Maiori's Story

The Captain of the Righteous Blade raised a brow and gave a quirked smiled at Captain Stevens' exclamation in response to her storms arrival. "You have my Sincere Apologies Konugr Stevens. I am Konugr Avun'Lait, and will humbly and graciously accept your offer to dock, if only to meet you and assist in sorting out the vok our arrival has created. However, our vessels run on a fuel that is unique and made only by our people, and our presence is only to assure the safety of the civilian who seeks to undertake your contract."

She then turned to someone off screen and said to them in a peculiarly musical language "Signal the remainder of the storm to take positions at a distance from their Nasgoroth. Let them be a wall, but leave the gates open. Take us to their Nasgoroth, so I might speak with this Konugr and see if I can't alleviate some of his concerns."

To Stevens she said "My storm is going to form a perimeter around your vessel, Konugr Stevens, but at a distance. They shall be close enough to come to the charge's aids, yet far enough that they will be of no threat. The Rightous Blade shall be coming to you, in peace, and then I will come aboard to speak with you, so that these 'higher ups' of yours will have no reason to 'court martial' you. Also, I thank you for providing me with the information as to who shall guard my charge when we depart, as we shall."

And with that the vessels began moving, the small transport was already well on it's way to the docks, and by the time it had landed in the docking bay the Rightous blade and it's fellow ships were only half way to their stated positions. Inside the Docking bay the transport sought a standard landing pad, and where it found one it would make for it. Upon arrival at the pad the vessel would upend itself, and it's propulsion output came to face the landing zone. Three Vine Like "legs" uncoiled from the base of the vessel, and were used to stabilize it as it lowered itself until the propulsion system, which appeared like a quintet of bright red bubbles at the base of the ship, softly squished into the pad. Once it had, one of the "petals", shorter than the remainder, being only about eight feet high and five wide at it's thickest, unfolded and lay open. A long ramp leading out of the ship.

From this opening issued forth no less than six, seven foot tall warriors wearing golden armor riddled with glyphs and inscriptions from helm to boot, each carrying a long spear of a strange golden metal and a shield of the same, both inscribed like the armor, and with creases in various places indicating joints in the material. These Soldiers stepped forth and flanked the opening on either side, pointed ears poking out from the sides of their helms and light shining from their eyes, as they brandished out their shields to form an impressive display. Then from within the ship came a small diminutive figure, only three feet in height with green hair and eyes, purple skin, wearing a light green tunic and earth colored pants. Her ears were short and elfin, her eyebrows extending an inch a piece beyond her face, and her light grass green hair cut short and styled into spikes. A pair of short antlers, like those on a young male deer, poked from her temples. She walked barefoot down the petal ramp, and a short tail, also like that of a deer, twitched at the base of her spine. She held in her hands a small transparent screen, and her thumbs rapidly tapped at it as she bit her lips and squinted her eyes in concentration.

Armed guards met Larion at his ship, clad in plate carriers, and with vacuum-sealed suits and helmets. One of them raised an eyebrow as Larion appeared in his power armor. "Damn man, I know we sure as shit aren't a cruise boat, but we ain't pirates." He put a hand to his helmet as a muffled voice spoke to him. "Aight, your record says you get shit done, so long as you don't pick a fight or anything, stomp around and make us feel tiny all you want. Also, Wastelander's AI says if your gonna pretend you've never taken a job from an asshole, you might want to make sure said assholes don't recommend your services. Not that she could find any details on why they recommended you, mind. Right this way bud. Techs are gonna take a look at your ship and make sure you haven't done anything that'll make the manuals useless. I hope you did. Techs like to think they're the only ones who can take apart a mining tug and turn the parts into a corvette." With that the marines led Larion out of the hangar and to the conference room where he'd be interviewed. While their weapons were held in a relaxed manner, they were taking up positions all around Larion, in front of him behind him, to his sides. In addition, non-combat Navy personal were noticeably absent from the route he was taking.

The civilians transport's crew was greeted far more gently. Instead of Marines, the guards were more lightly armed Navy Security, most had only pistols and a ballistic vest. They tensed on seeing the heavily armored guards exiting what they were told was a civilian ship, but the only move they made was their sergeant, a man with a plate carrier and a shotgun, murmuring into a headset before nodding. A dark, lithe woman with pointed ears, red eyes, and snow white hair greeted the transport's crew. "Welcome to the Wastelander, we appreciate responding to our contract offer. If you'll walk we me, I'll give a rundown while we head to the conference room, where you'll be free to interview the captains of the various escorts. You don't have to interview any of them if you don't want, and I can assure you that all of them are trustworthy. That said... a Mr. Lithen, while he has passed our security criteria, he arrived only a few minutes before you arrived, so we haven't interviewed him ourselves yet. As such, it will be up to you whether or not he is assigned to your escort."

