Starfarer's Main Game

Space no longer seems so out of reach, the thought that there might be life out there begins to set in on the young starfarers.

The era bonus continues (+3 Production and Construction value on all worlds and stations)

Current Development/Tech Level Limit: 2 (8 ranks)

Turn 3 has ended!, turn 4 has begun and will end 3 days from now!

4.0
The First Fulkomun has now grown to at least the size one might expect from a youngling of the race, though even now it is only half the size that it's nest could reasonably support, yet it has still more than doubled in size from it's initial birthing. It prepares to move with the Mala hive towards the distant set of planets that it can barely sense in a far off system, but as it lifts the Hive into space, it hears something else. Something far off, that it had at first just thought back-ground noise from some distant super-nova, or the collision of planets beyond the vision of any Mala. But the nest, in it's infinate wisdom had tried to analyze and communicate with the source of the strange signal. And then the signal changed. Still it remains incoherent jibberish, but if it changed, it reacted to the nest in someway, meaning that it is no distant anomaly, but something much closer, and possibly much more dangerous. With one heave, the Fulkomun throws the Mala hive towards the distant planets, and then itself heads the other way, swimming through space at a far faster speed than it had ever thought possible, its fins collecting the background radiation everywhere, and pushing out like a jet of pure energy, jerking it towards it's goal. The Fulkomun knows not what might lie before it, but it knows that whatever it is knows of the nest, and to let it go without at least knowing more about it could be to great a risk.

"Upon reviewing the data you have sent us, we have deemed it a worthy investment to colonize world A-0. Though it would be too costly to make it a proper colony or military outpost, it will serve as an excellent refinery and research base to expand the capitals influence. However it appears that command will be assigning your vessel to permanent colonization and special defense duty of sector zero until such a time as they see fit to reassign you. After seeding is complete continue your duties of scanning and monitoring the system according to your best judgment." And with that the general saluted captain steel over the video screen. The crew had only been back on Sontar for a few hours but the workers had worked feverishly to attach the experimental colony module and as soon as the fuel lines were withdrawn and the platform cleared they would leave. The bridge was running its pre-flight checks now and as the last of the systems were locked the clicking of keys and the beeping of various system responses stopped and they sat silently staring into their consul's as if it were the face of death. "On your mark captain," Yor commented his main hand on the controls and his secondary hand ready to fire the thrusters.

"...Mark." And with that one simple word the Imperial colonization vessel shot back into the stars carrying a huge mass of equipment. "Alright, let’s run through the procedure once more while we travel. Lieutenant Store, please proceed." The captain commented settling back into his chair.

"Thank you sir," He added with a salute as he moved to patch the map through from his console to the central display desk. "This is planet A-0. Due to its volatile geological nature and high gravity we have surmised that the safest and nearest location to set down our research and refinery site will be here," He adds zooming in onto a picture of the surface. "At the base of this mountain one kilometer from the objective. It doesn't register as volcanic in nature and the rock does not melt so it will cast a shadow and give an overhang for two thirds of the rotation when this side of the planet is facing the sun. Upon landing the laser drills of the colony will deploy and will begin cutting the exploration team and mining corps a central shaft down through the mountain and to the objective.” He added motioning to the diagonal slant of the mine shaft and a few ore deposits that could be easily accessed by expanding tunnels on various levels to the bottom. “This colony will only be able to import and export for a limited window of time per day and we have supplied command and merchants caste cargo companies with the appropriate manifests of times and dates. We will be in position to deploy the colony in five minutes. Any questions?"

"Excellent work lieutenant store. Style, begin activation procedure for the colonists and the ground team. They need to be ready to move after the deployment of the heat shields and the laser drills." The captain replied.

"Yes sir," Style added as he began to input commands into the computer to awaken the colonists so that they would be fully geared up and ready to move after impact.

"And Stern, you will assist style in monitoring the landing." The captain added to his second lieutenant.

"Yes sir," Stern added preparing the sensors and the communications array while Style handled distributing instructions to the colony and exploration team. "We will likely lose contact with the colony in half a cycle due to this planets massive energy fluctuations from the core and solar flare activities." Stern said in a respectful tone.

