[IC] Entropy and Other Dilemmas

[Sixsmith]

An excerpt from the Encyclopedia Universalis on what it means to be a part of a crew — (Best read in Stephen Fry's voice)

"It is highly regarded among many races and species that inhabit the universe that there is one ultimate form of camaraderie, for which there is one simple word for it in basic English: crew. Crew, as a word, had become so popular with the people as a form of escapism, that honestly should have just been kept within works of fiction (50 Shades of Grey wasn't enough? Come on), that it had been given a special spot in the dictionary and single-handedly consumed various other words into its collective. In fact, this had caused quite a stir in one specific community—the Logrodytes of Conchessa—during the hippy movement in the 60s, that every species went through at some point in the 60s. It's actually been dubbed and proven through a few experiments that no one bothers to redo and test further that the 60s is actually a universal time anomaly, in which the Hippy's, also a temporal anomaly, could thrive without due process or persecution for possession of illegal paraphernalia and use of said paraphernalia in every world ever that has a way to measure the passing of years. This has been proven through the observation of the world Hippolytica, a tie-dyed world that smells oddly of weed and looks oddly like Dr. Seuss had an aneurysm. Through recent discoveries, it seems to be that this world is in fact trapped in a temporal time loop where it resets every decade so that it may never traverse further down its historical line.

It was determined that a scientist had caused an unwanted and wholly unnecessary rift in the world's time core (a theory still being tested, though scientists are much too lazy for that) just as the planet hit its 60s era, you know, the one everyone goes through. Sad to say, this effected the whole universe in a way that everyone suffers now. As it should be. However, this was the sole cause for the utter annihilation of one particular race: the aforementioned Logrodytes of Conchessa. This particular species was very well known for its skill in debates. The fact that they wouldn't let go of a topic until one could no longer stand the incessant thing was a great help and was the sole tool in their kit of debating skills. It was also their downfall.

It so happened that this race of beings thought it necessary, after becoming so hyped up on cocaine and LSD, to completely change the word banana to mean the same as the word crew. In other words, they wanted a Banana to become a part of the vast collective of what the word Crew actually meant, thus bloating the word so much that it became a common trick question on tests that quickly turned into full blown essays on the importance of the word crew and what it meant to you. Sadly, the banana was an invasive species (who would have known a phallus shaped fruit would literally dick around so much that it would spread like gonorrhea in a brothel. Goes to show the willpower of men) which had found a home among the once primitive and honor bound species of the Halatians of Warsaw XI. They had become so accustomed to the banana that it become their sacred religious symbol, and the symbol on every flag they rose. It so happened that the orange was also a sacred fruit and they put that on their flag, too. Do you see where this is going? They literally had a flag with a penis on it. A human shaped one that resembled it so much that it was actually offensive to look at once you got it, but this wasn't the shape of a Halatian male's phallus, so it hadn't really occurred to them just how immature their flag was. When humans came into the picture, people began to realize just how immature their flag was.

Back to the subject: after many years, the Logrodytes finally took over the political arena and were successful in changing the word banana into the word crew. Suffice to say, this was the end of the species as people knew them. The Halatians took such a great offense to such a blatant disregard to their culture—honestly, who doesn't separate church and state nowadays? Many agree that they were acting like childish infants that day, including the Logrodytes, who were, more or less, completely... and utterly eradicated.

This is why you don't put all your eggs in one basket... and don't lace said basket with every drug known to whateverkind.

It is also quite unknown as to the reason why the Encyclopedia Universalis sells so many copies, as many people have often complained about its proclivity to run off in wild tangents, to the point where an article explaining the reasons for the Berlin Wall could very well be made into its own novella and sell many more copies alone than most rubbish.

---

This was the perfect day for a spot of tea.

Well, it was a pretty good day, anyway. Especially when half the crew was either limping or split in half due to some monstrosity infesting the air ducts. Apparently, someone thought it was a good idea to bring an unknown being's egg into the space ship. That someone was in no particular way inept at their job; in fact, they were quite good at what they did. Never mind that what they did caused more deaths on average than a serial killer let loose on a small fishing village. Research was research, though, and he did get what he wanted out of that—not the deaths, but the data.

It was oddly coincidental that he had the near exact amount of people lined up to replace those that had died. He'd have to tell some of them to leave, however, but the others were guaranteed a job. Unless, of course, the dead crew reanimated; in that case, he'd have more expendable crew which he wouldn't have to pay or feed and would be more profitable in the long run, give or take a few infectious diseases running rampant that he'd somehow be responsible for.

