Sunshine and a Leakin' Bag; A tale of copiously acquired wealths and improbable friendships
Part one: A pot of scrap under the raincloud
Hazy brown eyes shot open as bright, invasive light struck the closed eyelids, the light accompanied by a loud screeching sound and a light tremble passing through the hull shell right beside the head these eyes belonged to. The gruff, exceptionally hirsute and angle-featured man blinked several times, waking up and slowly realizing the stimulation he was receiving visually was tightly linked to the warning light, auditively the ship's defense system alert siren and tactile... Well, that one was the deciding factor to have him yelp out, throw the thermal cover off himself and scramble to leave his modular bunk. He struck his head against the bunk's upper edge and expelled a titanic amount of heavy, coarse and extremely colourful curses in various languages, hopping around and pulling on his jumpsuit pants desperately. He at least was glad the impacts against the hull ceased for a while, but he still didn't waste any time pulling his boots on, grabbing a large toolbox off the floor by the bunk and charging towards the door, keening; "Who's tryin'a bang my baby up!?" He shouldered the door open and let the metal swing open on its hinges- Though, it didn't swing fully open, stopping halfway with a thump, a scream and a few more thumps along catwalk grid. He blinked, the light and siren immediately ceasing, staying completely stumped for a few moments before his mind decided it'd be wise to check the damage. Slowly he stalked forward, grasping the door edge with one of his hands, pushing it further open and staring around it, his eyes scanning over the 'victim' of his punt.
Immediately, his features contorted in anger, and he stepped beside the door and stared down at a tall, slender male with a chaotic bush of silver-dyed hair atop his head. "SAAAAAAND!", he bellowed, immediately dropping his toolbox and chasing for the other from the spot- Naturally, the tall male immediately got up and begun bounding along the narrow corridors, far superior to the comparatively short, but stocky man, who was very quickly panting and watching that silver-haired bastard run away with all his gadgets. He groaned, slowly dragging back along the corridors while an androgynous, neutral voice sounded off over the loudspeaker system. "You're oversleeping again, Anderson. I hope I won't have to do such things to you next time. You know how much you mean to us, bunky!", the voice mocked him- Anderson simply flashed a bird towards one of the cameras in the corridor corners, grumbling his way towards the ship's engineering bay. He finally reached a wide double door, several meters wide and directly across an equally wide door leading to the cargo bay. He leaned against the wall and stared into an ocular scanner. "Anderson, Iura.", he mumbled, the door cracking open after a blip from the scanner, allowing the man to pace through the door, shutting it behind himself with a manual release button, putting his toolbox onto its place beside the engine's control panel. "Good mornin', sugar. How you been runnin' for daddy while I was gone, huh?", he cooed to the panel, going to work and wishing he had coffee for the next several hours.
The dull of his day was interrupted when he heard the click of the comm system, directly from the captain's booth- This was something no crewmember hesitated to answer. He tapped his earpiece and connected it to the relay in the corner, linking himself two-way to the captain's cabin. "What can I do you for, cap'n?", he warbled, scratching his beard with a gruff set of fingers which had barely any unburned skin on them. -"First of all, I hope Sand gave you some serious trouble waking you up. I hate tardiness." -"Sorry, cap'n. Won't happen again." Yes it will. -"It better not, Anderson. I don't wanna have to replace you." It was quite well known, by both of the speakers, that no such thing would happen; Mechanics for a Pilgrim were very, very hard to come by. And good mechanics for one... Well, those are an asset to have. "Turret shells three and seven need to be checked, the Twins said these two have a slight lean issue to the right. The air scrubbers in the stores need to be replaced and for the love of everything you hold dear, man, remember to check noone's in the room when you cut the life support." Anderson nodded as he listened. "Uh-huh. Roger that. Alright. I'll get on it, but I can't promise I'll warn Sand, that sadistic prick.", the man responded, leaving the engineering bay with his trusty toolbox, headed through the web of corridors and hallways that was the Reluctant Strider.
Sucks to be a weight on the wrong side of the brilliance-insanity scale.
"Log, entry two seven two: Day three hundred and seventeen. Today's prank was a total killer. A simple enough thing, isolating Anderson's quarters in the ship's systems, altering course to make a few rocks push through the shield and bump against the armour; I did not, however, expect the savage to go charging through the door like a gorram bull. I think he bent my nose a bit to the right with that door..." A pause is heard. "Was totally worth it, though. The traffic today was slow; Passing through the blockades unseen was refreshingly easy. Work flowed easily, except some people were lazy nimrods and refused to handle the turret grid because, allegedly, three and seven are 'out of alignment'. Luckily, we didn't run into any trigger happy pirates. Sensitive nerves, the twins... Should've never let them discover coffee. Speaking of which, Kamura had another narcolepsy attack, right in the middle of the bridge. Fell asleep in the captain's chair- I would've normally laughed when the captain tipped him out and onto the floor, but I kind of understand where he's coming from. I'm still having problems finding good coffee; I don't feel like kissing the LSF's rears for a dozen cups a month. Maybe experimenting with synthetic caffeine will pick up the crew's morale... Or kill them all by overdose in two days. Calculations are needed to properly assume the final result there, I am certain. Coffeecoffeecoffee- Wait, oh crap, this thing's still on?"
Sand leaned back in his chair behind the communications panel, the grid before him loaded with an entire wealth of monitors, tracking all manner of public and... not so public announcements, news and transmissions going on. His eyes, silver in colour, scanned rapidly over the scanners, their pupils narrowing and dilating individually, each tracking information from their own direction- On closer view, his eyes were anything but natural; Complicated arrays of micromechanisms, refractive systems and neurostimulators formed the implants he'd had for years now; They never had failed him. At the same time, a steady dozen or so streams of information flowed through his earpiece, another implant along the side of his skull and reaching through to the ear served as a neurally controlled earpiece and recording device, always making the young man's voice sound huskier over the comm systems, in truth being quite mild and androgynous-sounding. He constantly listened to about a dozen streams of voice in his head at all times, his mind prepared to flick to particular channels for focus whenever he heard one of an assortment of key words; Years of practice have allowed the young rigger to divide and hone his attention in order to be an extremely effective communications and remote control officer- A self-imposed spot on the ship, to boot. Folding his hands behind the back of his head, he reclined in his chair, closing his eyes; Instead of darkness, a heads up display covered the inside of his eyelids, making them glow eerily blue from the outside- This always unnerved many of the other crewmembers, causing immeasurable amounts of joy with the youngling- He was probably the only junior officer noone liked to mess with, especially considering his grand relations with the captain, the only person able to restrain him.
The young rigger was snapped out of his daydreaming, realizing he'd let himself play out an entire series of events in his mind, making him groan quietly. "Why can't I daydream about boobs or something normal, like everyone else?", he wondered out loud, leaning forward in his chair again and curiously enough getting a response. "That's because you're a speshul kind of messed up in the head, Sand!", a feminine voice cooed out behind him, making the silver-haired male spin around in his recliner and narrow his eyes at a pair of jumpsuited females standing in front of him, either of the two looking uncannily like the other- Quite obviously twins. They both burst into giggles, high-fiving one another without even looking before they both turned around and paced away, leaving the male scrambling for a response; "At least I can work with a barrel that isn't three degrees to the right! Wait, damnit, no-" He tossed his hands up in the air and groaned in frustration as another barrage of giggles came from the hallway the twins had stalked into. He then turned, ignoring the hyena-like chuckle coming from the kitchen and staring grumpily into his monitors again. Everyone got touchy and messy without coffee.
Sucks to be a weight on the wrong side of the brilliance-insanity scale.