Belit dismissively waves her hand. "Nothing to apologize for, I get in trouble myself. Having a place to lay low is important. You can stay here as long as you need. Happen to know anything about hacking?"

@Belit. @Roan. ”Hey, what’s this about hacking?” the ship’s computer snarls with intensity normally reserved for those roused too early after a night of drinking. ”You better not be thinking of doing anything foolish.”

@Belit. Is that other berth key fob burning a whole in your …. erm … pocket?

@B.B. the bustling spaceport would give even the most mentally calloused sensory overload. A seven foot tall alien strides past, hissing something about lost luggage. A droid with a single wheel in the place of legs rolls by chattering about the transport it just missed. The wandering leads you through a number of terminals, checking into small cantinas but finding nothing particularly promising.

Belit exaggeratedly rolls her eyes at the computer's remark. "I was given the fob to another berth here at the starport and told there were navcharts aboard the ship there that I should retrieve," she replies with a natural-born liar's complete lack of tells... or so she hopes. "As a personal favor to a family friend. Oh, and what can you tell me about the Lambda Zone?"

@Belit. @Roan. ”Well hell, why not just say so?” the cantankerous computer snarled.  ”Got my circuits all shorted for nothing. If you want to bring along one of my remote units, maybe I can help with that. There are a few little ‘copter style drones in the cargo hood. I can patch comms through that and tag along to give you any tech support.”

Belit glances past Roan as she replies. "There's an element of danger. A rogue droid may be involved. Have any means of disabling one that won't trash your drone?" She pads to the end of the corridor, retrieves the tray, and returns. "There's a table and comfy seats in the galley, C'mon, you should eat." She heads forward and pauses just outside the galley waiting for Roan to follow.

”Good droid will chew that little ‘copter up and spit it out,” the ship replies, ”But there should be a few of them back there. Cheap and disposable.” it adds. ”Your dad kept a few things in a weapons locker just outside the port side engine compartment. Not sure what he had down there but you might find something to keep a droid at arm’s length.”

Belit chews her lip thoughtfully. "Having aerial reconnaissance may come in handy. I can sense organic minds at range, but not positronic ones. Don't even know if that's something I can learn."

Elsewhere still but nearer yet B.B. casually maundered what was, unbeknownst to himself, soon to be a collision course set to knock him right back off the straight and narrow. Taking in the strangely familiar strangeness that filled every corner of the port and view thereof atop this invisible tightrope. While not his first foray stationside--or second, third or fourth for that matter--soaking up the outlandish shapes and shades of the UDW's diverse tapestry was infinitely more exciting than another day of watching quinwheat grow back home. Even if the stares returned to him were much less friendly. He was used to it. His being here both a testament and test of Akir's open arms.

Most just saw a Malmori. Hard to miss in fact. The differences between humanity's many offshoots and those whom declared themselves its pinacle as obvious as spotting a wolf that'd wandered into kennel. And unhappily, these supposed lesser-thans lived lives of servitude and selective-breeding beneath the brutal yoke of Shad's imperium. Animalized with labels like Skinner. Auditor. Etc. Sins Baby had never taken part of but been paying for all his life the same. Honestly, the bank's debts were nearly kind by comparison. Nearly.

Born Bave Bonifaes Vandammez, and barely much further from where he was standing, B.B. was strictly speaking Akiran. But there was no arguing his heritage. His ilk known and feared for their unmistakably bright eyes. Eyes that only grow brighter with time's march, the careful ecosystem they contain aging like a rare vintage.  Himself an early bloomer his adult blood and bones had already come in, before B.B'd had much chance to bleed or break the old ones in fact. And at present he stood, uncertainly, on the very cusp of his 'Uncauling'. A formative event of postpubescence where the world in which he'd been living would be brought into the harsh focus of an instinctive marksman. Or so his mother warned.

The Empire was seldom spoke of, and never fondly. For his mother, once a pregnant asylum seeker, had remarried here. And resolutely refused to raise her children as she had been: to see different as better or worse. Words like purebred, half-sibling and step-father were not welcome under their  ever-crowded but always loving roof. And to her credit the woman had done well-enough with the boy she'd been given. Though too young and hot-blooded to be humble he wanted to do right by her. Failed to, often. But wanted to all the same.

He wouldn't be stranded here taking 'Coach's' shit otherwise. And his knuckles certainly wouldn't be announcing themselves so loudly from the outside of Belit's inheritance.

"Oi! Oi! Oi! Anyone in there want to make a quick cred busin' some kids a short ways..."