"As the initial offer stated, you will be transporting a large volume of refined materials to an industrial world, specifically to an electronics manufacturer. We'd prefer to do it ourselves but... we have to pass through the borders of a nation that doesn't recognize the Independent Alliance of Corporation's sovereignty. Specifically, they believe we, the Stellar Mining Company, don't have the right to secede, and if we weren't backed by the IAC... well, I'm sure I don't need to explain that nastiness. As it stands, we're hoping if we send a convoy that doesn't bare our ID's, they'll ignore it and let it pass through. However, there still a chance they'll attempt to arrest you and seize your ship and your cargo under the guise of "Forcibly collecting taxes owed by the SMC."

The woman gestured to a passing mercenary soldier, clad in powered armor rather than the simple plate armor of the Marines. "That said, we've made damn sure that they think just you're some freelancers taking a gamble, rather than a sponsored convoy. They'll be expecting a haphazard group of hired thugs on their first real job, not professional, experienced mercenaries. As such, if they do try to stop you, they'll only send a light force, at most, a few frigates and maybe a strike carrier. And they'll be expecting your escort to run at the first sight of them. Instead, your escort will hit them hard, and if they can't fight them off, then they'll buy you enough time to escape. They won't have enough time to mount another strike before you're long gone."

"Before you leave, you'll be joined by a freighter hired by one of our business partners to transport medical goods to a planet in the same area as your destination. It won't be bringing an escort, but it's supposed to have enough AA guns to rip apart any fighters that get close." With that, the elven woman led the deer-like woman to the conference room were she was soon joined by Larion and his escort.

As the Righteous Blade approached the Refinery ship, they were hailed once more. "This is Wastelander traffic control to Righteous Blade. Ahhh, your ship's a little too big to fit in our hangar bay, you'll have to dock externally..." The man on the other end paused, an elderly man seeming to have hearing damage if the loud tone of voice was any indicator. "Riiight, your gonna have to sit tight for a few minutes while we scan your ship and configure our docking tubes to your ship, we don't have your design on file. Might take a while, just make sure to point your docking array at us. Also, scan-techs want me ask you to turn off your sensors while the dock workers do their thing, they say it'll set off automated alarms. Don't matter to me, those boys have been getting lazy lately, feel free to make em earn their pay." The man pauses again, muttering as he mulled over something. "Shit, alright, that beast you're flying around in has only one place to go, the external construction bays. It'll figure out how to get you docked damn fast, but depending on how your security's set up, it might set off alarms. Some ship computers see our construction bays and assume that we're trying to cut our way into your ships for a marine assault. Try not to freak out if whatever system you're using tells you you're being boarded. The rest of your fleet is fine, just hover by the external landing pads and wait for the airlocks to figure it out."

The small woman groaned out loud "Oh, Gnish vakun tooli for'ven sektu!" Her voice was light and lilting, sounding more like a brook cascading down a hill and bubbling over rocks in a small pooling waterfall than a living creature speaking. Despite how musical her voice was however, it could do nothing to hide the obvious fact that she was cursing, as she turned and chucked the little screen she had as hard as she could towards her ship. It went about two meters before bouncing pathetically on the ramp, a testament to just how weak physically the little impish creature was. She turned back around and looked at the elf with the petulant look of a child who had just lost a game. "A'vin toru lemt canor." She said, a hand on her hip as she gestured with a thumb at her ship and the guards sitting outside it. She waited for a response before realizing that she was obviously not understood, and began running through a shopping list of languages before hitting on common "How about now? You get common here?" She said, nodding as one of the guards reacted. "Okay common it is, so I take it since you have your own little escort for me I can send these guys back home?" She asked before turning and, without actually waiting for a response. "Mashu limpu gatin suk. Vetnor alik lefran dor ekni Konugr Avun'Lait, veshu m'ranr kost veknor." She said to them in her musical voice, to which the soldiers responded by stomping their feet once and jerking to attention. Almost immediately after each one of them burst into a smokeless flame that resembled mist and fog more than fire. A moment more and they were all gone, without a trace of their presence left.

The girl then turned back to the elf and her new escort and skipped over to them. "Right, I hope you guys have snacks cuz i am dying of hunger over here." She said as they escorted her to the conference room. "Oh, I'm Maiori by the way" She said in an offhanded, matter of fact manner. Her entire demeanor and attitude made it very apparent that she had not been paying attention to the woman, and would probably need to have things explained to her again shortly.

Meanwhile aboard the Righteous Blade, Konugr Avun'Lait was discussing something with members of her crew. She was at this for Several minutes before responding to traffic control. "There is no need for concern. Our people do not usually use a physical means of transition from vessel to vessel." She said, her voice like a fountain of water falling upon crystal. The Righteous Blade positioned itself over the Wastelander and held that position, several hundred meters apart. The remaining ships that had come with the Righteous Blade stood sentry 30 kilometers away, forming a long and large half circle away from the mining operation. Each one had up ended and now stood like a sentry. Any who looked out at them would get the distinct impression of a series of towers keeping watch, both on what was outside, and upon those inside.