Aside from all of that, it certainly was a fantastic day for tea.

"Don't you think, Jane?" Doctor Eckhart Nosek, after slipping a nifty antique pipe into his mouth, questioned. He gave her a look over: the gal was worse for wear, just like most of everyone else that survived. Or didn't survive.

The blonde woman stared at him from across the table. There were bags under her eyes, and she hadn't touched her tea. She wore a light blue shirt and dark pants of some slightly shiny, stretchy material. She had been staring past him at some fixed point in the distance; her eyes wandered to his as he spoke. Eckhart wondered, vaguely, how long it had been since she had "slept" - or whatever the word was for what she did.

"What?" She said.

"That it's a good day for tea," Eckhart replied, enunciating clearly as he gestured toward her drink, "Or is there something else you fancy? Coffee?"

"Whiskey," she said. "Six people, Eck. And we're at what, now, twelve in two years?"

"More than twelve," he signaled his personal A.I. to fetch the whole bottle as he spoke, "I just find reasonably good copies. Coincidence, really. Think around eighteen or twenty and a half, including myself."

Jane sniffed. "That man" - she hadn't bothered to learn his name - "is an idiot. One medic's insides got eaten and he started accusing us of all being alien duplicates."

The A. I. (a tall, white-haired woman with a bosom of gravity-defying metal and silicone) brought Jane an ornate bottle of whiskey and started to pour it into a small glass, but Jane waved her off. Without looking away from Eckhart, she swept up the bottle in her right hand and downed about a third of it.

"This is disgusting," she said. "Tightening your belt, doc?"

"We're making more money than we have in years," he growled back, "never mind that it was caused by a few mishaps that ended in tragedy..."

Jane was inspecting the whiskey bottle. "Morker's Make?" she said. "Doc, we both know better then that. What are you gonna to do when there's nobody left who wants to volunteer?"

"Oh dear Jane," he scoffed, "I'll be out of candidates when poverty stops existing. No one likes utopias anyways; it leaves little room for opinions and people love opinions."

Jane pursed her lips, regarded him for a moment, then took another long swig from the bottle. "No way I can convince you to try some real science-villainy again?"

"I mean, kill me a few times and I might want to," Eckhart commented with a grin. He made fancy work of lighting the pipe in his mouth before looking at Jane again, "Is there something particular you don't like about living like a pauper?"

"Not that it's the worst thing possible, but come on, Eck." Jane gave him a dimpled smile. "We had a lot more fun. I bet I could still conjure up that dress... you know, the silver-gray one--"

"Doc." Eckhart was immediately brought away from staring at the amount of whiskey Jane had consumed, as if it were money sliding down her throat, and had his attention averted to a limping figure heading his way. The man stumbled forward into his small, plastic stool, pale and unassuming—or rather like death because he certainly smelled like it.

Eckhart cringed and took a long sip of his tea. "Forget to shower today, Captain?"

"I'm dyin' doc."

"Oh," Eckhart blinked. "Mind dying somewhere else? You're fouling my tea."

"Doc—" the captain convulsed onto the table before something large and slimy burst forth from his ribcage. The A.I., Martha, who was previously busy glowering at Jane, moved to retrieve the specimen and subsequently left without a word.

Jane stared at the spot where the corpse had been, then down at her chest. "He got blood on my shirt."

Eckhart simply looked up at Jane, smiled, and took another sip of his tea, only cringing at the taste of human flesh. "Looks like you're the new Captain. Would you like me to clean his uniform before you wear it?"

---

Let's get started, shall we?"

[Ex]

Jane lay on her bed and stared up at the bulkhead. It was a sculpted mass of metal alloy, probably centuries old at this point. It was unscathed and perfectly smooth, except for one dark spot in the upper corner where some accident must have occurred. The spot had been there for as long as Jane had been on Second Sun, which meant it was probably there before Eckhart saved it from the scrapyard. She wondered, occasionally, what had caused it. This had been a battleship, once, the pride and joy of some military captain - or so Jane liked to imagine. She preferred to think of it as a relic of some fallen glory, something that had been great once, even if it was just so much cantankerous wiring and ancient hardware now.

