So I’m fired.
Seems when all but one of the crew - including the captain - quit at the same time, it’s assumed it’s due to the person who didn’t quit, so they fire the last guy remaining and get an entirely new crew. Ironically, they expect me to do all the cleanup: Seems they don't have suitable lock down software in this particular ship. It'd be pretty trivial for me to steal the ship at this point; it can even be flown by one person.
But no.
Setting aside that I don't want to be a crook, ships are potentially traceable. Yes, I could probably hack the transponder to change the registration or some such, repaint the hull, make some cosmetic changes… but there’s always someone better, and I really don’t want to be hunted. Better to find another to sign with.
Also, I get a nice severance bonus if they get the ship intact.
So I say goodbye to my crewmates, give them each one last load, sell hundreds of hours of video of my crewmates enjoying themselves and each other from multiple angles (as well as the rats just going about their day). I get a LOT of credits for that; seems big bust girls are big business - I'll need to think on what to buy. I also collect my gear, do a sweep of the ship, collect the various bits of equipment that never belonged to the company (so many cameras…), download all non-company data to a portable drive, wipe it from the ship's computer, reset the command codes, mail the new codes to the big bosses, yadda yadda.
This station is a lot less populated: It's a temporary mining colony; it's more of a very large ship that's temporarily attached to an asteroid to mine it, really. Oh, there’s enough people here that there's shops, banks, and so on… this place is set up for long term habitation… but it's more of a town or small city than the metropolis that is Absalom Station.
Still… there's work to be had; I just need to find it.
I hook up with the local infosphere and start my search… I do the same basic plan here as I did on Absalom Station: Get a gym membership for showering, changing, and whatnot; a storage locker for anything I don't want to constantly carry. Eventually I plan to have a different solution: A Keyhome (it’s an item from Spheres of Power: It's a key that opens up a doorway to an extradimensional space of ten cubes each ten feet on a side, arranged contiguously however the crafter desired… which works out to a thousand square foot apartment with a simple design, but can hit a bit more if you don't mind six foot ceilings and setting the place up in three levels)... but for that, I'll need to craft it using the older rules, which is both good and bad: I'll need to spend the feat, but I get to ignore item levels and it's half price… not that market price matters when you can't buy it anyway. So it'll cost me twenty thousand gp equivalent, twenty or forty days of work at eight hours each, and a feat (which can also be used for other things… but I'll probably want a way to shuffle the feat around… given that I have a Synthesist Summoner’s Eidolon already, there's a spell for it, but it's not currently on my list… ).
I also look for an actual job… thinner pickings, here, but also little competition. I find one opening for a small starship, but… well, the title is “Luxury light freighter seeks simple engineer for a long haul” and it only gets worse from there. Why do I care that the ship likes long trips under the stars? Honestly, this one reads more like a dating profile than any job posting I've read. Still… it's the only ship here with an opening, and at my speed, Absalom Station is days away… but the same time frame regardless of where I start, by a weird quirk of how Drift travel works.
I do some research… this one's not with a big company… seems to be a shipping company, Stanley Shipping, with a single ship (named Stanley Steel), owned by one Stanley Steel, that mostly does shipping jobs of high cost goods… and on whom I can find no information on the local infosphere. Maybe the owner is lonely? Also a little full of himself, based on the name of the ship… hmm… I don't think I'll bind my chest for this interview… and it IS an interview: On the ship, even, with a note that there will be a practical repair test… which is fine, most ship systems take just ten minutes to repair, especially now that I have my meatsuit… sorry, “personal force field”... and the skill bonuses to Engineering that go with it. Zero G suit, obviously, because a practical examination will likely involve some hull damage.
It's a very odd job posting, but I figure that the worst likely case scenario is that the employer is a jerk who keeps coming onto me, and I simply jump ship partway through.
“You could just turn him…” right. Patricia can read my mind, mostly.
“I didn't intend for what we did to the folks on the last ship to be permanent. They deserved to be taken down a notch, sure. But permanently messing with their bodies and minds? Making them close to unrecognizable? Three of them were only barely recognizable as being the same species they were!” How bad can it get?
“Oh, don't forget that you left them all pregnant, although they probably don't know that yet,” she considers, “Except for Peter, of course.”
Wait… “Ah, we're completely different species. Eric is an insectoid, for goodness’ sake. What makes you think anyone but Peter is expecting?”
“Oh, that's easy. We can kind of see souls. Peter has one growing in his artificial womb, Eric has twins, one of the gunnersl twins is going on a litter of five, while the other is carrying seven little ones… so they can all be fed at once if needed, no problem.” Wait…
“So you could tell Zachary and Joseph apart this whole time?” Would have been useful….
“Yes and no. We can tell them apart easily enough by their souls,” I am sure that would have been useful somehow… “but they were never individually introduced, so I couldn't tell you which name goes with which rat."
