You Know What Grinds My Gears?

[Sunny]

Another dive somewhere. Cantina. Pub. Tavern. Whatever you wanted to call it. It wasn't classy but neither was it a total hole, they probably cleaned up after beings threw up on the floor. That was practically high-class as these things went. Not that it mattered to Sunny. This station, a cobbled together independent joint floating out in the middle of nowhere was at the moment filled with crews who were in a celebratory mood. Drinks and other substances were making their rounds, Sunny wasn't the only form who was easy on the eyes and the credits were flowing. Clearly a job had gone well. Sunny may even have been on one of the ships, she'd been on a bit of a bender and didn't remember very much of the last week. That was fine though, she was in one piece and feeling good, this was all that mattered.

Or at least most of those present were feeling good. There were always a few outliers. Surly jerks born with a lemon slice in their mouths. Or the kind of folk who always sat in the dark corner or up on inexplicable rafters with their hoods up, brooding broodily. Like hens. Or the folks who were either possessed by the dark and evil spirit of Koo-koo-clatchoo or who were trying to prove themselves worthy of becoming a dark and evil spirit by being as comically, caricaturedly evil as possible. You couldn't escape them. For the most part though, all was good. If emotions were divided strictly by positive and negative, given weight and placed on a see-saw, positive was currently far ahead. Important to a Zeltron.

The rather handsome Arcanian Offshoot on whose lap she currently found herself, was certainly feeling good, drunk on a potent mix of whiskey, spice and pheromones. It was like a feedback loop. She kept him feeling good and reveled in the positive emotions he then fed unwittingly to her. Whether he was actually funny or it was just the spice she didn't know and didn't care as she threw her head back to laugh at another of his jokes. Didn't really matter, the contrast of his bleached white skin on hers pleased her and he had nice arms.

"-and that's why we can never go back to that system!"

He finished yet another anecdotal story with a grin, Sunny and those from the same crew who'd stuck around either laughing or roaring their approval as was their wont.

"Whai an absoloot crock."

Drawled a deep, glum voice cutting through the rest of the noise.

 

[Sunny]

"What?"

Came the Offshoots incredulous reply, sure he'd heard wrong or that the other was not speaking to him, his eyes searched for the one who'd spoken.

"Yer full of it. Story wouldnae work. Impossible. Physics are off. Plus idiots like y'lot would never hae made it halfway t'rough th'adventure without getting yer idiot heads shot off."

Eyes eventually found a short but incredibly broad humanoid, with a truly impressive beard and intricately worked armour morosely staring into a mostly empty mug, nihilism layered heavily into his voice.

"Oh yeah? What would you know? You weren't there!"

Even unsteady on his feet and with enough pheromones in the air to drop a bull elephant, there's a certain sort of man where any perceived insult to their manhood is enough to move them immediately into fighting mode, and with crews like this, fighting meant killing.

While technically negative and not something Sunny was particularly in favour of, it was too much bother and quite frankly a waste of time to try and stop all fights from breaking out. In her experience, you let them run their course, someone died or got knocked out and the rest of the room moved on.

"Anyone with half a brain knows." The stocky humanoid turned to look at the group for the first time, large bushy eyebrows drawing together "Mayhaps y'should get back to the mines, nae that a frail pretty boy like ye is e'en fit for tha'."

That wasn't quite fair. The offshoot was actually fairly well built, nice arms remember, but compared to the other he did look very nearly waif-like.

 

[Sunny]

This was where a dramatic fire-fight ought to ensue. Probably the Offshoot would kill Stumpy, but take a lethal shot himself and die dramatically in Sunny's arms, proclaiming his everlasting love. People eat that sort of thing up. Might even wind up a major motion picture.

What actually happened was still pretty impressive but not quite as dramatic. The Offshoot was here with fellow crewmembers remember, no lone gunman he. One of said crewmembers was at the bar getting more drinks. Near Stumpy. And happened to be a Wookiee.

"Ew."

Sunny commented, flinching away as the Wookiee tossed Stumpys head, recently wrenched free from the rest of the body to the Offshoot.

"Hahahahaha! Good show mate! Where's the physics in that eh?"

The Offshoot raised the head with one hand and worked it's jaw with the other, oblivious or uncaring to the gore that was dripping from it onto himself. Pitching his voice low in an attempt to copy the recently deceased's voice.

"Hur hur hur, I'm so smart, picking fights with the crew of the Nexus Fang, maybe if I wasn't so short my head would have been far enough up not to be shoved up my shebs!"

Lowering the head, interest quickly waning, his eyes were drawn to something caught within the beard. Pulling it free he grinned, it was a pendant. A relatively ugly one quite frankly. Not like, ancient cursed relic ugly. Just blocky and metal. Think of a rubik's cube, half sized, no pretty colors, just metal on a plain possibly leather thong.

"Look Sunny, my light! I got you jewelry!"

He slipped it over her head, clearly having decided it wasn't worth much but might buy him a bit more favor from the Zeltron.

"Thanks."

