"A HUNDRED tons!" Penny nearly squealed. "Carolin, that is amazing. Imagine the hauls!" the logistics are twirling around in her head "The monetary rewards would be from Us using this lovely ship as it was intended." she says to Katherine but then adds "Our crew does not excel at fighting, so while springing the trap might tie up a loose end, it will probably also end up in our deaths."
The pilot whistles loudly at the figure and nods to Penny's voiced thoughts, touching her nose and pointing at the Quartermaster.
Boots listens to the conversation for a bit before spinning around on her chair. She says "Katie has a good point.", nodding her head in that direction. "But I gotta say, our odds of gettin' paid and stayin' alive ain't that good. Seems more likely we gonna end up broke and spaced should we take it back."
She runs a hand down a console smoothly before making puppy dog eyes at Ben, "Can we keep 'er Cap, I think I'm in loooove."
"Yeah, I say f~%* everybody who wants to dictate what we can and can't do. Let's be rebels!" Chase says. "Pick up Tarika and make our own way."
"I agree, no more with people telling us what to do. Chase, stop making a mess." Penny contradicts herself as she fusses about the still semi-leaking Chase and the clean floors. She'll move over to the woman and concentrate on the rest of her wounds.
"Set a course for Absalom Station then Boots." Ben says, "Time to make a new life for ourselves."
"While we go we're going to need to take some precautions." He adds. "Change the transponder signal, potentially repaint. Chase I'll need you to consider this too. Sorry Carolyn but we need you to look like a completely different ship."
Penny's touch is warm and soothing on Chase's wounds. She sighs happily and relaxes as the mystic does her thing. "Thanks, babe. You're a life saver!" The engineer gives Penny a grateful smooch on the cheek!
"WoooooooOOOOOoowhee! Awwww yeah!" Boots exclaims with excitement, clapping once. "Puttin' the screw to The League. I love it!"
She spins back to her console to execute the commands, catching the Chase/Penny kiss and scoffs. "Oooohh, look at that! Penny gettin' some hot-hot Chase action tonight! Hey C5, that reminds me. I think Penns here likes mirrors on her ceilin' so she can be lookin' up when she gettin' some action, ya got anythin' like that in the quarters here for her?"
Punching away while she talks she says "Course set, Cap. Off we go!"
Chase is simply too strong and too fast for Penny to avoid effectively, though she does try. A grimace and the failed attempt later, she points out "Your appreciation would be appreciated in return if it was in a non physical manner. And Caroline, please ignore any requests Miss Lehdos makes on my behalf." the quartermaster says as she uses her magic to clean off blood and oil from things.
I will take that under advisement, Quartermaster Etal. As to your query, Pilot Boots, while the Oliphaunt has individual cabins to accommodate six crew members, none of them are equipped with mirrors on the ceiling. That could be easily corrected at a sufficiently advanced facility."
There's a pause and then the sultry voice continues.
"Forgive me for asking, Pilot Boots, but what purpose would a mirror on the ceiling serve other than to give the illusion of a taller room? If the goal was to create the impression of more space, wouldn't it be more practical to place the mirror on the wall?"
After a few more entries for their course, Boots starts looking into the transponder bits. As she pokes and swipes, she says "C5, you're hilarious. Whats yer humor setting currently ridin' at? Please increase it 50%, I love it."
"The purpose has nuttin' to do with the actual room size, it's like this ya see-" she says, hopping up from her seat and moving to lay down on the floor beside it, sliding her hands behind her head and wiggling her feet back and forth. "Now. Let's say I'ma in bed like this and there's a mirror above me, right? Well no, if I were to be partakin' in any extracurricular activities, well, I'd have a birds eye view, now wouldn't I?"
She motions Penny over with her hand and a smirk, "Here Penns, let's demonstrate."