He pauses, then adds.

"Not like..._{I don't mean trafficing them or nothing} ...Just our old ride ain't going anywhere else but the junk heap is all."






@Belit - This'd be the crossroads where you get to decide if the two know each other. My vote is YES. Maybe they met after Belit sold some drugs to B.B's little brother (Loonise--better known as 'don't call me nice' or 'looney'). B.B. was NOT happy about it, and showed up with every intention of intimidating you to stop. Thinly veiled as you encroaching on his 'turf'. Maybe even left thinking they succeeded at just that. But the whole 'she's literally psychic' deal probably means she got a third-eye full of the fact B.B. was all bark and just looking out for their sibling. These days he's more bite, but that sheepdog side of him is still there.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:33, Sun 19 Nov 2023.

@Belit, @Roan ”Ship’s never been so popular, skipper.” the computer chimes in, perhaps avoiding the question about the Lamba Zone. ”You got another visitor out on the slip.”

@B.B. ”Cool your jets a sec, will ya?” comes a gravelly voice, sounding vaguely hungover hover, emitting from the ship’s loudspeaker. ”I’ll check with the skipper to see if you’re welcome aboard or if I turn the cannons on ya.”

Belit hands the tray to Roan and shoos him toward the galley. "You should eat," she says again. "Please. Back shortly." She heads aft to the gangway. "This one say what they want," she asks the computer, "or they just bang on my hull for giggles?"

A bit of both and more of the same as the computer offers to demo its inbuilt armaments. Causing B.B. to coach his brandished bat between arm and body as he forms a finger-heart in reply. All with a breed of try-me confidence most men needed body armor to produce.

@Belit. "Who can understand the motivation of organics?" the computer replied grimly. "Sounds like he might want to hire the ship though. I'm damaged, so some extra cred would help get those stardrives up and running again."

Belit commiserates with her positronic counterpart. "I sure as hell can't, and I can read minds." She hits the button to deploy the boarding ramp and descends to meet whoever is waiting outside. "This day just keeps getting busier," she mutters to herself.

Inch by inch the falling footbridge reveals him. Trouble in a road torn racing jacket. His sports bludgeon spun from one idle hand to the other as he leans left, then right. As if expecting the aforementioned skipper to step out from behind Belit's smaller frame. It doesn't happen. And as the Malmori moves on to take his measure of the fostered farmer's daughter come captain, he'd look exactly like a cat with newfound mouse. Messing a hand through his already messy hair and failing to suppress a smirk.

"So." he'd say. Letting the o lay on his lips a little longer than it need to, a brow raised. "Gonna turn those cannons on me?" Far from sounding threatened, Baby likened the landed ship to the bonus stage of some old school beat-em-up rather than potential peril. If push came to shove that is. "Or..." The r hangs around awhile, an all but written invitation for Ilani to interrupt.


_{These Vibes: https://i.ibb.co/y0R6nmt/BBetter.png}
This message was last edited by the player at 09:42, Sun 26 Nov 2023.

"And Baby makes three. Wadda ya know," Belit snorts with a smirk. "What brings you to Port Hopewell?" She gets that look in her eye like she knows exactly what B.B. is going to say, but she doesn't give him time to voice a response. "Maryanne is for hire, it so happens, but I have an errand to run before I could take on anything new."  She smirks again. "And don't you worry none 'bout the cannons, my AI gets cranky when he ain't had his iCoffee. 'Sides, he knows how much the portmaster charges to clean stains off the tarmac."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:42, Mon 27 Nov 2023.

She earns herself an impressed whistle, B.B.'s spaceball bat brought to back and bridging the span between each shoulder. Still looking down, just less down on the newly minted ship master. "Errand, huh?" He'd repeat back, trotting the word out with a fresh coat of skepticism. "This a drug deal?" Belit found herself being asked. The Maryanne immediately mistook for a mule and Ilani a smuggler. Seemed he thought she was moving up in the underworld.

Belit rolls her eyes and clicks her tongue in an exaggerated fashion. "The possession and sale of cannabinoids and derived products is perfectly legal in the southern hemisphere. My trademarked brand of cultivars has long been approved by the Growers Regulatory Association. I am a botanist specializing in cannabinoids! And thanks to the hard work and generosity of my birth parents, newly the owner of a starship." She dismissively waves a hand. "My errand, however, has nothing to do with my established business. I have to retrieve a piece of property on behalf of a family friend."