"Well we can’t stay in orbit playing nursemaid forever can we," the Captain chuckled; hopefully not anyway…

~Bing bong~ "All colonists, please secure yourselves for landing. Release in, five. Four. Three. Two. One." And with that last message from Styles the colony was released from its clamps and began its descent down to the surface. It began picking up speed quickly from the massive gravity, once through the atmosphere the warning lights flashed and sirens blared and then the colony jerked suddenly as the parachutes deployed; they may be heat resistant but they would burn up in a few minutes on this planet, thankfully they would manage to do their job of getting the colony into a reasonable distance to engage the landing thrusters. The thrusters strained to slow their decent when the parachutes were released and were slowly overheating due to the planets temperature, however they only needed to make it for one trip so it was irrelevant if they did. That was when the modular nature of the colony activated and pieces began to separate from the main structure that only moments later embedded itself in the base of the mountain. The secondary buildings extended out on Circular tube like hallways that extended between the main colony structure and the secondary buildings and were secured to the surface when automated stakes activated from various distances along these hallways.

After a few minutes of radio silence a message finally crackled its way onto the radio. "This is ground team, colony seeding successful."

"May you bring glory to Sontar," Captain Steel said through the communications with a salute. "We will monitor your progress from orbit for the remainder of this planet’s half cycle at which time we will lose communications from solar flare activities. Keep all frequencies open and send in the exploration team with the miner corps.” Captain Steel ordered before addressing his own men.
“Yor keep us in orbit, Stor plot a course to colony B-0’s coordinates and prepare to send the information to Yor when our operations here are complete, Stern continues monitoring the colony and the excavation efforts on the main display.” Captain steel added leaning forward to observe as he meshed his fingers. And with those orders the crew set hard to work while below the colony was starting to show its first signs of life.
“This is commander Styke, all sections report.” Said the new commander of this outpost and one after another various crew responded from their various posts that they had been hatched in and now that they were safely secured were released to report in.
“All crew present and accounted for Commander Styke.” Replied Ensign Toe, the communications officer.
“Have the miners commence the dig, make sure the soldiers know that they” the miners, “are in charge until they reach the objective, at which point this becomes a complete military operation at which point sergeant Stok will take command.”
“You catch all that Dig team? You are cleared for launch.” Said Toe wincing for a moment when he realized his finger had pressed the intercom button too early.
“Roger that Command, proceeding with operation. The mine crew tells me we’ll be losing contact however due to the noise of the machinery, if we have a problem we’ll shut down and send word. This is Stok, out.” He added as the massive cooling motors of the laser drill began to blare to life in the background and plunged into the mountainside. The Mining corps set right to work preparing the rest of the equipment. The drill may carve the tunnel and lay down the tracks but the tunnels still needed supports set in place for prolonged use and so group after group of miners ran downwards into the darkness following the drills and setting up supports and readying mining carts to carry down more materials so they could simply move on to the next designated support site like a well operating machine. The soldiers sat in the mining cart being towed by the laser drill, helmets on to help filter out some of the noise but it was still near deafening.
And all the while Steel watched this tiny red blip on his display, moving down and down towards the anomaly.

Tarenth, Turn 3.7, Someplace in the city

Kelk leaned back in his chair, staring attentively at a data plate, scrolling over it slowly completely ignoring the world around him, all the sounds and movements that were going on that would easily pull anyone’s attention. “Kelk, why are we here?” The Enzio across the table asked him, her voice mixed with agitation and distress, her metal claws clicking lightly against the table anxiously.

“We’re meeting someone here.” Kelk answered casually not looking up from the data plate. “He said he might have some jobs for you and me if we’re willing to take them.” Kelk continued still scrolling over the data plate. “So, stop worrying Aiana, he’ll be along when he has time to see us.” Kelk added as if he had looked up to see her nervous fidgeting, though in truth Aiana was doing her best to seem like she was confident, not that it helped her in the generic Garnev body she was issued.

Aiana sighed trying to relax, she felt confined in the Garnev body, it also didn’t help that the lights, sounds, music, and various sorts of dancing was going on around her; she could honestly say that she had never been to a place like this. She was beginning to regret having to blamed Kelk for getting them fired from the factory, even though she was just as much to blame for not noticing the bridge as he was. At least he offered to help find them jobs, she thought to herself. However, Aiana did not like the prospect of working in a place like this, regardless of the fact that she was an Enzio would most likely not be working any of the stages or floors. “Work it baby!” One particularly loud Garnev called out to the girl on the nearest stage to them, Aiana felt a vile contemptible feeling turn in her nonexistent gut, quite a feat really.