Sunny managed a smile, not particularly keen on the token, which had a sizable smudge of blood on one side but there you were. She was in the middle of a group of drunk probably-pirates who's just pulled a mans head off and then put on a terrible puppet show. She could space it later.

 

[Sunny]

Later.

Oh go on, surely you didn't reckon the follow-up to a drunk pirate who's just gotten his way pretty damned decidedly and a Zeltron who really just wants to have a good time was going to be something you could sit in on did you? You voyeur you. I knew there was a reason I liked you. Maybe next time, that sort of thing isn't for the eyes of just everyone you know. It's a private show sort of deal.

The Offshoot, had she ever asked his name? Didn't matter, she wouldn't have remembered it anyway, was gone. He and the rest of his crew had taken off in a hurry. Could be there was another rich job they were rushing to, could be one of the ships coming in was one they didn't want to run in to. Could have been both. Or neither. It didn't really matter. This story's not about him. That's why he didn't even get a name, obviously. This story is about Sunny.

Sunny who was currently stretched out on the bed in the broom-closet sized room that counted as luxurious on this station. It was private after all, and space was at a premium. For lack of much else to do and since she didn't feel like venturing out yet, the mood had changed and it would either grate on her or take a lot of effort to change it, she fiddled with the pendant.

She quite liked pretty things, even if she was bad at actually keeping possessions. This was not pretty, and she did not understand it in the same way she didn't understand people who choose to be negative. Of course since it was a pendant, it probably counted as art, and even art she thought was pretty rarely made sense, so trying to understand it was pretty much a waste of time.

Still, as her finger explored it, she found faults or perhaps intentional lines in what had appeared to be a singular piece of metal. This might keep her occupied for a few minutes anyway.

"Huh."

She commented, sitting up and pulling it over her head to examine it more closely.

 

[Sunny]

Closer inspection, which may have included the very scientific smacking it against the wall a few times before she switched to a few of the basic, tiny tools that were kept in her belt in case she needed to repair the hologram emitter, or just felt like tinkering with it, revealed that perhaps it was not in fact art. Perhaps it was actually tech. Advanced tech at that.

It was still ugly.

She needed more tools. She needed a holoterminal. Or a holopad at least. Maybe some wires. Or scanners. Hm. Wasn't like she carted this stuff around, her hands were usually full with drinks or bits of other peoples anatomy. What did people expect of her?
She wasn't a mule.

But, she brightened, her usual 'sunny' smile resurfacing, this was a space station. It was by nature techy, and anyone who made it here had tech. It was all over the place, she just had to find what she needed it and borrow it for a bit. No problem! Slipping the 'pendant' back around her neck she rose, pulling on a shirt left behind by the Offshoot, she deemed herself presentable, all the bits people fussed about at least mostly covered, and wandered out into the hallway.

Docking bays. That would be the best place to start looking. They'd want to run diagnostics on damaged ships that limped in and then they'd need tools to fix them. It was foolproof!

As you might imagine, a scantily clad Zeltron wandering down a rather rough stations hallways did not go unnoticed, but Sunny was so used to casually dodging or slipping past the wandering hands that didn't interest her that she hardly noticed. In fact she didn't. If questioned upon reaching her destination she probably couldn't have described a single being she passed.

Well. Except for the Vultan with the nice butt.

 

[Sunny]

Oh how convenient, here was a powered up holoterminal with a plethora of.. well all right, they were not top-of-the-line, but they were functional, diagnostic tools arrayed around it. The ship berthed just beyond obviously in the midst of being repaired likely had something to do with that. but why question or try to explain luck? It was like if you found a lovely colorful drink with an umbrella and maybe even a piece of fruit on the rim sitting out. You didn't ask and questions and wonder and search, you drank it.

With a pleased noise she set to work, not considering in the least who or what the owner of the ship and quite possibly the tools was. Easier to ask for forgiveness and all that. Besides, if one were an impartial observer who'd followed Sunny around her whole life, a tendency to not take ownership very seriously might be noticed. Not that she didn't understand it at all, after all, her belt was hers, and she could understand individuals having attachments to some few belongings, a ship, weapon, picture, heirloom, shoes, whatever, but when it came to generalities.. It could be a culture thing. Zeltrons, with their partying and free love often found themselves in each others homes the morning after. And why wouldn't they find some clothes? Or make breakfast? Or place a call if they had to? So there was in her mind a split between personal belongings, and impersonal, handy, collective belongings.

It was probably a good half an hour that she fiddled and tinkered, no one coming out yelling and shooting. Perhaps they were off seeing to other business, sleeping or just didn't care. It didn't much matter, though it was lucky.

"Huh. Mysterious!"

Sunny commented finally. There was a large amount of data encrypted on the pendant, though it was a format she wasn't familiar with. And possibly corrupted. Or maybe not, maybe it was just really complicated and she couldn't understand it. There was a high likelihood that this was the case. She did pull one thing off of it however, made understandable because it was numbers, almost universal in most cases once you figured out what symbol was being used and what base things were being calculated using.

Coordinates.

