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The poster turns into a little bundle of wires - like the ones on the chewed up thermostat - that drop onto the battery Kiv is offering... and cover it up, inserting themselves all over.
Soon you see the battery being emptied into the wires, then roll into Kiv's hand, curl up and start-- snoring.
The alien is asleep.
You can then repair the thermostat and get the temperature down, which dissipates the fog.
If you contact Fitch and return to her with the sleeping Alien and the children, Fitch will despatch engineersto E-Deck and fix the damage done.
Fitch thanks you for your job and congratulates on finding this alien: "The records show those objects were found a couple years ago but not analyzed. I wonder if the other three are shape changers too?! Bravo! I will turn Friend over to an assembled team of experts, in hopes of learning more of its language and culture".
Fitch pats you on the back for a job well done, hands you a credstick with 400 credits on it, before rushing off.
Summoned Kieu Kein arrives, hugs his kids, and pulls a ring from his finger to thank you - Mk 1 ring of resistance.
Mission accomplished!
You take the Shuttle back to Absalom Station, seeing all the ships arriving and departing amidst the splendid Armada.
Then, a robo-taxi takes you over to the elevators and up to the rich district, on the top of the station, under the big dome.
You drive past the park where you confronted the thugs, and arrive where the Acquisitives’ leader, Radaszam “The Dealmaker”, manages the deployment of the Acquisitives and his personal mercenary outfit, the Obsidian Spiders.
He keeps a public-facing office for this purpose in the Nyori Palisades, a luxurious neighborhood located in Absalom Station’s transparent central dome.
A dark clad receptionist greets you, and directs you to the office where you are expected.
The plain white doors slide open to reveal a stark, dimly lit room. The chamber is bleak and expressionless in its emptiness—no vanities line its smooth black walls, and no signs of use mar its smooth black furniture. The only occupants of the suite are a bug-eyed tadpole wriggling in a glowing blue aquarium and a reptilian vesk seated behind an onyx desk. . The vesk gestures to a number of chairs in front of him, his features sharply illuminated by the light of his desk’s green holoscreen. “The new graduates,” he greets, in a low and pleasant voice. “Good day. I am Radaszam, though since you are here, I should hope you already knew.
“I trust you are aware of our Society’s traditions, so I will cut to the point. I have a minor situation that needs resolution. One of our members, a human named Laboni, had a rather public altercation with a junk scavenger from the Spike. You might be more familiar with the scavenger than I, actually; he is a ysoki who fancifully calls himself Ratrod. I am told he runs a popular racing competition that has, hmm, several hundreds of thousands of viewers on the station’s infosphere. For some reason, Laboni felt the need to tell him that any ‘real’ mechanic could easily beat the garbage that Ratrod and his associates slap together. Now that Ratrod has issued an infosphere-wide demand that she race him and prove it, Laboni doubts she can back that claim up.
“Embarrassing, isn’t it? Not really the sort of troublemaker that suits our Society. Perhaps she would be better suited to the bottom of a trash compactor... Well, we cannot afford to throw her out, not after so many Starfinders were lost in the Scoured Stars. Besides, we can’t let people think we are so weak that we can’t control our own members, or that we cannot stand up to a scrapyard junker. No, I would like you to assist Laboni in winning this race. Show our detractors that even the least of our Society is not someone to be trifled with.”
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As Zoey hands the record over to Fitch, the Ysoki matron flashes a brief smile: "Thanks for the thought, young one, but I've not much time for this stuff, got a battle cruiser to repair...", and puts the record to the side.
Suddenly, a young Ysoki grabs the record and slots it.
Fitch is upset: "Selicha!"
But the young Ysoki starts the record and music starts playing.
Its eyes pop open, and it smiles at Zoey, a real big smile.
Fitch calls out: "Kill that kiddo. Hit the button. Or I'll staple you to the hull."
"Yes, Granny! Sorry...", Selicha answers, and hits the button... the wrong button: music starts to blare out of every PA speaker on board!
Selicha winks at Zoey-- "Oops... wrong button."
As you leave, the entire vessel is moving a little faster, working a bit harder, as Strawberry music plays.
