[color=a2d39c][h1][center][u][i]Captain Maria Thorne[/i][/u][/center][/h1][/color][hr] "Be nice, Ansgar," Maria told the engineer. She was about to continue when the "tin man" himself walked in and asked her where their new pilot was. "You'll probably find her in engineering. It's down the hall on the other side of the cargo bay." "Great! Thanks. Er, captain." The big android turned to go and then turned around again, holding a finger up. "She uh... mostly fixed my arm as you can see - so I'll head back down to the cargo bay when I'm done and help clean up the mess as I promised. Are those crates stacked in any particular order, by the way?" "They're labeled into groups for specific clients. Assuming the labels are all still attached, it shouldn't be too hard to sort them into those groups again." "Great! I'll go ahead and start moving those then." This time he turned around and actually left the room in search of the cyborg. [color=FF0070][h1][center]Persephone[/center][/h1][hr][/color] Persephone was, as the captain predicted, in the engine room appearing to be fiddling with different dials and settings on a projected screen. If she noticed Cyrus approaching, it didn't register on her face. She seemed to be very deep in thought. Furrowed eyebrows and a frown were what adorned her frankly depressed looking face, and she didn't look up when he approached. "Knock knock," came the android's synthesized voice in the doorway as he entered engineering. He invited himself a seat on the floor against the nearby wall. "You ran off before I could thank you." Perse jumped a bit at the sudden intrusion, but quickly smiled when she saw who it was and straightened her posture somewhat. "Oh, hi there. Don't mention it. Just don't overwork your gears until I can sit you down at a proper computer and fix your coding. I'll even update your data banks with what's happened in the last three hundred years for your people." "Oh, hah... My brain doesn't work like that. It's basically the same as yours! I can't just plug information into it. Man though if I could... wouldn't that be something? I could learn every language imaginable! Oh and I'd be a genius at math. Imagine!" He chortled at the idea. "But no, I had to spend the normal number of years struggling through school just like everybody else. Man, those were the days... I liked my college classes! Well, more than getting shot at on battlefronts anyway." Her eyebrows rose. Was it possible that mess of coding in his system had been... Intentional? "Humans create odd things..." she muttered. "That's very odd. I mean not that I'm complaining, I like different things, but it's... Yeah. Odd. So you learn the same way that humans do? That seems a bit inefficient." "Oh it is, but apparently some of my predecessors became like mad geniuses and super-intellectual-criminal-dudes and since we don't exactly have killswitches... you can imagine why that was a bad thing. So, we all have these noggins," he balled one hand in a fist and tapped the side of his head, "and some kind of morality processor. I'm not sure how that works but it somehow randomly generates the kind of personality each of us gets and it somehow linked to thought processes and a doohicky that does something with moods and - honestly I don't have the slightest idea how it all works but, yeah. So that's why my brain looks so complicated to you. Because it is. About as complicated as yours. Or the average human, anyway. It's kind of ingenious if you think about it. It'd be a lot simpler to give me the mastermind brain." "Honestly," She agreed. "To me it looks like pure chaos up there, which I suppose is on brand for a brain. Mine can certainly get pretty chaotic." She turned back to the screen, talking as she plotted their course towards the glao port the captain had told her about. "I'm glad you're doing well though. I imagine the captain will put you to work in no time. She seems uh... Very... How do I put this delicately... Nah it's not coming to me. But she seems like she is- INDUSTRIOUS! That's the word I was looking for!" "Industrious huh? Well I suppose the boss lady would have to be to run a rig like this. Are we really in space? What a time to be alive... You know, do you have any idea why this place looks so wrecked? When I er... woke up, it seemed like disaster had just struck." "Oh, right! You have no idea what's going on." Persephone had forgotten about this little detail. Between everything that had happened that day, filling in poor Cyrus had fallen through the cracks a bit, but thankfully she could rectify that situation now. "Basically, pirates. I'm not a member of this crew, I was flying in the little fighter you saw in the cargo hold when I heard these guys about to fight over the comm waves, and decided to help out. Scared off the pirates, some of them boarded, they're now in the custody of the captain, and somehow in all of that something happened and woke you up." "Huh. Wow. We have pirates in the future? Space pirates, no less. Pirates back on Earth were more interested in bootlegging movies or illegally downloading MP3s..." "MP-what? You know, nevermind. I'm not sure I wanna know. But yes pirates exist. The crew seems to have takedn quite a hit too. Lost their pilot." "MP3s. You know, songs? Wait - are there no MP3s in the future?? How am I supposed to listen to music now???" "I don't even know what an MP3 is," She replied, giving him a weird look. "Was it type of file or something? I know humans used to use files to store their data. Terribly outdated system, really. No one downloads things anymore. Data is automatically transferred to ships and the computers on board, so unless you have a super secret server where you keep everything hidden, there's just... No need to download anything." "Yeah, MP3s are sound files, but WAV is better. Just, MP3s are more common - or used to be..." He looked slightly dejected that he wouldn't be able to use MP3 players. Then, he looked confused. "Wait that's impossible. You can't just transmit data to computers without the data being in some kind of file format. Do you mean to tell me you guys transmit everything in raw binary? Do you know how long that would take? Me neither but the point is it has to be in some kind of package for it to transmit efficiently... Right? I mean I'm not great with computers or anything but that's kinda why we have files in the first place...?" "They're... Not what you understand to be files. It's kind of a mix between binary and files? Keep in mind that this math is thousands of years ahead of your own technology- no offense. It's just a fact." "I - yeah okay whatever. Can I still listen to music?" "Yes, you can still listen to music." "Great! Well, the boss lady needs me to help sort out the mess in the cargo hold. After that I might get a sandwich. I'll see you around, doc. Take it easy." He stood up, picking dirt off his shoulder, and gave her a little wave before ducking out of engineering. [color=a2d39c][h1][center][u][i]Captain Maria Thorne[/i][/u][/center][/h1][/color][hr] As the android skittered out of the room Maria sat on one of the empty medical beds, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. Her voice was somewhat muffled as it came through. "I don't know exactly why the android came to life, but something in the fight woke him up. Push comes to shove I'll shoot him if he causes trouble. He's an antique, so I can't imagine he has any employers to be a spy for anymore. Not to mention he can help clean up and take one more thing off of our plate. As for the pink ithlo, she's a pilot, and she saved our asses. In case you're unaware, our pilot is [i]dead[/i] now, Teg is hurt badly, and so is Kev. 42% of my crew is out of commission. So if you don't mind, I'm going to take all the help I can get to get to the damned port and deliver this cursed cargo." The captain's voice wasn't aggressive, just exhausted. She was doing her best to keep running because the gods knew they didn't need the captain out of commission as well, but at the moment she was simply answering and running on autopilot. She didn't pay much attention to what was going on. Kai rushed off somewhere then breezed through again, and she heard some voices talking. The only thing she registered was "I need a drink." "Yeah, me too, Teg," she replied. ... Wait a second. "Teg?" The captain bolted up from her seat, jostled out of her dazed state by the realization that their mercenary was conscious, and flew over to the woman's bedside. "By the gods... Are you alright? We thought you were dead! Doctor what's her status?"