ship, he stopped by Pitt's workshop to see how he was handling things. Though to his surprise, he didn't see the little guy in there. Thinking to himself, 'Huh...he normally coup up in here. Must be working on a ship.' They had a good bit of time on their hands to meet their mysterious client for the drop off so Walker wanted to give the ship a good test drive before going to the meeting point.

Walking towards the bridge to see how everything was running for his pilot. Chuckling at the thought of Mar taking over to give the Sweety a test drive while his real pilot sits to the side waiting his turn. Stopping right at the door for the Bridge as he sighs. Pulling out his flask from his inside vest pocket. Opening it up and drinking it as he would then put the flask back in the pocket. Opening the Bridge and walking inside.

---

In the meeting room of the Sweet Child of Mine, Mar fidgeted as she stood from the hard chair that she had claimed for her own. It wasn't unusual to see a pilot look nervous after hearing about a questionable assignment given to them by shady people. But the assignment wasn't what had the tall, four-armed Shree look distinctly uncomfortable as her four, milky-red eyes glanced out into the hall, or clench and unclench both her true- and false-hands. No, what had her fidgeting was the prospect of talking to Mary, the ex-Pirate fighter pilot on the crew.

Not but a week ago, the two had gone out for drinks and Tsi'vaan--the "Mind-Crawler" lizards that Shree ate for a recreational high as opposed to getting drunk on alcohol--while on shore-leave at Tortuga Station. And after she had thoroughly overindulged on the tiny, hexapedal reptiles and they had gotten into a bar fight at the Dead Orbit, the two had a one-night-stand. One that Mar could only vaguely remember, and had been something of a first for her. The Shree was rather casual as far as sex went, but usually only with men, and never after having twice as many Mind-Crawlers as she was normally comfortable having at any given time. She preferred to be clear-headed in bed. Meanwhile, Mary seemed to have enjoyed it thoroughly.

All of which had made things awkward between the two. She liked Mary, sure enough. The Terran cyborg and ex-Pirate was, oddly, the one person she liked the most on the crew, even with her notable prejudice against Pirates. That, and they were both the best pilots on board The Sweet Child of Mine, which gave them something in common. And, if Mar was honest with herself, it wasn't the sexual encounter that she took issue with. It was the fact that she had been under the influence and could barely remember anything after jumping the human woman.

But she heaved a sigh as she stepped out into the hall and followed Mary to what was presumably going to be a more private corner to talk in. The way she had asked to talk made Mar feel distinctly guilty. It was clear there were hurt feelings. The fact there were told her that perhaps Mary hadn't planned that one-night-stand to be just that, a one-night-stand.

Once they were in an out of the way corner, Mar raised a six-fingered, upper true-hand to keep Mary from saying anything.

"Before you say anything," she started with a quiet voice that came through her translator, "I know, I've been... Distant. And I wanted to apologize. What happened on Tortuga wasn't... I didn't plan that. And I didn't handle things afterward well either."

Mar heaved a sigh, and the smooth features on her dark-skinned face twisted in a rather pained expression as she continued, "Which isn't fair. To you. And it makes me a Terran equine's hindquarters. So I wanted to say that I'm sorry, and regardless of what happened on Tortuga Station, I still consider you to be a friend."

A moment passed before she let out a harsh bark of grunting laughter and leaned back against the hallway bulkhead, crossed both lower false-arms across her barrel chest, and shook her head. One true-hand reached up to rub at her smooth scalp, and she looked at Mary with what could only be described as a look of dry amusement.

"I go and overdo things in our little bar and club crawl, then I went ahead and made things awkward. Really, that was something of a first for me. I normally go for males." she said.

As they both moved to a quieter spot, Mary tried rehearsing what she was going to say; in a revelation that would’ve probably shocked no one, she wasn’t particularly good at apologizing for her actions. Words cluttered up and jumbled together in her head, but eventually she got something sorted out and was about to speak, when Mar stopped her.

As she spoke, Mary just stared at her, disbelief slowly working across her face. She’s apologizing to ME?! She thought incredulously. She’d figured it’s been her actions that’d upset the younger female…she had let her own libido take the reins after all.

As Mar finished speaking a smirk that bled into a grin crept across Mary’s face as she hung her head forward and began to laugh. After a few false starts she got herself under control, and beamed up at Mar. “Fuck me running,” She chuckled. “You’re apologizing to me?” Arching her back slightly to stretch, she shook her head, still smiling. “That was why I wanted to talk…I let myself get carried away, let my libido take over as it were. I was just looking to blow off some steam as the saying goes, and I didn’t really consider any consequences…”

The smile faded as she shook her head again. “Kid, you got nothing to feel bad for; Hell, if I hadn’t ‘ve kept pushing you in that direction, things probably wouldn’t ‘ve gone the way they did. I forget that my attitudes on sex are a bit different than more ‘civilized’ folks.” There was a mischievous glint in her eye as she spoke the last line. Reaching into a pocket, she pulled out her ubiquitous flask and took a long pull of something that’d probably do a fair job as an industrial solvent. “Tell you what, let’s call that night a wash and leave it at that. Next time, I’ll see if I can find you a nice Shree boy…or two?” She added, the smirk creeping back to her lips.