“I’m not working here, Kelk.” Aiana finally blurted out unable to take the sights and sounds of the place anymore. “I don’t care how good the pay is, I don’t care if our old boss blacklisted us from the industry, and I especially don’t care if this some kind of sick fantasy of yours. I won’t work here.” Aiana stated barely able to keep the volume of her voice down before standing up and turning only to stop dead in her tracks as a Garnev in a military grade combat body faced her.

“It is so nice to know that Kelk doesn’t just associate with classless perverts like himself.” The Garnev stated almost sarcastically, Aiana merely stared at him in shock, not that her cheaply constructed Garnev body allowed her to show such a thing. “Please have a seat.” The military Garnev offered her before taking a seat of his own at the table; Aiana hesitated for a moment before sitting down. “Since Kelk doesn’t ever explain anything, do you have any questions?” The Garnev asked her rather sincerely, the shining black metal of his armor creating a strange contrast in the light.

A thousand questions ran through Aiana’s head of varying importance, but only one stood out in her mind. “Why did we have to meet here?” She asked curiously, to which the Garnev chuckled lightly before relaxing some into his seat.

“It was Kelk’s idea.” The Garnev offered happily, to which Kelk stopped reading his data plate, looking up the Garnev sitting at the table a little surprised mixed with confused.

“This coming from the guy in the official military body.” Kelk commented casually with slight edge of agitation to his tone before returning his attention back to the data plate, the Garnev simply laughed awkwardly.

Aiana looked between the two rapidly. “What does that have to do with anything?” Aiana nearly demanded her confusion being very evident even though her body’s face was completely blank, the Garnev laughed a little harder though he quieted down into his previous awkward chuckle. “What?” Aiana questioned starting to feel like the two had left her completely out of the loop.

“All military personnel get free lap dances here.” Kelk stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world not looking up from his data plate.






Tarenth, Turn 4.0, Kalialk Containment Facility

“Why…why are we here?” Aiana asked hesitantly looking carefully down each of the dark hallways that they pass, often not being able to see what lay at the end of each corridor in this dim and gloomy place. Though, the occasional glint of green on black metal caught her attention, though her Garnev body was not equipped to hunt in the dark like that, even if she would have seen just fine with her living eyes.

“We’re here so that you can meet your future piloting partner. This is going to be a very ambitious project and we want you to be well acquainted with the one you’ll be working closest with.” The Garnev soldier told her in a very calm and comforting voice, though she knew it was an act if only because at one point she saw how he acted around Kelk in that terrible place. Aiana jumped as a scream rang out and what sounded like metal twisting followed quickly, a moist sickening crack was the last thing to echo in the corridor they proceeded down. “Don’t worry about that. The guards here are extremely well trained; a few mechanical damages are nothing to them.” The Garnev commented nonchalantly, he was Elerk something of some rank, she couldn’t remember what, though his words were hardly a comfort to her. In fact this place scared her so much that Aiana actually wanted to return to the despotic place that Kelk had dragged her to for the meeting with Elerk.

“He’s quite right my dear. Everything is so well under control here that you have nothing to be afraid of. Even if we weren’t dead.” The ghostly woman said with a laugh, as if this was all some sort of joke or just an amusing stroll. That woman, Neria or Vera or something like that, Aiana cursed herself for not being better with names, that woman seemed perfectly at home in this terrible place. Though, Aiana did have to admit that a Kuvul likely had a lot fewer dangerous experiences then an Enzio, but still, there was something so unnerving about the place. Aiana cast a glance down one hallway and paused looking down it, there was a blurry green wall at the end, and she could swear that something behind it was moving. “Come my dear, we don’t want to keep your partner waiting too long.” The Kuvul woman called to her, making Aiana slowly draw away from the hall to quickly catch up with the two as they continued down the corridor.

It was still a while longer before they turned down one of the side hallways, she glanced at the two Garnev bodies just within the corridor, one shifting slightly to glance at her before returning to it’s original position; it was the only indication that it was even inhabited. They came to a stop in front of large green wall, though it seemed to be made of energy, but Aiana had never seen anything like it before. “Don’t be shy.” Elerk stated moving to the side with the ghostly woman moving next to him as he motioned for her to get closer to the wall.