After finishing her cleaning, she flings the bloody towel at the pilot on the floor, and says clearly "No"
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=====================================================================
Pact Worlds Date: 321-08-14 AG
Location: Absalom Station
Ship Ident: IND-UPYOURSEJCORPXXX
Current Mission: n/a
=====================================================================
With a minor bit of illegal bit fiddling with the Oliphaunt's transponder (and not a few warnings from Carolyn-5), the newly idented ship makes the short trip through Drift Space to appear in orbit around Absalom Station.
Tarika answers your hail and her whiskered face appears on the comm screen. She sits atop a padded stool in front of a cluttered workbench, rolling the worm-screw of her favorite trusted wrench back and forth between her webbed fingers. You explain the events of the last couple of days and she listens attentively.
"Welp, this ain’t exactly what I had in mind when I said I was fixin’ to go independent, but I’m glad y’all made it off that station without any bullets in yer brisket," she says once you've finished your explanation. "Sinjin's not gonna take this lying down, but I guess he's got to catch ya first, right? So y’all are the proud new owners of a cargo hold big enough for a stuffed nyssholora! C'mon down to the Station. I found a job that’ll light yer doshko. Take a day to handle whatever ya need to handle and then meet me at docking bay ..." She reaches out a grabs a datapad from the bench behind her and scrolls through it. "Docking bay 87. This is gonna be great."
Penny leaves Boots undulating on the floor to go explore the ship, especially the quarters. "Our own rooms, very nice Caroline." she compliments the ship. She slips into the first room on the left, close to the bathrooms. "How good are the locks in the rooms?" she asks "Neither Boots or Chase respects people's privacy."
"We can have our own rooms, but no science lab Caroline? Should that really have been the priority?" Katherine smarts, but goes to pick out the room right next door to Penny, knowing that at least one of her neighbours will be quiet.
Katherine sits cautiously on the edge of the bed that is in the room and places her bag on the side table neatly. "Caroline, please provide adequate safe storage for me to store my current work. Some of it needs to be kept at consistent low temperatures to be considered stable."
Patching herself through to Ben, Katherine requests a strange request. "Captain, I request that you take the quarters next to my own room, as I do not want to share a boundary with Chase, Boots or Kes as they will certainly disturb my resting schedule."
Ben nods in response to Katherine's request. "Carolyn, please ensure that each door in the crew quarters can only be accessed by the crew member in question and my override as necessary. There." He continues to Katherine and Penny. "That should help."
--------------------------------
Seeing Tarika alive and well is a weight off Ben's mind and he nods to her suggestion. "We'll see you there." Before letting Boots take Carrie, as he is starting to think of her, into dock.
"Right, Penny, what do we have in the way of sellable cargo?"
At Ben's declarion "So only you can sneak into our rooms at night without an invitation? How patriarchal of you, Cap-Tain." Penny states flatly but with a hint of amusement, as she pulls up her notes on her datapad.
"We 'repurposed' four chunks of raw inubrix, three numbing lasers, three ceremonial plates with minimal damage and bloodstains, and various crates of other sellable wares." she starts pressing, organizing, and calculating.
"That should net us three thousand and nineteen. Shall I see to it?"
At Ben's declarion "So only you can sneak into our rooms at night without an invitation? How patriarchal of you, Cap-Tain." Penny states flatly but with a hint of amusement, as she pulls up her notes on her datapad.
"Your faith overwhelms me Pen." Ben replies, dead-pan. "I can remove said restriction and let Chase in at her whim if you prefer..." His arched eyebrow demonstrates that he knows that he's won this particular exchange between friends.
"See to it indeed." He says once Penny is done with her accounting. "I'm going to speak to the docks, see what we can do in terms of getting some science gear installed."
"Woo! Shore leave!" Chase shouts, pumping her fists in the air. She disappears into her chosen quarters, emerging several minutes later in a skimpy dress with a spiked choker and wristbands. "Let's hit the clubs in Kemanis, ladies! First round's on me!"
Boots laughs at her own joke even though Penny doesn't join her on the floor. She pushes herself up and gets back to flying.
