Inside is a small reception area with a fresh box of Cosmic Donuts and a coffee machine. Miss Necessity sits behind the transparent desk which seems bare, but there are some flickers of light that indicate a display surface that only the human can see. There's a card holder on top with more 'Dark Horse Ltd.' Business cards.
"You're back!" Necessity cheers and hops up from her seat to come around and hug Tasha and Gabriel in turn.
"And mostly in one piece, too!" Tasha returns the hug, not quite sure if she should use Katie high society-esque sort of hugging, regular fond hugging, or something in between that belongs in business. She goes with the compromise, balancing the needs of work and appearances with genuine affection and wondering when she started considering such things. As she leans back she asks, "I see you've really got the office together, not that I'm surprised! How have things been here? Aliens? Gunfights? Alien gunfights?"
"Lots and lots of inquiries about doing some rather shady jobs," Necessity notes. "We don't accept those unless they're from major governments, of course."
The back-office door opens and Mr. Invention saunters out, but doesn't offer to hug. He does shake hands. "Ready to take on some new endeavors?" he asks.
"That's right, there's nothing shady about us." Tasha even manages to say it with mostly a straight face. She walks over to shake Mr. Invention's hand eagerly, though having him around always makes her self-concious, as if there was suddenly need to polish her act and recheck her uniform. "You know me, I never really stop endeavoring. I do need to do some shopping while I'm here, though. My sister has needs."
"We have her list," Mr. I explains. "Some of the items are special order, but we can avoid shipping costs by picking them up in person."
"I'll do it. Handling Nora is kind of my responsibility anyway." Tasha shrugs in a 'what can you do' sort of way, or possibly a 'she kind of created me, what can you do' sort of way for those who know her story. "Anything else we need to know about? Anything you want to know about?"
"Will your new.. acquisition.. be needing a uniform?" the big Karnor asks. "We do have one for Miss Lacci now."
"I guess it will depend on them. Sam's more of a, um, technical advisor under ... other leadership, so I don't expect he'll want one," Tasha answers. It says something about her life that she really had to think through all the strange people who have joined her to narrow down who Mr. I might be refering to.
"Ah, just as well then," Mr. I says. "I it is my understanding that eldritch horrors are difficult to tailor for. The hard-to-find items on Lt. Argentine's list should be available on the Terragens colony of Jinx, which uses quite a lot of outdated technology. Or else is a world of hoarders."
"Lieutenant-Commander Argentine," Tasha corrects, realizing her support for Nora actually trumps her fear of Mr. Iinvention's disapproval. She does lay her ears back, however. "It was promised," she adds, by way of explaination. "Promotion and own command." She clears her throat with a sharp cough. "Well, off to Jinx then. What about the easy stuff, like the uniform?"
"That is being made locally," Mr. I notes. "It was not listed as 'original only' so I saw no reason not to make use of the local facilities."
"Thankfully she's not exactly a designer shopper. Nora's very practical. Usually." Tasha gives another littler shrug. "Come to think of it, we could probably use new uniforms, too, by which I mean we may eventually have to invade a facility or two style of uniform. I could probably use a more advanced piloting armor, something that supplies brain-juice. No need to be in the Med Bay more than necessary!"
"We'd need the exact ingredient blend for.. brain juice," Mr. I explains. "I assume Dr. Knight has it?"
"Yeah, probably." Tasha taps the side of her head. "Extended interface wears me out, but out here we can probably do better than cups of juice and IVs. Some weapons and better armor couldn't hurt, either. And better life support. Our list of stops includes a volcanic hell and a Khattan one. For the others, we need to consider we might need more heavily equipped 'expeditionary teams'."
"Are you expecting to get shot at?" Mr. I asks. "We are having enough trouble lining up life-insurance. Which is not something that insures that you live, alas."
"Are you saying that even out here we can't get insured to live?" Tasha makes a face, a very disappointed and pouty sort of face. "And I always expect to be shot at. It hasn't happened yet, but that's because more horrible things have been attacking me with equally incomprehensible things. Being shot at is kind of a fantasy, really." She steps aside, letting Gabriel have access to Mr. I if he wants to, and sitting on the desk. "I did hear people can be made so they don't age though, can you buy that?"
"Aging still happens, it is only the effects of senescence that can be mitigated," Necessity explains to Tasha. "So you'll leave a handsome corpse. Otherwise you just have to use stasis or time-dilation to skip ahead, or live in a cryo-environment which is sort of the same thing, only you can't go back to living at a normal rate once you do it."
