THE SPACE NAVY AU (18+)

You narrowly avoid laughing. "It's just got plastic googly eyes on it. Look." You flick one to make it rattle.

 

Lycaon peeps with fright as the pupil rattles around, and scrambles for the lightswitch by the door. Once the room is safely dark, he sneaks over and gets himself another slice of grubloaf, but he eats it all the way across the room from the plant.

 

You busy yourself cleaning up to keep from cracking up. When your time's up, you pat Lycaon's back and steer him back toward your work space, away from the scary google-eyed plant. Both of you have black smudges from that asteroid dust stuff, but you're not about to try to wash his face, that would be way too pale. You just give yourself a once-over with a hankie and toss Lycaon a clean one to do with as he will.

Before getting back to work, you take a moment to text Erskin from your new identity's account; 'flintlockGallivant' bounces, but it doesn't take much troogling to find out the captain's handle.

- alpineInfiltrator [AI] began trolling frightfulGardener [FG] -
AI: So far, so good, but I'd appreciate some background on what someone of my caste would've experienced on a clown ship, because everyone seems to be waiting for me to explode.
AI: Also, should I have Lycaon room with me in Big Me's hive or what. Because that's not a permanent arrangement but I'm not sure I could pry him off me if he's supposed to sleep elsewhere, it's like my presence is the only thing keeping him from wedging himself under the mealblock sink to suck his thumb and cry.
AI: Also, is the clown ship coming back at any point, and if so, may I please kill some of them, please. I would really like that, thank you.

 

Some hours later, Erskin wakes up enough to send back:

FG: Asuming this is Bel:
FG: there are'nt many blues on cathedrals. compositon is mostly Violets and below-Green support staff / chew toys. new transfers don't know what to expet frm Blues Specificly but have been taut the hemocaste is a torture chain all the way down.
FG: you'd probbably be somone's Moirail stuffed into a makework Administorture or Secreterrorist position, jumping ship to escape. if you can't lie either, just look Grim and keep Quiet.
FG: Anyway its not a good idea to bring a Flinchy Lowblood back to your hive, top brass tends to drop in and out all the time. It would be too hard on his Vascular pumps. Make him his own Space to hide in.
FG: Finally: do not kill anyone while you are here. Even Clowns. Or Else.

 

AI: Fiiiiiine I won't kill any clowns. How do I make him his own space? I assume you don't mean make him a nest of towels under a workbench.

 

FG: The hiveblock areas of the ship are composed of modular sliding panels. I can't help without terriffiying the living daylight out of the Poor Bastard so Ask one of the Lower mecanics to help you get him settled in, after your shift tonight, they'll know the drill.

 

AI: Okay, will do.
AI: I am being very good and have gotten in zero fights, nor am I being a stuck-up blueblood asshole, so try not to give yourself a stroke.
AI: Bye loser <3<
AI: FUCK SORRY REFLEX

Blushing and mortified, you turn off your phone and throw yourself into your work with intense concentration.

When the inventory is done at last, hours later, you approach the rustblood boss lady, taking her aside for a quiet word. "Hey, um, Lycaon needs a place to stay. He can't crash with me because visitors cooler than about olive will straight up destroy his nerves. Can you help?"

 

Heinsz has long since woken up and gone to pitch in on inventory and repair with her team. She's also gotten a shirt. She straightens up from wrestling leather belts onto a mysterious collection of gears and cracks her back out.

"Yeah, that figures. Find me in another six hours and we'll go get that sorted. Usually the Captain settles transfers in, he likes to get to know everyone, but most cathedral transfers are just too damaged to handle his attention. It's been driving the poor fucker crazy." She scratches her jaw. "You got a place to stay, kitten?"

 

You freeze gracelessly as you realize she's hitting on you. You have absolutely no idea what to do about that. You decide to pretend you didn't notice. "Uh. Yeah. The um. The Captain found me a place. But Lycaon was hiding up a tree just from the Captain being there, so. Like you said. Six more hours?" You've been awake a long time, and you and Lycaon started working well before the regular shift started, but you don't want to be a whiner. "Okay. What would you like us to do until then? We've finished the inventory."

 

Heinsz raises an eyebrow and takes a pointed step back, hands hooking into her beltloops, as if to say here's some more personal space.

"Go find Chance when she's back from lunch. I think her group is gonna be doing some work on the pet rock— asteroid mining, I mean. That'll keep you busy."

 

"All right. Will do." You're out of the room before you realize you might've been supposed to call her ma'am.

While you wait for Chance, you poke around amongst the mechanical clutter, wondering if there's a way to tidy it. There's a lot of interesting stuff here. A lot of trashed equipment; you're not sure if it's here for repair or to be broken down for parts. This floor cleaning bot looks pretty close to functional, though, it wouldn't take much to fix it...

When Chance returns, you don't notice, too focused on resurrecting a roomba that someone apparently threw against a wall.

 

"What are you up to now?" Chance asks, her tone very stern.

 

You were so deep in your task that you jump a mile, though you manage not to draw a weapon. "Hi!" you squawk. "Uh! I was. Fixing this?" Deep breath. Be cool. "I was waiting and I noticed this was fixable so I just kind of. Did that. Sorry if I wasn't supposed to."

 

"Huh. That's okay, then. Lemme see." She takes away the roomba, still challengingly aggressive, and looks it over. "It's still pretty busted. Do you even know how to fix stuff or are you just cramming more parts in and hoping?"

 

"I know how to fix it," you say calmly, doing your very best not to sound defensive. "I just wasn't done yet. I can leave it and come break rocks if you want me to do that instead."

 

"No, go on, fix it," she says, and tosses the machine back to Bel. "Let's see if you're just wasting everyone's time."

 

"You seem kind of angry," you observe as you get back to work taking the dented panel off and flattening it out. "Have I offended you in some way?"

 

"Not yet, but the night is young," Chance says. She pulls out her phone and checks it. "Huh. The night is half over. If you want to offend me you'd better hurry up."

 

Suddenly you kind of like her. "I'll let you know if inspiration strikes," you say with half a grin.

You already straightened out the bent wheel before she arrived. Now you get to grips with the mess behind the broken panel; one of the circuit boards is cracked clean across, and you need to de-solder the components and rebuild it with an intact board salvaged from what looks like an overcomplicated coffee machine. The coffee machine's got a better power supply, and it's never coming back with its heating element corroded like that, so you cannibalize it to make the floor bot even better.

 

Chance, unable to just stand there, pokes around and starts rearranging piles according to some internal schematic. Every now and then she throws a small machine part at Bel's head. Usually the parts are useful.