Welcome back to a slightly early edition of Mecha Space Pirate Quest, Chapter 9.
As always, you are Admiral Roarke Susan Starwind of the Iron Kestrels (although your admiralty is a matter of convenience to appease a subordinate Captain), pilot of the Knuckle Kaiser and master of the starship Rhinehawk.
Last time, you were romantically successful and gentlemanly with your date and increased your mixtape file substantially. Now that you've had some time to relax, however, your responsibilities as a Pirate Admiral dictate you get back to work.
You take a shuttle back to Colony 3 of California Station, humming 'Killer Queen' and becoming increasingly disconcerted with how long it's taking the unsettling woman you met near the music store to reply to your message.
It isn't until you land on Colony 3, enjoying the artificial evening sunlight and finally having some proper information about the Green Skulls, that your PC beeps at you to alert you of an incoming message.
As expected, it's from Lt. Alice "Clemmy" Farragut again.
The message is a solid wall of laughing cat smileys. It completely fills the character limit. By the time you've scrolled completely through by running your thumb along the edge of your motion-sensitive holographic screen, however, her next message arrives.
'NYAHAHAHAHA I told him and he didn't remember but then he got angry~' There's an attached picture of a kid who looks too damned young to even call himself an ace, his face purple with rage, pointing angrily at the camera. In the background is a rather young girl with several bruises and a scuffed uniform, leaning heavily on a railing with her face contorted in pain, 'He said you wouldn't be so smug if he'd been in charge and you would be in PRISON HA HA HAAAAAA~ Have you been baaaaad? :laughing sheep smiley: I bullied a technician into helping me pull a little prank on him, but I think I broke her ankle! She was waaaay too slow reprogramming his fire control systems to redirect all aimed shots at limb servos to the cockpit, and we got caught! I got yelled at because of you, but it's okay~ I forgive you~~~~~' You sometimes wish an excess of tildes was illegal.
You receive another message. Fortunately, this one is from someone whose violent nature is slightly less unpredictable. Miles Longshadow, your First Mate.
'Yo, Cap'n! Got a stroke of luck, we have a buyer for the Heart! You'll never guess what she's offering us...so I'll tell you, MECHS! I, uh, think she was feeling kind of sorry for us, I didn't mention to her that you're still alive and she was just a little broken up over you and Ozark.'
Interesting. You can only think of a handful of people with enough credits to flat-out purchase a luxury cruise liner, and of those people still fewer who would pay handsomely for a ship so lightly armed.
In fact, there's only one woman you can think of who would do something like that.
[Continued]
Elijah Ortiz
Your musings are interrupted by a final message.
This one is from your Bosun, Richard Thorslund, Miles' boyfriend-apparent and one of your best friends aboard the Rhinehawk. Richard is a good guy, you've been friends ever since he joined the crew.
'Admiral, we released the nonessential personnel of the Heart of the Sunshine on California Station as you ordered. They'll probably talk, but there's no way of avoiding that short of shooting them all...and I wouldn't work for you if you ordered that. Captain Uzun's ransom came through from his company, along with smaller payments for the ship's other officers, so we've released them too. We're flush with cash for a while. I arranged a line with the office of Commodore Rashad, the one your feisty captive plans to marry, but I didn't want to set up a negotiation like that until you got back. Hope whatever you had to go do went well! Cheers!'
Richard doesn't message people often, and his tone is always slightly too formal, but he's a reliable man.
The Rhinehawk is as you left it, save for one thing. Perhaps Richard and Miles took that comment about not giving the Master Harpy to them seriously, because Cornelius Cohen immediately ambushes you for your signature on a work order.
He wants to turn Miles' and Richard's Harpy Customs into Master Harpies.
>[Approve/Deny]
Also
>[Is there anyone on the crew you want to see before getting back to business?]
Joshua Hill
Approve Call Yoritomo and ask if he knows any business we could invest in. Also you got a twatter?
Blake Bennett
By the way, your next mission will likely have a lot more Construction Points available than the Heart of the Sunshine mission. Do you want to upgrade the Knuckle Kaiser?
There's a new upgrade, Officer Armor, which has the effect of making your existing armor impossible to degrade with weak attacks. Effectively, to ablate your armor an attack needs to do 4K or more.
There has also been strong support for the Crushing Grip upgrade, which you can afford, as well as support for waiting on the Pugilist Mode and Squilla Elbow upgrades. You're in the mecha bay right now, so if you do choose to upgrade, you can simply submit a verbal work order to Cornelius. You know about all available upgrades IC thanks to Karen explaining them during your date.
Joseph Anderson
Oh yeah definitely get that Officer Armour. Then bank for Pugilist.
