Von Marks
[color=8dc73f]Two days ago, aboard the Antithisis[/color]

“Hello. This is the ship log of Von Marks. We are required to keep daily logs because the government at large thinks spending a little time in space will send us into a self-destructive state of existentialism. The government at large is comprised of fascist sell out idiots. Today, I wanted coffee, but in order to get my coffee, I had to watch five perfume adds so bizarre they make me contemplate conforming to lesser societies and just paying for it with money. As grotesque and primitive as that may be.

I then wanted to 'do an internet,' but because it’s rated as a high value item, I had to watch a number of government sponsored adds for the HR department of homeland security. At least they got my country of origin right. Last time it was nothing but verivora nonsense which only makes me regret immigrating.

Probably should have just gone to seminary like my parents wanted.

I know you guys are going to take this as space affecting my mental state, but it’s not space, it’s your stupid ads! I mean, for so-called socialistic liberals, you certainly have a good grasp on propaganda and capitalism. And look, I get it. You assign us a job, Janitor, thank you very much, and we get access to everything, college, housing, food, travel, for free, and I know that money has to come from somewhere, but for goodness sake, target your ads better. I’m a white, straight, [i]human[/i] male, I do not need ads for verivora skunk spray, I do not want bigger antenna, I know we have similar genetics, but I am not interested in appealing to Azulian women. Sell me some SPF ten thousand sunscreen or a political comedy. Do not show me how to tame my curls or whatever, frankly disturbing, fashion trend is popular with the males of a species with gender roles converse to my own. And for the love of god, stop showing me “spectral music.” It’s worse than taking LSD and should come with a seizure warning for those of us who don’t see infrared or like rapidly flashing lights. I’ve had two migraines from it this week alone. You know those cause brain damage right? You have my account number. If you’re truly looking out for my mental health, do not send me another of your perfume ads. [i]Please.[/i] Von Marks out.”

The human turns off his computer, stares at the bread crumbs crammed between the keys of the keyboard for a few seconds, and grabs the device in disgust, using his chair to roll across the command bay towards a trashcan.

Flerb, one of the more serious verivorae present, uses the nearest of their four sets of ‘extendo’ eyes to express their distrust of Von in the traditional way. By holding one eye at a higher elevation than the second. Von imitates the expression to the best of his ability with limited success.

“Yeah, I don’t want to be on this mission any more than you do Flerb. Super weapons and all that. It’s not exactly what I had in mind when I signed up to mop the floors.”

Flerb makes an unintelligible farting sound that doesn’t really translate to anything respectable in English.
“Squanch you too Flerb.” Von Marks states as he bangs the crumbs out of the key board.

---

The super weapon was allegedly some kind gelatinous planet eating goop, which, if not an utterly terrifying concept in and of itself, was one not explicitly communicated to Von when he first arrived on the seized space-base as part of a GFUN clean up crew and an unofficial Republic of the Arts scavenger crew.

And, being an immigrant from one of the culturally isolated Catholic micro-governments, he was unaware of the latter part of the art worms unstated mission until after the clean-up was completed. Or, as completed as it was going to get, given the Verivora’s rather interesting work ethic.

Officially, they were there to sanitize the base and make sure no trace of the goop remained. Unofficially, because it was a Verivora crew, they were there to scavenge parts. The base was to be launched into a nearby star when they were done, so there was no harm in taking everything valuable. Everyone knew the chance of contamination by the over hyped bio-weapon was about the same as a tourist’s chance of catching Ebola on old Earth. And as the Verivora saw it, if they were to be contaminated, that was just a matter of fate and it would be foolish to protest what the universe intended. That would be bad Karma and would negatively affect their symbiosis with the universe. Whatever that meant.

So when they had finished spraying everything down and were preparing to depart, and the giant two headed worms started lumbering back onto the ship carting old slot machines and fifteen foot rolls of crystal paper after them, Von Marks went from very confused to very scared. He had read about this super weapon on the Hazard papers plastered all over the ship, and he knew the Verivora were too lazy to clean inside all the machines they were piling into the cargo bay.

They hadn’t even used the black light test, let alone sprayed anything down with Dynasol. So, as soon as the ship left the base, and as soon as the base was nothing but a melted drop of metal falling towards the stars center, he bolted from the dinky command deck, to the janitorial closet, grabbed a couple spray cans of silicone solvent and then headed to the cargo bay intent on spraying down every square inch of the technically pirated booty.