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Bluestar
Posted: February 11th, 2026, 11:19 pm
by Nova
The Possum breathed. Its presence was everywhere, but almost rarely felt at this point. Its dull, thrumming engine-heartbeat, the condensation of its atmospherics pipeline, even the settling of its welded plates. It was manned by nothing but a skeleton crew, and a rudimentary autopiloting system. Its human-inspired design meant that it almost resembled a foundry more than a privately owned ship, with its vein-like cables visible through grating and underfoot maintenance crawlspaces beyond claustrophobic for the average species. There was nothing to disturb its meandering while the pilots were asleep. Only the heat signature of its engines signaled its presence in the great dark between worlds.
While transponders were expected in civilized space, even rookie scavengers knew better than to broadcast beyond. Whether guided by superstition or experience, it simply was not done. Only the occasional satellite, distantly pulsing with music and news broke up the Possum's body-sounds.
Nova stretched his body out. The human-spliced Kharguin easily resting like a king in what would be to most variants of his species be cramped quarters. Letting out a whine, his legs stretched off the ledge of the bed proper, mildly scampering against the air. It wasn't long before the bottom-heavy Nova pulled himself off of the shared-quarters bed. Blinking one confused eye at a time, the pink-furred femme struggled to make amends with even getting up. Paws against the cold, bare-metal floor made him wince, but he slid out regardless.
The lack of alarms was a good thing so far. Uncharted space was always risky.
Re: Bluestar
Posted: February 16th, 2026, 10:39 pm
by Delta
The Possum
LOCATION: Fringe Space
DATE: Unknown
Delta
Somewhere deep in the humming guts of The Possum, Delta was staring at a readout of the diagnostics of the primary drive engine. He had woken two hours earlier, unable to sleep. That was the usual theme for Delta most nights. Sleep meant loss of control, anything could happen while you were asleep. It was however, noticeably effecting even the most simple of tasks--like reading.
The human-centric design of the ship meant for Delta, who was considerably tall even by Kharguin standards, had to squat to get eye-level with the monitor. Tired eyes scanned the readouts once, then again, then once more for good measure. Four more days... At best, he summarized. He had been putting the off the repairs for too long, and now the bill was coming due. From somewhere else inside of the ship, he heard the gentle scampering of paws on metal and a soft whine. Delta's smaller co-pilot must have woken up. An involuntary grunt escaped Delta as he pulled himself to his full height, and maneuvered the cramped passageways back to the sleeping quarters. With a paw resting against the upper doorway, Delta stuck his head in, if only to check that Nova was actually awake; not just thrashing in his sleep as he sometimes did.
Re: Bluestar
Posted: February 18th, 2026, 5:53 am
by Nova
"Guh."
By the time that Delta peeked his head in, Nova was out of bed. But it was clear just by looking at him, that his mind was still snugly wrapped up in the bed. With a particularly slow tongue-smack, Nova barely understood what he was seeing, with Delta looming from the corridor. Arctic-blues squinted at the far-larger Kharguin. Trying to make sense out of the shadowy shapes.
"Is it planetfall yet?"
He rubbed at his eyes, trying to shake it off. Failing horribly, of course.
Nova's side of the crew quarters look like some mishmash of technical digests or projects, and fringe band merchandise. Even in space, he didn't really bother wearing his bodysuit. It was sprawled on the communal ground next to the bed. The pink-furred femme, unconsciously, makes an 'uppies' gesture with his hands mid-stretch.
The Possum shuddered, very lightly, as the engine cycled. The lights dimmed for a few minutes, and hummed. Human engineering was notoriously slipshod, but one couldn't deny its longevity. Nearby displays noted saved frequencies coming into range. Likely satellites, unmanned, playing music on some ill-defined wavelength. Out this deep, instrumentals were preferred. It was a superstition, that speech attracted bad luck.
Re: Bluestar
Posted: March 5th, 2026, 12:59 am
by Delta
"Close," Delta grunted. He reached out one massive paw, stooping down to lift his smaller crew-mate by the back of the thighs with one arm. Delta deftly spun back out through the doorway, giving Nova a small spin before stooping through the halls of the ship towards the cockpit. His other hand reached out with habitual familiarity to toggle some light switches on the wall as he passed them. Soon, the halls of The Possum were lit up in its day cycle. A pale imitation of the light from a star, but this deep into space, Delta would take what they could get.
"How did you sleep?" Delta jostled the pink-femme furred, making sure Nova was actually awake and hadn't just dozed off in his arms. The cockpit doors slid open as Delta approached it, and beyond the glass of the ship's nose was a distant speck of gray and blue. A planet, probably abandoned like most were, in a system long forgotten. And hopefully holding salvageable tech and not just monsters like the past two planets they had made landfall at.