Then, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, the Helm of the Wastelander would find that a circle of runes had appeared not a stones throw from Captain Stevens Position. The circle shone brightest in the center, forming a cone of light that blurred images seen through it. The shadow of a person appeared, and then Konugr Avun'Lait stepped out of the light. As the circle faded away behind her, she stood and saluted Stevens in a strange gesture. Her left fore finger touched her lips, and then she twisted her hand forward and over, allowing it to rest over her sternum as she bowed slightly. She then straightened and addressed him Directly. "Konugr Stevens, I again apologize for any consternation our arrival may have caused you. I have come as you offered, in the hopes that I might help alleviate some of the problems our arrival has caused, as well as to help explain so that in the future your people will know not to be afraid." She said, placing both her hands behind her back and smiling at him. Her eyes were a pair of amethyst jewels in color, and her hair was a dark and deep black, pristine and bright in it's darkness. her dress was simple, a white tunic with golden trim and solid black pants tight and form fitting. In appearance she was human, and young looking at that. But the Captain would find that in her eyes was the jaded and cool look held only by those who had born witness to several scores of years. Her eyes were the eyes of a world weary ancient that had borne witness to more than most hoped not to.

Larion had found himself in a conference room, surronded by his 'escort'. He kept a stern, stiff military stance of some sort, his armors pauldrons held broad, his great mechanical hands held toghther behind his back. He stood almost against the wall, and remained silent.

When they were joined by what looked like a hybrid of a deer and girl, he couldn't help but stoop just a bit over to peer at this girl. She was... Short. Short and small enough that one could mistake her for a child. Infact, he wasn't sure if they were just a short speices, or if she really was a child.

He reasoned that a child wouldn't have a place as a captain, or head technition, or what ever her purpose was here. Then again, he always seemed to hear about some child progeny doing some amazing thing you'd usually leave in the hands on mature beings. Perhapes this was the case? Given he was in what appeared to be a conference room, he assumed he'd find out.

He turned his thoughts to the walk over here. The ships AI had no problem digging into the records he didn't care to mention, and then saw fit to tell the Marines. He quitely cursed to himself, as it seemed the accused him of hiding it. Not telling them was one thing. But deliberately trying to hide the records was another.

As a side note, he told Nivera to keep herself rather silent. He trusted her, of course, but he also trusted another ships AI to experiment with his ship.

Then there was the whole power armor talk. He ignored it. He got it everywhere. And from what he can deduce, it was far from their biggest scare today.

He'd give them some slack though, mentally, and rather chuckled at their quips about their techs. They had no idea what they were in for, as he had customized the viper himself, and most of the surplus parts it had started with had been replaced with the highest quality gear he could get his hands on, and thankfully, usually via legitable vendors. He knew for a fact that the internal repair nanites were sold to him by someone on the black market, but he had the proper permits to own them for himself, so he couldn't really care.

For now, he concentrated on the meeting room, which for the moment consisted of the girl. He gave her a quick once over, and then straightened back up, silent. He was a professional, and he'd display himself as such.

Admiral Stevens stood as the runes appeared in front of him An alarm sounded, and Navy Security forces rushed in. Despite the seriousness of someone simply teleporting onto what was supposed to be the single most secure part of any ship, the fact that it was so completely unexpected left the only nearby security forces being pathetically underequipped. Pistols only, and the only person with any armor was the chief security officer, and just a ballistic vest at that.

Admiral Stevens, seeing Avun`Lait taking shape, shouted. "Mother of Kariad! Do these people want us to shoot them?! Stand down soldiers, stand down! Shut off that alarm! The man who fires the first shot is getting tossed out the Selek damned airlock! Do you hear me?!" His veins pulsed, the sheer recklessness of these people infuriating him.

As the Konugr spoke, Stevens grew visibly more furious. One word, especially gnawed at his temper. "Consternation? Consternation?! Do you realize that you just pissed all over one of the most basic fucking diplomatic protocols common to every fucking intelligent species known to the galaxy?! Let me spell it out to you, when a complete fucking stranger offers you food and safe passage, you don't refuse and instead suddenly force your way into their leadership's command center! When we offer you a docking space, we aren't doing it because we're primitive and have no better methods! We're doing it because it's basic, common sense! We have a single fucking airlock attaching our two ships, and we both have security and a sense of safety! We get to post guards at the airlock and make sure you don't fuck up our damn ship, and you get to do the same damn thing! It's a neutral, mutually beneficial method, it guarantees we start on equal footing and can get a feel for each other, it's a basic first contact concept!"