Radaszam frowns: "It's a race, I'm sure there are plenty of contestants, why make it easy! Plenty of spectators. Plenty of viewers. Plenty of aggravation! So, go on, save the day, and make us proud!"
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We Will Mr Radaszam! We will proudly represent the Society!
Says excited Neroo happy to be again under the cameras! But when Zoey asks about rules she stops and adds Yes, what can we do or can't do? What's the rules for the race? What type of engine do they use? How can we help our comrade to win the race?
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Radaszam frowns: "Ask me how to plan a nocturnal High Altitude-Low Opening strike on a ruin on Castrovel... but not about some rinky dinky pod-race. Just go down there, and check it out. I'm sure they have cold beer and flyers with the rules."
Radaszam passes the directions to the race’s location in Botscrap to your Comm' Units, and hands you badges marking you as Laboni’s official pit crew.
"And hurry. Knowing Laboni, I imagine you'll need as much time as you can to help with the race."
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You descend back into the lower part of Absalom Station, the robo-cab taking from the topside "plateau" down a massive elevator, exiting just under, in the part of the Station where all the engines and machines and such are, and where the maintenance is done.
You drive through a level that is made up of junkyards of all kinds - cloth piles, glass, and a lot of metal.
In the distance you see a real mountain of spare parts: you are approaching Botscrap, the track specifically sanctioned by the ysoki-dominated Salvage Union that controls most of the yards.
Approaching, you see that Ratrod’s racing circuit is a hollowed-out section of this mountain of spare parts.
Arriving and exiting the cab, you see the crowd that has gathered, and make your way to the competitors’ entrance.
A small robot scans your badges: "Beep! Open your ears and unplug your audio-circuits. Basic rules of the race: racers and their pit crews are to build and improve their vehicles from the available scrap around the racetrack. Do not import junk or you will be junked yourself. Vehicles built at previous junkraces can return but I do not recognize any of you greehorns. Racers can fire upon other competitors during the race, but firing into the audience is grounds for immediate disqualification and return fire from bigger guns. Racer weapons must be nonlethal and may affect only opponents’ vehicles: do not melt the face of an competitor. Any questions?"
A woman waves to you. She is easy to spot in the crowd due to her paisley clothes and bright white lab coat.
She is in her late teens and sheepish about the whole debacle.
"Here you are! I am so grateful you came. What was I thinking?! In truth, I was merely aping the opinions of my seniors in the field and got carried away. I am incredibly grateful to you for showing up to support me. I know I cannot win the race on her own. Oh, I am Laboni by the way".
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Laboni shows how she has started to patch together various pieces of junked metal and engines and surplus items, into a basic junkracer. It is not too bad. But you can improve it a lot... hopefully.
"I am the pilot, so I will be sitting on it... but, well, I am no pilot, so it seems you might set up some remote to control the actual driving? Oh, and I have zero experience with weaponry.", she tells Fritz.
"Yes, let's start!"
She joyfully pumps her fist, banging a screwdriver into Neroo's drone...
You have a quick look and see that Laboni, to her credit, is a skilled mechanic and has worked hard to pull together a decent racer from the piles of junk in Botscrap. Unfortunately, seeing the other racers involved, well, despite her heroic efforts, Laboni’s machine is not a match for vehicles that have been tested and improved over the course of multiple junkraces.
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"The way I see it, we have 2 options..make our own racer better..or make the opponents racers worse.I don't think we have the time to mess with all our opponents vehicles - all though I do like the idea of doing that - so it seems most efficient to make our own racer as great as we can get it. Or at the very least make it good enough to take care of the competition on it's own "
OP-1 wanders of to the junkyard to look for some bendy metal pipes, some elastic string and some rigid round piped which can sharpened into a point and tries constructs a remote controlled crossbow with laser sighting to help with aiming on a swivel
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Kiv tinkers with the remote, making it easier to direct Laboni's racer.
With no one to hand him a rag, Fritz is upset that he has grease all over his snout: Where is everyone?. But he boosts the speed, opening the exhaust more...
And then Neroo hands him a rag, while helping increase the gas input: more speed!
OP-1 finds the correct pipes and manages to install this anti-racer crossbow.