---
After Tarika gives them their location, Boots makes sure to take note of the location and responds "Acknowledged, Bay 87. See ya shortly, Tee."
She proceeds to work with the station and dock at the appropriate location without incident.
Once Penny gives the summed total, Boots claps her hands loudly before rubbing them together. "WoooWEE! Mama's gonna have some fun TO-NIGHT!"
When Chase goes to get ready, Boots does the same but quickly determines she's not wearing of these old things when she's all these new fancy credits calling her name. "Catch ya there, Chase, I needta pick up some new."
She starts to head out and waggles her finger and says "Don't start that first round without me!"
"Talah, I believe that the money is not for us to spend frvilously, but for us to use to enable us to start our first few jobs and get us on our feet. If we spend it now, we will not be able to finance our work and therefore all of the work we did would be for nothing." Katherine explains. "Penny, I know that you know this already, but don't five Talah a blank credit cheque."
"Awww, Kate. You're way to strung-out from all the stress. Why don'tcha come out an' have a drink with Chase and I? Go dancin' tonight, eh? Who knows, maybe you'll meet someone who can talk antigens and neurons and woo you off those them feet of yours, hmm?" Boots raises her eyebrows twice rapidly with a smirk before moving over to the biobacker and throwing her arm around her neck. "Stick wit me Katie, Boots'll make sure ya hava night ta rememba!"
"I am not her mother, Katerine. Captain Daxos..." use of a full name for Ben is never good "... has us on a share system so her funds are hers to do with as she pleases, as moronic as her choices are likely to be." she gives the pilot a tight 'go to the bad place' smile, as she addresses her now "I'll transfer your 'fun' money to you once the sales are finalized. I will be away until the morning."
Katherine's face scrunches up with frustration at the whole situation and grimaces as Boots throws an arm around her shoulders. First, Boots insists on her attending a leisure activity that she planned, then Penny disagrees with her logical solution. Things are not going as they should.
"Penny, I think you should explain the situation to Captain Daxos." Katherine suggests, as Penny goes to leave, realising its too late to insists Penny also accompanies her with Boots this evening.
"Well Talah, I suppose somebody has to ensure that you do not do anything too reckless. I will come with you tonight, but I will not be looking to dance."
When Penny says she is transferring Boot's "fun money", Talah smiles so broadly here eyes nearly close. "Thanks, P."
When Katherine says she'll join her and Chase, Talah stamps her feet quickly in rapid succession with a squeal "Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' bout, girl! We gonna have us a ball to-night!"
Letting go of Katherine, she says "Okay, there is somethin' I need ta pick up first. I'll meetcha in abouta hour, cool? Ya wanna get some new digs before we go out? Can't haveya wearing something like that, now can we? I know just the place, too. Mama knows all the best places!"
She starts to walk out, but turns and winks at Katherine, "We gonna have such a good time t'night! Mmm!" before dashing off again.
---
Once free from the ship, Boots makes her way off to visit and old "friend" of hers to pick up some "supplies" before reuniting with Katherine for their dress shopping extravaganza.
After trying on and discarding her fourteenth outfit, she finally settles on a skin-tight black and neon colored outfit which is missing the majority of its right side. From her shoulders to her feet, large sections of the outfit are cutout. In fact, the only piece of clothing that touches her right side is a single band that runs down her body holding all of the cutouts together.
She spins in a circle and says, "Aight, I'ma set. Let's getcha something now. Whatcha thinkin'? Hmmm?" She points out numerous outfits that have less material than hers does despite Katherine continued rejections.
Chase emerges from the racks, her high heels click-clacking on the tile floor of the shop. "Boots, Boots, don't force the girl to be too daring on her first night out! She should wear something classy but sexy. Something like this, perhaps?"
She holds out a slinky gray dress with one long sleeve that goes down to the wrist, while the other is missing entirely. The hem goes down to mid-thigh, exposing a fair amount of leg, but overall it is not too risque!