Tasha slowly shakes her head in disapproval. "I am disappointed by modern technology." She then turns to Gabriel. "Well I think I wasted enough to Mr. I's time, do you two have important things to discuss?"
"We have some offers to look over," Gabriel says. "Maybe you can find out more about the job the Seeders offered though?"
"Oh, right, jobs. I forgot about those, what with trying to avoid death and thinking about horrors. Doesn't my work know how busy I am?" She scoots to face Mr. I again and asks, "So what do we have? And I heard about that rogue Khatta, any news on him?"
"The prince with cold feet?" Mr. I asks. "I haven't heard anything credible since I sent you the notice. Best intel available says his trying to hide out on a colony world, but there are lots of those."
"Well, we'll keey our eyes and our nose focused. If anything pops up, we might want to stoop at him, beat the others. I want to get better insight in to Khomen and friends." The young woman rubs her nose, then lays her hands primly in her lap. "So, besides the ones you noted, who else wants to hire us?"
"There are several mundane courier and small-cargo jobs based out of Caltrop, of course," Mr. I explains. "The lack of dependable commercial shipping is an issue here, after all. There are a few personal transport requests from people that may or may not be stranded here as well."
"Having people on board makes me a little nervous, we're--" And here Tasha leans in a little, cupping her hand to her muzzle in a conspiratorial fashion, "... a little weird. I'm not against it, but it's more concerning than pure cargo, unless that cargo is full of killer robots and recording equipment. Still, I guess we should help out anyone who is truly in a bad situation, especially if we can stack our cargo runs and personnel transfers."
"Well, we can work out what's available that can follow a useful route then," Gabriel says. "And make sure anyone we take along is suitably weird of course. It'll be up to you to interview them, of course."
"Titanian outfit, implied threats, donuts, coffee -- I call that the Jonas Interview by the way." Tasha slides off the desk, then stretches. "Well. If the rest of schedual planning, I'd like to head in to the back and get that done, then seen about the interviews. It'd be nice to have a walk or two around the station later, so I'd like to get our work done early so we can relax a little."
After a rather monotonous hour of the two Karnor men making strange charts and using gratuitous math, Tasha had eaten all of the donuts and was getting tired of hearing cost-benefit analysis. However, one route was able to cover the cargo options, and even accommodate two of the passenger possibilities.
Tasha rests her head on the table, wondering how an hour can feel so long, and if she's actually supposed to know even a fraction of what the two men went over. She spent her life on a ship and never heard most of the terms that just passed through her head! It makes her feel very inadequate. "Sooo," she goes, trying not to rub her temples and thus also look inadequate, " ... who are our mystery travelers?"
Mr. I hands Tasha two calling cards. They're both black except for the little contact code stamp in the corner.
"Ominious abyssal black. They're very cheery." She lifts her head, then the rest of herself out of the chair. "Well, I guess I'll go get that walk I wanted. Be back in ... however long this takes?"
Looking at the codes is enough for her cornea display to provide names: Parsu Broccoli for one, and Egypt Inconspicuous for the other. Something suggests to Tasha that these might be assumed names.
"Great. Spies with a sense of humor. As if I don't have enouugh of those. Well, maybe I'll get lucky and they'll be assassins with a sense of humor, or something. Smugglers. Gun runners. Mercenaries ... " The list continues as she wanders towards the door, heading out.
Both of the contacts are in a different spire, which means taking the tube-tram down to the hub and then finding them from there. The map only shows the steps to get there rather than showing where exactly they are.
"I wonder if I can charge a finder's fee ... " Tasha mummurs as she rides the tube up, or at least what feels like up, to the first spire and the awaiting 'Parsu Broccoli'. The map flitters in her virtual vision, something she has quickly gotten used to for its similarity to piloting the Melchior. She has also discovered that 'brocolli' is some kind of tiny bush of a vegatable from Terra, exported across a wide and exceedingly boring stretch of transport routes.
The spire where Parsu apparently lives.. or does business or whatever.. does not look as nice as the one Tasha just came from. There's a definite 'low rent' feel to the place, which may come from the structures. Instead of buildings tucked into the labyrinth of Sifran crystal, there are flimsy tarpaulins serving as roofs. The smell of too many people and not enough sanitation is also prevalent. The fancy and efficient recycling units used in the other areas seem lacking here.