Her quarters had thin gray carpet and were maybe twelve feet by ten feet. A bed was jammed lengthwise against the wall in front of the door. Next to it, a metadesk, currently idling on the Second Sun's master systems display. There was an ailing beanbag chair next to the desk, and beside it a small dresser. Next to the door on the other side was a larger closet. The doorway and walls were high but narrow, probably constructed for whatever species had originally occupied this room. Jane had installed shelving at or above her eye level wherever she could along the walls. The shelves were populated with various worthless tchotchkes - trinkets, statuettes, little rotating discs and shapes with no discernible function, all held in place by tiny grav generators on the underside of the units. Most of them could be activated and used to make some kind of noise, but usually, they were silent.

Jane regarded the knicknacks most immediately visible to her - a tiny china doll holding two cymbals in her painted hands, a small rotating pyramid that glowed a faint yellow in the artificial light, and a stationary black sphere that was flat at the bottom, for display. All of them were silent, which Jane considered to be a good sign, but she regarded them with suspicion nonetheless. The metadesk blithely emitted a bright chiming noise; Jane swiveled her head to look at it. Five minutes before she had to make her way to the mess.

She tried to think for a moment about what she was going to say. She realized she had absolutely no idea, and likely wouldn't until she was standing there, in front of the crew, all of them waiting for her to speak. That was fine. She'd wing it. She was good at winging it. Besides, it wasn't like any of the crew were in any position to judge her, not after the previous captain. And they knew what to expect. All she had to do was maintain her reputation, and everything would be fine. Jane pulled herself up off the bed, buttoned up her dark jacket, and stepped out of her room to stride briskly down the empty corridor.

The mess was a long, lower-cielinged room at the far end of the deck (Second Sun's dimensions were unusually schizophrenic for a battleship, like it had been cobbled together by a variety of races at a variety of times). Its doors, like most of the doors on the ship, were of thick, solid metal affairs, so that each room could be totally sealed from every other room as necessary. Jane took a moment to straighten her jacket and collect herself while the door slid open, then stepped into the room.

The long tables and benches (all made of cheap, off-white plastic and metal) had been pushed back to form a crescent shape around the edges of the room, leaving the front and center empty. The effort was probably unnecessary; there weren't really enough crew for anyone's line of sight to be obscured, but Eckhart always insisted that the introduction of a new captain should have some kind of small ceremony. Jane had tried to remind him that she was hardly new, and had already basically been the captain several times before, but he'd have none of it, so there they were. She took three steps forward and took a long look around the room, arms hanging loosely by her sides.

Her eyes swept across the crew, all gathered on the peripheries of the room. The ones she recognized (the ones who had been around a while) looked bored, expectant. Glyx, the medic, "rested" (or, at least, remained mostly stable in his brainpod) nearest to her; she nodded to him smartly. He had done his best for the last captain, even though it was the man's own stupidity which had necessitated a medic's services, but it had been futile. Carnus, the reptilian "delivery specialist" - still half-asleep, as far as Jane could tell - and, in the corner, the silent Janitor, Harriet. The older woman's gaze was always just a little disconcerting, but Jane had gotten used to it. There were others. Newer faces, ones she hadn't seen before. These, she tried to glance over without focusing. Didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression.

Jane cleared her throat.

"Okay." she said.

She stared hard at the back wall, pursing her lips, letting her mind turn over. She knew what to say.

"Okay, look: Some of you know me. A lot of you don't. I'm gonna guess those of you who don't have already been filled in, to an extent. I won't guess as to what was said; doesn't matter." She nodded, to punctuate her point. "I'll keep the introduction short. I'm Jane Pepper, and I'm your new captain. For those of you who remember the last four, those words probably don't inspire any confidence, and I don't blame you for that... but maybe these will: I don't fuck around. I don't mind being your friend, but I don't need to be, either. What we need from each other is our work, that's it. I'll do my job - I'll make the plans, I'll give the orders, I'll take care of it when things inevitably go wrong and plans totally blow up. I'll save all your asses. In return, each of you is will give me whatever you've got. When you're on a shift, you'll do your job right. You won't screw up, and neither will I, but when we both do, when it eventually happens, we'll have each others' backs. That's all I'm asking, that's it. Help me, and I'll help you."

She took one final glance around the room. "Sound okay to all of you?"

[Dusk]

He did, for the record, advise against bringing a weird squishy thing on board the ship. "There can only be one, and that one's me!" He had said to the crew that brought the egg on-board, although it was a bit of a joke.

Glyx hovered around the med-bay, trying to get things in order. He had knocked everything over in his haste to help the crew members that had been attacked by the...whatever the fuck that was. The captain was the most worrying, with what seemed to be another alien embryo in his chest. Glyx didn't want to know how that happened. Of course, they weren't exactly equipped for surprise alien impregnation. It became obvious that Glyx couldn't do anything but pump the poor bastard full of pain-killers and a variety of metallic elements and hope that they kill the little bastard. Due to the meeting that was scheduled to take place in the mess momentarily, that didn't work. Most were dead. Just the usuals, now.