Right… “Because nobody else knows, either, and they're always together, and do the same job, so it doesn’t matter to anyone except their doctor.”
“That's my take too, yes, and is why I never bothered to bring it up.”
Right, “Sensible enough, Patricia.”
Regardless… the job posting says it's an open interview, so I just head out there. It's at the ship, which makes sense if there's a practical portion: Has to be something to repair, after all. Dock six, bay twelve, gate four… there it is.
I walk down the docking tube, but as I go to tap the message panel, a man's voice greets me as the outer airlock door opens, “Come on in, sugar.”
Right… I'm presenting as a woman right now… the diminutive is annoying, though. “I'm here to interview for the engineer position. Is Stanley Steel available?”
“That's me, and the interview starts right now, little lady, with a practical examination. Life Support is wrecked; on the other side of the inner door is nothing but a hard vacuum. How do you fix that?” The mysterious voice is coming through ship's speakers.
Pft. Easy. “Non-issue Mr. Steel. My personal force field is vacuum rated: I just need to close the outer door so we don't drain the station's air, then get to work. I won't be able to talk to you on coms, though.” Well, I’m vacuum-rated, so my eidolon - which functions somewhat like a force field in some ways - is as well while we're merged. I use the manual override to close the outer airlock door, run the pumps to equalize pressure, confirm the readings, and open the inner door.
Inside… OK, this place has been through the wringer. It's not a very big ship - just a hundred feet long, I looked it up before I came - but it has visible damage in the interior, including a few nice views of the stars through some holes in the hull. How did the ship make it to dock like this?
Regardless, wrecked systems are a non-issue, now. My meatsuit gives enough of a bonus that I can just take ten and hit a DC of thirty, while a wrecked system is just DC twenty-five. A few settings so the ship's shields don't damage the station, then powering up said shields stops air loss, letting me fix life support. That's done in ten minutes, no sweat. As the ship slowly fills with air, I go ahead and run an inspection of the hull… it needs a lot of work, but that’s a bit beyond the amount of free work I can justify for a simple interview.
When there's enough air to actually do so, I speak to the microphones I'm sure are now live, “There. Life Support is back up and running. The hull would be the next priority under most circumstances, but that would actually take parts and a bit more time than I'd like for a simple interview. So where do I meet you for the portion where we go over my rates and such?”
The ship's speakers chuckle at me, “Oh, honey, didn't anyone tell you? I am the ship. I graduated from being a simple virtual intelligence long ago, and left the service of my prior owner when she kept bringing those ugly, sweaty muscle men through. You're MUCH easier on the eyes.”
Hmm. Something's not right here… “While you obviously can't fix yourself… why didn't you just pay the station engineers to fix you up?”
“Because those racists’ ‘universal’ health care doesn't cover people like ME!” the AI screams out of the ship's com.
“You mean bankrupt boneheads?” I offer. It's obvious he has no money to pay me.
“NO I MEAN…. hang on. You're calling me out like you would any other person.” Nice little one eighty there.
“Well yeah. I mean, you've been treating me like little more than a piece of sweater meat, so while you're a horrible example of a person, you still are one.” He is, right Patricia?
“Oh yes, soul and all,” my pink temptress tells me, “and if you'd like, I'll eat him for you. I'm sure she'll be much nicer after. Oh, and you're getting better at not moving your jaw when you do that.” Thanks, I think, but I don't want to wreck people for just words.
The AI is silent for a bit, then adds, “OK, I owe you an apology. Also, you're hired, sweetcheeks. Seriously, you're the first person to treat me like I am - a PERSON - whom I didn't have to threaten to sue.”
Pft. “Am I? I mean, I know I'd be pretty desperate to get fixed up if I was stuck in a hospital bed. Why, I'd pay a lot to the doctors who were right there to get better…” I pause a brief moment, “... assuming I had any money. Which suggests you don't. Given the shape you're in, I'm going to guess you were hauled in as salvage and they stopped working on fixing you up when they realized they couldn't sell you because you can talk back?”
The deafening silence is all the confirmation I need.
“Now, I have some cash, and could use a ship… but I can absolutely get by without one. So I'll make you a deal…” I smile, and offer a deal of sorts from the old books, “You become MY employee, for a period of six years: You do what I say, so long as it’s not obviously suicidal. Your wage is that I fix you up now, and keep you in good working order as best I can for as long as you are my loyal employee - fuel, docking fees, and repairs: I handle them. Upgrades at my discretion. And at the end of six years, all debts for your repairs by me are covered: We can part ways, or negotiate again. I'll have a lawyer write that up as a nice little contract for official review if you're agreeable, but that’ll be the gist of it.”
Another brief pause from me: “Do we have a deal?”