As Stevens finished, he breathed heavily, slowly calming, though still visibly angry. "Look... I don't know what your customs are... but anyone else would have starting shooting at you the moment your ships were in range. And frankly, given the way you just showed up unannounced, even I wouldn't blame them. If I were following protocol, I would have shot you." He sighed heavily, sitting in his chair. "We're not going to get anything done like this. I'm an admiral, not a diplomat. I've reached the end of what I can handle. If the the captain of your ship..." He paused, eyes focusing on a screen to his right. "Maiori still wants to participate in our contract, she's free to do so. I won't hold a civilian responsible for their military's unimaginable recklessness. But I'm going to have to ask your military vessels to leave IAC space. I'm willing to tell my government that it this was all a misunderstanding, but you need to understand, bringing military ships into other nation's territory without authorization is absolutely an act of war. I'll send you a data file on our borders, please understand, from this point on, we will treat your ships as we would any other. Which means we will not hesitate to use military force if you violate our borders again. I overstepped my authority just by giving you permission to dock and resupply. I've pushed my command as far as I can. If you do not leave IAC space, I will have to deploy military force. This said and done, you are welcome to send a single diplomatic ship to my government. We will welcome the chance to talk with you on equal footing."

The woman escorting Maiori sighed as she realized the woman hadn't been listening to a word she had been saying. So, she simply waited for Maiori to ask, and repeating the information as necessary. The Security sergeant chuckled at the representative's obvious frustration. "Right, Lithen, this is Maori. Soon as she's ready, she'll decide whether or not you get the job. It's her ship you'll be protecting, and you arrived just in time to be interviewed by her, rather than us. Course, she might just decide to hire you without a thought. What do I know. Probably a good thing. The pay officer responsible for interviewing you lot heard about you flying through an asteroid belt to get here. Probably would have rejected your application. Guy is good at his job, but doesn't like anything that in the book."

Larion's ship, meanwhile, was being thoroughly, vigorously inspected by various technicians and engineers. They had their hands full, the various upgrades Larion had made were keeping them on their toes, and they were not fond of the active defense turrets. The engineer in charge sent a message to another department recommending Larion be tossed out, only to find out, to his disappointment, that the decision to hire Larion wasn't up to them anymore. Frankly, Larion had lucked out with the arrival of the freighter.

Larion bit his tongue. He was being chastised for flying into an asteroid field. Of course, it was active, but they treated it as if he had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Sure, you don't just fly into one, especially one in this condition, but these people had miners who regularly put themselves in the danger of the field, and automatically assumed that an outsider couldn't navigate it! After all, he had Nivera, who's original sole purpose was to supply him with tactical and navigational data on the-

Matter at hand Larion, lest you start shooting something out of frustration.

His visor tipped itself to glance at this short woman, little girl, what ever she was. Frankly, Larion didn't give a damn. A pay master was a pay master. They gave you an objective, you completed it flawlessly.

In the end, he decided it would be best to just treat her as if she was a mature member for her species, what ever that was.

"Pilot Larion Lithen." He began his speel in his gruff, vaguely accented voice, hopeful he can get through it quickly enough to retain her attention. "I'm an /experienced/" He lifted his visor briefly to the representative at this word, as if to hammer home a point. "Combat pilot, Specializing in dog fights, and large scale ship crippling."

He bowed just a bit out of habit, before continuing. "I am also experienced in foot-combat, with advanced training both in, and out, of armor, and have years of such work speaking to my name. I am capable of boarding hostile craft in coordinated efforts, and take pride in being a capable Personal Body Guard, Search and Rescue and Recover, and Search and Destroy. You may find further details in my public records."

====================

Nivera observed as the fleshlings crawled about her ship, cautious at their probing and cataloging. She had no qualms with keeping the interior turrets active, even if they seemed agitated at their constant droning and blinking. She much preferred the quite, occasional inquisitive manner of Larion, not this yammering of voices clamoring to ensure the ship was in 'tip top shape.'

She kept to herself, and simply resisted any attempts for these 'techs' to inquire anything from her, as she was told, and instead occupied herself by configuring the drives and systems for the additional load the new equipment that would be loaded.

She had calculated that there would be no substantial difference when the StarKiller launcher was loaded, though thought the idea of Larion charging anything bigger than a frigate with one of these things rather silly. While their capability for damage was enormous, the corvette was more built to decimate and obliterate groups of fighters. The launcher would probably be used simply as a way to inflict damage on ships subsystems rather than actually make an attempt to destroy hull, which the mere thought of elicited amusement for the AI. It would take an amount of missiles they simply couldn't store for the launcher.

Then there was the point defense, two lasers which would be mounted at the hard points, which held themselves at the apex of both sides. 51-MX "Boomer Stopper" they were affectionately called, where their sole purpose were to target missiles locked onto them, and force their warheads to explode, or their tracking systems to malfunction, from thermionic damage.

There was also the Cargo scanner, which was something mounted into the internal components, but it was rather negligible on her things to consider.

In the end, she decided with what amounted to the equivalent of trepid thinking, she'd do a full systems diagnostics, to make sure these 'Techs' didn't leave behind something as absurd as a listening bug. Not even her decision, Larion would order one the moment he was back. That creature was paranoid when it came to his ships, to the point of freaking out other creatures...