---

"GRACE HAS SOME NERVE!" The rather irked Irina muttered loudly as she maneuvered her constellation of eight drones into position around the Sweet Child of Mine, the large freighter that had served as the base of operations for Orion Company since it had formed all those weeks ago.

"What are you expecting?" Edward's voice responded coolly over the intercom in response to her complaint,"Comrade Grace invested a great amount of time, energy and patience in overseeing your flight training. While I understand that the incident involving the rental shuttle was an unforeseeable accident, it reflects poorly not only on yourself as a student but on Comrade Grace as an instructor."

Irina paused for a moment, pulling up a schematic of the Sweet Child of Mine and connecting to a database of objects that could be used to track the ship's location, surveil the ship's communications, disable the ship's systems or destroy the ship altogether. Making a slight gesture with her hand, the deployed constellation of drones started a scan of the ship, looking for changes to the ship's systems and comparing those changes to the objects in the database. Given the number of changes that had been made, with the amount repairs and the systems upgrades that had been made while the ship had been docked at Tortuga, the scan would take some time.

"Oh." The Fuzzy Pink Furball responded simply. Leaning back against cradled arm that kept her from being flung about the room while the ship was in motion, Irina's mind figuratively performed a complex series complicated calculations that dealt with interpersonal relationships, "She doesn't have to be so mean about it."

"When the subject being taught affects not only your survival but that of our comrades, I do not believe that each instructor will find the most effective means of communication. Were she nice in regards to these incidents, would you be thinking of this topic at this moment?" Edward continued, the sound of his footsteps echoing over the communications channel.

"You still haven't made it to the bridge yet?" The Mechanically Inclined Merchant asked, changing the topic before Edward's logic could seep any further into Irina's mind.

"No, I have not but I will be there momentarily. The Shock Trooper Corp hold a belief that humans manufactured the corridors to be narrow on their ships as a tactical choice in order to hamper the movement of a Catican boarding party. Whether there is any truth to this, it does not take away from the fact that it takes some time for me to traverse the freighter." Came the response which proceeded a grunt when the Massive Mountain of Muscle attempted hug the wall of the corridor, allowing one of the Sweet Child of Mine's crew members passage past him.

"While you're talking to Captain Walker about the prisoner, you should tell him about the results of the Genomic scan that performed on her... and see who she's had the most contact with." Irina said with some concern in her voice, "Chances are she's already..."

"...Imprinted upon that individual and should be relatively trustworthy, yes." Edward interrupted, the sound of his footsteps had stopped, "I am at the bridge now."

"Alright. Tell the Captain that I'm about 30% done with the ship wide scan. I know that Shanoa already completed her's but the humans have a saying 'measure twice cut once.'" The Terraphile said with an audible smile

"I will report back to you after I have spoken with the Captain." Edward responded, his voice sounding unsure what to make of the ancient Terran adage.

Well, their little jaunt on the Tortuga Station had been interesting, buy uhh...frankly, Elliot was looking forward to seeing the back of it, as odd a thing to say as that was. It was, for them, the 'any port in a storm' to them. Not a homey place, not even a permanent or good place. It was just A place, and it would be better if they weren't here the whole time. The reason for the measuring twice and cutting once had been due to some insight in the crew that started from Pitt and ended with Elliot.

Come to think of it, they were measuring thrice now, weren't they?

In a way, it didn't matter to the somewhat-grizzled man sitting in the gunship cockpit. If anything happened with the Sweet Child of Mine, there was still his ship, at least. Even still, he kind of liked the little gathering of a crew that they had. It was about as motley as you get, but those are fun. The only problem was when personalities and habits collide. That'd been the case...with Irina and Grace. Now, he didn't know what Catican society was like, or how seriously Irina took things, but Grace... Grace had been instructed by him, and after a number of years living on the streets with nothing but a knife or two. People like that don't let go, not ever.

Especially not when the thing they're not letting go about involved breaking a crucial airlock in the heat of battle.

That would've been a good way to lose the Archer, not to mention the partner he'd worked with for some time, since she had been piloting it. Elliot had taught her, trained her, and gotten her to work with him, and now that he considered her an equal partner, he didn't want some freak mistake with a docking procedure when a quick escape is needed separating him from his home in space and main trainsport, AND her. This had led to their disagreements, a brief prank war, and then Grace attempting to teach Irina how to properly pilot, and...