It was depressing, truly it was, but Glyx had come to the conclusion that all doctors must come to eventually: You can't save them all. In the case of this little company, that happened often. Instead of sulking, he'd taken the time to reorganize and clean the blood off of his floor. The office had equipment (monitors, fridges, a few vials and beakers, the basics) on counters lining the southern wall of the room, with the lounge at the northern half. In the middle was an operating table, with a light overhead. It wasn't a fancy space in the least, but it got the job done. Thankfully, a desk wasn't needed, as he just stored everything in his brain. His pod made information recall simple, so it left a little bit of floating room.

A little reminder pinged in his suit, jerking Glyx's thoughts to the meeting at hand. "Fifth time's a charm..." He sighed, in his bubbly, yet obviously robotic voice. Hovering out the door at the east wall, he made his way down to the mess hall, with barely enough room to fit his diameter. Maybe a slimmer model would have been better? Nah, this one had more amenities. The shielding had saved his hide on many occasions, after all. The crew, what was left of the old and the new, were already gathering. This was going to a bit better than the other little "ceremonies", because there was only one lady that could ascend to the throne now...

On cue, Jane Pepper came in and stepped out onto the center. A purposeful stride, one that meant business. She nodded to him as she took her spot, front and center. It made him feel a bit better, knowing that she thought what he felt. Possibly unlike the new hires, Glyx was fully prepared for what Jane had to say. She was no-nonsense when it came to work, and it was definitely effective.

After her little speech, Glyx flashed an image of a thumbs-up, showing his approval. "You got it, Cap'n!". He, took, scanned the new and old folks, skipping over Harriet's ominous gaze. At least this captain made his job a whole lot easier. Hopefully the new guys would too...though given the track record they had, that was sort of a fever dream.

[RedDusk]

The metal grate clicked softly as Krios removed it. A thick liquid, presumably blood mixed with digestive fluid, began dripping down uncontrollably. Instinctively, he stepped out of the way, his lips curled up in disgust. Just the mere thought of which diseases exotic space creatures carried inside them was enough to make him shuddered, which was a miracle all by itself. He had been travelling for quite some time now, had been fortunate enough to witness all sort of madness and live long enough to regret the decisions that led to them. And yet, there was still things that can make him flinched. Like the Brain Rot, a disease that, predictably, made your brain decomposes inside the skull. Not a pretty sight at all. So to avoid a similar fate, Krios dropped the grate and left the vent as it was. He would continue with it after the mess had been cleaned up. Eckhart hired him to be an engineer, not a bloody janitor.

Honestly though, after his first 5 hours on the ship, Krios found that this place wasn’t horrible as he had initially thought. Sure, his boss was obsessive, but at least he was not a tentacle beast that wanted to have sexual intercourse with everything and everyone. It was far from the worst job he ever had though. Their ship might be ancient, its hardware a maze of patchwork fixes and outdated parts, but he supposed he could manage. After all, despite all their technology and intelligence, the Murridanes couldn’t create new spare parts out of thin air, so he had to do a lot of salvaging back then. Thanks to that, he was sufficiently familiar with the ship’s network, enough to get a few repairs done before the meeting was due.

Apparently, the former captain had met his final demise during the attack, so a new one was chosen. Eckhart. The man was nothing but efficient. He even put together a celebration of sort to announce the new captain. Attendance was mandatory, it seemed. Letting out a sigh, Krios opened the door to his modest cabin, then stepped inside, the door slid shut behind him. This felt a huge waste of time to him. After all, he still had tons of work left, vents to unclog, engines to repair, interfaces to replace. No time to go to some silly meeting for talks about things he already knew.

Krios sat down at his desk, leaned into the leather seat. There was still a bit of time for him to relax, maybe take a nap or something. But then, it wasn’t really possible, not with his condition. So Krios ended up staring at the metal celling like an idiot, legs propped up on the messy desk. His room wasn’t very big, even when he had got rid of the bed, along with its occupant still bleeding on the blankets, but at least there was enough room for a comfy leather chair with built-in heating system and cup holders, so Krios couldn’t really complain.

