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Quonx slowly looks from the AI status screen to the panel. A long moment passes. And then: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!! CLOSE IT UP, CLOSE IT UP, CLOSE IT UP, CLOSE IT UP, CLOSE IT UP!" she screeches as she runs for the panel, and tries to heft it as best she can into place. "NAKO!!!! HELP! IT'S CRUSHING ME!!!"
Quonx screams in frustration. "ALL I WANT IS TO RECHARGE MY BATTERIES! IS IT REALLY TOO HARD TO ASK FOR??? VENT IT INTO SPACE M2!" She stomps her feet onto the metal deck. "THIS. IS NOT. RELAXING!!!!!"
In the end though, Quonx has had enough of these shenanigans. "I'm not killing you, I'm rebooting you. Now stop complaining!!"
Quonx does feel bad for the AI. As a woman of science, it is her duty to feel bad for wonders of technology.
"YOU STOP TEMPTING DAKOYO WITH SILLY OFFERS!"
Quonx stomps over to the next core, and unceremoniously finds the emergency release circuits, which she engages furiously. "I AM VERY UNHAPPY WITH THE STATE OF TECHNOLOGY HERE."
Quonx looks towards the fourth wall. Her disquiet now vented, she approaches one of the redundant cores.
She takes in the processor's configuration, the rate of cooling and the julian date before simply pressing the conveniently placed "Eject Redundant Core" button on the side.
Quonx, having transitioned from scared, to terrified, to finally fully arrive in the realm of anger, dives into the duct work, fuming. "VENT US? YOU STUPID, STUPID AI, I HATE YOUR MALFUNCTIONING GUTS YOU BIG PILE OF MEANIE BOLTS! JUST YOU WAIT, I'M GOING TO REWIRE YOU INTO A BEAT-BOX FOR NAKO'S STUPID MUSIC SHE PLAYS ON THE SHIP'S SPEAKERS WHEN SHE THINKS I'M NOT PAYING ATTENTION"
"Dear robot thing, would it behoove you to stop moving? SO I CAN SHOOT YOU INTO A THOUSAND TINY PIECES FOR BETRAYING SCIENCE!" yells Quonx in disgust.
"HER BASELINE WEIRD NARRATIVE VOICE!" yells Quonx at noone in particular.
"STOP MOVING AND SHOCKING MY FRIENDS!!!!!!"
"STUPID TECHNOLOGY! YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN THIS!" yells Quonx as she punctuates her statement with a blast of an overcharged laser.
Quonx deftly dodges out of the way of the worst of the electrical blast.
"STOP. BEING. CRAZY!" And this time, her aim is true!
"YOU! WERE! SUPPOSED! TO! BE! LOGICAL!" screams Quonx in a panicked rage. Whatever that means.
And promptly does a tremendous amount of damage to a set of power couplings.
"NEVERMIND, IT DOESN'T WANT TO TALK!!!!!!!"
Quonx huffs. "If you are as rude with it as you were with me, I think it'll start crying and wont want to talk to us."
Quonx yells from the top of the stairs: "WAIT FOR ME! I ALMOST HAVE IT!!!!!"
Quonx looks from the bridge door to the stairs, to the captain, to the room with sparking, creepy-looking massage arms. "WAAAAAAIT!!!! WHY YOU GOTTA BE SO MEAN!! QUONX IS A WOMAN OF SCIENCE, NOT OF LONELINESS!!!" she yells as she jumps down the stairs two at a time.
Quonx furiously pulls out the secondary control panel, and starts attempting to short circuit the table's VI systems. "STOP. GIVING. THE CAPTAIN. HORN CUTS!!!!" she bellows, right before crossing two wires that send her flying backwards.
"STUPID RELAXING CHAIRS, YOU'RE NOT RELAXING ME AT ALL!" yells Quonx as she feverishly pries the maintenance panel away.
And with gusto, she begins ripping wires out, along with the occasional circuit.
Quonx moves on in, firing her weapon at the damaged one.
She misses horribly, but doesn't really care as she sets up right next to one of the tables and unwraps her tools. "I GOT YOU NAKO!
