"This is Bannon Station," a female said in crisp, perfect Terran, "Be advised that you are within range of our weapons. State your business."

"Hospitable cousin-fuckers aren't they?" Mike muttered from his station. Turns out that he had cross-trained in electronic warfare once he got out, a pleasant little surprise. The Paper Tiger didn't have mounted weapons, but it did have… options… when it came to defense.

"Hey y'aw," Jessie, their resident MAGA whisperer, drawled happily, "Wedee Paper Tiger. Y'aw kno we comin'?"

"(sigh) Stand by for confirmation," the female said wearily. "… Identity and credentials confirmed. Welcome, Paper Tiger. Please proceed to docking bay six, berth four. One individual will debark, unarmed, and await a security team."

"Yew got it, sistah," Jessie giggled. She loved talking like this.

"You are really enjoying yourself, aren't you, grav-butt?"

"Yew kno eet!"

"(sigh) Just go to your berth, you curved-space addled moron," the woman said with apparent amusement. "Wait… you wouldn't happen to be Jessie-Bug from da' Lobby, would you?"

"(giggle) Guilty as charged, ma'am!" Jessie drawled.

"Wel' sheet!" the woman exclaimed. "Git on in here, gurl!… Hey y'all!" she yelled, her voice a bit more distant, "You'll never guess who jes' showed up!"

The transmission ended.

"Something you would like to share with us?" Sheila asked as she raised an eyebrow, "...' Jessie-Bug'?"

"Um..." Jessie giggled, "I might have had just a little bit of a reputation back in the day… for being a good upstanding citizen, of course."

"Of course..."

"Um, guys," T'sunk'al inquired as he slowly started to accelerate the ship, "Is Bannon Station rotating for the reason I think it is?"

"If that reason is that they are a pack of technologically regressed hicks that believe that artificial gravity is literally the devil's work," Sheila replied, "Then yes."

"Interesting," T'sunk'al said as he matched the station's rotation. "We had similar concerns shortly after first contact. It wasn't from a theological perspective, but more than one skeptic had concerns about the graviton fields generated by the gravity generator and how they would interact with… things… Of course, that faded quickly."

"That's the thing about these guys," Sheila smirked, "Nothing fades… ever."

"If it works, it works," T'sunk'al click-shrugged, "Makes docking a bit tricky but not overly so… They aren't going to make us switch off our gravity, are they?"

"No," Sheila replied, "but most of them won't get anywhere near our ship until we do."

"Well, that's convenient."

***

About an hour later (T'sunk'al found docking a bit trickier than he initially believed), Sheila lounged against the side of a sign that said, "No gravity beyond this point."

Two humans dressed in old-style combat fatigues and plate carriers "flew" up using ducted fans mounted on the backs of their uniforms.

"Welcome to Bannon," one of them said with a smile as his boots stuck to the deck plate with a loud clang.

"Real thrilled to be here," Sheila said pleasantly.

"Your friends arrived two days ago," he said. "I have their hotel location right here. They say that they got you all rooms."

He handed Sheila a semi-disposable datacard.

"Thanks," Sheila replied as she accepted the card, "Nice of them."

"You offloading anything?" he asked.

"Only one med-pod," Sheila replied. "We have someone waiting on a set of lungs. Glad to get rid of her. She's starting to smell funny."

The officer chuckled.

"Are the organs here?"

"Yep," Sheila replied, "They are waiting at Powell Memorial. Got confirmation an hour ago."

"Sweet," the officer replied and then smiled. "I just have to say," he continued, "We're tickled to have you guys drop by. Tell me, is 'The Revenant' with you?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of one of the deadliest combat pilots to ever draw a breath on board our vessel," Sheila smiled.

"Well, if she is, tell her to drop by Stars and Bars. There are a whole lot of people who would like to buy her a drink… goes for the rest of you as well!"

"I think we could make that happen," Sheila smiled. "Been a while since I've had some proper void-gin."

"Well, you'll find no lack of that here," the officer grinned. "Oh, an' we need to see Jessie-Bug."

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Sheila narrowed her eyes.

"Is she in some sort of trouble?" she asked, "It wouldn't be the first time."

"Naw," the officer replied, lapsing into his accent for a moment, "We just need to explain a few things to her about what she can and can not have on her while she is here. She… well..."

"Has a reputation?"

The officer just grinned.

"What the fuck did she do?" Sheila asked wearily.

"It would be easier to say what she didn't do," the officer chuckled, "but I ain't no snitch. You'll have to ask her."

"Oh, Jessie-Bug..." Sheila said with a musical note in her voice, "Some nice security officers want to have a little chat with you..."

***

"Say 'thap' one more time..." Agent Andrea Liang hissed as she sat in the "innocent delivery van". "I fucking dare you."

"Thap, thap, thap… thap thap..." a cheerful voice lisped over the speakers.

"I'm going to kill him," she said, "This has to be psyops. It would be self-defense, right?"

"Hmm?" Agent Vashtona asked as she looked up from her tablet.

"That goddamn snake is driving me crazy!" Agent Liang moaned, "He's been 'thapping' for fucking hours."

"Yes," Agent Vashtona replied as she looked through the "eyes" of a fly-like micro drone. "But you have to admit, it is pretty."

"I don't fucking care if it's pretty!" Agent Liang growled, "He says 'thap' every time that dinky little hammer falls!… Every. Fucking. Time!"

"You can switch off the speaker, you know. Switch to captions."