Moments later, the antique clock on his desk went off as his cue to leave. He found the mess hall with little difficulty, as he had studied the ship plan few hours earlier, remembering what he could. The light bothered him, but the he didn’t take out his shades. Instead, he focused on Jane Pepper, standing in the middle of their little circle, his arms crossed. Her speech was, well, hardly informative, since she had already struck him as the type of woman with a low tolerance for bullshit the moment she stepped into the room. Not his favorite type of people, but she seemed like someone who knew what they were doing. He could respect that.

[Sixsmith]

"It should!" Eckhart appeared through one of the multitude of doorways holding onto a pile of papers, "'Cause it did the last five time... or ten; I lost count. Great speech Jane. It was very concise and to the point. It was very enjoyable, with a dash of comedy to keep the audience interested, but a riveting premise to reel 'em in. Something like that, or whatever. I just got here."

Using the papers in his hands, he waved Jane off the non-existent stage as he took over. His mustache curled slightly at the sight of just a bunch of misfits; he was beginning to regret his prior thoughts when looking over the applications. Then he suddenly remembered that these were the best of the best out of the cesspool of impoverished and uneducated 'people'. It made his stomach flip and it was obvious he lost much of his already minuscule amount of hope from the sudden sunken expression that tugged at his features. He was probably looking at a room of potentially dead individuals, minus a few of the ones who were immortal, or just damn hard to kill—he wasn't quite sure which and he wouldn't be bothered by it now.

Did he have a speech? Not technically speaking. Well, technically speaking he had totally forgotten about this whole process deal with the new captain in crew. To be honest, he'd rather have them go out now and do their jobs, but this time was just more money in his pocket.

"So, I guess you're the new batch?" he sighed, hands locking behind him, "Well, I just want to let you all know that I will be letting some of you go because, as you can see, the people you were to replace are still alive. But the rest can stay. I think. I mean, if you want to leave, I'm sure one of these fellows would like to take your spot. Just know that you're a coward, but you're alive. Speaking of which, most of you, if you aren't already, will most likely die a terrible, terrible death from the various terrible things this universe has hidden away in its utility belt. In fact, unless you're immortal or something close to it, there's about a 99% chance you will die. I die on a daily basis, but we'll talk about that later. What I have now is your first mission, but I want everyone to get acquainted first... with the ship, before we head out into the void of our universe. Right now, I need to speak with Jane about a temporal anomaly that I accidentally forced into our universe."

He moved toward the doorway as he beckoned Jane, but stopped immediately to look at Harriet. "It's not a mess, I promise. Well, there's a mess in my lab, but that's unrelated. It's related to what happened to the other crew, though, if that interests you. Come Jane, I need to explain our scenario. We, uh, have two pilots..."

---

Jane followed Eckhart into the hallway, rolling her eyes. "Careful, doc, I'm not sure you rolled back absolutely everything I said in there. " She sighed, pausing for a moment, but not long enough to let him speak.

"I guess it doesn't actually matter," she said, "They must be past caring about new captains, I know I am. I could just see their attention slipping away, melting out of their tiny little brains--"

She stopped speaking. They weren't alone in the corridor. There was a girl standing there, a little shorter then she was, pretty, definitely human. She was just standing there, watching the two of them. Jane blinked, taking a moment to process. "Who's this?"

"This is the Temporal Anomaly," Eckhart chimed in with a smile, ignoring Jane's comments, or rather complaints about the new crew, "That's a mouthful. I forgot her name—what's your name? Unimportant. This is the other pilot, of which you'll need to acquaint with the ship more specifically. You need to hold her hand and everything; have fun!"

Eckhart began to walk past her, still smiling brightly, though it had a very ominous and slightly whimsical undertone, denoted by Eckhart's widened eyes and noticeably waggling brows. "I would love some tea. That last one had this dreadful aftertaste. Look at my hand; it's shaking from the amount of protein that was in it. This is why I don't take steroids."

Jane reached out as he passed, catching his elbow. She took a step forward, turned, and pressed him (just roughly enough) against the bulkhead before letting go. "We talked about this, doc. If I'm going to run Second Sun for you, you can't use it as a dump for whatever your lab shits out. What did you do?"

Furrowing his brow at her less than graceful assault, Eckhart straightened himself to address her properly. "It was an accident," he said firmly, dusting off his sleeve, "And I usually clean up what my lab 'shits' out. Or, at least Harriet does. But this one was alive and not some terrible dimensional being looking to swallow our universe; I thought it would be okay to keep her. And I don't have to explain myself! I own this company, Jane."

"Fine," Jane said. "I quit." She turned, as if to walk away.

"Oh really?"

