DCS Petya, Uncharted space, Milky Way Galaxy

May 17, 2539 21:18 hours

Adriana-111 Woke suddenly. She hacked up the grainy turquoise phlegm that was cryo nutrients as the door opened, splattering the plank metal wall an unsightly color. Looking out at the other pods, she noticed none were occupied.

"Jai?" She called, scanning the room. "Mike?" She peered out the hallway. She shrugged and decided to search for them after her post-cryo routine. As she stepped into the cryo shower, she asked the computer where Jai and Mike were.

"Chief Petty Officer Jai-006 and Petty Officer Second Class Michael-120 are both on the bridge. Should I alert them to your presence?" The ship's dumb AI replied in its cold, robotic, androgenous voice.

"No, I'll make my way up," Adriana said. She turned the shower on and relished her quick, lukewarm, sudsy shower. She scrubbed her pale, scarred skin clean and then some, then walked to her bathroom locker. In it was a picture of Ignatio and her in that bar at the rubble, the decommissioned data chip from there, a shard of Elite armor, and, of course, her pt clothes. She deftly slipped into them and walked down the cold, bare titanium hall, her shoes quietly squeaking on the floor.

As she reached the bridge bulkhead, it slid open quietly and let her in, closing just as quietly behind her. She looked over her teammates shoulders at the hologram of what appeared to be an orange and yellow planet.

"Mornin, sleepyhead. Actually, evening, but what's that matter in space?" Mike said to Adriana, not even looking up. Jai turned around, a curious expression on his face. The expression that said "I don't know what we're dealing with."

"I assume that's where our next target is?" She asked Jai, already knowing that wasn't the case.

"That's the thing. None of us know where we are, other than being in the galaxy... somewhere," he answered. "The nav computer went haywire last jump, took us here, and wiped itself. We don't know where 'here' is, beyond some spotty stellar comparisons cross referenced with our star calendar. This…" he said as he waved an arm at the hologram, "is where we are."

"Or close enough to it, at least," Mike explained. "We're within 10,000 kilometers from this ball of desert, but we're picking up frequencies as if we were orbiting Draco iii," he said as he finally looked at her.

"What else do we know? Did you manage to intercept anything?" Adriana asked.

"Oh, plenty, most of the people down there clearly couldn't encrypt a written letter if they had a codebook in their lap and a gun to their head," he answered with the slight touch of a grin at the corner of his mouth.

"Well, mind sharing some of the key details with me?" She asked, miffed.

"Why not? So, this planet below us is called 'Tatooine.' Don't ask why, I don't know. There's some talk about another planet in a nearby system being blockaded by a 'Trade Federation,' and there hasn't been a word talking about our dear old hingehead friends. Oh, and people like to say 'kriff' instead of f-."

"Wait, how did you understand all that talk?" Adriana asked, an eyebrow arched in nigh suspicion.

"Oh, I didn't tell you? They speak english, mostly."

"Well, no shit," Adriana said.

"Real shit," Jai said. "And we're landing down there, so get armored up. I think it's time we get some shore leave and stretch our legs." Adriana nodded and Mike stood. Together, they strode out of the bridge as Jai let the dumb AI handle the landing.

The Petya landed on the flat rocky sandstone plains less than half a klick from the worn down, if rather large, settlement without any issue. Mike and Adriana clicked their helmets into place and got onto the bilge elevator. A light wind flung sand onto their armor as they descended, faintly filling their ears with the plinking of sand as it bounced and scraped off of their armor.

"Never really did like deserts," Mike said to Adriana as the elevator lowered. "Always too hot, and that damn sand, it gets everywhere." Once it hit the ground, Jai called them over teamcom.

"Be safe out there and don't start a fight. We just want to know where we are and how to get home, over," he said. He got a green status light from both spartans, ending the conversation.

Mike felt uncomfortable with just his sidearm, but Jai made a good point: you shouldn't start a fight when you don't need to, and none of the variety of aliens seemed to want to mess with them anyway. Adriana, he noticed, seemed far more comfortable with only a pistol. Made sense, she was the infiltrations expert, after all.

They scanned the crowds for anywhere they might get some intel, wading through a crowd of aliens the likes of which they had never seen. Mike saw a horned, red skinned humanoid talking to a bipedal lizard in an undersized flightsuit, a tall 4 armed toad looking thing, green insects almost as large as drones, and many, many other beings.