"And then the second I do, he spoofs the AI and actually discusses whatever the fuck we have been sent here to catch!" Agent Liang grumbled, "Human intelligence is just that, human… or sapient… you know what I mean."

"Mmm Hmm," Agent Vashtona replied, glancing back down at her tablet. "You need to be relieved?"

"No," Agent Liang sighed miserably. "…What are you reading anyway?"

"Harold Potmaker," Agent Vashtona replied, "I don't think Jeruzz is a Pufflehuff after all. Just saying."

"What do you mean he's not a Pufflehuff?!?" Agent Liang exclaimed, never taking her eyes off of the video feed, "He's the biggest puffle to have ever huffed!"

"Maybe if he had stayed home," Agent Vashtona replied as she opened a water bottle. "But he didn't. When his father died from throat cancer, like everyone else in his job does, and his sister had to take a job in that horrible place, he didn't just hug her. No. What did he do? He hopped on board a ship with no training, no certificate, not even any real possessions, basically just his skin, and made it halfway across known space… somehow… That took courage, real courage."

"Yeah," Agent Liang replied, "but it was motivated by love for his family."

"And?" Vashtona replied, "You're saying the Griffinderps don't love their families?"

"You can't be saying that he's a Griffinderp!" Liang exclaimed, "No fucking way!"

"And then there's his ambition to consider," Agent Vashtona continued. "He has plenty of it. He's going to get his whole family over here and set them up nice, real nice. Resourcefulness? He made it halfway across known space with only the shirt on his back. Correction. He didn't even have a shirt."

"I'm going to need a urine sample," Agent Liang scoffed.

"And then there is his cunning," Agent Vashtona said, "he brought down a fucking Golden Eagle, not to mention all of the other animals he's hunted basically bare-handed. We haven't seen him hunt yet, but I bet we are going to see plenty of cunning when we do."

"You're just saying that because he's a snake," Agent Liang said dismissively, "and he's green. It's too fucking obvious."

"You mean as obvious as the fact that he's exactly what he looks like, completely innocent, and this is a complete waste of our fucking time?" Agent Vashtona retorted, "Obvious doesn't mean that it's wrong."

"Well, what about 'leadership' then, oh great sorting twat," Agent Liang sneered, still looking at the monitors.

"You mean like the fact that Syd is, with his encouragement and support, actually starting to draw again? You mean like how his brother is now doing better in school after he told him about all the opportunities he would have if he could get his certificate, the very same opportunities that Jeruzz ripped from the universe itself with his bare hands for them… and he doesn't even have hands!… You can be as nice as Jeruzz and be a leader, you know."

"Oh. My. God," Agent Liang said. "Do you realize we are actually debating whether that goddamn snake is a fucking Slithergrab? Do you? He's done it. He has actually driven me insane."

"Thap thap thap thap thap thap..."

"Aaarrrgh!"

"Hey! I'm trying to read!"

***

The crew walked down a deceptively normal looking city street as people smiled and nodded pleasantly at them.

"Interesting," T'sunk'al said as he bounced up and down slightly, "It feels just like normal gravity."

"'Downward' acceleration is downward acceleration," The Chief replied, "Even if it is lateral acceleration outward. Once you get out here to the rings, you can't tell the difference."

"Their energy costs must be a fraction of an equivalent-sized traditional structure!" T'sunk'al exclaimed. "Once you got the station spinning, it would require only what it takes to offset any incidental acceleration caused by incoming ships and other miscellaneous sources."

"Yeah," Sheila replied, "But only one distance from the center has the right 'gravity'. Go further out, and it gets higher. Go further in, and it gets lower. They have to build it huge for the same working space."

"Well," T'sunk'al replied, "space is huge, and iron is cheap. They also gain the benefits of both low gravity and high gravity for manufacturing processes… I think this is actually superior in a way."

"Oh, be quiet," Sheila chuckled.

"Bess!" a woman's voice twanged, "No!"

A small girl rushed up to T'sunk'al.

"Watryew?" she asked as she looked up at him with big, blue eyes.

"Water you?" T'sunk'al asked, completely confused.

"Hez a Z'uush!" Jessie exclaimed as the girl's mother rushed up, quite concerned.

"She was askin' what you were," Jessie said to T'sunk'al.

"Uloukliekabug!"

"She says you look like a bug," Jessie giggled.

"Tell her that I'm a friendly one?"

"Ohmi starz," the blond-haired woman wearing blue jeans and a button-down shirt said as she ran up, "I'm sew sorri!"

"Oh, it's okay," T'sunk'al replied.

"HiImGeorgia!" the woman said as she extended her hand towards T'sunk'al.

"My name is T'sunk'al," he replied, gently shaking her hand.

"Eeeww!" the little girl exclaimed, "Mommatecheda buuuug!"

“Bess!” the woman chided, “Now benince! It jes’ looksliekabug. We tokkedboutdis. Now saiyersorri.”

"Imsorri," the little girl said as she looked down.

"Itz a zeener," the woman said to her child, "Nawta bug. Dey mite lookdiff'rent but dey God's chidren, too."

The woman looked at T'sunk'al with warm, friendly eyes.

"Hello," Shelia said with a heavily exaggerated Terran accent as she extended her hand, "My name is Shelia, fresh from Terra. Nice to meet—"

"Sorriteh hav troubledew," the woman said icily, not taking Sheila's hand, "Common, Bess!"

The woman quickly dragged her girl away, muttering some very "unchristian" things as she did so.

"And there it is," Sheila grinned.

"Now, be nice!" Jessie said as she looked at Sheila disapprovingly.