Commander Dialogues

A Random Collection

Bryan Schuder

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Beta Release

Updated 07/08/2018

Commander Dialogues

A Random Collection

Undocumented Features

Alternative Access

Other Options

Cafeteria Incident

Undocumented Features

"How... Just fuckin' HOW?! How did these humans take an entire capital city from us?! We've taken away their weaponry, only given them the simplest technology to improve food production, infrastructure, and medical treatment. They can't actually use our weaponry, there so many protections against that! So... How, just how..."

"There's so much in the report, sir. I don't know where to start."

"Fine. Let's break in down in steps. Okay... Um... How did they break into the armory located outside the city? There's a huge barrier and protective shield there."

"They used one of our tanks, sir."

"HOW?! The genetic scanners would have kept them locked out!"

"Well, they didn't use the tank as a tank."

"Okay... I'm listening."

"They somehow found an engineering flaw that causes the tanks to become, well, projectiles."

"They launched a... tank?"

"Yes, it seems will some strange mixture of bonding agent, animal fat soap, gunpowder, sugar, and what our scientists have determined to be a... lime?"

"You mean the green, extremely sour tree fruit?"

"Yes. It seems that combination creates an explosive that blasts a gas mixture into the intake of the cooling coils of the fusion core that reacts rather violently to a nanocompound in the exchanger that-"

"WHAT. DOES. IT. DO?"

"The tank reactor overloads, breaches in one particular spot, and propels the tank at near ballistic speeds."

"They somehow turned a reactor with the best safety record, having no recorded critical failures for over a 100 years, into a rocket and propelled one of our armor vehicles into the barriers?!"

"Yes. Actually... all five of them parked outside the armory."

"Okay. So they broke down the barrier. How did they get past the numerous power armored guards?"

"With grenades."

". . . "

"Not our grenades, but their own... But not the ones we seized, those wouldn't have done anything to our armor. These were new."

"And how did these grenades blow up our guards?!"

"They didn't."

"... What?"

"They didn't 'blow up'. They imploded."

"Again, I'm listening."

"They somehow managed to scrap the tiny gravity generators in our childrens' toys that were thrown out, strip them apart, reassemble them in a strange configuration, and put a trigger switch to a collection of common fusion cell batteries. When the grenades are triggered, the time switch goes off in 5 seconds, the fusion cells deplete instantaneously into the gravity generators-"

"You mean they figured out how to remove the layers upon layers of safety mechanisms?"

"Yes, every last one."

"So... what happened?"

"The grenades created massive momentary gravitational fields strong enough to... And I still can't believe this but the readings correspond... The fields were strong enough to create micro-black holes."

"THEY CREATED BLACK HOLE GRENADES?! From our toys and batteries?!"

"Yes. The guards and parts of the base were drawn towards these micro-black holes. Most just ran into each other violently enough to incapacitate. Some were drawn into the actual black holes."

"Okay... That explains how they got in and how they got pass the guards. What did they take? How much of our weaponry did they manage to take from us. Great elders know what they're going to do with it."

"None."

"Explain."

"They didn't take any weaponry, they went to the maintenance section."

"I don't like where this is going."

"They took only one type of item. The repair nano-lathes."

". . . Those things are programmed to only create a certain set of designs and repair them. How- No, nevermind how. What was the result?"

"We were able to secure one of the results. Here it is."

"That doesn't look exactly like a nano-lathe, what is it."

"It's a nano-lathe of their design, created by our nano-lathes, that's weaponized."

"Yes. I figured. At this point, I'm ready to ban anything more advanced than a toaster from these humans. What does it do?"

"I'll show you. I'll use the cart we brought it in on as a target. When the weapon fires, it launches a ball of nano-machines at the target, where it breaks down the target into base materials, and then... it reassembles what it finds useful into-"

"MORE GUNS?! They made a gun that shoots and makes more guns?!"

"Yes. Sir. This is the most horrifying thing I've seen. Yet."

"You know, we shouldn't conquered these humans... ... ... ..."

"Sir?"

"... We should have contracted them out."

Alternative Access

"You know... I really wish you would just come into my office and give me ANY good news. I'd even take small talk at this point. For example, how's your mate? How are your spawn doing in academy?"

"My mate is fine. And my spawn are just starting academy."

"Well, at least we started this meeting on a good note."

"... ... ..."