Aiana moved up to the wall, moved one of her metallic hands close to the wall. “What is it?” Aiana asked curiously would letting her metal claws caress the energy sending an odd feeling through her that made even her metallic body shiver as she drew her metal hand away from the field. Then something shifted in the blackness, but she didn’t see what, but she was sure something moved behind the field of energy.

Aiana leaned in closer to the field trying to get her body’s eyes to piece the veil of darkness. Aiana shirked and jumped back missing her footing to fall to the ground as a face appeared out of the shadows, a horrible face; it was a Tarenth woman, but one of her eyes was cut out leaving a deep vertical slash that nearly cut off the mandible under it. Aiana’s heart was thumping, her breath quick and panicked, her muscles tight, her mind was blur of panicked thought; she was certain that she was going to die. “Calm down, Aiana. You’re fine, nothing’s going to hurt you, nothing can hurt you.” Elerk cooed kneeling down next to her, as she began to calm down some. “Are you alright now?” Elerk asked after a moment while helping her to her feet once more.

She was quickly realizing how silly she had been, she didn’t have an actual heart, she didn’t breath, her muscles were at best mechanical, and there was just simply no way for her die since she was dead. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Aiana offered rubbing one metallic hand against the side of her body’s featureless head; though in reality she was just trying to remain calm after acting so poorly.

“Good, then I’d like you to meet your new copilot.” Elerk explained with a gesture to the Kalialk standing behind the field of green energy. Beyond the terrible cut in her face, there was slit like hole in her chest that showed a small glimpse of the wall behind her. Deep purple blood stained and covered the front of her in a terrible way, it even dripped from the fringes on the front of her tunic, though the drops faded into nothingness before hitting the ground.

Aiana could hardly believe what she was looking at; there was this woman standing before her dripping wounds that could be nothing but lethal, yet in some way this woman almost seemed pleased. It was then, in the most cheery of tones, with the deep cut in her mandible showing the small motions of the flesh it guarded, she heard the woman speak. “Hello, I’m Eldia. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Turn 4.0

In Orbit Above Ulat

Speaker for the God Comuro stood on the balcony of his home and watched, mesmerized, as Ulat turned below him. Every bone in his body screamed that this was wrong, that he was upside down, while his brain kept insisting that all they had to do was shut up and enjoy the ride, for everything was fine. The world below was a like dirty marble, some child's toy that had long since been neglected for lack of love by its owners. And now it truly would be, for the destiny of the Ulatarim lay elsewhere amongst those many, many stars.

'Should I fear that destiny?' he thought. 'What do you want of me, God? Give me some sign of your will. I have been blessed so far, but I fear that I must continue to rely on your wisdom. I fear, not because I believe that you will misguide me, but because I fear that I will not understand what it is you wish of me.'

The door behind him hissed open, but he ignored it. Aides and messengers had been coming back and forth on a constant basis since they had left the planet. Even now he had a part to play in making decisions for the fools that he had left in charge, and fortunately the lag between communication points had not quite reached the point where it would take them hours to get things done.

This time it was more unusual, however. The messenger in question scurried forward and prostrated himself before the Speaker, his claws wrapped tightly around a data tablet. "Sir, I beg to make a report to you. we have just received a report from the Central Observatory batteries."

"Let me guess," Comuro said tiredly, "They wishes us good luck with our grand adventure, and that God be with us. Also, that we should avoid running into any meteorites or asteroids while we are out here, and could we please check on the solar relay panels while we are going by?"

"Er, no my lord," the messenger said with a wince. Greater men than him had disagreed with the Speaker before and suffered worse fates than he could imagine. He did not want to join those less than illustrious ranks. "I am afraid its more serious than that, sir. Um, we detected a signal, sir."

Comuro froze at the news. Was this the sign that he had just asked for? "A signal? What kind of signal?"

"We, um, we do not know at this time, sir. It seems the signal was faint, and has since cut off. The Central Observatory is trying to decode it, but the signal has cut off, and without anything to compare it to they do not have much hope," the messenger explained.

Comuro whirled on the man, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him violently. "I do not care if they can tell me what it means, but we need to know from where you fool! For all you know it could be a trap set up by the Sky Eaters! We must investigate this at once!"

