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Stella Vir: First Flight
A Changed Approach

A Changed Approach

It was a quiet walk, a thought provoking walk for every single creature digesting the release of Screep and Fauwk. The outpost seemed less gloomy than it was when they first arrived, it was as if their mood projected onto it and the uplifting feeling of having survived this far along made everything better. That is aside from Kreeg who was still moving at a snail's pace lost in her own thoughts. A couple of the creatures tried to get a conversation going with her but it wasn’t enough to get her out of her misery. Even the typically annoying Wokwoks who were riding on top of her couldn’t elicit much of a response with their annoyance. Razzo looked back towards the group and focused briefly on Kreeg but not a single idea came to mind on how to better her situation. The Froklins led the crew through the maze of an outpost and back out to the landing platform where they first landed. Razzo is the first one out behind the Froklins with Dre and Ostikous beside them with the rest of the crew on their heels. As they adjust to the lighting on the platform they see the ship that they came on in the distance. It looks almost nothing like the ship that picked up Razzo from the colosseum not too long ago. The nose of the ship has been made less pointy with clear armor making up the pilots cabin giving visibility out of the cabin but reflecting light from the outside. In a way this concept was similar to that of a two way mirror. The armor faded well into the first hull of the ship and the main cabin that had been upgraded to massive proportions to fit all the crew members inside. It was made with a rare material only found in this system that made it impenetrable from most attacks and only immense natural forces from certain planets and environments could dent and potentially pierce this metallic material. The top and bottom of this cabin were equipped with gun stations that are loaded with a variety of space weaponry. This weaponry ranged from conventional ballistic weapons, to electromagnetically-accelerated weapons (coilgun/railgun), self-propelled weapons, mines, electromagnetic radiation weapons (lasers), drones. There were a variety of release points for all the various weapons extending beyond the central hull of the ship to the large first two wings with four much smaller wings further down the ship. These wings were lined with very much the similar coating of the impenetrable metallic alloy used on the central cabin. The ship then extended backwards beyond the central cabin to a section slightly smaller that made up the crew quarters and a smaller section next to that made up the captain's quarters. These two were supported by a second hull that could be used in case a breach occurred in the first hull. Beyond these two rooms was a weapons room and storage space; these two rooms equaled the size of the central cabin. This was the third and final hull, if all three hulls were to be breached the ship would then be torn apart by the vacuum of space. There was the energy storage beyond that along with the main thrusters behind the ship. There were also exhaust points for temperature along the ship and smaller thruster exits on the outside surrounding the captain and crew quarters and the weapon and storage space. Of course much of this isn’t seen to the crew from the outside but the newly refurbished ship does carry a certain appeal it didn’t have before.

Versi telepaths to Razzo: “Aren’t you lucky to be inheriting such a ship as a captain”.

“Woah this looks way different than I remember it” - says Razzo taken aback.

Dre adds: “I’ll be honest I was not expecting this when we left the ship but my people sure know how to work with metals and tech”.

The crew continue exiting out of the outpost and create a semi circle admiring the ship from afar. They all slowly approach the massive ship where even Chorion is excited to be in considering he can finally fully stand in the ship. Upon getting closer to the ship they notice the three Automatons Sib, Bic and Seabiscuit sitting around relaxing after their work had been completed. Seabiscuit is the first one to notice the mob of creatures and goes inside and comes back out with energy chains giving one to each of Bic and Sib. Both of them take the energy chains and put them down next to them trying to figure out where the captain is. Upon coming to the realization that the captain is not with the mob they understand why Seabiscuit brought out the energy chains and decide it’s best to pick them up.

“Oi that’s enough, wait right there!” - yells Seabiscuit once the mob of creatures is within twenty meters.

Versi quacks to the three Automatons: “That’s no way to address your new captain”.

The three Sib, Bic, and Seabiscuit look at one another with a confused expression.

Sib yells over: “Who’s to say we want him as our new captain?”

“Yeah, what happened to our actual captain?” - adds Bic.

Razzo yells over: “He’s no longer with us!”

Seabiscuit yells back: “Yeah no shit genius he’s not here!”