"You may proceed."

"Sir, in the latest reports the humans have managed to acquire a small fleet of construction vehicles."

"Construction vehicles? Interesting. And very troubling. As the question always is... How?"

"Well... Umm, I-"

"One step at a time. Start from the beginning."

"Late last night, it seems a small human force went after a remote abandoned construction yard. Detailed here."

"Okay. ... There hasn't been any activity there in a few years. We placed autonomous bipedal drones there for monitoring purposes, since it was deemed a very low risk target."

"Yes. It was by your order to move suppression forces to more important areas."

"I know. I thought my decisions to be wise, but recent events have brought those into question. So, why were we not informed of this trespassing until much later? Our bipedal drones have decent sensors and radio transmitters."

"Their transmitters were jammed."

"... If they were jammed, they wouldn't have reported their mandatory status update-"

"Which they did."

" ... "

"Sort of."

"I'm reluctantly listening."

"It seems the humans guided the AI to use a particular frequency that doesn't propagate well due to the geography of the area. Our reporting station nearby still could receive it well enough to be accepted by the automated systems."

"Guided?"

"They made other channels seem like they were in use."

"With what? The transmitters are smart enough to not get tricked by dead air and random noise jamming techniques."

"They played an encoded loop of audio data and switched the encoding after each playback."

"What was that audio data?"

"A song."

" ... "

" ... "

"THAT song?!"

"Yes, sir."

"Fucking humans... Okay, so they guided our transmitters to a bad radio channel, then did some radio trickery to make it seem like the drones were reporting- Why didn't the troops over at the listening station notice something odd about the channel changes?"

"There was fairly large thunderstorm in the area. They reported irregularities in status reports, but attributed it interference."

"By the elders, if they are nothing else, they are thorough."

"They did some recording and rebroadcasting to intercept transmissions and edit the content to-"

"That's fine I get it. How did they deal with the drones? We had a fair number patrolling the area and they were armed with weaponry we know can kill humans."

"That's a bit complicated."

"Again... Step. By. Step. So, how were they able to approach the drones without getting blasted to bits?"

"They just walked up in a group."

" ... "

"They didn't show any signs of aggression."

" ... "

"And they were deemed to not be armed."

"Okay. Then, why does the report have this wonderful picture of our drones laid out in the dirt spelling, 'Fuck You' in human English. ... Huh. All the drone hands are posed giving that human middle finger gesture."

"The humans disabled the drones."

"A new chapter of human ingenuity I suppose?"

"You could say that."

"Okay. First question, how were they able to walk up to the drones?"

"It seems the humans figured out some parameters to our drones' threat escalation logic. They determined that as long as the drones weren't outnumbered more than 2 to 1, the drones would maintain non-lethal, non-combative suppression mode."

"Next. Second question... No signs of aggression?"

"Yes, reviewing recording logs, the humans approached calmly and started to debate with the drones."

"Debate?!"

"By default, most our suppression drones that have to be in the human populace will answer questions and use some degree of reasoning to try to defuse and deescalate confrontations to maintain the peace without resorting the violence. Judging by the humans we have identified, they twisted this to distract the drones."

"What humans were identified?"

"The list is on the report, sir. The only common thread is that they were either once politicians, lawyers, or... "

" ... "

"Philosophy majors."

"I guess every zerkog has its day. So, the drones are distracted. What disabled the drones and how were the humans not considered armed?"

"Nothing that the humans had in their possession was considered a threat by the drone's threat assessment system. We have made exceptions to certain items that would not normally register as harmful in the past, but these weren't on the list."

"Let me guess, we will be updating the system in the very near future with more mundane items."

"Yes. Because the humans used one of these to disable the drone."

" ... "

"You see when the drones were distracted, a sub-group of humans in the main group used either captured transmissions or maybe a rebroadcast of the command signal to open the micro-fusion reactor refueling port located on the upper back of the drone. Then, they quickly placed one of these right into the port."

" ... "

"Strangely the outer shell of our portable refueling cells is of a similar enough material that it doesn't initially trip any alarms until final verification. Unfortunately, at this stage the inner portal has opened up and the containment envelop temperatures are much higher than what the material can take and it melts... Everywhere inside the refueling port... And the refueling portals, both inner and outer, are unable to close... eventually letting all the fuel gases escape... and... Sir? Is everything okay?"