 

[Sunny]

Sunny was in some ways a fickle beast. She was flighty. First and foremost a hedonist. Except were holograms were involved, just because she started something didn't mean she'd finish it. She didn't feel any real obligation to do anything that didn't take her fancy. So just because she'd acquired a mysterious pendant through means of murder most foul, just because she'd cracked it's secret as a data carrier, just because she had the coordinates did not mean she intended to follow them.

After all, Stumpy hadn't seemed particularly cheerful and he'd had the coordinates, so it couldn't be that great.

..

.......


Unless it was so great that being away was what had made him suicidally depressed.

Could be! You never knew! That would be an awfully fantastic place. Maybe even better than Zeltros pre-catastrophes. It was hard to even imagine a place like that, though Sunny's mind was trying awfully hard. Any proper telepaths in the vicinity who weren't polite enough or capable of keeping their receptors off would likely be blushing, let's put it that way.

Still, secret coordinates probably weren't on a major trade route, it might be inconvenient, and since she could find most of the vices she could imagine without having to come up with exorbitant amounts of credits in order to pay a Captain to ship her out to the middle of nowhere where there may or may not be an amazing party planet..

Well, she could at least check them, plot the course and see if it was on the way to somewhere fun for sure and where she had a decent chance of hitching a ride. Good thing about being an adult Zeltron, smart Captains might be wary about taking an adolescent on board since their pheromones could drive a crew to fight in a few days, but an adult had better control and could kelp keep the peace and stave off cabin fever. That and a surprisingly number of beings were nice enough that they were willing to share their rooms aboard ships, even in close quarters. And pessimists thought there were no good beings left in the universe, ha!

 

[Sunny]

Or she could run into the afore-mentioned Vultan, it might turn out he had his own ship and the prospect of a few night of passion may have utterly distracted her from her quest. These things happen. Ah, you reckoned I was joking about the fickleness. That it was there for the sake of having a flaw. Like all those self-interested folks who suddenly form connections and would die for those they've attached themselves to. Not so much. Sorry to disappoint.

Nor is this a bait and switch. Though Sunny didn't space the pendant for being ugly, so it might come up in the future, you never knew.

Where she instead found herself, rather than the location of the mysterious coordinates, was a lovely little planet called Filth. The lovely bit was a bit of a stretch. It's given name on the other hand was not. Filth was in fact being rather kind. Still, for someone who could be as selectively blind as Sunny, this sort of den of depravity had good times spelled all over it. As long as she didn't pick wrong and shack up with a murderer or anything. Actually on Filth the odds of shacking up with a murderer were pretty darn high. You just sort of hoped they weren't feeling murder-y at the time. Or in the case of Sunny, that you were more fun alive than you would be dead.

She'd been here roughly a week and a half, much of this blacked out of her memory with a truly staggering amount of illegal substances. Sunny's continued existence and failure to wind up dead somewhere was quite frankly a minor miracle.

"I got a good haul this time baby."

"Mmm?"

"I'm gonna get us out of here, you and me."

"Mmm."

"I got some good cuts, the ones I gave you.. They shine like your smile, but the others, we're gonna get out of here baby."

"Mmmm..."

Sunny was tired of listening to this man, so she lazily rolled on top from her place stretched out naked on presumably his bed and silenced him in a way that came naturally to Zeltrons and to Sunny in particular. Well. Not silenced, but no more words. She was still in a comfortable haze, floating on the remnants of whatever she'd taken last, she didn't want conversation breaking her out of it yet.

 

[Sunny]

The full story, if one wasn't out of ones head on drugs, was that towards the end of her stay on Filth, Sunny had run into a miner from Wealth. He'd wined, dined, given her a rather nice set of jewelry made of Wealth Gems, and kept her in whatever she wanted to dabble in. As sometimes happens, he'd fallen head over heels in love, helped along with a hearty dose of pheromones. Like most citizens of Filth, what he wanted most was to leave it. And he was set on taking Sunny with him.

Sunny just liked sex and being high.

While she might normally be more careful and considerate of his feelings, no addict, let alone one who was using, was going to say 'No, you'd best stop giving me drugs and providing for me, I'd just like to be friends'.

Said miner, Alfred, if you were interested, Al to his friends, actually had managed to save up enough for a vacation. He had every intention of simply not getting on the return flight. As long as he went to a habitable planet, there were very few that could be worse than Filth, even if he had to live in the woods, or beg in the streets. A forest world would be nice. He could build a little cabin for him and Sunny, live an honest life without all the corruption and other ever-present threats of Filth.

With two tickets to Gaoranger and a plan to maybe settle one of the wilder moons, or if that looked too difficult to seek work on Hurricaneger or refuge on Bakuryū, Al was pretty confident he was on his way to a better life, and as far as he knew, those who held his contract had no idea what he was planning. He hadn't talked about it to anyone. Only his Sunny, and she'd been by his side the whole time anyway.

So it came to be that a few days later they were boarding a passenger shuttle, Sunny at least mostly sober.

"Where are we going again?"

"To see the therapods."

"Oh, right, okay."

Quite frankly Sunny didn't know what a Therapod was, but sure. He seemed happy, if nervous. Whatever.