Talah appraises the dress and nods in approval. "Nailed it, Chase. Nailed it." she says, clapping her hands.
Penny was amazed at how soon the procedure was over. Three small holes in her skull to insert the nano-thin synaptic threads into her brain with edical gels to seal it all up afterward. Then she was left with barely a headache, a thin strip of her hair shaved off the side, and a mind stronger than ever.
The pleased-as-punch young woman even got asked out on a date by one of the young doctors (in training). A lightning-fast trip to a nearby store, she bought and changed into an off-the-shoulder black cocktail dress that hugged her shapely torso and flared out around her hips, dipping to her knees, trailing to her ankles in the back. As she wiggled back and forth in front of the holo mirror, she was delighted how the back swayed, bringing attention to where she wanted it.
It has been a rather unfortunate dry spell, and she means to make sure the drought is over tonight.
Less than an hour later, as her date holds her chair so she can slip in, she looks out over the balcony, down into the restaurant's conjoining club. At the flashing lights and the mass of bodies gyrating in rhythm. While beautiful, she is suddenly very worried fate will step in and ruin what she hoped was a delightful shagging... and dinner too, of course.
While Captain Daxos spends the evening getting to know his new ship (and its personable AI) and overseeing the replacement of the tech workshop with a science lab for Katherine, Penny delights in an intimate dinner with a young doctor, Kez, Chase, Boots, and Katherine make their way to a club in Kemanis called The Afterimage.
The Afterimage is a sprawling establishment with multiple areas for different types of music/entertainment. Established by the Tri-Dee actress-turned-musician Diedre Lhashi, the charismatic half-elf makes periodic appearances in the Theater Room to perform live music with her band, The Toys. Tonight, though the ladies of the Oliphaunt have gathered in the Club Room. While the music isn't live, the beat is pounding and infectious and the drinks flow freely.
The singular notable event of the evening is a comm message from Kez announcing that she's met an elf and they're eloping to Castrovel. The message, filled with many drunken misspellings goes on to announce that they're boarding the ship at the docking bay this very moment and they hope to married by the captain of the ship herself.
=====================================================================
Pact Worlds Date: 321-08-15 AG
Location: Absalom Station
Ship Ident: COM-UPYOURSEJCORPXXX
Current Mission: n/a
=====================================================================
Nursing more than one hangover from the night before (as well as a couple of well-earned bruises), you arrive at Docking Bay 87 early the next morning. The entrance to the bay is a wide airlock door set into a wall of reinforced glass, which has reinforced bunkers attended by undead elebrians. Beyond the glass walls, a line of docking segments connect to a single long walkway exposed to the vacuum of space — where undead dockworkers come and go. While most of the docked vessels have ashen hulls resembling monstrous rib cages, a destroyed luxury liner bearing signs of battle damage languishes in a nearby segment.
Tarika converses with one of the corpsefolk working the airlock checkpoints as you approach. When she sees you, Tarika squeals then runs toward you and exclaims, “It’s so nice to see y’all livin’ and breathin’!” Tarika points toward the wrecked luxury liner. “Believe it or not, that unfortunate wreck is our next meal ticket. The Harlequin’s Prayer was a Vercite starliner. Got popped by pirates. Hull burst. Killed almost everyone on board. Sad, but how does that keep us in credits? Well, I found a buyer on Vesk-2 looking for fifty tons of black hearts. Those are necrografts — strips of dead flesh you can get attached to your insides to, you know, ignore stuff that kills us living people, like vacuum and radiation. And where do we get enough corpsicles for all those necrografts? You guessed it!” She gestures dramatically to the wrecked luxury liner. “There’s a broker named Rishae who handles stuff like this. She’s at the Revenant Urge, a club here on the station."
“Wha’dya say? Should I tell her yer comin’?” she asks with a grin. "I don't know nuthin' 'bout the buyer other than they're willin' to pay bank for the delivery." She turns her datapad towards you to show you the offered price.