Re: Bluestar
Posted: March 5th, 2026, 3:25 am
by Nova
Nova didn't struggle in the slightest as his world suddenly shifted. His body, weightless, and reoriented. Even in this half-awake twilight state, he was familiar enough with his Captain that it wasn't enough to fully rouse him. In lieu of sunlight, UV lighting and affection kept him healthy. As he's spun, and laid to rest against Delta, Nova almost finds himself lulling back to rest. That is, until the rough-pawed jostle.
"Hey...!" Nova couldn't help but whine, "It was just getting good."
At Delta's touch, the Possum woke up. One light at a time, the furtive vessel seemed almost remembered by the universal fabric. Though the darkness yawned, the Possum remained a flickering candle in the long dark, pointed to its destination.
Sarka-04. A planetary body nestled just far enough from a blue dwarf for reasonable safety. Just far enough beyond the Travel Advisory for lesser scavengers to reconsider. Once a resort-world for the scions of apocryphal past, now an empty shell. The Possum's new sensors provided UV lighting to help affirm the senses internal to the ship-- Something which often had a better impact on crew morale than the brazenly artificial purple glow.
For his part, Nova couldn't help but nuzzle in. The sun, distant as it was, was shining against he cockpit's glass, "Think we'll get lucky? Find something... Worth it?"
Re: Bluestar
Posted: March 12th, 2026, 9:40 pm
by Delta
Worth it? Question of my life.
Delta mulled over his response as his free hand reflexively tapped over a console the appropriate sequence to load and lock in a planetary approach. He was sure informing his diminutive ship-mate of The Possum's state of disrepair was unnecessary, and probably something of a rude shock-start to the "day". Instead he said, "I'm always lucky." He felt Nova's snout against his neck and sighed contently. Delta jostled Nova once more, this time a little more playful as opposed to intentionally rousing him. "You want some breakfast before we're ground-side, champ?"
Not waiting for an answer, Delta spun once more with enough gusto to give Nova a light rush, before maneuvering back down The Possum's corridors towards the mess hall. As Delta ducked his head for the umpteenth time to fit through a doorway, he muttered something about getting a bigger ship, and not something made for humans. The state of the ship was an issue gently gnawing at the back of Delta's head. If Sarka-4 turned out to be a bust, the ship would only manage a handful of jumps before it sputtered out and was left adrift in the blackest sea.
The mess-hall lights flickered on.
"What do you think we'll find on the planet?"
Re: Bluestar
Posted: March 16th, 2026, 1:34 am
by Nova
Nova could only whine, and blink one eye at a time, as Delta carries him further into the Possum. The mention of breakfast makes him slightly happier-- cushioning the blow dealt by the following information. Sedatives were at times necessary for Nova to cope with planet-side activities, after all. A thread made all the more tenuous by his recent augmentation.
Of course, it helped, having a burly Captain. Nova sank in against Delta, as though he were a security blanket, "Breakfast sounds good." His eyelids finally synchronized, as he started to wake back up, "Just... No stims? I can't have them with my meds."
Nova's fluffy, curled tail wagged. He watched the ceilingward grating, as they passed. Eyes following the cables. Nova scratched at the back of his neck-- His Memnet port still fresh, fur only now still regrowing. Human technology required it, for advanced use. Direct neural interfacing. A user's light leaves their eyes when using them, in models this old.
"I hope we find Rakessarean tech." Mumbles Nova, a bit pathetically, "Then we can rip out the Human tech here, and I can get this thing out of my spine... AND, it looks pretty." A hopeful idea. Unrealistic.
By the time that they enter the mess hall-- a central location to the ship, as per Human design-- It feels painfully empty, even in a ship this small. It was made for much more, of a smaller size, after all. The warm-orange sodium lights cast deep shadows. Kharguin-style folk-patterned pillows and tapestries decorated the place. Some of it was left over by the last owners, or tossed in by the dealer. Nova couldn't help but let out a third whine, nuzzling closer to Delta.
He's gotten clingy, since the incident with the bio-processor transmitting its screams, a few days back. They posed no individual threat, but were a result of the near-mocking nature of the things that cling to The Adversary. Unthinking creatures of hunger, that know just enough to understand that if they cannot find the prey, they can still hurt it by proxy. And sometimes, all it takes, is enough psy-ops for a wayward ship to try and put a pained living thing out of its misery to alert a hive.
"... Or a comms array with good filters." Reminding the prey that indeed, death is not the worst thing, has an effect on the mind.