Snippet #2524113

"Whackos? Yes, I do," she said with another smile, her usual brand of flat-toned humor coming back to her. "But that's beside the point. Seems like a good place to set up base to me. I should gather my things," she said, padding quietly off and disappearing into the deeper sections of the ship. When she found Wick and Josibel, she had her things with her and slung over one shoulder. The cargo bay opened, a rush of fresh air greeted them; slowly, Kaija's stripes turned just a little more blue. She stepped out cautiously, unnerved by the lack of visible artificial atmosphere, though she found she could breathe just fine all the same. Interesting.

Several people, dressed in black, greeted the three of them with varying levels of enthusiasm. One in particular, a woman, seemed to be very comfortable with Kaija right away, because she pulled her in for a hug before she really even said anything to her. Always the stoic, standoffish type, Kaija was a little unnerved by this too and wasn't really sure how to respond to such a gesture, so she stort of stood there numbly and did nothing. The verbal greeting, however, she was just fine with. "Nice to meet you too. I'm always hungry, as long as there's food being offered," she said with a small grin. "What do you call yourself?"
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Clearly taken aback, the shorter asian woman slapped her head. "Oh, I'm so sorry! My name's Tally Marks. I'm Josibel's right hand around here. Come on, we should be having dinner in a little bit." She laughed and turned to lead Kaija deeper into the base, skipping merrily and shooing laze-abouts out of their way. Once they'd gotten to the back of the docks, a frieght elevator opened up to allow them onboard. As soon as the doors closed, the boxy mechanism whooshed upwards at an alarming speed, much to Tally's delight. At the top of the ride, the elevator decelerated smoothly, coming to a nice gentle stop, where the back door opened to let them out. The room they emerged into was cavernous. So large, in fact, that if not for the lights installed into the ceiling, one wouldn't be able to even spot the roof. The lights looked sort of like stars, white spots in a sea of blackness, though they illuminated the ground fairly well. Josibel stood by a small retinue of what looked like retainers, all of whom were attempting to read off holopads to their leader and get her up to speed. Josibel herself listened intently, though it was fairly obvious that she was impatient, as she had her arm tightly around the waist of a blonde woman next to her and was leaning into her side.

"Oh, hold up a sec," Tally whispered to Kaija. "Boss is getting the debreif, and I think she's gonna want a moment alone with Alabaster. She's been gone for four months now, after all." Tally thought for a moment before waving her hand at a few people nearby, who approached her quickly. "Hey guys, we have a new member of the family. Help me get her settled, yeah?" Tally turned to Kaija with a big grin. "Hey, so we're gonna skip meeting with the Boss real quick. I'm sure you'd rather be eating than listening to her go through all that boring stuff that comes with being a leader, right?" She nodded to the three that had approached her and moved off to stand near Josibel.

The big one to the left of the group nodded quietly to Kaija, sitting on his haunches. His companions seemed much more lively however. Waving to the woman, the center one spoke up, their voice strangely androgynous, as was their appearance. "Greetings, newcomer. This one is blessed to make your aquaintance." It bowed at the waist, then gestured to its companions. "The large one is Gruk, and the small one is Khazzik. This one is called Ma'tera. What is your birth name?" Gruk, the large, hairless gorrilla-like being grunted, though he smiled at last. Khazzik giggled and hid her face. She looked to be a child, though she was a fully grown member of her species, a race of short crimson people resembling goblins. Her head looked very oversized for her scrawny body, and her enormous multifaceted eyes gazed seemingly everywhere at once.
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"Alabaster, huh?" Kaija said, mostly to herself. She was prepping herself for the onslaught of introductions and names to remember, and it wasn't going to be easy to remember them all. She would try what she could. "And Tally. Ai, I sense there's gonna be a lot of names to remember." Kaija followed her hostess, constantly glancing around to take in her new surroundings. Frankly, it was a heck of a lot better than the dust pit she'd been in for the last month or so. The cavern, especially, was quite to her liking. Sunlight was nowhere to be seen and instead there were distant but adequate lights up above. Despite good visibility, Kaija felt more at home there than she had been in a long time. The stripes on her face and body pulsed a vibrant turquoise at a slow and steady pace; she was going to like it here, she could tell.

Kaija gave kind of an odd bow as she touched her fist to her chest, greeting the three odd characters who came to meet her. "Gruk, Khazzik, Ma'tera. We'll see if I can remember that. My father named me Kaija Tezusha, but it seems I'm more known as Kai, these days. Either works." Kaija looked around, her eyes reflecting bright green under the distant overhead lights like some eerie nocturnal predator.

Ma'tera bowed again, then turned and gestured for Kaija to follow it. Gruk wandered off to go do something else, but Khazzik decided to tag along out of curiosity. She hung about close to Kaija's legs, babbling in her native tongue. Off to the left hand side of the cavern, a large three story steel structure stood illuminated by spotlights and surrounded by many bustling crewmembers. Pretty much everyone near the building looked like they were strictly noncombatants, as their bodies had a softness to them that didn't befit any sort of warrior.