"Sure, why not? You could always recruit, I don't know-- that Sysephian captain with the compound eyes. I hear he has to wash them with acid three times daily."

"But Jane, you know we'll get nothing done with him, it, her, it. I don't have that kind of acid supply to last me however long he'll live—probably a few hours. Come on Jane. Jane... Jane. Jane, please. I'll have Martha fix your favorite cookies," Eckhart pleaded, not moving from his spot in the hallway as he only stared at Clarisse, feeling a sense of utter dread as he did so. She looked so helpless, like the moment he put her in the cockpit the ship would suddenly explode out of sheer inexperience and outdated knowledge.

"I want a two-way path, Eck," Jane said. "Whether you fucked up or not. Starting with this."

"Jane, that's like asking me to quit drinking tea."

"So start buying coffee beans."

"The coffee here taste like bug balls dipped in lactic acid," he groaned, turning to face Jane with a frown. He crossed his arms and looked at her, obviously pouting now. She didn't say anything; she just stood there, eyebrows raised, watching him flounder. He knew she was doing it; she often did, and it usually worked with most of his iterations. From the sudden stomping of his feet and mild arm flail, it seemed this was one of those iterations. "You're like a damn... damn... whatever. You're so passive-aggressive that I've become flustered."

Eckhart stomped forward, beckoning both Clarisse and Jane to follow him to his makeshift lab. "You promise me you won't tell anyone about this? No matter how blatantly obvious it is that she doesn't come from around here. For some reason if you don't bring something up, no one questions it. Except for you and Harriet, apparently. Of all the people to have a bullshit detector..."

"Fine, sure. Not like the rest of them would care." Jane said.

"Well, they wouldn't, but that's not what matters," he escorted the two to his lab, smiling politely, albeit slightly creepily, at Clarisse, "I would make a reference to something, but you're too young to understand."

[DreadPirate]

Well this was going to be... Fun. Nathaniel had spent the last few hours trying to navigate the decks and create a mental map of all the things that he might need to use or work with. This proved difficult to say the least especially since Nate had been lost in the lower deck most of the time. It was hard to navigate and locate necessary items all at once in this unfamiliar ship. One of the things that he used as reference points were blood stains on the walls and pipes. Nathaniel tried to keep his distance from most of the crew, he knew little about what dangers they'd face. If the remains of the past crew were any indicator it could get pretty gruesome and the last thing he'd need is someone he cared about dieing. He knew eventually he'd get attached but the inevitable could be delayed for at least a little bit.

After he got himself situated he just let his legs carry him around the ship and thought. He couldn't wait until he got enough money so he could quit this job and get back to the rebellion. He didn't know the crew very well. The members he did know seemed off, to say the least. However this was solely a lone operation in his mind, he just had to get the job done. The ship was in pretty great condition compared to the ships he was used to working on. The best part about it was there was so much to climb on down in the lower deck, it was a metal paradise. He could hop about and swing around corners, he could let loose and blow off some steam down there. He doubted he'd sleep in his actual cabin, all Nate needed was a nice pipe to lay on.

Nevertheless he still went back to his room to relax, he had dropped his stuff off earlier and through his clothes and sheets on the bed. When he entered everything seemed to be in order. His bed wasn't made but this place seemed pretty spotless, almost clean. Nate began to make his bed and shift things around in the room. It was just the right size for him, all it needed was a hammock. But who was he kidding this wasn't a vacation this was work, all he needed was a cot like they had in the rebel barracks. However this mattress was softer had less broken pieces, and the sheets from rebel camp made him feel right at home. Then a ding sounded from his desk drawer, it was time for the meeting.

Nate found the mess hall with no trouble at all, he quickly entered and promptly took his seat. The mess hall was set up like one of his group therapy rooms, he sat with his feet tucked up onto his seat. He watched Jane as she entered, he could feel the confidence and he was sure the others did too. Her speech was right to the point, he liked that. However he didn't need her to "have his back" he was far from helpless. She would make a fine leader however personality wise they would most likely butt heads. That's when Eckhart came in, he liked Eckhart immediately. The man had charisma, and a very free attitude. What was that he said about dieing? He'd catch him later about it, since the man seemed to be working at FTL pace. Nate decided he'd rather not engage in any conversation with his colleagues and would let them come to him.

[Sixsmith]

"You know what?"

Pause.

Look to the left.

Up. Slightly down.

Notice the blind lady outside pulling along her rotting seeing eye dog.

Watch blind lady die because she forgot to look both ways before crossing. Some people just have no common sense.