Look, things hadn't worked out. Alot of it was aggravating, but some of it was funny.

The latter line of thinking was how Elliot was looking at it while he was in the common area with Grace now, getting a little drunk. They had been going over the happenings of the situation again, and Grace - while not a light-weight - had gotten to talking about how trouble Irina was.

Grace: That cat woman is about as smart as I am tall.

Elliot: Kind of middling, then?

Grace: Not very.

Grace was not fantastically tall. Irina wasn't especially tall either. Only one of them was alright with their height. Not the Catican, funnily enough.

Grace: I was never that troublesome as a child, but Irina IS a child, and I hate it. I want to inflict her on my parents, as punishment...

That was let loose by accident. Grace did not talk about her parents, and they were technically in polite company. Elliot knew, of course. Grace's parents straight-up abandoned her for some reason. It was why she was on the streets when Elliot found her. It was water under the bridge. She did resent it, but did not really address it because there was nothing to really say or do on the matter. Right now, the bigger merc looked at his watch.

Elliot: We'll wanna be right and sober by the time the mission hits off. Finish your drink, and get some rest. Busy times a'coming.

With the meeting over, Shanoa retreated to her work. Both in breaking the encryption on the one data spike and repairs to her mechanical body. Nyx would be finished soon-sih. All she really need to do with that is swap parts, with the mount for her new/old rifle taking the longest since that needed to be rebuilt.

The encryption would take MUCH longer how ever. She might have figured out the trick to it, but all that meant is she knew what to look for, and since it was set up in such a way that 'brute force' hacking would fail, if not totally destroy the data, she had to do this old school. Which she found her self enjoying, frustrating as it could be.

That said, there was the TGR data spike she had gotten along with the gun and the data spike she was working on. So she sent a message to Mary, reminding her that she desired her assistance with something, and continued until ether Mary showed up, or was needed.

---

Mary's response was... Nothing short of unexpected. It was also incredibly reassuring that things weren't so awkward that they couldn't push past their one-night-stand and still be friends. Mar couldn't help her smile as she chuckled, crossing both pairs of arms across her chest. But she shook her head at the offer of finding one or two Shree males for fun.

"I prefer to keep to one bed partner at a time, if you don't mind. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a prude." she told her, reaching over and patting her shoulder and adding, "Still, I'm glad to hear we're still cool."

The Shree took a moment to stretch and roll her shoulders before she jerked her head for Mary to follow. Then she started to make her way in the direction of the bridge.

"Come on. We've got to get this showboat on course. We have a job to do, and if something from the refit goes on the fritz or blows up, it'll be nice to have another pilot of my caliber up there to help." she teased.

With another chuckle, she strode into the bridge and promptly tugged the current pilot out of his seat before taking his place. But not before giving him a pointed look. One that clearly said that while she was on the bridge, she was going to take the helm. As she told them the first time, whenever the best is available, you use the best. Turning away, she faced the instruments and already began her own series of pre-flight checks, her fingers flying across the console before she glanced back at Walker.

"Alright, Captain. So far, everything checks out. Permission to launch?" Mar inquired.

Mary smiled as it became clear that she hadn’t managed to alienate herself from Mar; while she knew Mar still held a rather dim view of pirates in general, she was also the only one on board who might actually get why she chose to do what she’d done.

“Only one? Well more for me I guess.” She laughed, following towards the bridge. “That said, if he’s still about, there’s a fellow I should introduce you to…he’s very good.”

While upended helmsman walked off, glaring at the back of Mar’s head, Mary made her way over to Nav and brought up the local map of the system. To go with Sweety’s new armaments, and ‘official’ ID, she’d also acquired a much better NavComp. After a moment or two, Mary nodded with satisfaction before highlighting an area of space not far from the station and then sent the update over to Mar at the helm.

“Shipbreaker’s folks do good work, one kind of needs to when your clients are well armed and prone to violence; so we really shouldn’t have any issues on the tech side. Exiting the system is no different for a tub like this than leaving anywhere else, so that shouldn’t be an issue.” Moving over to stand beside Mar, she brought her update to the forefront. “Bit of a heads up though. That is the ‘Breaker Yard’ where Shipbreaker strips and scraps prizes that can’t be fixed and sold; as a result there’s a lot of little crap floating about there, so it’s good to give it a wide berth.”