“They ain’t interested in telling us who they are until we arrive, goods in hand,” Tarika warns. “And they’ve advertised this job across the Pact Worlds. Whichever crew tracks down the cargo and delivers fastest gets the prize.”
True to her word, Chase orders a round of champagne for the ladies formerly of EJ-Corp. She laughs heartily when Kez's message arrives. "Good for her! A toast to Kez, and her future half-elf babies! Now let's par-tay!"
Much drinking and rump-shaking ensues, and the mechanic slips out of the club hanging off the arm of a burly korasha lashunta who has promised to make the rest of the night a memorable one...
***
Chase arrives at the docking bay the next morning in the same dress, rumpled from the previous night's activities. Her hair and makeup are a mess and she's carrying her heels, but she wears a satisfied grin.
"Job sounds good to me," she says. "Just gimme a chance to shower first, yeah?"
Penny also arrives at the docking bay in a dress rather than her usual uniform. A long yawn into the back of her hand and frequent blurry blinking speaks to her own lack of sleep, but the glow of her cheeks tells that the lack was not in vain. "I can also do with a shower, Ben, and a bit of coffee. Otherwise, the plan sounds as good as any other options we have." the blonde says, swaying a bit on her heels. "More than a bit of coffee I think."
"The pay is good." Katherine says. She arrived back at the ship late, but not unreasonably so, and has arrived in a clean jumpsuit having completed her usual ablution routine.
"I have to agree with Penny Captain. We need a good, no excellent, coffee machine as a matter of urgency."
Penny slips back to the ship, starts a coffee drip and takes a quick shower. Then she is back as quickly as possible in her normal neat uniform and cap, with two steaming cups for her and Katherine. "Best I could do with what we have, but done to your specifications."
"So transport. I assume we'll need a cooling system to keep the bodies in the condition the buyer wants? I assume the entire body is okay, or do we have to remove the hearts ourselves. 50 tons of hearts might take a while."
Having embraced Tarika when she first appears Ben, who is superbly turned out after his quiet night alone, lets his crew ask the relevant questions - simply nodding his agreement to the job and making cryptic notes on his data pad. "Let's try and see what we can find out about the job." He says, "But yes, let her know. Now, Tarika, what are your plans? Do you want a berth on the ship or do you prefer to stay here? We're going to be on the Corps' blacklist soon, if we aren't already so it might not be safe for you to stay. None of us want you to take any risks."
"I'm sure the shipping containers Rishae has 'em in will handle whatever environmental conditions the necrografts need for transport," Tarika says, pausing for a moment to return Ben's hug.
"Thanks for the offer, Handsome," she says with a wink. "But I think I'll be fine here on the station. I'm gettin' too old to be gallavanting around the galaxy like you young folk. Just make sure to send me a wave and keep me updated on the job. Speaking of which ... this is time sensitive, so hike your keisters on over to the Revenant Urge and get the jump on this. We don't want no one claim-jumpin' us."
~~~~~
An hour later and you're in the Downlow entering the Revenant Urge. The club's aesthetic combines the haunting and traditional with the ultra-modern and chic. The building resembles a macabre cathedral decorated with a towering spire at each corner and flying buttresses, pointed arches, and ornate columns of onyx and black marble. The entrance is an oversized door of coppery metal framed by pillars of bone and adamantine and the rib bones of a giant undead beast. Above the door, a circular rose window made of holographic crystal projects the silhouette of the goddess Urgathoa — depicted as a woman with a skeletal lower half dancing with a scythe. The acrid odor of burning plastic and chemical solvents lingers in the air, and the pulse of muffled bass throbs behind the door.
The double door opens to a vaulted hall; seven floors with open balconies overlook a crowded dance floor, along with one more floor at the building’s summit. Gigantic speakers blare hypertronic sludge house. Floating above the crowds of dancers, undead dancers whirl about in hovercages while brandishing bladed weapons or caressing dangerous animals. The patrons themselves — mostly undead — writhe and contort to the music, illuminated by flashing strobes. A few clubbers jump from bungee cords tethered to the upper floors, their silhouettes bouncing in and out of view. Each of the four spires that anchor the building contains a lavish elevator with walls made of holographic crystal.