"Ah, they say it came from the second planet, sir," the messenger managed to rattle out, amazingly without biting his tongue.

"Alert the Captain at once! Change course! We are no longer going to the moon, instead have him lay in a course of Alevero! Has the Fanged Wonder returned yet?" Comuro began to scramble around his quarters, looking for his comm relay. They had to get things done, now! This was surely a sign, and it could not wait!

"Ah, yes, captain, they commed in late last night," the messenger offered, silently thankful that the high priest was no longer trying to shame him to death.

"Have them make best speed to Alevero as well, then! They have the fully upgraded sensor suite, have them search every inch of that cursed planet for the source of that signal! That is where we shall put our new colony! Hurry, hurry, why are you standing there?!"



A Dark Corridor On Ulat

"You did what?! Shorty asked in shock.

"I merely convinced the Speaker that it would be in his best interest to join the original colony mission. I may have neglected to mention to him that it was a one way trip, however," Undistinguished said with a fang-bearing smile.

"I love it! I love it! This is perfect, now we can begin to move ahead with some of our plans, finally!" Shorty got down on one knee, and began quickly but silently giving thanks to the Gods Who Had Been for this stroke of luck. Now that that bungling fool was out of the way, they could really energize the homeworld, and truly make something of its resources.

"Do not get too excited," Undistinguished cautioned. "I am sure that once he realizes that he is trapped he will make other arrangements to get off of the moon. All it would take is a quick trip in a boarding pinnace and he will be right back here, making a nuisance of himself."

"Then we do what we can, while we can," Shorty answered. "That fool would have had us suspend production until the new shipyards on the Alito plains were ready. Would have slowed down production by months! Now instead we can go ahead with the Spares plan, and go ahead with the automation plans. That should curtail some of the time expenditures from the plan, at least temporarily."

"We will still need those yards, though," Undistinguished warned.

"Of course we will, if for no other reason than to put more of the population into space," Shorty agreed. "But before we can do that, we need to explore, as well as put our own colonizer into space. Production has already begun on the materials and hull, but we are being slowed down by the lack of a work force. We need those automatons!"

Undistinguished nodded in acknowledgement of the point. "There is one more thing. The Central Observatory detected an alien signal from Alevero. The Speaker has already altered the course of the colony ship so that they will land there instead of on the moon. This means a potential loss of resources for both projects."

Shorty shook his head. "Not enough to matter. And with the new automation, we should be able to make up for it with numbers in the end."

"And if they find new technology?"

Shorty thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "They have prospered from our labors for far too long, stealing our ideas and crediting themselves with it. If they find some new technology or wonder material, then we shall just have reap what they have sown and steal it from them in turn."

Undistinguished grinned. "Delightful."



"Sir, we are receiving a signal from High Command," Warder Smiddleyu announced.

"And what do those foolish priests want?" Tribal Leader Vru demanded.

"We are to make best speed to Alevero, and investigate the source of a signal that was detected there. Once there, we are supposed to rendezvous with the colony ship and provide them coordinates to land at."

"First they have us look at nothing, and now they want us to chase ghosts?" Vru asked his crew. None dared to answer, not having a good one. "Fine then, we shall do what they wish. Cmio, make our best speed to Alevero. Smiddleyu, run a constant scan as we approach the planet. Feel free to tickle it with our own communications systems while you are at it. If there is someone down there looking to talk to us, we might as well play nice before we drop on their heads with the wrath of the True God. See if you cannot provoke a response. Now get to it!"

"By your command, sir!" the crew chorused.

*

Turn 4.3

Above Alevero


"Sir, I think I have got it!" Warder First Class Smiddleyu shouted excitedly, waving his tablet over his head.

"Eh?" Tribal Lord Vru asked, rousing himself from his nap. That bastard Comuro had been demanding to know the source of the signal since the second pulse had been registered.

"I figured out how to triangulate the signal, sir!" Smiddleyu insisted as he rushed over to his commander with his findings.

"Wha? I thought we needed a third point for that?" Vru asked as he rubbed sand from his eyes.

"Well, yes, normally sir, but I realized something else!" Smiddleyu announced.
"The pulse is registering in the EM spectrum, which means it must be traveling as a wave, right? Well, we are out in space, at a fixed position. Which means that any wave traveling to us is traveling in a straight line."

"Uh, not sure I follow, Warder," Vru said in confusion.