Razzo decides to test his luck and approaches the three Automatons. Upon taking three steps the robots spring into action activating their energy chains. Seabiscuit is the first to go flinging the energy chain outwards and wrapping it around Razzos torso tethering them to each other. The other two Automatons work in tandem on either side of Razzo, Sib goes to the left of the human and snags his left hand with the energy chain. As Razzo works with his right hand trying to get the chain off his other hand Bic uses this as an opportunity to catch his right foot. Razzo glances back behind him to see if anyone is willing to provide any assistance and so far all the creatures including Dre watch how this scenario will play out. In Razzo’s moment of inattentiveness Sib and Bic capitalize on this lapse of judgment by pulling at the energy chains bringing Razzo down on his right knee and having to stabilize his fall with his right hand so as to not fall over. In the meantime Razzo’s left hand is held up above his head, constrained by Sib’s pull of the energy chain. Razzo has enough of the nonsense and balances himself out so he can lift his hand off the ground. Upon regaining his balance albeit still on one knee shakes his right hand power his right fist with energy. He then uses his charged fist to bring the energy chain from his ankle up to his torso by pulling a resisting Bic closer to him. Then once the energy chain reached his torso he added Seabiscuit’s energy chain to his grip now holding two with his empowered right hand. He struggles a bit with Bic and Seabiscuit trying to separate themselves from each other. He overcomes this struggle and brings their energy chains up to Sib’s level. At this point Razzo charges up his left hand and with both hands empowered he uses the three Automatons resistance against them by tugging at the chains. Once a bit of slack is created Razzo uses his energy to move the Automatons and then in one quick motion flings them at the spacecraft. All at once he breaks the energy chains that briefly held him in place and the lack of resistance causes Sib, Bic, and Seabiscuit to fly uninterrupted through the air crashing together into the side of the ship with their energy chains. The three of them take a moment to collect themselves before getting back up. In this moment Razzo closes the gap between them and draws energy to continue fighting. All the creatures approach the ship as well. Razzo decides to change his mind about fighting and shakes the energy off his fists.

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“Look we can keep fighting or we can try to talk about all this. What do you think?” - suggests Razzo.

Seabiscuit gets up and walks up to Razzo, the robot is only about a meter and half tall so upon reaching Razzo he has to look down to see the stern look on its face.

“What is there to talk about? We know who our captain is and it’s definitely not you or whoever else you scum come up with!” - exclaims Seabiscuit while poking at Razzo’s chest.

“Scum is quite harsh to call your new captain!” - Razzo says educating the robots.

After a brief pause he continues: “So then pick or vote on who you’d want to be your new captain”.

“We don’t need to, we already have a captain but for all we know you probably killed him or one of the giants ate him!” - exclaims Sib while pointing at Chorions and Kreegs stomachs.

Chorion takes offense to this: “Nobody ate your stupid captain, he's still somewhere in the tunnel if you care so much to go get him!”

The three Automatons exchange looks and quietly speak amongst themselves as to what they should do next.

Seabiscuit turns back to Razzo: “We are not leaving without Kyro. We’re all going to go get him!”

“If ‘all’ and ‘we are’ refers to you three then by all means you can go ahead and look for Kyro. But we are all leaving without him and that ‘we are all’ refers to me and my new crew” - Razzo says in a smug tone.

Sib says: “And how do you all expect to leave, with what ship?”

Dre points at the ship behind the Automatons: “That was probably the most straight forward part of this whole ordeal. Obviously on the ship you just repaired!”

“And who’s piloting the ship? Last I checked none of you were pilots!” - says Bic.

Dre looks Bic with a confused expression: “I never got a survey about what my skills and talents are as a prisoner when I was kidnapped, did you Razzo?”

“Not that I recall but to be fair I was in distress so maybe I did and I missed something. That whole experience was a bit of a blur…” - says Razzo unconfidently.

Dre facepalms: “No, we did not. But maybe one of us is a pilot, and if not we’ll figure it out! It can’t be that hard to do”.

The three automatons look at each other and burst out laughing.

Seabiscuit says: “Yeah it's like a stroll on the factory floor I’m sure you’ll figure it out!”

“I guess you can try flying out of here but odds are we’ll be back before you figure out how to even turn it on” - says Sib confidently.

The three Automatons sling their energy chains over their shoulders and begin to head towards the entrance of the outpost. They’re quickly followed by Versi and his squadron of Froklins.

Seabiscuit takes a look back at the crew and points to a device while letting them know: “Don’t worry we’ll find a way back to our ship. We always do!”

The crew is left awkwardly standing around the platform on their own. Then the creatures start taking the initiative and slowly one by one start entering the ship. All that’s left is Razzo and Dre waiting outside the ship.

Razzo asks Dre: “So do you know how to fly this thing?”

“No I thought you did because you flew us back on earth?” - refutes Dre.

Razzo shakes his head: “No I crashed us on Earth, I guess if you count the few minutes that we were flying before the crash flying then I did for those few minutes”.

The two exchange uncertain glances as they enter the ship knowing that they’re about to learn flying on the fly. Hopefully there’s some semblance of an owners manual to get them off the ground. If not it’s going to be a very painful and short learning experience.