As you enter you see a robot squox near the entrance rise up on its hind legs and stare at you After a moment, it scampers off through the crowd, toward the bar. It stops in front of a dragonkin seated on a stool who turns at the creature's electronic chittering and then looks up at you with a smile and a nod.
Boots has way too much fun at the club, knowing that she may not get another chance like this for quite some time. As such, she makes sure she dances with plenty of people, including Chase and dragging Katherine out to the floor despite her protestations.
She discovers a rather handsome man who claims to possess a wide variety of "medicinal" items that he will allow Boots to sample for free, so she makes her goodbyes and dashes off for an evening of euphoria.
---
Talah arrives last the next morning, misses Tarika's introduction and only staggering up as the group is ready to move on. Still in last night's attire, her eyes are bloodshot and her right arm exibits a slight tremor. She half-heartedly waves at Tarika and says in a groan lacking her normal enthusiasm, "Hey Tee."
---
Now showered and changed, Talah accompanies to the others to the Revenant Urge "Cap. What's the play here?" Boots asks Ben.
"Let's see." Ben replies, heading towards the bar.
"Rishae I take it?" He asks with a polite nod. "Ben Daxos. I want to take on the job with the grafts. I'm told by my good friend Tarika that you're the person in the know."
“No, sorry. Call me Dizzy. This is Digit.” The dragonkin looks around at the gothic ambiance of the club and raises a drink to their muzzle. “First time in this place. All seems a little much, you know? Like, they’re trying too hard. I hear on the weekends people bungee down from the seventh floor while laser turrets open fire on them. That sounds… fun? Let me buy you all drinks.”
The robotic squox wiggles its tail and hops in circles around Penny. "I see he likes you," Dizzy says with a grin, gesturing at his small companion.
"I'm crew on the Wintermourn - a transport," he continues. "Our Captain's Niva Rovo, a former miner. She's upstairs right now, haggling with Rishae, like I suspect you all intend to do. I'm sorry we got here first, but, you know, speed is everything in this business. No hard feelings."
Penny squats down to scratch the cute little beast behind the ears, wondering briefly how it might taste in a stew. "And you are stationed out in the front of the club to delay rivals, or to attempt to stop us?"
"Oh, neither," Dizzy says with a toothy grin. "Niva says I'm too upbeat and gum up how she negotiates. So I have standing orders to find something else to do whenever deals are being cut." He holds up his datapad. "Do you play Moons and Stars with Friends?" he asks, showing the splash screen for a popular datapad game. "I'm always looking for friends to trade different ores with. I've almost got all of them."
Penny blinks in utter incomprehension, having never played a video game in her life. "Your trading ore?" she shakes her head and rises back to standing and looks at Ben "We need to get upstairs, don't you think?"
Boots pulls out her datapad and moves over to Dizzy, bumping into his hip as she shows him her pad "I'ma lookin' for some absyium. Have abuncha trade. Whatcha got? Hmmm?"
Dizzy swipes a claw across his own pad and looks it up and down. "I don't have any absyium, but I have lots of arcane powder and some substitutium that could be converted into absyium," the dragonkin says after a moment. "Do you have any refined platinum?"
Now that Boots has neatly distracted Dizzy, Ben nods to Penny and heads upstairs. "That was almost too easy." He says with a frown. "Guess we'll have to find a way of out doing Niva. Any thoughts?"
With Boots hopefully occupying the dragonkin you turn to head upstairs. Dizzy calls out as you go, though, "Top floor, last confessional on the right. The captain doesn't usually fancy interruptions. I mean, you can knock, but don't be surprised if my pal Nemelith sticks a big gun in your face. That's just how she says 'Hello' to strangers. Good luck." They turn to Boots. "We should probably join them just to make sure things don't turn heated."