Quonx screeches loudly as Nako is snatched away, frantically attempting to jam a fresh battery in her weapon before shooting at the robotic masseurs.
"WE"RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!" screams Quonx as she sprays and prays.
Another shot rings through the cabin, missing anything meaningful. "AAAAAAAAARGH!"
Quonx, fearing the outcome of this combat with greater and greater intensity every second that passes, steps into the room again to take another shot at one of their assailants.
The shot goes wide, bouncing off of the walls.
"DAKOYO!!! REMOVE THE DARKNESS! GO DO MYSTICAL MUMBO-JUMBO!" howls Quonx at her friend and companion as the laser weapon fires.
"SHOO, SHOO, SHOO! GET BACK! I HAVE SCIENCE WITH ME WEIRD THINGS!" yells Quonx after taking a guarded step back.
"BACK! BACK! WE DON'T LIKE WEIRD CRYPTO-MYSTICAL CREATURES HERE! DIE FROM A LASER IN THE 40 WATT RANGE!"
With a mighty heave, Quonx sends a grenade sailing through the darkness. It explodes, sending deadly shrapnel sailing through the air. "SCIENCE!"
Quonx steps into the room, a look of resolve, fury and perhaps a little constipation on her face. "YOU DON'T TOUCH MY FRIENDS, SHADOWPEOPLE! EAT FACTS!!!!"
Quonx releases the cabinet's handles like they are hotter than that one time she used the ships' heating assembly without gloves. "ARGH!" She shakes her hands, as if to make sure they still are there. "Ok. Ok. I'll look. 'sploding is never fun."
"Looks... Clear?"
Quonx skitters in after them, and bolts past the two ready to fling the door to the cabinet open with little regards to her own safety.
I wonder if its empathy modulator was damaged. Or maybe they removed it? Or maybe it was never there? I wonder if empathy modulators help the AI really figure out what is appropriate. Social constructs and hmmm... Maybe empathy modulators stabilize reality for the AI, and maybe it stabilizes reality for everyone without us knowing! Maybe Nako should be rushing out like tha... AAAAAAHHHH NAKO JUST RAN OFF!!!" "AHH! NAKO! WAIT FOR US!" shrieks Quonx as she skids across the restaurant's faux-marble floor, out into the corridor and right after Nako.
Quonx nuzzles the lashunta's torso before looking up into his confused face. Realizing that this is an awkward situation, she slowly backs down, to turn towards the unconscious individual. "Dakoyo, you think we can do anything for that one? It's not a robot, and not a machine. I'm not sure I can do anything for him. Unless he has cyberlimbs. I could tune those up I guess."
Quonx pops her head across the doorframe cautiously. "Nako? Why are you... Being... Scary... OH! OH OH OH OH THEY'RE NOT EVIL ROBOTS!" And with an energy borne of excitement, she bounds up towards the cowering guests and skitters up the lashunta's frame to give her a six-armed hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Have you seen our vesk captain? He's big. And vesky. And very very nice. He's not an AI. Why you talking about an AI?" she asks, looking up at the lashunta with some confusion, but with a smile and tears of joy streaking down her face.
At the sound of the laser weapon's crack, Quonx screeches in horror, performing not just a jump, but a somersault of surprise as her gun goes off as well, the beam bouncing off several corridor plates. "AAAAAH! WE'RE NOT THE PETS! DON'T PUT US IN THE CAGE! STAY BACK ROBOT!" she screams, sorta threateningly, although it mostly comes out as abject begging.
Quonx jumps, startled by Gazigaz's voice. "AAAUGH!" Her shot goes wild, frying one of the lighting fixtures in the bay.
"DOWN! GO DOWN!! LEAVE HER ALONE!" yells Quonx, still panicking at the realization that there is still a foe that could cage them.
Her shot goes wide, striking a pile of pet crates and leaving a hole through most. The smell of burnt polystyrene fills the air.
"THEY DON'T SUFFER, THEY'RE CRAZY MACHINES!!! LEAVE HER ALONE! BAD! BAD ROBOTS!"
Quonx deftly avoids getting glued to the floor, screaming and firing her weapon back at the yellow one, pressing the "purge heat" smiley-faced button as she does so.