Impervious to Belit's legalese, B.B. staggers his reply until the wan woman went back to speaking his language. "Family friend? When'd you get yourself either of those?" The boy needled, assuming himself enough of the latter to poke fun at the former. Now very former from what he was hearing. "And whoever's just gonna hand over whatever to your scrawny self just like that?" he heckled, hiding a hint of deeper concern in the dense, prickly landscape of his speech. Folks weren't fond of forking much over with the banks circling Akir's bloodied economy. Enough fares ended in a footrace for him to know that much.

"Well go on then." Baby bid, turning himself sideways that she could pass but sticking to her like a shadow if she did. Explaining himself in a lax drawl. "Don't go giving me a look now, we both know I need an eye on me or I'll be flying that thing off from under you. I just ain't in the mood for another one of Trellis' tirades..."

Belit snickers at B.B.'s jest. "Yeah yeah, I'm completely friendless. Diss my family again, though, and I'll burn out your damn brainstem from the inside." When he turns to let her pass, she halts partway and totally invades his personal space. "Mmm, why do you have to smell so good?" She throws her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek. "Missed your snark whilst I was away at Academy, babycakes. Have I told you recently how awesome a friend you are?" She untangles herself and slips past. "Gotta tell ya, Baby, today has been surprise after surprise, and this errand is the fucked-up next chapter of a fucked-up political thriller. I saw a dude get murdered today, and with his dying thought he gave me the slip tag to his ship's berth here. It's over in one of the other landing areas."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:33, Wed 29 Nov 2023.

An expected scowl descends upon B.B. as the botanist prescribes him a due dose of his own medicine. Skirting well marked boundries with an embrace that not only goes unreturned but sees his hands flee as far as reach allows. Distancing those devil's playthings from Ilani as an incriminating awareness of each unfilled palm spread though him, thinking very hard about anything but white hair pulled taut. In Baby the bridge between stimuli and reaction was arrow straight and temper short. But therein lay the allure of petting tigers.

Not so expected was his next reaction. A flush flooding his face. Pupils dilating until they crowded the darks which housed them. A glimpse of tongue lashing over dry lips. All of it quickly ruined as unquiet synapses stripped away any mystery and lay the reason bare. Murder on the mind, a dozen unvoiced questions now swam like startled fish within his skull. And try as she might not a single who, what, where or why materializes amid the teeming hows his head contained. Schlocky imaginings that saw the self as its component parts and sought spectacle in their unjoining.

Blessedly, B.B. reins in his bucking subconscious;
"Might be." he'd return. "But I wouldn't bet any cred on it with the streak of surprises you've been walking into." The Malmori shook his head nice and slow at the prospect. "Fucking ^woof. No small wonder you're paler than a pearl's ghost."

A pained expression crosses Belit's face. "Did I mention there's a fugitive skinner in my galley having a snack? They escaped an Imperial labor camp, found their way to Akir, and stowed away on my ship hoping to rest and throw off pursuit." Shaking her head, she remarks, "And today I learned that the fucking Empire uses people like me to torture people like my guest."

His belief now well and fully beggared B.B. could only join the woman in her newest revelation. Simply resigning himself to the fact today would have more twists in store than a pretzel shop.

"Botanists..." he'd keenly posit.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:24, Thu 30 Nov 2023.

Belit raises her vape pen to her lips and take a huge hit after fumbling with the lanyard from which it hangs, then exhales for what seems like forever. It's a tell B.B. knows all too well. For all her seeming nonchalance, she's seriously freaked out.

Baby wasn't much for mollycoddling. Even when, as now, the mood struck him. Cleaving through the clouds Belit breathed out with a stare that would wither a stranger. Unblinking as she gulped out her doubts and they ghosted along his skin. Nonny Roosje would've had the words. Withered. Wisened. She had comforted him when, heart torn between what he was and what he wasn't, her little Bave sat bawling. Saying this:

"Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones."

Alas, he could not deliver this message as artfully as a beloved crone. Instead scuffing the backs of his friends chonky footwear and giving her a jab in the morale. Something adversarial to chase her on.

"Cry about it. Not too late to tuck tail and go back to watching grass grow."

Unseen Narrator: But of course, Belit is compelled by the murder she witnessed and the dead spacer’s mind touching her’s in his final moments. She must carry on. Of course our newly arrived B.B. doesn’t know this. If he did, perhaps he wouldn’t be such an asshat.

And alas, Roan seems to be enjoying lunch in the galley much more than expected. Perhaps we should venture in without him?