It all makes Tasha rather wish she'd brought a weapon, or perhaps a Phin. While she's no stranger to bad neighborhoods and equally bad people, given she both grew up one and spent most of her life as a less than savory character, her sense of being on the home turf is lightyears away. She's been out here long enough to know she doesn't know nearly enough, and that more than anything worries her. Back home she might have caught the usual dangers, but out here they could come through technology, culture, or biology she has no knowledge of. She hesitates in the lift a moment, but decides to press on. She didn't shy from elder beings and she isn't going to let a corridor full of mortals daunt her either. Still, a little caution wouldn't be out of place.
"Gabe, I'm heading up towards, um, Brocolli. The neighborhood looks like somewhere I used to live, except Galactic. If I don't report in regularly, well, you know what to do," she sends, and then she's off walking.
Things buzz about in the air, but they aren't bugs - more like small flying robots of some sort. They come in a lot of different colors, and some carry small packages as well. The path to her first destination is, of course, windy since it doesn't appear to be on one of the main causeways. There are sounds and movement in the makeshift apartments she passes. The coverings must be for privacy more than anything else. Eventually she comes to an alcove with a flap for a door. It's not made of canvas, but probably some artificial material that isn't woven.. because it doesn't look like fabric.
Tasha frowns at the covering, wondering if she should knock, shout, or send some sort of technological message at it. After a moment of thought she leans over and tries to rap her knuckles on it, deciding trying to barge in unannounced could be rather dangerous.
It feels solid when she knocks. There is a string of hissing sounds that she recognizes as Celestial, and part of the flap goes transparent as a reptilian eye gazes out at her. It seems to notice the Dark Horse emblem on her jacket though, and the flap is pushed aside. "You here regarding transssport requessst?" a voice slowly enunciates from the darkness.
"Naw, I just show up randomly to people's apartment-slash-seedy-businesses in case they might like to go somewhere." Tasha's head flops to the side; her brows arch. She maintains the gesture with a flat look for a second, then smiles toothily. "Are you my interested vegetable?"
"Broccoli isss a vegetable?" the hissing voice asks. There isn't much inflection, so the speaker either isn't used to using Standard or is just a bit bland. "You have transslator?"
"I sure do." Tasha taps the side of her head with her taloned hand. "All ready and listening: Celestial at me."
So the occupant turns on the light.. but pulling away material that was blocking the crystal wall at the back. The room isn't exactly small, but it is very sparsely furnished. "Please come in," Parsu invites, and there is a note in Tasha display that it is spoken in a deferential tense.
Respect is good, right? As Tasha recalls, most people who robbed, touched, or otherwise abused her never were terribly polite about it, and likewise neither was she when she was of a mind to do the same. She steps inside, taking a cursory sweep of the room before turning back to study the hopeful in full. The barrier didn't exactly make for great viewing.
The Celestial is a rather plain green Naga, except for some puffy.. bumps.. on its head. So it does rather resemble broccoli. "I am Parsu," it introduces itself. "Are you here to accept my request?"
"Well, that rather depends on you." Tasha looks around for somewhere to sit as she continues talking. "While we do take passengers, we don't just take anyone. I don't suppose you'd like to share your story with me, why you need to go, if you're hunted by assassins or a fleet of dreadnoughts, that sort of thing ..? Any luggage or illnesses, are you a pirate, planning a takeover? I really wouldn't recommend that if you are, and please believe me when I say I'm thinking of you here."
There are some cushions that serve as furniture, possibly. A few containers, a Celestial data-slate.. and not much else of note. "I only have one important piece of luggage," Parsu claims. "I must personally deliver it to.. someone on Phryxus."
"Oh, spy then? Industrial secrets? Not that we ask that many questions; you can volunteer that if you like." Tasha settles herself down crosslegged, which is about as snake-like as a winged dog is going to get on a cushion. "Is this piece of lugage a person, or dangerous? Or dangerously alive."
"It is biological, held in a stasis field," Parsu offers. Which doesn't give any details, really. "It is not dangerous."
"Not dangerous... while still in stasis?" Tasha fishes, looking up and raising her brows.
"Not dangerous," the Naga repeats. "In or out. But it must remain in stasis."
"We all know how important stasis is," Tasha agrees, somewhat distractedly. She tosses the information along to Gabriel and the others. Vegetable wants to bring frozen lunch, has to stay frozen. Not much else to go on.
"Do I pass?" Parsu asks.
"Oh, sure, why not. It won't be the first mystery-thing-in-stasis we've had. Be ready to go by the date and time we'll send you." Tasha pulls out her datapad and punches in the details, then transmits. "Is there anything else you need to know or I need to know?"
"I will be ready," Parsu says, and prostrates itself before Tasha. "Thank you! You do a great service to.." There is a pause, and the Naga tries to cover the lapse with, "I hope that payment on arrival is acceptable?"