Quonx begins to hyperventilate as the robots close on Nako to "pet" her. "LETERGO, LETERGO, LETERGO, LETERGO, LETERGO!!!!!" she yelps, leaving only a two star review and overcharging another shot into the red robot, which leaves the barrel looking like it could use an extended vacation.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! He came through here! The captain! Oh! Oh! Quick, let's get in!"
"LET'S GET OUT!!! LET'S GET OUT!!! I'M NOT A PET!!! AAAAAHHHRG, STAY AWAY!!!" barks an alarmed Quonx, who sets her azimuth rifle at it's highest setting, and then turns the dial past its max. It looks as if she has been tampering with the equipment again, voiding the AbadarCorp warranty.
Quonx slowly approaches the airlock, and looks for the emergency override panel. "This will be fine. It'll all be fine. All we need is to get in and get out. And it'll be fine! Heh. Heheh. It's fine."
Quonx quickly bended down onto her console, bringing up the initial scan of the derelict ship. Her eyes quickly panned over the old information, as Gazigaz attempted to fix the broken assembly. The Emerald Empyrean. Classification: heavy freighter. According to the transponder code, a property of Trendsetter Excursions. As her many fingers danced around the UI to reset the scan parameters to try for another pass, this time as a higher resolution, her mind put the pieces together. Modified transport. Likely pleasure barge? Only a company from Vercite would call itself something that stupid. As the sensors spooled up, she brought up a display of the ship on the main screen. The only ways to enter the ship were through two airlock doors, one on the port side near the aft and one on the starboard side near the fore. However, with the forward airlock apparently completely sealed shut, only the aft airlock was accessible. Unknown error: Fore airlock non-responsive. What is that supposed to mean? "I think captain Nakonechkin went through the aft airlock. I mean, probably. I mean, the other one didn't respond to our distress systems ping. So it's super stuck." In a moment of curiosity, she pulled up the technical specs for ships of that class. Forward-facing heavy weapon; small turret weapon; Gorgon-class thrusters... And in another flurry of activity, she pulled up the latest energy map of the wreck. "Thrusters are active! I mean, idle, but they are still spooled up and ready. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, something bad has happened to the captain, I can feel it!" And as if to prove her point, the new scan completed, and overlaid itself on the technical map. "ARGH!" exclaims Quonx as she stumbles from her seat towards the airlock. And perhaps with good reason: the scan now showed about a dozen life signs aboard the derelict, which captain Nakonechkin missed on his initial scans. Most of them were concentrated in an area around the ship's aft, starboard side. Of even greater concern: Nakonechkin’s life signs were still visible, but the display indicated that the vesk was in a semi-conscious state, with his exact location flashing all around the map. Even more troublesome, an additional anomalous energy signature is detected in the ship’s center. "WE GOTTA HURRY! IT'S GONNA EAT THE CAPTAIN! OR DECOMPILE HIM INTO BASIC POLYMER CHAINS! OR ..."
"...LIQUIFY EVERY ORGAN HE HAS! BUT I'M NOT GOING TO LET THAT HAPPEN!" finally finished Quonx, in her litany of ever-more implausible, excruciating death scenarios for captain Nakonechkin, as she began her space walk towards the other ship. About halfway through, her heartbeat began to go down. "Ok. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe Desna is smiling on us, and everything is OK." She turned to motion her companions on, when out of the corner of her eye she saw the approaching micro-meteor shower. "DESNA WEEPS! DESNA WEEPS! REALITY SUCKS! AAAAAARGH!!!!"
With how agitated the skittermander has become, she somehow manages to unconsciously tumble out of the worst of the cloud of meteorites.
Quonx liked it when the captain was away. Less organic noise. More time for building things. Experimenting. One such experiment was almost at its apex, a delicate contraption of spare parts soddered in just the right locations. But at Gazigaz' order, Quonx jumped in her seat, letting the gizmo slip from her grasp and crash to the ground in all of its component pieces. "Argh!" she screeched, before looking down at her work, and exclaiming: . She turned her gaze to Gaz, hurt feelings evident. My experiment, you meanie! is what she thought. But what she said instead, in a miserable tone of voice, was "Okay. I'll brush this off the floor later I guess."
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