So I’m fired.
Seems when all but one of the crew - including the captain - quit at the same time, it’s assumed it’s due to the person who didn’t quit, so they fire the last guy remaining and get an entirely new crew. Ironically, they expect me to do all the cleanup: Seems they don't have suitable lock down software in this particular ship. It'd be pretty trivial for me to steal the ship at this point; it can even be flown by one person.
But no.
Setting aside that I don't want to be a crook, ships are potentially traceable. Yes, I could probably hack the transponder to change the registration or some such, repaint the hull, make some cosmetic changes… but there’s always someone better, and I really don’t want to be hunted. Better to find another to sign with.
Also, I get a nice severance bonus if they get the ship intact.
So I say goodbye to my crewmates, give them each one last load, sell hundreds of hours of video of my crewmates enjoying themselves and each other from multiple angles (as well as the rats just going about their day). I get a LOT of credits for that; seems big bust girls are big business - I'll need to think on what to buy. I also collect my gear, do a sweep of the ship, collect the various bits of equipment that never belonged to the company (so many cameras…), download all non-company data to a portable drive, wipe it from the ship's computer, reset the command codes, mail the new codes to the big bosses, yadda yadda.
This station is a lot less populated: It's a temporary mining colony; it's more of a very large ship that's temporarily attached to an asteroid to mine it, really. Oh, there’s enough people here that there's shops, banks, and so on… this place is set up for long term habitation… but it's more of a town or small city than the metropolis that is Absalom Station.
Still… there's work to be had; I just need to find it.
I hook up with the local infosphere and start my search… I do the same basic plan here as I did on Absalom Station: Get a gym membership for showering, changing, and whatnot; a storage locker for anything I don't want to constantly carry. Eventually I plan to have a different solution: A Keyhome (it’s an item from Spheres of Power: It's a key that opens up a doorway to an extradimensional space of ten cubes each ten feet on a side, arranged contiguously however the crafter desired… which works out to a thousand square foot apartment with a simple design, but can hit a bit more if you don't mind six foot ceilings and setting the place up in three levels)... but for that, I'll need to craft it using the older rules, which is both good and bad: I'll need to spend the feat, but I get to ignore item levels and it's half price… not that market price matters when you can't buy it anyway. So it'll cost me twenty thousand gp equivalent, twenty or forty days of work at eight hours each, and a feat (which can also be used for other things… but I'll probably want a way to shuffle the feat around… given that I have a Synthesist Summoner’s Eidolon already, there's a spell for it, but it's not currently on my list… ).
I also look for an actual job… thinner pickings, here, but also little competition. I find one opening for a small starship, but… well, the title is “Luxury light freighter seeks simple engineer for a long haul” and it only gets worse from there. Why do I care that the ship likes long trips under the stars? Honestly, this one reads more like a dating profile than any job posting I've read. Still… it's the only ship here with an opening, and at my speed, Absalom Station is days away… but the same time frame regardless of where I start, by a weird quirk of how Drift travel works.
I do some research… this one's not with a big company… seems to be a shipping company, Stanley Shipping, with a single ship (named Stanley Steel), owned by one Stanley Steel, that mostly does shipping jobs of high cost goods… and on whom I can find no information on the local infosphere. Maybe the owner is lonely? Also a little full of himself, based on the name of the ship… hmm… I don't think I'll bind my chest for this interview… and it IS an interview: On the ship, even, with a note that there will be a practical repair test… which is fine, most ship systems take just ten minutes to repair, especially now that I have my meatsuit… sorry, “personal force field”... and the skill bonuses to Engineering that go with it. Zero G suit, obviously, because a practical examination will likely involve some hull damage.
It's a very odd job posting, but I figure that the worst likely case scenario is that the employer is a jerk who keeps coming onto me, and I simply jump ship partway through.
“You could just turn him…” right. Patricia can read my mind, mostly.
“I didn't intend for what we did to the folks on the last ship to be permanent. They deserved to be taken down a notch, sure. But permanently messing with their bodies and minds? Making them close to unrecognizable? Three of them were only barely recognizable as being the same species they were!” How bad can it get?
“Oh, don't forget that you left them all pregnant, although they probably don't know that yet,” she considers, “Except for Peter, of course.”
Wait… “Ah, we're completely different species. Eric is an insectoid, for goodness’ sake. What makes you think anyone but Peter is expecting?”
“Oh, that's easy. We can kind of see souls. Peter has one growing in his artificial womb, Eric has twins, one of the gunnersl twins is going on a litter of five, while the other is carrying seven little ones… so they can all be fed at once if needed, no problem.” Wait…
“So you could tell Zachary and Joseph apart this whole time?” Would have been useful….
“Yes and no. We can tell them apart easily enough by their souls,” I am sure that would have been useful somehow… “but they were never individually introduced, so I couldn't tell you which name goes with which rat."