Case in point, those active turrets, she figured.

Avun'Lait looked around her as all the marines and soldiers began tensing up. When Stevens mentioned opening fire she smiled at him. "I am truly sorry Konugr Stevens but I believe this misunderstanding is a bit more... simple, than you claim." She said, gesturing at the screen behind her, where she continued to stand aboard her ship. "Perhaps if I explain. Your people appear to use these constructs and macheena to perform various functions that we have simple adaptations of magic for. I assure you the presence on your ship is nothing more than a psuedo physical avatar, meant to allow me to be aboard your ship while not actually being aboard your ship." She paused them and pressed a finger to her lips thinking. "I uh... Ventu lorien, it is hard to find the words that we do not have in common, but I am not just the captain of the Righteous blade, you see. I am also it's power source. Without me present aboard the ship, it would be rendered inert and incapable of self defense. Therefore it is forbidden for a Konugr to leave their ship." She shrugged at him. "As doing so would mean putting the lives of their crew at risk. So in fact by inviting me to board your ship you left me at a rather troubling problem. On the one hand, I am not allowed to turn down an offer made by a fellow Konugr, lest I intend to challenge you for control of your nasgoroth. Yet on the other, I am not allowed to leave my vessel."

She chuckled then, and the crew aboard the wastelander would detect the Righteous Blade departing. At a distance the other ships had already begun to warp away, yet the "avatar" continued to speak, even as the Righteous Blade went out of range of normal communication. "To be sure, we only came close enough so that the Avatar could be sent. In this way, I can assist you by... Ah what is the word? Filing? Freeing? Eh?" She paused as she thought on it.

Meanwhile, in the conference room, Maiori pulled a chair from the table and then propped it's back against the same. She then climbed into the seat, and from there onto the table, here she turned and looked at Lithen. She still didn't match up to his height however, and bit her bottom lip at this. "Your tall is what you are, but all this tutin you have covering you is kinda silly. Can you step outta that thing? Or is that literally your body?" She asked him, but before he could even answer she continued on. "In any case I don't really care for all the hubub and fumeni, And don't get me started on paperwork. So let's make this very simple. I have three questions for you." She hopped off the table, the landing causing her to fall flat on her face. She seemed unfazed however, and simply climbed back up before continuing. "First, can you fly? Second, can you shoot? And third, I'm hungry."

She looked over to the rep after her statement. Tapping her foot with the rapidity of a rabbit. "No seriously, I'm hungry and this isn't making it any easier."

Stevens closed his eyes, taking a breath, and gestures to one of the security officers. "You want to help? Alright, Ensign Davis will be escorting your... avatar... to guest quarters. I don't want a foreign commander getting a personal look at the command center of one of our flagships. We'll have someone to talk with you eventually." With that, the security officer opened the door for Avun'Lait, escorting her to any non-essential part of the ship she wanted.

The SMC representative murmured into an earpiece, and within a few minutes, a man, dressed in the yellow jumpsuit of an enlisted engineer, rather than the bulky read suit of the security personnel arrived with a cart of food. When all was said and done, this ship was designed first and foremost as a mining vessel, even if it's modular nature let it be configured to almost any task. As such, while not bad by any means, it was the sort of food that would satisfy people who spent their entire day cramped in hot, tight mining ships, sweating like pigs. Simple food. Generally cold food. A large, meaty sandwich, and ice cold water. In this case, several sandwiches, as they hadn't the slightest clue what this woman ate, or how much. For all they knew, the woman was feeding a micro-singularity. It never hurt to have a lot of food when dealing with an unknown species.

On Larion's ship, the techs had finished their initial sweep, and were getting ready for the order to start the upgrade, mostly running more detailed scans on the ports so the machinery would need less input when installing the equipment. Of course, being part of a professional military, there was plenty of things about mercenary ships that could slow them down.
"Captain... uh... mind coming here for a second? His sensors are hooked up all wrong." The engineer was in the cockpit, a tool pointed at the interface. The Captain in question groaned, and walked in to take a look, clearly more used to custom rigs than his team. He looked at the screen, confusion on his face for a moment before it registered. "Oh, yeah. Don't worry about that. You see that a lot with tech-savvy mercs. They gut their computers and remove some of the throttlenecks to get a little extra juice out of sensors. Needs more frequent maintenance, but if you can't get your hands on military-grade gear for whatever reason, and if you know what you're doing, real helpful. We don't do it because engineering teams would throw a fit at the increased costs, especially since we can afford to pour money into designing better sensors."
An engineer inspecting the generator spoke up. "Captain-" "Boy, if this is something I can figure out in under thirty seconds, you're getting your ass transferred to a swarm frigate! See if you have time for asking dumb questions then when you're inspecting hundreds of goddess-damned drones!" He shouted. The engineer paused. "Uhhh... right." He said, going back to scanning.