" ... "

"Oh, ah... You see this object I've been talking about is umm... A umm... Human device for-"

"I know. What. It. Is."

" ... Oh."

"As useful as visual aid it has been to your VERY animated demonstrations of what happened to disable the drones, I'm going to ask this next question. Very. Nicely."

"Yes, sir?"

"Would you kindly remove THE. HUMAN DILDO. OFF. MY. ELDER FUCKING FORSAKEN DESK. NOW!!!!"

"YES SIR!!"

" ... "

"I'm incredibly sorry sir! I wasn't thinking of the implications-"

"It's. Okay. I just hope they didn't use for their intended purposes first before using them on us. So... That explains how they took out the drones. The last question, the most important question given recent history. What did the humans DO with the construction equipment they took?"

"It's in the next section of the report."

" ... "

" ... "

"Is that one of our heavy troop transports... in a pit trap... covered up past the wheels... in concrete?"

"Yes."

"... Is that one of your sibling's spawn using the sonic hammer on the concrete in the picture?"

"Yes! He's really enjoying the work and actually got a promotion last week. Our family group is very happy for him."

"See, that's good news! You have any more?"

" ... "

"No? Okay, let's continue your report then."

Other Options

" ... "

" ... "

"I really don't like it when you look at me that way, sir."

"Well, I really don't like when come in with that "he's not going to like this" expression."

" ... "

"I'm not going to like this report, am I?"

" ... No."

"Well, go on. What did they do now?"

"Umm..."

"Let's just go chronologically. That way I may enjoy some of the build up and suspense myself."

"Okay. About two weeks ago, we lost contact with a scouting patrol that was sent out into a mountainous wooded region with reported human rebel activity. The patrol was going normally and no threats had been encountered. They were clearing out an abandoned scrapyard, when a powerful jamming signal went up. After a hour of trying to contact the patrol and attempting to find alternative means to contact them, the jamming signal dropped and we could no longer detect the patrol from their transponders."

"Interesting. And you know how they were captured?"

"Yes."

"Overwhelming force? Superior firepower? Our scouts are power armored and equipped with modest weaponry-"

"They were tarred."

"Tarred? With the sticky, black hydrocarbon compound?"

"Yes."

" ... There's another part to this."

"Two, precisely."

"Go on."

"Then, a couple small explosions disturbed the scrap piles nearby, causing an avalanche of shredded scrap iron and steel to temporarily bury the team. They were able to dig themselves out and fell back to the entrance of the scrapyard to reassess the situation at hand... and try to clean themselves up."

"Scrap yard... Tar... scrap iron and steel... Oh no."

"Yes, team noted upon entry of some equipment that seemed to be salvageable, namely..."

"An electromagnet crane."

"Yes."

" ... "

" ... "

"You know, I really miss conquering the other species of this galaxy. The Dzat were so nice and cooperative."

"And they had the best hospitality."

"They respected us and never missed a tribute payment."

"I was so happy when they were admitted as an official thrall race to the empire."

"Service quality is so much better with a Dzat leading a services department."

" ... "

"Well, continue on. After the electromagnet."

"Oh, yes. The scouts were stuck to the electromagnet by the iron scrap that had been adhered by the tar."

"So much for the safety of having non-magnetic equipment..."

"The crane carried them to a remote section of the scrapyard that had been dug out, and then-"

"The humans dropped them into the hole?"

"The humans dropped the entire electromagnet head into the hole."

"Oh. ... "

"The data recovered isn't very detailed at this point, but from what I gather, the humans buried the electromagnet of the crane with our scout team at the bottom. They then covered electromagnet with a few layers of dirt and then bulldozed a nearby scrap pile on top."

“So that’s why the secondary scout team didn’t find them.”

“The layers of metal and dirt made it impossible for the scout team to find them. It looked like any other scrap pile and effectively dampened their radio systems. And even with power armor, the electromagnet head was too heavy.”

“Best conserve the power for the life support systems.”

“Yes. From the logs it seems like the initial scout team was periodically buried for a total of five days.”

“Five days?! How did their life support systems- Periodically?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

“It seems the humans checked on them roughly every two days by uncovering the electromagnet, reattaching it to the crane, and, with the electromagnet on, lifted them up… for air.”

“Strange… there’s a reason I’m sure.”

“Yes, yes there is.”