Taking one of the crystal elevators to the top floor and following Dizzy's instructions, you arrive just as a ysoki and a red-skinned human emerge from one of the confessionals followed by a lucandrian.
“Always a pleasure,” the lucandrian says to the ysoki as the female rat-folk walks away. “You cunning little rat.”
At this comment, the ysoki turns around and makes a pained gesture. “I’m hurt, Rishae. Hurt. How could you call me that, after all the times we’ve ripped each other off?”
After following you up the elevator, Dizzy steps forward towards the ysoki and gestures towards you all. “Captain, it is my pleasure to introduce the crew of the Oliphaunt.”
“The what?” the ysoki questions with a frown.
“It’s an ancient monstrosity that once ravaged Golarion,” the red-skinned woman says, eyeing you with one hand resting on the hilt of her hand cannon. “It devoured entire armies. You really ought to read a book, Niva, darling.”
Niva grunts, inspecting you before turning to Dizzy. “Tell Jinx to pick us up. We’re leaving,” she says. Dizzy responds in signed Common, making their left hand into a fist at about shoulder height and bobbing it back and forth to communicate “Aye, aye.”
As the other crew make their way back to the elevator, Rishae slips back into the small room, leaving the door open.
Penny leans closer to Ben and whispers, soft enough for show but loud enough to be sure she can be heard "I like the red one, captain, could we adopt her?" her eyes on never leaving her, only partially out of concern she could draw that cannon at any moment.
The red-skinned woman, whom you assume is the aforementioned gun-pointing Nemelith, gives Penny a wink and a sly smile before following after her captain.
"If she'd ever like employment then I'm sure we could arrange it." Ben replies, talking slightly louder than required to ensure that both the target and her captain hear him. Then he returns his attention to the actual target.
"Rishae? Ben Daxos, we're here about the job you're offering."
"I'm not sure I can help you," the woman says with a frown. "I just sell corpse parts - I don't offer jobs."
Ben notices that her eyes are quite different from others of her species that he's met before. Where normally the moon-aspected fey typically have eyes that almost look like floating stars. Rishae's are glimmering spots of a fiery red. She seems to notice his observation.
"You know, my first few months as a necrograft broker," she says with a smirk. "No client could look me in the eyes. Hard to take a person in this business seriously with stars shooting out of their retinas. So, I had a colleague fork out my eyeballs and plug in the ones from a specter. No one has asked me about moon crystal recipes or how to read constellations since. Now, the only thing on a client’s mind is what augmentation can help them tell death to kiss off. Plus, I got a good deal — I’m basically product placement, after all."
"Look, if you're looking for more necrografts, I've already sold my inventory to Rovo and I don't have a single ton of spare black hearts just lying around. Even if I did, you heard her; they're already on their way to your mystery client."
She considers the situation for a moment or two.
"I'll tell you what. It'll take me a couple of days, but I might be able to arrange another 50 tons. However, it'll cost you." She pulls up a datapad and taps on it for a moment. In another instant, a simple message announces its arrival on your comm units with a beep and a vibration.
She looks you over.
"In fact, I'll drop the price an additional 20% for each corpse lease you sign. You know; sign over your body after you die. Necrocrafters always need raw material. Zombies and skeletons make for great workers. You won't need your body after you're dead and you won't even miss it."
Meanwhile, Boots continues a heated negotiation down below. "Fine, fine. I'll take yer substitutiums, but yer costin' me some work to get 'em converted. I hava few plats, but I'ma dearly attached so you gonna needta sweeten that pot, honey.
As two strangers emerge from the place that her crew went into, she assumes things are wrapped up and thus wraps this up. "Look. Here's my tag, shoot me ova a message later, right?" and dashes up to join her crew.
She leans in and asks Penny "We all set here?"
Penny leans in as well and whispers "no, we are being screwed again. Too slow again. So we either wait and hope or do something about it now. Did you track the two that just left. Think we could take them?"