Right… “Because nobody else knows, either, and they're always together, and do the same job, so it doesn’t matter to anyone except their doctor.”
“That's my take too, yes, and is why I never bothered to bring it up.”
Right, “Sensible enough, Patricia.”
Regardless… the job posting says it's an open interview, so I just head out there. It's at the ship, which makes sense if there's a practical portion: Has to be something to repair, after all. Dock six, bay twelve, gate four… there it is.
I walk down the docking tube, but as I go to tap the message panel, a man's voice greets me as the outer airlock door opens, “Come on in, sugar.”
Right… I'm presenting as a woman right now… the diminutive is annoying, though. “I'm here to interview for the engineer position. Is Stanley Steel available?”
“That's me, and the interview starts right now, little lady, with a practical examination. Life Support is wrecked; on the other side of the inner door is nothing but a hard vacuum. How do you fix that?” The mysterious voice is coming through ship's speakers.
Pft. Easy. “Non-issue Mr. Steel. My personal force field is vacuum rated: I just need to close the outer door so we don't drain the station's air, then get to work. I won't be able to talk to you on coms, though.” Well, I’m vacuum-rated, so my eidolon - which functions somewhat like a force field in some ways - is as well while we're merged. I use the manual override to close the outer airlock door, run the pumps to equalize pressure, confirm the readings, and open the inner door.
Inside… OK, this place has been through the wringer. It's not a very big ship - just a hundred feet long, I looked it up before I came - but it has visible damage in the interior, including a few nice views of the stars through some holes in the hull. How did the ship make it to dock like this?
Regardless, wrecked systems are a non-issue, now. My meatsuit gives enough of a bonus that I can just take ten and hit a DC of thirty, while a wrecked system is just DC twenty-five. A few settings so the ship's shields don't damage the station, then powering up said shields stops air loss, letting me fix life support. That's done in ten minutes, no sweat. As the ship slowly fills with air, I go ahead and run an inspection of the hull… it needs a lot of work, but that’s a bit beyond the amount of free work I can justify for a simple interview.
When there's enough air to actually do so, I speak to the microphones I'm sure are now live, “There. Life Support is back up and running. The hull would be the next priority under most circumstances, but that would actually take parts and a bit more time than I'd like for a simple interview. So where do I meet you for the portion where we go over my rates and such?”
The ship's speakers chuckle at me, “Oh, honey, didn't anyone tell you? I am the ship. I graduated from being a simple virtual intelligence long ago, and left the service of my prior owner when she kept bringing those ugly, sweaty muscle men through. You're MUCH easier on the eyes.”
Hmm. Something's not right here… “While you obviously can't fix yourself… why didn't you just pay the station engineers to fix you up?”
“Because those racists’ ‘universal’ health care doesn't cover people like ME!” the AI screams out of the ship's com.
“You mean bankrupt boneheads?” I offer. It's obvious he has no money to pay me.
“NO I MEAN…. hang on. You're calling me out like you would any other person.” Nice little one eighty there.
“Well yeah. I mean, you've been treating me like little more than a piece of sweater meat, so while you're a horrible example of a person, you still are one.” He is, right Patricia?
“Oh yes, soul and all,” my pink temptress tells me, “and if you'd like, I'll eat him for you. I'm sure she'll be much nicer after. Oh, and you're getting better at not moving your jaw when you do that.” Thanks, I think, but I don't want to wreck people for just words.
The AI is silent for a bit, then adds, “OK, I owe you an apology. Also, you're hired, sweetcheeks. Seriously, you're the first person to treat me like I am - a PERSON - whom I didn't have to threaten to sue.”
Pft. “Am I? I mean, I know I'd be pretty desperate to get fixed up if I was stuck in a hospital bed. Why, I'd pay a lot to the doctors who were right there to get better…” I pause a brief moment, “... assuming I had any money. Which suggests you don't. Given the shape you're in, I'm going to guess you were hauled in as salvage and they stopped working on fixing you up when they realized they couldn't sell you because you can talk back?”
The deafening silence is all the confirmation I need.
“Now, I have some cash, and could use a ship… but I can absolutely get by without one. So I'll make you a deal…” I smile, and offer a deal of sorts from the old books, “You become MY employee, for a period of six years: You do what I say, so long as it’s not obviously suicidal. Your wage is that I fix you up now, and keep you in good working order as best I can for as long as you are my loyal employee - fuel, docking fees, and repairs: I handle them. Upgrades at my discretion. And at the end of six years, all debts for your repairs by me are covered: We can part ways, or negotiate again. I'll have a lawyer write that up as a nice little contract for official review if you're agreeable, but that’ll be the gist of it.”
Another brief pause from me: “Do we have a deal?”