“ … “

“You are not going to like it.”

“I figured. Continue.”

“After the sixth day, they were lifted up, dropped from the electromagnet, and then swarmed by a large band of humans. They pinned them down and tied them up with steel cabling. They were then thrown into the back of a garbage truck and taken to a… closed amusement park.”

“An amusement park? The human recreational facility with the rides, games of chance and skill, and those delicious corn dogs?”

“Yes.”

“Why would they take them there? I’ve taken my youngest spawn to those many times in the past. It’s the one thing we’ve found useful to adapt from these humans. … …”

“Sir?”

“I’m very worried that we have yet made another mistake about the safety mundane human things.”

“Well…”

“Go on…”

“The humans dumped the scout team out into the park, and the was split up and subjected to the various rides on the park.”

“They took them on the rides?”

“Yes. Multiple times. But strangely, they made them walk a straight line after each ride.”

“Walk a straight line?”

“Yes. They eventually settled on one ride in particular to put all the scout team on.”

“Which is?”

“The Spinning Cups ride.”

“ … “

“It gets worse.”

“I really wasn’t expecting it to get better.”

“After an hour of running the ride non-stop, the humans took notice of some of the scout team's fits of dizziness. They decided to enhance the ride.”

“Oh great elders…”

“The regulated electric motor wasn’t enough, so they brought in the dump truck and attached the drive train… to the ride. Eventually, after a few hours of the ride running at enhanced speeds, one of our scouts vomited from the extreme motion sickness. The humans abruptly stopped the ride, rushed around him, and put weapons right at his face as the helmet mask opened to allow the vomit the escape.”

“They knew they couldn’t get through the armor occupied by one of our soldiers… so they made the soldier open it against their will.”

“Yes, they gave the member of the scout team a choice: Exit the armor and leave it intact, or stay on the ride.”

“And he complied.”

“Yes. Do you want me to write that scout up?”

“No… That won’t be needed.”

“Afterwards the scout was taken and secured to a bench in clear view of the ride and treated to drinks and as many corn dogs he wanted. They even slowed down the ride to showcase the soldier enjoying not being on the ride.”

“That is just depraved. I’m guessing they all eventually broke.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was the longest time? I'm curious.”

“Oh, by our calculations the final scout gave up after eight hours and thirty-two minutes. When they started to randomly reverse the direction of the ride, he finally gave up.”

“Make sure that scout gets some extra leave time to recover.”

“Will do.”

“The question is what was the final goal? They have the undamaged power armor. But humans can’t fit in the armor.”

“They used it, somewhat.”

“ … “

“They managed to extract the transponders from the armor.”

“Not surprised at this rate. What did they do with them?”

“Flush them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Flush them down the biological waste disposal units in our new outpost town.”

“... I know there’s a reason and a strange, baffling logic behind this… Whose pondering I’m going to postpone for now. So, continue on.”

“The transponders were detected and teams were sent out to retrieve them at the main interchange points in the sanitation system.”

“Please. Tell me. You didn’t bring them here to show me-”

“No.”

“... thank you …”

“This brings us to this morning, where review of activity logs showed signs of unauthorized work on certain sanitation system main interchange points. And, I have sent teams to investigate.”

“Why weren’t we informed sooner?”

“Look at video, sir. It happened in the dark early morning with a heavy fog in the area.”

“Are those power armored soldiers standing watch over sanitation workers? No. Those are humans, but the armor- Is this video looped?”

“No, the movement from the armored units is very repetitive.”

“ … “

“They used robotics from the amusement park’s animatronic characters inside the power armor.”

“They made PUPPETS out of our power armor?! ... And, used them to make it look official enough for regular night patrol officers to not bother with…”

“Yes, the night patrol reported military work going on, and kept their distance.”

“They’re even using our bureaucracy and power hierarchy against us now.”

“ … ”

“What they are planning… What are they- Wait, that building in the middle of all the reported points... Is that the new resort hotel?! Oh my Elders, the Grand System Overseer just checked in there last night!!! Get an alert out to them-”

“What was that noise?!”

“There is goes again!”

“What is that sound coming from your lavatory?!”

“Sounds like air being pulled through a vacuum…”

“ … ”

“ … “

“Bringing up a visual of the resort hotel-”

“Great Elders… It’s overflowing… from the top floor… and every floor below...”