Wonder why there are windows in the ship.

There are no windows on the ship.

Must have left the alternative universe device on. Or maybe that woman was so idiotic that she could be seen from light years away.

"And on the daily news: lady so idiotic that you can see her die from light years away. Now to Dante with the weather."

"Bitch, don't cut to me while I'm smoking my joint. There's gonna be rain, fuckers. And some goddamn meteor showers. Get this shit off me; I'm busy."

Odd turn of events, with a slight pinch of ADHD in there. Eckhart could only blink at the sudden shift. Right out of the left field, if he had any say in the matter. But he didn't, so he simply flowed with the odd, often anachronistic movement of time. People didn't have time to deal with it, so whoever managed the infinite amount of clocks in the universe run by the twisted dark matter that tugged at the fabrics of the universe, or something like that—maybe it wasn't dark matter, but something entirely different. It sure seemed like dark matter.

Enough of that flippant nonesense. Nobody has time for anything, especially that.

Turning from Jane, of which he promptly told her to wait in his lab with Clarisse, he ventured down the long hall of the second deck. It was dimly lit in an orange glow, lighting the rustic corridor in a nostalgic haze of what used to be the sterile white akin to a hospital. It used to smell that way to, death and all, but for an entirely different reason. The lights hung lowish from their circuits, having become unhinged from the bolts that forced them into the low lying ceiling, coated in a multitude of various wires, visibly chewed on by vermin that found its way in. They blinked occasionally, or incessantly should they be nearing their end, of which took out approximately three crew members in total. Apparently, they didn't have skulls that could withstand the brunt force of hard, titanium alloy, nor could they overcome the sudden shock of electrocution that surged through their ultimately very squishy and unprotected bodies.

Aside from that, Eckhart journeyed down the particular hallway that ended in the cockpit, a large spacious room decked in cables and circuits misplaced and thrown along the entirety of every surface. Lining the walls were stations, little box like things that looked a lot like they used to be pure white, but were stained in grime and dirt to the point where they shown a stark yellow under the lights. The circuits and wires around it emitted a quiet hiss and a haze of black smoke that seemed to stick to the floor, too dense for the ship's atmosphere. It smelled a lot like burnt toast, with a light undertone of grilled scalp. Ejecting from the boxes was a grand scheme of yellow: a holographic interface. It contained the schematics of the ship, detailing the status and readouts, as well as helped adjust course and direction along with an assortment of other arrays that mostly dealt with keeping the ship steady and on its course. That was the co-pilots job. Straight ahead, in the wide expanse of various boxes and wires and interfaces that flew across like beams of light, was the lone seat for the pilot. It was a small seat, designed for someone flexible, that was connected to an arcing interface of various buttons and holo-interfaces that spilled codes, words, and algorithms that would literally cause an individual's mind to explode. The seat was hovering slightly, magnetically attached to the interface to allow for perfect movement, but situated so that it was always facing the lone steering wheel, should the ship suddenly come off it's two previous modes of flight—through various button presses that Eckhart had no idea how it operated, or through the autopilot. Some of the pilots he'd hired approved the joystick mode a lot more, but they quickly died as they flew through the wall in front of them. Apparently, crashes could propel squishy individuals through military grade metal. He'd previously though they would have just splattered in a gooey substance, but was proven wrong three out of those five times. Maybe three. He lost count.

In equally dimly lit and slightly smokey room, about able to contain five people comfortably, Eckhart moved toward one of the interfaces. Letting his hand glide along the non-existent surface, he brought up a voice box, which protruded from the interior of the yellowish cube and adjusted to his level. And then he spoke.

"'Scuse me, fellow people of—I already forgot the name of the ship. That's not important, what is is the fact that I have an announcement to make," he boomed, his voice coating the entire ship from top to bottom in tandem. The intercom was such an antiquity that his voice literally cracked in an almost unintelligible murmur, though his diction was distinct enough that it only came across as a drunken stupor.

"So, now that we have people who actually want to die—I mean, work—we can hopefully do a successful assignment where the minimal amount of people die. I'll be surprised if it's only me, but I won't hold my breath," he continued, "To continue, I would like to congratulate you all on coming somewhat on time and not going mad with fear. I think only two of you left, though I'm not necessarily sure. Regardless, our first assignment just got shipped to us and is waiting in the storage bay down in the maintenance deck. I advise you that only personnel with the proper layout of the maintenance deck peruse around there, along with our resident idiot. Suffice to say, I should probably tell you all what we're shipping, but I'm too busy counting up the little amount of money that I have to distribute. I would pocket it and run if I didn't have an obligation to make more money.

