Starlance

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

No, we haven't even picked a ship yet, let alone gotten anywhere.

The Marauders (2018)

+1 for Discord.

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

“Oh, I like her already. Her excuses to avoid work are almost as good as mine, if a little more grounded in reality.” Astrid commented once the AI joined the conversation, “Not to worry, we’ll teach you to swear and lie and you’ll be one of us in no time.” She was about to add something when ‘the coffee guy’ said something tech-related that made sense. “Good. You are correct, BUT you are assuming they hadn’t simply prettied up the hull, fixed the basics and towed it here. Half of the ship’s guts could be fried. You have no idea how many times I’ve heard ‘just make it look presentable, I’m selling it anyway.’ back in the day. I’d stay away from the Angel Dust regardless, Party ships have more advanced tech in them, which means more work for me. Unless there’s some hidden problem with the Lucy, I’d go with that. Small, jack of all trades, master of none, and — as Cake pointed out — will be the easiest to modify.” Or kitbash back into working order once something goes wrong, she thought to herself, but didn’t say out loud.

When the Puppet left, she took a deep, theatrical breath. “Ah, clean air, at last. Shall we move on with the selection? You’ll excuse me if I don’t take the word of a party lackey at face value and the more time to double check everything, the easier — or longer — we’ll be able to breathe.” That’s when a big hand landed on her shoulder. She didn’t even have to look to know who it was and her nervous tic returned. Fortunately, his words were friendly and not even directed at her, but at the group as a whole. Still gave her quite a scare though. “Can you not, please?” she turned her head to look at least in the general direction of the mountain’s eyes.

The Marauders (2018)

Still here.

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

Astrid tuned out the Party Puppet’s voice in case ‘asshole’ was transmissible by sound. He reminded her all too much of her previous job. Well, except the ridiculous getup, that was new. As they ventured deeper into the docks, Astrid started to recognize some ship classes, and even two or three specific ships she’s worked on in the past, getting lost in memories of the past.

"Meet your A.I...cake…”

Those words somehow penetrated her consciousness, and were enough to tear her away from her trip down memory lane and actually get her a little excited. She’s worked with shipboard AIs before whenever she felt too lazy to scour a ship’s logs for damage reports, which if she were to be honest was all the time, and so looked forward to having her workload somewhat lessened. In ideal conditions, of course. There was always the small chance they were given this particular unit because of some defect, and either way it would probably place the value of the ship above that of its crew. She certainly wouldn’t put that past the Party.

Much to Astrid’s dismay, they weren’t given much, or rather any information at all, about the ships they were choosing from. Even she expected more of the Party. Then again, at least there was a choice. “So what’s the hidden reason seemingly good ships like the Lucy and the Harpoon are being offered to us and what exactly doesn’t work on the Angel Dust? Insufficient power core shielding? Faulty maneuvering gyros? Maybe it got hit by a solar flare?” she racked her brain for the worst scenarios she’s seen. She didn’t expect the Puppet to answer, probably because he knew less about ships than she knew about microbiology, but it was worth a try. Maybe the AI would know, if it had time to properly wake up.

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

I was just checking, misclicks are a pain.

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

...are you sure this was supposed to go here?

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

I don't see a problem with it.

The Marauders (2018)

”There were once good people on this ship, too, weren’t there? Take Anderson, for example. I mean, I only ever spent about five hours in total in the same room as he, but he didn’t seem bad. And now he’s gone, while the pirate, the actual pirate, and the terrorist are still here.” she pointed at Yas and Dev, ”So the bastards clearly don’t care about other people, then why should I? If they want me to be a criminal, might as well...”

”Aye, I noticed.” the engineer deadpanned, or the next best thing given her state, at Josk’s ‘Dumbies everywhere.’ comment, while looking straight at her. As she spoke, she found herself pulling away from the pilot, first just to keep her cards hidden, then to stay away from the pink, breathing booze barrel. Normally, she would’ve realized why she suddenly disliked the pilot less than she did twenty seconds ago, but at that point her brain hadn’t been firing on all cylinders for a few hours. ”We tried to blow someone up in self defense after they attacked us…” Astrid raised an authoritative finger, ”...and we got blown up in the process.” she downed another glass, ”Damn Warden-class missile destroyers with their Swarmer launchers, lining every edge of the ship like fucking chickenpox.” the engineer grumbled. ”But the worst thing we’ve done was dodging import tax, but that’s not something you get a death sentence like this for.” she gestured around them to make a point that the ship itself was the death sentence.

”How much do you actually know... about spaceflight, Josk?” Astrid inquired, suddenly curious what Yas found wrong with her plan on the theoretical level, ignoring the seven different ways it was fucked up in the morality area, ”Do you know how... this... all works, or do you just slam your head on the controls and the magic sorta happens by itself? Is it… just me or is… is the Satasi witch doing her thing again?” she looked around the room, visibly confused. ”This is the reason the old cap always wore an EVA suit for meetings with Satasi. Because they have no honor, no respect… no beer.”

You are Cordially Invited...[Closed until zelta 02]

Connection is being spotty (only my PC, rest of the devices in the house work fine). Not sure if my NIC is dying or if the black wizzard that is my ISP is trying on a new staff, but if I suddenly go silent then it's happened again.