“I’m getting alerts from the teams I sent out, the sanitation interchanges are pumping at full power and intermediate valves have been reconfigured at the control panels.”

“It’s… everywhere. Just everywhere...”

“ … “

“ … “

“ I-I-I… don’t know what to do, sir.”

“Well, take a seat.”

“Yes. That sounds good. What are you- Is that Vorticon Brandy?”

“Yes. Please join me.”

“No objections here, sir. I think it’s appropriate now.”

“Yes. Indeed.”

“ … “

“Have you given thought about where you would transfer to if given an opportunity?”

“Vela.”

“Really?”

“Vela is the in dead center of our empire, one habitable world, that’s a boring, average agricultural work world.”

“That sounds absolutely lovely. Wait isn’t a-”

“A Dzat colony world. Yes.”

“Ha ha ha! I have a favor to call in. You wouldn’t be against being second in command of simple, boring agricultural world?”

“Absolute no reservations, sir.”

“Are you Ubl player?”

“Used to be a defending champion of the core world bracket.”

“Well, I think we’ll have plenty of time to play.”

“I think we will.”

“Though, I am reminded of a human saying now…”

“Really?”

“Despite their creative insanity and completely inane way they conduct themselves, they are prone to a few strange bits of wisdom. And I feel this one is appropriate.”

“And that is?”

“Rats leave a sinking ship. Smart rats leave before the ship takes on water.”

“Well, sir. I feel like I want to be a smart rat.”

“I do, too.”

Cafeteria Incident

“So can you explain to me why this incident report of a cafeteria brawl has been brought to me?”

“It’s strange and unorthodox, sir.”

“And?”

“It involves humans.”

“Oh. That’s why. You write one paper about humans and suddenly everyone brings anything dealing

with humans to you.”

“It was a very insightful paper, sir.”

“Yes, one where I informed the Galactic Coalition to exercise caution towards humans.”

“And out of all the papers written about humans, yours has proven to be the most correct.”

“Fine. Let’s step through this so I can process it off to where it needs to go. Who are the parties

involved in the incident?”

“Eight humans, four officers and four other crew from the Alliance of Free Stars vessel Mintaka. And

one… Gronath. A recent academy student.”

“Oh Great Elders… What were the casualties?!”

“One very traumatized Gronath.”

“...”

“...”

“And?”

“And what, sir?”

“The human casualties.”

“None.”

“...”

“I am telling you the truth, sir.”

“Okay... Let’s move on to what started this incident. I obviously need more context to understand this

situation.”

“The incident started when the Gronath in question decided to bolster his ego to a table of humans.

The Gronath are very boastful and seem to require excessive amounts of… Ego waving.”

“Yes. I’m familiar. I’ve had the... special... honor of experiencing their students.”

“The Gronath continued to try various tactics to get a reaction out of the table of humans. Most

ignored him after a certain point.”

“Not too surprising. Admittedly, humanity has shown restraint as of late and-”

“Then, sir. The Gronath brought up the Johnston and insulted the sacrifice it made at the defense of

Sctil.”

“… Oh. ...”

“This prompted the Master Pilot of the Mintaka, Igor Petrusky, who happened to be behind the Gronath

when the comment was said… To place his tray of food on another table, grab the Gronath by his

uniform, lift him up off the ground, and slam him down on the table where the humans were.”

“Gronaths are at least two meters tall and are extremely dense! Physically, too. How could a human

possibly-”

“Petrusky is over two meters tall and has extensive reconstructive and enhancement cybernetics

comprising 70% of his body, sir.”

“Well, that explains that part of puzzle. So the Gronath is on the table. Did they attack him, assault

with chairs-”

“They held him down.”

“I’m getting weird feeling about this.”

“Petrusky held down the legs by himself, four enlisted crew secured the arms, and finally the Chief

Engineer Nash Howard jumped and straddled the back of the Gronath. Here’s the video segment I was

able to procure, sir.”

“ … Their Chief Engineer is a hefty one at that. Who are the other two standing nearby?”

“That would be Gunnery Officer Ryusei Oliphant, also known as Saitama to the many of the officers.”

“A nickname. I’m familiar with the human practice. This is strange one.”

“It’s a reference to an old animation character. Looking through other incident files I made the

connection. It seems a very prideful and annoying captain from another Alliance of Free Stars vessel

made an extremely disrespectful remark and Oliphant One Punched him with a single uppercut.”