Larion watched whom he was convinced was some sort of Child Protegee attempt to match his height, fail, and then listed off how she didn't have time for any of the official nonsense, and just wanted to know that he could do his job.

Well. He figured he'd might like this child. Maybe he could get a return trip job.

"Can't say I can run circles around fighters in a corvette, but I can make my girl dance with the stars and guns, and dish out whatever they fail to shoot me with."

He glanced over as a trolley of food was rolled in, and pointed a low finger towards it. "As to your third question, your friends here have answered your most dearest prayers." He said, with a rare hint of friendly humor.

There was a yammering of Nivera's voice over his calm, and he lifted up one of his hands to signal he was busy, turning to the side to listen to Nivera. She mentioned the tech's combing the ship, and rather amusingly noted their interactions with their officer on deck. He muttered a few thank yous to her, and then turned back to the conference room.

"I come fully equipped for any combat job you need me for. I might be expensive, but I guarantee you I'm well worth it."

Avun'Lait smiled and nodded to him, following the ensign assigned to her. She declined a tour of the vessel, instead asking that she be escorted to the room provided. "My Nasgoroth is about to make the return jump and I need to devote all of my focus to it. When Konugr Stevens is ready for me, I will be here." She said as the Avatar turned to solid stone, a statue standing in the room.

Back in the Conference room, the moment the food had arrived Miaori had rushed over to it on her short legs, climbed from the table right onto the trolley, and began eating. The sight was rather disturbing to see. Essentially, her entire face opened up. Her lower jaw split into three parts, each looking like a section of carapace, connected by a membrane to prevent food from falling out. The upper part of her split in half between her eyes up to her fore head. The result was a series of six plates connected to each other forming a rather large maw, with the sections all covered in reddish short sharp "teeth". Both of her arms then unraveled, revealing themselves to be in fact made of five vines twined together to form the hands. This monsterous appearing creature began devouring food on the trolly, until there was nothing left. Once all the meat had been eaten (she cast away the bread and anything else that wasn't to her liking) she returned to her prior form, smacking her "lips" and licking them with a disturbingly red tongue. her left arm rewound itself to resemble a more humanoid form, while her right arm remained uncoiled, the vines sitting in the pitchers of water as she "drank"

She looked at Lithen and said. "Huh? Oh uh, no my third question was whats your name?" in a far too nonchalant manner. It would do well to be noted that after she had eaten, Maiori was no longer a mere 3 feet in height, and in fact as she drank more water her body began to swell and change, taking on far more human proportions, and as they did so, her physical appearance also changed. The tail that had twitched before now grew in length, becoming more of a tendril than a puff of fibers, her antlers also ceased to appear stubby like those on young deer and now revealed themselves as the sharpened edges of the "mask" that was her face. Indeed her face had also changed, resembeling a bone white wooden mask, the eyes solid black except for the green marking the irises. her hair had grown longer out of her head, willowy strands with leaves budding from them. Her body was revealed to be made mostly out of a combination of plate sections interconnected by vinelike "muscles". The plates were the purple color that had seemed to be her skin, while the vines were a green with striations of red. This new form, though hard to tell from it's position on the table, was almost six feet in height.

The guards in the conference room remained impassive, evidently used to species just as messy eaters as Maiori. The Rep rose an eyebrow as Maiori changed her third question, but remained silent. Muffled voices came from her earpiece, and she nodded. "Excuse me, but the freighter you'll be travelling with will be arriving within ten minutes. The captain isn't exactly known for his patience, so if I may, I'd like us to be ready to leave as soon as he gets here."

The captain of the engineering team looking at Larion's ship paused for a moment, eyes unfocused. When whatever happened passed, he gave a sharp whistle. "Off the boat boys, we have the all clear. Get your ass moving, this ship's getting moved to the construction bay, and unless you want to risk being made a permanent wall fixture, you don't want to be here." The crew hurried off, and Larion's ship was moved by the docking rig, transferred to a massive room with heavy machinery. Within five minutes, Larion's upgrades were fully installed, machinery moving at a feverish pace.

Larion observed as the creature before him seem to meld itself into something oddly more preditorial, but otherwise held his stance, remaining silent as the creature feasted.

As she finished her meal, reaching what he assumed may not be her final height, nor form, and reiterated what her third question really was, he rolled his shoulders.

"Larion Lithen." He answered plainly, relaxing somewhat into his armor.

"As our current sponsors are paying for my services, I won't cost you a bit, and I give you my word, and cite my record, that I'll stay with the convoy under any circumstances, and defend your ship with my life, until my contract is both completed, and you are assured of your safety."

He figured that was a bit much for someone who piloted a heavy corvette, granted a large one for it's class, to say to someone captaining a freighter, but it was true none the less. So, he allowed that to hang in the air.