"It is simple, sir," Smiddleyu said, finally slowing down. "All forms of electromagnetic radiation, like the pulse signal, travel in waves. Those waves in turn follow straight lines, until the bounce off of some medium, like a ship or a planet. There is no such medium in space, so our receivers can only "hear" things the waves that are aimed directly at them! So by tracking back our position and where the receiver was when we received the signal, we can tell, roughly, what section of the planet it was "looking" at, down to a few square kilometers. That actually leaves us with two separate locations to look at, one on each side of the planet. But we can discard the points on the far side of the planet-"

"Why?" Vru asked, horribly confused by all the information his subordinate was suddenly dumping on him.

"Signal lag, sir," Smiddleyu said patiently. "Remember what I said about EM radiation traveling in waves? We've been holding a position around the planet so that the planet actually forms the third point of a triangle with us and Ulat. Any signal originating on the far side of the planet would have had to pass through the planet before reaching us, slowing the signal down. On the other hand, it would have had a clear broadcast to Ulat itself. By comparison, if the transmitter was on our side of the planet, it would have still reached Ulat at the same time (because remember, it has to be along the line projected by our receiver array!) while reaching us much faster. Since the difference between when we got the signal and when Ulat got the signal is exactly equal, give or take a few seconds, to the number of light minutes between us and Ulat, the signal must have passed on its way to the planet. Therefore it must be on our side of Alevero! Once we have a general area to look at, we can start running some trigonometry on it. We know the distance to us from the signal's area, and we know the distance from us to the Central observatory. Also, we form the point of a right angle between them. So by using the Payugo theorem we can determine the third side, which equals a least time distance for a light speed signal from the surface to Ulat! The math checks out! We've got the coordinates to the signal!

That has to be the most circular reasoning, no pun intended, that I have ever heard in my decades! Vru thought to himself in amazement. Out loud he said, "I like it! Broad cast those coordinates to the colony ship right away, and tell them to get ready to land! In the meanwhile, we'll head back to Ulat and see about getting some sensors. I don't like being so blind in our home system! Now get to it!"

'And if we're wrong, they can just go look on foot. Besides, its not like that idiot Camuro will be able to get off the planet so easily once he is there. not with those storms...'

Forgotten Memories 4.5
As the nest Gaurdian flies through space towards whatever mystery lies before it, back at the nest the the Mala work tirelessly digging new tunnels and expanding on their domain ever deeper. As they dig however, they find what could only be the fossilized remains of their own kind, ancient beyond reckoning, their very skin and bones turned to rock over the ages. But the truly amazing part, is that the crystaline brains of the long deceased seem to be at least partially intact. As the Mala start to extract the hardened crystals from these ancienct ancestors, they delve into their memories, and though the crystals are damaged, one particular memory seems to stand out for all of them, the last moments of their life before they were engulfed by the ground and lost to time.

The Nest can't help but wonder now who the Invaders were, or why they came. Too much of the Mala's recoverable memory is based on information that is now lost, but a few peices of it are usefull, and most importantly, within the Crystaline Latice of the Mala's petrified brains, the Nest is able to retrieve a little bit of genetic information, not all of it, but enough to replicate warriors of it's own. Enough to make Mala that could fight the Invaders if they returned, and fight to Protect the nest no Matter what the Fulkomun found in the depths of space.

*

Tarenth, Turn 4.2, Just outside the perimeter

“You know, this has to be the strangest place I’ve ever been.”
“Yeah, almost like a dream.”
“The Enzio call it, partial temporal and perception maladjusted configuration. But I like how you said it better.”
“So, everything seem that surreal to you too then?”
“Yeah, just like the strangest dream I’ve ever had.”
“GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF ME! SOMEONE GET IT OFF ME!”
“Don’t fight it! You might hurt the poor thing!”
“…”
“…”
“So, just to be clear, the guy that just ran by was covered in some sort of goo?”
“Yep.”
“And that goo was alive?”
“Yep.”
“And that Enzio was more concerned about the goo then the guy?”
“Yeah.”
“And we’re not dreaming?”
“Nope.”
“Are we high?”
“We’re dead. If there was a way to get high, I’m sure we would have found it by now.”
“Just checking.”
…
“So, bet you next shift that the guy’s battery dies before the Enzio gets him to stop.”
“You’re on.”