"Onto the mission specs, of which I just sent out, I think. Wait. Okay, I just sent it out this instant. We're supposed to deliver a large crate that weighs more than the whole of our crew combined to the distant and remote gas giant world of Livid III. The inhabitants call it Irix Delta (either way is fine) and I don't think I pronounced that right. Regardless, the inhabitants are a centipod species that have evolved over the millions of years they've lived there to survive in the underground, pressurized colonies of the gas giant. I forgot what they're called, so lemme check my notes. Right, uh, group of... yep... dot dot dot... queen... notes... blah blah—oh, there it is: Loovid. Loovid? Is that right. I think it is. Whatever. But, they're a very work oriented species and make up the brunt of higher class industries in a lot of systems. They have their own union because apparently they monopolized the work force. How does that make sense? I wouldn't ask; it's too much of a headache. But, they have a funny way of going about things and require their Queen to be as comfortable as possible. Like any hive mind, there are multiple Queens and all that crap, but they have different ways of going about their business. This one in particular requires a... hold on.... anti-neutrino, aloe vera coated pairs of socks to guard against toxic radiation. She's like that alien queen from that movie, in where she's hooked up to—never mind, that's not necessary. Just know that they have to leak the gas giants radiation into her chambers to incubate her eggs and feed her larvae and all that shit. So, naturally, she gets bunions from birthing the entirety of her colony all day, whilst watching reruns of Opera and Ellen. Furthermore, these bunions fester in the radioactive environment and burst under enough duress, which is obviously very painful and uncomfortable, so the Socks and Garters Monopoly Enterprise has designed specialized socks for them to wear, however they're so laden with anti-radioactive materials and foot sootheners, and equipped with a massager and so much more that reading the list becomes tedious—like all things medical, the side effects outweigh the actual beneficial things. It's also damn heavy and requires a ship to transport it, though that's not why it can't be teleported. Something with the materials exploding inside the teleporter and causing planet wide explosions. So, we're to all accompany the delivery boy on this mission so that he doesn't do anything stupid and try to steal what's inside the damn crate again. You can't steal this shit, Uvenk, it's heavier than you're goddamn grandmother and she requires a fucking forklift to flip over in her goddamned bed. If I see your klepto-fucked hands anywhere near the inside of this crate, I'm going to sell you on Greg's List as an entire assortment of women's wear. I swear to God almighty, dammit."

Eckhart stepped from the intercom, paused, and returned to finish, "That is all. To your stations, you fucktards before I dock your pay."

With that, he walked back into the hallway and up the adjoining steps situated just outside the cockpit, one on each side and undoubtedly narrow—an elevator at the furthest end of the hall, just south of the cockpit, was designed for the bustier and larger of the crew. Squeezing through, he moved up to the top floor where his lab was located, of which everything was situated along one very long corridor to fit the entirety of the top rooms and the crew quarters on one level. It was a lot nicer up there, though still rather rusty. The Janitor kept a very clean ship, despite its venerable state. You never wanted to touch anything because it looked dirty as all hell, but you knew you could very well eat off the floor without so much as catching a cold. Down this strip was a lot less rusty, with the walls the stark white it should be, though the edges were tinged in the old, ugly red that threatened to creep further down until it engulfed the entirety of the wall. The lights were bolted in tight, in a cut section of the ceiling with hung a lot higher than the second and last deck. Down this stretch lay five doors, the furthers end, the one opposite of where Eckhart currently stood, was the Janitor's Closet, behind him the entrance to the cube like encirclement of quarters, down his left lay the lab, and to his right lay the rec room and medical bay, both conjoined. An explosion occurred before he'd gotten his hands on it that tore down the partition between the lounge and the medical bay and Eckhart had determined it was much too expensive for him to bother fixing. He's only gotten one complaint of the various surgeries Glyx has done, in which a finger got stuck in a man's sandwich. The infection inside the finger killed the crew member off, which was a lot better than having to deal with more complaint forms.

Walking into the lab, the doors squeaking in protest before one jammed noticeably at the top, leaving him little room to move in, but he managed—everyone had to if they wanted inside his lab. He'd actually get that fixed someday because it was annoying and pertained to his discomfort.

After sliding through, he smiled, looked at Jane and simply said. "Are you ready captain? Or would you like to waste time talking about the gal that's supposed to be flying the ship? As long as I get my tea, then I'll be thoroughly satisfied."