Miaori removed her hand from the pitcher, which was now empty, and rewound it to it's more humanoid shape. She then gestured at him and said "Don't really care about all that. But your kinda scary so that's good enough." She then hopped off the table and walked over to him looking at his armor. "Why are you wearing this thing, anyway?" She said as she reached out to touch it. She would pull back though, turning and walking a lap around the room. "Ugh! Whered they go, I'm tired of waiting." she groaned, her foot tapping at that rabbitlike rate again.

Her ship, aboard the landing pad, started making long slow song like sounds, similiar to a whale. As it did so it began to open up, the petals uncurling and the vessel opening like a massive flower. inside where several more red tinged bubbles, rooms of some sort, as well as any number of vines and coiling tendrils, which reached this way and that, either searching the air or just waving about like feelers. The Central stem stood straight out of the ship, about as thick as a human body and tipped with another reddish bubble. The bubbles glowed in time with the music the ship was making, and the vines stretched out across the platform and, whenever they encountered a living being, would wrap around them softly. The vines weren't grabbing at people or anything like that, they simply wrapped around them and slithered over them, as though it was trying to feel out what they were. Any person who moved while this was happening would find the vines recoiling quickly, as though to escape danger.

Larion couldn't help but smile under the mask. Appearances of the now aside, she was still like a child, and found himself gravitating towards the behavior. As a Mercenary, this was a big red flag for him. Someone with a child-like behavior was easily someone who would hold back payment on a whim, or someone who'd make extravagant demands because they figured they, the merc, could handle it, based on one performance.

Then he found himself remembering that she wasn't the one paying, and their route was set. So in the end, the mans hardly advertised soft spot sealed the deal for him.

He then decided to let the creature's attention deficient nature allow him to leave the last question unanswered, that of which caused him to roll his tongue along the right side of his jowls, where those sharp teeth for ripping and tearing were... It was still odd not to feel the flesh...

He lifted his right hand, standing straight in a salute that caused the hydraulics in the suit to give their signature whine. "If that is all, Mi' Lad'eh?"

Maiori gave Larion a strange look, as if he'd just said asked her to burb a baloon made of sawdust. "What the hell is a mialadeh?" She asked, scratching her head before pausing to look around. Her head tilted as she appeared to listen, then she rolled her eyes. "Hey, tell your people at the landing pad to quit holding out on Fnoori and feed him." She said, approaching one of the guards. "seriously, this ship is just ridiculous, metal metal and more metal, and then some oil and rocks, but wheres the water and the grass and the trees. It's like you guys want to live in a coffin." She groaned, rubbing her feet into the ground.

At the landing pad the ship had ceased reaching around with it's vines, having realized the guards didn't like it touching their stuff. It then began "singing" louder and louder, as though it was trying to talk to them. After a few minutes of this it started sounding sad and dejected, and it furthered this by closing back up, the petals curling and wrapping tight around the body of the ship.

The guards in the conference room looked at each other. Maiori could see them talking to each other, but their vacuum sealed helmets muted the sound, talking through short range radios. One of them finally spoke out loud, external speakers giving his voice a distinct artificial tone. "Yeah... uh, we'll see what we can do."

In the hangar the guards were starting to relax, but when the orders came over the radio, they hadn't the slightest idea what to do.
"The hell are we supposed to feed a giant plant? We ain't exactly got any fertilizer."
"Why do we even have to feed it?"
"Admiral offered them resupply and refuel. Guess what feeding a plant-ship counts as."
"Boys escorting the merc in power armor say the captain likes meat. A lot."
"Does that ship look like a god damn little girl with antlers?"
"No no, see, turns out it was a meat-loving plant."
"Do they look like the same species?"
"The hell do I know?! Maybe the ship is her grandmother! Do I look like a god damn biologist?"
"Fuck it, we don't have any fertilizer, and the owner of the damn thing is a meat-eating plant. Throw it some meat and see what happens."
"Why the hell is it crying?! We didn't do shit!"
"It's pouting cause we won't let it touch our damn guns."
"Give it a Rubric's cube or something."

The Marines began carting meat to the ship, one putting a Rubric's cube on the floor near it. Clearly, they were far out of their element, taking care of a living starship was beyond then.

Larion chuckled beneath the suit, rolling his shoulders in good humor. "Mi' Lad'eh, don't butcher it. My. Lady." He left it at that, turning around to his escort. "Gentlemen, I believe it is time I inspect my ship, to ensure your tech's didn't attempt to turn my Corvette into a miner." He said with good humor, turning with a whirl of the suit as he sought to exit back to his ship.

Nivera meanwhile was already running a diagnostic on the ship systems, ensuring that the new additions to the ship did were not incompatible with the software meant to run them, fixing them as errors came up.

And, of course, she ran an internal scan, looking for unknown signal sources, both in the new hardware, and the compartments the tech's had access to.

Miaori grumbled something under her breath before turning and hopping up to sit on the table. She then resigned to wait until either the rep came back or someone told her it was time to go.

