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3.3 - A Crew of Animals

3.3 - A Crew of Animals

My first assignment as a Vanquisher was to pick a crew and pack my things. For Vanquisher missions, I would need a small but permanent crew to cover the basics of every mission. Other specialists would join us on an as needed basis, depending on the assignment.

I was the pilot (a damn good one, thank you very much), so I needed a weapons expert, a biodatascientist, and a medic. I sat in a boring room with @horus, where he mostly stared at his virtual screen while I made selections.

kittyboy: "Can I have @astrowave as my weapons expert?"

horus: "If @astrowave and his commanding officer agree, yes. He's also been promoted, although it is minor, to Thunder Ops II. It shouldn't be a problem."

One for one. The image of @astrowave running down the zombie-infested corridor was still stuck in my head. I'd love to have that type of dedication and raw power on my crew.

kittyboy: "Medic, I want Pokey. He's a medical spider bot, the one that just revived me this last time."

@horus squinted at me away from his screen and scowled.

horus: "No."

I pouted.

kittyboy: "Why not? They'd be perfect, and Pokey follows orders to a fault."

horus: "This Pokey that you talk about. If they are a resuscitation robot, that makes them a specialist with a very specific, very critical task for the starmada. Certain tasks would be beyond their programming. The answer is no."

kittyboy: "Oh come on. They're a robot, with vast information at their disposal. I bet I could ask it to replace my neural network, diode by diode, and they'd do it flawlessly."

horus: "Hard no. Try again."

kittyboy: "I don't know any other medics."

horus: "Did you read the dossiers?"

Of course I hadn't. I opened up the booklet in my hud viewer, showing names along the left and descriptions on the right as I moved my eyes from name to name. I didn't really have the patience for this, and although I knew I should take it seriously since these people would be stuck in space with me, I just couldn't bring myself to analyze all these options. He gave me a list of 784 candidates! So, I used a random number generator and picked number 601.

kittyboy: "I'll take @bitchfrog as my medic."

I watched @horus's eyes wander as he pulled up their profile and scanned it. He raised an eyebrow as he read, then looked over to me.

horus: "You're sure?"

I hadn't bothered to read the dossier on @bitchfrog. Figured it would be better just to start from scratch and figure them out for myself. I nodded back to @horus.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

horus: "Okay. @bitchfrog can be your medic. Lastly, you need a biodatascientist."

kittyboy: "How about @shadowhacker?"

horus: "No, she's on my crew."

That seemed selfish of him.

kittyboy: "I'll let you keep the goggles?"

He scowled again at me.

horus: "Hard pass. Pick again."

I went for random again, picking number 168 out of the 271 candidates in the biodatascientist portfolio.

kittyboy: "I'll take @foxcutter."

@horus paused again, bringing up the dossier on @foxcutter and scanning it over.

horus: "Very astute of you. Kind of a dark horse pick but an excellent choice."

He paused then and gave me a hard look. I could sense that my selections might fall apart in an instant. I didn't care so much, but I really didn't have the energy to pick again.

horus: "Or did you just pick names that had animals in them?"

What? Me? @kittyboy? I would never! I was almost certain there was only a little bias in my random number generation. How dare he?

kittyboy: "I take exception to that statement. I'll have you know that I made virtually no effort to make selections after you denied me Pokey and @shadowhacker."

That was mostly true. It didn't matter if @horus was right. It was still mostly random. So what if I like working with animals?

kittyboy: "Besides, @astrowave isn't an animal name."

@horus frowned at me, but he was satisfied, and he probably had had enough of me at that point anyway.

horus: "Fine. I'll submit your selections and have them instructed to join you at your ship. You'll be piloting a v90 Dominator. Try not to destroy it. Collect your things and report to the ship at Landing Bay N7."

He pushed a few virtual buttons and typed a few virtual words with his fingers on his desk and then motioned for me to go.

kittyboy: "Don't I need a ship technician?"

horus: "Are you planning to make modifications to the ship?"

kittyboy: "Can I?"

That got me super excited, especially after meeting @stardvark and learning about his Obliteration mode. I absolutely wanted to figure out how to customize and modify my v90 Dominator. First I'd have to get used to its stock configuration, but once I knew what it needed, or what I wanted, heck yeah, I'd customize the hell out of it.

horus: "No."

Asshole.

kittyboy: "If I have a ship technician, can I?"

horus: "No."

kittyboy: "Well, then no. I guess I won't make modifications."

horus: "Then you don't need a ship technician. The ship has repair droids and will fix itself as needed."

Well, that was convenient for them, and for me I guess. I wasn't satisfied with @horus's No to modifications. I opted to store that information under strongly advised.

horus: "You leave in two days. Your mission details will be sent over to the ship. Please review these today by 17:00 hours."

Then he shook his head at me, his face oozing the prospect of future disappointment as he considered what I would likely do instead.

horus: "And please, @kittyboy. Review the details. I don't want to see you back in a Wavepilot uniform."

I stood and made the dew drop sign at him with my hands.

kittyboy: "It shall be done."

As much as I hated having homework to do, I will say that it motivated me to get my paltry collection of personal items gathered so that I could settle into the v90 Dominator. It would have a dedicated captain's quarters that was nicer, more spacious, more like my own studio apartment in space.

I picked up a new butterfly rug, grabbed my sassy coffee machine, and then picked through a few personal items that I was more or less okay with losing if the ship exploded. I picked a squishy baseball stress ball, a nice pair of utility jeans, a spiky spindly locomotion plant that I named Stuart. I carefully put this and my official uniform in a backpack and made my way to Landing Bay N7, walking proudly, waving hello to people, the model of a good Extrovert Starmada soldier.

On my way, I made a final stop and the armory, where they presented me with an arm cannon, a glen11 pistol, and a flip37 pulsar laser. I eyed the glen11, thinking of my adventures with its predecessor, the glen10. What fun we will have! I told it. This one goes to 11.

I practically skipped my way to the ship, singing chirpy songs about death and violence.