OP-1 checks the racer out while installing the new weapon, and sees that the targeting system is pretty good: you can fire all weapons if you want, and pick and choose your targets, dividing the shots as you wish (all one one, spread them out).
But this takes up a lot of time and concentration, and OP-1 does not see much about Velocity's intentions or secrets, only that Velocity is a beautiful android with silver hair and skin.
They have self-modified to have both masculine and feminine attributes, and have decorated their clothing, eyelids, and lips with bright, colorful patterns.
Very nice...
Zoey goes up to the beautiful android, and tries to talk, but Velocity only smiles and does not answer, very busy at trying to modify the carburators - but not doing well at all. Seems like she is not very good at this, but wants it done.
Torith is very impressed at meeting this --Ryphorian--.
You can see she still bears the scars of a bad fight, and people around her whisper that this is from the battle that killed her dragonkin partner.
Torith sees that the woman, Nyizin, obviously has a death wish: unstable black-market mods made of dragon bone and elemental energies fill Nyizin’s vehicle!
Answering Torith, she simply bellows: "So long as I am alive, I intend to win in honor of my fallen companion!"
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OP-1 tries to calculate the extra weight his crossbow has added to the racer and tries to decide it it's worth to loose some speed to add more weapons - which off course it is - and then notices Neroo adding a nitrobooster
"..more speed = more opportunity to add heavy weapons.."
OP-1 heads out into the junkyard to find a hollow pipe, an electron beam cannon and some batteries to power it all
and then tries to assemble what he found into a somewhat reliable energy weapon capable of disrupting electronics of vehicles
While sitting down once to work on his contraption he glances over at one of the opponents vehicles
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Torith feels there is no way the Ryphorian will join with anyone, she is lost in her grief.
Maybe someone who knows more about her culture could get something from her...
Neroo now makes the engine a bit more powerful.
While OP-1 adds another weapon, but though this is easier, it still takes too much work to allow a real good look at Lemgem - who is a blue-haired gnome covered in piercings, tattoos, and augmentations.
Kiv does not manage to find much reflective material, but it is just enough to add some anti-laser protection.
Fritz helps make the racer easier to maneuver.
Zoey talks with Velocity: "Speed has no gender!", is the answer to sir or madam.
But Zoey understands Velocity is itching to drive something faster but does
not have the expertise to make it happen.
You understand you could strike some deal with the android if you improve the junkracer's speed, so Zoey looks around on the HoloNet and finds some relevant specs' that she shows Velocity.
"This will work! Thank you Miss Raspberry! I will aid your team!"
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OP-1 looks at the 2 weapons he has added to the racer and then looks at the modification the others have made
"..seems we are going for speed, maybe I should compensate for the extra weight I'm adding.."
He then starts to paint the racer with red racing strips - because as everyone knows, red makes you go faster
While he's working on the paint job he looks over at one of the competors
"..I should be able to figure out some information about someone here...I'd think..'
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Fritz now adds a little over-charger to the engine, further boosting the speed, while OP-1 adds stripes to the side, which will make people think it is going twice as fast... and actually will speed it up a bit in reality.
But, still too concentrated on work, OP-1 does not read anything in any one else's behavior.
Kiv adds some metal to the side, covering the stripes, so OP-1 has to paint over them some more.
Neroo helps balance the steering wheel connection circuit to help in piloting, but also takes some time to go speak with Nyizin the Ryphorian.
Knowing a bit about that culture, and the bond between dragon riders and their mounts, Neroo can empathize, and thus is allowed to see more of what Nyizin is doing.
Thus Neroo learns how to make a modification on racers that would allow
you to press your engine during the race and double your speed for one round, but there is a 50% chance the engine could have an internal malfunction on the next round that permanently reduces the vehicle’s base speed by half.
Zoey mingles with the whole crowd of sentients that are hanging around Orsis, the stoic dark-haired lashunta who looks unfairly good in black and gold.
Orsis twiches his antennae at Zoey, and she feels he is checking her out... somehow.
He does not seem to end up feeling against her.
Torith talks with Lemgem, and she seems to go along with his anti-Ratrod alliance.
Lemgem agrees to take second place and to do her best to weaken the position of racers ahead of Laboni’s vehicle.