“Interesting. The other female human. She seems familiar for some reason.”

“That would be Chief Scientist Hannah Hahn. She also has a nickname of Hans- Sir?”

“I know her. She’s one that’s gotten the attention of many higher ups in the experimental research

division.”

“Oh, a prospective candidate-”

“No. Quite the opposite. They are quite intent on keeping her far away from their experiments. To put

in bluntly, her papers scare them.”

“Well, that might explain what happens next. The audio is too busy and loud to discern anything from

this recording, so I’ll give a summary from other sources.”

“Go ahead.”

“Howard asks to everyone what they should do with the Gronath. Hahn informs Howard that Gronath

armor plates rest on top of sensitive skin and the plates can be easily lifted.”

“Then, it looks like Oliphant has a bottle of something, and she shows it to Hahn. She is nodding…

and is that, smiling?”

“Technically, sir. But, I’ll admit there is a strangely disturbing element to it.”

“Okay, she hands the bottle to Howard and he inspects it.”

“I was able to acquire the bottle. It seems to be a homemade variant of the human spice sauce known

as Sriracha. It’s quite potent.”

“I wondered what that smell was.”

“Yes, this particular variant seems to defy containment vessels.”

“I still can’t believe they eat this stuff and- Oh My Elders! Did he just drink some of it straight from

the bottle?!”

“Yes, sir. He did. Howard seems to pride himself on tolerating these types of substances.”

“He’s grinning. Manically. He’s nodding in agreement?”

“Here as you’ll see, Oliphant manages with Howard’s help to use a tray to prop up one of the Gronath’s

back armor plates. Hahn instructs Howard and-”

“He just doused the underside skin of a Gronath’s with THAT sauce?!”

“Yes, sir. I have to warn what happens next is disturbing and-”

“WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!”

“A previously unknown Gronath mannerism! It seems to be a fear squeal.”

“They HAVE THOSE?!”

“Yes. Sir. There are top Coalition xenobiologists right now trying to figure what vocal mechanism on

a Gronath created that sound.”

“What is that look on that fat engineer’s face?! I don’t like it. There is something not right with that

one. I can’t decipher it. That wide-eyed, toothy, ear-to-ear grin! He’s saying something and keeps on

saying louder?”

“It’s… umm… Squeal like a piggy for me.”

“Oh. What the fuck noise was that?! And he’s slapping the backside of the Gronath now?!”

“Sooie? I’m don’t exactly, sir. It’s a type of animal call, but for this context I think its purpose is far

more derogatory.”

“Now he’s yelling out for them let the Gronath loose, so he can get his eight seconds of ride time?!”

“Rodeo riding, sir. A sport where humans ride untamed beasts and try to stay on for eight seconds.”

“...”

“Sir?”

“...”

“Sir?!”

“I heard you the first time. I’m just trying to process what I am seeing- Oh, thank the fucking Elders,

security finally arrived. He getting off, and the- Gronath is fleeing?! Arms flailing and CRYING?!”

“I couldn’t believe it either, sir.”

“So. ... No humans harmed. One emotionally traumatized Gronath. Actually, I don’t think the

Gronath have a proper term for that in their language.”

“No, they don’t, sir. I checked.”

“Well. So, no permanent physical injuries. Okay. Release the humans from the brig to their custody of

their captain.”

“Sir?! The humans have committed assault, battery, torture, and a few other crimes upon a Galactic

Coalition Academy student!”

“I’m fully aware of that. Here’s the situation. I can either try to contain eight proven psychopaths in

my station while having to deal with the political and legal strife… OR… I can release the whole batch

to their captain, on their ship, and hopefully far, far away from this station.”

“I can see the logic behind that, sir. I agree with your assessment. What about the Gronath, sir?”

“Oh, Elders. What do the Gronath usually do when they experience traumatic events?”

“From all my research, intoxicate themselves to near oblivion one night and wonder what happened in

all memory gaps the next day.”

“Sounds standard enough. One round trip ticket planet side, 1000 credits, and the directions to an

intoxication establishment of his choice. That should settle things.”

“I will make it so within the hour, sir. Anything else?”

“Elders fucking listening, let us hope and pray the next time humanity decides to make the next great

xenobiologic discovery, they choose somewhere else other than this station’s damned cafeteria!”