With that out of the way, she dug into a pocket to check her personal comm; she’d felt it go off earlier, and she figured she should check it now, just in case it was something important from station-side. She was most confused when the message header said it was from Shanoa. Why would…right…the canner said it wanted to talk to me…

Patting Mar on an upper shoulder, she turned for the hatch. “Barring some colossal fuckery, you should be fine. I’ll be back in a tick, gotta sort something out.” With that she stepped off the bridge and began heading to where Shanoa had camped out. Reaching her destination, she rapped on a bulkhead with her synthetic knuckles to announce her arrival. “So clanker,” She inquired, making no attempt to hide her disregard for the machine. “What do you want?”

Mary immediately cut to the insults.

Classy.

"Well since we're apparently not even going to put up a pretense of civility." Shanoa started manifesting the usual holographic avatar she used, not the 'cute one' from before. "I possibility have use of you. or rather the 'TGR' you." the hologram moved around the room, situating it self be her new gun, which was currently detached from Nyx, who was still partly tore down and being worked on anyway. "Recently I have come into possession of some of my old belongings. besides the 'rifle' there are two data spikes, one of which I am currently working on, and calling the encryption on it 'complicated' would be as gross an understatement as 'we want to even be having this conversation' or 'I hate pirates and the TGR'."

"Where you come in is the other data spike. It's TGR in content it seems, and you being ex-TGR and since you where active at around that time I figured I'd see if you could get into it. and if not" she shrugged "I'll get to it later, this heavily encrypted data spike is likely of great import to me anyway, so I'm focusing the vast majority of my processing power on that. But since you stand as a potential 'key' to this 'lock' I figured I would see if you could get in, long shot though it may be." Shanoa's hologram's mannerisms gave the distinct, and unmistakable impression that the AI was looking down on the pirate, and with no small amount of contempt ether, though given what Shanoa said when Mary entered, she would have at least pretended to be nice to the pirate for the duration of this little meeting if she hadn't lead off with hostility. "and if you refuse, well you know where the door is, and I will be more then happy to let you get back to what ever it is you do when your not getting black out drunk."

Shanoa’s contempt and condescension rolled off Mary without leaving a mark; smiling, she moved into the compartment. “I didn’t see the need to bother; it’s not like you’ve even put much effort into being civil to me before.” She added, before waving away any reply.

Walking over to the data spike in question, she picked it up and looked it over for a moment; there were a few minor details to its housing that anyone who didn’t know what to look for would’ve missed, and upon seeing those details, Mary smiled some more and shook her head. Ah, here we go. She thought finally. “I know why you really want my…assistance…” Data spike in hand, she used it to gesture to Shanoa’s avatar. “This isn’t ‘just’ an older data spike, this is a ‘Black Box’ data spike; the sort of thing one would store information from things like black-site or spec-ops projects on. Used to see them from time to time when I’d sneak into my mother’s office as a kid.” She said the word ‘mother’ with the same contempt that most ‘civilized’ beings would say the word ‘pirate’.

“You want me to try and open it because you’re worried that if your decryption buggers up, the data will get wiped and there’s something important to you one here…and you’re betting that I, in my long and nefarious career as a heinous pirate, may have acquired a ‘key’ or two to try unlock it. After all, if it’s a legitimate key, even if it’s the wrong one, only the workstation gets locked out and the data persists.”

Mary walked around the space for a moment, admiring Shanoa’s new artillery, poking at a few odds-and-ends before returning her attention to the AI. “As it so happens, Ido have a couple of decryption keys that may work. Tell you what, since you’re crew, I’ll give you a discount rate, one hundred thousand credits. Fifty thousand, non-refundable, up front for my time and the other fifty upon successful completion.” Propping herself against Shanoa’s platform, she held the data spike up. “That’s at least fifty percent cheaper than any third party you’ll find on the black market and minimal risk to the data.”

'Since your crew I'll cut you a discount'

That line caused a few fuzzy images to flash in the AI's memory, and fuzzy as they where, it brought a smile to the AI's holographic face, this also changed her tone a bit as well. "Well, your partly right. I do believe what ever is on that is some how linked to what I'm after. But it's not that I'm worried about losing the data that I'm asking for your help." The hologram lowering to be at eye level with Mary.

"It's impatience. I am so close to what I've been looking that having to wait the time it would take to hack into that one, after the mess that is the one I'm currently working on." Shanoa snapping her fingers, and the image of about sixteen interlaced spider webs appeared, though it only look like there was seven or eight of them. "Really doesn't do anything for me. At all. also, please move. I'm not done working on that section." one of the arms working on Nyx, lightly poking Mary a couple times to get her to move so it could install a part it had.

"As for your price." she shrugged "It's acceptable. I guess." Nyx's tail opened up and moved over to what looked like a normal container, but turned out to be a safe, opened it up, and pulled out two credit cards. The tail then swung around, hung the cards in front of Mary for a moment before releasing one into her hand.