Looking over it's shoulder, Ma'tera smiled at Kaija and Khazzik. "So, Kaija. Tell this one a little bit about who you are. What brought you to the Boss?"
Kaija smirked. "She ripped apart a train station and I bought her and Wick a drink for such an accomplishment. We worked together to get a ride off that horrible planet, and here I am."
With a chuckle, Ma'tera knodded knowingly. "That sounds very much like her. It is good that you now can join our family." They'd almost reached the building when a great uproar issued from within. A child burst from one of the doorways, clutching something to her chest and laughing madly, though she stopped when she noticed the visitors. Hot on her heels, a portly woman huffed and puffed her way up to the girl, grabbing her by the back of her jumpsuit and hoisting her up into an inescapable vicegrip.

"Gotcha, you little scamp. You know it's naughty to take things that aren't yours!" She wrestled with the girl for a moment, tickling her and managing to slip the small loaf of bread from her tiny fingers. "Run along now, Cassidy. Don't make me get your mothers involved!" she warned, though her tone clearly conveyed that she wasn't serious. Ma'tera waved to the woman daintly with an effete laugh.

"Greetings, Helga. This one has a being for you to meet." Turning to Kaija, it motioned for her to step forward and be introduced. Khazzik had taken off after Cassidy, giggling and whooping as she chased the child down. Approaching the pair, Helga reached up and pinched Ma'tera's cheek, tut-tutting disapprovingly.

"You haven't been eating like I've been telling you to, have you? You're practically skin and bones, you scamp." Helga turned to Kaija, a large grin on her rosy-cheeked face. "I'll take it from here, deary. Thank you for showing her the way here." Bowing away bashfully, Ma'tera turned tail and retreated, leaving Helga to guide Kaija to the kitchen.

"I'm sure you're hungry, sweetie. Josibel isn't the best cook, and I bet you didn't have quality rations on whatever rustbucket she's commandeered this time. Come have some of Helga's famous home cooking and tell me a bit about yourself. I know it's tough to try to remember everyone's names, so I won't be offended if you forget some. It just takes time." In the kitchen, Helga sat Kaija down at a table, ladled a plasteel bowl full of her homemade stew and set it in front of the woman before taking a seat herself.

"Go on and enjoy that for a bit. Whenever you're ready, old Helga will be here to chat."
Kaija was relatively silent as she was escorted around; it was her way to just observe things for the most part, anyway. The little girl caught her attention though. As the older woman playfully wrestled with her and halfheartedly reprimanded her, Kaija's reflective eyes just watched a little absently. She was obviously locked in some distant memory the scene was conjuring, as it wasn't that long ago that the little girl was her. Only instead of a kind hearted woman catching her in the act, Kaija often had government soldiers, or worse, the local authority. She blinked rapidly and looked back up at the woman as they were introduced.

"Ja'ti," she greeted with a nod and her odd bow. "I'm practically always hungry. Many thanks, stranger." She sat down at the table, taking in the sights and sounds of the room. All else was forgotten, however, as soon as the stew was put in front of her. Kaija hadn't been around good cooking in a long, long time, and even when she had been around it, she rarely could afford it. "Te'ana!" she said enthusiastically, slipping back into her home language as her stripes shifted to a rapidly pulsating turquoise. "You're a fine cook indeed. Your name is Helga? What exactly is it that you--I mean, all of you--do? Are you a gang with a Kingpin? Or more of just a group of bandits?"

Belting out a deep, booming laugh, Helga clutched her stomach. Once her fit subsided, she wiped a tear of mirth from her eyes. "Oh ho, that's rich. I like you already, girl. You could call us a gang, if you want, though if anyone is a kingpin around here, it's me." She leaned forward and put a hand up to the side of her mouth conspiritorially. "Don't tell Josibel I said that, though. That girl is hard headed and likes to fancy herself as the brains of this outfit." An aftershock of chuckling rippled through her.

"No, truth be told, I'm just a matron figure around here. Josibel is indeed the driving force behind all of this," she gestured around her as if it was a miracle. "Without her, we'd all be in prison or dead. Each and every one of us owe her everything. But most of us have either put the life of crime behind us, or were never suited for it in the first place. I take care of and direct the support crew, while Josibel handles the, ahem, heavy lifting." Helga pondered for a moment, rubbing her chin.

"Who all have you met so far? I'll give you some pointers on who's got the most weight around here. Get to be friendly with them and you'll be well off, you know?"

"You say you've mostly left behind a life of crime...what is it you do then? And er...what's the um...h-how does the loyalty thing work around here?" This seemed like an uncertain subject for Kaija, something important to her. "Is it like, you're in for life or...?"

She slurped at her soup for a little while as she pondered Helga's next question. "I've met...er....the short red one, the large one, and the one who introuduced you to me. And one other girl." She smirked. "Which ones are the ones to avoid?" she joked.