"I hope I'm doing a great service to my credit account. And no, we need something up front. Half is good. Not payment is bad, especially if the arrival area has armed people. Those cost extra, I believe it's in the fee schedual." Tasha is momentarily sad she knows what a fee schedual is, now. She used to be so much more wild, then the meetings happened.
The Naga seems to freeze at that requirement. "My funds are very limited, and I cannot contact those I must deliver the package to for aid. I fear such a message would be intercepted and.. and that would be bad."
"Non-payment is also bad," Tasha notes, raising a brow. "Especially when it comes with warnings that interception is also bad. To take on risk we must also have reward."
"It is a child," the Naga says. "Her parents are dead, and she will be as well if I cannot get her to the rest of her family." It is said in the 'pleading tense' according to Tasha's display.
Tasha's other eyebrow goes up, she very deliberately lays her datapad in her lap and folds her hands over it, meeting the Naga's gaze. "Would you like to tell me exactly what is going on? It's not that I can't guess scenarios, but I'd really rather know from you. If it's as you say, and you're expecting some 'good faith', then telling me the whole story can be that good faith in lieu of payment. And, I will remind you, we don't take well to being cheated, so if this is some sort of game I take very unkindly to using children to play it -- real or otherwise."
"Celestials are not like Khattans," Parsu says. "They do not hide the dagger behind politeness. For us, the notion of 'cut-throat business' is literal. Business families are not above taking hostages to gain advantage. I am just a.. nanny. My family has always served the family I work for. The specific people whose children I cared for were.. I don't know exactly who the culprits were, you see. Business rivals, opportunists seeking ransom. In some families, it is a danger, and so.. the adults have explosive implants.." The Naga seems to have difficulty going into further detail. "I escaped with only one of my charges. I do not know who is responsible, so I cannot trust communication. I know who I trust, and I will only bring the child to them."
Tasha wants to roll her eyes, not just at the potential sob story scam, but at how nasty the world is. Suck in her breath, roll her eyes, then close them. What's more, it's a tough call. She wouldn't put it beyond anyone to try and scam or endanger her ship through a sad story, especially out here with their business lacking a reputation that might fend off the attempts to probe and use. Still, she doubts Mr. I would send her this way if he suspected a problem, so at the very least if she's wrong she doesn't have to feel it's entirely her own fault, and very few people in the universe know how formidable the Dark Horse actually is, though its crew remain as mortal as ever.
Tasha taps her legs with her fingers, thinking a little longer. She's already decided, it's just she wants to go it all over one more time in case she missed something. "Alright. You can board. here's my suggestion: You deliver your cargo to us for loading. That will ensure it's safe, and we can see it is what you say it is. To get at the child they'd have to attack us, and with the child we can be more confident you won't get shot or something before we leave. You then pay us on arrival. I have stated why not paying us or manipulating us is bad, and won't go over is again. Are you agreed?"
Parsu seems uncertain, glancing at one of the plain looks storage crates in the room. "You would not leave without me, would you? Your agent is a Karnor. Karnors are trustworthy. You are.. Khattan?"
"Don't I seem very Khattan to you?" Tasha grins, holding up her hands to frame her face and trying to look charmingly feline.
"No, you do not," Parsu says bluntly. "Vartan are very fond of children though. The child is worthless to you.." The Naga freezes, and seems lost in thought. "Yess, you have no idea who she is. She is too young to tell you anything useful. You have no motive for taking her. I should trust you. I accept your terms."
"I should charge you extra just for doubting my Khattaness, but I suppose I won't -- which probably isn't helping is it?" Tasha drops her hands, then extends one. "Well that's that then, I suppose! Deliver your child and we'll keep him or her safe, be where you need to be before we go. If you need to you could possibly stay with the child, because having you die would complicate things a lot."
"Of course I mean to stay with her," Parsu says. "I assumed.. that you would come and collect her and I would follow, instead of taking her to your ship myself.."
"You did just say in a very slow to extract manner that you are being hunted and therefore may be killed at any time, which, as you know, would mean I've wasted my time here and we won't get paid. So, why don't you scoop up your box and wait in our facility where you are less likely to be killed, except maybe by the donus. I ate a box before coming over here, I know." Tasha then rises, making a show of brishing herself off. "That makes the most, um, logical sense. We can head back now, but I need to leave again after I drop you off."
"Yesss, they would not act in public.. not even here... surely?" Parsu reasons, and goes to the crate to retrieve what looks like well-worn suitcase. "This is all that I have that matters."