Adriana stopped in front of one of the few decently kept building fronts and peered inside. After a moment of looking, she nodded at Mike and walked inside. The shop was littered with scrap metal and dormant robots. In one corner, a stout, ugly winged blue humanoid sat, reading something off a hologram and subconsciously fidgeting with its world war 1-esque helmet. Without looking up, it said something incomprehensible.

"What do you want?" It followed, now in english.

"Where can we find a place to drink?" Adriana asked the alien.

"Not here. Go awa-" it started, freezing as its gaze met the spartans.

"Mandos? Where did you come from?!" The creature asked, taking flight and hovering at eye level. "I've paid off my debts! Why are you here?"

"Mando? And no, we're just looking for a place to drink," Adriana answered. The alien's yellow half human, half bug eyes flicked to the pistol locked to her thigh, but it made no move for any of the gadgets on its belt.

"Yeah, mandalorians," It started, confident that they weren't after him. "You big guys in metal ar-"

"I don't care about the 'mandalorians,' I just want to know where the nearest bar is," Adriana growled. The creature fluttered a bit and its trunk and stubble quivered slightly, though it complied, pointing down the street to a dilapidated plain rectangular building taller than the surrounding single story, crumbling sandstone structures. It was plain, if slightly crumbling itself.

"That's all you needed to say," Adriana said, backing off and motioning for Mike to follow her. As they walked through crowds of aliens and robots of all shapes and towards the bar, Mike opened squadcom and connected to Jai.

"Jai, turns out we have lookalikes," he told the commander.

"Oh? Do tell," Jai replied.

"There's some group of warriors named 'mandalorians' that we seem to resemble. One of the locals confused us for them," Mike explained, looking back at the creature's shop to see it talking to some older man in a faded tan cloak, a pretty young woman in plain clothes, and some 2 meter tall bipedal amphibian.

"Did it give you any trouble?"

"Some, but nothing Adriana couldn't handle."

"She di-"

"No sir, she didn't start a fight," Mike answered as he and Adriana took a seat at creaky barstools that just barely held their weight. "Anyway, we're... interacting with the locals in their own way. I'll report back when I can. Mike, over and out," he said, clicking the radio off. He looked over to see a small robed creature with glowing yellow eyes chittering something to Adriana and pointing at her gun. A sun damaged human bartender came up and swatted the thing back with a wooden staff.

"Sorry about that, them Jawas always wanna buy anything they can, steal everything else," he explained. "Anyway, what can I get you mandos? It's not often I see 1 of you, and I don't think I've ever seen 2 of you at once," the bartender asked, leaning forward a bit.

"Information," Adriana said simply, leaning forward herself. Mike saw the man grin in the reflection of her faceplate.

"Well, I suppose you came to the right place. What do you have to offer?" He asked them as he poured some foul scented drinks for the patrons next to them.

"You wouldn't happen to take credits, would you?" Mike asked as he silently closed his helmet seals.

"Depends. What type of creds are we talking about?"

"UEG creds," Mike answered, almost as if he was offering gold coins.

"Never heard of 'em," the bartender replied, blank faced.

Mike rolled his eyes and clicked on a private channel with Adriana. "I guess we are far from home." She chuckled, though neither of them moved a millimeter.

"What gave it away?" She replied before closing the channel.

The private conversation took place in a little over a second, but in that time, they both decided on best course of action and hedged a bet on one likely way they could get what they needed.

Mike refocused on the bartender and said "Well, I'm afraid that's all the money we have. "Though I suppose a mandalorian or two would make excellent... employees, should the need arise," he added, betting that a hand or two to deal with drunkards or worse would be welcome.

"I see," the bartender said, a sly grin slowly forming on his face. "In that case, you two should come back at closing time, at 16 o'clock tonight," he said.

"And what time is it now?" Adriana asked.

"It's 17:5- scratch that, just turned 1," he replied. Adriana nodded and rose, Mike following suit. They walked back to the ship, talking about what they'd discovered. Jai met them at the bulkhead when the ship's elevator clicked to a stop.

"So, what did you find out on your lovely little day trip?" He asked.

"We're employed," Mike answered with a sarcastic cheer.