In the hanger. the ship uncurled and opened up when the cart of meat had been brought. It reached over with it's vines and tendrils and inadvertedly knocked the cart over. The vines laid over the meat, smaller tendrils growing into the protein and breaking it down, subsuming it into the plant for use as fuel. It took only a matter of minutes for it to completely wrap over and consume the entire cart, and once it had finished it's tendrils began shifting about, looking for more. In this manner it found the rubiks cube and, after first recoiling from it, it began to roll the thing over. It first tried to subsume it as well, but found nothing of use in the materiel. It then began to flick it about between two vines, feeling it over trying to figure out what it was. The long sad singing changed to what sounded like the chuckles of a giant infant dolphin as it flicked the cube around.

This however did not stop the ship from continuing to look for more food. Considering that the plant was used as a ship, and a single tray of fuel wouldn't be enough to refuel a common ship, it paid to assume that a single tray would not be enough for the giant plant.

The Marines continued carting meat to the ship, using forklifts to cart massive pallets of it. The ship began to groan, machines that hadn't been used for a long time suddenly roaring to life. The Environmental systems, deep in the core of the vessel, had begun synthesizing massive amounts of food to replace what Maiori's ship consumed. The crew, upon realizing what the mechanical rumbling was, were not pleased, and for good reason. Food synthesized by a ship's environmental systems tasted horrible. There was a reason something as monolithic as an interstellar corporation was willing to spend millions on shipping food to their deep space ships when the ship was perfectly capable of meeting the demand for food on it's own.

Even worse was that the crew knew they couldn't simply just feed the synthesized food to Maiori's ship instead of their rations. Even if there wasn't a prevalent superstition that synth-food would be completely unappetizing even if you utterly lacked the ability to taste food, for all they knew, the ship had more sensitive taste than humans. It had, thus far, demonstrated, if not a child-like intelligence, then at least animal intelligence, and they didn't care to find out what a frigate-sized ship throwing a tantrum inside the delicate innards of a hangar could do.

As such, the general consensus was along the lines of "Only a little bit longer, then the next time they want to dock with us, we can dump them on one of the mining carriers. Let them deal with it."

Larion's escorts followed him out, making sure he got to his ship. The representative, still with Maiori, listened to her earpiece for a moment, and nodded. "Ma`am, the other Freighter... the... Scrapheap... has arrived. They will be leaving in ten minutes, with or without you. Do you have everything you need?"

Larion found his ship easily enough, it's not as if they had it transported to a shipyard or anything. After all, with a fighter bay like that, it was reasonable to assume they were capable of both producing, and maintaing their own ships. He left his escort at the door, letting the hatch seal abruptly behind him without his word. Perhaps Nivera was testing after a bunch of strangers crawled inside what amounted to her body. He'd ask her to run an internal scan on the ship, both to settle her nerves of them, and his own home grown paranoia of people being inside his ship, but found she had already completed the task.

To his elation, he also found the mag lock's on his weapon compartments scattered around the ship still intact, which told him that they likely didn't snoop in much else. It'd be a shame, after all, if he lost the Viper to the black box detonating, and having to try to worm his way out of trying to explain that to the local officers. He'd also likely have to try to force his back here to retrieve Nivera, which he wouldn't dare leave without.

As he sat in his chair, he estimated that while he severely outclassed those he saw here in terms of armor and weaponry, and perhaps discipline, given he'd have all the persuasion to survive, it spelled him next to certain death... And then getting out of the asteroid field intact while being pursued? Maybe if he had the viper, but that'd be already assuming he'd lost it.

While this thinking of itself was grim, it was more or less a symptom of a man evaluating people he has yet to encounter before. On that, he still had mixed feelings for these people. They weren't people for nonsense...

But thought way to highly of themselves. He couldn't get them teasing him about flying into an asteroid field out of his head. "Asshole's can run a tight ship, but gotta stop assuming folks can't navigate for shit."

He turned himself to the matter at hand, putting in a request to undock, and asking for navigation out of the hanger. He then opened up a separate comm's channel, that of which he checked was encrypted. It wasn't a typical encryption, as in order to unlock the communication, it required three different keys all assembled both at the place of transmission, and place it was to be received, and failure on any end of communications resulted in the transmitted data deleting itself. It was hard coded into itself. After all, when Larion programmed it himself, he didn't want some asshole just changing the programming from some computer a few thousand light years down the line.

He typed in a few words, that of which he kept between himself and Nivera... He waited for a few minutes, as the message took it's sweet time going to it's destinations general grid, then sorted itself, finding the port that would bring it to the intended receiver... Then as another message made it's way back, and popped up back in his screen.

A toothy smile, calm and content, formed under his mask, as he typed back.

"Good to see you two are paying attention... I'll be sending you some money shortly, make sure to buy yourselves some more food, it might be a bit till I get back."

"Yes, Father!" Along with some weird set of characters that appeared to form some kind of happy face. Where the fuck did they get that? He'd figure he ask them in his next message, typing it down while he waited for clearance.