"And if they do, well, dead people have free weapons, right?" Tasha shoots the Naga a thumbs up, which quickly becomes a thumb towards the door. "Since you're a delicate op, we'll head straight back. I'll let the others know to be on the lookout."
"Yesss," Parsu says, and holds the flap open.
From there it's back through the crowd, with Tasha more on alert than before. She takes the time to shoot off a warning, and the reason for the early return. She heads straight back, not knowing enough about being covert to come up with any better tactic, though she feels certain there must be one.
After dropping off Parsu, Tasha gets an itchy feeling of being followed when she heads off to find Egypt Inconspicuous.
Oh, here we go ... Hello Med Bay, I'll be seeing you soon I think. Tasha tries to proceed as before, while also trying to keep an eye out, and lacking confidence about her performance with both. It's about now she wish she had asked Yue to teeach her the secret arts of TerraGens agents, but the request got lost atop an endless pile of 'teach me how to' requests in her mind, somewhere above complex profit graphs and below 'how do I not die while using an X'. She already passed on her warnings and concerns to the others, which leaves her with little to do but keep walking and hope shooting her in the back doesn't strike whoever might be following as a classy thing to do. She heads for the second spire.
"This place seems disreputable," a familiar voice says from behind her. "Don't talk back if you can help it," Sam says. "I've been keeping people from noticing me."
Oh it's just my demon friend who wanted to eat my brain, nothing to worry about. I'm sure his boss the demon god and his magical flute have my best interests and safety in mind. And so Tasha keeps walking, not talking back because she really doesn't want some percentage of the station seeing a peculiar male version of herself. Once on the lift she pushes the button and up they go. Well, relatively speaking. Up a spire. Or sideways. It's relative, she knows.
"I appreciate the irony of this place," Samael tells her. "A structure of Order, inhabited by Chaos. It makes the itch of the place more bearable. Where are we going?" Since they're the only ones in the tram car it's probably safe to talk.
"We're going to find someone named 'Egypt Inconspicuous.' Egypt is some old continent on Terra or ... " Tasha squints. "No it's an old country, I guess? And inconspicuous is ... neither of us." She then turns her squinting on the Servitor. "You do like haunting me, don't you. Got bored on the ship? And itchy? All the Sifran magic-tech making your tentacles crawl?"
"A bit of both," Samael admits. "Egypt had interesting gods. Some very dark ones, too. And they liked cats far too much."
The map shows the next station as the one to exit at. There are less people this far up the spire, it seems. Although the apartments seem a bit more permanent at least.
"Can you believe like nobody thinks I'm really a cat?" Tasha throws her hands up. "And don't get me started on gods. Wait, gods? Gods." The young woman pulls out her datapad and punches through menus, then lifts her head, ears perking. "I knew Egypt sounded familiar, and now I remember why. Horus, Mafdet, a few others ... Their translated Trade Standard names have Terran origins. The makes of Mel chose Terran names for their neutrality. I mean, it's not like they were all on Terra hanging around and ... " She squints again. "Wait do you think they were all hanging around on Terra at some point?"
"Terra was the least.. developed, I suppose," Samael says. "Easier to get together. Even the Vril-ya probably needed to talk to one another occasionally. Besides, that planet had been raided for its biology countless times."
"And now it makes weird cunning monkies, who make Karnors, who are the best. Except Vartans. Well, maybe they're equal." Tasha shrugs with her hands and shoulders; who can know for sure? "I'd like to go there some day, anyway. Well, almost to the top, time to ignore you!" And so she turns away with deliberate intensity, staring at the door with wide eyes.
"The Thennenin had a world full of Terran dinosaurs," Sam notes, now that Tasha can't reply. This door has a buzzer, and door is answered immediately. So Tasha is looking at white furred, upside-down face with very big ears. "Are you the private ship owner?" the Confederate squeaks. "I've been hoping to hear back! You aren't allergic to.. well, you wouldn't be, for biology reasons. Usually. I mean that one guy did puff and explode but I think it was something he actually ate.."
"And you must be the next weird thing to get on my ship. I'm Tasha. Can I come in? Are you being pursued by demons or about to die? Should we make this fast?" It occurs to tasha that she really ought to just break down and make a list for these sort of things. Check all the strange, dangerous, exotic or reality breaking things that apply. A are you being purused by checklist. No, an entry form. That keeps it open minded. Are you insane or has anyone suggested you may be. Do you have living or dead people in some sort of container; if so, how many and of what type. Are you a spy; it would have three options without labels, which she would ignore because she just assumes half of the people she meets are some sort of spy. It really would save a lot of time.